Pipe Dream
“Goddamn it!” Neil shouted, his anger barely held back. He couldn’t hate himself more, Andrew and he had gotten into yet another argument, more of a screaming match and then next thing Neil knew, Andrew had walked out of the door, slamming it.
It was the same argument over and over again, something along the lines of Andrew telling Neil to move on, that they wouldn’t have a future. Neil had never been so confused, so angry to why Andrew would just give them up. After everything they had been through, going as far as buying a house together.
“Neil?” Kevin came out of the guest room, rubbing sleep from his bloodshot eyes.
Some of Neil’s bone deep anger and hatred dissipated, “Kevin, I’m sorry, go back to sleep.” Neil would go out and find Andrew himself and apologise, for what he didn’t know yet but he would fix them and they would be happy and together again.
Kevin tried to fight the sleep pulling him, “Neil-“ but a yawn cut him off and Neil was out of the door before Kevin could say anything else.
As Neil anticipated, Andrew’s Maserati was already gone, getting into Kevin’s car, Neil drove on and on. Night bleeds away to day and in the glaring day, Neil could only hope that Andrew had went back home. Stopping by the store to get Andrew’s favourite ice cream, he got back home and Andrew still hadn’t come back.
With trembling hands, Neil went to put the ice cream into the freezer before they melt and frowned when he found the freezer already overflowing with ice cream. Squeezing the pints in, Neil closed the freezer, leaving the mess for Andrew to deal with. If it fell on Andrew then it fell on Andrew, gravity was inevitable.
Andrew wouldn’t not come back right? They fight all the time, about Neil’s runnings in the morning and his obsessive with exy, Andrew’s pissed poor diet and the fucking messes he leaves everywhere, cloths thrown away everywhere except the laundry basket. They rarely actually fight, but they always talked it out in the end and Andrew always comes back. Always.
The front door opened and Neil looked up, apology at his lips, they vanished when it was Kevin instead. “Neil, you are back, you didn’t answer your phone.” The relief on Kevin’s face made Neil felt slightly guilty.
“I’m sorry Kevin, have you heard from Andrew? He still hasn’t come back yet.” Kevin came over and wrapped his arms around Neil tightly. It did make Neil feel slightly better but it wasn’t the same as Andrew’s arms around him.
“Neil did you not take the medicine?” Kevin said softly, still holding Neil, as if Neil would disappear and run off any time.
“What?” Neil froze, everything in him screamed to run run run. Kevin squeeze him even tighter, almost cutting off his air, or it was Neil who stopped breathing and felt his entire world caging in on him.
“You have to take these,” Kevin took out some pills from his pocket and producing a bottle of water out of nowhere, or did Kevin leave to go to the kitchen? Neil couldn’t tell if it was Kevin’s arms around him anymore or it was the world strangling him.
“Not until Andrew’s back.” Andrew would make everything make sense again. Kevin wouldn’t be so sad and tired anymore when Andrew comes back. Andrew will come back.
“Neil,” the way Kevin’s voice broke made Neil to actually finally look at him, “Andrew is not coming back.”
Just five more steps and Neil would be out of here, then a few more and he would make it to the car. There was still half a tank of gas so Neil could just drive to the nearest gas station and then he can go find Andrew and apologise. It was Andrew that asked him to stay at the first place, he wouldn’t just leave him like this.
But Kevin had said it with so much finality that Neil felt that the fight really was the last straw, “What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing Neil,” Kevin was crying now.
“Then why did he leave me?” Maybe it was the Moriyammas, Neil had to find his binder, he had to find the right contacts and he had to get back Andrew no matter what.
“Neil, he’s dead.” Dead silence. Except for Kevin’s silent tears, and someone was screaming. Neil was the one screaming. Why couldn’t Neil run? Kevin’s arms were around him and they were still tightening their hold and they were suffocating him.
“It had been a month, you two were fighting and then An-he left and you got into the car with him and you guys were driving way over the speed limit and then, there was, then, he, it was raining so hard, there was, there, a drunk driver, he-“ Kevin could barely get the words out and somehow both of them sunk onto the floor.
“Why am I still here?” It should have been Neil, he was never meant to live past 19, let alone 26. Neil didn’t deserve to live.
“He, he turned when he saw, saw the headlights and and he took, th-the blunt of it and-“ Kevin was wrong, Kevin was just making things up because Andrew didn’t want to be with Neil anymore.
“I was just arguing with Andrew, he was he had just been right there.”
“The doctor said the hallucinations and denial was due to the head trauma and concussions you had, you have to eat the medicine but each time you, each time you, refused to eat them, to-“
“To what?”
“See him.”
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the sheer and complete lack of awareness I consistently find of orientalism/anti-MENA racism in tolkien is ….. exhausting and heartbreaking
and it’s not anyones fault necessarily speaking theres just a general lack of awareness of orientalism in the west I think
i mean I’d hope people at least recognize all the BS and violent caricatures with the easterlings and the loaded East-West associations throughout?
but like .. yes numenor is coded as MENA-inspired…. and it falls in line with racist, colonialist caricatures of the East
(as a very brief intro: orientalism being the idea that “the East” is full of once-great empires fallen to corruption and cultural/moral degradation and therefore OK to destroy/colonize to make better)
if folks are interested here is a pretty detailed analysis of orientalism with numenor and an explanation of its MENA coding, from classical orientalism carryover from its inspirations from Atlantis to orientalist “Egyptian” death cult imagery to the contemporary orientalism that was prevalent around Tolkien’s era as well (if the link doesn’t work, it’s called “Westwards, Utopia; Eastwards, Decline: The Reception of Classical Occidentalism and Orientalism in Tolkien's Atlantic Paradise” by Hamish Williams - if anyone needs I can also send along a PDF)
if anyone wants resources on orientalism and how to recognize it, the canonical text “orientalism” by Edward Said is a really good start, but there’s more accessible explanations of orientalism online out there as well
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