#thinking of adding this to the 'one self portrait once a year' pile

[oreegaanoo]

Started a self portrait in class that I like but one eye looks like it's gonna float off my face skdkfkff but it's nice otherwise! I might do another drawing at some point if I don't like this one enough once I'm finished

[teenmomcentral]

Here are some of the major (and minor but interesting) ‘Teen Mom’-related things that happened over the last week or so…

Maci Bookout Explains Why She Invited Her Ex Ryan Edwards (and His Girlfriend Amanda Conner) to Easter Dinner

The Teen Mom stars posed for an Easter Day portrait, along with Maci and Ryan’s son Bentley, and the photo was posted to Instagram by both Maci and Amanda.

In an interview with Us Weekly on Monday, Maci discussed her holiday meet-up with Ryan and Amanda.

“Ryan is doing really well,” she said. “I believe in a week, he’ll be a year sober, which I have never seen since his act of addiction really began. But he’s doing really well, doing the work.

“I feel like him and Bentley are in a really good place,” Maci continued. “All I say is hope and expectations are two different things. I’m still very, very hopeful every day. But I will also say that over the last year, I think expectations have changed a little bit too. He’s doing really well. It was really nice being able to have — for Bentley — all of his family in one spot. It was cool. It was great.”

While some fans were surprised that Maci and Taylor would invite Ryan and his galpal into their home for Easter dinner, others– including several of Maci’s ‘Teen Mom Family Reunion’ co-stars– applauded them for their co-parenting growth.

“Love this for Bentley,” wrote Sean Austin (whom Maci commended in a later comment for being “rock solid for Bentley” stating, ���he really looks forward to getting to hang with him.) 

“Love this,” wrote Kayla Sessler.

As The Ashley has previously reported, Maci and Ryan have worked in the last year or so on repairing their once very strained relationship. Maci attended a few of Ryan’s many court dates in 2023, and, in a July 2023 interview, explained why she refuses to give up on her baby daddy, despite his recent legal and relationship issues (which include, but are not limited to, a divorce, numerous drug arrests and more). 

“Ryan made bad decisions, but at the end of the day, his whole world has just completely fallen apart, and I just wanted him to know that just because this has all happened, it doesn’t mean I’m just going to quit on him,” Maci said, adding that she was doing it “mainly for Bentley. I felt like it was important for him to see me support his dad.”

In her interview on Monday with Us Weekly, Maci credited her husband Taylor for helping her and Bentley pursue a healthy relationship with Ryan.

“I feel like Bentley especially wouldn’t have had the courage to really keep pursuing and stay hopeful in certain situations, but I think Taylor provides that constant for Bentley and for me,” she said. “We can kind of dip our toe in the water here even if it’s scary because we always know this guy’s gonna be there. And it’s a lot of pressure on him, but he’s always there.”

Ryan began seeing Amanda last year, and Amanda and Maci seem to have a good relationship. In fact, last week Maci defended Amanda on Instagram after Amanda posted old photos of herself that appeared to be from an escorting site.

In the Instagram post, Amanda stated that someone was trying to expose details of her past by “finding old pics of me & trying to extort me.” Although Amanda didn’t name the person allegedly doing this, she did write that she decided to ‘expose’ the information herself before the other person could.

“So this is me airing out my past and keeping it real with everyone,” Amanda wrote.

Maci commented on the post, writing, “I don’t know anything about whatever ‘this’ drama is, but I do think being supportive of a woman trying to be better than her past self also makes the world a better place.” 

‘Teen Mom Family Reunion’ Tanks Again in Ratings; Chelsea’s Houska’s Show Gets Ratings Boost

More and more ‘Teen Mom’ cast members are joining in on the ‘Teen Mom Family Reunion’ festivities, with Mackenzie McKee and her boyfriend Khessy Hall entering into the Dojo Mojo Casa house on the most-recent episode. Unfortunately (for MTV), more and more viewers aren’t really joining in.

Last week’s episode of ‘Teen Mom Family Reunion’ brought more abyssal ratings, with only 151,000 viewers tuning in to watch Maci, Catelynn & Co. slurp down margaritas and twerk in Spandex outfits. These ratings are slightly higher than those of the previous week’s episode. (That episode clocked in at only 135,000 viewers, making it the lowest-rated episode of a ‘Teen Mom’ show of all time.) 

The March 27 episode of ‘Teen Mom Family Reunion’ had a .08 ratings share for the coveted 18-49 age group. Despite the low ratings, MTV has opted to keep the show on-air, and in its original Wednesday night slot.

Chelsea Houska’s show, meanwhile, climbed in the ratings a bit with its most-recent episode. ‘Down Home Fab’ clocked 602,000 same-day viewers (up from Episode 1’s ratings of 569,000 same-day viewers.) 

Briana DeJesus Defends Jenelle Evans Against Haters; Says Jenelle Probably Needs Help Right Now

Jenelle has a friend in her former ‘Teen Mom 2’ co-star Briana DeJesus.

The fired ‘Teen Mom 2’ star— who is currently on the outs with her husband David Eason, as well as her mom Barbara Evans and just about everyone else who was once in her life circle— received some support from Briana on Twitter on Monday. After several accounts on Twitter replied to a post Bri made about wanting to buy a second house (mockingly suggesting that Briana buy Jenelle’s house on The Land if it goes on the market), Briana hit back, defending Jenelle in a series of statements.

“I’ll never understand how u guys can hate someone so much that u have to constantly talk crap about them…” Briana wrote. “I’ve had my fair share of saying mean things but I’ve learned a thing or two and I keep certain s**t to myself. Pls do better.”

When some of Jenelle’s online haters pushed back, mentioning Jenelle’s alleged neglect of her kids/animals, Briana doubled down, writing that Jenelle probably needs help right now.

“But the thing is…nobody really actually cares… actions speak louder than words… have u personally asked her if she needed any help?” Briana wrote to one account. “I’m sure rn she needs the most help. Instead of talking s**t maybe take some action in helping her move forward and help w/a safe environment?

“Being kind may actually help her… talking s**t and pointing out all her flaws does nothing but only make u feel better so how does that help the situation? Anyways I said enough! lol.”

Briana also blasted the social media users who create accounts to mock Jenelle.

“I see so many ppl say the craziest things about her and the kids and other former castmates,” Briana said. “I understand ppl dont agree with things but to constantly talk s**t or even make fake pages and dedicate their time to be so mean is just wild!”

Jenelle– who has had an on-and-off friendship with Briana over the years— has yet to comment on Briana coming to her defense.

Kail Lowry Reveals What She & Her Baby Daddies Did With the Money Their Kids Earned on ‘Teen Mom 2’

Kail recently hopped on TikTok to discuss the drama regarding Mama June Shannon allegedly spending all/most of her daughter Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson‘s reality TV money.

During that same video, though, Kail gave her followers insight into the financial mistakes she made with the money from her early years on ‘Teen Mom 2.’ She also revealed how she and some of her baby daddies daddii have managed their kids’ TV money in more-recent years.

“I had no guidance. My mom is an addict and former drug user. I never met my dad until I was 18 and had no relationship. I had no financial guidance,” Kail said about her first years on the show. “I have made so much money and have nothing to show for the beginning dollars that I made.”

Kail said that she eventually got smart with her reality TV earnings.

“At some point I had to make changes and, in this industry, you eventually make connections that help you invest your money, make more-responsible choices… ultimately, for me, I wanted to see my money grow,” she said. “At some point I was like, ‘OK, we need to do something about this. Changes need to happen if I want this money to last longer, if I want it to increase, double, whatever.'”

Kail said that she eventually hired a good accounting firm and financial advisor to help her manage her money. She also made lucrative decisions when it came to managing her sons’ MTV earnings. (Only the first four of Kail’s seven kids have appeared on TV. Her last three– Rio, Verse and Valley– have not.)

“When I started TV, Jo and I were already split up— we split up that same first year— he was in control of half of [our son] Isaac’s money,” she said. “I’m in control of the other half of Isaac’s money. And, somebody from [MTV] had to come with us to set up these custodial accounts [which you can’t take money out of].”

(The Ashley wants to interject here and state that each of the ‘Teen Mom’ girls had a different financial situation for the money earned by their kids, as each state has its own rules.)

Kail said that, for her second son Lincoln, she and Lincoln’s dad Javi Marroquin each managed half their son’s money after they got divorced.

“We split [Lincoln’s] money in half where [Javi] has control of half and I have control of half,” Kail said.

Kail went on to state that she invested all of Lincoln’s money from the show that she had control of. When she showed Javi what she invested it in, he agreed to invest the other half of Lincoln’s money as well. (Kail stated that she has invested all of the money her sons Creed and Lux earned on ‘Teen Mom 2.’)

Kail went on to talk about the importance of keeping the kids’ money safe, adding that, if she found out that one of her baby daddies took their kids’ money, she would help her kid sue that parent.

Kail is not the only person from the ‘Teen Mom’ franchise to discuss publicly what they did with their kids’ MTV money. During a 2020 podcast interview, Tyler Baltierra revealed that his daughters are “set up for life” financially, thanks to the money they earned by appearing on ‘Teen Mom.’

“As far as [the kids] getting compensated for the show, my kids are totally set, they’re totally set up for life,” Tyler said. “They’re great. College is paid for. That was mine and Catelynn’s main thing; that each of our children have trust funds that their [MTV] money goes into and they can’t touch.”

[boleynns]

Do u have fic recommendations?

I'm gonna assume this is for Daemon/Rhaenyra since that has been all I've talked about for months haha. And definitely have plenty of recs! In general I love reading really long fic (like, in really popular pairings I will set my parameters to see 50k+ or 100k+ fics only...), so due to the relative newness of this ship's popularity, most of my recs are incomplete. I also have way more that I am subscribed to that absolutely could be faves eventually, but that are just a little too early in the story to guarantee.

Canon/Canon!AU

To Ashes (Series) by Emerald_Aphelion (~30k, series incomplete but has 3 complete works so far) -- AU from Daemon's return from the Stepstones, basically where Daemon and Rhaenyra are just a little more thoughtful and forward-thinking within their relationship and with the political situation they're in. Established Relationship Vibes but also slow burn romance at the same time, they make each other smarter and better by working together, Rhaenyra bonds with baby!Aegon AND Rhea, Daemon picks Rhaenyra up and puts her on a table and calls her his queen at one point (hot), and this is the ideal Dance fix-it.

my eyes are aching to see you--126AC by SeveDeChampagne (~2.5k, complete) -- set between Episode 7 and 8, a very spicy First Time Post-Birth one-shot that contains multiple sentences that are some of the most intensely romantic things I've ever read. Considering my love of long fics, it takes a special kind of short fic for me to be so moved and attached.

How to Win Thrones and Ensnare Dragons by Writer_in_the__Dark (~15k, incomplete) -- Time Travel AU (my kink) where Rhaenyra is reborn into her baby-self. Only a few chapters in but I am HOOKED by the writing style and characterization of The Early Years dynamic, and am so looking forward to seeing how this evolves as time moves forward -- but based on the writing so far, I know it will be wonderful.

put down that gravestone by darkgods (~35k, incomplete) -- Post-Episode 4 AU, where Daemon went back to the Vale and Rhea didn't die, and then Rhaenyra gave birth to very Daemon-looking twins (wonder how that happened!), and then 10 years later Rhea has dead and Viserys invites Daemon back to be Hand. This story is so well-written and rich with character detail, I honestly just want to re-read it over and over! It has so beautifully dove into Rhaenyra's psyche, Daemon's personality (from his own perspective and from others), built a very sad and realistic portrait of Jace and Luke's lives as outcasts in court, set up some deliciously hurtful and complicated strings to unravel between Daemon and Rhaenyra due to this inciting situation, and has already indulged my pathological need for some Outside POV content by adding in Luke's (very well-written) perspective on a dinner scene. The fact that the chapter count is currently at 4/36 and we already have 35k words has me so hyped, you guys don't understand how badly I need piles and piles of giant fics.

Significance by AmazingAngie (~21k, incomplete) -- AmazingAngie is amazing because of how quickly she writes such amazing material! This is a Soulmate!AU, and this one in particular is just so insanely lovely so far! I'm a sucker for a "meant to be" setup so I will always love those from the get go, but I especially love the nuance in this story, and the ways that knowing that they are the endgame changes the trajectory of all of these characters lives.

you came/you called by scarlettscribbles (~10k, incomplete) -- basically an Episode 10 AU, kind of, but beyond that I just suggest reading it and going with the flow, because once I was like 80% into this first chapter I finally realized what was happening and it was so exciting. Needless to say I am pumped for the rest of the story.

Modern!AU

No joke I have literally NEVER liked Modern!AU's before, except for with 'Merlin' (because even if it wasn't explicitly stated, I could pretend that it was Reincarnation). It has just never appealed to me, until now with Daemon and Rhaenyra -- because they are just that powerful. Also none of my Modern!AU faves are any of that "Oh, actually, Daemon is adopted, or they're third cousins twice removed, or Daemon is only a ~symbolic uncle", like, we all know what we're doing here 😂

Lets Ignite Under the Ember Skies by grandlovescheme (26k, complete) -- So freaking good! The uncertainty, the jealousy, the tension, the ~vibes, the ~sexy ~vibes, it is a tightly-written and very well-characterized modern version of these characters and I love it.

Petrichor by sweetestsorrows (katschako) (~23k, incomplete) -- one of the chapters made me cry for real. Very intense "we are way too close to be appropriate, and it is causing angst, but i wanna be closer..." vibes, and I am so here for it. It really is wonderfully translating their bond to a modern lens, and all the problems and tensions that would come along with that dynamic. It made me go "omg that is so intensely romantic", it made me literally cry, it made me go "ooh ~spicy", its got it all.

the beauty queen in tears by writingwhatidream (~30k, incomplete) -- AHHH I am obsessed with this story (almost as obsessed as Crispin is with Rhaenyra in it...). To try and sum it up, it is a Modern!AU A/B/O Royal Family fic...but that all sounds so much more reductive than it actually reads. For me, it is: delicious Daemon/Rhaenyra "Us Against the World" vibes, where even if they're not physically together they are 100% together, with a healthy (or rather unhealthy, in-context) dose of creepy Outsider POV, and the promise of Alpha/Omega-induced drama, love, possessiveness, and danger to come. It is juicy and beautifully written, and is giving me so many things I want all in one place.

[feverinfeveroutfic]

chapter twenty seven: skin and valentines

“the flies come roaring out, and will surround the entire world, and blacken out the sky and every last one of you, like a plague of locusts, like an exit, like an end.” -”burning bright (a field on fire)”, nine inch nails

i can finally say this now: BIG OL’ SMUT WARNING!

Testament were about to head out on tour at the very end of the month when Sam had the idea to make a drawing for them as a good luck charm of sorts. She also finally decided to head out with them while on tour given she was already in the thick of it all with traveling back and forth between her parents' houses. The other alternative was staying back home there in California and doing nothing to save herself.

She had that business card of which Charlie had given her before and she knew the only way in which she could do something with it was if she went with them. They did have a few stops over in New York after all.

In the meantime it had been a couple of weeks since he had told her that Anthrax were headed into the studio and there was no word if Joey would join them as of yet. Even though she was well nestled within their circle, it almost felt as though she had been put at a distance. The West Coast stood out as a completely whole separate world from back East. If nothing else, she had to bring both worlds together in some way or fashion.

She worked on that drawing all month long until they left for upstate New York and she finally decided to join along with them. As far as everyone knew, she wasn't their groupie, but rather their resident artist. She came up with the story that she would follow them wherever they went and made art along the way for them.

But that drawing consisted of the finest pen work she had made since Cliff was alive.

The snakes on her head. The look on her face.

It was sort of a self portrait: she based the expression on her face off of the way in which she looked in the mirror's reflection in the mornings. The way her face was shaped. The way in which the serpents riddled and writhed around the crown of her head. She had to draw it and she had to draw it up not just for herself but for those five men as well.

It was also around this time she began to see the mysterious man in her dreams once again.

He often appeared to her in fragments those times around: rather than full fledged dreams, but she knew it was him. The way in which his hair waved about and the way he always gazed back at her from the void. The way he seemed to burn into her memory like the ripe bright cherry at the end of a cigarette.

And she still had no idea if he was supposed to represent Alex or someone else. All she knew was Marla was the only other person who saw him in her dreams when the going got rough.

She finished up the last of the serpents on Medusa's head the night before she flew out to upstate New York with Testament. The more she thought about it, the more appropriate it felt to her to have drawn up Medusa before she sat next to Alex again on the plane. Greg and Eric were on the other side of the aisle from them; meanwhile Chuck and Tiffany took to the seats right behind them, and Louie was right next to an old man on the other side. Sam and Alex were surrounded: no way they could act upon each other there on the flight, especially since he kept his nose in the book he was reading all the while.

“You brought some of your drawings with you, right?” he asked her at one point, to which he lowered his book from his line of sight. For a brief moment, she looked up at the little tuft of gray atop his head and she swore it grew within only a couple of weeks time, from a slight pearl to a full on tuft the size of a baby carrot.

“There was no way I wasn't going to bring them with me,” she told him in a low voice: Louie's soft snoring right behind them caught her attention. She peered across the aisle to find Greg had fallen asleep as well while Eric paid attention to a few letters he had received just prior to the tour's onset.

She opened her journal right there for Alex and showed him that drawing of Medusa, to which he gasped at the very sight of it. Those thin lines of black ink that made up the scales on the snakes. The richness of the green skin. The way in which her eyes glared at the both of them from the nothing.

“Wow,” he breathed.

“I'm extra proud of this one, yeah,” she confessed to him.

“As you should be—that's stunning.”

“You know what else I wanna do?” she asked him.

“What's that?”

“Well, seeing as we're on a plane and there really isn't anyone else paying much attention to us—”

He raised his eyebrows at that.

“You're not suggesting...” he muttered, and he hesitated right in his tracks.

Sam turned to a fresh page right at the middle of the journal and without sparing a scratch of graphite or a drop of ink, she drew up two bodies right there on the page before her. Alex tucked his bookmark in between the pages and set it down on the tray before him so he could watch her.

The smooth angles of a young man in his prime. The smooth gentle full curves of a young woman.

He raised his eyebrows when she added the black hair on his head and left a spot black for the tuft of gray over his brow. He showed her a smirk when she added her features on the woman.

“Oh my,” he whispered. “You really are Georgia O'Keeffe. Go sexy some more.”

She brought a finger to her lips even though it was obvious no one paid any attention right then.

He showed her a sweet, thoughtful smile when she signed her initials at the bottom of the page.

“Mmm, sexy erotic art,” he noted. “No one can ever know about it, though.”

She shook her head at that and she looked over to see Eric looking in their direction.

“What about me?” he said to them in a low voice, and Alex brought a hand to his mouth to keep his laughter from growing too loud.

Then Sam remembered that Eric had offered her a date. She had hope that he would do that for her at any given moment during that tour, but as long as they didn't do it there in upstate New York, she would be fine with it.

Within time, they landed there in Poughkeepsie and Sam recognized that shoulder length blonde hair under the lights of the airport.

“Bel!” she called her.

“Hey, Sam!” Belinda greeted her with a tight embrace: she had missed the way in which she smelled.

“Hey, Belinda!” Louie followed up from right behind them. Chuck rounded out the group hug from the left there.

“I've got to call my dad and tell him that we made over here in one piece,” Sam told them; and Belinda turned to Eric for a hug himself.

“Good plan, li'l Sammich,” Chuck said.

“Hey, when's Father's Day this year?” she asked him.

“Father's Day is the—eighteenth, I think? We're going down South then so we might not have a phone nearby.”

“I could just skip on it,” she suggested with a shrug of her shoulders.

“You forget and you become the girl who forgot Father's Day,” he told her. He lifted his gaze to right behind her and she turned around for a look back at him there. Those long black curls down around his shoulders and the little pile upon his head so it actually resembled to a crown of sorts.

“Joey!” Sam declared, and her heart hammered inside of her chest.

“Sam! I thought that was your caboose right there—” He extended his arms towards her; as she came closer to him, she noticed tears in his eyes. She held him so close and his lips grazed against the side of her neck, as soft as they had ever been before. The softest they had ever been before towards her.

It felt so long since she had touched him and felt his body pressed up against her own. He leaned into her face and pressed his lips to her own. His tongue slithered right into her mouth and she wondered where they were headed from that point onward.

She knew Alex stood there right behind them all the while but she didn't care. She had her arms around Joey's slender body and her lips locked onto his.

His brown eyes sparkled with life as he led her away from there.

“Where are they going?” she heard Belinda ask Alex right behind them. But she couldn't hear what he said to her given Joey led her all the way back to the little shops at the front of the airport.

“Joey, where are we going?” she asked him at one final point.

He led her into a gift shop which, had she not known any better, she swore was a lingerie shop. There was no one else in there with them: Joey guided her to the edge of the room, right behind a rack of snow globes. They were nestled back there on the freshly vacuumed carpet. No one else but them.

He put her lips to hers and he ducked down behind the snow globes. She followed suit to the floor with him.

“Fuck it,” he breathed into her ear. “Fuck it—just fuck me. Right here, right now. Right in front of everyone.”

She reached down and caressed the crotch of his jeans with three fingers. Joey whimpered right into her ear. She made out and had phony sex with two other men before then but she needed to do it for real right there with Joey himself. He fell to his knees before her and then he lay down on the soft clean carpet. His black curls sprawled out from underneath his head in those rich lush waves.

“Sit on me,” he begged her.

Two men who begged it from her and specifically from her of all people.

“Sit on my face,” he begged her, “sit on my face and let's get it on hot.”

She was about to lose her virginity with Joey. That rite of passage that everyone talked about and made such a huge deal about this whole entire time.

She set her courier bag down on the floor right there. She stripped off her jeans and took a seat right over the prominent tip of his nose.

The edge of his tongue slithered around on her lips as she spread her legs a bit for him. It was difficult given they were in the midst of a gift shop but they were tucked back in a small corner of it all. She could only hope that no one else would see or hear them as Joey licked harder for her.

She gasped as the feeling only persisted with him. She lifted up and took a seat on his hips. No one else around them, even there in broad daylight.

Joey gagged on something. He coughed a few times and covered his mouth with the full palm of his hand.

“Shhh,” she hissed to him, and with her finger up to her lips.

“Hello?” someone on the other side of the room called out.

“Damn it,” he groaned. “The next time we get a moment alone, I hope it's at the hockey rink.”

“Hello, hello?” the clerk called out again.

Sam lifted up and fixed her jeans with a bit of haste. Joey did the same before he sat up again right as she came back towards them.

“I've just got a hair on my tongue,” he explained to the woman, and Sam shook her head at that as she picked up her courier bag from the carpet. She paid no attention to what he was doing right then.

“We're alright, I promise,” Sam assured her as she held onto Joey's arm and led him back out of there, right as they met up with Belinda and Testament once again.

“What the hell was going on in there?” Eric demanded, and Chuck burst laughing when he saw Joey.

Sam finally turned around for a better look at him and the blush over his face and his tongue hanging out from his mouth like a dog.

“We're a thirsty boy,” she joked to them in a low voice, and Greg yelped out at that. Joey shook his head and blushed.

The seven of them made their way over to the hotel about a block from the theater, and all the while, he put his hand on her knee and even inside of her thigh. Testament's van remained right before them the whole way there and yet she wished to be in there with them, not because she wanted to get away from Joey but because she wanted to hang out with them some more.

They pulled up to a stoplight and he leaned in closer to her for a kiss on her neck. She returned the favor with a kiss on his lips and her hands on either side of his face.

He blinked several times once he pulled back from her and lunged ahead on the vast main road.

They climbed out of the car together—how Sam missed the humid lush feeling of upstate! But no sooner had she rounded the back end of the car when she felt his hand fondle up the seat of her pants.

“God, you're horny right now,” she groaned.

“I haven't seen my girl in so long,” he begged to her as he handed her her courier bag, her purse, as well as her travel bag. “I can't touch my girl? Like she has to cock block me?”

“Not in front of the boys,” she insisted; indeed, Testament had gotten out of their van; Belinda joined in from the car behind them as well.

“Besides,” he told her in a low voice, “I've gotta slip into sump'n a li'l more... dare I say, comfortable.” He flashed her a wink when he said that. “Also, Charlie should be up here like any time this evening. He wants you to meet someone.”

Sam raised her eyebrows at that. Now she knew the meaning behind the card Charlie had given her in the rehearsal space that previous time. Joey then leaned back into her face for a hearty kiss on the lips before he climbed back into his car again. Her heart swelled inside of her chest as he gave her a glimpse back and showed her a wink.

Given it was the middle of the last day before the brand new tour, she knew that Joey would be back for the show that following night, and perhaps her as well. She watched him go off when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to find Greg right behind her with a little smirk on his face.

She turned around for a better look at the five of them plus Belinda.

“I think this hotel here has some billiards, Eric,” she said aloud as she hoisted her purse over her shoulder. The sound of billiards made Alex raise his eyebrows at Sam. She shook her head at that and he snickered.

Since it was the beginning of June there in upstate New York, it wasn't until seven o'clock when the sun began to hang low over the horizon, and when Sam finally called up Ruben to tell him that they had made it there to the East Coast.

“You kids have fun this summer,” he told her.

“Oh, we will,” she vowed as she lifted up her shirt and proceeded to change into something more comfortable herself.

Greg and Alex sat on either side of her at dinner time there in the wide open front lobby: every so often a gust of cool wind blew her black hair back and the bottom of her little low cut black blouse up so both of them could have a view of her belly. It also didn't help matters that she wore little black denim shorts all the while.

Eric and Belinda were still billiards while Louie had gone out there in town and Chuck and Tiffany sat on the far side of the open floor together, right underneath a television suspended on the wall.

Every so often, Greg gave his long dark hair a little toss back with a flick of his head so Sam could see the side of his neck. She never noticed the bit of five o'clock shadow there on his chin and all around his jaw line before. On the other hand, the thought of Joey with a bit of fuzz on his face tickled her a bit.

“Greg, you oughta put your hair up,” Alex suggested.

“Yeah, you'll look all stylish like a model,” Sam joked, which in turn made the both of them laugh out loud.

“I'm getting kinda hot, anyways,” Greg confessed.

“Hot as in thermally?” she asked him as he stood to his feet.

“Hot as in thermally, yeah,” he replied with a straight face, but it only made Alex chuckle. Greg flashed her a wink as he stepped away from their table and headed back inside of the hotel. Alex took one more bite of his chicken alfredo, and then he leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his dark hair followed by the tuft of gray.

“Stick a fork in me, I'm done,” he said, to which Sam picked up her fork and gently poked his belly with the tines. He flinched back which only made her giggle at him. She tried to gently poke him again and he flinched back to the edge of the chair some more. She pictured him being so cute with a bit of weight on his body: he was already on his way with the round shape of his face and those apple shaped cheekbones.

He then stopped. His eyes widened like a deer in the headlights. The warm soft color in his face drained away to that of old drywall. He looked as though he was about to vomit up his dinner right there.

“What?” she asked him, and he pointed across the floor. She turned her head and she looked on at the television screen.

“Tiananmen Square in Beijing,” he said, “a bunch of protests over there from people who want democracy. It's been going on for more than a full month now. They actually declared martial law over there just a couple weeks ago. Look at that guy!”

Her mouth stood agape as they watched a sole man stand in the middle of the street there in Beijing, right before a tank. When the tank moved out of the way of him, he moved to the side. They then both watched him climb up the side of the tank to the top hatch, and they gaped at each other. Alex returned to it and then he brought his hands to his mouth once more.

“Holy shit,” he blurted out; one of the few times Sam had ever heard Alex swear before her.

Thousands of Chinese took to the streets right there before their eyes against a backdrop of smoke and bullets. The crawlers on the top and bottom of the screen all read in Mandarin and given they were across the room, they couldn't hear it, but the horrified look on Alex's face told her everything she needed to know about it.

He shook his head and stood to his feet.

“What's the matter?” she asked him as she followed him outside to the impending darkness. “Alex?”

He bowed his head and hurried away from there: Sam followed right behind him, and then he finally stopped and turned towards her with a look of absolute pain on his face.

“I can't—I can't—that's just—no.”

Even in the darkness, she could see the tears in his eyes. She put her arms around him and held him so close to her.

“I want to help those poor people,” he wept. “They don't need that horse shit! They need to be free!”

“It's okay, Alex,” she told him in a hushed voice. “You do what you can. You do good, too. If it's any comfort at all, that worries me, too.”

He lifted his gaze to her and looked on at her like a lost puppy.

“That is a comfort to me,” he promised her. She pressed her hands to either side of his face and she put her lips to his. “As is that,” he added.

“Hey, guess what?”

“What?”

“We're alone again,” she said, and he glanced about the sidewalk.

“Yeah, we are. How appropriate.”

“You wanna hang out?” she offered him.

“Let's,” he replied with a little flutter of his eyelashes.

“You're knockin' me out with those lashes, boy,” she teased him.

“I should knock your ass out right now just for that,” he retorted to her.

“Knock my ass out right now with fuck all below the belt?”

He laughed at that, that big hearty laugh right from deep within his body. He lingered closer to her again.

“You really do what you can, Alex,” she repeated. “I can see you being such a force to be reckoned with in the music world with your voice.”

He showed her a sweet little smile and he lowered his eyelids a little bit. He showed her his tongue as well, as he ran the tip over those soft lips.

He then turned his head and he gestured to the other side of the lot, there of which stood a short alleyway.

“There's a spot right over there,” he told her in a low voice, and they ran across the parking lot, past Testament's van and past Anthrax's bus, both of which had been posted up at the curb. He rounded the corner first; once she joined him there he opened the buttons on his shirt a bit more so as to show off more of his chest to her. She thought back to when they took her to the field they scattered Cliff's ashes, except this time they were about to do it for real. The sole light came from a floodlight at the rim of the parking lot, but the distant glow from it was enough to soften his skin and make him appear fuller and rounder than before; full and round like the moon.

He grimaced at something.

“What's wrong?” she asked him.

“I've got an itch,” he complained.

“Huh?”

“I've got an itch!” A soft rustling sound emerged from the darkness between them.

“Where? I'll scratch it for you.”

“It's—It's—It's?” He chuckled at that. “It's—on my—I dunno if you know about any of this because you're a woman and whatnot—there's like this little tent that forms over the crotch of a guy's jeans when he sits for too long. The itch is literally right on my crotch.”

“Again, I'll scratch it for you,” she said.

“You just wanna touch my crotch,” he chided.

“Of course I wanna touch your crotch because it's nice and warm and very soft.”

“Not as soft as my ass, I would assume,” he teased her.

“Your ass is like a little pillow, Alex,” she retorted. “You know what else is like a little pillow is your tummy.”

“Eating so many ginger snaps,” he teased her as he patted his stomach. “Too many in fact.”

“How's that little vampire bite I gave you holding up, by the way?”

He lifted up his shirt and showed her that red mark the size of a dime right next to his belly button. His milky skin seemed to glow under the soft light behind him, and it glowed bright enough for her to see the mark for herself.

“Like a little branding of sorts,” he joked, and she giggled at that. To think it wasn't that long ago she and him didn't like each other that much. She put her arms up on his shoulders and he leaned back against the wall. She moved her face up to his and he parted his lips for her. The dim light softened his face, and those deep eyes, and that plume of gray over the right side of his brow: she still owed an encounter with Greg at some point during that tour, but for the time being she needed to be with Alex. She ran her fingers through his inky black hair and he tilted his head back a bit to show her his neck.

“C'mere, baby,” she whispered to him. “Come to mama, baby.”

“I'll come right here and right now,” he whispered back to her. “Just undo my pants for me 'cause they're a bit tight.”

She undid the button with both hands and then she reached down the front there. He was firming up but he needed a little bit of help.

Joey was actually down on the floor for her.

Alex meanwhile had his back to the wall for her.

“Yeah, just like that,” he breathed as her fingers caressed over his skin. “Yeah—Yeah—it's like squeezing a tube.” He gasped when she touched him a little bit too hard, but it brought a devilish smirk to her face.

“Harder?” she teased him.

“Harder—come on, you can do better than that. I know you can.”

“I want you on your back,” she commanded him; at the same time that was all she could think of with him. Something about his round face and those deep eyes whereby she wanted to see him down on the ground, splayed wide open all for her. “I want you on your back and I want you to beg for mercy.”

“Can't really lie down, though,” he whimpered as she touched him with a bit more pressure.

“I want to give it to you, though,” she said.

“Give it good and hard?”

“Extra hard. I know you like a little pain, baby.”

“I'm a bad boy and I need a good bit of punishing.”

“I'll punish you, alright,” she retorted back to him. It was as if they were ricocheting off of each other.

Alex's lanky fingers slithered down to the waist of her shorts and he yanked them off a bit. She undid the button on her shorts and she let them slide down her legs. Even in the darkness she could feel him right there right before her.

“I wanna know how you taste,” he whispered.

“Where?”

“You know. The place where the sugar bleeds out.”

“Oh, there. It might be hard to do that standing up, though.”

“I don't think so,” he whispered, and he dropped down from her face and down to her waist. She never went this far with Cliff before and thus to feel this right before her was almost alien to her. She could feel him taking off her underwear. She spread her legs a bit to help him out with it.

The feel of his tongue there sent a shiver up her spine.

“I think it's—it's—” he breathed. “This is like ten ginger snaps.”

He tickled her with his tongue. She could feel him going up inside of her with nothing more than that tongue. He slithered about like a hearty snake.

He then gasped for air and she shuddered from the feeling at the base of her spine.

“Whoa,” he groaned out.

“Yeah, you were digging deep there,” she sputtered: she was warm as a smoldering fire below the belt. Her nipples hardened on the inside of her bra.

“I want you to make me a mess,” he begged her. “I want you to do it, Samantha!”

He opened the rest of the buttons on his shirt for her and she put her arms around him. She thought back to when he was a sixteen year old boy and she had that fleeting thought about kissing him. She could do it for real at that point.

“Yeah, you like that, don't ya, big boy?” she breathed into his lips. She held back into an upright position and she gazed straight into those deep eyes right before her face.

It was like shedding skin with him. Even though she never saw anyone like that before, she did feel it within her with Alex right underneath her. She kept her knees on either side of his hips. It was just like Chuck, except she was really there for real that time around.

His back to the wall and her hands on his shoulders.

They stared right into each other's eyes as she ground down on him.

“You can go faster, you know,” he said without batting a lash.

So she did. He pressed his hands down on the wall behind him.

She held onto his shoulders a bit harder so she could go faster and harder on him.

A long time coming.

“Mmm—yeah, that's it right there,” Alex stammered. “Right there!” He closed his eyes and relished in the feeling between his thighs.

“Like that?” She thrust a little extra hard on him and he gasped again.

“Yes!”

“Like that!”

“Yes!”

“Like that!”

“YES!”

“LIKE THAT!”

“YES! EVERYTHING WITH A BITTA HUTZPAH RIGHT ON MY FAT ASS YES!”

She lifted off of him right as he came for her: as if she knew he was about to come right there. Out of breath, Alex's knees buckled and he slid down the wall a bit. Sam could feel something trickling down the inside of her legs.

“You're bleeding, my mistress,” he said in a broken voice. His bare chest heaved and he flashed her a shaky thumbs up. “I—I—that was everything I could've asked for...” He let out a whistle while she pulled up her panties and her shorts. She had a couple of pads in her purse back in the room, which meant she had to run back there with her legs together.

“Fuck me,” he breathed out.

“Okay!” Sam declared, and he burst out laughing at that, and then he followed it up with a soft moan from his throat. She stooped down for a better look into his face.

“D'you like that, baby?” she whispered. His knees quivered a bit as he stood back up to his feet; she caught him before he lost his balance.

“That was everything I ever imagined,” he said, still out of breath.

“Mmm—baby.” She put her arms around his waist.

“No one can ever know about us,” he said in a low voice, and she looked right into his round face and those eyes. He had never been so soft before. She had him right in the palm of her hand like a handful of jelly. She gave him another kiss right on the lips, albeit one that was quite a bit longer that time around. She slid her hand down his stomach, still very soft despite having slimmed down with time. Silky soft and very sweet, just how she liked him.

“Not a single soul, baby,” she breathed into his parted lips.

She bowed her a bit which in turn accentuated the sharpness of her brow to him, and through the dim light he showed her an exhausted little smile. And yet his eyes burned into her like the cherries on the ends of cigarettes.

She kept her legs pressed together as she headed back to her room for a shower and a fresh change into her clothes. Even though it was still early, she was ready for bed by the time Belinda returned to the room a bit tipsy; she dared not explain to her the blood on her underwear or why there was a few little specks on the bathtub there, and she could only say that it was nothing more than paint.

She went to bed early that night and woke up early the next morning, mainly from the sore feeling between her legs but also from the fact that she had gone to bed early that evening. She padded into the bathroom, and as she ran her hair brush through her dark hair, she looked on at the full figured woman in the mirror in front of her.

“Those two men are just something else,” she muttered as she shook her head. Even after she vowed to Alex that she would keep the whole thing a secret betweent the two of them, she knew that her clothes still smelled like both him and Joey. She picked up that low cut black blouse she wore on that first day there in upstate New York

“Bastards—both of them,” she said as she shook her head.

The spot between her legs was going to be sore from where she and Joey did it together, which in turn felt even more sore courtesy of Alex. But she dared not tell anyone about either encounter as she headed downstairs to fetch two cups of coffee and two plates of breakfast for both her and Belinda.

Alex was already up himself: he stood there before the buffet table with an empty plate in hand. When no one was looking, she reached down and slapped him right on the seat of his pants, to which he lurched forward. He turned around with a bewildered look on his face and then he flashed her a little grin.

“Yeah, you better take it easy on them ginger snaps, Alejandro,” she teased him, “if not a belly, you're starting to get a bit of junk in the trunk.”

“I've got junk in my trunk? What about junk on my junk?”

“Shhhh!”

She peered over her shoulder to ensure no one wasn't eavesdropping on them.

“I'll put a bit of junk on your junk soon enough,” she vowed to him in a husky voice, and he giggled at that.

“Sam!” Charlie's voice sailed from across the room.

“More on that later, baby,” she promised Alex in a soft whisper right into his ear. She bowed over to the other side of the room where Charlie sat across from a strange woman.

“Sam, this is Scarlett Valentine,” he introduced her, “—the artsy woman I was telling you about whom I introduced Marla to and almost singlehandedly got her foot in the door in the art scene.”

“Not quite,” Scarlett assured him in a big Queens accent much like Scott, “Marla still has to find a place to set up her works first. I also wouldn't say singlehandedly, either, as I had a bit of help, too.”

“Oh, so you're Scarlett!” Sam declared.

“That I am.” She showed her a friendly warm smile and a little glimmer in her eyes. She had a short straight bob of platinum blonde hair which fit her heart shaped face so she resembled to a queen of hearts, and she wore a smart dark red bathrobe over her pajamas.

“I'd have to go back up to my room to fetch you my journal, though,” Sam told her with a shrug.

“That's okay,” Scarlett assured her. “Charlie was just about to get the both of us a cup of coffee each.” Charlie himself shrugged and blushed from the attention on him.

Even with her legs sore, Sam still bowed back up to her room for her journal. Each step made her heart pound faster and faster in her chest. It was really happening: someone who had a lead in the New York art scene could perhaps help her out.

Soon, she returned to the lobby.

It almost felt as though she was about to display herself naked in front of an audience as she opened the journal to that drawing of Medusa. Charlie gaped at the sight of it where Scarlett examined those fine lines and those bright colors as if she inspected buried treasure.

“What do you think?” Sam asked her.

“This is brilliant,” she breathed, “utterly beautiful—just takes my breath away.” She sat upright so she had a bit of distance between herself and the page. “Very unique style, too, like it stands out from a mile away.”

She turned to Sam with a twinkle in her eye.

“You are going to be the next big thing in the art scene, Miss Shelley,” she said, and the excited smile crossed her face all the while. “In New York and maybe elsewhere as well.

“You sure about that?” Sam asked her, to which Scarlett nodded; she never imagined anyone using those words on her before, let alone someone whom she had just met through Charlie.

“What did Frankie and I tell you when we first met?” he recalled as he took a sip of coffee.

[halothenthehorns]

All in the Family

Chapter 92: Priori Incantatem

Lily was still crying as she crash landed once more, rolling several times and coming to a painful halt. Even as her impact caused what felt like bricks to fall all around her, she merely lay where she was, curled into the fetal position, trembling fingers pressed against her lips as another sob broke free. She hadn't stopped for so long now, it seemed impossible she ever would. It was too much, all too much to take in, and yet a fourteen year old boy, her boy, would be going through it all alone.

"Oh come now dear, it can't be all bad."

Lily sat up with a painful gasp, shuddering in fear and just a few more lashes of pain at her own stupidity for letting her guard down. Just because it had been so long since they'd seen another person didn't mean it couldn't inevitably happen! She was now far more familiar with her seven companions voices than she ever would have believed possible, could pick any of them out in a crowded corridor now, but she didn't know that one!

She forced her bleary eyes to focus, she had to know if there were anymore dead bodies around, nobody had started reading yet and Merlin knew what was happening- then she gasped a wet, snotty, painfully disgusting noise in relief to see it was a portrait. Tisking away at her, eyeing the mess she made.

It was not the only one in here, but the one speaking to her nonetheless in a kind, gentle voice. Despite her aged face, it held a hint of youth in it Lily didn't quite understand until she wiped yet more tears from her burning cheeks and saw the now familiar, kind hazel eyes shining out. The name plate underneath read Carinthia Potter- Nee Greengrass. Coughing slightly, shoulders still shaking with the force of it, she looked around again to find herself in an opulent library. She'd knocked over almost an entire bookcase, the evidence scattered all around her. Portraits of other Potters that had married into the family scattered the rest of the free space, and as she looked over her shoulder, she saw a tapestry woven together pyramid style right into the wall from floor to ceiling, of the far more direct line. There, on the bottom line where the last strip showed James Fleamont Potter, there was a piece of red string tacked on, and a sticky note proudly bearing the name Sirius Orion Black right next to it.

She tried, and failed, not to laugh. She sat down back on her bum, feeling like one as she buried her face into her knees. Of course they'd wind up here eventually, James Potter was probably going to be as miraculously alive as his friends and swope in to save young Harry and probably bring Cedric back to life and defeat You-Know-Who all while hopping on one foot. She sighed in exhaustion as the sounds of ruckus finally reached her ears, even the faint echo of someone calling out her name. She tipped her head to the side and peeked out through her hair at the door, waiting for someone to come barging in even as a few more tears trickled out. She wasn't going to bother to hide them. She was too exhausted to do much of anything else.

It was finally Lupin who stumbled through the door, like he was trying to see how fast he could dart in and out, but came to an outstandingly poor halt when he actually caught a flash of her. They stared at each other for a solid thirty seconds before he turned around and bellowed over his shoulder, "I found her!" Then he turned back to her, still rubbing his lined face in exhaustion. "Merlin Evans, you could have at least come and told us you were still alive before being alone."

She didn't understand the snappy tone he used, or why he even cared. She was well past that point, as Cedric's body still flickered behind her eyes every time she blinked. She just sat there like a useless, hopeless lump.

He stood there for another few awkward moments before finally turning to leave, she heard a quiet, muttered conversation not far down the hall now, but whatever he'd said to deter Potter had worked no better this time than any other time he'd ever tried. Yet when he came in, Potter was sanse swagger, for once. She wondered if it was due to his still limping, that instead of strutting around like usual, he walked almost casually to her side. "Alright Evans?" He asked softly.

"No," she managed through a still clotted throat.

He nodded, like that didn't surprise him, and instead looked around with bemusement. "Ah, sorry you had to wind up in here, not exactly my favorite room. Tradition and all that it even exists," he gestured vaguely over his shoulder to the family tree. "I think your portrait would have been the only thing I liked about this place," he added with a self congratulatory grin.

"Brilliant Prongs, really," Lupin called from where he was still listing on the door jamb. "Why don't you add a glib comment about Smith landing in your room of all places, I'm sure that'll also brighten her day."

"Don't be crass Moony," Potter rebuked cheerfully, "obviously we'll be going on our date through the secrets of Hogsmeade before she ever sees that!"

The snap came easily to her lips. "Not if it was between you and the giant squid!" Even to her own ears, it sounded far more exasperated than belligerent as usual. She almost couldn't believe what she was hearing, how did he still manage to smile like that despite everything? Maybe he was touched in the head, like she'd said many a times long before now.

He smiled unrepentantly and promised, "that can be arranged on the tour. Until then Evans," he gave her a grand, sweeping gesture worthy of the highest monarchy as he bowed to her, and then turned and grabbed his friend's shoulder, steering him from the room.

She didn't know if he'd had the book this whole time, or if he'd found it in here while she'd been distracted, but only moments later Lupin's tired, strained voice enveloped her and the whole mansion with the words, "Priori Incantatem."

A charm, she recognized at once, to show the last spells a wand had used. What could that have to do with Harry? Were they going to get a highlights of his last moments, his last desperate bids for survival before You-Know-Who finally killed him too, extinguishing the Potter line? Would his body materialize in this very room, like his name on the tree would in only a few years time?

Sirius looked around in surprise to find himself in 'his room,' or so James had dubbed it since his first visit here. He really didn't know why Prongs bothered, Sirius actually preferred to sleep at the foot of his bed most nights when he stayed over. Still, his personal things did seem to end up scattered in here more often than naught.

Several of his limited edition Chocolate Frog Cards were being used as bookmarks in his Muggle magazines he hadn't dared take back to Grimmauld place for their personal value, an old letter to Moony sat innocently on the windowsill, and several piles of clothes had turned into freshly laundered and folded piles of clothes since he'd last been here. It was exactly where he'd needed to be, he felt safer in this spare room than he ever could have dreamed he would in Grimmauld place. The effect was ruined by Regulus' surprised black eyes flitting around, taking in everything same as him.

He didn't dare look at him or he'd burn the little twits face off. He couldn't stand to be around anyone but his friends right now with how furiously murderous he was, the last thing he needed was hearing Regulus trying to defend Peter's future actions! Peter! He had to go check on him, could barely stand now to let him out of his sight until he found a way to fix this permanently.

"Sirius-" but Sirius didn't stop and acknowledge him this time, he had to find his real brothers. He grabbed a shirt at random from the pile as he stalked out without a backwards look.

He breathed only mildly easier when he heard Moony start reading as he traversed the wide, brightly lit hallways of the Potter Manor. What they were still hearing of was monstrous, he already knew he'd have been there for Harry to keep him away from those Death Eaters if he could! Being in this home only reinforced the boiling hatred he had for every one of them out there, laughing as his fourteen year old godson was sent to duel V-Voldemort. He had to find a way to fix this, for Harry to grow up knowing this as his home as surely as Sirius now did.

He froze in fury as he passed Mr. and Mrs. Potter's room to see Frank standing awkwardly in the middle. Some small part of him recognized this wasn't his fault, but that didn't stop him pushing the ajar door all the way open and coming inside to shoo him out.

Frank only had to look at him to take the hint, not speaking a word to each other as they went down opposite ends of the hall.

Regulus found he was still sniffling and trying not to cry, still wanting to beg Sirius to come back and not leave him in this strange place even if he was long gone, had been for years now. He felt open, exposed in this brightly lit room, in a stranger's home that Sirius had looked upon with more love than anything he'd ever seen.

He didn't know what to do, there was only a hopeless feeling left clinging to his curdled stomach. Listening to Harry duel the Dark Lord was a true nightmare, the only boy on earth who could ever survive such a thing certainly wasn't now, being used like a play thing instead with the Imperius Curse upon him. Once Harry died though, would they really be free of this? What hope did he have to go back to? He had nowhere else to turn to, not like Sirius did. Would Peter just laugh at him and tell him to figure it out while he and his friends went back to Gryffindor tower? Would he have any choice but joining the Dark Lord's inner circle? He couldn't decide if he'd been relieved, offended, or terrified to find himself not even mentioned like many of his cousins had been during the previous part.

Sirius finally sighed in relief to find him in the Potter's kitchen, stuffing his bags and pockets full to bursting with more food, though an entirely absent look on his face. He was clearly manhandling the peanuts into a side pouch on autopilot, though it was odd still not to see Pippit, the Potter's house-elf, wandering around helping him. It had been weird enough not to see them flitting about the Hogwarts kitchens.

A bit of shame welled up in Sirius as he watched him, his right arm in particular, confirming to his own head repeatedly there really was no Dark Mark there. His imagination had run wild with him while he'd gone around here, the graveyard they'd just left still clinging to his mind like mist. This was still his Peter though, not the mangled creature of the future doing nothing to help Harry as he should.

Peter looked up then and caught him staring. He gave an awkward sort of grin and held his hand out expectantly, and Sirius wordlessly handed his bag over to be shoved full of food next, the silence still odd between them, but no longer as awkward as it could have been. The ghost of Prongs and Evans having a hand in rescuing Harry, possibly the oddest peace maker they had, as a reminder of what they had to lose.

[missjosie27]

Year 3 Part 9- Duel with Barnaby

Hey guys!

I enjoyed writing this one immensely because I feel like JC has butchered or reduced Barnaby down to an intelligence even lower than that of Patrick Star or Forest Gump. I feel there's a lot more depth to him even if he's not the brightest bulb on the porch. And though I give a lot of attention to Merula, he deserves a greater amount of coverage and nuance as well

So for those of you who like Barnaby, this one's for you. Enjoy!

How to approach a potentially hostile Slytherin: that was the ultimate question.

For David it presented a unique challenge, one untested until this very moment. For as long as he had attended Hogwarts, Slytherin House was an enemy, an antithesis to everything he believed in and a hindrance to finding the vaults along with his brother. Merula was the primary source for that picture, but it wasn’t only her. As Bill and Hagrid pointed out, many children of Death Eaters still attended the school, the overwhelming majority of them in Slytherin. And the ones that weren’t tended to be odd, reclusive, self obsessed, or alarmingly ambitious. It wasn’t a coincidence.

And yet in order to win over Barnaby to their side, he needed to drop these prejudices, at least for the moment. He still wasn’t sure this was a good idea but Tulip’s ideas, though often eccentric, tended to see things that others often overlooked. He would trust that instinct for now. The real problem was how to approach him.

Despite the huge Slytherin being seemingly more approachable, David was still quite hesitant. After all, they had opposed each other at least twice already and in both instances Barnaby was left either smelling like foul eggs or on the ground covered in snow. One wrong word might backfire immensely. He opted to try and talk to him in a more private setting but that proved to be impossible, as he was almost always with Merula and Ismelda during and after potions neither of which he had a desire to speak with at the moment.

So he tried a new approach, one more befitting of a Gryffindor but with a reasonable amount of tact. During lunch on a Wednesday, quiet by Hogwarts standards, he took the opportunity to walk over to the Slytherin table (with great caution) when Barnaby was alone and not flanked by the two girls. He was well aware of the dirty looks he received from the older students and some looked ready to curse him into oblivion, but he knew they wouldn’t, not with teachers everywhere. Most seemed content to ignore him.

“Barnaby?”

The teen looked up from his massive pile of roast beef and potatoes and gazed upon David with intense curiosity.

“Wat oo yu ooing er?”

“You might want to try swallowing.”

Barnaby did so and repeated the question though it was not hostile.

“What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to talk.”

“Talk about what?”

At this point, some of the Slytherins were looking over and had their wands withdrawn but a silent hand from Barnaby eased that tension.

“About what’s been going on lately. And the vaults.”

Barnaby narrowed his eyes ever so slightly.

“You know I stunk for weeks after that dungbomb. I’ve never taken so many baths in my life.”

“I’m sor-”

“And I mean three times a day. I didn’t know it was possible to bathe that many times. My mom said just once is usually enough.”

David paused at the childlike reasoning of the giant teen in front of him.

“Err...right. Sorry about that.”

Barnaby shrugged as though it had never happened.

“Tulip promised me a box of Peppermint Toads if I talked to you. What do you want?”

Good old, Tulip. She bribed the moron beforehand

“Do you like working for Merula?” he asked him directly.

Barnaby blinked stupidly at the question.

“I don’t work for her. We’re partners.” The statement sounded more like a question, doubt evident in his deep voice.

“Sure that’s why she considers you lesser than a bowl of tripe. But has she ever let you make a decision? Does she ever share her plans with you? Has she ever thanked you for anything?”

Barnaby thought for a second.

“No...no...and I forgot the last thing you said was.”

Resisting the urge to sigh, David continued on with his case.

“You should work with us, Barnaby. Not Merula. And notice how I said ‘with’ not ‘for’. I don’t treat my friends like objects to be cast aside.”

The Slytherin seemed to be taken aback.

“Why do you think I can help?”

“For many reasons, but above everything else you’re powerful and can duel better than most sixth years. I know firsthand how difficult it is to break into a cursed vault. We could use that kind of strength.”

It was quite clear from Barnaby’s reaction that no one had ever bothered to pay him that kind of compliment before or even if they had, it was few and far in between. He took his large fingers, which were covered in silver rings, and began rubbing his chin.

“Uh..you alright?”

“I’m thinking about your words.”

David made a final appeal to get the message across.

“I’m not going to boss you around or call you names like Merula does. I just want your help to find my brother. That’s all.”

Suddenly, a wide smile stretched across Barnaby’s face.

“I like you, Grant.”

“You do?” David asked, surprised it could possibly be this easy.

“Yeah! We should fight.”

Of course it wouldn’t be that easy

“What?” he said in a nonplussed tone.

“I need to prove I’m tough enough to help you and you need to prove you're tough enough to be my new partner,” Barnaby reasoned.

“But I’ve technically already beaten you.”

“That was three on one,” the burly teen shaking his head. “It doesn’t count. Group fighting isn’t the same as one on one.”

He finished eating the last of his lunch, stood up, and clapped a giant hand on David’s shoulder.

“Meet me on the training grounds this Friday after lessons. If you can beat me, I’ll ditch Merula and help you enter the next vault.”

“Why not just do it now?” David asked genuinely.

“Wouldn’t be fair that way,” Barnaby told him. “We both need time to get ready. See you on Friday!”

The third year Gryffindor could only watch as the Slytherin grabbed his bag and began to whistle cheerfully as he exited the Great Hall. It was only when a piece of bread was chucked at him along with an expletive he realized he needed to remove himself from Slytherin territory.

What he didn’t realize was what he had gotten himself into.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

When Rowan and Ben found out what he agreed to with Barnaby, both cautioned against it.

“Dave, no offense, you’re a good dueler, but Barnaby is the best in our year for a reason. It’s not a good idea to go up against him.”

“What if he seriously hurts you or something?” the blond asked nervously.

“Mates, I’ve explained this already. Barnaby isn’t trying to harm me he’s trying to test me. If I beat him one on one he’ll join us and stop hanging around Merula. We’ve got nothing to lose.”

David was looking over his last bit of notes in the Gryffindor common room before meeting Barnaby for their duel. The weather was surprisingly sunny, and the conditions ideal as you would find in late winter.

“But if wins you’ll just end up in the Hospital Wing and we go right back to where we started from,” Rowan pointed out. “And what then? I haven’t finished deciphering the notebook yet.”

“And Merula will just come after you even more,” Ben added.

David put on his jacket and hat while pocketing his wand. Classes were done and he was ready. Barnaby might be twice as large and physically stronger but he couldn’t back down now.

“You guys worry too much,” he told them with a somewhat cocky smile. “If I can handle three Slytherins at a time, then I’m going to be more than fine against one.”

“Just be careful,” his best friend told him. “We don’t know if we can trust Barnaby yet. Keep your guard up.”

David smiled knowing full well Rowan was just looking out for his well being and he appreciated the gesture.

“I will. Now wish me luck and watch me as I win this duel.”

As he exited and pushed past the portrait of the fat lady, Ben couldn’t help but sigh with jealousy.

“He asked for luck but still has full confidence that he’s going to win the duel. I wish I carried myself like that.”

“Don’t envy everything about Dave,” Rowan said wisely as he read his Magical History book. “He’s more complicated than lets on.”

“But...he’s the most competent person I know save for the teachers. He’s taught me so many things.”

“I’m his best friend, Ben. But even I don’t know all that he’s been through.”

The blond appeared puzzled.

“What are you saying? As far as I’m concerned, he’s a hero.”

Rowan shut his book with a soft thud.

“Even heroes have demons.”

Neither boy spoke much after that but each seemed to consider that the leader of their group had a cocky streak that hid something much deeper.

Even if he would never admit doing so.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sure enough, Barnaby was there waiting for him upon his arrival. By now the snow on the ground had begun to melt a little and the grass below them was little more than a muddle cesspool. But neither minded so much as the milder weather provided the perfect chance to duel without the howling wind or hail. David greeted him in a friendly manner to start things off on the right foot.

“You showed up,” the Slytherin said simply.

“Well yeah, it’s a duel after all.”

This seemed to cater to Barnaby’s simple way of looking at things as he smiled once more.

“I like you, Grant. You keep being nice. If you beat me in a duel, I know you’re tough for real.”

“And then you’ll stop working with Merula and help us find the next Cursed Vault?”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

David paused for a second, confused, though he tried to be as patient as he could be. After all, Barnaby probably didn’t remember what he had for breakfast.

“It was your idea, Barnaby…”

“Oh, right. I’ll do my idea then.”

David by now knew enough about the gargantuan teen to be aware that he was not taking the mickey and also the sincerity of his personality. Certainly a different kind of opponent than he had taken on in the past.

They took positions about thirty feet from each other and each withdrew their wands.

“I’ll warn you, David. I’ve never lost a duel,” Barnaby said with a confident grin.

The Gryffindor could only grin back.

“That’s funny, neither have I.”

Without warning, however, Barnaby struck first sending a disarming spell his way, which he managed to avoid. But unlike his other opponents, Barnaby didn’t rest on his laurels. Spell after spell and ‘Expelliarmus’ after ‘Expelliarmus’, the barrage was relentless and it was so quick David barely had time to recover and send anything back.

After the six stunner, he managed to fire off a Knockback jinx but it only threw back the Slytherin back a few yards and he stayed on his feet.

“Son of a…”

He never had time to finish the swear as Barnaby sent a slew of ropes towards him which missed but then caught him with a blasting curse, the impact of which sent him sprawling on the ground.

Not giving up, he leapt back up and fired back.

‘Depulso!’

The spell sailed over Barnaby’s right shoulder and he responded in kind.

‘Convulsio!’

The spell hit his left leg and it began spazzing as though he had a charlie horse. The sensation was incredibly uncomfortable but David gritted his teeth and managed to dodge another one of Barnaby’s spells, ‘Restricta!’

Ignoring the pain, he tried to use a time old tactic: distraction.

‘Fumo!’

Smoke temporarily blocked Barnaby’s view but with a wave of his wand, he cast it aside and sent another stunner before David could follow up a blasting hex.

Okay, this isn’t working

The burly Slytherin hadn’t been lying: he was good and it was also easy to see why he never lost a duel. His spellwork was precise and accurate, but also fast and nearly impossible to sidestep. The incantations combined with flicks of the wrist and a strong stance made Barnaby the toughest opponent he yet faced.

As he was forced to dodge yet another spell, this one blue in color, he flicked his wand forward and managed to hit Barnaby in the stomach with a tickling spell in order to buy time. To his shock, however, the effect did little other than to cause him to clutch his stomach.

“Those kinds of spells won’t work on me,” he called out. “I just so happen to be immune to tickling.”

It was the first thing Barnaby said all the while they were dueling, a refreshing change of pace from Merula, but the irrefutable fact remained. The Slytherin’s relentless battering ram style was unlike anything he faced before and only raw brute strength would take him down, strength that was failing him.

David was forced to bend down onto one knee when Barnaby yelled out ‘Stupefy’ in order to stun him. Clearly he was intent on ending this soon as his left leg had already given out.

No, not yet

Taking aim, the teenage Gryffindor did the only thing he felt was available to him. He knew the incantation and though he never attempted it personally, felt there was nothing left to lose. Either he would succeed or Barnaby would win the duel.

‘Stupefy!’

A powerful blast of red light shot forward and caught Barnaby square in the chest, uplifting him off his feet and onto the ground in a massive heap.

Breathing heavily, David limped over to Barnaby with the last he could give on his bad leg and offered his hand to the utterly dazed and confused opponent.

“Wha…”

“Come on, big guy.”

Once returned to his senses the Slytherin pushed himself back onto his feet and almost took David with him, who could barely stand as it was, causing him to grunt with pain.

“Oh, I’m sorry, David.”

Barnaby cast the counter curse and instantly his leg went back to normal.

“Thanks.”

“Blimey, I thought you had to be mean to hurt someone that badly,” the Slytherin spoke aloud rubbing his shoulder.

“Are you alright?”

“Are you kidding? This is nothing. A few of us Slytherins start every day by doing what we just did. They say it gets you in the right mindset.”

“Mindset for what?” David asked, very curious as to what kind of culture he was dealing with.

“To toughen up and be the best,” came the simple reply.

He elected not to press the issue and instead emphasize his victory respectfully in hopes that Barnaby would finally acquiesce and willingly join his team.

“Well there’s no doubt you’re tough, Barnaby. Will you help me with the cursed vault?”

Barnaby smiled, although he was still in some pain from the duel. They both were.

“You’ve proven you’re strong enough to beat me. You have a deal, David. But on one condition.”

Oh Merlin

“And what would that be?”

“We celebrate with a butterbeer,” he said cherrily.

“But there’s no Hogsmeade visit this weekend.”

“I can never remember when those happen,” Barnaby said, scratching his head. “But luckily, I always keep some on hand.”

He summoned two canteens from his back pocket and handed one to David, which he took with a degree of surprise.

“Cheers!” the Barnaby said, clinking his canteen against his and taking a large sip. “Let’s take a walk around the grounds.”

David obliged and together, the two began to traverse around the perimeter of the school, taking in the light breeze and bright blue sky which was beginning to turn into a reddish, gold. The young teen didn’t know what to expect but he indulged Barnaby all the same, who appeared quite content.

“I love a good butterbeer after a duel. They say it heals all bruises and broken bones.”

“Who says that?” David asked, raising an eyebrow.

Barnaby shrugged.

“I can’t remember. I’m sure someone said it.”

Resisting the urge to openly chuckle, David again marveled at the simplicity that his newfound acquaintance operated under. It was stupidly charming in a way. Given this fact, there was a question lurking in his mind he felt he had to ask him.

“You say I’m nice, but you’re quite friendly yourself. Too friendly to be hanging out with Merula. How did you two end up being friends?”

Barnaby’s face turned frank and even a bit solemn.

“We have a lot in common. Both of our parents were Death Eaters.”

David had to resist choking on his butterbeer.

“Wait...really?” He knew Merula’s parents were locked up in Azkaban but this was new information to him.

“Why are you so surprised? Everyone knows Slytherins have the most interesting childhoods,” Barnaby stated as though it were obvious.

“Interesting is one way of putting it I suppose.”

“Do you mean being the children of Death Eaters? Because you’re not wrong. There’s a lot of us in Slytherin. We have to stick together because no one else will.”

David never considered this aspect before. There was something very raw but also very poignant about what the burly Slytherin was saying.

“I never thought of it that way, but you might be right.”

“That’s why I believe Harry Potter will be a Slytherin. Someone that powerful as a baby has to be in our house!”

“Who knows,” the Gryffindor said with a half shrug. “He could be incredibly brave too. Sounds more like my house.”

“It’s power that helps protect yourself and people you care about. It’s better to be strong than weak.”

David suddenly realized these weren’t only Barnaby’s words.

“Look I can’t believe I’m saying this, but not every Slytherin has to be obsessed with being powerful. You don’t seem that way. So why focus on it all the time?”

“Because it’s what my dad taught me. His words. ‘It’s better to be strong than weak.’ Anything that can make you more powerful can only help in that.”

He sighed as he put his canteen back inside the pants pocket.

“You probably think my family is mad. I don’t blame you.”

“Far from it,” David reassured him and suddenly they stopped in front of the Whomping Willow, a dangerous tree liable to strike anything that came near it.

“They were Death Eaters. To be a Death Eater, everyone says you have to be mad.”

“I can relate to unstable family members. Try me.”

Barnaby considered this for a second, silver rings glistening in the sunlight one of which was inscribed ‘Vires In Virtute’. Far from being a simpleton, this time the Slytherin was considering how to properly explain things.

“My family’s crest follows the creed of strength. We’ve also been pure blood for centuries. For my dad, it was an opportunity and a duty to remain both. He followed the Dark Lord more willingly than others….I saw him once, actually.”

David almost didn’t register that last remark. It was one thing to read about the darkest wizard in many generations but to see him? He almost did a double take.

“You saw You Know Who?”

“He stopped by once as a little kid. At first I was afraid but my parents told me if I could become as strong as the Dark Lord, I could be anything. Mum was nice, but dad always said I was slow. It was the best way for me to be good at something. So I’ve spent my entire life doing so, even after they were both arrested.”

“When did that happen?”

“Shortly after You Know Who died. Didn’t take long for the Aurors to catch up. They were well known for doing a lot of horrible things.”

Following the duel in the foggy snow, David remembered feeling a pang of sympathy for Barnaby when hearing Merula insulting him. That pang was now a large wave.

“Barnaby, mate. There’s more to life than being strong. And those other kids aren’t the only ones to take after. You should do what makes you happy rather than what pleases other people...including your mum and dad.”

He looked up at the willow alongside Barnaby, studying its bare branches and thick, gnarled trunk.

“I know what it’s like to try and live up to an older family member. I’m trying to find him right now. And that’s what I need your help with.”

“Your friends won’t hate me? Or think I’m mad?”

“No. If anything it’s the opposite,” David said truthfully. Even uninformed people thought Barnaby to be stupid but not crazy or cruel. “Besides, if I can ingratiate Tulip into our group I can with anyone.”

“What does ‘en-gradiate’ mean?”

David again had to stifle a chuckle but it was not a demeaning one. On the contrary, he was beginning to enjoy the way Barnaby’s mind worked.

“It means that I want you to join our little group...as a friend.”

He held out his hand in a final gesture of goodwill, which the burly Slytherin took, cementing their new friendship in a masculine bond.

“Thank you.”

It was settled. Somehow or another, David had convinced Barnaby Lee to switch sides, a huge victory no matter which way you sliced it. It was one step closer to solving the ultimate mystery they had yet to solve.

[sweet-marie]

excerpt of memoir from last year which i kinda hate now<3 but it has its moments

I decided I was going to drown myself. There was no plug to the bath, but that was easily solved by stuffing the washcloth down the drain. I climbed in and waited as the water rose pleasantly warm over the cold gooseflesh of my legs, short hair starting to prickle over them. This felt good. I didn’t remember exactly what Sylvia Plath had said, about baths, but I tried to remember it as the water closed around my ears.

   In water I always felt calm as a whale. My swimsuit was like a fine blubber. My limbs would float, my cells swam around me. The microscopic composition of my body, narrowed down to those precise and perfect details, was invisible to me, an unknowable pile of nerves and jelly membranes. I can’t see my own eyes, of course, that’s a secret to me forever; the same way I can’t go looking around in the dark for my sight… I can see me in your eyes! I told a stranger, delightedly. I was four and the man was bobbing in the community pool across from me. I can see me in your eyes, he replied from behind his sunglasses.

   I had a dream about a pool, said Leona, so large-eyed and beautiful, vulnerable, almost alien. So blue. It was—pristine. She loved to say the word.

   She loved to make collages about the Holocaust.

   Blood chased my feet in the shower at home—they were a pair of moon-white fish, speared by something, circling, dying…

   Blood oranges water, not pinks it!

   Thom told me this under the grim sky of the schoolyard, gray clouds pressing down on us. We had both refused to change our clothes to the PE uniform, and the others flocked around us in gray shirts. Blood oranges water—I thought to myself this was a good description and I had to remember it. She was right.

   The warm bathwater was crowding in on me. Sylvia Plath had said something, I knew, in The Bell Jar—something about remembering the ceilings above the bath, maybe.

   Water made such mysterious sounds inside my ears. I always liked it. I tried to breathe in, to gulp down the warm water and fill my lungs but I couldn’t manage it. I had already decided not to drown myself, after all. I didn’t want some nurse to find me naked anyway. I took a breath.

   At home I had once tried to choke myself in the shower, my hands grasping my neck as I sobbed and spat into the water. You look fucking stupid, I thought, watching my face contort with tears in the foggy mirror. It was extremely satisfying to watch my eyes turn soft blobby pink, quavering with light. Yes, I was so sad. Yes! All these plans I knew wouldn’t work.

   Well, it didn’t. And now I didn’t have a clean washcloth. Stupid.

   I enjoyed it and decided to take a lot more baths from then on.

///

Leona, Happy, and Jennifer spent a lot of time on their collages. We were shepherded from C Unit to the art room through the soft winterlike light of the hospital halls. We passed the adult ward quietly. We never saw the adult patients, but they left some of their projects hanging in the art room, charcoal drawings mostly. They looked like self-portraits of ghosts. There were lots of National Geographics for Leona, Happy, and Jen: plenty of atrocities to choose from. The snowy black grain of dead bodies piled into a twisted unfathomable geometry of limbs; the sick, the starving and murdered. A headline about the heroin epidemic also. Jen was only allowed to post the word heroin on her wall if she added an e, which we all thought was hilarious.

   What is so bad about methamphetamine? Happy asked. The conversation frequently became about drugs. All of us laughed a lot about the question. I didn’t know anything about drugs. Jen and Happy were busy one night making lists of the good drugs and the bad ones and they’d tried most of the things I’d heard of and some I hadn’t.

   What is so bad about methamphetamine? It was a joke that was then repeated often.

   One of the nurses said something like, Please change the subject, or, That is inappropriate.

   Leona, Happy, and Jen were seventeen, the oldest of our friends; older than many of the children on the unit, young enough that they sometimes forgot to care what the little kids heard.

   Johny, our youngest friend, was fourteen. He seemed the saddest. He had very long, skinny fingers like an old man. He told me that I had pretty eyes, sometimes blue sometimes green—when had anybody ever liked me this much, outside of this awful place. He said, My eyes are shit brown. I just laughed along. It didn’t occur to me to say anything nice, even though I would have meant it. My voice was tired; I’d fallen out of the habit of saying what I thought.

   When Thom visited she talked enough that I didn’t have to say a lot. That was how it often was with us. She brought me a huge bag of my favorite sour candy, and flaming hot Cheetos for Esmeralda, my ten-year-old roommate. It wasn’t allowed, but we invited her to stay with us while Thom put makeup on me.

   A muscle in Esmeralda’s cheek jumped, not working towards speech, just a violent, repetitive twitch I’d never seen before. I didn’t understand, somehow.

   What? I said.

   She covered her cheek with one hand. It’s a tic.

   It didn’t go away even after we got her to laugh—a hesitant few syllables—at something, some joke. Thom’s hair was blonde and blue now. Sometimes, when she laughed the hardest, she used to press her face into my shoulder. I never knew what to do when people touched me. The first time she put her head on my shoulder we were watching Bolt on TV at her house and drinking bottles of orange Fanta, a blanket spread over our laps. She didn’t say anything, just leaned on me. I sat extremely still, so still it hurt. What do people do? I still haven’t learned.

   Do you think I’ll go to hell if I kill myself? I demanded of my father.

   You could, he said. You don’t know.

   He held me and sobbed. You can’t. I couldn’t. Live without you.

   I was so angry I didn’t know what to do. Anger rose in my mouth, made my spit sour. I needed him to let go of me. He was too warm, and his coat was too big. For the first time my mother had started looking so old. In some quieter country of myself, maybe, I have been saving up facts, how to recognize this look, how to gently handle remains.

///

The only outdoor part of the hospital was a courtyard sealed in glass, like an aquarium. It wasn’t much, but we were always begging to be taken there anyway, into the real gold light of the sun instead of our usual, indoor wintry fluorescence. And it got tiring to breathe the same dull air and pace the same few rooms, especially that day we were locked in for hours, while some men came in to do something about the mysterious dark stain spreading on the ceiling of the day room.

   Everyone loved to go out. Even Celsa went sometimes, and she was so doped up on lithium she barely did anything, even breakfast. Bribes and threats did not work on her. I witnessed it firsthand in my brief duration as her roommate. She was always drowning in bedsheets, drowning in sleep like wet sand. Her eyes were dark with it. My friends gently urged her to come outside with us one night. Celsa gave a tired smile, peered out from under her hair, and agreed. She laughed a little when she played tag with the kids in the dark. She never really said a word. It is good to be with other people, it is not always easy to do. But—it was beautifully possible to have friends in this small, suspended space. I had not often felt when I was very young that I had friends. I felt too tall and serious to be a real child. Here, with our usual secrecy stolen from us, we met each other with our faces plainly lit and open, four floors above the real world.

   It was possible to have friends. I’d been so sad. I never knew how to smile with my face leaned toward burning-down candles, opening my brightly-colored birthday presents. There were days, it was decided, you were supposed to be happier on certain days, and I just wasn’t.

   A man with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen asked me, in the emergency room, what was wrong. I didn’t want my parents to overhear. I explained quietly about the stupid incident in the bathroom stall at school, the knit gloves over my wrists, and the thing with the Tylenol, and I did—other things… I started to cry. Sometimes I forced sobs out to get rid of the rising bad feeling, an intentional purge; and then there was this other kind of crying, which was different, and took me by surprise. I never knew it would happen until I had already started.

   The psychologist with blue eyes looked very sad for me. All I wanted was sympathy; I was intensely hungry for sympathy almost all the time, from anyone, but this somehow made it worse, and I didn’t even know whether he meant it.

   I was wheeled up in my hospital gown. I tried to walk, but they explained it didn’t work that way.

   Up an elevator, through security gates, through locked doors; a woman’s hands flitted under my clothes, checking for blades, mapping injuries on a piece of paper. There was still cold glue on my chest from the EKG. They’d wanted to examine my heart. There was nothing wrong with my heart. I just couldn’t stop its sickening, wild beat.

   It was night, but I was allowed in the day room, wide and silent and dark. I opened the refrigerator—mostly juice. A few months ago, my mother and I had fought, and as I bent my head over some homework that night she silently moved my glass of cranberry juice away from my textbook, so it wouldn’t spill on it. And horrible hope and guilt rushed through me, because I knew she loved me.

   I didn’t even like juice. I closed the door and went to a table.

   I started drawing pictures because I didn’t know what else to do. I liked to keep my hands occupied, all the time. At first, no one was there, but then there appeared a small gathering of curious children, and Johny.

   All the children began to ask, Will you draw me? Will you draw me?, and Johny smiled and cast his dark eyes down.

   I asked Esmeralda if she wanted me to draw her, but she started shaking her head before I could finish the question.

   Draw me, demanded Rain, a little girl in pajamas and gym shoes.

   I did, I did draw most everyone, lots of times. It has been my impulse to give myself away freely, without thinking. I tell people nearly all of my secrets. Here: I won’t need this. I will be going away.

[88missmarauder88]

Sirius x Reader / Remus x Reader -- Part III

I feel like this part is wicked long, but I’m way too into this now, I can’t stop myself lol 

Tag List: @ideas-nocturnas , @evyiione , @a-hopeless-and-imaginative-girl , @intense-sneezing , @ghostlyrose2 , @peasantview , @la-fille-en-aiguilles , @toasterking , @too-involved , @onthebroadway

"All right, Prongsy; out with it."

"Keep your voice down, you pillock!"

"You've hardly said a word all day. You didn't even attempt to help me set Reg's tie on fire when he popped off about United. And Evans walked past you three times between classes, and you didn't do that daft shit with your hair once."

"As touched as I am by your concern, under the cloak on the way to the kitchens isn't really the best time for a chat, on account of how Filch isn’t deaf."

"Untwist your knickers. I checked the map before we left, he's out in the greenhouses, probably having a kip. So what's going on? Somebody book the pitch for the day you wanted tryouts? Is it because it was sticky toffee instead of treacle for pudding last night? Did you find out Evans is secretly betrothed to Amycus Carrow? Alecto?"

"Fuck's own sake! Would you shut it and tickle the pear already?"

"No amount of sexy talk is going to distract me from this."

James yanked the invisibility cloak off, shoving it into the waistband of his pyjama bottoms and shaking his head in frustration.

"You truly are the most obnoxious knobhead breathing. What any girl at this school sees in you is beyond me."

Sirius struck a regal pose and gestured up and down his body, then dodged as James aimed a foot at his shin.

"Well? You asked. A pretty face, a pile of money, and a seat at the Noble and Most Ancient Table at every banquet and ball from now until death do us part."

He reached out and wiggled a finger over the pear in the fruit bowl portrait, his smirk replaced by a sudden scowl.

"In other words, they don't see a goddamn thing in me. Just the candy coating."

James remained standing in the corridor after Sirius had yanked open the secret door to the kitchens and stalked inside. The past eight hours had been little more than a blur. He vaguely recalled stumbling up to the tower with significant help from Sirius and Peter. He also seemed to remember being deposited in an armchair near the windows after Remus announced that, as the Marauder with the strongest sense of smell, he was hereby granting himself the power of banishment over anyone who posed "a spewing threat". James didn't know how long he'd slept before he was woken by the sound of voices, but he wished like hell he'd stayed asleep.

He hadn't meant to spy on you and Lily. He'd wanted to stand up and announce himself as soon as he sussed out who was talking -- and, particularly, what they were talking about -- but he was afraid the two of you wouldn't believe him if he said he'd just woken. He'd thought about trying to crawl up to his dorm but knew that would look even worse if he was caught. As a last resort, he'd put a pillow over his head, but it was just too quiet in the room; he could still hear every word.

Admittedly, he'd taken the pillow down when you'd started talking about Sirius. Not to purposefully eavesdrop, but because he'd never heard you sound that way before. There was awe in your voice, excitement, and he knew it was subconscious. He knew it was honest. So now, here he was. For all intents and purposes, his "sister" was in love with his best friend. And James didn't know whether he should sit idly by and watch things play out or try to subtly do what he could to make sure everyone came out happy on the other side.

Why did you have to go and fall for Sirius? You weren't shallow or hung up on money and status like the girls Pads was talking about just a moment ago. But then... that was just it, wasn't it? You knew Sirius as well as James did. You knew the Sirius behind the aloof playboy mask he wore for everyone else. The wounded and lost yet still caring and kind boy who'd take the fall for his friends without a second thought, who was the first to step between them and anything that might cause them harm. From that perspective, not only could James see why, he frankly couldn't think of a better thing that could've happened to Sirius. He deserved someone who understood him and would take care of him, and James knew you could be that person.

But Sirius was complicated. Overly, even at the best of times. And James was worried about how he'd react if he knew. First off, there was the small matter of not knowing whether Sirius had similar feelings. He undoubtedly loved you as a friend, and he always seemed to be at ease with you. You were a perfect sparring partner when it came to both his smart mouth and his talent, and he flirted with you regularly... although, that wasn't much of a reliable indicator when it came to Sirius. He flirted with McGonagall and the Grey Lady just as often.

Secondly, Sirius was incredibly unpredictable. His parents had never done a good job of anything, save turning him into the most self-loathing person James knew. He never thought he "deserved" to be happy, settling instead for "entertained from a distance". And he didn't do well with emotions or letting people get too close, always afraid his family would find a way to take anything -- or anyone -- they knew was important to him away. So while part of James was telling him he should probably just stay out of the whole thing, another part insisted it couldn't hurt to feel everyone out. After all, what would become of the five of you if you confessed your feelings to Sirius and he didn't share them? And if Sirius didn't want this -- or couldn't handle it -- it sounded as if Remus might. You and Remus could be good for each other as well, James thought, and if Moony really was in love with you, he deserved the chance to let you know in his own way.

James jumped as Sirius kicked open the kitchen door.

"That's it! I know what's wrong with you, Prongs, my lad."

"Enlighten me."

"You've developed a crippling fear of house-elves. But fret not, I bravely stormed the kitchens with absolutely no help from you."

Sirius dropped onto a nearby bench, setting a sack full of food down beside him.

"What're you doing?" James asked. "We can't sit around here in the open, we need to get back."

"Not until you tell me what's going on. And look," he added, digging in the sack. "If you fess up like a good boy, there's a treacle tart of your very own in it for you!"

James slowly sat down on the bench, trying desperately to think of something, anything, he could use as an excuse for his mood. Then it dawned on him. All the rest aside, there was one portion of the early morning's events that would have had him on cloud nine all day if not for the awkwardness of everything else.

"Owing to the fact I was dumped in the common room like a sack of potatoes this morning, I accidentally overheard Y/N and Evans chatting. Evans told her she found me less 'disgusting and intolerable' these days."

"Ace!" Sirius yelped cheerfully, reaching over to violently ruffle James's mop of black hair. "Have to make sure this is properly mussed for when you ask her out at breakfast!"

"Keep... your bloody... voice down!" James hissed through his teeth, whacking Sirius's hand away from his head.

"Why so gloomy, then? I'd've thought you'd be bouncing off the walls over that."

James snatched the treacle tart out of Sirius's hand and took a large bite.

"Well, she followed it up with the fact that hating me less still means the majority of her hates me."

"Semantics. Y/N called that one; you're growing on her."

"Y/N did call that one. She's usually right about these things, isn't she. Good at reading people, I mean."

"She's got all our numbers, that's for sure." Sirius grinned to himself; James took note and continued to watch his face as Sirius munched absently on a sausage roll.

"Now we just need to get the numbers of these blokes who're always sniffing about. I saw Morgan chatting her up again in the courtyard yesterday."

Sirius shoved the last of the roll into his mouth and folded his arms over his chest, glaring at the floor.

"One would've thought a few Stinging Snowballs -- patent pending, Sirius Black, 1975 -- would've gotten the message across."

"Guess we'll have to start getting even more creative. Y'know, since it'll be worse this year."

Sirius looked up at James. "Worse?"

"Oh, sure. We're fifth years now. Before, we really only had to worry about the blokes in our year. Now, we're all fair game for fourth and up. Four years' worth of hormones stampeding around the castle like a rogue erumpent."

"Sons of bitches..."

James quickly took another bite of tart to stop himself grinning.

"Yeah, we'll have to keep our eyes open now. She's a real corker, and everybody's starting to notice it."

“I know she's a corker," Sirius pouted, crossing and recrossing his ankles anxiously. "Have since we were kids. So I guess Duane bloody Morgan's not all that swift on the uptake for a Ravenclaw, is he? She can't... she wouldn't really... she's not serious about these gits, she just went out with them to be polite. She's got to learn to say no to people is all. People who don't really care about her, I mean. The candy coating people."

This time, James didn't respond. Sirius was staring at the ground again, this time with something like sadness in his eyes, and James reckoned he'd learnt enough for one night. He stood and began unfolding the cloak.

"We'd never let her get hurt. Now, come on. Moony and Worm'll think we got nabbed."

James and Sirius made their way back to Gryffindor Tower, where the Marauders stayed awake for another hour or so, eating and playing Exploding Snap. Sirius didn't say much, and his appetite seemed to have disappeared. Eventually, the lamps were put out, and the room was soon filled with the sounds of deep breathing and occasional snores from Peter's bed. Only Sirius was awake to hear them. His thoughts racing along paths they'd never travelled before, he lay staring up at his canopy until first light came creeping through the space at the top of his curtains.

"Mr Black! If I have to remind you one more time that firewhisky does not, in fact, contain medicinal properties, I'm banning the lot of you."

Sirius reluctantly placed the flask in her waiting hand with a sigh. "I'd just hoped you of all people would be open to advancements in the field, Poppy, that's all."

Madam Pomfrey glared at him before making her way to another bed. "You're a doll for trying," you said to Sirius, propping yourself up on your elbows and watching as Pomfrey set about liberally applying lotion to the boy lying five beds down.

"Strange, don't you think, how Morgan managed to mistake poison ivy for betony leaves when he was trying to make that paste for his dog bite? Professor Sprout doesn't generally keep poison ivy in the greenhouses at all, much less where the betony usually is."

"We mustn't be too hard on her," Remus said, fixing his eyes on something suddenly interesting beyond the window behind your bed. "It could happen to the best of us."

"Strange, too, that he had a dog bite in the first place. I don't know that I've ever seen a dog on school grounds."

"You never know what sort of mad beasties are lurking about in the forest," Sirius said, lazily toying with a string on the hem of his Thin Lizzy shirt. Peter snorted, and James elbowed the boy in the ribs. "Gesundheit," he muttered as Peter doubled over.

You shook your head and dropped back onto your pillows with a smile. Taking a bludger to the head didn't typically fall under the category of a blessing, but in your case, it'd been close. In the fortnight since you'd confided in Lily, you'd tried your best to just put the entire mess out of your mind. But with Lily constantly asking if you'd talked to the boys yet and you working overtime to appear extra nonchalant whenever they were around, it was an impossible task. That fact was punctuated rather violently at tryouts: Your attention split between trying not to get caught staring at Sirius and worrying over what Remus and Lily were talking about in the stands, you'd had none left for the bludger one of the new beater candidates had missed.

You were out cold the rest of that night and all of yesterday. You woke this morning to the boys all chattering at once in their relief, pressing flowers and sweets -- and an immediately confiscated flask of firewhisky -- into your hands as Madam Pomfrey did her best to shoo them away. The ensuing few hours had felt blissfully ordinary. If it took blunt trauma to knock some sense into you, so be it. You glanced up at the sound of Remus and James arguing over the last of your Chocolate Frogs to see Sirius looking down at you with clear concern.

"Promise you're all right?"

"If you think I took it hard, you should see the bludger."

The corner of his mouth twitched upwards, but the wrinkle of worry remained between his brows.

"I should've been paying attention. I should've blocked it."

"Sirius, we weren't even in the same drill. I'm the one who wasn't paying attention. But I'm fine. Promise. She said I can go tonight after a few more potions."

You reached over to pat his arm reassuringly. Sirius looked at your hand for a moment before slowly placing his on top of it. You froze. Afraid to look up, you stared instead at his hand, willing your own not to tremble despite the fact every nerve in your body was. Your mouth had gone bone dry, and you licked your lips, trying to think of something to say. James and Remus were no longer bickering, and you could feel their eyes on the two of you. Panicked, you were about to pull your hand back when Sirius's squeezed down around it, moving it from his arm to the edge of your bed. He held it there while he reached into his robes. A moment later, you felt the cool metal of a flask sliding beneath your palm.

Sirius cleared his throat slightly before removing his hand from yours. But he didn't just lift it away; he slid it lightly down and off the edge of the bed, tracing the length of your hand with his fingertips as he went. You looked up. His eyes could have burnt a hole through you. And maybe they were; maybe that would explain the heat spreading like Fiendfyre through your entire body. Better that than acknowledge the fact that you knew you were blushing furiously, that all of them could see it, and that there wasn't a bloody thing you could do about it.

Mercifully, Sirius looked down, and you quickly tried to fill the silence.

"How many of those do you have in there?"

Sirius grinned and opened his robe just enough for you to catch a glint of silver.

"He cast Geminio on it," Peter snickered, and Remus heaved a sigh.

"I'm going to be the first prefect in Hogwarts history to be stripped of his badge within a month, aren't I."

Before anyone could answer, Madam Pomfrey's shrill voice cut through.

"Mr Black!"

"HOW DID YOU EVEN SEE THAT?!"

The matron came marching up the aisle, and Sirius quickly pulled the flask out of his pocket, holding it towards you.

"Cheers!" he said with a smile that thoroughly melted you; a genuine, sweet smile, the sort you remembered from when you were all kids and nothing was complicated. You returned it as you tapped your flask against his, and you both managed to get a couple of healthy swigs down before the flasks went flying out of your hands and into Pomfrey's. As soon as she touched them, two more flasks sprang into being, clattering to the floor.

"Out!!" she ordered, but the Marauders were already halfway to the door. "See you tonight!" James called over his shoulder as they disappeared into the corridor.

"Would it be too much to ask for you to exert a positive influence over your friends?" Madam Pomfrey asked, casting an exasperated look at you as she plunked a creamy purple potion down onto your side table.

"Sorry, Madam Pomfrey, but how terribly dull would that be?"

The corners of her mouth ghosted upwards for a split second before she side-eyed you and returned to Morgan.

"I assume our resident juvenile delinquents weren't leaving willingly," Lily's voice came from the doorway, and you turned as the girl approached your bed, a bag of Chocolate Cauldrons in her hand.

"Bless you," you said dramatically. She handed you the bag with a shrug. "Personally, I don't think these should be sold to anyone who isn't of age, but you've had a traumatic experience. A needless, easily preventable traumatic experience. How are you feeling?"

"Not up to arguing with you over the barbarity of Quidditch."

"Fair dinkum."

"And if you like, in future, you can get me toffees. To be honest, they're my favourites, but nobody knows that because nobody around here ever figures anyone wants anything ordinary. They remind me of my gran, though, and I love them."

"Noted. And that's sweet. Now, let's talk about the boys."

You groaned loudly. "Why don't you just use Crucio? At least it's quicker."

Lily stood and began plumping your pillows, her voice softening.

"I'm not trying to torture you. But don't think I don't know why you got hurt. You're not the seeker because of your awful reflexes. You've been miserable, and you're not going to be un-miserable until something changes. And I think you should know that neither Sirius nor Remus left your side the entire time. When Remus wasn't sitting here reading you Oscar Wilde, Sirius was trying to play you Led Zeppelin songs on his harmonica until Madam Pomfrey made him stop it."

You chuckled at the thought, but amusement was quickly replaced by the turmoil you were becoming so accustomed to when you thought of Remus reading one of your favourite authors. The tightness in your chest flooded back, the constant worry tying your stomach into knots.

"See?" Lily asked. "You can't even be happy for two seconds. So what went on after you woke up?"

You took a deep breath.

"Well... everything was basically normal for the most part, aside from the fact Morgan's over there because Sirius bit him in dog form and then they replaced one of the betony plants with poison ivy so he'd accidentally make a remedy out of it. They all think I don't know they're Animagi now so they can keep Remus company during his transformations, and that's because Remus told them not to involve me because he was too afraid that I'd get hurt, but I was incredibly offended by that, as you can imagine, so I did it over the summer. Became an Animagus, I mean. I really lucked out with the sky being clear the same night I finished with the leaf and it being really stormy for days after that. But they don't know that I've done it. Yet."

You paused for fear that if Lily's jaw dropped any further, it'd dislocate. "I was obviously going to tell you, Lily, there just hadn't been a good time yet."

"Yeah, and now was great," Lily sputtered. "I don't suppose the four of you are registered? Of course you're not, it's the four of you. And Remus is a prefect... I'm a prefect!" she shrieked, as if just remembering the fact. "How can you be sure it'll even work? Do you have any idea how dangerous this is? Do you care at all what will happen to all of you if you're caught?"

Lily buried her face in her hands, breathing heavily, and you remained quiet, allowing her to process. After a few moments, you reached out and squeezed her shoulder. Lily had been your walking, talking conscience for four years now, for all the good it did her, and while she usually managed to overcome her shock fairly quickly, you worried you might have finally found her breaking point. Finally, she exhaled loudly and gave you a weary look.

"What's Potter?"

You grinned. "A stag."

She contemplated a moment before raising her eyebrows and nodding in apparent approval.

"All right. We'll come back to that another time. So what happened that wasn't ‘basically normal’? As if any of that was normal..."

You chewed your bottom lip a moment before continuing. "Sirius had my hand because he was slipping a flask into it -- don't give me that look -- and when he took his hand away, he did it... really... tenderly? And then he was staring at me, and I know I was blushing. They all had to have seen. Remus had to have seen. Then, right before Madam Pomfrey chased them out, he smiled at me, and he looked so happy, Lily. Actually happy... and I can't let myself believe that it had anything to do with me, but Merlin, I wish it had something to do with me."

Lily hopped up onto the edge of your bed and pulled you into a hug. "Only your love story would be heavily sprinkled with illegal activity and alcohol. So you know you and Sirius have to talk, right? Because if it does have something to do with you, then you two need to figure yourselves out for your sakes and for Remus's."

"How am I supposed to do this, Lily? I know them both so well, they both know me so well... somebody is going to get hurt before this is over. How do you come back from that?"

Lily's eyes were suddenly faraway and sad, and her shoulders slumped. "I don't know how you come back from that," she whispered.

"Lily? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she murmured, straightening. "It's just a good question. Unfortunately, I don't think there's a good answer, though, so you have to just remember that people get over being temporarily hurt, but regret over things you should've done and didn't -- that doesn't go away. And love is worth taking all the risks in the world for. Now. Drink your potions, eat your Cauldrons, and I'll see you back in the room tonight."

"Think Y/N's out yet?" Peter asked.

"What does no one understand about not talking in the bloody corridors?!" James seethed. "This is a Cloak of In-vis-i-bil-i-ty. Not a Cloak of Soundproof...ness. When you talk, people CAN HEAR YOU!"

"Shhhh! Honestly, Prongs, would you stop that yelling? People could hear you."

"Fuck off, Padfoot. Dissendium."

The hump on the statue of Gunhilda of Gorsemoor sprung open, and, one by one, the Marauders hopped inside, sliding down into the tunnel below. The amount of stooping it took to navigate the space now that they were taller limited conversation to the occasional "Hurry up" and "That was my heel, you clod", and once they'd reached Honeydukes' cellar, they collapsed onto boxes to rest a bit before collecting sweets for what they'd elected to dub your "Welcome Back to Consciousness" party.

"I still can't believe she got clobbered like that," James said. "She's quick as a cat, that one."

"She wasn't looking," Peter said, digging around in an adjacent box of humbugs. "She was staring off at something when the bludger came back at her."

James rubbed the back of his neck. That explained it, then. He'd seen you staring at Sirius more than once during the drills.

"I thought I was going to be sick when she didn't wake up right away," he said. "I know she can take care of herself and all, but seeing her lying there in that bed just made me feel sort of..."

"Useless," said Remus.

"Helpless," Sirius said at the same time.

Remus was bouncing his leg up and down in agitation. Moony hadn't been this antsy in ages, and James was becoming increasingly distressed about knowing the reason why. He still believed Remus deserved a chance to talk to you about his feelings, but he'd also seen the way you and Sirius had looked at each other that afternoon in the hospital wing. You would never hurt Remus intentionally, but what if it was inevitable at this point?

"I need to say something," Remus remarked suddenly, and James tensed. He hadn't expected this.

"Say it later, yeah?" he suggested, abruptly standing. "We should get the sweets and get back."

"No, Prongs, I need to say it now. I need... advice, I guess? I don't know exactly... I feel like sort of an idiot, but--"

"Did you guys hear that?" James tried desperately. "I think there might be somebody upstairs, we really should get--"

"I think I'm in love with Y/N," Remus blurted.

Silence came down like a lead weight, and James quickly shot a glance at Sirius. He looked stricken, and James's heart sank. He'd still been in the process of trying to gauge Sirius's feelings, but everything that had happened in hospital the last two days combined with the panic in his eyes right now spoke volumes. James couldn't let his best mate suffer. Not when he knew the truth.

"I don't really know if I am or not, though... maybe I'm just being stupid, maybe it's hormones... fuck, why did I even say that, please forget I said that, I'm probably just imagining it, it's definitely not worth ruining a friendship over," Remus was stammering, clearly mortified.

"Moony... yeah, to be totally honest with you, mate, I really don't think--" James began, but Sirius cut him off.

"Nah, Moony, you can't think like that," he said, his voice quiet and unreadable. "If you think you love her, you should tell her. It's worth it. She's worth it."

James watched, stunned, as Sirius stared at the floor for a moment before standing and giving Remus's shoulder a pat. Without another word, he walked over to a shelf at the back of the cellar and grabbed a large bag of toffees before dropping back into the tunnel.

[tjfuckingking]

smoke signals. | self para.

Dimming lights spun in the background, a beautiful wooden desk curved around him and a chair with enough wear for a lifetime beneath him. Folders piled up but they all had their order, no space for clutter in a world where chaos had become a normal part of the day. Sad blue eyes flickered over words that never really meant anything to him. For all of the love that he tried to reinvent inside himself, he would never love the students of Whittemore like he had loved his classmates, with such ferocity that it had killed him more than once. Literally in some cases. 

He had been an angel, a distorted ray of sunshine that’s light had burnt him from the inside out, scorching him for so long that he hadn’t realised he had nothing left. The years of complete darkness and alcohol had been the very worst and now he sat there with the knowledge that a bottle of unopened whisky lay in his draw waiting to comfort him if he needed it but he was too lost in his own thoughts for even that. So many years trying to tell the others what to do, put them back on the right path, begging and bargaining for second chances for them all had come to an end that surprised even him and when he closed his eyes he still remembered that cold crisp night as Whittemore burned down once more and he lay there, impaled and bleeding to what he had almost hoped, was his death. The night he had made them promise, lording his own mortality over their heads, that they would never return. A sad laugh left his lips as he looked around the office that now belonged to him, risen from the ashes was the exact thing he had tried to present and his gaze fixed on the picture of Charles that hung on his wall as a beacon, a reminder, that he would finally be the one who would realise that trying to rewrite the past would only make the present inevitably worse in the long run. Nothing ever really changed.

The ticking of the clock was the only sound as time went by, he had heard the footsteps retract, the whispering disappear. He had figured out already that Bea would have drank herself to sleep or at least gone to bed miserable. Justin and Rose had finished their hallway patrol of his office in the hopes they would go undiscovered but he always knew. He knew everything, and with that omniscient knowledge came power that he never wanted. He finally understood, in depth he had never wanted to, exactly how Charles French had felt. 

He pulled out the bottle of whisky without a second thought but clumsy alcoholism had passed him a few years prior to now and as he unscrewed the lid, he simply made his way over to Charles portrait and found that the mans sad eyes stared right back at him. “I guess you were right about one thing, Charles,” he raised the bottle, “You didn’t need to give me a going away gift, you gave me your life.”

The fractured whirring. He woke up on his desk and the time read twelve, although he already knew it was around that. He had moved out most of the children, built their houses far enough away for this to just be a light sound but every night it got worse. It was hungry.

He held his secret tight, and even though he had told himself that he wouldn’t keep anymore to protect others, the little part of him that was still there, a part of the old TJ, had forced him to. He tried to block out the memory of the note that Jonah had left for Bea, the way that she had cried and the happiness she had found had come to disintegrate and all the while she thought he might come back but he knew better. He knew that he would never come back because his memory was filled with the image of him dissolving into that blue light before his very eyes and disappearing for good. And in all the time they had been here, he had never quite figured out where or when those people would turn up again and in this case he was willing to think they might never do so at all -- wasn’t it better to have hope than to have nothing? He had had hope once and he would of paid any amount to find it again.

“Tyson,” the voice came out of nowhere. Tyler.

“You’re here,” his arm moved, knocking over the open bottle but he didn’t bother to move it as alcohol seeped through paper in it’s sticky brown colour, blurring words and connotations. Keys pulled from a draw without a second thoughts.

Tyler didn’t speak. He was quiet and pale, the shadow of a man. He had been that way since the day that he had seen the fate of Seth McClain. They had both done their best to forget that day but the reality was, they never would. Each step they took closer, the sound intensified, until it was as loud, louder than it ever had been before and beneath the door of the basement was that blue light, spilling out. 

“Move back,” he said in a low voice, knowing well that Tyler was probably as far away as possible. He could say a lot of things about the people who had came to peer before, the ones that were already... gone. But they had never been shy. He was still tormented by the way Seth had stood there enveloped, swallowed whole by the entity that they had all protested to create all those years ago and still he did not understand... why now? “Here goes,” a dry comment to a silent man, a man left with the burden of children that he hadn’t expected with the added sadness of his best friend’s death and a child that had dropped into a slumber like death that nobody knew how to fix.

The chain, heavy as it was, clunked onto the ground with a mighty thud and it didn’t take hands to move the door because something that had never happened before happened then. They flew open. It was blinding. Stronger than ever. He stumbled backwards into the wall shading his eyes from the monstrosity that he spent his life guarding, “Ty--” he began but when he turned to look at the end of the corridor, he was horrified to see that the other man was already glowing, being absorbed by the light. 

Instinctively he tried to shove the doors back shut but the force was too strong. He had been fighting losing battles his entire life but this time he felt weaker than ever and his fingers cut against the metal door handle as he tried to close them again, blind to what he was trying to do. When they finally swung shut he collapsed breathless against them, but Tyler was gone and all that was left to prove he had ever been there was his legacy and now, five not four orphans. The lock was heavy in his hands but the whirring stopped and with a deep breath he shut his eyes to try and banged his head against the shut doors. He should of never opened them, he should of said no.

The sound stopped. It had been fed. “Oh God. Please help me.” 

He sat there all night, and when morning came... He sat there some more. He did not return to his office. 

Heavy feet picked himself up and he threw the doors open, something he had never done before. But, the light had receded, just a small speck that never seemed to disappear from a machine that two young women he had once known had built thinking they could fix the world. 

“What do you want?” He was helpless. “I don’t understand what you want from me. From us. What the hell did we do in our entire lives to deserve this?”

He was talking into a void, he had seen his Father disappear into it and had now seen more than one of his classmates do the same to end up wherever they were wanted, but as he knelt there, staring into a light that he had classified years ago as being evil, he didn’t know what to do. More than that, he didn’t understand why it hadn’t taken him. When it had the choice, it had chosen Seth over Tyler and Tyler over him. There were rules. Rules that were beyond him, it was driving him insane.

He picked the keys back up and when he left, the chain came back across. Although he knew, in his heart, that wouldn’t stop it.

A voice. “Where have you been?” 

“Busy,” he turned to face Justin with tired eyes but the sadness was gone, and as he walked by, he brushed his shoulder on the way back up to the staircase, thankful that at least for now he could keep his secret from the rest of them that lived under this roof. He didn’t need another generation of damaged children trying to play with fire, in a metaphorical or literal sense. 

He didn’t notice that Tyler’s ID bade still lay on the ground at his feet, or that...

“Ty,” there was uncertainty in his tone, “Your leg... you’re not limping...”

He didn’t stop. He hadn’t noticed until that moment that it was true.

His face was red by the time he got to his room. He didn’t know whether to be angry, confused or overjoyed. The clouds of darkness that had been around him for years felt like they were easing away but he didn’t know why, he didn’t want them to. It felt like something inside him was undoing itself and that was a scarier thought than all the pain he had experienced throughout his life. 

He tore his blazer off and then his shirt, buttons popping open and off onto the floor and when he looked at his chest the breath was knocked out of him. “It’s gone,” he breathed and his hands searched as if slapping against his skin, running across it would bring back the scar that had changed his life forever, that had almost killed him for the very last time. He felt robbed. Was that strange? To miss something that almost destroyed you. He stumbled back to sit on the edge of his bed, body crumpling over, head in hands as he shut his eyes tight. “This isn’t how it works.”

Twelve. There was the sound.

It had been days since he had heard it last this loud. He got up from his bed, a cold sweat on his forehead. Something felt wrong. 

Footsteps. He hadn’t heard them in a while. Not this late.

He opened his door, his face stern and ready to ward away whoever it was, he didn’t need people running around outside at night but his mouth opened and shut when he came face to face with the person. His throat was dry, his fingers clenched so hard into his hand that it might have hurt if he hadn’t been reeling in his own shock, blue eyes widened in sheer horror at the face staring back at him and when finally he managed to speak, it was a low dry croak, “...Hazel.”

There was glitter on her face, in her hair, little stars painted on her cheek and she smiled like she’d smiled that night and suddenly he was back there and it all felt so distant but real. The way she tilted her head as if he was the one in the wrong place at the wrong time, the way she spoke. He couldn’t hear the words, he was too confused to hear a thing she said. She was dead. She was here, but she was dead. 

She turned away, and she was walking, walking away from him. He knew it couldn’t be real but his heart was beating so fast that he couldn’t control himself, adrenaline rushed though his body and he was chasing her as she ran and before he knew it, they were there all over again, on the roof. “Please, don’t,” he let out the plea, but just like before he was standing there and watching and she was looking at him, like she wanted him to see, hair blowing in the wind, the same slick smile on her face as she took a step onto the edge. “No!” he shouted, but as he skidded against stone and caught her hand, he already knew how this all ended and this time there was nobody there to stop it. 

“Let go,” she instructed him, trying to untangle her fingers from his, “Let me go.”

So he did. And he didn’t look down. He turned away and sat there in the darkness trying to figure out why it seemed that he would be haunted for his entire life by things that he could never change.

“It’s gone,” he rammed the door open, swaying into the doorway. A miserable expression on his face, eyes sparkling with misery that was both new and old, painted across his face in a thousand shades of the same emotion. He sunk down to the ground and it was the first time in over ten years that he had felt so completely hopeless and resigned, pain panged through him like it was fresh when he knew it had been over thirty years ago. 

“Ty,” Justin jumped out of his bed, confused, it was so late and so unusual, “Talk to me, what’s gone?”

When the other man crouched by his side he stared into his dark eyes trying to remember the last time they had shared anything this important, or anything at all of meaning. It had been so much easier to be at each other’s throats or for him to just ignore him and pretend that nothing was missing from his life when in fact everything was. He took a salty gulp because he may not have been crying but his eyes were stinging as he rose the top of his shirt to show that the scar that had once lay there had disappeared as if it had never happened. “This.”

They looked at each for a few long moments, sitting there on the ground, neither of them sure what to say. 

“Something’s wrong. You have to promise me... Never go downstairs. Never again, Justin. Something bad is happening at this school and I...” saw Hazel. No. He didn’t say it, “Need you to promise.”

“Okay,” Justin was hesitant, “I promise.”

“Good,” TJ blinked. This was real. This was really happening. This was the part of life that existed and he didn’t understand the rest but maybe that was okay, maybe he never had. Reassuring himself didn’t make himself feel any less sick though, and when he stood up, his shirt fell to cover his now perfect torso and he collapsed on Justin’s bed. He’d never even been in this room, in all the years that had passed he’d never found himself here, but now he stared at the ceiling and tried to imagine a world where their lives hadn’t been so screwed up. Where maybe things had been okay for more than a few weeks at a time. “Come here,” he gestured without even looking up, only waiting for the space beside him to be filled. 

The room was dark, there was something comfortable about the silence, something that was different than the isolation he had promised himself would start to feel okay at the very beginning. But alcohol, bad TV and misery, had never been the best company.

“You’re the love of my life, you know,” he said quietly, not moving from his position.

There was a short silence, “I know.” 

[polkadotfairyposts]

A Halloween to Remember

A/N:  Ok so that’s my first fan fiction. Done. It’s not amazing and it totally ran away from me a bit there. But everyone’s gotta start somewhere, right?

Young!Remus x Reader

Warnings: Angst, arguments, a lil’ bit of self-depreciation, some bad language from both our swearwolf and the OC

You were worried. The full moon was last night, but it was fast approaching curfew and Remus still wasn't back. He’d not had to stay so long in the hospital wing since fifth year, which made you worry enough, but when you went to visit him there, you were told in no uncertain terms by Madame Pomfrey that he wasn’t there. Having searched the Library, the Great Hall, his dormitory and the Gryffindor common room throughout the day, you were lost and beginning to panic.

Even his fellow Marauders (you cursed inwardly that even you’d begun to call them by their self-appointed title) had been of little help. Approaching James in your potions class under the pretence of borrowing some ingredients, he’d given you a dismissive reply.

“He’s fine, don’t worry” He muttered before turning back to Sirius, eager to continue planning a Halloween party to rival all their previous years. It was your seventh and final year, after all. The last you would spend in the (relative) safety of Hogwarts, before going out into a tense and wary world, with war brewing on the horizon.

So now here you were, rushing back to the common room just in time to beat curfew and avoid detention, despite being seventeen, you were not a prefect and therefore not allowed out, despite the wizarding world now recognising you as an adult. You’d finished a brief sweep of all the favourite hideouts of Remus’s, checking to make sure you’d not missed him before. No luck. Defeated now, you entered through the portrait hole and into the common room.

Spotting the three amigos near the fire, you made a bee line for them. Sirius was lounging along a burgundy sofa running his fingers through his long black hair, James on the armchair across him playing with a snitch, with Peter on the floor writing an essay.

“Blackthorn, why don’t you come…” Sirius stopped as he registered the worry and barely hidden panic on your face. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I can’t find Remus anywhere. I know you said not to worry, James, but it’s like he’s disappeared. Have you seen him?”

“We’ve not seen him in a while actually” Peter said, laughing. You frowned.

“What, and you’re not at all worried. You know how hard this can be on him and you’ve not even thought to go looking for him?!”

Sirius sighed, got hold of one of his Doc Martens, unlaced them and proceeded to throw the boot across the room at a large pile of blankets abandoned in the corner. The pile groaned.

You looked back at Sirius, then to the pile once more before realisation sunk in. You headed over the room and saw Remus’s green eyes poke through a gap in the layers.

You chuckled “Have enough blankets there?”

Another groan as the response.

You thought for a moment, raised your eyebrows and offered “Chocolate?”

The pile shook in what you assumed was an affirmative and soon Remus’s whole head had appeared. You giggled at his wayward hair and sleepy eyes, received to find him in one piece.After nibbling a few bits of Honeyduke’s finest, Remus settled back down into his blankets and fell promptly back to sleep. You headed across the common room to the dormitory, but before you could make it, you heard someone call you.

“Blackthorn, come here a second will you?” James Potter waved to get your attention. The look on the other two boys’ faces told you all you needed to know.

“How can I help you, boys?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

“The party on Saturday… Well, you’re quite good at Charms, we wondered if we could charm a pumpkin into a record player, spooky Halloween fun but also great music sort of thing?”

You thought for a moment, Sirius moving his feet to allow you to sit down.

“Probably not, but you may be able to charm a pumpkin to sing. I’m sure you’d be able to get it singing certain things, though that might take a bit of work.”

“Of course! You’re brilliant! Get the pumpkin to sing!” James and Peter hurriedly started scribbling ideas and muttering to one another. Sirius nudged your arm.

“So, when are things between you and Moony going to actually, you know, happen?”

“Sirius, we’ve had this conversation before” You rolled your eyes.

“I know, I know, and I know you said things have to happen when he’s ready but honestly, do you think he ever will be? You’ve been dancing around each other for seven years, for Godric’s sake”

“Maybe, but you don’t get to decide when it happens, Sirius. Nor any of you. It’s up to Remus. It’s his issue. I’m better of being friends with him and not pushing it than ruining our friendship and losing him forever.”

“But what is his actual issue? I mean, you’re funny, attractive in a bookish sort of way,” You gave him a gentle thump on the arm “And you two have been friends for years, you know all about his furry little problem and still love him to bits. So why is it so difficult for him?”

“Sirius, I imagine Remus has lost a lot of people in the past. Now, i think it’s his nature to push them away first. Out of fear, or worry or just to protect them. Or him. It’s gong to take a lot for him to let someone in in that way.” You paused, Sirius looked at you, noticing the glint in your eye. “Alas,” you said, dramatically “I fell for the wrong Marauder!”

“Didn’t you just, I would definitely taken my chance with you by now” Sirius grinned.

“I bet, and I would’ve had my heart broken in one fell swoop and moved on to my next mistake by now.”

“One can only wish”

You both sighed, playing along. Suddenly Sirius turned and looked directly at you, steely grey eyes focused on your own.

“If someone could help you out though, give him a little push…”

“Sirius…”

“No, really, because I would happily…”

“Sirius Orion Black, if you dare do anything to affect our friendship, I will personally shave your entire head.” You said threateningly. When he seemed less than convinced, you added “The Muggle way!” To which his eyes widened in shock.

“You wouldn't dare, Blackthorn.”

You raised an eyebrow, relaxing back into the sofa, one arm thrown across the armrest in an attempt to seem casual and at the same time, menacing. “Wanna bet?”

Sirius laughed. “You really are terrible at that. But ok, I promise. I won’t do anything…meddlesome” He held his hand out. You took it and shook.

“Deal”

The next night was the Halloween party in the common room. October 31st wasn’t until the Monday, but if experience was anything go by, it was best to not have a full day’s NEWT level classes the day after, so it was planed for the Saturday. The boys had gone all out, enchanted bats circling the ceiling, muggle style witches hats on nearly every head and the previously mentioned singing pumpkin. They’d even gone as far as to enchant the punch bowls. One was ‘spiked’ and the other plain. If anyone below 5th year tried to take a drink from the ‘spiked’, the bowl in the shape of Frankenstein’s monster's head would scream. It was all fairly impressive. You smiled as the pumpkin head started a stirling rendition of Patti Smtih’s Because the Night. You felt Sirius stand next to you.

“You know, I can practically feel your smugness. It’s radiating from you like an aura. That’s what it is. A smug aura. Smugora.” You laughed. Maybe that punch was stronger than you’d originally thought.

“I think I deserve my…smugora this time.”

You nodded, relenting “How on earth did you get the backing music as well?”

He grinned, touching his nose “Magic.”

You both threw your head back laughing and touched your glasses in a Cheers motion.

Suddenly the room was thrown into darkness. Someone screamed. The pumpkin had stopped singing. From the direction of the portrait hole, a strange purple glow was emanating. Muttering swept the room in a wave, followed by a nervous hush. Then, from the glow, James Potter emerged. Dressed as a mummy, wrapped in tissues and bandages, the only way you realised it was him was the glasses and stray few locks of wayward hair poking through the layers. The pumpkin started up again, this time with the steady beat of Queen’s ‘We will rock you’. A ripple of relief made it’s way through the crowd, followed by confusion from the purebloods among them. The lights flickered back on and the festivities resumed. You wandered the common room, chatting and drinking with your fellow Gryffindors. You danced around James as he made a spectacle of himself, but tripped on one of his rogue bandages and stumbled, clumsily into Remus.

“Oh, for goodness sake, I…Oh. Hello.” You said, quickly righting yourself.

“Sylv, hey. Peter told me you were looking for me.” Remus said, smiling. “Said you had something to talk about?”

You frowned. “Erm, no, but now I am wondering where your costume is” eyeing his usual soft jumper, with worn patches at the elbow.

“Well, I, um,” He sighed. “I told everyone I had forgotten to sort my costume with all the plans for the party, there were some tough charms you know” he trailed off.

“But really…”

“But really, I kind of thought I didn't need one, seeing as I already am a monster.” He couldn’t meet your eyes.

You straightened your shoulders, fixed your jaw and stared at him, a red heat burning.

“What. The. F…”

“Sylv, I know that look, don’t…”

“Don’t what Remus? Don’t react to your insane self-hatred? Don’t care that you still, still, wallow in self-loathing, convinced that no-one could ever care about you? What about your friend? James? Sirius? Peter? What about me, Remus? I don't understand how you can be so permanently obtuse when people love you, so obviously. They love you! For Godric's sake!”

The room had quietened. All eyes appeared to be on the two of you, the Marauders included. Sirius looked sheepish, but the other two were positively giddy.

“Yeah, we love you Remus!” James burst out. You glared at him, he responded with a grin.

“Sylv,” Remus’s hushed voice reached you through your anger “Please, can we talk somewhere else?” He didn’t wait for a response, just grabbed your hand and ran you up to the boys’ dorm.  You momentarily thought about shaking him off, but decided to follow. This was a conversation that needed to be had, preferably away from prying or meddlesome eyes.

Remus swung you around, taking both hands in his own and looked into your eyes.

“Sylv, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to make you angry, I just…”

“Didn’t think I cared enough? Well you were wrong, Remus. Because I do care. Apparently too bloody much. But if you think that I will ever, ever stop caring about you, you are more of a fool than Sirius pretends to be.”

Remus couldn't help but laugh “How do you manage to sneak an insult to him while you’re angry at me?”

“It’s a talent. Now. Explain.”

“What is there to explain, Sylv? I know you don’t see it, but I am a monster.”

“Right, no, stop. Stop right there. You, Remus John Lupin are not a monster. You are a funny, intelligent, kind individual and also a massive idiot. You have pushed so many people away. I don’t know why you let the guys in before, nor me, but I do know you still have so many barriers up. You won;t let us in, no matter how much we try. And I don’t know if i can continue watching you do that.” Somehow, there were tears in your eyes, You blinked them away, annoyed.

“Sylv, I’m sorry.” Remus placed his hands on your shoulders. “I never thought about it like that. I’ve spent so long hiding I never thought about what that felt like to you. All of you. I know you care, I do, and sometimes I find it hard to understand why, but then you shout at me in front of the whole of Gryffindor and then start crying and pretending you’re not and I realise that maybe, maybe I don't have to understand it. Maybe it’s just how it is. And maybe I am an idiot for not realising that before.”

You heard cheers coming from behind the closed door.

“Now kiss her you idiot!”

You blushed. “Black, say goodbye to your luscious locks!”

“Technically it wasn’t me. I didn't meddle, Peter did. I just didn’t stop it!”

The room started to spin and you realised with a start just how much punch you’d helped yourself to. You collapsed onto the nearest bed and focused on the ceiling, trying to stop the room spinning.

“Sylv?” Remus approached shyly, confused by this sudden change in demeanour.

“It’s ok Moony, too much drink. I might just stay here for a wee bit and then go bed. You go on, enjoy the party.”

“I’ll get you some water, love”

“Ok” And you felt your eyes closing.

You woke to loud noises. Thudding sounds.

“Don’t you people respect Sundays, the sacred day of hangovers?” You mumbled sleepily, turning over in your duvet.

“Not in this dorm, we don’t get hangovers” A voice replied. A male voice. The voice of Sirius Black.

You sat up, instantly regretting the motion. Looking around, it was clear you were in the boy’s room, and as you wondered why, memories of the night before flooded back.

“Fuck”

“Sounds about right Blackthorn.”

“Quiet please, people are sleeping”

“The only one still sleeping is you. I had to kip on the couch last night.” You must be in Sirius’s bed.

“A true example of chivalry, right here, ladies and gentlemen” James teased.

The door opened, much quieter than it had previously. You turned your head slowly to see Remus entering with a pile of blankets, floating two mugs of tea behind him. He stopped as he saw you were awake, feigning horror.

“It lives!”

“Urgh, barely” you replied, groaning.

“We’ll see you later, Sleeping Beauty” Sirius called as he walked out the door, followed by James and Peter.

“Wait, it’s a Sunday, where are you going?”

“The less you know, the more ignorance you can plead later” James positively beamed at you.

“Fair point”

And with that, they were gone. Remus moved over to the bed you’d commandeered and dumped the blankets over you before passing a cup of tea to your ear hands. You groaned in relief as you took the first sip . The first taste of tea after a heavy night had always been one of your favourite things.

“Thank you” You said to Remus and gestured for him to come join you in your pile.

He shuffled in beside you and held you in his arms. IT was funny. Though there had been no dramatic declaration of feelings, no magical first kiss, though really nothing had changed, somehow, it all had. After a moment of comfortable silence, he chuckled.

“Have enough blankets?”

Ok so that’s my first fan fiction. Done. It’s not amazing and it totally ran away from me a bit there. But everyone’s gotta start somewhere, right?

[twhite59-scf]

Ai Weiwei Art Work

27. Ai Weiwei 2006 Kippe. Tieli wood (iron wood) from dismantled temples of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and iron parallel bars. 

First impression- Every piece of wood fits perfectly together and it looks really interesting. It seems like that took a long time to make.

1. Hello everyone, my name is Taylor White. I am from Southwest Florida and I am in my last semester at SCF. A fact about me is that I love to cook. I have explored many new foods and have learned a lot recently

2. Five facts

- The artist wanted to create this piece because he was interested in the dispute of spending a long period of time on something that was useless. 

- Ai Weiwei used Qing and Ming period furniture and stacked them so that the pieces would be difficult or impossible to use. 

- Ai Weiwei wanted to learn more about his home country so he used the Qing and Ming period furniture in hopes to do so. 

-Most artist prefer to show pieces in their original for while Weiwei would rather make different forms of them. Ai Weiwei states "you know an old temple was beautiful and beautifully built. We could once all believe and hope in it. But once it has been destroyed, it’s nothing. It becomes another artist’s material to build something completely contradictory to what it was before" (Ai in Hans Ulrich Obrist, ‘Hans Ulrich Obrist in Conversation with Ai Weiwei’, in Smith, Obrist, Fibichier and others 2009, p.39).

-One interesting and semi off topic fact about Ai Weiwei is that he has an asteroid named after him. It was discovered on September 25, 2001 and its official name is 83598 Aiweiwei.

3. My look on the art did change, quite a bit. When I first looked at the art I thought it was a bunch of random pieces of wood piled on top of each other. Now after doing some research on this art I understand what this means to the artist, he used this wood to connect with his home country and put much work into it. This art is not random wood, this is wood and iron from the Qing and Wing period and each piece us placed perfectly on top of one another so it cannot be taken apart. 

2. ART AND WRITING

This is a piece of artwork that I have hanging in my room. This is a colorful heart with different sizes of butterflies in the heart. The main part of the canvas is printed but the artist added some acrylic paint to it to add some texture. For me the use it serves is a beautiful piece of artwork that I get to look at everyday. This artwork is something that my mom brought home, my mom knows how much I love butterflies. I do think it is beautiful, I love the mixture of colors and how everything blends together nicely. I also love how each butterfly is different, from the wings and the body. This is a beautiful unique piece of art. 

3. WRITING A SELF-PORTRAIT

I am 19 years old, I will be 20 in March. I am a female. I am from North Port, Florida. I am white. For fun I love to take pictures, do my makeup, read, cook, bake, spend time with my family and friends. At the moment no I am not a member of any organized group but I will be soon hopefully! For work I am a caretaker for my 99 year old great-grandmother. She turns 100 this year! I think that my personality and character make me uniquely me. 

4. ART PROJECT (SELF PORTRAIT)

This is my self portrait. This represents me being surrounded by the people I love, my family. My family is one of the most important aspects of my life. 

[girlglassestheotherone]

Fall prompt 20. Gotta be Stephen and John.

Fall prompts list for more shameless prompt asking from me

20. “Yes, we are wearing matching costumes,” + “Don’t we look cute together?”

2031 – Halloween

“Setting, interior fancy ass library,” Stephen said, examining one of the books on the shelf of the private library he and his best friend had walked into. When John gave him a puzzled look, he added “I’m trying to write a play, I’m just thinking out loud.”

“So that’s why you asked Mrs. De Forest that,” John said, sitting down on the room’s large couch and examining one of its pillows. “Nice, a vegan couch. Good on them.”

“And I heard a rumor Penelope hides, you know, drugs here,” Stephen muttered the last words, even though the sound of the de Forest’s Halloween party outside the library was too loud for anyone to hear. He opened and closed a few books and scanned some of the titles.

“So she’s actually a drug dealer? Man, the Hapley triplets gossip mill is never wrong. Is it weird that I find her hotter now?” John said, examining a family photo on an end table next to the couch. John’s crush on the older sister of their classmate Catherine had been going on since freshman year and it always amused Stephen to remind Sonia about it, not that Sonia cared, whatever, hope he doesn’t mind visiting her in jail. Catherine, who had her law enforcement career planned out since first grade, would have put her there.

“Boy, I hope they don’t eventually have a showdown that pits,” John started to say, stopping when Stephen joined him on the couch.

“I wouldn’t say the Hapley triplets gossip is always right,” Stephen said, leaning back on the arm of the couch, noticeably as far away from John as he could be sitting. “I mean, yes, we are wearing matching costumes, it doesn’t mean,” he gestured to the flannel look John was wearing and the plastic axe and leafy pile that was the top of Stephen’s tree costume, set down at the entrance of the library.

“I know,” John said, enthused, “Yes, I was hesitant to portray a tree murderer, but if I can pretend to be Mark in Rent, I can pretend to be a lot of people who also suck.” John took out his phone and patted the empty seat next to him and said “we haven’t even taken a party self portrait together.” Stephen moved over and the two smiled into the camera as John clicked the picture. John looked at the photo first and smiled at the image.

“Don’t we look cute together?” John said, handing the phone over for Stephen to see.

“Everyone thinks we’re a couple,” Stephen said, moving away slightly in his seat, not looking at John, “If Bernadette Hapley heard it, everyone has.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” John said, worried now that Stephen actually looked sad, an out of character emotion for Stephen, except when he was acting. “Penelope’s out of my league anyway.”

“I’m not bothered by it either, I expected people to assume that, we are constantly talking about how much we love each other,” Stephen said.

“Mostly you, but the feeling is extremely mutual,” John said.

“And we play couples a lot,” Stephen said, adding, “but only because I wanted to make Rent better.”

“We do hold hands a lot,” John said, “like last week.”

“That was because I was totally not scared of that not horrifying place that not evil Sonia made us go in last week.”

“The haunted corn maze? Right? Terrible maze. Really easy to solve.” John thought about this for a moment before mentioning the changes he would have made to make the maze more complicated.

“I do love you, John, but unfortunately,” Stephen said, taking a long pause before continuing “I’m straight.”

“Stephen,” John said, giggling now, “I’ve known that since the two weeks in ninth grade when we stopped speaking to each other because you said had a sex dream about my mom.”

“In my defense, I said I had a sex dream about my piano teacher, you just put two and two together. Man. I wish I was bi, because my siblings are so smug about it, but you’re the only man I’ll ever love and I just have to accept that our love is platonic.”

“Well, you’re the only man I’ll ever love too.”

“Two bros, chilling in a library,” Stephen sang, “one feet apart cause they’re not gay.”

“From the musical you’re writing?”

“No, it’s from an old, it doesn’t matter. Actually, in the musical, we play a pair of best friends.”

“Obviously.”

“Who travel in space.”

“Loving it.”

“And realize they are, um, totally gay for each other,” Stephen said, turning around and facing John, the saying the next words in a rush, “because they get kidnapped by space pirates and end up kissing each other, in a space library. Space jail.”

“It can’t be that different from stage kissing,” John said. Stephen nodded and the next moment the two were kissing each other.

“Aww,” Catherine de Forest said as she walked past the library doors, observing the two inside, “I’m going to tell Bernadette she was right,” Catherine thought to herself, “And then kiss her.”

Inside the library the two boys broke off from their kiss and looked at each other, expecting but both realizing that they preferred pretend stage kissing each other. 

“Not that I have much experience to compare it too, but that was not bad,” John said.

“Exactly. From now on I can say kissing John Swanson is something everyone should do at least once,” Stephen said, leaning his head on his friend’s shoulder. “I was kind of hoping it would be like when Oliver kissed Sonia and realized he liked boys. Unfortunately I’m still heterosexual.”

“It happens to the best of us,” John said, wrapping his arm around Stephen’s shoulder.

“I just want to be included in Westley and Sonia’s dumb bisexual handshake.”

“I know, buddy, I know.”

[anonymous-hopeful]

Remind Me Why We're Trying to Get Hifumi to Love Us, Again? (a crackfic that's going too far)

Chapter One: The Ultimate Man's Competition

@chibibreeby 

It was another day at Hope's Peak. Well, afternoon, really. While other students were participating in club activities or hanging out with friends, Kiyotaka Ishimaru was watching over several students in detention. Some students, like Makoto Naegi, were only in for thirty minutes due to minor offenses, while others had an hour or so. By the time Teruteru had finished dinner, Kiyotaka was still on the detention room, watching over the two remaining students, Mondo and Leon.

Mondo groaned; he hadn't done anything detention worthy that day, or even that week. In fact, he was going to prove to the hall monitor that he could stay out of trouble, however, that backfired when he found out that he had piled up on enough minor offenses to keep him in detention for three hours.

Leon, on the other hand, was actually trying to stack up his detentions and serve them all in one day. Like Mondo, there were an abundance of minor offenses, added on to that one time he threw Yasuhiro's crystal ball down the hallway and had accidentally hit Headmaster Kirigiri. In all honesty, he didn't mind the detention as much when it was just him, Mondo, and Kiyotaka. Actually, that gave him an idea.

"Hey, Kiyotaka, come over here!", the all-star called out, catching the attention of both the prefect and the biker. "Why? This is not one of your foolish 'pranks', is it?", Kiyotaka questioned. Leon shook his head, "No, no, not at all, just come over.". Sighing, Kiyotaka made his way over to Leon's desk. "Now then, what is the reason you called me over?", the moral compass asked, crossing his arms and staring down at Leon.

"Well, I think it's safe to say that the three of us are pretty manly, huh?", Leon inquired, all too calm. "Fuck, yeah. What's that got ta do wit' anything?", Mondo wondered, whilst making his way to Leon and Kiyotaka. " We're all manly by our standards, but who's truly the manliest out of us?".

Kiyotaka laughed boisterously. "Is that a rhetorical question? It is obvious that I am the manliest of us three, after all, at this moment I am in charge of you, not only showing my authority, but dominance as well!". Mondo rolled his eyes, "Don't credit yerself like that. Yeah, you're in charge, for th' next twenty minutes, but I'm runnin' an entire biker gang! If anyone here's manly, it's me.". Leon smirked, "See? It would be pointless to argue that I'm manlier, because you two have proven my point. Therefore, in order to settle this...dispute, I think a competition is in order.".

"Competition? Please elaborate!", Kiyotaka replied. "With every man's competition, it's the same; who can lift that, who's able to eat this, normal men's things.". "What are ya plannin', Leon?", Mondo asked, a bit nervous. Leon stood up and made his way to the front of the room. "I'm planning a competiton that only a real man would have the audacity to compete in! One that tests a man physically, mentally, and emotionally.". Leon grabbed a piece of chalk and began writing on the board. "Introducing, the Ultimate Man's Competition!".

Mondo and Kiyotaka stared at each other, then at Leon. "Allow me to explain. Each participant must, one, be a male, and two, be a student here. The task?". Leon paused to finish drawing what looked like a four-year-old's portrait of Hifumi. "Make this guy fall in love with you!". The prefect and the gang leader cringed. "Uh, Leon, I think I speak fer both Taka an' I when I say, the fuck are ya thinkin?".

Leon chuckled, "Not up to the challenge? I guess that means I wi-". "No ya don't! I jus', uh, wanted ta know th' rules.", Mondo interrupted. "Alright. Any male is allowed to compete, except Chihiro, since he does this on a daily basis, and of course, Hifumi for obvious reasons . Each male is required to have one wingwoman, and once one is claimed, she can't work for anyone else. As for the task itself, you won't be going out with Hifumi yourself, rather you'd go as your female self".

Kiyotaka shifted his eyes. "Are you proposing we do drag?". Leon scratched his goatee. "One reason we've got a wingwoman. Any other questions?". "Does Hiro count as a wingwoman?", Mondo inquired. Leon thought for a moment. "Sure, why not. By the way, your lady self should have her own name, first and last, and the absolute, number one rule, is don't let Hifumi know. Got it?". Kiyotaka and Mondo gave a nod of confirmation.

"Alrighty then, gentlemen. Let the competition begin!".

[mwitchipoo]

In the past few years, I’ve done portraits of famous musicians and icons, such as David Bowie, Lemmy Kilmister, Quentin Crisp, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Elizabeth Taylor, Wendy O Williams, and a few others. My focus are on those who had some sort of impact on my psyche, whether it’s small or significant.

Which brings me to Marc Bolan. My introduction to the ’70s Glam band T Rex was through covers by Bauhaus, Violent Femmes, Powerstation, Siouxsie and The Banshees, etc. Being curious, I decided to go straight to the source.

  Recently came the news that T Rex is going to be an inductee into the 2020 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Usually I don’t give a rat’s ass about who’s been included. Being part of Gen X, I should’ve been happy for Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails. Instead I’ll wait to rejoice when Kraftwerk gets in. I’m always that one person who goes against the grain.

For those who don’t know who Marc Bolan is, here goes. Marc Bolan, real name Marc Feld. His father was an Askenazi Jew, his mother English. Marc was born for the showbiz life. He first appeared as an extra on the British television show Orlando as a Mod. Age nine he was given his first guitar, and his life course was set. After being expelled from school at the age of 15, he tried modelling. It’s rumored he was bisexual, piling his trade as a ‘rent boy.’ In 1964, Marc met his first manager. The result was one of Bolan’s professional recordings. The track was in the style of U.K. teen idol Cliff Richard. Marc soon moved on to a second manager. He had changed his style, adopting a Boho-chic look. The contract was later sold to a landlord to back off back rent, in which the contract was later destroyed. In 1965, Marc signed Decca Records. It was this point Marc switched his stage name to Marc Bolan. Two Decca released singles went nowhere. In 1966, British music producer Simon Napier-Bell, met Bolan, listening to Bolan’s claims about how he was going to be a ‘big star.’ Napier-Bell was managing The Yardbirds at that point. He put Bolan in the band John’s Children, which had some success. It was short-lived, so Marc had to reconstruct his plans for stardom. Influenced by fantasy and romance, he came back with the first formation of T Rex, originally known as Tyrannosaurus Rex

Tyrannosaurus Rex gained a cult following among the U.K.’s Hippie subculture, releasing four Psychedelic-Folk-Rock albums. However, Marc wanted more. Despite charting success, percussionist Steve Peregrin Took was terminated due to drug use. Tyrannosaurus Rex then developed into T Rex, adding electric to the sound. Took was replaced with Mickey Finn on the bongos.

1970 saw the release of the rebooted formation with the self titled album T Rex. As the cliche goes, the rest is history. Marc reinvented himself yet again, setting the bar for what would be known as ‘Glam Rock.’

  The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. This also synchronized with David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust era. In fact, both T Rex and Bowie worked with the same music producer, American Tony Visconti and the same manager, Les Conn. Hippies were replaced with teenage fans as Marc performed on stage wearing satin and glitter. This is the iconic T Rex everyone knows. At one point T Rex was as huge as The Beatles over in his native country. T Rex did have success over in the U.S., with the top 40 hit ‘Bang A Gong’, but never as massive as they were back in the U.K. With releases such as Electric Warrior and The Slider, the band was rumored to be selling 100,000 records a day.

What’s up with these ’70s rock stars wearing pants a certain way? 

It really should be noted that Marc would probably never had the success if it wasn’t for his wife, June Ellen Child. June Child already had connections within the British music industry, and was instrumental in T Rex’s success. Finally Marc achieved the rock star status he so desired.

Marc and June on their wedding day

Marc Bolan and June Child

Marc Bolan and June Child

The wave continued to ride high, appearing in Ringo Starr’s film, Born To Boogie. After the album Tanx in 1973, the success T Rex had started to taper off. His marriage was disintegrating too. Marc found new love with American R&B singer Gloria Jones. Jones has her own interesting history. She was involved with Motown. Finding success in the U.K., she was the Queen of  the Northern Soul movement. Most importantly, Jones was the original vocalist for the song Tainted Love, later made internationally famous by ’80s New Wave band Soft Cell.

Marc and Gloria’s paths first crossed in 1969. It wasn’t until 1972, when Jones got a gig as T Rex’s backup singer.  You can guess the rest, as Jones and Bolan became romantically involved. Out of that union, Jones gave birth to their only son, Rolan Bolan in 1975. By that time, Bolan’s star was fading. He had gained a bit of weight, acquired a drug habit, and record sales slowly declined. Jones and Bolan continued to collaborate. In 1975 Jones did background vocals for the T Rex album Bolan’s Zip Gun. Unfortunately the tenth studio album did poorly, only being released in the U.K. (The American version was Light of Love, released on then new Casablanca record label) Another pairing for Jones’ 1976 album Vixen. Jones continued her tenure with T Rex with the albums Futuristic Dragon and Dandy In The Underworld.

Marc’s luck turned around in 1977, when he landed his own variety show on Granada Television. Now this synchronized with the imminent U.K. Punk movement. (The Damned opened up for T Rex on a later British tour) Marc had a few appearances from bands like The Jam and Generation X (with future ’80s New Wave superstar Billy Idol). Thin Lizzy also did a guest spot on Marc. The rest was littered with local performers, never to be heard from again. David Bowie was the most significant delegate, with a spot on the last Marc episode. Bowie was both a rival and a friend – but later proved himself to be a loyal friend as we’ll find out later.

Marc was renewed by Granada, but the next season never came to be. After celebrating on September 16, 1977, Marc and Gloria got into a car crash. Jones was the driver of the Mini 1275GT. While Jones survived, Bolan died instantly. Marc Bolan was only two weeks from his 30th birthday.

While the funeral was taking place, Gloria Jones was hospitalized in a coma. When she came to, to her horror she discovered the home she had shared with Marc had been looted dry. Further matters were complicated because Bolan never divorced from his estranged wife June Child. This meant that Bolan’s was tied up, freezing both Jones and the child she had with Bolan out. Skipping the U.K. legal inquiry over the car crash, Jones and the son returned back to Los Angles, California. Jones continued to be involved with the music industry, but destitute. This is where David Bowie comes into play. Bowie just happened to be the godfather to Rolan Bolan. Refusing to have Rolan continue suffering, Bowie stepped in providing financial assistance, paying for Rolan’s education. It was all due to Bowie’s loyalty towards friendship he shared with Marc Bolan. It wasn’t until June Child’s death in Back in the U.K., a plaque was placed where the crash occurred. For decades, the site has, become a small pilgrimage to T Rex fans.

Over the years, people have held torches in Marc’s memory. Marc On Wax was a label run by two former heads of Bolan’s fan club. Most importantly, the influence Marc and T Rex had continues. As mentioned earlier, many late ’70s/’80s Post-Punk and Alternative bands have covered many a T Rex ditty.

As for Gloria, she later co-founded with the Light of Love Foundation UK, a music school in Sierra Leone, West Africa named in honor of Marc. Called Marc Bolan School Of Music, it gives children opportunities to learn all facets of music and film. Oh, and in 2007, she did a duet with Marc Almond once on a U.K. stage performing Tainted Love.

Gloria Jones and Marc Almond on stage. 2007. 

Honestly, I don’t know why there’s hasn’t been a biopic film about Marc. If they can do one on Freddie Mercury and Elton John, surely they can do one on Marc. I digress.

Now that you’ve read more about Marc Bolan than you originally wanted to, here’s my portrait of him, just in time for his induction into the class of 2020, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Hand drawn, pen, ink and watercolor. There’s a tiny bit of sheen and glimmer with the watercolor, but I don’t think Marc would’ve minded. Here’s a little Marc in your heart.

Marc Bolan. Pen, ink, watercolor. Illustration by Michele Witchipoo. Completed March 2020. 

    Marc Bolan – T. Rex In the past few years, I've done portraits of famous musicians and icons, such as David Bowie…

[stagepaul2-blog]

Once Upon a Day: Philadelphia’s American Museum of Photography

As workers cleaned debris from the old Victorian brownstone at 338 South 15th Street, a framed set of photographs caught the eye of Marc Mostovoy, the building’s new owner. Mostovoy, a conductor of classical music with no knowledge of vintage photography, kept the curiosity from being tossed into the dumpster. That was 1970.

Sixteen years later, F. Holland Day’s The Seven Words, the Boston photographer’s depiction of Christ on the cross, portrayed by himself, sold at Sotheby’s auction in New York, setting a new record for a photographic work of art: $93,500. Day went to great lengths creating the series, which was, according to The New York Times, inspired by the religious ideas of Day’s friend, the poet William Butler Yeats. “Day imported a cross from Syria, created a crown of thorns, grew a beard and long hair and fasted to achieve an emaciated look.”

The Seven Words, F. Holland Day, photographer, 1898. Seven platinum prints, each 5 1/4 x 4 1/4 inches in the original frame. (Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York)

Day had sent the piece to Philadelphia for exhibition in the first photographic salon at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the Fall of 1898. After the salon, Philadelphia archaeologist, collector and photographer Clarence Bloomfield Moore, added the piece to his art collection. The fact that Day’s work had found its way to 338 South 15th street actually made a lot of sense. The building’s previous owner, Louis Walton Sipley, an energetic writer, inventor, lantern slide and educational film maker, had established a museum of photography. Sipley operated the museum on the building’s lower floors. He and his wife occupied the upper stories.

In 1939, while working on an article about photography’s centennial year for Arts and Sciences, a magazine he edited, Sipley came to realize the quantity of important photographs lost or on the brink of oblivion. On a mission, he went from museum to museum in Philadelphia trying to convince someone, anyone, to make photography a collecting priority. No one would. Meanwhile, Sipley learned that institutions and individuals wanted to turn over valuable photographic material to him, if he would take it. So Sipley adopted photography—literally—he founded the nation’s first museum devoted exclusively to it.

The American Museum of Photography opened December 10, 1940. Through exhibitions and articles on the early history of the medium, Sipley expanded upon his magazine article telling the story of Philadelphia’s substantial contributions to its development.

The museum’s holdings grew to more than 50,000 prints representing all kinds of photographic and photo-mechanical processes. It developed a library of 5,000 books and periodicals. Hundreds of pieces of early equipment found their way to 338 South 15th Street. Sipley began to imagine that his American Museum of Photography might someday occupy a building on the city’s cultural boulevard, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

South 15th Street, Pine to Spruce, 1964 (PhillyHistory.org). The American Museum of Photography (1940-1968) was in 338 South 15th, the seventh building from the left.

When Sipley died in 1968, his museum was not only leaderless, it lacking any kind of an endowment to sustain operations. At the very least, Sipley had hoped to somehow keep the collection intact and in Philadelphia. But none of the Philadelphia institutions wanted the American Museum of Photography without funds to support it. One prominent curator from the Philadelphia Museum of Art reportedly visited the shuttered museum on 15th street, stepped into a room with tables and shelves piled high with prints, books and equipment, and quickly turned on his heel.

That may have been the death knell for the American Museum of Photography.

In short order, the contents of the museum were sold to the 3M Company in St. Paul, Minnesota. Executives there were thinking about establishing their own museum of photography. But their plans faltered and the Sipley collection languished in a St. Paul warehouse for the better part of the decade.

In the 1970s, the museum world grew more accepting of photography. Dim recollections of the defunct museum finally found resolution. There would be no museum, came the announcement from St. Paul. The Sipley/3M Collection would be turned over to the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House (now the George Eastman Museum) in Rochester, New York.

Somehow, F. Holland Day’s The Seven Words failed to make it into the museum’s inventory, or into any of the crates shipped to St. Paul.

Day’s work from 1898 is considered a highlight in the history of the medium. There are only two other sets of The Seven Words known, one at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (Alfred Stieglitz’s copy) and another at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. After its acquisition in 2013, curators lavished praise, calling the “monumental self portrait . . . one of the masterpieces of photographic history.” And more. “The Seven Last Words,” they swooned, is nothing short of being “one of the most significant images in the history of the photography, a work that reverberates with iconic importance and one that influenced subsequent artists significantly.”

If and when Sipley’s Day, which is now at a New York gallery, were to be sold again, it would certainly break auction records once more, records that currently stand in excess of $4 million.

Once upon a time, Philadelphia had this gem in hand. And that was the least of it. Back then, Philadelphia had an entire museum devoted to the medium of photography. What are we left with now? A tale of disappointment, the story of a cultural treasure that somehow slipped away.

[Adapted from: Kenneth Finkel, editor, Legacy in Light: Photographic Treasures from Philadelphia Area Public Collections (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1990). Additional Sources: Lita Solis-Cohen, “The Trash Yields a Record-Setting Photo Treasure,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 14,1986; [Obituary] “Dr. Louis Sipley of Photo Museum: Head of Private Institution in Philadelphia Is Dead,” The New York Times, October 19, 1968; and Rita Reif, “Auctions,” The New York Times, October 31, 1968.]

Source: https://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/index.php/2019/01/once-upon-a-day-philadelphias-american-museum-of-photography/

[beechwrench4-blog]

Once Upon a Day: Philadelphia’s American Museum of Photography

As workers cleaned debris from the old Victorian brownstone at 338 South 15th Street, a framed set of photographs caught the eye of Marc Mostovoy, the building’s new owner. Mostovoy, a conductor of classical music with no knowledge of vintage photography, kept the curiosity from being tossed into the dumpster. That was 1970.

Sixteen years later, F. Holland Day’s The Seven Words, the Boston photographer’s depiction of Christ on the cross, portrayed by himself, sold at Sotheby’s auction in New York, setting a new record for a photographic work of art: $93,500. Day went to great lengths creating the series, which was, according to The New York Times, inspired by the religious ideas of Day’s friend, the poet William Butler Yeats. “Day imported a cross from Syria, created a crown of thorns, grew a beard and long hair and fasted to achieve an emaciated look.”

The Seven Words, F. Holland Day, photographer, 1898. Seven platinum prints, each 5 1/4 x 4 1/4 inches in the original frame. (Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York)

Day had sent the piece to Philadelphia for exhibition in the first photographic salon at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the Fall of 1898. After the salon, Philadelphia archaeologist, collector and photographer Clarence Bloomfield Moore, added the piece to his art collection. The fact that Day’s work had found its way to 338 South 15th street actually made a lot of sense. The building’s previous owner, Louis Walton Sipley, an energetic writer, inventor, lantern slide and educational film maker, had established a museum of photography. Sipley operated the museum on the building’s lower floors. He and his wife occupied the upper stories.

In 1939, while working on an article about photography’s centennial year for Arts and Sciences, a magazine he edited, Sipley came to realize the quantity of important photographs lost or on the brink of oblivion. On a mission, he went from museum to museum in Philadelphia trying to convince someone, anyone, to make photography a collecting priority. No one would. Meanwhile, Sipley learned that institutions and individuals wanted to turn over valuable photographic material to him, if he would take it. So Sipley adopted photography—literally—he founded the nation’s first museum devoted exclusively to it.

The American Museum of Photography opened December 10, 1940. Through exhibitions and articles on the early history of the medium, Sipley expanded upon his magazine article telling the story of Philadelphia’s substantial contributions to its development.

The museum’s holdings grew to more than 50,000 prints representing all kinds of photographic and photo-mechanical processes. It developed a library of 5,000 books and periodicals. Hundreds of pieces of early equipment found their way to 338 South 15th Street. Sipley began to imagine that his American Museum of Photography might someday occupy a building on the city’s cultural boulevard, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

South 15th Street, Pine to Spruce, 1964 (PhillyHistory.org). The American Museum of Photography (1940-1968) was in 338 South 15th, the seventh building from the left.

When Sipley died in 1968, his museum was not only leaderless, it lacking any kind of an endowment to sustain operations. At the very least, Sipley had hoped to somehow keep the collection intact and in Philadelphia. But none of the Philadelphia institutions wanted the American Museum of Photography without funds to support it. One prominent curator from the Philadelphia Museum of Art reportedly visited the shuttered museum on 15th street, stepped into a room with tables and shelves piled high with prints, books and equipment, and quickly turned on his heel.

That may have been the death knell for the American Museum of Photography.

In short order, the contents of the museum were sold to the 3M Company in St. Paul, Minnesota. Executives there were thinking about establishing their own museum of photography. But their plans faltered and the Sipley collection languished in a St. Paul warehouse for the better part of the decade.

In the 1970s, the museum world grew more accepting of photography. Dim recollections of the defunct museum finally found resolution. There would be no museum, came the announcement from St. Paul. The Sipley/3M Collection would be turned over to the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House (now the George Eastman Museum) in Rochester, New York.

Somehow, F. Holland Day’s The Seven Words failed to make it into the museum’s inventory, or into any of the crates shipped to St. Paul.

Day’s work from 1898 is considered a highlight in the history of the medium. There are only two other sets of The Seven Words known, one at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (Alfred Stieglitz’s copy) and another at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. After its acquisition in 2013, curators lavished praise, calling the “monumental self portrait . . . one of the masterpieces of photographic history.” And more. “The Seven Last Words,” they swooned, is nothing short of being “one of the most significant images in the history of the photography, a work that reverberates with iconic importance and one that influenced subsequent artists significantly.”

If and when Sipley’s Day, which is now at a New York gallery, were to be sold again, it would certainly break auction records once more, records that currently stand in excess of $4 million.

Once upon a time, Philadelphia had this gem in hand. And that was the least of it. Back then, Philadelphia had an entire museum devoted to the medium of photography. What are we left with now? A tale of disappointment, the story of a cultural treasure that somehow slipped away.

[Adapted from: Kenneth Finkel, editor, Legacy in Light: Photographic Treasures from Philadelphia Area Public Collections (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1990). Additional Sources: Lita Solis-Cohen, “The Trash Yields a Record-Setting Photo Treasure,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 14,1986; [Obituary] “Dr. Louis Sipley of Photo Museum: Head of Private Institution in Philadelphia Is Dead,” The New York Times, October 19, 1968; and Rita Reif, “Auctions,” The New York Times, October 31, 1968.]

Source: https://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/index.php/2019/01/once-upon-a-day-philadelphias-american-museum-of-photography/