#it is so much more than just Beverly has sex with a ghost

[spookytrixy]

TNGs Sub Rosa - the one where Beverly has sex with a ghost OR the one where Beverly is mentally and sexually assulted by an alien entity, and has one of her lowest moments in all of TNG?

Does the episode require Beverly to be an idiot in order for it to work, or does it show the impact of accelerated addiction?

I will defend Sub Rosa to my dying day, and so I joined two of my buddies to talk through the episode and see if I could convince them it is more than just the "sex ghost" one.

[dbmars]

Bram Stoker's Hannibal Chapters 74, 75, and 76

I DID IT.

We have, at last, reached THE MOMENT we've all been waiting for.

This moment:

I wrote all the way up to this moment and then slowly edited and released chapters just to make sure I covered everything I wanted to cover. Normally I just write a chapter, edit it, post it, move on. But I wanted to be extra careful that I didn't miss anything I wanted to include.

Chapter 74:

It's a Bottom Hanni chapter! Now, I know the top/bottom debate is always a thing, but I'm a firm believer in Bryan's designation that they switch. Normally I prefer to write bottom Will, but I also fully believe that Hannibal is a hedonist and would do anything that feels good, like getting railed by his mongoose. Also fun fact, being a vampire means you don't have to do much prep for anal because you don't eat food, and the immortal body can withstand plenty of abuse. So we do have some steamy bottom Hanni action in this chapter, as Will seems to search his lover's body for any evidence of... what exactly?

(I found this on pinterest, if you know the creator lmk this is perfection -- it has actually MAJOR Iliya and Hannibal vibes more than Will and Han)

Oh hey little known fact: Lenore from the brothel? It's Molly Shannon's character, the woman who collected "Lost Boys." Now she collects lost sex workers to make her perfect family of high-class courtesans. I didn't delve too much into this side story because hey, news flash, THIS FIC IS REALLY FUCKING LONG. But now you know who I was envisioning:

Chapter 75:

If you google Hetienne Park cowboy hat this is what you get:

Howdy partner!

Hetienne Park as Beverly Katz as Quincey Morris!

Anyway, Jack Van Crawford asks everyone to continue to help him in his mysterious quest, which is about to take an even darker turn. They're headed back to the graveyard to prove once and for all to everyone involved that Alana is UnDead. The gang heads back to Highgate and runs into the "bloofer lady" that's been kidnapping children and biting their necks...

I made this just for y'all. It's my attempt at photo manip LOL I know I'm not that good at it.

Now that they know Alana's undead, what's Jack Crawford's Scooby Gang to do?

Meanwhile, Hannibal and his wolf pack murder the zookeeper at the London Zoological gardens, who happens to be the Clark Ingram character. I didn't make him a serial killer in this AU, just a guy who likes to torture animals. I've always seen him as the anti-Peter Bernadone, who cares so deeply for every life large and small. So I thought it made sense to cast this motherfucker as the kind of guy who would beat caged wolves on the head with a wooden pole to make them compliant.

Seriously, fuck this guy.

Fun behind the scenes facts: The London Zoological Gardens were established as a place for the scientific study of animals, and to move the menagerie of creatures out of the Tower of London where they'd been kept since the 1100s. The Tower of London is haunted by the ghost of a bear that had been kept there.

Here are some time period pics from the zoo. You can see, of course, why the wolves begged Hannibal to help them escape.

All right, that's it for now! Here's a SMUTTY SIGN-OFF:

He has me pinned against the pillows and the headboard, my body rolling upward as he thrusts into me at an unrelenting pace, sweat gathering on his brow and dripping through his hair. His face is next to mine, buried against my cheek and the curve of my neck, panting and grunting in a lovely, beastial way. If I were human, I’d have to imagine this would hurt tremendously. It brings only the tiniest sensation of intimate pain, and I thoroughly enjoy it, whispering to him, encouraging him to let himself go. There is something desperate in the way he holds me so tightly, as if he could snap my bones; even after he comes, there is no break in his pace. Yet, the continuation seems more about spending something else besides his emission, and less about my pleasure. Grunting, he circles his hips, the slow grind teasing my inner rise, making me gasp. I touch myself, and he leans back, still rocking my body back and forth. Will puts his hand over mine, looking me in the eye, and a few strokes later I’ve tasted bliss, even as he keeps thrusting. 

XOXO DB

[ralfmaximus]

Rambling Picard season 3 thoughts...

Beware of spoilers.

Two episodes in and... it's not terrible.

Though it's already groaning under the weight of so much ~Nostalgia~ that I worry the whole thing's gonna collapse soon with a splintering crash.

Even the musical score with its callback stings & themes is achingly nostalgic.

Michael Dorn looks amazing. And I think we got more Klingon Eviscerating Action in one brief scene than we did in all of TNG + DS9 combined.

Pacing & editing is sluggish. Like they're stretching out what should be a TNG two-parter into a whole season.

Dialogue is snappy and feels honest. Especially the exchanges with Captain Shaw. It creeps up on Joss Whedon levels of quippiness without going over the line, which is just this side of delightful.

Vedic? Vadic? Vadik? Whozat?

Am I supposed to recognize her??

And how does (a presumably) private citizen afford, assemble, arm, and crew a giant starship with enough weaponry to shame the flagship of the Federation? That seems absurd.

Like if Zuckerberg sunk all his Facebook cash into a superyacht capable of nuking a US aircraft carrier and nobody noticed.

Back on Earth: some supervillain picked up a multi-story Starfleet building (on Earth!!) lifted it into a Sky Hole then dropped it a few blocks away, instantly pulverizing it and whatever it landed on into rubble!

And the death toll is... 117 people? Huh.

Oh but then I guess transporter technology and super good 25th century emergency services probably kept that number from being 10x so I guess that's (grumble) believable.

Still, as terrorist incidents go this one seems kind of low key. If they can vaporize any building (on Earth!!) why not go for like Federation HQ? Instead they hit a "recruitment center" and killed 117 recruits + staff which is... lame? Guess we wait and see.

Does Jean Luc not remember having sex with Beverly Crusher??

Which I though canonically never happened?

And Beverly secretly got pregnant, had a child, raised that child to age 30-something, and managed to keep it a secret from everybody. Huh^2.

Jack Crusher has a severe case of British Accent which makes sense because the actor is british... but how?

Presumably his mom raised him and she doesn't sound like him at all. If Beverly stashed him on her family's Scottish Ghost Fucker Planet he'd sound more like James Doohan's Scotty than James Bond. So confused here. Guess we wait and see.

Unironically LOVE Captain Shaw. Sure, he's a stick in the mud and meant to infuriate us viewers but honestly? He's the first naval officer on this goddamn show who acts like a real naval officer. I sure hope he doesn't die.

The Ferengi looked & sounded like an italian mobster in a Ferengi costume.

[wonderlandleighleigh]

MidgeLenny Smut?

(Hello, Sunshine prequel, New Years Eve, 1961 into 62. Sexytimes ahoy)

She had almost made a mistake that night, nearly kissing Mike at Gordon's New Years' party. She hadn't even been thinking of him, though he's plenty handsome.

She'd been thinking of a man she had last seen in August, driving away from a sundrenched home in Beverly Hills, on her way back to the airport and New York and just...not him.

Midge had come very close to kissing Mike at midnight, but it felt wrong to lead someone on would always come in second.

She sighs as she opens up her quiet, empty apartment. Her parents and the kids are all at Moishe and Shirley's with Joel and Mei. Zelda has long gone home, and it's just her.

And she wonders if it always will be. Honestly, at this point it wouldn't surprise her very much. She and Lenny just have terrible timing, and it doesn't seem to be correcting itself, even now that he's been clean for six months. She happened upon a photo of him with a pretty, younger blonde girl a month ago in the gossip rags on Dinah's desk, and she'd been surprised, but she can't begrudge him some happiness with all he's been through.

It's just hard to swallow the idea of him finding that happiness with someone other than her.

Midge sheds her coat, and with it, she tries to shed that maudlin thought. Settling her handbag by the door and slipping out of her heels.

"That is a very sad look for such a funny lady."

She freezes without turning around. "Either I had way more to drink than I thought I did, or..."

"Or I flew three thousand miles to kiss you at midnight, only to get here and realize I had no idea where you would be, and so I bribed my way past your housekeeper to let me wait for you."

Midge finally turns around, tilting her head at him.

He looks good. Healthy, though a little disheveled from his flight. He's shed his suit jacket and tie, his hair is less styled than normal.

"What did you bribe Zelda with?" Midge asks, smiling at him.

"I did the dishes," Lenny shrugs.

She laughs a little and nods. "That works."

"Hello," Lenny says.

"Hi," Midge nods. "So. You came all the way here to kiss me at midnight."

"An attempt was made. I'm sorry it failed," he tells her.

"Don't you have a blonde in California you could have been kissing?" she asks lightly.

Lenny rolls his eyes deeply, letting his head hang back in annoyance. "Fuck's sake, you share one cigarette with one member of the opposite sex and the newspapers think you've stuck your dick in her. Come on, Midge. You know there's no one else."

"For me either," she says quietly after a moment. "I almost kissed someone else tonight, but...I didn't really want to."

He nods, leaning back against the doorframe, watching her. "I know I'm very late. It's no longer midnight so the symbolism is essentially null and void."

"Shut up and kiss me," Midge orders.

Lenny pushes himself off the doorframe, stepping slowly towards her, his hands settling on her hips as he kisses her. It's slow, and tender, and Midge feels the stress of her nigh melt away as she slips her hands into his hair, stoking gently.

Getting swept up in the feeling of him is easy, and they lose clothing on the way to her bedroom, until she's laying on the bed beneath him in the gray corset that went well with her silver dress.

"I've missed you so much," he murmurs as he reaches back to rid her of the corset before pressing kissing slowly down her torso.

Her fingers tangle in his hair against as he keeps shifting lower, and she shudders at the feel of his breath ghosting between her legs. "Fuck, Lenny, please," she blurts out in a whimper, earning her a little bite on the inside of her thigh.

The world narrows after that, to only the feeling of him, and the sounds of her own gasps, and when she finds release, it's hard, and loud, and it's mixed with his moans as he eases her through it.

"Oh my god," Midge breathes out, her hands stroking his hair lovingly.

"I take it you missed me, too," Lenny chuckles softly as he kisses her thigh before making his way back up her body.

She kisses him deeply while reaching into her bedside table for a condom, and before long, he's sliding into her, his thrusts slow and deliberate, kissing her as they move together.

Her body tenses as she climbs higher towards a second release, and his thrusts become more erratic as he nears his own. A deeply embarrassing whimper escapes her throat as she comes, and Lenny isn't far behind, moaning into her shoulder as he shudders.

They stay like that for a long while, her fingers tracing down his back as he nuzzles in against her neck.

"So hi," she says softly in his ear. "Welcome back to New York."

Lenny chuckles softly against her skin, kissing her there. "Happy New Year. I'm here for the next couple of days. I've got a couple of lawyer meetings but I though perhaps I could take you to dinner. Maybe bed you a couple of more times. Buy you a hot cocoa or something."

Midge smiles and holds him tightly. "I'll take what I can get."

[helenarlett-rex]

I want to tell you all the story of House 2. Well... not really. Because House 2 isn’t really House 2. House 2 doesn’t have much of anything to do with House. It maybe has more to do with House than House 3 did, but hardly enough for it to really be considered House 2 despite being called House 2. House 4 was the first movie in the House series to actually be a direct sequel to House, making it the true House 2.

Sadly, House 4 was a travesty of a movie that plays out like it was made using three different scripts tossed in a blender with about twenty grams cocaine. If you’ve never seen House, a horror comedy made in 1986, you should go watch it. It’s great 80s movie. One of my favorites. I’m not talking about that one though...

House 4 is the constitution of the original House. After getting his son back from the ghost world and getting back together with his wife, author Roger Cobb, his wife, Kelly, (who I’m pretty sure was named Sandy in the first movie) and his son, Jimmy, who is now apparently his daughter, Laurel, still own the haunted house from the first movie, despite the fact that it has apparently changed from a mansion in a Beverly Hills style neighborhood to a rundown dump and been transported to the middle of butt-fuck nowhere.

I’m serious... This is what the house looked like in the first movie.

And this is what it looks like in the sequel.

They were able to get the same actor to come back and play Roger but apparently they couldn’t get the same house to come back and play the house...

Roger's step brother wants him to sell the house to him but Roger refuses because his father left him that house and they grew up there, even though in the first movie his Aunt left him the house and he had never seen it before until the start of that movie... But Roger doesn't have to worry about any of this for long because 10 minutes into the movie he dies in a car crash which also leaves his daughter in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. His wife, who always hated the house, decides to move in to it with her daughter, because apparently they didn't actually live there and only visited it as a vacation home despite Roger clearly living in it full time in the first movie... But I mean, why not? Why wouldn’t a woman who hated that house and only went there because her husband insisted on visiting it want to live in it full time after her husband died driving home from it?

After moving in a mysterious house keeper shows up saying that her work orders are already signed and she's already been paid. But she acts really weird, watching them with shifty eyes and searching the house when they aren't looking. Who is she and what is she up to? We don't know and it doesn't matter because after only three scenes in the very early part of the movie, the movie completely forgets she even exists.

Rodger's wife, Kelly, then finds a weird circular stone with carvings on it under the floorboards in the basement, but her flashlight explodes before she can get a good look at it. After that weird things start happening. The urn holding Roger's ashes falls off of the shelf and when she goes to scoop the ashes back up, a hand shoots out of them at her... Only for her to realize the urn never fell over and there are no ashes on the floor. They order a pizza but the pizza has a face on it and spits tomato sauce at her and tries to pull her into the garbage disposal. Feather hands shoot out of her daughter's bed and pull the daughter into the mattress like Johnny Depp in Nightmare On Elm Street, just as a knife magically appears next to Kelly for her to cut the mattress open  to get her daughter back... just for her to realize at the last moment that nothing actually happened, her daughter is still in the bed, and she's standing there about to drive a knife down into her... She takes a shower to have the water turn into blood and the words "Get out or you will die" written on the mirror. And that’s about it for the ghostly activity.

In this hour and a half long movie, we only get four ghostly encounters in the first hour, all of which are over remarkably fast and aren’t very impressive. No huge monsters like the ones Roger had to fight in the first movie...

Not knowing what to do Kelly goes to the local... uhh... Native America Catholic Priest...? I really don’t know what to call this guy... He’s not really a Catholic Priest but he does hang out in an old  Catholic church and seems to be Kelly’s spiritual advisor... He tells her that the house isn't attacking her. The land the house was built on was given to Roger's father as a wedding gift by the Native American people and the house sits on top of a magic healing spring. And because of that... Rodger's spirit is trapped in the house and can't pass on because he died at the hands of another... Because that makes perfect sense...

So once Kelly knows it's just the ghost of her husband being a total dick, and not some other ghost, everything is perfectly fine now and now Roger's ghost is protecting them. Still makes perfect sense...He still tried to trick her into stabbing her sleeping daughter to death, but she knows now that it’s just Roger so everything’s fine now. Maybe that was just a thing Roger used to do?

And then we find out that the reason Rodger's step brother wants the house is because he is in business with a Captain Planet villain who is in the illegal toxic waste disposal business. And I’m serious. Just look at this guy...

How much more cartoonish can you get? He even has to periodically stick a tube into his throat to drain unexplained yellow slime out of his body to prevent himself from choking to death on it. And his method for hiding his illegal toxic waste to to paint the word “Non-” on the canisters in front of the word “Toxic.”

This guy is straight up a Captain Planet villain who just invades the movie out of nowhere well past the half way mark with a new plot line the moment the haunting plot line is... uhh... resolved? And the reason he needs the land Kelly’s house is built on is so they can "pump all the water out of the magic Native American spring and fill it with toxic waste." Why? No reason given... Just because...

So Roger's step brother, who lives in an apartment where the walls are covered in pictures of naked women and has 5 inflatable sex dolls for roommates... that’s a pointless detail the movie thought it was important we know about... sends his goons dressed in a snake mask and a bug mask to terrorize Kelly and Laurel so they'll give up the house.

But because Roger's ghost is protecting them now, instead of trying to trick Kelly into stabbing Laurel to death... he turn's the daughter's bedroom lamp into a rottweiler with a lampshade sticking out of the top of it's head to chase the goons off. I’m serious. Here’s a picture of it...

There was a whole bit at the beginning of the movie where there was this old lamp with a plaster rottweiler on it in the house and Laurel wanted to take it home with her because Kelly won’t let her have a real dog, but Kelly wouldn’t let her because the lamp was ugly... And then... BAM! Chekhov's dog lamp...

The house then gives Kelly a vision where she learns that it was the same two goons who shot out their car tire causing the accident that killed Roger, under the order of Roger's step brother, so he could get the house when Roger wouldn't sell.

But Roger's step brother sends the goons back to burn the house down, and the house keeper, who the movie has suddenly remembered exists again, comes home with Laurel and she tries to shoot them but is knocked out and hid in the bushes outside. The goons go down into the basement and start dumping gas everywhere, but the house, or Roger's ghost, or whatever... makes them see each other as a real snake man and bug man and they shoot each other to death. The house catches on fire anyways because the gas comes in contact with one of their bullet shells... I'm sure it works that way... And Laurel is trapped in the burning house while Roger's brother calls 911 to report the fire way too soon for someone who actually wants the house to burn down.

He also doesn't seem to care about the fact that they are going to find him on the scene as the house is burning down when he has no reason to even be there and has already been harassing and even threatening Kelly to sell it to him so he can have the place demolished... That's bad for him because Roger's ghost makes him believe he has just gotten into a car with his Captain Planet villain boss and he tells him the whole story, bragging about how the cops have no way to pin it on him... when in fact they have every way to pin it on him... but it's fine, they don't even need to investigate now... because like I said, it was just the ghost tricking him and he's actually telling all of that to the house keeper... Who is actually an FBI agent... No idea why an FBI agent was posing as Kelly's house keeper, but oh well... It’s as good a reason as any as to why she was acting so weird the few times we saw her in the beginning of the movie.

Then the magic spring under the house erupts like Old Faithful, putting out the fire and healing Laurel’s legs... Roger's ghost shows up dressed as a cop to arrest his step brother, then Roger bursts into light and shoots up into the stars. I guess his soul is no longer trapped in the house because he caught the man to gave the orders to kill him...? Or maybe it’s because the magic spring was finally opened? I don’t know... It doesn’t matter because they all live happily ever after... except Roger because he's still dead... and his brother because he's going to prison.

And that’s the story of House 4 which was actually House 2 but shouldn’t have been House anything because it was a confusing, disjointed, inconsistant trash fire that never should have been made.

[a-stitch-in-time-and-space]

Queers in Space (TNG Edition)

Jean-Luc Picard: Cis-guy (although having just written that, I could change my mind... his gender is Captain)! He had sex with that guy who was killed when he was a cadet at the academy once and has never fully opened up that box since, but mainly he's attracted to anyone with an interest in archaeology and a chaotic energy (see Vash and Q)

Will Riker: Cis, dumbass bi, dtf, all the time. Frakes knows this, we know this, the show... does not know this.

Beverly Crusher: Cis. The fact that the show didn't let that episode with the trill unlock her latent bisexuality (but did let her have sex with a creepy ghost guy) is biphobia.

Wesley Crusher: I've got nothing guys. Braver people can say.

Deanna Troi: Once we reach aliens gender-concepts goes out of the window. She’s a woman by choice (so trans, but like... also an alien).  The counter-point to Riker, but a little bit more chill about it. Minimally more chill. Pretends she's a less dramatic bench than her mum, but we know it's a lieeee

Geordi La Forge: Machine-sexual/romantic. The future of monsterfuckery is wanting to fuck AI, holograms, computers, Borg, if it's got machinery attached, he is into it (but specifically he loves Data and possibly Hugh). I could read him as trans. Wondering now if there’s any fic with trans-Geordi in it.

Data: A man by choice and therefore trans. The unstoppable force of “AI shouldn't be aromantic asexual representation all the time” versus the immovable object of “he's aroace tho. He's in a queerplatonic relationship with Geordi.” The point is he loves Geordi, he loved Tasha, he loves Spot (none of these in the same way).

Tasha Yar: A lesbian. She and Deanna have had sex. The power of it was too much to show on-air. Also she was killed, which is something male writers love to do to lesbians.

Lore: Man... honestly I don't think he's into that. He just wants to be validated by his fam (but also he wants them dead... it's tough to be a young trans man when everyone loves your younger sibling more than you, I get that).

Q: Picard notice me Picard Picarrrrrrrrd want to see beyond the confines of linear time with me Picard do you do you do you except instead of actually asking I'll just put you in mortal danger, how's that sound? Qs have no gender.

Guinan: This lady's been around. She's the Captain Jack Harkness of Star Trek (or is he the Guinan of Doctor Who) – in all likelihood those two have also had a good time. How much do we know about her species? I’m gonna say they can choose their gender, because I don’t know enough to see any dispute.

Vash: Cis. The fact that she and Q had a thing and that they clearly BOTH were actually wishing the other was Picard was kind of a whole thing my goodness. But generally she's pan.

Ro Laren: Trans Lesbian! It Is Known. And she survived! And she's the only person to really go: “Maybe... Starfleet... isn't always right...” and that was some BDE right there.

Worf (Part 1): On TNG they really hadn't realised Worf's potential, but honestly if his partner can keep up, I refuse to believe that Klingon culture is inherently straight or binary tbh, despite the chest-windows. What’s in their pants? Honour!

Alyssa Ogawa: My girl is cis and pan. She's pretty chill though, found a partner, settled down, feelin' good about her decisions. Honestly the amount of drama she's avoided sure is something.

Reginald Barclay: Cis … honestly I think he's both into and terrified of anyone who has authority over him. Deanna, yes, but lbr he's been thinking the same about Riker and La Forge (occasionally Crusher too).

[drwnng-ophelia]

Caught Between the Two of You | Richie Tozier x Female Reader / Pennywise x Female Reader

A/N: I’m sorry this took me so long to finish! Quick disclaimer, if you haven’t seen IT Chapter Two yet (go see it, srsly) then this contains spoilers. Read at your own risk! Also: Richie smut is back! 

Pairing: Richie Tozier/Female Reader, Pennywise/Female Reader

Summary: You own the Derry Town House and are caught off guard by a group of friends who check-in. You get closer than anticipated with one of them.

Warnings: explicit language, smut, oral sex

Word Count: 3,625

Read Chapter 1 here and Chapter 2 here. I also post on AO3.

   Chapter 3

Nervousness made your stomach churn. Meeting Richie’s friends meant meeting the people who Pennywise wanted to torment. It meant speaking to them about the creature. It meant that you’d have to admit that you were very aware of everything that was happening in Derry.

Reluctantly, you followed Richie into the dining room. The Town House felt oddly unfamiliar and strange today, nothing like the warm place you had known your entire life. It was as if Richie could feel your unease, his hand giving yours a reassuring squeeze.

Earlier, he had offered that you could still leave, that he’d be willing to go with you, but you had shaken your head decidedly. You couldn’t run, and they shouldn’t.

They shouldn’t be here in the first place. They should have rejected the invitation, the call, to come back home. Five pairs of weary eyes rested on you as you slid into a chair, next to Richie. Unsurprisingly, no one seemed to have gotten any sleep.

Suddenly, the spacious old dining room seemed almost nightmarish and not even the delicious scent of coffee and fresh pastries could ease the chill that had settled into your bones. There were too many ghosts in this room.

“Someone is missing,” you noted almost absentmindedly, voicing what your instincts had just whispered to you. “One of us cou-couldn’t make it,” someone said. Bill Denbrough. You recognized him from one of his book covers. There was no need for him to tell you that the missing friend had died—had surrendered to his fear.

“Why did you have to pull her into this, Richie?” Mike Hanlon asked sternly. You knew him from the library—knew that he was researching Pennywise and had asked whoever wanted to talk to him about the entity that haunted this place. Sometimes you wondered if your old friend had spoken to him in a human form, just to ensure that he would get false information. Whatever plan he had crafted over the years, it would be faulty. And dangerous.

Richie opened his mouth, but you beat him to it, saying, “Because I asked him to.” The friends exchanged disbelieving glances. “We’re not going out on a picnic today,” Mike clarified darkly. You scoffed. With this attitude, you might as well put the cards on the table right now.

No. Not yet. Wait.

“I’m not as scared as you are, not even remotely,” you said icily, narrowing your eyes. Next to you, Richie let out a small cough, telling you that he was stifling a laugh. “Tell me what I need to know in order to help you.” “I like her,” Beverly said with a smile that melted the room’s tension away. “This is not going to be pretty, I hope you had all your shots.” Anxiety flickered in the man’s brown eyes as you met them. “I don’t think that’s what we should be most worried about, Eddie,” a handsome man said, his gaze resting on Beverly longingly. “Shut up, Ben, you can get all sorts of infections and—” Eddie embarked on a lengthy monologue of all the sicknesses the group could possibly get. No one really listened to him, but slowly frowns and stern faces relaxed, easing into grins and chuckles. This was a tight-knit group. You had to keep them safe. They had lost enough.

It was Richie who, eventually, pulled in a breath and started to lay out their story, their encounter with Pennywise twenty-seven years ago. With memory slowly finding its way back, the friends pieced together the horrifying happenings. It started with Georgie Denbrough getting pulled into the storm drain and ended with the friends making a vow to return to Derry if It should ever return. You felt nauseous thinking about what Pennywise had done to these people—and what he had done to you. This morning. Guilt and shame threatened to suffocate you when Richie rested his hand on your thigh, a gesture of comfort and protection. I’m here for you, I’ll keep you safe. A part of you wanted to get up, to run out, to get away from all of this. But instead, it felt as if you were glued to the chair. Even if Pennywise had changed, had changed for you no less, you needed to restore the equilibrium somehow. The pain needed to be compensated, and you were more than willing to pay whatever settlement would reveal itself.   “Let’s get going. There’s no time to waste,” Mike urged and gestured towards the door, “There’s no going back now, [Y/N].” “I gathered as much,” you snapped, growing tired of his tone. After all, it was you who would change his ineffective plan into something that would—could—work. You. Sooner or later, you’d have to push open the door inside you that you had once locked so meticulously. As you all started to head towards the Barrens, Richie started bickering with Eddie. While Bill, Mike, and Ben were wallowing in memories, Beverly hooked her arm through yours. She slowed her steps slightly, the small distance to the others allowing her to speak to you without them overhearing. “Richie stayed with you last night, huh?” she asked, a knowing grin on her lips. A blush crept into your cheeks at her suggestiveness. “Yeah…it just happened,” you shrugged, unsure where this conversation was going. After all, you were two consenting adults. Having mind-blowing sex and helping him solve a mystery didn’t mean you were dating. There really was no reason to have  the ‘don’t break his heart’-conversation yet, or was there? “Why are you doing this for us—for him?” she asked, honestly curious. You swallowed hard and answered, “Because it’s the right thing to do. You lost a player and I believe you need someone to stand-in for him. Not that I’m trying to fill his shoes, no one could. But you will need me.” “This might sound weird,” she paused, brilliant blue eyes finding yours, “but when I got caught in the Deadlights, I saw something. I saw our future.” The hairs on the back of your neck rose, telling you that whatever she was to say was important. “I didn’t…you weren’t a part of that vision. I had seen Stanley take his life in the bathtub, everything so far has happened exactly how I saw it. But you, you’re like a blindspot,” she explained. “I believe that nothing you saw is set in stone. There’s always a blindspot, an unpredictability. How can you be sure that what you saw isn’t just what Pennywise wanted you to see?” Beverly looked to her friends, contemplating your words. “Just know that I will be a vital player in this game.” “You keep referring to this as a game. Why?” “Because that’s what this is. To Pennywise this is a game, and we need to get a step ahead of him. Desperately.” You sighed through your nose, a shadow dancing between the trees, catching your attention. Of course, he would be here. He would keep an eye on you. On all of you. In front of you, the men came to a halt and Ben started to test the ground for the entrance to their clubhouse. Richie and Eddie’s playful quarrel had stopped too and he now looked at you, a warm smile on his face when he realized you were bonding with one of his friends. “You say that name with an odd sense of intimacy,” Beverly noted and looked at you intently, searching for answers to questions she hadn’t yet asked. You closed your eyes, ignoring the warning in your head and said, “It’s because I’ve seen Pennywise, too. I’ve seen him for most of my life.” Everyone’s attention shifted to you. And just then Ben crashed through the hatch. Except for Ben’s moans, the forest had fallen silent. The wind stilled and even the birds who had been chirping happily a moment ago had quieted down. “I’m okay, I’m good,” Ben called and cut through the eerie silence. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Richie asked, the smile on his lips faltering. You could barely bear the disappointment that laced his words. “Because I was afraid.” A half-truth that would have to suffice. “I was afraid of…him.” “But if you’ve seen him for mo-most of your life,” Bill started. “Then it hasn’t slept for twenty-seven years,” Beverly concluded, “It’s been awake.” The friends looked to Mike who had only just called them back now, after Pennywise had eaten parts of the fatally injured man. You were grateful that they didn’t dig deeper, didn’t ask how you had learned about Its existence. “Guys, c’mon now. That thing had written ‘come home’ all over the bridge. I didn’t make this up,” Mike defended himself, holding up his palms in a surrendering gesture. “Well, that thing has apparently been on its best behavior if you hadn’t noticed its return until now,” Eddie spat, gesturing wildly.   “Let’s not get into this now. Let’s do what we came here for,” you reasoned, seeing panic flashing in Mike’s eyes. It was bad enough that they didn’t want to be here to begin with, but they shouldn’t start blaming one another. “She’s right. Let’s not get into another fight,” Mike agreed. “Another fight?” Eddie checked. “Yes, remember when I threw a p-punch at Richie?” Bill reminded him and Richie rubbed his jaw as if not only the memory but also the pain had returned. “I remember that, too.” Ben’s voice sounded slightly muffled as if he had already started exploring their underground clubhouse. “We should go down there,” Beverly suggested and was the first to climb down the stairs. While the others disappeared, one after the other, you caught up to Richie. Although you wanted to, you refrained from taking his hand. “I’m sorry, I should have told you,” you muttered softly. His gaze didn’t meet yours. “Yes, you should have. Last night, when I knocked on your door and you invited me in. Before we…” He ran a hand through his hair. “You made my fear seem irrational and unfounded.” “I didn’t know then that you were afraid of Pennywise. I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but here in Derry, people are afraid of many different things and not all of these fears stem from the clown. He only feeds off of them. Besides, how do you think it would look if I confess to knowing about an unexplainable, ancient evil creature? You guys, you and your friends, are the first people I’ve met that have survived seeing him, interacting with him. If I were to admit to seeing him, they’d lock me up with Henry Bowers.” “You know about Henry Bowers?” Eddie called from inside the clubhouse, giving away that he had been eavesdropping. Richie’s expression softened a bit and he brushed his knuckles over your burning cheek. “No more secrets, okay? We need to stick together. You’re one of us now. A loser.” He smiled bitterly. “No more secrets,” you repeated, ignoring the warning bells that went off inside your head. Richie helped you get into the underground hideout. The walls would need to be reinforced should this place hold up for much longer. Spiders and other crawlers scuttled into the dirt or nooks, disturbed by the strip of daylight and the unwanted guests. A musty scent lingered in the air which quickly mixed with the forest’s rich scent that streamed in from above. “Nice job, Ben,” you complimented as you imagined what this place had looked like when they had all been young teenagers. “Thank you. It’s in better shape than I had thought,” he said and picked up a cassette tape. “Ah, your real friends.” Beverly chuckled and nudged him playfully. Next to you, Richie let go of a sigh, planting his hands in his pockets while the others were exploring. “Do you miss him?” Your voice was barely more than a whisper, almost drowned out by the other’s chatter. You rested your hand on his back and wished that you could take some of his pain away. “It’s not fair that he had to die,” Richie finally said, “We should have—I should have—” His voice trembled and he fell silent. “What happened to Stan wasn’t your fault,” you reminded him gently. Around you, the others had stopped their exploring, ready to back you up. But Richie wiped the single tear that had run down his cheek away decidedly. “Let’s find Stan’s token and get out of here, I don’t want to get any spiders stuck in my hair.” “I think I found it,” Bill noted and held up an old can. He opened it and fished out a floral-patterned shower cap. “Stanley wouldn’t wa-want you to get spiders in your hair either.” Richie let out a breathy laugh. “No, he was the best.” You didn’t care about the others being there when you kissed away a new tear. You would really have to stop Pennywise. For this—for them. For Richie. As the decision settled inside you, you built up strong, adamant walls around it, hiding it so deep inside of you that Pennywise would never find it. Never sense it. “Where do we go from here?” you asked and took Richie’s hand in yours. You would need him now because as you stood there, in this perfect little hiding spot, you unlocked that place inside of you. A familiar tingling sensation washed over every fiber, every nerve of your body and you shuddered. “Are you okay?” Richie asked immediately. “Yes, I’m just getting paranoid now that we’ve talked so much about spiders,” you excused. Power. Pure, untamed power waited patiently in an endless-seeming well. “You will all need to find your tokens, by yourself,” Mike explained. “You want us to split up? That’s the dumbest fucking idea,” Eddie interjected and shook his head decidedly. “It’s important that you do it by yourself. For the ritual,” Mike pressed. “Well, I’m not leaving Richie,” you said firmly. Mike drew in a breath but you shot him a look. “I’m not discussing this with you. I’m going with him and that’s that.” Underneath your feet, the ground appeared to quiver at your words, telling you that you would have to dive into your power slowly. Carefully. The friends exchanged nervous glances. “We should get out of here,” Ben suggested. Great. This would probably end in them being scared of you, too. Once everyone had climbed back into the sunlight, plans were made to meet up at the Town House in a few hours. To your relief, you couldn’t sense Pennywise. Maybe he had grown tired of the reminiscing. Or your affection towards Richie. As you started your walk back into town, you were grateful for Richie’s hand in yours. After all, you hadn’t just gone with him because he had been vulnerable and because you wanted to support him. No, you had gone with him to make sure that Pennywise wouldn’t tear him to ribbons when you weren’t looking. After all, Pennywise might still be playing with the others. But after this morning, he would no longer be playing with Richie. He would hunt him.

   “So this is where you would come as a little boy, huh?” you asked, a smile on your face after Richie had ushered you into the closed down arcade. You had passed by this place so many times, wondering why no-one had ever attempted to refurbish it. Even now, hidden under layers of dust, old posters peeling away, and with graffiti splattered over the walls, you could imagine how welcoming this place had once been. Richie’s hand rested on the small of your back. “Let’s just get that token and get out of here.” With a frown, you turned towards him. “Bad memories?” He nodded. “I remember…feeling very lonely here.” These were the things, memories, feelings that Pennywise could draw power from. You needed to cover his loneliness with something else. Anything else. “Well, Richard Tozier,” you started quietly, putting change into the machine, a token clattering down, its metallic sound echoing off the walls, “you’re not alone here now.” “Do you feel lonely? With me here?” you asked, sliding the token into his pocket, your face only inches from his. He closed his eyes and wetted his lips when your hand lingered in his pocket. “Anyone could come in here,” he said huskily. “And anyone could hear. So we better keep our voices down,” you suggested, looking up at him through your eyelashes. “You’re wicked.” He chuckled and let you move him against the nearest wall. “Oh, you have no idea.” You breathed your words against his lips and pulled him into a hungry kiss. Your hands quickly went to work, reaching for his growing bulge before fumbling with his belt and pants. “So we’re gonna do this right here?” he got out as you nibbled at his earlobe, fingers busy massaging his erection. “Why, do you want me to stop?” you teased and basked in the way he looked at you as you slowly sunk to your knees. Richie shook his head decidedly and groaned when you licked over his tip, tasting him. “Quiet now. You can be noisy later,” you reminded him. “Oh shit, what’s coming later?” he asked, resting his head against the wall. You ran a hand up his thigh brazenly, withholding your touch just for a little while. “Hm, I don’t know. When we’re back in my bedroom I might tie you to the bed. Then, I might straddle you, deciding how fast or painstakingly slow we’ll go,” you said nonchalantly, “Or you could punish me for lying to you. You could give me a whipping with this belt of yours. You could decide whether or not I’ve deserved to find release.” Richie blinked at your boldness. He hadn’t been rough with you last night, but something told you that was about to change. “I…yes, we can do that.” He nodded eagerly. “Now, shut up and let me finish what I’ve started.” Fire burned behind his eyes when you finally put him in your mouth, licking his underside eagerly. Richie squirmed under your touch.   As you started to suck, his fingers wove into your hair, his hands telling you that you could increase your speed. But you didn’t, planning on tantalizing him for just a little longer. There was no need to hurry this along—even if your own arousal throbbed between your legs. With tight lips, you moved up and down his shaft, your hand ensuring that all of him was getting pleasured. Richie let out a small moan when you took him deeper into your mouth with each stroke, your tongue massaging him. From there, you let him dictate the speed and depth, taking whatever he gave you. Letting go of your power over him, submitting to him and his rhythm, added to your own lust. You could barely wait to get back to the house, to feel him between your thighs. His breathing was getting faster and more shallow, telling you that he would finish soon. Muscles tensed under your touch, his pace getting uncontrolled. When he finally stilled, you swallowed his load, sucking up every last drop greedily.

“Fuck, [Y/N],” he breathed and relaxed against the wall, fingers untangling, leaving your hair in disarray. You licked your lips as you rose, brushing the dust off your knees. “How’s that for a new memory?” you asked, a mischievous grin on your face as you helped him straighten his clothes. “Let’s make more,” he suggested and claimed your lips. “How fast can we be back at your house? I want to return the favor.” In the heat of the moment, you had barely noticed the haunting shadow in the corner by the door. Richie wouldn’t see him, the man that manifested from thin air, anger flickering in those blue eyes. “And here I thought I had fulfilled your needs this morning.” He tskd as if disappointed with you. You only shrugged slightly, fingers intertwining with Richie’s as he led you towards the exit. Without awarding Pennywise with another glance, you stepped out onto Main Street, feeling for those protective walls inside you. They were still intact. Strong. Impenetrable. He hadn’t noticed. Couldn’t have. You tried to banish Pennywise from your mind as you found your way back to the house. And yet, the desire that you had felt so intensely only moments before seemed almost washed away. Maybe you had promised Richie something you weren’t ready to follow up on. “I’ll quickly change,” you explained and rushed into your bedroom, closing the door behind yourself. Richie had already opened his mouth, probably offering that he could undress you. Right now, however, you just needed a moment to collect yourself. The boldness that had driven you earlier…it had come from your power. It wasn’t like you regretted your actions, but you couldn’t get reckless later. There was no room for mistakes. You took a deep steadying breath and finger-combed through your messy hair. Just when you wanted to undress, a flicker in your mirror caught your eyes. Not again. “Pennywise, just go away. Go play somewhere else,” you huffed, pulling off your sweater. But when you looked into the mirror, it wasn’t Pennywise who stared back at you. Confused, you let a tendril of power brush against the glassy surface. This truly wasn’t him. He wasn’t anywhere close to your house. So you only stared back, stared into the eyes that were so similar to your own. Stared into the face of your mother.

Read Chapter 4 here.

Taglist:

@lilwickedred @shockwavee @itssmaugtheterrible @ggclarissa @okokbucky @chillcan @jojo-buttercup @victor-criss-bish @discodeakky @kaetastic @anthonystarksglasses

[beepbeeprichiellc]

Oh my god oh my god oh my god can we get a part two to the sick Richie Au??? Like pretty please, I need Richie to actually admit his real feelings while not being so sick and for Eddie to feel the relief when the nurses tell him Richie is gonna be alright

Yeah....I feel gross with all this fluff. Part 1. 

Richie stared at the table, debating if he had enough junk food. Sure there were of his friends favorites but what if Eddie didn’t want the usual? What if he was in some crazy mood and decided that red vines and popcorn wasn’t enough to stay? Richie pondered going back out to the store and just buying everything insight-there was no way Eddie could turn down a buffet of treats right? Not when he saw the effort that Richie had put into the night, going as far as to get seven different movie options. Somehow Eddie had gotten out of four movie nights in a row and although Richie wasn’t sure why-he was positive it was his own fault. After all, Eddie had literally saved his life-the doctors assured him of this-but after leaving hospital things had gotten weird. 

Eddie wasn’t home most nights, and when he was he stayed locked up in his room with the music blaring. Richie had tried to talk to him-to beg for a fraction of the attention he used to get but Eddie would brush him off and make some excuse to leave. The others had no idea what was going on either thus being no help whatsoever. There was a giddiness in the pit of Richie’s stomach, an unmet need that Eddie had left behind as he began to ghost him. This had to work because if it didn’t-well Richie was sure he would just go insane. He needed his Eds, needed his best friend so much that it nearly ate him alive. 

His roommate's door opened, and Richie was immediately on his feet, watching as Eddie slung his jacket his jacket onto his back and glanced his way. “Hey Rich, I thought you were gone.”

“Nope, just getting things ready for our movie night.” Richie gestured to the covered coffee table, eager to see Eddie’s reaction. “I got all your favorites and a few more. Beverly recommended some horror movie but if you aren’t in the mood for that I got action, romance and even a flick from japan that is supposed to be especially good-I’ll even endure the subtitles just for you.” 

Eddie scrunched up his face, “I’m sorry but I promised Bill I’d meet him at the bar tonight.” 

Richie’s heart dipped, “Wh-What? No-no come on, you’ve been out with Bill for the past four Fridays! I thought we could do movie night like we used to because-”

“I know I’ve been busy lately Rich but I told Bill-”

“Are you fucking him or something?” It was supposed to be a joke, a jab if you will but the desperate chuckle that followed gnawed at the tension in the air. “Not that I would care or anything,” the thought made his stomach churn but he pushed it down, “but it’d be nice to have a heads up before I walk in after class and catch a full view of Bill’s hairy ass as he plows you into the sofa.” The image danced in his head and Richie felt the bile climb his throat. 

“The only person who has ever had sex on the couch is you.” Eddie scoffed, shoving his hands into his pockets. “And no, I’m not seeing Bill, he’s my friend. I like to spend time with my friends.” 

“I’m your friend.” Richie whined, knowing full well how pathetic he sounded but knew that there was no point in hiding his disappointment. They had been drifting, Richie could feel it but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t pull Eddie back to him-like they were on two different courses and soon it would be too late to reconnect. “And I want to spend time with you too.” 

This made Eddie let out a deep sigh, “Richie-”

“No.” The trashmouth nipped, pointing a wagging finger in Eddie’s direction, “Don’t lie to me Eddie, I can tell when you are about to lie because you make this face that looks like you are ripping out pubic hair. Tell me the truth, what did I do wrong? Are you mad at me or something?” 

“I’m not mad at you Richie.” Eddie replied softly, rocking on his heels and biting on his bottom lip. “It’s nothing like that.” 

“Then what?” Rihcie pleaded, crossing the room so that there wasn’t any furniture separating them. “I mean you haven't even let me repay you for saving my life! It’s like you’ve been avoiding me or something.” Eddie dropped his gaze and Richie knew he had a finger on the pulse. “You have been avoiding me!” 

“Can we not do this right now? I told Bill that I’d be there in like five minutes.” Eddie pleaded tapping his watch. “I promise we will talk when I get back.” 

“We can’t wait because if we do you would have had time to come up with the lie that you are going to feed me.” Richie knew how this was going to work, if he let Eddie slip away now there was no going back, their friendship couldn’t endure another excuse and Richie would rather die than let thirteen years of being the best of friends fall apart. “How can I fix this? Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it Eddie.” Richie hadn’t realized that he had been advancing on his friend, his heart nearly fracturing his ribs with the forces of it’s pounding. If he reached out, Richie could touch Eddie, could pull him close and beg but he didn’t-couldn’t because that wasn’t what they did so instead he waited.

He expected Eddie to speak the truth but instead he shook his head and stepped back. “You can’t do anything Richie. This is my thing that I need to deal with okay? I know you don’t understand but-”

“The help me understand!” Richie shouted, causing Eddie to jump in surprise. “Please.” He whispered now, pleading with Eddie as the string that connected them became taught. “I at least deserve to know why.” 

It looked like Eddie was going to break, his breaths coming in short bursts as the wheels in his head turned. “When you were sick, when you’re fever spiked you started talking-not that you ever stop talking but this time it was different, you weren’t spewing vulgarity or jokes or anything sensible.” 

“Oh man, what did I say?” Richie sputtered, unwilling to believe this..“Did I admit that I’ve got a thing for my 90 year old english professor or-fuck did I admit that I was the one who borke Stan’s grandpa’s vase?” 

“No,” Eddie mumbled, “nothing like that.” 

“Then what?” 

Looking at the door Eddie took a second to answer but when he did his voice dripped regret onto the carpet. “You said that you loved me, that you never got to tell me that you had always loved me before Pennywise killed me.” 

Richie blinked, unable to process the explanation. “Pennywise?” He choked out-watching tears began to fill in the corner of Eddie’s eyes. “What the fuck is a Pennywise.” 

“A demonic clown.” Eddie whispered to his shoes. “You weren't making any sense and were totally freaking out, screaming my name over and over again and repeating that you loved me and I just-” There was choking noise in the back of Eddie’s throat that caught his words. “I can’t handle that Richie. I already have a hard time as is and that was just the cherry on top.” 

“Eddie.” Richie stated, like his name was the answer to all the questions in the world. “Eddie I-”

“I don’t want the speech.” Eddie cut, “I think I’ll just die if you explain to me that we are friends and that it was the fever talking because I’ve been so fucking in love with you ever since we were teenagers and the moment you pity me the moemnt I will explode. It’s not fair I know, and I know this is a lot of shit to put on you but just please don’t hate me! Please, please don’t hate me Richie. I’m sorry I’m like this and I know that if you just give me a little time and space I can pretend that it never happened. It’s just-”

“Oh my god, shut up.” Richie goraned, his heart leading those two steps to Eddie and without warning he pulled the other man to his chest and connected their lips. Eddie let out a surprised squeak but melted as soon as Richie’s hands slipped across his back, squeezing out the last of the space between them. Eddie tasted sweet, much sweeter than Richie would have expected. Richie’s chapped lips moved against Eddie’s smooth ones, and a few seconds skipped past them before they pulled apart. “Fuck I’ve wanted to do that for so long.” 

Eddie stared up at him with those brilliant doe eyes. “So you do-”

“Yes. I’m ashamed it took a near death experience for me to admit but yes, I do love you Eddie. I always have.” 

Eddie sighed, leaning into him. “Thank god.”

[throwinggrapesoffthebalcony]

preface to LAVENDER SOAP

You can feel apocalyptic in a number of ways, even while living in peaceful times. But what many times looks like peace, isn’t. And so a piece may arise during our own suppressed apocalypse. That was the case with Lavender Soap and my life in 1996. Very few places have had the energy to influence me as a writer, to feed into my tendencies, and even fewer places that could provide a sense of peace, that I was only ever able find in the water; buoyant saline, under the warmth of the ray’s of the sun. Even in storm, or the dead of winter, it was a tranquility, a sanctuary, that I could never find on land. Depending on your life, it’s a beautiful separation.

The epoch and the hotel was very different then, it was at peace tucked into the trees. It wasn’t decimated  by this new cheap world yet. The perfect air was still influxed with the smell of foliage and perfume and of old materials, plaster ruined and repaired a thousand times, regrouted with the tiles left intact, the aging glue of wallpaper is sweet. Decor should be timeless during our lives. Life is so short after all. It was a hotel imbued with and not completely claimed by the past yet, with the past, absorbed into the walls and woodwork and tapestries. The faint voices, rapes, murders, sufferings, and suicides of a more glamorous past, saved like metal oxide on tape in the walls; played when the atmosphere is right. The first element that effects me are women I’ve been involved with sexually and their particular fashion and our conversations, the other is the inspiration of architecture; this necessity to remove and protect ourselves from the elements of nature. And the third being that wild energy of nature itself, weather, thermal dynamics, etc. I’ll save the commentary about the energy arising from the earth and surroundings for the preface for SSHS, which was more influenced by the raw energy of a geographic location and life’s tragedies than it was about architecture. And writing that piece was never about silence for me, while Lavender Soap was born, not in the clash of an apocalyptic scene, but in the very opposite, in the midst of the most pleasurable quiet, not an absolute silence, but a perfect quiet. The sound of air moving through trees, the sound of a rotary telephone ringing, faint voices speaking somewhere, the existence of humanness, not intruding on your life, when it doesn’t need to. That was a time when I think everyone had their own scenario, there were bounds, and knew that your scenario wasn’t their scenario; which is called sanity. Perfect separation of lives, we were humans not insects. And because of this, meeting someone was always much more interesting than now. Lavender Soap is, besides being a psychological piece delving into my experiences at the Chateau, it’s also to a great extent a retrospect, and a regression to my childhood. It was in a childhood bedroom that I perfected disassociation, disconnection, and detachment in, out of necessity, for survival. A house of continual violence, week after week, year after year, leaves you with nowhere to go but down. Fantasy and pictures, allowed me to drift off. A calendar out of date, a hopeful month of lavender fields is where all of my loves stood. They never take you up. Sleeping with my weapon of choice, a tapered necked ball peen hammer. And with the faint smell of WD40 and rust the angels never come to save you from the screaming. A movie about war, that’s pretty in a way, is the only way I can remember that film.

In 1996, experience wasn’t found on a cell phone. I was young and if you wanted to feel something or experience something, you had to shower, dress and traverse whatever plane you were on. And from one location to another, so much could happen, and in-between there was discovery, moments. Forget the set pieces, that’s not what this life is made of. This life is made of moments. In my opinion, that curiosity is what the young are absolutely lacking in today’s world, that and not feeling like individuals. There was a conversation that I read, I think around that same time, where a film editor, I think Murch, if not, one of the other prominent film editors, was talking about editing on a Moviola. And because of the linear nature of working with whole strips of 35mm film, he would have to pass through a lot of footage that he hadn’t previously considered, and that he would have, if working in a non-linear manner have never encountered. And there, he would find moments that worked more profoundly than what he was intending to use. And I think that lack of an analog approach in living, has people missing the more profound encounters, the accidental encounters, encounters more enlightening than what they might experience with a premeditated itinerary. But wait, they had an exchange on tender; what a fucking joke. I feel sorry for them. I’ve never fallen in love with this new digital era, a work of spite and bitterness, a reaction to a world that didn’t feel inclusive enough, so it’s become a strategy of slash and burn. And how do you tell someone to fuck off so they truly listen in today’s era? Must it be an apocalypse for the stalkers. Are people always drawn into that state of darkness. And it’s so easy to lose sight of the jungle you’re in, when the modern world disguises the archetypes so well. The weeks become months and the months become years and years become a decade, while I was creating the philosophies of a man facing death, even while undeservedly healthy, and unfairly able to fuck.

Arriving at the hotel in 96’ was serendipitous, or fateful, whether you want to believe that life is steadfast or whimsical. It felt whimsical when I met a couple of cute girls named Hanni and Sunny at Beverly Connection one evening; one lovable, the other the type to want to watch, then try to explain what each of the other really wanted. I jotted down a few impressions I had of them at the time. They told me that they had this special place they wanted to show me. I thought they were full of shit. But one evening they picked me up and took me to the Chateau Marmont. The weather was terrible that night. I was dressed for the woods. It was a quiet place, empty, with an entrance of willow branches hanging dank over the drive. We sat in the living room and even while I tried to concentrate on the conversations we were having, I was only half there, while the other part of me had already wandered off into the hotel, amongst the spirits and whispering lips. Sunny called, with the concern of the other on mind. It was against her religion to have sex before marriage, and she was confused as to whether oral copulation was sex. I gave the wrong and less comforting answer. Of course it is. People go stagnant just as places do. I went looking for Hanni where she worked at Milk and Honey as a hostess. I saw her through the windows, but the place was busy and I didn’t want to get her into any trouble, so I continued on my walk. I didn’t see them much anymore, but I kept going back to the Chateau. It was just as quaint during the afternoon as it was at night. On most nights, it was desolate, like a huge spaceship had hovered over and removed every last trace of guests. This was before they began to monetize the mythos of the place, and run it like a circus. The hallowed courtyard had eyes in 1996, and then in 2006 it had the eyes of a cheap set looking for anything edible. Drug dealers intwined with movie moguls and music producers. When first arriving there, there was peace, and I would explore the floors unimpeded. I felt strangely allowed. One afternoon that week after the two girls had shown me the place, I went and stood on the landing on the shady side of the hotel. I could have stood there for centuries. I thought about a life with her, while still in love with what I couldn’t have. I wasn’t apart from those feelings yet. They choked me up, but I would never cry. I probably set the record for being on the verge of tears, while they dried. The people were more reclusive and weird then. With so many people in those rooms, so few went about. They come out for air. They ask each other, never asking you. Even while asking me, would be the quickest way to find something out. Strange quirks with some of these who reside here. Notes I wouldn’t even have to look back upon to remember. I didn’t know about the inner workings of Hollywood yet, even while I was already pitching ideas, but wrote literature and not scripts. I didn’t know there were those perpetually green-lit, only needing content, and those perpetually in the red light. But on the surface, everything was crystal clear, with my young primo lenses at the time, seeing even the minute texture in anything like glitter in the dust. I suppose speculation has always been a turn on. But the place was an immediate enchantment, and people were actors, so forgiven, and no idiosyncrasies of the fauna would keep me from going back. I loved the place. It gave me a chance to linger in that aesthetic. There were occasions when I’d stay in the living room until dawn, undisturbed, when I could have stayed and ordered breakfast if I’d wanted to. Hollywood and this hotel had already had a long history before I arrived. The materials, the curtains and rugs and upholstery was already soaked to the bone, damp with the secretions of the body, the blood, the saliva and vaginal fluids of the past. In the present, you can smell the distinction of a vagina from a mouth perfectly. But through time, it becomes this amalgamated scent, so fine and subtle that it could be bottled as perfume; an aphrodisiac for the intellect. I want to stay and live here, but it costs a fortune. Check out time is like another death, the woman who spreads the sheets might be the perfect fuck. Dreaming in a bed that saw the golden age. The ghosts of a thousand whores arise. But that was the wet part of the dream. They all say the same thing, they all dance the same way. They all want to stay in this world. This, while everyone claims to live in a higher plane. They want freedom without the label being emblazoned upon them. Today’s perfect. That’s just a desirable label and we all have desires. You wish you could turn them all into someone someone would have loved. On the landing on the shady side of the hotel, the rush of thoughts has me without sight, the sun penetrating my eyes. I wouldn’t even know what a strange thought was then, always in the wine. I went into the shadows falling over me. The strange trees don’t know my past, but it seems that they love me. She was cold, goosebumps on the skin, she never warms. She’s not of this world. But this place is like heaven’s turnkey, and here I can dream, that I’m living a spectacular life. My every thought here like a disco in the dark light. It’s coming up river with the blackness gleaming to take my life. In the past one only had to return to civilization. Now, there is no civilization to return to. Modern society is like a plague that has no brains. That dies out, not by heat or cold or is prevented by the razor wire of another man’s desires for peace of mind. Death is the only peace. Just as I was told of my literary pursuits, that all the hours were wasted, and to think about the fact, that all those I admired in that craft, are all dead, and so was the craft. I was sitting at a drive-in theatre. Hail memory. Prefaces are life, when a form of death has already occurred.

On the subject of soap balls, they were always perplexing. My grandmother, a strange woman, born in New Braunfels, Tx, who never opened her presents, wouldn’t let me wash my hands with them. They were decorations, to be dusted and sniffed for their essence. One lathered by mistake and placed back into the bunch looked funny, and you wondered if she’d notice. They looked like dull gum-balls in a decorative bowl, and I’d acquired a taste for soap, or at least I wasn’t as disgusted as they’d wanted me to be. You can frustrate the hell out of a nun that way, by loving it, and asking her for more. But I was curious as to whether they were different flavors. I couldn’t tell; perhaps because sometimes smell and taste are inseparable. Perhaps their mystery lays in their not being of a practical shape, and round always tends to represent the erotic, like ovaries, representing the female anatomy. But there’s also a aspect in the work that I didn’t consciously think about until after writing the piece. And that was that in the victorian era, in the psychological journals, they often considered masturbation an attempt at suicide, or a suppressed death wish. And even while much of what they believed in then is laughable, maybe the act of masturbating with lavender soap was my fragrant wish to kill myself. I don’t know if I’m trying to cum or kill myself in the present either. My theory is that it keeps me from being desperate and at the mercy of women, when they aren’t readily available to me.

Dark blue was a piece I was more in love with writing, a story about a woman who’d committed a sin, that caused me to become an exile to femininity. When you can no longer trust women, there’s no longer a church to visit, there’s no safe place to hide. Dark Blue wasn’t as spontaneous as Lavender Soap, it was more evolved, I wanted to think carefully about it, I wanted some past world to be impressed. I wanted to stay immersed in a calm exile. Those who could even judge literature, now were few and far between. And because Dark Blue was also set at the Chateau, it was slowly being devoured by this more delirious work. It was like one stage of my life devouring another. And I wasn’t even in that careful mood to make a copy of it before I began cutting it up, and making fodder of it for a pop piece. I’ll probably extract Dark Blue from Lavender Soup and make it the subtle, psychological piece I’d wanted it to be; another conversation piece, the finite texture of dark blue polyester, a comfortable face and beautiful thighs, and a line, ‘I can’t believe you’d ever do this to me.’ You never expect a woman to be a criminal. It’s subtly frightening. You take the time to stare more deeply into the mystery of a pair of eyes. And when you can no longer believe in the feminine, when that door too, says deception, when it says enter at your own risk, it leaves you with no sanctuary at all in this world.

Lavender Soap was a chance to dwell on audiophilia and woodworking, even though much of the elaborations ended up on the cutting room floor, when it began to feel like This Old House. I think in every field, there’s an equilibrium with our humanness. And I think that wood and glass and analog technology was something that we can never rise above. There was no dissonance between it and the human body. We evolve technology, but the whole while we’re devolving. Like an individual, as a society, we cannot admit to wandering onto the wrong path, out onto a branch that leads to our demise, and while looking back at our past selves in arrogance, at our own expense. They’re already like zombies, and I think 5G will finish them off. Lithium, lithium, lithium. War, an OLED screen, and a sickening.

There was that first period of time exploring the Chateau when LA was magical, then I moved to D.C. and New York for a number of years. And as I did, many of the stories I’d started in my notebooks about or taking place in that setting were put on the back burner, while I was experiencing more of the in between and writing what I considered more significant novels. I’d visit Los Angeles on occasion, and the first place I’d want to get to was Venice, then after that, the Chateau Marmont. There were no marriage vows on the east coast, so I moved back to Los Angeles around 2006. I’d seen the Chateau become a less mysterious and more clamorous place during my visits but that was confirmed when I started going there frequently again. The magic was gone, for sure. And that magic was peace and quiet. Literature was becoming a dead beast, that had no place in this frivolous nature. I myself was disenchanted. I met a girl named Emma while I was living up Larrabee. I thought, maybe. And for the record, it was unfair to her that I quickly had such high expectations. I wanted a family. She said I was too smart for my own good and proceeded to eat my heart out. But I admit, I had her on the most perfect day of her life. No one will remember her so fondly. And so, at this breaking point of my life, I’d gone to a bicycle shop down Robertson and bought a chrome Bianchi Pista, trying to remain relevant and alive. I belonged in nature with a risk to life and limb; this was a crazy city now, homogenized, ceaseless, hungry. It was a point in my life when I had to seriously contemplate a return, a return home, or to academics, even while I despised its limitations, and had already fallen in love with studying outside of those restraints. I needed to give hard thought to returning to create some stability for myself, a life of normalcy, even if in some nowhere place. I already knew I’d been on a blacklist for some time by then, and well aware of the futility of trying to make it, while there are those determined to keep you down. But I kept writing, even without those motivations. And so I was riding around with that last chance to return on my mind, like always being conscious of death. The new technology had everyone riddled with something more invasive than neutrinos that just pass through everything. I was trying to shake off the stogy thoughts of literature and avoid the lack of patience that had infected everyone. And disappointment only aggravates your pride. You want to prove something, so you slip even in the bright sunlight, further into the heart of darkness. I’d try to ride through it, and write through it; the dystopian nightmare that everyone had feared would come, if they had their way, and they had their way. Without an exit strategy, the delusional self-induced Berkeley type archetypal bitch, had a plan. The illusion of an alternate world onto the real world. It had me dreaming of a landslide or a flood or a ball of fire heading right for us more than ever at the time. The freeze of disappointment settles on the brain. The billiard balls cease to scatter with infinite possibilities. You have to begin to look for your moments, then get the hell out before they burn down around you. But I would ride and when moving at the right speed, I could still say, that it was the place I first fell in love with. I played dead riding with no hands. I brought my old notepads out and began burning into Lavender Soap on a silver airbook. And again I’ll save this subject matter of writing tools and how they effect the process, for SSHS; the pen as opposed to a laptop, as opposed to a typewriter, etc. etc.

Why my father or anyone else for that matter was so miserable is about a past we cannot know. My father lived a life before I was ever born, I can’t judge him. It’s just the sight of an underwater knife and old scuba gear; everyone dives and that’s their life and no one else’s. And despite the terror in the household, he made an effort to educate me. He was a musician, so I was dragged around to Jazz festivals, which I always found fascinating, even while never being my favorite genre of music. More importantly, he loved film, and would take me to see first rate films while I was still at an impressionable age. It was Texas at a very different time. I don’t think he would in today’s world ever be able to sneak me, as a child into movies like The Godfather, The Deer Hunter, or Apocalypse Now. At least without being escorted by the police past the ‘no such thing as gender’ restroom doors, which the icon of the beast and word androgyny. Apocalypse Now is still my desert island movie, it was like candy to a child’s mind. I leave it in the DVD player for months at a time playing on a loop. It’s a movie I never tire of watching. I love when someone hates what I love, so maybe it’s a way to turn the stalkers off. Let them dwell in what will break them. It’s based on a book called Heart of Darkness, which is also one of my favorite works. It’s about the primordial model that we can’t get away from. We can build empires, then die over the wrong look. And when you’re a child, you see everything so differently, your eyes move to different parts of the screen, you take a different path through the film. You may not understand the poetry yet, or the subtext, or every word uttered, but you see another layer of beauty, that an adult might miss. And so your memory of certain elements are vivid. What’s written on a helicopter as it lands, ‘death from above’, and lavender smoke in the air making the ravages of life so pretty; like makeup on the whorish face of humankind. Then all the years have gone and it becomes like a masterpiece of background noise to a life in the continued, but post modernistic bloodbath of tribal animosities and nepotistic tendencies. The Heart of Darkness was a perfect model, because it’s the only model that makes any sense. We will die of a spear in the modern world. That dark model dwells in the modern city, and she’ll fuck us when she wants to. The end is always a bright pink clit coming down with bitterness and animosity. I can’t wait. 

When I first arrived in Los Angeles, we were consumed by the talk of lenses and cinema and the craft of filmmaking, when the craft was religion, and not political correctness. We knew our lenses. How’s political correctness done as an industry?, you may ask. Fairly well it seems. The advertisers don’t give a fuck what they’re selling or what Greco Roman history they’re destroying. They’re mercenaries. They’ve not replaced civilization with anything that will last. But now, nothing’s supposed to; not even history. Once again we can’t escape the analog nature of ourselves and how other methods aren’t as conducive for the flesh or for externalizing our fascinations for the world to see. Our inability to get away from that period will see us shrinking as human beings. We won’t be strong enough to fight off the virus. Analog is more evolved than digital, and I call this the ‘prism effect’; if you’ve ever seen a prism penetrated by sunlight, and how it separates white light into a spectrum of colors, it’s a beautiful sight. Now imagine the energy it takes and the technology to do what the prism does so simply, and without the need for batteries. We’re trying to digitize and synthesize nature until it resembles nature again, or sounds analog again, or feels like flesh again. Why? So someone can shut it off when they’ve lost control. The digital age has allowed a bunch of really strange and ‘awkweird’ people to rule over earth; and as it’s turned out they’re not immune to the thirst for war and destruction or terror. They just like to fuck things up from a distance, and don’t believe in repercussion. But someone at a pseudo think tank can cost so much life then walk to Starbucks to get a cup of coffee. We’re all vulnerable to nature. 

We can try to escape to places like Topanga or Malibu, but they want to stay connected. They don’t want the natural world to take place, even with all the natural beauty that still exists. Off the grid, makes them nervous, they’re so used to spying on everyone’s every move. It’s become their addiction, their lithium. I’m not your lithium. And it was during a time I was trying to escape, living out old Topanga road that something that might be considered trivial happened, but that in my mind was like some completion to an era of my life, like some forgiveness to put that part of my existence to rest. It was an afternoon that my girlfriend at the time and I made a stop at PC Greens along the Pacific Coast Highway, headed for a beach higher up. She waited for me while I ran in to buy a few things. And there, roaming around the store, was Martin Sheen. An old man now, but with the same face and voice. I looked into eyes I felt I knew well. I’m never one to bother actors, I know they fight for their private lives as well. But when heading for the checkout he came towards me like an old friend, and he was in a sense. And like perfection, what was playing and what was he singing to me? ‘The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.’ And he sang it as if disappointed, but as if there were time. We can’t know each other’s lives, but it was a beautiful sentiment. I went back out into the sun, elated, as if spared. Interesting. The wind took us up. We could have dissolved at that point with the waves breaking over us. Never complete, never finished.

And now, on another now. I leave the menu screen on flickering for hours, with the droning sound of the helicopter over fiery palms sweeping across my life, before I can bring myself to hit ‘play film’ again. 

-Alan Augustine

Los Angeles, 2020

[deathbyvalentine]

Prompts

Losers but girls

They all loved each other, in a hundred ways, in a hundred combinations.

Beverly loved Billie. She loved the dark sweep of her hair, her lanky height, the way her mouth tilted when she was thinking of what to say. She never spoke without thinking. She was cautious with her words in a way nobody else was - she knew what they cost after all. She had to work for them. She couldn’t waste them. In a world filled with noise, Billie only added to it when she had to.

Beverly loved Michele. She loved how kind her hands were even though they were hardened from the farm. She loved how gentle she was with animals and any other wounded thing she came across. She loved how she loved her father, with the reciprocal radiance of the moon. She loved how she sounded when she laughed, hard enough to startle birds. She loved how she understood the language of soil and flowers.

Beverly loved Rach. She loved how she pushed those thick glasses up with the pad of her finger. She loved how she swore in a very unladylike manner and knew more about sex than the rest of them put together. She loved how she wouldn’t let anyone talk down to her, not Henry, not some teacher. She loved how she looked at Edie, in a way that let Beverly know they were the same. They both loved girls.

Beverly loved Edie. She loved her outrage, always ready to rise to the surface at the barest sign of injustice. She loved how she could nurse a wound, her own or someone else’s. She loved the steel she could see in the other girl’s backbone, how she could run when she really wanted to, could cycle faster than the rest of them. She loved how she smoothed creases from her skirts and maps in the exact same way.

Beverly loved Sal. She loved how she could imitate bird calls, all whistles and hoots. She loved the curl of her hair that became wild at the slightest drizzle. She loved how she always cleaned her nails after playing in the Barrens, how she always knew how to get a stain out. She loved how carefully ordered she was, how she thought in straight lines and train tracks. 

Beverly loved Belle. She loved the softness of her face, the way she looked at all of them. She loved how she shared everything she had, from candy to books to the few dollars she could scrounge. She loved that she handed over a shirt without once thinking about herself. She loved how she could build imaginary palaces and then make them real, for all of them. She loved deep in her heart, where she could not even see it, her poetry.

Being with them made her love herself. She loved being kissed by fire. She loved that she was brave and she was tough and she was a wicked shot with a slingshot. She loved that she was exactly the person she needed to be to gain the love of the other girls. She loved that her body was good for all sorts of things, climbing and running and fighting monsters. She was strong. They all were. 

But stronger together.

________________________________________________________________

You are the only person in the world

My world ended twice. First, when every single person on earth vanished apart from me and you. Second, when you vanished, months later. In my head, I still live in the golden time between the two. When the streets were empty and we ruled the world, when every evening seemed to be drenched in molten gold sunlight, when we slept on silk sheets and eat like kings. We swam naked in oceans and rivers, touched forbidden exhibits in galleries and walked until our feet ached.

We mourned too of course. For all that we had lost and were still losing. We missed family, friends, ex lovers and ex teachers, everyone we had ever known disappeared into thin air. But we had each other. In an otherwise empty world, that’s not nothing. We could still have a conversation, could still look at another face, could still feel another body against our own. Bodies just want to be touched. I know that now. I know that because I’m alone.

I don’t know if you were disappeared too or if you just woke up in the morning and decided to leave. At times, I wonder if you were even here at all or if my mind was so desperate for you it conjured a ghost. But then I’d notice one of your socks, discarded or where you wrote on the mirror in lipstick and I wouldn’t have done that. My mind hasn’t got that sort of attention to detail.

The emptiness seems to press in on me now. I go to sleep and I miss the sound of cars. My own steps seem impossibly loud in the streets. I see the animals starting to encroach back into the city, lured by the silence and the promise of discarded food and I want to stroke them. I went and broke down every door in the apartment building (and frankly, many others too) with you early on, releasing cats and dogs. I am now insanely grateful that some stayed. I press my cheek to their fur and wonder if they miss their owners too. 

I looked for you, for a while. I think I knew you were gone but I had to look. I went to our old haunts and you were not there. Nothing had moved from when we had been here together. There was no note, no clue. There was only me and my breath and eventually, my tears.

I am not going to die. I know that it seems the logical thing. How can a human endure complete isolation? The thing is, I can. I wake up in the morning and miss you but it does not crush me. I eat. I walk. I go to the pier and look at the shipless sea. I still see the beauty here even if it is not yours. I choose to enjoy it. Somebody has to.

______________________________________________________________

Summer and Winter lovers

They meet on Equinoxes. They meet as lovers do. They meet as enemies do. They meet as the sea and the sky, the blood and the flesh, the rain and the earth. They are not opposites. There is too much of the other in them to be opposites. While Summer blazes with hot, Winter blazes with cold. Summer brings storms, Winter brings snow. Both have endless skies, bright stars, restless nights.

Where Summer walks, plants bloom. Flowers open themselves up to him. Where Winter steps, frost blossoms. It spreads from her bare feet over the ground, covering everything it can. Summer thinks sometimes this is Winter trying to protect the world. She can only conceive of protecting by preserving. Her embrace is cold and eternal. It is also safe, in a way. What’s safer than death, safer than sleep?

Summer only knew how to love by change. He was explosions, he was potential reached, he was a hundred endings happening all at once. He got bored, he admittedly freely. To hold his attention you either changed with him or were left behind. Winter was the only constant he had ever had. He had no room for another. Even the stars above him shifted with time. Even the sun moved.

To see them together was a tragic and glorious thing. Her white hair and his black skin. Her black eyes and his blue. The way she shimmered and the way he shone. They press their hands together and both of them flinch. They kiss and the world flinches for them. His arms wrap around her, she rests against his chest. 

Both of them are burnt.

________________________________________________________________

Pan and Troy

He crouched in the dirt as he watched the mighty walls tumble under a blazing sun. He shaded his eyes and looked on as the flames began to consume the palaces, the slums, the streets. Another city he had outlasted. He felt nothing for it, a hollowness throbbing instead of sorrow. He straightened up and dispassionately pulled an arrow from his shoulder, feeling the blood instantly start flowing. It would heal quickly, leaving nothing but a white line on brown skin. He had scars but not wounds. Another of Apollo’s gifts for him.

The Greeks were crowing with their victory and he would join them in a moment. Something itched at his brain, preventing him. He walked with sandalled feet through the battlefield. The ground was sticky with blood. It had been soaked in it after all, for over ten years. The soil might always be red here. He would come back in a century or so and check, if he remembered. Which he wouldn’t. A gift from Dionysus. 

It was Atlockus he recognised first. A spear through his thigh, his body twisted as if he had been trying to pull it out. It was not just Trojans who had suffered causalities, it just so happened that one of theirs had been their city. Greeks had died too. All in the name of love. He spat on the ground at the very thought. If this is what love did, him and his Boys would have no part of it. Kalis next. The girl dressed as a boy who was a boy. His throat had been punctured by a sword, from the looks of it. Dimitrius. Two arrows embedded in him. Hex. Stabbed through the eye. The list went on. His boys. Not one of them over eighteen. 

Peter was not much surprised he was still alive. Battle was no more able to kill him than age could. What he was forged in could not be used against him. But still, he felt a part of him ache and it was not his shoulder. He looked back to the walls, the crumbling stone, the uncaring sun already working on turning them to dust.

He was old in that moment. He had outlived a city. He shook his head as if chasing away flies and his youth returned to him. Crowing, he ran to join the steady stream of Greeks walking from the city, arms laden with treasure.

[cinnamaldeide]

Fannibal Appreciation Day #FannibalFicRecs: Supernatural Elements Edition

After the success of this post for @hannibalficwriters and because there’s never enough fic rec posts, I decided to provide another list of stories I personally recommend, this time around focusing my attention on stories which contains supernatural elements. I know anyone can see my bookmarks whenever they want and I know it’s been a while since the last time I did something like this, but the Fannibal Appreciation Day seemed a perfect occasion to remember everybody how much of a beautiful, creative group of writers we are. This is a day to show our love, to send some good vibes, to share our appreciation to those who make this fandom a better place, who dedicate their time to have a good time and improve my own, along with that of many, many other fannibals like me :) This is my humble offering to your talent and to your presence, you gave me something I wouldn’t find anywhere else in the world.

Altered perceptions » Colourless by @mazephoenix

Summary: Since Hannibal vanished Will has lost his ability to see color.

Mature

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter

This brief post-WoTL story portrays the intense ache Will would experience, were he to lose Hannibal after their experience with the Red Dragon. Will could come back home, to his house, to his dogs, eventually to his work, but the world would never be the same. Not without that unique soul that depicted every else in his life in bright light.

Biological Abnormalities » Nature and Nurture (ongoing serie) by @thenecronon

Summary: In which Will’s empathy is more than a quirk of his biology, and his biology is more than human.

Explicit

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter, Franklyn Froideveaux, Donald Sutcliffe

I learned to love this writer with this amazing, fucked up story, and here I am, coming back at it full force to recommend anyone with a stomach for oviposition to read it and its sequel. Neither Will nor Hannibal know what happens in Will’s body, which regularly sends Will into heat and produces unidentified substances, they just know they’ll see where their close encounter will lead.

Cursed objects » The Feast is Life by @rubybakeneko

Summary: Following an impulsive purchase, Will begins to dream of a man who makes him feel less alone. In time, he realizes that these aren’t just dreams—they’re interactions with someone (or something) real. Hannibal offers Will the possibility of a life together, but it will come at a price.

Explicit

No Archive Warnings Apply

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter, Alana Bloom, Abigail Hobbs, Will Graham’s Dogs

Will knows loneliness intimately, it has been with him all his life. Presented with the chance to depart from its vicious grip, Will doesn’t realize his desire for companionship is so strong as to make him a vulnerable target for manipulative individuals like Hannibal. He’ll learn that trusting someone that makes you feel right might eventually make you realise how wicked you’ve been all along. 

Devil » Unveiled by @beatricenius

Summary: Hannibal meets a stranger in a bar who claims to be the devil. He just might believe it.

Explicit

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter

This delightful story features two non-human creatures exploring intimacy in their human bodies and feelings. The author pictures with clarity the way they study the way the other handles his drink, their lazy chat around something more than a simple rendezvous in an insignificant bar, their dismissive gesture to show it’s not important if, by the end of the night, there’ll be sex at all.

Dragons » Headwaters by @whreflections

Summary: Years ago, Mischa Lecter fled the Nazis with the rest of her family, leaving behind their home, Castle Lecter, and the lesser god that inhabited it- Hannibal, a dark but immensely loyal creature who had served their family for generations. He adored her, more than all the others, and would have kept her with him forever. Instead, he lost her, and has admitted no one to the house since. After his grandmother's death, though, Will Graham doesn't really have anywhere to call home. With all the stories she told him about growing up in Castle Lecter (and about Hannibal, most of all), he can't pass up the chance that he just might belong somewhere after all.

Teen and Up Audience

Graphic Depictions Of Violence 

Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham, Mischa Lecter

I already promoted this beautiful work, but I’ll repeat myself if necessary. This delicate story portrays Hannibal and his painful ties with the Lecter castle he can’t abandon. His loyalty compels him to remain in its domain, where Will is going to find him, so that he’ll be able to put an end to their solitude. Mischa couldn’t remain with him forever, but maybe he’ll not be lonely anymore.

Faeries » My crown on the head of a creature (ongoing) by Mx_Carter

Summary: The faery that calls itself Hannibal Lecter happens across a homeless Will Graham on a cold evening and offers him a bed for the night. Things... escalate.

Mature

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter

In this beautiful, promissing Universe, supernatural elements and suspance mingle in a captivating combination. Will is wary of accepting Hannibal’s ospitality, despite the cold winder freezing his bones. He just doens’t suspect Hannibal’s true nature, which Will knows intimately. If he learned something from his previous experience with faes, it’s that they cannot be trusted.

Familiars » Dodging the dog by @fhimechan

Summary: AU where Will and Hannibal try to kill each other by proxy, but “proxy” means “deadly animals.”

General Audience

No Archive Warnings Apply

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham’s Dogs, Beverly Katz

This certainly isn’t the classic way to murder, for either of our beloved murderers, but I can grant you it would have been a much funnier show if Will started trying to murder Hannibal through unconventional means, like he does in this story. The animals aren’t actual familiars, but their role is quite similiar. Will’s reckoning has never been furrier.

Ghosts » Let us pray that hell may not separate us by @soyonscruels

Summary: “Pure empathy,” says Hannibal Lecter, and it will be some time before he realises his mistake. “Pure empathy,” lies Will Graham, in careful agreement, and knows that it’s only a matter of time before he’s found out. “That must be quite a burden to bear,” says Hannibal, and Will meets his eyes, sips his tea, and knows, for once in his life, that he is not the only liar in the room.

Explicit

Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter, Abigail Hobbs, Freddie Lounds, Beverly Katz, Jack Crawford

This delicate rendition of Will’s surreal existence, made up of lies and isolation, shows his deep, twisted desire to stop hiding himself. He’s always been the way he is, able to see without withdrawing, he just needs to find someone to understand him as clearly. Will’s life has been a ghost story, with himself as protagonist, until Hannibal came around.

Kitsunes » Breath and Blood and Burning by @thesilverqueenlady

Summary: It’s true that originally Hannibal had had no intention of interacting with Will Graham besides toying with him for the small pleasure it would bring him before Hannibal moves on to the next skin, the next name, the next tail. And then Will stomps away shouting about field kabuki, and, really, that was too great an opportunity for Hannibal to pass up. So Hannibal does the reasonable thing and starts the arduous process of turning Will into a fellow kitsune.

Teen and Up Audience

No Archive Warnings Apply

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter

Will’s becoming has always been matter of great interest. Hannibal has tried to show him his great potential with his means. In this story, Hannibal sees in Will the potential to become a secular creature capable of surviving time and changes, if only Will abandons his human nature. Hannibal is eager to bend it, to gain a worthy companion.

Mutants » Lot 166 by @highermagic

Summary:  Mutant trade is a legal activity. Hannibal has never been inclined to buy one for himself, but then Jack asks him to attend a Verger auction to acquire a special asset for the FBI. What he gets is Will, one of Mason’s “Special Projects.” Whether Will can be useful to the FBI remains to be seen, but now Hannibal legally owns a mutant slave, and things promise to get very... messy.

Explicit

Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Jack Crawford, Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham, Margot Verger, Mason Verger, Alana Bloom, Beverly Katz, Jimmy Price, Brian Zeller, Eva, Bedelia Du Maurier, Anthony Dimmond, Doctor Sutcliffe, Francis Dolarhyde, Dr. Cordell Doemling

Hannibal cannot resist his curiosity, when he’s presented with a mysterious individual with no warnings on his label. Hannibal doesn’t know exactly in what’s he’s getting involved, but unraveling Will’s abilities is not as immediate as it would be with other mutants and Hannibal is nothing if not patient, especially if Will proves himself as interesting as he seems.

Powers » To Welcome in the Year by @coloredink

Summary: Dr. Hannibal Lecter can control time in small, localized ways, but he no longer uses it in surgery; Will Graham can repair small objects, but he works for the FBI. It has been winter for as long as anyone can remember. That's how the story begins.

Teen And Up Audiences

No Archive Warnings Apply

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter, Abigail Hobbs

In this beautiful retelling of the first two seasons, where the use one has for his own ability is more telling than the ability itself, Hannibal is surprised that Will never considered not to use his gift, wasting what good would be lost. A metaphorical scenario where forgiveness comes with the weight of a physical touch and the cold engulfing them both is not merely a figure of speech.

Serendipity » Astronomical Odds by @xzombiexkittenx

Summary: Based on the joke: Picked up a hitchhiker last night. He said, “Thanks! how do you know I’m not a serial killer though?” I replied, “The chances of two serial killers being in the same car are astronomical.”

Mature

No Archive Warnings Apply

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter

Considering the little chances of such a meeting ever occurring, I deliberately decided that fate has something to do with this fortunate encounter. How else would Will find Hannibal so interesting so soon? Will has never been a fortunate man in his life, if one watches the serie, but in this story he might have the chance to obtain some happines without compromissing his already dark moral.

Time rewind » At First Meeting by @emungere

Summary: Will relives the day he met Hannibal.

Teen And Up Audiences

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter

Despite the pain, the suffering and the anger that paved Will and Hannibal’s friendship, which Hannibal embraced and fostered much sooner than Will did, there’s not a different world or reality as fulfilling as that where Will ends up in Hannibal’s arms, bloody and victorious. No matter how many opportunities Will had at his disposal. He couldn’t be satisfied with anything less than his version. 

Transformations » Velvet by @avegetariancannibal

Summary: After the fall, a transformation takes place.

Not Rated

No Archive Warnings Apply

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter

Assisting Hannibal in his time of need, bloody and bedridden, Will realizes their survival is real, as are the changings happening to themy. Some manifest themselves more physically cumbersome than others. Will needs more pillows than he expected in his new existence, but it’s ok. Neither Hannibal nor himself are to experience alone whatever the future holds for the both of them.

Vampires » Mythics - Prelude by @bokuno-jinsei

Summary: Will is a hunter of mythical creatures, employed to bring mythics who fail to adhere to the new laws and order of society in to justice. When a falsified contract leads him to Hannibal’s doorstep, however, things become rather complicated. But honestly, when it’s a world of demons and monsters and magic, when are things not complicated?

Mature

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter, Abigail Hobbs, Alana Bloom, Jack Crawford

In a darkish steampunk scenario, where Hannibal is a vampire and Will hunts those of his kind, where mythical creature and humans are still to find their balance in a civil society, chaos seems to engulf everyone in its thick fog of confusion. This writer beautifully captures Will’s attempts at navigating his way between subtle lies and unstable suppositions.

Werewolves » Beasts (ongoing) by @aametis

Summary: Hannibal tells a lie about his sex life and has to live with the consequences. Will doesn’t lie but he doesn’t tell the truth either.

Explicit

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter, Original Male Character

Trusting Hannibal even outside of his psychiatric office, Will decides to show hims something incredible, something rather personal and disturbing to witness. To his luck, Hannibal hardly shies away from what he doesn’t understand. His ability to observe with interest, without judging Will for his choices, is probably everything Will has ever wanted from another human being.

Wishbabies » With a Crown of Stars by @thehoyden

Summary: When the call connects, Will says, “I know what kind of crazy I am, but I’m not this kind of crazy.” “Will?” Dr. Lecter says. “Yes, hi, sorry,” Will says. “It’s me. There’s a baby on my porch.”

Explicit

No Archive Warnings Apply

Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter, Abigail Hobbs, Jack Crawford, Alana Bloom, Beverly Katz, Freddie Lounds, Abel Gideon

When two people want to make a baby and it's not happening biologically, if they wish very, very hard-- well, Will and Hannibal didn’t know, but apparently they wanted one, so here they are and Hannibal suddenly feel like treating that encephalitis. There are in fact means of influence other than violence, family is a concept the both of them need to explore together.

Witches » A Soft Hoodwink of Shadows (serie) by @zigzag-wanderer

Summary: Something a little creepy...

Mature

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Will Graham, Will Graham’s Dogs, Hannibal Lecter, Abigail Hobbs, Jack Crawford, Original Female Character(s)

The real magic elements in this work are the wonderful descriptions of this impressive, poetic author, whom conjures entire landscapes of green and grim, of silence and mist, the kind where one gets lost and is never to be found again. Will escapes with his daughter somewhere far away, somewhere where strange is normal, but he discovers something stranger waits for him right next door.

This is kind of personal, I included writers with whom I daily interacted, whose beautiful souls I saw, among those who have been in this fandom from the beginning and never left it. I’m just sorry I mostly read Hannigraham and I don’t have more names to offer.

I cannot thank enough all those rebloggers who allowed my followers to know I existed, like @h4nnibalism or @crisisoninfintefandoms, all those gifted authors who help @fhimechan and me with the Accidental Sex initiative, all those artists and groups that provide new material despite our interrupted situation, all those patient readers who comment and like my own works, as well as those considerate souls that actually rec my stories or calling me out on their Fanfiction Writers Appreciation Day, like @hannibalsimago and @littlethingwithfeathers, so that I feel appreciated in turn.

As @the-winnowing-wind said, this is a beautiful day to flail about our incredible fandom. To whomever still has to come, You’re welcome. To whomever is still here after all this time, Thank you. You made so many of my days.

[ayearofpike]

Remember Me 3: The Last Story

Pocket Books, 1995 244 pages, 20 chapters + epilogue ISBN 0-671-87267-2 LOC: PZ7.P626 Rg 1995 OCLC: 31863011 Released February 1, 1995 (per B&N)

In her second go at life, Shari Cooper has become a best-selling young adult author, and her success is confusing her mission to help make things better. They're about to start shooting the movie of her first novel, and as involved as she is in picking the actors she starts to get too involved with her male lead. This starts to drive a wedge between Shari and her life/afterlife partner, who wants her to listen to the words of a wise teacher and how they might resonate with the teacher they had between lives. By the time she finally starts to listen, will it be too late?

Huh, my blurb makes this book seem readable. In real life, it's more of a patchwork crazy quilt of ideas (and whole scenes!) we've already seen, which doesn't take long to get frustrating. This is even worse in retrospect, with the knowledge that Pike never really wanted to write this book and mostly did it out of obligation to his publisher. It's pretty slapdash and sort of lazy, and even where it wants to be deep it's more like stomping in the kiddie pool than diving in (certainly compared to these other stories he's already done).

Remember my white-savior complaint about Remember Me 2? It's back here, and worse because Shari, in the beginning, seems to have totally abandoned her mission to help. Like ... a year of learning from a master in the afterlife, and your strategy for bettering Jean's home culture and community is to write teen thriller novels? And also to adopt as your pen name "Shari Cooper," the most saltine cracker of names, thus totally obscuring your assumed ethnicity when a best-seller by a visible Latina could raise the water level for all of us? When we start, she’s signing her most recent book, the story about herself that she ghost-wrote inside her brother Jimmy's body, which she submitted (against his wishes) because she "needed another best-seller." Again, this is printed under her pen name. Which is SHARI COOPER. Do you really not foresee any problem with this?

Let's be real: there is nothing here that is remotely in service of leveling the playing field or raising up the inner-city Latinx community that Jean Rodrigues came from. In fact, Shari has totally distanced herself from being Jean, aside from using the name when it's convenient. She barely mentions Jean's mother, she doesn’t even think about her siblings at home, she briefly talks about her old friend Carol who is sick in the hospital, and don't even get me started on how Lenny is not Lenny even a little bit anymore, but now totally Peter. He even goes by Peter now; I think they only identify him as Lenny once, again for convenience's sake. (To his credit, Peter appears to have taken on the service bit of his return to a body much more readily: he coaches disabled baseball teams, and later invites one of his homeless blind players to live with them.)

Shari pisses me off so much that I almost quit reading this book twice. But I'd be annoyed with myself if this blog was "reading all of Pike's books except one," so I finished it. Still, I'm going to skip ahead on the summary and probably leave a lot of things out.

The movie they're making is a sinking-boat thriller, where a nerdy kid invites seven bullies out on a pleasure cruise and then sinks it in shark-infested waters, leaving only one lifeboat. The star they've got lined up is a drug addict, but the producer has found someone else who knows all Shari's work and blew him away on a chance audition, so even though they're going to start shooting in just a few days he wants to switch actors. And sure enough, this guy makes Shari feel like he belongs in the role, even though he's cocky enough to suggest script changes before he has it and to kiss her during the reading. Or maybe it's because of that last part. She's very confused.

So Shari gets in a fight with her nerd villain actor not long after, and this dude both stands up for her and takes her away, out for a romantic dinner. Did I mention that Shari lives with a dude that she's been in love with across TWO lifespans? But she still goes with this guy, and he kisses her again, but she does have the good grace to back away and go inside, where Peter tells her all about a meeting she missed with a yogi who teaches meditation for unity.

They fall asleep, and Shari wakes up outside her body, feeling just like she did in the first book when she died only she knows she's not dead yet. She jumps into Peter's dreams, where the yogi is hanging out, and they talk about their feelings and their actions and Shari's headaches, which she still gets, naturally, because Jean fell on her head off a balcony. Then Shari suddenly appears in her brother's bedroom, where he's naked in bed with her best friend. Not Carol — the half-sister from her previous life. It doesn't matter, because even this friend isn't that important in this story. Shari's suddenly whisked to her mom's bedside — but not her birth mom, her switched-at-birth mom, her brother's mom, her murderer's mom — who is crying herself to sleep next to a copy of Remember Me by Shari Cooper. (This doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. Wasn’t this the lady who suddenly jumped to Amanda’s side and hired her a lawyer when she realized she was her birth child? Maybe I'm making this more confusing than it needs to be, but after all, Pike put all the strings into this crazy quilt. I'm just unraveling them.)

Then she hops to the fancy hotel room where her star is sleeping, and she jumps into his dream and sees a creepy space battle where purple ships are blowing up white ones. What does it mean? Shari isn't sure, but she wakes up (confusing her dreams and jumbling them together) and is inspired to start a new story: “The Starlight Crystal,” about a fleet of white ships returning to Earth after centuries of travel, having found golden enlightenment and been told to bring it home, only to be driven away by a vicious attack from a fleet of purple ships. As far as I can tell, this Starlight Crystal has nothing in common with the computer game from See You Later except the name and the fact that there is interstellar travel, and likewise with the novel that'll show up later.

(And let me just take a second to be annoyed that she remembered the dream sequence enough to write it all down for THIS fuckin’ book but acts like it was slipping away from her as she’s writing “The Starlight Crystal.” Like Pike forgot how to acknowledge the present-tense narrator describing the past between the first book and now. It really doesn’t hold up by comparison.)

In the morning, Shari goes to the set they’re constructing for the exterior boat scenes. They’re excavating a pit somewhere in the desert, which they’re going to fill with water and surround with matte paintings of the Caribbean and deposit their rental sharks. Yeah, rental sharks, four of them, and apparently it’s OK to just stick them in a dredged hole with trucked-in pumped water without raising any eyebrows. The new star shows up and asks to take her to lunch, which, sure, he’s supposed to be rehearsing a movie and she’s supposed to be finalizing the script and also she’s WITH SOMEONE, but they can go have a two-hour lunch in a fancy restaurant in Beverly Hills. He tells her that he’s read all her books, including Magic Fire, a shoutout to a Pike novel that hasn’t come out yet. While they’re flirting, he reads her palm and is taken aback by the break in the lifeline that indicates she should have died three years ago. He also calls her both Jean and Shari, which ... fuckin’ sloppy, Pike.

I didn’t mention that Lenny’s body is impotent, right? He’s paralyzed from the waist down, and so Peter can’t get up to much in the bedroom. Plus he couldn’t help fucking around with the chest-burster alien thing in the afterlife when all Shari wanted was to get laid after the prom in their imaginations. Like the one thing she’s constantly wanted is to have sex with Peter, and all she has are memories of the premature ejaculator of her Shari life and of Jean getting pregnant. She’s been celibate for four years, even while she’s been with the one dude she constantly dreamed about. So I get why she’s horny for New Star, even if I still reserve the right to be a little judgemental. It isn’t helping Shari that he has some kind of undefineable it-factor that at least she’s learned to attune to in her afterlife training.

But now Shari wants to know just who this dude is and why he has these compelling effects on her. So naturally she decides to hire a private detective. Specifically, she goes to the detective that solved her murder. She’s pretty vague about why she wants New Star checked out, which makes the detective uneasy, but when she offers to double his rate he takes the case. Then they all go to the yogi’s lecture. Well, not the detective, but New Star tags along with Shari and Peter and her brother, and he’s pretty much a total asshole while the yogi is explaining how to share and communicate and love and help and find unity. Also, the lecture starts and ends with unguided meditation, and Shari finds that her headache is gone without drugs for the first time in months. Basically, it’s the same scene from Sati, except Peter and Shari and New Star don’t let anyone else talk.

She wakes up again in the middle of the night to write, this time adding a description of the pursuit by the purple ship and attempted escape of the white ship. She stops when she runs out of words, and finds that she has startled awake the blind baseball player sleeping on her couch. He tells her all about what a great guy Peter is and how he hopes that Peter’s spine will heal someday so he can walk with her on the beach like he’s always wanted. Shari never knew this was something Peter wanted to do, because she’s a self-centered asshole.

The movie starts shooting early the next day, and Shari and her producer have to immediately fire one of the actors because she can’t handle being in water over her knees. This is a movie about a SINKING BOAT and nobody thought to make sure the actors could deal with water. New Star has a ballsy solution: have Shari play the role. She’s not an actor! The villain points this out! She flubs half the takes! But it’s a low-budget picture, apparently, despite being based on a New York Times best-seller, so they have to go with it.

Afterwards he takes her out to dinner again, while Peter’s at the yogi’s meditation class. Then they go back to her place so he can give her a full-body massage. Then they get naked and make out. (Shades of Chain Letter 2!)  But before his ... uh ... purple spaceship can enter the wormhole to hyperspace, the blind baseball player comes home and walks in on them. He’s blind, so he assumes he’s caught Shari with Peter, and he’s contrite and apologetic and hides in the bathroom. So Shari sneaks New Star out of her house and then asks if the kid wants to go to Disneyland so he doesn’t hear when Peter actually comes in. After nine at night. Yeah, nothing weird about that. But he’s a kid, so he’s excited, and when they get home he asks Peter why he didn’t get out of bed and go with them if he’s awake now. So Shari confesses, and Peter cries, and Shari leaves.

She goes to the same hotel where New Star is staying, but doesn’t seek him out. I guess that’s one good thing I can give Shari: given enough guilt, she won’t immediately go climb on some dude’s jock. Instead, she writes more, about how the white ship jumps through hyperspace but the purple ship follows, and their ship is crippled from the pursuit so all they can do is send the crew off on the emergency escape pods and hope for the best while the captain and first mate hang behind to be boarded by the purple invaders and hopefully set off one last bomb and ruin the attackers’ plans.

During a break in shooting the next day, Shari goes to the detective, who has turned up some information on New Star. Specifically, he is a creep and an abuser who has beaten up his last two co-stars but because they didn’t press charges he’s walked. Shari doesn’t want to believe it, and the detective quickly susses out that she’s got more involvement with New Star than just being his boss. You came to a detective with good instincts, you idiot, what did you expect? At the end of the day, she calls Peter and apologizes again and says that there’s something she has to face, but that she loves him and hopes he’ll forgive her. And then in the middle of the night, her phone rings and it’s the movie’s villain, saying that someone is planning to feed someone to the sharks during the next day’s shoot and that she needs to meet him on the set to talk about it.

So who does Shari call to help her out with this situation, given what she just learned about New Star from the detective that day? That’s right — she’s a stupid idiot! They drive out to the set and find the villain waiting for them with a gun in his hand. He says that a real murderer’s only motivation is wanting to kill, and now he wants to kill. But first they’re going to rehearse. Shari and New Star must each paddle a lifeboat across the shark pond and back, and if they can both make it and come back and neither one bolts, they’ll both live. So Shari gets in the boat, which feels like it’s leaking, and quickly (through/around the panic) does her lap. But New Star refuses, and instead throws the villain to the sharks directly. Uh, no shit.

So the police come, and after hours in the clink Shari finally thinks to call the producer, who comes and gets her out immediately. She goes back to the hotel and sleeps for a whole day, dreaming about a golden being floating to Earth and living a life and dying and being reincarnated, each time hoping to impart a little more knowledge and love into humanity. When she wakes up, she remembers that Peter had wanted her to see the yogi one last time, but by the time she gets there he’s already left for the airport. She and Peter reconcile, but on the way home she gets a call from the detective, who must talk urgently. They pick him up, and he directs them to a certain address. A certain condo near the beach, where on the ground outside there’s a faint bloodstain that has never washed out.

It seems that the detective has read Remember Me by Shari Cooper. Also, he’s a GODDAMN DETECTIVE who was ON THE CASE it was about. Also, his daughter read it, the only one who would actually remember an angel and a devil showing up to scare her straight. He’s pretty freaked out at how this Latina from the barrio could possibly know what happened with saltine-cracker Shari in Huntington Beach, but she’s able to calm him down without actually answering his questions. I guess we have to accept that there are more than just knowable facts in this story, because the detective does and remembers that he’s called Shari because he learned some gruesome details about New Star. Which, so has Shari, first-hand. And they’re about to get some more, because New Star is at the door with a gun.

He pushes the detective off the balcony, I guess because nobody had gone off a balcony in this book yet. Then they drive to Shari’s grave, which he’s already dug up and is going to bury her alive with her old body. He throws her in the hole, and as she tries to climb out he nails her in the head with the shovel right where her headaches start. Like he knew. It seems that New Star is from the other side too, but his mission is to thwart the drive toward peace and unity. You know that dream he was having, the one that inspired Shari’s story? It’s all true, three hundred thousand years in the past, and Roger is one of the purple-ship aliens in a human body. And their grand mission is to ... kill a YA thriller writer because she’s getting too close to home. I don’t know why she has to be buried with her previous body, other than it happened in “Collect Call.”

So Shari looks to Peter for enlightenment and love to be the last thing she sees as she’s buried alive. Only he’s not in his wheelchair. The pain of his love being buried has magically healed his spine, and now he’s behind New Star with the shovel. Obviously they kill him, and then whisk Shari to a hospital, where she knows her brain only has limited time left but wants to get out to finish her story. Which she does: the captain blows up her ship and the aliens’, but only after remembering a fable her grandmother used to tell about a dragon stealing a heart and then being tormented to kill itself because the heart retained the love and desires of its body and wouldn’t stop beating. I don’t know, this seems like a pretty shitty story to kill someone over.

But then she realizes she has to apologize to someone. No, not Peter; that’s done and he’s still walking. No, not Carol, still sick in the hospital as far as we know — why would we be concerned with a bisexual Latina drug addict just because she’s Jean’s best friend and Jean’s body is dying? It’s her mom. NO, not her birth mom. NO, not her Latina mom. Switched-at-Birth Mom. Jimmy’s mom. The one who raised her. Which, OK, that counts for something. But anyway, she drives to her house and tells her that the story is true and that she can’t say why. Then she’s obviously in pain, so Switched-at-Birth Mom invites her to lie down in ... Shari’s bed. Where she dies.

The epilogue is literally Peter handing Jimmy the floppy disk that this story is written on and Jimmy finishing it. Which is maybe why the last little bit is about his mommy. But then again, Shari forced his body to write the first one, so maybe she guided him here too.

This shit is a hot mess, you guys. Let’s leave aside the fact that Pike didn’t really want to write it, and let’s leave aside the fact that all these pieces BARELY line up to form a coherent story, and let’s leave aside how the problems mentioned in the second book TOTALLY WENT AWAY for this one. Let’s even jump over how my Latino heart was stepped on and kicked aside along with the roots of these characters for the ENTIRE BOOK. Here’s the big issue: Christopher Pike wrote a story about an angel (I guess) returning to human form, with a mission to make humanity better ... and the BEST THING he could come up with, the DEEPEST POSSIBLE SOLUTION to our woes that crossed his sexy lizard brain, was that she needed to be a best-selling YA thriller author. Talk about an inflated sense of self-importance.

And with that, I am finally done with Remember Me 3: The Last Story. Which I am not ashamed to admit that I did NOT remember. Hopefully I will remember to NOT read it again.

[snapsnapmyturtleback-blog]

Headcannons for the Group Therapy fic thing cuz it was requested like twice that I continue this so. I might do a fic later, no promises.

This also includes stuff already mentioned in the fic ‘Group Therapy’ which I wrote :D

I know someone else made some headcannons that i kind of base some of these on ? but i read a lot of headcannons so i dont exactly know which are based and what theyre based on. Sorry.

-Eddie has social anxiety and is a huge germaphobe

-He and Stan bond over cleaning things and how neat things should be.

-Eddie is very nurturing and will disregard his germaphobia if it means he can comfort someone

-also very badass ??? Eddie will use all of his first aid kit for his friends and he’ll punch people in the face if they mess with them

-Eddie is the only one that Stan will touch him bc Stan knows that this kid washes his hands more than Richie makes crude jokes and he basically bathes in hand sanitizer so he’s the cleanest

-Eddie is so good at handling emotional episodes and panic attacks that the others go through ?

-Like he’s internally freaking tf out but in the outside he’s so cool and collected that it’s hard to feel threatened around him

-has like friend crushes on everyone ? Like he only wants to date Richie but he loves he others so much that he hates being apart from them

-Stan has OCD and is obsessed with the number three.

-He prefers Stan over Stanley because Stan Uris is three syllables.

-Everything in his room is sorted in three; pants, shorts, and underwear. Polos, button ups, and t shirts. Etc.

-Everything he does is in sets of three and he’s constantly bullied bc of the panic attacks he’ll get during class or when he helps the teacher clean up and ends up sort everything in the classroom into threes.

-Stan’s dad took him birdwatching in an attempt to get Stan out of the house but at the same time keep him in a calm environment and he loved it so much so now they regularly go birdwatching for exactly three hours

-Stan goes to school two hours early so he can arrive at six and he is allowed to leave three minutes before everyone else so he doesn’t have to come in contact with people

-for the first week of school, they forced Stan to try and be like everyone else and it didn’t work ??

-like he doesn’t know what they expected but he couldn’t do anything bc if he wasn’t having a panic attack, he was compulsively tapping his desk or the wall in threes in an attempt to calm himself down

-Stan wakes up at five thirty am every morning

-he goes to bed at nine pm

-it’s like fucking clockwork and if he’s even a minute off, he’ll be hella upset and no one wants to see Stan upset

-Mike has insomnia and stays awake for days on end.

-He survives purely on coffee from the coffee shop located down the street from the school where the rest of the losers go to

-he’s really good at hiding the bags under his eyes by keeping his head tilted forward so the bags look like shadows and no one looks close enough to tell the difference.

-if it gets bad, he uses make up to cover up the bags under his eyes

-he loves talking to people so much ? Especially kids his age bc he isn’t really exposed to anything back at the farm

-he was actually the only one who was really excited to do the group activity

-Bev and Richie were okay with it bc they knew they’d see each other but Mike was excited !!

-new people to meet and talk to ??? Hell yes !

-he and Ben hang out pretty regularly at the library to find history books and discuss them

-they’ve gotten into some pretty awesome debates that would end abruptly bc they’d get really heated and the two boys would start laughing bc they can’t take each other seriously

-Mike likes to draw and he does it mostly when he can’t sleep

-One time Richie had spilled some water on a picture that Mike was drawing and Mike didn’t talk to Richie for a week and a half

-Ben had to convince him that Richie didn’t mean it and that Richie was probably sorry

-of course Eddie made Richie apologize

-it wasn’t very sincere bc Richie + an apology is just a mess

-but Mike accepted it and forgave him nonetheless

-Bill has mild depression and can see and hear a clown (Pennywise) talk about his brother

-no one else can see this thing so Bill feels like he’s tripping balls 90% of the time

-he can see Georgie too which is why he’s so adamant about finding him alive bc he can’t be seeing Georgie’s dead ghost ?? That’s not allowed ??

-Bills stutter had gotten so much worse after Georgie’s disappearance and at this point he just doesn’t talk in public

-Bev steals money from her father for cigs and weed that she buys from Richie because he charges her a lot less then most of the dealers she’s encountered

-she has like three outfits that she wears but that’s it. Don’t even try to buy her clothes bc she just won’t accept it.

-she smokes her sadness and fear away. That’s how she copes and it’s really not a good habit but she doesn’t really care

-Beverly and Richie smoke up on the rooftops during gym class and sometimes whenever Richie needs a break during whatever class bc the boy gets very overwhelmed very easily ??

-Bev is the only person who can tell when he’s getting overwhelmed and since they had every class except for Spanish and geography, she’ll always pull him aside and go for a smoke whenever he looks tense.

-Beverly is such a fucking babe ? Like she does literally nothing and she’s so pretty ? But she hates compliments with a passion.

-only Richie can compliment her without getting slapped

-I’m living for the Bev and Richie friendship tbh they’re like siblings and will die for each other.

-one time Henry Bowers was hitting on Bev and wouldn’t leave her alone and Richie fucking decked him

-Richie left with a black eye, busted lip, some cuts, and some burn marks (curtsy to Patrick) but it was fucking worth it

-Bev is like 10/10 great at making deals. Patrick and her are actually acquaintances bc Bev gives him new lighters when his run out of fuel from terrorizing people and his weed goes missing all the time so she give him some of hers so he’ll leave her alone

-Ben is so fucking soft ?? I love him so much

-he is literally the embodiment of a book, flower, and warm aesthetic

-Ben cares about people so much ? Like he will fuss about his friends eating but then he will forget (or sometimes purposely) to eat

-he’ll be so into writing poetry for someone cough Bev cough that he’ll just not do his homework or remind himself to stay hydrated

-but what’s weird is that when he reads, he’ll be brought back down. Like the self image problems and the forgetfulness temporarily go away

-he’ll be reading a history book that he borrowed from Mike and suddenly he’ll remember that he hadn’t eaten all day and he’ll ask his mom for something to snack on as he reads

-or maybe he’ll be reading a book for school and then he’ll think “shit when was the last time I had some water ?”

-And he spends most of his free time in the library reading or writing so he knows the librarian personally and uses her first name

-he even has his own little place to go with a mini fridge so he has something to eat whenever it hits him that he needs to do shit to s u r v i v e

-Richie doesn’t even want to go to therapy but it’s helping him so he just deals with it

-Eddie and Bev being there is also a plus

-Richie is broke asf so he basically makes Bev pay for his sessions in exchange for weed

-He steals the weed from Patrick and whenever the school decides to have drug dogs come, he just slips that shit right back into Patrick’s locker

-Richie really likes Eddie ?? And he sees Stan as like a little brother that’s easy to annoy

-he’s indifferent towards Ben and Mike bc like he doesn’t interact with them very much but when he does, they’re okay

-Bill is a fifty fifty. Sometimes Richie respects him bc the dudes brother is dead and here he is getting help that’s pretty fucking cool but other times it’s like shit does this kid ever take less then ten minutes to say something ?? And who tf does he think he is telling Richie what he can and cannot say

-Richie has little to no sexual experience so everything he jokes about is purely based off of what he’s read online

-the little experience that Richie does have is making out with Bev while they’re high

-Richie is always the second to arrive (Stans first, he arrives three hours early) and he’s always the last to leave with Eddie.

-he does the same with school, even if he does skip a lot

-he’s really fucking smart tho so skipping class never fucks with his grades

-he tries to stay out for as long as possible bc the boy doesn’t like staying home alone or with his drunk mom

-he has some anger issues

-he and Bev have a thing where every night they go out and break shit

-he really cares about these idiots in his group therapy

-like he could get extremely annoyed with them sometimes but he will fight for them

-Stan was once trapped in a locker by the Bowers gang and Richie was the one who found him

-Stan was freaking out bc he was in an unsanitary locker and he was supposed to have left two hours ago

-Richie calmed him down and took him home

-now Stan allows both Richie and Eddie to touch him

-Stan is basically Reddie’s son at this point

-Richie steals everyone’s clothes all the time and he just walks into they’re house, except for Bev.

-Knocking is not a concept to this kid and it pisses everyone off

-Richie once walked in on Bev and Ben making out in Bens room. He simply smiled and said “wow the new kids on the block poster must be a real turn on for this sex fest, eh ?” and left

-Richie now has a burn mark on his collarbone from Bevs cigarette

-Richie has to take like three different medications and when they were trying to figure out the dosage, it was a rough couple of weeks

-basically these kids are all fucking messed but we love them anyways

[xxprincessjewelsxx]

I double dog dare you to answer them all.

..................................................-_-

1. selfie

(pic from earlier in the year, that’s my face, no makeup no filter.)

2. what would you name your future kids?

Um....I don’t know...

3. do you miss anyone?

My princling Dusty, this will be the first Christmas in 17 years that I will be spending without him and I miss him very much.

4. what are you looking forward to?

Hopefully a vacation this year.

5. is there anyone who can always make you smile?

My friends, pets, and followers

6. is it hard for you to get over someone?

Depends on the situation.

7. what was your life like last year?

There was a lot of shit that happened, but there were bright spots too

8. have you ever cried because you were so annoyed?

I become 10x more sarcastic than I normally am when I’m annoyed. no crying there.

9. who did you last see in person?

Outside of my fam...my besties for one of their birthdays.

10. are you good at hiding your feelings?

For the most part...which can be bad cause sometimes I hold things in for too long

11. are you listening to music right now?

No

12. what is something you want right now?

A Butterfinger

13. how do you feel right now?

Sick

14. when was the last time someone of the opposite sex hugged you?

I dunno, like a month ago

15. personality description

Smol, extra, sassy, and squishy

16. have you ever wanted to tell someone something but you didn't?

Yes and then a conversation came up where I ended up saying what I had wanted and what happened was exactly why I hadn’t said anything in the first place and I became the bad guy because I told the truth that they didn’t want to hear.

17. opinion on insecurities.

We all have them and some of us are able to embrace those insecurities, others haven’t found how they can embrace theirs. And just because you have insecurities doesn’t mean you should poke fun at other’s just to make you feel better about the one’s that you have.

18. do you miss how thing were a year ago?

Haha...no

19. have you ever been to New York?

No...but I would love to!

20. what is your favourite song at the moment?

Everyone knows my jam is ‘Me Like Yuh’ by Jay Park.

21. age and birthday?

25, 07/07/92

22. description of crush.

23. fear(s)

Spiders

24. height

5′4″

25. role model

I actually...don’t really think I one. Like I’ve never had someone who I’ve looked at and been like “that’s who I aspire to be like”....I guess maybe I just wanted to be my own person....

26. idol(s)

I could be here listing the long list of Kidols, but we’d be here all day

27. things i hate

pen clicking, animal abusers, snow....

28. i'll love you if...

You eat tacos and listen to kpop with me.

29. favourite film(s)

Da Vinci Code series, HP, LOTR, Beverly Hills Cop, The Ghost and Mrs. Meur....

30. favourite tv show(s)

Longmire, Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, The Closer, Major Crimes, Criminal Minds, Supernatural, Sherlock....

31. 3 random facts

I normally of a bucket full of random facts, but since I’m sick we are turning to Google’s “I’m Curious” for 3 random facts.

“The amount of hairs the averge person has on their head varies from one individual to another. An average person has about 100 thousand hairs on their scalp. Most redheads have about 90 thousands hairs, blonds have about 140 thousand, and brunettes fall in between these two figures.”

“On this date, March 6, 1896, Charles Brady King drove the first automobile in Detroit, several months before Henry Ford piloted his first car. The following day, the Detroit Free Press reported: "The first horseless carriage seen in this city was out on the streets last night.” 

“Cats, dogs, and many nocturnal creatures appear to have glowing eyes because the back of their eyeballs include a special reflective layer called the tapetum lucidum. This helps animals (cats in this case) see better in low light by working like a mirror on the retina to reflect the light back through the eyes, giving them a second chance to absorb the light. The colors seem more visible at night because the pupils are dilated wider than during the day, allowing more of the tapetum lucidum to be visible.”     

32. are your friends mainly girls or guys?

Girls

33. something you want to learn

A second language

34. most embarrassing moment

None that I am willing to divulge

35. favourite subject

English and History

36. 3 dreams you want to fulfill?

Traveling abroad, going to Kcon, owning to 1967 Ford Mustang

37. favourite actor/actress

Tom Hanks

38. favourite comedian(s)

I have a few but my top comedians are Jeff Dunham and Gabriel Iglesias 

39. favourite sport(s)

Baseball and Hockey

40. favourite memory

Its hard to choose one out of my favorites and you know how indecisive I can be...

41. relationship status

Single...

42. favourite book(s)

HP, Ruby Red, Da Vinci Code Series...

43. favourite song ever

No...I can’t do that...I can’t choose a FAVORITE SONG EVER...’Call Me Irresistible’ by Frank Sinatra.....

44. age you get mistaken for

I get mistaken for being younger than I am a lot, which people (who are older than me) tell me I should take as a compliment and its like yea...but when someone’s like “no you’re not really 25 you can’t possibly be able to legally drink yet” it gets annoying after a while. 

45. how you found out about your idol

Again, I don’t really have an idol

46. what my last text message says

It was a picture to my mom of two of our cats snuggled up together

47. turn ons

manners, beautiful smile, someone who just accepts me for me, someone who can cooks, loves animals

48. turn offs

dick pics, over inflated ego, clingy, rude

49. where i want to be right now

I need a really deep bathtub that I can just soak neck deep in warm water and bubbles. That’s where I want to be right now.

50. favourite picture of your idol

Don’t have one....

51. starsign

Cancer the Crab

52. something i'm talented at

I mean...I guess I’m pretty good at cooking. And I’m told my writing is good.

53. 5 things that make me happy

My pets, my friends, writing, my lovely followers, a hot cup of coffee

54. something thats worrying me at the moment

School stuff

55. tumblr friends

@notsosassymermaidqueen @soapboxjustice @mizzmoon @seoulofakwonjiyong

56. favourite food(s)

Mmm my favorite food I would have to say would be the Enchilada Ranchero from this restaurant called Puerto Vallarta. I look at the menu, but in the end just end up ordering the same thing each time.

57. favourite animal(s)

Cats, wild cats, red pandas, owls, penguins.

58. description of my best friend

One of them happens to be the one who double dog dared me to do all of these...the other I’ve known so long she is husband, I am wife xD

59. why i joined tumblr

Cause @soapboxjustice told me there was this website that I should check out that had fanfiction and cosplay stuff and everything like that and so I joined.

60. ask me anything you want

You don’t get to ask me anything else since I’ve done all of this xD

[cult-of-kai]

The Sword of Swift Justice

Thoughts on episode eight, ‘Winter of Our Discontent’:

This episode was like the ghost of predictions past for me…

The promo picture called Cheyenne Jackson’s character ‘Dr. Rudy Vincent’, but his name in the show is Dr. Vincent Anderson. Surely this was done to preserve the surprise reveal. Right away, we find out that Vincent is innocent of all but being a lousy shrink. But even then- wait. Is he a lousy shrink? He’s exasperated by Ally, to be sure- but so were we. So was Ivy, for all that she had other issues as well. Rosie, beaming, said that Vincent cured her and he responded by praising the work she’d put in. I thought he had to be loading Kai up on Adderall if nothing else, but nope. Kai steals prescription pads from him. Vincent’s eventual fate stings because it comes right when he’s trying to atone for mistakes he is just realizing he made. I reasoned early on that Vincent might not actually be involved in the cult, but I kind of assumed I was overthinking the whole thing. Nope again. Although… there was something a little creepy about the description of “pinky power” (which sounds even sillier than pinky promise), in my opinion. At any rate- RIP, Vincent.

I guess Bebe Babbitt… went missing? I don’t know, but the ladies of the cult are still pissed about being pushed aside. It’s gotten worse, actually, because now they’re stuck cooking for and serving Kai’s army of blueshirt drones. Ivy mentions The Handmaid’s Tale, which I’ll get back to later, and Beverly relates how Kai is manipulating the city council into going along with his decisions. The bit about the gated community is decent class-war commentary. Then it’s time for story time with Winter.

How did Kai-That-Was become the Kai we know? I think it was after the trailer’s release that I called Kai a manipulative whackjob with a messiah complex. But then back in ‘11/9′, we were given the impression of relative- if perhaps dreary- normalcy until Ms. Anderson commits a murder-suicide. This definitely effects him. A mutual of mine (@loonyloomis) pointed out that this was when Kai stopped cutting his hair- Adam Sheppard tease!- and he later gets into peddling fraudulent prescriptions. But he seems to bounce back for the most part, despite living in a house with two rotting corpses. Then the two younger Anderson siblings go to Judgment House on a lark, which Winter presents as the defining turning point in Kai’s life. Symbolically, it makes sense. In a twisted parody of a church, a horror *house of judgment*, Kai is stripped down to his essence- and found wanting. His first instinct upon realizing that Pastor Charles is torturing and killing people is to rescue them, which he does while Winter runs to save herself. This is Kai at his most genuinely heroic. He saved four people, including Winter, from terrible torment and death- not to mention any other victims Pastor Charles would have found. Now just take a minute to imagine how differently things might have gone if Kai had done as the female victim suggested and called the police. But he didn’t, because the better angel of his nature fails. Instead of shining a light on a great evil, he becomes it. He denies Pastor Charles’ victims the justice they choose to do as Winter suggests and kills him, becoming a killer. This- not his parents’ death- is the crack in Kai’s soul, the fissure in his mind. Everything since has been psychodramatic fallout and Kai bringing others down with him. He’s trying to convince himself and everyone around him that he’s on the rise when he is in free-fall.

I’m not sure how prevalent they are overall, but (fake!) Judgment Houses do definitely exist in the South. I specifically remember going to one that was split between heaven and hell. Everyone kept wandering back to hell because the heaven side- white sheets with scripture written all over them- was boring. Parts of Judgment House reminded me of ‘Se7en’, specifically Sloth. That’s undoubtedly deliberate, especially since Winter already name-dropped Fincher last episode. And randomly, AHS co-creator Brad Falchuk dates Gwyneth Paltrow. Others have mentioned similarities to the ‘Saw’ series, but I’ve never seen any of those. Rick Springfield was fine, but Pastor Charles would have been a nice little role for Denis O’Hare.

Anyway. Winter wants to try to reach Kai, because she believes that can happen. They’re all members of a murderous clown cult, but what do I know? Ivy and Beverly agree to give her some time. Winter and Kai meet, and we learn that Kai definitely knows how Harrison died and doesn’t care. They do a pinky power session and shit gets strange fast. Kai has decided, apropos of nothing, that they need to have a messiah baby. And for whatever reason, Winter has to be its mother. Logically, one’s mind goes to incest. But no- it’s going to be so much weirder than that! Kai says they’re going to have a threesome with Detective Samuels but somehow Winter will remain pure. At first I thought maybe Kai was just looking for an excuse to have sex with Samuels, but later events in the episode turned that idea on its head. Winter eventually calls the whole thing off because it gets to be too much nonsense for her. (I mean, it wasn’t until then?) Between the robes and the song and the behavior of all involved, it was undoubtedly one of the most bizarre AHS scenes ever- cringy as hell, but also hysterical and… oddly fitting in a satirical way? In the popular imagination and in reality (to a lesser degree), cult practices are often oddly sexual, cobbled together, and perversions of religious rituals. Kai has a degree in religious studies. Is he trying to sanctify what he and the cult are doing? His opening salvo during pinky power might lead us to believe he’s simply testing Winter, but I don’t know. The whole scenario also evokes ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, a modern classic about women’s disenfranchisement via reproductive slavery.

As for Winter, what’s her deal? Why was she trolling “social justice warriors” with Kai? Sibling bonding? She seemed to be enjoying it. Was she perhaps also changed by Judgment House? Was her response to the trauma a hard left turn? But she swears to love and be loyal to her brother, who is politically on the opposite shore. In ‘11/9′, she told Ivy she wants to serve someone powerful. It’s all rather baffling. Regardless, Winter wearing a dunce cap and throwing recycling on the side of the road because Kai “doesn’t believe in global warming” is one of the funniest damn things I’ve seen all season. The following confrontation between her and Samuels- especially the line about losing when Hillary did- might suggest she would get more radical and truly join forces with the other women, but that’s not what happens. Instead, she… sells Beverly out? What? In turn, Beverly reads both Kai and Winter for filth.

We *finally* get a little backstory on Samuels, which I’ve been waiting for despite not caring about the character. I suspected he was a Nazi type way back in ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’, and I was right. He was also a dirty cop pre-cult, although it’s a little rich for Winter to accuse him of being a criminal when- once again- they’re both members of a *murderous clown cult*. He life is complicated by being gay and internalizing homophobia. Kai sees this and immediately goes to work, feeding Samuels a line of misogynistic bullshit and then fucking him for good measure. Kai seems particularly into it as well, which is interesting. I rather wonder how Evan would describe his character’s sexuality. So did Samuels just not care about Harrison at all? It didn’t seem like their involvement was only physical. I specifically remember them cuddling on the couch and discussing their favorite housewives. Eh. RIP, Samuels.

Finally, we have Ally to consider. We see her holding one of Oz’s toy trucks before inviting Kai over to rat Vincent out. She claims to be afraid of nothing now, and that’s after Kai has already noted a change in her. Their little exchange about Manwich is cute, as is her deliberately calling Speed Wagon ‘Aerosmith’. (Seriously, where did the drones’ names come from?) In the final scene, we see that that some drones have taken to wearing the masks of fallen clowns. Ally, staring Ivy down, is wearing the mask of Kai’s former “favorite”- the only one who impressed him. That’s no coincidence. Rise, Ally.

[artificialqueens]

try to praise the mutilated world 1/2 (raja x adore) - goneawaygirl

A/N: Hello! First time poster, long time navel-gazer. Basically, this stems from the wholehearted belief that Sutan Amrull is absolute magic incarnate, and Adore is the cutest potential bruja that ever partied. So, strap in for nearly 5k of pining, sex magic, and a love/hate relationship with LA. This chapter is Raja x Adore, the next will be a more traditional pairing, but I’ll let you figure out which :) content warning for Adore’s potty mouth.

For Adore, there’s this thing about Los Angeles: primarily, it’s disgusting. Seriously.

Sure, there’s Malibu and Palos Verdes (a stretch), Topanga Canyon and the Griffith Observatory. Beverly Hills and Bel Air. Where you can’t even call yourself a fucking Angeleno — Beverly fucking 90210 is almost another country entirely, in Adore’s eyes.

But then there’s Hollywood Boulevard. Her metaphorical address, and all. Porn shops and barbed wire. Crumbling concrete curbs and one unpaid parking violation after another. West Hollywood after 10pm, and Sunset bars at all times, where drunken bathroom trysts are almost mandated in the same “employees are required to wash their hands before exiting the restroom,” fashion.

Grimy, grungy, dimly lit interiors with crackling neon hum infusing the air — that’s what she misses. When she’s performing in Seattle, in Australia, in Brazil, wherever. She misses the insistent, pounding LA heat and LA beat almost as much as she misses her mom. Her mom might slap her for that.

And here, now, back in Los Angeles, in the oppressive smog of bodies trying to be somebodies, she wishes she could just have space to be. Typical, wanting what you can’t have in the moment. Adore nearly snorts into her drink at the unfortunate parallels her mind loves to bring to the forefront.

Adore’s skin has been shifting since she stepped off the plane, adjusting once again to the energy of has-beens and to-bes, and the particular aura of fans that think they’ll gain some sort of cred by fucking her. And maybe they could — she’s a pretty good lay.

Tonight, though, she’s not performing, she’s only half in drag, and she’s pretty sure no one here wants to fuck her. She supposes she could have tried harder (and someone’s always lobbing that particular criticism at her), but it’s Wednesday night at the Abbey, and she’s a wingwoman. She’s not looking to get laid, and she’s not looking to be recognized, but wingwomen do have to look their mediocre-to-best for whomever they’re accompanying to Ladies’ Night.

So, she’s slapped on a nude lip, a fantastically early-2000s umber eye, and a pair of falsies, and is towering above most of the rowdy, female-identifying crowd in convincing pleather leggings and the spiked, chunky heels she brought from one of Seattle’s many vintage clothing/coffee/bookshops.

Well, maybe someone amidst the pulsing blue and purple lightswants to fuck her, but her own energy is so fucking wack-a-doodle that she doesn’t think she’d be able to stand an advance. To be perfectly honest, something’s been off for Adore ever since she touched down, and with a three hour flight, it’s not jet lag.

Adore sighs, rubbing her temples. Courtney (no, not that Courtney) has been MIA for the last twenty minutes, and Adore would rather not make herself known just to confirm the suspicion that her high school best friend is successfully picking someone up in a dark corner or the aforementioned bathroom. Courtney is more than capable of taking care of herself, and whomever else might enjoy her company.

Adore’s been standing in a corner, half-listening to the snatches of conversation thrown around her, and half people-watching, but she decides that she’ll need one more drink before she orders a Lyft home and tries to sneak past her mom, who was expecting a visit Friday, not Wednesday midnight. As soon as she polishes off her G&T, steeling herself for the journey to the bar, a prickle runs up the back of her neck. She feels long fingers on her shoulder before she sees her.

“Adore Delan-hoe, what the fuck?” Raja sounds delighted, and more than a little under the influence. There’s a velvety softness to her words, even over the sometimes desperate shouting of a hundred people who only get one night of loud music and mandated flirting a week from this establishment (hallowed be the Abbey’s name).

“Bitch!” Adore yells by way of response, as Raja forgoes the hug, or handshake, or anything that might be considered within modern boundaries of politeness to instead tug at Adore’s ever-longer hair. Another way Adore can see Raja’s intoxication is in the determined, weed-stare focus she gives to running her fingers through Adore’s hair. The sleeve of Raja’s (chiffon? taffeta? whatever it is, if floats across the room just like Raja) robe slides down, and Adore can’t help but notice her thin-boned, black-tipped fingers and delicate wrists, and the markings of a tattoo.

“You still growing this out? It’s gorgeous, honey. Gorgeous.” Adore has to keep herself from laughing in Raja’s sweet, beautiful face. One: because she looks so goddamn endearing with her fingers twisted in Adore’s (really, not that special) hair, and two: because the idea of Raja calling anything gorgeous  on anyone else is laughable. Adore doesn’t know anyone who has ever been on Raja’s level, in or out of drag — well, Adore’s got a thing for Bianca and Danny’s got a thing for Roy, but she’d rather not think about that now, or ever.

Raja flicks her own salt-and-pepper hair subconsciously, and Adore snaps back to the present feeling of absolute inferiority. As opposed to her past feeling of…absolute inferiority.

“So what the hell are you doing here? You into chicks now?” Adore decides to brush past any feeling at all with a bare-all smile and a stupid question.

Raja does laugh, throatily, and it prickles again at the back of Adore’s neck. Adore shrugs to shoo it away, but it persists as a low warning, intensifying with each hazy glance of Raja’s kohl-lined eyes that switches from Adore’s hair to the clubgoers to Adore’s face.

“No, just the wingman tonight! Women are lovely, I love them, but my friend Lily loves them more. I’m just here to say hi, be her good-luck charm,” Raja says flippantly, scanning the crowd.

Adore laughs. “That’s exactly why I’m here, too. My friend Courtney is fucking wild about Wednesdays, but I’m just hanging. Just got in—“

“I just got in from P-town! Coincidence of the year, huh?” Raja’s gaze alights on something. “What does your friend look like?”

“Short, brunette, cute. Glasses,” Adore says, startled into an answer.

“Off-the-shoulder red dress?”

“Yeah.”

Raja laughs again. “I don’t think either of us will be needed here any longer.”

Coincidence of the motherfucking year, Adore thinks, following Raja’s outstretched hand to see Courtney, and presumably Lily, “talking” way too close to each other, in line for the bathroom. A moment later, their hands are linked, and Adore’s temples throb for a second.

“Fuck,” is all Adore says out loud.

“Well, we’ve fulfilled our duties, congrats to the both of us. Wanna find a different scene?” Raja asks after a smile in the new couple’s direction.

“Oh,” Adore stumbles. “Well, Courtney was sort of my place to crash. I think I should just hit up my mom at this point - was planning on seeing her later anyway, you know?”

The Abbey itself isn’t exactly her regular scene, and she could follow Raja to Micky’s, or Revolver, or even Whisky-a-Go-Go like the punk-ass kids they are, but all in all, she’s a little worried to be in Raja’s presence at a club. She’s not ready to watch Raja pick up some beautiful twink and strand her with a wave and a blown kiss. Normally, that would be fine, but tonight, she just needs to be away from the aggressiveness of West Hollywood gaydom.

“Don’t do that. You’re an hour away, at least.” Raja grabs Adore by the wrist, pulling her in a manner more obliviously intimate than purposefully conspiratorial. Adore’s nerves are everywhere now — her temples, her neck, a roiling in the pit of her stomach. Adore winces, letting out an involuntary whimper of discomfort.

“Hey,” Raja’s eyes darken, real concern flitting over her features. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah, of course, just—“ Adore is interrupted by a burst of color behind her eyelids, and her hand flies to her forehead. “Just a fucking miserable headache.”

“Ok, let’s get you out of here,” Raja says, and Adore has never heard Raja with a serious tone before — always a joke or a dry remark. “There is no reason you shouldn’t just sleep at my place. And I’ve got too many drugs for that headache.”

“Bitch, you’re a walking pharmacy. I could hear you rattling up to me, like the crypt keeper or some shit,” Adore says, smiling despite herself. Raja laughs again, and Adore wants to shout at the energy that runs down her spine. “Thanks, though. I mean, if you don’t mind, I really do just need to sleep,” she says instead, smiling wider to mask the frisson.

Adore has slept over at Raja’s before, but only as a part of a group of out-of-town queens that gets too shit-faced to find their way to their friends’ Culver City apartments. A little bit of excitement at the prospect of spending time, alone, in Raja’s presence combines with the insistent, foreign energy to throw her completely off-kilter.

“Don’t mention it. I should get home anyway — this body needs a strict regimen that does not include sleep-deprived one-night stands. Especially after this month,” Raja says, taking Adore’s hand to lead her toward the door. Adore shudders again, the energy running up her arm this time as she accepts.

What the fuck is wrong with her? It’s not like Raja is some sort of ghost of the Demi fucking Moore pottery wheel variety —

Adore pushes the thought out, instead using her free hand to shoot a quick love you, be safe puta text to Courtney as she winds through the crowd, following Raja’s effortless gait.

——————

Raja doesn’t so much have a guest room as she has a drag room, and a living room filled with all sorts of cushions and an artfully mismatched couch and ottoman. And a cat bed, which — Raja doesn’t own a cat, as far as Adore is aware.

Adore glances at her phone again for the fourteenth time, wriggling on one of the overstuffed couches. She knows it’s two in the morning  - she checked thirty seconds ago - but she can’t bring herself to get up, take her contacts out, clean the shit off her face, and finally go to sleep. The buzz in her body has receded to a dull hum, but it’s still there, taunting her.

She’s tried reading a few of the various magazines (W, Vogue, National Geographic) on Raja’s coffee table, or investigating the tchotchkes strewn around the room, but she’s resigned herself to staring at the ceiling, flicking a lighter on and off and periodically checking the phone. There’s a joint in her pocket, but its call is weirdly far away tonight.

“What are you still doing up, girl? I thought you needed to sleep.” Sutan rounds the couch corner, settling with his butt on the coffee table to face Adore. He’s de-dragged, his hair in a swooping wave over his clean face, fresh but for the slightest hint of dark circles under his eyes. He’s wearing another robe, a silky chocolate affair, but Adore’s 85 percent sure it’s hiding a tank top and basketball shorts.

“Yeah. I thought I did, too. It’s like — what the fuck, body? Send me the right signals, goddammit,” Adore says, only half-joking. She attempts to sit up, but Sutan’s palm against her forehead stops her.

“Hold on,” Sutan says, brow furrowing in concentration. “Do you still have that headache?”

His palm is dry and cool against Adore’s forehead, and Adore closes her eyes, shocked by how good it feels. The buzzing evaporates completely for a moment, leaving Adore with a simple, strange sense of bliss in the quiet. It takes her a moment to remember Sutan’s question.

“Not when you do that,” she answers honestly. Sutan runs his thumb from the bridge of her nose  back to her forehead, humming in response. Adore keeps her eyes closed as Sutan continues, softly moving both hands to her scalp, and then along the sides of her temples. The air around Adore seems to flow more regularly now, and she breathes deeply, hedonistically. This feels right.

“What was wrong?” Adore realizes she had said that out loud, but Sutan asks in such a low, river-water-over-stone voice, his strong, graceful, makeup-god fingers moving in aimless circles. She can’t bring herself to be embarrassed.

“I…uh. I think I might be having some sort of energy crisis?” Adore says, testing the waters with an upward inflection.

“Mm,” Sutan encourages, movements remaining cool and sweet. Adore sighs again, deeply, soothed by someone so devoid of malice. If Adore didn’t know Sutan personally, she wouldn’t think he was human.

“I don’t know, but it’s like this shit that my cousins would tell me — like I have to get my aura cleansed or something. Ever since I got off the goddamn plane, it’s like I want to jump out of my skin. And it’s like — Los Angeles is my fucking home, yeah, but something about me, about me being here is so off. And if felt so weird at the club, and it’s usually chill. But it’s like, clawing at me. It wants me to notice something. I just don’t know what…”

Adore trails off, vaguely aware that she’s close to losing her breath. All she wants is to keep Sutan’s hands on her forever. She cringes at that thought — maybe she’s just too horny.

“Maybe my body just wants to tell me I’ve been a fucking slut for too damn long? I don’t know,” Adore tries again, but it sounds weak even to her ears.

“But what else is new?” Sutan teases. He sweeps a languid path down to her throat, fingers playing at the vee between her collarbones. They sit in silence for another minute, Adore’s breathing pattern returning to normalcy.

“So, it’s not a headache,” Sutan states, breaking the pause. Adore shakes her head.

“Yeah. I mean, no. But I don’t know what to call it.” Adore opens her eyes, finally. Sutan is hunched over slightly in order to reach her, his hair tucked behind his ears to keep it from falling. “Whatever it is, you’re helping.”

“Hm,” Sutan acknowledges. Adore almost whines when he stands up. “Get up.”

“What?” Adore blinks, startled by the abrupt change of attitude. Sutan towers above her, folding his arms across his waist, a shoulder of the robe sliding down to reveal glossy skin in the lamplight of the living room. No wifebeater, I guess, Adore thinks absentmindedly.

“We’re going to try something. But you should clean up, first.” Sutan steps back from the couch, and he seems…not nervous. Apprehensive? Whatever it is, Adore is curious. She swings her legs from the couch, dizzy as she sits up. The buzz returns, skipping over her body, and she swears.

“Is it back?” Sutan asks, and Adore nods. Sutan walks into the kitchen, and returns with a plastic cup of water, pressing it into her hand.

“Finish this, and clean up,” Sutan repeats. Adore is struck by his tone — still low, but there’s an edge to it. She swallows, nods, and heads to the bathroom, hoping she can find Sutan’s makeup wipes.

—————————

Danny steps out of the bathroom, finishing the water. He’s grabbed a Sharon Needles t-shirt that comes down to mid-thigh (a feat, considering his height), and a pair of tight briefs from the clean laundry basket in the hallway — and don’t think he didn’t smell them to make sure. He’s also splashed a tiny bit of Sutan’s cologne, just because he knows he can’t smell great from two hours in a crowded club.

He walks toward the kitchen slowly, and puts the cup down on the granite countertop, aware of his somewhat blurry vision. Sure, he hasn’t got 20/20, but one night on the fuzzy side is fine. There aren’t any poles for him to walk into.

Sutan, on the other hand, is wearing his glasses now, leafing through a National Geographic on the couch.

“Find anything interesting?” Danny asks, sheepish as he approaches in the borrowed clothing. Sutan pushes his glasses onto his head and drops the magazine back onto the coffee table.

“Just questioning how on earth some people work up the nerve to go photograph a lion,” Sutan says. There’s an additional tension in the air between them now, and Danny thinks if he flicked that lighter on one more time, something might explode.

“Nice shirt,” Sutan says, smiling. Danny blushes, and hopes it doesn’t show. There’s a moment of stale silence, in which Danny doesn’t know how to proceed, but then Sutan gestures to his lap. Danny opens his mouth, then closes it, deciding to act like none of this is out of the ordinary. He walks to the couch, maybe a little too casually.

“Your head. Here,” Sutan says, indicating his lap again, and at this point Danny would be less excited if Sutan was propositioning him for a blow job. Not that he’d say no, but Danny is intrigued by this ‘something’ that Sutan wants to try.

Danny drapes himself over the couch as gracefully as he can (not very, given his vision), squirming and shifting until his head reaches Sutan’s thighs. The shadows and shapes from the lamplight roll playfully across Sutan’s face, highlighting his browbone and cheekbones in turn. It’s a disappointment when he speaks next.

“Close your eyes.” Danny stares at Sutan for a moment, memorizing his features in their blurry glory. Sutan doesn’t smile, but there is a tiny glint in his eyes when he says, “I’ll be here when you open them again.”

“Yeah, duh,” Danny says buoyantly, then closes his eyes. He feels a whoosh of air over his face, Sutan exhaling loudly.

“I’m going to need you to pay attention to where you feel it,” Sutan says.

“It?”

“Whatever you think is throwing your energy off.”

Oh. Danny closes his eyes tighter, as, for the first time, he focuses on the buzz, willing it to show itself. And it does, sizzling to life in his skull, his shoulder blades, his wrists, and his stomach. It’s overwhelming, after denying it and keeping it at bay, to surround himself with the sparking strength of energy, but he grits his teeth and tries to adjust.

“My head,” Danny says, letting out a small gasp. Immediately he feels Sutan’s fingers returning to his temples, and the energy abates.

“Relax,” is all Sutan says, before Danny feels a new wave wash over him. It’s different, though — this one emanates from Sutan’s fingertips, and it cools as it crashes. Danny feels like he’s lowering his head into bathwater on a Sunday morning, but he forgot about the bath for about an hour or so, and now the waters have turned crystal and cold. Mundanity of the association aside, it feels breathtakingly pure.

“Whoa,” Danny says, as the wave passes over his body, and dissipates. The buzzing is gone from his head, but it’s still present everywhere else.

“Where now?” Sutan asks, and it’s taking everything Danny has not to open his eyes, to probe Sutan with questions.

“Shoulders.”

Sutan’s hands move to his shoulders, and dig in to the muscle. Danny bites his lip as he’s once again immersed, the sensation primarily moving along his shoulders and back, and over his ass. Danny bites down harder as Sutan rolls his knuckles along Danny��s shoulders.

“Where now?” It’s a game, almost, Sutan’s voice deepening with each repetition and Danny’s whole body sinking into a sort of pliant benediction.

Danny feels greedy, as he says, “Hands. Wrists. Both.”

Sutan’s hands cover his, but this feels different — the buzzing stops, but his hands feel oversensitive, especially as Sutan lifts his right hand. Lips brush his wrist, and Danny yelps in surprise, eyes open.

“I’m sorry, I should have asked,” Sutan says. “Can I —“

“You can touch me,” Danny blurts, then giggles nervously, hoping he’s not coming across as desperate. “It felt good, I just — I wasn’t ready.”

Sutan stares at him for a moment, calculating, and Danny swears he sees a blue-silver haze emanating from Sutan’s hands as he lifts Danny’s hand to his lips. When he kisses it again, Danny swallows. The cooling sensation snakes around his wrist and his arm, and the buzzing in Danny’s stomach intensifies, along with a stab of arousal. Danny is suddenly aware of how unbearably sober the both of them are.

Sutan kisses his fingertips, and Danny’s mouth goes completely dry. Sutan looks like a fucking wet dream, with his robe falling open to reveal that perfect skin, those fucking collarbones. Danny doesn’t know where to look — Sutan’s long hair, long lashes, corded tendons of his throat, or full lips on Danny’s wrist again.

When Sutan meets his eyes, Danny is almost knocked back by the force of his gaze. It’s fucking entrancing, hypnotizing — Sutan is some sort of motherfucking brujo, and Danny is…embarrassingly into it. He closes his eyes and wiggles his hips minutely, willing the t-shirt to be even longer, to cover what is sure to be a noticeable erection.

“Where now?” Sutan is evil. Danny is sure of it — there’s a smirk in his words, and there’s no way Sutan doesn’t know the effects of his fingers. Or his goddamn mouth. Or his BDSM voice.

Hands find Danny’s once again, and something sparks between them as Sutan laces their fingers together.

“Where now?”

The air around them smells like a meeting of smoke and the water’s edge, and Danny imagines them as steam, curling together in the atmosphere. Danny can’t bring himself to speak — he’s hard, and dammit, Sutan just wanted to help him out, right? He’s never showed any sort of sexual interest in Danny, or Adore. Danny’s on the verge of calling it off, and making an appointment for a chiropractor, or an acupuncturist — something normal people would do, when —

“Show me, if you can’t tell me.” Sutan’s hands are still in his, and that voice brooks no dissent. Danny swallows (goddamn, how dry can his mouth get?), and leads Sutan’s hands to his lower abdomen.

“Good boy,” Sutan murmurs, his fingers spreading to tap along Danny’s hipbones. Danny lets out a noise that’s suspiciously close to a whimper, his stomach clenching.

“This is where you feel it the most, isn’t it?” Sutan asks, his thumbs spreading the cotton of the t-shirt. Danny nods, and then nods again, hesitantly, when he feels Sutan tugging on the bottom hem of the t-shirt.

Oh god. Sutan’s hands are against bare skin now, sweeping along the waistband of the briefs. Danny swears they leave a track of energy in their wake, absorbing into his skin.

“This might hurt,” Sutan says, impossibly close to Danny’s ears. His voice is surrounding Danny now, and all Danny can do is grit his teeth in anticipation. Sutan’s fingers creep under the waistband of the briefs, settling right above Danny’s pelvis, and then he digs his fingers in.

Danny moans — Sutan’s fucking hand magic sinks into him, curling and twisting, fighting with the buzzing that now responds in full force to the intruder. Danny feels insane, as he rocks, unable to keep still, caught on the precipice of pain and discomfort, and the most persistent arousal he’s ever felt.

“Let it work itself out,” Danny hears. “Relax.”

Relax. Relax. Relax.

“I can’t,” Danny gasps, writhing. “How — how are you doing this? What is this?”

Suddenly, Sutan is hauling him up to a semi-sitting position, resting Danny’s head against his chest. Arms surround Danny, pulling him close, and Danny automatically turns his head to press the whisper of a kiss Sutan’s throat. Danny’s skin feels like it’s on fire, and Sutan’s is ice-cold.

“You’re balancing,” Sutan says simply, and Danny laughs in disbelief before Sutan’s hand moves to his stomach again. Danny sees colors popping behind his eyelids again, and everything. Stops.

The buzzing, Sutan’s cool, unadulterated magic, everything.

Danny gasps in a huge gulp of air, coughing and spluttering as if he’d been drowning. It’s a relief, and an ecstasy, to calm down and feel…nothing.

Well, except he’s still hard, and as he shifts, re-adjusting his sitting position against Sutan, who’s still holding him, he feels Sutan’s cock pressing into the curve of his ass.

“Better?” Sutan asks, thumbs rubbing down Danny’s shoulders to his wrists.

“You cunt,” Danny says, opening his eyes and blinking into the shadows. “You never told me you were a motherfucking witch. That was — how did you learn to do that?”

Sutan’s chest rises and falls in another laugh.

“You didn’t think it was all just glitter and eyeliner, did you?” Sutan asks, taunting gently. His fingers are wandering again, and Danny shakes off the last vestiges of his stupefied state to launch himself rather inelegantly off of Sutan’s lap, and turn back to straddle him instead.

Danny grabs Sutan’s wrists, and holds them tightly to the sides of his body. Sutan’s eyes darken again, and his lips part minutely.

“What are you doing?” Sutan asks lazily, and he knows exactly what Danny is doing, the bitch.

“No fucking magic, Sutan. I’m not doing magic. You helped me — God knows how you did it, but I feel —“ Danny ponders for a moment, concentrating on bringing the buzzing back to his body, but nothing.  “I feel like me.”

Danny stares at Sutan for a long moment — he was wrong. Sutan has every goddamn right to call someone beautiful and mean it.

“Thank you,” Danny says, hoping his sincerity comes across.

“No need,” Sutan replies, his body going slack under Danny’s grip.

“Oh, no. There is. You know I owe you this,” Danny says, tightening his hold on Sutan’s wrists and grinding into him.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Sutan says, but there’s a catch in his voice that lets Danny know he’s on the right track.

“Maybe not. I want it, though. Do you?” Danny grinds against him again, and as soon as he sees Sutan’s eyes fall to half-lidded, he grins and dives in to capture Sutan’s lips.

And holy fuck, Sutan can kiss. Slowly, and wetly, and with a lazy intensity that sets Danny on fire in a much more familiar way. Sutan’s hands reach his for face as they part, rubbing a thumb across Danny’s lips, which he takes into his mouth with a groan.

“Touch me,” Sutan smirks, and Danny smirks right back as he grabs Sutan’s wrists again and lifts them above his head.

“Hold on,” Danny says. “This might hurt.”

—————————

“You know, I could teach you,” Sutan murmurs tiredly, when they’re sprawled out in his bed, naked and warm and sore.

“How to bottom?”

Danny yelps as Sutan slaps his ass in retribution.

“No, asshole.” Sutan turns on his side, reaches out to stroke Danny’s hair from his eyes. “I am well aware of how much you know about bottoming. How to help someone else.”

The silence stretches between them, taut until Danny rolls away from Sutan.

“I don’t know if anyone would really want my help. Besides, there’s no way I could do what you do.”

Sutan huffs out a noise of disagreement, pulling Danny back to face him. Danny studies his face again — the stubble starting to form on his chin, the tiniest hint of crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. Sutan is not ageless, but Danny’s starting to think he has a lot more of that ageless wisdom than he lets on.

“I can think of one person in particular,” Sutan says pointedly.

“Wha—“

“You’re not fooling anyone, Adore,” Sutan says, drawing out the o. “But I think he could use it. He could use your help.”

Danny chews his bottom lip — a bad habit with the amount of lipstick and makeup remover that it faces. Sure, having that sort of experience again wouldn’t be something he’s opposed to. Especially not if it’s with Roy. But Roy would probably laugh in his face — assume it’s part of his little mermaid schtick, and then he’d never hear the end of it.

“And I think you could use his,” Sutan finishes.

“I don’t —“

“Let me at least teach you,” Sutan says, stretching with an obnoxious yawn and crack of his neck. “And then you can decide what you want to do with it.”

That’s the end of the conversation for now, as Sutan settles with his arm draped across Danny’s chest. Danny waits in the rhythmic comfort of Sutan’s breathing until he can tell that Sutan’s dead to the world.

“Ok,” Danny whispers, his heart rate taking off again despite his exhaustion. His hand finds Sutan’s wrist, and he concentrates for a minute, two, three, until he can hear the faintest buzz between his shoulderblades.

“Ok.”

————-