#black gene for the next scene
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[ 20150519 ]
#Black Gene For the Next Scene#NEGA#ネガ#SAN#Angelic Pretty#Castle Mirage JSK#チェキ#scan & edit: 6-3-2=9-6-2=12-9-2=13-7-6
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🧊
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Propaganda
Cyd Charisse (The Bandwagon, Brigadoon, Singin’ in the Rain)—LEGS LEGS LEGS I would sell my soul for the legs of Cyd Charisse - she oozed style and glamour and sex appeal!! And she could DANCE! She was dancing next to the greats - Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire but they are never who you're looking at because why would you when you can look at her. I will only sit through too long ballet breaks for her. If there was any woman who you could call sex on legs it was her. These dances are everything to meeee (she comes in at the minute mark) and this dance too of course is iconic. In the words of Fred Astaire 'When you've danced with Cyd Charisse you stay danced with'
Mbissine Thérèse Diop (Black Girl)—She’s a Senegalese actress known for starring in Black Girl, one of the first African films to receive international attention/acclaim. So much of the movie relies on her ability to convey her character’s sense of isolation/loneliness, she’s so amazing, I really wish she had acted more. However, she just recently appeared in the film Cuties!
This is round 4 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.
[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]
Cyd Charisse:
Arguably the Best female dancer of her time, she supposedly insured her legs for $5 million dollars. Stole the show whenever she had a dance number, even if she went uncredited. Musicals started to go out of fashion so unfortunately she didn't have as many big roles as she should have, but those she did are unforgettable. The Broadway Melody number in Singin' in the Rain - the green dress!
Incredibly, Cyd Charisse only started learning to dance as a rehab exercise to strengthen her body after a childhood bout of polio. She was in high demand as a dance partner, Fred Astaire called her beautiful dynamite and said "When you've danced with her, you stayed danced with". She was one of a few leading ladies to dance with both Astaire and Kelly, declaring them both delicious. Kelly apparently was stronger, while Astaire was more coordinated. She also said her husband would always know who she had been dancing with because Kelly left her bruised, while Astaire didn't leave a mark. She's better known for her dance numbers today, but she was a leading lady in her time! Her Scottish accent in Brigadoon leaves a lot to be desired, but compared to the other actors in the movie, it's almost good. She appeared in The Harvey Girls alongside Judy Garland and Angela Lansbury in her first speaking role, but she really burst onto the scene with Singin' in the Rain and her infamous Broadway Melody Ballet number with Gene Kelly (no one could handle a length of fabric like Cyd Charisse). She was brought in because Debbie Reynolds wasn't really a dancer and Kelly was notoriously a stickler about his Vision. After that she starred opposite Astaire in The Band Wagon, which was a bit of a flop but created some enduringly incredible dance numbers. She went on to star in a number of MGM movies, and was one of the last of the Studio era stars to remain on contract. Since we've got up to 1970, I'm including her opening routine in The Silencers (1966) to show just how long she was making a splash - she's into her 40s here and still a siren:
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and of course, the iconic Broadway Melody Ballet -
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She had amazing legs, and she knew how to use them! You probably know her best from the dream sequence in Singin' In The Rain. She was such a stunning dancer, and all her dance scenes are hard to look away from.
Legs for days, beautiful dancer in the most iconic scenes of Singin in the Rain. She's glorious. As some guys sung to her in It's Always fair weather, 'baby you knock me out!'
Photos do not do Cyd Charisse justice, unfortunately, because she is at her hottest while dancing, which she was exquisitely good at. Just go watch her first number in Singin' in the Rain, in that green dress; nothing I could say here will be more convincing that that.
Dancing in the Dark clip:
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She's an amazing dancer and my favorite from the period. Here's her and Fred Astaire in the Band Wagon:
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I just like a woman who's there to be really incredibly good at dancing.
She could pirouette in pointes or tear it up in taps. Fred Astaire called her "beautiful dynamite" and wrote, "That Cyd! When you've danced with her you stay danced with." Gene Kelly partnered with her three times. Her legs were (reportedly) insured for $5 million in 1952 ($57.8 million in 2024 dollars)! Everyone in this poll will be iconic, but for raw physical grace, Cyd is up there with the best.
One of the most talented female dancers in Hollywood history, but what sets her apart from other competitors for that title is that she...umm...well let's be blunt, she was the dancer who put sex into it. The one who said "Hey, you know that A+ leg tone that naturally develops from doing this for a living? Why don't I let people see that? Like at every opportunity?" She reportedly insured her legs for five million dollars after hitting it big, which just goes to show that fame makes you crazy. It should have been ten million.
Mbissine Thérèse Diop:
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Sharp Edged Pleasure
One shot | Once Upon a Time Masterlist | Masterlists
Fandom: Once Upon a Time
Pairing: Dark!Swan x Fem!Reader
Genre: Angst and Smut
Words: 4.3k+
Warnings: G!p Emma (conjured), top!DarkSwan, bottom!reader, knife play (don’t talk to me about this), swearing, degradation, light bondage (rope), edging, spanking, asphyxiation (a tiny smidge maybe...), I don't know what the warning is for getting banged with a foreign object but that too.
Summary: You and Emma had been seeing each other for a little before the events in Camelot took place. Seeing her as the dark one was a shock but what came next was even more unexpected.
A/n: You know ‘We don’t talk about Bruno’? Same rules apply here.
Electrical lines sparked by the open door of Granny’s, shocking you back into your body. Everyone’s eyes, including your own, darted in the direction of the crackling’s origin. Moving to the side, unable to see past the few bodies present in the room, you had a clearer view of the doorway and your eyes fell on her. Emma.
But this was not the Emma you knew.
“Mom?” Henry called out from somewhere behind you, “What happened to you?”
Something had happened. Something other than just a change in aesthetic. Long gone were the Charming genes that shone a cheeky glimmer in jade irises, lying in their wake were two stony, unreeling, unforgiving eyes; eyes that were piercing right into you. Her moonlight hair was pinned back into a tight bun, cheekbones protruding outwards, sharper than when you had last seen them, and you wondered, for a moment, what it would feel like to run your fingers along the sculpted curvatures.
It felt both like an eternity and only a day since you had last felt Emma’s touch, you missed her, the real her. Not whoever stood before you.
“Isn’t it obvious?” she began, walking forwards and lightly brushing her slender fingers along Snow’s cheek. The pixie-haired brunette shivered in response. Her hands seemed rougher and colder, “You went to Camelot to get the darkness out of me. And you failed.” her voice echoed the same change.
Her tone was uninterested. She spoke as though everyone in the room was beneath her, undeserving of her time and energy. It had the hairs of your arm standing on edge. The switch from the gentle saviour you once knew to the dark creature in front of you was downright petrifying.
Fright merged with a new foreign feeling, something resembling lust, but different - by comparison - to past events. Events that led to nights filled with cries of gratitude, and endless ecstasy, ending in tangled limbs, and gentle caresses. A concoction of past and present longing, mixed with spurring images, submerged you fully, anchoring you down into the depth of hidden sexual fantasies. Drunk on memories, fuelled only by desire, you noticed there was something enticing about the new air of authority Emma held, her presence was intoxicating, drawing you in for the kill.
However, it was Sneezy who bore the brunt of her wrath, smashed to smithereens. He was nothing to her. Nobody was. And that alone should have sent you running scared, instead, it had the opposite effect. The growing desire intensified, bubbling far too close to the surface. If everyone’s attention wasn’t glued to the scene unfolding in front of them, and they gandered a look your way, they would have noticed the slight change in your stance.
Bare thighs squeezed together under your medieval gown, the wet material of your underwear pushed directly onto your wet centre, forcing you to feel just how worked up Emma had gotten you, even if it was by doing nothing other than omitting her dark presence in a room full of hopeful souls.
The air around her reeked of the very evil she once sought to vanquish as she stood tall in tight black leather, clutching at her dagger, haphazardly showing the crowd the name etched onto it. Emma Swan.
“Nobody’s going to touch this dagger but me.” The object in question fogging over on both sides, wedged between Emma and Regina, “Now for what you all did to me, you’re about to be punished.”
‘Punished’, oh how that word touched a special nerve, that you didn’t know existed, in your body. It wasn't supposed to, you knew that as you tried to fight against every filthy thought occupying your mind.
Distractions needed to be set aside. This wasn’t Emma, your focus needed to be on getting her back. You had to say something, anything.
“Emma, why are you doing this?” It didn’t come out in the way you wanted it to, it was small and timid, nevertheless, she heard. You knew she had as she strode over to you, face barely an inch away. There was no hiding from the heavy atmosphere in the room, gravity worked against you to the point you felt your knees giving out under Emma’s menacing animalistic stare.
“Because I’m the dark one.”
You could only stare at this new version of the saviour as she vanished into a haze of black fog that was once white, filled only with pure light magic, now poisoned.
When the smoke disappeared, you expected to be greeted with the shocked faces of friends and family. Instead, Emma stood right before you once again. Only now she looked taller, stronger, and more powerful. A sinful smile - that was all Dark one - adorned her blood-red lips, lips you were desperate to feel against you. Her hair was loose, free from the restraints of a hair tie, the ashy white waves flowed over her shoulders, down past her scapulae, stopping just above her slender leather-clad waist.
A makeshift trap in the form of her stare stopped you from noticing exactly where you were. But as your eyes raked down Emma’s body the end of the bed made an appearance just above her knees. The realization jerked you into an upright position. Discovering your hands bound in rope - wrapped around your wrists almost tight enough to stop blood flow - you could only cower away, shifting your hips back until you were pressed against the headboard, knees brought up to your chest.
Bare and bound. This was how the Dark One wanted you.
Emma didn’t move, her hands were laced behind her back as she smirked down at your naked form on the bed. Her bed. The sight of you completely at her mercy ate away at her inner desires, or better yet her inner demons. All the darkness that was once kept at bay roared to life and there was only one person she had any intentions of exercising her fantasies with.
Bringing her dagger around from behind her back, she inspected the blade, holding it in one hand and running a nimble finger over the sharp edges with the other, “I said you were about to be punished, didn’t I?”
How could this have happened? Why couldn’t you remember Camelot? Questions had to be answered. There was so much to be discussed but already you were capitulating to this cat-and-mouse game she had you playing. It was captivating, refusing any logical thoughts the space to blossom into something more than mere notions of acquiring the truth.
A scarlet hue ran over the tip of Emma’s finger, catching your eye. The small droplet grew in size, goading your pulse to quicken at what seemed to be a tactical display of one of the blade’s many uses.
“Emma, please. I don’t remember anything. What did we do?”
Unamused by the topic of choice, the smirk that adorned her ruby lips faded and was replaced with a scowl and eyes shooting daggers that felt sharper than the one in her hand. She waved it over her injured finger and instantly the cut was clean and healed like it had never happened at all. Of course, it did. Emma had just obtained the power to remedy any mishap with the wave of her hand, and you couldn't help but think what ‘mishaps’ would occur in her company.
She looked back up, meeting your gaze with a blank stare, “Do you know what I’m going to do to you?” she asked sternly with a raised brow.
A shake of your head was all you could manage. Plaguing your mind was a myriad of worrying thoughts. Emma was still inside, she wouldn’t - no - she couldn’t truly hurt you, you knew that, but as the fear grew within you; the shaking started, your skin burned rosier than moments before, Emma’s smirk reappeared, and you no longer knew where she stopped and the Dark One began.
“I’m going to fuck you.” If the look in her eyes - determination, sureness, and resolve - was anything to go by, circumstances be damned, what she wanted would come to pass. An odd trickle of relief washed over your body. It wasn’t exactly what you wanted; it also wasn’t not what you wanted. You searched her eyes, looking for the woman you knew; the kind, caring, funny woman you fell in love with. Would she be the one to touch you, hold you? It was too good to be true, there was always a twist, “Not like before, this time I’m not going to stop, not until I hear you sobbing, then I’m going to stuff that pretty mouth of yours and fuck you senseless.”
Dirty talk wasn’t Emma’s go-to, the few times you’d been together, she leaned more toward praise than belittling. Not that you minded. Who doesn’t enjoy being complimented amidst the thralls of passion? Hearing her speak in such a way, the vulgarity coming from her should have sent you into fight or flight, have you begging for mercy. Except, the words echoed in your ears, bounced around your body, stopping your breath in your throat, burning a path to the pit of your stomach until you couldn’t ignore the pang of wanting to come from between your legs at the very thought of Emma, no - not Emma - the Dark One, using you in any, and every, way she wanted.
The game had begun. Your body had said yes, whether the words came from your own mouth didn’t matter, she had sensed it too, eyes darting to the darkened patch on her bed sheets beneath you. Oh the shame you felt at your body betraying you, giving her exactly what she wanted. The tinted darkness in her jade eyes morphed into a look of pure lust and desire, the orbs darkened black as she climbed onto the bed, dagger in hand.
“Put your legs down,” she coolly demanded.
Everything was happening too fast, there was little time to process the command before Emma yanked your legs back down, hard, pulling you until you lay flat on the bed again.
“Emma, please. What happened in Camelot?” you urged, desperate for more information, to know something, anything, of what had happened.
There was a flicker of what looked, almost, like humanity in Emma’s green eyes, a breakthrough, finally.
“Stop asking questions.” her voice was harsh, the flicker gone.
Her knees, on either side of your body, padded forward on the mattress, stopping when her pelvis rested above your own. The close contact, feeling her heat pulse in beat with your own, caused the ache between your thighs to intensify, your heart to pound harder against your chest. If it weren’t for the rope around your wrists, you’d be pulling her down, ripping her clothes away, and running your hands all over her. But even so, you were not in charge here, that much was becoming abundantly clear.
The sharp point of her dagger drew close to your chest, both you and Emma watching it move nearer and nearer skin. Darting your eyes from the dagger and back to Emma, there was no ‘in’ to her hardened exterior, no visible doors leading to a hopeful ending where you’d be able to pry the truth from her and spend the remainder of the night wrapped in her arms.
“Are you going to behave?” she asked, the warning of what would happen if you didn’t behave outwardly mocking you, dagger now ghosting over the valley of your breasts, dangerously close to skin.
“Yes.” You shakily breathed, fighting off the urge to wriggle away from the threatening blade.
The cold metal pressed against the cove of your chest, sending shivers down your spine, “Yes what?”
Breaking skin on its downward trajectory, the dagger slid downwards, leaving behind a bright scarlet line painted with forming droplets of blood, “Yes, I’m going to behave.” You choked out through gritted teeth.
“Good girl.”
The space between your legs was filled with her free hand, two fingers brushing through the pool of moisture that had gathered within the last few minutes, minutes that felt like they were stretching out for an eternity. The need for more quickly mounted; without meaning to, seeking out more than Emma was giving, you began to grind against her fingers.
Her laugh echoed through the room, “You’re pathetic.” She snarled, pulling her fingers away, “Did I say you could do that?”
The blade continued to drift along your abdomen, etching another crimson line along the surface of your skin. You could almost taste the blood on your tongue, metallic and sharp. Not wanting to make a sound you held onto the tortured flesh between your teeth - realizing only later, it was your bottom lip that was delivering, what you thought to be, the phantom taste of blood - relying on it to silence all the agonizing screams that were surfacing and being held within your throat. Another wave of pain coursed through your veins, the whole of your upper body stung, crisp air nibbling away at gashes. “No, you didn’t.”
“No. I didn’t.” She turned the dagger, the flat of it resting low on your stomach. Bringing it up, a quiet groan rumbled in your throat when she slapped it back down against a fresh cut. Red now danced in the engraving, sinking deeper and deeper into the ridges of her name. “For that, you don’t get this.”
Your vision went black, a blindfold appearing over your eyes. All other senses suddenly heightened. Hints of oak, vanilla, and - oh god, of course - cinnamon. You could hear the squeak of her jacket sleeves, the bed sheets rustling under her slight movements, the feel of the bed dip by the side of your legs as Emma padded backward on the mattress.
The sound of crinkling broke through the eerie silence, and you could have screamed in frustration not being able to see what was happening. Of course, you still felt her presence, only it was further away, knees seemingly on either side of your shins, leaving little room to ponder on what all the fidgeting was leading up to. Her finger wrapped around the back of your knees, hoisting them up till the soles of your feet were pressed onto the bed, and your legs were spread open.
“Emma, what are you-” Something hard and cold slipped into you, forcing you to take a sharp breath in, though it did nothing to relieve you, “Oh fuck.”
There was no time to think between the dagger handle entering you and the start of what could only be described as brutal pumping - hard, quick, and bordering on painful. It was embarrassing how close you already were, the build-up to this moment seemed to have you tittering on the edge before it had even started.
You knew it was wrong. You wished you wanted it to stop. But you didn’t. It was sickening how good it felt and you would have fallen into a shame spiral had it not been for the undulating sound of blood pulsing through your ears, the quickening of your breathing, and the constant stimulation coming from being rapidly fucked into a state of mind-numbing bliss.
Emma’s hand came to rest on your stomach, pushing you down, stopping your hips from buckling off the mattress. Pain licked every nerve ending in your body, her hand resting on mutilated flesh, delivering you that final push. Just a few more thrusts and you’d unravel.
Thrusts that never came.
Emma kept a trained eye on you, watching your chest rise and fall faster and faster, admiring your swollen wrists grapple harder and harder against the rope, and just when she saw you barrelling into what would have been a powerful orgasm, she stopped.
“You really thought I’d let you cum?” She snickered, pulling out with painstaking slowness. “We’ve only just begun.”
A small whimper left your parted lips feeling how raw the ridged makeshift toy had left you. The logical part of your brain was screaming out, telling you to put an end to this - as if you had the option - beg her to untie you, heal you, and explain how things had gone so wrong. Logic, however, had no place making demands, not when rough fingers wrapped around your neck, squeezing until you were too light-headed to produce even one intelligible thought.
“I asked you a question.”
A switch flipped within you, whether it was from the lack of oxygen, the need for more, or the love you had for Emma, wanting to keep her close for as long as possible, you didn’t care. All you cared about was pleasing her, being her good little girl.
“Yes, I thought you’d let me.” she dug her fingernails into your neck, airways so restricted you were fighting to speak, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have expected anything. God Emma, I just, I want you. I need you.”
Vision taken away from you, you couldn’t see the reaction on her face, yet somehow, you felt it. Her grip on you loosened, allowing air to flow back into your lungs, the dagger was dropped somewhere on the floor, metal clanking against polished hardwood until it finally settled. A quiet fell over the room and you embraced it with open arms. Happy to just feel Emma’s body lean over your own.
The familiar sound of magic drifted to your ears. A warm tingling homed in on your stomach. The cuts: they were becoming less painful.
“Emma, wait.” She paused, the injured portion of your skin only half healed, “I want to keep them, even if it’s just one scar.”
Nerve wracked you’d overstepped and disobeyed her in some way, you opened your mouth to apologise, but the words never made it out before Emma’s lips came crashing down on yours. For the first time that evening, you truly lost yourself, not in the thralls of passion, or chasing a high, but in the familiarity of Emma’s lips. They were soft, gentle, she poured so much emotion into one single kiss that if there had been a curse, you were certain it would have broken it.
She pulled the blindfold off, moving back so her face rested just an inch from your own. Gaze fixed on Emma you saw the pain guttered in her eyes, the anguish coming from everything she was fighting to bury. There was an internal war taking place, so much conflict swirled around in her mind, the voices of all the previous Dark Ones screaming so loud they were practically audible to you too.
“I can take it.” This, you decided, was how you would help her. There was no doubt about it, the darkness lying within her had to be set free somehow, and if it was between Emma hurting someone - which she’d never forgive herself for - or this. You’d decide for her. “Use me Emma.”
Her tongue slithered into your mouth, not bothering with any pre-emptive, because you both knew, this was exactly what you wanted and what she needed.
It was the feel of her skin, soft and smooth - a contrast to her previous attire that was now nowhere to be seen - that brought back an influx of precious memories.
The night when she’d only just come to know your body, exploring it as though humanity depended on her finding and marking your sweet spots, every single one of them. The morning she’d cooked breakfast, refusing to let you do anything other than, in her words, enjoy the domestic side of Emma. The late-night visit you'd paid her at the Sheriff's station when no one was around to see her remind you of all the ways she knew your body as no one else had ever bothered to learn.
“Turn around.” She mumbled into the kiss. It was an instruction she carried out herself, hands falling to the curve of your hip bones and flipping you around. The rope fell from the headboard and slipped down the back of the bed. Which left your hands free, finally able - you hoped - to feel the new Emma. Hands braced by the side of your face, you waited for what she had in store.
And that’s when you felt it.
She teased your entrance with the tip of her cock, circling the tight hole but never pushing in. At first, it came as a shock. Then slowly the excitement began to build. The tip alone, you could feel, was big. Bigger than anything you had ever taken, though that didn’t stop you from wanting to. Desperate to feel her inside you, every inch of her, you shifted back. Never had you felt power of this magnitude radiate from her. It was ravenous and so were you, she wanted to take, and you wanted to give. It should have worked. But Emma was not one for playing fair.
Instantly she withdrew, the close contact you ached for snatched away. You wanted to protest, shout, scream. She already had so much power over you, and doing any of those things would be serving yourself up to her. A piercing pain jolted through your whole body, hips jerking away from the hand that had just delivered a harsh slap to your ass.
“You’re impatient.” Her hand came down once again, the next blow to your tender flash harder, prying a small cry out of you, “What do you say?”
“I-I’m sorry.”
“You like this don’t you?” The question seductively slid off her tongue. She answered it herself by bringing two fingers between your legs, running them through your lower lips, “You’re dripping wet. From what? Me being cruel. Tut tut. You are a filthy one, aren’t you?”
It was useless denying it, your body had, for the god knows what time that evening, betrayed you again.
“Yes.” You whispered into the sheets beneath you. Begging them to grip onto the words, bury the single syllable of shame in their soft fabric and never let them reach Emma; because you didn’t want her to know. You didn’t want anyone to know you were enjoying every waking second of this.
“Good. It’s going to make this a lot easier.” She smirked. One hand gripped your hip, the other making steady work of getting Emma in place.
With one forward motion, she pushed in, slow, half as painful as you thought it would be, and suspiciously gentle. That, you knew, would surely not last. Your walls tensed at the intrusion, slowly relaxing around her hardened flesh and allowing it to slide out to the tip again, then push back in with the same slowness.
She kept up this tortuous rhythm until you felt your head might burst from all the stimulation that seemed like it had no clear end.
“Emma please.” You whined. Regret instantly followed when she abruptly pulled out.
With ease, she flipped you back around, snatching your wrists and pushing them into the bed above your head. With no hesitation, she slammed back in - using none of the gentleness she previously graced you with - and was met only with your cried-out whimpers.
Seeing her on top of you, there was so much determination in her eyes, but something else too. Given the circumstances, you couldn’t tell, not when she was filling you repeatedly, leaving barely anytime to breathe let alone think. So, you let yourself believe it was a mirage, a trick of the light, not, in fact, the glimmer of true love.
The bed shook, scrapping against the floorboards with each full force thrust that were coming fast and hard. All you could hear were your own cries of appreciation mixed with Emma’s heavy breathing and the sounds of her thighs repeatedly slapping against your ass. The ridged veins of her shaft offered the perfect friction, sliding along your g spot and delivering waves of pleasure that had you gasping and writhing beneath her slick body as she continued pistoning in and out of your wet sex.
“Shit, Emma, I think I’m going to-”
It felt like the ground beneath you fell in, swallowing you whole until you were nothing but a mere watcher in the expanse of the universe, locked onto witnessing this moment for an eternity. The evil swarmed your two merged bodies, ventricles of black ink daring to penetrate the intimate bubble you’d created. You saw the inner battle, Emma fighting the darkness, protecting you from its insatiable appetite to devour and destroy.
It was a deep connection you had yet to share with her or anyone. And though you may have once, ironically, wished it would have happened in another way, a perfect way; seeing Emma again, through all the mess, on the precipice of an earth-shattering climax, it felt okay this way too. Held within the orbs of green was Emma again, the real Emma. Fighting to be seen within these solemn seconds where you both became one. You sought comfort in telling yourself that was enough to justify what was happening.
“Please don’t stop.” You begged, not sure whether you were speaking only about her ministrations, or also, just maybe, about her resurfacing from the clutches of darkness.
Her grip loosened on your wrists, allowing you to fling your arms around her neck in the same moment she lunged down and pressed her lips to yours - gentler than anything she’d done that evening - tipping you over the finishing line, Emma, following closely behind. You tensed around her cock, your walls clamping so fiercely to it that you felt her pulsate inside you. Ribbons of cum filled you as Emma groaned and slowed her thrusts down to a halt, the last leaving you spent and tender.
Too stubborn to pull away, you poured everything you had left into the kiss, pulling her harder against you, urging her to continue her excursions on your lips, to stay inside you for a mere few moments longer.
“Let me stay with you.” You mumbled against her lips.
When she pulled away, to gaze into your eyes, see you again. You saw a decision had already been made.
“Give me time, it will all make sense soon.”
Black fog engulfed you. She was gone.
The bed you now laid in - fully healed and dressed in one of her oversized shirts - was your own.
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15/?? Unearned imagery
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⛬
We return to a movie that isn’t getting a funny intro this time, Prometheus.
Big content warning this time for Holocaust imagery. This one can be skipped without losing anything about the plot, because it covers only one half of a very brief, non-vital scene. In fact, I’m putting up two posts today, because this scene has the potential to be truly, hurtfully bad, and I don’t want people walking away from my blog feeling like that. That’s not what I do here.
For most of the movie, I have very few complaints about the set design. It’s very well-done, and, “DNA MATCH” excepted, generally shows a level of thoughtfulness that the script does not match.
However, it pushes too far this time.
Fifield the geologist and Millburn the biologist are stuck in the alien structure, thanks to the baffling decision that they shall be the sacrificial first deaths of the movie. Fifield was making the group’s map of the structure, but whatever. In contravention to what you’d actually do when two untrained people are stuck in a survival situation, they have not been given much instruction on what to do, and nobody has been assigned to monitor communications from them. They are, instead, getting the haunted house treatment.
Gene Siskel called Alien “a haunted house film”. Most of the tension of the movie comes from the environment itself. The xenomorph and its life cycle are very memorable, but they really aren’t on screen all that much. Instead, you have the alien structure of the ship on LV-426, and the often dark and industrial corridors of the Nostromo as the primary drivers of audience paranoia.
Set dressing has been important to this series from the beginning. As is the implication of what the xenomorph can do. The holes burned through the space jockey’s ship, the hole in its chest, make it quite clear that the human cast is walking into something that’s destroyed more powerful things than them.
Prometheus has already shown us that a couple of times, far more explicitly. The opening scene shows the immediate and complete deadliness of the black liquid carried on the ship. We already know something went wrong, and that the dead body the human crew’s already desecrated was probably infected to some extent.
We don’t need what happens next. Somehow, I completely forgot about this until I watched the movie a couple years ago, and I would’ve been fine with remembering a version of the movie where this didn’t exist.
Fifield and Millburn find a pile of bodies, some of them with the characteristic wounds caused by chestbursters in the rest of the Alien movies. It makes no sense, given what we’ve seen of the black liquid–it’s highly corrosive. And the xenomorphs in other movies don’t leave bodies like this.
But in case you didn’t get the visual reference they’re going for, the script is here to make it especially gratuitous: “Looks like a scene out some sort of holocaust painting, you know?”
Not a painting. Photos. This appears to be referencing the photos that were taken of corpses in Nazi gas chambers.
This is the single most tasteless thing in the movie, by a wide margin. It doesn’t need to be here. It doesn’t connect to anything else in the plot. And the movie hasn’t earned this. It is a thoughtless moment, in a movie prone to thoughtlessness.
Tearing into this movie is mostly fun, but damn it, this one isn’t.
Lighter fare in the next post, which is coming shortly.
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(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)
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#Prometheus 2012#Prometheus (2012)#seriously skip this one if you're not having a good day#find something beautiful in the world around you and appreciate it#if you want to know what's upsetting in here you can come read this later#take care of yourself
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KimChay: under the mask
I didn't see this coming, but, uh... here we are.
---
In this au, Kim and Chay do not meet during the canonical timeline. The Kittisawats still move into the compound, though, and Porsche's photokinetic powers activate/turn Korn to dust during the first Nampheung reveal.
With Kinn's funding/support Porsche starts taking down large swathes of the criminal underworld. He becomes an established Bangkok superhero, known for his charm: The Phoenix.
---
Kim is a wide-eyed, soft-smiling pop idol by day... and a superpowered vigilante by night.
After his Father's ruthless experimentation activated a dormant gene in Kim's DNA - and therefore his latent psionic powers (telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and teleportation) - he's been donning a special suit built for him by Arm & Co. in secret to help take down Korn's empire. Kinn wants to legitimize the businesses and secure them a real place in the word and Kim wants to help.
So he helps whenever he can by aiding The Phoenix in the guise of his own alter ego, Masked Shadow (he let Khun make it up, okay? it's his own fault for wearing an all-black ensemble and full facial covering).
---
Chay, still smarting after everyone he loves made enormous and life-changing decisions on his behalf (without once consulting him), decides to take a walk on the wild side.
Shortly after Phoenix and Shadow have cleaned up the neighborhood, they find themselves directly targeted by a new face on the scene. A young, brash, dangerous villain who dresses in bright colors and goes by the nickname 'Songbird'.
His fights with Phoenix are brief and tumultuous, ending with bruises for both parties, but something about his energy with Shadow is different. Like he wants to be caught in some moments and can't live without catching Kim the next.
And Kim has been caught. Several times. He (absolutely, definitely has not) been flustered by the tall, somewhat familiar villain tilting his chin up with one finger and calling him 'naughty' for ruining a well-laid plan.
Okay maybe he gets caught on purpose sometimes.
But he needs to find out who exactly is under that mask. Definitely for justice and no other reasons at all.
#kimchay#kinnporsche the series#porsche kittisawasd#porchay kittisawasd#kimhan theerapanyakul#kimchay ficlet#under the mask#THANK YOU SHOU#I LOVE YOU SO MANY DARLING AHHHH T#THIS GOT AWAY FROM ME
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The Morales Twins and their hair!
Earth 1610! Is referred as Miles
Earth 42! Is referred as Milan
I’ve heard a lot of people, and even seen some fan art, saying that Rio is the one that does Milan’s hair?!
As a Puerto Rican, it’s very rare to see a mom that knows how to do curly hair. Especially such tight curls like the twins.
Rio has lose curls that are “easier” to maintain, but that woman doesn’t even know what to do with her hair! Always kept in a lose pony tail.
Sadly in PR, people always look down upon curly hair calling it “pelo malo” (bad hair). Many people just straighten it or get to adulthood without a clue what to do.
I don’t even want to talk about the trauma that Jeff and Aaron have from growing up in a black household with curls! I know they shaved it off when they were teens.
When the twins were little on wash day they were crying bloody murder in the bathtub as Rio harshly brushed their hair.
Rio also felt guilt as hell for not knowing what to do.
Jeff was just looking shocked at the scene as his babies were suffering. So he went to the hair shop down the street and asked all the curly heads at the shop what to use and do.
He came back with a bunch of products, from mouses to oils, shampoos to leave in conditioners. And a receipt with instructions on the back from a nice old lady.
Miles was less tender headed than Milan. They left little Miles on the sofa, the freshest curls on his head and a bag of chips in his hands.
While Milan on the other hand was still in the bathtub with tangled hair. Throwing the toys at Rio and Jeff trying to brush his hair.
“¡Este niño no quiere Jeff! Ya no puedo.”
(This kid doesn’t want to get his hair brushed! I can’t anymore.)
Rio exclaimed leaving flustered and tired. Taking a seat next to Miles. Jeff looked at Milan’s puffy face. His little boy making grabby hands at him. He had no other option than to call his brother.
“Hey Aaron, I need your help with Milan…”
Jeff said carrying Milan wrapped in a towel.
Uncle Aaron came a few minutes after. With a convenient store bag in hand. The twins were ecstatic as they saw their uncle.
Aaron chuckled as the twins waddled to him. He grabbed them both and gave them smooches. He looked at Milan’s face.
“What have you done to this poor kid, Jefferson! He looks like a tomato!”
The twins pulled on their uncle’s nose.
“They had us all afternoon in the tub. ¡Me tenían loca!”
(They were driving me crazy!)
Jeff looked at Rio.
“Yeah, Miles let us take care of the tangles but Milan won’t give. I called you to see what we can do. You where our last hope.”
Aaron chuckled, putting Miles down. Then checking Milan’s messy hair. The baby even smacked his hand away.
“I don’t know where this one got the balls from. Maybe this is Rio’s half of the genes kicking in.”
Aaron said making Rio look even more pissed. That woman needed a good drink. Jeff looked at Aaron with a “don’t” stare.
“Just get me a brush and the products you have. Oh, and some thin hair ties.”
Uncle Aaron pulled up one of the twins baby chairs and placed Milan on it. He sat down on the floor and took out a pack of tiny Oreos and handed it to the baby.
Miles stood next to Aaron with a bottle watching with curiosity. Rio and Jeff gave him everything. Looking in aw as their firecracker was finally sitting still. Eating the Oreos with no care in the world.
Uncle Aaron parted his hair. And started braiding and explaining the process to Rio and Jeff. In an hour the baby’s hair was done, no crying or fussing. Miles even touched his brother hair feeling the textures on his fingers.
Jeff was the one that took the job of doing Milan’s hair. Even learning new patterns and designs. Years passed and Milan still has the same hairstyle. His still makes his dad do his hair.
“Your a grown man now. Do it yourself.”
“I don’t want to!”
“Then tell your mom to do it.”
“¡Por favor no!”
Milan placed all the products on the dining table. Sitting down on a chair waiting for his dad to stop bitching and do it. And Jeff eventually did it. Before going to a cupboard and getting out a pack of Oreos. Placing them next to his son. Milan took one and ate the rest slowly.
Jeff was gentle and Milan would always fall asleep. Miles came into the kitchen seeing his dad and brother.
Miles stood next to his dad and taking the last Oreo.
“Can you do my hair next?”
Milan reached for another Oreo. Gone! Miles ate the last bite. Milan turned his head in anger. Jeff laughing at Miles scared face.
“No! This is my hairstyle! And Oreos! Get your own!”
Milan chased Miles away with a picking tool. They went out of view and a crash sounded through the apartment.
“Boys!”
#miles morales #earth!42miles #earth!1610miles #spiderverse #atsv #itsv #uncleaaron
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Heyo!!! :D Some questions for you!
What are some of your fave parts of the Iliad and Odyssey? And then do you have a favorite by Euripides?
How long have you been drawing?
Since your "lovable little bastard" is a lil calico, does she have any neat patches/spots that are cute? Example, Teddy has a big stripe that curves across her neck, so I like imagining her having "necklace" haha. Does your lil lady have any spots that are cutely shaped? 🥺
(Good luck in school! :D Know I'm rooting for you!)
hello hello :DD this is a much needed break from studying oh god thank you.
For The Iliad,, BOOK 6, THE HECTOR, ANDROMACHE AND ASTYANAX SCENE. Book 10 also slaps obviously, night raid my beloved. The laments over Hector in book 24 too :')) It never fails to make me cry. But there's a tiny little specific part of The Iliad that is my absolute favorite - when Menelaus tells Antilochus that Patroclus was killed:
Idk man it feels so real and raw and hngngng. And Antilochus my man.
Now for The Odyssey i'm basic af but it's the reunion wih Telemachus, Penelope and Laertes :') hits right in the feels. The marriage bed story. The orchard. God fuck. Also the several little moments when Telemachus and Odysseus just,, exchange knowing smiles or glances with each other (when Odysseus is disguised as a beggar). It's just so neat i don't know why. Telemachus doesn't even know Odysseus and Odysseus doesn't know who his son is (yet!!), but they just kind of clicked together (when it came to scheming and plotting ofc. It's in their genes).
Tbh I haven't read too much of Euripides, I have quite a few plays sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read. So i should probably, yknow, do that hahaa. But my favorite so far is Iphigenia at Aulis! It's just so heartbreaking and tragic and painful and ahdbagshjj. mannn.
I started drawing since I could hold a colored pencil lmaoo. i just did it sometimes as a kid, i liked it and was seen as the "art kid" in school (now that I think of it, I was actually more the "a pleasure to have in class" kid,, but hey i was the one people ran to during art projects lmaoo). It was 2020 when I really wanted to get into it - especially digital art, since I've been drawing on my phone and the family computer with a mouse in godforsaken Gimp up to that point - and I got my first drawing tablet the same year! Funnily enough I started drawing humans about... 1,5 years ago?? I was actually, lo and behold, a warrior cats artist for a few years :'DD
NOW. SHE HAS SO MANY SPOTS THAT I ABSOLUTELY ADORE. For example, all her paws are white - but only one is black with a single white toe:
And she has some incredible markings on her face if i can say so myself:
Especially since the orange marking goes in a straight line across her face, it's so neat. And her fluffy white neck/throat marking :D
And thank you for school AGJSJSDHHH. I have my last test on Monday so I should be finally free next week! The worst tests are over now, thankfully. This is hell :')
#asks#actually i have no idea if my cat is a tortoiseshell or a calico.#since in order to be a calico a cat needs to have white markings i think??#and a tortoiseshell has only black and ginger.#i know my fur color names okay it's the warrior cats effect.
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LEE CHRISTMAS (the expendables 2010 series)
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“A Different Direction” (Lee Christmas x Fem!Reader)
| It’s the bar scene from part two, but Lee doesn’t get back with Lacy in this version.
| Reader is always black unless I say differently
| SFW, some very tame pda, alcohol consumption
| this is a rewrite/reimagining of the bar scene
| 1k+ worlds
Sitting next to Ross feels good. Lee even finds himself smiling into his beer as he takes a swig. He’s feeling particularly thankful for having made it through another mission. For surviving another wild blood pumping trip and then being able to come home to you.
His eyes are automatically drawn to you in the packed bar. No amount of anyone else even pinging on his radar as you talked to the bartender, getting the two of you’s second round of drinks because he’d gotten the first.
He gets stuck staring at you. It’s like you’re out of a movie. How you’re moving around, laughing at whatever joke the bartender makes, looks borderline fucking ethereal in his mind. The song playing changes and Lee doesn’t even notice until you do. A smile splits across your face and you mouth about loving the song, and while putting in your order the lines of your body easily catch onto and sway to the beat.
Lee’s not a dancer but at that moment he wants to be moving with you. Hands on your hips behind you as you tease his obvious lack of skill, kissing the curve of your neck when you throw your head back in excitement. He notes some of the song lyrics in his head to look up later.
He must be damn near enthralled because Ross nudges him with a chuckle and he still doesn’t dare look away.
“I gotta say, my friend, I am glad you decided to heal from that other girl.”
Lee shrugs.
“She wasn’t bad, she just…wasn’t for me in the end.”
Ross’s brows go up in a way that says ‘you think’ but he ultimately agrees.
“Her cheating on you ain’t enough to make her a bad person?”
Lee shakes his head and spits out his usual reasoning. Sometimes people just made bad split second dicisions that end up fucking everything up. Shit happened. He would know.
“Nah, she’s just morally dubious.”
From the corner of his eye he can just see the bewildered look Ross throws his way.
“Which is?”
“The split side of being morally grey,” he purses his lips with a slight grimace. “The effects are murky.”
“Oh yeah,” Ross intones and Lee knows he’s making fun of him. “Real fancy way of confirming she just has a world class cheating gene ruling her decisions.”
“Someone clearly stabbed you in the heart, bud, people do make mistakes sometimes. I knew your heart was nonexistent but this is a new level, the absence of light isn’t even dark enough for what’s going on in you.” Lee takes a moment to let his shit eating smirk be noticed by the other. “You want me to kiss it better?”
His team lead lets out a gruff huff of laughter and shakes his head.
“I’ll pass.” He nods at you, “Just please tell me you’re actually going through with this one.”
Lee takes a swig of his beer and only takes his eyes off of you for a second to look at Ross like he’s crazy.
“Course I am,” he points at you with the tip of his bottle and you just so happen to look over at him and smile at the same time. It lights him up from the inside and he smiles back even as he talks. “I’d be crazy not to marry her.”
Ross grunts in acknowledgement and pats Lee’s knee as you start heading over.
“I’m just glad you’re not still entertaining being in a relationship with a woman whose first instinct was to cheat on you. Y/n is good people though, she makes you less unbearable.”
Lee rolls his eyes before he’s completely caught up in you again.
You smile at them as you get within spitting distance and Lee can’t help but track the way that unlike with Lacy, when he was stuck on desperately trying to make it work with her, the guys don’t either ignore you when you’re not directly engaging with them or give you stilted responses.
Barney doesn’t do any of those things with you. When you ask him things he answers about as happily as he ever does anything he doesn’t despise and when you greet him he responds while actually looking at you.
Lee had honestly never realized before how much the guys disliked Lacy until he finally gave up on them and found you almost a year later. In fact even though the three of you are a little separated from the other’s table the team still takes the time to greet you, even Gunner, as you walk past them.
He reaches for you, in the pretty dress he’d had the pleasure of watching you pick out for tonight, and when you readily grasp back at him he pulls you into his lap. You settle there like you were made for it and he can’t help the smile that splits across his face as he watches.
“Hey you,” you murmur. He brings your hands up where they’re still connected to kiss at your knuckles.
“Hey,” he murmurs back against the ample darkness of the skin there.
You smile and duck your head at the intensity he regards you with. Stunning. You squeeze his hand, shy smile still in place, and then turn to Ross.
“Hi to you too Barney.”
At your words Ross actually glances up and fully acknowledges that you’ve talked to him. He even gives you one of his rare angst riddled half smiles. It’s genuine, the man’s just allergic to anything the elicits too happy of a response Lee’s sure of it.
“Hey Y/n, how you been?”
“Fine,” you shrug, sparkling eyes briefly flitting to Lee’s. “Better now that Lee’s back though. You think next time you could fit me into the schedule? A month’s a long time to not have his little accent bouncing off my walls.”
And Ross chuckles in response. Wow, Lee really was a love sick fool with Lacy if he hadn’t realized just how much his closest friend couldn’t stand her.
“I’ll make sure to check my calendar for you next time,” he nods at him. “Though why anyone would rush to hear his badgering British shtick is lost on me.”
You pat at his hand as you lean into Ross’s space, “Maybe I’m a little crazy,” you mock confess.
“Hey!” Lee exclaims as Ross chuckles. The older man presses his hands to his knees as he throws him a teasing smirk before standing. Lee tamps down the urge to flip him off and pout at the way you’re laughing with him. Ross nods amiably at you both before lumbering off to join the group.
Once he’s gone, and all eyes from the table are not on y’all anymore, Lee turns to you and finally lets himself pout.
“What are you giggling at, eh? Just last night you were begging me to talk to you.”
You laugh some more, a snort sneaking in in the middle, and pivot towards him. A kiss is delicately placed at the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t sulk,” you say against his lips. “It’s unattractive.”
You pull away with a tiny smile pulling at plump glossy lips and Lee stares at you open mouthed before shaking his head. He pulls you to him more securely, letting go of your hand to wrap both his arms around your waist. You nuzzle your head onto his shoulder and kiss at the dip of his neck. He laughs down at you and then kisses those smiling lips. It’s brief but it makes his heart pound as you give him your full attention. The two of you were captured by the other.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” his eyes dance as he speaks to you. “I’d miss you calling me handsome.”
Your laughter fills his ears, and call him a romantic all you want he already knows, but that sound fills his lungs with fresh air and renews him with hope that not everything in the world’s utter shit.
NOTES: Was watching Expendables and I like Jason Statham, you know the drill.
#lee christmas#the expendables#black!reader#black y/n#lee christmas x black!reader#lee christmas x reader#the expendables imagine#jason statham#black reader
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I was going to save this for if you were going to to Black Widow Fest this year, but can you write a deleted scene from “Leave Everything…” based on this line?
“I think I’m okay, but then little things will happen and I won’t be. It was bad that first month. I can’t even tell you what happened, Clint probably can.” -Natasha
@adorationamy <3 thanks - we will see if Black Widow Fest will go ahead this year, given everything, but I hope so. Would be willing to do another deleted scene. :)
leave everything but your bones behind
Deleted Scenes from that first month.
“Clint?”
His phone can’t hear anything except what he thinks is the television.
“She’s not talking again,” his quiet voice says with a tint of an echo.
“Where are you?”
Silence.
“In the bathroom.”
“Where’s Natasha?”
“She’s... She’s okay, I think. The television is on and she’s staring at it.”
“Clint?”
Tony pauses.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know why.”
He hears the frustration and tries again.
“Okay, just tell me what’s happened.”
The reaction is immediate.
“I don’t know! Okay? I should know and I don’t. I don’t know why she was talking and seemed better two days ago and today, nothing! I should know, I should know what’s triggered her, but I don’t, okay? I just don’t.”
If Tony wasn’t awake before, he is now.
He glances at the clock in the kitchen, thankful he had enough forethought to move away from Pepper.
“Okay, okay, calm down.”
He cringes.
That’s not that right thing to say.
Clint doesn’t answer.
Tony thanks his friend’s patience, in not hanging up on him at all.
“Umm, can you go and have a look at her? What is she doing?”
He hears Clint move and then the TV grows louder.
“She’s just on the couch. She’ll follow instructions, she’ll do what I ask, and respond in some way. It’s not seizures, it’s like she’s disconnected from the world.”
Tony thinks. He has no experience with this.
He knows what he likes though.
“I like it when Dummy talks to me,” he says quietly.
“When I don’t feel… well.”
Clint is quiet on the phone.
“I like for him to tell me some good things about the world. To know that it’s not all the hopeless thoughts in my head.”
“Maybe it would work for her? If you haven’t already? Maybe some good things will help bring her out of Whatever sunk her in there in the first place?”
He’s not even sure if Clint is listening.
Until.
“Hey Nat, I’m gonna sit next to you okay? Tony’s on the phone over there. He told me that when he gets… lost, he likes to hear things that are good.”
There’s not response but the television turns down.
“There’s an animal called the Oryx, it’s an antelope found in the Middle East, and it became extinct in the wild. This sounds like a sad story but I swear it’s not, because you see,8 before hunters were able to kill the last oryx, five were captured, and they slowly built up, and the oryx was being moved from "endangered" to "vulnerable" and was the very first animal to go from extinct to vulnerable.”
Clint pauses, maybe checking on her.
He must be encouraged because he continues.
Tony has no idea where he gets the facts from.
“Did you know there’s a dachshund museum in Passau, Germany? Maybe we can go next time we are in Germany.”
Still nothing, Tony thinks; as there’s a period of silence.
But, he thinks he hears some movement as Clint continues again.
“There’s been advances in immunotherapy, thanks to you, the mRNA and gene editing that Tony tried with you, will likely help others. The cell therapies they’re looking into are to make generic immunotherapy rather than patient specific ones.”
He pauses.
“Jace found some other widows. Tony has housed them in safe houses and provided access to trauma informed therapists if they want it.”
Tony wants to hang up.
He isn’t someone’s something good.
He doesn’t though, intrigued to see what happens next.
“Yeah, Nat, really.”
Her voice was so quiet he didn’t even hear it.
There’s a shuffling and the phone is moved from what Tony can hear.
“Hey, thanks.”
He knows that Clint can’t see him, but he nods anyway.
“Yeah,” he responds, slightly choked up.
“Get her to call me sometime okay?”
Clint laughs.
“Yeah okay, when things are better. I’ll call you though.”
Tony nods again.
“You better.”
Hanging up the phone, Clint turns his attention back to Natasha, who is watching him intently.
It’s better than the dead eyes she’d been giving him all day.
“You hungry?” he asks hopefully.
She doesn’t reply but stands with him to get to the kitchen.
“Tell me some more good things?” she asks quietly.
He smiles.
“Of course, Nat.”
#leave everything but your bones behind#natasha romanoff#clintasha#black widow#clint barton#Tony stark#my fic#natasha romanoff fic#clintasha fanfiction#adorationamy#ask away!
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happy post-holidays and part three to @ep6bastogne, the finale is here!! have a happy new year and whatever coms next :)
find part one HERE, and part two HERE
OR read on ao3 all in one go :)
iii.
turn on the laugh track
we'll see if it changes the scene
maybe this is just the funniest version
of us that we've ever been
15 December
The longer that time stretches between what’s become present and when Gene had shown up at the apartment, the more certain Babe becomes that Gene’s avoiding him.
The longer that time stretches on, Babe thinks he might be avoiding Gene right back.
The TV is murmuring absently in the background, Babe thinks it might be Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
“‘M going out,” He says vaguely, fumbling with the buttons of his coat. He’s getting better, at wearing it. It no longer feels like it’s too heavy, like he needs to get it off before he starts to burn.
Bill doesn’t look up from the TV, dead-eyed in their singular sofa chair. Luz and Toye are out cold on the couch.
“Aight.” Bill says. “Say hi to Doc, for me.”
Babe’s chest hurts.
“Me and Gene aren’t…” He says, and trails off. Bill drags his eyes away from the TV to look up, eyebrows raised. Babe shrugs, awkward. “Bye.” He says. Bill looks unsure of something. Babe doesn’t really care to know what.
“Okay.” Bill tells him back. “Be… careful, right?”
Babe pauses.
“Yeah.” He says. “I’ll see ya later, Bill.”
—
He doesn’t know what happened, which seems to be the root of all of Babe’s problems.
He thinks, maybe, that he might not be friends with Gene anymore. He thinks, maybe, he’s fucked up.
The ingredients for maque-choux are in the back of his fridge, still, and he hasn’t texted Gene. Gene hasn’t texted him, either.
Babe’s not sure what the taboo is that seems to be so prevalent to him. Why he can't seem to text Gene if Gene doesn't text him, and why it makes him so miserable. He wonders who has more issues than him, and if they'd be open to giving advice.
“Babe!”
He hears a voice bounce off of the buildings and streets, and almost swears.
It's like he's summoned him.
“Hey, Web.” He says, after a brief moment of wondering if he should just begin running away at full speed. He turns around and waves awkwardly. “How's it going?”
David Webster, who crosses the street quickly, narrowly avoiding getting hit by a car, waves at him brightly. He’s wearing black gloves, and Babe would make fun of him if he wasn’t certain that Web had already been bullied mercilessly about them and had decided to wear them, anyways.
“Hi.” Web greets him as soon as he hops up onto the pavement. He sounds a bit breathless, weighed down by approximately forty shopping bags, all in one hand as he reaches out his free one to Babe, patting him awkwardly on the shoulder. “How are you? I haven’t seen you since, uh…”
Web trails off, waving a hand absently before shifting the bags more evenly. He blinks at Babe, as if willing him to get what he’s saying, so Babe just nods, hands in his pockets.
“Yeah.” He agrees. “It’s been busy, lately.”
“Uh huh.” Web says. He looks rather distracted, and starts walking side by side with Babe almost absently. “Did Joe say anything to you, recently?” He asks, out of pocket, then pauses. “Uh, when… when you saw him. He said something about going shopping…?” Babe wonders, vaguely, if this is a trap.
“About what?” He asks. The pavement is scraped pretty clean of snow, but there’s a build-up of slush against the curve and he kind of wants to step in it. “We mostly just talked about, like, hockey.” Web huffs through his nose.
“He’s being weird,” He tells Babe, and Babe in turn regrets his choice to not run away. “He’s like… asking about my family, and stuff. It’s weird. He’s being weird.”
“You’re saying weird too much,” Babe informs him, and thinks about Liebgott’s thing with the present. “And I dunno. Maybe you should just, like. Talk to him.”
He’s not really one to talk, though. He thinks about Gene and his chest hurts. Web just huffs.
“Yeah.” He agrees. “We don’t really do that, though.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Yeah.” Web says again. He scrubs the back of his hand across his mouth. “Hey, I need to go to a bookshop. Do you, uh—”
“Sure.” Babe says, before he can think about it. “Do you need help with your whole…?” He gestures vaguely to the shopping bags, which look heavy, and Web blinks at him like he doesn’t realise that he’s holding all of them, and blinks a second time after a split second, eyes lighting up.
“Oh! Yes, please, could you actually—” He pauses, coming to an abrupt halt in the middle of the pavement, and Babe quickly ducks out of foot traffic to lean against the closest building. Web follows absently after him, searching through the bags. He offers one up to Babe without looking at the contents, busy rooting through a silver paper bag.
“I don’t know if I’ll see you again before Christmas, so I’ll just…” Web keeps muttering about something or the other, so Babe shifts the bag that he’d collected to his other hand distractedly. “Ha!” Web exclaims, straightening back up triumphantly.
He holds out a small box to Babe, eyes bright, and Babe blinks at him, taking it. “I — thanks?” Babe says, still rather confused, and Web nods, straightening back up and gesturing for Babe to give him back the bag.
“Merry Christmas.” He says, and Babe stares at him. Web stares back, eyes pinned to Babe, which is a bit uncomfortable. “It, uh. I’m trying to get presents for everyone, this year. New thing.”
Babe would ask questions, but he’s learned it’s best not to. Webster’s sort of a wild card, in his books. “Uh,” He says again, patting down his jeans with his free hand. He unearths a stick of gum from his back pocket, cringing slightly, and holds it out to Web. “Yeah. Happy Christmas?”
Web laughs and takes it, shifting all of his bags once more. “Thanks,” He says, and it sounds genuine. Babe wonders where Liebgott is and, if on the offhand, he would be willing to come and drag Webster to wherever it is they both are when they’re not bothering Babe.
Vaguely worried that the streets are getting more crowded, Babe turns on his heel and starts walking again, trying to remember where the bookstore is. There's roughly eight of them in the general area, but Bill made him go to one two days ago to find a book he’d found for Fran on their website because apparently Bill’s too good to order it online like a normal person, but also didn’t want to leave the apartment.
“Anyways,” Web says casually, and Babe blinks at him blankly. “He’s being weird. Joe is, I mean. Insanely weird. He asked me what my favourite colour was yesterday.” He wrinkles his nose, and Babe shrugs. That seems normal, to him, but what does he know. Maybe Liebgott’s secretly dying. Or it’s still about the present thing.
Oh.
“Wait,” Babe says, “Did you get something for Liebgott, too?”
“Well, yeah.” Webster tells him. He shifts his grip on the bags, and something in one of them jingles. “But at the beginning of the month. When Hanukkah started.”
Babe laughs. “You’re an idiot.” He says, and Web’s mouth drops open, affronted.
“Well, I—” He starts to say, and Babe turns a corner. He can see the sign to the bookstore, now, and exhales, relieved.
“He’s trying to find you a present,” He tells Web, turning the box over in his hands. “‘Cause he feels bad. Because apparently, he’s only ninety-nine percent an asshole, and the other one percent is reserved for making me look through shops for shit you’d like.”
He’d figured that Liebgott would have been fine with the copy of Moby Dick he’d finally found, but Babe guesses that Liebgott was probably just as sick with Babe as Babe was with him and decided to go it solo, instead. Next to him, Web’s mouth is still open.
“Oh.” Web says. “I… that makes sense.”
“Yeah.” Babe says. Web sighs.
“Well, at least I know why he’s acting so strange now,” He says, shifting his bags again. Finally upon the bookstore, Babe opens the door and lets Web go in first. A bell at the top of the door jingles. “I mean, I’ll just tell him to tie me up or something—”
“Too much information, Web,” Babe says over him, probably too loudly. A woman at the cash register raises an eyebrow at them. Web waves at her. “Too much information.”
“Do you need a book?” Web asks him, rather absently, shifting his bags again. Babe turns the box over in his hands again.
“Nah.” He says. He’s not a big reader. “Hey, should I—?” He begins to ask, holding up the box.
“Oh, yeah.” Web says, waving a hand dismissively. “Open it whenever. I’m not great with stuff like this, so I got Perco to help me. The note’s from me, though, but I don’t remember what I wrote. Excuse me, ma’am—” He turns on his heel, asking an employee for directions to a section on something about art history.
Babe turns the box over in his hands one more time, wandering absently over to an empty armchair in the corner of the shop and dropping into it.
The box is small, and black, and he tugs it open and blinks.
It’s a watch, and the thin notecard inside has Web’s handwriting on it, neatly scratched in pen.
Dear Babe,
This is a brew metric, and I got the retro version because of the colours. I don’t know if you’re a watch person, but Joe made the mistake of saying that he doesn’t care, so I had to buy it so here you go.
Merry Christmas!
Babe blinks. The note takes on a rather aggressive tone towards the end of it, but he guesses it’s rather nice.
He looks up, and Web is in the art history section, so he takes the watch out of the box, puts it on, and is wondering if he should throw away the box or not when—
“Babe?”
Babe jolts, startled, and looks over his shoulder. He almost doesn’t recognise the girl that blinks back at them, but he clears his throat and shifts to see her better.
“Renée.” He says, sticking up two fingers in an awkward wave. “Uh. Hey. How are you?”
Renée Lemaire’s hair is tied back on top of her head, her coat a light blue. She has her hands tucked into the pockets of it, and walks around the chair that Babe’s sitting in to perch in the one opposite him. Her eyes are doing… something, that Babe can’t read, and Babe wonders what Gene told her.
“How are you doing?” She asks him, maybe politely, hands clasped together in her lap. Babe blinks. Whatever he was expecting her to say, that wasn’t it.
“Uh.” He says. “Good?” He’s not sure if this is a trap or not. He doesn’t think it is, because he doesn’t think that Renée is the type of person to do something like that, but, well. He’s not sure if he’s thinking right. Renée nods.
She’s freaking him out, a little bit — Babe wonders if she’s looking for something, the way she stares at him. He shifts in the chair.
“Hey, do you—” He starts to say.
“How much do you—” Renée says at the same time, and they both lapse back into silence.
Renée speaks up again before Babe can say anything. “How much do you read?” She asks him. Babe blinks.
“Uh.” He says. He’d expected her to ask about Gene, or something else. Small talk… rather unexpected. Renée shifts in her own seat.
“I think that reading can help us figure out things in our life that have nothing to do with books.” She says, leaning forward in her own chair. She brushes her hands against her knees as she does. “Do you have your phone?” Babe blinks again.
“Yeah.” He says.
“Could I recommend some things for you to read?” Renée asks him, and Babe thinks that this is Web’s fault. He’s walked right out of normal and right into the world of strange people he’s met maybe three times in bookshops.
“I don’t, uh.” He says. “I don’t really read, you know? Books just aren’t…” Renée waves her hand.
“Books are fine, but I was thinking more of poems. Shorter things.” She says. “You know?”
“No.” Babe tells her, but shifts in his seat to fish his phone out of his pocket. He’s not sure why he does, but. She hasn’t mentioned Eugene and Webster is taking forever and Babe doesn’t want to leave him in the bookstore because he thinks that Web will emerge with too many things and might die immediately without any assistance.
He unlocks his phone and gestures with it, clearing his throat. “Where do I, uh…?” Renée shrugs.
“Write them in your notes.” She says, matter-of-fact. Babe huffs.
“Right.” He mutters.
—
Franz Kafka, Haruki Murakami, and Hanif Abdurraqib.
Babe stares at the names, and doesn't think he knows how to pronounce any of them.
“Hey,” Web says, and Babe jolts slightly, turning off his phone and looking up. “Ready to go?”
“Yep,” Babe says back, shoving his phone into his pocket and standing up at the same time. “Get what you were looking for?”
“Yeah.” Web tells him, but looks slightly lost. He holds up his new bag, which is accompanied by another five bags, so Babe steps forward to take a few before calamity strikes. “Uh, a book, for an old college friend. He lives…” Webster gestures vaguely, which could mean on the moon for all Babe knows. “...and I haven’t talked to him in forever, but. Might as well, you know?”
“Sure.” Babe says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. He slides a few bags onto his arm and up to his elbow like he’s sliding coat hangers onto a rack. Noticing Web’s gaze, down at Babe’s pocket, he wonders if Webster saw the list and scrambles to say something else before he does something Babe doesn’t want him to do, like ask about it. “What’s that guy doing now, anyways?”
Web waves his hand again. The bags more evenly distributed between the two of them (Babe’s arms may just fall off), he has the freedom to sweep an arm out airily, an absent Webster-ism. “Oh, you know.” He says, because Babe doesn’t. “Things. I think he writes for a sports journal, now.” Web wrinkles his nose.
Webster writes for a literary journal, which could be the same thing as a sports journal in Babe’s book, except for Babe would actually read a sports journal, but he doesn’t say that, mainly because he doesn’t want to accidentally step on a mine and blow up the entirety of Pennsylvania.
He can’t do that, yet, anyways.
He wonders where Gene is. His head is starting to hurt.
Webster, thank god, ends up not accompanying Babe all the way back to his apartment or needing Babe’s help to get back to his own; Web had apparently texted Liebgott whilst they were still in the store about picking him up.
“I’ll tell him that he doesn’t need to go through the guilt spiral of doom when we get back to his place,” Web tells him, fidgeting with the wrists of his gloves, “But I figure that one last favour, first, helps more than it hurts.”
Babe, who doesn’t want to have to carry the sixty million bags that Web had given him to the other side of the city, just nods. He could have always just left Web at any time, but with this much shit weighing Webster down, he thinks that there may be more than a fifty percent chance that he would just immediately be killed on his own.
“Wait,” He says, after a moment, thoughts slightly delayed by the amusing ponderings of how, exactly, Webster could die in a fatal shopping accident. “You mean you and Liebgott aren’t living together?” Web shrugs.
“No.” He says. “I mean, we’re ‘living together’ but we’re not actually living together.”
Babe just blinks at him. Web shrugs again, as if to clarify.
“We’re living together, but not actually living together, because I still have my place, and I don’t want to move out, but Lieb still has his place, which is nicer, so he doesn’t want to move out, and if we were gonna live together, we’re gonna live at his place, so we’re ‘living together’, but, again, we’re not actually living together.” He says.
Babe’s starting to think that he should maybe just buy a treadmill to go on walks.
—
16 December
Babe unearths his laptop from underneath his dresser. It has dust on the cover of it and the ‘R’ key doesn’t work, but it functions well enough and he drags it out to the living room, dropping down into the sofa chair with a huff.
Bill’s sitting on the couch, and he raises an eyebrow at Babe, but doesn’t say anything.
“What.” Babe says, anyways, because when Bill’s not saying anything he’s saying more than he does when he won’t shut up.
“Uh.” Bill says, like he’s trying to think. “You seen the Doc, recently?”
“Nope.” Babe says, not thinking about Gene. Gene’s probably at work, anyways, so he’s not thinking of Babe, so why would Babe be thinking of Gene? “Why would I?”
He can feel Bill staring at him.
“Well.” Bill says, shifting against the couch. He’s wearing his knee brace, again, because his leg had started to bother him enough for him to give in to wearing it. He holds up a hand, counting off on his fingers. “He came over here, was upset, you two went into your room, and this place has thin fucking walls, Babe, so I’m very well aware that—”
“Oh my God,” Interrupts Babe, because he can. The back of his neck feels hot. Bill waves a hand impatiently.
“And then he’s gone before anyone else wakes up and you’re sulking and that’s weird. Henceforth, have you seen the Doc, recently?”
Babe powers on his laptop. He’s trying to ignore Bill, or, at the very least, appear haughtily indignant. He’s thinking he’s falling somewhat short of that. “We didn’t fight.” He says, rather defensively, because they didn’t. “We talked about Eugene going down to Louisiana and everyone from Pittsburgh maybe going down there sometime and that’s it. We’re friends, Bill, friends sometimes don’t see each other recently, When was the last time you saw Bull?”
He can feel Bill still staring at him, but he seems to relent when Babe just hikes the laptop up closer to his face and keeps not looking at him.
“Alright, Babe.” Bill says, after a moment, and sounds resigned. “Sounds like you’ve got it sorted.”
Babe wonders if Gene’s still wearing the yellow scarf.
—
Babe starts with Hanif Abdurraqib, because that’s the name he can’t figure out how to spell for the first few go-arounds, and he finds a poem on a poetry website that he hesitantly bookmarks.
He chooses one titled I Was Told the Sunlight Was a Cure, because the cure part makes him think of Gene, and then he remembers he’s not thinking about Gene at all.
—
— I declare on the days I want to be alive I might drag
my drummer & my singer to your doorstep & ask you to dance
yes, you, who also survived the groaning machinery of darkness
you who, despite this, do not want to be perceived in an empire
awash with light in the sinning hours & we will dance —
Babe blinks at that part for a moment, shifting against the sofa chair when he feels his leg start to fall asleep. Maybe the machinery of darkness could be like the Mustang.
He wonders if Gene dances. He wonders if Gene would agree to dance if Babe asked him to.
—
December 17
Babe finds another poem by Hanif Abdurraqib called The Prestige before dawn has even broken through the sky and clicks on it for no reason whatsoever. He tries to remember to print out the other poem when he has the time. He’d like to keep it for a while.
—
— No one will bury their kin when desire becomes a fugitive between us. —
Babe blinks and has to look away from the words because his eyes are starting to hurt. He’s laying on his back, on his bed, with his hoodie pulled up over his forehead.
He wonders what fugitive means in this. Then he wonders if it means rotten.
He misses Gene.
—
He reads more and more Abdurraqib until his eyes start to burn and then he takes a break to eat and get some fresh air.
It’s cold, outside the apartment, and snow turned to sludge kicks up under his feet as he walks, walks. He’s not sure where he’s going.
—
He ends up at the bookstore, again (Renée isn’t there, but Babe didn’t think she would be. His chair is unoccupied and he drops into it gracelessly, tugging his phone out of his pocket.)
—
He looks up Haruki Murakumi but can’t find any poems, like Abdurraqib had, but he finds quotes, instead, and wonders if that’s the same thing. He slouches down in the chair in the bookstore.
—
— Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart. —
It’s from something called Norwegian Wood, or so it says, and Babe blinks at it and looks up from his phone and looks up at the ceiling and wonders why Gene left, after he’d gotten stuck.
Babe had had a nightmare, after that. He’d torn everything off of his bed.
He wonders if maybe he should have asked Gene why. They never even talked about it.
—
— And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about. —
Is the storm when he got trapped under the Mustang?
Or would the storm be not sleeping with blankets, or going on walks everyday, or whatever else?
Babe has to leave the bookstore because Bill starts lighting up his phone about getting back to the apartment so everyone else can watch a movie.
The quote is from something called Kafka on the Shore, and Babe realises that Kafka is on the list in his notes app, too.
—
Kafka doesn’t really have poems, either, and Babe’s beginning to feel lied to, but he finds more quotes, and he begins to wonder if there’s any true difference.
His roommates are bickering happily again, and Babe sits on the floor where the recliner used to be, bent over his laptop.
Toye swings around him on the crutches and drops down onto the couch next to Luz, kissing his temple absently, offering up a slice of pizza in one hand and throwing the other one around his waist. Bill groans, like the entire interaction had killed him.
Babe has a whole page of bookmarks, now, and a list of things he wants to print off because the one in his head was getting too big.
—
— Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that. —
That’s another Murakami one, and Babe snorts so hard his throat kind of hurts, and Toye looks up at him with a raised eyebrow. They’re still all out in the living room, but it’s dark outside, and Bill is engrossed in a rerun of Elf and Luz is out cold, face squished against Toye’s shoulder, legs thrown over his lap.
“Nothing.” Babe murmurs, and Toye goes back to doing whatever on his phone, resting his own cheek absently on top of Luz’s head. Bill lets out a bleating laugh at whatever gimmick Will Ferrell prances through.
Babe feels… okay.
He closes the computer when the back of his mind starts to get rather cloudy, and even manages to get invested in Elf.
—
Elf ends and Luz is still asleep, and Babe is cleaning out everything piled up in the sink and trying not to grin as Toye tries to get him off the couch.
“Can’t carry you, right now, doll, you gotta get up,” He’s muttering, absently, as Luz groans, overly dramatic, arms around his neck.
Babe goes back to drying out cups, shaking his head. Bill’s leaning against the counter next to him, doing absolutely nothing helpful, but he lets out another stupid bleating laugh. Babe kind of wants to laugh, too.
—
20 December
He goes to the corner shop he went to to get the maque-choux ingredients — they’d eaten most of the vegetables, because Babe thinks that him and Gene might not make the recipe, anymore — because they actually have pretty good food.
He runs into Eugene in the food aisle.
Gene doesn’t see him, because Babe had come up almost behind him, and Babe’s plan is to make a quick getaway so Gene won’t see him but when he turns on his heel the corner of his basket catches on one of the cans on the lower shelves of the aisle and clatters to the floor like a gunshot.
Gene turns around, and sees Babe, and Babe sees him, and Babe wonders what fancy words he could use to describe the expression on Eugene’s face.
“Hey,” Gene says, accent drawing out the word. His shopping basket is tucked underneath his elbow, Babe catches sight of catfish and wonders if he’s making courtbouillon.
“Hi.” Babe says back, and hopes he sounds like a normal person. Gene’s hair is the same black shock it always is, eyes just as dark as ever, and Babe doesn’t know what he wants to do but he knows it isn’t enough.
They’re friends, and they haven’t seen each other in days, and that’s why it’s awkward. Babe crosses his arms over his sternum – basket sticking out from his own elbow awkwardly – and lets himself believe that.
“How are you?” Gene asks him, and Babe responds with good and asks the same question in kind.
Crackly Mariah Carey plays over the speakers of the shop because of course it does, and Babe blinks at Gene and Gene blinks back and then Gene says “I’m leaving, to go to Louisiana. On the twenty-second.”
It’s like a hole opens in Babe’s chest, and it’s not painful, and it’s not surprising, but it’s there and Babe wonders if Gene can hear the wind whistling through it.
“Oh.” Babe says. “That’s good.”
“Yeah.” Gene says back. “I think I’ll stay for as long as they’ll let me.”
“I’m happy for you.” Babe says, and Gene nods, eyes dark. He’s twisting his lower lip through his teeth, like he’s thinking, and Babe still doesn’t know what the expression on his face is. “Uh, I’ll… see you later?”
“Yeah—” Gene starts to say, and stops to pick up the can that Babe had knocked over what seemed like heartbeats ago. “Yes. Yeah, I’ll, uh. I’ll see you, Edward.”
Babe’s chest hurts, again.
“Yeah.” He says. “Bye, Gene.”
—
So Gene is leaving Philadelphia. And will stay away for as long as he can.
—
Babe starts reading Kafka quotes more.
—
— Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. —
Babe lays on his back in his bed with the blinds open to midnight. He thinks of Gene’s eyes and his chapped lips and his hair.
—
21 December
— I miss you deeply, unfathomably, senselessly, terribly. —
Eugene Roe is the only friend that Babe has ever had whose lack of presence makes the hole in his heart seem bigger.
—
22 December
“‘Lo?”
“Hey, it’s Spina.”
“Ugh, fuck, man, it’s, like, seven thirty in the morning, why are you—”
“Shut up, that’s plenty early.” Ralph Spina seems to be in a good mood. Babe wonders what Gene is doing. If Spina can see him. “Hey, Gene has this present for you, that he got, like, at the beginning of the month, I was wondering if you want to drop by and grab it?”
Huh. So Babe guesses Gene’s not wherever Spina is, then.
“Uh.” Babe says. “He got me something?”
“Yeah,” Spina says, oblivious to the complicated whatever of emotions that Babe’s going through. “A book, I guess. Something about Kafka?”
The hole in Babe’s chest whistles. “Huh.” He says. “Like, something he wrote, or—”
“No, it’s by someone else… I think a Japanese guy? Ah, here it is. Kafka on the Shore.”
Babe’s been in his room, getting ready, and he drops down heavily at the corner of his bed. “Oh.” He says. Spina huffs.
“Yeah.” He says. “Something about you liking it, or something. He got it on, like, the third, man.”
“Oh.” Babe says again, not really listening. Spina hums his vague agreement and keeps talking, and Babe tunes him out, staring at his comforter in the corner of the room. (He’d tugged the other sheets back onto his bed. He was too cold at night.)
He thinks about Eugene, and then thinks about thinking about Eugene, and then blinks.
They go days without seeing each other, without texting each other, but Babe thinks that he makes up for that time, possibly every minute that fills the gap since he was born and since he met Eugene, with thinking about him.
He thinks about Gene’s chapped lips, and his dark hair, and his eyes, and his smile, and everything else, and suddenly feels very, very warm.
“—’sides, it could be worse, because—”
“Spina?” Babe interrupts him, pushing himself up off his bed. He can feel his heart in his chest, and it almost hurts. “Where’s Gene?”
“Uh.” Spina says, and it’s enough hesitation for Babe’s blood to start to go cold with realisation. He pulls his phone away from his year to check the time and date. “He’s packing. He’s leaving in, like, ten minutes, man. Already ordered an Uber and everything.”
Something that isn’t panic but a close relative to it lights up the inside of Babe’s head all sorts of warning colours, and he swears and almost hangs up, stumbling over his carpet in his haste to get out to the living room.
“Spina, I gotta go.” He says, almost jogging over to the front door, jamming his shoes into his feet. Bill’s sitting on the couch, because of course he is, and he looks up from his phone with a raised eyebrow. “Just… don’t let Gene leave early, okay?”
He doesn’t hear Spina’s reply, too busy shoving his phone into his pocket and wrestling the door open.
“Gene, huh?” Bill starts to ask, but Babe’s already out the hall and slamming the apartment door shut behind him.
He skips down the steps of their apartment quickly, careful not to slip, and realises as the cold bites into his arms that he forgot his coat.
He elects it unimportant, stares down the street as soon as his feet hit it, and starts running.
—
14 November
“No, see, it’s—”
Babe interrupts himself, grinning too hard to see Gene’s trembling hand properly. “You’re not taking this seriously!” He accuses Gene, turning his cheek against the pillow to nose at Gene’s temple, the others hand still tight between both of his. “I’m doing you a huge favour, reading your future for free, and you’re not taking it seriously!”
Gene laughs again, as quiet and warm as he ever is, and turns his lips against the shell of Babe’s ear. “I’m takin’ this seriously,” He says, “but there’s not a lotta ways of me responding seriously when you tell me I have ‘attractive palms’.”
He says the last two words like he’s making fun of Babe, but Babe knows he isn’t and huffs, affronted, anyways.
“I said that you have the most aesthetically-pleasing hands I’ve ever had the honour of staring at.” He says, matter-of-fact, and Gene hums like he doesn’t believe him. “‘Course, you’re just a very aesthetically-pleasing person.”
The hand not at Babe’s face is running over his bare hip, fingers tapping out absent melodies against the skin there, and Babe leans into the touch as Gene regards him, eyes serious and lips chapped and quirked up in a smile. “Not so much as you are.” He says, so close to Babe that he’s slightly blurry.
Babe hums and gives up on reading his palm to roll over on top of him.
—
22 December
Almost a month ago he got trapped under a car, almost a month ago he nearly died, almost a month ago Gene kissed him and promised he wouldn’t get lost and then left him alone in the dark and a week ago Babe fucked up and he just realised how.
He’d grabbed his sneakers, because they were the first things he saw, and they’re filled with ice water and heavy and soggy and he’s sure he’s running like an idiot and it’s fucking freezing outside and he doesn’t care because Gene is only a few blocks away and Babe has to tell him this in person, has to get to him before he gets out into the Uber.
His heart both soars and crashes into the pavement when he sees carefully Eugene pulling a suitcase down the staircase; wound through with twinkling lights and burnt out bulbs.
“Gene!” Babe shouts, chest burning.
Gene looks up, eyes wide, and when he sees Babe, his face does the same exact thing that it’s done the last few times that Babe’s seen him.
“Gene!” He yells again, and speeds up.
Gene leaves his suitcase on the stairs and moves down the rest of the way, and his feet hit the pavement at the same time that Babe starts slowing down, icy sludge spraying from under his feet as he slides to a dragging stop in front of the staircase, staggering against it. He looks up, and is finally close enough to see Gene, and Gene looks radiant and… well.
“What the fuck.” Gene says, and Babe realises he’s in a t-shirt and sneakers and sweatpants in 30 degree weather and waves it off to stand up straight, taking a deep breath.
“I have to tell you some stuff,” He says, “and it’s not gonna make a lot of sense, and I need you to stick with me, here.”
Gene shifts away from him, like he’s going to grab his suitcase. “Edward,” he says, and the frustration that bolts through Babe at his given name almost warms him up. “I’ve got a car coming any minute now—”
“It won’t take long—” Babe promises over him, and realises, maybe for the first time, that the aching in his chest is something desperate. “I, just. I need to do this, and I didn’t realise that I did, and now I’m—”
“Babe.” Gene says, and Babe blinks at him and then blinks again and then suddenly can’t stop from opening his mouth.
“I’m my own drummer and my own singer and I’m asking you to dance with me, I think.” Is what comes out of it, and Gene stares at him like he’s insane so Babe shakes his head and clears his throat and tries again.
“I mean, I like you.” He says, and thinks of storms and memories and words and poems and quotes and people and the shore. “Like, not as a friend. And I thought as a friend, but you’re the only friend I have that I think about everyday, and that I go crazy for, and I like you like I want to be more than your friend, and it’s—”
“Babe—” Gene starts to say again, and Babe shakes his head, holds up a hand, because the hurting in his chest is desperation and he needs to get it out, needs to tell Gene, needs to shake it into him because it’s going to burn him alive.
“No, I just, I need to—” He says, and has to stop and huff through his nose. He tries to collect his thoughts, and takes a deep breath. “You asked me to go down to Louisiana and I thought just as friends because I thought we were just friends, but we aren’t, are we?”
Gene blinks at him. The twist of his lips looks almost imploring. “Babe,” he says, a third time. “I thought that you didn’t want to be anything but—”
“I didn’t know anything!” Babe exclaims, which is a little loud, so he winces slightly and tries again. “I didn’t know that we were friends, I didn’t know that we were more, I thought… I thought that it was just… whatever we were doing and didn’t think.”
“I thought we were just friends, too.” Gene interrupts him this time, and Babe wants to touch his jaw. “I thought we were, and then we were changing, and it scared me in November and I left, but it didn’t scare me anymore but you—”
“You left again.” Babe says, and doesn’t mean it as an accusation. “You left again, after November, and I was confused, and I thought we were friends, but we’re not, because we’re more, or — or at least I want to be more, because I like you—”
Gene’s watching him with wide eyes, wide and dark and bright and light and the tip of his nose is read and so are the shells of his ears and Babe’s chest hurts and he knows why and he opens his mouth again and doesn’t even try to stop himself from rambling.
“I like how red your nose gets when it’s cold outside.” He says, and Gene blinks and steps back half a pace, as if surprised. “I like how you refuse to call me by my goddamn name, no matter how many times I tell you that only the nuns call me Edward.” He says, even though Gene’s called him Babe now almost as much as Edward in this single conversation.
“I like how you make food that’s fully capable of killing me.” He says, and thinks of the spice in the courtbouillon and how Gene had grinned his soft, gentle grin when Babe had felt his face heating up from the spice. “I like that you always forget to bring gloves outside.” He says, and thinks of Gene’s red knuckles.
“I like how your lips are almost always chapped, no matter what you do.” He says. “I like the colour of your eyes. I like how cold your hands are. I like that I can never stop thinking about you, no matter what, because you’re all I ever want to think about, Eugene, even before November, even before everything that happened, because you’re you and I like you.”
He takes a deep breath, and realises for the first time just how cold his feet are. He ignores it, because Gene’s staring at him again and Babe’s distracted by everything from his hair to his eyes to the way he has his hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket, elbows held out high, for some reason.
“Babe.” Gene says, and Babe staggers slightly against the fairy light staircase and then Gene is kissing him, and his hands are freezing and on either side of Babe’s face.
It’s a chaste kiss, as far as kisses go, because Babe’s maybe freezing to death and also so high on adrenaline he thinks he could bench press Bull, and his own hands fly up to Gene’s face and kiss him again, and again, and pull back enough to kiss the corner of his mouth, and his cheek, and back to his mouth, and—
“Uh, excuse me, are you Roe?”
Gene pulls away from him, eyes wide and lips chapped and Babe’s chest still hurts and Gene turns to the Uber driver, hands leaving Babe to pat down his pockets, talking faster than Babe thinks he’s ever heard him talk.
“Yes, yeah, sorry about that,” He’s saying, and he sounds almost breathless, and Babe would be almost proud if he wasn’t so cold and also wanting Gene to come back over right now before he actually dies. “I, uh, could you wait, a moment? I have, like, ten dollars, if you could give me a moment to…” He trails off, and the driver takes the money and shrugs.
Babe misses the rest of the transaction because he’s shifting his feet back and forth and hoping he doesn’t lose a toe. Then Gene’s back near him again, and it’s significantly weirder because there’s an Uber driver waiting on them. But Gene kisses him again and Babe kisses back and then kisses the corner of his mouth and his cheek again and pulls back just enough to rest his freezing forehead against Gene’s, and he can’t stop smiling.
Gene is so close to him that Babe’s eyes are slightly blurry, and his smile is as gentle and as soft as it ever is and when he asks, “did Renée do the thing with the poems?” Babe’s laugh bursts out of him so warmly it’s like sunlight.
He runs his thumbs over Gene’s cheekbones and closes his eyes, their foreheads still pressed together, to say, “I’m gonna write you poems, now. She’s opened me up to a whole world of possibilities.”
Gene smiles and it seems tired, so Babe pulls back and kisses him again, and then says, hole still in his chest, “don’t stay in Louisiana until they want you to leave. I want — I want you to come back and take time off. I want to do that, like you said earlier.”
It’s Gene that pushes forward to kiss him, this time, and his breath is warm and puffs against Babe’s cheek and Babe has missed him so, so much and somehow never even realised that he did. “Yeah,” He says. “Yeah, of course—”
“And we can make the… the maque-choux—” Babe says, starting to ramble, a little bit, and Gene huffs a laugh.
“You remember that?” He asks.
Babe nods, rests his forehead against Gene’s and says, “I couldn’t forget. I couldn’t forget, the ingredients were in the fridge, I bought them the next day you texted me,” And Gene laughs and kisses him again.
“We’re gonna fuck up again.” Gene says, after that, which would be out of pocket if it wasn’t Gene and if Babe didn’t know exactly what he meant.
“I don’t care.” He said, and shifted from having his hands on either sides of Gene’s face to lock his wrists behind Gene’s neck, watching his eyes and thinking a mile a minute and saying, “I don’t care, I don’t give a shit, and we’ll fuck up and it’ll be fine and we’ll talk about it and it will be worth it because it’s you—”
“And you’re you.” Gene reminds him, his own hands having migrated to either side of Babe’s neck, and Babe laughs and bumps his nose against Gene’s.
“Yeah, and we’ll figure it out.” He says, and it suddenly feels more serious. He watches Gene’s eyes some more and lets himself feel warm. “We — it won’t be perfect, and we’ll have issues, and it won’t always be good and we’ll figure it out and it’ll be us.”
And Gene is quieter, too, like he’s also realising the solemnity, and then he’s nodding and kissing Babe again and he says, “I won’t leave again.” And it makes Babe laugh and maybe it’s a little wet because there’s an Uber driver, like, five feet away from them waiting to help Gene do just that.
“Yeah, you will.” Babe says, and wonders what poems and quotes and words there are about that. “You will, but it’s okay, ‘cause I’ll understand why, and I’ll have to leave, sometimes, but we’ll both be back and it won’t be perfect but it’ll be us and we’ll figure it out.”
Gene’s watching him, again, and the corner of his mouth is quirked up and Babe watches him and is warm, warm. “Yeah?” He asks, almost like a joke, and from behind them, the Uber driver clears his throat so Babe just nods and runs a thumb over Gene’s chapped lips and lets himself smile before kissing them.
“Yeah.” He says back, and Gene steps away and drags his suitcase off of the stairs and Gene kisses him again and then is moving towards the Uber. “Yeah, we’re gonna figure it out.” He says, and says it more to himself. He watches Gene shove his luggage into the car and turn back once more and Babe almost stumbles in his move to meet him and Gene’s hands are cold on either side of his face.
Gene pulls back and regards him seriously, face solemn, eyes warm. “I like you, too.” He says, and Babe’s laugh almost startles him.
“Oh, thank God.” He says, and Gene kisses him again. “I was a little worried.”
—
Gene eventually has to get into the Uber, and Babe eventually has to kiss him one last time, but the hurting in his chest isn’t so bad anymore and he wonders if the crushing he’d been feeling since the Mustang could maybe slowly become less. Everything is always less, when it needs to be, with Gene.
Babe scrubs a hand down his face and wonders if he can use the printer at work to print off the Harif Abdurraqib poem and turns on his heel and heads back to his own apartment.
Fuck, his feet are cold.
And… oh.
Well, he still has to find Eugene a Christmas present.
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Title: Blood on the floor
Pairing: Argentstep
Warnings: Blood, Retribution spoilers, murder, nanovores being hungry
Word Count: 652
Prompt: @sidestepping prompted a Halloween randomized prompt, I took “Argent” and “blood on the floor”
Summary: Argent answers Riley’s call for help and finds a very gruesome scene at her base.
The scent of iron hits like a sledgehammer as you enter the derelict water treatment plant. The shiver that follows rattles bone and nerves and guts and them. A feeling, a longing, welling up inside from your stomach to your throat. They can't drool but if you could they would.
You (they) smell blood.
(blood means meat)
(meat means prey)
(it's prey it's prey it's prey it's—)
It's—
"Riley?" you call and somehow your voice sounds steadier than you feel.
Shit, what's happened?
Is she…?
You followed the wide trail of blood through the dark corridor, bare feet slapping, leaving clean footprints on the concrete in your wake. Don't think about that. Don't think about the itch of their teaming and shifting across your lower legs.
(they all want some)
You could tell them to stop, but what's the point? It's already spilled. Might as well let them indulge. It'd be harder to stop them. The real fight hasn't come yet and you'll need every ounce of your control then if what you really dread is—
(they haven't tasted her before, is it really…? could it be?)
You swallow down bile and they itch in your tightening throat. "Riley?" you call again, louder this time. Desperately? Maybe so.
A startled "Fuck!" answers you.
Relief. Dread? That sounded too strong for this amount of blood loss. So whose blood is this?
Round the corner and she's there, half dressed and armored, orange circuitry on glaring display against tan, staring at you like a deer in the headlights. Hair plastered to her head by sweat, bandages hanging loose from her lower arm and—
(different scent, not hers)
(not her, it's prey)
The gun in her hand, pointed at you, lowers. That threat aside, your eyes follow the blood trail to a body in the corner.
"Argent? What are you…?" She trails off, her gaze following yours to the corpse in the corner. Corpse? Still twitching, a gurgling wheeze, and… a thick piece of rebar through their gut. Not going to last long bleeding like this, with that wound. "I… can explain."
(prey prey prey meat prey meat hungry)
"Better be good," you mutter, pulling a sharp breath in through your nose as you swallow and quiet the swarm in your brain.
(hungry meat hungry prey)
She flicks a light switch closer to them and oh. Oh no. Blue-gray skin. Re-Gene. You couldn't distinguish it in the low light. Black tattoos, different from Riley's, hard and sharp geometric shapes block out across their bald head and exposed skin.
"It was following me," she says quietly, giving you a hard look that dares you to protest her actions. "I don't know if they know I'm Reckoning, but I can't take any chances of them finding my base."
"You did a great job covering your tracks," you say dryly, masking your swallow with a hand dragged down your face. Your feet shift and change, relief comes from meeting cooling stickiness on the rug. Takes the edge off. It'll be cleaner than it was when you arrived.
"It caught me off-guard. Numbers," she mutters with a scowl. "I couldn't sense any others but… did you notice any?"
"No."
(prey meat food feed before it's cold)
She sighs her relief and continues wrapping the bandage you'd interrupted. You swallow again, fingers flexing at your sides as you stand ramrod still.
"Clean up was next on the list." Her eyes flick to yours and the crooked grin she gives you sends a new wave of shivers down your spine. Not cold ones.
"I don't know why you're here but…"
Oh, don't ask it. You don't want her to see you like this, twitching and starved and stretched tight between decency and hunger. You don't want her to—
(ask it ask it ask it ask it)
"I don't suppose your little friends would be interested in helping out just this once?"
#kitbug writes things#fhr#argentstep#lady argent#sidestep#riley owens#me playing around with argent perspective#how nanos might sound in her head#idk i have no idea i'm just playing in my sandbox#anyway#i wonder how much she'd do to help#riley in her lil villainy
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Alright Season 3 lets give it up for season 3 everyone.
Cannot believe this show left me on "How do you know what you brought back it 100% pure Sam?" and I just said to myself
GODDAMN
and then just didn't watch S3E1 for three days
Anyway. Liveblogging spn while I work tonight. We're bringing back the old days where I did this with x files if any of you remember that LMAO
Kicking things off with a bang (and me trying to not post too many rambles about a stupid tv show, so I'm conglomerating my thoughts into big posts instead)
we have S3E1 - The Magnificent Seven
Love this show's deep appreciation for full black contact lenses MWAH
cheffs kiss
Sorry I know I should be focusing on the evil demon smoke going to infect whatever city this is but like. Do you guys actually genuinely have flags out the front of your houses like this for real
Like really. Do your houses really have flags like that.
OH YEAH BABEY SEASON 3 GOT AN INTRO STING GRAPHICAL UPDATE!!!!!!!!!! NICE
He is SO concerned
No one is giving me practical effects like this show is and I'm living for this
I WISH there was more of a scene in australia cause god I'd work as a prop maker for a living if it was a viable career to do more horror aligned stuff here.
They've spiced up the camera work this season and it is FUN!!!!
These two are great I hope they're gonna be regular supporting characters PLEASE
Highly entertaining seeing Dean's superpower of "Flirt with woman successfully" actually used as a utility (bonus points because it's making him uncomfortable)
RARE HAT-LESS BOBBY SPOTTED
Oh.
Absolutely visceral death, but a real damn shame because these two were cool :(
This show has no right just putting jokes like this right after a scene like THAT.
These dickheads are far too fun to be a one off PLEASE
Australian chanting
FOIGHT FOIGHT FOIGHT FOIGHT FOIGHT!!!!!!!!
Alright that was a fun way to start a season. Nice recap. I get it. It'dved been a while since it last aired. I like shitty pissed off Sam a LOT.
Are you tired of being nice Sam? Don't you just want to go apeshit?
Round 2 Electric Boogaloo with S3E2 - The Kids are Alright
Starting strong once again with a callback to Victorian worksafe ads!!
(Victorians know.)
Love that Sam inherited NONE of the lying genes in the family
I'm sorry you cant make the comment "as many as I can squeeze out" (EUPHAMISM) and then immediately smack me in the face with a fucking GUMBY REFERENCE?????!!!!!!!!!
Fuck off I hate this show. Fuck you dean you stupid piece of shit
A FUCKING
GUMBY REFERENCE (how many of you know what that is LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOO)
Look I get it, I do, but c'mon he looks so fucking awkward getting cake while these two women are talking about the explicit details of his prior intimate experience with Lisa from 8 years ago
Like what the fuck did they DO to illicit a reaction as intense as these two women are giving
No I will not suspend my disbelief for the running gag No I'm not taking this too literally NO i don't have a problem with interpreting jokes
The closeup of Dean's face as his brain was doing the dialup tone killed me, then immediately PANIC but don't drop the cake (SAME)
Anyway. Lisa I love you. You're amazing. Please be done justice by this show. Please.
Need you all to know I go through hell (HAR HAR) to watch this show
And I thought my conversations in cafes sounded unhinged to bystanders (LITERALLY had some old dude tell me and a friend we were weirdos as we minded our own business drawing horror art in a cafe hgakjrhgkagh)
HATE that my brain just went "NOT THE SARAN WRAP SKIN" (we don't call it that. Next I'll start pronouncing things more wrong than I already do)
Not the white DS Lite!!!!!!!!
Remember this kid you bullied in highschool? This is them now
Oh this show doesn't pull punches and it has some NICE shots
Anyway bye Lisa I love you I hope you come back soon :(
the running gag of bizarre interior décor hotel room never ceases to entertain me, I'm like a small child
Anyway
ran out of room for more images on this post so. Who knows maybe I'll fuck off or I'll do a part 2 tonight we'll see
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I just came across this other post of yours where you’re talking about the team black main characters and the dumbest excuse I’ve seen for daemon laughing at the funeral is to protect Rhaenyra and her sons and I’m thinking how does that make it better so he’d rather laughter at his children’s mother’s funeral just to protect someone who repeated the same mistake a million times no ways, she has that abortion tea at her disposal once Jackal was born she should have realised that the chances of the next one coming out with strong features are too high and stopped, she could have still had sex with the guy but not have his children
so i guess all i have to say about this is:
a) that’s a very dumb excuse for daemon laughing. he was just laughing at vaemond trying to hint that rhaenyra’s kids were bastards. and it actually shows just how much daemon evades proper judement and punishment, that he laughs at vaemond for his vylarian speech that ultimately is a serious subject and then smirks and rolls his eyes when alicent says a prayer for vaemond too. this man did as he liked most of his life and he knows he can get away with just about anything, at least while viserys is alive. but even after that, because he is grrm’s favorite character.
b) idk what effect moon tea has over women so idk if it’s feasable a woman take moon tea every time she wants to have sex, but rhaenyra was definitely not very smart to concieve all of her children with harwin strong and then act like no one would suspect or even know, especially with harwin making a scene. like that wouldn’t create any problems.... tbh this is also a complex debate because it’s weird to me how all of alicent’s children came out with viserys’ eyes and hair, but i think hotd like got operates on that silly “the seed is strong” thing which alludes to the children usually taking after the father which in reality doesn’t work like this. at least one of alicent’s children if not more would have brown eyes and brown hair. unless maybe in grrm’s world genetics work differently and white heir blue (purple?) eyes are the dominant gene but that would still not make sense for rhaenyra. UNLESS he thinks it’s only a dominant gene if it comes from the father. which is silly. lol, it’s a mess. thing is i do not think rhaenyra anticipated anyone would ever dare question her or her children because she’s the princess and the heir and she will do as her heart desires, and that’s silly, but that’s testament to how ignorant her father was because he didn’t prepare rhaenyra or teach her anything at all
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One Dress a Day Challenge- Part Two!
Anything Goes December
Dorothy Tuttle in Meet Me in St. Louis, The Harvey Girls, The Pirate and Summer Stock
OK, so I decided to mix it up for my final entry in this challenge. Today, I want to highlight the career of MGM contract player Dorothy Tuttle.
The reason for this is, she is a background actor that I would notice while watching these movies...I’d watch The Harvey Girls and go: “Wait a minute, wasn’t she in Summer Stock?” And then I’d see her in Meet Me in St. Louis or The Pirate....so I’ve decided to highlight her looks in some of my favorite movies!
The orange dress she wears in Meet Me in St. Louis for the party scene is one of my favorites...I mean, just look at the detail...the embroidery, the ruffles, the puff sleeves...it’s gorgeous! And the pink and cream outfit she wears for the Trolley Song is really cute, too...I love her hat!
youtube
For The Harvey Girls, she wears the uniform for the majority of the movie...but like all the other actresses in the opening, she gets a beautiful travel suit, with a white eyelet shirt waist and orange and black coat. She also has a gorgeous dress for the dance sequence, but there are no decent photos of her in it.
She gets her most iconic moment in The Pirate, wearing a really cool Spanish-inspired dress with a black and white polka dot top that’s way off the shoulder with those huge puff sleeves.
And then in Summer Stock, she gets to wear more contemporary looks with 1950′s styles.
I also want to highlight some other iconic movies she appeared in during her career: Marie Antoinette, The Women, Ziegfeld Girl, Show Boat, An American in Paris and Singin’ in the Rain (which was her last film). She was also in a movie called Ladies of the Chorus, which was the film that gave Marilyn Monroe her start in movies. All uncredited...which is why it took me forever to find out what her name was.
It is so incredible the things she got to do and witness in her career. She sat next to Judy Garland while she sang The Trolley Song, she got to watch Gene Kelly tap dance, she saw the beginning of Marilyn Monroe’s career. She was in movies with William Powell, Norma Shearer, Lucille Ball and Fred Astaire. I have to say, if I had worked in Old Hollywood, and I couldn’t have been a “star”, I would have wanted a career like Dorothy Tuttle’s. What a legacy.
#one dress a day challenge#meet me in st. louis#the pirate#the harvey girls#summer stock#dorothy tuttle#costume design#gene kelly#judy garland
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In a scene filmed at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala., Michael W. Twitty, author of “The Cooking Gene,” reads aloud from placards describing the “crimes” for which Black men were lynched. “I want you to think about what the last meals of these men and women were,” he says. “What does it mean to be a Black woman who cooks on a plantation, who bears your slaveholder’s children? What is the kitchen at that point? The kitchen becomes a space of trauma and turmoil, not just a space where you make good food. These are the narratives that get woven out of the glorification of the South as a moonlight-and-magnolias place.”
Other storytellers in this documentary may seem, on the surface, to have almost nothing to do with the Southern past. Their art responds nevertheless to those historical forces, if only because they grew up in a place that was shaped by them. The screenwriter Qui Nguyen, who grew up in Arkansas as the son of Vietnamese refugees, believes that many people have a “stereotyped idea of what a Southerner looks like, or feels like, or sounds like.” A lot of them, he says, “probably wouldn’t guess this face being a part of it, and yet I’m completely a part of the Southern fabric.”
No writer has a lock on what it means to be Southern, but collectively these voices — straight and queer, old and young, Black and white and brown; writing in fiction and nonfiction, in poetry and song — are telling us an important story about what the South is and what it has been, whether we understand it or not. As the singer-songwriter Adia Victoria says, “Being a Southerner is a strange thing. You ponder about it. You gnaw on it. But you never can quite get to the heart of the South.”
Even more than the region’s oral tradition, that truth explains why this place has raised up far more than its share of storytellers. And why the stories will always, always keep coming.
Margaret Renkl, a contributing Opinion writer, is the author of the books “Graceland, at Last” and “Late Migrations.” Her next book, “The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year,” will be published in October.
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