#keri dreams

[kerizaret]

I had a dream Nene gave Tsukasa two wind chimes for his birthday and he hung them up at the windows next to his desk so every time he sat there and the wind chimes rang he was just looking at them with the softest gaze possible OUGH IT WAS SO SWEET

[thegodthief]

Dreamt I was told a story, and the storyteller wanted me to share it with others. And for the most part, the story was one I was comfortable sharing, until it got to one certain point. I considered what other people have done with the stories I have shared before, and realized this wouldn't be a trivial anecdote.

I asked the storyteller if I could rewrite that portion, they declined. I had to write it the way it was told to me. I asked them if I could leave that part out entirely, and they declined that, too. That portion was the whole point of telling.

I asked the storyteller was it necessary that I share the story in the first place. They remained silent, but their face hinted at a feral smile.

If I did not share the story, they warned, then it would devour me instead.

It has been four days since the storyteller told me a story. It has been four days since I have declined to share it. I have considered the story coming and going. I see where my detractors will accuse me of bandwagoning and where they will accuse me of cultural appropriation. I see where my traumas made themselves known and the wishful thinking I thought was left behind but is still hooked to my legs. I see how the story is just one more in an ocean of words, but I also see how the story is unique to itself.

And each time I come to the scene that made me pause. I don't want to tell this scene as it was told to me. It's not that I am ashamed of my actions in the story. To be honest, my actions are no different in the story than it would be in any other event, waking or dream. It's not that the storyteller laid bare one of my fears. Those who have read my words from the beginning know all about my fears, and how I have worked to overcome them.

"You are a storyteller. Tell this story."

"I have a duty to those I tell stories to."

"The only duty you bear is the telling. What they choose to do with your words is their consequences to bear."

"If I leave a hot pan in reach of a child, and the child scalds themselves, whose fault is it? The fault of the person who knew better, or the fault of the innocent?"

"Do you write for children?"

"... No."

"Do you write for innocents?"

"... Heh, no."

"Then, who do you write for?"

"... I have been asking myself that from the moment I started telling stories. The answer has yet to reveal itself to me. I will sit on this story until I find the audience for it."

"It will devour you."

"As do many."

[mccoyquialisms]

I GOT THE JOB I WANTED!!! I GOT THE HOUSE RENTAL!! FUCK I NEED TO BE READY TO WORK IN MY NEW CITY 30 DAYS FROM NOW!!

[janedances]

NATALIE PARIS AND COURTNEY MACK ARE THE BRAND NEW SEYMOUR AND HOWARD ON THE ARAGON TOUR WTF

[gennsoup]

This night is full of music. Even the tea is singing.

Keri Hulme, A Drift in Dream

[khattikeri]

i want a dating sim or multi route romance visual novel only with an option where i can matchmake the love interests with each other instead of being an actual party in the relationship. like i wanna meddle and see the capture targets in romantic situations. but not with Me. you get it

[sweetjollylooks]

[mudstoneabyss]

had a dream where there was, in a Strex episode, some death robot mentioned and it wasn't even necessarily an anthro robot but people still drew it as one and shipped him with Lauren. pretty sure its name was deathmeister but idr whether that part was canon or fanon

[lethalchiralium]

Baby's gonna be so sad hearing her with his best friend and not him 🥲😈

simon’s not gonna spoil shit. he loves threesomes 🫣

[frecklystars]

THE LOVES OF MY LIFE OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!! 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 it's been so long since I've rly felt love bursting in my chest for any F/Os and I am feeling so so so so much for my girlboss girlfriend and my horsegirl boyfriend 😭😭😭💖💞💓💓💗💖💕💕💕💟💝

Her smile!!! god!!!! HIS smile!!!! god!!! these two are fucking saving my life I can't believe how much these characters are helping me get through the worst time of my life. THESE TWO are helping me get back into self shipping and helping me feel safe again when I really thought I'd never ever recover. I'm collecting screenshots of these characters and sighing with hearts in my eyes every time... I haven't done that in over a year... I'm making gifsets and writing fics and doodling again... it's all because of them and I'm such a weepy mess over it

[kerizaret]

Good morning :) I hope you slept well and that your day is wonderful ^^

ICHIKA HAD INVISIBILITY POWERS AND CONVINCED NENE TO BECOME THR NEXT SPIDERWOMAN???? SOMEONE PUSHED HER OFF THE BRIDGE TO MAKE HER USE THE SPIDERWEBS????? THE THINGS MY DREAMS CREATE, OOMAR

Slept well tho thank you!! Hope your day's very nice as well :D

[thegodthief]

"Hey..." The curl of animated smoke wound around one leg before swirling up around my body to curl around one arm. "What do you say we start to get to know each other?"

I pulled my arm back. "How about... no." They had tried to tighten themselves on my forearm, but that area reminded me of someone else and kept me from being taken in.

"You're going to have to face me eventually. The longer you put it off, the harder it will be to do anything about it." The smoke flowed to encircle my waist like a belt. To my surprise, it did not attempt to evade me when I pulled it off of me as if I was plucking errant lint.

"I hate that you have a point. But I know enough of your nature to know that I'm not ready to have any dealing with you." I took a step back and felt the rim of something like a manhole just at the edge of my heel. I recognized it immediately and felt more secure in myself. I wasn't alone. I had help if I wanted it. "You're going to have to wait your turn."

The smoke puffed and formed a shadowy humanoid shape. They made themselves a little shorter than me, a little stockier than me, but a lot more arrogant than me as they grabbed my other arm and leaned in like they were trying to hit on me in a dark bar. "But what if I don't want to wait? What if I've been waiting all this time and now I'm bored? What if there's no one else to play with and since you can see me, we can play now?"

Something flowed out over the rim to cover my foot. It didn't attempt to soak into me, but made its presence very clear. The sensation was literally grounding and I knew that there was a huge mass just behind me that I could fall into for protection against my would-be suitor. They looked down at the crud and scowled. They pulled themselves away from me.

"Fine. FINE. I'll wait. For now. But I won't wait for much longer. Now that you're no longer their plaything, you can come into your own and I can help you with that, but I'm here for my own reasons, and I will see those to the end just the same."

They dissipated into the surrounding darkness with a derisive humph. Los Olvidados held on to my foot without comment nor motion.

"Thanks, guys." The crud squeezed my foot in comfort. "I'm starting to feel them more and more, but never this amount of interaction until now. They do have a point. I need to get with it, but I don't know where to learn more about this." They squeezed my foot again.

"Everything is accelerating again and I barely have my head out of my ass, much less any feet on stable ground. How am I supposed to run when I can barely walk?" I looked down at them. "Present company excepted." They squirmed around my ankle, tickling me, and then retreated back to the buried cistern behind me.

"I'm afraid," I whispered to the nonpresences around me.

~~~

"Words have meanings! But those meanings change with time, place, and language. What could have been a very positive compliment in the language that coined the term could become a derogatory insult in another. The context in which these words are used is often more important than the word itself."

The lecturer wrote several words on the chalkboard. I recognized the first one as an English word. Each word they wrote after was a slight change to the one before, but then the alphabet of the words changed. I was able to recognize some Greek letters, but the words that followed eluded me.

The lecturer turned back to the assembled class. "Take the word 'demon', for example. In common use in the English language, it currently means something nefarious and ill-intentioned. But the word it is derived from, the Greek δαίμων, is a neutral term and simply refers to a class of beings that may or may not be helpful to the speaker."

"When speaking, or really, when using any method of communication, consider not only the words and phrases you are using, but also consider the method you are using and the sophistication of the person receiving your communications. I don't mean for you to be a dick, as the parlance goes, and judge the receiver for your perception of their lack of education by whatever standard you call education. I mean, make the effort to use words, and meanings, that are mutually understood. if that means creating new phrases and terminology that can only be understood between you, then do so. You don't have to explain your terminology to those who are not in your audience."

They stood at the lectern and placed their hand on a book. "Your homework is to take a word or phrase that has been in use for at least a century and compare how it is used now against how that usage has developed over that century. Extra credit will be given if you document the development of that phrase over time to the earliest recorded use and what the modern equivalent of that earliest recorded use could be. You cannot use the demon-δαίμων example I just gave. Class dismissed."

They closed the book and disappeared as the sound pushed me into an alternate time of the classroom. All the other students also disappeared, and the time shifted from bright day to late night. Moonlight flowed into the high windows to illuminate me and the seat next to me. In the cold beam, an entity was revealed.

"Demon. Daimon. Bah! I'll tell you what a demon is... An excuse! A justification for the speaker to avoid doing the right thing! To avoid doing anything! A scapegoat for those who are too afraid to do anything that might strip them of the false comfort they have decided is their fate in life."

A red eye solidified in the mass of thick smoke and focused on me. "A demon is a construct of your fears, shame, and guilt. It is assembled from all the pieces of yourself that you pretend to be 'bad' so that you can justify being helpless against your own nature. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."

I swallowed the rage that was strangely building within me. "If that is a demon, then what are you?"

A second red eye opened as it solidified and focused on me. I noted the mismatched pupils. "Well, finally you ask the right question." No face was there to hold the mouth that opened to speak. The teeth gleamed in the non-space they occupied.

"I am not a demon. I am a devil. There is a difference."

I thought of all my encounters and could not find a parallel or commonality with this entity. If anything, I realized a few key distinctions. "What is the difference?"

A cold hand rested on my forearm. "I don't give a shit about your feelings. That's the difference. I don't need your attention, your worship, or your fear to feed or sustain me. I am independent of you." Another cold hand gripped my shoulder. I recognized where I had encountered this being before.

"But you are in need of me. There is something I can do that you cannot, and you want that thing done."

The hands stopped moving. "I do."

"I guess you're my homework then."

"I am."

I looked around the empty classroom. This could be the lecture hall of any small or community college. I smelled echoes of chemicals and heard forgotten music. At first, I thought this could be any place, but then I realized all of my senses were equating the hall with one very specific place, even though I have never set foot in that building in my life.

I still felt the echoes of it just the same.

"Ah. You're that homework."

"I am."

I looked back at the devil, still formed of cold black smoke save for two red eyes and a tight black mouth. "I'm not afraid of you." I was surprised to realize that and even more surprised to say it out loud.

"Good. Fear of me would only cloud your senses and limit you. I know what was done to you." They looked around the dark hall. "Ah, if only you had grown up here. You wouldn't have to dig so hard to find the answers."

"Yea, well, as an old bitch, looking back, I can say that it's very likely a good thing that I didn't. If you know me, then you know how I was regarded. I would have been taught nothing, or worse, I would have been given a demon greater than I could bear."

They smiled to hear me use their definition of the word. "Yes, you understand, then. Good." They withdrew their hands. The nonspace around me felt warmer somehow. "I look forward to our mutual partnership and benefit. Class dismissed."

Before I could say anything, the dream completely dissolved.

~~~

What if I'm taking things too slow? What if in my fear that I'm going to rip open barely closed wounds, that I wind up dragging myself over uneven ground instead and create new ones? I trip and fall down. My knee is bruised. Those who witness scold me for not being careful enough, for not knowing my place as a neophyte, for not taking the path they keep saying is my right to walk.

Those who witness tell me it is my own fault that I can't score a goal because I'm not playing the game according to the rules that no one can agree on. So I go back to the beginning and try again being extra careful not to step on the same path twice, not to make the same mistakes, not to say anything that would get me scolded again.

Only to wobble and fall.

How many times do I practice writing the shape of the letter before I give myself permission to learn what the letter is? How many times do I practice the sounds that this collection of letters represents before I am permitted to learn what this collection of letters means? How many times do I wait for someone else to give me that permission?

I will never sound like a native speaker, because I'm not. I can only sound like myself.

I do not know the sound of my own voice. I have spent so much of my life mimicking others.

So much of my life trying to learn the right thing to do, the right way to be, the right way to apologize for the sin of existing. I realized that in trying to recover myself, I was making the same mistakes again and again and again.

I want to be found acceptable, and I need to let that go. Sangre sucia. [I]niquitatem magis quam loqui aequitatem. I know what that means now.

It means I need to take responsibility for myself.

And still... I wait for a sign that it's okay to do just that.

~~~

The morning of this post, I received that sign. Scrolling my dash because it's too early for the alarm and too late to go back to sleep, I see a thing and am reminded what it personally means for me. I recall the public history of it, how it went from Point A™ to Point B™ and how that became intertwined with the history of that branch of my family and how I came to understand what that personally means for me.

I saw the thing and realized just how much of a fucking coward I am. How I have burdened myself with unnecessary complications so that I have the excuse to do nothing but cry under the covers that no one loves me and how hard it is to be alone in this cruel world.

Which is true. But why am I remaining in this false comfort? In this set of circumstances that I would be encouraging my worst enemy to do their best to get out of, but here I am, turning over and going back to sleep.

Sure, I could try to do something and fail, but at least I fucking tried.

I know I'm waiting for the cycle to reset. I'm waiting for the inevitable trip so I can fall and skin my knee and be told what a horrible person I am for daring to think that I can be better than the filth in the gutter.

As if that same filth in the gutter wouldn't hesitate to kick my ass and send me back out.

I'm standing again. I have been stripped bare and forced to see myself for what I am and instead of turning away in shame, I am standing.

Okay. This is what I have. This is what I am. No amount of shame or wishful thinking is going to change this. If I am going to be what I have always been, then I need to step up and take responsibility for myself. Those who watch will judge me according to their definitions. I can't change that.

This is not going to be a walk. There is no safe speed to move forward here. There will be obstacles and confrontations and private derision and public aggression and there will always be someone telling me that I'm not clean enough to sit at their table. Okay. How is any of this new?

There are demons and there are demons and there are devils and there I am.

Okay. Let's go.

[wardenparker]

Hummingbird Has Landed, ch 4

Marcus Pike x female reader Co-written with @absurdthirst

After the debacle of his failed engagement and relocating to Washington to take charge of his task force, newly minted Special Agent Marcus Pike is ready to get back out into the dating pool once more. A slew of bad dates has him feeling a little down, and he takes an old friend up on an invitation to get away and get his head on straight. Imagine his surprise when he finds not only fresh air, but his soulmate as well - hiding in plain sight but in the unlikeliest of places.

Rating: Mature, but this blog is always 18+ Word Count: 10.5k Warnings: *Blanket warnings for this series: occasional mention of American politics, pregnant character, food/alcohol consumption, mentions of clothing/regulated dressing for occasions, mentions of therapy because we believe in self care here, reader is in a previous relationship, love triangle, reader is mentioned as turning 30 during the course of the story* Family dynamics that contain debating as a method of communication, heavy familial expectations, changing relationships, talk of pregnancy and childbirth. Summary: A family dinner at the White House, a meddling best friend, and the mysterious case of the missing Congressman. Notes: Shout out to Keri for making me unexpectedly bawl about three-quarters of the way into this chapter. Thanks for that, babe. As usual, sorry for an errors I might have missed and thanks for reading!

Ch1 ~ Ch 2 ~ Ch 3

It isn’t unusual for a family to sit down to dinner together during the week. If you’re a busy family, living scattered about in different places, even a once-a-week dinner is worth scheduling. But when you’re the First Family, it gets a little complicated. The food is always amazing. That isn’t up for debate. And it is nice to actually see your mother when she isn’t surrounded by a swarm of staff or on a television screen. Alex and June are great too, when they aren’t being absolute pains in the asses. The only thing you’re hoping is that no one asks you about Sam at dinner tonight.

Family dinners always occur in the residence, around the long wooden table that is a substitute for the one you had grown up sitting around. No press, no phones at the table and the only interruptions that are allowed during this time is a matter of national crisis. Everything else can wait. It's why your mother is a successful politician while balancing her family, she gives everything its proper time. "So a little birdy told me that your inn is booked solid for the next few weeks." She looks over at you with a proud smile, aware that you work incredibly hard to make your vision, your dream, a success.

“Through April.” You nod, finishing a bite of food. The White House chef takes his chicken Marsala very seriously and it’s so good that you can’t get enough of it. “It never fails. People are always excited to see the cherry blossoms.”

“Will you still be able to attend the State dinner?” Although it was more a mandatory invitation, she would understand if you couldn’t break away. After all, she has a very demanding job as well.

“Of course.” Not aware that you had had any choice in the matter, you get smirked half-glances from your siblings that tell you they would try to get out too, if they could. “Although…I do have a question about that.”

She looks up from cutting her chicken, your father looking up from his glass of wine curiously. “What is that?”

“I know that it’s only a week away, so I am not asking for anything besides clarification.” Something about your parents’ reaction makes you feel like you need to say that out loud. Otherwise you might be up for one of your family’s famously endless debates. “Has the seating arrangement already been done so that all of us,” you motion to yourself and your two younger siblings. “Have a plus one?”

“Of course.” Your father has been the one handling the details of the State dinner and has meticulously planned the family seating arrangement. “Why?”

“Just double-checking. It’s the first State dinner, after all. I just want to make sure it goes smoothly.” It doesn’t matter that you were desperately hoping he would say no, or instantly offer to rearrange the seating chart if needed, or literally anything else that would get you out of having to have an uncomfortable conversation with Sam after barely talking to him at all the last few days. Maybe you could ask Juan to…Nope. There’s a rehearsal dinner at the inn that night. Shit.

“Good.” He smiles and gives you a knowing look. “I did not place Sam and you near too many political adversaries.” He snorts. “He won’t spend the entire night in a debate.”

“That’s thoughtful of you, Dad. Thanks.” There is a solid chance Sam would prefer that over the stony silence between the two of you, but you can’t say that. Not with your mother at the table. It will turn into a full-blown debate over what has gone wrong in your relationship and how to fix it, and you don’t need your meddling siblings to have that kind of ammunition on you. “So,” you turn to them instead. “Alex? Junie? You guys have dates?”

Alex rolls his eyes. “I’m bringing Dave, since he wants to go into law school.” He huffs. “He wants to intern with one of the senators.” Junie just shrugs. “Not yet.” She murmurs, bored by the idea of the dinner at all.

“Dave gets to come to a State dinner?” Your brother and his boyfriend generally keep things under wraps, and it works well since they’ve been best friends since they were kids. Like the gay male version of you and Sydney except they became a couple. “That’s sweet, Al. Maybe he’ll actually get you to behave yourself.”

“Never.” He flashes you a grin, making your mother huff in exasperation and amusement.

“No potential guest on the horizon for you, Junebug?” Your father asks, looking to his youngest child on the other end of the table.

“I’m either going to have someone want to go so they can rub elbows with politicians and brag they went to the State dinner, or be completely bored out of their minds.” She shrugs. “So I don’t know if I want to ask anyone.”

“Is that even an option?” You’re really trying not to make it sounds like you’re hoping for a yes, but you are. To be told you can go solo would solve every single one of your problems at the moment.

“We cannot have empty chairs.” Your father shakes his head. “Junie, if you don’t pick someone, we will have to find a filler.”

“Do you want me to ask Dave to bring his brother?” Alex offers, always only helpful to the baby of the family. “Noah can dance, doesn’t care about politics, and you can bitch about college the whole time of you want.”

“Please?” Her eyes turn hopeful and she knows that will be better than some filler guest.

“You got it.” Alex grins and flashes that thousand watt smile at your parents. “See? Problem solved.”

“Thank you.” Your father looks relieved and your mother gives him a smile before cutting into her chicken again. “Happy to have that settled.” She hums.

Settled. Ugh. If you weren’t about to turn thirty, you would be pouting at the table. Instead you let discussion float by, as your father double checks that all three of you have your White House approved outfits for the night and you’ve managed to memorize all the facts and statistics on the Spanish royal family that were handed out by your mother’s staff.

The dinner moves on to dinner dessert and the dinner plates are changed for wonderful pots of chocolate lava cake, a back up dessert for the State dinner for anyone with a gluten intolerance or nut allergy.

“This is amaaazing.” June groans, ever the chocolate fanatic.

“It is delicious.” Your mother agrees. “Rich.” She looks over at your father. “You said this was gluten free?”

“Hard to believe isn’t it?” He laughed like he’s got some trick up his sleeve but he’s really just pleased. “Apparently this is one of the easier cakes to do with alternative flours.”

“Perfect.” She might be President of the United States, but she and your father were a team. “You did wonderful finding an alternative, honey.”

“You like the orange sauce with it?” Everyone’s anxieties are high for this first occasion and your father wants everything to be perfect.

“Perhaps offer a raspberry or strawberry?” She suggests, looking around the table for everyone’s opinions. “What do you all think? In addition?”

“It’s a little sweet,” you admit, hating to ever disappoint your father. But there is a reason you all have so many round table discussions in your family. “Maybe blood orange would offset the sweetness a little? And be a little more luxurious?”

“Ohhhh blood orange would be amazing.” Alex chimes in, nodding in agreement. “Balance the sweetness of the chocolate.”

“Oh my god yes,” June groans, already having mostly inhaled her lava cake and furtively peaking to see if either you or Alex is going to be willing to give yours up.

Alex snorts when he sees that beseeching look on his younger sister’s face and slides his lava cake towards her.

“This is what you should have for your birthday.” Junie tells you emphatically, digging in to what’s left of your brother’s dessert. “No question.”

“Why? So you can eat all of it?” Your brother snorts. “But-“ he looks back over at you. “What are you having at your party?”

"I honestly haven't thought about it." There's still a month left until your birthday so it hadn't even crossed your mind yet. "Maybe I'll just go to a Nationals game if I can get away from work. Who knows?"

“Oh honey, you shouldn’t do that.” Your mother huffs slightly and shakes her head. “Go to a Nationals game, sure. But you need to have a party.”

"Why?" It sort of feels like whining this time, but you have to wonder what her logic is. "Because I'm one of the First Kids? Because I'm turning 30?"

“Because you deserve a party where others cater to your wants and is about you? Celebrating my oldest baby’s birthday.” She implores, expression soft and loving.

If there is one thing your mother is annoyingly good at it, it's showering love on her children despite being busy. No birthday ever went by without acknowledgement. No success uncelebrated. No set back unconquered. "So does that mean you and Dad are going to throw it and all I have to do is show up?" It's highly unlikely considering how busy they are, but you have to try, right?

“Absolutely.” Her grin is positively smug, like you have fallen into her trap, which - you have. “Of course, we are not going to have it at the White House.” She rolls her eyes slightly. “But you just pretend it will be a surprise. I’ll let Sam know where to bring you.”

"I can't know where to go myself?" Since there's a chance Sam won't even be in the picture in a few weeks, you would rather just have her tell you. "And please don't make it some big, formal thing? If I get told to wear an evening gown to my birthday, I'm not showing up."

“Nothing formal.” She promises. “No ballgown, but a nice dress.” She compromises, tilting her head. “For pictures? Not official ones, of course.”

Regular negotiations with the President should make you eligible for some kind of ambassador position even as her daughter, and you tilt your head at your mother before making a full agreement. "Cocktail attire maximum, the music cannot be described as orchestral anything, and the fancier the venue is, the lower class the food has to be. Those are my conditions."

“Finger foods inside of an upscale tavern?” She poses, smirking slightly at the way you negotiate with her. Out of all the children, you are the closest to her personality, even if you don’t see it. “With specially crafted cocktails to celebrate your birthday? And a playlist composed of your favorites songs from each year?”

"I'll build a core list for the music. Because I don't trust Alex not to sneak Cotton Eye Joe or something into the mix." Like any good wheeling-and-dealing adult child, you have to get just one more compromise in there before sealing the deal. "And I will provide you with a list of friends I'd like invited outside of the normal group. Obviously I know you'll give the information to Sydney, Anna Leigh, and Issy."

“Deal.” She nods and looks very pleased with the situation. “Honey, I will plan this.” She promises, reaching out and patting the back of your father’s hand. “I want to plan it.”

"Along with running the free world, she's also a party planner." Your brother snorts, always ready to tease. "You know you can just hire Juan to do it, Mom."

“No.” She snorts and blows a raspberry at your brother. “It’s my baby’s birthday. I want to plan the perfect party to ring in thirty.”

"And somehow Birdie still doesn't get that she's the favorite." June laughs, throwing you a smirk before she rolls her eyes playfully at Alex.

“Now you know that is not true.” Your mother protests, rolling her eyes. “I love all of you equally.”

"Yes, Mother." Alex and June chime in unison, making all of you break into laughter at the same time around the table.

“Managing you kids is almost harder than running the country.” She grumbles, even though she’s grinning.

"We just wanted you to have a lot of practice before you got to the White House." You assure her, still laughing with your siblings. "Because being Governor of Pennsylvania was definitely not enough. Your children are the real test."

“Yes they are.” She agrees, laughing with all of you and your father. The truth was, she has incredible children that she’s proud of beyond measure. Often she tells the world that her best accomplishment has been raising the three of you and it’s not line to appeal to her core voters, she truly believes that.

"So, I have a logistical question." Satisfied temporarily with the amount of chocolate consumed in one dinner, June sits back in her chair with her glass of iced tea and proves once more than kids take more corralling than countries. "If the State dinner is next Saturday, does that count as family dinner?

Your father rolls his eyes and sighs while your mom narrows her eyes in thought and looks towards her husband for his thoughts. “What do you think, honey?”

"The purpose of Friday night dinners is to have a chance to sit down together as a family and catch up. Enjoy each other's company. Celebrate the week's small wins." It's what they had agreed on years ago when this tradition had been born. "So by that logic, I would say no. Since we won't be sitting around enjoying each other's company while the king and queen of Spain are visiting." He narrows his eyes though, in a way that definitely speaks to how long your parents have been together. They have identical expressions right now. "Why, Junebug? Did you make other plans?"

“I—” she falters for a moment and then shrugs. “There’s a party I wanted to go to, but I don’t have to go if my presence is required.”

Your parents exchange a glance, that decades-long nonverbal communication at work for not the first time today. "Why don't we have dinner a little earlier?" You father offers. Compromise is always the name of the game in the First Family. "If we have dinner at six instead of seven that night, will that give you enough time, kiddo?"

A partial victory counts, so she nods. "That would work. It would give me plenty of time to be annoyed at my security detail."

"Sounds like a plan." Your mother smirks, relieved to see that none of her children have tried to give their agents the slip yet. She had expected it from June, if she's honest. She's definitely the most independent and the most rebellious.

"Wish we didn't have to have them." She pout slightly, even though she had known this was part of the deal. She hadn't expected it to chafe so much though, if she was honest. She have been very innocent in believing they would just a vague shadow.

"I'd rather have you annoyed by their presence and be safe, than let you go without them and have something happen to any of you." It's non-negotiable, you all know that, and your mother is frankly very glad that it comes with the office. Trying to make sure all three of you are safe without the Secret Service? No way.

"I know." She doesn't have to be happy about it though. "I just— wish the world didn't suck so badly sometimes." She murmurs quietly.

"Here here." Alex nods, knowing that all the different ways the world sucks have affected him in ways the rest of the family hasn't experienced on their own. Everyone may tout their belief in soulmates loudly, but he can't even go out and hold his soulmate's hand without risk. If anything, he's grateful for the Secret Service agents that have been assigned to make sure he stays safe.

"I know that you are disappointed that I haven't been able to push through the soulmate resolution yet." Your mother is addressing Alex, but she shoots him a reassuring look. "But I know that it is close." She looks towards you. "Sam has been a strong voice in the fight to approving the resolution." She praises. "You should be very proud of him."

Mom, you’ve only been in office a month. No one at this table expects you to work miracles.” You steadily ignore the remark about Sam, feeling like your blood pressure is rising a little every time he gets mentioned tonight. “The Resolution is a really good piece of legislation and it’s only a matter of time before it gets passed.” Looking to your brother, though, you offer him the proudest smile you can manage. “And then this pain in the ass can have the White House’s first ever gay wedding. One for the history books.”

Alex snorts and shakes his head. “Hell no.” He huffs. “I don’t want a stuffy White House wedding where I have to invite every dignitary I know. I’ll leave that to you.” He hums with a smirk.

“I’m not getting married anytime soon so what does it matter?” An awful lot of people have been very invested in your future lately and it’s grinding on you to the point where you shoot back a reply without even thinking of it.

Your father’s brow shoots up, surprised at the tone you had used and he glances at your mother, a silent look passing between them.

The silence at the table is ringing, and you put down your wine glass as delicately as you can manage. “What?” You ask, looking around the table but not willing to apologize for being cranky. “I’m not engaged, am I? It could be years before I settle down.”

"Nothing." Your mother shakes her head and smiles at you. "Things will happen in their own time." She councils softly. "You don't have to adhere to anyone's timeline but your own."

“Right.” The best you can do is sit back and have the decency to look a little sheepish, but you can feel the question marks in the eyes of your family members all watching you. It is massively uncomfortable at best.

"Okay." Alex senses something is wrong with you, that you want the subject to change so he claps his hands. "So, I have a question." He recaptures his parents attention. "Do we have to dance at the State dinner?" He asks seriously. "Because you know Dave has two left feet and I can't be embarrassed like that."

“You can dance with your sisters,” your father offers, sensing the same thing as his son. “Or with your mother, or the queen? Or any of the young men there, if you want to end up above the fold of the Washington Post.” It’s purely teasing, of course, since anyone who knows Alex knows he is only in the closet publicly.

He rolls his eyes and scoffs. "Nahhhhhh." He waves away the idea. "I don't want to have to hire a PR manager this early in my life." He jokes. "It would drain my savings."

"I guess we'll all behave ourselves." June observes with a wry smile.

"That would be extremely appreciated." Your mother hums, smiling at all of you. "I know you all have busy schedules, but I am so glad we can still get together."

It's Sunday before the dress arrives at the inn for the State dinner, and you and Sydney were enjoying a rare afternoon off together when Malachi lead the worried-looking White House staffer around to the back porch of the inn to let them hand it over to you in person. Sending them off again with your thanks, you push out a sigh. "I haven't heard from Sam in almost a week," you admit when your best friend fixes you with an inquisitive expression.

"Have you reached out to him?" Sydney asks, frowning as she holds the passion fruit tea she has been obsessed with over the last few days. "He might be embarrassed and unsure of how he will be received?"

"I sent him a text yesterday asking if we were still on for our plans tonight, but...nothing so far." Making plans ahead of time had been a definite strength for the two of you before now. But since Valentine's Day? Communication has been non-existent.

"Have you tried his office?" It's not like Sam to just blow you off, so she wonders if he's been caught up in meetings.

"I—" You blow out another breath. One that feels like defeat. "I'm afraid of calling and having Vanessa pick up," you admit. It feels stupid but you can't help it. "The idea that she could be feeling chatty and say something about Marcus just...I know that's stupid."

"Have you tried to text Marcus?" That's the next question is the most obvious one to take the conversation. If you aren't in contact with Marcus or he hasn't responded to you, that could be why you are feeling like a duck out of water.

"No." That idea makes you shake your head sternly and reach for your drink. The covered porch and little space heater is nice for sitting in the sunniest hours of the day, but you still made yourself a cup of hot coffee to sip while you sat with Sydney. "No...I mean...he probably hates me by now."

"I don't think he would hate you." She's already making an note to have Juan reach out to Pike himself. Maybe take him out for a beer and feel him out on the situation. "You cancelled a causal invite to dinner, you didn't cancel taking him to the State dinner."

"I can't even think about the dinner." Your fingers drum on the box beside you, knowing the dress inside is beautiful but not wanting to face the reality of how uncomfortable the night will be. "If I don't have a date I have to tell my father as soon as possible and I'll get stuck with a million questions and a seat filler."

"Then you need to call Sam." She huffs. "Even if he's fuming at you, I doubt he would miss the State dinner."

"I know, I know, I know you're right." But you don't really want to call him. If it's been almost a week and he's effectively ghosted you? That seems like a pretty clear signal to you.

"Babe....you need closure." The bags under your eyes aren't doing you any good, despite the sleepy time tea that she had been sending to you. "If you are ending things with him, you need to be an adult about it."

"Ugh." You groan, letting your head tip back so the sound drags out dramatically. "Stop making sense and giving good advice, it's interfering with my denial and the reconstruction of my emotional walls."

She laughs, although it's not really funny. She knows where you and it's a shitty place to be. Sighing softly, she picks up your phone and holds it out to you.

"I hate you." Even muttered good naturedly, you still snag your phone from her hand and clutch your coffee mug like a security blanket. Sam's office number is programed into your phone and you squeak with combined fear and frustration as the call connects and begins to ring.

"Congressman Chase's office." Vanessa's voice comes over the line cheerfully and professionally. "How may I be of assistance today?"

Don't be a coward, you remind yourself sternly, as soon as you hear her voice. "Hi Vanessa." Saying your name clearly eliminates any assumption that his staff might recognize your voice, even though you know a few people absolutely do. Some of his staffers like to chat to you while you wait for Sam to come to the phone when you call his office. "Is Sam available?"

Her use of your last name is merely one of respect, choosing to keep things professional with the Congressman's girlfriend. Slightly confused because you are calling for him at the office. "Did he not tell you?" She asks, her voice lower than the usual chipper tone.

"Apparently not." There is no way you're going to fess up that Sam hasn't spoken to you in days, or returned even so much as a text message. Now you're concerned something might be going on.

"The Congressman has been sick all week." She only knows how bad it is because he had spend the first few days trying to work through it. "He has pneumonia." She huffs quietly. "He's been barely reachable but I had though the would have at least let you know."

He's sick. You barely manage to swallow a sigh of relief at that news, and only because you know how inappropriate that would sound to his aide. "I hadn't heard the official diagnosis." It's as smooth a lie as you can muster at the moment, and you cling to your warm mug all the harder. He's sick. That's why he hasn't called. "Thank you, Vanessa."

"Of course." She's confused, but she also knows that the medication the doctor had prescribed him was to help him rest since he had been trying to push himself. "Anytime."

The groan of relief comes only after you disconnect the call, and you deflate into yourself in your chair. "He's sick," you tell Sydney with a groan. The heel of one hand digs into your closed eye like you're trying to banish a headache but it's really just that you feel the pressure releasing from your mind. "He has pneumonia. He's been out since the beginning of the week."

"Okaaaaay." Surprising, but honestly, it's not? Considering it's Sam and he's pretty direct about things. It's one of those traits that Sydney admires about him. "That's a very valid reason for not texting or calling." She admits. "That's a good thing, right?"

"I'm not thrilled that he's sick, but I'm very relieved that he didn't just ghost me. He sleeps like a rock around the clock when he's sick, so he's probably just passed out at home." The one other time you had seen him with a cold was several months ago, and it seemed like he had slept for three days straight before springing back up on his feet like nothing had happened.

"He didn't just ghost you." She grins at you, even though you are still conflicted about Sam, the fact that you are relieved by this means there's something there. "Do you want me to whip him up some chicken noodle soup to drop at his doorstep?"

"Do you want to go upstairs?" When the two of you actually get the chance to cook together it's always fun, and this sounds like the perfect opportunity. You didn't have a dinner plan anyway. Chicken noodle soup for two is easy enough. "I did my grocery shopping this morning so I know I have everything. And..." you pat the dress box beside you. "I should hang this up. I don't think velvet wrinkles but I still don't want to take a chance."

"Absolutely." She sends you a smile, happy that you look relieved and like a weight has been lifted off your chest. "We will have Congressman Chase cured with our famous chicken noodle soup in no time."

Juan had taken the afternoon to go for a ride around the Virginia backroads so it's just you girls right now and that sounds pretty perfect. You gather up your things and nab Agent Bailey, heading upstairs to get to work and try to ease your mind a little. "I do still have a problem," you point out, when the elevator hits the top floor.

"What's that?" Sydney frowns, looking at the screen that shows the floor you are on. She really hates elevators, but this helps her mitigate that fear that the damn thing would plunge into the basement like all those action movies she had watched as a kid.

The doors slide open and you let her out first, stepping up behind her to unlock the door and let the three of you inside. "Now I definitely need to find a new date for the State dinner."

"Oh shit." Sam can't attend the State dinner with pneumonia, it would be too great of a risk. "Well, I can have Juan escort you." She had plans to have dinner with her parents and reveal the name they had chosen, but this was important and she could reschedule.

"Honey, no." She's been excited about the dinner with her parents for a week already and it wouldn't be fair to take Juan away from that. "You guys have family plans and I'm not going to ruin that. I'll just...think of someone else."

"Malachi?" She offers. "He would look good in a tuxedo."

For a split second you get excited about the idea, but you sink again as you readjust the dress box on your hip. "I need him here that night." You tell her, groaning about it. "We have that six-person reservation that needs a translator. Malachi is the only one on staff who speaks Hindi fluently."

"Fuck." The fact is there aren't a lot of men that can just be called up last minute to look good in a suit and be cleared to be in a roomful of the world's top dignitaries. Unless... "I have an idea and you're going to hate it." She promises as you open the door to your apartment. "Give me your phone."

"I trust you with my life but I do not like that tone in your voice." Still, you hand over your phone with confusion on your face and start to unpack the burgundy velvet evening gown that was altered to fit you perfectly. "Please don't call any of my exes."

"I am not calling any of your exes." She promises you, opening the phone with a code and opening your phone book. It's easy to find the number that she is looking for, because you are a stickler for putting numbers in properly and hits call, changing the phone to speaker so you can hear it ring.

The call rings three times before it connects, and even if Sydney hadn't been angling the phone away from you so that you couldn't see the name, you're pulling the dress out of the box when you hear the unmistakable "Hello?" on the other end.

Suddenly you're standing straight up and glaring at your best friend – your former best friend – for this ultimate betrayal. "Marcus." Your voice cracks when you say his name and you just want the floor to open and swallow you up. "Hi. How— how are you?"

"Oh, hi." It's obvious that he's confused as to why you are calling him on a Sunday, but he doesn't hang up the phone. "I'm good, how are you?" He asks politely, actually sounding like he is interested in the answer.

"I..." You sink down on your bed, letting Sydney continue to hold your phone, and hug the dress to your chest. "I'm calling for a couple of reasons," you decide. Now that you've been confronted with this phone call, it all sort of comes tumbling out. "I wanted to apologize, first. For being vague on rescheduling our Indian dinner last weekend, and then taking off like the Wicked Witch was after me when I saw you the other morning. I've...it's been a weird week. And that was rude of me. So I apologize."

“I understand.” Marcus gives a rueful chuckle. “I’ve had a bit of a weird one myself. My phone has been broken three different times in the past week alone.” He snorts. “And half my contacts and messages have been unrecoverable according to the techs at the store.” He sighs. “So if you send me a message or something and I didn’t answer, I promise I wasn’t ignoring you.”

The I told you so look on Syd's face causes you to throw a pillow at her and you shake your head as though he was in the room with you instead of over the phone. "I texted you once about rescheduling dinner,' you admit. "But...I have a slightly different suggestion, if...if you want to hear it? And I would consider it an enormous favor."

It’s on the tip of his tongue to decline, but he is curious to hear what this favor is. “Hit me.” He tells you with a slight chuckle. “But not too hard. I have to work tomorrow.”

"I promise I'm not capable of punching through a cell phone." It's easy to talk to him. So easy. And it lulls you into a momentary false sense of security as you sit back on your bed. "But...I have a plus one to a State dinner for the Spanish royal family on Saturday night and I was wondering if you wanted to come to a party at the White House?" It's such an insane thing to ask a person that you almost feel like it's an out of body experience, but there it is. It's out in the open. There's no taking it back now.

“I-“ Of all the questions he tries to anticipate, that was not it. He frowns slightly, wondering about the congressman, until he remember that Vanessa had said he was sick with pneumonia. It’s likely him being sick has put you into a frenzy to find someone to go. Not the reason he would like to have dinner with you, but he wants to view you as a friend and this will be a friendly, public event. “Sounds like I need to get my tuxedo to the cleaners.”

"Oh my god, you're a lifesaver." The air whooshes out of you all at once and you fall back onto your bed with a gigantic sigh. "I will come and pick you up myself, the food is going to be amazing, and you can rag on me with my pain-in-the-ass siblings all night. I can't say how grateful I am, Marcus. Really. Thank you so much."

“It’s a honor that you even considered me to escort you” Marcus tells you truthfully. “I’ll be exited to go and I promise to keep the ragging to a minimum.”

"You've earned the right, I promise." You blow out another breath and manage to sit up but solidly ignore the smug look on your best friend's face. "I'll text you the details, if that's okay? Is your phone situation all worked out?"

He laughs quietly. “Hopefully so. All I know is that it is never a good idea to set your phone on the roof of the car when the rookie is driving.” Marcus snorts. “If I don’t get a message by tomorrow, I’ll call you. Sound good?”

"Sounds perfect." Quiet for a second, you take your phone out of Sydney's hand and smile, the smallest twitch of the thing in the corners of your mouth. "Thank you, Marcus. I owe you, but I promise we'll have fun."

“Don’t even worry about it.” He promises. “Well, I hope you have a great rest of your weekend, okay?” He asks. “And tell Sam to feel better.”

"I will." Passing that message along might be slightly strained, but it's the thought that counts. Thanking him again, you press the red button on your phone screen to end the call and groan so loudly that Agent Bailey sticks her head into the room just to make sure you didn't hurt yourself. "I can't believe you did that!" You squawk, throwing a second pillow at Sydney. This one hits her square in the shoulder where the first one missed.

“But tell me it wasn’t worth it?” She challenges, throwing the pillow back at you. “You have a date for the State dinner and you learned that he wasn’t ignoring you either.” She folds her arms over her chest and looks at you with a smug smile. “Come on, what other problems do we need to solve? World hunger?”

"Go to Friday night dinner in my place if you want to work on global issues." You snark playfully. The fact is, you know she's right. Annoyingly so, actually, and right now you're still processing.

“Maybe now you will get some sleep.” She huffs, still smug that everything was working out. “You’ve got a dress, a date and I’ll even have one of the wedding stylists that owes me a favor come do your hair and makeup.” She hums. “I made a special dinner for her and her boyfriend for Valentine’s.” She explains.

"What are you, the Romance Fairy?" Dragging yourself off the bed, you carry the dress over to your closet and carefully hang it up where nothing bad could ever touch it. The garment bag that it's in will help make sure of that. "Come on, we have soup to make."

She doesn’t mention that the State dinner isn’t supposed to be romantic. She just grins and follows you. “Yes ma’am, Hummingbird, ma’am.”

"Oh god, don't call me that around him." This, in particular, is an incredibly stern warning. At this point you're just grateful that the Secret Service use your callsign quietly enough that they're not overheard when they say it. "I'll die of embarrassment."

“I won’t.” She promises, aware that you aren’t quite ready to address that particular issue.

“I just don’t even want to think about that.” You don’t want to, but you have been. Rather constantly, which is a growing issue.

“Let’s just get you through the State dinner and your birthday.” Syd suggests. “Then you can let that big brain of yours work overtime on non-issues.”

Throwing Sydney a look of dismay over the last of your coffee, you pout animatedly. “I debated terms of my birthday with my mother at the last dinner.”

“And?” Sydney almost laughs at your look and turns away to start rummaging through your fridge for the ingredients for the soup. “What was negotiated?”

“Cocktail. High end pub, finger foods and a DJ.” You shake your head and huff a sigh. “I said I should just go to a ball game, but that was unacceptable.”

“It’s hard to run security for the president at a stadium.” She reminds you. “And your mom would want to be there.”

“I just…” Looking back at Sydney, you cross your arms and shrug. “I don’t think I have all that much to celebrate this year, I guess.”

“You have a lot to celebrate.” Your friend will always hype you up and she does so now. “You have your health, a successful business with your best friend.” She cheeses playfully at you. “Your mother is the president of the United States and….” She shrugs. “You’ve hit your dirty thirties. We have to celebrate.”

“I can’t exactly have dirty thirties when my mother is the president.” You throw your arms around her again and squeeze her shoulders, grateful for every second you have Sydney by your side. You’ve been each other’s ride or die since first grade and that will never change. “And you’re pregnant, so you already got dirty.”

“I did.” She snorts with a wicked grin. “And I enjoyed every second of it, too.”

“Perv.” You really can’t help but tease her, but it’s purely out of affection. “It’s just because you’ve got your super sexy soulmate. The Triple S is undeniable.”

“He is sexy.” She can’t deny that, grinning wickedly as she rubs her stomach. “And getting sexier. Did I tell you he’s starting to get sympathy cravings? Dad bod mode is close.”

“Your wildest dreams are all about to come true.” The two of you giggle together as you start to pull ingredients out of the fridge, getting started on cooking that batch of soup.

“So, do you feel better now?” Sydney asks, organizing the vegetables and opening the drawer for the carrot peeler. She had helped you set up the kitchen to her specifications so she could easily find what she wanted when she cooked here.

“A little.” It’s relief more than anything, as you start to peel fresh ginger. It’s the secret ingredient to your best ever chicken noodle soup. “And then I feel guilty for it, which is fucked up. Like I think Marcus might actually enjoy himself on Saturday just for the bragging rights and then I immediately feel bad for thinking that.”

“Why do you feel bad?” She cocks her head as she peels the outer layer off the crisp, orange carrots. “I think most people will enjoy themselves just for bragging rights, it’s brag worthy.”

“Promise you won’t judge me and promise you won’t tell anyone. Not even Juan.” Holding your pinky finger out to her is the most solemn promise you can possibly as of your friend, and neither one of you has ever refused it.

“Of course.” Juan knows everything you are comfortable with, but she would never betray your trust like that. She hooks her finger around yours and looks at you for an explanation.

“I…” Glancing around, you see that Agent Bailey has dutifully slipped out of earshot and is sitting on your couch with a crossword book firmly in hand. “I feel guilty because now that it’s set…I can’t help wishing it was a date,” you admit quietly, hanging your head turn.

“It kind of is a date.” Syd admits, looking at you with a sense of regret for teasing you. “A platonic on, but a date nonetheless.” She hums. “Just like you and I have dates. Friend dates.”

“That…regrettably…is not what I mean.” The best you can really do is shrug your shoulders in defeat. “Friend dates are awesome and I will take you on dates for the rest of our lives. But I—I wish this was different than that. And it sucks.”

“You can’t help attraction.” She argues softly, knowing that you will still feel guilty. You are very stern about cheating, and this is veering into emotional territory for you. “He might not- it should just be about the dinner.”

“I know.” Peel ginger. Grate ginger. Try not to think too hard about what Marcus will look like in a tux. “I know. You’re right.”

“I’m sorry.” She murmurs softly. “I shouldn’t have pushed.” She feels guilty, especially now that she knows how you are feeling about this.

“How could you have known? I’ve kept this as firmly to myself as I possibly could.” And keeping things from Sydney is the most impossible task in the world for you. “Besides. He was the right choice.”

“Still doesn’t make me any less sorry.” She huffs, washing the carrots and bringing them over to the chopping board. “I don’t want you to be stressed, I want you to be happy.”

“I’m going to be stressed until I make a decision about what to do.” Once the ginger is done you move on to washing and slicing celery. “And I don’t know how to make that decision.”

Sydney sighs heavily. “I hate that for you.” She admits softly. “If you need to talk, you let me know.”

“What does Juanito think I should do?” You know her well enough to know that she’s talked to her husband — her own soulmate — about this at least a little.

“Juan thinks that you should be happy.” She hums softly. “Whatever that entails. As long as you are fair to everyone.”

"No groundbreaking advice?" If you're honest with yourself, you were kind of hoping for it. Instead, you're definitely floundering.

Sydney stops chopping and points the tip of the knife at you. “You know what he would say, Birdie.”

Ugh. That's true. You do. Juan is unfalteringly trustworthy like that. "That I have to talk to both of them..."

“Even if Marcus isn’t your soulmate, you are attracted to him, and it’s worth seeing if he might be the one you want to be with.” She shrugs, knowing that it’s easy to give advice when she’s found her soulmate and is blissfully happy. “Or it might just say that Sam isn’t the one.”

"Have you noticed a pattern?" Even as you're making the soup, going through effort and putting care into a dish to comfort and heal, a pattern is becoming as obvious as daybreak.

“I have.” She nods and looks back up at you. “Have you noticed that pattern? Or have you just been ignoring it?”

"I think..." A heavy sigh escapes you as you deposit the clean, diced celery in a bowl. "I might have been ignoring it."

“It’s okay to admit that a relationship has run its course.” She reminds you. “Sometimes, things just aren’t meant to be.”

"It's just...no version of this conversation we've had in the last few weeks has ended with the conclusion that I should stay with Sam. And that...that is not how I ever expected things to go. He's such a sweet guy and we've had such a good time." Just as unexpected as this conclusion is the tear that rolls down your cheek, and you brush it away immediately. "It's shitty to break up with someone while they're sick, right?"

“I think you owe him a face to face explanation.” She doesn’t tell you that it’s wrong, if that’s what you want to do. She’ll support whatever you want.

"Shit," you groan, reaching next for an onion. Sydney has trained you to be a dutiful sous chef for so long that now you just do her prep work without thinking. "This is going to suck, isn't it?"

“It doesn’t have to.” She counters. “You said Sam’s reaction was….surprisingly hostile. Maybe he’s had some doubts about the relationship too.”

"If he was hostile about the fact that I was standing my ground, he's either going to be hostile about being broken up with, or just completely silent." Sam doesn't take rejection well, you've seen it in a more professional setting but it will certainly apply here.

“Was he hostile?” She asks seriously. “Or were you both in unknown territory and stubbornly waiting for the other to give in?”

Groaning animatedly, you bump Sydney with your hip at the counter and shake your head. "Sometimes I truly dislike how well you know me. I'm just saying that out loud for the record."

“You know you love me.” She snorted and blows a raspberry at you playfully.

"I do love you." But it garners another groan from you all the same. "This was so much easier when we were kids and our life plan was to live in a castle until we were old enough for a nursing home, and then to be the super weird old ladies on the front porch of the home cursing at people as they walked by."

“We are still on for that.” She jokes, motioning to the apartment. “We are in our castle right now.”

"Technically we can go to an American castle any time we want," you point out. "It comes with the price of visiting my family, but the White House does count as a castle."

“Yes it does.” She agrees, proud to know the first family so well. “But I like our castle better.”

"I love this place." From the first day you set foot inside the inn, you have absolutely adored both working here and even running the place. Living in the caretaker's apartment has been comforting. Like a warm hug on a cold day. "And I love that we get to share it."

“There is no one I would rather do this with.” She tells you honestly, so excited to be able to live out the vague dreams of college now as adults.

"You're gonna make me teary again," you complain, fully teasing her but definitely feeling a little emotional about the whole situation.

“I thought it was my job to be the emotional mess.” Sydney sniffles and moves to wrap her arms around you and squeeze tight.

“Sympathy mood swings.” That makes both of you laugh, there at the counter. “Is that a thing?”

“Why not?” She asks, laughing herself at her husband and best friend having sympathy symptoms of her pregnancy.

“It is now, I guess.” You keep working through the soup prep side by side, getting everything ready in unison. “The thing is…” you hum after you’ve both stopped laughing. “I do care about Sam. And I want him to be happy. I just…don’t think I’m going to be the one to give him the future he wants. Which sucks to realize.”

“It’s better that you realize it now.” She rationalizes. “Less heartache and it’s not like you’re married with kids.”

“And we haven’t started moving in.” That’s an unexpected relief, and the realization that it was moving in together that kicked at your doubt is something you’ll have to grapple with later. “I probably only have a couple of things at his place and the only thing I’ve got of his here is a book I borrowed.”

“And….” She sighs. “Let’s face it, Sam wasn’t happy with you spending all your time at the inn.” She voices. “He rarely wanted to come here, even though he’s the one that can more easily travel.”

“Have you been holding back on me, Badillo?” You raise an eyebrow at her as she works on the chicken. “Hiding the things about Sam that have been bothering you?”

“No.” You don’t seem very surprised. “Just observations that I have made, but I wasn’t sure how you would take them.” She explains. “You were very proud of your relationship with Sam and I didn’t want to influence you unduly.”

"I was." And you can acknowledge that firmly, knowing that the relationship you forged with Sam was based on respect and mutual affection. It does feel like failure to see it ending, but at least you tried. Failure is just a means for new growth, as your mother has always told you.

“I know you look at this as a failure.” She’s known you way too long to think otherwise. “But this was a year long relationship that at the end of the day- you weren’t on the same page.”

“I think it would feel very different if I wasn’t sure it was going to end up talked about in every gossip column from sea to shining sea.” You can’t help but roll your eyes, knowing — and hating — how true it is. Junie isn’t dating and Alex isn’t dating publicly, so all eyes are on you. Especially if you break up with a Congressman.

“Don’t let it bother you.” She urges you. “It’s not like they can say anything bad.”

“Tell that to Princess Diana.” You huff, shaking your head and rolling your shoulders to try to straighten out your head a little. “Okay. New topic. Baby name? I’m dying to know what you guys picked.”

She smiles, rubbing her stomach in that universally happy way all expectant mothers do. “Constance Maria Badillo.” She lights up as she tells you the name they had finally decided on last night.

“Oh, honey.” There’s a measure of delight in your giggle when you light up, finding out those two essential pieces of information all at once. Sydney and Juan had been keeping both under wraps. “It’s a girl? Really?”

“We just found out.” She admits, grinning like a maniac. “Of course, baby Badillo could have just been shy but they are pretty positive she’s a girl.”

"You must be thrilled." Of course Sydney would be happy no matter what the gender as long as the baby is healthy, but you know she's always dreamed about having her little girl.

“Over the moon.” Agreeing happily, she turns back to the chicken. “And Juan and I have talked about it.” It’s a casual beginning. “We want you to be her Godmother, as well as Auntie Birdie.”

"Syd." Your knife gets put down immediately and you turn to her with a look of complete awe on your face. "Are you sure? You don't want to ask your sister? I mean I am honored and one thousand percent here for it."

“No.” She shakes her head and her own tools are set down so she can address this properly. “There is no one that we want more than you.” She explains. “You will always be my choice for godparent.”

"I know I've said it before in our lives, but I am here for anything you need." It's not just for Syd, and you lean down and hum a happy hello to your goddaughter that's growing like crazy. "That goes for you too, kiddo. Hear me? Auntie Birdie's got your back. And your front. And all the other bits of you forever."

“You are going to be her favorite.” Sydney sniffles, her hormones making her cry happy tears. “The one she confides in when she can’t bear to tell me or Juan and I love you for that.”

“I hope so.” Wrapping your best friend up in a hug is exactly what this moment needs, and the sound of two women sniffling takes over your kitchen for just long enough to make both of you break out into giggles. “She’s going to get the best of me and I’m going to tell her about all the stupid bullshit we got into as teenagers.”

“Oh god, you better not.” Sydney groans, rolling her eyes. “Nothing she can throw back in my face when she’s angsty and argumentative.”

“Nothing that will put you in Mom Jail,” you tease with a wink. “Promise.”

“Thank goodness.” She snorts. “This one is already gonna have her daddy wrapped around her finger, so I’m gonna have to be the bad cop.”

“It will go back and forth. One day she’ll do something that makes Juan crazy and you’ll be the arms that she runs to.” It happened in your own house more than once, there’s no reason it won’t happen in hers, too. “It will all turn out. She’s going to have the best parents in the world.”

“I hope so.” She shrugs slightly, aware that they will make mistakes, but hopefully it won’t be too bad to make their daughter hate them.

“You have love,” you remind her with a gentle smile. “Have a little faith, too. If nothing else, we all believe in you. All your friends and your family know you’re going to be great.”

“We will have our little village for Constance.” She agrees. “So when we mess up, we can learn.”

“For Baby Badillo number two,” you tease, beaming at her.

“Juan is already asking how many more I want.” Sydney snort, huffing slightly even if she’s grinning. “Told him that he needed to let me birth this one first before we decided that.”

“One at a time is probably best. For your body and your sanity.” Although, you do raise an eyebrow at her. “Twins don’t run in your family, right?”

“Not that I know of, but Juan thinks some cousins might have twins.” She winces and shakes her head with a laugh. “I’ll kill him.”

"Fingers crossed that you only have to grow one baby at a time." With everything prepped, you move to the sink to wash your knives and fetch your best stock pot from the cabinets. "But I will spoil the hell out of all of them, no matter what."

“I know you will.” She knows what despite your already busy schedule, you will always make time for those that matter most to you. Which is why it’s so telling her that you and Sam have been spending less and less time together over the last few months.

“So…” Flashing Sydney a grin as she starts to cook, you move back to the refrigerator to put things away and to get fresh drinks for both of you. “Two questions, then. First: Have you picked a godfather? And two, if I’m her go mother does that mean I get to throw your baby shower?”

"I'm letting Juan pick out the godfather." She admits, shrugging slightly. "I don't- he's got some ideas, but he hasn't made a final decision yet."

“Most of his friends are fathers already, aren’t they?” The Guy friends that Juan had made in the DC area since moving east after meeting Sydney are all responsible men around his age and most of them have families of their own. It’s a small group, it they’re tight knit.

"Yeah....except that, now, Juan has started thinking that he wants someone that is...." She rolls her eyes, "trained." She huffs and moves over to wash her hands again. "You know how involved he was with beefing up security here, he wants a protector for our little girl in case something happens to us."

“Well…that’s not unreasonable, right?” Spying a can of croissant dough — a cheat you’re very fond of — in your fridge, you grab it and decide to fill them with Nutella and berries for a little dessert pastry. “I mean he’s got friends who are trained. Be able to pick someone.”

"I know." She sighs and turns back to you. "I just hate that he's so practical about it." She admits, biting her lip again. "I don't want to think about us not being here to protect her."

“Then try to think of it like he’s choosing someone who can help her learn to protect herself,” you offer instead. As she grows up and faces new things — whatever those things are — her godfather will have been there to teach her self-confidence and safety in equal measure.”

There's a moment where Sydney thinks about what you said and how it applies to the situation before she huffs out a slightly annoyed, mostly amused laugh. "How do you do that?" She grumbles. "I was ready to be in a tearful pout about that you have to go make it perfectly acceptable." There's no heat to her words and she flashes you a grateful smile. "Thanks."

“We’ve been friends for twenty-five years, Sydney Rose.” The grin you flash back at her in unapologetic. “If I don’t know how to talk you out of a panic by now, I’m more clueless than I thought.”

Pursing her lips at you, she doesn't try to deny it. Instead, she turns to rummage in your spice cabinet. "Do you have that turmeric I left up here last time?"

“It’s behind the huge mason jar of chili seasoning.” You tell her without looking up from your dough-chocolate-and-berry project. “Indian spices are in the back because I fucked up the last time I tried to make curry from scratch and they were taunting me.”

“Poor thing.” Sydney sympathizes and shrugs. “We just need to realize they put something extra in their recipes they won’t tell us.” She hums, talking about your favorite curry from your favorite restaurant that you had cancelled on Marcus going to.

"Some kind of magic that I can't wrap my brain around." There were strawberries in your fridge that you're now set on cleaning and trimming. A crescent roll filled with a dollop of Nutella and a whole strawberry is a thing of beauty. "I should just eat their take out every week for the rest of my life instead of trying to make it."

She smirks at you but doesn’t remind you that you would have had some the other day. It would be too cruel. “How about we order some Sunday?” She suggests. “Decompress from the State dinner?”

“That sounds amazing.” The gratitude you have and have always had for her friendship truly is never ending. “You can tell me all about dinner with your folks and we can get chaotic with each other over curry and Scrabble?”

“Sounds like we are party-ing.”She teases, although she loves it. Low key nights are her favorite.

“And all the sparkling apple cider we can stand.” If she’s going to tease you, you’re going to tease her right back. “By the way, I asked Mom to make sure my birthday has a mocktail so you don’t miss out on the fun.”

“You’re the best, you know that?” She beams at being included and tilts her head. “So how was the family dinner, besides the avoidance of Sam talk?”

“Alex is bringing David to the State dinner. Under wraps, of course.” Syd has known your family so long that she knows every inch of your siblings’ lives as well, just like you know hers. “Junie is learning to negotiate to be able to go to parties, so I know I’ve done my job as her big sister right.

“Your brother should be able to take any fucking body he wants to the State dinner.” She rolls her eyes and huffs, offended on behalf of your younger brother. “If foreign dignitaries don’t like it, fuck ‘em.”

"He can. It's not like the Spanish royals have a 'no gays' policy or something, and gay marriage obviously isn't the issue. It's that he doesn't want to become the center of an unnecessary debate. He is who he is, and I'm so proud of him for making his choices." Glancing over at her, you shrug slightly. "That being said? I get not wanting to be thrown into the spotlight for who you love."

“Of course you do.” It’s kind of a double-edged sword in her opinion, the political spotlight. You could be a darling of the media one day and the scapegoat the next, just depending on how the mercurial whim of the people shifted.

"It's one thing that Sam didn't seem to mind, and I was grateful for that." In no way are you going to start bad mouthing the man just because you've reached the finish line of your relationship. That's not the kind of person you are.

“I know, but I also know that dating a presidential candidate’s daughter during an election isn’t exactly bad press for a politician.” She holds up a hand. “I’m not saying that’s why he dated you, I’m not speaking ill, I’m just stating facts.”

"If he actually wants to be President, he needs to get used to having the Secret Service being around real fast." You snort, shaking your head and knowing that it really has been one thing bothering him pretty constantly. "He hates feeling like his privacy is being invaded."

“It might be because he’s not in control of the detail.” She guesses. “You have the final say on the detail and where they are.”

"Either way, I don't think he'll miss having an agent in his living room." There are plenty of strawberries, so you offer one to Syd and pop a small one in your mouth to savor. "Maybe I just won’t date during my mom’s administration. Maybe that’s the solution.”

“You like having a partner though.” She argues. “And you shouldn’t give up dating because of who your mother is.”

"It might just be less complicated." It's not what you want but it would certainly save you some heartache. "What's the worst that happens? I'm single for the next eight years?"

“Already counting on that re-election?” She teases, bumping your hip playfully.

You huff, swallowing a half-laugh, and bump her back. "More like pondering my worst case scenario."

“Whatever happens, we will be with you.” She promises with a grin.

______

Master Tags: @pixiedurango @chattychell @winter-fox-queen @lady-himbo @artsymaddie @princess76179 @paintballkid711 @missminkylove @pedrosbrat @ew-erin @sarahjkl82-blog @sharkbait77 @justanotherblonde23 @lv7867 @recklesswit @mylittlesenaar @f0rever15elf @gallowsjoker @steeevienicks @athalien @sherala007 @skvatnavle @thatpinkshirt @jaime1110 @girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @goodgriefitsawildworld @greeneyedblondie44 @littlemousedroid @harriedandharassed @churchill356 @ajathegreats-blog @haylzcyon   @beardsanddetectives @kirsteng42 @ladykatakuri @adancedivasmom @madiebear @tanzthompson @emilianamason @bigsdinger @xocalliexo @pedr0swh0r3 @avaleineandafryingpan @charlyrmv @avidreader73 @iceclaw101 @loveslide @elegantduckturtle @becsworld @julesonrecord @its-nebuleuse @itsrubberbisquit @mikeyswifie @guelyury @lizzie-cakes @for-a-longlongtime @vabeachazn @purplerain04 @weho2kcmo @madnessofadaydreamer

HHL: @haileymorelikestupid @anoverwhelmingdin @storiesofthefandomlovers @missladym1981 @babeincolor @storiesofthefandomlovers

My Masterlist!

[pedropascalsx]

Kinktober - Day Seven: Somnophilia.

Dave York × F! Reader.

Summary: Dave wakes you up in the most delicious way.

Warning: Fic contains consensual somnophilia.

Word Count: 654!

A/N: Prompt from @absurdthirst’s list! And a massive thank you to Keri for helping out where I was stuck. Hope y’all enjoy.

The rise and fall of your chest paired with the soft moans of his name made his entire body shiver. You’re asleep, and you’re clearly dreaming about him, his name and the most delicious noises slip from your lips with ease as he watches your lips curl up into the most beautiful smile.

With your chest pressed up against his he can feel every breath you take, each breath gently coating his skin and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He tries to ignore the way his cock twitches against his stomach, hard and crying out for some relief as you tempt him sweetly in your sleep.

You had spoken about it before after Dave had teased the way you moan his name in your sleep, and he affectionately began referring to you as his dirty little temptress and that’s when you started to plead with him… “You have my consent,” you murmured against his lips, “Awake, asleep… whenever. Fuck, Dave, I want you to wake me up just to overwhelm me… Just to take what you need from me.”

Your words feel like ice water being dumped over him as he replays them over and over, he had considered it before yes, but tonight he isn’t sure he has the strength to deny himself.

He gives himself a few tugs, swiping his thumb over the head and massaging the droplets of precum that had started to drip into his shaft before sighing loudly and replaying those delicious words. ‘You have my consent.’

He reaches over and gently drags a finger through your slit, groaning at just how wet you are from dreaming about him alone.

He knows that he’s too thick to just slip himself in, even with the amount of slick dripping from you. He turns himself slightly and then slowly presses a finger inside of you, pumping it softly over and over before curling it up against that spongy spot. The moment you stir, he freezes, letting a few moments pass by before resuming his motions.

His cock twitches impatiently as your moans fall more freely, and his name is the only word left to hang in the air. He twists his wrist a little more as your walls flutter against his digit, before adding a second and then a third and pumping them faster and faster until you clamp down and cry out so beautifully in your sleep.

Comfortable that you’re stretched out enough to fit him, he coats his cock in the arousal you dripped down his fingers and his hand. Dave slowly brings himself closer to you, dragging the tip of him through your folds just to hear you cry out again, before pressing himself against your entrance.

With the softest snap of his hips he pushes just the tip inside of you, studying your face before slowly inching himself in until you’re filled with him. He moves your leg a little higher and starts to rock back and forth, hissing as he finally gets a little relief as your walls flutter against him.

He groans your name as he starts to build up his pace, needing you to wake, so he can capture your lips and steal your breath in more ways than just one. “Baby,” he growls against your ear, and groans as you just stir again, “Fuck, baby,” he growls from behind his teeth before fucking you even harder.

His cock shreds up something devastating inside of you, and you wake with a scream of his name, clamping down and flooding his cock with your cum as he smashes his lips against yours.

Groaning in relief as he stiffens, filling you with his cum in thick ropes. You had told him that he could wake you up to overwhelm you and from the dazed look of bliss on your face, it had been a hell of a wake up alarm.

[fatehbaz]

Didn't wanna clog up your post, and these sources are more about relationships of time with space/place, but here's some stuff that I've encountered:

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“Temporal sovereignty”. Contemporary US/Australian claims over time-keeping. Reclaiming agency by operating on Indigenous/alternative time schedules. The importance of the “time revolution” in the Victorian era to Euro-American understandings of geology and deep past, precipitating nineteenth-century conquest of time. Mid-twentieth century understanding of “deep time” and its co-option by the Australian state. "Deep time dreaming".

Laura Rademaker. “60,000 Years is not forever: ‘time revolutions’ and Indigenous pasts.” Postcolonial Studies. September 2021.

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How "time is a form of enclosure". Checkpoints, "baroque processes to apply for permits to travel", fences, incapacity to change residences, and other "debilitating infrastructures" work to "turn able bodies into a range of disabled bodies" by "stretching time". This is a "slow death" and a simultaneous "slowing down of life" because "it takes so long to get anywhere" and "movement is suffocated". Thus "time itself is held hostage". This "suspended state" of anxiety and endless wait-times "wreaks multigenerational psychological and physical havoc". "Checkpoints ensure one is never sure of reaching work on time. Fear of not getting to work then adds to the labor of getting to work [...]. Bodies in line at checkpoints [...] [experience] the fractalizing of the emotive, cognitive, physiological capacities" through a "constant state of uncertainty". "The cordoning of time through space contributes to an overall 'lack of jurisdiction over the functions of one's own senses' [...] endemic to the operation of colonial rule". This "extraction of time" produces a "depleted" and tired person "beholden to the logistics" of administrative apparatuses, community suffers and "communing is thrawted".

Jabir K. Puar. "Spatial debilities: Slow Life and Carceral Capitalism [...]." South Atlantic Quarterly 120. April 2021.

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The "apocalyptic temporality" that presumes extinction. Indigenous Polynesian/Pacific perceptions and ways of being "destabilize the colonial present" and also "transfigure the past" by "contesting linear and teleological Western time". Indigenous "ontologies of cyclical temporality or inhabitation of heterogenous time". How United States and Europe colonized Oceania for weapons testing and conquest of tropical Edens while rendering local Indigenous people "ungrievable" and "without future". "Pacific time is a layering of oral and somatic memory". Instead of accepting an apocalyptic future or doomsday or nightmare, assert the possibility of a livable future, in spite of "Western temporal closures".

Rebecca Oh. “Making Time: Pacific Futures in Kiribati’s Migration with Dignity, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner’s Iep Jaltok, and Keri Hume’s Stonefish.” MFS Modern Fiction Studies. Winter 2020.

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Colonial "space-time homogenization". The experience of "homogenous, empty time". Orientalist "time lag" and the naturalization of a supposed East-West hemispheric divide. Late Victorian imperial conceptions of temporality. The British establishment of the Greenwich meridian and International Date Line. The influence of British imperial seafaring and cartography on the establishment of time and on European/US feelings towards the Pacific Ocean. How the origin of English science fiction literature, space travel aspirations, and time travel narratives coincided with the Yellow Peril and xenophobia targeting East Asia.

Timothy J. Yamamura. "Fictions of Science, American Orientalism, and the Alien/Asian of Percival Lowell". Dis-Orienting Planets: Racial Representation of Asia in Science Fiction. 2017.

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Imprisonment as time-control. Here “the question of the past the present and the future indeed time itself looms” especially around the prisoner. “The law renders punishment in units of time”, taking away a the right to a future. There are alternative worlds, many of them, which have been practiced and brought into being, which colonization tried to obscure. There is “a whole anthropology of people without future embedded in the assumptions that justify mass imprisonment as poverty management”. "The prison’s logic exterminates time as we know it”. In prison, bodies have been alienated from time and history ... the punishment seems endless ... to “achieve a measure of agency and possibility it is necessary to redeem time”, to refuse the doom, fated to a life of abandonment.

Avery Gordon. “Some Thoughts on Haunting and Futurity.” borderlands. 2011.

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Bursting the Limits of Time: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Revolution (Martin J.S. Rudwick, 2010) explores how the advent of European sciences like geology, preceding the "time revolution" when Europeans experienced revelations about the scale of "deep time", happened alongside and after the Haitian Revolution and other abolitionist movements. French, German, and British naturalists translated the explosion of "new" scientific knowledge from the colonies, so that the metropolitan European audience became a market for historical and scientific "narratives" about how "nature" and time functioned.

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Prartik Chakrabarti's writing on time, temporality, and "the deep past" as British imperial concepts built in conversation with colonial encounters with South Asia. (British Empire reaching such heights in the middle of the nineteenth century at the same time that the newly professionalized sciences of geology were providing revelations about the previously unknown vast scale of "deep time". New colonial anthropology/ethnology also presumed to connect this "primitive" past with "primitive" people.)

See Chakrabarti's "Gondwana and the Politics of Deep Past". Past & Present. 2019.

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We must witness and consider "multiple space-times" to understand how "unfree labour" of plantations was "foundational" to contemporary work, movement, subjugation, health, etc. We must "trace the geneaology of contemporary sovereign institutions of terror, discipline and segregation" [workplaces, imperial/colonial nations, factories, mines, etc.] back in time to plantations. How "the [plantation] estate hierarchy survives in post-plantation" times and places, with the plantation "being a major blueprint of socialization into [contemporary] work". The plantation was "a laboratory for [...] migration regulation in subsequent epochs" that practiced methods of racializing and criminalizing.

Irene Peano, Marta Macedo, and Colette Le Petitcorps. "Introduction: Viewing Plantations at the Intersection of Political Ecologies and Multiple Space-Times". Global Plantations in the Modern World: Sovereignties, Ecologies, Afterlives. 2023.

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“Slow life” and the relationship between “settler colonialism, carceral capitalism, and the modulation of ... registers of time,” including “historical time, the stealing of time through the expansion of labor time, ... and the cordoning off of space through time”. For example, as in occupied zones or at border checkpoints, “the cordoning off of space through time” includes physical architecture like fences and customs, obstacles that impede movement and rhythm, so that “nothing ever happens on time” and there is “a stretching of time”. All the wasted time spent in line, showing papers, waiting for confirmation, etc. “is not a by-product of surveillance, it is the point of surveillance”. Such that “uncertainty becomes a primary affective orientation ... flesh as felt” with a racializing effect“. "This is a biopolitics conditioned through pure capacitation and its metrics”:

Jasbir Puar. In: “Mass Debilitation and Algorithmic Governance” by Ezekiel Dixon-Roman and Jasbir Puar. e-flux Journal Issue #123. December 2021.

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"Starfish time". Indigenous Australian/Aboriginal perceptions of time and "attending to more-than-human agencies of time". Acknowledging the timescales of entire ecosystems, as part of multispecies relationships, a "transcorporeal collaboration". Cyclical time vs linear time. Contrasting timescales experienced by insects that only live a few days and creatures that live for decades. "Starfish may seem to be still" but they slowly move; "larval time" and "the time it takes for eggs to develop and hatch"'. The "immensity of the alterity is literally incomprehensible"; "we can't know what these beings know" but we "should seek respect and be aware of how our lives are entangled".

Bawaka Country including, S. Wright, S.  Suchet-Pearson, K. Lloyd, L. Burarrwanga, R. Ganambarr, M. Ganambarr-Stubbs, B. Ganambarr, D. Maymuru. “Gathering of the Clouds: Attending to Indigenous understandings of time and climate through songspirals.” Geoforum. January 2020.

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The use of calendars, dates, clocks, and industrial/corporate temporality as fundamental to the rise of plantations and financialization in United States/Europe, with a case study of the modern Colombian/Latin American state. Observance of certain dates and strict adherence to specific calendars support "mythologized deeds and heroic retellings" of colonization and industrialization. “The evolution and internalization of disciplined concepts of time” were intimately tied to the rise of wage labor in industrializing England and later during the global ascendancy of work and industrialized plantation monoculture, but the persistence of alternative time should “serve as a reminder that futures and the demarcation of epochs are never as simple as a neatly organized calendar”.

Timothy Lorek. “Keeping Time with Colombian Plantation Calendars.” Edge Effects. April 2020.

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Indigenous people of Alaska and the US control over time management. For the past 50 years, Yupiak people have been subject to US government’s “investment in a certain way of being in time” which “standardized the clock” and disrupted human relationships with salmon. This US management model “anonymized care” and made “a way of attending to the life and death of others that strips life of the social and ecological bonds that imbue it” with resilience and meaning, which “ignores not only the temporality of Yupiaq peoples relations with fish, but also the human relations that human-fish relations make possible”. This disregards “the continuity of salmon lives but also the duration of Yupiat lifeworlds ... life is doubly negated” ... “futures depend on an orientation to salmon in the present”.

William Voinot-Baron. “Inescapable Temporalities: Chinook Salmon and the Non-Sovereignty of Co-Management in Southwest Alaska.” July 2019.

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"Idling" and "being idle" as a form of reclaiming agency and life. Case studies of fugitive Blackness in Caribbean plantation societies. “Disruptive waiting”. “The maroon’s relationship to time challenges [both] the totalizing time of the modern state, but also the [...] narratives to negotiate struggle in the [...] present" in "antagonistic relationship with colonial power". Defying the “European narrative of modernity”. Refusing to be productive.

Amanda Lagji. “Marooned time: disruptive waiting and idleness in Carpentier and Coetzee.” Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies. March 2018.

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Indigenous futures. "It is important to remember that some futures never went anywhere" and "yet they survive. These are futures suppressed and cancelled by colonial power." These are "parallel futures". "Colonial power must control the past so as to deny the emergence of" an alternative future; "colonial power creates a future in advance so that no others will take its place". Poor, racialized, Black, Indigenous people manifest alternative futures.

Pedro Neves Marques. "Parallel Futures: One or Many Dystopias?" e-flux. April 2019.

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The "legacy of slavery and the labor of the unfree shape and are part of the environment we inhabit". The "idea of the plantation is migratory" and it lives on "as the persistent blueprint of our contemporary spatial troubles", so we must seek out "secretive histories" that no longer "rehearse lifelessness".

Katherine McKittrick. “Plantation Futures.” Small Axe. 2013.

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“The temporal dispossession” of Congolese people. There is an “impossibility” of “predictable time” because temporal dispossession “disrupts the possibility of building a future”. Livelihoods/income is driven by market and price fluctuations in United States and Europe tech industries, so “there is an inescapable day-to-day sense of uncertainty”. As Mbembe says, “in Africa, the spread of terror ... blows apart temporal frames”.

James H. Smith. ‘Tantalus in the Digital Age: Coltan ore, temporal dispossession, and “movement” in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.’ American Ethnologist Volume 38 Issue 1. February 2011.

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“Slow death”. Chronic illness not just as a byproduct of colonialism/dispossession, but also as part of its aim, a weapon that debilitates people, who become exhausted. Dooming poor and racialized people to lives “without future” through debility, “a condition of being worn out”. Relationship of illness, lack of healthcare, and debt as functionally incapacitating, a form of death sentence. A “zone of temporality” unfolding unlike abrupt/sudden traumatic events and becoming an inescapable condition.

Jasbir K. Puar. The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability. 2017.

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The extension of poverty, landlessness, homeless, and imprisonment. "To be unable to transcend the horror of such a world order is what hell means", and "without a glimpse of an elsewhere or otherwise, we are living in hell". The utopian is not only or merely a “fantasy of” and for “the future collectivity” but can be claimed and built and lived here, now. There is "no guarantee" of “coming millenniums or historically inevitable socialisms”, no guarantee that “the time is right” one day if we wait just long enough. Instead: "can a past that the present has not yet caught up with be summoned to haunt the present as an alternative?" The "utopian margins", an alternate world crossing time and place, an "imaginative space and temporality to trace the remains of what "was almost or not quite, of the future yet to come", living as if it were the present. Colonialism tried to crush the many headed hydra of the revolutionary Atlantic, those who challenged the making of the modern world system.

Avery F. Gordon. As interviewed by Brenna Bhandar and  Rafeef Ziadah. “Revolutionary Feminisms: Avery F. Gordon.” As transcribed and published online in the Blog section of Verso Books. 2 September 2020. And: Avery Gordon. “Some thoughts on the Utopian.” 2016.

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The US/European "city is the site of regulatory regimes" that try to impose a definitive narrative about history, progress, and possible futures. But it cannot achieve "a wholly Apollonian, seamlessly regulated realm" because the land "continues to be haunted by the neglected, the disposed of, the repressed". The "commodification" of landscapes "circulates an imaginary geography" mediated through advertisements, labels, soap operas, television, etc. which celebrate "sanctioned narratives and institutionalized rhetoric". A "wild zone" of informal spaces, debris. "Ruins are places where the things, people, and "other memories can be articulated". There is "a spectral residue" that "haunts dominant ways of seeing and being". "Alternative stories might be assembled", so that we can respect the people banished to abandonment, the periphery, and reclaim agency.

Tim Edensor. “The ghosts of industrial ruins: ordering and disordering memory in excessive space.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space volume 23. 2005.

Also, how "master narratives of history as progress decompose" when faced with "a continuously remembered past" when "the ghosts of this past rear up in the ruin" to expose "the debris of unprecedented material destruction" of colonialism/empire-building. These "hauntings rupture linear temporality" and recall those people beaten down as "the trash of history". It is "essential to see the things and the people [...] banished to the periphery [...]."

Tim Edensor. "Haunting in the ruins: matter and immateriality". Space and Culture Issue 11. 2002.

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"Many kinds of time" of bacteria, fungi, algae, humans, and "Western colonialism meet on the gravestones". Some creatures, like lichen, are very long-lived and "these temporal feats alert us that modernity is not the only kind of time, and that our metronomic synchrony is not the only time that matters". The "long duree evolutionary rapprochements to the quick boom and bust of investment capital" where "minor forms of space and time merge with great ones". Extinction is "a breakdown of coordinations with reverberating effects". Ghosts remind us that we live in an impossible present, a time of rupture. "Deep histories tumble in unruly graves that are bulldozed into gardens of Progress". "Endings come with the death of a leaf, the death of a city, the death of a friendship".

Elaine  Gan, Anna Tsing, Heather Swanson, and Nils Burbandt. “Introduction: Haunted Landscapes of the Anthropocene.” Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene. 2017.

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Everywhen: Australia and the Language of Deep History. (Edited by Ann McGrath, Laura Rademaker, and Jakelin Troy. 2023.)

Chapters include: "Bugarrigarra Nyurdany, Because of the Dreaming: A Discussion of Time and Place in Yawuru Cosmology" (Sarah Yu et al.); "Songs and the Deep Present" (Linda Barwick); "Yirriyengburnama-langwa mamawura-langwa: Talking about Time in Anindilyakwa (James Bednall); "Across 'Koori Time' and Space (John Maynard)

[khattikeri]

if they dub omniscient reader to english i NEED them to get jerry jewell for kim dokja