#some vague but charming anecdote about changing and growing

[eileensdress]

Joey Batey…babygirl…please release the most incoherent statement possible rn it would be so fucking funny

[goonlalagoon]

To rest a weary soul || Leagues and Legends

Read on Ao3

When the battles are done, Rivertown claimed and the Bureau licking their wounds, Rupert wades through the aftermath with a clipboard and pen for weeks. He has lists of the injured and dead to help process, damages to structures to inventory, agreements for aid to file. Schedules to adjust, because while they’ve won, nobody trusts the Bureau an inch so they’re still running a loose sentry detail - they want there to always be a few people on hand for emergencies, too, because more than one building that was only just standing as the dust started to settle has collapsed since. Sez has a never ending stream of informants scuttling by, and Rupert transcribes for her to pass on messages and warnings and requests.

They won, but Rupert’s a historian at heart, still, a bureaucrat as much as he’s a hero (and he’s very good at both) - he knows that the aftermath of this will be a lifetime, and then some.

He files his paperwork in Sally-Anne’s converted storeroom, and pads back up the stairs to the room they’ve given him - it’s the room that once was Sally’s brother’s, but the folded blanket on the end of the bed is one his mother brought him back years ago from one of her trips. He’d retrieved it from his room at the Academy, while he was still processing that the technically disallowed single room was still so clearly his. He’d expected to have to dig through boxes in his Uncle’s rooms to find it, but it had been laid neatly over the end of the bed just as he’d left it when they set out for the mountains.

The room at Sally-Anne’s isn’t his, not really, and he doesn’t think it ever will be - but it had seen him through weeks of recovery, a rebellion, and it will see him through the first long weeks of the aftermath. His mother had set up a camp-bed in the corner, and when neither of them can sleep they tell stories back and forth about the constellations they can see out of the little window, or make shadow pictures on the wall the way they had on summer expeditions when he was a child. Some mornings, before he wakes fully, he expects to open his eyes to the patched canvas of his mother’s faithful tent and the feel of damp ground under the groundsheet.

Some mornings, he expects to see the narrow walls of a Bureau storage cupboard, but he listens to the voices drifting up from the street, familiar laughter from the rooms below, feels the blanket curled over his shoulders, until he can convince himself it’s safe to open his eyes.

Weeks after, when things seem at least vaguely under control again, Miz Eliza packs the tent into a borrowed truck and they drive out of Rivertown for a weekend. They don’t go far, responsibilities waiting and everyone still twitchy about extended absences, but they both wanted to go far enough to see the horizon spreading out around them.

Laney had offered to port them out somewhere, but that wasn’t the point, really. It wasn't about the distance - it was the journey, rattling along in a truck knowing they’d stop where they found something interesting, watching the world change around them. It was about knowing that he could go anywhere he liked, he just had to point out the direction.

Rupert liked things to be organised and reliable, and this was something people often didn’t understand: his mother was only unpredictable from the outside. They’d established patterns over the years and knew their own routines. She might not know exactly where she was going to stop, but she knew what she was looking for and how she was going to set things up when she got there. She’d let him pack the car because he knew how best to fit everything in, but all of her stuff was always in the same place as well - it just didn’t include things he rather thought of as essentials. She knew how to plan for uncertainty, however much as he needed her to, and he had always known he could rely on her.

They pitch the tent in a field with a half collapsed drystone wall and a nice view, and stay up late making shadow pictures on the canvas, old favourites and new jokes. In the morning, Rupert boils water on the battered camp stove with an equally battered whistling kettle, and they chew on cereal bars while the steam drifts into the hazy blue sky, chipped mugs cradled in calloused palms, watching the dew gradually fade as the sun rises.

This isn’t a research trip, but they hike along a rabbit run alongside the old wall anyway, poking at stones and talking about anything and everything. They don’t talk about the past months - they will, he knows, but they know each other well enough that they don’t have to agree not to dwell on it now. Now he wants to ramble through fields and pause to watch a rabbit as it eyes them warily, deciding if they’re friends or foe, to listen to his mother talk about her latest research trip. He’d spent his childhood at the Academy, learning the rules and making himself part of the framework, but he’d spent his holidays (odd weekends and unexpected weeks) exploring at his mother’s side. For all that he was at home in the hallowed halls of the Academy or the worn, warm interior of Sally-Anne’s, the alleys of Rivertown, there was always a part of him that tipped it’s head back when he stepped out into the open air and an unknown view and breathed deep.

There are plants growing up through the cracks in the stone that he wouldn’t have known the name of before, familiar now from long evenings of testing Jack on his local herblore. Bees bumble between stems, and he recites everything he remembers about their methods of communicating the location of food aloud as they walked, catching himself more than once thoughtlessly imitating Grey’s hand waving and gestures; George had taught him a mountain tune that she tended to whistle while reading papers, and he finds it spilling from his lips as they wander, and the thick jumper he’s bundled up in for the morning chill has careful warming charms worked into it that Laney had scowled over for hours alongside a patient hedgewitch prepared to spare a trick or two. They were all parts of him too, nowadays, and he’d spent months with them as far out of his reach as any other part of his home.

They rattle back into Rivertown a day later than planned, mud splattered but with a tension Rupert had forgotten he was holding gone from his shoulders. In another few weeks they travel further, back to the desert and it’s rolling dunes, another open horizon that Rupert has known and loved for years, even if it is less familiar than the rooftop view from his Academy dorm. Miz Eliza waves as they set off home, burying herself in her research again, sending him rambling letters of anecdotes and pictures of crude pottery, and he sends back clockwork care packages that she smiles over every time.

The room at Sally-Anne’s is always open to him, but he finds that he’s missed having Jack, Laney and Grey at nothing but a staircase away, so he joins them in hunting for apartments in between the work of helping to set up an independent city state and pulling together copies of all the first-hand accounts of the First League he could find for George (he had grown up with a mother in love with ancient, fragile things: he knew the light in an academic’s eyes when they felt the siren song of new research calling them, and he knows possibly before she does that she’d be heading back to the University soon)

The flat they settle into is probably too small for four, and is definitely too small for how often they actually had a rotating cast of visitors - George, of course, but also the Farris cousins sneaking out of the rebuilding Academy for a weekend visit, a few of Red’s extended family who need a place to stay while visiting their recovering kin, odd  friends who drop by and stay too late to bother venturing homeward in the dark or the rain. But it’s comfortable, a little cluttered and ramshackle, odds and ends of mismatched furniture and in progress DIY - it’s theirs.

The room Jack and Grey claim has fragrant herbs drying by the window and a crowded shelf of Grey’s favourite books, Jack’s favourite of the pictures Bidi had sent him over the years tacked onto the side of the shared wardrobe - if Rupert leans on the doorframe and closed his eyes, he could have been back in the Academy, waiting to see if he was invited in to claim the unused desk, for all that nowadays Jack had claimed the lower bunk. Laney and Rupert had their own rooms, though there had been a fiercely polite argument over which of them took the larger one (Laney had won, unsurprisingly, so Rupert’s is the only room large enough to have its own desk in the corner). Laney had brought back patterned rugs from the desert, old familiar patterns that she’d been pretending she wasn’t missing, and scattered them through the apartment to cover the worn wooden floors.

There are new hedgewitch knitted blankets slung over the back of the sofa and an old one folded neatly on the foot of Rupert’s bed. The view out of the window isn’t an open horizon or the rooftops of a distant town, but that doesn’t matter; he wakes in the mornings and knows that he is home.

[chloemill]

On what I’ve been up to the last nine years

I have always been obsessed with food. It seems silly, honestly, to be obsessed with something that’s a basic human necessity. Food, water, shelter. Too bad there aren’t water disorders or I’d be all over that. Alcoholism, I guess, is a liquid-based disorder? This is getting dark quickly but I guess we should all know what we’re getting into with this one, shouldn’t we.

So, yeah, I’ve always been obsessed with food. I have alarmingly clear memories of food from childhood, and the sad(dest) part is most of it’s not even real fucking food, it’s like, cartoon food. I could probably describe every illustration from the Berenstain Bears installment where the dad bear and the kid bears randomly decide to go balls to the fucking wall and just mainline junk food until the mom bear is like “what the fuck is going on here” and gives them all apples or some shit and then everyone chills the fuck out. The pizza in A Goofy Movie when Goofy and Max randomly stop at a themed motel and the kids eat pizza while Goofy and Pete share what I remember to be a vaguely sexual moment in the hot tub? (There was definitely at LEAST a questionable power dynamic at play.) The kid at school whose weird helicopter mom came at lunch and hand-delivered her McDonald’s nuggets to the playground. Bake sales in the second grade - the cookies and brownies and “nachos” that were just round Tostitos with that terrifying and delicious fake cheese sauce that still honestly casts a spell twenty years later. It wasn’t quite normal, but as a kid, I didn’t think twice. When your parents are feeding you and your brain is the size of a baseball, you just kind of roll with the punches and settle for buying as much crap as possible at the bake sale with the two bucks your mom gave you. Shortly after I finished elementary school, actually, I think they stopped having bake sales as fundraisers because the school was trying to promote healthy eating. Go figure.

In high school we were allowed to go off campus for lunch and once or twice a week my sainted mother would give me money to buy lunch. It very rapidly became the bi-weekly Let’s See How Much Shit We Can Stuff In Our Body For Ten Dollars Challenge, but that’s not at all uncommon for high schoolers. At home we ate healthily, and I have a pretty fast metabolism thanks to my Slenderman of a father so I was more or less the size of a pencil for first few years of school. We’re talking, like, size double zero at Hollister. I actually used to peel the 00 size stickers off my low rise (!!!) jeans whenever I’d get a new pair and stick them on the side of my desk in my bedroom, which, as I became a normal-sized adult with not-normal-sized body image problems, morphed into a very creative form of self-inflicted psychological torment. I have some journal entries from the first few years of high school with “diet and workout plans”, but in teenage girl fashion, most of them were quickly forgotten about or amended with “forgot and ate mac and cheese today - whoops!” Stupid teenage shit. It’s actually kind of hilarious reading it back now until I remember how spectacularly fucked up everything got. ANYWAY!

My first real memory of hating my body was on a school trip to Scotland my junior year. I was fully indoctrinated into the cult of high school musical theatre and we were performing at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, which was an incredibly cool experience that I absolutely did NOT take full advantage of and instead did shit like drink way too much rum (fucking RUM because apparently I was a character in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise), try to climb out the window of the dorms we were staying in to go see my boyfriend in his building, quickly remember I was on like the fucking fourth floor, throw up all over the carpet of my room and then pass out. My room smelled like puke the rest of the trip but that, though tragic in its own right, is not the point of this anecdote. Being both across the pond and left to my own devices, I was eating nothing but beige-colored fried food to the point that I’m certain ketchup and fruit juice used solely as a mixer for alcohol were the only things saving me from full-blown scurvy. My clothes felt tight, and not in the 2010s way that everything was tight, but bad tight. My stomach poked out of my jeans in a way that my stomach wasn’t supposed to poke out of my jeans. Keep in mind - I was probably a size 0 instead of 00 at this point, and most of this change was just a product of being sixteen instead of fourteen and growing, but to me it felt ominous in a way I didn’t know how to explain. During a group trip to some Scottish landmark or another (see how much attention I paid to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity my parents spent their hard-earned money to give me?) I remember sitting next to my close friend on the bus as we pulled over to stop for food. I was having relationship trouble with the aforementioned boyfriend, one of the first of many Musical Theatre Straight Boys™ that I would lose my fucking mind over, and I was getting emotional - more emotional than I expected. I realized something else was bothering me, and I turned to her and said “On top of everything else, I just feel… fat. I know I’m not fat, but I’m fat, like, for me.”

Two things here: first and foremost, yes, for that I know I am now the recipient of the Most Annoying Sentence Ever Spoken Aloud award and will provide the mailing address for my trophy at a later date. Second, I said that over ten years ago, and I remember it so clearly that I’m entirely sure that’s exactly what I said, verbatim. We got off the bus, and I walked into the restaurant and, after scanning the menu desperately trying to convince myself I should order something “healthy”, I ordered large steak fries and got back on the bus. I think this was the first time I ever really, consciously used food as a coping mechanism - the first time something small but powerful snapped in my head that told me fuck it - who the fuck cares? You’ve done enough damage already, what’s the point of stopping now?

High school ended, I graduated and we sang “Journey On” from Ragtime at the ceremony (baffling choice but the school was doing Ragtime next year and wanted to squeeze a promo out), I got into several of my top-choice musical theatre colleges and was so excited to go to the one I picked, which, you’ll be charmed to hear, was the absolute worst choice I could’ve made. I was 18 and a little bigger now, firmly in size 0/2 instead of 00 territory, had maybe graduated to a 32B bra instead of A, but still very thin by most standards. This was my first summer as a Very Online Person - I would stay up tlil probably 3 or 4 AM most nights blogging and watching Harry Potter movies for the umpteenth time. Because the rest of my family was, how do I put it, fucking normal, they’d go to bed at 11 or whenever and I’d be up alone for hours on the  computer. This is when I started bingeing. We didn’t really keep junk food in my house, nothing legit like Cheetos or Ben and Jerry’s or whatever, but we did have sugar cereal and reduced-fat Oreos and cheese and the occasional box of Triscuts. It became a nightly ritual for me - I’d wait for everyone to go to bed, then tiptoe in to the kitchen and, though I’d eaten dinner hours earlier, start eating again. Stacks of Oreos, multiple bowls of cereal, shredded cheese out of the bag. After a while my mom heard me banging around in the kitchen and told me (in so many words) to shut the fuck up, so my methods changed. I’d bring the box of cereal - Rice Krispies or Cocoa Puffs or whatever - a bowl, and a carton of milk into the bathroom with me. I’d run the sink and open the box and pour the cereal with the water running so no one would hear, and then I’d creep back out to the couch and eat it. Box of Oreos into the bathroom, water on, peel open the plastic, take out the biggest stack I thought I could with no one noticing, eat. Three or four granola bars into the bathroom, water on, wrappers off and hidden behind my bed or the couch or wherever, eat. Rinse and repeat.

I didn’t really know what binge eating was at this point, and some tiny, dark part of my brain buried way in the back told me that this wasn’t normal and it wasn’t good, but I pushed it away because of course I did. I did a few Google searches about it and came across the term “binge eating disorder” but was convinced that could never be me. This was just a thing, just a thing I was doing, and it would go away at the end of the summer when I went away to college because that’s when life was actually starting and it was going to be awesome and I wasn’t going to let this - whatever this was - fuck that up.

But I did, in fact, fuck it up. I fucked it up fast and hard (that’s what she said, ok back to being depressing) and college was not awesome, it was difficult and painful and I was drowning in something I had absolutely no chance of controlling on my own. I accepted very quickly that this thing I was doing had a name, and it was binge eating disorder, and I was all in. I gained weight - not a ton, maybe twenty pounds, and I was never actually overweight, but to me that didn’t matter. I hated how I looked. I overdrew my bank account spending money my mom gave me for groceries on binge food. I spent hours alone in the dining hall eating till I felt physically ill and sometimes threw up involuntarily because my body couldn’t handle what I was doing. One time I stood in the bathroom of my dorm and drank mustard mixed with warm water because I read online that makes you puke and I was so full I wanted to die (it didn’t work, please for the love of GOD don’t drink mustard water or, for that matter, anything else for the express purpose of making yourself vomit). I cancelled plans with friends and skipped classes to stay in and binge, or because I’d binged already that day and could barely move. I stole food from roommates, convincing myself no one would notice, even though of course they fucking noticed. I hid food and packaging and wrappers under my bed, in my closet, in my backpack, wherever I could because I didn’t want anyone to catch on. Lied about why I needed money so my parents would send me some and I could buy more shit. I ate stale food, food from the trash, once I literally ate straight up chocolate sauce (mustard water and chocolate sauce: 10 out of 10 doctors recommend!) because I had nothing else. Waking up for 8 AM ballet classes and seeing my body in a leotard under fluorescent lighting felt like a form of torture Dick Cheney might think was a little too harsh. I saw a therapist over the summers and ate with my parents at home, and things got better, and then I’d go back to school and everything would unravel again. I’m still kind of shocked I made it through.

I’ve been done with school and living in the city for five years now, and I can honestly say that things are better. I mean, not “better”, in the sense that this chapter of the book is still pretty fucking open. But I’m better at dealing with it. The majority of the time now, I eat normally. I still binge, sometimes a lot and sometimes a little, but I carry on and try again the next day. I don’t really restrict to make up for binges anymore. I can eat some foods now that used to send me straight into Eatin’ Town USA, like cheese and bread and maybe even Oreos sometimes. I started enjoying working out, not just logging time on the treadmill as a punishment and feeling like Jean Valjean in the opening number of Les Mis (look down look down you’RE HERE UNTIL YOU DI-IE). 

To be honest, I think I’m writing this mostly because the last couple months have been hard. I’ve fallen into some old stupid shitty habits, and I’ve been plugging along like normal and trying to claw myself out. But it’s not quite working like it normally does, and I don’t know why. I know I’ll make it through, because I always have, and what other option is there? But some days lately, I feel like twenty-year-old me, sobbing (very theatrically, natch) on the floor of my apartment because I should be over this by now - how am I not over this by now? This is my ninth year as a binge eater. Almost a decade! Far and away my longest and most committed relationship. When I hit 10 years strong, I should take myself out to a fancy restaurant or something but I don’t know what I’d order.

When I tell people this, I usually get some kind of “I had no idea”/“I’m sorry I didn’t notice”/“I would’ve never guessed” and the truth is that I didn’t, and still don’t, want anyone to notice. Of course I don’t. You don’t hide candy wrappers and empty pizza boxes in your closet with your winter boots because you want people to notice. It’s a very strange and secretive brand of shame that binge eating disorder brings and no one really get it unless they get it, and that’s not something I’d wish on anyone. (Okay, honestly, I’d wish it on some people, like it’s hard as hell but some people suck ass and probably deserve it? Anyway.) As I’ve grown up, I’ve started talking about this more and more. The first time I went public with all of this shit - I think I made a dramatic Instagram post a few years ago whilst day drunk during National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (absolutely incredible and Very Me start to a sentence) - I was shocked at how many people reached out to me privately and were like, hey, me too, and thank you for saying something. I’m still ashamed, but I’m trying not to be, and the more I talk about it the less alone I feel. “There are dozens of us! DOZENS!”

I guess one nice thing about this whole stupid nightmare is it’s kind of a reason why I am who I am. Not the only reason, but still. I started using jokes to cope with this while I was in school, and my sense of humor, whatever the fuck it is today, grew out of that. Except now I don’t joke about this stupid shit because I’m in denial, I do it because it’s real and I’m staring it in the face and it’s not going away, and the absurdity of something so excruciatingly difficult yet so entirely in my control gets fucking terrifying. I guess laughing at it makes it seem small.

[marvel-lucy]

The Fall, chapter 16

Not all angst! Complete story Masterlist is here

“Nope.  Not a chance in hell Buck.”  Steve spoke without even bothering to look up from where he was reading the paper over breakfast.  He knew Bucky well enough to picture the scowl of frustration on his face and smiled a little to himself to know that he was feeling well enough to be fed up. “You know I’m right,” he added, purely for the satisfaction of hearing Bucky grunt with annoyance.  He heard a chair scrape back, and did look up now, to see Bucky slumping down into it, arms crossed.

“OK fine. You’re right.  You punk. I’m not well enough to drive out and collect her, so just hurry it up, will you?”  His knee twitched up and down in exasperation, and his jaw muscles tensed and released in matching rhythm.  Steve looked back down and slowly finished scraping the last of his cereal, tilting the bowl as if checking for any hidden flakes, humming quietly and deliberately to himself.  A metal hand appeared in his eyeline and picked up the bowl and Bucky’s voice was low and carefully restrained.

“Don’t test me punk.  You won’t like me when I’m angry…”   Steve looked up and grinned.  

“Pretty sure that’s Bruce’s line, but OK. I’m going!”  His face fell slightly as he moved, resting one hand on Bucky’s shoulder as he paused. “Just think about what you’re going to say OK.  You’re both busy feeling bad about yourselves, means it’s hard for anyone to get through to you.  Trust me, I’m speaking from experience here.  You gotta convince her, that you want her coming around, that she’s a friend.”

Bucky nodded, a sad smile on his face, as Steve picked up his jacket and left.

She had had a sleepless night. After Bucky had disappeared the day before, she’d sat helplessly as Steve tried to balance his worry for Bucky with being polite and gracious to her.  She could sense his embarrassment at Bucky walking out, and his confusion about why he’d left, as well as his concern for his friend.  In the end, she’d claimed that she was tired and had things to do, and that she’d better get home, and even then, he’d insisted on driving her home, compounding her guilt.  Back at home, she had paced the floor for a while, internally cringing at the nonsense she’d spilt at Steve. She was an adult, and yet somehow she was reduced to this adolescent angst when she thought about him, as if she had the worst kind of crush…

She stopped pacing, and sat down, her eyes wandering unseeing as she let her mind race.  She did.  She had a crush, on Bucky.  A man she barely knew, except from a few short meetings and the anecdotes she’d heard from his friends.  She buried her face in her hands and squirmed at how obvious it must have been to everyone. She was like the kids who hung around the Tower at weekends and after school, shrieking if they saw Steve or Tony, but she was at least twice their age.  She flung herself back on the couch and banged her head against the backrest a few times in frustration.  What must they think? She was a widow, practically middle-aged, and here she was desperate for a word or a look from a man who’d shown her a dash of kindness.  Glad that she was alone, she shook herself forcefully, stretched her neck, rolled her shoulders as if preparing for something physical.  Time to behave like an adult.

She was back at her apartment a lot earlier than normal, and so with gritted teeth and a determined look, decided it was time to grow up and be mature.  She spent the afternoon and evening ironing clothes, paying bills, pulling out the couch cushions and cleaning underneath them.  She forced her mind to stay on what she was doing, and her face was in a permanent scowl as she refused to let herself dwell on the Tower and its occupants.  She went out and bought healthy food, refusing to allow herself anything as childish as ice cream or pudding, then forced down a boring and worthy meal, to convince herself she was mature and sensible.  She hadn’t drunk for weeks now, and although a part of her still craved it, she wouldn’t give in.  After a shower, kept uncomfortably cool so she couldn’t relax, she climbed into bed, where it took her a long time to sleep.

When Bucky finally heard the elevator open the next day, all his carefully thought through plans suddenly seemed wrong.  She looked somehow fragile and harder than he remembered, as if she was holding herself stiffly for some reason.  He wondered if he’d blown it with his off-hand behaviour, or more likely, that Steve had been wrong all along and she wasn’t bothered about seeing him. 

‘Hi, I made coffee. I have donuts. And bagels. And croissants actually. And some cookies. I wasn’t really sure what you liked...’  His voice trailed off and over her shoulder he saw Steve roll his eyes and mouth ‘kids’ as he left the room.

Bucky had never felt so completely incapable of talking to a woman before.  He hadn’t actually tried – wanted – to make a connection with someone for decades now, and it seemed the easy charm and happy attitude of his youth was long gone.  He felt stumbling and tongue-tied, like a fool.  This must be how Steve felt all those years, he thought, and his mouth twitched into a little smile. He just wanted to get things right, to help her get past her grief and feel alive again.

She walked forward and as she rounded the pillar and saw the mountain of pastries he’d bought in a panic, she couldn’t help but snort. His mouth twitched again at the noise and he felt a hot rush through his body as he saw her smile. He suddenly felt young again, hanging around playing the fool and the charmer, just to get a smile from a girl he was crushing on.  He faltered a little at that thought. Here he was, best part of a hundred years old, countless deaths at his hand, and he had a schoolboy crush? 

She had been determined to be an adult. To behave, to remember that a crush was laughable, and she should treat the man with the respect due the suffering he had experienced; that she wouldn’t embarrass either of them by demonstrating anything other than pleasure at his recovery. Then she saw him. He was twisting his fingers together, shoulders slightly hunched as if waiting for a blow.  His eyes were hopeful and slightly fearful, and she was desperate to protect him and show him what a difference his moments of care had made to her, that his century-long instinct to protect and defend and help was remarkable, and his innate kindness was something he should take pride in. Mostly she wanted to see him smile, because of her.  

Then she saw the food and couldn’t help but chuckle. There were boxes and bags stacked up on the counter, enough to feed all the team, no doubt.  As if he sensed her thoughts, Bucky gave a sheepish smile and spoke.

‘I wouldn’t let anyone else have any until you got here, let you choose first.  Pretty sure Barton is going to shoot me in my sleep now.’

She surprised herself by laughing, properly now.  He watched with delight as her shoulders relaxed and the tension left her. He didn’t understand it but was glad to see it gone.  Now he looked at her properly, for the first time since his accident.  She looked well.  Her skin was softer, the bags under her eyes were nearly gone, and her eyes looked less ready to cry.  He wished somehow that he’d been the one who could have done that for her, that he could have been there to help lighten her grief, but mostly he was just glad that something had changed for her, even if he couldn’t have been the one to do it.

‘You look well,’ she said, echoing his thoughts.  ‘Are you healing up OK?’  She had stepped forward, picked up a croissant and was tearing pieces off and eating them slowly as she spoke.  A crumb stuck to her lip and he was momentarily distracted by the way her tongue darted out and licked it off.  God, he had it worse than he thought. ‘Bucky?’

‘Yeah, sorry, I’m doing OK I guess, for someone who fell down inside a mountain,’ he said, smiling. ‘Body’s healed thanks to the serum and my brain’s nearly there.  Few headaches and I’m tired but getting there.  You look… well… too.’

‘You mean I look like I might not be living off vodka and whiskey?’  He liked her straight talking, and had forgotten how easily they conversed.  They were still to tackle the difficult subjects, but it was nice to fall into comfortable talk. ‘I’m… doing good, I guess.  I-.’ She stopped, and drew in a breath, putting the croissant down and brushing off her hands as if to prepare for something. ‘I’ve been here, pretty much every day.  So, I’ve been fed, and I’ve given up drinking, haven’t had anything for almost three weeks, which was hard, but, look, I know it’s a bit weird, that I was here, and intruding, and I’m sorry.  Your friends have been really nice, putting up with me, and letting me hang around, when they were worried too.  I’m really glad you’re doing better.  Really glad. I’m gonna let you recover, and be with your friends, and just…’ She gestured vaguely at the door and he realised she was going to leave, and maybe not come back.  Before he could think properly, he stood.

‘When Steve told me you were here, every day…jeez, it meant so much.’  He watched her face as he spoke.  She wouldn’t meet his eyes, was obviously feeling awkward, and he knew he only had one chance to say the right thing.  ‘The team, they really like you, they were glad you were here, and I know you probably stopped Steve from flippin’ out completely.  He’s not good at being patient.’  Her cheek twitched with a little smile at the truth of that. He stepped a little closer and her eyes lifted to his in surprise, then dropped back again quickly.

‘Mostly though, it meant so much to me.  You gave up your time, even though you didn’t know me that well, and having you around these last days that I’ve actually been awake, seeing you here… it’s helped. I just wanted you to know.  I think I’ve been kind of a jerk, because – well, I just have – but if you can stay, I’ll make it up to you.  Not just with baked goods. And I’d like it.’

He knew it wasn’t the most articulate he’d ever been, and it was clumsy and graceless, but he was out of practice at this kind of thing.  He didn’t want to meet her eyes, so he did what he really wanted, and had done for a while, stepping forward, and putting his arms around her.

@melconnor2007 @emilyevanston @kittyslove @badassbaker @phoenix21love @lbouvet @bellenuit45 @prplprincez @gingerrootknits @pineapplebooboo @feelmyroarrrr @avengerofyourheart @eyeofdionysus @hellomissmabel @learisa @mitra-k-w @imhereforbvcky @shaddixlife @iwillbeinmynest @amrita31199 @whatsbetterthanfantasy @pixierox101 @edward-lover18 @madcheshire89 @heartfulloffandoms @chipilerendi @kenya-17 @mckorni32843 @amandarosemire @rda89 @nyxveracity @sea040561 @mrsalh32611 @ruinerofcheese @callmebucky-doll​

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 17/10/2020 (Headie One, D-Block Europe)

You know, I kind of expected a bigger impact from D-Block Europe given that this is their debut studio album. I guess maybe people are as sick of these guys as I am; the mixtapes they released got tracks higher on the chart than this, and that was without some of the big name features they had. Regardless, we still have nine songs to cover here, so... this week’s #1 is still “Mood” by 24kGoldn and iann dior, and welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

Last week had two album bombs – or at least whatever you can call “album bombs” on a chart that tries its hardest to stop those from happening – so naturally there are quite a few drop-outs and returning entries from the UK Top 75. Two of each from 21 Savage with Metro Boomin and Bryson Tiller are gone from last week, with the only songs from both albums still on the chart being the ones with a “(feat. Drake)” in the title. Typical. None of the BLACKPINK songs from last week have stayed either. Other than those six, we also have a handful of notable drop-outs like “What’s Love Got to Do with It” by Kygo and Tina Turner, “Hallucinate” by Dua Lipa and “POPSTAR” by DJ Khaled and Drake, which probably just felt the impact of dumb UK chart rules about streaming. All of these are pretty decent songs – the first two could have peaked a lot higher – so what in the returning entries is coming to replace them? Well, we have “Wishing Well” by the late Juice WRLD back at #74 and a theme of long-running hip-hop tracks like “Dinner Guest” by AJ Tracey and MoStack back at #72 and “I Dunno” by Dutchavelli featuring Tion Wayne and Stormzy at #68, all of which peaked in the top 20. The biggest gain this week was for Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” which is in the top 40 this week and predicted to be even higher in the weeks to come, especially in the US. We usually send 40-year-old songs to #1 but the States seem to have caught up with that too. The biggest fall this week was for the debut last week, “Outta Time” by Bryson Tiller featuring Drake, plummeting from #24 to #58, which is understandable; I mean the only reason it got that high in the first place was because of Drake. Now, onto the new arrivals.

NEW ARRIVALS

#63 – “BLM” – OFB (Bandokay and Double Lz) featuring Abra Cadabra

Produced by N2theA

Like many people, fans and artists alike, due to the recent events in America and across the world, I’ve gained a renewed interest in protest music, particularly songs about systematic racism and police brutality. Many artists, including some of the biggest out right now like Lil Baby, have made songs about this recently but really this is not an isolated incident or chain of events. Rappers, musicians and activists have discussed these issues for years and the fact that the general public is finally latching onto some of it makes me hopeful. Seriously though, if you’re looking for a great song from a couple years back protesting against the same topic, “Don’t Don’t Do It!” by N.E.R.D. featuring Kendrick Lamar is right there. OFB is a drill collective from Tottenham, and the group actually contains some genuinely massive names, like Headie One and RV, but here, we just have Bandokay and Double Lz, as well as affiliate Abra Cadabra on the chorus. There’s also a sample of Coldplay here, which actually works as a melancholy piano component of this drill beat, even if it feels like a bizarre choice at first glance. I don’t really need to talk to you about the beat, right? In a song like this, content is what matters and, yeah, it makes a pretty solid case for itself sticking up to inhumane police officers, even if some of the lyrics do feel oddly surface level at times, particularly Abra Cadabra and Double Lz, even though he does have personal anecdotes to tell, but not as much as Bandokay on the first verse where he does get pretty damn in-depth.

There’s no evidence on S but 21 years got slapped to his chest / Yo, I just want P like Diddy, police on my back ‘cah I look like Pops

Bandokay is the son of the late Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old Black man who was unlawfully shot and killed by police in Tottenham in 2011, sparking protests and riots across Britain. This feels particularly profound but also unnerving from Bandokay because he sees himself as next in line for this treatment, talking about how it still haunts him and when he finds out about a friend of his getting life in prison, he’s stressed because he feels like it could very well be him locked up in there for reasons equally unjustified or clearly at the fault of minority disenfranchisement, particularly for young Black men who are driven to the streets because of it. Both Bandokay and Abra Cadabra discuss how gang culture is seen as an excuse for police officers to shoot, with the chorus digging into how because of the violence depicted in Black art due to segregation and societal issues still present in the modern world, that gives them the justification for assault and murder of innocent Black lives. Double Lz goes a bit off-topic here but I can’t say that recall of a phone conversation he had with his friend in jail doesn’t hit hard given the context, especially in a time where we feel more distant than ever with fellow humans. I don’t think it’s as good as “The Bigger Picture” but these guys definitely get my respect for this. Check it out.

#55 – “Proud” – D-Block Europe

Produced by Mind the Gap

And now for almost the exact opposite of social commentary, serious topics and melancholy production: D-Block Europe, although this isn’t actually D-Block Europe, it’s half of the band. Young Adz has three solo songs on this stupidly long album and Dirtbike LB has two, one of which has a feature so I’m pretty sure we all know who’s the Swae Lee in this British Rae Sremmurd... especially since Young Adz’s solo song debuted this high. The song is actually quite different from their standard fare at least in terms of lyrical content, with Adz going into the gang culture and its effect on his mental health, particularly his relationship and drug addiction. His off-beat nasal crooning here is actually kind of charming under these levels of Auto-Tune and a fast-paced trap beat that actually works a lot once it kicks in a minute and a half in. The second verse, particularly, is pretty excellent, where he dedicates the verse to his daughter, who he hopes will not follow in his footsteps of “lifestyles” but also promises her wealth and a continued faith in Islam. The way he talks about how he wants his daughter to succeed even if he dies and later on his companionship with Dirtbike LB is... kind of beautiful, honestly, and does make me look past the mixing issues and... interesting delivery from Young Adz. The uncredited whispery vocals from RAYE on the outro definitely add to the feel of the track and, yeah, I like this quite a lot more than I expected but it still doesn’t make me want to check out that album.

#53 – “I Miss U” – Jax Jones and Au/Ra

Produced by Jax Jones, Mark Ralph, Cass Lowe, Alex Tepper and Tom Demac

Hey, remember Au/Ra? Well, I didn’t either until I checked her Spotify page and saw she was behind that “Panic Room” song that I loved from last year, specifically the remix from CamelPhat – seriously, I’d like to see more on the charts from those guys too. I’m not sure Jax Jones will be able to live up to the brilliantly-constructed ominous future house of that song, but this is supposed to be a silly love or break-up song so I expect a cute, vaguely tropical radio-friendly dance-pop tune with some 90s deep house influence thrown in there, like most of Jax’s stuff ends up being. Anyone else kind of sick of this stuff? I know it gets plays in the clubs which are still in the UK and much of Europe, using this type of dance music, but this robotic draining of the emotion from generic break-up tunes sang by indie-adjacent women over a four-on-the-floor beat is something I’ve heard hundreds of times before. I know this has been a British staple for decades but the new-ish style of vocal drops and generally tired production is growing pretty stale for me at least. It can work when it does, and Au/Ra isn’t a bad fit for this slick, beeping production – this is a pretty okay song all things considered – but there’s not any warmth or quality in this type of stuff anymore, let alone variation. This song is fine but I do hope it kind of underperforms for Jax just to set a precedent that this is exhausting and honestly kind of a cheap ploy for plays at this point. Is that too harsh? Probably, but after two and a half years of seeing these types of songs every other week, it gets on your nerves.

#49 – “Not a Pop Song” – Little Mix

Produced by Robin Oliver Fred, Tayla Parx and MNEK, peaked at #37 in Ireland

Does that mean I don’t have to review it? I want to like this girl group, especially after they ditched the manufactured pop image from Syco and signed to another label that I assume does not treat him as horrifically, but I feel like the music hasn’t changed or gotten any more interesting at all. In fact, this song serves as kind of a diss track to Simon Cowell, and not in any way a subtle one at that. “I don’t do what Simon says”? I mean, don’t you guys also have a talent show you executive-produced, and is airing currently on the BBC? Sigh, well, is the song any good? Well, it tries a little bit more with that guitar loop but not with the clunky trap beat, the harmonised triplet flows in the pre-chorus that sound awkward, and most importantly, the lyrics, which are otherwise fine in how they represent the music industry, a corrupt and unfriendly business, but not in a way that feels like it’s revealing any secrets or anything that really hits. Especially the chorus, where that “I don’t give a what” chant just undermines the whole message. Shouldn’t the point be that now you CAN swear on your songs? I don’t know, this is just worthless but admittedly a lot more listenable than their last record so I’ll give it to them there, even if it is out of a clear effort to be as inoffensive as possible.

#46 – “Flowers” – Chip

Produced by Dready

So, in Chip’s pretty garbage verse on “Waze” earlier this year, he took some shots at an underground artist that many assumed were shots at Stormzy, who commented on this with some subliminals on “I Dunno”. Naturally, in response to this light-hearted beef from two former good friends all based on misinterpretation, Stormzy pulled up to the guy’s house, with only Chip’s brother and sister being home. His sister even felt the need to pull out a kitchen knife to defend herself, so, yeah, I have no sympathy for Stormzy here. Unless this is based on personal drama that we don’t know of, he really unnecessarily escalated this petty dispute. Hence, Chip has two diss tracks here, this is the first of them; the other didn’t chart. To quote Chip’s manager, Ashley Rae, who is also name-dropped in the song: Stormzy pulled up unannounced to Chip’s building with three other people. The building was secure with gates and an intercom system. He didn’t knock. He came in and was posted in the car park screaming for Chip to come outside. After being told to leave twice as Chip wasn’t home, he refused and made his way to Chip’s apartment on the top floor where family were inside and it got heated. He caused a commotion so the neighbours called the police. This diss track seems to share my view of the situation; Chip even briefly brings up the political climate as he talks about how Stormzy should have expected the police to be called – after all, when people in Essex see black men shouting outside a building, regardless of their innocence, the authorities seem to get involved. In this diss track, Chip calls back to other disses he’s made, notes his disappointment in Stormzy collaborating with Ed Sheeran when he’s the one who escalated to potential violence – you’d think he’d be smarter not to risk his image – and sending some personal shots at his break-up with Maya Jama, which actually made me chuckle, particularly when he says that a throwaway track on a collaborative album seems to have incited a bigger reaction than that long-term relationship coming to an end. He goes even deeper into how he thinks Stormzy’s activism is hypocritical if he wants to incite black-on-black violence by pulling up to Chip’s house, and references the late 2Pac and Pop Smoke and... okay, he just ravages Stormzy here, and it helps that this beat is menacing, even if I don’t like Chip’s delivery or voice, as I never have. “Killer MC”, the other diss track, is a lot vaguer and with a pretty chaotic beat which Chip can barely flow on, so yeah, I’m glad this one charted. Man, a lot of aggressive, lyrically-focused songs today, huh?

#34 – “Destiny” – D-Block Europe

Produced by Jony Beats

And just like that, they appear. This is our second and last song from that D-Block Europe album debuting this week, and it’s only high because of a video anyway – that and the fact it’s the first on the album. Otherwise, this is typical D-Block Europe fare, albeit this time with a hilarious but absolutely pointless 30-second acoustic guitar intro that just consists of the guys whispering “Destined” with as much reverb as possible. Dirtbike LB is actually on the hook this time, making it even more lethargic. Young Adz is filling in empty space with ad-libs again, including his signature “SKI!”, and in his first verse here, I genuinely laughed out loud after that booming “bow-bow-bow-bow” vocal interlude coming out of nowhere. It honestly caught me off-guard. I kinda like Young Adz’s pretty energetic flow here though, and he definitely plays with the boring trap beat in a way that is pretty funny. He feels the need to say “Happy G-day” to a person in the booth with him, which shows that he’s freestyling at least some of this stuff, which is kind of impressive. He “endorses” new straps, which is just funny wording to me, as is when he says 9 Goddy “had” Norwich, like he just owned the city – although, as a fellow East Midlander, I kind of appreciate the shout out. My favourite part in the verse is probably his attempt at 2012 hashtag-rap, where he says “half a mil’, mortgage”, but the beat cuts out when he mutters a wimpy “rurr” ad-lib, and that almost forgives his weedy delivery and gross Auto-Tune. I think “Rurr, mortgage” makes up for the chorus, “Break a brick like Tetris”. Honestly, I get why people prefer Adz’s energy and funny content because the only thing to laugh at with Dirtbike LB’s bleak, almost depressing lyrics about materialism, meaningless sex and drug addiction, is how he phrases everything in a manner that is uniquely middle-class and polite, especially in this verse, and how he just seems to be accepting the dark topics he talks about in his verse with a shrug of his shoulders. It’s kind of concerning, I mean, I don’t like the music but I hope he’s okay. In conclusion, the song’s fine and honestly I kind of love the first verse but that chorus is dull and really it’s a pretty poorly-mixed trap cut. To be honest, if there’s more of this energy from Adz on the album, I might just check it out. The guy’s growing on me recently.

#29 – “Cool with Me” – Dutchavelli and M1llionz

Produced by The Fanatix

Apparently this guy is Stefflon Don’s brother, and now that she has been pretty quiet recently, I guess it’s time for Dutchavelli to step into the limelight, and he’s bringing fellow Birmingham rapper M1llions with him for a song with not much of a chorus to speak of. Instead, Dutchavelli and M1llionz trade verses and bars for three minutes over a pretty banging drill beat, with an eerie choral sample throughout and honestly pretty great verses from the two of them here. Dutchavelli sounds really aggressive here and I love the yelling in the ad-libs, even if it adds to some questionable vocal mixing throughout. M1llionz’s casual, meandering flow and cadence works really well in contrast, even if really nothing is said here other than gunplay and flexing. The beat feels like it never properly drops at all, and it just slides out abruptly by the end, but if this is an intro track to an upcoming album with a following track that drops us straight into it, I could see this working. As is, well, I’ve not got much to say about it but this is decent.

Also, I’d like to point out Dutch’s Wikipedia page, particularly the “in popular culture” section.

Dutchavelli has gained a reputation for being a hard man. This paired with his large stature has lead to a proliferation of memes relating to this within popular culture such as 'When Dutchavelli goes to a club, he asks the bouncer for ID'.

God, I love Wikipedia.

#24 – “Parlez-Vouz Anglais” – Headie One featuring Aitch

Produced by Al Hug and Ambezza

Okay, so our last two songs are both from Headie One and his overly long, 20+ track album he released last week, Edna. Do you see a trend with these British rap artists and debut albums? To be fair, I am more interested in this album, and I’ll probably listen to it after writing this. The feature list looks pretty good – I mean, it’s got Drake, Kenny Beats, Skepta and ironically, Young Adz on a song that did NOT chart this week – and I really loved “Both” from last year, so it’s probably worth checking out at least some of the songs. This song, however, was not one of those I was interested in. Man, I’m so angry I come back to this show and get back-to-back weeks with high debuts from rappers featuring this pioneer of gentrified drill music. He’s already made a song romanticising French women and high fashion as well, so it’s not like this is new territory for the guy. Admittedly, I do enjoy this cute, lounge-y elevator music sample but it feels pretty drowned-out by both the bog-standard UK drill beat and awkward flows from both, who are doing a similar thing to Dutchavelli and M1llionz did in the last song we talked about, but with more repetition to fill up time and more trading bars between the two, as well as an actual chorus, which is about as dull as bricks. Both Aitch and Headie have uninteresting flows and use awkward ad-libs to disguise a clear lack of any attempts at good wordplay or content that goes any further than worryingly blatant misogyny from Aitch and constant flexing. It’s not interesting, and it’s not good either.

#11 – “Princess Cuts” – Headie One featuring Young T & Bugsey

Produced by iO and TobyShyBoy

I’m not surprised this was the track that debuted this high. Thanks to TikTok picking up “Don’t Rush”, which is a brilliant song by the way, this group isn’t just big in the UK like most of these rappers, they are genuinely global superstars for the British hip hop scene and I love that. They made Aitch’s debut onto the charts both listenable and promising on “Strike a Pose” (It’s really a feat) and are constantly bringing smooth flows and Bugsey’s really nice voice over good production. They are more than deserving of being how British hip hop is viewed worldwide, even as they got onto the Hot 100 with Headie One earlier this year. I was surprised too. So, yeah, I’m excited to hear this new collaboration between the two artists, and, surprise, surprise, it’s really good. I love the nostalgic early-mid-2000s R&B beat especially with that slick Latin guitar and pounding bass groove. I love Young T singing on the hook over really beautiful vocodered samples and funky keys in the instrumental. I love Headie’s pretty impressive and at times smooth flow in his two verses. I love how Young T & Bugsey share a sing-songy cadence in their verse. Man, I love everything about this song sonically, and content-wise, the lyrics don’t really leave that much to be desired either. Sure, it’s pretty much just towing the line between a hook-up jam and flexing, but there’s enough funny lines and convincing delivery to make this worth checking out. I also love how Headie starts the smooth, sexy hook-up jam with “My young boy got the stick like Moses with the Israelites” in his deep, gruff tone, which is just comedy gold. Headie also takes time to praise the Lord and show his limited knowledge of geography, which is either insensitive to Asians or satirical depending on how you look at it. Either way, it works and it’s funny. This is just an incredible song and I hope it sticks around. Check it out.

Conclusion

There’s actually not much here to complain about, even with D-Block Europe’s two songs here. Little Mix take the Dishonourable Mention for “Not a Pop Song” and Worst of the Week is going to Headie One for “Parlez-Vouz Anglais” featuring Aitch but I might as well balance that out by giving the guy Best of the Week for “Princess Cuts” with Young T & Bugsey. I don’t want Stormzy to pull up to my house next, so I’ll delay on giving Chip the Honourable Mention, but that is instead going to “BLM” by Bandokay, Double Lz and Abra Cadabra for simply being necessary, although I’m scared to admit Young Adz was pretty close here. I don’t know what’ll happen next week – hopefully not that new Kanye song – but here’s the top 10 for Friday’s chart:

You can follow me @cactusinthebank for occasional political Twittage and I’ll see you next week.

[gray-autumn-sky]

Happiness Can’t be Arranged, Chapter 3

After a visit from Cora, Regina finds herself doubting Robin’s sincerity; and they end up bonding over the loves they’ve lost.

Previous chapters HERE and HERE.

Regina stands in the window with tears burning in her eyes as she watches Cora’s carriage pull away from the house. Her eyes press closed and her arms cross around her body; and it’s only through sheer willpower that she doesn’t cry.

Growing up, she’d been told that marriage would be her refuge—that it would take her away. Nannies and governesses, dance instructors and a French tutor—really everyone who’d spent any time with her in her parents’ house—all told her that her mother’s critical tongue was temporary. For her entire life, she never once sat up straight enough or picked the right dress; always too casual when she should have been proper, but never able to take a joke.  She always ate too much of the wrong things, she put her elbows on table, and she ran up and down the long corridors instead of walking in way that was ladylike. But each and every time her mother lashed out at her, someone would remind her that it was temporary—that one day she’d be married and she’d have a household of her own to run; she’d have a husband and her own children, and she’d be able to set the rules. And each and every time, she’d close her eyes and picture herself far, far away.

Life hadn’t quite panned out the way everyone anticipated. She did marry and she did move away—and for those short years, she was happy with the life she’d chosen for herself. But then the unthinkable happened and she found herself back at her at her parents’ estate—she had no other viable options to support herself and Henry—and this time, her mother’s sharp criticism had a harder edge. Deep down, she knew that she couldn’t completely disagree—she’d made the decisions that she made—there was no changing any of it—but she hated the burden it would eventually place on her son’s shoulders. And now, here she was—married again, but this time in an arrangement not of her choosing, married to man she didn’t know, in a household that didn’t want her. While her new husband seemed kind enough—he smiled and he listened, and not only did he seem to genuinely like her, he was good and kind to Henry. Though, in the back of her head, she constantly wondered when he was going to tire of her, when he’s stopped being amused and when the admiration of what he believed to be her character would thin—and she wondered when he’d begin to insist on some sort of repayment for the burden he’d lifted from her family, when he’d start to expect certain things—certain marital obligations—from her.

That particular detail was one that her mother reminded her of whenever she came to visit. And her given the close proximity of her parents’ and her new husband’s estates, her mother’s visits seemed increasingly more frequent.

“There you are,” Robin says, startling her as he comes into the room. “I was…” He stops as she lets out a shaky voice. “Regina are you…”

“Fine,” she says, turning to face him. Her whole demeanor changes—her shoulders straighten and she puts on a smile as she blinks away her tears—but her eyes focus just beyond him, giving her away.

“You’re not fine.”

“I… am,” she says, looking back to him, “Or as fine as a person can be after tea with my mother.”

A smile tugs onto his lips. “Would tea with your mother be anything like a few hours of hunting with my father? That usually ends with me silently praying that my gun will misfire, and take me out rather than some poor unfortunate bird.” She can’t help but laugh and when she does, she can’t help but notice the way his smile warms. “Perhaps you can put it out of your head long enough to go for a walk with me?”

“Oh, I don’t…”

“Please,” he cuts in, his smile glittering in his eyes and making it impossible for her not to smile in return. “My reasons aren’t purely selfish,” he tells her. “Often times after long interactions with my father, I find that fresh air helps with the nausea and self-deprecation… and, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

She’s not sure why, but she finds herself nodding—and then a few minutes later, they’re walking together across the rolling green grass of the estate. Robin does most of the talking—telling her about an old oak tree he used to climb as a boy and a cobblestone path that leads to the garden. He tells her about the estate—talking about architecture and additions that are now hundreds of years old and he makes a quip about having memorized all of these details a teenager in an effort to charm the young ladies who attended the parties his parents’ hosted.

Regina smiled at the anecdote, vaguely remember a night of champagne and dancing in the house’s ornate ballroom—an evening she spent sulking in the corner and thinking of Daniel.

“So… are you going to tell me what your mother said that had you so upset?”

“I wasn’t upset,” she tells him, trying her best to sound aloof. “You just startled me.”

“You were practically in tears.” She sighs and shakes her head, but when she looks over at him, ready to spin a story and dismiss his suspicion, something in his eyes stops her. “It… might help to talk about it,” he adds.

Taking a breath, she nods. “My mother was just… reminding me of… my…” Her eyes close and she turns her face away, “My obligations to you.”

“I see…”

“In not so many words, she reminded me that I need to earn my keep.”

Robin blinks as she looks back to him and she feels her cheeks flushing with embarrassment; but when her eyes meet his, its somehow hard to feel embarrassed. “That’s ridiculous. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Don’t I?” She shrugs her shoulders as Cora’s words echo in her ears. “At some point, one would assume…”

“You shouldn’t make assumptions.”

Her eyebrow arches. “You say that now…”

“And I’ll say it in a week and again in a month… in a year…” He pauses for a moment, and she watches as he tentatively places his hand on her arm, stopping her and waiting for her to look up at him. “Can I be… honest with you?”

“Of course…”

“I like you, Regina; and the more I get to know you, the more I like you.” His voice trails off, and she watches as he hesitates, his eyes narrowing as he tries to select his words carefully; and in her chest, she feels a little nervous flutter that almost feels like anticipation—and she feels guilty for it. “And… I would be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in a… more intimate relationship with you, but I won’t force it.”

Swallowing hard, she tries to look at him, but finds it difficult to let him hold her gaze and not wanting to have this discussion. “And… how long before you tire of that? How long before the desire for another child or for… that sort of companionship begins to outweigh your patience and courtesy toward me?”

“Never,” he murmurs. “Regina, I mean it when I say that I won’t force you. That sort of relationship would only be enjoyable if it were something we both enjoyed.” She nods a little as her eyes shift to his and she watches a smile draw onto his lips. “As for a child… well… I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again—you’ve already given me a child. Day after day, I find myself not-so-slowly falling in love with Henry.”

She feels a smile tugging up onto her lips—and then a churning in her stomach.

There’s a part of her that wishes she could hate him; a part of her that wishes her were vile and unlikable, that he didn’t always seem to say the right thing at the right time, that he didn’t have such good intentions, that his heart wasn’t kind and open, that his eyes weren’t soft or his words seemingly so sincere. Because if he were anything other than what he’s is, it wouldn’t feel like such a betrayal.

She feels herself beginning to crumble—her jaw trembles and tears flood her eyes—and suddenly, the only thing she can think of is Daniel and how much she misses him.

Robin softens, his eyes widening with empathy as he takes a tentative step toward her. Her breath catches and his arm folds around her shoulders and though it’s a little awkward, he pulls her to him. He holds her loosely and his rubs between her shoulder blades as she cries—and despite not knowing what it is, he tells her over and over again that it’ll be alright.

“I’m sorry,” she says after a few minutes as she pushes herself back and out of his hold. “I… shouldn’t have…”

“It’s really alright.”

Her cheeks flush with embarrassment and she presses her eyes close. “No, it isn’t.” Her breath hitches in her throat and her eyes flutter open. “None of this is alright. It’s… it’s not that I’m ungrateful because you’ve been so wonderful to me and to Henry, but this isn’t where we’re supposed to be.” Shaking her head, she lets out a shaky breath. “He wasn’t supposed to die.”

Robin reaches for her hand and leads her to a bench that’s situation beneath a willow tree. “I know how you feel,” he murmurs as he sits down beside her. “And I’m… I’m sorry.” She fumbles with her hands as her eyes shift back to him—and she’s not sure what to say. “Do you… want to talk about it?”

A little smile tugs onto her lips and she shakes her head. “You’ve heard it. Everyone has.”

“I’d rather hear about it from you.”

“I already told you what hap…”

“No,” he cuts in as his smile warms. “You gave me the bare bones of the story. Tell me something… real.”

“Real,” she repeats in a skeptical voice, unused to people inquiring in way that wasn’t caddy. “I… I don’t know.” Her lip catches between her teeth as she looks up at him. “What do you want to know?”

Robin leans back on the bench and crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t know. Anything,” he says as a grin pulls onto his lips. “You decide.”

Regina nods and takes a breath, and for a moment, she doesn’t say anything at all because she’s not sure what to say. Everyone knew about the love affair they’d had—they knew some of the most intimate of details. But all of the little blips of memories that get her through the darkest of days seem to somehow diminish him—and it’s almost impossible to choose just one story to tell, one story that captures who Daniel was and what he meant to her.

And then a soft smile tugs onto her lips.

“I… may have told you that after we ran away, Daniel found work at an inn?” She turns her head to look at him, watching as he nods—and she can’t help but notice how genuinely interested he seems. “Well, the inn was his cousins—he and his wife ran it—and they rented us a room on the top floor in exchange for help at the inn.” A little laugh rises into her voice as a slight grin works its way onto her lips. “I was completely useless. I couldn’t even boil an egg, but Daniel used to bartend and work in the stables, tending to guests’ horses and… we were happy there.”

“It sounds like you had a quaint little life there.”

“We did,” she nods—and smile warms and for a moment, he gets lost in her memories. “Daniel used to work late sometimes, and he’d come in long after Henry and I had gone to bed—and every single time, he’d wake Henry up to play. They’d get out the blocks and Daniel would read to him or sing to him and… Henry would get all riled up and Daniel would inevitably fall asleep and…” Her voice trails off as her eyes meet Robin’s. “It’s funny, the things that used to make me crazy are the things I miss the most.”

“Marian snored,” Robin says flatly as he reaches for her hand, giving it a tight and understanding little squeeze. “For months after she died, the silence kept me awake and… still, there’s little I wouldn’t give to wake up in the middle of the night to that god awful sound.”

She looks down at his hand over hers and taking a short breath, then turns her hand over in his and gives it a soft squeeze. “We are quite the pair, aren’t we?”

“I’d like to think so,” he says as he slowly stands and pulls her up. “Now come on, there’s something else I’d like to show you on the other side of the garden.”

There’s a little fluttering in her chest as he gives her hand a tug, leading her across the grass. They walk slowly toward a destination he’s yet to reveal and she finds herself—for the very first time since their marriage—unbothered by the unknown ahead of them. Neither says anything and she suspects he’s just as caught up in the not-so-distant memories of lost love as she is—and somehow, that’s a comfort.

“You said there was something you wanted to talk to me about,” she says after awhile, breaking the silence between them and watching as his brow furrows for a moment—and then, there’s a spark of recognition in his eyes, and a little hesitation as his lips part. “Should I be worried?”

“No, no,” he says, “I just… I was thinking that it’s time we hire a ladies maid for you. I hope you don’t mind that I placed an advertisement.” Her breath catches and her stomach drops—and for a moment, her chest feels tight at the memory of the short-lived relationship with her previous maid. “I was hoping we could go through the applicants together and that you’d sit with me during the interviews.” A little smile stretches across his lips. “I’d really like to be able to choose someone you like, someone you feel comfortable with, someone who…”

“That’s thoughtful,” she cuts in. “Thank you.”

“Is that a yes?”

For a moment, she hesitates—and then, she finds herself nodding. “It is.”

He laughs a little and again, she feels that soft fluttering in her chest as he offers her his arm—and as she takes a short breath, she links her arm through his—and they continue to walk together, trading happy memories of another lifetime.

[laughingpinecone]

Yuletide treat for @paranoidharoldfinch!

Denise Bryson, Audrey Horne, 1881 words, mid-canon gen vignette, talking about Dale Cooper because what else do people even DO amirite

The foreign agent stopped in her tracks, biting the perfect red of her lipstick. Her eyes darted through the corridor - she knew she was being watched, but the wooden walls of the Great Northern grew like a forest all around her, silent and impenetrable. As she took a few tentative steps toward the stairs, she felt the sting of a stranger's gaze grow closer, bolder, until finally she could hear a muffled clicking of heels from inside the wall. A secret passage! She led her spy around until the planimetry of the place told her that she was in the clear and hid in waiting behind a column. One minute passed before she heard the same heels as before, not muffled now, growing closer, and she jumped out to tackle her stalker - tumbling in the middle of the hotel's dinner-slash-dancing hall with an armful of startled teenager.

Audrey couldn't say what she was expecting to achieve with that stakeout, or rather, she was trying not to think about it too hard, but being caught in her target's firm grip and suddenly thrust under the spotlight of the hall’s attention was most assuredly not part of the plan. But being a pureblood Horne, her next move was set, ingrained in the deep, oiled mechanisms of three generations of incessant social manoeuvring: she guided the agent's arm on her shoulder, put on a customary, distant smile and danced with her to the notes of Trudy's piano. The hall relaxed. Catherine Martell's echo from the previous week’s accident ghosted on her toes. Doesn't she always. Bitch.

“Come on, darling”, Agent Bryson laughed, her voice as soft as her posture now that she'd recognized her assailant as the crown princess of this place. “What's with the territorial hunt? I'm pushing prime cougar age, but you? You're a baby leopard, a caracal, the prettiest fennec…”

If the world hadn't noticed, Audrey was just done telling to herself that she did not want to think about this too hard. But no, of course, she had to ask, with a spark of dogged curiosity in her eyes that must come in bundle with the badge. She also stepped on her foot. Which was a most foreseeable outcome, after about a minute of waiting for Audrey's lead about as much as Audrey was waiting for hers, but it wouldn't have happened with Agent Cooper, or in a movie, or both, which proved beyond all reasonable doubt that the situation here could not compare (it would not have happened to Agent Bryson and Agent Cooper, either, but that movie got cancelled).

Audrey tilted her head.

“Remind me - who is doing the honors?”

Someone here had to switch role - or at least step off her foot.

With a noncommittal shrug, Denise tapped the point of Audrey's nose in a spell-binding stay here for one moment, be right back. She made her way to the piano, where trusted old Trudy was mashing keys to the tune of “Fly me to the moon”, whispered a few words in her ear and slipped a banknote under the sheet music. By the time her dance partner had blinked a few times and fully formulated the thought that bossing and bribing the hotel's employees was in fact, excuse her, her own goddamn job, the tune had changed and - one, two, cha-cha-cha - Denise was sashaying back solo and inviting Audrey to very well do the same, so much for leads, follows and all the trappings of partner dance.

“With that inconvenience out of the way… remind me, what were you doing looking through holes in the wall?”

Her whisper carried the tension of a climactic showdown: the foreign spy, having laid her web of intrigues all across town (or at least the hotel, or at least room 315), confronts the only young operative smart enough to have figured out her game. Agent Bryson was beautiful with her head cocked like that, reaching out to speak to her in the middle of a spot turn. Her laid-back smile and well-practised assertiveness graced her with a radiance under the Great Northern’s chandeliers that was just her own. The bar had been raised and Audrey would have to step up to the challenge.

“I want to become a special agent!” Side step.

“How's that for charming! Well well, girl, first thing is, you've got to be special!” Turn to the left.

“I am!” What, she didn't notice? In some circles, it would be enforceable as a capital offense.

“And that's the spirit!”

Upon further consideration, this sounded disconcertingly like an encouragement.

The bar had, indeed, been raised so high that Audrey had to wonder if that woman, with her drawled laughter that seemed to contain only the purest wonder for humanity in all its infinite contrasts, ever even noticed they were rivals. If she had, she would also have to have developed the thickest skin and an admirable poker face, which was, Audrey supposed, par for the course.

When Denise followed up with the obvious question and inquired about the reasons why she wanted to be a special agent, Audrey knew that she couldn't give up her secret, that residual, fermented dream of a tall, dark and handsome stranger whisking her away from that oppressive trap of a town. It was her hope, and hers alone, for a little while still - just yesterday she thought she could give it up, when she saw Agent Bryson and Agent Cooper effortlessly relating to each other as professionals and peers, cocooned away in an adult world that suddenly felt airtight and out of reach. It was why she kissed him on her way out: it's what you do with dreams, you stand on tiptoes and kiss them goodbye. But the taste of his soft lips under hers wasn't leaving, so for now she did what a girl had to do, juggling heartbreak and a rapidly crumbling life along with vague plans for a future filled with glamour, Martinis and high-stake chases.

This was nobody's business but her own. The other force that pushed her forward, on the other hand… that one could be shared. Its steely, bitter taste would be on everyone's lips soon enough, anyway.

“I want to beat my nemesis.” Keep a secret for the next week or so, will you? But the woman felt reliable, and with her drug-busting business over she would be out of town before anyone, especially her father, had the time to blink. “Expose him, right his wrongs and drive far away from here in a fast black car.”

“Sounds... legitimate.”

The song's end was followed by a short applause from three elderly guests, who then requested a good old waltz like they played back in the day. “Geezers. Do you think one of them will ever manage to talk about waltz without humming the first bars of The Blue Danube?”

Denise shrugged, lost in thought. Had Audrey struck a chord? Where did she run away from in a fast car? The words I can't believe you were ever my age were coming up easy on her tongue, but the deja vu would give her vertigo. So they moved to a table, got two cokes, and when Denise spoke again, the topic was college, and big cities, bright, fast and alluring, and nemeses, which are a thing that happens to the best of us. Then beauty marks, and what the Chinese had to say about them - near the eyebrow, as far as Denise could remember, meant wealth, intelligence, creativity and strained relationships with family members, which sounded about right. And then Dale Cooper, whom Denise remembered from several years back as the awkward, green, weird agent who saved her life with a submachine gun and grenades, the exact number of which was lost to the mists of time. When she met him again the other day, she concluded, she was charmed to attest that hey, one out of three still applied.

Here's one for vertigo: in the distant past she evoked, her special agent was already ahead of her now. The distance between them grew fixed points, each one as unreachable as the previous: no matter how fast she tried to play catch up, she would remain the Achilles to a distant tortoise. And this is why she would rather have math stay the hell away from her life.

The other half of her family legacy eventually caught up with her. It wasn't intended - sounding like Sylvia never was. Marking her territory, propping herself up with the weight of her connections (because clearly, the anecdote she was telling would have suffered from failing to mention that her friend's husband was a rich neuropsychologist with several papers to his name) only ever managed to make her mother sound crass, sad and worst of all transparent, and yet. Her she was, listening to her own voice add to an altogether pleasant conversation that - in case Denise hadn't noticed - she, too, had free access to Dale Cooper's room.

The older woman grinned, like she'd been waiting for that particular penny to drop.

“You too, eh?”

“Too?” Audrey bit her lip. Where was their newfound truce going?

“Baby, let's play a game. It's called Who in this room did not develop a soul-rending crush on Dale Cooper and the rules are very simple, you look around and tell me who in this room did not develop a soul-rending crush on Dale Cooper…”

Admittedly, that got a chuckle out of her. She must have had this coming - she did, after all, see her go up to the man himself and kiss him in a fit of frustration, and waiting for Audrey to bring up the topic herself before roasting her was a nice gesture. Maybe even respectful. Like Cooper was.

“That married woman there looks happy with her husband…”

“And that has stopped anyone since when? She took a photo of him the other day, for keepsake once they check out of here.”

This warranted an indignant gasp: “Agent Bryson!”

“Speaking of pictures of our golden boy, look, that girl in the corner with the expensive camera plans to sell hers. A thriving business, I'm sure. But she is gonna keep the best one for herself.”

“What about the man carrying an oar?”

“You can tell by the way he cuddles his coffee. You know he didn't do it before coming here.”

“Don't tell me that the waltz geezers…”

“...are reminded of the movie stars of yesteryear. Hard as it may be to believe, all that hair wax was fashionable at some point in human history.”

“It can't be the woman painting a deer either, she has just ordered her third slice of cherry pie…”

“...and the boy with a crutch just has those stars in his eyes. You know the ones.”

Yes, yes she did. They went on to point at Trudy, at Louie over in the corridor, at each other, at the very furniture of the hall. Denise's laughter was genuine - Audrey found out that so was hers. From the very beginning, her love for her special agent had been secluded and pure, blossoming in a bubble shared just by the two of them, inebriating, ultimately suffocating. This was a breach. The world was seeping in. Audrey could breathe.

[krissysbookshelf]

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  Sealed with a Kiss by Leeanna Morgan: When a threat to John’s life turns deadly, he will do everything he can to keep his daughter safe—even if that means saying goodbye to the one person who could change his life forever. A heartwarming story of unconditional love, its challenges, its risks and most of all, its rewards.

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  Snow Clues: A Dan Kiraly Mystery by Terez Peipins: A parent’s worst nightmare, seven-year-old Petey Jackson has gone missing, and the trail to find him is as cold as a Buffalo winter. With pressures mounting, Detective Dan Kiraly is at the end of his rope, but desperate times call for desperate measures. He turns to psychic Jess Williams, who while holding a piece of the child’s clothing, describes a place which triggers a memory and leads Dan to find the child’s body, left in the snow near a creek.

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  Itsy Bitsy Spider: Emma Frost (Book 1) by Willow Rose: After moving her family to an old house on mysterious Fanoe Island, Emma finds herself scrambling to solve a harrowing murder — and uncovers dark secrets that lead back to her own family. A bone-chilling tale!

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