#this might be poorly written I tried to proof read the best I could

[destiny-aesthetics]

Destiny 2 - Weekly Story Quests

Disclaimer: I do not play Destiny 2 religiously everyday.

Some days I might jump on once or twice during a week to finish things. Other days my ADHD has me speed running last two weeks of a season cause I've lost ALL sense of time and could have sworn this season just started. There is no in-between.

I'm also not against being critical of the game. I to have my disagreement with it.

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

I'm just going to talk about some of the points I've seen mention from my last post.

( 1 ) Fetch Quest Steps

Fetch Steps in weekly Quest lines, I agree with not liking this.

I also thought it was stupid that I just had to fly down to a location and just picked up an item or talk with a NPC. Even more so when I have to read. Voice lines would be nice. If it's picking up items I would prefer it them to reuse Lost Sectors because there's at least fighting enemies involved, but not when they reuse the SAME one over and over. If I going into an area of the that's not used a lot in game, even better. If I'm fetching something make it take some time to get, not an in and out job.

( 2 ) Returning weekly for more story

I don't really mind this.

It gave me a reason to come back each week and if it wasn't a Exotic mission, usually only took an hour or two. Even the most casual of players would be on for an hour or two. Most activities take between 10-15mins so you're already giving up that time.

This also lets players sit with the story. If Bungie dropped it all at once, then players that rush through everything would complain there's nothing to do for the next several months, and the casual players would complain it's too grindy and taking up time. This season players are talking about the quest was to short, but it's what they wanted. No weekly, no grinding. Do some players just want a cutscenes Lore dump, then you go off and do other activities? Then in that case what's the point of playing the game? Or asking for more story? I feel this is a 'have your cake and eat it too' moment Players want story, but not to work on story?

( 3 ) Wasting the player's time

I don't see, other than the SHORT fetch quests, how it's a waste of players time.

The only time I have felt a season has been a waste of my time when it was either poorly written or reused too many previous assets.

You're getting more story You're getting more game modes/activities It's not mandatory to finish the Quests to play the rest of the game, sometimes not even to play the season activities. Explain to me how OVER ALL, it's a waste of your time?

Sometimes it feels like Destiny's player are asking too much from it while it's already giving more than other games.

I really do want this to be a discussion. Explain your thoughts in the replies/reblogs about the weekly quests.

Please keep it civil though

At the end of the day Destiny 2 is JUST A GAME

[adorehs]

tryst

Hi! This is the first fic I fully completed and I wanted to post it even though I don’t like it much. I know the writing is underdeveloped and the ending is absolutely horrible (tried to expand but everything just seemed bad) but I tried my best. I haven’t written anything for fun in years so I thought I’d give this a try and post it so I can get feedback and improve!

This is my entry for @bfharry’s #boyfriendathon!

Summary: Y/N and Harry struggle to keep their new relationship hidden on a group trip to Ibiza. (3.3k words) 

Warnings: poorly written fluff and smut 

The four of you had been planning the trip for the past year, doing extensive research and saving up for the airfare and cost of living for your week trip in Ibiza, and you had finally arrived on the warm island after a day of travel. As excited as you all were and as much as you would like everything to be perfect, the trip had already started off with a few extra complications. 

For starters, your rental car didn’t have a large enough trunk to fit in all the suitcases everyone had brought along, so atop yours and your friend Tara’s lap you held a suitcase each and the gravel road made the thirty minute drive to the hotel practically unbearable. 

Along with that, you had arrived a few hours before your rooms were ready, so you and Tara stalled in the lobby as Harry and your other friend Niall went to a cafe to pick up a few essentials for everyone. 

When the boys had arrived with your coffees, the receptionist had informed you that your room would be ready in about fifteen minutes so you four sat down with your bags in a huddle around a small table, speaking in hushed voices as you waited for your keys. 

“Didn’t they say it would be ready by noon in the email?” you ask, pulling out your phone for proof. 

“I think so,” Niall agreed, “Maybe one of ours isn’t ready so they're giving us both at the same time,” he suggested. 

Harry groaned in response, “Still, I want to take a fucking nap before we go to the beach.”

You all murmur an agreement as you heard your name being called by the receptionist. You glance at your friends before heading over to the young lady to retrieve the keys for everyone. 

The process was quite quick since you had attempted to check in earlier and had given her all your information then, and soon you had four sets of keys to two hotel rooms. 

“Harry and Niall in 1406, me and T in 1408,” you hand everyone their keys, “They’re adjoined but you still have a separate door.”

“Thank god,” Niall exclaims before hurriedly transporting himself and his bags to the elevator, “I’m exhausted,” he comments when you all join him a few moments later. 

//

A few hours later, you all head to the nearest beach to relax. Niall and Tara led the way as you and Harry walked slowly behind them, his hand resting on your lower back as he whispered in your ear telling you how good you look. 

“Harry,” you giggle softly when he grabs your hand, “Come on you know we can’t…” you trail off, looking up at your friends, making sure they haven’t seen Harry’s display of affection. 

“Yeah,” he agrees with a sigh, “I hate lying to them but they would freak out.”

You and Harry had recently started dating (after a few dates that you promised didn’t have to go anywhere). You both knew that if Niall and Tara found out, they would freak out with the presumption that the group could fall apart in an instant. 

You dropped his hand and sidestepped as you saw Niall peer over his shoulder looking for you both, “Hurry up!” he called out, making you speed walk to catch up with your friends. 

By the time you had caught up with them, you were practically on the beach, so you set down your towels under an umbrella someone had left there before and you strip yourselves of extraneous clothing. 

“I’m gonna go look for somewhere to rent a surfboard, you guys want one?” Tara asks. 

“I’ll just come with, I need one,” Niall decides as you and Harry shake your heads no.

“Okay we’ll be back,” Tara calls out as she begins roaming the beach with Niall. 

Harry smirks lightly and throws his arm over your shoulder as you reach for the sunscreen beside you, “Alone at last,” he sighs dramatically. 

“Shut up,” you shrug his arm off you and replace it with a palm full of sunscreen, “Get my back, please?”

Harry nods, taking the bottle from your hand and squirting some sunscreen onto his hand. He moves your bathing suit straps down your shoulders slightly and you shiver at his gentle touch. Beginning at your shoulders, he massages the sunscreen in, relieving you of hours of stress. You moan lightly at the way his hands work at the crook of your neck and he chuckles under his breath. 

His hands lower themselves across your back with a suitable amount of pressure with every movement, making goosebumps rise on your skin, contrasting with the hot air of the beach. He unhooks your bathing suit and you yelp, quickly holding onto the cups ensuring you wouldn’t flash anyone walking about. “Relax,” Harry advises, “It’s only sunscreen.”

You look over at him with an unimpressed look plastered across your face, “It’s only sunscreen,” you mock him, sticking your tongue out childishly, “This is where it starts, but watch, next time there will be no sunscreen,” you predict. 

“Okay, you got me,” he smiles at you, rehooking your bathing suit and helping you shrug the straps back onto your shoulder. Harry taps your shoulder when you’re situated and kisses you lightly on the nose and then fully on your lips, “Will you get my back?” 

You smile and nod fondly at your boyfriend before shuffling on your knees so you are behind him. Following a similar process to Harry, you massage the sunscreen into his shoulders and press lightly on his back, feather a few kisses on his shoulder blade when you’re done, but scrunch your face together in disgust at the sour sunscreen that found its way into your mouth. 

He laughs lightly and kisses you, holding onto your chin, careful not to transfer the sunscreen onto his tongue as well. “Have I told you how sexy you look in this?” he asks between kisses.

You smile, “A few times,” before breaking out of his hold and reaching for a book you had brought along with you.

He studies you as you open the book, watching how your mouth draws a straight line and your forehead creases slightly as you concentrate on the words. Just as he is about to bother you again, he hears Niall’s laugh. Harry’s head snaps in the direction and he sees Tara and Niall laughing and pointing at a seagull who keeps trying to run away from an inquisitive kid. In both their arms, they hold surfboards and they have changed into wet suits. 

“The stand is over there,” Tara points to a building lined with surfboards, “You can change there too, if you want to come later.”

Harry nods, and through his peripheral vision he can see you do the same, “I’m gonna try and read but I might come out there later,” you reply. 

Harry just shrugs, “I might tan or nap but I’ll go look for food in an hour.”

Niall nods in agreement, “Cool, we’ll try and be back by then.”

Niall and Tara begin walking towards the ocean, pulling their wet suits on completely and Harry glances at you once they are out of earshot.  “So now that they’re gone, wanna make this another date?” he asks shyly.

You set down your book and balance your body on your elbows, “Okay, you have my attention.”

“So, I’m thinking, we get food before they come back and have a picnic on the beach and once they go next time we can do something fun,” he wiggles his eyebrows. 

You look at him, eyes wide in shock, “Harry,” you gasp, “Not here! Maybe next time we’re left at the hotel, but not here!” 

“Fine,” he dramatically sighs, “We can just cuddle if that's what you’re comfortable with.”

“Yeah, that’s what i'm comfortable with, dumbass,” you playfully push him and he dramatically falls over. 

“Jesus, woman!” 

Harry stood up and held a hand out for you, “Let’s go find food m’lady.” He pulled you up and you both started walking towards the pier where there seemed to be a few restaurants. 

You found a restaurant without a line fairly quickly and ordered a few entrees you thought Niall and Tara would like, along with a wrap for Harry and a falafel sandwich for yourself. 

Sitting down with your stuff again, indulging in the food while staring at the ocean. The sun was beginning to set and there was a nice breeze in tow, causing you to shiver. Harry noticed and immediately handed you a sweatshirt he had brought along just in case. He scooted closer to you and circled his arm around your waist as you grasped onto the outerwear.

“Hey, is this the one you gave me on our first date?” you asked once you had pulled the black material over your body.

Harry squinted, turning his head to study the sweatshirt, “Yeah, I think it was.”

“That was so awkward,” you laugh, resting your head on his shoulder, “We tried so hard to not mess anything up, it just ended up silent, like, most the time.”

“Hey!” Harry whined, “That’s because we cared. We wanted this to work,” he shrugged, looking back at the ocean. “I think that’s Tara,” he said, untangling his arm from your body and scooting a few feet away from you. 

You whimper softly at the loss of warmth, wrapping your arms around your body to make up for Harry’s body. You see him exhale deeply and hide a smile as Tara approaches. 

“Oh thank goodness, I’m starving,” she says once she sees the food, “Think Niall’s coming in a few minutes, he’s talking to the lifeguard,” Tara points behind her carelessly. 

“Of course he is, always a flirt,” you glance at Niall who’s helping a girl in a red bathing suit down from the post. 

Harry laughs loudly, “She looks so confused, I think he’s trying to speak Spanish.” 

Tara snorts, “He knows, like, six words. He needs a lotta luck if he’s going to do… that.”

Niall arrives a few minutes later, laughing as he tells everyone about the girl and his limited Spanish vocabulary. You all share a few laughs and retell some old stories as the sun goes down and the temperature drops even more. 

Tara and Niall are shivering viciously because they were still wet from the ocean and they head back to the hotel, claiming they will let you and Harry in whenever you come back. You both bid them a goodbye and are left alone again. 

“Finally,” Harry says, sliding in behind you so your back is to his chest, and wrapping his arms around your front, “We can cuddle.”

“I’d hardly call this cuddling,” you glance back at him, “If this is what you consider cuddling, we’re gonna have a problem.”

“We’re spooning, no?” He smiles at you cheekily and you shake your head. 

“No,” you reply, and with a light push on Harry’s chest to speeden the process you carefully lower yourselves onto the towel beneath you, your toes tickled by a cool breeze as sand gets into your hair, “Now we’re spooning.” 

Harry flips you over in his arms so he is looking into your eyes. His left hand slowly caresses your face as his right traces your lips softly. “You’re so pretty,” he says softly. 

Your smile widens as you bring your hand up to his hair, “You’re prettier,” you counter. 

Harry’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion and he leans back slightly. You tug on his hair and push him back into you as he mumbles, “I think you’re blind. You’re out of my league.” 

“Are you joking? There’s no way you’re being serious.”

“I’m serious! You’re out of my league it’s just a fact.”

“No,” you look at him pointedly, “We are in the same league. Don’t get it twisted,” you crack a smile. 

Harry bursts out into laughter and you follow, falling into a fit of giggles. “Okay, same league,” he agrees. 

The two of you lay there in relative silence for the next twenty minutes, just relishing in each other and cherishing the time you have before the cold air becomes unbearable. 

Once it becomes too cold to think, Harry stands up slowly, wrapping himself in a towel and he holds out his arm for you before helping you up. You both gather all the towels and bags left over and head back to your hotel. 

//

The following day the four of you spent some time sight seeing and learning about Spanish culture. That night you ended up on the beach again, the four of you sitting around a bonfire. 

You weren’t doing much, just eating and talking whilst wrapped up in blankets. Harry found himself staring at your lips as you spoke about a party you went to your freshman year. Safe to say he had no idea what happened at the party. 

You wore a black dress with cherries on that you tied over your yellow bathing suit and Harry thought you couldn’t look better if you tried. A slight tan had made its way onto your body, your hair dry from the ocean water, and an effortless smile lying on your lips as you wrap yourself tighter in a towel you borrowed from the hotel. 

You looked up and made eye contact with Harry, smiling widely before looking down at your hands to not raise any suspicion. Harry frowned slightly and focused on Niall, asking him what he was going to do later that night. 

“Probably go to the pool,” he shrugs, “The ocean is way too cold now.”

Harry nodded, “I’m gonna go to bed in like an hour so I won’t join,” he looked up at you. You nodded slightly as Tara replied. 

“I’m gonna go to the gym, maybe I’ll meet up with you after.”

You looked up, “I’m going to go to bed. All the walking really got to me,” you informed. 

Everyone murmured their ‘okay’s and a few minutes later you had all packed up and headed back to your hotel rooms. 

You and Harry walked slightly behind everyone, Harry’s lips on your ear as they tell you how he’s going to have you tonight. 

Tara and Niall changed and headed back down to the shared lobby and you rushed to knock on the shared door between the two rooms. Harry hastily helped you inside and within seconds his lips were on yours and his shirt was thrown across the room and his shorts were directly beneath him. 

Clad in only his briefs allowed for the outline of his cock to show through the thin, black fabric and you glanced down at it when your lips parted, losing your train of thought for a moment. 

Your eyes widen slightly and your head rolls back as Harry begins kissing along your jawline and down to your neck. He leads you onto his bed, that he had laid a towel on, and helps you get rid of your shirt and shorts. 

He groans at the sight of the white lace set you had put on for him and you smile up at him, laying down on the bed, as he steps out of his briefs. 

“We gotta be quick, babe,” He reminds you, “God you look so beautiful. Quick won’t be a problem.”

You chuckle and lean up and grasp his arms, pulling him down onto you, “Thank you,” you whisper. He giggles lightly as his lips find yours. You pull him closer into your body as he deepens the kiss, immediately asserting his dominance. 

You moan lightly into the kiss as Harry’s hand finds its way down to your panties, pressing light pressure onto your core and moving his hand slightly as you arch your back urging for more. 

Harry’s lips detach from yours and find their way to your chest, his free hand skillfully unclasping your bra and you lean up slightly to help take it off your body. Your bra is thrown across the room and one of Harry’s hands finds your right breast, massaging it, as his mouth attaches itself with your left nipple. 

His tongue works skillfully, circling your nipple and flicking it harshly, hardening it instantly. He playfully nips at it, making you groan in pleasure, before he switches breasts and does a similar routine on the other. 

He kisses his way down to your body and to your core, placing a kiss directly on the wet patch that has formed on your panties. You groan at the feeling and he looks up at you, “You good?” You nod quickly, unable to speak, “I need to hear you say it,” he reminds you. 

“Yes, fuck, yes. Keep going, please,” you chant, closing your eyes and pushing your body towards Harry’s mouth. 

He groans at the contact and moves your panties to the side, attaching his tongue to your clit. He gently bites on it, teasing you further, and you grab his hair pulling lightly. 

He moans into your core, making you arch your back in ecstasy. “Harry, please,” you beg for his attention, causing him to smirk at your desperation. 

He sucks harshly on your clit making you practically scream in anticipation. In a rhythmic motion, you move your hips as he laps his tongue along your lips, making your legs shake with pleasure. He adds a finger unexpectedly and you moan loudly, pulling at his hair aggressively, this time. Your eyes close and your head rolls back, hitting the mattress, as you come unexpectedly onto Harry’s tongue. 

He smiles slightly and stands after cleaning you up quickly. Rolling on a condom, he watches as you rid your panties, sitting up to throw them where your bra lays on the floor. Making eye contact with you, he gets the sudden urge to kiss you. “You look so flawless,” he mutters. 

“You look perfect,” you reply, giving into his gaze. 

He smiles at you and kisses you softly, assaulting your lips, making sure you know you are loved by the man before you. 

He stands and regains his full height again, allowing you to adjust your body as you wish before lining up his cock with your entrance. 

Harry slides halfway into you with a wrangled moan, looking at you to make sure you’re okay. He lets out an exaggerated “Fuck,” seeing your innocent eyes looking up at him through your eyelashes before bottoming out, his hips coming in contact with your feet as you push him back slightly, nonverbally signaling him to move. 

He thrusts into you at a slow pace, making you whimper for more. You look at him with pleading eyes, in which he responds by slightly increasing his pace. “Please,” you whine, looking into Harry’s eyes. 

He smiles at you and pulls out before sliding back in with more force and speed then before. You moan with delight as he groans with pleasure and you allow him to continue his pattern of strokes before he comes, you following slightly after. 

He pulls out, heading to the bathroom to dispose of his condom before coming back and helping you off the bed so you could use the restroom and clean up while he puts the towel under a table in the room so nobody uses it. 

Walking back into the bedroom, you take in the sight before you of Harry putting his shorts back on. His eyes meet yours and he smiles as you continue to stare at him as he gathers your clothes for you. He hands them to you with a kiss and you change quickly into them before sitting back down on the bed to cuddle for a few minutes. 

You face each other and your legs intertwine as you admire each other and whisper sweet nothings at each other. “I love you,” He tells you. 

“I love you,” you reply.

[unforth]

So keeping in mind that I’ve literally already written a 40k Destiel fic inspired by Selena Gomez’s “Back to You,” today it came up on my play list and I started to think about ficcing it again, but this time Wangxian. It’s just such a ficcable song, I can’t even.

Like, a modern AU (set in the US) where Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were once dating, and Wei Wuxian started making friends with “the wrong sorts,” and so Lan Qiren forced Lan Wangji to dump him. They part ways for a few years.

Lan Wangji never really recovers, and he perfunctorily dates the people his uncle sets him up with, and his life kinda stalls...not that there’s anything wrong with it, just...it’s always the same, the same places, the same people, the same work, the same wake up time, the same daily routine, the same bedtime. Sometimes he’s not sure which he misses more - Wei Wuxian, or the disruption to his life that Wei Wuxian represents. He almost wishes that Wei Wuxian has gone as “bad” as Lan Qiren was so, so sure he would, because then it would be proof - that stepping outside the box is not the way to a good life, that Lan Wangji made the right choices even if he’s not happy with them, that kind of thing.

Wei Wuxian also never really recovers, but instead of letting it get him down, he’s even more determined to prove that he’s so much more than what snobs like Lan Qiren thought of him - and so are the friends he made, who are of course Wen Qing and Wen Ning. They also have really had a tough time, with a lot of people assuming the worst about them because of their family connections. The three make a pact together - to succeed, no matter what it takes, and to help each other whenever one of them starts to struggle. And it works. Though they’re a little behind their peers - they all go to college, and they all finish their degrees, they all get advanced ones. Wen Qing becomes a doctor. Wei Wuxian becomes an engineer. Wen Ning becomes a vet. They get respectable jobs, if poorly paid because that’s the economy in 2020s USA, and they’re slowly building lives for themselves. No one from the circles his adopted family move in will associate with him anyway - he got kicked out for some of his youthful shenanigans, and though he’s in touch with his siblings, his “parents” won’t acknowledge him - but he doesn’t care. He knows he’s succeeding, no matter what they say about him.

(read more)

Though Lan Wangji never stops thinking about Wei Wuxian, he refuses to Google him or look him up. Fantasize about him? Yes. Wish his current SO was them? Yes. Occasionally scroll through Jiang Yanli’s friends list just to make sure Wei Wuxian is still there? Yes. But he doesn’t look him up, doesn’t friend him, doesn’t outreach. Why should he? Some regrets are normal, but he’s over it - he’s definitely over it.

Not that Wei Wuxian expected him to. Lan Wangji broke his heart, and it hurt - oh, it hurt so much, but Wei Wuxian is definitely over him. Who needs that asshole anyway? Wei Wuxian knows his worth, and he doesn’t need the affection of someone who cast him aside at the say so of his uncle. If he occasionally comes moaning Lan Wangji’s name...that’s a perfectly normal thing to do as regards someone Wei Wuxian hasn’t dated in a decade, right? Lan Wangji was, and presumably still is, hot as fuck, and Wei Wuxian has a healthy labido

Which is to say, neither of them is over it at all.

Still, their mutual pining might have never come to a head if not for Lan Wangji’s best friend - Jin Zixuan - getting engaged to Wei Wuxian’s sister Jiang Yanli.

And then, suddenly, after so many years, they’re in frequent contact again - helping with planning the wedding - and, well...

For Wei Wuxian, it’s infuriating. There’s Lan Wangji, still quiet, still distant, and sometimes when Wei Wuxian glances his way, he can swear that he caught Lan Wangji looking at him with resentment and regret, which - that’s some fucking bullshit right there, cause it’s not Wei Wuxian who ditched Lan Wangji, not Wei Wuxian who caved to family pressure. That’s all Lan Wangji - what’s Lan Wangji got to resent?

For Lan Wangji, it’s awful. Wei Wuxian is at least 8 times more gorgeous than Lan Wangji remembers him being, tall and lithe, his hair long, his affect casual. Despite the same air of nonchalance he always projected, though, now he’s like that but ALSO educated, successful, and self-made. Every bad thing Lan Qiren said would come to pass for Wei Wuxian is now proven a lie, and Lan Wangji feels wretched about it. Even worse, Wei Wuxian is clearly single - and “ready to mingle,” as Lan Wangji believes the phrase goes. Literally anyone who breaths, of any gender, is apparently fair game, and Wei Wuxian flirts constantly, especially with members of Lan Wangji’s friends circle. Mo Xuanyu? The poor guy never knew what hit him. Lan Jingyi? Is like eight years to young for Wei Wuxian, but that doesn’t stop him. Ouyang Zizhen? Lan Wangji is pretty sure Wei Wuxian doesn’t even know Zizhen’s name - or his age - but again, when did any reasonable objection ever stop Wei Wuxian? Luo Qingyang? She’s a lesbian for fucks sake, but she apparently doesn’t mind, and even flirts back, and Wei Wuxian is incorrigible.

Maybe Lan Qiren was right after all.

Wei Wuxian is determined to flaunt what Lan Wangji missed out on, loudly and publicly. Mo Xuanyu does make for a fun fling, and Lan Jingyi is a good kisser but they never get farther than that. Ouyang Zizhen is definitely too young - and he’s straight - but he laughs along when Wei Wuxian is outrageous, and they understand each other. And Luo Qingyang...Wei Wuxian suspects she knows exactly what the score is, and is maybe even helping him.

Helping him make Lan Wangji miserable, that is.

Wei Wuxian is definitely not looking to accomplish anything else.

Unless he can secure a Plus One to the wedding, ideally one who can join the wedding party and stand beside Wei Wuxian when he and Jiang Cheng give Jiang Yanli away.

Cause, oh, the look on Lan Wangji’s face, if he’s forced to spend the entire wedding facing Wei Wuxian and his date? Priceless, definitely.

Lan Wangji is determined to give Wei Wuxian the space to do...whatever it is Wei Wuxian is doing. Wei Wuxian always was a whirlwind, and Lan Wangji has never wanted to control him, never known how to keep up. Still, it galls to see Wei Wuxian flirting, and it hurts to see Wei Wuxian act indifferently towards him, and it aches to remember that, had things been different, Lan Wangji could have been on the receiving end of all those lovely, carefree smiles.

Rather than deal with the difficulty he has breathing whenever he’s in the same room as Wei Wuxian is in the room, Lan Wangji throws himself into the logistic planning of the final weeks leading up to the wedding. He coordinates vendors. He soothes ruffled feathers. He makes sure the caterers know literally everyone’s dietary preferences and restrictions. He works, and he works, and he works, and he tries to do nothing but work, but sometimes...

...Wen Qing will wander by, take over his spreadsheet, and tell him to go socialize...

...or Wen Ning will intercept the decoration Lan Wangji was moving, lift it surprisingly effortlessly, and tell Lan Wangji to join the main gathering...

...or Luo Qingyang will come and lecture him about how hiding is dumb and maybe he’d actually meet someone new if he tried.

As if Lan Wangji will get to meet someone new.

As if Lan Qiren will let Lan Wangji be with them, even if Lan Wangji did.

They’re trying to help, but he can’t figure out why. Wen Qing and Wen Ning especially are barely even his friends - but they’re closer to Wei Wuxian than anyone else in the world...Lan Wangji can’t fathom what they’re up to. If he didn’t know better, he’d almost think they were trying to get him back together with Wei Wuxian? Which makes him think they don’t know Wei Wuxian half as well as they think they do, cause there’s no way that Wei Wuxian wants that - no way that Wei Wuxian wants him. Lan Wangji had his chance. He gets that.

(But, oh, it’d be nice to believe, even for a minute, even for a single dinner party, that maybe that would be something Wei Wuxian would want.)

But that’s impossible.

So Wei Wuxian flirts shamelessly.

And Lan Wangji hides behind duty and a stoic facade.

And the day of the wedding approaches - they get through the rehearsal dinner, the bachelor and bachelorette parties, the hangovers the next morning, all of it...and then it’s time.

Lan Wangji knows he should be watching Jin Zixuan, dressed in full Chinese traditional garb for an utterly Western style wedding, but instead he can’t keep his eyes off the opposite wedding party. Luo Qingyang is maid of honor, in a chongseom that makes no sense as either traditional Chinese or modern Western - and Jiang Yanli insisted on her brothers standing at her side, and so Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian are both there.

In tuxedos.

A sharp contrast to the robes in muted colors that Jin Zixuan picked out for his wedding party.

And Jiang Cheng still has a look on his face like he stepped in something gross and is too dignified to wipe it off on the carpeting, but Wei Wuxian...oh, Wei Wuxian is so perfect, absolutely flawless, and his pleasure is so obviious and uninhibited. From the moment the tent flaps open and Jiang Fengmian walks his daughter, in full Phoenix robes and an elaborate golden head dress (a family heirloom, no less), Wei Wuxian only has eyes for his sister, and his joy for her is spectacular and makes Lan Wangji’s chest ache.

As the ceremony commences - Western secular, seriously, what, not that it’s a surprise, Lan Wangji helped plan it, but it’s still weird - Lan Wangji looses himself in the rhythm of non-religious liturgy and imagining that, had his life gone differently, how Wei Wuxian looks now might have been how he’d have looked on their wedding day.

He wants that so badly.

He so, so desperately wishes that could have been.

For once, Lan Wangji isn’t wrong about Wei Wuxian’s train of thought. He’s got eyes for no one but Jiang Yanli - well, and a small aside of imagining all the ways he’ll make Jin Zixuan regret ever being born, should he ever hurt her. The ceremony passes so quickly he’s amazed - usually he’s super impatient and antsy during events like this - but no, he’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine, he’s...and then it’s over, and he glances to the groom’s party, and he realizes...Lan Wangji is staring at him.

Reflecting back over the ceremony...Lan Wangji has been staring at him the whole time?

And seriously - what the fuck is up with that? What had Wei Wuxian done wrong this time? Was it the tux? Lan Wangji coordinated the rental, if he’d objected to the Western attire, he had plenty of time to say something. Was it the way Wei Wuxian was rocking back on his heels? As if Jiang Yanli didn’t know Wei Wuxian couldn’t stand still - as if she’d ever hold that against him! His mind scrambles through explanations, each more ridiculous and rude than the last...no matter what the reason is, he’s sure that his existence offends Lan Wangji, as it also offended Lan Qiren. If it didn’t, why would Lan Wangji have treated him so indifferently since they re-met?

(It definitely isn’t because Wei Wuxian has intentionally kept him at arms length, oh no, this - whatever this is - is absolutely entirely Lan Wangji’s fault.)

Still, now that he’s aware of Lan Wangji’s condemnation, Wei Wuxian can’t stop thinking about it. It preoccupies him all through agonizingly dull hour of taking group photographs in various places in the picturesque garden, and all through the brief period he actually gets to spend during the passed platter part of the reception - hors d’ouevres to tide the guests over while the family and wedding parties do the pictures - and all through the achingly dull meal. The food is good, Wei Wuxian supposes. The wedding has been nice, Wei Wuxian supposes. Jiang Yanli is elated, Wei Wuxian knows, and he’s delighted for her, but...somehow, the joy has drained out of the evening.

Fucking Lan Wangji - can’t behave himself for one fucking evening, he’s even going to ruin this for Wei Wuxian.

Fuck it - as soon as the meal is over, and the first dances done, and the reception switches from staid social affair to open bar dance party, Wei Wuxian resolves to get sloshed as fast as humanly possible. Anything to stop him from thinking so damn much.

Lan Wangji is one of a handful of designated drivers amongst the people in his generation - he’s expecting to do at least three runs back to the hotel, starting with the bride and groom, then all the Jin half-siblings, then probably the Jiangs, judging by how they’re behaving so far, and then...he doesn’t know, but he suspects there’ll be others. Looking around as the evening grows later, the music louder, and the dancing more raucous, he tries to do a mental tally, and realizes...something is wrong.

No, nothing is wrong...someone is missing.

Where’s Wei Wuxian?

Confused, Lan Wangji looks around again. Wei Wuxian had been dancing - with his sister, with his brother in law, with Luo Qingyang, with Mo Xuanyu, with the folks a half-generation younger like Lan Jingyi, with anyone or anyone, by himself...but no...Luo Qingyang is dancing with Wen Qing, if “intense dance floor frottage” can be considered dancing...and Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli are dancing together, and Mo Xuanyu is flirting with some guy Lan Wangji doesn’t recognize, and the half-generation younger folks are teasing some poor Jiang junior, and Wei Wuxian has been exuberantly present for much of the evening, and now he’s just...gone.

As drunk as Wei Wuxian appeared to be, that can’t be good.

So, concerned - just that Wei Wuxian is drunk and might have tried something dumb, like driving home himself, or gotten lost on the way to the bathroom, or needed to throw up, not about anything else, Lan Wangji is definitely not concerned about Wei Wuxian in any other respect - Lan Wangji goes in search of Wei Wuxian.

He checks around the outside of the tent - nothing.

He checks inside the venue’s main building - nothing.

He checks the bathrooms - nothing.

He checks the parking lots - nothing, and of course Wei Wuxian didn’t take a vehicle, he didn’t drive himself.

He checks everywhere he can think, as the night grows later and darker and the party proceeds and the oldest, most staid guests start to say their goodbyes.

Finally, tired, out of ideas, and disinterested in returning to the loud bright heat of the tent, Lan Wangji goes for a walk through the manicured grounds. Even in the dark of night, the place the Jin-Jiang’s chose is lovely. Scattered decorative lights cast barely enough light to navigate the lanes and paths, aided by a full moon and the occasional flicker of a firefly. There’s a koi pond in the center - they took a lot of pictures there - and a few stone benches around it, so Lan Wangji meanders in that direction. He can still hear the party. He’ll know when they need him. He really needs some time to himself - it’s all been too much.

He tries not to think too hard about what “it” actually refers to in that thought.

Nothing Wei Wuxian does diffuses the empty feeling in his chest; every drink, he feels worse. Every dance, he feels more like he’s putting on an act. His friends were starting to notice - Luo Qingyang and Wen Qing had exchanged a look and then rounded on him like they were going to pin him down and force him to...or try to force him to...talk about his ~feelings~, and so Wei Wuxian fled into the gardens, found a bench where he could listen to the soft sussuration of flowing water somehow audible over the thump of the bass, and breathe.

It’s been a long time since Wei Wuxian felt like he could breathe.

He still doesn’t feel like he can breathe.

Which is ridiculous, he knows, and he’s in the process of going into extensive internal detail of why it’s ridiculous when a damn ghost steps into the clearing around the koi pond...

...no, not a ghost...it’s Lan Wangji, cheeks pale from how much time he spends in doors, robes nearly white when their pale blue is washed out by the moonlight, hair raven falling about his shoulders. His headband frames his noble brow, and his corsage rains a trail of vining flowers over one shoulder like some strange epaulette, and oh, he’s gorgeous, and Wei Wuxian recognizes, to his horror, in that instant...

...he’s never, ever, ever been over Lan Wangji, and he never will be...

...and he’ll never, ever, ever get to be with Lan Wangji. Like, ever.

Lan Wangji is staring at him.

Fuck Wei Wuxian’s life.

“I’ll just...go...” Wei Wuxian mumbles.

The statement hangs heavy in the night air as Wei Wuxian rises, straightens his tux, heads toward the pathway that Lan Wangji just entered from...and then stops.

Because Lan Wangji has grabbed his forearm.

“Oh come on, man - what the fuck?” Wei Wuxian demands, yanking his arm away. “Look, I get it, I’m your least favorite person - well, the wedding’s done, you’ll never have to see me again if you don’t want. Is that what you want? Would that finally make you happy?”

He’s breathing hard by the time he stops talking, and Lan Wangji is still staring at him, and Wei Wuxian wants to flee - not to the tent, but to...literally anywhere...anywhere that Lan Wangji isn’t...except he can’t make his legs work, and he can’t seem to move, and Lan Wangji won’t. stop. staring. and then Lan Wangji opens his mouth, and it seems to be in slow motion, and is he actually going to speak, holy shit, Lan Wangji hasn’t said a word to Wei Wuxian since he said, “good bye” ten years ago, and then of all the fucking things to come out of Lan Wangji’s mouth, all he says is,

“No.”

“Wha...why...ho...WHAT?”

“You asked, ‘is that what I want? Would that make me happy?’ The answer is no, Wei Ying. That is not what I want. That would not make me happy.”

“Oh. Well. Fucking good for you.” Wei Wuxian doesn’t even know what the fuck he’s saying. He doesn’t know what the fuck Lan Wangji is saying. All he knows is that being there hurts, and he’s so damn tired of hurting, and Lan Wangji already destroyed him once...

...and I’d give anything for five minutes with him, even if I know he’ll likely destroy me again...

“What do you want?” asks Lan Wangji, like he actually cares about the answer, and Wei Wuxian can only goggle at him, because he was so so incredibly clear about what he wanted ten years ago - he even fucking asked Lan Wangji to marry him, said, “I’ll do anything, conquer any challenge - we can make this life together, Lan Zhan,” and Lan Wangji had just said, “Good bye,” and now, now, Lan Wangji wants to know what Wei Wuxian wants? What gives him the right? What gives him the entitlement? What gives him the audacity?

What makes him think anything Wei Wuxian wants has changed?

But Wei Wuxian can’t say that, can he...?

The silence stretches out between them.

Neither moves.

Neither speaks.

Fireflies flit around them.

Lan Wangji dreads Wei Wuxian answering, dreads him walking away, dreads losing this last precious moment they share, even though the tension of this moment is so awful that Lan Wangji fears it will break him.

“What would you say if...if I said that all I want...is all I’ve ever wanted?” whispers Wei Wuxian, like he’s terrified.

Lan Wangji has no idea why he’s terrified.

Lan Wangji has no idea what he means.

He asks with a raised brow, and Wei Wuxian laughs awkwardly. “Naw, I can’t do the ‘silent Lan act’ right now. Use your words, I’m fucking right out of here, okay?”

“I’m sorry. I’ll try.” It’s ludicrously hard, but...for Wei Wuxain, Lan Wangji will always try, always regret that he didn’t try harder when he should have. “I...don’t understand. You say...what you always wanted. A degree. A found family. Your siblings at your side. A pet rabbit. An apartment with a bidet. A signed copy of ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.’ There were many things you said you wanted. I’m afraid I’m unclear which you mean.”

“You...you remember all that dumb shit I said back then?” Wei Wuxian sounds astonished. How can Wei Wuxian sound astonished? How can Wei Wuxian believe Lan Wangji would have forgotten a minute of those wonderful days - the best of his life?

“Mn.”

“Well, none of that shit’s what I mean. Got most of it anyway. Bidets are awesome. But Lan Wangj...Lan Zhan...”

His name, said in that sweet voice, causes a tingle to go down Lan Wangji’s spine.

“...all I’ve ever wanted was you.”

Lan Wangji’s jaw drops.

“And you told me to fuck right out of your life when I asked for that, so...fuck, what am I even still doing here?”

“Kissing me.”

“Wha--”

Lan Wangji interrupts Wei Wuxian’s confused exclamation with action - grapping Wei Wuxian’s shoulders and pulling him into a kiss. It’s rude, and inappropriate, and consent - what consent? - and Wei Wuxian doesn’t reciprocate but...oh well. Lan Wangji has already ruined his love life. At least he can have one kiss to remember fondly, to cherish, to--

--and then Wei Wuxian has an arm around Lan Wangji’s shoulder, their bodies pressed together, their lips moving as one, and oh, it’s good - glorious - Lan Wangji could weep he’s so happy. They kiss, and kiss, and kiss, shifting in the moonlight, lost in their embrace. Lan Wangji is breathless and growing dizzy, but he’s terrified to put space between them - what if this is goodbye? What if it’s just Wei Wuxian flirting, like he flirts with everyone? What if...what if...what if...

But finally, they do part, and scantly, bodies still close, embrace still maintained, faces inches apart.

“What’s going on, Lan Zhan?” asks Wei Wuxian weakly.

“I kissed you.”

“Yeah...got that part...but why...?”

“I know I’ve no right to ask this...but would you try again? With me? With us? Would you--?”

Wei Wuxian is kissing him again before Lan Wangji can finish the question.

Wei Wuxian can’t believe that’s a real question Lan Wangji has to ask - as if Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have taken Lan Wangji back anytime, at the drop of a hat, over the past decade.

(Okay, that’s unfair...Wei Wuxian’s actually been a huge dick about it...he knows Lan Wangji had no independent living, and relied on his family, and Wei Wuxian was just some aimless jackass, and, and, and...but it still stung that Lan Wangji wouldn’t throw all cares to the wind to be with Wei Wuxian, as Wei Wuxian would have done - had done - to be with Lan Wangji.)

But it feels dumb to dwell on that when Lan Wangji is in his arms, kissing him so eagerly, asking if he’ll try again.

Because of fucking course Wei Wuxian will try again.

“I don’t know what that means, Wei Ying,” says Lan Wangji with obvious frustration.

Kiss.

“It means yes,” Wei Wuxian replies.

Kiss.

“Yes?”

Kiss.

“Yes.”

Kiss.

“Always?”

Kiss.

“If you’ll have me back...”

Kiss.

“As if I’d ever turn you down!”

Kiss.

“Already did once...”

Kiss.

“And regretted it endlessly.”

Kiss.

“Good. You deserved at least that much suffering.”

Kiss.

“Deserved it, and more.”

Kiss.

“I suppose I’ll forgive you, if...”

Kiss.

“Anything. Just tell me.”

Kiss.

Oh, Wei Wuxian has so many ideas, and he delights in teasing Lan Wangji with each and every one, whispered between husky breaths in to the cooling air, interrupting himself constantly to kiss, and kiss, and kiss.

They’re still making out by the koi pond when Wen Qing and Luo Qingyang come looking for the promised designated driver.

They don’t even consult - or consider interrupting - when they do find the two idiots locked in an embrace. As one, the ladies turn, exchange a silent, smug high-five, and pull out their phones to order Ubers.

They can pay for rides for the Bride and Groom and family members and other drunken party goers.

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have a lot of catching up to do.

(and done)

(oops, this got long)

(and yes, this is absolutely a mash up of a modern AU with the lyrics to “Go Back to You” with a healthy dose of the plot of Jane Austen’s “Persuasion.”)

[olivinesea]

Space Is Only Noise If You Can See

a/n: I don’t know why I’m doing this. Maybe it’s because I handle change & uncertainty extremely poorly and that is all my life is rn. Maybe I just need to find out the extent of my evil powers. Regardless, you’re about to experience something unpleasant. TW major character death, suicide mentions, guns, violence, you name it, it’s happening. Only positive is I actually outlined the whole thing first this time so I know where we’re going (it’s not good). ~2.8k

Mr. Scratch surrendered. Or did he? Discuss.

It was always the smell that got to him. The sickly sweet scent of decaying flowers. He wondered who had made the decision to flood all funerals with the same noxious lilies. Didn’t that smell make anyone else feel ill? It lingered in the back of his throat, fogging his vision. He scowled at the offending arrangements—ostentatious wreathes shaped like hearts with hollow messages in a stock cursive font. He had been to so many funerals at this point he was reluctant to admit he sometimes got confused about where he was, who he was mourning. He tried to focus on the portrait of the deceased, but the outline kept shifting.

He blinked hard to settle his contacts, tears always had a detrimental effect on their usefulness. He needed to remember to wear his glasses to the next funeral. A twisted laugh threatened to slip, gallows humor at its finest. No matter how hard he tried, there would always be a next funeral. He wondered how many more before it was his turn, before he no longer had to be the one staying strong for everyone else, pretending the smell didn’t make him choke. He looked again, determined to figure out when he was before he was required to do anything, before he let on that he wasn’t fully present.

The coffin, shiny and black, occupied center stage. Where he thought he’d seen people solemnly walking up the aisle to say goodbye, there was only empty space. He realized he was unnervingly alone. Yet the coffin was not, it was flanked on either side by identical shapes, the light reflecting from their polished surfaces dazzling his vision. He stumbled to his feet, gripping tightly to the smooth wood of the pew in front of him. He rubbed his fingers against it, distracted by the grain, worn down by decades of touch. He looked again and there were six coffins, the once open space crowded and bent to accommodate so much loss.

He swayed, confused, it must be the damn flowers. The whole room seemed to tilt and he fell into the aisle, landing hard on his knees. He looked up just in time to see the coffins, doubled, tripled in size, rolling toward him, shuddering as they picked up speed.

Hotch gasped as he woke up on the jet, gripping the armrest tightly as he scanned the area around him. No one noticed the slight disruption, he knew well how to stay still, how to disappear in response to distress. Everyone was dozing or lost in their thoughts, drained from long days on the road. He counted their heads to check that everyone was accounted for. They were coming back from another case, he wasn’t quite sure from where. His hands shook from holding the seat too tightly so he put them in his lap, absently running his thumb across his other fingers.

He pulled out his phone to check the time and, more importantly, to check the date. He’d been struggling ever since the Scratch case to keep the details of time in order. It was embarrassing and he did his best to hide these lapses in awareness. The disorientation was always worse after one of these dreams. Though he was too practiced to show he was having nightmares, this one was starting to get to him. It had been coming back again and again since that night when he watched his team die. One right after the other, unable to stop it, unable to even be sure it wasn’t himself pulling the trigger. Though they were safe, were still alive at least, he couldn’t shake the fear. It had been so real. And it had been his fault.

He tried to tell himself to let it go, that it was only a hallucination brought on by a chemical attack from a psychopath. A man who was now in prison, successfully captured by his very alive teammates while he sat uselessly on the floor, afraid to trust his senses. However, he couldn’t quite escape the nagging fear that Scratch didn’t surrender, that in the mess of it all he had gotten away. When he let himself think about it, it never made sense that a man so calculated, so many moves ahead of them, would simply give in. He couldn’t be sure that the surrender wasn’t one of the false memories.

There was no way to distinguish between them, the real and the nightmare. He could only convince himself that his team was alive by watching carefully as they breathed whenever they weren’t looking. By their heated bickering over who would ride where. Lately he had even relinquished the driver’s seat, worried that his loosely tethered mind might sweep them all off the road. He fixated on their little habits, certain that these were things his mind couldn’t make up, proof that his family was really there in front of him. The orange fingerprints on case files and every single coffee mug disappeared from the kitchenette, lost wherever Reid set them down before forgetting, caught up in some exciting train of thought. Things that might have frustrated him before became lifelines to reality, the reality he hoped with all his heart was true.

In the immediate days after the attack, he would ask Dave, quietly, for assurance that Peter Lewis was locked up, unable to harm his team. Dave was understanding, remembering how he had been that night, eyes full of loss. But the looks he gave Hotch grew longer and more worried with each repetition of the question. Now, again unsure, he was too ashamed to ask.

It had been so hard to keep things straight in his mind. For awhile he had been writing himself notes: “Peter Lewis is in prison.” Except he would find them again later, letters added, message changed, unable to tell if it was still his handwriting. It didn’t make sense for it to be someone else, fuck he kept these notes in his pockets, in his desk drawer, in his medicine cabinet. He couldn’t remember changing them though. Maybe that was what he had written in the first place. The confusion of the notes started making him feel worse so he stopped writing them. Every time he found another one, he tore it into tiny pieces, all the while trying to convince himself nothing was wrong with his behavior, nothing was wrong with his mind.

*

On Saturday, rare in its lack of crisis, Hotch was sitting on the couch, finally free to read a book while waiting for Jack to get home. He had been invited to a movie with some school friends. He started thinking about how relieved he was that Jack had friends to do normal things with and lost track of the story. As he scanned back, a little surprised how far he’d read without absorbing any information, his phone rang. His lungs constricted. Fear was always the first reaction to the phone ringing. He leaned forward to pick it up from the coffee table, brushing away his irrational feelings. It was Spencer. That was a little odd but not unheard of. Sometimes Spencer learned a new fact that only Hotch would appreciate and couldn’t wait until they got back to the office to share it. He smiled as he answered, anticipating an excited rush of speech. Instead there was silence.

“Hello?”

Nothing. He listened hard, not sure if he could hear breathing. There was some rustling, muffled and indistinct. Maybe Spencer dialed him by accident. He hung up and tried calling back. It rang without answer. He tried one more time but got the same result, the voicemail picking up quicker the second time. He told himself there was a mundane explanation but anxiety crawled like a spider up his neck. He was about to make another call, was trying to decide who was most likely to be helpful. Penelope? Derek? But then Jack walked in the door, hyped on candy and popcorn and wanting to repeat every joke from the movie. He let it go, if it was important Spencer would call back.

*

Monday morning and Spencer wasn’t in the office. Hotch had been there since 6 am, buried in paperwork, perpetually stuck in a state of catching up. He didn’t notice the absence until JJ came to ask him if he had any update from Spencer.

“Hmm? No, I haven’t heard from him. Update on what exactly?”

“Oh well he was supposed to come over for game night on Saturday but he said he wasn’t feeling well.” She assumed he was still sick, that he had called out. It was very unlike him to skip out on work, though perhaps he was just very unwell. Images of Spencer, pale and shaky, in the depths of his addiction, flashed through both of their memories and they exchanged looks. It had been so many years, and he did such a good job of pretending it never even happened, but they still remembered. It always came back whenever some uncertainty with Reid popped up.

“Have you tried calling him?” He tried to be logical, not everything needed to be the end of the world.

“Just goes to voicemail.” She raised her eyebrows at him, the silent question—what do we do boss?

He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He looked at the files covering his desk, he’d already put in several hours today, he could use a break.

“I’ll go check on him.”

She started to offer to go with him but he waved her off. If Reid was sick there was no reason for both of them to be exposed. If it was something else, well, it was probably better if Hotch was alone for that too. Just as he got to the elevator, Derek caught up with him.

“I hear you’re going to check on pretty boy,” he was trying to sound light-hearted.

Hotch made a noise in response.

“I’m coming with you.”

Hotch looked over at him and saw the steel behind the statement. He wasn’t asking. Neither one needed to say aloud the worry laying just beneath the surface. That dreaded what if that swam around in the back of all their minds. He gestured for Morgan to get in the elevator ahead of him.

*

They got to Spencer’s apartment with still no word from him. He didn’t answer when they knocked on the door and though neither wanted to admit it, they were starting to panic.

“He better be passed out on cough syrup,” Morgan muttered as he flipped through his keys to find Reid’s spare, still trying to mask his fear. When they got the door open the apartment was cold and empty. The blinds were closed and the room was dark. Once they flipped the lights on everything seemed normal though unoccupied. The apartment was relatively neat, stacks of books and papers operating as some kind of decor.

“Reid?” they called even though they could tell he wasn’t there. They wandered through the small apartment, checking for signs of their friend.

“Hotch!”

Hotch caught the edge of the door with his shoulder and swore as he hurried out of the bedroom to respond to Morgan’s distressed call. He was standing in the small kitchen, looking at the counter. On it were Reid’s keys, phone and wallet. They could have been tossed there upon his arrival. But wouldn’t he have taken them if he had gone somewhere?

“Where is he?” Morgan’s voice was tight.

Hotch shook his head, this didn’t make sense. He picked up the phone and saw the list of missed calls from the office, from JJ, from him. He unlocked it and checked, heart sinking as his fear was confirmed. The last call was to his own phone on Saturday evening.

“Call Garcia,” he said, checking Reid’s messages.

“What’s going on Hotch?” Morgan couldn’t take his eyes off Reid’s phone, the frantic way Hotch was scrolling through it.

He stopped and looked up. “I…I don’t know.” The images from his dream, his nightmare were threatening to envelop him. Reid crumpled on the ground, a gunshot still ringing, dark wood with rounded edges cradling his lifeless body. The phone screen blurred when he looked at it again and he dropped it on the counter, using his hands to hold himself up.

“Hey man, are you ok?” Derek started to move closer but Hotch turned away, effectively closing himself off.

“Call Garcia, we need to start a search.” And I need to get a grip, he thought as the world around him shifted disturbingly. If something was as wrong as it seemed, they would all be looking to him to solve it. He certainly couldn’t do that if he wasn’t even sure if he was clinging to the counter or the floor.

*

It was hours later when they finally got a lead. It was not the lead that they wanted. There was a report of a body matching his description at a morgue one town over. It had been pulled out of the river in the early hours on Sunday, spotted by a couple of unhappy fishermen. There had been no wallet, no ID, no way to figure out who he belonged to. They had put him down as a John Doe, a presumed suicide and he was being held until they could get around to trying to match dental records. Garcia teared up as she relayed the information to the rest of the team.

“That can’t be him! Are you sure?” Morgan spoke more harshly than he meant to, nerves frayed by hours of fending off worst case scenarios.

Garcia hesitated, holding a folder. “They sent pictures but…I can’t look. I’m sorry.” She started crying in earnest now.

“Oh baby girl,” Morgan put a hand gently on her shoulder and pulled the file away. He was reluctant to open it as well. Hotch saw this and quickly took the folder and walked to the other side of the table where he flipped it open. His mouth formed a grim line and he didn’t have to say anything for them to know. He was glad he took it, happy to spare them the sight of waxy pale skin, the only color a deep purple beneath his closed eyes and his startlingly blue lips. It looked like he was wearing make up, like this was just another Halloween look Spencer was testing out. Hotch stared at the picture a moment too long. This is real, he told himself.

“Aaron?” Dave tried to pull his attention back to the room of anxious agents. Even though they knew, there was still the tortured hope that if he didn’t say it out loud, it wasn’t true.

He sighed, “It’s Spencer.”

Garcia let out a sob and turned into the hug that Morgan wrapped around her. JJ, sitting at the table stared into the distance.

He tried to organize the facts, solidify them in his mind by repeating them silently to himself. He ran his hand through his hair, a nervous gesture he normally suppressed to avoid having it sticking out wildly.

“I’ll go formally identify the…” He couldn’t call Spencer a body. “I’ll go see when we can get him transferred to us.”

“I can come with you,” Dave offered but Hotch declined. Looking at the others he felt like they needed someone to stay with them that would ward off anything too impulsive. They were all stunned at the moment but the feeling in the room was unsettled.

“You’re wrong.” JJ spoke without looking at him, her gaze still fixed at a spot on the far end of the table. “Spence wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.”

He realized she was crying and felt a weight start to crush his chest. With effort he moved to where she sat, unable to find anything to say. He touched her hand but she jerked away, suddenly standing and glaring at him.

“You’re wrong,” she repeated before leaving quickly.

There was a hand at his elbow, squeezing gently. “I’ll go talk to her in a little bit. You should get going, it’s already late.”

He tried not to pull away too quickly as he nodded his thanks at Dave, who looked at him curiously.

“Are you sure you don’t want someone to come with you?”

“No, no. I’m fine. I can do it.” He hoped Dave would ignore the shake in his voice. He was fine, he could do this, he didn’t have a choice. He walked to his office to get his things, stopping for a moment to pull out Reid’s phone again. He needed to check the calls one more time, to confirm what he thought he remembered. Sure enough, his number remained the last outgoing call. He didn’t know if it was better or worse that it was real.

~Part 2~

[transbibennyweir]

I love mbav so much it’s one of my favorite shows ever and I’m still so upset over the cliffhanger ending but on a side note Benny weir was definitely my number one favorite character but that might be due to the fact that I have a crush on him and in real life too anyway though I will say bethan is definitely my otp favorite pairing from the show as well and I was so upset they didn’t end together in the end but I was wondering if you would consider making Bethan fanfiction for this month?

duuude i feel the same way i love the show and even me who isn’t really into shipping can’t argue that those two had some real chemistry going on. that cliffhanger ending will always suck but at least we got fanfic to cope and pretend it didnt happen lol but yeah i’ve been writing two or three (really) short fics. the requests are mostly bethan so lucky you! i just put a new i did under the cut. its short and smiple and not too over the top shippy. its still good i think but the next bethan fic i want write to be super over the top shippy for fun with fluff (and angst with comfort ofc) (also this is on ao3)

The Valentine Dance at school was only a week away and Benny had the less than amazing plan to confess some long time dwelling feelings, and if he was lucky score a date to the dance. Although, he was lacking in any confidence seeing as he was never the best with plans and had the worst luck with... Well with everything if he was honest. Ethan was more the plan guy. Which was a total problem when Ethan is who the confession was for. Benny debated for half the school day if he should ask anyone for help, it became pretty obvious that they wouldn’t be that helpful. Rory can’t keep a secret to save his undead life, Erica isn’t much of the romantic type (ignoring that she wouldn’t want help at all in the first place), and Sarah... Actually Sarah might be the only one that would be any real help. That’s if she wanted to help. After what happened Freshman year with Ethan pinning for her and the eventual coming out from Sarah that she didn’t like guys it was sometimes amazing they could still be friends without one of them dying of awkwardness. If anything it was more awkward to ask for help from your current crush’s ex-crush, but Benny was out of options.

“Hey Sarah!” Benny greeted on his phone, his leg bouncing as he sat nervously on his bed. He had decided that he would try talk to her after school, partly hoping he would talk himself out of doing any of this. “I kinda need your help for something important. How quick do you think you could be at my place tonight? Sarah? Sarah!”

When there wasn’t a reply Benny repeated her name wondering what happened followed with a moment of silence and a sudden swiping sound of gusting wind through his phone then a whoosh out in front of his bedroom window. Vampire speed, always handy. “This quick enough for you?” Sarah giggled. Between last year to now Sarah was a lot more playful about her vampire-ness, much to the amusement of Benny.

“Knew I could count on you, Sar!” He grinned at her.

“As always. So, what’s this super important thing you needed my help in the middle of a school night?” She asked, jumping onto his bed with a weightless thump. “Is it a magic problem or just your special brand of weirdness for tonight?”

“Ha! Very funny. I mean it. It’s serious. There’s the dance coming up and I need your help scoring with-” Benny was cut off by Sarah abruptly standing up with a squeaked out “What!”

“Benny! I thought you said this was serious. I rushed over here for you thinking ugh-I can’t believe you! I am not helping you with ‘score’ with some random-”

“It’s Ethan.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah....”

“Benny, I am really sorry.”

There was an awkward silence that made Benny want rip his insides out which was a total confidence booster. “Nah, no, it’s fine. I shouldn’t have been so ‘Benny’ about it. My fault.” Benny’s voice sounded worn and hoarse. Sarah wrapped her arms around Benny to comfort him, sitting back on his bed they stayed quite, Benny taking steading breathes. “I know it’s been a summer since he got over you, but I dunno we’ve always been friends and really close. Confident Benny wants say there’s a chance he’s into me, but Nervous Benny says everything I think has been a sign is just me getting way too hopeful and I’m just,” Benny sighed leaning into Sarah’s hug. “Really tired dancing around how I feel all the time.”

“Awe, Benny,” Sarah settled into her place on the bed facing her favorite spell-caster. “Okay. I’ll help you. What’s the plan?” Benny sheepishly smiled and raised his shoulders.

“I was kinda hoping you could come up with something. I’m more of a plan follower than a plan maker. My ideas tend to lead to the actual problem that needs fixing.” He laughed nervously.

“I think I can come up with something. You still know that flower spell, right?” They grinned at each other.

“Of course.”

+++

The school dance was now only four days away and Sarah’s plan was simple and more importantly fool-proof. Which is what Benny was counting on.

“So, all you need to do is talk to him. Take him to the park. Whoa him with some magic, some flowers and then boom! Ask him to the dance. Simple and sups romantic.” Sarah said as they walked outside to see Ethan and their friends waiting for them in the school parking lot. “Think you can manage?”

Benny waved at them nervously. “I’m totally going mess this up.”

“Ben, it’s literally the most straightforward plan on the planet. There’s no way for you to mess it up. Just be your usual funny and charming self, it’s what he loves most about you.” Sarah smiled reassuring. Reaching their friends Benny tried not act anymore strange than his typical self, which was hard when Benny’s go to was being strange. It came with the magic powers and general teenage boy awkwardness. Erica was pushing Rory back onto the ground as he tried to float above her head saying there was something in her hair, there wasn’t, really he just wanted steal her hair pin that he was obsessed with.

“Come on, Erica!” Rory teased picking at the clip.

“Rory, if you don’t stop I’m going drive a stake through your un-dead heart!” She threatened as Ethan laughed before turning his attention to Benny and Sarah.

“Hey, Sarah, Ben.” He smiled sweetly, his eyes glancing at Benny with a sheepish blush. Although the boy in question was too busy freaking out internally to notice. “We still on for movie night?”

“Oh right!” Sarah said suddenly with a false quickness. “I totally forgot that’s tonight. Me and the vamps have some Vampire Council business and such. Y’know, vampires only. Heh.” She lied poorly but Ethan was just a little too slow to catch on.

“We do?” The two other vampires said holding off on their mini fight over a hair clip, Erica holding onto both Rory’s wrists in opposing directions. Erica watched the panic in Sarah and Benny’s eyes that said all she needed to know; ‘please just pay along’ written all over their faces. “Oooh. Yes-yeah. We do. Totally. No humans allowed or they will eat your face off. We’re doing a... vampire... ritual.... Yeah.”

“We do that? Awesome!” Rory said suddenly excited if not a little confused. “Why didn’t they tell me anything? Do you guys have their number or something because if so I feel it’s unfair that I don’t-”

“Rory, not right now.” Erica pulled her hair clip out of Rory’s hand, annoyed. “We should get going. Don’t want be late for the... ritual. Right, Sarah?”

“Right! Yeah, we really need get going. Super speed can only be so quick. Let’s go.” Sarah chuckled, pushing two of her friends away from Ethan and Benny. “We’ll see you later!” The three vamps speeded off, the other two waving them bye. The school parking lot was empty by then, Ethan’s full attention placed fully on Benny who felt the crushing weight of his friend’s eyes on him as he always did when they were alone. It was easy to play off any pining feelings when they hung out, their friendship had always been enough for Benny. Even when he had see Ethan longing after a different person, it was hard sometimes, but Benny could always push down any budding jealously or unsettling sadness. Ethan would always be his friend and now if he was lucky he could put boy in front of friend. The thought making his cheeks warm and his heart fast.

“Soo, movie night?” Ethan asked, they started their walk home only instead Benny had planned to take a subtle left turn towards the park the spell for appearing flowers repeating in his head.

“Actually I was thinking we could, uh, go for a walk... to the park?” Benny flinched with the odd expectation that his friend would suddenly reject him right there and then. “I have something I want show you, I dunno. Is that dumb? I feel dumb.”

“Benny. It’s cool. Come on, I kinda wanted tell you something anyways.” Ethan replied with a smile, his hand close to gracing against the taller boy’s. The near touch drawing them closer to each other, they’ve always gravitated towards one another with a strange pull that was always between them. Benny wondered if Ethan ever felt it, if he could ever see how Benny looked at him with such love and care. Maybe his seer powers let him see it more clearly than Benny felt it, lucky him Ethan still didn’t fully know how mind read yet.

The start of their walk was mostly silent, the longer the quite went for the more Benny’s internal freak out grew into full blown panic. He was seriously reconsidering saying anything at this point. Half way to the park and they hadn’t said a single word to each other, a first for their friendship. Ethan was biting his lower lip clearly lost in deep thought, Benny was too nervous to speak and break into whatever was going through the shorter boy’s head.

“Ben... Benny, heh, uh, I’ve been wanting to say this for awhile and I didn’t know how and I know you’re you know... You.” Ethan started. None of his words were comforting to Benny right now. “Wait-wait. That came out weird. I just wanted say when we came out to each other last summer. I know I acted really weird afterwards and it was totally uncool of me and I know I should’ve said sorry forever ago, but I’m real sorry, Ben. It was lame of me and I only acted like that because there some feelings I didn’t think I was ready to think about and now it’s like my brain is stuck thinking them but I don’t want things weird so, uh, am I making any sense?”

Benny didn’t know if he should laugh or cry, he went with the former and abruptly began to giggle in a almost soft of manic way. The sudden out bust of laugher worried Ethan. “Why are you laughing? Benny, I’m being serious. Come on, dude.”

“Sorry, dude. It’s just, you really scared me there for a second, E. I know it was a weird shift it’s totally fine. I was never mad.” Benny said, his laughter subsiding. Although he took note of the last bit, he didn’t want feel like he was reading too much into it but it couldn’t nothing, right?

They reached the park a few yards off where there was a bench was waiting for them. The lump in Benny’s throat was starting appear and it was getting too late for him to choke and bail on this whole thing. “Let’s go sit on the bench. It’s my turn to ramble and make barely any sense.”

“So nothing new.” Ethan teased. Ben wrapped his arm around Ethan’s neck and ruffled his hair.

“Yeah, yeah. Just sit down, okay?” Benny sat down with a nervous smile and his leg bouncing with a quick uneasy pace. “On the topic of us not being the straightest lightsabers in the bunch. Heh. There’s the dance coming up and I didn’t want go alone and there’s this person I wanted ask-”

“Really?” Ethan butted in with a sad look making something clink in Benny’s head. “That’s... great. What’s he like?”

“Oh you know, he’s really cool and mega smart and like, the biggest dork in the whole world.” Benny was grinning now, biting his lower lip to fight back his nervous joy. Maybe it was petty but if he was understanding right then making Ethan jealous for two minutes would make up for last year’s Sarah obsession.

“Oh. Uh. He sounds really cool. I’m glad you like him so much. So, what’s the plan to ask him out?” Ethan asked, his mood becoming more downcast suddenly. E, you pretty idiot. Well, just a bit of teasing fun wouldn’t hurt.

“Mhm. Yeah, he’s really great. I was thinking of asking him after school, y’know, surprise him with some flowers use a little magic to make sure their his favorite. Like this,” Benny made a quick glance to make sure no one was looking before making a bouquet of flowers appear. It had been the first simple trick that Benny had ever show Ethan. It started as a cheesy way to impress girls now it was becoming a cheesy way to impress his Ethan. The flowers matched the color scheme of Ethan’s favorite Star Wars character, right down to matching the center one with the character’s lightsaber.

Ethan stared at the flowers with a shy sadness. “Oh? Then what? Explain to him vampires are real next? I’m sure that one will go over real great, Bens.”

“Maybe. I think he’d be freaked out at first, probably less than he should be but grow to think it was way kick ass. I think he’d do pretty awesome fighting some bloodsuckers. Bet he looks really hot staking one out. The same way I think he looks really hot when he plays video games and starts losing and sits on my lap-which is totally cheating by the way, but I let it slide because again total cutie. I want ask him to the dance, maybe after we could sneak out and-”

“Jeez, Benny. Stop it, okay. I get it.” Ethan stood up from his seat, covering his ears. “You must really like him. What’s his name?”

“Oh, I dunno it’s something like Ian? Eric? Wait! No, I remember it’s Ethan Morgan the dumbest yet prettiest boy in town. Only second to yours truly.” Benny grinned gaining more of a cool confidence as he saw the way Ethan’s blush grew dark across his face.

“Oh.”

“Yeah ‘oh’ you dope! Who else could I have ever been talking about?! Han Solo?”

“First of all, I don’t know! And second, Han was totally gay for Luke but that’s for a different time.” Ethan said, glancing as an older couple walked past them.

“Wait, were you jealous? Like actually?”

“What! No way, I was not.” Ethan’s blush creeped up to his ears. “And anyways, it was totally not cool of you-”

“Then we’re even. Fair?” Benny leaned closer to Ethan, the flowers disappearing from between them. “Were the flowers too gay?”

Ethan leaned closer and bit his lip. “Bens, I don’t know how break this to you, but you’re like the gayest person in town.”

“Second to you.” He laughed before Ethan closed the gap between their lips catching him off guard. The small doubt that lingered in the back of his mind was put at ease as their lips fit together. “Sorry. I was really hoping I didn’t mess this up.” Benny tried not to giggle.

“Lucky you, your bad gay jokes and charm is what got me hooked on you in the first place.”

“Yeah, guess I am a catch. So... We’re on for the dance?”

“Yeah.” Ethan smiled holding Benny’s hands. “Yeah, Bens. We are.” They grinned at each other, hands clasped together and knees touching.

[moviegroovies]

i feel like i haven’t done an actual review on this blog in months, so get hype, everybody, for my incoherent, unedited thoughts on the fly (1986). 

(i actually watched this movie for the first time about a week ago and should have written this review at a similar point in time, but there’s nothing i can do about that now)

(just know that it’s starting to get fuzzy is all.)

so the thing about the fly is... it’s pretty gross. like before i say anything else about the quality, or even how enjoyable i found it, i’ve gotta be upfront and say that my main takeaway was really this big, resounding ew. by the end of the movie, what starts as an attractive, confident jeff goldblum has become an oozing, seeping creature of mucus and weird hairs. just for that, it’s kind of hard to watch.

which isn’t to say i didn’t like it, because i did. 

it’s a good story. the effects are pretty fantastic, and cronenberg’s trademark body horror, while nasty, made for a good, campy sci-fi/horror story, and really, all i look for in a movie is camp, sci-fi, and horror elements. so it checks those boxes pretty well.

the thing that kind of holds me back on this movie is its treatment of women, or more specifically, the treatment of the main female character, veronica quaife. veronica is the primary love interest, pursued by both main character seth brundle and supporting character stathis borans, and boy, she gets treated like shit from both of them. i’ve heard arguments that say the second act of the fly feels like a different movie entirely from the first act (the first act having a lighter, softer tone and 80% less body horror, unless you count what happened to that poor baboon), but i honestly can’t see it; there isn’t a part of the movie i can identify wherein the tone suddenly changes. it’s just been dark from the start, and getting darker.

stathis borans apparently exists as a character to be a sort of romantic foil to brundle in his treatment of veronica. at first, it’s pretty easy to identify. stathis comes off as a dick from the start, pursuing ronnie jealously and doing petty things to spite her, like threatening to run the teleporter story after veronica has shelved it. at this point, seth hasn’t yet started to ooze and drip and puke on his food to dissolve it, so he’s got a pretty good shot at coming out ahead in a comparison. still, if you’re really watching, brundle doesn’t really respect her autonomy a whole lot more. their very first scene together, brundle insists that veronica come back to his apartment with him, and won’t take no for an answer, hounding her until she eventually gives in and follows. it’s not that stathis does respect veronica, or that his treatment, at least to start, is any better, but the difference is in the way that they’re framed. borans is a dick, and we’re meant to think that about him. brundle’s unrelenting pursuit of veronica is softened by a geeky exterior that makes his harassment cute. i’m honestly not sure if we’re supposed to excuse his behavior here or not--on one hand, he’s the “hero,” and if the romantic subplot has any chance in hell of landing, then we probably shouldn’t be reading him as a chauvinistic asshole. on the other hand, it definitely does foreshadow what we see of him later on. 

hm. 

another dark shadow over seth’s character is his actions upon veronica leaving unexpectedly. they share their “is this a romance?” scene, which i’ll have to be honest and say that i found endearing, but then veronica gets stathis’s petty threat and leaves to contain it--an action she’s undertaking FOR SETH, given that it’s him who wants the teleporters to be kept under wraps until he’s ready to unveil them--and seth instantly becomes just as jealous as borans. he drinks for the melodrama, and then, despite having no actual proof that veronica is cheating (and really, no real reason to think so at all, beyond stathis’s name on the portfolio thing), he decides to rush into an extremely dangerous experiment that he wasn’t supposed to undertake for weeks. does he want to hurt himself? i’m not sure. is he spiting veronica? almost certainly.

things naturally deteriorate from there. seth comes out of the experiment feeling better than he has in his life, and for a little while, things seem to be great. he reconciles with veronica. he’s got superhuman strength. he’s suddenly become an insatiable sexual dynamo.

...which is another thing.

if the beginning of the end wasn’t seth getting into the transporter with the fly, it’s probably the scene where seth tries to pressure veronica into going another round after she’s already complained of being exhausted. his stamina is just as superhuman as the rest of him now, but she’s being worn out, and when she finally pushes back against him, he becomes manic, trying to drag her into the transporter so that she might be made as godlike as him (yeah, good luck with that, seth) and lashing out when she declines. from there, he deals with his emotions poorly again and goes out to a bar, where he breaks a man’s arm and hustles another girl into coming home with him--a girl whom he also tries to force into the transporter, only to be stopped by veronica, who’s Had Enough.

good for her!

that’s when things start getting nasty and gooey, so i’m gonna cool it with the plot summary now. let’s just say he turns into a fly, she freaks out about it, things are bad. veronica goes to stathis borans, her only confidante (as laughable a title as that might be for a dick like him), and that’s sort of the point where he becomes a little more sympathetic. 

i’ve gotta be honest. i really liked stathis, generally. not all the extra-creepy shit from the beginning, but once seth gets bad enough that stathis is preferable in comparison, he starts to be forced into a role where he acts like a goddamn human being, and the “confidante” role is played more seriously. of course, all of this with the disclaimer that i have terrible taste in fictional men and that i thought the scene where he pretended to “worship” her in the department store was kind of sexy, but he genuinely did step up to the plate, if only because of the absolute horrors that his foil was then undergoing. at any rate, his fingernails were intact, so i don’t think it’s unreasonable for veronica to have gone to him as the better option.

this is also the part of the movie where the pregnancy scare took center stage, and i have to be honest, that was the part of the movie that probably upset me the most. personally, as the unwilling owner of a uterus, the idea of pregnancy in general is fucking horrific to me. veronica’s naked horror at realizing that she’s carrying the baby of the mutated genetic horror seth brundle has become felt real, not only in the context of the actual horror she would have had inside her (although the dream sequence did a very good job of illustrating that), but also in the more personal context of the fear of pregnancy in a person who doesn’t want it. seth’s reaction to her pregnancy versus stathis’s is another reason i came to like stathis best by the end of the film. of course, seth wasn’t in his right mind by the point when he found out, but he begged her to keep it despite her fear and the probable consequences, whereas stathis’s face showed the same dawning horror i felt upon her announcement, and he helped her to get the abortion she wanted. there’s probably some comments about agency to be made here, at the risk of gassing up a character who is still, essentially, an asshole.

(side note: i haven’t seen the fly 2, but the fact that the whole plot is based around veronica keeping the baby after all that and then dying... sours it for me. to say the least.)

then, of course, there’s the grand finale. the three main players in the story settle into their final roles once and for all: veronica is the damsel in distress, for all the discussion of her agency, stathis is the reluctant hero, brundle is the monster. his ultimate plan culminates into fusing himself, veronica, and the baby into one being (a “perfect family”), removing veronica’s agency forever, along with setting up the kind of body horror i really don’t care to imagine. yuck. stathis comes in to stop him with a shotgun, and gets his hand and foot dissolved by acid for his trouble. despite that, he still has the presence of mind to shoot at the telepod with his one remaining hand, freeing veronica (his best scene, imo, but maybe i’m biased) and luring brundlefly out of his own telepod... where he gets further warped by the machine of his own creation, and comes out a horrific, bloody mess, warped together with the machine and begging for his own death. veronica grants his last request. role the credits.

so, what? what’s the takeaway with this movie? it must go beyond “flies are evil and if you merge with them you’ll become that too.” the fact is, the worst parts of brundlefly don’t come from the fly at all, but from seth. his inability to acknowledge veronica’s “no,” his jealousy; all of these come from seth’s humanity. they’re heightened, perhaps, when combined with the mindless creature concerned only with its own survival, but ultimately, the fault is his own. it would be easy, perhaps too easy, to say that the movie functions as a warning against the evils of technology. personally, i think that such a reading is bullshit. over and over, it’s drilled into our heads that computers are stupid. they only do what we tell them. yes, seth’s transformation was heralded by a mistake in the machine, but such a mistake was only possible because of his spiteful, stupid decision to get into the telepod without checking all variables in the first place. i think it’s more of a warning against hubris, if anything. the fly shows us a man with an idea that could change the world, and a disposition that makes us wonder if he’s really ready to. it’s a tragedy, what happens to brundle. but he’s hoisted by his own petard. 

[kagetsukai]

Drops of Satina - Day 22: Touch

Raphael Trevelyan belongs to @out-of-the-embers

This was a long time coming and I'm sorry for the delay - writer's block and stuff at work have been really kicking my ass. Still, I hope this was at least somewhat satisfying :) The rest of the challenge is already written so the posting schedule should be back on track. Thank you for reading!

Words: 3,461 || Read on AO3

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

Watching Raphael walk through the giant door of the main hall should have been a joyous occasion, but one look at the slope of his shoulders and the bend of his neck made Hannah realize things were not right. She rushed to his side - ran, really - and stopped before their bodies could collide; she had learned better from the time he came home battered from a battle with a dragon.

“Raphael,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “You’re back.” And unable to stop herself, she put her hands around his waist.

His pack and bladed bow clattered to the ground as Raphael’s arms wrapped around her as well and his mouth gently landed on hers - he was strangely hesitant, which only made Hannah frown.

“For better or for worse, I am back,” he finally said and exhaled heavily.

“What?” Hannah asked at once. “Why would you say that? Aren’t you glad to be back?”

Raphael smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Yes, I am glad to be back,” he said. He let go of her and bent to pick up his discarded stuff. “But I think it’s best if I go rest now. It was a long trip home.”

As Hannah stared in shock, he moved around her and slowly walked towards the first set of doors that led to his quarters.

Logically, she understood his point and his need to unwind, but no matter how hard she tried Hannah could not shake the feeling that something was off. There was no tangible proof for it, but the gloomy cloud that seemed to hang low over the entire Skyhold made for a stifling atmosphere that bode nothing good. As she watched Raphael drag his feet towards the Inquisitorial wing, she suddenly had a feeling that if she didn’t confront him now, he’d slip between her fingers forever; the thought terrified her into action.

She surged forward and caught up with Raphael at the last possible minute, placing a hand on his chest to make sure he would not move further. For some odd reason, he looked surprised at her sudden presence.

“Hannah--” he started, his voice tired.

“What is wrong with you?,” she said. “I was worried sick and this is what I get for my trouble? Something’s wrong. I deserve to know what’s wrong, Raphael.”

“Nothing’s wrong--”

“Bullshit,” she spat out. “Don’t you dare start lying to me now.”

Long seconds passed by as he stared into Hannah’s face with eyes that were unsure and hurt and sad, and she wondered if she’d be able to get through to him like this.

He tilted his head. “Have I ever told you that I love how you say my name?” he finally said. “Not many people use my full name and nobody pronounces it the way you do.” His face twisted into an angry grimace. “It’s astounding how well a demon can emulate and twist something you love.”

Hannah’s eyes went wide with surprise and her hand fisted into his jacket.

“A demon?” she asked, her voice tinged with panic. “Damnit, Raphael! Stop speaking in riddles.”

Several nearby nobles turned to watch them with curiosity and Hannah belatedly realized she was making a scene. This wasn’t like her, but she was too worried to be more clever about it. Raphael must have realized it too, because he sighed deeply and hung his head.

“Fine,” he said heavily and looked up again. “Come, we’ll talk.”

It was a short trip from the first door to Raphael’s quarters and Hannah followed right behind him, not fully trusting that he wouldn’t leave her behind. He procured a key from under his shirt and stepped inside, letting her come in as well. She let the door fall closed and stayed there, not sure if he wanted her closer.

For his part, Raphael set down his pack next to a chest of drawers, hung his bow in its place on the wall, then moved to shuck his jacket - he hung it on a nearby chair. It all felt somewhat automatic, so when he finally sat down in that same chair, Hannah clenched her fists, stopping herself from going to him.

The silence between them felt oppressive.

Hannah wasn’t sure how long it lasted; she just stood at the door and watched Raphael stare at his own hands, the gloom and doom hanging over his head like a particularly dark cloud.

“Raphael,” she finally whispered and watched him jerk up, as if he had been asleep. “Tell me, love, what’s wrong?”

She had wanted to keep her distance, to let him speak his piece before further intimacy, but the moment she saw wetness in the corners of his eyes, Hannah abandoned her spot and quickly walked over to Raphael. It no longer mattered what he had to say; her beloved needed her and she was going to envelop him in her arms whether he liked it or not.

His breath was hot and wet against her ribcage as Raphael burrowed his face beneath her breasts and wrapped his hands around her waist. Hannah didn’t ask any more questions, just held him there in place, carding gentle fingers through his messy hair. It was a while before his breathing calmed, though he still refused to look at her.

“Hannah?” he murmured.

“Hmmm?”

“Do you still want me?” he asked quietly. “Or is that my wishful thinking?”

This she knew, and could answer quickly and honestly.

“I love you, Raphael,” she said firmly. “I love you and I want you for as long as you’ll have me in your life.”

Strong arms squeezed harder around her middle as she continued stroking his hair.

“I’m glad,” he said softly. “The demon might be dead, but its voice is still loud and clear in my head.”

Hannah’s whole body tensed again, though she tried to stay as calm as possible.

“What demon?” she asked, her voice trembling a little.

Raphael pulled away from her embrace and briefly rubbed at his face, as if trying to shake off specters of whatever was haunting him.

“At Adamant, we fell into the Fade,” he said. He sounded hollow and Hannah’s heart dropped to her stomach as her vivid imagination pictured it all. “There was a dragon, and a situation, and we all ended up in the Fade where a horrible Nightmare crawled into all of our heads and made things an even bigger mess than it already was.”

There had to be more to the story, but Raphael’s eyes were already unfocused as he wordlessly remembered whatever had happened next. Hannah gently cupped his cheek and lightly rubbed his growing beard.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked softly.

“No!” Raphael said at once, then looked up, his eyes wide and wild. “No. It’s too much. I-- I can’t. I’m sorry, love. I can’t go back there and-- and--”

There would be no further talk of what had happened, Hannah realized, and she made the decision to save this topic for later - no matter how much she wanted to know about Raphael’s endeavors. She made a soft shushing sound.

“You don’t have to; it’s fine,” Hannah said and brought him within her arms again. “I understand and you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to say. You’re home, you’re safe, and you’re with me - everything else can wait.”

Raphael clung to her like a scared child and it broke her heart to see him this distraught. The worst part was that she had no idea how to help him, how to ease his suffering. She had never had to deal with demons, but she had known of people who had never been the same after such encounters. While he still seemed like himself, Hannah wondered if there was anything she could do for Raphael to help him relax and calm down.

The pervasive smell of horses brought an idea to her mind.

“How do you feel about a bath?,” she asked.

A quiet huff let her know that Raphael chuffed.

“Do I smell that poorly?” he asked.

Hannah nodded, knowing full-well he couldn’t see it.

“You’ve been on a horse for Maker knows how long, so I’m not surprised you’re a little… ripe,” she said, trying hard to keep her voice light. “Besides, having a soak is good for the soul and I think you could really use one right now.”

Raphael chuckled and sighed, his face still pressed against her body.

“Will I see you after I’m done?” he asked and looked up, hope in his eyes. “I really did miss you.”

“Love,” she said softly, then cupped his face in her hands and bent over to kiss his forehead. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m sure you’d like some help washing your back, hmmm?”

For the first time that day, Raphael’s face flushed with embarrassment. He straightened up and looked at her, confused.

“I’m sure you have better things to do than help me bathe,” he pointed out.

Hannah snorted and gave him an incredulous look.

“Something better than personally soaping up my incredibly sexy lover? Who will be naked? And dripping with water?” she chuckled. “I might be crazy, but I’m not dumb.”

His blush deepened as a small, lopsided grin brightened his face. Raphael no longer looked excessively weighed down by his memories and that fact made Hannah relax with relief.

“You make a compelling argument,” he said and raised a questioning eyebrow. “What kind of payment will you require in return for your services?”

“Maker, none!” Hannah replied with a smile. “I just want to make sure you’re alright.”

He sighed and his face softened.

“How are you in my life? I don’t deserve you,” he said and pulled her down for a proper kiss.

This. This was what Hannah had missed - his tender, but firm lips, the scratch of his stubble, the teasing velvet of his tongue; it finally felt like Raphael had come home to her.

“So,” she said once he pulled away from her, “the sooner we get you bathed, the sooner you can sleep. You get out of your filthy clothing and I’ll go start preparing the bath.”

He smiled thinly and nodded.

“Alright,” he said. “Since I have no other choice, it seems.”

“You don’t,” Hannah said firmly. “And don’t forget to bring a clean change of clothes.”

He nodded again and reluctantly let her out of his grasp.

“Don’t take too long!” Hannah said brightly and turned to leave the room.

The bathing chamber was directly on the other side of the corridor from Raphael’s room. It was large and equipped with some of the most modern contraptions available and Hannah briefly wondered how much money had been wasted on something that was clearly meant to impress visiting nobility. It was empty now and once the door closed behind her, Hannah paused with her back against its solid wood. She desperately wanted to hide in a corner somewhere and cry her eyes out, but until she knew Raphael was taken care of, her own needs would have to wait. With that final thought, she got to work.

By the time Raphael walked through the door, the fancy tub was more than half-filled and the room smelled like whatever soap Hannah had found mixed in with eucalyptus and elfroot. He paused and tilted his head.

“Will you be joining me?” he asked, a small smile playing on his lips.

She shook her head, determined to stay on task.

“No. You’re supposed to relax, not strain something else,” she told him and gently pulled him towards the tub. “I dumped a whole bunch of elfroot extract in there to help relieve soreness and speed up recovery. Do you have any open wounds we have to worry about?”

A shadow passed over Raphael’s face and his fragile smile vanished. He slowly shook his head.

“No. Cassandra made sure healers looked me over before we got on the road again," he said flatly.

Hannah absently noted it had been Lady Seeker and not Lily who had insisted on his care, but it was something to be addressed later. Instead of prodding more, she nodded along.

"That's good," she said and tried for a smile. "Strip and get in."

Before Raphael could make any additional comments about joining him in the tub - and to give him some privacy as he undressed - Hannah turned around and moved towards a cabinet that clearly held towels. There were all sorts available, anywhere from giant ones that could double as blankets down to tiny ones that could be used as washcloths. She took a few different ones and returned to Raphael.

She should have known that he would underplay the extent of his injuries, that even though he wasn't actively bleeding he would still have marks on his body that spoke of a rough battle at Adamant. There was a particularly nasty bruise that spread over his right pectoral, all irregular and purple and angry, and Hannah stopped in her tracks, staring at it in shock. It wasn't until Raphael spoke again that she shook herself from the morbid reverie.

"Just because a giant spider can't pierce my enchanted armor doesn't mean they can't inflict injury on my body," he said casually, his eyes sad.

"Right," she quipped and nodded absently.

Hannah hated how matter-of-factly she had sounded, but she was afraid that if she paused to think about his wounds too much, she'd just break down crying. While the translucent water obscured most of his lower body, she could clearly see all of the fresh scratches that reddened his torso and upper arms. Not even his thick chest hair could cover up the damage he had sustained and it tore at her heart to see him hurt.

At least it wasn't as bad as the last time, she reminded herself and went about helping Raphael scrub the dirt off his skin.

It was a surprisingly intimate chore, Hannah found. When she was little, she would help her mother bathe her younger brothers, but it would always be a messy endeavor that ended with everybody being at least a little damp. Here, with Raphael, she took great care to be gentle as she slowly swiped a soapy washcloth over his shoulders, neck, and back. The last thing she wanted to do was to cause him further physical pain. By the time she grabbed a pitcher to dampen his hair, the tub water was a muddy-grey color.

"Lean back your head, love," Hannah murmured to him and he did as asked.

Perhaps now wasn't the time to luxuriate in the sensations, but when she poured some nettle-scented shampoo into her hands and dug into his hair, the curling strands felt incredibly silky beneath her fingers. It didn't take long to foam up the whole head and Raphael groaned with pleasure as she scrubbed at his scalp.

"Maker, this feels amazing," he rumbled.

Hannah finally smiled to herself.

"Good," she said. "It's meant to."

Raphael continued making all sorts of happy noises as Hannah went through the motions of cleansing, conditioning, and rinsing his hair. It was lovely, knowing that such a simple thing could bring him so much pleasure and joy. Alas, it didn’t last forever.

The door opened with a purpose and Aylin - Lily’s serving girl - walked in holding a basket full of bathing stuffs. She stopped, stared at Hannah and Raphael, and flushed with embarrassment.

“Oh Maker, I am so sorry!” she quickly said, bobbed in a courtesy, and turned her face away to give them a semblance of modesty. “I didn’t realize the room was already occupied.”

Hannah got up from the little stool she had been occupying and moved to stand before the girl.

“Don’t worry about it, we’re almost done here,” she said with a smile. She actually heard the sound of Raphael getting out of the tub and hoped that her body shielded Aylin from seeing him naked. She lowered her voice. “How is Lily? Is she alright?”

A shadow passed over Aylin’s face as her eyes focused on the floor.

“The Inquisitor is extremely tired and gave an order to let her rest for the next several days,” she said. “I don’t know anything beyond that.”

Hannah nodded. “Of course,” she said. “Thank you, Aylin.”

Aylin bobbed another courtesy and swiftly left the room. By the time Hannah turned around, Raphael had already dried his body and was in the process of pulling on his sleeping pants. She was just in time to watch his extremely shapely arse flex and vanish beneath the fabric.

“That was quite the show you gave Aylin,” she quipped. She reached inside the tub and pulled the plug, letting the dirty water drain down the pipes.

Raphael didn’t respond immediately, so Hannah sighed and went to stand before him. He started, as if he hadn’t heard her approach.

“What?” he asked, clearly distracted.

His hair was still wet and dripping down his naked chest, so Hannah grabbed another towel and tossed it over his head.

“I think the whole of Skyhold is about to find out just how fantastic your ass looks like while naked,” she said with a raised eyebrow. When Raphael’s face turned pink, she sighed. “If you’re tired enough to unwittingly flash Lily’s serving girl, you need to get to bed and sleep.”

Lily’s name brought a weird kind of grimace to Raphael’s face, but before she could question him further, he took that moment to roughly rub at his hair and remove as much water as possible. Once done, he tossed the damp towel towards a hamper and sighed heavily.

“Maker, I’m a mess,” he said.

Hannah leaned in and kissed his scratchy cheek.

“But you’re a clean mess now,” she replied with a soft smile. “Let’s get out of here.”

After the steamy heat of the bathroom his quarters felt downright chilly and depressing. Even worse, Raphael stood in the middle of his room and stared at the bed as if it would turn into a monster and swallow him whole. Hannah could see his skin pucker into gooseflesh and briefly wondered if she’d have to wrestle him under the covers as well.

“Raphael?” she asked quietly.

“Hmmm?”

He didn’t even glance in her direction, he was so distracted.

“Raphael, would you like me to stay the night?”

That brought his attention back to her and she knew the answer before he spoke.

“You don’t have to. You’ve already done so much...”

Hannah rolled her eyes and reached for the ties holding her dress together.

“You’re being ridiculous again,” she said. “You’re clearly tired and upset, and if you think I’ll leave you alone tonight, you clearly underestimate just how stubborn I really am.”

She could feel his eyes on her as she dressed down to the undershirt, but it didn’t stop or slow down her precise movements. By the time Hannah turned back to Raphael, he was still standing where he had been before, but his face now showed clear amusement.

“You really don’t take ‘no’ for an answer, do you?” he asked.

Hannah shrugged with a smirk. “If you told me to get out and meant it, I’d leave,” she told him. “Otherwise, I’m getting under the blankets because this room is fucking drafty and I’m getting cold.”

And she did exactly that.

One breath, two - three - and Hannah felt the covers move around as Raphael climbed into bed with her. It wasn’t proper nighttime yet, so she could see as he shifted closer to her, strong arms wrapping around her body with warmth and gentleness.

“I’m sorry it’s cold in here,” he said softly.

Hannah’s hands slipped around Raphael’s shoulders and cradled him closer to her. They were face-to-face - a sleeping position that was unusual for them - and somehow his face landed in that perfect spot right below her chin. Her fingers found his hair again and slowly carded through the wet strands.

“I’m not cold when we’re like this,” she murmured. “On the contrary, I’m quite comfortable.”

A quiet huff of air danced against her neck and she shivered at the sensation.

“I’m glad,” he said quietly and placed a small kiss onto her exposed skin.

She replied in kind, settling her lips against a pronounced divot between his brows that appeared anytime Raphael was deep in thought or something made him frown. Hannah felt his body progressively relax in her embrace and she soon heard a soft beginning of his formidable snoring. As he fell deeper into slumber, she kept tracing gentle hands against his skin, subconsciously hoping to give Raphael something to hold onto as Fade took him.

[calleo-bricriu]

Don’t ask why I keep subjecting myself to this, because I don’t have a good answer.

More of this awful book.

Skimmed the rest of chapter 13. Nothing terribly interesting, Mizpra being all excited for her mother possibly having a stroke when the train's altitude changes, talk about how weak and pitiful Burke is (and, for some reason, to keep him from "catching cold" she makes him strip and wrap up in two wool blankets which seems like it'd be incredibly itchy), Mizpra tries to hasten the whole "give mom a stroke" thing by getting her mother day drunk.

A lot of references to alcohol being a stimulant again which, no.

Burke shows a little concern for Mizpra keeping her mother drunk and outside on an observation platform all damn day, so she tells him to go back inside and stop bothering them.

Wasn't at all concerned that her mother's face was turning blue because that's a normal thing I guess, shakes her mother awake, and of course her mother has the sroke and now she's just, "Oh shi--wait a minute, I didn't consider what might happen if the stroke kills her!" Not the best planning, Mizpra.

So she starts drinking and talking at her possibly dying mother about how she's going to ruin Obera's life.

And, like every poorly written villain in fiction, she says something ridiculous to herself: "Hell hath no horror; Heaven hath no hope."

At this point, I'd agree with her, only just in regards to this book.

Chapter 14 and we're back to Leigh.

Rev. Bald, we find out, knows a lot about alcohol and doesn't like his collar or waistcoat.

Finds out in a letter from Mizpra that he'll get paid once she's got proof of her brother's life being in shambles again.

For the time, five thousand per year as long as Leigh is in prison isn't all that bad; he really needs to step his game up because so far all he's done is invite the guy to hang out once, got shut down by Obera, and left.

"[...] literally poured the liquor down his throat," yeah, that's how drinking works.

He goes off for a good eight or so pages about how it's no crime to be poor out of absolutely nowhere. I mean, he's not wrong but why is he talking about it to the walls of his library?

Oh look, Leigh came to visit under false pretenses and seems to suspect that's the case but decided not to worry his on vacation wife and did exactly what he told her he wouldn't: Hang out with Rev. Bald.

Because he's a genius, he suspects Rev. Bald is being paid off by Mizpra to fuck up their lives and also thinks he'd sell her out if he was ever discovered. At this point you know damn well Leigh is basically the author because there's no reason at all Leigh would even HAVE that suspicion unless he'd been reading along with the rest of us.

Anyway, he got lured out there under the pretense of seeing or looking at some case of a morphine addict who isn't actually there.

So, because Leigh is a genius and understands everything, including more than most of those who study theology, Rev Bald pretty much plays right into that and says vague, sort of wrong-ish things just so Leigh the Genius will be compelled to correct him at length to, you know, remind everyone that he's a genius and better that everyone at everything.

Because he's a genius and you're not.

And Leigh sits there picking apart religion which might have been interesting if he weren't just sort of repeating himself with more and more pretentious wording.

"Do you know of any religion that has really made man better?" is a perfectly reasonable rhetorical question, at least.

Ah, and Leigh is into Darwin.

But, hey, Rev. Bald tricked Leigh into going out with him. I mean, Leigh would probably just say he's playing along but, you know...

They end up going to a dodgy district where everyone still somehow remembers Leigh from his drinking days. Probably should have picked a different neighborhood, Rev. Bald. It's like you didn't even research your mark.

We find out Leigh doesn't want to go to the first bar because he legit spent an entire week there without bathing or eating or sleeping just drinking and, I have to be honest, if I'd done something like that and was sure the people there would remember me, I probably wouldn't want to go back there either.

They end up in a bar and Leigh is, so far, being good and not drinking and has decided that Rev. Bald was going to be HIS victim--not sure what kind of victim, probably just to out him as working for Mizpra.

Oh hey, it's not just a bar, it's a brothel! Or, as Leigh's narrative describes it, a "dark, opprobrious den of crime and shame." Turns out he doesn't like makeup either, especially red lipstick because, as we all know, only whores wear that.

And now he's remembering some murder scene in the same place because not only is he a doctor, author, scholar, philosopher, and Merlin knows what else, he's ALSO a detective I guess!

I have to admit the memory of one of the workers at the place punching an actual, been there long enough to be bloated corpse because when you do that it makes apparently amusing sounds for the crowd of other people there who also found this amusing was, in and of itself, so absurd it made me laugh.

I'm sure it was meant to be horrifying but you can't read something like, "Over the prostrate victim bent the diseased-eaten harridan. She was amusing her companions by punching the inflated tissues, laughing and shrieking at the crackling, whistling effect it produced, while the dank denizens of the place gave vent to their pleasure by libidinous expressions and Paphian oaths," and NOT laugh.

Also the author is trying to tell us that, when he went to pull the punchy prostitute away from the corpse, her wig came off and her brain was straight up exposed through her "rotting skull".

For a fucking doctor you'd think he'd know that there is no actual way she'd be alive so unless he hallucinated this zombie prostitute...

So he thinks he's being taken to see the morphine addict and, of course, it's just a prostitute. She might also be a morphine addict but not the one Rev. Bald was describing as near death.

"Various odors in the room seemed to run in strata, as each step brought visitors to a different zone of pungent, offensive odors."

What are they?

Cigarettes, beer, lobster somehow, butter, cheap perfume.

I've been in worse rooms.

So she apparently IS the morphine addict he was talking about earlier, not like Leigh believes it, and Rev. Bald is going to just go ahead and leave the good doctor alone with her.

Leigh's first, uh, method of examination is to lift her arm, stroke her armpit, then drop her and move closer to the light to...look at his fingers. What the hell?

She was cool with it the first time but when he did it again she kind of freaked out which is perfectly understandable.

So there was a guy hiding in the curtains that was meant to jump Leigh but, Leigh being Leigh and good at everything, noticed him first and gave him a one punch knock out because Leigh is just that awesome.

And somehow Leigh, Rev. Bald, the woman, and the unconscious man are all locked in this nasty little room, the woman is going to apparently beat the hell out of Bald and broke a bottle over his head then, satisfied with that, shouts over to Leigh to continue beating the hell out of Rev. Bald because he'd set up the other guy to jump him.

Probably not a good idea to take Leigh to a brothel where everyone knew him.

She keeps smacking Bald in the head with a glass bottle and finally Leigh stops her before, y'know, she kills him. His reasoning for that was that killing him would be inconvenient for everyone which is fair enough.

Short conversation of, "Well if either one of them is dead we're both screwed, let's clean up the blood and I'll go get a police officer or whatever."

He comes back and--she's tried to redo her makeup to get back to work but there's this line about her hiding her powder puff: "[...] which she quickly hid in the bosom of her waist"--I don't think I want to know where she put that powder puff but I really hope she washes it before using it on her face again.

The lady then starts lecturing the mostly not conscious guy on the floor of her room about how it's his fault she's a prostitute somehow; based on how she's talking about money, sounds like she's one of his girls.

And that's it for chapter 15.

Chapter 16 is some flashback from the brothel woman about how she met Leigh; of course, since he's a genius doctor he offered, for free, to give her "deformed and useless" child whatever operation it is he needed. It's never specified, just that the kid is "deformed".

Also a lot of references to "dirty Poles" because it's gross to have to listen to Polish in an emergency room I guess.

Anyway, he's like The Saint Doctor who gives free medical care to everyone because he's a genius (of course) and none of the other doctors understand him. Also, he was just paying for everyone's medical care out of pocket because at some point, through one of the time skips, he went from jobless drunk to highly esteemed and rich author, lecturer, doctor, and scholar.

Getting really tired of Leigh.

She gets jolted out of her daydream when the train stops.She asks the "kindly old Irishman" who was cleaning up the station if she could hang out, he figures she's sober, so he says she can and she goes back to daydreaming about Leigh.

Whatever was wrong with her "deformed" kid was fixed and he's apparently recovered and Leigh arranged for the kid to be basically put in a foster home at some farm because that was apparently legal at one point, to just--give other peoples kids to someone else with no oversight.

Her name is May, we find out two chapters fucking late.

And she was somehow the thing that got him to clean his act up because that's how addiction works.

Now she's not daydreaming anymore because the train is about to arrive.

Chapter 17 is more of the same of these two catching up and talking about Rev. Bald being kind of a dick.

Also, who talks like this? "In his presence the finer feelings of her sex were aroused, her self-respect was active; and he knew it."

REALLY tired of Leigh now.

Basically, between really awkward sort of flirting we find out what anyone reading figured out several chapters ago: Mizpra is a terrible planner when it comes to remotely murdering people and Rev. Bald is proof of that because he basically fucked it up the first night.

And now he's going to go introduce his prostitute friend to Mops.

I feel like that's something he should have discussed with Obera first?

Ah yes, back to "masculine voiced women" who are, of course, matrons at some kind of--I don't even know what at this point, and I don't really care but of course, the women the author wants to have us view as bad are always mascluline in some way and are occasionally also fat and clumsy.

Like he's got any room to talk. I've seen photographs.

Oh of course, a religious boarding house for children of prostitutes where the manly, fat, clumsy women routinely berate the children.

In fairness, places like that did exist until fairly recently so I'm okay with the author kind of dragging them.

Ah, yes, Obera, gone from child-like and saucy to, "[...] radiantly beautiful, and in that full activity of healthy womanhood, which only true love and motherhood can develop."

Anyway, she starts begging Leigh to just straight up murder Mizpra, has a crying fit, then falls asleep and he starts waxing poetic about how her tiny little woman brain can't fully understand the situation.

Of course, Obera doesn't want the prostitute to see Mops because she's a "horrid, bad woman".

And that's it for chapter 17.

[redscullyrevival]

DISCO TALKS

I have lots of feelings this week and I’ve waited a little to try and approach them - but I’m still a big old mess.

Dis long.

So much is happening all the time in this show and I never get around to covering everything I’m thinking and feeling and this will be no different a post.

But what I’m most connecting to at the moment is definitely Ash Tyler as a character and Michael Burnham as a character and actually - it’s everything. I’m connected to everything. I’m wired the fuck in. 

But I can’t possibly talk about everything. So lets see what I get around to.

Deep breath 

I’m not troubled, exactly, about seeing large chunks of the this show’s audience out right calling for Ash Tyler’s demise.

I expected that - and I’ll get around to that.

Personally I happen to think Ash Tyler’s first PTSD (ish) storyline was a bit sloppy as it was wrapped up in a wacky sci-fi plot which obscured/blurred direct real world correlation with living with PTSD.

But I do think the Voq-and-Ash-consciousness-braino-tango can act as perfectly acceptable, albeit a slightly oblique, metaphor for the most demonizing of mental illnesses. 

The show has expressed that the Ash Tyler that killed Dr. Hugh Culber is not considered by the doctors and scientists on board the Discovery as being the Ash Tyler now free to roam the ship. 

They’re letting him roam the ship y’all.

That’s simple exposition for: “These Characters Are Being Written to Choose to Understand Ash Tyler as Having Not Consciously Committed Murder”.

We the audience are assumed to follow suit.

And yet…

The calls for pitchforks and all the blunt outright dismissal of Ash Tyler I’ve seen in the past few days reads to me like someone who experienced a deeply traumatic and violent psychotic break or episode and is being punished for it. 

Which isn’t exactly fair of me, I know. 

There is a responsibility with mental illness and PTSD, there absolutely is. It is up to the individual to do the work they need to do to keep themselves and others safe. 

Ash did not do that. 

He was written to handle his entire situation very, very poorly. 

Ash/Voq tried to kill Michael. 

That is what was written and is what transpired between those two characters, intentionally. 

But Ash has also been written to get the chance to put in the work to learn, and get better, and to do better. 

And I’m not mad at that story. 

I don’t think I’ll ever be talked into being mad about it either. 

Like, this episode was titled “The War Without, The War Within”.

The violent and entirely least relatable of mental illnesses, those that frighten and consume it’s sufferers, have drastic social complications attached to them and thus there are drastic social complications attached to those that are known to experience them. 

There is an interesting (and kinda horrible) mimicry of common social stigma regarding violent psychotic behavior at play in Discovery’s viewership and their reading of Ash Tyler.

I don’t think I’m so far out there in my opinion that Ash’s first arc has actually been about the personally incomprehensible nature of experiencing and handling a budding psychotic disorder (within intensely weird and franchise-specific sci-fi wrappings, of course).

I think, I hope, Ash’s second arc will be about learning to live with who he is in his entirety; that he seeks help for himself and comes to understand what he experienced and how to prepare for living with himself, for himself. 

And Michael is dead on: That will always be hard, solitary, work. 

I’m also of the opinion Michael has every right to be honest with Ash and do what’s right, and best, for herself. 

Shocking, it seems, to hold sympathy and understanding for both of these characters.

Michael is honest but firm and in turn openly offended by Ash, but we see within Michael’s goodbye that she saw the truth in Tilly’s words; how Ash is treated now within his early stages of changed self-understanding will most likely determine what kind of person he ends up being. 

Michael knows she is not responsible for Ash, but at the same time humanity cannot be irresponsible within our treatment of each other.

Would Michael yelling and being angry have been justified? Absolutely.

Would such a display of disdain and fear have marked Ash to wander down an at-risk path? Whose to say.

Because that isn’t the scene we were shown.

Micheal is doing the right thing by her to let Ash go and she is doing the right thing by explaining her choice to him. 

Again, does she owe Ash an explanation? No.

But she was written to give him one all the same. 

I felt that the raw, emotional, and interpersonal context driven conversation between Ash Tyler and Michael Burnham is exactly the kind of Star Trek story I wanted to experience within the adapted serialized format. 

This series isn’t wrapping up plot denouement with captain’s logs so the “start” and “stop” of storylines will by nature of the serialized format be a lot more blurry. 

We as an audience have to do a lot more work to find themes and to puzzle them together within this particular show in this franchise - but Discovery is certainly trying it’s best to mirror (L O L) events and situations, even down to particular scenes. 

We have Michael going to Ash to gain official verbal closure between them because that is the healthier and more responsible story telling choice leading up to that cherished 60s space utopia. I say this every week but this show is about “discovering” how people can be better people. That is it’s long term jam. 

UGH I have so much more to saaaaaay about how the show is using Ash and related fuck all but I have GOT to move on, we gotta get to my train wreck Sarek!

Crap Dad is trying his best today. He has even, finally, perhaps, seemed to have given one of his children good advice. 

Now, I know Sarek saying not to regret having loved and brigin’ up lovin’ enemies will read to some as him being pro-Ash and like pressuring Michael to rethink dumping him but like sorry, that’s wack, that isn’t what’s happening in this exchange.

Not that I’m saying my interpretation is law but I’m pretty damn sure it ain’t the above either. 

Anyways

The first part of Sarek’s Dad Talk is the thorn in some boots; “For what greater source of peace exists than our ability to love our enemy?”

What’s daddy’s angle here? 

Why is this nerdo sayin’ this?

Loving your enemy is the kind of thing folks say, and hear, without thinking about it a lot of the time. There is something about the phrase that invokes simultaneous disdain and awe.

But generically speaking an enemy is someone or some group who opposes you or your group’s convictions. Enemies are opponents.

Was Ash ever Michael’s enemy?

Ash attacked Michael during his episode of consciousness-collapse with the intent to kill her - but did Michael then, and does Michael now, think of Ash as her enemy? 

Michael doesn’t hesitate in response, she says she has made “foolish choices, emotional choices.” (ie. emotional choices are foolish, I’ve been a big dumb dumb, please reprimand me Vulcan Dad)

What Sarek does in his farewell with Michael is the most supremely Vulcan thing he could have done, but probably not at all in the way Michael expected.

When Michael says she has made foolish and emotional choices Sarek tells her “Well, you are human” which, usually, is the sickest of Vulcan burns.

But!

BUT!

Sarek then places his hand on Michael’s shoulder (wtffff) and tells her “As is your mother” - which is, by his standards, an extremely flashy omission that he consider’s himself Michael’s father and not simply her steward.

Oh boy, remember when Michael flung “father” at him like a weapon for saying they’re not technically related, so logically they’re not father and daughter - do you remember that?!

Well, now Sarek (the disaster that he is) is using logic to label their relationship without having to outright say it.

Honestly, his phrasing here might be the best proof that we’ve ever been given showing that Sarek may actually be the great statesman and representative the franchise has been hyping him up to be for generations.   

Michael is in fuckin’ shock here btw, she’s stunned. 

The icing on the cake is that Sarek, following up the proclamation that Michael and her mother are both human, goes on to say “There is no telling what any one of us may do where the heart is concerned.”

Now, admittedly, this may be a stretch but it’s uncharacteristic for a Vulcan to lump themselves in with “any one of us” without differentiating the “us”.

Especially when regarding icky emotions. 

It sounds like Sarek is lumping himself in with his human wife and daughter as being apart of the “us”, of being/acting human. Of making foolish and emotional choices. 

At this point Michael’s eyes have unfocused and I’m fuckin’ crying.

AND THEN Sarek’s tells Michael to not regret loving someone.

Nerds know we can apply this to Sarek’s love for Amanda, the long suffering humans lady dealing with this man’s many child projects™.

But it is also applicable to these two and their interpersonal situation.

By telling Michael not to regret loving someone Sarek is once again affirming something concerning their relationship without having to say it outright: “I do not regret loving you” and/or “I love you.”

AND THEN ALSO Sarek’s statement suggests that Michael’s foolish and emotional choices are not worthy of regret; that emotional choices are not inherently foolish.

And I think “foolish” is the key insight into Michael’s feelings here. 

I think Michael feels like a fool about Tyler; about the Binary Stars; about Lorca; about her choice to bring Mirror!Georgiou; Michael feels foolish and maybe even shame for investing in and loving people who have let her down, who she has let down, who used her, and who she knows isn’t who she wants them to be but can’t help but feel moved all the same.

It’s a wider statement as well: Don’t regret love. Don’t regret trying to understand and connect to people. Don’t regret not knowing what you couldn’t have known. Don’t regret being optimistic and in believing people up front. 

I can go on, we can all add to this list on what this simple phrase could translate to within the story of Michael and the Discovery so far, out into what we know and want from Star Trek, and then even within our own lives.   

Haha, media is wild!

God this is so long. 

I’m so sorry. 

[thescuttlebugg]

okay I know I haven’t done anything with Nathaliebug and Theo Noir in a minute (@ssilverstreak has been handling them EXCELLENTLY in Five Minutes and does not need my help, frankly) but today I have been struck by a sudden and powerful urge to revisit The Care And Keeping Of Kitten Noirs. >>

SO ON THAT NOTE: 

The envelope stuck to the outside of Adrien’s highest window pane is thick and durable and sealed with red wax with a ladybug stamped into the center. It is addressed, in dark red ink and very neat penmanship, “to my successor, C/O my kitten”. 

It’s not exactly particle physics figuring out it’s not meant for him. 

Or that someone knows his identity. 

Taking it to Ladybug is a terrible idea. Taking it to Ladybug is almost definitely a trap. 

But--

“LB,” he croaks into his communicator, six blocks over and tucked into a hidden corner of a convenient and easily defendable rooftop. 

“Chat?” She blinks at him from the video screen, expression both concerned and wary. She’s so pretty. He’s so worried. He shows her the front of the envelope. 

And then the back. 

“It was stuck to the outside of my bedroom window,” he says, and watches her eyes widen very briefly, and then narrow very sharply. 

“Where are you?” she asks. 

“My lady, I’m compromised--” 

“Where are you?” 

He tells her. Of course he tells her. He’d tell her anything she wanted him to, just like he doesn’t tell her anything she doesn’t want him to. She shows up red and shining in the dark, bright and beautiful and stronger than anyone else in this city, and takes the envelope from him. He wants to shred it up, Cataclysm it into ash, but he lets her. 

She opens the envelope. There’s a list inside. It’s a long, long list, hand-written in that same very neat penmanship and requiring an unexpected amount of unfolding. 

It has a title, and that title is The Proper Care And Keeping Of Kitten Noirs. 

Chat tries to read over her shoulder; Ladybug presses the letter to her chest and shoots him a look. 

“A: it’s addressed to me,” she says. “B: if it’s freaky akuma magic, it better only get one of us.” 

“But you’re the worst possible one for it to get!” Chat protests. He’s not wrong, obviously, but Ladybug ignores him. It’s her name on the letter. If it’s a trap, it’s a trap for her. 

Chat takes enough hits as it is. 

Except . . . 

Section One, the letter says, Nutrition: Favorite Foods, Kitten; Favorite Foods, Kwami; Ideal Caloric Intake Per Patrol; Emergency Kwami Recharge Options. 

Section Two, the letter says, Emotional Support: Physical Assurance; Verbal Affirmation; Bonding Opportunities; Promises And The Keeping Thereof. 

Section Three, the letter says, Training: Defense; Staff Vs. Sword; Increasing Patience And Focus; Alternate Applications of Cataclysm.

Section Four, the letter says, Emergency Communication: Dead Drops; Burner Phones; Secure Messaging Apps; Kwami. 

Section Five, the letter says, and Ladybug looks up at Chat in disbelief. Every section fills up at least a full page, if not more, and there’s at least another six or seven of them in here. She might ask him if this was a poorly-planned joke, if not for how scared he’d looked when he’d first messaged her; if not for the worry and nervousness on his face now. He looks like she just fed herself to a dinosaur again. 

She flips through the remaining sections. There’s . . . going to be some involved reading. She might need to take notes. 

The last page is a letter. 

My Dear Successor, 

Your kwami’s name is Tikki. Her favorite food is cookies. Every time you’ve doubted yourself, she told you that you were enough. When you cast Miraculous Ladybug, it feels the same way that seeing Chat Noir for the first time did. 

If this information is not enough for you to allow my advice the benefit of the doubt, you can go to the library and look me up in the old newspapers. I was last active nine years ago, and wielded the Ladybug Miraculous for two years prior to that; I spent almost the entirety of this time in Paris. To the best of my knowledge, no other information about my efforts on behalf of the Miraculous were preserved, unless the Guardian recorded something of myself and my partner for personal reference. 

I assume you have discovered by now that you were not the first Ladybug, and I certainly was not either. The earliest I ever saw proof of operated in Egypt at least five thousand years ago, but anecdotal evidence suggests that was not the origin of the Miraculous either, and the kwami, at the very least, are far older than that. There have been very many Ladybugs, as there have been very many Chat Noirs and Kittens, and also very many Moths and Butterflies. We are none of us like the others, except for how very like the others we all are, as Tikki once told me.  

People forget us. It is the nature of the magic, and unavoidable. They forget us, and they let our stories fall out of the telling and forget to preserve them. When a new hero appears some small instinctive part of them accepts that yes, of course it should be this way, but they do not remember why they accept it. 

Therefore, in all of Paris--saving the Guardian--I am the singular person who knows that a previous carrier of the Black Cat Miraculous ever lived and breathed in this city. And I would know that ring anywhere, on any wielder. Your Kitten carries it well, but recklessly, and I have enclosed in this letter all that I have known of both him and his own predecessor in the interest of helping you do what every Ladybug should: protect the partner that would die for them, and make sure that they do NOT. 

In time, Paris and the world will forget your Ladybug and his Chat Noir as well. You could forget too, if you chose to. If it is easier. It is a path you may choose to take. Until such a time as that choice becomes relevant in your life, however, and whether or not you take any of the rest of my advice to heart, my successor, there is one thing I must implore of you: I do not carry a Miraculous any longer. I can neither purify or even fight an akuma, and I cannot fix what is left broken. All I can do is try to keep my own stupid tomcat out of things, and ask that you take the best care you can of your partner--of my kitten. 

If I had more than this to give you, I would. 

Sincerely, Your Predecessor 

Ladybug looks at the letter for a much longer time than it actually takes to read it. Chat Noir squirms with restless worry in front of her the whole time. She wants to soothe him, but she isn’t sure she’s feeling very soothed herself. She does not know who could’ve left this letter. She does not know how much to tell him about the letter. 

She also does not know if a similar letter may turn up on her balcony window one day or even already be there waiting for her to come home from tonight’s patrol, addressed and signed in green ink and sealed with a neon pawprint. Waiting for Chat, and full of section after section about The Care And Keeping Of Baby Bugs. 

“It’s just a letter, Chat,” she says finally, Chat’s ears immediately pricking at the sound of her voice. 

“My bedroom window,” he stresses. Ladybug looks at him again. His mother? Maybe? His father? Or maybe an older sibling, if Miraculous users are usually their age. Someone close enough to him to have seen his ring, and close enough to feel a sense of responsibility for him. She tries to picture some other Ladybug fussing over Chat, but the best she can do is to try to imagine herself nine or ten years older, and “taller with longer pigtails” is about the best she’s got for even that. 

Chat Noir is taller and broader than her. He’s scared a lot, but always brave and always beside her. It takes literal magic--mind-controlling, will-defying magic--to stop him. Nothing else ever has. 

She’s never really thought too much about what an adult might think about him. Does he look small, to an adult? Does he look like he needs taken care of? 

Does he really seem like a “kitten” to her unnamed predecessor? 

Would she think any differently, if ten years from now Manon or one of the neighborhood kids suddenly showed up wearing that ring and started running around Paris with a tail and ears and more loyalty than common sense? 

“It’s okay, kitty,” Ladybug says kindly, folding up the letter. It’s easier to put away, now that she knows how to take it out. “Hey. Have you eaten yet?” 

[shinylyni]

Alright; as some of you guys may have noticed, I’ve been going through a really rough time and have not been in the best state of mind for almost a week now. I’ll give you all an update on what’s been going on so you guys know why I’m acting a certain way/doing certain things.

All under the cut; it’s fairly lengthy and covers what’s happened over the course of... 16 years, basically.

So last Saturday (Jan 21) was my father’s birthday. I’d just finished my first week of school and suffered through Drumpf’s inauguration the day before, and I was ready to just kick back and have some fun celebrating father’s birthday with him. We’d planned to go to the mall and eat noodles, and so around 4:30 in the afternoon we climbed into his car to get the party going, or whatever.

Then, I see it on the floor of my seat.

The phone.

I pick it up and immediately knew it was my old phone, the phone I’d dropped on concrete back in my first year which had shattered the screen. I knew father had figured out a way to move the screen on mother's phone (which was identical to mine but had somehow been brick'd) and use it to replace the shattered screen, but there was no reason to use that phone anymore since we all had new phones by then. At the time, I'd thought nothing about it, but seeing it on the floor of that car suddenly made me realize exactly why he'd done such a thing that time.

I picked the phone up and asked him what this was doing here. Immediately, he snatched it out of my hands and told me it was nothing. I knew something was up; he's trying to brush this topic off and had a really nasty look in his eyes, which I can really only describe as some twisted mix of an attempt to intimidate me to stop asking questions and fear of what would happen if I kept pushing for answers. We struggled for a good 5 minutes as I tried to take the phone from him, but he wouldn't budge. And even if he was now 59 years old, he was still larger and had more muscle mass than me, so he obviously had the upper hand. So at this point, I did the only thing I could to get the answers I needed.

"Dad," I said, my voice strangely lower than usual, "if you don't give me the phone, I'm telling mother about it."

He looked away from me and sighed. I could tell he was debating with himself what he should do, and after a bit he finally, hesitantly, handed the phone to me. I turned on the screen and unlocked it (how silly of him not to have passcode lock the screen).

I was greeted with a bright green logo in the upper left-hand corner, a chat bubble with the word "WeChat" on it. I saw a profile picture of a lady who was not my mother, or anyone else I knew. Everything written was in Chinese, but I couldn't read any of it as in less than a second, father had taken the phone from my hands again. But it was too late; I had seen the proof of what I'd suspected, of what my mother had feared, with my own eyes.

At this point, I feel it's necessary to flash back a bit in my life, to the time I was 7. One day, I'd heard my parents fighting, and not just yelling and screaming at each other. A couple of the plates in our kitched was broken, and both of my parents looked like they'd been through a ride at Six Flags with the way their hair and clothes were messed up. Father had a cut on his cheek. I asked them what had happened and if dad had accidentally dropped the plates; neither of them answered me, though I went over to help dad patch up. Afterward, mother had taken me aside and told me that father was going out with another woman. As a kid, I didn't really know what that meant to mother; all I knew that for the months following that incident, they'd be constantly fighting, with mother getting violent with father. Since the violence was what I saw, I immediately took to siding with my father whenever they started fighting, which would make mother lash out at me sometimes.

Flash forward to when I was just starting middle school, when I was 11. Father tells mother that he hasn't flirted with any other women for years now, and mother tried to give him a second chance. Things were going well, until I was about 13. Then the fighting started again, and mother claimed that she'd found more proof of him using a second email to talk to other women. I didn't believe her, I only thought she was paranoid and was making an issue out of nothing. But the fighting started up again, and again, I found myself siding with father as mother got violent with him (and with me).

This sort of cycle would continue all the way until I went to college, at which case I moved out of the house into the dorms. They might've continued to fight during that time, but I wouldn't have known as I was a couple hundred miles away. Grandpa passed away during my second semester, and that, combined with a general sense of loneliness and lack of self-worth, made me spiral down into a pretty deep depression. I started to do poorly in my classes, and eventually had to drop a semester and take the following semester off for my own emotional well-being. My parents agreed that one of them had to stay with me, and they eventually came to the agreement that I felt safer around father, so he moved in with me to help me out.

During the time he was here, I would constantly hear him on the phone with my mother; sometimes they'd be yelling, and I'd ask him what was up. Every time, he told me the same thing: mother hated him, and was accusing him of cheating on her. And when I asked him if he was, he told me "no, of course not, I'd stopped a long time ago". I wanted to trust him, but by this point I'd figured he might not actually be entirely truthful with me. Being away from his wife for so long made this a perfect opportunity for him to do something behind her back. So I'd check up on him every once in a while to make sure he'd kept his word, just as much as he'd check up on me to make sure I was doing schoolwork and attending school. Neither of us checked in with each other enough.

This past winter break, I told mother that every time I checked in on him, I'd never caught him doing anything which even suggested he might've been having an affair. Mother believed me, because I believed my own words. I wanted to believe in him, too.

But after I found the phone, I couldn't believe him anymore.

When he had taken the phone from my hands the second time, I found myself punching him and biting him just so I could get the phone back. He refused to give it to me, so I got out of the car. One of our neighbors saw me and asked, "Is everything alright?"

I smiled at her. "Nope, not at all, but don't worry about it." I turned around and stormed back upstairs to our apartment; there would be no mall, no noodle, no celebration today. He didn't deserve it.

I told two of my real life friends about it, and one of them let me stay over at her place for the night. We hung out, and I found myself able to enjoy myself a little bit as we hung out. In the morning, we went to get breakfast with her boyfriend, and it was good fun until I told them I had to leave. I really, truly appreciate what she did for me that day, but it's unfair if I stayed any longer at her place, especially as I'd only brought one set of clothes to change into the day before. So I went home later that day, and locked the door to my room once I got back. Even if hanging out with friends had lifted my spirits, it had not changed how I felt about my father.

Since that day, I've refused to talk to my father or even look at him. I'd leave home early in the morning so that I could avoid him. I'd stay at school well into the evening so that I could avoid him. When I did get home, I'd immediately go into my room and lock it. Some days, if I got out of my morning class early enough, I'd go home and make a quick lunch at 11, then leave before he could get back at 12. Anytime I was in the apartment at the same time he was, he'd take the opportunity to come up to my door and plead with me to talk to him. And if he wasn't doing that, he was sending me texts while I was at school sayin how sorry he was, and how he was crying in bed.

Normally, I'd feel bad for doing this to him. But every single time he's talked to me, it's been an attempt at guilt tripping me to accept his apology and to forgive him. Everything he says is stuff like "Why can't you forgive me for making a mistake?" "I'm only human, all humans are sinners" and "You're hurting me so much, I'm still your father". And that's not an apology, that's a plea for me to stroke his ego so that he can keep doing the same things over and over again while asking for forgiveness each time. Because as Christians, it's what we do, right? We forgive and forget and continue to love each other. And when we forgive, that gives the other side permission to continue being a douchebag, right?

Monday, when I got back for lunch, I found an envelope on my desk. On it was a note written in Chinese, which stated, "I'm never going to use this phone again" (我再也不用这个手机). Which, y'know, is a load of bull. The wording is very deliberate, my father is an idiot but he's a smart idiot. He knows that if he got a new phone, or any other new device, he's still technically keeping his word. Disgusted, I put it in the back of my closet; mother can deal with that the next time I see her.

On Wednesday, I dropped one of my classes. I'd been planning to drop it since the first day now; the professor wanted us to write an essay every. single. week. And it wasn't even a class I needed for graduation! So I dropped it, and told mother about it. She probably told father, because when I got back, father almost immediately came to my room and started yelling at me. He told me how I was using his affair as an excuse to do poorly in classes (when I'd already finished ALL MY OTHER HOMEWORK THAT WAS DUE FRIDAY), and how I should be telling him these things because he's my father. Earlier that day, he'd sent me a text telling me he wouldn't talk to me or even leave his room by the time I got back. Now, he was actively breaking his word, even opening my door to come in. I had to break my silence to yell at him that I wasn't wearing a shirt (I wasn't), which made him leave the room. Once he left, I promptly went over to lock the door, because like... what the actual fuck?

He continued to do such things throughout the evening, blaming me and threatening me with things like "if you don't talk to me RIGHT NOW, I'm returning this apartment and moving us back!" "you are going to get that class back or else you're withdrawing from the university!" and other stupid shit like that. And that's not him wanting a discussion; that is him wanting me to talk to him, to break my silent treatment, because he thinks he's above me and can do whatever he likes. Because I should forgive him. Because he can keep doing what he wants. Because telling a half truth means he can get away with being technically correct. So of course, I don't talk to him. Instead, I call mother and tell her exactly why I made my decision, and how it has nothing to do with father. She relays the information to father, and he finally backs down. I call bestie afterwards, as I'm suffering from a pretty bad panic attack from all that, and we stay in call together until I fall asleep.

Thursday evening, I get a text from father saying mother's on her way. I hang out with my friends until evening, and go back. Lucky for me, father's out for a jog (or doing whatever the fuck he does when he's "going for a jog") and mother and I talk about our feelings. I've still not forgiven mother for being violent and physically abusive to both me and father and manipulating our words to fit her narrative, but I'm also definitely not forgiving father for playing with our trust and feelings for more than 15 years. But we talk, and though she tells me I should talk to my father (because he's my father... fuck that rhetoric), she accepts that I won't for the time being.

It's now Friday, and I'm typing up everything that's happened. I don't think words can describe how I feel towards father right now. But if anything, I'm really grateful that my friends, both online and in real life, have helped me out through this time. I don't think I'll be very emotionally stable for a while yet, but everything you guys have done for me has helped me tremendously. Thank you.

TL;DR - caught father having an affair, he's been having affairs for more than 15 years now, and I am angry.

[amindcypress-blog]

$PMP Certification Training Course ,PMP Certification Workshop,PMP Certification Cost,MindCypress

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