#remember when challenge

[sirensplayhouse]

remember when challenge 🥀

this post is for my babies who undoubtedly know the law is real y’all done manifested consciously before but you’re stuck in a hole when it comes to manifesting what you REALLY WANT

ok so let’s get into it i want you to forget about all the different techniques you’ve read about, states, the void, everything

sit back , stand do whatever and think back to when you first learned about the law of assumption. how did you react to learning that you can change you reality in the blink of an eye ? skeptical ? disbelief ? all of the related synonyms ? 99% of us probably scrolled past the post of whatever we were reading and said “yeah right”. but then it lingered in the back of the mind and that “yeah right” slowly transformed into “what if” .

so if you were like me that “what if” got the best of me and i decided to test it i figured what else would i have to lose ? i would only have to gain . so i read up on the law of assumption and got down to the basics, “your assumptions manifest” , “an assumption though false, if persisted in shall become reality” and it sounded too good to be true. so i tested it , there was an outage in our area with our internet (and for all of us who have spectrum y’all know it be blinking from blue to white or will just turn red ? yea) so my modem was just red and so everytime i looked at it i said or thought “it’s blue” i persisted in that assumption for a day and a half. everytime i walked past it and it caught my eye or i caught myself thinking about it, i affirmed that it was blue and that the internet was back working. A DAY AND A HALF (and i say a half because it wasn’t even a full two days before i saw what i wanted to see) and the modem was it’s usual blue color and we were back in action.

so me being me i’m like whaaaaaaaaa- 🤭because there were still reports of the outage in our area but we weren’t experiencing any problems anymore.

so that brings me to this challenge i want you regardless if you’re new to manifesting or continuously over consuming information . to state what you want and everytime you find yourself thinking about your desires affirm that it’s yours or visualize yourself with it. that’s it and that’s all. no you don’t have to consciously believe in what you’re telling yourself that’s what your subconscious is for. when you tell/show yourself what you want and desire and PERSIST your subconscious automatically starts to believe what you show/tell it. and by law it has to materialize into your reality it’s no other way around it.

[frownyalfred]

Clark being annoying in the Marvel universe after getting accidentally transported there: well MY billionaire vigilante would never do this—

[sukunasteeth]

The Pleasure's All Mine - Chapter One

Based on this post from @winterrbluess

If Shibuya had a pulse, it would be at the rate of a hummingbird's wings.

The human race operates at a speed that oftentimes seems too quick to catch up with. It had been that way ever since you moved to the city for work about three years ago.

You came for a corporate job made up of ink black suits and pencil skirts, smiles that felt more on the side of uncanny valley than they did of genuine kindness, and handshakes from skin cold with carpal tunnel. You lived a corporate life. Everything is muted tones of tan and relies heavily on the concept of "modernizing". You wake up, go to work, go home, work on what you couldn't finish at the office, fall asleep on your colorless coffee table, and wake up to your alarm going off what feels like hours too soon. It was a cyclical cycle.

And the day you broke it, happened to be the day you met Sukuna.

~

You noticed the new shop on the end of the street maybe three weeks ago. It was so out of place, after all. The building was the only non-skyscraper to be seen on the block. It was a shriveled up little thing, built out of chipping brick that seemed to teeter on the edge of dilapidation from the inability to meet building codes. Overgrown ivy crawled up the sides of it and it still had plots of dirt in the front for planting as opposed to concrete and metal benches. 

When you had first seen the For Sale sign a few months ago, you were sure they were going to tear it down and pave over it- happy to be rid of the only spot of character left in the business district. Then a new sign appeared over the door, one that looked hand carved out of wood and haphazardly painted over so that you could make out the words "Carnation King".

It’s funny, flowers had never been much of an interest to you. You had seen them as just another task to take care of when you returned home after a long day. Even filling a vase with water always sounded like more effort than it was worth. But as the days blend together from monotony, you find yourself desperate for color.

You changed your walking route to work so that you can pass by the shop everyday. You knew nothing about flowers. You could barely tell a rose bud apart from a tulip, but that didn't stop you from ogling at the new bouquets and potted plants that lined the sidewalk every time you passed them. Signs made out of toothpicks and painters tape said words like “Butterfly Ranunculus” and “Brown-Eyed Susan” and learning their names became one of your favorite things to do. You never stepped foot inside, and yet the flower shop was now one of your happy places. 

You would meander by on your lunches and watch the butterflies play. You would walk by in the morning and smell freshly watered earth still hanging in the air. On your way home, when the sun was at its fullest shine, you would walk beneath the misters hung under the lip of the roof, and the coolness of the water droplets left behind on your skin saw you all the home. 

You hadn’t realized how important the flower shop was to your daily routine until the day it was interrupted. 

It happened to be one of the only days you had been forced by your workload to stay past sunset for overtime. You didn’t do it for the money, you did it because your boss had asked you nicely. But as you finally exit the office building for the night, you find yourself regretting staying so late. 

You hated walking home in the dark. Even though Japan was notorious for its low crime rates, that didn't mean it was an innocent city. After 9pm, your street was notorious for being a ghost town. The only signs of life were the few work martyrs left in their floor to ceiling window offices- acting as makeshift streetlights. There were only a few lights on the way home, and their solidarity only seemed to pronounce the darkness along the rest of the empty roadside. When you were just an intern, before you got better hours and were finally promoted to the shining 9-5 that everyone dreams about, you used to take your heels off and sprint back to your apartment. Always weary of what you couldn’t see. At the time, you didn’t know that the scariest people don’t have to hide in the dark. 

You hadn’t planned on walking past the shop that night. It was closed. It had to be. Normal flower shops closed well before 7 pm let alone 9. But the moment you touch the sidewalk outside your building, you see light glowing against the dense night. 

The shop at the end of the street was draped in tiny fairy lights. Every square inch of brick was twinkling slowly, glimmering like resting fireflies. It looked almost otherworldly in comparison to the towering pitch black shadows of corporate offices surrounding it. In fact, the effect of the glowing lights against the mirror windows made it look like the shop was hanging in space. 

Outside, the flowers you had walked past in the afternoon had been replaced with new pots, overflowing with buds you had never seen before. The usual delicate smell of Honeysuckle and Roses was now one of the sweetest scents you had ever experienced, so sweet, you could almost taste it on your tongue. Warm golden light floods out of the shop's window and the numerous white and yellow petals seem to gather and hold onto its dull shine. 

You didn’t even realize you had completely abandoned your original plan of taking the shortcut home until you were standing in front of the Carnation King with your eyes entranced on the display before you. One flower in particular had caught your eye, a huge luscious display of delicate tow-colored petals, tall with endless growth and reaching towards the moonlight as though it’s been waiting all day to see it. You can’t help but reach out to touch, and yet just before your fingertips make it, you feel coolness trickling onto your hand, breaking the spell that the lights and colors had placed on you. 

 "Evening Primrose." 

The suddenness of a voice beside you should have put you in fight or flight mode. It should have been a cold bucket of water to the face. Adrenaline spiking, you should be sprinting in the opposite direction. Instead, you found the tranquil trance that the flowers had put you in to have a lasting effect. 

You blink at the man who seemed to appear out of thin air standing next to you, and the first thing you notice are his eyes. Such a dark shade of golden rich hazel-brown, they were nearly shining like two cuts of Cat’s-Eye. They gleamed suspicion. 

He was much taller than you, but where most are lanky you can see strong muscles and broad shoulders. Collared sleeves rolled halfway up his arms revealed skin kissed rich and deep by prolonged sunshine. Tattoos slithered around his wrists and had made their way to his sculptured face, meticulously drawn black lines frame an annoyed expression. When you see the rest of him, you’re certainly not expecting to notice tufts from a head of true strawberry blond hair hang in his frigid gaze.

In one of his hands is a water can, still pouring trickling water onto your momentarily petrified fingertips, and in the other hand is a cigarette, only a third of the way lit. 

The sight of him takes you so far back, if the sound of his voice wasn’t still echoing in your head you might not have remembered that he had even said anything to you. 

"I'm sorry?" You pull your hand away from the water spray, drying it on your slacks.

The man takes half a drag of the cigarette before he answers you. Slow and unrushed. "They're called Evening Primrose.” He speaks through a cloud of tobacco smoke, glancing at the flowers that had caught your eye. His lip twitches slightly, "Need full sunlight but only bloom in moonlight. Fickle bastards." 

Okay. Owner. Mean owner. Unexpectedly rough-and-tumble looking for being the caretaker of a flower shop. You glance at his apron, but you don’t find a name tag. He takes a step back while you’re searching for it, but he only moves far enough to start watering the next plant on the table. 

You look back to the Evening Primrose, and even the smell of the burning cigarettes is nothing in the face of the scent that had pulled you in earlier. The two flavors mix like a tea garden on fire. You caress the petals once more, unthinkingly. 

"They smell incredible." You mutter, mostly to yourself. 

"Not them.” His voice is colder than his eyes. He flicks a bit of ash onto the cement behind him, and tilts his head in the direction of a different bush, one that’s even bigger than the healthy Primrose, with hundreds of tiny buds that flutter in the nighttime air. “That'd be her." 

"”Her”?" You repeat, wondering if you heard the man correctly. 

"Night Jasmine." He answers in return. 

As standoffish as he was, you still found yourself making mental notes of the names he had given you. When you look at the Night Jasmine directly, it’s clear that the wind was sweeping that delicious smell straight from the direction of its honey-hued petals. You’re not sure you had seen plants like this at even the most expensive hotels and events that you had been invited to. Maybe tiny cuttings, but nothing to this size and level of lush. 

"Well she's very pretty." You reply softly, letting out an airy laugh through your nose at his use of pronouns. The man doesn’t even crack a smile in return, his eyes giving you a pointed once over. 

“And invasive.” He adds, resting his gaze on yours once again. 

There’s a thick silence that follows after, during which you consider apologizing. For what? You were unsure, but somehow standing in his towering shadow and feeling his accusing eyes had you feeling like you were in the wrong for merely existing in his presence. 

Before you can think to just turn around, take off your heels, and sprint home like you had years ago, his voice demands your attention again. 

"So,” he says, “you gonna tell me why you’re stalking me, then?"

Now, surely, you were hearing things. 

"E-Excuse me?" 

He seems to take in your shock with some thought while he takes another languid puff, "You come by here every single day,” He lets the smoke go from his lungs, ”but you never buy a thing. In fact, you never even come in." The tone of his voice tilts towards annoyance. “You just stand at the window and pout like some sad puppy.” 

"I-I work in the building next door?" You offer, bewildered by the entire situation. Were you dreaming? Had you fallen asleep at your desk and given yourself some sort of stress-induced nightmare?

"Hmm," The man takes you in without breaking your gaze, tilting his head to the side while he takes another drag of his cigarette. "You don't seem like the pencil pusher type to me."

You’re not sure why that comment makes you defensive. In retrospect, it was even a compliment to you. You hated sitting at a desk all day, watching the sun rise and set over a stack of papers. But you had worked hard to get to the position you were in now and it wasn’t the first time a man had told you that you didn’t look like you belonged. Before you can catch yourself in the name of politeness you find yourself scoffing out, "Sorry, but you don't seem like much of a florist to me."

The silence returns. You watch as the disdainful glint to his eyes shatters, and is replaced with a split second of surprise. He blinks and it’s only then that you realize how much larger this man is in comparison to you. If you had seen him walking down the street, you’d probably think to yourself “I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side” and yet here you were, on his bad-getting-worse side from the moment your eyes met. 

Or so you had thought. But, as the antithesis of anger crosses his hardened features, and an unexpected bitten-back grin takes the place of his glower, you’re not sure what to think anymore. 

He snorts out a laugh, finally releasing you from the cold grasp of his unbreakable gaze. He takes another step back and focuses his attention on watering the flowers again. "Touche." 

The cigarette gets flicked from his fingertips and he smears it beneath his boot into a tiny canal of rocks separating the soil of the garden beds from the cement of the sidewalk. 

"So, you gonna buy something then? Or just stand there with that strange look on your face all night?" He tilts his head to mirror your stance, but the amused grin remains in place of your confused gape. “I close in five minutes.”

“I have to hand it to you, you’re a fantastic salesman.” You’ve never met a stranger more brash and uncaring, so you were giving it a shot in return. It only serves to further his easy smiles.

“Am I not offering the right thing?” Now apparently after confirming to himself that you weren’t a threat, his tone of voice seems almost playful. It only serves to further your confusion. “Hmm, a lock of my hair maybe?” 

“I am not a stalker!” 

“Then buy something.” 

You take a deep breath through your nose. Feeling the need to save face when you haven’t done anything wrong in the first place. Yet, the thought of turning away empty handed had embarrassment threatening to heat up your neck and cheeks. You didn't care if you had to drop a pretty penny, you just didn't want to boost this man's ego.

"Those." You point to the nearest flower, another pot of proud blossoms sprouting from a stem unseen past the abundant greenery of strong leaves. Soft moon colored petals unfurl at the top, and sprouting from the center are tiny, deep yellow pollen covered buds. 

The man follows your pointed finger and graces your choice with all of one second before he turns back to his watering. "Not those." He decides flatly. 

You’ve never made a more difficult purchase. "Why not?" 

"Casablanca Lilies need constant care. A white-collar like you couldn't keep up. And I don't raise 'em so people can kill 'em."

"I think I can take care of a plant, thank you." You retort, sarcasm oozing off your sentence. 

It seems you can only really catch this man’s attention when your tone has a touch of negativity, because suddenly he’s back to watching you. 

There’s a pregnant pause before his next words. He searches nothing but your eyes for a moment, as if to gauge. 

"Wanna bet?" He cocks a brow. 

And it angers you how handsome you find this annoying, pompous, self-entitled stranger. 

"Bet?” You repeat incredulously. “Are you making a sale or trying to fight?” 

Instantly, as if you were offering the two scenarios as possible options, his smile darkens and he takes a step forward instead of continuing his line of watering. 

That was all the reply you needed. You had seen the movies. The documentaries. Handsome men, provoking women, hungry eyes, it never added up to something good. So that was your que to keep walking straight past him and go home. 

“Right, I don’t need this.” You scoff. 

And yet, just before you're able to step aside him, like a true businessman, he says just the right thing to keep you there.

"So I'm right then?" 

The sound of the droplets from the watering can against the cement in place of your footsteps has you cringing in self-disappointment. You force your head to turn and meet his infuriating amusement. 

"What's the bet?" You grind out from clenched teeth. His eyes fall to your mouth, and he takes a pointed second to look at your bite before he steps away from you and back to the place where your interaction began. He reaches beside the huge Evening Primrose bush to reveal a small green potted sapling with the same leaf pattern. 

He holds it out to you and you reach out to take the little thing like you’re scared for its safety. 

"Come back in two weeks. If it's alive, I'll give you the lilies for free." The calmness in his tone of voice doesn't match the excitement glittering in his dark hazel-brown eyes. "And if it's dead, you owe me." He adds, rather nonchalantly. 

"Owe you what?" You squint your eyes at him, maybe then you could see the little horns that match his devilish little grin. 

He shrugs, almost too innocently, "A favor. Haven't thought of it yet." The stranger gives you one last once over, but this one leaves the strangest chill running down your spine. His eyes seem to follow it, as if he can see it rattling through you. "Should I? You're so confident you'll win, I didn't think I'd have to."

Now it was your turn to look him up and down, tattoos, scars and a face that seemed too comfortable with that murderous look he had first given you.

"...There's no way you're just a florist."

The comment is completely ignored as he leans forward, invading your airspace a little too close for comfort, and murmuring the words "Yes or no?" with a thick sugar coating. 

"You're on." You hope your own words convey your complete disdain for him… and not that tiny glimmer of attraction you feel prickling under your skin. 

A surprised laugh seems to escape him, as though he didn't expect you to make the deal. "You're either quite confident in yourself or a damn fool." 

Like a rabbit bearing tiny teeth in the face of a lion, you mirror him and lean in closer until there's only a small space between the two of you. "Maybe I just like showing up cocky men."

"Oh, and I'm gonna love a favor from such a mouthy brat." You're lucky he pulls away from you after he practically purrs his threat. There's another thoughtful pause before he reaches into his apron pocket and pulls out his pack of cigarettes again.

"Two weeks. I know where you work too now." He lights another, and examines the cherry after he takes the first drag, smiling like it just told him a joke. “Don’t forget.” 

[untitled-tmnt-blog]

Rise August 2024

-- Day 24: Secrets --

“...Why does the magic born from the power of family, love and togetherness hurt you, Leo?”

“I think that if you're asking it like that, you... kinda already know why."

It may be October, but I'm still determined to finish out these Rise August prompts!

The thing that immediately came to mind for "secrets" was Lightning in our Fingertips Today, an incredible fic by @daflangstlairde-art that I am very much enjoying right now! Go give it a read, if you haven't yet!

(Rise August 2024 Masterpost)

[cozylittleartblog]

bug doodles so i can say i drew something

[clispectors]

love, jealousy & rivalry

a lover's discourse by roland barthes / challengers (luca guadagnino) / asking about you by eloise klein healy

[brainrot-stitch]

Doodles from a dw rp I was just in!!! Honestly the best one I've had so far lol

Out of character that vs in character chat😭

Omg crazyy...

😭😭😭random

[pparacxosm]

sigh like a chime

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Family is just being nomads together.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m not jealous of the baby.”

“Okay…”

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

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

“Thirtytwo, Tashi.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Like it’s a fucking disease.”

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

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

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

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

“What do I know?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Patrick laughs so hard he falls out of his chair.

They do let him stay for dinner.

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

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

He sighs and chews his sprouts until his jaw aches.

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

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

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

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

“You’re killing me, Sas.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Well, warmth, for one.”

“What about me?”

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

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

“Why are you flying to Germany now?”

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

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

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

He blinks. “What, bitch?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Unlikely.”

“Maybe you’ll get along with dad.”

“Un—fucking—likely,” he retorts.

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

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

Patrick glances up at the TV monitor over his head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Was she visibly bleeding?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Berlin greets him with an onslaught of sleet.

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

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

He was probably nine.

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

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

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

His teeth chinkle like coins as he waits.

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

You’ve never been cause of such overt disappointment.

It’s almost flattering.

But your smile quickly metamorphoses into a grimace.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Thanks,” Patrick mutters.

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

“Hey, where is the bastard?”

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

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

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

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

“He’s in the den,” you say.

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

“Alright, then let’s go.”

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

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

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

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

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

The door to the den is unlocked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You perk up. “Oh! I’ll go—“

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What, like the fucking Basilisk?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Have pity on me, Sas.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They look like an affiche for Norman Rockwell.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your smile widens.

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

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

You are flawless in your devotion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You smile. “It’s to protect her.”

“Protect her from what?”

You lower Lili into her French Provençal style woodcarved bassinet.

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

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

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

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

“Why are you ashamed?”

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

“Alright. And this helps?”

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

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

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

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

He doesn’t say anything to that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He’s less than compos mentis come Christmas Eve.

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

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

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

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

He looks at himself in the mirror.

“Oh, fuck yeah,” he whispers.

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

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

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

He starts jogging.

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

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

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

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

But anyway. The river.

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

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

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

Patrick takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

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

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

4.7 MILES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He sways.

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

Doubles over.

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

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

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

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

“Oh my goodness, Patrick?”

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

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

“Jesus Christ, I thought you were dead!”

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

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

“You’re a mess.”

There it is.

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

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

“What happened? Were you attacked?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still, he confesses like a sinner.

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

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

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

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

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

Was she visibly bleeding?

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

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

Has he already made up his mind?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Good girl. Good girl.”

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

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

But it isn’t. Not really.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe, for a second there.

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

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

And you duck your head to laugh.

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

But you won’t.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can smell his puke.

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

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

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

“Come on, babe.”

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

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

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

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

[beyondthesefourwalls]

And You Will Find Me

Summary: The last thing Bradley expected when he was assigned to the unofficial “singles without a plus one” table at an old friend’s wedding was to meet who he thinks might just be the love of his life. But that’s exactly what happened. 

Pairing: Bradley Bradshaw x Reader (no use of y/n)  (can be read as Forgetful Boy and Pumpkin from RYEWID, but not necessary to read that first)

Word Count: 3.8K 

Warnings: Language, fluff, love at first sight. 

Notes: Written for @roosterforme's ‘80s Rocktober Playlist Fic Challenge, and as part of The Forgotten Moments Collection, but can very much be read by itself. Song selection is Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper. 

The Forgetful Boy and Pumpkin first meeting one shot that I’ve been wanting to write since I referenced it in part three of RYEWID. The fact that I could do it for a challenge for one of my favorite people makes it even more exciting for me.  

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Bradley Bradshaw: Table Four 

He grabbed the gold trimmed cardstock with his name on it, sipping on a glass of bourbon as he made his way into the reception hall. It didn’t take long to find his placement with the elaborate centerpieces displaying calligraphic numbers. 

There were only two open seats left at the table, which was occupied by a group of people who were all staring down at their phones. He glanced around the rest of the venue, seeing all of the other tables bustling with conversation and laughter. He raised his eyebrows in surprise at the awkward silence that seemed to hang over this one in particular. No one seemed to know each other, and it didn’t look like they planned to make any effort to change that. 

He groaned to himself and wondered, not for the first time, why he had thought attending this wedding was a good idea. 

He hadn’t seen Sean in years, and had never even met Lucy. The two had been roommates for two years at UVA and had somewhat kept up with each other over the years, if only barely. They had always joked about how on the off chance either of them got married, they’d make each other's guest list. Bradley had laughed when he got the invite in the mail. He had waited until the last minute to send in the RSVP, but had ultimately decided why not? He wouldn’t know anyone there, and hadn’t managed to find a date in time, but he hadn’t been to Philly in way too long. He’d make a quick weekend out of it and see an old friend.  

He hadn’t realized until he got into town how awkward going to a wedding on his own would be. 

He sat in one of the empty seats, nodding to the guy on his right who forced a smile that looked just as awkward as it felt before turning his attention back to his phone. 

Bradley was glad he had thought to refill his drink before cocktail hour ended. 

He was scrolling through his phone when he saw a flash of orange out of the corner of his eye at the same time the seat next to him was pulled back. 

He glanced up briefly to offer a quick smile to the new arrival and looked back down at his emails, only to do the quickest double take of his life. His breath caught in his throat and he swore his heart stopped, only to start again three times faster. 

Holy hell. 

“Is anyone sitting here?” you asked, and Bradley had to blink a few times before he realized you were talking to him, because your voice was mesmerizing. 

“All yours,” he managed to say. He would have winced at how his voice cracked if he wasn’t trying to remember how to breathe. You offered a warm smile as you gracefully sat down. You were a vision in a long sleeve, burnt orange dress that looked like it would be silky to the touch. When he glanced down, he had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to stop from groaning when he saw the slit going up the side and the nude heels on your feet. You were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and you were sitting beside him fiddling awkwardly with your place card as he stared at you.

“I’m Bradley,” he finally managed to introduce himself, extending a hand out. You looked at him in surprise. 

“Oh! Hi.” You took his hand with a soft, gentle grip, your eyes locking onto his as a spark went through his whole body. Your eyes widened a fraction and he wondered if you felt it, too. He almost didn’t catch your name when you said it because he was so distracted by the feeling. “So, bride or groom?” 

“What?” 

You laughed softly, and he worried about going into cardiac arrest at the sound. “Are you here for the bride, or for the groom? I assume since you’re at this table it’s either one or the other and not both.” 

“This table?” 

You glanced around at your other tablemates, still busy with doing everything they could not to make eye contact with anyone else. Then you leaned closer to him, and he couldn’t help but do the same. You whispered to him like you were sharing something salacious. “The singles table. The ones who came alone and who wouldn’t know anyone else, and who they’re kind of surprised RSVP’d ‘yes’ to begin with.” 

Bradley let out a loud laugh, and you giggled right along with him. The sound was like music. It earned you both curious and maybe even annoyed looks from all those at your table. He hadn’t considered that before, but now that he thought about it, you were absolutely right. 

“Groom,” He replied, “College roommates. You?” 

“Bride,” you told him. “Ironically, also college roommates.” 

“Well would you look at that,” Bradley smirked, and he knew the amusement that sparkled in your eye was mirrored in his. 

He was interrupted from saying anything else from the DJ tapping on the microphone to formally start the reception. As the bridal party danced their way into the room to Celine Dion, he kept stealing glances at you. To his pleasure, you were stealing them right back. By the time Sean and Lucy were seated at the front table and the DJ announced that dinner would be served momentarily, Bradley could barely look away. There was a smile on your face that indicated you didn’t mind at all. 

It continued that way through the meal that was eventually placed on the table. You didn’t speak much as you ate, both of you feeling like you were disrupting the other six people spread out on either side. But you kept catching each other’s eyes and smiling before you looked away, and his cheeks were nearly hurting at how big his smile was.

Fuck. 

Bradley barely even knew your name, and he was already down bad. 

You leaned over to him during the speeches that started immediately after dinner, and he caught another whiff of your perfume. He tried his best not to noticeably take a deep breath of the scent. “Do we think the best man is already drunk?” 

“Oh, he absolutely is,” he confirmed. The man in question was laughing hysterically at a joke he just told, already swaying on his feet. “I saw him throwing back an entire flask right before the ceremony.” 

Your nose scrunched up in the most adorable cringe he had ever seen. “Yikes. I don’t really blame him though. The maid of honor is his ex-fiance. I’m pretty sure she left him for groomsman number three, but I can’t confirm.” 

He looked at you with wide, curious eyes. “Did Lucy tell you that?”

“No,” you laughed, mindful of keeping your voice down to not draw any attention to yourselves as the slurred speeches continued. “I drove up last night and then was bored before the ceremony today. Social media is very informative, you know.” 

Bradley choked out a laugh, absolutely amazed at you. “Are you a private investigator or something?” he asked, genuinely curious. 

You picked up your wine glass with a smirk, and you winked at him before you took a sip. “A journalist, actually. But close enough.”  

A journalist. Bradley filed that information away in a new folder in his brain that had your name on it. 

Clapping drew his gaze away from you, and he realized he had completely shut out the rest of the speech. He cleared his throat and joined in, and the two of you watched as the bride and groom did their first dance. It felt like it lasted forever, but that was probably because he was itching for it all to be over so that he could talk to you again. He wanted to know more about you. In fact, he found that he wanted to know everything about you. 

Everyone clapped again when the dance came to an end, and Bradley was turning to you before the DJ even finished announcing the beginning of the party. 

“What are you drinking?” he asked, and he thought the look you gave him was a mix between delighted and amused. Your eyes cut to your mostly empty wine glass where he could very much see exactly what you had been sipping on. He felt heat creep up his cheeks in embarrassment. 

“White wine,” you said anyway. “What are you drinking?”

He fought the grin that was threatening to take over his face. You were keeping him on his toes, and he found he quite liked it. “Bourbon.”

“Ah. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m about due for a refill.”

“Is that so?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. You glanced around the table where the other occupants were back to scrolling through their phones or focusing on anything that wasn’t another human being. He almost laughed at the look on your face when you turned back to him. You grabbed your clutch from the table and the two of you rose out of your seats at the same time without even having to say anything. 

“After you,” he grinned, and your smile made him dizzy. He ordered another whiskey while you got Pinot Grigio. He laughed when you told him you weren’t allowed another glass, because too much white wine apparently made for a very interesting night. He filed that little tidbit away, too. 

With fresh drinks in hand, you turned to walk back to your assigned seating. The lights had dimmed and the music had turned to something upbeat and very cliche, and the majority of the attendees had converged on the dancefloor. You navigated around them carefully. His hand hovered over your lower back, not quite touching, but wanting to. You drew to a stop when you were only a few feet from the table, your head tilted to the side. 

“I hate being seated at these tables,” you muttered. “Always makes me feel like maybe I shouldn’t have come.” 

Bradley had been thinking the same thing until you had sat down beside him and shook his hand. He couldn’t help but flex his fingers as he remembered how his skin had buzzed at your touch. He glanced around the whole venue again, not quite knowing what he was looking for until he caught sight of the patio through the large windows.

“Do you want to ditch and go outside with me?” he found himself asking before he could stop himself. He held his breath when your eyes snapped to his, slightly wide in surprise. But they softened quickly, and you nodded, tucking some of your hair behind your ear with your free hand. 

He held out an arm, and after only a moment of hesitation, you slipped yours into it. He almost felt like he was floating as he guided the two of you toward the open doors. 

The patio was decorated beautifully. It stretched almost the entire length of the building, and twinkle lights lined the ceiling and the pillars holding it up. Smaller tables and furniture were spread out amongst the concrete and the two of you settled into the soft cushions of one of the outdoor coaches. 

It was a mild night, even for early February in Philadelphia, and the heat coming from the fire pit in the middle of the table in front of you was enough for it to be comfortable. You sat in silence for a beat, but it wasn’t awkward. Your fingers danced over the rim of your wine glass and Bradley’s gaze followed as you brought it to your lips. You caught his eye as you swallowed, and he felt the heat creep onto his cheeks at being caught staring at you again. 

He cleared his throat, taking a sip of his own drink to gather himself. “So. A journalist. What do you write about?” 

“The hypocrisy of old men, mostly,” you shrugged, and Bradley’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. You laughed at his expression. “I cover politics,” you explained. Your joke registered with the context and he chuckled. 

“So just how hypocritical are the old men of Philadelphia?” he asked, and you seemed delighted that he was going along with it. 

“Eh,” you said, shrugging your shoulders. “Very, I’m sure. But I cover Washington, which is definitely worse. I live in DC.” 

Bradley’s breath caught in his throat. Excited disbelief had his eyes widening. There was no way. In the back of his mind he had admittedly already been thinking of how often he could feasibly make the drive from Andrews to Philly, because he knew he had to see you again. Tonight couldn’t be the only time, not with how he was feeling and how he was pretty sure you were, too. 

“Small world,” he finally managed, trying to keep his voice steady despite his racing heart, and now your eyes were widening back. The happiness in them was hard to miss, and, holy shit, you were excited about this. He felt the urge to pinch himself. 

“You live in DC?”

“I’m at Naval Air Facility Washington doing extended training at Joint Base Andrews,” he told you, still in a bit of disbelief, but feeling giddy. 

“Ah. Navy man, huh?” 

It took a moment for Bradley to realize his cheeks were red again. He doesn’t think anyone has ever made him blush before, or at least not as many times as you had tonight already. 

“Naval Aviator,” he elaborated. 

You smiled, and it felt like the whole world disappeared except for the two of you as you held out your glass. He raised his to tap against it in cheers. “Here’s to small worlds, then.” 

“And to college roommates,” he added, and your laugh took his breath away. 

The two of you sat there with your drinks in hand, and the conversation flowed effortlessly, talking about everything and anything. He found himself hanging onto your every word. He couldn't help but be drawn in by every single thing about you. He learned that you grew up here in Philadelphia and, like him, you were an only child. You got your undergrad in journalism and then a masters in political science and moved to DC before the ink was even dry. You were a little bit addicted to coffee and true crime podcasts, and you were a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan. He told you about growing up in Virginia and being in the Navy, and about his love of the 80s and playing piano. 

But you talked about more than just the surface level stuff, too. As the occasional sound of laughter drifted outside from the dancefloor and the fire pit glowed in front of you, you told him how sometimes, you wondered if you were really cut out for your career, because the nature of what you had to cover drove you absolutely crazy, and you felt like people focused on the wrong things. You tended to have a self-imposed terrible work/life balance and your anxiety crept up on you because you’d ignore it for too long. You weren’t close with your parents, and your bucket list was full of things you were scared you’d never be able to do. 

In return, he let you in on the reason he wanted to join the Navy in the first place, and growing up with a single mother and what it was like when she got sick. He confided how he had a bad habit of hesitating both in and out of the air, and how he didn’t really have any connections or relationships outside of the Navy that went more than just skin deep or a memory of what used to be. 

He shared more with you than he had with anyone else, and somehow, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. It was like he had always known you, or at least like he was meant to now. 

You were so caught up in each other that neither of you realized just how much time had passed. Before you knew it, the music from inside was starting to soften and the lights were turned back on, and the servers came outside to start collecting empty glasses and trash. 

“Oh wow,” you breathed in surprise, “We missed the whole reception.” 

You stared at each other in silence for a moment, and then at the same time, you burst into laughter. 

“Can I walk you back to your hotel?” he asked you once you had calmed down. You had mentioned how you were staying just a few blocks away, and the thought of you walking alone or getting a car this late at night didn’t sit right with him. It was strange, how he already felt the urge to protect and care for you. 

Plus, he wasn’t ready to say goodbye just yet. 

“I’d like that,” you said softly, much to his relief. 

The bride and groom were inside wishing everyone goodbye, and you both took a moment to speak to your respective reasonings for being there. Neither of you lingered for long, and the balmy night air greeted you again when you exited the building after collecting your coats. 

You didn’t hesitate to link your arm with his when he held it out this time. He felt warm all over with you this close to him. Despite the late hour, the city was still alive with people out and about and laughter and conversation spilling out onto the sidewalk from every business you passed. He held onto you a little tighter when you walked by some decidedly way too drunk people, but you didn’t seem to mind. You kept the conversation going just as easily as it was when you were sitting on the patio, swapping embarrassing stories from your college days. You were walking through the park, nearly at your hotel, and it was when you mentioned something about dancing on a table at a frat party after too many shots of Fireball that he came to an alarming realization. He stopped so abruptly that you were slightly yanked back into his body, and you looked at him in concern. Before you could ask what was wrong, he was blurting the words out. 

“I never asked you to dance.” 

You gave him a confused look and then snorted in amusement. “I suppose you didn’t.” 

“Oh my god,” he groaned, tilting his head back and slapping his palm to his forehead. “I had the perfect opportunity to dance with you and I never asked.” 

You were still laughing, your feelings clearly not hurt at his lack of consideration. But he was already digging his phone out of his pocket and swiping open his music app. He held it out in your direction. “Pick a song,” he told you. 

“What?” you laughed. “Bradley!” 

“I’m serious! Pick a song.” 

He pushed his phone a little closer, and with an amused look, you finally took it. You bit your lip as you thought for a moment before you started typing, and then the soft sounds of Time After Time were floating in the air. 

“You said you loved the 80s,” you said almost shyly. But Bradley smiled, taking the phone back and slipping it into his jacket pocket. The music was muffled now, but you could both still hear it. 

“It’s perfect,” he told you. He held out a hand for you to take, and once you slipped your palm into his, he pulled you close. You rested your head on his shoulder as you began to sway. The night was quiet and serene as you danced, and he didn’t know what he did for his night to turn out this way, but he was so glad that it did. 

When the song came to an end, you stopped moving, but didn’t separate. You picked your head up and looked at him, your eyes locking together. You didn’t say anything at first, but eventually, you sighed and a soft, reluctant smile tugged at your lips. 

“I should probably get back,” you whispered.

“Are you sure?” he asked, desperate to stay in your presence for as long as possible. You had entered his life so unexpectedly, and he was wishing with everything in him that you wouldn’t be leaving it anytime soon. “You aren’t going to turn into a pumpkin once the clock strikes midnight, right?” 

You shook your head at his joke, giving him a playful wink in return. “I don’t know. This does feel a bit like a fairytale.” 

Your words made him grow a little more serious, and he swallowed thickly as a charged energy seemed to settle over both of you. You bit your lip as you stared, your gaze wide and saying a million things at once. You had the most expressive eyes he had ever seen. He wanted to look at them forever. 

"You know," he said, his voice lower now, like he was afraid to disrupt the moment by being too loud. He brought a hand up to your face, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear.  “This is not how I anticipated my night going.” 

The air between you crackled with unspoken words, his hand still lingering near your cheek. Then, in a move that felt natural and inevitable, he leaned in, and you met him halfway. Your lips touched softly, a spark of electricity passing between you. It was a kiss filled with promise, a taste of what could be. It was as if time stood still, the world around you fading away until it was just the two of you.

When you finally pulled away, both of you were left breathless. Bradley looked at you with a mixture of desire and genuine affection that should have scared him, but it didn’t. 

"Wow," you whispered, your lips curving into a shy smile. He knew exactly what you were feeling with that one word, because he felt it too.

He brushed his nose against yours, breathing you in. “Tell me I can see you again when we get back to DC,” he begged. 

You let your hand rest against his chest, and he was sure you could feel the pounding of his heart. “I was hoping so,” you said, and he breathed out a happy laugh of relief before kissing you again.  

Standing there under the soft glow of the lampposts, Bradley thought he might love you already. 

-----------

Masterlist

Notes: I hope y'all loved this one as much as I did! I miss these two so much.

Special thanks to Mak and Em for all of their help, and to Mak for the banner!

Tag List: @roosterforme @mak-32 @wildxwidow @gretagerwigsmuse @lilyevanswhore @too-fangirl-to-fuction @fav-fanficssss @notroosterbradshaw @teacupsandtopgun @sometimesanalice @sunflowersteves @littlezee80 @je-suis-prest-rachel @khaylin27 @infamous-reindeer @hotch-meeeeeuppppp @yanna-banana @avengersfan25 @wkndwlff @sylviebell @lt-spork @indynerdgirl @greatszu

@mssleepy876b @kassieesworld @mizzzpink @a-serene-place-to-be @sexualparkour @sadpetalsstuff @almostgenerallyalways @alilstressyandlotdepressy @ccbb2222 @taytaylala12 @shelbycillian @mavrellover91 @vici111 @lunamooncole @blackwidownat2814 @pisupsala @bellaireland1981 @jynxmirage @shanimallina87 @na-ta-sh-aa @callsign-magnolia @chaoticassidy

*I do not give permission to copy/steal, translate, or publish elsewhere*

[super-nova5045]

mike faist doing numbers on tumblr during the DEH era and now him doing numbers for challengers…my babygirl will never not be famous

[philosophiums]

I have given into peer pressure.

Below the cut is my un-referenced, not proofread, off-the-cuff thoughts on the main JJK characters and their tendencies to have traits that contradict themselves, which not only makes them more rounded characters but also creates a really interesting situation in which characters have mirrors and foils not only with other characters, but also with themselves.

The point of this post is that the characters in JJK are complex. None of them are one-trick ponies and all of them contain multitudes and have, at least once, contradicted themselves and their beliefs.

Might be spoilery? I tried to keep it vague enough that it shouldn't be, but read at your own risk if you're anime only, I guess.

The Obvious One: Gojo

Gojo is "the strongest." It's debatable, I think, whether or not being "strong" is a personality trait, but he makes it his defining personality trait. (And I'm not here to do a Gojo character study, so for my purposes, it will be viewed as one.) Obviously, The Strongest is a title given to him by others, but he fully owns it and believes it. This is his identity; it's how he views himself, how he handles himself, and it is a preceding reputation that he gladly leans into. It's not a mask he hides behind, it's a flag he proudly displays on his ship to warn others of exactly who they're dealing with.

It makes sense, then, that Gojo's self-contradiction is that he has the biggest, most obvious weaknesses of all the characters in JJK. The first of these weaknesses is his knowledge of how strong he is. Toji exploits that weakness in the Hidden Inventory arc, and it almost costs Gojo is life. His second weakness is, very simply, Geto. Kenjaku exploits that weakness during Shibuya. Interestingly, Geto is a victim of Gojo's first weakness (Gojo is so self-assured that he seems to extend that assurance to the people around him, thinking that they are "as gods" like him just for being in his presence, and therefore he does not pay mind to Geto's spiraling), and exploits his second. He, better than anyone else, knows that he is Gojo's weakness, and he uses that knowledge to do everything he does before and during JJK 0 without repercussions.

Gojo is framed by himself and by many characters within JJK as being the "savior" of the jujutsu world, but in many ways he was, in fact, its downfall - because of his strength, and because of his weaknesses.

The Main One: Yuuji

Yuuji is the king of contradictions to me. Not all of it is within himself, and in fact a lot of it occurs because a large part of the plot is happening to him instead of the other way around, but he has one dichotomy that I do think is All Him. Yuuji defines himself as a cog - in his thoughts, he has been used and beaten down for evil already, so why not just be used for good as well. He thinks of himself as expendable and easily replaced; a foot soldier in a war being fought by titans. At some point, his goal stopped being to follow his grandfather's last request and instead turned into the simple act of persevering for as long as he can just in case anyone may have need of him. In a way, his outlook and perspective on everything became rather bleak and inhuman - quite literally, as, again, he views himself as nothing more than a cog.

And yet, for someone who has claimed his only purpose is to be used to kill Sukuna, everything Yuuji does is so achingly desperately human and is born out of his own desires to save people. Every other sorcerer has a CT or a fighting style that disconnects them from their foe - be that ranged attacks or weaponry - but Yuuji uses his fists. It's raw and almost savage in a way that is unavoidably intimate and human. He says, "Use me," (and, don't get me wrong, he is used) but even the act of offering himself negates the connotations that revolve around being used and shines such a lovely warm human light on him.

Yuuji doesn't push people away. The other "strong" characters isolate (Gojo has infinity, Yuuta literally fucks off from the narrative, Geto fucks off from jujutsu society, etc.), but Yuuji hoards people and connections (and yes, those become weaknesses, but the thing is: they become strengths, too). Sukuna takes Megumi away from him, but that just makes Yuuji more determined to kill Sukuna and get Megumi back. Everything he does is out of love, and he has a drive to do what he has to in order to save (or avenge) the people he keeps close. That's not exactly cog-like behavior.

The Fandom Discourse: Megumi

In my opinion, of all the characters (but especially the first-years), Megumi is the logical character. Especially when it comes to his job as a sorcerer (fighting and killing curses). He is knowledgeable about the world of sorcery, the most book-smart of the first-years, and he is smart and methodical when he fights.

He is also the only character who has openly admitted that he really only cares about saving the people he wants to save, as opposed to the general rhetoric of saving everyone. He's selfish, and he's not shy about it. Even he doesn't try to rationalize it; it's just part of who he is. Logical, methodical, smart, but also deeply, truly, selfish when it comes to where and how he expends his energy and efforts.

And yet, he is also the character who is most willing to die. Now, before half the fandom jumps down my throat, I don't mean to say that he wants to die or that he is constantly trying to - I'm just saying that he is willing to. (Obviously, Yuuji is also a character who is willing to die, but Yuuji is only willing to do so if it would also kill Sukuna, and he is determined to stay alive until such a time. Megumi, on the other hand, doesn't have a similar end-goal ultimatum for death). Yes, he comes at dying from a logical point of view, and yes, he only ever brings martyrdom into the equation if he feels he has no other option, but he has no hesitation when he reaches that point. And you (he) can rationalize self-sacrifice as much as you want to, but that is a very emotionally driven response, regardless of the situation. It's a last stand not only for himself, but for his friends, his family, the world. It's the end of the line for him, and it's something he is willing to do if it means taking out his opponent and making the world safer for everyone else - not just for his "select" people.

He is willing to run away from a fight he cannot win, but he is also willing to do something that he knows for sure will kill him if winning and running are no longer options. And I know that not everyone will see these things as opposites or all that detached from each other, but, to me, intelligent and methodical fighting does not naturally go hand in hand with, essentially, grappling your opponent and jumping off a cliff with them.

The Favorite Child: Yuuta

Like Gojo, Yuuta has access to an overwhelming amount of power. There's no doubt that when it comes to raw energy, he is the strongest sorcerer in his generation. He's exceptionally skilled when it comes to fighting and is often able to get by on simply overpowering his opponents (truly, much like Gojo). He doesn't embody being strong, though - he knows that he is, but it's not something that he considers a defining trait for himself. Instead, Yuuta's whole thing is that he has a tendency to shoulder burdens that other people won't (much like Yuuji, actually) (also it's kind of funny because of all the characters in JJK, I would consider Yuuta to be a "cog" way more than Yuuji, but that's a whole other thing). Yuuta is willing to be a monster, to make hard calls and suffer the consequences, because he has internalized what everyone keeps telling him - that, after Gojo, Yuuta is now "the strongest."

Which means that Yuuta also needs an equally large weakness to balance out that power. But where Gojo had arrogance (and his boyfriend), Yuuta has innocence. There's this pure sort of worldview that Yuuta carries with him that completely counterbalances the part of him that is willing to get his hands bloody. He has this youthful sort of hopefulness and naiveté that if he does the dirty work and puts in effort, then things will work out in his favor because they must. If he is sincere, if he shoulders an unbearable mantle, then everything will be fine simply because he chooses to do so. He does things because they are right and just, and he wants to believe that the universe will acknowledge that and be fair - even though he wouldn't have to do these unnamable things if that was true.

The Less Obvious one: Nobara

Nobara doesn't have a lot of screen time compared to the others, and specifically not a lot of time spent planning for/fighting in the "big fights," but she has one thing that the other characters don't have: self awareness. Nobara is the only character who knows what her contradictions are - she even says them out loud.

She wants nothing more than to be a normal girl who is into fashion, who could be a model, who does her hair and her nails and her makeup, who goes on dates, who has a lot of money and spends it freely. That's her ideal, that's her goal. But that's also who she is right now. She dyes her hair, wears makeup, is feminine in all the ways that would mark her as a girl to strangers on the street, goes shopping and buys too much and makes Yuuji carry her bags. She likes being girly and doesn't shy away from it.

But she is also, and I mean this with all the love in my heart, a feral little gremlin who is willing to bash people's skulls in with a hammer. She's brash and rude and loud. She takes up space and is unapologetic about it. She's vicious on the battlefield. She's not afraid to get bloody, and she hates being viewed as a damsel in distress. She's strategic in her fights, and she uses the fact that opponents underestimate her to her advantage. And she knows all of this, too, and she likes it.

She's self-actualized <3 No notes from me; I love my girl.

Anyway, that's it KSJDBVJKLDFVBJKDFVB There's no real point to this. I'm not saying anything profound, I don't think. This was all just a thought that I had, a little thing that I noticed, and I was bullied (affectionate) into sharing.

[fuck-john-calvin]

Art challenge for everyone in the stp fandom! We're given a general idea of what the Long Quiet looks like by the end, and he's sort of his own character, so I see him drawn the same way consistently.

But he's also a player character, whose decisions, experiences, and personality are all shaped by who the person behind the computer is! The princess, the voices, the narrator- they speak to you as much as they speak to a fictitious person, if not more.

So draw your long quiet persona- what you imagine the princesses and the narrator to see when you enter that basement.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

more outfit requests, ft some pretty fellas!

Anna Valerious Frank for @sheriffopossum, & sparkly dress Wally for @wheatlover <3

[kayvsworld]

happy birthday to the nerd ❤️💛

[0m3n-0f-d3ath]

Sun and Moon lesbians again for I am ill

[matchalovertrait]

Noemí really did try to like Dulce's boyfriend. The truth is that she already had a bad impression of him as soon as she laid eyes on him, but she was determined to stay positive throughout the night. Then, her patience ran out and she learned that Erick and Ángel agreed with her. Noemí's always had a difficult time standing up for herself, but she refuses to let anyone hurt her children! Caruso is not the one for Dulce. He will only hold her back. On the other hand, Dulce believes Noemí is being her usual old-fashioned self. Her mom doesn't understand and she is being totally unfair. Like, get with the times! Take some risks, woman. And honestly? It feels odd trying to be parented this late in life, especially since Ángel was the one who mostly took care of her. However, she loves her family and wants to show them what a good guy Caruso is. He is the way to move forward.

dang that's crazzzzyyyyy:

Transcript

Dulce: Where’s the fish?

Ángel: Girl... there’s no fish.

Dulce: Oh.

Noemí: Mija, are you serious? Why did you bring that idiot to my house? Where’s the respect for your parents?

Dulce: Oh, I see what’s happening. Yeah, it also took time for me to warm up to him, but you’ll end up liking him too! He’s a fun guy.

Erick: [Laughs nervously] I think what we’re more concerned about is... well, he’s not your boyfriend boyfriend, right?

Noemí: He doesn’t seem like the kind of person you should spend a lot of time with. If you’re only using him for funsies, just tell us that. We don’t mind. Don’t let him infiltrate your personal life.

Noemí: Not to mention that he’s an awful influence! He made you get a tattoo.

Ángel: Well that’s a bit dramatic...

Erick: ...I don’t think that’s related whatsoever...

Dulce: [Laughs] Mami! You’re blowing everything out of proportion. It’s just ink, and I chose to get the tattoo. It’s cute.

Dulce: Look, he is my boyfriend boyfriend. He makes me happy and I think we make a good team, just like you and Dad.

Noemí: Is that so?

Dulce: Yeah! I know we can make things right with you guys. I’ll talk to him.

Noemí: Fine. One more chance. That’s all he gets.

Dulce: I understand.