#patron saint: james

[aswallowssong]

Sicktember 2024 #7: Borrowed Hoodie

The idea for this was, literally, "Aaron’s hoodie being passed around like a healing balm." It was @themetaphorgirl's prompt, and I love her for it, because if there's anything I love, it's when the person that's usually the whumpee becomes the caretaker, even in the short form. Honorable mention comment goes to @fragolinaa, who said, and I quote: "Alex calling him Aaron is the equivalent of showing a glock"

Spencer

“I’m tired,” Spencer mumbled against Aaron’s side. It was Friday night, and they were at another one of Derek’s football games. Aaron knew the rules of football against his will, having been Derek’s roommate the year before, but it seemed that no matter how many times he tried to explain them to Spencer, it wasn’t sticking.

That, or Spencer couldn’t get over why a sport about passing and running had to be so violent. He didn’t like it when they tackled one another, which was every play, and he really didn’t like it when Derek got tackled. 

“I know, Bug,” Aaron said gently, pulling Spencer closer to him as his eyes stayed locked on the field. It was getting colder as the season went on, and Spencer was shivering, so some extra snuggles were in order.

“I wanna go home,” Spencer whined, flopping down so his head could lay in Aaron’s lap. 

Aaron ruffled his hair. “I know, Bug,” he echoed. “The game’s almost over. I told Derek we’d try to stay for the whole thing. There’s four minutes left.”

“That could take a million years,” Spencer mumbled, and when Aaron’s hand paused against Spencer’s scalp, he noticed how warm his ‘little brother’ felt. 

His mouth tugged down into a frown, and he looked over at Alex, but she wasn’t watching them. She was buried in her book, her back against James’ side while he watched with rapt attention. James liked to give Derek specific praise after his games – something he said that Ned always did for him – and while it was sweet, it made him oblivious to the world for the two hours they were on the bleachers.

“Bug?”

“Mhm?”

“Are you feeling okay?”

Spencer nestled further into Aaron’s lap, the tip of his thumb between his teeth. “Mm. ‘m cold.”

Aaron sighed. Spencer ran mystery fevers all the time, and they usually found out the cause later in the night, or the next day. Some cold, or flu, or worse, a stomach bug that reared its ugly head and made them all stressed out for a week, and usually got Aaron sick, too, in the process.

He thought for a second before stripping off his hoodie, and then laying it over Spencer like a blanket. Spencer sighed in relief, snuggling into it and balling his fists in the soft, blue fabric.

“That help?” Aaron asked, and Spencer nodded sleepily, closing his eyes as he turned his face into Aaron’s stomach. 

“Uh huh. Thanks, Bubba.” __________

Alex

They’d been fighting about it for five entire minutes.

“Birdy, come on.”

“I’m fine, Aaron. Leave me alone.”

Aaron, not Bubba. I really must have done it this time.

“I won’t,” Aaron said, moving to try to stop her as she marched down the sidewalk. “You’ve been trying to dodge us all day, I barely caught you now, and I had to ask Penelope for your work schedule.”

“How did Penelope get my work schedule?”

Aaron gestured vaguely, moving again so he was in front of his pseudo-twin. “Penelope could find the president’s schedule if she wanted to.”

Alex rolled her eyes, not moving to push back the hair that was blocking some of her face from his view. She always pulled her hair away from her face, she’d said once that it was a sensory nightmare, but she didn’t have a headband or a clip pulling it back, and it wasn’t in a ponytail or a braid like she usually did.

“Are you mad at me? Is this about Spencer? Because if you’re mad at me, you shouldn’t be avoiding everyone, just tell me what I did.”

Alex huffed, pushing past him again. “I’m not mad at you, you’re reading into it.”

Aaron raised an eyebrow, but then used his lank to his advantage, stepping in front of her again. He put his hands on her shoulders, stopping her in place, and bent a little to look her in the face.

“Birdy, please, come on. Spencer’s worried, he doesn’t know why you’re avoiding him.” When he said it he knew it was a low blow, but he was starting to feel anxiety like bubbles popping in his chest. “I told him I’d make sure you were at dinner.”

Alex looked up at him after a second, some of her face still blocked by her hair,, and if looks could kill, he would have been six feet under.

“Let go of me, Aaron.”

“Alex–”

“I have homework to do. I’ve got too many things–”

Her words cut off as she shuddered under his hands, goosebumps erupting on her arms as she shivered in weather that was already too warm for him to be wearing his hoodie in the first place.

“Woah,” he said reflexively, “Are you… cold?”

She shook her head quickly and shivered again, before tucking her face away from him, and he didn’t even think as he reached out and gently grabbed her chin, turning her head so he could actually see her face.

When he did, everything clicked into place.

“Holy shit, Alex, you look awful.”

She frowned, and to his horror, her lower lip started trembling. “Stop, Aaron–”

“No way, Bird,” he said, the popping of anxiety in his chest going from slow moving bubbles to sparks like fireworks. “No wonder you’ve been a ghost today, you should be in bed, not running around trying to dodge us.”

“I’m fine,” she tried to say, but it was painfully obvious she wasn’t, and Aaron took a second to breathe before he was rubbing his hands up and down her arms, trying to help somehow. He was good at taking care of Spencer, but Spencer was ten.

Plus, Alex was usually the one taking care of him, and Spencer, so how was he supposed to do anything to help her?

“We should… find James. I’ll text James. He can meet us back at my room, and he’ll know what to do.”

She started to protest, but as she shivered harshly again, all of the fight seemed to go out of her. Her eyes started to fill with tears, and she nodded slowly. 

“Okay.”

He thought for a second before unzipping his hoodie, and he helped her thread her arms through the sleeves before zipping it for her. It hung like a dress down to the middle of her thighs, but she didn’t seem to notice, or felt too awful to care.

After a moment she leaned against him, wrapping her arms around his torso and burying her face in the fabric of his shirt. 

“Thanks, Bubba.”

“Of course,” he said automatically. “Of course, Birdy.”

“Love you.”

“I love you, too.” __________

Haley

“You don’t have to do this, Ari. It’s sweet, but you’re gonna–”

“Hay, James said you probably should be with someone to watch your fever. It’s fine, I don’t care about getting sick. I care about you.”

Haley sat next to him on the bench outside of Roosevelt house, her head laying against his arm as he tried to coax her into following him back to Lincoln house. He’d thought she was acting weird at dinner, and by the time she’d finally admitted to him that she wasn’t feeling all that great, Alex and James had taken Spencer back with them and the others, granting them enough privacy for him to convince her to let him help.

She’d fought going to the nurse harder than he thought she would, but he’d been able to convince her to on the thermometer in his backpack, normally reserved for Spencer. After that he’d called James, and she’d already gone inside and grabbed a tote bag with the things she thought she might need.

When she’d gone in she’d been wearing his hoodie, which he’d given her even after she’d protested that she was going to get germs on it, and he’d fully scoffed. Odds were he was going to get sick anyway. When she’d come out with her bag and was still wearing it, he’d told the bees in his stomach to knock it the fuck off.

“Harper just…” she turned and muffled a cough into her elbow, but he finished the thought for her. “Is the worst?”

She laughed and shook her head, clearing her throat before speaking again.

“She just gets really freaked out about getting sick and missing class, and missing cheer. It’s like, she would rather die.”

“That’s a little dramatic,” Aaron said simply, rubbing Haley’s back. She’d started shivering again, and it was making him anxious. “People get sick all the time. Spencer and I get sick all the time. You’ve got like, a cold virus or something, and it’ll go away.”

Haley turned and raised a weak eyebrow at him. “A cold virus, or something?”

“I don’t want to be a doctor,” he said simply. “I want to be a lawyer.”

“A man with ambition,” she said, teasing him, but he could tell her heart wasn’t in it. She was more miserable than she was letting on. “I like that.”

“And I like you feeling well,” he said, standing up and offering her his hand. “Come on, Haley. It’s alright, I promise.”

She looked up at him, glassy eyed and fever flushed, and sniffled quietly before taking his hand and letting him help her up. He grabbed her bag, even though she protested, and couldn’t help but feel a swell of fondness at the fact that his hoodie dwarfed her, the sleeve pooling around their connected hands while the other completely covered her hand. He nodded towards it, giving her a shy smile.

“When JJ’s cardigans do that to Spencer’s hands, she calls it ‘Sweater Paws,’ like he’s a kitten.”

“Are you calling me a baby?” She said, but she laughed listlessly, so he knew she wasn’t serious.

“It’s cute,” he said, trying and failing to not blush like a moron.

“Well, maybe I should wear your jackets more often. Not just because I’m so cold.”

“You’re hot.”

“Wow. Forward.”

“I mean–!” He blushed darker, fumbling for the right words. “You know what I meant! You have a fever!”

“I know, I shouldn’t be giving you a hard time,” she said, leaning her head against his arm as they walked. “Thanks for letting me stay. I feel silly about it.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I already said it, I don’t care about getting sick. I care about you.” ___________

James

James was raising an eyebrow at him, though it looked misplaced on his pale yet darkly flushed face.

“Your hoodie won’t fit me.”

“Try me,” Aaron said, holding it out to him. “Or do I need to help you put it on?”

James grumbled, taking it from him. “This is silly.”

“You’re the one that tried to hide in a study room to finish homework instead of calling your dad and telling him to pick you up in the first place.”

“I didn’t know Penelope had tagged us.”

“Well,” Aaron said, “Yeah, the ethics on that are sketchy. But how else was Alex supposed to find you when you didn’t show up after classes let out? And then no one could find you for two hours until Penny finally ratted on herself!”

He hadn’t meant to get a little loud, and only noticed when James winced and rubbed at his temples, but James was usually their rock. The fact that he’d been the one to go MIA hadn’t sat right, and he’d been fighting off the anxiety ever since.

“I didn’t mean to worry everyone,” James said quietly. He’d pulled Aaron’s hoodie on, which had stopped the fever chills a little bit, and had fit, which Aaron had known it would. It was just baggy enough in the shoulders to fit James’ broader ones. “I wanted the opposite.”

“Well you got the not-opposite,” Aaron said, way too flustered to think of a good retort. Instead he stared at James longer than was appropriate, and was startled when someone honked their car horn.

“Shit,” he said at the same time that James said, “Stars,” like they were in a southern sitcom.

“Jeff, cut it out!”

Ned was walking up to them, concern etched onto his face, while Jeff, his best friend and bakery partner, was sitting in the driver’s seat of the van, sheepishly waving and mouthing “sorry.”

Aaron liked Ned. Ned was a good dad.

“Mini, why in the world would you have stayed here feeling bad when you know I would’a come to get you right quick had you called? Alex sounded worried out of her mind.”

“That’s just Alex,” James said, but Aaron watched him quickly wilt as he laid eyes on his dad. “It’s not that bad.”

“He’s got a fever over a hundred n’ one,” Aaron said, his accent strengthening the second he heard Ned talk. “He’s full’a crap.”

Ned nodded at Aaron, ruffling his hair before he grabbed James’ backpack off the ground. “Thanks, Bubba. Charlie’s anxious to get him back. Mama’s worried.”

He said it in James’ direction, but didn’t take his eyes off Aaron, and it made him feel warm inside.

James got up to walk with him back to the car, mumbling a thanks to Aaron, but was half way there when he turned around.

“Oh, Aaron, this is your hoodie.” He started moving sluggishly to take it off, but Aaron shook his head. 

“It’s fine. I’m not worried about it.”

“Didn’t your brother pick it for you, though? It’s important.”

Aaron nodded, taking a beat before shrugging. “It is. A, um. A different brother needs it right now.”

He watched as James’ face went from confused to thoughtful, a small and sheepish smile crossing his face before he nodded, turned, and followed Ned to the car.

[themetaphorgirl]

Whumptober #6: Patron Saint of Lost Causes

No. 6: NOT REALISING THEY'RE INJURED

Prompted by @quiddoditto

Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms | Healed Wrong |  "It's not my blood."

Years of abuse affected Aaron a lot more than he realized. But he also didn't realize that the people who love him can pick up on his unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Reluctantly he went down to the tiny office and tapped the door open. Alex was sitting at the computer, mumbling along to a Lawrence song while she worked on an Excel spreadsheet. “Hi, Bubba,” she said absently. “How’s it going?” “Fine,” he said, sinking down on the old couch.  Alex lifted her chin from her hand. “Ooh, that doesn’t sound fine,” she said. “Are you okay?” “Rough customer,” was all he said. He could have said more, but he didn’t have the energy.

Read here!

[ineffablesheets]

House: *texts wilson non-stop during work*

Wilson: some of us actualy have patients, House.

House: yeah, but you also have me. prioritize.

[raisedbythetv89]

Listen James didn’t just understand the assignment, he went ABOVE AND BEYOND the assignment and invented his own extra credit work to do. He was showing up to red carpet events in his slutty little tanks with his arms and his messy hair (MESSY HAIR SUPREMACY 😫) and his lil sliver of belly + rings, smirking with his cheek bones and his stupid eyes and jawline having this anti-establishment attitude - absolutely GLEEFUL about the fact that they couldn’t get rid of him because of how much he was loved by fans. Like I know a lot of you hate me and there is NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT ☺️😝🤘🏻🖕🏻🤙🏻

After being kicked out of Juilliard and really have to carve his own path in the Seattle theater community rather than finding success in NYC or LA - which is much more traditional, receiving so much projected anger and hatred from j*ss and all the other misogynists on the show and his character becoming the black sheep of both his human society circle and his vampire family first, followed by the demon community at large with the chip and the soul he really become the patron saint of outcasts and he knows it and LOVES it and embraces it and because he understands us so well he is amazing at giving us everything we could ever dream of and more and between him and sarah who deeply related to their characters we are so lucky as a spuffy fandom and it just makes me so happy and I feel so grateful 🥰☺️💜

[nikolai-alexi]

YOU SIGNED UP FOR THIS IS COMPLETE AND I GENUINELY DONT KNOW EHAT TO DO WITH MY LIFE SNTMORE THAT FIC IS MY LIFELINE

[aprillikesthings]

ofmd spoilers ahoy but

AHHHH

so glad they let Ed say that one line back at Stede, I literally had to pause it and roll around yelling

lol their awkwardness as they move so so so so torturously slowly back towards each other is so painfully familiar

oh my god the tension is so painfully well done that I am about to dive into their ao3 tag (and I've had about 0 interest in m/m fic for multiple years at this point) because I have, like, some equivalent to blue balls, fucking CHRIST

really enjoyed the mlm/wlw solidarity of Mary and Ed chatting and smoking weed

BAHAHAHA Anne and Mary's kinky relationship is so great, plus the degree to which they made fun of Ed and Stede

(as a 43-year-old woman thank you, THANK YOU, that they're not in their 20's)

unrelated to all the previous notes but I just want to be pleased that rather than the < .speaking Spanish. > bullshit they CAPTIONED THE GOD DAMNED SPANISH

if Ed and Stede don't bang soon I WILL PERSONALLY LOSE MY SHIT

[static-radio-ao3]

mil! trick or treat! (if you are still taking them 🥰)

kay! i thought i was done with trick or treating (mainly bc i ran out of tricks and treats) but i'll make an exception for you <3 a little snippet from the love and monsters au !

“Something the matter, Bambi?” Barty asks him, but his voice is devoid of any concern. Instead, it is flat, hard, and completely disinterested. “No,” James mutters. “Then stop fuckin’ staring.” Evan gently smacks Barty in the chest, a wordless admonishment, but no one else comments.

>> ask box trick-or-treat

[aprillikesthings]

So I did the Camino de Santiago last year, the end point of which, the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, supposedly contains the relics of St James the Greater, one of the Apostles.

And I’ve read enough of the legends to know it’s just extremely unlikely that 1. He was ever in Spain 2. Those are his bones in that box.

But it doesn’t matter?

Enough people have made pilgrimage to that site (for a thousand years!) that it’s sacred to him anyway. Might as well be his bones in there.

(That said—I do feel bad for the guy for being called the Moor-Slayer. One of the things written about him that’s likely to be true is that he was beheaded by the sword on Herod’s orders, just because it was written so close to when it supposedly happened. So it’s a little weird to see him portrayed on horseback and about to slice off someone else’s head with a sword.)

Thinking about people associating a saint with something they didn't care about at all in life, but so many people keep asking then to pray for then in relation to that one thing that, from the afterlife, they really do start to care about it.

[katabay]

my knight-monk agenda strikes again, but this was less of a 'I read something that made me experience several emotions and a strike of inspiration at once,' and more of a 'wouldn't it be fucked up if the bejeweled skeleton saints came to life and and started. eating people. or something. in revenge. medieval catholic horror, or an older horror of not being buried right. zombies, even. a complete bastardization of holy visuals. zombies.'

it's a far away idea, but I still wanted to play around with font layouts. like, if I DID make it into a full comic: these would be visual vibes, perhaps.

it's also a little bit about the kind of intimacy that these kinds of spaces provide, or in the case of this monk: the heavy trauma of war and the death of your brother, the escape to a secluded monastery, spiritual brotherhood to make up for your dead brother, but your role as a physician keeps pulling you back to this violence you want to escape. physician, heal thyself, only you have a holy calling to serve those in need, so instead: physician, open up your wounds again. saint jude, patron saint of lost causes, give us a fucking hand here, man. amen.

Homosexuality in the Renaissance: Behavior, Identity, and Artistic Expression, James M. Saslow

and this one is about earlier history than the medieval period that this comic is set in, but the monk character is sort of an exploration of earlier themes. a little bit. I like overlapping eras with each other, I've done it before and I'll do it again. this character is an exploration of some other stuff too, but mostly this book was interesting to read

From Monastery to Hospital: Christian Monasticism and the Transformation of Health Care in Late Antiquity, Andrew T Crislip

bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost

[themetaphorgirl]

Whumptober #13: Patron Saint of Lost Causes

No. 13: TEAM AS A FAMILY

Prompted by @aswallowssong

Familial Curse | Multiple Whumpees | "Death will do us part." (Set It Off, Partner's In Crime)

Ned and Charlie were prepared for the kids to crash at the end of the school year. They were not prepared for how hard, or which ones.

They wrangled the three of them into the waiting room. James ended up lying down with his head on Charlie’s lap; Alex leaned against her other side. Ned sat next to Aaron, running his hand up and down his back as he shivered against him. The urgent care trips usually put Aaron in a tailspin and it broke his heart to see.

“You’re okay, we’ve got you,” Ned murmured. He’d quickly learned to love Aaron like his own son and he hated seeing him this sick, as much as he hated seeing James sick. “We’ll get you feeling better and back home as soon as we can.”

“I feel like shit,” Aaron mumbled.

Ned rubbed the back of his neck. “I know, kiddo, just keep taking slow breaths,” he said.

“Where’s…where’s Alex?”

Oh, that wasn’t good.

Read here!

[fatehbaz]

What it meant to "do geology" in Hutton's time was to apply lessons of textual hermeneutics usually reserved for scripture [...] to the landscape. Geology was itself textual. Rocks were marks made by invisible processes that could be deciphered. Doing geology was a kind of reading, then, which existed in a dialectical relationship with writing. In The Theory of the Earth from 1788, Hutton wrote a new history of the earth as a [...] system [...]. Only a few kilometers away from Hutton’s unconformity [the geological site at Isle of Arran in Scotland that inspired his writing], [...] stands the remains of the Shell bitumen refinery [closed since 1986] as it sinks into the Atlantic Ocean. [...] As Hutton thought, being in a place is a hermeneutic practice. [...] [T]he Shell refinery at Ardrossan is a ruin of that machine, one whose great material derangements have defined the world since Hutton. [...]

The Shell Transport and Trading Company [now the well-known global oil company] was created in the Netherlands East Indies in 1897. The company’s first oil wells and refineries were in east Borneo [...]. The oil was taken by puncturing wells into subterranean deposits of a Bornean or Sumatran landscape, and then transported into an ever-expanding global network of oil depots at ports [...] at Singapore, then Chennai, and through the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean. [...] The oil in these networks were Bornean and Sumatran landscapes on the move. Combustion engines burnt those landscapes. Machinery was lubricated by them. They illuminated the night as candlelight. [...] The Dutch East Indies was the new land of untapped promise in that multi-polar world of capitalist competition. British and Dutch colonial prospectors scoured the forests, rivers, and coasts of Borneo [...]. Marcus Samuel, the British founder of the Shell Transport and Trading Company, as his biographer [...] put it, was “mesmerized by oil, and by the vision of commanding oil all along the line from production to distribution, from the bowels of the earth to the laps of the Orient.” [...]

---

Shell emerged from a Victorian era fascination with shells.

In the 1830s, Marcus Samuel Sr. created a seashell import business in Houndsditch, London. The shells were used for decorating the covers of curio boxes. Sometimes, the boxes also contained miniature sculptures, also made from shells, of food and foliage, hybridizing oceanic and terrestrial life forms. Wealthy shell enthusiasts would sometimes apply shells to grottos attached to their houses. As British merchant vessels expanded into east Asia after the dissolution of the East India Company’s monopoly on trade in 1833, and the establishment of ports at Singapore and Hong Kong in 1824 and 1842, the import of exotic shells expanded.

Seashells from east Asia represented the oceanic expanse of British imperialism and a way to bring distant places near, not only the horizontal networks of the empire but also its oceanic depths.

---

The fashion for shells was also about telling new histories. The presence of shells, the pecten, or scallop, was a familiar bivalve icon in cultures on the northern edge of the Mediterranean. Aphrodite, for example, was said to have emerged from a scallop shell. Minerva was associated with scallops. Niches in public buildings and fountains in the Roman empire often contained scallop motifs. St. James, the patron saint of Spain, was represented by a scallop shell [...]. The pecten motif circulated throughout medieval European coats of arms, even in Britain. In 1898, when the Gallery of Palaeontology, Comparative Anatomy, and Anthropology was opened in Paris’s Museum of Natural History - only two years after the first test well was drilled in Borneo at the Black Spot - the building’s architect, Ferdinand Dutert, ornamented the entrance with pecten shell reliefs. In effect, Dutert designed the building so that one entered through scallop shells and into the galleries where George Cuvier’s vision of the evolution of life forms was displayed [...]. But it was also a symbol for the transition between an aquatic form of life and terrestrial animals. Perhaps it is apposite that the scallop is structured by a hinge which allows its two valves to rotate. [...] Pectens also thrive in the between space of shallow coastal waters that connects land with the depths of the ocean. [...] They flourish in architectural imagery, in the mind, and as the logo of one of the largest ever fossil fuel companies. [...]

---

In the 1890s, Marcus Samuel Jr. transitioned from his father’s business selling imported seashells to petroleum.

When he adopted the name Shell Transport and Trading Company in 1897, Samuel would likely have known that the natural history of bivalves was entwined with the natural history of fossil fuels. Bivalves underwent an impressive period of diversification in the Carboniferous period, a period that was first named by William Conybeare and William Phillips in 1822 to identify coal bearing strata. In other words, the same period in earth’s history that produced the Black Spot that Samuel’s engineers were seeking to extract from Dayak land was also the period that produced the pecten shells that he named his company after. Even the black fossilized leaves that miners regularly encountered in coal seams sometimes contained fossilized bivalve shells.

The Shell logo was a materialized cosmology, or [...] a cosmogram.

Cosmograms are objects that attempt to represent the order of the cosmos; they are snapshots of what is. The pecten’s effectiveness as a cosmogram was its pivot, to hinge, between spaces and times: it brought the deep history of the earth into the present; the Black Spot with Mediterranean imaginaries of the bivalve; the subterranean space of liquid oil with the surface. The history of the earth was made legible as an energetic, even a pyrotechnical force. The pecten represented fire, illumination, and certainly, power. [...] If coal required tunnelling, smashing, and breaking the ground, petroleum was piped liquid that streamed through a drilled hole. [...] In 1899, Samuel presented a paper to the Society of Arts in which he outlined his vision of “liquid fuel.” [...] Ardrossan is a ruin of that fantasy of a free flowing fossil fuel world. [...] At Ardrossan, that liquid cosmology is disintegrating.

---

All text above by: Adam Bobbette. "Shells and Shell". e-flux Architecture (Accumulation series). November 2023. At: e-flux dot com slash architecture/accumulation/553455/shells-and-shell/ [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticisms purposes.]

[themetaphorgirl]

Steph is RIGHT and this IS a PSOLC scenario.

There’s definitely a spoiler for a major PSOLC plotline that’s coming up later in the fic, so if you don’t want spoilers you’re not missing anything by skipping this drabble, it’s just cute and silly. just feral unsupervised Patron Saint babies.

----------

“Emily started it!” Spencer shrieked from his perch on the kitchen counter. 

Emily brandished a spatula at him. “I did not, you little gremlin!” she said.

“She said Dave isn’t the best cook in the group, he only ever makes pasta and even Derek can make pasta!” he said.

“Tattletale!” Emily hollered, lunging for him.

Derek caught her around the waist before she could reach him. “What’s she saying?” he said.

“I don’t know, I don’t speak French,” JJ said.

“No, no, Spencer was speaking French, Emily is speaking Italian,” Alex said. “Slow down. Please pick a language!”

Emily kicked her heels at Derek’s shins; he yelped and dropped her. “Ow, fuck you, Morgan!” she said. “Rossi started it! He was making fun of Spencer’s hair.”

“And it hurt your feelings because you’re the one who cuts Spencer’s hair?” Alex said.

“Yeah!”

Spencer stuck out his lower lip. “What’s wrong with my hair?” he asked. 

Dave rolled his eyes, his arms crossed over his chest. “Emily is bullshitting you, Spencer started it,” he said. “He was looking at me funny.”

“I was just wondering why you were salting the pasta water, scientists can’t agree if it actually helps it cook better!” Spencer protested.

“It does!” Dave roared, shaking both fists above his head.

“And then you made fun of his hair?”

“I didn’t make fun of his hair!”

“Alexandra, help, what am I missing?” James said. “What…what languages are happening right now?”

“I can speak a little Spanish if that helps!” Penelope chirped.

Alex pressed her fingertips to her temples. “That…that isn’t exactly helpful right now, my darling,” she said. “Can we all at least stop screaming?”

“No!” Emily screamed.

Alex sighed heavily and looked over at Aaron, who calmly texting Haley on his phone. “Are you going to help out with any of this?” she asked. He didn’t acknowledge her. She tapped his arm, and he gestured at his ears. “Did you turn your hearing aids off?”

“Sure did.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Listen, I only made fun of Rossi’s cooking because he made fun of Spencer’s hair!” Emily said. “Rossi took it too far!”

“What’s wrong with my hair?” Spencer demanded.

“What language is this now, Klingon?” Penelope asked.

“Russian, I think,” JJ said.

“Sounds like Klingon.”

“Wait, is Prentiss blaming me?” Dave said. “It’s her fault!” Emily shrieked like a pterodactyl and stomped out of the kitchen.

“I’m so lost,” James said. “I’m missing everything.”

“So is Hotch, but clearly he doesn’t care,” Derek said. 

“No, he just can’t hear anything,” JJ said.

Alex tapped Aaron’s arm. “Hey, can you step in and help me with this?” she signed.

“Absolutely not,” he signed back. “I’m sure it’s only going to get worse.”

Emily ran back into the kitchen with a couch cushion and whapped Dave across the face with it, making him pinball off the kitchen island with a cartoonish yelp. “Jesus Christ, Prentiss!” Derek said. 

“Don’t tell me what to do!” she said, pointing at him dramatically.

“I don’t speak Italian!”

“Aaron, please, give me a hand,” Alex signed. He looked her dead in the eyes, removed his hearing aids, and placed them in her hands. “What the hell, Hotchner.”

“She’s trying to kill me!” Dave gasped, trying to pull himself off the floor.

“Wait, are we having a pillow fight?” Penelope said. “Man, I could have brought so much ammunition if you had just given me prior notice.”

Emily threw the couch cushion back on Dave and sat on it. “Tell them I didn’t start it!” she demanded as he hollered in protest. 

“What the hell is going on?” James said.

“I need to learn more languages,” JJ mused.

“I don’t think I can get down from here!” Spencer said from his perch on top of the kitchen cabinets.

Alex stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled. Everyone but Aaron froze and stared at her.

“Enough!” she shouted. She took a deep breath. “Since I am the Venn diagram of languages around here…Emily, stop sitting on David, you’re going to suffocate him.”

“Make me,” Emily said. Alex looked at Derek and nodded towards Emily; he immediately hoisted her up as she protested. Dave pushed the couch cushion off of him and struggled to sit up. “My whole life flashed before my eyes,” he gasped.

“David, stop being a dick,” Alex said. “Spencer wasn’t looking at you funny, Emily is right and you only know how to cook pasta, and don’t make fun of Spencer’s hair, he’s sensitive.”

“What’s wrong with my hair?”

“Nothing, you’re adorable.”

“And Emily does a good job cutting it,” Emily grumbled under her breath.

“And Emily does a good job cutting it,” Alex said. “Now can you guys just stop for like ten minutes? We’ll just order pizza or something instead of Dave cooking again.”

“Also can someone get me down please?” Spencer said.

Alex turned to Aaron. “Can you-” she started to say. He was still busily typing. She turned to James. “Jamie, can you get the baby down please?”

His eyes were wide. “Alexandra, my sweet angel, love of my life, you’ve just rotated through six languages in the past thirty seconds and I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me,” he said desperately. 

Alex opened her mouth to try to explain, but her half a dozen languages tangled up in her brain. “I think she’s getting an error message,” Penelope said. 

Alex pointed at Spencer. “Oh! Oh, get him down,” James said. “I’m on it, I’ve got him.”

imagining reid, prentiss, and rossi all getting drunk at a team dinner and screaming at each other in italian and then prentiss and reid shit talking rossi in french or russian or something and rossi yelling even louder in italian while the rest of the team is attempting to piece together what started this in the first place, quietly sipping on their wine and enjoying the dinner theatre

(reid tells jj and morgan that emily started it by joking about rossi's cooking, emily tells hotch that rossi started it by making fun of reid's hair, and rossi tells garcia that reid started it because "he looked at me funny." emily will later attest to only making a joke about rossi's cooking after he joked about reid's hair because "gotta have a brotha's back," immediately taking this statement back when she finds out he said she started it and later smothers him with a couch cushion for having the audacity to lie. it takes morgan and hotch to get her to back down and she is forced to sit on the floor the rest of the evening)

[girljeremystrong]

books about dads and about family and about complicated feelings

FICTION

they're going to love you by meg howrey: carlisle goes back to greenwich village to her father's house and finds herself dealing with her complicated feelings towards her dad.

foster by claire keegan: a story about a young girl who's sent to live with another family and founds a love she wasn't familiar with before.

the namesake by jhumpa lahiri: most beautiful novel by our gratest author about the son of immigrants from calcutta growing up in america.

east of eden by john steinbeck: the nobel prize winning greatest story of a father growing two very different boys in california.

still life by sarah winman: ulysses finds himself with a child and chooses to become the best man he can for her (and they move to italy).

unlikely animals by annie hartnett: emma's dad has a mysterious brain disease so she drops out of med school and goes back home. it's a delightful story.

the family chao by lan samantha chang: a retelling of the brothers karamazov set in a modern day chinese restaurant in america.

the incredible winston browne by sean dietrich: sheriff browne recieves some bad news and suddenly he finds himself taking care of a runaway girl who doesn't speak.

we begin at the end by chris whitaker: duchess is only a kid but she takes care of her little brother with all she has even when circumstances keep getting worse and worse.

razorblade tears by s. a. crosby: two black men are killed and their fathers, who always had trouble accepting their sexualities, decide to get justice.

the sweetness of water by nathan harris: in the waning days of the civil war two brothers find refuge with a couple in a farm.

salvage the bones by jesmyn ward: esch's brothers and her dad in the 12 days before during and after hurricane katrina. a modern classic and one of the most beautiful books ever.

the patron saint of liars by ann patchett: in a kentucky home for unwed mothers, a woman meets a man and can't escape her past.

homeland elegies by ayad akhtar: a very personal story of a man and his father dealing with feelings of dispossession and belongings. again one of the best books in the world.

NON-FICTION

the three mothers by anna malaika tubbs: the story of the three women who raised and shaped martin luther king jr., malcolm x and james baldwin.

how to say babylon by safyia sinclair: a memoir of a childhood shaped by a volatile father.

beautiful country by qian julie wang: after moving from china to the usa young qian finds a place among books as her family struggles to adapt to their new home as undocumented immigrants.

between the world and me by ta-nehisi coates: a black father shares his fears for his son growing up in current day america.

[darkesttiimelines]

Throughout history, women have left an undeniable impact on society with their hard work, creativity, and dedication to progress. Unfortunately, their accomplishments have often gone unnoticed, been undervalued, or even stolen. Despite these challenges, brave women of today continue to push boundaries, break barriers, and pave the way for a more fair and equal world. It's our duty to keep going, so that future generations of women can inherit a kinder, more just, and supportive world. By following in the footsteps of the incredible women who came before us, we can create a world where every woman can flourish and succeed, and where their contributions are recognized and celebrated.

Joan of Arc is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronation of Charles VII of France during the Hundred Years' War. Claiming to be acting under divine guidance, she became a military leader who transcended gender roles and gained recognition as a savior of France. She was put on trial by Bishop Pierre Cauchon on accusations of heresy, which included blaspheming by wearing men's clothes, acting upon visions that were demonic, and refusing to submit her words and deeds to the judgment of the church. She was declared guilty and burned at the stake on 30 May 1431, aged about nineteen.

Rani Lakshmibai was the Maharani consort of the princely state of Jhansi from 1843 to 1853. She was one of the leading figures in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 became a symbol of resistance to the British rule in India for Indian nationalists. When the Maharaja died in 1853, the British East India Company under Governor-General Lord Dalhousie refused to recognize the claim of his adpoted heir and annexed Jhansi under the Doctrine of Lapse. She rode into battle with her infant son strapped to her back, and died in June 1858 after being mortally wounded during the British counterattack at Gwalior.

Rosalind Franklin was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was instrumental in the discovery of the structure of DNA. Her contributions were largely overlooked by her male colleagues, James Watson and Francis Crick, who used her data without her permission or acknowledgement. This theft of her intellectual property and erasure of her contributions is a prime example of the systemic sexism that has historically plagued the scientific community.

Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress and inventor who co-invented a frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology during World War II that was used to guide torpedoes. However, her contributions were largely ignored and dismissed by male engineers and the military at the time. It was only later in life that she received recognition for her scientific achievements.

Emma Weyant is an American competitive swimmer. She was the US national champion at the individual medley. She qualified for the 2020 Olympic Games in the 400m individual medley and won the silver medal in this event. Weyant finished second in the 500-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA Division I Women's Swimming and Diving Championships. She was beaten by William (Lia) Thomas, a fetishist, who when competing as a member of the Penn men's team, which was 2018-19, ranked 554th in the 200 freestyle, 65th in the 500 freestyle and 32nd in the 1650 freestyle. Weyant is the fastest swimmer in the 500-yard freestyle and had her position stolen by a man.

Maryna Viazovska is a Ukrainian mathematician who made a breakthrough in sphere packing, solving the centuries-old mathematical problem known as the densest packing of spheres in dimensions 8 and 24. She was awarded the Fields Medal in July 2022, making her the second woman (after Maryam Mirzakhani), the second person born in the Ukrainian SSR and the first with a degree from a Ukrainian university to ever receive it.

Hannie Schaft was a Dutch resistance fighter during World War II who played a crucial role in the resistance movement against Nazi occupation. Schaft was a former university student who dropped out because she refused to sign a pledge of loyalty to Germany. Nazis arrested and killed her in 1945, just three weeks before the war ended in Europe. According to lore, Schaft’s last words were, “I’m a better shot,” after initially only being wounded by her executioner.

Shakuntala Devi was an Indian mathematician and mental calculator who was known as the "Human Computer" for her exceptional ability to perform complex mathematical calculations in her head. Her extraordinary abilities earned her a place in the 1982 Guinness Book of Records. Her lesser known achievement is that in 1977 she wrote what is considered to be the first book in India on homosexuality titled “The World of Homosexuals.”  

J. K. Rowling is a British author and philanthropist. She wrote Harry Potter, a seven-volume children's fantasy series published from 1997 to 2007. Known for her philanthropy, she was doxxed and harassed after coming out with support for women's and gay rights in 2020. Rowling secretly donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to save 100 female lawyers and their families facing murder in Afghanistan. In 2022, she funded a women's only rape shelter in Edinburgh.

[themetaphorgirl]

BRENNA WROTE PSLOC THINGS AND I AM WEEPING

Sicktember 2024 #6: Dizziness/Vertigo

Welcome to my first installment (this season, iykyk) of "Aaron Hotchner, my sweet sweet baby, I'm so sorry to do this to you." I love playing in @themetaphorgirl's PSOLC sandbox (tysm my queen), and if it also means I can write soft things about Aaron, it's a two-for-one!!

“Shut up, or die!”

“You literally cannot threaten me with death over this! Hotch!”

Aaron looked up from his book and raised an eyebrow, tugging at his earlobe. He hadn’t been listening, but there were three other big kids in the room, and he had no idea why he’d been the chosen target of the whining.

“What?”

“Derek said he was gonna kill me!”

Derek rolled his eyes at JJ, crossing his arms over his chest. “I did not. I didn’t say how you were going to die, I just said that the options were shut up or die.”

Aaron’s eyebrow only raised further on his face. “Sounds like witchcraft to me, Jayje. I’d watch out.”

Derek spluttered for a moment, arms failing before he started babbling about how he couldn’t be doing witchcraft, because witchcraft is for girls and he was a man, but Aaron blocked them back out sometime around when Penelope started assuring Derek that, oh, no, men could definitely do witchcraft.

He had way too much to do to be worried about that. The english paper he’d forgotten to write and been mercifully granted an extension on was due at the end of the weekend, and he was still three chapters away from being able to outline the damn thing, let alone actually write it. Thankfully he was a good writer, and he knew that, but his spelling was awful, and he was going to need Alex to go over it with a fine tooth comb before he could submit it.

And he couldn’t have her look at it until it was written.

And he couldn’t write it until it was outlined.

And he couldn’t outline it until he’d read the chapters, which the little kids were going to make impossible to get through.

He’d considered moving to Alaska when Spencer wriggled under his arms and into his lap.

“Bug,” he said, an apology already in his mouth. “I really need to focus, can you go sit with–” He cut off, looking around.

Alex was at the library, working a long shift so she didn’t have to work on Sunday night, and could go over his paper with him.

Dave was writing something on his laptop with an expression that was giving ‘violent’ and ‘don’t come near me.’

Emily was nowhere to be seen. Probably out with that guy Ian that Aaron hadn’t met but definitely hated on principle.

Which left–

“James?”

James looked up at the same moment that Spencer deflated.

“Hmm?”

“I don’t wanna sit with James, I wanna sit with you.”

Aaron ran a hand down his face. His eyes were blurring, even with his contacts in, and the words had started swimming on the page. He hadn’t even been reading that long, but if eyes could ache, his sure were. That, and his ears hurt. But his ears always hurt, so, what else was new.

“I know, Bug, but I need to be able to focus on this.”

“I’ll be quiet!” Spencer pleaded, dropping into a whine immediately. “I won’t be distracting or wiggly, I promise!”

A pout settled on Spencer’s little face, and Aaron closed his eyes and took a breath before shaking his head.

“We can watch a movie or something when I’m done, but my eyes are already tired, so I just need, like, an hour of space.”

Spencer huffed, his shoulders slumping, and slid off Aaron’s lap to go sidle up to James. James, unphased, beamed at Spencer while ruffling his hair. 

“Do you wanna help me with this math problem, Bug? I know how much you love numbers.”

Aaron turned his eyes back to the book, and it felt like the page was swirling. He closed them for a second, a hand reaching up to press on his temple. When did the headache come on? Usually he could feel them starting, but it felt like it had gone from nothing to pounding.

“Fuck,” he mumbled, rubbing slow circles on his left side, and when he cracked his eyes back open, he’d managed to dislodge one of his contacts. “Fuck.”

Thankfully, it didn’t seem like anyone had noticed his slowly crumbling composure, and he stood up, setting his book down on the arm rest. The world moved in a dizzying spin, and he reached out to steady himself on the back of the armchair. It seemed that the only person that noticed was Dave.

“Where are you going, fagiolino?”

Aaron scowled, stomach swirling with how dizzy he suddenly was. “I knocked my contact weird. I’ll be right back.”

James and Spencer both looked up at his voice, and then back down as Spacer said something about matrices that James clearly didn’t understand. Dave, looking unimpressed, shrugged, and went back to glaring daggers at his computer. 

The others didn’t seem to even notice, still arguing about witchcraft.

He stalked out into the hallway, and when he was nearly to his room, everything tilted, and the pain he’d been feeling in his temples and his ears seemed to throb in sync, sending the world sideways. One of his shoulders hit the wall, and his knees buckled as the edge of his vision started to darken.

Aaron wasn’t a stranger to passing out. It happened relatively frequently, but usually when he was sick. He wasn’t sick.

Or, he hadn’t thought he was? He’d been tired, sure. Spencer had been having crazy nightmares as the weather shifted, something about tinfoil being a bad window insulator. He didn't know what that meant, but he hadn’t given it a huge amount of thought past calming him down, and promising that the windows were closed tightly, and that while Lincoln House was sort of shitty, it wasn’t bad enough to be drafty. 

He didn’t get to contemplate it, because he slid into a crumpled heap of limbs against the wall, the darkness almost overtaking him before he glimpsed someone come into view in the hallway. They might have shouted his name – his actual name, Aaron – before he slumped the rest of the way sideways to the ground, his consciousness left behind.

When he came to, not very many seconds later, he only knew two things. Someone was pulling on him, and he was definitely going to throw up. The latter, he was used to. That happened pretty much every time, and then the nausea abated. 

He usually got a warning, though, when he was going to pass out, so he was either in a bathroom already, or in bed, if he could be, with his little desk trash can ready to be used for its secondary purpose, right after throwing away abysmally incorrect math assignments.

There had been no warning this time, so he was mildly surprised that after he gagged, there was a trash can (maybe the one that lived in the hallway?) being shoved under his chin. He was sick immediately, coughing and heaving several times before it let up, and he shuddered, wiping his mouth along the back of his hand and willing himself not to cry. The dizziness usually abated, but it was hanging on, and the throbbing in his head or the pulsing of pain in his ears hadn’t stopped, either.

“You’re okay,” he heard, finally registering that someone was holding him up. “Did you know your ears are leaking?”

Aaron didn’t know that his ears were leaking, but he wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t a stranger to ear infections by any means. He just didn’t know how it could have gotten so bad they were leaking, and he hadn’t realized.

It took another second for him to register the voice that was speaking to him, muffled as always. Everything was always muffled.

“James?” He mumbled, a little surprised, but not unhappy. He’d rather James find him like this than Dave, or one of the younger kids, or god forbid, Spencer.

“That’s me,” James said, pulling him the rest of the way upright. The world spun a little faster, and Aaron swallowed his stomach down. “You know, if you’d told Alex you were sick, she would have traded her shift.”

“I didn’t know,” he said, sounding far away to himself as he fought to shake off the fog. “Just had a headache.”

That’s a lie, he heard a voice, Alex’s probably, say simply in his head.

It wasn’t a lie. At least, it wasn’t until it was. 

“Snuck up on me,” he amended, to at least have a sliver of truth between them.

James sat with that for a second, moving so Aaron could push his back against the wall. He’d always thought that James had the sort of eyes that looked at you, but looked through you more, like he was analyzing you in a polite way. Alex talked all the time about James’ dream to be a doctor, and there were moments where Aaron could see how perfect of a match that would be.

“You probably have an ear infection, probably both of them,” he said, his tone void of emotion, save for sympathy. James didn’t do pity, and Aaron appreciated it. “Do you have a fever?”

“Dunno,” Aaron said, and James pressed a palm against his forehead.

His face pulled, just slightly, before he said, “I think so.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

Aaron looked up at him with lidded eyes, trying to focus on his face as everything spun.

“Really dizzy.”

James raised an eyebrow. “Well, I– Yeah. Yeah I figured that, you passed out.”

Aaron felt himself flush, more than embarrassed that James had seen that, but the stubborn part of himself won out. “I didn’t mean to pass out, James. It’s not like I wanted to collapse in the hallway.”

“Well, your ears are definitely infected. They’re literally leaking, so your equilibrium was bound to be off. And you definitely have a fever.”

He stopped, pulling his phone out, and Aaron took half a second too long to figure out what he was doing before the phone was up to his ear.

“Jame–”

“Al? Yeah, hey sorry, I know you’re at work. Aaron’s sick, do you think you could call someone to come cover your shift?”

“James, stop–”

“Yeah, I think his ears are infected. He said he’s really dizzy, and he’s definitely got a fever.”

Aaron gave up, knowing he wasn’t going to get anywhere, but let himself be incredibly grateful James didn’t mention him passing out in the hallway. Alex would freak.

“Yeah, text me when you’re leaving. I’ll get him in bed. I’ve got it … Spencer? No, Spencer is helping Dave figure out the best synonym for ‘star,’ so I think that’ll take a while … Yeah. Okay. See you soon.”

He hung up, looking down at Aaron with half a grin. “She’s worried, but she’s coming when she can. Think you can get off the ground?”

Relief flooded through Aaron against his will. He didn’t want Alex to worry, but he did want Alex to come back.

“I think so,” he said, trying to get the world to stop spinning by sheer force of will. He didn’t want to ask James for help, but it turned out he didn’t have to. James was about as tall as he was, and broad, which helped when he offered Aaron his hand and was able to help pull him up to standing. 

The dizziness was bad, and it didn’t help the nausea either, but he kept a stable hand on Aaron’s arm as they started down the hallway.

[portraitsofsaints]

Happy Feast Day

Saint James the Greater

Died 44 AD

Feast day: July 25

Patron of veterinarians,

equestrians, furriers, tanners, pharmacists

He was one of the 12 Apostles of Jesus, the son of Zebedee & Salome & brother of John the Apostle, called the “sons of thunder”.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)