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wosofutbolfan · 12 days

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If You Need Me, Call Me

Alexia Putellas x Explorer!R Pt.2 in the 'I Would Climb Every Mountain With You' Universe.

Hi Guys, Thank you for all the love on the first part in this series. This is part 2 that I didn't expect to write. I have an inability to not write angst. TW: Claustrophobia. Injury. Events are not based on any real life events. Part two of I Would Climb Every Mountain With You. I would recommend you read that first, for some context. But you can do what you want really ;-)

You and Alexia had been together, happily, for a year. And it was happily. Though. ‘Together’ is probably being quite liberal with the word. And. You suppose. ‘Happily’ is also being quite liberal with the word. You loved Alexia.

And Alexia loved you.

That was clear to both of you. You admitted it early, before she’d even left UK soil after she’d come back with you from your first meeting. She’d rolled her eyes at you and the nerves on your face as you lay in bed together in your pokey Cumbrian flat, and kissed the words from your lips; ‘well duh, of course you do. And I love you.’ which made you laugh and fall into her lips again. But it wasn’t even 12 hours later that you’d had to separate with her season starting again and her need to be in Spain. Her teammates had teased her relentlessly on her return. How she’d U-Hauled with the Jefa de montaña and ran away to the rainey island she so famously disliked just to spend another day together. She'd rolled her eyes and slapped the back of a few heads but it was true. That is what she had done. She’d been overjoyed when she spotted you in the crowd on the first home game of the season. You’d made the surprise trip to Barcelona at the last minute, employing Ingrid to get a ticket in the friends and family section for you. The smile on the Captain's face as she spotted you could be seen from space. You had winked at her and proudly gestured to your brand new Barcelona jersey, Alexias number proudly splayed across your back. As the game ended, with a convincing win for the home team, she’d made a beeline for you in the stands. Jumping over the barrier and embracing you like you hadn’t seen each other for months (oh how used to that feeling you would become), rather than a couple of weeks. “I thought that you preferred rugby?” she had teased you. “Ah, I do, but no one told me how hot the captain in blue and red was” you’d replied, with a wink. Enjoying the blush you’d created on her face, before it was your turn to blush as Alexias eyes darted to your right and greeted, “Mami! Hola!” and embraced a small women in a shirt matching yours who was definitely standing within hearing distance. Just over her shoulder a carbon-copy of Alexia was lurking, a childlike grin on her face and twinkle in her eyes. “Ah, and this is mi hermana Alba!” she had introduced you. ‘Well, nothing like diving in headfirst’ you thought to yourself, as you were introduced to your apparently-new girlfriend's family, as that's what you had just been introduced as, with a squeeze of your hand and a kiss to the side of your head. The Putellas family embraced you with all the enthusiasm in the world. Alba kept you entertained and asked you a million and one questions as you waited for Alexia to be finished with her media and captain duties. Before you knew it you were at an impromptu meet-the-new-english-girlfriend party at the Putellas residence, sharing food with seemingly everyone who had ever been related to Alexia as well as their next door neighbours. Sharing wine, food, and lots of baby Alexia pictures. So yes. You had both moved fast. Maybe it was the speed which you were going that would soon become your downfall. You were moving a million miles an hour and the warning signs were a blur that you couldn’t quite make out. Of those first 6 months, you were on an exhibition for 4. You had travelled to Patagonia to climb some of the last unclaimed peaks on the planet with the National Geographic Society. They were unreachable by road or even yak. You had to sail to the bottom of South America and then move your way up on foot. It was arduous, it was treacherous, but you found satisfaction and joy in the difficulty.

You become the first person and only woman to ever summit Orjos del Salado and, as you snapped a picture at the top, all you thought was how excited you were to share your achievement with Alexia. As you’d called her a week later from a dive-bar in a shanty town in central Argentina you could hear the pride and relief in her voice, even through the terrible connection. It was the first time you had been able to contact her in a month.

But you’d gone straight from there to leading some American businessmen through the Amazon on a 3 week river and hiking exploration. It paid handsomely, you’d explained to the disappointed blonde, you couldn’t turn it down.

You returned to Barcelona in time to spend a week together before Alexia left for a two week international camp. Which was then followed by a week long trip for her to Norway, as part of their group stage champions league campaign.

You’d joined her there, soaking as much time together as possible between her matches and training sessions. Maybe it was then that the cracks had begun to show. As you had woken early to pick her up from her hotel to go for an early morning walk and grab some coffee before her media duties. You had been walking hand in hand in the early morning sunshine. You had been half-way through a story from the day before, where you and Ingrid's mum had gone together to a lake outside of Oslo, when you felt her drop your hand suddenly and took a half step away from you. “Huh?” you looked at her and a look you hadn’t seen before took over her features, “What’s going on Ale?”. “Trust me” was all she’d replied, and then it had become apparent her problem as a swarm of fans suddenly engulfed her, asking for selfies and autographs, which she gave out, graciously. She skillfully extracted herself from the situation before you both continued on your way, but now, you noticed, you were at least a foot further apart and a weird atmosphere had taken over you both. It had been when you were both safely in the cafe that you’d addressed it, “are you ashamed of me?” you asked, unable to mask the hurt in your voice. Hands safely wrapped around your Tea. “No!” she’d replied, aghast, as she pulled your hands from your mug into her own. “mírame cariño” you did, and saw the heartbreaking look in her eyes. “I would never be ashamed of you. Do not think that for one moment.” she said it with such conviction that you couldn’t help but nod. “I am sorry, but it is easier. For you. The media. They will pry into your life. It’s happened before with… partners and… I don’t want that for you. For your family. I love you.” “I won’t hide Ale.” you replied. Firmly. You were a free spirit. It was not in your nature to hide yourself, any part of yourself, for anything or anyone. The thought of it made you claustrophobic. “I know you won’t.” she huffed out a laugh, “I do not want us to hide. I promise. But, maybe, if we do not make their job easy for them? Can we do that?”. The look of desperation on her face broke your heart. “Bueno Ale. Para ti. Yo también te amo.” You’d gone your separate ways from there, you had explorations to complete, she was busy with the team. She’d managed to visit England for a few days when her UCWL matches lined up, and you started to return to Barcelona, rather than Cumbria, as a home base between trips. And that's how it had gone for some time. Your birthday had passed, you’d spent it together in Barcelona, Ale having stolen your trusty-old boots and had them professionally repaired and re-waxed. As she presented them to you, on her balcony with a cute bow on top, your heart expanded in joy. She got you. She knew you didn’t want new-top of the range boots that she definitely could afford. This actually was harder, she’d had to research the dying-art of cobblers in the area. She had to sneak them out of your duffell bag, she must have distracted you every time you went for them as your go-to walking shoes in the week. With all her money and fame. She understood that wasn’t you. You loved what you had. And she got that. As you had turned the boots in your hands, taking in all of the familiarity in all their glory and feeling the waxy leather beneath your fingers she couldn’t read your face. “I hope you don’t mind” she’d taken them gently from your hands and she pulled back the tongue, which showed a piece of jersey sewn into the backing-fabric. Blue and red, with a white AP11 embroidered into it. “It's from my first champions league shirt. I cut a swatch off, and had them sew it in…” she whispered. The moment had been heavy. “I know we don’t get to spend time together like most couples, but this way, I’ll always be with you.” Your throat had burned with the effort to keep your tears at bay, you were unsuccessful when you felt her warm hand cup your face and wipe a tear away,

“I’m sorry, It’s probably way too intrusive and I shouldn’t have taken your stuff, I can ta…” You’d silenced her with a kiss. Intense and hungry. “This is the most thoughtful gift I have ever had. I love you Ale. I love you so much.” “Good.”... you both take a moment to look into each other's eyes, then you feel a movement as she reaches into her pocket and presents proudly what she’s pulled out, eyes shining with mirth “Then maybe you will consider these laces too, no?” and you burst out laughing whilst you take in the Blaugrana coloured hiking laces. You’ve not got it in you to not agree. But love sometimes isn’t enough. Time passed. You continued your work and she continued hers. Valentines days spent on opposite sides of the globe. You weren’t there when she won the Champions League, instead spending it watching it in a bar in Jordan. She wasn’t there as you returned from reaching an undiscovered island as part of a research crew in the South Pacific, instead being in Munich to film a new Nike ad. When you were together you couldn’t walk the streets of Barcelona hand in hand. You’d kept your promise and she kept hers. You weren’t hidden, but you weren’t showcasing your relationship. When she came to England you had more freedom, the people of Cumbia didn’t know who the Spanish superstar was, they just knew her as your girlfriend. Your fit girlfriend according to the teenage boy who lived next door to your mum. You made it work though, between you. You would send her snaps every time you saw children playing football. Pictures from south pacific islands to the mountain villages of the Himalayas, and every time you would receive the same response; “See, el deporte del mundo, I told you <3” It was a perfect storm. What happened. You’d spent a month in Barcelona, more time that you had been able to spend together in the year you’d been a couple. You’d fallen into a domesticity that you hadn’t experienced before.

Alexia would train, you would have dinner ready for her. She would wake you up with a cup of Tea from her new kettle she's bought especially for you. You would plan routes and give advice to your online contacts about expeditions they had planned. You would sleep wrapped in each other's arms, Alexia would even let you be the big spoon, very occasionally.

It felt perfect. Until one, simple comment.

“Ay, look at you, wifey!” Mapi had exclaimed from her place at the table as you brought in the dinner you had prepared for the group, you had invited her and Ingrid for a couples night, “who would have thought, “La jefa de la montaña. Tamed!” “Shut up Maria.” Ingrid nudged her girlfriend, with a kind smile she turned to you, “This looks delicious! Thank you” As the group tucked in though, you were distracted. Suddenly, the weight of Alexia's hand on your thigh felt heavy. The walls, too constricting. For you, the heat of Barcelona started to become oppressive. Too predictable. You missed England, you missed not knowing what the weather would be hour by hour. The contact blue skies felt like a false--happiness was being forced on you. The ground at your feet, sun dried, felt harsh compared to the muddy grass you had grown up stomping on. Soft, flexible. The routine started to bore you. You missed the weight of your backpack and the freedom of slinging up your hammock. Alexia hadn’t missed the way you had clammed up, the tenseness in your posture, the way your laugh did not reach your eyes for the rest of that evening. For the weeks following she felt like keeping you was like trying to catch smoke. Like trying to hold sand in her bare hands. She could feel you escape through her fingers for the next few weeks.

Which is why she wasn’t surprised when she returned from an away trip to Mallorca to see you on the couch. Hands nervously twisting and unable to meet her eye.

“You’re going again, aren't you?” she asked, as she dropped her bag at the door and settled next to you, taking your hands in hers. You nodded.

“I’m sorry Ale. It's just. It's not me.” you’d explained then, how you had been feeling. And she listened. Even though she knew. Of course she already knew.

“It’s okay, carino.” you’d assured you. You’d look up then, “it is?”

“Si, Mi Vida. I would never ask you to change. And only you would be bored of the life of a professional footballer, and you must be the only English person to ever complain about the weather in Barcelona” she’d lightened the mood with her joke, and rolled her eyes good naturedly.

“Where are you going this time?” she’d continued, and she should have known from your pause that this wasn’t the usual goodbye.

“Everest.”

“Everest.” She’d reperated. Joy in her voice, she knew it was your life’s ambition to climb the world's highest summit. “...and Denali, and Elbrus...” you had continued to name the 7 highest summits on each continent that you would spend the next 18 months climbing, without oxygen, as part of an international exploration. Silence filled the apartment. “I….” “No.” “No?” you asked, shock in your voice. “No, what?” “No, you can’t do that. It's too dangerous.” “But Ale…” “No. No ‘but Ale’. I get it. I have been your partner now for long enough. I understand. But this is too much. No oxygen, so many climbs… there is too much danger. No.” her tone firm. Final. Her Captain's voice. And that had made the walls feel like they were closing in for you. And you responded like a wild animal, backed into a corner, defensive. “I wasn’t asking.” She let out a frustrated groan, hands covering her face. “Carino, please no. Listen to me. Being with you…” a huff again… “it is hard.” “Oh well, I am sorry Alexia, if being with me is such a chore…” you started. “No, stop, you are not letting me speak…” but you had started at that point. “You are not the one who is hidden away, you aren’t one who has had to move countries, to miss her family, your life hasn’t changed! You’ve given up nothing for this relationship.” you hiss out at her, hardly recognising your own voice. You're speaking just to hurt her. To make this easier for both of you. And that final sentence, seems to be what breaks the usually cool and calm exterior of your girlfriend and she stands and points her finger at you. “Nothing! ¡nada! ¿Cómo te atreves?” she spits out at you, the anger in her tone surprises you, you have never heard her speak like this, “I have sat here and waited. For months I have waited. For anything from you. Being with you is not like a long-distance relationship. You go, for months at a time, you go. And you expect me to sit here and wait. And I do. You do not text, you do not call. I understand that you cannot but do not say I have made no sacrifice for this relationship. When you got lost in the Gobi desert for weeks, what do you think I was doing? Sitting here! Jumping out of my skin every time the phone rang in case it was your Mami telling me you had been found dead. I did not play in The Copa De La Reinga final because I was so sick with worry. He hecho sacrificio. mi equipo, mi familia ha hecho sacrificio and I will not let you disrespect me or them and let you say otherwise.”

Alexia doesn’t lose any of her anger in her tirade. And the silence that settles over the apartment is heavy. She seems to have surprised herself, as her eyes go wide and she opens her mouth again… but you interrupt her. “No Ale. Do not apologise.” you hold your hand up. “I didn’t think. I'm sorry. You are right. I am not good for you.” This is why you didn’t do relationships. You were a bad partner. You needed to be free, outside, exploring. You lived for adventure. It wasn’t fair.

“No! No Carino, that is not what I said!” tears are in her eyes now, and you knew this would be hard, but you didn’t know it would be this hard. “I love you...” “I love you too,” she quickly replies. Neither of you had even been shy with your affirmations to each other. “I love you so much Ale. But I have to go and do this. I have too. It is who I am. It is my dream. It.. It is my world cup.” She huffs out a laugh as she gently nudges herself into your arms, your attempt at speaking in a way she would understand humouring her. “I know.” she replies, sadly, “but I cannot go through that for 18 months mi amor. I cannot.” “And I won’t ask you to, love.” You move a strand of hair from her face as you kiss her lips, gently, there's a finality in it, you open your mouth again but she cuts in. “I can’t say anything that will stop you, can i?” she asks, as you shake your head, sadly. “When do you leave?” You cringe as you confirm her worst thoughts, “tomorrow.” She takes a deep breath and presses her face into your neck. “Can we do one thing before you go?” she asks you.

Anything. You would give this woman in your arms anything she asked for at that moment. Apart from stay. And that's how you found yourself swinging on your old lightweight hammock.

Strung up securely in the Putellas back yard. As you lay on your (ex?) girlfriend's chest, as you both looked up at the stars. You chatted into the night, you laughed and you cried. You fumbled under the blankets like horny teenagers. She asked you to promise to contact when you could. And you asked her to not worry, to concentrate on the Olympics and move on from you. You kept it to yourself that there was no way you were moving on from her. You didn't know she was keeping the same thing to herself as she promised you she would try.

It was the weirdest break up anyone had ever had.

And, 17 months later, as you lay, trapped, entombed in your own coffin of ice, you were sure that you could still feel the sway of that hammock, feel the heat of that Barcelona evening and hear the cicadas chirping. As the ice pressed all around you, all you could dream of was being back in that back yard in Barcelona, in the arms of Alexia.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Denali. Done. Vinson. Done.

Aconcagua, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, Puncak Jaya . Done, Done, Done and Done. You’d faced the heat of Africa, the remoteness of Antarctica, the desolation of Russia. And here you were, finally, on your final summit. Everest. It was somewhat of a dichotomy between the mountaineering community. Everest had become a commercial hub. Have-a-go mountaineers paying big bucks to get a free ride to the highest mountain in the world. But to you, it had always been sacred. You had imagined it, as you climbed hills in the English lakes as a teenager, of one day scaling the iconic mountain. So, why? As you stood on the highest point of earth. After 3 months of acclimatisation. Were you thinking of your ex-girlfriend? Who were you kidding? You knew why.

Alexia hadn’t been far from your thoughts on any of your summits. Her face popping into your mind at each peak. As you pocketed some rock as had become your tradition you would imagine her face as your hand touched the earth. The same earth she was on, thousands of miles away, probably in lush, manicured grass, kicking a ball around and entertaining thousands. Your group had become your family, and you had grown as close as one. Arguing when tensions got high but snuggling together to share warmth when in survival mode. Joking in bars across the globe and playing so many games of gin rummy that you sure a record had been broken. They teased you relentlessly for the old boots with silly laces you wore on the lower reaches of each summit, before you reached heights that you all had to wear mountaineering boots. Alexia, unknowingly, with you every step of the way. They had even made a game in each country you entered, to help you pick the rudest or funniest postcard to send to Barcelona, snippets of your time you sent to Alexia, keeping the promise you made over a year ago. You could have rang, you know you could. But you didn’t know if you heard her voice you wouldn’t high-tail it to Barcelona. So you sent postcards. It felt old-fashioned. It felt romantic. And you think that really, you liked that she couldn’t reply. It felt anonymous. You took off your snow goggles as you stood at the peak. You had 3 minutes on the highest point on earth without your goggles before you would become snow blind. The sun being about 60% stronger at this elevation. You could see the curvature of the earth. It reminded you of the curvature of Alexia's shoulders as you held her from behind.

You took in a deep breath of thin air.

Your lung capacity feels like it has doubled since you left Europe.

You have done it. Without oxygen. 7 summits. Your life goal. Complete.

And now. You wanted to go home.

“Congratulations English Sherpa! You have done it!” Arjan, clamps a heavily gloved hand on your shoulder, his wide smile visible even beneath his snood. Ice hanging from his moustache. He had to shout for you to hear him over the wind. He was a sherpa, he had travelled all around the world with you being one of the experts in the group, he’d affectionately nicknamed you the English Sherpa after he had seen your climbing prowess on your first summit. “We have done nothing yet, my friend. You know you’ve only climbed Everest once you get back down safely” you reply, glee in your voice, fixing your goggles back to your face. “Spoken like a true Sherpa.” he replied, and you both embraced at the top of the world. You didn’t hang around for long. Your entire expedition made it to the top of your final summit and you quickly pictured the moment before making your way down. The biggest risk on Everest is getting stuck in a crowd. It is not as technically difficult as other summits you have done. But without oxygen, a minute can feel like an hour on the highest point on earth. You heard once, it is easier to be saved from the surface of the moon than it is to be saved from the surface of Everest. Luck, however, seemed to be on your side. You had made good progress up, and were making even better progress down. With each step you became more and more gleeful, past 8,000 metres you started to finally feel safer. 7,000 metres, you let the excitement of your achievement settle into your bones. 6,000 metres you let your mind wander to finally going home but why was home seeming more like a sundrenched balcony in Barcelona rather than a green field of England? 5,000 metres, you promised yourself that you would use the satellite phone in your pocket to ring Alexia once you got back to base camp. Tell her you’d done it. Maybe even beg her forgiveness. You were alone on the mountain, ahead of most of your group and low enough now to be unattached to any guidelines, it was a usual affair. Until it wasn’t.

You felt the ground rumble beneath you. It was barely noticeable. It felt more like the feeling you get when you’re lying in bed and a large truck drives past your house.

But it was enough to instil fear in you as you looked up and saw a wall of moving snow hurtling towards you. It was a slab avalanche, probably caused by the movement of the climbers above, and paired with the lateness of the day, the snow that had fallen and compacted overnight had melted enough to loosen into a wall of ice that was directed your way.

You had about 30 seconds.

You knew to go sideways, do not outrun an avalanche. It's like trying to outrun a cheetah. But this wall of ice looked wide, you ran to your side, moving slowly in the deep snow. As you ran you pulled your goggles back onto your face.

You could feel the earth beneath you falling away as the snow you trod on was unearthed by the vibrations of the snow above.

You ran. You ran for your life, but you knew this wasn’t good. Your training kicked in.

You saw a boulder in front of you and you threw yourself behind it, you created a ball with your body, making sure that you created a hole around your face you would be able to use to breathe. You pulled your ice pole from your back and stuck it into the ground next to you, that would help when you were covered by snow and you didn't know which way was up. Which way you would need to dig. You put one hand in your pocket and pulled the satellite phone in front of your face.

A thunderous rumble.

And then.

Silence. Darkness. —----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alexia didn’t have her phone on at half time. She never paid it any attention - playing or not she was too focussed on the game.

Today, though, she didn’t know why. But she did.

She felt her phone vibrate in the bag at her feet.

And something compelled her to actually make the effort to dig into her bag and pull it out.

The number looked weird. Not a Spanish number, or an English one, she had gotten used to all the +44’s that had rang her over the year spent with you.

She stepped out of the unfamiliar changing room into the impressive corridors of Old Trafford. A post-season friendly. Barcelona Vs Manchester United. The game didn’t mean anything but it was always exciting to check another famous stadium off the list. A sold out crowd and an evening game. Can’t get much better.

She found a disused office room and managed to press accept on the call.

“Hola?”

At first she thought she’d missed it. Nothing on the line responded to her, as she pulled the phone away to check she saw the call had connected… ‘Scammers’ she cursed in her mind, moving to hang up. But just before she did…

“Hola, Ale.” She couldn’t believe it. Your voice. She dropped her weight onto the table behind her and held a hand to her chest that suddenly felt like it was torn in two. Heart beating faster than any 45 minutes of running could cause.

“¿eres realmente tú?”

“Yes, It’s me Ale.”

Tears brimmed in her eyes and even after everything she felt just the same as she did when she stepped out of that minibus nearly 3 years ago and first set eyes on you.

“Are you okay carino? Did you do it?” she asked, breathlessly. “I did it, love.” was the response. In her pride at your accomplishment she missed how you hadn’t addressed her first question.

“Nunca tuve ninguna duda, I am so relieved to hear from you. The line is so quiet, are you still there?”

“Si…” a pause which Alexia attributes to the poor connection, “It must be the signal.” she notices you move on, quickly, “Can… can you just talk to me?”. Alexia smiles despite herself, you used to always ask her to talk you to sleep when your mind was whirring, completing your greatest accomplishment must be in that category and she can imagine you fidgeting in pent up adrenaline.

“I can amor, I have a few minutes. I am in Manchester. We are at half time at Old Trafford.”

“Old Trafford, hey?” she hears you laugh, “Finally, a football ground I’ve heard of.” She's missed your teasing lilt.

“Si, even you. It is raining. Why is it always raining here? I imagine you have better weather even at your camp.” Alexia jokes, innocently. The laugh you let out feels a little… forced? But she lets it go.

“I had lunch with your Mami today. We are only an hour or so away from yours, why did you never tell me we were so close?” Again, that laugh that she loves so much, but it felt more tired that she’d heard it before, more muffled. Though. She supposed, you must be exhausted.

“Because then, my love, you would have made us go and watch football matches and I much preferred to spend our time together in my bed.”

“Ah, Si, I remember, you did.” she responds, blushing and not missing a beat.

“Your Mami is doing well. She is in the stands….” “Tell her I love her, Ale.” you cut in. There's a desperate edge to your voice that sends shivers down Alexia's spine. She stands, “I will. Of course I will. Carino, are you okay?” she realises now, you never answered her first question. “I stood on the top of Everest today, Ale.” you reply. You haven’t answered her question. She opens her mouth to ask it again but you continue, “I stood on the top of Everest and all I could think of was you.” Your words force her to sit again, her spare hand to her mouth, keeping in a muffled sob. “Don’t you think that's insane? That today, Ale. You were in Manchester and someone. On top of the world. The highest point on this Earth. The highest person on this planet. Only about 4 spacemen floating around above me. Had only you in their mind? I think that means you’ve been to the top of the world, Ale. En la cima del mundo conmigo. You were there with me, every step.” You sound drunk, she wouldn’t blame you, thin air for months it wouldn’t take more than half a pint to see you off, the thought of your ramblings makes her smile despite herself, she knows she shouldn’t, but she leans into it. “Everyone here talks like you….” she pauses, “In Manchester. Only me and Ona can understand them. With your flat vowels. It made me think of you more today. Miss you more than normal today. And now you call.” There's a knock on the office door, “Ale, Vamos!” half time has ended. She has never wanted to play football less than right now. “Because we’re soulmates” your voice definitely had a slur to it now, “and I miss you too. I’ll always miss you, my Ale.” you always got soppier when you drank. “You won’t miss me for long, Carino. You will be home soon. I don’t care if you decide that it's England or Spain. Whichever. I will be there. Si?... We will be together soon. We can sort all this out.” “Hopefully, n..to..oo soon.” she struggles to hear you, the connection starting to fail. “Pardon? Amor?” another knock at the door. She feels like she's being pulled in half as she presses the phone closer to her ear. “Amor. I have to go. Well done, Estoy tan orgullosa de ti. Call me when you can.” “I love you, Ale…” “I lo…” beep beep beep. The call drops before she has a chance to respond. —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You feel pain all over your body. You had never felt pain like it. It was like every sinew in your body was screaming out in pain. You opened your eyes and immediately closed them again. Blinding white. You heard voices. Alarmed voices.

Shouting voices. “HERE, HERE!!!” You felt yourself being moved. It made the pain worse. You tried to tell them to stop.

Your throat couldn't make a sound. And then all you knew was black.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More darkness. You felt something covering your face. Your body being stripped. Water. Boiling water. It burned. You were submerged. “No no no no no no…” was all you could try to vocalise. A calming hand in your hair. “It is lukewarm water, we are trying to bring your body temperature up…”

No, no. They were lying. The voice was lying. You thrashed. A pain in your arm. A needle? Darkness took you again. —--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “There is no chance, Arjan.” “Bu….” “No. You are an experienced Sherpa. You are letting yourself get lost. There is no chance. She is too far gone. Air evac is the only way. No Nepalese pilot will fly at this altitude. We need to make her comfortable…” —--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You felt yourself being moved.

Less painful this time.

You felt wind on your face.

This wasn’t natural wind.

The sound of blades. Air moving unnaturally. Choppily.

Your face is covered again.

The wind gets louder. More mechanical. You feel yourself being lifted up. “You’ve some friends in high places, English Sherpa.” you hear whispered to you, a hand on your forehead. Arjan? Your friend is speaking to you. You feel less alone. You try to open your eyes but the effort feels herculean. And then nothingness. —------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This time, when you wake up. You stay awake. You’re in an unfamiliar room. It’s obvious it's a hospital room. But you’re alone. You look around and see yourself wired up to all sorts of machines. But that's it. You try to move to sit up but your shoulder screams in protest. You take stock of your body. You feel a bandage wrapped around your head. Your head is banging now you think about it. Your right arm is completely immobile. Your arm wrapped across your chest and hand completely covered by bandages. You try to wiggle your fingers but. Nothing. God. You hope they’re still there. Before you had too long to spiral the door burst open and you were faced with a smiling, familiar face. “Arjan!” you try to exclaim, voice rough from underuse. “She’s awake. My friend!” his sun-soaked face suits his smile. His bushy eyebrows make his eyes almost invisible as he crinkles them in joy. Arjan settles next to you and fills you in on everything you were present for, but missed out on account of being buried alive or completely unconscious. Your choice to hide behind the boulder had been the first thing to save your life. It had protected you from being swept away by the avalanche and was easier to locate. Before you had called Alexia you had contacted base camp. But your GPS had been knocked off so all they knew was that you were alive. And where you told them you had last been. You’d lost consciousness fairley quickly. Brain starved of oxygen in the small air pocket you had created. Hypothermia had set in slowly.

Your hand had been left exposed after using the phone, and you remember wiggling your fingers, seeing them slowly turn black as they succumbed to frostbite. It had taken 3 days to find you. Luckily, you had been the only person caught up in the snow. You remember, now, coming in and out of consciousness. You even recall a bad spell of seeing Alexias face in the boulder your head rested against and talking to it. Maybe you’d keep that you yourself. Bit embarrassing really. Your legs were pinned down by snow. You had used your last piece of strength to thrust your ice pole upwards. You'd chosen the direction based on the way your tears fell. That was the second thing that had saved your life. Arjan had spotted the pole in the ice field. Days after everyone else had given up on ever finding you. You’d been dragged to base camp and they started to treat hypothermia. You were more than halfway to dead. You resembled a corpse. Arjan had told you he'd never seen anyone literally blue. “Pulled it off tho, my friend” he’d tried to joke. “Of course, always” you’d winked back in reply. You'd have no chance of survival whilst still on the mountain. The air was still too thin and your were suffering from hypoxia. Problem was, the air was too thin for an air evacuation and. Well. As you knew. It was easier to be saved from the surface of the moon than it was to be saved from the surface of Everest. The third thing that had saved you. Was Alexia. “You have someone who’s gone to the moon and back for you, my friend.” Once she’d found out you had gone missing she had gone to the UK embassy in London to start a search and rescue campaign. When they hadn’t moved quickly enough she had involved the Spanish government. She’d used her resources and status to launch a media campaign which had pressured both governments. She’d flown to Kathmandu herself and was trying to hire a plane to Lukla when you’d been found. Then her attention turned to locating a pilot crazy enough to fly at such an altitude. Turns out anyone was crazy enough for the right price. And many, many euros later, the highest ever search flight took off from the surface of Everest, with you on board. “She’s a force to be reckoned with, your girl.”

He told you, as he reached to the ground below you, “...and you’ll be happy to hear, I saved your precious boots” he dumped your familiar old tattered boots at the bottom of your bed.

“And some stuff from your tent. But I had to hike it out so I left some of the smellier clothes.” he joked, as you thanked him, he really was a good man. “... Wait… hike it out? How long have I been here?” “You’ve been unconscious for a week my friend. I always told you you were lazy.” You took a moment to take stock. A week. Well. That meant that even if Alexia had been in Kathmandu, she was a million miles away now. The door opens again and you’re too lost in your own thoughts to give any care to the nurse whos been coming in every now and again checking charts whilst you and Arjan chatted. “Ah here she is. La Reina herself!” You turned your head quickly and took in the face that had been the last image in your mind every night, and the first every morning, since the day you had parted. “Ale…” you breathed. Here. She was here. In Kathmandu. In the same room as you.

She looked as beautiful as ever, hair flowing over her shoulders, blonder than the last time you had seen her. She had gained muscle and her features had sharpened. But everything else was the same. Her smell invaded your senses. That smell that mosquitoes loved so much. You got it. Her eyes were sharp, and directed firmly at you. They looked tired. She held a sense of exhaustion. You wanted her to fall into your arms, but she stood at the door, and you couldn't open them to welcome her in. The moment was heavy and Arjan broke the silence and stood… “I’ll leave you both to it. See you around English Sherpa.” and with a squeeze of your foot he was gone. Leaving you both in a heavy silence. “Thank You Ale.” you said, breaking the silence.

After all Arjan told you, you owed her your life. She didn't respond. But her eyes had moved from your face and were now directed at the boots still on your bed. As battered as ever, Blaugrana laces snapped and re-tied in several places, swatch still visible on the tongue. Maybe you thought that your meeting would be a bit more romantic, not as…tense? She stroked one of the boots gently with her finger, seemingly lost in a trance. “Ale…?” “You have a habit of not telling me important things.” Whatever you expected it wasnt that. “Qué?” “That you speak Spanish, how you feel, I don’t know… that your trapped in a fucking avalanche.” you’d seen her angry before, you’d seen that anger directed at you, but this felt worse. It was directed through you. She kept her distance when all you wanted to do was hold her close. “How could you do that? How could you let us speak knowing that you were about to freeze to death and just chat to me, like it was a normal Sunday afternoon?” “I…I didn’t want to worry you…” you croaked out, you felt like a school child who was being told off by the head teacher. And you deserved it, you supposed. “I will always worry about you, por el amor de dios!!” She started to pace around the bottom of your bed, your eyes moving like they were taking in a tennis match watching her wear the ground down. “...and to think I finished that game. I slept that night at your flat. Happy, finally feeling like I almost had you back. Your mami took me home. And then, the next morning, I walked into the kitchen. And there she was, crying at the table. She could hardly tell me what had happened. And then it all fell into place. You’d called me when you thought you were already in your grave, didn’t you?” All you could do was nod, arms desperate to dry the tears tracking down her face. “I’m glad to see you.” you let out. Unsure of what else to say. “You won’t be. I am so, so angry at you.” “I know you are bu…”

“No, you did your speaking on that Mountain. Now you listen” Her tears are dry now and the anger is back in her face. “I have sorted a medical flight. We leave tonight. We’re going back to Barcelona. I don’t care if you want to go back to that rainey island or not. It’s not your choice, it's mine. You almost froze to death, you need the sun. The warm. You will come with me every day to the doctors at the club. They will monitor you. Your family will come to visit. You will go to a therapist. You will take your medication. You will not ignore your medication because you think its better to treat yourself with whatever crushed bug or mashed-up leaves you think is better….” She stops for breath. “That was one time…” you mumbled, referring back to the time you insisted that a crushed cucumber was better than antiseptic cream to treat a bee sting. “Nope. You are still listening.” She stopped you, firmly again, but you felt her eyes softening as she took you in, “... and when we get home and you get better, we will talk. We will decide where we are building our life together, but that is one non-negotiable. It will be together. Okay?” She seems to be finished. And she's moved closer to you, close enough for you to reach out and grab her hand with your good one. You nod, and pull her hand to cup your face. “I just have one question.” you ask, seeking permission to speak. She nods as she strokes your face, tired and burnt from over-exposure. “Are these fingers still attached?” you ask, shaking your injured arm at her, “they’re kind of important for my plans, if you know what I mean” you wiggle your eyebrows suggestively. Her laugh makes you think maybe you did die on that mountain, because surely, here, with her, you’re in heaven. “Te amo, idiota” —-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You awoke surrounded by soft sheets and sleep-warm pillows. Your once-injured arm tweaked in pain slightly as you stretched out. You had physio later this afternoon, you thought to yourself, you had better mention it. You rolled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen, still covered in blankets, bed hair resembling a yeti. You almost tripped up over your rucksack which was laying in the hall. Where it had been since your return to Barcelona, months ago. You hadn’t been ready to unpack it quite yet. You could hear Alexia on the phone out on the balcony, and you gestured the international, ‘want a drink’ sign to her, which she shook her head at. You shrugged. God, sometimes she was so Spanish. A good Brit would never let a hot kettle go to waste. It had been months of reconnection, Alexia finally letting go of her anger as soon as you entered the flat. She broke down in your arms that first night, simultaneously telling you how angry she was at you and how much she loved you at the same time. How she had never been as scared in her life. You just dealt with it by pressing kisses into her hairline.

She'd made you sit in the sun of the balcony every chance she got. Morning, Noon and Night. Moving you around to chase the rays. Insisting that you needed the warmth and vitamins of the sun to recover. The image of you pale, cold and frozen in the hospital in Nepal seared into her mind. When Mapi and Ingrid visited Mapi teased you, and had taken to calling you Bagheera. She said you resembled her cat, chasing the sun to lounge in at every occasion. She quickly stopped when Alexia slapped the back of her head. You no longer had to hide your relationship. Alexia had blown the doors off that as she went to the media in order to get the resources to save you. The feeling of claustrophobia that had made you flee from Barcelona had gone. You knew what being trapped really felt like now. And how you ever thought the love of your life and a shared life in this sun-drenched city was suffocating. Well. That was a different person to who you were now. Yeah, you would always love the outdoors. But you had an anchor now. Something that made you maybe not scale that next peak, and instead be excited to share a recipe with. Maybe not stay on the trail for an extra week, and instead pick out a good film to settle down to. Your mum was over the moon. She’d been a regular visitor. You thought she’d be upset, when you decided to stay in Spain instead of going back to England but she seemed offended by the idea. “That girl saved your life you stupid woman, of course will stay here with her.” Alexia didn’t accept it so easily. She was worried you would feel trapped again, that she wasn’t compromising. She would rather move with you than lose you. “Ale. Barna is your life.” you had replied, simply, “...and you are mine.” “It is not!” she had refused, aghast at the suggestion until you said, “United will have me, so will City, my agent has checked, I would even go to the Championship and play for Newcastle, I look great in black!” “Ale, you literally have a floor tile tattooed on your back. We’re staying here.” you said, deadpan. And she couldn’t say much to that. So, much to the despair of every football fan in England. She signed a new contract with Barcelona not two weeks ago. Maybe it was how settled you felt this morning, as the kettle boiled. The soreness in your muscles after the night you spent together in bed, which must be why your shoulder was straining now. Maybe you'd keep that away from the physio. Though, maybe he’d be happy to hear that your fingers were definitely fully recovered. Not as happy as Alexia was though, you'd bet. But something about this morning made you brave enough to finally open that rucksack in the hallway. As you zipped it open your fingers caught on a single piece of cardboard. A postcard. You flipped it over as arms encircled your waist and gentle lips kissed your shoulder. “Carino?” she asked, looking at the postcard in your hands. “I never got to give you this.” you whispered, as you held the postcard over your shoulder, she let you go as she turned it in her hands. She let out a barking laugh as she moved towards the fridge where 6 other postcards sat proudly, waiting for their 7th to complete the set. A woman in a bikini, sat on a yak wearing a cowboy hat, the imposing structure of Everest in the background. A speech bubble coming out of her mouth ‘I’ve seen bigger’. Alexia rolled her eyes at you as she stuck it to the fridge with a magnet showing the message you wrote all those months ago.

“Ale, I’m here.

One more summit and I’ll be on my way back to you. For good. How can I say it in your language? ‘It’s coming home’.

fin.

#alexia putellas x reader #woso x reader #woso community

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evie-sturns · 7 months

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𝙧𝙤𝙖𝙙𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙥 - 𝘾𝙝𝙧𝙞𝙨 𝙎𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙡𝙤

summary: you, the sturniolos, madi and nate are all going on a roadtrip down to new jersey. execpt theres one problem, there's not enough space in the car. you're forced to sit on chris's lap for the 5 hour car ride, you just can't seem to get comfortable though.

contains: smut, teasing, dom!chris, swearing, fluff.

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the sturniolos have been my closest friends for a while, especially chris, with who ive have grown closer then ever to over the past few years. today is the day that my friend group travel down to new jersey for the summer break.

12:36pm

"y/n get your ass down here!" chris calls out from the driveway, i stumble over, clutching my baby pink suitcase with one hand as i swing open the door of chris's bedroom, which i've slept in last night.

i sprint downstairs, my suitcase smashing into walls behind me while i lock eyes with madi. i run up to her and a loud laugh escapes her mouth "oh my god your suitcase is basically bursting at the seams."

"shut up, im a chronic over-packer." i joke, walking downstairs into the driveway. matt, nick and nathan are watching chris strategically stack suitcases in the trunk. chris's tounge is slightly peaking out of his mouth as he concentrates.

"can we fit one more?" i say chirpily, walking over to the group of boys while dragging my suitcase behind me. chris takes it off me, sliding into its designated spot between the various bags.

"okay tetris king" nick scoffs, jumping in the passenger seat of the car.

before i know it, everyones piled into the car. matt in the drivers seat, nick in the passenger, madi in the far-right backseat, nathan in the middle and chris on the left backseat.

i open the door to the car, theres no more seats.

"oh fuck me." i mumble, folding my arms and waiting for someone to speak up.

"she could go ontop of the car, grip onto the windshield." matt suggests with a smirk on his face, earning a elbow to the bicep from nathan, who leans foward.

after a few more seconds of silence, i break it. "i could try fit in the trunk, theres a little room ontop of the suitcases.."

"y/n no. thats not safe, i dont care you can sit on my lap." chris says nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders.

i nod, pursing my lips as i crawl in the car, planting myself down on chris's lap. my cheeks instantly flush.

i've never thought about chris romantically, hes always been a platonic best friend. i know he doesn't like me, he doesn't really like many girls in general.

"chris.. im gonna be too heavy." i mumble, purposley putting a small amount of my weight on his lap.

"don't be an idiot." chris chuckles, grabbing my hips and pressing me down, forcing all my weight on his lap. i clear my throat, "are you sure i don't want to squash you."

"hey, i said don't be an idiot." chris says, sitting back in the seat comfortably.

3:21pm

we've been driving for almost three hours, i've been just laying back on chris's chest, resting my head back on his shoulder with my eyes shut. nate, madi and nick have been in a debate for an hour if hot or cold pizza is better.

its been entertaining to say the least.

after nick and nate draw the debate to a close a new conversation sparks up from madi.

"have you guys ever fell off the waterslide platform?" she says, a silence fills the car.

"you know how you have to climb up stairs to get up to the waterslide, and you wait on the little platform to wait your turn to go down?" madi questions, we all nod slowly.

"yeah have you guys fell off?" madi continues.

"madi..." matt says from the front in a low voice, i can hear the smile on his face.

i errupt into giggles, my body vibrates on chris's lap as i lean foward, taking my back off of chris's chest.

everyone else in the car laughs, including chris. his lap lightly bounces up and down with each noise that comes out of his mouth, causing me to shift out of place.

i shimmy my ass back into a comfortable position on chris, an audible groan escapes his mouth, my eyebrows furrow and my head snaps back to look at chris, his cheeks are flushed, as soon as we lock eyes he looks out the window, squeezing his eyes shut out of sheer embarrassment.

"chris," i whisper, looking over my shoulder at him. "whats wrong am i too heavy.."

just then i feel something poke my upper thigh. my eyes pratically bulge out of my head as i stare at chris. everyone else in the car is too engulfed in their own conversation to notice me and him.

"im really sorry." chris squeezes out, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"its just your shifting on my lap, i can ask matt to pull into a gas station and ill fix it in the bathrooms-" he rambles quietly into my ear.

"don't worry about it chris!" i say smiling, shifting side to side on his crotch while maintaining eye contact with him.

"stop that." chris mumbles, the tent in his sweatpants growing by the second.

"you like it christopher."

chris's breathing picks up, "fuck."

i press more of my weight down onto chris's bulge with a smirk, i turn back around to face the back of matt's seat, continuously grinding into chris.

i suddenly hear chris’s voice from behind me

“how much longer do you guys reckon we have left?” he asks, his voice wobbling slightly.

“honestly like 20 seconds, we’re pulling into the street now” matt awnsers from the front, him and nicks eyes still concentrated on the road ahead as madi and nate cackle with each other

i continue rubbing chris with my ass, i feel two large hands grip my hips, holding me still harshly.

i pout as i look over my shoulder at chris, his response sends chills down my back.

“i will take away your ability to walk as soon as we’re alone.” he whispers into my hair from behind me.

we swing a left into the long driveway of the beach house we’re staying at, it’s two stories and looks modern to say the least.

as soon as the car stops chris throws me off him out of the door of the vehicle, speed walking up to the front door and unlocking with the key he just retrieved from the mailbox.

i watch as he disappears inside “where the fuck is chris?” i hear nick say while pushing up the trunk door. “he had to pee really bad.” i lie, knowing he ran to the bathroom to help himself out instead.

matt hands me my suitcase with a smile, and i walk up to the front door, which is already half open from chris. i walk upstairs to the room chris and i already decided we would share, long before the road trip ever started.

im met with a double bed, along with a window with a clear view of the beach. i get changed into the sluttiest skirt i can find and a long tank top before walking downstairs, i pull my phone out of my bag to check the time.

6:13

all of my friends are playing cards around the wooden dining table, but chris is sitting on the couch alone, scrolling on his phone. a loud cheer comes from nick as he slams down his card onto the table.

i flop down next to chris, my skirt flapping up slightly. “whatcha up to?” i ask innocently, acting like i wasn’t dry humping him a hour ago.

“nothing just instagram.” he replies placing his phone down on the armrest before looking over at me, locking eyes with chris sends butterflies through my body.

chris quickly stands up, taking my hand and pulling me upstairs, he slams the door to the bedroom shut behind us

“what were you doing in the car hm?” chris taunts, grabbing my wrists and pushing me down onto the bed.

“grinding up on me, giving me a painful erection around all my friends?”

“mmhm..” i groan backwards as chris grabs my chin, forcing me to look up at him as my back lays steadily on the bed.

“did i ask you to do that.” he says, staring into my eyes “or did you just wanna be fucked so badly that you couldn’t wait.”

i was in a state of shock, the good kind of shock though. my bestfriend of mutiple years has me pinned to the bed.

“gonna act like a slut, gonna be treated like one. got it?” chris mumbles, practically tearing my skirt off of my body. he yanks my panties down to my ankles in one motion.

chris pulls my body to the edge of the bed, my legs are wrapped around his waist as my heat presses lightly against his crotch. suddenly he bends down between my legs and blows cool air directly onto my sensitive clit, earning a groan of pleasure and desperation from me.

"more.." i manage to squeeze out, "you're gonna get more." chris says, standing up from between my legs and yanking down his sweatpants to his knees. "be quiet for me yeah?" he groans, rubbing his throbbing tip through my folds.

"i will stop if you get too loud okay?"

i nod frantically, spreading my legs open as far as they can go, revealing myself to chris.

his breathing picks up "ready..?" he stammers, his words incoherent.

"please.." i sigh out shakily, gripping the bedsheets in my fists so tight my knuckles grow white.

with full force chris slams inside of me, bruising my cervix. a loud yelp escapes my mouth as chris looks down at me, some-what checking if i'm okay.

i feel myself stretch around his length, the burning sensation still present. chris grips my hand, intertwining our fingers before thrusting in and out.

i feel each vein of his cock press against my insides. his thrusts grow sloppy and unhinged. strings of moans escape my mouth, chris slams his free hand over my mouth, shoving a finger inside in the process.

i clench around chris, before the knot in my stomach snaps he pulls out, "chris!" i yell in frustration, feeling empty. "shh sh." he shushes me, flipping me over onto all fours,

"quit making noises gorgeous, or none of this will happen again."

he pushes back inside of me, a familiar feeling. i let out a hum of pleasure as chris pushes on my mid back, arching my back. the sound of skin slapping fills the room as i bury my head in the pillow to muffle my sounds.

"good girl.." chris's voice his croaky, his dick twitches inside of me, signalling he's close.

i clench around him for the second time this evening, the pit in my stomach releases with a scream of his name.

chris pulls out, painting my back white "fuuckk..."

he collapses down beside me, pulling me onto his chest with a long hug. "you okay?" he whispers into my hair, his voice breathy.

i nod against his neck, he taps my hip "should we get you changed?"

i hum in response, chris sits up, holding me in a bridal position and walking over to the heaped pile of clothes on the floor, he sets me down on my feet my legs are numb and weak causing me to stumble over.

"careful there." chris laughs, holding me up. "okay, just step through.." he says, pulling my panties up my legs. the rest of my clothes follow, he steps back proudly before pulling up his sweatpants and throwing a shirt on.

"you look cute" chris smiles stupidly, nudging my elbow.

we both walk back downstairs, the rest of the group are scattered in a circle on the floor, playing monopoly. we go sit down and join our friends, the whole time chris is staring at me like he wasnt inside of me 4 minutes ago.

(2 weeks later)

it's the last day of our holiday, me and chris have had a few makeout sessions on the beach, alone. we haven't hooked up again, both realising it's too risky to do in a beach house with 4 other people in the small house.

I'm sat on the grass next to the driveway, observing as chris loads up the car strategically. before i can open my mouth to make a snarky comment about chris's concentration, matt, nick, madi and nate swing open the front door, all their bags in hand.

they all pile into the car again, chris follows, slamming the trunk door shut and jumping in, a small smirk tugs at my lips as chris pats his lap for me to sit down.

i sit down on his lap, nostalgia washes over me, remembering the outcome of last time i sat on his lap in this exact spot.

matt pulls out of the driveway,

its not even been 5 minutes and i'm already grinding on chris through his shorts.

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omfg i really hope yall liked this, i think one of my best so far, also dont come for me if new jersey isnt a beachy type state, i have NO idea about states my bad, js pretend it is.

@lovingchrissposts @lolasturniolo @ilovedasturniolos

#nick sturniolo #sturniolo smut #matt sturniolo x reader #sturniolo x reader #chris sturniolo x reader #sturniolo triplets #chris sturniolo #sturniolo #sturniolo fanfic #matt sturniolo #chris x reader #christianity #christopher sturniolo #chris sturniolo x you #chris sturniolo fluff #chris sturniolo smut

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bsof-maarav · 14 days

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"[L]ate last month Rutgers required its RAs, whose job is to supervise students living in on-campus housing, to participate in a “bystander intervention” course aimed at training them to identify antisemitism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia. Several of the RAs, however, abruptly left the session after a Jewish speaker explained that Hamas’s antisemitism and desire to destroy the world’s only Jewish state precipitated the Oct. 7 massacre, which resulted in the largest loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust.

The paper added that the RAs took issue with the program’s citing a definition of antisemitism offered by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). After walking out, they reportedly contacted Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which proceeded to author, on the RAs’ behalf, a series of Instagram posts denouncing the antisemitism trainings as racist and upholding white supremacy.

"The mandated training program organized by the Office of Residence Life requires RAs to learn about DEI, restorative justice, community engagement, and more — all of these are inspired by Indigenous practices meant to unpack systems of white supremacy,” SJP said. “On the contrary, this specific session worked to perpetuate Zionism, racism, and white supremacy.”

SJP’s post included comments from the RAs who involved them in the controversy. One of them, who claimed to be Jewish, said, “I am tired of the word antisemitism being used to talk over genocide, I am tired of antisemitism being inflated.” The RA added, “I fear that when the Nazis and radicals come once again for the Jews that no one will believe us … it will be your fault.”

Another who took issue with the Israeli nationality of one of the course’s presenters said, “One of the facilitators even identified as ‘Israeli’ and made mention of this multiple times. He justified his authority on the topic by citing his 12 plus years spent in ’48 Palestine, going so far as to call ‘Israel’ [sic] a ‘beautiful land.'”

A milieu of extreme anti-Zionism at the school has resulted in at least one death threat against the life of a Jewish student since Oct. 7. In November, a local news outlet reported, freshman Matthew Skorny, 19, called for the murder of a fraternity member he identified as an Israeli, saying on the popular social media forum YikYak, “To all the pro-Palestinian ralliers [sic] … Go kill him.”

Similar incidents at Rutgers have occured frequently. In the past few years, the school’s AEPi fraternity house has been vandalized three times. In one incident, in April 2022, on the last day of the Jewish holiday of Passover, a caravan of participants from a SJP rally drove there, shouting antisemitic slurs and spitting in the direction of fraternity members. Four days later, before Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, the house was egged during a 24-hour reading of the names of Holocaust victims.

In March, the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce launched an investigation of Rutgers’ handling of antisemitism, responding to complaints that it has, for years, allowed an open season of hate against Jewish students."

#what i quoted was an excerpt but there's more at the link #antisemitism #antizionism is antisemitism #jumblr #october 7 #israel #usa diaspora #the one who was triggered by someone saying “I'm Israeli” is almost hilarious #touching grass is not enough for them #they need to actually go to this place they are so obsessed with #touch the ground at Ben Gurion airport then we'll talk #rfk is not the only one with brainworm #hamasniks

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ganondoerfli · 6 months

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I'm so excited to share my most recent cosplay from Connichi 2023!

Cosplay made and worn by me (@ganondoerfli)

Character: Link from The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom

Armor Set: Mystic Set

Photos taken by my BFF: @ithilcelevon

Date of photos: 2023-09-12

Reference picture:

Keep reading for more details on the making of the cosplay props:

🌸The Satori mask🌸:

I made this mask using worbla on a foam base. The LEDs I used inside the eyes were taken from LED tea candles. They give the light a cool flickering effect.

🌸The right arm🌸:

For Rauru's right arm I wore the runes on top of a scaly glove.

-> First I sewed the glove from a very textured jersey fabric.

-> Then I added some artificial nails on top, which I modified to look like claws.

-> In order to construct the pattern for the runes, I actually had to create a makeshift cast of my arm first. For this, I wrapped my whole arm in newspaper and crepe tape. After cutting the cast open and removing it from my arm, I filled it with more newspaper to make it sturdy enough to work with.

-> This paper cast of my arm was perfect for constructing the pattern, since it could be rotated in any direction (as opposed to my real arm🙃)

-> Using the finished pattern, I made the runes from foam rubber and worbla and shaped them with heat. I painted them using terra-cotta spray paint.

🌸The clothing🌸:

I used satin fabric for a nice and flowing look on the clothes.

In order to recreate the shimmering pattern on the robe, I used heat transfer vinyl.

🌸The armor🌸:

All armor pieces are made from foam and worbla. I've been using this technique for many years, it really works great! The armor pieces were then painted with lacquer and gold acrylic paint.

Making this cosplay was a lot of fun!

Tears of the Kingdom offers so many beautiful designs and outfits.

I can't wait to make more from this game! <3

#the legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom #totk #cosplay #tloz totk #loz #Link #zelda cosplay #zelda #my stuff

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be4chywritez · 2 months

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and they were roommates | matt rempe

matt rempe x fem!reader

Matt has had the biggest crush on you since he was 12 now you guys are roommates…

request: Can I request prompt 11 with Matt Rempe plz? 🥺

prompt: "It sounds like you’re flirting with me.” “I've been trying for years."

beachy’s masterlist🐚

Matthew Rempe has had the biggest crush on you since the summer you moved in right next door. You were both 12, and he vividly remembered the day your mother called out to you to introduce yourself.

You stomped down the porch, clearly annoyed, as your mother smiled softly at the Rempe family. “Y/n, these are the Rempes. They’re our new neighbors,” she said, gripping your shoulder in a way that clearly said, “behave.”

You made a face at your mom before turning to the Rempes and giving them a sour smile. “Hi,” you grit out, clearly not thrilled to be there. Matt watched you sit there fiddling with the strings of your shorts while his sisters, Steph and Alley, quickly fell into deep conversation with you. He noticed how your eyes twinkled when you talked about your hometown.

When Alley asked why you moved to Calgary, you scowled. “My parents got divorced, and I got stuck with my mom.”

That summer marked the beginning of a deep-seated crush that Matt had kept to himself for years. The Rempes and your mom became quite close, and you were at every barbecue and birthday party. He remembered the day he saw you in the hallways at school, and how you hated when snow melted through your Uggs, leading him to offer you piggyback rides every snow day.

And he remembered the day you got a boyfriend.

Alley’s squeals made him jump, and he raced upstairs, grabbing his hockey stick. When he burst through the door, you, Alley, and Steph were sitting on Alley’s bed.

“Oh my GOD, MATT, get out,” Alley said, making a face at him.

“Wait, I didn’t know y/n was here,” he said, leaning up against Alley’s desk but not seeing the shoebox sitting there. When he leaned back, he fell, the girls’ laughter filling the room.

Sitting up, Matt rubbed the back of his head, trying to play it cool. “So, what are you guys talking about?”

Steph and Alley exchanged a knowing look. They were well aware of Matt’s big fat crush on you. Steph smirked and said, “Y/n has a boyfriend.”

Matt felt a pang of jealousy but tried to hide it. “Oh yeah? Who’s the lucky guy?”

You looked down, a slight blush creeping up your cheeks. “Just Alex Marshall. He’s on the hockey team, actually.”

Later that week, Matt found out more about your boyfriend. The guy was on the hockey team, and word around the locker room was that he was just using you for your body. Matt’s protective instincts kicked in, and he decided to confront the guy after practice.

He cornered Alex in the locker room, his expression deadly serious. “I know what you’re doing with y/n. If you don’t back off and treat her with respect, you’ll regret it.” His hands gripped the neck of his jersey, and maybe it was because Matt was 6’3” as a freshman, but everyone in the whole school knew to steer clear of him.

Alex paled, stammering an apology before quickly gathering his things and leaving. Matt hoped that would be the end of it.

The next day, you were hanging out with Alley and Steph again, looking upset. Matt overheard your conversation as he walked by.

“He admitted he was using me,” you said, your voice breaking. “I can’t believe I fell for it.”

Alley wrapped an arm around you, offering comfort. “He’s a jerk, y/n. You’re better off without him.”

Steph nodded in agreement. “Exactly. You deserve someone who actually cares about you.”

Matt couldn’t stay silent any longer. He walked into the room, his heart aching for you. “Y/n, I’m really sorry. You deserve so much better.”

You looked up, surprised to see him there. “Thanks, Matt. I just… I feel so stupid.”

“You’re not stupid,” he said firmly. “And if you ever need someone to talk to or just hang out with, I’m here.”

Your eyes softened, a small smile forming on your lips. “Thanks, Matt. That means a lot.”

Both Alley and Steph stifled laughs.

The first time Matt realized he was in love with you…

Now, years later, you’re sitting in your cozy New York apartment, the afternoon sun filtering through the windows. You were sprawled on the couch, lazily flipping through a magazine while waiting for Matt to arrive. He had moved to New York two years after you, and you joked about being roommates. When your current roommate moved out, it seemed like fate.

You heard the door unlock, and Matt stood there, a wide grin on his face, holding a toolbox in one hand and a bag of takeout in the other.

he ducked the doorframe stepping inside. “I brought you Chinese.”

You laughed, taking the bag from him. “Perfect timing. I’m starving.”

As you set the table, you couldn’t help but admire how effortlessly handsome Matt looked, even in casual clothes. He had been your best friend for years, but lately, you’d started to notice him in a different light.

“So, what’s on the agenda today?” Matt asked, setting the toolbox down and joining you at the table.

“Just some minor fixes,” you said, handing him a plate. “And maybe some furniture rearranging. Nothing too crazy.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he replied, taking a bite of his food. “But first, let’s eat. Can’t work on an empty stomach.”

You both chatted and laughed as you ate, the conversation flowing easily. It was one of the things you loved most about your friendship with Matt—how natural everything felt.

After finishing the meal and cleaning up, you got to work. Matt tackled the more technical fixes while you handled the lighter tasks. At one point, you found yourself standing on a stool, trying to reach a high shelf, when you lost your balance.

Matt was by your side in an instant, his strong hands steadying you. “Careful there,” he said, his voice filled with concern.

You smiled down at him, your heart fluttering at the closeness. “Thanks, Matt.”

“No problem,” he replied, his eyes locking with yours for a moment longer than necessary.

You felt a blush creep up your cheeks and quickly changed the subject. “So, how’s everything going with the team?”

He launched into a story about his latest game, and you listened intently, enjoying the sound of his voice. But you couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more between you, something intimate.

Later, as the sun began to set and you both took a break on the couch, you turned to Matt. “You know, those shelves look beautiful.” you say admiring the freshly painted shelves.

He chuckled, leaning back and stretching his arms. “That’s not the only thing beautiful here.”

“If I didn’t know any better Matt, it almost sounds like you’re flirting with me,” you teased.

Matt looked at you, his expression suddenly serious.

You felt your heart skip a beat, but before you could respond, he added softly, “I’ve been trying for years.”

You blinked, stunned by his admission. “What?”

Matt reached out, taking your hand in his. “I’ve been trying to tell you how I feel for years, but I guess I’ve never been good at it.”

Your heart swelled with love as you realized the depth of his feelings. “Matt, I…”

He squeezed your hand gently. “You don’t have to say anything. I just needed you to know.”

You took a deep breath, feeling a rush of courage. “Matt, I’ve been feeling the same way. I just didn’t know how to tell you.”

A slow smile spread across his face as he leaned in closer. “So, what do we do now?”

You smiled back, your heart pounding. “I think we start by making up for lost time.”

With that, he closed the distance between you, leaning down, his lips meeting yours in a tender, long-awaited kiss. The world seemed to fade away, leaving just the two of you, finally together after all those years.

His hands rested on your lower back your hands come up to rest on his chest, a contented smile on your lips. “I’ve been waiting for this.”

“Me too,” he whispered, his eyes shining with happiness. “Me too.”

#nhl x reader #nhl hockey #be4chywrites #matt rempe x y/n #matt rempe x reader #matt rempe

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 4 months

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1968 [Chapter 12: Aphrodite, Goddess Of Love] [Series Finale]

A/N: Surprise!!! A new chapter from Maggie?? On a Thursday?? I was just too excited to wait! Please enjoy the final installment of 1968 🥰💜

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 6k

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

The sun is rising, and all the guests have dissipated like morning stars. You and Aegon are sitting across from each other at the table in the kitchenette of your suite, cool grey morning light slanting into the silence, confetti on the floor, broken glass, crumbs from the catered appetizers—gyros, hummus, pita, mini spanakopitas, baklava—stomped into the carpet, spots that are soggy with spilled champagne. The Plaza might have to replace it. Outside, rain falls in a mist. Your makeup is smudged; your hair is falling out of its clips and pins. Aemond is waiting, standing with his back to the wall and his arms crossed over his chest, blonde hair slicked back, blue suit, prosthetic eye filling the void in his skull. You know what happens next, but you can’t bring yourself to rise, to speak, to set it into motion. You stare down at the lines in the palm of your uninjured hand and think of the ropes of a sailboat, the invisible strings of gravity that enchain the universe.

Aegon swipes at his eyes: bloodshot, vacant, continuously streaming tears. “I’m gonna go back to Yuma.”

You look up at him, startled. “Right now?”

“Right now,” Aemond agrees from the wall.

Aegon begs you in a hoarse whisper, eyes dark and glistening like the Atlantic at night: “Come with me.”

Your hands shaking, your voice splintering. “I can’t, Aegon. I can’t.”

He drums his knuckles on the table, gets up from his chair, rushes to you before Aemond can stop him. He’s holding you, his lips to your forehead, the salt of his tears on your cheeks and your lips, like the ocean is bleeding out of him, like he’ll drown you. “I’m sorry,” he says, breath catching in his throat, his pores hemorrhaging smoke, horror, rum, ruin.

Once you pushed Aegon away, hated him, stained him with your husband’s blood. Now your fingernails hook like claws into his army jacket and cling there, frantic and childlike. “Not yet, please, Aegon, don’t go, please don’t go.”

“I have to, I’m sorry.”

“Aegon, no–”

“I’m so fucking sorry.” He’s sobbing, he’s trembling, he’s gone. The doorway is empty like an unfinished sentence, like a myth no one remembers. The silence floods back into the rain-grey November air. The room is cold like a mausoleum. You touch your own face: tears Aegon left there, muscles and nerves dead beneath your skin, disbelief you sink through like the sea, waiting to hit the floor deep with the silt of rocks and wreckage and bones.

He’s gone? He’s really gone?

Aemond stalks over to the table, smirking, radiant, his hands in the pockets of his suit; he takes his time, he savors it. He’s never been higher. He was right all along. He can’t be killed, he is destined to be the president. It is God’s will. “Get ready,” Aemond says. “I have a victory speech to make.”

~~~~~~~~~~

He heads west on Route 70, billboards and drive-thrus, toll booths and reflective green mile markers, the kids fighting over who gets to pick the radio station from the back of the Dodge A-100 that Otto had hastily procured, handing over the keys as Aegon rolled his suitcase out of the Plaza Hotel. That first night they stop in Wheeling, Ohio, and the kids have startlingly little resistance to this upheaval. They can’t find much to complain about. A road trip with Dad and only Dad, no journalists badgering them for photos or quotes, no orders barked from Otto or Aemond, no exacting campaign itinerary, no scripted propriety, Mountain Dew spills on the carpet, Pizza Hut boxes on cheap springy motel mattresses.

“What do you think about all this?” Aegon asks Orion when the younger ones have dozed off: Cosmo and Thaddeus on one bed, Violeta in another, Spiro lounging across the threadbare sofa with a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring resting open on his chest.

Orion shrugs, that adolescent aversion to vulnerability, like the whole world is out to shake you down for evidence of the defections you’re so convinced define you. “It’s cool, I guess. It’s like an adventure. And we’ll get to see you a lot more.”

“Yeah you will,” Aegon promises. He feels sick: no booze, no pills, the grease of pepperoni churning in his belly. “And I’m never gonna be the way I was before.”

The bathroom is tiny and spartan, white porcelain, black specks of mildew. When he’s done showering, Aegon wipes the fog off the mirror with his fist. In Ancient Greece, a shaved head was the mark of a slave; it was meant to strip the man of his past, to make him brand new. He remembers Aemond saying this one afternoon as they were all out sailing at Asteria, Aegon sprawled on his back and drinking rum from the bottle as beams of sunlight refracted through the glass, Aemond leafing through one of his history books, Helaena throwing bits of pita to the seagulls, Daeron peering through his telescope for glimpses of dolphins, sharks, bobbing treasure from shipwrecks, imagined enemy vessels. Aegon thinks as he studies his reflection under the harsh fluorescent lights—crinkles by his eyes, skin ravaged by years of careless sunburn—that he wouldn’t mind not having a past. He opens his shaving kit and takes out the straight razor he never uses, shears off his tangled, windswept locks of blonde hair, smiles when the kids laugh and call him Yul Brynner the next morning over breakfast at the diner beside the motel, blueberry pancakes and toast wet with egg yolks. He’s not brand new; it’s impossible to be. But he’s getting closer.

The Fort Yuma Indian Reservation has grown during the Kennedy and Johnson years. The tribe now enjoys a steady income from numerous projects, including the leasing of farmland, a convenience store, a casino and resort, and an RV park. The school has been rebuilt—bigger, more modern, air conditioning, hallelujah—since Aegon was first exiled here twenty years ago, but several of the employees have familiar faces, and the current principal was once an English teacher assigned to be his mentor, a different lifetime, an ancient myth.

“You look good,” Artie says as he descends the concrete front steps on an afternoon in mid-November, 75 degrees, bright cerulean sky, no clouds. He takes Aegon’s outstretched hand and shakes it. “Kind of fat, but good. You still play guitar?”

“I do, yeah. I have one in the back of my van right now.”

Artie glances at the giggling, waving children behind the glass windows. “Jesus Pleasus, how many kids you got?”

Aegon chuckles. “Five, I think.”

“Five! Well, they’re welcome to attend here, if you want them to be where you are.”

“That’s a very generous offer. They’ve never gone to a real school before. They had private tutors in New Jersey.”

“What a great way to raise jackasses, if you ask me.” Artie gives him a stern look over, wrinkled brow, narrowed brown eyes. “You sober?”

“No pills, no drinking, occasional weed.”

“Goddamn, that’s a lot better than I expected.”

“Hey Artie?”

“Uh huh.”

“Would you happen to need a math teacher?”

Artie studies him thoughtfully. “I mean, we’re always looking for qualified math and science people. They leave the quickest, those aerospace and electronics companies over in California pay too much. Why? You know someone?”

“I used to,” Aegon says, then motions for his kids to get out of the van. Artie lets them eat ice cream in the cafeteria while Aegon signs his contract.

He’s in Yuma for three weeks before he meets a girl. Her name is Rachel, and she’s a dream that walked out of the Summer Of Love: hair down to her waist, boots to her knees, handknit vests, chipped nail polish and teasing smiles, a taste for sun and smoking. At night they sit under the stars behind Aegon’s bungalow out in the desert, roasting marshmallows and hotdogs with the kids, Aegon strumming his guitar, Rachel playing her harmonica, a few homely adopted mutts loping around instead of purebred Alopekis. She likes him, this boyish sunbeam of a man who always seems just a little lost, a little sad. She might even love him.

And yet there are ghosts, beasts, threads the fates have not yet severed. One night in January after the kids have gone to sleep, Aegon is flipping through television channels as Rachel returns to the couch with a bowl full of Jiffy Pop, plops down onto the cushions, curls up against him. Aegon stumbles upon CBS Evening News, a clip from the inauguration, and his words vanish mid-sentence, his eyes—an opaque, stormy, melancholic sort of blue—growing wide. He doesn’t change the channel. He doesn’t move at all.

“What?” Rachel asks. On the screen is a clip of President Targaryen being sworn in, his wife at his side and cradling the Bible in her hands. She’s wearing Oscar de la Renta—a powder blue wool coat that matches her husband’s tie—and a stately new hairstyle that is very distinctly inspired by Jackie Kennedy. Her smile is serene and dignified, if perhaps a bit remote. She could be a marble statue in a garden or a museum. It must be a lot of pressure for her, Rachel thinks. To live up to being the partner of a man that remarkable. “Aegon? Baby, are you okay?”

After a long time Aegon says, very softly, like it’s only to himself: “He made her cut her hair.”

Rachel stares mystified at the television and then turns back to Aegon. “What happened with her?” Something must have. He looks staggered, he looks haunted, he looks like someone Medusa turned to stone. Rachel knows about who Aegon is, of course, everyone does; but he never wants to talk about it. When people mention his family, Aegon smiles politely and then changes the subject. When they ask about his sister-in-law, he says he needs a cigarette and walks out of the room. She sent him a beautiful, shimmering gold acoustic Gibson guitar for Christmas; the first lady’s name was on the return address. To Rachel’s knowledge, Aegon never thanked her.

Aegon shakes his head, and Rachel can’t tell if that means the story is too long or too short, unrealized potential, loose kaleidoscopic strands of stardust, infinitesimal moments that wouldn’t have meaning to anyone else. “Nothing.” Then he resumes switching channels: I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, the Newlywed Game.

~~~~~~~~~~

Your parents fly north for the inauguration, so proud, so effusive, interviewed by every major news network. Business is booming at the Spongeorama Sponge Factory back in Tarpon Springs. They are seated between Alicent and Ludwika’s mother Elzbieta, newly arrived from Poland. LBJ and Lady Bird are cordial but uncharacteristically understated, retreating back to their home state of Texas like kicked dogs. All the defeated adversaries of the campaign trail attend to show their support, to wordlessly plead for a long-awaited national reconciliation. George Wallace won’t meet your eyes. Richard Nixon whispers through your hair as he clasps your scarred hand: “Aemond could never have done this without you.”

Jackie Kennedy’s chosen cause as first lady was the restoration of the White House, Lady Bird’s was environmental protection. You want to visit schools and help teach math to little kids, but Aemond decides it would be more politically expedient for you to be seen tending to wounded veterans of Vietnam; so you spend many of your days in hospitals, inhaling charred flesh and Lysol and dying flowers and blood. The Japanese ambassador bows lower to you than he does to Aemond. The prime minister of France tries (unsuccessfully) to flirt with you. Athenagoras I of Constantinople, the Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church, brings you a komboskini he has blessed. Reprieves come in slivers like a disappearing moon: lunches with Fosco–carpaccio, caprese, bolognese, polenta–and drinks with Ludwika, always something with rum, something that tastes like Aegon. You dream of incubators and arterial spray, stitches and scars and crimson bandages, the flash of blades, the thunder of bullets; but the would-be assassins go to prison and no one else ever tries. You are Persephone in the Underworld. You are Io in the wilderness.

You are just beginning to panic about what you’ll do when your tiny pink birth control pills run out when Fosco shows up to one of your lunches with a paper bag full of familiar circular packets. “I have been informed that I am to be your dealer,” he says, grinning. “I will be back with more in six months. I told the doctor they were for my mistress. I don’t even have a mistress! Isn’t this exciting? I am like a secret agent. I am the Italian James Bond. The name’s Viviani, Fosco Viviani.”

“Aegon asked you to do this?”

“Well, he did not ask, exactly. I do not think I was allowed to say no.”

You hide the paper bag in the Louis Vuitton purse Ludwika bought you, so thankful you don’t have words for it, missing Aegon like Orpheus missed Eurydice, searching through the shade-haunted grey haze of the Underworld for her.

“It was odd,” Fosco says quietly, delicately. “He did not want to know anything about you. He asked if you needed anything else that I was aware of, I said no, and then he hung up when I started to tell him about Christmas dinner.”

You remember Aegon’s words, ghosts from where Long Beach Island meets the Atlantic Ocean: Mimi wasn’t as strong as you. Maybe what Aegon didn’t say is that he isn’t either. You imagine the fates snipping threads, the memoryless oblivion offered by the River Lethe, moons becoming greater and lesser. He has to try to forget you. You have to let him.

On Valentine’s Day weekend, Daeron comes home. He and John McCain are the last two men freed from the prisoner of war camp known as the Hanoi Hilton. When he steps off the plane, Daeron is carrying with him, of all things, a single white rat in a wire cage. The first question he asks, after being engulfed in embraces from Alicent, Criston, and Fosco, is: “Where’s Aegon?” And he knows from the stilted, piecemeal explanations he receives that something has happened. You take Daeron to breakfast the next morning, and you don’t tell him everything, but you tell him enough. He spends a month recuperating at Asteria, then follows Zephyr, the god of the west wind, across the country to Arizona.

Aegon didn’t send you anything for Christmas, and he didn’t respond to the guitar you gifted him with Ludwika’s assistance. But on July 13th, a green envelope arrives in your mail basket with no return address. You open it to find a greeting card with an exuberant cow on the front. Inside, the original message—You’re mooooooving on up in the world! Happy retirement!—has been crossed out with black ink. You laugh, your first real laugh in weeks, and then read what Aegon has written in his chaotic, scribbling penmanship:

I thought this was blank :)

Hope you’re doing okay. You look great on tv.

Then there is an expanse of open white space, like a weighty hesitation. There’s no signature, but there is one final note like a postscript.

Thank you for the guitar, but please don’t send anything else. It fucks me up, you know?

Yes, you do know. Aegon never calls you, but Cosmo does. Once or twice a week he dials your private line at the White House–Aegon must have asked Fosco for it–and tells you all about his new life in Yuma, his school, his friends, the dogs, the desert. Aegon’s met someone named Rachel; Cosmo mentions her intermittently yet with unmistakable fondness: “Rachel makes the best s’mores,” “Rachel told me about seeing Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock,” “Rachel took us to pick pumpkins for Halloween.” You’re glad Cosmo calls, and you’re glad he’s happy; but afterwards you always feel so indescribably, irredeemably sad.

You sneak your pills and avoid Aemond as much as you can, something that becomes easier as he spends long hours reviewing briefs in the Oval Office, preparing speeches, meeting foreign dignitaries, strategizing with his cabinet, and scheming against his conservative foes across the nation, a faction soon led by California governor Ronald Reagan. You stand perfectly still as designers alter Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent and Givenchy to fit you like woolen armor. You strike up a chaste, harmless flirtation with a Secret Service agent from Atlanta named Nathaniel, not because he reminds you of Aegon—Nate is 6’4, 250 pounds, and a former Navy SEAL—but because he listens, because he is kind. He gives you riveting summaries of films and books that are considered too scandalous for you to be seen enjoying. He makes fun of your matronly skirt suits. He takes you to get lemon-lime Mr. Mistys at Dairy Queen. He massages your scarred hand with rose oil.

In May of 1969, Aemond voices support for university students across the nation protesting in favor of increased Black faculty and Africana Studies courses. In July, the Apollo 11 mission lands the first men on the moon, effectively ending the Space Race with an American victory. In September, Lieutenant William Calley receives a sentence of life in prison for his role in the My Lai Massacre the previous year. In November, the Rolling Stones release a new album entitled Let It Bleed. Ludwika gives you the record for Christmas along with an array of perfumes and lipsticks, all extravagantly packaged in a pink Gucci gift box. Your favorite song is Gimme Shelter. You listen to it at dusk in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, your chair facing west, taking slow drags off Lucky Strike cigarettes that Nate buys for you, embers glowing as the sun disappears.

“What’s out there?” Nate asks you one night with a slinky half-grin, and then when you don’t immediately answer: “You’re always looking that way. What are you looking for?”

You don’t know what to tell him. Nothing. Everything. Something that almost happened. And slowly, under a lavender twilight peppered with the remote glimmers of constellations—stars that cannot be changed, disasters predestined since before you were born—Nate’s smile dies, and he never asks again.

~~~~~~~~~~

Three time zones away, Aegon’s hair grows out and he gets his ears re-pierced, tiny gold hoops that make him think of wedding rings. Rachel pretends she doesn’t want to get married. Aegon doesn’t offer. Once in a while after the kids have gone to bed, he climbs into the hammock in the backyard and smokes a joint, staring absently into the east as the new Rolling Stones album spins on the record player. Aegon’s favorite song is You Can’t Always Get What You Want. Rachel stands at the telescope they set up for the kids—Cosmo’s idea—and stargazes, making her way down a checklist of visible celestial objects.

One night Aegon asks as she’s squinting through the eyepiece: “Where’s Jupiter?”

Rachel glances over at him, then points up at the indigo sky. “It’s that one, the really bright spot near Perseus. Why?”

Aegon shrugs, exhaling smoke. “No reason,” he says; but he’s still looking at Jupiter, wounded, stoned wonder floating on the surface of his watery eyes.

Daeron settles down in Yuma and buys a ranch. He does some work at the VA Hospital a few hours away in Tucson, some white water rafting on the Colorado River, some hiking in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, a whole lot of roughhousing with his niece and nephews. John McCain, now a war hero and national celebrity, is always calling to see if Daeron has decided to run for office yet. A few times a year, they receive visitors from the East Coast: Alicent, Criston, Ludwika, Helaena, Fosco, and their three children. The president and first lady are not mentioned unless by accident. The kids adore their grandmother, and she loves them back, although Alicent never learns to appreciate Tessarion the rat and refuses to hold her. In 1970, Helaena and Fosco have one last baby, a daughter they name Marina after Mimi. Life goes on, but the ghosts remain.

On a chilly evening in January of 1972, Aegon is flipping through television channels when he lands on an NBC segment about First Lady Targaryen touring the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. “That’s so fucked up,” Aegon murmurs as she calmly soothes the suffering of mutilated men, and his voice is dark with scorching, clandestine fury. He gestures to the screen with the remote control. “She hates hospitals. He makes her do things that hurt her. He does it just to prove he can.”

Rachel says as she stands in the threshold between the living room and the kitchen, a question she has finally worked up the courage to ask: “No one is ever going to be able to compare to her, right?”

Aegon opens his mouth to protest, and then closes it again. And something washes over him like waves of the ocean, sun on sand, poison in the blood and the lungs, myths that carve themselves into your bones so deep you can see the red of the marrow underneath. He replies truthfully, his eyes still on the screen: “Right.”

Rachel packs her bags. Aegon gets up to help her. He feels it’s the least he can do.

~~~~~~~~~~

When you and Aemond return to Asteria for summer vacations, the seaside Targaryen compound is full of ghosts. You catch glimpses of Mimi stumbling up staircases, Cosmo trotting after you as you turn corners, Aegon smoking a joint under the statue of Zeus in Helaena’s garden. You open cabinets and bottles of his pills fall out. You see Sunfyre bobbing abandoned in the boathouse. The basement is just as Aegon left it. Sometimes you go down there and stand on the green shag carpet in the hushed, cool, damp emptiness, not knowing what you’re waiting for, staring at the wall until someone comes to look for you.

“What’s in these?” Nate asks one afternoon, snatching a notebook off the shelf. “Oh wow, look!” He shows you messy sketches in black ink, cartoon versions of the stories of Greek gods and goddesses, myths reimagined. “Who do you think drew them?”

“Maybe Daeron,” you reply, but it wasn’t him. You’d know Aegon’s handwriting anywhere. Nate leafs through a bunch of the notebooks, booming laughter—he especially enjoys that Poseidon has been characterized as a sexually insatiable dolphin—and reading his favorite parts out loud to you. One notebook is only half-full; the last few pages are covered with drawings of tiny cows, telephones with long spiral cords, the moon in all its phases. You tear these out to keep.

On each July 13th, there is a card with no return address waiting in your mail basket at the White House, always featuring a jovial cow, always making you smile. You entrust Nate with the task of hiding the notebook pages and greeting cards away somewhere safe, an arrangement he honors like an oath.

Every so often, when you feel lethal bitterness kindling, you are struck by the inspiration to find Aemond’s Ouija board. It must be here in the White House someplace, but you can’t figure out where. You search the bedrooms, rummage through closets, climb into the oak cabinets beneath bathroom sinks; you scrabble around like a rodent under the cover of darkness while Aemond is away on state visits and campaign rallies for fellow Democrats. Maybe he makes secret stops in Tacoma or Seattle. If he does, you don’t care. You’d rather Aemond be there than here.

In the spring of 1972, you find the Ouija board in a drawer of the Resolute desk, where Aemond conducts official business in the Oval Office. “Oh, that is insane,” you say to yourself as you slide it out. You mean to burn it in your bedroom fireplace, then think again. On the back of the board, the inscription has faded, as if traced by Aemond’s fingertips again and again.

If I destroy this, what will he do to Aegon and his children? What will he do to me?

You place the Ouija board back where you found it, slide the drawer shut, and crawl into bed, besieged by dreams of smoke and rum and the rumbling bass of Season Of The Witch.

Aemond’s national approval rating hovers between 55-70%—far about the historical average, although he never stops pining for an heir and proper first family to maximize his allure—until May of 1972, when the tide begins to turn. The treaty formally ending U.S. involvement in the war was signed back in early 1969, but the hasty troop withdrawal left capitalist South Vietnam vulnerable, and now it is being invaded by the communists backed by China and Russia. The Fall of Saigon is immortalized in the evening news, printed on the covers of newspapers; people who once collaborated with the Americans are shot dead in the streets. Refugees flee west to Laos and Cambodia and Thailand, east on makeshift rafts into the ocean. The few that Aemond manages to hurriedly admit into the U.S. inspire racism and xenophobia from suburbanites. Many of the hippies have grown up, had children, gotten jobs, settled down with credit cards and mortgages. Protestors march with signs out on Pennsylvania Avenue: America abandons her allies! Our global reputation is in peril! Will the communists invade here next? What did my son die for?

“They wanted me to end it,” Aemond marvels as he gazes out the White House windows. “They begged for me to end it, and now look at them. Ungrateful imbecile bastards.”

And you give him a rare piece of advice that he listens to: “You should call LBJ.”

On his ranch fifty miles outside of Austin, Texas, Lyndon Baines Johnson is dying of heart failure. Still, he smokes more or less constantly, and refuses to adhere to the diet Lady Bird fretfully lectures their chefs about. He has grown his grey hair long and sits for as many interviews as he can, desperate to salvage his legacy and remind people of the things he did right: civil rights legislation, the War On Poverty, rising from a poor farming family to the Oval Office. He knows exactly what it feels like to be hated for having no good options. He says gruffly through the phone: “The Vietnam War needed to end, Aemond. It had to happen. But someone has to pay for it, too. That’s your job now. Take the fall, and the country survives. Plenty of people still love you. And I’m proud of you, son. I know it ain’t easy, believe me. But I’m real proud.”

Still, Aemond fights. He can’t help it. It’s all he’s ever known.

He campaigns at a murderous pace, and you have to follow him across the nation. Perhaps intentionally, there are no campaign stops in Arizona. Aemond does very well, but Ronald Reagan does better; he’s quick and he’s cutting, but he’s also funny, and grandfatherly, and warm, and God knows the American people could use some of that after the past decade. He characterizes Aemond’s policy regarding Vietnam as “peace without honor.” He calls Aemond short-sighted about a dozen times, a jab his supporters guffaw at. He says the United States has surrendered its rightful place as the leader of the free world. His wife Nancy—his second wife—is vehemently opposed to recreational drugs and other supposed moral crimes including abortion and premarital sex. You hate her, and she hates you right back, though in a perfectly pleasant, ever-smiling, mid-century housewife sort of way. Reagan’s disciples call you a whore. Aemond gets the newspapers still loyal to him to publish scathing denials. You aren’t exactly sure why he does this; no comment at all would almost certainly be wiser politically, as Otto advises. But Aemond does it anyway, with deep trenches of violent determination knit into his scarred brow.

The 1972 presidential election is held on Tuesday, November 7th. It is not until the early hours of the morning on Wednesday the 8th that Aemond learns he has narrowly lost. It couldn’t possibly be construed as your fault; he wins Florida by a greater margin than he had in 1968. As the sun rises in a bright, cloudless sky, Aemond’s entourage clears out of the Lincoln Sitting Room, leaving the two of you alone with the droning television. Aemond is sipping an Old Fashioned on one end of the couch. You light yourself a Lucky Strike cigarette on the other. For once, Aemond doesn’t seem to mind.

“You know,” Aemond muses after a while. “Ronald Reagan is divorced.”

Your heart is racing; you aren’t sure what he’s offering. You’re petrified to say the wrong thing and change his mind. “Yeah, he is.”

Aemond nods, twirling his Old Fashioned so the ice cubes clink against the misty glass, not looking at you. “I think I’ll marry Alys and adopt the boy.”

And that’s how you learn that what Aegon said in the doorway of a hospital room four and half years ago was true, no impassioned declarations, no gratitude, only grudges that have grown quiet and cold and dormant. At last, Aemond is done with you.

~~~~~~~~~~

Otto, glowering spitefully, getaway car procurement extraordinaire, hands you the keys to a green Chevy Nova. On the front steps of the White House, you say goodbye to a palpably heartbroken Nate. He gives you the notebook pages and greetings cards. You give him a kiss on the cheek, a parting stain of red lipstick. But instead of blood, the color makes you think of cherry-flavored Mr. Mistys, the Lucky Strike logo, roses, sunburn, firelight, the rust-hued earth of the desert. You duck into the Nova and start driving.

The East Coast unfolds into the Midwest and then turns jagged as you hit the Rocky Mountains. At a gas station in Albuquerque, New Mexico, you toss your remaining birth control pills—still squirreled away in a box of hollowed-out tampons—into a trash bin. At a McDonald’s in Asher, Arizona, just forty minutes outside of Yuma, you stop to get a large Coca-Cola and touch up your makeup in the bathroom mirror: black eyeliner, gold shadow, both as heavy as you want them to be. You stroll back to your Nova under a radiant November sky that feels like summer, smiling to yourself. The hem of your roomy, floral skirt billows around your brown leather boots in the desert wind. Your earrings are small, glinting gold hoops. Your white tank top is simple and hand-crocheted, found at a yard sale in Amarillo, Texas; but your sunglasses are Bugatti, a gift from Ludwika.

You park outside the only school on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation and go inside to the front office. The secretary says distractedly: “Can I help you, ma’am?” Then she does a double take. “Oh, I’m sorry, dear, do I…do I know you from somewhere…?”

“You might,” you say, pushing your sunglasses up into your hair. It’s only shoulder-length now, but growing, and wild from the wind. “I was hoping to find Mr. Targaryen, does he still work here?”

“He sure does, but he doesn’t like anyone calling him that.”

Of course he wouldn’t. “Just Aegon then. Which classroom is…?”

But before you can finish your question, and before she can answer, you hear echoing through the labyrinthian hallways the start of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising, not just an acoustic guitar but bass and drums too.

“I see the bad moon a-risin’

I see trouble on the way

I see earthquakes and lightnin’

I see bad times today

Don’t go around tonight

Well it’s bound to take your life

There’s a bad moon on the rise.”

The secretary laughs, keeping rhythm with taps of her pencil on her desk. “I guess you can find him on your own, can’t ya?”

Yes, you can. You follow the music through long empty corridors, wondering where all the students are. You drag your fingertips—black polish, chipped around the edges—along grooves in the cinder block walls that have been painted over with vibrant murals. The song is getting louder, and now you hear other noises too, an ocean of energetic voices and squealing chairs.

“I hear hurricanes a-blowin’

I know the end is comin’ soon

I fear rivers over flowin’

I hear the voice of rage and ruin

Don’t go around tonight

Well it’s bound to take your life

There’s a bad moon on the rise, alright!”

You step into the cafeteria, raucous with students swapping pudding cups and bags of chips. Many of them are watching the stage, clapping along, playing their own imaginary guitars. Aegon is there strumming the sparkling gold guitar you sent him for Christmas back in 1968. He hasn’t seen you yet; he’s grinning at the kids up on the stage with him—his fellow bandmates, his fledgling rockstars—and leaning back from the mic to give them pointers. But Cosmo has. He flies out of his seat and crashes into you, now nearly ten years old, long blonde hair, a Rolling Stones t-shirt.

“You’re back!” he bellows over the music as you hug him. Teachers chatting amongst themselves by the wall give you curious glances.

“Yeah, kiddo. I am.”

“For a visit?”

“Maybe for a little longer than that.”

“Yay!” he shouts, jumping up and down.

You look back to Aegon, and now his eyes catch on yours: instantaneous recognition, disbelief, amazement. He’s just like you remember him; he’s just like he is in your dreams. You raise an eyebrow and wave tentatively. His own words surface in your skull like swimming up through cool, sunlit water: What are we gonna do about it? And Aegon smiles, the god of light, music, healing, truth.

Now his tiny bandmates are yelling at him, irate. He’s still plucking at his guitar on autopilot, but he’s missed his cue to sing the last verse. He shakes off his astonishment and continues, beaming, watching you.

“Hope you got your things together

Hope you are quite prepared to die

Looks like we’re in for nasty weather

One eye is taken for an eye

Well don’t go around tonight

Well it’s bound to take your life

There’s a bad moon on the rise.”

Cosmo sprints back to his lunch to stop a friend from seizing his unguarded Ding Dongs.

“Don’t come around tonight

Well it’s bound to take your life

There’s a bad moon on the rise.”

Aegon gives his guitar a final few strums as the cafeteria erupts into cheers and applause. His bandmates bow to their audience as Aegon takes off his guitar, leaps down from the stage, runs to you as children twist in their seats to stare. He’s wearing khaki shorts, tan moccasins, a half-unbuttoned white shirt that actually fits him, dog tags with Daeron’s name on them. He’s so afraid to ask the question; he’s terrified you won’t say the right answer. “Io…what the hell are you doing here?”

You shrug, casual, teasing. “Didn’t like where I was. Thought I’d try someplace new.”

He touches your face to make sure you’re real, marveling at you, his voice going hushed. “We’ve lost so much time.”

“Don’t worry. Your life’s only half over.”

Aegon laughs, eyes shining. “I’m really, really looking forward to the rest of it.”

You can feel the smile on his lips as he kisses you; you can hear a quiet, kind melody that fills the universe, the sound of all the chains of gravity breaking and moons drifting free from their planets.

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