#it’s my fault they’re in the social circle too !! if I hadn’t been an idiot I could’ve avoided this!!

[gggoldfinch]

I think I’m actually fully insane

[zargsnake]

Knightkiller: Anakin and Obi-Wan’s First Adventure

Chapter 8: Priorities

Word Count: 2565 Links: Chapter 1, Table of Contents

*   *   *

Anakin hears the cheers for Obi-Wan turn sour, and he soon figures out why. It is no fault of his master's, who fights beautifully -- but there is a transparent dome-shield around the arena, and whenever someone in the angry, heavily-armed audience shoots at it, ripples of white electric shocks cross the dome and obscure the fight. Anakin is relieved that the audience is booing each other, not his master, though he worries that Obi-Wan will think they're booing at him.

Obi-Wan looks over his shoulder, trying to locate Anakin in the audience, and a blade suddenly whizzes by his neck. His reflexes protect him and he jerks out of the way, but a moment later he feels hot blood on his skin. He hadn't moved quickly enough -- the blade cut him sharp and swift. It hurts a lot more than he expected. It could have easily killed him.

He was so focused on finding Anakin in this crowd that he forgot Anakin's own words to him, his warnings about this opponent. Obi-Wan hadn't taken Anakin seriously about Tiango. Of course it was sad about Anakin’s “cool” gladiator friend, but Obi-Wan defeated a Sith lord not long ago. The experience buoyed his confidence to a fault. This Tiango -- not a Sith, not even a professional, just an ex-science experiment, just a Yooro -- landed a blow on him -- a pretty good one, too.

Obi-Wan rapidly teaches himself a lesson. Connecting with Anakin doesn't mean knowing exactly where he is. It means listening to him. Believing him. That's what teachers do. It's what friends do.

This isn't the Outer Rim, but these people are. This is Anakin's haunt. Obi-Wan will train it out of him, will make him a man of the Core. But for now, Anakin is the expert here, and his words must be Obi-Wan's textbook.

With his heart opened wide for Anakin, and his guard up because of Anakin's warning, Obi-Wan realizes he will have to hunker down in defense for a while. Tiango's assault is brutal and inhumanly quick, though Obi-Wan remembers that Yoroos do get exhausted -- eventually. What Obi-Wan lacks in comparative strength, he makes up for in endurance -- patience and energy, the long game, care -- these are Obi-Wan's secret weapons.

Anakin watches Obi-Wan deflect the same moves that once ruthlessly whittled down Crix Spartak, the gladiator who he had loved. The memory of that death match sends chills up his spine. He is certain that some of these blows must hit his master. Part of him is certain that Obi-Wan is doomed, too. Anakin had believed Crix would win, and he had been wrong. It is asking too much to have hope again, against the same, utterly evil man.

Though Obi-Wan has great endurance, his vibroblade does not. Out of habit, he treats it as roughly as if it were a laser weapon, depending on it for deflection, as a shield. Tiango's barrage strikes the metal and bends it back and forth into a zigzag, then into a knot. Obi-Wan is slowly disarmed as his blade becomes less and less tenable as a weapon. He has no choice; he has no other shield. The biggest bother is his own hand: the damn vibroblade is aptly named -- it quivers like a leaf in the wind, wearing out his wrist and weakening his fingers.

The crowd cheers enthusiastically for the graceful Jedi, chanting, "Kenobi! Kenobi!" Anakin does not join in. Obi-Wan could almost be dancing with his expert moves, but Anakin is not in the mood to learn from him. He gazes in hopeless terror at the duel. He watches bullets, lasers and slingshotted electrostones bounce off the dome, as well as gifts, toys and even people’s underwear. All such wild debris from this crazed crowd trying to reach out to their beloved or hated athlete, his poor, wonderful master.

The fastest or biggest bullets send fuzzy waves across the dome, but the dome quickly repairs itself. Anakin follows the arc of the dome, calculating the sources of its projection points from subtle distortions in the waves.

He moves the layers of fur in his stolen disguise to peek at the recharging screen on his hidden acid-blaster: 52%. No other weapons are making a dent in the dome. But no other weapons are quite like this one, and no one else seems to have figured out where to shoot. Could he crack the dome? What would he do then?

Anakin looks away from Obi-Wan for a second and scans his narrowed eyes over the happy rabble. He does not understand them. Are they seeing what he's seeing? They all shout and cheer, laughing and clapping, as if Obi-Wan is triumphant, as if he is playing. He looks back at his master. He sees that Obi-Wan is in great pain. Dying, even. How can the information from his senses, and the conclusions from his feelings, be so different from everyone else's?

Is he connecting, mentally, to his master -- using his supposed Jedi powers to see things for how they truly are? Is he seeing the truth, better than they are, because he is a Jedi, a Jedi Padawan? Is the Force giving him a special message -- because he, unlike the rabble, is a Jedi -- because he, unlike everyone, is the answer to a prophecy -- because he is closer to Obi-Wan than anyone else is?

Or ... is he, Anakin, wrong? Is everyone else right? Is his sight blinded by irrational fear, brought about by his utter dependence on this man? Did Obi-Wan really stumble, just now? No one else seems to have seen it.

Is he, Anakin, perhaps, confusing the past for the present? Crix for Obi-Wan? Death for life?

Is it all in his head? Or is it real?

   *   *   *

Below the arena, Zlinky has memorized the map from the computer. With Jane, she trespasses through the employee quarters. They reach a large, important-looking office which Zlinky guesses is Knightkiller's.

She hears voices inside and shouts at the door, “Hey boss! There's fried fluunies in Rec Room 3!”

She backs off as the door opens and two people exit. Zlinky creeps inside and Jane blusters along behind her. Too soon, they hear the people coming back and Zlinky shoves Jane under the slick metallic desk; the robot is so big that two of the desk legs lift a few inches from the ground. There isn't much room left for Zlinky; she has to nestle right up against Jane's bazooka. A belt of detonators falls across Zlinky's lap.

She peeks over the edge of the desk and sees the people more closely. They look more decorated than the other guards, with sashes and medals, as if there was some kind of made-up military ranking among Knightkiller's cronies, a worthless army dedicated solely to this evil entertainment. 

“These fluunies are great,” says one crony.

“I’ve had better,” says the other.

The hidden Padawan hears the gross sounds of chewing, and then the rather more alarming sound of Jane powering up her neutralizers. Zlinky quiets her and gestures for her to stop. Stealth has worked so far; it would be best to avoid violence, especially since these two seem important.

“I can't wait to run the missing Jedi kids through with this,” says the first one, as he ignites a lightsaber.

Zlinky stops gesturing, but Jane has already powered down.

“The Jedi kids must still be on the ship. No one's been allowed to leave and no shuttle pods have activated.”

“You think Jedi could survive in space?”

“No. Only the boss can do that. You saw them in those Coruscanti space suits, idiot.”

“Oh right.”

The second crony ignites another lightsaber. Even without looking, Zlinky recognizes the sound as her own. She feels something very powerful and uncomfortable. Taken aback, she identifies it as jealousy, one of the very worst emotions. Afraid of her own feelings, she is frozen, unable to act, unable to know if she is behaving rationally, according to the light side, or irrationally, which will lead her off the narrow path into darkness.

“They're real nice suits. I called dibs on the man-size one for me and the little one for my daughter.”

“Yeah...the gigantic one and the lady-size one are pretty useless.”

“I'll take the lady one for my kid to grow into.”

Zlinky thinks, I'm twelve! I’m not a lady! Though I am much taller than Anakin. So they say Anakin is missing, too? That means he's not dead! If only I was strong enough to detect his presence!

Jane pokes Zlinky and gestures to her blasters. Zlinky shakes her head.

We can't kill him! He's a dad!

They hear the two men walking closer and closer. One of them accidentally hits something with the lightsaber; the girls hear them cursing and smell melting plastic.

Zlinky feels time running out. This hiding spot is bad. She ran in here without a plan. She knows her decision-making is impeded by fear, jealousy, and access to a murder-droid, but she must decide something.

Zlinky quickly examines the settings on Jane's weapons. All these numbers and charts are too confusing to parse right now. She dials one dial back, but it only causes some numbers to rise and others to fall. She puts it back where it was, though the numbers are still not the same. The last time Jane shot someone, it wasn't fatal. At least not immediately.

The girl feels tears pressuring her eyes and throat. She doesn't want to hurt anyone. She has learned through stories and lessons that the darkness within is far worse than the darkness without. She is more frightened of doing wrong than she is of dying. There is no death. But there is evil.

She can't get out of her head a discussion she overheard from some of the older Padawans. This group of twenty- and thirty-somethings is the pride of the whole Temple. Everyone adores them -- the strongest, most beautiful, best students in school. Once they are knighted, then they leave the young people’s social circle to rub shoulders with the teachers, and have no time for their old friends -- but before they are knighted, they rule the school from the inside, and everyone lets them get away with a little more fun than knights are allowed. In those last years of Padawanship, they are the most free a Jedi can be.

Just last month, when Zlinky fetched the group snacks from the mess hall in order to bask in their presence, she found them in a very strange state. When one of them returns from a mission, the others crowd around to hear the stories and see the new scars. The latest conquering hero, a human named Sara Chid-wun, did not have a physical scar. But she had such an aura of bitterness around her that the whole group was affected, including the young interloper Zlinky.

Sara explained how she and her Master Kayji were caught in various difficult situations, and each time Kayji had neglected to act, so each time Sara had been forced to act herself, often with violence. It felt like a test that she continuously failed. And yet, ultimately, they succeeded in their mission. Sara claimed that Kayji would not address her concerns with anything beyond platitudes.

The whole experience led Sara to, hesitantly, conclude that Masters often take advantage of their students. Masters refuse to move, and claim they are trusting in the Force, or allowing evil to collapse in on itself, or some such excuse, while in reality they are leaving the sensible but nasty work to the impure, young Padawan tagging along.

The group discussed each example, and more from their own adventures, each trying to explain away their masters’ -- sometimes -- confusing actions, each unwilling to support Sara’s conclusion -- including, of course, Sara herself. But the group found that, if they were being honest, she might be right. Sometimes. So they had moved on to finding the moral lesson in this seemingly cruel behavior -- something about knightly violence being worse than non-knightly violence, something about power and purity.

And maybe they came to a satisfying explanation among themselves; Sara herself seemed as cheerful as normal the next time Zlinky saw her. But Zlinky hadn't felt comfortable sitting in on their important big-kid conversation any longer, so she had left at the darkest part of it.

Tila has never forced Zlinky's hand before. Zlinky has never had to kill anyone before. But now the master is indeed the one sitting out, while the student is the one doing the work.

Is it okay to stray off the path when you are only a Padawan? Is it, in fact, expected, and necessary? Must she walk in the gray area beside the light, until she is a master herself, and can savor the light all the time, and never have to do any more wrong? When she is knighted, then she can delegate that dark stuff to someone else, someone young and obedient?

The thought occurs to Zlinky that she is not the one who would do the killing -- that would be Jane. But she knows that is a flaky excuse. Jane is her responsibility. Just as she is Tila's. The blood is on all their hands.

Zlinky turns to Jane and nods. Jane immediately stands up and neutralizes the guards. Zlinky pokes her head over the desk, sees the smoking bodies, and fears the worst.

“Are they dead?”

“ɪ ᴅᴏᴜʙᴛ ɪᴛ. ꜱʏꜱᴛᴇᴍꜱ ᴀʀᴇ ʜᴀʀᴅʟʏ ᴀᴛ ꜰᴜʟʟ ᴄᴀᴘᴀᴄɪᴛʏ.“

“I'm pretty sure your full capacity is overkill.”

She tiptoes over to the guard's bodies. One seems to be breathing. The other, she can't tell.

She can't alert anyone to the danger, and she doesn't trust the medical facilities here anyway. But she has nothing to give them, to help them. She puts her hand on the soft, sandy hair of the one whose life is unclear to her, the one who has a little daughter.

“May the Force be with you.”

Her voice is a shaky whisper, but she's never meant those words so much as she means them now.

Please, please, live.

She pulls the lightsaber from his hand and turns it off, and does the same with the other guard. She finds three more lightsabers on their belts. She recognizes hers and her master’s; two of them must be Anakin’s and his master’s; the last one could be Glagret’s, a.k.a. Knightkiller’s. It's green, and of the same old fashion as her master’s. She is surprised and glad that it isn't red. But maybe Knightkiller carries her red one on her person. Or maybe, just maybe, the Sith are not at all involved. She prays that they aren't.

Zlinky and Jane hide the bodies behind the desk and lock the door behind them. Zlinky turns away from the door and does not look back.

They were gonna kill me. They still will kill me, if they figure it out. I have to act in self-defense. And I have to save the other three Jedi. These people may be people, but they are low-lives, murderers, and lawbreakers. It wasn't my choice that they got in my way.

Chapter 9: Crix Spartak

[oxsix]

Warmth

Jane and Catalina invite Kitty to come out with them, and Kitty can’t fathom why.

[Because Kitty deserves to have as many mother figures as she wants!]

Kitty should have known something was up from the get-go. There'd been to many convenient excuses to just have the three of them together. She should have just asked them what it was all about. But of course, in terms of saying what she's really thinking, Kitty is just as bad as Jane and Catalina are.

They're all far too prone to skirting around the issue or putting on a mask of contentment. They haven't developed the knack for wearing their heart on their sleeve, like Anne has in this new life. They're all still stuck in the facade of court life.

Kitty's not out of touch with her feelings. She knows what she wants from the other women that make up her tentative group of new friends. She knows the role she desperately wants the two of them to play in her life; what she wants them to be to her. But she can't say it. And neither can they. They just don't know how.

So when Aragon asks Kitty if she'd like to spend the day out with the two of them, she doesn't ask any questions. She doesn't ask why the others aren't coming. She doesn't ask why they would want her there. She doesn't ask if they'd rather go alone; the two are close, and Kitty can't help but wonder if they've only invited her along out of pity.

She says yes, and she goes—because none of them are any good at saying what they want to say.

So, still feeling conflicted, she heads upstairs to get dressed. She closes the door behind her, leans against it and takes a deep breath.

She's not sure what to wear. She hadn't thought to ask what they were going to do, and she doesn't remember either of them mentioning. She antagonises over it for a while; it's something she's grown rather good at, over the years.

She opts for something fairly simple, but not too scruffy—washed-out blue jeans, a black shirt, and a large pink flannel Anna had bought her. She's sure if they were going to do anything that would require more specific attire, they would have said so.

She heads downstairs, slightly cautious, still. Jane and Catalina are waiting at the bottom of the steps, both dressed in fairly similar attire. Kitty feels a rush of relief knowing her deductions had been correct. She hurries down to meet them, and they both smile warmly. It should be welcoming; it should make her feel at ease. But instead, it makes her more anxious.

Why are they being so kind to her? Why would they want her? It doesn't make sense and it makes her feel almost guilty. It's like they're going out of their way on her behalf and she can't understand what for.

They each collect their thicker coats from where they hang in the entryway of the house; the November weather has quickly grown quite bitter. Jane grabs a soft grey scarf and some gloves, while Catalina grabs the canary yellow scarf and bobble hat she'd bought with Anna (who naturally has a matching wine-red set). Kitty throws her winter coat on and hopes it will be warm enough, she doesn't want to hold them up by going upstairs to fetch her own hat and scarf.

So, she follows them to the car with her down, as the two of them talk animatedly about how they might spend the day. She doesn't join the conversation; she knows they wouldn't want her to. She gets into the car, and sits quietly as the radio hums to life, and Jane and Catherine continue their upbeat conversation.

It's a few moments of them sitting idling in the driveway before Kitty realises that both women are turned to look at her.

"Well?" Jane asks, expectantly. They both look a little unsure.

Great, now look what you've done. They think you're an idiot.

"S-sorry?" Kitty answers the question with one of her own.

"We were just asking what you'd like to do today," Catalina replies, her voice gentle. "We were thinking maybe lunch, some shopping, or we could go see a film?"

Kitty doesn't know what to say. Why are they asking her? Don't they have their own plans? She doesn't want to dictate their day for them, when they've already gone out of their way to bring her along.

"Oh, um... I don't really mind." She's not lying. In all honesty, all she really needs today is to be out of the house for a while. Getting the chance to spend some time with them is all she wants. She's spent too much time lately stuck inside, barely leaving her room and letting her thoughts spiral.

She needs this. She's been getting worse, she knows that. Thoughts and memories keep pulling her in deeper, and she's been letting herself sink with them. She needs to stop listening to that little voice in the back of her head that tells her it was all her fault; that she deserved it. The longer she spends alone, the easier it becomes to believe it. So she'd leapt at the chance to spend the day with the other Queens in the hopes that it would help to pull herself out of that place.

"Are you sure, Kat?" Jane asks, reaching behind her to gently place a hand on her knee. "We've not really got any plans either way."

Kitty thinks for a bit. She doesn't want to feel like she's making them do anything, but they clearly want to hear her suggestions. So, she lets herself blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.

"What about the park?" The weather's getting cold now, but it's sunny, and she likes the way the trees look with their burnt orange leaves scattering about the pathways.

Both women smile at her suggestion, and turn to look at each other before, perfectly synchronised, nodding in affirmation.

"Sounds good," Jane replies, putting the car into gear. "We can go for a walk after lunch."

She gives Kitty a warm smile through the rear view mirror, before taking off the hand-break and setting off. From the passenger seat, Catalina reaches a hand back towards her. Kitty panics. Is she supposed to take it? She can't help but agonise over it for a moment, before she ultimately opts to reach out.

She receives a light squeeze in acknowledgement. Her heart rate settles a bit, but she's still apprehensive. She isn't used to people being so open and kind and affectionate with her. Not without expecting something for themselves in return. Thinking about it makes her shudder, and the older Queen lightly circles the back of he hand with a thumb in response. It's soothing, but it doesn't stop Kitty from wondering why they're bothering.

Do they just feel guilty? They'd had the most traditionally "good" marriages to Henry out of them all, perhaps they simply feel bad for Kitty.

She shakes the thought from her head. They may not have known each other all that long, but Kitty thinks they're better than that. They don't just want to assuage their own guilt. Still, she can't make sense of what they're trying to do today.

She looks out of the window, and watches the scenery pass by; she loves taking in the sights of the city, so different now from how things used to be. It helps her to feel separate from what happened to her back then. Removed. Safe.

None of that can harm her any more.

They come into the multi-storey car park near the city centre, and circle for a few minutes before Jane lets the two of them get out, while she searches for a space. Kitty stands with Catalina near the lift, unsure of how to break the silence between them, or even if she should.

She's more than a little intimidated by the older woman. And, in fairness, she is a literal princess. It's not like she doesn't have reason to be. And what is Katherine but the misguided child of a family of petty social climbers who'd gotten in way over her head? Catalina is an image of all the people Kitty had never been able to keep up with in her past life. She behaves in the ways Kitty was supposed to, but could never quite replicate properly. She's the picture of nobility. Refined and composed and always able to command a room. She has the respect of all the others, even (begrudgingly) Anne.

Next to her, Kitty feels out of place. She likes Catalina, but she doesn't know how to bridge that gap between them. She's reserved and, as much as she is confident and steadfast in her beliefs, it's clear she prefers to keep her emotions to herself, for the most part. And that's what worries Kitty. She reminds her of all the people she'd interacted with back then. Who'd all been so distant and uncaring. People like her own grandmother, who maintained a cold layer of separation, and took no action against Kitty's abuse. Who maintained their poise even while things were so clearly not okay. They played their part, and kept up their facade. And they encouraged Kitty to do the same.

All that had done was contribute to her downfall.

But Catalina has standards, right? She's always fought for what she believes in, so maybe she's different. Kitty hopes that's the case. But she still doesn't know how to interact with her.

"I like the hair." Catalina's voice is soft, and Kitty is taken aback by the older woman's words for a second.

Kitty had dyed it only a few days ago; a bright pink at the ends. It's a nice gesture, though it takes Kitty a few moments to compose herself enough to properly give a response.

"Oh. T-thanks." She smiles up at the taller woman.

"Pink's a good colour on you."

"It's my favourite, I think." Kitty blushes a little. Why is she being so nice to her? She isn't used to people going out of their way for her like this.

She hears the jangling of keys, and turns to see Jane approaching the two of them, smiling warmly.

"You going to remember where you parked it?" Catalina inquires, raising an eyebrow at her. Jane lets out a small huff, but there's a growing smile on her face that she can't hide.

"Definitely not." She says, with a gentle shake of her head.

"Last week we spent an hour looking for the car because Jane thought she'd parked it on the wrong floor." Catalina whispers to Kitty, clearly picking up on her mild confusion at the discussion.

Jane rolls her eyes, though she looks a little embarrassed.

"You could just as easily have made the same mistake!"

The three of them pile into the lift, and Catalina taps the button for the ground floor. As they descend, Jane playfully gives her a gentle elbow in the ribs.

"Well, you didn't have to go and tell Kitty about my darkest hour." She jokes, in an overly dramatic tone.

They spend most of the time on their way to the restaurant exchanging playful jabs at each other's expense. Kitty almost feels like she's seeing something she shouldn't be. She's always seen the two of them as acting so dignified and sensible; it's odd to see them letting their hair down like this. But they're joking and teasing each other in the way that Kitty is used to seeing Anne do.

It's nice, though, seeing this other side of them both. And she's starting to feel a lot more comfortable being around the two of them like this. She doesn't feel so inclined to keep up the pretence of formality.

When they finally arrive, it's a cosy little Italian restaurant. the decor is accentuated with deep browns and reds, and photos of rural Italy adorn the walls. They find a little table in the corner, and Kitty settles into a seat facing outwards. She doesn't like to sit with her back to the rest of the room; it makes her feel nervous.

"We're getting a bottle of wine for the table, Kat, do you want some?" Jane asks her, as she leafs through the drinks menu.

Kitty thinks about it for a moment. She's never really drank much, but she likes the idea of sharing between the three of them.

"Sure." She says, with a decisive nod. She looks back to her menu and tries to settle on something to eat.

Jane leans over. "If you're hungry, the pizzas here are absolutely enormous." There's an almost child-like gleam in her eyes.

They're at the restaurant for about three hours. The food is good, the wine is good, and the company is, too. Kitty feels so comfortable around the other women. She hadn't expected to so easily fall into a rapport with them. But she's glad. The conversation is flowing easily, and she feels relaxed, and secure.

The awkward silence she's grown so used to with them both has dissipated. At times, they'll flounder, or someone won't know what to say next, but the three of them seem to be forming a connection, now. Kitty has always been afraid to speak out of turn, or to make a joke at another's expense, but the other women laugh with her, and return a jab of their own.

She's spent so much of her life afraid to let the mask slip. Hiding her feelings and trying to please the people around her. She feels oddly liberated. And it's not that she can't be like this with the others. Anna is her dearest friend, and Anne always has some snarky joke that catches Kitty off guard and makes her laugh until it hurts. Cathy always manages to make Kitty feel at ease, as the two of them sit together, reading in comfortable silence, or listening to soft music over a coffee.

But Catalina and Jane aren't people she expected to be able to relax this way with. They've always seemed more closed-off, still caught up in the expectations placed upon them in their past lives. And, in that sense, they had felt to Kitty like a connection to that past. A past she'd prefer to distance herself from. And because of that, this dynamic between the three of them feels important.

Like they're going back in time, and talking directly to her past self. Telling her that she's not at fault. Telling her they're not like that any more. And that she doesn't have to be either.

Her past is gone, and it can't hurt her any more.

When they've finally paid for the meal, and after sharing two bottles of wine at 2pm, they head for the park. On the way, they stop at a coffee shop. Kitty gets herself a mocha, and it warms her hands through the paper cup.

They reach the gates, and set off on their little walk around the park. Jane tries to plan a route from the display by the entrance, and Kitty shivers a little with the cold autumn air. She hopes to warm up once they've started walking again, but Catalina has already noticed her teeth chattering.

"Are you cold? Here." Her voice is concerned, and she pulls a pair of gloves from her pocket to hand to Kitty.

Kitty can't help the smile that creeps onto her lips as the other woman fusses over her, and zips her coat up for her gently as she pulls the gloves on. Satisfied with the journey she's planned, Jane catches up with the two of them, and seeing Catalina's action, moves to give Kitty her own scarf as well.

Kitty lets out a soft giggle, but their gestures are appreciated. Nobody's ever worried for her like this, at least not since she was a child. Her whole life from around the age of twelve, she had largely been left to take care of herself. There was no interest in her well-being outside of how it affected the family as a whole. She was no fool; she noticed the way their concerns for her had suddenly grown when she'd gotten a place at court, and how quickly it had faded when she'd been disgraced.

She thinks, again, about why the older queens had invited her out with them. What they had wanted from her. And she realises that they didn't want anything. It's odd to comprehend. Everyone she'd known back then—who the two of them had reminded her of—had been different.

And she realises they aren't like those people. She doesn't know what they were like before, but at the very least, they aren't that way now.

They care about her.

And, despite the people she has in her life now, all of her new (and old) friends; it feels almost foreign to her. She thinks about how much this would have meant to her back then. She thinks of that scared young girl, who'd spent so much of her life at the whims of other people. Who'd only ever been 'loved' by people who wanted something from her.

The only genuine affection she'd ever really known back then had been from her mother, but she'd passed when she was so young, she barely existed as a memory in Katherine's mind. Just the vague feeling of warmth and safety. She'd barely gotten the chance to have a mother.

She links her arms with the other two women, as they stroll past the half-bare trees, the ground adorned with shades of amber, gold and crimson.

She thinks she understands why they asked her to come. And while they still might not be able to find the words to say what they mean, Kitty hears them loud and clear. It might be nice to feel that maternal connection she's been missing for around 500 years.

The weather is still bitter and cold, but Kitty doesn't feel it so much. There's no cold that could stifle the warmth she feels.

Jane bumps her playfully with her hip, which leads to a domino effect, pushing her into Catalina, who pushes back. It devolves into the three of them trying to push each other over, and Kitty feels at ease in a way she hasn't for a while, even when she ends up on the floor. She takes Catalina down with her, of course.

She takes a moment to consider just how much her mood has shifted since this morning. She's officially out of that downward spiral.

And as she drags herself from the ground, that warmth ignites in her chest again, and she feels loved in a way she hasn't felt since childhood. She supposes she kind of does deserve two mums now; she's waited long enough.

[madamebaggio]

Notes: Remember the adventures of Sansa and Arthur in the modern world?

It’s okay if you don’t. Today I have chapter 3 here, so if you’re curious for the beginning... Click here.

Chapter 3

Technically speaking, Sansa knew that the room wasn’t spinning, but… Yeah, the ceiling was definitely spinning.

She shouldn’t have let Theon goad her into doing tequila shots. She’d had just one, but she was on an empty stomach and it was actually a miracle that it hadn’t all just come back out.

She’d made a brave face, then ran to Arya’s room. They were having a party at her sister’s apartment -the one she shared with her very peculiar friends -because it was Hot Pie’s birthday.

Sansa dropped herself on Arya’s bed and took a deep breath. She wasn’t drunk, but that tequila wasn’t doing any favors to her, and she was feeling a bit dizzy.

There was a quick knock on the door, then it opened. “Red? Are you okay?”

“Just peachy.” She groaned.

Arthur chuckled. “You sure sound peachy.” She felt the bed dip close to her waist. “I saw you doing that shot and running here. Are you sure you’re fine?”

“I thought I’d been sneaky.” She commented.

“Everybody saw you running, Red.” He informed her cheerily.

Sansa sighed. “I haven’t eaten since around two.” She admitted.

“And you thought doing shots was a smart idea?” He asked tersely.

“It’s Theon’s fault.” Sansa whined.

“Everything is Theon’s fault, love.” Arthur replied. “Even Brexit.”

She removed her arm from her face and looked at him. “I agree.” She then groaned. “I’m so stupid.”

“You aren’t.” He booped her nose. “I’ll get you some water, ok?”

“You don’t have…”

He’d left already.

Sansa waited for a few minutes, before he returned.

“Sit, love.” He told her.

Arthur hadn’t only brought her the largest glass of water he could find in the house, he’d also brought a plate full of finger food.

He made her drink the water, before insisting that she had to eat. He swore he’d brought food for them to share, but Sansa was well aware she was the only one actually eating, while he just nibbled on the same thing for long minutes.

Eventually, the food was gone and so was the water, so Sansa fell back on the bed. “Thank you for taking care of me.” She smiled at him.

He chuckled. “Just making sure my favorite redhead is fine.”

Sansa snorted. “Don’t let Robb and Percival hear that.” She teased.

“They’re not half as good kissers as you are, so they’d have to understand.” He explained, laying down beside her, but on his side, with his hand supporting his head.

“Oh, so now I get it.” Sansa threw him a look. “You only hang around me because I’m a good kisser.”

“Exactly.” He replied easily, not one bit of shame. “Well, if I had to pick a dude…” He drawled, like he was seriously considering it. “It’d be Percival.”

Sansa laughed. “Really?” Although… Well, if she wasn’t in this tangle with Arthur, she’d definitely consider Percival too. 

“Yes.” He answered promptly. “Or Jon. Those soulful eyes…” He sighed wistfully. “Can you imagine him with a guitar? So dreamy.”

Sansa was laughing so hard there were tears coming out of her eyes. “You’re ridiculous.” She told him, gasping for air.

Arthur chuckled, clearly enjoying her mirth. He just enjoyed her laughter, his eyes fixed on her face, until she calmed down.

When she was finally under control, she noticed he was still there, laying really close to her, a smirk on his lips.

“So…” He dragged the word.

Sansa grinned at him. “Are you going to kiss me?”

He hummed, then ran his fingers through her hair. “I’m waiting for permission.” He told her.

“Are you?” Her grin got bigger.

“Yes.” He told her absentmindedly.

Sansa just laid there enjoying his fingers carding through her hair, looking at him, while his eyes were on his task.

“Arthur.” She called softly.

“Yes, Sansa?” He offered solicitously, even if his eyes were still fixed on the strands of hair he had between his fingers.

“You can kiss me.” She stage-whispered to him, finally claiming his attention.

His eyes went to her face, and he opened the biggest smile ever. “Thank you kindly.” He said formally, before leaning in her direction.

Sansa was in a lot of trouble, she realized just then. It had been really naïve of her to believe she could keep kissing Arthur like this and remain unaffected. He wasn’t only ridiculously fit and a good kisser, he was a great man, even if he was a little shit.

“Do I taste like sausage rolls?” Sansa teased, when he left her mouth in favor of kissing her jaw.

Arthur hummed an agreement. “Only thing better than that, would be if you tasted like beer, princess.” He informed her.

Sansa snorted, but he went back to her mouth and swallowed the sound. His hand had sneaked inside her shirt, and she shivered as his thumb grazed her ribs.

So she did something quite impulsive, but she’d be a liar if she said she hadn’t been thinking about it: she pulled Arthur on top of her. It was absurdly good to feel his weight on her, she might never recover.

Arthur groaned against her lips as soon as his body settled over hers. “Goddamnit, Red. You’re trying to kill me.” He growled, but his hands were everywhere making her more comfortable under him; hands on her waist to push her higher on the bed, hands on her thighs making them circle his waist, before they finally dove back under her shirt.

Their hips fit perfectly together, and Sansa wasn’t that naïve; she knew things were bound to heat up at some point -look at how good they were together -but she couldn’t say she minded. Why would she? Especially now, when her body was burning from his kisses, and her hips started moving on their own…

Arthur’s hand had just closed over her breast, when the door banged open. “Arthur, what the…”

They both jumped apart, Sansa almost falling from the bed, but it was way too late. It was more than obvious what had been going on there, and Percival wasn’t an idiot.

“Percival.” Arthur coughed.

Percival, on his part, was completely frozen; his face had the most complete shock in it. Sansa imagined that, of all things he’d expected to find when he opened the door, what he actually saw hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“I…” Percival closed his mouth. “Fuck.” He cursed, then left.

Arthur and Sansa looked at each other.

“Do you think he’s going to tell everyone?” She asked concerned.

“I don’t think so…” Arthur seemed pensive. “I’ll talk to him.” He promised, getting ready to get up.

Sansa grabbed his arm. “Arthur, it’s not that I’m ashamed of this…” She hurried to say.

“I get it, Red.” He assured her. “I don’t think it’s a topic I want discussed in the middle of a party.”

Sansa sighed. “Is this the universe giving us a sign?”

“Yes, it is.” He leaned so he could whisper against her ear. “We should definitely find a more private place to snog. No family or friends, and with doors that actually lock.”

Sansa was still gasping, when he winked at her and left the room.

She took a deep breath and tried to cool herself. What the hell was she getting herself into?

The Stark decided she didn’t want to think about this just then, so she left the room. A quick stop in the bathroom, showed that she -once again -was looking very well snogged, like Marge had said before. She threw cold water on her face, and retouched her makeup, before going to the living room.

“There she is!” Arya commented as soon as she saw her sister. “We were discussing here, and it’s your turn to be Arthur’s arm candy.”

“What?”

In theory, she understood what her sister was saying; the girls took turns going to social events with Arthur, so he wouldn’t be attacked by debutants or whatever hunted men at these places. Sansa had gone to two dinners, and had been bored to tears. However…

“How is it my turn again?” She asked.

“The last one was Nimue, and the one before was me.” Maggie indicated. “Now Marge is dating, so she can’t go. The same works for Arya.”

Sansa groaned. “Okay…”

“Why so sad, darling?” Marge asked, a wicked glean in her eyes. “It’s just some quality time with Arthur dearest. You’ll survive.”

Sansa sent a warning glare to Marge, but the other woman just gave her a beatific smile. She looked around the room, trying to find Arthur. He was beside Robb, talking to the other men, including Percival.

This was starting to get out of control, and if Sansa was smart, she’d jump out. But looking at Arthur now, seeing him laughing like that… She just knew she wasn’t that smart.

[amillionmillionvoices]

“Please listen to me-” + hicsqueak

Hecate isn’t quite sure what she expected to happen. It’s the first conference they’ve attended together, staying in the same hotel, in the same room under Pippa’s name. She’d booked them a suite, far more lavish than Hecate would ever indulge in, but she can’t deny it’s been nice, to have a place to retreat to when the crowds become too much and the socializing begins to grate at her nerves.

She’d known Pippa had her own agenda for the conference - modern workshops and seminars and luncheons with the upper echelons of society. She’d mentioned trying to shop around her most recent article on modern pedagogical exercises in chanting (an article Hecate had read, edited, and eventually grudgingly admitted was logically sound), and bemoaned a meeting with the CEO of some company or other, a man who’d donated a significant amount to Pippa’s school.

Hecate had her own schedule as well, sticking to the larger panels, mostly there to observe and listen and perhaps, if she has the time, attend a seminar on alternative teaching methods for ‘alternative students,’ though she would hate to be recognized at such an event.

(Still, her students come first, even when her students include the likes of Mildred Hubble.)  

She’d known they would spend a significant amount of time going their separate ways. But she hadn’t expected Pippa to be quite so distant.

She hasn’t invited Hecate to any of the lunches she’s attending, despite complaining about how handsy Arnold Moonshine always gets when he thinks she’s single. Hasn’t introduced her to anyone during the breaks, hasn’t sought her out for a quick word, hasn’t touched her at all - not even a fleeting brush of her hand against Hecate’s arm, the way she always does when they’re in public at either of their schools.

She tries to be grateful for it. Tries to reason to herself that drawing attention to themselves as a couple would be a disastrous idea, and it’s not as though it’s anyone else’s business besides.

But a louder, childish part of her, feels wounded. That Pippa evidently doesn’t want anyone to know they’re together. That she’s either ashamed or embarrassed to be seen with Hecate in such a public forum.

She understands why. Hecate knows she isn’t liked much out of very small, traditional circles. Knows even there she’s the odd one out, too awkward and too brusque to really connect with anyone. She’s been relatively lucky, that her life isn’t predicated on who she knows. She’d taken the potions mistress post at Cackle’s early on in her career, and Ada had taken a shine to her, for reasons Hecate still doesn’t quite understand.

Pippa, she knows, has had to build her reputation, her school, her life from the ground up. Yes, her name gave her some advantages, as her family has always been well-liked by most, but there’s no denying she’s worked hard, to cultivate the right relationships, to be seen with the right people, to learn what to say and how and when to say it.

Hecate doesn’t possess those skills. She’s too blunt, too sarcastic, too unwilling to cater to the people around her. And Pippa knows that. Knows that she’d be a hindrance rather than a help; that she’d inevitably say something and alienate someone and all Pippa’s hard work would be lost.

So Hecate keeps to herself. Follows Pippa’s cues and during the day pretends they’re nothing more than colleagues, barely friends.

At night, Pippa returns to the room far later than Hecate, exhausted, and her mask slips away. Her shoulders hunch and she smiles weakly, but genuinely, for the first time all day.

Hecate quirks her lips when Pippa collapses, still in her clothes, and curls up on the sofa, her head in Hecate’s lap.

“I hate conferences,” she confesses, nuzzling her head into Hecate’s hand when she begins carding her fingers through Pippa’s hair.

“I can see why,” Hecate murmurs, setting aside her book.

Pippa sighs heavily. “At least the funding for the east wing is in order.”

Hecate raises her eyebrows. “Already?”

Pippa snorts. “Dryfus is easy,” she says. “Pay him enough compliments and buy him lunch and he’s yours.”

“Dryfus,” Hecate repeats, trying to place the name. “Dryfus Ellington?” Pippa hums in response. “He’s an idiot.”

“A rich idiot,” Pippa mumbles.

Hecate purses her lips but says nothing. There’s nothing to say - she understands why Pippa does it. Why she needs the money - for expansion, for supplies, for scholarships. It’s the latter she’s the most invested in, Hecate knows, trying desperately to make her school affordable to everyone.

But it’s private, isn’t funded by the council the way Cackle’s is, and a steady source of funding is necessary to keep Pentangle’s up and running.

It doesn’t mean Hecate always agrees with her methods, but she can’t imagine what she would do differently.

Pippa sighs in the silence, turning on her back to look up at Hecate. “I know you don’t approve.”

Hecate falters, then continues brushing her fingers through Pippa’s hair. “It isn’t that.”

“No?”

“I disapprove of the fact that it’s necessary,” she says. “But I think no less of you for it.”

Pippa’s lips quirk in a smile, and she catches Hecate’s hand, pressing a kiss to her palm. “I’m sorry I’ve been so busy,” she says. “Tomorrow we’ll stay together.”

Hecate swallows. “That’s not necessary. I realize you have more important things to do.”

Pippa frowns. “I’ve made all the arrangements I needed,” she says. “It took me a day longer than I’d have liked, but—tomorrow I’m all yours.”

She smiles, and Hecate’s stomach drops.

It isn’t worth it. Pippa works too hard to have every relationship she’s developed unravel in Hecate’s presence.

“I… appreciate the offer,” Hecate says carefully, “But I understand.”

“Understand what?”

Hecate works her jaw, trying to parse her words, to sound careless and unaffected. “I’m not exactly the most popular person in these circles.”

Pippa sits up, faces her with her legs crossed and a hand on her arm. “So?”

“So… I understand the need for distance. You’ve worked hard to cultivate these relationships. My presence would only serve as a hindrance.”

“That’s not true.”

Hecate arches an eyebrow. “Is that not why you’ve been pretending we’re merely colleagues?”

Pippa’s frown deepens and she pulls away, settling her hands in her lap. “I haven’t been—” She stops, and stares down at her hands. “I’m sorry.”

She’d hoped, vainly, that perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps Pippa had another reason for avoiding her—but she can tell by the guilty expression on her face, the way she wrings her hands together that she wasn’t wrong at all.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Hecate says. “I’m aware of my reputation. I’m aware of the damage it would do to yours.”

Pippa falters, opens her mouth several times and finally says, “It’s just a game. It’s a stupid game I have to play to keep my school running, and these people care so much about names and status and I need them to—”

Hecate ducks forward and kisses her briefly, softly, stemming her words. “I know.”

“It has nothing to do with you,” she says. “It has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”

Hecate doesn’t quite believe her, but nods regardless. “I know.”

Pippa blinks rapidly. “You’re not angry?”

Hecate offers a small smile. “I’m fine, Pippa. Truly.”

–

She isn’t fine.

It hurts, watching Pippa across the hall, knowing for certain now that she’s being, to borrow Pippa’s phrase, shunted. To know it’s on purpose, to serve a goal.

She understands, doesn’t fault Pippa for it, but for the first time, she wishes she were more palatable to people. Wishes she could turn herself off for a while, could be normal, could be like everyone else.

Settling into her seat, she hates that she glances around for Pippa. Hates that she finds her just two rows back, sitting next to an older woman that Hecate can tell just by looking at is wealthy. Pippa catches Hecate’s eye and smiles briefly, and Hecate nods back, then turns in her seat to face the podium.

The first presentation is duller than the ones her students give, and Hecate lets herself tune out the drone of his voice and uninteresting (and unoriginal) findings.

People in the audience have begun to whisper, and there are two women in front of her who catch her attention, heads bent together as they look over the schedule.

“Pentangle’s leading a workshop?”

“On modern magic,” the other says derisively. “There’ll no doubt be singing involved.”

“She had to cancel the last one she signed up for. Too busy screwing her way to the top, I’d imagine.”

Hecate freezes, blood cold as she stares at the back of their heads, jaw clenched.

“That’s not very nice,” the other whispers back, and the first woman huffs.

“Well it’s true. How else do you think she gets all that funding for her ridiculous school?”

“Or perhaps,”  Hecate says quietly, pleased when both women jump and turn, startled, “manipulating the petty and disingenuous out of their money is easier than you would like to believe.” She fixes her gaze on the second woman. “You’ve donated a significant amount in the last year to Catshead Academy, have you not?”

The woman - Miss Belltower, she knows - stammers, but the other she doesn’t recognize recovers after a moment and lifts her chin, her voice still quiet in the large ballroom, “That’s interesting coming from you, Miss Hardbroom, as I was under the impression Miss Pentangle endeavored to take your headmistress’ place in much the same way.”

Hecate’s anger flares, her voice a bit too loud, “Ada Cackle would never—”

“I’m not talking about Miss Cackle. You are sleeping with Miss Pentangle, are you not?”

Silence or aversion is as good as a yes, and Pippa doesn’t want people to know. Doesn’t want that association, so she lifts her chin and says clearly,

“No, I am not. Though I fail to see how that’s any of your concern.”

Miss Belltower turns away, and the other woman contemplates for a moment before saying, “I suppose it isn’t. But perhaps you should pay closer attention to rumors, Miss Hardbroom. It would be a pity to lose your upstanding reputation to one…mistake.”

She arches an eyebrow before turning back in her seat and fixing her gaze pointedly on the presenter.

Hecate has no idea what she means or even how to go about finding out. She’s always done her best to keep herself above gossip, beyond who’s retiring and who’s publishing and what posts are open at various academies.

But Pippa knows. Pippa knows everything, makes it her business to know, to keep her head above water, and Hecate clenches her teeth in irritation.

She can tolerate being ignored for the sake of Pippa’s school, for Pippa’s students. She can handle the twisted feeling in her gut that perhaps Pippa is embarrassed to be seen with her. But she cannot abide secrets, or being kept in the dark, and it’s soon after the panel is over that Hecate finds Pippa in the hallway, chatting amiably with another witch.

“Pardon me, Miss Pentangle,” she interrupts, caring little for the annoyed glance the other woman gives her. “Might I borrow you for a moment? Miss Cackle has a few questions on modern pedagogy she asked me to have answered while I’m here.”

Pippa frowns, a bit confused, but smiles and makes her excuses and turns to Hecate, voice lowered in the crowd. “Is everything alright?”

Hecate glances around to ensure no one is paying them any attention, then transfers them both to an empty conference room and shuts the door with a wave of her hand.

“Hecate?”

“I’ve had an interesting conversation with a friend of Miss Belltower’s,” she says. “Evidently our relationship isn’t as private as you’d like.”

There’s a moment, a brief flash of panic in Pippa’s eyes that Hecate’s certain no one else would catch before she frowns.

“I haven’t heard anything,” she says, but it’s a lie, bold and brazen, and Hecate arches an eyebrow.

“So you’re unaware that some people believe you’re only sleeping with me in an attempt to assume Miss Cackle’s position as headmistress?”

It’s an indelicate way of putting it, Hecate knows, especially if Pippa truly hasn’t heard the rumor; but she has, Hecate can see it on her face, the way her mask breaks for a split second, the horrified look in her eyes, but without surprise.

“I—” she starts, and Hecate snaps.

“Don’t lie to me, Pippa.”

She blinks, startled, and shakes her head. “I’m not trying to lie to you. I just—it’s idle gossip, it means nothing.”

“It means something, or you would have told me about it.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” she insists. “Yes, I’m aware of it, but I didn’t think telling you would do any good. I know you don’t like gossip to begin with and it’s nothing more than that.” She pauses, frown deepening. “Unless—you don’t believe it, do you?”

Hecate huffs. “Of course not.”

“I’m serious, Hecate. You don’t believe I’m with you because I want something, right?”

Hecate sighs, her anger dwindling in the face of Pippa’s palpable fear. “No, I don’t believe it,” she says firmly. She isn’t always quite sure why Pippa is with her, but she knows it isn’t because of that. “But if I’m going to do my part and deny any rumor that we’re together, I need to know what those rumors are.”

“You told someone we weren’t together?”

Hecate frowns at the surprise in her voice. “Miss Belltower and her…friend.”  Pippa looks shaken, and Hecate doesn’t understand. “I thought it’s what you wanted.”

Pippa blinks and nods. “No, of course, you’re right. It’s better this way.”

“Pippa—”

“That was quick thinking, though I’m sorry to have put you in that position.” She smiles too broadly. “Once I’ve locked down sponsors for next year’s scholarships, I’m sure we can tell people. If you want.”

Hecate tries her best not to flinch. Tries to pretend that the words, their implication, make no difference to her. That being hidden in the shadows for the sake of appearance doesn’t tug at something inside her, doesn’t tongue at her insecurities.

But Pippa must see it, because she’s across the room in seconds, a hand on Hecate’s arm. “Hiccup—”

“It’s fine, Pippa,” she interrupts, unable to stand the concern in Pippa’s eyes. “It’s only another two days, regardless.” She pauses. “In fact, I may head back early. There are some things at Cackle’s I need to—”

“Hecate, no, stay,” she begs. “We’ll—we’ll do something tomorrow, I promise. We’ll get away from the hotel and—”

“Hide,” Hecate finishes, her voice flat. “That’s fine.”

Pippa looks away. “It’s not hiding.”

Hecate purses her lips. “I’m willing to go along with the charade in public, but let’s not pretend it’s anything other than what it is. I embarrass you.”

Pippa’s head jerks up, her eyes wide, and her hand tightens on Hecate’s arm. “Hecate, no. That’s not—that’s not even close to—why would you say that?”

Hecate pulls away, irritation rising. “Because I’m not naive. You’ve made it quite clear that I don’t belong in this part of your world.”

Pippa frowns. “And you’re alright with that?”

“Yes,” she lies. “If it’s what’s best for you—”

“It’s not.”

Hecate pauses. “I don’t understand.”

Pippa shakes her head, clearly exasperated, though Hecate has no idea why, until she says, so clearly, “I’ve loved you since I was eleven years old, and for thirty years I had to live without you. Now that we’re together, I want to—to—leap on my broom and shout it to the rooftops. But I can’t. Because—”

“It’s a game,” Hecate repeats. “Of course.”

“But you don’t believe that,” Pippa says. “Not entirely. Or you wouldn’t be so upset.”

“I’m not upset.”

Pippa glares at her. “Don’t lie to me, Hecate, not about this. Don’t say you’re fine when you aren’t.”

“Then don’t lie to me, Pippa,” she snaps. “Do not attempt to dress this up as something pretty, for your sake or mine. I don’t need to be coddled.”

“I’m not trying to coddle you, Hecate, I’m trying to—” She cuts herself off abruptly and turns away.

“Trying to what?” Hecate goads, and Pippa sighs.

“I’m just…trying to do the right thing. By you. By us. By my school.”

Hecate watches her for a moment, sees the struggle on her face, and almost hates that she says, softly, “You may not be able to have it both ways.”

Pippa’s eyes water and Hecate’s stomach knots, her hands itching to reach out. Instead, she curls her hands into fists and lifts her chin.

“That isn’t fair,” Pippa says, and Hecate shakes her head.

“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Pippa barks out a wet laugh. “Of course it’s not.”

Hecate frowns, feels thrown off course. “I don’t understand,” she says, and Pippa seems to crack, seems like a torrent of things she’s held back slip out, and she’s powerless to stop them.

“I hate this,” she admits. “I hate pretending we’re not together. I hate that I can’t touch you or hold your hand or—or—even speak to you naturally. I hate the excuses and the—stares and—and I don’t care if people know. I want people to know. I want them to know I’m yours.”

Hecate blinks, surprise and confusion plain on her face, she’s certain. “But… your school…”

Pippa scoffs and her voice hardens. “Anyone that wouldn’t give us money because of you is money I don’t want,” she says. “And anyone who wouldn’t support us because of you is support I don’t need.”

Hecate flounders. “Then why—”

“Because of you.  Because you’re—you’re revered, Hecate. Your work is known in every witching circle there is and even the people that don’t like you admire you. You’ve built a reputation for yourself, a good one - as a traditionalist, yes, but as someone who cares deeply about The Craft and educating young witches and I didn’t want—”

She breaks off, and Hecate swallows tightly, barely manages to ask, “Didn’t want what?”

“I didn’t want to damage that. With my… modern practices and—singing and… pink.” She bites her lip and looks up at Hecate with wet eyes. “I didn’t want people to think I was manipulating you. I know how much you hate being pitied, and I just—I didn’t want them to think of you as one of my supposed ‘conquests.’ You’re better than that. You deserve better than that. And I can’t be the one to ruin—”

Hecate kisses her, closes the space between them and kisses her fiercely, hands on her cheeks. Pippa startles, but instantly relaxes, brings her hands up to curl around Hecate’s biceps as she leans in, opens her mouth under Hecate’s.

When they part, they’re both breathing heavily, and Hecate presses her forehead to Pippa’s, eyes closed, heart hammering.

“Pippa,” she murmurs. “When is the last time you’ve known me to care what fools think of me?”

Pippa curls her fingers around the back of Hecate’s neck. “But they hurt you,” she whispers. “You pretend they don’t, but I remember—”

When they were young, when harsh words and criticisms would follow Hecate down the hallways, when rumors would pop up, about her family, about her, about her and Pippa.

Hecate shakes her head. “I cared because I was afraid,” she says. “I thought if you believed the rumors, if you knew how I felt, you would leave me. But I couldn’t care less about Miss Belltower or her friends or anyone else.

“But you—”

“Please listen to me,” Hecate cuts her off, pulling back far enough to see Pippa’s face. “There isn’t anything anyone could say that would matter more to me than you. If they think I am… naive or gullible, let them think so. There are far worse things,” she says pointedly, but Pippa shakes her head.

“I don’t care. Those rumors—I’m used to them.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

Pippa smiles softly. “No. But they don’t bother me anymore.”

Hecate nods slowly, her fingers brushing the ends of Pippa’s hair. “And… I don’t embarrass you?”

Pippa kisses her firmly. “Never.”

“Then perhaps we’ve been the foolish ones,” Hecate says, ducking her head. Pippa kisses the frown on her face, her nose, her lips.

“We could be not foolish, from now on?”

There’s nervousness there, and hope, and Hecate’s lips quirk in a small smile.

“I would like that.”

Pippa beams, wrapping her arms tightly around Hecate’s neck. “I love you, Hiccup.”

Hecate buries her face in Pippa’s neck. “I love you, too, Pipsqueak.”

Pippa sniffles, pulls back to wipe a stray tear off her cheek and finally lets go, stepping back. “I suppose we should get back to the ballroom for the next panel?”

Hecate nods, and Pippa holds out her hand. “Together?”

Smiling softly, Hecate takes her hand, holds on, doesn’t let go.

“Pippa?” she asks, just before they transfer.

“Yes?”

“Don’t call me Hiccup in public.”

They fade away, Pippa’s laughter ringing through the empty room.

[spaceprimcessleia]

Still Worth Saving 3

A seagull squawks in her ear; she throws a chip to the end of the dock. It flies after it, splattering its faeces on the wood and Sam crumples the empty wrapper and shoves it in her pocket. She can see enough from her vantage point to know that Dylan isn’t alone on his boat. There are shadows moving across the windows, a blurred outline that’s definitely not him.

She strides along the dock and knocks firmly on the door. It’s there again, that same scrabbling sound along with Dylan hushing whoever’s there. Sam rolls her eyes. Dylan can be great at keeping secrets as long as there’s very little actual evidence to hid; his social awkwardness to blame for both. She tries the door and it opens.

Dylan stares at her. “Why does no one understand the concept of private property?”

Behind him is a boy. Maybe eleven, twelve. His eyes are fixed fearfully on Sam.

“Dylan, who is this?”

He sighs. “Will you at least shut the door?”

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Bea slides up to her when she’s trying to have ten minutes of peace and a coffee between call outs. It used to be that she never had a moment off of her feet and it was how she loved it.  In some ways it’s like being back in the army: working with Iain again, waiting for the crackling of the radio that will give them their next job, scenes of carnage and horror- but in too many ways it’s not.

“Hey.” Sam smiles tightly back. “How are you? I mean after-”

“No lasting damage.” She wants to say better than a four year old who has permanent lung damage.

Bea slides her hands into the pockets of her scrubs. “It was amazing, what you did. Insane, but amazing.” In her awe, for a moment,  Sam remembers how it felt to finally be doing something more than picking up the patient and driving them to the real doctors.

But to Bea, she just shrugs. “Once a soldier.”

“Soldier?”

“I was an army doctor, along with Iain.”

Bea’s eyes widen, but at least she doesn’t ask what everyone else does when they hear that.

Did you ever kill anyone?

~*~

“You never did tell me what happened with you and Tom,” says Iain while she’s driving the ambulance. And it’s casual, but there’s something else there too.

Sam ignores him She ignores her heart, fluttering like a trapped butterfly beating its wings against glass, ignores her breath that hitches in her throat. She ignores them, and watches the road.

“Oi.” Iain pokes her knee. “Give me a sob story and I might even buy you a drink later.”

She unglues her teeth, peels the words from her lips. “You got it right. I cheated.” (What else is she going to tell him?)

“Knew it. Bet he wasn’t as good as me though.” She doesn’t glance at him, but she knows he’s winking at her. Like they’re still in a bunker, crammed onto a bed meant for one and he’s making her feel like she doesn’t have glass in her chest.

Now, he’s making her feel like it’s a boulder.

~*~

He drove them home afterwards with a face carved from marble. Sam sat slightly slouched against the door from the gin.

“You had fun.” Tom’s voice crackled through the silence like distant thunder, but Sam wasn’t in the mood to blunt the edge in it.

“I did actually.”

“You made me look like an idiot, draped all over him.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Who?”

“Come on, Sam. I have eyes.” Right then they weren’t on the road.

“You mean Jay?” His fists tightened on the wheel.

Jay, an old friend she hadn’t seen since she left the army, once almost as important to her as Iain. Dylan hadn’t minded that time he had come to visit on the boat and thrown her into the sea. She didn’t think it was the moment to tell Tom, though. “He’s my lover,” she said instead. “We’re running away to the Caribbean together to open a lemonade bar.”

The silence was worse than his jibes, but she didn’t take hers back. His speed crept up, even though the headlights barely cut through the dark and fog. “Speed,” she warned, but he took it as an invitation.

There was nothing else on the road, not yet, but they were going too fast to stop.

“Tom, slow down.” The bravery the alcohol had given her crumbled into terror as the engine roared beneath them.

He flicked off the headlights, shutting them in darkness.

~*~

The blanket smells a little like dog but it’s thick and soft (and it smells like him too). He throws up the heat and by the time they reach his boat she’s almost warm again.

Dervla runs to greet her as soon as she steps inside; she runs in circles around her, yipping when she realises who it is. Sam scratches behind her ears and the dog takes her place at her old co-owner’s feet. Dylan shakes his head. “I explained to her that you wouldn’t be around any more.”

Sam’s eyebrows lift to the ceiling. “You explained the concept of a divorce to a dog?”

“No. I simply told her you had gone away but that time you wouldn’t be back.”

“Did you tell her I still loved her very much and none of it was her fault?”

“If you’re just going to take the mick you can get  the bus back to your own house and have Indian alone.”

She throws up her hands in surrender, but she can actually feel a smile creeping onto her face. It’s been a long time since anything has been easy between them. There had been a few peaceful weeks, after the cave, an almost truce. Then he had dressed up to ask for another go and she had served him with divorce papers. Maybe she deserves his rejection.

But then he notices her shiver and ushers his dog away so she can sink onto the sofa where there are more blankets. “Tea,” he announces before disappearing into the kitchen.

//

“He didn’t consent,” Sam tells him ten minutes later with her sleeves pulled her her hands- those wrapped around a mug of tea hot enough to blow clouds of steam into her face. “He was...scared. Confused. He just kept begging us not to take it.”

Dylan looks at her , almost softly. “If you hadn’t amputated, what would have happened?”

“He would have died. Maybe his sister too if we couldn’t make her leave him.”

“Well then,” he says as if that settles it. To him it does. To Dylan it’s always black and white, it is or it isn’t. To her, it’s another layer of guilt.

~*~

A woman is rocking her dead child, her fingers brushing his hair as though he can still feel it. She looks up, her eyes locking with Sam’s. په دوزخ کې اوریدل.

Burn in Hell.

She turns and runs, her feet pounding on the hot sand even as she screams at herself to turn back. A sun scorched steering wheel burned her skin as she drove, kicking up dust behind her, but the woman and her child never got any further away. They grew bigger.

Her head turns towards the passenger seat. There’s a man sitting there, a  gaping hole in his forehead and tears streaming down his cheeks, running paths along the soot on his cheeks. In his fist he holds his inhaler. Silently, he mouths at her. Help me. She fires another hole into his chest.

Dylan’s body slumps in the seat, his eyes wide but with the kind of emptiness of a school at midnight. She screams. Tom clamps his hand over her mouth, crushing her nose against her skull. She tries to breathe but it just makes her chest tighter. He pushes her into the bed.

“Don’t say his name.”

She squeezes her eyes shut and turns her gaze away from what he’s going to do.

When she opens them she sees darkness. Shadows cast against the walls and a figure in front of her, dark and small and speaking words she can barely understand. “Wake up, Miss Samantha. Wake up.”  

A dream. Thank god.

(Except it wasn’t entirely).

She forces herself to sit up, her limbs stiff and tingling from the way she’s slept (on Dylan’s sofa, apparently). There are thick blankets draped around her and she throws them off, even as she shivers at the sweat cooling on her skin. “Where’s Dylan?” she asks Sanosi, fighting the impulse to reach out and switch on the light.

“Asleep. You were having a bad dream,” he adds, like she might not have figured it out.

Her heart is beating so hard she feels sick. Sanosi squints at her through the darkness, his forehead crinkled. “Shall I get Doctor Dylan?”

“No!” Sam says, too quickly. “It’s all right. I’m okay.”

The boy doesn’t look convinced.

She switches on the light. “I think we both need a hot chocolate.” Sanosi’s face breaks into a grin.

She knows her way around the kitchen as if there’s a map drawn into her brain; she even remembers to flick the button twice because it takes Dylan’s ancient cooker a while to wake up. She makes it in the pan, the only real way to do it, melting chocolate into the milk (she still knows where Dylan keeps his stash for his more-frequent-than-he-would-ever-admit cravings).

Sanosi has a curve of milk foam around his top lip before Sam’s has even cooled enough to drink (she added a little cold milk to his). But there’s still a loud part of her tugging her limbs to move, to get out of there because it’s the middle of the night and she should not be on her ex-husband’s boat making hot chocolate for his stowaway.

“I have them too,” he says when his hot chocolate is almost gone. “I see the men with guns, and my family.” He doesn’t go on. He doesn’t need to. It’s the same things she sees- children with stumps where their legs used to be and dead women with arms still wrapped around their baby’s corpse. Herself holding the gun.

“He said you were one of the good ones.”

A sudden crunch of agony crushes her so tightly she wants to curl in on herself. She hasn’t been good for so long- in too many ways to explain to a child. And she can hardly think of herself as a soldier any longer.

She doesn’t, can’t, say anything but Sanosi doesn't seem to expect her to. He steals another marshmallow from the bag and she doesn’t say anything about that either, but she does take the bag away after he’s had his sixth.

[yohanes-magic-circle]

Digital Disguise: Chapter 4

(Impatient? Don’t like reading fics on Tumblr? The whole thing is up on AO3 now. I hope you enjoy it!)

[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3]

By all measures, Yoshiko Tsushima should have been miserable as she walked through the front door of her family's apartment. She'd got her English test results back that day, and they were only just a step above failure. It's not that she hadn't tried to improve. Inspired by Mari's random outbursts, she'd asked for help, but even when she could be torn away from her duties as the school's director, she didn't end up being much use. It turned out that mixing Yoshiko's tendency to slack off with Mari's lighthearted nature and love of joking around was a recipe for very little actual studying to take place. What's more, she was struggling to nail the timing for Aquors' new dance routine – she was always half a step ahead or behind, and attempts to correct the problem always resulted in overcompensation. Nobody was holding it against her, but she knew she’d need to get it together before the preliminaries.

Despite all of this, the first-year student was wearing the kind of smile that suggested that she didn't have any troubles at all. “Welcome home,” came the habitual greeting from Yoshiko's mother. She wasn't expecting her greeting to be welcomed with a cheery “Hi!” from her daughter, and didn't have time to react before Yoshiko's customary retreat to her bedroom. It wasn't much, but it was nice. Having worried about Yoshiko's social skills throughout middle school, her mother credited Yoshiko's good mood to her school idol activities – making some less eccentric friends was the best thing that could have happened.

Thankfully for Yoshiko, her mother didn't know the truth – Yoshiko was in fact grinning from ear to ear entirely because of her weirder interests. School wasn't the only place she made friends, after all. Yohane Time mostly earned Yoshiko fans rather than friends, but some of her more regular viewers had earned their way into what she liked to call the “inner circle,” a small group that she considered to be friends. She'd ask about what was going on in their lives, entirely in character of course, and always made sure to prioritise them for fortunes and rituals. They didn’t know much about the real Yoshiko, but they seemed to like Yohane, and every time she considered just not streaming, it was the mental vision of their disappointment that caused her to think twice.

Quitting hadn’t been something that Yoshiko had seriously considered for a couple of weeks, though. Lately, it seemed like she might be gaining a new friend by the name of Musashino, and when you cut to the core of it that was what was behind Yoshiko's good mood – she was streaming again tonight, and that meant another chance to interact. This newcomer had shown up about four weeks ago, and hadn’t missed a show since. They’d quickly found their feet amongst the regulars in the chat, and while their messages were a little slow, they were always interesting. (Was that down to a laggy connection or slow typing speed? Yoshiko couldn't tell.)

When viewers had been asked what Yohane needs, Musashino had responded with “a demonic familiar,” and Yoshiko most definitely wanted a pet. When another viewer had asked what kind of film a Yohane movie would be, they had already suggested it’d be a tragedy before Yoshiko had even been able to address the question – that’s certainly how she preferred to characterise her rotten luck, even though in reality it tended to lean more towards slapstick comedy. One time, when someone began to question Yohane’s fortune telling as being far too giving for a being from the netherworld, Musashino had leapt to her defence by noting that Yohane hadn’t become a fallen angel by choice – clearly  somebody  was paying attention to the backstory – and that she still had kindness in her heart. As Yohane had talked of the celestial conflict that would herald the end of days, Musashino had been fascinated (and even taught Yoshiko a new word – eschatology). It seemed as if this person was really on Yohane's wavelength.

Yoshiko already considered Musashino as part of that special inner circle, one of the little demons she held dearest. In fact, she was quickly coming to consider Musashino as her favourite, and she was incredibly pleased that they seemed to be just as committed to viewing her stream as she was to hosting it – it wouldn’t be the same without them any more. Whenever she found herself zoning out in class, it was inevitably Musashino that she ended up thinking about, largely because she was curious as to what this person was like outside of their interest in Yohane. Their messages didn't give much away as to their real life, though. Even the name was impenetrable, though Yoshiko assumed that it was a rare detail pertaining to their offline persona – most people chose something meaningful, even if only to themselves. She’d seen a train line with that name when she visited Tokyo once. Maybe this person lived in that area? Maybe, if she could get her mother to tag along for safety, they could even meet? Yoshiko ran over the scenario in her head. “Hey, can you take me to meet my friend from the internet? They’re a fan of my streams and I don’t know anything about them.” Yeah, that’d go down a treat. Without anyone to ensure her safety, Yoshiko reluctantly reasoned that meeting up was probably not such a great idea.

Glancing over at the clock, Yoshiko could see that it was getting close to stream time. She began to prepare the scene, shutting her curtains, lighting candles and changing into her fallen angel clothes. Tonight, her plan was more interactive than usual – the idea being to learn more about her viewers, or at least how viewers saw Yohane. The last thing she did, as always, was uncover her webcam. She was still trying to separate Yoshiko and Yohane, and she’d decided that the best way to do that was to ensure that the two worlds never met – Yoshiko’s schoolmates should never meet Yohane outside of Aqours shows, and Yohane’s online fans should never see Yoshiko. One stupid error with the cam would be all it would take to ruin that, by revealing what was in truth a pretty ordinary bedroom.

With a deep breath and a click of the mouse, Yoshiko became Yohane.

“Gathered in the dying light, a congregation of the wicked, awaiting the angel whose beauty so angered God that she was cast out of heaven. I will grace you all with my presence, but you must know that summoning Yohane is a dark bargain indeed. In exchange for my protection, I require evidence of your devotion. Little demons! You entered into a contract with me, and now an offering must be made. So tonight, my sinful servants, I ask of you – what will you bring to appease me?”

Yoshiko watched as the responses came flooding in.

any1 got sum crosses? Ill hang em upside down   I can sacrifice another goat.   1000 BLACK FEATHERS!   we can mail you a letter   Tabasco sauce and something with cayenne peppers

Truth be told, she had hoped her viewers would be as imaginative as she was. That first one was too stereotypical, the second she hoped was a joke… dull, bland, tasty. Wait, tasty? What the heck? And there they were again – Musashino had sent that suggestion. It was an odd one. Yoshiko definitely had an appetite for spicy food, and she’d genuinely like those things as gifts, but that wasn’t something she’d ever brought up during Yohane Time before.

“Musashino, you make an intriguing suggestion,” she said, trying to figure out her mysterious fan’s motivation. “Why do you believe these items to be a worthy gift?” Yoshiko was struggling not to break character, and the anticipation of the inevitably delayed reply was not helping one bit.

Because the heat would remind you of Hell, and I think you’d like hot food

Well, that was certainly a plausible in-character explanation, and it was the best of the answers – or at least, the thing Yoshiko most wanted at that point in time. It was still an odd one, though. “Congratulations, little demon! You have stumbled upon one of the ways to Yohane’s blackened heart,” she conceded. After verbally assessing some of the other suggestions, she decided to change the subject. “And what sort of place would you all pick to make your offerings to me? Choose wisely!”

a ruined church!   How about a sauna? They’re hot like Hell too.   letz go 2 onsen heh heh   HOW ABOUT AN ARCADE?   Why not Tokyo?

These suggestions were definitely better than the last ones, minus the onsen one which earned the idiot a swift banishment from the chat. The ruined church would definitely look amazing and have the right ambience. The sauna one, they were at least trying – although they might not have been so blatant about duplicating Musashino’s reasoning. An arcade would be nice, but was more of a Yoshiko answer than a Yohane answer. And, last as usual, Musashino’s answer.

“Allowing me to demonstrate my demonic powers on your mortal games would be terribly foolish,” she declared. “What would the glory seekers do when faced with the insurmountable obstacle of Yohane’s high scores? And Tokyo… another strange suggestion that has earned my interest. Musashino, are you perhaps a fellow user of magic?”

Again, Yoshiko couldn’t deny that she’d like to visit Tokyo. She was always drawn to the city more than the country, and besides, you could get everything there and there were some amazing stores selling occult goods. If she could go for her birthday, which was coming up soon, she’d be pretty happy. Again though, that’s a Yoshiko thing, more than a Yohane thing. Musashino’s reply had come through.

I’ve heard it’s a city stained with sin, a place of true terror. That sounds like a place where demons would gather.

Yoshiko couldn’t fault the reasoning, but this time it was even more suspicious. She was sure she’d heard someone say something like that before. It was a silly notion, of course – Tokyo was amazing – but she couldn’t dwell on it long as some of the other users quickly began to mock Musashino.

Did you know Osaka is the gateway to heaven?   musashino are you from the past?   LOL I BET YOU BELIEVE IN HANAKO-SAN IN THE TOILET

“Enough! With so many people in Tokyo, it is easier for demons to blend into the crowd. If Musashino is fearful of the grand metropolis, they are fearful with good cause! And that is all the more reason to offer this lost lamb protection.” The fallen angel had surprised even herself with this stern rebuke, as she didn’t often have to deal with a rowdy crowd. Some of the apologetic comments that followed suggested that certain viewers quite liked Yohane’s unusual disciplinarian outburst, though mercifully they stayed on the right side of the creepy line.

“Now that you’ve calmed down, my little demons, I shall express my desires – with this information, you will be able to make the ultimate offering to Yohane,” Yoshiko began again. “Though the material temptations of this lowly world are truly enticing, my true wish goes beyond such trivial objects. When one of my little demons is in danger, I would even display my true powers to see that they come to no harm – and as my little demons, I expect you all to get along. If you are to descend with me, you should be loyal to me and everyone who descends with me,” she continued. It was a sentiment delivered as Yohane, but it came from Yoshiko’s heart. Her efforts to be more normal at school, her joining Aqours, all of that effort was made because the thing Yoshiko wanted the most was to have good friends. “So even in times of great danger, when the divine and the damned finally clash, will your loyalties waver or will you stand behind Yohane?”

I’ll be standing shoulder to shoulder with you!   ill stand behind yohane   I WOULD DIE FOR YOU   Your wish is my command

Yoshiko was pleased to have everyone back on the same page. “Very well, you have pleased me. Now, I will open my magic eye and reveal the secrets of your futures,” she said, bringing things back to a place where she firmly controlled the dialogue.

After a good half hour of fortune telling, it was coming time to wrap up. “It is almost time for this tragic beauty to retire to the shadows, but I leave you with a warning,” Yoshiko said with all the gravitas she could muster. “Those of you that have made this contract tonight must abide by it. Failure to perform your duties as a little demon will see you banished to the abyss!” The stream ended and for the first time in a while, Yoshiko was pleased to finish up. That one had ended up getting pretty weird between the onsen creep and the goat sacrifice.

Still thinking of weird things, Yoshiko was drawn back to Musashino – were they an esper or something? She couldn’t quite believe how well judged those offerings had been as she scrolled back through the chat. Then she got annoyed all over again as she got to the section where people turned on them. These people were wrapped up in a fallen angel’s stream and they made fun of someone for having some slightly odd thoughts on Tokyo? Yoshiko thought it somewhat ridiculous. She couldn’t help but defend Musashino, as they had become one of her favourite little demons. Still, she’d managed to sort things out by insisting on solidarity amongst her little demons. It brought a smile to her face as she read the declarations of loyalty again, but… where was Musashino? She scrolled back up.

I’ll be standing shoulder to shoulder with you!

For the first time she could recall, Musashino had been quicker to respond than anyone else. Not only that, they’d gone further to affirm their loyalty than anyone else. Who was this person?

Yoshiko was too tired to consider the matter any further. As she switched her light off and went to bed, she decided that she’d have a better chance of figuring it all out in the morning.

[sweatymanguide-blog]

I Need Physical Therapy. I Probably Need Regular Therapy Too, But At Least I’ve Got The First Thing Down.

When I was growing up, I mostly hung out with a bunch of guys my own age – mild outcasts, but smart kids, funny with a streak of irreverence. None of them were star athletes, but all of them had a kind of unexamined, easy confidence in their bodies, in their ability to apprehend their physical environment. I was heavy for a kid, and uncoordinated, and I had a couple of things that were wrong with me that were hard to explain. I found myself in a lot of situations where my friends would casually do something that required some kind of physical effort from me, something that they wouldn’t even imagine that a teenage guy wouldn’t be able to do – but I wouldn’t be able to do it. We would be playing on the shore of my friend’s beach house; everyone would go in the water, and I would have to sit on that shore because I couldn’t open my eyes underwater and would have gotten sunburned if I had been out in the open ocean. We would be exploring an urban junkyard north of Columbia in New York City, where I lived, and they would skillfully scurry up some obstacle or ladder. I would watch them climb, arm reaching over arm with the easy strength and grace of kids who had never had to doubt their body’s ability to take them where they wanted to go. We would be walking somewhere, casually, in no hurry, joking around and messing with each other, trading barbs; one of us (them?) would suggest that we run there instead, and everyone would immediately take off, pushing against each other.

What should I have done, seriously? When I was 14 and 16, I would have walked there myself and caught up with them and said that nothing was wrong. They would have said, “Bro, where were you?” (Okay, maybe not “bro” – these are upper-middle-class Jewish kids we’re talking about.) However irreverent, sixteen-year old boys, myself included, are not the most sensitive, considerate group of individuals. None of my friends, as nice as they were, would have understood that I was feeling limited by what would eventually be diagnosed as my loose-twitch muscle fibers in my shoulders and knees, by the sensitivity to sunlight and heat that had given my mother and uncle skin cancer. There wasn’t one kid who would make up some excuse to hang back with me when my friends had spotted a group of older kids playing pickup basketball in Riverside Park and decided to join in. I’m not blaming them. I don’t think that kind of thinking is encoded in sixteen-year-old guys who grew up in a relatively comfortable environment and hadn’t had (to my knowledge) any kind of mild physical disability. I’m not trying to spin some tragic tale of woe about being victimized by callous Jewish children because they didn’t realize I felt uncomfortable on rollerskates. But it is useful to me to realize that part of the reason I feel so protective and anxious my body --  both in terms of its ability to confront the material universe and my ability to understand and adhere to its physical limits – is because I had to start thinking in conditional and hypothetical terms about physical activity from when I was young. I had to start asking myself: if I take this trip with these people, am I going to end up in a situation that requires me to play a sport that I won’t be able to excuse myself from? If I go to this event, will I be stranded in the middle of a hot day with no shade or shelter? Will there be some fence I’m expected to jump, some wall I’m expected to climb, or some way I have to prove myself through the strength of my arms, the speed of my legs, or my ability to wear cleats (I can’t balance in those friggin’ things)? Will I be safe? Can I stay at home? Who will be there to give me an out?

And eventually: What can I do to myself so that this never happens again?

Every couple of years, I’ve tried to get in shape, until something breaks. The first time, it was my toe – I crushed it in the mechanical door of a D’Agostino’s, and my hyperventilating mother had to carry me out in the protesting manager’s chair. The second time, I started running semi-seriously in the park near my dorm, but ended up moving slower and slower after me and my girlfriend broke up at the end of the quarter and I had no motivation to stay fit, until I was just walking and, finally, just lying on my bed, playing a little in-browser game where a dolphin did Olympic-style flips and exercised in lieu of me. The third time, I was doing Taekwondo when I was flipped by a large adult man named Coby, and somehow landed on my tailbone; I retired as a green-and-yellow-striped belt (a prestigious distinction, to be sure, but perhaps not the summit of my career, were I not grievously taken out of the game in my prime).  My parents hired an amateur MMA fighter named Sergio, a small, surprisingly affable guy with a buzzcut and tattoos of snarling demons on his biceps and chest, to help me do crunches and arm curls with weights in the privacy of our house so I wouldn’t accidentally hurt myself at a gym. Eventually, he moved on, or we stopped having him over. I was too young; I don’t really remember. I remember feeling embarrassed that I needed to do something like this in the first place, and aware in the back of my mind that a kind of rough-and-tumble guy like Sergio was, unconsciously but instinctively, talking down to me, because I was such a little lump of untrained dough, not sure where to put my elbows and panting for breath after every set of sit-ups. I remember pulling down my shirt over my belly every time I came up, during those crunches. It’s funny, because he knew what I looked like and what I needed help with; he was getting paid for it, but I still thought that on some other level it was an imposition to him to have to think in terms of the non-physical, the non-obvious.

I started going to the free gym in college, and I encountered it in a series of very gradual realizations about how Those Who Wear Athletic T-Shirts do things. You have to bring your own water, you shouldn’t wear your hoodie there, you shouldn’t expect the TVs to work, you shouldn’t ask anyone for too much help but have something prepared to say if they look at you askance for using too little weight or lifting your thighs in a weird way on the thigh-lifting-torture-machine. I was running on one of the treadmills at the Chicago gym when a small, stocky girl with a ponytail came up to me and crisply said, “That’s my treadmill.” “But I’m on it,” I replied idiotically. “You didn’t sign up for it, and I did,” said the ponytail girl. “Oh,” I said, and got off, seething with embarrassment. As it turned out, that little booklet that everyone was quickly scribbling in when they entered the cardio workout area was actually a sign-up sheet for the treadmills where you reserved them with your initials. What the hell had I thought it was? Why was I somehow above it? Why did these things not occur to me?

In order to fix my problems, it seemed, I would have to venture out into the material world in ways that would make my problems apparent to the people I was living among. If you exercise, people are going to see you in your sweatpants. And, actually, I ended up going through several pairs of sweatpants, as I tried to notice what people wore and what was considered socially acceptable. (I realized that tight-fitting white-and-black Adidas sweatpants with the trademark stripes down both legs were the norm, and so I bought three pairs.) The vicious cycle (of perspiration): The more evasive methods I took to disguise my physical awkwardness from the company I kept, the more uncomfortable I would make myself, which would require yet further evasions. I felt uncomfortable walking back to my dorm drenched in sweat, so I would wear my hoodie while walking back from the gym, which would make me sweat more. I didn’t want professors and employers to see how overweight I was, so I would wear my hoodie on top of all my regular t-shirts, and then I didn’t ever buy any new t-shirts because I was always wearing my hoodie over them anyway. When I finally took my hoodie off, I didn’t have anything to wear.  

In the year before college, I had seen, sporadically, a physical therapist in New York named Gale Berry, an astonishingly fit, relaxed woman in her sixties with flowing curly gray hair. She was very patient with me. The first day I met with her, she lay me down on a table and worked over my muscles with her hands, frowning slightly and asking me where I felt tensions and tweaks. I thought that she would give me exercises to do right away, but it turns out that I actually didn’t even know how to sit and stand properly. I experienced many uncomfortable chairs. Eventually, unable to get me to hold my hips and back the right way when I was standing, Gale proposed that I gently sway in figure-8 circles when I had to stand or wait in life. I remember a mildly horrifying picture she showed me of what a regular spine looked like, compared to a picture of someone whose spine had improperly shifted over the hips as a result of poor posture and lack of exercise. I would go to each session, agreeably consent to all the take-home workouts she would give me, look at my posture in the mirror and agree that it seemed wrong, and then go home and not do anything she had said for another month until I saw her again. More helpful, I think, were her explanations of how my body seemed to be functioning, or malfunctioning. My muscles were too loose, she said, which was actually a bad thing for my flexibility. She explained that when we stretch or use a joint, we contract our muscles, and when they’re naturally too slack they can’t turn or thrust with as much ease as they could if the muscles were tighter. This wasn’t my fault, but my sedentary lifestyle had not helped them – I had allowed them, slack and loose, to sit on the proverbial beach of my body’s musculoskeletal system, sipping Mai Tais while I improperly positioned my spine over my hips without even realizing I was doing it.

For the past month, I’ve been seeing a new physical therapist in Hyde Park. She’s nominally a Pilates instructor, but the work she does with me --  core strengthening, flexibility, helping me release tension in my lower back – helps me in the ways that professional physical therapy would help me. I had assumed that Pilates was just a joke, and had a gendered association for it: amateurs and lifestyle bloggers, middle-aged who ask the waiter to leave the salad dressing on the side. It turned out to be surprisingly difficult, although kind of pleasurable because you got to lie down. My therapist, another amazingly fit woman named Susan, sat me down on the Pilates table, which is a kind of spring-loaded device where you push off a set of leg rests that sends your torso and head backwards on a moving carriage. Although I kind of loved her right away – she didn’t seem to eye me as a piteous specimen – I did have to ask her: Susan, would you make sure you can be very, very specific with the terms you use to discuss moving my body parts? I had realized, with both Sergio and Gale, that people who are well-versed in the arts of knowing where their tendons are at any given time tend to give advice in short, declarative, mystifying statements, such as, “Drop your shoulder,” or, “Open your chest.” Honestly, I don’t know how to open my chest unless I’m releasing a creature from Alien. Once I got her to stop telling me to do things like “tighten your clavicle,” (how, for the love of God? Does this presuppose that I’m ever intentionally loosening my clavicle?) I got along well with her, and she started incorporating activities that were so embarrassingly fun that I almost enjoyed the sessions. She would have me “jump” while lying on my back on the carriage, so that shooting off with my legs would bring my whole body backwards quickly, and would have me roll around on the floor while tensing my abdominal muscles. I’m sure Tom Cruise has done similarly during a stunt training session. After a couple of weeks with her, I started feeling a tiny, tiny amount more comfortable doing things like climbing sets of stairs. I remember a moment where she asked me if I knew there was anything wrong with my spine and I told her that I didn’t think there was anything medically wrong with it but I knew it was in a weird position. I told her that my previous physical therapist had shown me a concerning diagram. She paused, standing a moment in thought (she has perfect posture), and said, cleanly, “I think you have the spine that you need to do everything you’re going to want to do.”

A week ago, on the first night of my fitness plan, a couple of my third-year friends asked me to come on a walk with them. They wanted to walk to a building I won’t specify, where we used to hang out last year. It’s a large, imposing building, with dark hedges that span its perimeter; I figured we would walk the 15 blocks from our house to the old dorm and sit on the grass, drinking and reminiscing about how the year had went for all of us. We set off around midnight, drinking from vodka hidden in Diet Coke cans, taking the opportunity to make fun of our friends back at the dorm for not having come with us, dissing them for being too stressed out for a pointless but cathartic journey. Once we got there, I realized that the building now had a fairly high fence between the sidewalk and the entrance, where we had planned to sit. After a couple of minutes of milling around and smoking, m friends started to climb the tall chain-link fence – maybe 7 or 8 feet – that stood between the grass and the building. The building took up the whole middle of the block; the fence extended for four sides and there was no way in except over it. We were maybe 20 minutes away from the heart of campus, and no one was around, any students except us.  I watched as, one by one, they successfully made it over. There was a moment of awkward shiftiness, where they realized that I didn’t want to come; I tried to play it off naturally by saying that I just wanted to sit on the grass and drink. Softly, they started exhorting me to climb over, that I could make it. I tried, but my foot wouldn’t fit in the gap between two of the fence sides that they had been using, and I wasn’t strong enough to hoist myself up with just my hands. I couldn’t hear who was speaking, because there was a black screen behind the fence on the other side. I just heard voices telling me to get a foothold, that it wasn’t that hard and I should just come join them. I said again that I couldn’t – not that I didn’t want to, but that I couldn’t – and stepped back down. There was a moment of silence, and I heard them set off as a group towards the building’s entrance beyond the fence, where they were going to take posed pictures. The fence had been put up right against the sidewalk, and there was maybe a block between it and the doorway of the building. After a minute I couldn’t hear them anymore.

I checked my phone – it was dead. It was dark then, as dark as it gets. It was around 1:00 in the morning. I could see a blue light in the distance. It was a light from one of the security poles we could use on our campus to call 9-11 in case we were in trouble late at night. If we were, we were supposed to run up to the pole and press a button that would page a police officer in the area. I didn’t see any cars, and I figured that one would be at least five minutes away. It looked like a five-minute walk to get to the poles in the first place. There was one in the other direction, too.  I thought about trying to get over the fence by myself again without anyone watching, but I was really scared that I wouldn’t be able to get back over again. I peered through a gap in the screen behind the fence to see if my friends were there, but I couldn’t see any of them. I realized that they had gone inside the building, probably to go up to the roof. It would be at least fifteen minutes before they were back. I remember having the momentary thought that I didn’t know how to think about what to do. I started walking towards one of the blue light poles. Then, without really thinking about what I was doing, I broke into a run in the other direction, towards campus, back to my dorm room. I didn’t stop running until I was a block away. I didn’t look back the whole way there.

When I got back home and had a chance to calm down and start thinking like a 20-year old with classes and a job and responsibilities, I checked my now-charged phone and saw that one of my friends had sent me a message. It said, “Sorry we left you!” I thought that the exclamation point signaled casual obligation, like they realized that they probably should say something, although they might have been annoyed that they had had to in the first place. I felt a kind of head rush of emotion; I realized that I could have just asked one of my friends to sit by me in the grass and drink instead of taking photos. It wasn’t a big deal to them, so why should it have been a big deal to me? I was angry, somewhat at them, but mostly at myself, for having gotten myself into not only that situation, but that mindset of the kid on the outside, who had to deliberately exclude himself, pleading disinterest because he didn’t want to embarrass himself trying to do something that everyone else could do without a second thought. I was mad at myself for letting my guard down. I didn’t say anything to my friends when I saw them come back. One of them asked if I was mad, and I said that I wasn’t. I finished my drink and went to bed.

That happened on Saturday, May 27th.  On the following Monday, the start of my self-prescribed period of enhanced body-consciousness, I called my mom and asked if I could extend my physical therapy throughout the summer, where I’ll be in Chicago with an internship. I had been thinking of doing it for a little while, but I had started to feel calm and grown-up again during the day on Sunday, and that muted feeling of relaxation, which might have either been genuine calmness or deadened determination in the place of self-loathing, was motivating me to make the call and spend the (my) money. I changed my prescription: walk to all of the physical therapy sessions, go to all of the physical therapy sessions (I had cancelled a couple in May), and try to do the home exercises that I had been given. (I had lied to Gale about my compliance; with Susan, I had come clean.)

I’m not done fighting my body. At times, it feels obdurate, like a conspiracy of ligaments and joints that have conspired to keep me (Me? My brain? Mack-consciousness, abstracted from the space-suit of my physical form?) from being able to take control. I feel like I’m fighting to get out of myself, but unfortunately I think I have to fight to get into myself, to forcefully acquaint myself more and more intimately with the rotations of my limbs and the limits of my endurance. I’m in physical therapy right now, and I’m going to keep going; at the time of writing, I have an appointment in two days that I don’t intend to cancel. I have a little diary where I write down whether or not I do things like walk to my appointments or if I take the stairs. I have those feelings, too, of feeling locked out from things like that looming fence, seven feet tall in real life but twelve feet high in memory. And I have my friends, the ones who I thought I didn’t have to worry about, who didn’t necessarily commit a sin of exclusion but of inattention. I want to make it as hard as possible for me to go back to that place of feeling incapable. I don’t want to say that this is the first step, because I’ve already had a lot of first steps. I don’t know whether the solution is to protect myself or to make myself more vulnerable.

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Note: The names used in this essay have been changed. 

This is a picture of me booking Susan’s physical therapy through most of June.

An email to my physical therapist, talking about the kind of casual injury I regular inflict upon myself by doing some pathetically simple action such as picking up a piece of lasagna from where I dropped it (sad!). 

An old email that my mother sent to Gale, asking if we could Skype so that she could see me attempt to do the exercises she had laid out for me. One can detect my desultory attitudes through my mother’s email, hoping I “stay on track.”

A very old email that Sergio sent to my mom, telling her about some exercises he had looked up that he thought would be good for me. (A little under 7 years ago.)