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gotham-ruaidh · 11 months ago

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Little Bit Better Than I Used To Be

Catch up: Chapter 1 (Starry Eyes) || Chapter 2 (Save Our Souls) || Chapter 3 (Dancing On Glass)|| Chapter 4 (Merry-Go-Round)|| Backstage (1) || Backstage (2) || Chapter 5 (Danger)|| Backstage (3) || Chapter 6A (Love Walked In) || Chapter 6B (Without You) || Backstage (4) || Chapter 7 (Stick To Your Guns) || Chapter 8 (Time For Change) || Backstage (5) || Chapter 9 (Take Me To The Top) || Backstage (6) || Chapter 10 (Home Sweet Home) || Backstage (7) || Chapter 11a (Nightrain) || Chapter 11b (Nothing Else Matters) || Chapter 12a (Handle With Care) || Chapter 12b (I’m So Tired of Being Lonely) || Chapter 13a (Angel) || Chapter 13b (She’s My Addiction) || Chapter 13c (Patience) Chapter 14a (Where Do We Go Now?) || Chapter 14b (Where Do We Go Now?) || Chapter 14c (Where Do We Go Now?) || Chapter 15a (Dreams) ||| Also posted at AO3

Chapter 15B: I Sing A Song of Love

Wilmington, North Carolina

Labor Day Weekend, 1988

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When I cannot sing my heart I can only speak my mind

- “Julia”, The Beatles (1968) [click here to listen]

“How was Alec?”

Jamie drew back the covers of Dougal and Gillian’s guest bed, bending to kiss his wife’s bare shoulder. “Good. He’s been producing a record for a local New York band – some punk kids he saw at CBGB. He wanted my advice on something.” He settled against the headboard, rolling his shoulders. “He also said that Faith took some really good photos at the wedding. I asked him to send them to Colum.”

“Hold these for me?” Claire slipped off her rings. Carefully he took them, watching her rub lotion into the palms and backs of her hands.

“I know you don’t like it when I take them off, Jamie, but it’ll just be for a moment. I’ve been feeling so dry since we landed.”

He shrugged. “I don’t mind. And I hope the dryness is something you can get used to. If we’re really serious about the house.”

Dougal, God bless him, had introduced them to Amy – real estate agent extraordinaire, and former patient at The Ridge (“white wine,” she’d explained in the car from the airport. “I thought I had it under control until I crashed my car into the house I was about to show, right in front of the clients, and two empty wine bottles rolled up from under the seat”). Amy was smart, and low key, and had lined up showings for six beautiful homes tucked away in the mountains.

So much to think about.

But they had time, now. All the time in the world.

“I can get used to anything, Jamie. When I want to.” She held out her hand, and softly, gently he slid her engagement and wedding rings back onto her finger. Kissed her knuckles.

She smiled. Reached out to trace her name tattooed over his heart. The only tattoo on his chest – proudly visible to the world on the nights he played without a shirt.

“Would you add our wedding date?”

His heart raced beneath her thumb. “Maybe. But I was thinking that I could save the space for something else.”

She quirked an eyebrow.

He smiled.

“Maybe – the names of our children.”

Her thumbnail grazed his nipple. Eyes searing into his.

And then his mouth was on hers, sharing breath and laughs as they struggled under the thick comforter to find each other.

Sometime later, he slipped from her to turn off the lights in the room. Paused to light the candle on the bedside table. Heart stuttering with love as the shadows played across his wife’s smiling, sleepy face.

“What was the first tattoo you ever got?”

He tangled his legs with hers. “On the top of my left arm. The name of our band. Me, Ian, and Angus all got it at the same time.”

He shifted a bit, and she squinted in the candlelight – but there it was.

“That’s adorable.”

Jamie snorted. “Angus was the one who wanted it. We’d just signed our record deal, after three years of playing shitty club after shitty club, and getting stiffed by promoters who didn’t pay us, and dealing with some real next level bullshit. So we went out to celebrate, and Angus downed half a bottle of tequila, and Ian and I helped him with the other half, and before we knew it we were on a quest to find a tattoo parlor.”

She smiled. “And you and Ian got them by accident?”

He traced the long, sloping line of her clavicle. “Fuck no. Angus cried like a baby because it hurt so much. And then I wanted to show him how it’s done. And then I bulled Ian into it. It’s still the only tattoo his has. Jenny was so mad. But she’s over it now.”

“Does Angus have any more tattoos?”

“I have no idea. Why don’t you ask one of the groupies?”

She pushed him gently. “Stop. Charlotte and Molly are actually really nice girls. I think they genuinely care about him. From what they told me last week, they had a wonderful time in Aruba.”

“Please tell me they didn’t share any specific details.”

She rolled her eyes. “I know they’re both on the Pill, because they asked me for a prescription when they learned I was a doctor. Kind of awkward when I told them my license had been suspended, but I helped them get what they needed.”

Jamie buried his face in Claire’s shoulder. “That’s good. But I really don’t need that mental image. They’re both a foot taller than him, for God’s sake. How does that even work, in bed? Sounds like a complicated math problem.”

She kissed his forehead. “From what they told me, it’s not an issue.”

He shifted up, mouth finding hers in a kiss.

“Will it ever stop, Claire?” he whispered against her lips, after a long, long while.

He didn’t need to be more specific.

“I don’t know, Jamie.” She kissed him, long and sweet. “I really don’t. But I don’t want to ever find out.”

Two A.M. Neither could sleep – too much on their minds.

Sometimes it was like this on the road.

They speculated why. Too much post-show energy. An uncomfortable bed. Because no substances were available.

Or, as Jamie would say – too much life to live, to waste by sleeping.

“Play for me?”

He kissed her forehead and crawled out of bed, toward the guitar case.

She recognized it from their time at The Ridge. A bit of mother-of-pearl inlay on the neck. Sides worn with time and love.

The guitar he had written all those songs on, at The Ridge. The songs he had always played to her first, in the early morning before everyone else woke up. Feeling like the two of them were the only people in the world.

The same songs he now played, night after night, for thousands of people.

Every time still felt like the first time.

She sat up a bit in bed, leaning against the headboard. Watched Jamie sit beside her, candlelight playing over his arms and chest and hips.

“Any requests, Dr. Mrs. Fraser?”

She smiled.

“Surprise me.”

He smiled back. Thinking.

Strummed a few chords. Thinking.

Launched into song.

Half of what I say is meaningless

But I say it just to reach you, Julia

Looked up at his wife.

Her beautiful, beautiful face stricken with pain and grief.

He lay down the guitar. Pulled her to him, skin on skin.

Holding her, smoothing her hair, as she cried.

“Sshh. I’ve got you. I love you. Sshh.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath.

“My mother was named Julia,” she whispered into his neck. So softly that he felt it, more than heard it.

“I’m sorry. I never asked you about it. I didn’t mean – ”

“The White Album was the first record I bought with my own money. I used to listen to this song and think of her.”

He pulled her a bit closer. Wanting her to crawl inside his skin.

“I wonder sometimes what my life would have been like, if she and my dad hadn’t died when I was five.”

“If you would have become an addict, you mean?”

She twined her fingers with his. Thumb tracing his wedding ring. “If I would have married Frank. If I would have become a doctor. If I would have become an addict. If I would have met you.”

“All what ifs. You can’t drive yourself crazy that way, Claire.”

“It hurts, Jamie.” She closed her eyes. He kissed the tears sliding down her cheeks.

“I know, Claire.”

“I really wanted her to be at our wedding.”

“I know.”

“And your Mom, too.”

Ellen Fraser had died when Jamie was eight.

If anyone understood, it was him.

“Yes. I’m sorry. I never want to cause you pain, Claire.”

She took a deep breath. “I know, Jamie. And you couldn’t have known about the song.”

He kissed her cheek. “I can play another one.”

She shook her head. “No. I want you to play it. I need a new memory.”

He smiled. Gently turned her around so that he sat against the headboard with her back pressed against his front. Reached out for the guitar and settled it across Claire’s knees, his hands reaching around her to find the strings.

He strummed a bit. She relaxed a bit.

“You know, John Lennon wrote this song for his mother. She was also named Julia. He lost her when he was a young man – and he mourned her the rest of his life.”

He kissed the shell of her ear. Played another chord.

“It’s OK to mourn, Claire. And to remember.”

Began singing, low and quiet, into her ear.

Half of what I say is meaningless But I say it just to reach you, Julia

Julia, Julia, ocean child, calls me So I sing a song of love, Julia…

Safe in his arms.

“Love you,” she whispered, starting to drift away.

He finished the song. Carefully set the guitar on the carpet, and eased her back onto the bed. Holding her so close, so gently. A wonder.

“Dear God, I love you.”

#outlander #outlander fanfic #little bit better than i used to be #jamie and claire

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mdhwrites · 2 years ago

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Would you mind talking about the found family aspect of toh (or the lack of it in your opinion?)

So… I want to start by just mentioning that the Found Family Trope is new enough IN REALITY that its exact definitions are hard to really claim. What is required for a narrative to count as a found family narrative isn't very well defined in part because people are still figuring out what found family means in real life. Is it just a best friend you're really close to? Is it someone who's bailed you out of the worst place you've been in your life even if you've only talked five or so times for more than five minutes?

And worse yet, the concept of family IN GENERAL is very personal to most people. We may have an idea of what it is but is that the ideal family? Reality? How they treat you? Etc. like that. And taking all that confusion and emotion to a narrative is dangerous because you can just claim "The characters believe this" and it becomes hard for an audience to argue even if some part of them disagrees with it.

But we do need some level of definition to even talk about it so what is my personal definition for it? How do I think it should be defined versus a best friend in media? Well… I think it's a person that you tie into your identity, rather than simply you get along with. An attack on them is an attack on you. Even more importantly, it's reciprocated. They would also back you up in almost any circumstance.

They are your port in a storm. Even beyond possible romantic interests, they are who you trust PERIOD. It needs a deep amount of connection and is something you earn in a story, more than is simply there. You need interactions between these characters that progress their characters, tackle their fears, etc. like that AND have the characters around them show understanding, care and growth on such subjects because those people also care about you.

It is COMPLICATED and you cannot half ass it. It took an ENTIRE SEASON of half episodes for Amphibia to really sell just how much the Plantars were Anne's new family to make the family trip as effective and meaningful as it was. To make it so when Hop Pop calls Anne his kid, you don't even blink or celebrate because it feels natural for them to use titles that are so important.

As a note, the episode of AMPHIBIA that made me realize TOH didn't accomplish this was "The Day at the Aquarium". An episode that could have essentially been a clip show about the whole family reminiscing on the mistakes they can now laugh at, dangers they've been through together and the growth as people they've had. And watching it made me ask "Could… Could TOH even do this sort of episode with King, Eda and Luz?" And… I don't think so.

So let's finally actually get into this. Now, I will actually say S2 does it better… But the foundation is REQUIRED for this trope. After all, it's easy to have characters call each other family and treat each other like family if they just start doing it. But is there an arc into that? If there isn't, then these characters claiming this with each other isn't going to feel valid to the audience. After all, as an author you can claim anything you want. If you have not sold the concept to the audience though, they have every right to call bullshit on it. Some people question whether Luz, Willow and Gus are actually friends because of how little Luz gives a fuck about the other two, reaches out to them, etc. and that's a MUCH lower bar to clear.

So… Where do Luz, Eda and King start? Well, luckily that's not very hard. By actions and words, the relationships start with

Eda seeing King as an agreeable tenant and Luz as free labor,

King sees Eda as a powerful minion who's couch he can sleep on while Luz is just a minion,

and finally Luz sees Eda as a mentor and King as a puppy/novelty and both of them as an outlet for her fantasies.

And this is a fine starting point. It fits who the characters are (retcons about Eda and King's past aside, as contradictory as they are) and the world itself. It also allows them to start as actually pretty antagonistic with each other. King doesn't care about anyone other than himself, Eda just wants to make a quick buck with the minimal work she has to put in and Luz easily gets bored by the other two and fucks off to do what she wants. It kind of makes all three look worse which helps allow them to have more growth as characters.

The bigger problem is that it takes EIGHT FUCKING EPISODES for this to change. That's the whole point of Once Upon a Swap. They still look at each other as barely people at that point, like their problems mean nothing to each other and they're all annoying to each other, so now they need a change of perspective. That is the point admittedly of almost ANY swap episode but it is the explicit, narrative point of Once Upon a Swap.

And if you wanna argue with me, here's a quick rundown of the seven episodes previous (I'm mostly ignoring the opening jokes of episodes because this is about something deeper than those casual routines you get into with roommates or friends. This is about a deeper respect than you're going to get through a bunch of puns.):

Ep. 1: Sets these relationships.

Ep. 2: Mocking Luz for wanting a fantasy, sending her off to do work and King is focused on sleeping and snacks. They save Luz not because they have a care about her but because, you know, they're not evil people who are just going to let a young girl bite it. It does have a good ending with them overlooking the Isles but it hardly changes how they've treated Luz this entire episode, nor how they will treat her going forward.

Ep. 3: You have Eda and King making a point of how many bad bets Eda puts on King because it amuses her while Luz goes "Your teaching blows, I'm going to magic school." Theoretically, she learns to listen to Eda but looks pointedly at Adventure in the Elements

Ep. 4: Luz proves how little she respects or sees King as a person as even while he's teaching about demons, something Luz ostensibly should be interested in, she's too busy goofing around and squealing about how cute he is. They also screw over Eda by stealing from her and really throw into question how long King has lived with Eda because he never knew about the curse or elixirs before now in a proper way… somehow. Saving Eda and showing basic respect to King happens by the end but again, that's kind of the bare minimum to being good people. Like… You should give basic humanity to a stranger, let alone someone you're living with who you theoretically told to make this lesson for you.

Ep. 5: This one makes a very good point about how little Eda has taught Luz while Eda continues to shit on things that make Luz excited. She has no interest in the things Luz cares about and only through literary torture does she decide to go. You have King who fucks off entirely and only defends Luz as far as his own pride goes, to the point of having a joke right before episode break of "Oh, you're gonna lose" because once Luz started being his champion and a good minion, he stopped caring because he'd gotten what he'd asked and so salvaging the cupcake was a higher priority.

Ep. 6: Luz uses the house for a sleepover against Eda's wishes, with enough reluctance to show proper respect to Eda while still being a teenager, and… otherwise not much? Not wanting a tenant to be owned by someone else is, again, kind of basic when it comes to humanity so I don't even have much to say about the Eda and King stuff and Luz barely interacts with the other two in the episode.

Ep. 7: Luz straight up ditches the other two for the library while they have to deal with Bat Lady kids and… That's it. Luz doesn't interact with the other two and the other two are being comic relief.

And… I'll admit that this sounds harsh but when not looking for found family, it's all fine. In fact, a lot of it is entertaining to varying degrees, gives them unique personalities that are a bit different from most cartoons and gives the main cast almost a mercenary feel towards each other which is pretty unique. It actually functions just fine narratively.

Unless you're trying to tell me these people are going to become anything more than best friends. Because eight episodes of barely giving a shit about each other, of showing more than what would be expected on the neutral alignment line of D&D, isn't a great start to put it mildly. This gets worse when you remember that Season 1 is 19 episodes long so you spend close to half the season like this.

And remember: By the end of Season 1, Momma Eda is supposed to really be taking full force in how she sees Luz and King is supposed to want Luz to never leave. The found family aspect is going to get a lot strong going forward so we only have really until the S1 finale, when ALL of these characters are willing to die for each other, to turn this around.

King isn't even in the next episode in any real role though. The ninth episode is the Gus episode. Where Luz spends the entire time at Hexide and Eda decides to see about getting Luz no longer banned. Now, for Eda, this is actually good growth because she's willing to recognize the importance to this, not only for Luz as a person but also to Luz herself and so is willing to put effort into something Luz cares about. It's something that most would probably be willing to do for a friend.

But now we're actually halfway through the season… And we still have FIVE Hexide episodes. Five episodes where Luz fucks off to hang out with Hexide kids and the closest to Eda and King doing anything with Luz in these is chaperoning Grom, which isn't much, facilitating the brain jump spell and doing comic relief with Gus, and King and Gus helping King with his stage fright.

And again, none of this is bad… But it's not building a foundation for calling these people family. It's not even building a foundation for being friends outside of the silly jokes that Luz and King develop mostly off screen.

And while back fill and retcon can be used to help with things, your audience is going to remember the larger interactions more. So… What larger interactions DO we have?

Well, King gets three more in the checks episode list ENTIRE SEASON of interactions that are majorly with Eda or Luz. Four if you REALLY stretch it and count his 'role' in Young Blood, Old Souls, though he doesn't exactly do much. Otherwise, you have him using Eda's curse to his advantage for selfish purposes, him becoming famous and telling Luz and her ideas to fuck off until he's in trouble with his deadlines and finally Small Problems which is just a complete mess and actually shows off the problem with what's happened so far because even as early as that, King is claiming Luz isn't spending enough time with him… And why should she? What have you two done together? Actually, even better yet, WHY SHOULD YOU CARE!? You two have barely done anything on screen together, let alone anything that has been super positive or a major bonding moment for one another.

So… King's a bust. What about Eda at least? Momma Eda is crucial afterwards so at least her relationship with Luz is strong, correct?

Actually, fun aside, I haven't checked writing that leading statement so I actually don't know. Let's find out together.

…

……..

Okay, I swear this isn't a bit but… Even if you include Small Problems, Grom, and Escape of the Palisman… She has four. That's not a joke. It's actually more of a reminder of how much time Lilith takes up in the second half of the season. It also makes sense because Eda is just entirely out of commission for the last two episodes and seven episodes are already taken up by either Hexide or King.

So the one episode left to her… Is Adventure in the Elements. Where Luz doesn't listen to her or respect her. Grom is the next closest and it's spent with Eda mostly mocking Luz and chaperoning. So...

I actually ask all of you to look at an episode list yourself for a refresher but besides bits at the start or end of an episode, PLENTY if you're justifying them being friends… How much does the Owl Family really interact with each other? How good is their relationship going off what we've actually seen in the episodes?

Again, for selling them being friends, that's enough, especially for the S1 finale. Luz is a good person and wouldn't want to leave her mentor in worse shape than she first got there. For Eda, Luz is a final chance to have made a positive impact on the world and to claim that a part of her will go on after the curse consumes her. The two giving their lives for one another works on that wavelength.

But it's not because they're family. Not even close. And that is fine… Until the show leans into claiming Found Family was always a theme of it. When it very clearly wasn't.

Not to me at least. And again, starting from EPISODE ONE of S2, the entire family is treating each other better and with more respect than they ever did in S1, and the S1 finale is a good enough reason for that shift. They're now actually friends.

But it will be six episode after that where Luz and King are called Eda's kids, and one of them changes their last name, and Eda doesn't reject any of this. Six episodes to go from friends who are finally giving a shit about each other… and three of them are Hexide episodes. And besides Eda and King getting some Palistrom wood, they still the format of Hexide episodes (I'm counting Hunting Palisman in this) of having Luz just be away from the other two. Hunting Palisman doesn't even have a B plot with them, Escaping Expulsion does no character work between Eda and King and I don't think King and Eda even show up in Looking Glass Ruins.

So… No. I think the show proudly proclaims that it is found family, that Eda is truly Momma Eda through and through, it's writing checks that its actions have left it woefully prepared to cash.

And if it never tried writing them, none of this would have ever been a problem. But being Found Family makes it more special, doesn't it? And being able to be called special has often been more important to TOH than actually following through with the elements that would have made it special. And this is what makes deep diving analysis on this show so exhausting. *sigh*

#Luz #Eda #King #The Owl House Criticism

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nessaiscute · 2 years ago

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theres something speically iroinc bout being trans right now, like i have to act like im not bout to be carried off to some camp to be killed have my life family and meds taken away, and everyone around me just wants me to act like everything is normal. like the worlds not going to shit and i still have to cook and clean and play games and be exicted for things and act like a silly game with a gay character means a damn thing and that in the next twenty mintues my dad could break down my door grab me by my necck and throw me in a cattle car. i have to ignore all the people on the internet who are hoping celebrating this but hey magic wizard game amirightlads??

its becoming harder and harder to do literal anything without my gf i think my mental state would be much much worse, trans people have to be braver then any marine right now but unlike marines we dont get any notice or anything like that. and our families just dont care its all bout laudnry cook food make sure everything is nice and tidy please help me with my thing but i dont wanan hear shit bout your crap. people are choosing to just ignore the real issue either they dont care or standing up makes them uneasy and they dont like being a target. and before any terfs get in my notifs telling me to detransition or some shit it has nothing to do with my hrt its YOU acting like its the end of the fucking world that trans women exist a concept thats been a thing since the start of time its you passing laws preventing me from just existing telling me its all bout kids meanwhile child labor is back and school shootins happen every day but yall stopped caring bout that after the tennesse one cause the shooter was trans. its bout the fear of just living right now i dont want to die i want to exist i want to be happy im more happy then ive ever been but all yall can see is some made up bullsht in your head cause ‘lamo men creepy’ its bullshit its stupid and im just so so tried of it

#nessa rants #gods how long has it been since i ranted on here #trans #lgbt

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alagaisia · 4 months ago

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And another thing. I know it’s unpopular right now to criticize individual choices as contributing to waste and pollution and overuse of resources and climate change, etc. But I am going to.

I was brushing up some environmental stats/discussion questions in a kids’ activity packet for work the other day and when I was looking for some up-to-date and sourced things to sub in for what was in there, I found a National Geographic study from I think 2008? (Ironically I don’t have the source available to me right now because I was at work) that found that the average American- based on surveys of regular people on individual consumption, right, not stuff done by American corporations or celebrities- uses between two and twenty times as many material resources in a year than somebody in the rest of the world. Twice as much as someone from France. Twenty times more than somebody from India. There were other countries surveyed and mentioned with numbers between that that were all inarguably developed/industrialized/“first-world” countries.

I saw a post on here this evening that asked “what’s a little luxury you buy when you can? Something a little bit fun or expensive that you just can’t have enough of?” And I was all set to talk about the chai latte concentrate I like to splurge on from Costco which is much more expensive and I go through it more quickly than tea bags but it’s just really delicious. And then OP finished the post with “mine is phone cases.” What????

You’re buying and collecting phone cases? Something you can only use one of at a time? Made of plastic and cheap enough that they’re definitely primarily made by people being paid next to nothing for their labor? Something that is not going to be usable long term because phones do not last more than I suppose several years at best? And that having lots of them doesn’t like convey any sort of utility or advantage because I can think of barely a handful of vague situations where one phone case might have different features from another that makes one more or less convenient in different situations and you might want to switch them out. But only if you couldn’t find or afford a phone case that included all of your desired features at once, which if you’re wasting who knows how much money on “never having enough” phone cases, you could have done.

And like, I don’t know if OP was American. And I know tons of things use plastic and are useless in one way or another but it just struck me as such a specific example of such specifically wasteful behavior like. You don’t need that. Nobody needs that. And there are worse things and more wasteful things and yes corporations are bad and everything else. And I am more environmentally conscious of small things like that than most people I know (and yet I still drive to work every day because the bus would take two hours. Curious I am very intelligent meme etc.) and it’s unrealistic to expect everybody to do everything all the time all of that I know all of that.

But this study had also talked about how Americans, the most wasteful demographic on the literal planet, are also the people a.) most likely to believe that individual choices and consumption do not make an environmental difference, and b.) least likely to feel any guilt over their use of resources.

People who use and waste less than half of the amount of useless junk each of us uses in the US feel more compelled to pay attention to and limit their use of energy and material resources than we do. And not hypothetical billionaires or corporations or whoever. Regular people.

We live on a planet with a lot of finite resources! And we are wasting so many of them on dumb useless bullshit like single-serve individually packaged fucking idk pudding containers or getting a new cell phone every six months or buying your kid a rubber duck or three every time you go to target and a hundred other small things that people in specifically the US just don’t think about and they SHOULD. And I know we can talk about how some people need those single-use plastic squeeze tubes of apple sauce, and I’m sure it’s true. I’m not saying anyone should go around to individuals and question and harass them about their choices. But we should all be thinking way, way more about our own personal choices and the choices made by our families and social circles because the fact remains that 90% of kids would be just fine with a bowl of apple sauce poured from a big glass jar.

#mine #rant #environmental stuff #ughgggghh #I work at an org that specifically teaches recycling and waste reduction to kids (as part of what we do) and my boss came into work a couple #of times last with iced coffee in a disposable plastic cup when SPECIFICALLY one of the lines in our new show is about ‘maybe if I remind #mom that she has a reusable mug she won’t throw away so many coffee cups’#last year our education director got us Xmas gifts which was nice of her but it was a big plastic reusable Starbucks travel cup and it’s #like buddy you see me every day I already own two (ceramic!) travel mugs plus one I borrow from my mom when the dishwasher hasn’t been run #and I need a third for my rotation. I do not need or want this.#and we work! at an org! that promotes environmental consciousness!#and I know that a lot of other people just don’t think to think about stuff like that the way I do I guess? but I also do not understand why #oof #long post #sorry

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isitwrongtotrytopickup---dragons · 3 months ago

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!!! Please read with an open mind.

Consent has not always been "for purchase". As someone who grew up indigenous and who's work focuses on decolonization as an adult, what you're saying sounds like a very colonial and capitalistic view on consent. You're not a machine that just "has skills" and it's "consent depends on payment", there's no coin slot. Consent is far more complex than that and your skills are not inherent to you, they're learnt. Much like the concept of consent itself. Learnt. In a particular social context and culture.

Before colonization, our idea of consent had nothing to do with payment. There was no "if you pay me then I will..." because consent has to be freely given, without "ifs". My main problem with what you describe is that it sounds like putting payment first and consent as a secondary result of payment. When consent cannot be the secondary result of anything to be freely given, it has to be your primary concern.

It's not that consent cannot have conditions, of course it does. But those conditions you set for yourself have to be decided for yourself and not coerced into you by the system you live in.

The socioeconomic context in which you'd be giving consent is the problem here. There is no consensual "if you pay me I'll do this thing I hate" because there's the capitalistic guillotine above your head when you make this choice. The countless consequences of not having a source of income. Your access to food, shelter, health, all is limited.

In pre-colonial societies, this didn't happen. In fact, now you got it backwards. You do a job because you want to dedicate your life to this pursuit. You choose your profession freely. And then because that profession is important for the well-being of the entire rest of the community or for whatever reason the fruits of your labor are valued and appreciated, all the others will support you in whatever capacity they can (offering in exchange the fruits of their own labor, from their own different professions).

Those "unwanted" jobs that are tiresome or "gross" or for whatever reason most people don't really want to do, we do in community, because it's often things that we all have in common and we all need to do or get done, and so we do them for our communal wellbeing. Even things that some enjoy and some don't, we did and still do in community. That way, those who enjoy it also enjoy the company, and those who don't, don't have to do it all by themselves. And nobody was getting paid or coerced into any of it. From cleaning every corner of a house to funerals to delivering messages from town to town to working in the fields. Communal work and communal events.

It's all cool if you choose to do something nobody else wants to do, and you just so happen to be paid for it because others see it as necessary and are grateful that you chose to help them with that. Work first, appreciation from a communal need guarantees that you'll receive something in return (not necessarily payment in the western idea of $$$). What is not ok is to be forced into a capitalistic system then coerced into doing something you don't want to do because you need the money to live. There is a difference. And pretending that difference doesn't exist or that there are no other possible systems to live in perpetuates capitalism and colonialism.

The reality is, not only are most people incredibly separated from the concept of community and communal living, in this individualistic capitalistic society that the idea of having a group of people you trust helping you to clean your home, let alone your toilet, sounds crazy to some, but also people just don't see how many jobs we have today are not needed, like, at all. They only exist as new ways for billionaires to fill their pockets even more.

Billionaires are creating new bullshit every day (see crypto, AI, god knows what else now) and that creates "new job opportunities!" which people celebrate and all, but is crypto truly needed for human survival? no. Does it have any cultural value? no. Does it hold any real weight for the wider community? no. But people are still going to get paid for working on it. People chase the money, a million goes to the billionaire's pocket and a penny goes to the worker, and when it's hard to come by pennies in a particular field due to "competition" and artificial scarcity, they create a completely new bullshit job to give people some other unnecessary thing to do that will give them money to chase after, and the wheel of capitalism keeps turning.

The money can never be the focus if you want an ethical and sustainable work. There's no ethical consumption under capitalism and there's no consent under capitalism. I wouldn't say that "that's not a bad thing" unless you consider capitalism your preferred and desired system to live on.

It sounds like a pretty self-destructive thing to me, heck, it sounds like a pretty ecologically damaging thing to me. And I would personally qualify those two things as bad, for the person and for the environment. But that's just my view as an indigenous person. Obviously some people like, say, white billionaires, would beg to differ.

Consent has always been for purchase and that's not a bad thing.

I did not scrub toilets out of the goodness of my heart. My consent to do so was for sale, we agreed on a price and then I did it.

I did not deliver newspapers out of the goodness of my heart. My consent to do so was for sale, we agreed on a price and then he fucked me around so I quit.

This applies to all work. You have skills, consent to use those skills for someone else depends on them paying you.

#decolonize #decolonization #settler colonialism #imperialism #capitalism

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magicalgirllove92 · 1 year ago

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You know, the 11th season of My Big Fat Fabulous Life is almost here on the day after Labor Day and there's a new trailer.... Things will get heartbreaking and extremely ugly. My first thought of this trailer as Glenn Thore says goodbye his late wife Babs who passed away in December of last year but filmed a damn funeral for tacky reality TV show... That's disgusting, embarrassing, disrespectful, emotionless and super gross, I mean, come on. Funerals are for private used only just like my grandma's celebration of life when I went to Mexico for anniversary prayers to support my mom and also she's more mature than Shit Whit Thore, no livestream or shitty untalented reality TV show. Although they've should used filming butterflies or doves as of sign of Christian or Catholic human went to heaven but the goddamn casket. That's fucking gross and emotionless creepy. Even Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 and 5-part John Aniston tribute episodes on Days of Our Lives is much better emotional than disgusting 11th season premiere of Warner Bros Discovery's worst show that has bad influence towards girls. Girls who was born in the late 80s and early 90s used to be huge fans of Whitney Thore but after that, they'll better off with their childhood heroines The Powerpuff Girls, Totally Spies or even Disney's action comedy Kim Possible, so was pop stars like Beyonce, Janet Jackson, Selena and Taylor Swift. The Thore kids decided to make her heartbreaking dad cheer up, an pick-me-boot adventure call bucket list. Just like the 2007 movie starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson various stuff from skydiving to tattoo which was wholesome. But from wholesome to trashy soap crap when Glenn is visiting a woman who is a daughter of Vietnamese woman he fall in love out of wedlock and. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ She's was the half-sister of Whitney and Hunter! Reddit users are having a field day to continue mocking her hugest fat ass until the show is over for good. My eyes are roll for this toxic cringe. 🙄 Shitney is bullying her faked friend who is 29 drinking his morning coffee. Glenn's bucket list when his kids and Shitney's friends are having a whirlwind trip to Switzerland and... I'm laughing at the cringeful moments possible because the trailer ends with dramatic music. 🤣🤣🤣 Poor little Whitney suffered an health issues all because of her obese bullshit (My message to her: don't blame PCOS) and the fucking helicopter fit for prissy narcissistic princess arrives at the nick of time as she went to Switzerland hospital. What the fuck!!! I thought the early seasons were decent but later.... drama bullshit about me me me and even toxic nonhealthly feminists are praised Whitney Thore while normal healthy feminists are scolded her (used to be fans of Whitney Thore but they've rage quit). After the trailer was online Whitney post it on Instagram either I'm laughing cringe or petty or felt bad but either way, I'm about to find out why. The answer is petty. Whitney's haters don't hate Glenn and Hunter, they hate her. Glenn answers it which was inaccurate. His late wife is an reality TV star while Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth II is historical figures, he cannot compare famous figures to the hypocritical unlovable fatso's lovable mom. I'm afraid that the 11th season of My Big Fat Fabulous Life will be doomed to failure because it's on its last legs and used fans of Whitney Thore are done with her.

#tw: death #anti Whitney Thore #this site is for Whitney Thore slander #my big fat fabulous life #tlc #Warner Bros Discovery #tw: rant #tw: mental health

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theoutletonmychest · 2 years ago

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Found my initial live thoughts on watching the mess that is Book of Boba Fett from a year ago.

A show that would have been fine with any other character.

But they did him so dirty, along with other issues that I have not seen a lot of people talking about in favor of celebrating the found family part of the show.

What the actual fuck, show? So, first, you white savior Boba fuckin' Fett, [I know he's not white. But the trope of the outsider from a "more civilized society" coming in and fixing everything is exactly the same.] a bounty hunter best known for working with Darth Vader and disintegrating people. I understand choosing Tusken Raiders as a stand-in for Clone Troopers. No problem. So, they take him prisoner. For slave labor. I guess. Then he kills a big dumb monster. Suddenly he is not a slave. How progressive. Then he learns their ways. And brings them technology. Hey, is this sounding like a 1950s western yet? Then, he and the natives take down a train trespassing on the Tusken's ancestral lands. He goes on a vision quest. He wears their clothes. He is of the tribe. Disney invents a new tribal dance for the kids to imitate and everyone forgets they're slavers. And all the murders are written off with a single line, "Other tribes have chosen violence!" Perfection. Beautiful. And then, the very next episode, all the totally-not-evil-slavers-who-never-murdered-anyone-because-we-know-them are murdered off-screen. Before we can remember their actual past actions. Including the child with the toy gaffi stick. Who, I remind you, literally held two people as slaves and directly led to the death of one of them. Angelic choir music plays over the scene. Because they're angels. What the actual fuck, Disney. What the fuck? How did this get made in 2022? It's just the same old bullshit from 70 years ago mixed in with the cultural shifts of the 90s and early 00s and dressed up in a Star Wars outfit. What am I watching? Also. We know nothing about our main character. And all his decisions have been quests assigned by other people. He is so flat I wouldn't be able to see him if he turned sideways. But maybe that's a slow burn. They have done some setup there. But geez. People have been praising tf out of this. I wasn't expecting so much oof. HE WAS LITERALLY IN A JESUS BLESSING POSE WHILE BEING WRAPPED IN NATIVE GARB.

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Like. They somehow portrayed the natives as savages and helpless angels who need a savior from the "modern world" simultaneously. And then killed them all while the savior was away. It is almost funny how oof it is.

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He just said, "That was a bit heavy-handed, don't you think?" over a simple threat of violence towards a repeatedly stonewalling character. This is the big scary bounty hunter everyone's dreamt about for 45 years.

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"And remember. No disintegrations. They're a bit heavy handed." - 2022 Darth Vader, I guess.

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Star Wars just did a car chase scene where they plow through two people carrying a plate-glass window. In 2022. I'm so glad it's out of George Lucas's hands. He would have done something silly. What am I watching?

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WE HAVE FRUIT STANDS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. I REPEAT. WE HAVE FRUIT STANDS.

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I'm going to be honest. None of this is what I expected from a spin-off of The Mandalorian. I can't handle another episode right now. Woof.

That's how far I got the first day. I really wasn't expecting much from the show, but the problematic shit, then the Looney Tunes shit, then the complete erasure of Boba Fett's soul as they replaced him with someone who looks like him, but isn't him...

Oh my gods they cloned the Fett.

I wish the transhuman stuff was more explored and they had more personality. They were basically just an aesthetic for Boba to wear and it really didn't work for me.

He also spent the entire season being the town's gopher which, again, is not what I expected from a Boba Fett at the end of his life, even with the supposed rebirth. You don't actually lose your past when you go through something like that.

You make a decision.

Boba Fett from the show doesn't make decisions.

I really did not enjoy this. And it's 100% because they Teen Titans Go'd it. Used a visible name people care about to do whatever they wanted.

Mandalorian worked. If this was the show you wanted to make, do it with a new character that fits better. Have an ounce of respect for fans of the universe. Star Wars is huge and has room for all kinds of stories.

It doesn't have to be the same characters pasted into scripts that don't work for them.

Blah.

#journal entry #thoughts #book of boba fett

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actualmermaid · 2 years ago

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Hey Christians

I am once again getting reports that some of you are appropriating Jewish holidays and traditions, and 🌠 you should immediately stop doing that 🌠

Since I'm also a Christian, maybe you'll take this better from me. I usually see this behavior from people who are white, American, and/or Evangelical-adjacent, and I suspect that you're messing around with Jewish stuff because you feel alienated from your own cultural background, whatever that may be. You belong to what is essentially the big-box-store version of Christianity, and you're probably hungry for something that feels more "authentic." That's 100% understandable! But it is not a reason to appropriate traditions that belong to a community that has not shared them with you!

Luckily, there are some pretty easy ways to get acquainted with your own cultural heritage through traditional Christian observances.

Get acquainted with the traditional liturgical calendar. Our observances are structured around the solar year, and historically, these observances were tied to the patterns of agricultural labor. Religious festivals also had seasonal significance: the birth of Jesus coincides with the lengthening of days after the winter solstice, the resurrection of Jesus coincides with the rebirth of plants and animals in the spring, and so forth. The more you learn, the more you realize how much we've lost/forgotten!

If you know where your ancestors came from, you can research how folk-religious festivals are practiced in those parts of the world! What foods are eaten? What games are played? What stories are told? If there's a church associated with "your" cultural community, you might consider visiting them around important festivals and learning what they do. Remember, you are a student, and you should still approach these observances with respect and openness!

Here's a non-exhaustive list of things to try if you're feeling the temptation to appropriate a closed Jewish practice:

Instead of observing Rosh Hashanah because you're feeling left-out by the lack of major Christian holidays at this time of year, start looking forward to the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi (October 4). Here in the US, it's common for churches to hold a special "Blessing of the Animals" service or a "St. Francis the Peacemaker" service, often in cooperation with churches from other denominations! It's a lot of fun!

Instead of trying to host your own Passover seder (I have a horror story about this that I will refrain from sharing out of respect for my Jewish friends), just celebrate Easter like the rest of us! Easter, not Christmas, is the most important day in the Christian liturgical year. There are MANY ways to celebrate Easter in a more "traditional" way than you might be used to.

Celebrating Hanukkah as a Christian makes you look fucking stupid! Don't do it! Instead, if you want a multi-day traditional Christian observance, our things are the seasons of Advent and Christmastide! Again, depending on your cultural background, there are lots of ways to "practice Christianity" around this time. Fasting (similar to fasting during Lent) and lighting the candles on an Advent wreath are easy ways to start.

Don't try to observe Torah, that's not our thing! If you want to practice more "rules," consider trying out one of the many Christian fasting traditions (NOT the "Daniel Fast," which is basically a crash diet attached to some very bullshit theology), praying the Daily Office or using prayer beads, or wearing a head-covering in church. ("But I'm not Catholic," you might say, but if you do some research you'll discover that none of these things are unique to Catholics! You're not Jewish either, but that's not stopping you from messing around with their stuff!)

Before you come at me with excuses about this not being "biblical" or whatever, keep in mind that many Jewish observances are also not "biblical"! If you really want to try out a Jewish holiday, you should make a Jewish friend and let them invite you, but it's pretty hard to make Jewish friends if you're constantly trying to steal their shit! (The last 2000 years of Jewish-Christian relations are hard proof of this!)

#christianity #judaism #religion #culture

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synallactic · 3 months ago

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The meat looks how Cordell's cheek felt mulling over his tongue. Forgive him if he doesn't dig in right away. He could chalk it up to the elegance in the way Hannibal's fingers curl around a fork, knife as the oar leading fine minced chunks in from the tide of sunny side but he'd be half right.

More mesmerized by the hint of teeth beneath his lip as he takes his first bite. The pulse of muscle leaping between jaw and temple as he chews. The marinade of flavors settling over the flat of his tongue as he swallows.

Wondering too who the third guest is. If there is any at all. That's the brilliance of Hannibal's mask. They'll never know which of them swallowed his unfortunate victims. So to hell with it, all of them did. Lip half curls in amusement at the thought of the pale faced afficionados and their faux horror. Knowing damn well none of them hid their curiosity well enough.

Will catches his lips at the rim of his glass for show, wrapped around pristine crystal without the supplication of another drink which he takes now with an over exaggeration of forethought.

He's stopped asking who's on the menu and when, more interested in the basics of supposition and his peek behind the veil to tell him when its his turn to shell out some part of himself. Even more curious to see if he'll recognize it.

And what Hannibal's expressions will tell him then. Like what it's doing now. The meat wasn't personal, a source at best. Easier than going to the grocery store. The satisfaction is at his own cunning elevation of the dish. Who knows meat better than the butcher?

Would Hannibal celebrate every labored swallow, carve him slow till there's nothing left to keep alive? Slower than Gideon? Would it be a love letter like Bedelia? Could he stomach it at all.

He can hear the Tattlecrime bullshit headline of the day: They're On Their Honeymoon Now But Wait Till Desert.

That's right. Bâtard-Montrachet down the hatch.

First bite's the hardest to work through. Slimy, so raw it's still fighting to avoid his teeth, he chases it with a bite of bread and decides imitation is key. No one knows etiquette better than the host.

"Have you decided what our new lives are going to be? Can't play tourists forever."

He takes the flattery on his dimpling chin; it’s refreshing not to pretend humility. It’s a mask to take with lessers and, as any theater, takes a social commentary stab at stratum.

In theory.

’ He underestimated you. ‘

Better put, he overestimated himself.

But even now, be it for his Captor Crawford, Will resorts to empathy. Where else to, in his case? The sympathetic nervous system requires patterned spikes for equilibrium. Abusive ones cleverly touch immortality through it—Hannibal is rewiring Will’s into more productive: pair hunters.

’ Resentment has a dangerously variable latency period. It comes from perceived injustice and the longer it’s inert, the more radical the boiling point will be. ‘

The bottle of Montrachet retires to the true center of the table, two Wills’ torso lengths away. To soothe the loss:

’ And then it becomes something else altogether. ‘

Congratulations.

’ Bon appétit. ‘

He forks in. The sunny yolk in its dented bun of meat tears like blinding paint down its injured side. He boards two inches of steak tartare onto a palmboat of toast.

Watching Will’s slender gun wrist, the one that strains to strings on the job whether the job is fur-soaping or refashioning Francis Dolarhyde into a patty, Hannibal’s palate traps a crunch.

#rejectory

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shamebats · 2 years ago

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Nadja's was the only #girlboss arc I've ever enjoyed and I really don't get it when people say they did her character a disservice or thought it was sexist. Yeah, she failed and embarrassed herself in the end, and it was amazing!

"Girlbosses" are just bosses who happen to be women, they exploit employees and fuck their customers over all the same. No matter what they might say, they're still motivated by greed, it's not any different because women are inherently moral and good. Nadja was just more straightforward about her intentions than every other CEO of some shitty cash-grabbing business that tries to market itself as morally superior because they have women in charge but then mistreats workers and union-busts just like the male-led competition.

Women can be greedy, tyrannical bosses and portraying them as such isn't sexist by default.

The Wraiths were the actual badasses here, none of them asked for any of that night club bullshit but they still did all the work while Nadja, in typical girlboss fashion, sat around doing nothing but steal profits and bask in the success when things were going well.

When the Wraiths unionized, I was rooting for them, not for Nadja. When Laszlo tried to get a better contract for Baby Colin Robinson, I was rooting for them, not Nadja.

She wasn't meant to be a sympathetic character because she never had good intentions. People like her only want money and power, no matter who they have to hurt to get it, and it's fun to watch them fail.

Nadja's arc was a pretty good criticism of the "girlboss era" and its aftermath. If you were unironically rooting for her while she was being an abusive ass towards everyone around her in a selfish pursuit of wealth, it might be time to take a step back and try to see the big picture. I'm not saying this to be mean, most of us were exposed to that particular type of media brainwashing, especially 80s-90s kids, me included.

The thing about girlbosses is that, in real life, most of them turned out to be horrible, tyrannical bosses who created toxic, abusive work environments. They always have been, even as they were being celebrated by the media as role-models and champions of feminism. Nobody ever cared about the workers, who were the ones actually responsible for the company's success.

"The push to move beyond the girlboss is an acknowledgment that a slight expansion of college-educated women’s access to venture capital or mentoring opportunities was never a meaningful change to begin with, or an avenue via which meaningful change might be achieved. Being belittled, harassed, or denied fair pay by a woman doesn’t make the experience instructive instead of traumatic."

"Making women the new men within corporations was never going to be enough to address systemic racism and sexism, the erosion of labor rights, or the accumulation of wealth in just a few of the country’s millions of hands—the broad abuses of power that afflict the daily lives of most people."

- from The Girlboss Has Left the Building by Amanda Mull.

I think the writers did a great job highlighting just that, while also putting a very important emphasis on the power of collective bargaining.

The takeaway is that Nadja's club couldn't survive a day without the workers and performers. It was her vanity project but the work was being done by other much more skilled and hard-working people. That's the true reality of literally every "aspirational" girlboss story you've ever read

#wwdits #wwdits meta #nadja of antipaxos #what we do in the shadows

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dragonmuse · 2 years ago

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I had so much fun with your scenario in which Izzy becomes a writer! Do you think there's any chance of a universe somewhere where he'd become a professional chef? Maybe one that makes a name for himself making food that's both gourmet and allergen-free... I love all these possible AUs that you write, by the way <3

( Thank you so much! <3.

soooo this one became a full on fic. no bulleted list. Because of that, there was no place to put it, but Eddy in this timeline comes out in her teens and is already out when she meets Izzy. CW: There is an old-fashioned Izzy allergy attack in this one. Brief mention of a hospital, but no one stays there.

Let's call this one 'bottle of red, bottle of white' )

“Boss?” Fang appeared at Eddy’s elbow. They were trying to sort out the reservation system that Hornigold had foisted on them last week. It was a fucking mess.

“What?” Eddy snapped.

“There’s an emergency.”

Eddy whirled on Fang, who did have a wild look about him.

“What kind?”

“Ivan already called 911. It’s Izzy.”

“Did he stab someone?” Eddy asked with a groan, heading back towards the kitchen.

“No, boss-”

The kitchen was silent. The kitchen was never silent. It was a place of flames, banging pots and yelling. If Hornigold was back there (rarer and rarer these days) than it was even worse, with barks of ‘yes, chef!’ following his shouted order.

No Hornigold today. But also no banging, no leaping cascades of fire. The rapid ‘clack clack clack’ of knives had fallen off. The entire staff seemed frozen, eyes glued to the floor. Eddy looked down and there was Izzy, sitting on an overturned bucket. Izzy who rarely let anyone touch him, had Ivan’s hand on his back, as he tried to draw in air.

“Iz,” Eddy dropped into a squat, fear seizing her. Israel Hands didn’t sit during meal prep. He was a shark from 4pm until midnight, moving from spot to spot to ward off death.

Izzy didn’t look up. His hands were planted to his knees and his breath was staggered. The hands were covered in furious red bumps.

“Did he get burned?” Eddy demanded.

“No, boss,” Blue Toby was looming over them. “All of a sudden he started wheezing.”

“Ambulance is on it’s way,” Ivan provided.

“Fuck,” Eddy closed their eyes, sucked in a breath than nodded sharply. “Ivan, stay on the phone. The rest of you, get the fuck back to work. Dinner service is still dinner service. Iz...Izzy, can you hear me?”

A slow faint nod.

“Fang, tell Sam he's on front of house until I get this figured out.”

“Yes, boss.”

Industry sounds started up again, but not nearly as loud as usual. Ivan went on talking to the operator.

Eddy put a hand over Izzy’s shoulder. Listened to the way his breath strained.

“Don’t you dare die, you mother fucker,” She hissed. “I will dig you out of your grave and make sure you never have a moment’s peace if you die.”

Izzy’s horribly broken out hand groped for hers. He held it tightly, eyes pressed closed.

Eddy could hear her pulse in her ears.

Cooking was not Eddy’s thing, really. Eating was fun though. When they’d been offered a gratis summer class on cooking at some underprivileged kids' bullshit school, Eddy had taken it figuring that at least there’d be some extra meals. It had been a condescending, terrible fucking experience, except for two things: 1. She’d met Hornigold, celebrity chef, who frequented the school to find young, cheap labor and 2. She’d met Izzy, who actually liked all the ridiculous classroom stuff and had attached himself to her like an angry limpet.

It had only taken a two years of doing Hornigold’s bidding that Eddy realized that maybe only one of those two things had actually been good. Not that Eddy wasn’t fucking aces at her job. Restaurant management was made for her. Three years in, she ran the Ranger almost single-handedly. Hornigold’s flagship restaurant only turned profit because Eddy was at the helm. But it was miserable work. Hornigold would never unclench his fist fully around the place, swooping in to make a mess of what Eddy had finally cleaned up and taking them to task for things that no one could control for.

No...no. The only goddamn thing worth having that she’d gotten out of that ridiculous class was Izzy. Reliable, loyal, workaholic, Izzy, who turned all of Hornigold’s tired old recipes into something at least palatable. Izzy, who terrorized the kitchen staff into a peak efficiency, uncaring of what they said about him on smoke breaks. Izzy, who no matter how late he’d been up the night before, was awake before Eddy and handing them coffee when they stumbled out of the bedroom.

Her roommate, her partner, her sometimes fuck that once let her choke him in the pantry and he’d made such sweet sounds around her fingers. There were no moans today, no penetrating eye contact. Izzy was fighting for his breath against the world instead of her and that was fucking unacceptable.

“Don’t die,” she ordered again and he squeezed her hand harder.

“Back here!” Ivan guided in EMTs. Eddy was shoved back, but that never stopped them from staying where they needed to be. When they loaded Izzy into the ambulance, Eddy was right there beside him.

The phone in their pocket was already buzzing with recriminations from Hornigold, some asshole probably tattled. Eddy didn’t give a single fuck. It was a restaurant, fully-staffed. Everyone would survive one night without peak service.

Whatever they gave to Izzy in the ambulance seemed to start working. His breathing became a little less labored though nowhere close to normal. In the E.R., they get him laid out and an I.V. hooked up, but there were no rooms available, so they were just in the hallway. Eventually, Izzy groaned and sat up, head in hands.

“What the fuck?” Eddy demanded of him, even as she rested her hand on the back of his head, brought in close enough to kiss his stupidly over gelled hair.

“Peanut butter,” Izzy muttered.

Eddy froze. They knew Izzy had some shit about nuts. He wouldn’t eat them. Wouldn’t cook with them either. Seemed like one of his many weird twitches and Eddy had let it alone. What did she care if there were nuts on the menu? But Hornigold had insisted that his latest ‘innovation’ (a dish he’d served twenty years ago and was hoping everyone had forgotten about) needed a dollop of peanut butter in it.

Izzy hadn’t said a word as the instructions had been rattled off. But he had been wearing latex gloves all week.

“Are you fucking allergic?” They bit off, furious they hadn’t realized before.

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Did,” Izzy’s voice was raw. “He didn’t give a shit. Hadn’t had a reaction in years, figured maybe I’d gotten over it.”

“Well, you didn’t,” she growled.

“Yeah,” Izzy agreed. “Noticed.”

“Should’ve told me. I can’t do shit about what you haven’t told me.”

“You had other things.”

It had been a bitch of a week. Eddy had been furious for most of it. Izzy never minded their temper, seemed even to enjoy it sometimes, but he wouldn’t have brought them a problem when they were like that.

“You could’ve died, moron,” Eddy snapped. “Then what would I do? Out half the rent and a head chef? I’d have to find like ten new people to replace you.”

“Sorry.”

“Fuck. Hornigold legit almost killed you because he doesn’t know how to spice a stew,” Eddy realized. “You probably had like three alternatives, right?”

“Four,” Izzy agreed.

“Shit.”

It took some time, but eventually Eddy was allowed to take Izzy and his shiny new Epi-Pen home. The apartment was a disaster, usually was Tuesday through Sunday. Mondays, Izzy would tidy and Eddy would do laundry for them both. Sometimes, if Eddy was lucky, those cleaning sessions would end in Izzy cooking something just for the two of them. Something new he’d thought of while churning out ancient classics of someone else’s cookbook that would be spectacular.

Tonight, Eddy ate cold mac and cheese from a box, watching Izzy sleep in her bed. She had steered him in here when they got home and he hadn’t asked a question, just kicked off his shoes and fallen against the sheets.

It was one thing for Hornigold to treat Izzy like shit. Hornigold treated them all like shit. But it was another to almost kill the man. Izzy belonged to Eddy. No one got to take him from her.

After they were done eating, they got into bed and curled around him, listening to him breathe.

“Eddy,” Izzy pushed at them. They startled awake.

“What?”

“I need to piss.”

“Come back after,” she demanded.

To their surprise, he did come back and let himself be reeled in close. They didn’t cuddle usually. They didn’t ever actually sleep together, but Eddy wasn’t letting him out of her sight if she could help it.

“We have to get out of there,” she whispered in his ear and Izzy didn’t argue.

It took two years. Two more painful years to scratch up what they needed, to do it quietly. To find the place, to shake money out of investors that weren’t keen on handing over cash to two people in their twenties with thin resumes. In the end, all they were able to secure was a hole -in-the-wall place in a rundown neighborhood.

“It’s gorgeous,” Eddy determined.

“It’s a shithole,” Izzy contended, but he was smiling. Not the feral one with too many teeth that some staffers saw right before they were fired. Just the real one that he got sometimes when Eddy complimented his food.

“We’ll make it gorgeous,” Eddy allowed.

“You will,” Izzy walked straight back into the kitchen with a pile of cleaning supplies and a gleam in his eye.

It took weeks of elbow grease, and a clever manipulation of funds to get the place into opening shape. Eddy sourced tables and chairs from curbsides, bringing them back to clean and paint until everything was black, purple and blue. On a whim, she even painted the horrible linoleum flooring a matte black, sealing it in with satisfaction at 2 AM on weekday.

“Huh,” Izzy had said as he stumbled in to find them slumped over a rescued table the next morning.

“You like it?” She challenged.

“Should do the ceiling too,” he offered.

They did that. Strung fairy lights up over it so it glistened like the night sky. The walls got covered in bric-a-brac, paintings that Eddy found in Goodwill, seascapes where she could get them.

And in the kitchen, Izzy built a menu like an architect, scaffolding up dishes. Eddy’s stomach had never been fuller as she happily tucked into his ‘failures’.

“Need a name,” Eddy said one night as they both chewed through egg-free pasta noodles drenched in garlic, oil, and oregano.

“Choose whatever,” Izzy gestured loosely with a fork. “You’re good at that shit.”

“You’re the executive chef,” Eddy grinned. “Just call it Hands.”

“Fuck that,” he snorted.

“How about Nutless?”

“Yeah, that’ll go over.”

“Dizzy Izzy’s?” She suggested and then cackled as he threw a noodle at her head.

In the end, the white on black lettering on the sign says ‘Freedom, a fine dining experience’ in Eddy’s own loopy and writing and underneath in Izzy’s spiky letters ‘nut-free, egg-free, soy-free, full of flavor’.

Running a restaurant together, without Hornigold’s interference, was both easier and harder. Eddy had complete control, but there was also no one else to blame when things went wrong. Izzy stayed in the kitchen like someone had chained him to the stove, despite have a half-decent kitchen crew. He’d even gone back to the fucking horrible school and plucked a sous-chef from their ranks. Roach swore even more than Izzy, had a pathological attachment to his meat cleaver and made the world’s most gorgeous quiches. Thanks to Roach, they expanded into brunch service on the weekends.

“You don’t have to go in,” Eddy would remind Izzy on Sundays. “Roach has it.”

“Busy today,” was all Izzy would say and then disappear.

The hookups in the pantry were off the table once it became their pantry and was no longer a rebellion, but a liability to the shelving. Nights in one of their beds fell off as they both came home too tired to do anything more than sleep.

And Eddy....they found they didn’t miss it much. It was easier to be Izzy’s business partner than his life partner.

So they didn’t talk about it and that part of their lives died on the vine. Withered up and went cold.

“I found a place,” Izzy told them, not making eye contact. They were eating their own dinners, hurriedly over the sink as the kitchen buzzed around them. It was one of Eddy’s favorites, seared scallops, which they rarely served. That should’ve made them suspicious.

“What do you mean?”

“To live,” Izzy stared harder at his place. “Closer to here.”

“Iz...”

“I can’t stay,” he muttered. “I can’t- we can do this. Here. But I can’t be in your space all the time if we’re not...”

“Yeah,” Eddy choked. Fuck. “Yeah, okay.”

****

Izzy hadn’t lived alone for more than a few days in his entire life. Gone from home to his shared apartment with Eddy. At first, he relished the quiet. The control. No one else's things cluttering up his precious few hours of free time. But it quickly dulled. He missed Eddy desperately some days, even when...maybe especially when, he was around them for hours anyway.

If it hadn’t been for the restaurant, maybe Izzy wouldn’t have had the balls to go. Maybe he would’ve hung around the apartment for the rest of his life, waiting for Eddy to want him again.

But there was Freedom. There was the kitchen where he ruled with an iron fist and could spend the day elbow deep in food prep. Yes, there was still Eddy swanning in and out, poking and teasing him while they made sure the money flowed in.

And it did. Reviews came out and Izzy read them late at night, memorizing criticism and recalling it at horrible moments, but they were generally good. People liked the food, like the atmosphere Eddy had curated with their inane knick-knacks and charisma. They were good at being partners on the steady black floors of their tiny kingdom.

So Izzy poured himself into the restaurant. They hired more staff. Oluwande, who was a good host, came with Jim, who wandered into the kitchen one night and never went back out on the floor again and Frenchie, who made divine pastries light as air.

“Iz,” Eddy circled up around him one night, their eyes alight. “The place next store closed.”

“The pharmacy or the antiques place?” Izzy glanced up.

“Antiques,” Eddy reached down, plucked up one of the bits of beef dancing around the pan that Izzy had been cooking. Izzy had given up even pretending to threaten them about that a long time ago. Eddy had asbestos fingers and no sense of kitchen hygiene, it just was what it was. Anyway, the appreciative noise she made when she had a bite of his food had always been his favorite compliment.

“Good,” he determined. “Hated that dusty window display.”

“Yeah, but...” Eddy hooked her chin over his shoulder. A few years of working together, living part had left her physically affectionate again and he never shook her off. “Iz. Next door.”

“Yeah?”

“Space, Iz. Two stoves. More tables. The walk-in freezer I know you jerk off too.”

Izzy’s eyes went wide, “We can’t afford it...can we?”

“We can,” Eddy said delighted. “We fucking will.”

It required meeting with some rich dude that owned the building, but Eddy came back from that meeting very merry and an agreement in hand.

“You’d like him.” Eddy declared, then wrinkled her nose. “Actually you’d probably hate him, but I like him. Anyway, he gave us a sweetheart deal.”

They had to close for an entire month which was heart-stopping, but Izzy didn’t have time to obsess over it because he was handed a sledgehammer. To cut costs, they did a lot of the labor themselves and it was like the beginning all over again. The whole staff pitched in and the wall came down.

“What if we didn’t do the floors black?” Eddy floated as they stood between the two spaces, only the demarcation of paint to say where one had once started and the other began.

Izzy crossed his arms over his chest. He loved the black floors, Eddy’s first tender foray into making their mark on their space. But whatever they chose it would still be Eddy’s. That’s what mattered. Eddy out front, facing the world, Izzy in the back, making it taste better.

“Do what you want,” he said and it wasn’t dismissive. He hoped Eddy knew that.

The way they caught his eye suggested that they did, so he left it there. He had a walk-in freezer to stock anyway.

He didn’t count on the chandelier.

“What the fuck?”

“It was Stede’s idea,” Eddy said gleefully from beneath the actually very tasteful fall of crystal.

With a bigger space, they finally put in a decent size bar. It was made of mismatched reclaimed wood, homage to their now retired mismatched furniture. Eddy hired a bartender and then informed Izzy,

“No allergies, omnivore. He suggested if you guys did a tasting he could build out a cocktail menu to match. Told him you’re shit at wine pairings.”

“Thanks,” Izzy rolled his eyes. “Cocktails though?”

“People pay through the nose for specialty cocktails,” Eddy shrugged. “Stede knew the guy, says he’s good. Works rich people parties sometimes, apparently.”

“Great.” Izzy prepared himself to spend an hour listening to a pretentious peacock pick apart his menu. He made the tasting platter as perfect as he could because that’s just how he was and brought it out to the bar at the appointed time.

The guy was waiting, already seated at the bar and he was a knockout. Long legs in skinny jeans, shirt so wide necked it threatened to dip off one shoulder and a creamy bit of fabric wrapped around his neck. His hair looked intentionally mussed, a fucked out look that only came from gel.

“You Spriggs?” Izzy asked, pleased that it came out nearly normal.

“That’s me. You must be Israel.”

“Izzy,” he corrected.

“Izzy,” Lucius repeated with a lingering look. “Lucius, please”

He set the tray on the bar. “Won’t all stay at the right temperature but I don’t have my staff in this early in the day to make as we go.”

“That’s fine,” Lucius studied the tray. “This is…this so beautiful. You didn’t have to make it…wow. Sorry I feel like I asked you to do a lot of work. I just needed some quick bites.”

“Eat with your eyes too,” Izzy did not flush. Absolutely not.

“Yeah I’m devouring,” and that sounded lewd as hell. “Where do I start?”

“There’s the hummus,” Izzy pointed to it. “Has some heat if you mind that kind of thing.”

“I like a bit of spice.”

Did everything this guy say sound like a double entendre? Lucius dipped pita into the hummus and took a bite. Then he made a low, throaty noise that went straight to Izzy’s dick.

“It’s so creamy! Holy shit, it’s like a mousse.”

“Yeah,” Izzy said vaguely. “That’s the point.”

“Wow, okay, and this is the eggplant stack thing, right? Gotta say I like that you don’t do any dippy names. Everything is what it says it is.” Lucius took on the mouthful with another one of those noises. It took everything in Izzy not to turn around and look for a camera. This felt like a setup.

“Never liked playing cute. Eddy tried it early on, but it didn’t sit right.”

“Mhm,” Lucius picked up his glass of water and took a sip. “There’s another appetizer?”

There were fifteen small plates on the tray. Three appetizers, ten entrees, two desserts. Tight menu for a tight space.

Izzy answered Lucius’ questions, watched him basically make out with each dish, and decided he didn’t care if he was being punked, his ego had never been this well stroked without any apparent agenda.

Lucius licked the back of his dessert spoon, then asked, “Mind if I get behind the bar? I think better if I mix as I go. Kind of like sketching.”

“Yeah, go ahead,” Izzy said roughly. “Sketching?”

“Uh huh. Okay, so the vibe this gives me is like...summery? Which is pretty cool because you’re mostly using winter vegetables.”

“Yes,” Izzy nodded. “Mostly. The farmer we source things from grows some out of season things in a greenhouse, so it’s still fresh.”

“Into that. So I’m thinking I can keep a base of four cocktails, then rotate two in seasonally to match what you do with the menu.”

“How’d you know that we switch things out?” Izzy hadn’t told him that yet, figuring it was enough to work with the winter menu that they were currently dealing with.

“I read some reviews,” Lucius admitted, taking down various bottles. “Got a favorite liquor?”

“Vodka. I hope you didn’t read that twat from the Sun.”

“Was that the guy who bitched about the ambiance? Came off pretty petty.”

“It was,” Izzy said darkly. “He hit on Eddy and they turned him down. So.”

“Oh ew,” Lucius wrinkled his nose. He dug out a shaker and shoveled ice into it. “Eddy get that a lot?”

“Yeah, it happens.”

“Stede is mega into them,” Lucius laughed. “I’ve known the guy for like two years? Never seen him like that. Twitterpated.”

“Yeah,” Izzy shoved down the bile that threatened to rise. “What are you making?”

“Mmm, not sure yet. Eddy said you hate wine.”

“I do,” Izzy sighed, waiting for the judgment.

“Me too,” Lucius snorted, plucking something off one of the small plates. “I never got what the big deal was, it all tastes the same to me. I thought chefs were required to like it though.”

“It’s got its uses, but I don’t go looking for it. Didn’t go to one of the fancy cooking schools or anything, never ‘refined my palette’ whatever the fuck that means.”

“Must not mean much because everything I just ate rocked my socks off,” Lucius grinned. “And I’m not just saying that. Like that lamb changed me on a deep level. I'll never be the same.”

Izzy had made that lamb for Eddy, years ago. Just the two of them in the closed kitchen of Ranger after dinner service one night. It had been too busy for either of them to choke anything down. She’d leaned against the sink, pulled out a flask, and told him that it was the anniversary of her mother’s death. They’d shared the liquor and Eddy had slumped exhausted while Izzy tried his best to make a dish for heartbreak. There’d only been lamb left over, so he’d added all the warm spices that Eddy loved, layered it in tomatoes and carrots, cooking it all until it was tender.

Eddy ate it without a word, but pressed so close to him that Izzy had to brace himself against the counter to keep from tipping over.

He’d made it for them both on the regular after that night. It was the only thing on the menu that had stayed the same from day one of Freedom.

“Yeah?” Izzy choked.

“Uh huh,” Lucius picked up the shaker and gave it a vicious rattle. His hands were big, fingers almost circling the fat metal cylinder. “You already have a house red and white. Add a few more slightly more expensive options and that’ll be that.”

“People like a long wine list.”

“Fuck ‘em,” Lucius said merrily, then paused. “Should I not swear? Am I going to lose a job I’ve had for ten minutes?”

“I don’t give a fuck,” Izzy snorted.

“Great,” Lucius poured a clear drink into a martini glass, then searched the bar, coming up with a sad looking lime. He wrinkled his nose at it, but got a peeler and with a flick of the wrist had a perfect curly string of green that he set along the edge of the glass. Then he put it in front of Izzy. “Try that.”

“Hmm,” Izzy picked it up and, by long habit, smelled it first. It smelled mostly of lime and...basil? Could that be right? He took a small sip. It exploded over his tongue. Fresh and clean, not too sweet, but with a good edge of it and definitely alcoholic as hell.

“Basil and lime vodka gimlet,” Lucius explained. “It’s not quite right, really need to let the basil sit for longer. Pair that with the lamb and it’ll cut the richness and compliment all the ginger and stuff. Right?”

The question seemed in earnest, so Izzy took another sip and then dragged a finger through the remaining dregs of the lamb plate and sucked it off thoughtfully. Yeah it did do that, especially with the vodka keeping the drink warmer.

“It works,” Izzy confirmed. “Keep that one.”

“Yeah,” Lucius was watching him with such intent that Izzy wondered if he wanted him to say more.

“It’s good," he allowed.

“Thanks,” a soft laugh as Lucius re-focused himself, “Okay, probably want something gin based too. Gin is really hot right now.”

They talked through the rest of the drinks, Lucius trying a few more things and Izzy approving all of them with only minor adjustments. By the end, Izzy was getting well into tipsy and was starting to suspect that Lucius might be flirting with him. Which was ridiculous. Probably just his way or whatever. Bartenders made good tips by being flirtatious, probably.

“Should I send you the finalized list?” Lucius asked as he tidied up.

“Just to Eddy. She’ll get it printed up.”

“Do you have a graphic designer? I do that sometimes on the side."

“Eddy question,” Izzy dismissed.

“What’s an Izzy question then?”

“Food stuff. Inventory stuff. Don’t give a fuck about the rest.”

“Yeah? You don’t come out and shake hands?”

“Hell no. If I wanted to talk to people, I wouldn’t have gone into cooking.”

“Yeah, bet you hide in the kitchen at parties,” Lucius winked. “Me too. That’s where all the best people are.”

Hard to argue that. A few minutes later Lucius had cleared out. Izzy cleaned up, then walked home. The smell of basil lingered in his nose until he fell asleep that night.

Over the next few weeks, Izzy’s hunch about flirtatious bartenders was proven correct. Lucius wasn’t the fastest worker Izzy had ever seen (understatement, but that was Eddy’s problem), but everyone who sat at the bar didn’t seem to care. He flirted, he gently teased, sometimes less gently insulted everyone in the vicinity. Apparently, there was a boyfriend (of course there was) named Pete, who came in once a week like clockwork and sat at the bar, apparently not at all ruffled by the flirtations. Not that Izzy got to witness any of that first hand, just got word from the waiters as they breezed in and out, and Eddy’s own tickled report.

“I think he’s a fucking terror,” she confided as they shared one of their now rare cigarettes out back.

“Yeah? We need to dump him?”

“We run on terror. He fits right in,” they laughed. “Hey, we should do a thing for the re-opening.”

“We’ve been open for a month,” Izzy pointed out, taking a drag and then passing it back to her.

“Gotta celebrate though. Maybe do a staff thing. Invite a few people. You know, music and whatever.”

Izzy gave them the side-eye. “What’s this about?”

“Celebrating,” Eddy said firmly. “We made it, Iz. Got to stop and enjoy that at some point or what are we even doing, you know?”

Izzy didn’t know. Every day that he stepped into the kitchen and knew it was his was a goddamn celebration. But fine. Party it was.

They were usually closed on Mondays, but Izzy came in at noon and made finger foods, set them up around the place, so no one would have to run back and forth to serve. When he brought out the last tray, he was surprised to see Lucius behind the bar.

“Eddy mentioned what you’d be up to,” Lucius waved when he spotted him. “It’s smart. Figured I’d make some pitchers of things now. By the time those are gone, people will be happy with shots. Like we’re all definitely getting obliterated right?”

“Most likely,” Izzy agreed. “Made things that won’t rip out your throat if you puke.”

“How thoughtful,” Lucius grinned. “You’re a real gentleman.”

“Take that back, motherfucker.”

Lucius’ laugh was deep and rippled over Izzy’s skin. “Sorry, chef. You’re a raging asshole.”

“Damn right,” Izzy nodded. “My prep is done. You need anything?”

“Want to show off your insane knife skills and do some orange slices? Thinner the better.”

It wasn’t hard to slice them fine, nearly translucent. Lucius moved around him, to grab something at one point and reached out, gripping Izzy’s shoulder for just a second for balance. The touch seared through him.

“You know I was kidding about the knife skills, but holy shit!” Lucius plucked up one of the slices. “That’s amazing.”

“What’re you putting it in?”

“Rum punch.” But that slice went right into Lucius’ mouth as he set down the glass. “Use up some of the fruit we’d have to toss otherwise and it tastes better the longer it sits. If you didn’t go to culinary school, where’d you learn to cut like that?”

“Worked in a fancy ass kitchen for a couple of years. Picked up things there. Rest is just time and practice.”

“Guess you do practically live back there. Jim says you’re the last to leave, always there when they get in.”

“There’s a lot to do,” he said vaguely. “You...settling in?”

“Sure, it’s great here,” Lucius said with apparent sincerity. “Way better than catering gigs.”

The back door opened, Jim and Oluwande’s voices spilling through the space and that was the end of any quiet. Everyone trickled in and the main room was soon heaving with staff, a few regulars, and some people Izzy wasn’t sure he’d ever met before. Eddy was presiding over all of it with an enormous smile that fully reached her eyes. Music poured out of the speakers and a cleared space in the middle of the room had enticed some people to dance. Or maybe that was Lucius’ punch.

Izzy had had a glass or two, but stopped there, unwilling to unwind so much in that large a group. So he was the only one with a clear enough mind to notice someone knocking on the door.

A tall guy with a shock of blond waves and a fancy suit was fidgeting a little outside. Izzy opened the door reluctantly,

“We’re closed. Private party.”

“Oh, you must be Iggy!” The guy said with a fumbling smile.

“Izzy,” he corrected.

“I’m Stede! Eddy invited me.”

This was Stede? The guy that Eddy had mentioned like he was a mad genius? Izzy stared blankly at him, then took a step back to let him in.

“Stede!” Eddy called out delightedly. “Come here and dance with me.”

“Coming!” Stede’s face transformed with a brilliant smile. He left Izzy behind, still holding the door open like a fool. He locked it back up with a grimace.

When he got close enough, he could see Eddy clinging to Stede in a messy attempt at ballroom dancing to a song that was far too fast while nearly crashing into Frenchie and his enormous friend. For about a minute, Izzy watched them. Then he stalked off into the kitchen and gave some serious consideration to locking himself into the walk-in freezer and letting the night go where it would.

Instead he poured himself a glass of water and drank it slowly. The door creaked open just as he finished. Another body slipped inside and pressed back up against it, expelling a long breath.

“You okay?” Lucius asked, stepping towards him.

“Are you?”

“Busy out there,” he shrugged. “And the best people hang out in the kitchen.”

“Don’t have to keep me company.”

“You ran away pretty fast. Did Stede say something stupid to you? He does that sometimes. His mouth and brain aren’t always sync up.”

“No.” Izzy watched him warily. “Just done, I think. I don’t do parties.”

“This is my shocked face,” Lucius said dryly and extended his hand. Izzy registered he was holding two glasses. “Take it.”

“What is it?”

“Just a vodka tonic. Well, I did put a little ginger simple syrup in it. You’ve got a thing for ginger, I noticed.”

“...what?” Izzy took it and had a sip. The ginger was very present, sizzling pleasantly on his tongue.

“I like that you don’t over use it, but it’s obviously your favorite. When you make staff dinner, you use it when you’re in a good mood.”

‘I don’t have good moods.”

“Lies,” Lucius leaned against the counter next to him. “You know Eddy kind of threw this party for you?”

“I know,” he took another sip. It was really fucking good, goddammit.

“So...”

“So what?” Izzy sighed.

“Just saying. It’s your party and you can cry if you want to,” Lucius sing-songed.

“Fuck off,” Izzy barked a laugh. “I’m not crying.”

“But you’re not thrilled.”

“Eddy and me...it’s old news. But it’s hard sometimes seeing them with someone else.”

“Oh. Oh shit, really?” Lucius’ eyes went wide. “You and Eddy? But you guys are like siblings most of the time....or. Or old marrieds. Oh my fucking god, that makes so much more sense.”

“We weren’t married,” Izzy denied. “And it’s not like that anymore. Hasn’t been for a long time. But yeah. Once.”

“Fuck. You know she and Stede aren’t actually together.”

“Yet,” he said tiredly.

“Yet,” Lucius conceded. “Are you guys going to like...implode or something? Because I was serious about liking this job.”

“No. It was going to happen. Surprised it took this long. Eddy’s magic,” Izzy stared into the drink. He should be angrier, he realized. Or worse somehow. Certainly he shouldn’t be talking this way. Maybe Lucius’ could mix truth potions. “Been waiting for someone else to come along and notice.”

“And you’ve been looking for someone?” Lucius asked like the question might detonate.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Freedom is what I want. I don’t have room for anything else.”

“Yikes. I don’t think that’s true. Plenty of fish in the sea who wouldn’t mind swimming around a grim workaholic, you know.”

“Endorsement like that, I should let you write my dating profile.”

“Would you let me?”

“Fuck no.”

“Aw,” Lucius elbowed him. “C’mon, give me another chance. How about ‘talented and chiseled chef with a phone-sex hotline voice seeks flexible in the schedule and the bedroom partner’?”

“Lucius...”

“Oh! How about ‘killer forearms, wicked knife skills, and probably not a serial killer’?”

“What?” Izzy blinked. “I’m not a serial killer.”

“You have a lot of knives. Just saying.”

“I’m a chef, we all have a lot of knives. You should...stop. Whatever this is.”

“Having a conversation?”

“I don’t need a consolation flirt or whatever you think you’re doing.”

“It’s a pretty honest flirt,” Lucius said calmly.

“I’m not...I don’t do that.”

“Have fun?”

“Flirt,” Izzy clung to the drink. “I don’t mess around. I don’t play.”

“Okay, but I’m not playing.” Lucius turned, catching his gaze. “I’d go home with you if you asked.”

“What about the boyfriend?”

“What about him? We’re open. Pete knows I’m interested in you.”

“We work together.”

“We do,” Lucius agreed. “But Eddy is my boss, right?”

“Technically.” Definitely. Izzy never messed with the front-facing staff just like Eddy never did shit about his people.

“I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable,” Lucius even took a slight step back. “And if you tell me to fuck off, that’s fine. But I figured I’d let you know that I’m an interested and flexible fish.”

Izzy backed off an insane desire to ask what kind of fish. That was an Eddy question, her voice loud in his ear right now. Mostly screaming ‘for the love god, man, jump on that’. But he spent a lot of time saying ‘no’ to the very real Eddy. He could certainly do the imaginary version for her.

“Fine,” he took as sip of his drink. “You told me. Go back to the party and leave me alone.”

For some reason, Lucius smiled like Izzy had offered him a compliment.

“Leaving,” he said cheerily.

It was only once he was actually gone that Izzy realized that he hadn’t actually rejected the interest. He should probably go fix that. Instead, he finished his drink, cleaned the glass, and walked back into the party. He didn’t join in the dancing, but he sat along the perimeter. Let Jim sit next to him and strike up a conversation about mushroom varieties that they got through with remarkable clarity considering they were clearly drunk as a skunk.

After that night, two things started happening.

The first was that Eddy actually took her day off. Used to be it was more of a theoretical thing where she’d wind up at the restaurant anyway, holed up in her office and working because she’d gotten bored at home. Now, he’d go in to ask her something and find the room empty. It was unsettling, but her general demeanor was unarguably better the rest of the week. Like someone had re-lit the flame in her that he hadn’t noticed had gone out.

The second was that Lucius started finding reasons to be in the kitchen. He wasn’t helping, wasn’t actually bartending for all that was his excuse (‘Ran out of cocktail onions!’ ‘Do you have any cinnamon sticks?’). He just seemed to buzz around for a few minutes, then go back out with whatever item he claimed to be fetching. When he used to say he didn’t need the staff dinner, he was suddenly hungry every night.

Reasonably, Izzy should never be making staff dinner, a job for a more junior person, but reality was that he worked efficiently and his people were well-trained enough these days that it was easy to break for a few minutes and put together something for himself and the rest of them.

“What happened to ‘I ate at home’?” Izzy demanded after the fourth day in a row that Lucius appeared to scoop up some bacon mac and cheese.

“That was when I was under the impression that the staff meal was leftovers, not first dibs Izzy originals,” Lucius grabbed a fork and stabbed into his plate with vigor. “On catering jobs it was always like dried out and cold stuff.”

“And you just suddenly realized that I wouldn’t feed anyone cold shit?” Izzy asked, affronted.

“Eddy mentioned you were making those chicken wings the other night and it clicked,” Lucius made one of his obscene noises at the pasta. “I’m never eating a twinkie before work again.”

“Those aren't actual food,” Izzy informed him. "They're barely edible."

“Yeah, but they are delicious. Not as good as this though. Fuck me running.”

“He does burgers on Friday nights,” Jim informed him, edging Izzy out of the way to get their own dinner. “Onion jam.”

“You can make onion jam.” Izzy contended.

“It’s boring to make, good to eat,” Jim volleyed back.

“I’m working this Friday,” Lucius said giddily.

So now Izzy had to deal with Lucius invading his kitchen, and eating his food with lavish compliments and all his little sounds, almost every night. It was enough to drive a man to the brink.

“Are you complaining that he likes your food?” Eddy asked incredulously, when Izzy finally had to tell someone about it. The dumpster out back absolutely reeked in the summer sun.

“He makes sex noises at it!”

“Yeah, some people do that out front. I never tell you about it because it’s fucking weird.”

“Wait, really?” Izzy narrowed his eyes at them.

“Yeah, man. Not a lot, but every few months or so. Didn’t figure Lucius for a moaner, but there you have it.”

“I have a tall annoyance is what I have,” Izzy grumbled.

“He’s just eating dinner.”

“And talking to me. Asking questions. Being nosy.”

“Like...he’s trying to get to know you?” Eddy’s lips twitched. “Be friendly? Oh no. Run, Iz, run.”

“He told me he was interested in me,” Izzy confessed.

“Oh, shit,” Eddy’s eyebrows flew up. “Is he bothering you or something?”

“No, not like that. He just told me the night of the party. Now he’s just chattering at me all the time.”

“Uh huh. What are we complaining about?” Eddy rolled her eyes. “Hot cute guy propositions you. You say no. He pulls back, but tries to stay friendly because you work together?”

“I maybe didn’t say no,” Izzy told the ground. Fuck, he should’ve grabbed the cigarettes before dragging Eddy out there. Would’ve been something to do with his hands.

Eddy didn’t say anything and finally, Izzy looked up to find her staring at him. There was a wry twist to her mouth, something contemplative in her eyes. He waited her out until she finally said,

“Plenty of reasons to say no, but....if you said yes, it’d be okay, you know that, right?”

Because Eddy had Stede now. Or was close to having him. Or close to telling Izzy that she had him anyway. Eddy took days off now. Eddy whistled again while she did orders. Eddy wore lipstick sometimes in a way she hadn’t in years.

“What if it isn’t? He’ll still work here.”

“Then it’ll be awkward for a while. We’ve survived worse than awkward.”

“It’s not appropriate.”

“Since when has that stopped us? Hearing a lot of reasons for you to say no that have nothing to do with Lucius, so probably you want to say yes, huh?”

“Shit.”

“Time to put on your big boy pants,” Eddy slapped his shoulder. “Tell me how it goes!”

“I will absolutely not.”

The words don’t come to Izzy though. Partially because every time Lucius was in the kitchen, everyone else was there too. Partially because they were genuinely busy, news of their expanded dining area finally catching fire.

One night, Lucius doesn’t come back for staff dinner.

“Slammed out there!” Oluwande came in for his own serving. “You’d think we’re giving it away. I don’t think I can take more than five minutes, please tell me there’s a plate already.”

Izzy handed it to him. If the tables were that busy, the bar would be packed in deep and Eddy was probably snowed under. Some of the waitstaff had passed around a cold and called out on top of that. They all had to keep moving, but Izzy started to assemble something in his head.

Even as busy as he was, he could take up one burner on the stove, tossing in this and that and letting it cook low. It would keep as long as it needed to, would be better for sitting. After all, one of Lucius’ favorite ingredients was time.

At ten, Lucius burst into the kitchen eyes wild.

“Someone feed me,” he begged. “I almost gnawed off a customer’s arm.”

“That’d be good for business,” Roach cackled. “At least put some garnish on it first.”

“I’ve got a plate,” Izzy gestured him over and Lucius crossed to him quickly. “Just needs a minute.”

“Might not have a minute,” Lucius told him mournfully. “I might die.”

“You want pasta or not?”

“Wait, the handmade stuff?”

“What else do we have here?”

He tossed the pasta into the waiting boiling water. No timer required, but the one that ran in his head. Drained it off, centered it on the plate, then carefully ladled the ragu over it. It was the perfect color, dark and rich. Perfect if you’d gone hungry for a few hours.

“Here,” Izzy handed it over. “Go sit in the corner. We’re still winding down.”

“Yeah, fine,” Lucius all, but grabbed it and got out of the way as the kitchen ticked onward into the last few plates. It was only when the very final one went out the door that Izzy turned back to the tiny table they kept crammed by the back door for breaks. Lucius was still eating, but he wasn’t looking at his food. He was looking at Izzy.

With a deep breath and long exhalation. Izzy crossed over and sat in the other chair.

“Oluwande said dinner was meatloaf tonight,” Lucius said quietly.

“It was,” Izzy rubbed the back of his neck.

“This isn’t meatloaf. This is...it’s fucking amazing. Why isn’t it on the menu?”

“First time making it. Made ragu before, but not like this specifically,” he mumbled.

“What makes it specific?” Lucius asked, twirling his fork through the noodles.

“Heavy on the basil, used vodka instead of wine. Added some heat.”

Lucius ate his next bite slowly, eyes never leaving Izzy’s face. He swallowed and finally said, “You made this for me. Specifically.”

“Yeah.”

“Because....”

“Because I like to cook for someone. Specific. For one person, sometimes.” Izzy wished he’d thought of the words as carefully as the dish.

“Why?”

Izzy forced himself to meet Lucius’ eyes. They were beautiful, those warm pools of brown. There was no smile on his face, wry, playful or otherwise. Izzy sucked in a breath and summoned his courage,

“So you’ll let me do it again for breakfast tomorrow morning.”

“Chef,” Lucius reached across the table and took his hand. “I can’t think of anything I’d like more.”

It had been a long time since Izzy served someone wearing only a knowing grin, but he thought he could easily get used to it again. Especially when the review came in the form of a long hot kiss, hand tangling in his hair and a return to the rumpled bed they’d barely managed to vacate.

Eddy: you coming in today?

Izzy: no, it’s my fucking day off, isn’t it?

Eddy: hell yeah it is. Details later. I

zzy: absolutely not.

#leda house and the kraken verse #ficlet #that's fic length #goblin king and the pup #bottle of red bottle of white

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