#the motivation proclamation

[kellymagovern]

Good Charlotte - “The Motivation Proclamation” [x]

[ortegavi]

good charlotte is so real. “motivate me... i want to get myself out of this bed.”

[canyourlawnmowerdothis]

ughhhh i need to clean the kitchen. they should let me kill people

[cosmetictherapist]

Aromatherapy, physical therapy(including massage), unofficial “retail therapy”(varying degrees of self care practices through take home regimens), and degrees of psychological understanding are components of specialized care that can be offered by a licensed cosmetologist, nail technician, esthetician, hair stylist, colorist, or barber.

A simple haircut offered in a clean, well maintained, comforting atmosphere can increase confidence in individuals and treat issues like dandruff, lice, scalp hygiene, tension, stress, and insecurity.

Learning how to properly care for one’s hair, nails, and face is essential in daily activities.

A cosmetologist is trained to offer knowledge through the mastery of these skills and connect with others in a way that may inspire positive results within their community.

Massage, which may or may not be offered by an operator, can locate tension and stress in the muscles of the face, hands, and feet through consultative efforts and process of service. Especially working individuals can benefit from treatments to offered relief from tension and may learn tips and tricks that can prevent over exertion by practicing some of these techniques or stretches learned on their own.

A cosmetologist may be the first response to recognizing a potential condition that may require further analysis by a recommended specialist. They study a range of hair and skin conditions that they are able and unable to treat. Some of those may include cancer, cuts, abrasions, bruises, various types of acne, fungal infections, and others.

Everyone wants to feel comfortable in public. Your cosmetologist, nail technician, esthetician, colorist, hair stylist, and/or barber should be a trusted source of personal care knowledge and treatment within their field of expertise.

[90s-2000s-barbie]

Good Charlotte’s first Self Titled album was released today: September 26, 2000

Good Charlotte - Motivation Proclamation (2000)

“Motivate me, I wanna get myself out of this bed.”

[crystallinestars]

Kissing Headcanons

Since this won the poll, here are the promised kissing headcanons for Jing Yuan, Argenti, and Aventurine!

Disclaimer: I haven't finished the 2.1 main story, so my interpretation of Aventurine may be a bit off. I'm going off of my interpretation of him from 2.0, as well as a few screenshots I saw around the internet.

WARNING: Contains a spoiler for Aventurine's real name!

Jing Yuan:

🦁 Jing Yuan likes kisses a lot, but he’s careful to reserve them for when you’re in private. He doesn’t want anyone to intrude on your romantic time together and is aware that he must look professional while at the Seat of Divine Foresight. That is why the majority of affection he shows you is done at home.

🦁 Jing Yuan enjoys receiving good morning kisses when he wakes up beside you, as well as good luck and farewell kisses when he parts from you to go to the Seat of Divine Foresight. If you don’t give him at least one kiss before he leaves in the morning, he’ll pout and try to weasel one out of you. He won’t leave until he at the very least got to kiss your cheek.

🦁 When he doesn’t feel like doing his paperwork, Jing Yuan will come to see you instead. At your insistence that he should finish his stack of documents, he’ll demand you give him kisses to motivate him to work. As childish as his requests may seem, your kisses do seem to give him the energy he needs to finish his paperwork. Only after holding you captive in his arms and indulging in your lips for longer than he should, of course.

🦁 If you feel down and in need of comfort, the Luofu General wraps you up in a gentle hug and tenderly presses his lips to your forehead. His words may not be the most comforting, but with that kiss, he shows you that he cares about your well-being, and hopes to give you the comfort you crave.

🦁 Jing Yuan’s kisses are slow, yet firm. He likes to place a hand on the back of your head and pull your face closer, capturing your lips in a tender kiss. It’s unhurried and firm, his soft lips melding against yours as his hand brushes through your hair, lightly combing through it. He only pulls away when you both run short of breath.

🦁 He gives you time to recover because he can tell that his kisses leave you a little dazed and awed at how loved they make you feel. During moments like these, he looks at you with fondness and amusement, as if he were looking at a small, cute animal. You are simply too adorable for him to resist, so don’t blame him when he pulls you into another long kiss before you’ve fully recovered from the first one.

Argenti:

🌹 Argenti’s kisses are full of his heartfelt feelings for you. He is a passionate man, and that passion transfers to romance, and subsequently kisses, as well. He feels touched when he receives kisses on the cheek as a thank you for saving someone, especially if they come from you, but he seldom gives kisses himself. The Knight of Beauty takes kissing very seriously, and will only kiss someone he truly loves.

🌹 His go-to places to kiss you are usually your hands. Like the gentleman he is, Argenti likes to take your hand and place his lips on the back of it in the lightest of kisses, his mouth just barely brushing against your skin. He tends to give you these types of kisses when you are going out for a romantic date or when he is courting you because they are a display of his reverence for you.

🌹 Argenti also adores kissing your palms. He takes your hand and places it on his cheek while looking at you with verdant eyes filled with adoration and devotion, as if he were so smitten with you, that you were the most important thing in the universe to him. With a heartfelt proclamation of his love for you, Argenti turns his head to place a tender kiss on your palm, much more firmly than how he kisses the back of your hand. With these types of kisses, Argenti wants you to know how much he cherishes your very existence, and how lucky he is to call you his lover.

🌹 Since Argenti is the epitome of a gentleman, he tries to avoid overwhelming you with his kisses. When kissing you on the mouth, he takes things slow. The way he cradles your face in his hands is gentle as if he were handling porcelain, and he makes sure to lean in slowly to give you time to pull away if you don’t want this. You never do, of course, but he won’t stop taking things slow and gentle until you make it clear to him that you are not only okay with but also want to receive more intense kisses from him. Only then does Argenti allow himself to kiss you with the passion that flows inside him, yet one he restrains for your comfort.

🌹 With your consent, Argenti will give you the most passionate and sensual kisses you’ve ever experienced. He leads the kiss with tenderness and fervor, supporting the back of your neck as he angles your head just right to deepen the kiss. He’s not afraid to use his tongue, skillfully slipping it into your mouth and caressing your own in an intimate dance that leaves you breathless and weak in the knees. For all his gentlemanly behavior, Argenti isn’t shy about expressing how much he desires you.

🌹 Even so, he is still loving and tender towards you. Argenti likes to hold your hands or face when kissing you, and once he pulls away, he gazes at you affectionately while brushing the back of his hand along your cheek or tucking a stray lock of hair behind your ear. Every action is filled with care. He may not be the best at expressing his true feelings with words, but his actions speak louder than words ever will about how much he loves you.

Aventurine:

🦚 Aventurine had some prior experiences making out with people, so he knows exactly what he’s doing when kissing you. The gambler likes to catch you by surprise with a heated and sensual kiss, one that leaves you flushed and breathless by the end. Biting on your lower lip and tugging at it, slipping his tongue in your mouth, and even sucking on the tip of your tongue are all things he does to get a reaction out of you. The more flustered and weak in the knees you get, the more smug he looks when he pulls away, a string of saliva connecting your mouths. Licking his lips while giving you a mischievous and pleased grin, he’ll look like a cat that got the cream as he observes your flushed state.

🦚 Aventurine is great at erotic and sensual kisses, he can give them as easily as he can receive them so you’ll never fluster him with one of those. However, he feels completely out of his element when you give him sweet and tender kisses. Aventurine is not used to receiving gentle affection, and at first, it scares him because it’s such an unfamiliar sensation that touches him deep in his heart.

🦚 He's used to heated make-outs that don’t mean anything other than lust in the end once the other person leaves, but your sweet kisses aren’t like that. The way you press your lips against his skin is soft and loving, the way a true lover would. Unlike those people he encountered in the past, you truly love him. Not the money he owns, not his powerful connections, not his material possessions—what you love is him. With time, Aventurine realizes that you’re not with him for a fun and exciting fling, but for something more long-term. You genuinely love him. Not his persona as Aventurine, but him as Kakavasha.

🦚 The way you cradle his face as you kiss the top of his head, your lips soft and warm against his cheeks, temples, and forehead all make his breath hitch and heart squeeze almost painfully. The gentle kisses make him want to cry, and he hugs you tightly for reassurance and comfort. When you sweetly kiss him on the mouth, Aventurine practically melts. He never knew how good such gentle affection could feel until you came into his life and gave him the affection he’d been subconsciously craving. As emotional as this makes him, Aventurine finds a sense of solace in your tender touches and he wants to feel more of your love even though he sometimes feels undeserving of it.

🦚 Aventurine also likes receiving kisses on other parts of his body, such as his neck and shoulders. He enjoys it when you hug him from behind and press your lips onto the skin of his shoulder or back. It’s such a small thing, but the gesture feels intimate and loving, proof that you love and want him. He tries to hide it, but such kisses make him shiver in a good way.

🦚 Despite enjoying having his neck kissed, Aventurine doesn’t like you touching his tattoo since it can bring up bad memories. However, if you kiss him there as an act of comfort when he feels depressed, it can give him a bit of solace. Though in times like these, he finds the most comfort being wrapped up in your arms and reassured with gentle words and soft kisses to his forehead. It might take a while for Aventurine to feel comfortable enough to be this open and vulnerable with you about his feelings, but please don’t give up on him. Don’t abandon him after you have shown him how amazing real love is.

[whetstonefires]

Man sometimes I still think about Alfred's Bandit Anecdote in The Dark Knight (2008).

So, the most straightforward reading of this sequence seems to have been the one Nolan intended, because he is not actually a subtle filmmaker, and the further we got into the series the more heavily he committed to making Alfred a mouthpiece. Old man provides words of wisdom that frame the correct understanding of the situation; you can tell it's meant to be correct because subsequent Joker appearances reinforce its thesis statement.

Intended takeaway: some men (like the Joker) don't have rational motivations, they just 'want to watch the world burn,' and you have to account for that when trying to counter them. Chaos agents, basically unstoppable by reasonable means.

But the thing is. This is not a story that stands up to even mild interrogation. The number of assumptions Nolan wants us to swallow without blinking is kind of stunning.

First of all the obvious timeline questions that arise: the Anglo-Burmese Wars and periods between and leading up to them where this kind of white man's burden 'delivering jewels to local elites In The Burmese Jungle to sway them toward British interests, but getting waylaid by bandits' scenario makes any sense all, happened in the 19th century.

The Burmese resistance in the 1930s was centered on university student protests and that sort of thing; it was reasonably successful in moving Myanmar toward independence by increments, though who knows what would have happened without WWII. But it did not provide anyone with reasons to be hand-carrying huge gemstones through forests.

Even if we assume this was somehow a 20th century event, it has to have been before WWII unless we want to postulate a complete alt-history setting, and since The Dark Knight leans heavily into being a modern 21st century story with like, cell phone networking as a major plot point, this still makes Alfred old as balls. Born no later than 1920, and probably earlier.

But that's whatever; comics time. Batman Begins did some fun stuff (possibly in imitation of Batman (1980)) with making it ambiguous what decade it was supposed to be set in, though the sequels dropped that conceit. And anyway, people can be 90 years old.

So that's basically fine, although good god Wayne hire some more servants, this man should be fully retired already.

More problematic is the unfettered colonialism of it all, the confident proclamation that since this guy's motive wasn't profit, since he didn't keep the jewels, he had no motive. Because 'inconveniencing the Raj and weakening their control over the locality' isn't a Real Person Motive that a real person could have had. During or soon after failed wars to resist colonial subjugation.

Like. Come on??

The place where this story utterly shoots itself in the foot, though, is the clever bit at the end, where Bruce asks how Alfred's military unit solved the 'bandit stealing jewels he didn't even want' problem and Alfred's like: 'we burned the forest to the ground.'

Because this is so punchy! In screenwriting technical terms, it's quite well done. It's useless advice that loops the story back to its themes; obviously Batman can't burn Gotham down to get the Joker. Even in a Batman movie that doesn't like Batman very much, this is still obvious.

But at the same time this totally takes the legs out from under Alfred's words of wisdom about human nature. Because if that bandit 'wanted' to 'watch the world burn' then what his unit did wasn't so bad, right; he was basically asking for it. Burning a forest down with all the inevitable collateral damage and economic and ecological cost, all for the sake of horribly killing a group of people in the name of government revenues was totally okay guys!

It transforms the whole thing into a pretty obvious post facto rationalization of colonial violence. Which makes the Insights Into Human Nature bit real questionable!

But the movie gives absolutely no sign of having noticed this.

[finalgirllx]

Brat tamer! Theo Nott has taken up my headspace for quite some time now. I hope I captured half the feralism the very idea of it has evoked within me in this short excerpt. warning: a brat/brat tamer dynamic is a well-laid-out kink relationship between two consenting parties. don't claim i didn't warn you, and you are responsible for your sex education/consumption. enjoy! MINORS DNI | f! reader implied | consent is everything

Brat tamer! Theo was captivated by you from the moment he discovered how well you matched his banter. When it came to verbal sparring, you kept him on his toes, your fiery attitude bewitching him. This captured his interest and made the cat-and-mouse game of your relationship more exciting.

Brat tamer! Theo couldn't fathom how so much fucking sass could emanate from someone who effortlessly shifted their expressions from wide, devious grins to alluring doe-eyes, coupled with a saccharine-sweet voice that nearly drove him to the brink of delirium.

Brat tamer! Theo continued to be enthralled by your wit every time you told him off or teased him. Once, you scolded him for gawking at your ass while strolling past the library shelves, and he had to covertly readjust his trousers to conceal his raging erection. He knew he was a goner after that. Ever the romantic.

Brat tamer! Theo's biggest dream was realized the night you finally dragged him to his dorm with a hand latched onto his loosened tie after a night of partying. 

Brat tamer! Theo quickly realized he was in for more than he bargained for when your hookups became regular. A handful of times in, he cooed assurances in your ear as he thrust inside of you, wanting to know if he was being too rough. In response, you guided his hand to your throat and told him to be rougher.

Brat tamer! Theo discovered between those hookups and day-to-day banter that you enjoyed, no, not just enjoyed, but you really wanted him to let his frustrations out on you during sex.

Brat tamer! Theo is astonished by this shocking motivator behind your attitude. He is more turned on than he could articulate when he finally realizes you're nothing more than a brat begging for punishment. 

-----------------

Brat tamer! Theo always has his hand on the small of your back as you walk together, reminding you to go where he guides you.

Brat tamer! Theo gifts you a necklace with the letter 'T,' a romantic gesture to the unsuspecting eye, but a silent proclamation between you to indicate who you belong to.

Brat tamer! Theo places a strategic hand on the back of your neck to warn if you're beginning to step out of line or run that mouth of yours a little too fiercely. He smirks when you clench your thighs together, knowing the small show of power was enough to make you aroused.

Brat tamer! Theo knows precisely when to weaponize his dark-blue eyes to send a shiver down your back. You learn which expression serves as a warning and which means you're already in heaps of trouble.

Brat tamer! Theo is an expert in dirty talk. He constantly switches up his language, knowing the back-and-forth is a key player in the fun of a brat dynamic. Still, he has a few old, reliable favorites that weaken you in moments. 

"Is that so?"

"You should watch yourself."

"You wanna finish saying that?"

"I'm going to take care of that attitude of yours."

hoooo. breathing break. okay.

-----------------

Brat tamer! Theo's extra tie becomes incredibly handy once he discovers they could double as your personal set of restraints. They're highly versatile, really. He uses them to tie your wrists behind your back, sometimes to the bedframe, or even roped over your mouth as a gag when his cock isn't an option.

Brat tamer! Theo's biggest kink is impact play, and it shows. He is liberal in his judgments of what calls for a spanking because he loves to watch the recoil of your ass after his hand lands hard against it. He loves to see the marks form because they prove you have learned your lesson and serve as a branding to show you belong to him.

Brat tamer! Theo likes the traditional route of using his hand to spank you, but he doesn't mind getting creative. He'll use a paddle, a ruler, and his wand if he sees fit.

Brat tamer! Theo tends to switch to speaking in Italian when extra frustrated, the switchover becoming a tell that you won't be able to walk after he's done handling you.

Brat tamer! Theo has no problem punishing you during class, making you sit with him in the back while his fingers tease your cunt.

Brat tamer! Theo warns you not to make a sound, or you'll get it ten times worse at his dorm. But he always knows how to expertly maneuver his fingers to coax the noises from you, guaranteeing he'll be able to exact that rougher punishment.

Brat tamer! Theo loves throat-fucking that spitfire mouth of yours and ordering you to thank him for the opportunity to gag on his dick and swallow his release. 

Brat tamer! Theo fucks every last bit of that back-talk out of you, one hand maintaining a bruising grip on your waist while the other keeps your face pressed into the pillow as you babble muffled pleas for him to allow you to cum around his cock. 

Brat tamer! Theo is merciful and, in the end, cares about your pleasure as much as, if not more than, his own. So he grants you permission to cum. And then he makes you cum again. And again. For good measure.

Brat tamer! Theo showers you with praise and tender aftercare once finished. He makes sure you're okay and that everything that happened was as enjoyable for you as it was for him. It was. <3

[gingermintpepper]

Okay, let's finally talk about EPIC's Apollo

I feel very compelled to say, first of all, that I do not dislike Epic. In fact, I am very fond of Epic and have been following its production and status very eagerly! I attend all the launch streams, I watch all of Herrans' update videos; I am, at the end of the day, a fan and I want it to be known that my words are spoken out of love and passion as much as they are spoken from a place of critique.

So really, what my problem with Epic's Apollo?

In the briefest possible terms; the choice to have Apollo be defined by his musical aspect in God Games is thematically strange. And not in the 'oh well in the Odyssey, Apollo was important to Odysseus and his family so it's weird that that wasn't kept in Epic' strange, strange in the sense that Odysseus' character arc since My Goodbye has been getting more and more obviously Apollonian and so it is positively bizarre that when we get to meet Apollo, the god seems entirely disinterested in him and his affairs. So much so that he is not even defined by any station that would indicate that he has been watching over and protecting Odysseus and his family.

What do I mean by 'Odysseus has been following an Apollonian arc'? I'm so glad you asked!

Remember Them is the last song in which Odysseus explicitly uses his sword until Mutiny where he must use it to defend himself against Eurylochus' blade. He uses it to help enact the plan to conquer Polyphemus and, due to Polites dying in that battle, Polites who wished for Odysseus to put the blade down entirely and embrace a post-war life, Odysseus also retires his sword. This is an action that symbolically separates him from Athena - and the image of Odysseus as a traditional warrior set for him in Horse and Infant - as much as My Goodbye physically separates him from the goddess and her war-ways - from this point onwards, Odysseus will no longer be leaning on Athena's wisdom or methods to solve his problems. Likewise, he will no longer be able to rely on her protection.

Odysseus thusly solves most of his upcoming problems through diplomacy and avoidance. He approaches Aeolus - a strange and ambiguous god (both in gender and in motivation) and appeals to them for help. Circe too, he approaches not with wishes to conquer or for revenge, but for the safe returning of his men and an alternate way forward. In all of these scenarios, there is some Apollonian element which is subtly interweaved alongside the influence of other gods; it is with a bow and arrows that Polyphemus' sheep is slain (and thus it is this Apollonian element which is at the root of Odysseus' spat with Poseidon), it is a vision of Penelope that warns Odysseus that his men are about to open Aeolus' wind-bag, Circe's peace offering to Odysseus is to refer him to a prophet of Apollo who has since died.

In this way, Apollo is walking alongside Odysseus for all of his journey after Athena departs - even in the Underworld, he is guiding him. It is Tiresias' proclamation that is the last straw for Odysseus, it is by the power of a mouthpiece of Apollo that Odysseus decides to embrace his ruthlessness. It is with the bow and arrow that Odysseus subdues the siren who sought to trick him, likewise, Odysseus does not attempt to undermine or escape the fate of paying Scylla's passage price - he knows of the doom about to befall the six men and quite unlike the rest of the journey until this point, he does not fight against it. This all comes to a head on Thrinacia where it is a blade which sacrifices the sun god's cow and brings destruction upon the crew once more.

My point with all of this is that when I heard the teasers for God Games years ago, it made perfect sense to me that Apollo would be Round One - he is not Odysseus' adversary and has no reason to oppose Athena's wish to free him. From other teasers about what will happen in the climax of Epic, Apollo will still be walking alongside Odysseus - it is Apollo's bow that Penelope will give the suitors to string. Likewise, it is Apollo's bow that will prove Odysseus' legitimacy and identity. That bow will be the power by which Odysseus hunts his adversaries and cleans out his palace - it is Apollo who is the avatar of Odysseus' ruthlessness, not Athena.

So tell me, truly, what was the point of having Apollo raise a non-argument in God Games? Why have him appear unconcerned, aloof and slightly oblivious? Why have him appear in his capacity as the Lord of Music at all?? And if the intention was never to make Apollo an active player in Odysseus' life like he was in the Odyssey, why keep Odysseus as a primary archer?

The answer of course is that Apollo is inextricable from the fabric of the Odyssey - his influence and favour exudes from Odysseus just as much as Athena's. In Athena's ten year sulk, it would have been Apollo who kept Telemachus and Penelope safe. It would have been Apollo protecting Odysseus from Poseidon's gaze as he travelled the seas (according to the Odyssey anyway)

Forgive me for not being excited about something that I thought was being purposefully set up. I was extremely ecstatic about all of the little Apollonian details that litter the sagas because I know where this story ends up (loosely) but all God Games did was reveal that maybe those Apollonian details were not intentional at all, but merely the ghost of the Apollo who persistently haunts those he favours, even if he cannot explicitly come to their aide in an adaptation.

[devourable]

♛ the princess

sfw | tags : fem!yandere x gn reader (only prn used for reader is ‘you’), yandere behavior, stalking mentions, power dynamic, manipulation

the last of my ladies for now! althea, the meanie princess <3 sorry if this is kind of a mess but yall know me by now lol. i can finally start working on my nb yans now 🥹

this one goes out to all the girl likers following me. mmmwah

“i’m gonna marry you one day! we’ll always be together!”

little althea made the claim over and over throughout your childhood, so often that it was normal for you to hear. having lived in her castle since your parents began working for hers, you were the only other person her age that she had to play with.

to say she was attached to you was an understatement. she adored you!

but little you was oblivious to all of her proclamations, assuming it to all be pretend. just a game! sure, it got a little weird when she continued to say it even when you grew into adolescents, but there was no harm in it, right?

you hadn’t the slightest clue to just how serious she was.

see, althea always, always got what she wanted. she was the princess, after all! and the sole heir to the throne. new clothes, the finest food, and the most lavish castle to live in — all of it was hers, the moment she asked for her. but none of it could ever satisfy her the way your presence did.

her adoration for you kept your family employed and her parents happy. she clung to you like a vice, always insisting you dressed up together and went to all of her classes and such. you kept her tantrums at bay in a way no one in her family had ever seen before.

and when you weren’t around, or something (or god forbid, someone) dared to take your attention away from her? she was a nightmare. a fussy, loud, violent nightmare that wouldn’t be anything but a purposeful nuisance until you were returned to her. so it was always in everyone’s best interests to ensure you were together. words of appreciation and gifts from everyone within the castle was a norm for you, incentives to convince you to stay by the young princess’s side.

it was how it had always been, even as you developed. you figured althea would grow out of her clingy behavior toward you — and to an extent, she did. as you aged and developed individual personalities, everyone was relieved when the princess grew out of her cranky attitude and into the sweet, delicate young lady that was expected of her. the ideal princess who spoke in a gentle tone and expressed love toward the people she’d rule in the future. you could ignore how she always held your hand a little too tight when you were alone together, or how she insisted on kissing you on the lips every day (“it’s normal for us,” she’d claim! neverminding how she’d always seem to ‘accidentally’ leave your face smeared with her lip gloss). she had become a better person, so you could indulge her, right?

because of the change, though… no one had any clue that althea couldn’t care less for the kingdom. no matter how much she was taught to cherish those she’d rule over, she saw them all as little more than a responsibility that she was created to care for later in her life. it irritated her to no end and her only reprieve was you. you kept her going, kept her motivated to be the good little lady she was supposed to be, kept her from shirking her duties and whisking you away like she had fantasized about doing countless times.

despite the seemingly positive impact that growing up seemed to had made, everyone was still quite surprised when althea allowed you to leave the castle to live your own life years later. you were hers, didn’t you know? but you weren’t royalty, so you saw no point in staying — besides, you wanted to see the world beyond the castle walls. so she bid you goodbye, kissed you on the lips once more, and waved you off as you left the home you had shared up until then.

however… when you tried to make a name for yourself on your own, it felt like nothing ever went your way. you never noticed how there were always a few of the palace knights lingering around every public building you went to afterwards. nor did you really pick up on why most places you applied to work at turned you away. and why did you always get kicked out of your hostels after just a few nights’ stay? it was like life was rejecting you as soon as you tried to enter it. but kind, gracious althea was always there to pick up the pieces for you, loaning you money when you needed it and lending you a space to stay when you had nowhere else to go.

she’d never directly ask you to come back full time, oh no. she was willing to play the long game. to let you learn on your own that you needed her to survive.

it got to a point where you didn’t know how long you had been away from her. months? weeks? a year? the world was just so cold and harsh when you didn’t share it with althea! you were in and out of jobs, homes, and was only known as the princess’s former friend rather than your name. you couldn’t take it. you couldn’t live like this, who could? so the day you finally stumbled back onto the palace doorstep, shaking and soaked from a storm you had gotten caught in, althea welcomed your return with open arms. she cleaned you, clothed you, and fed you the food you were used to eating.

silly you, trying to leave your future fiancee. she wished she didn’t have to let you go through all that you did, but you had to learn one way or another! and now that you had, you’d never have to do it again.

you’ll stay right by her, in the castle, till the very end.

after all, she did say you’d always be together, didn’t she?

[probablyasocialecologist]

The Holocaust was undoubtedly one of the greatest tragedies of modern history, where millions of innocents were murdered in an unspeakably cruel and industrialized manner. Also true is that this was not the reason for the creation of Israel, which had its colonial seeds planted nearly a century prior. It was not remorse that motivated the colonial powers to support Israel, powers which were actively committing genocide against multiple colonized populations. Framing the creation of Israel as repentance for the Holocaust is not only historically inaccurate, but deliberately paints the legitimate rejection of its creation at the expense of the Palestinians as complicity with Nazi genocide. It transfers Europe’s guilt onto Palestinians, where they become the embodiment of everything the grandchildren of fascists claim to despise in their grand quest for (empty, symbolic) redemption. A redemption with the theatrics and loud proclamations of regret and change, but none of the substance. At the end of the day, nothing can justify the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, who share no blame for the barbarity of Europe’s pogroms and genocides. Palestine has always been home to countless refugee populations; Jewish people fleeing persecution and finding a safe home in Palestine was never the issue. The issue is that these ideals of coexistence were never reciprocated by the Zionist movement, who showed disdain towards Palestinians from the very beginning and sought to take over the land. It sanctioned its own settlers working with Palestinians, even calling Arab labor an “illness” and forming a segregated trade union that banned non-Jewish members. In 1928, the Palestinian leadership even voted to allow Zionist settlers equal representation in the future bodies of the state, despite them being a minority who had barely just arrived. The Zionist leadership rejected this, of course. Even after this, in 1947 the Palestinians suggested replacing the Mandate with the formation of a unitary state for all those living between the river and the sea, to no avail. These gestures were brushed aside, as they did not benefit the Zionist leadership who never intended to come to Palestine to live as equals. For decades Palestinians have been massacred, their homes stolen and destroyed, ethnically cleansed into refugee camps and denied their right of return. The notion that these colonial powers were ever concerned about Jewish safety as they fomented the conditions that made pogroms possible and denied Jewish refugees safety within their own borders is absurd. So too is the idea that Jewish people from all over the world must all live in a singular nation-state in the Middle East where they are a demographic majority to be safe, that the eradication of anti-Semitism around the world is a lost cause, and that whatever violence is wreaked upon Palestinians for the maintenance of this regressive demographics-obsessed state is justifiable.

[srisrisriddd]

Gods laugh morons fight

AnA'l Haqq Aham Brahmashmi Morons fight Allah Brahm Laugh If you see him, you see me The one the unspoken the void - Dr Devang H Dattani

Happy Eid Milad-un-Nabi

Verses Dedicated To Sufi Mansur Hallaj who was executed in Baghdad In 922 AD for proclamation AnA'l Haqq ( Aham Brahmashmi )

Good Morning

Quote / Poem / Poetry / Quotes Of 

Bhagwan Sri Sri Sri

Doctor Devang H Dattani

Infinite SriSriSri DDD

Posted By TheBlissCity DDD Team

See The Media Photo Video For

Quoteoftheday

God Morning

#AnA'l Haqq , #bliss , #TheBlissCity , #philosophy , #mindfulness , #DrDevangHDattani , #nature , #awareness , #InfiniteSriSriSriDDD , #quotes , #life , #art , #zen , #awakening , #quote , #spiritual , #photography , #Video , #meditation , #psychology , #poem , #poetry , #motivation , #inspiration , #quoteoftheday , #love , #words , #thoughts , #joy , #pun , #enlightenment , #health , #mental health , #consciousness , #Aham Brahmashmi , #god , #landscape , #life , #video , #allah , #brahm , #laugh , #fight , #nirvana , #tantra , #yoga , #morons , #sufi , #photooftheday , #one , #unspoken , #void , #gods , #panorama

[canyourlawnmowerdothis]

i need to just start doing things

[finalgirlwillbyers]

Sorry if this has already been discussed but its so interesting to me how lucas is seen and portrayed through the lense of the fandom. It feels like in a lot of fandom works he either has to be the antagonist or the "perfect" one and he isn't allowed to be complex, fleshed out or built upon like other characters. In some works he's either the one who's homophobic, says something wrong/hurtful or he's antagonized for his plotline and wanting to conform (for good reason) in s4. In others he's max's "perfect boyfriend", a supporting character for mike who's just there to give advice, or just a character who's there to comfort and build up others in general. These choices definitely reflect the duffers writing of lucas but it's interesting that in so many fanworks that can build upon what's given in canon and expand on existing characters he's left so flat and is either the person who does something wrong or the person that can do no wrong ever and in both cases it's usually used to uplift a different character in some way.

Despite the sub-fandom's loud proclamations of all encompassing love for Stranger Things, analyses and fanfiction highlight this love's true limit. The limit being characterization outside of facilitating or validating the desired plot point. These characters frequently end up being depicted as shallow tools for individual fantasies.

Bylr, mainly Mike, is the center of many of these fantasies. You see this in how people write Max as Mike's therapist, treating her as an expository device for Mike's trauma. You see this in how people write Will as Mike's doormat, demurely soiled by Mike's foul behavior and happy to serve again. And, you see this in how people write Lucas as the malleable everyman.

On the one hand, this behavior is a reflection of the Duffers writing. Lucas is usually kept in the periphery, supporting but not centered. The writers focus on Lucas as an individual more during his S4 conformity plot line. The issue is that his character development is due to external force rather than introspection. Instead of fleshing out Lucas' understanding of the world, the writers reiterate what we already know about Lucas. Outside of basketball, there's no new information presented about his life, his interests, his family, or himself.

What we do get is a one liner with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, a reaffirmation of his love for Max, and a violently temporary resolution to the multi-functional Jason v. Hellfire conflict. Rather than address race, the Duffers prioritize geekdom. While it maintains the show's "sensibilities," the Duffers' cowardice proves their unwillingness to challenge the status quo, whether that be creating uncomfortable situations amongst the ensemble or compelling the audience to question their own assumptions about Lucas. Of which, they have many.

On the other hand, it's not like Lucas himself is uninteresting. He's a meta-textual underdog, once reviled by the audience for being skeptical of the suspicious little white girl. Lucas was known as the "aggressive" one, despite his character's S1 motivations being laid out clearly, not breaking limbs or making eyes bleed, or getting into more than one physical fight. When people reappraised the show after S4, Lucas (especially Caleb) garnered greater appreciation. How much of that being genuine is another topic, relating to performance in fandom and online spaces.

Outside of his valuable contributions to the group, Lucas has numerous qualities that make him an excellent brother, friend, and boyfriend. He's got a keen mind, always prepared with a retort (but less so than Erica). He's skeptical, balancing out the idealists, theorists, and dreamers in his friend group. He's pragmatic, providing common sense solutions for average to larger than life problems. He's bold, willing to pursue independent action despite the danger. He's got grit, an unwavering determination in himself and his judgment. He's stubborn to the core, making him a fierce protector. He's self aware, graciously accepting his mistakes and take immediate action to do better.

It's not just those personality traits that make him endearing but his perfectly imperfect contradictions. He's one verbal blunder away from a permanent break-up with Max, however he charms his way into her good graces time and time again. He's the Hawkins High's MVP, shooting a championship winning basket during his freshman year. Meanwhile, just a year ago, he used to get a thrill through karate kicking his way through Hawkins Middle classroom doors (then getting caught). No matter how "cool" he gets, Lucas Charles Sinclair is, and will always be, a dork.

It's difficult for people to parse out these aspects of Lucas, when their primary understanding of a character is derived from said character's relationships. It's one reason why shippers struggle with grasping a character's identity and motivations. They can't see the forest for the trees.

The sub-fandom's fixation on romance is a given but, per their self-appointed high level of "media literacy," it's worth noting for hypocrisy alone. "Media literacy" apparently only applies to a single, white queer, lens of interpretation. When you have a character like Lucas, who doesn't adhere to this limited scope of skill and interest, people will either disregard him or make him conform to the their expectations.

Look at how bloggers analyzed Lucas on the Line, when they weren't making it about Mike. People had a fundamental issues understanding Lucas' relationship with his Black peer mentor, Jermaine. What they thought was sexual attraction was actually admiration. He's in awe of Jermaine, who is a cool and confident Black upperclassman in a predominantly white community. That is why he becomes Lucas' role model, giving Lucas something to aspire towards.

This isn't me saying these bloggers are racist. This is me pointing out that race wasn't even a factor on their identity issue radar. To be frank, it isn't on the Duffers' radar either.

Ultimately, fandoms are places of habit. If people can't utilize Lucas as a means to resolve Mike's issues, such as his fandom-minted trauma or romantic angst, then Lucas is relegated as set dressing. The type of set dressing includes but isn't exclusive to: a plug-and-play dynamic with Max, the queer ally relationship counselor/therapist, or the scapegoat for an intra-party conflict.

While the first two are dull but harmless, the latter leads to some insidious scenarios, such as Lucas being cast as the homophobic party member. Lucas being homophobic is founded on assumption, not text! If you need to look for a homophobe-in-training, please look at repressed Mike Wheeler.

Lucas can't even catch a break when he's not being depicted as a homophobe. In an effort to minimize the collateral of Mike and El's break-up, as well as appease El stans, shippers paired up Max and El. Ironically, Lucas becomes a form of collateral himself. The only difference is that, unlike a single El, shippers can live with the fallout of him third wheeling his throuple or rationalizing Max's "amicable" break up with Lucas after the events of S4 and S5.

As I said in another post, it's never about Lucas. It's about what he can do for you.

[random0lover]

Open Wounds and War Paint

Pairing: Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x GN!reader

Word Count: 1,614

Warnings: Angst/no comfort, SFW, reader death(?), proclamation of love, blood, emotional shit, reader gets called dove and love, reader calls Simon baby one time.

Things to know: Should be POC friendly! If you notice anything that makes you feel otherwise please let me know! I never want anyone to feel excluded with/in my work ♡, Also a warning to anyone that decides to follow me- if you do not have your age in your bio or a pinned post I will block you… just a fair warning.

Notes: This has been sitting in my drafts for like two months now and I’m having writer's block on the main piece I’m writing and I had motivation for this so here we are! I might write a second part to this and maybe two different types, one that continues that angst/no comfort and one that is a happy ending and fluffy. This isn’t my best work and honestly I don't know how to feel about it :/

Part 1 (You’re here!) Part 2

You’re laying with your head in Ghost’s lap just thinking about things. Letting your mind wander into some saddening thoughts.

“Ghost”

“Yeah love?”

“Sometimes I’m scared I’ll never find real love.”

He doesn’t say anything but you know he’s listening, he was always listening when you spoke.

“I know I have you and the rest of the team and that we all see each other as family and I absolutely adore that, I really do.”

You pause thinking about what you want to say.

“I want someone to love me. Not my body or who I am at work. I want them to be in love with my soul and I want to love their soul right back.”

This whole time you had been picking at a loose string on Ghost's cargo pants but finally risked looking up at him and for once he’s not looking at you instead he’s staring up at the ceiling.

You look away again.

“I want to be so comfortable with the love that we have that when we wake up in the morning my first thought isn’t about how if I look okay or if I looked like I was attacked by a pack of wild dogs,” you push air out of your nose in an attempt to laugh, “I want to make myself a cup of coffee and bring them a cup of tea exactly how they like it and there be a comfortable silence. I want to watch the sun rise with them and know that they love me as much as I love them.”

You look up to find him already staring down at you, his pupils dilated to the point of almost pushing the soft molten out completely.

His thumb drifts across your cheek gently memorizing every line from the ones around your eyes from how much you always laughed to the ones that settle between your eyebrows from the amount of time you’d stressed over everyone’s safety.

The moment is interrupted though with pain filled coughs wracking your body causing your head to jostle in his lap.

The hand that’s holding your tightens.

Once the coughing stops you wipe your loose hand across your mouth and find dark red liquid on it that almost looks black.

“Simon.”

He blinks hard.

This was the first time you had used his name during a mission.

You’d only start calling him that when you were both alone on base having early morning conversations while he drank his tea and you your coffee.

You reach a hand up and slide it underneath his mask to rest it on his cheek.

“Simon promise me you’ll find a love like that.”

His eyes search yours and all he can find is love and adoration. You had lost enough blood that you were starting to go numb, your body finally taking mercy on you in your final moments.

His hand reaches up to cover the one you still have under his mask and grips it tightly almost as if he’s trying to ground himself.

You two were not alone in the room but you had already said your goodbyes to everyone else leaving Simon for last. You were worried about what your death would bring for the team, not about the consequences of anyone’s actions but the emotional stability of everyone. They already had hard times dealing with when one of their own were taken but you had yet to see their reaction to anyone that they were close to dying but you’d always imagined that you would be there for them. You would be but they wouldn’t be able to see you, you promised that you would still watch over them in death just like you did in life. You’d become their guardian angel.

Ghost never showed any weakness, he wouldn’t allow himself to after what happened to his family but somehow you wiggled your way into the heart that he thought he had locked and thrown into the deepest darkest parts of the ocean. But Ghost wasn’t the one that was present in this situation, it was Simon.

Simon, the man who knew your exact coffee order, the one that knew how annoyed you’d get at the smallest things when you were tired but you’d never take it out on anyone, the one who knew your real past, the only one you had shown your real full self too.

He knew it was dangerous to fall in love with you. Not because of your work but because he knew if he let you in he’d never be able to let you go and he was fucking terrified of that. He didn’t know who he’d become when you died and even the rest of the team was worried about that. They’d never seen him become so vicious in the field before but once he found out that you’d been hurt, it’s like all he could see was red. He took 8 men all by himself with just a combat knife and his fists. He walked away covered in blood, none of it his.

He blinks again, focusing on you, finding you smiling softly at him.

“You think too much Simon.”

He ignores that.

“Dove,” He runs a hand-covered glove across your cheek.

You drum your fingers against his hand gently at the pet name giving a soft hum.

That was his name for you in the soft moments. He claimed that you were too good, too pure, too caring to be in this line of work.

“But I already found a love like that.”

You let out a choked laugh mixing with the sound of a sob at the same time.

“I know, baby.” Under different circumstances you would’ve never let that term of endearment slip out of your mouth but in this moment you didn’t care.

You can’t help but cough again making blood splatter onto his vest, you try to wipe it off but he just grips your hand and shakes his head gently.

“I got lucky enough to find the love I was always looking for but was too chicken shit to say anything about it.” You attempt to laugh again but it only comes out in a heavy wheeze and your eyesight is starting to go slightly blurry.

You’re starting to panic. You don’t want to die. No no no no. You weren’t ready.

Another sob leaves your chest and you can see the pain in Simon’s eyes, one tear comes out sliding down his cheek and under your hand that is starting to go slightly slack.

“Simon I’m not ready,” your words are becoming slurred, “I don’t want to leave you yet.”

For once Simon didn’t know what to say, he never expected to be in this situation. You weren’t supposed to be bleeding out on a random bed in a shitty safe house waiting for evac that most likely wouldn’t make it in time. He had promised himself he would die for you, die before you. No matter what, you were supposed to be the one to outlive him, make it out of the military life to maybe one day start a family or maybe open that little bakery where you also took in cats to help them find new homes. You were supposed to make it out alive, not him. Not ghost.

He leans down pressing his forehead to yours, “It’s okay love, you don’t have to stay for me. It’s okay to let go.”

You shake your head violently trying to keep yourself awake. Keep yourself away from the warm comfort your mind was offering up to you. To focus on the man that you love.

“But Simon.”

He shushes you gently and you can feel the tears running down his cheek and under your hand. It causes the makeup around his eyes to run slowly, cleaning away the black stains, washing Ghost away and letting more of Simon be revealed.

You didn’t want to do this to him. You had finally started to see Simon come alive and you didn’t want to rip that from him.

Urgently you blink your eyes even though it’s almost like you’re staring out a foggy window and can really only see his eyes now. But that’s all that mattered, you could read everything Simon was thinking and feeling just from his eyes alone.

Pain. Anger. Sorrow.

Love.

“Simon, I need you to live for me.”

He breathes deeply, “Love—“

“No, Simon I mean it,”

“Don’t let yourself fade away.” You take a deep breath.

“I need you to find that love again.”

For some reason you remember the conversation you had only hours ago, sitting on that rooftop. Before you knew you wouldn’t make it to the next morning. You had asked him what he wanted to do after the military and at first he just shook his head. He wasn’t supposed to make it out. This was his life and it was going to be his death. You knocked shoulders with him though, you knew what he was thinking and you always threatened to kill him yourself if he ever thought of dying in the field. You told him he wasn’t allowed to die, he had to help you find the perfect spot for your coffee shop and his pub.

“Oh, and that pub you talked about opening? You should really do it.”

You smile at him gently, your eyes starting to slide shut and you can see the panic in his eyes. You didn’t want him to panic, everything was going to be okay.

You tried to tell him that, saying the words in your mind but your lips didn’t move once.

Hi my lovelies, I hope you liked this little fic! Feedback is appreciated but not necessary. Anyways I hope you all have an amazing day <3

Requests are open! I can not promise when or if I will write them but I do prefer requests that are slightly more specific as I find them a little bit easier to write but it’s not required. Thanks for reading my darlings ♡

[breakyourrxles]

❥hate & hurt (with all my love) (m)

↳ two things always remained true:

1) for better or for worse, change is inevitable.

and 2) chan always came back.

bang chan x fem!reader — childhood friends to lovers, friends with benefits, heavy angst, romance, sexual content [12.5k wc] cws: physically abusive parents (somewhat detailed), parental death, emotional manipulation, drinking, recreational drug use, sex as a coping mechanism, unhealthy relationships, language, heavy themes throughout. sexual content: penetrative sex (unprotected), a lot of carelessness emotionally.

February is cold, and that's reason enough to find little joy in this month as well and many of the ones surrounding it, but your space heater at work giving out twenty minutes into your shift at work is certainly cause for more.

You can't help but wonder, how do situations like this always come to find me?

Typically not anything too egregious, but most can admit that the small things tend to add up. Now, work is cold, and you have an unreasonably large number of books to wade through that must, ultimately, find their place amongst the numerous shelves that line the walls and walkways.

What else could possibly go wrong?

A lazy thought to yourself accompanied by a similar, tired blink as you bend down behind the front counter only to then hear the doorbell ding to signify the entry of a patron. Because of course they would right now, when you've already resigned yourself to the horrors of sorting by last name.

The words begin to tumble out of you before you've even stood fully again—halfway into turning your head towards the sound as it quickly dies out behind the door closing. "Welcome, what can I do for—"

The rest of them die in your throat, which is no match for the feeling of anxiety-fueled dizziness once eyes meet.

"Chan."

In fifth grade, Chan had decided he was going to be your best friend.

It really had been as simple as that; the memory sticks out despite a long line of them that involve him, the way he had caught you on the curb after school as you waited for your parents to come pick you up—cupcake in hand, not even particularly caring of sweets.

Of course, he couldn't have known this, you weren't best friends yet.

"You're going to be my new best friend." he proudly declared, no room for argument from you.

At such a young age, girls and boys being best friends is far less of a topic for discussion as it would become later on in middle school, in high school. Not even something on the radar, in fact. Chan was friends with a lot of girls—one in particular—classes were small, and it had been simple enough to keep up with your peers even if none too close to them, yourself.

Everyone knew Chan and Sana were a package deal, until Sana's parents had decided to move elsewhere, leaving Chan without that one person that really held him down in a way that no one else really seemed to. You couldn't help but wonder why he had chosen you as the follow-up, and as adults, the idea of it wildly amusing to the both of you no matter how many times it had been rehashed.

Suppose there's something special, maybe even magical about the concept of having one, true best friend when you're a child. Nothing else like it, no one else who holds that special place in your life. Difficult to keep on keeping on without that role being filled.

Whatever the case may have been, you found yourself next in line.

And perhaps you were too young to consider how wildly bizarre such a proclamation really was in the grander scheme of things. No concept of ulterior motives (and really, what ulterior motives could this child even have), but with a bright, dimpled smile and a baked good that you didn't have any particular interest in, suppose you were down to partake in his first round of try-outs.

"Okay," you remember answering, and firmly at that. Probably because you didn't have someone holding down the title in your life, either. "Best friends then."

"Hey…"

Voice wobbly, you drop the book in hand and circle around the desk to greet the man. It's been three years at least since the last time he'd come around, not that you were ever keeping count. The two of you do something of an awkward dance with one another as you first go in for a hug and then halfway through contemplate whether or not it's appropriate to even do so. Chan, at least, attempts to meet you halfway before you second-guess the gesture.

Eventually, a messy hug is decided upon by the both of you, though not without its chaotic logistics and limbs tangling among one another like two people never before engaging in such an act with another person before.

The irony in that.

"Hey," Chan says then through a smile that's so forced you wish you could ignore it. "Didn't know you worked here."

Of course not, how could you?

"Oh, yeah, a little over a year now."

Silence.

There's a part of you that sort of hopes the floor will open up and swallow you whole, but you force yourself to remember that it's a bit like this every time he comes back around. Always too much time between the last, always so much history but not enough of it that's recent. Huge, towering holes of time left unaccounted for between you with every year that passes by. Every year since he left.

You don't blame him, not purposefully, at least. Moving away was the right call for him, and even the frequency in which he did come back coming as something of a surprise to you with how tormented his relationship with his family always had been.

Hopefully Chan says something soon, because you're out of beginning statements, not that you had all that many to begin with. Besides that, the skin on the inside of your lip is beginning to grow thin from nervous chewing, and you'd rather not have to swallow blood along with the mounting lump in your throat.

It wasn't always like this.

Chan's eyes fall to the floor between the both of you for a split second before flashing back up and towards you. It's a face that says I know, it's weird, and I'm sorry for that, but with no real ability to make it any better either. In fact, you suspect he's about to make it worse.

Call it Bestie Intuition, or whatever.

"So," he says with a drawl, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth before finally finding the strength to get the words out. "My parents died."

Oh.

There's so much history in that statement. So much feeling, and contempt, and distaste that even when he says the words as plainly as can be, you can't help but catch the hint of relief that accompanies them. It's bad enough when someone's parents pass away, even worse when there is so much love there that it's excruciating.

Where does that land those who take solace in the fact then?

Maybe once upon a time you could have reacted to the statement with unbridled and hysterical glee. Congratulations buddy! Drinks on me! a potentially anticipated response maybe five or six years ago, but now there's too much space, too much distance between the two of you to say anything other than the obvious. The standard fare towards people in grief even if they aren't, actually.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"That makes one of us."

You can't even blame him, knowing everything that you know. Parents are people and deserve the amount of respect that they give to others, and they certainly never took it upon themselves to be deserving of it from Chan, or anyone close enough to him to hear the yelling coming from the other end of the phone line, much less see the cigarette burns and bruises left when he was finally comfortable enough around someone to roll his sleeves up behind closed doors.

For people like them, you hoped Hell to be everything that the religious fanatics had ever made it out to be, and maybe even a little more.

"Anyway," he says abruptly with a sigh, not wanting to linger on the fact too long. "Next of kin, so I'm sort of tasked with dealing with the aftermath of everything. They have a shit ton of books in the basement and I heard this place takes in that kinda stuff if it's worth anything."

"Yeah, we can give them a look, for sure."

"You want to come over tonight and maybe take a look around before I bother dragging everything over here?"

Forever constant, forever in a state of metamorphosis. You wonder how the two can exist simultaneously in such a way.

He continues the thought. "They didn't die in there or anything, but you're welcomed to rummage through my mom's old shit and take anything you want. Jewelry or whatever."

"I'm sure that's precisely what you need, a constant reminder of that woman every time you see me wearing a set of earrings." you chuckle softly.

Chan grimaces. "Good point, maybe don't wear them around me. Either way, you know they have that big firepit in the back so we can have some drinks, get some food, catch up?"

Catch up. Code.

Besides the fact that Chan makes very little effort to keep up with you in all of the time that he's away; social media messages back and forth exchanged between the two of you dwindled down over the years to nothing more than the standard handful expected of friends. Birthdays, Christmas, maybe New Year’s if we're feeling particularly giving.

There's no catching up, and every time Chan has returned for one reason or another since having originally left, the knowledge that you come to learn about the new him, his new job, new everything—is limited.

A chain link fence erected between you, and perhaps the very second of his departure. You have a difficult time pinpointing the precise moment of your realization. Always held at something of an arm's length now—you can see him through the holes and around the silver, metal wiring—but you couldn't get through it if you tried.

You can't help but wonder if his new best friend lies somewhere on the other side, right beside him. Or maybe he has simply grown past the necessity for such things. An emotional crutch because he needed it as a young boy, as someone trying to make sense of the world around him and why his parents hated him so much for seemingly just existing.

Then he moved, and things got better. Chan built the fence, but never told you.

You can't help but wonder if you remind him of everything that he has tried so hard to distance himself from. Maybe you don't need a pair of earrings for that, after all.

A fence to keep him within the barrier of healing that he has created upon leaving, or to keep you out?

"Okay."

From: Weasel (lovingly)

19:12 : want to catch dinner tonight?

To: Weasel (lovingly)

19:13 : can't, something came up

From: Weasel (lovingly)

19:14 : what could have possibly come up on a thursday night?

To: Weasel (lovingly)

19:20 : chan's back in town. he stopped by the shop while i was at work. we're gonna catch up.

From: Weasel (lovingly)

19:21 : ahhhh riiiight. 'catch up' i know what that means. same thing it always does when he comes back around and is bored -_-

To: Weasel (lovingly)

19:21 : hyunjin please. his parents passed away.

From: Weasel (lovingly)

19:22 : okay? good. they were pieces of shit and i'm sure he's thrilled i don't see why he's got to pretend to drown his sorrows with getting his dick wet. he barely even talks to you when he's not around.

From: Weasel (lovingly)

19:30 : whatever. i love you. hit me up tomorrow to pick up the pieces. i'll be around.

"Fuck."

Breathy and punched out of your lungs with a particularly hard thrust, you attempt to find purchase in the sheets beneath your fingers as Chan roughly rocks into you from behind. His hands feel tight around your hips to hold you in place for him, and while you can't very well view the expression on his face from this angle, you can certainly hear the litany of bitten back groans that just occasionally drop from his lips.

"Close, close—" you follow the expletive with then, and his grip on you gets even harder—hips firmer and faster as you snake a hand down between your legs to get the rest of the way there.

You remember the first few times that you and Chan began sleeping together—taking your relationship to the next level—the both of you used to joke as if there was anything particularly romantic or emotional about it for either of you. But he used to be more involved in the process, more present, more engaged and interested and with some insatiable desire to please…even if you guys were just friends who would fuck every now and then.

The first time he came back after moving, you recognized the change.

"Chan—" you say, and receive no response.

"Fuck, you feel so good—" you continue on, an attempt to bring back some of the passion that you remember so vividly once having been there.

"Want you—"

"Shhh," you finally hear, accompanied by a particularly harsh thrust that feels something akin to some sort of threat. A few beats of silence follow after it, as if he's rethinking having ever done it to begin with before eventually landing on his feeling of correctness in doing so. "Don't talk so much."

If you were anyone else—maybe less used to this, less expecting of it—it might ruin the whole thing for you. Instead, you're thankful for the position and the way that he can't see how you roll your eyes at him, at the way that he is now before you come.

Yours brings about his, a louder, still pulled back groan as if anyone in this house is going to hear him. Chan wastes no time pulling himself from you and then flopping over to lie beside you as you situate yourself similarly.

It's always like this, every time; every feeling held so heavily in your chest bubbling up to sit inside of the dryness of your throat. Choking, drowning. Never actually dying, no matter how much you wish for the release from this.

Hyunjin always tells you not to go, and in the end, your mind is made up to do just that long before you ever even inform him of your consideration to do so. Your new best friend—though you don't call him that.

For whatever reason, you've still not been able to relinquish the title; put up 'help wanted' adds in the absence of the original title holder.

Because he's still around. Sort of.

You always wonder why you feel like crying afterwards, swallowing the burn down just in time for Chan to get up and head to the bathroom for his own clean up. It's a means to an end, less about remembering anything that ever existed between the two of you, and more about forgetting.

"I talk too much?" you finally say sarcastically as he disappears into the connected bathroom. Chan doesn't bother to stop and turn back, or really acknowledge the fact at all until a few, long moments and you hear the shrieking of the shower knob turn.

"Sometimes," he says.

"God forbid I try to spice things up with a little dirty talk, for old time's sake."

"Well, I wish you wouldn't."

Blinking slowly, the memories of doing this so many times before all come flooding back to you. A heavy sigh through your nose and you're sitting back up to collect your clothing from the floor beside the bed.

"Okay Chan," you say in response, now with evident contempt laden within it. "I won't say anything next time. I'll just come over and you can do whatever you need to do with me and then I'll go quietly, alright?"

You wonder if anything you say will even bother him, but just as quickly you hear the glass from the shower walling slide open and the man in question's head pops out from around the corner.

"You didn't come?" he says angrily, exhausted. Knowing fully well that you did. "You didn't enjoy yourself, right? Don't make me out to be the scumbag that's using you for whatever-the-fuck like you don't come over here time and time again knowing exactly what's going to take place."

He disappears back into the shower, ending it off with the additional "as if you can't just say no."

Dressed again and quickly heading down the stairs to take your leave, you don't bother informing him of the fact—you're sure he knows as much—it's far from the first time that the two of you have partaken in this exact scenario. Doing the same thing over and over again, each time thinking that the outcome will be different for some inexplicable reason.

The thought comes to mind as you reach the bottom of the stairs and upon glancing to your right, are met with a family photo of Chan with his parents—smiling, grinning ear to ear, as if the child in the photo isn't wearing jeans at the beach in the summer time because father dearest gifted him with a brand new cigarette burn only a couple of nights prior.

The thought being: perhaps he's just dealing with some things, even unbeknownst to himself. The death of loved ones is difficult even in the best of times, and you're not entirely sure where hating your abusive parents falls within the scope of that. Probably coming along with a whole different set of complications that often go unexamined, unspoken of—because God forbid you ever say it out loud, to anyone, that the people that were supposed to love, cherish and protect you did any and everything but that, and in fact, made your loving of them an abject impossibility.

Chan never told anyone else in his life about his parents abuse, only you; because the first time he admitted hating them with a shaky yet certain voice, you held his hand, gave him another red solo cup full of beer, and told him that you understood.

So, where's your red solo cup now?

It wasn't until your shared sophomore year of high school that you really started picking up on the signs.

There was always regret in that, too. That you should have noticed it earlier, but you were kids and what did you know about family dynamics that sat quite a bit outside of your own norm. In your own home, you had parents that loved you, supported you—they weren't perfect but they tried, and it wasn't until a few years into Chan's coming over to yours for dinners and hangouts that the comments about how nice your home life is started to come with more and more frequency.

"It's so nice here," he would say, as if dreaming of a life just like yours for himself. He probably was. "Your parents are so kind."

In high school—when he started going out to parties more, skipping school more, underaged drinking more like the troubled kids in movies and television shows might oftentimes be depicted in such a crude and stereotypical way—did you decide to finally take him up on one of his offers to come along with.

Sitting in the backyard of some stranger's house, probably a college aged guy that you can't imagine has any good reason to be hanging out with young high schoolers, Chan scooted his lounge chair closer to you with a sort of tipsy messiness that had you giggling at the time, though that joy was relatively short-lived.

"Remember I told you I wanted to try out for the swim team," he said just before taking a sip of a beverage he had no business drinking for his age. "I didn't make it. Go figure."

You reeled, shocked by the fact. "What? But you're good, I've timed you myself."

From a distance. Never able to get close enough before to see the implications of everything that surrounds him.

"Yeah," he sort of laughs, like he has to or else he'll cry. "Can't swim if I can't take my shirt off, can I?"

Eyebrows knitting together, you look at him contemplatively, like it's a puzzle you're meant to put together yourself except that you're missing so many of the pieces necessary in doing so. Chan's lips thin into a straight line, looking out into the empty, dark of night ahead that leads to nowhere before taking another sip of his beer.

A puzzle gifted to you, carefully handed to you personally to keep along with him. It's not so easy to just say things sometimes, sometimes…the best that you can do is just set someone up to ask so that you have a reason to say it.

"Why can't you take your shirt off?"

"We heard about Chan's parents."

Breakfast with your own folks is easy. Usually.

Mother's voice is compassionate, but beneath the words is something else—you figure that she must have some kind of understanding, if not the full picture. You never told them, it wasn't your place and you knew Chan wouldn't have wanted you to. Still, the adults in our lives have a way of knowing things without us really saying them—years of life and experience on us, after all.

"Yeah, I saw him yesterday, actually."

"How's he taking it?" your father then asks, equally compassionately-knowing.

"It's always hard I guess, he's doing his best."

"You should have him over for dinner some time," mother then adds, and internally you're screaming. "We always loved having him."

You know. They were the only set of parents in his life that loved him. Part of you doesn't want to deprive him of that, even now. Even after all of the miles of growing apart the two of you have done over the years.

You can't tell them that he only calls you when he's back in town to fuck you, there's guilt in tarnishing their opinion of him no matter how deserving of it he may be. It's not really his fault, you think to yourself, and then wonder if you'd be willing to give any other man who treats you this way the same kind of leniency in doing so.

What makes him so special? Special enough to treat you like this.

Best friends.

"I'll ask him," you lie, no intention of doing such a thing. "We have plans later in the week so I'll see what he's up to." you continue to lie, knowing perfectly well that he hasn't messaged you at all since the night before.

Three days go by without a word, and on the fourth, Chan finally messages you again.

From: Chan

13:03 : hey, i'm gonna set some of my folks shit on fire tonight in the back yard, do you want to come over?

You read over the message two, three times—biting the inside of your cheek in thought for a moment before putting your phone back into your pocket and proceeding with filing away the book in hand. This can wait, it's early enough in the afternoon that he doesn't need a reply right now, and besides, it's not like his parents’ stuff nor the firepit is going anywhere any time soon.

Plus, you're still kind of pissed off about last time, contemplating your willingness to put yourself right back into the same situation all over again, and not giving any thought to why it is that you keep doing so to begin with.

A few minutes pass, and you hear your message tone again.

From: Chan

13:08 : don't ignore me, we don't have to do anything. you're seriously mad about last time?

13:08 : you're really gonna ignore your best friend?

You're wise enough now to know manipulation when you see it, but maybe not wise enough to do anything about it just yet.

To: Chan

13:10 : yeah, i'll come over. but only because there's a photograph in there i really want to fucking burn.

"What are you going to do with the house?"

When you ask the question—and rather abruptly, at that—Chan is mid-overhead swing into tossing one of many ugly, ornate throw pillows into the billowing blaze of the fire that resides in front of the both of you. It lands with a plop, the fire moving to accommodate it only to quickly thereafter swallow it as intended. He already has another one awaiting the same fate tucked up under his other arm.

"Sell it," he says simply enough, tossing the other pillow and then hunching over to pick up his beer bottle again. "If I never see this place again it'd be too soon. I'd be happier setting this place ablaze, but you know, laws."

"Yeah, I've heard people are a little touchy about arson nowadays." you chuckle.

It's only then that you really put two and two together—the death of his parents, the selling of the property, and what that means for any future of him ever returning to this city again. If you had to guess, it's a weight lifted off of his shoulders, the no longer having to play pretend with these people even with the rarity in which he has done so now into adulthood.

No more pretend, no more reason to ever come back here.

Your chest feels tight at the thought. All Chan has spent the past few years doing is creating space between you and him, and now? The final nail in the coffin of your friendship. It was good while it lasted! you imagine him saying to you in some flippant, heartless way while not necessarily meaning for it to come out as such, but you can't help but latch onto the thought and think it further through—when was it good? Not for a long time, now.

"It's getting chilly, we should go back inside soon."

On your lap sits the picture from the wall at the bottom of the stairs, and as you pick it up and stand to throw it into the fire, Chan happens to take notice of your choice. The two of you meet eyes, and for a second you wonder if there's a part of him that wishes to protest in your doing so—you wait, give him time to say not that one, or anything of the sort, but instead you're met with a bizarre concoction of softness and relief. As if he's thankful for your being there, because you're strong enough to do it, and maybe he kind of isn't sometimes.

Chan takes a sip of his beer as you throw the framed photograph into the flames, right where it belongs, and as the both of you watch it burn, you still watch him out of the peripheral of your vision.

"I still have some of the scars," he says. No particular feeling behind the words. Stating the obvious.

"I know," you reply softly, opting into biting your tongue so that the pressure of angrily gritted teeth doesn't give you a headache. "I see them every time."

"Why did we never date?" you ask, somewhat drunkenly and from the far end of a couch that no longer adorns ugly pillows as decoration.

Chan's eyes narrow towards you, beer bottle in hand and a movie that neither of you care about playing on the television that's actually kind of nice—he has decided to take that back with him instead of destroying it. Him enjoying it would probably piss his parents off more, anyway.

"What kind of insane question? What do you mean why?"

Inside, the house is warm but empty and dark in a way that somehow feels fitting, all things considered. It's somewhat eerie—maybe because people who were once evil and now are dead once lived between the walls—too much space for how little space the both of you take up inside of it. Strangers inside of someone else's home, a place that doesn't belong to either of them, even with the ties of familial relation present.

"I feel like it's pretty common in high school that best friends catch feelings and eventually date, or at least try it out just to see because they don't know any better—Oh! Remember when Jisung thought we were totally dating in junior year just because he saw us sneaking off to your car during lunch period?"

Chan snorts into his bottle at the memory. "I mean, we were definitely sneaking off to do something, but it didn't have anything to do with us dating."

"I don't know, I guess it's fascinating that through all those years, and hormones, and puberty, and even actually sleeping together we just never…thought about it."

You had. Pretending that you hadn't was a long-upheld lie told not only to him, but especially to yourself. Chan was unreachable past a certain point, and you knew it well enough. In high school, the relationship between the two of you had reached its blissful peak, though you suppose you hadn't known it at the time.

The top of the mountain. Then graduation came, and the subsequent scaling down the other side of it.

"I was never in any position to have a girlfriend, you know that."

He doesn't bother going into detail, he doesn't really need to, either.

Unable to take his clothing off for the swimming team, unable to take his clothing off for any potential partners. Only for you.

"My parents asked if you wanted to come by for dinner some time, by the way," you finally say, though originally with no intention of doing so. Part of you silently begs for him to say no.

He smiles gently. "That's nice of them."

Close enough.

A few awkward beats of silence make themselves known between the two of you before Chan finally sets his empty beer bottle down and slides himself closer towards your end of the couch. He doesn't say anything—doesn't really need to when his hands curve around your calves and pull you down into a lying position against the cushions for him to settle himself between.

Up over your knees and down the slope of your thighs towards the button on your jeans, he's quick with it—always has been—and shimmying the fabric down your legs along with your underwear, well, you knew this was going to happen.

Chan sits up, thumbs his own pants open and pulls them down his hips just enough to expose himself as necessary. He extends a hand towards you to help you up and to bring you over onto his lap, though you're met with the intrusion of fingers before anything bigger makes an attempt.

Whining into the crook of his neck, Chan smells like burnt firewood and beer. As well as cowardice and selfishness and a lot of regret shared between the two of you.

When you're ready, you say as much—sinking down slowly onto him and being met with the trembling exhale of his breath against your ear once fully seated. One hand comes up to the back of your head as if to hold you in place, as if you have anywhere else to go.

At least this time you know better. Better than to try to engage him in any way outside of precisely what this is at its foundation. It's been a long time coming, but you know where you stand.

It still feels like shit, though.

Fit and strong, Chan lifts you up and pulls you down along him in all of the right ways, because sex with him has never been anything but perfect. Just the right amount of everything to a shocking degree, though it has waned ever so slightly over the years.

Pulling away from his neck, the circling of his t-shirt slides to the side ever so slightly to make one of many scars along his body known to you. It's not new—far from it—and you know the stories behind most of them anyway. This one in particular; a long burn about the length of a toothpick just over his shoulder. Mother curling her hair in the bathroom and he young child having the audacity to desire loving attention from her.

How can anyone be so cruel?

Leaning down, you kiss it lightly, then thumb over it gently as if doing so will offer him some sort of solace whilst inside of you.

Instead, it does the opposite.

"What are you doing?" he says, sudden and curt but still dragging your body along his own. "Don't touch—"

You're happy to apologize for having done so, and there's terror that springs up in your chest though it feels somewhat displaced. An acute feeling of fright at what's about to happen to you in the way that his voice changes with each word that drops from his mouth, and before he is even able to finish the sentence, Chan is pulling you off of him entirely, and pulling his pants back up instead.

"Why do you have to do this? Why do you always have to do shit like this? Every single time."

"I'm sorry! I didn't really think about it, I didn't think you would—" you stammer in response, word vomiting in an attempt to quell the volcano in front of you at any cost.

"Didn't think I would notice? Like I don't have a perfect mapping of every single scar, every single memory that these people left on me in all of the years that I was under their care?"

The last word being so rife with sarcasm that you can't help but recoil from the way that he says it. It's so stupid, so so stupid because of course he knows. As if he will ever be able to forget so long as he lives.

You claw to get dressed again, scrambling your things together quickly as Chan stands and runs a hand through his hair like he isn't entirely sure of how he wants to even deal with this. Like he's trying not to say something that he doesn't mean, or maybe something that he does.

"Can't we ever just have a nice, fun time together?" he finally lands on, exasperated and airy in the words. "Can't we just fuck like old times when I'm in town without you doing something to make me fucking regret it?"

You full stop. Rage and confusion and hurt feelings simultaneously all making their way through every nerve and every bone in your body—a race to see which one gets out first and is the underlying emotion within your reply.

"Regret it? You regret it?"

Rage wins.

"You fucking regret it?" you ask, once again laden with sarcasm as so many times before, because the concept of what he says is just so selfish that you can barely even fathom it. "We were best friends for years, we grew up together, you were everything to me and when you left, I understood why—I was happy for you, I wanted you to heal. Then the messages died off, your visits died off, and the only time you've ever been bothered to come and find me when you are in town is because you know I'm an easy lay for you, isn't that right?"

Chan doesn't answer, but his face has since twisted into something you can't even really recognize. Somewhere between disgust and awareness, though you can't be certain which one is meant for who.

"Right?" you nod, continuing on—halfway into a laugh now as if delusionally humored by the fact now that everything is laid out onto the table. "We're not friends, we're certainly not best friends anymore. You come find me when you're in town because you know that even though you've moved on from this place, from everything that happened to you here, from me—I haven't. And when you fancy yourself a pathetic fuck for old times’ sake, you know exactly who to call, right?"

There's only a second of silence, Chan begins to say no. Not that you let him.

"Right? Isn't that right? You can say it, we're all friends here, allegedly." you laugh again.

You grab your bag from the floor next to the couch, sling it over your shoulder, and make your way towards the front door.

"That's not true." he says, defeated, like the words are what he means but he knows his actions have said otherwise time and time again.

"Sorry about your scar, I shouldn't have done that," you say with finality as you reach the door and crack it open for your departure. "Now please do us both the favor and never contact me again."

"You look so pretty like this, you know."

One of Chan's old things that he would be so amused by was calling you pretty, gorgeous, beautiful—something of the like—when either covered with his cum, or stuffed full of his dick. It became such a thing, that he would make allusions to it even outside of the bedroom, though no one else in your shared circle of friends would ever become any of the wiser about what all of the giggles were about.

The night before he moved and with legs hooked up over his shoulders, you remember the words like they were yesterday. Like they were important.

Maybe to you they were.

"I'm going to miss you saying super annoying stuff like this," you said, an airy giggle punched out of you with his deeper drive inside. "Who else will call me pretty while balls deep inside of me?"

"I don't think you'll have a particularly hard time finding that."

For years, the words would pop up in your memory—trying to dissect some hidden meaning between them. As a relatively inexperienced teenager, you didn't really understand what he had meant by it. Now, obviously, it's not that uncommon for guys to be in their lovers’ guts and calling them pretty, it's actually pretty common. Though, Chan hadn't said it since then.

The first time back since moving, Chan fucked you the same as always, though a little bit quieter, a little less verbal, and with eyes that didn't meet your own quite as much as you remembered from before. Only a year between, maybe you were remembering it differently than it was. Maybe you had just placed a lot of extra thought and feeling where it never really belonged to begin with.

You didn't recall it feeling so much like just sex as it did upon his return, always a little something extra, a little something different that felt like some kind of intangible more that also sort of wasn't there at all.

And thinking back to before the move, before everything changed—you remember lying with him after the fact as he checked social media from his phone, damp from sweat and other such sticky bodily fluids.

A fingertip lightly tracing over the scars, and Chan softly smiling into the touch.

"And then I told him that I don't think I was going to want to fuck some guy who wants me to do his laundry every time I come over, like, isn't that fuckin' weird?"

"Extremely weird," you reply, nodding lightly towards Hyunjin in agreement as you take a sip from your beverage. "Sounds like he wanted you to be his mommy or something."

"Uhg," Hyunjin sighs out in answer to such a concept, leaning back into his chair and slinging one arm up over the back. "Totally fuckin' weird."

It's a typical spot for the two of you to be dining at: a small, relatively unknown corner restaurant that sells mostly sandwiches and drinks and not much else outside of that. Not far from your job, and an ideal meeting place when Hyunjin texts you to catch a break and get a bite to eat real quick.

You take a bite of your food in the small lull in conversation, though Hyunjin's strange, stiff movement stirs your attention quickly back to him. Mouth a little too stuffed full of bread to ask, you unfortunately have no other choice but to try to make out what's happening based on the expressiveness of his face—and expressive he is—first eyes wide in shock, then narrowed in what you can only gather is disapproval of some sort.

"Not you…"

"Hey."

You don't choke on your food and that's impressive enough of a feat once it immediately dawns on you just who it is and why it is that Hyunjin is so suddenly displeased. They don't have history—not really, not personally—but he's heard enough in the meantime since Chan has left that he's been able to construct enough of his own opinion about the guy.

They met once, Hyunjin was cordial enough. Earlier into Chan's Return To Fuck And Then Disappear Without A Trace tour that he was much more able to pretend that he respects the man at all.

"What?" Hyunjin says, already an evident bite to it that you have concern might start something of a scene. "What do you want? What are you doing here?"

"Easy man," Chan answers, hands up in the air in front of him like he's already admitting defeat at the scene. Probably a good idea. "I just want to talk to her. No funny business."

"You'll have to forgive me for not exactly believing you have the best intentions at heart. You never really do, after all."

"Look, I know you have some problem with me and that's fine but I didn't come here to fight with you about—"

"Alright, enough."

When you finally speak up, it shuts the other two up almost immediately. You're thankful for that, because you don't really want to have to fight or plead or get into something of a shouting match just to settle this situation. Especially in public.

So, you sigh, putting your fork down against the plate and looking up towards Chan as he stands beside the table—a strange sort of half-frown curved into his lips, like he knows it's there and he's trying to not look so pathetic but he also can't entirely help it.

"How did you find me?" you question, exasperated.

He shrugs. "Snapchat location. Sorry."

Turning to look towards Hyunjin—who is now rolling his eyes at the simplicity of the mistake—you shake your head and whisper something to the effect of rookie mistake, then stand slowly from the table and point a finger straight into Chan's face.

"You've got thirty minutes. Hope you brought a script."

Chan's truck is just like you remember it.

It's not often that you find yourself riding with him in it, and for obvious enough reasons. Neither he, nor his parents, ever sold it once he moved out of town and thus it has remained in the driveway of his folks' home for years—awaiting he return once more.

One of the tires feels a little bit wobblier than you remember, perhaps an alignment that needs retuning and a suspicious clicking sound that may or may not be coming from the transmission. No doubt the wear and tear of years of neglect, but Chan doesn't really need the thing to be in perfect working order anyways, as the backend is filled as full as road-safety-possible with things he intends to drop off at the dump.

A fifteen minute drive of silence, meaning that he only has another fifteen once he parks the vehicle and the two of you sit in each other's company awkwardly.

If you intend to keep count, of course.

The radio is on but it's so low that you can't make out any of the words being said, paired with the static of being such an old model—it gives you something to hone your attention in on though, rather than the nervous way in which Chan picks at the skin around his nails as he presumably tries to figure out how to make this better without ever admitting fault.

You can make it a lot easier on him, because you've already come to a conclusion of your own approximately a week prior—maybe even more. Maybe the last night you were with Chan at all.

"I don't want to have sex with you anymore."

"Why?"

He answers it surprisingly quick, and that kind of makes you feel worse about the whole thing; such a nasty, sinking stomach feeling that hangs in your gut about how it really only ever has been about the sex for him ever since he left. That you carry no other meaning, no other interest to him outside of being able to offer that when he happens to come around.

Might as well tell the truth, the whole truth.

"Because you don't make me feel like I'm actually there."

Chan's eyes remain glued on you, and although his expression is one of confusion mostly, there's a particular hint of disgust that settles through upon hearing that. Like he didn't know. Like this is news to him.

"Rather, having sex with you makes me feel as though you wish I wasn't."

Looking at Chan is hard, but you suppose it has been for a long time. Like looking down the barrel of a loaded gun, one with the high probability of misfiring and killing the person standing at the wrong end.

You take the opportunity as the man sits dazed to grip at the door handle and jimmy it open with the kind of practiced ease that tells the story of having done so many times previously. A door rusted and misshapen from the elements, a door that Chan undoubtedly would have to reach over and open for anyone else.

But not you. No, you've been here so many times before, you know this door like the back of your own hand, and that makes all of this hurt just that much more. Every happening, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant carrying the weight of the world within—the weight of years of friendship, the weight of something else not dare ever said.

Slipping out of the seat, it takes Chan a few moments to even realize what's happened; already a good bit of the ways back down the nasty, dirty road of the dump back towards the main road. You hear the truck rev back to life, tires spinning beneath themselves before he manages to pull it back around and meanders up beside you as you continue walking towards the pavement with phone in hand.

"Come on, don't do that. Why are you walking home, seriously?"

It must be your lucky day—though, you're not entirely sure how much of that can be true on account of the way that all of this has played out. You know when to take the wins that life hands you through the abundance of otherwise losses, though, and when you manage to snag a rideshare that's only five minutes away from your current and completely bizarre location, you breathe a sigh of relief, and allow yourself the freedom to tell your best friend precisely what it is that's been eating away at your mind since that night. Since before that night, really, though it's been difficult to come to terms, find the words, and swallow down the feeling of wanting to vomit every time you have to make peace with it in some way.

"Because we're not friends," you say firmly, looking him dead in the eye as you do so. "We haven't been for a long time, and I hate to admit that now I'm wondering if we ever really were."

The truck slows to a standstill as the words wash over the receiver, and you're proud of yourself for how strong you must appear to look.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, is what really rattles through your mind with each step away that you take. Go back to him. Don't go back to him. He's fucked up and you know that but you know he's a good guy. Dealing with his issues isn't your responsibility.

You are not a rehabilitation center for fucked up men.

Between the back and forth in your mind, the to and fro in such a way—an internal battle that feels like every organ inside of your chest is being strangled and wrung out on the cool, dusty flooring beneath your feet—that is the one thing you keep reminding yourself like a cultist chant. Over and over and over again until you're inside of your ride and swept off towards your home.

Where you can cry in peace, be honest with yourself and your feelings and not have to put on a face of strength in front of a man who wouldn't be able to bear the truth upon his own shoulders if he tried.

"What if I said I thought I was in love with you?"

You had huffed out something of a laugh at the words, not really sure what to do with them but opting out of putting much stock in what was said at the time either.

There was a brief glance towards him, not that it made much of a difference in the pitch black darkness of the bedroom closet where the two of you were seated. It was another house party that you somehow had gotten roped into—the last week particularly bad at Chan's house, and he had the bruises on his arms to prove it.

When things had been particularly bad at home, Chan acted out just that much more in an attempt to not have to think about it—not have to count how many days there were left until he would be able to escape. Heavier drinking, more reckless driving, longer nights out and less days in school for you to be able to check up on him, so sometimes coming out was the only way you'd be able to keep something of an eye on him.

He wasn't drunk this time—a brief moment of relief felt—squashed by him admitting instead to partaking in the joys of recreational cough syrup abuse.

And so, here the two of you sat now; two in the morning on a school night as Chan rests curled up in the dark of someone's closet because the trip had become just a little bit too much. You didn't know much about this sort of thing outside of the bit of reading you'd done, but auditory hallucinations were not uncommon.

"And why would you say that?" you asked him in response, because it wasn't really the time for this sort of conversation, and you weren't sure if there ever really was going to be a time for it either.

"Why not?"

"That doesn't seem like a very good reason to say it," you replied, playing it cool as best as you could, all things considered. "Plus, I don't know that you're in the best state of mind to be making any sweeping declarations of love to anybody."

Chan sat up straighter, as if his ability to be upright was meant to prove you wrong on the matter. His hand fished around in the dark for something—grabbing at your sweater, then your leg, until inevitably finding its target in your hand and clumsily curling fingers within your own.

"You're always so difficult when it comes to talking about feelings, but I guess that's something that the both of us understand pretty well, isn't it?"

Yeah.

You hadn't bother responding verbally to it, and eventually Chan changed the subject towards some other inane story that barely had a conscious beginning, middle or end. Or maybe it did—your mind still wholly left back on the original comment, revisited frequently for many years to come.

Over two days, twenty-two missed calls, and fifteen ignored text messages, the one that finally has to drop the wall that you've now erected between the two of you is one that you always knew to be coming anyway. Reading the words hits you harder than expected though, maybe because you thought you would have more time to make things right.

From: Chan

18:09 : i know you're not talking to me but wanted to let you know i got someone to deal with selling the house, so i'll be leaving town tomorrow finally. it was nice seeing you.

You lose count of how many times you've banged on the old, ornate wooden door in front of you, though you accept that little time has passed since your beginning of doing so. Do you look deranged to any potential passerby? Probably. You can't be bothered with that right now, however.

Halfway into another swing towards it, the door finally budges and pulls open abruptly—Chan stands there with something of a confused, slightly dim-witted expression that would likely have the ability to melt your heart if not for the beating that it's already taken in his brief stint of being here. Bandaged and bruised and with wounds barely scabbed over, your heart aches upon laying eyes on him again because now you know for sure, without a shadow of a doubt, that this will be the last time.

Chan always came back. Until, of course, he wouldn't anymore.

"I…" he starts, slowly, clearly somewhat confused by not only your fervor in banging on the door but also just your being there at all. "I didn't think you would come. I was on the phone, I thought it was—forget it. Hi?"

"What happened with my parents a year ago? When my mother went on vacation without my father?"

You watch Chan's eyebrows slowly pull together at the center of his face, contemplating not only the question itself but the purpose of you presenting it entirely. When you urge him further, he stutters and falters under the time crunch, garbled words lost in a mouth that has no idea what to do with them.

"I—I don't know!"

"Last summer, I was considering staying abroad somewhere. Where was I thinking of going?"

This time the thinking through of your question is shorter, most likely on account of his catching on to the reasoning behind them.

"I don't know."

"And when I finally adopted my dog, the dog that I loved so dearly and had been looking forward to so much, what did I decide to name him?"

Chan's features have since twisted into something more akin to compassionate sadness—and no doubt because he has figured out the purpose behind all of this.

"I didn't know you have a dog."

"I don't," you sigh, fighting tooth and nail to choke back the sob that threatens your throat and chest. "He got hit by a car five months after I adopted him."

Closing his eyes, Chan's body goes limp in front of you as his head drops to face more towards the floor than to you. You don't really understand how it is that he couldn't have known, gone all of this time without knowing anything happening in your life, and still thinking that everything could remain precisely as he left it between the two of you during his short visits back.

Treating you like you only matter when right in front of him, something that he has no choice but to acknowledge then.

"My mother had an affair, it almost ruined their marriage. Actually, I would say that it has, they've just stayed together through it anyway, I don't know why. I wanted to go to Switzerland, because it'd have been such a huge change of scenery. And his name was Greg, because I thought it would be funny to give a dog a person name."

Chan lets out a small huff of laughter through his nose, seemingly unsure as to whether or not he's even allowed to find humor in such a thing now.

"It is funny."

"Why did you shut me out when you left?"

Even just saying the words feels like a punch to the gut—toppling over and grasping at your midsection in thought of it as you somehow manage to say what it is that you've been thinking for all of these years since then. It feels so bad to acknowledge it for what it is; eyes stinging and so unfathomably choked up that it feels as though you're drowning on the doorstep of people who eventually got what was coming to them. For living as terribly as they did, and taking their poor son down with them until he remain unable to self-regulate even after they've passed on.

"Do you want to come in?" Chan says then, a shake to his voice that you haven't heard from him in a long, long time.

It reminds you of the first time he told you about everything. About them. About his life. The terror of opening up and being honest and God forbid…telling somebody the truth.

"Please…please come in," he finishes in a plead.

The house is mostly empty now.

He's certainly made quick work of it, and you can't help but assume it to be largely on account of wanting to end his time attached to this city as swiftly as he possibly can. There's a strange, looming ambiance of sadness that sits idly in the air as you follow Chan inside, up the stairs, and towards what once was his bedroom. So many memories residing in these walls—almost none of them pleasant—you imagine a child that at some point in time was happy here, playing with toys, loved…until one day everything changed. Forever and for always.

Chan keeps his hands stuffed into the pockets of his gym shorts like he's afraid of daring to touch the walls or the railing of the stairway. Like having done so had once resulted in one of the many scars that sit along his flesh to this day. It's only once the two of you reach his bedroom door and he nudges it open does he finally withdraw them and usher you inside with the flip of a switch along the wall.

Inside, only a small handful of things remain; bed still intact with a small box set beside it, as well as his suitcase sitting next to the doorway.

He takes short strides towards the bed, slightly hunched as if still nothing more than a child who is the recipient of a scolding like so many times before in this home. Old habits die hard.

Chan sits on the mattress with a metallic creaking that follows the bend of it, and with a pitiful running of his palms over his face, he finally manages to gather the courage to look you in the eye again.

"When I was eight, my dad started telling me that no one would ever love me like they did. No one would ever love me because there was nothing about me that was worth loving. I don't think I ever told you this."

He hadn't, but the thought of it makes your stomach drop. You wonder how many other stories of the same caliber he has still tucked away in the back of his mind, things that he dares not spare conscious thought to, yet they seep into everything that he does regardless of the fact.

He chuckles a bit before continuing the thought.

"It's like, you try not to believe that stuff, you know? But when the people who are supposed to be the ones who are everything to you are the ones saying it, it's hard not to believe it. I grew up seeing depictions of families on television, from my friends, the movies—that was never my reality—but I had to believe that they loved me, because if they didn't then how could anyone else possibly do so?"

"Your parents were shitty people, Chan," you say firmly.

"I know. I mean, I know that now, right? Because I'm an adult, and even as a teenager I knew that. Maybe I was lucky in the way that I started hating them young, it gave me the gift of sight, to see them for precisely what they were and not have that veil kept over my eyes for any longer than I had already lived with it, but still…"

"It's hard. Hard to accept. To move on from."

"Yeah, exactly."

Remaining steadfast in the center of the room, you can't do much else besides look upon him as he continues thinking through the words that he wishes to say to you. He's missed so much of your life as an adult, and it's no one’s fault but his own. The price he has to pay, but still a difficult pill to swallow as someone who wants nothing more than to have him there.

It's always been like that, for as long as you can really remember.

"I don't think I ever really knew what love actually was, or looked like. What it felt like to have it, or to give it to someone else. I think I tried. I think I tried a lot, with you, with us. But—"

Chan grimaces then, as if the memory of so many attempts to do something right and failing are all coming flooding back to him like a tidal wave. He flexes his hands twice, a subtle jerk to his head before finishing his words.

"I just couldn't ever get it right. So when I left—"

"You stopped trying."

With a couple of small nods, Chan's eyes finally come up enough to meet yours. "Yeah."

More than anything else, you know there is deep self-loathing and disappointment embedded within him. Thoughts and feelings and regrets that the man has spent years trying to bury in hopes of never having to face them ever again, now all laid out on the table before you in the most honest and vulnerable display.

I love you, I love you, I love you, you think to yourself as you watch his eyes dance and glitter in the shining light of the overhead lamp. Chan had said it to you once before, so why can't you now? Frozen in place and terrified of the potential outcome from such an outburst. Say it, say it, say it—

"Anyway, after tomorrow I won't be back here. The rest of the paperwork I can do back at home, so we don't have to, like," he pauses mid-sentence, glancing away for a split second before attempting to come back to find your gaze—falling short of it and looking past you, instead. "Ya know, do this again. This is the last time."

Ask me to come with you, ask me to come with you, ask me to come with you. "I guess that's for the best, for you."

He laughs again, now giving up the ruse of ever trying to look you in the eye at all and instead looking off to the side, elsewhere entirely.

"For me, for you. For both of us, probably."

Chest tight and that familiar choking dryness in your throat once again making itself known, you have no other option but to attempt to swallow it down—take this well, guard yourself and your own feelings when it comes to him because he has dropped the ball in doing so time and time again. Chan can't be what you want him to be for you, and maybe he never really could have been. A teenage dream; where love conquers all, even very real, very present trauma.

"I just didn't want to leave and you think that I've been like…doing this on purpose. Hurting you, I mean. I've never wanted to do that. You've only ever been the person in my life who has meant the most to me, and I'm sorry for how I've treated you since I left. When I came back. Everything. You don't deserve that."

I don't, but you can be better too.

"You remind me of being here, but you probably think it's only in all of the worst ways. That's true, but it's not only that. You're the only thing that makes ever coming back to this city bearable," Chan says, now finally able to meet your eyes again. "I should have done a better job at making the feeling mutual."

You want to speak, so badly have so much that you wish to say. The words get lost in your throat before they ever meet the air of the room, however. Say it, say it, say it.

"Well, I ought to get you home, huh?" he then says with a bit more of a chipperness to his tone. Standing to his feet and making his way towards you. "Your parents like me, don't want to burn every bridge when I leave."

It takes you by force before you have even so much as an opportunity to consider otherwise; arms stretched out and around him, pulling him close and hard against you, completely closing any of the distance that remained between your bodies. Chan collides into you with something of an amused and stumbling huff, but allows the embrace to carry on while you shove your face into the soft, warm plush of his black sweatshirt.

The sob that rips through you is nearly choking, and you no longer have the ability to fight it back any longer as your fingertips grip hard into the fabric beneath—as if in an attempt to keep him there, precisely where he is. Precisely where he has always belonged.

Don't go, don't go, don't go. I love you, I love you, I love you.

Chan holds you there in the middle of his childhood bedroom, full of horrific memories, old cigarette smell, and almost certainly a long forgotten splattering of blood that had been missed over the years.

"Hey," he whispers eventually, what feels like hours having passed since the first moment of your intimacy shared like this. "Hey…don't cry."

The words are so softly spoken, it almost doesn't sound like the man you know at all. You can't help but snort at the fact though, because what an absolutely asinine thing to say, all things considered. Still, Chan sets his hands on your shoulders and pulls you back just enough to get a good look at you—tear-stained cheeks and wet eyelashes clumped together in a mess with a quivering lip that just won't seem to quit.

And still, he smiles. Lips thin and tight, but at the very least, he is at peace. He is happy.

Because of you. Because of your love for him, felt but not spoken.

"Remember the good stuff, yeah? It wasn't all bad, though maybe you were better for me than I ever was for you. I think that might have always been destined to be the case. Ever since I picked you back in grade school, just looking for another girl to save me, huh?"

"Why do you say stuff like that?" you manage out through a sniffle, a lazy attempt made at drying your face in the aftermath. What you really mean, however, is why do you still believe you have nothing to offer? Why do you still believe you're unworthy of other people's love?

"Hey." he says again, and this time you're able to give him your attention as you look him in the eye from where you stand.

The two of you stand like that in silence for a long moment. Chan nervously biting at his bottom lip as if everything that he has ever wanted to say to you lie just behind it, desperately waiting to be freed.

"I—"

Chan kisses you then for the first time in years. Soft and meaningful, as if everything he has ever thought and felt reside in it. No good at words (neither of you are), so maybe this will simply have to do.

Heart beating so fervently against your chest that you worry your ribcage may shatter beneath your flesh, Chan brings himself away and creates space between the two of you once again, though his eyes never leave yours for a second.

"Come on, let's get you home. You can come by tomorrow morning before I leave at noon if you really want to kick me to the curb yourself."

Waking up feels harder than ever, but simultaneously different in a new and exhilarating way.

It's sunny out—surprising enough considering the time of year—and you can hear your mother downstairs making breakfast as your father's footsteps make a sound one after the other as he heads up the stairs and most likely towards your bedroom to inform you of the impending morning feast.

But you don't have time for breakfast, because you have your future to enact.

You've pre-packed a bag, done so shortly after getting back up to your room the night before. The decision has been made to tell him, tell him everything, be completely open and honest about your feelings because you've never been more sure of anything before in your life.

Chan isn't perfect, but he doesn't have to be. You know him well enough to know that along with his faults come the newfound ability to become better, to grow, to heal. To work hard to become the best version of himself he can possibly be. Not only for himself, but for your future together as well.

Two knocks at your door, you call for your father to come in.

In hand, he has a small, white envelope, and though you can't quite put your finger on why just yet, you feel the beginnings of your stomach dropping in real time as he motions to hold it up for viewing.

"This was left at the doorstep this morning, must have been early, was already there when we stepped out to go for a walk."

You sit up abruptly, reaching wildly at the item and begging for what you think to be true, to not be.

Please don't do this, please don't do this, please don't do this.

"It's addressed to you," he finishes, though it's already in your hands by the time the sentence finds its end. Bless your father, always a perceptive one, takes his leave immediately thereafter.

Prying the envelope open, you pull out what's inside. White, folded paper from some notebook with the edges where it was torn all frayed and messy. You try desperately to swallow back the sob that's already attempting to make its way up and out of you, though you don't have the strength in you to do so as you unfold the item and inhale shakily to center yourself for reading.

We were so close, please, I love you.

At the top, right hand corner of the paper sits a scribbled little picture of a cupcake—brown paper to hold it and pink frosting with little blue and purple flecks on top for sprinkles. He must have found some colored pencils and decided to make good use of them for this in particular, or bought them precisely for this.

'Back at home, I've been a swim instructor for young kids for a few years. It's deeply rewarding, and I finally get to do the swimming thing like I've always wanted to. Well, not exactly, but at least I can take my shirt off in the pool now and I don't have to feel bad about whether or not people are looking at the scars.

I have a dog, too. Her name is Berry. I'm sorry I wasn't there for the joy and the loss of your friend, I think I'll always deeply regret that, right along with everything else about your life that I've missed when we could have just as easily shared it together.

I've never been very good at saying stuff, and neither have you. I think that's what always made our friendship so easy, because we clicked so well on a level that didn't require words. I've never had that with anyone else, and I don't think I ever will again. I have a lot of regrets, they all kind of involve you haha. Not your fault, you've always been amazing, but I don't think I've ever really known how to give that back in the way that you deserve to receive it. There's a saying, 'people know how to give love, but they don't as easily know how to receive it,' and I guess I've somehow landed myself as the worst of both worlds, because I don't know how to do either of them.

All of this is to say: sorry for lying about when I was leaving, I guess you've probably gathered by now that I'm a coward who ran away all over again, just like I did before. I run away when I'm given the opportunity to do so, because that's all I've ever known how to do. I want to be honest with you, I really, really do, but I'm scared about what that could mean. How I can't run anymore if I am.

I don't want to lie, and I can't tell the truth. So, I ran.'

By the end of the letter, your eyes are barely able to focus on the words—blurred vision through tears and shaking hands that won't allow you to hold the paper still between your fingers. You sob and sob, choked and desperate for quick breaths that have you heaving where you sit at the loss of the one thing you've wanted—the one person you've wanted—through it all. A beacon of hope, a small glimpse of promise as the two of you stood together in one another’s embrace in the middle of his old, and now to be forgotten, bedroom floor.

You clutch the paper tightly in hand, nearly crumpling it entirely before you realize you don't want to ruin it, but the act of having done so folding the bottom left edge over just enough to show there to be more written on the other side. Numbers as well as letters.

And so, you turn it over.

This time, a crudely drawn picture of a key next to a house; a stick figure in a black hoodie, another stick figure in the coat you had been wearing the night before, and a small, cute dog.

Below it all sits another note, much shorter and succinct in length.

'but if by chance you find the strength to say the words that I can't—no more walls, no more fences.'

Then just below that sits an address, and a gate code that has you jumping out of bed and reaching for the closest pair of pants that you can get your hands on, as if every second is more time wasted, more time slipping through your fingers at finally making all of this right.

'143—you figure it out haha.'

♡ send me your thoughts and feelings in my ask.

—this is a oneshot, there will be no part 2.