#sorry if this is a joyless response but there is an explanation for it in the text

[patchwork-crow-writes]

God DAMN this is inspired. I'd like to add another thought to this as well, if that's alright!

The parallel you draw between dark fountains and fountain pens is almost too elegant to be real: using a sharp object (blade/pen), you stab into something (the earth/paper), which causes a dark substance (darkness/ink) to spread out, which is then channeled by the (knight/writer) to create a new world. It's freaking POETRY (well technically it's prose, but you know what I mean :P).

But I think you could also use this metaphor to help explain what the Roaring might be.

You also talk about the balance between fantasy and reality... or in this case, dark and light. And the same is true for artists in the real world. How many times do we lament that, if only we didn't have this inconvenient thing called reality to attend to, with all its obligations and responsibilities, we could be truly free to create as we wish, without earthy fetters to hold us back? Personally, I've lost count.

This is what the Knight represents: the will to create, no longer shackled to worldly concerns, who as you say is unwilling, or perhaps unable, to stop imposing their fantasy onto the real world.

But the thing about art and fantasy is, it needs reality in order to exist in the way it does. Both in the sense that these things are inspired by the real world, and that they act as a temporary escape hatch from that same real world.

So what happens when fantasy overrides reality? The darkness overtakes everything; the inkwell spills out onto the page. This is the Roaring: a state of being where fantasy has completely overrun reality, to the point of utter absurdity and meaninglessness.

Cosider the line from Ralsei's explanation of the Roaring:

The surviving darkners, crushed by the darkness, will turn into stone.

That doesn't seem to make too much sense on first reading, and I puzzled over what it could mean for a long time... but once you apply your Fountain pen metaphor, suddently it makes perfect sense. There needs to be contrast for fantasy to exist in the way it does. darkness impressed upon light, black ink projected onto white paper. It is that contrast that allows you to read the words of a fantastical novel, or admire a piece of art, or listen to beautiful music. Similarly, to properly appreciate the wonder of fantasty, you need the mundanity of reality to contrast it against.

Take away that contrast, and all you are left with is a meaningless nothing. The overflowing darkness of a spilt inkwell would completely engulf the words, breaking all narrative and rendering the entire medium completely incomprehensible. If Darkners help to impart meaning and narrative to a fantasy world, then them turning to stone is the point where they are no longer able to serve their function, because the medium has been completely overrun.

...now consider a rorschach test. Blots of ink on a page that don't appear to symbolise anything, but might suggest certain shapes or meanings without directly alluding to what those might be. In a world where nothing makes sense anymore, our subconscious might try to ascribe concrete meaning onto these, but fail. And thus the Titans - beings of darkness that defy concrete comprehension, their monstrous forms the stuff of nightmares.

In such a world, our primal fears and anxieties would overwhelm us, with no more comfort to be had in the stories that once were. Fantasy would no longer be an escape: all that would be left to us is the cold, hard light of reality, the true horror of having to see things as they really are. No meaning, no purpose, just a slow, joyless march towards death.

...wow, this went on a little longer than I was expecting! Sorry about that :P I hope this was interesting to read at least! Thanks for sharing!

Since we've got plenty of time to reflect, who do you the Knight is? (I'm very much hoping it's Papyrus)

Okay! So! 

While I uh, think that Jaru is super wrong on almost all his theories, I've got one major exception where I think he is correct, and that’s the identity of the Knight:

(This is kinda long, so going under the read more)

Namely, that the Knight is Gerson’s soul tied to a particular object and brought to life in the Dark World. Although for me personally, I’m going to tweak that idea quite a bit because I think it can actually tie in really nicely with my current theories on Ralsei’s identity and nature. 

We keep getting little references to Gerson brought up here and there in both chapters: there’s a drawing of a turtle monster in the abandoned classroom, done by Alvin. It’s presumably either Alvin himself or his dad, Gerson, and I’m guessing it’s the latter. We have books written by Gerson in multiple places, a memorial bench for him, and then Alvin’s conversation about him in the graveyard by his headstone. Alvin also mumbles something about “did I do the right thing?” to Gerson’s grave. As long as you initiate a conversation with Alvin, the game makes sure that you don't miss that extra bit, which is a little telling.

We know that Gerson was originally a historian, and then later turned to writing fiction, and wrote a beloved fiction series that fans still send his family letters about after his death. 

What do we know about the nature of the Dark Worlds? They’re basically imagination and fantasy brought to life. While they certainly seem to have a full history outside of what we experience, with characters that remember each other even from other Dark Worlds, they’re only “given form” when a dark fountain is opened. Any Lightner with determination can stab the earth, and a dark, inky substance can spew from it and give a world of fantasy its own form. The Darkners frequently talk about how Lightners give them direction and purpose in their lives.

So…question! How many of you have used a fountain pen?

I have used those before. They’re quite sharp, and using them very often feels like scratching or stabbing the paper. Black ink spews forth, and from this black ink…you can create whole worlds of fiction! Worlds that other people can interact with! 

We know that Gerson wrote beloved fiction well into his old age. What if he knew his time was coming, but still had stories to tell? What if he didn’t want to stop? Alvin says how his dust was sprinkled on a hammer and buried in the earth, and that this is considered the appropriate monster cultural ritual for helping a soul pass to the afterlife. But Alvin also appears to have done something that is still really troubling him. Maybe Alvin, either at his father's request or based on his own wants, didn’t actually follow the appropriate cultural funeral rites, and somehow helped his father’s soul attach to a different beloved object…a fountain pen that he’d use to write down his story ideas. And if that object gets brought to life with a dark fountain, you could get the Knight: the soul of a writer, filtered exclusively through their favorite writing tool, unwilling to stop creating.

I think it would make sense on a few logical and thematic levels:

It explains how the Knight is able to get around and open the fountains: the same way that Ralsei is able to do the weird things he does. They’re both Darkners carrying Lightner souls, so they can bend the rules.

It explains Queen’s insistence that Lightners are the ones that can create fountains, while King hates Lightners but seems to fully trust the Knight…a Darkner with a Lightner soul can meet both those people's expectations.  

It sets up the Knight as a foil to Ralsei: they’re both the same kind of special Dark World being, both believing that they are fulfilling their roles and serving the Lightners, but coming to vastly different conclusions about how to do that. 

It explains the Knight’s motivations: not that he’s actually trying to destroy the world or anything, but that he’s trying to serve the Lightners. He knows very well how much joy and positivity his fiction has brought to Lightners in the past. How could more of that be anything bad? This is his purpose, what he was made to do. Not doing it is virtually unthinkable.

And I think that in turn keeps him following in the footsteps of how Toby usually writes his villains…rarely if ever fully malicious, but utterly convinced that they’re doing the right thing, or that they have no choice in the matter. 

And of course that ties in with one of Deltarune’s themes: the balance between reality and fantasy. The Knight has no more ties with reality, and therefore is focused exclusively on creating more fantasy and having it supplant reality, upsetting the balance between them. 

And this is extremely speculative, but I've been thinking about how Toby mentioned that chapter three will be a bit of an odd one out, that it's more about trying weird things than advancing a lot of plot. Kind of an interesting thing to note since Kris just made a fountain that should take us into chapter three. If the Dark Worlds are in some way shaped by the will of the Lightner that makes them, then chapter three indicates that Kris's will manifests more as just...trying out stuff rather than something purposeful. Kris makes a fountain because they really want to keep up this special hangout with their friends. But the Knight? He's making narratives.

[ambassadorquark]

Does Caldwell know zirk is an elf and can’t be sleep deprived

i mean afaik it’s canon that the characters in eldermourne aren’t the same as vanilla d&d races w/ the lore being they’re all like, distantly descended from whatever d&d race but probably mingled with other ones & they just use existing stat blocks for utility’s sake? zirk only needing 4 hours BC he simply doesn’t sleep is just a mechanic that’s been flavored for his character he’s not like in canon a regular fantasy elf

[granddaughterogg]

How do you think the Horsemen would react to learning that their s/o broke it off only to later learn they were threatened by the Council to do so?

Ah, fam, you’re breaking my heart here, but I’ll try.I suppose that by “learned that they broke it off” you probably meant that the S/O dumped them via a letter or text (shudder…) rather than gathering up the courage to tell them in person? That’s abysmal in and of itself and I can tell you that as different as they are - all the Four would take this really, really, REALLY bad.

Fury: Mad

She would feel as if she’s been slapped in the face. With a loo rag. Her pride cannot comprehend such humiliation. She used to think lowly of your race but learned to leave prejudice behind, open her heart and become more trusting. She really took a liking to you. And this is what she gets for her trouble.

After receiving the message she probably went and massacred something in the most unsightly way just to let off steam. She desperately wanted to hunt you down and demand further explanations, but again, that pride was like a chain that kept her pinned in place. You didn’t want to see her ever again? Fine. You weren’t going to. Even if she had to remain a flaming, festering ball of hurt and rage until the end of her days.

The revelation that it was all the Council’s doing falls on her like a comforting blanket. So it wasn’t you who have been proven untrustworthy - it’s been them and their scheming all this time. Fury feels immensely relieved that she hasn’t been dumped. She’ll go to you right away and act as if this whole faux-breakup was not a big deal at all, assuming a no-nonsense “why didn’t you tell me that they were threatening you, silly?” attitude instead. She wants to put this whole ordeal behind the two of you as fast as possible. And focus on making the responsible party pay.

War: Sad

When War got your message, he needed to sit down, because it felt as if he got clobbered over the head. With a church bell. He’s not that great with introspection, so he wasn’t able to name the feeling that crept on him. All he knew that it was as if all the colours, sounds and flavours have seeped out of his world.

The thought of finding you and asking you questions did cross his mind, but he rejected it. If you didn’t want him around anymore, it would be unhonourable to disrespect your wishes.He spent the next few days (or months) as in a daze, going through the motions of his Horseman work, but not really feeling alive. Even the primal thrill of bloodshed wasn’t there anymore. He ached all over, but couldn’t locate or name that wound. Whoever had the misfortune to cross paths with the Red Rider during this harrowing time, probably noticed how chillingly not-quite-there he seems to be, speaking even less than usual and killing mechanically, without mirth or mercy.

The news about this newest of Council’s betrayals had to be relayed onto him twice because he was too torpid to get what that means. And after the Big Guy finally understood that you didn’t, in fact, abandon him - gods, how he ran.How he made Ruin eat up distance as if he was a comet.How he lounged at you - and closed you in his enormous arms, pressing your tiny body to his chest so hard that you could hardly breathe.

Strife: Hurt

The gunslinger never was one to care much about pride or honour or somesuch. He thinks them to be superficial, fussy constructs. So when he got the message - he went straight to your place and banged on the door until you finally came out.“Babe”, he said, his yellow stare not playfully lewd anymore; now those gleaming eyes of his were big and hurting. “What is this? Is it, like, a joke? Because I ain’t laughing.”You gulped, remembering what the Council’s hellish emissary said to you. The memory of this creature made your skin crawl. So many bug-like eyes and not a mouth in sight. Tell him that you don’t want him around. Only this, and nothing else. If you try something clever, we will have him killed.“I’m sorry, Strife…” you said, your voice thick from tears. “I… am so, so sorry. It is what it is.”“What do you mean?”“I…need you to leave.”“Is that something I said? Something I did? Just tell me, for fuck’s sake! Don’t abandon me like this!”“I…really don’t want you anymore. Please, just go!”You’d remember forever how this seven feet tall hulk of a man clad in spiky armour let you close the door on him without as much as moving a finger. How you crumpled down said door until you were lying on the hardwood, sobbing. How you could tell he did the same from the other side. And he cried, too. Big, ugly tears, his handsome face contorted into an unrecognizable grimace.You can’t tell how long he remained there.

It’s better not to recall how he spent the next few weeks. Let’s just say that he cannot remember either, as he was seldom sober.

And then he crossed paths with that Watcher and squeezed the truth out of them. He snapped the creature’s neck in his fingers as if it was a chicken bone and rushed back to your doorstep.

“Babe!” he shouted. “Princess! Pumpkin! It’s okay now! I got this all fixed! You can come out now, I won’t do anything to you, I swear!..”

You opened the door just a little. Strife barged through, scooped you into his arms and pressed his lips to your forehead, your nose, your half-open mouth, all while heaving for air and crying once again.

“Don’t you ever do this to me again, kid”, he gasped, nosing your collarbone. You could feel the wetness running down your skin. “I might be old and rugged and shit, but my heart seriously won’t take another blow.” “Please forgive me”, you whispered while running your fingers through his hair. “He said they would kill you if - if I said anything…”Small, joyless laughter escaped your Horseman.“Well, I feel as if I’ve been killed once already.”

Death: …

He knew that this was going to happen. Sooner or later.Although he counted on later. He allowed himself to care, he indulged that stupid little flame that crept at the bottom of his age-old, dried up soul. Stupid little hope.

And now he hated himself for it.Of course, you’d come to your senses. You’ve finally seen him for what he was: a greasy, wiry abomination caked in mud and dried entrails of his victims. You were so beautiful, so innocent and full of life. He was a monster.

He didn’t go to confront you upon receiving the breakup message. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. After ages of avoiding Feelings altogether, Death didn’t know how to deal with them. He wasn’t willing to name all those pesky emotions, but of one thing he was sure. There were so many that if he had to look into your young, bright face once more… he’d probably break, collapse and couldn’t be repaired.

So he didn’t. He sent Dust instead. To watch over you. It didn’t matter if you hated him or not; should anything bad happen to you in his absence, the oldest Horseman would never forgive himself for it.

He isolated himself from his siblings (as in, more than before.) He’d spend a lot of time in some forgotten realms, sitting on the grass and looking at the alien sky, not thinking about anything in particular. Except maybe how tempting the call of the void is. What a relief it would be to cease existing. A small blessing, mercifully granted to any living creature between Heaven and Hell. But not to him.

The pain was always there, dull and throbbing and as faithful as a shadow. This was how it’s probably supposed to be from now on. Oh well, he was used to carrying vicious scars.

Finally, his siblings have found him and brought the news. About this latest fuckery designed by the Council. Death listened to them in silence. War, Strife and Fury were a little put off by him seemingly not caring. Although he did look like shit; his hair was practically dirt dreadlocks and the moldy remains of what used to be a perfectly nice set of clothing blew in the breeze on his giant, hulking, emaciated body.“So, yeah…” Strife finished nervously, feeling out of place while his brother’s stare went right through him as if watching something far away.Finally, Death spoke.

“They made her do this?” His voice was croaky from long lack of use. It was also completely level.“Ayup.”“They threatened her with my death should she say anything? I guess she doesn’t know I cannot be killed?”War shifted from one big leg to another.“Yes, that is unfortunate…”“Nevermind.” Death stood up. “Let’s go.”“But where to, brother? You probably wanna see her first…”“Later. Let’s go kill the Council.”

[lallemanting]

took the breath from my open mouth (2/2)

part 2 of this angsty prompt // also on ao3

Lucas wakes up on the floor to a sour taste in his mouth and weight in his gut that sends him running from the ground to the toilet. Even after he’s emptied the contents of his stomach, the weight lingers and then the memories flood in.

Oliver leaving. Vodka. A phone call. Eliott.

Lucas turns back to the toilet and retches again.

Fuck he called Eliott. He got drunk and called Eliott. What a fucking cliché. Then their conversation floods back too. Lucas can hear Eliott’s soft voice, laced with concern and confusion and frustration. I think we need to talk. 

Lucas can’t hold back the joyless laugh that escape his throat. Talk, yeah. He needed to talk thirteen months ago, but Eliott left before they could have that conversation.

And then, I’ll text you in the morning.

Lucas thinks of his phone, probably thrown aimlessly somewhere in his room and wonders if there’s a message from Eliott waiting. He’s not sure he can bring himself to look.

He sits on the cold tile floor of the bathroom for a few minutes, letting the coolness seep into his sweating skin. He throws up again, for good measure, flushing away the last traces of alcohol. But the tightness in this stomach remains, and Lucas knows it’s not from vodka.

He peels himself off the ground and turns on the shower, eager to be rid of the grime that clings to him – the remnants of the party, the alcohol, his own guilt. He steps under the scorching spray and tries to wash it all off.

When Lucas emerges from the bathroom, he checks the time on the oven. It’s only 11:30 and Lucas feels a little impressed that’s he’s already up and showered, reminding himself it was probably past 2am when he called Eliott. He makes his way into the kitchen and fills a glass with water, downing it with some aspirin, hoping that it takes the pounding in his head away. 

But the pain is a good distraction from the mess he’s made.

He returns to his room and sees the scarf that’d he torn from his neck when he woke up strewn across his floor. Next to it, his phone lies face down, taunting him. Lucas looks away, pulling on a clean pair of boxers and a t-shirt and pulls his covers back as he climbs into bed. He’ll try and deal with that again in a few hours.

But as he lays there, willing sleep to take over, to make him forget everything for a few more hours, all he can think about is his phone, lying on the floor across the room. And Eliott. 

Always Eliott.

He lies there for a few more minutes, trying to convince himself he’s going to fall asleep, somehow halt the pounding of his heart, alleviate the weight in his stomach, enough to drift off. But soon it becomes clear that’s not possible. 

He pulls back the duvet, legs swinging, feet meeting the floor, and he walks cautiously, as if someone can see him giving up so easily, being pulled to his phone. To Eliott.

And then he’s leaning down and picking it up, clicking the button to make it come to life. He drops it, like it’s been taken red-hot from a fire, and then leans down and picks it up again.

There, bold and proud on the screen, is a message. And he shouldn’t be surprised, because Eliott had said he’d text him. But Lucas had learned a year ago that he couldn’t trust anything that came out of Eliott’s mouth. Except, apparently, this.

DO NOT ANSWER (10:15):

Hey. Hope you’re feeling okay this morning :) If you’re still up for it, I’d like to meet. When are you free?

––

It’s Thursday – nearly five days later – before Lucas can bring himself to respond. When he’d first read the message, he’d had to lock his phone and set it down far away from him for several hours, too anxious to even think about a response.

Then the guilt at not responding had started. Every time Lucas opened his messages, seeing Eliott’s text would send a jolt of panic through him. He knows it’s a little unfair that he’s ignoring Eliott since he was the one who called him in the first place, but now that he’s sober and has had a few days to think things over, he’s not sure he wants to hear what Eliott has to say.

And it’s because, as Oliver had so astutely noticed, Lucas has been harboring a hope, has been living in a cloud of denial for the past year. He’d try and convince himself that he was over Eliott, but that pain in his chest has never really gone away. The ache remained, becoming duller and easier to live with, but an ache all the same. 

And now that he’s let himself think about it, Lucas knows he’s in trouble. Because if Eliott so much as gives him a sign that he might not be over Lucas, Lucas would never be able to let go. 

But it also means that if Eliott has moved on, is actually over Lucas, his heart might officially crumble, leaving Lucas to face an even greater pain. It’s these thoughts that don’t seem to rest that make Lucas freeze every time he begins to type out a response to Eliott’s text.

It’s hard too, not knowing what’s going through Eliott’s head, when Lucas used to know him better than anyone.

But on Thursday Lucas finds himself standing in front of Yann’s apartment, banging on the door frantically. The scarf is wrapped tightly around his neck and his cheeks are red with cold. But his mind is so wrapped up in the message on his phone that he didn’t even feel the frigid air biting at his skin as he ran through the city. He hears shuffling around and then Yann opens the door, raising an eyebrow when he sees Lucas.

“Hey, can I come in?” Lucas asks, but he doesn’t wait for the answer, pushing past Yann and rushing into the apartment. He doesn’t stop until he reaches the sofa and then he sinks into the cushions, hiding his face in his hands. “It’s Eliott,” he moans.

“Eliott?” Yann asks and then he sighs. The air hangs heavy as he waits for an explanation. Lucas knows it’s because they’ve been here a thousand times before, that Yann is the only person who’s seen almost all the tears he’s spilled over Eliott. Maybe then, he’ll understand. 

“It’s just–” Lucas begins, and then he’s launching into an explanation of everything that’s been going on in the past month. Seeing Eliott at the restaurant, not being able to get him out of his head, seeing him again at the party, Oliver breaking up with him (and Lucas not really caring), and drunkenly calling Eliott. He’d kept it all to himself, afraid to bring up Eliott again with his friends, afraid of the way they’d look at him if they heard he was still hung up on his ex a year later. Afraid of what they might say.

But now, Lucas needs help. He needs someone who can help him figure out what to do, can help him decide what happens next, because his brain can’t seem to settle down and think and his heart hasn’t stopped racing since his eyes met Eliott’s across that restaurant. 

When Lucas finishes talking, Yann is there just looking at him, like he’s taking the time to actually process everything Lucas said. Lucas feels his trepidation at spilling everything to Yann fade away as his best friend smiles at him, a little sad, a little concerned.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Yann asks.

“I didn’t know what to say.” And it’s true, Lucas doesn’t know how to fit this in his mind, how to understand how a chance encounter a month ago has sent him spiraling. Yann seems to understand and he just nods. 

“Do you want to see him?” And there it is, behind his words, Yann’s knowledge of everything that happened, of everything Eliott put him through. Yann was the person who held Lucas as he cried when Eliott left. He was the person who helped him try and move on, who’d changed Eliott’s contact in his phone to a reminder that the past should stay in the past.

“Do you think I should?” Lucas’ voice is small because suddenly he’s realizing just how much he wants to see Eliott, how much he craves him, how agonizing that hole in his heart has become. And he wants Yann to tell him it’s okay to listen to that part of himself. But he also knows Yann would do anything to avoid Lucas getting hurt again. So maybe, for once, he’ll get the truth from someone.

“I think you need to.”

Lucas feels his mouth fall open a little because he hadn’t been expecting that – at least, not from Yann. Throughout this whole ordeal, Yann had always been the person encouraging Lucas to move on, to not let Eliott hold him back when he’s the one who walked away. 

“I think you need to hear what he has to say,” Yann is saying, and the blood is rushing in Lucas’ ears because this is really happening. “And...I think there are some things you want to say to him.”

And Yann is right, of course he is. There are things Lucas has been dying to say for months, from the moment that stupid suggestion left Eliott’s mouth. When the only thing that came out was okay.

“I think it will help you finally start healing,” Yann says. “Or...well, figure out another way forward.”

Lucas doesn’t quite know what Yann means, but Yann is looking at him like he should and Lucas finds himself just nodding his head. Time to be brave, time to just do it. If he doesn’t do it now, he never will.

Yann helps him draft the text.

Lucas (13:14):

hey sorry it’s taken me so long to respond

are you free tomorrow? the café by the park, 16:00?

It only takes a minute for Eliott to text him back, but Lucas’ hands are shaking as he and Yann stare down at the screen, the anxiety building when the three dots appear.

DO NOT ANSWER (13:15):

Perfect. See you there.

–– 

So when Lucas sees him again, on a Friday afternoon in February, he waves him over to a table in the back of the café and ignores the way his heart threatens to beat out of his chest. He tightens his grip around the hot mug in front of him, feeling the way the liquid burns through the ceramic so that the pain in his hands matches the fire raging in his core.

Eliott nods and quickly orders, grabbing the cup as soon as the barista sets it down. He makes his way over to Lucas and Lucas takes the time to look him over, really look at him. 

Eliott looks the same, but different too. He’s still wearing dark colors and that damn black jacket and his hair is still a mess, but his eyes that always stormed like the sea seem sadder and he carries himself with a little more tension in his shoulders, as if trying to compact his body down and make himself less noticeable.

But how every person isn’t drawn to Eliott, isn’t staring as he makes his way past, Lucas will never understand.

And then finally, Lucas is sitting in the corner of a café with his back to the wall, clutching at a coffee that is much too hot to drink, and Eliott is there, sitting across from him. It feels inevitable.

“Hey,” Lucas says. And there’s that word again.

“Lucas,” Eliott replies. 

There’s silence as they look at each other, allow themselves to look, allow themselves to acknowledge that half the reason they’re both here is just that they needed to see each other.

“I see you’ve had time to recover,” Eliott says, and Lucas can tell he’s trying to break the tension, but there’s real concern there, hidden beneath the sarcasm.

“Yeah,” Lucas says. “The hangover was pretty rough.”

Eliott lets out a small laugh. “I can imagine.”

“How about you?” Lucas’ voice comes out cold as images of Eliott and the other boy flash through his head. “I saw you at the party.”

“Ah, Imane said you might have seen,” Eliott says, shifting guiltily in his chair. “Look, it didn’t mean anything Lucas, really.” He pauses, frowning. Lucas wonders why he’s trying to justify himself to Lucas of all people. “Is that why you called?”

Lucas squirms, but can’t help that he feels a little lighter knowing the boy isn’t anyone to Eliott. “No,” he says quickly. “Well yes and no. It was more the seeing you again than anything else.”

They’re silent for a moment and Eliott is just looking at him, so Lucas goes on.

“But I do want to apologize for calling you like that,” Lucas says, his cheeks flushing red. “That, uh, was not one of my proudest moments.”

“It’s okay, Lucas.” Eliott smiles. Lucas melts.

“No, it’s not.” Lucas plays with the handle of his mug, chancing a glance up at Eliott. “I mean, I did want to talk to you, but you deserve more than a drunken phone call.”

“Maybe,” Eliott says, and he hasn’t taken his eyes off Lucas since he sat down. Lucas had almost forgotten what it was like to be looked at like that. “But I would have been okay with anything honestly. It was just good to hear from you. I haven’t heard from you in a long time.”

“I know.”

Eliott is still staring at him but then he sighs, leaning back in his seat, rubbing his neck. “I tried, you know? I really tried. But you never responded. I missed you, Lucas. I still miss you.”

Lucas clenches his jaw as the words hit him because it’s not fair, it’s really not fair for Eliott to say that and not mean it. At least not the way Lucas means it. “You can’t keep saying that.”

Because Eliott has said it before, or, at least, he’s sent it. The first text came two weeks after they broke up, late at night on a Sunday when Lucas was staring down another week without Eliott, still crying into his pillow every night. I miss you, typed out and mocking him on the screen, sent from Eliott to Lucas with such a careless disregard for Lucas’ heart that he felt it break again.

He hadn’t been able to bring himself to respond, showing Yann as soon as he saw him in the morning. Yann had taken one look at the text, sighed, and changed Eliott’s contact from Eli to DO NOT ANSWER and Lucas had nearly started crying again.

But he’s reaching out, Lucas had protested, clinging to the last bit of hope that Eliott might have realized his mistake. 

It’s not good enough, Yann had said. He needs to do more if he’s serious about it. And Lucas knew Yann was right, but to feel his hope splinter again, made Lucas hope Eliott never tried to reach out again. He wasn’t sure he could take it. 

(Eliott hadn’t heard that silent plea though apparently, because three more messages came in over the course of the next two months, all saying similar things. Lucas hadn’t shown anyone, then, but hadn’t been able to respond either. He wished Eliott would stop stretching it out, stop making Lucas heart race every time he got a little lonely, and eventually Eliott had. And then Lucas found himself wishing that his phone would ping again.)

But now, in the café, hearing Eliott say it again, to hear those words said again like it means something, Lucas wants to scream.

Now that Lucas knows that every pang in his chest at the sight of Eliott’s name, every time his mouth went dry at the sight of those words, the dull ache that never left, was his heart’s way of saying I love you even when he wouldn’t let himself think it, maybe it hurts worse.

Lucas thinks if that boy sitting there meant it the way he does, I miss you actually meaning I love you, he could have done something about it. But he didn’t.

“It’s true,” Eliott says, simply. “Why did you never respond?”

“I couldn’t,” Lucas says. It’s the truth, poorly explained.

“Why?”

“It hurt too much,” Lucas says, blinking away tears prickling at the corner of his vision. He has to hold it together. “So I tried to stop thinking about you. To try and move on.”

“Did it work?” Eliott asks, his voice small.

“What do you think?” The words land sharply. Lucas means the venom he spits. It helps him feel better for a moment, but it’s fleeting.

Eliott sighs and shifts uncomfortably in his chair. He hasn’t touched his drink. “I’m sorry,” he says, and then he pauses. “I’m sorry about a lot of things.”

Lucas can’t help the way he can suddenly feel his pulse, the way his face grows hot. It’s the first apology he’s heard slip past Eliott’s lips and he’s unprepared for what it feels like. “What things?” Lucas asks, because he needs to know, he’s always needed to know.

“Like everything from the moment I said we should break up.”

Lucas chokes and he can’t help the way he’s staring at Eliott, in disbelief.

“What the fuck, Eliott!” Lucas nearly shouts, anger building, slowly replacing the sadness. “You really can’t keep saying things like that, it’s not fair.”

Eliott looks just as near tears as Lucas feels. “I know,” he whispers. “But it’s the truth.”

Neither of them say anything as a moment passes, and then two. And despite everything, despite how Lucas has fought it, he feels hope begin to blossom in his chest. But he needs to know. He needs to understand.

“So?” Lucas asks, and the momentary burst of anger has left his voice ragged and shallow. “What happened? I mean, when did we go from us to that? What did I do?”

Eliott chews on his cheek and Lucas sees his shell cracking, the nervousness seeping through. “It’s nothing you did Lucas,” he says. “Or, at least, there isn’t a moment.”

“That makes it sound like it’s definitely something I did.”

“No,” Eliott says, firmly, looking at Lucas like he needs him to know. “Maybe there were things bothering me, but I should have talked to you about it. In the end, it was more about me than you.”

Lucas just looks at him, urging him to go on, and he feels a little nauseous because he’s been wishing for this conversation for months, but he’s still not sure he’s prepared.

Eliott goes on. “It’s just that you were so busy with school and everything. And it’s not your fault, but I felt like such a failure. I mean, I had no direction. I was trying to work just to make money so that I could be near you and then you kept asking about art school and I knew you were trying to be supportive but I just kept feeling like I was letting you down.”

Lucas thinks back to that, to their last few months. It had been hard for Eliott, he knew, when he first tried his hand at university. After struggling with high school, and having to repeat his last year, Lucas had always known Eliott’s confidence was a little shaken. He’d done one semester at a university, unsure of what he wanted to pursue, but he’d hated it and it had been hard on him. So he stopped, took a break to figure out his next move. 

When Lucas graduated and decided to go to university for pre-med, Eliott mentioned that maybe he’d look into art school. So Lucas had sort of latched onto that, trying to be as supportive as possible, trying to make sure Eliott knew he could do anything he wanted. But now, looking at the sad curve of Eliott’s eyes, hearing the hitch in his voice, Lucas can see how maybe that all felt like pressure.

“You weren’t letting me down,” Lucas says, softly, restraining himself from grabbing Eliott’s hand. “I just wanted you to know I believed in you.”

“I know. But you wanted an explanation, and this is it. I’m not claiming that it makes sense,” Eliott says, his eyes training themselves on the floor next to Lucas’ seat. Lucas is afraid to move, desperate for Eliott to go on, to give him more. Eliott swallows harshly and continues. 

“All I could see was my boyfriend taking everything that had gone wrong and turning it into something good. And there I was, in the same place as the year before and I couldn’t find my thing. There’s so much pressure, you know, to have grand plans, to have something that you’re working for, but everything I tried just kept falling apart. I felt like I was ruining everything I touched. And then there you were.”

Lucas feels a hot tear escape down his cheek and he quickly wipes it away. He aches to reach out and hold Eliott, like he used to.

“You were doing so well and I became convinced that one day you were going to wake up and realize that you were too good for me. That I was holding you back,” Eliott says, his voice shaking. “I tried to talk to you about it, but you were stressed and your mom had been having a rough time and we started arguing. And I convinced myself you were getting ready to move on.”

“Eliott…” Lucas tries.

“No, let me finish,” Eliott says, taking a deep breath. “So when we were sitting there, and you wouldn’t look at me, I made a stupid decision. I told myself that if you loved me, you would fight for me and that if you were getting ready to leave me anyway, then it wouldn’t matter. So I said we should break up. And you just said okay. You didn’t even try to fight it. And all I could think was that I managed to leave you before you left me.”

Lucas feels like the wind has been knocked out of him.

“I regretted it. Almost immediately.” Eliott says, looking up at Lucas again. There’s something braver now, in his eyes. “All I could think about was how stupid I was, how much of an idiot I’d been. So I tried to reach out. But you wouldn’t respond to any of my messages and I took it as a sign.”

Lucas knows what it’s like when your heart breaks. His has shattered – been crushed – first by his father, and then by Eliott. But, now, sitting in a café across from the boy who used to make him feel alive, his heart breaks in a new way. The kind of breaking when you realize someone you love has been fighting demons that you didn’t even notice were there. And there’s guilt too, that somehow, in the cacophony around him, Lucas had missed this – a quiet call for help.

“You never told me you felt like that,” Lucas says finally, weakly.

“I didn’t know how to say it.” Eliott’s eyes are red, his cheeks wet. “You were getting everything you always wanted. I didn’t want to drag you down with me.”

Lucas looks at Eliott, and wonders how they got so off-track, how Eliott couldn’t see how much he meant to Lucas. “For the record, you were always what I wanted.”

And maybe the longing has lessened slightly, now that Lucas has some kind of answer, something to point to. But the pain is still there, and it's a pain that Eliott caused. It’s good, Lucas thinks, to know where he went wrong. But Lucas knows there are some things he still needs to say, some things Eliott needs to hear too. Because, as is often the case, neither of them is blameless.

“I am sorry, Eliott, that I didn’t see what was going on.” Lucas sighs. “And I’m sorry if I did anything that made you feel like you couldn’t talk to me about it. But I need you to know how much you hurt me when you left like that.” 

And there it is, finally, the sharp sting surfacing. “I mean, I told you how scared I was of people leaving, how everyone had left, and then you still did it. Without telling me why. Without trying to fix it.”

Eliott looks at him, regret marking up his perfect face. “It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” he says. “And I am so sorry. For everything. I miss you, Lucas.”

This time the I miss you sounds different to Lucas’ ears. And since they’re telling the truth today, Lucas can’t stop himself. “I miss you too, Eliott. So much.” His voice is quiet. The words are strong.

Eliott smiles softly, a quiet moment just for him.

But sitting there, feeling his heart soar, looking into Eliott’s sad eyes, Lucas knows that this is a moment for healing. And it’s overwhelming really, just how much letting go of that anger, letting it slowly fade away, is doing for his gentle heart. The heart that was never meant to bear the brunt of other people’s mistakes and yet has, all the same.

“Are you okay?” Eliott asks then, and Lucas realizes he hasn’t said anything for the past few moments, too lost in his own head. Eliott’s hand makes an aborted movement toward where Lucas’ rest on the table, but he seems to think better and pulls back.

Lucas notices. “Yeah, yeah I am,” he says, reaching out and catching Eliott’s hand in his own. And there it is, the familiar roughness, the callus on his fourth finger from how he holds a pencil, but the touch doesn’t send nervousness coursing through Lucas’ arm. Instead it feels like coming home.

“And you?” Lucas asks, tilting his head as he takes in Eliott’s flushed cheeks and the way he’s trying to both look at Lucas and hide the emotions flashing on his face. “Are you okay?”

Eliott pauses for a moment, and Lucas sees something spark in that deep gray-green storm in his eyes. “I will be.”

They stay resting in their chairs, just looking at each other, for a few more minutes. Their hands stay clasped across the table and Lucas revels in the fact that he can look at Eliott’s face without feeling physical pain. 

Eventually they stand to leave, go their separate ways, but it lacks finality. As Eliott turns towards the door, he stops suddenly, spinning around on the spot and grabbing Lucas, wrapping him in a frantic embrace. Lucas feels himself lean into Eliott’s warmth immediately, relaxing under the familiar touch that he’s craved for months. That’s all it is, warm arms around his shoulders, Eliott’s face tucked into his hair, and it feels even better than Lucas remembered.

It’s quick, the embrace, barely there and then gone again. But Eliott’s face as he pulls away, as he whispers I’ll see you, as he turns to leave, is enough to keep Lucas warm long after Eliott has left. And the ache in Lucas’ chest is fading.

And so, in the end, it’s undramatic but necessary – that day when they meet again in the quiet corner of a café on a February afternoon. And even though it’s supposed to be the closure Lucas needs, it feels more like a beginning than an ending.

–– 

The next morning Lucas awakes feeling more well-rested than he has in months. From the way the sun is fighting through his curtains, he knows it’s late. But it’s Saturday, and Lucas has no plans, so he lets himself lay there, sinking into the comfortable warmth of his blankets.

He lets his mind wander and, as it so often does, it drifts to Eliott. Only this time, Lucas doesn’t feel the sharp pang beneath his ribs, doesn’t have to force himself to think of something, anything, else. Instead, he revels in his memories, Eliott’s face etching itself on the backs of his eyelids.

Eliott’s smile when Lucas says he missed him. The feel of Eliott’s hands in his own. The press of Eliott’s chest and the warmth of his arms wrapped around him again. Lucas can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. He laughs to himself and buries his face into his pillow. He hopes Eliott is thinking of him too.

He realizes then that he wants to talk to Eliott again, he needs to hear from him, needs to know if things have changed in the light. He looks over towards his desk where his phone is plugged in, debating if he should text Eliott.

His room is slightly messy, his shoes kicked in the corner, an empty mug on his desk, his coat strewn across the back of his chair from where he had haphazardly thrown it the night before.

And then he notices the folded piece of paper lying on the ground by the legs of his chair, as if it had fallen out of the pocket of his coat.

His heart picks up the pace and he leaps from his bed with such enthusiasm he almost falls from being tangled up in his sheets.

He nearly runs across his room, kneeling to pick up the square of paper, and he can’t help but feel a little lightheaded in the anticipation. Because Lucas recognizes it. Eliott had used this tactic before when he couldn’t find the words to explain himself in person. It’s Eliott’s way of reaching out when he’s afraid of being hurt.

Hands trembling, Lucas gently unfolds the paper and smooths it out, taking in the lines drawn there.

It’s a drawing, like the ones Eliott used to make for him. A raccoon and a hedgehog. Lucas hasn’t seen them drawn together in so long that he almost starts crying right there. He thinks about the other drawings Eliott has given him tucked safely in the bottom drawer of his desk. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to look at them since they broke up, but he couldn’t throw them away either. Now he’s infinitely glad he didn’t.

In the drawing, there are two panels, both with a racoon and a hedgehog sitting in a café. In the first panel, the hedgehog and the racoon sit across from each other, the racoon looking visibly distressed. Underneath the caption reads: Eliott n.25473 missed his chance.

In the second panel, the hedgehog and the racoon are sitting on the same side of the table, arms around each other, a heart drawn neatly between them. The caption reads: Eliott n.36542 was brave enough to fight for you.

Lucas feels his legs go numb and suddenly every touch, every look runs through Lucas’ head like fire. This, the drawing in his hands, is proof that Eliott hasn’t moved on either, has been harboring hope like Lucas close to his chest. It’s his way of reaching out, of saying here is what I can offer, please take it. And Lucas wants to, oh he wants to. 

And then every reason why he shouldn’t is running through his head – the pain, the heartbreak, the feeling like he was drowning in something he’d never be able to get out of. But there, at the end of it, at the end of all of it, is Eliott. And Lucas knows that despite the past year, he’d do all again as long as it meant he’d get to know life with Eliott in it.

He’s suddenly frantic then, because it’s been hours, almost a full day since Eliott placed that note in Lucas’ jacket pocket and he’s only just noticed it now. Maybe Eliott has already given up, has already decided that Lucas doesn’t want to take that leap again, and then all Lucas can think about is getting to Eliott.

Because here’s the thing that’s been bothering Lucas, running through his mind since Eliott and him parted the afternoon before. It’s nagging at him because he realizes there’s a mistake he’s made that he wants the chance to remedy. It’s Eliott, with his sad eyes and quiet voice saying I told myself that if you loved me, you would fight for me. Because Lucas should have fought for him, should not have let Eliott walk out that door without so much as a discussion.

It’s not that Lucas wouldn’t have let Eliott go if that’s really what he wanted. But Lucas can’t help but think that if he’d only pushed a little, prodded at the reason Eliott was trying to leave a little more, they wouldn’t have had to face a year apart. 

But now is not the time for regrets. All Lucas lets himself think is Eliott and how quickly he can get to him, how quickly he can stand there in front of him and be brave enough for the both of them. To do what he needs to do to get them to where they’ll both be happy.

Because with this drawing, it’s like Eliott had put his heart on the line, offering it up to be broken again. He’s been brave. And maybe Lucas is already too late, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try.

So Lucas sprints to the bathroom, washing the sleep from his eyes and brushing the staleness from his mouth, pausing to comb his hair because he can’t help but feeling like he needs to put some effort in to win back the love of his life.

He folds the drawing carefully and places it back into his pocket. And then he’s hopping into his jeans, pulling on a sweater and then his jacket and scarf and bolting out the door while he’s still trying to tie his shoes.

He steps out into the frosty winter, but for the first time in a long time, the cold doesn’t sting.

–– 

And so it goes like this: Lucas is running, running faster than he probably ever has before. 

(And maybe it’s a little funny that he’s running again for Eliott, but he would do it over and over if it means he gets to be with the boy at the end.) 

He stopped, only once, because there was a nice shop with beautiful flowers in the window that reminded him of Eliott and then he’s running again.

Soon he’s in front of Eliott’s building and his breath is coming quickly and he’s trying to calm down before he faces him. He contemplates buzzing Eliott to let him up, but he really doesn’t want to ruin the romantic gesture he literally just ran for so he begs to some spiritual entity to help him out.

Luck seems to be on his side, because someone is leaving and Lucas is rushing through the door and up the stairs until he’s standing, for the first time in over a year, in front of Eliott’s apartment.

He thought he’d be nervous, standing there like that, hand poised to knock against the dark wood. But he’s not, not really. This was inevitable. They always have been.

He raps sharply on the door. 

When the door opens, all Lucas can see is Eliott’s eyes grow wide as they flick between Lucas’ face and the flowers in his hands. And Lucas can see that Eliott is cautious, unsure of what’s going on, because he hasn’t heard from Lucas in almost 24 hours.

“Hey,” Lucas says.

They stand in silence for a moment and Lucas can’t help the wide smile that breaks across his face as he looks at Eliott – the boy with black t-shirts and messy hair and ink-stained hands. His boy.

Finally, Eliott speaks. “What are you doing here?”

“Fighting for you,” Lucas says, his voice loud and clear and strong. “I’m trying to be brave.”

Eliott looks at Lucas a fire sparking in his eyes, but the caution is still there. “What about Oliver?”

And Oliver, well, Lucas has to stop himself from laughing out loud because he’d completely forgotten about Oliver. It had been so far removed from his mind that he’d even forgotten to bring it up when he saw Eliott the day before. The last Eliott heard, Lucas still had a boyfriend. 

“Oh, Eliott, we broke up,” Lucas says, not trying to hide the smile that can’t seem to leave his face now that he’s standing there looking at Eliott, allowing himself to love Eliott and allowing himself to hope he loves him back.

“You broke up?” Eliott’s voice is quiet, but Lucas catches the hint of hope in the words. It’s the brief, flickering stuff he’s been harboring in his heart for a year.

“Yeah,” Lucas says, stepping closer to Eliott in the doorframe. “You want to know why?” he whispers, standing so close to Eliott now that Lucas is forced to look up to meet his eyes.

“Why?” Eliott murmurs.

“Because he thought I was still in love with you,” Lucas says, and he hears Eliott’s sharp intake of breath. “And you know what? He was right.”

“Oh yeah?” And then Eliott can’t hold back his smile anymore and it only grows wider as Lucas pulls out the drawing from his pocket and shows it to Eliott as if to say I got your message.

Eliott reaches out a hand to trace Lucas’ cheekbone and Lucas feels himself leaning into the touch. “Well that’s good, because I’m still in love with you too.”

And then Eliott is cupping Lucas’ jaw and drawing him close and his touch is like a trigger to Lucas’ heart and it feels like it’s restarting, finding the rhythm it lost when Eliott left. Lucas leans towards Eliott and then their lips are meeting and it’s not the first time, definitely not the first time, but it feels new all the same. 

It’s tentative at first, like Eliott isn’t quite sure that this is his for the taking, but then Lucas is wrapping his arms around Eliott’s waist and tilting his head to deepen the kiss. Eliott gasps into Lucas’ mouth as they find themselves again, because they’ve done this before, but now it’s them beginning again, wiping the slate clean of the sad history they’ve carried around. 

They stagger back into the apartment and Eliott breaks the kiss to close the door behind them. Lucas, unable to be separated from Eliott now that he’s just gotten him back, latches onto Eliott’s jaw and then his neck, kissing him gently on his exposed skin. Eliott laughs and Lucas thinks it’s the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. 

And then their lips are on each other again and the kiss is sweet and comfortable but also strong. Lucas feels Eliott everywhere – the way his lips are pressed against Lucas’, the way his fingers caress his cheek, the way his arm wraps around his neck. He holds Lucas like he’s afraid of letting go. But that’s okay, because Lucas never wants him to.

“I want to try this again,” Eliott manages between their kisses. “I love you. I never stopped loving you. I can’t imagine my life without you.”

Lucas feels his heart soar, his hope thundering as it turns into the real thing.

“Eliott,” he gasps, Eliott’s lips finding the place just below Lucas’ ear. “I want that too. I love you too. I want you, in whatever way you’ll have me.”

Eliott is smiling and laughing and kissing Lucas’ face all over, any place he can reach.

“I want to be with you,” he says. “I want us to be together.”

“Together,” Lucas repeats, and so something new starts and something old continues.

And there will be talking later, plenty of it, because Lucas is determined to never let anything like the past year happen again. There will be discussions of logistics and moving forward and what they need from each other. But right now, in the golden haze of Eliott’s apartment, Lucas just wants to kiss Eliott, to hold him, and know that Eliott wants him too. It’s intoxicating, being desired, especially by the one person you’ve been longing for.

And even though Lucas will never admit it, there’s something, he thinks, to the idea that someone could share your soul, could be made of so much of that same stuff that it hurts to be away. Because the minute Eliott is his again, the ache in his chest disappears and he can breathe again.

And so it starts like this – on a bright Saturday afternoon in the middle of February, thirteen months, one week and five days after they broke up – Lucas and Eliott find each other again.

[quickdeaths]

It was obvious in the moment, from his flat expression to the way he spoke, that Hinata believed himself in some way superior to her. At another time, that might have been enough to set that cold anger of hers to blazing, but there were more important things to worry about, in Shinobu's eyes, than whether or not Hinata liked her. He'd failed to address her words honestly, and that was more offensive to her than a flat expression and a tone interpreted as mocking. Sonia may have requested her privacy, but the fact remained that had someone not gone to see her, she may have died, or been seriously injured.

Regardless, once they'd departed his cabin, Shinobu had nothing else to say to Hinata. There was something familiar in his attitude, loathsomely so. A detached disinterest in others, a spoken rationality pitched above other things, a sense of superiority that likely offered little comfort. If he was anything like Sonia or any of the others, likely there was some lingering self-loathing, as well. It all reminded her far too much of the adolescent Shinobu Yaguchi, a wretched little brat who suffered for all the wrong reasons and took responsibility for nothing. How boring.

"We don't need to talk, Hinata-san," they murmured once he'd finished his unnecessary speech. "You and I are not friends, and while I hold in my heart some care for the well-being and recovery of Miss Nevermind, Miss Pekoyama, Miss Owari, Tanaka-san, and the others, you don't really interest me at all aside from being useful." The words she spoke lacked quite the frigid venom of her younger self, but the cold intention wasn't altogether different. "You're far too busy to waste your breath, so I would ask that you save your pep talks for someone more inclined to receive them as intended." And of course, that he continue to be useful. To the others, if not to Shinobu herself.

Besides, there were better people for Hinata to talk to. He and Miss Tsumiki were clearly in positions to do actionable things, though Shinobu wasn't sure what Hinata actually would be good for, while Miss Kirigiri was important for her role in Future Foundation. Shinobu Yaguchi, a glorified soldier with no war left to fight, had little reason to be there, and so she lingered, a ghost, on the edges of conversation. A nod towards Miss Tsumiki after her explanation, a silent expression of gratitude, was as much as she could manage.

The light joking between Miss Kirigiri and Hinata was the crossed line. Perhaps they were simply a joyless, humorless husk after all, but Shinobu couldn't muster up much sense of levity in the situation, and so took the opportunity to slip outside with as little attention upon them as possible. Leaning against the outside wall seemed a faint bit more tolerable than leaning against an inside wall, and surely Miss Tsumiki wouldn't abide her smoking inside her hospital. Still, the evening air was cold, her fingers clumsy with both her lighter and the small grey box of Seven Stars before warming up.

"Smoking doesn't help you relax." It figured, Shinobu thought, that peace would elude her even in moments where she wanted quiet. "Your heart rate is already elevated from stress, and smoking further raises it, and your blood pressure. It isn't going to help you calm down." The voice was empathetic, helpful, and the hallucinations were only auditory, which Shinobu took as a blessing. Perhaps it was too difficult for her damaged psyche to guess at what she might have looked like, at the end. Or maybe, eventually, she'd forget her face altogether.

"I know. I'm sorry for disappointing you." The cigarette sat between her lips, warm in the night, a soft cloud of smoke spilling from her mouth. "I wish you'd have brought your medicine. It might have helped. That's all I ever wanted to do." Shinobu sighed. More guilt? As if Anzu wasn't enough, to be ambushed from another angle like this was as painful as it was, ultimately, unsurprising. Their body was held together with staples, duct tape, and Makoto Naegi's nebulous hope, and their mind wasn't much different.

"I pushed too hard and took advantage of your desire to help others. If I have to suffer the consequences for it now, I have no room to complain." Of course, she was right - the smoking wasn't helping. If anything, it was just making them more anxious. Shinobu fidgeted at her skull earring. "Besides, with how completely I was abusing everything, it's hard to guess at what was doing such damage to me. As long as I survived it, it was easier to quit everything than to try piecemeal solutions."

Her voice had more to say, but Shinobu forced herself not to listen. This one, at least, went away if she ignored it, and indulging in a conversation that felt more real than the ones with Anzu likely wasn't good for her long-term mental health. If all it did was dampen the enthusiasm for her cigarette, Shinobu supposed, she could consider that a fairly light punishment. Stamping it into the sand, they splashed a small amount of their perfume on their wrists and neck to mask the smoke scent, before returning inside.

She was the first into Sonia's room, while the others were still speaking outside. That was how she preferred it, so that she might speak to Sonia alone. There was a chair, stiff, unpleasant, but functional for her to sit in. Between the hour, the alcohol, and the stress of the moment, it seemed like Sonia may not have been in a position to fully engage in any conversation, but that was fine enough. "I'm sure I already know the answer, so I won't waste your time in asking how you're doing, Miss Nevermind." People who asked 'are you okay' in situations where the answer was obvious were aggravating.

Quietly, Shinobu adjusted their chair, moving closer to the hospital bed. "I know you and I don't know each other well, but if there's ever anything I can do for you, please ask it of me." Perhaps it was easier to say this sort of thing, knowing that Sonia may not entirely remember it, or might brush it off entirely. Cowardly though that was, it made it feel like less of a risk. "If speaking to your friends is too difficult, or too painful, or otherwise something you aren't willing or able to do, I..." She shook her head with a quiet sigh. To comfort someone or offer kindness, even only to attempt it, was so beyond their abilities, but what else could they do? Sonia wasn't doing well, in any sense of the word, and yet no one seemed to take that for how awful it really was.

"I'd prefer you talk to me, rather than keep things to yourself. If you're comfortable with it, that is." If it would be accepted, she would have liked to take her hand, but that seemed far beyond what could be done in this place, in this time, with these changes that had put distance between them more than Shinobu herself had once already done. "You have no reason to believe me, Miss Nevermind, I know, but I only want to see you well. If there's anything I can do to support you, I'd like to. Please." The others were coming in, so there wasn't much Shinobu could say even if she wanted to. She could only hope, then, that some part of her words had reached Sonia, and that she might, perhaps, consider them.

There were two problems, Hajime had figured out early on, when one was in possession of every talent: one, that person would always be in need somewhere. Repairing the pods, rebuilding cabins, fixing and completing tasks no one else could. And two, that person would forever be in possession of reading, of understanding, people far better than they understood themselves. It was a fine line, he realized, between bringing such things to their attention versus allowing them, with all of their human limitations, to discover it for themselves.

At nearly two in the morning, Special Agent Yaguchi was teetering on not being afforded the latter opportunity. Sleep, while he could operate on less than most, was still a necessity: and with a day of assisting Kazuichi in opening up Nekomaru's pod, replacing a roof with Akane, and helping Gundham haul various sacks of hay and grain, and other miscellaneous items for the farm that had arrived on the most recent ship, he was quite ready for his four to six hours of rest.

One that, as he tugged on a pair of clean trousers and a fresh shirt, Special Agent Yaguchi wasn't about to let him have. States of emergency were logical situations, ones that matters of the heart felt rather distant from. And his attempt at conversation with Gundham Tanaka earlier that day, a series of noncommittal huffs and hums with the occasional darkly whimsical reply that was neither here nor there, was enough for him to understand neither Gundham nor Sonia wanted to discuss what had happened. They asked for help when needed but otherwise both of them wanted to be left alone. It had been at Kazuichi's request that he initially look in on them both, but the aforementioned physical labor with Gundham and a tray left outside of Sonia's cabin had been the extent of Hajime's free time. He was talented, but he was only one man: one man who selfishly desired sleep and, to his annoyance, saw right through the member of the Future Foundation who glowered at him.

She was so easy to read, she was...boring, a descriptor he'd come to understand as insulting. Even if the Izuru Kamukura part of him felt it deserved to be mentioned as a fact of life, Hajime bit his tongue: he lived with one green and one red eye, and his eternal torment would be that they would be in constant conflict with each other. "Well, it is a relief that someone from the Future Foundation understands the pressures my friends and I are under," He replied. He hadn't said a word to her during her spiel: instead, he'd gently closed the door in her face, giving her the best unamused expression he could muster in his tired state before opening it again in the midst of buttoning his top two buttons. Now with a shirt, trousers, and shoes, he was in a slightly better state than pajamas to venture out towards the hospital. "If you understand that much and how we are all barely keeping this island running as-is, then your point to check in on Sonia seems to be a moot one. But to be fully transparent with you, Yaguchi, Sonia asked to be left alone and, work aside, we aren't all in the best states to give her the comfort and support she's looking for. Gundham either, for that matter. Thank you, though, for stepping in and bringing her to the hospital."

A thanks she likely wouldn't appreciate, he thought: from the way she spoke, to her tone, to the clenched and rigid stance. All of it, of Special Agent Yaguchi, pointed towards a fondness, an affection even, for Sonia Nevermind. How that had developed, Hajime couldn't be sure, and he wasn't entirely certain if Yaguchi realized it herself. But her concern came from a place far more personal than the part of the Future Foundation that believed in Makoto Naegi's ideals, and the former Remnants of Despair who now faced the near-impossible task of rebuilding both the world and their own lives.

"You know," He spoke up just as the lights of the hospital came into view across the bridge to the third island. "You weren't sent here for any specific Future Foundation assignment, if only because you devote yourself to random tasks and chores here and aren't asked to mentor any of us. You can create and fight for the future you want, in the Future Foundation or not. You've got the luxury of not being part of the Remnants of Despair, and thus you can go anywhere and do anything. Instead of being envious or wanting of any of us, why not just build the life you want? And if that's helping Sonia in some way unless she tells you otherwise, so be it: you're clearly concerned for her, Yaguchi. You can make that into a life's ambition."

For all of his talents, he didn't feel like it was his place to mention the likes of 'love.' If only because he'd lost his, right around the time Sonia had lost her best friend. The first few days out of the simulation had been harrowing for everyone involved, but it had been the two of them who had felt the loss of Chiaki Nanami the most. Something he tried not to think about as he entered the hospital lobby and found Kyoko Kirigiri sitting in one of the waiting area chairs.

"You took longer than I'd have expected," She murmured, clearly also exhausted. Being in command in Makoto's absence was taking its toll: she wasn't quite as full of hope and optimism as he was, though she did her best to keep any sharp-tongued retorts at bay. Frankly, Byakuya Togami did enough of that for everyone on the island and then some. "Mikan-san passed by nearly twenty minutes ago: by the wail from Sonia-san's room, I'd imagine she just removed the glass and is stitching the wound."

"Then there shouldn't be any remaining infection," Hajime sighed. The small bit of relief he'd be granted that night. "I'm sure Mikan has taken care of it. Still, she can't be moved back to her cabin like this. Not in the state it's in, according to Yaguchi: and we don't have the time to clean for her."

Upon hearing his praise, Mikan had nearly dropped the metal tin of soiled supplies. But the glass vials, needle, and thread rattled loud enough for both Kyoko and Hajime to look her way. "She's resting now!" She piped up, "But Sonia-san will still need an IV and she shouldn't be on her feet for awhile. It-It'll be worse in the next few days: she will experience withdrawal symptoms, from the alcohol and the drugs. It will likely be painful for her."

"And Togami-san has planned to meet with her tomorrow as-is, as part of their weekly mentorship sessions," Kyoko sighed, bringing one gloved hand up to pinch the space between her eyes in frustration. Her colleague rarely raised his voice to anyone, but the Queen of Novoselic brought out the best in him. Or the worst: it had been decided that he was the only one she couldn't persuade to see every situation her way. And while that was an asset, his bedside manner was all but non-existent while his expectations and standards of royalty, even disgraced royalty, was higher than most of the other Remnants.

"If I'm not going to be sleeping tonight, should I build a boxing ring for them?" Hajime retorted, his lips tugging to a slight smirk. The expression was enough for Mikan to flush pink as she looked over her shoulder at him, paying more attention to Hajime than the IV bag she was reaching for. "It might lessen the damage."

"Not to either of their prides, I don't think," Kyoko replied, stifling her own amusement. Because, for most of them, anyone putting Byakuya Togami in his place amongst mortals was entertaining enough. "But they probably shouldn't be left on their own for too long."

Neither should Sonia as an individual it seemed, as another high-pitched groan came from her room. "We can talk in her room," Mikan interjected, finally having set up the bag to take to Sonia. "A-as long as we use quiet tones. She needs a calm and healing environment, and while I provided anaesthetic to her foot it's not advisable to give her any other pain relievers right now. She needs fluids, and electrolytes, and rest and food when she's able."

[mittensmorgul]

Whenever I see a Dean+food post about how cute/funny it is that Dean is so food obsessed, it makes me sad because of course he’s focused on food, he starved as a child to feed his brother.

Aw, I get it. But before I get into that, apologies because I said I was gonna reply to this the other day, and then... didn’t do that >.> The timestamp thingy says it’s now been four five days since you sent this, and I’m sorry I didn’t get to reply sooner. I really wanted to give this the amount of mental attention it deserves, you know? Didn’t want to half-ass this one. :)

So let’s start with the cute/funny Dean and Food things, and then work our way to why it’s just so heartwrenching when you dig down a bit. Because Dean DOES love food. It’s one of the simplest little indulgent pleasures he’s ever allowed himself, and he does derive a great deal of joy from getting to enjoy the foods he loves. He turns up his nose at things he doesn’t enjoy, and sees little point to eating foods just because they’re “healthy” if they don’t also taste good, you know?

Contrast that to Sam whose issues with food have always been linked to health and “purity” because of HIS personal issues-- feeling “impure” or “unclean” because of what was done to him as an infant, even if he didn’t have a label or an explanation for those feelings until he was an adult. And that’s equally sad in its own right. I mean, look at the sort of stuff Sam gravitated toward as a child, the Froot Loops Dean capitulated and let him eat in 1.18, marshmallow nachos that Sully remembered were a favorite of his in 11.08, and Dean’s creative recipes for mac and cheese that included marshmallow fluff in 10.12. Sam definitely has a sweet tooth, even though he now chooses his options from the Healthy Food menu most of the time as an adult. It all goes toward his long-standing wish to be normal, to feel normal, to have some control over his own life and his own body.

Back to Dean... His issues with food are very different from Sam’s. Unlike Sam, Dean remembered bits of his life Before The Fire. He built up a mythology of those almost-five-years that wasn’t true to life, but idealized the things he did remember as Acts Of Love from his mother. Notice that almost all of his flashbacks and memories of his early life revolve around the kitchen, of Mary making him a sandwich or offering him some pie. Even though he later learned that Mary hadn’t actually cooked any of it herself, it wasn’t the “home cooking” that was important, but the sharing of food out of love. And this is something Dean did his very best, even as a very young child, to give Sam that sort of experience. There was very little he could do as a child himself to shield Sam and provide him any sort of “normalcy,” especially when we know just how insecure their ongoing relationship with food actually was, but as much as he could, Dean still tried to give Sam something “happy” even when it fell short of “healthy.”

Because for Dean, who last experienced this directly when he was FOUR YEARS OLD, food lovingly prepared and served = love. And that’s both wonderful and heartbreaking, you know?

I personally have a tendency to take happy things and find the sad in them, and vice versa. A post I added something to years ago and turned it sad, I commented something like “when we play headcanon roulette, sometimes everyone loses.” And that’s kind of how I feel about Dean vs. Food.

He both clearly derives genuine pleasure from food, while having such a complicated history with it that has its roots in both the most joyous and most painful memories of his entire lifetime. But the fact that he allows himself to have an ongoing mostly-positive relationship with food, to genuinely indulge in what he loves and squeeze every drop of joy out of a cheeseburger or a pie or a croissookie... whatever he eats, he treats it like it’s important and worthy of his attention. You rarely see him eat without that sort of focus and intent, you know? He’s determined to enjoy what he puts in his mouth.

Sort of the opposite of Sam, even as seen through 14.13 and “the Sam that would’ve been if Dean’s wish had stuck.” Rather joyless, yes? Austere? No matter what influence Dean tried to have over Sam’s experience of food, Sam is just... different, and finds his joy elsewhere. His eyes never light up over the prospect of an indulgent meal. I think in part because Sam never experienced that early childhood whiplash that Dean did, because Dean did everything in his power to shield Sam from the worst of it by sacrificing his own share, by means of theft or going hungry himself so that Sam wouldn’t have to.

This exchange in 4.04 is pretty telling... I mean, it was at a time when Sam was secretly dealing with his own “hunger” for demon blood and the power it brought him, even if we didn’t know this detail yet. But Sam’s reaction to this exchange is distinctly different from Dean’s, and it is an ongoing theme between them throughout the series:

SAM: No, we talk to him. Explain what's happening. That way he can fight it.TRAVIS: Fight it? [He laughs] Are you kidding me? You ever been really hungry?[This gets DEAN's attention, who's been looking at the papers SAM brought with him.]TRAVIS: I mean, haven't-eaten-in-days hungry?DEAN: Yeah.TRAVIS: Yeah. Right then. So somebody slaps a big, juicy sirloin in front of you, you walking away?[DEAN looks thoughtfull for a second and then admits "no" without words, only raising of eyebrows. He slowly looks over at SAM.]

Sam... doesn’t really get it. He’s never really experienced that sort of hunger the way Dean clearly has. Sure, we will see him devolve into that sort of hunger for demon blood over the season as he becomes addicted to it, but that’s always paralleled more to a drug addiction sort of hunger than an actual physical hunger in a food-sense of the word.

Typically when Sam and Dean are asked if they’re hungry over the course of the series, I can only think of ONE occasion where Sam replied “I’m starving.” And that’s after his soul was returned to him in 6.11. In 6.12, that’s his response. Every other time in all of canon, it’s a shrug, or an “eh, I could eat, I guess” type of response. There’s never any sort of personal emotional excitement about food the way Dean reacts.

So while the roots of Dean’s child-like joy in food are incredibly painful, he’s never let that tarnish his happiness at the prospect of a good meal. He’s never let his relationship with food sour into bitterness, and that does say an awful lot about Dean as a person, the way he demonstrates love for the people he cares about, and his own ability to experience such pleasure for himself, you know?

So it’s both sad as a reminder of the origin of it all, but also HOPEFUL, because as an adult, it’s probably the simplest and least complicated source of pleasure that Dean regularly allows himself. He knows what it’s like to go hungry, he knows what it’s like to struggle to provide for his loved ones, and as an adult now who isn’t beholden to people for their own survival and wellbeing, providing a good meal is a tactile demonstration of stability and security for him, in addition to a simple way to demonstrate his love for them without having to put it into so many words.

Both heartbreaking, and heartwarming. Depends on what direction you’re looking at it from, you know? You can only focus on the negative, or only focus on the positive, or you can choose to understand the whole of it and see how much it really tells us about Dean as a person. It’s complicated and messy, but there’s also a simple joy to be found there, and I think that’s why a lot of people just lean hard into that particular read. We want good things for Dean. We want him to experience joy more than heartbreak. And if a slice of pie or a family meal does that for him, then that’s what we hold on to.

[trashbag-usa]

i didn't even know that this was a ship before now but i love both of these egos and have a bunch of yandere ocs, so i felt like i came totally prepared to do this-

fun fact: I Was Wrong. I had to study the yansim videos Mark made so I had ANY IDEA what I was doing.

Yandereiplier goes by he/him pronouns in this!! Just letting y'all know bc it seems to me that's usually not the case!

Tw: kidnapping, general mild yandereiplier creepyness

~ ~

King was never the most..

Well, observant, of the egos.

He had quite the one-track mind, he was naive, he was trusting, unsuspecting.

Quite frankly, he was childish.

When King and Yandereiplier announced their relationship to the rest of the egos, to say everyone was shocked would be an understatement. They weren't sure what they expected out of those two, but it definitely wasn't this.

However, they wouldn't risk making them both aware of the strangeness of their relationship, especially not in front of Yandereiplier himself.

Don't be mistaken, they weren't scared of him, not most of them anyway. It would just be a chore to have to deal with Yan's constant murder plots and traps, it would be a distraction. They all have things to do, after all, and it was best the psychotic ego was kept preoccupied by his new "Senpai".

That didn't stop some of them from trying to warn King about his current position.

King didn't take much heed of the cautious words, this was Yandereplier they were talking about after all! King knew him for years! He was an absolute cupcake!

Of course, he could be a little clingy, a bit jealous sometimes, but that's just how he was! He certainly wasn't as scary as, say, Darkiplier or Warfstache. Even Bim Trimmer was more threatening than Yan!

Yan was just a bit.. What's the word?

Right, possessive, that's it. Nothing he couldn't handle!

At least, that's what he thought.

-

King awoke to a pounding headache.

Maybe he fell out of a tree and got knocked out again? Dr. Iplier always tried to warn him about how many concussions a man can get in a day.

But he couldn't feel blades of grass against his cheek, or even even summer wind cooling him. In fact, he didn't think he was even laying down.

He tried to move only to, well, not.. Do that.

Eyes fluttered open to dim light, flickering like-.. Fire? Candles..?

Yes, those were absolutely candles.

It took a minute for his eyes to adjust to what very little lighting there was, but while he waited to assess his surroundings, maybe he could try assessing his.. Situation.

He groggily attempted once more to stand from the seated position he was in, only to feel something keeping him stuck by his wrists.

Looking down, he could tell it was rope.

He was tied to a chair.

That woke King up almost immediately, eyes wide with shock and fear as he began to wiggle and struggle in his binds, kicking his feet only to find that they were tied down as well.

In his panic, his eyes shot around the room, eyes having since adjusted to the dark, searching for some sort of explanation or just a sign of where he even was.

Then, he caught it.

Plastered across the walls, almost too far from the candlelight to see, were pictures, photos and posters.

All of him.

Of King cavorting with his subjects, running across the yard and along the park, climbing up trees, slathering peanut butter on his face, all taken from afar, with him completely unaware in every photo.

His first instinct was to scream, to shriek as loud as he could, to run away. But fear seized his throat, he could hardly steady his breathing, he couldn't speak, he couldn't even whimper.

He opened and closed his mouth wordlesslly, only managing a shocked gasp before his ears picked up the telltale metallic jiggling and click of a doorknob, one far out of sight.

The door slowly opened and light floaded the room, falling on him like a spotlight. An excited, lilting voice called out from the shadows.

"SENPAI! You're awake~!"

King's stomach twisted in realisation.

There Yandereiplier stood, silhouetted and rocking on his heels with a wide grin as he flicked the lights on, making it even more undeniable who was behind all of this.

After all, he was right before his eyes.

King felt himself shaking as Yan smoothed down his skirt and skipped over with a giggle, leaning down to be eye level with his trapped boyfriend.

King watched on with wide eyes, feeling as though his heart was about to jump out of his throat, swallowing those emotions down as he forced words from his mouth.

"Yannie, what's, um.." A slight chuckle left him without permission as he tried to speak, voice laced with nervousness. "What's all of this..? What's g-going on?"

Yandere only smiled wider, standing straight as he reached out to cup King's cheeks.

"Oh, this? Well, we've been together for a couple months now, and I was thinking we'd take this relationship to the next level!"

"Soooo," he trailed off with a singsongy tone, before his cheerful expression dropped entirely, eyes cold and joyless.

"I'm making sure no one can lay their eyes on you again. Nobody can get that right except for me.

You're aaaaall MINE." He hummed, voice guttural and deep.

King felt those words chill him to the bone, a shiver running down his spine as Yan stared down on him quietly.

After a few seconds of anxious silence, Yan's grin returned.

"Isn't that right, Senpai, darling, sweetheart~?"

King could bearly comprehend what was happening, he couldn't even start thinking of a response before Yan began speaking again.

"I am absolutely ecstatic! We've got a nice, comfy bedroom, you're in your nice, comfy chair, aaaaall tied up in nice, comfy rope.. I'm sorry I didn't get here soon enough, by the way..

You probably panicked without me here! Oh, I missed you soooooooo much, Senpai~!"

Yan hopped into King's lap, legs hooking around his waist as his hands both rested against his lovers shoulders.

“How about a kiss, my soulmate?” He purred.

King just sat and blinked for a moment before he snapped back into reality. He leaned in with hesitation rolling off of him in waves, pressing his lips against Yan's.

Yan pulled him closer. King hoped that if he complied, maybe Yan would let up, but his grip only got stronger, his presence even more suffocating.

Yan soon pulled away, peppering King's face in kisses with sporadic, manic laughter.

"Oh, this is so PERFECT! We only need each other.. We're going to get MARRIED! We'll have so, so, SOOOOOO many babies!

And we'll be together forever, and ever, and ever, and eeeeeever~.."

Yan pulled King's head to his chest, nuzzling into him and squeezing him painfully tight. He buried his nose into King's messy hair and inhaled deeply, sniffing until properly breathing was near impossible, but oxygen deprivation was no concern for him.

He's lightheaded enough as it is!

Yan curled up in his precious Senpai's lap, letting out a contented sigh.

He could swear he could feel King's chest trembling, something wet and warm dripping onto his face.

Was he crying?

Oh well, they must have been tears of joy. After all, his Senpai loved him and he loved his Senpai!

Why would he be upset?

"I love you so much, baby~." He muttered happily, eyes fluttering shut.

King forced down the urge to let out a sob, forcing a smile as he anxiously gripped the armrests he was tied to.

"..I love you too, Yan."

[ratherhavetheblues]

KELLY REICHARDT’S ‘WENDY AND LUCY’

© 2018 by James Clark

The truest way to the heart of Kelly Reichardt’s film, Wendy and Lucy (2008), may turn out to be its penultimate moment. This was not always my approach, as a reading of the Wonders in the Dark blog from February 15, 2012—A Dangerous Devotion: Lars von Trier’s “Dancer in the Dark” and Kelly Reichardt’s “Wendy and Lucy”—would show. There I was intent upon engaging the protagonists of each work having risked everything (like Joan of Arc) for the sake of getting to the bottom of a dilemma unfortunately even beyond their very alert and brave powers. What, specifically, drives such souls to the brink of destruction?

There are ways of taking a closer look at the phenomenon, and Wendy and Lucyshows the way. Like Mouchette, a classic film figure under heavy fire, Wendy can no longer stand her emotionally violent, Midwestern blue-collar family and neighbors and their Rust Belt home base spanning Muncie and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Unlike Mouchette, the famous waif, she does not choose suicide as a meaningful change (nor is she destined to be immortalized by a forum of movie buffs). She hits the road with 500 dollars in savings from unspecified jobs, and a clunker supposedly capable of reaching that land of fool’s gold, Alaska. (Where others dream of gold, she—speaking volumes—dreams of a job in a cannery which, at least, does not resemble Indiana.) However, she does also bring a stunningly vast fortune in the form of her golden retriever, Lucy (a born retriever of buried treasures).

Right from the get-go we know Wendy will precipitate some kind of screw-up. Getting to that late and primary revelation mentioned above, there is Lucy in the back yard of a suburban Portland, Oregon, home, having become a foster-home for her as the upshot of Wendy’s jail time for shoplifting. (Perhaps before beginning with that end of their era together, in that tranquil yard, we should notice that, in the course of Wendy’s return to freedom she distributes posters including a photo, around the area where Lucy was last seen. “I’m lost!” the tag-line runs. When Mouchette is confronted in a forest by a figure suspicious about her intent, she defends herself by blurting out, “Lost, Sir! Lost!” The truly lost, Wendy, having found where her beloved had landed, proceeds there to confirm her incurable lostness. (And Lucy proceeds to confirm her genius.) The subversion of mainstream sentimental film reunions here is an important gift.

Wendy first sees Lucy gazing at a flock of seagulls circling her new and possibly very short-term yard. Calling out to her and saying, “You miss me, Lu?” Wendy passionately clings to the chain-link fence. Lucy forgets the seagulls and rushes to the only familiar aspect of a life having undergone a shock we never fully see, this being a remarkable hallmark of Reichardt’s narratives. “I’m sorry, Lu,” is a recognition that Wendy sees her friend as having smashed out the cliché ceiling where jerks come up smelling of roses in the hands of infinite forgiveness. “I know… I know, Lu” the wanderer emotes. But does she in fact comprehend that when, at the entrance of the grocery store she was about to rip off (after not entirely sincere calming kisses and caresses), Lucy could read her friend’s being a disappointment as spiked by, after Lucy’s desperate barking a warning, undergoing Wendy’s marching up to the leashed-secured companion, clamping down her snout and angrily telling her, “Don’t be a nuisance! I don’t need that?”

The beginning of Lucy’s painful realization that she doesn’t need the felon includes the frenzy on seeing her partner brought back to the store by a clerk and then taken away in a squad car (all the more disturbing in never seeing the back-door departure while left to puzzled and desperate staring at the front door). However, the generally supposed-to-be dull-one’s real struggle is left for us to reconstruct. As now newly composed, Lucy listens to Wendy’s solicitude and her heart is both joyous and something else, very hard to undergo. “Don’t be mad, Lu… Here, I got you this!” [a stick, to fetch]. She throws it toward where the seagulls were. “Such a good catch! Drop it! Good dog! Good girl!”  Lu happily plays, with old-time and not old-time energy. (Lucy’s flagging and once prominent lodestar [with funds having dwindled by way of the shoplifting fine, the car disposal and a theft/ assault in the woods] had become a lachrymose spent force like Mouchette; while Lucy had become a form of another cinema figure—unforgettable to a choice clientele—namely, Baltazar, the donkey, carelessly regarded as “The Mathematical Donkey.”) “I’m sorry, Lu,” is followed with a defeated cry. “I lost the car…” comes next, followed by the rather hasty, wishful thought, “That man seems very nice…” Suddenly it’s, “You be good…  I’m gonna make some money, and I’ll be back! OK, Lu, be good…”

How good Lucy could be in face of that collapse requires inference about how she weathered the abandonment. After Wendy’s release, she looks for Lucy at the pound. Though she comes up empty, we can imagine her dog going through the fear and depression seen in all the inmates on hand. We can imagine Lucy’s sense of being ripped away from not only a person of great interest but the infrastructure by which they had been sustained. Missing the interpersonal love intrinsic to that stemming would not be the end of Lucy’s heavy reflections. The moment of their kiss and caress through the fence out in the suburbs, fathoming how much is left and how much is gone, offers a wider range of action whereby other entities (seagulls, for instance; and the sea itself) offer creative love more resilient than that of Wendy.

From that perspective, accessible only to those who, with passions unstinting, beat back lostness, Wendy’s way of concluding the interplay is far more breathtaking and chilling than any gun battle. The intensity of this kinship should not be allowed to filter down as a sentimental highlight of melodramatic, advantage-addicted presences bending to the dubious powers of physics, religion and morality. Wendy, by and large, seems common and flighty. But, as we are about to investigate and define, her awkwardness and suspicion (and responsiveness to generosity) stem from an aristocratic spell. She does not cherish many others of her species for the very good reason –but too bluntly rendered—that they are far more remote from her energies than Lucy.

In the subsequent Reichardt film, Meek’s Cutoff (2010), Emily (played by actress, Michelle Williams, who also puts Wendy on the map) sees her real world shrink to one American Indian heading for the hills without her. She had considerably come to the point of being enraptured, from which to chart a difficult and seldom seen course. Here it is Lucy who sustains what Emily is about to undergo, while Wendy more closely approximates Emily’s game but uninspired husband, Solomon. While Wendy was spinning her wheels to little effect, Lucy was bringing lucidity to the matter, lucidity in the sense that effective love requires effective hate. That shocker, in the context of a sweet pup, requires incisive explanation. Creatures great and small, as our film makes efforts to highlight, find themselves intent upon many objectives. But their most remarkable action, namely, participating along with creativity itself (mustering the energy to complete its presence) is not widely accomplished among humankind. Wild creatures, including pets more fluent with carnality and its paradoxes, put together far better numbers of this sort. Though much of the world’s humans hunker down in finalities seeming to them consummate, from the perspective of that other way (being about kinetic coordination, rather than a stand) there comes to pass a state of impasse massively hindering forward momentum. By the same token, wild creatures (including some humans) feel at war; but also—through agencies of daring and reflection—a kind of peace. As the reservoir of coming to grips with impasse veers to more sanguine areas, there is the possibility of oscillating overtures amongst the options, especially in the syntheses of blithe percolation, increasingly putting heat on the opposition by attractive ways careening (like happy wolves) as part of a delicate wolf pack. Thereby, the problematicness of such a pragmatic inertia, never to be dislodged, can paradoxically flourish in ways integral to a cogent primordiality.

The power of the scene where Lucy and Wendy go their separate ways derives from that unique, compelling infrastructure. Such a smash-up, between those who have travelled where so many haven’t, elicits a post-mortem (where no one has actually died) for the sake of casting light upon a skill with consequences far beyond domestic viability. When it comes to breathing down Wendy’s neck to discern what’s the matter, we can begin by availing ourselves of Reichardt’s previous film, Old Joy (2006), where a couple of incompatible guys waste the beauties of rural Oregon and spend a bonfire night worsening their intrinsic depressiveness. In the course of Wendy’s joyless playing fetch-a-stick with Lucy where we first see them along a forested path in Oregon, the retriever stumbles upon a tribe of runaways spending the night around a bonfire. Actor, Will Oldham, who, in Old Joy, joylessly goes through the motions of play with the dog of the hour—Lucy, in fact—comes back to haunt Wendy and Lucy as once again a nocturnal presence proud of making a statement against those who work with a will. A (strategically significant) responder to Lucy’s neglect—an unwashed young girl with a large ring through one nostril and looking more affectionate than Wendy—readily becomes the leading light, eclipsing the loudmouth (Icky), though another boy, weighted down with a sense of his own errancy, also outperforms the medicine man. Wendy eventually comes into the picture, a picture of wanting to be somewhere else. She—a mixture of shyness and mistrust—divulges her travel plan, which prompts Lucy’s new friend to call out, “Hey. Icky, this lady’s going to Alaska!” That sets off Wendy’s having to hear the know-it-all recommend a company to work for (later we see her jotting down the particulars), without any recognition that she has anything in common with him. Increasing the alienation is Icky’s follow-up boasting about totaling a two-hundred-thousand-dollar earth mover there, when stoned, of course (Oldham’s playing the part of a stoner, in Old Joy). “They couldn’t pin it on me… I was gone!”) Her rather brittle body language here is a case of being all to the good and yet all to the bad. Before Lucy rushes ahead to that intriguing underworld, there is a play of twilight in the trees, smudges of vivid color—forming a dynamic incentive leaving Wendy far behind.

Following directly upon that wake-up call where a bonfire has a hard time priming Icky and Wendy toward some semblance of viability, there is Wendy’s parking her car on a quiet street; and a blurry pink figure, due to car and house lights springs, up by her window. “Sleep, girl,” she tells Lucy; but wakening is the keyword. Next morning our protagonists are wakened by a security officer, who informs her, “You can’t sleep here, Ma’am…” Almost simultaneously, a pigeon flashes skyward by that same window touched the night before. Its joining the patterns of exhortation constitutes a final bon voyage before Wendy’s limitations take over.

Her malaise and hard eyes in spying at the periphery of Icky’s campsite, before joining Lucy being treated well, bespeak more fear than alertness. The prompt death of her car (an Accord, of all things) while being told by the officer to move it sends her into an anxiety attack hardening into crude defensiveness. That same morning of ignition not happening brings the revelation that Lucy’s food bag contains 10 small kibbles. Rather than dip into her puny war chest to care for her partner, we have Lucy on a tight leash and Wendy scavenging for bottles and cans (an occupation of Oldham’s Kurt, in Old Joy). In their constriction (Lucy on the lookout for anything edible on the ground), Wendy ties her friend to a fixture at a strip mall while she goes off to a public washroom. She brushes her teeth, gives herself a sponge bath (attending to an injury at her Achilles heel) and fills a bottle with water; but Lucy does not become a beneficiary of that exercise, exposing how patently hopeless the master of rugged and woozy individualism amounts to. On the other hand, with the lady going to Alaska chewing on some nondescript scrap and Lucy at a loss to find even a scrap, their peril, pain and stoicism disclose that this is no mere folly but an enduring and profound love, however disastrous.

The dead car having changed a rout into a massacre, Wendy attempts to shoplift a can of I AMS (and sundry snacks), and the young stock boy who intercepts her proves to be an instance of all she hates and carelessly hopes to hide from. (The shoplifting scene in Greta Gerwig’s film, Lady Bird [2017], where two young check-out girls regard the effort as a laughable farce, seems to be more Icky than Wendy—a somewhat inadvertent underlining of how uniquely pitched our film has been composed.) The clerk may be a schoolboy part-timer, but his rhetorical apparatus, as fortified by a crucifix, comes to us as redolent of a fanatical opportunism able to override the far more rounded and easy-going manager. So well on top of her subject, Reichardt endows the moralist with a voice recalling smug Eddy in Leave It to Beaver; and also Kurt in Old Joy and Icky in our film today. Not leaving the experience with that, she shows us that Wendy herself has little trouble slipping into that murder-inciting register. “Excuse me, Ma’am? I think you’re forgetting something…” More an Inquisition than a secular mishap, Andy, the born cop, impressively hounds his boss, Mr. Hunt, who had begun with the modulated outlook, “OK, well, what are we talking about here?” Having nothing to do with grey zones, the upstanding choir boy invokes an egalitarian axiom being hard to deny. “The rules apply to everyone equally.” With the can of I Ams on the desk as Exhibit A, the clean-up drive puts forward another indubitable truth, “If a person can’t afford dog food, they shouldn’t have a dog.” Wendy, who had only too quickly put out the fabrication that she was intending to pay for the loot after checking on how her dog, tied outside, was doing (far worse, in fact, than Wendy was able to comprehend), expertly directs her smarts and phony sincerity to the generous motives of Mr. Hunt. “I’m very sorry… This isn’t going to happen again…” (The frenzy, despair and hopelessness of Lucy, on seeing her being ushered back in, comprising what we can imagine to be far from a unique error.) Andy presses on, with, “The food is not the issue. It’s about setting an example, right?” Wendy’s being as annoying a sophist as Andy kills any hope she might have had. “I’m not from around her, so I couldn’t be an example…” This brings Hunt to say, “We have a policy, Ma’am.”

Film stories about troubled humans and their dogs seem to invite the clientele to an evening of strong feelings everyone can easily appreciate. Wendy and Lucyis a film far from easy to fathom. In their first walk seen together, after a rather routine fetch-and-drop ramble, Lucy upgrades to that remarkably rough-hewn young girl who, when Wendy finally catches up, tells her, “Great dog!” [greatness being measured not by looks but by another kind of presence]. Learning of her name, the nomad declares happily, “You’re a sweetheart, Lucy!” What she sees, even if she can’t begin to explain it, is depth. She asks Wendy about Lucy’s breed, not as if it matters. The question catches the owner only half-listening, “I don’t know… a mix of hunting dog and retriever…” That verbal fumble becomes one of a series of sloppy assertions in Reichardt’s films, exposing the speaker as lacking articulative grip but unable to admit any shortfall in mastery within a troubling preoccupation. (Propped upon that bemusing skid, there is the nearly magical dialectic of hunt and retrieve, the “greatness” of which Wendy misplays and Lucy embraces.) Another form of elegant and ironic composition comes our way here in the form of a reprise of hugging Lucy, this time by Wendy. On realizing that collecting empty drink containers is not going to fit the bill, Wendy, outside the grocery store, performs a preamble to theft she has repeated frequently. She, too, caresses Lucy, and Lucy, as with the person the night before not having any ulterior motives, licks her face, always having been on the lookout for Wendy being as heartfelt as herself. Why would the supposedly advanced discernment need to prepare the lower form toward passivity, unless the latter has been treated to Wendy’s dark side, again and again? (Here, once again, the Shirley Temple, Depression Era concomitants of this duo lead first only to the shattered, for the sake of harder and deeper gifts.) “Don’t bother anyone, OK?” is the remarkably cynical patter on account of providing for her dear one’s breakfast. Lucy begins to wail and swish her tail fiercely in a vain gesture to make the coming outrage devolve to some kind of creative lift. Wendy turns back in anger and scolds, “What did I say?” She clamps Lucy’s snout and we wonder at the crude hysteria by which she would suppose to attain to innovative distinction.

After paying the $50 fine, Wendy returns to the scene of the crime and the scene of the end of her partnership. The bus that drives her there (a conduit of freedom) contains an ad which runs, “It’s not too late to sleep like a baby.” That seems the right time to attend to the sizeable unemployment and poverty constituency at that moment of truth. Having scandalized so many other expectations, this film is very apt to transcend political and moral bromides. All the scavengers flocking about the bottle returns depot are unfailingly gracious. When Wendy, seeing fit to retire from that trade after an hour or so, contributes to the cache of a man in a wheelchair, he describes her generosity as “cool.” Right from that first walk, ending with Icky and associates having more in common with the scavengers than marauders, a murmuring, lullaby motif of a woman’s voice wafts over moments of promise. Accordingly, it comes to light during the first moments of her bottles pick-ups. Its maintaining a sensuous balance, where imbalance so overtly threatens, combines with Lucy’s vigorous command of emotions (and capacity to be still) to expose sleeping-like-a-baby inertia as decadence, not accomplishment. Wendy, for all her gross incompetence, has had the drive to leave Rust Belt Fort Wayne. But choosing an extravagant (“cool”) destination she clearly cannot afford, from the points of view of money and maturity, leaves her floundering in distraction and melancholy similar to the casualties of the defunct saw mill which pushed a modicum of self-confidence to the total loss of such a state. (There is a startling and thrilling cinematic delivery apropos of this vale of anxiety. The district repair shop is closed for Sunday and a dispirited Wendy cups her hands to the shop’s window to see its interior free of reflection. In Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go [2010]—where a “Miss Lucy” is fired from her teaching job for siding with school children having been being bred for body parts—the schoolgirl protagonist and her friends cup their hands to a travel bureau window in order to ascertain that an employee within is the mother [the “origin”] of the doomed protagonist.)

Two other fixtures of that Portland exurb are the grandfatherly Walgrens parking lot minder who is mindful of Wendy; and a demented, self-pitying and rather far-seeing thief who steals about half of her meagre liquid assets. The man who said a mouthful when he said, “You can’t sleep here, Ma’am,” does in fact demonstrate alertness to Wendy’s predicament and that of those meek undead. Though he never deals with Lucy, the parking monitor functions in this distressed-dog movie the way Edmund Gwenn calms the maelstrom in Lassie Come Home (1943). Here, once again, good-will folk wisdom and cliched expectation in the foreground are no match for that nature in the background which Reichardt knows to be paramount. In response to Wendy’s counting on the local pound to eventually produce a Lucy Come Home, the Gwenn figure recommends the more active strategy (seemingly proven in his family history) of leaving on the ground items of her clothing to induce the missing loved-one to the happy fate befalling Lassie. Her departure from him includes his gift of a few dollars, all he can spare on a minimum wage salary, while making sure his granddaughter (having a body language in league with Andy) doesn’t see what is transpiring. (Just before that, we found Wendy angrily stalking about, demanding Lucy to appear and stop spoiling her excellent life. She catches up with Andy, being picked up by his mother after work, and punk-style, howls, “Have a great night, OK? Your son’s a real hero! [“Lucy! Come now!”].) A sweetheart, like Gwenn; but careful not to disrupt mainstream family priorities. Gwenn’s independence as a tinker provides food for thought. Waiting for news of Lucy, Wendy—perhaps feeling the need to do justice to the greenery she has denied herself—thinks to spend a night in the forest nearby the train tracks, where a golden patch of foliage only slightly steadies her. But her bid for bracing solitude exposes her to, like so many other of her overtures, a down side of the open road. The soporific aura of that hard-luck, wrong-side-of-the-tracks constituency seems to confirm her assumption that risk inheres in a field readily and quite pleasantly consumed. With her elderly friend (spending numbing days standing on the dead cement, and counting it a great improvement over his previous all-night job), she hears him declare, “It’s all fixed!” [needing a job to find a job]. “That’s why I’m going!” [to another type of numbing]. Suddenly highlighting the meaning of true risk is a predator who tells her, “Don’t look at me!” as he loots that portion of her money she hasn’t kept in her money-belt. The real plus of this episode consists in the sociopath very closely seeing-eye-to-eye with Wendy. “I don’t like this place… It’s the fuckin’ people that bother me… I’m out here trying to be a good boy, but they don’t want to let me… They treat me like having no rights… They can smell the fear… Fuck! I killed more than 700,000 people with my bare hands! Fuck if I know!”

“They can smell the fear,” is a brief sentence presiding over many horrific missteps. (Lucy can smell the fear.) In the aftermath of the car trouble, Wendy calls back to Indiana and her sister and her sister’s husband, on the vague supposition they might be interested in her troubled life to date. The far more sanguine husband picks up the call and kindly listens about the end of the vehicle. “It’s kinda bad here, actually…” “What does she want us to do about that?” the sister loudly asks, being like one of those the invader imagines killing with his bare hands. Wendy comes back with, “I don’t want anything,” [from the likes of you]. But countenancing the likes of her—and him—makes, as Lucy knows, more sense than going to Alaska. As with the complaining mugger and the whole town, it seems (and maybe the whole planet), vividly addressing sleeping babies seems to be a forgotten, or perhaps never found, skill. (Andy’s rabidity being merely a variant of falling prey to a gigantic creative exigency no one wants to pay the cost of.)

Lucy, on the other hand, has shown us what succeeding-to-thrive looks like. (A recent Time magazine expose, of the very smart and the very workaholic hogging material wealth, prescribes ways of letting others in on that rational advantage binge. That would be way down the track where Lucy thrives.) Wendy hops a freight going North, and as she slouches on the floor with a scowl on her face she looks out at the countless conifers (the most primordial trees), pulled along like toffee, into a mysterious weave by the speeding train. Lucy, too, is carried along, by the vicissitudes of foster care. Wendy is crushed by the countless obstacles. Lucy, by her own lights, knows of a fluid, mysterious range she is acute enough to recognize as being her real home. Lucy Come Home.

[euphxmia-pxtter-blog]

Changing (a Jily fanfic)

James heaved a sigh, reclining on his bed and covering his face with his hands. It was late in the evening, after a busy day of O.W.L. testing and outdoor conflict. Two of his roommates were still down at dinner, but he'd been tired and his third roommate wanted to study, for some bizarre reason. "You really shouldn't have jinxed him, James." The black-haired boy lowered his hands to look at the speaker. /'You really should have spoken up sooner, Remus,'/ he almost snarked, but he bit back the comment. It wasn't fair, he knew. It wasn't his friend's job to control him. Instead, the look he fixed his brunet roommate with was serious. "I know that, Moony, I always know." He sat up, leaning forward to emphasize his words. "Dark magic, Moons. That's what he's into. He always goes on about being best friends with Evans or whatever, but before today I'm pretty sure she was the only muggleborn in the school he hadn't called 'mudblood' at least once. All that blood purity bullshit, and and a ton of seriously evil magic! That guy is /swimming/ in the Dark Arts, and it just drives me up the damn wall." It was Remus's turn to sigh. "I know. Believe me, I've got no love for the little slimeball, but it's not worth the trouble. There are more like him, loads more, and hexing the shit out of one greasy punk won't stop them from going around talking about dirty blood- muggles, half-breeds...." James felt a strong twinge of guilt. "Ah, Moony, I'm sorry. Sometimes I forget how directly this stuff affects you, and I really shouldn't." Remus shook his head. "It's alright, I get it. They tend not to mention /my/ kind at all unless something actually happened, whereas they're always out jeering about 'mudbloods' and the plague of nonmagical blood running in wizard veins." James shrugged. "Still." "If the futility of your actions isn't a significant enough motivator, how about how your darling redhead obsession will never fancy you if you keep acting like an arrogant git your whole life." James raised his eyebrows, smirking now. "Now, that wasn't very nice." "I count it as constructive criticism," Remus informed him. "Calling me an arrogant git is constructive?" "If it helps convince you to be less of one, then I'd say yeah." They looked at each other for a moment. Then James let out another heavy breath and slumped back onto his pillows. "Maybe," was his only further comment. __________ Fifth year had been long. Long and hard and exhausting, for a myriad of reasons. The schoolwork, of course, was harder leading up to O.W.L.s. There was more homework, too. Plus there was that pesky minor incident of her best friend of over five years calling her a racial slur in front of a crowd of people. Oh, and the ongoing torture of sharing a House with James Potter. It was over now, though. It was the last night of the school year, and then she'd be boarding the train home, away from mountains of assignments and ex-best friends and messy-haired assholes. Just one more night. And like every last night of the year in Gryffindor, there was a party going on. It was loud- the room pulsed with music partially covered by the chattering of all Lily's Housemates. She herself had never much liked the chaos of these things, but she did like the songs and the food and dancing with her friends. She danced until her feet hurt too badly to continue and then pushed aside some legs to collapse onto a couch chair. Her eyes swept the room absently, passing over all the familiar faces. When they passed one face, though, they stopped. For a moment, Lily had no idea why. It was just Potter, sitting and talking to Black like always. Except it /wasn't/ like always, because despite the raging party around them, Potter's face was solemn, without humor. His hand was on Black's shoulder, and he was uttering something that looked like reassurances of some kind, only it was too loud to hear for sure. Still not really sure why she cared, Lily strained her ears and managed to pick up some of the words. "...if you keep your head down and avoid the both of them," he was saying. "I hate you going back there to those vile, evil monsters posing as parents, but I swear I'll get you out as soon as possible. You know our door's always open, and my mum has been waiting for an excuse to kick Walburga's ass." Black grinned, but only weakly. "I don't want to be a bother, with all my complaining and-" "Padfoot, not another word out of you. We've been over this. They're still scars if they're on the inside. You're valid, you're my brother, and you're coming to live with us as soon as possible. Understood?" "Yes, sir," Black said with a small chuckle. Lily leaned back in her chair, staring at her hands and trying to seem like she hadn't heard. The words looped in her mind. Clearly, Black had home issues- maybe severe ones. Naturally, Lily did care about this, but she was at the moment more intrigued by Potter's response. The boy hadn't attempted a single joke or made light of the situation. His speech was joyless, even passionate in its anger. When Lily had risked quickly looking at the pair of Marauders, she'd caught a glimpse of fire in the eyes behind the glasses. It was strangely familiar and took a second to place.... Ah, that was it. She'd seen him look at Severus like that before. Not when he had an audience, when he was mocking Severus at wandpoint, but other times, when probably he thought no one could see. It was an equal blend of hatred, disgust, and outrage. It was the kind of glare that, if ever turned on Lily, she felt would vaporize her. And she wondered about that look. The words, /It's more the fact that he exists,/ played in her mind, but for the first time, she considered they they might have been false. If Potter equated Severus with Black's apparently abusive parents, maybe that explained some of his behavior. /Not/ that she planned on forgiving him. __________ He had to be joking. He /had/ to be joking. What was Slughorn thinking, assigning her as Potter's tutor? This was all Lily had been able to think about all day, and it may even have led her to fail a Charms quiz. Damn Potter. At the time, she'd been too shocked to argue about her placement. She'd just nodded and, in a very dull voice, arranged to meet back in the Potions classroom after all the other classes let out for the day. But later the frustration kicked in. Why, oh why, did these things always happen to her? At the end of the day, after a brief trip to her dormitory to change out of her school robes, she headed toward the designated meeting area. She had a little while, she figured, because James Potter was always late. When she opened the door, however, he was already there. It seemed he'd had the same idea about changing, because he was in jeans, ripped at the knee, and a faded t-shirt for a wizarding band called Owl Chase. There was something else, too. She guessed he heard the door open, because he looked up immediately, but his expression was one she was not used to seeing on him. In fact, she may never have seen it at all. The great James Potter looked... nervous. He gave a sort of half-smile. "Fancy meeting you here, Evans." She glared. She didn't have time for his ridiculous sense of humor. To her surprise, he immediately stopped and looked away. Their eyes didn't meet again until she sat down beside him. "Alright, let's get this over with. We're working on the Draught of Plagued Dreams today, right? Page 362." She walked him through each step of the potion, stopping mistakes before they could happen. She avoided any idle conversation, avoided looking at him when she could help it. But whenever she did glance up, she couldn't help but notice things. In complete contrast to Potter's normal behavior, his eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, and he tapped his foot anxiously on the floor. He made a lot of mistakes, or would have if she hadn't stopped him. It seemed, mostly, that his attention wavered whether he wanted it to or not. When she prevented him from over-stirring a third time, he muttered, "Not very good at this, am I?" Lily was taken aback. Hearing self-doubt from Potter was like hearing words of praise for muggleborns from Avery and Mulciber- she never thought she'd live to see the day. She was so surprised that she answered automatically: "No, you're not so bad." He immediately looked up from the cauldron, seeming shocked. After an awkward pause, he stuttered, "Th-thanks," and went back to work. What on earth was going on today? When, two hours later, they finished the potion successfully, Potter practically jumped to his feet. He put all the ingredients back in the cupboard faster than Lily thought possible. When he finished, he briefly met eyes with Lily and actually gave a small bow. Then, as if realizing what he'd just done, he bolted from the room. Lily was left, still sitting at the table, staring out the door after him and trying to process all that had happened. __________ James figured he must be getting old. That had to be it, the only explanation for his behavior. Why else would he choose /not/ to jinx Snape? Why else would he /help/ him?! It started when another boy- Ravenclaw, James thought- tripped Snape in the hallway. The greasy-haired boy lurched forward and crashed to the ground, dropping all of his books, quill, and the ink bottle he was carrying, which of course broke, soaking everything in dark violet ink. James winced. That was never what you wanted to happen to you on a Monday morning... or any other time, honestly. James glanced at Sirius, standing beside him. The long-haired boy was grinning, starting to step forward and reach into his pocket. James knew he was running through jinxes in his mind, deciding which one to use. He felt an unfamiliar squeeze in his stomach. He didn't understand the feeling at all, but it made him put up a hand to stop Sirius's advance. He reached instead for his own wand, and Snape's eyes widened in fear. /'I'm not going to hurt you, idiot,'/ James thought. Instead, he simply repaired the broken bottle and used a new spell he'd found recently to siphon all the ink off of the books and return it to its container. He crouched down to help gather up the books, but Snape, frozen in shock up to this point, suddenly came to his senses and jerked his belongings away, taking off back down the hallway with a furious glare over his shoulder. Apparently the shame of being aided by James Potter was worse than the shame of being tripped and soaked in ink. James glanced up when Snape's back was out of sight. Sirius was rolling his eyes. Remus, on his other side, eyed him questioningly. James shrugged in response. Peter, for his part, actually clapped. Trying to act normal, James responded by fixing his normal cocky grin on his face. "Been practicing that one for a while. Good, isn't it?" He caught the eye of one more person- Lily. James winked, and she- of course- rolled her eyes before walking away, but she was smiling slightly. James couldn't help but give a more genuine smile in return. __________ It was with a bit of a jolt that Lily realized, toward the end of 6th year, that she was friends with the Marauders. Well, no, she'd known they were /friends/- they sat together at lunch most days, and she hung out with them in the common room- but what shocked her was how significant it was. Every one of them had changed so much to bring them to this point, to make them close like this. Obviously, not everything changed; James, for one, was still arrogant and flirtatious a lot of the time, but he was also interesting and nice, and he never hexed people without provocation anymore, so Lily decided his mannerisms were now more endearing than obnoxious (usually). On the morning of this realization, they sat in the Great Hall eating breakfast. While the others chattered casually and somewhat sleepily still, James had his wand out, pointed at his empty water goblet. He muttered something under his breath and flicked his wand. The glass immediately started to warp and change, reshaping itself. A moment letter, it had become an intricate glass lily, which he handed to Lily with a silly smile on his face. Against her nature, she giggled- it /was/ quite impressive. James's smile widened to a beam. Lily got a weird feeling in her chest that she couldn't quite interpret. She didn't have time to figure it out, though, because at that moment owls began flying overhead. A moment later, a package landed on the table in front of James and a little poofball of an owl landed directly on his head. He laughed in delight. "Hey, Rom!" he greeted, reaching up to stroke his feathers. The owl, Romeo, hooted cheerfully. James fed him a piece of bacon off his plate before tearing open the package to reveal a book. "Yes!!" he exclaimed, examining the book cover and flipping briefly through it. "What's that?" Lily asked curiously. "Oh, it's 'Noah Masters and the Griffin Curse'- a wizarding graphic novel. See-" He opened the book to show her a page. "-the pictures move a little as you read. A family friend writes these. She always sends me a copy." Lily's eyes were bright with interest. "Cool!" James's eyes widened a tiny fraction. "D-do you want to read it? I can lend it to you when I finish," he said eagerly. Lily saw the other Marauders trade exasperated looks in her peripheral vision, but she didn't worry about it. "Yeah, that would be great!" she answered. She looked from him to the book in his hand and back, and her heart skip a beat. /'Dear god. I actually like this bloke, don't I?'/ __________ It was early in 7th year when James finally asked Lily out again, this time in a more serious manner. They were out in the courtyard, just a few yards from the other Marauders, and the sun shined down on them in a cheery way. Lily looked at the boy before her, with his messy hair and soft hazel eyes behind thin-framed glasses, and her heart did a little flip. "Yes," she replied immediately. He grinned, eyes sparkling. The amount of joy resulting from that single word surprised her, and she felt her cheeks flush. "I have to, um, to go to the library now," she said quickly. In reality, what she had to do was tell Marlene. She hurried off, but not before kissing him quickly on the cheek. James just stood there, shell-shocked, for several seconds. Finally, he moved toward his friends. "Guys, she said yes!" he exclaimed happily. Peter cheered and Remus gave a thumbs up. "I wonder why she changed her mind after all this time," Sirius said contemplatively. "Probably because I was a total dick," James deadpanned. Sirius cracked up. "Not a /total/ dick," Remus countered. "You've always had a decent heart. You were just full of yourself and, you know, a dick to Snape." James grinned. "Snivellus deserved it," Sirius said, but James shook his head. "I still hate the guy, don't get me wrong," he explained, "but hexing him every other day won't make him drop the Dark Arts, so what's the point?" Remus clapped him on the back at that. "Prongs, you really are growing up."