#using a hurricane as a metaphor for an abusive relationship was not on todays to do list

[maria-scribbles]

glitter + crimson (let’s start a riot)//part four

summary: carmen actually steps foot inside her own house after discovering her daughter isn’t the only teenager living there. the hurricane hurtling toward the island matches the tempest in sailor’s heart as she finally gets some long-overdue words off her chest that her mom isn’t very happy to hear and two friends inch closer and closer to crossing that metaphorical line.

word count: 6.6k+ (oops, i did it again 😅)

ship: jj maybank x oc (sailor flynn)

warnings n stuff: mentions of abuse/neglect, gambling addiction, child abandonment, being kicked out of home, fluff, swearing, underage drinking, flirting, having shitty dads, mentions of weed, star wars, and sailor’s unhealthy addiction to nutella, mention and direct quote of the percy jackson and the olympians series (again), subtle nod to new girl (i love seeing how many references i can make lmao)

a/n: first off, i just want to thank each and every one of you for your likes, reblogs, and especially your wonderful comments! they mean to world to me, seriously ❤ now, here comes the dramaaaaa! we get to dive into sailor’s complicated, turbulent relationship with her mother (sailor, like john b, has a very big, very real fear of being abandoned by people she loves because of her dad) before heading toward the canon timeline of the show. the quote about the sea near the beginning is from jaques cousteau, legendary french naval officer, marine explorer and filmmaker who co-created the aqua-lung and paved the way for modern scuba diving. he also pioneered marine conservation and discovered the wreck of the hmhs britannic, sister ship of the rms titanic! so overall, he was a pretty cool dude and i feel that he’d be a personal hero to ocean-loving sailor (maybe even kiara as well, considering her love of the environment/conservation).

unbetaed as usual so all mistakes are my b.

gif credit to @toesure (who has the most beautiful gifs, ngl)

~Masterlist~

part four: high tide

The sun’s just peeking its rays over the horizon, painting the deep blue sky the softest shades of pink and orange. Calm, steady waves lap against the shore and over Sailor’s bare feet as she stands alone on an empty and desolate beach, the only signs of life coming from the seagulls squawking overhead. The air is thick and sticky with early morning humidity, the type that makes it hard to breathe and frizzes the hell out of her wavy hair, and she can already feel moisture starting to collect on her skin.

Why’s she here again? She can’t remember a reason and come to think of it, she can’t remember exactly how she got here, either. Did she drive? She turns her back to the ocean and its entrancing pull to look for her truck but finds the surf shop is the only thing she can see clearly, the world surrounding it blurred in an incomprehensible mess of color; the sight should’ve caused anxiety to take root in her chest but somehow she finds herself unbothered, relaxed. Somehow, she feels at home.

“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”

Sailor’s head snaps to the left at the sound of a painfully familiar voice. A tall, redheaded man now stands in what was only a few seconds ago an empty space, smiling out over the water with the brilliant colors of the sky reflecting in his green eyes.

“Dad?”

Ryan doesn’t seem to hear the incredulous tone in her voice or even the fact that she spoke at all as he turns to face her and asks a question of his own, “It’s true, don’t you think?”

Of course she does. The sea has had her under its captivating, magnetic spell ever since she first laid eyes on it when she was a toddler, a baby, even. Her parents always said she wanted to spend every waking moment at the beach, combing the sand for shells and staring out at the water, imagining what new discoveries were waiting for her in its depths. Her mouth moves on it’s own as she replies, “You know I do.”

It’s not what she wants to say at all. She wants so badly to yell at him, let out her frustrations and hurt and pain ‘how dare you leave us’ ‘what did I do wrong’ ‘why haven’t you come back yet’ but finds that she can’t form the words. It’s like she’s watching a video, or maybe reliving a memory -oh. It feels like a memory because it is one, she recognizes with a start, of the week before he took off and abandoned them for the very first time, leaving behind a gaping, bleeding wound that neither Sailor nor her mother ever managed to properly stitch back together.

Ryan’s smile widens. “Always got your eyes on the horizon, Starfish. Just like your old man.”

Her heart clenches at the old, familiar nickname that she hasn’t heard in years, like she’s looking at a favorite pair of childhood shoes or an old t-shirt from a family vacation long past and realizing she doesn’t fit in them anymore, that she’s moved on, and surprisingly, it doesn’t sting as much as she thought it would.

“Come on,” Her father says and when he reaches out to her, Sailor finds herself reaching back with a much smaller, eight-year old sized hand that’s swallowed by Ryan’s larger, calloused palm. “Think you can go fifteen feet today?”

“Fifteen? I’m gonna go twenty!” She declares confidently in her most grown-up voice, giggling when her dad beams and hoists her little body up into his arms, the stubble on his face tickling her skin as he plants a kiss on her cheek.

“That’s my girl.”

He runs into the surf, tossing a laughing Sailor into the ocean when it’s waist deep before they wade out, further and further until the sandy floor drops away from their feet and they’re left treading water.

“Ready, Starfish?”

“Ready!”

The sun breaks over the horizon and casts its golden light on the pair, turning their hair an identical shade of fiery red just as they dive below. She has to work harder to keep up with her father’s longer strokes but she does it and reaches the bottom the same time he does; he smiles widely and reaches out to quickly cup her cheek, pride shining clearly in his eyes and she beams back before turning away to scan the floor for any worthy shells. Finding a knobbed whelk a few feet away, she swims over to grab it before pushing off toward the surface, Ryan following close behind. The sun becomes brighter and brighter the closer she gets and just when her head breaks through the waves-

Sailor wakes.

The early morning sun shines across her eyes through the curtains as she stares up at the surfboard above her bed, the very shelf were the whelk from that day still sits, proudly displayed with her other finds. Yawning, she runs her hands over her face and blinks away the last threads of sleep still clinging to her lashes, along with the memory of her dream. Moments like that with her father were rare. Ryan was a blast to be around when he was happy doing something he wanted to do, like diving for shells, hitting up the bowling alley for a few games, or taking his old, beat up boat out into the marsh to fish for hours on end (never something mundane as doing the dishes or folding the laundry, no, those were children’s jobs and being an only kid, those responsibilities fell to Sailor.). Moments like that were when she felt that -naively, foolishly- her dad was actually proud of her, that he wasn’t horribly inconvenienced by her having the audacity to be his daughter, to be born, that maybe he loved her as much as she loved him.

Cold from a sudden shiver that runs through her body, she rolls onto her side to seek out the best human space heater she knows but her arm only finds empty sheets lacking warmth, her hand reaching for someone who’s no longer there. She frowns and sits up, fingers automatically running through her sleep mussed waves in a semi-futile attempt to fix them into something less resembling a bird’s nest. A quick check of the phone she doesn’t remember plugging in to charge reveals its just before 7 in the morning and her confusion over her missing bedmate only grows; JJ’s rarely ever conscious before 9 AM at the absolute earliest and almost never by his own volition unless surfing’s involved. Even Binx is gone from his usual spot at the end of the bed, leaving her truly alone in the tiny room.

On the floor alongside his boots, the backpack she never noticed him having yesterday is still where he dropped it with its zipper open wide, while his phone rests next to hers on the bedside table and Sailor feels an almost embarrassing wave of relief wash over her knowing he’s still here, that he didn’t just up and disappear in the middle of the night, that he stayed (of all the times he’s come to her before, only once did he leave before dawn and, after she’d frantically tracked him down at John B’s place, tears in her eyes and streaming down her face at the thought of him returning to the lion’s den that he called home, he held her close and promised to never do it again.). She pulls herself out of bed and crosses the room to pull on a random hoodie from the closet before pocketing her phone and padding into the hall, the wooden floor cool under her bare feet.

A demanding meow comes from the kitchen followed immediately by a vexed, “Binx, my dude. For the last time, you can’t have this.” JJ’s bright laugh echoes throughout the room when Binx meows again, this one more insistent than the last and the redhead smiles, quietly shuffling forward to lean against the wall. He doesn’t notice, instead holding a finger to his lips as he shushes the cat sitting on the counter beside him, then turns back to whatever he’s doing. “Be quiet, dumbass! You don’t wanna wake your mom up, do you?”

“I don’t know, sounds to me like he might need my help.”

He startles at her teasing voice, nearly dropping the butter knife in his hand as she steps forward and scoops Binx into her arms, pressing a kiss to his fuzzy cheek. “Is mean old J not feeding you, Binxy? That just won’t do!”

He rolls his eyes but the grin tugging the corners of his mouth upward betrays his amusement as he says sarcastically, “Yeah, I’m the bad guy for not giving the brat Nutella. Great.”

With a laugh, Sailor gives the cat another loving scratch behind the ears before gently setting him on the floor and hoisting herself onto the counter beside JJ, her legs swinging back and forth and lightly brushing against his side. “So...you’re up early.” She says, watching him scrape the last bit of Nutella out of the jar and smear it on some toast, another piece already made on the plate at his elbow.

“Yeah, I woke up and couldn’t go back to bed.” He shrugs, tossing the knife in the sink and the empty container into the trash; her stomach does a little flip when he brings his hand to his mouth and licks away the chocolate left behind on his thumb, then continues, “Sorry if I woke you up. I tried to be quiet but that shithead over there wouldn’t shut up.”

He nods his chin in the direction of a lounging Binx, stretched out on the back of the couch in the sun and she shakes her head. “Don’t worry, you didn’t. I-” She shrugs, too, and meets his blue-eyed gaze. “I guess I couldn’t sleep, either.”

“Bad dream?” JJ asks, holding the plate of toast out to her and she takes a piece with a grateful smile as she replies, “I’d call it more of a bittersweet memory.”

They both fall into a comfortable silence while they eat until he suddenly asks another question around a mouthful of breakfast, “About your dad?”

Sailor freezes mid-chew, her father’s green eyes flicking away from her best friend’s face toward the floor as she swallows thickly, her free hand anxiously clenching the fabric of her shorts. After a long, pregnant pause in which they finish their food and he puts the dirty plate in the sink, she finally says softly, “I’m sorry.”

“Huh?”

She apologizes again, staring down at the floor and swinging her legs back and forth, her bare feet hitting the cabinet with dull thuds.

“For what?” His brow furrows in confusion while he takes a step forward to stand between her legs, one hand reaching to hook a finger under her chin and lift her head so he can look her in the eye, the other resting on her knee. “Seriously, help me out here ‘cause I’m confused as fuck.”

“Because I feel guilty, okay?” She starts, eyelids briefly closing as she takes a deep breath before snapping open again and continuing before he can interrupt, “Here I am, getting upset over a stupid dream I had about my gambling addict dad that ditched me when your dad does that,” -she points to his bruised ribs- “and this,” -her palm rests on his cheek, thumb skimming over his scabbed lip- “and God, I just-”

“Whoa, hold up there, Sail.” JJ cuts her off, his free hand joining the other in cupping her face, “Just because your dad never hit you doesn’t mean you don’t have something to be pissed about. He abandoned you, stole your mom’s money, and made you feel like shit! You have a right to be mad as fuck about it.”

“But-”

“But nothing! We’re not having a fucking competition about who has the shittiest dad,” -He smirks devilishly, brushing a wayward red curl off her forehead- “because they both suck major dick. End of story.”

In spite of herself, Sailor snickers as she winds her arms around his neck and pulls him close, resting her head in the crook of his shoulder while his own arms slide around her waist. “We should start a club.” She jokes lightly and feels his snort of laughter against her ear in response.

“‘Shitty Dad Society,’” He declares proudly, “I call being president.”

“Well, I’m your VP! Binx’s our secretary- shit, I’ll be treasurer, too ‘cause I don’t trust you with any type of financial situation at all.”

He laughs again, hand tightening its grip on her waist and she smiles into his neck as he says, “That’s fair. We should make shirts.”

They settle into another comfortable silence after that, both more than happy to relax in the other’s arms and just be. It’s one of her favorite things about..whatever they are, the ease, the contentment, the familiarity felt when they’re together are sentiments she never, ever wants to lose and a thought, an exciting, dangerous thought pops into her head: what if he never has to leave?

“Come live with me.”

“...what?”

Oh, fuck, she just said that out loud, didn’t she? Brain, enter panic mode. The redhead abruptly pulls out of his embrace and buries her already blushing face into shaking hands, closing her eyes tight for good measure, stammering between her fingers, “Nothing, nothing! I said nothing!”

“Pretty sure you said something,” His hands encircle her wrists and gently pull them down to her lap. “And it wasn’t ‘nothing.’”

She stares down at their entwined fingers resting on her thighs, the backs of his hands deliriously warm against her exposed skin and grounding her to this (scary, exciting, vulnerable) moment, and blurts out in a rush, “I said, come live here. With me.”

JJ doesn’t speak, but the way his hands almost imperceptibly tighten their hold on hers -she would’ve missed it if she hadn’t already been looking- compels her to raise her head and meet his eyes; the indescribable depth of the ocean is behind his gaze, as well as the barest hint of pure, brazen hope, and it says everything his mouth won’t.

“Remember yesterday, when you said you don’t know how much more you can take?” She asks. At his tight nod, she weaves her fingers even more intricately with his and admits softly, “Well, I’m not sure how much more I can take, either.”

Sailor’s eyes sweep over the cuts on his face with all the gentleness of a lover, his lip first, followed by the one on his cheekbone before meeting his again. “I can’t...I can’t see you hurt like this anymore.”

Blue stares into green for an insurmountable stretch of time, long enough that she starts to think that she should’ve just kept her big mouth shut, until he finally whispers, “Seriously?”

“J, I’ve never been more serious about something in my entire life. I can’t let him do this to you anymore.” She finishes with a shrug, “My mom’s never here, anyway. It’d be, uh, really nice to not be alone all the time ‘cause as much as I love him, Binx doesn’t count.”

His eyes become stormy at that casual admission of loneliness for just a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment before brightening into their natural blue, the same color of the sky on a clear day as he says simply, “Okay.”

“Seriously?” It’s her turn to ask it now and the smile that breaks over her face when he nods is one of unabashed relief; without thinking, she leans closer and presses her forehead to his. “Good.”

He smiles, too, and briefly lets his eyes fall shut at the contact as he jokes, “Just so you know, Flynn, I’m probably not gonna be the best roommate.”

“Please,” She giggles, freeing one of her hands to playfully push at his shoulder, “I live with the most spoiled, demanding cat in the world. I think I can handle you, Maybank.”

The teasing smirk on his face makes her heart beat a little faster. “We’ll see about that.”

Sailor decides to pretend she didn’t hear his loaded comment (she’s not quite ready to open up that particular can of worms just yet), instead pulling her phone from her hoodie pocket to check the time. “Alright, here’s the deal: in one,” -she glances at the time again because holy shit does she have the short-term memory of a fucking chimp- “two hours, we’re going shopping and, hey, don’t give me that look!” She laughs at the pained expression that crosses his face, “If you’re gonna live here, get ready to put in the work.”

JJ offers her a lazy salute with his free hand and she rolls her eyes, trying her best to ignore the butterflies in her stomach as he says coyly (again, damn him!), “Yes, ma’am.”

“Until then, though,” The redhead continues, hopping off the counter to grab his hand and starts pulling him toward the hall to her room, “We have a book to read and you have some Greek to mispronounce.”

“Fuck, you’re bossy.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t like it.”

-

It goes like this: for nearly three weeks, life for the pair is pretty damn good. The summer days pass the same as they had been, either spent lazing around with the rest of the pogues or working their variety of jobs -Sailor at the ice cream parlor, along with her weekly shell dives and the beginner surf classes she teaches for The Sandbar, JJ at the country club and doing whatever odd jobs he can find around the island- as June slowly bleeds into July. They find themselves doing everything together: shopping, cooking dinner, sharing her tiny room, and it’s so painfully domestic, so natural and so right that it hurts to wrap her head around it.

If their friends notice, none of them comment on it, even though she sees the looks sent their way whenever they both hop out of Sailor’s truck together (most are curtesy of eagle-eyed Kiara, but Pope and even the ever oblivious John B raise their eyebrows a few times). At night they continue to read through the Percy Jackson series, taking turns reading aloud each evening and for a short, blissful time, they let go of the burdens weighing heavy on their shoulders. For a while, everything is close to perfect.

Typically, predictably, it doesn’t last and when shit finally hits the fan, it happens in epic fashion because nothing is ever easy when they’re involved.

It happens a few days after the Fourth of July. It’s late-afternoon, Hurricane Agatha brewing off the coast causing the clouds to streak faster through the sky and, with the rest of their friends working or otherwise occupied, the two teenagers decide to spend a day lounging at home, getting in a few more chapters of The Battle of the Labyrinth and drinking the beer left over from a night of partying at John B’s house.

“’Jumping out a window five hundred feet above ground is not usually my idea of fun,’“ Sailor reads as she relaxes on the couch, book in one hand and can of PBR in the other, the wind blowing in through the open window ruffling her hair, “‘Especially when I’m wearing bronze wings and flapping my arms like a duck.’“

“I’ll drink to that,” JJ says, briefly lifting his head from her lap to chug the rest of his beer before settling back down, feet propped up on the couch’s arm. They’re both a little buzzed, having lost count of how many drinks they’ve downed but she’s had enough to make her start giggling at his comment as she struggles to keep reading while Binx, fed up with the noise, jumps down from his spot behind her and slinks down the hall to find some peace and quiet.

“Damn you, stop it!” She laughs harder as he pulls a ridiculous face at her pronunciation of Daedalus, then shoots her an impish grin and she responds by ‘accidentally��� dropping the paperback on his face. Both are so caught up in hysterics that they don’t notice the sound of a car pulling into the driveway or a key unlocking the front door.

“Sailor!”

The girl freezes at her name, green eyes widening at the sharp tone of her mother’s voice. Slowly, she turns her head to look over her shoulder where she stands, arms crossed, and she’s so shocked Carmen’s actually looking her in the eye that nothing comes out of her open mouth but an oh so eloquent “huh?”

“What the hell is going on here?” The older woman demands, moving around the couch before either teenager can react, and her eyes narrow when she catches sight of JJ’s head on her daughter’s thigh and the empty beer cans on the end table. “Are you two drunk? Get up, now.”

He hastily does as she asks, eyes downcast to the floor and shaking hands clenched at his sides; ignoring her mother’s glare, Sailor deliberately reaches over and rests one palm on top of his as she says tightly, “Nice to see you home for once, I’m surprised you remembered where it is.”

It’s a low blow and she knows it but she can’t find it in her fuzzy, alcohol-numbed brain to care when Carmen reels back like she’s been slapped before she seems to compose herself, mouth pressing into a thin line. “Sailor Giselle, don’t you dare talk to your mother like that!”

The redhead feels something inside her snap and she glares up at the only parent she has left, all but spitting her next words, “Then start acting like my mother! This is the first time I’ve seen you here in four months!”

“I had to come home after Rachel told me you were shacking up with some boy! Do you have any idea-”

“Rachel?!” Sailor explodes at the mention of their obnoxiously invasive old biddy of a neighbor whose sole mission in life is knowing everyone’s business, “God, that hag just can’t keep her nose out of anything can she?”

Carmen crosses her arms once again and glowers at her daughter. “You know how hard it is for me to be in here, Sailor. I asked her to keep an eye on you for me and I’m glad I did.”

The teenager stares at her in disbelief before barking a loud, humorless laugh. “Let me get this straight: you asked our neighbor to spy on me so you didn’t have to come home...so you didn’t have to actually put in some effort?” Carmen opens her mouth to defend herself but before any words can come out, Sailor continues, throwing her free hand in the air, “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“This is my house!” Her mother thunders, not noticing the way the silent blond boy flinches at her yell and how her daughter tightens her grip on his hand. “This is my house and I can do whatever I damn well please, including having someone look out for you when I can’t.”

“When you won’t, you mean.” She scoffs, shaking her head in thinly-veiled disgust, “I’m doing just fine on my own, no thanks to you, Mom.”

“Does ‘doing just fine’ mean living alone with this kid?” Carmen spits and when she glances at JJ like he’s gum on the bottom of her shoe, Sailor’s finally had enough and takes a step toward the older woman with a furious glare.

“Will you just let that go? God! He’s my best friend and he needed somewhere to stay, that’s it!”

“I don’t care.” Turning to JJ, she demands coldly, “Go pack your shit and get out.”

“No.” Green eyes hardening into chips of emerald, the redhead grabs his other hand as he goes to leave the room and steps in front of him protectively. “He’s not going anywhere.”

Carmen pinches the bridge of her nose, her voice low as she threatens, “I swear to God, Sailor, either he leaves or I’ll make him leave.”

When she feels his whole body go rigid behind her, she knows her mom’s won this particular battle and before she can even turn to face him he’s disappeared down the hall to her room without a word. Sailor whirls to face her like the wind outside, red hair flying over her shoulder like a whip as she seethes, “How dare you.”

The older woman sighs like she’s the one hurting and crosses to the window before closing it with a firm hand. “Drop it, I’m done arguing.”

“I care about him, Mom, you can’t just kick him out!”

“I said drop it! I don’t give a shit how you feel about him, I’m not having your homeless boyfriend mooching-”

“Jesus Christ -his dad beats the shit out of him!”

The words ring out like a bell, loud and clear and impossible to ignore. Carmen freezes in the middle of picking up a discarded can, tan skin turning pale as she stares, mouth slightly agape, at her daughter; the girl stares back unflinching, and despite her heart’s rapid staccato in her chest, her next words cut like a knife.

“He’s not homeless, okay? But his dad hits him, all the damn time. You’re not gonna stand by and let that happen, are you?”

Her mother’s eyes soften -for a fleeting moment, she looks like her old, caring self again- before they harden to steel, the open expression on her face slamming closed with all the force of a screen door in a hurricane.

“I’m sorry -really, I am- but that’s not my problem.”

Sailor flinches at the icy edge in her voice and looks down at the floor, jaw clenched tight as she tries to blink away the sudden burning behind her eyes. “I...I don’t know you anymore. My mother would never say that.”

She hears Carmen heave another deep sigh as her footsteps slowly head toward the front entry, “You and I have a lot to talk about when I get back from work, Sailor.” She says, followed by the snatching of keys and the door handle turning. “And that boy had better be gone when I do.”

The redhead looks up from her feet, watching the door slam behind her mother’s retreating form before hastily making her way down the hall to her room and like that morning, the wave of relief that she feels when she sees JJ still sitting on her bed, realizing he’s still here, is downright embarrassing but she’s well past the point of caring. In a flash, Sailor’s in his arms, face pressed against his neck as she cries, “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

“Sail, you’ve gotta stop apologizing for things you can’t control.” He whispers when she eventually falls silent and she can’t stop the rough laughter bubbling in her chest, even as her whole world feels like it’s falling apart around her.

“Sorry.”

His own laugh is short and low in her ear, and then he’s pulling her closer as his hand draws soothing circles on her back. She lets herself relax for a brief moment, eyelids fluttering closed at his touch, before she takes a deep breath and pulls back to look him in the eye, hands carelessly wiping away the tears on her cheeks, “Help me pack.”

“...what?”

“When she kicked you out, she kicked me out, too.” She says matter-of-factly at JJ’s confused look while she abruptly kneels, pulling her old suitcase from under the bed and heaving it up onto the mattress.

“Okay, so she didn’t actually kick me out but she might as well have!” The redhead strides to her closet and starts picking out her favorite clothes, tossing them haphazardly onto the bed as she fumes, “God, I even told her about your dad -I’m sorry, shit I did it again- and she said she didn’t care! Not to mention she had our neighbor spy-”

“Sail!” She’s so caught up in her rant that she doesn’t notice when JJ moves to stand beside her, and only when he puts his hands on her shoulders does she stop short, a Kildare County High School sweatshirt dangling from her fingers; she can feel him watching her and when she flicks her gaze up to meet his, she’s not at all prepared for the tempest of emotions -admiration, pride, empathy, something else she can’t name- all crashing like the surf behind his eyes.

Blue. Oh so blue. It’s been her favorite color ever since she knew what colors were and she thinks her favorite shade has to be the one she finds in his eyes: bright, clear, and ever easy to drown in if she’s not careful.

“You’re amazing, you know that?” He says it in such a casual way that it’s impossible to think it’s not as intentional as the fingers that slowly tuck a stray curl behind her ear and the thumb that brushes along her flushed cheek.

She just shakes her head with a tiny, bashful smile and her words are an echo of a quiet, rainy night all those weeks ago, “I’m just doing what feels right.”

They fall into an easy rhythm after that, one that helps them both sober up as they fill her suitcase to the brim with everything Sailor thinks she’ll need for a long stay, wherever she ends up. The Chateau makes the most sense of course, but with the DCS breathing down John B’s neck recently, she’s not sure how viable of an option that is but there’s one thing she knows for sure: there’s no way in hell she’s coming back here any time soon. It hurts to leave her shell collection behind -for a brief, dark moment she toys with the idea of tearing the shelf down and smashing them all until they’re turned to dust but she pushes that thought away- so she takes her favorite, the lightning whelk that reminds her of JJ and that day on the beach, and gently tucks it away in her backpack to ease the sting, as a promise to one day return for the rest.

“Jackpot!” JJ exclaims and she looks up to find him on the floor by her chair, pulling up the loose wood board that hides her secret stash of booze and money and reaching in to snag a nearly full bottle of Jack Daniels, holding it above his head with a triumphant smile.

“Shit, I forgot that was even in there,” She replies as she kneels beside him and snatches the whiskey from his hand before he can take a swig, slipping it into her backpack, “Not yet.”

“Oh, come on,” He laughs when she rolls her eyes at his pout and reaches into the dark space to pull out an old plastic lunchbox, along with a small flask that gets thrown in her bag without a second glance. “Boooo.”

“Patience,” She teases, opening the cracked lid to take all of the cash inside and stuffs it into the ziploc bag that doubles as a purse (“it’s cheap and waterproof, what more do I need?” was her argument when Kiara asked her why she didn’t have an actual handbag), which she then stuffs in her backpack. “We can get drunk after we get out of here.”

“You had me at ‘drunk,’“ He slides the floorboard back into place after Sailor tosses the empty lunchbox inside and then stands, pulling her up alongside him with his hand in hers, the other reaching out to grab the handle of her suitcase. “Ready when you are.”

The redhead takes one last look around her room, from the assortment of shells and pictures on one wall to her poster of Bethany Hamilton on the other and everything in between -her sanctuary for the longest time- before turning away from the familiar comfort of the old to face the enticing uncertainty of the new. “Let’s go.”

After a quick stop in the bathroom to grab her shampoo, conditioner, and toothbrush -no way in hell is she gonna share any of those with the boys- then the kitchen to grab some food for Binx and the cat himself from the back of the couch (surprisingly, he doesn’t put up much of a fight), they head outside and throw her suitcase and their backpacks in the bed of the truck along with her surfboard.

“John B’s probably gonna be pissed about the cat,” JJ says, leaning against the passenger door with his arms crossed, smirking as she gives him a flat look and unceremoniously dumps Binx onto the bench seat through the driver’s side window.

“Well, John B’s just gonna -stay, Binxy!- have to get used to it. I’m not leaving him behind.”

Across the street, Rachel perches on her porch as she watches the two teenagers with her beady little eyes and Sailor, feeling particularly defiant, grins wickedly. “J, watch this.” Waving to the woman to catch her attention she calls over the wind, “Hey, Rachel!” before slowly extending both middle fingers toward her, one at a time. “That one’s for my mom and this one’s for you, you nosy bitch!”

He instantly joins in and both hold their hands high, cackling with laughter, until the old crone scowls and slithers back into her house like the snake she is. “Good riddance,” the redhead says, opening the truck’s door and sliding behind the wheel, “Let’s blow this joint.”

“Joint?” JJ asks, climbing into the passenger seat and slamming the door behind him, Binx instantly curling up on his lap, “Did you say joint?”

“You and weed, I swear...” She laughs and goes to start the engine before she realizes she’s grasping at an empty ignition and lets her head fall against the steering wheel with a thunk, “Son of a bitch, I forgot my keys. I’ll be right back.”

Going back inside isn’t as hard as Sailor thought it would be, but leaving is a whole other ball game. She snatches her keys from the bathroom sink where she left them and heads back toward the front door; she’s just passing by their family portrait when it hits her: this is it, the last time in who knows how long she’ll be here. It’s now or never. She thinks of it as a weight on her shoulders, one that’s been dragging her down for far too long, like Atlas holding up the sky, but unlike him, she’s going to break the chains and set herself free.

In one final, sudden burst of years of anger and hurt and frustration, she rips the picture from the hook and smashes it to the floor, sending pieces of glass and wood skittering down the hall before striding from the house and all its memories without a backwards glance, slamming the door behind her with a resolute bang.

-

Surprisingly, John B doesn’t give a shit about the cat when they show up at the Chateau but he does give a shit about Sailor and her well-being after they give him a quick rundown of the afternoon’s happenings.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Sail?” He asks as he and JJ carry her bags into the house and deposit them in the spare room, the redhead trailing behind with Binx in her arms.

“That’s the age old question, bro,” She deflects with a shrug, taking a seat on the bed and setting the cat down beside her; he instantly takes off to explore his new home as she continues, “Who actually knows if they’re okay? What’s okay to one person can be completely different to another-”

“Sailor, seriously.”

She glances back and forth between the two boys -two sweet, caring boys- watching her with twin looks of understanding and relents. “Look, I’m still kind of...processing everything, alright? I’m not exactly sure what I’m feeling and I don’t know how long it’s gonna take for me to find out but I promise you,” She says softly, looking them both in the eye, “I’ll let you know if I’m not okay. Deal?”

JJ shoots her an enthusiastic thumbs up while John B opts for a simple nod and she grins before pulling the bottle of Jack Daniels from her backpack with a flourish. “Good. Now, I think we could all use a drink.”

The trio (and Binx, house thoroughly explored) bums around the living room while the afternoon slowly turns to evening, the wind outside getting worse with each passing hour the storm moves closer, passing the bottle back and forth until none of them are anywhere close to sober. What started as a game of truth or dare quickly dissolves into straight up truth as they get remarkably philosophical about what animal they’d want to be (an eagle for John B, a wolf for JJ, and to absolutely no one’s surprise, a dolphin for Sailor) and then have a deep, animated discussion about the best Star Wars movie and why it’s The Empire Strikes Back. Later, when the whiskey’s down to a few sips left and their collective demons have retreated to the very back of their minds, JJ drunkenly suggests playing strip poker and both Sailor and John B have to remind him that none of them a.) know how to play poker or b.) even own a deck of cards.

“Damn it!” The sly grin falls from his face when he realizes they’re right and he dejectedly sinks back into the couch, head coming to rest on the redhead’s shoulder. “I wanna see you take your clothes off, Flynn.”

She laughs loudly and grabs the bottle from his hand before taking a big sip and passing it to John B. “You’re gonna have to try harder than that, Maybank.” Whiskey, she found out few months ago, hits her hard: her filter? Gone. Blushing? Aside from the flush in her cheeks from the alcohol, gone. Self-consciousness? As long gone as her father. She’ll flirt her heart out without giving a single shit and it’s both a blessing and a curse, as well as an endless source of secondhand embarrassment in the morning.

“That’s okay, you know I like a challenge.” He declares with a wink, cracking up when she plants her hand directly on his face and pushes him off her shoulder as John B snorts and downs the last of the liquor without either of them noticing.

“Jesus, get a room,” He uses the empty bottle to point down the hall, then sets it on the side table with a hollow thunk as he leans back and stretches his arms above his head. “There’s one right there.”

Sailor gives him a swift kick in the shin with her bare foot for that, plus the shit-eating grin on his face. The trio lounges around for a little while longer, relaxing in a whiskey-induced haze; the redhead finds herself nodding off every so often, slipping back further and further until her head finds a place to rest on JJ’s lap and her legs end up on John B’s. The feel of fingers running through her hair is so feather light that she can barely keep her eyes open and before she knows it, she’s down for the count.

When she wakes some indefinite amount of time later the room is dark, the only light coming from the moon shining through the windows and John B’s gone from his spot by her feet, Binx curled up in a ball on the cushion instead. JJ’s dead asleep, hand stalled in her curls and the sight of his head tipped back against the couch with his mouth slightly open is so damn endearing that she can’t help but smile, even as she reaches a hand up to gently shake his shoulder.

“J, wake up.”

“Five more minutes.” He groans, free hand sluggishly pushing her arm away. Sailor sits up and swivels to face him before shaking him again, giggling quietly at the way his head lolls from side to side.

“Come on, the bed’s way comfier than this.”

Sleepy blue eyes open to give her a heavy look that screams both gratification and longing and so much hope as he quips, “You just want me in your bed again, don’t you?”

She reverently rolls her eyes but reaches to grab his hands anyway and pulls him to his feet, both swaying in place before they find their balance. “And if I do?”

The corner of his mouth rises in a small, adorable smile as his fingers entwine with hers. “I’d say that’s right where I want to be.”

“Well, you’re in luck ‘cause that’s where I want you to be, too.” Still a little bit tipsy, her words are honest, sincere, and as she leads him down the hall, she realizes that old saying is true: drunk words are sober thoughts. After three weeks sharing a home, a room, a bed, she just doesn’t think she can sleep without him anymore and that belief doesn’t quite scare her as much as she thought it would.

Lying wrapped up in his arms in the dark, Sailor finds herself dreaming of a future -as much of a future an impoverished, quasi-homeless, not-quite alright, not-quite-seventeen year old can dream of- with the damaged boy that holds oceans in his eyes.

-

A few miles away, Carmen Flynn sits on her daughter’s bed with a broken picture frame in her hands as she cries, all alone in an empty house with no idea how to make things okay again.

-

let me know what you think! also, fun fact: sailor compares her short-term memory to a chimp because studies have shown that chimpanzees are the absolute worst at remembering things, not goldfish as we previously thought (they can remember things for at least five months, compared to chimps who, despite their similarities to humans, forget things in about twenty seconds). sailor, being a zoology nerd, would definitely find that fascinating and make it her mission to educate the masses that goldfish aren’t that stupid jj finds it both adorable and kind of hot

taglist ❤: @sinkbeneathwaves​ @jiaraendgame​ @hmsjiara​ @obxsummer​ @maysbanks​ @alexa-playafricabytoto​ @sunflowerbecca​ @obxlife​ @obx-adventures​ @sexualparkour​ @coltonparayyko​ @miawantsapuppy​ @jjmaybanky​ @ethereallust​

[okimargarvez]

METEOROLOGY- Rainbow

Original title: Meteorology.

Prompt: climatic metaphors, phases of love.

Warning: none.

Genre: drama, romantic, comedy, angst, family, friendship.

Characters: Luke Alvez, Penelope Garcia, BAU team, Phil (Luke’s partner), Phil’s wife, Roxy, Derek Morgan.

Pairing: Garvez, Phil x Lucille.

Note: Multichapter.

Legend: 💏😘😈👓🔦🐶❗👨‍👩‍👧‍👦💍🎈.

Song mentioned: Via con me, Paolo Conte.

Meteorology- Masterlist

MY OTHER GARVEZ STORIES

How not to dedicate a chapter with such title to @itsdawnashlie, the author of Color? 🌈🌂👰🤵💑✨💍💎💋💞

Rainbow

If the sensation we call color possesses laws, there must be something in our nature that determines the form of these laws. The science of color is therefore a science of mind. (James Maxwell)

 -Now I know that nothing that can happen to us will ever divide us. We can't be separated, because without you my world is empty, gray, not black and white like the movies of the origins that likes so much to Ricardo.- she laughs, but she never ceases to blush and look at you as she though "You've become crazy". -Before you I was not able to love, not in this way. We faced so many things: you had to go out of the fog that wrapped you after Morgan's goodbye- she doesn't like that argument. -and I needed to get rid that downpour that I had in my soul after my mother's loss.- she nods, squeezing your hand that you have been holding since you started this "talk". -It was not easy right away: there were clouds to sweeping away and then the hail when we realized it was impossible to show us indifferent at each other. It took a thunderstorm to wake us up and the lights illuminated our minds. And so there have been months of pure sun, but there have been no lack shadows. And now we have just come out of a crisis, a hurricane full-scale and we are still here, together.- she nods again, but she is growing impatient. She wants you to get to the point. And you're almost there. Your knees ache in the position that you tuck, but you realize it's a pleasant pain because you know what universally means. -Penelope Grace Garcia, would you like to share the next step with me?- you hesitate a second. -After the thunderstorm, they say appears the rainbow. You're my rainbow, the lenses through which I want to observe the world. I love you and I hope to be your rainbow, to give you at least some of what you give me at any moment.- but you have not come to the point yet, although her eyes are already shiny and between little tears will wet her eyeglasses, preventing her from seeing. -Do you want to marry me?- you both aren't in any five star restaurant, in the midst of so many people who will shout and applaud when she says yes. Instead you're out of the bathroom where you have (re) seen her the first time. You have been undecided for a few days if it was better here or in the subway, since it's technically there that you've been "met". Or even in elevator would have been significant. And you waited a thunderstorm to have the right scenery, but the weather was not good and generous with you, so you had to decide to do it even if the outside did not match inside.

She baffles and tears her hand out of yours to bring it together to the other at her face. For a moment you theme that she could reject your proposal. She told you that he did it with Kevin and they were together for four years! You two only for one. But you don't need any other time to understand that she's the woman you want to have with you until you're allowed to walk on this earth. You feel a crunch, is the articulation of the left knee that is lamenting. Are you going to exclaim an "So" when she finally decides to replicate. -I... Luke ... is not it a joke? - you hasten to shake your head, annoyed, but then you remember that his insecurity is one of the things you love about her. That's love: to transform even what can annoy us in something we could not do without, within certain limits, otherwise it should change definition. -I ... yes- when she says it outside you hear a bang and you can concentrate on something that isn't her sweet face, asking if it was not an accident. But then you hear one another and the windows a flash blink. Incredible, worthy of the best nineteenth-century melodrama. A storm was triggered in full swing.

You're now standing up and embracing her, while continue of lightning, bolt and thunder continues. - I love you, my love, I love you I love you I love you ...- you abuse these words, maybe because before, yes, in this year that you have been together with so many difficulties, as you recalled through metaphors weather, you never told it. She silences you by catching your lips with hers and making you forgetting everything around you.

-But ... but the ring?- she exclaims after you separated to catch your breath. You look upset and grieved, as if you had forgotten that detail throughout the complex show you set up to really surprised her. -Well, Luke, I don't care. Why should I care about on a ring, an outward sign, with respect to the love I see reflected in your eyes?- you think almost to cancel the last part of the plan, seeing for the very first time how special her is, unlike the others, little superficial. Fantastic (because perfect would sound artificial).

But you don't change your mind. Give a whistle, then another and another. Penelope looks at you strangely, not understanding the meaning of your gesture. Then she tries to follow the direction of your gaze and everything makes sense. Roxy peeps from around the corner, there's a box on her collar. She stops in your midst. You open it and show her the contents: a simple ring with a stone, a crystal that put in a certain way in the direction of light, reflects all the colors of the rainbow, as would Reid be better explained it. The colors she makes you see.

You take her hand and put the ring to the right place, the only one that has remained free until this moment, waiting for this moment. It fits perfectly. She looks at it for a long time before throwing her arms around your neck and your dog does not hesitate to join your embrace. If you could stop the world at this moment ... you wouldn't do it because there're still so many things to live with her, experiences to discover, emotions to try. And yet she's not yet officially Ms. Alvez. It upsets does sound like it sounds, even in your head. Then you decide to make a try verbally. -Ms. Alvez.- she looks at you now, weeping, of joy, at least for once.

-Mr. Garcia.- she teases you, trying to avoid to make a lake on the floor. You two stay hugged for what looks like an eternity, her head on your chest, one of your arm on her shoulders, one your hand, the other, on Roxy's back. Always out of that toilet. You two stay there listening to the noises of the storm that has not ceased until you see another human figure, but you don't hate her. Sooner or later real life must begin again.

-Hey, Garcia, you forgot the pager in your office, there's a case ... - the blonde isn't surprised to find you two this way; has been one of the main promoters of your relationship. But when the looks of the two women cross, one doesn’t understand how, the other understands everything. -No.- your future wife separates off to reach her friend.

-Yes.- she answers, only this two know the code they are using.

-Ahhhhh!- she shouts, probably humping be heard from the whole Bureau. But it doesn’t matter to JJ, and it doesn't care even Penelope or yourself. -When?- she asks, after they hugging and hopping a little bit on the spot. You laugh with various shades of sweetness.

-A moment ago.- she replies and the shouts of jubilation begin again. Then she shows the ring. Then another person appears behind the corridor, who does not have time to replicate JJ's own words when he believed that today was a normal day, because she immediately notices the attitude of the two women and she joins immediately.

-Don't tell me.- you have never seen her so frivolous, without the negative meanings of the term. So carefree and not serious and rigid. Except the first day you met her and not long ago, to her marriage with Mark.

-Instead I tell you.- and she also shows at Emily the ring. Then the latter is forced to come back seriously, to think about the job, but not before Tara also makes their appearance and shouts with each other, so as to make you deaf.

 When there're no queries to be completed, you spend all the time staring at that ring and playing to see a custom rainbow projected into the bunker. And then you count the days that are missing by making a big X on each calendar box. But there is really no time to think that the latter passes too slowly. In addition to the work, you engage in all the various missions. To find the right dress, obviously with your best friends. And shopping you always liked, if you lived it in company. For a paradox that may seems, it's much harder to choose shoes. But at least that part is settled.

Then there's to think of the church. You know it's tradition that the bride is choose it. You never told anyone, not even Morgan, but you were baptized Catholic because before you entered the hippie world yours were fervent believers. And so, you can accomplish one of his desires, his and your mother-in-law who you never had a chance to know, even though you've been go secretly to find her at the cemetery and asked her for advice, promising you'll take care of him until you're given it 'occasion, to take care of her son. You know how important faith is for him, even though he lives it in conflict way and not quite peaceful with everything he has to see and deal with.

You decide that as far as you love flowers, it's not the case to put an end to the lives of poor innocent plants just because they end up making their way into your special, special day. It must be a day of joy and life, there will be no trace of death. And this also applies to the menu: strictly vegetarian. You remember like it happened a few minutes ago, your enormous surprise when you discovered that he didn't eat meat either. He didn't even kill mosquitoes, as much as they could be annoying, and he let himself ridicule to secure even the most insignificant and ugly creeping bug on this planet. Because it's still a creature of God, worthy of living as the richest man on earth.

At first you thought it was a joke, it couldn't be real. You couldn't have really found that person who would be able to understand your pain in seeing a crushed pigeon on the side of the road, whose was fatal the game of the flight in the final before the car invested it. And yet it's really so, and he has let you sweep away the fog that he has mentioned in his statement, because since you two are engaged, you don't give up any feeling anymore, let the pain touch you, mould you, you don't repel it and then you empty yourself, literally, wetting his round vest while his hand caresses your back.

Another "problem" was been to choose who should accompany you to the altar. Derek and Rossi have been in the head. The first because it's your best friend, the person you love most after Luke. The second is because, besides loving him, he is like a father because of his seniority. It's much easier to decide the witnesses. Those of him are Phil and his wife, of course, who for years have been trying to convince him to get up to this point and have become an important person for you too. Yours is JJ. Only at the last stage you'll find that the Italian stallion will be at your side along the aisle, while the chocolate thunder will be waiting for you next to Luke.

But the part you adore absolutely is the choice of the party favors. You expected this moment since you have given up the opportunity to have one to celebrate the degree. Although it's something you long for, it doesn't mean it's less complicated. You have to find something that works perfectly with you two, special, not the first thing that comes along. Which involves with both of you. And it to rack one's brains you, discarding an infinite amount of them, making yourself a headache to search in a number of specialized stores, and fussing yourself by looking at sites on the internet. A gun? No, it never liked you. A badge? It could also be nice, but it would remind you too much of your work and you don't want to reduce everything to that. A dog, in honor of Roxy and of the empathy that unites you two? Not bad, but few would understand the deep meaning and risk being trivial, exactly what you want to avoid at all costs. And then, suddenly, stroke of genius. An umbrella.

Another shake awaits you when this morning you realize that's that day. Even the date was not randomly chosen, but rather weighted with the utmost precision to make your dream come true. Soon girls arrive, helping you prepare. Your heart beats so loud, yet you feel extremely calm. When you're ready, they'll accompany you on the historic Esther, now to be crush. You must get late, as a script, just five minutes. You had established ten, but you couldn't do it anymore. You miss him like crazy, you don't see him for two days.

Rossi awaits you outside the church with the papillon that is so good to him. The girls shall deliver you to him and they hurry to get in their place. The man takes you by the arm and enters. If you weren't too excited, you would realize that here you're with all the people you love, or you've just learned to love. There's the whole team, with family following: Will with the kids, Savannah with her close hand in that of little Hank, Emily and Mark in the bench just behind, together with Spencer and a brunette, short hair, if you could've you would have recognized in that brunette lawyer Duncan, that of the trial, but these days you've been a little too focused on anything else. From the opposite side, in parallel, Tara and his brother, Walker, his wife Monica and their two children. In the next one still, in your part, Hayden, Joy with her husband and their son, now became a young man. In the part of Luke, his brother Ricardo, who had decided to come to the last, along with some of the fellow soldiers.

Going to ascend there are all the special team members with whom you've worked closely together: Jack Garret, Matt Simmons and so on. And then the former colleagues of the task force of your almost husband. And even those who left the BAU, Professor Blake (who spied deeply at Spencer, but you didn't see it), Kate's full family, Ashley and even Jordan, the only missing one is Elle, except Gideon who maybe looks you from above.

But you're unaware of the love that surrounds you, because when you finally lift your head you see only him, shine with natural light. And you do not even care about how well he is dressed in that way and the strange effect to see him dress in tie. Beyond that smile, you can't go. For the first time since you know your best friend, you ignore him completely, you don't realize how grateful to see you so happy, that's what he always wanted for you, even if your happiness could not be him, not in that way, not after Battle, when you chose Kevin in his place. But this is another story.

Even Luke doesn't seem too focused on the words of the priest, yet you two recite the right formulas, and when it comes that instant, you don't make mistakes, neither a single wrong gesture. At the signal Roxy approaches the altar. Again, on her back a box, this time open and containing two rings. The most tender place in the world, you think with tears.

There're no great speeches to do, because you have already done so before, especially him in his meteorological statement. And so after the "yes" there is room only to put the rings and -You may now kiss the bride.- your lips go deeply and the effusion becomes a little less caste; you forced yourself to separate. But by now everyone is giggling.

Start a new phase of your life. And the fact that you have thought in automatic not "mine" but "your", it makes you realize that it could work really, because you're no longer a single, but part of something bigger that completely wraps you.

[neo-losangeles]

The Oceanic Feeling

Tavia Nyong'

Nineteen-year-old Christopher Breaux fell hard for another straight-acting boy who wouldn’t love him back, confessing his love in a car parked in front of the girlfriend’s house. Like many a millennial, he took to Tumblr to share his feelings about a love he described, with portentous adolescent drama, as “malignant.” But the queerest song released so far by the artist now known at Frank Ocean hasn’t been an ode to boy-on-boy love and lust but a corrosive satire of “traditional” American marriage in the era of Kim Kardashian and Newt Gingrich. If hip-hop is the CNN of the ghetto, then “American Wedding” aims to be its TMZ as well, replete with celebrities and courtroom hijinks, muscle motors, and divorce settlements, with Ocean ruefully rubbernecking at all the car crashes en route to the good life.subscribe to TNI for $2 and get Vol. 9 today

“American Wedding” has attracted the proprietary attentions of paleo-rockers the Eagles, whose radio staple “Hotel California” the track is based on. But the real story here isn’t about the sampling wars. It’s about a scapegoat generation struggling to find a path through the crumbling infrastructure of the American dream.

It has been said that while liberals won the culture wars of recent decades, the right won the political and economic ones. The absurdly elevated status of “marriage equality” as the ne plus ultra of gay rights is a symptom of this unhappy dispensation. Who wants equality, after all, on such threadbare terms? Sensing a bait and switch, Ocean takes down love, American style, in merciless couplets like:

She said, ‘I’ve had a hell of a summer, so baby, don’t take this hard But maybe we should get an annulment, before this goes way too far.’

Like Pretty Woman in reverse, “American Wedding” descends from true love to crass commercial exchange, reminding us on the outro that “we been some hustlers since it  began.”

But this deconstruction of romantic comedy is done in the name of a different, murkier ideal of love, a redemptive love that won’t quite fit into the comforting melodic or narrative resolution of pop culture. We heard strains of such a love on Ocean’s performance at the 2012 VMA awards, where he delivered an assonant, astringent version of “Thinkin Bout You,” the opening track on Channel Orange. He wonders if his beloved is willing to “think so far ahead, cuz I’ve been thinkin’ bout forever.” But such a horizon can clearly no longer find expression in the shelf-worn sentiments of “till death do us part.” The ass-backwardness of the Eagles’ litigious response to Ocean’s meditation on love and commitment is best captured by NCWYS in the SoundCloud comments to “American Wedding”:

If you older people think that the younger generation is out of control and doing everything incorrectly then you should absolutely love this song, but you don’t.

Ocean is a practiced journeyman of popsoul songcraft, as the early demos on the fan-compiled Lonny Breaux Collection prove, but his writing on Channel Orange makes his preceding material for other artists seem like throat clearing. On “Sweet Life,” a sharply observed reverie of black-picket-fence California dreaming, Ocean sardonically queries his pampered date: “So why see the world, when you got the beach?” He elongates “world” to contrast with the punched out “beach” in a way that tells us everything we need to know about his mournful acceptance of life’s cruel optimism. “Sweet Life” makes the extended parable of parental neglect on “Super Rich Kids” almost superfluous, except for the self-conscious scene setting it adds—mixing substance abuse and class snobbery into a potent cocktail of something called “upward mobility”:

We’ll both be high The help don’t stare They just walk by They must don’t care.

This is the way Ocean inherits the past: not by respecting tradition, or Don Henley, but by staring down the foreshortened horizons and complacent inequality that the frantic pursuit of wealth or happiness brings.

Not that Ocean is lecturing, mind you, although Sierra Leone, sex work, global warming, and the hijab all make appearances in his rapidly expanding oeuvre. He is singing over the soundtrack of history, blunting its force with tried and true teenage tactics of insult, grandiosity, and desperate need. At 24 he isn’t quite old enough to know that he shouldn’t care, which is why he can gloat over “expensive news” on a pricey widescreen one moment, and say “my TV ain’t HD, that’s too real” in another. His is a realism that needs to be able to blur out of focus when it’s too intense or not intense enough, and the drugs come in handy. But so does channel surfing; on Channel Orange television is his angel of history, a flickering window onlooking the mounting wreckage of the past as he is blown into the future.

Despite his Tumblr post comparing the intensity of same sex love to “being thrown from a plane,” the theme of Channel Orange is less sexual orientation than chemical disorientation. Recreational substances surface frequently, often as a metaphor for a relationship gone wrong. Or is it the other way around, and addiction is now the core, common experience a generation is struggling to give sense to, turning to romantic clichés like “unrequited love” in a search for a more familiar, respectable language for it?

Frank’s oceanic feelings on Channel Orange crash in waves that obliterate distinctions between gay, bi, or straight. Some of the ostensibly straight songs, except for their pronouns, feel suspiciously same-sex. And when heterosexuality is foregrounded, it never resolves any confusions, it only produces new ones. The artistic showpiece of the album, the ten-minute long “Pyramids,” is an afrofabulation of ancient Egypt and postmodern Las Vegas, centered on a woman dressing for her job as a stripper, while her man looks on, waiting for her to “hit the strip” and “keep my bills paid.” But the song is a far cry from big pimpin’. “Pyramids” is drenched in delusions of the good life in a “top floor motel suite,” cruising on empty confused for the upward mobility that is now as rare as water in the American desert. Ocean has a heartfelt respect for his Afrocentric queen—“we’ll run to the future shining like diamonds in a rocky world”— but the feeling tone of “Pyramids” is closer to Janelle Monáe’s “Many Moons” than Michael Jackson’s “Remember the Time.” That is, where Jackson celebrated an image of a past in which we were kings and queens, Monáe and Ocean take a fish-eye view of a society where a multihued social apex rests atop masses of brown, black, and beige bodies “working at the pyramid,” like the slaves who built the original ones.

Where CNN anchor Anderson Cooper justified his belated coming out in terms of the reporter’s obligation not to get in the way of the news, Ocean knows better. A black boy is always getting in the way of the news. At 18 he fled Hurricane Katrina for Los Angeles. But as Fred Moten put it, “I ran from it, and was still in it” pretty much sums up the black experience in America. Channel Orange starts in a similarly fucked-up atmosphere—“A tornado flew around my room”—and ends with “Forrest Gump” perhaps the most oddball musical portrait of same-sex love since “Johnny Are You Queer?” A three-legged race featuring Tom Hanks’ dimwitted but fleet-footed hero and Christopher Breaux’s beau, “Forrest Gump” boils Hollwood sap down to a lubricious bump and grind:

my fingertips and my lips they burn from the cigarettes forrest gump you run my mind boy running on my mind boy

“Forrest Gump” is rhythm and blues as dark camp, nostalgia repurposed by a generation too young to remember, a generation whose cultural thefts seem premised on the awareness that anything original they create could be stolen.

But don’t confuse Ocean’s approach for pastiche or retromania, despite his affection for old cars and the vocal stylings of Prince, Stevie Wonder, and Donnny Hathaway. Just when you think he is recycling the familiar, he gives you something incredibly raw and real. On his first appearance on broadcast television, Ocean scaled the national-media echo chamber down to a backseat taxicab confessional, sharing a universal angst at a human level rarely captured by the contemporary celebrity coming out, with its strict protocols for explaining the murkiness of desire away:

He said Allah Hu Akbar I told him don’t curse me Bo Bo you need prayer I guess it couldn’t hurt me.

“Bad Religion” leaves it unclear whether it is his taxi driver’s effusive piety or his own devotion to the cult of true love that is more stunning. Confusing spirituality with a therapy designed to sand our sharp edges into shape for this world, Ocean is awestruck in a way that has little to do, in the end, with either Islamophobia or homophobia.

Rather, “Bad Religion” finds a pivot point in the “and” of Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, the book where Freud psychoanalyzed the oceanic feeling of cosmic oneness felt by natural mystics and prophesied that our adjustment to society would only ever leave us frustrated and unhappy. “The price we pay for our advance in civilization,” Freud warned, “is a loss of happiness through the heightening of the sense of guilt,” and “Bad Religion” has plenty of guilt to spare. But it also never fails to convey the sense of striving and resilience Freud grudgingly acknowledges when he notes, “We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love, never so helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our loved object or its love. But this does not dispose of the technique of living based on the value of love as a means to happiness.”subscribe to TNI for $2 and get Vol. 9 today

Blown from New Orleans by the unnatural calamity of racist and economic neglect, separated from his beloved by lack of reciprocation, Ocean never stops striving for “the technique of living based on the value of love.” Whatever, wherever that may be. Even a curse, after all, probably couldn’t hurt him.

When Ocean, on his Tumblr, greeted us as “human beings spinning on blackness,” he invited us into that cab alongside him, but also onto the edge of that oceanic feeling of cosmic oneness that Freud could only associate with regression, so convinced was he that satisfaction was something all humans left in the womb.A version of this essay first appeared at Bully Bloggers

But spinning on blackness needn’t be just an image for depression, addiction, burn out, or malignancy. It could also be Ocean sidling up in an undercommons of prayer and malediction, where the singular soul brushes up against the dark night of the universe. Maybe that’s why a conventional coming out, with its endless reiterations of the transparently obvious and anodyne, seems beside the point. Frank Ocean isn’t like you or me; he isn’t even much like Christopher Breaux any longer.

https://thenewinquiry.com/essays/the-oceanic-feeling/