#jared dunn they will never make me hate you

[weak-hero]

silicon valley s04e04

[itsevidentvery]

Tagged by the fabulous @pianodoesterror Thank you so much!

1) how many works do you have on ao3?

49. They’ve crept up on me!

2) what is your total ao3 word count?

340,321. It’ll take a while before I hit the half-million mark but I’m working on it!

3) how many fandoms have you written for, and what are they?

4: Silicon Valley, Good Omens (TV), The Terror and Hannibal (honestly Hannibal barely counts because I wrote one ficlet and got it out of my system).

4) what are your top 5 fics by Kudos.

Most of my top-kudosed fics are my Good Omens ones, and I don’t know if anyone follows me for those anymore. My top-kudosed in my current fandom (The Terror) are:

Two Houses, Alike in Indignity – aka my BritPol AU.

Da mi basia mille, deinde centum – kissing. Just… a lot of kissing.

A wounded deer leaps highest – an extended riff on the theme of Francis Crozier Submits to the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known. And also Being the Little Spoon.

Worthier than he knows – Mirror sex! Francis Crozier wriggling furiously under the weight of admiration and thirst! My apologies to TS Eliot, also.

An embarrassment of Jameses – Identity kink, James Fitzjames’s teetering pile of insecurities, and Francis Crozier’s altogether too many Jameses.

5) do you respond to comments?

I do! Not… well, or sensibly, because I love comments and they make me absolutely twitterpated, but I do respond.

6)what's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Carnevale ends with unresolved heartbreak, insecurity and misdirected feeling. And this one’s not angsty, so much as grubby: a very nasty imagined interstitial between James Fitzjames and Francis Crozier after Cornelius Hickey’s flogging. And at least one of the possible endings of this Choose-your-own-Ending Fitzier is, er. Less than pleasant.

7) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I’m an unashamed wuss, so I tend to write fics with happy endings, or at least happy-for-now endings. I’d say it’s a tossup between two fics. The first is my Good Omens human AU where Crowley is a determined bookstore customer, because Aziraphale and Crowley get together AND Crowley gets to have the book AND Aziraphale gets to not sell it. The second is my Terror BritPol AU, where Francis Crozier and James Fitzjames get to U-Haul AND Brexit is averted. Okay, that might actually be my happiest ending.

8) do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you've ever written?

I don’t write crossovers per se, but I have written a Silicon Valley Regency AU which riffed on both the Twelve Dancing Princesses and has vibes of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. And I’ve written another Silicon Valley AU which loosely spins off Henry II and Thomas Becket, and my Terror BritPol AU takes a lot of its beats from the National Theatre’s This House.

9) have you ever received hate on a fic?

Lord, no, never written anything popular enough, I don’t think.

10)Do you write smut? What kind?

I do indeed! The … messy … kind, typically. As in ‘Just throw away those sheets, they’re beyond saving’.

11)have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don’t think so.

12) have you ever had a fic translated?

I haven’t! Open invitation, lads.

13) have you ever co-written a fic before.

I’m a rotten collaborator. I can barely bring myself to the sticking post, I wouldn’t wish my erratic writing habits on anyone else.

14) whats your favourite ship?

Fitzier and Jared Dunn/Richard Hendricks will always have a very particular place in my heart.

15) whats a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

*looks guiltily* I don’t think, at this point, that I’ll ever finish my Good Omens fic where I trace Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship through the lens of the classic Seven Deadly Sins. Looking at it now, it should actually have been a series. But either way.

16) What are your writing strengths.

I think I’m good at dialogue and character observation. When I concentrate, I think I can pull off unexpected but illuminating word choices.

17) what are your writing weaknesses?

I think I should push myself more as a writer. For example, I’ve only ever written one reasonably plotty longfic – my Terror BritPol AU – and I’ve never written a puzzle-piece, or something that requires detailed worldbuilding. I also tend to default to a particular limited-perspective third-person present-tense style (with the exception of my dialogue-only Terror WIP), and I’d like to branch out more.

18) what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in fic?

I’ve only written scraps of dialogue in other languages in fic. If there were an easy way for readers to get the translation as they read, it’s something I’d love to see more. But in general I think the priority should always be the flow of the story. Writers can – and should – try to get across a change in language or idiom in a multitude of ways.

19) what was the first fandom you wrote for.

Silicon Valley! I unfortunately have a thing for Horrible Little Gremlins and Long Boys who Crave Validation.

20) what's your favourite fic you've ever written?

Ouf. This one’s hard to answer. My immediate instinct is to go with my Terror BritPol AU because it’s the first longfic I actually brought in for the landing, but I also have a soft spot for my Silicon Valley fairytale Regency AU and a Silicon Valley fic about emotional abuse told from the abuser’s perspective. The last one wasn’t an easy one to write but I think what’s on page is close to my conception of it, which is rare for me.

I suspect my Terror mutuals have already been tagged, but please do have a go if you fancy it! And I’ll tag @joycecarolnotes, @bitchardhendricks, @ladiesloveduranduran and @retrauxpunk if they fancy doing this.

[eraserheadbabies]

rules: tag people you wanna get to know better 🖤

tagged by @wallaceandgromit​ thank u legend

your name and then what you would have named yourself: rowan ! and idk what i would have named myself tbh...honestly i like the idea of keeping my first name and changing my middle name to jude and going by rj :)) but i dont mind my name 

astrological sign (sun/moon/rising if you know them): virgo sun, aries rising, aquarius moon

when did you join tumblr and why?: 2014-ish i think??? and it was for s*perwh*l*ck im sorry class

top 5 fandoms: ok i hate the word fandom BUT i guess i would say just film in general, always sunny, fob/mcr (i never grew out of my emo phase), x-files, and parks and rec lmao

top 5 favorite films: scott pilgrim vs. the world, the florida project, donnie darko, the social network, and the secret life of walter mitty

go to song when you wanna Feel something: right now its all these things that i’ve done by the killers

what’s your religion or faith if you have one?: i do not have one 

a song that makes you feel seen: chinese satellite by phoebe bridgers

if you could have any career: not to be that bitch but film director honestly

do you have a type?: tall, skinny, non-threatening men and every woman ever

what does your heart/soul yearn for: to not constantly worry about everyone secretly hating me i think

if you had to describe yourself in 5 words to someone who doesn’t know you: watch movies and be gay

favorite subjects in school: probably english bc im gay and mentally ill

where does your soul feel most at home: when i’m with my gf and my friends

top 5 fictional characters: jared dunn, ben wyatt, abed nadir, mac mcdonald, greg hirsch

top 3 moments in a show that made you ugly cry: the part in the good place where you learn that chidi wrote himself that note that says “there is no answer, but eleanor is the answer,” the bojack horseman episode where sarah lynn dies, (along with like. seventeen other bojack horseman episodes), and the part at the end of silicon valley where the interviewer asks richard “are you upset you didn’t get to change the world?” and richard says “i think we did okay”

the earth, the sun, the moon or the stars: the stars

favorite kind of weather: rainy and gloomy!!

top 3 characters you kin with: abed nadir, ben wyatt, fox mulder

favorite medium of art: tv/movies and music

introvert/extrovert/ambivert: introvert

a favorite literary quote: this one was hard and i’m not sure if its my fave but “Julia cared about Annemarie, but Annemarie didn’t see it. Because I was standing the way.” -when you reach me, rebecca stead

some of your favorite books: when you reach me by rebecca stead, the song of achilles by madeline miller, it’s kind of a funny story by ned vizzini, it by stephen king

if you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?: ireland!!

if you could live in any time in history when would it be?: the 80s or ancient greece lmao

if you could play any instrument masterfully it would be: drums

if you have one, what mythological god or goddess do you feel a connection to: i vibe with artemis

and lastly, favorite recent selfie in your camera roll: 

tagging: @windcrys​ @dogmotifs​ and even tho i know u guys well im also tagging @sharknados​ @milo-fanarts​ @strawberry-problems​ don’t feel obligated !! just thot it would be fun hehe :)

[victoriaholmeswriting]

All of You

Jared Dunn x Reader One-shot

Read it on AO3!

Rating: T

Words: 618

Warning: Anxiety, Drowning, Nightmares

A/N: Inspired by Billie Eilish’s “everything i wanted”

Her eyes flew open, lungs desperately breathing in air at an alarming rate as she slowly became aware of the soaking wet pillowing beneath her head.  It clung to her face, cold as ice.  She lifted a shaking hand to find her hair and neck wet, too.

She clenched her eyes, trying to make the images of her nightmare go away, but it didn’t work.  It never worked.  It just made them angry and worse.

The water continued to rise above her head.  The force of the waves beat against her, throwing her around.  Her lungs burned as they began to fill.  She tried to scream, but nothing came out, except the bubbles from the last of her oxygen.

No! No! NO!

Y/N forced her eyes open again, flinging herself over in search of her husband.  But the bed beside her was empty.

Desperately trying not to panic, she threw off the covers and ran out of the room.

Jared sat cross-legged on the couch in the living room.  An intricately-detailed activities schedule shown bright on his laptop’s screen.  “4:32 am” mocked him from the corner of the display as his tired vision went in and out.

“Jared?” his wife called, startling the poor workaholic.  The strain in her voice did not go unnoticed.

“In here,” he called back.  

Wiping his eyes, he quickly put the laptop aside as she clung to him, shaking.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, suddenly fully awake.  He gently rubbed her back as he held her close.  When she didn’t answer, he asked instead, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Her nightmares and mental health were nothing new to him.  Jared found out about the nightmares the third night they spent together.  And she entrusted her battles with mental health to him just a couple weeks into their relationship.  She said she wanted him to know all of her if they were to be together.

He accepted all of her.

Jared did everything he could to be there for her.  He went with her to therapy and patiently waited for her.  He took her unpredictable moods in stride and learned when to press an issue or let it go and just hold her.  And he was the one to help her get through acclimating to new or adjusted medications.

None of it was easy and she hated how much she put on him, but he never complained.  Actually, he was happy to do it because he loved her so much and she was there for him, too.  (This she found out after during one of her more intense mood swings in which she had yelled at him, “Why do you stay around and put up with me?”)

It wasn’t long into their relationship that Jared became her safe place and she became his.

When they married, Jared said in his vows that he promised, “I will love all of you and be there for all of you for the rest of my life.”

“It was the drowning one again,” she whispered in a shaky voice.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Jared replied, knowing exactly which one she meant.  He hoped she wouldn’t notice the momentary pause in his movements.  (She did, but didn’t say anything.)  “Are you okay?”

“I will be...in a bit.”

“What can I do?”

Y/N snuggled into his neck.  “Just hold me.”

“I can do that,” Jared hummed.  He shifted so he could lay back and hold her to him.

She rested her head on his chest.

“I love all of you,” he said.

“I love all of you, too,” she replied.

They stayed that way all night -- Jared refusing to fall asleep until well after she’d nodded off.

Tags: @madshelily​ @klinenovakwinchester​ @josiecarioca​ @emmelynecosette​

[hockey-fics]

Just Once ~ Vince Dunn (Part Three)

Summary: Your history with Vince resurfaces when you both end up back in your hometown over the summer.

Word Count: ~3,000

Warnings: Language. Talk of, references to, and insinuations of sex (still nothing overly explicit though). 

Part One | Part Two | Part Four

A/N: I don’t love this part, I’m not going to lie to you. I really hope I haven’t let anyone down. 

Sitting at the kitchen table the afternoon after your night with Jared, sipping on a glass of lemonade you watch your mom buzzing around the kitchen already preparing for the family barbecue happening the next day. “Is Vince coming tomorrow?” she asks. 

You almost knock your glass over when his name comes from her mouth, sending a jolt through your body. “No,” you say, too quickly, too defensively. 

She looks up at you, stopping chopping the vegetables to avoid any injuries. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on there with you two?”

“I would tell you if there was anything to say, but there’s nothing going on.”

“So all these days you haven’t been home and told me you’ve been with Vince have meant nothing?” 

“Mhm,” you hum in agreement, setting an elbow on the table and resting your head in your hand. 

“And nothing happened last night?”

Lifting your head back up you look at her in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been quiet today, you haven’t left the house and now you’re hanging out with me, which I enjoy, but you haven’t done much of that since you’ve been back.”

“Sorry,” you apologize, knowing that you hadn’t spent as much time with your family since being back as you should have. 

“I’m not looking for an apology. I’m glad you’re having fun. You just seem to be down today. Did something happen with you and him last night?”

“No, I wasn’t with Vince much last night.”

“Oh?” your mom questions, eyebrows raised, wanting you to go on. 

Laughing quietly you shake your head. “I’m not giving you details, mom. I just wasn’t with him last night.”

“But you wanted to be?” she asks, returning to chopping the vegetables. 

Leaning back in your chair you look up at the ceiling in exasperation. “Mom,” you groan dramatically. “I’m not discussing this.” Just as the conversation seems to die out your phone vibrates on the table, drawing the attention of both you and her. She gives you a smile like she knows exactly who it’s from even before you look at it. And you’re pretty sure she’s correct as you look at the text message from Vince. ‘Are you busy?’

Biting the inside of your lip you contemplate an answer, trying to figure out why he was asking. Eventually, you type out a response. ‘Not really. What’s up?’

‘Do you want to come over?’

Sighing you pull your legs off the chair you were resting them on, picking your glass up from the table and carrying it to the kitchen. “I’m going out for a bit,” you tell your mom. 

She glances over her shoulder at you, a knowing smile on her face. “To see Vince?” 

“It’s not-,” you start, trying to figure out how to defend yourself. “Yeah, I am,” you eventually huff. 

The ‘I knew it’ look she gives you is enough to make you want to shuffle out of the kitchen in shame. “Well, there will be more than enough food here tomorrow if you want to invite him.”

“Alright,” you mutter, quickly leaving the kitchen to get yourself ready to leave the house. 

Shortly after you find yourself sitting on the couch in the living room at Vince’s condo. There was an undeniable tension in the room. Vince sits a short distance from you on the couch, a distance you weren’t used to with him and it only adds to the uncomfortable feeling hanging in the room. 

“Did I do something last night?” Vince asks, angling his body towards you on the couch. 

“No,” you tell him quickly. “Not really.”

“Not really?”

“It’s just...you can’t say shit about wanting to be the only one who gets to be with me. That’s not what this is.” 

Vince chuckles, shaking his head. “It’s not? When’s the last time you were with anyone else?” he asks. He’s challenging you, expecting the answer to be that it was before you and him started spending time together this summer. 

“Last night,” you say with hesitation.

Vince leans forward on the couch, elbows resting on his knees. He’s quiet for a moment, like that answer was so unexpected he couldn’t possibly have prepared an answer for it. “That guy you were talking to in the kitchen?” 

Sighing quietly you fiddle with a loose thread on your shorts. “Does it matter?”

Vince turns his head, looking over at you. “Is that a yes?”

Breaking away from the lingering eye contact you give him a simple nod of confirmation. 

“And?” he asks. His question draws your attention back to him out of pure confusion, hoping some aspect of body language would help you understand what he was asking. 

“And what?” you ask, eyebrows furrowed. 

“How was it?” Vince asks, not breaking even for a second into a smile or any other indication that his question was lighthearted. 

“God, Vince,” you mutter, unfolding the leg that was tucked beneath you on the couch, making a move to get up. “We aren’t discussing this.”

As you stand up Vince catches your wrist, pulling you back to turn you around. His other hand lands on the back of your thigh, drawing you forward till your options are to climb onto his lap or force his hands off you. Hesitantly you opt for the former, letting him guide one of your legs onto one side of him before bringing your other leg onto the other side. “What are you doing?” you ask with your guard up, trying to figure out his motives. 

“You don’t want to discuss it because it wasn’t good, right?” Vince asks, his demeanor altering with a smirk on his lips. “Because he didn’t make you feel as good as I do.”

Sighing you avoid making direct eye contact, knowing he would be able to see right through you if you tried to lie. “Well,” you state, turning your attention to him now, eyes locked on his. “I’m going to need you to remind me how good you can make me feel before I answer that.”

“Gladly,” Vince says quietly, hands grasping your waist and pushing you onto the couch. He’s over top of you quickly, the kiss already more heated and passionate than any kiss you had shared with Jared the night before. 

You hadn’t needed reminding, there had never been a doubt in your mind that what Vince was capable of was miles above Jared’s skill level. But laying on the couch, breathless with the feeling that your legs might just give out entirely if you tried to get up right away you’re not sure if many of your past experiences could live up to what Vince was giving you. 

“So,” Vince says, hand running up your bare arm to pin your wrist to the couch behind you. “Going to answer the question now?” Vince asks, no attempt to hide the cockiness of simply wanting to hear you say it out loud. 

“Not quite as good,” you tell him, though you can’t stop the little giggle that comes from your lips at the absolute blatant lie. 

Vince raises his eyebrows, smirking. “I can keep going,” he tells you, hand already running down the side of your body. 

Promptly you reach over, fingers wrapping around his wrist to stop him. “No,” you tell him quickly. “No, I don’t think I can handle anything else right now,” you add. You weren’t sure you had ever been so spent after sex before, but Vince was willing to keep going if only to feed his ego. “Yeah, you’re a better fuck,” you admit to him. 

Vince chuckles, pressing a gentle kiss to your shoulder before pushing his arm into the couch and carefully climbing off of you. “You want to go try out that bathtub upstairs?” Vince suggests. Propping yourself up on your elbows you look at him curiously. It was such a considerate and gentle offer, one coming shockingly close after him being so determined to prove that he could fuck you better than some guy you met at a party. 

After a moment of hesitation you lift your legs off the couch. “Sure,” you agree, standing up slowly on shaky legs. 

“You alright?” Vince asks. The words should sound concerned but come across more smug than concerned. 

“Fine,” you tell him bluntly, knowing that you had already fed his ego far too much. “Come on,” you comment, taking his hand and tugging him along with you up to the bedroom. 

After running the water and managing to convince Vince to actually join you in the bath rather than just leave you alone you climb in, feeling the warm water cloaking your body. Leaning back against Vince’s chest you turn your head and look up at him. “This okay?” 

“Yeah,” Vince says, running his damp hands down your arms. The feeling brings a soft sigh of contentment from your lips, laying your head back on his shoulder. 

“This is nice,” you say softly, fingers sliding between his when his hands slip down your arms to your palms. Almost as soon as your fingers curl against his hands you feel a heaviness come into your chest, a sudden urge to pull back. Because it was nice. It was comfortable and enjoyable. It was also implausible to ever happen again. So you do, you pull your hands out of his. But you’re careful about it, moving slowly so as not to alert him to the fact that you were suddenly filled a slight dread. Trying to seem casual you run your fingers along the surface of the water, watching it ripple around your touch. “Have any plans for tomorrow?” You ask in an attempt to stir up some light conversation. 

“Nothing different. Going to go to the gym to do some training in the morning,” Vince says and you feel his hands move through the water to your thighs. “More of this in the afternoon,” he whispers. 

“My family is having a barbecue tomorrow,” you tell Vince. “Which you got invited to,” you add with a laugh. 

“When should I come over?” 

Giggling you shift to the side slightly, enough to look up at him and realize that he wasn’t joking. You remembered clearly just how much he hated coming over to your house when you were teenagers, avoiding seeing your parents like it was a job. “You’re serious?” you question in disbelief. 

“You don’t want me to go?” Vince asks, smirking slightly. “Not good enough to bring home?” he teases. 

Rolling your eyes playfully you reach up, trailing your damp fingers along his jaw. “You’re not my boyfriend so that doesn’t matter. I just didn’t think you would want to go.”

“Are you saying I’m not good enough to take home if I was your boyfriend?” 

“You were my boyfriend at one point,” you remind him, laughing softly as you remember how seriously you had taken that relationship despite your age. “And you were pretty adamant about not wanting to come home with me then.”

Vince lifts his hand up, brushing the hair off the back of your neck and pressing his lips against the skin there. “Well I want to now,” he whispers, lips almost right next to your ear now. 

“You’re not my boyfriend now,” you say again, feeling the urge to repeat it as if you yourself needed to be reminded of it. 

“I’m only allowed to come over if I’m your boyfriend?” 

Sighing you pull your body away from him, hands landing on the edge of the bathtub as you push yourself up out of the water. Reaching over you grab the fluffy white towel sitting on the counter. “You can come with me tomorrow if you want,” you tell Vince, wrapping the towel around your dripping body. “But my family already thinks there’s more happening here than there really is. What am I supposed to tell them tomorrow when they start asking questions? That I decided to bring a guy I’m just casually fucking to a family event?” 

Vince pulls the plug in the bathtub, climbing out after you and grabbing his own towel. “I don’t have to go,” he says. “Or,” he adds, stepping closer. “We could tell them I am your boyfriend and I’ll prove that I can be bring home to the family material.”

“For what? Just as a game?” you question, your voice suddenly sharper. “This summer has been all about having fun but I’m not that desperate for entertainment,” you say, sounding a lot harsher than you thought it would. 

Vince lets out a flustered breath of air, running a damp hand through his hair. “No, I-,” Vince starts to defend before trailing off. “This isn’t about a barbecue, is it?” 

“I-I don’t know.” Sighing quietly you adjust the towel around your body, looking anywhere but at him. “I guess not.” 

“Are you going to tell me what you’re thinking then?” 

You finally look back into his eyes, a million ways you could answer that flashing through your brain all at once. Front and center was the truth. That this was becoming too romantic. That your comfort zone was back downstairs, on the couch moaning his name rather than relaxing in a bathtub with him talking about inviting him back to your house for a family barbecue. But there were plenty of lies too, less emotional reasons that you could give him. Finally, you decide to go with the truth, because there really was not a lot to lose. “If you come with me tomorrow, if we act like a couple I’m scared I’m going to get too invested in this and I can’t risk that.”

“Risk what?” Vince asks and you can’t stop your sarcastic laugh. Because of course he wouldn’t get it, he never did get it. Your emotions had always been more invested in every version of a relationship that you had with him than his had ever been. From your very first kiss to standing in the bathroom with him now.

“Risk falling for you again, Vince, having to get over you for the second time in my life,” you exclaim, not even trying to hide the fact that you were annoyed with him not being able to understand that. You could have left it there, could have gotten dressed and left. Hell, you could have stayed and hung out with him for a bit. But you didn’t have to say everything else that spilled from your mouth at a speed and volume that didn’t disguise your feelings for a minute.”I’ve always liked you so much more than you ever liked me. I know you just want to fuck around, that you don’t want commitment. That’s fine, I knew I wasn’t getting into anything serious when this summer started. But it’s been you, Vince, you that’s been pushing this. It was you that wanted me to spend the night, that wanted to go on a date, and now you want to come to a family get-together with me. I don’t get it. Do you just want to fuck with my emotions? See how invested you can make me get in this before leaving again?”

The silence in the bathroom after you finish talking is almost intolerable. “You know I would never do anything to hurt you on purpose,” Vince finally says. “You know that, right?” he adds, voice oddly vulnerable. 

Crossing your arms over your chest and pinning the towel tight to your body you stare down at the bathroom tiles. “Yeah,” you mutter. Of course you knew he would never intentionally hurt you. But what you weren’t sure of is whether or not he even know what would hurt you. 

Vince steps closer, drawing your attention back up to his eyes. “Do you really think I would try to mess with your feelings like that?”

“Maybe,” you exclaim, shrugging as you step back from him. “You already are, Vince. Maybe you just can’t see it.”

“What do you mean I already am?” Vince asks, eyebrows furrowed. 

Shaking your head you reach over, sliding your arm under the pile of your clothes sitting on the counter and pinning them against your body. “Doesn’t matter. Forget I said that,” you say dismissively, pivoting around and heading for the bedroom where you begin to get re-dressed. 

“No,” Vince states a couple minutes later after having trailed after you from the bathroom to the bedroom. “I’m not going to forget you said that, Y/N. You just made it seem like I’m fucking you over for fun and that’s bullshit.”

Yanking your t-shirt down over your head you look over at him. “Is it?” You ask him, grasping your shorts and pulling those on quickly. “Is it bullshit? I’ve been trying, Vince, to push you away. To put distance between us and every goddamn time you pull me back in. I sleep with another guy and your response to that is to prove you can fuck me better. And this after telling me you don’t want me to be with anyone else, which is exactly what I’m talking about. You just say shit like that without even realizing how it makes me feel. It might not mean anything to you, but it does to me.”

“Do you want me to lie to you?” 

“What?” you ask, taken aback by the question. Nobody ever wants to be lied to. It seemed like such an obvious answer that you couldn’t comprehend why he would be asking the question. “Of course not.”

Vince steps closer, his hands landing on your waist. You freeze under his touch, knowing that he was doing it again. Consciously or not he was drawing you back into him. And you hated yourself for how easy you make it for him to do it. “It’s the truth, Y/N. I don’t want you to be with anyone else. Do you want me to lie to you about it?” 

“I want you to get over that jealous, possessive shit. You aren’t my boyfriend, we aren’t together. No, I don’t want you to lie to me, but you could have just not said anything.” Placing your hands over his you lift them away from your waist, pushing him back gently. “I should go,” you tell him, stepping around him and making your way down to the front door. Along the way you grab your keys and wallet, leaving the condo without saying anything else to Vince, without so much as looking back to see if he had even come down the stairs after you. 

[treason-and-plot]

REPLIES TO SAFFY’S SASS

@tyrellsimsoficeandfire

I had the same thought saffron had and then was amazed she spoke it out loud!

@simsmidgen

Saffron likes to live on the edge

@goatkibble

That IS freaky... o_O

@justanothersimsblog

😂

@dunne-ias

meh, if their genders were reversed most people would be fine with it.

@miraakles

Not me @dunne I think it's creepy and weird either way. I hate Anitas guts.. Saffron teasing her is the least that can be done, given that she never went to jail for murdering that other guy.

@lilsisterg​

Saffron really grates on my nerves. She is annoying and acts as if she is bit daft. Romance and marriages where the woman is older than the man are more common than people realize (or care to admit).

@holleyberry

I seriously believe Saffy has a death wish now.

@miraakles

Oh wait, I just remembered! That sassy bastard lived! I think. Okay but still, she didn't go for attempted murder XD!

@mysimsloveaffair

Don't be a hater Saffy! Your mom obviously has what it takes to keep her man...regardless of his age. I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I love Joel and Anita together. They are fiery and sexy! I was heartbroken when they broke up.

AWWWWWWW!!! There is a small but very exclusive club of beautiful people like yourself and @dunne-ias​ (beautiful people who all have exquisite taste and very kind and forgiving natures) who continue to love Jonita and this is how I feel about that club: 

@mysimsloveaffair

Lol - in the last picture, Anita is looking like, "Bitch...I will cut you! "

you can see in the first pic her hand was under the table tightening around the handle of her knife lololol!!!

@valpre

out of the mouths of babes :D

@hyperkaos

Just go ahead and throw the fork, Anita. You know you want to. DO IT. Extra points if it lands between her eyes.

@thickness1988

I really don’t like Anita this remind of me Mama Dearest

But Anita has way less psychotic eyebrows :)

@simechro

aaa she trollin'

@shhhushhh

And Madonna was the same age as one of her boyfriends' grandmother. Big deal! But I was wondering... does Saffy's attitude toward Anita has Mirelle's influence in it?

No Saffy’s attitude is all her own and is a matted and febrile nest of resentment, jealousy and just plain old-fashioned mischief-making ;=)

@sims3hasstoppedworking

So Saff came just to diss her mother? 😂 she's playing with fire that girl.

Well technically she came to check out how the renos were coming along... 

@ktarsims

Saffy is clearly a very assertive troll. xD

@wannabecatwriter

This reminds me, does Saffy still have a bit of a crush on Joel?

@kscriba

Jared has excellent survival instincts

@rillensora

Hmm. I have to admit, I never fully understood why Saffy so actively dislikes her mother... I know Anita hasn’t done much to deserve her oldest daughter’s respect (many would say her love neither, but I feel that love isn’t something that can be “deserved” anyway). But there’s scornful disdain for your parents, and then there’s this antagonizing, baiting behavior. If Saffy weren’t still (marginally) a minor, I would say it’s cruel.

@rillensora

It’s not just a one time thing, and it not just about getting a rise out of her mother here and there. Saffy really seems to take every possible opportunity to HUMILIATE her mother, and publicly at that. Does she want to punish her mother for her past failings? Is that it?

There’s a large dash of that, and there is also jealousy, and there is a sizeable sprinkling of Saffron simply not being a very nice person who enjoys watching people squirm. When push comes to shove though she is capable of being a comfort and showing love to Anita, as she demonstrated here and here. 

@wildflowersinzittau

Well, when Anita dies of old age someday Jojo might have another twenty years ahead of him without her...  He should keep that in mind.

[crucialandinert]

wip

Dunn –

This is stupid. You’re a faggot. Eat shit.

He looked up at his psychiatrist with tears of joy in his eyes. “He wrote to me. He actually wrote to me!” At long last, after weeks of Jared’s importunate missives looped smoothly in crisp black ink across the buttery pages of the lovely leather logbook he’d bought for the purpose—Ed Chambers had finally replied.

It had been a difficult diagnosis to take in stride. Anxiety, panic attacks, the odd interlude of dullness or depression—those were par for the course, ups and downs, background music. Jared knew how to handle them, and was (secretly) quite proud of himself that he’d missed nary a day of work on their account. He’d hidden them well. He’d never let anyone else down.

Until—he did. Monumentally. Somehow, he still couldn’t believe it himself—he missed a meeting, a vitally important meeting with a potential investor for their C round; a meeting where Richard needed him, had been relying on Jared, his rock; and Jared had abandoned him, left him to the wolves, exposed and without help—just like that time in the Adirondacks, only actual wolves had fortunately proved to be much more nurturing than VCs. 

And Jared hadn’t just forgotten to go to the meeting, and then noticed later with panic that he’d blanked; something he’d never been prone to himself, but assumed would have been normal. He’d forgotten it existed. That it had been planned at all; even though it had been on his calendar for six weeks—his calendar he looked at daily, more than daily, first on arising and last before sleep. He’d spent the weekend, in fact, crunching numbers, preparing the powerpoint, meditating upon which precise inflection points to pepper with drumrolls. It was inconceivable that he could just… forget. Yet, he’d truly been as innocent of the knowledge of his failure as a babe; he’d been going about his business as though it were a normal day, until a lightly-snippy (infinitely less than he deserved) text from Richard shocked him out of—what?—and he discovered to his horror, his absolute horror, what had occurred.

It was terrifying, to be honest. The idea that he couldn’t trust his memory, his brain—there could literally be countless things he had forgotten, that had disappeared, and how would he ever know? Even whether this exact same thing had happened before! Maybe nothing he thought he knew about himself was true; what are you, really, other than the image that arises from your memory of how you’ve behaved in the past, what you’ve felt, what you’ve experienced.

Richard, tight-lipped, had wordlessly gone into his room to code as soon as he got in, but Jared couldn’t even bring himself to ask for forgiveness; which, of course, compounded the initial guilt, running his mind into loops of—you don’t deserve forgiveness—but—how dare you not apologize—but—how dare you disturb him, how could you bring yourself in front of his eyes to even offer an apology, when you’ve done something so devastatingly terrible—but—every moment that ticks by without one, he hates you more.

So, hunched over on his cot, face buried in his hands and soggy with hot, confused tears is how Dinesh found him. He leapt up in dismay, began to apologize; he had been loud, he had been disturbing, how awful for Dinesh to see him like this, he usually never cried that loudly, what a terrible failure, his emotional incontinence disrupting Dinesh’s concentration, ruining his day.

“Calm down, dude.” Dinesh lifted a hand. “I’m not pissed off at you. I just want you to sit down and blow your nose and you can go back to being insane when I leave.”

One hand over his mouth, the other on his chest, Jared nodded.

“I wanted to tell you–my dad’s a doctor—”

“Cardiologist.” Jared nodded.

“Yes, a cardiologist. Thank you for remembering, also, I meant to tell you, please don’t send him any more birthday cards, it’s really creeping him out.” He paused, but Jared merely bowed his head, and didn't freak out any further, so Dinesh continued. “My dad always said, if you have memory problems, you should go and see your general practitioner because it can be a symptom of a lot of things, including cardiac disease. So maybe switch up your next appointment at the butthole doctor or something. But you shouldn’t ignore it. There. I’m done.”

Before Jared could thank him other than with those giant, shiny, dumb doll eyes, Dinesh had scrammed. Jared heard a muffled “Done making out with Long Tall Sally?” and a “Fuck you, Gilfoyle” from the other side of the door; and with great difficulty kept the tears silent this time. The incredible kindness Dinesh had shown him, to notice, to care for his well-being, to want to help him—ached echoingly inside, as though the tender contents of his chest had been scooped out and a stinging cavern exposed to the air.

Deep breaths, Donald. And pick up the phone.

G.P., to neurologist, to (side trip) butthole doctor: physically and gastrointestinally, he was fit as a fiddle. No brain lesions on the MRI, no abnormal electrical activity or evidence of seizures. Just a referral to a psychiatrist. 

And then, at the psychiatrist's: a long, long diagnostic interview and a careful, thorough taking of his life history, which Jared observed as if from outside himself. He heard himself describe the whole sordid tale with his customary cheerful tone, careful, as ever, not to make too big a deal out of things; but as he went along, he began to realize…oh. It actually sounded—horrible. Somehow it had never seemed that way before. How had it never seemed that way before? Sure, everyone faces challenges in life, as he’d always told himself, and he had no right to complain, his burden was leagues lesser than billions of others with whom he shared his voyage on Spaceship Earth, but—when he reflected, from beginning to end, on the proportion of his 29 years that had been really quite painful…it did seem… well, if it had been someone else who were talking, he’d baldly say it was awful. He’d be shocked, for that person. In fact, he would expect them to be very unwell. Get that person some help, and quickly, is what he would think.

A buzzing feeling filled his head. He didn’t realize he’d paused in his recitation until the soft voice of the psychiatrist reached his ears. “Jared? Can you tell me how you’re feeling right now?”

Jared shook his head no, mutely. A tissue made its way across space. He grasped, and twisted it in his hand.

“OK, let’s stop here for today. That was about everything we needed for your intake, and if you’d like to come back next week at the same time, I can share my thoughts with you then.”

Jared forced his eyelids wider, and nodded yes. Everything looked very far away, as though he’d receded backward, down a tunnel, while the front of his face remained where it was; he could still feel it, mask-like, in the distance. It was decidedly strange.

[lenucciagreco]

the loved ones

an anon sent me a prompt a hot minute ago to the effect of “Richard is a total know-it-all, but especially about Jared.” this is... sort of about that but mostly tries to answer some other questions i had about their relationship, Jared’s life offscreen and outside of the Pied Piper bubble, and also how “normal people” would feasibly treat the both of them.

that said, this is VERY MUCH lighthearted wish fulfillment, so, pretty average stuff from me LOL.

words: 3,096

content: Richard is bi and bad at communicating, a lot of Jared headcanons that probably contradict the writing, some OCs i was forced to make up to properly tell this story that also definitely contradict the writing.

He has elderly friends. He actually has elderly friends. This is fine.

Richard tries not to visibly claw at the armrest of the tiny wing chair in the corner, a thousand afghans and granny-square blankets draped over its back. He wouldn’t usually picture a house like this as belonging to people named Muriel and Eloise, but as he always has to remind himself, this is Northern California, and the tiny, dour church ladies he’s used to are few and far between.

“So, what was it you said you did again, dear?” this unsettlingly kind woman with the oxygen tank asks him, her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of herbal tea. “I know Donald said something about—”   

“Richard and I met through work, Muriel,” Jared cuts in, his expression growing more tense. Maybe that’s just in his imagination. “Actually—well, I’ll embarrass him if I say this, but he inadvertently rescued me from the bad situation I was in before. At Hooli.” 

Muriel pauses, and then her face suddenly lights up: “Of course, of course. He’s told us all about you.”   

The other woman (her wife, who he’d first introduced to Muriel years ago, as Jared explained in the car) steps away from the cutting board she’s been zeroed in on for the last fifteen minutes, and leans against the kitchen island. She’s younger than Muriel—maybe in her late sixties—and hair is cropped and dyed black, almost auburn in parts, the sleeves of her denim shirt rolled to her elbows.   

“This is that Richard?” she asks, regarding him with a stiff smile—as if to show him she isn’t hostile, but not much more. His stomach turns. “Donald, you two haven't—”

Muriel reaches for her walker and stands up, unwavering in her cheeriness. “Eloise, won’t you help me pick out something from the cellar? And we should really start getting the table ready. Can you two finish with the salad?" 

“Of course,” Jared says. His face is calm again, but he can tell he’s close to yanking him from the seat by the arm, already preemptively apologizing for bringing him here. Richard stands up and smiles at him in a way he hopes is reassuring, and goes to the kitchen. 

His last date before all of this, what feels like ages before he willingly got in a car headed to a ranch in Sonoma, was also his all-time worst. It was an actual get-your-number-and-go-to-dinner type date. It was with some girl named Hannah; a freelance web designer who used to work at Hooli, too, although they’d never met before. It had been going well on the whole, until his mind jumped to the worst possible thing mid-conversation, something stupid like right, gastronomy just means the study of food and culture—my friend Jared actually knows a lot about— 

“You mean Jared Dunn? That guy always kind of gave me the creeps.” 

“What?” Richard picked at his dessert, trying to look casual. “I mean—why’s that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, “something about his demeanor always just bothered me.”   

“That’s funny,” he said, then caught himself. "Or—well, it’s not that funny, but I understand. He really is a great guy if you get to know him. It’s just that people don’t always, um…respond well to him?” 

“He seemed nice”—she repeated this word as an afterthought, free of any actual meaning—“just not very good at picking up on social cues.”   

“God, you just described everyone I know.” It was meant to be a joke, but he was the only one who laughed. He sloshed the wine in his glass, a tiny purple stain dotting his thumb. 

“And the oversharing,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Some people are okay with it, but for me it was just—it’s too much.”   

“It’s not for the attention, though,” he says, his tongue starting to feel heavy from the wine. “Not like everybody else. It’s like—he thinks he needs to give a disclaimer to everyone he meets, 'hey, I’m kinda fucked up and have a lot of trauma but I’m fine!’ Don’t get me wrong, some of the stuff he tells me, just offhand, is insane. But he’s a literal genius. Like Jesus Christ, he’s a walking encyclopedia on naval history, 19th century American poets, the DSM—” 

“You know a lot about Jared,” Hannah said, quietly.   

“Um.” Richard put his glass down. "Yeah, I guess I do.”   

He saw the waiter come down with two more drinks and, mercifully, the check.

“I’m so sorry,” Jared starts, the second they’re alone. “I didn’t tell you everything when we were in the car.”   

“It’s okay,” he says, “just—what did you tell her about me that made her hate me?”   

“Eloise doesn’t hate you. She’s just a little protective of me. Really, she’s like this with everyone I bring over.” 

“Jared.” He leans both elbows onto the counter and looks him in the eye. “What does that mean.”   

“It means,” Jared says, absurdly calm, “that she's like this with everyone I bring over, Richard. We do this dinner every year, and she always has something to say about my guests. It has nothing to do with us.”   

Richard notices the tips of his ears are red. He decides not to prod anymore, even if the answer just makes him feel worse.   

Instead he steals a sliver of cucumber off the cutting board and chews it. He feels the urge to make himself useful in the kitchen, but Jared’s stonewalling him by standing at the counter, shoulders squared, slicing the tomatoes at a worrying pace. He can’t help but think he looks just like Eloise minutes ago, right down to the posture. 

When he sees a person he cares about in pain, he mirrors them. Richard knows that. He also knows she can’t be his birth mother, because she died when he was twelve. When he told him this, at four a.m. lying face to face in a bunk bed, Richard reached out his hand and pulled it to his chest.   

This is not good. It’s fine. They’re going to be fine.   

A huge, bony cat butts his head against Richard’s ankle and slides past him. He’s counted three. It yowls up at the counter, probably well aware of the biggest pushover in the room. But Jared doesn’t fold. 

“It’s not for you, Bartleby.” He scoops it up in his arms, a heap of gray fur and flailing paws, and attempts to hand it off to Richard. “Can you take him outside? Please?”   

He can’t really say no, so he gets a good grip on the cat and heads out the screen door. When he gets outside, Eloise is standing on the patio, uncorking a bottle of wine.   

“He doesn’t let everybody hold him like that,” she says, nonplussed. As she says it, Bartleby slips out of Richard’s arms. (What an awful name.) “He’s a little anxious.”   

“Me too,” Richard says. It’s a joke, but not really.   

“So how did you meet Donald?” she asks, cutting through whatever fifteen layers of bullshit he was operating on. “Why do you call him that other name?”   

“Um.” He stops, realizing he’s never had to even really confront the issue. “When I met him, that’s what he told me his name was, and it just stuck—I mean, he’s never asked me to switch. Are you saying that I should?”  

“I don’t have any opinion on what you should do,” she says, and he physically feels himself get knocked down a peg or two realizing this is far from the first time she’s had this conversation. "I just expect you to treat Donald well. He has a knack for getting manipulated by other people who don’t actually value him.”  

“I’m not one of those people,” he says. “He’s really helped me. Through a lot of awful shit. And—he’s told me, you know, things about himself—”   

“He tells everyone his things,” Eloise says. “Anyone who’s willing to listen.”   

“Like—the real things.”   

“Like what?”   

Jared steps out onto the patio, salad bowl in his hands. “Everything’s ready. Where should I put it?” 

The first thing he did after the worst date of his life, after climbing apologetically out of a Lyft, was make a beeline to the garage. Jared was there, and awake—he almost always was at that hour, back then. He was under the cheap duvet, on his laptop, leaning against some milk crates.

“How did it go?”   

“Jared,” he said, staggering to the air mattress and kneeling at the edge. “I fucked up.”   

“Oh.” He shut his laptop and sat up straight, watching him crawl closer. Richard was sure he was trying not to touch him, not to physically engage at all, expertly restrained. Always so respectful of his boundaries, always Richard’s needs before his own. “What happened? Did something go wrong with Hannah?”   

(In hindsight, he seemed a little too eager to ask.)   

“I—just realized I need to stop fucking kidding myself,” he blurted, feeling blindly for Jared’s knee. Was he crying already? It felt like it, on his face. He was pretty loaded. “I need to stop. Stop pretending.”   

“Pretending what?”   

“That—you’re not the person. The person I want to be with.” He could barely understand himself, he was sobbing so loudly, probably sounding ridiculous. “But it’s so stupid and impossible that I have to lie to myself about it.”

“Richard,” he said, hands suddenly on his shoulders, dead calm. “You’re very drunk.”   

He saw right through him. Something about his placid denial, the insistence that nothing was wrong, enraged him in that moment. “I see you looking at me all the time. I notice everything, dude, so don’t just fucking pretend you don’t want this—”   

“Richard.”   

He tried to lean in, writing checks he can’t cash. “Please. Just tell me it’s possible.”   

In some far-off fantasy world Jared could have just dropped his scruples and they could have fucked right there, on that awful air mattress, with his head two inches from the concrete. But instead he just grabbed both his wrists and held onto them, forcing Richard to go still.   

“I do. I do want it.” He looked him square in the eye. “But I don’t really think it should happen like this. Do you?”   

It wasn't a rhetorical question. Richard pulled his hands away—he wasn’t holding on that hard—and considered his options. Then he shook his head.   

“Okay. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”   

“No.”   

He cleared his throat and put his head down, on the corner of the pillow. Because there’s some fucking good left in the world, Jared slipped his arm around his shoulder and pressed his lips to a spot beneath his eyebrow, and neither of them had to say a word. 

More people start to trickle in, some of them names Richard actually recognizes—Muriel’s daughter and tiny blonde grandchild, aunts and distant friends that seem oddly excited once they find out who he is. Jared does a lot of the talking for him, anyway, and lays it on thick (probably to apologize without ever having to say anything.) Richard’s a Stanford-educated engineer; Richard’s got a brilliant mind; you two would find a lot to talk about. But before he even scratches the surface with anybody he gets whisked off to someone else.  

Which is just as well, really. He’s never good with strangers, and as usual, Jared took steps to circumvent it, steps Richard wouldn’t even think to take. Maybe he is like every other schlubby boyfriend he’s brought over.   

Muriel rings some kind of New Age dinner bell, loud and clangy, and everyone gathers around the outdoor table. It’s beautiful, actually—the backyard stretches out for what looks like forever, a wooded path not far down the hill. Once Richard finds his seat, he glances up and suddenly sees Jared pouring him a glass of wine. 

Something about the whole image is just weird. The only thing that comes out of his mouth is: “Oh. It’s white?”   

“Red wouldn’t go with this meal,” Jared says, “technically. You’re at a table of oenophiles that would say so.” 

“Right.” He already feels a little disoriented.   

“Not a big wine drinker?” Muriel asks.   

“I like it, just—” 

“That’s quite alright. It’s meant to be enjoyed with food,” she says. “This is from our vinery. We only serve what we make to friends.”   

“And Trader Joe’s,” Eloise says.   

“And Trader Joe’s. But that’s just to keep the lights on. Should we have a toast?”

The wine goes down light and easy, perfect for an amateur like himself. Eloise, spearing a few pieces of vegan gnocchi, addresses him from the other side of the table: “What were we talking about before, Richard?” 

“Whatever it was,” Jared pipes in, “I’m sure the rest of the table wouldn’t find it very interesting.”   

Of course, everyone but the three of them are caught up in other conversations. Richard looks around for some other kind of lifeline that he knows does not exist.   

“It was about you, Donald,” she says, perfectly genteel. “Just—that you two had gotten to know each other quite well in the last few months.”   

Jared knits his brow, his voice pitching up the way it does when he’s upset: “We’ve known each other about four years.”   

“I know,” Eloise says, “but this development is recent?”   

He turns to Richard, but it seems like he’s already made up his mind by the time he looks at him. “About six weeks. I don’t know why it’s so important.”   

Even she backs off after that, but Richard can tell it’s with great restraint. “Forgive me. I was just curious. Especially after the conversations we’ve had before.”  

“Eloise, it feels—really unnecessary to bring that up,” Jared says (easily the harshest thing Richard's heard him say to someone he cares for.) “Of course I forgive you. But I—” 

“No, you’re right, this is total bullshit.” Richard pushes his wine glass away from him, a little stunned at the words coming out of him—but he feels stone-cold sober and fed up with watching this same scene play out. “Jared’s a grown adult. He can make his own decisions about who he wants to date without screening them for you.”   

“Richard,” he says, his hand suddenly clasping the top of his arm, “it’s not that. She’s talking about something I said before—” 

“It doesn’t matter what you said, like, upwards of a year ago. I was probably a massive dick to you back then.” He feels eyes on him, but keeps going anyway: “She’s just using your words against you. It’s manipulative as shit and I’m not playing along with it.”   

Suddenly the table is quiet. Muriel asks, slowly: “Is everything alright, dear?”   

Richard shakes his head, pushing his chair out and standing up. “No. Sorry, I should—I should go. Sorry, everyone.” 

He hears Jared say his name, but it’s too late. He makes a break for it into the woods.

Somehow he managed to steal the rest of the wine from the ice bucket, too. He’s already made enough of a prick of himself that he figures it can’t hurt. So there he is, wandering on someone else’s property with a bottle of Sauvignon blanc. At the bottom of the hill is a tiny river, snaking a few miles down—he finds a swing chair hanging from a tree and falls back into it, just now noticing he’s half in the bag.   

Jared’s not far behind, of course. He secretly hopes he’ll turn around and prolong this conversation for as much time as possible, but the sound of his voice, his footsteps get closer until it’s unavoidable.   

Then he’s standing behind him, hand on the back of the chair, steadying the rope. “Are you okay?” 

“Why are you asking if I’m okay? I just fucked up twenty people’s evening when I was supposed to impress them.” 

“I don’t care about impressing anyone,” Jared says. “Eloise—helped me a lot. I owed it to her, for you two to meet. That’s all.”   

“Well, she met me,” Richard says, mustering a completely inappropriate laugh. “What did you say about me before that was so bad?”   

He sits down beside him. “Just that I—talk a lot and I wasn’t sure if you listened, always. But I know that’s not true now—”   

“Of course it’s not true.” Richard turns to him. “Jared, I remember everything you tell me. Like how you’re a Pisces and prefer regular Cheerios to fucking honey nut. Like—how in the tenth grade you had to memorize 'O Captain, My Captain' and it stuck with you forever. You used to daydream about sailing away from wherever you were but you were in landlocked Pennsylvania so you didn’t even see a boat in a harbor until you were nineteen and took a bus to the Jersey shore, but you kept saying you were going to the shore because that was the only thing you heard people call it, you didn’t even know it was in New Jersey until you got there. You love children. And animals. And anyone who listens to you which means a ton of shitty people take advantage of you, or they treat you like shit because they don’t get it. 

"Your favorite book is Moby Dick because you like stories about the ocean and—I don’t know, you probably relate to the whole thing of chasing something aimlessly and having it haunt you every day of your life until it kills you, but I don’t want it to kill you, Jared, I just want you to be well-adjusted and fucking happy—”   

He stops him. “I am happy. I’m happier than ever with you. Always.” 

“I’m sorry,” Richard says. “I shouldn’t have said all that. I made a prick of myself in front of people you really wanted me to meet. And you worked so hard to try to make them like me—I fucked up whatever chance we had.”

“I don’t care what they think.” Jared reaches for his hand, looking strangely giddy about all of this. “I mean—I do, but I care more about you. About us.” 

“There’s an ‘us’ now.” He doesn’t say it out of skepticism—it’s something closer to relief. 

“Yeah.” There’s a pause as he slips his arm around his waist, a troubled expression when Richard doesn’t answer, even as he leans heavily into his side. “You do know that. Right?” 

“I know.” He stares out in front of him, at the dappled sunlight and soft grass, in this place he knows he’s no longer welcome in, and squeezes Jared’s hand. “Is it okay if we go home?” 

“Of course,” Jared says. They do not move. 

[alethiometry]

[fic] Non Serviam

Title: Non Serviam Fandom: Silicon Valley Characters: Jared Dunn, Bertram Gilfoyle, Dinesh Chugtai Rating: PG Warnings: show-level swearing Word Count: 2,021 words Summary: While Richard goes and meets with Gavin, the guys back at the house pour one out for Anton, have a rare sincere conversation, and contemplate next steps. 4x10 coda/addendum.

Notes: A quick self-indulgent thing that I threw together after watching the season finale one too many times. Unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine and mine alone. Enjoy!

Read below, or on AO3.

The server room is cold without Anton—empty, now, and spacious. Far too spacious. And silent, like a tomb. Almost like the offices they’d populated during Barker’s brief tenure as CEO, after the clearance sale. But whatever somber feelings their former office space had stirred in Jared, it’s nothing compared to the cold sterility of an Anton-less garage.

It had taken a couple weeks to get used to falling asleep with all the humming fans and little flickering LEDs, the constant whirrs pulsing through Anton’s circuit boards; the silence now is oppressive by contrast, even with Jian-Yang and Dinesh’s muffled argument coming from the kitchen. Jared wonders how long it’ll take to get used to sleeping in his own bedroom again. Maybe the constant twinge of muscle cramping in his back will go away after a couple nights on a real mattress. That would certainly be a silver lining.

Still, he’ll miss the server room. He supposes he should call it a garage, technically, but a garage is for parking cars, and he doesn’t think anybody’s parked their cars in here since Erlich bought the place.

Speaking of which, Erlich should have checked in with them by now. Jared pulls out his phone to shoot him a quick text (Does he have international texting? Can he even get a signal way up in the Himalayas?) but when he unlocks his phone all he sees is the falsified Hooli-Con app glaring up at him.

Right.

Somehow, even after everything, he can’t bring himself to delete it.

He’s got half a bottle of Martinelli’s in his mini-fridge, leftover from the one night they thought they’d be rich—the one night of unbridled, carefree celebration before Keenan’s betrayal. The cider’s beyond flat by now, almost disgustingly syrupy, but somehow it seems fitting.

Bottoms up,

he thinks glumly, and that’s when the door creaks open.

“Thought you moved back to your place,” Gilfoyle says, as tonelessly as ever. The air mattress bounces a little as he sinks down next to Jared, swigging directly from his bottle of Pappy van Winkle.

“I did,” Jared replies. “I just thought I’d come pay my respects. I can leave, if you’d like.”

Gilfoyle shrugs and clinks his bottle against Jared’s. “To Anton,” he mutters, pouring a bit of his bourbon onto the ground.

“To Anton,” echoes Jared, joining him.

They sit there in silent contemplation, each with his own beverage, staring at the empty room. Other than a couple shelves and crates that hadn’t fit into the U-Haul, some scattered wiring and electrical components that Jared can never seem to remember the names or functions of, and that giant photograph of Gavin Belson (turned, mercifully, to face the wall), there’s not much else to see.

“Can I ask you a question, Gilfoyle?” Jared says quietly.

“Why was I so attached to a stupid fucking machine that I built with my own two hands, that sat in here holding every goddamn byte of data and line of code that we worked our fucking asses off for?”

“Well, when you put it like that—”

“Have you ever built anything from scratch, Jared?” Gilfoyle asks.

“I set up a bird feeder once,” Jared says. “It was from a kit that I got for Christmas at one of my foster homes, but I assembled it myself and filled it with feed and climbed up the big tree in the front yard to hang it from one of the branches. A few days later, a mother bird built her nest on another branch right above it to lay her eggs. I never saw how many she laid; it was too high up to see from the ground and I didn’t want to disturb her—”

“For fuck’s sake,” Gilfoyle mutters, taking another swig.

“—Then one day I came back from school to a crow savaging the eggs,” Jared continues. “The mother bird was so helpless against it, and it just kept tearing and tearing and eating and eating. And then—she just flew away. And the crow finished eating and

it

flew away, and all the twigs and bits of egg just sort of—dripped down all over the bird feeder, like some grisly tree ornament gone awry.”

Gilfoyle snorts. Once upon a time, Jared would have found it mean-spirited. Now, though, he’s come to expect the callousness. Welcome it, even. It’s a testament to how far they’ve come, if nothing else.

The door swings open again. It’s Dinesh this time, nursing a bottle of—

“Are you drinking my fucking beer?”

“Fuck you, Gilfoyle,” Dinesh snaps. He takes a long, slow swig while flipping Gilfoyle the bird.

Jared watches them stare each other down for a moment, gauging whether he needs to intervene yet again, but then Gilfoyle deflates with a muttered “whatever” and a roll of the (still cat-contact-lensed) eyes.

“Figured I’d find you guys here,” Dinesh says, seating himself on Gilfoyle’s other side. “Jian-Yang’s been chain smoking all fucking day since getting back from the airport. And blasting fucking Chinese pop ballads. No wonder Erlich wanted to fucking kill him all the fucking time.”

“Where is Erlich, anyway?” Gilfoyle asks. “You guys ever hear from him?”

Jared and Dinesh both shake their heads. Gilfoyle shrugs again. They lapse into another comfortable silence, sipping their drinks.

“So where will you two go from here?” Jared asks.

Gilfoyle and Dinesh exchange a look.

“I go where the money goes,” Dinesh says. “And right now, as big of a fucking prick as Richard is, the money’s with him and his new internet.”

“I told you when we were working with Gavin Belson,” says Gilfoyle, “I hate to see good tech go to waste. Richard’s a lying sack of shit with piss-poor management skills, but he’s still a brilliant programmer.”

“I mean,” Dinesh adds, “As long as—” He trails off, looking embarrassed, and takes a hasty swig of his beer.

“As long as what?” Jared asks.

“As long as you keep him in check,” Gilfoyle finishes.

“He fired me,” Jared says. “You were both there.”

“And then he hired you back,” Dinesh says.

Gilfoyle grunts in agreement. “We were perfectly happy leaving him out in the cold until you called us. Totally worth it, though, to watch Melcher lose his shit. Again,” he adds with a smirk.

“You knew, didn’t you?” Dinesh says. “About Richard sleeping with Melcher’s fiancee? I mean, like, before Melcher started beating the shit out of him.”

“Oh—yeah. Yeah, he told me what happened. He didn’t want it known, though, for obvious reasons. Not that it matters now, I suppose. Cat’s out of the bag.”

“Right. Point is,” says Gilfoyle. “Richard trusts you, Jared.”

Dinesh nods. “And so do we.”

“Richard went to go meet Gavin at Josefina’s,” Gilfoyle says. “I’d bet half my shares in Pied Piper that Gavin’s offering him another acquisition, and I’d bet the other half that Richard’s gonna turn him down. It’s only a matter of time before the space saver app takes off—I mean really takes off—and we’re on track to make servers, including Hooli’s box business, completely obsolete. And with the new, decentralized internet, well. It’s a brave new fucking world.”

Dinesh smirks. “What Gilfoyle is trying to say, but can’t because he’s an arrogant dick, is that even though we’re on board, we can’t do this without you. Me, and Gilfoyle, and especially Richard. We need you, Jared.”

“That’s very kind of you to say,” Jared says, “but it’s been a long couple of days and I should head back to my place. My squatter didn’t exactly leave the place spotless when he left, so I still have a lot of cleaning to do.”

He leans over to drop his now-empty Martinelli’s bottle into the recycling bin, then pulls himself to his feet. It feels like a longer walk than usual to the garage door opener, despite the fact that he now has a direct and open route where he doesn’t have to worry about bumping into shelves or knocking some rigging out of configuration and thereby, to quote Gilfoyle, “skullfucking the entire company.” The door opens with that familiar creak and long groan, and Jared finds himself already missing the sound.

The sun has set over Palo Alto, the sky a light-polluted haze of dull greys. Richard should be back from his meeting with Gavin soon, and Jared would very much like to have some more space to think things over before getting back to work. Suddenly he feels very tired.

“I, uh, I’ll see you two tomorrow,” he says with a half-hearted wave, digging in his pocket for his car keys.

Dinesh and Gilfoyle exchange another look.

“Hey, Jared,” Dinesh calls. “Jian-Yang’s already moved all his shit into the master bedroom. We’re gonna have to start looking for someone to take his old room soon.”

“Erlich still owns the place, so there’s no rent to pay, but even without Anton eating up all the power, Jian-Yang’s stupid smart fridge is gonna piss all over the electric bill,” Gilfoyle adds. “And we’re not exactly rich yet.”

“That’s true,” says Dinesh, “but it’s a lot of hassle to look for people and schedule showings—”

“—and we’ve got a fuckload of work to do on Pied Piper.”

“And even if we do find someone, they could be, like, a serial killer or something—”

“—which, fascinating though it may be to share a living space with someone so uninhibited in his or her hobbies, poses a very real threat to the productivity of the company. Not to mention all the potential legal bullshit that comes with housing a murderer.”

“Roommates aside, the Palo Alto housing market is more competitive than SAT prep at a private school. I bet a nice, one-bedroom condo in a convenient location would sell in no time.”

“Would make the seller a shitton of money, too.”

“Right, and driving to and from your workplace every day is pretty bad for the environment.”

“And gas prices are going up again.”

“And taking the bus or biking seems pretty inconven—”

Jared holds up a hand. “I get it,” he says with a smile. “Thanks for the invite, guys. I, uh. I’ll let you know soon.”

He surveys the empty garage one more time as Dinesh and Gilfoyle return to the house. The garage door squeaks shut, Pied Piper logo gleaming bright from the light of the streetlamps. Jared starts up his car and pulls out of the driveway. It still stings, to be sure, Richard’s betrayal and near-immediate outreach and apology. Jared doesn’t doubt the sincerity of it for a second, but it still gives him pause. Forgiveness was easy when they all thought they’d be dead in the water in just a matter of minutes. They would see Pied Piper through to the bitter end, and part ways as amicably as they could manage, under those circumstances; that had been the plan, and he had accepted it. Now that they’re very much alive and seemingly thriving, though—now Jared’s not so sure.

But if what Gilfoyle says is true, that Pied Piper will only grow from here to one day overtake Hooli as the new tech giant in the Valley, well. They’ve all of them now seen what Richard is capable of, both the good and the bad. But the three of them—Dinesh, Gilfoyle, and himself—perhaps they together can somehow save Richard from becoming Gavin 2.0.

Jared smiles to himself as he pulls into his designated parking spot behind his condo, remembering that hazy, sleep-deprived night they’d spent on the dick-jerking algorithm that gave rise to middle-out—remembers the cables he’d hauled from the garage as Gilfoyle tore holes through drywall and Dinesh and Erlich kept their viral livestream afloat. He remembers the roller-coaster tumult of his first (and last) Pied Piper board meeting; the revelations of Peter Gregory’s storage unit; the dread, then ecstasy, then alarm as they assembled in Melcher’s office that very morning, very much ready to go down as a team, only to discover their unlikely salvation via smart fridge.

Brave new world, indeed.

[closetofanxiety]

Show Review: Northeast Wrestling Live

“The card is subject to change,” as they say, and brother, did it ever change this time around, for a supershow that didn’t even have a name. But you know what? Life is a mystery, as Madonna reminded us. Everyone must stand alone. I hear you call my name, and it feels like ... home.

When: Friday, June 9, 2017

Where: Crosby High School in beautiful Waterbury, Connecticut

Who: A couple of hundred fans in attendance, not a sellout by any stretch of the imagination

Four-Way Tag Match: The Amazing Graysons vs. The Now (c) vs. Adrenaline Rush vs. Chris Battle and Some Guy

“Some Guy” is not the name of the wrestler who tagged with Chris Battle, but I didn’t catch his actual name. The Battle Brothers were scheduled to wrestle tonight, but only Chris was in attendance. This was the first sign of a Night of Improvisation, in which people who were supposed to perform did not, the matches got changed around, and I saw Teddy Long in the hallway before the show, but he didn’t actually do anything during the show. 

This was your basic four-way tag match: some decent spots, but hard to “tell a story,” as it were, because the ring is pretty much a constant traffic jam. I was impressed by the Amazing Graysons, who are two high-flying cruiserweights. I can’t stand The Now, which probably means they’re doing their jobs as heel tag team champs. The crowd chants “Go Home NOW!” at them, which is great. They win.

Rating: Two Card Changes

Sam Adonis vs. Jerry Lawler w/Kelly Kelly

Another change! Sam Adonis is currently working a Trump-lover gimmick in Mexico (for which Brian Cage is stupidly angry with him, because Brian Cage apparently invented being a bigoted gringo heel in Mexico), and was going to wrestle Alberto El Patron. Instead, Adonis - who is Corey Graves’ brother - was pitted against 67-year-old Jerry “The King” Lawler, accompanied to the ring by former WWE Diva Kelly Kelly. You know her legit name is Barbie Blank? That’s such a great WWE Diva name (also would have been a great late ‘70s name for a punk rocker), and yet Vince McMahon personally decided she should be called Kelly Kelly, which is easily the dumbest goddamn name ever bestowed on a woman in the WWE. All those “I ironically love the WWE, which I call ‘New York’” choads on Wrestling Twitter who worship at the altar of Vince McMahon have to explain a decision this objectively brain-wrong.

Anyway, where was I? There was a guy behind us chanting “Fuck Trump! Fuck Trump!,” because of Sam Adonis’ gimmick in Mexico (he did not try this gimmick in Waterbury, where it would have made him a huge babyface). The chanting guy was also providing color commentary for every match, for the entire duration of the match, and acting as if he were speaking to Michael Cole. “Michael, it looks like the King’s in trouble here! He’s going to have to dig deep!” I mean, the WHOLE SHOW. He drove multiple people away from our section, including a Yale student. You know how many Yalies go to wrestling shows? This young 1 percenter will probably never go again, for fear of sitting next to Phantom Commentary Guy. Occasionally he would hold up a sign that said “Wrestling With Wregret,” like the YouTube channel, and would try to get the crowd to join him in chanting “Wrestling With Wregret.” You really meet all kinds of people at wrestling shows.

Anyway, the match: Sam Adonis gets the mic and says Jerry Lawler is too old, and that Kelly Kelly should be having sexxx with Sam Adonis, and not old Jerry Lawler. Ironically, of course, Kelly Kelly, at 30, is far too old to interest Jerry Lawler. Lawler jaws back, the match starts, punching, headlocks, very old school, Adonis gets the upper hand through treachery, Lawler throws a dropkick to a huge pop, and then sneakily gets the pin. I will say this about Jerry Lawler, in addition to looking great for 67, he throws a fantastic working punch, which is an increasingly lost art in wrestling. The European uppercut and the forearm have largely replaced the working punch, and as a result, most guys’ punches look like warm garbage.

Rating: Two and a Half Card changes.

Wrecking Ball Legursky and “Big Bacon” Brad Hollister w/Jared vs. Ron Zombie and Bull Dredd

Another card change! Multiple changes, in fact. Zombie was originally supposed to wrestle Legursky accompanied by his manager, “The Mastermind” Marshal McNeil, and Hollister was supposed to wrestle Vinnie Marseglia. Instead, commentary guy Jared came out to say that he’d finally gotten access to a trust fund, and he did what all newly-wealthy young men dream of: he purchased Wrecking Ball Legursky’s contract from McNeil, who was not at the show. And now it’s a tag team match!

Zombie and Dredd have been doing this for 20ish years, and are pretty limited at this point. Dredd is no longer working the “Sexy Beast” gimmick, and is back to just being a beast. Brad Hollister is a super capable power wrestler with an amateur wrestling look who could break out, except his gimmick right now is that he loves bacon. Wrecking Ball is a huge man who throws people. You can guess how this match went.

The heels cheated to get the upper hand, but Ron Zombie had brought Jake Roberts’ snake to the ring in a bag before the match. See, Jake Roberts was scheduled to make an appearance, but, uh, apparently something came up, and only the snake was ready to work. 

“That’s not the REAL Damian,” the guy sitting in front of us said with genuine bitterness when Zombie finally brought the snake out of the bag. Buddy, how long do you think snakes live? That was more than 30 years ago. It’s a big fucking snake, that’s the point.

Anyway, Zombie uses the snake to terrify the heels, who run away. People in the crowd love the snake. The match ended with a double countout, which is huge for me. I love double countouts.

Rating: Two Card Changes.

Deonna Purrazzo vs. Mandy Leon

“Do you wanna see a LAY-DEE’S MATCH??” is the way the Northeast ring announcer always starts the women’s matches, and I hate it. I *do* want to see a lay-dee’s match, just not this one, because it has Mandy Leon. She seems like a nice person who works really hard and so it feels bad to say this, but I’ve been watching her in matches for years, and she doesn’t get a whole lot better. This whole match feels like half the speed of a normal match, with lots of clumsy exchanges and awkward moments, which is especially notable because these two have wrestled plenty of times before, so it’s not like they’re just unfamiliar with each other.

The nadir of the match was actually not anything that happened in the ring, it was sitting next to the host of a local online wrestling talk show who kept yelling “DEEEEE-ONNNNA!! I LUV YA!” Later he would take creepshots of women in the crowd. “It’s great to be me,” he said, inaccurately.

Rating: One Card Change.

Alberto El Patron vs. Jake Manning

There was a flurry of excitement before this match started, because exiled WWE Submission Sorority member Paige Paige walked out to take a front row seat at ringside, accompanied by a gigantic security guard. Creepshot Talk Show Host Guy had told us he “knew” that Paige comes to all Alberto’s shows, but that Alberto is allegedly insanely jealous and won’t let her come out from the backstage area. Another thing Creepshot Talk Show Host Guy was wrong about??

So, listen, this match tore the goddamn house down. There is the Jake Manning that many of us know - the comedy podcast host and goofy Boy Scout gimmick-haver - but there is also the Jake Manning of PWX and Pro Wrestling Revolver, where he is a fired-up asskicker, and that was the Jake Manning we saw in Waterbury. I like non-WWE Alberto about a thousand times more than I like WWE Alberto, but he has a tendency to take it easy on smaller shows. That was not an issue in this match, as he really raised his game to keep up with Jake, which seems insane when you say it. There was zero comedy stuff in this match beyond the expected spot with Jake’s rulebook, which they dispensed with early. Just a hard, fast sprint between two guys who really seemed like they were trying to win, and were unsure of whether they could do it. Every near-fall actually felt like a near-fall, if you know what I mean. After Alberto won, he cut a promo that sounded sincere, saying he’d never worked with Jake before, didn’t take him seriously because of the Boy Scout gimmick, but that Jake had kicked his ass and earned his respect. It was a post-match handshake that felt earned, for once.

Rating: Four and a half Card Changes.

INTERMISSION

This was a long intermission, like maybe 40 minutes. Too long, really, but nearly the entire crowd wanted to get their picture taken with Alberto. Not me, though, I bought DVDs from Sami Callihan, including that “Piledrivers and Pancakes” thing from Wrestlemania Week where Jake Manning wrestled Su Yung. I may be at the start of a Jake Manning, Secret Ace kick. Not sure of the temperature of this take, but it feels sustainable.

Keith Lee vs. JT Dunn

This match may have happened at Beyond before, but Beyond allows for self-indulgence in a way that Northeast doesn’t, so this was all killer, no filler. The story here is obviously that Lee is a freakishly agile giant and Dunn is not, and the first third of the match was Lee basically toying with the smaller man. Dunn started to go after Lee’s mobility and make it competitive, and the home stretch was full exciting reversals and unlikely highspots, including two Canadian destroyers (2017 is the Year of the Canadian Destroyer Renaissance). Lee gets the win after a Spirit Bomb, and they do the mutual respect. The crowd was fired up for this match, which really delivered.

Rating: Four Card Changes.

Donovan Dijak vs. Vinnie Marseglia vs. Flip Gordon

Another card change resulted in this three-way. It feels a little bit like Dijak, who is one of my favorite wrestlers, has plateaued here in the indies. He’s pretty much perfected the thing he was going for two or three years ago, and the only place left for him to really change and evolve is NXT/WWE, or maybe Japan. Contrast him with Flip Gordon, who’s gone from random high flying guy to his current Army gimmick (he’s legitimately in the National Guard, although I don’t think the tearaway pants are regulation issue) and has really honed his in-ring work, and Vinnie Marseglia, who was just kind of a guy with a lot of tattoos for years, but since joining the Kingdom has reinvented himself as an unpredictable wild man with a troubling hairstyle.

“He looks like a reindeer,” Mark accurately observed.

This was a good three-way, with the attendant issues that three-way matches almost always have, e.g. one guy just goes missing for huge stretches. Their styles mesh really well together, with Gordon being the high flyer, Marseglia the mat technician/strong style guy, and Dijak being the huge monster who can leap through the air if he wants. I liked this match a lot, although it had a tough act to follow, coming after the Lee/Dunn barn-burner.

Rating: Three and a half card changes.

Main Event: Sami Callihan vs. Penta El Zero M

I think that’s how you render the name of the man formerly known as Pentagon Jr. Why doesn’t he do the Jack Swagger thing and just bill himself as FKA Pentagon Jr.? Perhaps AAA is more litigious than WWE, I don’t know. That’s merely speculation.

It was almost 11:30 when these guys came out, and the crowd was tired, but they rallied, because everyone was excited to see Penta. This was my first chance to see him in person, and after my Drago Disappointment last week, I had high hopes.

They were not disappointed. These guys have wrestled a ton of matches over the 18 months or so, but they made the whole thing feel fresh. Callihan was at his best, as the deranged psycho throwing caution to the wind and trying to win as quickly as possible. I also don’t know how he wrestles in jeans. The chafing alone must be more intense than a slew of death matches. 

This was a no-DQ match, so Sami started off by throwing folding chairs and a very bendable table into the ring. The table spot happened almost immediately, which was smart: table spots rarely live up to the anticipation, so if that’s payoff for a whole match, you’re always kind of let down. If you put a guy through a table in the first 90 seconds, the crowd immediately thinks MY GOD ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. At one point, Sami collected chairs from the crowd, and people ran forward to offer their seats up. It was like that famous ECW chair-throwing incident, but much more orderly. They literally formed a line, like a bucket brigade.

This was exactly what it needed to be: short, fast, hard-hitting. Lots of fun. Pentagon wins with that sick driver he does, then the customary handshake. Everyone shakes hands on the indies now. Doesn’t anyone hate each other?

Since it was midnight and I had to go to Salem in the morning, we left without getting a picture with Pentagon, which I now regret. Or, in tribute to the weird, loud guy behind us, wregret.