#than make the pain real. / if life is nothing but an endless race; you bet your ass im getting first place. / yep thats right let

[sotogalmo]

5:44

Rot For Clout by JamieP.... Luka ALNST.... It. I dunno

Title gives me that vibe, and a few lyrics (in tags). But who knows

[refinedbuffoonery]

Looking Through A Window (7)

macriley married undercover au

masterlist.

Sorry for the delay! I either have my shit together in real life or fandom life, but never both at the same time lol. Anyway, I got endless joy from reading all your reactions to last chapter’s clifhanger (sorry not sorry). I didn’t respond to comments because I don’t trust myself not to spoil anything, but just know that I appreciate every single one of your theories. Also, many of you were at least somewhat correct. (Yikes am I becoming predictable?? Gotta fix that.) This chapter ends at a good stopping point, so I’m going to switch gears and write a couple chapters of other fics (which I encourage you to read!!) before coming back to this. But fear not! I have big plans for the future of this fic, and I’ll send you all down the theory rabbit hole soon enough. xoxo

*****

The world narrows until Mac is only aware of two things: his racing heart and the fact that Riley is gone. 

The blood is fresh, but there’s no sign of a struggle—no sign of anything, really. The windows are locked and unbroken, the bedroom door is half-closed the way it always is. Not a single thing is out of place…except for Riley. 

So, where the hell is she? 

His body goes taut as the worst case scenario plays in his mind. Please don’t be gone, Mac silently begs. Please. 

The apartment is quiet. Too quiet. So when the shower turns on with a loud thunk, Mac flinches. Hard. Without thinking, he scrambles out of bed and lunges for the bathroom door. 

As he bursts through the door, Mac’s awareness shifts to three things: Riley is alive, she’s naked, and she’s screaming. 

“Mac!” She hisses, glaring over her shoulder. If looks could kill, he’d be very, very dead by now. At least her back is to him. “What the hell?” 

Mac barely hears her over the roaring in his ears. He scans her naked body, trying and failing to be professional as he scans for injuries. 

His eyes land on the blood smeared between her thighs, then the thin stream rolling down the inside of her knee. As understanding dawns on him, Mac holds out his own blood-covered hand in silent explanation. 

Riley winces. “Sorry about the blood.” 

Mac still feels a little disconnected from his body when he says, “I was afraid you were dead.”

Embarrassment floods Riley’s face. She begs,“Can we please finish this conversation when I’m not naked and bleeding all over the floor?” Mac’s gaze automatically flicks to the drops of blood between her feet, but he doesn’t move. His limbs are still frozen in place, the way they’ve been since he found her. “Get out!” Riley snaps. 

His own embarrassment finally taking hold, Mac stumbles backward, tripping over the door frame on his way out. 

While Riley showers, Mac busies himself by stripping the bed and washing the sheets and blankets. Not just because it needs to be done, but because it’s easier to process emotions when his hands are busy. It feels like he just experienced the entire spectrum of human emotion in the span of three minutes, and now all these untethered feelings are floating around in his head. As he works, Mac examines them one by one. 

He woke up this morning wanting to cuddle with Riley. Not just wanting to, but comfortable enough to act on that desire. 

When his hand landed in the blood, his brain immediately jumped to the worst case scenario. He is deeply afraid of said scenario. 

Then panic set in, as he desperately tried to prove himself wrong. 

Followed by relief at finding Riley and learning the blood was not from an injury, but from a normal bodily function. 

Then embarrassment, because he freaked out and barged in on her over something he could’ve deduced for himself if only he’d just stopped to think. He’s supposed to be smart, so why couldn’t that big brain of his, as Jack would say, figure this out? 

The answer to that question, at least, comes easily: Because it’s Riley, and he doesn’t always think with his head when it comes to her. 

For example, while he’s mortified at seeing her naked, a part of him wishes she’d been facing the other direction. 

Mac starts the washing machine and decides to do the mature thing and hide in the kitchen for the entire foreseeable future. He spies Harley lying on the couch, gazing out a window. “And where were you for all of this?” he asks. “A heads-up would’ve been nice.” 

Harley stares at him for a few seconds before resuming her vigil, and Mac hears the message, loud and clear: You’re on your own. 

When Riley still hasn’t emerged from the bedroom long after the shower turned off, Mac suspects that she’s hiding too. He doesn’t blame her. 

It’s late morning by the time the laundry is finished, and Mac can’t hide any longer. Clutching the still-warm sheets and blankets to his chest, he cautiously ventures into the bedroom. Riley is lying on the bed with her knees tucked up to her chin, and a pang of sympathy echoes in Mac’s chest. Her eyes are closed, but Mac doubts that she’s actually asleep. 

Dropping the sheets on the floor, he asks, “Are you alive?” 

Riley groans. “No.” 

“Could you please go die on the couch then, so I can make the bed?” She groans again and mumbles something incoherent. “Also you’ll feel better if you eat something.” 

“No I won’t.” She sounds like a whining toddler, and Mac has to stifle a snort. Still, a bit of the awkwardness dissipates. But only a bit. 

“Yes you will. I know you, Miss Hangry.” 

“I’m not hangry.” 

“Says the one who skipped breakfast.” 

“I was hiding from you.” 

“So was I,” Mac confesses. Riley cracks a single eye open at that, just in time to see his cheeks heat. “Trust me, I am way more embarrassed than you.” 

It takes him a second to notice that she’s blushing too. “Wanna bet?” 

Mac starts putting the fitted sheet on the unoccupied side of the mattress. “I didn’t see anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Nothing he hasn’t seen before, anyway, but Mac wisely decides to keep that part to himself. “Victoria’s secret is still a secret,” he adds with a wink. 

Riley rolls her eyes. “You did not just say that.” 

“Made you laugh, didn’t it?” Mac gives her a shit-eating grin, and despite her best attempt at hiding it, amusement slips through the cracks in Riley’s unimpressed facade. 

“Whatever. We don’t have to do anything today, do we?” Mac raises his brow at the question. For all the years he’s known Riley, she’s always been more of a ‘suck it up’ kind of person, not a ‘stay in bed’ person. So her question is surprising, if not mildly concerning. 

“Nope.” He pauses. “Are you okay? This isn’t like you.” 

Riley rolls onto her back. “Dude, it feels like someone took a cheese grater to my insides.” 

Mac winces at the mental image. “Ouch.” 

She pauses, as if contemplating her next words before she says them. “I got a new IUD a couple months ago, and this one makes my cramps way worse. I used to be able to ignore them, but this sucks.” 

Not knowing how to reply to that, he squeezes Riley’s ankle in a way he hopes is reassuring. Mac flicks his gaze up to meet hers and finds Riley already looking at him. Her gaze is warm and steady, but Mac can see hints of pain clouding her dark eyes. He thinks it isn’t fair that her body turns on her like this. 

"I'm getting back in bed the second you're done making it," she warns. 

"Go right ahead." 

Riley wanders into the kitchen, and, true to her word, reappears right when Mac finishes smoothing down the comforter, with Harley at her heels. To Mac's surprise, Harley jumps on the bed, waits for Riley to get situated, and then tucks herself into Riley's side. A smile blooms on his face. Riley puts an arm around Harley, pulling the dog into her stomach before moving to scratch her head. When Harley licks Riley’s face in return, Mac suddenly gets the feeling he's watching something private. 

Satisfied that Riley is in capable hands, Mac leaves without another word.

*****

Beneath the weathered wooden conference table, Harley’s head rests on Mac’s foot as she dozes through the Patriots’ council meeting. When they arrived, no one looked more put off by their presence than Conrad, but, true to his word, Ethan welcomed Mac and Riley with open arms and encouraged their participation. A murmur of dissent snaked through the room, but no one openly questioned Ethan’s decision to include them. 

Twenty minutes in, Mac would rather be anywhere but here. The “meeting” so far has been very little business and mostly rehashing some fishing trip a few of the guys went on over the weekend. Mac is holding out hope that it won’t be a complete waste of his time, but said hope dwindles each time someone exaggerates about the size of a fish. 

There’s nothing interesting to look at in the room, save for Riley. No art, no plants, no wall of guns. Not even a clock. Just drab gray walls with no windows. And he doesn’t dare study any of the men for longer than a second or two each. Making an enemy is as easy as looking at someone the wrong way, and Mac has no desire to antagonize the other members of the Patriots…at least not yet. 

Extricating his foot from beneath Harley’s head, he’s just about to make an excuse about needing to use the restroom when Ethan’s phone rings. After quickly checking it, Ethan excuses himself from the meeting with a curt nod to Conrad. Mac understands the look; he’s given and received it countless times himself, after all. Permission to continue without him. Because despite his tendency to toe the line, Conrad is still Ethan’s trusted lieutenant. The exchange is subtle, practiced, and apparently insignificant to the other men at the table, who are somehow still talking about fish. 

When the storytelling finally lulls, Conrad clears his throat. "Let's start with recruitment. Report." No nonsense, right to the point. Maybe he’s tired of the fish conversation too. 

As Conrad steers the conversation through the various items on the agenda, Mac realizes two things. 

One, the Patriots are far more organized than he originally made them out to be. This is no grassroots startup, and their plans go much deeper than protests and parking lot shootings. 

Two, Conrad is careful not to let anyone share too much information, instead asking everyone to give their detailed reports in individual meetings. And it's more than just trying to keep him and Riley in the dark. It's almost as if…almost as if Conrad doesn't want anyone to see the big picture besides himself. 

Mac decides to take his theory for a test drive. "I know I'm new here," he says, "but why have everyone meet with you a second time individually instead of sharing their full reports now? Wouldn't that be a better use of time?" 

Conrad sneers. "On the contrary, boy, why would I waste everyone's time making them listen to information they don't need to know?" 

It takes every ounce of Mac’s self control not to roll his eyes. 

Beneath the table, Riley grips his knee, nails digging in through his khakis. Mac wants to tell her that he’s thinking the same thing she is, but he can’t. The best he can settle for is a brief touch on her arm before needing to do something with his hands to distract himself from the way his skin burns under her touch. He elects to drum his fingers on the table, mostly to push Conrad’s buttons even further. 

If Conrad’s furrowed brow is any indication, it works. 

“Do you mind?” Conrad says with a pointed glare at Mac’s hand. 

Feigning ignorance, Mac replies, “Mind about what?” 

“The tapping.” 

“Oh!” Mac makes a show of sliding his gaze down to his hand before flattening his palm against the table. “My bad.” 

Looking none too pleased, Conrad moves on, but to Mac’s surprise, the man sitting beside him leans in to whisper, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. He's not the one to piss off." His words are tinged with genuine concern, and under different circumstances, Mac would appreciate the advice. 

"He's a man," Mac whispers back, "just like everyone else at this table." Minus Riley, of course. 

The man presses on. "The previous occupant of your seat was shot point blank for asking too many questions." Mac's brows raise at that. "You're sitting in a dead man's chair." 

Mac pockets that little detail gratefully, but he hesitates before ultimately heeding the man's warning. He fiddles with the button on his sleeve, impatiently waiting for the meeting to end so he can share his theory with Riley. 

What Mac doesn't anticipate is Riley beating him to it, pulling him aside before they're even back in the car. "Conrad's compartmentalizing information," she says in a quiet, confident tone. 

They’re too exposed to be having this conversation. Mac nervously checks for eavesdroppers, but doesn’t spot any. Deeming it safe for now, he replies, "Yeah I thought so too." 

"He's made himself essential. No one else knows how everything works." Riley pauses, eyes catching on something over his shoulder. Barely audibly, she adds, "An asshole and a control freak." He doesn’t need to turn around to know she’s looking at Conrad, not when she has a white-knuckled grip on Harley’s leash. 

"So if we eliminate him…" 

Riley nods in understanding. He’s controlling everything in an attempt to rise through the rankings and seize power. So if they eliminate Conrad, the whole organization may very well come tumbling down in his wake. 

Now they just have to figure out how the hell to accomplish that. 

"What if we help him?" Riley suggests, reading Mac’s mind. 

"What?" 

"We've spent all this time looking for the weakest link, but maybe…maybe we need to attach ourselves to the strongest one." A stray curl falls in Riley's face, and as she brushes it behind her ear, Mac absentmindedly wishes his fingers were brushing it back instead. Riley continues, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think we should help him become more powerful than he already is. That way, we can do as much damage as possible when we take him out." 

A man they don't know walks by, and Mac nods in greeting. Waiting for the man to move out of earshot, Mac drops to one knee, giving Harley a good scratch. She wags her tail and opens her mouth in a smile, clearly enjoying the attention. When the coast is clear again, Mac says, "You just made this op so much longer, but I think you're right." 

Riley snorts. "What, is there somewhere else you need to be?" 

Gazing up at the woman before him, the answer is obvious. Not unless you're coming with me. 

*****

In the gray hour before dawn crests over the world, Mac wakes to something tickling his nose. He exhales sharply, trying to blow it away, but the tickle persists.

His face is pressed into the nape of Riley's neck, and a deep inhale causes a few strands of her hair to go up his nostrils. Reaching up to brush Riley’s hair out of his face, he hesitates right before his calloused fingers brush her skin, afraid that even the barest touch will shatter the moment. As soon as Riley wakes, he'll have to hide behind his mask of indifference, and Mac isn't ready to do that yet. 

For as long as he dares, Mac allows himself to imagine what it would be like to wake up with Riley for real, in his own home. He sees her curled in his bed, sheets pulled up to her chin, hears the soft, steady cadence of her breathing, smells the lingering traces of perfume on her skin. 

Riley stirs in his arms, and the vision blurs, moving out of reach. Mac grasps for it, but it evaporates into nothingness as she settles back against him. 

He shifts his focus to the very real sensation of Riley’s body tucked into his. Her back to his chest, his leg slotted between hers, her ass pressed against his—

Shit. 

Mac jerks backward, trying to put as much space between them as possible before Riley wakes and realizes just what she scooted back against. 

Except, in his haste, Mac doesn’t realize there’s a third party present until his foot slams into the small, warm body lying at the foot of the bed. Guilt washes over him at Harley’s ensuing yelp. 

Awake, Riley mumbles, “Did you just kick the dog?” 

“It was an accident!” Mac insists, sitting up. He turns his attention to Harley. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. You can come back if you want.” He pats the bed in a way he hopes is reassuring, but Harley merely eyes him with suspicion before slinking out of the room. 

“I can’t believe you kicked the dog,” Riley says, still half-asleep. “She finally slept with us, and you betrayed her.” 

“I told you it was an accident!” 

“Betrayal.” 

Mac rakes a hand through his hair. “You’re never going to let this go, are you?” 

“Nope.” Riley sighs, rolling back to her side of the bed, and Mac isn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. Or maybe a little bit of both. “You better go apologize.” 

Mac scoffs. “And let you take over the entire bed while I’m gone? I don’t think so.” 

And there it is. The closest they’ve come to acknowledging the evolution of their bed-sharing habits. Particularly the newfound lack of sticking to their respective sides. If he’s being honest with himself, Mac doesn’t know where to go from here. He wants to see it as a sign of things changing between them. Obviously Riley is aware of their precarious positioning, but based on her casual relocation, she doesn’t see this any differently than the dozens of times they’ve slept squished in a small space together in the past. Whether she’s aware of the other thing, she doesn’t let on. 

“Your funeral,” Riley says, pulling Mac out of his head. 

Right. 

The dog. 

The dog whose forgiveness he needs to earn via extra breakfast. Maybe extra dinner too. 

Sighing, Mac goes after her, cursing his inability to get things right with either of the females in this house. 

.

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[cherryyharryy]

Harry’s been acting strange lately, so you go to the set of his new movie to find out what’s going on.

From this & this requests.

WC: 1.4

***

You could tell by the last text he sent that things weren’t great, or as Harry so eloquently put it, bloody amazing.

And in the last phone call, he sounded a little too chipper. Voice a bit more fluttery and light than his usual drowsy tone. 

He’s lying.

You’ve suspected it for the past few weeks, but didn’t want to push him into talking about something that he was clearly avoiding. But as the days went by, and his texts became more and more optimistic, you knew something was up.

What really tipped you off, was the lack of invite to the set. Harry bent over backwards to get you into every rehearsal and show that you could attend. You were no stranger to the studio, and made yourself at home in more than one producer’s house on a couple of late night sessions. You even sat off to the side during a few radio interviews. It was rare if you weren’t by his side. But his lips have been sealed about his new movie.

It’s possible you’re invading territory you really shouldn’t be stepping foot in, but you called his mom last night and she’s been worried too, having picked up on her son’s unusual flighty voice as of late. She encouraged you to confront him; the soft sugarcoating game the both of you had been trying with Harry only allowed him to think he was getting away with his fibs. 

The gravel beneath your car crunched louder than you would have liked. Not that you were planning on sneaking around an entire movie set in search of your boyfriend, but you hadn’t intended on alerting everyone of your arrival either, which is exactly what you’ve done. As you step out, about a dozen pairs of eyes follow the endless walk you make towards the open set. None of them are Harry’s. 

Feeling self conscious as no one even asks your name once you reach the bustling center, you gratefully spot the bright pink hair of one of the actresses, Jill. You’ve met before during a group date not too long ago. 

“Y/n! Hi! How are you?”

“It’s nice to see you again! I uh, just thought I’d stop by to see Harry. He around?”

“Mhm,” Jill squints and does a full rotation, shrugging when she doesn’t spot him. “Oh, I bet he’s in his trailer.” She points over your shoulder. “His is like the third row, I think.”

“Thanks!”

You feel a little relief to be away from all the unknown faces, and even more so when you catch Harry’s name on the first trailer in the third row.

He swings the door open after just one knock, surprise written all over his face for a bit longer than you would have liked.

“Y/N? Baby, what’re you doing here? Everything alright?” 

He widens the door and you step inside, biting your tongue to keep the quip you want to dish out at bay. He’s not happy to see you in the least.

“Just haven’t seen you in a while.”

“We saw each other last week?”

Says the man who clings to me when I’m trying to get out the door for work. “Thought it’d be nice. We can go out for lunch.”

He toes at the ground, and you can practically see the gears turning in his head. “We usually have somethin’ here.” 

“Soo, you’re turning me down?”

“No, no, f’course not.”

“Cause it sounds like you are.”

You sit on a small leather couch, assuming he’ll join you without a gesture, but you have to pat the space beside you before he moves from his spot at the door. You get a good look now; purple bags tucked under his eyes and skin so dry it looks painful. Your irritation crumbles. When you take his hand in yours he squeezes so hard you have to bite down on your cheek. 

“Harry,” you reach up with your free hand and thread your fingers through his hair, attempting to gently anchor his head back so he’ll look at you. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Nothing—”

“Don’t give me that.”

He sucks in a shaky breath, looking everywhere but at you, the first sign of tears to come. “I’m shit.”

“What?”

“I suck. I can’t do this. This movie.” He shakes his head, suddenly amped up and frantic. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

You don’t know what to say, certainly not expecting that confession. Your jaw lowers, but your brain doesn’t offer anything up. 

“It’s too...demanding. Emotionally. I can’t pull it off. I have to do over ten takes for each of my scenes. I’m driving everyone crazy.”

“Harry, if they really had a problem they’d say something. I’m sure it’s not as bad as it seems.”

“I’ve heard them, y/n.” He snaps at you with this one, the tears spilling right after. “Some of the sound guys are making bets at how many takes I need.”

What can you say? No amount of positive affirmations can fix this. And part of the progression of this downward spiral he’s in, is due to the typical Harry tactic of bottling everything up until he explodes. All his emotions shoot out of the gate, and now you’re desperate to try and stop a race horse.

“Harry,” You’re stern with his name, wiping his tears and grabbing his hands, “You’re in a funk. And you’re gonna stay there as long as you let yourself.”

“I—”

“Uh uh, just listen. You’re not gonna wake up one day and just snap out of this. It’s been building up, little by little, weighing you down. And look, look how it’s seeped into all the other parts of your life. You’re exhausted, you’re too embarrassed to even talk about it. I know you’re not eating, and the only reason you’re even showering is because you have to for the movie.”

He bites his lip, perplexed for only a moment at how you can read him.

“If you’re struggling, you need to tell someone. Ask for advice, ask to watch your scenes back so you can see where to improve, ask for help, Harry.” You sit back a little, grateful the tears have subsided, assessing the new look on his face. “You’re still very new to acting. And I think doing so well and gaining that confidence so rapidly with your other movies kinda screwed up nature’s path.” 

He’s soaking up every one of your words, nodding along now.

“You’re supposed to screw up first, and then become a heartthrob.”

He chuckles, and you realize it’s not just the first time since you arrived, but the first time in a while. In weeks.

“I don’t want you to be right,” he straightens up, swiping his tongue over his lips, “but I guess you are, aren’t you?”

You shrug, pleased with the smile teetering on the corner of his mouth. “Won’t argue with you, if that’s what you’re sayin’.”

“Thank you.” He leans over and presses a kiss to your forehead.

“Can I have a real one too?”

He rolls his eyes and plants a dramatic and wet kiss to your lips. You feel him relax into you, his mouth switching all gears to on.

“Whoa,” you laugh, pulling away from his lips. “Won’t be doing you any favors if we fuck in your trailer. Don’t wanna think about the kinda bets they’d make about that.”

He hums, tucking your hair behind your ear. “I mean it, thank you.”

“I love you. I want you to be okay.”

“I am.” He sighs, lips twitching. “I’ll talk to the director tomorrow.”

You raise your brows, not satisfied. “Today’s good too.”

“Alright, alright. Today.”

“Good.” You peck his lips. “I’ll let your mom know too.”

“My mum?”

“Oh...yeah. Coming to set was her idea.”

“Oh really?”

“Hey, you put on quite a show for the both of us. It was the last resort.”

Harry grunted, not surprised the two of you connived a plan together. “I’ll let it slide.”

You snicker, “you don’t have a choice.”

He pulls you closer towards him, circling his arms around your back, pressing a kiss to your head so soft it burns. “Thank you for coming.”

“Mmm. I hope you feel better. Soon.”

“I will,” he rests his cheek atop your head, holding you closer so you’re in his lap. “And for the record, I’ve missed you.” He lifts your head up, finger gently pressed under your chin. “Let’s go to lunch.”

[cake-writes]

Compromise (Interlude #3)

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Story Warnings: Mom!Reader, Dad!Bucky, Ex-Relationship, Co-Parenting Drama, Slow Burn, Angst, Fluff, Separation Anxiety, Violence

Summary: You didn’t want to trust him again, because every time you did, Bucky broke your heart just a little more. Deep down, though, you wanted to get along with him. You wanted to be amicable. You wanted your daughter to know her father. You’d always wanted that. It just required a compromise.

Part Nine / Master List / Spotify Playlist

This chapter was written for @marquiswrites​​‘s 100 follower challenge! Congrats, my love! I’m so sorry I’m like a week late on this. Please enjoy.

Bucky’s heart caught in his throat. With his pulse racing just as fast as yours, he quickly got the hell out of dodge and went to the counter to pay. The check became a means of escape. Instinctual, perhaps – fight or flight, and he chose the latter because he was absolutely fucking terrified.

What did you want from him?

He cared about you. He loved you. That much was clear, but in that moment, he’d been forced to confront his feelings and he wasn’t ready to. Not yet. Not with you gazing at him across the table, teeth dragging across your lower lip in such an enticing way that it made him break into a nervous sweat. 

God, how irresistible could you be?

It wasn’t just nerves that drove him up a wall. Bucky wanted to act on the implication in your words, your teasing, your flirting. He wanted to reach over across the table and kiss the breath out of you, desperately, with every fibre of his being. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Not now.

He wasn’t ready.

To be a parent, he was. To be a dad.

But to disappoint you again? He absolutely wasn’t.

Needless to say, things only worsened on the walk back to your house – the walk from hell. Somehow, he managed to keep his cool, but his mind was a mess. Anxiety. Panic. Fear. What ifs ran through his mind on an endless loop and gnawed incessantly at his subconscious.

What the hell did you want from him?

But Bucky knew what you wanted. Deep down, he probably always knew.

The sound of your heartbeat was a dead giveaway; quiet, almost inaudible, but he’d heard it quicken. He’d seen the flush come across your cheeks as you teased him – simple words to be sure, but laced with innuendo.

He wasn’t just imagining things.  

And yet, you had been the one to draw a line in the sand two years ago, to shut down any future the two of you might have had. You left him, and it had been your idea to come to an agreement for Winnie. Even now, he could appreciate that you’d done so. She was more important. She’d always be more important. 

Bucky knew you knew that, too, so what the hell was he supposed to do?

He missed you. He loved you. He wanted to be with you.

But he loved his daughter, too.

Bucky startled awake to nothing but silence, the sound of his own voice echoing in his ears.

You take me instead, do you hear me?

A thin sheen of sweat coated his body, and he ran a shaky hand through his damp hair, taking a deep breath to try and calm himself down. One, then two. Pitch dark room. Moonlight spilled in through the blinds and onto his duvet.

All he wanted to do was dream – to forget – but instead, he had a nightmare.

Give her back and take me instead.

The words scratched at the back of his throat, dry and unbearable. How many times had he heard that particular phrase? Too many times to count. Too many memories of Hydra blurred the lines within his brain, made things feel entirely too real. Possibly because they were. Bucky had done awful things to secure Hydra’s future, and although he hadn’t been a willing participant, it was still him. All him. He’d done such terrible things that his mind liked to conjure them as a punishment of his own making. 

Once, he ripped a woman away from her father – made him watch. She’d been a threat to Hydra, and thus had to be eliminated despite her father’s desperate pleas to give her back, to take him instead. And now, Bucky understood.

Usually, he watched helplessly as Winnie was kidnapped, taken from him, her young life snuffed out with the flick of a wrist. Or the tip of a knife. Or the sound of a gun.

Quick. Efficient. All ways in which he’d taken lives before.

His sweet, darling daughter, dead in a millisecond. The heartbreak and pain he felt at the very thought of it – never mind witnessing it in such a vivid nightmare – could only be replicated when it was you instead of Winnie. And Bucky understood that, too.

He’d murdered a newlywed on her wedding night, right in front of her groom. Blood spatter against white spackled walls, pristine dress stained a rich, ruby red. Life snuffed out more easily than love, he discovered, when he wound up having to dispatch her new husband, too.

I love her. Give her back. Take me instead.

Bucky would have done the same for you. 

Somehow, he’d found the smallest shred of stability with you, despite his uncanny ability and willingness to blow it up because of his own insecurities – but his past still came back to haunt him anyway. 

With a shudder, he dragged his hands down his face in an attempt to forget the horrors.

It was in times like these that he missed you the most. No matter what, you’d always offered him so much comfort and love despite everything he’d done. Quiet, gentle comfort he’d grown so accustomed to that, even two years after the fact, he still had yet to figure out how he’d survived without.

You’d rouse with a sleepy mumble of his name and reach out for him, small hand coming to rest against his heaving chest. The harsh pounding of his heart beneath your palm would wake you a little more – as would the feel of Bucky’s too-hot skin, sticky with sweat, and you’d blearily blink your eyes open to look over at him in the darkness.

Shh, he’d say. Go back to sleep, doll. I’m fine.

Fine. Always fine. 

Always a lie. 

Just like the crooked smile on his lips, meant to reassure you that it wasn’t a lie this time. Even though it was.

Oh, Bucky… Come here.

You’d see right through him in an instant. Stroke his hair. Whisper sweet nothings to him in the softest, kindest voice he’d ever heard, delicate and strong all at once. And when you’d tell him that everything was going to be alright in such dulcet tones, well, he just had to believe you, didn’t he?

Sometimes he’d break down a little at your gentle touch and even gentler words. He’d wrap his arms around you, hold you tight, cling to you like you were his lifeline and in a lot of ways, you were. He often told you things in confidence that he’d never told anyone before; it felt good to have another person to join him in the darkness, no matter how slight. How selfish. 

And you’d stroke his hair.

Christ.

With an aggravated sigh, Bucky snatched up his phone from the nightstand. He desperately wanted to seek comfort from you like you’d done so many times before so long ago. The problem was that he felt conflicted, now, because of a multitude of reasons: your relationship was already so strained, for one, and it was bound to affect Winnie. Not to mention he knew. 

He knew you wanted to be with him, but you deserved better.

If he reached out, he’d be taking advantage of your feelings for his own selfish comfort. It would complicate things. He’d disappoint you again. He’d ruin what little good relations the two of you had, and it would negatively affect Winnie.

Dear, sweet Winnie with a halo of blood around her perfect little head. His darling daughter, dead in her big girl bed. Bullet in her brain.

Three in the morning. You wouldn’t be awake, but right now he just couldn’t shake the need for your kind, soothing words.

She’s alright, Bucky, you’d say. She’s fine.

He knew you would.

Thumbs hovering over the keyboard on the screen, he couldn’t help himself. Selfish. So, so selfish.

 Bucky, 3:18am Sorry. I know it’s late. Are you awake?

 As soon as Bucky hit ‘send’, he immediately wanted to take it back. He’d managed so many times without you before, and he could do it again. All he had to do was try. A nightmare. That was all. Winnie was fine.

It was so stupidly selfish of him to reach out to you like this, knowing what he knew. He didn’t need you to comfort him, did he? He just wanted it, wanted you.

Needed you.

When his phone vibrated less than a minute later, it made him jump.

 You, 3:19am What’s wrong?

 You had to work in the morning. Why were you up?

Staring at your message, Bucky wasn’t really sure what to say. He started to type one thing, then backspaced and tried another, only managing to get a couple of words in before he changed his mind again. A text was so impersonal – not like how sweet and caring you were in person, in bed with him, and he had some difficulty finding the right words for the situation.

Three or four attempts later, his phone vibrated again and he froze.

A phone call.

Bucky barely had time to bring the device up to his ear before you’d already started to ask on the other end, “Who was it this time?”

Bucky swallowed thickly, before he rasped, “Winnie.” Then he cleared his throat and tried again, “It was Winnie.”

“Winnie? Okay, hold on,” you told him, and then he heard some shuffling – fabric against the microphone, and your voice came through a little more muffled. “Must have been pretty bad tonight, huh?” Your tone was light despite the dreadful subject; then came a creak, a pause, and you let out a soft laugh. “Don’t worry, she’s fine.”

His phone vibrated again.

In confusion, Bucky pulled the phone away from his ear. You’d sent him another text, which he quickly opened to find a photo of Winnie sleeping soundly in her big girl bed. No blood. No halo. She was fine, and fast asleep in what was probably the most uncomfortable position he’d ever seen in his life.

He couldn’t help but let out an undignified snort.

“See?” you said, voice much clearer now, albeit still holding onto the last remnants of sleep. “Our daughter, the contortionist. I bet she got that from you.”

Gentle ribbing, despite how uncomfortable this afternoon had been.

“Hey, I resemble that remark,” he croaked, but his heart felt lighter than before. “How’d she fall asleep with her leg like that?”

“I don’t know,” you responded, laughing some more. “She sleeps like that a lot. I think she saw it in one of her cartoons. Just kind of stuck.”

Bucky let out a soft hum of acknowledgement. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Another laugh, quieter this time, faded into silence before you asked him softly, “Do you wanna talk about it?”

You knew. You always fucking knew and he hated how much he loved it. And just plain hated it, because you saw right through him.

“It’s late,” Bucky deflected. No matter how much he may have wanted to talk about it, he didn’t want to drag you down when he was already bothering you like this. He’d woken you up. It wasn’t his place to do that anymore. Not that it ever really was. “Thanks for the photo. I think I’m gonna make it my wallpaper.”

Another joke. Another deflection.

Hollow.

There was another deafening pause, before you offered, “Are you free for breakfast?”

“What?”

“Winnie would love to see you,” you told him, and he could just hear the smile in your voice. “I’ll even make some french toast.”

“I don’t— I don’t wanna impose,” Bucky stammered at the unexpected invitation, already feeling the anxiety pool in the pit of his stomach. What’s worse was that he did want to impose. He wanted to impose very much.

“Then you can help,” you teased. “Come on. It’s just breakfast.”

It wasn’t just breakfast.

“We’ve gotta leave by eight, so let’s make it seven?” you mused aloud. “Yeah. How’s seven?”

He forced down the lump in his throat. “Seven’s… Seven’s fine.”

“Okay, good! See you in the morning.”

Without missing a beat, he responded almost automatically, “See you then.”

Then the line went dead, and Bucky stared blankly at his phone.

What just happened? You’d just talked him into breakfast so easily. How?

He still had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do. His thoughts started to race for the umpteenth time, full of panic and dread, but no matter how rational he tried to be, an undercurrent of excitement still ran through him like electricity. It made him feel good. Warm. 

Breakfast with you. Breakfast with Winnie.

His girls.

Despite all his nervous energy, Bucky actually managed to sleep soundly for once. So soundly, in fact, that he slept right through his alarm.

Part Ten

[chimswae]

BTS Caretaker CH25

Summary: She may think she has Bangtan Sonyeondan wrapped around her fingers. She may think it is easy to love the members equally without hurting any soul. She may think the boys wont fall head over heels for her. She assumes it is okay to show a little love and affection towards the boys, what if she gets it all wrong? What if it only brings more complication to her already complicated life? Can she survive their charms? Will she be able to resist them? What if they just wont let her go?

- Pairing: BTS x Oc ( Yoongi x OC, Jungkook x OC)

- Genre: Fluff, Slight Angst, Romance, Idol!au

- Word Count: 4,154

- Author Note: I was busy with BTS yesterday hahaha too much content in one day, i was a little high on that, so this came out late. xx

Previous | Next

Chapter 25

D-2 to BBMA

“Seul-ah, bring the outfit on the bed next door. The boys are getting ready for their interview” Semmy, the head stylist hollered from the bathroom. “I need to find Taehyung’s accessories, I will be there in 5. And, oh help any of the members that already had their makeup on with their outfit” Seul gathered the outfits, wobbling a little considering the weight from the outfits were a little too much for a girl like her to hand. She was basically shrinking from everyone’s view.

She took a few moments to stabilize herself before making her way stealthily to the entrance “Alright unnie, I am going now!” her voice muffled behind the pile of clothes in her embrace. It never occurred to her this job would be this challenging. Mentally and physically challenging. It was only her second day running errands for Semmy, yet she could feel her whole-body aching in pain. Seul couldn’t feel her legs anymore.

Thankfully, their room was at the same floor as hers, shorten her distance and time to reach the room. She leaned against the door, using her elbow to press the button with a soft huff. Seul straightened herself upon hearing the soft thud beyond the door, though she almost dropped the loads on the floor, her fast reflex avoided any accident happen.

“Sem, finally!” said one of the staffs brightly.

“It is Seul” Seul mumbled.

“Ah Seul! Get inside quickly, it must be heavy. I can’t even see you behind those outfits” the girl let out small giggle, giving way for Seul. “Jimin close your eyes! Stop moving your lids, for pete’s sake” Seul heard a soft voice at the corner frustrated at the younger guy antic.

Seul was in daze, as she had zero idea which way to go considering the clothes were towering her figure. She had to take a little peek from her side only to get herself in trouble yet again luck was on her side. Seul pulled it off without injuring the expensive clothes, “Unnie, where do I place this?” she inquired hoping for some enlightenment.

“Oh god, my bad. Place it on the table in front of you, just few steps in front of you” the girl who greeted her at the door now was busy smearing cream on Yoongi’s milky skin giving Seul direction in process. Yoongi who had his gaze fixated on Seul held back his tongue from cracking up at the sight in front of him. He mentally complimented Seul adorableness and her small figure didn’t bring any good in this either.

“Nuna, are you sure she doesn’t need your help? She is….shrinking” Taehyung rough voice beside Yoongi made her heart raced. Now, that she realized everyone must be witnessing the state that she was in at the moment. She was sure, it would be ugly.

Yoongi retorted, “She has to do something about her size” teasing the girl making her turn to fifty shades of red. “Damn Min Yoongi” cussing under her breath, Seul forced her wobbly legs to walk properly without committing any mistakes.

Ignoring Yoongi little tease was the best thing to do right now, with that Seul could find herself smiling again as she sensed a hard surface near her feet. Leaning forward, she was about to release the heavy loads on the table. With her inability to get a clear view of what’s in front of her, her heel had caught an electrical wire, causing her to trip and stumble over the wooden chair almost slamming her face flat against the cold tile.

Jin’s hand shot out, catching Seul before she lost her balance. She pressed her eyes tighter expecting to hear a loud thud beneath her or at least the pain that might attack her in few seconds. Yet, nothing from that.

“Be careful clumsy!” his soft voice muttered in annoyance, with his arms clamped around her waist tightly. Yoongi and Taehyung who were in the same room shrunk in their seat upon witnessing Seul clumsiness that might turn into a serious accident. Both of them were about to arise from their feet to save the day however thankfully Jin who was few feet away from Seul, fast enough to halt the accident from happening.

Releasing her from his embrace, Seul finally let out a deep sigh of relief “That was close! Thank you Jin!” she turned to face the handsome guy with a wide smile. His eyes glimmered in happiness since he had his makeup on, he looked overly handsome in that plain black shirt of his. Not that he didn’t look good with those magic touch from the talented nuna, yet Jin is already good looking in real. The magic touch enhanced the glow on his face.

Seul didn’t even realize she was blushing at her own thought.

‘Shit…what the hell is wrong with me’ Seul tore his gaze before Jin noticed the obvious taint on her cheeks.

Jin patted the top of her head softly “Seul, can I get change? Where is my clothes?” he asked once again with his soft yet manly voice. Rolling his eyes in annoyance, Yoongi scowled lowly “Yah Min Yoongi, I told you to stay still and don’t move. Go to sleep!” the older woman scolded, frowning deeply.

‘Why is Jin hyung acting all coy in front of her’ his mind mentally judged the eldest member in the group, deciphering the image in front of him making him even more annoyed.

“Oh yes, unnie told me to help you guys to change, wait let me find your outfit!” Seul grinned, looking for the outfit with Jin’s name tag on it. Surprised by her own competency to find everything under five seconds, Seul handed the outfit to Jin “Here you go!” Jin nodded in approval.

“You are good Seul-ah. Have you ever considered to work with us?” his question flustered her. Working with seven living sculpture, like she could survive a day with them around her 24/7. Seul barely survived few hours with these boys, that sounded more like a pathway to heaven.

Seul blinked “I am working with you guys, your caretaker” she chuckled softly.

Jin corrected “As a stylist I mean, not a caretaker” deep down inside how he wished he could hire Seul, if an only he owned the company, Ceo Jin.

“I like being your caretaker better. I can cook for you guys and look after your welfare” she muttered genuinely. A soft smile spread on his face, Jin had genuinely loved Seul’s presence around them. In fact, he yearned for more time to be with her. Too bad, she had her own life not that he wanted to ruin hers. If it is possible, he wanted to keep her by his side forever.

What a dangerous thought. Jin shrugged off the weird feeling inside him refused to succumb into it deeper. He encircled her wrist, tugging her to one of the rooms “Where are we going?” she asked confusedly.

“Helping me to get change?” he said innocently. Jin meant to tease her but to see Seul small eyes rounded in pure fear, motivate him to prolong the teasing.

Seul pulled her hand from his grip “You want me to watch you strip?” he nodded with a serious expression. “That is how stylist do their job, if you don’t believe me. You can ask Semmy nuna” he cleared his throat allowing himself to breathe from this fun scene.

“You mean, unnie has seen all of you strip before? I mean, the stylist that work with you. They watch you.. urm strip?” she hesitated, reconsidering Jin’s word to be serious. This line of work was even dangerous than she ever thought. Not that it toyed you mentality but as well as it is playing with your heart.

Jin nodded with a soft hum, surpassing his smile.

For an endless moment she stared into the dark depths of his eyes before pulling in a deep breath. “I can’t watch you strip” Seul expressed in her tiny and timid voice. She looked vulnerable and adorable itching Jin to pull that pure girl into his arm. Yes, he did it after much contemplation.

“I am joking” he laughed heartily, squeezing the girl in his embrace. Jin who had no control over his laugh hid his face in her shoulder. She could literally feel his whole body shaking due to the excessive laugh.

Seul grunted “What a prick” puffing her cheeks, she gave a soft slap on his back enough to show her dissatisfaction toward his over the top teasing. Pulling away after calming down, Jin squished her cheeks moulding them in circular motion “You should see your face. Tsk, acting innocent huh. Remember I caught Jungkook kissing you before~” he whispered lowly in her ears before disappearing behind the door to get ready.

She blushed madly ‘WHEN DID HE SEE THAT?’ she scrambled to her feet and hurried out of the room. Being in the same room as Jin only suffocate her even more, that was so unnecessary for him to make fun of her.

“Seul? Are you alright?” she bumped into clueless Semmy at the door yet Seul managed to pull the most awkward smile of the century. “I am alright, Jin is changing inside. Did you find the accessories for Tae?” she immediately find a topic to talk about before the older woman noticed the tense in the air.

Beaming widely, Semmy nodded “Thank god I brought the tie along! This is a must accessory for Tae. Oh, since you are here, can you go check on Gukkie. I bet he is struggling with his belt. I need to get this to Tae. Thank you Seul-ah” she winked leaving the unstable girl behind.

‘What kind of guy who doesn’t even know to put on his own belt, is he an idiot?’ Seul dragged her feet to the east, twisting the door knob open only to be welcomed by Jungkook’s bare back. Holy, Jungkook’s bare back was a must sight to see. His tone muscle was too much for her eyes to handle.

“Nuna I can’t fix this freaking belt, can’t they make a simpler belt” he complained while his fingers fumbled at his belt. His lower lips puckered into a small pout, as he spun around to catch Seul’s hard gaze roaming on his body “Seul… What are you doing urm here…I thought it was nuna” he rubbed his neck.

“Unnie..told me to come here. I didn’t mean to barge in without warning, I thought you’re dressed. I will wait for you until you’re fully dressed then..” she took few steps backward almost hitting the vase behind her.

‘Get your mind straight Ji Seul!’ How could she even get her mind straight after witnessing such sight. She refused to mention about Jungkook’s perfectly shaped abs, like she could even think straight from the sinful sight after this.

Jungkook’s hand stopped her before she could reach the door knob. His veiny hand was on the knob staring down at Seul and she felt a little rattled. Seul tucked hair behind her ears, feeling self-conscious under his scrutiny “You said, you wanted to help. Help me with my belt” there was a hint of playfulness behind those does eyes.

“Can’t you fix it by your own or can you just call one of your hyungs to do it for you?” she wanted to explain herself that she’s a lady and was not supposed to touch him inappropriate way. Not that area, too private and scandalous.

He pressed his lips together finding a way to trap Seul in between “Then, I will ask one of the nunas to fix it for me” twisting the door knob slightly, Seul shrieked in disbelief. “YOU CANT-NO. I MEAN DON’T-!” Jungkook smug in victory.

“Someone is being possessive over me”

“I am not”

“We know those are lies. Now fix it for me or I am going to find someone else to fix it for me” his dominant voice sounded super wrong and sexy. Her dirty thought was leading her into another dark side of this situation. What was she thinking?

Seul poked her finger against his chest, alarming the guy “Are you threatening me Jeon Jungkook?” she had a playful smile at the corner of her lips. Groaning inwardly, Jungkook restrained himself from doing all the bad things that he had in mind. Mind you this golden maknae aint that goldenly innocent anymore. He too numerous time had a super wild imagination.

“Feisty. Are you going to fix my belt now are you planning to keep me waiting?” Jungkook’s muscle tense up as the tip of her fingers traced along his arm, testing his patience. Seul tilted her head “Why does the question sounded so wrong to me Jung” she poked fun.

“Don’t test me” he gulped the heavy lump on his throat.

She shrugged, brushing her fingers around his torso “I did not say anything. Perhaps, you are hinting something else?” Seul did not know how many time she had cursed and regretted everything that came out from her foul mouth, yet it never stopped her to tease this younger guy before her.

Seul purposely took the long way to stroke his slim waist along the length of the belt around it, and fumbled with the key to the shackles. He bit his lower lips feeling extremely frustrated by Seul’s teasing “Nuna….” his very pleasing and gruffy voice called out Seul in the sexiest fashion. The “nuna” term which he never used before sent chill down her spine. Did she just press the wrong button? That was no good.

His breath hitched at the mere touch, seconds later Jungkook exhaled a low grunt “Nuna..You do realize I am a man right, and you are a woman?” he leaned closed to her earlobe whispering those words one by one alluring Seul into the darkness of his voice.

She composed herself trying not to be affected by the change in his voice “I know. And you never call me nuna before, what makes you call me nuna” Seul pressed while keeping her eyes on the belt, unbuckle the belt.

“Don..t do that…” Jungkook held back his low groan. “God, nuna you are driving me insane” he run his nose along the length of her hair, taking a moment to appreciate the sweet strawberry smell from it.

Seul heart thumped against her chest, and she knew right way, this was wrong.

She made the wrong move.

She was not supposed to trigger Jungkook….nevermind.

Seul coughed a little to ease the sexual tension between them, her fingers fumbles once again with the knot around his waist. After struggling a little, she held the strap on his belt, inserting the end of into the belt loops.

“Are you going to leave me hanging?” Jungkook inaudible mumble was so close to her ears, that he could feel his hot breath against her skin. His lips started to move by its own at the side of her neck dizzying her mind instantly.

“Stop..that..Kkuk..” she squeaked lowly between her sharp breath. Seul gathered herself ignoring the feeling of his soft lips against her skin and threaded the belt end through each loop, pulling it through. Once it reached the last loop, Seul buckled Jungkook belt hurriedly with hope he didn’t catch her nervousness.

“Okay, I am done. Put on your shirt, you don’t need me to button up for you right. Yeah-right, then I will get going and see if Semmy unnie needs me” she blurted it out at once, chewing her lower lips. Jungkook brows flinched together in confusion and he ended up letting a dangerously low chuckle.

For a second, Seul thought she was free from Jungkook prying eyes, but she was so wrong. As she was about to exit the now heated room, Jungkook embraced her from behind, nuzzling her shoulder a little too unusual than his usual affection towards her.

“You lead me on only to leave me frustrated. That is not fair” he brushed off hair from her shoulder leaving a trail of kiss along her blade, slowly turning her body to face him again. She held onto his biceps to regain herself back from this sudden closeness. In fact, his soft skin against her clothed body weakened her knees.

Jungkook pressed a gentle kiss on her lips and drew back to utter something “I only call you nuna when…” he nuzzled their lips together, biting the soft flesh awfully slow teasing Seul’s desire. Her eyes fluttered reacting weirdly to his soft touch “When…?” she mumbled against his lips.

He brushed a finger along the delicate flush on her cheekbones, and then gently the spot with his lips before continued “When..i want to do all the bad things that I have in mind with you” with those shady words coming from the innocent man, Seul gasped a little to see this side of his.

Jungkook captured her lips once again eagerly, he drank in her gasps and sighs, lapping at her lips. Kissing Jungkook has never been this intense before and for some reason today it felt like she had never even share any kisses with him. His large hand stroking her body deeply, pulling the girl closer to his body.

The kiss lasted for few more minutes until Seul had enough and pulled away before it could lead to something else. What was she doing during her work hour? This was unprofessional.

“I don’t want to slack off. I am working” she panted against his lips. “So,do you” she stroked his cheeks one last time with a small kiss on his lips. Embarrassed and flustered, she scurried off the room breathing heavily.

Jungkook had his oddly bunny smile which appeared to be super sexy on his face again. He sunk on the bed allowing himself to register the moment that he had with Seul earlier. Groaning in his head, he rubbed his neck with a shy smile.

Closing the door behind her, she cupped her heated cheeks deadpanned after the unexpected scene inside the room. Hoseok and Namjoon walked pass her but soon to put it a stop upon realizing Seul, they sent her a wary glance.

“Seul..?Are you alright?” Hoseok asked with a hint of concern. Hoseok was fully dressed in his outfit and he looked extremely good, to make it sounded more unrealistic, his dimple smile found their way to comfort Seul’s wild heart.

Seul smiled meekly “I am okay. You look good Hobi!” she gave him a thumb up and winked in process. Delighted with the compliment, Hoseok grinned from ear to ear “What about me?” asked Namjoon.

“We have to do something about that shirt Joon, why can’t you tuck it in properly. Let’s go” she needed an escape from the thought of Jungkook. Yes, keeping herself occupied with work would be the best way to put a stop to whatever that she had in her mind.

Namjoon followed her mindlessly, as soon as they reached the room where they could find Semmy fixing Jimin’s light blue shirt. He smiled widely as soon as his eyes landed on Seul “You look dashing Jiminie” she complimented.

“Thank you Seul-ah!” Semmy shot Jimin a playful smirk making the younger guy blushed in his stance. “Nuna stop that” Jimin and his habit, lower lips puckered unknowingly into an adorable sulk.

“I know Jiminie. You don’t need to tell me” she whistled and returned to her work trying not to press the flustered boy even more.

The tall guy spread his leg wide, so he would be in the same level as Seul at least to ease her job. She chuckled at his antic and murmured a soft thank you, buttoning his sleeve button with care. His eyes landed on her lips noticing the smear of lipstick on her lips.

“Seul..You have something on your lips” he pointed out the area in circle.

“What?” she rubbed it softly only worsen the stain. Namjoon shook his head, reaching out to her lips “What did you eat to get you into this mess?” he laughed, slipping his thumb carefully over her lips, wiping off the stain.

His questions had flustered her since it was traced back to the scene of her and Jungkook not long ago “I didn’t notice that.. I was in rush, thank you Joon..” she forced a smile on her lips, hiding the nervousness in her.

‘ You are so dead Jeon Jungkook’ she groaned in her head.

 -------------------

 D-1 to BBMA

For the rest of the day Seul avoided Jungkook at all cost and whenever Semmy called her to help with the boys’ outfit once their interview at one place was done, she would casually go to help Jin or Namjoon instead. Not that she only avoided Jungkook, yet she purposely refuses to make any eye contact with Yoongi. After the plane incident, it was hard to not get her words stuck at the back of her throat. There was some kind of force from Yoongi that make her wanted to take a break from that man.

Jimin on the other hand was the calmest and coolest among others. Despite his clear feelings for Seul, he didn’t show it explicitly or made her heart turn into a puddle of mess. Unlike, Jungkook and Yoongi, the two of them were aggressive in showing their physical affection. The sweet Jimin now and then would intertwine their hands together, pulling her into his embrace and sometimes left trail of kisses at the top of her head. And, that was it.

She could barely handle Yoongi and Jungkook so she hoped Jimin would stay that way. Her heart needed a break obviously from these overwhelming feelings. Bighit staffs were being overly friendly and nice towards her, made her feel comfortable and welcomed during her stay in Las Vegas. She didn’t have a chance to sightseeing considering the boys’ schedule were so tight that she had to run here and there whole day.

Nonetheless, she had fun watching how the industry works. Most importantly, their life as an idol. It was not an easy path to begin with. The pressure from the surrounding never left their shoulder, since they had to look good in front of the camera, like flashing of their biggest smile even though they were drained.

Namjoon was working hard in every interview knowing he’s the only who could speak English fluently, making it extremely challenging for him. Seul could tell the disappointment in the members’ eyes, they wanted to help Namjoon and feeling bad for him to speak on behalf of them all the time. They had their back for each other, that was the important part.  

They just came out from the arena where the award might take place tomorrow, they got the chance to see the arenas and their designated seats. It made them even nervous to be in the same hall as worldwide celebrities whom at first was unreachable now they were all here. That was the craziest part of all.

The moment when they left the place and reached the hotel, it was already 11 P.M. Everyone was ready to hit the bed feeling their muscle aching from every corner of the body. After bidding a final goodnight, Seul and Semmy made their way to her room to prepare the boys outfit for their red carpet tomorrow. They had to make sure there would not be any slightest mistake occurred considering all eyes were on BTS tomorrow.

Using the last ounce of their energy, Semmy and Seul used up all their time the whole night to organize the outfit and suitable accessories to match with it. Seul learned a lot from Semmy and in few days, both of them grew close to each other. Hanging the last outfit on the rack, they smiled gleefully at the result “Unnie that will look good on Tae!” she squealed.

“I know right! Tae suggested me to wear something like this, so I can imagine he will look good. He has a great sense in fashion” Semmy patted the black tux. “Now let’s get some rest, it is 1.30 in the morning. Sorry for keeping you awake Seul…You have been such a great help these past few days” she chuckled.

“I am all good unnie, don’t worry about me. I will be by your side until we are done with this. Use me all you want” Seul stretched sitting on the bed with a loud yawn.

Semmy chuckled, ruffling her hair “Go sleep kid, its going to be a long day tomorrow”.

The moment of truth might come soon, and she was excited to see the boys in the outfit that Semmy prepared for them. Seul could imagine their good luck in this suit.

Men and black suit. What a perfect combination indeed.

   This work belongs to  Chimswae © 2020. All Rights Reserved

[legobiwan]

could you do 18 and 100 for the trope mash up thing? (And if you want two characters, Obi-wan and Hondo?- I got a little confused with your added instructions to the trope mashup)

Circus AU / Accidentally Saving the Day (Hondo & Obi-wan)

Anon, I had to WORK for this one and even did a little research into circus history since I am woefully undereducated about the topic. I think I’ve found an interesting way of weaving these all together and giving a little bonus at the end. Stick with me here, I need to do a bit of an introduction to get this whole idea going. 

For the purposes of this AU, please assume that the Clone War and all the events surrounding it happened directly after Naboo, meaning everyone is about 10 years younger than they are in canon. Also assume that Qui-gon was not killed on Naboo, although that has little bearing on this particular story.

THIS GOT OUT OF CONTROL. I was expecting to write a fun little 1,000 word thing, not a whole AU concept. But here we are, so….uh…

We’ll see what everyone thinks? Enjoy. And good luck  :D

—-

“How are they doing?” Szimon Tesdak asked, thin, long mustache bobbing up and down at the ends.

The other man patted the Pamaradian prancer’s neck, running his fingers through the thick mane of her hair. The prancer shivered, eyes darting back and forth, hooves tapping nervously on the durasteel floor. The man known as Whisp spoke softly in the creature’s ear, the words foreign to even Szimon’s cosmopolitan ears. A few moments later, the prancer settled, nuzzling her snout into Whisp’s shoulder. 

Whisp turned to face Szimon. “They’re restless,” he said. “Fourteen hours in a cruiser is a bit much for anyone to take.”

Szimon waved the veiled criticism away with a flick of his wrist. Yes, it had been a long journey, but the payoff would - hopefully - be worth it. And they needed the credits - or whatever these people were going to pay. 

“An hour more and we’ll be there,” Szimon said with false confidence.

Whisp stood, crossing his arms tight against his chest, the black-and-crimson fabric of his worn travel tunic wrinkling with the gesture. There was a hint of beard on the young man’s chin, something that, when it grew in, would likely age him a good ten years. The man peered at Szimon with grey-blue eyes like he was trying to ace one of those vision tests at a local spaceport agency. Always looking for hidden meaning, he is. 

And sometimes he finds it. 

At least with the creatures, that had been the case. Two years Whisp had been working for Szimon and never had the older circus master figured out the man’s trick. Szimon had spent his life in the circus, from his childhood on Thybaar right up the grand days of the bright Coruscant lights to his now-ramshackle operation held together by thread, petty theft, and the occasional cashing in on favors owed. 

Szimon had seen it all - and more,  but nothing like Whisp and his ability to communicate with the creatures, like he was reading their minds. “The Whisperer,” the other members had taken to calling him. The moniker had stuck, albeit in shortened form, Whisp’s real name - whatever it had been - long forgotten.

“Remind me again why we’re flying out to the Outer Rim for a show? Seems a bit of an expense when we could just as easily round up a few smaller venues for far less hassle,” Whisp said.

“Ah, Whisp, ever the cynic,” Szimon clapped a meaty hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Don’t think of it as a hassle,” he waved a dramatic hand, as if unveiling something from a behind a curtain. “But as an expansion of our operations.”

Whisp cocked an eyebrow. “Hardly difficult seeing as our operations comprised of three planets the past month, two of which we never actually got to land on.”

Szimon snorted. Well, yes, business had been down because of the war. Szimon himself cared little for the politics of the Republic or the Separatists. A government was a government, with all its little games and corruptions, mazes of betrayal, and endless mountains of datawork. No, Szimon Tesdak would never be chained behind one of those desks. 

But many others were, shackled to unfulfilling jobs and lives, stuck in a desert of mediocrity and boredom. That was where Szimon came in. Unhappy citizens tended to breed unhappy revolts. But give them a nice circus, something to laugh at, a little magic that was absent from their day-to-day existence?

It didn’t really matter who was in power. The problems, the outcomes -they were always the same in the end. 

Still, the war had been disruptive to his business and over the past few months, the “Great Thybaarian Traveling Show” had been forced into semi-refugee status as planet after planet was devastated by the conflict between a mechanical and clone army. Circuses were part of avoiding war, not conducting it.

Szimon shook off the dark thoughts with a wide smile. “Come on now, Whisp. We’re going to make great friends on the Outer Rim. My benefactor has promised a large sum, maybe even a sponsorship if we play our cards right.”

“I thought they were pirates,” Whisp retorted, half-smile playing on his face.

Szimon made an airy gesture, chuckling. “Pirates, embezzlers, Hutts. As long as we get paid, I’ll work for the Sith themselves.”

Whisp tightened under Szimon’s arm, which was wrapped around the thin man’s shoulders. Some unreadable emotion passed over his face, a premonition of a storm. After a moment, he spoke, hesitant. 

“I suppose.”

“That’s the spirit!” Szimon exclaimed, shaking Whisp. “Come on, we have to make preparations for landing and I’m not letting Battlebuzz near those controls again.“

—–

“That was a very impressive show, my friend,” the pirate known as Hondo Ohnaka sidled up to Whisp, unceremoniously dropping into the seat next to him, tankard full of green ale. 

Whisp looked up from his own mug, half-consumed, eyeing the pirate warily. “Thank you,” he replied, adding, “I think,” after a moment’s hesitation. It never hurt to be too cautious around pirates. 

“All those acrobats, all the flips and whooshes.” Hondo made an extravagant gesture with his arm, nearly taking Whisp’s head off. “And the beautiful women dancing to such music, it shouldn’t be allowed!” he grinned, giving Whisp a knowing look. ”My men, they enjoy that - some of my women, too!” Hondo cackled, downing the entirety of his pint in one go, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

“But you, my friend - with the creatures.” The pirate’s voice turned a shade serious and several parsecs more calculating. Whisp bit his lip, steeling himself to steer another drunken conversation away from this dangerous territory. “Yes, the creatures,” Hondo continued, nearly singing. “Now that was something I’ve never seen before. Most beast tamers use weapons.” The pirate made a few motions mimicking a whip. “They use fear and intimidation but you!” He pointed a finger that almost went up Whisp’s nose. “Ah, it was almost like you talked to them with your mind.”

Whisp gave a forced shrug, his pulse starting to race. He needed to stay calm. Needed to focus on the present, not his anxieties. He laughed to himself, bitter, wholly aware of the gross irony of that statement. “Just an ability I’ve had since my youth,” he said, voice flat. “Better me in the circus than those brutish weapons-wielding tamers you mentioned.” Whisp scowled. That much was the truth. Whisp couldn’t abide by their methods, couldn’t stand the way the pain and fear radiated from the abused creatures. He knew he couldn’t save them all, but if he could give a second chance to even a single Borcatu, if he could find a home for those who had been cast out -

Anger trilled at the back Whisp’s brain, a sensuous, lush melody more tempting than any of the ribald pirate ballads in the background.

Hondo beckoned at another Weequay, grabbing two pints from a serving tray, setting one in front of Whisp in an unspoken command. “Yes, your youth. Tell me about that. Your accent is polished, very posh, very Core World.” Very monied. If only, Whisp rued.

It had been too much effort to try and tame his accent, which stood out amongst Szimon’s motley crew of performers like a neon bell weed in the desert. 

Whisp took a long sip of his beverage, smacking his lips together. The new alcohol was a step higher in quality than the dredge he had been drinking before. He peered to Ohnaka on his right, wondering if he was about to be drugged, kidnapped, or worse. Oh well, he thought, drinking some more of the beverage. Might as well enjoy while I can.

“I was brought up in the Core,” Whisp recited, setting his glass down, not even needing to think about the words he had said them so many times. “My family, unfortunately, abandoned me, so I took to farming in the Mid-Rim as a means of sustaining myself. It was there I discovered I had an affinity for creatures and then did some work in healing clinics before the war broke out. The Republic Army took over all the planetary clinics so I was forced into finding…” Whisp bobbed his head, “more creative ways to apply my talents.”

“Interesting,” Hondo noted, his gaze greedy as he looked Whisp up and down. Whisp’s other hand moved to his waist. So much for enjoying. He fingered the blaster he had hidden under his red and silver vest, neatly tucked away in a shoulder holster. 

Hondo held out a hand. “I don’t mean to cause you alarm, my young friend,” he said with a laugh, sitting back in his chair, kicking both feet up on the table. “You can put your blaster away, I only want to talk business.”

Whisp’s hand tightened for a moment before he raised an open palm in a universal gesture of surrender, his brow furrowed.

“What type of business?”

“What type indeed?” Hondo hummed, rocking his feet back and forth in time to the bawdy, clangorous music. Somewhere on the other side of the room, Tergallian and Lopisa had gotten into a knife-throwing contest with some of the pirates. Whisp had a feeling the Weequay had bet on it and that the pirates were about to lose their shirts, pants, shoes, and who knew what else in the deal. Might have to make a quick getaway if there’s enough of a ruckus, Whisp thought, eyeing the locations of the exits and the best strategies to get there without being shot. 

Again, he winced. 

“Oh, you won’t make it out, I promise” Hondo commented, his expression still jovial. “All the exits are under full guard and I guarantee there’s no other way out unless it’s by my command.” He pressed a finger into the table, all traces of humor gone from his voice. “Unless,” he began after a moment, “you are a Jedi.”

Whisp was off his stool in an instant, blaster in hand. Not wanting a direct confrontation, he pointed it towards the ground, the table hiding the weapon from the view of most of the other pirates and circus members. Off in the corner, Szimon’s eyes grew wide as he made a series of furious movements in Whisp’s driection.

“I’m fine,” Whisp signed back in the strange language of gestures known only to those in this particular circus, an easy way to communicate on stage while looking artistic and also a not bad method of either avoiding trouble or sometimes finding it - if their pockets and stomachs were empty enough.

Hondo clasped his hands behind his head, looking unconcerned. “I did not mean to upset you,” he said, lips quirking upwards as if he had just figured out some baffling puzzle. “Only warn you about my security system. But let us not talk of such things, as they disturb you and as my dear mother always said - “ Hondo raised a finger. “Son! You catch more apidactyls with honey. And if that doesn’t work, you can still catch them with a blaster.”

Not worth the fight. Not even sure I’d win this fight, Whisp sighed inwardly. Knowing when he was outmatched, or at least when to choose his battles, Whisp retook his seat with a muttered curse. 

“Fine, then. What do you want from me?”

Hondo smiled. “Ah, now we talk business,” he shrugged. “Nothing much, my friend. And nothing - mostly - to do with your little traveling show. But the circus isn’t going to pay you forever and a man of your many talents - ” Hondo leaned forward, putting both forearms on the table. “Could fetch a pretty hefty payday if he found himself aligned with the right people.”

Whisp’s eyebrows rose. “Are you offering me a job?”

Hondo raised both arms. “Maybe, if you are willing to - “

“Hondo!” A large, burly man came barreling into the room. At once, the music stopped with a zippered rip of a holodisc jarred from its needle, pirates and circus members alike turning to the wide-eyed, heaving pirate. 

“We got trouble out there!”

Immediately, Hondo came to his feet, blaster in hand. “What kind of trouble?”

“I think it’s the Republic! Looks like them, at least. They’re tryin’ a fall back to our compound!”

“We’ll see about that,” Hondo growled, raising his weapon. “No one takes over Hondo Ohnaka’s compound without my permission!”

—-

Blaster fire rang out from all sides, a multicolored lattice of deadly energy. To Whisp’s surprise, Hondo was near the vanguard of the pirates, shooting at the incoming wave of bright, white uniforms with terrifying precision. The pirates were good, Whisp had to give them that, the transition from unruly drunkards to semi-disciplined guerrilla fighters more seamless than Whisp thought possible. 

“Any ideas?” Szimon asked next to him, the pair huddled behind a large boulder, just out of range of the real fighting. Whisp knew Szimon didn’t care one way or another about who won this particular battle - one of thousands Szimon had witnessed over the years. But their ship - their livelihood and home, not to mention only asset - lay just beyond the front line of what Whisp was pretty sure were the infamous clones. If their ship was damaged, or, even worse, destroyed - they were all done for. 

Whisp took in the scene, applying his natural affinity for tactics that had been first discovered early in his tenure with Szimon, an awkward encounter with the Ruuthian mafia, a highly successful performance, and a jar of…requisitioned heeble eggs belonging to Ruuthian mob boss. It had been his quick thinking that had gotten them out of that mess, a plan so crazy it couldn’t do anything but work. From that point on, Whisp had earned the nickname, “The General,” much to his dismay.

Carefully, Whisp extended his senses, not only his eyes and ears but his other senses, the ones he kept locked away from everyone else - everyone else except his creatures. The creatures didn’t care what his status or title was, if he had succeeded or not, if he occasionally broke some moral law that had been branded into his mind as a child. The creatures didn’t judge - they had never judged and found him wanting.

It wasn’t good. For all of Hondo’s firepower, they were still in the bottom of a cereal bowl in the sandy crevasse, the clone troopers above holding higher ground as they advanced on the compound. It didn’t escape Whisp’s notice that the troopers’ blaster bolts were consistently going wide, aimed to injure or impede, but not kill. Some strange long-buried instinct rose in Whisp’s chest as he watched the men, sensing their similarities, down to a genetic level. Was he was supposed to be on their side? Supposed to be fighting with them, supposed to -

An explosion rocked the compound, bringing down metal, stone, and all kinds of debris on the pirates. Hondo barked out more orders, a line of men running to set up what looked like a short-range missile while the rest of the pirates resumed their firefight. 

I’m supposed to be getting us out alive, Whisp fumed at himself. No more distractions. Szimon’s face was covered in dust and sand and for a moment Whisp almost laughed. The circus master looked the spitting image of the Great Lady Devonna in her full makeup. 

“Are you alright, Szimon?” Whisp asked, helping the other man to a seat. 

“I’ve seen worse,” he growled, swiping debris from tassled gold epaulettes perched on bright red shoulders like two Felucian retrine sparrows. “Just do something, Whisp, I’m not getting any younger here.”

Right. Whisp looked again at the fight, the positioning of the men, their ship. The pirates weren’t going to win an all-out firefight, not like this and Whisp had to assume there would be reinforcements coming sooner than later. It was now or…

Whisp frowned. They could wait for the clones to take over the compound and beg for lenience. But knowing the Republic, they’d probably confiscate the ship. And send them to prison. Besides, Whisp’s own presence might raise too many uncomfortable questions, ones he had no desire whatsoever to revisit.

So much for that idea, he rued, while surveying the scene. The clones were all faced towards the fighting, Hondo’s forces feisty enough to keep them fully engaged. There weren’t that many of them, not a full battalion, for certain, which meant it was likely Szimon’s ship was wholly unguarded and not even considered a threat, as it had no visible weaponry. If he could just…

Whisp closed his eyes, feeling for the familiar energies, the outlines of the creatures he cared for, from the smallest snitmouse to the largest morak. Yes, he thought, connecting his mind with the stampede creatures. They would never see it coming. 

A moment later the earth rumbled, the fighting slowing to a small drizzle of blaster fire as the line of clones turned to the oncoming dust storm that hid the three moraks, now prodded on by Whisp, feeding off of his repressed frustration and anger with the representatives of the institution that had driven him to this life in the first place. Of the people who were trying, again, to deprive him of a home, of a place where he belonged.

Unaware the opaque cloud hid anything living, no less animals whose shells repelled most blaster fire - a well-kept secret known not even in the fancy universities on Coruscant - the clones fired to no avail as the moraks descended, sending bodies flying in every direction with desperate shrieks, the remainder of the forces too startled to return fire efficiently. Three bloody minutes later, the remaining clones ran, retreating, leaving the bodies of their fallen comrades as the only evidence of the failed ambush. 

Cheers rose the pirates as they lifted their weapons in glee, somehow manifesting mugs of ale in their hands only a scant minute after they had been involved in a full-bore battle. Whisp slowly climbed from behind the rock, pulling Szimon up with him. The Thybaarian looked at Whisp as if it was the first time he had ever seen him. 

“Was that you?” he asked, eyes trying to pierce through years of layers, of hidden secrets that were the only true skin of the man known as Whisp.

Whisp laughed, uncomfortable. “What? No, I mean - “ 

Szimon shook his head, still dazed. “I always had my suspicions, you know. Not just the creatures, although I’ll grant you that’s one hell of a trick.” He paused, his expression unreadable. “I figured there was some reason you weren’t up with them in that fancy tower, figured it was none of my business, but now - “ Szimon’s eyes turned calculating. “This isn’t just some parlor trick, is it, it’s - “

Whisp backed away, palms splayed in front of him, as if trying to stop the words from entering his space. “No, I’m not. I - “ he looked around, wild, feeling just like one of his creatures, feral and trapped. He was going to lose his home again, once they found out, it was all going to be over. “I never - “ Something snapped, then crackled with inside of Whisp, like the breaking of an invisible, electric bone, sparking flying everywhere.

“I never was one, okay!” he yelled, stomping his foot. “Never was, never will be! That man - that child - died over ten years ago. This -” Whisp gestured angrily at himself. “Is what I am. Nothing. More.”

They had been certain leave Whisp with that message. Nothing more. Just nothing.

“A fascinating story, my young friend,” a low, baritone voice intoned from behind them. “I would be curious to hear more of it.”

Whisp spun around. The man was - there was no other word for it - regal, imperious, commanding the attention of every being in the valley, as he moved towards Whisp and Szimon, long brown cape billowing in the wind, deep violet outfit a perfect fit on his broad chest. Hondo’s troops paused mid-swig, ale running down their necks, and even Hondo himself craned his head forward to get a better look at the newcomer. 

Fifty blaster rifles rose at once.

The man stopped, surveying the ends of the weapons pointed at him with a disaffected gaze. The compound held its breath, sinews tightening around triggers as an unworldly clarity came over the canyon, as if each atom, each sound wave could be made manifest as a physical, tangible reality. And then the man smirked, wholly unconcerned with his vast disadvantage in the situation as the world returned to its customary blur. Whisp and the others exhaled, noisy phlegm crackling up their lungs, dust tingling in their throats.

The stranger took an unhurried step forward raising one hand. 

“You may lower your weapons,” he addressed the pirates, voice betraying nothing but absolute confidence. It occurred to Whisp then that the man had never been at any disadvantage at all. “I intend no harm,” he added in his deep, patrician voice.

Hondo took an equal, ambling step forward, hands clasped behind his back. He circled the newcomer, a hound sniffing for possible quarry, gazing him up and down, as if he were a incoming shipment of contraband. Then, after a moment, Hondo gave a nod, and the blasters summarily disappeared. 

“My, my we are popular today,” the pirate began amiably. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Mister…” Hondo gestured at the other man in question.

“I am here for three reasons,” the stranger announced, ignoring Hondo’s unspoken inquiry. “The first was unwelcome, but unsurprising. My ships were caught unaware, en route from a trade post in the Outer Rim to Jybosti. I carry the identification cards and manifest if you desire proof of my claim. The Republic forced our hand, causing us to land here and engage in an unwanted ground battle which regrettably involved your forces.” The man turned to Hondo, giving an apologetic gesture. Hondo answered with cool regard, his skepticism echoing through the enclosure. Whisp had to agree. No one just happened to go by a place like Florrum without reason. Especially someone like this. 

Still, it wasn’t the stranger that had been one shooting at them. Maybe he was telling the truth. Or at least a part of it.

“Secondly,” the man continued, opening his arms, “I would like to thank you all for, how shall I say - “ He paused for dramatic effect, lifting his chin slightly. Whoever this man was, he knew how to hold a crowd, perhaps even better than Szimon. “Saving the day, however unexpected your heroics may have been.” 

“Yeah, heroes!” One of the pirates bellowed, raising both his blaster and ale mug, several others echoing his enthusiasm with chants of “Heroes!” which quickly devolved into far less elevated rhetoric.

“And thirdly?” Hondo asked, after the raucous had died down. 

“Thirdly,” the man drawled, turning his full attention on Whisp. “I would like to know further details regarding this young man’s story.”

Whisp’s eyes went wide as he took an involuntary step back. “There’s not much more to tell, I’m afraid,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. The words were automatic, a defense mechanism so perfectly tuned, it was nearly instinct. But the strange pressure that had been growing at the back of Whisp’s brain spiked with the lie, leaving a dark, velvet shadow in its wake, something immensely powerful yet a balm to his frayed emotions. It was something…

Whisp gasped, eyes locking with the other man. 

It was something familiar. 

The stranger smiled, all edges as he clasped his hands behind his back, addressing Szimon. “This young man is in your employ?” he asked, brusque, nodding towards Whisp. 

Szimon straightened his jacket and his posture, already sensing a deal in the making as he slipped into tell-tale ringmaster persona. “Yes, sir, best creature tamer I’ve ever seen.”

“Interesting,” the man commented, drawing out the word. “And if he were to leave your employ, how would that affect your operations?”

“Well, I daresay it would be quite the inconvenience,” Szimon began, his confidence building as he fell into the familiar patter of a sales pitch. Whisp barely heard the words, disbelief rising like an angry, red ocean. Would Szimon really do this to him? Now? After everything? 

“…so you see, unless I would be suitably compensated for my losses…”

The grey-haired man leaned forward and whispered something in Szimon’s ear. Szimon’s eyes went moon-wide, his mouth dropping open, words tripping from his mouth. 

“I trust that would be satisfactory?” the man asked.

“I - ah - “ Szimon sent a half-apologetic glance over to Whisp, eyes gleaming with barely-contained avarice. “I think that would be more than fair.”

“Excellent,” the man articulated, ignoring Szimon’s half-gasped ‘thank yous,’ now directing his full attention back to Whisp, drawing himself up to full height. “And you, who are about to enter my employ. What is your name?”

So that was it. No offer, not even a perfunctory question, Whisp’s future once again dictated by the whims of others. Whisp clenched his teeth agains the injustice of his very existence. “Whisp,” he answered, barely keeping the venom from his voice, fists tightening into balls, nails digging into his palms. 

“Your real name,” the man growled. Behind him, Szimon gaped, now looking on with unabashed curiosity, a faint patina of guilt oozing from his sweat-beaded forehead.

Long-buried memories, banished ghosts relegated to an afterlife he had not yet experienced rose in Whisp. He squeezed his eyes shut against the assault of emotions, of the sharp knives of betrayal, the deep pools of loss that threatened to overwhelm him. Had it been so long since he had uttered his own name?

Forcing a noisy breath between his teeth, he steeled himself, meeting the icy gaze of the other man, who considered him with keen, intense interest. 

“My name is Obi-wan Kenobi.”

For a brief second, the Force surged in a strange, dark elation as the stranger’s eyes glimmered with satisfaction. 

“And I am Yan Dooku of Serenno. Come, Obi-wan,” he said, putting an arm around Whisp’s shoulders, leading him away from the confused and quiet scene of pirates, of the doe-eyed stares of what had - for a brief, happy moment - been his family. 

From one family to the next, always a visitor. First the Jedi and Qui-gon Jinn, then Bandomeer. Then clinics, then circuses, and now this. 

With Dooku.

Something settled in Obi-wan’s gut, not unpleasant. For the first time in years, he allowed himself to open to the Force, wholly and without constraint. This felt right, more right than anything else had in Obi-wan’s life. 

“Come,” Dooku repeated, voice warming ever so slightly. “We have much to do.”

[mldrgrl]

The Lonely Hearts Club

by: mldrgrl Rating: PG-13 Summary: A little post-Milagro angst and UST on this rainy Monday evening.

Loneliness is a choice, she told Padgett, and despite her ordeal on the floor of Mulder’s apartment, it’s that stupid, simple phrase that keeps her from succumbing to her exhaustion.  Mulder is in and out of the bedroom like clockwork, like a slow ticking metronome that swings towards her every ten minutes and then retreats once he’s assured she’s still breathing.  She doesn’t blame him.  If things were the other way around, she would do the same.

There is an ache in her chest that she knows isn’t from having her heart nearly ripped out of her body.  That wasn’t real, couldn’t have been real, and she must have imagined the pain and the hooded man and the hands reaching into her chest, bones cracking open, as some sort of metaphorical fever dream.  But, the blood, Scully, there’s so much blood.  Where did it come from?  I don’t know, Mulder, I don’t know.  There isn’t so much of a scratch on her.

Like clockwork, he’s back, and she feels the dip in the bed as he sits in front of her curled body.  She can burrow herself under his duvet and hide her fists inside the sleeves of a borrowed sweatshirt, but it isn’t good enough to fool him.  Not when a steady trickle of tears has begun to flow along the side of her nose.

Mulder squeezes her shoulder and then pets her hair.  “Scully?”

“I’m fine,” she whispers.

He rests his splayed hand on the top of her back for a few heartbeats and then he gets up.  The loss of him makes her shiver, but then he’s suddenly behind her, his weight on the bed making her slide a few inches towards him.  He moves slowly as not to jostle her and then her coiled body is enveloped in a warm embrace.  

“Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to a hospital?” he asks.  His cheek is against the back of her head and she can feel her hair get caught up in his lips.

“And tell them what?” she whispers.

He doesn’t answer, but lifts his chin and rests it on top her her head.  She tries to make herself even smaller so she can maybe just disappear inside the protective circle of his arms and legs for a little while.

“Do you believe what Padgett wrote?” she asks.

“Which part?”

“Any of it.”

His chest expands against her back, contracts, and then swells again.  “You want my honest opinion?” he finally says.

She turns her head slightly and slides her eyes open just a little to look back at him.  She nods, but the sudden doubletime thump of her heart betrays her reticence.

“I think Padgett was intrigued by you,” he says.  “He became obsessed with the idea of you, but he was nothing but a man with an extensive vocabulary who liked to sit at his typewriter and dip from his endless well of adjectives that suited his own agenda.  I think you were a muse that he wanted to shape into someone he wanted you to be simply to be the man he wanted you to want.”

“Any similarities to real people are purely coincidental?”

“I think he saw what you do for a living and assumed a life for you based on cliches.  He generalized who you are as only a man can generalize a woman.”

Scully felt the pull of her brow lifting in response.  “As only a man can generalize a woman?”

“You don’t need me to tell yo, Scully.  I’m sure you’ve seen it a thousand times.  I mean I’ve...how many times have people assumed you’re my wife?  How many times have you been looked at sideways when snap on the gloves and announce you’re there to do an autopsy?  A hundred?  A thousand?”

“Too many to count, but what does that have to do with Padgett?”

“It has everything to do with Padgett.  He wanted to think he was different than other men because he looked past the business suit, but in the end he failed to see the entire package, which makes him exactly like all the men he thought he was above.”

She let’s that soak in for a moment and thinks back on men like Jack and Daniel, who found her assertiveness attractive, but only as a personal challenge to unleash her femininity only to keep her tethered to it.  Suddenly, her aspirations weren’t so attractive anymore and she felt like she was being reduced and belittled for wanting to be more than just someone’s girlfriend.  

She sighs.  “You’re talking about the Madonna-whore complex, aren’t you?”

“I’m no Freudian, but I can bet you dollars to donuts Freud would call it a classic case.”

“I’d agree with you except…”

“Except what?”

“Nevermind, you’re right.”

She can’t believe she’s actually having this conversation and she needs to put a stop to it before it goes even further.  It was embarrassing enough to have to read about herself through the eyes of a lovelorn pseudo-stalker, but now to discuss it with Mulder was simply mortifying.  She shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place.  

But, if she snuffs out this line of dialogue, would Padgett be right?  He all but described her as a prude - dressed up in poetic prose, but a prude nonetheless - and clamming up now would only prove his point.  And it isn’t so much the accusation of being repressed that annoys her, it’s that he made it seem as though the only explanation for why she keeps a tight rein on her emotions is simply professionalism.  Of course, he also insinuated that professionalism kept her from being attractive and that just really chafes.  

Professionalism has nothing to do with it.  Professionalism went out the window somewhere around the same time she admitted she would put her career on the line for Mulder.  Professionalism was practically non-existent when it came down to it.  She was at this very moment, quite unprofessionally lying in his bed, in his borrowed clothes, taking solace in his arms.  Fuck professionalism, and fuck Phillip Padgett too.

She tries not to think about how good and right it feels to be in Mulder’s bed and in his arms.  It’s what she’s been fighting against for many months now, back when she realized she saw more in Mulder than she had the day before.  She has a list a mile long of reasons why suddenly getting involved with Mulder would be a bad idea, but at a certain point, she had to be honest with herself and accept that the underlying theme of that list was purely her own fear.

“I’m afraid,” she admits out loud, in a whispered breath.

“Of what?”

She can’t answer.  She can only try to breathe normally and slow the pounding in her chest and the quick-hot flow of blood through her veins.  She could confess the feelings that have been bubbling up inside her.  She could confess that there was at least one thing Padgett had right; she did want to let someone in.  Not just someone though.  Mulder.  And then she remembers that Padgett has already stolen the one thing she’s been trying to permit herself to give to her partner.  Agent Scully is already in love.  Damn him.

“Your heart is racing,” Mulder says, pressing his chest a little more firmly to her back.  

“It still hurts.”

“Are you sure you won’t let-”

“I’m fine.”

Mulder sighs and turns his cheek to the back of her head.  They’re both quiet for a few minutes.  He’s lost in his concern for her and she’s lost in the dilemma of how to talk to her partner about how she feels without making a fool of herself in the process.

The night drags on and she stays silent.  She feels too raw and vulnerable to start professing her feelings now and Mulder...she’s almost positive that even if by chance, Mulder feels the same way that she does, he’d be reluctant to act on those feelings tonight, not with what she’s just been through.  She chooses loneliness for a little longer knowing somewhere in the back of her mind that it won’t be for long, it just has to be for now.  In this moment though, in his bed, half-asleep in his arms, loneliness never felt so good.

The End

[expressandadmirable]

RP Highlights: Past and Future

There's a man standing in the corridor of the train, bathed in morning light. He's tall, and his clothing is rough -- thick denim, unbleached cotton, a slouching cap with holes punched through to admit his horns. Shaggy hair of an inky purplish hue hangs long, tied back in a ponytail. His fingers rest on the handle of a large knife, tucked into a weathered old scabbard, which bumps gently against the waving of his tail. He smells of scotch and tobacco and salt. "Good morning, little one," he says in a voice like distant rolling thunder, without turning to look. "Spare some words with an old man, won't you?"

Lux sniffs as she rubs the last of the sleep from her eyes, suddenly becoming much more alert as she catches sight of the figure. She looks over her shoulder to the empty sleeper car, and ahead toward the unreachable dining car where her friends await her. She chews her lip. "Of course."

The man reaches forward with his other hand, and the scars on its red skin are visible in the rising light of this eternal sunrise. He opens the slats in the window, allowing the air of the Cornerian farmland plain to mingle with the metal and smoke of the car as it trundles on toward the city. "Nothing much," he says after a moment. "I just wanted to let you know that, despite everything, you're going to be all right."

Lux steps closer to him, her arms folded loosely over her robe. "Is that so?" Her mind races as she turns to take in the view through the slats, trying desperately to place the figure somewhere in her memory. Papa? She reaches for her cigarette pouch, finding the cedar box conveniently in the pocket of her robe. Finally: "Have we met?"

The man laughs, easy and friendly. "Well, yes. And no, not as such. You take what you can get, when it comes to our situation." He turns toward her. That smile -- yes. So easy, so genuine, like he could charm anyone with it. Those arms, muscular and firm, yet inviting, protective, embracing. Yet, his fingers have callused patches, his jaw a tuck mark. A fisherman and a musician. A Tiefling and a Human. Eyes milky with blindness, yet gazing right into her face. "You don't remember me except in patches, little one. I was much more than a child could possibly understand. Your heart has filled in the rest."

Aviva stares at the man she knows so well, her unlit cigarette forgotten between her fingers. Two men, one man, one figure holding two souls. She does not try to stop the tears. "I miss you."

"I miss you too." Tears stream down his craggy cheeks, burying themselves in the short-cropped beard clinging to his chin. "I'm sorry, little one. I knew this would bring you pain, but... well. It's important for you to understand something, and this is the best way for you to learn it."

Suddenly overcome with need, she throws her arms around him, burying her face against his chest. She would be his height if he had lived, but here she is the height she needs to be to find the safety torn away too quickly in life.

It's perfect, of course. Of course it is. Of course he's exactly that tall, and of course he's exactly that strong, and of course he smells exactly that way with exactly that much scruff and stubble and of course his hands are knobbly and kind and clever and of course of course of course. Because he's dead and in a dream and this is what it's like to meet your dead loved ones on a dead train in an impossible place where the sun paints everything in gold and red.

"You're going to be okay." She kisses her gently, her lips soft and cold, the stubble of her shorn head ticklish against Aviva's neck. Her hair brushes, twirling in a fan. His fingers twist in hers, unsure, young, foolish. His tail brushes against her thigh, all unawares of what he'd left behind within her when he left her behind. She's soft and young. He's old, he's hard, he's kind. Kindness, like an envelope of warmth and love, bathed in the sunrise.

Her father leads her down the endless corridor, hand in hand. "It isn't often that a person gets the chance to face the demons of their past literally, little one," he says, barely a quarter of a step ahead of her, head canted so she can see him speaking. "But you surely know by now that you're a special case."

"Mama always said I was. I have to tell her she was right." She tugs on his hand, a child and a grown woman. "Can you tell her? If I can't find her. If I can't save her. Can you tell her she was right?"

"She knows. You know she knows." He stops, turns, kneels down to get to eye level with her. He brushes a lock of her vibrant purple hair away from her face, brushes the tears from her cheeks with his rough-callused thumbs. "Aviva. The world has hurt you enough. The past has hurt you enough. When you come to the end of the road, you must look to the future."

She breathes deeply, blinking away the last of the tears, recognising the echoes of so many ghosts present in the kneeling figure -- Zahak, Mourat, Priya, Yalaz, so many faces, so many hearts. "I know. I'm trying." She stands, rising to her full height. "I don't want to let go of you." Of any of you.

He rises as well, taking her hands in his. "You don't have to," he says. "But neither should you be trapped by us. You are worthy of so much more love than what meager scraps we few could give. Remember that, and be free of the chains around your heart." He squeezes her hands gently, running his thumbs over her knuckles. "After all -- you'll be freeing all of us. You deserve the same."

* * *

Lux grins, then huffs to herself as a long-forgotten thought occurs to her, apropos of nothing. "Do you think dragons have hollow bones, like birds?"

"I never really thought about it before," Morgan admits. "Birds are really small. Scrawny, I mean. Dragons have a lot of muscle, and their wings are bigger." Morgan's eyes focus on the middle distance as she calculates figures and envisions schematics in her mind's eye. "Could be? But I feel like they might be too fragile if they did? But I've never really paid close attention to dragon bones. I bet that's something Wil would know. Or seems like, anyway. What do you think?"

"They have awfully thick bodies, so hollow bones might not be enough to support them. But solid bones would make them too heavy to fly... Unless they fly with magic as well as their wings." Lux smiles at something in the distance. "I promised if I ever met a dragon, I'd ask. Never thought I'd ever be in a position to make good on it." She glances back at Morgan almost apologetically. "One of my ghosts."

"Who did you promise that to? Or is that a bad question to ask? It just seems like such a weird thing to promise someone."

Lux lets out a small, almost weary laugh. "No, it's not a bad question, just a hard question. But, talking is how it gets easier." She hunches a bit, resting her free elbow against the table while the left hand sits beneath the kettle, the fire in her palm warming the water. "Her name was Priya. We were talking about birds -- she loved them, wanted to study them when she'd saved up enough to go to school. She was theorising about other animals capable of flight, and asked me what I thought of dragons, so I said I'd ask if I ever got the chance." She points to a small tattoo of a crane in flight hidden among the sigils and tendrils of ivy on her left arm. "That's for her. I felt her in my dream."

The 'was' tips Morgan off rather swiftly that Priya is another sad part of Lux's past. She listens quietly until the Tiefling finishes, peering intently at the tattoo on her arm. "That's pretty. The tattoo, I mean. I bet she would have liked it. What was she like, in your dream?"

"A memory. Little more than a whisper, energy present in the figure that looked like my Papa. But I felt her." Lux runs her thumb over the ink in her skin. "In real life she was clever and funny and didn't take shit from anyone. She used to gossip with me about all the ridiculous things her clients would try and get her to do, and she had absolutely no problem telling them to fuck off if they needed it. She swore like a sailor and it always made me laugh." Something deep within Lux's body seems to relax as she speaks. Sometimes old wounds can only heal when exposed to warmth and air.

"What did she do that she could say that to her clients?!" Morgan's eyes grow wide. "If I said that, I would get in so much troooooouble! She sounds super important!"

At that, Lux bursts out laughing, the flame in her hand winking out as she curls her arms into her chest. "Ohh, she would have loved to hear you say that!" She settles into a pleased grin as she reignites the little fire. "Certainly important in some ways, though most people won't admit it. She was a prostitute; worked at the Gargoyle, if you know the place. Seedy as hell, and not well-run at the time, but the madam took care of her people. She would back them without question if they had a complaint against a client -- which, in that profession, happens a lot." She chuckles again. "Priya would have liked you, I think."

"Oh, I know that place! I've never been there, but I've walked past it loads of times. We didn't do locks for them, but we did for some of the other houses. The ones where the workers rented space from the houses. Papa would change them a lot." A pang of homesickness hits Morgan as she talks about Corneria. Odd, since she is, for the first time, in the place that all Gnomes seemed to come from. "Did Priya like her work? I don't know much about it, but it doesn't seem terribly easy, despite what some of the jokes say."

"She did. She wasn't planning to do it forever, but she made good money."

"How did you meet her? Were you a client?"

Lux shakes her head. "I was hired to play in the common area. None of the workers were big fans of management, so they came to my corner when they needed to vent. I guess I was safe. I was never a client; my relationship with her was never that physical. She wanted it to be separate from work." She frowns suddenly. "I'm sorry if that's more than you needed to know. I'm just full of private information this morning."

"I don't mind." Morgan offers Lux a smile. "It's nice to hear about your life before all this. It's good to get to know you more. That's what friends do, right?"

With a nod and a smile, Lux reaches out with her free hand and gives Morgan's a squeeze. "Yeah. You can ask me anything you want, I promise I'll answer. As Sol has said, if secrets are going to come back to haunt us, I'd rather they not be mine." Her smile becomes affectionately wry. "And I swear to the gods, I do have people in my life who haven't died tragically. I have several friends who are alive and well at this very moment, even!"

"I believe you," Morgan laughs softly. "You know, sometimes a lot of sad just happens at once. It doesn't mean you're bad, or unlucky. It's just a thing that is." She squeezes Lux's hand back. "And don't worry. I won't pry or anything, but I'll listen when you want to talk, okay?"

"You would never be prying." Retrieving her hand, Lux lets her flame puff away and lifts the pot, pouring just a bit of hot water into Morgan's mug to re-warm the tea. She pours a second mug for herself. Settling back into her chair, she lets her expression sadden, no guile on her face. "I still miss her. I think she could have been forever, and part of my heart can't let go of that. She died six years ago."

"I'm so sorry," Morgan murmurs. "I can imagine that hurts a whole lot. But you'll have her memory as long as you live. You could always write a song about her, too. Then she can live on for as long as people will sing it."

Lux laughs slightly. "I've composed half a dozen songs for her over the years. But you know what's funny?" She leans in closer. "I don't think I'm a very strong lyricist. They all come out sounding like children's poetry." She sits back in her chair with a huff.

"You should sing them for us, and we can help you! Or maybe when we get back, Princess Sara will help you? I bet it's not as bad as you think it is, though. I bet you're being extra hard on yourself."

"Maybe." Lux smiles. "I would love your help. Remind me next time we stop for the night and I'll play it for you."

* * *

Leaving a kiss on Sol's palm, Aviva straightens and sets her cup of tea on the nightstand, then takes the Drow's hands in both of hers. "I want to keep looking at the future instead of the past. There were people in my dream that I've been holding onto for a long time. But there's a difference between forgetting and letting go, and I think I can finally do the latter." She chews her lip, watching Sol's face, then takes a deep breath. "I don't know whether the future ends tomorrow or in a lifetime, but I'd like you to be in it for as long as makes you happy."

Sol lets her hands be taken and she smirks up at the Tiefling, though her eyes crinkle at the corners fondly. "I think I'll give it eighty years or so. See how it goes." She doesn't try to be subtle about tugging Aviva's hands sharply, not giving her the chance to lean away as she pulls the Tiefling down for a kiss.

When the kiss finally breaks, Aviva leans her forehead against Sol's, spreading her fingers along the scar on her cheek as she grins. "I'm going to get old and fresh before your hair even goes grey." She leans back slightly, narrowing her eyes at Sol's snow-white hair. "Does it even--? Nevermind." She kisses the Drow again, then moves to stand, energy for the day finally spurring her into motion. "Time to get up. We've got Gnomes to meet." She pauses before she can rise, looking down at the tunic she's wearing that isn't hers. "You might need this."

Sol looks upwards at her own hair. "I'm already as stylish as I'll ever be." She then follows Aviva's glance down to her own tunic, and her brows crease as she narrows her eyes at the woman sitting beside her. "Not for at least the next fifteen minutes I won't."

(Lux's text and minor edits by me, incredible dream text by @stonegolem, Morgan's text by @stufflaalikes, Sol's text by @b-e-m-l-t. These three scenes all took place in the space of one early morning: Lux dreamed of all the ghosts in her heart, opened up to Morgan about some of the feelings holding her back, and was finally able to release them and move on. And I feel I should note: I may be the one who writes all the NSFW content, but Sol's player is the one who keeps letting the girls' scenes fade to black, so really we're both to blame!)

[peachriffer]

Review: Kendrick Lamar - Damn.

Strap in folks. We’re talking about Kendrick Lamar again... This is gonna be a long one.

It's official. Kendrick Lamar just went pop and this album has sent the music world into a frenzy. I've made a point of riding out the hype because of all the noise on twitter that came with it. I was extremely excited going into this thing too and wanted to make sure my true thoughts weren't guided by the internet's endless praise machine. I was listening to it though. Late thursday night I got a fresh tank of gas and spent the next hour riding out to it. I was instantly wowed.

The concept for this album comes in two parts. In the first part, death sneaks up on Kendrick. He's shot and, as he's dying, he spends his final moments believing he's been damned to Hell.

"Wicked or weakness?!" He cried in the music video for Humble. "You gotta see this." This is important because DAMN features Kendrick confessing to his many of his earthly sins and we’re the judge.

In the second part of this concept, (revealed to us on DNA) we learn more about how Kendrick has structured this record when he raps: 

"Bitch, your hormones prolly switch inside your DNA. Problem is, all that sucker shit inside your DNA."

DNA, as we know, forms a chain and comes in two parts forming the double helix. Kendrick covered this ground already on TBAP with the tracks U and I. This duality also exists between the butterfly and the caterpillar. They are completely different yet one and the same, just like the different sides to Kendrick himself. He's a Gemini, who has two first names, and is rich despite being raised in a ghetto. A walking contradiction, an oxymoron just like King Kunta.

The "sucker shit" he's referring to are all the sad songs that weave this album together with all the bangers like... well... DNA. One always follows the other. They are two halves to the same whole. 

On YAH, Kendrick throws away his blackness to follow Yahweh, a God only marginally different from his own Christian God.

"I'm a Israelite, don't call me black no mo'. That word is only a color, it ain't facts no mo."

This calls to mind, for me personally, how people kill in the name of religion despite the fact that all religions carry similar practices anyway. The Israelites are lord's chosen people while also being cursed on earth. Black and White, Christian and Jewish, Wickedness and Weakness. The value in these (seemingly) different attributes we assign others are really only worth what we choose. "You decide. Are we gonna live or die?"

Kendrick then proclaims on the very next song, ELEMENT. 

"Cuz it’s all in your eyes. Most of y'all tell lies. Most of y'all don't fade. Most of y'all been advised last LP. I tried to lift the black artists but it's a difference between black artists and wack artists." 

Here Kendrick is warring within himself over that "sucker shit" again. He refuses to fall into a what he now views as a vile mentality. 

"They won't take me out my Element. Nah, take me out my Element. Damned if I do, if I don't (Yah) Goddamn us all if you won't (yahhh) Damn, damn, damn, it's a goddamn shame. You ain't frontline, get out the goddamn way."

On FEEL, he falls into the very mentality he wants to avoid... hard.

"The world is endin', I'm done pretendin' And fuck you if you get offended I feel like friends been overrated I feel like the family been fakin' I feel like the feelings are changin' Feel like my daughter compromised and jaded Feel like you wanna scrutinize how I made it Feel like I ain't feelin' you all Feel like removin' myself, no feelings involved I feel for you, I've been in the field for you It's real for you, right? Shit, I feel like- Ain't nobody prayin' for me" 

It’s a mentality that’s just objectively not true but it’s one that we all fall into on our worst days. We watch the news, browse nonsense on twitter, chat with friends, go to work, go to school, and at the end of the day feel cheap. Like, even for all our hard-work, time, and effort, we gain nothing of value in the end. The mysterious it Kendrick is vying for will just remain in it’s same, fixed spot on the horizon, ready for him tomorrow when he ultimately gets up again to walk on that treadmill some more. 

LOYALITY comes next and here, with the help of Rihanna, Kung Fu Kenny recognizes that he needs a safety net to rely on when times get tough. He meditates to make sure he’s, as Ri-Ri puts it, Loyal to himself in advance then goes on to drop one of my favorite lines on the record: 

“Is it unconditional when the ‘Rari don’t start? Tell me when your loyality is comin’ from the heart.” 

Or in other words, “When shit hit the fan, are you still a fan?”

On PRIDE, Kendrick knocks himself down a peg again. Maybe he’s trying to reconcile a conflict between Pride and Loyality. It reminds me, personally, of that scene in Pulp Fiction where Marseilles Wallace talks down to Butch because he’s demanding his Loyality. “FUCK PRIDE.” He shouts. “Remember... Pride only hurts, it never helps.” The second verse is my personal favorite:

“Now, in a perfect world, I probably won't be insensitive Cold as December but never remember what winter did I wouldn't blame you for mistakes I made or the bed I laid Seems like I point the finger just to make a point nowadays Smiles and cold stares, the temperature goes there Indigenous disposition, feel like we belong here I know the walls, they can listen, I wish they could talk back The hurt becomes repetition, the love almost lost that Sick venom in men and women overcome with pride A perfect world is never perfect, only filled with lies Promises are broken and more resentment come alive Race barriers make inferior of you and I See, in a perfect world, I'll choose faith over riches I'll choose work over bitches, I'll make schools out of prison I'll take all the religions and put 'em all in one service Just to tell 'em we ain't shit, but He's been perfect, world”

HUMBLE is anything but humble. It’s on an album with tracks written in all caps and reminds me of the way trump tries to put his points across. “I’m the humblest man in the world. You’ll never find anyone more humble than me. Trust me, folks.” 

This song might serve to express another conflict Kendrick has with himself. He’s trying to be humble as a rapper and those two things rarely go together. Hip-hop is maybe the most bravado driven genre ever conceived.

On the other end of HUMBLE we have the disturbingly forthcoming LUST. Kendrick’s fame puts him in a position to take advantage of others, abusing his power over them like he did on These Walls. This calls to mind Trump’s famous scandal. “When you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.” It’s a point K dot addresses with his second verse: 

“We all woke up, tryna tune to the daily news Lookin' for confirmation, hopin' election wasn't true All of us worried, all of us buried, and our feeling's deep None of us married to his proposal, make us feel cheap Still and sad, distraught and mad, tell the neighbor 'bout it Bet they agree, parade the streets with your voice proudly Time passin', things change Revertin' back to our daily programs, stuck in our ways; Lust” 

I love LOVE FT. ZACARI. It’s in many ways indebted to Drake’s “Hotline Bling” but the situation is just the opposite. Kendrick reminisces on the early days of his relationship with his, now fiancee, Whitney Alford. In contrast with LUST, it forms a flawless juxtaposition between a relationship that’s true and one that, because of Lust, is all yours. It’s most hopeful song on the entire album.

LOVE’s hopefulness then gets completely dashed by XXX. FT. U2. Here Kendrick acknowledges the great lengths he’ll go to in order to defend those he loves. 

“He was lookin' for some closure Hopin' I could bring him closer To the spiritual, my spirit do no better, but I told him "I can't sugarcoat the answer for you, this is how I feel: If somebody kill my son, that mean somebody gettin' killed." Tell me what you do for love, loyalty, and passion of All the memories collected, moments you could never touch”

He later says “Alright kids, let’s talk about gun control.” like he’s an authority on keeping the peace. Kendrick knows he could easily be driven to do ridiculously heinous things too but still provides lip service to an issue. This conflict continues to persist despite Kendrick’s, now, long standing success and calls to mind Hillary Clinton, someone who tried to hide having a public and private position throughout the campaign last year.    

This propels us into FEAR, a song that moved me to tears the first few times I heard it. On this goddamn masterpiece, we're guided through fear from three different stages of life. 

"If I could smoke fear away, I'd roll that motherfucker up and then I'd take two puffs." 

Presumably, one puff for U and another for I. 

This song, to me, addresses the most painful aspect of fear: It's all yours. It's all specialized and unique on an individualized basis. Your fear, worries, and anxiety were specially designed within you on a personal level. It’s largely inseparable from who you are. The threats become less and less real as Kendrick ages, sure, but the feeling remains to haunt him. The final verse messed me up so hard because in the end it's revealed that Kendrick isn't talking about losing his wealth or his dad beating him or violence in his community. No. It's not that at all.

"I'm talkin' fear, fear of losin' creativity I'm talkin' fear, fear of missin' out on you and me I'm talkin' fear, fear of losin' loyalty from pride 'Cause my DNA won't let me involve in the light of God I'm talkin' fear, fear that my humbleness is gone I'm talkin' fear, fear that love ain't livin' here no more I'm talkin' fear, fear that it's wickedness or weakness Fear, whatever it is, both is distinctive Fear, what happens on Earth stays on Earth And I can't take these feelings with me So hopefully they disperse Within fourteen tracks, carried out over wax Searchin' for resolutions until somebody get back."

It's the real resolution to Kendrick's problems. On this verse, he finally bites back at this fear. 

GOD gets back to Kendrick by gracing him with the ability to express these feelings on wax. His message has resonated with millions. Now he feels revived in knowing that whether he's Damned or not is totally out of his hands. Kendrick argues that this must be what God feels like while he’s working on his music but he never actually refers to himself as a "God". Kendrick knows his true nature. He’s a King, a man among the people. That's part of why the second album theory doesn't work. Kendrick ain't Jesus. He’s just like all of us, a mortal man.

DUCKWORTH drops some crazy shit on us. It's essentially Kendrick Lamar's origin story. Basically, It all sums up into a situation where Top Dawg, his mentor, could've killed his Dad. This would mean that Kendrick would've never been famous. Top would be in prison and that he'd grow up fatherless in Compton, California. These people are in his DNA though, now. Their choices were essential in producing the environment needed to turn Kendrick into a chart-topping success story.

Conclusion

And that's it. That's the album. It's impressive as hell. Although, I have a few problems with it. 

The biggest is the production. It's good, even flawless on some songs but it's not consistent like on his previous two records. FEAR sounds so radically different from almost everything else and I might like it so much because it reminds me of Kendrick's earlier work. 

Rihanna's vocals and the backing track on LOYALTY are real iffy. Sampling 24K Magic and putting Rihanna on a track this straightforward reads as a very naked shot for the pop charts. It works but feels somewhat dumbed down at the same time. 

U2's appearance on XXX is acceptable. I really enjoy their almost insane inclusion but it kinda feels like a usable but deflated basketball. Sure, it works but it doesn't work as well as I want it too. 

Luckily though, Kendrick is a flawless MC on this project. He provides so much substance on these tracks that I almost forget the actual music part of the music. He went pop. It's excellent too but, ultimately, it's not why I listen to Kendrick Lamar. I love this album. It arrived at a very appropriate time in my life. It's better lyrically than Good Kid, Maad City for me but it ain't got nothing on TBAP. On TBAP, Kendrick had the sound and the lyrics. Here, he has the lyrics. I hope he dominates the year with this stuff. Hell, It might finally win his ass album of the year at the Grammy’s this time around. I’m still salty at Taylor’s win with 1989 but it’s whatever. 

Another great album by Kendrick Lamar though. Goddamn and God bless, Kung Fu Kenny.

Favorite Songs: FEAR, DNA, HUMBLE, FEEL, PRIDE, & LOVE 

Least Favorite Song: LOYALTY FT RIHANNA

Listen. 

[moriarty-i-s-back]

A walk to remember

For my friend @the-great-and-powerful-animegan, I’m posting it here so I don’t end up spamming others on ao3 oops

“Did you know that there are stories about this ghost in the forest?”

The boy didn’t really believe in ghost stories. Especially when it happened to take place in a forest where nothing happened in his hometown. He knew that somebody probably just made it up to have something to talk about, but he didn’t want to seem like the kid who just ignored something to talk about. Especially not on this field trip to the ranger station.

“Don’t give me that look, Marcus!” His friend, Rachel, scoffed at him and smirked. “I bet you wanna know about the story right?” At his response (which was just a raised eyebrow) she continued on.

“Right, right, okay, so listen. The ghost that stalks these woods wasn’t just a regular, old dude. Apparently the ghost used to be a girl. She even grew up in the town next to ours, so this has to be a true story. But get this, she used to be a troll, not a human!” Okay, now admittedly, this got his attention. Trolls were a hot topic now a days, especially since the troll rescue group that had started a huge awareness of the cruelty of the troll species had recently had its last founding member die.

Marcus shifted his weight and scooted closer to his friend. They were in the forest station’s lobby for a school sleepover and while normally this was an annual borefest,  the story might have made things less dull than normal, even for a second, and Marcus was not about to let that out of his grasp.

“The troll ghost had been a happy child and lived a mostly happy life until she lost somebody like super important to her and she swore revenge on whoever had taken her beloved. She tracked them down into these very woods and is always on the move, searching for that poor sap who took her happiness.” Rachel looked over at the windows surrounding them. “Some say that she even wonders to the forest station, the one we’re in right now, to check out the humans and make sure they aren’t the ones hiding her love. She vows that when she finds whoever took her love she’ll make them suffer like they made her.”

A dramatic pause ensued.

Marcus scoffed and laid back on his sleeping bag. “You got some nerve, y’know? I thought you were gonna tell a real ghost story.”

“This is real!”

“That’s about as real and scary as Bigfoot in my grandmother’s dress.”

“Okay, but you gotta admit that that’s a scary sight too.” Rachel smirked and dodged the pillow that was thrown at her direction.

The teacher came in at that point and cleared everyone away to their own rooms based on gender. There were some complaints, but nothing too dramatic (or entertaining) for Marcus’s tastes. Eventually, everybody went off to bed and the lights were shut out. There were a few discussions going on, but otherwise it was silent. And even after a few hours, nobody except for Marcus was awake. He doubted that even the rangers were asleep at this point, so he got out of his sleeping bag on the floor and went over to the window.

It was pretty cool to look at, he had to admit. All the trees and colors that were offered to see, even in the moonlight’s pale glow. The hills upon hills of trees and rocks, the cliffs that offered a one way ticket to pain, the endless sky with countless stars. All of it just seemed so beautiful that it made everything seem kinda insignificant. Well, everything except for one. Did that troll girl really have to go through this entire forest looking for whoever hurt her? He’d been here a few times before and he had to admit, it was a huge place. Even if she looked everyday it would take years before she’d be able to even have a chance of stumbling upon them.

A movement in the bushes across the way caught his eye. Hoping to see an animal, maybe a wolf even, he focused on that. After a minute of watching, he huffed and tried not to be too disappointed that he didn’t get to see anything.

That was, until a few of the girls from his class walked out of the building and towards the forest.

Eyes widening (what were they thinking?!), he turned on his heel and raced down the stairs that led to the door outside. He didn’t even pause to grab his shoes. He wouldn’t really need them if he was able to stop them before they got deeper into the forest.

He called out to them when he got outside, telling them to stop and come back, but they either didn’t hear them or didn’t care. He growled, debated on grabbing his shoes or not at this point, then gave up and pursued them. These girls were crazy, didn’t they realize what could happen to them?

Before he was even able to stop them, he lost track of them. The logical thing to do would be go back to the station and get a ranger to track them down. But he didn’t want to do that. Not yet at least. If he couldn’t find them in ten minutes, then he totally would, but until then, he was gonna find them even if it killed him.

Thirty minutes later, he knew he was lost. He couldn’t even see the station anymore, let alone the girls or anything that would’ve helped point him in the right direction. Marcus was torn between simply giving up and making camp where he was (which would’ve just consisted of sitting on a log or something and waiting until morning)  or keep going. He didn’t really want to end up as an animal’s meal, but he didn’t want to waste his energy when he didn’t have to. He hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before and he was already exhausted.

Something off in the distance moved and he froze, heart already starting to climb in panic.

“H...Hello?” Maybe it was a ranger who came looking for him? He’d like to hope this at least. “Is somebody there?”

Nobody answered, which made his skin crawl. Okay, nope, it was really time to go for him. He got up and was about to bolt when he saw the piercing yellow eyes stare him down. He always thought it was cliche for somebody to be paralyzed with fear when they saw yellow eyes, but now that he was in that spot? Oh, holy shit, you better believe that he was truly paralyzed.

The eyes disappeared and something rose from the bush. He didn’t even think about staying for a second, as soon as the eyes were out of his sight he didn’t stay long to find out what was the owner of those magnificent orbs.

He jumped over a log, ducked under a branch, breath almost out of control. He wasn’t like the other kids where they would look back at the monster, no, he kept going. He was almost glad that he did so many of those parkour tricks back at home because really, wow, it did come in handy at this point.

But no parkour was going to help him when the rock he landed on gave out and sent him tumbling down a hill. He tumbled over branches, rocks, plants, and what he thought was to be either a cactus or a porcupine. When he finally stopped rolling around, he groaned and tried to move even a little. But wow, okay, that was not going to happen any time soon. It wasn’t long before he felt another presence near him and his heart rate began to climb again. But what was he going to do? Marcus was in a lot of pain and wouldn’t even have a hope of defending himself. He was just a waiting meal for whatever animal had the luck of finding him.

When he opened his eyes, however, it wasn’t a hungry wolf or a murderer who was going to kill him, however. No, it was the complete opposite.

It was that troll ghost thing. It had to be. The way that she could navigate the forest without being heard or seen, the way that she was able to not only keep up with him but came out of that chase unscathed. That and her eyes held the piercing glare could also be seen with hidden pain deep within. He knew it. She was hurting deeply inside, but he wouldn’t say anything. He couldn’t even if he wanted to, his voice was lodged somewhere in his throat.

She was magnificent. She didn’t wear any shoes, something that he envied greatly over. His feet were soft and squishy, now cut up and bruised. Hers had to have been toughened up enough so she wouldn’t have to worry about shoes. She wore shorts that were obviously made to last outside for an extended period of time. Around her hips was a deer skin that hung to her hips like somebody who tied their jacket around their hips would have it. She only wore a tank top outside of that but it was obvious that she didn’t need to wear clothes for warmth. She probably knew how to keep herself warm, she obviously knew how to take care of herself based on her muscles and scars covering her body.

Neither of them moved for a few seconds as Marcus gazed up at her in amazement. He was only startled when she moved down to bring him to his feet. She was shorter than he would’ve expected, easy enough for him to drape his arm over her shoulders for support.

“Yo-you’re the ghost girl,” he whispered. “The one from the stories.”  

She didn’t respond, just started walking in a direction (probably to the ranger station).

“Can...Can I ask you a few questions?”

She didn’t respond so he took this as an okay to go on. “How do you know where to go in this forest? Have you lived here your entire life or did you really live in the town? Who are you after exactly? You know, revenge won’t do anything.” He was rambling from the nerves, he knew, but she didn’t really comment. “Whoever you lost wouldn’t want it.” Until he said that.

She flinched and looked at him with scalding eyes. They were furious and almost looked...betrayed?

“Don’t.” Her lips pursed together as she started on again.

Though he didn’t really know her or her situation, if she was even in the right or wrong, she looked hurt enough where he automatically replied. “Sorry.” He replied and didn’t really say anything the rest of the way back to the ranger station.

[andyousaidtruelovedidntexsist]

into the abyss, only for you, my darling (an Emerald City fanfic)

Author’s note: 

Rating: T+ (maybe M-)

Mentions of torture. Mild. Violence. Mild?

Possible spoilers. Saw a picture of one of the Emerald City characters chained. Wanted to hypothesis on a possible rescue by Dorothy. 

Self edited. I bet that I may have missed something and so if you have any writing tips, examples...and if you enjoyed this little fanfic of mine, please let me know! It would make my day! 

Breathe. Just breathe. Dorothy thinks as she creeps down the long corridors lit by flaming torches, the light creating flickering wavering shadows--a spooky combination, especially with where she’s headed. Or where she’s hopes she’s heading. She feels lost. The corridors branch off into each other, a tangled sophisticated mess of paintings, statues of fat pompous men staring imperiously out into the shadows... god only knows what they are looking at.

She needs to get into the dungeons. That’s where they will have him. Lucas. Seems like everyone wants to take a chunk of flesh out of him for alleged crimes because of an alleged job in the Wizard’s guard that he can’t even remember. Its almost like the poor guy has a ‘damsel in distress’ bumper sticker attached to his forehead. Seems like someone’s always out to get him. Which is overwhelming. 

Really overwhelming. Every time she turns around, paying attention to someone else, something else, the scenery... whatever it is...and then when she turns back around, someone is busy poisoning, punching, kicking, stabbing, kidnapping, torturing Lucas while trying to kill her off as a side bonus.

It has been a really long week.

A crazy week. 

Feels like the people of Oz have a hobby. Always trying to steal away the only real human comfort that she has here in this strange awful place with customs and ways of living that are different and really really awful. That ransacked village. The burnt corpses, all of the times that people have tried to kill her and Lucas for reasons that their attackers hadn’t seen fit to divulge. 

Sure she has Toto. He’s a good dog but there’s nothing better than a friendly human face. Somebody that she can talk with, who can talk back to her. Somebody that she can count on. And that’s Lucas. He’s proven himself to her a thousand times over. He’s worth it, she reminds herself. He really is.

She hopes that she hasn’t gotten lost.

God only knows what they have been doing to him.

Dorothy flinches. They don’t pull punches here, she’s noticed. A lawless country where anything goes. Murder and all. 

“He’s fine,” she murmurs underneath her breathe. “Lucas is fine. He really is. The guy’s resilient.. you’ll get him back, patch him up... he’ll be okay.”

Her throat feels tight.

He has to be okay. She’s worried that she expects too much of him. How much more can he take? How much more trouble could they face before he decided that being with her was too much? What if he thought that he would be safer traveling on his own?

 Dorothy stops for a moment, looking around. She peers into the darkened corridors. A tear etches its way down her cheek. She’s wearing a mask, a large golden gaudy thing with a pointed beak. It feel heavy, constraining... almost hard to breathe.

Just breathe, she reminds herself. You can breathe. It’ll be alright. You aren’t lost.

But she feels lost.

And she can’t be. This isn’t the time or the place to be lost. 

God only knows what they are doing to him. 

Dorothy shudders, thinking of what she might find. Of what horrible state she’d find him in. 

“Don’t think like that,” she mutters, “just don’t.”

She turns left down the corridor and then takes a right and then another left. She ignores the staircases leading upstairs. The Wizard might be up there. But as much as she’d like to wring the Wizard’s neck--well, priorities. 

Lucas is more important.

She can hurt the Wizard later.

She continues walking down the corridor. If she just keeps going she’ll find him. And he’ll be alive. She has to believe that.

At the end of the corridor, in the corner, there is a turret with spindly stairs curving down into a dark abyss.

That’s probably the dungeon, Dorothy hopes.

Quickly she grabs a torch off of the wall.

He’s worth it, she reminds herself as she heads down the creepy staircase that never seems to end. Dorothy can only see so far, just a few steps down and a few steps behind her when she turns her head to look back. But she thinks that she’s getting closer. 

Dorothy can hear screams: softly echoing things that grow steadily louder with each step that she takes further into the darkness, the dancing flame of the torch creating twisted shadows, monsters hiding in the dark.

“He’s worth it,” she mutters again and again. Thinking of his arms around her, gently hugging her. A kiss pressed against her forehead. That night in the woods.

The screaming only gets louder.

Dorothy’s jaw clenches, her hand tightening into a fist. The pressure increasing steadily, she can feel her fingernails biting into the skin of her palm. 

What is she going to find? Images flash through her mind. An endless reel of images of 3rd degree burns, deep stab wounds... torture techniques that she learned from that one historical Viking documentary.

And the screaming only gets louder, drowning out her thoughts until it is just the anguished screams of pain, the flickering shadows and the darkness surrounding her. Its hard to think. To be calm.

Dorothy walks faster, jaunting down the staircase. That could be Lucas screaming. She finally reaches the dungeon. Its well lit. And hot. 

At least she won’t have to worry about Lucas getting pneumonia. Though knowing them it will only be a manner of time. Lucas has the worst luck.

She looks into each cell. One by one.

No Lucas. But no one else either. Which is good. She doesn’t know what she would have done if she had seen anyone else down here. 

The screams of pain get louder.

Dorothy runs. No one would be able to hear her over the screaming.

What are they doing to him? 

She drops the torch. It thuds against the dirt flood. She runs faster, turning left and then right and then right again, following the sound of the screaming.

The screams get even louder, and then stutter and stop.

Dorothy stops. She pulls out her gun. Listens. She needs to be quiet. She can’t be the one surprised. It should be her doing the surprising after all.

It would be a shame to be caught. She needs to rescue Lucas. She needs to get him out of here to somewhere safe where she can bandage him up and care for him. Somewhere far far away from the wizard and his sort of ilk.

Dorothy peers past the bars of each cell door. Her eyes straining to see through the tiny slots between the metal bars. Still no Lucas. Her heart beats faster, wildly racing down a road called panic and despair. He might be dead, a disloyal voice within her head whispers. He’s lost. You’ll never see him again.

You are too late, the voice whispers to her.

No one is screaming now. Where is Lucas? What did they do to him? Did he die?

He’s lost. 

The fear rises, steadily choking her. But she has to keep going, Dorothy tells herself. You have too know. Have to be certain.

Isn’t that what a nurse does? Dealing in absolutes, he is either dead or he isn’t. There is no in between. No Schrödinger's cat. 

“I wish that we had met under different circumstances. Really, this is a shame.” A male voice says.

Dorothy freezes. She recognizes that voice. It is the voice of the wizard’s guard--long curly dark hair, amber skin...admirable tracking skills if he had been chasing anyone but them, her and Lucas.

She can’t lose Lucas.

“We never met,” the guard says. “Before you lost your memories, that is. Heard they strung you up. Left you for dead. Shameful really, but what else could they have done? You disobeyed orders. Killed one of your own men.”

The guard has the ears of a cat, Dorothy reminds herself. She pointedly ignores the man’s words. It is a problem for another day.

Her hands feel sweaty as she inches forward, listening carefully but disregarding the man’s words. It is a problem for another day, for when she has time to weigh her thoughts concerning the matter.

And whose to say that the man isn’t lying? Lucas is gentle. He is steady, always there for her. Fighting for her. Protecting her so that she can go home.

Walk quietly, Dorothy thinks. The guard has the ears of a cat.

She moves forward.

“If you remembered,” the guard chuckles, his voice low and soft full of menace. “You would know that this is quite painful--”

Dorothy hears a strangled cry of pain; short, and sharp. She moves faster.

“An interesting instrument, to be sure,” the guard says, his voice mild. “An efficient way of causing pain without killing. Right away, that is.”

She’s frantic, peering through the bars, going faster and faster, hoping and praying. He has to be alive. He has to be. She’s going to see him again. She will. She has to.

To not see him again, Dorothy shudders at the thought.

She walks faster, faster, peering through the bars but not seeing him. Not seeing Lucas, but the guard’s voice gets louder. She must be getting closer, closer--

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” The guard says aloud. “Really? It is very simple--isn’t it, Lucas? All I want to know is where she is. This girl who fell from the sky. She’s an abomination, don’t you know?”

Lucas snarls.

“She’ll bring the Beast Forever down upon our heads.”

Lucas says nothing.

Dorothy keeps moving. She peers into the iron cells--but she still sees nothing. She’s close though. She must be. The guard’s voice gets louder.

“You are willing to put your life on the line for her?” The guard mocks, “For her? A young girl of no import?”

Lucas says nothing.

“Just tell me where she is,” he says, “And the pain will end.”

Lucas says nothing.

Dorothy keeps moving. The guard’s voice gets louder but the words blend together, an meaningless jumble of words, nonsense that means nothing but terror, anguish and fear. 

Dorothy pauses, she’s close. The guard isn’t echoing as much. His voice is even, mild, almost cordial. He’s there. He’s right there.

She peers through the bars of each cell. He’s not here. Not here. Not here. Not here. 

But she can hear him. Hear them. Almost as if she was right there beside them. She can smell the blood. A fresh heavy metallic smell that twists her stomach, the nausea rising steadily, higher and higher, choking. Breathe, just breathe.

Dorothy peers through the bars. The first cell is empty. So is the second, and then the third. And the fourth.

The fifth cell door is open.

Dorothy creeps closer. Beware the guard, Dorothy remember’s West’s warning. He’s not human, she had said. He has the ears of a cat.

Dorothy remembers how quick the guard had been after  them, of how she and Lucas couldn’t lose him no matter how hard they tried. It was how he caught Lucas, who has a self sacrificing streak a mile wide. It worries Dorothy. Doesn’t Lucas know that she can’t lose him? 

But she never told him. Dorothy grimaces.

She stops besides the door. Her gun raised as she peers around the corner. She sees the guard, his back turned to her. Dorothy creeps closer. Her footsteps quiet.

He has the ears of a cat, Dorothy remembers. She raises the gun high and then slams it against the guard’s head.

He falls to the ground with a loud thud.

And then, finally, she sees Lucas. His neck held tight, shackled to the wall. His hands chained to the bench at his sides. He’s bruised, bloodied--blood dripping from his side, from his mouth, his nose--it looks broken, Dorothy realizes. And there are so many cuts, slices... but he’s breathing. His chest rising and falling with each breathe he takes.

He’s the most beautiful sight she’s ever seen. She’d thought she had lost him for good.

Dorothy rushes to his side. She braces her hands against his face. Her fingers gently running across his whiskery cheeks. She stares at him. Seeing glimpses of his beautiful green eyes, gazing at the ground, almost as if he were ashamed... but not of her, Dorothy somehow knows.

Gently she tugs his face upward. She can see his beautiful green eyes now. He looks dazed, lost.

She’d thought that she’d never see those beautiful green eyes again, that she’d never again see that loving look in his eyes.

“I’d thought that I’d lost you,” she breathes out, her voice trembling. “I’d thought that I’d never see you again.” 

She presses her lips against his. Hard. Quick. 

“Let’s get you out of here,” she says softly. She goes straight to the guard, patting him down for the keys. And if he doesn’t have them, then that’s just fine. She’ll just magic the chains off. Carefully.Very very carefully. She may be a witch but she’s an inexperienced one. 

And she won’t lose Lucas. She just won’t.

That’s her line in the sand. 

And she won’t be moved. 

[artist-x-j-roman-cain]

Joker’s Wild

My name is super-unknown so I will shoot for the dome Aim through the window pane; leave two frames blown I am not Strange. But I will not change tones Proclaim Roman Reigns in any home Entertain through tomes Enter veins then splinter brains Highest on this sinner plane Center plain or inner sane? No. A soul so cold not even So Co Could help warm; dealt thorns Some have sworn tales, yelling “He’s loco!” “Si y yo soy el lobo feroz” Ferocious flows; ojos rojo Toke and choke on top rank dodo Coca blows? Mi es cabron? Oh no! Blow Coca? Por dinero? Best go hoe! Yo soy Joe Schmoe? Asi-asi? Si puto derecho! Direct foes, “vete a la mierda, conos”! Artista X es el Rey de todos los Reyes Sooth-sayer and smooth player Granuja de platas de lengua Ladies spreading legs, begging me to say yes. Weigh less than many but don’t call me mini Not one to waste pennies Immobile blades, not choppin’ on 20’s Mobile stays paid; minutes got plenty No cash in the bank; gas tank close to empty Yet more retail sells in smells than Scentsy My girl is a fine dime that OG’s envy Eyes green, hairs red plus always wet and sticky Ever leaving; burning and hitting like a heathen But she keeps returning Even after pimping her out for earnings Yearning for touch; by lips or finger tips She’ll learn you quick; bi so no bias when she unzips She flips all day but still chills at night Herb Knight in hempen armor Helping get over bored again Charming prints, used to disarm alarms Prince Charmin to soft; armaments’ armed Minced off the first cut; rinsed off like shit stuck to shoes In truth, I like going overboard and harming Like Carmen, no one knows where to find me Moving timely; double check nobody’s behind me Grinding to shine even when it isn’t Vision remastered after seeing how biz went? To guzzle gents jizz for cents Rather stick a muzzle in my mouth Than ever be asked where my fizz went Dissident miscreant because of medicinal Treants Gorgon like stoning; after all spinach is full of nutrients Beautifully bent; fine line between genius and insanity Underhandedly taking the lead; never mistakenly Make me your nemesis; own worst enemy to y’all I am limitless Illogically break chronological fate with paradoxical Genisys Forget Quicksilver; Wells wished in inventing this Luxury Mercury? Have H.G. mad as a hatter for penning this In lieu of Carrol; songs full of apparel Only autos should be tuned Putting hair pulling bitches on alert Better be careful Have them pissing; scared to twist up fisticuffs Baring tools; afraid to get face to face But I’m very cool; only thing up my sleeve is an Ace Thumping with my trump; then use the same spade to bury fools Joker’s wild; and I’ve been told the same Smoker’s smile plus a laugh cold and insane Broken stiles; never hold a flame to gain change Opening Styles all about showing up the Game At the Helm with a death wish like I’m hunting a hearse DRAC is the realm’s realest; still instilling hurts Curt versus legends or virgins; using perverse verses to abuse With no aversion to cursing this rough draft also the final version Shaft tough? Yes, when driven by me Not black enough to say I’m the bad-dest “shut your mouth…”, you see Keep it juicy; not goosing Lucy Truthfully I’m a prick spelt with a capital D Biggest you’ll meet; and above average in meat No need for lies; I know I satisfy Don’t believe me honey then come and see Relieve your cunny, have you cum a sea Endless returns like it’s my company Charge your Chakra; currently cum for free Currency for free milk? Then you can go ahead and get stepping permanently Ash into your urn Every sentence further sentencing eternity Hurting disconcertingly Adverting attacks; not possible when concerning me Genuine article Smashing particles like the Hadron at CERN discerning Emcees Splitting atoms While batting back at’em; scat’em like a cat. Kill every vermin I see Shivering cowards While stylishly delivering streets sermons for fees River of power That is, a strong flow with undertow current; currently Amped up Have them clammed shut; in bomb shelters like the emergency Is national But it’s natural to run urgently when faced by the beast from the murky deep Heard of me? Or been hurt by me? Try me when unworthy and meet A brief defeat By these feet. So take a seat or be beat down vertically Post mortem surgery Quicker to dig six one by ones; bury you very dirtily Curtly asserting Your curtains but far from my encore that’s a certainty Unmercifully Murdering psyches with words alone. Spurring the weak To purr back meek Lying while trying this Lion; King of Zion. Tired of burping these Babies and toddlers Going crazy searching for grown talent; licking talons and fangs thirstily Unnerving these Kids; knowing their lids will get peeled. Villain killing purposely Have curs cursing me Speaking cursively, curbing cohorts. Quit if your nursing teats Hyperbole Not when measured in pen; sink non-thinkers with ink poisoning Vent venom vehemently; little girls and boys playing with alloys Should quit banging noise My thoughts and voice concise Eyes on the prize; ions spliced off and thrown at my enemy’s head Radically rendering your ending; lending the term walking dead Stocking meds by the O-z From North of the O.C. Only importing the best, from Valleys’ in Cali to Co-towns alley’s G-13 and Maui Wowie The Doctor’s in Get re-T.A.R.D.I.S.; needing starting? Got Diesel too if you need to rally Tally the score Weighed straight, bud and not shake with proper tear drops; plus, I don’t dilly dally True wild card; evolved in being involved in anything called sin My balls’ in court never Alcohol in blood no more; instead soar above but feet still on the floor Claws in the ground This is my town. Come down sounding hard and I will leave you scarred With the loss of your crown Scalpel scalping. And if the laws in the Mudd come around? Still won’t be found. Proper noun; capital Artist using absurdly sharp wit for getting capital Known for ripping sharks to bits Sparks will arc; marked by X then know next your neck Will be stretched regardless Of your guards. I'll march right through your gardens. Embrace mayday Because by melee I have been hardened Leave them marveling at my carvings which cause starving Hungry but not eating beef; these freaking vegans are retarded Believe it’s better to give than receive Seas get wetter from here; forever in gear Achieving whatever I can perceive Seize vets ahead of my years; too clever for peers Deceiving none, yet some sectors still don’t bet on me Sieges settled in letters; vendettas never feared Easing at leisure; proceeding on with no etcetera Seasons become bygone; seasoning legions of chickens so long live Cain, King of Weird Erecting a dynasty Weapon selection is free form daggers called forth from the Nether Injecting arsenic Martial arsenal; impartial to arson. Coolly pulling the lever Irreverent to me Intellectual elephant and elegantly eloquent. Resisting transistors Close circuit Verdict shows consequences for the inoffensive; tethered to weather through endeavors On attack like a shredder Chipper sure as this plot runs redder Splendor found in splinters Cheddar made grating big cheeses Donning black and green Stripping clubs; beating pussies together Surrendering before being engulfed in embers Hand over your tender or be berated by Poetry, mixed with soul of the street Wholly complete when competing against the elite Never miss a beat; a capella teller Fellas that think they can swell up; one hell of whale tail Shelling out pain on the jealous Overzealous never. Well prepared with an umbrella Real life, not a telenovela Jotting rotten embellishments; relishing propellers developing yellows Punks pissing themselves when warships need worshipping Blood, sweat and oil mix Until the ill contents become flammable And all the malcontents Bow out; knowing good and well I’ll damn a fool Or a damsel If you think you can lay hands on me; your delusions are fanciful Panty puller Revealing fraudulent broads; inflict wounds that will require some gauze from the gods At odds with society Believe working a desk is a probity And I’m a writer Some consider a prodigy My odyssey cementing my property Foundation laid in Don't play pretend; make fake men Or women Shed their linens. Hollering no apologies; now follow me Make a joke out of any lesser F-5 force like Lesnar. Why so serious? Uncrowned underground jester Bound to pound the pavement With your cranium; straining some with that statement One truth inevitable Julian sliced in way that was absolutely unforgettable Unintelligible Little bulls should quit being foolish before getting whipped cool and made edible Cannibal but not named Hannibal Mechanically distributing electrically compressed waves To enslave your ladies Into behaving like a cowgirl; riding this bull and craving these testicles Undressing tools Cunning tongue; expelling fantasies for sensational pull Lessons blessing illiterate fools Honeys’ dribbling from touch so much they create literal pools In Sin City I rule Will not pity the drooling class; passionately fashioning Jewels Fastening dull blades To this mental lathe to gain edge; allegedly dredging up the typical Satirical lyrics searing spirits Phantom fandoms abandoning idols idling when I crash tidally Spiritually binding Ritual sacrifice; decisively knifing as if practiced on the habitual Basis. Run races never. Pace to slow. Basics way below. Spacing pros with tasteful prose Also slaying joes Embracing complacency only stagnates; changing notes lead to growth Flaying bros even Must stay on toes or fade; daily dough made by not taking a doze I only dose With Mary. Quite contrary to hoes bickering about which nose I’ll be sniffed through Some into inducing rushes via sphincter Keep your stinker away Couldn’t be helped with a bleaching tincture Suffering puncturing For lunch bringing nothing but punch and knuckle sandwiches Damn bitches. My hands twitching, itching to do ditch digging for snitches with no steel brandished Have no advantages Loose leaf my canvases. Not afraid to get scandalous; know y’all cannot handle this Gargantuan tarantulas Manhandled like tea candles as I dismantle men easier than destroying a mandolin Banding in Only amplifies the likelihood of meeting a random end Ranting and rambling Gambling when I'm done that you won't be able to keep ambling Knock you out in your sandals when my spit hits like an Ambien Watch me trample them; sampled but never sampling Entranced with sin Dancing in and out after romance ends Lancing them then off to the stands again Slanted bantering Can offend but also bend inhibitions; renditions of wishful visions and being the one granting them Dammed if dim Stranded in damages; can't get cantering, this Cancer managing Standards that can spin Rabidly rapid; static shock and awe. Addict not dropping off. Elaborate pens Radically pin backstabbing bastards; infinitely outlasting Simultaneously lashing Latching on with a firm grasp. Grabbing and toe tagging then afterward bagging them Meet my jagged friend Egging on until calm is Gone with the Wind On to win That is, magic tactics Exacting backward grins as in upside-down frowns Should I explain that again Batting bad men with a racquet like it’s badminton The raconteur bracket designed for the rhymer in his prime; letterman jacket Personally fitted Custom colors; clique unaffiliated but true Paid dues for these suede shoes Ensue wrath, crossing paths with me. Be phased through. Displace you Vibrate at a rate that frequently frequencies disintegration Blazing you with phazers set to stun Yep son, better run because here I come to erase you Each and every angle will be tangled with Break both ankles Then add in the mad tendency to strangle Take your Angel and go Jangle out the last bit of blood. Lots of love for being painful. But just be thankful Only got your bank; sank like the Titanic. Hitting like an ice cold tank; you're a lukewarm row boat frozen exposing you're shameful Wordsmith, perfectly working an anvil Not a man to steal; but guarantee I can and will Drop your body in a landfill Stop talking, get to walking; gawking awkwardly At the oddity who stands steel Resolute in Will; if looks could kill Mine would; shooting villain’s long as I am still in Adrenaline pumping; dumping loads of shit. Here’s the damn deal Entrepreneur Grade A manure; never has there been a truer Entrees pure Bade losers farewell; after a push down the stairwell Never been surer Any assurances weren’t accounting for me and my allure Got your cure For being average; lock you in a fridge and drop you off a bridge. Got the top rung secure And I haven’t been on tour Demure nature? No. Bigger ego than Troy McClure Stopping simpletons, pop them like pimples Catching them in the temple; listen as the song of a fat minstrel ends Stenciling by pencil Lengthy dismissal brought about by drizzling In a million missiles These difficult insults leave individuals’ pissed; the gist is: their coined phrases aren’t worth a single nickel Series: X Sin-to-Mint Artist: Artist X (Justin Roman Cain)

[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks – January 3, 2019

January 3, 2019

What I’m listening to:

My listening choices usually refer to music, but this time I’m going with Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast on genius and the song Hallelujah. It tells the story of Leonard Cohen’s much-covered song Hallelujah and uses it as a lens on kinds of genius and creativity. Along the way, he brings in Picasso and Cézanne, Elvis Costello, and more. Gladwell is a good storyteller and if you love pop music, as I do, and Hallelujah, as I do (and you should), you’ll enjoy this podcast. We tend to celebrate the genius who seems inspired in the moment, creating new work like lightning strikes, but this podcast has me appreciating incremental creativity in a new way. It’s compelling and fun at the same time.

What I’m reading:

Just read Clay Christensen’s new book, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty. This was an advance copy, so soon available. Clay is an old friend and a huge influence on how we have grown SNHU and our approach to innovation. This book is so compelling, because we know attempts at development have so often been a failure and it is often puzzling to understand why some countries with desperate poverty and huge challenges somehow come to thrive (think S. Korea, Singapore, 19th C. America), while others languish. Clay offers a fresh way of thinking about development through the lens of his research on innovation and it is compelling. I bet this book gets a lot of attention, as most of his work does. I also suspect that many in the development community will hate it, as it calls into question the approach and enormous investments we have made in an attempt to lift countries out of poverty. A provocative read and, as always, Clay is a good storyteller.

What I’m watching:

Just watched Leave No Trace and should have guessed that it was directed by Debra Granik. She did Winter’s Bone, the extraordinary movie that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career. Similarly, this movie features an amazing young actor, Thomasin McKenzie, and visits lives lived on the margins. In this case, a veteran suffering PTSD, and his 13-year-old daughter. The movie is patient, is visually lush, and justly earned 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (I have a rule to never watch anything under 82%). Everything in this film is under control and beautifully understated (aside from the visuals) – confident acting, confident directing, and so humane. I love the lack of flashbacks, the lack of sensationalism – the movie trusts the viewer, rare in this age of bombast. A lovely film.

Archive

December 4, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spending a week in New Zealand, we had endless laughs listening to the Kiwi band, Flight of the Conchords. Lots of comedic bands are funny, but the music is only okay or worse. These guys are funny – hysterical really – and the music is great. They have an uncanny ability to parody almost any style. In both New Zealand and Australia, we found a wry sense of humor that was just delightful and no better captured than with this duo. You don’t have to be in New Zealand to enjoy them.

What I’m reading:

I don’t often reread. For two reasons: A) I have so many books on my “still to be read” pile that it seems daunting to also reread books I loved before, and B) it’s because I loved them once that I’m a little afraid to read them again. That said, I was recently asked to list my favorite book of all time and I answered Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. But I don’t really know if that’s still true (and it’s an impossible question anyway – favorite book? On what day? In what mood?), so I’m rereading it and it feels like being with an old friend. It has one of my very favorite scenes ever: the card game between Levin and Kitty that leads to the proposal and his joyous walking the streets all night.

What I’m watching:

Blindspotting is billed as a buddy-comedy. Wow does that undersell it and the drama is often gripping. I loved Daveed Diggs in Hamilton, didn’t like his character in Black-ish, and think he is transcendent in this film he co-wrote with Rafael Casal, his co-star.  The film is a love song to Oakland in many ways, but also a gut-wrenching indictment of police brutality, systemic racism and bias, and gentrification. The film has the freshness and raw visceral impact of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A great soundtrack, genre mixing, and energy make it one of my favorite movies of 2018.

October 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.

What I’m reading:

Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.

What I’m watching:

Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.

September 7, 2018

What I’m listening to:

With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.

What I’m reading:

Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.

What I’m watching:

Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.

August 16, 2018

What I’m listening to:

In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.

What I’m reading:

John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.

What I’m watching:

I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching.  And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.

July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

    June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia.  It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

  November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

  November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

  September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J from President's Corner http://bit.ly/2CNqJdM via IFTTT

[chocolate-brownies]

We hear it all the time in our community: Life isn’t lived in black and white. Answers don’t always come in yeses and nos; even right and wrong can vary depending on who you’re talking to. Sometimes what most frightens us is what enables us to grow; when we confront our fears are we able to move forward. On the mat, we confront both physical and emotional challenges, and learn to push past edges that would otherwise hold us back. That is: the dualities of fear and comfort, or challenge and success, dissipate when we consider them as two sides of the same coin. Duality becomes oneness.

Meditation teacher Tracee Stanley spent a significant part of her formative years on the water. There’s arguably no better place in the world to explore the concept of duality as oneness than the ocean; it’s impossible to stand at the edge of the ocean and not feel at once overwhelmed by the mighty strength of the waves and calmed by their motion. “The ocean is my happy place!” says Tracee, “But it also represented immense fear. I almost drowned once and I had a fear of waves and being in the open ocean.” Rather than allowing herself to stymy in the black and white conviction that she was afraid, however, Tracee decided to move into that shade of grey and learn how to stand-up paddle.

“The ocean requires you to be fully awake the the ebbs and flows,” Tracee says. “Sometimes it requires you to surrender instead of fighting against the tide. And sometimes it calls for all of your self-effort to stay alive.” Just as in life, sometimes we just have to accept the conditions of the ocean and adapt to it, knowing that they can indeed change at any moment.

My parents live at the beach in North Carolina. Every once in a while, a storm so fierce gathers that the sky is a seemingly endless plane of green and grey. Five minutes later, the sun is shining and the bluest sky is full of cumulus clouds. “Nothing is constant,” says Tracee. “If we approach our life in the same way, we find a sense of ease.”

When the Stakes Are Higher

Of course, not all things in life can be ascribed to a pretty metaphor of the ocean or changing weather patterns at the beach. South Africa holds a special place in Tracee’s heart, as it was the origin of her journey toward spiritual awakening. She lived there during apartheid, which Tracee recalls as a powerful circumstance to integrate lessons of duality.

“Because of the climate of the country at that time,” she says, “it really served as a powerful teaching on the idea of separateness.” Her everyday experiences were all touched by the observation of effects of viewing another person or a group of people as “other,” which she recalls as devastating to witness. “The only way to make sense of it was to go micro,” she says, “and look at how I might be doing a similar thing on a personal level. Who was I judging, who didn’t I like? Why? Peeling back the layers of duality, I got to see that it all came back to me.”

It was only in this place of duality that she was able to come to her own understanding of oneness, of the connection we all share.

Tracee now brings these lessons to her workshops and classes. Sometimes on retreat she instructs participants to sit in dyads to share personal experience, and says that she often receives excited feedback. “People think they are alone in their experiences, feelings and inner turmoil,” she says. “But when they truly connect with another human they realize in fact how similar we all are, how the human condition is familiar; despite, age, race or upbringing. It is then that we all get to grow our empathy and our compassion and we know that are not alone.”

Incorporating the Lessons Within

So what does this mean when it comes to spiritual development and personal growth? The sense of duality here can refer to that which we consider our darkness, and that which we consider our light. For Tracee, it was when she inhabited that darkness—really allowed it to wash over her—that she found her light. Though she had intellectually understood the idea of “an eternal light within the space of the heart,” as she says the Yoga Sutras teach, it wasn’t until she was going through a painful betrayal and breakup that she truly felt that light.

“I decided to double down on my yoga practices and did a very special Tantric practice to help heal grief,” she says. “One morning after meditation the sun was rising and everything was still, my mind was clear. In that moment of stillness and beauty I felt an immense joy and light inside of my heart. It was almost overpowering, I surrendered into it.”

Tracee says that she had an immediate understanding that this state of joy was her truest nature. She realized that anything else she was feeling was coming from a place of fear about the breakup. “My inner radiance was real and that luminosity was beyond the circumstance that I found myself in as painful as it was.”

That is to say, it was only when she experienced the duality of darkness and light that Tracee was able to move into a place of oneness, spiritually, and able to grow. This is now what she aims to impart to her students. “We all have this blissful joy inside of us,” she says, “and I have set an intention to share the teachings so that people might have a chance to experience just a moment of who they truly are.”

—

Lisette Cheresson is a writer, storyteller, yoga teacher, and adventuress who is an avid vagabond, homechef, dirt-collector, and dreamer. When she’s not attempting to create pretty sentences or reading pretty sentences other people have created, it’s a safe bet that she’s either hopping a plane, dancing, cooking, or hiking. She received her Level II Reiki Attunement and attended a 4-day intensive discourse with the Dalai Lama in India, and received her RYT200 in Brooklyn. She is currently the Director of Content at Wanderlust Festival.

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[redlemonz]

Day #17

Couldn't sleep much last night. I kept waking up during various, random bursts throughout the night, simply missing her. It's starting to hit me again.. I'm slowly experiencing that same pain in this endless loop of reality. Which means it's going to keep happening on a daily basis anyway. What's worse is that I know it's gonna be a long day at work, as I have much to do, but will probably be yawning throughout the day. My mind is already steaming at this point, and I think the only way to relieve it from a little pressure is through the releasing of some tears in the shower. Fun fact upon writing that: I couldn't even last until reaching the shower as they slowly streamed down my face. What a great big mess, grasping onto the temples of his head with his fingers and attempting to hide himself from this harsh and unfair fate. My breathing slows, and with each breath it feels as though I'm inhaling much less air than usual. I can hear the sound of my heart beating and racing along faster than usual. Hello, old friend. I haven't missed you, but glad you could stop by to fuck up my morning. Ah well, it's bound to keep happening right? The strangest part is having to get use to the feeling - just accepting it and letting it wash over you, until it naturally flows away. Which it never completely does. There's been moments where I've even questioned on a logical basis, whether to go back into my past and consume my old antidepressants, out of near desperation at times. There's nothing wrong with reaching out for that sort of help, right? I mean I don't do drugs and I'm not currently consuming alcohol, so I'm somewhat doing a good job in taking care of myself, so that should technically warrant this option viable? Wrong. Because it would be exactly what I just stated - taking a step backwards, into the wrong direction. I haven't come this far, and battled myself for so damn long, just to surrender at this moment, and tag in a reinforcement for another while. This is solely my war to fight, and it's time that I actually took the responsibility upon myself to soldier on as the lone wolf I am, without reliance upon anyone or anything else, in order to fix myself. And even if I ultimately can't, I'll still die trying. Day 17 - true love truly hurts Even at work, I'm supposedly unable to hide this aspect of sleep deprivation on a physical basis. Not that I'm trying to withhold yawning or anything, because it's not that. The other two of the three asked me out of the blue whether I was really tired, although I had my upbeat, cheerful mask of a personality on - which is where my confusion lied. However, It wasn't the first time in the last 12 hours I'd been asked this either, as my bald, semi-professional indoor team mate had also questioned why my eyes were so red. Seems as though this pigmentation couldn't be resolved with my lack of sleep - how surprising. In fact, I'm being asked by the other two if I'm high instead so it must be bad. Yup - checked in the bathroom, and literally looking like I'm slightly possessed. Don't even care enough to try wash it away - may as well embrace how I feel, and it portrays my evil persona pretty well too. Have I mentioned I'm a bad person yet? Because I am. I have to say though - quite proud and happy with the fact that my efforts do seem to be recognised in my work now.. especially considering it's been a hell of a time for a lot of people in my current sort of role that seem to be getting a demotion of sorts in terms of the work they do. I can count my lucky stars there certainly, because I'm not sure how I'd feel or be able to contain the mess I am if I were in that position, as it'd just be another avenue for my mental breakdown. Because it helps that I have to force myself into enough sanity for the greater good, and to serve justice (as my alarm clock would indicate). I realise that I make my job right now feel super important and everything, and I'm probably even easily replaceable, but it's only because I really need this belief in order to gain some much needed points in self worth and self respect, considering I'm lacking much of either. It really does give a big blow to your confidence (and not in a good way) when you put so much effort in, and it can go either unrecognised, or be insufficient, or often enough - both. That's why I tend to be such a pessimistic and secure person, who remains within his confines and tries not to give a damn, though my sensitivity to others is one of my greatest flaws (and apparently my humility is not far behind). Because at the end of the day, raising your expectations through optimism can be dangerous - and even potentially fatal when that very optimism hits extremes, to the point where you now can't distinguish fantasy and reality from one another properly. I know it's all about balancing the two, but my sincere vulnerability has left me scarred enough through my experiences to even attempt crossing along that bridge. If anything, I see it as a good and sensible quality, as it avoids (or rather reduces) the likely disappointment and pain that await on the other side. It's primarily the reason why I didn't want to commit to anything more meaningful with other girls for years, even when a variety of opportunistic chances arose with ease (I'm an insecure and arrogant prick, yes, but I'm also rather charming). Also I just never really liked anyone enough. Until her. She broke that space time continuum when she walked back into my life, and without a second thought, I leaped across that bridge. Usually, when you think as though something's way too good to be true, it probably is. Not her. She was that speck of truth that places the doubt in sayings like that. She brought out the light in my life (figuratively and literally) and made me realise that it's okay, and even more so, pretty damn good, to step outside my usual comfort zone. There's just something about her that makes you want to do crazy things so hastily and spontaneously, and makes your heart race in a melodically beautiful manner (in a non-threatening way for once), even if you're accustomed to being one of the most organised and intellectual people you know. That all goes out the window when you meet the girl of your dreams. Let's not forget that I was constantly rejected on countless occasions when pursuing her from my friend zone, and even when we finally did get together, which left me suffering through a lot of pain and insecurity in the process. But the fact of the matter at hand is that I always had the knowledge of the monument sized risk I was taking each time that I took a chance on her. I knew that we were nearly polar opposites (but you know what Science says!) in almost every regard, and that a spectacle like her would never see a guy like me in that way. Hell, even she knew it, and wasn't afraid to essentially spell it out for me vocally on plenty of occasions. But her actions often dictated otherwise. And so, with that being enough motivation - I persevered through it all, until the day her heart had graced me with a special, vacant spot. I didn't need to go to Disneyland to have my Disneyland moment, when I was with her. I loved life (which I think, is the first time I've ever used those words in the same sentence together - feels a bit weird now) with her, as she truly made me the happiest and luckiest man alive. Though I was still in touch with reality, don't worry - she controlled my new found optimism from reaching that extreme level of fantasy, and balanced me out well - like the mediator she is. So obviously, it hasn't always been a honeymoon, and isn't always just and easy - which is why we are where we are right now. Because I took her for granted, couldn't control my insecurities, failed to listen, and the list of excuses go on - but you get it by now, that I fucked it all up. There's been a lot of pain we've both experienced as a result. I often don't know how to handle it, and my suffering can even be rather unbearable to the point where I sometimes wish I didn't awaken from my slumber, as I'm sure is easily established by now too. So, the real questions here are - was taking that leap even worth it in the end, after everything I've experienced, and after everything that's happened? You bet it was. Absolutely, and without a doubt. If I had the chance to go through it all again, I would - in a heartbeat. I'd just make sure to do things right, and be better, this time around. Why? Because she's worth it. She's always been worth it, and she'll always continue to be worth it. And how do I know this? Because even though I've come to know the harsh reality that I'm not worth it, I love her with all my heart.