#my butch's phone suddenly stopped charging

[bvnfetti]

GOD DAMMIT I MISS HER I MISS MY HUSBAND I NEED MY HUSBAND RAAAAHH

[peicesofrhys]

Bloody Hell

Butch:

-As soon as I was well enough to walk, I was up and moving through the mansion. I didn’t realize what I was doing until I got half way through the process. I was doing a headcount. It was stupid and I knew it but that didn’t stop me from continuing. I needed to know that everyone was here, safe, alright. I couldn’t imagine losing someone else like I lost Mike. I’d already made the phone calls to all of my human family members. They were alive and confused as to why I was calling. Joyce hadn’t been allowed to call them for fear that her husband would find her that way.-

-No one in the mansion knew what I was about either. Here I was barely able to move around, clutching my wounded stomach, trying to look natural with small talk. It was awkward to say the least. Sometimes I gave up all pretenses and did a simple once over of the room before leaving. Let them think what they wanted to, I was chasing a darker feeling that something else was wrong. I was going to find out sometime later that while I was away the Omega slipped through the cracks and took someone else that I cared about.-

-I saved one person for last because I felt that V would have told me if something had happened to our housemate. Suddenly I didn’t know. I was doubting everything. I couldn’t run back to the Pit because my internal organs were busy trying to stitch themselves back together after having a bullet ricochet through them. So I shambled. Quickly. Grabbing the wall often to keep myself upright. Shit. If something was wrong with him I wouldn’t know what to do.-

-I hadn’t even been back to the Pit since Boston. I was stuck in the PT room sucking food through a straw because my stomach couldn’t digest it right. I started moving faster, feeling a sense of urgency that I couldn’t really place. No doubt it was something that I should talk to Mary about. I tucked that into a file for another day, or never, probably never.-

-I punched in the code to the Pit and it seemed like waiting for the beep was taking too long. I hit the door loudly, no doubt looking and sounding like an idiot. Didn’t care. I practically fell through the door when it opened, catching myself at the last minute.-

RHYS!?!! -I belted the name out as loud as I could. Please don’t let anything be wrong with him.- RHYS ARE YOU HERE?!! -Yelling wasn’t helping me any. I pulled something out of alignment, I could feel it. I looked down to the hand that was holding my stomach and saw that it was bloody.- Fuck…. -I slumped to the ground, propping my back up against the wall. Great, now I was going to have to visit the doc again.-

Rhys: 

“You’re a little fucking nancy, aren’t ya?” The young male voice echoed through the headphones as he took charge of the mission. The fuck cut me off and even stole my weapons when he did it too. We’d been at this particular game for nearly four hours now and this twelve year old just played me like chump. What a little prick. 

“Eat shit.” I growled into the mic before pulling the bitchiest of all bitch moves. My fingers moved in a blur across the controller and before he could cross the finish line I murdered our other teammate and used a stolen grenade to blow everyone to kingdom come. Game Over blinked repeatedly on all four screens that were set up in the middle of the room while the rest of the team cursed and yelled at each other. 

I cut it all off with a few keystrokes and sat back in the chair. I was hungry. 

There was contemplation about going up to the main house or just having it brought to the pit. Do I take a chance that someone, namely one of the Brothers, spotting me? The last time I had a run in with anyone other than Vishous, I was met with a snort and growl, some insipid questions and cold stares. I can’t count the times I repeated my story but there were doubts still lingering around this place. You can’t disguise distrust. 

Ordering in it was. I called up for a few burgers, cheese fries and a chocolate milkshake. I would need to feed as well. I hated it so I left that to a later time. It was awkward and I didn’t understand why in the fuck those girls did it so willingly. I never asked either. I’d rather wallow in my ignorance. 

I was finishing up in the bathroom when I heard the code being punched in. Finally. That guy took his sweet time. 

“I’m famished, mate. Did you have to kill the cow or what?” The bang against the door had my brow raised and I looked around the room for a weapon. Yes, I was that jumpy. But before I could locate anything other than a few keyboards and a baseball bat that I think was signed by some guy, the door opened and Butch fell in with a heavy scent of blood following him like a puppy. He was yelling like I wasn’t standing right here but he was in bad shape and probably didn’t even see me. 

“The fuck …?” I was tripping over myself to get to him. “When did you get back and why are you bleeding all over the fucking floor?” No one tells me shit around this place. Not even Vishous. Him and I would be having a talk later. Dick. “And why are you yelling like that? You know I never leave this hell hole.” I laughed even though nothing about this was funny. Well, not that funny. “And whatever his Majesty said I did, I didn’t do … I swear to Lassiter.” 

Butch:

-I blinked a few times to clear my vision.- Rhys? -That was definitely his voice. There was no mistaking that. I was being stupid. Of course he was okay. Everyone was okay. This was just me freaking out. Still... I felt like I could breathe easier knowing for sure. I raised a hand and lightly ran my fingers over his face. Yep. Not me just seeing things. I let out a heavy sigh and let my hand fall.-

I must look like an idiot right now. -I laughed, drooping my head forward.- Obviously you leave sometimes or you wouldn't be worried about what the King was saying about you. -My head tilted to the side and I lifted a questioning brow. There was a story there and it didn't take a detective to figure that out. I almost felt bad for Wrath.-

Swearing to Lassiter sounds really wrong and kinda dirty. I'm still not going to get used to that one no matter what anyone says.

-I braced myself for the pain and pushed up off the ground. I couldn't stay down or they would be taking me out of here in a stretcher and I wouldn't see the outside of a PT room for days. I let out a wicked sounding hiss as I slowly rose. Every ounce of concentration was poured into getting myself the hell off the floor. I hadn't puzzled out how I was going to make it back down the tunnels yet. This was hard enough.-

Rhys: 

Nah, not more than usual.” I quipped. There was no other way to keep my own wits about me with Butch weaving around like he was going to topple over at any moment. “And who said anything about being worried? I was only saying …fecking hell, B.” I moved quickly to get one shoulder wedge under his and an arm around his waist. He had a good six or so inches on me but I could handle it. Or we were both going down. “You think you could drag your ass back to the PT with my help or do I need to find the Candy man or V?” Either way, Butch needed that wound closed up good and proper. 

There wasn’t any time to break out the first aid kit that was stashed near the Toys, not that I had a clue as to what to do. 

I got us through the door but not before I hit the intercom to spit out a S.O.S. “I got a bleeder on the way back to PT. Could use an extra pair of hands or even a small truck.” I chuckled at my own joke. It was nervous in tone with how much of Butch’s weight I took on. It meant he wasn’t doing so hot. I had to bite my tongue so hard it nearly bled to keep from asking what was going on. Where he had been. Who did this to him. I doubted he would answer anyway. 

“Don’t kick my arse for this later.” I winced and shoved my hand down around where it seemed the majority of the blood was coming from and clamped it down as if my life depended on it. “If you can get those feet moving, now would be the time.” 

Butch:

I'm in tip top shape. I don't know what you are going on about. -The room went back and forth and I tried to keep it from tipping completely over.- I don't know but if you could keep the ground from tilting that would be awesome. -I perched it against the wall closed my eyes to keep from getting dizzy.-

Candy man?... -My brain was definitely not firing on all cylinders because it took me too long to figure that one out.- Rhage?! -I huffed out a laugh.- That's a good one. ~The candy man can~ -I started humming the tune halfheartedly.-

Oh. There he is. -I leaned heavily on Rhys when I felt him at my side.- Come on, no need to bother those worry warts. We can make it. -I might have overestimated my ability to put one foot in front of the other.- Come on, Butch. You can do this. You've been through worse than a stupid bullet to the gut. In fact, it was just the other day that you got your ass beat into the floorboards. This is nothing.

-I was mostly rambling and it came out all halted, in half steps. I felt bad for Rhys cause there was no way we were going to make it all the way there but I was too damn stubborn to worry anyone else over it.-

Look! It's the door! -I took a stumble step and almost fell again when I tried to swat away his hand from the intercom.- Well shit... Now you've gone and done it. You know the Mother Hen is going to descend upon us any minute now. 

-I didn't get much more out because Mr. Wise Guy decided to apply all the damn pressure in the world to the wound.- HOLY SHIT!!! -I fell into Rhys, grabbing onto him tightly. My stomach turned to the spin cycle and I puked down Rhys's back.-

Rhys: 

I froze. It took my mind a moment to wrap around the fact that Butch just emptied the contents of his stomach down the back of my shirt and possibly my pants as well. The scent clogged my nose and I immediately ceased breathing. Not entirely but enough that I could manage to keep the bile that rose in my throat down. 

“Yeah … we are going to chat about that later.” I gritted out through clenched teeth. “Bloody hell.” 

Before I could force Butch to back the fuck up out of the door, Rhage appeared. And oh was he amused with the situation happening here. ‘I ran my ass off for this? C’mon.’ He was all grin and lollipop but he managed to get most of Butch, who was limp noodle by now, over his arm and down the hall way with me taking up the slack. I most likely wasn’t needed in this scenario but my hand was still clamped over the wound. ‘He will be fine if you want to run back to your hole, Rhys.’ Rhage was still all smiles when he said the words but the glare was obvious. Besides Butch and V, he was the least likely of the Brothers to kill me in my sleep. Didn’t mean he liked me. 

“I think I’ll stick around this time, fuck you very much.” I muttered. Rhage shrugged and we continued on to the PT suite. 

Butch:

-It took a few minutes of haze to realize what I'd just done. Oh damn, he was never going to let me live this one down. You don't just throw up on someone and expect them to be cool afterward.- I. Am. SO. Sorry. Sweet Jesus... -I couldn't emphasize that more.-

Oh look! It's the Candy Man! -There was a lot of grunting and groaning involved with shifting the rest of my weight over to Rhage. I hated how useless I was right now. My feet were nothing more than decoration. All of my weight was between these two guys.-

-From my unique position between the two I could actually feel the tension. If I had thrown up on one of the Brothers Rhage would be slinging all kinds of quips back and forth. It would be natural and expected. This was far from it. It wasn't open hostility, but it was close.-

Knock it off Rhage. He's holding my intestines in right now. Don't make me puke on you too. I don't think I have much left to give up. 

-I tried to move my feet to keep up but it was pretty apparent that such action was fruitless. I gave up and all but rag-dolled it between the two of them. So stupid of me to run out of there when I did. What was I thinking?-

Everyone is safe... That's all that matters...

-I knew I was mumbling at this point and no one was probably listening anyway. Who cares? I had made sure that everyone I cared about was free from the Omega. I passed out before I reached the PT suite, drifting silently into a darkness that I'd been avoiding.-

Rhys:

I shook my head at Butch. “He’s fine. A bit of a knob but he can’t help himself. It’s all the sugar.” That earned a raised brow from Rhage. A good one. As if he were surprised at the come back. Not that it was anything great. But I was the new guy. New-ish. I’ve been here for a few years now but that was like mere moments when it came to this race. 

‘I’ll send the doc in.’ Rhage stated. He stood by the door for a moment after he got Butch situated in the private room. ‘Shower is just past that door and there are some scrubs in the closet. It’s good you called for help, Rhys. We will always come for one of ours.’ Rhage nodded and left me alone with an unconscious cop. I won’t lie. I smelled like death and rotten hot dogs and something I didn’t want to think about. There was a moment of hesitation about leaving Butch there, knocked out, exposed while I changed but when the doc walked in and gave me a gobsmacked expression, I hightailed to the shower. 

The scrubs were three sizes too big. I don’t know if Hulk practiced medicine here as well or if I was /that/ much smaller than these guys but damn. Maybe I needed more use out of the gym that was always open with fighters learning … to fight. Fight what? Don’t have a clue. All conversations ceased when I walked in a room. I was given the information that I needed which wasn’t much. A cock tease really. 

The doc finished up with a nasty looking wound on Butch with a quiet pace that I was left in awe of. I had seen her briefly. Once when I came to the house and two times more for a few blood tests and such. Someone, most likely the king guy, was giving it a go to figure out what I was. Good luck to him. I’ve been trying that for my entire life. 

‘He’s fine.’ A soft voice floated across the room. ‘Make sure he stays put though would you. And he needs to feed. Soon.’ There was zero concern about leaving me with him. No, there was nothing but concern and affection? I couldn’t place the feeling that this female gave off but it was a nice change. 

 “Ah. Yeah … one of those girls. Got it.” I nodded. Because I knew how to summon the blood angels. Sure. 

Then I was left with Butch. It was quiet. The whir of a machine that had a display next to him and the distinct thump of six chamber heart. The way he was bleeding all over the pit I wasn’t sure if it would still be going strong by the time we got here. Rhage seemed less concerned which was oddly comforting. This has happened before. There was a leather chair that I dragged across the linoleum floor and plopped my ass in it. 

“One time,”  I began, ‘this really big prick of guy puked all over me for saving his life. There he was bleeding out like an arsehole and he goes and loses his lunch all over my favorite shirt.” I lowered my voice as if telling a secret. “Little does he know, it was one of his, had all these designs on it. Gucci? Something expensive I’m sure. Anyway, he’s going to be right pissed when he realizes I just tossed into the hazardous waste bin.” 

I went on with stupid little quips. Filled Butch in on the goings on in the world of Fortnite. How that bitch of kid stole all my shit. Remarked on Fritz impeccable culinary skills and how I’d manage to befriend Lassiter. That dude was all metal and sunshine and oddness. But I liked it. 

At some point I drifted off mumbling about Maury and did what I always did … I fell right into a place I’d never been. A house. Butch was there. Yelling. Fighting some white haired fellows like that one who shot me. This was different. I felt the ominous stench of evil like it was a layer of sweat on my skin. I thought I was screaming. I swear I was. My eyes flew open to see the harsh fluorescents of the PT room and my mouth was wide open like a fly trap but no sound was coming out. I was frozen in the chair though my eyes scanned the room to find Butch still out like a light. Snoring like a bear. What felt like an eternity ended up being just a few minutes and I was free from the paralysis that gripped me after I wondered into someone else’s subconscious. We were working on it yet it freaked my shit out and now … there was an awareness to what Butch had been through these past months. A subtle ache bloomed in my chest and I found myself clawing at it before I shut my eyes again. 

[faveficarchive]

Coup de Grace: Part 1

The Last of the International Dilettantes

By Vivian Darkbloom

Pairing: Mel/Janice

Rating: Mature

Synopsis: From the Author:

The fabulously ill-tempered archaeologist Janice Covington and Southern-Belle-in-Exile Melinda Pappas gradually discover the real truth at the heart of the Xena Scrolls, in a story that darkly plays with time and memory, loss and desire, and the nature of what is real and what is not.

The stars all seem motionless, embedded in the eternal vault; yet they must all

be in constant motion, since they rise and traverse the heavens with their

luminous bodies till they return to the far-off scene of their setting.

—Lucretius

1. Still Life with Assistant Professor

Cambridge, 1948

At precisely 12:19 p.m. on Saturday, June 11, 1948, after sitting on the back porch and consuming two meatloaf sandwiches, drinking half a beer, pondering the uneven lawn begging to be mowed as well as the rutted wood rot in the roof beams of the porch, thinking that she didn't want to go to Venice to some damned boring conference anyway, then wondering why she didn't want to go anywhere and would rather stay and home and paint the kitchen ceiling and pull weeds out of the garden and just watch her lover fall asleep in the sun, after all this fermentation of thought aided by the American institutions of beef and beer, Dr. Janice Covington, the restless, relentless archaeologist and world explorer, fully realized that she had been domesticated.

She exhaled, as if some intangible pseudo-virility within her had been deflated.

Then she burped, and this small, crude action comforted her.

Janice laid back on the porch, head pillowed on a forearm, ignoring the empty, yawning lawn chair—she could not tolerate being civilized any further. Smoke from her cigarette drifted up into the rafters of the back porch. Out, damned rot! she thought, scowling at the poor old beams. She had warned Mel about this, when they bought the house—that it was less sturdy than it looked. But its shabby genteel, struggling-academics-meet-haunted-house ambiance possessed great appeal to the Southerner, who reveled in a very regional penchant for the Gothic. Not to mention that the house, drafty in the winter, also possessed incessantly creaking floorboards and a regularly flooding basement. Nonetheless, Janice reluctantly admitted to herself that she liked the house. Oh, hell, I love it. It's ours. She sat up abruptly, as if the happy thought would strip it all away. I've been waiting for two years for the other shoe to drop. 

She continually expected to wake up some morning in a leaky tent somewhere in the middle of nowhere: alone, on a site...lucid and miserable and no longer part of this living dream. Or she would wake to find a "Dear Jane" kinda letter propped against the sugar bowl (no, Mel would take grandma's sugar bowl with her. Against the toaster, maybe?) on the kitchen table : Dear Janice, I cannot go on any longer loving someone as short as you. I'm going back home to my fiancé, who was 6'4" in his stocking feet. You can keep the car. Love, Mel. Never mind the fact that the fiancé was now, most definitely, a former fiancé and married to another woman, and who kept sending Mel annoying photos of his newborn son, who had a strangely large head, like a mutant turnip....now there's someone who desperately needed the Pappas gene pool. But so far, practically every day, she woke to the smell of coffee, to Mel in the kitchen, loose hair spilling over a bathrobe, frowning over the newspaper. This world, I swear, she would drawl.

This world. When Janice was younger she kept a journal, in which she wrote about the things she was learning from her father. When she was 19 she finished one particular notebook with a litany of names—all the places she'd seen thus far. Under the dark canopy of night and tent, everything seethed with possibility, and she would recite the list in her mind: Hierakonpolis. Athens. Syria. Alexandria.

The litany kept her company, and for a long time it felt like her only friend. Through the holes in the old tent she would see stars.

Cairo. Rome. Istanbul. Thessalonika.

It had not occurred to her then to wonder if she was happy. Because everything had seemed possible. She looked around the yard. And the amazing thing was, it still felt that way. 

Add Cambridge to the list.

*****

"Ah, my little Mad Dog. My poor, little, housebroken Mad Dog."

Upon murmuring this benediction, Paul Rosenberg leaned back into the soft leather chair at the study's desk, and put his feet up on it, ignoring Covington's entreaties about doing so. Janice was always so nervous in the study—which she considered Mel's room—as if she were in the tomb of Tutankhamen himself and fearing some ancient Carolinian curse, should objects be tampered with. Carefully, he stretched his long legs over the desk, avoiding the thick, vellum-paged notebook, covered with lines of Greek, and an English which, to him, was as indecipherable as the ancient language, given the florid, tangled serifs of the bold hand. He knew instantly it wasn't Janice's handwriting, having encountered her painstakingly neat printing while they worked at Neuschwanstein. The chair carried a faint whiff of Mel's perfume. He smiled and closed his eyes for a minute. 

His brief, fluttery daydream of a certain leggy, blue-eyed brunette was disrupted by the disgruntled tones of a certain small blonde: "Hey, asshole." 

Janice had lured him from his penniless life in New York to an equally penniless one in Boston, with the promise of a teaching post for him at the college. When this drunken promise failed to materialize (I would've known she was drunk on the phone if I hadn't been drinking myself!), he found music gigs in town, tutored here and there, and acted as Janice's Boy Friday, a position that dictated nothing much more than picking up her dry cleaning (skirts being an unfortunate fact of life for a female professor, even one as lowly as she) and trying to discern the fate of the scroll she viewed at Neuschwanstein at the end of the war. You've still got the military contacts, buddy boy, she had said to him. Paul opened his eyes and smiled broadly at Janice, a toothy grin crowding his ten o'clock shadow, his open madras shirt flapping in the breeze from the window, revealing a slightly yellowing white v-neck undershirt. "Yes, my little Mad Dog?"

"Stop calling me that," she snapped. He had been relentless about the nickname, ever since hearing Mel employ it in an equally teasing fashion one day, as she shipped Janice off to work: Mad Dog honey, y'all sure are pretty in that dress! Now she stood before him, scowling, hands settled along her hips, in blue jeans and a dirty white t-shirt. He suddenly wondered if she had seen A Streetcar Named Desire recently, or if Marlon Brando had taken butch lessons from her. "Whaddya got for me? You call that number down in Washington?" 

"Ah. Well, I got stonewalled. That's what I got." He sighed, and toyed with a fountain pen from the desk. "I can't get the file. Sorry."

"You're kidding me. They won't even let you see a file?"

He shook his head. "I tell ya, I really ran up my phone bill trying to track it down. All I found out was that the scroll had been returned to the family of the owner before the war. Presumably the family that the lovely Fraulein Stoller bought it from. They live in Venice."

"Venice," Janice repeated dully. 

"That mean something to you?"

"There's an international archaeology conference there next month." Then, to herself: "Damnit, I need a name, at least." He murmured, "That's a coincidence."

"I hate coincidences, Paul." She paced in front of him. "Who's the bigwig in charge of all this?" She felt a familiar burn in her gut: the excitement of the chase. Is it happening again? I've still got it, then?

"Some general named Fenton, in Washington. I spoke to a flunky in his office. We got to bullshitting about the war, and he was the one who told me the scroll is in Venice. But that's all he would tell me."

Janice stopped pacing. She stared at him. Another coincidence. "The general is Jeremiah Winston Fenton?" "None other." Paul glanced at her uneasily. "Why?" "I'll be damned. Mel knows him. He was an old friend of her father's."

"Old Dr. Pappas knew everyone, it seems."

"Comes in handy."

"I see. So...you think Melinda could sweet-talk him? Is that your plan?"

"No." Janice sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. "She hates him. Said he's a creepy old bastard."

"Somehow I can't hear her saying that," Paul noted wryly. 

"Her exact words were, 'He's quite a terrible old man.' " She mimicked Mel's accent to perfection.

"That's pretty good, sweetheart. You sound just like her," he said admiringly.

"I get a lot of practice. But let me translate it into our lingo: He's a bastard. He put the moves on her, not long after her father died."

Paul shrugged. "Surely she's used to beating them off with a stick," he said, with forced carefulness. You don't want to be on that list of terrible men, do you, buddy? He was content just to be in Mel's orbit. Or so he believed. Given the strength of the relationship he witnessed between the two women, he knew he had very little choice in the matter.

"We're talking hours after Dr. Pappas's funeral," she snorted.

"Oh." He winced. "Lovely."

"Yeah. I don't want to put her through talkin' to that asshole again." Additionally, she was wary of using Mel's charms in this way, given the near disastrous results with Catherine Stoller. Near disaster? Okay, definite disaster. She was quiet for moment, but Paul didn't like the strange glint in her eye.

"Get the phone, will ya?"

*****

Paul's hand grew sweaty as he gripped the phone, and the business-like woman answered. "Melinda Pappas calling for General Fenton!" he barked into the receiver. Janice gave him a thumb's-up sign. He nodded, then handed her the phone. She made a great show of wiping her hand after touching the slimy receiver, but no sooner than she did, Paul could hear, from his close proximity, a deep male voice on the line.

"Why, General Fenton, is that you?" she began. Eerily, her voice had taken on the accent and cadences of her lover's. "Yes, it's me, Melinda. I know, it has been simply too long. Yes, yes, that is too true! So! How was your war?"

Paul rolled his eyes.

"Oh yes, I was abroad for a while, in England. I did so want to help the cause, and I was kept out of the WACs 'cause of my terrible nearsightedness." Janice giggled like a demented schoolgirl. "General, stop! Y'all are too much! My eyes do not look like sapphires! Well, maybe just a teeny bit, I suppose. You're so sweet. A summer sky? No, no one's ever told me that before! Well, now, I did have a purpose in callin' you…I've been so desperate for help. Yes, I am positively desperate!" Janice sat up straight, breathless as a Gene Tierney heroine. "You see, I have been continuin' the work of my Daddy—God rest his soul—and durin' the war I was fortunate enough to view a certain scroll at this lovely little castle in Germany—Neuschwanstein, yes. Now I'm sure you know, given how eee-fficient the military is, that it has been returned to its original owner, but I would so love to have a look at it again, so I need to contact the individual who is in possession of it. I had one of my manservants call your office earlier, to see if they would provide any information of their own free will—but I'll be darned if your Yankee bureaucracy didn't have me hog-tied! Yes sir, I bet you could just picture that: me, all tied up! What a sight! I was madder than a hornet's nest." A pause. More male rumbling. "Oh my, yes, you better believe it, sir! I do have a terrible temper. Why, just the other day I found one of the servants spit-polishing my silver! Usin' his disgusting saliva on the tea service that my great-grandaddy fought and died for, defendin' it from Sherman's fiends! I was so furious I could've cut off his balls and fed them to the hounds…" Janice's voice dropped menacingly. "They do so love the smell of blood, it arouses them for the hunt."

Paul conveyed a frantic plea to stay in character via a well-placed kick to the shin.

Janice grimaced, then cleared her throat. "Er, as I was saying, I would so love it if perhaps you could intervene…" Another pause. A bright smile lit up the archaeologist's face. "Oh General," she cooed seductively, "you are wonderful. I am entirely indebted to you. Uh-huh..." Janice picked up a fountain pen and scribbled down some information in the notebook in front of her. "Yes indeedy, I will call that lieutenant...and I certainly hope you read him the riot act!" Another pause. "No, I'm not living in South Carolina, or even in North Carolina anymore..." An unfortunate inspiration occurred. "Why, I'm livin' in New Orleans now! You sound as excited as I did when I moved here! Ah got together with a bunch of my old sorority sisters from Vanderbilt, and we all chipped in and bought a lovely old house down in the French Quarter. We call it the Rising Sun."

He buried his head in his hands.

"If you're ever down that way, well, you just try lookin' me up." Another peal of feminine tittering. "Oh, you're just awful! Uh-huh. Really? Well, red is my favorite color, you know…mmm-hmmmm. I would love to talk longer, General, but my manservant just brought in my mint julep and reminded me about gin rummy with the girls this afternoon. Why, yes…" she grinned at Paul. "He is a big strapping man, how did you know?"

Paul heard a loud click at the other end of the line. Janice looked at the phone in surprise. "Got him all worked up," she muttered.

He shook his head in pure disbelief. "You are out of your damn mind, Janice."

"That ain't no way to talk to a lady, mister."

"You're no lady, even when you're pretending to be one. And I tell you, if she ever finds out—"

Janice jammed a finger in his face. "She's not gonna find out unless you tell her, and if you do, I'll feed your balls to the hounds—"

"I'd like to see you try, butchling, 'cause we might as well face facts here—"

She grabbed his shirt, yanking him up out of the chair, knocking over the notebook.

"—you're pussywhipped!" he shouted gleefully.

Both parties felt a breeze from the study door, now opened by the woman who, indeed, without a single doubt, had them both pussywhipped. Mel stood in the doorway, her face slightly flushed from her brisk walk from the campus in the midday sun, carrying the leather satchel that once belonged to her father on her shoulder, and with a needless cardigan sweater draped over one forearm, poised like a waiter with a towel. Her pale, well-formed arms were bare in the summer dress she wore. Judging from the slightly dazed expression on her face, she either heard Paul's exclamation or was suffering a mild form of heat stroke.

"Hi," Mel greeted timidly, feeling as if she had interrupted some intimate scenario in a house that was not her own.

Both Paul and Janice mumbled hellos.

"Um..." Mel began, as she deposited both satchel and sweater on the study's couch. 

Paul straightened his abused shirt. "Hey, didn't you tell me you guys got meatloaf?" Before Mel could affirm, he darted past and down the hallway into the kitchen.

Janice remained sitting, now cross-legged, on the desk, prompting a scowl of disapproval from her companion. The archaeologist jumped off the desk immediately, sending loose papers scattering in her wake, and inadvertently wounding the fountain pen, which proceeded to bleed blue ink all over the desk's blotter. 

Mel sighed deeply.

"Sorry."

"This word—" Mel tried again. A parade of nervous tics commenced. First she nudged her glasses with a knuckle. Beneath the becoming blush, Janice could see the little linguistic wheels spinning in her lover's mind: Pussywhipped. Transitive verb. Pussy. Slang, obscene.... Then she scratched her cheek and tugged nervously on her ear.

The bullshit generator kicked in. "It's all part of the Mad Dog legend, baby. You know lots of things are said about me, and ah, this is one of those rumors...that, ah, I liked to abuse cats."

"I see," Mel responded, drawing an imaginary line in the carpet with the tip of her shoe, perhaps indicating a rapidly lowering threshold of nonsense. She took a step toward Janice. Who retreated with a much larger step of her own. "You know...dogs don't...like...cats..."

"If that is the case, then, wouldn't it have made more sense for Paul to call you a pussywhipper?" Mel said the word cautiously, as if afraid of mispronouncing it.

Oh, to hear that word rolling off that tongue. Language covered in honey. "Now Mel," Janice muttered, taking another backstep and colliding with a chair, "you know the intricacies of American slang cannot be easily dissected and understood fully without further research. There is also an arbitrary element at work, which we must take into account—"

"Good Lord, you are becoming an academic."

Janice gaped at her, hurt. "That was low!"

"My apologies, Assistant Professor Covington." Mel grinned at her; then, gradually, both the smile and the warm blush faded. "Did you sleep at all this morning?"

"Huh?" The archaeologist feigned ignorance. "Sure, once you were gone. You take up a lot of space." As do the nightmares in my head. "And you snore like an old man," she added softly.

The smile returned to Mel's face. "No one says you have to sleep with me."

"Actually, it's in the 'Rules for Pussywhippers' handbook. I must suffer for love."

"Perhaps," Mel suggested, "I should just ask Paul about this word. Hmmm?" She turned on her heel for the door. The little blonde panicked; she knew Paul would crack as soon as Mel took the meatloaf away from him. With a running leap, Janice jumped her, piggybacking effortlessly onto Mel's back. The Southerner oofed in surprise, then giggled, but bore the weight effortlessly, instinctively grabbing the legs that locked around her waist, and opting not to think about the dirty heels digging into her clothes. "Is this pussywhipping?" she asked in mock innocence. "Or a prelude to, perhaps?"

Janice laughed. "Will you stop for a minute?" She tightened her arms slightly around Mel's neck and shoulders. 

"I will find out what that word means," the translator proclaimed.

"Of that I have no doubt. You're the most stubborn woman I ever did meet."

"You bring it out in me," accused Mel.

No snappy retorts came to Janice's mind. She was too close to the nape of Mel's neck, and inhaled her scent with the ferocity of a junkie. The roller coaster rush through her blood left her dazed and senseless, and resistant to sequential thought. "How's your Italian?" she mumbled into Mel's ear.

"What? Oh, just fine. It's sittin' in the back of my brain, with my French and my Latin, playin' backgammon. Why?"

"That's a surreal answer."

"Such a non-sequitur deserves it."

Janice kissed her cheek. Several times.

"Hmm. That's a better non-sequitur."

"Baby," the archaeologist purred, "we're going to Venice."

Mel craned her neck to look at Janice in surprise. "You changed your mind?" In previous discussions concerning the conference, Mel had taken Janice's lack of interest as a sign they would not be going. She had been surprisingly disappointed, wondering, with some amusement, if she herself were the one growing restless.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Good question, wondered Janice. I just got caught up in the chase again. Figures as soon as I accept settling down, it starts up again. "Tell ya later," she replied as Paul stomped back into the room.

"Hey, you guys are out of—" he stopped, blinking in surprise at this playfulness. Simple horseplay, or Lesbian foreplay? I don't want to know, do I? Whatever it was, the obvious love made him feel about a dozen kinds of ambivalence.

But that happy look in Mel's eyes, and her big grin, seemed to override everything for him at that moment. "We're goin' to Venice," she blurted, like a kid, breathless, as she lugged Covington toward the door.

Paul managed a small, wry smile. "Send me a postcard," he said wistfully.

2. The Spell, Unbroken

Venice, 1948

For Jennifer Halliwell Davies, another trip to Venice was…another trip to Venice. The city was like a drowning woman, a dying dowager thrown on a reef: It was alive, though just barely, and as such did not interest her. She could not even remember how many times she had been in the city, let alone this particular palazzo, one of many built during the Renaissance by the powerful Cornaro family.

But there was one thing in Venice that interested her: a certain woman, who stood in the crowd milling in the courtyard below.

She'd had a premonition—well, not exactly that. She'd met a fellow in the hotel bar the night before, some poor anthropology professor from Harvard, who hit her up for as many vodkas as she was willing to buy. And when she discovered that the chap knew Janice Covington and had said that the esteemed archaeologist was attending the conference as well, Jenny would have stormed Moscow itself and raided Stalin's liquor cabinet just to keep him talking.

And there she was.

Jenny hid herself, allowing a large vase to provide her cover, as she stared at Janice through her fashionable turista binoculars.

Upon closer inspection through the looking glass, she noted that Janice wore a man's white oxford shirt, bright against her tanned arms, and it looked clean. Must've been laundry day yesterday. The pants were khaki, as they usually were, and the wild strawberry blonde tresses were twined carelessly into a messy braid. The only things missing were the leather jacket and the foul fedora, older than the Dead Sea Scrolls. Perhaps the abomination passing as a millinery item had finally faced its overdue demise. Nonetheless, the good doctor looked quite prepared to lead an impromptu expedition into the most appalling of canals.

Despite the never-changing attire, she thought Janice looked different somehow. The small article she encountered almost a year ago in Archaeology magazine, about the so-called Xena Scrolls and Dr. Covington's role in their recovery, mentioned that she had served in the war—was that why Janice looked more mature?

The archaeologist was nodding politely at the older woman who had engaged her in conversation—whom Jenny recognized as a White Russian expatriate, just another international dilettante like herself. Her brows knitted in curiosity as she realized what was different: There was no impatient, angry scowl on Janice's face.

Jenny felt Linus's presence before he said anything—or, more accurately, she felt his mustache tickle her ear. "You were right," he burred.

She frowned, then lowered the binoculars. "Not totally useless, you know."

Linus smiled. "Never said you were, darling." His arm drew around her waist in an affectionate squeeze. "Aren't you going to go say hello to her?"

"Should I?" She tapped the lens of the binoculars irritably, then pushed away a loose strand of her blonde hair. "I suppose it's tempting."

"I'll leave it to you." Linus touched the knot of his green silk tie for the umpteenth time. Then he slicked back his dark brown hair with the damp palm of his hand, twitched his mustache to make sure it was in place, and allowed his hand wander back to the tie.

"If you don't stop fussing with that, I'm going to hang you with it," his wife hissed. "You're worse than a woman."

He raised a thick eyebrow. "I always thought you liked that about me," he parried pleasantly.

She smiled at the familiar retort. After almost ten years of marriage, the minutiae of their lives—the jokes, the jaunts, and the lovers, shared and not shared—flimsy on their own accord and meaningless when dissected, held them together more than any illusion of love or fidelity.

"You haven't seen her in over five years," her husband reminded her. "The spell is broken, is it not?"

She said nothing.

"You know what she's like." Linus prodded with the delicacy of a ham-handed surgeon. "Girl in every port...."

...and I was just lucky Alexandria was a stop on her itinerary.

"I would be surprised if she's here alone. And," he added, ignoring her homicidal glare, "Covington is an awful lot of bother. She breathes trouble like air."

Jenny turned her gray eyes to her husband. "That was part of her appeal, you idiot," she growled.

Linus rolled his eyes, unable to comprehend this. "Oh, righto. Forgot that bit. As I said, I'll leave it all to you, dear. If I should run into her first, I'll just tell her you're at Baden Baden with the masseuse again and you can remain up here, hiding."

He succeeded in making her laugh. His lines around his eyes crinkled as he grinned, and then softened as he grew serious.

"What?" she prompted.

"Don't get hurt, hmm?" He kissed her cheek, trotted down the stone steps leading into the garden, and she turned her attention, once again, to the woman in her sights. "And Jenny?" he called, turning around suddenly to face her again.

"What?" she shouted irritably.

"Don't give her any money!"

Oh, you cheap bastard. "Fine!" she retorted, as he melded into the crowd. With another sigh she put the small binoculars back in her purse, snapping the bag shut. I think I need another drink first. She lost herself for a few minutes, staring into the crowd. Linus wants to see her again. Wants her to come to Alexandria. What about what I want?

Jenny had to admit that she didn't have a clue about that.

Italian purring emanated from just beyond the open doors of the palazzo. She knew, even with her back to them, that it was Vittorio Frascati, who owned the palazzo. She did not know him well—she vaguely recalled being introduced to him once before the war—but the old man, scion of a prominent Venetian family and descendent of a doge, was high profile among the wealthy international set. And now he was oozing his lecherous charm on some hapless female. "Is it not the finest Cornaro in Venice?" he was murmuring.

Jenny turned around, just for a peek. She expected to see some tittering blonde barely out of university, but this one made her raise an eyebrow appreciatively; Vittorio did have taste after all, she marveled. The small, dapper man had linked arms with a tall, bespectacled black-haired beauty, who smiled at him graciously. Jenny wondered if the woman was the wife or mistress of a famous man, or even, perhaps, famous herself. Her clothes were impeccable: a silk blouse of deep blue, a darker matching skirt, both items flattering and elegant.

The woman nodded at the old man. "Grazi, Vittorio," the woman replied, honoring him in his native language. "You have been very generous with your time. And very helpful."

"And you have been generous to humor a babbling old man, Melinda." He squeezed her arm affectionately, then disengaged from her. "I hope you find what you are looking for." He kissed her hand, smiled, and returned indoors to maintain his Gatsby-like aloofness from his own party.

Jenny found herself alone—and exchanging smiles—with the beautiful woman, who looked faintly embarrassed to have been fawning, however subtly, over a wealthy and powerful man.

"He's quite a charmer," Jenny said to the woman.

"That he is," the woman agreed. Her low, indolent drawl was from the American South. She came closer to Jenny, and that was when the Englishwoman noticed that the stranger was about half a foot taller than she, almost as tall as her husband. "If I wanted to marry for money, he'd be the one," the Southerner added.

Jenny tried to stifle a grin. "You seem the type who would marry for love instead."

The woman smiled mysteriously and said nothing, but absently touched a ring on the smallest finger of her left hand. It was a silver ring, a nice complement to the expensive watch (Cartier) and the pearl earrings (real).

"I'm Jennifer Davies," she said, offering a hand.

The tall woman enfolded it in one of her own. "Melinda Pappas."

"Let me guess..."

"Hmmm?" Mel mused, raising an eyebrow.

"You're from Virginia!"

It was the "Guess the Accent" game. Mel was well acquainted with it; it had made the first few months of living in New England sheer hell. "Er, no, I'm afraid not."

"Tennessee?"

"No."

"Kentucky?"

"No."

"Definitely not Texas."

"Certainly not," Mel affirmed, a touch haughty.

"I'm afraid I've run out of Southern states," Jenny said, almost apologetic.

"South Carolina," Mel provided, the syllables languishing in her speech like Janice Covington on the sofa after one bourbon too many.

"Good heavens." Jenny paused. "Does each compass point have a Carolina?"

Mel laughed. "No. Just North and South."

"And what brings you to this party, this conference?"

"I'm a translator," Mel supplied succinctly.

"How fascinating. I barely stumble through English, let alone any other language. What have you been working on?"

"Well, it's a bit of an ongoing project. I'm translating a series of ancient writings, known as the Xena Scrolls."

For once Jenny was glad she wasn't drinking, for if she were, she would have choked. Then providence, divine and sadistic, threw a sunbeam down to highlight the silver ring on Mel's finger. Oh bloody hell.

"So," Jenny enunciated carefully, "you must know Dr. Covington."

***** Janice frowned in the general direction of the palazzo's great doors, wondering where Mel was. She scowled into the dregs of her wineglass, then returned her gaze to the house. Venetian architecture failed to impress her, and she had opted not to go on the impromptu house tour that Count Frascati offered to them. But she knew Mel's motivations were more than a desire to see the palazzo; the Southerner had hoped that the Count would know something about the Falconettos, the elusive, aristocratic family that had owned at least one scroll authored by Gabrielle of Poteidaia. So far all they knew of the family was that the patriarch had died at the end of the war and his son, his heir, could not be found.

The old maze of the city, though, intimidated her, and she frequently found herself getting lost whenever she was alone, tooling around the city with the ridiculous—and essentially useless—hand-drawn map that Mel had given her. "Don't get lost," Mel always said to her. And the archaeologist always scoffed at this: Lost? She, who could navigate all five boroughs of New York (even Staten Island!) with ease, who knew Alexandria and Cairo like the back of her hand, who, as an ambulance driver during the war, had the smallest streets of London and Paris committed to memory?

"Venice is a tricky city," Mel had said. "It's a changeling." She had paused dramatically, and if you aren't any kind of goddamn warrior you sure did inherit a sense of drama from that damn woman, Janice had thought to herself. "Kind of like the South," Mel then added, both wistful and mysterious.

This was typical. Whenever Mel liked anything, it reminded her of the South.

This is what I get for taking her up North, thought Janice, with a trickle of guilt. Endless nostalgia and romanticism.

Janice deposited the empty glass on a tray that sailed by, piloted by an overworked waiter. No sooner was it out of her hand than a fresh drink was thrust into her hand. "Hey!" she exclaimed, half-turning to berate the waiter.

Who was already gone. Standing in his place was Jennifer Davies.

Oh shit. Janice's sudden desire for Mel to be there was not because she wanted her lover to witness what could be a potentially ugly encounter, but because she knew that the ever-responsible Mel would, if nothing else, ensure a safe return to the hotel after Jenny had beaten her to a pulpy state of unconsciousness.

"Janice," she purred.

"Jesus," blurted the archaeologist.

"Not quite, love." The Englishwoman sipped at a glass of pinot grigio. "Almost didn't recognize you without the hat. And the jacket. You seem almost naked."

Janice rolled her shoulders nervously, then squared them, both gestures dying for the roguish finishing touch of a leather jacket. She studied Jenny. The Englishwoman was still lovely, with her mess of dark golden curls now tamed into a respectable looking bun, her gray eyes, usually mischievous, still possessing a lively glint. But what that glint meant now, Janice was not sure. All she felt was gratitude that Jenny was not enamored of firearms. "Good to see ya," Janice mumbled. Goddamnit, Mel, where are you?

"It's surprising to see you." Jenny swallowed. "I thought, for a while, you might be dead."

Is her hand shaking? "What?"

"Not long after the war I ran into Andrew Curran. He said he saw you in London, in '44. And they were sending you to the continent, right into the heart of it."

Janice remembered that. She also remembered he borrowed ten quid and never paid her back. Andrew was a writer, an old friend and ex-lover of Jenny's, and a RAF pilot during the war. "I'm glad Andrew made it."

Jenny ignored this. "I've spent five years wondering what's become of you."

Shit oh shit. Somehow an I’m sorry seemed pointless in the face of this weighty fact. "Guess I shoulda sent word."

"Perhaps. But eventually I knew you were all right: Your scrolls are making you well known." Jenny sipped the wine. "You have them all now?"

A tiny frown, and the familiar furrowing of her brow. "Not all of them. There are more."

"Really, Janice? Your translator thinks you're wrong." Jenny smiled, relishing the stunned look on her former lover's face, and tilted her head. Janice followed the direction of the motion. They were not difficult to spot, because they were both two of the tallest people at the party: Linus and Mel, together, talking.

Shit oh shit oh shit. "You've met Mel." Janice was, initially, too surprised to ignore the implications of what Jenny claimed Mel had said about the Scrolls. "Quite by accident. We started talking, and found out we had a mutual acquaintance in you, my pet. Then I introduced her to my charming husband, and they've been blathering about Mayan architecture for the past twenty minutes. Terribly dull. Oh Janice, don't glare at me like that. I'm not saying your little concubine is a bore. Actually, she's not so little, is she?"

"No, she's not," snapped the archaeologist.

Rather defensive, thought Jenny. "Not that it's a bad thing," she amended.

"It's not. I never have to worry about changing light bulbs or gettin' things from the top shelf in the pantry."

Always ready with the wisecrack, Janice. That hasn't changed. "At any rate, she's lovely, and very smart. Don't worry. I said nothing to her of our—shared past, and I'm sure Linus won't either."

"I'm not worried about that."

But Jenny could tell from the nervous clenching of the archaeologist's jaw, that this wasn't quite the given that it was declared to be. "To be frank, dear, I didn't think she was your type."

"If that's your polite way of sayin' she's out of my league, I know that." Janice glared at her.

"She's out of everybody's league, darling." Jenny said it lightly, but felt it deeply, miserably, in her bones. She would have been prepared to compete with a woman—or even a man—for Janice's affections, but not an Amazonian demigoddess. "They look good together," Jenny observed, as they both watched Linus and Mel. "My husband and your lover. Both so tall. Like some Nazi-Nietzschean super breeding couple." As she'd hoped, Janice did chuckle at that. Nice to see I can still make you laugh, if nothing else.

"And I thought I was pissed off about being short."

"I'm pissed off about a lot of things, love."

"Even after five years, baby?" Janice raised an eyebrow.

Jenny resisted the diminutive and what it stood for: an obvious attempt at being charmed. Unfortunately, as she stared into the green eyes and ached to kiss the lips, she realized it was working. "She wears a ring."

"Yeah," Janice grunted. "Is that a crime or something?"

"No. But it's the ultimate symbol of marriage, of commitment. Isn't it?"

The infamous Covington sneer of defiance made an appearance. "So suddenly you're an expert, since you're married yourself? You might as well wipe your ass with that piece of paper."

Ah, Janice, I have missed you. I needed to feel something, and you're it. Who else would talk to me like this, who would let the truth fly like that? She wanted to take Janice in her arms, and forgive her, and make all the promises that she knew she couldn't keep. Our mutual marriages appear to be in the way of that. Mine has always been flexible. But yours? She watched Janice watch Mel. This was also something new, this naked look, a vulnerability slowly crossing Covington's face, like a blind man negotiating an intersection.

"Just admit it. You're in love with her. And it's something bigger than anything you ever felt for me."

Janice closed her eyes. "Jenny, don't do this. Don't start." A little too late for that, big mouth, she chastised herself.

"I'm not starting anything. I'm finishing it." Jenny glared into her wine, watching the surface of the liquid spin like a hula hoop. "You left it a bit sloppy, a bit unfinished in Alexandria. Didn't you?"

Alexandria. It was the last time they had been together. Janice remembered little of it: Hazy golden blurs of fucking, of drinking. Of the haunting urge that built in her head to see Mel again, until it became so strong and desperate that she sold her mother's wedding ring just to get enough money to buy a plane ticket home. She had left Jenny without saying goodbye. She remembered sitting on the edge of the bed, money in her hand, watching Jenny sleep. And then moving, as if in a dream, for the door. "I guess I did," Janice replied softly. "I regret that." The musing tone gave to the words all the weight and substance of a feather. But it felt, to Janice, as if she were now a different person, someone not capable of that behavior. For she could never see herself doing that to Mel, ever again. Especially since I gave you a ring and I said I didn't need a ceremony or a church or a God. I don't need anything except you.

Jenny, of course, knew none of this, and even if she did, would have remained as  impassively impressed as she was now. "A hell of an apology."

Okay, I tried noble, now I'm back to the bitch. "Well, what the fuck do you want from me?" snapped Janice.

She wanted to slap Janice hard—very, very hard. But instead, she opted for the humiliation of throwing wine in her face. The sudden violence of the gesture possessed the emotional impact she wanted, as she watched the archaeologist flinch, if only ever so slightly.

"Try to explain that to your dashing Southern belle," she said quietly.

*****

Inevitably, at any type of social gathering, Mel eventually reverted to wallflower status; she felt most happy quietly observing other guests.

Especially Janice. At the moment, however, the archaeologist was not visible from where she sat, on a stone bench, at the periphery of the crowd. But then Janice was walking quickly toward her, whistling tunelessly and betraying her nervous restlessness by tapping a clenched fist against her thigh.

Mel straightened in distress when she noticed the dampness of Janice's cheeks. Crying? she wondered. But once the small blonde sat down next to her she realized it was not the tracks of tears, but a sheen of white wine. Luminous clear drops were falling happily, willingly, into her cleavage.

"Oh, dear. And we were proceeding so nicely, without incident." Mel murmured. She handed her companion a clean yet wrinkled napkin.

Janice blotted her face dry.

"Could have been worse, I suppose," she added, discreetly checking for bloodstains or bruises.

"I suppose," echoed Janice with a sigh. "But white wine does possess a certain sting."

"Would you care to tell me what happened between you and Mrs. Davies?"

"Mrs. Davies?"

"She was the last person I saw you talking with. Did she do this?" Mel gestured at her lover's face.

"Ah, dear Mrs. Davies."

"Yes. What of Mrs. Davies?"

"This conversation is beginning to remind me of that crazy book you were trying to make me read."

The "crazy book" was by Gertrude Stein. What Mel found to be a fascinating exercise in the modern use of language had sent Janice scurrying for the comfort of her old friends Raymond Chandler and Dash Hammett.

"Don't change the subject, darling. Especially when it's about a woman who still seems to be in love with you."

"So you figured that out, huh?"

"Yes. I'm pretty good at decoding the obvious. You should have seen me when the Hindenburg blew up."

Mel had hoped to bring a smile to the that lovely face, but instead Janice frowned, wrapping the napkin around her fist, the white contrasting with her tanned hand, like a bandage. Like the gauze and cloth slapped on her during the war, like the handkerchief Harry gave her when she scraped her knuckles on rocks during an excavation in Macedonia. Four days later he was dead and all she had was his handkerchief, covered with her own blood, and his dreams, and his debts.

"I didn't know she'd be here," Janice admitted quietly.

"Of course not. But when...when were you with her?"

Janice continued to stare at her hand, watching the white cotton flutter as she wiggled her fingers within it. "Last time I saw her was in '43. It was one of those on again, off again things. I met both of them…" she exhaled, scowled in thought. "….oh, I think it was 1940. Harry called their set 'the international dilettantes.' They threw parties, they traveled, they nosed around on digs, acting all curious and trying to buy anything that struck their fancy. No one took them seriously. They were kind of on the fringe of things. In a way, so was I, but no one could say that I didn't do my time in the field, and that I wasn't serious about what I was doin'." She shot Mel a wry look. "I thought you were one of them, one of those types, when I first met you."

Mel shrugged. "Well, I guess I am.”

"No," teased Janice, "you're a debutante, not a dilettante, honey."

"Gosh, I do get those words mixed up in my pretty little head!" Mel drawled.

Janice laughed. "There's a lot in that pretty little head, I know. In fact, I've always thought you should be the one teaching, not me. I'm just a digger at heart. Anyway," Janice continued with a sigh, "we kept running into Jenny and Linus—Athens, Cairo, Syria, you name it. They were always around. Eventually we all became friends...and, with Jenny, more than that."

"And Linus? Did he know? Does he know?"

Janice snorted derisively. "Oh yeah. He knew all right. In fact, he gave me money for a couple of my digs. 'Cause I was fucking his wife and keeping her happy."

"This made him happy?" Mel frowned, confused.

"Linus and Jenny have what you might call a marriage in name only. He's nouveau riche, Canadian. His family was looking to make themselves classy by marrying off their dissolute son to a woman with background. Jenny's got the lineage, her father is a squire or something stupid like that...they have this big country house...but no cash flow. It's a perfect set-up. They're fond of each other, and for all I know they may actually fornicate with each other every once in a while, but usually they go their separate ways when it comes to companionship of that kind."

"Oh." Mel blinked, pondered something meaningful to say. "At least she's not a Nazi."

Janice laughed in amazement. "No, she's not. She's worse." Morosely she stared at the ground, then scrutinized Mel. "You're taking this awfully well," she accused.

"I don't see the point of getting upset over something that's already happened." Mel chewed her lip. How to convey reassurance, with an innocuous touch, what inept words cannot…whoever thought that language would fail me, of all people? Even now there were moments when she could not trust her body, her movements, as if any casual sign of affection would tell the world what she was, and what she felt. Her fingers twitched, she steadied her hand, and plucked at the khaki pant leg, gently, teasingly.

Janice looked at her.

"I don't care about that."

"Jesus, I do not deserve you. Damn this stupid thing. Why did we come to this party anyway?"

"It was your idea," Mel reminded her.

Janice made a pretense at scanning the crowd. "I thought we should get out. Some people might think fucking in a hotel room for a whole day is unhealthy."

"I wouldn’t take you to be one of those types, Janice."

"And I never thought you'd turn out to be a sex fiend with unlimited energy." Janice reached out and took the wineglass from the large hand, permitting her fingers a brief electric entanglement with Mel's own. "But you are, aren't you?"

Mel thought, for a moment, that Venice had just sunk another inch.

The archaeologist drained the glass. She swallowed. Her lips glittered, wet.

"Do you want to go back to the room?" Janice asked. She pressed the empty glass into Mel's hand. Her palm brushed along the knuckles curled loosely around the expensive Venetian stemware.

She took the soft smash of Vittorio's fine wineglass as a yes.

*****

In the sanctuary of their rooms at the Hotel Danieli, Jenny lit up a cigar in honor of Covington. She puffed furiously. Like to see that Southern ninny try to smoke one of these. The spiteful thought came too soon, as the smoke strangled her and she proceeded to hack violently. It's like tasting death.

Linus emerged from the large bathroom while unknotting his tie to find his wife sprawled, unladylike, on the couch, her skirt hitched up to dangerous heights and a cigar in her mouth. "You know," he began, "Byron called Venice 'Sodom on the Sea.' " He sat down next to her, draping a large hand on her bare thigh, not in the least tempted by the smooth skin. "So one would think, whatever your misfortunes with the lovely doctor, you would find a bit of...entertainment elsewhere." He squeezed her leg with gentle affection. "The night is still young."

She unfurled smoke at him in lieu of a response.

He coughed loudly. "Darling, put that foul thing out before we all go up in flames."

She dropped it in the half-empty champagne glass. It fizzled, just like all those hopes I had of being back in your bed, Janice.

Linus took her hand. "Look, I know it bloody hurts, but she's happy. Can't you tell?"

"Yes." She flopped against him and pressed her face in the dark soft night of his black jacket. No crying. Not yet. Not now. She took a deep breath, its jagged rhythm suggesting the inhalation of broken glass. It fucking feels like that, anyway. "She'll be coming to Alexandria?" The tiny pleading voice was almost lost against the breadth of his jacket.

He shrugged. "The invitation was proffered to both of them. You can lead a horse to water…."

"…but she'll end up drinking bourbon anyway." Jenny sighed and sat up. She stared at the ceiling, then at her husband. Time to ask the tricky question. "Lye, this really has nothing to do with me, does it?"

His standard trick, in attempting to look innocent, was widening his dark eyes.

"Why do you want Janice in Alexandria?" she asked slowly, knowing she would get the answer he always gave, the answer that, in his so-called line of work, he couldn't help but give her.

He smiled. "You know what I'm going to say…"

"Say it anyway."

He rubbed his chin. "I need to keep an eye on her."

*****

Mel had decided that they should never leave the hotel room. Because she was both deliciously happy, yet deeply mortified. What kind of looks might they get when they dared to leave the sanctuary of the room again? If this were a room in the Bible Belt, we might get away with saying we were holding a small revivalist meeting or something. I could even throw in a hallelujah. For, if the proverbial fly on the wall were, say, a blind nun, this creature would have been most impressed by the Christian devotion of Dr. Covington, as she chanted "Jesus" over and over again, so lovingly, so frequently, so breathlessly. The repetition had indeed made Mel downright nervous, triggering dormant Methodist tendencies, and distracting from the extremely pleasant task of servicing the good doctor. Blasphemy upon blasphemy. I really am going to hell...if I still believe in that. Her quasi-theological ruminations derailed as Janice climaxed, blonde head slamming back into a soft, fat pillow, with one final cry for Christ. Her mouth glistened, as if she had swallowed stars, and her eyes were dazed, unfocused, and happy.

Mel decided that hell was worth this.

"Keeps getting better and better," mumbled Janice, before rolling on her stomach and falling into a light slumber. Mel indulged a bad habit and sprawled practically on top of her, cheek against shoulder blade, hips to butt. She was on the precipice of sleep herself when the soft growl of Janice's voice reverberated against her.

"I was a shit." The words were almost smothered by the pillow to which they were addressed.

Mel could not see her face. "What?"

"With Jenny. I was a shit."

Her hand swept down and felt the scars along Janice's thigh, then the resultant shudder that the touch brought, one of desire or remembrance, she did not know. She wondered if Janice herself knew. "I don't care." The words tumbled out of her mouth. It was true. It also appeared cruel somehow. She wondered, ever so briefly, why she didn't. Love, the great blind spot.

"You should."

"Why?"

"The last time I was with her…I could think of nothing but you." Janice whispered this, sighed, then stretched, the action rippling her body.

Mel rode the current of flesh. "Am I too heavy for you?"

"No. Don't move." And she added, almost shyly, "I like it."

Some emotion caught Mel by desperate surprise, a nameless, rootless anxiety, and she knew now Janice's own fear of having it all taken away, of the dream dissolved. She thought of the other woman who, in this city, at this moment, also loved Janice Covington. If fate were crueler, she wouldn't be here now. Usually, Mel possessed a powerful ability to find common ground with others; empathy had caught up with her at last.

"I love you anyway," she said.

3. Lucky

Cambridge, 1949

Dr. James Snyder sat at his desk, focusing a passionate amount of attention on his pen. He twirled it in his fingers, aligned it with the stack of papers in front of him, picked it up again. "You don't think she'll bring a gun, do you?" he muttered, half-joking.

The Dean, sitting on a worn leather couch near his desk, only smiled.

"Of course, you've heard the rumors…."

"Hmm," was the Dean’s noncommittal reply.

"…she killed an entire Nazi patrol single-handedly. Didn't she get some sort of commendation? And I have a colleague at the University of Texas who said that she pistol-whipped him."

The Dean pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Oh, dear." This response did little to assuage Snyder. "I'm relatively certain that Dr. Covington is capable of behaving herself, Snyder. We've had no incidents in the two years she's been on staff." Just a rash of infatuated coeds, he thought.

Nonetheless, when the door opened and the small woman, wearing dark trousers and a rumpled khaki shirt, strode into his office without being formally invited, Snyder felt his palms go clammy and every muscle in his back knot itself. He was not comforted either by the tall woman who lingered shyly near the door. Great, she's brought a second. He only knew of Melinda Pappas via her rising professional reputation, but wrongly assumed that the translator was as ill-tempered as her companion.

"Hiya, Snyder," Janice said as she flopped in the chair facing his desk. She nodded at the Dean, who sat at her left. “Old man."

The Dean grinned, amused. "Hello, Janice."

The archaeologist craned her neck to gaze back at Mel. "Join the party, Stretch."

Mel rolled her eyes, and reluctantly approached. She was not faculty and enjoyed no special status, despite tutoring and being a regular denizen of the library, and thus felt uncomfortable at being privy to matters among the staff. Even if it they were about the Scrolls. But Janice had insisted that she attend the meeting. You're my partner, Janice had said. And, she thought as she took the seat next to Covington, I really like the sound of that.

"Hullo, Miss Pappas," Snyder said.

"Hello, Dr. Snyder. How are you?"

"Oh, just fine." He smiled at the polite, blue-eyed beauty. "Stretch, huh?"

"Mmm."

"Didn't know folks call you that."

"They don't," Mel replied firmly. She flicked a sidelong glare at Janice, who shrugged.

Snyder blinked. "Oh."

A stake was now driven through the heart of casual conversation.

Janice cleared her throat. "Why are we here, Snyder? I assume it has to do with the dating of the Scrolls."

"Correct, Dr. Covington. Er, the results of the carbon dating are in."

"And?" Janice prodded impatiently.

"Well, it is a little later than you initially thought."

The archaeologist shrugged. "They were damn difficult to date. That's why I was so broad on time period."

"I quite understand. In general, that's the safest, most practical route. But now with the advent of radiocarbon dating, we can be much more accurate. Statistical probability is the basis in calculating the half-life of C-14, but no one can really predict the rate of decay, and a standard deviation exists in every case, which is—"

"Snyder, I don't need a goddamn lecture on the process, okay? Just tell me what you found."

The befuddled and frightened academic mumbled something which sounded like "churlish beans in sentry." In fact, this was precisely what he said. For within the great roaming recesses of his mind he thought that perhaps Covington would be satisfied with this response, would smile, shake his hand, declare him a genius, perhaps even buy him a drink.

Instead, her gaze cut him like a diamond on glass. She straightened from her lounging, relaxed position. He saw her flex her hands and became utterly convinced that even her fingernails possessed muscles. "Come again?" she requested smoothly.

Snyder swallowed, thought a quick prayer and a farewell to his wife. "The early sixteenth century."

Another silence dropped, like a theater curtain after a botched performance.

Until it was broken by Janice. "Are you shitting me?"

"Calm down, Janice," the Dean urged.

The only thing that kept Janice from jumping up was the sudden warm hand that, mindless of their location and the parties present, gave her leg a comforting squeeze. She looked quickly at Mel, whose stunned expression nonetheless betrayed the assurance of the gesture. "There has got to be a mistake," Janice snapped. Mel nodded numbly. "This is still a very new procedure. Someone made a mistake."

It was now Snyder's turn to be riled. "No mistakes can be made in this process. I checked the results several times. I dated several pieces of parchment."

Janice stood up and began pacing. "But the typology of the instruments—the scroll casing, the stiles—it all fit in with the time period."

"The stratigraphy confirmed this?" asked the Dean.

"Yes! Do you know how far down I had to go? They were in a tomb, for Christ's sake!"

"Those artifacts—the scroll case and the writing tools—did date well within the time frame you assigned," Snyder agreed. "As did some of the pottery you brought from the same location. But it's the actual scrolls themselves that do not: the paper."

"So this was all a ruse. They're fakes." Helpless, inconsolable for the moment, Janice leaned against the windowsill. It was the only thing that kept her standing.

"Or very cunning duplicates of the originals," Mel added softly.

The Dean smiled. He didn't know Covington's partner well, but what he knew, he liked.

But before he could pursue this line of thought, Snyder threw in, "Oh, who cares how real they are!" The women and the Dean stared at him. "They're a fascinating discovery! Somebody was clever enough to write in ancient Greek, use the proper materials to make them look like ancient scrolls, found a case somewhere, then buried them for posterity, thinking they played a massive joke on the world. You know, like that MacPherson fellow, who invented Ossian."

"Or they are copies of the original scrolls, which are still missing, as Miss Pappas proposed," the Dean added. "What do you think, Dr. Covington?"

Janice's fury was spent for the time being, otherwise the hand pressed against the cool windowpane of Snyder's office would've been bloodied by shattered glass. "I don't know what to think," she whispered.

"I know what I think," the Dean retorted. "I think you're lucky."

Janice shot him a curious yet homicidal glance.

"Your father spent his entire professional life looking for those scrolls. Yet you, barely thirty, made this discovery, and in a war zone, no less. They may not be the real thing. But they're a damned sight closer—and more interesting—than anything Harry Covington found."

"Watch what you say about my father, old man," Janice grunted.

"Janice." Mel sounded the warning.

"My father laid the foundation for me to find what I did. He did thirty goddamn years of legwork chasing after these. If he hadn't died when he did, he would've found them." She drew a breath to refuel her fury. "If you want me off the faculty now, fine. I don't give a damn. I didn't have much of a reputation before I came here. It doesn't matter to me. So I'll resign."

Alarmed, Mel stood up. "No. Wait a minute—" She exchanged a look with her lover. 

How much of the bravado was shock, and wounded pride? Janice's desire for legitimacy—for someone to take her work seriously—was very much a part of why she accepted the position at the university. It complemented her wish, however seemingly tenuous at times, for a stable life.

"That isn't what I want," the Dean replied quietly. "I want you to find the real scrolls."

"You believe they exist," Janice stated warily.

"I believe that if they do exist, you'll find them. And if this is, as Snyder suggests, some kind of fantastic fraud, you'll find that out as well."

"All for the greater glory of the old alma mater, eh?"

Once again, the Dean proffered his smug smile. "Anything you uncover would benefit the university, as long as you are under its auspices. And as far as I'm concerned, you are." The older man stood up. "Let's give you a year to come up with something. I know that doesn't seem like much time, but if, at the end of that year, you give me enough reason to continue the search, I'll extend the expedition. After you spend a semester in the classroom, of course."

The Dean extended his hand for Janice to shake. She stared at him suspiciously.

"Don't be a bad sport, Covington. I'm giving you an opportunity to do what you do best. And you're damned good at it, I know that. Have a proposal on my desk in six weeks."

Her hands remained idly on her hips.

He chuckled and withdrew his hand. "I look forward to seeing what you'll do." He winked and picked up his walking stick, and a hat. "I'll get my money's worth out of you, my girl." He nodded at Snyder and Mel. "Dr. Snyder, Miss Pappas, good day."

Janice was staring into space. "Money's worth?" she mumbled. Her gaze snapped to the doorway where the Dean had departed. She stomped over to the door, flung it open, and shouted down the hallway at his retreating form: "You already get your money's worth out of me, you old sonofabitch! Do you know how goddamn low my salary is? You're wringing me dry, you cheap bastard!" She drew in another breath with which to launch another tirade, relented, growled, and stormed down the hallway after slamming the door.

Mel yanked her glasses off her face with a groan and massaged her temples.

Snyder gave her a timid look. "She really doesn't want tenure, does she?"

*****

The odd, arrhythmic typing of Mildred, the department secretary, was punctuated by the strange thwaps emerging from one of the offices nearby. She paused in her task, wondering when the noise would cease, and if the perpetuator would notice that her typing had stopped, but the angry sounds continued. She sighed, and took a cigarette out of the pack she kept in her top desk drawer. She was halfway through the cigarette, and pecking halfheartedly at the letter in the typewriter, when Mel arrived.

The stout middle-aged woman exchanged a look with the Southerner. "You want the bourbon?" Mildred asked. She hadn't the chance to ask Janice if the professor wanted the emergency bottle of hooch—the little archaeologist had barreled past her with such speed and anger.

Mel shook her head. "I don't think letting her drink will help in this instance."

"Actually, I meant for you."

The translator laughed so faintly that it was barely an exhale of breath. "Ah, no, I don't think so." A finger stemmed the tide of her eyeglasses, sliding down her nose.

"If I hear screams I'll call the police," Mildred remarked as Mel entered the sanctum sanctorum.

The lack of time spent in the office was reflected in its bare décor; the assistant professor was rarely in it except to brood and meet the occasional student. Pieces of wood—representing two and a half years' worth of grading midterms, finals, papers, and resisting the advances of romantically deluded students—were scattered on the floor, along with the woman responsible for them and the large, cracked dent in the side of the desk. Janice smoked a cigarette and regarded the pile of tinder, as if a merry little act of arson would cap her day.

"Paul Bunyan," Mel said. She half-leaned, half-sat along the desk.

"Get me an ax, then, so I can destroy it properly." A baseball bat, which lay beside her, worked well when she grew tired of kicking the desk, but a sharp object would be ever so more pleasing.

"You're very lucky the dean likes you, honey."

"Lucky!" Janice exploded. "You're as bad as he is." She pushed at the woodpile with the toe of her boot. "I should have let Kleinman keep them," she said softly.

"No, you shouldn't have," Mel countered. "They may not be the Scrolls, but they are still Gabrielle's words. And as such they are sacred."

Janice ignored this. "Why does it seem impossible to get to point B from point A?" she mused. "I thought I was already there. Thought I had them." Thought I had it all. She looked at Mel, who had her arms crossed and was staring into space, thoughtfully. I am incomplete without you, but I'm incomplete without them as well.

"Zeno," Mel muttered absently.

"Huh?"

"One of his paradoxes—about how all motion is impossible. You recall—?"

"Oh. Yeah." Janice, in reality, had totally forgotten anything to do with Zeno, or much of anything she was forced to read as an undergraduate. "Is there really a Gabrielle or a Xena? Are we so sure that these just weren't stories our fathers created? They fed us these legends, these make-believe stories. We ate it all up. We were kids. And then it seeped into our subconscious, these myths. They're universal. A shared hallucination."

"I never suspected you were a Jungian, Janice."

"Are we descendants of heroes and bards, or forgers and pranksters?"

Mel's lips tightened, set in their familiar stubborn grimace. "You deny what you know to be true."

"Do I?"

"You have the dreams."

Janice said nothing. How long did you think she would say nothing, would wordlessly hold you after you wake up screaming? How long would she politely ask you how you've been sleeping, and settle for your half-hearted lies?

"Will you sit there and tell me that those nightmares you have…that they're just about the war? Can you tell me that?"

The dreams were about the war, at the very least. What her mind refused during the day, what it would not acknowledge, her body whispered in the ragged gossamer of scars: This happened to you. And then the brain would finally rebel, subconsciously. 

More recently, they were tenacious—and they went further than ever, extending into a darker past: Lying in snow, stomach bathed in blood, daylight faltering around her, in the blue glow of a winter world devoid of sun. She looks at her hand, watches it fall...onto a plank of wood, where it is bound by a Roman soldier. And what was too horrible to contemplate, too awful to bear, was that she doesn’t die alone. There is a broken body next to hers.

Yet you managed to smile for me. I still remember the first time you smiled at me—really, truly smiled. It was hesitant, shy, belying the reputation of the warrior and the coldness of your eyes. This piece of you—so fallible, so human, you gave to me. The stupid, stubborn farm girl who followed you.

"Hey." It was Mel's soft drawl, snapping the spell. The chill she experienced every time after the dream was aroused once again, and the hairs on her arms stood, stiff in fright. Until Mel smoothed them, rubbing warmth with her palms.

Janice swallowed, stood up. She simmered, paced. Mel sighed inwardly, and waited for the inevitable.

"Goddammit!" she screamed, and kicked the desk once again. More chips of wood spiraled from the desk, like gymnasts executing backflips.

Mildred is calling the police.

A finger, not as callused as it was once when they first met, was thrust at the translator. "It may be all fine and well for you to hear fucking little voices inside your head, but not me, baby! Not me!"

Or maybe she is finishing off the last of that bourbon.

"I thought that I really accomplished something: I found the Xena Scrolls. They were real—or so I believed. And then, I thought, just maybe, I could have a simple life. Where I could just be myself. Not the descendent of some naïve brat who changed personal philosophies like underwear. Not the daughter of some obsessed grave-robbing bastard carrying on the crazy family legacy. I wanted it all normal." She regarded Mel thoughtfully. "You made me want that. Just a house. A steady job. And a girl who loves me."

“I know,” Mel said softly. “I’ve wanted the same thing.” She paused. “Come here.” Janice hesitated in the face of the gentle order, remembering the same words in different circumstances: The first time they made love, when she had stood, fixed in the doorway, neither resisting nor giving in, afraid to take the leap into the bedroom, until Mel, sitting on the bed, had uttered those two words. She had felt as if she were opening up Pandora's box, propelled by an unknown energy and motion, by fatal curiosity. And she felt that way again, now. Afraid of what you'll find.

She permitted herself to be held, to let Mel prop her chin upon her head. And afraid of what you’ll lose. She had lost Harry to this search—even before he died.

The blue of the dream was the abyss and the salvation at once, beribboned together.

Mel pulled back and looked at her. And the blue of these eyes? "Weeks ago you were excited at the prospect that there were still scrolls out there to be found."

"That was when I thought they were real."

"They are real."

Janice said nothing, frowned, let Mel's thumb press a temporary cleft in her chin.

"It'll be you and me, under the stars," she said.

As it has been always been.

"How bad can that be?"

Janice did not know. They hugged again, she placed her head against Mel's shoulder, and for the moment she could ignore the chill of the dream and could draw upon the strength of Mel's words. She loved the certain, the tangible, the sure thing. Now she gave herself over to words not written down, belief neither felt nor seen, and a love that, more often than not, she did not understand, nor felt she deserved.

[mskathywriteswords]

Cupcakes at Midnight - Chapter 7

Nothing particularly label worthy in this chapter..

Saturday, I try and remind myself that there’s nothing fundamentally different about things and how they are now, I just maybe don’t get to have a naked lady falling asleep next to me for the moment. That thought doesn’t help, though, because now I’m thinking about a naked lady falling asleep against my body, one arm wrapped under mine, soft fingers cradling my breast and pulling me closer. 

As if she can sense my distress, Ivy texts me just one line, and it changes the flow of the weekend.

Be ready in 20 minutes.

I have no idea what she wants me to be ready for, but … I’m ready. For almost anything, other than this feeling. I need to get away, and I’ll take any of Ivy’s plans.

When she shows up, I laugh. I’m in a sensible cardigan and tank top with jeans, and she’s got on a dress with more sparkle than I’ve ever seen on anything before. Except maybe her engagement ring.

She looks at me, scolding me silently. The worst kind. She’s better at it than my own Mom. “Jane.”

My eyes go wide. “You said be ready. I’m ready.”

She narrows her eyes, pulling me inside. “For a book club meeting, maybe.”

“You didn’t say what to be ready for.”

Ivy rolls her eyes and pulls me into my bedroom. “You have to have something halfway sexy in this closet, right?”

I stifle a giggle as she moves hangers and touches what feels like every piece of clothing I own, still with her silent judging. She finally turns to look at me.

“What the fuck, Jane? Do we need to go shopping?”

I shake my head. “No, I love my clothes.”

“Why?” 

“Look at how comfortable they are,” I say, grabbing the row of jeans. “And they almost all color-coordinate or match. It’s so easy to get ready.”

“Yes,” Ivy says. “That’s the exact issue. Nothing in here has any color. It’s all shades of browns and grey with some white added in.”

“That’s what looks flattering on my body type,” I say softly. 

‘I don’t think that’s as true as you think it is… Do you even own any dresses, or only these old lady skirts?”

“Where are we even going that I need something nicer or better than this stuff?”

“I’m taking you to the club.”

I laugh so loud that I startle Cat. He immediately moves into a defensive position and that only makes me laugh harder. 

“Well, I already know it’s not book club, so … do you want to tell me exactly what kind of club it is?”

Her smile is wide, too wide, and I start to get a little scared. 

“A gay club.”

“What? Ivy. No.”

“Have you even ever been to one?” 

She has a point there, but that’s also not the point.

“Not in years, but-”

“Shh.” She puts her fingers against my lips. “Let’s go. You can still wear jeans, but you’re going to change into this top,” she says, handing me a low-cut blouse. “And you’re going to leave it as is, no safety pin in the middle. I know your tricks.”

She really does.

I change and try to find a way around the pit of discomfort in my belly. Maybe this is what I need, to be pushed outside of my comfort zone. What’s the worst that could happen?

We decide to call a car to take us to the club so that we can both drink. It’s only then that I notice Ivy’s brought an overnight bag.

“You staying over?”

“Yeah. This is what friends do, nerd. I’m going to take you out, get you wasted, and then nurse your hangover tomorrow. Maybe if you get lucky, you’ll get lucky. I can always Uber home.” She winks, and it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. It must be what she thinks I look like when I try to wink.

I shrug. “Okay.”

When Ivy said she was taking me to a gay club, I imagined the very popular gay club downtown -- the one all the pretty people go to. The one that’s predominantly men.

Instead, she takes me to one of the few women-centric lesbian bars, and I have to laugh at the differences. This club is far less thumpy for the moment, although the drinks are just as terribly-named. There are far fewer people in this club, which I guess makes sense. I want to get lost in the music, even though I don’t dance. I swing between wanting the night to end as fast as possible, wondering how long Ivy needs to be out for this charade to end, and trying to be really present and in the moment. I’m not sure which one will end with me feeling better tomorrow. Maybe she’s right, maybe I do need some fun in my life. But also, maybe there’s something great on Netflix and my couch is so comfortable.

“Come on, I ordered us a Wet Fantasy,” Ivy says, handing me a shot glass of purple liquid.

It’s gone in one burning swirl down my throat. 

“We’re going to make one quick lap to assess the place, and then we’re coming back for another drink. Start thinking about what you want, otherwise I’m ordering you a Pink Pussy.”

I nod and she takes my hand, leading me along the edge of the wall. Ivy is usually happy to be in charge, but right now she looks like she’s on cloud 9, making demands like this. It’s kind of fun. I can let go and try to enjoy the moment a little more, knowing that she’s the one deciding.

There are all kinds of people around us - the obvious lesbian stereotype butch and femme, but there are also some very gender neutral bodies. I’m trying to take them all in, when Ivy nudges me.

“What’s your type, and why don’t I even know that?”

I want to tell her that my type is Ava. 

“You don’t know because I don’t have a type.”

“Come on, really? I mean, from what I can tell, you don’t like super girly girls. But maybe there was one in your past I don’t know about?”

I think back, sifting through memories I’d rather not. She’s not wrong; there was one particularly femme girl I fell in love with once, and I barely dare to think her name, much less say it out loud.

“There was; Julia.”

“Ooh, this sounds good. The look on your face says it all. Let’s go back, grab those drinks and you can tell me everything.”

Somehow, I realize, in the few years I’ve known Ivy, it’s always been about her. I mean, it wasn’t by accident that our friendship built that way, of course. Ivy is a typical over-sharer and I’ve been trying to run from certain things for as long as I’ve been alive. 

On one hand, I’m dreading pulling up everything from my past that Ivy seems to want to know right in this moment, but on the flip side, some part of me is eager to share myself with someone else. I’m not quite sure how my life has become so solitary, but if my time with Ava taught me anything, it’s that I’ve been lonely. Too lonely. Unnecessarily so.

“You stay at this table,” she says, almost like I’m a child who might cross the street alone at any given moment. “I’ll go get the drinks. This place is getting packed.” 

I sit and fiddle with my phone as I watch her stand in line. I’ve never really had a crush on Ivy before, but I can see what Matt sees in her. She’s kind and giving, although periodically selfish. I think, actually, the truth is that she knows what she wants and she’s not afraid to ask for what she needs. It suddenly occurs to me that I’m terrible at that. I put a pin in the thought for later, with Cindy.

As Ava walks back to the table, I take note of the people looking at her. Her beauty is so natural and radiant that nearly everyone stops to take note. A few people even look close to approaching her, but no one dares. A few look away as Ivy makes her way to the table, and then there are a few who look astonished as she sits down with me, handing me my drink. We aren’t together, but the look on their faces feeds my shame. Of course Ivy would never be with a dumpy mess like me.

My belly burns with more than just the vodka as I devour my drink quickly.

“So, who was this beautiful femme girl that broke your heart?”

I smile. “That obvious?”

Ivy only answers by taking a sip of her still mostly-full drink and batting her eyelashes at me expectantly.

“I don’t know how much there really is to say, you know? This was back when I was in college. Not really out to my parents yet, although I’m sure they always suspected. She was smarter than anyone I’d ever known, and so fucking gorgeous. And for some reason, she liked me.”

“How long did you two date?”

I thought back, pulling memories from deep inside the archives.

“About four months, which felt like an eternity back then. I thought we would live happily ever after, and then after, I thought my heart would be broken forever.”

“I like it when you tell me stories like that,” Ivy says, taking another deep sip of her pink drink. “Tell me more. Did you ever date a guy?”

I nod slowly. “Of course I did. I wanted to make sure, you know?”

“Wait.” She gasps, nearly inhaling vodka. “Did you sleep with one?”

My drink almost flies from my mouth, and I start coughing as I’m laughing.

“No, no. Not that far. Ew.”

The music is so loud and at times distracting, but I want to keep this fun connection going. 

“How about you, did you ever kiss a girl?” I ask.

Ivy looks down at the table for a quick moment, and I wonder if she’s embarrassed. When she looks back at me, I can see how amused she is. “Yeah. I was in love with one once, actually.”

My eyes go wide and I get way too loud. “What?? How the fuck, how did I not know that? You have to tell me everything. Well, not everything.”

She tells me all about the six months she dated Tash. How her family reacted (not great) and how it ended (even worse). 

“Wait, how did you think I knew about this place?” she asks.

“Google?”

We share a laugh and both of our glasses are empty. Right as I think about going home and changing into my comfy flannel pajamas, Ivy picks the glasses up and practically skips away from the table. 

My mind is still slightly blown about Ivy dating a woman; I’ve held all sorts of unfair stereotypes about her in my head for all of these years. 

“Come on, we’re going to do this shot then dance.”

Every muscle feels alcohol-soaked, and I want to move my body, for once not caring what anyone around me thinks. 

Except, I realize, I do kind of care what one person think. And I’m a little pissed that she isn’t here, too. I feel my phone buzz in my purse, and I make eye contact with Ivy.

“You need to take this,” I say, handing my phone to her without even looking at it. 

She laughs and drops the device into her tiny bag. I’m not even sure how it fits. 

We spend hours on the dance floor, sometimes across from each other, sometimes across from a stranger, and sometimes dancing with no one in particular. The music feeds my soul, and I realize I had no idea dancing could be so fun. I’ve always felt uncomfortable and awkward in my own body, afraid to move it in the ways I watched and admired other people moving. 

It’s nice when people ask me to dance; a reassurance that I’m maybe not quite as tragic as I think or feel. Ivy tries to encourage me, but there’s no way I’m going home with anyone. Everything with Ava is too fresh and I’m not in the right frame of mind to be with someone else yet. 

Instead, I end up curled up together with Ivy in my bed -- platonically. 

[thatfizzyyyy]

why can't I take lessons up with an attractive butch lesbian and spend late nights working hard together and drift asleep on her shoulder and have her try to get close to me but pull back bc I'm quiet, and then our lessons become awkward and filled with deep romantic tension and then one day she laughs and I notice I love the way she laughs and I wonder why this suddenly occurs to me and then she buys me a gift after I pass a test and it's monumental bc she's crossing a bridge and she's biting her lip and I take the gift and smile and then that night she's all that fills my mind and I see her and I realize what it is, and I try to bury it, to avoid her but I don't wanna hurt her and she notices I'm acting strange and asks me what's wrong and at that moment I break down bc I realize she's really nice and she doesn't feel any different for me and then I run away so the next time we see each other is super awkward and she gives off signs and I'm wondering if what they are but telling myself it's nothing, nothing at all and as we leave the library someone says we look like a cute couple and I'm about to object when she wraps her arm around my shoulders and she doesn't stop when that person leaves and we're close and it's dark and I know if my skin was lighter id be blushing and I can hear my heartbeat and the air is so cool and hot and charged with electricity around us, as she pulls me in and I look in her eyes and I k n o w this is what she wants and then my phone rings and she pulls away like she's shocked out of a trance and it's my mom who's entirely homophobic and the next meeting we have we barely look into each other's eyes and when our fingers brush as she hands me my pencil it sparks something, so I yank it away except now I look mad and I can feel her closeness receeding, that warm spirit is grown to ... To what? I didn't want to say it, to even think it bc if I did I'd be falling off a precipe I could not climb back up and then it's the last day of the semester and the other tutors are taking their students out so it's normal, well, that is at least what we tell ourselves when we go to the movies and then out for smoothies and end up on top of a cliff, thirty miles out from town, gazing at stars that we can't really see bc we live near a city, after all, and we sit in the trunk w the thing open and it's cold so she pulls out her emergency blanket and we slide closer, and for a moment I think it will be an emergency but instead I am calm, with her body heat warming me and her arms around me and the stars hiding us from the world and the moon winking down on me and she whispers something in my ears, no, in my hair and it sends shivers up my spine, but the good kind, the kind I've never felt before and I whisper back some and then her arms find their way to my face, which she turns towards her, gently but firm, and I long to look away but know her gaze is strong and unjudging and she leans in and this time neither of us pull away as her lips meet mine, and only the moon and stars and the edge of the cliff are voyeurs to us as we lean in deeper, more passionate and the air buzzes an my head spins and as she presses me down I know it is an emergency, except now I don't have a blanket, instead she covers me, and my heart soars for I know we feel the same except now I can feel it

why can't that happen to me lmfao

guys u wanna read something i wrote when i was telling myself i was straight

[what-even-is-thiss]

Fic, Good Night.

If you want to fully understand why I wrote this, read this post. Read the whole thing. Did ya read it? Okay, let’s get into it. I invented some people for the dreams that weren’t mine, because I don’t know anybody else that had a dream about the Sanders Sides last night. Also, I guess I’m a character in this fic? So freaking weird. It’s not an accurate representation of me though, because it’s dream me and nobody acts normally in dreams. Also, Anxiety’s is longer than the others because that’s my dream and my dream was complicated and also I might have gotten a little lazy writing the other dreams. Oh well.

Tip Jar

Warnings: Uh, I dunno. Chasing. Forced change of location. Dreams. Car related stress. 2,250 words.

Abstract: Roman has been hiding a strange ability he has for a while. When the others try to figure out what’s going on, weird things happen.

Roman was considering the device in his hand. He had to admit it was tempting. Very tempting.

Anxiety was grumbling to himself about the most recent video. It had just been posted a few hours before and he hated it every time he rewatched it.

“Stupid cartoon. Gets to meet Butch Hartman and that’s what happens. Well, if that’s what happens when you meet your heroes then...”

He noticed Roman sitting there on the brown sectional as he walked into the mindpalace version of Thomas’ apartment. He had just been considering seeing if Morality had left any of the pizza from last night. None of the others were usually in this area when Thomas was asleep, so what was Prince doing here?

“Hey, shouldn’t you be working, Princey?” Anxiety said.

“What? Uh, no!” Prince said, putting the strange handheld device behind his back.

Anxiety felt concerned. The imagination should be working right now, working through problems via dreams during REM sleep.

“You need to get to work, Roman. What’s that machine? I don’t like those things you make. They’re never good,”

“It is none of your concern!” Roman said, getting up to leave.

Anxiety considered where they were. The mental recreation of Thomas’ apartment. This was where they sorted out their issues and had talks. The others had done it before. He wondered...

“Logan! Patton!” Anxiety said.

Logic and Morality popped up, by the stairs and by the window respectively. Morality with a slice of pizza in his mouth, mid bite, and Logic with a file in his hand, looking like he was just about to put it in a drawer that was no longer in front of him.

“I knew you already ate the pizza,” Anxiety said in an annoyed tone to Patton.

“Why have you called us here in the middle of the night, Anxiety?” Logic asked. “We are performing essential tasks necessary for proper function that can only be done during sleeping hours,”

Anxiety pointed to Prince, who had stopped his attempt to get away when Patton had spotted him. The colorful phone like device was clearly visible in his hand. Logic observed the device with disgust.

“Roman, are you making another attempt at ESP? I have told you before, it is not scientifically possible to read minds or travel through dreams or read auras or whatever other nonsense you are trying to accomplish,” Logan said.

“Now hand it over, buddy,” Morality said. “Logic knows what’s right,”

Morality walked over to Roman and held out his hand in a very parental fashion, expecting him to hand it over. Roman instead held the device closer.

“No! You have no idea what this is capable of!” He said, attempting an escape.

Anxiety didn’t let him. He took hold of Roman by the sash and pulled him back. “Oh, no. Your little ESP projects only ever make me work harder. Give the thing to Patton!”

“No!” Roman cried out as he tried to get his precious outfit out of Anxiety’s grasp without tearing it. “You don’t understand what you’re doing!”

Logic tried to get the device from Prince. “Honestly, as if any of your schemes ever actually...”

Zap! Logan’s hand activated something on the touchscreen and a swirling green cartoonish portal opened up, first sucking in Logan and Roman, since they were the ones with their hands on the device, and then Morality and Anxiety were sucked in as well, despite their best efforts to run.

If Logan remembered correctly, driving an out of control vehicle was one of the most common nightmares that people can have. Thomas had that dream before. He thought he remembered Roman talking about it. However, seeing as he wasn’t in charge of dreams, he didn’t exactly know what to do in this one.

“Um, perhaps you should hit the breaks?” Logic said, not quite certain he knew how he got here.

The frightened young person in the driver’s seat briefly turned to glance back.

“You’re Logic Sanders. From those YouTube videos,” They said nervously

“Yes, and it would appear that your breaks are faulty,” Logan said, wondering why there were no seat belts or panic bars to be found.

“Breaks?” the confused driver asked.

“Yes, the breaks! The device that slows the car or brings it to a stop!” Logic called out.

“I know what breaks do, I think,” the person said as they tried to concentrate on where the break was. “Why are you here?”

The break petal came into focus just long enough for the driver to slam down on it. Logan lurched forward and into the seat in front of him and then disappeared as the person woke up.

Prince thought he had experience with dreams. He had to remind himself it was just Thomas’ dreams he had experience with. He honestly hadn’t actually expected that thing to work. He hadn’t finished it. He had done a lot of thinking to get that device made. For now it could only focus on people that thought about Thomas a lot. He had hoped to maybe surprise some friends if he was lucky. He had somehow forgotten about the fanders.

There were people walking through this square. None of them seemed to be doing much. They were walking straight ahead. Not talking or anything. They were like background characters in a video game.

There was a girl among them. She seemed to be doing something with a purpose, but whatever it was seemed to be unclear. He walked up to her and said “Greetings! Is this your dream?”

Or, at least he tried to. When he said the words he felt the vibrations in his throat and his muscles working, but no sound came out. He looked around. He listened. There was no sound. He suddenly felt himself compelled to tap on her shoulder. It would appear that even though he had an effect on the dream, it also had an effect on him.

The young woman turned around, her hair flicking out behind her almost in slow motion. When she saw him her face was full of confusion, and then wonder.

She started signing frantically. He only understood bits and pieces of what she said, but he did catch his name. She spelled out R O M A N more than once.

He tried answering, but only ended up saying nonsense. He didn’t know much American sign language beyond basic signs and finger-spelling, so the entire conversation was confusing for both parties. They attempted to communicate for what seemed like an hour in dream time, but could have very well only been a couple of seconds, and then the girl abruptly turned around and left.

Roman shook his head as he faded out of the dream. Some things were just random and made no sense. It would appear he had landed in the middle of one of those things.

Morality wasn’t quite sure where he was, but it seemed pleasant enough. There was grass everywhere and the sun was bright. There also seemed to be white bunnies hopping around.

Suddenly, what appeared to be a little boy started running by. Patton didn’t quite know why, but he found himself compelled to pick him up and say “Hey there! Why are you running?”

“Thomas!?” asked the little boy. “My mom watches videos with you in it. You should run. There’s a big egg about to crush you!”

Patton looked and there was indeed a colorfully decorated egg rolling towards them that was as long as a school bus.

Patton wasn’t experienced in stopping nightmares, but he did know a thing or two about kids. He just affectionately said, “What? No it’s not ya goofball,”

And then they looked over and there wasn’t an egg there.

The little boy jumped for joy. Morality went to go play with him. The kid constantly forgot what they were doing and switched from one thing to the next, and even rediscovered that he was there a couple of times, but it was a dream. Dreams don’t always make sense, and that’s okay.

He faded out right in the middle of a hug. The boy had said he heard his mom calling him. Patton guessed that meant it was time to get up.

Anxiety could see his breath clouding up in front of him. He wondered if whoever this was had forgotten to turn the fan off before they had gotten to bed.

He stayed next to a tree in the parking lot. Maybe he could just wait this out.

A guy standing a few feet from him noticed who he was. The stranger started walking towards him. Anxiety didn’t know who this was. This wasn’t his mind and he was not in the mood to meet new people. He started running. The person started running after him.

Anxiety ran into the Home Depot to hopefully lose him. No. Every turn in the aisles he made he was found. The kid knew this store too well he needed to get outside.

Anxiety ran out the store and past the next shopping center which turned into an old town. A fog was beginning to gather. Anxiety skidded to a stop and jumped into an alleyway. The stranger in the pleather jacket found him there. This was a clear dream. Too clear. It made too much sense.

Anxiety kept trying to weave between buildings, but it was no use. They were still in sight. He saw a high school up ahead. He ran for it. He found himself in a huge cafetorium with a huge black stage at one end and lunch tables set up where the audience would go.

He jumped on the stage. Was the backstage complicated enough to lose them in? No, but there were stairs. He ran up those.

The stairs seemed to go on for even longer than should be possible. This was the most unrealistic part of the dream. These stairs. They went up and down and skipped and there were theater students sitting and doing homework on them, clearly unconcerned that two adults that were too old to be there were running through the place.

He got to the top of the stairs and saw the only way out was a comically long drop down to backstage. He saw the blonde pursuer pushing some high school students away. Anxiety decided to take the jump.

He began to climb the railing to jump off, when he found himself caught by the waist. The man had grabbed Anxiety by the waist and was pulling him away from the railing. Anxiety tried to struggle, but then they started moving their fingers along Anxiety’s side.

God, Anxiety wished that Thomas wasn’t ticklish.

Anxiety wiped the smile off his face and sat down on the ground defeated.

“Okay, what do you want? Thomas’ address? My name? Everybody wants that,” He said, folding his arms.

He felt a weight fall on his shoulders and looked up to see that the brown pleather jacket the person was wearing had been placed on his shoulders. The stranger sat next to him and put his arm around Anxiety’s waist.

“That’s actually not what I wanted to talk to you about. I don’t know if anyone has told you this, but you don’t have to give your name if you don’t want to. You can wait until you’re ready. There’s no pressure,”

Anxiety felt tears swell up in his eyes but they actually never fell. “Is this what social anxiety feels like when you’re not the one inflicting it? Because if so, it sucks,” he said, trying to keep his delivery as dry as possible.

The dreamer gave a nervous little smile and said “if it makes you feel any better, I’m feeling pretty anxious too,”

He sat and talked with the fander, who for some reason seemed to have a store’s worth of saltwater taffy in his pockets. This was a dream though, so he didn’t question it much. At some point the dream compelled him to sit on the edge of the person’s lap and it was clear it made them both uncomfortable, but the dream willed it to happen, so it happened.

After what could have been a few minutes, but it was a dream so who could tell, Anxiety told the random person whose dream he had stumbled into goodbye and jumped off the railing.

He faded into darkness on the way down.

Anxiety was the last one to get back. He walked in to see Logic breaking the ESP device with his bare hands.

“We keep telling you. Stop making these things,” Logan said harshly.

“But you have to admit it worked,” Prince said, trying to find some small comfort now tthat his work had been trashed.

“I will do no such thing,” Logan said, taking the pieces away to dispose of them.

“Anxiety, you saw that it worked. You were taken to someone else’s dream,” Prince said.

Anxiety thought about the city he had just run through. and the taste of watermelon taffy that was still lingering on his tongue.

“Nope. Don’t know what you’re talking about Princey,” Anxiety said before leaving.

“Patton, surely you remember,” Prince insisted.

Morality’s mouth was full of cold pizza from the fridge. He thought briefly about the giant egg, but then put it out of his mind and happily shook his head.

Roman sighed and lay back on the couch. They never let him break the laws of nature. How disappointing.

[sunlitroom]

Gotham 3.21 - Destiny Calling

As I watched it, and some random observations here and there.

Previously on Gotham.

In short – the theme for s3 barring these episodes.  Betrayal! More betrayal! Betrayal for lunch, breakfast and dinner!  People are dead, alive, dead, then alive again.

As always, long post will be long - monstrously long- and in two parts.  There are likely to be rambling digressions. Gobblepot may appear (although I welcome all shippers and non-shippers alike :)).  There will be naked favouritism and naked not-favouritism.  Broader comments at the end on plotlines and parallels and general direction.

  Screaming and mayhem outside while the bank still tries to run as normal.  An old woman repeatedly asks for her savings while an uninterested seller tells her there’a problem with the account.  The old woman reveals herself to be infected, and starts wrecking the place.   We’ve all wanted to do that in the bank, really.  And the post office.  Especially the post office.

An armed officer runs out of GCPD while a virus'd prisoner beats a cop and general mayhem reigns.  We go to the locker room and see – hilariously - that someone has written ‘Gordon has the rage’ across the lockers.  What the actual fuck?  Who took the time to do that?

The virus voices are telling Jim he’s a killer as he stares in the mirror, hissing it over and over.

(A big disgruntled aside: So – Jim’s big dark truth is that he’s a killer at heart?  Really? Weirdly – I watched an episode of Star Trek at the weekend, in which Kirk had the following wisdom to offer (because Kirk can solve all problems :)).

All right. It's instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes. Knowing that we won't kill today.

And it’s never more true than here.  Barnes told Jim that.  There’s no big fundamental difference between Butch and Harvey, Oswald and Jim, Barnes and Falcone, Bruce and Jerome, Bruce 1 and Bruce 2.  It comes down to what they choose to do.  Their ability and inclination to make good choices is – of course – dictated by their circumstances: but they still ultimately have a choice.  There’s not some innate quality that makes a killer – nothing ‘special’ about the ability to kill.

Further – we’ve had ample proof that Jim has no particular love of killing.  He refuses to kill Oswald way back in the pilot, and again in the middle of the Galavan mess – even when Oswald has a gun pointed at him, and killing him would have made Jim’s life easier.  He could have shot Barbara in the church tower, or let her fall, but tried to save her instead.  He didn’t want to kill Ogden Barker. He expressed regret over killing Galavan.  We might see him lose his temper a lot, and get physically violent – but that doesn’t equate to some burning need to kill.

So – this just doesn’t really ring true.  

And as a final observation, this is basically a betrayal of the man we started out with.  We come in with Jim, who is appalled at the state of Gotham because of his innate decency. He’s ‘the last good man in Gotham’. He has to compromise his principles over time because there is no other way to get things done, but it is with the end goal of doing the right thing.  If anything, the tension was how much Jim was willing to compromise his ideals to do the right thing, how much that hardened him, damaged him.

So, when, how, and why did this morph into: ‘Jim Gordon has a big bad darkness at the centre of his soul, and his dearest wish is to kill?’)

Jim is visibly fighting the virus.  Harvey enters the room and asks for Jim’s gun - not badge.  The officers know he’s infected, and Harvey is doing his best to keep this situation stable.  Jim says he can control the virus, but Harvey says it’s for his own protection.

We hear that Lee apparently disappeared in the chaos and is waiting for Jim to give in.  Harvey tells Jim to prove her wrong.  Jim asks where Bruce is.

 Bruce is in the interview room, where Alfred watches from behind glass.  Jim and Harvey enter.  There’s a brief conversation where they establish it’s not the clone, and Alfred says he must talk with Bruce – whose strength, he believes, will bring him back to his right mind.  Lucius then enters, calling Harvey.

(An aside – and where was clone Bruce this episode?  It was sorted of implied that he could play a role here, and it never came about)

 Harvey is delighted, Lucius has found that there’s an antidote

I could kiss your face

Lucius actually did detective work and found notes about the antidote in papers from court leaders house. Hugo was designing own special antidote. Jim asks where Strange is, only to be exasperated when Harvey explains.  Jim says Strange is a weasel who’ll be trying to get out of town (you’d never do that, Jim, would you?), and that they should check the downtown train station.

Lucius tells Harvey to wait in a warning tone.  Harvey tries to say he knows the risks, but Lucius points out that Strange's version is accelerated and Jim won't be able to fight long.

I like Lucius.  He’s smart, and measured, and compassionate, and actually puts in the work.  It’ll be interesting to see how the balance at GCPD works next season because, in many ways, he’s supplanted most of what Jim should be.

 The railway station where people are fleeing town.  Hugo still looks so stylish.  He’s stopped by too burly men and utters a truly beautiful,

Oh no

Fish appears

I think you mean: hello Fish - I miss you.

She smiles,

Don’t worry sweetheart, the fun has just begun

Hugo looks resigned as he’s taken away.

 A penthouse overlooking the city.  Ed has been reading Villainy for Dummies, and is loftily talking about Rome – I think it’s Nero fiddling while Rome burned, but I tuned out.  He praises the Court’s style

Barbara is more interested in the opportunity to consolidate power.  Ed has no interest in running Gotham.  He only wants to kill Oswald because, as we saw when he was desperately trying to make contact with the Court, Ed can’t leave a job undone.  Babs is impatient.  Ed will need muscle for that, and why should she help Ed, if Ed won’t help her.  She wants Ed to use that ‘big, beautiful brain’ of his to help her, and she’ll help him.

(An aside – uh, have Barbara and Ed been intimate?  I know that Barbara can sometimes sexualise her mannerisms – but there was a familiarity there (baby, honey, all the touching) that was…. different, and they’re very in-sync.  She’s not really using her sexuality in an attempt to seduce him to her cause either.  I’m not suggesting a romance – but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was how they’d killed some time in that penthouse, or at some other point.)

 Back with Fish and Hugo

I thought we were friends

Hugo stammers that he can't refuse the Court.  Fish tells him she isn't upset.  She knew that when Hugo was summoned it was to cook up horror.  She needs horror.  She knows the Court made the virus, and she knows there’s more.

Hugo pleads, but Fish is implacable.

You will give me the virus.  You will give me the army you promised me.  You will give me everything I say until the city is in the palm of my hand. Clear?

Hugo manages to be bitter, resigned and obsequious in two words

Yes, madame.

 Jim and Harvey arrive at the station too late.  Harvey's phone rings.  It’s for Jim – Lee checking in.

Jim answers.  He tells her to turn herself in.  Lee comments he's fighting – but the cage is finally open – he’s free.  She thought he loved her – they can be together now.  Jim doesn’t want it like this.  She  pours herself some of Jim’s whiskey and asks what the whispers say.  Was it about hurting?  Killing?  

See how well I know you

She says she’ll check in later, but she’s off to have fun.

Jim looks like he’s succumbing to virus when Harvey calls his name.  He gives Jim a gun.  They’re off to find Hugo

 Jim and Harvey  meet Fish’s crew in some tunnel somewhere – presumably leading out of the station

Fish tells Harvey he looks awful.  Harvey thanks her, and then says

I know in your own sick way you love this city.  Gotham is bleeding to death

Hugo laughs suddenly – he’s noticed that Jim has the virus

Fish approaches him, and asks what it feels like.  Jim says like it’s taking all his willpower not to kill her.  Fish and Hugo confirm that they have a cure for the virus, while Jim fumes.  Harvey says he’ll shoot her if she doesn’t step back

Jim growls that she’s had her chance.  Fish is no fool, though – she has backup.  Victor charges up.  Jim leaps up and breaks a water pipe.  Victor’s gun freezes the water, creating an ice wall – behind which Jim snarls.  Fish looks at him.

There he is - the real James Gordon. Nice to meet you, at last.

She laughs and walks away. Jim snarls like an angry chihuahua.

Burning city shot again. We’re at GCPD.

Alfred has brought Bruce tea, and asks if he’s hungry.  Alfred isn’t being trite here – we will try to make tea and sandwiches in times of crisis. He talks about going home, or going to Switzerland, where they had happy holidays

Bruce is blank, and tells him his attempts to elicit emotion are clumsy, and that he murdered his best friend and teacher.  Alfred says he was a liar, manipulator, and brainwasher. Bruce denies this – saying that he gave him revenge, and took away his pain – which is more than Alfred ever did.

Alfred looks like he’s in pain

Bruce says they’ve merely paved the way for one who is to come.  Alfred asks what he means, and Bruce ominously replies:

You'll see

 Oswald’s mansion, where Bridget and Victor squabbling over who gets to kill Hugo, while Hugo trying to ooze way out of it.  They power up, and he panics, calling for

Miss Mooney

Miss Mooney is busy - I'm here now

It’s Oswald, who has been sitting nearby, drinking.

I think your children are angry with you.   You made them what they are, then abandoned them.

He tells Hugo he’s working with Fish.  They’re partners, now – she forgave him.  She has evolved.  She has a vision.  She sees a city where people like Oswald, Victor and Bridget are in charge.  

He also tells Hugo that the virus is tearing that city apart, and they need an antidote.

Hugo says if he tells, he has nothing to trade for his safety – they can torture him all they want. Oswald blithely says OK.  Hugo looks worried.  Oswald comments that in Arkham, he was tortured daily.  Hugo blusters

That was therapy.

Oswald looks outraged for a split second, then smiles

The sensation was like my head being torn open, and hot lava poured into my brain.  Thinking of it afterwards made me physically ill.

(An aside – oh Oswald.)

He laughs

So – naturally - I had to have it

Oswald has the machine. Hugo caves instantly - which is testament to how bad the pain elicited by the machine actually is.  He’ll tell them everything.

Oswald smiles.

I know - but not just yet

He flips the switch. Hugo screams.

 Back in the tunnel – Jim punches his way through the ice.  Apparently, the virus makes your bones very hard too.  When they get to the street, a still virusy Jim tears Harvey’s car door off.  Harvey tells him to fight the virus, not his car, and says he’ll drive.

 GCPD – where a random cop tells Alvarez that Mayor James has called in the national guard.  Oh no - Alvarez is infected.  He breaks the man’s neck, and starts trashing the place.

 The interrogation room, where Alfred asks Bruce again who's coming. Bruce wants him to leave.  Alfred refuses, and asks him again,

Remember who you are

I know who I am. I have a destiny

Alfred tells Bruce what the sensei offered was not real – he needs to remember what's real.   Bruce snarls that vengeance for his parents’ murder was real.

Alfred says that’s not real. What's real was how Bruce's mum read to him when he got sick, or how Alfred and Bruce’s dad looked for him when he got lost sailing in storm, out of their minds with worry.  They might have died in that alley, and that man may have taken away the pain of that one night: but there is no life or love without pain. That man could not touch the love Bruce’s parents gave him, that he still has inside him – the same love Alfred has for him:

I love you. I would do anything for you, I would die for you

He tells Bruce he needs to find that love

Come back to me, master Bruce.

Bruce has tears in his eyes

(An aside – I have tears in my eyes.  Godammit show.)

There’s fracas outside. Alfred reluctantly leaves.  Bruce is still shaken - but sees Alfred has left his pen.

Alvarez is picking off cops at random.  Alfred tackles him, and nearly winds up shot himself – but Lucius comes to the rescue. Alfred thanks him.  Lucius is admirably unshaken.  However, when they head back to the interview room, Bruce is gone having used Alfred’s pen to pick the lock on his cuffs.

 At Sirens, Butch tries to convince Tabitha that Barbara has to go, and that sharing info with Fish would take out Ed and Barbara at once.  Tabitha isn’t convinced though.  She’s also distracted by Lee, who is ordering a drink.  Lee drinks a lot in this episode, are we sure booze wasn’t Lee's deepest desire?

Butch says he’s surprised to see Lee.  She calls him an errand boy, then a shoe-shine boy, then says she wants to see Barbara.  Butch has enough of the insults, and moves to throw her out, but then sees she has the virus, and is tossed across the room

Tabitha checks on an unconscious Butch.  Lee taunts her – asking her repeatedly to take a message to her boss, and calling her a sidekick ��� first Theo’s, now Barbara’s.  The next time Lee sees Barbara, she’s going to rip her head off. Tabitha looks worried at this. Lee leaves, and Butch begins to come round.

 Bruce is on the chaotic streets, heading for the demon’s head, or whatever.  Lucius and Alfred follow some way behind – Alfred promising to kill whoever did this to him.

 Fish and co in the slaughterhouse where the antidote is kept.  Oswald tells Hugo if this is a trap, Hugo is dead.  Hugo says it’s no trap – he tested this version on livestock and set aside a successful batch.  He takes test tubes of antidote from a safe.  It’s concentrated and once diluted - enough to cure every infected person in the city.

Fish tells Oswald that they will rule the city together.  Oswald agrees, but first he will kill Ed.  Fish promises that he will, and all those who tried to stand in their way.  Oswald looks rapt.  As they begin to leave, there’s a noise.  Fish calls out:

Who’s there - show yourself

It’s more Cirque de Soleil assassins.  I tire of this.  A huge fight breaks out.

 Harvey's doorless car.

Harvey is getting a call about an ice and fire fight in a slaughterhouse, which he mentions to Jim. Jim just snarls in response

Just drive the damn car

Are we sure the virus didn't amplify Jim's innate tendency to behave like a prick?

 Back to the slaughterhouse. Jim and Harvey enter the fight.  Jim starts taking down assassins, flinging them about, killing them for no good reason.  In the middle of his killing frenzy, he runs Fish through with one of the assassin’s sword.  She gasps, and drops the antidote.

You damn fool

Oswald screams

Fish!

He runs to her side.  Fish calls his name in return, and he holds her as she folds to the ground.  He’s desperate – telling her it will be OK and they will get help.  Jim watches wide-eyed behind them, the virus seemingly clearing as soon as he’d realised what he’d done.

Fish shakes her head.

No – I’ve done this enough to know when I'm finished

Oswald is still trying to comfort her, but she interrupts.

Listen to me.  Make this city yours, or you burn it to the ground.  

With that, her eyes become fixed and staring.  Oswald weeps. This is the third time now that Oswald has held a parent (in this case a parent figure) as they died.  The third actual time.

Jim still looks aghast at what he’s done, gaping down at the scene in front of him.  Hell – everyone’s aghast – the place is silent.

Oswald turns, enraged and grief-stricken, running at Jim.

Ppeople call me a monster, but you – Jim Gordon, you are the monster!

The attack puts the virus back in charge and Jim grabs Oswald by the throat, lifting him high in the air.

You're right.  I am a monster.

Harvey hits Jim on the back of head to force him to drop Oswald. He asks Strange if there’s more antidote.  He says there is – he only needs one thing….

 And it’s Jervis, sitting nervously alone in the back of an Arkham ambulance.  We hear sounds – and Butch opens the door.  Jervis is fidgeting, twisting his hands high on his chest as this is happening, and it makes him look oddly vulnerable and childlike.

 Tabitha is nearby, and Barbara and Ed lean against a car, talking. Ed’s sources have told him about the possible antidote and, he smirks, Fish’s death.  But Ed knows they’re missing an ingredient:

This bozo

Ed – you’re wearing a shiny green suit.  Let’s not fling insults.  Meanwhile, Jervis is wide-eyed and smiling

Are you my saviours?  Are you the one to set me free?

(An aside – Jesus, poor Jervis.  And that’s something I never thought I’d write – but he really is set up as incredibly vulnerable here.)

Barbara smirks,

Not exactly. Let’s make Gotham beg

Ed smiles, while Jervis looks like he’s just realised this is not a good place to be.

 Back on the streets again with Bruce, seeking out the Yuyan building.  He has an auditory flashback to his ‘sensei’s’ instructions – which is handy, since his endless wittering about pain and destiny had become white noise to me.  He finds the building, and enters.

It’s a room with a huge statue in the middle.  Bruce touches the statue, a secret door opens, and he walks down a stone spiral staircase.  At the bottom, there’s a stone passageway – which he starts to walk down.  Something seems to speed past behind him

 Lucius and Alfred outside on the street have stopped outside the building.  Alfred tells Lucius to let Harvey know where they are, and Alfred goes in, eyeing the ornate door/statue thing.

Meanwhile, down in the tunnels, more of the slaughterhouse assassins surround Bruce.

(An aside - someone's been playing too much Mortal Kombat)

Another assassin appears behind Bruce, and makes them stand aside.  Bruce enters a room with a large pool in the middle (I feel like I’m playing a text-based adventure)

There’s a voice

I wouldn't touch that, Bruce.

This is Ra’s al Ghul. He tells Bruce his sensei died but succeeded – he led Bruce to him.  He is a demon, a saint, a ghost.  He’s seen things that would shake the core of Bruce’s beliefs.  But in all his travels, he never found a true heir.  He asks Bruce if he’s ready.  Bruce says he is –but  Ra’s says he failed.  Bruce says Alfred distracted him.

Ra’s nods.

I know

He puts his hand on Bruce’s face - like Fish with Oswald, another proxy parental relationship.  As he does so, Alfred is dragged in.  Bruce stares at him

Don't be so surprised - can't get rid of me that easily.

He then banters a bit about the ninjas getting better of him before glancing at Ra’s delivering one of the best – if not the best – line of the episode.

You alright mate?   What you come as?

(An aside - The British instinct to mock even in the worst circumstances does my heart good.  Anything grandiose and melodramatic must immediately be made ridiculous.)

Ra’s laughs, but then hits Alfred.  Bruce is to embrace his future by killing Alfred.  He talks about destiny and joining him as he hands Bruce the sword. Alfred speaks.

He's wrong.  There's no other way to put it.  Your destiny is to be Bruce Wayne.  And one day you're going to remember that, and how much I love you.  I remember when mum and dad brought you home and gave you to me. A tiny defenceless little creature. Look after him, they said.  I held you, and you looked at me, and at that moment I decided I would do anything for you.  So if this is what you need to do, you crack on.

Bruce has tears in his eyes. Alfred repeats himself.

You do it.

Bruce raises the sword, scream, and stabs him.  He almost immediately starts to shake his head, the mist clearing, scattered hallucinations.  As his vision clears, he sees Alfred, and realises what he’s done.  There’s a whispered ‘Bruce’ from Alfred, and he pulls the sword from him.  Alfred falls to the floor.  Bruce weeps.  Ra’s laughs

You've broken through your conditioning.  Impressive

Bruce is enraged

You don't control me anymore!  I will never be your heir!

Ra’s says he will:

No – your strength fulfils the prophecy, you are my knight in the darkness

Bruce’s voice cracks

You made me kills Alfred!

Bashir’s voice gets all whispery

Use the waters Bruce.  Our time will come

Bruce scoops water from the pool, and pours it on the wound.  It seems to cauterize and Alfred splutters – alive.

Part two to follow.....

Thoughts?

[exalnotaxel]

Agua Bendita, AZ

Prior to the 2016 Election, Chris and I wrote a short speculative fiction for a competition. We were to imagine a reality in which Donald Trump wins the election, and well... he won. So now I’m posting it to see the accuracy of our prediction. I hope that it’s not entirely accurate, but only time (and your voices) will tell. 

Agua Bendita, AZ by Chris L Smith & Exal Iraheta

I find myself in an unintentional town built from scraps, and broken backs. Three years ago this was only tumbleweeds and rocks, but thanks to Combover, people found themselves forced to make shelter near this bust of a wall. Long story short, the wall started strong, support from both sides, but then people got pissed. The cost started to fuck everyone over, and after one year, construction stopped; and these people were left stranded in the shadow of the relics of a failed wall. Things really went to hell.

The motel where I’m staying is a little thing, closer to the border than I would like to be.

“This is it,” a middle-aged, woman with graying hair, says to me as she opens the door to the room. A twin bed sits in the middle, facing a three drawer dresser made of particleboard and duct tape. The walls are a bright orange.

“What brings you all the way out here?” she asks.

“I’m writing an article.”

She looks me up and down, “Big city?”

“Yeah. The biggest.”

“Humph,” she says.

“How long have you been here?” I ask her, ready to find the first leg of my story.

She gives me a smirk, hands me the keys and closes the door after her.

“Thanks,” I say, hoping not everyone in this town is as skittish around outsiders.

The small window on the other side of the room adorns a mustard yellow curtain, I can’t tell if the yellow is intentional or a result of years of filtering second hand smoke. As I push it aside I can see a fence enclosing what looks like a skeleton. The skin of the beast has been stripped away like a sunken ship, left to be consumed by the very dirt it was meant to divide.

After a couple of aspirins chased by a shot of tequila, I make my way into town to take a look around. There is a cluster of houses stacked on top of each other like coffins, a small convenience store at the corner, a dive diner, a liquor store; the necessities I suppose. Two kids kick around a brick like a soccer ball, wearing presumably, their father's steal toed boots. Behind them sits a blue-eyed, bald, old man - his shoulders broader than I could ever wish for.

“If you’re looking for a construction job, you’re a few months too late,” the old man says. “Not that you’d be any good in those.”

I look down at my black loafers, fully covered in dirt. I don’t know why, but this makes me feel a bit embarrassed.

“No sir, mister....” I walk up to him and extend my hand. He takes it, a firm grip, gives it a tug and lets go. “I’m here to interview some of the locals, get a sense of—”

“Another goddamn story huh?” The man spits into a Coke can. “Well, if you’re looking to talk to someone, you should pay a visit to Maria Soledad. She loves getting her name in print.”

I clumsily reach for my phone to write down her name, but keep fucking up my damn code. “Is she the forewoman?”

“Nah. She’s a butch dike who probably wanted  to be a goddamn movie star.” He points off to the east. “You’ll find her up there.”

I finally jot down her name. “Well what about you? Why did you come down?”

He spits again, some of the tobacco spit mixture catches the rim of the can.

“The same reason 300 other motherfuckers moved down here. A goddamn contract.”

I turn to leave. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“I ain’t give it to you.” He says with a satisfied smile.

The next day, I make my way down the fork at the end of the dirt road. I only have three days, three fucking days to come up with something. I figure, fine, I’ll talk to some folks, make a piece about desperate eccentric people. They have to be batshit crazy to stay in this town. Right?

A woman, probably around my age, beautiful tan skin, with obviously bleached blonde hair, waters a pathetic garden. She dunks a cracked plastic bucket into a 55 gallon water drum. Her small frame could easily be swallowed whole by the damn thing.

“Excuse me?” I say forcefully, making my voice friendlier, a little skill I acquired from my telemarketer days before being replaced by laptops.

“Oh my lord!” She says, keeping a steady foot on the ground. “You scared the bejesus out of me!”

Her voice is oddly comforting, maybe it’s the subtle hint of midwestern in her, but she reminds me of a relative, maybe my grandma.

“Not many people say ‘Excuse me?’ around here?” I say.

“Not unless they’re wrestling you over a glass of whisky,” she says, with a laugh.

I look behind her, to a small house with a stucco exterior which blends into the dirt and rocks that surround them.

“Lovely place,” I give a nod.

“Oh that? Ain’t it? Isn’t mine though, but thank you.”

“Oh.”

“I live over there, next to that tent park.”

Her sooty finger points towards a cream colored camper, probably ten years old.

“A camper huh? I’ve never been in one of those.”

She pauses and with a raised brow, “Aren’t you a little too young to be hitting on me?”

I can feel my face blush, but I’m sure my brown skin doesn’t show it. “Oh no, sorry. No, I was just trying to think of a compliment, but realized I didn’t have one about campers, because I’ve never been in one.”

She wipes her forehead and takes a deep breath. The dirt on her face leaves a dark mud streak.

A group of children run by, including the two boys from yesterday. They chase each other, tossing stones and rocks found by the wayside.

“Hey, if you little bastards don’t quit that I’m gonna sick Lenny and Carl on you!” she yells.

The kids freeze.

“That’s right, now get a move on.”

The eldest boy, probably around 12, gives her the finger as they run off. “Oh you little punk. Fuck you!” She gives it right back to him.

“Damn kids. I swear, parents get a whiff of money and suddenly you got desperate people, who don’t know what the hell a condom is, moving their illiterate asses down here.”

I take out my phone, and jot a few notes down. This gives her pause.

“Another reporter? Damn it. We’ve spoken to everyone about everything already,” she turns to leave.

“Wait, no, I mean, yes, I’m a reporter. I mean, my name is Travis,” I raise my hand in a weak wave. It makes me feel like a first grader. Now I remember, not grandma, teacher. “Look, I only have a couple of more days left here, and honestly I just need a few interviews, doing a sort of catch up piece, see where things are now, three years after Pumpkin-head in charge started this fiasco.”

“Where you from? Fox News, CNN... The Daily Show?”

“No, I can’t stand cameras.”

“Oh not the Huffington—”

“Look, this is just a small post, not even a blog worthy length. My editor thought it would be a great fucking idea, and well—”

“What the heck did you do? It must have been really terrible to be sent out here on assignment. In the three years since we scraped together this little town, they have not once sent out a reporter of quality. Not once. Each and every one of them did something stupid to get sent down here. Can you believe that? Your kind uses our town as punishment.”

I stand speechless. I could tell her about how I got super high at our office Christmas party. I could tell her how I got so drunk the night before the last presidential debates, I got kicked out and arrested for disorderly conduct. I could tell her, but what’s the fucking point?

“My name is Maria, I’m the one with a green thumb ‘round here.”  I look over to her sparse garden. “You try growing tomatoes in the g-damn desert,” she says, before motioning me to follow her.

She swings open the small door, followed by a gust of hot air.

“The space is small, but I make do,” Maria says, tossing some of her torn jeans aside from the entrance. “Excuse my mess, I wasn’t expecting company.”

I get an odd feeling in my head, as if my brain is working extra hard to take note of everything inside. The way she drapes her small window with a red scarf, giving the room a magenta hue. Her stacks of books, teetering on the edge of a two person kitchen table, only inches away from the sink that could probably hold three dishes.

“Do you mind if I record our conversation?” I say, trying my best to hide my judgement, but I’m sure it’s of no use.

“I don’t mind,” she says.

“So, before, you mentioned Lenny and Carl, are those other residents?”

She gives a boisterous laugh that catches me off guard. For a moment there, I question her sanity.

“Oh, no no,” she says, shaking her head. “Those are Simpsons characters, but I may have told those little turds they were escaped prisoners from the construction groups they brought down here from Buckeye, talk about story, that’s what you all should be writing about.”

“Prisoners? Working on the wall?”

“Yes!” She reaches into her single serve fridge and hands me beer. “Imagine, 300 of us, leaving lives behind to come down to this pile of shit to get some work, and what do we find? A chain gang, already here. I only saw two months of pay the entire year we built.”

The beer sizzles, some of the foam falls on my hand. I unthinkingly suck it up. “How long did that last?”

“Up until we started to fight back. I don’t care if the Mexicans or the 99 percent were paying for this damn wall, I just wanted to be able to pay for my kid’s lunches. They owe me about thirty-eight thousand, am I ever going to see that? Probably not.”

I look over to a small counter protruding off the sink. There are piles of documents, receipts, trash, but in the midst of all that, perfectly centered, is a single frame of two little girls.

“Those your daughters?” I ask her.

She nods, “Cindy and Vicky.”

“Wait, I thought - the old man said you were a lesbian.”

“It is 2019 Mr. Travis, ‘LESBIANS’ can have children you know.”

“Sorry, that came out wrong. I meant to ask about your spouse. Where is she?”

Maria goes silent for a moment. She takes a long swing of her beer.

“Well, up until two years ago, she was my wife, but laws change I suppose. Afterwards it was just fights, disagreements, and bitterness. You know how these things go don’t you? What are you like 32, 33?”

“36,” I say, sipping on my beer, fighting the temptation to chug the whole thing, and have a second.

“36? Were you married? Wife? Assuming you’re straight.”

I can feel my body for some reason swaying. “I am.” I say with an odd quiver. “Was married for a year. Divorced now. She was from Texas, not that that matters.”

“Well, what happened?”

“I guess the same reasons I find myself researching a fluff story here,” I say, wondering where that honesty came from. She must have slipped something in my beer.

“Well, Mr. Travis, at least you had a choice in the matter. Carey and I, well, the fucking country decided we were over.”

Maria drinks the rest of her can, and effortlessly crushes it with her hands. “But what’s the use in dwelling on that. The way I see it, I’m stuck here. I could move somewhere I suppose, but every time I get the nerve too we get told that work is about to start up again. I dunno. I guess I don’t have anywhere to go back to.”

“How do you afford living here if they—”

“I knew our conversation would eventually get here. I’ll tell you what, Mr. Travis, the wall may not be very profitable but women have always found a way to make it at the expense of lonesome men.”

I want to ask the obvious question, but something holds me back. I drink to fill the silence.

“I’ve got a few more question for you, Mr. Travis,” she says, “How long has it been since you’ve felt the warmth of a woman?” Maria reaches over and takes the can out of my hand.

I begin to panic and stand. “I think this will be enough.”

“Wait, don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t enjoy fucking men.” Maria takes another swig. “This town isn’t the innocent, pathetic little place the country thinks it is.” She looks at her phone stowed away in a cupholder. “About that time, why don’t you go and take a look. Really look. You’ll see what I mean.”

I leave the little camper behind, and make my way back to my rental car. As I sit with my key in the ignition, I soak in Maria’s words. I look around. The boys from before continue their chase a little way down the path. Out of a little box house, a girl, probably only 15, walks out with her bike, I don’t know why but something tells me to follow her. She doesn’t ride far, maybe about 15 minutes down to the construction site. The road turns to concrete, some of the few pieces of concrete I’ve seen all day, it leads into what looks like a motel. I figure it’s housing built for the workers. The girl drops her bike out front, walks to the farthest door on the right, and knocks. A man in his 50s, jet black hair, opens the door. He waits for her with a big smile. His heavy hand grazes her little face. She walks in and the door shuts behind her.

Is this it?

I turn my car around, my heart racing. A part of myself that I have ignored for years suddenly erupts. This pit in my stomach filled with anger, disgust, the shit of the world, overflowing as I rush to a halt at Maria’s camper.

She stands at the door waiting for me, smoking a cigarette. “This ain’t the first place like this, Mr. Travis. Three years, shit reporters.” Maria sits down on the small steps that lead into her camper. “So, what would you like to talk about?”

[sunlitroom]

Gotham s3e19 - The Gentle Art of Making Enemies

As I watched it, and some random observations here and there.

Previously on Gotham.

Warehouse. It's really you, Jerome!  Isabella dies. Ed wants to destroy Oswald. The cultists were promised Jerome!   They don't work for Oswald no more, and Nygma is going to die.  Jerome and Lee have a chit-chat.  Oswald receives a fake kidnapping phone call.  Jerome sends the city a message.  The power plant explodes.

As always, long post will be long - reaaally long.  There are likely to be rambling digressions. Gobblepot may appear (although I welcome all shippers and non-shippers alike :)).  There will be naked favouritism and naked not-favouritism.  Broader comments at the end on plotlines and parallels and general direction.

Jerome's followers create havoc at GCPD, brawling with cops. Jim grabs one by the throat and starts starts to punch him – demanding to know where Jerome is.

Look around - he's everywhere

Amidst all the mayhem, a fire breaks out.  The cultist laughs and yells.

Tonight Gotham is awakened.

God - I hate these guys

Oswald is walking into a trap with two henchmen, telling them ensuring Ed's safety is all that matters

(Oswald - darling - where are your brains?)

Ed walks out from the shadows.  Oswald is overcome with relief, and hugs him, asking if he’s alright.  Ed tells him he’s fine.  Oswald gushes that of course he is and asks where they are, the people who dared to think they could lay their hands on him.  Ed watches him calmly, and tells him that he’s alone.

Ha!  Oswald exclaims.  He thinks Ed escaped, and calls him a scamp. Ed coolly asks if he brought anyone else.  Oswald replies that he didn’t, and Ed promptly shoots his henchmen, before pointing the gun at Oswald.  Oswald blinks in confusion.

I don't understand

Ed smirks.  

I know.  That’s half the fun

Oswald is still confused as Ed hauls him forward, towards the wreckage of Isabella’s car.

Oswald stares, open-mouthed and starts to lie

Whatever you've heard...

Ed hits him in a fit of temper, knocking him to the floor.

Isabella was my everything, and you took her.  And now I’ve taken everything from you.  Well, almost everything.  Not your life.  That ends tonight.

Revenge Ed also seems to be trying out a Batman voice.

Gotham is burning while the Court of Owls (Katherine and Jim’s shadowy uncle) watch.  If it worsens, they’ll be forced to step in. There’s an explosion.  How much worse do these guys need it to be? Shadowy uncle says the city will bend before it breaks, and that they should give GCPD a chance.  Katherine tells him his faith in him (presumably Jim) is touching, and possibly dangerous.

Back at GCPD, Jim is hearing reports about rioting, and issues orders.  There’s still no sign of Jerome, and Harvey says there’ll be no lights until tomorrow.  Jim says that this is ordinary citizens rioting, not just the cult.  Harvey says that no-one is in charge at City Hall, and that Oswald is MIA.  He’s been missing in action virtually all season, Harvey – this isn’t news.  Jim wonders aloud what it is Jerome wants – and then remembers that Lee was the last to talk to him.

Oswald is tied to Isabella’s car.  He’s still – seemingly – reeling with confusion.

My father appeared to me - I saw him

Ed tells him that was Clayface, and then snarls at him that ghosts aren’t real.  (I wonder if a resurrected Oswald will get revenge for that one later)

Oswald is aghast when he realises what happened:

You stole my father’s remains from his grave?

Ed tells him not to worry – Elijah’s at rest now: Ed left his body in a dumpster.

(An aside – this is one of the points that makes what happens later simply implausible to me. I think Oswald could forgive a lot – but his love for his parents has been repeatedly emphasised as absolutely defining for his character.  I would argue that this would be unforgiveable in his eyes)

Oswald sobs.  He says he understands that Ed is angry – but he forgives him

Ed loses his temper and tells him to just admit.  Oswald does.

Fine - I had her killed.  You should thank me

Oswald tells Ed that they both know what would have happened.  Ed protests.  He knows what could have happened.  Could have lived a happy, normal life.  Oswald shakes his head, face twisted, insisting that Ed would have killed her like he killed Kristin and then hated himself.

(An aside – and again, what? If we’ve seen anything it’s that Oswald doesn’t really understand Ed’s pathology.  He didn’t get why he’d kept Kristin’s glasses, he blithely signed him out of Arkham, he’s never seen Ed in one of his overtly ‘split’ moments, and he sure as hell wasn’t listening when Ed was spilling his guts about his fear of hurting Isabella.  But he suddenly has a fine grasp of his psychology?  Nope.)

Ed interrupts. They’ll never know now.

Oswald pipes up, his voice small, saying that he did it for love

Ed rounds on him angrily, telling him to shut up - love is about sacrifice, about putting someone else first – but Oswald would sacrifice anyone to save his own neck, even Ed.  He then outlines a stupidly elaborate acid/rope/ice trick.

Oswald pleads that he can change – the fact he loves Ed proves it. Ed has no time for this, saying that a man facing death will say anything to save his own skin.  He claims Oswald won’t change, because he can’t.

Leaving, he essentially tells Oswald to go to hell, as Oswald yells after him.  If I hear Oswald plaintively yell ‘Ed’ one more time this season, I’m joining the rioting cultists.

GCPD, where Lee is treating the wounded while being sullenly sarcastic with Jim.  She’s multi-tasking!  When he refuses to respond to this treatment, she has a moment of realisation, and begins to act professionally again.  She remembers that Jerome talked about killing Bruce.  She calls Wayne Manor as Jim leaves.

Wayne Manor, where Bruce and Alfred light candles.  The phone rings, but they wait too long to pick up.  In the meantime, Jerome and his followers silently appear in the room. Alfred is hit in the face and drops to the ground.  Bruce kneels to see that he’s OK, and as he does, Jerome leans in:

My my.  Look how big you've gotten.

Jerome struts around, cracking jokes

Nice place you got here.  You rent?

Bruce has no time for him. Jerome bemoans his attitude

Teenagers - am I right?  I remember those days – all those exciting new ideas about killing everyone you see.

He spots the glass owl. Bruce spins a tale to save it – but Jerome smashes it anyway.

Bruce asks what he wants to do.  Jerome says killing him is the last thing he remembers wanting to do.  He wants to slit Bruce’s pretty pink throat.  Bruce plays for time, buttering up Jerome’s ego about his showmanship that night.  He then says it makes killing him here pretty disappointing.  All that build-up – the lights, the resurrection – all his flair, style, panache – for this?

He tells Jerome that he’s Bruce Wayne….

I am the ruling elite.  My company keeps Gotham running.  Killing me should mean something.

Jerome catches on.  

You're saying I need an audience.  I know you’re just buying time to make an escape – but the point’s still valid

Jerome says it’s time to get the show on the road – but Alfred can stay here and be killed.  Bruce remonstrates, but Alfred tells him to go.  Bruce tells him fiercely that he’ll see him again. Alfred tells him

Carry on, son, carry on

Jerome pulls a face at this exchange.

Strangely intimate

As he leaves, he tells his skivvies to try not to get blood on couch, he might come back for that.

Oswald screams for help. A less than bright security guard frees him while Oswald loses his temper.  It’s not the most engaging scene.  Anyway, Oswald gets away due to Ed’s weakness for Pinterest murder scenes.

Wayne Manor, where the cultists are destroying things before killing Alfred. Alfred spots Jim in the background, and starts insulting the thugs as a way of giving away their positions to Jim.  He taunts the last one in such a wonderfully British way I had to quote it:

Come on then sunshine - don't be shy - your mother wasn’t.

Jim and Alfred take them all out and head off to find Bruce.

We see a distorted and hazy circus before Jerome pulls a hood from Bruce’s head.  He watches as Bruce looks around, his face twisted in disgust at the citizens being tortured as sideshows.  Jerome says that they’ll have some fun before the main event.

GCPD – Jim tells Alfred Harvey is trying to track Bruce.  Alfred tells him how Bruce bought himself time, and remarks that Gotham has given way to bedlam again.  Harvey lists places they could be – and Jim decides on the circus.

The circus, where Bruce is being made-up as a clown.  Jerome doesn’t find him funny enough, but rectifies that by stabbing the clown painting Bruce’s face, digging his finger in the wound, and painting Bruce’s mouth with blood.

Oswald is back home, looking for Gabe to kill Ed.

Butch and Tabitha appear, and Tabitha wraps her whip around Oswald’s throat. He demands to know what they’re doing there.

(An aside - I thought it was made pretty clear that Oswald knew Ed was going after Butch as revenge for Isabella.  Butch shows up hale and hearty and Oswald still doesn’t catch on?)

Tabitha says that they’re doing whatever they want at Oswald’s house – that he’s finished. Butch wants to know where Ed is. Tabitha reminds him that Babs doesn’t want Ed dead, at which Butch snaps that he doesn’t work for Barbara Kean.

Oswald’s personality emerges for a moment as he snickers at this.  He taunts Butch, telling him to stop pretending that he’s anything but muscle. He used to be something, but those days are past.

Tabitha approaches, and helpfully reminds everyone how repugnant she is by reminiscing about how she murdered Oswald’s elderly mother, and at how all Oswald could do was hold her as she cried and bled out – and that Oswald didn’t do anything to Tabitha in retaliation.

Yet – snarls Oswald

Tabitha sneers – telling him that he had his chance.  Butch smirks in the background

(An aside – has Butch forgotten that Oswald refrained from killing Tabitha solely out of deference to his feelings?  And is he seriously OK with Tabitha’s complete unconcern for killing Gertrud – even though her death weighed on his own conscience at the time?)

Tabitha tells Oswald to stop turning them against each other.  Oswald says he won’t go anywhere with them.  Butch knocks him out, and Tabitha complains that they’ll have to carry him now.

Circus with Bruce and Jerome.  Bruce asks what the plan is behind this.  Jerome says there is none. People just want an excuse.  The mother who wants to strangle her child.  The husband who wants to stab his wife.  They can do it. 

It doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t.

(An aside - I really liked this moment.  Jerome’s voice is very quiet and calm here, and it’s more chilling than a lot of the noisier stuff.  It’s also a neat way of showing the essential divide between Bruce and Jerome - idealism vs moral nihilism)

Bruce tells him he won't get away with it.  A few dozen brainwashed idiots can’t hold the city forever.  Jerome says he knows that.  Bruce asks again what the point is.  Jerome says the normal people he sees everyday – who clean his car, make his coffee, take away the trash  - they show their true colours when the lights go out.  They all want to open his rich boy veins and bathe in his blue blood.

(An aside – I do like the theme of Gotham’s fairly maligned citizens rising up.  It was played with with the Indian Hill escapees – the notion that the way the City treated its outsiders and dispossessed would come back to haunt it, but they abandoned it early on)

Bruce says there arre good people in Gotham.  But Jerome mocks him – they’re sheep and cowards.

Face it- Gotham has no heroes

Bruce makes a meaningful face.

As Jerome takes a turn on another torture sideshow, Bruce shoves him and tells him to get on with killing him.  Jerome is outraged at his cheating, and calls him a bore.  He takes a moment to staple his face on.  Bruce asks mockingly if it hurts.  Jerome staples his wrist in response.  Bruce manages not to flinch for two – which rattles Jerome – but breaks on the third.

Jerome laughs and moves on to the  main event

Jim and co pull up at the circus.  They’re going to go in before back-up arrives.

Jerome plays ringmaster. Bruce is wheeled out – tied to a pole. Jerome is going to fire a cannon at him, tousling his hair before getting started.

Bruce glances at his handcuffs, and pulls a staple from his wrist to pick the lock

Jim and Alfred are inside. Jim fires his gun.

Detective Gordon!  Just in time for the big finish!

The strike force arrives. Brawls break out.  Jerome still lights the fuse and runs.

Bruce picks one lock, drops the staple, and has to pull another.  He manages to pick the lock, and escapes.

Oswald is at Sirens with Babs, who is gloating.  He says he underestimated her, which she attributes to her great beauty.  He says that she used Isabella’s death to turn Ed against him.  Babs tells him it wasn’t too hard.  Oswald says the plan was to destroy everything and kill him.  Babs confirms this.  Oswald says that he hopes she’ll be happy in charge.  Babs comments that most of the families are dead., and says that they don’t need Ed anymore.  Oswald says it didn’t take them long to turn on each other.  Babs said it was a limited partnership.  If Oswald helps them find Ed, then things will be better for him.  If not, they’ll simply kill him.  He seems tired and resigned.

(An aside – I don’t really know why Oswald even humours this – he knows how the underworld works. There’s no honour here – and especially not with the likes of Tabitha, who seems to live for cruelty.  He would simply be dead either way)

Jerome hunts Bruce in a hall of mirrors- saying he won't hurt him.  It is a very striking scene, and works particularly well.

You ruined my show Bruce.  Hiding’s just gonna make things worse.  

But Bruce didn't come here to hide.  He wanted Jerome to follow him.  He’s going to pay for what he’s done.

Sirens, where there’s a phone in front of Oswald.  Babs wants him to call Ed and lure him here.  It’s Babs, Tabitha’s and Butch’s time to shine.  Although who’s left to see it is anyone’s guess.

Oswald replies that he feels impelled to refuse.  Butch threatens to beat up the small man with the bad leg like it would be some big achievement.  He’d get the information in five minutes.  Tabitha claims she could do it in three.  Butch whines at her interjections, and Barbara tells them to shut up.

She tells Oswald to reconsider.  He can live to love another day.

Oswald says he’s had a realisation.  Barbara tells him that he loved Ed and he betrayed him.  Oswald says he’s not sure now that he did.  He thought he loved him because Ed had loved him like no-one had since his mother (Oswald apparently still can’t see how Ed used his mother’s memory).  But Oswald killed Isabella nonetheless.   He wasn’t capable of self-sacrifice.  He says he is now, though, and refuses to call Ed.  Barbara asks if he’d rather die.  Oswald says he would, and isn’t that crazy?

It is crazy

Ed steps out from the shadows.  Oswald realises that they’ve all been in it together all along.  Somewhere, Fish is facepalming and planning several motherly lectures.  Oswald asks Ed why?  Ed says he didn’t want to just take everything.  He wanted to take Oswald’s belief.  He wanted Oswald to betray him at the last, so Oswald would die knowing he was incapable of loving another person.

(An aside - Which is…. really just irredeemably ugly.  And given that Ed was still referring to Kristin as Miss Kringle even after being a romantic relationship with her, and got his jollies cutting up her corpse – I don’t really think he’s the authority on who’s capable of love.)

Oswald protests.  He is capable of self-sacrifice.  He showed he could change.  He smiles desperately, frantically asking if this means he passed Ed’s test.  Ed, never at his best when he’s cocked up one of his schemes and realised that he doesn’t know everything, says that he doesn’t know what this means.

(An aside – what is this nonsense?  A fourteen episode arc to tell me that Oswald has magically learned to love after some sustained gaslighting from Ed?  This is not a new facet of Oswald’s personality.  He was willing to jeopardise his position as kingpin and dance to Theo’s tune to save Gertrud’s life.  He was willing to take the fall for Theo’s murder to spare Jim Gordon’s reputation.  He was willing to live as a servant out of love for his father, who wanted him to stay with his step-family.  He was willing to be demeaned by them while still entertaining the hope that they could be a loving family.  He spared Fish’s life when she affirmed their connection. He even spared Tabitha’s life because killing her would have hurt Butch.  Oswald is plenty capable of love and self-sacrifice.

But I’m to forget the entirety of his storyline to this point and believe that Oswald is only magically capable of unselfish love now?  Fourteen episodes that stranded two of the strongest characters in a frankly silly storyline for something that wasn’t even character development. What’s the next arc going to reveal? That Jim has a bit of a temper? That Victor’s quite keen on guns?  Christ on a cracker.)

Back to the hall of mirrors. Jerome’s having more fun than he expected.  He tells Bruce they make a good team.  Bruce spits that Jerome killed Alfred.  Jerome asks if all rich kids are this close with their butlers?

When Bruce doesn’t respond, Jerome tries another tack.  He says that if Bruce wants to be a hero – then he’ll give him a fighting chance.  Man on man.  He slides a gun across the floor for Bruce, but we see a flick blade in his other hand. Jerome tries to taunt him out again – but Bruce tackles him from behind.  

They box.  Bruce wins.  He pins Jerome on the floor, punching him repeatedly. Jerome laughs and tells him to let it out.  He grabs a shard of glass from a broken mirror and is ready to plunge it into Jerome’s throat - when he catches sight of himself in the mirror.  Jerome tells him to do it.  Bruce screams in his face (just like Jim with Eduardo Flamingo) – but walks away, refusing to dance to Jerome’s tune.

Leaving the hall, he spots Alfred – still punching random cultists.  They hug, and Bruce says brokenly that he thought Alfred was dead. Jim slowly approaches, clearly relieved and moved to see Bruce is safe.

Jerome also approaches. Jim literally punches his face off. Jerome collapses.  Everyone loses their appetite for about the next month.

GCPD – Jim and Harvey say that word of Jerome's arrest is spreading.  He’ll be sent to Arkham.  Jim wonders if he should have shot him.  At the door, Lee stares for a bit then leaves.  Jim stares back.  Harvey congratulates him for having punched a man's face off, and offers to buy him breakfast.

Wayne Manor – where Alfred is cleaning up a shell-shocked Bruce’s wounds. He talks to him gently, and doesn’t push for Bruce to tell him what happened. He tells Bruce he was very proud of how he behaved, and the man he’s become.  

Bruce confesses that he wanted to kill Jerome for a moment, not out of rage alone, but because for a moment it felt like justice.  Alfred acknowledges this without judging him, and points out that Bruce didn’t kill him.  Bruce observes that there’s a fine line between justice and vengeance. Alfred says he knew where that was and didn’t cross it – and that’s the first rule.  They talk about what the training is for – which they don’t know yet. but whatever happens – he’ll need rules. Bruce states absolutely that he will not kill.  Alfred makes him repeat it.  They go to work.

Court of Owls.  Katherine is speaking.  Tonight was close.  They could have lost Gotham for good.  They will act soon, and you will be called upon.  The camera turns, and we see clone Bruce, who says he’s prepared.  Katherine asks Shady Uncle if he’s sure, and that he knows that must happen if he (presumably Jim) refuses.  He tells her that no-one refuses the court.

Jim's at his apartment, having a glass of whiskey, when Uncle Evil Guy shows up at his door. Long time, no see.

Oswald and Ed at docks (Yay – I called this!  Oswald would wind up at the docks again.  But while Jim showed him mercy, and offered him another chance – Ed will show none. I had thought initially that it might play as Ed putting him out of his misery, but it really didn’t come across like that.  It was pure vengeance and punishment.)

Oswald is begging.  He tells Ed he loves him, and he can believe that now.  He warns him that killing like this will change him.  This isn’t like any of his previous murders – passion or self-preservation.

(An aside – I don’t think Mr Leonard was either, Oswald.  And neither passion or self-preservation quite cover what Ed does afterwards in keeping trophies, or demonstrating control over the corpses.  It’s hard to tell whether I’m just supposed to believe what Oswald’s saying, or think that he is genuinely deluded in his view of how well he knows him)

Oswald says this would be the cold-blooded killing of someone he loves.  Ed reiterates that he doesn’t love Oswald.  Oswald claims that they need each other, but really – while Oswald was made very reliant on Ed, this was not the case on Ed’s part. Oswald gave him a powerful job and a fancy home – but Ed’s not emotionally dependent in the same way, although he does care to an extent.

Ed’s enraged.  He snarls that Oswald killed Isabella. Oswald tries to interrupt – but Ed talks over him.  He wants Oswald to suffer like he suffered.  Oswald will now die for killing her.

Oswald then launches into a remix of the speech Fish gave him.  I do love when we see her influence on him.  He says that he created Ed Nygma.  Ed was a nervous, jittery loser – but he sees him as he is.  Who he can still become.  He can’t do this.  Ed is impassive.  Oswald sobs and wails, asking him if he’s listening, and begging him to say something. Ed finally speaks.  When he does, there’s hurt and exhaustion alongside rage.

I loved her Oswald.  And you killed her

Ed shoots Oswald in the chest.  Oswald stares, disbelieving.  Ed pushes him into the water and watches him sink – eyes still staring, hand outstretched and pleading.

Ed looks down.  There’s satisfaction at vengeance, and perhaps some horror at the fact that he has just killed his only friend.

General Observations

Oswald/Ed/Babs/Tabitha/Butch

I’ve commented throughout on this, but some additional thoughts.

Oswald’s Fish gambit falls flat because – well – Oswald didn’t make Ed.  Ed was a work long in progress before Oswald’s appearance.  His murder of Kristen, his subsequent breakdown, and other murders had nothing to do with Oswald.  Even after their first prolonged time in each other’s company at Ed’s apartment, it’s Ed who tries – unsuccessfully – to change and mould Oswald with his ‘love makes you weak’ philosophy.  

Ed rejects Oswald on his release from Arkham.  It’s Ed who provides Oswald with moral support after Fish spares him.  When he goes to work for Oswald - it’s Ed who pulls the strings, repeatedly playing on Oswald’s grief and loneliness to make him reliant, and it’s Ed who runs all his affairs.

So this idea that Ed looked up to Oswald has just never manifested in the script for me.  They kept saying it – but I never saw evidence of how or why.  They’ve really had very little influence on each other until 3, and then again – none of that was indicative of Oswald moulding Ed.  In fact, it had become confusing that Ed still talked at all about learning from Oswald, since we never saw it, and what we did see of their behaviour didn’t reflect it.

Last I checked, Tabitha and Butch definitely wanted Ed dead.  They just let him leave the Club with Oswald and drive to the docks?  

I was expecting a lot more Machiavellian backstabbing in the Ed/Babs/Tabitha/Butch plan, which never really manifested.   I was hoping Butch might turn completely, or that Babs might try to ditch him.  Maybe we’ll get more on this when they return – but it fizzled a little here.  I have residual interest in Babs – and want to see where she goes.  I don’t give even the tiniest of fucks about Tabitha and Butch.

Jim/Jerome/Bruce

Probably the strongest part of the episode.  Jerome is endlessly entertaining, and the back and forth between him and Bruce was excellent: Bruce is all principles, whereas Jerome has none.

Jim played second fiddle to Bruce tonight – but still came off well.  He managed the deployment of officers calmly, didn’t rise to Lee’s bait, rescued Alfred, and then punched Jerome’s face off.  I’m assuming the arrival of shady uncle will see him start to address the galloping father issues we saw in his hallucination.

Thoughts?