#might have to do with the mein kampf name drop

[starfleet-lol]

now. do i like sylvia plath? no.

however comma, one of my favorite memories involves her. in high school i was on my school’s scholastic bowl team. (this is a sport composed of a ton of nerds sitting around with buzzers getting HEATED over trivia. i am EXCELLENT at it)

it was the final question of the round, it was my first season of in person play, the captain was my dear friend who happens to be the gayest man i’ve ever met.

the question quoted the poem daddy. something about mein kampf idk. he SLAMS his buzzer, and the match was won by a twink yelling daddy damn near at the top of his lungs.

good times

[ships-n-giggles]

Paperback Prophets: Platonic Aziraphale/Reader

Summary:  Aziraphale forms a symbiotic relationship with you. Platonic Aziraphale x Reader, friendship fic. Nerds bonding over books.

Author’s Note; Thanks so much to those who liked my previous work. I like these platonic stories since I think it’s underestimated how interesting and enigmatic these characters can be when you don’t have all the facts about them. In a lot of ways, Aziraphale and Crowley are like people you can’t exactly put your finger on, but know there’s something special about them. I know a lot of reader-fiction likes the drama of the big reveal, but I think the subtlety of secrets never revealed lends its own flavor to fiction.

Just a heads up, this Reader-insert is not defined as male or female in comparison to my previous work, which was more directed towards a female character. Some of the works described do not exist, but were rather made up by me based on historical events or people whom I think would lend to the eclectic tastes of Aziraphale.

Again, if I owned Good Omens, there would be real dinosaurs and I would live in a castle by the sea. Thou shalt not sue.

____

Your family based their business on the martyrdom of your great grandfather….a victim of the Nazi Party when he refused to surrender his bookshop in Krakow, Poland. He was no stranger to the fascist movement and threw out the first attempts by the police to seize his books. He chased them out with a club, and was joined by his neighbors, and stood his ground.

There was no rude interruption in broad daylight next time. The next time, they burned him, and his books, and the entire block for his defiance.

“He was burned for protecting the language of the Jews, of Poland. Of the world.” Your grandmother told you, sitting in her lap as a small child. You knew this story by heart, but your grandparents told it so well. “His books disavowed the reign of dictators and terrorists, and they could not stand for it.”

Defiance ran in the family. And for the next three generations your family rescued more books by taking up that noblest of crimes…the theft of books.

_______

Your grandfather had founded the idea, when the ashes of his father’s shop left only a ledger of the books that were destroyed, kept in the safe along with the family tree and a Star of David that had belonged to him. The books he had kept in his shop were very old, and came from all across Europe. Some of them were even brought over from imperial Russia, before the fall of the czar. Not many copies of them were left in the world.

But your grandfather knew where the copies were.

He fled to England with his wife and opened a restoration firm to spit in the face of the war. It was only partially a cover for his real business. He did have the knowledge to restore books back to their original state, with tricks passed down from generation to generation. But with each restoration, he also meticulously copied the contents of the book, using a special trick involving wax, glue and cheesecloth to make a print of the papers and their imagery onto a fresh book. Then he would return the original book unscathed back to the owner, none the wiser. Your grandfather’s real job had been in building up the secret archives of the British National Library and making copies of the great universities works. No book was too rare or obscure for him. Even the controversial Hammer of Witches was copied, though your grandfather noted that the pictures were better than the instructions.

Your grandfather also had a long memory. When he saw a bookseller that dared have Mein Kampf, he would have to be held back by friends to avoid from brutally beating the clerk and smashing the windows of the establishment. In time, he has a son and his temper cools. He tended to conveniently not notice your father’s mischief, such as when your father writes rude words on the glass window of an offending bookshop.

He’s almost too cheeky to be real, and often was chased by your grandfather for his jokes and pranks. But it only endears him to others, making it easy to divert shipments of banned books.

A Clockwork Orange turns your grandfather’s stomach, but your father takes a shipment meant to be burned, creates a nonsense excuse of recycling the materials for book repair, and the publisher believes him right away. When your father first reads a nicked copy of Ulysses, he is so enchanted he actually dupes a government official into paying for the family to dispose of an intercepted shipment of the book. Your parent’s basement, your uncle’s basement, and your older cousin’s basement is full of copies of material banned by the government. But under the family firm is the treasure trove. The books copied from some of the rarest material on earth. Some of their original material have been destroyed since then.

But you save sacred trips to the secret basement for when life hits you hardest. It’s important those copies survive in the world to come.

_____

You receive the call on a Monday morning. You can hardly believe who it is before passing the phone to your grandfather. He is less involved with the business, but he might have been tempted into throttling you if you hadn’t let him talk to Mr. Fell.

A.Z. Fell and Co. was notorious among the antiquarian community. Not only was his collection as eclectic as they come, but it was also a gold mine of rare books, out of print bibles and religious texts, and treasures of the literary world that likely had no equal. How he stayed in business was the subject of fervent gossip, as he kept odd hours and was very passive-aggressive…and successful….in discouraging would be buyers. Your father’s joke was that he might let you read a few books if you caught him at the right time. But even those rare moments were tinged with a lot of rules.

Your grandfather enjoys the conversation immensely, and when he hangs up he calls for a family meeting over dinner.

“He asked for you. By name!” Your grandfather is just as in shock as you are. Though it is clear that he reveres Mr. Fell with the same kind of respect one would give a saint, he can’t help but sound a little jealous. “He wants to discuss the restoration of his collection this week. As soon as possible.”

You meet on a rainy Wednesday, scampering in the side door per his instructions at teatime.

The smell is just like the private archive below the firm, though lightly tinged with the scent of hot cocoa. More than just books are on the shelves. Reprints of paintings and illustrations, framed tapestries and busts sitting on the tables, even a tarnished suit of armor with chainmail, dressing up a half sculpture of a Greek youth.

“Pleasure to meet you.”

Mr. Fell looks like many other retired antiquarians, except he didn’t have the same strain of arthritis or suffer from a draft in his bookshop. He was in fact, far more rosy, lively, and brighter than most other people, even in occupations that were arguably more pleasing or easy. His coat is perfectly straight and tidy, though the velvet buttonholes in his vest have since lost their color.

The two of you shake hands, and you accept a mug of cocoa seasoned with a dollop of vanilla paste. In time he pulls out a ledger twenty pages thick, with tidy handwriting scribbled on a hand drawn spreadsheet.

“Given the state they’ve been in, I think it’s time the books got a bit of a good pick-me-up.” He giggles as if he’s told a private joke, and continues. “Most of my collection is in tip top shape, but I’ve put the ones worse for wear on the list. What do you think?”

The list of books makes your jaw drop. He has a Nostradamus original…never been copied! And a rare copy of a controversial Gnostic bible, one on the golden list of books not yet copied by the family. These were books that had been floating unknown, with a cringing fear they were decaying in an attic or hoarded in a bookshop with someone unaware of their value.

However, Mr. Fell was only too aware of their value.

“My only request is that you do your work here.” It’s a condition that leaves you a little nervous. Does he know your family’s secret business? “Not to be the suspicious type, but I have had attempts on these books, in both the legal and the far less legal.” He huffs into his drink. “I can set up a cozy little corner for you and give you as much room as you need. Fair enough?”

“I think so.” You empty your cup. “I’d have to ask Grandfather first. Our preservation techniques are also something of a trade secret.”

There’s a bit of a silent visual exchange. If Mr. Fell’s eyes said “what do you think you’re doing”, yours are replying with a certain “I don’t know, what do you think you’re doing” right back. But he did not invite you in to get a prime list of his collection, drink cocoa, and discuss business just to end rudely. The two of you shake hands and promise to get in touch later, and you urge the cabbie that picks you up to drive you as fast as physically possible back home.

You hesitate to show your grandfather the list of books to repair. You’re certain he’ll have a heart attack. Instead he only faints into his fussing wife’s arms.

“An original print of Goethe’s work!” He gasps, the rest of you scrambling to pass him an inhaler as he takes a breath and regains his composure. “The things I would do just to look!”

“I’d have to work in his shop. That’s his condition.” You remind him. “It would be easy in our workshop but under his nose-”

Your grandfather isn’t a pushover however. He knows that with great gambles often come great rewards. If you throw the dice right. All of you exchange looks of unease when he asks your grandmother to set an extra seat for dinner and goes to make a phone call. You’re hanging in anticipation when he asks you very calmly to work on the normal restorations.

Mr. Fell arrives very eagerly for dinner, like a schoolboy just released for summer break.

He is almost unusually excited. He is very complimentary to your grandmother’s special lamb stew, exchanging culinary stories from a visit to Rome. He and your grandfather get along like a house on fire, swapping admiring rhetoric on the evolution of Romantic-period literature and emptying out a bottle of wine on their own. Your grandfather gets to the point over a dessert of strawberry mess.

“Mr. Fell, I am unashamed to say it.” He leans back in his chair, and makes a boastful confession that puts you in shock. “I am, very proudly I may say, a most excellent thief.”

Even Mr. Fell is unable to recover his expression. “I beg your pardon?”

“What pardon? I am not ashamed!” He untucks his napkin, wiping his mouth. “I am an extraordinary thief in the meaning that I steal for a generation that has not yet been born. And I steal a medium that never loses its value, no matter how long the years may toll.”

“I see.” Mr. Fell is unsure of whether to be impressed or concerned, and you wonder if your grandfather has lost his mind. There is an entire collection of rare works waiting to be copied and he seems to be throwing out all pretenses of pretending not to want to take it! “Is this in regards to the private collection you mentioned?”

“Yes. Moreover, I stole all of those books without ever taking the original copy.”

“…forgive me but I don’t understand.”

Your grandfather stands up and hobbles to the workshop in the back. Awkward looks are exchanged at the table and you try to busy your face with scooping some of the strawberry mash into your mouth when your grandfather comes out with a yellowed manuscript. “Here. See for yourself.”

Mr. Fell hesitates, his fingers doing an odd wiggle as if to insure they do not smudge the paper. But as soon as he glosses over the title on the cover it’s his turn to gape with his jaw ajar. “But this is the Constitution of Freemasons! Those were stolen by the Nazis years ago!”

“Who do you think stole this copy eh?” Your grandfather boasts. “I insured a friend of mine who owned a copy kept it hidden long enough for me to copy it. When it was stolen, I already had this! And that is only one of many.” He crosses his arms. “I am trusting you with this family secret because you appreciate the kind of effort put into preserving the history of literature.”

Mr. Fell takes a moment to whip out a pair of spectacles, looking over the contents very intently. He must be convinced it is a real copy, because a few pages it he closes the manuscript, whipping his glasses back off and letting out a ‘whoosh’ of air through his teeth.

“I think I’m in the mood to negotiate.”

______

The Setup is arranged.

The number of books that needed repair were quite extensive. It would doubtless be a three year work involving many, many hours a day of repair. However you are only too happy to report to A.Z. Fell and Co from eight to three, everyday. Your workstation is a restored folding desk of fine cherry wood, with an engraving from the carpenter dating back to the 1700s. You have your case of tools, which you decide to leave there each day. No point in covering up anything to Mr. Fell anymore, now that your grandfather has whipped the curtain open on your family secret.

“Aziraphale please.” He insists. “Mr. Fell is so terribly formal.”

Your family’s fee for repairing the books is remarkably cheap, a cover of course to lure in potential owners of rare books not yet copied. But the real payment comes with the copies you make while you mend. Books to be saved for the future.

Aziraphale gets free access to your family’s private library and once he’s permitted a list of what’s actually in the vault, you have several copies brought for his enjoyment and to join the collection as manuscripts. You know it’s not the full list, according to your knowledge of the library, but Aziraphale is hiding a few of his own rarities, you’re sure.

You find that mending old books is a bit like surgery. You have to wear latex gloves (no powder), and pick away rotting fibers with a set of tweezers, painstakingly removing the dry rot and mending it with new thread and leather. The pages that are withering are given a careful coating of your family’s recipe for “magic paper maiche”, which is more of a joke than an accurate description of the goopy liquid. Patience is the key, and when some pages dry, you work on the bindings, resewing and completing the methodical process of putting books that are falling apart back together. Luckily these books were well loved and kept away from arid attics and damp cellars. Aziraphale locks them in their cabinets with care in-between visits, and though you do not see an alphabetical order that makes sense, you’re keenly aware he could pick the right book off the shelf with his eyes closed.

You’re not used to people hanging over your shoulder while you work. In fact your grandfather was tested severely when you crouched over him to learn how to do it, and his fitful temper sometimes made him very annoyed when you didn’t get it quite right. However Aziraphale has a way of making his presence very welcome. You attribute it to his boyishly eager expression, fascinated with the process. It’s quite flattering after all, to hold an audience so interested in the nitty, gritty details of book mending.

“This isn’t so bad.” You tell him over lunch. Your grandmother packed you both sandwiches, perhaps to continue earning Aziraphale’s good graces, and the cold cuts are served with chilled gazpacho while your host makes tea. “Father had a very graphic encounter with an unusual medium when he found out a book had been bound with human skin.”

Aziraphale is short of spitting into his cup at that, and you can’t help but admire his restraint. “Animals. Human skin? What on earth kind of book was that?” He is aghast, but clearly intrigued.

“A historic account describing the execution of the Yorkshire Witch, Mary Bateman. It had details of her life, trial, and the subsequent catastrophes that were left in the wake of her execution. It’s her own skin they bound the book in.” You shiver. “Father was glad to return it after copying it, but when he spritzed the leather and saw what it was made of, he jumped out of his seat and near gave up.” The book hadn’t sold at all, but had been more or less a memento from the court official who had recorded the trial.

Macabre stories aside, the bookshop was a temple to the things that mattered to you.

-----

“Your grandfather is quite the hot-blooded trickster isn’t he?” Aziraphale noted with a strange fondness. He had been invited for dinner on multiple occasions to talk the better half of the night about books, history, and debating the quality of culinary publishers based on their country. You knew exactly what he meant by having attended last night’s dinner. Your grandfather was so old, but he still went to work, banging his fist on the table when he laughed, and arguing his point to the bitter end. Only your grandmother could soothe his hot temper with a bit of dessert or by humbling him with a pinch to the ear and a playful reprimand. “He would have been an absolute hoodlum if not for books.”

“No, I think he’s a hoodlum even with the influence of books.” You joke. “He and his friends used to hold bridge parties until the chief organizer died, and those were some wild parties. Nowadays they like to visit for a drink at a bar and talk about their hobbies, but I think grandmother might have been a little more than relieved to know they got canceled.”

“Oh how bad could bridge be?”

He himself has never played it, so propping up the extra cards against a pair of busts, you teach him the ropes. You sometimes play with your family at big events, holidays, and birthdays, and with your grandfather as your teacher, you also are a rapacious cheat. You teach it fairly the first time, both you and Aziraphale sharing a pair of cards for the others, but the second time you destroy him completely.

He has a good sense of humor about it and concedes defeat, promising to get more friends over and try again.

The first book that is finished is Aziraphale’s first edition copy of a biography dictating the life of Oscar Wilde…written by a friend of the famous poet. You think you see Aziraphale’s name scribbled in the cover, but the name is faded out and could very easily spell Azekiel if you squint. The cover had been rotting (from what he claims was a freak incident with a cold cup of tea) and the pages were badly stained and threatening to crumble. It did look as though it were brought back to life by a miracle, and Aziraphale tells you so.

“Oh it’s just like when I got it!” He says with glee. Though it’s strange how he feels the need to cover for himself. “Not from the author of course! No, no, that’d be silly! From a friend. Bought it from a friend.”

It strikes you as bad manners to pry, so you don’t. Fortunately, you are the restorer in this case and follow certain etiquette. Your grandfather would have wheedled him for hours to get the full story.

___

You only miss one day of work when a family emergency happens. Something you and your family have been dreading.

It’s been over a year. Aziraphale’s books were resurrected from the brink of decay, you enjoyed the lunches and the visits for dinner, and the conversation. He had even let you (to the shock of all family) borrow his copy of Book Trails: Through the Wildwood. It is not a particularly well known or rare find, and he confesses with eagerness how it was a personal favorite found completely by accident. But you do not take advantage of his generosity. You read it in one night, and return the next day with a tin of cookies as a thank you. The saffron and orange shortbreads go over extremely well at tea time, and you promise to bring a favorite book of yours to read. In due time, you have loaned him all of your Walter Moers books to read, and he sometimes giggles in his chair at the antics of Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear. He probably can view himself as the intrepid hero in that case, who had an equal fondness for food.

It should not have come as a surprise. But you were hoping maybe your grandfather was too tough to actually fall sick.

He had been complaining of a wheezy cough after opening up a chest of books he’d procured from a friend, though he complained more of their condition…with pages that had to be replaced outright. He had labored hard with your father over the books, squawking about how normal people need to be educated in the care of antique belongings.

When you come home from the bookshop, he has already gone to the hospital.

You hurry over to take your grandmother with you, who has been whimpering softly into her hanky ever since your father caught him in midfall, choking on a breath. He didn’t wait for an ambulance, but bodily carried him to the car and likely broke half a dozen traffic violations hurrying him to the hospital. Soon the whole family is informed, and crowds into the hospital waiting room. Taking turns.

You miss your turn when visiting hours are over and are so tired that you send your father and grandmother home to take care of things while you made phone calls to his friends. Before you can finish however, you fall asleep in the drivers seat of your grandfather’s car, and remain there until late in the afternoon the next day. You’re awoken by a phone call from your father, but decide to wait to return later. A quick wash in the bathroom and satisfying your hunger from the vending machine, you take your turn at last.

“I shouldn’t be here.” Your grandfather grumbles. But he is not speaking in his big voice, energetic and impassioned. He sounds too soft, like a kitten and can’t even sit up straight. “Neither of us should. We should be working.”

“You worked for sixty years. More than that.” You remind him. “Life has a way of hitting the brakes on you.”

“Bah. You know what I mean. Our kind were meant to work.” He runs a hand over his face, though it is made awkward as he avoids the clip in his nose keeping him breathing. “How many hundreds of thousands of millions of books are there in the world? How many have been written and swallowed up by time?” It’s clear the hospital is getting to him very deeply. You don’t think he would be happy to die in this place, all clean, white, and too new. He wants to be with his wife, sleeping in his big old bed with the antiques on the wall, the cheap carpet he got on a bargain when he was still young, and his books. He wants to peer up from his desk at the family photos and eat what your grandmother cooks.

“You’ve got to take me home. A couple extra months in this place is no way to live.”

You’re planning his escape when Aziraphale calls, sounding worried. “You didn’t come in so I thought I’d check. Is everything alright?”

It isn’t. And you say it as it is.

Aziraphale arrives in a cab soon after, squeaking in a short visit with your grandfather alone. There is some form of healing presence you must miss, because when you dip back in, your grandfather is asleep and looking much more healthy and at ease. “You said you were planning a hospital escape?”

____

One of the rumors in the literary circle of friends your family keeps is that Aziraphale’s father was a British secret agent stealing books from the Nazis. You think this is more or less an endearment to your grandfather, but there were additional claims that he had gold hidden under his shop from recovering treasures and reclaiming wealth from the Germany treasure vaults.

You think it’s a little more than true when, miracle of miracles, the three of you are all in the car, driving home.

Aziraphale asks very little of you. Put this on, and don’t look suspicious. Please take the patient from his room to the examination area. Whoops. There’s been a mixup, he’s transferring to another hospital. Thank you, we’ll take him there right away! He shucks off a doctor’s coat and giddily climbs into the passenger seat as you all take off, your grandfather snoring in the backseat.

“Well that was very exciting. Hope you all don’t get into too much trouble.” He seems to be bouncing in his seat at the “heist” of sorts.

“Grandfather would likely curse me on his deathbed if I kept him in there.” You remark, pulling into the driveway. “Besides, the doctor can come see us, and he wants to be with his family.” There’s a lump in your throat, and you know where it’s coming from. “When…when his time comes.”

The silence that hangs is very sad, and you’re not sorry to get your grandfather into his wheelchair and take him in. Your father is a little more than shocked that you achieved, or would even do, all of this, but laughs anyway and puts his father to bed.

You drive Aziraphale home and thank him for his efforts.

“Anything for a friend.” He smiles brightly, but there’s a cloud over his face.

It is not easy waiting for a friend to die.

____

It’s clear that the clock is ticking for your grandfather. Aziraphale makes the most of his time and hosts a bridge game.

Your father passes it up to take up the bulk of restoration, catching up where the old man left off. But your grandmother does not fuss at the idea of her husband playing, with so little time left for him, and sends you with a wheelchair and a stockpot of soup, fresh bread, meringues and a couple bottles of wine.

The fourth player is a friend of Aziraphale, who looks as different from the portly, chipper bookkeeper as a house wren does from a vulture. “S’ alright. I know how to play.” Mr. Crowley promises, grinning as he opens the first bottle of wine while the table is set up. In spite of promises to your grandmother not to gamble, you don’t think the game is quite the same betting over cookies or candy like you do for family events and you bring a few wads of cash from the bank.

You knew your grandfather would cheat, but Aziraphale and Crowley are so rampant in their sleight of hand, round after round, that you’re certain all four of you have your own games you are playing. The rules of bridge aren’t just flouted, they are flipped upside down as each of you take turns calling the others out, sometimes failing. Crowley groans aloud when Aziraphale “magically” reveals a card hidden under your collar, and you snort with laughter when your grandfather states you all had seen it peeking from the cuff of his jacket for the past five minutes. The money switches hands so frequently that there is no clear winner by the time the food is eaten and the wine is drunk. Your grandfather had far more glasses than he needs, but he has regained his fire for the night and Aziraphale plays his collection of records in the background.

The Glenn Miller Orchestra is still playing in the background as everyone’s energy slows. Dirty dishes are stacked next to a set of books, and you absently hope they don’t join the list of books to restore when Aziraphale holds up his glass, with barely any wine left, tipsy and flushed with enjoyment. “Well that was a wonderful fiasco. Absolutely tickety-boo.”

“Tickety-boo?” You and your grandfather say at once. It is just so inherently British that it doesn’t occur to you that it might be a real word. Crowley rolls his eyes and finishes off the wine straight from the bottle, stumbling to stand up. “Right, that’s the end of the night for me. ‘M off.”

There is clear endearment as Aziraphale walks him to the door, and you see the drowsiness in your grandfather’s eyes as you help clean up and wheel his chair to the car. “This really was fun. Grandmother would be livid at all the cheating.” You remark, rubbing your eyes. It isn’t a long drive home, and your bed beckons. “But it isn’t really bridge without cheating.”

“No, I suppose not.” Aziraphale chuckles. “Do you…need some time off?”

You’re confused. But it’s clarified that he wants you to spend some time with the old man dozing off in the backseat.

“No.” You turn down the offer. “He’ll let me know when he needs me. But right now he needs these books to be alright.” You climb into the drivers seat, and wave goodbye as you pull from the curb.

_____

It’s all very normal until one afternoon when you get the call from home. To your surprise, he asks you to bring Aziraphale along.

“This house used to be a cooper workshop. For casks and things like that. They rented out the space to wineries to store their vintages.” Your grandfather explains as you push him along a familiar route away from the workshop to a back room saved for storage. “The levels go very deep, and on paper it’s supposed to be full of ducts for heating and conditioning and all that. Me and my friends worked years to get it sealed up and safe. Before we all had to collectively hide our books under our beds or in fake book covers.”

He fishes out a key hidden under his bed-shirt and unlocks a hidden door behind an old, old bookshelf.

The elevator is noisy, but it’s brief. When Aziraphale catches sight of the dark room, you can see him taking in what is decades of work. Everything organized and sorted, and packed in rows of shelves listed by author, print date, and title. “There must be at least half a million books in here at least. I could do that much.” Your grandfather muses. “I keep the ledgers secret to know for sure, but I’ve spent more money on this room than I have on my own wellbeing.”

There is a safe in the back he shows to Aziraphale. No one outside of the family has ever seen its contents before…not even his closest friends. It is the same one rescued from the smoldering wreckage of his father’s bookshop, still somewhat melted on one side. But the lock still works and your grandfather turns the well memorized combination and the safe clicks open.

Inside there is no rare book. Instead, it is the family tree, hand written with photographs leading up to the present. Marking the page with your birthday is the Star of David, still on its gold chain and kept safe all these years.

“No one else can have this.” Your grandfather states. “This is something that cannot be bought or sold. Our memories.” He lets out a shuddering breath. “Our legacy. Criminal as it may be, I’m not ashamed of how I lived my life.” Inside there is a picture of your great-grandfather before he died, in front of that little corner shop in Poland. A boy is sitting on the stoop by him, with a glimmer in his eye. Neither of them know their fate, and are frozen in a past vision of joy.

“There is nothing to be ashamed of.” Aziraphale says, very softly. It’s strange. He seems to recognize the figures in the photo. “Life is meant to be enjoyed.”

That is the last time your grandfather ever sets foot in the secret library. You all share books, stories, memories, times when life and limb were at risk, and books that changed you. Two nights later, your grandfather falls asleep in his chair after lunch and does not wake up.

____

The funeral is crowded. Even though most of the attendees are very old, your grandfather’s death draws a mass of friends, colleagues, and all of the family. Former officers of the British Secret Service, librarians and antiquarians, the entire staff from the Oxford Literary Club. You haven’t really started crying yet, though it seems your grandmother and father can’t stop.

Aziraphale shows up, with flowers, and catches you after the service is done, rubbing at your eyes and trying to regain your composure. As soon as he rubs your back and gives you comfort, there is an ethereal presence you can’t quite name that dries your eyes and lifts your spirits.

“I imagine my great-grandfather will have a laugh when he sees him.” You still have red-rimmed eyes and a runny nose, but your heart is on the mend. “His naughty son, stealing books for a living.”

Aziraphale is close by when the procession goes to a cemetery outside of London, and your grandfather is buried on the coast that he first stepped foot on when he escaped to England. Your grandmother may never fully mend from this, the love of her life, but you know she will remember him well.

When the rest of the guests depart with their condolences, Aziraphale waits longer until your father gives him leave to go, and even then he watches in worry on the sidewalk while waiting for his cab.

____

Life is quieter. But little changes, except now the key to the family secret hangs on your neck.

Aziraphale surprises you with another treasure, first edition of Treasure Island with fantastic illustrations. When you try to return it after reading, he shakes his head and pushes it back. It was a gift to keep. Not for the vault below the firm, but something that is well looked after on your shelf, with a scribbled note from Aziraphale inside the cover. It’s the kind of compliment that would make your grandfather blush with pride.

A story for the rebels and thieves. A.Z. Fell

In two more years the work is done. You have more copies in the vault than you started out with, and Aziraphale has more manuscripts for works he had not had before. Sometimes you break up work to play cards, with the enigmatic Crowley passing through just when Aziraphale mentions the idea of playing, and sometimes you both just sit in silence to read your new copies or something else on the shelf. You’ve tried to extend the lease of work to do, offering to put new covers on the manuscripts for Aziraphale to enjoy and to keep them alive for longer, and the two of you deeply enjoy the fine art of tartan printed covers. There are so many conversations. So many books.

But you cross the last book off your list and pack the dusty suitcase with your tools. There’s a fine ring of dust from where they have been removed, and you wait even longer to dust it off and give it a good polish.

“You don’t need an excuse to visit, I promise.” Aziraphale states. “And I expect you around for tea, as often as you can.”

“Same.” You smile brightly. You’re a little rosier now too after all. Who wouldn’t be with a place like this? “Grandmother wants you around for dinner more often. Don’t worry about calling ahead, she always makes enough.” You two are still shaking hands goodbye and do so until finally you know to break it off. He follows you outside to the side of the car before you finally ask.

“When we broke Grandfather out of the hospital-“ You finally express your curiosity. “-how did you get them to do it?”

Aziraphale wiggles his finger. “Just a miracle or two.”

You can’t help but roll your eyes.

You suppose he will always be something of a mystery.

The car starts up and you wave out the window as you drive away from Soho. Back home, where you have your family and your bed with all your books. Home where you keep your secrets close and remember them well.

And in his shop, an angel opens a chapter on a new book and begins to read.

[lady-divine-writes]

ACITW AU one-shot “Hidden Talents” (Rated PG13)

Summary: After the stress and pressure of wedding planning drives them out of the city, Kurt and Sebastian hide out in Sebastian's old room. Kurt starts cleaning Sebastian's closet while Sebastian flips through old yearbooks, being of no help whatsoever. While weeding through Sebastian's collection of clothes and shoes, Kurt stumbles upon something he'd never thought he'd find in a million years - Sebastian's long lost violin. (4613 words)

Notes: So, we all remember that in ACITW Sebastian plays the violin, that Julian claimed he was really good at it, and could have probably done something with it? Then it just never gets mentioned, not even once by Sebastian's parents, which leads me to believe there's a reason. This one-shot explores that reason, and whether or not Sebastian is really as proficient as his brother claims.

Part of ACITW AU

Read on AO3

“Donate or keep?” Kurt asks, holding up a fitted Marc Jacobs polo, fashionable despite its age. Then again, polo shirts are the standard, and designer never goes out of style. Like a fine wine, it matures, even if the shirt’s owner - sitting cross-legged on his bed, chuckling over photos in an old yearbook - has managed to remain perpetually sixteen.

His sense of humor pinging at a solid age twelve.

“Jeff, you bastard!” Sebastian snorts, flipping off a photo that Kurt can’t see from where he’s standing. Sebastian finds a block of sloppy text at the bottom right corner and runs a fingertip over it. He reads the slanted script, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth, gatekeeper of another undignified snort. “Fuck, I miss you, man! See you at the wedding.”

Kurt clears his throat, aggravated by the amount he keeps losing Sebastian’s attention, but he can’t help smiling either. They don’t reminisce about high school often - too many mines left undetonated in those fields. But it’s nice to see Sebastian like this, especially considering the current stress they’re both under - a stress that’s driven them from their penthouse in the city back home to Westerville for the next few weeks.

Unfortunately, retreating to this sanctuary of family and nostalgia has caused that stress to amplify tenfold.

“Sebastian,” Kurt sings when even his most dramatic throat clearing doesn’t do the trick. “Oh, Sebastian. Eyes up here, please.”

Sebastian’s head snaps Kurt’s way, his brow pinched as if he only now remembered that Kurt is in the room with him, and that they have a job to do. “What?”

“Donate,” Kurt repeats in a syrupy tone (more like pine tar as opposed to maple - thicker, darker, more bitter), shaking the navy blue shirt on its hanger for emphasis, “or keep?”

“Keep,” Sebastian decides in an instant, then returns to his yearbook, snickering at another picture on the same page.

“Good,” Kurt murmurs, setting the polo aside. I intend on borrowing that one, he thinks, finding the silver lining since he’s the only one of the two of them taking this task seriously. He rifles through the closet and pulls out another shirt, one less style-savvy than the polo. That’s okay. At this point, it can be deemed retro. Regardless, Kurt has no intention of borrowing it. “How about this one? Donate or keep?”

Sebastian’s eyes flutter up from the page, barely focusing on the shirt before returning to the book in his lap. “Keep.”

Kurt rolls his eyes as he lays this shirt over the polo. He’d really hoped this one would end up in the donate box. If they hold on to it, there’s a chance Sebastian might actually decide to wear it, which puts the burden on Kurt to come up with something for himself that matches (provided they don’t want to run the risk of blinding anyone).

Kurt didn’t fall in love with Sebastian for his taste in clothes, which, to be fair, is decent - long lines; primary colors; simple, clean-cut elegance that pairs well with Kurt’s bolder, more adventurous choices. Sebastian can be quite the fashion plate himself when he has a mind to, one rogue t-shirt notwithstanding.

He lets Kurt style him more times than not so Kurt can’t complain.

Kurt goes back to the closet and selects a pair of shorts he knows don’t fit Sebastian anymore. They’re from Sebastian’s lacrosse days, when his thighs were bulkier, his glutes rounder. Not that Sebastian doesn’t have a gorgeous body now. His fitness regimen is impressive, even by Kurt’s standards. But spending hours on end running up and down a grass field does wonders for the buns and thighs.  

Kurt doesn’t want to banish everything from Sebastian’s Dalton days. Sebastian’s lacrosse uniforms were the first things Kurt slipped into the keep box without asking his say so. But these tan shorts are atrocious! He’s glad that after an hour of this, they’ll finally have a submission to the donate box, which has collected only dust so far along with one lonely copy of Mein Kampf - a relic from senior year AP European History.

“Donate or keep?” Kurt asks, dangling the garment presumptively over the donation box.

Sebastian glances at it, tilting his head and giving the matter a soupcon of thought. “Donate.”

Kurt removes the shorts from their clips with a sigh of relief. Finally! he thinks. Now we’re getting somewhere! But before he has the chance to drop them in, Sebastian recants (without looking up). “No, keep. Keep.”

“What!” Kurt stares at Sebastian, mouth agape. “Why? These don’t even fit you!”

“Are they too big or too small?”

“Too big! Plus, they’re cargo shorts, Sebastian! Cargo shorts!”

“They’ll be good for layering.”

Kurt’s eyes go buggy and wide. Sebastian hasn’t peeked, but he grins knowing what Kurt must look like right now, that vein in his head that throbs when he gets upset ready to burst. “When in the world would you need to layer shorts!?”

“I dunno,” Sebastian mumbles, eyes glued to a new page.  

Kurt growls, slamming the offensive item into the overflowing keep box, which might as well be labeled the Why are we wasting our time here? box. “Are you planning on getting rid of anything?”

“Uh …” Sebastian looks up and around. “Yes. That burrito wrapper over there.” He points to the corner of his desk where the trash from their lunch had been unceremoniously abandoned in favor of this. “That definitely needs to go.”

“Ha ha,” Kurt says, reluctantly cleaning up the mess. He objects to playing maid in his fiance’s old bedroom, but since he’s not currently doing anything of value, he grabs the stiff paper wrapper and crumples it in his hands - no, strangles it, using it as a stand-in for Sebastian’s neck. Sebastian turns to the next page, but looks up when he hears the wrapper succumb to Kurt’s crushing fingers.

“Oh, wait! I don’t think I finished …” Sebastian gestures repeatedly at the wadded wrapper, unable to think of a suitable end to his sentence, his brain sandwiched between curbing Kurt’s annoyance and processing the sentiments on the page without them bringing a tear to his eye. People say that if high school was one of the best times in your life, you were probably a privileged asshole. Well, he was. And it was … mostly. “I may want to hold on to that a little while longer.”

“Why!?”

“Dunno.”

“What the---!?” Kurt slams the balled up wrapper down with an irritated yawp. “Cleaning out your closet was your idea you know!”

“Oh contraire,” Sebastian retorts with maddening superiority. “All I said was that I may want to siphon out a few things while I’m here. You’re the one who came up with the brilliant idea of paring down my things and donating them to charity.”

“And why not? What good does any of this stuff do just sitting here in this closet? It’s not like you’re planning on moving any of it to our place and wearing it!”

“True, but if I get rid of it, what would my mother have in her later years to rummage through sentimentally, hold to her cheek and sigh when she misses me?”

Kurt shakes his head slowly, unamused on Charlotte’s behalf. “That’s just … horrible. Like the plot of a bad Hallmark Christmas movie.”

“There are good Hallmark Christmas movies? I sure as hell never seen one.”

“Hmph. And you say I watch too many cheesy chick flicks.”

“You do, but that’s entirely beside the point.”

“You’ve got tons of clothes here you don’t use,” Kurt presses with renewed vigor. “It wouldn’t hurt to get rid of some of it, make someone else’s day brighter by giving them the opportunity to purchase name brands for a bargain. I know that always cheers me up.”

“Weren’t you the one telling me that as much as you love Marie Kondo, closet purging is overwhelming the charity industry, and that most of the stuff we donate ends up on barges traveling the world, bouncing from port to port until they inevitably sink into the sea and devastate the aquatic ecosystem?”

“Yes, but at the time you were trying to get me to trim down my Jimmy Choo collection.”

“Because no one in their right mind needs eighty-six pairs of the same patent leather loafer, Kurt!”

Kurt tuts sharply. “It’s like you don’t even know me.”

“I do know you! That’s how I knew that if I came out against your plan, you’d get loud and yell-y! That’s what I was trying to avoid! I only went along with it because …“ Sebastian’s sentence cuts off when he clamps his jaw shut with a clack that shoots straight up Kurt’s spine. If Sebastian’s tongue had been anywhere near his teeth, part of it would have been chomped clean off.

“Because what?” Kurt asks, sore at being accused of acting ‘yell-y’ - a stone’s throw too close to ‘groomzilla’, which they’ve both accused one another of too many times in the last three months to count.

Sebastian sighs, rearranges his legs on the bed so that they’re spread and not twisted like a pretzel. “Asking you up here was an excuse to get you alone for five frickin’ minutes. We’ve been swamped since the second we got here! We left the city to escape your friends and my friends and the wedding planner’s incessant phone calls. But my mom and Olivia took over where everyone else left off.”

“They’re just excited for us,” Kurt says soothingly, not admitting yet that he knows exactly how Sebastian feels.

“I realize that. And I’m glad they’re excited but …” Sebastian thumbs the edges of the pages he has yet to read, watches them fall beneath his hand one by one “… who knew that deciding to get married would mean never getting a moment’s peace?”

“I guess they figure we’ll get enough of that after we’re married.”

“Then they don’t know us very well, do they?” Sebastian scoffs, venom lacing his words, so palpable it gives Kurt a rash.

Ever since Kurt moved up the ranks from Flying Monkey in the cast of Wicked to the more coveted role of Fiyero, he’s been in higher demand, and thus, less available. Even to Sebastian.

Kurt has dreamed of planning his own wedding for years. He’d started an idea book along the way, cutting out photographs from bridal magazines and gluing them into the pages, creating palettes and themes depending on current trends, potential venues, and time of year. But with both Kurt’s and Sebastian’s schedules so hectic, they had to weigh the importance of Kurt planning their wedding against the probability of them marrying before the turn of the century.

Getting married won, but only by a slim margin.

They hired the best wedding planner in the city, recommended by everyone in their tax bracket, whose artistic vision matched Kurt’s nearly beat by beat (according to the pictures on her website of ceremonies she’d helped bring to fruition). To Sebastian’s naive mind, that meant they would leave everything in her capable hands while they went on with their lives, drop in for the occasional consultation to check that the roses she chose suit Kurt’s vision or that the place settings have the right number of candles in them.

But Kurt literally hated everything their planner came up with.

So they’ve had to be present for every second of their wedding’s creation to ensure they’ll get the chance to celebrate the way they want.

They’re paying someone else thousands of dollars for Kurt to plan their wedding anyway.

The irony is staggering.

To that end, they’re having two weddings - one for their New York friends and associates, and a second intimate ceremony for their Ohio family.

Sebastian knew from go that Kurt’s pack of female friends from high school would descend upon them and monopolize Kurt’s time with the obligatory brunches and showers, which was understandable and therefore forgivable. What Sebastian didn’t factor in was the amount in which the theater company would use Kurt’s engagement as a PR instrument, slipping it into every interview, at every opportunity how one of their leading male cast members is months away from wedding his wealthy boyfriend, playing the whole thing up as some sort of fairy tale (with the term ��fairy’ vaguely but constantly applied).

Broadway’s full of gays, remember! And this one’s gettin’ hitched!

Sebastian thought the whole thing vulgar but he didn’t sweat it … not until the side-effects of that exploitation began to bleed in to their every day lives.

Namely the celebrity.

Sebastian is accustomed to having eyes on him. He’s a handsome man and he knows it. He’s used his charm and his checkbook to open doors that weren’t already propped for his arrival his entire life. What he wasn’t used to was the sheer amount of eyes that would follow him everywhere. Letters addressed to Kurt showed up at his office. Paparazzi camped out on their doorstep. Admirers stopped him on the street to ask him every manner of question.

And Kurt’s fans knew no shame.

An unsolicited tide of attention chased them back home, along with an utter lack of privacy because everybody knows.

Everybody.

Even out here in backwater Ohio.

Checkers at the supermarket, cashiers at Target, the guy filling up the tanks at the gas station down the block, pretty much every single person they’ve come in contact with has congratulated them on their wedding.

How people found out Kurt and Sebastian had gone to Ohio, Sebastian has no idea. They left in the middle of the night and drove so they wouldn’t have to fuss with tickets. No one needed to be informed because time off for both of them had been arranged ahead of time. But someone found out they’d left early, and that person told because they’ve received everything from gift baskets to magnums of champagne at both the Smythe estate and Kurt’s father’s home.

The (now mildly - because that’s considered progress) homophobic country club that refused to let Kurt and Sebastian take dance lessons as a couple had the nerve to call and congratulate Greg and Charlotte on their son’s upcoming nuptials, offering them use of their main ballroom for the wedding, the reception, any accompanying shindigs they had planned - the same ballroom that hosted both Presidents Reagan and Carter during their administrations (they mentioned more than twice).

Olivia happened to be at the house the day they called, so Charlotte gave her the honor of the telling them where they could shove their offer.

It made Olivia’s day.

“If you’d told me from the beginning that you wanted to get me alone,” Kurt says, arching a suggestive eyebrow, “we’d be on your bed making out instead of doing mindless busywork on opposite ends of the room.”

“Ooo. Sounds like a plan,” Sebastian says, throwing Kurt a wink … then goes back to his yearbook, finger raised in a pause gesture. “Just … give me … one second.”

Kurt crosses his arms over his chest and huffs. “Wow. That’s just … that’s just … wow. Thanks a lump.” Ego bruised, he turns back to the closet. He pushes the clothes aside, giving up on that front for a while, and tackles the floor. He smirks when he sees Sebastian’s shoes, stored in their boxes, lined up in rows and stacked three deep. If he knows his fiance, the majority of them are boat shoes, each in the exact same style but different colors.

Make fun of me for my eighty-six pairs of loafers, will you?

He reaches for the topmost box but gets distracted when his hand brushes something hard and canvas leaning against the wall. Kurt steps aside to let more light in since the object blends in with the shadows. Kurt gets a good look at it, realizes what it is, and his heart stutters in his chest.

“Oh my …” He grabs hold of the handle and tugs it out gently. “So here it is. The fabled violin.”

That succeeds in getting Sebastian’s attention. His eyes light up when he sees Kurt approach carrying the case in his arms. Kurt hands the violin case over and Sebastian takes it, bringing it to him like a sacred artifact from his own past - one he thought he’d never lay eyes on again.

“It’s been forever,” Sebastian gasps. “I forgot I put it in this closet. I thought my mother had it.”

“Why did you give it up?” Kurt asks, watching Sebastian open the case to reveal the sublime instrument, wood polished and gleaming, appearing deceptively brand new with the exception of a few tells that speak to how much Sebastian played it - light-colored wear on the fretboard, a cloudiness to the finish on the chin rest, scratches here and there on the veneer.

“It’s just one of those things that faded from my life, stopped bringing me joy … about the same time everything else did.”

“Do you think you’d ever play it again?”

“Possibly.” Sebastian removes the violin from its case and holds it lengthwise in front of his eyes, examining it from end to end. “I mean, it’s been a dog’s age. I’m not sure I’d be any good at it.”

“Any chance it’s like riding a bike and you never forget?”

“Only one way to find out.” Sebastian plucks the strings in succession and smiles. It doesn’t sound too far off pitch to Kurt. Sebastian adjusts the strings, checking them against one another to make sure they’re in tune. Then he removes the bow from its resting place and tightens it. “Don’t rag on me too hard if I completely suck at this.”

“I won’t,” Kurt says. “I promise. I’ll just, you know, bring it up subtly at special occasions and bank holidays, maybe find a way to fit it into my toast at the wedding.”

“I’m holding you to that.” Sebastian rosins up his bow. He fits the violin underneath his chin. From the second it touches his skin, his attitude changes. He simultaneously tenses and relaxes, reminiscent of the way he behaved during their first sushi date, when he dropped eel and flecked soy sauce all over Kurt’s clothes. Kurt refrains from laughing at the memory. He doesn’t want Sebastian to think he’s laughing at him. But he can’t help smiling. Yes, their past is riddled with landmines, but the memories hidden in the flat, stable ground between never cease to make him glad.

Glad that he and Sebastian got together in the end.

Sebastian runs the bow experimentally over the strings, the sound it produces warm and rich, like hot Godiva cocoa on a cold, rainy day. Sebastian leans into that tone as he runs through scales, drawing end notes out a full four beats before launching into the next set. The quickness in which he picks it up takes Kurt’s breath away.

If Kurt was thinking of making fun of Sebastian for anything, he surely isn’t now.

“Why don’t we start with a classic, hmm?” Sebastian suggests, cheeks starting to pink from the look of open and unabashed awe on Kurt’s face.

“Where do you want to start? Bach? Beethoven?”

“I think …” Sebastian sits up taller, corrects his posture “… Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

“Are you sure?” Kurt teases, but with less snark than usual. “I wouldn’t want you to set yourself up to fail or anything.”

“It’s good to go back to the basics. Limber up the old chops, so to speak.”

“Are they still chops if you’re talking about your fingers?”

“Don’t know,” Sebastian says with a shrug. “I didn’t invent it.”

Kurt settles in comfortably on the bed as he waits for Sebastian to pull something mid-range from his bag of tricks, like Minuet in G, a piece that millions of children have hammered out on innocent instruments since learning the recorder in middle school became mandatory. But true to his word, Sebastian starts with Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, picking the notes on the strings with his forefinger. But one verse in, he puts the bow to the strings, and starts a whole other story.

Kurt had expected Sebastian to be rusty, suffer a few false starts before he got into the swing of things. Scales are one thing. They follow a predictable pattern. It’s fairly simple to keep them smooth. But Sebastian sounds like he put his violin down for the last time yesterday. Kurt almost stops him to accuse him of having a secret violin hidden somewhere that he’s been practicing on this entire time, probably at his office where Kurt wouldn’t see. He considers pulling out his phone and texting Sebastian’s secretary, interrogating her to see if she’ll spill about any mid-afternoon practice sessions when the partners were out at lunch.

Though, in this particular instance, Kurt doesn’t know if Sebastian is more likely to hide his tremendous talent or rub it in his face.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star ends and Sebastian melds it into a classical melody, one Kurt can’t name off-hand though he knows he’s heard it before. It’s slow, romantic - the kind of piece a director would use to cap off the credits on a bittersweet rom-com, one where the tragic heroine, diagnosed with a withering variety of late-stage cancer, dies after the love of her life proposes.

It’s sad.

So incredibly sad.

That sadness lingers in the air after the notes dissolve, becomes stronger, more powerful with every sway of Sebastian’s body. He’d closed his eyelids when this piece started and he’s fallen into the sadness, let it envelope him.

It’s become a part of him. Maybe it’s always been a part of him and he’s just now letting it out for Kurt to see.

Or he never intended on Kurt seeing it, and this is simply an accident.

Whatever it is, Sebastian finally notices it because he switches, keeps the same key but changes the song, seamlessly transforming into something more contemporary, slightly more upbeat.

Kurt’s heart stops when he realizes the song Sebastian is playing is from Wicked. Not only that, it’s a song Kurt sings as Fiyero.

As Long as You’re Mine.

Sebastian has never, to Kurt’s knowledge, played that song on the violin or any instrument, has never sung that song himself, hasn’t seen the sheet music. He’s heard Kurt sing it over and over, practicing it in their bathroom until the tile could sing it back to him. But now he’s playing it on an instrument he hasn’t picked up in decades.

Kurt swallows hard, heart swollen with pride but his chest hollow with jealousy.

That’s talent. True talent.

Even Blaine might not be that talented.

Kurt would kill for that kind of talent.

Years they’ve been together, they’re about to get married, and Kurt thought he knew everything there is to know about this man. But Sebastian is still such an enigma. What is Kurt going to learn in another ten years? After twenty?

On the one hand, it’s daunting the way these secrets pop up out of nowhere.

But more than that, Kurt is excited to find out.

Sebastian plays through the first verse again when the song ends, a twinkle in his eyes trying to coax Kurt into singing it while he plays. Sebastian plays with such emotion that, even though Kurt would love to duet with him, he can’t bring himself to - too transfixed to make his mouth move, or even hum the tune. But he hears the words in his head, hears their meaning ring in his ears. He’s never paid too much attention to the words outside of what they mean in the musical. Now he’s hearing them, understanding them, for a different reason all together:

Kiss me too fiercely Hold me too tight I need help believing You're with me tonight My wildest dreamings Could not foresee Lying beside you With you wanting me

Sebastian ends not on a note of completion, but open-ended, with the promise of more.

Longing for more.

“Julian was right,” Kurt says, clearing his heart from his throat.

“He’ll be ecstatic to hear that,” Sebastian teases, casually shelving the emotions his violin brought to the surface.

“You do play beautifully. You should have gone to NYADA.”

“That’s … that’s very kind of you, babe,” Sebastian says, flashing a rare shy smile, knowing how great a compliment that is coming from Kurt, how much NYADA has meant to him. “But being good at the violin and being a musician are two completely different things. And I’m not a musician. Or a performer. Not like you. I enjoy it … I definitely enjoy that you enjoy it … but it’s not in my blood. I mean, obviously, seeing as I could put this violin down for so long and not even think about it, hmm?”

Kurt wonders about that after Sebastian says it. It’s easy to believe considering Kurt found out about Sebastian’s playing not from Sebastian but from Julian (the night he devised a plan to break the two of them out of dance lessons no less). Other than that, he can’t remember for the life of him either brother bringing it up again. Even Charlotte, who praises in excess everything her children have accomplished, has never brought it up, not even to say that she misses it. The way Sebastian holds the violin to his chest reminds Kurt of the way Blaine held his favorite guitar - as if it, and not Kurt, were his soulmate. As with so many things in Sebastian’s past, Kurt suspects there’s a bigger story surrounding this violin and why he stopped playing it than he’s putting on.

It had faded from his life, he’d said. Stop bringing him joy about the same time everything else did.

The same time things went south with Julian and Sebastian moved away, which would explain why it seems to have been erased from family history.

“So what do you think? Donate?” Sebastian asks with a surreptitious sniffle. He doesn’t let go of the violin, doesn’t return it to its case. On the contrary, he seems to hug it tighter. “Maybe to one of those inner city performing arts programs you love to volunteer for so much?”

“No! Keep! A definite keep!” Kurt gushes. “Maybe you can put it down and never play it again, but now that I’ve heard you, I don’t think I can exist without your playing in my life!”

“But I thought you said I was keeping too much stuff.”

“Meh,” Kurt dismisses with a wave, done with the whole concept of cleaning Sebastian’s closet anyhow. “What’s too much stuff when you can fit half of Central Park in your penthouse? Plus, I have to think of your mother, right? Wasting away in this run-down, rickety shack with nothing at all to remind her of her youngest son? Especially not the thousands of photos and videos she’s taken over the years.”

Sebastian looks at Kurt through long eyelashes, a wicked streak creeping into his smile, turning it into a full-fledged smirk. “I guess we could always switch out some of my old lacrosse uniforms for it.”

“What?” Kurt sits up straight, the color draining from his face. He knew Sebastian would find out about that eventually (on their honeymoon, if not sooner), but he didn’t think he’d caught him when he did it. “No! No, no, no reason to do that. Who says I even … uh … weren’t we going to make out?”

[ifourmindbeso]

A very, very Merry Christmas

Anonymous asked: Dear Bering and Wellser, I am your secret Santa. What is your dearest wish for this lovely season? I can provide fic of a fluffy or angsty flavour, and will endeavour to write to any prompt you might like to give. Ho, ho, and additionally, ho. Santa ;)

Hey there, Santa — Every year I keep hoping I won’t need to say “please, no angst; the world’s angsty enough as it is”… but every year, here we are again, surrounded by upheaval and uncertainty. As for a prompt, then, what I’ll tell you is that the brilliant poet Mary Ruefle once titled an essay “Someone Reading a Book Is a Sign of Order in the World.” Interpret that idea, or whatever constellation of ideas it represents, as you prefer… or ignore it completely and go with mistletoe! Menorahs! Mangers! It doesn’t matter to me, as long as it’s Bering and Wells. And anyway, I’m already grateful to you, whichever nerdsbian you are, for being a part of this tenacious little fandom. This little fandom that is so big-hearted: it’s a gift in itself.

Merry Christmas, Bering and Wellsers, and to you, the lovely @apparitionism​. This piece starts with the prompt above, but quickly goes off in a direction of hopelessly ridiculous. I don’t know where the inspiration for this came from, but part of it was definitely an illustration from the lovely @foxfire141​ on tumblr. I asked if she would consider drawing something for this piece, and she provided the delightful illustration that, if I have done this right, should appear in the appropriate spot in the story. I have to thank her for her incredible work on this, and for her incredible talent. It has added to this piece in a way that I couldn't have imagined.

This is a sort-of sequel to my previous fic, ‘Aye, Zombie’. If you haven’t read it, you probably need to know that the Myka in this fic (and Claudia, Pete and Artie) grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Myka is somewhat foul-mouthed but has a good heart, despite her somewhat questionable past. Helena is the HG Wells, who came forward in time because Mrs Frederic told her that Christina would die if she didn’t. Christina consequently lived to old age. I think that’s all you need to know, but you could always go back and read Aye,Zombie, if you fancy some unintelligible Irish-isms and questionable humour.

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race. HG Wells

“Now, you see, love. That’s what I don’t get. You wrote that thing about the bicycles, not Charlie, right?”

“Yes,” she said, patiently.

“So your great words to the world are that when you see someone on a bicycle, that gives you hope for the future of the human race? What about seeing someone with a book? Surely that is the thing that makes you think that, all right, maybe we aren’t going to explode in a nuclear apocalypse or die from extreme weather caused by global warming. Because people read, and they learn.”

“Well, I suppose I see what you mean,” she said, thoughtfully, looking far too fucking adorable in my opinion, “but a bicycle is a statement all of its own. It means that the person riding it prefers to travel under their own steam. Whether it’s for personal fitness, for the feel of the wind in their face, for the sake of the planet – it’s usually a good reason. A book – well, it can mean a multitude of things. If the book is the bible, well, I’m sorry to say it, but the person reading it could be wonderful, or they could be terrible. Christians come in all sorts of flavours. Evil being the one we’ve seen the most of throughout history. The book could be Mein Kampf. And again, the person reading it could be studying it, to learn about history so as not to repeat it, or they could be reading it to repeat history. Do you see what I mean?”

I looked at her, and I think my jaw fell open a little. After years of marriage – an idea I would have laughed about only a few years back – she still managed to surprise me.

“Do close your mouth dear, you look like a frog that someone’s trodden on,” she said, fondly.

I rolled my eyes. We might be in the 21st century, but my Helena was one of a kind. Victorian to the core. I expected her to say ‘spit spot’ and ‘chop chop’ at times, and then remembered that was just one of my fantasies. (I mean, Julie Andrews is hot, whether she’s in her twenties or her seventies.)

“Are you ready?” Helena asked, as we got onto the plane.

“I’m fine,” I said, scowling slightly. I hated travelling at the best of times, but flights like this – commercial flights – were the worst. You had no control, you were corralled like animals, you were shot if you moved an inch out of place… okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it certainly felt that way. I could feel the watchful eyes of the air marshal on me and the other passengers. Thank Christ we were in First Class. At least that gave me enough room to stretch out and the attendants tended to be a bit more polite. Mrs Frederic had agreed to ship me first class after the first flight when things had gone a bit… haywire because of PTSD. But sure I’m fine now. Honest.

I drained a glass of Bushmills before we even took off our coats.

The retrieval we were going on was a simple one. People in Flippin, Arkansas were turning into their favourite foods. Like walking, talking muppet puppets in the shape of fries or a bowl of their favourite soup or a walking burger. Pete and I had arm-wrestled for this retrieval. I won, but I promised I’d take lots of pictures.

Sometimes life in the Warehouse made sense. Sometimes it really didn’t, and you had to take advantage of those times, I thought, because otherwise you would take it all too seriously and go batshit crazy.

I drank a few more shots of Bushmills, studiously ignoring Helena dropping a sleeping pill into one of them. She seemed to think that the ‘B A Baracus’ approach was the best way to get me from A to B safely. She might have been right. I had dreams about dancing ice cream cones and that time we all burst into song because of an artefact. It was not pleasant, I can assure you. Helena Wells, despite her many fine qualities, is entirely tone deaf, and Pete sounds like a bullfrog when he tries to sing. Thankfully the rest of us managed to drown them out in the ensemble pieces, but their solo pieces were… ugh.

I woke to Helena gently shaking me awake, touching my left shoulder. We had come up with a code after a few too many attempted punches of her poor face. She had great reflexes, though, and I’d never actually landed a punch on her. Left shoulder meant everything’s fine. Right shoulder meant there was trouble and to grab weapons. Anywhere else on my body – that meant it wasn’t her, or anyone else I trusted.

I wiped my face with a wet wipe before retrieving my bag from the locker and I filed out dutifully with the rest of the cattle. Our Secret Service badges got us past the security on the other end quickly, a fact for which I was grateful. Who wants to be stuck in an airport a few days before Christmas with the entire human race crowded around you? Nobody, that’s who. The entire place smelled like feet.

“Shall we check in first before we go to find our walking foodstuffs, darling?” she asked, and I was once again struck by her other-ness. She was a part of this century now, but a walking anachronism at the same time. When I met her she did a great impersonation of a human from this century, but since we became a partnership, she didn’t seem to want to hide her true self as much. I liked that, a lot.

“We should check in,” I said, wearily. “I hate travelling love, why can’t you invent a transporter? You said you made a shrink ray, didn’t you?”

“I did, but making a teleportation device is somewhat of a challenge, even for someone with my intellect. If you do as they do in your Star Wars, you disperse someone’s molecules and send them somewhere else with the aid of some unknown force. But are those people still themselves when they come out the other end? One misplaced atom could turn you into a yeti, darling, and I really don’t think our wedding vows would cover that sort of mishap. I can handle a certain amount of body hair, but that’s just a little too much for my tastes.”

I made a harrumphing noise at her, and we made our way by cab to the hotel, which was the usual Warehouse style – small but clean, close to town but not in the centre. The check-in took approximately a week and a half, or so it seemed to my somewhat grumpy self, but as soon as we had keys, we dumped our bags off, showered quickly and changed, and went to find our victims. I brought my digital camera - for purely professional reasons.

“Agent Bering, Agent Wells. It’s a pleasure to have you here in our little corner of the world.” It was the Sheriff, the fella who’d called for help with this bizarre phenomenon. He got us, ‘Secret Service’ agents.

“I didn’t like that Flippin airport much,” I said, in my best vaguely-American accent. He laughed loudly.

“You got a great sense of humour, Agent,” he said, thumbs tucked into his belt-loops, his impressive belly jiggling as he laughed. He looked a bit like Santa Claus, but without the beard.

“So, this is the weirdest thing we’ve ever seen, even in a town with a name like Flippin,” he said, scratching his head under his Sheriff hat thingie. “The weirdest thing that’s happened here is when Jerry Dorsey married his future mother-in-law instead of his bride-to-be, and that was like, thirty years ago.

“When did it start, Sheriff?” Helena asked smoothly, not bothering to try to disguise her accent. Her American accent was terrible, so I was relieved.

“You aren’t from the States?” he asked, frowning. “I thought Secret Service had to be ‘Murican.”

“I’m a special liaison from Scotland Yard,” Helena said, lying through her teeth. “Emily Lake, at your service.”

He smiled at that, tipping his hat.

“A pleasure, Ma’am. We don’t get many of the President’s people down here, so I’ll admit to a little scepticism when I saw you were coming. As to when it started, well, Billy McIntyre turned into a doughnut about… 3 days ago. Every day since, we’ve had three or four people try to come into the station. As if we can help them. I mean, how am I supposed to turn a doughnut into a human?”

“They tried to get into the station?” I asked, intrigued.

“You ever seen a six-foot wide doughnut try to walk through an ordinary doorway? Funniest damn thing I ever saw,” he said, letting out a high-pitched giggle that startled me so much I almost shot him. As it was, I stared at him, trying to work out what the fuck the noise was.

“It does sound very amusing,” Helena said, in her rich voice, touching his arm to distract him from my confused, startled face. “Now, Sheriff… Adams, was it? Could you take us to the victims, please? And then we’ll visit the local eateries to see what each person ate in the days before their… um, metamorphosis.”

“Of course,” he said, smiling at her. She was always a charmer, my Helena. I don’t know how she did it, but she charmed the knickers off anyone who looked at her for more than a few minutes. The only person I’d ever met who was even a little bit immune was Mrs Frederic, and even she had a soft spot for Helena, though she wouldn’t admit it.

I had to seriously get a hold of myself when we stepped into the sheriff’s station. We stepped into a back room, where I assumed they did their morning briefings. There were a variety of people there, all looking like they were wearing costumes of their favourite foods. Unfortunately, those people were the costumes. There was a man in the corner who was the 6ft-wide doughnut, and a woman in front of me (I assumed, because the muppet was wearing lipstick) who was a box of fries from a burger restaurant. And a dude who was a large bowl of phō, which I found even more hilarious than the others, because every time he moved, he spilled the contents of the ‘bowl’ everywhere.

We had chicken and waffles, an egg salad sandwich (and Jesus, that fucker must have been the dullest) and a tall man who looked like chunks of tofu with sesame seeds on it. It seemed even the vegans weren’t immune to the effects.

I kept what I thought was an admirably straight face as we questioned the food-people. No-one had been to the same place – that would have been too easy – but they had all eaten at various restaurants and fast-food haunts during the past week, so we made a list and split up, checking each one with artefact spray to see if anything reacted. I got strange looks from people at the diner and the Vietnamese place, and I’m sure Helena did at the burger restaurant and the large dining section at the mall. But when we met later that afternoon, we had nothing. Nada. Niente. Bubkiss. Or as we say in Belfast, fuck all.

“For the love of Christ,” I sighed. “How long are we going to be doing this? I’m fucking starving, and I don’t want to eat anything in case I turn into a giant Chicken parm sub.”

Believe me, I have no desire to become a walking kale salad,” Helena said, sighing in that long-suffering way of hers. “But we have to get to the bottom of this. It hasn’t had any negative effects as such, or at least not yet, but it could. What if one of them gets too hungry and tries to eat another? What if they really taste of the food they’re… sporting?”

“That could get a bit… unfortunate,” I said, my mind drifting back to when Helena and I met, against the background of a civil war and a zombie invasion. Sure it sounds romantic now, but when you watch your neighbours eating each other’s children, it’s… not so much.

“To say the very least,” Helena said.

We went back to the sheriff’s station and talked to the people some more, jotting down dozens of different locations, places they’d visited, people they’d seen. It was a small place, Flippin, with less than 2000 residents, so those places overlapped. A lot.

“We should go to each location and rule them out one by one,” Helena said, studiously arranging them in geographical order.

“Should we split up, or go together?” I asked.

“Together is safer, but apart means we cover more ground. My thought is that we do it apart, because things aren’t exactly dangerous. Or at least not yet.”

I nodded. We took each other’s hands for a moment, squeezing, just for comfort, and then we split up.

I went to visit the local DMV office, the postal office, a home depot-type store, and a general store. There was no dice. Nothing unusual, other than that the town was still called Flippin. Oh, and they reckoned they were a city. There were 17 thousand people in the tiny section of Belfast that I lived in when I was younger. That was a real city, and not even a big one. Flippin was not a city. Americans, am I right?

I got back to the sheriff’s station and was informed that two more people had shown up. One was a man who had turned into a roast chicken. His face was on the breast side, startled eyes with giant muppet eyelashes fluttering in confusion. He must have been balding in his human guise, because there was a ratty crown of hair that went slightly more than halfway around the body of the chicken. I took down the details of where he’d been, doing my best not to laugh, and then interviewed the other person, a woman who had become a hamburger. It was hard as fuck not to laugh at that poor girl, because her top lip was a slice of cheese, and her bottom lip was a burger. Both of which had lipstick on them, in case we should accidentally mistake the walking burger for a male walking burger. She was trying not to panic, and every little breath made her cheese lip flutter in the wind, and made me have to fake a coughing fit because I was dying.

I took some photographs, for want of something better to do, and married up each food-person with their human photographs, sending it all back to Claudia. For professional reasons only, I assure you. And then I started to worry, because Helena had less ground to cover than I did, and she was nowhere to be seen.

I called her phone, but there was no answer. I did start to get a bit worried, then, so I called Claudia on my Farnsworth.

“Hey, Sir Mykes-a-lot. How’s it going there in crazytown?” It was nice to hear another Irish accent, I will admit. The Warehouse has four of us, but it’s rare to meet the Irish while out and about in the field. I mean, I’ve met those who claim to be Irish, but 23 generations back doesn’t count. Especially not if you can’t pronounce your own name. (I’m talking to you, Ni-am.)

“I’m grand, darling,” I said, rubbing the spot between my eyebrows. “My fair lady has disappeared though, and you know it’s not like her to not answer when I call.”

Claudia’s eyes narrowed. She did indeed know that Helena wouldn’t make me worry unnecessarily.

“Let me track her,” she said, already typing away furiously.

There was a silence, and I got a little alarmed, I will admit. But then she spoke, her forehead all crinkled up.

“She’s in town. Heading your way, actually. But the signal… it’s like it’s there, but it’s not? It’s almost transparent. There’s no setting in my system for something to show up transparent. I call magical hijinks, Mykster. She’s heading up main street now; should be with you in a minute.”

I nodded.

“Thanks, kiddo. See you soon,” I said. I made a mental note to buy her something tasteless before I left town. I was pretty sure somewhere like Flippin would have some really tasteless tourist shite. My favourite thing Claudka had bought me was a Hillary Clinton lighter, where Hill’s head flipped back and flames came out of her neck. I had managed to get her a Pope Pez dispenser in a little Catholic shop in a town near the border, and was still trying to top it.

I went to the door of the station, peering out into the dark. There was a figure approaching, but it didn’t look like Helena. It didn’t look human. I took a deep breath, my heart thundering in my ears. It stepped closer, and then into the light of a streetlamp. It was… a hot dog. A walking, presumably talking, hot dog. Another unfortunate victim, I assumed, looking around behind it for Helena.

As it put its weird muppet feet on the first step up to the station, I noticed that it was a girl. Due to the ketchup in the shape of a mouth. And the long hair that covered about a third of the length of the dog. The poor girl had huge brown eyes, and dark eyebrows drawn into a scowl, and then she stepped closer.

“I swear to all that’s holy, if you laugh at me, we are getting a divorce,” my wife said, muppet eyelashes fluttering in annoyance.

I am not proud to say that I immediately laughed.

I had to be lifted from the floor by two burly sheriff’s deputies, who kindly carried me to the bathroom. I was laughing so hard that I was close to losing control of my bladder. Even as I was sitting on the loo, I was still laughing so hard that I pulled two muscles, one on my back and the other on my abdomen. Tears streamed down my face and I howled with pain, but still I laughed. It took me forty-five minutes to stop myself from laughing, and even then, I started again each time I saw my own face in the mirror. Eventually I was calm enough to send a message to Claudia.

“SOS. Helena is hot-dog. Helena pretended her favourite food was kale salad. I may need an artefact to be sent that takes away my ability to laugh. Divorce proceedings imminent.”

I made my way out of the bathroom a little while later, finding the muppet version of my wife talking to Sheriff Adams. She was trying to coax him into doing something, I thought, because her stubby little muppet hand was on his arm and her giant muppet eyelashes were all a-flutter.

I beat a hasty retreat into a nearby office until I calmed my hysterics.

The second attempt was no more successful. I thought of the saddest things I’d ever seen, tried to turn myself into a PTSD-haunted robot by thinking about things I’d done in my past, but still… muppet Helena took me down effortlessly.

Eventually I was able to speak to her without laughing (much) and we determined that there were two places where she might have been caught up in the artefact’s effects. I continued to say ‘artefact’s effects’ after that because each time I said the words ‘food muppets’ she glared, and she looked even funnier than she already did.

Hot-dog Helena had onions and mustard down one side of the sausage. I don’t know why that made me laugh harder, but it did.

I fled the station, delighted beyond measure to be able to leave my wife’s side. I could not control myself, and I knew that I was skating close to the edge of divorce and/or death by muppet smothering. I kept breaking out in hysterical little bouts of giggling, and I knew I must have looked a sight, the tall Secret Service agent who occasionally starting cry-laughing over her muppet wife.

I visited the seedy side of Flippin, finding a small illegal casino-type operation that Helena had visited, and used the artefact spray to douse everything that didn’t move. And some that did. Nothing sparked. The next stop was the town hall, where a number of people on the list seemed to have been. I visited the mayor, a young attractive redhead, who urged me to leave a Christmas wish in the jar on her desk. Something tugged at me, then, because one thing I have learned as a Warehouse agent is that wishes have power. I sprayed the jar with the goo-spray, and it sparked. It sparked a lot. I grabbed the thing, relieved, and thanked the Mayor, who looked at me in confusion when I told her I needed to take it away, for National Security reasons. I swear, you could poke someone in the eye in this country and say it was for National Security, and they’d ask you to do it again.

I brought the jar back to the station, walking along absently, giggling occasionally to myself, when I suddenly realised that I was… different. My arms seemed shorter, and… yes. There was something dripping from behind me.

Now before you get all gross, there was a trail of marinara sauce behind me, mixed with cheese. Mozzarella, a little cheddar, and parmesan. When I tried to look down, I couldn’t. My eyes were widely spaced, I’d realised, and my mouth was way further from my eyes than it used to be.

So, I was a walking chicken parmigiana sub. Because unlike some alleged kale-lovers, I told the truth about my favourite food.

I sighed, trying to take my phone from my pocket, but my pocket was gone, under a pile of bread, I had to assume. I had an urge to try and pull some of the bread off and eat it, because I smelled really nice. But then I thought… there’s always a downside. And how do you explain that you’re missing a limb or a rib because you ate part of yourself when you were a sandwich?

I knocked on the door of the station, and a startled deputy let me in. He managed to keep his face straight, to his credit.

“Can you grab me my kit from the other room, son?” I asked him, vaguely aware that I had a bouncing crown of curls that had just drifted into my eyeline as I moved. I wondered exactly how ridiculous I looked, and stood there, waiting. The young man came back, his face purple, and I asked if he would take out the goo cannister.

Before I dunked the jar, I asked him to take a picture of me. I’d taken approximately 43 thousand of Helena, already, and turnabout was fair play. He did so, still managing not to laugh in my face, and then I dunked the thing. It hissed and it sparked, and still… marinara sauce dripped onto the floor.

“Shite.”

The fella ran off, howling, as the giant chicken sub swore. I didn’t blame him.

I went into the room where the rest of the food-afflicted were, finding Helena reading a book, holding the pages down with her muppet-fingers. I waved at her with my muppet fingers, and she laughed, and she laughed.

And she laughed.

It was possibly the stupidest thing that had ever happened in my life, and that included fighting with a group of inter-dimensional crime lords who started a zombie outbreak. It was hard to be professional about it, I had to be honest. I knew that, because there’s always a downside, it was potentially much more serious than it appeared – which was, of course, not remotely serious. I challenge you, however, to do any better, when faced with a roomful of muppet foodstuffs.

Having tried the obvious solution, to neutralise the artefact, I knew I had to contact the team. But my cellphone was somewhere in the in-between, I supposed, along with my Farnsworth. I grabbed Helena, and we made our way ponderously into the other part of the station, searching out the Sheriff. Sauce and cheese sloshed behind me as I walked.

Once Sheriff Adams stopped laughing, he set up a video conference with the Warehouse. I would have done it myself, but my arms were too short to go around my giant chicken sub body, and I couldn’t reach the keyboard.

Helena laughed about that until she wept ketchup.

We got no sense out of Claudia, none at all, and the poor girl’s mascara was everywhere, so I yelled for Arthur, and he, thankfully, just scowled at us.

“You both got whammied?”

I tried to shrug. It did not work, given that I appeared not to have shoulders.

“I found the artefact and neutralised it. I was wearing gloves, Arthur. But you know how these wishing artefacts are.”

He scowled harder, his eyebrows scrunching up like scary caterpillars, and he said nothing for a moment.

“Go sleep. Get some food. It can’t get much worse, I wouldn’t think. So eat something and sleep, and we’ll research tonight, and we’ll come back to it tomorrow.”

“All right then,” I said, rolling my eyes. Or trying to. I dread to think how it actually looked. Could my eyes even move? I wasn’t really sure; the perspective made everything look weird.

We went back to the room where the other foods were hiding out, and the Sheriff agreed that he’d get us some food, since we had neutralised the problem but were still stuck. It couldn’t hurt, right? We had pizza, all of us, and it was amusing to watch an eight-foot-wide pizza eating a pizza. The sheriff got us a load of yoga mats and big blankets, and we all settled down to sleep in our various food guises. When I lay down, my sauce stopped dripping everywhere, but the poor dude who turned into phō had to sit upright so he didn’t drown us all.

When I woke the next morning, I tried to jump up, and ended up just flailing like a turtle on its back. I had no idea where I was, I was trapped and I was ready for murder. Thankfully, I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was Helena’s muppet-self. That brought me from murderous to hysterical in seconds, and I lay there, helpless, legs and arms flapping as I tried to flip my sandwich-self up off the yoga mat.

“I’m normal again!” someone shouted, and I redoubled my efforts. One of the burgers helped me to my feet, and then I helped Helena, who was not exactly talking to me, to her feet. We turned and found that Steve, the giant pizza, was now just Steve again.

“We have to eat the food we’re craving!” Helena and I said in unison, and then we tried to high-five, missing spectacularly and ending up on the floor in a mess of mustard, onion and marinara sauce. It took the phō guy, Mr Egg Salad, and Doug the Cheeto to get us up off the floor, by which stage we were covered in various sauces, but triumphant.

The sheriff sent out a bunch of his deputies to fetch the requisite foodstuffs, and we took a sly picture of ourselves and the other victims to hang up at the Warehouse. One delicious sandwich (or hot dog, or potato snack, or burger) later, we all sat against the walls of the huge rooms, waiting for the magic to happen.

It took a few hours, and we were all terribly bored, but keeping ourselves going by chatting about Christmas and going home for the holidays, when there was a popping noise from Doug’s corner, and he turned from Cheeto to human. A few seconds later Phō turned to Phil, and I turned back into me. Helena, who’d eaten her hot dog slowly while pretending to hate it, was one of the last to turn back. Finally, there were a roomful of sheepish people staring at each other and wondering what to do next.

Helena, thankfully, got her human brain back quicker than I did. I was thinking about going to find another chicken parm sub, to be honest, because it had been delicious. But she stood, waved her badge around, told them all we’d been exposed to toxic gas that caused hallucinations, and one by one, our former foodstuffs made their way back to their families.

“All’s well that ends well, I suppose,” she said, sniffing, pointedly not looking at me.

“I suppose. It’s a terrible shame we have to get divorced, though. I was just getting used to being married to a Brit.”

“Hmmph,” was all she said, her arms folded, but I could see from the set of her shoulders that she was relaxing. I realised I might get out of this flippin’ town with my marriage intact, and I grinned.

We gave the Sheriff and his staff a non-disclosure agreement to sign, and gave them the usual rubbish about hallucinations and toxic gas, and they all nodded, shaking their heads. We went back to our hotel and tossed a coin for who got the shower first. Helena won, and I sat on the edge of the bed on top of a towel, so as to not get marinara sauce all over the bedding.

I sat there, glad to be human, flipping idly through channels on the television until she came out of the bathroom, naked in all her glory. I grinned at the sight, and she glared at me.

I wasn’t entirely forgiven, it appeared. I took myself into the bathroom, washed up, called the concierge to have our clothes cleaned, and then sat at the small desk to write my report on the incident. I studiously added all the pictures I’d taken, except the ones of Helena. I finished it up, scanning and sending it to the Warehouse, and then I packed up the wish jar - still inside the containment cannister – and the rest of my clothes. Then I gathered up my courage and asked my taciturn wife if she was hungry.

She glared at me as if I was taking the mickey, but I wasn’t, for a change, so she told me stiffly that she would like a salad. I am human, so I was tempted, but I ordered only a salad and did not at any point mention the words ‘hot dog’. I ordered myself a burger and fries and all the fixings, and when it arrived I scarfed it down. When dinner (which was technically lunch, given the time) was done I changed into my usual sleepwear, loose cotton tshirt and shorts, and got into bed. I pulled down the sheets on the other side in clear invitation, and Helena huffed at me, going to the bathroom again, where I heard her brush her teeth. She switched off the light and got into bed with me, and I could feel her begrudging it as she did so.

“There’s another bed, darling. If you’re really that mad,” I said, quietly.

“It’s fine,” she said, back stiff.

I ran my finger down her spine, just once. She made a huffing noise and then turned, putting her head under my chin, her arm around my waist. She was lying on my left arm, so I curled it a little, wrapping it around her body, and she sighed.

“You’re a complete arse, you know,” she said.

“I am,” I agreed. “But I’m your complete arse.”

“Hmm. What a catch.”

“Indeed I am. Catch of the century.”

“You’re a fucking pain, Myka Bering.”

“That’s Myka Bering-Wells, darling,” I said, lazily. “And I love you too.”

It was all right again after that, though she became somewhat frosty when she called the Warehouse the following morning and was greeted only by Claudia’s feet, Claudia herself having tipped her chair back so far that she’d fallen over. (I might have just sent our food-group selfie to her.)

On the flight back to South Dakota, she took my hand, both of us comforting each other as the plane took off.

“I love you, you complete arse,” she said, after a glass or two of red wine.

“I love you too, you gorgeous creature,” I said grandly, after three generous measures of Bushmills.

She sighed, took my hand, and fell asleep.

When we eventually got to the B&B after dropping off the artefact at the Warehouse, we were greeted at the door by Leena, dressed in her usual Mrs Santa costume. She looked spectacular, and Helena looked at me, amused, as I tried not to gawk. I mean, I’m married, not a nun.

Leena gestured at us both to leave our bags, handing us hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles.

“You are a sight for sore eyes, sweet lady,” I said, with a sweeping bow.

“And you are a flirt, Mrs Bering-Wells,” Leena said, winking at Helena. We made our way to the living room, finding Claudia spread out on the sofa, her head in Steve’s lap, and Pete scarfing down a plate of Leena’s chocolate Christmas logs.

“Mykes!” Pete bellowed, jumping up and throwing himself at me. I hastily divested myself of my hot chocolate and accepted his sweaty embrace.

“Bout ye, Pete,” I said, grinning as he lifted me off my feet. He put me down, none too gently, and went to give Helena the same treatment. The look she gave him would have scoured the hide off a pig.

“Hello, Pete. If you put your sweaty hands on me, I will not be held responsible for my actions, do you understand?”

Pete backed away, mumbling about crazy Brits, and I hid my smile behind my hand.

“Hey, girls! We have some lovely pictures of you,” Claudia said, grinning up at us.

“Iks-nay on the ictures-pay,” I said, behind my hand.

“Don’t worry about it, darling. I did in fact grow a sense of humour about all this, eventually. As it turns out, this century has indeed influenced my Victorian sensibilities somewhat. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that, yes, hot dogs are my favourite food, much as I wish they weren’t. That does not mean I will be indulging in them, however. I will continue to eat a healthy balanced diet, unlike my unfairly slim wife, who seems to subsist on all manner of appalling foods,” Helena said, looking at me disapprovingly.

“They’re only appalling to you, darling. I enjoy them, and so does everyone else here. And you know that Leena makes sure we get a balanced diet. It’s just when we’re out in the field that I indulge.”

She shook her head, rolled her eyes – all the usual. I just ignored her and sat down with my hot chocolate. Leena appeared again a few minutes later with some churros which I happily dipped in my hot chocolate. I noticed that my lovely wife did the same, surreptitiously of course.

Claudia, Steve and Pete were talking quietly while a horrifically bad Christmas movie played on the television. I watched Helena quietly. She was beautiful, sitting there with the light of the fire flickering in her eyes. She took the occasional sip of hot chocolate but mostly she was sitting there, looking at the fire, her eyes far away. She was exceptionally beautiful, like a marble statue of a greek goddess.

I heard the piano start up from the other room. Arthur, despite his Jewish roots, has always loved Christmas music. Claudia jumped up. She has always had a passion for music, and this was part of Christmas for her. She wandered off to find him, Steve following close behind.

“Mykissimo,” Pete said, jumping to his feet. “You can’t miss out on the yearly sing-song.”

“I suppose not,” I said, polishing off my hot chocolate. “You coming, love?”

She looked up at me.

“Just a minute, darling. I’ll be right there.”

I smiled at her and left her to it. Christmas was a difficult time for her, I knew. Her little girl had always loved Christmas time. Sometimes she needed a minute, to think about her daughter and how she’d lived to be a grand old age. How she wouldn’t have done, if Helena had stayed in her own time.

Arthur was playing “Have yourself a merry little Christmas,” and Steve was singing along in a pleasant baritone. He had a nice voice, and I loved listening to him. Claudia came to stand in front of me, pulling my arms around her neck, and I smiled down at her. She was like my wee sister.

When we were done with that song, Arthur started playing “O Holy Night.” It was my favourite Christmas song of all time, and I knew that he knew that. He turned and winked at me, and I smiled back. When I was at a Catholic school in Northern Ireland, there was a lot of emphasis on music, and the harmonies in this song and the way it all blended together had enthralled me then. It still does now.

Claudia started to sing, her sweet, light little voice singing the melody. When the chorus came along, we all started to sing our parts, Steve, Claudia, Artie and me – Pete can’t sing for toffee. The chorus swelled and then it pulled back before the next verse. Claudia’s sweet voice made me smile. We reached the second chorus and I realised that I had goosebumps. I turned, finding Helena leaning against the doorjamb, watching us all fondly. The thought of her in her Muppet body did cross my mind, and I smiled to myself. That image wouldn’t be leaving me anytime soon. But the way she looked standing there in her blue shirt and jeans and bare feet, her hair loose around her shoulders, it just made something in me still for a moment. The combination of the perfect music and the perfect woman in front of me made me feel calm and relaxed for once, and if I’d been the praying type, I might have said a thank you to the baby Jesus or whatever right then. As it was, I just thanked anyone who was listening for giving me these people and this place, and letting me live in endless wonder.

Merry Christmas, everyone !

[republicstandard]

Video Games Turned Me Into a Nazi

Hail The Guardian for saying what we're all thinking despite reams of academic data to the contrary. Games are far right tools of indoctrination. Every Head-Crab you crowbarred to death in Half-Life makes The Wall a few inches higher. Do you really think the aliens in that game were called 'Race X' for no reason? Wake up, racist gamers.

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"Although affected by context, video games have long focused on the expulsion of “aliens” (Space Invaders to XCOM), fear of impure infection (Half-Life to The Last of Us), border control (Missile Commander to Plants vs Zombies), territory acquisition (Command & Conquer to Splatoon), empire building (Civilization to Tropico), princess recovery (Mario to Zelda), and restoration of natural harmony (Sonic to FarmVille).

Second, video games put the user to work on an instinctual level, making the gamer feel impulsive agreement with these ideologies."

Sonic is a Nazi now. So writes Alfie Bown with a sub-par rehash of Sigmund Freud's most outdated ideas. This piece isn't going to be a slam dunk piece on how stupid that idea is; Twitter has already trampled it into the dust, and I'll splatter a few choice tweets like alien brain matter through this piece for your delectation. I want more to have a look beyond Alfie Bown and his reductive nonsense to the deeper tale. For years now we have talked about a certain pursuit being the Fountain of all Evil, corrupting the young and making the world a degenerate place. Bown is making an ideological argument instead of the intellectual one. There is an argument to be made that the ever-presence of technology as a whole has changed humans. Have you ever found yourself alone at a restaurant table and discovered you were suddenly online? This is followed by the not quite understood social faux-pas of someone returning from the bathroom whilst you are in the midst of tweet composition. Do you delay interaction with someone in the real world while you drop knowledge bombs on anime avatars? This applies to messages, Facebook, and yes mobile games are included. This is a conversation that should about what effect our technology has had on our attention span and our willingness to be alone with ourselves for any fraction of time- not that there are political ideologies being stealthed into our culture through shoot 'em ups that will make you a race realist.

Yes, you read that correctly, XCOM has xenophobic undertones; it doesn’t matter if your squad was a beacon of diversity or that you were defending yourself from a hostile alien force that sought out to violently subjugate humanity, those aliens represent refugees, silly!

— Bunty King ♔ (@realbuntyking) March 12, 2018

So, how is it that we still see claims of video games being the root of all evil? Because psychologically we are trapped in a confusing reality of polarized political opinions that are resistant to change. I don't know if any leftists read this magazine, but let me assure you- this isn't an attack on left ideology per se, though I have come to see incredibly dangerous flaws in that thinking. This mental cage we have built for society is not a left or right wing idea, it is a deeper concept, one of a purity test. The Christian Right burnt records by The Beatles, and racists attacked Elvis for bringing the corrupting power of Black music to White audiences. Now we see the Regressive Left building another filter through which to strain the dregs of culture, and this frame is fixated on trying to understand how people come to be woke on ideas like ingroup preference within ethnic groups, replacement migration, the Islamification of Europe and even that it is okay to be White.

The answer when you are viewing the world from a purely ideological perspective is of course that all the evil in the world comes from who you believe are your enemies. Bown believes that what he thinks of as conservative ideas like border control and sexual dimorphism are not just ideas to be contended with and argued against, but examples of impurity in society. As his own subheading states:

"Violent, isolationist and misogynist desires course through games – and push rightwing ideologies on players."

A better statement would be perhaps- violent, isolationist and misogynist experiences course through humanity itself. We might disagree with this and wish to become more than the animal we are, but this hierachy still exists! How we deal with this and reconcile the advanced mind of human beings with the animalistic, tribal desires of the beasts within is important. That might be a good question- instead, Bown projects behavioral traits onto people as a group through their shared activity- the classic GamerGate tactic which the records show doesn't work and makes you look rather silly in the process.

As we know,  Fritz Heider (1958) suggested that we have a tendency to give causal explanations for someone’s behavior, often by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition- this is Attribution Theory. I hold this statement to be true, born out by observing reality as impartially as we can. You are a Nazi because I disagree with you and you are a Nazi because you do this unrelated action that I think made you into even more of a Nazi. This is the argument from the Left today- this is the anti-Gamer Gate argument, this is the argument that led to Martin Sellner, Brittany Pettibone and Lauren Southern being denied entry to the United Kingdom. It is this attitude that leads to Tommy Robinson being attacked in the street by masked men and the disruption of lectures by Carl Benjamin, Peter Boghossian, Christina Hoff Sommers and Jordan Peterson to name but a few.

Because these people are overtly opposed to broad church Progressivism, they are attributed with the trait of being a known fascist. This perspective is reinforced because they give speeches against Progressivism- that means, against authoritarian states, against neo-Marxism- they take actions that confirms their opinions, they are authentic in this manner, realized. That's the second attribution, now we have a physical and psychological image of who these people are in our minds, we know they are not just in disagreement, they act, and they are acting against us so they must be our enemies too and that is why we have to suppress or stop them. If you are familiar with Jeanette Falarca and her group By Any Means Necessary you will see how far this line of thinking will justify violence and harassment towards people who have been labeled as Nazis.

I was in his lair fighting him on a platform over lava, where the platform kept shifting, trying to throw us both off of it. I persevered, and as Iggy was thrown into the lava at the end of our battle, he shouted out, "have you read Mein Kampf?!" before slowly burning to death.

— Colin Moriarty (@notaxation) March 12, 2018

Attacking video games is a method leftists have struck on to try and explain to each other why their enemies exist. This indicates such a paucity of discourse between politically engaged people that we are looking at a discourse-less future of disagreement, and with the effective banning of right-wing opinions in totality in the United Kingdom, this future can only be violent.

Because someone disagrees with you does not make them an enemy that needs to be dehumanized and destroyed. Bown argues that video games can cause violent behavior along ideological lines as the themes in video games are not neo-Marxist. Well, isn't that just an expression that he feels that his ideology is losing in an arms race? I disagree with his premise, but surely his conclusion is the worst form of tribalism also.

"Currently, the new desires incubated by games lean far to the right, and without more progressive games on the market (though some are emerging), the future may be even bleaker than the political present."

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The link in that quote is to a Kotaku article about a video game that is about making a socialist society. It is not that Bown cares about the potential of technology (including video games) to alter humanity. He cares that technology is not being used to change humans in the right way according to his ideological beliefs. As a society we have to transcend this partisan thinking or at least find a neutral field in which our polarizing beliefs can engage with each other without descending into demonization. The survival of our civilization depends on it.

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