#like. in a year and a half only i went from borderline homeless and my parents keeping me on constant phonecalls

[dzozef]

i got offered the promotion at work.... why am i every business owners wettest dream damn....

[sadselfhelp]

Who I Am, And Why I Created This Blog.

TRIGGER WARNINGS - Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Child Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Violence, Drug Overdose, Suicide, Psychotic Breaks. 

Take a walk with me, let me show you around the mind of The Sad Hatter.

There's a lot going on in my head right now, and I feel like I'm on the precipice of something. I'm standing on a cliff's edge and I'm either going to plummet or I'm going to fly. It's been building inside me for a long time, and I can't contain it anymore. So here it is, here's me laid bare, because I need to say this, I need to put it into words. I need to purge it all. To try and make sense of all of this shit in my brain, I think it's time I organize it. I don't know where to begin, but I guess I start at the beginning and make use of the ability to edit.

Before you read this, please be aware of the trigger warnings. And please understand that this is the most honest and open I have been, I really am stripped bare in this piece of writing. It’s not at all pretty, and am I not guiltless in parts. This may well alter whatever opinion you have of me. 

I guess the beginning is birth, right? But I don't want to rehash all that trauma, so let me speed through it. Twenty-Eight years ago I was born, violently. I'm serious, I ripped my way out of the womb, and tore that thing apart. I guess I can sort of understand why my mother couldn't love me after that was my first act, collapsing her womb. So let me speedrun this part of the story. Mum didn't want me, gave me to my dad who raised me as a single parent with the help of his parents, until he met my stepmother. Shockingly, she didn't want me either, but because she couldn't get rid of me she decided to physical and psychological torture was the next best thing. 

When I was eleven years old I snapped and didn't want to put up with it anymore, so I wrote a goodbye note and then snuck into the medicine cabinet and took a bunch of pills. Spoiler alert, I didn't die. I did however end up in a children's home, cue more abuse, little bit of bullying and sexual assault etc.... I snapped again, but instead of turning my anger inwards, I became an absolute bastard. Ok, I still turned it inwards a bit, I had a lot of anger, and now I have a few hundred scars to prove it. But, it turns out that violence can beget violence, and I acted out in every possible way. Racked up a horrifying rap sheet, assault, vandalism, arson, and finally... GBH. I was supposed to get put in a secure unit (child prison – Scottish Edition) but I was always able to talk myself out of trouble. 

See, I was this tiny little white girl with big sad eyes and a hell of a sob story, even at the bottom of the food chain I still had privilege. So instead of getting locked up, I just got sent to a different home. And here's the really messed up part, this home was better. The staff were nicer, and nobody hurt me. My behavior literally changed overnight. I went from being charged by the police on a weekly basis, to never getting so much as a pocket money sanction. I will never excuse my actions, nor condone them, but after years of guilt I finally realized that the bad things I did were in retaliation to a bad situation, and though I wasn’t acting like a good person, I’m not a bad person, just a messed up one. 

I still refused to go to school though, because though I didn't yet know it at the time, I had severe social anxiety. I was smart, a little too smart to be honest, and I found myself thriving with a private tutor. When the time came to sit my exams, someone fucked up, and despite having record breaking test scores on the pre-exams, I never actually got to sit my standard grades (think SAT's – Scottish Edition). I'm still bitter about that. So by this point in the story, I'm 16, and legally an adult, too old for a children's home. I got turfed to a hostel, and the next few parts of the story are pretty fuzzy to me. 

This is where my mental health really started to deteriorate. I bounced between homeless hostels and B&B's for a year or so, until I got a my first flat/apartment. By that point, I was utterly fucked in the head. I was blacking out frequently, for anywhere between a couple of minutes to three days. I would come back to myself in sometimes compromising positions, and once there was blood. A lot of blood, splashed all over the walls. Then there was the time I suddenly found myself standing in the kitchen, about to plunge a knife into my own chest.

Nobody ever did tell me what the hell that was about. Or maybe they did and I just... forgot? But because I was extremely suicidal, a doctor finally decided to do something, and the police and the paramedics came to my door to take me to the psychiatric hospital. I spent ten months there while I cycled through various anti-psychotics and anti-depressants, and was 'rehabilitated into society'. The second I was out, I made the worst decision I have ever made in my life. If I can give you one piece of advice, one lesson to take from my shitshow of a life, it's this: Don't move hundreds of miles away to be with the guy you met online while you were having a psychotic break.

I've never really thought of myself as a victim, but I guess I'm the only one who saw it that way. Ben, that was his name, Ben was a monster, and I didn't know it until it was too late. He never hit me, never lifted a hand to me, he never had to. He could put a knife in my hand and make me hurt myself for his entertainment. I had told him everything, so he knew exactly how to break me down, how to make me want to bleed. He locked me in a house and used me up. And when I had enough, and tried to break free of him, he would just tell the police I was mentally ill and they would smile sympathetically and give me back to him.

But then my dad had a breakdown. My dad, who when he found out what my stepmother was doing to me, buried his head in the sand and packed my little suitcase for me. I hadn't spoken to him in a while until he reached out from the same psychiatric ward I had not long vacated. He had cracked under the realization that I had never lied about her, and the guilt broke him apart. I could have hated him, if it had happened a few years earlier then I would have. But I had experienced enough of the world to learn a few things, like how easily it is to fuck up, and that no matter how strong you are, you aren't immune to monsters. The truth was he was as much a victim of her evil as I was. She had manipulated him, played with his head, used his insecurities against him. So I helped him through his issues, the way I wished someone had helped me. That doesn't really make me a good person, it just makes me human.

But my dad got better, and found his footing. And when he did, he realized something wasn't right with me, and I told him the truth about Ben. My dad had left me to suffer at the hands of an abuser once before, and he wasn't going to allow it to happen again. He came and got me, and he took me home. He moved me in with him, gave me his bed and slept on the couch. After a couple of months, he helped me get my own place.

And that's the happy ending, right? All the trauma was over, I was safe, that's where the story should end. Right? I bet you're not naive enough to believe that, but I sure as hell was. I thought I would recover and that everything would be ok. I thought that with safety, there would come the chance to heal. I thought my wounds would scab over, and I would have my scars but at least I would be able to move without bleeding out. But that's not how trauma works. I had two decades worth of trauma, abuse, and hell.

I just... faded. I didn't crack, I didn't crumble, I didn't break, I just stopped. For five years I sat in one room of my home, drowning inside myself. Last year I got handed a lifeline, and now I live somewhere better. I'm not really allowed to live independently so I actually live in kind of retirement village of all places. I have my own house, but it's got intercoms and emergency cords everywhere, I get checked on daily by on on-site worker. And I'm trying to get better, I really am. It's just not that easy.

There's more to the whole story that I maybe should have put in, like the fact that my mother was a drug addict when she was pregnant with me, and that may have been the reason some of my organs didn't properly form and/or formed wrong. My lung split in half when I was a baby, and parts of my stomach are missing. Or that my mother is full on batshit insane. I could have had a perfect childhood and I still would have been mentally ill. Hell, I was seeing psychologists at five years old. Take my sketchy genetics, add twenty years of severe traumas, and well... I'm a little fucked up. Because a lot of medical conditions use acronyms, my full list of diagnosis looks like I'm collecting the fucking alphabet.

I have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and Agoraphobia. I also have a Pulmonary Sequestration, Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia, the stomach and lung issues. Immune Hemolytic Anemia, I'm basically allergic to my own blood. Plus, ya know, my liver recently decided to just fucking nope out, the pissy lil bitch is failing. I also may or may not have cancer, I don't know because I pussied out of the tests. At this point I am a walking, decaying corpse that is held together by glitter glue and bitterness.

So... why exactly am I writing this? And why am I even considering posting this? I mean, my problems aren't as bad as some other people's. We've all got shit to deal with, especially in 2020. The whole world is falling apart, so what right do I have to sit here pouting and pouring my problems out? Well, for a start, I guess this is my blog, I can post whatever, and it's up to everyone else if they read it.

So here it is, you have the backstory, so here's what it's all been leading up to.

I'm struggling. Like, really struggling. I'm stuck on this cliff, and I want off, any way I can. Whether I fall or fly, I just want free. I can't live like this anymore, because I can't breathe.

The fucking agonizing duality of being socially anxious and too easily overstimulated, and yet feeling fucking empty inside if you're not surrounded by action and noise. The world is too noisy for my brain, but my brain is too noisy for the world. I get antsy if I'm not doing at least a thousand different tasks, but I get overwhelmed if I try to do anything at all. It leads to short bursts of mania, followed by weeks of depression. But underneath all of that, under all the dramatic showboating, and the dark humor, under all the bravado... I'm really just sad.

Years ago, when I first came up with the moniker "The Sad Hatter", I said it was because I may be mad, but my madness was born of sadness. I'm just sad. I carry it with me where my heart should be. So I named myself Sad, and I put on the hat, and I wore my sadness like armor, turned it into an act, and made a spectacle of it. "I'm The Sad Hatter, and I'm mentally ill but that's alright, I'm going to be just fine!" I told you all I had my issues, and I'll come close to opening up about how bad those issues are, I'll give little chunks of information at intermittent intervals, and then two hours later I'll act like it never happened. I'll admit I was close to killing myself, and then two days later I'll post dog photo's and act like I'm all better.

I'm writing this because I'm sad. And tomorrow, I'll act like I'm not. But when I waver again, I'll come back here and I'll open up again. And along the way, maybe you're reading this and realizing you aren't alone in feeling overwhelmed. Maybe you're realizing you're not the only one who isn't healing neatly and in a timely manner. Maybe you're reading this and gaining some insight into the struggles someone you care about is facing. Maybe my opening up is can help somebody else, I really hope so, but I know it's helping one person. It's helping me.

This blog, it's about living with myself. It's about living with The Sad Hatter.

[ifyoulovemeletmebinge]

We’re All Monsters

destiel au where everything in canon is used at the wrong time and oh also cas is a monster. 

RATED M 

read it on ao3 here: 

Part 1 

Part 2

Part 3

Dean has Castiel pinned to the wall in a blink.

He’s disgusted and he feels dirty, and betrayed, and he’d rather Castiel had killed him 15 years ago.

“Shut the fuck up, man,” he hisses in Castiel’s face. Dean’s mind is whirling with thoughts, spinning in a hurricane, and he can’t make sense of much at this moment except John killed Cas’s dad, Cas has been stalking him for almost two decades, and now he wants Dean to help him become human?

Dean can’t even count the degrees of fucked up here.

“Dean,” Castiel grunts low, against the forearm over his windpipe. “You don’t have to trust me, you just have to help me.”

“I said, shut the fuck up. You’re lying.”

Castiel clenches his jaw. He grabs at Dean’s shoulders and spins them around, much stronger and faster, and then they’re in the same position back at the bar, and Dean is willing his dick to fucking behave.

“I’ve got no reason to lie to you. It serves me nothing. I need your help, Dean. You’re the only one who can turn me. You and your brother have connections I don’t, spells I couldn’t get my hands on. I need you.”

“How do you know about Sam?” Dean bites out.

“I told you,” Castiel lets up a little, takes a single step back. “I’ve been checking in on you every few months since we met. I moved to Lebanon a few years back when I saw you were here.”

“You’re fucked up, dude. Why would you do that? My daddy kills your daddy and you think we’re friends?”

Castiel looks down, frowns, and Dean sees something real there. “I wanted to keep you safe. Your father, as weird as this may seem… Dean, he saved me from a much harsher existence. I guess I felt I owed it to him. As a thank you.”

Unprompted, Dean’s mind goes back to that night and he sees the bite marks, their ugly texture again, feels the weight on top of his hips pinning him down as dinner on the ground. He’s looking at Castiel and all he can think of is how he’s a monster. One of them.

But if Cas is a monster, just like his father before him, why was he grateful John practically made him an orphan? It occurs to Dean that he has no idea what Castiel’s dad made him do, and then it occurs to him that it’s so ugly he might not want to know.

Dean clears his throat and responds quietly, “Well, Mr. Winchester really appreciates it.” He waits until Castiel looks back up at him to ask: “You said you were half-human?”

“My mother,” Castiel nods, his face somber in an instant. “She raised me until her death and then my father found me. And he tried to make me like him for years, until your father. Until you.”

Dean realizes then that he feels pity, and a lot of it. He realizes that the Castiel he met at the bar might have been covering it up but it was there, and it’s here now. He feels a little breathless because this is something John’s journal can’t help him with. Here, in front of him, is a monster, asking not to be, acting like he isn’t. He’s more than one hundred percent sure no hunter in the history of hunting has ever gone through this before. Castiel is one of a kind.

“What are you, Cas?”

Castiel swallows, turning and walking over to sit on the couch. Dean stays leaning against the wall, needing something real that will convince him to not kill the other (half) man in the room with him until he fully explains.

Castiel’s eyes are blue in all the ways they can be. “I don’t know,” he responds. “I just know I can’t be like this anymore.”

“What does that mean?” Dean’s eyebrows furrow.

“It means that you’re my only chance of living for the rest of my life. Otherwise, I’d rather die.”

Dean knows that look too well, sees it in himself sometimes, and before he can stop himself, he asks, “What the hell did you do, Cas?”

Castiel sighs, looking like his exhaustion runs bone-deep. He swallows, opens his mouth, closes it.

He takes a moment and tries again. “I almost killed a man. He was homeless, and I was trying to help. I bent down to give him some money, and I hadn’t eaten anything of real substance in months…” Castiel’s throat works uselessly. “I guess I lost control,” he finishes hoarsely.

Dean's brain is not connected to his mouth and it’s working on its own to ask the worst questions it can. But Dean tries not to feel too bad, because Castiel is a monster, as he prompts, “What kind of food do you eat?”

Castiel presses his knuckles to his eyelids, rubbing them. “I’ve never killed anyone, if that’s what you’re wondering. I’ve only had deceased bodies. With being half-human, I found I don’t need to eat as much, but if I want to keep living I need to eat eventually. The longest I’ve gone without feeding was 7 and a half months and I was on the brink of death by then.”

“You almost killed me that night.”

Castiel pulls his hand away from his eyes and glares up at Dean. “Emphasis on almost.”

Despite himself and the situation, Dean chuckles. Maybe it’s Castiel’s half-human side, maybe Dean’s still drunk, but it feels easy. It’s exactly like it was back at the bar yet everything’s changed. Dean’s not sure he’s gonna leave with Castiel this time. Dean’s not sure he’s gonna leave a decapitated body behind, either.

In this state of questioning, he decides to sit down next to Castiel on the couch.

“So that’s the why now. Why us?”

Castiel tilts his head, narrows his eyes. “You’re the Winchesters. Surely, you must know what that means within your own circle. Sam is a great sorcerer, and you’re the best hunter in history.”

Dean feels his cheeks heat up a little, embarrassed. “Sheesh, I thought you stopped the sweet talkin’ act at the bar, Cas. We’re just guys doin’ our best. We’re not all that.”

Castiel stares into his soul as he disagrees, “You’re worth more than you think.”

Dean wants to kiss him. He does. He doesn’t have air in his lungs because he’s never heard that from anyone before, and maybe the only source of oxygen left is Cas’s lips. Dean wants to breathe. But he grips his kneecaps tightly, and holds himself back.

He stands up again, clears his throat. Dean doesn’t know why, but he believes Cas. He’s gonna help him. If he can’t help him then…

“Dude,” he turns back to Castiel, crossing his arms. “Whatever happens, you gotta leave us alone after this. This stalking thing is just…”

“I understand, Dean,” Castiel says gravely, resolved. “In any scenario, you’ll never have to deal with me again after this. I swear it.”

****

All in all, it’s not surprising in the least that Sam was excited about the situation Dean found himself in.

He called Sam in the middle of the night, waking him up, and after the grumpy moose-witch sleepily groaned his frustrations out through the phone, Dean told him segments of the truth and what he planned to do. Sam didn’t need to know that Cas had been stalking them, or that they’d briefly met as teens, or that they made out before Cas kidnapped him. Sam just needed to agree to say some of his Latin crap, wave his hands around a little, and try to cure Cas.

Was it really curing if Castiel had never been… evil in the first place?

Dean didn’t want to think about monster ethics, he just wanted to see if Sam could help him solve the problem, so he could be rid of it. Getting rid of Castiel seemed like the best thing to do so he wouldn’t have to think about the mess his dad made. If he had just killed him back then, he wouldn’t be dealing with this now! Dean was having a tug of war in his brain, one side already swinging a machete at Cas’s neck, the other bringing him to the bunker to see where this went, to make him normal, and maybe give him a life.

He hunted to help people, and in a fucked up way, that’s what this was.

But this was also completely unprecedented. Dean didn’t and wouldn’t have anyone else to tell him what is the right or wrong answer. He had to figure this out himself. He had to go with his gut.

Well, his gut told him that Castiel seemed like a good person that just had the wrong blood running through his veins. His nature was good, no matter how much they tried to nurture him to be his worst.

Dean’s evidence? Apart from an excellent guessing streak and a trusty gut feeling that always got him out of the shit at the last minute, Castiel had confessed to have been watching him and Sam for… yeah, 15 whole years. If he wanted them dead, he could have done it by now. That’s just a fact.

Another fact was how… human Castiel was. Is. He is half-human. Dean has to remind himself that when Castiel effortlessly lifts up his living room couch. He also has to remind himself Castiel is half-monster when he delicately hands him a cup of warm tea. Dean only grimaces at it a little, and then he blows on it once, downs it impatiently, and they leave for the bunker. He ignores the burning in the back of his throat and on his tongue, and he lets Led Zeppelin fill the silence on the drive back.

Dawn is still breaking when they get to the bunker. Dean has not slept in over a day, and the back of his head is swollen, and he just wants his bed. He can wake up and deal with Cas after he gets his four hours.

Sam is practically jumping up and down, eyes wide and alert and assessing as he meets Castiel, like he’s the coolest science-experiment-gone-wrong he’s ever seen. Dean feels bad for Cas, who simply stands there in that trenchcoat and lets Sam stumble through asking his questions and studying him. Dean has to remind himself yet again that Castiel is a monster. Then he’s off to bed.

****

Maybe it was the borderline concussion, but Dean’s body ends up needing a good six fucking hours, and he wakes up like the birds are singing him awake. He’s not even that bothered by the thought that there is a human-eating monster in his house. Maybe the night made his newest problem seem worse than it is.

But maybe the monster problem isn’t it. The actual problem would be Dean’s attraction to said monster.

Castiel has stripped down to just his white collared shirt, sleeves rolled up. No tie. They’re in the basement when he finds them, where Cas is sitting on a dentist-looking chair, and Sam is barely fitting in a normal chair right next to him. There are various small vials on top of the table behind them, where a bunch of bowls and needles also sit. Dean feels a little sick at the sight.

“What’s goin’ on here?”

Sam is so engrossed in the conversation with Castiel, he jumps a little, blinking, and then he looks at Dean. “Oh! Mornin’ Dean. I got some blood samples from Castiel, and we were just talking about possible things we could use them for. Like spells and such we could try. He knows his stuff,” Sam can’t hide the surprise in his voice. “He’s actually studied a lot of witchcraft.”

Dean nods. When he looks at Castiel, he’s struck back by his little smile and his bright eyes. He looks… excited. Dean feels something behind his ribs twist.

“Good morning, Dean. How is your head? How did you sleep?”

“His head?” Sam whips his head to Castiel, furrowing his brows.

Subconsciously, Dean brings a hand up to the back of his head. “It’s fine.” Then to Sam, “I, uh. I backed into a tall shelf over at Cas’s. ‘S nothing.”

Castiel seems utterly relieved to hear, and Sam just shrugs after a few seconds of staring at Dean. He goes back to sealing the vial in his hand.

But Dean is looking at Castiel again, and Castiel at Dean. Dean has to swallow to start breathing again. He wants to kick Sam out and jump on Cas. He wants to sit down and ask him if he’s okay, how he’s feeling about being poked and prodded at (even if he said he’d do anything for his goal). Hell, he wants to hold his hand and put a bandaid on him. He wants to get the fuck out of there, where the air is suddenly too thin, and where he sees Castiel’s face fall after his own crumbles.

[tempestaurora]

Hi I just need to share this idea before I fall asleep: AU where Beck targeted Harley instead because Tony left Harley EDITH instead of Peter

read on ao3

They showed up in the hand of a suited man who looked uncomfortably hot in the Tennessee sun. E.D.I.T.H., the card in the glasses case read, Even In Death I’m The Hero – T.S.

Harley had been to his funeral the month before, had stood outside the lake house with a collection of plain-clothed superheroes. He’d recognised some, but not all. Captain America, Falcon, Hawkeye, Bruce Banner. They were all red-eyed and sombre, donned in black suits and congregating in small groups after the ceremony. Harley had come alone, without his mother or sister, and had spoken to barely anyone, bar Colonel Rhodes who recognised him, Pepper and Morgan, who’d invited him, and the kid called Peter Parker, who looked about his age - though, post-snap, it was hard to tell anymore.

He hadn’t touched the glasses for two days before finally working up the nerve to try them on, then he’d played with them in complete awe for three days before finally putting them away again. He’d read the texts of strangers on the street, peered inside the Mustang’s engine and dissected every part, stared at the maths problems on his homework sheet and watched the numbers float off the page and solve themselves. It was a lot of power, Harley figured. Too much for a kid in fuck-all nowhere Rose Hill.

He made a small hole in the floorboards of the garage, and hid the glasses away.

He’d vanished in the snap, like half the universe, but his sister and mother had lived on for five years, continued to grow and change. He’d been in his senior year when he’d died, and now his sister was too. They shared the same classes, and though she’d desperately tried to get into science and engineering; to make use of the tools in the garage that Tony had provided Harley with, she just wasn’t interested, and leant heavily towards history, with dreams of archaeology and excavation.

They looked like twins now, and started to tell people that they were.

His little sister was five years younger than him, but they were both eighteen now anyway.

In all, despite having E.D.I.T.H. under the floorboards of the half-gutted garage (the equipment inside was both too sentimental to sell, and too expensive not to), nothing much changed with Harley as the world tried to right itself after the second snap. Time continued on, the world slowly rebuilt itself and struggled to house all the new homeless folk, and superheroes re-emerged from the cracks, fighting the everyday bank robbers and crazy scientists, rather than colonising aliens.

Harley and Ariel graduated side by side, her name read out first, then his, and they wore matching robes and smiled matching smiles for their mother’s photos. They packed up their things and both headed for New York, both of them studying at Columbia, and both of them scoring rooms in the same dorm. On the day they left; Harley’s Mustang idling out front with his sister’s music blaring from the stereo, Harley wandered around the garage, decked out by a dead man, and pulled back the floorboard. E.D.I.T.H. still sat there in the case, just as it had when Harley had first received it a year before, and he removed it, replaced the floorboard, and started the long drive north.

His classes were the good kind of difficult, and he threw himself into electrical and mechanical engineering, scoring high grades and making new friends. Parties were a rare thing in Rose Hill, as everyone lived so far apart and kids his age were rare, so now he and Ariel had new experiences to make; dorm parties and frat houses, night clubs and bars. Despite the new laws about post-snap identification, his I.D. from before still worked in some places; technically twenty-three rather than the lived eighteen.

“We’re twins,” he and Ariel would say to whoever asked; the two Keeners living on the same floor and going to the same parties. They shared a lot of friends, though drew themselves to different areas; Harley falling easily into the D&D Society, and Ariel finding herself in three separate book clubs.

“Family has become more important than ever,” the post-snap counsellor would say in their mandatory session in their first semester. Every student had to meet with them, only a year since the world came back, but Harley and Ariel attended theirs together, more joined at the hip than they had ever been when they were five years apart in age.

They went home for Christmas and returned in January, starting classes anew. It was then that Harley met his new teacher, Quentin Beck, an M.I.T. graduate who’d once been a successful head developer in R&D at Stark Industries. Harley took every reference to Tony like a stab in the side; Tony’s face was everywhere, painted in every mural. All his classmates were obsessed with the arc reactor and the Stark tech, they all held Starkphones like once everyone had held Apples. Beck’s entire first class was essentially a spiel about what he learned at S.I., and Harley felt sick by the end of it.

Just as he was rushing out of the class, Quentin – all the tutors insisted being called by their first names – called him back. “I hear you’re the student to look out for,” he said easily, resting against the edge of his desk. “Tell me, where did your interest start?”

Harley had never been asked this question, but he had always thought he’d lie if he were. Instead, facing a man who’d also known and cared about Tony Stark, he said, “I’ve always liked building things, but I don’t think it was until I met Tony Stark myself that I really got invested.”

Quentin raised an eyebrow, surprised. “You’ve met Tony Stark?”

“It’s a little hard to believe,” he admitted, rubbing at the back of his neck, “but back in 2013—the Mandarin incident? With the President?—when Tony vanished after his house got bombed, he ended up in my hometown. Broke into my garage to hide out from the snow, and well—I dunno. I got to hang out with him for a few days.”

He thought he’d be scoffed at, honestly – it wasn’t a particularly believable story, though Harley had realised that was the case with a lot of truths – but instead, Quentin smiled, like he’d found someone similar to himself, a friend. They talked for a bit about Tony, and then after the next class, they talked again. They went to Quentin’s office and told stories about working with Tony and their experiences with Iron Man. Harley showed him the photos from when he was fifteen and visiting New York mere weeks before Ultron, when he and Tony worked on the code for his own helper bot and later went to a museum together.

It was—strange, honestly. Having someone to relate to about this stuff. Having someone who cared—about Harley, about Tony, about his legacy. Quentin was the only person who got it. Ariel had never met Tony, had been too young to really remember the events anyway, and Harley hadn’t wanted to bother anyone he’d met at the funeral; their connections to Tony far stronger than his could ever be. He hadn’t known the man like Colonel Rhodes had, like Pepper had – but he still grieved, still mourned, still wanted him back.

Talking to Quentin, then working with him on his project, was a little like that; like finding Tony in the world again.

So, one day, as they worked in the shop he said, “Tony left me a gift actually.”

Quentin paused and leant back on his stool, saying, “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. When he died. Some lawyer showed up at my door with it; said he’d left it in his will for me.”

“What was it, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Glasses,” Harley replied. “They’re—it’s an A.I., called E.D.I.T.H..” He shrugged. “I don’t know why he left them to me, honestly. He already gave me a whole workshop and a vintage Mustang. And we weren’t—we didn’t talk a whole lot, even before the snap. Couple times a year, I guess. I came up to New York like, twice, and he would email out of the blue to see if I wanted to test the new Starkphone…”

“What does the A.I. do?”

“What doesn’t it do?” Harley sighed. “I’m pretty sure it’s a borderline surveillance state A.I., I mean, if the government had it. It can see everything, I think. In the wrong hands… it could be catastrophic.”

“Are your hands the wrong hands?” Quentin asked.

Harley hesitated. “I hope not. Tony trusted me with it, so he must think… must think they’re right.”

“Well,” Quentin said, “I’d love to see them sometime. They sound incredible.”

That afternoon he returned to his room, where he knelt by the drawer he’d fixed a false bottom into, pulling out the E.D.I.T.H. glasses for the first time since he hid them away in September. He tried them on, and E.D.I.T.H. greeted him in the warm tone, information pouring out before him. He peered around his room slowly, and as the sight caught on his roommate’s laptop, their tablet, E.D.I.T.H. captured the data and sent it scrolling before his eyes.

“E.D.I.T.H.,” Harley said quietly.

“Yes, Harley?”

“Why did Tony leave you to me?”

“Tony Stark left gifts for all loved ones in case of his demise. He did not tell me the significance or reasoning behind his actions.”

Harley sighed and flopped backwards onto his bed. “What did other people get?”

“Virginia “Pepper” Potts and Morgan Stark received the majority of the wealth, assets and properties under the name Anthony Edward Stark. Virginia Potts was also left controlling ownership of Stark Industries. Colonel James Rhodes was bequeathed several vintage cars, a large sum of money, and several sentimental items. Harold Hogan was bequeathed the same. Should I go on?”

“Sure.”

“Mr. Stark left various moneys, cars, sentimental items and properties to individuals he worked with under the Avengers Initiative: Robert “Bruce” Banner, Natasha Romanoff, Steven Rogers, Clinton Barton and Thor Odinson. Other moneys were left to various organisations, foundations and charities supported by Mr Stark. He bequeathed myself and a college fund to you, Harley Keener, and a matching college fund and equipped workshop space in Queens, New York, New York, to Peter Parker. He left—”

“Stop,” Harley said.

Peter Parker had been the other kid at the funeral. The one with the internship with Tony. The one at the front of the dock, who’d cried beside his Aunt, who’d been introduced to Morgan for the first time mere minutes after Harley had.

“E.D.I.T.H.,” Harley said, “do you have the contact information for Peter Parker?”

“Of course, Harley.”

Peter’s phone number, email and address appeared before his eyes. His personal information scrolled beside it; seventeen, in his senior year, Midtown Tech High School. Harley thought about calling him; about saying Hi, we met at the funeral, want to be friends? About the bond he had with Quentin, the only person who understood what Harley was going through, even a little, and how he could have it again, with someone else. Someone who had worked beside Tony and looked up to him, just like Harley.

He was about to ask E.D.I.T.H. to call the number when his phone started ringing.

QUENTIN BECK CALLING his glasses read. He and Quentin had shared numbers because Harley’s college email was glitchy and Quentin had needed a way to contact him about class schedules and extra shop time.

“Hi, Quentin,” Harley said as he picked up.

“Harley! I’m glad I caught you. I was just thinking about those glasses Tony left you…”

It didn’t take much, really, for Quentin to persuade Harley to let him take a look at them. He was a friend, he was trusted – he, too, might be the right hands. Quentin and Harley talked for hours about them, trying them out and asking E.D.I.T.H. about her various functions. Harley had been right about how incredible they were, but he’d also been right about how much power they held for trouble. How far the wrong hands could take them; they were connected to satellites across the globe, had an enabled drone strike, and could send missiles to any given place on the planet. And Tony Stark had made this?

“They’re… truly something,” Quentin had said when the sky grew dark. Ariel was texting about dinner and Harley was packing up to leave. “Don’t… please don’t take this the wrong way, Harley—but do you think they’re too much responsibility for you to have?”

“Quentin, I—”

“I know you’re not a child, I know. You’re eighteen, you’re an adult – but these glasses,” he gestured to them on the table, shaking his head. “You could destroy the world with this, Harley. You could literally take it over. And that’s—that’s terrifying. It’s terrifying that Tony would’ve made something like this in the first place, and frankly, more so that he would leave them to someone else upon his death, rather than destroying them.”

“You think they should be destroyed?”

“I think these are simply another foray into weapon building,” Quentin sighed. “Though rather than selling it to the U.S. military, he’s privatised it and kept it for himself.”

“Then why did he give them to me?” Harley asked, nervous hands picking up the glasses. Quentin was right, of course, they were too much responsibility for him. He’d stuck them under the floorboards where they couldn’t be touched because of it. Left them in the drawer and pretended they didn’t exist. Practically ignored the one thing Tony had left for him.

He bet, bitterly, that Peter Parker wasn’t ignoring the gift Tony had left for him.

“I’m not sure, Harley. And this isn’t something I’m saying about you—rather, about him—but I don’t think it was the right decision.”

Harley swallowed, turning over the glasses in his hands. “You think I should get rid of them entirely?”

Quentin sighed, passing a hand over his forehead. “I’m not sure, Harley. I’m not. Perhaps they’ll save the world someday—but only in the hands of the right person.”

Harley bit hard into the inside of his lower lip. He wasn’t the right person. His hands weren’t the right hands. What had Tony been thinking, leaving a weapon this powerful to him? He was a kid from fuck-all nowhere Rose Hill, not a superhero. He was no Captain America, no Thor, no Iron Man.

“Quentin,” Harley said, his mind made up. “If I gave them to you, would you hide them somewhere?”

“What?”

“Hide them. Like you said, they might save the world someday—but that day’s not today, and they need to be somewhere where they can’t cause trouble until then. And if I’m not the right hands—then I shouldn’t know where they are.”

Quentin took the glasses in careful hands. “Are you sure, Harley?”

He nodded, resolute. “I’m sure.”

Quentin hesitated, turning the glasses over in his hands. “Perhaps you should—you should pass over the control to me, too. They only work for you, and if you don’t know where they are…”

Harley swallowed then shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll keep the control.”

“But, Harley—”

“No,” he repeated. “Maybe I’m not the right hands, but maybe you’re not either.”

“Harley—”

“If you were, Tony would’ve given them to you in the first place. I just need… I just need them hidden. Until I am the right hands, or until the world needs them. Whichever comes first, I guess.”

On the way home, he called Peter Parker and arranged to get coffee in some Queens café the next weekend. After dinner, he shot off an email to Pepper Potts, too, to see how she was doing and apologise for not reaching out for so long. Her response was prompt, and the weekend after, he was to meet her at her Manhattan apartment for dinner with her and Morgan.

He felt strange, that night, and the nights after it, going to bed without the glasses in the drawer beside his head, but it was for the best, he thought, not knowing where they were.

During class on Friday, Quentin seemed busy, side-tracked, and on Saturday, Harley met Peter, who was happier than the last time he’d seen him, and more than willing to share stories about Tony all afternoon, until it grew dark and the two of them went next door for a bite of pizza.

Classes all the next week were cancelled due to Quentin being sick, and he responded to Harley’s get well soon text positively, saying he was already on the mend. At dinner with Pepper and Morgan, Harley told her about college, about meeting Peter even. He didn’t mention Quentin or the glasses, and neither did she. Instead, they laughed at Morgan’s bad jokes and afterwards played a board game and let her win.

And then Quentin didn’t show for class the week after. Didn’t cancel it either, so Harley and his classmates sat around, confused and waiting, until they got bored and went home. Harley tried Quentin’s number and he didn’t pick up. The next day he did the same and the number was cancelled.

“This number no longer exists,” the voice at the end of the line said, and Harley shuddered to a halt in the middle of the packed corridor. People bumped into him from all sides and he squeezed his way over to the wall, the truth playing in front of his eyes on loud, flashing repeat.

Quentin Beck had hidden E.D.I.T.H. and then vanished. He’d taken E.D.I.T.H. He was in possession of the most powerful and dangerous A.I. since Ultron. And Harley had given it to him.

Harley called Pepper as he from campus, searching for a cab.

“Hi, Harley,” Pepper said, “I’m actually about to head into a meeting, so could I call you back—”

“No!” Harley cried, skidding to a stop on the pavement. “It’s important!”

“Is everything alright?”

“No, everything’s not alright! It’s E.D.I.T.H.!”

“Edith? Who’s Edith?”

“E.D.I.T.H.!” Harley repeated. “The A.I. Tony left me! I was kind of overwhelmed by the responsibility of it, and my teacher Quentin convinced me that I shouldn’t have it at all, so I asked him to put it somewhere until I could use it, and now he’s gone! He’s gone and he’s the only one who knows where E.D.I.T.H. is!”

Harley was panting out on the street, but Pepper’s voice was even, hard, “Harley,” she said, “did you hand over control of E.D.I.T.H. when you gave it to your teacher?”

“No,” Harley said. “I didn’t think I should, so it’s still under my control—”

“Alright. That’s very good of you, Harley. E.D.I.T.H. can only be used by the person who has control. Tony gave that control to you, and so long as you don’t ask E.D.I.T.H. to obey anyone else, control will remain with you. Now, can you tell me the name of your teacher?”

“Quentin. Quentin Beck.”

“Oh, fuck,” Pepper said, eloquently. “Amy, would you mind rescheduling my meetings? Harley, come to the apartment. We’ll call in some help and get this sorted.”

Harley grabbed his sister on the way, relaying the events and watching as she chose between a scoff that he could be so dumb, and a pitying smile. She chose the latter and the two of them climbed in a taxi, taking it to the Upper West Side, where Pepper lived when she was in the city. The elevator opened not on the penthouse floor like last time, though, but on the floor beneath, where Pepper stood by an array of computers and Happy paced around behind her.

On one of the screens was Quentin’s face, though a good few years younger, and a long list of information.

Pepper greeted them and then told them all about Quentin Beck, the man who became his college teacher. He had worked for Stark Industries, that much was true, and he had led the development of what eventually became B.A.R.F., an incredibly complex piece of technology that extracted memories and could replay them in 3D, just like Tony had displayed at M.I.T. in 2016. But Quentin hadn’t designed it for use as a billion dollar therapy tool; he’d seen it as a weapon, as a way to manufacture events, hallucinations. With B.A.R.F., the user could extract memories exactly as they were remembered, or exactly as they decided to remember them. It could be used for interrogation, for criminal cases – or it could be used for exonerations. And in other events, it could just as easily be taken advantage of; a guilty person misremembering a murder; a victim being forced to replay a traumatic memory again and again.

He was infuriated what Tony wanted to do with his technology, and had eventually been fired for it too. He was off the deep end, Pepper said, a little crazed and dangerous. His reference had been anything but glowing, and yet he’d still managed to doctor the facts and land himself a role at Columbia during the five years between snaps. He still managed to end up as Harley’s teacher – though, it seemed, by coincidence. One Quentin took advantage of as soon as he discovered how close Tony and Harley had been, and who owned the large fund that was paying Harley’s tuition.

After Pepper told her story, Harley told his – about how dangerous E.D.I.T.H. truly is, about the responsibility of a world killer that he could wear like a pair of smart glasses. Quentin had been right, as awful as it was; Harley wasn’t ready for them, wasn’t prepared to own something like that, and in the wrong hands…

“Why do you think Tony gave them to you?” Pepper asked softly, hers hands on his arms.

“I don’t know!” Harley complained. “I don’t know why he gave them to me—”

“He gave them to you because you are the right hands,” she said. “Because you are responsible. And yes, they’re a weight to carry, and they can be scary—hell knows I feel that pressure with F.R.I.D.A.Y. standing over me at all times, knowing what she can do if I asked—but he wouldn’t have handed them down to you if he thought you couldn’t handle it. And maybe… maybe you can’t yet. Maybe you do need to grow into them, but E.D.I.T.H. is yours, and will be for as long as you want it.”

“But it can do so many bad things.”

“And it can do so many good ones, too,” she replied. “Tony was a futurist. He saw the way forward and brought it to the present. He could see the value of A.I.; of a being that learned and grew and changed, but wasn’t human. They can do a lot of bad, if you ask it to – and they’re installed with safeguards for that exact reason – but they can do a lot of good. F.R.I.D.A.Y. is a personal assistant and security system as much as she can be used as a weapon. She can keep an eye on Morgan, can deploy security measures if someone breaks in, can keep an eye on body temperatures, on health and how hydrated we are. She’s a friend as much as she’s technology. If she sees dips in mood, she can work to relieve it; when Tony was struggling after the first snap, she was also the one that alerted me, so I could help. And maybe—maybe they’re small things, compared with missiles in the sky and drone strikes, but they’re also good things.”

She sighed, smiling. “It’s like being a good person or a bad person, Harley. Just because you think bad thoughts, doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It’s what you do that counts. We all have the potential for chaos, for hurt and harm – we have to choose not to act on it. In the same way, with A.I.s in our hands, we have to continuously choose to use them for good, not evil.”

Harley felt his chest loosen a little, where it had tightened and knotted up. Maybe Pepper was right.

“But E.D.I.T.H. isn’t in my hands,” he said. “I lost her!”

“Anything lost can also be found,” she said easily, turning to the monitors. “I have F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” she said, “and I am using her for good by locating Quentin Beck using New York’s CCTV cameras and S.I.’s advanced facial recognition software—not for sale, distribution or government use,” she added, with a smile. “I could go out there myself, too, but I figured there was someone closer by.” Pepper pressed a button on the dash. “How’s it going Spidey?”

“Hey, Pepper!” a voice responded; the cheery, upbeat tone of Spiderman. “I’m actually just watching him through the window of his buddy’s apartment. They’ve been trying to hack into the glasses since way before I got here and its fun seeing them stressed. They haven’t even noticed I’m here.”

“Spidey,” Pepper sighed, “would you mind getting the glasses back sooner rather than later? And finding out who the buddy is?”

“Oh, KAREN’s already figured that out. Ex-S.I. employee. Guess they all have it out for Mr. Stark, huh?”

The image of a balding man appeared on one screen, clearly taken through the bedroom window. His name popped up next to it, with his details.

“Guess so,” Pepper replied.

It was less than an hour later that Spiderman vaulted through the window of the lab, glasses in hand.

“Oh, pizza?” he said, looking at the boxes Happy had ordered to keep himself busy. “Save any for me?”

Pepper tapped her hand on a closed box. “Pepperoni. Just for you.”

“Oh, you’re the best,” he said, passing Harley on the way to the box and handing back the glasses as he went. “For you,” he added along the way.

Harley eyed the glasses in his hands; they were very Tony, just like the ones he used to wear. He wasn’t ready for them, really. Not yet. But someday, he might be – someday, he might be able to use E.D.I.T.H.’s reach and power for good. Might be able to use her to build good things that help people, to change the world just as Tony had done.

Harley said, “Thanks, Peter,” and grinned as Spiderman, Pepper and Happy froze.

Then Spiderman whined, “How did you know? I didn’t even tell you! I swear, Pepper, I said nothing,” and Harley laughed, waving the glasses around.

“E.D.I.T.H. knows everything,” he said, remembering all the details that appeared when he asked the glasses for Peter’s phone number, “from your class schedule to your secret identity.”

Peter pulled off the mask and Ariel sniggered into her pizza as he did so. He looked so put out. “No telling,” he said, slumping onto a free chair. “I can’t believe everyone I come into contact with figures out my secret identity.”

“It’s probably because you take off the mask every time you want to talk to someone or look dramatically into the middle distance,” Happy replied, with his mouth full.

They all laughed, and Harley grinned, placing the glasses carefully on the table.

Not yet, he thought, but maybe someday.

[popculturebuffet]

Jake Reviews Stuff: Steven Universe: The Answer

Happy pride everyone and naturally, it just wouldn’t feel like a celebration of pride in animation without one of the frontrunners of LBGTQ represintation in Children’s television, as well as quality in storytelling in general: Steven Universe.  Since your seeing this you probably know the gist but as my idol peter parker would say let’s do this one last time:  The story of Steven, a 14 year old, though he dosen’t look it, boy with a boundless amount of love, compassion and empathy,  lives in beach city with his borderline homeless dad , surrogate moms and surrogate until we find out they actually are kinda related sister: Garnet, a fusion of two gems in love and thus the sum total of both them and their feelings, Peal, an emotional but loving gem who grew from a servant to Rose’s right hand, sometimes lover, and confidant, and Amythest, a gem born long after the war that brought everyone else here who acts like a 20 something or teenager half the time. Steven soon finds himself fighting alongside themt o protect earth both from the monsters caused by the final battle of the war his mother fought to save earth from distruction and let her army live life how they choose, and the gem homeworld as it starts to take an intrest in earth again. And as the fight goes on Steven also starts to see just how flawed his family is and how much they haven’t moved on from his moms death and finds himself forced to help them past it while grappling with his mom’s terrible and complicated legacy, everyone expecitng him to basically be her, and what it means to be a  being that’s truly one of a kind.  I absolutley love the show: it’s not without flaws; Characters tend to be ingnored for seasons or episodes at a time,some arcs are really weirdly paced and the slice of life episodes can be jammed in the weirdest places. But the show’s strength: a devotion to having emotional resolution be even more important, and sometimes just as powerful animated and framed, than fighting, though the show’s fight scene’s are incredible, incredibly deep characters with fully fleshed out arcs and growth, and a love for tackling deep, heavy subjects through metaphor or even directly, taking on things such as gender identity, societal conformity, ptsd, grief, gender identity and many many more with grace and weight and helping kids with them in the process.  The show is also the frontrunner for LBGTQ+ representation in cartoons in the 2010′s. While other shows had bits nad pieces, series creator Rebecca Sugar was the one responsible for making Marcline and Princess Bubblegum ex-lovers and making it obvious as possible without saying it because standards were bullshit, Steven Unvierse decided to say fuck subtley and thus had PLENTY OF gay content: Garnet is a fusion of two women and the embodiment of their love and relationship, and when the two show up their very affectionate with one another to the point of bullcrap censorship in less tolerant countries such as india and russia, while Pearl out and out had a CENTURIES LONG romantic relationship with Steven’s mother who was explictly pansexual, and that’s just the main cast!  But I genuinely believe that it’s thanks to Steven Universe that children’s animation is as LBGTQ+ positive as it is now. SU wasn’t the first to have gay leads but it was one of the few kids shows with the balls and, at least in the us, network support to explictily have gay characters as some of the main cast, and I feel the show’s success softend execs at CN and other companies to let more representation too. Since SU”s airing, most CN shows have had gay content great and small, Nick has had gay parents and a bisexual lead, not to mention the korra ending kicking it all off, and Netflix has said hold my beer, having not only multiple gay main characters, but having the finale of she ra be built on a decleration of love between two women saving the universe and being the climax of the entire series.  Not that those crews likely still didn’t have to FIGHT for most of that, i’m not bilind and NOelle Stevenson has outright admitted she had to be sneaky about catradora for season 1 as to not get it shut down, but I feel SU”s sucess and Rebecca and crew’s own likely fights put the various studio goon’s reflector shields down and got more representation into children’s media. And that’s a wonderful thing.  So naturally the show was a lock for this month and for coverage here.. i’ts just given the show’s heavily seralized nature and the fact it dosen’t really have any long romantic story arcs. Sure ther’es plenty of romance, but it’s mostly either in the past or between an already married couple that’s also a person. The show’s arcs were more focused on worldbuilding and character building, which I do prefer and will be doing one in July.  But it did make it tricky to find an episode to spotlight the character I wanted to spotlight: Garnet Garnet is easily my faviorite character, with pearl a very close second: she has a great dynamic, is a decent if flawed mother and leader, and is also damn funny with her deadpanned reactions to things being utterly divine. As well as whatever the hell this is. 

The problem is I also wanted to spotlight the parts making up her: Ruby and Sapphire, their relationship etc as they themselves are fantastic and i’m 100% convinced were the inspriation for one mr mc skat kat and one paula abdul’s magnum opus in steven’s unvierse

The problem is most rupphire episodes are tangled in bigger arcs. They debuted at the end of the invasion arc, they had the baseball episdoe together shortly after another arc, and their wedding is tied up in the reveal rose was pink diamond and the reception is crashed by the climactic battle with Yellow and Blue that sets up the final arc of the whole series. But thankfully season two gave us The Answer to my problem.. ironically named the Answer, basically Garnet Year One as Garnet tells steven how she came to be, a story so beauitful they made a storybook out of it.. and it’s my honor to present it here after the cut. 

We open at the Barn... as a refresher at this point the Gems and Steven have been staying at Greg’s old family farm in order to have the  space and suplies to build a drill to stop the cluster from hatching and destroying earth, with Peridot reluctantly working with them. So as such Steven’s sleeping there when Garnet wakes her.. and in a notable departure for her it’s san’s shade, which shows her adorable excitment as she wakes Steven. Turns out it’s his birthday! And.. I don’t really begrudge the show for takin ga break for two episodes to celebrate it: besides being the only time steven went up a year, on screen, it was a nice break from the peridot/cluster storyline for a second, and this and the following episode are pretty great and both add a lot to the world as a whole. It’s why i don’t MIND when SU takes a break from the plot, as long as they do it for good reason. 

IN a great callback steven asks if garent’s going to tell him she’s a fusion, as Jailbreak revealed the reason she hadn’t yet is she was saving it for his birthday, which is a good joke and a great callback. Garnet cheerfully tells him know but has clearly found a backup: While steven knows she’s a fusion now.. she never told him how she came to be and how ruby and sapphire met after all.  So we journey back about 5000 years to, as we’d learn much later with the pink diamond reveal, the start of the gem war. Earth was to be the next great colony, as we’d learn next season for pink diamond, but something was in the way: The rebel rose quartz and her brutal right hand pearl were causing tons of distruption, so the rest of the diamonds had come to snuff out the rebellion personally.  So that’s where Ruby and Sapphire came in. Sapphire is a higher class gem, and befiting her caste is a precog, with Sapphires brought in to tell the diamonds the future so they can either make sure it happens or change it’s course. Garnet neaturally has this ablility too but vastly improved to see multiple timelines. She’s proper and distant.  Ruby meanwhile is a shy, if more intellgent then her peers grunt soldier. Rubies as we learned here are basically made in groups to fuse. To homeworld, Fusion is simply a tactic to create a slightly stronger gem out of three other gems, and basically creates one giant person. In Contrast up to this point the series has shown fusion as something important to the crystal gems and requriing more work: It requires all parties to be in sync to even happen much less stay together, and requires an emotional connection; Freindship, romance, kinship... whatever it is it’s needed to hold the fusion together. It’s part of what MAKES garnet so impressive: Garnet is a permafusion, only unfusing either when her two halves are needed. or when thier personal conflict is so great they CAN’T stay fused. It also means due to said emotional resonance and combining the best traits of two gems rather than creating just one big gem, that the crystal fusions we’ve seen are vastly more powerful and versitale.. evne if they dont’ speak much because Rebecca made the mistake of getting big artist to do the role and apparently refused to just you know.. recast? It’s something that always baffled me. There’s no shortage of talented poc performers who can sing out there.  Anyways, that’s part of what makes this intresting: up till now, we’d only seen one form of fusion.. we hadn’t seen what homeworld thought of it and used it for, and to the show’s credit it was hinted back during the return arc when Jasper called fusion a “tactic for making weak gems stronger”, since as far as homeworld used it, that’s what it was and it’s a stark contrast to the crystal gems harder to maintain but much more intresting and unique fusions. 

We’ll get more into this later. The two front rubies argue about whose going to punch people whie our ruby just points out the obvious: Their just going to fuse into a really big ruby and punch together. This gets her shoved into sapphire, which despite not being her fault gets gasps and monocle pops from the gems around them. And it’s about time I dug into the episodes unique animation style: instead of the usual, only a handful of characters, the rubies, sapphire, and later rose and pearl, are animated normally and even then, at least for the first half, are brightly lit in their primary colors, while the rest of the gems present are just barely animated sytlistic shadows. It’s a really intresting choice and a clever way to save on budget, while still looking gorgeous. 

Sapphire, while refusing Ruby’s help getting up, is understanding if monotone, but as w’eve seen in the present, tha’ts mostly just a side effect from seeing where everything’s going, and likely the reason garnet’s own emotional process is much like that; Stoic but willing to emote when necessary. Sapphire however has a reason for brushing her ruby off: the reason she was called here.. Blue Diamond.  This is intresting as it’s not only the first time we HEARD of blue, as before this we only heard of Yellow, who’d make her proper debut at the end of this season, but the first time we saw a diamond in any way shape of form. Sure we had murals and such, but given the lack of info about the diamonds this early on it was impossible to tell whow as who and the only giveway there was more than was diamond was the symbols: the era 1 symbols in temples and at the arena showing all 4, hinting at pink, and the modern one shown in jailbreak that was a triforce. We do only see Blue in a hood, covered by her palquin and her voice done by Garnet, but it’s still the first tiem we’d see any of the diamonds in any onscreen form. The Garnet voice is also notcable as every other voice in the flashabck, including characters who aren’t either part of garnet or the same gem type as part of her, is normal.. it’s only blue Garnet does a voice for.. and a clever way of covering for the fact they likely hadn’t cast her voice actress yet. It’s also notable for the introduction of Blue Pearl, who silently stands by her Diamond teh whole time.. it’s weird thinking back to the fact that this was the first time we’d really SEEN other versions of our main cast: other rubies and another pearl. Sure we knew they were all part of one type or another with the obvious exception of garnet.. but this episode is notable, and weird to think about giiven how many variants we see as the series goes on, for being the FIRST time we see this on screen. 

Sapphire reveals that while she, and two of her rubies, will poof the rebllion will end here, and Blue is releaved to here this, thanks sapphire and dismisses her. As Garnet explains, Sapphire had no issue with this as she simply saw her life as one straight line: No choice no, option: Fate would just come as it may. Sapphire also muses to Our Ruby on the fact that she finds this planet a wonderful place for a colony.. and that she wishes she could’ve seen more of it. While Our Ruby says theirs more time, Sapphire, while appricating the sentiment gently shoots it down.  This little moment is interuptted however as Rose shouts out, signaling her and Pearl’s arrival. The battle has begun. And I do like the clever use of storytelling here.. not in presetnation but in what we’d learn muchhhh later with the big reveal: To a first time watcher, we just thought that it was only rose and pearl for story purposes or it was a small attack. After all the rest of the characters we’d seen were just shadows, so I, and I presume many others just assumed the rest were off screen or failing that this was just a small strike. As we’d learn once we got the full story of Pink Diamond becoming rose.. it was indeed JUST them, and only them at the time. it’s probably why in the future sapphire saw the rebellion ended her: Pink while powerful had to reign it in as not to be found out and pearl, while as we see her is already utterly badass and an ace with a sword as she mows down Quartz soldiers, is still one gem going up against a literal army.  Another noticable thing, that hints at when this takes place is the fact that when Rose takes down the fused rubies, poofing two of them and leaving ours to flump to the ground.. she uses her fists. At this point her iconic sword is well established and it’s assumed it was just left out for artistic purpose.. but since we meet who made it next season with Bismuth, it’s another clever hint this is before there was a proper army. Bismuth wasn’t a gem yet so Rose/Pink just had her natural strength and shield to protect her, which wasn’t nothing, but the sword probably made it far easier to hold back. 

And thus we come to the moment of truth: Pearl has come back and is about to mow down sapphire.. when Ruby realizes just waht Sapphire meant and waht she’s about to do and thus.. the future changed. Ruby tackles her out of the way. And Garnet is born. 

I absolutley love Garnet’s cotton candy design, both as a sensible evolution, as this is a garnet formed in a moment of passion and accidently versus the one we see in the present or even in flashbacks: a person formed by choice and love and thus having a more stable form. Naturally, Rose and Pearl are baffled by this.. and it’s even more understandable.. as the above mentioned pink diamond origin episode explained.. they had never SEEN this kind of fusion before. While i’m sure this isn’t the first time this happend in gem history, any others were likely killed as soon as it were over or went into hiding as we saw with the off colors. And Pink being sheltered and Pearl being created for her, probalby simply never thought of something like this existing. But they also realize this never before seen to them miracle is their cue to skidoo and book it out of there.  Naturally Blue is pissed and the court are disgusted as the two defuse and both have about the same reacation. 

Before Blue can murder Ruby for you know, doing her fucking job, Sapphire ttakes her by the hand and books it off the sky arena and the two plummet to earth  while ruby screams no a lot. The foundation of any good relationship. 

They float down to earth.. because she’s Mary Poppins Ya’ll. Ruby reveals why she’s upset: Because as she sees it, there’s dozens of her. She’s not WORTH this. Sapphire has no reaction because for the first time, she has no idea what the future brings, what it means and the future she saw was just shattered. She’s frozen. 

Jokes aside I really love that pun. Ruby worries and quickly scoops her up bridal carry style and quickly finds the two a cave. In the cave the two light that flame get that and Ruby continues to freak out over what happened,  upset with her self that she’s supposed to save sapphire.. with Sapphire gently reassuring her “you already did.”  It’s also intresting as it shows even garnet, or at least half of her, had to go through what peridot did.. it went down a bit easier since exile happened right away, but Ruby still had to shake off the homeworld conceived notion that she was WRONG for saving sapphire simply because it lost them the fight and got them fused and all that. It’s also a nice metaphor for someone whose been told, for a nightmarish rainbow assortment of bullshit resaons, that being gay is wrong only to discover they are and having to realize there’s nothing wrong with who they are. 

After a breif flash the two finally talk about their fusion, with Sapphire being suprised considering she figured fusion wasn’t anything like they experinced.. only for Ruby to chime in that sh’es RIGHT: Their fusion wasn’t anything like Ruby’s normal “me but bigger’ fusion.. they lost htemselves.. and both clearly enjoyed it, expressing it through having a third eye for ruby and more than one for sapphi 

We then get the utterly adorable musical number: “Something Entirely New���Which takes the so far mildly subtle “This is like two people who had sex with the oppsite gender for the first time “ metaphor.. and just makes it texual as the song basically screams of two people talking over an unfamiliar sexual experince, but in a cute, well done, and intentionally awkward way that’s still approraite for the kids. it’s a real beautiful song and also shows the burgoning couple bond on earth. This is important as a previous episode had garent and out and out say that love takes time and work, accurate and that love at first sight simply dosen’t exist.. and we also see she practices waht she preaches as the montage does show some time past and even before that the two genuiely bonded. Sure they FUSED on the spur of the moment.. but actually loving each other took time and bonding. 

As the song ends, the two dance romantically,deciding to be Garnet for good as we get some nice callbacks to jailbreak: the two hum the tune to stronger than you, now revealed to be their song and spin similarilty to the way they have when they’ve fused, a nice callback that also add’s weight to those previous moments.. and thus two become one and Garnet is reborn. 

Garnet narrates as her past self gets used to her strange new form.. and just as she does she falls down a ditch. Eh could’ve been worse. 

Garnet finds herself face to sword with Pearl. Pearl backs off a bit once she realizes who their dealing with, and Garnet panickedly offers to unfuse.. only for Rose to enter. Garnet narrates them as Rose Quartz and her terrifying renegade pearl. 

Truly a force to be reckoned with. Rose dosen’t care about her own feelings though “What you feel is bound to be more intresting” It’s a good moment both because Garnet , up to this point hasn’t had to think about what they are or how they feel.. but more notably... no one but the two gems makingthem up ever cared, not before they were garnet and after all the homeworld gems wanted was to kill her. We also get a great line from garnet: “Why am I sure that i’d rather be this than anything else and that i’d rather do this than anything else i’m supposed to do? “  Rose’s response.. to give a giant grin while saying welcome to earth. As Garnet continues to question things, Rose tells her to never question this, never question what you are... which is a damn good message for a kids show to give out. The metaphor is crystal clear: no matter where you are on that beautiful lbgtq+ rainbow: NEVER be ashamed of who you are, never question it.. just enjoy it. Be who your meant to be and love that person. It’s a damn good message and one badly needed in a medium that for way too fucking long was SCARED to tell messages like this: Of sponsors, of foreign markets, and of idiots like one million moms. it took people like rebecca and her crew to say “fuck that”, to say that queer kids NEED these kinds of stories to know they aren’t alone, they are beautiful how they are. They shoudln’t have to wait to find out what they are.. is okay. And that’s beautiful. 

As Rose Tells Garnet that she is the answer, and as we cut back to the present, Steven asks what the answer is. Garnet simply answers: Love. And we close on one great exchange Steven: I knew it Garnet; (wistfully) So did I. 

Final Thoughts: While I remembered the episode being good, hence part of the reason I choose it I forgot just HOW great this episode was, especially post reveal. The art direction is goregous, shot like a fairy tail and rightfully so since this episode is told as one, the story is heartwarming and erica and charlene really act their hearts out as ruby and sapphire while Estelle kills it as both present garnet narrating and past garnet, a garnet ENTIRELY diffrent from what we’ve seen but acted beautifully. It’s espcially noticable since unlike the other two lead gems, we obviously wouldn’t see more garnets like we would amythests and pearls, so unlike her contepraries estelle really didn’t get to flex her vocal range as much playing alternate versions as the seasons went on, with this being the closest she got.  The episode is beautiful, has a wonderful message, and is just utterly charming and is agian why I DON’T mind that every su episode dosen’t advance the plot: Sometimes it dosen’t need to. And even so this one ended up being WAY more important than I remembered, introducing blue diamond and turning out to be MASSIVELY important once the reveal kicked it: For it was Garnet, and the love dthat forged her that changed Pink’s direction. Before the rebellion was simply a way to stop the occupation of earth and would’ve been snuffed out if not for ruby’s actions.. but seeing garnet, seeing how earth and being free from homeworld’s restraints could positvely impact someone.. it changed rose. Besides bringing her and Pearl together, it also made her realize just what her rebellion could bring to people and what a gem could be and even more how precious her future home was. By forming in an act of Love, garnet changed the entire future of gemkind. By staying that way she did so once more. And that’s beautifully. overall an underated, even by me, little masterwork with once again a damn fine message.  We’ll get back to SU soon enough, as I plan to cover the series first full arc as we meet peridot, and see into the souls of our heroines. But first Pride isn’t over yet, and I have one last card on the table as we todd it up a bit with my first look at bojack horseman. Like this if you enjoyed it, comments subscirbe etc etc and don’t be afraid to comission a review for 3 bucks, and until we meet agian, later days. 

[thatmultifandomhoe]

Strawberry Cream and BBQ - 16

Pairing: Hybrid Hoseok and Human Reader

Overview: Your best friend knows she can count on you for anything, so when she asks you to watch her hybrid while she’s gone for a study abroad trip for four months, you can’t say no. But when these four months are over, things have changed in a way no one expected.

Word Count: 3,069

Genre: Hybrid AU, Fluff, Future smut, Angst, Best friends to Lovers

Warning: Angst, just a little time skip

Master List

Sneak Peak - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15 - Part 16 - Part 17 - Part 18 - Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21 - Part 22 - Part 23 - Part 24 - Part 25 (Final) - Move in Day: A SC&BBQ Drabble

©thatmultifandomhoe Do not repost, translate, or use my stories without permission.

You were humming along to a song that was playing on the radio, a stack of books in your arms as you organized them on the shelves. It was nearing closing time, and with the cold weather and shorter days, no one was rushing in to buy a book at the last minute. Which meant the last half hour was devoted to peace and quiet. It had actually been busy this afternoon. Not that you were complaining, but it was nice to wind down and relax at the end of the work day.

It had been a week since that beautiful morning. Even just thinking about it had you blushing. Hoseok had almost made you late for work that day, but you made it to your shift with minutes to spare. You still weren’t entirely sure who had been trying to reach him.

The silence was broken by the ringing of a phone, stealing your attention. It wasn’t the shop’s phone, but yours. Wind chimes filled the room. Still holding the books against your chest, you swiped the green button as you brought the phone up to your ear.

“Hey Sue,” you cheerfully greeted. “How’s Hong Kong?”

“Wow, you’re actually answering your phone. I was starting to wonder if you had forgotten how to use it.”

The smile you had slowly slipped away. You didn’t consider yourself an overly sensitive person, but right then and there it felt like Sue sucker punched your feelings. It had been so long since you’ve heard your best friend’s voice that you were expecting a happier greeting. “You just called.” You spoke, glancing at the door to make sure no one came in. “Is something wrong?”

Sue sighed on her end. “No, well…yes. But that’s not the point.”

You frowned. What was going through her mind? “It seems like it is.” Making your way back to the bookcase, you sat down on the floor to work on the lower shelves. “You can tell me anything Sue. You know that.”

“I know,” Sue agreed. You couldn’t see her, but you had a feeling she was chewing on her lip like always. “Katie sent me a text the other day.”

“Yes, Katie is known to text people.”

“She said that she’s been seeing Colin hanging out with someone else. Another girl.”

The witty comment that you were prepared died on your tongue, obviously no longer appropriate to say. “Oh my God.” You said instead. As much as you hated Colin, Sue loved him. You didn’t want to see her hurt.

She laughed. “Yeah. And you know what, I thought she was lying. So she sent me a picture that she took.”

“Oh no…”

“Colin was kissing some girl on campus. I can’t even go confront him about because guess what, I’m on the other side of the world while he’s hooking up with some other girl. Apparently, he’s been with her since I left.”

“I’m sorry Sue.” You murmured. The task that you been focusing on was long forgotten. This reminded you of all the times that you had called her after having your heart broken. If she was still here, you’d close up early and head on over to her place to comfort her. But the distance was too large this time.

“I tried calling you,” Sue suddenly said, her voice bitter. “When I first found out that he’s been cheating on me. I called you and then Hoseok. But neither of you answered back.”

You had been holding a book when she mentioned Hoseok’s name; your wrist slackened and it took everything to not let it drop to the ground. “When…when was that?” Licking your lips, you hoped that it wasn’t when you were thinking.

“About a week ago. Would have been morning for you.”

Squeezing your eyes shut, you tried to find some explanation. You couldn’t just outright tell her what went on that morning. To do that would mean having to tell her about your feelings for Hoseok.

On one hand, you wanted to tell her everything. How it felt to be in his arms, the way his kisses made your head spin and cleared your mind at the same time. As your best friend, you couldn’t help but want to spill every detail.

But on the other hand, it felt weird to be telling Sue that. She was Hoseok’s owner and, if you were being honest, things have been odd between the two of you. Since she’s been gone, every text has been strange, if not borderline rude in Hoseok’s case, and extremely short. At times it felt like she was treating you as a babysitter and not her best friend.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” you said, fumbling over your words. “I don’t remember what we were doing. But if I had known you were calling, I would have answered.”

Sue was quiet, and for a second you thought you were caught red handed. That somehow, she knew that Hoseok and you were now together. Automatically your hand reached for your neck. Hoseok hadn’t marked you yet, but that didn’t stop him from kissing and licking the area whenever he had the chance.

“How is Hoseok?” She asked instead.

You sighed in relief. “He’s really good. He’s been putting in a lot of extra hours at the Dance Studio.” You weren’t mentioning his solo dance in the show for the sake of it being his surprise. He should be the one to tell Sue, not you. “We went out for Korean BBQ recently, and he’s been helping me study for an exam I have coming up.”

“He hasn’t been annoying you?”

You bit your lip at that comment. Standing, you left the books where they were and went to the desk, leaning against the wood. The way she worded her question, it felt wrong and left you feeling uncomfortable. “Never.” You automatically answered. Hoseok has never annoyed been annoying. Not in the three years you’ve known each other, or now. “He’s amazing.”

 Outside, Hoseok, Namjoon, and Yoongi were making their way towards the bookstore. Their laughter filling the empty streets. Ever since that morning, Hoseok’s made it his job of meeting you at the store when you had to close up. The idea of you being there alone never settled well with him before, and now that the two of you were together, it made him worry. The Dance Studio wasn’t that far from the bookstore, if anything, it was just a ten-minute walk.

“I can’t believe you’ve only just realized that she’s your mate.” Yoongi teased. “Any one of us could have told you that.”

Hoseok rolled his eyes, hefting his gym bag higher up on his shoulder. “You’re just jealous that I found my mate. You and the others still have to find yours.”

“Hey, I have Katie, mind you,” Namjoon reminded them.

Yoongi just ignored that, sticking his hands in his coat pockets. It was still winter and as a house cat hybrid, Yoongi would much rather be stretched out in the sun than walking in the cold. “I’ll find my mate one day. Until then, I’ll keep producing music and sleeping.”

“At least he has a plan,” Hoseok joked, making them laugh once again.

They were almost at the bookstore, the lights inside making it easy to spot you from the dark street. His smile softened as he watched you, books stacked on the desk, your gaze focused on a green book on top of the stack. If the three of them really focused on the phone call that you were obviously taking, they might be able to hear both sides of the conversation.

“She looks upset,” Yoongi murmured. Hoseok frowned as he glanced at Yoongi, noticing the way his eyebrows pulled together in confusion.

Looking back at you, he noticed the way you kept touching your hair, whether it was just twirling some of it or even running your fingers through it. And if it wasn’t your hair, then it was your face, or your neck. He knew you well enough to know that those were your go to habits when you were nervous.

“When was the last time you talked to Sue?” Yoongi suddenly asked. Reaching the store, Yoongi came to stop, forcing the others to stay with him. Which was odd, since they all knew that he hated the cold. “Are you even going to tell her?”

The question threw Hoseok off. He didn’t even know how to answer Yoongi. After you had left for work, he had turned his phone back on, prepared to send a shit ton of angry messages if it was one of the guys that had spammed him. The only person that he’d expect to do that was, Seokjin. So, for it to be Sue completely shocked him.

He never told you who it was, hoping that you would forget about it. The texts that she had left were unlike anything. Sue was angry with him, almost borderline pissed, wanting to know where he was, and demanding that he pick up and call her back. It was almost like she had switched personalities with Colin. Then when he did call – thinking that she was hurt or in danger – her phone rang and rang until she finally picked before he was sent to voicemail.

The conversation only lasted a few minutes, he apologized and blamed it on work, but it was obvious that she didn’t believe him. He still wasn’t entirely sure why she had spammed called him. For the rest of the day he was worried, trying to come up with some reason that could explain it. He felt terrible, and even though she gave him so much independence, there was still a part of him that was scared she’d give him up. That he would have to live at the homeless center again.

The only thing that reassured him, that got him to smile, was when came home that night. You were like a breath of fresh air in spring. Even if Sue did make him leave, he still had you. You would never let him live like that again.

“A week ago,” Hoseok finally answered. “And I…I don’t know. I mean, we can still date when I go back to Sue’s. But I have no idea how she’ll react to Strawberry being my mate. They’re best friends. Then there’s the fact that Sue’s my owner.” He ran a hand through his hair. It was complicated to say the least.

Namjoon, who had been quiet up until then, nudged a snow clump out his way with his foot. His hat was pulled down on his head as his scarf wrapped around his neck multiple times. “At least you can marry her one day.”

A hushed silence fell over the three of them, suddenly remembering the laws. You weren’t his owner, so he could marry you one day. Namjoon on the other hand, would never be able to. Katie was his owner and mate. And the law clearly stated that a hybrid and their owner weren’t allowed to marry to each other.

Guilt washed over Hoseok. “Namjoon I…I’m so sorry,” he softly said. “I forgot about the laws. I didn’t mean to –”

“It’s okay.” Namjoon interrupted. Looking behind him, he lifted his hand in a wave before turning to face his friends again. Despite the quick smile he gave them, his brown eyes resembled an ocean. “Really, we’ve accepted it. Can you tell her I said hi? I think I’m gonna head home, be with Katie where it’s warm.”

Hoseok opened his mouth to apologize and say he didn’t have to leave, but Namjoon had already turned around and was making his way home, shoulders slouched and hands buried in his pockets to fight off the cold.

A hand touched his back, and Hoseok turned to look at Yoongi. The older hybrid gave him a small smile. “Don’t worry about it. It’s these fucked up laws fault, not yours. I’m gonna walk with him though and make sure he gets home safe. I’ll see you around.”

“See you around.” Yoongi gave Hoseok a hug before breaking out into a jog to catch up with Namjoon, calling out his name so he would slow down.

He took in a deep breath, his hand gripping the strap of his bag tighter. This night had gone from amazing to crappy all in minutes. He didn’t mean to make it sound like he was complaining, especially when Namjoon wasn’t able to marry Katie. But he really had no idea what he was going to do about Sue.

Whimpering in frustration, he kicked the chunk of ice that sat in the middle of the sidewalk. Nothing about it was fair. Not knowing what else to do, he walked up the few steps leading to the bookstore and went inside, the Christmas bells jingling above him. It was almost time for you to lock up and usually, you were all smiles. This time however, you leaned against the desk with your back facing him, cellphone on the table. As he walked around to where you stood, he saw that you had your face buried in your hands.

The screen on your phone was still lit up and when he saw Sue’s contact picture, he closed his eyes and sighed. It seemed like neither of you were getting a break about this. “I don’t know what you and Sue were talking about, but it’s going to be okay.”

You nodded, feeling Hoseok’s arms wrap around your waist. He eliminated the short space between the two of you, hugging you tightly to him. But apparently, it wasn’t close enough. Without even giving a warning, he lifted you up on the desk, fitting himself between your legs so he was able to look at you.

“Sue broke up with Colin,” you softly spoke.

“What?” Hoseok asked. His eyes scanned yours in disbelief. Had Sue, really broken up with Colin? They’ve been dating for three years, and as much as he cared for Sue, he couldn’t say that he’d missed the bastard.

“Yeah. Katie sent Sue a message, apparently Colin has been cheating on her since she left for Hong Kong.” You paused to lick you lips, reaching a hand out to push the hair out of the Hoseok’s eyes. “She found out a week ago. And called us. Morning our time.”

His throat felt like it was closing up, enabling him from speaking. That was why she had spammed called him. She was hurt. Pressing his lips together, Hoseok pressed his forehead against your neck, inhaling your scent deeply to try and calm down.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was her?” You whispered, bringing him close by wrapping your legs around his waist while being mindful of his tail.

“I didn’t want to worry you,” he spoke. “She was so mad when I didn’t answer.”

You listened as he explained it all, bringing your arms across his shoulders to hug him. “I think she was mad at me too. Or at least, that’s the impression I got.” Leaning your head on top of his, you let your mind wander back to the phone call. Sue was mad because of what Colin had done, that was understandable, but it wasn’t fair of her to take it out on Hobi.

Earlier, the thought of telling Sue made you uncomfortable. Now…now it seemed downright dangerous. “Maybe…maybe we should wait to tell her. About us. At least until she’s calmed down.”

There was only so much that you knew about the laws that didn’t work in the favor for hybrids. You knew that they couldn’t marry their owners, but you didn’t understand what happened when a hybrid mated with a human, who wasn’t their owner.

To your surprise, Hoseok leaned back, rubbing his eyes. “I agree. If we tell her now, it’ll probably feel like we’re rubbing salt in the wound. Even though that’s not what we’re doing.” He sniffed then leaned forward, gently kissing you. His lips were a little dry from the cold air, but the kiss was still just as sweet. “I know baby, I know. I hate lying to Sue too. But we have no idea how she’ll react.”

Placing your fingers on his jaw, you gave him a small smile, wordlessly letting him know that you understood, even though you were the one to suggest it. As true as it was, it said a lot that the two of you were nervous - even a bit scared – about telling Sue the truth.

Hoseok kissed you once more, and when he pulled back, ran the length of his nose against your cheek, trying to convey to you through touch that it was going to be okay.  “Come on sweetie, once you lock up, we can go home. I’ll even cook.”

That made you smile. “Okay,” you murmured, taking the hand he offered you and hopped down from the desk.

As you went around locking up, Hoseok felt a weight settle on his shoulders as he watched you. He saw how this made you feel, and even without you saying it, he knew that your friendship with Sue had changed and it wasn’t just because he was dating you. Ever since she went away, things changed for all of you.

Half of him wanted to fix all of this. To be the better man and make everything troubling you to disappear. Even if that meant having everything go back to the way it was before Sue left. At least he’d still be in your life.

Then there was the other half. The side that was selfish and greedy. That was more hybrid than human, who growled at the thought of not being able to be with you the way he was meant to be. You were his one and only, he wasn’t going to give you up. The only way he would step back would be if you told him that you didn’t want to be his mate, that you didn’t want the mate mark. Until that happened, he was staying right by your side.

Hoseok knew the truth though. When it came to your safety, he was going to do whatever it took to protect you. And if it ever came down between Sue or you, he’d pick you every damn time.

No matter the consequences.

[sahraylia]

**content warning for descriptions of multiple forms of abuse**

so, it's national best friend day today, and i'm feeling heartsick, because the person who used to be my best friend for over three years was also one of my abusers, and has been forcibly and violently removed from my life for 9 months. i've been thinking about her a lot lately, trying to process my myriad of complicated feelings and express them with words. so this is what i can do. (heads up: this is a very long, stream-of-consciousness narrative.)

i first met linnéa through a dating site back in october 2014, right around the time i broke up with gustavo. we went on one date and quickly agreed that we didn't want to pursue any kind of romantic relationship and would rather be friends. we talked on and off for the next few months, but then she went into radio silence for a long time, seemingly dropping off the face of the earth. she finally reached out to me again shortly after i started working at the 5th avenue theatre in february 2015, and we arranged to hang out. i took her to a play, and halfway through the show, she started cuddling with me, resting her head on my shoulder through the remainder of the performance. that made me very uncomfortable, so i told her about it afterwards, explaining that i liked her and i liked being friends, but i typically reserved things like cuddling for romantic partners. she was hurt and confused, and this would become a repeated point of contention throughout our relationship.

from then on, we talked to each other almost constantly, and hung out nearly every weekend. it felt like going from 0 to 100 at a breakneck, borderline uncomfortable pace. but we enjoyed spending time together, and we drew from each other's experiences. i learned a lot from her about trans issues and the nuances of gender and sexuality, and i helped her considerably with figuring out various aspects of herself in regards to her own gender and mental health. despite the speed at which our friendship developed, things felt relatively stable and mutually beneficial.

after a while, it started to become abundantly clear that i was linnéa's only friend, and the sole fulcrum of her life. she continuously messaged me every day, which was fine at first, because i liked texting regularly and was used to it. but then she would get upset whenever i was busy at work or something else and i couldn't talk for a couple hours. she became increasingly demanding of my attention, saying and doing passive-aggressive things that would make me feel guilty when i didn't give her my time at the moment she wanted it. later, she became jealous and possessive whenever i made plans with other friends and partners. sometimes she would sulk so much that i'd feel bad enough to cancel plans entirely with other people, just to appease her. she would even get mad at me for watching movies or shows with other people that she felt were only for us to watch together.

in the fall of 2015, linnéa became unexpectedly homeless. she vacillated between staying with me and her mother in the interim, and i quickly found temporary housing for her with my girlfriend at the time and her husband. while she regrouped in the several months that she lived with them, i encouraged her to look for permanent housing and apply to as many places as possible, because my girlfriend and her husband would not be able to house her indefinitely. she said she would try, but as the weeks continued to pass, she kept asking me to look for her instead, and despite my best judgment, i did. i made multiple posts and spread them all over social media to hundreds of people, and i eventually connected her with one of my chorus members. so linnéa moved in with her, once again gaining a roof over her head almost exclusively because of me, barely putting in any effort herself. but i told myself that it was fine, because she was my best friend and she needed help, and i could give that to her.

then when i suggested that she investigate therapy options after she talked to me about her mental health concerns, she persuaded me to do the heavy lifting with that search as well. i understood her difficulties to a certain extent, because she had severe social anxiety that made doing things like making phone calls challenging at best. but when i recommended that she send short, easy emails with the same template to potential therapists instead, even making up a template for her to use, she insisted that she couldn't do it, and repeatedly asked me to do it for her even though the notion made me really uncomfortable. eventually i gave in, and she managed to get me to log in to her email account, type up a message draft, and send it to a therapist's office, posing as her. and somehow, the entire time, i rationalized the situation and convinced myself that nothing was wrong. but everything was wrong, and this was only one example scratching the surface of the stark imbalance in our relationship.

in april 2016, we moved into an apartment together. we adopted alexander that same month, and things seemed like they would be better. linnéa finally had stable, permanent housing, and we would see each other every day now that we lived together, so maybe she would gradually become more okay with me doing things independent of her. and for a while, that felt like it could be true. but then she developed fibromyalgia, inexplicably and rapidly. due to her pain and fatigue, we agreed that i would do most of the labor heavy chores, and she would do a designated list of lighter chores that took less time and energy. we also agreed to go grocery shopping together once every couple of weeks. this arrangement worked, for a little while at least. but as the months passed, she did less and less at home, even though she appeared to have reserves of energy for other activities. i gradually took on all of the housework, making dinner for both of us every night, and often making breakfast and lunch on the weekends as well, on top of everything else that needed to be done in the apartment and working full time. half a year in, i was doing grocery shopping for both of us every week, even though she was entirely capable of using a grocery delivery service. i became increasingly overwhelmed with everything that i was doing, and all the while, linnéa continued to be clingy and possessive of me, demanding my attention and company even more than before we started living together. i felt like i was suffocating.

in may 2017, linnéa confessed that she was in love with me, and had been for the bulk of our relationship over the years. i was gobsmacked. i reminded her that we had established from day one that our relationship would not be romantic, and i was sorry, but i didn't return the feelings she had for me. she was obviously upset, but she told me she understood, and we agreed that we would remain friends and roommates. yet after that, she barely talked to me for several days. then in early june, she and her girlfriend penelope asked me if penelope could move in two weeks from that point, because afterwards she would be kicked out of her parents' house and face homelessness. they had been talking about this with each other for months and chose not to bring it up to me at all until that moment, essentially leaving me with no choice but to say yes. and so by the end of june, penelope moved in, and linnéa continued to withdraw emotionally from me, giving me the cold shoulder. she went from spending nearly every waking minute with me in some capacity, to sending me one word messages maybe every couple of days and holing up in her room with penelope whenever i was home. i tried repeatedly to talk to her about things, asking what was wrong, if we were okay, and if she was still upset about what i'd told her earlier in response to her declaration of feelings for me. she barely communicated with me at all, giving me vague non-answers that skirted my questions, saying that everything was fine even though that was clearly not the case, and eventually just ignoring me completely. i was frustrated and confused as all hell.

then in late july, we adopted casper, and the day after we brought him home, linnéa and penelope neglected to close the screen door on our balcony, which allowed him to escape and jump. casper was missing for 4 days, and i was in a state of constant panic, stress, and fear. i spent every available second gathering and expending resources to search for him, while linnéa and penelope did absolutely nothing to help. i was the most distressed that i'd ever been in my life, and the person who was supposedly my best friend offered me no comfort or support of any kind. on the day that we found casper, i was simultaneously elated and furious. i demanded that linnéa cut the bullshit, stop avoiding me, and just talk to me, because i deserved some kind of actual conversation after everything she put me through. yet she continued her non-committal silence, completely apathetic to my pleas, so i gave up, at my wit's end.

one week later, everything imploded. while i was at work, linnéa told me flat out that she didn't want to be friends at all, that she didn't love me anymore, and she wanted to be strictly roommates. she claimed that i was too much for her, that it took too much energy to be friends with me, and she couldn't handle it any longer. i was stunned, asking her what the fuck was going on, because that didn't feel true to me. she finally admitted that after i told her i didn't return romantic feelings for her, she lost all love for me completely, and i went from being the most important person in her world to someone for whom she felt little more than indifference.

i was devastated. i felt like the ground was caving beneath me, and i was scrabbling desperately for purchase. i had no idea what to do. linnéa claimed that she and penelope could continue to live with me as roommates, as long as i gave them my bedroom, continued to pay two-thirds of rent because penelope wouldn't get a job, still do both my and linnéa's grocery shopping, and do half of the household chores. i told them those demands were ridiculous, and moreover, i couldn't continue to live with linnéa when she all but hated me. i asked them to move out in a month, and they agreed at first, but then went back on their word days later and demanded that i move out instead. i refused, doing everything i could to stand my ground. but over the next month, my will was slowly crushed, with linnéa and penelope barely sparing me a word, if even a glance, and leaving me more and more work to do at home. they constantly criticized how i took care of the pets and complained about them almost every day, focusing on things that weren't their fault and that i couldn't control. it got to the point that i dreaded coming home every day, literally sick with anxiety. finally, i couldn't take it anymore so i told them i would be moving out as soon as possible, and i was taking casper and alexander with me. linnéa tried to drain a month of rent from me that i didn't owe, as well as half of the adoption fee i had paid for alexander, saying that the money belonged to her. and it got worse from there.

they forced me to do all the work to find a new roommate for them, refusing to help at all. then they turned around and banned me from interacting with their new roommate once i secured an agreement with her. they dragged their feet even further during the process of getting our paperwork done in order for me to move out. they jerked me around constantly, refusing to commit to a time to meet with our leasing office, and claiming that i had told them i'd be moving much earlier than i said i would. and they were relentless in harping on me about chores while they did very little themselves, and bitching about my pets being too loud when i was keeping them cooped up in my room because they were so stressed being around linnéa and penelope. they barred me at every step of the way, and by the end of the ordeal i was so strung-out and exhausted i was crying myself to sleep most nights.

when i finally moved out on september 1st, 2017, i knew that linnéa had cut me from her life forever, with surgical precision. she didn't even say goodbye. that night, lying in bed under a new roof, my stomach was in such painful, twisted knots, i felt like i'd been eviscerated.

when i think back on my relationship with linnéa now, i realize more and more just how toxic she was, and how much she'd used me with no real regard for my personhood. for her, our friendship was about how much she could get from me, and how much i could benefit her. so once she discovered that i'd given her all i had, that she'd wrung me out like a sponge until there was nothing left, she dropped me and moved on. and maybe that's reductive of me to say, maybe i can't truly know her intentions and feelings without getting inside her head. but regardless of her intent, her words and actions had an irrevocable impact that scarred me. she said she loved me more than anything else in the world, that i was her best friend and favorite person, and she wanted me to be happy and safe. yet she controlled and restricted me, she made me feel guilty for wanting anything or anyone outside of her, and she made me feel like i was a bad friend and a bad person for needing to take time for myself and other people and obligations. she convinced me that i was responsible for many aspects of her life, and those were more important than my own. she made me believe that i was the center of her universe, but if i couldn't give her everything she wanted, and if i didn't have the exact same feelings for her as she did for me, then our relationship was worth nothing, and in turn, i was worthless to her.

she built a tower for me and locked me inside at the top, then brought it crashing down until i was buried beneath the rubble. but i survived that destruction, and bit by bit, i've been dragging myself out of the ruins, emerging once again into sunlight and greenery, breathing fresh air and feeling solid ground for the first time in years.

i think writing this post is loosing one of the last chunks of rubble that i've been stuck under for a long time. it's imperfect, and messy, and probably not the most cohesive i've ever been in expressing my thoughts, but it's out there. and now that i'm standing fully upright, free from the remains of my tower, i feel calmer, lighter. free.

i found out today that linnéa moved to wisconsin about a month ago, so i will likely never see her again. i'm simultaneously relieved and melancholy about this fact. even though i know she abused me, and i know i'm much better off without her in my life, the part of me that truly loved her and all the positive experiences we shared together really misses my best friend. i miss her, and oddly enough, i miss her needing me. i miss what our friendship was, and what it could've been. i miss who i was before i met her. i miss everything.

but she's gone now, and she's been gone for a long time. i have to keep walking. i have to leave my tower behind me. i don't need it anymore. i don't need her.

[thelastspeecher]

Borrower au, Star gazing, maybe Stan, Angie and Lute are enjoying the after glow of moving into the hotel and are enjoying the sights?

🌟 - stargazing

The comet that shows up in this is technically a comet that didn’t exist, but I was inspired by Comet West, which was a glorious comet that appeared in 1976 (a few years before this scene actually takes place).  And the comet that Stan mentions seeing with Ford was Comet Ikeya-Seki, in 1965.

Send in an emoji and I’ll write a ficlet!

              Stan draped ablanket over Angie’s shoulders.

              “I saw youshivering,” he said quietly, taking a seat next to her.  He and Angie were at the hotel’s rooftopgarden, enjoying some quiet time away from the rest of the family.  Angie smiled at him.

              “I love it when yareveal that sweetness ya keep hidden,” she said.  Stan flushed slightly and looked away.

              “It’s not even areal blanket, it’s just a square from a quilt,” Stan mumbled.  Angie rolled her eyes.

              “Good Lord, StanleyPines, we’re married.  We have a child onthe way.  Is it really necessary to hideyer soft side?”

              “I dunno.”

              “Tsk, oh, honey…”  Angie leaned against Stan.  “I’ll drop it fer now, I s’ppose.  I’m just happy to spend time watchin’ thestars with ya.”  Stan nodded.  He stared up at the sky.

              “I haven’t seen thestars in forever,” Stan said softly. “It’s too dangerous to be outside at night now that I’m a Borrower.  Hell, going out during the day isborderline.”

              “When ya were human,did ya get to see the stars all the time?” Angie asked.

              “Not all thetime.  If Ford and I wanted to do somestargazing, we had to go to the beach, away from the all the streetlights.”  Stan smiled at the memory.  “The last time we did that, it was to watch ameteor shower.  We snuck outta the houseand went to the beach, ‘cause Ford swore that it was gonna be amazing.”

              “Was it?”

              “Yeah.  Things ended pretty bad with Ford, buteverything before then was great.  He- hewas always right about science stuff, like meteor showers or low tide.”

              “Ya don’t talk ‘bouthim much.”

              “Like I said, thingsended bad with him,” Stan said vaguely. He put an arm around Angie’s shoulder. “And that was my old life, y’know? When I was human.  I’m not humananymore.”

              “Do ya miss it?”Angie asked softly.  Stan looked at hiswife, clad in a dress made from window curtains, her baby bump barely visiblebut getting bigger each day.

              “I’d be lying if Isaid I don’t.  I mean, I really misswearing actual clothes.  I miss nothaving to hide all the time.  I missdriving the Stanleymobile.”  Stansighed.  “But I like where I’m at rightnow.  If I had to get shrunk down to aBorrower, I’m happy that it happened near your family.”

              “If ya got thechance to turn human again, would ya take it?” Angie asked.  Stan looked back at the sky and thought hardabout that question.

              “…No,” he said aftera moment.  “I’d want a car again and myjeans and hoodie, but…I’ve been a Borrower for a while.  It’s who I am now.”

              “Mm.”

              “And there’s no wayin hell you’d ever even consider turning human. You’re a dealbreaker.  I won’tleave you and Stanjamin behind, just so I can buy a beer at the gas station.”

              “We are not namin’our child Stanjamin.”

              “If it’s a boy.”

              “No.”

              “Oh, like Lute is anactual name,” Stan said.

              “Ouch,” a voice saidbehind them.  Lute joined them on thesmall decorative rock they were currently sitting on.  “That was rude of ya,” Lute continued.  

              “Are you gonna defendyour name?” Stan asked.  Lute shrugged.

              “A bit,” Lute said.  “I mean, it’s better ‘n Angie’s fullname.  If ya wanted to mock the name ofone of us siblin’s, I would suggest Fidds.” Stan frowned at him.

              “Fidds?  Is that Harper’s real name?”

              “No, no it ain’t.  Harper’s real name is Harper.  He just lucked out with gettin’ a normalname.”

              “We never told ya ‘boutFidds, did we?” Angie said softly.

              “No.”

              “Fidds is short ferFiddleford,” Lute explained.  “He’s- he’sour older brother.  Or was.  We don’t know if he’s still alive or not.”  Stan sat up straighter, making Angie adjustherself to continue leaning on him.

              “You have along-lost brother?”

              “Yes,” Angie said.  She played with the fabric of Stan’s shirt,wrapping it around her finger.  “He disappearedwhen I was ‘bout fourteen, ‘n Lute was sixteen.”

              “Fidds weren’t evenan adult when we lost ‘im,” Lute said in a low voice.  “He’s only a year ‘n a half older ‘n me.”

              “What happened?”

              “The house we werelivin’ in burned down.  We were all tryin’to escape, and- we got separated from Fidds.” Lute swallowed.  “After that, wemoved to that farmhouse and decided to keep better track of each other.  We didn’t want to lose anyone else.”

              “That sucks.”

              “It did,” Angiewhispered.  “Lute ‘n I, we really lookedup to Fidds.  But one day, he was tellin’us ‘bout how alarm clocks work, and the next, we were homeless ‘n Fidds- Fiddswas gone.”  Stan pulled Angie closer tohim, trying to imagine losing Ford like that.

              “We still try tohold out hope that we’ll see hime again,” Lute said.  “I- I don’t know how he’d find us, but thinkin’that is better than thinkin’ the alternative. That he’s gone forever.”

              “I…” Stan started.  The night was suddenly filled with a brightlight.  Angie sat up, the blanket fallingoff her shoulders.  She, Stan, and Lutestared in awe at split in the star-scattered sky.

              “Wow,” Angiebreathed.

              “I’ve- I’ve neverseen anything like that,” Lute stammered. “What-”

              “It’s a comet,” Stansaid.  “Ford and I saw one like that whenwe were kids, back in ‘65.”

              “It’s beautiful,”Angie said.  “It’s- it’s almost like asign.”

              “A sign of what?”Lute asked.

              “I- I don’t know,”Angie replied.  “But…it feels like…”

              “There’s a reasonfor it,” Stan finished.  Angienodded.  Lute sighed and rolled his eyes.

              “Lord, the two of yaare weird.”

              “It showed up whenwe were talkin’ ‘bout Fidds,” Angie said. Lute nodded slowly.

              “Ya do have a point.”  Lute looked up at the sky again.  “I think I’d prefer to believe it’s a sign ferhim.  Maybe he’s lookin’ up at it, too.”  Stan stared at the comet tearing across thenight sky and thought about his own longgone brother, and how he would lovesomething like this.

              “Yeah,” Stan saidsoftly.  “Maybe he is.”

[imyourliquor-youremypoison]

Hjem(løs)  - Ivar x OC - Modern AU - Part 2

*Hjem(løs) = Home(less)

Synopsis: It's Juleaften and Silje walks home from a late Christmas shopping spree. On her way back to her apartment, she makes an unexpected encounter.

Word count: 8.3k

Part 1 <<< >>> Part 3

MASTERLIST

However, that didn't prevent him from keeping an eye open. Like an invisible guardian making sure nothing bad happened to her, Ivar stayed in the same area as Silje for a while. It was borderline creepy, Ivar was well aware of it, but he felt like he owed her big time, and if the only way he could repay her was to lurk in dark alleys and make sure no creep was following her home, then he would do it. There were worse places in Copenhagen to hang out; Silje's neighbourhood was lively and overall safe - which made him wonder why he felt entitled to become her guardian angel at all, and from what exactly he was trying to protect her, but that was a place he didn't want to let his mind wander.

He had no idea how much longer he could persuade himself that he was only staying here for her sake. Truth is that he could not bring himself to walk away and wave goodbye to the possibility of ever running into Silje again. It had been quite a while since Jul, be he could not move on from their meeting. The need to see her again was strong, though not as strong as Ivar's reason telling him to stay at a distance. He had no right to bust in her door after a month without any explanation. He had no right at all to even talk to her again. He was giving himself headaches from thinking about this too much.

Therefore he remained in his dark alleys and on his isolated benches. Anger bubbled up inside of him whenever he saw her walk by, carelessly strutting home to the tune of some song blasting in her earphones. She didn't notice him – why would she? People don't look at homeless people, and homeless people don't like being looked at. She represented quite the temptation though. On the one hand he was pulled towards her like a magnet, on the other, he knew it would be wrong of him to give in.

It was snowing today. Ivar's fingers were blue and he hadn't felt the tip of his nose in four days. Strangely enough, he still felt good – maybe not fine, but good. There was peace in the air. People were still high off the bliss brought by the winter holidays, and the new year. Not to mention that he remembered how much Silje loved snow. Fuck, he was being ridiculous. She would make fun of him if he said his thoughts out loud. He had to fucking move on and stop nearly interfering with her life again.

So far he hadn't done anything, he hadn't uttered a word as she walked down the street across from his new sleeping bench. He looked up, smiled a little when he saw her mouth the lyrics to a song he couldn't hear, and hid his face in his scarf. As much as it caused his heart sink in his stomach each time he saw her strut by, simultaneously so close and so far out of reach, it still made him feel better to know that she was doing all right. It helped him sleep at night at least.

“Hey! Watch it man!” Someone yelled at him when he accidentally bumped into their shoulder. He had zoned out again. “Fucking hobo!” The other man grumbled in his beard, shooting a nasty glare at Ivar.

Today was not the day to mess with Ivar. As quick tempered as he usually was, tonight was worse and if this guy took so much as a second to think before speaking, he would have kept his mouth shut.

“What? Is the side walk not large enough for you?” Ivar barked back. He was so tired of being treated like a dog with rabies. “Bloody idiot.”

“What did you just say?!” The guy turned around to face Ivar. He was taller and broader than him, but there was no backing out now. It was like a switch that flipped inside Ivar.

“Is your masculinity so feeble that you cross homeless people merely to show off your steroid induced muscles?” Ivar heard his voice snap at the increasingly furious stranger. He couldn't help the cocky smirk on his face just like he couldn't help the scoff that followed his declaration.

It was too late to try and get out of this situation. Ivar had let his frustration and anger take control of his actions and he was about to face the consequences. The man was red in the face and looked about to blow up. Meanwhile Ivar tensed his entire body, ready to receive a blow. After all maybe that is what he wanted, or needed. Nothing like a sucker punch right in the jaw to put one's ideas back in place. If this guy hit hard enough maybe he would knock Silje right out of Ivar's mind.

He had no idea how much he craved a good fight until this very moment. Ivar's hand itched to throw a blow himself. He clenched it into a fist before stretching his fingers again. His knuckles hurt from the cold despite his gloves. He saw it coming and raised his arms in defence when the man's fist was mid-air but it hardly did anything so soften the blow. Clearly, Ivar had underestimated his adversary.

It all went black rather quickly after that.

*

“Skål!” Her friends all cheered, the sound of beer bottles clanking together filling the air.

It was accompanied by heartfelt laughter and the distinctive smell of alcohol. Silje was not a huge fan of beer and only drank one so her friends would stop pestering her about it; now they are already too intoxicated to notice that she was drinking tea. Her palm was held up toward the sky in an attempt to catch a few snowflakes but they melted the second they touched her skin.

The results of the first semester just came out and her friends dragged her to this picnic table in the middle of a park to celebrate. Although it was freezing, the alcohol running in their systems kept them warm enough to keep the party going, attracting the attention of passers-by with their music and loud chatter. Her tea wasn't doing that good of a job at keeping her limbs from getting numb, and neither did her skirt and tights.

“I'm going to head home” she declared only to earn a round of protest and teasing about how early she left. “I'm tired,” Silje objected when one of her classmate slung his arm around her shoulders to try and make her stay. “And cold. You can continue this party without me and I can celebrate in my apartment, wrapped in a warm blanket.”

“You are such a grandma!” Her friend snickered playfully as he shoved her in the arm. “Go, I'll distract them while you flee.”

Before he or anyone else could change their mind and decide to chain on her the bench with a beer in her hand, Silje stood up, gathered her belongings and stuffed them in her backpack as she walked away. While the music of their improvised party faded, Silje turned up the volume of her own and closed her eyes. It was a gentle night, the snow fell steadily and slowly from the sky, the kind of night you spent sitting in front of your window and looking outside.

However Silje had no intention of going home right away to find comfort in the many blankets she owned. As most days, she settled on a part of the city and wandered through the streets in search of - in desperate hope of finding – Ivar. She had regretted her decision of letting him leave the second she saw his dark figure walk away from her building. It was stupid really, but she wanted some kind of assurance to see him again, a means to contact him.

She expected him to wave, or smile, or do something but he merely disappeared in the shadows and from her life. Today was the 27th of January, over a month since the last time she saw him, and already she was beginning to forget what he looked like. The brevity of their encounter, although intense, had left a bitter-sweet taste in her mouth. She felt guilty – for not doing more for him, for not understanding his situation, for not sharing his problems. It was pointless to dwell on these things but here she was, roaming aimlessly through streets she didn't know, at night.

Somehow she knew this would enrage him if he knew – he made it very clear during their conversations that he thought it was reckless and careless for her to walk around at night in dark passageways. This forced a smile on her face and she let out a silent laugh, her hot breath visible in the air. Silje took out her earphones for a second. She thought it might help her find him if Ivar was around but the music and conversations coming out of the bars in this area drowned out any other noise.

She had been walking for half an hour when she decide that it was enough. It was late and cold. She'd look again tomorrow. It was time to head back and hide in these blankets she told her friends about. Someone wolf-whistled and Silje's head whipped to the right to see where it came from. There was a group of four or five boys staring at her. She scrunched up her nose in distaste and ignored them. They protested and called for her but she put her earphones back on.

“Jerks,” she grumbled to herself when even with her music she could hear their shouts.

“Hey!” Someone suddenly grabbed her by the shoulder and jerked her back. “I'm talking to you, bitch!”

As any girl would in her situation, Silje tensed up and her blood ran cold in her veins. Already cold sweat was forming in the nap of her neck – the instinctive response to a man raising his voice at her and being aggressive. She counted to ten in her head to gather herself and calm down. She got this, there was no reason for her to panic, she could handle the situation. There was no room for fear right now, she had to show this jackass that she wasn't some little mouse he could intimidate into talking to him.

After a short moment, Silje felt confident enough to look up and meet his eyes. The way he looked at her made her want to vomit in her mouth. Disgusting. Revolting. Clearly this guy was not familiar with the concept of a woman not being interested.

“And I'm ignoring you, asshole. Are we done stating the obvious?”

It was pretty ballsy and she might regret it but the words were out now, she couldn't take them back. One of the dude's friends whistled as she said that, apparently admiring the nerve she had to talk to him like that.

“What? You think you're too good for me?” The guy snarled, eyeing Silje up and down in a distasteful manner. “You're not even that hot, you should be flattered.”

“Oh be still my beating heart,” she said sarcastically as she rolled her eyes. “There, happy? Let me go now before I scream bloody murder and get the cops on your ass for assault.”

She would do it. She was ready to. At this point sarcasm was merely a defence mechanism. It took all of her concentration not to tremble like a leaf.

“Jeez! Girls nowadays can't take a compliment anymore!” He exclaimed but still let her go.

“You just told me I wasn't even hot, in what world is that a compliment? You need to work on your approach techniques dude.”

He grumbled a few more insults under his breath but he was already stepping back. He was obviously not happy about this defeat but his friends were laughing and telling him she wasn't worth the trouble so he let it slide. When she was sure they left, Silje carefully placed her earphones back on, hands shaking and eyes prickling, and she turned around to resume her walking. Just when she thought she might have to make a detour in case they decided to follow her home, she stumbled on something and almost fell.

She caught herself in extremis by reaching out for the corner of a wall, scratching her hands in the process. A string of curses tumbled down her lips while she rubbed her palm on her coat to get rid of the dirt, then she looked down to see what made her trip. When her eyes fell on the metallic cylinder on the floor, she thought they might pop out of her head.

That she would recognize anywhere. It was her Thermos. The one with the mismatched lid she had given to Ivar a month ago.

“Ivar,” she whispered, hoping against hope. “Ivar!”

On her feet she was before she had the time to think about it, nearly falling once again. Her hand found the Thermos and clung to it for dear life as she stumbled into the alley on her right.

“Ivar you bastard, if you're here say something!” She shouted this time, making sure that the entire neighbourhood heard her. “I swear I'm going to drag your hobo ass out of the hole you're hiding in!”

Her threats mustn't have been very convincing since no one answered, or maybe he simply wasn't here anymore. After a few more seconds of listening intently, one sound stood out of the distant music from the nearby bars. Faint, almost inaudible laughter.

“That the best you got, woman?” The strained but already so familiar voice of Ivar asked from the shadows.

Silje dived down towards the source of the voice and her hands found him before her eyes did. Her fingers grasped at the material of his clothes and Silje did as she promised and dragged him out of the darkness and into the light of the nearest street lamp. She only let go when he groaned.

“Shit, where did you get that strength from?” He asked, a bit out of breath.

Now that she could see his face Silje understood why he sounded in pain. The entire left side of his face was bruised and swelled. He had a black eye and a split lip; the blood had dried on his wounds.

“Don't say anything,” she ordered him, already taking his chin in between her fingers to better examine his beaten face. “You look like a bloody mess.” Her voice was stern but gentle.

“You look beautiful.”

“And you're delirious!” Silje exclaimed, her hand flying up to feel his forehead. “You have a bit of fever. How long have you been here in this state?”

“Few- hours-” he said, short breathed already. “Silje.”

He simply said her name with no intention of saying anything else, but it got her attention at last and she looked into his blue eyes, pleading her. Her hand let go of his chin and she moved it to his shoulder.

“I wanna hug you and punch you so bad right now,” Silje said between her teeth. “Come back with me. I'll fix you up, we're not too far from my apartment.”

“I can't- my legs... fuck. They messed up my legs,” he whined pitifully and winced in pain, his eyes drifting from hers to his legs. “I can't walk.”

“Even if you lean on me?” She asked hopefully. He shrugged but was already trying to stand up, willing to try anything to get out of the gutter he had put himself into. “We only have a couple streets to walk before reaching my place. You can do this.”

The strain was visible on his face etched with agony. Silje's arms were there to support him and help him up, no matter how much bigger he was, she was not about to complain or leave him to his fate. She had looked for him, she had found him, and now she was going to be true to her word and drag his ass back to her apartment, even up the five floors if she had to.

It was a lot harder said than done, but not impossible. She had no means to establish exactly how much pain Ivar was in because he hadn't said a word during their slow progression through the streets. His mind was entirely focused on not screaming or collapsing on the floor. The vein on his temple throbbed menacingly, if that was any indicator of the ache he currently endured. Nothing would have prepared either of them for the trial it represented to climb up so many stairs with only Silje's tiring legs to get to the top.

“Just leave me here, you won't make it with me,” Ivar groaned with difficulty.

“We're almost there, two more floors to go,” she said, completely ignoring his resigned tone. “Quit being a drama queen.”

“You killing me, Silje!”

“Oh is that what I'm doing? Funny because I thought I was once again saving you from the cold harsh world. A little gratitude would be welcome, you know? And I know precisely how you can repay me. I have a monstrous pile of dirty dishes waiting in the sink just for you.”

“This makes me want to stay in the staircase even more,” Ivar sighed, holding his breath each time they ascended another step.

“If you're well enough to make jokes then you're also well enough to climb up a few more steps,” Silje declared confidently. “We've made it this far, Ivar.”

“So stubborn,” he grumbled again though she thought she detected a hint of admiration in his voice, but maybe she was hearing things. “I am not joking, my legs are killing me.”

“Well what do you want me to do about it? I suspect you don't want me to bring you to the hospital, do you?”

He stiffened against her side and glared at her.

“I don't have money to pay for healthcare, you know this.”

“I do, that's why you're going to crash on my couch and I'll call my brother. He'll come and examine you properly. I don't know how to assert the extent of your injuries but he can,” she assured him but it did little to nothing to calm him down, in fact it had the opposite effect.

“Which brother?” He asked warily.

“Ubbe,” Silje managed a laugh even though she was exhausted. “The one you've met.”

“I remember Ubbe,” Ivar huffed.

Suddenly they realised they had made it. Silje's front door was standing right there. No more stairs. Black dots danced before her eyes and sweat trickled down her spine but they had made it.

“I remember the way he almost crushed my hand while shaking it,” Ivar added, a little out of breath but nothing compared to Silje's state of breathlessness and sweatiness.

“That's just his way of saying hello,” she said and with a little wave of the hand to gesture him it was nothing worth getting grey hair over. “I am in strong need of a shower.”

She managed to help Ivar onto the couch, both of them sighing in relief when their seemingly never-ending journey finally ended. She told him that she would call her brother then hop in the shower, and that she was all his after that.

It took a little more time and energy than she expected to convince her brother to get out of bed, grab the crutches they'd given him after his injury and come over to her place, all of this to look at Ivar's legs.

“Ivar? Who's Ivar?” Ubbe had asked, only to remember the moment he said his name. “Oh, the guy from Juleaften? What happened?”

“I don't know yet, okay? Just come, it's important and quite urgent too.”

He complied after two more minutes of convincing, and Silje was finally allowed a moment of peace. She got Ivar a glass of water and a pillow, then took her well-deserved shower. When she opened the front door fifteen minutes later, her hair was still wet, her previous clothes discarded by the bathroom door, and Ivar was grunting on the couch, trying not to move his legs. Their tumultuous journey had woken up the wound, it throbbed and deformed his attractive features into an expression of anger and pain.

“Come with me,” Silje grabbed Ubbe's arm to lead him right in front of Ivar. “It's his legs. I need you to examine him.”

“What are you now, a doctor?” Ivar spat. It was the pain speaking, not him, Ubbe knew better and he simply smirked. “I thought you were a reject soldier.”

“Big mouth, eh?” Ubbe huffed and knelt down by his legs. “Didn't serve you well from what I can see. And no, I'm not a doctor, but soldiers are trained to tend to their companions if something were to happen on the field. Landmine explosion for instance. That shit can blow your legs off.”

“I didn't step on a fucking landmine,” Ivar barked back. “Those assholes beat me up.”

He didn't specify that he provoked them but the siblings shared a look that spoke volumes. They knew he wasn't just randomly attacked. Ivar didn't say anything after that and allowed Ubbe to feel his legs and assert his injuries.

“Are they broken?” Silje asked after a couple minutes, not holding it in anymore.

Ivar hadn't realised how worried she really was up until now. Her foot tapped on the floor at a fast pace, one of her arms rested across her chest while the other held her hand up in front of her mouth. Her eyes did not budge from her brother once while he took a look at Ivar's messed up legs.

“No,” Ubbe said, earning a round of relieved sighs. “Wait before popping the champagne. That was the good news. The bad news is that while I can tell that your legs aren't broken, I can't guarantee that your tibia bones aren't shattered. And worst of all your left knee is out of joint. Did you walk here?”

“Hardly,” Ivar said with a little one-shoulder shrug.

“Well, you must be a tough motherfucker, because that hurts like hell. I can put it back in place but I should warn you that this is usually done under anaesthesia,” Ubbe explained under Silje's increasingly anxious gaze.

He looked Ivar straight in the eye without budging, like a real solider. Ubbe's relaxed demeanour from Juleaften was gone, his face was plain and serious, his mind focused on the task at hand, and no room was left for jokes.

“I can take it,” Ivar assured him.

“Sil,” Ubbe called his sister, waking her from her fear induced trance. “Get him something to bite into, a wooden spoon, a folded towel.”

She did as she was asked without uttering a word and soon came back with what he asked, leaving him to choose which of the two he preferred. Ivar simply grabbed the spoon and put it in his mouth.

“All right, here goes nothing,” Ubbe said, positioning his hands around Ivar's knee. “Silje don't look.”

He didn't need to tell her, she was already putting a conscious effort into staring out of the window instead of looking at the two boys in front of her. The towel would have worked better to muffle Ivar's pained groans and cries. Silje's hand shot up to her mouth and she had to turn around. Tears prickled her eyes but she swallowed them back. There was no time for this, Ivar was the one suffering, she could act like a weak little thing later. Right now she had to get her shit together.

“It's done,” Ubbe declared and after a few more seconds of panting, Ivar took the spoon out of his mouth. It hit the floor with a loud clatter. “He'll need a knee brace. Sil can you get him one?”

She nodded, still shaking.

“Y-yes, I have a friend who had one a few weeks ago, I can ask him.”

“Good. And you-” Ubbe's attention went back to Ivar. “If you don't want to end up at the ER, you have to rest until your bones heal and your muscles recover from the beating. Where do you live? I can drive you back. Do you have someone to take care of you? Because you won't be able to make it through this alone.”

“He does. I'll take care of him,” Silje stated firmly, two puzzled gazes turning to her. “He's staying here.”

“What if he doesn't want to crash on your couch for the following month?” Ubbe replied, pointing at Ivar as though he wasn't here. “Because that's how long I would suggest he doesn't use his bad leg.”

“He'll be fine,” Silje assured her brother.

“Bu-” He started but was interrupted by Ivar.

“I'm homeless, man!” To say that it cast a cold in the room would be minimising this. “The couch is fine.” In the state he was in, anything would have worked, he was tired enough to fall asleep standing. Not that he would be doing much of that from now on.

Ubbe stood up abruptly, almost knocking over the coffee table.

“What the fuck?” He exclaimed, looking at his sister.

“Not now, Ubbe,” Silje sighed and rubbed her face. “Thank you for coming, and for the crutches. We'll talk later, okay?”

“No, not okay, you can't just make me come here in the middle of the night during work week only to have me examine a homeless dude who got into a fight, then tell me you'll have him sleep on your couch and not give me a stellar explanation!”

“It sounds terrible when you put it like that but it's not as shady as it sounds,” she promised him. “Come now.” She gestured him to follow her to the door, away from Ivar's curious ears. “Ivar is my friend. I'm not going to turn my back on him when he's injured.”

“But he is homeless,” Ubbe protested with vehemence as if he was making a valid point. He wasn't.

“That does not define him. Listen, we'll argue tomorrow, okay? I'm tired and I think Ivar has a bit of fever.”

She must have sounded particularly worn out because Ubbe closed his mouth – for now at least – and opened the door. The trained soldier he was recognized the priorities but he would not let her go away with this.

“This conversation is not over-” he told her with a warning finger pointed at her. He pushed his sister to the side and walked up to Ivar who barely managed to open his eyes when Ubbe called him. “And you-” he started sternly. “-I meant what I said. You don't jump around, you don't try to exercise, you don't run, you don't even walk anywhere apart from the bathroom and the kitchen, anything farther than that is too far for you until I say it isn't anymore.” He looked furious but also determined to help him heal. “In case I'm not being clear enough, my sister's bedroom is off limits.” He had whispered the last part for only Ivar to hear – and he did hear it loud and clear.

“Yes sir,” he mumbled in response, barely conscious at this point.

Ubbe walked back to his sister who was still waiting by the door. “Don't post-pone our conversation for too long or I'll have to tell the others.”

Contrary to Ivar though, Silje wasn't about to pass out and wasn't in the mood to get intimidated by her big brother.

“Hvisterk already knows about Ivar anyway. Sigurd wouldn't care, and if Bjorn learns that you let a homeless stranger sleep in my apartment, you'll be the one in trouble. Goodnight brother.” Silje smiled and shut the door before Ubbe could find something else to threaten her with.

Her shoulders slumped down and she leaned against the door just or a few seconds, to catch her breath and get a small break from the intense last hour she had. When she felt she was ready to go at it again, she went back to Ivar, once again put her hand on his forehead and told him to stay awake just a little bit longer – his eyelids were droopy but she didn't want him to fall asleep before changing him and giving him some medicine to reduce the fever. It required another twenty minutes to accomplish these tasks but when she was finally done and Ivar was about to fall asleep in his new dry and warm clothes, she felt rather happy with herself. In an ideal world Ivar would take a shower too but they were both too exhausted for that. Tomorrow would be there soon enough and if they were lucky, by then Ivar's fever would break and his knee wouldn't feel like it was on fire anymore.

“Are we good now?” Ivar mumbled, fighting off sleep as best he could.

“Yes, we're good,” Silje told him, gently pushing some of his hair out of his face. “You can go to sleep. Hopefully you'll feel better tomorrow.”

She had a feeling he was already asleep mid-sentence and didn't even hear the end. A little smile tugged at her lips but it vanished quickly. This reunion was a bitter-sweet one – light years away from what she had imagined. Finding her friend beaten and feverish in the shadow of a container in a small back alley was not how she had hoped to find Ivar – actually the romantic inside her was convinced that despite her searching through the streets, she would end up bumping into him in that same park where they first met.

Soon her living room was filled with the light and steady snores of Ivar and she smiled again. Exhaustion washed over her and Silje lost no time in changing into her pyjamas and turning off the lights. Whatever happened today was over and it was time to breathe again.

*

“Ivar... Ivar. Ivar!”

The voice sounded distant, like an echo. But whoever was calling him seemed to get closer and closer each time they called his name. At first he wanted to groan and turn around, tell whoever was disturbing his sleep to go away and leave him in peace – the voice became too loud. But he realised that they weren't shouts.

“Ivar,” he heard again, more aware of the proximity of its source. He felt something heavy on his forehead and winced. It was cold too. “Ivar, open your eyes.”

He did not want to but the voice was soothing and warm, so he complied. His eyelids fluttered open, and he was glad to see that it wasn't too bright in the room. His eyes finally glanced towards the form next to him and he was met with Silje's worried gaze.

“Welcome back,” she told him with a somewhat tense smile. “How do you feel?”

“What-” shit his mouth was dry. “-what time is it? How long was I out?” He asked, ignoring her question. He felt awful, like a truck ran him over - twice.

“It's almost six in the evening, you slept over sixteen hours.”

“Did you sleep?”

“Not much. Believe it or not I went to class today,” she told him with a huff, as if wondering what the hell she was thinking. She didn't want to go but she had an important presentation and her professors didn't know or care about the fact that she gave shelter to an injured homeless man. “The three longest hours of my life, I thought I'd come home to your dead body lying on my couch.”

“You're the worst- caretaker- ever,” Ivar painfully breathed out. The air didn't come easy in his lungs, like something weighted down on his chest.

“Here,” Silje said and handed him a glass of water. “Need help?”

Ivar shook his head no and propped himself up on one elbow to down the water.

“I trust you're a fighter, you wouldn't let a fever get the best of you,” she chuckled.

“You just said-” Ivar started but left his sentence unfinished, simply gesturing to her with his right hand and hoping she would understand.

“I was worried, can you blame me? I was hoping your fever would get down a little bit. I probably should have woken you up to give you your medicine but you looked like you needed the sleep,” Silje explained, already reaching down to grab something Ivar could not see from where he was lying. “It's probably for the best that I'm not trying to become a nurse, right?”

“Your brother would make a better nurse,” Ivar began to laugh but it turned into a cough. “I bet he'd look pretty in the uniform.”

“God, I can't tell if this is the fever speaking or if you're really a on death wish. Do not say that in front of Ubbe or next time you wound up beaten up he'll refuse to take a look at you.”

“Just you wait until I'm better. I bet I can take him any time,” Ivar kept bragging.

Silje's hand reached out and brushed his hair out of his face. His forehead was sticky and his hair greasy. It was a tad longer than last time she saw him and his beard had grown back. The contact of her fresh hand against his hot skin made Ivar close his eyes in delight and lean into her touch. Next thing he knew Silje was giving him pills to swallow and asked that he sit up.

“I know it's painful but you have to get up, you need to take a shower.” Dread must have been written all over his face because she quickly added, “It'll make you feel better and I'll help you.”

“You'll help me shower? Like a baby?” He grumbled in complain. “How do you plan on doing this anyway? I can't stand on my left leg and I can't take a bath either.”

“Actually you can, I had it fixed,” Silje declared with a wide smile. She put her arms on the couch and rested her chin on her joined hands. “I think it'll suffice if I help you in the tub, you can take it from there. Unless you feel like getting a hair massage?”

“I feel like dying,” Ivar said, ever so positive and joyful.

“You're a ray of sunshine Ivar,” Silje laughed. “I'm glad you're fine. This might sound weird but I missed you – you really have a talent in bickering back and forth with me.”

“Don't you have enough brothers to fill up that role?” He wondered, trying to stand up with Silje's help.

Like yesterday, she let him lean on her and together, they stumbled across the room and to the bathroom. Ivar sat on the lid of the toilet. Silje ran his bath and turned on the wall heater to hang the towels on it.

“Apparently not,” she sighed, her hand lingering under the running water to see if it was hot enough. “They are a lot of things but intellectually stimulating is not one of them. I love them all but they can be a little boorish and obtuse at times.”

“Dunno.” Ivar shrugged. “Ubbe seemed pretty sharp to me when he examined my leg. The look in his eyes-”

“-you were on the receiving end of the soldier stare,” Silje laughed. “It rarely shows but it's scary when it does, it means shit's going down. After his injury, Ubbe wasn't the same; he had this look in his eyes all the time. But he's getting used to civilian life again, with Margrethe's help.”

“His girlfriend?”

“His fiancée,” Silje corrected him. “They are getting married in August.”

After that he didn't say anything anymore. Ivar stayed quiet until it was time to strip and get into the tub.

“I won't look,” Silje promised him when his fingers tugged at his belt to unbuckle it. She had no idea how she would accomplish that because she hardly managed to keep her eyes off his naked chest, but if she had to close her eyes to give him some privacy then she would do it.

“I didn't say anything,” Ivar replied, a smirk appearing on his face as he looked at her.

Silje couldn't help the blush on her cheeks but she didn't answer to his shameless flirting. He was feverish, he didn't think what he said – that's what she repeated to herself like a mantra while he finished taking off his remaining clothes while leaning on her to keep his balance. The girl let him take the lead and get into the tub on his own while trying her best to keep his weight off the bag leg.

“There. Will you be okay?” She asked him when he was in the water. Thank the gods, bubbles hid most of his body.

“Sure,” Ivar assured her. He raised his hand out of the water and flicked it at Silje, throwing drops of soapy water at her face and making her close her eyes. “I'll call you if I need help.”

“You won't try to get out of the tub by yourself to prove a point?” She asked just to make sure, squinting her eyes at him. “No misplaced pride? You call as soon as you're done, yeah?”

“Whatever,” he sighed and rolled his eyes but she didn't move a muscle. Silje would stay where she was, kneeling next to the tub and staring sternly at him as long as she wasn't sure he wouldn't do anything stupid. “I promise, okay? Now let me bathe, woman!” He flicked some more water at her and they both smiled.

Without another word, Silje walked out of the room, closed the door, then leaned against it and slid to the floor. Damn this boy.

*

Three weeks had passed and Silje was forced to admit that Ivar was far from the model patient. And she sure as hell would never become a nurse, that was final.

He was grumpy, stubborn, unwilling to comply, restless, capricious, and a bunch of other non-flattering adjectives. Silje was just about done with him. Then again, in spite of his foul behaviour when the pain kicked in, he was still of good company the rest of the time. He never voiced it but Silje knew that he only acted the way he did because he felt useless with his injured leg. It itched him to get up and get something done – she noticed he was particularly irritable whenever he sat on the couch, his legs resting on a cushion on the coffee table, while Silje ran around tiding and cleaning the apartment.

“This is ridiculous, let me help,” he grumbled for the hundredth time. Each time Silje laughed and told him to shut up. “I'm serious Silje, I'll go mad if I have to stay here any longer.”

“I've been cleaning my apartment on my own long before you crashed on my couch, I think I can handle this,” she reminded him. “Do something else to keep you busy. Read a book, learn sign language, knit a sweater.”

“Do you think I am an old lady?” He scoffed, obviously offended. “I need to get up, my muscles are stiffening from lack of use.”

If he was still bargaining instead of simply getting up my himself it meant that the pain was still too strong for him to do so. Silje stopped vacuuming the floor and pushed her hair out of her face to look at him and give him a scolding glare.

“We've been through this conversation already,” she said. “As long as Ubbe doesn't give you the green light, your ass is glued to the couch.”

“I'm sure I can stand on my leg, he just wants me to stay a cripple a little longer because he doesn't like me staying with you,” he argued, pointing a finger at Silje. She rolled her eyes and resumed vacuuming.

“Fine, you win. If you insist so much gather my mugs and put them in the sink, and put the bath towels in the washing machine,” she told him.

Those were easy tasks he could perform with his knee brace and crutches. As though she had just provided him with a life purpose, Ivar stood up, trying to conceal his wince of pain, and did as he was told. Silje couldn't wait for his leg to heal. Faint laughter came from the bathroom a few minutes later when Silje was putting away the vacuum cleaner and she peeked inside. A furious blush crept on her face when she saw him standing by the washing machine with her freshly washed underwear in his hands.

“I can't tell which one I like best,” he said, turning his head toward her, a boyish grin on his handsome face. His black eye had faded now, the wounds from his fight disappeared almost completely – the only remaining trace being the healing split lip.

In his left hand Ivar was holding Silje's cat knickers with the two little ears on the back, and in his right hand were her more revealing and expensive bottoms. Her mouth was ajar and she couldn't find anything to say for a solid ten seconds, then she gathered her wits.

“What are you, five?” She asked, her eyebrows shooting up and her arms crossing over her chest.

The way he looked at the underwear and then at her was purely indecent and certainly not how a five year old would behave. His wolfish smile sent shivers down Silje's spine and she dropped her arms to her sides and stood a little straighter. There was no knowing if he was messing with her or not, Ivar was difficult to read. He was a huge flirt, which made it increasingly hard for Silje to keep her cool around him. One day she was going to pin him against a wall with no warning and he won't see it coming.

“C'mon, Silje,” Ivar began. “Do you think I am that innocent?”

However today was not the day. She refused to answer this and engage on this slippery slope. Ivar was playing with her, he wanted to elicit a reaction.

“I can tell you where I bought them if you want the same,” she said, enjoying seeing his smirk drop. “They make bunny ones too.”

Defeated and disappointed, Ivar turned away from her. He mumbled something about her taking the fun out of everything, and went back to his task.

The comedy lasted another week, until Ubbe came along again and told him he could walk again.

“Not running a marathon, hear me?” He added right away when he saw Ivar's face light up. “You keep the leg brace, and you use the crutches. But you can take a walk, go grocery shopping or whatever you do with you time usually.”

“How thrilling. Might as well pick up an apron and settle down if I'm going to spend the rest of my days limping around,” he immediately complained, throwing his head against the back of the couch.

Ubbe patted his shoulder. Silje had called him a couple days after Ivar's injury and explained everything, which had considerably reduced Ubbe's hostility towards the young man. But not completely either.

“Can you lay off the drama for a second?” Silje huffed from the kitchenette. “Rejoice,” she told him in an overly optimistic voice. “You are now allowed to set foot outside of these four walls. Maybe you won't be as grumpy after some fresh air.”

That prediction came true. After his first walk Ivar was already less of a pain in the ass and stopped behaving like a child. Funnily enough, the nearest green area was Vestre Kirkegård which meant that Ivar and Silje regularly walked past the bench where she found him. He savoured the moment, enjoying how far he had come since this day. He liked to think that he had a little more control over his life than the first time he met Silje.

He even felt confident enough to make a move – at least he would if he could walk without those damn crutches. They didn't allow him to put his arm around Silje or even to let her hold his arm while they walked. No she simply strolled beside him with her hands in her pockets and cradling a cup of tea.

“Let's sit down,” he said, stopping in front of the bench instead of walking past it. “I wanna sit on this piece of wood one last time.”

“Feeling a little nostalgic?” She teased him, standing in front of him while he sat down, putting the crutches aside.

“No, I sit on it to establish dominance,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Or maybe I like this bench? It's where I met a pretty girl.”

“I can't tell if you're joking or not, you're always looking at me like you know something I don't,” Silje told him and sat down.

“They say knowledge is where lies true power,” Ivar philosophized. “Why wouldn't I be serious? What makes you think I'm not?”

Silje laughed at this and gave him a scolding look.

“You are a relentless flirt, Ivar,” she told him but he only looked at her as if to say 'so what is your point?'. “You do it for the thrill and to make me uncomfortable.”

“Are you uncomfortable right now?” Ivar asked, leaning in closer to her and not detaching his eyes from her while she pondered her answer and bit her lip.

“No, uncomfortable wasn't the right word,” she eventually decided. “You try to make me nervous.”

“Unsuccessfully from what I can see, you always have an answer to my teasing no matter what I say.”

If anyone had heard this conversation they would have cringed. The air was tense and so electric Silje wondered if her hair wasn't standing on end. Speaking of hair...

“We need to do something about your hair,” she blurted out, effectively breaking the tension. “It's getting out of hand.”

“Wha-” Ivar began, gesturing around to show his disagreement. “My hair is perfect as it is.”

“It's not.” Silje shook her head under Ivar's puzzled gaze. “If you don't groom a little you'll never find a job.”

“A job?”

“Of course. Did you think I was gonna let you crash my place free of charge forever?” She scoffed and took a sip of her tea. Ivar leaned back against the bench and stared at her.

“You're kicking me out as soon as I can walk again?” He asked, truly astounded.

Not that he didn't see it coming, or thought he deserved it, but it was out of character for Silje. Or was it? Could he really tell after knowing her for a total of two months? Even if she did plan to dump him in the streets as soon as he was healed, this still came pretty much out of nowhere.

“No, I'm saying you help put bread on the table. You're not my charity case, remember? You're just a friend I'm helping get back on track.”

You're just a friend.

“You'll have to wait until August to apply for university, but until then you'll work. You don't need to pay a rent, my parents already cover the charges for the apartment and it's not like it changes anything for them if you live with me. I only ask you help pay for groceries and the water bill. You sure do enjoy your bath time so you can pay for it. The rest of the money you should save for dog days.”

“Sounds like you gave it some thought,” Ivar observed. “All right, I was going to do it anyway by the way, I wouldn't have abused your hospitality. I intend to contribute as best I can. But can we negotiate about my hair?”

“No.”

“What- but, why?”

“No.”

“That's not answering my question at all,” he complained but Silje merely smile innocently and finished her tea.

“It's beginning to rain,” she said. “Come, let's head back. I used to do my brothers' haircuts whenever their girlfriends didn't want to. I'm good at it.”

Ivar wanted to object again but he figured it might indeed feel good to get his mane tamed. It hadn't seen a pair of scissors in quite some time and grew long in the past year or so. Besides, going to a hair salon was out of the question, at least until his first pay check.

“Okay, but I get to choose what you do to my hair!”

“Whatever you say Ivar.”

Silje stood up and held her hand out for him. Ivar glared at it but still took the offered hand somewhat reluctantly. At least he tried to look reluctant. It was still warm from the cup of tea and she enclosed her fingers around his hand, dragging him away from the bench with a big smile on her face while he stumbled forward.

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[onlyherefortheshowmances]

TW: Mental Health

I have a lot of mental health issues. My main diagnosis is Bipolar (type II). I also have CPTSD (stemming from physical and mental abuse for the first 6 years of my life at the hands of my biological father and continued emotional abuse/manipulation by my mother afterwards). I also have Borderline Personality Disorder which is a trauma-response related disorder that basically means it’s more difficult for me to regulate my emotions than most people. I’m prone to meltdowns when angry or upset. I also have panic disorder, social anxiety, and generalized anxiety disorder. It took a lot of years to finally figure out what is wrong with me, but even knowing what’s wrong doesn’t mean there’re answers. Sure, I’m on meds, but they don’t really work. I see a therapist, but it doesn’t really help. Everything just furthers my abilities to hide my emotions entirely. To never say what I’m actually thinking. To never be allowed to exist in my true state.

 I’m also physically disabled, but no one will believe just how much pain I’m in. I’ve gotten good at hiding that because what’s the bother if no one will believe me anyway. I’ve been in pain since I was 14 (2005). My freshman year of high school. Everything has gotten progressively worse to the point where walking more than a couple blocks is next to impossible. I used to be able to walk miles and miles with no problem, but that’s just not possible any more. A flight of stairs does me in, too.

 In my early 20s a doctor finally listened enough to x-ray my knee, but the x-ray was normal, so they just gave me prescription strength naproxen (Aleve) and sent me on my way. Three years ago (2017), my knee was acting up and my family doctor finally gave me a referral to sports medicine. They took xrays and were able to see osteoarthritis in my joint this time. They had me do physical therapy which just gave me more pain and more reason/ability to pretend there wasn’t any. They also gave me a cortisone injection.

 2 years ago (2018), I tore something in my right shoulder. It took an excruciating 2 months of physical therapy before I even got to see orthopedics. The first orthopedic doctor I saw, basically shrugged me off. He did a cortisone injection in my shoulder which made it worse. I requested a second opinion and finally found a doctor that would order imaging of the shoulder even though the physical therapist put in her notes that it should be MRI’d because of the symptomology following therapy. I had surgery in December for a tare that happened in June. I suffered through 9 months (including the 3 months of recovery after surgery) for something that could have been over in half that time if doctors would have just listened when I went to urgent care the day it happened. At my surgery follow up the doctor remarked that the inside of my shoulder looks like I’m at least in my 70s and that my rotator cuff is also slightly torn and will likely eventually need repaired.

 It wasn’t until this year (2020); literally 15 years after the pain started, that I found a single doctor that would take me seriously. He finally ran blood work beyond the regular stuff and I’ve since been diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis, but because the x-rays of my hands and feet look normal, it’s not “aggressive” and I’m just on meds. I still don’t have pain meds or muscle relaxers even though that’s all I want. I’m still not disabled enough.

 The medical care I require is not cheap. Especially not when the insurance my employer offers has $60 co-pays for every specialty visit. My prescriptions cost $50+ per month even with insurance. My therapist is $45 per session which I can only afford every 3 or 4 weeks even though I should definitely be going more often. My psychiatrist is $50 per visit and he wants to see me monthly when he changes anything. I have to see rheumatology ($60 per visit) every 6 weeks for conceivably forever. I had to have a special eye exam ($105 total) every year and new classes are $50+ every year because you know my eyesight has to be complete shit on top of everything else, too.

 I also have to live alone; in part because of my mental health condition and in part because I don’t have anywhere else to go. So, I have to pay my bills all on my own, too.

 I’ve had a lot of jobs in my 29 ½ years of life.

 I worked at Wal-mart in High School (2007-2009). I was a cashier first and then worked in the clothing department. I was fired because they refused to accept my doctor’s note absences even though their company policy says they should have. I got unemployment.

 I did odd jobs in college (2009-2012). I was a tour guide for open house once a month which was probably my favorite job. I very briefly worked in the dining hall, but my mental health couldn’t take that for more than a couple weeks. Mostly my grandfather supported me through those three years until I had to leave school. I made it through 3 years of the social work program to realize my mental health wasn’t cut out for that profession. I didn’t have the money for 3 more years to get a different degree, so I left. Always with the intention that I’d go back some day, but I’ve never actually made it and now with the state of me, probably never will.

 I worked at the Amazon Warehouse for the grand amount of 2 weeks after I left school (June 2012). I had a panic attack trying to do high levels on the order picker and didn’t have a psychiatrist to write an accommodation letter at the time, so I had no choice but to leave.

 I then worked at Target (but for Radio Shack) selling contract cell phones (July 2012-. I enjoyed that job well enough, but it became physically taxing (standing for umpteen hours on end). It was that job that got me to transfer back to my city from where my grandfather lived. I lived with a roommate for a year. She no longer speaks to me because of a whole laundry list of misunderstandings (mostly my mental health).

 After Target, I worked at CVS as a Pharmacy Tech. I think that was the job I had the longest before my current one. It was that job that lead to my first hospitalization(s) for mental health. When I finally had to leave (for my mental health), I was unemployed and essentially homeless for almost a year and then I had county funding to get a room for another year and lived off food stamps and medical assistance.

 During that time, I met Shawn. He was the saving grace I needed to get out of what I thought would be the darkest time of my life.

I managed to get my anxiety under control enough to get a job again. I was a mail carrier for 7 months (May-December 2016). I lost that job again due to my mental health. I was hypomanic (the upswing of Bipolar II) and made a careless driving decision. I was then unemployed for 4 months (until April 2017). But I was living with Shawn at that time and everything seemed fine.

 I then ended up working in the laundry room at the hospital for a few months (April-July 2017). I ended up needing to quit that job because my physical paid started getting too much to handle and I got tendonitis in my wrist. But during that time Shawn broke off our engagement and I restarted therapy (with my current therapist). We’ve always still been best friends. We’ve still done things together; in fact I moved into the spare bedroom and continued to live there for over a year after.

 I started my next job a week after leaving the hospital. I was a receptionist at a major dental practice (July 2017-March 2018) until their company policies went to shit and I had to find a new job for my own sanity.

 I started my current job on April 9, 2018. I work in Revenue Cycle for a group of dental practices doing mostly insurance billing and claims follow up. I moved into an apartment by myself in September 2018 and live there until August of this year. I recently moved into a new apartment (August 2020).

 The past year has however been a living hell.

 On October 24, 2019, Shawn died. I don’t want to go into details of how, but it wasn’t directly intentional, but he knew there was a risk in his actions that lead to the death.

 It’s been year. Nothing’s gotten better. Everything is still broken. Everything still hurts. I’m only better at pretending. I don’t want to live in this world anymore. Intensive Mental health programs only make things worse (inpatient and intensive outpatient alike) and make me hide even more because I need to get out. I can’t handle it.

 I need to quit my job. For my mental and physical health. I can’t handle it anymore. Especially not working from home like I’ve had to since June because of COVID. I don’t think another job would be any better. Maybe for a couple months, but then the same problems would happen again. I just can’t commit to doing something every single day. Not with my mental or physical health. But I can’t quit because I have bills to pay. I can’t get disability because I’m currently working and you can’t be working or have savings to get disability. You basically have to be homeless or live with someone that supports you completely to get it. So basically, I have no way out and I’m stuck in a perpetual hellscape.

[awellboiledicicle]

The Boy Who Ran pt 2

This is a part 2 [part 1] [par to a short prompt based around “ Imagine that you show up in your favorite character’s universe, only for them to be missing. You ask the other characters about it, but they have never even heard of your favorite character. You soon realize that you’re supposed to play their role in the story/series”. I chose Harry James Potter. [Part 3]

Shoes. 

I really should have brought some shoes. Also, should have probably looked where I was going when I decided taking off into the night was a very good idea in terms of switching up my destiny. Perhaps some socks.  Hogwarts letters do not come with socks. 

They are, however, flammable enough to keep someone warm while you’re reading the other, less crumpled letters you grabbed. This was mostly me ruminating on the fact that, if i was sitting in the middle of.. not London? Maybe London. Possibly London. Memory blanks are a pain. Especially when trying to pull on memories decades back and you hit The Green Light. It was a nauseating feeling I couldn’t cope with in this body, not as Harry, not as a starving-- even more so now-- skinny, bony, and cold kid.  I needed to get in contact with Hagrid, or someone. The more I tried to think about it, though, think forward, my head hurt. So, change was allowed, but no gaming the system too much.  So, planning. I was in the middle of a city that i had to run and then dead exhaustion walk to, I wasn’t sure how many owls would come to me. How many could without giving me or the wizarding world away-- the last thing I needed was the Durleys sending people out for me via “search for masses of owls”, or people tracking said owls.  If they were looking. Maybe they weren’t. 

Hogwarts would be looking, though. It’s been looking since I was left on the Dursleys’ doorstep, waiting for me to turn 11.  I either had to respond to a letter-- some how-- and tell them i need assistance, or wait it out. 

At that moment, I was curled up by a dumpster in an alleyway, sitting on a wooden pallet to stay out of the rainwater. It was colder than I had anticipated-- because of course it was-- and my stomach was growling to the point of pain. The upside of having to wear Dudley’s old clothes was that the baggy extra room let the heat I did generate build up, but the downside was that they got damp faster.  I tried to catch some of the owls that came that day, since they... appearantly took not having a quill and parchment to respond as denial? They flew off. I had no mice or anything to offer and that kinda pissed me off. Not really helping the “Contact Hogwarts” mission I had set for myself.  Keeping that in mind, I had to find food. You can’t wait for your birthday on faith alone.

After walking a considerable distance, and being reasonably sure I had picked up something from walking in the city barefoot, I was able to get food. I had tried asking around at places for stale bread at first-- that got me ran off with not unsurprising vigor. Eventually a synagogue, and then a mosque farther off gave me a small pack of food and a pad of paper-- they offered it for free, but I insisted on doing some cleaning inside for them. I think they let me if only because it had started to pour outside and was getting dark. The Rabbi of the synagogue let me sleep on a couch in the entryway, since everything else locked. Well, the reasoning was more I told him that I had no home and needed a soft place in the rain, and he said sleep there-- but before this whole thing, I know the security was part of the placement. It was soft and warm and good. Left over challa never tasted so good at 3am. 

Between cleaning at the mosque, the synagogue, and trying to not be too noticeable at a local park, the days toward my 11th birthday crawled. I spent many nights under benches in a park, wrapped in a tarp and hoping devoutly that no one would notice me. The Rabbi would still allow me in, but I’d cut it down to just the worst nights, really-- when someone had reported seeing me and I felt skittish, or someone had been unsettling. Rabbi had been kind enough to not say anything to anyone, after I told him the truth. Well, enough of the truth. That my parents had died and my extended family were supposed to care for me, but beat me and starved me and hated me. So I ran away from them. I didn’t tell him names, though. In case he called them and they came looking. It was unlikely, but it was a cautionary measure.

If the Dursleys’ had people looking for me, I didn’t see them-- likely because I have a general avoidance of authority figures. They may well have just washed their hands of the whole business, I reflected, as I tried to compose a proper reply/Letter of Request of Aid to Hogwarts that sounded like an eleven year old boy wrote it. They prefer to be viewed as perfectly “normal” after all, so my disappearance would likely warrant a celebration. Dudley probably got many more gifts he proceeded to harm others with and then break. Petunia was probably orgasmic over the fact she once again had more to gossip about than to have gossiped over. Vernon was likely still a purple lump of screaming, abusive, overpoweringly disgusting, vile, worms in a tie.

I was in the middle of doodling a rather impressive image of #4 Privet Drive on fire when I became vaguely aware that, approaching up a street toward the park behind me, were the sounds a heavy motorcycle makes when you’ve ridden it over things it really should not be ridden over one too many times. Like gravel, rocky terrain if it’s a smooth riding bike, or perhaps someone enchanted a thing one ought not have to ride in the air. And was riding it down a muggle street at dusk, toward a vaguely dirty, scrawny boy with a knapsack sitting at the edge of a park. And came to a stop by said bench, the gigantic rider swinging off and grinning.

This was was the point where I had to process in full the size of Hagrid and the motorcycle. Nothing before The Green did him justice-- hands the size of trashcan lids nothing, he could have palmed my torso. Then again, my torso was rather thin, so that might be saying more about me than him. He loomed over me as i turned to stare opened mouth, but not in a threatening way-- it was more that’s just how Hagrid was. He was big and tall and wide. His beard was worth about 5 heads of hair and every inch of my self control went into not poking it, because it looked bushy and bristly, like the hair on a favorite doll or like my own.  “There you are Harry! Been lookin’ for you all over!” He boomed warmly, again I feel not intentionally so much as that was just his voice. The warmth was nice though, and I was struck with how genuine the tone seemed. It took everything in my body to quench the immediate feeling that this man was trying to con me before he’d said anything of the sort. Warmth meant danger, it meant a trick. I had to remember through The Green that Rubeus Hagrid was a good man and I shouldn’t bolt. I suppose my look of confusion skipped him, or he was taking it in stride, because he continued as if I was quiet aware of who he was. “Got yer dad’s wanderin’ streak in ya, runnin’ all over the countryside, not answerin’ your letters! Got yer mum’s eyes though, must have ‘er smarts in there, findin’ you writin’ away! Lookit ya, grown so much since the last time I saw you! Then again, you was just a lil baby!” I had processed a similar scene before, mentally, and prepared to try to act through it.  But one cannot look at a very large man being soft and not be thrown. At least I couldn’t.  “Uh.. who are you?” I am the pinnacle of eloquence. He looked a bit surprised and chuckled, sticking his hand out for a shake and I finally understood the ‘shook his whole arm’ line. He looked concerned when I bodily tipped over and patted my back.  “Easy there, Harry. Name’s Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of the Grounds and Keys of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry! Call me Hagrid. Oh, that reminds me.” He then presented me with the slightly squashed cake. I think he was surprised when i proceeded to open it, plop back down on the bench and start eating it with my hands. I am not a proud person. Harry Potter is not a proud person. “Err.. Was going to say I sat on it but it’s still good, but ya seem to like it well enough!” “I haven’t eaten in a day an’ a half.” I said through a mouthful of cake, shoveling another handful in, and swallowing painfully. This was, sadly, only about ten percent to try fast-tracking getting to Diagon Alley and an inn. The other 90% was because I was telling the truth and was going to cry. The cake was overly moist, like it had been soaked in something, though it wasn’t bad. I was definitely going to have to wash in a water-fountain later. But dear lord did it hit the spot. “This is the best birthday ever.” Hagrid’s face darkened and his body language shifted drastically from ‘excited’ to ‘borderline angry’ and I froze. “What’d you say?” I swallowed and hurriedly closed the box, my heart starting to race. Oh no, oh no. Hello trauma response. “I’m sorry, did I say something wrong? It’s good cake, was I not supposed to eat the cake? I’m sorry for eating the cake.” “No, no-- Merlin’s beard-- It’s your cake Harry.” His voice was quieter now. He seemed to be processing something. With a look around, he put his hands in his pockets. “Harry, why’re you out here, hungry, an’ not in a house?” I blinked and looked around, before raising an eyebrow. “I ran away? Because it was better out here?” Hagrid was quiet for a while more.  “Have ya got yer letter, have ya read it? Do ya know what yer parents were, what ya are?” He’d come around the front of the bench and knelt down to be on eye level with me now, and looked very concerned. Bless Hagrid. Bless every single hair on his head, including his eyebrows and eyelashes.  And curse that I have to play dumb. “What I-- homeless? Some kinda freak?” “Freak? Who told you that?” He got angry for a bit and calmed himself when he saw panic flash over my face.  “The.. Dursleys? That’s why I ran away. They kept locking me in a closet and telling me to stop acting weird and hitting me when weird things happened.” He seemed to be boiling up around the edges, but letting me continue so he could rage later. “They always said my parents died in a car crash and I was weird like them, but i didn’t die. And that it was my fault. So I ran once i got the letter, just.. just in case there were people like me..”

Lying, something I was much better at than normal, but it was also true. Tell a kid they’re a mistake enough and that their parents were too, and don’t let them know more, and they draw conclusions. The conclusions being drawn in front of me right then, though, were likely that Hagrid was going to turn all the Dursleys’ into pigs or something. Or tell this all to Dumbledor and they’d all turn into bugs in a small terrarium. Perhaps that was my own wishful thinking. Definitely my own wishful thinking because about the time I finished that musing, Hagrid exploded into a full on explanation of everything-- I pressed for info here and there on Voldemort, a name i didn’t really fear to think, when prompted-- from my parents to Hogwarts. Even how Mcgonagall had pressed him to come looking for me early, which was good ‘if you been livin’ like this Harry’. 

I tried very hard not to fist pump over my to-cat-commentary working. It would have thrown off the whole vibe. 

Hagrid did write off a quick letter to.. someone I imagine, and tell me to hop onto the motorcycle. Something about not letting this stand and taking me somewhere to get cleaned up and showing me Diagon Alley so i had someplace nice to sleep for a bit before dealing with business. 

“Alright, but.. If I go to this Hogwarts place.. I don’t have any money.” “Your parents-- they left you some. It’s a job for the mornin’ Harry.” “Oh..” I climbed onto the back of the motorcycle with him. “But I don’t have to go back to the Dursleys’ right?” “Not after I have a word with Dumbledor you bloody well won’t.”

It was good I was sitting behind him. Partially because I had a sly grin from the planning here, and then from the look of abject terror because I had forgotten the motorcycle flies. By all laws of aerodynamics, a motorcycle should not be able to maintain flight. But this one does anyway, because it’s magic and it doesn’t care what Muggle math has to say.

Hagrid had to peel a very suddenly pale Boy Who Lived off his jacket when we landed. I managed to not puke or wet myself on the way through the Leaky Cauldron, so success? Success. I vaguely remembered events that lead to me scrubbing cake off my face and arms, and then sleeping. They didn’t involve Quirrell, so either we were early, I blew the line of people off, or Hagrid did me a solid and ushered me away from people before handshakes happened. I recalled the person running the counter getting very excited, then being hushed, and giving us a key.  Hagrid took the couch and it look like it broke, sagging to the floor, and I felt some slightly aware part of me twinge with anxiety, but I was too tired and high on adrenaline to care. Besides, magic can fix nearly any object. Whatever. 

The feeling of being in the clear was gone in about 9 hours.  Not exactly 9, but for once I was experiencing the best sleep I had ever gotten and I was taking it for all it was worth. 

Then the migraine came. Oh, Harry dear you poor, poor bastard. Poor bastard, poor me. Like dying, but slow and only in the spot around my scar. So, mostly my whole head region. I wanted to screw my eyelids closed tighter, but I knew that would make it worse, that this wasn’t the sort of migraine you get from a bad nerve or a pulled muscle. The cold burning was seeping now, down through my nostrils and through to the back of my throat, to the roof of my mouth. That wasn’t the main jabbing “FYI, Snakefuck McDick is nearby” feeling, but there were after effects.  The jab itself was radiating over my eye and opening them to look around made everything fuzzy-- like someone was blasting white noise and shining lights at me. While also stabbing me in the head.  No, I was not being dramatic, but holy hell did it feel like the migraines before The Green, but worse. Like a whole part of me stopped being me and was... ah, right. Right. Of course. Thinking ahead in time isn’t something I could do, but I’m stubborn and I knew one thing I damn sure could do. There would be no reclaiming this piece of himself, there would be no dragging it out of me.  I may have had to lay in bed for twenty minutes, sweating like a fever had taken me for all I had, and focusing on the pain until I wanted to vomit-- but finding the separation, exactly, in my mind was going to be key later. 

I am the boy who lived, the boy who ran, the boy who thinks, the boy who plans. And I would be damned if i’m the boy who is caught unaware.

So when I eventually got up, cleaned up and joined Hagrid downstairs in the dinning room-- complete with him speaking to several people, including a man wearing a peculiar purple turban-- I felt I was prepared.

I was, but oh, boy, never have I felt the urge to slap the back of someone’s head more in my entire life.

[scientia-rex]

On Suicidal Patients and Self

End of week one of my Psychiatry rotation: I’m wide awake after midnight post-nap, because I’m afraid to try to go to sleep with all my failures at various things this week rattling around in my head. Now, the feedback I got from my attending was actually good. I’m doing fine on this rotation. But in any given rotation, and particularly on one as interaction-heavy as this, there is bound to be awkwardness. And I’ve always been deeply bothered by that. So I pick apart my week and look back and think about all the things I’d re-write, if I were scripting this. All the times I let my puffy, unpleasant ego show. People I alienated. Patients I spoke to wrong. Maybe there was no winning, but God, I wanted to win.

And I’ve always--since I was ten or so--had the thought of suicide in the back of my mind. Like a binkie. It’s the idea that there’s a way out. And sometimes, when my OCD got bad, it was obsessive, too, and not comforting at all anymore. But by and large, there’s always been this image in my head, a last resort.

But after a week on the Psych ward, things look different; they feel different. You start seeing (I start seeing, second person is the creation of artificial distance, I use it as needed) what suicide really looks like. The patterns around it. Suicide happens when life is, for some reason, unbearable. Most of the patients so far I’ve seen who are here for suicide attempts or intentions have that in common, that there’s a precipitating factor. Often they’re really bad at recognizing that, but when they explain their recent life out loud it’s like, okay, you just listed three things that each rank high on the Life Stressors scale, did you know that? And they shrug these events off. Oh, that didn’t really upset me. Buddy, something sure as shit did, because you went from “not trying to kill yourself” to “put a belt around your neck” and now you’re here. People don’t come here because they’re not upset.

With this bird’s-eye view of a succession of suicidal patients, it becomes clearer. The condescending shitty phrase “permanent solution to a temporary problem” is actually, gallingly, true. Acute stressors produce an acute response, and when the emotional reaction these events provoke is too much to handle, people go to the suicide option. This is why half our suicides are drunk at the time of the attempt. Anything you have to be drunk to talk yourself into is probably a shitty idea.

It makes me, although I am currently thinking about suicide more, feel like I’m less likely to do it. Having this perspective on how this, too, shall pass isn’t just some bullshit a happy asshole made up to taunt me with. Even for the people with really severe mental illness, for people who are homeless, drug-addicted, people who have very little, objectively, to live for--even they’re mostly not attempting. I thought my attending was being stone-cold earlier in the week when he looked a kid who’d made a suicide attempt (fourth, I found out today) in the eye and said, “The choice isn’t between living and dying, it’s between living and attempting to die, and many patients end up living with the consequences of attempting to die--badly physically damaged by the attempt.” But he’s absolutely right. And we know it, don’t we? When we fantasize about suicide, even passively, what if this car hit me, we think about being done, not waking up in the ICU with a trach.

Being in medicine, you have better ideas and better access for how to do it. You have means, which is a major element of suicide prevention, the only one shown to really noticeably affect rates. SSRIs don’t keep people from suiciding.

But I can’t really convey how convincing it is, to see this same story repeated over and over again: there was a moment. There was a moment when it felt like the pain was never going to let up. If you can wait out the moment, that unbearable pain recedes enough to become bearable once again. Is that a way to live? I don’t know. But we do it. So many of us do it.

You can see why DBT is popular with people at high risk of suicide. People with borderline personality disorder, for example, for whom the whole world is a raw emotional wound, to borrow its founder’s description. A lot of the focus is on waiting out the moment. Distress tolerance is a skill set I’ve worked on, in the past, and one I should keep working on, because it’s applicable to all of us. I’ve felt those moments where it seemed like I couldn’t keep going. I’ve never had means during those moments. That’s probably partly planning--I’ve never bought a gun--and partly dumb luck.

As a society, we talk about mental illness, especially suicidality, like it’s binary: on/off. And like treatment is a cure: on/off. You were suicidal, now you’re not. You’re cured. Go forth--until the next time you’re suicidal, and then you’re suddenly sick again. In reality, it’s more like diabetes. Sometimes it’s controlled, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes you’re managing it with medications and it recedes, sometimes you’re not. It’s a thing to learn to live with, not necessarily try to eradicate. Like pests, in farming. Eradication is a goal that’s just not workable. I don’t think my brain is ever going to let me stop mooting suicide as an option. It’s a matter of what the volume is on that suggestion, whether I can wait it out. And I hate the idea that patients feel guilty, or like they’re failing, when they’re not perfectly fine after treatment; or like they have to lie to us to be released; like we don’t understand, as a profession, that being suicidal means all the things we say sound like fucking platitudes delivered by idiots; or like having suicidal thoughts come back means their whole treatment has been a failure.

You can live with this. A quarter of the patients we release--I learned this yesterday--have suicidal ideation. We release them if we think it’s vague enough and low enough that we think the odds of them actually attempting are low. Most of the don’t attempt. And like I said, we’re a big hospital; we deal in people with severe, refractory mental illness, a lot of the time.

I think the patient I spent most of this week working with feels some contempt for us. The things we’re holding out to him are olive branches, our best attempts at life-rafts. I tried to say you are not going to be protected from this by all your hard work and all your talent and skill and intelligence. My resident tried to say your brain is still changing and growing; you may not feel like this forever. Your worst may change, may be less bad, more bearable. My attending tried to say you need other people, and suicide isn’t the clear yes-or-no you were aiming for. We all encouraged him to go the groups. He knows the drill well enough to know that if he goes to groups and says they’re helping and says he’s looking forward and making plans for the future, we’ll probably let him out faster. He’s being cooperative and pleasant. Visible in the milieu.

Who the hell are we to decide whether he’s safe to go back out there? But it has to be someone’s job. This week, it’s ours.

I feel like what we’re trying to give him is a handful of sand. It’s not much to begin with, he could probably have found a lot of it on his own, and it’ll slip away the minute he opens his hand. He needs a regular therapist. He needs a less stressful lifestyle. The first might happen, the second probably won’t. He reminds me, painfully, vividly, of a best friend of mine who had a very similar experience in a very similar educational setting, and I want to save him; I want to go back fourteen years and save my friend; I want to be able to save anyone, but that’s not what we do. It’s not possible. You can’t make someone better. Our tools are pitiful.

How many therapists to change a lightbulb?

How much second-hand trauma am I onboarding this week? How am I doing? My brain’s a snowglobe, and I just want to stop shaking it and sleep. We’ll see.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #76

“yeah, you’re a crazy bitch, but you fuck so good.”

do you ever think about what went wrong in your last relationship? we each made mistakes, and i feel more certain of this now that jason and i have talked. i, for one, gave up on life while still being alive. on jason's end, he, too, gave up on me instead of trying to rebuild me. do you know your best friend’s middle name? yes, colleen. she goes by her middle name, but her "real" name is elizabeth. you have to get a piercing, what do you get? vertical labret on my lip. would you rather have a poodle or a rottweiler? a standard poodle. ever driven into the ghetto to buy drugs? no. mom denies it and got pissed once when i mentioned it, but we once lived in sharpsburg, and that was totally the ghetto. do you own a gun? as i'm mentally ill/have had suicidal tendencies, i legally can't. my mother even can't because i live with her. would you rather sleep with someone or alone? with someone. while it's less comfortable, it's comforting. are there any songs that remind you of falling snow? or any songs that remind you of winter time but are not necessarily about that? dude, i have noooo idea why, but for whatever reason, "dreamer" by ozzy osbourne definitely brings to mind winter for me personally. is there anything coming out soon (books, albums, movies, video games) that you're looking forward to? hmmm, i don't think so... but then again, i live under a rock and am not informed on what's coming out so- wAIT IS OUTLAST 2 OUT YET what is something you wish you had learned earlier that you know now? how would this have helped you if you'd known it then? i don't know if there's anything, honestly... i used to say i wish i'd known jason would leave me, but i guess i don't now. because i loved, beyond explanation. i loved with such a naive innocence, and i don't regret that. when you’re interested in someone, do you let them know? according to my history, i do. what was the last compliment you received? someone liked my hair. i got compliments on it non-stop at the hospital. do you have any siblings? are they older / younger? 
 including half-siblings, tiffany, misty, bobby, katie, and ashley are older. nicole is younger. have you ever thought about getting your lip pierced? it has been pierced before, and i plan on doing it again very soon. favorite shoes you have EVER owned? the finding nemo once i had as a kid were fly as FUCK allergic to? pollen and silver favorite fruit? strawberries who was your first prom date? jason where did you live the first time you moved out of your parent’s house? i lived with jason, amanda, and jacob. if you were to have sex right now, would you use a condom? in almost all cases, yes. the only situation where i wouldn't is if i was with jason at this very moment and he wanted to have sex, and he didn't have any. just apply the pull out method, and besides that, i shouldn't be ovulating right now, so i wouldn't get pregnant. do you think it’s bad to have sex at your age? no, i'm an adult. have you ever wanted to get drunk and take your mind off of everything? i sure have. how long do you think you will live? eh, probably early 80s, maybe even 70s... i'm not the healthiest person, mentally and physically. have you ever been stung by a bee? i have not. do you like the snow? very much so. how old are you? do you feel as old as you are? i am 21, but i certainly don't feel it. does the quality of a video, on youtube or a television, matter to you? at least very mildly, sure. it needs to be watchable at least. do you tend to listen to music that embraces your mood or does music dictate your mood? is it a little bit of both? i tend to embrace my mood with the music i pick. are there any books or films that have influenced your philosophy? if so, is there one you could name in particular? "johnny got his gun," i r8 8/8 what is the cutest animal? meerkat pups, oh my GOSH what seasons seems most fitting to your personality? in what ways and why? autumn, because everything is dying. :'D do you think you would be a good parent? i don't know, honestly... blue, black, or red pens; or another color? black do you like watching people play video games? yes, i do!! idk why, it's just entertaining to me. when was the last time you swam in a pool?  years ago what are your parents views on sex? err, in regards to what about it exactly? have you ever babysat before? yeah, for the neighbor. if your current boyfriend/crush suddenly moved away what would you do?  i'd be pretty devastated, honestly. if your best friend revealed she was a homosexual, what would you do?  well that'd be a problem, as she's married to a man. i'd be pretty concerned about what she'd do. have you ever dreamed about your wedding? i have. do you delete pictures of you and your exes off of facebook? nope. j and my pictures are still up there. ever plaigarised? no. i have too much respect as a writer. do you edit your profile pictures before posting them?  i do minor adjustments, of course. i was a digital photography student, we know aaall about the mandatory deception of editing. :P what's your middle name?  marie what's your wallpaper on your phone? lock screen is the bogeyman from "silent hill: downpour," but the artwork is from "anne's story." home screen is pyramid head from the white hunter comic. favorite tv commercial? the dirty mr. clean commercial mAKES ME SOB YA'LL SHOULDA SEEN ME THE OTHER DAY I WAS DONE what is your favorite type of cat?  hmmm. persians, sphinxes, ragdoll, etc... what religion were you raised in? are you still that religion, if you had one? catholicism, and no. i'm christian now. would you ever consider getting dreadlocks? nooooo. how many times is your cartilage pierced in your ears?  once. do you prefer to spend more time with your SO, family, or friends? why? in my history, my s.o. jason really just touched this part of my brain that just REALLY made me happy. if you see a homeless person asking for money, do you give them any? i'm not going to lie, no. i don't know that person, and WAY too many assholes are deceptive little shits. what will immediately disqualify a potential SO?  smoking, doing drugs, excessive drinking, abusive past, and i'm certain there are others i'm forgetting... i am honestly VERY picky. when was the last time you really panicked? when i overdosed a few days back. do you ever get eczema? nope. have you ever witnessed a serious physical fight? i have not. is there anyone you would do literally anything for?  honestly, yes. i'd kill for jason. it's very unhealthy and i wish the mentality would stop, but i honestly can't do much about it... do you enjoy corn on the cob?  i do. in your opinion, what's the ideal age to start having children? about mid-20s. what's the longest you've ever slept in one go? it HAD to be almost 12 hours. jason and i were up almost the entire night being horny whores and when i fell asleep, i was GONE. have you ever dated someone with an accent different than yours? no. does caffeine affect you, or not so much?  not very much at all. would you ever want to follow down the career path of your parents? no. but then again, they both dropped out of/didn't go to college, so... guess i'm not too far off. do you think “sleeve tattoos” are a good idea? *sexual moaning* if you have any tattoos, do you reckon you might regret them when you get older and have children? i sure won't. is there anything in particular that your parents argue about? what? just gonna say there's a reason they're divorced. do you act differently around the person you like? i mean, i'm happier. kissed someone you didn’t like?  on the cheek, never on the lips. ran a red light? no. experienced love at first sight?  nope. pointed a gun at someone?  no. had a gun pointed at you? no. dumped someone?  yep. lied to avoid a ticket? no. ridden in a helicopter? no. made your girlfriend/boyfriend cry? i woulda preferred you to rip my fucking heart out. eaten snake?  omg no. puked on amusement ride?  no. been in a band? nope. been in handcuffs? i've been in full-body shackles on one occasion. i was going from the mental hospital to the court. what is your favorite breakfast food? pancakes. who do you (romantically) love? my ex, jason. do you enjoy kissing?  sure, yeah. what about making out? i r8 8/8 m8 where are you most ticklish? MY FEET HOLY SHIT where do you want to get married? gothic-styled mansion or similar building pls do you plan on having both your parents at your wedding? yes. have you ever slow danced to a song you didn't know? no. if you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why? south africa. i want to photograph the meerkats at the kalahari meerkat project. describe your perfect partner. his name's jason. would you prefer to be a vampire or a werewolf? vampire, i think. the werewolf transformation seems painful. most embarrassing moment?  borderline having a panic attack because i was like really close to having an orgasm for the first time and i didn't understand what was happening to my body lmao. jason was super cute and sweet about it though and helped me calm down. would you ever consider getting married?  i want to get married. if it were possible, what exotic animal would you keep as a pet? if it weren't so bad for them, i'd totally have a meerkat. what is your least favorite thing about your appearance?  my stomach. ew. have you ever had a bonfire on the beach?  no, but that sounds cool. do you listen to music while driving?  it has to be VERY quiet. or else i can't concentrate. have you ever received an autograph from a celebrity?  no. can you honestly say you’ve been drunk before? i have. is there a certain color of eyeshadow you prefer, if you wear eyeshadow? black as my soul. would you ever do something you didn't enjoy sexually just to please your partner? depends on what, really. like there are some situations where i'd absolutely draw the line, but here's an example: i don't like oral, but i guess i'd give it sometimes if it made him happy. when was the last time you watched south park?  probably not since j and i were together... i remember one occasion where we chilled in my room for hours watching it. are you italian? no. where’s the nearest game stop near you?  in rocky mount, by wal-mart. do you have any best friends that you only know online? i guess i still consider mini at least a very close friend, despite not talking much. i have other very close friends too, but not best, i guess. if you could, would you want to stay young forever? yes. being elderly is just, in general, inconvenient. not saying old people are, just the state of being old is. are you interested in anime? no more, no less than the usual person. hogwarts house: just took a quiz, and apparently i'm a mix of all? i very well coulda been off, 'cuz there was a lot of harry potter terminology that i don't know... what’s “out of bounds” for you during sex?  do. not. hit me aggressively. main thing. hickies - get ‘em or give ‘em?  i enjoy getting 'em, enjoy giving 'em. are you okay with rough sex?  hell yeah. i think i'd prefer soft and sensual more frequently, but i'm not totally opposed to just fucking. how big was the biggest dick you’ve ever seen? was it in a porn or in real life?  this survey sure took a sexual turn. but i've only ever seen one penis, so... how do you feel about daddy dom/little girl roleplaying?  nO JUST NO do you have any sexual regrets? i regret not going all the way with j. he was my first love, and he deserved to know me in every single way possible. have you had anal?  no, and i don't want it. do you like to spank/be spanked? i like being spanked, but not too hard. do you like teasing or would you rather get straight to the point? tEASE TEASE TEEEEEAAAAAASE are you able to have emotionless sex? fuck that. sex should be the epitome of physical displays of affection, imo. does penis size really matter?  honest to god, i don't care. it's not like a man can choose how "well-off" he is. describe an orgasm. oh wow. i don't actually think i've ever properly orgasmed, but i was extremely close once and totally panicked. it felt totally otherworldly, and i honestly felt like screaming, puking, and just exploding all at once??? i was so scared at first, but as i calmed down, shit was awesome. what’s the longest time you’ve had sex for? never had sex, but done sexual things for hours... like, all night. if you could change the person you lost your virginity to, would you? i would change the fact i didn't lose my virginity to jason. what’s something sexual that you thought you wouldn’t like, but ended up liking? anr/abf surprised the FUCK out of me. i honestly thought it'd be really awkward and uncomfortable, but it's honestly an extremely stimulating and motherly sensation okay i'll stop before this turns into a pornish thing. but basically it taught me ya can't totally judge some things 'til you try it. give your best sex advice, GO. uhhh. ever tried sucking on your partner's tongue while making out? turned my ex the fuck on, at least. would you say you’re good in bed?  have evidence i was good enough. do you like gagging on cock/having someone gag on your cock? why? i just choked on my fucking drink. but no, because i like air. when it comes to oral, are you gentle? do you use your hands too?  i. was so. timid giving oral. i was so scared i was going to hurt him. i don't think i've ever used my hands at the same time. okay, how do you feel about handjobs? since we were stuck with foreplay due to my abstinence, we relied on handjobs a lot. they're great. have you had any unwanted pain during sex? i've had pain while being fingered, sure. but i guess it wasn't entirely unwanted. has anyone drew blood from you during sex, whether it was by cutting, biting, or scratching? how did you feel about that? no, never. have you ever fucked someone who was sad? did it help them emotionally or make it worse?  i'm sure i have, and he's done it to me when i was sad plenty of times, and yes, it's honestly a great mood booster. are you more submissive or dominant? i'm definitely more submissive. who’s your ideal sexual partner?  jason was nothing short of perfect. are you accepting “applications” for a partner? lmao fuck that i don't do no "applications" for this kinda shit. who was your first kiss with? first person to kiss me was juan, but the first person i kissed who reciprocated my kiss was jason. how far have you gone sexually? depends on how you rank sexual things, idk...? did you shave your legs today? done with the sexual questions, eh? anyway, no. have you ever made out with someone in public at all? no. do you think masturbation is dirty? not necessarily dirty, just lustful. have you ever made out in a hot tub? *adds to bucket list* do you play with the other persons hair when you kiss? jason had long hair for a male, to his shoulders, and yeah, i liked playing with it. have you ever smoked pot? nope. do you sing in front of people? NOOOOO. ever lived in a trailer park? no. have you ever had dandruff? no, but i have a dry scalp. though both cause flaking, they're still different. what would people say about you at your funeral?  i was very quiet and thought too much. what lessons in life did you learn to hard way? your actions have consequences. would you ever give up your life to save another?  i'm not going to pretend to be a superhero. it depends on who it is. what is stopping you from living the life you want to live?  money, health, willpower... ever held a newborn animal? kittens, yes. how do you dress when you’re not at work? i don't have a job, so. but when i'm home anyway, i'm dressed for comfort, usually in my pajamas. if i'm going out, i will dress usually in something like yoga pants and a graphic tee. do you care overly about other people? the only person i'd say i care "overly" about is jason. what was your favorite pokemon as a child? charmander (: do you know what the heck the difference is between the statements “we’re just dating” and “we’re together”?   technically the same in my honest opinion, but at the same time, "we're dating" also sounds more casual. if a person is brought up speaking both spanish and english in equal amounts and equally fluently, which language do they think in?   *KA-BOOM* have you ever thought about getting your lip pierced?   it was pierced for many years, and i'm planning on getting it re-pierced very soon. last film you watched?   i just finished "finding dory" actually, now i'm watching "zootopia." when consuming a beverage that comes in a can, do you prefer to drink it directly from the can or do you pour it into a cup?   i like to drink it from the can.  tastes sliiightly different and is colder. what do you do to cure a headache?   sleep or take medicine. do you still possess any belongings from your childhood? do they hold some special significance?   absolutely.  i actually have two things i call "treasure boxes" where i hold certain, very special belongings.  nostalgia overdose. are any of your fingers or toes deformed? what about the nails?   no.  i would, however, call one of my nails unusual.  my right ring finger, its nail curves inward towards the base definitely more than it should.  it's so weird considering both my immediate sisters have it, too. when yawning, do you cover your mouth?   always in public, yes.  it just seems polite. as a kid, did you love playing on neopets?   neopets and webkinz were my SHIT.  i was more into webkinz, but neopets was amazing, too.  i loved the dragon one and the newer one that looked like a doggish thing with a stripe going down its body?  i think it started with an "x"? what is the background on your desktop? why’d you choose that?   on my own laptop, it's trico and the boy from "the last guardian" bc i love that game and its artwork.  on the laptop i've been using for like three months, it's a picture of my sister ashley and her baby aubree at the beach. are you comfortable with people going through your phone?   no, and i don't know why, actually...?  like i have NOTHING bad on there, it's just... weird? do you tend to daydream a lot? if so, about what?   i do, aaaaa lot.  aaand it's always about jason. e_e have any interesting conversations lately?   ohhh god.  not necessarily a convo, but lemme just make this known. chelsea: *creates fire w/ hairspray and lighter* *screams ensue* YOU ALMOST MADE ME COME HARDER THAN JASON EVER HAS then came the laughter and the stomachache from all the heaving what do you have pierced on you?   now?  only my ear lobes, and i'm livid about it.  i had to take my fucking piercings out at the hospital, and they closed up.  my ear lobes didn't tho, i guess 'cuz i've had them since childhood... but i am actually pissed. where do your grandparents live?   maternal: well, she technically lives in florida, but stays in new york with her son's family a load.  paternal: michigan. pencils; mechanical or traditional?   mechanical, by far.  eliminates the need to sharpen. what was the last zoo/aquarium you went to?   asheboro zoo or whatever it's called. what is the last big risk you took? did it pay off?   talking to jason face-to-face, absofuckinglutely.  that could've so easily ended in another suicide attempt.  but anyway, yes, it paid off. what's the closest you've come to death?   overdosing, i guess. what chocolate is your favorite?   milk who is your favorite blogger?  i don't really have one. what was the best thing you were given?  jason's love and attention, even if just for three and a half years of my life. have you ever cheated on your partner?  nope. are you over your past?  not in the slightest. did you try to change for a person?  ha.  he left too soon to give me a chance. e_e are you in a good or bad mood?   eh, i'm good for now. name someone you can’t live without.   no one.  after losing jason, well, i'm sure i can survive without anyone, ultimately. are you a crybaby?   10/10 do people praise you for your looks?   no. SEXIEST disney character that's not human?   okay sorrynotsorry but scar and steele are SEXY do you believe in the phrase “if it’s meant to be, it will be”?  ha!  no, sorry.  i refuse to believe jason and i weren't "meant to be." what do you put on hotdogs?  ketchup and mustard do you know how to play chess?   no. did you/are you going to go to prom?  i went to jason's senior and my senior.  man... i remember how shy he was when he asked me... it was so cute. :/ what’s the most physically painful thing you’ve ever experienced? having a pilonidal cyst opened and drained while still conscious and insufficiently drugged.  FUCK THAT. what’s the most emotionally/mentally painful thing you’ve ever experienced?   jason leaving me. have you ever legitimately saved a person’s life?   not to my knowledge. are you a very open or private person?   open online, private af irl what do you get complimented on the most?  my hair who was the last person you talked about sex with?  chelsea or colleen what was the last deep conversation you had about?   jason.  i was talking with chelsea. why do some girls become so dependent on their boyfriend/husband?   well, i, for one, was rather dependent on jason, and it was because i needed a pillar, and he was strong, but i guess i put too much weight on him... i had no fucking idea it was too much.  as well, it was because i am not an independent person.  i'm a follower and act like a dog on a leash towards the people i trust.  it's simply my desire to be a loyal companion.  i don't know how to change that. do you enjoy going to church?   i do, but not for TOO long. what do you have tattoos of/what do you want tattoos of?   oh god.  you asked for it.  as for tats i have, i have a semicolon butterfly on my right wrist, "perfectly flawed" written on my left, upper arm, and "ohana" written on my right collarbone.  as for what i want, i have about 100 ideas, but i'm going to only list the ones i am quite serious about.  my next tat is of "denialism" by da's tatchit, and it's going on my right upper arm as a half-sleeve.  here's the list: - "... and you ain't got his smile" written maybe under my left breast.  it's a harley quinn quote, and i want it as dedication to jason.  which no, i will not regret. - the magic sigil thing from "shadow of the colossus" somewhere - either a pyramid head, robbie the rabbit, or halo of the sun tat to pay tribute to "silent hill" - "he who knows pain is dangerous" written somewhere, which is a rammstein lyric, in either english or maybe german - spider sternum tattoo - a hydra coming towards the viewer with "from slave to master, i've become the hydra" (otep lyric) written in a semi-circle above it.  i honestly want this on my lower stomach, like, starting above my private, but i most likely will not do this.  still thinking of where to relocate it. - "i believe what doesn't kill you simply makes you stranger" written somewhere, a quote from the joker. - "how long is forever?" "sometimes, just one second" from "alice in the wonderland."  i want the quotes in speech bubbles vertical of each other. - a harley quinn-esque design with "rotten" written on it.  on my right asscheek.  yeah.  talk about slutty lmao. - a large viper on one of my hips. - three sketch-style arrows going down my left lower arm - "once upon a time, i ripped the wings from my spine, but when i hide inside your eyes, i still pretend that i can fly" (otep lyric) written along my spine I HAVE SO MUCH MORE.  but my phone's dead (i have more ideas on there) and i have even more saved to my dead computer... are most of the adults you know married or divorced?   divorced... it's so sad. :/ when was the last time you were mistaken for a mom?   at therapy some time ago.  mom was with me, and she was babysitting. what is your mom’s and dad’s favorite tv show?   mom's: "the big bang theory," probably.  dad, idk. have you ever suspected your mom or dad of having an affair?   nope do you think buying second hand clothes is gross?   certainly not. does it gross you out when your parents kiss?   well, they're divorced, sooo... does your dad swear?   yeah. do you sweat easily?   i sweat like an obese pig.  it's due to one of my medications. if your last kiss asked you on a date, what would you say?   "absolutely!" when you like someone, do you picture what your children will look like?   no. when was the last time you drank strawberry milk?   elementary school when i tried it for the first time.  absolutely fucking disgusting. do you own a pair of fingerless gloves?   yup.  i was big into that in high school. did you have a good driver’s ed teacher?   he was fine, but i am 100% certain that on one occasion, if i had listened to him, we would have died. if you have siblings, which one of you is going to be married first?   ashley's already married, i'll probably never find anyone, so i guess nicole's next. did you kiss the last person you really wanted to kiss?   like, do you mean did i kiss him the last time i wanted to kiss him?  if so, no.  he barely even let me hug him. when your last relationship ended, how long was it before you felt ready to think about being with someone else?   it's been over a year and i still don't feel entirely ready. do you think it’s wrong for someone to commit themselves to a long-term relationship at a young age? explain.   no, and there's no real need to explain...?  obviously, even young people are capable of sincere love? are you legal to drink?   yep. do you have any dirty pictures on your cellphone?   i do not. what do you want more than anything in this world?   jason. last time you felt physical pain?   earlier today.  my stomach was hurting. last time you felt emotional pain?   i'm clinically depressed.  i live with emotional pain. what are you listening to?   "american horror story" is on.  it's actually a ptsd trigger, so i'm trying to watch it again to like... edit the memory.  i'm doing it with chelsea so i won't be alone. do you like your handwriting?   i do. do you own any dresses? if so, what colors are they?   i do not.  i wish. when was the last time you went tanning?   never. have you ever been in a car accident?   quite a mild one.

[und3ad-valkyri3]

It feels like I'm working for nothing...

Got my first check today from my new job and cried at my desk. I locked my door, put a sign up saying I was editing so people would leave me alone, and cried. For those of you who don't know I've moved back with my parents around November of last year because I was kicked out of the house I was living in. Rightfully so because the relationship had ended and it was mostly my fault. I was homeless and pretty damn broke with a lot of debt to my name. My parents weren't expecting this, but they kindly shifted some stuff around so I could have a corner to sleep in (my previous bedroom had been converted into storage). There are two beds in the room I sleep in. I sleep in one and my father sleeps in the other. My parents aren't always on the best of terms with each other. They don't communicate very well and have very different personalities. My dad has borderline OCD and my mom is a hoarder. Plus my mom is a light sleeper and my dad snores very loudly. Hence the sleeping separation. They aren't perfect, but I love them and I am very grateful that my family has helped me in my time of need, but like most children who move back in with their parents, it is only temporary. I love my parents and I love my brothers, but I need my own space, not just for convenience in location, but psychologically I just need my own space. I've never had that. I've always lived with family or had 2-3 roommates. I've been striving for independence since I was 18, but no matter how hard I worked, or what level of education I strived for (I have a Bachelors Degree in Biology) it seems like I will never be able to make it out alone. I just recently got a nice job doing production work (which I'm pretty damn good at and actually enjoy) that also offers great health benefits. So I was stoked. I haven't been to the dentist in 4 years. I haven't seen an eye doctor in 6 years. I only went to the doctors office about a year ago because I needed antibiotics so I could go back to work. Even then I tried to avoid office visits just because of the cost. The fact that I could do all of these things now made me so happy. My job also has bunch of other neat things it offers, but one of the best parts of it is the environment and the absolute positivity that flows through this place. Everyone accepts me and wants me to stay. This was the perfect job to get me off my feet and start living independently. But then I got my first paycheck... And I did some calculating... I'm making $500 less a month than I originally anticipated based off of the annual income stated in the offer letter. I'm hourly not salary by the way. Granted most of that is going towards taxes and benefits, of which I was aware of, but just didn't exactly know how much was going to be deducted. I overshot my positive outlook on this. My bills average out to about $1,000.00 a month, half of that going towards a car payment and car insurance so I can go to work. Most apartments in my area range from $500-$800 a month for a studio. If your lucky, maybe you could get a one bedroom for that price. If I move out every single dime I make will go to bills. I won't even have enough left over to buy food from the grocery store. I still cannot live independently. I know this is temporary, as are most things in life, and I know that I am lucky to have the things that I do have. There are plenty of people who are more destitute than I, and that saddens me as well. I just needed to to tell someone about what I was going through so I could stop crying and get back to work.

[commentaryonhowwelive]

February, 2014. Age 21. Alone.

“I worked with him for a year and a half. I lived here at the lodge before I could close on my house here in Hangtop so I got to know him pretty well. After his girlfriend left him he needed someone to give him a hand cleaning rooms and running the front desk. He was lonely as shit. Not the kind of loneliness that you get when you eat lunch in a cafe by yourself or when you don’t have anyone to hang with on a Saturday afternoon. This place has a strangling loneliness that’s hard to shake at night. You have to keep yourself happy, because there’s no one else to do it for you. At first it’s not that bad, the peacefulness is welcomed. But then months start passing, winter comes. It becomes all encompassing.”

I paused for a moment then walked around from the front desk, “Follow me.” Steps and Shalah gave each other a mimicked, slightly quizzical look and followed me a few steps out the front door into the bitter cold. The moon provided a not-so-generous helping of dim light which the snow that blanketed every horizontal surface as far as the eye could see reflected as best it could. The snow cooled the wind to such a frigid temperature it felt like it was blowing straight through my body, chilling me to my bones. I stood there looking out into the darkness, hands in my coat-pockets, the wind blowing my blonde hair straight back. My eyes were slightly squinted, then I turned to Steps and Shalah, opening my eyes hyperbolically wide.

“You guys hear that?”

“The sound of the mountains. They’re calling. They’re crying.” Steps said with her eyes closed.

I rolled my giant eyeballs and responded, “No. I’m talking about the sound of nothing. Nothin’ but the wind,” I began yelling as I spoke,  “THERE’S NO ONE HERE! I CAN YELL ANYTHING I WANT AND NO ONE WILL HEAR ME! FUCK SHIT CUNT! MOTHER FUUUCKERRRRR!” I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. I felt a small rush of a new emotion I had recently begun to feel for the first time in my life, of inner primordial freedom. It wasn’t necessarily good or bad, just something new.

I looked at them and smiled, lowering my voice. “You know why I don’t care about anyone hearing me?”, I screamed again, “BECAUSE THERE’S NO ONE FUCKING HERE!”

I looked at them again and smiled,  “Ok, it’s cold. Let’s go back inside. I just wanted to make a point”.

I was pretty sure at this point that these guys staying at the lodge couldn’t decide whether they liked me or if I was a total weirdo. We returned to the warmth of the dingy little office and shut the door behind us, creating had an eery silencing effect on the howling wind outside.

“So yeah...” I continued as I leaned up against the desk, “...the mountains have a weird allure. They attract people who are looking for solitude. Somewhere to run away to. People come here wanting isolation, but often it ends up being too much. Sometimes all you need is one person, ya know? One person to make happy, one person to put all of your love in to. That’s all Richard needed. When he had his girlfriend, it didn’t matter if there was no one around for 100 miles. He had what he needed. But when she left...dude...his happiness left with her. When you live near your friends and family, or even just in an area with other people around for that matter, a break up doesn’t have that kind of intense effect on you. You have your people to fall back on, new girls to date, things to occupy your mind.”

I stopped speaking for a second, gathering my thoughts, and continued, “The problem was that he was missing a critical part of the human experience. He was alone. All alone. It’s like he lost his ability to experience deep connections with people. He shut down, tuned out, and withdrew. The only people he associated with were people hopped up on all sorts of hard drugs, which are plentiful here.”

“So he ended up just killing himself because of loneliness?” Shalah interrupted.

“Well...” I made a wincing face and bobbed my head side to side, “...not quite. You see, there are so many goddamn transients blowing through this area. There’s a big hippie culture of homeless people who call themselves the Rainbows. They claim that they’re all about living off of the land, bartering, trading with whatever type of currency they can muster up, and loving all creatures equally. They talk people like Richard into giving them a place to stay in return for..” I put little air quotations and said with great sarcasm in a voice mimicking the most brain-dead of transients, “...doin a lil’ bit of work around here”. 

“That sounds like such a great way to do things though!” Steps chimed in, “It sounds so freeing. That’s the way that things were done for so long, I feel like they’d be so in tune with nature and each other.”

“It’s all fuckin’ bullshit.” I replied in a cold tone, cutting her off. 

Shalah laughed and I continued, better understanding these sibling’s relationship,

  “It sounds like all dandelions and unicorns, but there’s a reason the locals call them Drainbows. They creep into town and steal from local businesses because they’re hungry and poor, then they turn around and use the little money they do have to buy drugs to get fucked up in the forest. Some of them just stick to weed and hard liquor, but some of them get hopped up on speed and it leads to stabbings, sometimes in the forest right here behind the lodge.”

“Are they around now?” Shalah asked.

“The Drainbows?”

“Yeah”

“No, it’s too cold now. They’d die. They all go to Cali for the winter.”

Shalah stopped my story temporarily to tell me that he had found a guy sleeping in the event center earlier that morning.

“Yeah, that’s a problem we have in the winter; homeless people sleeping up there. The lock doesn’t work, even though it turns and looks like it’s locked,” I laughed, “What were you doing up there anyways?”

“Exploring, sorry if I wasn’t supposed to be there.”

“Oh no dude that’s cool. I actually need to head up there soon. I need to do some cleaning and I forgot some, uh, candy.”

Shalah’s eyes widened like he had done something wrong, but I continued.

  “So yeah, the drainbows. There was this one hippie couple, I just called them Pink and Blue because they had their hair dyed, well, pink and blue. Their names were actually Deja and Michael, but their names were Pink and Blue as far as I was concerned. I was down in Boulder one night running some errands for the lodge with Richard and I got a call from some California number, I had to leave my number on the office door since Richard didn’t pay his cell phone bill. Typical Richard. Anyways, it was this hippie couple complaining how they were really cold, had no money, needed a place to stay, and they were standing outside the office door. I told them to kindly take a hike and hung up. But damn, Richard had a heart of gold. He asked me who it was and I told him. He demanded my phone and called them right back, telling them that we’d be back in an hour or so and that he’d put them up for the night.”

I let a quick rush of air out of my nose in a half laugh. “That was such a terrible decision, but hey, what was new with Richard, right? Sure enough, when we got back, there were these two raggedy ass kids with dirty ripped up clothes about my age with their pit bull wrapped in a goddamn potato sack and two cats, each of them with one on their shoulders. They looked straight up like a couple of 1950’s cartoon hobos. There they were standing next to the locked office door, under the only artificial light for miles. How they even found the place I have no idea. They were probably hitch hiking and whoever was driving them just dropped ‘em off wherever he could leave ‘em. Sure enough, Richard gave them the key to Room 7 and said he’d talk to them the next day about work. They were so thankful, so grateful. I wish I could say I could see right through their façade of thank you’s at the time, but they were so sincere, and seeing them in person like that made me actually feel like we might’ve been doing the right thing.”

Shalah spoke up, “It’s a human instinct to want to help each other out, man. Seems like Richard was just more eager than you. I mean, not to say that you’re a cold hearted person or anything, but, I mean..” He tried to dig himself out of the awkward situation of questioning my character, but I cut him off. I knew I was a cold hearted bastard. One winter in Hangtop was all it took. 

“Dude, you’re right. Frankly, I didn’t give a shit about these transients and I still don’t, but Richard did. Simple enough.” I stopped talking, getting lost in realizing my own shittiness.

Steps broke the silence, “So what ended up happening with them?” she asked in a concerned voice.

  “These guys stayed and worked for the first few days and it looked like they might’ve been a real nice couple of kids, living the true Rainbow lifestyle like it’s meant to be. They were doing all the shit jobs that Richard and I kept putting off. They hauled all the dead logs from the side of the mountain to the road, they replaced the toilet in Room 12. But there’s a reason that these kids were in the position they were. They stopped working soon enough.”

Steps had a look of defeat on her face like she was really cheering for these dumb hippies, so I continued to disappoint her. I kind of enjoyed it since she looked like one of them anyways, just a little bit cleaner, like she’s showered in the past week.

“I remember one day I came over to work and Pink and Blue were supposed to help me grout the tiles in all the bathrooms. I went into the office where they said they’d be ready at 8 A.M., but it was empty. I went into Richard’s apartment”, I said pointing to the door connecting the office to his apartment, “and he was sitting on his couch with his cat. They were both watching the weather channel which he seemed to watch borderline obsessively. I asked him where those assholes were and he just shrugged his shoulders absentmindedly without taking his eyes off that old shitty tv. So I took matters into my own hands and knocked on the door of Room 7, where they had been staying for the past week. No answer. I stood there for about 30 seconds and knocked on the door again, still no fuckin’ answer. I immediately thought “these lazy fucks.” and was tempted to get the key from the office and just go in and wake their asses up the hard way, but I relented and just started doing the work myself. A few hours later, I heard car doors slamming in the parking lot and I saw them mozying out and waving at some dude who I guess had just given them a ride. I asked them where the fuck they’d been and they said (I did my over the top hippie impression again) ‘oh hey man, sorry! We were just down at Nikki’s for a morning session and got caught up. Let’s get it done!’. Nikki’s is the pot shop in town.”

“Nikki’s Nook?” Steps asked. “Isn’t that the cute little bottle shop in town?” 

“That’s their front. It’s a pot shop. Just go in and ask for their menu, they sell bud for $10 a gram, which is halfway decent for getting it from a reputable source like them.. But I didn’t want a couple of stoned losers helping me, I didn’t want them f-.. sorry I’ve been swearing a lot. Screwing up the grouting, so I just told them I’d do it myself and they didn’t give a fuck, er..goddamnit... I mean, they didn’t care at all. And so went the next few weeks. They lived here at the lodge and lazed around and lived off of Richard.

“Why didn’t you guys kick them out?” Shalah asked hopping up onto the table covered with tourist pamphlets.

“Dude you have no idea. I tried so hard to get Richard to get them to leave, but like I said, he was lonely. So damn lonely. I provided a little bit of social interaction for him, but I was only there maybe 20 or so hours a week working. He wanted people around so badly, and Pink and Blue are people, dirty hippies or not.”

Every time I referred to hippies in a derogatory manner, I could tell that Steps felt a little offended and showed it. I could also see that Shalah noticed, but didn’t care. I continued on..

“I wouldn’t have cared if they stuck around if they were clean and fed themselves, but they didn’t. They made a disgusting mess out of their room, burned through Richard’s paycheck every two weeks by eating his food, drinking his booze, and buying weed with the money he lent them.”

Then I started remembering them in a slightly better light, “Honestly though they were a nice couple of kids, I can’t deny that. They were polite in every day interactions and were funny as hell. I swear, I’ve never met a homeless person who couldn’t have made it as a comedian.” 

I dove into one of the few good memories I had with them, 

“I remember this one time, it was me, Richard, Pink, Blue, and my dog Rachel. Rachel was probably the cleanest and smelled the nicest out of all of them. We all went down to Home Depot together in my old Suburban to pick up with sheets of plywood to redo the floors in a few of the rooms. We had little lanterns hanging up in the car and it had bad brakes at the time so it squealed like a pig getting slaughtered at the slightest bit of pressure. Richard had a full fledged winter beard going on that looked like Helen Keller had shaved off Shrek’s pubes and hot glued them all over his face. He wore a giant goofy beanie that looked like an ugly Christmas sweater that one of the guests left behind, and he was wearing his dirty-ass torn-up sweat pants he had used for painting the day before. Pink and Blue were looking...well...like Pink and Blue usually looked. Rachel had this stupid neon green Warheads bandanna on that I got for free at a music festival. Not to mention they all smelled like they never showered, probably because they never showered. When we rolled up to Home Depot, I realized that we were probably the most ragtag lookin’ group of motherfuckers that had ever disgraced Boulder.” 

“And Boulder is filled with damn weirdies,” Shalah said in a 1950’s old man southern draw.

We laughed together and I kept rambling, “I realized how fuckin’ stupid we must’ve looked. Three scraggly homeless lookin’ people, a dog with a bandanna and a rope around her neck since we forgot her leash, and me. I just gave up on trying to uphold my reputation for a bit and had fun with them. We ended up joking the whole way home about starting a gay fraternity called Gamma Alpha Psy, which would look like GAY when spelled out with Greek lettering, and how the socials would just be a bunch of super gay dudes falling over each other from apple martini after apple martini.”

I talked with a limp hand, a lisp, and stumbled around while recalling Blue’s impressions, “Blue would be like ‘Jezuzzz Chrizzzz, these Apple Martini’s have got me so drunk, I might just go home with ANYbody tonight!’”

We bursted into laughter while Steps didn’t look very amused. 

“Aw yeah.. good times. Too bad these kids were total pieces of shit.”

The tone took a serious turn as I switched back to bashing them, “I told Richard to kick those guys out so many times, but he never did. I guess for him, having someone around all the time, no matter how terrible of influences they were, was worth him having all his money blown and never getting any work done. Eventually, this other guy showed up, his name was Ian or something.”

I shook my head upon remembering Ian, “I won’t go too much into this guy, but he was just...weird. I could never quite put my finger on it, but there was something just....off. He was about my age, clean shaven, dressed nicely, and carried a Jansport backpack that was stuffed to the rafters with God knows what. He showed up looking for a job one day. I told him we were fine and didn’t need any help, but of course Richard started shooting the shit with him. I walked out of the office to clean a few rooms and saw his ride sitting in the parking lot, car still running. I came out an hour or so later to see the car gone, but when I walked into Richard’s apartment, they were sitting on the couch playing guitar. Thus began this guy’s era. He joined Richard, Pink, and Blue’s little hippie clan. He would try to sell me his food stamps and gave me seductive looks when we were all hanging around in Richard’s apartment at night. Luckily, this guy was rather short lived since the cops came and picked him after about a week or so of crashing in Room 12.”

Steps’ and Shalah’s eyes perked open a bit.

“The cops picked him up? Was he like, wanted?” Shalah asked with a sparked interest that I could tell had started to dull.

“No idea man, no idea. We all went up to the grow house on the hill one afternoon to hang with someone who Richard said he was friends with and supposedly wanted to play music with us. No one answered the door but they let their Pit Bulls out. It scared the shit out of me, but I’m pretty sure that every transient hippie is a Pit whisperer, because they just walked right up to these snarling dogs and started playing with them. After they had their fun with the dogs, I’m sure to the dismay of whoever let them out to sick us, we casually walked back down the hill to the lodge parking lot to find three cop cars. Richard and I were walking ahead and were approached by one of the town cops asking if we knew where Ian was. We were both as confused as the other, but we said yeah and that he was with us. A minute or so later, Pink, Blue, and Ian walked down and two more cops assisted the cop that had talked to us as they swarmed Ian. I’ll never forget the look on that kid’s face when all the cops swarmed him. So....un-phased. Like a cow in a field when a buzzing swarm of flies invades her personal space. He didn’t try to run, he didn’t try to protest, he just talked to them like I talk to my brother at the dinner table. Soon he was in the back of the cop car, and the cops were interviewing Richard about what he knew about this kid. When Richard came back to the office where Pink and Blue and I were waiting for him, I saw the cop cars driving away, Ian in tow. We asked him what the fuck just happened. Richard told us how Ian was living in a group home and he said that they said they ‘just needed to check up on him and make sure he was alright and taking his meds’.”

Shalah made a face of disbelief, “Three cop cars to pick up a kid who just needed to be checked in on? That doesn’t sound right to me.”

“It didn’t to me either, I knew there was something seriously up with that kid, but I never found out what. Apparently the cops said that he’d be back soon after he checked in with his group home down in Boulder and the hippie brigade all seemed content with that answer. He never showed up again, I never saw him again, and they all just brushed it off with the occasional ‘Hm, I wonder what ever happened to Ian, he was such a nice guy,’ It baffled me. I would say to them ‘Guys, there’s a reason three fuckin’ cops picked him up. He must have been involved in some serious shit,’ But they’d be like ‘No wayyyy man! He was too cool. They just needed to check in on him,’ You guys get the point.”

“So how did all this lead to Richard, um.” 

“Killing himself? Wow sorry, once I get started on these stories I get carried away.” I replied as I walked around the counter to the computer desk and leaned back with my hands behind my head. “You guys get the point. The transients aren’t the best bunch to hang with, but for Richard, that was all he had. He wasn’t really able to leave since he was the only person working besides me. When you have a basic human need taken from you, like socialization, you do anything you can to get it back. He had what he had and ran with it. It all led up to Viki and Polly.”

I shook with disgust and continued. “Don’t ever stick your dick in crazy. Richard could’ve taken that to heart. Hanging out with these loser homeless fucks was one thing, but when he began sleeping around with them, that’s when things got real bad. I remember one day he started telling me about this older girl. Her name was Viki, and he kept telling me how he couldn’t wait for me to meet her and how good looking she was. She wasn’t really homeless, but she hung out with all these hippie shits and lived off and on with her mom in a little cabin over in the town of Eldora.”

“There’s a town too?” Shalah asked, only apparently knowing about the ski resort by the same name.

“Yeah if you keep going past the turn off to the resort, there’s a little tiny town. No amenities, just houses and little cabins. Viki lived there, she probably still does. She was bad fucking news. She had me bring her to her friend’s house to, (putting air quotes) pick up her cell phone. Whelp, that was a lie, which I learned a few months later after Richard and her broke up. Turns out I was assisting in a meth run. She was meth head number one.”

“Number one?! How many meth heads were there?” Steps asked.

“Eh, only her and Polly. But that’s two meth heads too many. When Richard started dating Viki, that was when things got truly bad for that guy. She told me she was on probation for turning in fake W-4’s to get tax returns, so I drove her down to the City of Boulder Judicial Building for her probation hearings a few times because I thought she had just screwed up and needed a helping hand. That taught me to trust someone like that. Turns out she was a total junkie, almost always had needles on her. She pulled Richard into that shit so hard and so fast it was like a whirlwind. Once they started seeing each other, I’d go days without getting a call to come in and work, so I’d call and ask if he needed help and he’d reply with a short ‘nope, all good here with me and Viki!’ They were just turning guests away then going back to the apartment and doing meth.”

I said pointing into his old apartment, where nobody was living now. “When I took over as the lodge manager, the owner offered me to live in the apartment but I don’t dare go in there after the shit that went down in there, for my mental and physical health. Eventually Viki left after some big fight in front of a bunch of people eating at the restaurant next door. Yelling some bullshit about how he fucks his cat and throwing shit around. It was a mess.”

Shalah spoke up skeptically, “What I don’t understand is how he got away with all this. Where was the owner? And why didn’t he just hang out with the people at the restaurant?”

“The owner is some old big shot who doesn’t give a shit about the lodge. He lives in Denver and owns more property than he knows what to do with. As long as the year end profits come in, he doesn’t give a shit what goes on around here. If worst comes to worst, he sells this place and makes a little profit. No sweat off his back. And for the restaurant, Richard hates them.”

Steps broke in, “But they’re so nice at the cafe! Heidi, I think that’s her name? The owner? Me and her had a great time the other night talking until it must’ve been midnight.”

“She hated Richard. They were like enemies and I never quite got it. Richard would tell me that Heidi hated him because he stole his girlfriend from them since they all used to be friends, but then she only hung out with Richard when they started dating. But then again, Heidi is well versed in all of his drunken and drug fueled calamities, so I try my best to stay out of all of it. They hated each other and Richard refused to go in there, and that’s all I knew for certain. Where was I...”

I glanced at my watch and realized how late it was. “Dang, almost time for me to close the office. I’ll finish up quick. Anyways, long story short, Viki got him into hard drugs then left. He finally confessed to me about everything: that drug run I took her on, the drugs they were doing, etcetera etcetera. A few weeks after him and Viki broke up, we were in Boulder on running errands as usual and he called Viki against my advice to ask her what some restaurant was that they had talked about before. She apparently was hopped up on drugs at the time and started yelling at him over the phone about how she just found out that she was HIV positive and...Jesus, this chilled me to the bone man. I remember hearing her shrieking voice through his phone say ‘Haha! You have AIDS now!’”

The siblings looked visibly concerned and what I said next only made it worse. “That was terrifying. I told him he needed to get checked ASAP, and you know what he said to me? He said ‘Bro, I’m a Christian. I have the blood of Jesus in me, that kind of thing doesn’t effect me,’”

I shook my head while leaning forward from my previously reclined stature. “The guy was delusional. Then this girl Polly comes around. She was the last straw. She was way into weed and speed oddly enough. I don’t even know how they met, she just kind of...showed up once day. He started dating her and once again, he stopped calling me in to work.”

“This...” I said scratching my head, “Was when it started going downhill so fast my head spun. Late one night, he calls me saying how Polly had gone on a rampage and smashed a window. He said that he had to leave and that I needed to watch the lodge and make sure Polly doesn’t break anything else. I replied that was crossing the line and was not part of my duties as an employee. He said that I had no choice and that he was my boss, so I told him I was done working there. He hung up on me and unbeknownst to me, he called my little brother Levi, telling him the same story. Levi, strapped for cash, took him up on the offer for $50 and headed over to the lodge. I got another call about a half hour after Richard had called me. This time it was Levi. He sounded like he was about to have a panic attack. He just told me to come to the lodge immediately and when I asked him why he said ‘Just please come over. Please just come over. Just come over please.’ Like he was scared to tell me what was wrong. I didn’t even know he was there in the first place. I was absolutely livid with Richard that he’d coaxed my own brother into getting wrapped up in his cluster-fuck.” 

“What did Polly do?” Steps asked, genuinely concerned.

“The answer was actually what Polly didn’t do. I got there to see Levi pacing outside the front office door. He saw my car and the look on his face was so relieved, like I came with the antidote for a deadly snake bite. He said that Polly was lying on the floor and wasn’t responding. So I went in and sure enough found Polly laying face down, skirt hiked up over her ass. Richard’s apartment was in the nastiest condition I’d ever seen it. Needles, cigarettes, and booze bottles everywhere. I kneeled down and patted her on the back and said ‘Polly? Polly are you ok?’. No answer. I patted her a bit harder and asked the same thing to no answer. So I carefully leaned in and put my ear next to her mouth and listened for breath. She was breathing normally, so I figured she had just passed out. I walked out and called Richard and asked him why the fuck Polly was lying on the floor. He said that she was just doing it for attention and that I should tell her that I’d call an ambulance if she didn’t get up. So I went back in and told her that I’d call an ambulance, if she didn’t let me know she was ok. She replied with a super muffled ‘imOK..’ without moving a muscle. So I left her alone. I told Levi that he was on his own with this mess and left. It was late by that time, close to midnight. I went home, put my phone on silent, and went to bed. I woke up the next morning around 9:30 A.M. to at least a dozen missed calls from Levi and about as many frantic text messages. Instead of bothering to read the texts or listen to the voicemails, I just got in the car and headed over. I arrived to cop cars in the parking lot and Polly calmly carrying things from the office to around the back of Room 1.”

“It seems like cop cars are a common occurrence at this lodge?” Shalah sarcastically responded.

“Yep. That was the last time the cops were there as far as I know, because that’s when Richard got fired. It was the last straw for Heidi, the restaurant owner, so she called the owner and told him everything. About the cops being there all the time, Viki’s drug fueled break up, the hippies living there free of charge, the list goes on.”

“So who called the cops on Polly? What happened that night?” Steps asked.

“Oh yeah. Ok, so apparently Levi and his buddy Joseph went and stayed in Room 5 that night. He would get calls from Richard every hour or so throughout the night asking him to go knock on the door and tell Polly to leave. So he complied and every time he went and knocked on the door to no answer, he’d try to open it but it was locked. We were locked out of our own business by a strung out drug addict. 5 A.M. rolls around, and Levi goes once again to try to get in. This time, Polly was up, cleaning and vacuuming. She answered the door like a house wife answers the door for her friend at two in the afternoon. Levi told her that Richard was on the phone and wanted to talk to her; she went insane. ‘Hang up. Hang up right now. I’m not talking to him. HANG UP. LEAVE.’ That was enough to spook Levi and he scrammed out of there. That’s when he managed to talk Richard into letting him call the cops to get her out of there. The cops got her out but then had to wait for her to get all of her things out of there, which is why they were still there when I rolled up around 10 A.M. She was out of there for good by 11 or so, and it wasn’t even 20 minutes later when some straggly ass hippie guy came out of the woods telling me that Polly tried to join their little hippie clan in the forest, but she had bad vibes and they didn’t want her around. He said he just wanted me to know that she took off towards town.”

“Even the Rainbows didn’t want her around? She must have been bad news.” Steps replied, frowning.

“She wasn’t wanted anywhere and I actually haven’t seen her since. But yeah anyways, that’s when Richard finally got fired....To be honest, I’m surprised that he lasted as long as his did with all his antics. When he showed up later that day, the owner was there after being called by Heidi and he fired him on the spot.”

“Where did he go? Did he have family around? Friends?”

“He had his group of hippie losers. He also had an entire family of doctors and lawyers back in California, but he couldn’t face them for some reason or another. He stayed here in the rockies. One of his hippie buddies had a rinky-dink shack out in the gambling town 20 minutes west where he stayed for a while. That’s the last time I heard directly from him about his whereabouts. Everything from then on, I learned from his brother in a phone call after he killed himself.”

“Rough...” Shalah said staring blankly at the floor.

“Rough is right. I’ve never had such an intimate conversation with a stranger over the phone in my life. It was such a surreal experience.”

I continued on in a lower, more serious tone, “Apparently after living with the hippies, he moved down to Boulder and lived in a hotel for a while. After that, that’s when things got crazy. He hopped on a flight to Mexico. He settled into some city on the Pacific coast, but called his brother, the guy I talked to on the phone, panicking. After a run in with some criminals and learning that the justice system doesn’t quite work the same down there as they do up here in the states, he begged his brother to fly him back up to Cali. I guess it took his life being in danger before he faced his family, for whatever reason he had. Upon arriving in Cali, Richard’s brother let him move in with him and his family with only one rule: he had to be either looking for a job or have a job. So he did it, he picked up a job really quick at a Marriott as a front desk clerk and was on a fast track to management since he had been a lodge manager. Things were looking up for him, he even signed up to do some medical study where he’d take some medication, stay at a laboratory for a few days, and get paid $2,000. That was around the same time that I heard his voice for the very last time. He called me out of the blue while I was at work one day and started talking to me like we never skipped a beat, even though it had been several months since we had spoken. He enthusiastically telling me about the medical study he was doing, but I told him that I’d call him back after work, which I did, but he didn’t answer. We didn’t speak for a few more months, then I got the call from his brother.”

I stopped talking for a minute, my eyes glued to an arbitrary spot on the wall past both Steps and Shalah. I could tell looking at them that they both wanted closure to the story, but I kind of needed the silence to linger for a minute more. The two of them stood on one side of the wooden counter while I sat on the other side behind it. It only had a few things on it: a stack of business cards, some local trail maps, a framed picture of a bear sitting on a log, and a landline phone. I spoke up after about thirty seconds of silence, which didn’t feel awkward because they knew I needed it.

“I got the call  while on a train ride through the mountains. My girlfriend and I had split up a week before that, so when my mom saw me crying a few seats down, she thought it was because of the break up. She gave me a sad face and got up to comfort me. I got so angry. I can’t really describe it. I just said with a raised voice ‘Richard killed himself,’ across the moving train filled with strangers. The look of horror on her face and those around me somehow gave me a feeling of satisfaction, like ‘I hurt so bad right now, that I want all these other people to hurt too. Bad.’

I redirected my blank gaze right into Shalah’s eyes, then to Steps’. They felt it too, I could tell, and once again, I kind of liked it. Just telling them about it spread my feeling of hurt outwards in a masochistic satisfactory way. 

“Here in Hangtop while I worked at the lodge, Richard was really my only friend. I was an online student, so I didn’t have too much of a social life. Within the span of about a week, I lost my two best friends that I had over the past two years. All my friends before that, I had sort of fallen away from...goddamn, I was so alone. I’m ok with loneliness, in fact, I enjoy it. But when you’ve had such an intense connection with someone for so long, then they’re just....gone, it leaves a hole inside of you; I could physically feel it. I could literally feel an emptiness inside me  and I felt it in everything I did. When you don’t have that connection with anyone to begin with, loneliness can be a joy, a freedom if you will. But fuck, there’s something about connecting with someone then having that connection torn away from you that you can’t quite explain.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what finally led to Richard’s death?” Shalah asked. He looked like he was getting slightly impatient and sleepy.

“Remember that medical study he signed up for? He got denied apparently. This is all coming from his brother now. Apparently he got denied from the study for a reason that he didn’t tell anyone. Soon after that, a few days I think, he no-call no-showed to work for a whole week. They fired him and he left his brother’s house and moved in with his buddy who lived in a high rise loft on the south side of Los Angeles. He stuck around there for a few weeks I guess, just bumming around jobless until he got a call from a private detective in Boulder. Remember how I said he was living in that hotel in Boulder for a while?”

Steps and shalah nodded their heads.

“While he was there, he had sex with a girl who later claimed that he raped her. Whether or not there was any truth to that statement, I have no idea. But the private detective said that he could either turn himself in where he was or come back to Boulder to turn himself in. Those were his two choices. Now I’m getting into speculation here, but I believe that the reason why he was denied from the medical study was that he contracted HIV from Viki. If the girl that he had sex with in the hotel contracted it from him and he knew that he had it, then he could be tried for attempted murder.”

I looked at my watch and laughed, “Sorry I’m the worst when it comes to stories. I look at it this way, if he did have HIV, he had a fatal illness, he was a severe alcoholic, and was facing charges that could eventually lead to him going to jail for life.  He would talk to me about some really profound stuff sometimes. He’d talk about how he was 34, and all he wanted to do was help people. He didn’t care anymore about being selfish or taking from the world; all he wanted to do was do things for others. And I saw that in him, he had a heart of gold, just not the best set of decision making skills to go with it. I think that once he considered his life as he knew it to be over, he decided to not bother with it anymore. A few days after getting the call from the private detective, the guy Richard was living with found him passed out on the couch with a huge Coke stain on the carpet and a big mess in the kitchen. This was enough to make him wake Richard up and tell him that he’d put him up in a hotel that night but that he was done letting him bum around his home. Richard woke up disheveled and said that was fine and that he was going out to the balcony to have a smoke. His buddy went back to the bedroom to get ready for work, then when he came back out, Richard wasn’t on the balcony anymore.”

“Did he jump?” Shalah asked.

“He jumped. He jumped from the 8th floor. And that was the end.”

There was another bout of silence as the two of them took in the words that hit them like a brick to the chest, knocking all of the air out of their lungs. 

“So yeah...that’s Richard’s story. Fuckin’ shame. Really.. I had some good times with that guy, one of the funniest dudes I’ve ever met. He’d give his last shirt to a man he didn’t know. You just never know what’s lurking underneath a smile.”

“I assume you’ve seen him since?” Steps nervously asked.

“Excuse me?” I replied legitimately confused. Shalah shook his head and looked down in embarrassment. “Goddamnit Steps...” he said under his breath.

“His ghost.” Steps spoke with a slight apprehension in her voice, “Ghosts tend to try to make contact with their past friends and family, they go to places that made a big impact on their life. It seems to me that his time here at the lodge altered his life course drastically. It makes sense that he’d want to come back here for unfinished business, perhaps to make amends with someone, or maybe he wants to do what you said he wanted to do with his life and help people. He could be back with the intention to help more travelers on their way.”

I smiled condescendingly while Shalah shook his head and opened his mouth, “Steps, he doesn’t want to hear about your ghost nonsense. If he believed that shit, don’t you think he’d have mentioned it by now?” He looked to me, “Right?”

“I actually like hearing about it. I don’t believe it, but I enjoy hearing about people’s experiences with him here. This lodge is so old, it used to be used as army barracks in World War II for high altitude training. According to your theory that ghosts haunt places that played a big part in their lives, then I’d imagine that this building would be positively crawling with ghosts; this was the first place that some guys joining the army would be stationed, talk about life altering.”

“Wow! What have you heard about the war ghosts?!” Steps asked with excitement.

“Me? I’ve heard a bit from a few guests. I didn’t even know that this place was used as army barracks until I met an old manager a few months back. She said when she ran this place back in the 70’s when the Vietnam war was going on, people saw soldier ghosts all the time like clockwork. But now? No one even knows that it used to be army barracks. With the knowledge of its history vanishing, so do the relevant ghosts. Coincidence? I think not. The mind is a powerful thing. People claim to see Richard’s ghost here because they know about him and they’re looking for him, the same way it was with the ghost soldiers in the 70’s. The only people that talk about seeing his ghost are the ones that knew him or know of a ghost that’s supposedly here.”

I shook my head again and continued on, “That’s a whole different story though. I’ll just leave it at that. I need to close up shop. I have to be back here at 7:30 in the morning to start cleaning rooms.”

[jackfollmanwriter-blog]

The Big Lonely

    “Do you know what a little America is?” Kyle uttered the first words either of us had spoken since we had left San Francisco five hours ago.

    “What?” I asked back in a tone that even I would have to admit was pretty bitchy.

     “A little America. Have you ever heard that term?” He asked again.

I was the kind of tired that even moving my lips felt like a chore. It wasn’t just that I was pissed off at Kyle. I simply wanted to go to sleep and wasn’t interested in hearing one of his history lessons or informative tidbits that he frequently liked to share as if he was providing the footnotes of my life.

   “No.”

    “A little America is a truck stop along lightly populated freeways that has everything that a trucker might need – restaurant, hotel, bar, store, bathrooms, even like little porno shops. They are like little slices of America out in the middle of nowhere. Hence, the name, little America,” Kyle said this with his eyes still glued to the desolate road in front of us that we were traversing at around 85 miles per-hour.

    “Cool,” I could not have sounded any less enthused.

I could hear Kyle grinding his teeth from behind the wheel when we journeyed back into the cone of silence.

    “You’re pissed off at me,” Kyle unclamped his teeth and spoke at me out of the side of his mouth.

     “I’m not. It’s fine. I’m just tired, and hungry.”

It’s true, I was extremely tired. It was nearly 2 a.m. and I had been up since six in the morning when I got up to get ready for work. However, I was mostly pissed because of a common Kyle behavior that he was exhibiting that I internally referred to as the “Kyle trap.” In this trap, he would do something that would assuredly, and justifiably, get under my skin and then act as if he was completely mystified as to why I was upset so it would seem like I was being the irrational bad guy.

This time, Kyle made us stay in town to watch the Giants’ World Series game at his favorite bar even though he knew that we had to make it to New York by Monday morning and that waiting till the end of the game would make it so we could barely stop along the way to even take a piss if we had to. He didn’t care. It wasn’t him that had to be at his first day of a new job in Manhattan bright and early Monday morning.

     “Well, the good news is that I know there is one of those little America’s coming up here in just a few miles,” Kyle interrupted my self-loathing. “We can stop there and get some food, and some sleep.”

    “That sounds good,” I made sure to perk my voice up an octave or two.

Fuck, I could just not stay mad at him.

After a few more minutes of silence, we were pulling into a parking lot that was the size of a football field bathed in towering streetlights that reminded me of the palm trees that we were leaving behind in California. Stepping out into the frigid winds of the meadow of dark paved asphalt also served a bitter reminder that we were leaving the comfort of reasonably warm October nights behind. A chilling gust swept in and seemed to go right up my shirt like an overzealous high school boy after just a few moments of making out.

I brushed off Kyle not giving a reason for why he parked 30 yards away from the hub of the truck stop and silently followed him up to the thing that looked like a suburban shopping mall that had been stranded in the middle of rocky desert and surrounded by semi trucks. The soundtrack of the trucks’ mechanical hum filled the air like crickets on a summer night. I could feel the hot lights of the trucks upon us as we shuffled through the parking lot and couldn’t help but feel like a wildebeest in some nature documentary clopping up to a watering hole with the eyes of hungry lions lingering off in the distance.

A quick scan of the entire property confirmed what Kyle had said about the little America. The heart of the facility was a conglomerate of a building that advertised a diner, a motel, an Internet café, luxury bathrooms/showers, a convenience store and a bar. Serving as the cherry on top were the buzzing yellow lights of an adult book store with a front entrance that was clouded in the cigarette smoke of a few patrons who appeared to be shooting the shit out front. I quickly began to wonder if I would be the only woman in this entire place and if I should ask Kyle if we should just keep going, but stopped myself.

I followed Kyle into the truck stop diner that someone had made the horrible decision to decide to primarily decorate with sea green, plastic and the stinging, sweaty smell a guy gives off when he is really hung over.  I also expected some beaten down old single mom to greet us and take us over to one of the tables that appeared to be coated with leftover syrup, but the only thing that greeted us was a sickening fart that erupted from the table closest to us.

    “Oh fuck,” Kyle shot out the words before pulling the collar of his shirt up over the lower half of his face. “That’s bad.”

I fired a look over in the direction of the flatulence and saw a well-greased old prospector in a straw cowboy hat that was literally falling apart on his bald head. He slunk back into his chair with a slight grin and started forking at some wet pancakes.

    “Just have a seat. Char’s gone,” a friendly voice called out from the middle of the dining area where a guy with a snow white push broom mustache wearing a Canadian tuxedo coated with dust was nursing a cup of coffee.

    “Thanks,” I said in the most non-bitchy tone that I could summon at the moment and then immediately whispered at Kyle. “Should we just go?”

   “Are you kidding me? This is great.”

I knew Kyle was going to say that. He had that obnoxious hipster crumbling Americana fetish thing where he relished bars full of borderline homeless people, thrift shop t-shirts and the fact that he could pack all of his possessions into his 1994 RAV4, even at the age of 31.

     “But seriously, there is probably going to be like babies in the food, and they don’t even have a waitress.”

Right on cue the odor of musty smokes replaced the lingering stench of hot fart and a nearly-elderly woman with a bun of salty black hair who sounded and looked like she had been smoking a pack a day since she was 12 walked past us with an announcement.

    “Sit anywhere you like. Menus are on the table.”

Kyle led me through the graveyard of vacant tables until he settled on a little two-seater near where the old man with the mustache who had first spoken to us had been before he had vanished like some kind of truck stop ghost in an old CB radio song from the 70s. We took seats across from each other and the immediate presence of Kyle’s smile actually put my at ease in a place that seemingly should have never elicited looks of joy from someone with more than three years left on their lifespan.

    “I gotta take a piss,” Kyle announced and took off towards the entrance.

I numbly scanned the laminated menu with razor sharp corners as soon as Kyle left while being mad at myself for leaving my phone in the car.

The waitress returned as soon as I had mentally made my decision and filled both of the mugs on the table without asking if I wanted any.

    “On the house after midnight,” the waitress jingled.

Much to my surprise, she then plopped down in the chair that Kyle had been sitting in and started playing with her bun.

    “I bet you’re glad to see another woman in this place. I sure am,” the waitress started in.

I let out a nervous chuckle.

    “Yeah, I guess,” I agreed and started furiously spinning the menu in circles on the table.

The waitress started talking again, but I was mostly blocking her out. I was more concerned with why Kyle was taking so long to come back from the bathroom. The fact that he never washed his hands and had a deep fear of shitting in public restrooms usually kept his bathroom breaks as fast as a NASCAR pit stop.

My eyes drifted over to the men’s room door that he had disappeared into. No signs of life.

    “What is bringing you through this way?”

I jumped when I turned to see the waitress staring right at me with eyes that were the same color as the table.

     “Oh, oh, I uh, got a job in New York. We are moving there this weekend, from San Francisco,” I said, a little flush in the face from the embarrassment of being startled.

     “Ooh la la, what are you doing in New York?”

    “Uh, I work for a public relations agency, they transferred me to the main office there.”

The waitress clucked her tongue.

    “I don’t know. So expensive there. A one-room apartment probably costs as much as a mansion here.”

    “Yeah, but San Francisco’s not any better,” I spoke the words while thinking “where the fuck is Kyle?”

    “What does your boyfriend do there?” The waitress asked after staring at my barren left ring finger.

I took a deep breath, assuming it was nearly impossible to not see that I was annoyed about the whole situation at this point.

     “Uh, he is a wedding photographer.”

    “Oh,” the waitress gave a quick laugh before going on. “Is that a real job?”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

    “I know what you mean.”

    “I always wanted to go to New York, or San Francisco,” the waitress said and kicked back into her chair in a whimsical manner. “But things didn’t really work out for me.”

I could tell that the waitress was waiting for me to say something like “what happened?” but I didn’t care, I was pretty much only concerned with the men’s room door that remained closed.

    “I was living around here when I was 15 and started working at a diner in town. The owner seemed like a real nice old man. He hired me even though I was young and it was my first job. So when he asked me to come out to his place by the lake one weekend, I did it. Caught the bus all the way over to Tahoe and went to his house. My parents were fine with it. Maybe they just didn’t care, but I went out there.”

I shot a look to the men’s room again. Nothing.

   “And he was nice. For a while. Then it started to get near dark and I started to wonder what we were going to do. He had told me that he was going to drive me back home before dinner because he needed to stop by the diner anyways, but he told me that his plans had changed and we were going to have dinner there instead and he poured some wine. I felt so sophisticated. People don’t remember in the 60s, people didn’t really drink wine. I had never even seen it in-person and I just went with it. I drank a couple of glasses and the next thing you know, I felt the owner’s hand on my leg…

    “Hey.”

I had never been happier to hear Kyle’s voice. He strolled up to the table with the old timer who had greeted us earlier behind him wearing a huge smile.

“Sorry about that, got to chatting with Don here in the bathroom about the area and we lost track of time.”

Kyle shot me a smile just as big as the one that Don was beaming and the waitress hurried to her feet looking rather embarrassed while quietly apologizing.

The rest of our experience in there was fast and easy. We had about 30 seconds of friendly small talk with Don and then he left. The waitress took our order – two pancake plates. Kyle and I talked about the logistics of our drive from there. We ate, paid in cash so we could get the hell out of there as soon as possible, and went out to our car.

Everything would change when we got to the car.

I had never felt the kind of chill that wrapped over me when we walked up to Kyle’s dirty white RAV4 to see every single door wide open.

   “What the fuck?” the words just fell out of my already-open mouth and we sprinted the rest of the way to the car.

Kyle got there first and immediately started spouting assurances.

    “Everything’s here. They didn’t take anything.”

I followed Kyle’s lead of rifling through the inside of the SUV that was jammed packed with his belongings and quickly conceded that he was right until I looked in the cup holder of the center console where my brand new iPhone had been.

   “You gotta be fucking kidding me,” I screamed and smashed my hand upon the hard plastic of the center console, effectively tearing up my soft knuckles.

    “They just took your phone?”

    “Yeah, I’m sure they knew that your shit isn’t worth anything,” I fired back. “How the fuck are we even going to get there now without navigation?”

I went on with the thought of Kyle’s navigationless, ancient flip phone searing into my soul. We were going to get fucking lost in America because he thought it was cool to have a phone from 2006 because he didn’t need all of the fancy bells and whistles of a smartphone.

Kyle shook his head and jumped into the driver’s seat and I collapsed into the passenger’s seat like a lumpy bag of bones. I felt his arm reach over across the console and fall limply upon my back and then softly begin to pet.

    “I’m sorry,” Kyle’s voice lifted over the sound of the roaring semi engines that provided the score of the night and my spirit came up off the canvas.

    “It’s okay,” I replied, effectively fighting off tears. “Let’s just get the fuck out of this place.”

   “Sorry we stopped here,” Kyle said and then put the car in gear and headed to the exit.

I hated how dark the roads were around here. It reminded me of driving around where my grandparents lived in Montana, everything was black. We had barely left San Francisco, but I already missed the pale glow of the streetlights.

I would get my light though. We had followed the signs that directed us back to I-80 East from the truck stop and they had led us to a dark intersection and a freeway entrance that was quarantined off with road flares, cones and Marlboro men clad in reflective orange, working in the night.

Kyle rolled down the window and one of the workers strolled over after spewing out a thick jag of chewing tobacco. The worker gave out a verbal greeting that sounded like a mix of the clearing of a throat and someone saying the phrase “hee haw.”

     “What’s going on?” Kyle asked.

The worker leaned against the open driver’s side window, close enough to where I could see the little bits of cement stuck in his short red beard.

   “Road’s closed. Construction,” the worker spat out almost before Kyle could even finish his question.

    “Is there another way we can take? We don’t know our way around here,” Kyle followed up.

The worker just walked away without another word and scratched his ass.

     “Fuckers,” Kyle muttered underneath his breath.

    “What do we do?” I asked.

    “There’s gotta be some kind of.”

Kyle got cut off by the trumpeting roar of a horn from just behind us. I jumped out of my seat and looked in the rear view mirror to see the towering headlights of a big rig bearing down on us.

    “Of fucking course someone is behind us right now in the middle of nowhere,” Kyle screamed as angry as I had ever heard him.

Kyle started to back the car up, but stopped when the big rig pulled around us to the left and quickly stopped once it came abreast.

   “Sorry about that,” a vaguely-familiar voice called down from the open passenger-side window of the robin’s egg blue big rig. “These guys will close this thing down all the time without even telling anybody.”

I peered up at the open window of the big rig to see the grizzled face of Don, whom we had just met at the truck stop.

He went on with a big smile upon his face.

     “Follow me. I know my way around this mess.”

A cracking noise sounded out from Don’s truck and he pulled out in front of us.

Kyle put the car in gear and trailed him.

   “You really think we should follow him?” I asked.

   “I don’t think we really have any other choice.”

    “I’m sure there are signs.”

Kyle just shook his head and followed Don’s truck onto a darkened side road that looked to run perpendicular to the freeway.

   “We could go back to the truck stop and ask someone,” I suggested.

Kyle just shook his head.

Our headlights illuminated the back of Don’s truck as our mini-convoy picked up speed and that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach from the parking lot returned.

XXXXX

We had been following Don’s big rig for miles now and the road had long ago winded away from the freeway, but Kyle didn’t seem the least bit concerned. We could now see nothing but endless road, endless night and the air inside our vehicle was filled with endless silence that I finally had to break.

   “Are you really sure we should keep following him?”

    “Yeah, yeah,” Kyle replied quietly and I turned my attention back to the world of darkness.

Everything was as it had boringly been before my question except for a small change in the rear-view mirror.

Two round beams of light, approaching us swiftly from behind.

   “Kyle…

The headlights behind us were getting closer and closer, now just about 20 yards behind us.

    “I know.”

I was about to speak up some more but my thoughts were dashed by the sounds of squealing breaks that cut through the air and a helpless skidding feeling. I screamed as the back of Don’s semi rushed towards the windshield and closed my eyes with my arms stretched out helplessly in front of me.

We were stopped when I opened my eyes again.

The back of Don’s semi must have been millimeters from the front of our car. What was now revealed to be another semi was behind us, but it was now twisted a bit to the left of us, in the other lane of the road. The second semi’s positions essentially blocked our car from moving anywhere else on the road. The only direction out was towards the endless black that was to my right. I checked to see that my door was locked before turning to my left and screaming.

Kyle was looking over at me, his face obscured behind a sheet of hot red blood that coated his face and spurted out from a fresh wound that gaped upon his forehead.

    “Oh my God. Oh my God, Kyle.”

    “It’s okay. It’s okay. I just hit my head on the steering wheel”

My gaze moved from Kyle to the outside world for a moment when a bright figure entered my vision outside of the driver’s side window.

The figure was an old woman, one that could have been anyone’s grandma packaged in white shorts, a green blouse and a white visor, looking like she belonged on a golf course in Scottsdale as opposed to a desolate desert road somewhere in Nevada.

She walked up to the window and knocked upon the thick glass.

   “You must be Kyle and Melissa,” the grandma said with kind eyes behind glasses, seemingly unaffected by the fact that Kyle looked like Carrie after they dumped the blood on her at prom.

    “How do you know our names?” I shot back and her face scrunched up.

    “Oh, Don told me,” the grandma said then cringed at Kyle. “Ew, that looks bad. We are gonna have to take you to the emergency room.”

    “Why did he stop so suddenly?” I pleaded at the grandma. “Where are you leading us?”

The grandma ignored me and kept looking Kyle up and down.

    “Son, we’re gonna have to get you to the hospital, or you could be in some serious trouble. I’ll radio Don and he will lead the way. Come on now,” the grandma said and walked back over to the long hauler that I couldn’t believe she commanded.

Fighting off my simmering rage for the elderly woman, I grabbed one of the numerous dirty shirts that were strewn about the backseat, and wrapped it around Kyle’s head, right over the gash that was still milking out hot blood.

      “I don’t think we should follow them. We should just find the hospital ourselves, call 411 or something on your phone,” I said.

I didn’t notice that Kyle was already looking at his phone.

    “No service.”

    “Fuck, call 911.”

     “I’m not calling 911. Jesus Christ, we’re not going to get killed by some Grandma. When was the last time you heard of a 70-year old, female, serial killer?”

I sat there in silence, the full weight of how stupid this all seemed hitting home when Kyle spelled it out like that.

Kyle put the car into gear, but something was clearly off with the car. Even I could tell and I didn’t know shit about cars. The whole vehicle seemed to react as if we ran over a boulder every few feet that it rolled.

    “Shit, I think we have a flat tire,” Kyle exhaled with every word and Don emerged from his big rig.

Don shuffled up to the driver’s window with a huge dip of chaw bulging his jaw and started talking before Kyle even got the window all the way rolled down.

     “Fucking a, you got a flat tire. Unless you got a spare, we can either roll that thing up into my hauler, I got room, or, you can just ride with Darla to the spital,” Don said, and that’s not a typo, that’s how he pronounced “hospital.”

    “Do we have a spare tire?” I frantically asked Kyle.

    “We did. I sold it,” Kyle dribbled back.

    “Well y’all wanna hop in with Darla then?” Don asked.

I started gnashing my teeth before I even heard Kyle agree, but it didn’t matter. We had no real other choice. Kyle actually could maybe bleed to death if we didn’t get him some attention soon.

I followed Kyle out of the car and over to the passenger side door of Darla’s rig.

The truck gave out a heavy gasp and then the door swung out mechanically like the door of a school bus revealing Darla sitting there behind the wheel looking like Large Marge.

   “Pretty nifty ain’t it?” Darla said.

Kyle agreed verbally, I just kind of gave a half nod when we stepped up into the rig.

    “You two can hang out in the sleeper cab if you would rather stay together than try and share the front seat up here,” Darla announced.

The two of us piled into the darkness of Darla’s sleeper cab that reminded me a bit of the RV that my best friend’s family used when I would camp with them while growing up. The thing even had the musty, outdoorsy smell that I remembered.

Kyle and I found a seat on a futon-style cushy couch in the back of the thing, far from Darla who was whistling vaguely familiar old show tunes and captaining the rig out onto the road.

It seemed weird, but maybe that familiar smell had soothed my nerves. I suddenly felt a little bit at ease.

I was about to say something to Kyle, but was interrupted when Don’s country drawl crackled over the radio up by Darla’s perch. She reached over and cranked the volume once his gravelly voice came over the waves.

    “You kids are cute. Sitting back there all cuddled up, young and in love. Going from big city to big city.”

Don’s voice let out a deep exhale, creating a lengthy pause.

     “That’s why this is going to be so hard, you see. You’re probably expecting me to start in on some Bible-thumping diatribe or some speech about how you city pricks are ruing our lives, but that’s not why we are doing this. We are doing this, because it’s just what we like to do. It’s an impulse and one that I don’t know where it comes from. That’s all. Over and out.”

Without any hesitation, I sprung up to my feet before Don had even finished and ran towards the cab of the truck where Darla was driving.

In a flash, I was in the light of the cabin, just over Darla’s shoulder, ready to lunge, when I heard Don’s voice crackle back over the radio.

    “I know right now you are probably thinking about, or, already trying to scramble your way out of the rig, but the bad news is that it is already too late. You don’t realize it, but we have a friend back there with you.”

I heard the worst sound I had ever heard in my life burst out from behind me. It was like the sound of a horrifying scream interrupted by the sound of air being let out of a car tire.

I looked back for just a moment to see Kyle wrapped up like a python’s prey by a figure that looked like the color black formed into a human body. I could barely even tell what I was looking at was Kyle. His neck was being snapped back and filleted with a thick knife that shimmered in the hints of light that leaked into the sleeper cab. His blood gushing down onto his plain white t-shirt that had already been turned a Kool-Aide red.

My body didn’t connect with my brain. I just moved in one snap. I dove upon Darla behind the steering wheel, slipping the powerful wheel from her grasp, sending the entire vehicle into a shudder. I didn’t even look to where we were going. I just looked to my hands numbly wrapped around the old woman’s neck and the look of pure terror in her eyes. I could hear the sounds of Don freaking out on the radio as Darla slipped out of the chair and the truck pitched to the left, throwing both of us against the door. I grabbed hold of the cold metal of the door’s handle on my way into the thing and pulled the little lever towards me as hard as I could, flinging the door out into the cold open of the night.

Without even looking what I had opened myself up to, I leapt, instinctually covered my head and felt my body fly upon the air of the night for seconds that felt like hours.

XXXXX

I wasn’t sure if the world had been completely dark for minutes, seconds or hours when I opened my eyes to see a cloud of smoke billowing up against the backdrop of the rising sun that was cresting the desert horizon. My eyes followed the trail of smoke down to the twisted carnage of a burning heap of metal that was broadcasting waves of heat and a sickening acrid smell out into the fresh morning air.

It was hard to make out with how horribly burnt the wreckage was, but it appeared that the two robin’s egg blue semis that belonged to Don and Darla were the twisted metal campfires that were making the world smell what I imagined meth smelled like and casting a shadow of black smoke upon the lonely desert.

My initial instinct was to take off in any direction away from the wreckage, but the extent of the carnage made me pretty sure that our assailants were helpless and/or gone, but just to be safe, I extended up onto my feet, ready for action and felt a rash of crippling pain wash over my body. I fell right back to a crumpled heap, looking like a human version of the burning semi trucks. Battered, bloodied, broken and road rashed all over my entire body, I laid there sobbing, not caring if the charred ghost of Don or Darla crawled over and snuffed me out. The last thing I could remember truly seeing was Kyle’s neck bone being hacked into while drowning in the darkest blood that I had ever seen. I didn’t give a fuck anymore, I just laid there on the yellow median of the road as the sun started to shine on me and break the cold of the morning air.

The sound of boots on the ground rustled me from my near slumber. I opened my eyes to see scuffed, black work boots staring at me as they rested upon the asphalt.

    “Oh my God,” a friendly male voice radiated from above me.

I scratched at my ears and ripped away the clumps of dried blood and the music of the world trickled into my ears with much more clarity.

    “Let’s get you out of here,” the male voice went on.

I looked up to see a non-threatening looking middle-aged man towering over me, looking at me through thick glasses. Pale, balding, pot-bellied, short, wearing a collared shirt and glasses, he looked like a cubicle jockey lost in the desert.

   “Come on,” he said and then lifted me to his feet.

We walked together in a scene that looked like when a trainer helps an injured football player off of the field as we stumbled over to his older sedan.

I felt the weight of the world slink off of me when I sat down in the soft caress of his passenger seat. I could barely stay awake, hearing him start the engine, put the car in gear and start driving down the road. It was simply nearly impossible for me to keep my eyes open.

The last thing I could remember hearing was a familiar sound, familiar enough to where I wanted to open my eyes, but couldn’t. It took me a minute to put my finger upon what exactly the sound was and why it was familiar, but I eventually did and I immediately knew that it was all over for me.

It was the sound of my cell phone ringing.

Originally published by Thought Catalog on www.ThoughtCatalog.com