#these mood slumps or highs are NOT helping my 'FUCK IT. JUST POST. REBLOG WITH MORE TO SAY LATER'

[jrueships]

Ghee you’re account funny asf 🤣🤭

TY!!!!!!!!!!!!@🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🥰🥰‼️‼️

[furious-rogue-stuff]

I posted 1,018 times in 2022

That's 516 more posts than 2021!

185 posts created (18%)

833 posts reblogged (82%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@furious-rogue-stuff

@just-here-for-the-moment

@hnt-escape

@dolly-on-the-dotted-line

@mandosmistress

I tagged 937 of my posts in 2022

Only 8% of my posts had no tags

#pedro pascal - 473 posts

#pedro pascal characters - 403 posts

#javi peña - 316 posts

#javier peña - 312 posts

#heat - narcos fanfic - 276 posts

#narcos - 255 posts

#javi x querida - 225 posts

#javi pena - 126 posts

#thank you kindly for the reblog! - 124 posts

#shameless reblog - 91 posts

Longest Tag: 94 characters

#manly men who are comfortable with their sexuality and experiment with guys is my kink i guess

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Current mood:

175 notes - Posted April 3, 2022

#4

PEDRO PASCAL is how I get high. Don’t fuck up my high, world!

But seriously, I’m not the only one, right?!

183 notes - Posted October 6, 2022

#3

♛😔💤 lets spice it up a bit from my usual love for Javi and Javi only 🧐

Well, dear anon, I have finally gotten around to this intriguing gem of a prompt from my previous 300 drabble prompt challenge - just in time for hitting 400 followers 😅 Anyway~

Special thanks to @just-here-for-the-moment​ for reading through this and assuring me it wasn't ridiculous drivel! Your encouragement is my ambrosia, my friend. 

Pairing: Din Djarin/F!Reader | Mando x Stunner

Rating: Mature/Explicit 🔞

🚨Author chooses not to include warnings

Character Count: 11,000+

Reality

You knew something had stuck with him post-job. Which was odd, since it wasn’t the usual fiasco you’d become accustomed to when it came to this bounty-hunting-by-proxy gig you’d fallen into with him.

No, this job had gone pretty smooth, and you’d even managed to net a decent bounty. So much so that you now had plenty of supplies and plenty of credits for the reserves to take a spell between accepting the next job. You were savvy with stretching out the coffers, and had gotten a great deal for supplies in the market. But while you should feel pleased, you can’t help be curious as you stare musingly out at the hyperlane you’d just made the jump to meld beyond the transparisteel before you.

Whatever it had been, it’d hit him hard. Leaving him withdrawn and taciturn. 

Okay – you couldn’t know for sure because you’d never seen his face, so you were strictly going by the other tells: his posture, the way his pauldron-clad shoulders had slumped minutely, and how even more reticent he’d become. 

But even though you’d only spent a short time with Mando, you had a heightened sense about these things. Still, you hadn’t pried, and returned to your ship with the supplies, and him in tow. A while later, though, you’d come down from the cockpit expecting to find him on that damnable crate he seemed to favor sitting on to polish his weapons and clean his blaster. Instead, his back was to you, and you could make out that he was staring down at something. So, you shifted enough around to feign like you were heading for the kitchenette to pour yourself a fresh cup of caf when really you were glancing at him from the corner of your eye. 

The shiny circular piece of metal looked like the top of a control���s joystick. He was rolling it pensively, strong digits tracing it around while perpetually encased in his well-worn orange-fingered gloves before he dropped it into the black-leather-clad palm of his right hand and tucked it out of sight in his belt when he finally sensed your gaze on him.

He was enigmatic, the Mandalorian. 

You’d found yourself thinking about what could’ve brought him to be on his own, so far out in the Outer Rim, with no ship. But you’d learned long ago to keep your curiosities to yourself. Best to not stir up the resentments or specters that men shackled themselves to, but something about this man had always tugged at your heartstring. Yes, the last solitary heartstring you got, and that you’d decided long ago you couldn’t spare for anyone else. Still, you found yourself feeling drawn to him in this moment, and couldn’t help let that intrepid, wily part of you seek to coax him out of his brooding silence.

Taking a sip of your caf, you loped around him and kicked one of the other supply crates to slide across the polished floor of your somewhat cargo-cluttered hull to park across from him so you could plop down onto it with a sigh and recline forward – propping your elbows onto your knees as you stare directly into his glossy black T-visor to where you think his eyes are.

His posture straightened, and his hands fidgeted to find perch onto his thighs, trying to seem unbothered, but you know better. He’s clearly wary to socialize much with you, no matter how many times you’ve given him signs that you would welcome it. But you’d quickly realized he was guarded, and seemed to be building up his walls all over again. From what? You didn’t know, but you also assumed it wasn’t all due to the strict Mandalorian Creed you’d heard so much about through the galactic grapevine of years loitering in cantinas and spaceports. 

For him? He just wasn’t sure about you.

It’d been a few weeks since he’d gotten dropped off by his ragtag compatriots onto that frigid mining hub on some moon between Bespin and Hoth. He’d declined all offers of joining up with them, and had set off to lose himself for a while. Eventually, when credits were running low, he’d strode into that seedy cantina at the end of the port and asked the barkeep for leads on jobs. All eyes were on him and his chrome-shine beskar, but he was used to it, and when the Weequay pointed him to the back booth around the corner of the bar, Din had made his way around the surreptitious patrons while keeping his gaze sharp and his gait imposing. Most would shift or avert their gazes when the sweep of his black T-visor scanned their direction, and if his height, imposing posture, and deliberate stride weren’t intimidating enough, the spear fixed at the back of his left shoulder and his right hand being not so far from the blaster strapped in the holster at his hip seemed to do the trick.

When a cheer went up in the opposite shadowy corner of the bar he was headed in, he couldn’t help glance over to see what had been the cause of it. That’s when he saw you boisterously grinning at the Trandoshian across from you as he hissed sourly at his losing hand of Sabacc while you fanned your palms across the center of the table to collect your winnings. 

“You cheated!” the reptilian behemoth had sniped, snarling to show you his row of razor-sharp teeth while he stood from his seat and glared balefully at you.

Unbothered by the accusation, you swept the bunch of credits into a leather pouch and stowed it inside your cropped two-toned leather jacket and leaned back in your chair to eye him snidely while the crowd around the table began to scuttle away to be at a much safer range. “Because I won?” you’d countered smoothly and picked up your cup to sip from it.

“Because there’s no way you had that hand! Three winning hands in a row, at that,” the angry Trandoshian hissed and slammed his clawed hands down raucously on the table before his buddies tried to calm him. “No, this little harpy is a cheat!”

“What did you call me?”

The clatter of voices died down at the cold, steely growl of your voice as you narrowed your eyes at the foe and slammed your cup down to slowly stand and challengingly square up at him from across the table to deride crossly, “Who’re you calling a harpy, you overgrown hatchling!”

“Hey! No fighting in here,” the Weequay barkeep shouted from behind the counter and gestured with exasperation as he warned, “You take it outside, or you’ll answer to Quent!”

“You wanna take this outside then, lizard lips?” you sneered tauntingly at the Trandoshian, and he hissed at you, nostrils flaring irately before his buddies yanked at his grubby flight-suit and beseeched him to back off. 

The entire time the impending brawl escalated, Din had watched from his vantage point, oddly intrigued by your moxie. After all, you looked petite enough for him to toss around easily, so a seven-foot Trandoshian could’ve easily made mincemeat out of you – albeit ripped your limbs from you with the ease of plucking the tail from a krill.

He spotted a slim blaster in a holster fastened to your left hip, and from the set of your shoulders he could tell you had a hidden knife strapped just beyond your jacket, and what he guessed to be a modified stunner tucked into the shaft of your shin-high boot. All the trappings of a scrappy and self-sufficient individual making their way through the galaxy, so he’d began to turn away to resume his approach to the back booth where he assumed a shadily-affiliated guild surveyor was waiting for someone like him with several pucks needing clearing when he heard another commotion kick up.

See the full post

184 notes - Posted August 30, 2022

#2

All of us today.

306 notes - Posted April 29, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Cause of death: This tweet!

606 notes - Posted August 11, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

But You Can Never Leave [Chapter 12: The Mirror]

A/N: Hi y’all!! Please enjoy, this is a long one. We’re getting into the exciting stuff now, so I’ll be putting all my creative energy into BYCNL and will hopefully finish up the series within the next month. Thank you so much for your love and support! Each and every reblog/message/comment makes me smile and means the absolute world to me! 💜

Chapter summary: John gets a rap sheet, Roger gets defensive, Y/N gets suspicious, News Of The World gets a headline.

This series is a work of fiction, and is (very) loosely inspired by real people and events. Absolutely no offense is meant to actual Queen or their families.

Song inspiration: Hotel California by The Eagles.

Chapter warnings: Language, drugs, babies, drama, angst.

Chapter list (and all my writing) available HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii​ @loveandbeloved29​ @killer-queen-xo​ @maggieroseevans​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​ @im-an-adult-ish​ @queenlover05​ @someforeigntragedy​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​ @joemazzmatazz​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye​ @namelesslosers​ @inthegardensofourminds​ @deacyblues​ @youngpastafanmug​ @sleepretreat​ @hardyshoe​ @bramblesforbreakfast​ @sevenseasofcats​ @tensecondvacation​ @queen-crue​ @jennyggggrrr​ @madeinheavxn​ @whatgoeson-itslate​ @brianssixpence​ @simonedk​ @herewegoagainniall​ @stardust-killer-queen​ @anotheronewritesthedust1​

Please yell at me if I forget to tag you! :)

You’re not late. You’re never late.

And at first that’s okay, it’s more than okay, it’s a relief; because it was too soon to have a baby anyway, less than a year into a supposedly meaningless marriage, a marriage you and Roger never even speak of, a marriage that might have never happened at all—might only exist as a particularly vivid and pleasant dream—if it wasn’t for your freshly-minted British citizenship. At first you greeted each dark, fruitless stain of blood with a casual ruefulness—oh well, one more month of freedom, you would think, smiling a little, worrying not very much at all—content to let that milestone trophy of womanhood, of life, lay undusted and unclaimed in the cluttered pit of your mental oak trunk with a tarnished gold latch shaped like a lion’s jaw.

After four months, you start to notice things. You notice the way Chrissie’s twins have small willow-green eyes that turn down in the corners, just like Brian does; you notice how John’s children have his downy hair and that innate sort of reticence that some people mistake for banality; you notice all those pretty, anonymous young women pushing strollers through the blossoming summer foliage of Hyde Park. You notice the way Roger grins and waves at babies when you see them in airports or hotel lobbies, dazzles them like he dazzles very nearly everybody, like he still dazzles you. You notice a longing buried in your bones that you hadn’t known existed.

After six months, you are no longer casually rueful. You start ignoring the calendar, as if not noticing you’re due could stop the bleeding from coming at all, like how you’re not supposed to stare at the clock if you want time to pass faster. You start watching what you’re eating, trying to get more sleep, opening all the windows when Roger smokes as he flips through fashion and music magazines with crafty little snickers, flashing those pointy canine teeth you once assumed your children would have.

And now, after nine months—as the world hurtles towards the conclusion of the brisk October of 1977—you have begun to worry; because maybe this thing, this thing that everyone accepts as a guaranteed feature of the all-inclusive package of the human experience, isn’t something you get to have at all. Roger doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask you about it. He is as he always is: sunlight and joy and heat and raw kinetic energy. But sometimes Roger’s huge blue eyes—those eyes you fell in love with, those eyes that convinced you to follow Queen to London, to stardom, to thunderous stadiums all over the world—go vacant as he gazes out into the horizon, as the sun sets over the garden of the Surrey house, as his face is lit up in gold and amber and celestial fury like the wildfire his soul is made of.

And you’ve begun to worry about him, too.

~~~~~~~~~~

The phone rings from the nightstand. The shrill clanging, like hail on glass, makes you wince beneath the tangle of blankets. Your hand fumbles out into cool night air, which pours in from the open bedroom window.

Where’s Roger?

Then you remember his hushed voice, his bleached hair tickling your cheek, his lips pressed to your temple: Hey baby. I gotta go jam with some people. Grab a drink or two. You sleep, I’ll be back by morning.

Sure, okay, fine. Nothing out of the ordinary. One of those infinite casualties of fame.

You haul the phone to your ear. “Hello...?”

“Hello darling, are you busy?”

“Well, it’s 2:39 a.m., Fred. So not very.”

“Perfect. I need you to go post bail for John.”

You wrench yourself upright, rubbing your eyes with your free hand. “What?!”

“He was drunk driving and backed into a cop car, pure genius. I’m rather indisposed myself at the moment, and of course Veronica can’t know. And you’re so good with him, dear.”

Your feet have already swung off the bed and onto the plush white carpet. You wonder what Freddie is ‘indisposed’ with; there are so many possibilities these days. “And you know about this...because...?”

“He used his phone call on me, darling. I don’t think he wanted to bother you. I suspect he’s a bit mortified.”

“Yeah, well, he should be.” You sigh and start pawing through the safe in the bedroom closet, the spiraled phone cord pulled taunt. Hundred-pound notes shuffle weightlessly between your fingers. You remember when Queen had no money at all, when you and Roger shared a pitiful—dodgy, you amend—one-bedroom flat, when you had to assemble each bouquet and tie each ribbon for John’s wedding by hand; and you’re shocked by the nostalgia that hits you in the gut like brass knuckles. “Sure, I’ll go get him. Just tell me where he is and how much he’ll owe me.”

John is slumped on the floor of the jail cell, alone and sweated and miserable. His hair is in complete disarray. He peers up at you through the iron bars with red, swollen, unfocused eyes.

“Hey,” you say quietly, smiling although you know you shouldn’t be.

He covers his face with both hands and moans. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

“Too late. Freddie asked me to come get you, he was drunk or high or in the middle of an orgy or something. You are the worst drunk driver in the world, just so you’re aware. You are obviously not cut out for a life of crime.”

“So I’ve gathered.” He swipes at the strands of hair stuck to his forehead with the back of his hand, bites his lower lip, shakes his head with that thousand-yard stare that says: How the fuck did I get here?

You drop down to your knees to meet him at his level. The concrete floor is filthy, spotted with grime and dust and crushed insects and smears of what might be blood. “What’s going on, John?” you ask gently.

“I can’t keep doing this,” he murmurs. “It’s okay when we’re on tour. When we’re on tour I’m preoccupied and exhausted and too high on the rush to think about it too much. I’m numb. Mostly. But then I come home and it’s...” He glowers, balls his hands into fists, beats them clumsily against his thighs. “It’s this relentless fucking cycle of feeling dissatisfied and guilty and inadequate. A disappointment of a husband. A failure of a father. And it’s inescapable.”

“Well, the constant pregnancy situation probably doesn’t help.” Veronica is expecting their third child in February.

He waves a hand dismissively, rolls his eyes. “It’s part of the thing. The ‘being a good husband’ thing. I can’t fix that. Birth control is a sin or whatever. Jesus is too busy pissing himself over that to care about starving kids in the Soviet Union, I guess.”

“That’s a cheerful prospect.”

“Sorry.”

“No, please, by all means. Throw off all your baggage, I can take it.”

Now he smirks, just faintly. “That’s what we’ve always done for each other, right?”

“We’ll be back on tour in a few weeks, John.” And that was true; the News Of The World Tour was scheduled to begin on November 11th in Portland, Maine. The band would spend the 12th in Boston and join your parents for dinner at the Queen Anne-style house at the intersection of Apple and Arcadia that you grew up in.

He whispers forlornly: “I can’t run from this forever.”

“You might have to. I’d love to know what Slavic Jesus has to say about divorce.”

John coughs out a surprised laugh. “Thank you. I needed that.”

“Come on. I posted your bail. I won’t tell Roger if you won’t. You can put the extra five thousand pounds in your ‘fake my own death and go live on a tropical island’ fund instead of paying us back.” You’re not serious, and John knows that; he would never abandon his children, even if they weren’t old enough to really remember him yet. But it has the desired effect, which of course is lifting the mood, making John divulge that rare and beautiful smile.

“I’m a wreck. I can’t go home like this. It’d be worse than not coming home at all.”

“I’m happy to offer you one of our five superfluous bedrooms.”

“Okay,” John sighs, clutching the bars of his jail cell and dragging himself to his feet. “I’m so sorry. I owe you for this, I really do.”

“No,” you reply, grinning. “Just find a way to send me the coordinates so I can visit you on your secret tropical island once in a while.”

You drive John home to the Surrey house, get him set up in the spare bedroom with the blue-grey wallpaper and blankets patterned with seahorses, give him a stack of Roger’s clean clothes, lay out fresh towels and a tray of water and cookies—biscuits, you reprimand yourself—for him. He’s mostly sober now, which makes you feel somewhat better; still, you are aware that you hate the thought of leaving him alone, even if he’s only a few walls away.

“Thank you,” he says as you stand in the doorway, his face meditative, his hands in the pockets of his leather coat.

“Of course.”

“You’re a good friend. The best, actually.”

“You’re a good man. You don’t always know it, but you are.”

John just stares at you with an expression you can’t read. Like the ocean: always mysterious, always profound. “Goodnight,” he says after a while.

“Goodnight, John.”

As you pull the bedroom door shut, you hear erratic thumps coming up the staircase. Roger stumbles into the upstairs hallway, singing under his breath and drumming the air with invisible drumsticks, and holds out his arms when he sees you. He’s wearing his dark green suit, an unraveling tie, one sparkling pink Converse, his prescription sunglasses tangled in his hair and forgotten. His eyes are effervescent, flighty, almost manic.

“Hey, love of my life!” he cries, comically loud. “What are you doing up?!”

“Shhhhh! Your bassist partied a little too hard and needed a place to crash that wasn’t overrun with kids. He’s in the blue room.”

“Deaks? Deaks is sleeping over?!” Roger exclaims, beaming. “All my favorite people are here!”

“Yeah, but you shouldn’t bother him. He’s pretty messed up, he needs the rest. I’ll make everyone pancakes in the morning or something. Come over here, let’s get you—” But the words die in your throat as you try to tug off Roger’s suit jacket. Fine white powder sheds off the emerald velvet fabric and onto your palm. You blink at it, at the residue like crushed aspirin, like the salt they scatter on Boston roads the night before a snowfall. “What is this?”

He rips his sleeve away, conjures up a smile to throw you off the trail. To dazzle his way out of this. “Nothing.” But he knows. And he knows you know too.

“You were...snorting coke...?”

“Come on, baby, don’t be like that...” He tries to embrace you; you shove him back.

“Roger, no, this is...this is...” You shake your head, shrugging off the shock, searching for the words. You’re confused, you’re exhausted, your mind is whirling. “We’re home, Roger,” you plead, like it means something.

Has he done this before? When? How often? With who?

You should know the answers. It’s not a good sign that you don’t.

“So?” Now he’s indignant.

“So it’s not like being on tour, you’re supposed to take it easy at home, you’re supposed to be, I don’t know, relaxed and recovering and, and, and content...”

You’re not supposed to have an excuse to do all those things that destroy people.

He laughs bitterly. “What, ‘happy at home’?! When has that ever been me?”

“Rog, please, I’m not saying you can’t work all the time or drink or smoke, I’m not even saying you can’t get wasted, I’m just drawing the line at cocaine and I don’t think that’s a terribly despotic place to draw a line.”

“Oh I’m sorry, I must have missed it, when did you become too moralistic for drugs?”

“Acid is different than coke and you know it. Acid doesn’t kill people.”

He glares at you, savage, almost hateful. “You don’t get to put me in a cage.”

“I’m not being controlling or self-righteous, I’m being concerned—”

“You’re being a fucking cop, that’s what you’re being,” Roger snaps.

“What do you want me to say?! I’m a registered nurse, Roger, I’m a medical professional, it’s literally my job to keep you alive—”

“No, it’s your job to make sure we can record and tour and I need it, I can’t play without it, don’t you get that?! I fucking need it!”

Instantly, John is between you, still fully dressed and sweating Manhattans out of his pores and seething. He’s taller than Roger; surely you must have noticed that before. But if you had, you’ve since forgotten. “Roger,” he threatens in a low, unyielding voice. “Go to bed.”

Roger recoils, disoriented, then opens his mouth to protest.

“Go!” John roars, pointing towards the main bedroom. He wants to say more, you can tell, he has rage burning in him like dragonfire; and if it had been Brian or even Freddie, John would have said it. But this is Roger. And you can’t remember a time John has ever raised his voice to Roger before now.

Roger can’t wrap his brain around it either, particularly in his present condition. His eyelids flutter a few times, then he scoffs—a dismissive, derisive sound, a sound that says I don’t know what to do with this information—and staggers away. He slams the bedroom door behind him as he disappears inside.

You collapse against the nearest wall and hiss in ragged breaths through your teeth, your eyes wet and stinging, your hands trembling as you press your knuckles to your lips.

“I-I-I’m so sorry about that,” you whisper, avoiding John’s eyes.

He’s going to say something, something harsh and terrible but true. He’s finally going to tell me how stupid I was for ever thinking this could work, just like Chrissie and Freddie and Brian. He’s going to tell me I deserve it.

Instead, John offers only this, his words flat and hollow: “Yeah. I’m sorry everyone is disappointing you tonight.”

And then he’s gone.

~~~~~~~~~~

In the morning—early afternoon, really—Roger doesn’t remember; or at least he feigns convincingly that he doesn’t. He props his feet up on the kitchen table and shovels down six pancakes and theatrically relays to you all the scandalous celebrity gossip in the News Of The World magazine with his prescription sunglasses perched bookishly on his nose. He asks you three times if you’re alright, trying to read the hesitance in your eyes, to unearth all those questions that are taking up a permanent residence there. You smile and nod, sip your tea, watch the sharp autumn sunshine as it streams in through the windows and bathes Roger in luminescence that seems so benignly interminable in the light of day. And when you peer into the bedroom with seahorse-patterned blankets and walls the color of cold rain, John has vanished; but the air is heavy with the scent of a litany of cigarettes and there’s a handwritten note left on one pillow.

Thanks for everything. Hang tough, as the Yanks say. An island getaway awaits you.

~ World’s Worst Drunk Driver

At 3 p.m., John calls and asks if the Taylors would be interested in an outing to the park while he gives Veronica a few hours alone to catch up on housework without the kids. His tone is light, casual, harmless; but you suspect he’s checking in on you.

“Of course we’re interested!” Roger says, snatching his ostentatious fur coat off the back of his chair. “Baby, love of my life, go get some cash from the safe so we can buy the kids ice cream.”

Incidentally, there’s not much cash left in the safe; but you find a ten-pound note in your wallet for the ice cream man and make a mental note to run to the bank on Monday.

Hyde Park in October isn’t so different than Boston. The leaves above are a kaleidoscope of sunstone and rubies and jasper and jade, crisping and curling around their serrated edges, drifting listlessly onto pavement paths to be crushed beneath rushing feet; the roots of the trees are centuries deep. Chrissie is walking laps around the pond as she pushes the twins’ stroller; Evelyn is a fairly good sleeper, but Theodore—Teddy to his closest confidants, of which you are one—is an anxious baby and prone to whining. He’s definitely Brian’s son, you often find yourself thinking with an affectionate smirk. John’s ten-month-old daughter Anna is nestled in your arms in a semi-conscious state, having thoroughly exhausted herself by painting her face with chocolate ice cream and thereafter enduring an impromptu bath and wardrobe change in a public restroom.

Laszlo, two years old and with a mop of auburn curls, trots by the edge of the pond as Roger grips his tiny hand, periodically crouches down beside him, grins hugely and points out swans and fish darting through the dark rippling water. Laszlo shrieks with laughter and tries to steal Roger’s sunglasses, which glint in the sunlight like black mirrors.

“So your kid’s a convict too,” you say to John.

“Gotta train them when they’re still small and good for shimmying through dog doors and such.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Extremely hungover, but I’m trying not to show it.”

“You’re doing a good job, I wouldn’t have known.”

“Excellent. I don’t think Veronica noticed. She was very curious about how I ended up in a pair of Roger’s skintight leopard-print pants, though.”

You chuckle, glimpsing down at Anna, rocking her a little as her eyes flitter open and then close again. You and John are on opposite ends of a wooden park bench, your ankles crossed and resting in his lap, your hair rustling in the breeze. John peers over at you periodically, studies you like an ancient statue of Aphrodite or Perseus under a spotlight in an echoing museum, then resumes his sketching. Your smile dies as you watch Roger giggle with Laszlo, lift him high into the cool autumn air, trumpet mock airplane noises in that high, raspy voice.

“Come on,” John prompts, nudging your boots. “I’ll take the baggage if you’ll let me.”

No, I think I’ll keep this one to myself. But you don’t. “It’s my fault,” you say softly. It’s my fault we can’t have children.

John lifts his pencil from the page, his greyish eyes gentle. “You don’t know that.”

“Statistically, it is most likely my fault.”

“It hasn’t been that long, has it? Definitely less than a year. Sometimes these things take time.”

“They didn’t for you and Veronica.”

“Yes, well...” John frowns uneasily. “That’s not always such a blessing.”

“How helpful. You should write newspaper columns for depressed housewives. ‘Don’t worry about that infertility dear, you could have it worse, you could have a life sentence with someone you can’t fucking stand.’”

That was unkind, you think, immediately regretting it. That might have been too far.

But John doesn’t seem offended. His pencil flies over the paper as he glances over at you again. “Is that all? Please continue. I’m riveted to learn more about my alternative career path.”

“No, I think I’m done.”

“Okay. What’s your favorite flower?”

You consider that. “Roger always gets me carnations or roses...and I like them, don’t get me wrong...but I don’t know if I’d call either of those my favorite.”

“It’s not that deep a question, Miss Nightingale.”

“I’ll defer to the artist’s expertise. Surprise me.”

“I’m no artist,” John warns, but he returns to his sketching nonetheless. “I’m really sorry about last night, by the way. I was being stupid and dramatic and immature and self-pitying. ‘Midway on our life's journey, I found myself in dark woods, the right road lost,’ etcetera etcetera.”

You’re no great connoisseur of Italian literature, but you recognize those famous opening lines of the Inferno. “Can I ask you something?”

“Please do.”

“What is this fascination you have with Dante?”

“Truly?”

“Yeah.”

He smiles pensively with his eyes cast out over the pond. “I like that his story has a happy ending. That someone can start in hell and sweat out all their sins in purgatory and end up among the stars.”

You raise your eyebrows, taken back, impressed. “That’s awfully poetic.”

“It’s strange, probably,” John says, scrutinizing his drawing.

“No, really. I love it.”

“Yeah?” He’s doubtful, but he’ll allow himself to believe you if you insist.

“Yeah. And no more drunk driving or other acts of self-destruction, okay? Queen would crumble without you, John. And so would I.”

In reply, he rips the page out of his notebook and hands it over. The image is of you: so infinitely more lovely and at peace than you feel, eyes wise and contented and reflecting halos of sunlight, John’s daughter dozing in your arms.

Tucked behind your ear, etched in graphite shadows, is a calla lily.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Darling, what do I look like?” Freddie bats his eyelashes flirtatiously.

“A raccoon.”

His face screws into a grimace. “I’m supposed to be a cat.”

“Yes, I’m cognizant of that. But you look like a raccoon. Which is why people keep assuming you’re a raccoon, which is why you’re asking me now if you look like one.”

“Bloody hell,” he groans, puffs on a cigarette, fluffs his hair irritably, slurps a drink that is fizzy and sapphire blue.

“The problem is that you went with black and white. You should have dressed as a calico or something. Or a grey cat, oh, I love the chubby grey ones!”

“I’m a musician, darling, not a fucking zoologist.” He exhales a ring of smoke and meanders away.

Queen, the band’s associates, and various music industry figures are all milling around the night-draped mansion. It’s half a Halloween celebration and half a launch party for News Of The World, an album named for the tabloid that Roger both loathes and yet refuses to stop having delivered to the Surrey house. He can’t stand the thought of not being clued into the latest gossip, trends, fashion, awards, of missing any piece of what stardom has to offer. In the spirit of Halloween, Roger is dressed as a tiger, his sleeveless sequined shirt striped with orange and black. You are a veterinarian (not so far a cry from a nurse that you can’t repurpose your old uniform), John a shark (he’s taped a cardboard triangle to his back like a fin), Veronica a sea turtle in a teal dress and with a shell painted over her sizable baby bump, Brian and Chrissie both bright green aliens with antennae bobbing from their headbands. Mary is here as well—outfitted (quite appropriately) like an Enlightenment-era queen—but so is Freddie’s new boyfriend, a shy man named Anthony who is young and handsome and compliant and dressed as a mouse. Mary beams dutifully whenever Freddie is speaking to her, but her expression clouds over when he turns away. She no longer has a gold ring gleaming on her wedding finger, although she did gain an athletic blond date whom she seems largely indifferent to.

As Roger wanders through the crowd shaking hands and howling at jokes, you sip champagne by the snack table and devour an obscene amount of crab puffs. John and Veronica are chatting—unenthusiastically, from what you can tell—nearby with lamb kabobs in their grasps. John passes you a smirk every once in a while, an I’m so over this party and I know you are too smirk of commiseration, and nurses a Manhattan. Chrissie nibbles on disks of cucumber and baby carrots and not much else, which is very unlike her.

“You alright?” you ask worriedly. “You aren’t sick, are you? These crab puff things are incredible, I can’t stop eating them. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve had three dinners so far tonight, I’ve become a monster.”

Chrissie’s lips are a tight, humorless line. “I’m perfectly healthy, I’m just a cow.”

“Chris, honey, don’t!” You pat her shoulder reassuringly with one hand, pop another crab puff into your mouth with the other. “You’re gorgeous, and most women’s bodies change once they have babies, it’s natural!”

“Yeah, well most women aren’t married to men with infinite opportunities to upgrade.”

“Chrissie, no,” you murmur, pained; but you aren’t sure what else to say. She’s not wrong. I wish she was, but she isn’t. And she already knows that.

Dreams by Fleetwood Mac is playing from the reverberating stereo, Stevie Nicks’ sensuous, nasally voice climbing through air choked with strangers and cigarette smoke.

“Now here you go again

You say you want your freedom

Well, who am I to keep you down?”

Brian bids farewell to some record company executive he was talking to across the room and slips out onto the back porch of the house, and after a moment Chrissie follows him. You resist the temptation to eavesdrop until you can clearly hear their voices, raised and combative, through the sliding glass door. You glance to John, apprehensive.

You better go out there, he mouths, and so you do.

“Thunder only happens when it's rainin'

Players only love you when they're playin'

Say women, they will come and they will go

When the rain washes you clean, you'll know...”

Under cold October stars, Chrissie has trapped her horrified-looking husband, backed him into a fountain of a dolphin spewing an endless stream of water from its snout. “Did you think I wouldn’t listen to your own fucking album, Brian?!” She shrieks. “Who is she, huh? Who the fuck is she?!”

You grip her arm and try to lead her away. “Chrissie, babe, not here—”

“It’s Late, Brian? Yeah, it’s real fucking late in your life to still be chasing whores over in America while I’m building your family here, isn’t it?!”

“Love, please, it’s not true,” Brian attempts anemically, reaching for her.

“It is!” Chrissie rages. “It is and it always has been and I was too busy being some blind stupid idiot who loved you to see it!”

She breaks down in tears and you shove Brian away, shoo him back inside. You pitch him a fierce glare as he leaves, retreating like a kicked dog. There’s nothing you can do to fix this, you coward. Because everything she’s saying is true. Chrissie clings to you like a life raft, sobbing into your shoulder, asking what she did wrong.

“I’m sorry,” you tell her, over and over again; because that’s all there is to say.

Eventually Chrissie quiets, goes still and resigned and numb, and you help her fix her makeup and lead her back inside. You stand with her beside the snack table and swear not to leave her side until the party’s over, until the men are done celebrating yet another triumph that will take them further and further from home. Brian is nowhere to be found.

“That goddamn broodmare,” Chrissie hisses, gulping straight vodka, staring venomously at Veronica.

“Why do you hate her so much? I mean she can be dull, yeah. She’s sanctimonious and naïve and dresses like a freaking Mennonite. But she’s not horrible or anything.” And her life isn’t so perfect either.

“It’s not obvious?” Chrissie asks, her voice like a blade.

“No...?”

Chrissie’s eyes are scorching, although you’re not the person she’s furious with. You just happen to be standing in the path of the storm. “Because she’s the only one of us who’s never going to have to find out what this feels like.”

Oh, I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all.

You try to spot Roger in the teeming room. He’s over by a crackling fireplace, telling stories with dramatic sweeps of his hands, bleeding charisma like sweat, and none of that is unusual at all. One of the people he’s talking to is Dominique Beyrand, and that’s not so unusual either; Richard Branson ends up at a lot of industry events, and Dom trails him around like a shadow, nodding politely and contributing little chirps of conversation in that posh French accent.

But here’s the strange part; here’s the part you’ve never seen before.

When Roger flashes that dazzling smile of his, Dominique smiles back.

~~~~~~~~~~

Three days later, you’re steeping in a sweltering bubble bath as the phone rings downstairs. You ignore it at first, because the hot water is unraveling all the tension in your muscles and the lurking shadows in your mind, and also because the calendar is hanging right beside the phone in the kitchen and you’re quite committed to ignoring it this morning. But the phone rings again, and again, and you’re aware that it could be something serious; Roger is working on some non-Queen collaboration at a studio in downtown London, and something could have happened to him.

Especially considering his recreational preferences lately.

You scramble out of the tub, pull on a robe that sticks uncomfortably to your dripping skin, leave a path of bathwater footprints down the hallway and steps—slipping twice and clinging to the banister for dear life—before finally careening into the kitchen to snatch the phone off the wall.

“Hello?” you gasp, winded.

It’s not Roger, nor someone calling to inform you that Roger has overdosed or disappeared or vaulted down a staircase or been hit by a bus. It’s Chrissie.

“Have you seen the News Of The World yet?” she demands.

“Ummm, the album...?” Of course I’ve listened to the album. About a million times. You have a particular affinity for Spread Your Wings.

“No, not the album,” she snaps impatiently, although she kindly leaves out the you idiot addition that her tone implicates. “The magazine. Have you seen it today?”

“I was mid-bubble bath and almost broke my neck sprinting for the phone. So no.”

“Good. Don’t read a word. Don’t talk to anyone. I’m coming over. I’m gonna grab John and come right over.”

“Chris, what—?”

“Do not touch that fucking magazine!” she screams, and hangs up.

Naturally, you don’t listen.

You go to the main door of the Surrey mansion and open it. Sure enough, the new issue of News Of The World is waiting on the porch for you. You pluck it up with damp hands; the whirlpools of your fingerprints stick to the parchment.

On the front page is a photo of Roger, but he’s not alone. He’s scowling at the paparazzo snapping the picture, his face lit up by the flash, painfully and unmistakably stunning. He’s in some sort of alley or side entrance to a restaurant or club. He’s somewhere he’s trying not to be seen, which anyone could tell you is remarkable for Roger Taylor. Beside him is a woman you recognize; and although she’s looking down and trying to hide behind her shock of lustrous black hair, you can see her lips are smiling.

The headline reads: “Queen Drummer Spends Royally on London Love Nest for French Mistress.”

[iatethepomegranate]

Homecoming Chapter 22

@iontorch @dick-rarepairs

See notes for story masterpost and AO3 links.

Pairing: DickTiger

Rating: Teen (this chapter)

Length: 3k

Summary: Dick and Tiger settle back into Wayne Manor, but between Dick's new ailment and the secret they're keeping from Bruce, they're just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Notes: I LIVE. Okay, since I don’t trust Tumblr to let this post appear in the tags if I add links, I’m going to add masterpost and AO3 links in a reblog, so check the notes.

***

Chapter 22

As the days passed, Dick waited for another migraine to come along and ruin his life again. It felt like everyone was watching him with bated breath, expecting him to drop any second... Dick most of all. Tim, at least, tried to make himself useful by going over Dick's symptoms to help him figure out his warning signs for when the attack finally did come.

Tiger had clammed up since that last conversation about the shooting. That was never a good sign. The man was a classic bottler when it came to his emotions and wouldn't entertain further discussion. It would all come to a head eventually. Dick was not looking forward to it.

What made matters worse, possibly, was that Bruce was being oddly polite to Tiger. It was possible he genuinely felt bad for kicking Tiger out, but there was also a chance he was trying to lull Tiger into a false sense of security. It wasn't working. Tiger was more anxious than ever. Unless that was Bruce's plan. Dick hoped not. That was a douchey kind of plan.

Dick came to dinner one night in a not-so-great mood. Irritable for no reason. He'd already snapped at Tiger three times in the past hour, and he'd deserved exactly none of them. And his neck was kinda stiff, which made sitting in a dining chair a rather annoying experience.

Tim took one look at him, pausing in the motion of cutting his steak, and said, “You know irritability and neck stiffness are pre-migraine symptoms, right?”

“Who says I'm irritable?” Dick replied, irritably. Internally, though, his mind was a litany of shit shit shit.

“You’ll probably have, like, twelve hours from when the symptoms started,” Tim said, looking back down at his plate. “Maybe more. Hard to say. Try to get a good night's sleep if you can.”

Dick wasn't sure how he was supposed to sleep with his neck like this. Tiger was staring at him, trying to catch his eye, but Dick didn't feel like talking. Especially not after snapping at him so much.

Tiger made a show of shrugging and piling brown rice onto both their plates. Dick also received a generous load of vegetables and not as much meat as he probably would've liked. But he'd already been an asshole today, so he shut up and took it.

Dick excused himself as soon as he was finished, knowing that he was not good company tonight. Tiger, in a fit of masochism, followed him back to their room.

Then, in what could only be a lack of self-preservation, he took Dick's hands and led him to the bed. “Sit. Let me help.”

“Look, I wouldn't blame you for not wanting to be around me. I don't want to be around me.” The words came out way sharper than he'd intended. Naturally.

“Hush.” Tiger knelt on the bed behind him and dug his thumbs into the hardened muscles on the back of Dick's neck. “I forgive you.”

“Ugh.”

Tiger kissed the top of his head. “I am trying to spoil you.”

“I don't deserve it.”

“I do not care.”

Dick shut up and let him rub his neck. It helped a bit. A warm shower later, he felt almost like himself.

Sleep was elusive. Dick kept shifting position, unable to get comfortable. Tiger had ended up on the edge of the bed, well away from his fidgeting. Dick was kind of offended but couldn't really be mad because Tiger had done that in his sleep.

He was still kinda mad.

Dick fell into a fragile kind of sleep eventually, flitting in and out when Tiger got up to pray. He woke in the daylight, eyes grainy and brain fogged. Right. Fatigue. Another fun symptom. Apparently even sleeping made him tired now.

Tiger was eating a bowl of oatmeal on the bed, legs crossed with a huge photo album in front of him. “Good morning.”

“Mmph.” Dick rubbed his eyes, which helped a tiny bit. “Is it morning?”

“Barely.”

Dick used Tiger's arm to haul himself into a sitting position, slumping against his shoulder. “Whatcha looking at?”

“Jason stole a photo album Alfred kept of your first few years as Robin.”

Dick rubbed his eyes again, until he could see the photos. Oh. Oh God. The green underpants. It was actually a leotard at least fifty percent of the time, but no one believed him.

Look, it wasn't that Dick was ashamed of his childhood fashion choices. It was just... well... everyone was ashamed for him.

“Bastard,” he muttered. “I'm gonna show you his album.” He dug his chin into Tiger's shoulder. “Nice breakfast. Where's mine?”

Tiger leaned over and grabbed another bowl from the nightstand. “I was about to wake you. Here.”

There were spiced pears in the oatmeal, which lifted his mood a little bit. But he still felt kinda fuzzy and doubted that would improve.

There was one photo in the album that Tiger paused over. It was a selfie, in a way. Dick-as-Robin making a face in a funhouse mirror. Alfred had seen the mask camera footage and liked it.

“Where is the camera?” Tiger asked.

“In the mask. It was a prototype at the time. The lenses broke constantly so we had to carry spare masks and cowls in our belts.”

“Wait.” Tiger's eyes went wide and his face turned the most worrying shade of grey. “You have cameras in your masks? Does Jason have...”

“Jason has a few,” Dick said. “He only wears the cam-masks when he's working with us.”

“So there is a video of Alia...”

The shooting. Fuck.

“Jason would've thought of that,” Dick said, trying to sound sure, even if he was kinda panicking. “Right?”

Tiger sighed and shoved more oatmeal into his mouth. Good idea. Dick did the same. Soothing his panic with breakfast. They kept flipping through the album with a detachment born out of preoccupation.

As soon as Dick had scraped the last bite out of his bowl, Tiger snatched it off him. “I'll take these to the kitchen. And find Jason.”

“Yeah. Do that.” Dick wanted to trust Jason had remembered. If not... Bruce would have seen the footage by now.

God damn it.

Dick took a piss while he waited and then spent a few minutes flipping through the album, tracking Robin's fashion evolution over the years. And the Discowing outfit. He still thought the high collar was pretty cool, no matter what anyone else said. He just couldn't turn his head as much as he would've liked. Still, some of Bruce's old costumes had the same problem.

There was just something in him that made him desperate to defend even the most questionable of fashion decisions. It didn't matter if he had been questioning them himself. The instant someone else teased him, he had to take it all the way.

Voices erupted in the hallway.

“Maybe I just don't like the way you're trying to corner him.” Jason.

“That is not what I—”

“You're not fooling anyone, Bruce. You've had it out for him from the moment he entered the city.”

“This is not a productive conversation.” Tiger.

“Right?” Jason said. “You prepared to say whatever you wanted to say in front of Dick? You think he's gonna be happy?”

“You're being dramatic,” Bruce said.

“Am I, though? Am I?”

“But if you wish to be involved in this discussion, I have plenty of questions for you, too.”

“I've answered your questions already. Not my fault you didn't like the answers.”

“I am missing some context in this conversation,” Tiger said.

“So am I!” Dick yelled impulsively.

There were a few horrible seconds where no one breathed a word. Then Tiger, Jason and Bruce entered the room. Tiger and Jason at least had the grace to look sheepish.

“Is someone going to explain what the hell is going on?” Dick said. “Quickly, if you don't mind. Not sure how much time I have before my head explodes again.”

“Jason's mask camera footage is missing,” Bruce said. Well. That answered that question.

“I told you already,” Jason complained. “The equipment's been on the fritz for weeks.”

“You should've had it fixed.”

Jason shrugged. “You don't trust me with your stuff and Tim was mad at me again. What was I supposed to do? Steal your shit? I only do that when I'm really mad at you.”

Dick had a distinct feeling Jason was lying his ass off. He also had a feeling Bruce saw right through him.

Tiger leaned against the closet door, arms crossed, watching the exchange with a muscle twitching in his jaw. Dick would trust him on a battlefield, but he wasn't so sure how well he was gonna hold up in a war of words over something he already felt terrible about. Jason wasn't gonna budge. Dick certainly wouldn't. But Tiger...

“I find it convenient that your equipment failed on that night in particular,” Bruce was saying.

“Sorry. I forgot to pencil it in.”

“Do you let your grapnel gun wear down like that?”

“No, because I would die. Again.”

Bruce's face twitched; he hated it when Jason brought up the dying thing. “Jason. That's not—”

“Oh, am I playing dirty again? Sorry. Force of habit.” He was blatantly not sorry. “Sometimes you gotta prioritise the important stuff. You never look at my mask cam anyway.”

“Because I never know when you're wearing it.”

“Then why did you bother looking this time?” Jason was smiling now, but it wasn't a pleasant one. “Seems to me you were looking for something specific.”

“I deserve to know what happened when someone dies on my watch.”

“I told you what happened. Is my word not good enough?”

“No. It's not.”

“Bruce,” Dick said, before this could spiral further, “I was there, too, you know.”

“You didn't see what happened.”

It wasn't worth arguing. Bruce knew what he was talking about. Good old blood spatter analysis, ruining everything.

“I saw Jason holding Tiger's gun.” Dick wasn't about to let this go without a fight, though.

“That proves nothing. And evidence has conveniently disappeared. Where did Tiger's clothes end up?”

Tiger still looked kinda grey from earlier. It was probably best he wasn't talking much, because Dick honestly didn't know if he could keep the lie going.

Jason, bless him, kept fighting. “Well, fuck me for getting him out of that blood-soaked shit. Not like I was thinking about how you were gonna be a giant asshole over this. My bad.”

“You haven't told me where his clothes are.”

“Gone. They were wrecked. Maybe if you'd asked in a timely manner, you could've examined them.” Jason actually sounded convincing. Dick tried not to get his hopes up. Bruce wasn't called the World's Greatest Detective for nothing.

“This is all rather convenient,” Bruce said. “Your spare gun jammed, recording equipment failed and vital material evidence happened to disappear, all on the same night.”

Could they have done this better? Given the circumstances, could they have found a way to keep Tiger out of this without tripping Bruce's coincidence meter? Dick wasn't sure there was. If only Jason hadn't been wearing his mask cam that night.

Still, Bruce didn't have concrete evidence. He just had a pile of coincidences that could mean someone was hiding something. Certainly not enough for a legal conviction or possibly even a trial in the first place, but that was not what they had here.

Bruce didn't need incontrovertible proof to believe Tiger had helped kill Alia. All he needed was enough doubt in Jason's version of events.

“Enough,” Tiger said.

Bruce rounded on him, staring silently. He didn't need to speak. Dick and Jason shared a grimace behind Bruce's back.

“There were three shooters,” Tiger continued, crossing his arms tighter across his body. Dick could see the slightest hint of a tremor. “Jason, Helena... and me.”

Okay, so they were doing this now. Things were still salvageable. Maybe.

“He saved my life,” Dick added. “The three of them only had a split second to do something.”

“Murder is never the solution.”

“Then tell us, O Wise One,” Jason snapped, “what would you have done with fuck-all time to save your favourite son?”

“I'm not his favourite,” Dick muttered. They ignored him.

“I would not have resorted to murder.”

“That's not what I asked,” Jason growled. “Dick is on the floor, literally cornered, back against a wall. Daedalus's gun practically touching him. He won't miss. You have a second to do something and you don't have a good enough angle to hit his gun. If Daedalus takes over Dick's mind, he dies. If the gun goes off, he dies. If you spook the bastard, the gun will go off anyway and Dick dies. So tell me, with all your boundless wisdom, what could we have done in that second to save Dick's life without killing Daedalus? The woman he possessed isn't even a factor. She was a goner already.”

Tiger flinched. Dick wanted to go over and squeeze his hand, but that would just draw Bruce's attention while Jason tried to divert it.

“Remote-controlled batarang,” Bruce replied.

“Yeah, we didn't have one of those. Even if we did, setting it up would take time we didn't have and he probably would've heard it coming.”

“The fact remains,” Bruce said, turning back to Tiger. “You hid this from me.”

“He wasn't even there when I told you what happened,” Jason said. “You gonna get mad? Get mad at the right person.”

“People,” Dick corrected. “I helped Jason mess with the evidence.”

“You were a backseat driver, more like.”

“Stop it,” Tiger muttered.

Dick's fingers were tingling a little, which was not a good sign. He concentrated extra hard on speaking, because he was not about to let this fucking migraine muddle his words while he still had a choice.

“Tiger,” he said, “you didn't want us to lie for you.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “And yet he allowed it.”

Dick put his left hand on the bed, leaning into it to keep his balance. Even sitting was starting to get a little fraught. Fuck's sake.

“Bruce,” he said, “stop it. You've directed exactly none of this pissiness at me even though I was actively involved in the lie.” He had to take a second to get his mouth around his next sentence, holding up his right arm, which obeyed him enough, so they wouldn't talk over him. “That's why we lied. Jason and I knew you would be harder on him than anyone else.”

“Same shit, different day,” Jason said. “He was like this when he kicked Tiger out and he hasn't learned a damn thing.” Jason's voice was a touch louder than Dick's head liked right now.

“Bruce has a point,” Tiger said quietly.

“He's selectively applying that point,” Jason replied. “How about it, boss? If you're gonna be shitty to Tiger, then you should be just as shitty to me.”

“You are not dating my son,” Bruce said.

“I'm a grown-ass man, Bruce,” Dick said.

“And I happen to be your son,” Jason added. “Legally, anyway.”

“You're an adult in control of your own actions,” Bruce said. “You have made it clear that I cannot control you.”

“Uh, hello?” Dick waved his fingers, which didn't really want to cooperate. “I'm the eldest, and you're acting like I'm a teenager with a bad influence for a boyfriend.”

“Difference is,” Jason said, “he actually cares about you.”

Bruce looked like he'd been slapped. “That's not—”

Jason grinned, but it looked more like a grimace. “Am I wrong?”

Bruce was not often a man lost for words. He sometimes preferred to let his actions speak for him, but it was rare that he truly had no idea what to say or do. Witnessing it now was unsettling.

Any other time, Dick might've let Bruce work through it on his own. Things with Jason were complicated, and sometimes interfering made matters worse.

But he was really having trouble sitting up and there was a distinct numbness on the right side of his face, and down his arm. And there was a pounding building up in his head.

In the silence, Dick caught Tiger's eye. The man's features hardened, and he put himself between Bruce and Jason. Probably not the safest idea, but Dick couldn't think of another way. Damn brain fog.

“Enough,” he said. “This is not a productive conversation.”

“You do not get to tell me when I am finished,” Bruce replied.

Jason glanced in Dick's direction. “Yeah? Well, I'm done.” He made a good show of storming out in a fit of temper, rather than giving his brother some space to lie down and die for a while.

“Jason...” Then Bruce followed him.

Well, that was one way to clear a room.

Tiger fetched Dick a glass of water. Apparently a pack of straws lived in Dick's nightstand now. He wasn't sure when exactly they appeared, but they made drinking a little easier with only half a face.

“Anything else you need?” Tiger asked softly.

Dick got him to help him into the bathroom. He wasn't sure how much he'd be moving in a few minutes. He also may have thrown up in the sink a little bit while he was in there.

Then Tiger helped him lie down. “There is a pager here,” he said, lifting the little thing from the nightstand. “Do you want me with you? If not, the pager will put you in touch with Alfred if you need anything.”

Dick waved him away with his good hand. He didn't want to put Tiger through this if he didn't have to. Besides, when he was at his worst last time, he couldn't even stand the sound of Alfred breathing.

Tiger helped him put a sleeping mask on and placed a bucket on the floor. Then he kissed Dick's hand, leaving him to his misery.

[lexical-doll]

On Feeling Forever

HI IT’S SUNDAY SOMEWHERE (Here, it’s Sunday here.  EDT.)

(Epistemic status:  Pretty sure this is just me and probably me being weird; practical advice somewhat untested.)

There is a concept I have been noticing more in myself lately that is probably one of those self-evident things but that I think bears exploring.  It’s the concept of your emotional state inflecting your projection of the future and what future actions you should take.  This, I feel, is a thing most people experience on some level.  The extension of the concept in my personal case, however, is feeling forever.  Not only are my projections and plans filtered through “I am hyper and happy” or “I am really depressed and tired” or whatever else I might feel but the contemplation of these future actions assumes I will be in the exact state I am currently in.

So, this requires a bit of unpacking.  As I’ve stated things, these two concepts seem mostly the same, that part of the inflection is the idea that your future self will be in the same state; I am not sure one actually implies the other though.  If you’re in a slump, you might plan with and for less energy but probably not under the assumption you will never not be in a slump unless it’s particularly deep.  I think more notably, being in a very excited, joyful state still is unlikely to make you believe you will always be in that state and make plans accordingly.

 Except, for me, it does.  I go into a bit of a cycle a lot of the time, it goes like this:

1. Have a really cool spontaneous social interaction that makes The Seeker happy 2. Want to make more cool extraverted social activity things, especially since I’m incredibly happy 3. Book like 2 weeks worth of things 4. Starting doing all the things, night after night, no rest no time to myself. 5. Start feeling more and more run down and like “wait why did I do this” (this is mostly a function of lack of sleep) 6. Cancel a few plans, start feeling a little better but still out of it. 7. Set a line in the sand where I will not make new plans until my old ones run out 8. Get to a tired enough state where I’m not even getting an extrovert high out of doing things with people 9. Finally reach the end and breathe a sigh of relief and my schedule is mostly clear 10. Spend 2 weeks with every night being go to work, come home, fuck around on the computer, sleep 11. Realize this fucking sucks and I am even more depressed than I was when I was super extroverting 12. Don’t really feel like making plans/finishing commitments/contemplating the future 13. Get worse and worse 14. Spontaneous social interaction happens, gives me energy to throw The Seeker at things again 15. Rinse, repeat.

A lot of these patterns stem from feeling forever.  I feel happy, excited, elated, and assume I will feel that way forever, no matter what and plan accordingly.  I’m a super extrovert with all the powers of social interaction yaaaaaaaay.  Then I start shorting my sleep and feeling terrible and then I assume THAT’S going to be my default state forever and start cancelling plans and mostly thinking there’s no point to anything.  Then I downcycle and my feeling that my slump will be forever becomes stronger and stronger.  Fortunately, I usually get a cycle breaker after not too long and can go back to the start by feeling happy forever…but the emotional and cognitive distortions are still strongly in place.  As I write about this, the pattern honestly matches a little to bipolar disorder, except I don’t really have that.  I’ve been checked for it a lot because I sure present as suspicious for it.  Overall, I feel like I’m experiencing something in that space, though.

I think it will be important for me to correct this cognitive distortion and I think being aware of it is the first step, like always.  What I want to consider from a practical perspective is instituting rules for planning or experiencing my future self that do not give a damn about my mood at the time I am planning.  I still am working out my fault tolerances but I think the basics of doing something enjoyably social at least once a week, no matter what, will help to counteract the slump stage.  I think that making sure my booking is such that I am not out 3 nights in a row will counteract the extrovert high stage, even if some of those plans are not extroversion related.  The reason I focus so much on social planning is because it’s more or less the core of my emotional state these days.  There’s some degree of in the moment to moment emotional management but that falls more under my framing/filter model of perception.

Still, moment to moment emotional state also sometimes slips into the feel forever distortion.  Often, what I describe as a downcycle is an expression of that.  A downcycle is where I experience an Unpleasant Thing, I recognize I experienced an Unpleasant Thing, I have started to fixate on Unpleasant Thing and now it has Unpleasant Thing Friends because usually you can break down things that are unpleasant into multiple parts and then the problem seems worse, and I just start spiraling towards this absolutely hateful state about existence that contaminates my entire worldview, as well as my ability to conceptualize not feeling this way.  Fortunately, this form of feeling forever is largely managed by my medication regimen, so I don’t have to be particularly creative with my interventions here; what I can’t handle with medication I can usually clean up with narrative and perceptual reframing.

I am curious, does anyone else feel forever, or end up in these kind of high-low cycles that inhibit a more gradual, consistent experience?  If you do feel forever, do you think you need to change it?  If you don’t feel forever, what is your mental attitude towards the future and making plans in a bad state?  What about a good state?  Feel free to send asks, replies, or reblog this post to answer these questions.