#me when i know Nothing about catholicism at all

[loveanddeepspice]

𝕋𝕖𝕞𝕡𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝔾𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕖

✞ synopsis:  you've come back to the small town you grew up in for a visit. though your relationship with the catholic church and faith in general have been strained since you were younger, you find yourself drawn back to the church... or more specifically... the new priest... you aren't ready to share your secret sin with him... but you may not be able to help yourself.

✞ pairing: sylus x curvy fem!reader

✞ rating:  18+ (minors do not engage)

✞ cw:  religion (catholicism), priest, lapsed faith, adultery, priest kink, suicidal mention, dead parent, sex, masturbation, drugs (marijuana), mentions of other drug use, drinking (more will be added when/if they arise)

✞ disclaimer: this fiction explores a romantic relationship between a lapsed Catholic and an unconventional priest. it is not designed to be inflammatory or critical. catholic authors were asked to participate in the process. we hope you enjoy it, but we know that these topics can be sensitive, so please skip this fiction if it will in any way offend you.

✞ chapter:  5 / ?

✞ co-authors:  redbriony, confuseddoughnut (they do not have tumblr)

✞ ao3 link:  here

✞ chapter synopsis: a series of risky decisions gets you into more than one kind of trouble.

✞ index: chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5

Please comment on this post if you want to be added to the tag list for updates!

The next few days were spent in the confines of your childhood home, your bed almost becoming your permanent address as you thought about that kiss. The kindness and how the words expressed resonated with you in a way you hadn’t felt in a long time.  But more than anything, how the kissing Father Sylus had made you feel - the tenderness of it all. But surely you were getting ahead of yourself and even found yourself a little disgusted with yourself over the whole encounter. 

But he had just been so close, too sweet, and his face was so beautiful, and all you wanted to do was press kisses all over him. 

But it’s wrong, isn’t it? 

Something inside you rebelled against the idea for obvious reasons. Any resolve you had would disintegrate when you decided to act or speak on it. 

But then, one evening, Rafayel called. You barely answered in time because part of you was hoping it would be someone else.

“Hey babe, just wanted to check up and see how you’re doing. Haven’t heard from you.” 

You blinked, frozen for a moment as you twisted into a sitting position on your bed. “Fine. What’s up?” 

He chuckled, and you weren’t sure if he was annoyed. You felt slightly upset at yourself for not reaching out when you could have. A normal rekindled friendship typically involves a friend being there for the other, especially after what he revealed to you. But before you could follow up with an apology, he spoke again.

“Nothing in particular. I wondered if you wanted to get some of the old gang together and go up into the woods like we used to.” 

You knew the place he was walking about, the old lumber yard out in the middle of the woods where the kids from town used to gather. It had been a favorite spot to hang out, build bonfires, other illegal shit teenagers liked to do when they wanted to get away from their parents. 

“What do you mean ‘the gang?’” You asked. 

“Well, uh, it’s just gonna be you and me. When I tried to call anyone else from school, they either laughed at me for being back here or didn’t answer.” You could hear his nervous laugh when his words cut off. “Still a small town, and everyone is the same.” 

You couldn’t resist, though. Even if you were a bit too old for that behavior. Reliving your past was one of the reasons you returned home in the first place. “I have nothing better to do, so yeah. Sounds great.” You paused, wondering if you had said the right thing, hoping that Rafayel understood what you meant. “Sorry, I’ve been…not myself lately. Lot’s on my mind.” You rubbed the back of your knee with your fingers before standing, keeping the phone to your ear as you crossed the room to where your suitcase lay open on a chair. 

“I get it.” He responded with a laugh, light and airy in a way that made you smile. “Life is pretty shitty, especially for people like us who - well, you know.” There was a hint of apology in his tone as you heard him open and close a door. “This is the perfect opportunity for me to listen to you now.” 

“I kissed the priest.” 

“Fucking, what? The hot one?” 

You sat on the edge of the bed, leaning forward a bit, a bit shaken now with your admission. Even though you had spoken it out loud, you still felt as if you couldn’t totally come to grips with the situation. 

“Well, yeah. He’s the only one.”  You said, curling your hand around the hem of the comforter. “And I’m also in love with a married man. I’m losing it. This is what happens to people who don’t peak in high school or something!” 

Rafayel said nothing, obviously processing. Then he began to chuckle, which turned into a laugh. Then, he let out the most ridiculous roar of laughter. 

“Wow,” he managed to gasp out after a bit, only to laugh again. You could imagine how his shoulders probably shuddered as they shook and the grin plastered on his face. “Okay, once Talia goes to bed, I’ll grab her car and pick you up. And then you’re explaining this whole damn story to me. Got it?” 

“Got it.” 

“I can’t even comprehend this,” Rafayel breathed after you recounted your tale of how you ended up back home, finishing off with the way Father Sylus had kissed you and the way your panic overtook you. He shook his head, hands clenching and unclenching, brow knitted as he looked at you. 

The two of you sat in Talia's car, parked outside the old lumber yard in the woods. The empty dirt parking lot was bathed in the moon's light peeking through the clouds. The bowl on the dash between you both served as a reminder that some things hadn’t changed and that this was the first place you had smoked weed. 

Rafayel picked it up, fingers curling around the glass as he brought it to his lips. The flick of the lighter illuminated his face in the dark car, shadows dancing across his cheekbones as he inhaled deeply. You couldn’t blame him for his reaction. 

When he passed it to you, you mirrored his actions, feeling the smoke fill your lungs and the earthy taste coating your tongue. You held it in briefly before exhaling slowly, leaning back into the passenger seat. 

“And Xavier asked me out.” You said. 

Your friend’s face contorted in disbelief before he let out a short burst of laughter. “You’re joking, right?” 

“Nope.” You giggled and looked out towards the old building before you, wondering how he could think you were making any of this up. 

“Damn, you have three guys chasing after you, begging for scraps. I bet the doctor has loads of money.” Rafayel clicked his tongue thoughtfully. “This is every girl’s dream! I don’t understand what the problem is.” 

And as if it suddenly hit him all at once, he started to laugh, and the laugh turned out to be contagious. You both soon ended up in a fit of giggles inside the growing colder car. 

“I mean, what am I supposed to do? Ask him to leave his wife?” You huffed. 

“Relax! Think about it. People get divorced all the time.” The high was definitely setting in as Rafayel rested his head on the back of the seat. “And if he’s as hopelessly infatuated with you as you said, he might do it anyway.” 

“Rafayel! That’s horrible.” 

He leaned in and playfully nudged your shoulder, saying, “I can’t help but be honest with you. Who would I be if I wasn’t?” He caught the look on your face and rolled his eyes, flicking the lighter absentmindedly. “Or, you know, you could just call him up and give him a piece of your mind. Maybe that will push him right in the direction of Silver Springs.”

You rolled your eyes and muttered, feeling the familiar laziness creeping into your body. You barely resisted the urge to snort at his suggestion. “The Fleetwood Mac song?” 

“Yeah, Stevie cursed him, you know. Lindsey. In ‘97. Hexed him right on stage in front of everyone. So if I were you, I would call him up and tell him what direction he can shove his thumb up his own ass.” 

You laughed again, shaking your head at Rafayel’s ridiculous suggestion. The pot was doing its job, making everything seem way funnier than it should be. 

“I don’t know, man,” you sighed, sinking further into the seat. “Even if Zayne does leave his wife for me, which would be so wrong, what about Father Sylus? I mean, I kissed a priest, for Christ’s sake!” 

Rafayel took another long drag from the bowl before setting it between you in the cupholder, smoke once again billowing in the car as he responded. “Hey, forbidden love is the hottest kind. And I figure if I’m going to get any entertainment out of this town, it’s gonna be from you at this point. So just call the fucking doctor while I’m still high.” With that, he shoved your shoulder, and you turned and shoved him right back. 

You grumbled as you reached for your phone, unlocking it as the smoke settled around you. You scrolled through your contacts until your thumb was right over the number. It was so tempting, especially with the encouragement of the young man beside you - but you stayed still. 

You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you. 

“Fuck it.” You breathed deeply, heart hammering, and hit the phone symbol. As soon as you heard the first ring, you nearly jumped. 

Why do I do this? A mantra in your mind, like a worm in your skull, beating against the insides repeatedly with a tiny hammer. 

You waited, putting the phone on speaker so the idiot beside you could hear. After a few long rings, you were about to hang up when there was a click. An unfamiliar voice picked up instead of the one you were used to, and the wave of anxiety almost made you dizzy.

“Hello?” Her voice was soft, not as straightforward or bubbly as you had imagined she would sound.

Silent, you swallowed thickly, and along with the fear, you felt the ache settle in once again. The sharp guilt began coiling around you. You looked toward Rafayel, who suddenly looked just as panicked as you. He quickly grabbed your phone, raising an index finger to his lips and giving you a stern look. 

“Hi! Uh, I’m calling about your car's extended warranty!” Rafayel quickly stated, cutting off whatever the woman was about to say next. Then, he turned and threw your phone out of the open window. 

The two of you stared at each other blankly. Then, all the adrenaline hit you at once, and the numb haze obliterated. 

“Oh my God, fuck!” You managed to say, trying and failing to fight the delirious laughter that began wrapping through your body. You barely noticed your vision clouded with tears, and your next laugh came out mixed with a sob. “That was his - and you just - HA! You threw my phone out the window!” 

“Listen, Y/N, I don’t think that was a good -” 

“FUCK.” You kicked the dashboard with your foot, the glove compartment popping open and spilling its contents onto the car's floor. “How could you throw my phone out the window like that?” you cried, turning to glare at Rafayel through your tears. 

He held up his hands defensively. “I panicked, okay? I didn’t want you to do something you’d regret later. That was his wife on the phone, not him! What were you going to say to her anyway?” 

“I don’t know!” you wailed, burying your face in your hands. The high rapidly dissipated, ruined, and replaced by a growing despair. “I’m a horrible person. What am I doing with my life?” 

Rafayel sighed and scooted closer, draping an arm lazily around your shaking shoulders. “Hey, you’re not a horrible person. Do you want a Xanax?”

“No, I don’t want Xanax! Go get my phone!”

“Okay, okay! Just chill out.” Rafayel moved to open the car door but paused, a muttered curse leaving his mouth before he hurriedly attempted to clean up the drug paraphernalia scattered on the console. Then he turned just in time to have a flashlight shone in his face. In all of your agitation, it appeared that neither of you had noticed the other vehicle that had pulled up. 

“Hi, Tara.” Rafeyel greeted the deputy at the window with a thinly veiled hint of irritation as he shielded his eyes with the back of one hand. “Good to see you.” 

Tara looked at him, and then her eyes landed on you and widened slightly, her mouth parting as she put the two of you together. “Really? You’re back home?” 

Tara was only a couple years younger than you, and there was no surprise that this was her chosen profession. You remembered how she used to hang around all the time in high school, staying behind and hoping you’d ask her to hang out to go to a party. Even back then, it was as if you couldn’t shake her, the girl pursuing anything and getting into anything she could think of. 

“So, uh.” Tara leaned over and peeked into the car, leaning her free hand on the window. Perfectly manicured nails and the same cherry red lipstick; her features and skin soft. “What are you guys doing?” 

You started to laugh again, unable to resist the odd delight rippling through you. Rafayel tensed, and his lips pressed together as he looked at you in warning. 

“Nothing, officer.” You answered with a grin. “Don’t you have more important things to do? What’s all we ever did when we came up here?” 

Rafayel slapped a hand to his forehead. Tara scoffed and looked around nervously, as if confused as to how you reached the admission you realized shouldn’t have slipped out of your mouth so easily. Her sudden lack of boldness reminded you of the faux courage she often displayed when she was younger, which was why you were never that close with her. 

As long as you’ve known Talia, she was the type to call the priest whenever something happened. Even though you partially expected it, you were still on edge seeing Father Sylus walking into the tiny police station with her. 

You were sitting on a bench with Rafayel, feeling angry and frustrated, and your high completely came down when the two of them walked in. Your head snapped up at the sight of the tall man next to Talia, looking composed and put together while she looked like she had just taken a sleeping pill. It truly was no surprise to see Talia rushing in to rescue Rafayel from whatever trouble he had gotten himself into. 

“Rafayel.” Talia’s small, five-foot frame was in front of her nephew. “You…” She rubbed her temples and let out a groan. 

“Sorry, Talia.” He held up his hands, which were cuffed together, a bit of a chuckle leaving his mouth as if he thought this was the most amusing thing that could possibly happen to him. 

You averted your gaze again, the memory of the kiss burning in your mind, and you couldn’t bear to look up. A fresh wave of shame washed over you. Talia’s exasperated voice faded into the background as your heart pounded. 

“Come on, let’s get you two out of here,” Talia finally said with a sigh. She turned to Tara, who was seated at the desk nearby. “I’m assuming there won’t be any charges? They were just being stupid, right Tara?” 

Tara glanced between you and Rafayel, conflict flickering across her face. You could see the gears turning in her mind, weighing the social capital to be gained by letting this slide versus following protocol. After a tense beat, she sighed and waved a dismissive hand. 

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, let’s go fill out the paperwork.”

Talia nodded curtly and followed Tara out of the room, and an awkward silence descended, thick and lingering, although you couldn’t pinpoint the cause of it. You kept your gaze fixed on the scuffed linoleum, tracing patterns with your eyes. 

“Hey, Father,” Rafayel said, “What’d Talia say when she called you?” 

“She asked for a ride, said she would kill you, and needed someone to perform the last rites.” 

Rafayel let out a short laugh at Father Sylus’ dry response, but you remained silent, still unable to bring yourself to look at the priest. Your mind kept replaying that moment - the gentle press of his lips against yours. How could you face him now, after what transpired between you? What would you even say? 

“Right.” Rafayel hummed, “Suppose I should thank you then. Potentially saving my soul and all that.” He nudged you with his elbow, “Ain’t that right, bestie?” 

“Yeah, thanks.” You mumbled, only lifting your head when Tara appeared in front of you to remove the handcuffs from your wrists. Talia moved before her nephew, jingling her car keys before dropping them into his hands. 

“Let’s get out of here before I change my mind, Rafayel,” She grumbled. He flashed her a cheeky grin but wisely kept his mouth shut this time. 

“I can take Y/N home.” Father Sylus nodded toward you once you stood and shook out your wrists. Nervously, your eyes flickered to Rafayel, who looked terrified for you for a brief second before mouthing the words, 'Touch his butt.'

A moment later, you found yourself outside the police station next to the priest who had consumed your thoughts since that ill-advised kiss. You shivered in the harsh autumn breeze that cut straight through the light jacket you wore. You risked a brief glance at Father Sylus. He stood without a jacket, radiating heat, and for a moment, you wanted to press against him to feel that warmth. 

You found your words. “I - I can get home on my own,” you said, a bit harsher than was necessary. “I’m an adult the last time I checked.” 

Father Sylus paused at the bottom of the steps and turned around. There wasn’t any tension or hesitation in his tone, just like the other night. He was just genuinely inquiring. “How are you feeling, Y/N?” 

Shivering slightly and wrapping your arms around yourself, you looked toward the man and offered a smile. Your voice had the faintest tremor as you tried to joke, “I’ve been better.” 

Father Sylus glanced at you from the corner of his eye as you fell into step beside him, releasing a little snort at your sarcasm, a gesture that, for some reason, sent a hot rush of awe through you. 

“That’s all right, Y/N.” He said with a sad smile. “We can talk about it later if you want. For now, the important thing is getting you home.” Reflexively, his hand came to rest on the small of your back as he steered you toward the parking lot.

Just the brief caress of his warm hand on your back made your thighs clench. It didn’t mean anything, you told yourself, but your stomach churned as the sweet electricity of his touch rushed through you. 

Stop it, you told yourself. He was just showing you where he had parked. Yet his lingering warmth was flooding your senses. Swallowing thickly, you pinched your brows together and hoped you didn’t actually upset him in any way. 

“Should I be worried?” he asked. 

“About what?” 

“The things you’re into.” 

Stopping, a hard lump formed in your throat, and the entire world fell into a hush. The nearly pitch black parking lot of the police station, the night chill, the beautiful priest that just - was he teasing you, now? 

“Again. I’m in my twenties. Weed,” you snapped, emphasizing the last word, “Isn’t a big deal.” 

His palm felt scorching through your jacket as he closed a hand around the top of your shoulder, squeezing gently. 

“Hey now,” He said, making your breath hitch as you stiffened slightly. “It was just a question.” 

You said nothing, simply sliding into the passenger seat of Father Sylus’s car.

A quiet settled between you two in the car, then. All you could do was look out the window at the dark neighborhood and overanalyze every word, every touch, trying to pinpoint exactly how you felt. But how could you even explain that the man beside you gave you the thrill of wanting to do something terrible? Because there had been a moment with him, something that broke the reality of the relationship the two of you had. It didn’t necessarily feel awful, more like an unspoken truth waiting to be expressed. 

You tried to control your emotions and thought process, registering that you were in front of your house now. Just as you were going to say goodnight and grab the door handle, you heard Father Sylus speak. 

“I owe you an apology for the other night.” The quiet murmur was easy to miss, but you did everything possible to hang onto the sound. A mix of breath. You looked back at him, trying to catch his eyes in the darkness only illuminated by the porch light from the distance. 

“I don’t want to make things difficult for you.” He continued, “I’d still like for us to talk.” 

As tempting as it was to open the car door and leave, the ache in your belly nearly overwhelmed you. A terrible, crushing sense of longing settled in. Knowing where the lines were drew a blank in your mind. Where the hell were you supposed to draw the line? Fuck, was this situation genuine, or just one of opportunity? 

“Can I ask an inappropriate question, Father?” You choked out, swallowing the lump of anxiety that wound its way around the base of your neck. You watched as he shut the car off.

“What is it?” He wasn't looking at you, but the hand still on the wheel tightened slightly. 

Inhaling deeply, your heart thumped at an aching speed as you murmured your question, your voice beginning to betray how much he affected you. “Do you kiss a lot of girls?” 

“I beg your pardon?” 

Why the hell did you mean to bring that up? What good would knowing do, even? Right, of course, you would just go ahead and ruin the image of purity - what was the worst that could happen? 

“Well,” You continued, unable to stop yourself but choosing your words carefully, “You kissed me. So, do you kiss a lot of girls?” 

Father Sylus was quiet for a long, brutal moment. You felt sweat bead on your skin despite the car being cool. Clenching your fists and digging your nails into your palm, you try to brace yourself. You hadn’t intended to ask your question so outwardly , but what other way was there to put it? 

“Y/N, you’re trying to minimize our connection,” he said. He took a deep, steadying breath and then rubbed a hand over his brow. “And I can ignore it. I can try to pray for the strength to bear it.”

Then, he met your gaze directly. In the light from the porch, you could see how his crimson eyes tore into you, emotion suddenly exposed and bared. For the second time, he had allowed you to glimpse what was hiding under the careful mask he put on. 

You almost flinched as he touched your knee, his tone dropping. “But I won’t diminish it.” 

You found yourself falling, then, into those wounded eyes. You slid your hand forward and set it over his, the heat from the simple touch making you feel like you had touched an ember. 

Before you knew what you were doing, you leaned across the center console to kiss him, slow and sweet. 

Please don’t push me away.

For a moment, you feel his surprise. However, just before you pull away, he pulls you forward, one warm hand sliding up your back and the other threading through your hair gently, reverently.

You moan softly into his mouth, and his grip tightens slightly. He deepens the kiss, pressing his tongue into your mouth. You lose yourself in the feel of his lips on yours, his hands on your body.

The gentleness he handles you with stokes the fire within you, warming you from the inside and slowly turning into a fever. You long for him to hold you tightly, to show you he wanted you too - you need that affirmation. 

Then his lips grazed the shell of your ear, voice husky and warm. “You’re far too close for your own good.” 

What sort of torment was this? All these words hung in the air that you wanted to say, but none came to your mind except for - 

“Fuck me,” you rasped. Your face felt hot as the words spilled from your lips, driven by the intensity of your want. “Please, I -” 

He silenced you with his mouth, capturing your lips again. His kiss is no less intense and consuming but maintains a level of restraint that a part of you hoped was rapidly crumbling. Your hands move on their own accord, reaching for his belt. 

A hand on your wrist stops you before you can go any further, his skin like silk against the pounding pulse point of your wrist. It was a heavyweight, slowly making its way up to where your heart was beating wildly. 

He’s looking directly into your eyes when he brings your hand to his mouth, kissing your knuckles gently. 

“No here, sweetheart.” His voice is feather-light as he speaks. “Not like this.” 

While he let go of your wrist, something unseen held you in place. But it was only momentarily before the horror of what you had tried to do crashed over you. 

“Oh, fuck, I’m so sorry, I - what the fuck am I doing?” 

With the state you were in, it wouldn’t take much for the well of tears to come. Unable to look at him, you unlocked the car door and pushed it open, nearly tripping on your feet as you stumbled onto the pavement. 

You didn’t look back, fearing falling apart, and slammed the door shut. 

Rather than going through the front door, you circled the house and went up the back porch through the kitchen. Once inside, you walked past your dad in the living room, who was sleeping on the couch with the television blaring and a near-empty bottle of beer within arm’s reach. 

You went into the bathroom in the hallway, shut and locked the door, then slid down onto the cold tile. 

The rejection shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. No, this was different. Something deep inside, something raw and fiery, made the ache grow exponentially. It was the memory of the touch, the intoxicating mixture of scents. 

Anger clawed its way to the surface because you couldn’t even wrap your head around what you felt. How pathetic, how foolish, how humiliating. 

Clutching the sides of your head, you let out a scream, frustration causing your body to shake. 

You wanted so badly to disappear. 

Did God have a sense of humor or something? 

tag list: @celestialforce @readerxyourbabe

[bedforddanes75]

going to church for the FANFICTION i post on ao3.net. this is embarrassing

[vulpinesaint]

cannot explain how uncomfortable and like. lowkey unsafe it makes me feel to see someone openly express like. "i feel so loved by god!" kinda sentiment. Immediate activation of something in my brain. cultivating your online experience is so important and freeing (i unfollow people without hesitation for that </3). not cause (christian) religion itself is inherently bad (i believe that it is but that's my own business not anyone else's) but like. i Cannot have that in my space. oh my god.

[giantkillerjack]

Catholicism.

[.... oops I accidentally wrote real analysis in the tags lol]

why is he like this

[ghxstwrites]

Forgive Me Father

Pairing: Priest! Yunho x GN! Reader

Summary: It’d been forever since you stepped into a church, but after one too many life altering events, a friend suggested confessing as a last resort, and it turns out you got more than you prayed for. 

WC: 2.6k

AU: Religion! Au

Genre: smidgen of Angst, Smutty smut smut smut, porn with plot

Warning(s): Smut! MDNI! priest kink went brrrrr with this man, dacryphilia, impact play, lotttsss of degradation, lil bit of praise, discussion of religion and blasphemous acts, reader can be a bit of a smartass, unprotected sex (that's not very holy… wrap it up) - sorry if i'm missing anything!

A/N: Well, I wont ever see Heaven after this. Thank you to @bunnliix for the proofread and help on this one, also @skzdust for you Catholicism knowledge, big shout out to @kpop---scenarios for the title!

Nets: @mirohs-aurora-society

Tag List: @bethelighthalazia @a---shura @kpop---scenarios @autieofthevalley @wisejudgedragonhairdo (send me an ask if you'd like to be added!)

Kinktober & Flufftober Masterlist

It felt like one thing after another, your fiancé ran away with their co-worker and work had eliminated your position, and you’d lost what was supposed to be a lifelong friend in the process, it felt like something was out to get you. You’d tried everything to help clear any negative thoughts with every feasible solution you’d been recommended when searching the internet.

Journaling? Didn’t work - after you’d nearly jammed the pen through one of the books writing all the warning signs down after your fiancé left, and ruined another with tears talking about your friend.

Yoga and Meditation? Nope, after 3 sessions you decided being alone with your thoughts was definitely not the route you wanted to take.

Blasting your favorite songs? It worked… until the song you were going to use as your first dance at your wedding came on. Your speaker went through the open window right before you cried yourself to sleep that night. 

Which brings you to today, a group of your friends had decided to invite you out to lunch, the first time you’d really seen the world had set its sights on you. 

“Oh sweetheart…,” your friend cooed at you across the table, it sounded like she was mocking you at first, despite you knowing she wasn’t, you weren’t convinced she had an evil bone in her body. “Listen… I know it isn’t usually your thing, but.. Have you thought about church? Or even going to confessionals? They don’t really talk to you, the priest just listens…. Once you're done he offers solutions and if you use them, great. If not, no harm no foul?” she shrugs her shoulders unsure of her own words to you. 

You contemplated for a minute “You’re right it isn’t my thing, I don't really get how sitting next to a stranger who’s whole personality is religious context, talking to him like you’re talking to air…but if it works for you, that's great… for you,” You, admittedly a little harsh, reply back to her. 

Late one night you’d sat on your bed looking for jobs on your laptop, and with every passing one you’d grown more frustrated, you either didn’t have matching qualifications, they wanted a better degree or they weren’t even paying a livable wage. 

“Fuck this,” you huff out as you close your laptop, shoving it off your lap and fall back in bed. You’d pull your hoodie over your face as you listen to the sound of rainfall hit your apartment window and your friends' words ring back in your brain, what else did you really have to lose? Talking to a stranger who knows nothing about you and would likely never see you again, huffing you get dressed and head over to your local church.

Walking in, you take note of the admittedly beautiful surroundings, stained glass windows, marble statues, all of it was cloaked in darkness as night had fallen, but the moon light cascaded through the windows beautifully. 

You took a moment to look around, familiarizing yourself with your surroundings as it had been years since you’d entered a church. Wooden pews, rich velvet red floors, as dated as it may look, it was beautiful. 

It wasn’t long before your eyes fell on the confessional, a wooden box in the far corner of the room, sighing to yourself, you walked toward it. You slowly reach for the handle and open the door, you sit down in the booth as the silence is suddenly so loud. 

“What brings you here, Child?” A male voice spoke from the otherside of the grate.

Startled, you respond as calmly as you can. “I-I’m down on my luck and a friend suggested this… I’m hoping you can listen or help?”

The man spoke up once again “Very well, you may proceed.”

With a heavy sigh you proceed to recount the last few months of troubles to the man, feeling yourself getting angry and the tone shift slightly. You feel like you can dig your nails into the laminated wood you sat on, that same grit showing up in the way you speak.

“Easy child...” the man lulls out at you “There's no need to speak with such venom.”

The tone of his voice admittedly going straight to your core, but why? You don’t know anything about the young priest on the other side, other than exactly that, a young man who has devoted his life to the church, are you really that insane?

“Sorry sir -” 

“Please, refer to me as father, Father Yunho,” He cuts you off.

“Sorry Father…” you manage to say back, a calmness washing over your voice as you try to push those thoughts  to the back of your mind.

“Father, please help.” you whine out, feeling frustrated “I am at the end of my rope and nothing seems to be working,” you admit.

“I see… is that all you’d like to confess, child? I have a feeling there is more,” he all but whispers. 

The way his words fall from his mouth has you pushing your thighs together, his voice was as velvety as the floors of his church, delicate yet demanding.

“N-no father,” you say, barely above a whisper, when you hear a small chuckle on the other side.

“Very well, I sense that you need to reflect on yourself and perhaps your relationship with our savior, putting your faith in him may guide you to the path you are seeking,” he retorts back at you.

“Thank you Father.. For listening and.. Helping,” you sound pitiful, you felt as if you were about to cry

“If you feel the need to come back to confess anything further, I’m always here child.” he said back to you, his tone calm but with a hidden undertone to it that you couldn’t quite discern.

It had been a few weeks since you’d gone to visit Yunho, and out of everything you confessed that night, the one thing that stuck with you was the sound of his voice. 

The way it flowed like warm honey wouldn’t leave your head, what would your name sound like falling from those lips, the noises he’d make, maybe even… No, stop, he's a priest, he was there to listen and guide you and now all you can think about is the noises you could make him elicit.

You’d laid there, it’d been a rough day as several more rejection emails clogged your inbox, you think back to the young priest's words, full of encouragement - but the more they replayed the more you stirred, your hand guiding its way down your body, “Father please…” you’d softly moaned out as your hand dips into your shorts.

It had felt like the universe had given you a break, you’d been given a job offer, and a nice one at that, could this have been the divine intervention the young priest was talking about?

Despite the feeling of gratitude, and things looking up - there was still one thing in the back of your head. 

Father Yunho.

You found yourself back in the walls of the church late one evening, you’d just come from your first day of work and since the church was on the way home you wanted to stop in, if nothing else to pay your respects and close this chapter of your life. 

You’d sat down on the cold bench in the confessional. “Father Yunho? Are you there?”

“Oh it’s you again,” he speaks softly. He remembered me? “Is everything okay?”

That damn voice, the way it seeps out of his mouth, the way it makes you think the unholiest thoughts in the holiest of places.

“Y-yes… well yes and no,” you say to him “I was able to find a job, Today was my first day actually, I wanted to stop in and say  thank you…’ you trailed off

“And?” the young priest smirks to himself, he knows something else has brought you back - no one comes to confess a warm hearted thank you. “I feel as if there is still something you are withholding, child.”

“Please, call me Y/N…” you muster, trying to change the subject.

“Very well, Y/n,” he says, “Please, I will not force you but how can I help you if you do not confess what is plaguing you?”

Damn it. He has you cornered, you can’t back out of this now. 

“F-Father, please forgive me, but I.. I have sinned,” you whimper out. “Since the last time we spoke I.. I can’t stop thinking of you.” you confess to the young man sitting across the partition from you.

“Thinking of me? Thinking of me, how?” he asked you.

“I-” you choke on your own words, “Late at night.. When I replay your words, they start as encouragement and then I can’t help but think of what other sounds you can make.. I..” you look at the floor, embarrassed by your own confession, across the partition Yunho's face is getting hotter, and embarrassingly enough to him, his pants are getting tighter. 

When Yunho took the oath to be a faithful leader for Christ on the altar in this very church he made many vows, including celibacy, which never affected him until now. You, a seemingly innocent individual, came to him for advice, advice he was happy to offer to you, and now sitting across from you as you recount the blasphemous things you’d done while thinking about him, had made him feel things he’d never felt before.  

“Y/n, Pl-Please,” Yunho whined out

“I’m so sorry Father… I feel so ashamed at the amount of times I've gotten off to just the mere thought of your voice…” you feel the tears well up in your eyes.

Yunho is sat across from you and with every whimper and sob he feels it go straight to his dick, painfully aware of just how bad he’s affected you, as it’s now affecting him.

“Y-Y/n.. Please.. I…” he breathes out as his head tilts back against the confessional as he tries to push the thoughts out of his head, but now all he can think about is your tear stained face begging for forgiveness and he lets out a low moan. 

“Father are you… are you okay,” you lift your head to look at the mesh partition as if it were him. “I’m sorry if I…If i said too much.”

“Such- ah- filth should be reprimanded,” Yunho says through gritted teeth.

The sound goes straight to your core, causing you to press your thighs together in response.

“Father I -” Your words were cut short by the confessional door swinging open, leaving you face to face with the young priest. 

“You come into the house of Christ with such a perverted mouth and expect me to let you walk away?” He spat at you.”You are beyond saving Child,” as he pulls you out of the confessional and pushes you onto a nearby pew, leaving you shocked.

“The likes of you should be punished” he sits next to you and pulls you over his lap eliciting a yelp from you. His large hand comes down on your ass, the sound echoing through the church, causing you to cry out. 

“Quiet, you’ll take the punishment as penance for your sins, understood?” You let out a muffled sob “Now, Count.”

“One..” spank “T-Two,”  spank  “Th-Three,” you cry out as Yunho's broad hand comes down on your ass, tears rolling down your face.

“Such a waste of obedience in such a disobedient slut,” he says to you, gently massaging your asscheek from the smacks. 

“On your Knees,” you quickly move to place yourself on the ground. “Years ago, I vowed to Christ I would serve him in all his glory, I vowed obedience, poverty and celibacy.. And then my only thanks is to be sent a filthy slut to break me of those vows.” he spits as he removes his robe, and makes quick work of his belt. You sat back watching his every move, eyes eventually finding the tent that had been forming in his slacks.

“Father.. Please… please forgive me,” you sob up at him. “Quiet, you’ll speak when spoken too, understand?” he looks down at you. “Yes, Father” you squeak out as he smirks. “That’s better…” he reaches out to cup your face, wiping the stray tear away. ‘Now, why don’t you put this pretty mouth to good use?” he coos at you, tracing your lower lip with his thumb. 

Leaning back, he pulls out his aching cock, you lean forward and give him and give him a couple experimental pumps, which draws a beautiful noise out of the taller man before taking him completely in your mouth. 

The warm wet feeling has him in shambles, he’s putting all of his focus into not cumming down your throat immediately as you expertly work his length, his hand finding your hair as he attempts to take control of the situation. 

“There you go…” He lulls out, as his mouth drops open, as an unfamiliar pit starts forming in the pit of his stomach. He can feel it building as you bob your head up and down his cock, his grip on your hair tightening as he feels himself getting close, he pulls you away from him, using the hand in your hair to make you look up at him. Drool trailing out of your mouth as you look at him with slightly glassy eyes.

Looking at you, a switch flips in his mind, “So pretty, so obedient for me,” he says barely above a whisper as a smirk forms on his face. “Up, I’m not finished with you,” he pulls you to your feet as he stands up, leading you up to the altar, he forces you over it as he kicks your feet apart, he reaches for your hair, pulling it forcing it to look up. In front of you is a large marble statue of Christ. 

“To make sure you know just what you’ve done, I want you to see him,” he says sternly as tears well in your eyes again, before you can form a reply you feel Yunho’s cock slide into you, bottoming out rather quickly. The young priest throws his head back as his fingertips dig into your hip, causing you both to moan. Yunho pulls out slowly before ramming himself back into you, setting a rough pace. 

 “Father.. P-Please” you beg as his grip on your hair tightens. “F-uck please.. I can’t last much longer like this, Father please,” tears stream down your face as you stare at the marble statue in front of you.

“Not my favorite sinner begging for forgiveness now” he quips at you, his pace slowing down “Tell me exactly why I should forgive you for the sin you’ve brought into this church? Before our Lord and savior?” He punctuated each word with a sharp thrust. “How pathetic, now you’re crying?” he smirks as he pulls you back, body flush with his “Go on, let go.. Show me how much you really are sorry,” He coos in your ear. 

“Father - I.. I” your mind goes blank, your orgasm hits you like a ton of bricks with one final thrust from Yunho, his name falling from your lips like hymns on a Sunday morning, he lets go of your hair, causing you to fall forward onto the altar as he pulls out of you, painting your back in his seed. The feeling of his seed on your back makes you shudder, the aftershocks of your orgasm pulling the energy out of you as you lay on the altar. Catching his breath, Yunho looks down at you, covered in his release and smirks.

”Whoever conceals their sins, does not prosper,” He breathes out  “but one who confesses it finds mercy.”

[aphroditelovesu]

Yan!Husband Henry VIII Headcanons (Romantic)

❝ 👑 — lady l: This has been in my draft for a while but I decided to finish it now lol. Hope you like it! Forgive me for any mistakes. ❤️🧡

❝tw: obsessive and possessive behavior, toxic relationship, mention of death perhaps.

❝👑pairing: yandere!henry viii x female!reader.

You had already dreamed of marrying a King, of becoming his Queen and giving birth to his heirs, a romantic fantasy that you and many other young women have dreamed of. They were mere fantasies of romance that you made up, but never really thought it would happen or become the obsession of one of the most infamous Kings in the history of England.

Your dreams remained as they were, dreams of a young lady. The King of the country where you lived was already married, so there wasn't much chance of you marrying him. Your family was of noble enough origin and had considerable wealth, but nothing too extravagant.

Until your older sister's marriage to a powerful man, close to the King. With that, your family immediately moved to the English Court, excited about their new status. Your father was particularly eager to marry you off to a powerful man as well.

Henry was dissatisfied with his wife, Anne, she had failed to conceive the much-desired male heir he so desperately wanted. His wandering eyes began to wander to the young women of the Court and when he laid eyes on you, he knew you would be the one to give him what he wanted.

Henry's captivating gazes seemed to follow you wherever you went and it began to unnerve you. A hint of excitement perhaps, but you knew it was a dangerous game to get involved with the King, especially when he was married.

Your parents were immensely happy with the King's interest in you. If you became his mistress, it would bring benefits and riches to your family. And when Henry got tired of you, you could perhaps marry a man with a noble title. Maybe a Duke or a Marquis.

But you didn't want to be his mistress or anyone's mistress. You wanted a husband and not a mere toy that he could always discard later. Your resistance angered your parents but attracted Henry even more. Your rejecting him has stirred him up, and bewitched him even more. Whenever you were in a room, Henry's eyes would be on you.

All of Henry’s attention was on you and you would be lying if you said you didn’t like it. He didn't even try to hide his affection for you, he sent you gifts and letters constantly. You reciprocated, sending him letters in return, but always remaining firm in your convictions.

Before long, Henry was deeply in love with you and quickly got rid off his current wife, Anne. When he asked you to marry him, shortly after his separation from Anne, you hesitated but accepted. You would finally become his and his alone.

Once you were married, Henry became more possessive than ever. He already didn't like the looks other gentlemen gave you, but now that you were officially his, it would be considered a crime of treason. And we know how he deals with betrayal.

You were his perfect Queen, so sweet and so, well, perfect. Henry makes a point of reminding you of that every day, about how perfect you were for him. He really was in love, so he kept on your side the whole time. His eyes remained only on you.

Henry truly values ​​you and your opinion. It is not a custom, but he would be willing to listen to your wishes and political opinions (if you have any) on matters of state. You are his Queen, after all. If it was your wish, if you were Catholic, Henry could even try to restore Catholicism in England.

He really loved you, maybe not in the conventional way, but he did. Henry would listen to your wishes, fulfill them and all he wants in return is his love. He will not tolerate people speaking ill of you and will condemn anyone who does so for treason.

Henry would be loyal to you, he would take care of you until your death. He wants to have children with you, a family, a male heir, but he also wants to be with you. He could be himself and not the King of England.

And when you finally gave him his long-awaited male heir, Henry knew he would never let you go or let anything happen to you. After all, you are his wife and his Queen. And Henry doesn't handle treason very well.

[milkteabinniechan]

†Echoes of the Confessional - Felix

(this is a membership exclusive + a preview 👀 you can read the whole sinful story here)

pairing: college student! Felix x fem! reader

summary: At a Catholic College, Felix's devout beliefs are challenging when you show up and challenge everything he has ever believed in. He knows you're trouble but he can't seem to stay away...

warnings: Catholicism, religious imagery, blasphemy, oral (m.rec), corruption

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.

Felix had attended confession three times a week as was mandated by the University. He would finish his last class of the morning, intro to theology, and head towards the chapel with the other boys. The girls mass and confession was held at a different time of day so as not to distract each other from worship. Felix preferred this. He preferred his focus to be completely on his devotion and his faith. That is, until you showed up.

You walked into the all boys sermon on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. You pushed the large wooden doors to the chapel open and the entire room went silent. Your plaid skirt was wrinkled, your knee-high socks already falling down and your shoes scuffed. All the boys turned in their pews to look at you.

“Shit. Am I in the wrong place?” Your voice echoed against the stained glass.

Felix’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head from the sight of you. And the foul language you spewed was like a serpent's tongue come to life. He knew then and there that if the Bible has ever warned about temptation that you were definitely it.

************

....“But if it's bad for me, then why does it feel so good?” Your cheeky smile grew wider.

Felix stepped back from you, creating more distance between you. He wanted to tell you off or quote a Bible verse but the words died in his throat. Instead, he stared at the unlit cigarette weaved between your fingers. Then his eyes flickered up to yours, lingering there for a moment. Your eyes looked like they had seen an entire lifetime that Felix knew nothing about. You terrified him. But the way your clear lip gloss captured the sunlight was something the Bible never warned him about.

Lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from Evil

[winged-thinged]

I lived for a while bending over backwards to try to justify how my liberal beliefs fit into my Catholicism, cherrypicking scripture and arguing with tradition. It's definitely possible. But you know what? It's exhausting, constantly fighting for a place in a community that ultimately does not want you and isn't interested in changing.

When I was a theology student, I snarled at people who suggested that what I was really doing was asserting my beliefs and then assigning them to God (because I knew that gay people were natural and good, and God was good, so God must think so too, right?). I talked a lot about "ongoing revelation." About "indwelling" and human reason. I had to justify it to myself, because I wasn't willing to question the foundation that I had built myself on.

Because so little of my belief was actually built on what the Church and the Bible said, many of the traditional debunking arguments just didn't work on me. I didn't think that. I was sure that I was right and those other Christians were wrong.

But all that work eventually begs the question. Is it worth it? Why call yourself a Christian at all, when you have already traveled so far away from the foundations of Christianity?

And so I took a good hard look at what most of the Christians around me actually believed and how they acted. I finally let myself ask the question: what if I do them the courtesy of taking them at their word? What if I take their claims seriously, instead of imposing my own ideas about right and wrong onto the god that they believe in?

And what I immediately felt was revulsion. If God was actually like what the Church teaches, and not like the image I had been building up in my head all these years, then I wanted nothing to do with him. I remember, shortly after asking myself this question, I took communion for what would turn out to be the last time. I couldn't swallow. I wanted to vomit. The idea of taking a deity who believed and acted like my community said he did into my body, letting him touch my soul, was despicable. I decided then and there that, if God was real, I'd rather go to hell than worship him. I walked away, and I have never looked back.

I am so much lighter, now, not having to twist myself into knots justifying how my beliefs fit into a Catholic structure. I cut out the middle man. It is enough to simply use my mind and my heart to observe the world decide what's right for me. I'm perfectly capable of philosophical and moral reasoning on my own. No divine revelations required.

[pparacxosm]

sigh like a chime

(postcanon!patrick zweig x infant halfsister’s au pair!reader; idk either man; came to me in a dream; title from the sound of music let’s all act shocked; major tw for suicide talk; tw depressive behaviour; tw disordered thoughts about eating; tw vague implication of alcoholic dependency; patrick zweig is generally not doing so hot; like at all; tw strained father son dynamics; tw grown adults projecting childhood trauma onto a baby; warning you now: this is a long one !! ; make a day of it; atp coexisting; lily donaldson being a weird little girl ™; tw airports during holiday season; whoever came up with the headcanon that patrick was late for his circumcision and it got cancelled i owe you a kidney; so cw smut obviously; cw religious ((Christianity, specifically Catholicism + Judaism briefly)) motifs; tw splicing of said motifs with the aforementioned smut; tw vomit)

“It’s not that I’m not happy for him,” Patrick tells Tashi, “I really am, you know I mean that.”

He paces her kitchen impatiently, running fingers through dark, dishevelled hair.

At such times, he still looks like the boy wonder sprinting carelessly across electric blue asphalt, eyes shimmering, as if he were part of that riot of colour. Some of his athletic maturity is replaced with the facetious, callow mannerisms of a hungry novice who wants to skip the necessary steps. Who wants to swallow experience and spit out the bones.

Tashi straddles a stool at the vast marbletop island. She’s pattering away like bulletquick rainfall on her MacBook. She doesn’t even spare him a glance.

Patrick makes an effort to rein in his temper. He drops into one of the stools. He swivels left and right and cranes his neck, staring up at the coffered ceiling moulding.

“It’s almost Christmas, Patrick. Go home.”

I am home, he wants to say, but that would be revolting and stupid and he doesn’t even really mean it. Art and Tashi aren’t home for him. Nothing is. And he likes that, he likes being a nomad.

Lily clicks in like a pony. Lily—well, Lili, Lieselotte—is also the name of his little sister. He likes the coincidence. The trick of the mind he can perform, imagining an alternative family. 

Family is just being nomads together.

“Hey, I told you no tap shoes inside,” Tashi says, eyes still swimming through the pixelmire of her computer screen.

Perhaps Patrick ought to feel flattered by her attention at all. His familial woes are just as perturbing to Tashi as Lily fucking up the flooring with her ball changes.

Patrick’s still quashing his irritation. She doesn’t even fuck him, anymore. He actually doesn’t fuck much of anything at all, of late. What with how tired he is all the time, how his flesh and bones deplete with each exertion. In a way, that’s her fucking him. But it’s also just the scorn of getting older.

It gets harder to shoulder things. His patience corrodes quicker. He should lean forward, take that laptop, and lob it across the room. She’s not even wearing those stupid bluelight glasses she’s supposed to be wearing.

“Do you just not care about anything?” It’s a petulant attempt at stoking her, but it’s too meandering and abstract to really matter, let alone take effect.

She doesn’t respond for a whole five seconds, still typing, and when she does, it’s a distracted whisper of, “What?”

Her power over him is such that she can afford to be so blindly condescending. But it still stings.

He groans into the air, and it’s such a thundering sort of noise that Lily spares him a weirded out scowl on her way to the pantry. “Do you really want me in Germany? I’ll sit on my ass and start drinking beer again all day, Coach.”

Three years into their partnership, he often uses her title to signal his annoyance.

Tashi sighs like she’s disappointed. Not disappointed that he’s trying, but the fact that he’s making such meaningless, childish stabs at it. Instead of just going for it. As in, yes, smashing her MacBook over his knee and yelling pay attention to me! She’d respect that more and he knows it.

But, anyway, she lowers the screen halfmast and looks at him. “Are you jeal—”

“I’m not jealous of the baby.”

“Okay…”

“But he’s sixtyfive, Tashi! It’s ridiculous.”

Tashi does something between a scoff and a laugh, shaking her head. She rolls up the sleeves of her sweater and narrows her eyes at him. “And how old did you say the new wife was?”

“Thirtytwo, Tashi.”

Tashi laughs properly now, dropping her head and dragging her thumb and forefinger over her lashes. Patrick smiles at her amusement, albeit at his expense.

“That is pretty ridiculous.” She looks up at him again, clearing her throat, “Don’t try to bullshit me and pretend you don’t still drink beer.”

He wants to contradict her, but he decides he wants to make her laugh more. “He met her because she was his masseuse for a hot stone treatment.”

Tashi sputters, her giggles spilling everywhere, and she’s waving her hands like she’s calling timeout.

“And then he calls me,” Patrick continues, before miming a phone to his ear and straightening and dragging his voice down like an anchor with an affected distinguished rumble, “And goes, Son, I am moving back to Germany. I have love again.”

“I have love again!” Tashi wheezes, her elbows thunking on the marble and her face falling into her hands. Her shoulders are shaking with laughter.

“Like it’s a fucking disease.”

“It is.” Art’s voice still manages to quaver delivering a glib oneliner. Maybe because he doesn’t mean it. Patrick’s willing to chalk it up to his brisk stride as he enters the kitchen. Always a fucking pep in his step these days, the fucking asshole.

Patrick doesn’t turn his head. He feels a sharp instance of vertigo when Art’s hand lands on his shoulder. But both the touch and nausea are gone as soon as they arrive, and he passes off the motion of his own hand going to grab Art’s fingers as a scratch to his nose. Tashi’s too busy wiping her tears away to have noticed that, thank God.

“Oh my God, please tell him,” Tashi cackles, still gathering lost breath as Art slides her bluelight eyeglasses onto her face and enswathes her body with his, caressing her arms with his knuckles.

“He knows,” Patrick says dismissively, even though that’s a lie. He hasn’t told him.

“What do I know?”

Tashi recounts the story with the engaging enthusiasm of what Patrick is beginning to recognise as schadenfreude. But even that is still a salve, and he feels a little foolish for forgetting its effect. Not just the laughter, but all of this. He wishes they would just throw him a bone and let him stay for Christmas. He feels like a dying dog made to live too long. He offered to dress up as Santa, but Lily herself informed him that she’s far outgrown such folly and resents his assumption otherwise. She’d kicked him in the shin with the metal plate of her tap shoe. He’d let her.

Art’s smile quirks up at the image. Mean old Mr Zweig laid nude across a spa bed, cock jumping for the meek masseuse.

“Bet he slipped her eight grand to fold the towel a little lower,” Art mumbles into Tashi’s hair, the strands buttery against his lips.

She makes a face at this. She raises her hand to swat his arm reproachfully.

But Patrick only chuckles. Spares a glance over his shoulder to where Lily is sprawled on the couch, gripping the handles of her shockproof iPad case with the focus of a pilot at the yoke of a plane, her little head swallowed by a pair of AirPod maxes. Turns back and looks up at Art with a conspiratorial smirk.

“Probably had her stroke his dick with two hot stones,” he murmurs.

Tashi thinks that’s even less funny. But Art thinks it’s even more funny.

He laughs very loudly and does a less than polite impression of an old German bastard wincing and coming.

“Ah—” he hisses, “The next one up my bumhole, yes?”

It sounds like a botched Hitler lampoon, and it’s ostensibly a caricature he’s done many times before. Sometimes, they spend whole days just wading through their ancient morass of shared memories and inside references and running gags. Sometimes, even now, it's just easier that way.

Patrick laughs so hard he falls out of his chair.

They do let him stay for dinner.

It feels like they’re mocking him, but he’s hungry. So he stares into the middle distance and listens to Lily spiritedly declaim facts about deep sea turtles. She keeps surreptitiously slipping Brussels sprouts from her plate onto his. It wouldn’t be his place to mention it. And, for her part, she quaffs down her mashed potatoes like an endurance test. He tells her they’re not going anywhere. She kicks his shin again and he’s pretty sure she should have taken those shoes off by now.

He watches every gentle graze of Art and Tashi’s limbs and shoulders.

He sighs and chews his sprouts until his jaw aches.

There are worse things in his head to beat himself up with than wishful thinking.

“What’d Sassy say?” Art asks as he uncorks a Montrachet.

The corner of Patrick’s mouth quirks up almost imperceptibly. Like the reflexive twitch of a bad muscle. But he can tell Art discerns it by the way he starts to chuckle preemptively. That grin that spreads across his face like fire on dry grass.

Patrick huffs. “She said she hopes the baby chokes and dies.”

“You’re killing me, Sas.”

It’s December eighteenth at JFK. Patrick feels like a fucking sardine. Everyone is everywhere. The emetic odour of tarmac and jet fuel embues him. His fingers are red and stiff and so tightly coiled around the stainless steel handrail of the escalator that he thinks they may just pop off like caps. There’s an acetous chill to the nighttime air, and he probably should’ve worn more layers, but the sweat on his back is already soaking through the thin fabric of his shirt. He doesn’t mind. It’s better than being late.

Patrick’s dad used to enforce punctuality like a jailhouse warden. Saskia knows that.

He has his phone tucked to his ear against one shoulder.

His sister’s voice across the receiver sounds warped and liminal. His stomach is grumbling.

“You’re fucking me, Sas, you’re fucking me right over,” Patrick says. “What’s in Brazil?”

“Well, warmth, for one.”

“What about me?”

Saskia laughs. That loud, tocsin laugh she used to do when he’d wet the bed. “You boycotted the christening, Brutus.”

“Why would I fly to Germany to watch a baby take a bath?”

“Why are you flying to Germany now?”

Patrick’s teeth are on edge as he schleps his weighty duffel toward the terminal. He fishes a cigarette out of his windbreaker pocket and shoves it through his lips. He wants to spark it, even though Tashi’s psychologically tortured him into quitting, and he’d get thrown out for sure. There’s a line of security guards at every corner, and he’s seen the German Shepherd sniffer dogs.

He chews on the cigarette instead. Grinds the tip between his molars to get that stark jounce of nicotine even if it’s mostly tobacco and paper.

Saskia is saying something in his ear, and he’s only halfpretending to listen. His eyes are fastened straight ahead, singeing holes into the back of a woman’s head. Her hair is pulled into an absurdly tight ponytail. And he is so taken by the movement of the strands as it bobs with each step that he is only dragged back to reality when Saskia says his name loud enough to stab his eardrums.

He blinks. “What, bitch?”

“Paddy, I’m sorry, but I can’t do it. I don’t wanna throttle the little shit. I’m pushing forty and I cried because he bought it a fucking babysize tiara.”

Patrick closes his eyes, inhaling deeply through his nose. He swallows a bit of that tobacco wad on his tongue. He nearly gags. He belatedly catches that a couple of security guards are looking at him with some suspicion. He holds up a finger as if to say, sorry, and turns around to walk away.

Saskia’s still on the line, and she starts singing something, though he doesn’t understand why. He has to hold the phone a good foot away until she shuts up.

“Wh—” he scoffs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Hey, maybe you’ll get along with it.”

“Unlikely.”

“Maybe you’ll get along with dad.”

“Un—fucking—likely,” he retorts.

He ducks into a corner of the empty terminal and drops inelegantly onto a hard plastic seat. He is hyperaware of the sweat fumes under his arms, the way his track pants cling too snugly to his thighs.

“Actually, hey,” Saskia says, and he can hear her perking up. He imagines her in a hammock in Rio. She’ll burn so bad. No earthly SPF could ever keep her from shedding like a crimson serpent. “She has this au pair.”

Patrick glances up at the TV monitor over his head.

Departures to Berlin 23 30, it reads, flashing jarringly in red LED lettering, accompanied by a blinking graphic of an airplane taking off.

He makes a noncommittal grunt. “That tracks,” he mumbles.

“I’m saying you don’t have to be lonely,” says Sassy, “Make friends! She’s nice. Bit young.”

“Reckon dad’ll try to knock her up next?”

Saskia laughs herself to piggish snorting. The bigeared little boy within him, tugging at the pantleg of his sister’s pyjamas for attention, is vaguely mollified by that laughter. Albeit at his expense.

He should spend the flight feeling guilty for not getting a gift for the baby, but he listens to a true crime podcast instead.

They’re talking about a young girl who was found unconscious by the side of a road. The truck driver who spotted her was a little drunk at the time, and he was afraid that if he called the cops he’d lose his job, so he just moved her body further up the road where someone else could find her.

Apparently, she was still alive, but the truck driver thought she was already dead.

It’s not certain if she would have made it, had he done The Right Thing, but maybe it would've made a difference.

“He should've just called the cops and driven away,” one of the hosts says.

“If you’re reporting an accident, you can’t just remove yourself from the premises,” the other one replies.

“Well no, but if you report a homicide—“

“Same thing. Also, how can you just leave a person bleeding by the side of the road?”

“Was she visibly bleeding?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Patrick closes his eyes and leans his head back. The clouds roll by like lambhide.

He can picture it clearly, driving away from this fucking mess, leaving a body by the side of the road. He’d do it if he could. But he thinks he’s the body.

He shudders with a pang of cold. He doesn’t know why this image sticks. It’s like ghosts, floating in between the clouds.

Saskia texts him. Suffocate the baby with a pillow. Also delete that text. And that one.

And he, the body by the side of the road, doesn't say anything.

The plane jostles a little in a patch of turbulence. They descend into Berlin at eight in the morning.

His knees hurt from keeping them bent at an angle for so long, his ass is going numb. He should feel sorry for himself, being alone like this.

As he deplanes, a few fellow passengers glance in his direction, their noses wrinkling. He can’t tell if it’s the bitter rot of cigarette between his teeth or his sudor stench or his mouldering heart.

People converge in the baggageclaim like a throng of cattle. Patrick shoulders through. Swallowed up and spat out and alone again.

No one pays anyone any attention. Everyone is hurrying to make this flight or get to the next. When Patrick finds a men’s room, he realises he should be glad for that. In the reflection of the large mirror above a long stretch of white porcelain sinks, he can see shadows like cosmic abysses under his eyes. Some of the veins in his arms—which are sticking out from under his sleeves like pythons—are slightly swollen and purple.

His duffle bag bangs against his hip as he shuffles onto the tarmac and joins the taxi queue.

Berlin greets him with an onslaught of sleet.

His bones rattle like clicking spoons in the cold. He’s cursing under his breath and trying to remember the last time he was sincerely back in Germany.

Not just a brief cut across for a match, a layover, a hamfisted excuse to see his sister.

He was probably nine.

Patrick lumbers up the walkway to his father’s home. It looks like it’s been shoveled already today but has endured several hours of snowfall since. That and—well—he guesses his dad’s playing humble now.

Sas had dubbed it a latelife crisis. But it’s not shabby. In fact, it’s nice. It’s no limestone portico. Far cry from the august Georgian Revival mausoleum he and Sas gleaned their nascent wounds in.

Lili gets a Hallmark ass two story colonial, strung with Christmas lights. Deep green door, ornate bronze knocker, festooned with a wreath. The doorbell echoes through his empty bones like a deathknell.

His teeth chinkle like coins as he waits.

When the door opens, he releases a protracted, puerile whine. “Fuck.”

You’ve never been cause of such overt disappointment.

It’s almost flattering.

But your smile quickly metamorphoses into a grimace.

His shoulders are drooping and he looks liable to topple facefirst to the snowswathed gravel at any moment. His eyelids keep fluttering, like he’s fighting a losing battle against the urge to just shut down.

“Is this the right house?” he groans, pained and shivering.

You’re marginally certain this is your boss’ son and not a homeless vagrant.

Either way, you’re nodding emphatically. “Of course it is.”

In the kitchen, he stands in the corner like a newly housed stray. Hands tucked into his armpits and chin touching his chest as he watches you spark up the cooktop through snowdappled lashes.

The powdered creamer, as you pour it into the teacup, reminds him, too, of snowfall. You keep flicking him conspicuously concerned glances.

“So you’re Patrick…” you say, spooning sugar.

He clears his throat and hums in a way that says, yeah, I’m not too thrilled about it either. His head is bowed, his eyes fallen shut, and he’s swaying vaguely on his feet. He looks like he’s making devotions. The kettle sings.

His fingers are bonetight around the cup and saucer. He lifts the cup and presses it to his cheek, like leaching the warmth from the ceramic. When he sips, you’re reminded of cats lapping milk.

There’s a moment of silence, and it’s awkward. And then he sneezes—once, twice. His throat clicks.

“Uh… tennis,” you try, folding closed the box of Five Roses.

The steam plumes up and curls around Patrick’s face, flushed and sallow. He clears his throat again, his eyes unfocused. He glances toward you and knows he should reply, but the only thing that comes out is a damp, congested sniff.

He wipes his nose on his sleeve. “Tennis,” he repeats, the word muffled by the cup still pressed to his lips.

You nod slowly, rapping your knuckles rhythmically against the counter. “Wimbledon,” you say then.

Patrick scrunches up his face as if he’s in pain. He’s trying to force some simulacrum of synapse action in the conversational skills faculty of his brain.

“Yeah,” he manages. He takes another gulp of tea and tries to clear his throat again. It hurts. Everything hurts. He hurts.

You nod some more. You can’t help but think that this feels a bit like a tennis game. You and he, volleying oneword utterances back and forth. “Impressive,” you offer, cocking your brows at him.

“Thanks,” Patrick mutters.

He does actually want to be witty. And he does actually want to be charming. And he wants to make a good first impression. But right now he wants to sleep, preferably through a few decades. Certainly, the last few of his father’s life. Which, speaking of,

“Hey, where is the bastard?”

He glances around, as if to see his father lurking in a crevice somewhere. You raise a brow. Could it be an affectionate nickname? Perhaps. But you’re starting to connect some dots.

You smile like you’re trying not to provoke a sabertoothed creature. But Patrick can see in your eyes that he’s amusing you, which he doesn’t mind. Of course he doesn’t mind.

There’s a vast window above the counter, pictureframing an expansive, snowshrouded back garden that, knowing his dad, is probably a rigorously manicured viridescent green in the warmer months. How warm do things get in Germany these days?

He squints against the luminous white splay as you point beyond the glass. There’s a distant brown pinprick that lets him know this property is larger than it seems. Larger than it needs to be. But the kid needs frolicking room, he guesses.

“He’s in the den,” you say.

Patrick throws the rest of his tea back like a shot, placing his cup and saucer onto the counter with a twinkling thunk.

“Alright, then let’s go.”

“My balls are gonna freeze off before we even get there,” Patrick hisses.

Every step forward sends his feet an inch deeper into the snow, and you watch him shake out his running shoes with displeasedness. You laugh at him, and he turns back to face you, and he makes this face that could either be a smirk or an indication of great turmoil. You are struck by his ability to wear that lopsided grin in his current circumstances, to look at you like that. Well, like what? You don’t know.

It’s just that the scarf and wool peacoat you’re wearing make you look like a well-loved heirloom doll. He can see the faintest wisps of your breath in the bitter air. Your smile is so kind and so warm, he thinks, smiling wider.

He appreciates you joining him on his doormat pilgrimage. A better guy would tell you that, but he just turns around and keeps footslogging.

Together, you trudge forward across the sprawling, sleety landscape.

The door to the den is unlocked.

Patrick casts a glance back at you before he pushes it all the way open, hitting the opposite wall with a hollow bang.

It creaks a little on its hinges as it opens into a long corridor. He takes a step in first.

“Hello?” Patrick yells, his voice lilting. “Armed robbery. I have guns and knives and… bombs. Got your pretty nanny.”

You feel the little smile on your face quavering with amusement as you close the door shut behind you.

The floors are clad in dark oak panels. The walls are lined with copper sconces. There’s an ostensibly hideous and probably hilariously expensive rug in the middle of the floor and Patrick makes a show of wiping his shoes clean on it. 

“Sure as fuck not taking this thing,” he mumbles, digging his hands into his pant pockets. 

He glances toward a long sideboard on the side of the corridor. It’s laden with antique trinkets and mahoganyframed pictures, and he reaches out to prod at an ivory figurine sitting at the edge.

You stay in silence for a few moments, looking at him. 

Then, the faint creak of footsteps comes from upstairs, and you both look up at the ceiling. Seconds later, it fades to your right, and, soon enough, there appears Rupert Zweig. Cashmere jumper, tapered joggers.

There is no denying the family resemblance. And if the way Patrick’s eyes narrow as his father descends the staircase is anything to go by, he is not gonna wanna meet—

“There you are,” says Rupert, corners of his eyes crinkling. He stops at the end of the hall, hands in his pockets. The two regard each other like snipers. You have the sharp sensation you shouldn’t be here, but where would you go?

Patrick clicks his teeth wryly. “Here I am.” His hands are also in his pockets. Their deportments are uncannily kindred.

You think Patrick shouldn’t be so putout by that. Rupert Zweig is a handsome sixtyfive. Tall and broad and still in trim, despite most his days being ornamented by cognac and cigars. His silvery hair sheens like tinsel, and has not thinned much to speak of, if at all.

You figure maybe they’ll hug, as Rupert approaches. You know Rupert to be a hugger. But he only claps Patrick’s shoulder, and Patrick’s bones look like they’ve been swapped for concrete, and he watches his father give him a once over, like surveying an old car.

“I hope things are well with you,” Rupert says. Which isn’t strange paternal commentary. But his voice is tinctured with a concerned edge at the overall impression that his only son has been dragged along the pavement by the tail of a motorbike and then beaten with sticks to boot. I thought things were better, now, he’s really saying.

You think it’s concern, anyway. You, too, know Rupert to be quite concerned, and caring. But Patrick takes it as scorn.

He wears a bitter smile. “Things are peachy, Pa.”

His nostrils flare, he shifts his shoulders. Like he wants to shrug his father's hand off, but is keeping still for the sake of seeming mature.

And then it happens. A pule from the ether like the resounding stroke of a viola.

You perk up. “Oh! I’ll go—“

“Yes, dear, she’s with Giselle in the drawing room.” Rupert’s eyes crinkle, a kind brush of his fingers to your elbow.

Patrick—you glimpse, as you shuffle past him and out the passage—looks furious. And a bit queasy.

In the drawing room, Patrick stares at Giselle’s hands. She’s twisting her emerald engagement ring around her finger. The stone is big as a pebble, its facets winking.

He doesn’t let himself look to where you are. On an ivorycoloured foam playmat on the ground, doing something that is causing the baby to squeal and giggle like a strident string of bells and clap her pudgy hands together. He can hear the yarn of drool gurgling from her gummy mouth.

An angeltopped pine tree scintillates with fairy lights in the corner.

Giselle is slender porcelain. White sweater, skinny jeans, milkblonde hair. She crosses her legs at the ankles, knees to the side, like she’s the fucking queen of England. She is polite to varying degrees of genuineness.

“Lili’s so happy to see her big brother.”

Patrick’s knee shudders violently. Cut the shit, Giselle, he wants to spit.

But he knows he won’t. He doesn’t feel he can. Maybe it’d be easier, if she really was just some nympho naif. Then he could call his dad a perv and move on.

But no. Giselle is three years his junior but tenfold his put-togetherness. There are two infants in the room, and neither are her.

The room is so warm and well lit. There are bookshelves teeming with hardcover tomes whose rapiersharp corners look ostensibly untouched. A globe of the world, a framed Picasso original. Baroque vases and potted ivies and the permeating waft of jasmine and rose and leather.

It’s an intimate microcosm of his father and Giselle’s interwoven lives. Their very fumes amalgamate. And then there’s that puny thing, gossamer flesh, babbling like a brook. He doesn’t look. He can’t.

When his dad walks back in, Patrick is on his feet like a springing coil.

“You’re welcome to stay here,” says his dad, handing Patrick a set of keys.

Patrick shakes his head and feigns remorse. “Nah, Sas asked me to water her plants, so.”

Rupert looks like he’s going to say something, but decides against it.

“Right,” he nods and reaches into his pocket, retrieving a slim silver case. He flips open the lid, revealing a neat row of hand rolls. He plucks one between his long fingers. Patrick would say no, if he offered, but resents his father’s lack thereof enough to head for the door.

You think he’ll say bye to you, or maybe offer just a parting wave, but he doesn’t.

You hear him and his dad at odds like a cobra and a mongoose in the hall. You daub tender kisses onto the fleshy pink soles of Lili’s feet. You discern misty fragments of Patrick’s scathing whispers.

“... newage, hippie bullshit... nice guy act... fucking sweatpants... —christen the baby! What the fuck are you doing christening the baby? You never even took us to temple!”

However Rupert responds, on the other hand, is vaguely inaudible. It’s just a deep, cautiously placating rumble of syllables. 

You hear a bit more mumbled venom before the door creaks open and slams shut.

“He thinks he’s got everyone fooled, but I’m fucking onto hi— where is your alcohol?”

Patrick’s disembowelling every cabinet in his sister’s kitchen. On all fours like a hound rooting in the snow. He can hear the hot waft of tropical winds from Saskia’s end of the receiver. Crash of surf. Squawking birds. The staticky tempo of Brazilian phonk in the background.

“Ugh, Paddy,” Saskia mumbles like she’s disappointed.

He tears the fridge door open so fervently, the cord comes loose from the socket. There’s nothing there but bottled water, yoghurt, and salad dressing. He makes a strangled noise of agony into the ear piece.

“Saskia May,” Patrick groans with a sonnet’s desperation, resting his head against the icy fridgeshelf, between the organic grassfed butter and the handcrafted balsamic glaze, “I know you may be in a fucking beachside cabana right now, dipping Portuguese cock into your piña colada with the little umbrella in it and then sucking it off, but it is late here, and it is winter, and I am dying.”

“What do you mean you didn’t see the baby?” she asks.

“No, well, I saw her, just…” Patrick’s withdrawing all her earthenware now, “I just didn’t look.”

“What, like the fucking Basilisk?”

“Sassy, for the love of God, tell me you’ve left even a drop of liquor in your home.”

Saskia laughs, and he can hear the chime of ice. “Did you meet the au pair?”

Patrick stumbles back to the stillopen, halfway gutted fridge. He identifies with it. He sticks his head back in. “She thinks I’m a mess.”

“Wow, what a stupid whore,” his sister laughs. As everything, it is at his expense. He’s in emotional arrears, but it’s okay. It’s all okay.

He hears Saskia’s inbreathe. Marijuana? Probably. He doesn’t mind her lungs. He doesn’t mind that she’s always been more beautiful than him. He doesn’t mind that she’s warm in Rio. He knows it’s harder for her. She never got to be Rupert’s little princess. He wants to protect her in that asinine way baby brothers think they can protect their sisters. In that asinine way Patrick Zweig thinks he can protect everyone.

“Have pity on me, Sas.”

She directs him blindly like a game of Marco Polo. He wades through the ransacked bombsite he’s made of her kitchen. Avocados rolling across the slate floor. Spilled milk, which feels symbolic.

He unearths the bottle of Gordon’s dry gin from under the sink. Holds it aloft like a holy grail.

Patrick can’t remember the last time he set foot in a church, if such a time has ever occurred. Part of him expects the parishioners to take one look at him and know he doesn’t belong, for them to demand he leave.

For the things he has done, the things he has felt, the things he has wanted. Certainly for the things he cannot bring himself to believe.

He is struck by the towering stonework of the cathedral. The wooden cross in the apse is immense. Behind it, stained glass windows paint the icedover morning in vivisected coloursplays. Soft motes of sunlight waft in shafts from the ceiling.

He never thought he’d see the day—the Zweigs done up in their Sunday best. His mother would laugh herself to tears.

Rupert’s broad shoulders are ramrod straight, his argent hair slicked back handsomely. Giselle is wearing a ribbed knit dress in eggshell. Princess Lieselotte—finally, a worthy heir—is wearing a knit tunic dress embroidered with blooms, a scallopcollared ivory shirt underneath, and a crocheted woollen baby bonnet.

They look like an affiche for Norman Rockwell.

At first, he’s still trying not to meet the Basilisk’s gaze, but then he gets this disarming glimpse. The peonypink hue of her. Her comically outjutting little ears. Gibbous blue eyes, lapping up the world through cornyellow lashes. Those are Giselle’s. But the rest…

Unlucky little shit, Patrick tells her telepathically. And now he is looking straight at her, like the spell has been broken. He needs to let her know he’s onto her, and her bullshit doting father. You look like dad.

But what that means is she looks like Patrick, too.

He watches you hold her in your arms, rubbing your nose against hers.

Giselle had had you press Patrick’s shirt—his father’s shirt; of course he didn’t pack a buttonup—for him this morning. He was only kind of embarrassed. But he sat carefully in the car, leery of creasing your hard work. 

The linen of your skirt reaches your ankles. You’re wearing this creamcoloured slouchy knit turtleneck, and you’ve got a little lacy chiffon infinity veil halfway canopying your hair. Patrick is pleasantly amused by all this fabric. All the things he cannot see. Because of God, or the cold, or God and the cold.

The Zweigs find their pews, stopping frequently to greet their fellow churchgoers, and whisper inquiries after names Patrick doesn’t know. He shakes half a dozen hands if he shakes one, introduces himself as ‘Rupert’s son’ more times than he can count.

You, too, are pleasantly amused. Because Patrick is notably discomfited. You fish your little pewter cross necklace from beneath your collar. You hold it between your fingers and out toward him like an exorcist.

“He can smell your fear,” you whispergrowl, fauxominous. Lili giggles all saliva in your arms. That’s the voice you use when you pretend to be the babyeating ogre. She takes the cross between her tiny teeth. Patrick watches. You smile. “And so can she.”

Patrick looks at you for a moment, feigning indifference. “They’re both smelling how little they matter to me.”

Your smile widens.

Patrick—who has never endured a mass—takes his cues from the brush of your shoulder on when to stand, when to sit, and when to supplicate himself. The priest oscillates from English to Latin and back again. Seemingly on a whim. When Patrick fumbles trying to find the right page for the hymn, you tilt your book slightly so he can read along. 

He thinks the rosary looks good where it dangles from your lithe, supple fingers. Looping and weaving through your pretty knuckles like drops of blood. 

You are flawless in your devotion.

You slip to your knees with a fluidity that makes his tummy fasten.

You sing quietly and sweetly and when you turn to Patrick to wish peace upon him, your grin is so sweet and earnest it takes a moment for him to contend with that blessing.

Everyone falls down to the hassock again and Patrick is beginning to find the rhythm of the whole affair. At least enough to let his thoughts maunder and his body be at mercy to the motions.

It’s soothing, in its way. He can almost understand it. What blessed relief in lifting your human pains to be scoured clean.

The priest closes out the sermon with a few nice words about Jesus. Guy’s birthday’s coming up, after all.

Patrick leans forward a bit to glance at his father’s fingers, tapping on the dry leather of the psalmbook.

In the photo, little Lili is wearing a white linen nightgown that mantles her whole, like a tiny tarp. His dad cradles her, and everyone’s standing around a marble pool. He can see Saskia off to the side, hosting a very conspicuous hangover behind her mask. You’re in the picture, too. Apparently, you had been Giselle’s doula, in the beginning, and you just ended up sticking around. Which he finds more than a little strange. Patrick often sees life as a series of measures to get further away from his family.

On the edge of the photo, he can see the broad back of a becloaked man, plashing his fingers the water.

Patrick feels an inkling of discomfort at the sight of that man.

“She still sleeps in that dress, actually,” you say, rocking the babe.

The wallpaper of Lili’s room is printed with pale pink linework of woodland creatures. He’s straddling the vintage nursery rocker—a plush weathered lamb; it used to be his and Saskia’s—and his knees are hiked comically high on either side of him, his slacks riding up his ankles.

Patrick stares at the baby girl in this framed photograph. She looks too small—almost tenuous—underneath the white shift. Her eyes are flushed and still wombswollen.

“What’s the point?” he asks, trying to imagine that man softly slooshing water over her boneless head.

You smile. “It’s to protect her.”

“Protect her from what?”

You lower Lili into her French Provençal style woodcarved bassinet.

You look up at him, eyes flitting over his face. “Shame, I guess.”

It doesn’t quite make sense. A fullimmersion baptism means commitment. You have pledged yourself to God. You are bound to follow His laws. Shame is essential to these laws. Isn’t it?

You don’t know why he’s still here. Giselle is taking her Sunday nap, and Rupert’s playing solitaire or reading Guy Sajer or something in the den. Lili, too, is dead to the world. You need to do the laundry. The laundry room is too strait for him to be lingering, leaning against the doorframe, interrogating you. He likes watching the linen of your skirt gather at your feet as you crouch to the floor, depositing the armfuls of bedding into the mouth of the washing machine. All that fabric.

“It’s a different kind of shame,” you try to explain. “I can be ashamed of myself, of my body.”

“Why are you ashamed?”

You roll your eyes. “I don’t know. I’m alive.”

“Alright. And this helps?”

“A little, yeah. It takes you out of your body. Then returns you to it. And you feel brand new. Like you belong to Jesus.”

You laugh a little at the concept, but he can tell you treasure this belonging, deep down.

He walks toward you, taking the empty wicker hamper from your hands and setting it aside. “You shouldn’t feel ashamed in the first place.”

You shrug, noting his proximity. “It’s probably good to feel shame from time to time.”

He doesn’t say anything to that.

He doesn’t ask you if you feel ashamed right now. Face smushed against the top of the palpitating washing machine. If you said yes, he’d be unhappy. If you said no, he’d be unhappy.

He’s happy, now, hiking your skirt up around your waist, shucking your gauzy tights halfway down your thighs. Best not to ruin it.

So he doesn’t ask if you’re ashamed. He doesn’t ask if you’re a virgin. He does ask if you’re on birth control, and furrows his brows as his strong hands caress the flesh of your ass.

“Why not?” he laughs, dragging the beige skin down his rigid cock, rubbing the deep blush head against your hirsute pussy and bending over you. “Isn’t that shit free here?”

He burrows his head beneath your sweater, kissing your back through the cotton of your longsleeve. He doesn’t search for more bare skin, just keeps a good grip on that which he has, fingertips digging into the flesh of your hips.

He fucks into you and feels your body shudder around him with the jostle of the machine.

He doesn’t ask of shame or chastity or how long Giselle and Lili usually nap for, how far his dad is into The Forgotten Soldier. He does, however, feel it necessary to ask,

“Feels good, right?” Even though you’re drooling against the zinc and your hoarse groans are rivalling the churning noises. You roll your eyes but they stay there, your lashes fluttering.

“Yes,” you pant, clutching the edge of the machine. “It feels good.”

He bends over you, pinning you, elbow to elbow, his chin resting on your clothed shoulder. Your veil slips off your head and drapes around your neck. He quickens his pace. “It’s fucking big, isn’t it?”

You turn your head to look at him. His eyes look like they want to fuck your eyes. His mouth hovers over your drooling mouth as if to kiss you. The shaggy hair of his crotch abrades your tailbone.

“Verdict’s still out,” you say, voice quavering, and you let him lave your tongue sloppily with his.

His sister has a guestroom, but he sleeps in her bed. Reads her Audre Lorde and Laurie Colwin. Uses her toothbrush. God, she’d kill him. But he likes the transgression of violating her space. He doesn’t use her vibrator, or anything. He finds it, but he doesn’t use it.

He has his few ways of having people. So he’s always taking what he can get.

That’s why he fucks the nanny in the laundry room, and lets Art’s kid bruise him with her tap shoe, and sits on the kitchen tile drinking Saskia’s gin.

He has to hold on to the granite countertop, as he straightens from his haunches. His back is a wreck, but the ache is nothing compared to the relief and vindication and victory he feels. He can’t say for sure what the prize is. Maybe it really was just your pussy, and that’s where this all starts and ends, which is fine. The feeling of winning is so rare and precious and precious and rare and, as he unscrews the cap and raises the bottle to his lips, it’s as if he’s just slain a mighty monster.

He places the little tiara he’d filched from Lili’s room on Saskia’s mantel.

He’s less than compos mentis come Christmas Eve.

He lays in Saskia's bed for a bit, inhaling lime and ambergris, trying to figure out what to do with himself. He checks his phone: No Service.

He sighs and tumbles out the sheets like a rockslide. He figures he might as well go for a run before the blizzard clocks in since there’s nothing else to do. His feet already feel numb and damp. Everything has felt numb and damp the whole time he’s been here.

Running buzzed probably isn’t his smartest idea, but it doesn’t feel like his worst one either.

Patrick frenetically tugs two pairs of thermal leggings on. The radiotor whirrs but the house is still arrestingly gelid. He pulls on his sister’s comically inflated neon orange down jacket.

He looks at himself in the mirror.

“Oh, fuck yeah,” he whispers.

He loots and pilfers some mittens, goggles, and a neck gaiter from Saskia’s closet. She could never take to professional athleticism, but she’s a reasonably devout runner, and is partial to a halfmarathon or two most years. Which means free activegear for Paddy. He walks to the front door and slips on his dank shoes.

He steps outside once he feels decently covered head to toe, a skill he’s found refining itself as the week has shouldered past him.

Patrick strides the roadside briskly for almost a mile. His legs feel halfway atrophied, so he gives them time to warm up. The neighborhood seeps into copses of snowdusted forestry. He feels the beauty of the landscape flicker through him like a spark.

He starts jogging.

He has no mapped course, no mile time to hit. He just wants to move forward. For once. His goggles fog up with entrapped bodyheat crowning the cold air but he doesn’t fix them. The compressed insulation of his clothes, the whirring thump of his shoes to the tar—it engenders a strangely hypnotic effect. He realises, only after miles have elapsed, that he's forgotten to turn any music on. He doesn’t need it now.

He comes upon a clearing in the trees that discloses a river he hadn’t recalled.

He abates to a walk before stopping completely and removing his goggles. 

He knows a breathtaking scene when he sees one. That was never his problem, the discernment of the good thing. It was never even the obtaining of it. It’s that—well—if Sas actually had left plants for him to nurture, they’d be dead by now.

But anyway. The river.

Snowfall has burgeoned somewhat, but light is still breaking through. The sun reflects tenderly off the surface of the frozen water as if it’s all being illuminated from beneath the ice.

Patrick swears he can see evidence of a current still rushing below, but he can’t be sure that’s all too possible at these temperatures.

He tries to take a picture for posterity (or Lily; she’s ‘into vistas’ lately), but all the light is so strange and coruscating. Hardly anything can be captured in earnest.

Patrick takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

He pulls his gaiter down and doffs his hat. Allows his florid skin a few moments to feel the glacial squall, the moist sting of melting snow. He thinks he’s missed this weather, harsh as it may be.

He takes the opportunity to check his watch, vaguely hoping the GPS tracker’s been running. And hope seems to count for something here.

4.7 MILES

A surge of accomplishment and anticipation shimmers through him. He grins, breathless, at the thought of being able to tell Tashi that he’d done a cool ten miles. And the prospect of being able to eat a guiltless meal is emerging as an actual possibility. 

Patrick gears back up and begins to walk again in the direction he came. He takes advantage—always taking advantage, always taking what he can get—of the trodden path he’d made in the road. The surer grip of his shoes.

His head starts feeling strange as he’s walking. As though it’s sloshy inside, like the dirty snow he sees on the curb. But he pushes forward and chalks it up to temperature. Picks up the pace again. 

He finds himself less mesmerised by his own footfalls now and slips his AirPods in. Slips inside the eye of his mind. His sister used to have a ‘(What's The Story) Morning Glory?’ CD. Patrick’d scratched it, probably. He hopes Oasis can get back together some day. It's not so hard to reconcile. Mostly, anyway.

About a mile into the returning trek, Patrick feels his legs suddenly get heavier. He’s felt as much before. He assumes he’s just hitting the wall. It’s a little early for him, at such moderate mileage, but he knows inclemency and altitude can do things to a body.

He’s deliberate with his strides as he proceeds. He wants to be sure that his torpid legs are parting with the ground. 

It’s around the two mile mark that his spine rattles with an odd enough sensation—sharp, like an incision down the length of it—to bring him to a stumbling halt.

Patrick’s clumsily reaching around and groping at his neck and back the best he can through his layers. It feels almost like someone has poured water on his skin. Soused him like a baptism.

He tells himself he needs a second to breathe. Starts walking again. Eventually feels very marginally centred enough to pick up the pace. His knees feel like cinderbricks. Dense and angular. But he should be capable of making it home. Or at least determined enough to do so. He’s seeing houses again. He can’t be more than a mile out.

He’s thinking of raiding Saskia’s toiletries and snorting her cornucopia of bathsalts when a billow of abject nausea rolls through him. He’s stumbling again.

He moans vaguely with turnsickness. The trees are blurring together.

He sways.

Sidesteps jerkily over the curb into a stark white alloy of fresh and shoveled snow.

Doubles over.

Dissolves to his knees, bracing himself on his palms. All fours again.

He maintains this position for several minutes. He’s heaving in and out forcefully with his eyes screwed shut. It feels a bit prayerful. He’s praying to be made to vomit. Just wants to feel better and move on and he’ll never touch his dick again, he prays. Which isn’t true, but need it be?

Things go sloshy again, and warm, this time. Overwhelmingly warm, actually. He flounders in the wet, rips off his gear, and uses his bare hands to grab handfuls of snow off the ground and push it onto his face. The heat feels like bloodshed.

Patrick tears off his jacket. Patrick lays his entire body facedown in the snow. Everything is numb and damp.

“Oh my goodness, Patrick?”

One imagines the voice of God to be a little less frantic.

He’s confused by how weak his muscles feel when he tries to push himself up. How he only sees lucent whiteness when his eyes flicker open. Shit, is this it? He thought for sure he’d end up at the other place.

“Jesus Christ, I thought you were dead!”

Oh, alright. So not yet. Not yet, and certainly not Heaven. Close, though, with how relieved you sound. He is the body on the side of the road, and you’ve stopped to triage him instead of driving off. He squints up at you. Floral puffer. Scarf and muffs. You look like a fairytale illustration.

His blood’s gone cold in his extremities, and he’s mumbling, “Sorry.”

“You’re a mess.”

There it is.

For your part, you don’t sound malicious, or anything. You say it like a forgone conclusion, a fact of the matter. The way a person in an Ionesco absurdist play would say, oh, it looks like I’m wearing pants right now.

He tries to make a stab at indignity. Like maybe if he denies that he’s a mess, that should suddenly make him clean. What blessed relief. But all he manages is a whimpered grunt of protest.

“What happened? Were you attacked?”

Patrick shakes his head, suddenly aware of just how wet he is.

“Patrick, tell me.” You sound concerned, but not in pieces. He knows this is all coincidence. That you simply happened to be driving by. But the fact that you’ve found him prone in the snow, the fact that you knew to call his name, knew it was him who’d ambled to the woods and buried himself in the ground like a coldblooded mountain climber, like a defiant zealot, staring into Earth, his back to God, taunting you with his dickish solipsism—he thinks all this should terrify you. He isn’t dead. Not yet. But maybe he’d already made up his mind. Perhaps you’re just picturing him as another baby. Something small and soothable. “What happened? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Patrick shakes his head again and takes your assistance in getting up. All his things are gathered in your arms.

“You’re soaked, Patrick. What were you doing in the snow?”

He looks around and feebly brushes some of the debris off of his leggings and thermal pullover.

“I... I don’t know? I’m pretty sure I started feeling sick, and then I got hot, so I took all my shit off,” he explains. He’s all nonchalant about it, too.

At first, he won’t tell you where his sister’s house is. You’re going all Nuremberg on him, like he really is a baby who will drop the knife if you tell him no sternly enough. But he soaks through the polyester of your passenger seat and grins and defies you. It’s like he’s challenging you to take him back to his dad’s. Like he’s a kid acting up in school for attention.

It takes a while. You circle the block twice. Then he sees the way his fingernails tinge cobalt, and thinks of how disappointed his father’d be. Concerned, you allege, but he doesn’t buy that.

Still, he confesses like a sinner.

He asks you—as you stand on the concrete steps to the quaint, Tudorstyle home, and he holds his cap in his teeth and fishes the keys from his pocket—not to hold the state of the place against Saskia. He says there’s a lot of damage he can do in a week. He’s always making a mess. Messing things up. Has he messed you up? He doesn’t ask, but has he?

He’s even sorry for fucking you. He doesn’t tell you that, either. And he’s about to do it again. But he is sorry. That has to count for something.

You stink. Not in a really bad way, not in a noticeable way, but the stale perfume and deodorant have turned into a cool film against your skin, trapping your sweat and guilt and other gross things which you’re too tired to name. You’ve been out buying gifts all day. You’re always so last minute. You feel like you might fall asleep on Saskia’s couch.

News says blizzard’s on its way. News is all choppy static pixel kaleidoscope, too. Even if you left right now, you wouldn’t make it home before the roads got dangerous.

You’ve heard enough hypothermia horror stories to know he should be taking a shower right now, warming himself up in increments. And you’ve heard enough suicide horror stories to know you’d be wrong to leave him anyway, after how you’ve just discovered him.

Was she visibly bleeding?

He doesn’t look like he’s about to call it quits.

On the contrary, he looks relaxed, calm, selfpossessed, sitting on the arm of the couch, one knee drawn up, cigarette dangling between fingers. Also his cock is out. He’s naked.

Has he already made up his mind?

How many times has he lain like that, in the snow, lucid about his slide into the abyss? 

He finishes his cig and takes a knee by your feet. Your bare feet. You shouldn’t have taken off your shoes. They stink.

You try to tuck your feet under you, but he reaches out and grabs your ankle and tugs like you’re the baby.

“What happened to your leg?” you croak, your voice a little fraught.

His thumb keeps brushing up and down the arch of your foot, like trying to ease your tension. He leans back and looks down, past the leavening weight of his dick, to the navy bruise bloomed through the hairs just below his knee.

You watch that Cheshire cat smirk spread his mouth apart. “Violent tap dancer.”

You do kind of wish he wouldn’t do the whole slapping your pussy and calling you a good girl thing. It feels weird and Freudian and it even makes you feel kind of guilty.

Not because of his stupid uncut Jewish cock all swollen against his thigh, nor the virgin’s innards mangled in a manger at this very moment two thousand years ago. You know that’s not how you measure innocence. There’s something idiotic about that, something primeval and pathetic, something no one should be proud or ashamed of.

It’s just that he doesn’t seem fully committed to the pastiche.

He spits a thin globe of saliva right onto your clit. His fingers sweep through your coarsehaired folds. Slow, methodical, like a cartographer mapping the world with his compass and pen.

Then, he raises his fingers and strikes them down against you. You flinch, you whimper. He groans straight into you.

“Good girl. Good girl.”

And it's hot, sure, but he could stand to be crueler.

You’re this nice twentysomething with no real bearing on his life. You pray. You care. You wipe his sister's shit. He suspects he didn’t take your virginity, but he could easily imagine he did, if he wanted to. That he’s teaching you something. This could all be a lot more plastic and pornographic.

But it isn’t. Not really.

He climbs over you, all over you. He’s all over you like the flu. He wants to crawl inside of you, burrow and fester. His knee is pressed between your thighs and he’s breathing into your neck, his head tucked under your chin. His nose is the colour of raspberry syrup and he drags the cold tip of it up the column of your neck.

He smells like smoke and snow. Like sweat and musk and something stale and dry.

You crane your neck with a piercing cry when he bottoms out. He cracks your hips open like a lobster claw. You feel his fevered heartbeat thumping through your body. He seems to think the heat of your flesh is enough to warm and cure him.

“You’re going to catch a cold,” you slaver into his hair.

“I don’t get sick,” he assures you, puffing throatily. “I never get sick.”

He licks Saskia’s bathsalts from the swollen underside of your tits. You gather palmfuls of warm water and pour them over his freckled skin, watching it bloom florid. Are you clean now? Are you shameless? Has the stink gone? Sort of.

Maybe, for a second there.

But Christmas day seeps in like another reek. You feel bad when you catch whiff. You feel the stroke of midnight in your bones, and you think you can hear Carol of the Bells. You feel especially bad, because you’re holding onto his shoulders and fucking yourself on his unhewn cock, the bathwater swashing tepid around you. And he licks the silver crucifix in the dewy valley of your breasts into his mouth, and sucks on it, and looks at you like he’s trying to make a point. He sees you frown.

The pendant glints between his teeth as he says, “Don’t worry, He’s not paying attention. It’s His birthday.”

And you duck your head to laugh.

The water ripples. He wraps his arms around you in a halfway embrace, halfway detainment. You can tell he is worried you will find your morals and leave him cold.

But you won’t.

He’s big enough that he won’t just slip out of you, even in the water. You’re all steamdizzy, eyes halfmast. You watch rivulets of condensation dance down the tiling.

Are you really about to fall asleep on this man’s cock in his sister’s bathtub? Perhaps. There is something grounding about his heavy presence in all four corners of you. You feel that mollifying pressure in your head. Your hands scrabble and slip all over the skin of his shoulders. You kiss all these droplets off his skin.

“I think I’m about to throw up,” he whispers in your ear.

You pull back and sigh. He does look quite waxen and wheyfaced. You feel bad. You were starting to think that you alone could break the fever.

Your knee knocks against the tub. He has to tug himself out of you. He clambers out of the water, puddles splashing everywhere. He slumps to the ground like marmalade, his arms drape the toiletseat, his head in the bowl. Runnels drip off him and sop the bathmat. He spits and heaves. Then he retches. There is nothing solid to the bile. When was the last time he ate something? His viscera slops out of him and into the water. The gin scalds twice as sore on the way up. He sounds horrifying. His lips drip with mucus.

He feels your soft, moist flesh against his back. Your arms around his toned middle. You feel his ribcage tremble against you.

He feels the bone of your chin against the crown of his head.

Patrick knows this is all very repulsive. He's not sure why you're holding him. Maybe you're picturing a baby again.

“What would you get me for Christmas?” he murmurs, his heavy breath echoing around the toilet bowl.

You can smell his puke.

“Um— well... you know, Giselle actually—”

“No,” he grunts stubbornly. “I mean, if you could get me anything, what would you get me?”

“I don’t know,” you say, pressing your wet breasts against his wet back. The humidity is starting to disperse, the trickles cooling off. You do get sick. You get sick quite frequently, actually. This will definitely make you sick. He’ll be gone soon enough, and that’s probably for the best, but who will hold you in your ailing?

“Come on, babe.”

You drag your fingertips down the hair on his abs until you reach the thatch between his legs. “I don’t know… A hot stone massage?”

And it’s cruel and stupid and funny—it’s something only a few people would ever understand. He and Art and Sas and Tash and you. Maybe Lili, one day.

You and Patrick burst into laughter at the same time. He chuckles until he’s wheezing. The sound of it catches in his throat like a fishbone. This is what constitutes a happy moment for him.

“That’s perfect,” he mumbles into the shitter.

[txttletale]

Apologies for the dumb question and loads of personal information, but..

I have severe moral ocd, and in the past the exploitation has actually caused me eating issues. I’d get intensely guilty whenever I ate anything bc I couldn’t avoid thinking of the exploitation that occurred to get it here and I honestly started avoided eating.

is that what im supposed to do? I know there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism but my sustained existence is reliant on food from the exploitative world of global “trade”, medicine from the oppressive pseudo jails of the psychiatric system, and technology running on copper and cobalt that people suffered to mine. I claim to be a leftist, but my sustained quality of life, god, my entire life, is dependent on the imperial core continuing to extort the rest of the world. Should I just give up?

nah. ultimately if you're a socialist you have to understand that what you do as an individual is--politically speaking--irrelevant. it's good to be aware of the harms that were done in the process of production, but it's both a political dead end and personally self-destructive to then flagellate about that. (and to be clear, if that awareness is impossible for you to maintain without falling into disordered eating behaviours, you don't need to be that aware--again, this isn't about moral duty. genuine socialist politics are never about individual moral duty, or about being a good person. there is no level of Thought or Awareness or Conscienciousness that can become a lever of meaningful political action.)

the harms have already been done by the time the commodity exists for you to access--you're not participating in or exacerbating them by using the commodity. even if you did find a way to live completely without interfacing with the systems of exploitation, those systems would continue unabated. they don't care about you. the idea that if everyone spontaneously individually decided to stop using the goods that are generated by exploitation then exploitation would end is laughable in both premises and conclusion.

you have to look at this on a material level--the 'harm' is not an abstract quality that gets infused into the fruit or the medicine or the iphone, it's not haunted, you cannot show me an atom of 'harm radiation' emitted by an out-of-season banana--the 'harm' is a series of actual events taking place somewhere in the world. and the way to combat that has nothing to do with the personal consumption of individuals--it has everything to do with organized efforts, with groups of people taking collective action to stop that harm from happening.

you're not god. you're not a dynasty warriors character. you vs. united fruit and foxconn is a losing battle. you alone can't change the world in any way that matters, good or bad. the only thing you can do is join your energy to a group, to participate in class struggle. to unionize or join a party or participate in a mutual aid network. class struggle, the marxist analysis of class struggle, the only meaningful vector of political action across myriad forms, cannot be reached or analysed through the lens of 'do my personal consumer choices make me a good or bad person'. i know it is obviously difficult to do when we live in a society that focuses on consumer choice as the be-all and end-all of personal and political and moral expression, but you have to reject that question outright.

socialism is not catholicism--the aim of left-wing politics is not to live virtuously. it is to unite as members of the working class and improve all of our lives. focus on uniting first--find the people around you who you can form organizational bonds of solidarity with--and then figure out how to participate in the class struggle together. that's the only way forward. everything else is a trap, a dead-end, or in this case, pointless self-abnegation. good luck, comrade.

[jo-harrington]

Leave of Absence (Eddie Munson x Store Manager!Reader)

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader

Summary: Eddie has royally fucked everything up and he needs to fix it. But after an unexpected emergency back home, he steps up to be there for Reader, just like she's always there for him.

Previous Part: Standard Operating Procedures 1.05

Warnings/Themes: AU where the Upside Down doesn't terrorize Hawkins. Reader works at the Claire's at StarCourt. Eddie works at TapeWorld. Slow burn, mutual pining, angsty, emotional, fluffy, family problems, death in the family, loss, grief, pain and comfort, road trip, avoidance of feelings, Minor religious themes, mention of Catholic Church/Reader's family is Catholic but no overarching catholicism (that's what my other story is for)

Note: Woof ok this was an uphill battle FOR A YEAR. I'm gonna say the reason that Store Manager Verse exists in its present form is because of THIS CHAPTER RIGHT HERE. Before I could bring my two silly babies here to this moment, they needed to have some serious foundations laid down. Is it the best chapter? Probably not. But I'm incredibly happy that it's here and it's done.

You can find my masterlist here for more featuring our resident Store Manager and all of my other Eddie stories.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

---

He was nervous.

"Stacey."

Of course he was nervous.

"Freak."

And what did he do when he was nervous? He talked.

"Hey now, I'm wounded," Eddie laid a hand across his chest, trying to keep the cool guy exterior. "Calling me a freak? Did I or did I not just help you with that flat tire last week?"

He was surprised when Stacey paused, a barb surely caught on the end of her tongue. She even looked a little embarrassed for a moment before her own frosty expression returned and she had the decency to look down her nose at him.

Sticking to the status quo.

"I know you're trying to put my boss under a love spell or hypnosis or something," she rolled her eyes. "So don't act like you would have helped any other time if she hadn't asked. Gotta keep her buttered up so you can get in her pants. Gag."

The typical stab of insult was welcome; the rest of it...wasn't. Not when it came to you. Not after what happened on Sunday. Not when he was nervous.

Sunday...

What started out as a normal night for the two of you had quickly become a nightmare. For him at least.

Well...it had been a dream at first. Hanging out. Food, laughter, music; it was nothing out of the norm for a Sunday night together. But then he had to go and suggest a little weed, where you had some kind of...bad reaction. To try and get your mind off the panic that had quickly taken over your body...he'd done the first thing that came to mind.

The only thing that came to mind lately when you were around.

He kissed you.

And he kept kissing you because you hadn't pushed him away. In fact, you’d kissed him harder.

For minutes or hours, he couldn't quite tell, he was overjoyed and he basked in being surrounded by you, in finding pleasure with you.

Finding pleasure. God, there was that poet's heart Mrs. Mills always told him he had. Almost fucking. Grinding one out on his couch. But yeah...finding pleasure worked too. Because it wasn't just a meaningless romp; he was kind of crazy about you, so of course it was gonna be special. Poetic.

How long had he been on the edge about confessing his feelings and ruining your friendship? He was the only one to blame when it came to keeping his mouth shut; Kyle had been telling him to just ask you out and plant one on you forever. And then Eddie did and it was perfect.

Until it wasn't. Until Wayne came home and Eddie had seen the panic and the fear and the...realization in your eyes, and he knew how badly he'd fucked up. Let alone the fact that you immediately ran away.

You’d been avoiding him for a few days. “Avoiding him,” as though school and work hadn't been putting you on opposite schedules. Still, there were no phone calls. No waiting to take your breaks with him. Only awkward glances as he passed your store on the way to start his shift, or a strained smile as you passed each other in the parking lot as he was coming and you were going.

And now Stacey was…being Stacey.

Had you told her? Complained about him? Made it known to your employees that the two of you had made a huge mistake.

No you would never…

Still, his nerves got the better of him and although he didn’t want to seem desperate, especially around Stacey of all people, he was.

"...did she say that or..." He paused and shook his head. "Where is your boss anyway? She’s supposed to close tonight right?”

Stacey looked a little unsure again and this time it made his stomach turn.

People were usually nervous around Eddie, but he had grown plenty used to that reaction from a wide array of classmates and neighbors.

Once again, when it came to you, especially given the circumstances, things were different. Maybe that's what was happening here? Maybe Stacey knew something he didn't, and you'd told her not to say anything so you could let him down easily.

Eddie was generally a level-headed guy but sometimes...sometimes...it didn't matter if he had a level head because the entire world was tipping on its side.

Who had you told? Stacey for sure...maybe Chrissy? Chrissy always avoided him at school thanks to his resident freak status, Starcourt Mall be damned. What about Mindy? Mindy was your only other confidante outside of him; what did she know? Had she convinced you to...to what? Dump him as a friend? Take the time you needed to avoid him? Somewhere between Sunday and today, had you finally come to the realization that he had been dreading all along. That he wasn't worth your time?

"Um, yeah,” Stacey finally replied and Eddie blinked himself back to reality. She picked at her cuticles and avoided his eyes. Never a good sign. “Well she was supposed to but Mindy was here when I clocked in. She's sick or something, I don't know. Mindy wouldn't say exactly...but she never calls out so..."

“Well where’s Mindy now?” he asked, almost desperately.

“She’s finishing up her break in the back,” she explained with a nod. “I can go see if she’s done.”

She disappeared into the stockroom, leaving him alone in the store.

He was unsure how to feel. Relief coursed through him; you weren’t avoiding him, you were simply not here. But on the other hand, what if you weren't here because you were avoiding him?

What if Stacey didn't know anything but Mindy did. Because no, you never called off. Ever. A fact that you had told him when he suggested playing hooky one busy Saturday when you were overwhelmed by a never-ending mid shift.

“I never leave early. I never take a sick day.”

“Well, shit, did you have perfect attendance in school too?”

“Uhm,” you hesitated, biting your lip naughtily. “I’m not at will to say.”

“Oh, you bad girl.”

"If it isn't our resident Van Halen impersonator," Mindy greeted as she walked out of the stockroom. Her usual sing-songs mom voice replaced by a gentler one as she smiled at him solemnly. "She's taking a few sick days. Should be back in time for your night out on Sunday, I hope."

"She's sick?" Eddie asked skeptically. "Wasn’t she here yesterday, she looked fi--"

"Why don't you give her a call," she insisted. She glanced over to the stock room door and as Eddie tracked her gaze, he saw Stacey eavesdropping. "Actually I was gonna stop by after work. Why don't you go? That way it's not a game of telephone.

"I'm sure she could really use a friend right now."

---

Eddie had never been inside of your apartment before.

He knew where you lived, sure; he'd dropped you off or picked you up a few times, especially once the two of you started planning dates outings outside of the usual Sundays. He'd never even rang the bell, if he was being honest. You usually watched out the window eagerly when you were expecting him to arrive.

The realization hit him as he stood there at the little residential door between the bakery and the furniture store, staring at your name on a little Dymo punch label next to the buzzer that he'd just jammed his finger into, and it filled him with doubt.

You'd been to the trailer a few times. Seen all of his favorite places, tried all of his favorite foods. Listened patiently to his insecurities and issues. Still, you seemed to keep him at arms length, if he didn't even know what your apartment looked like; did you have posters on the walls or pictures of your family? What color was your couch? Or the towels in your bathroom?

He knew so much about you but did he really know you, and did you even want him to?

The door buzzed open and Eddie took the stairs up to your landing two at a time, all the while worrying and overthinking: You weren't expecting him and he was beginning to doubt that you even wanted him here in the first place. Sure, Mindy told him to go over...but was this taking it a step too far?

He started preparing an apology as he closed the final few distance to your door and it swung open--

"I'm sorry I fucked up, I didn't mean to break your trust. I'll do anything...anything...if you'll just forgive me. If you just give me another chance."

--and he saw the sorry state you were in.

Hair and clothes mussed, eyes bloodshot and puffy, a bundle of black fabric clenched tightly in your hands; the shine of tears and snot was accentuated by the incandescent lights in the hallway.

"Eddie," you whispered in a strained, broken voice, then you dropped the fabric to cross the threshold of your apartment and bury your face into his shirt. He panicked for a moment, arms held uselessly at his sides as your tears penetrated the worn fabric at his shoulder, but he quickly engulfed you in a hug.

"I'm sorry," you both spoke over one another, then you pulled back and stared him straight in the eye. "You're sorry? I'm sorry."

"No," you shook your head. "I'm sorry. I...I should have done better, I shouldn't have--"

"I crossed a line and I ruined our friendship and--"

You both continued talking over one another, each half-listening to what the other had to say as you got your own apologies out, until you both synced back up again.

"I fucked up and I'm sorry."

Your shoulders and chests heaved from the cacophony of emotion and a tense laugh was shared between the two of you. Then Eddie came to a realization.

"If you're sorry..." he frowned and let his eyes rake over you again. "If you thought that you hurt or scared me--which you didn't, by the way. It was...it was me, my mistake--why are you crying?"

You worried your lip for a second and a lone tear escaped your eye and trailed down your cheek; his hand immediately came up so he could thumb it away.

"Mindy told me you were sick," he muttered, taking advantage of the proximity to be a little gentler, a little smaller than he was used to being, so you could put your trust in him again. "What happened?"

"Uhm..." you croaked. "I'm not sick. I'm just taking a few sick days. Bereavement days...actually. Little leave of absence. Just through the end of the weekend."

The word was distantly familiar to him; the memories, though, would stay with him forever. Rick picking him up from school, a phone call from Wayne to his boss. An appointment for all three of them to get suits rented...and then some flowers ordered. Shiny shoes that he could see his teary-eyed reflection in.

He swallowed painfully and watched you do the same as you prepared your confession.

"My...uh...my grandpa died last night."

And before he knew it, it was 12 hours later. 12 hours that he spent relatively quietly.

He let you fill the silence; let you talk and cry, only opening his mouth to comfort you when the realization hit again and it got to be too much.

He helped you pack your bag for the trip back home. That was when your grief finally turned into anger.

Towards your family. Towards yourself.

"I feel like it's my fault," you sighed as you showed him how to find a pair of tights that didn’t have runs in them, whatever that meant. "I was the only one who took care of him. Doctor's appointments, took him on walks, made sure he didn't have the food he wasn't supposed to. The works. And I left. It's my fault he's gone. At least, that's the way Michael made it sound on the phone."

Eddie almost didn't catch the last part, said under your breath as you stuffed a shiny pair of shoes into your duffel bag, but he did. He wasn't going to let you do this to yourself; how many times over the years had he questioned how he might have been able to keep his mom from dying? On those days where he needed her most. He knew he couldn't stop you from those thoughts, at least not now but he could do his best to fight them away until you could do it yourself.

"Michael," he spoke up, startling you with the realization that he heard. "That's your brother right?"

"Older brother," you nodded slowly.

"Sounds like a shithead."

"Yeah," you let out the briefest laugh and then fiddled with the zipper tab. "He kind of is."

You complained about perfect Michael and his perfect life until your stomach rumbled and Eddie offered to order dinner for the two of you. When you mentioned that you hadn't eaten all day, he made sure you had more than your fill of beef lo mein and garlic string beans as Monty Hall played on the television.

At a certain point, your takeout carton made it to the coffee table and you started to doze off as your head rested on his shoulder. It was a relief, but only for a second, because you startled back awake and dumped all the clothes out of your bag again.

"I didn't pack the right dress," you muttered. "Aunt Amelia's gonna say something about it. I just know."

So Eddie stayed up with you all night as you packed and unpacked and packed again, uncaring that he had school in the morning or Hellfire that night. Fuck it all. It didn’t matter. None of the doubts and self-hatred and worry that had plagued him all week since Sunday night even crossed his mind. All that he worried about was making sure you weren't alone.

When dawn came, and you tiredly tried to wave him out of your apartment so that he could get ready for class and you could hit the road, he pulled you into his arms and just...held you.

He closed his eyes and rocked you back and forth as you hummed softly and gripped the back of his t-shirt tightly beneath his jacket.

He thought of all the things that he could say in that moment...

Drive safe, call me tonight so I know you got there, I'm sorry, take it easy on yourself, it's not your fault.

...but none of them were able to fall from his lips.

"Welp," you sighed. "This is it."

But neither of you moved.

"Thank you for coming over Eddie. I really really appreciate it."

Still nothing. No forward momentum, no motivation to move on to the rest of the day without one another, no reassuring words from him to give you the strength you needed to go forth alone, and no will for him to leave you.

You'd both be ready when you were ready, it seemed.

But as you finally pulled away from him, and he thought about you getting in your car and driving for what might be one of the toughest weekends of your life, all he managed to say...

"Why don't I come with you? I know it's not a road trip or fun or anything. I know I have school and work but...fuck it. We can stop at the trailer, I'll leave a note for Wayne and grab the nicest clothes I own, and...I'll come with you. I just...I don't want you doing this all alone."

...resulted in him sitting in the passenger's seat of your car for 5 hours as you zoomed down the highway away from his whole life in Indiana to the great unknown of Chicago.

---

You talked for a majority of the drive.

Eddie already knew some things about your family—strict parents, pesky brothers, too many cousins than he could keep track of—but you seemed to want to prepare him because he would effectively meet all of them.

"Big Catholic family and a funeral," you glanced at him from the corner of your eye and shot a tense smile. “It's a lot. You sure you still want to come?”

You’d done that throughout the drive too, asked him if he was sure he wanted to come with you. He’d joked several times already that you’d have to leave him on the side of the road, which you wouldn’t, or turn back altogether if he chickened out.

Besides, he already called Jeff when you stopped at his place to let him grab some clothes, and canceled Hellfire; he wouldn’t chicken out for anything. He needed to be here for you.

If he was being honest, yes he was nervous. He hadn’t met any girlfriends' families before or anything, and this whole situation wasn’t exactly the way he’d ever imagined meeting yours. As you crossed the state border into Illinois, though, your breath got shallow and your hands gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, and Eddie wondered if you were looking for a way out because you never wanted the two parts of your life—family and friends—to clash.

“I don’t, uh,” he scratched the back of his neck nervously. “I know I’m not someone that…families approve of or anything, if that's why you keep asking if I want to be here.”

"It's not that--" you tried to interject.

"And I know we're not dating or anything but..." he trailed off awkwardly and then cleared his throat.

Well that was one way of sticking his foot in his mouth.

Your head was half turned towards him, jaw dropped, eyes darting back and forth from the road to him.

The thought of opening the car door and bailing as you zoomed down the highway briefly crossed his mind because he fucked up. Why would he say something like that? It was because he was a big dingus, actually, the biggest.

"Uh, Eddie listen--"

"No," he interrupted you again. "Sweetheart I'm sorry, that's...that wasn't fair of me. I didn't mean...I just..."

"No it's ok, we should ta--"

"I just thought that...I know I pretty much intruded on this trip, but I wanted to be here for you. But if me being here is gonna cause more problems for you...I mean damn, I don't mind taking a Greyhound back to Hawkins even. But more than anything, I want to make sure you're alright."

He nervously picked at the loose threads on the holes at his knees and was surprised when you took a hand off the steering wheel and grabbed his.

"Do you know," you whispered, voice barely audible. "I think I would have turned back by now if I tried to come alone. Michael on the phone...god I don't know how my dad's gonna be...or my aunt. I don't want to have to deal with all of that. But I know I need to be there...it's for my Papa, I have to be there.

"It's hard to go home when you've moved someplace else. When you've started to find home somewhere else. And I wasn't gonna say anything. I wasn't gonna ask you--it's too much to ask--but I secretly kind of hoped that you would ask to come along. And I'll never be able to really thank you, Eddie, for wanting to be here. For me.

"But thank you," you shot him a smile and squeezed his hand tightly.

He swallowed thickly and squeezed right back.

"I'll be here for as long as you need me to be, sweetheart. As long as you want me to be."

---

The weekend was a whirlwind, and honestly, Eddie knew he wasn't going to be able to make heads or tails of it until the two of you got home on Sunday night.

The first surprise, shortly after your heartfelt moment in the car, was the fact that you didn't actually live in Chicago. You'd been approaching the city on I-90, you even pointed out the Sears Tower to him. Then you got on an exit and drove for another 20 minutes down North Avenue.

"I feel like I've been lied to," he sniffed petulantly.

"I told you I'm from the suburbs before," you chuckled at his antics. "And it might as well be Chicago, it's all Cook County."

"We're not even driving North, how is this North Avenue?"

"We don't have time for a history lesson, we'll be there soon."

Still, it was exciting. Not exactly what he pictured in his head from watching shows on TV or seeing news reels about the city, but nonetheless different from what he was used to in Hawkins and that was the part he liked.

At a certain point, you reached a stretch of road that featured certain destinations that would live in Eddie's imagination until he could ask you about them--KiddieLand Amusement Park, Riviera Lanes, and Winston Plaza--and Eddie noticed your hands started to shake.

"You ok? There's plenty of places to pull over," he suggested. "I can drive the rest of the way."

"No it's ok," you said and swung a left-hand turn onto a residential street with houses that sort-of all looked the same, sort-of all looked different. "We're here."

You parked on the street in front of a house that you noted belonged to your aunt, and then led him down a narrow sidewalk to the backyard of the neighboring house, where a kid gangly enough to rival Mike Wheeler sat in a plastic lawn chair with headphones on, arms crossed over his chest, and his eyes closed.

"Jimmy," you called to him and then kicked his foot. "Jimmy. James Joseph, wake up."

"I'm awake," he startled, knocked the headphones down so they sat around his neck, and stood up. Even with one hand rubbing his eye, your brother's resemblance to you was obvious, and a sense of dread washed over Eddie.

And so it began...meeting your family.

Jimmy was probably the best introduction of them all--there was an ease between the two of you, even with the snide jabs and banter back and forth--and that extended to Eddie. Especially when Jimmy realized that he and Eddie were wearing the same shirt.

"Don't let him fool you, he's a dweeb," you announced when Jimmy got excited over a shared love for Judas Priest, and Eddie hoped you meant your brother, but he couldn't be too sure you weren't referring to him.

There was a brief respite as you both rested for a minute, changed clothes, and ate a plate of some sort of casserole from the packed shelves of the avocado fridge in your grandpa's kitchen. Then it was an onslaught, a domino effect of faces and names that gradually got more important as you got back into the car to head towards the funeral home.

A sea of strange faces that smiled and hugged you and then looked over at Eddie in question, but not in an unwelcome way, and he was glad he'd pilfered a black scrunchie from your bag to tie his hair back respectfully.

You introduced him to this old coworker of your Papa and that great-aunt from Minneapolis and this cousin. He even got to meet your old store manager--a stern, short, blonde woman with victory rolls and shimmering black eyeshadow--who'd come to pay her respects after she saw your Papa's obituary in the newspaper; she honestly scared Eddie a little, but she made him laugh, which meant she was good in his book.

It was all reminiscent of meeting people after his mom died once upon a time, the only other funeral he'd ever been to. When people called and came out of the woodwork in an overwhelming number to offer their condolences. He had been young and sad then, but he was older, wiser, and tougher now. He shook hands and said "nice to meet you" and when people questioned whether he was a boyfriend, Eddie insisted he was just a friend who wanted to be here for you.

It wasn't a lie; still he got a skeptical gaze from at least two elderly women who tutted once they were out of earshot.

Eventually, you got to the front of the room, to the row of chairs that held your immediate family, and after a few tearful hugs, Eddie finally met your parents, your aunt and uncle, and your older brother.

He was surprised to hear "I've heard a lot about you" come from your mother's mouth, but was not surprised to hear the "no funny business under my roof" from your father after a clap on the shoulder. Your uncle said nothing after a short “hello”, just let your aunt do all the talking, and all she could talk about was your appearance.

"What are you doing, honey? What is this you're wearing? For Papa's wake? I hope you plan to wear something a little more modest for my father's funeral tomorrow. And your friend? A leather jacket? A little casual don't you think? What's that dear? Yes, nice to meet you too Edward. Thank you for coming."

Your brother Michael, though...Michael was a douchebag to put it in polite terms, and Eddie could tell that, unlike with Jimmy, the relationship between you was tense.

"You're late" he sniffed judgmentally instead of a greeting.

"We hit traffic and needed to change," you snarked right back.

"So you stopped off at home? Where's Jim? Why couldn't you get him here?"

"You know how he is at these things, he'll show up before they close up for the night. You remember how he was when Nana died. And now he's Mr. Tough Guy. He doesn't like to cry."

Back and forth the two of you went, Michael's accusations and your tense responses. Eddie could feel himself get more and more irritated the harsher it got, the angrier he felt you become. If it was anything other than a funeral--a wake, what was the difference--he would have started in on your brother several minutes ago to protect you.

And he was still tempted to.

But it was like a switch was flipped as someone else approached, and he watched as you changed right before his very eyes. As all the irritation and vulnerabilities left you, and in their place...was the Store Manager version of you he knew and sort of despised. Cold and stiff and everything he knew you weren't by the grace of becoming your friend.

Regardless, it was startling to see.

At the end of the night as Eddie settled into the second twin bed in what used to be Michael and Jimmy's shared room, Eddie realized that your customer service persona had been present for most of the evening, and had only slipped in the presence of those few family members that could see right past it.

Could they see past it? Or was it that you simply couldn't hide behind it with them?

For the whole time he'd known you, Eddie had often wondered what had driven you to Indiana. The job, sure, but...you'd left everything you'd known behind. And hell, for all the times that he wanted to get the hell out of Hawkins, he knew he couldn't leave Wayne or Rick for very long. In his heart he knew the day he finally left, he'd need to be back quite often to see them.

Now, though...when it came to you, he started to understand.

---

The next day, the day of the funeral, you couldn't stop shaking.

Eddie had been nervously second guessing the black jeans--the only non-ripped pair he owned--and Wayne's borrowed dress shirt when he saw you digging through your bag, trembling. It seemed like you were trying to hide it, kept your body moving and grabbing for something, but he noticed immediately,

He snatched the car keys out of your hands before you could get a solid grasp on them when it was time to go.

"It's alright," he reassured you. "Just tell me where I'm going and I'll get us there."

He thought it would be back to the funeral home, but instead you gave him directions to the church. A big old building with stained glass windows and a large statue of the Virgin Mary out in the front.

He could hear the organ music of the hymns emanating from within, and on the hour, the bells from the tower beside the chapel became deafening. For all the Catholic school girl jokes he made at your expense, he didn't realize you were Catholic Catholic.

"You sure I'm not gonna burst into flames if I set foot inside?" he joked to try and ease your nerves and his, but you just shook your head. He watched and suddenly felt helpless, as you began to shake more and worry your bottom lip with your teeth; he was supposed to be here to support you, to reassure you, and instead you looked ready to keel over. "Hey, it'll be ok."

"Yeah," you nodded tensely. "Yeah, let's just go inside."

You didn't make a move though, just rocked onto the toes of your shiny Mary Janes and looked on as tons of people filtered into the church.

Tons of people that, once again, reminded him of the people that had come to pay their respects for his mom. Eddie remembered being there, shaking in his shoes, trying to keep a straight-face, to be strong. To not be a baby because he was 10 years old.

It was just like you said about Jimmy the previous night; big tough guy, didn't want to cr--

Oh.

Realization hit Eddie. The culmination of all the other realizations that had been mounting over the past what? 48 hours? Maybe the past week? The two of you were more alike than he realized. Eddie had just noticed how you'd put up this strong front since you'd been home; the comfortable, safe Store Manager facade was starting to crack. Hadn't he just told you the story about his mom's funeral? How he'd fallen in love with metal because Rick had realized that he needed to process his grief? That he needed to lash out? To cry?

Here he was, trying to get you to laugh, when instead he should have been doing the opposite. But how was he gonna get you to cry? You didn't even cry much at the wake when you'd placed your hand on top of the shiny casket that held your Papa within.

Maybe it just hadn't hit you yet?

Alright, change of plans.

"Your Papa knew a lot of people," Eddie noted, gesturing towards the funeral-goers.

"He did," you agreed, and he watched as your shoulders lost the slightest bit of tension. "He was...I mean you met my cousin last night. The one who wants to run for Mayor."

"Yeah, he's got that yuppie thing about him."

"Well, my Papa could have been Mayor if he wanted," you said with the most conviction he'd ever heard in your voice. "He just didn't want to. Which means he deserved it even more. He was the nicest neighbor, the best friend. He went and played competitive Bocce at the civic center and fundraised for charity and canned his own peaches to give to people."

On and on, you talked about Papa's recipe for this and his idea for that and...

"And the way he fucking chain smoked god damn it Eddie," you hit his arm as he pulled his cigarettes from the back pocket of his jeans.

Eddie thought that, at the very least, an emotional story would be the thing that would set you over the edge. Instead it was the pack of Marlboro Reds that he'd picked up when you had stopped for gas about halfway through the drive.

You hit his arm a few times, as you often did when you tried to playfully admonish him for this or that, then your face crumpled. Your shaking ceased as you collapsed against him and buried your face against his shoulder once again, just like you had when he first arrived at your apartment on Thursday night.

He dropped the cigarettes and folded his arms around you, pulled you into the safety of your friendship when it seemed like there wasn't anything safe out there for you right now; when you'd just lost one of the safe places you had in the world.

He whispered sweet words--comforts and reassurances--and he made you laugh once by threatening to punch your brother if he tried to make a scene.

"I'll do it," he goaded you. "I don't care if he's in mourning too. He's insufferable. Hate that guy. Never coming back to Chicago ever if he's still in town. You hear that? I might have to leave right now."

"No," you tugged him closer to you, and he reveled in the feeling. "You're staying right here. You promised."

"I did," he agreed.

The tense hold you had on him got looser and you hiccuped the last few tears you had.

A few yards away, a hearse pulled up to the curb in front of the church, and your brothers and several of your cousins went to start hauling the casket inside.

"You ready to go in?" Eddie asked. "You don't have to...but..."

"No," you shook your head and pulled back from him. "I'm ok. I'm ready."

"Good."

He waited for you to make the first move once again, but before you did, you took his hand in yours and squeezed.

"He would have been...so happy to have met you, Eddie," you looked at him earnestly. "I told him all about you. I think it hurts a little more...knowing that he didn't get the chance."

He squeezed your hand right back and smiled.

"I'm sad I didn't get the chance either. Guess I'm gonna have to work extra hard not to go to Hell so I can shake his hand in Heaven."

You snorted and pushed him away with a soft jackass then pulled him into the church with you saying he would have made the same joke.

---

The next morning, you and Eddie made a stealthy getaway.

Your father had tried to get you both to go to church with them again and you politely declined.

"We need to get on the road so we don't get back too late. I have to open tomorrow," you made the excuse.

Honestly Eddie was grateful; all the sitting and standing and kneeling...he hadn't gotten that much exercise since gym class Freshman year.

But as you soared back down North Avenue, you made a detour.

"I know this wasn't supposed to be a fun trip," you explained. "If you're up for it, we can make the drive back whenever...maybe during spring break or something? The least I can do before we head back to Hawkins, to thank you for coming, is give you a taste of good Chicago food. Especially after casseroles and funeral home sandwiches all weekend.

"It is Sunday, after all."

And that's how Eddie found himself having his first authentic Chicago style hot dog. Sitting on a picnic bench outside, under a red and yellow striped umbrella, the ambient sounds of cars zooming and your banter back and forth the perfect backdrop.

"No ketchup, are you kidding me right now Eddie?" you swatted his hand.

"Why do they have ketchup if they don't want it on the hot dog," he argued.

"It's for the fries and the fries only. You need to have the whole experience. A hot dog with everything, and ketchup on the fries only."

He watched as you unwrapped your hotdog and began picking through the toppings. Hypocrite.

"Wait, I thought you said you needed to have the whole experience, why are you taking the peppers off."

"I don't like the peppers."

"Are you kidding me right now?" Eddie scoffed. "Gonna have to take your Chicago Card away. Oh wait, I'm sorry. Suburb card."

"Oh my god, just eat. Before I leave you here."

He took his first bite and his tastebuds sang, as you munched on a French fry with a cheeky smile.

And Eddie was happy. Happy to be here with you. Sundays were his favorite days, hands down, and he would do everything in his power to keep them that way.

It might not have been the happiest weekend, there might still be some unanswered questions between the two of you. But you were here with him and you were still friends, and after everything that had happened, that's all Eddie could ask for.

Next Part: Closing Time

[cairavende]

My wonderful girlfriend got me Gideon the Ninth for Christmas and I realized why should I just give Worm recaps? Let's read some Locked Tomb! (We'll see how this format works, maybe I'll adjust it. Specifically might break stuff down into smaller segments instead of full acts, but I didn't think of doing this until after I had read all of act 1.)

Gideon the Ninth Act 1 (chapter 1 through 8) thoughts:

This book is so gay oh my god

Like, it's gay in ways I can't even explain. I love it.

Harrow beats the shit out of Gideon in chapter 2 and I don't know if I've ever seen someone get beat up in a more gay way.

"Oh Griddle! But I don't even remember about you most of the time." ROLL A FUCKING DECEPTION CHECK HARROW! You are saying this standing in the middle of the field you spent all night burying bones in just to foil her escape in the most dramatic way. You can't stop remembering her.

Gideon is the most herbo of herbos. I fucking love her. I love reading her PoV. She just knows punch and stab with sword and if those don't work than she'll just do them harder.

Also Gideon is SO fucking gay. Dear god. Dulcinea faints and Gideon turns off all though. HELP PRETTY GIRL. Nothing else.

Ok I could just make this whole thing "EVERYTHING IS GAY" but there is technically more than that.

I love how weird everything is and how little explanation is given. I don't want pages of exposition, I want to learn the world as it comes at me! This is perfect.

And just the very nature of things that seem weird not being given more than a passing thought in the book is information. Something may seem wild to the reader but it's so normalized to the characters that they wouldn't even think about the idea of it being different.

Lack of explanation also helps really show how much of a meathead Gideon is. Do the readers get to learn details about this thing? Only if it is a weapon, has tits, or Gideon is forced to listen while Harrow explains it. Otherwise no, why the fuck would Gideon spend her precious few brain cells on thinking?

And even if Gideon is forced to listen as Harrow explains it, the readers might not learn much cause Gideon might stop listening. I love her.

Aiglamene is wonderful. Crux is fine but I like her more.

Poor Gideon just wants a big sword that she can swing hard. It's not like she can't use a rapier. But why when she can go big sword?

SO MUCH CATHOLICISM

As someone who once was Catholic and then realized I was actually not a straight man, but instead a lesbian, I am in deep.

And the fucking slang used! Or whatever would be the right term. The shit they say! I love it. Just the weird sci-fi far future space necromancer universe and then suddenly "Are you asking me to . . . throw her a bone?", "Gideon had always known that this would be how she went: gangbanged to death by skeletons.", "Don’t hypothetically shove stuff up my butt again, it never does any good.", "Lo! A destructed ass.", "Well we were developing common sense, she studied the blade.", "Double Bones with Doctor Skelebone."

House of the First appears to be Earth. I kinda assume the House of the Ninth is Pluto, even though things obviously aren't in order given that the Seventh and Sixth are closer to the sun. Of course, I'm kinda expecting this to not technically be this solar system at all.

Undying Emperor, King of Resurrection, I Have Ten-Thousand Titles, Boss First, etc etc hasn't been on "Earth" in over nine thousand years. I wanna know MORE.

And the fucking Ninth House has their own prayer! Everyone else has one that the Ninth didn't know and then the Ninth had one that no one else knows! GIMME MORE!!!!

Also again, so many Catholicism metaphors or comparisons or whatever!

I could go on forever but gonna end this one with OH MY GOD SHE FOUND SUNGLASSES I LOVE HER. Fucking "I came prepared, my sweet." and "But then you couldn't have admired . . . these!" as she whips on the sunglasses. God. I nearly died.

[gayferrari]

I’m going through your sebmark recs and wanted to know could you do another list for brocedes?

WOPS sorry this is so late, I saved it to the drafts and it slipped my mind. This is pretty varied; I hope there's something new-to-you to enjoy!

on the faultline by @monacotrophywife. Multichapter; Brocedes through the years. Sort of canon-compliant until it isn't. Rated E.

so many fics by @lost-decade — they're mostly older works, I remember reading a few back when and then I revisited them this year and they still hit. some of my faves:

All That You Can't Leave Behind. AU where Nico goes to university instead of racing and eventually becomes an F1 engineer

an empty space to fill in. PWP + character study, silver war era

traviamento. In 2004 Nico invites Lewis on holiday with him and Vivian

constellation falling into place by wraysford. Speaking of AUs where Nico goes to university. This is set in 2007 during Lewis's rookie season. Rated T; some angst + getting together.

post 2016 AUs

and it feels good (to be known so well) by @gokartkid. Lewis forgets his apartment keys. Guess who might have a spare copy from years ago. Rated M. tagged: the emotional complexity of living in the same building as your childhood friend-lover-enemy-rival

dirty valentine by @sionisjaune. fic series, ongoing, established relationship post 2022. Includes 4 complete one-shots, mostly rated E.

fresh old mistakes by bestliars. Abu Dhabi 2021. Sometimes u lose a championship fight and fuck your ex about it. Rated E.

hall pass by @/monacotrophywife. Brocedes but make it 2023 and Nico's wife is okay with sharing. Rated E.

Lemon, Ginger and Honey by witchee_writer. Feel-good 2022 season AU; getting back together. Rated T.

remember to forget me by @12romy. Amnesia AU! what if you got hit in the head and forgot just how rancid your situationship became? Set in 2021.

RULE 63 / genderfuckery

desire unfolds by bestliars. girl Lewis/Nico. Rated E. tagged: anal sex, first time, catholicism.

if I get too close by @/monacotrophywife. that one trope where a driver wakes up temporarily turned into a cis woman and needs to have sex to go back to normal :) temporarily a girl! Lewis / Nico ft. repression like woah. Rated E.

want you to be my girl by @/sionisjaune. f/f. Rated E. underage. fisting. check out THIS FANART ALSO.... PLEASE.... (nsfw)

brocedes-adjacent — threesome fics + fics where Lewis or Nico fuck somebody else about their issues.

I hesitated to put these on the list because they aren't Nico/Lewis BUT they are on-theme, they're all very good, and it's my post so why should I limit myself. But skip if it's not your vibe!

[Sebcedes] only bad thing about a star is they burn up by @blorbocedes, Nico/Lewis/Seb; au where nico retires after 2016 and him and lewis get married. Rated M. (If you like this sebcedes vibe + Rule 63 I also enjoyed their challengers AU with f!Lewis)

[Sebcedes] double or nothing by @grideon. Nico wins the Monaco Grand Prix. Even better: Lewis doesn't. Rated M.

[fics with past / background brocedes] If you're down for fics where they fuck somebody else while the Past Relationship Looms, I enjoyed these both as rarepair fics but also bc of the Former Brocedes of it all: my kind’s your kind by @/monacotrophywife (Nico/Charles) & the price of the prodigy by @saff-rons (Lewis/Max)

that's all! (for now) if you enjoy drop the authors a line etc. sorry again this took forever

[hheaven-sentt]

i'd be home with you

summary: this is where he finds he is safest | leon kennedy x gn!reader

word count: 2k

warnings: yearning, mentions of catholicism, intense softness, all comfort no hurt bb, first time L bomb, past trauma subtext, this one made me blush so there's a warning for that

notes: the wip as promised, posted when i should be in bed because i have class at nine am anyway ily | ao3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leon pushes through the apartment door, light from the hallway streaming in behind him into the dark living room. He doesn’t reach for the light, just closes the door behind him to remedy his fault. He toes his shoes off next to the door. He spies you asleep on the couch, curled beneath more than a few blankets. He smiles tiredly. His feet really hurt, and there’s nothing he wouldn’t give just to rest beside you. But he only has tonight and the wee hours of the morning.

With a sigh, he trudges over to the couch where you snore. He hates to do it, but he nudges you awake. You groan.

“What time is it?” you ask, voice hoarse. You don’t even open your eyes to see who it is; you already know.

“Just past midnight,” he says. You sigh, stretching your arms out above your head. He watches you carefully, like you’re performing for him. “Come to bed,”

“What time do you have to leave?” you ask, finally opening your eyes to gaze at him. He smiles softly.

“Around six,” he says. 

You frown. “Wake me up when you get up to leave. I want to be able to see you go,”

He nods, then extends his hand to pull you free from the cushions on the couch. You silently protest for a moment, murmuring about how comfortable you are, but you eventually give in and let him haul you to your feet. You press a sleepy kiss to his cheek before walking around him toward the bedroom.

He follows you, because he would be stupid not to, and feels his bones loosen beneath his skin. You ooze comfort and simple pleasure. If he could take you with him everywhere, he would. He’s a selfish man when it comes to you; he wants to keep you beside him at all times, keep you hidden away in a place where only he can find you. He stares dreamily at you, watching you shuffle pillows and sheets as you prepare to slip between them for the night. You brush a few stray hairs from your eyes.

He’d gladly be sick for a hundred years if it were the disease you’ve given him. He smiles.

“What are you staring at?” you tease, grinning. He feels like he’s floating.

“Just admiring,” he says simply, softly, lovingly. You laugh and climb into bed. “Sometimes I feel like the luckiest guy in the world,”

You roll your eyes. “Quit being so sappy and come to bed,” you tease, reaching for the bedside lamp. He doesn’t deny you.

With as much speed as he can muster, he pulls his gear off. You watch him, hand hovering near the lamp. He’s clad in a pair of sweatpants in minutes, and finally, he joins you. It’s like coming home, getting into bed with you. It’s soft and gentle, he always knows what to expect. He tends to steal the blanket in the middle of the night and you respond by clinging to his shoulders like a backpack.

He’s staring at you again, he knows he is, but he would be a fool not to. You shut the lamp off finally, and you’re suddenly bathed in the moonlight streaming in through the windows. Your eyes reflect the light. This is where Leon finds he is safest. Beyond you, there is no Umbrella, no Raccoon City, nothing. He can only see you. He can only feel your fingers weaving between his, your lips against his cheek, your muttered words as you sink into the pillows. He never wants to leave, never wants to feel the ache of missing you ever again.

“How long will you be gone this time?” you ask quietly. He stiffens beneath you.

“A few weeks, probably,” he says. You sigh heavily. “But I’ll come home,”

“You better,” you say. He can feel your lips curl up into a small smile from where you rest against his bicep. It sends a shiver through him. “Who would keep me warm at night?”

He reaches over to pull you in closer, to stake some sort of claim upon you. “Nobody, I would hope,”

You laugh. “No one could replace you. You’re one of a kind,”

“You just like how I cook your eggs,” he mutters, but he’s smiling. He’s holding you steady against him, perfectly tucked into his side where you belong. At this moment, it feels like this will last forever, like morning will never come and he will never board a plane.

“That certainly is a plus,” you tease. He hums.

You’re asleep within minutes. He knows he will follow soon after, but he wants to hold onto the moment for a little bit longer. In this room, the world doesn’t exist. It’s just you and him. He wants it to be that way forever.

When he wakes, the sun is barely peeking over the horizon. He rolls out of your arms, tucking the duvet back into your side to keep you snug. His gear rolls back onto his body with little protest. The ache returns. Gently, he nudges you awake.

“Already?” you whisper. He fights a frown. “Don’t get lost out there,”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says.

You pull him in for a sleepy kiss, and that’s how he has to leave you. You turn onto your other side, facing the window where the birds are beginning to sing. He smooths a hand over your head before he turns out of the room. He leaves a little piece of his heart behind when he closes the front door behind him.

…

It’s week two in some European city he can’t pronounce, and Leon is full of aching. His muscles feel heavy, his head constantly hurts, and he wants nothing more than to sit in your presence for a few minutes. A few minutes is all he needs.

He remembers how his mother would drag him to church on Sundays, half the service memorized and etched into her heart. Leon was always rather bored with it, often counting how many people were in the room and then imagining how many it would take stacked on top of each other to lift him to the ceiling of the church. The only part of service he liked was communion–his midday snack, if you will. More than anything, he remembers the way the pews felt beneath him, sturdy and hard against his legs as he desperately tried to stay still for the service lest his mother send him another warning glance. It’s how he feels now, sitting in the helicopter on his way home to you. He itches to move, to have the flight conclude so he may rush home to you. But Hunnigan is throwing looks in his direction, looks that tell him that even when he touches down, he won’t be home until at least tomorrow.

A sigh escapes him. It’s been much too long since he’s missed someone, and the fact that he misses you like this, right here and now, is almost too much for him to bear. What are you doing? What time is it there? Have you showered and gone to bed? Are you making dinner? He wants nothing more than to lean against the counter and watch you cook, or sit on the bathroom counter while you shower because he can’t bear to be away from you for long, or ask you questions about the movie you’re watching because he didn’t see the beginning of it.

His longing for you is a foreign concept. He doesn’t understand what you do to him to make him think in terms of you. He passes his time planning the next time he’ll get to see you, often creating grandiose fantasies in his mind about where you’ll go and what you’ll do. Sometimes, he takes you away to a remote island and you live in paradise for the rest of time. Other times, he has a normal life with a normal job, and he can give you life you deserve; a house on a quiet street in a sleepy town, maybe a couple kids, family dinners, and bedtime stories. Sometimes, the thought makes him sick, the fact that he can’t give you a normal life. But he pushes it away with the memories of the way you look at him, and that quiets him for a while.

Finally, after hours of yearning and waiting, he’s standing outside of your door. Even after spending his formative years surrounded by God and altars and psalms, he is not sure Heaven exists. But if it does, it could not compare to the interior of your apartment. His key gets stuck in the lock when he tries to open the door, excitement coursing through him. You come to his aide, like always.

He’s home earlier than he expected, honestly. It’s just past nine in the evening. You’re clad in an old pair of sweatpants and a shirt you stole from him. The sight of you makes him melt. He can barely allow himself to get his coat off before he’s pulling you into him, breathing you in like he’s been lost for air. You laugh into his chest, returning his embrace, and he feels lighter than he has in a long time.

“Missed you,” he mumbles into your hair. It makes you laugh again. He wishes he could play the sound back from memory.

“Missed you, too,” you say. “There’s some lasagna left on the counter if you want it. I don’t know how warm it is, though,”

He grins widely, pulling away from you for a half a second just so he can pull you back in for a kiss. It’s long and languid, easy and careful. It’s warm. It’s loving. When you break, you’re blushing, staring at him like he’s acting strange.

“You alright?” you ask, searching his eyes for anything that might be out of place. He just grins again.

“More than,” he says. You laugh again. “Lasagna sounds amazing,”

You chat to him about your last couple of weeks while he struggles to dig the lasagna out of the pan and onto a plate. Apparently, the girl at work that you hate had gotten fired. Leon couldn’t remember her name if he had a gun to his head. But you seem excited that she’s gone, and so he is too. He microwaves his lasagna for too long and burns his hand on the plate when he goes to take it out. But you’re quick to soothe. As the hiss of pain leaves his lips, you’re dragging him to the sink to run cool water over his hand. You chastise him for touching the plate, telling him he needs to be more careful.

“I love you,” he says. You freeze in place, halting your fretting over him. Your eyes pull to his in an instant, searching to see if he’s telling the truth. He is.

“Do you mean that?” you ask. His lips pull into a thin line, fear beginning to creep up in a flesh on his neck. His mom always told him that was his biggest tell.

“I do,” he promises. Your apprehension eases away from your features. The water is still running, it’s the only sound between you two. You take a deep breath.

“I love you,” you return, smiling softly.

All the years spent going to church prepared him to recognize divinity when it was presented to him, and he sees it finally. It appears to him in the form of you and your laughter, your caring nature and your freckled skin, your birthmark and your crooked tooth. He kisses you again, the love fuel to his movements. You laugh against his lips, peeling his soggy hand away from your cheek. When he pulls away, your hair is smeared against your face from where he’s wet it, but you’re laughing.

Maybe he can’t give you the future you deserve, at least not yet, but he can give you now. He can give you himself, and for right now, that is enough for you both.

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 1 - Side B

Propaganda below ⬇️

Matt

Matt's faith in the show is really important and well explored; one of the first scenes of the show is Matt going to confession (or, well, talking to his priest since he's not really confessing at that point). Matt struggles a lot with what he's supposed to do; everyone's telling him to kill the villain and he kinda wants to, but he literally says: "I know my soul is damned if I take his life". He struggles with his faith and goes with his doubts to his priest, and it's beautiful—also when he finally gets a costume for his vigilanteing he chooses to dress as the devil, lol. (His priest tells him that nothing makes people run to Church faster than the feeling of having the devil on their heels.)

a lot of the show is about how he justifies his vigilante actions with his faith, and whether he's doing the right thing in trying to help people or just using it as an outlet for his anger. the literal first scene of the show has him in a confession booth talking to his priest (who is a really interesting character too). this is not the scene I was talking about but it's such an excellent scene with matt talking to his priest: https://youtu.be/XHZ3NbEIDdw

canonically catholic but dresses like a demon to be quirky

honestly i dont wanna type too much but i feel that matt is a great example of someone who battles with his faith because he rarely loses his faith but rather fights with why he was made the way he was and put through what he was. He believes himself to have the devil inside him but believes that God put him there

ok in the comics barring the most current run matt has Mostly been a non-practicing Catholic that very rarely actually does any catholic Activities but ends up falling back into the Mindset and very occasionally dramatically taking confession (ex. in that one issue where he takes confession, basically tells the father that he is uniquely terrible and is thinking about violently murdering someone and when the father says "you can be forgiven" hes like "AUGFH-- NO!!!!!!!!!!" and runs out) when he's gone through some shit. and i love that its so relatable

hello its me cct organizer. i have to come clean, i made this tournament because i need matt to win something. i dont think hell win the sadboy and he lost the ginger tournament and >:( hes my favoritest guy ever. Also @ who said he has religious trauma is wrong and i will fight u about it (nicely) on my main @usaigi

This guy so catholic he spends an ungodly amount of time just chilling in the church. And goes there whenever there is a moral conundrum about killing people being Bad even though it would solve a lot of problems and stop said people from killing other people. This happens every other episode. Matt is the Catholic Guilt Guy. There's actually a lot of catholic stuff in the show as a whole. Just a compilation would be like three whole episodes long.

Hes great hes catholic enough to not outrught murder people but not catholic enough to not fuck before marriage hes a bisexual disaster at all times hes besties with a priest might i add hes great hes my special little guy

his catholicism is a huge piece of his characterisation he was raised by nuns in a catholic orphanage, the first scene we ever see him (as an adult and not a flashback) is him going to confession, he is good friend with his priest and has regular debates with him, etc also in s3 he has a huge crisis of faith after he lost A Lot where he stops believing for a while and it's linked to his identity crisis where he actually wants to kill another person (a hard line he previously chose never to cross) and wants to be only daredevil and not matt murdock, when he is both and needs both to exist also when he was a kid his grandmother used to say "watch out for the murdock boys, they've got the devil in them" and it created a surprising lot of his issues

So he's both catholic in the comics and the show but he's More Catholic in the show. Like, raised in a catholic orphanage by nuns (ONE OF WHICH IS HIS *MOTHER*), second scene in the show has him in a confession box kind. Matt Murdock goes out and gets the shit beaten out of him nightly and also beats the shit out of other people and purposefully leaned into devil iconography as his theme. When his nurse friend says, he takes a lot of punishment without one complaint he says "That part's the Catholicism." It is a Core Aspect of his character (at least in the show). He makes me insane. Also the same chemicals that blinded him created the teenage mutant ninja turtles and everyone should know that.

They went to confession to a priest who they had saved as their costumed counterpart and the guy recognized them by the voice, proving that it's possible and everyone else is just dumb

he takes "i wanna fight god" to new and incredibly violent levels, while also being a sweetheart and a goofball

Actually strictly WILL NOT kill criminals. Goes wayyy out of his way to avoid it. Fights with the Punisher about it. Goes to confession booth after nightly vigilante excursions. Feels so much guilt. "How have you been holding up?" "Like a good Caltholic boy" "that bad huh" - actual conversation with his priest

So Daredevil struggles with his mission as a crime fighter because killing criminals goes against his faith. He makes it a point to not kill criminals, believing that even bad people deserve a second chance. This philosophy puts him at odds against The Punisher, who is a relentless killer. As a Catholic myself, while I love the concept of a morally conflicted superhero, I think the worldbuilding around Daredevil is lacking. If he struggles with violence and killing, why doesn't he pray to warrior saints like Saint Michael, Saint Ignatius of Loyola (a former knight), or Saint Joan of Arc? Why isn't there a community of other Catholics he can turn to for guidance, considering New York City has a sizeable population of Catholics? And why are the churches he goes to always empty? Doesn't he know that the Catholic Church supports the just war theory? I think that would have made his burden more bearable.

He goes to church and confesses to punching people and says "imma do it again can i apologize in advance" and the father dude says "no you're meant to stop now" and Matt says "no" and they do this everyday. I'm not remembering it properly but this is a canon interaction i swear

HELLO HI YES I LOVE HIM AND WILL INFOR DUMP ok so. he is a vigalantty and he got named daredevil and he is an orphan and after the age of 12 was raised in an orphanage at a Catholic church and his therapist is his priest via confession abd. also his mother is a nun he has a whole mental breakdown over god and called Job a pussy because he liked god until he got better and liked god again he said "I'm dearedrvil and not even god can stop that now" and he's so cool

matt is a freakish little babygirl who was raised by nuns and definitely has religious trauma. i hate him so much (affectionately)

he’s literally fucking insane about it i don’t know what to say here. he thinks he’s chosen by god to go on some sort of holy quest to save hell’s kitchen. joan of arc ass.

i already know hes in by default j just wanted to give him a personal shout out i love this angsty catholic dweeb

how practicing he is depends on the run, but in my favorite he is quite literally confessing to a member of the last extant order millitant who happens to be a priest at a church in hells kitchen.

i love him for having the funniest version of a trope i usually hate (person gets into confession booth and asks forgiveness not for what they've done, but for what they're about to do). usually this trope just looks silly to me bc like. the priest would just say "i can't do that" and you would have to either awkwardly explain yourself or just Leave. it's funny when matt does it because fr. lantom is probably like "what are you gonna do???" and matt's like "lol. lmao. 😊 hehehe." anyway we love this angry catholic man who dresses up like the devil to beat people up in hell's kitchen

Harrowhark

I'm pretty sure you've already got plenty of submissions for her so I'll just say she was raised in what is basically a cult (technically a nunnery but let's be real) dedicated to keeping the body of the thing that will kill God behind the rock. One of their prayers is actually "I pray the rock is never rolled away". Harrow is extremely devout as penance for her earlier heretical actions in the tomb as a child (spoiler!) so the Catholic guilt really comes through

imagine being a catholic nun and you meet god, but it turns out he’s a twitch streamer from new zealand who became god because everything got a little bit out of hand. and just before you met him you gave yourself a diy grief-fuelled lobotomy with the help of your best frenemy. imagine how insane you’d be. now multiply that insanity by nine. that’s the fictional love of my life right there.

she meets god. she’s not inspired

she’s number one practitioner of space Catholicism. The locked tomb is chock full of Christian (catholic) imagery themes metaphors etc. just look at her she’s got a bone rosary

They're Catholicism with extra bones. Everyone is a nun. They have what is basically a rosary made from knuckle bones. They technically worship the same God as everyone else, but they're waaaay more focused on The Body in the Tomb (Mary) and we get a moment where we find out that while everyone else prays the equivilent of The Lords Prayer, they're doing the equivilent of Hail Mary. And they paint their faces with skulls.

She thinks leaving dry bread in a drawer is taking care of someone. She's in love with a 10,000 year old corpse (the same one they worship). She spent ALL NIGHT digging with her bare hands to make sure a field had bones every 5 feet so she could fight her girlfriend - I mean, greatest enemy. Spoiler territory: She's been puppeting her parents corpses since she was 8 years old. Instead of grieving her dead girlfriend, she gives herself a lobotomy. She makes soup with bone in it so she can use the bone IN THEIR STOMACH to try and kill them.

The author is/was Catholic and the entire series had heavy Catholic overtones. https://www.tor.com/2020/08/19/gideon-the-ninth-young-pope-and-the-new-pope-are-building-a-queer-catholic-speculative-fiction-canon/ A good breakdown of how it's Catholic

[malloryrowinski]

You're a transphobe!!! You should be embarrassed

Okay this is getting old now. I know you probably won’t read this reply as you’re clearly refusing to educate yourself on what I stand for, but I wanna have this on my blog regardless so here we go.

I’m a radical feminist, and I’m gender critical. Being gender critical means recognizing that gender is a social construct made to keep women, as a class, oppressed on the basis of their sex, and uphold the patriarchy. The sex you’re born with is a fixed set of characteristics and is immutable (this is a fact. Sex is binary, not fluid. before you try to pull the intersex card, @/not-your-intersex-pawn here on Tumblr has posts that will explain this to you in much greater detail than I can, like their response here).

Now, your sex doesn’t say anything about you! It doesn’t mean a single thing, it just recognizes which set of biological characteristics you were born with. It doesn’t indicate your personality, hobbies, likes and dislikes, whatever. You are a whole person and your sex is just your sex. Women are and have been historically oppressed on the basis of their sex. Not because they identified as anything connected to the female sphere, they were forced into this sphere of subordination and yada yada (gender roles!) on the basis of them being born female. 

Gender, on the other hand, is an identity. Even the gendies themselves have lost the plot a little in my opinion as everything regarding gender now is just so… vague? But basically gender is an identity. Some say it’s innate, some say it isn’t. Most agree that you can change your gender, or at least “reclaim” it, if you believe it’s innate and that you were "born in the wrong body". You can claim any gender, actually, and define it however you please. 

Calling me “cis” would be incorrect not because I’m not a woman, but because I’m not part of the gender craze, meaning that’s an ideology I don’t subscribe to altogether. I don’t believe in it. There’s no such thing as gender. I’m just a woman, neither cis nor trans. 

There’s also an additional note that I would like to make here: as long as we as a society recognize gender, we’re gonna have people either conforming to it or resisting it, or claiming a different gender identity. This is basically the same as “as long as catholicism exists, we’re gonna have catholics, atheists, and people either converting to catholicism or abandoning it”. This does not refer to the group of people who go through physical sex dysphoria. This group may choose to access what you would call “gender-affirming care”, which isn’t gender-affirming for them, because they do not have a problem with their gender to begin with, and most of the time don’t even recognize gender as important/real. Their voices have been unfortunately silenced by the “new wave” of TRAs over the past 5 to 10 or so years, and I do not wish to speak on their behalf, you can do your own research on this, or listen to amazing people such as @/buct-reidentified here on Tumblr. 

If you disagree with me and do believe that gender is an important part of oneself - I don’t have a problem with that! You’re entitled to your own opinions just like I am to my own. If you read all this and still think I’m transphobic, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do to help you. 

The reason I don’t include trans women in my feminism isn’t because I don’t respect their identity. But their identity is irrelevant when it comes to a movement focusing on the liberation from sex based oppression. What matters is their sex, whether you like it or not, because women are oppressed on the basis of their sex. You can identify as a trans woman but I genuinely hope that you’ll see how being a trans woman is different than being born with a female body. These two will face radically different experiences and challenges, each unique to that group. 

I do believe that trans people, of any kind, do need their own protections, safe spaces, etc. because they clearly are discriminated against and no one should be able to attack or discriminate against anyone because they don’t agree with their identity/the way they present themselves/whatever. 

I do support the preservation of same-sex spaces for women, but this isn’t rooted in fear of trans women but in protecting women from predatory men who exploit gender theory to gain access to these spaces and harm women. I’m sure we can both agree that these cases have happened and I’m not fear-mongering. This is not because all trans women are predators. This has happened and continues to happen because when you give predators and abusers a chance to be predatory and abusive with little to no repercussion by hiding behind an ideology like the gender one, they are typically eager to take it. Women have a right to their same-sex spaces because of the sex-based oppression they’ve faced throughout centuries. Taking these away or reforming places that are specifically sex-exclusive into inclusive ones is not fair to women and results in a zero-sum game. 

So basically, if you identify as a trans man and want me to accommodate you by using he/him pronouns, I have no problem with that. The same goes for they/them or she/her. I’m happy to respect and use your preferred pronouns because I respect you as a person. However, this doesn’t change my understanding of your biological sex. I simply recognize that you identify as trans, which is part of who you are, and I respect that. You believe in gender and I don’t, that’s okay. If you take it to the “I should be able to access sex-exclusive spaces because I identify as trans”, I would politely explain to you why I disagree with that and what options I believe we should make available instead. 

There a ton of points I haven't touched but that are related to this topic, but this is the basics.