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detectivedreameater · 3 years

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Going In Circles || Erin and Marley

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @corpse--diem and @detectivedreameater SUMMARY: Marley and Erin enjoy a date at the carnival, but the tea cup ride has other plans. CONTENT: Emotional abuse

Carnivals and carnival dates had never really been Marley’s thing, but this would be the second one she’d been on in less than a year. She wondered if it was becoming a pattern, before realizing it would probably be a pattern simply because Erin loved going to these things, and Marley loved Erin. Ergo, carnival dates. Ergo, why she was here right now, walking beside her girlfriend, squinting against the bright lights that kept flashing on and off as they passed the rides, old and rickety but given new life. It almost made her sad. She’d enjoyed the decrepit way the Cryptid Corner sat, the way it lingered on the fringes of real and not real, the way it taunted and tormented and took. She was a creature of fear and the smell of death had always lingered here, and what was more terrifying than death? This, she thought, maybe this. Maybe having found something worth keeping. Maybe worrying she’d mess it all up. Maybe she wondered how much she was really giving Erin, when all she could offer was a few measly years, if that.

Still, she gave her best attempt at a smile, which was more like a furrow of her lips, when Erin looked over at her. “So what first?” she asked, giving a sweeping motion to the place and fixing her sunglasses as they slid down her nose. “Funnel cakes? That weird spinny ride? The rollercoaster? I don’t know how these things work. You pick.”

“My pick? You’re sure about that?” Erin grinned, her focus bouncing between the lights and noises, navigating through the crowd, and soaking up Marley’s reaction to it all. Part of her was still shocked she had agreed so easily to come but she was glad for it, whatever her reasonings were. Not a thing had changed about the festivities since she was a kid—well, that’s what she’d thought at least, until a rush of screams filled the night air. “Holy hell. That used to be a kiddie coaster,” she gestured ahead of them with a nod, eyes alight with fascination. “We’re definitely riding that. I’m riding it at least, if you’re too chicken.” A wide grin crossed her lips and she looped her arm through Marley’s while they strolled. For a moment it struck her how wildly domestic and normal this felt, and the fact that she was doing this with Marley? It was bizarre in the best way possible. She clung to her tighter and raised a brow. “We should get the snooze fest over and done with first though. I want to see you laugh in their faces when they jump out and try to scare you.”

“You do realize I eat fear, right? You remember that that’s a thing I do?” Marley said, raising a brow as they strolled past the coaster. It veered past them and she heard the old wood creaking. It was a recipe for disaster and she felt her skin prickle as fear trickled from the patrons getting ready to ride it. She looked back at them, then over to Erin as she looped their arms together. Marley was not adverse to PDA, she just wasn’t used to it. She shifted her arm so it was more accessible to Erin and relaxed back. “Well, guess there’s three different haunted houses and two--” she lifted her free arm to give an air quote-- “ ‘scare zones’, so which of those are we doing first?” Maybe this didn’t feel normal to Marley, but it somehow felt natural. Being with Erin just made her feel natural, maybe even normal. Well, normal for them. She supposed neither of them were truly normal, especially not now that Erin was a fury. “Either way, I get a meal, so your pick.”

Erin winced when the wooden behemoth groaned with age, like an old man’s knees would creak and crack as he rose from his recliner. “Yes, Marley, I know. You’re a terrifying creature of the night,” she teased gently, tossing a smirk her way. “But that thing’s been coming back here for as long as I can remember. I think if you look close enough you can see where I carved my initials into the side when I was 12. We might actually die.”

The scare zones and haunted houses didn’t look terribly different outside of the length of the lines. “That one,” she confirmed, grabbing her hand and tugging her quickly behind her to stand at the end of the line. “The longer the line is, the better it’s going to be,” she answered matter of factly. Sharp, shrill screams split through the air. She could have sworn she heard a chainsaw rumbling in the distance. “I guess you could tell me, actually, depending on how thick you can feel the fear around here.”

Marley rolled her eyes, too. “You say that as if it’s supposed to be a bad thing. Wouldn’t mind dying on a rollercoaster, though. Be kinda fun. Just disappointing I can’t be killed at night.” She could sense the fear, though, as Erin dragged her to a long line and she shuffled hands into pockets, feeling the hairs on her arms rise. Something was a little off about this particular attraction, and she scanned the crowd, looking for any sign of it. When she couldn’t see anything right away, she turned to look back at Erin. “Pretty thick,” she answered, “more than at the coaster. Kinda gettin’ that spidey sense, though. Think this might be one of those not-so-normal attractions.” Still, it would be interesting to see how it was run and set up and if it was bugbears or her own kind behind it. Either way, she wouldn’t be affected by any of it, which came as a small disappointment. “If anyone tries to look you in the eyes, don’t look back.”

“Then I guess the only thing you’ve got to worry about is watching my head get lobbed off by a tragic rollercoaster accident.” Erin teased a small smirk. “That’s how most roller coaster accidents go, anyway. If you’re not just entirely smashed to death.”

Erin took a closer look at the area around them, full of the usual wonderfully tacky bloody and spooky decor that came with every man-made haunted house in the world. They were moving closer up the line--it was long but it was going quickly, thankfully. She was right about the chainsaw, though. A masked man whizzed by the line, laughing maniacally, illiciting a chorus of high pitched screams from most of the teenage girls as he went. “Got it.” She nodded her understanding at Marley’s words, unconsciously sticking a little closer as they moved. Finally, it was their turn to enter. “These things usually aren’t that scary anyway. Just a lot of--” A wall opened up beside them as they entered the dark hallway, a neon face grinning and grabbing for the duo. Erin screamed, hopping back, grabbing Marley’s jacket for all she was worth. “That.” She shuffled until she was behind her, giving her a gentle push onward. “Maybe you should go first.”

“I watched Final Destination three, I know how roller coaster deaths go,” Marley chastised, but she was smiling all the same. And, really, only Erin could make her smile this way. It made her chest feel funny, like it was full of helium or butterflies or both. She kinda liked it.

Marley scanned the crowd the same way Erin did, but her eyes, piercing the dark, caught more. Shadows moving about, red eyes hidden behind glasses just like her own. Ah, so that’s how it was. She was already nonplussed by the Misery Manor, of course it would be mara setting up the haunted houses at this carnival. The scare zones, then...That was a thought for another day. She turned back to Erin as they moved up the line and it was nearly their turn. She could already feel the fear wafting out from the inside, from the people in front of them as anticipation turned to anxiety turned to fear. She breathed it in and sighed happily, grinning as the wall next to them popped open in what was supposed to be a jump scare. Marley chuckled as Erin scurried around her, and she found that even her fear had a certain taste to it. She’d never fed from Erin, but free was free. She hooked their arms together, despite Erin being behind her, and headed in. “Just stick with me, I’ll keep you safe, princess,” she teased, heading into what was supposed to be a dark hallway, but for Marley’s eyes, was just a hallway filled with tacky fake cobwebs and ripped cloth. “Real spooky,” she commented, flicking a piece of it before she heard a creaking beside them and saw an empty rocking chair begin to move.

Erin rolled her eyes but squeezed Marley’s arm. “Don’t you dare call me that,” she grumbled, following along behind her. These things were tacky and predictable and at face value, really weren’t scary. Wasn’t her fault that the one thing they were good at were well timed jump scares. Marley had never failed to keep her safe, though. Even if she didn’t truly need it right now, it was a comforting feeling to wrap back around her like a favorite sweater she’d found at the back of her closet. “I’m not sure what you expected. Production quality is average in a place like this in a tiny town like White Crest. At best,” she chuckled as Marley swatted away some of the fake cobwebs. The next jump scare was a little more predictable (only startling her a little this time) and the few that followed as they entered were about the same. It was the one towards the end that caught her eyes--or rather, their eyes. Bright and red, staring down at a man not far ahead of them. He ran off, screaming, much to the amusement of his friends behind him, completely unaware of the very real nightmares he’d just endured. She tugged on Marley’s arm, holding her back, then nodded towards the sight. “You were right. Guess you’re not the only one getting in a snack while you’re here, huh?”

The haunted house wasn’t even trying, in Marley’s opinion, but she supposed that was kind of the point. It was one of the lessons Peter had tried to teach her-- set them up to knock them down. If you let them believe they were safe, then the terror of not being so later would be even greater. Erin seemed to enjoy it enough, though, and that was good enough for Marley. It wasn’t until they reached the end that Marley saw their first other mara, aside from the one out front. She wondered what he’d made the man see, feeling his fear pulsing through the room. Their eyes met and without even needing to show it, they both knew. There was no click behind the eyes, no draw asking them to pull out the fears hiding just behind them. The man smiled and Marley frowned. “Think they do this for a living, actually,” she stated, pulling Erin in the opposite direction of the man, using her body to shield her from him. “Like the ones at Misery Manor. Real easy to scare people and feed sustainably if the people pay to get scared.” It was the easy way out-- monsters playing dress up as other monsters. She wished it were that easy. “Must be why people think these things are actually scary,” she added on, trying not to let her own opinion bring down the night. This was supposed to be a good night, she could put away her dour outlook for one night. Probably.

Anger was an inevitable with real fear as present as it was. Even some of the little blips that followed the jump scares were followed with sharp, brief spots of it. Erin waited and waited for the man who’d been fed off to feel the same. Remembered how crippling that fear had been the night she met Marley and was introduced to her powers first hand. For a moment she even thought to follow him, maybe return the favor in kind before Marley led her away. That wasn’t exactly fair though, was it? They were simply feeding, sustaining themselves just as Marley needed to. What they had to consume wasn’t their fault. “It’s kind of smart, if you think about it. And efficient. Two birds, one stone, you know? No one has to get hurt.” She shrugged, making sure to avoid eye contact with anyone as they exited through the last room. “I mean, it wasn’t the worst haunted house I’ve ever been to but it wasn’t… great. It was an experience, I guess,” she smirked, trying to shrug off the memory of the man. Stuffing her hand into her jacket pockets, she glanced over, smiling and gently nudging her as they walked. “How about we top off your dinner with some teeth rotting, sugary dessert?”

“You ever actually been to one that was scary? Like, real scary?” Marley asked, because she didn’t think it was something she’d ever felt or get to feel. She tried to recall a time when she’d been truly afraid, and the only memory she could draw forth was when she’d heard Erin screaming in pain in that warehouse. And that certainly wasn’t something she wanted to think about right now. “Don’t know if it’d ever work on me.” She didn’t have to wonder, really, how it felt, but it was different just knowing and actually feeling it. She kinda wanted to feel it, that rush of fear before remembering it wasn’t real and feeling it drain away. Erin was nudging her from her thoughts, though, and Marley peered curiously over at her as she gestured towards one of the stands. “You mean those, uh-- funnel cakes or whatever, right? Is that the strange sugary smell that’s, like, everywhere in here? I don’t think my jacket will ever smell like leather again,” she teased, her way of saying, yes, I would like that very much. But Erin seemed to speak her language just fine, there was no need for translation between the two of them anymore.

Erin smirked, immediately reading through her sarcasm. It wasn’t often Marley was excited about something but she knew her well enough now to know that she was looking forward to this. Her stomach turned remembering the first (and last) time she’d taken a sip of Marley’s sugar drenched coffee. “There’s not much here that isn’t either fried or covered in sugar. More often than not, both.” The farther they moved from the haunted section of the carnival, delving deeper into the rest of the crowd, the heavier her body seemed to move. In little increments, and over time, but there was a noticeable wane in her newfound, unlimited energy. This many happy people, all packed in one place, was surely going to exhaust her before the end of the night. After ordering their funnel cake and glancing over at Marley, she knew it was worth it. A spot opened up at a picnic table nearby and she hurried before it was taken, plopping down with the food at hand. “Wait, wait, before you try it--” she grinned widely, pulling out her phone to record this monumental moment. “Okay, here we go--go ahead and dig in.”

Marley followed along behind Erin, letting her lead the way. This was her thing, after all. She’d grown up going to things like this, tugging her mom or dad around instead. Pointing delightedly at the funnel cake and ice cream stands. The closest thing Marley had had was when her and another boy at the foster home had snuck into one of the boardwalks. It had a single wooden coaster, a ferris wheel, one of those rides that spun you in a circle forwards and backwards, and a bunch of lame booth games that were all obviously rigged. And the arcade. They’d spent most of their stolen quarters at the arcade, before riding the ferris wheel and spending most of the time making out, Marley had barely noticed the height until they were coming back down and the loud ambiance of the amusement park came back to her. This felt different. It was lively and smelled like something other than saltwater and garbage and it made people happy. Something people rarely were in this town. Even as they were being swindled by fae, they were happy, laughing with their friends or lovers or family. Before Marley knew it, she was sitting at a table across from Erin and there was a pile of what looked like literal baked sugar piled in front of her. She scrunched her nose. “One picture,” she grumbled, “you get one.” She reached out and tore a piece off before popping it in her mouth and being assaulted by the rush of sugar. “Fuck, you weren’t lying,” she grinned, “this is the most sugary shit I’ve ever tasted.”

“What about one long picture?” Erin teased, holding the camera steady. They didn’t get a lot of moments like this. Simple, soft memories. Most of the ones they shared were marred with fighting for their lives or some sort of tension or overwhelming worry from whatever horror they were dealing with that week. These moments, watching Marley’s face light up, enjoying something she loved? These were the ones she wanted to hold closest. She laughed, setting the phone down to pull a piece off for herself. “Told ya,” she smirked, popping the pieces into her mouth. “When I was little, my mom wouldn’t let me have any until the end of the night so I wouldn’t get sick on any of the rides. Especially not after the tea cup incident.” Even now, years after she’d passed, it still jarred her heart a bit to talk about her mom. But that was a good memory. The kind she held closest. The kind she wanted to keep making. She smiled over at Marley, flicking a little piece her way. “Which we should totally check out next, by the way. You won’t get scared but you will get dizzy as hell. And that’s something I have to see.”

Marley frowned. “That’s called a video,” she said with her usual, flat tone. But she couldn’t hold it for too long, finding herself enjoying the moment, and well, the night. She took another hearty bite of the funnel cake. “Why don’t they just sell these at normal places? The world is really missing out on that. It’s like churros. How come you can only buy churros at special places like this, or the really cheap gross ones from gas stations? Seems like a waste, to me.” She put one elbow on the table and rest her chin on the back of her hand as she poked around a few more pieces, watching Erin. “You always come with her?” she asked. Erin always talked fondly of her mom, and she also knew that Dale’s death had been a direct result of his admission of partaking in her mother’s death. Marley wondered what it felt like to have a parent like that. “Teacups? Those the things that spin, right? Fine, but if I throw up, it’s your fault.” She didn’t actually know if that was possible for mara, but she didn’t see why not, though she couldn’t recall a time she’d ever done so herself. “But don’t be disappointed when I can totally walk in a straight line after.”

Erin laughed, shaking her head. “I don’t know, but you’re right. It’s criminal. We can just make these at home, if you want. It’s super easy. And we always have sugar in the house.” She sent a pointed look her way, finishing off the last of her share and wiped her hands off as she nodded. “When I was little, mostly. Of course when I hit puberty, it was way too dweeby to come with your parents. But I still didn’t eat anything before the teacups.” Her eyes narrowed in thought as she licked the sugar from her lips, hoping she was immune to that sort of thing now. Guess they’d find out. “What about you? Did you ever do the carnival thing growing up?” She asked, though from the little she knew about Marley’s childhood, she wasn’t terribly optimistic about her answer. “Aren’t you the one who said there’s nothing straight about you?” She teased, reaching up wordlessly to brush a speck of powdered sugar from Marley’s cheek. “Hurry up so I can watch you fall over and eat your words.”

Home. We. The words were small, but Marley noticed them every time. Their house. Their home. She knew it was true, but it still startled her every time. Marley had already moved her entire life into Erin’s house, save the little space she kept at her old apartment for work she brought home. She tried not to bring work home to Erin’s-- theirs. It felt strange, different. Not bad, just different. She blinked, a conscious decision, tilting her head. “Went to a boardwalk once,” she finally answered, “didn’t really do the whole walking around, getting on rides gig, though. More of the, ‘steal coins from some ladies purse and spend them all in the arcade’ gig. Or ‘make out on the ferris wheel or under the coaster’.” A shrug. “Least you still listened to your mom, even if you were a dweeby teen.” A grin, then, wiping away the awkwardness of her answer. She put her hands up in a surrendering motion. “You got me. Not a single thing straight about me.” Scrunched her nose and swatted at Erin’s hand. “Alright, sheesh. Whatever happened to stop and savor the small things? Patience.” But she finished the rest of it quickly enough, shoving a last few pieces at Erin before folding the plate up and tossing it in the trash. “Lead the way,” she gestured.

A slow smile crept up Erin’s lips as Marley shared her childhood carnival memories. Different from hers, no doubt, but somehow still uniquely Marley. “That sounds exactly how I’d imagine you spending unsupervised time at a place like this.” Her smile widened even further and she pulled her hand back when Marley swatted. “Not a thing. I knew it,” she laughed and backed off, standing from the table when fried dough was flung at her. “I’m savoring every little bit. We’ve just got to savor things a little quicker or else I’m going to take a nap right here on this picnic table.” She was only partially joking. Now that they were in the thick of the large crowd, she was growing more and more tired as the time ticked on. Determined to carry on, she grabbed Marley’s hand again, leading her through the maze of people, destination already in mind. She’d ridden these things a million times and despite the carnival’s location change, the layout was pretty much the same. She grumbled at the sight of another line, this one filled with parents, sticky children and regular adults alike. “Thankfully we’ve got these lines to wait in and soak up all of those small moments, huh? So helpful of them.” She tilted her head towards Marley when an idea popped in her head, eyes locked momentarily on the cups spinning furiously ahead of them. “If you’re so sure you’re not going to get dizzy, we can always put a friendly little wager on it. What do you say?”

Marley rolled her eyes. “Not sure what else you’d expect,” she said, “plus it was only the one time. Got moved from that foster home pretty quickly.” And it wasn’t like any of the foster parents could afford to take ten plus kids to an amusement park on their own. She’d never lived by another one, until now. She supposed Coney Island counted, but she’d never had any reason to visit. “Not a thing at all.” She stood and followed Erin once again, being led like a dog on a leash through the crowds. She didn’t really mind. She’d follow Erin anywhere, probably. Unless it was somewhere stupid. Maybe even then. She chuckled at Erin’s groan once they reached their destination and found yet another line to stand around in. Marley gave a half smirk. “Hey, think of it this way-- everyone else in this line is probably just as miserable as you. Free real estate, right?” She didn’t know if the way Erin fed was the same as her. Did Erin absorb the chaos and misery of those around her? Or did the true fulfillment come from the wishes? Did it have a taste, like fear did? “So helpful of them,” she repeated. Marley glanced in the direction Erin was looking and saw the carts spinning in already dizzying circles. She grimaced before turning back to Erin. “What kinda wager we talking about here?”

Marley’s words stuck, even as Erin dragged them to another section of the carnival. She could sympathize with Marley’s experiences growing all she wanted but she knew that was something else she could never truly understand. They were here, now, together--happy, if she dared to throw around a heavy word like that--but the roads that lead them here couldn’t have been more different. “Disappointed, sure. But who said I’m miserable?” She raised a challenging brow, eyes glued on her with a smirk that couldn’t have been more obvious. “I’m glad you’re here, though. Hopefully I can show you a better time than your last visit.” With the line standing at halt as the next group embarked on their spinning adventure, she moved closer, loosely resting her hands on Marley’s hips. Her face twisted up in thought momentarily until an idea sprouted. “If I’m right, then you have to go pick up JD and Jose’s food for the next month.”

Marley chuckled. “Guess it’s hard to be miserable around me, huh? I’m that good.” She liked the look on Erin’s face, it made her feel like she was doing something right, like she was finally doing something right. Like she finally had something good and worth it. Something else to fight for aside from the demons on the street. Marley let out a snort, rolling her eyes. “My last visit ended in a mime doppleganger attacking us after I had a panic attack in the hall of mirrors. Kinda think anything would be that.” She moved closer to Erin when the other woman did, hands sliding to rest on her shoulders. A brow raised in turn, head tilting. Curious about the deal and what Erin would want to offer. “Fine. But if I win, then you gotta hold Jose for five minutes.” A grin spreading across her face. The line shuffled and Marley tugged on Erin to walk them up till it stopped again, glancing behind her to make sure she didn’t run into someone. “Whaddaya say? Deal?”

Erin was positive there wasn’t a better feeling in this world than being able to shake out a smile or even an audible laugh out of Marley. They were rare, precious moments and she felt spoiled by how often she was graced with them. What struck her most was the airy, fluttery feeling that overwhelmed her, from stomach to sternum. It had for a long, long time too. Every time and even now. Seemed like something that was going to stick. God, she hoped it did. The corner of her lips quirked into a smirk. “You’re so annoying. I almost don’t want to agree with you anymore.” A pause before she sighed her submission. “Almost.”

Moving with Marley as the line trudged forward, her face shifted into mild horror. Mimes really ruined everything good about this town, didn’t they? “Oh god. I swear, if one of those things even comes near us tonight, I give you full permission to wish that fucker to oblivion. Nothing in the world would please me more, honestly.”

Marley’s suggestion made her grip tighten and for a moment, she regretted ever bringing up the idea of a bet. Jaw tightening through her smile, she dropped her hands as they were finally being allowed through the gates to the emptying tea cups. “Fine! Fine. Deal,” she agreed, cheery enough, but the seething annoyance underneath giving away her true feelings. Not that Marley didn’t know what they were anyway. She shivered at the thought of Jose crawling up her arms and let go of her hand to slip into the plastic, circular seats. “But if you’re even a little bit dizzy, I still win. You hear me?”

Marley just kept grinning. She loved it when Erin got that annoyed but accepting look on her face, like she knew Marley was right but she hated it. Marley liked being right. She rolled her eyes. “Not before I stab it, first,” she mumbled, following Erin through the queue as they were ushered through the little doors and out onto the ride. She let Erin choose which one they were going to be riding in, sliding in next to her. “Hey, that’s not fair. Everyone gets dizzy on shit like this. The deal was if I got sick,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “How about this, if I can’t walk in a straight line after we get off, you win. Make it at least a little easier for you, since I guess you’re a lightweight.” The ride operator came over and lowered the bar, securing them in their seats and once he left, Marley reached up to remove her sunglasses-- she didn’t need them flying off during the ride-- and tucked them into her coat pocket. She looked back at Erin, red glow reflecting softly in her eyes. “If you get scared, you can always hold onto me,” she grinned.

“Stabbing works too,” Erin nodded, trying not to think too hard about her own striped doppelganger that ended up on the wrong side of a very effective skewer. Stabbing worked plenty fine then. “Meet me in the middle here. I don’t even know if you can get sick.” Thankfully, Marley saw reason and she smiled at the small bit of power she’d ultimately relinquished to her. “Hey, I’ll take it. Straight line it is.” This she felt more confident about. You spin any brain around, human, mara or otherwise, it’s bound to get disoriented. To what degree it was about to affect Marley? She had to hope to high heavens that it was enough to keep eight furry, spindly legs far away from her. It was her turn to roll her eyes. “Shut up,” she murmured, nudging some space between them with her arm, watching her tuck away the sunglasses. Couldn’t help the sudden flash of protective worry that shot through her when she found red eyes staring back at her. “I can’t be found canoodling with the enemy. No matter how cute she is.” Her worry seemed needless when the ride suddenly lurched to life. She smirked over at Marley again and gripped the railing holding them in as their cup began to rotate, along with the machine that was spinning all of the cups in the opposite direction. The world blurred around them, lights and faces and objects swirling into bright, colorful blends the faster the ride went. But there were more faces. These were clearer--more clearer than they ever should have been. How was that possible? They were still spinning, gaining speed if anything. “Marley?” She shouted above the noise.

“Marley!” Another voice rang out this time. This one didn’t belong to her.

“Marlena,” the voice said sharply. Marley, only 12 years old, looked up from her spot in the hallway. “You can come in now.”

The child took her time coming into the office, sitting in the chair she’d sat in so many times before. At age 4, age 7, age 9, age 10, and now, age 12. She didn’t look at the woman, the social worker behind the desk, hands folded into her lap.

“I know you were hoping things would be different this time,” the woman started, “I was, too. But...we just can’t afford to keep you here and you haven’t been able to stay at any of the foster homes we’ve placed you in. So I’m afraid we...need to send you to a group home for troubled teens. They can help you better there, I hope.”

Marley didn’t say anything. She just nodded. The worker sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I really am sorry, Marlena.”

When Marley walked out the office door to go pack up her things, a woman down the hall called out to them. “That girl should be locked up and have the key thrown away!” her previous foster mother snarled. She looked pale and sickly, barely standing as her husband held her back. “She’s a monster. She’s not one of us. There’s something wrong with her and if you know what’s good for anyone, you’ll lock her away forever!”

Marley stared down the hallway at her, trying to fight off the tears forming in her eyes. The social worker frowned and put an arm around Marley, ushering her away. But she didn’t say anything more. And the last thing Marley saw before the elevator doors shut were the woman’s eyes, glaring at her devoid of any empathy.

The world began to rotate around Marley and she felt her head begin to swirl. Marley wasn’t able to see things in her head, but suddenly there were flashes in her mind, of faces, of a place, that she didn’t recognize. She didn’t know. She tried to turn her head to look over at Erin, to tell her that she thought something was wrong, but when she did, she found herself looking at a man who was half familiar. Where had she seen him before?

“Dad?” called a small voice. Marley blinked and the world dissolved and she was no longer in the spinning cup.

A syrupy sweet smell drifted through the upstairs of the funeral home, slowly but surely pulling Erin from a cozy Sunday morning sleep. Music accompanied the enticing aroma, playing low in the background. Sundays were usually quiet, with Erin’s parents already busy at work downstairs. If not her mother, then almost always her father was squirreled away with his work. Erin was used to the quiet. This was weird--the noise, the whistling, the music. Her tiny feet padded towards the bustle of the kitchen, sleepy eyes catching her father mid-flip with a grin on his face.

“Mornin’, pumpkin,” he greeted, eyes flicking over momentarily to his daughter’s confused blue ones. “Pancakes?”

“With chocolate chips?”

“What am I, an animal?” Her father feigned a look of offense, sending Erin into a tizzy of giggles as she hopped into a chair. He grinned himself before getting back to it.

“Where’s mommmy?” She asked, fiddling with the utensils. As if on cue, the door to the second floor shut, heels clicking quickly towards them.

“I’m sorry, I’m late! Mrs. Henderson didn’t want to go down easy this morning.” The joke went over Erin’s head, who simply bopped in her chair excitedly despite the question marks filling her eyes. It wasn’t her birthday was it? Definitely not Christmas (it was summertime) and there weren’t any presents for anyone. That’s when it dawned on her. There was no special occasion. They’d gone out of their way to spend time with their daughter, their family, because they wanted to. Because they could. Warmth filled The entirety of Erin’s little body, from head to toe, as she dove into her pancakes.

The world continued to spin long after the actual ride had stopped, and the only thing Erin could still see was a small girl’s heart breaking over and over. It took a moment for her to realize the ride had stopped completely and groups were laughing and piling out of their tea cups. Yet still she sat, their wager the farthest thing from her mind. Had she seen that too? Her head snapped and she looked for Marley worriedly. “Did you—“ she narrowed her eyes, the emotion of the memory or whatever it was she saw still choking her. “Did you see that?”

When the ride stopped, Marley wasn’t even dizzy, yet she felt sick. She’d concentrated so hard on what she’d seen in her mind-- something Marley didn’t do, Marley couldn’t do-- the world around her had fallen away. Erin was talking, though, and she blinked, shook her head, looked over at her. “I saw something,” she said, her eyes looking Erin over, flickering between who she was now and the image of who she was as a child. Happy, so happy. Smiling and eating pancakes and being loved by her parents. The safety bar released and Marley stood up quickly, shoving her glasses on and exiting the ride without looking back to see if Erin was following her. She pressed her palms to her eyes and shook her head. She didn’t understand what had just happened or why it made her feel so, so-- jealous. She hated it. She had scrubbed the moisture from her eyes by the time Erin caught back up to her, as she leaned against a railing, rubbing her head.

The sight of the tearful girl, of Marley, was stuck in Erin’s mind as she tried to follow after. Her limbs moved awkwardly as she tried, the slight physical toll the ride had on her body hard to ignore. “Wait, Marley,” she called, finding her quickly in the crowd. The world was steadying again and it was clear whatever Marley had glimpsed had rattled her. Had she seen what Erin had? Or was her vision worse? Her chest tightened again as the words of the angry woman echoed in against the inside of her skull. There was so much fear and hate in her words and expressions, all geared towards a little girl who didn’t know better or know what she was doing. “Hey,” she said more softly this time, gripping the rail she had fled to. She held back the anger that flared up with the memory, turning softer eyes on the other woman. “Are you okay?” She asked, knowing full and well she wasn’t. “What—what did you see?”

Marley didn’t look at Erin when she approached, pretending to have to fiddle with something to distract herself. She took a deep breath and swallowed, letting it out slowly to try and calm herself down. “Saw you,” she finally said, glancing up at Erin before her gaze went back to the ground. “Little you. As a kid.” She put a hand out as if to estimate Erin’s height from the memory. “You were uh-- you were in the kitchen, with your dad. He made you pancakes.” She was quiet for another long moment before she looked back up, a little bewildered, confused. “Was it-- was it really like that?”

Erin’s eyes narrowed as the memory struggled to resurface. Pancakes with her dad. It didn’t happen all the time but often enough that she couldn’t pinpoint which time Marley was talking about. Her shoulders straightened awkwardly and she nodded. “Yeah, sometimes,” she answered. It seemed like a thousand years ago now, distant and intangible, like a dream. The last few years had more than overshadowed those good memories, even if she thought of them often. “I saw you. I think,” her eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms over her chest. “There was a woman yelling and someone else was taking you away to a group home.” Guilt filled her insides and she didn’t understand what or why they had been shown these things. On the teacup ride. Had it been the ride? Or someone on or nearby causing them?

Marley’s face drew in confusion again. She hadn’t recognized the look on Erin’s face. It was one of pure delight. Watching her father make pancakes, excitedly looking for her mother. Marley rubbed at her eyes again. “You-- you saw--” A lady, yelling. That described a lot in Marley’s life, really. Especially in her childhood. “Don’t know which time that was,” she grumbled, “there’s a few.” She’d have to be more specific, but Marley wasn’t exactly in the mood to discuss her childhood like this. Or at all. Or ever. “If it was me.” She couldn’t be sure. Maybe Erin hadn’t seen one of the lowest points in Marley’s life. Maybe she didn’t have to see how pitiful and pathetic she’d been.

“She called you Marlena…” Erin continued, narrowing her brows. “You looked young but they mentioned something about a teen home. And the woman yelling was—horrible,” she added, shaking her head. She called you a monster. The tension in her shoulders tensed at the words again and the way Marley reacted to bringing up it. Fuck. She was trying to hide it but Marley was rattled, full of something she couldn’t quite make out under her unbothered facade. But she knew her well enough to know it wasn’t good and that maybe she shouldn’t push more than this. She nearly forgot about the crowd around them until a young man nearby bumped into them, and the sights and sounds of the carnival suddenly became overwhelming. Didn’t feel right to be here anymore with the images stuck in her mind’s eye. “Hey,” she said softly, tugging on her jacket sleeve. “What do you say we get out of here?”

“Probably cause that’s my name,” Marley answered sourly, dejected. But then Erin said teen home, and Marley vividly remembered exactly what Erin had seen. She couldn’t forget it. Even if it didn’t play out directly in her head, it still existed, she still remembered. “Yeah, well...I wasn’t a very well liked child,” she said, pushing away from the railing, glancing around the crowd when she remembered they were in public. She looked over to Erin as a hand tugged at her sleeve. Her eyes fell, trying to hide the shame she felt. She’d never wanted anyone to know about that, especially not Erin. And now she’d seen it for herself and there was no taking it back. “Yeah,” she murmured, “let’s just get out of here.”

Another surge of guilt filled her at the recognition flashing across Marley’s face. There was nothing they could do about their pasts but it felt cruel that Marley had to watch a glimpse of Erin’s childhood, knowing what she had to endure within her own. “You were still a child,” Erin spat, shaking her head. Maybe she was biased. Maybe she was too close to Marley to see the other side of things, but she couldn’t understand the hatred spewed at those watery big eyes in that little girl’s face. A child. “Fuck her.” She shook her head again, sticking close to Marley as she started to move through the crowd. They weren’t too far from the exit but she remained quiet as they walked, only casting a few glances her way. The air immediately felt cooler and more clear the moment they reached the parking lot. Erin could already fed some of the drowsiness ebbing from her bones just from leaving the crowd. “Do you want to talk about it?” She asked after they had made some distance.

Marley didn’t have the energy to explain to Erin why it doesn’t matter, in the supernatural world, if you’re a child. To humans, a monster is a monster, child or not. She just kept her head bowed and shrugged, following Erin out of the carnival, feeling the relief inside of her flooding once they were clear of the crowds and the distant chatter became nothing more than white noise. She stopped walking when Erin asked her question and looked at her. She didn’t know if she wanted to talk about it-- her gut was shouting no, but her mind was saying yes. She wanted to talk about the memory she’d seen, though. She wanted to know what it was like to have a loving family. She’d seen their faces, the way Erin had laughed and bounced in her chair, the sheer joy on her face when her mother walked in. And Marley wanted to know what that actually felt like, not just some outside perspective of it. “Do you?” was what she asked instead.

Words confounded her the longer she soaked in Marley’s memory. Erin couldn’t relate in any true way and pitying Marley was a sure fire way to make matters worse. As much as she loved Marley, she never felt more helpless and distant from her than in moments like these. She stopped when Marley did, digging her hands into her front pockets and shrugged. “I don’t want to poke if you don’t want to. You didn’t ask for me to see that.” She paused, hesitant, searching Marley’s features for clues on how to handle this, more worried about what Erin had seen than Marley had. “I would, though. Want to talk about it—it would help, or if that’s what you wanted. Because I do know now, whether we like it or not.” She had no clue how but it was confirmed that whatever they had seen at this point was real. Ignoring it didn’t make it go away. And she had a feeling Marley had been avoiding them for longer than she could imagine.

Marley let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know,” she grumbled-- then, “maybe. I don’t-- what’s there to talk about? You saw what happened. I saw what happened. You got to be happy and have a mom and a dad who made you fucking pancakes in the morning and it-- it makes me--” she knew the words, she knew what she felt, but she didn’t want to say them, they felt acrid in her mouth. “It makes me jealous, okay? And I hate it. I hate that feeling. I don’t want to feel that way because that’s just fucking stupid and no amount of grieving or-or stewing in my emotions is gonna change anything.” She took her glasses off and ran her hands through her hair before pressing her palms to her eyes, shaking her head. “It just makes me-- how come-- it makes me think about my parents, my real parents. I wanna know why they gave me up. Why I didn’t get-- pancakes and family breakfast and all that shit.”

Erin remained quiet, as hard as it was, watching it all spill out from Marley. Like Erin’s memory had triggered something she did or didn’t realize she’d been holding in. “You wanted to find them, right? We can still do that—try to get you the answers you’ve been looking for.” Soft eyes fell on her and she took a few steps forward, shaking her head. “But don’t think for one second that just because you didn’t get those things means you didn’t deserve them.” Her lips pursed into a thin line, hesitant. Her shoulders shrugged limply and she looked beyond Marley to the lights flashing in the distance at the carnival. “Pancakes and breakfast time doesn’t mean shit when you grow up to find out your father’s an asshole anyway. So maybe you didn’t miss too much.”

“I don’t know,” Marley said and there was a sort of desperation to her voice, as if she were worried she’d never actually know. That she was looking for an answer that might never come, but an answer that she most certainly needed. “How would I even find two people whose names I don’t even know?” She frowned and felt another lick of jealousy curl inside of her, unable to help herself as words spilled out of her mouth. “At least you had one. I would’ve given anything to have a real father. Or, fuck, even just a stable fucking household. I went through five foster families before they just fucking gave up on me. And you saw what happened with that. They just threw me into a group home and didn’t care what happened to me after. And I-- I know everyone has their shit with their families but it’s kinda hard to feel bad about it when I didn’t even get one. And that makes me feel like shit, too, cause I know how much of a shit your dad was.” She kicked at the ground, angry at herself for letting these emotions affect her. Tonight was supposed to be fun and happy and now it was this. She really couldn’t help but to ruin everything she touched.

“You’re a pretty kickass detective, you know. You don’t always need names to start somewhere, right?” Erin wasn’t sure how it worked exactly but there was more to it than names. There were locations and files Marley could access, by force if she had to. She had the ability. She could do something, right? Erin tensed at that last confession. It made sense, she understood where Marley was coming from, but she couldn’t help the slight sting her words left. A shit didn’t even begin to cover the wave of betrayal that washed over her when she thought of her father. He hadn’t abandoned her as a kid but he sure as hell intentionally left her high and dry. But Marley couldn’t understand that either. She’d even said so. “I’m sorry you didn’t get one either, Marley. I really am. It’s not fair. And you’re allowed to be angry and upset and jealous and whatever it is you’re feeling.” She bit her lip, toeing the gravel in the parking lot. “But no matter what, whether you get answers or you don’t, I hope you know that you do have a family now. Kind of.” Her shoulder jerked in a curt shrug. “It’s not much but you’ve got us. You, me and the creatures you brought into my home.” A small smile crept at the corner of her lips. “Our home.”

“No, I don’t,” Marley relented quietly. “Just seems kinda daunting when all I have is a location.” And not even a specific one. Just Colombia. The only people that had the real answers were dead. Sorry didn’t even really begin to cover it, but just as much as Marley couldn’t understand what being betrayed by a parent felt like, Erin couldn’t understand what it meant to not have had one at all. She shook her head. “I just want to know why. Why would they give me up? Why would they let me grow up in that world? Didn’t they know?” If they’d really loved her, wouldn’t they have wanted to keep her? Did that mean not even her real parents loved her? Maybe that was why she was afraid to find them-- what if when she found them, they didn’t care about her at all? What if they rejected her? She bit the inside of her cheek, looking at Erin with tired eyes. Something like a smile pulled at the corner of her lips. “Our home,” she repeated quietly, holding out a hand. “You’ve got me, too.” Even if Marley had no idea what she was doing, she wanted to try. For Erin, she wanted to try.

Erin’s chest tugged at Marley’s questions, bordering on pleas. She didn’t have any answers and she wasn’t going to pretend like anything she could say would help. Not because she didn’t want to. She’d give anything to give Marley those answers, or any answer at all. “I don’t know,” was all she could muster softly, the words all consumingly inadequate even as they left her lips. But she took her hand, giving it a squeeze, like a gentle reminder that she would be there if the day she ever did get those answers. That she’d be there if she didn’t. And that she was here now too, as best as she could be. “I know,” she returned the small smile, lifting her knuckles to her lips briefly. “We’ll figure it out somehow.” Somehow. But she was sure of it. There wasn’t much they couldn’t conquer between the two of them. Exhaustion still sat stagnantly in her limbs and it was just as clear in the other woman’s features as they stood under the moonlight. She gave her hand a tug. “Let’s go home.”

#chatzy #wickedswriting #chatzy: erin #going in circles #emotional abuse tw #erin

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clonecumber · 2 years

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I have a LOT of thoughts about the Cuy'val Dar, but I'll save that for a second "ask." Correspondence is very silly here with such a small character limit, lol. As for Jango, the kid was only 8 when his family is killed on Concord Dawn! Jaster brings him along not only to let him avenge his parents, but to help plant a bomb and blow up some Death Watch. Then, just six years later, Fett is leading 1/3 of their forces at Korda 6 when he's just 14! Gotta figure Jaster kept him on the front lines...

That last one about Jango was ZangZip. More on the Cuy'val Dar. Whenever I'm workshopping a new character in ff a series I co-author set on Kamino, I always go to this quote from KT's blog on the group: "[they] either needed the fee very badly, or they were insanely loyal to Jango, or they wanted to disappear for reasons best known to themselves..." Yeah, definitely scum and villainy, but also True Mandalorian die-hards who would follow Fett to the literal end of the Galaxy. ~ZZ

And one more from me to round out this character limit. My unsolicited plug for the Cuy'val Dar fanfic series, lol. It's long, ongoing and very much character driven, but the biggest plot thread we tackle focuses specifically on the trainers and their struggles when live-fire exercises start. Tumblr won't let me post links, but it's called Friends in Strange Places. I've got the chapter index in my gallery on DeviantArt under "zang-zip" Check it out if you're ever hankering for more Cuy'val Dar.

*waves!*

Thanks for your asks. I'm enjoying this conversation! If anyone is interested in Cuy'val Dar fic, ZangZip has an offer. (I haven't read it myself, but it's there if any of you want to try.)

I looked but I couldn't verify the ages you quoted anywhere, and I can't access my copies of Open Season to check. I also couldn't find anything that contradicted you though, so I'll go with what you said, that Jango was 8-years-old when orphaned, and 14 at Korda Six, which would have been his first experience with command.

Nice.

I feel like there are two ways to take that which is,

1) Jaster Mereel is one of those fringe groups that starts full-on training and taking their kids to war very, very young. Possible! Also kind of interesting to think of Jaster as this force for so much change who nonetheless is still a product of his own upbringing.

2) I have thoughts on this and will not shut up about them whoops okay here we go...

OKAY. So,

Gotta figure Jaster kept him on the front lines...

I'm not actually sure? Or at least, I can come up with some alternatives and I'm gonna toss them at the wall since I have a spare hour and wanna see if anything sticks. (This is, of course, just my own idle speculations. I'm not arguing with your own interpretation or trying to say I think you're wrong, since I don't! I just have some ideas. Could-bes, you might say. Maybe if's.)

If Jango was 14 at Korda Six, that would have him about a year post-verd'goten if Jaster followed that approach. If Jaster started him on fully participating in combat at thirteen-ish (outside the extenuating circumstance of already being involved in the battle by dent of being orphaned right in the middle of it ala Concord Dawn), that's at least a whole year of practical experience already, gotten while the True Mandalorians have been at active war and opportunities for combat experience are probably thick on the ground. This on top of four-to-five years of learning the "basics" (basics by Mandalorian mercenary standards).

Most real life officers have significantly less training before their first posting (for better or worse) (but then they also tend to have greater brain development because they aren’t actual children so maybe it balances out but if I scream about the lack of child protection laws in Star Wars I will never get anything else done), and Jango was only one squad commander out of three, and had the most straightforward of the units to work with.

(It's also difficult to tell the size of these units; they say "squad" in the same breath as "company" (Montross) and "division" (Jaster) and "group" (Jango), so...those words don't mean what you think they mean, Star Wars? but it seems like Jango had the smallest number of people to work with? Maybe, maybe not. We'll say it was an even 1/3 for argument's sake, since I don't feel it changes too much of my point - Star Wars also has green-as-a-reed 14-year-olds fresh off the ship acting as Commanders during the Clone Wars in active conflict so this is apparently just a normal sort of "baby's first" command thing with this universe. We'll let it slide. I guess.)

They also didn't really expect Korda Six to have much by way of resistance, and Jango's infantry unit's primary tasking was rearguard and covering escape routes, at least before shit hit the fan and the initial plan went out of the window. That's probably about as milk run as it gets. If Jango only really started going to war when he was twelve or thirteen, giving him one-to-two years of practical experience before he assumed a command role, I can definitely see the timing working out.

HOWEVER. Let's assume Jaster did keep Jango in/nearer the active fighting after he adopted him, straight from 8-years-old and on, because I'm not done yet:

Still could be that Jaster is “one of ‘those’”, sure. But the True Mandalorians were also at active war with an extremely aggressive and tenacious enemy who didn't draw the line at killing/imprisoning, torturing, and brainwashing even civilian children, much less the kids of their actual enemies. To me, it's possible that this extenuating circumstance created a situation where Jango (and any other children of the True Mandalorian clans, probably) were pushed through their training faster than they otherwise would have been whether their parents wanted them to be or not. This might have been viewed as a grim wartime necessity, however, rather than an ideal*. And like, they could have sent their kids somewhere to hide, maybe, but I'm not sure a Mandalorian parent would necessarily feel that having their kid out of their reach - to protect and train - is the better option.

*(Ohhh, except maybe some of these people saw this "grim wartime necessity" and took it as a point of pride instead, like dumbasses, and made it their new ideal? The timeline doesn't really add up for Munin, but I sort of wonder if, if this was the case, that might be used as an explanation for why this particular child-rearing tactic saw a resurgence in popularity around when Kal was applying it. It's the ~True Mandalorian way~! A really misguided show of support, basically. Like people do. Probably made it easier for Jango to recruit for the Cuy'val Dar, though?)

#ZangZip #other star wars meta I guess #I like speculating #star wars #repcomm

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hotchley · 4 years

Text

“i’m not a five foot hundred pound girl”

yes i’m using his most iconic quotes as the titles, in my head it was a smart idea

morehotchcontent2020 day one: dad hotch (a lazy day at home with jack)

tagged: @ablogofthecriminalmindsvariety

“don’t give me that look young man, i told you when i bought them that i was going to hide them. you need a break. and i know that you think you can’t take one, but trust me, if you go and do work now, you’re really not going to learn anything.”

jack opened his mouth to protest.

“cheat day,” hotch said with a grin before jack could even formulate an argument.

when upcoming exams cause jack large amounts of stress and sadness, hotch takes it upon himself to make their saturday a little more hopeful and a lot more relaxed

note: I am on season ten, but am aware of certain events in later seasons which may be poorly referenced because i don’t know the actual context, it’s not very relevant to the plot so just go with it it’s fine.

warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

read on ao3!

“You’re up early,” Hotch commented, when Jack entered the kitchen at nine in the morning on a Saturday. He wasn’t trying to be annoying, or make his son feel angry, but he was curious. And a little concerned. He wasn’t an idiot. And just because he’d retired, did not mean he’d forgotten how to profile. Or hear. Jack had been stressed recently. And last night, he’d been pacing his room.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Jack said by way of explanation.

Hotch made a non-committal sound. It was one of those moments where he just felt so out of his depth. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, putting his book down.

Jack shrugged. “It’s not that big of a deal. I mean compared to the things that you must’ve been subjected to as a child, it’s nothing.”

Hotch winced, remembering how he’d wanted to keep certain aspects of his childhood from Jack, which had worked until Jack started high school and wanted to know why there weren’t any photos of him with his family around. Hotch had wanted to lie, but too much had happened and it wasn’t fair of him to do that. Instead, he’d spoken to Jack’s therapist, who said that as long as he kept it appropriate, it would help Jack learn to open up as well.

“Buddy, you know I never want you to feel like that. My childhood was decades ago. If something is bothering you, then it’s bothering you. And you can talk to me about it. But you don’t have to. I just wanted to know, that’s all.”

“I just- it’s the exams. There’s so many of them and there’s so much content and I feel like I don’t any of it and it’s stressing me out because I saw the kind of qualifications you need to get into the FBI and I don’t want to disappoint you but I just feel like I’m going to fail and then everyone will be mad at me because I’m supposed to be smart, and then I won’t be able to do anything in life and I’ll just be a failure,” Jack said, voice cracking on the last words.

“Oh Jack. You could never disappoint me. Ever. I’m your dad. That love isn’t conditional. It never has been and it never will be. All I want is for you to do your best,” Hotch said, setting his mug down and moving closer to his son. He didn’t extend his arms, not yet sure whether or not Jack wanted comfort.

Jack was like his mother: he never learnt to hide his emotions because he never felt he had to. But Aaron was no longer Agent Hotchner, he was Jack’s dad. And that meant no profiling. And whilst he was aware that there was a difference between actively profiling someone and knowing their tells, sometimes the line blurred. He didn’t want it to blur.

“But what if- what if I do my best and it isn’t good enough?” Jack whispered.

Hotch couldn’t take it. He hugged Jack, just about managing to cradle the back of his head. When had he gotten so tall?

“Buddy. Your best when you’re under pressure and in test conditions is never going to be the same as your best when you’re relaxed. But what you do then will be your best in the moment. And that’s enough. I promise,” Hotch soothed.

Jack let out another muffled sob, and the two of them stood there whilst Jack finally let the stress that had been building inside him for weeks now, out. Hotch let his son cry. He needed this. They both did. Jack needed to know he was good enough, and that nothing was going to change that. Hotch needed to know his son still trusted him. Hotch wasn’t an idiot. The anniversary of hard times was coming up.

“I’m sorry for ruining your jumper,” Jack mumbled when he pulled away, wiping at his eyes.

Hotch looked down at it. It was well-worn now, as he had realised that wearing jumpers round the house was so much more comfortable than a button-down, and he no longer had any reason to be parading around in a suit, because all he had to do now was be a dad.

“You haven’t ruined it. You’ve added character,” Hotch joked.

Jack laughed, but it sounded forced.

“I meant what I said,” Hotch said, tone serious.

“I know. I just—I don’t know. Needed to hear that.”

“Do you know what else you need?” Hotch asked.

Jack shook his head. “But I bet you’re about tell me, aren’t you?”

Hotch nodded, walking over to the cupboard full of baking things- yes, he had taken up baking after he retired, and no, he wasn’t proud of himself for googling things to do once you’ve retired from the FBI- and pulling out a packet of chocolate chips.

“Don’t give me that look young man, I told you when I bought them that I was going to hide them. You need a break. And I know that you think you can’t take one, but trust me, if you go and do work now, you’re really not going to learn anything.”

Jack opened his mouth to protest.

“Cheat Day,” Hotch said with a grin before Jack could even formulate an argument.

Every month, Hotch and Jack were entitled to two cheat days each. And on those days, they were exempt from doing any cleaning, cooking, homework, whatever tasks needed doing because they needed a break. All they had to do was remember to take their medication and eat. They also had the power to call one for the other if they deemed it necessary. And sometimes, they would do it together.

Jack rolled his eyes, already feeling a little better now he knew he was getting pancakes. “Fine.”

Hotch smiled. “Why don’t you get out of those jeans and into some pyjamas then?”

Jack ran up the stairs to do just that. In truth, he wasn’t exactly sure why he’d put them on in the first place, but studytubers always said that it was better to study in real clothes so you would actually be productive. That was why he’d woken up early; he could cram more.

When he came back into the kitchen, now dressed in that old worn pair of Captain America pyjamas that still fit him and were the comfiest thing he owned, his dad was already plating up the pancakes. He’d put extra syrup, extra whipped cream and an obscene amount of various candies on the plate he pushed towards Jack.

“We’ll eat, and then we’re going to watch one of those comfort films you love. And then we’re going to do something relaxing, have pizza for lunch because Dave sent me this new recipe, then you’re going to take a bath and have a nap because you clearly need sleep. And then for dinner, I’m thinking mac and cheese. From the box but with the extra cheese, the way you like it,” Aaron said with a grin.

Jack smiled at him, a small lump forming in his throat. Oh.

“Thanks dad,” he whispered, not trusting himself to say any more than that.

After they ate their pancakes- Jack ended up finishing Hotch’s, who had claimed that he finally needed to start listening to the doctor- Jack went to the living room to pick his film, whilst Hotch went upstairs to grab the pillows and duvets from their rooms so they could be as cosy as possible.

It was halfway through Anastasia- they had already watched the original versions of Beauty and the Beast, as well as part of Cinderella before he’d changed his mind- when Jack couldn’t take it any longer. He stopped the film and turned to face his dad.

“Is everything okay?” Hotch asked, eyes bleary as he’d accidentally started napping.

“Dad, I love you. That’s not conditional,” Jack said.

“I know that buddy,” Hotch said.

“And you also know that I was the only senior that got dropped off by their parent this year, right?”

Hotch nodded. “People weren’t rude about that, were they?”

“No. You know why? Because you’re my dad. And I love you. So you don’t need to call a cheat day just because you want to spend time with me. You can just ask. I won’t ever say no,” Jack said.

Hotch rapidly blinked away tears. “I didn’t want to make you feel guilty. And I’m supposed to be your parent. That means not dumping my problems on you.”

Jack laughed. “Dad, we don’t- we’re not normal. We don’t have the same relationships as the other families and that’s fine. I like that. I like that I can just throw a book at your head and you’ll read it to me. And I like that you let me take the bus home from my therapy sessions, no matter how much it hurts you. I don’t like seeing you upset, but I appreciate you being honest and teaching me it’s okay to cry. You’re not dumping your problems on me, I’m asking.”

Hotch pushed Jack’s fringe off his face. “When did you get so wise?”

Jack grinned. “I had some pretty good role models. There was Uncle Spence telling me about constellations, there was Uncle Der telling me about dating, Aunt Em and Uncle Dave who told me what Megan Kane said to you- which was actually pretty funny- and let’s not forget Aunt JJ and Aunt Penny just being cool.”

Hotch raised an eyebrow slightly.

“I’m joking. I got wise because I had you. I know you feel like you failed, but you haven’t. I wouldn’t be here if you had. You know that. So spill, old man, before I call Aunt Penny and tell her that you’re going to make mac and cheese from box.”

Hotch’s mouth turned downwards. Jack was right. It was morbid, but George Foyet would have killed Jack if he’d found him. There was no doubt about that. “I just- I want to give you your space, and let you grow up and become an adult, but I’m scared that when that happens, you’re going to leave and not come back because you’ll stop looking at me like a hero and realise I destroyed everything good in your life. I mean, I’m doing that right now. You’re stressed about exams and I’m making it worse by rambling about my own stupidity.”

Jack’s suspicions had been correct. “Dad, I stopped viewing you as a hero when you had to have surgery for your scars and almost died. That was the moment I realised you were mortal. The moment I realised you were flawed was when Aunt Jess started ranting about how you handled a situation the wrong way. I’m not leaving any time soon. But when I do, I’ll always come back, because this apartment is my home.”

“You’re so much like your mother. She always knew how to calm me down,” Hotch said.

“It’s a gift. Now, that’s enough emotion. Can we please finish the film and make the pizza? I’m getting hungry.”

Hotch smiled, that soft smile, reserved only for his son, and pressed play. Jack shifted so his head was resting in his dad’s lap. Almost subconsciously, Hotch started running his hand through it, mimicking the motions of years ago, when they were running late and there wasn’t enough time to brush it properly.

They ended up burning the pizza because Hotch claimed he didn’t need his reading glasses but then set the temperature to 475F instead of 450F. Jack found it funny, and when he went upstairs to wash his hands as Hotch answered the door for take-out, he texted Uncle Dave, and got a serious of words his dad would give him the Hotchner Glare for in response.

As they sat on the carpet, some old romcom Haley and Aaron had loved as teenagers on in the background, Jack was grateful that his dad was who he was. Yes, there were still nights where Jack woke up screaming and there were mornings where Hotch would have dark circles under his eyes, shaky hands and an aversion to touch, but there were also moments like these where they were just a father-son duo, eating slices of pizza and laughing at some stupid joke they were telling.

Jack’s friends were all out shopping, watching movies, going on dates, falling in and out of love in the blink of an eye, and being teenagers. Hotch had worried for so long that he’d taken Jack’s ability to be normal and do things like that away.

It was that evening, when he saw the way Jack’s eyes light up at the sight of the boxed macaroni and cheese, not burnt but with extra cheese, that he realised he hadn’t. It had been Jack’s decision to stay in that weekend.

Because there was nowhere else he would rather be.

#morehotchcontent2020 #aaron hotchner #hotch #day one: dad hotch #dad hotch #fluff #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfic #jack hotchner #i just love hotch and jack #and look it's not even that sad #i'm not completely happy with the ending #but it's whatever you know

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harrys-reverie · 4 years

Text

DOG YEARS // Harry Styles O.U.

PART 1: The Agreement

a/n: welcome! here is part 1 of my baby. I have been working on this for a while and I really hope you enjoy. Story is based off the song ‘dog years’ by maggie rogers, one of my favs. anyways, let’s get on with it! Any feedback, shares or likes are greatly appreciated! I want to get my work out there 🥺 ALSO PART 2 TMRW!

word count: 8k

STORY PAGE // PART 2 CLICK HERE

Take a look at it and really read through thoroughly. Don't hesitate to come to me with any questions, okay?" Eve, my boss smiled warmly at me as she handed me the stack of papers sitting between us. "I'm counting on you."

I nodded back at her wordless, feeling a bit uneasy but eager to give the pages a read. It was just about 9 am in the English countryside and the sun was beaming through the wood paneled floor to ceiling windows — giving the already bright room even more of an angelic haze. Dried lavender bouquets were placed among scattered piles of paperwork Eve had yet to get through. The cozy scent of tobacco-vanilla candles, signature scent of the Soho Farmhouse property were dangerously lit among heaving piles of paperwork. Overall, the room was the true essence of peace, yet I was feeling far from it as I held onto the paperwork Eve had just given me.

I wasn’t quite sure how I found myself in this position, not one bit. But here I was, having to scan over a fifteen or so page NDA for some high end guest who I was suggested to look after during their 4 month stay here at the Soho Farmhouse. It made little sense to me because I didn’t even know that was possible to stay here this long. This was a membership hotel not an extended stay home. I could only imagine the sort of prestige this mystery person had to pull this off.

I had only gotten the job as a waitress at one of the restaurants on our premises last month. Like whoever this mystery person is, I was temporary here too. I had just finished my university studies back in my hometown in California months prior. My nan who happened to live way out in the middle of England was extremely apologetic about not attending my graduation, and instead offered me a stay in England for 6 months. I figured I was in no rush to adult, and my parents finally obliged and I found myself on a multi hour flight here. The first two weeks in her house were enough to send me bat shit crazy, and I knew I needed a job. Unfortunately I wasn’t near the hustle and bustle of a massive city, so finding this job was God sent.

I quickly learned I was shit at waitressing. Eve took a chance on me and I knew she instantly regretted it, she was desperate to find an opening for something more suitable for me. I was desperate to take on any other role at the Farmhouse besides waiting tables — watering and maintaining the plants in the gardens, cleaning the stables, working the phones, or even monogramming our robes we give to the guests.

Fortunately for me, I agreed to this "special job for a special girl" as Eve quoted it, without truly knowing what exactly I had gotten myself into. Now here I was, knees dip in a situation that seemed like the most work of them all.

The wooden door shut creakily behind me as Eve stepped out to continue her role of head of the Farmhouse and prowl around the land to make sure everything was running smoothly. She had left me alone so I could read through the paperwork in a comfortable and quiet room. Really though I was feeling anything but as I looked back down at the legally binding pages in front of me.

"This Confidentiality Agreement is executed effective 3rd, of September 2020 between Colette Adkins (Party A) and Harry Styles (Party B)...

WHEREAS, Party A can not disclose any confidential information regarding Party B..."

My mouth partially dropped when I had seen the name, Harry Styles. Like, THE Harry Styles. What was he even doing here for four months, did he not have somewhere better to be? Like possibly in one of his many houses? He could stay cooped up in those mansions for months on end without having to lift a foot in the real world, I’m sure of it.

Unfortunately the countless numbered paragraphs under his name were more than confusing to understand, and there was almost 12 pages of them. From what I had gathered through a quick skim was that, 'none of this and none of that and none of anything' was allowed when it came to Harry Styles. I had to wonder how much terrible encounters the man had gone through in order to have to have so many stipulations when it came to just being in his presence

The fancy terms were hard to follow, and I found myself googling phrases I had never even heard of. I was now dubbed as a 'party' and Harry Styles being the other, and apparently from the looks of it Party A and Party B were two different levels of hierarchy. I had doubts that even Eve could properly understand all these 'guidelines.' I always heard such positive stories in the media about THE Harry Styles, that he was easygoing and friendly, a gentleman — this NDA said differently though. He seemed like a real nightmare. A nightmare I wasn’t sure I’d want to be working with for four months. Is his reputation just a huge hoax and he’s pulling an Ellen Degeneres on the whole world?

I knew most would find it foolish to pass up on such a opportunity, but if there was one thing I disliked it was being in situations where I couldn’t be fully myself. I was beginning to feel as if this position would be stripping me away of who I was and I’d just be some young girl at a massive millionaires beck and call.

On the flip side, it was a job after all and not every job was enjoyable. If his reputation held any truth, then this experience would be a breeze and I’d be stupid to not take it.

I reached for my phone at the bottom of my purse on my lap and clicked on Eve's contact to send her a quick text.

Colette: Harry Styles? This paperwork makes him sound like an ass. I’m not sure.

Eve: I'm coming back in to discuss this with you..

Just like that and Eve was already scurrying back into her office, a very serious look on her face, one of which I wasn't used to. I had a feeling she was just waiting outside the door the whole time.

"So what do I need to know? I mean, it can't be that hard...but...”I began casually, trying to understand what all her worry was for. Granted, I was just as much so.

She looked down at her phone that was pinging like crazy and then back to me. "It's not that it's hard, but this is a job that is strictly business. You have to live on premise in a 1 bed and 1 bath, always on the clock.” Oh.

"Not just that," Eve continued, "But, if anything and I mean anything gets out, legally there are repercussions. According to his manager, who you will meet — he's writing an album and has a few of his crew mates amongst the grounds in different cottages. It's very low-key, Colette. There's no room for a mistake or slip up."

Suddenly the morning sun seemed brighter than ever and I was squinting my eyes at her in confusion.

"So what, I’m basically Harry Styles little bitch for four months?" I didn’t mean for it to come off so harsh but I could see from Eve’s facial expressions she was a bit taken aback. Maybe that was a bad way to phrase it.

I was curious to know what my duties as Harry Styles' personal Soho Farmhouse assistant would be and if the tasks were just menial or true, hard work. I couldn't image it'd be more than popping up every hour or so with fresh coffee or tea, dropping off towels or bringing the cocktail bar on wheels over every once in a while.

"You know, I don't know," Eve laughed nervously. "It was a request from his management, he needed somebody to assist him with everyday tasks. So yes, maybe food requests and what not. He wants to maintain a low profile and if he's out biking throughout the grounds all the time, he won't have that confidentiality that he is requesting."

Oh, he got off lucky with not having to bike anywhere. If you know anything about the Soho Farmhouse, you know that it's hundreds of acres of land and to get anywhere on the grounds you had to bike there. Not that it was bad or anything, it was rather refreshing but could get quite annoying when you needed to be somewhere quick.

"Have you met him yet? Is he here?" I quipped in shameless excitement. It was Harry Styles after all, I couldn’t put a facade on forever.

Eve gave me a sly smirk, "He's incredibly handsome in person."

"No fucking way."

She put her hands up in defense, trying to reprimand herself and act more professional, "You know, I caught a glimpse. He had arrived only minutes ago but I hadn't properly greeted him yet. I want you to be the first one to introduce yourself..." She trailed off. "Any ways, we want him to be settled and comfortable first and I think a splendid thing for you to do is to bring him a robe and some coffee."

I felt my stomach tie into knots at her request and she looked back at me worried. "Well, just act casual," She suggested after I didn't reply automatically, almost as if she was reassuring herself as well. "There's a reason I picked you, you know."

"And what might that be?"

Eve grinned, "I think you and Harry would get on just fine."

———

I wasn't all to worried about how I would appear in front of Harry Styles. My fringe was a little all over the place because I didn't blow-dry it this morning and my blouse wasn't as ironed as it probably should be, but none of that mattered. I had decided to wait on signing the NDA until after I had met him and introduced myself. I wanted to make sure this job was the right fit for me.

I had his monogrammed fluffy grey robe tied up in a neat bow, sitting in the wicker basket attached to the front of my handy blue bicycle. To my dismay Harry's cottage was the farthest away and at the highest point on the premise, on top of the hill. So, it was a bit of a hike to say the least — I hoped that if I committed to the job that Eve would place me in a small cottage nearby to his so I wouldn't have to make this journey multiple times a day.

As I began the ride up the hill, I let my senses overtake me as I breathed in, listened and looked at the land that passed by me. Soho Farmhouse was one of the most beloved additions to The Soho company, an exclusive member only club made for the young creatives. To get accepted you had to pay a hefty application fee, be recommended by 2 existing members and do many interviews, but I reckon it's all worth it just for the Soho Farmhouse. I know I'd apply if I hadn't started working here. Forget the prestige Soho House's in New York and LA, this was the most beautiful of them all. There was something about the serene English countryside that blew all the others out of the water. The vibe was different, this was more of a retreat addition to the company, rather than the ones in big cities. When you went to those ones you expected overrated models and daddy funded 20 year olds. The Farmhouse was far from any of that.

The thing I liked most about the membership is that it isn't solely based on social or money status, although it may seem that way, but rather a safe haven for young individuals in creative industries. I had only been here for a month but have encountered endless amounts of interesting people, my own age which was a plus. Soho Farmhouse was the epitome of the ultimate British getaway, placed in the Cotswolds, composed of thousands of acred lands occupied by gardens and farm animals. The cottages, only 50, were each 50 yards distance from one another and faced views of slow running rivers giving you complete privacy. It truly is a scene out of a Jane Austen novel when you are here.

As I neared to the Farm Cottage on the very top of the hill, one of the biggest on the premise, I saw that there were 2 cars parked in the driveway. I became more nervous than ever, not so much because I had to meet him, but his management seemed even more intimidating. They were the ones who put that whole 15 page NDA together after all, and it came off pretty harsh. As I parked my bike amongst the two vehicles in the driveway, I kicked the stand up and grabbed the robe from the basket.

So this was it. I approached the front porch, the familiar creaky wooden steps of the cottages that felt so cozy were now being overtaken by fall leaves starting to pile up. Freshly cooled milk jugs were popped beside the giant wooden door — a small touch that we liked to do for all of our guests each morning. Using my foot I knocked on the door, my hands full from the oversized robe after all.

Almost as quickly as I had knocked, the door came rushing open and I was greeted with, well, not Harry Styles.

"Hey, I'm Jeff." He stuck his hand out, only to quickly realize my hands were full. "Uh, let me just take this for you."

"I'm Colette," I smiled back, handing him the robe that was keeping me quite warm being held to my chest.

"Come on in actually. I think you're going to be H's assistant throughout his stay here, if I'm correct?" I nodded back, quickly recognizing his American accent, like mine.

I allowed myself in. I started following Jeff to the front living area of the cottage and took a seat on the plush ivory couch. There was already an abundance of hefty suitcases and guitars scattered amongst the living room. The sound of a shower coming from the upstairs bathroom was where I assumed Harry may be.

"So, you'll be here checking up on Harry and all that?" He questioned, tucking his phone away and facing towards me.

"I believe so, I've never done anything quite like it before. Pretty nervous since it’s Harry Styles and all that. And you are?" I asked assuming he may be a close friend or a part of the band.

"His manager actually. And friend."

Oh. So he's the one who came up with all those rules and regulations? Maybe I should have been more enthusiastic answering his question.

"Oh, wow. That's great, sorry, I just..."I began awkwardly.

Jeff cut me short with a warm laugh, "Don't worry. We're like the same age, H and I. It's a great relationship we have but I make sure to keep him in line too and do what's best for him. Harry's a great guy, I promise he won't be overworking you at all."

"Well, I am very much looking forward to it. This opportunity is going to save me from being a waitress down at the Barwell Barn, now that is what I call being overworked," I joked nervously.

"You know actually, H is in the bathroom now. He's kind of had a tough day. I'll take the robe if you don't mind and then if you give me your cell I will text you with a later time today to stop by and introduce yourself," Jeff suggested kindly.

I nodded back at him, "Of course, I totally understand. It's been great meeting you, will you be staying here throughout the months?" I hated to prolong my stay, but I was curious.

"Only this week and then I'm back to LA, I've got my girlfriend back home and work waiting for me there. I'll probably stop by once a month though and check up on him."

"I miss California weather, I'm from there, actually. Just graduated university and I am visiting my nan here for a couple of months. That's actually what led me to this place," I spoke, becoming more and more comfortable with Jeff by the minute.

Jeff lifted his eyebrows, "I was wondering what may have lead you here. I was taken back by your accent...being not an English one and all that."

"Yep, this is a temporary thing for me, being here."

I didn't want to get too deep into a conversation or overstay my welcome so I stood up from the couch and offered my phone number as we approached the front of the cottage. Just as we reached the door, I heard the bathroom door creak open behind me. I wanted so bad to take a look and peak, but I knew this wasn't the right time.

“You know what," Jeff smiled, removing his hand from the doorknob abruptly, "Let's have a quick introduction now. Take a seat in the kitchen if you'd like, I'm going to make sure Harry's decent for you."

I guess I couldn't refuse to his request, "Sure thing," I grinned back, plopping myself onto one of the wooden barstools in the kitchen. Jeff hurried upstairs, I'm assuming following after Harry who had rushed up the stairs only seconds previous. I heard murmuring and then a door shut, leaving me alone on the first floor. Just me and my thoughts.

I didn't feel nervous at the thought of meeting Harry earlier, but Jeff stating he had a rough day and to come back later and now insisting I meet him, made me a bit weary of the whole ordeal. I didn't want to say the wrong thing or act the wrong way. All this time I was so caught up on what if I didn't get on well with Harry and didn't want the job, when in reality Harry could feel the same about me. I now felt an added amount of pressure I hadn't felt earlier.

Waiting around in the kitchen I couldn't help but notice every single candle was lit in the room. There was a surplus, way more than the standard amount that was placed throughout the cottages. There must have been a request for extra candles because the smell of tobacco vanilla had never been so overpowering then right now.

My thoughts broke for a moment, interrupted by a thunderous laugh coming from upstairs. The walls were thin in the cottages, floors too, so the echo of the laugh was booming. I felt a sense of relief to think that perhaps Jeff put him in a better mood, he did state they were good friends and all, and I knew that laugh didn't belong to Jeff. A quick stomping on the ground above me and a few claps, accompanied by more laughter echoed through the space. Whew, a rush of relief to know that maybe his tough day was over.

I looked down at my blue jeans, which I was now becoming self conscious of. Had I known when I arrived at 7 am this morning what circumstances I would endure, I would have dressed maybe a bit more presentable. And maybe I actually didn't like that I had rushed and not blow dried my hair. This is what I get for always sleeping in till 15 minutes before my shift and having no time to get ready.

I had no time to rethink and self criticize because I was overcome by the sound of heavy footsteps stomping down the stairs. My heart was racing, mouth a little dry, because I only heard one pair of footsteps. Fuck, I really hoped it be Jeff.

"Where are ya hiding, love?" A thick British accent hollered. "Ah, there ya are."

I turned to look at him, putting all my focus on the tall, tattooed man making his way over. I instantly felt something in my gut burn, in the good way, but not the good sexual way. A different type of good. Maybe I'm crazy, maybe everybody feels this way when they see Harry Styles, he is gorgeous after all, and it's so weird to see someone in real life you've only ever seen in pictures. I knew I'd be crazy to insinuate anything but the way he looked at me — almost like he was taken aback or expecting something or someone else. I assumed myself crazy to think he'd even give me a second look, I was just here to supply him with more candles and drop off food. I stood up quick, walking closer and meeting him halfway.

"I'm Colette, very nice to meet you," I brought out my hand to meet his.

"Pleasure. I'm Harry."

He was wearing plain jane grey sweatpants and a cotton white tee shirt, hair sopping wet, looking marvelous. It was casual and a very toned down look, night and day from the outfits you see him in on all the tabloids. No bright colors or funky patterns, no Gucci emblems, just simple, cozy attire. He looked so human. I think sometimes it’s easy to believe celebrities are so much larger than life, but he was just a person after all.

"Now," He began, putting his thumb to his chin and looking off, " 'M gonna need ya to fetch me twenty silk infused towels, the finest coffee grounds ya got and uh..."

He began laughing...at his own joke, not able to even finish his sentence. I too laughed with him, nervously though. It probably was funny in normal circumstances, but I could barely even process anything right now.

"Look, don't be so worried. Jeff's up there doing all kinds of things, he wanted me to come say hello. You seem lovely and I promise to be low maintenance. This wasn't even my idea, if I'm being honest..." Harry began to ramble.

"Buuuuuut," He added with a huge grin, "Looking forward to having ya on the team, Colette. Would you like to sit down for some tea, coffee?"

"Shouldn't I be making some tea or coffee for you?" I insisted with a small smile.

"Please," He scoffed, already heading towards the kettle. "Take a seat. Your cheeks look red, it's bloody cold outside, plus, I hear you're from California, so you're probably freezing."

"You're right on that one."

"What brought you here?" He questioned, genuinely seeming interested. He had his back turned to me as he rummaged around with the kettle.

"If I'm honest," I started embarrassingly, "I just didn't want to fully 'adult' yet. I graduated college and just wanted to get out and explore a little before committing to the adult lifestyle. My grandma lives just 10 minutes from here, so..."

"Smart choice. You're lucky to have that luxury of choosing to not commit to 'adulting' right away," He chuckled, turning to me to put adulting in quotation marks. I couldn't help but stare at him, he was not sore on the eyes at all. He was so kind, welcoming, a true gentleman. He had even welcomed me on 'the team' which was a promising sign, I wanted now more than ever to just sign my name and rights away on that stupid NDA. Whoever made that document up, must've been somebody higher up who didn't understand what having human connection is all about.

"Listen," Harry started, grabbing the two steaming cups and taking a seat across mine at the kitchen table. "I'm glad you're here. Promise to make your time here enjoyable as possible."

"The same for you," I replied quickly. "Obviously, that's what I'm here for."

He let out a small grin, glancing down at his cuppa. "I know ya had to sign one of those fancy documents."

"Haven't yet," I joked back. I already felt a lighthearted and friendly vibe from Harry, as if talking to an old friend I hadn't seen in months.

Harry quirked his eyebrow up with a smirk, "Why's that?"

"Wanted to make sure we'd get on or whatever. Couldn't work for a complete dick — excuse my language."

"I guess that's up to your own interpretation. But I have a feeling you'll be sticking around."

“Are you that sure of yourself?”

“Oh yeah,” He grinned proudly

We both laughed and then silence. An awkward beat passed by, I was looking down at the creases in the wooden table but I could feel his gaze burning. When I looked back up, he was fiddling with the rings on his fingers, shuffling them up and done. Might I add he had a ring for every single finger, minus two. Some were filled with bright gem stones, two of which were compromised of his initials H and S.

"Well, back to business," He awkwardly coughed. "What I was saying is that, I know in that document it said we can't exchange personal numbers. But I really can't be bothered to go thru Jeff to text you what I need 24/7. Soooo...can I trust you with my precious mobile number?"

He was obviously joking because a huge smirk was plastered on his face, his teasing face met mine. It was clear from these few minutes of knowing him, that he couldn't care to take everything too seriously.

"If you could ever so grant me with your sacred number, I'd be honored. Just give me a ring whenever you need me to draw a warm bath for you Mr. Styles."

"Hmph," He tugged at his lip with a smile. "Sounds good, now please, don't blow me up tooooooooo much."

“You afraid I might get all clingy?”

He rolled his eyes playfully, as if he’s dealt with something like that before. The two of us then exchanged contacts, casually sipping on our tea which he made fabulously, might I add. Jeff soon came back down to join us and the three of us talked amongst one another for 10 minutes or so before Harry's phone started buzzing.

"Ah fuck," He mumbled, Jeff peered over Harry’s shoulder to grab a glance at his phone and his face fell as well. The two of them stared for a second at whatever may have been on the screen, I could only imagine what it may have been. I'd never dare to ask.

"Right well, I've got some uh, stuff to take care of," Harry sighed, meeting my gaze. He looked obviously uncomfortable, almost sad. I smiled a bit too hard back at him, trying to lighten the mood since it seemed to go down quite drastically. I realized not even a second later the smile wasn't necessary because he didn't really reciprocate it. Now I just felt like a pansy.

"Let me uh, drive ya back to the front. It's cold and that's a long haul on a bike, I'd feel like a dick to let ya bike down there with these winds," Harry insisted, beginning to stand up. I couldn't let him do that though, I knew his mood was back down in the tank for whatever reason. I didn't want to have him drive me all the way back down to the front and inconvenience him, after all I was supposed to be tending to him, not the other way around.

"Thanks, but no thanks. I actually have to return the bike to a guest," I lied looking down at my phone. "Like right now, actually. Right now."

I was completely lying but I knew he couldn't refuse that and I didn’t want to have him pry anymore. I quickly rushed to the front door, Harry and Jeff following behind my footsteps.

"So very nice to meet you both once again, just give me a ring if anything is needed. I'm on call," I cheered awkwardly, pointing at my cellphone.

"Bye Colette, great meeting you," Jeff spoke up as I opened the door.

"A pleasure!" Harry called after me, as I rushed my way down the front steps of the deck. I scurried out so fast, you'd had thought I seen a ghost. Just like that, I was back on the handy blue bicycle again, wind rushing in my face, ready to sign those papers and officially take the job.

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

It was close to 9PM as I was just finishing up setting up my temporary home on the premises in order to take on my new position. It was small, like the smallest cottage on the whole grounds. I didn't complain though, I was on a meal plan and had infinite variations of body washes to try out, so I was pretty content with my situation. Unlike I had requested, I was quite a distance away from Harry's cottage on the hill, so I'd have to continue those tedious bike rides back and forth very frequently.

I hadn't heard from Jeff or Harry ever since I had departed them this morning. Eve assured me that they were just settling in and that I should do the same. Eve had drove me over to my nan's house where I announced the good news to her, I think she was just thrilled to have her house back to herself for a little. I did happen to have a habit of never putting my dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and I didn't get on quite well with her two cats. So, I packed up an abundance of clothing and some essentials that I figured would be needed, I didn't overdo it though, I was only a couple miles down the road if I needed more.

I had taken a steaming bath, with all the windows open, my view was the running river in the back. Lit up lantern adorned the back garden and it felt like the epitome of autumn, my favorite season. I wasn't a huge fan of the tobacco vanilla candles, so I opted for the fall fragranced ones. I texted a few friends back home, letting them know to call me back whenever they had a chance, I was eager to let them know of my new position. Then I had a reality check where I realized I probably signed all those rights away in that NDA I never fully looked over.

So it was just me drowning in my thoughts, in a super oversized tin bath tub. I was more focusing on if I'd be busy at all tomorrow or if I just had all the time to myself in my new little home, and if so, what would I do? Should I start to Amazon prime myself some books or start a new series on Hulu? It was exciting, I was literally getting paid around the clock to just sort of wait for a request from Harry. I don't think I could have ever dreamt of a more better way to spend my months here in the English countryside.

Unfortunately, things were going too good too soon. I should've known that when Eve insisted she pay me around the clock that there was a reason. The slight vibration coming from my phone broke me out of my thoughts.

Jeff: Hey Colette. I know it's starting to get late, but we have a few friends at Harry's cottage here and it'd be awesome if you can bring the bar cart on over. Within the hour would be best. Thanks!

Fucking hell, not the bar cart. I had just gotten into my cozy PJs and was about to lay down to get an early's night rest —I guess that will not be an option tonight. The bar cart was one of the biggest pains in the ass, right alongside the breakfast cart. These carts where actually bright blue vintage-like vehicles, that are specially requested to the cottages. You drive them up, park them and hang out in the back of the cart and cater to whatever the guest of the cottage wants. They get hammered, you watch — exciting. For a full hour usually, and even more if they have the money to keep it past just one hour. I had never had the pleasure of taking on this role, but from what I heard, it was the worst of them all. I wasn't even trained for this, I could barely make a decent vodka soda, and now I have to go on up there and make a bunch of fancy drinks.

I started dialing Eve's number as I approached the bathroom to make myself somewhat presentable.

"Colette, what's up?" She spoke lazily on the other line.

"Jeff said Harry is requesting the bar cart to be brought up, isn't it too late?" I asked with a hint of annoyance.

"Oh, no. Not for Harry Styles darling.. I'll call up someone to drive it up, can you just be there when it arrives so you can cater and make the drinks?"

I rolled my eyes, there was no way of getting out of this and I suppose I was getting paid for a reason. "All right, I'll be there."

"Don't seem so down, people will kill for this opportunity," Eve quipped. "Now I got to tend to my children, shoot me a text if you need anything."

As soon as the call ended I began to freshen up and look somewhat presentable. Eve had requested someone to bring up the bar cart, and I'm sure she explained it was an ASAP type of request and I'd probably have to bike over as soon as possible.

I threw on a pair of jeans with a slouchy white tee shirt and a parka. I walked out and it was fucking crispy out, like I could totally see my breath when I breathed out. I wasn't so used to this weather in Southern California and I didn't know it would get so cold so soon here, it was September for fucks sake.

Hopping on the bike I began my journey up to the top of the hill. Despite the sky being so dark, the premise was brightly lit with a bunch of light posts. Opened cottage windows shined brightly onto the cobblestone, guiding me through. It almost felt like this place was a safe, utopian village where time stopped. It was everything you imagined when you thought of the English countryside and I was becoming more in love with it each day.

I could hear laughter and cheers become more apparent as I began to reach Harry's cottage. Of course, the lovely blue bar cart was already parked in the road approaching the driveway. Eve really wasted no time at all when it came to catering to Harry Styles, I had never seen her so on top of things before.

"Hiya Colette," Michael, one of the porters who worked here waved at me as I went to approach the cart.

"I'm assuming you are the one who brought this on up here, are you staying?" I asked, hopping off my bike and planting it along the side of the vehicle.

Michael had a tight lipped smile splashed on his face, "Unfortunately, I am needed elsewhere tonight. Aaaaaandd... I kinda don't have a way back down to the main area so I'm going to need that bike of yours."

"Uh-uh, no way am I going to be held responsible for driving the cart back down after all this," I spoke back, pointing at the brightly lit up cottage in front of us.

"Just ring the front desk later, get somebody to ride up on a golf cart. We'll leave the bar cart here till morning, don't worry."

I gave him a harsh glare but allowed him to take my precious bicycle. "Good luck," He laughed as he started pedaling down the hill.

"Yeah, yeah," I mumbled to myself as I opened the back door of the cart, stepping up into the platformed area where a slew of alcohol bottles and mixers awaited me. Lucky for me there was a handy dandy drink recipe book laying around. I figured it would give me a rough outline for all these fancy drinks these fancy people would be ordering.

I grabbed my phone from my back pocket to shoot a text to Jeff announcing my arrival and that I was ready and waiting.

Colette Adkins: Hey Jeff. I'm here, pretty quickly too. Whenever people are ready they can come on out! :)

I hit 'send' and then took a quick look around to see what I was dealing with. A small opening with a wooden table was attached to the side, so I could hand over the drinks and they could order. Theoretically, this was a cute and great idea. Realistically, it was a total pain — not to mention very breezy. There was no sort of heating going on and I was so thankful I had chosen my giant parka in this moment.

The bottles to the right of me were adorned beautifully amongst one another, only the best of the best I presumed. I wasn't a huge drinker, I preferred a glass of Trader Joe's wine or an occasional white claw — mango flavored, of course. Did they even sell those here? Hmm, had to look that up when I got back to my room.

"Oi, oi!" A deep voice shouted out, happily walking down the driveway to my cart, arm wrapped around a beautiful blonde. Oh, so he has a girlfriend too? Harry strutted out from the house looking majestic, hair blowing in the wind with a big award winning grin. Jeff and another man with long hair tied up in a ponytail were following closely behind laughing and taking sips out of their crystal glasses.

I couldn't help but think that Harry looked extremely overjoyed, a huge difference from how I had left him earlier today. He wore a bright blue sweater with a baby chick on it and creme flowing pants — it definitely made a statement. And by the way he swayed when he walked, he was probably a little drunk, if not more.

As he approached me, his arm unravelled from the girl beside him and instead he plopped his elbows up on the wooden attached table and let his face fall into his tattooed hands. I couldn't help but notice a fresh coat of baby blue paint on his nails, sloppily done — I'm assuming done by him.

"So..." He trailed off with a beaming smile. "What are ya whipping up tonight Miss. Colette?"

I chuckled back at him nervously, 'not shit' I thought to myself. Maybe he'd be too drunk to notice how terrible my bartending skills will be.

"Oh and this, this lady right here is my lovely 'real world' assistant, Jamie. She's great," Harry added eagerly, gesturing towards the stunning blonde and bringing her back close to his side.

"Lovely to meet you both," I chirped. Jamie shot a smile back at me and reached out her perfectly manicured hand to me.

"Pleasure," She drawled with a thick London accent.

"We've been drinking a lot already but I think 'm down for some shots, yeah?" Harry called out to his small entourage surrounding the bar cart. Everybody laughed and I managed to throw a little wave to Jeff. I was relieved that it was only the four of them, I could only hope nobody else would show up. The smaller the crowd, the better.

"Well," I started, "I'm actually not a bartender and I have no idea what I'm really doing. A shot would probably be your best option, I can definitely fix that up for you."

"Pour it up then!" Harry exclaimed. "You got some tequila in there?"

I took a quick look to my side at the selection of alcohol, we had tons of varieties of almost everything. I mean it was quite an impressive collection for a little bar cart.

'Let me uh, actually, do you mind if I hop up in there with you?" Harry asked inquisitively, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. His eyes were glossed over with pleading eyes, lips pouty pink and his hair disheveled. I knew I shouldn't let him, Eve would have a fit if she knew he was coming up to try and make his own drink. Eve would also have a fit if I said 'no' to Harry Styles, though.

I didn't have much time to answer because Harry was already hopping up the steps and trying to make space for himself in the small little enclave inside the wagon. I couldn't help but get a whiff on his divine cologne, it smelled so musky and cozy — manly, but not too much. I looked down and Jeff, the pony-tailed man and Jamie were having their own sorts of conversation amongst themselves paying no attention to Harry and I, they were probably used to his drunken behaviors.

"So, what we do we have here, hmm?" Harry glanced over at the alcohol options. "You reckon you can make me one of those Rusty Nail drinks they make over at the Soho House in New York?" He put on a serious face, looking at me inquisitively before letting out a small laugh.

"I don't have an actual clue on that one," I laughed, knowing he was most likely not being serious. "Didn't even know a drink could be referred to as a Rusty Nail?"

"Indeed there is a drink called the Rusty Nail."

"Sounds terrible."

"I beg to differ, buuut, a tequila shot will have to subside. Casamigos?" Harry questioned, picking up the clear bottle and raising his shoulders at me suggestively. Oh, oh...so he wanted me to take a shot with him? That was a big no.

"You want me to take a shot with you?"

"Why fuckin' not? It's a celebratory night and it wouldn't be fair for you to stay sober whilst we're all getting hammered, eh?"

He was very considerate, friendly, too friendly. Like definitely doesn't know the fine line between business and friendship and I was strictly on the business side.

"I guess I'm a little cold, maybe a shot would warm me up..." I bargained, looking at the bottle and back to Harry's face, it was hard to say no to a grown man with a baby chick sweater.

"Aha!" He exclaimed, "Now everybody, come take a shot with the lovely Colette and I!"

I gave a look to Jeff worriedly, feeling as if he was going to reprimand me for agreeing to do this, but instead he waved his hand shaking the whole thing off with a laugh. Harry grabbed the very, very expensive shot glasses all in one hand impressively, I closed my eyes afraid he might drop one. With a hard ding he somewhat arranged them in an even line, sloppily filling them all up to the brim.

"Tonight," He began happily. "We celebrate a new era...new songwriting, new ideas...a much needed break." Everybody nodded their heads silently in agreement. "Mitch, my best and most talented pal, happy to have ya here with me. Jeff, can't believe you're leaving me for Glenne in LA, I hope she says, 'yes.'" Jeff raised his shot glass up laughing. I too held one in my hand, was there such a thing as a dramatic toast followed by a tequila shot? I suppose, in the lavish world of Harry Styles and company there was.

"Jamie, you're bloody great but get back home to that husband and child of yours in London. Enjoy some well deserved time off. And..." Harry turned to face me, "Colette, I already know you are a great addition to the team. Looking forward to seeing you show up at my door with an abundance of those fresh candles every week...cheers!"

The four of us raised our shot glasses and downed them quickly, the burn of the liquor tingling my tongue and throat. Holy shit, I had not had a tequila shot in so long I forgot just how gross they were. I let a little cough out as the tequila sank in, the warmth itching my throat.

Harry turned to me looking down, "What do ya say we sneak a couple bottles and just head into the cottage? Its cold out here."

"Not sure if that's allowed..." I started.

"Fuck it. Come on, grab your favorite one," He insisted, pointing to the bottles. "Let me guess you probably like them white claws or whatever."

"How'd you know?" I deadpanned pursing my lips.

"You Americans really have a huge thing for those, they're shit by the way," Harry teased.

"No they're not! They're delicious...especially the mango ones or, hey, have you tried the watermelon ones?"

Good one Colette, smooth, nice, funny, never been done before. I wanted to face palm myself in that moment. Harry snorted at my little joke though, so it couldn't have been that bad.

"Very funny you. Okay so, vodka?" He questioned, wrapping a few bottles in his arm. "Don't even answer that because it's what you're getting," He added jokingly. I didn't even have the heart to tell him I hated straight vodka because it was quite endearing the way he was trying so hard to be all inclusive. With the bottles in his arms, he teetered out of the bar cart, me following behind.

"Oh, Colette, come here!" Jeff insisted, waving at me. I walked up to him as he embraced me for a quick hug, I could tell he too was plastered. "This is Mitch. He's Harry's guitarist, super cool, one of us."

I switched my gaze to Mitch, the mysterious ponytail man. "Nice to meet you," He said shyly.

"You as well!" I said back cheerfully. I had barely eaten a thing today and just that one shot had created a small amount of excitement in me that wasn't there when I had first arrived.

"He'll be staying here with Harry, so I'm sure you'll be getting to know him some more. What do you think of Harry so far though?" Jeff asked inquisitively. We were all making our way up the driveway, Harry and Jamie were already inside.

"I mean, wow, he's great. Didn't really expect him to be so welcome and inclusive, if I'm honest. Can't help but think I'm overstepping my boundaries a little," I replied worriedly.

Jeff brushed it off casually, it was just now me and him on the front deck, everyone else was already inside. "That's just how Harry he is, he is just nice like that. I hate to try to be serious and all right now but, Harry's going through a bit of a tough time. This is his getaway for him, you know? He feels uncomfortable with the fact that you're here at his beck and call these upcoming months...so he is trying to make you see that you're now a part of his circle."

"Oh, wow." I didn't really know what to say. I'm assuming Jeff is probably that super emotional drunk, who just talks and talks trying to make a lesson out of everything.

"H is a great judge of character, though. He see's something in you, you left an impression on him earlier. He felt terrible kicking you —"

"Oi!" Harry hollered, abruptly opening the door and almost knocking my head. "Mate, I hate to cut you short but we're doing another round. Get the fuck in you two!"

Jeff sent me a 'told you so' look and we both happily pranced inside behind Harry, ready for whatever was to happen inside those

PART 2: THE BAR CART

#dog years #dogyearsmasterlist #Harry Styles #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles ff #harry styles fluff #harry styles smut #1dff #harry styles imagines #harry styles imagine #harry styles series #harry styles x reader #harry styles x ofc #one direction fanfiction

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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On The Shadow’s “new” backstory

Poke around any discussion of The Shadow and the movie in particular and you’re gonna find a lot of contention regarding the movie’s biggest shift from the source material, that was inventing a whole new backstory for the character where, prior to being The Shadow, he used to be a murderous warlord on Tibet who was kidnapped by monks and forced to undergo redemption and put his skills to fight evil.

It was not a popular decision at the time, to put it mildly. It didn’t do anything to improve the film (that text crawl really shoots the entire film in the foot), it soured a lot of fan opinions on the whole thing, and yet it’s become such a fixture of every story told with the character since then, that odds are most people think this is just what he always like, that this lip-service about redemption and being a former bastard turned hero was always what the character “was about”.

I have some complicated thoughts on it and how it’s affecte Shadow stories since then, most of whom are negative, but the thing is, I get where it’s coming from. I get why they felt the need to change his origin like that, and why it’s stuck around.

In the pulps, The Shadow’s backstory was, to sum it up, that he was a spy who went to war, learned a lot of skills and did a lot of things, and then pivoted to fighting crime in the late thirties. That was the backstory of most 30s American pulp heroes, actually, give or take a couple of differences. And for a pulp hero, it works. But modern audiences have been taught to expect more.

The movie, in trying to repackage the character for a modern audience, in turning The Shadow into a superhero so he could survive in a 90s blockbuster landscape, needed an appropriately punchy superhero backstory. Superhero backstories tend to be, in general, all about a dramatic hook that simplifies their motivations, powerset or life stories into a one-sentence pitch. Batman lost his parents in a brutal mugging as a child and swore to stop that from happening to others. Spider-Man’s uncle died because of his irresponsibility. Ben Grimm gained superpowers from space rays like his friends, except he got turned into a deformed rock monster who can never look normal again. Bruce Banner got caught in an atomic blast that made him into an unkillable rage monster. A dramatic transgression happened, they must correct it by becoming dramatic figures themselves.

They’ve made 3 John Wick movies with little more motivation to the central character other than “they killed his dog in the first movie”. That’s not a dismissal, it’s just effective storytelling. We don’t need more motivation for John Wick, we don’t need Batman flashbacks in every film, we get a one-sentence hook for a tangible, grounded motivation that lets the characters hit the ground running. “Used to be a savage murderous warlord, now applies said savagery to killing criminals” is a simple, easily understood pitch that’s considerably more dramatic than his former backstory. It works as a superhero backstory, and you can argue it’s even somewhat thematically fitting, since “a villain who turns evil against evil” has been part of The Shadow’s concept from day one.

So what’s the problem with it?

Well, for one, The Shadow is not a superhero. He doesn’t look like them, he doesn’t act like them, he doesn’t live in their world. They can try and turn him into one, and they have done that several times, but the character’s core traits, central appeal and identity are not only considerably older than the superhero, they run directly counter to what defines a superhero. The movie that tried turning him into a superhero was a box office and critical failure, and the Dynamite comics have largely just succeeded at keeping the character in the fringes of the public eye and nothing more. If turning The Shadow into a superhero was intended to revitalize his success to modern audiences, it clearly hasn’t worked in over two decades, despite superheroes being more popular than ever before. It’s kept him on little more than life support.

And two, one of the very problems of trying to turn The Shadow into a superhero, and give him an ultra-dramatic superhero backstory pitch, is because it runs counter to a cornerstone of The Shadow’s appeal: the mystery. Superheroes have to pull double duty in being both the impressive, great warriors and forces of change within a story, as well as being our relatable, POV protagonist whose struggles we relate to. The Shadow, in the pulps, split that balance, between himself, and the agents and protagonists of any given Shadow story. @oldschoolcrimefighters has brilliant writings on The Shadow and his agents that inspired me to do this blog in the first place and you should all read, and I’m going to quote this one in particular:

“..modern storytelling focuses more on characterization rather than plot. I think a lot of creators come at The Shadow with that in mind, and with a mindset built on other comics and properties: the titular character is the one to focus on. And the radio show, movie(s), and comics – the most readily available mediums for research – don’t do much to disabuse them of this idea.

So creators shine the spotlight on The Shadow. They try to humanize him, make him into someone we the readers will empathize with and relate to and root for and all that jazz. They give him motivations and backstories and banter, a token romantic interest (Margo) and sometimes sidekick (usually Moe) to bounce exposition off of and provide comic relief.

The Shadow doesn’t take kindly to spotlights. And even if he did, let’s be real, he’s not the most relatable dude. He’s a power fantasy. (And there’s nothing wrong with that.)

Whether or not he should be humanized at all is a touchy subject – I personally think the pulps portray him as a far more empathetic, fallible, playful being than people give them credit for. The thing is, when the pulps humanize him, it’s in a particular context. It’s in his relationships with other characters – especially the supporting cast – that his humanity shines.”

And that brings to the third problem: The Shadow doesn’t need a backstory that takes up so much screentime and focus. It has never factored into what made the character popular in his prime. In the pulps, we jumped right into his presence in the lives of others and his adventures, with only very sparse information about his past delivered every couple dozen books or so. It took over 131 novels for the name “Kent Allard” to even show up with a “proper” backstory, and even then, it consisted of little more than stuff we’d already been told prior about him (he was in the war, he used to be a spy, he traveled around the world with false names). And after a couple dozen stories, Kent Allard appeared less and less, about as often as the fake identity of Henry Arnaud, to the point the final Gibson stories omit him all together and even point to Lamont Cranston as the “true” identity of The Shadow. Kent Allard was just a name he went by a few times, and nothing more.

The most popular version of the character by far, the radio show, didn’t even have that. We knew nothing about the radio Shadow’s backstory other than some of his travels in the past he’d mention on certain episodes and what the opening narration told you. He was our POV protagonist in those episodes far more so in the pulps, and yet, clearly they must have been doing something right, if audiences never once missed the fact that they knew next to nothing about who he used to be before.

The very reason The Shadow became a character in the first place was because of popularity. It was because listeners tuning in to Detective Story Hour found themselves faced with the sibilant, cruel, snake-like whispery taunts of a narrator who talked and acted like no one they had heard announce other radio shows, who was easily the most interesting part of the shows he announced, and whose voice and personality held them in such fascination, even when he was literally nothing but a voice and a personality, that they started demanding to hear more of him, asking for stories starring this dark prince of radio that lived so vividly in their brains, that they didn’t notice, or care, that such stories about him didn’t exist yet.

And when he was turned into a crimefighting character, his backstory was built in a way that allowed Gibson and any future writers to play around with and insert events and adventures as they saw fit. His adventures with the Tsar in Russia, his travels to India, Africa, Tibet, his war experiences, unrecorded adventures with allies and agents and villains of any kind, his post-war travels as Kent Allard, whatever happened in the years between his crash in the Yucatan and his arrival in America. Hell, if you want to have a period where he really loses it and does immoral things he isn’t proud of, there’s any number of periods you can insert mistakes and bad decisions that would define his actions years down the lane. It was a sandbox of any possibilities, grounded to a strong character who we could follow into any adventure because we’d be interested in learning more about him.

A good backstory helps, and The Shadow’s motivation was grounded to it, but it was never a necessary component to his popularity. It was never something that needed much focus beyond the sparse information. When handled poorly, a backstory only really threatens to taint that appeal, and that’s what happened.

The “hook” that got audiences to pay attention to The Shadow was his sinister personality and charismatic cruelty. That was what they came for. What got them to stay, and read the stories and form lifelong devotions to the character and his adventures, was discovering that this personality belonged to a character who was, utterly, on the side of good, who used his skills and powers of great villainy to protect innocents, to help and uplift people just like the readers and listeners. That dual nature was a big part of why The Shadow was so enduring and popular in his prime, part of what set him apart from all of his contemporaries and imitators.

It’s hardly much of a contrast, hardly much of a fascinating and layered character that we want to learn about or spend time with, if he was just always a horrible villain who is only marginally less horrible now, is it? A Shadow who used to be every bit the horrible villain he looks and acts like isn’t really that interesting, it’s just what you’d expect from him at first glance. What’s the point of caring about a man trying to regain his humanity, if we never get to see much of that humanity in the first place? What’s the point of even going into his past if we know all about it?

What’s the point of taking this backstory that was all about open possibilities for storytellers, all about covering the intricate life of a complex and strong character, to reduce it into a quick, punchy one-sentence summation that simply sets down a baseline for all future stories to repeat ad nauseum?

It’s not that I don’t think you can tell stories about The Shadow’s backstory, quite the opposite. It’s not that I don’t think the character having a strong “hook” for audiences is unneccessary (he already has). And it’s not that I don’t think he needs a motivation (he already has). But I have to ask:

What’s the point of shining a spotlight on a shadow, if not to eliminate it?

#the shadow #the shadow essays #pulp heroes #pulp fiction #pulp #lamont cranston #kent allard

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docholligay · 3 years

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LIVESTREAM WINNERS AND TOP POINT COMMENTS

THose of you who read the schedule already know this but the winners are:

HOLLIGAY INVOKES THE SPIRIT OF CLOSET GHOST

and

WE COOK FOR DINNER IN THE APOCALYPSE

Please join me for both! It’ should be a terrifying, thrilling time.

AND NOW, THOSE OF YOU WHO MADE ME FEEL THE WARMEST. Thank you to all who answered--I know this was super self indulgent and it means a lot to me that you took the time. So, literally 12 out of the 13 of you got at least one point (One person did not give any details, or even a quote) MAZEL.

Point allocations are below!!

One point winners:

4(?)ish years ago, you sent Jet a series of letters/cards/funeral lilies, from different Sailor Moon characters. The lilies were for Mako. One card was from Michiru, after Haruka's death. I have never been able to find them again, but I just loved the care you put into them--how they were all written specifically from the character, the fact that you even put tear stains and perfume on the cards. It was just so creative and touching, and it felt like the characters were real for an instant, mourning and living and giving you a peek at their lives. --- @kumeko (That was A Little Letter, and Mako’s was actually a separate thing for the same contest!)

“Before you get yourselves killed I want to go on record as saying this is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.” Rei stood with her hands on her hips at the front of the garage- from that short story about Mina and Haruka strapping an engine to a shopping cart. You can really feel how rei must feel, the resigned exasperation mixed with genuine, but hidden, concern for Mina and haruka’s safety. I think i have said the exactsame thing before people i know do stupid shit. --- BeefSalad33 (oh ma, an oldie but, I think, a goodie)

OH MAN. I am always thinking nonstop about that piece where Minako confronts Seiya about bullying Haruka, specifically for the line where Mina spits out "you think she'll love you for this?" and UGH that LINE. it HAUNTS me, I want to BITE DOWN ON IT AND NEVER LET GO, I WANT TO PUT IT EVERYWHERE EVER BECAUSE IT HURTS SO GOOD, AND I DON'T EVEN CARE ABOUT SEIYA. --- @wouldntyoulichentoknow (I’m so glad that I’ve managed to make both you and jetty grit your teeth and care about Seiya at some point ahahah)

"*But flowers grow from death and decay, don’t they? That has always been true, you know that, Mako. You are a rose of perfect beauty, grown in the rich fertilizer of your loss.*

She threw the stress ball across the room, knocking over the cup on the sink, spilling the ice down the drain."

The contrast between reminding herself of how life works, and then still being bitter about it, and knowing what she is and being frustrated about it. It's a lot, when sorting out various issues- i have trauma, and that makes me better at empathizing with people, i'm adaptable long-term, and that means i can put up with some bullshit, that kind of thing, but that doesn't mean those are wholly good things. It's nice to see it put into words, and so plainly, and with such a strong reaction of it.

Roses can still grow wild, as pretentious as that sounds with how your passage resonates to me, but it's still nice to feel that. ---- @katrani (I’m so glad it resonates with you! I liked that line a lot! )

2 point answers:

Christmas Carol, Stave 1 - “You are a terrible person,” she jutted out her chin, feigning strength. “Fareeha deserved much better than you. But,” she took a deep breath. “I still hope she forgives you, someday. Someday, I hope you will deserve it.” It feels like cheating to use the most recent thing you’ve written, but nonetheless this section conveys so much about your take on Mercy, so quickly. She may be an idealist, the peacekeeper and builder, and she may want Pharah to have a relationship with her mother that’s not this disaster, but that doesn’t stop her from acknowledging that Ana’s been the primary factor in making it what it is and telling Ana that directly. I love how you write Mercy (and Tracer for that matter) as very warm characters who try to see the best in their situations but won’t gloss over the fact that sometimes, someone does have to be shot in the fucking face. “Good” doesn’t mean “hopelessly naive”, even with a pacifist, and I appreciate that you have characters who show that.

Bonus, and a fringe case as technically part of the Fushigi Yuigi hateblog: “She was still trying to get home, had been unable to get Tamahome to let her poison him, and then Nakago had hugged her into his chest until she had been forced to flatten him with a punch to the nads. She was tired, she was hungry, and she was trying to have a moonlight bath to consider her options and wash the stink of a man off of her.

And then, Tamahome, again.” - Haruka-gets-dumped-into-Fushigi-Yuugi-as-Yui was a delight that entire episode, but this post was one of the best. Is it really just narrativizing your frustrations with the many, many writing choices that were made here? Absolutely. But it’s a fun little bit of comedic pacing here, especially with the utter exhaustion of Haruka that this bullshit isn’t over yet. (“Fuck my life” to the moon wondering if Usagi could help and regretting how hard it would be to drown herself are close runners-up on that front.) --- Regalli

(Mercy is, in many ways, my attempt to write someone who is MOSTLY a pacifist that I can respect. It’s not easy for me! I often find pacifism to be cowardice, because so often in life the people I know who are pacifists are, well, not the folks in the street. So i thought, could you write someone who is very hesitant to kill, who believes that even Doomfist, even Reaper, even whoever, deserve care if they are hurt, who believes that a sword will not leave her hand free to uplift the fallen, and make her brave? And make her strong? And so was born, Mercy, who proved that, yeah that person, at least in my mind, can exist.)

I think one of my favorite passages from your writing is from "The Rest is Commentary". Particularly the part that starts with "I am a doer. " That entire paragraph is wonderfully written, with mix of beautifully descriptive language to describe *why* you don't trust words. It's slightly paradoxical, but it also fits with the rest of the essay (?) so well. And even beyond that, I love reading when you write about your faith. You are deeply devout woman, and a personal aspiration to me. When you write about your faith, it reminds me that there is work that needs to be done to live it, and not easy work either. But it is very much worth every bead of sweat, and every drop of blood. --- @shavedjudomonkey

(Thank you so much! I love that people have connected so much with my Jewish writing)

3 point answers:

From Requiem for the Great Consummation, I adore the word play with "compose." Ie, in the line, "Michiru folded her hands in her lap and composed herself." Why? I'm a musician. So, Michiru, with her music, holds a special place in my heart. (Why Ami gets the music attacks is beyond me. WTF?) I don't think the writers ever really understood what it takes to be a musician, and while fanfic writers often include Michiru's music, I've never really seen it done well. (I'm sure it has been. I just haven't seen it.) Music is all about structure. It has to feel free and soaring, but it can only be that because of the intense amounts of tension and structure underneath. A kite without a string plummets. When I reach for high, soaring notes, that's when I have to be most conscious of having a solid base. Making music Is constant tension. So, often when I see writers portray musicians, it's all "she never felt so free and untethered as when she sang/played the,violin/piano/whatever." And I think, "wow, really? She must have been Crap." So, back to compose/compose. This wordplay shows that tension. The "I have rehearsed this 5,000 times and am still working so hard I'm sweating standing still in this freezing auditorium so that it can look and sound completely free and easy." This is Michiru's entire life. She is composing herself. She is outlining complex rhythms and tensions and resolutions that even though you hear when the piece is played, you don't fully take in or understand, and all you consciously comprehend is 'wow, pretty.' Because that's how music works. Organs have keys that can't be heard by the human ear, and composers include them in their pieces. Why? We can't hear them! But we feel them. If you look at the score for an orchestral piece, it contains So. Many. Notes. So much going on. But when you listen, all you hear is that melodic theme. But if you take out anything underneath, things change and cam fall apart. Michiru lives her life like that. She creates herself, composes herself, and it looks elegant and free and easy, but it is so so very tightly controlled and rehearsed, and that particular wordplay showed off that side of Michiru's music, which is one I don't get to see explored much. --- @incorrecttact

(Thank you so much for this!! I am NOT a musician, but so much of Michiru and music speaks to me, the structure of it, the discipline, the way it allows you to express yourself while hiding behind something else. And yes! I think of that double meaning so much!)

I want you to know... that this was very, very difficult. I made a notepad and collected shit I'd pulled out from your work where I could find comments where I did such, and then I AGONIZED. Here is where I landed but know it's so close with other things god.

"Winston worked in earnest at his inventions, and Emily went back to teaching, and the two of them began to cook for each other again. Family dinners once a week resumed, grew with some of the new recruits that were being folded into their family. Pharah and Mercy’s daughter took them to the zoo, the park, out into the world. Dva had continued the game they had all been playing before Tracer died, their party picking up after the terrible and well-done loss of their beloved rogue. ***Life did not return, but it grew forward. It bloomed again.***" — A Clock's Fading Chime

I ended up choosing this one because I hate it a little when I read it. Not because it's not good but because it's SO PAINFUL. I love so much about the way you talk about love, and I think grief is all a part of that. We grieve because we loved. The idea of the grief period, especially for those in a close circle of a lost person, being like the cycle of the seasons where a flower may die but life blossoms in the soil it left behind is so evocative and perfect and everything leading up to that last line is the soil for which that line got to bloom. The slow, simple way life returns to them, that they adjust to the heavy rock in their pack (A piece of yours I revisited for this and a metaphor I will always carry with me) and start growing stronger together. And that they find it WITH EACH OTHER too just god, it kills me. But would I rather wish it wasn't necessary? YUP. FOR SURE. It hurts to think about someone who plays Lena's role dying in our own lives and trying to mend the rift between those left behind. But it brings all those possibilities and who may have gone already before to mind because it feels so grounded in the reality of what these experiences are like and shit it's just a great sampling of everything I love about your work. Beautiful prose, saying so much with so little, grounded in stuff that feels read, and ending on a banger, transfixing line. ---- @thoughtfulfangirling

(Thank you so much! I LOVED that whole series of fics around that, as it is in the way that I often like to toy with the nature of grief, and the way that we go on. Things aren’t ever the same, but we go on. And I’m so glad you gt into it too! It’s very self-indulgent for me, basically everything with OW, so I love when other poepl like it)

4 point answers:

Given that I am not Jewish, I hope this isn't overstepping my bounds, but your passover Seder speech really spoke to me this year. Specifically the bits about the relationship between cowardice and metaphorical bondage:

"This is a celebration of our freedom from bondage, but it is a also a reminder, a call that we must ensure we do not, in cowardice, return ourselves to bondage. "

Without explaining too much, and risking the kind of parasocial oversharing that you lamented the other day in a post, this particular push and pull has been at the forefront of my mind this year. The intense gravity that the familiar, the easy, the safe, can have, versus the genuine terror of pressing out into the unknown in search of something better.

Trying to change, and to do better, and to press on, is fucking terrifying, and hard. But, that is not an excuse. And I appreciated the reminder. --- @blastoise-m

(Not overstepping at all! I am so glad that it speaks to you, I really, really love this kind of writing, and I really should get back to doing more of my Jewish writing. My rabbi is leaving, because we apparently don’t have the money to have a rabbi! And he’s readying people to be lay leaders, and called on me to be someone who could give Divrei Torah (sort of like our sermons) because of my tendency to do stuff like this, and it’s very scary! But really exciting as that’s the kind of stuff that had me interested in being a rabbi, is picking this stuff apart and applying it to our own lives HI YOU ASKED FOR NONE OF THIS SORRY)

"There are no beautiful deaths in this world, and am sorry that you must know it. Rei never was allowed to say goodbye. I watched Haruka grow weaker and more ill every single day. We each have been jealous of the other, at turns, but I tell you this truth now: Our lives mean much more than our deaths. You and Seiya had a wonderful love story, and you raised a wonderful daughter, and unfortunately it is very often difficult to finish a story in a satisfying sort of way. It is not the end of your story, simply of hers. For you, it is a new chapter"

I think this is still one of my top 5 fav fics that you've ever written. I still think of it randomly once in a while. It's such a small moment but it sold me Usagi and Seiya in a way never would have expected. It's such a moment of growth for both Usagi and Muchiru. A small moment of connection for two people who are so different.

This is wrapped up in the entire MaS series, which I could never separate from this work let alone this quote. The entire series is a series about love and all its many permutations. About finding meaning in a world when you think your meaning has been taken away. About carrying on when you think there's no reason to do so. And I think this quote really encapsulates all of that.

This story, this entire series, is one the favorite things I've ever read and I'm so glad that you decided to share it. --- @madegeeky

(I truly and in all ways love how much you love this fic, it cheers em and makes me so happy every time I am reminded of it. And thank you for loving that line! I FEEL that line. It’s been true for every death that has come to me, so I love when it has meaning for others. )

The 5 point answer:

"God separated the sky and the sea, and that’s true, but there will always be the horizon where they blend."

I'm not much of a quote person. I'll often remember the feeling or the takeaway but rarely the words themselves. This, though, has stuck with me.

There is so much in this world, and so many people, who see everything as absolutes. Black and white. Good or bad. Right or wrong. And as I've grown and changed, that has come to bother me more and more.

This quote is such an elegant and accessible way to express how that oh-so-common point of view is a fallacy. And really it's just a lovely line that invokes both lovely imagery and feeling. ---- @seolh

I FORGOT I WROTE THIS, and like the completely arrogant piece of shit I am, when I read it was I was like, “Oh fuck, that’s a solid line.” And yes I am with you on getting older and relizing that the horizon line can be so fuzzy out there, sometimes, and this quote WEIRDLY came back to me when I needed it, a lot, and so thank you!

#names for thing

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