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canary3d-obsessed · 3 years

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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 24, first part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Banquet Proposal

Manspreading Champion Jin Guangshan is trying to pressure Jiang Cheng into marrying Jiang Yanli into the Jin clan. Because this is the cultivation world, where everyone reflexively agrees with the most powerful man in the room like he's Frank Sinatra and they're the Rat Pack, the whole room starts pressuring Jiang Cheng to agree.

Then Wei Wuxian comes striding in and suggests the radical idea of asking a woman's opinion about her own marriage. He tries to pressure Jiang Cheng into agreeing with him. Today is Pressure Jiang Cheng Day. Every day for the next several months is going to be Pressure Jiang Cheng Day.

Jiang Cheng stands up and agrees that it should be left up to his sister, citing his late father's beliefs so that everyone will know that this unconventional behavior isn't his fault. This is a pickle for him; he knows his sister wants to marry Jin Zixuan, but it's not a good political alliance for the Jiangs right now, which is the opposite of the situation when his parents first made the match. While saying all this he takes the opportunity to get in a dig at Wei Wuxian for meddling.

Jiang Yanli sadly says, thanks for the offer, but the Jiang Clan is just coming back from being massacred, and I have, like, SO much laundry, I can't even. It's not that I don't want to be with you, Jixuan honey; I would just rather scrub blood off of the courtyard.

Jin Zixuan suddenly realizes that being dumped in front of a bunch of your peers is not as fun when you’re catching instead of pitching.

Clan Leader Yao is completely flummoxed by this whole "let young people decide things" concept and hopes it goes out of fashion soon.

The only really happy person in the room is Jin Guangyao, who is looking for a scapegoat for his upcoming villainy. Wei Wuxian will be a perfect fit.

(more behind the cut!)

Chillin Like a Villain

Jin Guangyao and Jin Guangshan have a villany-plotting conversation that's mostly as boring as every other villainy-plotting conversation.

Jin Guangyao starts the ground work for blaming stuff on Wei Wuxian, saying that Wei Wuxian was alone with Xue Yang back when the 4th chunk of Yin Iron went missing. This kind of harks back to that moment when Wei Wuxian searched Xue Yang (not, incidentally, alone) and XY asked if he wasn't worried about what people would say if they heard about it.

Jin Guangshan is pretty ready to think badly of WWX, who just crapped on his marriage plans, so he quickly decides that Wei Wuxian’s Yin Tiger amulet is made out of Xue Yang’s Yin Iron, not that it actually, like, matters where it came from? It’s all the same dang metal.

Back to Lotus Pier

Then we get an establishing shot of the dock in Yunmeng and the subtitle unhelpfully says QISHAN. Not because the scene is in Qishan, but because there are red Wen banners flying that say 岐山 on them, so the subtitle is for the banner, not for the location. Not only are there Wen banners still flying despite their defeat, there are at least six Wen guards standing guard at the dock. Perhaps there is a teensy continuity error here.

The Yunmeng trio return to Lotus Pier with a group of disciples in tow. Leaving aside the boys' (apparent) stealth trip to the ancestral hall in Episode 20, this is their official return to their home and the seat of their clan, having survived the Wen clan's attempt to exterminate them.

They are battered, bloodied, but not broken and one of them is also broken. But still persevering. I get choked up at this scene every time. Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian would be pleased with all three of them. Jiang Yanli has supported both of them through all the turmoil, giving them an emotional home even while they were homeless. Jiang Cheng has done the impossible, even more than he himself realizes. And Wei Wuxian has acted as a faithful servant, sacrificing a precious part of himself to save his clan leader.

The place is a mess, with the evidence of a final battle against the Wens all over the place. As they look around Wei Wuxian thinks back on one of the many times that Jiang Fengmian paid attention to him instead of to Jiang Cheng, and smiles affectionately. Wei Wuxian is consistently able to remember the good things and smile about them, even when those memories are overlaid by endless trauma.

The three of them look at the Wen symbol on the roof line and the boys get identically angry...

...starting with the teeth of anger...

...followed by the fist of anger.

It's a powerful moment; they still do have an awful lot in common, despite everything. Jiang Cheng uses his mother’s weapon to smash the Wen symbol and reclaim his home.

Jiang Yanli: The fuck!? Are you trying to slice my face off?

Back to Gusu

Next we get a nice fly-through of the Jingshi, where Lan Wangji is sitting in the side room playing guqin. In later years he will move the guqin to the living room, while this room gains a wine-drinking table.

The Lan clan do love their knick-knacks, and this room features several. There's a teapot suspended from a chain over a brazier, with a tied-up fish sculpture for a counterweight, which is definitely not an indication of any future kinks. The brazier is surrounded by Zen sand with some surprisingly untranquil lines raked into it.

Lan Xichen has dropped by to tell Lan Wangji that the disciples are gossiping about him, saying he’s been checking out books from the library and practicing music. Seriously? The Lans are a sect that focuses on musical cultivation. Practicing music, verrry suspicious. Also, gossip is forbidden, but sure, check up on him.

In response, Lan Wangji jumps right to "I want to enter the forbidden chamber of the Library" Lan Xichen asks him why, and he says he wants more music scores. Lan Xichen, who knows about the secret murder music book, isn't delighted with that answer. Just then, Lan Qiren summons them, so they table the conversation to go see him.

Lan Qiren talks about the battle they just went through, and says "I've heard about Wei Ying." Everybody makes significant faces without clarifying what LQR actually heard about Wei Ying. Lan Qiren then philosophizes about how war is hell, particularly for idioms about eggs and nests. They need to go clean up the leftover resentful energy, but he's sending Lan Xichen on his own, while Lan Wangji gets to stay home and repair/rewrite all of the Lan rules.

Lan Qiren says a bunch of stuff to Lan Wangji about rules, being super hinty without actually coming to the point. He refuses to let Lan Wangji speak or ask questions, while he’s doling out punishment for, basically, thought crime. He wants LWJ to reject Wei Wuxian but he wants him to do it without being directly told.

To make sure Lan Wangji is extra frustrated, he snarkily refuses to give him permission to read the forbidden books, asking him if he’s already read all of the books in the regular library. Surprisingly, he hasn’t yet; I guess he was busy winning a war while you were in a coma, jerkface.

Lan Xichen is super on edge during this conversation--scared, even. He's trying to keep the peace, trying to keep Lan Wangji out of trouble, and avoid a confrontation. Lan Wangji is increasingly uninterested in peace, but he follows his brother's unspoken commands, and shuts up.

Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen both really fail as teachers here. Lan Wangji believes that resentful energy is bad. He believes this VERY STRONGLY. He broke up with his boyfriend for a while because of it. They are punishing him for having doubts, and they’re not giving him any opportunity to talk through those doubts with them. I say “they” because Lan Qiren is the one giving the punishment, but Lan Xichen is silently assenting, and making sure Lan Wangji doesn’t argue.

As they leave, Lan Qiren stops them to ask Lan Wangji if he understands why he's grounded, and Lan Wangji just looks at him without answering, which would be counted as sass when I was growing up.

He face says he’s appropriately chagrined, but he’s not. Before the end of this episode, he's going to directly disobey Lan Qiren, and he’s going to go on disobeying him in the future, over and over again.

Later, when Lan Wangji is alone with the pristine, definitely not in need of repair, rule book, he seems genuinely chagrined. He loves these rules, and has depended on them; that’s why he’s been a model disciple for so long, not because he fears his uncle’s punishments.

But now he also loves Wei Wuxian. So some of these rules will have to be broken.

Clan Leader Jiang

The Jiang Clan are having the ceremony to install Jiang Cheng as leader.

Wei Wuxian is sitting alone, away from all of the other disciples, watching the proceedings rather than participating. His placement in the ceremony is very strange for a head disciple.

But it’s perfect for a ghost.

Later, Jiang Cheng is practicing his "yelly boss" leadership style, and being extra grumpy because Wei Wuxian is slacking off all the time. Jiang Yanli is having trouble deciding if she should be more worried about the brother with the drinking problem or the brother with the anger problem.

Jiang Cheng is miserable and feels completely unsure of himself but he's plowing the fuck ahead.

You might put your love and trust on the line It's risky, people love to tear that down Let 'em try Do it anyway Risk it anyway And if you're paralyzed by a voice in your head It's the standing still that should be scaring you instead Go on and Do it anyway Do it anyway

Help Me to Help You

Wei Wuxian is hanging out in a tavern window, being a thirst trap and hitting on passing Lans.

Lan Xichen joins him for a drink and a lecture. Things start off fairly well, with Wei Wuxian being impressed with his ability to drink wine, and attempting his usual flirt-tease-charm routine, bragging about smuggling wine into Cloud Recesses.

Where Lan Wangji would be adorably flustered and hostile/sexy in responding to that, Lan Xichen just shuts him down with a look, and Wei Wuxian suddenly realizes that he's talking to an adult clan leader who isn't here for his shit, and is a lot more worldy than Lan Wangji is.

Wei Wuxian knocks it off and apologizes. Then he talks fondly about Lan Wangji, saying he wants to come visit him, and daydreams cutely about dominating him supervising his rule-copying work.

LXC says that he should come listen to new music that LWJ has composed, and the tone of the conversation changes completely. Wei Wuxian is on his guard, and he's getting ready to throw down. He asks if LXC came to Yunmeng specifically to hassle him, and LXC...kinda says no?

Wei Wuxian smiles sweetly while he asks if everyone in the Lan Clan is a meddler.

Lan Xichen has never encountered the nasty version of Wei Wuxian before, but he's a grown up, and he's very, very hard to provoke, unlike his brother. He cuts to the chase and says he's got something to say, whether WWX listens or not.

He says Wei Wuxian shouldn't be self-centered because the people he cares about are affected by his choices. This gets through to him, for a second. But then LXC offers to help him go back to sword cultivation, and Wei Wuxian is done listening.

He tells Lan Xichen he doesn't want to go back to sword work, and LXC is stunned into silence for a moment as Wei Wuxian takes his wine and starts to walk away. Lan Xichen makes a last ditch attempt to warn him about the dangers of the yin tiger amulet, and WWX says he knows, but he wants to try to master it anyway. Then he leaves with a rude little wave, and no bow.

This whole conversation seems like a disaster but Wei Wuxian does, in fact, remember Lan Xichen’s words, the next time he meets up with Lan Wangji.

Soundtrack: Do It Anyway by Ben Folds Five

#the untamed #the untamed gifs #the untamed meta #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs

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monkeydlesbian · 3 years

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# MY FAVORITE HAIKYUU BOYS AND THEIR FAVORITE HOZIER SONG (+WHY).

a/n: i’m bisexual and i have religious trauma so who else could be my favorite music artist? i love that irish bog man with everything in me and so do these characters. this was lowkey inspired by @sugardaddykenma because her hc’s are always SO FUNNY. hope u enjoy <3

warnings: NSFW THEMES!! mentions of oral sex, mentions of cum?? (it’ll make sense), religious trauma (but funny), mention of human beings rotting (what did u expect it’s hozier), me self projecting (LET ME KNOW IF I MISSED ANYTHING)

tetsurou kuroo ➔ like real people do: a true classic!! he loves how sappy it is because he himself is a massive sap. something about kissing your lover and becoming alive again because of it and the mutual understanding they have of each other gets him going. me too girl! he always tears up at the part “so i will not ask you why you were creeping, in some sad way, i already know” me too girl....

morisuke yaku ➔ angel of small death and the codeine scene: THE DRAMA!!!! THE POETICISM!!!! he loves it and he loves hearing the lyrics and trying to figure out what the fuck they mean. he’s obsessed with the raw power and emotion in the chorus especially the french idiom for orgasms (“small death” yeah what the fuck hozier). cherry wine is also a close second because of the lesbianism.

shouhei fukunaga ➔ in a week feat. karen cowley: IS OBSESSED with the idea of rotting in a field with the love of his life and letting nature take its course. he’s not even being ironic he just thinks it’s so cool. EVERY TIME it comes on he’s like “wouldn’t this be a fun thing to do?” and you can’t help but worry about him a little bit. loves the guitar and the descriptions of all the animals. goes feral over the notion that the lovers will be “at home” as they decay together. a man after my own heart. let’s rot together in an empty field and wait for the buzzards to collect our remains shouhei.

koutarou bokuto ➔ movement: LOVES the clapping and the way the chorus gets kinda intense compared to the rest of the song. will scream “SO MOVE ME BABEYY” and the “MOVE LIKE GREY SKIES, MOVE LIKE A BIRD OF PARADISE” because he loves the PASSION and the INTENSITY!!!! has asked you if you could make out to this song more than once. you say yes obviously because he’s cute and he listens to hozier and the song is sexy as fuck.

tooru oikawa ➔ wasteland, baby!: it’s all about the apocalypse babey!!! oikawa likes aliens right so i feel like a song about the end of the world (which aliens might bring) would be right up his alley. what is better than living through the end of the world with the person you love? than living in an abandoned and run down city but still being in your lovers arms? nothing is better than that. it’s the confronting challenges and obstacles and having someone with you through it all that has oikawa sobbing.

hajime iwaizumi ➔ nina cried power feat. mavis staples: you’re gonna listen to this song and tell me iwaizumi DOESNT work out to it?? ok. but anyways i feel like this song speaks to him and really gets him motivated. “it’s not the waking it’s the rising” holy FUCK hozier starting off strong. i also feel like the minute he figured out this song was about the civil rights movement (!!! i’m feral) he was looking up every single name that was sang and was like damn this is cool as fuck. he’s also a big work song fan because “there’s nothin’ sweeter than my baby” (i’m YEARNING for the working man)

issei matsukawa ➔ moments silence (common tongue): GOD!! FUCK!!!! he says when he hears hozier compare his cum to catholic rosary beads (yeah me too). every time mattsun hears this song he gets horny because all he thinks about is oral sex. the snapping, the guitar, the chorus in the back, it all makes him go BATSHIT. hears “a moment's silence when my baby puts the mouth on me” and is immediately laying between ur legs. it’s about the intimacy. the trust. the reclaiming of sexual acts as a spiritual connection between two people. he eats that shit UP!!!

takahiro hanamaki ➔ take me to church: again another true classic!!! except this time ur sad, probably a little gay, and religiously traumatized. me too girl! makki has a love-hate relationship with this song because he loves the idea of heaven being in the bedroom with your lover but then gets sad when hozier says “we were born sick, you heard them [the church] say it”. besides for the symbolism and religious trauma he fucks HEAVILY with how deep hozier’s voice gets and the PIANO????? incredible.

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buzzdixonwriter · 3 years

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Tears In The Rain

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe…All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”

-- Blade Runner (David Peebles & Rutger Hauer)

The radar screen manufacturers -- RCA, GE, and others -- started jonesin’ for cash when the end of WWII dried up all that sweat & easy military materiel money.

Commercial consumer television existed before WWII in England, the UK, and Germany but it was a super-expensive technology confined to a few very wealthy homes in a few select markets or in Germany’s case, public venues such as beer halls.

Radar screens and TV tubes were basically different applications of the same thing, so the radar tube manufacturers shifted their production to TV sets pitched to post-war consumers as the must-have status symbol.

Problem: Said TV sets needed something to show and while there was live national network and local programing, most early stations filled their air time with old movies / cartoons / serials / comedy shorts.

That was the cultural gestalt I and other boomers grew up in during the 1950s, an era when much of the on air media dated back to the 1930s.

I’ve always been more culturally observant and curious than others in my generational cohort, and while they blandly / blindly watched Bugs Bunny and Popeye and Betty Boop and Our Gang, I was asking my parents and grandmother and aunt about the odd details I saw in old media (it didn’t hurt that we had a beautiful art deco edition of Collier’s Encyclopedia that my grandparents acquired in the 1920s in the house as well).

As a result I knew far more about the Depression and Prohibition and war rationing and other major cultural events and touchstones prior to our generation than did most other boomers.

When our history and social studies textbooks finally introduced these topics in junior high and high school, I was already intimately familiar with them.

As a result, I fell in love with the Marx Brothers and continue to love them to this day.

And while I watched and re-watched The Three Stooges, once I discovered Laurel and Hardy I left Larry, Moe, Curly, Shemp, Joe, and Curly Joe behind.

But the thing is, to fully understand and appreciate and know and love the Marx Brothers, you have to understand the pop culture of their era.

The same applies -- to a lesser degree -- to Laurel and Hardy.

The key difference is that The Three Stooges are pure physical mayhem: There is nothing to understand.

They are imbeciles who inflict pain on themselves and one another, and while far, far inferior to Groucho / Harpo / Chico or Stan & Ollie, they will outlast them.

Anybody from any era or any culture can access The Three Stooges, but if you don’t understand a “gat” (short for gatling gun) is 1930s slang for an automatic pistol, then Groucho’s line upon seeing a automatic in a drawer with a pair of derringers -- “This gat’s had gittens” -- is absolute gibberish.

Likewise Laurel and hardy require some understanding of how American cultural values functioned in the 1920s and 30s; if you don’t get that, a lot of their humor is lost.

Our Gang / Little Rascals ages better because kids are kids and much of what they do is universal.

But even there much of their references have to do with the Depression or WWII rationing and scrap drives and if you don’t grasp that then those jokes zoom past you.

The situation isn’t confined to pre-WWII media, either.

The Marx Brothers and Laurel & Hardy might possibly be recognized by the current generation as something their parents and grandparents watched, but the Ritz Brothers are forgotten by all except those who specialize in comedy / pop culture history. Wheeler & Woolsey are even more obscure, and Olsen & Johnson obscurer still, and if you’ve ever heard of Lum & Abner my hat’s off to you.

And holy shamolley, those are just the comedians we’re talking about. There’s a whole universe of pop culture lost as fans of old B-Westerns die off, not to mention minor pop stars of music and small movies in the 1930s / 40s / 50s.

Silent movies have virtually disappeared from pop culture today; they are things of the past, historical artefacts.

Thanks to the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg and Comic Book + and Digital Comics Museum and other sites, literally tens of thousands of hours of old radio shows and countless pulp magazines and comic books and other media are available, but who accesses them today except the truly die-hard genre fans or the pop culture historians?

Why morn their passing?

As Theodore Sturgeon famously observed, isn’t 90% of everything crap?

Yes, it is.

But that doesn’t make it any less of the cultural gestalt, the zeitgeist of the era than the few timeless gems that shine through.

. . .

As pop culture historian Jaime Weinman points out, the boomer generation -- the late 1940s to early 1960s -- offered a particularly fallow time for pop culture.

We enjoyed access to previous generations of pop culture, brought to us in curated form. Even if those curators were costumed local cartoon show and horror movie hosts, we got at least some understanding of what led up to our own generation.

Weinman observes that because of technical broadcast reasons, only a few avenues fell open to new programming -- and that new programming could be rerun again and again to fill in gaps in local stations’ air time.

It created a generation with remarkably deep pop culture roots, even if relative few members of that generation were aware of them.

We were, to some degree or another, aware of a vast library of older pop culture media and icons and idioms.

Ironically, this began changing in the late 1960s, slowly at first, but coming full flower in the mid-1970s as music cassette recordings allowed us to create our own playlists off radio shows and record players, and cable TV stopped being something for the hinterlands and started penetrating urban markets, thus literally uniting the country with first dozens then hundreds and a virtually infinite number of channels and streaming options.

But the real nail in the golden age of pop culture’s coffin was the introduction of home TV recordings and time shifting, meaning we no longer needed to wait for curated programing but could watch what we wanted when we wanted.

Despite a wider range of options, older material became less and less popular, and the lack of curation is a big part of that.

With nobody to supply some sort of context -- even goofy horror host context -- older examples of pop culture became less accessible.

The newer generations look less to the past, more to the future.

. . .

As I’ve written before, endings fascinate me.

Right now I’m seeing a generational shift with the boomer generation’s pop culture rapidly fading to be replaced by Generation Z and the generations to follow them.

I look at the boomer era and wonder how much will survive.

Very little, I’m afraid.

And that includes losing some of the best our era had to offer.

For example, how many people today know of The Firesign Theatre?

In the mid-1960s through the early 1970s, they performed absolutely brilliant satirical comedy on radio and recordings. Their album Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers received a Hugo nomination for best sci-fi drama presentation of 1970.

I still laugh when I hear their recordings -- but I laugh because I lived in that era.

Their humor relies heavily on topical subjects and the counter culture of the late 1960s-70s. They were very much a Southern California phenomenon…and thanks to radio and TV and movies of that era, that culture permeated the entire country.

But that era is gone, and now when I listen to them I laugh, but to use a specific example I laugh because I know who Ralph Williams was and what he meant to Southern California pop culture in that time.

You don’t get that, you don’t get the joke, and the brilliance of The Firesign Theatre’s humor is lost.

Like tears in the rain.

. . .

Cheech y Chong will survive, because like The Three Stooges, their appeal lies in their basic stupidity.

True, many of their routines make contemporary pop culture references, but material like “Dave’s Not Here” is timeless.

You don’t even have to get the drug references to find it hilarious.

Conversely, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers will fade.

As characters, they are of a particular time and place: Hippie dippie San Francisco.

They can’t survive transplantation, as was demonstrated in their last few stories.

Now there’s an animated series that brings them from the swinging 60s to to Trump 20s and it just doesn’t work.

The creators Don’t Get The Joke.

I don’t blame them for failing to get the joke, but updating the Freak Bros. would be like updating the Marx Brothers.

It can be done, but only badly.

. . .

Music will always have musicians and buffs who will track every obscure item they can find, but a lot of the best and most innovative work will be forgotten by mainstream culture.

This is because in many case, the best musicians are way ahead of the rest of their field, and their innovations are only made palatable by others who take them up and reinterpret them in a way to make them accessible to contemporary audiences.

Frank Zappa, as much as I personally love him as a cultural icon, will fade fast after the last boomer dies.

Basically, he didn’t make singable music.

There are a lot of brilliant innovations in his work, but his lyrics are so idiosyncratic as to be impossible to cover.

That, and a lot of his lyrics and subject matter would not be comfortably acceptable today.

Yeah, when he did it he was trying to make a satirical point, but when modern audiences hear it, they don’t hear the sharp commentary on the culture of his time, they hear songs that seem to glorify sexual violence and racial bigotry.

Most of the people who decry so-called “cancel culture” today are hypocrites trying to justify their own offenses, but there will be creators and components of pop culture who simply aren’t going to make the cut.

I can show you on paper why radio’s Amos And Andy was a brilliantly written show.

You’re not going to get modern audiences to accept white actors doing blackface…or black voice.

Zappa is acceptable today because there are still enough people who get the joke.

When we’re gone, so are most of his songs (his instrumentals hopefully will live on).

. . .

Quentin Tarantino’s star is already starting to set.

His copious dropping of the n-bomb seemed daring and edgy in the early to mid-90s now seems boorish and tiresome.

People don’t want to listen to that, and how can you make them watch what they don’t want to watch?

The Hateful Eight might endure since it gives a sorta context for its racial animosity, ditto Django Unchained, but even they will be problematic due to Tarantino’s Red Apple universe -- a world similar enough to ours to be mistaken for it at first glance but ultimately completely different.

Inglorious Basterds will ultimately fail the history smell test by audiences who will perceive it as wildly inaccurate.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood probably has the least problematic elements in it, but it too is so firmly set in a specific time and place that only those who lived it can truly appreciate it.

When we’re gone, who can follow the pop culture breadcrumbs that lead us through the movie?

Tarantino is a brilliant writer / director, and film students in the know will study his movies to see how he pulled them off…

…but they’re going to move far past him.

(He may enjoy a revival 50 years from now, the way certain film makers get rediscovered a half century after their deaths. If so, it will be by people able to see past the pop culture references to the real story beneath.)

. . .

Roger Corman and other exploitation film makers aren’t going to as welcomed once the boomer generation departs.

Boomers see them as transgressive artists, tweaking the nose of so-called respectable society.

New generations will see they as creeps who exploited violence and sexism.

(And we shouldn’t mourn its loss; most of it is soft-core pornography. But there were a few shining moments that shine only if you know the context, and that is fading fast.)

. . .

Superheroes probably won’t die out just as Westerns never completely died out, but like Westerns their audience is rooted in a very particular time and place.

I mentioned B-Westerns earlier; once upon a time there were literally dozens of B-Western stars, each with their own face base and merchandising and movies…

…and now there are no more B-Westerns.

We remember Roy Rogers because he’s culturally referenced elsewhere (and Gene Autry because he left a great big museum in his name).

B-Westerns’ success was based on fulfilling audience expectations, essentially giving the same thing they’d seen before, only slightly different.

Superheroes have degenerated into that.

In their current form, they’re deconstructions based on what a previous generation’s pop culture produced.

The superhero market has been supersaturated in the past and collapsed before.

This time when it collapses it will take along countless near-identical characters and storylines.

What emerges from it will be as different from the current iteration of superheroes as The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly was from My Pal Trigger.

. . .

Likewise, if James Bond is to survive, there will be a drastic retooling of the property.

It is possible; Sherlock Holmes has been retooled often.

The original Connery Bonds, the ones we consider to be “iconic” will eventually be viewed as an embarrassment.

The world and its attitudes are changing, and while there will always be room for heroes, audiences will be a bit more discerning about which heroes they want.

The attitudes of the original Bonds will not fly with future generations.

. . .

Finally, one prospect that will make it into the future, though not necessarily on its own strengths, no matter how significant they are.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 has skewered pop culture via bad movies since 1988.

Supported by a legion of fans, there are several books and websites that annotate all the references found in the various MST3K series.

Scholars 500 years in the future will thank these fans and researchers for their efforts.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 and its various annotated spinoffs will be the Rosetta stone of 20th century pop culture.

It will provide a context to make the jokes understandable, but more importantly than that, it will open a window into what people were thinking and feeling in the last decade of the 20th century.

It and the films it spoofed will be studied with near Talmudic intensity (you think I jest; I do not). They’ll provide insight that will help future generations and cultures understand this one.

#Once Upon A Time In Hollywood #Wheeler and Woolsey #Lum And Abner #The Ritz Brothers #The Firesign Theatre #The Marx Brothers #Laurel And Hardy #Frank Zappa #Olsen And Johnson #Our Gang #Little Rascals #The Three Stooges #Groucho Marx #Harpo Marx #Chico Marx #Stan Laurel #Oliver Hardy

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dansedan · 3 years

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Today is a wacky day for my brain and what it chugged out is apparently this horrible little frantic postmart Dubois being bad at trying his best momence. Enjoy aka suffer with me

You're barely holding it together- how the hell did you get to this newsstand? Is it a newsstand? This structure- round, metal, iron-wrought frame and squat stature- was once a newsstand. How do you know it isn't? What is it now? You feel yourself point someplace on a menu you can't see past the dew of heavy crying- the clerk does not react, he's seen you like this- slam your wallet on the counter. You receive a paper parcel slightly larger than your fist, long. It's warm through the paper, and you can feel the dryness of a light dusting of flour passing through it. Food.

Your legs and arms are moving on their own again, wallet shoved this way, steps stumbled past the other, clumsily bringing whatever it is to your mouth and feeling crumbs fall into your beard- like a shark. That's one of the first things you remember, the beautiful old ultraliberal woman, like a shark, on her boat. The joy of your first- no, second- idiom. The first was up on Marvel Hill where you can't live. Kim said that. Kim's gonna be there, when you do it like a shark and don't stop any of this on your way to work and you stop crying so nobody thinks you did what youre avoiding doing. Is there anyway you can forget the frittte? There's so many locations in your mind, what kind of man are you, remembering the placement of a store that's meant to vanish and appear out of convenience like it's a fucking pitstop? would a flask not be enough? A single habit to get rid of, easy- but you're never easy. You're really never fucking easy, are you?

You feel dark-dark-light-darkness and then light again, and smoother flooring and your coat being too warm. You're at the precinct- fuck, you're at the precinct- and it's late, real late, but you are here and there's too many people to fuck up here and at least you aren't crying. Your red face and eyes blend perfectly into too many years and days of red and puffy eyes to call attention. Perfect, perfect- god bless the innocence (or is innocence god? You can't forget- Remember- something.)

"You're late, shitkid." At some point Jean appears beside you. He's walked the other way and stopped- he's grimacing- but more importantly you see his left arm raise and still and clech itself, like a restricted movement, natural instinct. "You smell like shit- is that fish?" You do not know if that is fish because your throat hurts so bad already that you cannot know if you've been swallowing bones for this past hour (minute? Minutes? The walk feels like forever and never enough. You're swearing like a pig now that you're standing, adequate) But also because nothing tastes like anything and everything is static noise right now, every thing is untuned radio blaring in your ears.

You want to say it's agony, the end of days, the end of you- you want to say reprise, and sorry, and oh god I didn't want to see you please I don't deserve it Jean please leave and go away from me and also please oh god please hold me up I don't know what I'm doing but I'm trying to be better but I ate this thing that might as well be sawdust somehow and I do not know what time it's been for several days.

Instead you say "it's my GOD-GIVEN RIGHT, VIC" and you move along like a fucking idiot. Keep moving, like a shark. Not-dying is the most that you can do right now, keep moving.

#my writing #my fic #i guess?

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wangxiangiftexchange · 3 years

Text

Winter Solstice Gift for slightlytookish

Happy Winter Solstice, @slightlytookish! May it brings you peace and happiness. I’m (more than) slightly nervous about this gift and I hope the product is to your liking!

References to Chinese idioms and concepts, marked in [], help with but are not necessary for comprehension, and are explained in the Footnotes on AO3 for those who are interested.

Read on AO3

*****

出淤泥而不染，

濯清漣而不妖

— 《愛蓮說》周敦頤 (1017-1073)

For the way it emerged untainted from the muck,

Rising cleanly above ripples of water with an unaffected grace

— “On the Love of Lotus” Zhou Dunyi (1017-1073)

One

Every year, Wei Ying says he’ll wander far and wide with Little Apple; every year, he says Gusu is getting stifling and he needs a breather, needs … no, not anything Lan Zhan can offer — for what he needs isn’t found in the Cloud Recesses, where the air is too fresh, too clean, too cultivated. Every year, Wei Ying explains what he misses is the smell of commoners, free from the promises and ambitions of a golden core. What he misses is the chimney smoke, filthy with soot and stinks of burnt meat and cheap spices. What he misses is the dust that clogs the nostrils, that flies from under the iron hooves of horsemen running their races in jianghu. [1,2]

But Wei Ying always ends up here, inYiling. Specifically, here on this mountain where there’s no chimney smoke. No dust. No kitchens or meat or spices or hooves. No horsemen. No jianghu.

He has never visited the Burial Mounds in winter before. Lan Zhan made a rare request for Wei Ying to help with the revamping of the Library Pavilion, and so he spent his August drunk in the scent of Gusu’s sweet osmanthus.

It was a little too heavy, too fragrant for Wei Ying’s taste. Possibly due to the lack of even a breeze as summer dies. Cloud Recesses can rest within the clouds for this reason. The clouds don’t dissipate.

Here, the wind is strong—it’s the one thing that never dies in this place—and its whistles sharpen into shrieks among the grey bare tree branches. Grey as the sky, bare as the bones that crunch under Wei Ying’s boots only to expose another layer of them. Within the cracks where weak rays of sunlight touch the dead trees, where bones reveal the wounds of their old flesh and blood, white flurries are twirling with the black curls of Resentment.

They look like they’re fighting. They look like they’re coupling.

Wei Ying caps his last jug of Emperor’s Smile and ties it to his waist. He promises Little Apple to be back soon and issues a warning about not doing anything stupid.

The donkey doesn’t even bray.

Well, Little Apple is already stupid. Wei Ying smiles, twirls his flute and scales the slope that leads to Fumo Cave. He doesn’t bother with talismans or setting up borders. He doesn’t mind the Resentment testing him, sending tendrils into the hollowness in him that only here, in Lan Zhan’s absence, does he once again recognise its presence. He doesn’t mind the darkness curling around his limbs, reminding him of how A-Yuan used to cling to his leg while he walked his single plank bridge in the darkest of hours. He doesn’t mind the suffocating pain as the more violent bands of Resentment threatens to strangle him, the pain almost pleasant in how real it feels, like flesh and blood, the pain from all those the Founder of Demonic Cultivation thought he could save but ultimately lost.

There’s an intimacy to the hollowness, the darkness, the pain, the chokehold. The Yiling Laozu is home.

Two

The snow and the Resentment are fighting, after all.

A dark haze swathes the plateau where the Wen clan lived, determined to not let a single snowflake fall upon it.

The lotus pond is frozen, the ring of talismans Wei Ying set around it torn and tattered. The previous summer he visited, like all summers before, Wei Ying filled the pond with water from the Blood Pool — pink water that, supposedly like the water in Cloud Recesses’ Cold Pond, never stops flowing. Like all summers before, he planted tubers stolen from the lakes of Yunmeng, tubers that promised to bloom in the same hue as the lotuses in Lotus Pier.

The time for the first green shoots to appear enumerated the days Wei Ying got to spend in the Burial Mounds. Afterwards, he hoisted a ring of talismans and hurried back to Gusu, feeling more like himself, more guilty as Lan Zhan looked up from his guqin — its strings being plucked, as always, as Wei Ying stepped into Jingshi — and whispered a confirmation that had no cause to exist unless, deep down, Lan Zhan still harboured doubts that Wei Ying would return. From the alleged far and wide wanderings; from taking breaths of chimney smoke and a breather from Cloud Recesses, the Lan Clan, and Lan Zhan himself; from walking among commoners harbouring the spirit of jianghu instead of a golden core.

You’re back. Such excessive words wouldn’t have otherwise left Lan Zhan’s mouth otherwise.

Culprits of the freeze are there for Wei Ying to see; trapped trusses of dark red buried with whatever remnants of a water plant that used to require flowing water to survive. The blood from the pink Blood Pool water has congealed into bands as though it were Resentment’s scarlet sibling, and the bands, the tendrils criss-cross to form a lattice, a prison. Only half a lotus stalk manages to break free, its length above the ice grey as the sky and bare as the branches and bones. Wei Ying breaks it off and stuffs it in his robe, a token for yet another failed Burial Mounds experiment.

The young green shoots never make it into flowers — lotus blooms that, sages say, are untaintable, can purify everything.

The air, in fact, smells even heavier of blood. Violence. No wonder the Resentment is so active today, playful and alive, taking their chance to enter the opened front of Wei Ying’s robe. It traces his ribs before taking off again, like a tease, a caress, a greeting; invasive and intimate as night, as death.

Wei Ying, too, has died before. Once officially, twice in reality.

The first time Wei Ying died, he was here. The first time he was reborn, he was also here.

Liberate. Suppress. Eliminate. The three strategies towards pacifying Resentment leave one mystery unsolved. While the first assumes humanity—with its gratitudes and dying wishes—still living within the Resentment, the other two assume this humanity lost. Gone.

Where has it gone to? Has it left at all?

On the southern side of the pond, Resentment rises and falls into the decrepit huts through broken roofs, dark like the chimney smoke Wei Ying does miss. Humanity remains heavy, too, in the hut once occupied by A-Yuan and his Gran. The chopping board remains by the fire pit, the cleaver on it pitch black as bands of Resentment take turns to lick the blade. Grandma must’ve been cutting what little meat the sect of Yiling could afford then—it was all saved for the child—when she sent herself off to slaughter.

The Resentment can’t let go of blade’s memory of blood. Blood, so reminiscent of wounds, revenges, relief, so unbearably close to living.

Wei Ying was there too—well, here, here on the Burial Mounds, clinging onto his memory of bloodshed. His urge to revenge, to inflict every possible wound onto Wen Chao and his cronies.

He finds the stump that once served as a table and sits, crossed-legged. He brings Chenqing to his lips.

Every one of his flute is Chenqing. It matters not if it wears a red tassel, or comes with a Stygian Tiger Seal. His every flute tells stories that all want to judge but few want to hear. [3]

Cleansing isn’t the song for now or for here. Wei Ying isn’t Wen Ning, whom the Resentment assaulted without consent. By surviving the Burial Mounds, by devising Demonic Cultivation, Wei Ying willingly opened himself up for the Hell Resentment carries.

He plays Wangxian instead.

He plays it as if humanity, its meanings and sentiments aren’t lost to the swirls of black around him, as if they still have gratitudes to be repaid, dying wishes to be granted. As if they’re still worthy of liberation. Of “thank you”s and “sorry”s.

The darkness heeds his call and gathers, ropes against his flesh, closes against his throat in a way that if Lan Zhan was here, if Lan Zhan saw him, he’d be sure to strike with the most lethal note from Chord Assassination.

Lan Zhan…who, over the years, has also developed a habit of closing his hand around Wei Ying’s throat. He does so when their bodies merge into one, when all that remains awake in Cloud Recesses is the vast darkness above their heads, pinned in place by the moon and stars above the rooftops.

I won’t go anywhere, Wei Ying choked out then, as his mind now tells Resentment while his fingers—his body—play Wangxian. He did that, did he? He told Lan Zhan? Lan Zhan, so intent and exposed, his hair loose and robe discarded, his full weight pressed upon Wei Ying as if a man missing a golden core could still sword-fly away right there and then? Lan Zhan, soaked with sweat that had never shedded even in the worst of battles, his usually tight lips gasping to drink in whatever breath Wei Ying could spare?

Or did Wei Ying choke then and said nothing, even though Lan Zhan never used any force on his hand?

The cleaver falls onto the floor with a clang. Music that isn’t coming from Chenqing has flipped it over.

Chenqing leaves Wei Ying’s lips. He shoots up from his seat, turns.

Wangxian only grows louder, its notes from a guqin gentle but insistent above the whistling of the winds. It, too, tells a story all want to judge but few want to hear.

The man in Wei Ying’s thoughts, in Wei Ying’s dreams is on the Burial Mounds.

Three

Wei Ying would’ve seen Lan Zhan’s footsteps if the snow has been allowed to fall.

Wangxian stops, finally, when their eyes meet. The meeting isn’t for long. Wei Ying soon lowers his focus to the dust under his feet, freed of snow and Resentment by Lan Zhan’s talismans and marked by not the imprints of iron hooves but of his own lonely trips here.

“You came.” These words from Wei Ying are excessive too. like You’re back. Of course Lan Zhan did. Lan Zhan, ethereal like the rest of snowy Yiling and the cultivation world, his guqin so feared by yao mo gui guai on his lap. Lan Zhan, who still plays Cleansing at dawn before Wei Ying wakes. [4]

Don’t play for me, Wei Ying said.

I play for myself, Lan Zhan replied.

The Lan Zhan before him offers no reaction, so Wei Ying braves a look at him again. Flurries are still clinging on the familiar silver crown, the black hair shining like no Resentment can. The snow has thawed into beads on the jade-like face, as if to prove its chill is but a lie.

Warm, too, are Lan Zhan’s eyes, which harbour no accusations. There’s only warmth—heat—and patience.

Lan Zhan doesn’t belong to the Burial Mounds. Patience is never one of Resentment’s virtues.

Wei Ying smiles. “I thought the Lan Clan Leader is pre-occupied with the latest edition of Virtue and Conduct.”

That was yet another excuse for Wei Ying’s leave. That tome gives me nightmares, he said. Only to come to the place of nightmares.

Lan Zhan stows his guqin with a wave of his sleeve. “Eliminating rules takes little time.”

Wei Ying should’ve remembered that; the rules have been eliminated because they were no longer reinforceable. They were no longer reinforceable because of him.

As the cultivation partner of the clan leader, he was supposed to be a wielder of the Discipline Whip. Instead, he deserved the whip more than anyone else.

“You followed me here.”

This time, Wei Ying is rewarded by a raise of Lan Zhan’s chin, a measured survey of their surroundings. He follows Lan Zhan’s line of sight. Fumo cave—and the palace it once was—is covered with the same dust that could’ve been rocks or shattered tiles from the Xue Chonghai’s final battle; the same severed ropes from the second siege of the Burial Mounds, the talisman nets used to pacify Wen Ning; the same failed inventions and empty wine jugs that explained them; the same splatters of rust-red ….

But something has changed. Something is different about the place and Wei Ying cannot pinpoint what it is.

Still, Lan Zhan’s meaning is clear. He arrived at the Burial Mounds before Wei Ying.

Which is hardly surprising. For those with a well-cultivated golden core, sword flying between Yiling and Gusu takes little more than a few stick incenses’ time. Meanwhile, Wei Ying took a winding road around the mountains, with Little Apple refusing to climb where fresh grass and apples were scarce. It has been weeks since they left Cloud Recesses.

Lan Zhan’s meaning is also this: he expected Wei Ying to be here too, at the Burial Mounds.

He expected Wei Ying to lie to him.

“I—” Wei Ying’s scrambles for excuses, as Lan Zhan rises from the rock that was once Wen Ning’s sick bed.

“As long as I find you,” Lan Zhan says.

These words dig a sharp knife into Wei Ying’s chest. After sixteen years of waiting, the hope and satisfaction of the legendary Hanguang Jun has withered down to this: as long as he can find Wei Ying. Guilt coils around his innards, threatens to cut his windpipe.

He attempts a grin. “But I’m not lost.” He sounds strangled. Choked. “Whereas you, Hanguang Jun, must’ve been totally lost to find yourself here.” He nods at the cave’s entrance, to the Resentment and flurries coupling, fighting. “The Chief Cultivator must have better things to do than to wander into a ruin.”

“Why do you call it a ruin.” It isn’t a question.

Wei Ying walks around, gestures with Chenqing at the pillars, the split beams above him. “This is hardly what I’d call decor. Hardly palatial enough for cultivator conferences and post-night hunt feasts. Also,—” he remembers Lan Zhan’s first visit, of A-yuan clinging onto him like snow on the silver crown “—I don’t think the kitchen has been supplied with tea leaves yet.”

Wei Ying’s humour, his bid to divert their present conversation down the memory lane is lost on Lan Zhan. “This was A-Yuan’s former home. Your former home.”

“Ah, Lan Er Gongzi,” Wei Ying tries harder, feigns a disapproving head-shake before pointing the end of his flute at Lan Zhan. “Now you’re just saying that I, a sect leader of legendary prestige, can only afford a dump like this.” Which was the truth, and Wei Ying flashes another grin as the winds howl outside. The dust in the cave ripples as their robes flap; Wei Ying secures his belt, sticks Chenqing in it. “I’ve have you know though, the fengshui here is more than exquisite, if you consider—”

“This was your former home.” Lan Zhan repeats, ignoring every word Wei Ying has said. “Which makes this place my home.”

Wei Ying breaks into a chuckle, sincere but more bitter than intended. “Your home? Ai-yah, Lan Er Gongzi—”

Lan Zhan lifts his forearm, retrieves something from his sleeve. “And this,” he continues, raising what he found. “Mine to give.”

Wei Ying receives the gift with a trembling hand.

Nothing like it has ever existed on the Burial Mounds. Its fore-bearers—does it count, if they sprouted from the same soil only a lifetime ago?—were sterile, their seeds withered and poisonous. It mattered not they looked tall and green and strong, or the flowers they had once formed the core of shared the same hue as the Yunmeng lotuses.

The lotus receptacle in Wei Ying’s hand is smaller and a shade paler, but each pod is plump and promises the sweetest seed. Wei Ying gives it a sniff; its scent brings forth memories not only of Lotus Pier but of Cloud Recesses—not the sweet osmanthus drifting up from the foothills but the magnolia tree by the Library Pavilion. Sandalwood.

How reminiscent it is of the ones Lan Zhan handpicked for him on the boat in Yunmeng.

No more exceptions. Wasn’t that what Lan Zhan said then? But he has only made more exceptions for Wei Ying ever since, one after another.

Like polishing smooth the rules carved in stone by his ancestors. Like letting pet rabbits roam the grounds of Cloud Recesses proper. Like permitting dissent in Lanshi, as long as it comes with arguments that withstand the test of Wei Ying. Like asking Wei Ying to be his cultivation partner. Like saying nothing when Wei Ying comes and goes whenever he wants, when Gusu Lan’s has always been about order and predictability.

Wei Ying inhales again, and the change in the cave finally hits him.

Fumo cave no longer smells of blood.

He might’ve identified it sooner if the stink of violence wasn’t as strong by the lotus pond, or the proof of a slaughter, as stubborn in A-Yuan’s hut. But these are excuses. Diminishing every summer, like starlight on the rooftops at dawn, has been Wei Ying’s hope that he can heal the only source of healing on the Burial Mounds—the Blood Pool that used to be the kin of Cloud Recesses’ Cold Pond, the Pool that should never freeze; the Pool that turned into a congealed hell during the second Burial Mound siege. Time has since disintegrated the fierce corpses, their Resentment released from cold bones grey and bare; but despite Wei Ying’s best efforts every summer, despite his channeling its water to plant lotuses, Wei Ying hasn’t recovered a single, clean drop of water to return to the Blood Pool.

The Pool water might have flowed again, but it remained pink and reeked of blood.

Yes, it’s been Wei Ying’s intention to kill two birds with one stone. He intended for the Blood Pool’s ever flowing water to sustain the lotuses through the cold, and in turn, for the lotuses—untaintable, as the sages say—to purify the water that nourishes them. But the Burial Mounds have other ideas, handed Wei Ying a double defeat: the water for the Blood Pool never stayed flowing long enough for the lotuses to grow; the lotuses never survived long enough to cleanse its water of blood, of memories of violence and slaughter.

The two birds Wei Ying intended to kill have joined the flight of the snow, the Resentment.

The lotus receptacle in his hand has surely come from elsewhere.

“Seems like you’ve developed a taste for theft, Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying plays with the stalk in his hand, the stalk that is as strong as it is pliant. Two failures back to back, he thought, and he didn’t even get to get drunk. He decided to laugh then—at himself, mostly, for attempting the impossible again; for never learning, for never losing the habits he should’ve lost a long time ago — and escalate his rubbish talk. “I bet you got your hands on some Emperor’s Smile, took this from some lake on your way.” He waves the receptacle. “I should be glad you don’t have a sleeveful of chickens—”

“Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying stops. Lan Zhan has that look on him, the look when Wei Ying is amused by something he shouldn’t.

Right. Mine to give. Those were Lan Zhan’s words and Lan Zhan doesn’t lie, doesn’t joke. He means exactly what he says — the lotus receptacle comes from the Burial Mounds, from his own hands. His own effort.

“I saw the pond.” Wei Ying deflates, waves at the cave’s entrance. “Nothing’s growing in it. I guess it’s luck, that time I got something going a while ago. Plus, Lan Zhan, you really shouldn’t be encouraging my infatuation with lotuses. It’s not like I have any more business to do with them.” Especially the nine-petalled ones; Wei Ying gestures with the receptacle again and smiles. “So, unless you’re coming clean about how you got this thing, I think we should leave. Little Apple must be furious right now with this weather; bet it’ll throw me off its back on our trip home.” Home, as in Gusu, where Wei Ying swallows the Resentment, hides it in the hollowness in him; where he dreams of Cleansing, and the man who shouldn’t be playing it, as dawn breaks. “Then, you’ll prepare for that conference coming up, while I’ll lock myself in the Library Pavilion and copy Virtue and Conduct a thousand times.”

As punishment. He isn’t about to list his sins in words; the list is too long. Coming here. Lying. The heart of them all being this: Yes, Lan Zhan, I failed to control myself. I couldn’t break the ties between me and the Resentment, as you said I couldn’t.

You’ve walked the single plank bridge for me, with me, while I stare at the bloody, resentful waters below and find it…homely. I want it to grow lotuses in a way I never do with the waters in Cloud Recesses.

It carries my reflection. Do you see that, Lan Zhan? Do you understand that?

“Ah, it should be two thousand times, now that Virtue and Conduct has been abridged.” Wei Ying blathers on at Lan Zhan’s silence, before schooling his expression to something more sincere, more serious. “You know, I can do with a bit of music for the copywriting. You’ll play for me, will you?”

Still, no reactions from Lan Zhan, whose face has only tilted ever so slightly in Wei Ying’s direction. A bead of molten snow traces the curve of his silver crown as it falls, like a shed tear. “Fine. Fine. I’ll play my own Cleansing. I can do that with Chenqing.” Wei Ying sighs. “Look, I won’t do it again. I won’t come here anymore. I won’t lie about my whereabouts. I won’t make you worry. I won’t—”

Lan Zhan turns before Wei Ying finishes, brings his hands to his back and strides towards the alcove, the corridor that leads to what is once Fumo Palace’s Meditation Hall. Wei Ying has no choice but to follow, the lotus receptacle held close to his chest.

Four

Wei Ying has to stop half way in the corridor. “When?” he asks.

Lan Zhan keeps his pace, his robes growing brighter to crescendo-ing rays of sunlight, which have never seen this part of the cave before. Wei Ying grabs his sleeve, catches up and faces him. “Lan Zhan!”

Lan Zhan stops finally. He waits, quiet still, as if the reason of Wei Ying’s question is lost on him.

“You’ve been here.” The light, clean scent of lotuses around them is now unmistakable — not from a receptacle or even a flower, but a pond full of them. “Before today. You sword-flew here, brought in tubers and you—” he points towards the Meditation Hall, where he knows, already, that lotuses are blooming in the Blood Pool. “Why? How many times have you been here since I —”

He chokes; to say more is to admit, in his own words, that he has been lying. He scratches his nose, forgetting the lotus receptacle in his hand.

It gives his cheek a clean slap.

It’s at moments like these that Wei Ying thanks the heavens that few hawkers have a clue what the Yiling Laozu is like.

Lan Zhan’s eyes soften, his lips curved just enough for a smile. “Deceit is no longer prohibited in Gusu Lan Sect.” Wei Ying knows he’s been forgiven then, for everything he has yet to apologise for. “Virtue and Conduct has been—” Lan Zhan heaves a light sigh “— too deprived of chimney smoke.”

True, the chimney smoke from Cloud Recesses blends into the clouds that veil the mountains. Still, Lan Zhan is the better cook between the two of them; he’s the one who’s truly knows jianghu, being wherever chaos is, crosses paths with wherever the iron hooves are.

“I’m sorry,” Wei Ying says.

Lan Zhan does something strange then; instead of nodding an acknowledgement, his lips part, shudder before sealing tight again.

Lan Zhan is taciturn, but never hesitant. The moment soon passes, however, and he reaches out, does a gentle swipe on Wei Ying’s cheek.

It must be water he’s drying; the receptacle is that fresh, that alive.

But then, Lan Zhan’s fingertips come back…

Pink.

Pink, like the water from the Blood Pool.

There’s nothing sharp about the receptacle, however; nothing that can cut into Wei Ying. He lifts the receptor for a better look.

A seed has been displaced from its pod. Red tendrils have clawed their way out from a crack in its skin, before being diluted pink by the surrounding succulent, white flesh.

Wei Ying removes the seed and peels it thoroughly. Something like a drop of blood, old and congealed, soon sits on his palm; or a pearl coughed up by a demon oyster, a freshly dissected golden core. More red oozes out with a squeeze, staining his nails, the fine lines on his skin.

Still, all Wei Ying can smell is the scent of lotuses.

“It’s edible,” Lan Zhan says.

Edible? Wei Ying stares at Lan Zhan, who wouldn’t have made the statement if he hasn’t tried it before. He looks at the seed again. No respectable—or un-respectable—cultivator could possibly have chosen to try this.

“It’s sweet,” Lan Zhan adds.

Wei Ying rolls the seed inside his palm, until the blood—is it blood, if it smells not of violence and slaughter?—renders his hand indistinguishable from that of an executioner’s. Liberate. Suppress. Eliminate. Wei Ying’s straying from the cultivator’s path began with an imagined hand like this.

But he has always known about the sweetness of blood, hasn’t he? In the marketplaces of his earliest memories, fan-waving storytellers used to tell tales of jianghu heroes; those who made a living, they said, by licking the blood on their blades. [5]

Little Wei Ying finally gathered the courage to ask one day. Don’t heroes have something to eat?

The old man, wearing wrinkles deeper than tree rings, laughed. It’s an idiom, he explained, crouching to offer Wei Ying a steamed bun. He whispered then, as Wei Ying replies to Lan Zhan now—

“— But folks do say, blood from revenge is always the sweetest.”

“No.”

With that, Lan Zhan takes Wei Ying’s tainted hand in his own.

Wei Ying soon falls on his knees by the edge of the Blood Pool.

The ceiling of the Meditation Hall has been broken, the snow and Resentment kept out by talismans woven together by guqin strings. Under the light, grey and dreary outside but kind and forgiving here, lotus pads are floating on clear, calm water, green and round putuans for the flowers resting upon them. The hearts of the bloom are a regal gold; the cup-shaped petals are strong and pure white, carrying no traces of blood or darkness, no memories of violence or slaughter. [6]

They don’t even carry the purple of the Yunmeng lotuses.

If lotuses were native to Cloud Recesses, they would’ve looked like this.

If lotuses were grown under Lan Zhan’s care, they would’ve looked exactly like this.

But they, and the dilapidated hall that houses them, smell of the same summers Wei Ying knows, the same carefree laughter, the same…hint of soot and dust, the Lotus Pier being the only cultivator sect residence built within a commoner’s town. The soot that darkens the rooftops also promises delicious, filling dinners. The dust from iron hooves, from their bloodthirsty riders also delivers the xia from jianghu—its brotherhood, generosity and abandon that attempt and accomplish the most impossible.

Only when tendrils of red seep into the Pool does Wei Ying notice his sullied fingers and receptacle have dipped into the clean water. He snatches them back.

“You grew this.” He lifts his head towards Lan Zhan, who has remained standing, his hands behind his back.

Lan Zhan nods, his eyes trained on the flowers.

“Why? How?”

A long silence.

“I want to understand,” he answers finally. To understand what, he doesn’t have to say. It’s the draw of the Burial Mounds, the Resentment; the forces that compelled Wei Ying to visit the first time, even before the decor of Cloud Recesses had shed the last of its marital red.

“How long have you known?” Wei Ying asked. How long have you tolerated my betrayal?

“Three years.”

Three years, and Lan Zhan has never protested, never said a word. Wei Ying forces a smile.

“Ai-yah. I didn’t know my stealth skills were so bad. How did I give myself away?”

He expects an answer like when he asked for the name of Wangxian; a non-answer that will take Wei Ying months to figure out. A non-answer that’ll make Wei Ying further appreciate his own carelessness, forgetfulness.

His own cruelty.

But Lan Zhan replies softly, directly, immediately. “Your eyes turn red when we…” His lips part, shudder again. His head bows. His voice drops. “When I have my hand on your neck.”

When he and Wei Ying were coupling. When their bodies—when they—were supposed to become one.

The red got in the way. Resentment is black until it escapes through Wei Ying’s flesh. Below the steps of Jinlin Tower, Wei Ying’s tears were indistinguishable from the blood on Shijie’s robe.

Wei Ying’s Resentment was indistinguishable from the blood on Shijie’s robe.

Even now, only a flutter of those long eyelashes offers proof to the riptide of emotions that must have coursed, that must be coursing through Lan Zhan. “The red gets more intense every time you return to Cloud Recesses. It fades until you leave again.”

“Hand-on-throat is what you want between bedsheets.” Wei Ying’s voice falls, darkens at the light Hanguang Jun has cast on the truth. “You want me to —”

Shut up, Wei Wuxian. Shut Up.

What do you think Lan Zhan wants from you? What has Lan Zhan ever wanted from you?

“The Resentment in you gathers at your neck.” Lan Zhan does Wei Ying another favour with the interruption. “I thought I should pay its bones a visit; understand why it told my hand it has you, why it told me it can have me.” He levels his chin, his gaze finding a toppled pill furnace on the other side of the hall. His tone returns to its usual, almost distant calm. “I should do it before my fingers close around your throat; I wanted to do that. So I came and stayed some nights. Sealed my spiritual vein.”

It’s always the words Lan Zhan neglects to say that shake Wei Ying to his core.

The Resentment in Wei Ying has tried to drag Lan Zhan into its darkness. Lan Zhan has resisted, but instead of calling Wei Ying out, instead of trying to cleanse Wei Ying of Resentment, he came to the Burial Mounds to understand it, to experience it himself.

To seal the spiritual vein is to temporary shut off one’s golden core. To temporary downgrade into a commoner.

To turn into Wei Ying.

Wei Ying can see Lan Zhan stumbling among the bare branches alone, his Bichen sheathed and guqin stowed. He can see the billowing white robe being the only mirage of light on the Burial Mounds, the winds whistling, as famished bands of Resentment attacked, tore into him.

The bare bones crunched, exposed another layer.

There’s always another layer.

Wei Ying had lived through that before, unwillingly. The first night he spent on the Burial Mounds, he wished not for death but for the Hell in the scriptures where, at least, the executioners are someone else. Here, on the Burial Mounds, the one who elicited all the pain was always himself; the knives, the boiling cauldron, the mortars and pestles.

The regrets. The guilt. The envy and rage.

Resentment has only grown stronger on the Burial Mounds after the treachery of the Jins.

Who would want to live through that, willingly?

“When? When did you do all of this?”

Lan Zhan’s lips part and shudder yet again. This time, however, they move past his hesitance. “I haven’t been at wherever the chaos is—not as much as I’ve claimed.” He pauses briefly, his minute expression morphing from sadness to defiance. “I eliminated the prohibition of deceit from Virtue and Conduct for myself.”

The honourable Hanguang Jun, Lan Wangji, has lied.

Wei Ying hasn’t accompanied Lan Zhan on many of the trips to chaos. Yiling Laozu has remained an unwelcoming sight for most, so he only goes when his expertise is missed. On those nights when he’s in Cloud Recesses alone, Wei Ying watches the moon and the stars; on those nights, Wei Ying gets drunk on the rooftop and misses Lan Zhan.

On a night when a full moon had shattered into Gusu’s first snow, Wei Ying replayed the first sword fight between Lan Zhan and himself. He played Lan Er Gongzi.

That Wei Gongzi was dead. He was dead until A-Yuan climbed the roof to check on him, then offered to play the Wei Gongzi who had snuck in two jugs of Emperor’s Smile.

Perhaps, the rebirth of Wei Ying’s first death wasn’t on the Burial Mounds, but there and then.

If he only knew at the same moment, Lan Zhan was giving his life away for him.

There’s no survival on the Burial Mounds; only death and rebirth.

“Lan Zhan, Resentment doesn’t have me. I might have come back here for…“ Wei Ying doesn’t know what to say, he doesn’t have the answer, “but it doesn’t have me.”

“I know.” Lan Zhan offers an unexpected reply. “That was my mistake.”

Wei Ying stares at the water, the red tide from the crushed receptacle advancing towards the lotuses. He has ruined the Pool again. “No, you were right,” he says, a burst of darkness rising from the hollow in him. He slaps the water, taking cold joy in the tide’s breaking into threads, red as those on the deadliest blades. “You were right about me losing control.”

The darkness chokes the I‘m sorry he meant to say. So what? It leers. You think sorry never loses its sincerity, its meaning?

How many times have you, Wei Wuxian, said it to everyone who cared about you?

Lan Zhan doesn’t agree, doesn’t argue. “I also played Cleansing for myself,” he says. “I played to know if it liberates, suppresses, or eliminates.”

He leaves his insight unspoken. Instead, he sits down beside Wei Ying.

The way he does so is surprisingly efficient, surprisingly inelegant. He removes Bichen, his belt, his outer robe; he retrieves some cheap, grass-woven strings—doubtlessly bought from the commoners of Yiling—ties up and secures his sleeves, his hair. Wei Ying watches the silt taint the white of his inner garments, the remnants of red from the crushed receptacle soaking, creeping like cracks into the silk. He knows then, that’s how Lan Zhan works on the Blood Pool, the lotuses; that’s how the Bearer of Light levels himself with the young green shoots, until they thrive against the blood, the darkness, the hell of Burial Mounds.

The darkness in Wei Ying dissipates into a silent scream, which he lets out as he falls back into the mud himself, his face buried between his knees.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan calls, his voice like Inquiry for Wei Ying’s soul. He waits for Wei Ying to look up, for the demons in the scream to vanish between the walls of the Meditation Hall. “You’re not here for the Resentment. You’re here for the lotuses, the Blood Pool that is a kin to the Cold Pond. You were searching for a Lotus Pier that isn’t Lotus Pier, a Cloud Recesses that isn’t the Cloud Recesses. You’re here for a place that knows those differences, that knows you.” He pauses; his chest heaves a light sigh. “The Burial Mounds and its Resentment don’t have you. The Cloud Recesses and I have lost you.”

“Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying closes his eyes.

“You came here because only the Burial Mounds knows, it’s the Resentment that makes those differences. Resentment that is the yin to spiritual energy’s yang, that has a kinship with blood, the lives in which blood flows.” He finds Wei Ying’s hand in the mud as Wei Ying turns away. “My prior misjudgement, and yours, was that we put up those talismans.” He guides them to look at the hole above them, the yellow papers fluttering on strings. Talismans that Wei Ying hung network after network of, when he self-exiled here with the Wens. Talismans that he set up around the lotus pond, before he returned to Gusu every summer. “The talismans keep Resentment away from the blood it wants to reunite with. Resentment is born out of blood and wants blood with it, wherever it goes.”

The bands of Resentment cannot let go of the cleaver in A-Yuan’s hut; the fabled jianghu heroes, riding for one revenge after another, make a living by licking their blades.

“If you and I spill blood in the Pool again,” Lan Zhan continues, “if we drive fierce corpses into it, heal Wen Gongzi in it and leave the talismans hoisted, the Pool will remain blood-filled. Resentment can’t reach the blood, can’t take it away. The blood in the water will congeal at snowfall; the Pool will freeze.” Like the frozen pond outside, Wei Ying can see now. The blood becoming un-moving, unyielding without its energy—Resentment is its life energy turned dark, turned yin. “The lotuses will die without flowing water. I put up this net to show you.”

Wei Ying sees even more: the bands of Resentment above the cave longing for the blood in the Pool below, wanting to reach across the net of talismans and failing. The snow, with its own entanglements with the dark bands. Fighting. Coupling.

“Show me what?” he asks weakly.

“I want to show you three things can co-exist: the lotuses, the Blood Pool—which should be renamed the Cold Pond, like any cold, healing body of water in a spiritual mountain—the Resentment. And on the Burial Mounds, they do co-exist. They do so to survive.” Lan Zhan turns to Wei Ying finally, and looks into his eyes. “They do so in you, Wei Ying, so you survived. My mind understood that, but my heart, not enough. Cleansing tried to liberate a part of you, but it couldn’t do so without breaking you.”

Wei Ying contemplates Lan Zhan’s words. The lotuses, reminiscent of Yunmeng. The Cold Pond, its twin in Gusu, in Cloud Recesses. Resentment, its home in the Burial Mounds. They all live within Wei Ying. They’ve all made Wei Ying the man he is. That much is clear.

But Resentment is also living within Lan Zhan now. Resentment leaves no lives untouched.

“Cleansing cannot liberate a part of me without breaking me,” Lan Zhan seems to read Wei Ying’s thoughts, says it like a promise, with a smile.

He says it the way he said it felt good to walk the single plank bridge into the dark, on the steps of the Carp Tower. He says it as though he will follow if, at this moment, Wei Ying decides to dive into the bloody, resentful waters below the single plank bridge to chase his reflection.

He already followed.

Wei Ying studies the face watching him. The jade-like skin. The clear, gentle eyes that mimic the stars. The mouth from which no muck, no filth has ever escaped. The expression, soft yet open, like Gusu’s famous Autumn moon.

Resentment may have found a place inside Lan Zhan, but Lan Zhan is, like the lotus flowers in the sages’ words, untaintable.

What had Wei Ying’s past-past-past reincarnates done, what saintly deeds had they achieved, for the three lives of Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriach, the Founder of Demonic Cultivation to deserve someone like Lan Zhan?

“So the lotuses have nothing to do with the restoration of the Blood Pool.” He knows he’ll never have an answer to that question.

Lan Zhan shakes his head. “They cannot cleanse.”

“The Blood Pool hasn’t helped the lotuses grow.”

“The flowers would’ve bloomed in any clean, flowing water. The beauty of lotuses—” Lan Zhan pauses, as a hint of sadness and—is it envy? Has Lan Zhan ever shown envy before?— flashes across his eyes “— is that it seems to prefer the presence of chimney smoke.”

Chimney smoke, from the kitchens of lake owners who chased after Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng. The smells of cheap spices and meat wafted from the thrown open doors of their huts, and Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng would decide, then, that they were hungry enough to go home.

They wolfed down their loot as they did, each lotus seed sweet and pearl-like.

“What is the red in the seeds then?” Wei Ying asks.

“Colour. The Resentment cannot, or is unwilling to remove it.” Lan Zhan takes the crushed receptacle from Wei Ying and swishes it gently in the water. The red spreads and intensifies in front of them. “The red collects in the lotus seeds over time. It’s nothing but memories.”

Memories of violence. Slaughter. Of how Resentment came to be. “You’re saying,” Wei Ying is being long-winded, he knows, but he only wants to make sure. “The lotuses aren’t tainted.”

Lan Zhan nods again. “The sages are correct. Resentment doesn’t leave a mark on them. The seeds are harmless. Sweet,” he remakes his statement, lets go of the receptacle into the Pool as he turns to look at Wei Ying. “I tried my first when my spiritual vein was sealed.”

A commoner, deficient of a golden core, cannot go without food. Wei Ying cannot go without food.

“Then, I ate more because the seeds reminded me of you.” A tremor has found Lan Zhan’s voice as his gaze lowers, as the tip of his ears goes pink.

Wei Ying runs Lan Zhan’s words in his head. He runs them twice. He runs them thrice.

With each pass, his smile widens, until it turns into a grin. This is the closest to love-speak he has ever heard from Lan Zhan.

He leans sideways, bumps Lan Zhan’s shoulder with his own. “You can go ahead and say I’m sweet. I won’t be offended.” He nods at the trail, the tide of red that connects them, through the water, to the centre of the Pool, the most flourished spot of the lotus bloom. “This red will fade too, am I right? I haven’t ruined your handiwork?”

Lan Zhan has neglected to mention how, or why he began the lotus project, and Wei Ying knows him enough to not ask. He must’ve seen the failure of the lotus pond outside; the rings of talismans marking each summer like tree rings.

And who else has always been there to pick up Wei Ying’s pieces, to catch Wei Ying where Wei Ying falls?

Lan Zhan nods, his blush now extended to his whole ears. They’ve been cultivation partners for more than half a decade, broken enough beds and bathtubs for the Cloud Recesses to hire its own carpenter. Even the folks in Caiyi are not so discreetly joking that Hanguang Jun, the Bearer of Light, reserves his light for the million-year long gazes he casts towards Wei Ying … and yet, Lan Zhan still can’t handle even the idea of himself flirting. Wei Ying suddenly finds all of this a bit funny.

Well. Quite funny. Of all the places they can make up their missing courtships, they’ve chosen the Burial Mounds.

Good fengshui here, indeed.

He laughs, kicks his legs high and removes his boots. “All right. Now I’ll go certify that your claim about the seeds are true.” He throws Chenqing to the side, then himself into the water. He dives, grabs Lan Zhan’s boots and yanks them off too. “And you, Hanguang Jun, are coming with me.”

Five

Lan Zhan is the undisputed chief of understatement. The lotus seeds are the sweetest Wei Ying has ever had.

Only Lan Zhan can eat something so messy and still look clean and ethereal. The red, somehow, refuses to sully his teeth and skin, only adding colour to his lips and the water, no higher than the knees even at the centre of the Pool where they are, has washed away every bit of mud on his clothes.

What isn’t so clean and ethereal are Wei Ying’s thoughts. Perhaps it’s the Resentment they’ve let into the hall upon severing the guqin strings, the Resentment now twirling and gliding just above the water surface, its swath of black accentuating the purity of the flowers, dashing in only to capture every drop of red it can find.

They remind Wei Ying of the cormorants in Yunmeng, hunting for fish.

Hunter. Prey. Violence. Slaughter. The Resentment here, strong as it is, has never haunted the dwellers of Yiling. The chaos that requires the presence of Hanguang Jun has never been about it; instead, it’s about those who’ve barged into its home. Who create it, make it a scapegoat, sharpen it into an executioner’s knife.

Wei Ying pops another seed into its mouth, savours yet another burst of sweetness as he further appreciates the scenery. A black tendril interrupts its own hunting, coils around Wei Ying’s neck to join his stare.

Oh, he should stop pretending the Resentment has to do with his not clean, not ethereal thoughts.

It’s Lan Zhan in his wet clothes, having fallen into the water with Wei Ying’s too forceful pull into the Pool. It’s the thick, dripping hair, half loose from its tie under the lopsided silver crown. It’s the forehead ribbon, perfectly positioned still and waiting to be stripped.

It’s Lan Zhan, who manages to look strong as his teeth sinks delicately into another seed, regal as his mouth curves into a smile at its taste. On the days when both Cloud Recesses and Wei Ying get drunk with the scent of sweet osmanthus, Lan Zhan can be found on the back hill playing Wangxian. The music sounds inebriated too as rabbits hop all over Lan Zhan’s lap and guqin, as if the Chief Cultivator is merely one of those rock decors so prized by the Gusu scholars.

Next summer, maybe, Wei Ying can bring with him a nest of rabbits, see how they fare on the Burial Mounds. The species seems to share similar musical taste as the Resentment—Wei Ying once practiced Cleansing on the back hills and their red-eye glares were quite unnerving, quite hostile.

Lan Zhan will come with him, Wei Ying is sure, to check on the lotuses.

Their eyes meet once more—all right, Wei Ying should also stop pretending their eyes have truly left each other since they’ve got to the centre of the lotus growth, since he’s left a trail of not red but his clothes in their wake—and this time, he bends and picks not a receptacle but a flower petal, rolls it into a needle.

The helpers at Lotus Pier smoked lotus petals when Madam Yu was travelling. Wei Ying, of course, gave the smoke petals a try. He starts a flame, pushes one end of the rolled petal into his mouth while peering at Lan Zhan.

Hanguang Jun has got a little too intimate with the lotuses. The image of him on his fours, as he demonstrated where he’d planted the tubers, caused Wei Ying to choke.

This, Wei Ying bets, slicing the petal tip with his teeth. Hanguang Jun has never tried this before.

He pulls a breath between his lips, feels its whistling down the petal tube, his tightened windpipe. The red seed stain on his lips marks the regal white and the thing caught at Wei Ying’s throat sings. The thing obsessed with red.

At that moment, it finds a peer, a rival in Lan Zhan.

The silver hairpin comes off first; the crown falls off next as Lan Zhan’s hair frees itself of its tie. A gust blows above the cave, raining in fresh snow as those star-like eyes gain a mystifying mist, throw Wei Ying a teasing, dark glance. The flame on Wei Ying’s petal dies, accompanied by a smirk from the usually reserved, well-mannered mouth as the perennially ramrod straight body falls bonelessly backwards, its knees naturally spread, its weight shifted back to rest on its elbows.

The Resentment on the water surface makes way for the fall, a circle of clear, bright water opening as sprays of black temporarily cling onto the white petals nearby, before gathering back into a thick band that relocates elsewhere to hunt.

That thing in Wei Ying is ready to hunt as well.

“Come,” the untaintable Lan Zhan whispers, his head tilting to rest against a lotus bloom, his eyes closing. The protrusion on his long neck pulses to the whistling air in Wei Ying’s throat; the same pulse echoes along Wei Ying’s every vessel, drums as, through the crystal clarity of the former Blood Pool, Wei Ying’s eyes can see what is now engorged with blood between Lan Zhan’s legs and waiting.

He doesn’t need to be asked twice.

#slightlytookish #wangxiansolstice20 #*fic20 #*gifts20

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holyfuckthisfishcandrive · 4 years

Text

Jump and Run

First, Previous (Chapter 21), AO3

Word count: 1266

Warnings: yelling, accidental misgendering, fighting, nearly falling to death, impulsive/recless decision making, concussion mention, blood mention (i might’ve forgotten smth)

Patton stopped and froze.

Roman and Remus landed next to him on the rooftop.

"What's up?" Remus asked.

"Look. Over there," Patton pointed. On a rooftop a little down the street stood two figures. One dressed in a black cape and hat, the other seemingly trying to vanish in their hoodie.

"Those new villains!" Roman exclaimed.

"Vigilantes," Patton corrected.

"What?" Remus asked.

"Somebody told me they're probably vigilantes not villains."

"Okay, but why are they fighting?" Remus asked.

He was right.

The one with the snake mask seemed to be yelling at the other one who as rumour had it had worked together with Professor Logic on his latest raid.

"Let's get closer and find out," Roman suggested, already jumping towards them.

Patton followed.

He wanted to speak to them. Maybe he'd be able to find out why they did what they did. What had driven them to this kind of life. How he could help them.

He had faith they could do better in life than this.

They stopped just a rooftop away.

"I mean-!" the kid with the snake mask gestured wildly. "Professor Logic?! Fucking Professor Logic?!"

The other ducked deeper into their hood.

"'m sorry."

They were fighting about the raid? So the snakekid at least was aware just how bad people like Logic and getting involved with them was. Patton tried to read the other's emotions.

Guilt and shame.

He let out a relieved breath. So this one knew it had been wrong too.

He felt just a little deeper and frowned.

He felt guilty for making his friend upset and going behind their back. And ashamed over being found out.

Right feelings, wrong source.

"Not to mention-" the snakekid stopped abruptly. "Fuck."

They were staring right at Patton frozen in their gesture.

The other turned and froze as well.

"Bollocks."

Patton leapt over the alleyway and landed on their roof.

"Hello," he greeted.

The vigilantes glanced at each other, turned and ran.

"Wait!" Patton shouted and went to follow them.

Roman dashed past him.

"We just want to talk!" Patton added. "Please wait!"

They didn't wait, just sped up in their pace.

"I forgive you for now!" snakekid yelled at their partner.

" Thanks!" the other yelled back.

Thunder rolled and Patton cringed internally. He hoped the kids would be smart enough to take the chase down to the streets.

The one that had helped Logic grabbed snakekid's arm and jumped down.

That wasn't what he'd meant!

He stopped at the edge and looked down.

Logic's helper was hanging on a metal pipe leading from one house to the next by a heavy-looking iron hook, snakekid hanging onto him for dear live about thirty metres over the ground.

"I take it back, I hate you," snakekid hissed. "You're the worst friend I've ever had."

"You have other friends?" the other asked,

"Fuck you."

"We don't want to hurt you," Patton repeated. "We just want to talk. Just stay where you are, we'll help you."

"Fuck off!" both kids responded in unison.

"Balcony," the one with the hood said and began to swing towards one of the small balconies.

"Stop!" Patton shouted when his hook threatened to slip off the pipe. "You're going to fall!"

Snakekid jumped and crashed into the railing, barely managing to hold on and climbed over it.

"I'm gonna do something stupid," Remus announced and jumped.

Roman screamed in alarm.

"What the-?!" hoodkiddo reached out, seemingly on instinct and his free hook caught on his shirt. He grunted when he caught the brunt of Remus' weight. "Are you fucking insane?!"

"Maybe," Remus grinned.

"Drop him," snakekid said.

"Don't fucking drop my brother!" Roman exclaimed, his voice an octave higher than usual.

"Your psycho brother just almost dislocated my fucking shoulder! Now get off me psycho!" hoodkiddo shouted. He sounded equally panicked as Roman.

Patton had to do something. He had to get control over this situation. He was the only adult here.

He sent out a wave of calm to keep the teens from panicking.

"Jump to the fucking balcony," hoodkiddo hissed at Remus. "You're heavy."

Remus hesitated.

"I'm not sure I can," he finally admitted.

"You jumped off a roof but you can't get to the fucking balcony? What the fuck kind of impulse control do you have?" snakekid exclaimed.

"None," Roman and Remus said in unison.

"Okay," snakekid let out a frustrated breath. "Just fucking jump here and I'll help you not fucking die, you absolute moron."

"Please stop swearing," Patton said in a small voice.

The teens ignored him.

Remus crashed into the railing and snakekid barely managed to catch him.

"Fuck, you're heavy!" he breathed.

"I'm not that heavy," Remus protested. "You're just weak."

"Oh, excuse me for not having the opportunity to train all the time and get as strong as fucking Heartrate," he glanced up. "That idiom is awkward in this context."

Remus managed to climb over the railing and crashed onto the balcony.

Hoodkiddo swung himself and his hook swivelled around, letting go of the pipe before hooking onto the balcony with the other and pulling himself onto it.

Patton let out a relieved breath.

No more kids in mortal danger.

Remus got to his feet. He towered over both of the vigilantes easily.

"Can we please talk now?" Patton asked and tried to find a safe way to get down to them.

Snakekid and hoodkiddo glanced at each other.

"No," snakekid then said and swung at Remus' head, hitting him against the temple.

At the same time, Hoodkiddo smashed the glass door into the building.

"Hey!" Roman exclaimed as Remus crumbled like a card house in the wind and snakekid and hoodkiddo bolted into the apartment. A woman shouted in surprise and Patton heard snakekid call out a quick "Sorry" towards her.

Roman found a way down to his brother first, just as Remus slowly sat up again, rubbing his head.

"That hurt," he complained.

"Is it bleeding?" Patton asked, landing next to them.

Remus pat at the area and pulled his hand back to look at it.

"Nope, no blood."

"Good, are you feeling dizzy?" Patton tried to recall what symptoms a concussion had. "Are your ears ringing? Is anything blurry?"

Remus shook his head.

"Just hurts where he hit me."

"They," Patton corrected.

"They," Remus repeated. "Shouldn't we've chased them?"

Patton shook his head.

"Making sure you're alright is more important. We'll get another chance to talk to them. I'm sure."

"What's going on here?" the woman who had shouted earlier asked, startling Patton slightly. She looked scared but not overly. Born and raised in Woethough, Patton guessed.

"Don't worry, ma'am," Roman said."Sorry about your window."

"It's fine," she said. "I got a bunch of money from those kid's bank raid. More than enough to cover the repair... What are your names again?"

Roman opened his mouth and closed it again. He glanced at Remus and back to the woman.

"Haven't you decided on names?" she asked.

"No, I'm the Duke," Remus claimed. "Just cause he's too stupid to come up with a name doesn't mean I am."

"You don't get to call me stupid!" Roman complained. "You just jumped off a fucking roof!"

"Language, kiddo," Patton reminded him.

"Sorry."

"Are you their dad?" the woman asked.

"No," the twins said.

"Yes," Patton said at the same time.

"Alright," the woman looked confused now.

"Okay, he's our Dad," Roman amended. "And if he's the Duke I'm the Prince."

"Alright," the woman nodded. "Take care of your kids, Heartrate."

"Will do," Patton smiled at her. "Have a nice day."

Taglist:

@patton-cake , @isabelle-stars

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badass-women-league · 4 years

Text

TIVALI

PART 26 - Annoyingly charming

Ziva walked out of the building and to the table to join the rest of the team. Ellie waved at her as she saw her coming closer. She was sitting on the picnic table. Ziva waved back at her and noticed Tony and Nick, sat at another table. They were facing each other. McGee was standing next to them with his watch in hand. Ziva sat next to Ellie and gave her the food she had ordered. Ellie thanked Ziva. Ziva asked: ⠀

-“what are they doing ?”⠀

-“brain freezing…”⠀

-“oh my god…again ? ⠀

-”Yes.. again. Nick claimed that the last time Tony’s drink was not as cold as his and the results were skewed”⠀

-”When are they going to stop their stupid contest ?”⠀

-“when one of them will be designated as the best of all Gibbs’ agents” ⠀

-“How is this even relevant ?” Ziva sighed “who is winning ?” ⠀

-“Tony won the ‘paper ball basketball’ and the ‘pizza speed eating’ and Nick won the ‘paper plane challenge’. McGee is trying to determine who has the most resistant brain”⠀

Ziva rolled her eyes and bitterly said: ⠀

-“They have no brain!”. ⠀

Ellie asked: ⠀

-“how did you manage to work with two men for so many years ?”⠀

-“men ? I was working with two teenagers. One with raging hormones and the other one was playing ‘elf lord’ online” ⠀

-“did I ever tell you that I really admire you” ⠀

-“several times yes” ⠀

They both laughed while Tony and Nick were moaning and holding their heads to soothe the pain of their frozen brains. ⠀

Tony was awakened by the sound of someone searching through the drawers in the kitchen. He grumbled and grabbed his pillow to cover his ears. This was supposed to be his sleep-in morning. This thought made him realize that the house was supposed to be empty. Ziva was gone with the kids for a couple of hours. If Ziva was gone with the kids.. then who was turning his kitchen upside down ? He jumped from the bed and walked to the window to check the cars. Ziva’s car was gone and his was still there. He slowly walked to the wardrobe and grabbed an iron box. He unlocked it and grabbed his old gun. He loaded it as he walked down the stairs with only his boxers to cover his body. He made sure to be as quiet as possible. He stopped behind the wall and peaked inside the room. He couldn't see anything as the intruder was kneeling behind the countertop. Tony rushed inside and raised his gun in the intruder’s direction: ⠀

-“FREEZE ! HANDS IN THE AIR ! NO SUDDEN MOVES” ⠀

Tony’s jaw dropped as he saw a woman, probably in her sixties, stood up in front of him. She frowned at him and started to shout in a language that Tony didn’t understand. He did not understand it yes.. but he knew it. She was shouting in Hebrew and she was obviously very upset. She threw a pan lid at him, then a spatula. Tony lowered his gun and apologized: ⠀

-“wait… stop…” ⠀

She kept shouting incomprehensible things.⠀

Tony dodged a ladle and said: ⠀

-“please we can work this out ok. I am Ziva’s husband, this is my house”⠀

As he dodged another kitchen utensil, he heard the front door unlock. He thought ‘Thank god Ziva is back’. ⠀

As Ziva walked in with the kids and her arms full of grocery bags, she froze when she saw the scene in the kitchen. Her eyes stopped on Tony’s gun. She dropped her bags on the floor and rushed to the still shocked woman: ⠀

-“Oh my god Tony what did you do !”⠀

-“nothing ! I woke up and someone I didn’t know was in my kitchen” ⠀

Ziva hugged the woman and after saying a few words in hebrew she turned back to Tony:⠀

-“I left you a message on your phone”⠀

-“I thought someone was trying to rob us, I didn’t check my phone” ⠀

-“This is Nettie.. my aunt, Tony !”⠀

-“Yes ! Thank you ! I figured it out when she started throwing things at me while she was insulting me in hebrew...I thought she was supposed to arrive this weekend” ⠀

Ziva sighed:⠀

-“Nettie surprised us this morning by arriving early to have more time with the kids. You know what.. I am sorry. This is my fault, I should have told you before leaving. I didn’t want to wake you up.” ⠀

She turned to her aunt and explained the big misunderstanding. The two women talked for a minute and laughed. Tony who was still standing in the middle of the kitchen in his boxer said: ⠀

-“you’re mocking me right ? I can understand that you know” ⠀

Ziva walked to him and landed a sweet kiss on his lips: ⠀

-“actually no, my love. Nettie was telling me that she thinks you are a pretty handsome man and that even though this is a pretty weird first encounter she thinks you are a very brave man” ⠀

Tony said:⠀

-“I love her already..” ⠀

Nettie winked at Tony. He awkwardly smiled and suddenly felt like running upstairs to put on some more appropriate clothes. ⠀

It was good to be reunited with her aunt. The last member of her former life. Ziva, Nettie and Tali had spent the entire afternoon cooking food from Ziva’s native land. For Tony’s greatest happiness. His stomach was full. Nettie looked at Ziva and said something in Hebrew that made her laugh. As she saw Tony’s confused face, she explained:

-”She said: ‘The way to a man's heart is through his stomach’, this is something my grandmother used to say”

He stood up to gather some dirty plates from the table and said:

-”your grandmother was a wise woman”

-”we all are..” and she smirked at him.

Nettie had brought some gifts for the kids and some old pictures in her luggage for Ziva. Ziva was looking at some when Tony passed behind her and as he looked at the picture he said:

-”Is that you ?”

He pointed at a toddler in a woman’s arms. Ziva said with a proud smile:

-”yes, it’s me and my mother..”

-”wow she was a beauty”

Ziva chuckled:

-”Flattery would not have gotten you anywhere with her. She was the real mama bear. She raised 2 kids in a conflicted country and an absent husband and never once complained about it. She was a real force of nature. I’ve never seen her cry or show any sign of weakness and she would have had thousands of reasons to lose it”

Tony sat back and said:

-”I wish I could have met her”

-”she would have loved you”

-”you think ?”

-”yes.. Well, maybe not at first. My mother was always very distrustful at first, even more when it came to her children. You had to earn her trust and it was nothing like shooting fish in a tank”

-”reminds me of someone.. ”

Ziva smiled. Tony added:

-“it’s a barrel by the way..”

She looked confused:

-”What ?”

Tony smiled at her wife stubbornness to use american idioms and said:

-”nevermind”

Ziva continued:

-”but then she would have seen you with the kids and she would have loved you like her own child”

A particular picture drew her attention. She picked it from the pile and said:

-”oh my god. I did not remember I gave this to Nettie”

Ziva looked at the picture and said to Tony: ⠀

-”I thought those pictures were all gone in the fire”⠀

She gave the picture to Tony. He took it and recognize instantly what was on this picture. Tony asked: ⠀

-”How far along were you ?”⠀

-”3 months I think” ⠀

Tony could not get his eyes off the picture. A little smile appeared on his lips. A pride smile mixed with some regrets. He said:⠀

-”Tali come here”⠀

The little girl ran to her father and sat on his lap. Tony said:⠀

-”I’m gonna show you something. You remember when we showed you that picture of Adam, when he was still in Ima’s belly ? Well this, my dear, is the first picture of you” ⠀

He showed the picture to Tali and the little girl chuckled: ⠀

-”no it’s not” ⠀

She first thought that her father was messing with her. Tony continue:⠀

-”yes it is. You were still in Ima’s belly and you were not bigger than this.” He used his fingers to show her how little she was at that time. “Look you are here” ⠀

He pointed at the fetus on the ultrasound. Tali grabbed the picture and looked at it with rapt attention. She was holding it very close to her eyes. She asked:⠀

-“this is me ?”⠀

-“yes! My little girl, not bigger than a peach and now look at you. My baby is in 3rd grade” ⠀

Tony tickled Tali’s side. She laughed and said:⠀

-”Yes ! I’m a big girl now” ⠀

Tony chuckled:⠀

-”Hold on Wendy ! You are not in Neverland yet. Until I say so, you are still be my little girl who needs her dad to push her on the swing, who still gets mad when she has to wear a band-aids, who…”⠀

Tali shushed her dad by putting her hands on his mouth to stop him. Tony laughed and kissed his child on her forehead. He will always have this particular relationship with her. A relationship acquired through the difficult times of being a single father. She had showed him the right way. She made him feel complete even though one half of him was gone for an indefinite period. He discovered through her, what it felt like to be someone’s everything. It had been scary but such a cathartic experience. ⠀

Ziva was in the kitchen. She was preparing dinner. Adam, who was now 18 months old was running around. Ziva was keeping an eye on him while she was cooking. He was seeking Ziva’s attention, sitting in the middle of his mother’s path, touching forbidden stuff and climbing furniture. She said: ⠀

-”Adam sweetheart, Ima is busy here. Go see Aba. I am sure he is doing something fun with your sister.”⠀

Adam shook his head and said:⠀

-”nah!” ⠀

He was still in his ‘Ima only phase’ and unfortunately he was as stubborn as his mother. Adam was looking for every way that could get his mother’s attention until he grabbed the table runner on the dining room table. Ziva saw him and said: ⠀

-”Adam don’t”⠀

He pulled it. ⠀

-”Adam. Don’t make me come over !” ⠀

He pulled it once more and Ziva saw the vase on it swaying. Ziva sighed and walked to him. She frowned and said: ⠀

-”Adam Jethro DiNozzo !” ⠀

In the living room, Tony and Tali were watching a movie when Tony heard his wife calling his son. He looked at Tali and asked:⠀

-”Did she just called him by his full name ?”⠀

Tali nodded. Tony winced and said: ⠀

-”He must be in a lot of trouble then” ⠀

He stood up and walked to the kitchen. As he entered he saw his son, sitting on the floor looking at his mother with the most charming smile on his face. Ziva said:⠀

-”Don’t ! Stop using your father’s smile against me ! It’s not working anymore” ⠀

Tony chuckled, grabbed his son and said: ⠀

-”She is lying. It’s working. Admit it Sweetcheeks, there is nothing you can do about it” ⠀

Ziva was in a terrible position. She was facing her husband and son, both smiling in the most charming way. She was disarmed. She gave her husband a gentle slap on his buttocks and said: ⠀

-”get out of my kitchen, both of you, before I decide to ground you both !” ⠀

Tony smirked and, before leaving the room, said to his son:⠀

-”come on buddy, let’s go somewhere else where people appreciate The DiNozzo charm to their true value”⠀

#ncis #tiva #tony dinozzo #ziva david #tali david dinozzo #cotedepablo #michaelweatherly #tivali #fanfiction #ncis fanfiction

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keelywolfe · 4 years

Text

FIC: Bedside Stories ch.4 (baon)

Summary: Stretch is on a quest and just because it’s on a bus and not a steed, doesn’t mean it’s not noble.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Established Relationships, Domestic, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Injury,

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

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CH1 | CH2 | CH3

~~*~~

Read it on AO3

Read it here!

~~*~~

When Stretch jerked awake his first panicked thought was that he’d missed his stop. But no, the Embassy dropoff was coming up next, looming up through the bus windshield. Guess he had some latent directional sense buried in one of the dusty corners of his psyche.

Not like he’d meant to fall asleep, but Edge’s insomnia seemed to be contagious. He’d started out the ride browsing on twitter, trying to think of something noncommittal to say that also wasn’t too lighthearted, given what was blaring about Monsters lately on Fox news.

He'd been strictly forbidden from discussing anything surrounding the bombings with his followers and normally restrictions like that made him bristle, his nonexistent nerves going full porcupine. In this instance, he’d only meekly agreed, but that didn’t keep his followers from doing their math. No Humans actually knew how few skeleton Monsters there were, but then, most Monster species were a little on the sparse side. Some clever bloggers had linked pictures of Edge’s boots from Stretch’s twitter to the shots the press released of the bombing aftermath. Stretch hadn’t looked at those pictures too closely, but he’d seen the zoomed in shots with the boots circled with Microsoft paint.

Without him saying a word, it was suddenly an ill-kept secret that his husband was hurt and the messages were pouring in, asking for confirmation, offering condolences, donations, even sending prayers which was weird, but sorta kind. Sorta.

Twitter was less a distraction and more an unwanted obligation this week, and he’d finally put his phone away. He wasn’t the only Monster on board, not on a bus route that went past the Embassy. At this time of day, there weren’t many others. They’d offered smiles and murmured greetings, then pretty much left him alone.

That was fine by him. But with no one to chat to, he must’ve drifted off and it was nice to see he’d managed to scrape together enough good luck not to end up all the way downtown. Hopefully, he had enough leftover to take him to the end of this mission.

He was still a little bleary as he got off the bus. The sight of the protesters lining the sidewalk, all bundled up and sitting in their lawn chairs with their signs woke him up pretty damn quick. Eh, shit, he’d promised Edge he’d teleport right into the lobby, but he hadn’t called ahead and popping in when they were under high alert seemed like a poor life choice. Instead, he shortcutted to the front door, hey, he was following the spirit of the promise which was to keep safe and scaring the shit out of the security guard wasn’t it.

The guard on duty didn’t much look like he’d be surprised if Stretch shortcutted in on his lap. Murray was a huge, hulking Monster, with curling horns and a thirst for crosswords. He barely looked up at his current one, mumbling a greeting as Stretch swiped his card to push through the turnstile. He’d done pretty much the same thing every time Stretch stopped in, including when he’d shown up in just a bed sheet. There was one Monster who wasn’t worried about current events, almost had to admire that kind of skill in blatantly ignoring a crisis.

Stretch stepped into the elevator alone and pushed the button, vaguely humming the theme song to ‘Mission Impossible’. Not that it was, but eh, life could use a soundtrack from time to time.

It was too damn bad he didn’t have time to visit Andy while he was here; he hadn’t even seen his office yet and was planning to get him something for his desk. Maybe a Newton’s cradle, that seemed traditional, but a Nerf gun was a good way to build a community. He made a mental promise to come visit Edge for lunch someday and stop in bearing gifts.

The elevator dinged and Stretch got off, heading down the hallway. He’d only been here a couple of times, but he knew right where he was going.

The slim Monster sitting at the desk looked up as he came in, his cheery smile fading into something a little more forced. Asgore’s assistant, Kevin, was probably an okay guy, but none-too-fond of Stretch’s approach where his boss was concerned and Stretch was never exactly excited to spend any time with Asgore’s biggest fan. “Can I help you?”

“yeah. is ass-gore in or is he busy glad-handing his way down the hallways.” Really, Stretch couldn’t fathom why Kevin didn’t like him.

That forced smile iced over. “I beg your pardon.”

Slowly and deliberately, Stretch said, “is. asgore. in.”

“I’m afraid he’s not taking appointments today.” If Kevin got any colder, he’d be spitting ice chips across his desk and mess up all that important paperwork.

Stretch gave him a thin smile. “look we both know i’m in your office as a courtesy, so let’s go ahead and keep it courteous, yeah? i don’t want to play dodge-ums today after i scaring the shit out of him popping in, and he could probably do without any fresh surprises.”

He was pretty sure he was about to be told in very polite and courteous language to get fucked with the intercom crackled, Asgore’s voice booming over the line.

“Let him in.”

It was probably petty to smirk smugly at Kevin as he walked past him. It definitely was to give him a little backhanded finger-waggle of a wave. But eh, it served his purpose to use up a little of his distaste before he stepped into the office where Asgore was waiting behind the desk.

He started to rise and Stretch could almost feel the cheerfully ‘Howdy’ start to vibrate in the air before he choked it back to a more sedate, “Good afternoon, Stretch, won’t you sit down?”

Asgore gestured to a large, overstuffed sofa and Stretch almost said no, less out of ingrained spitefulness and more because he was agitated, already fidgeting with his lighter as he took a seat.

He waited while Asgore did the same, settling across from him in a chair that’d probably had to be specially made. Not many Humans hit Boss Monster sizes and those that did probably wished for a shorter inseam. It was hard enough for Stretch to find pants.

Asgore laced his hands comfortably over his belly and asked, “What can I do for you?”

“i need a favor,” Stretch said bluntly, ignoring Asgore’s visible surprise. He didn’t much have the time or inclination to draw this out, “i need you to let edge come back to work.”

The surprise on Asgore’s expression only deepened, leaving him distinctly taken aback, his furry caterpillar eyebrows drawn downward. Yeah, Stretch got that; him not only asking for a favor but for THAT favor was worth some eyebrow gymnastics.

“You want him back to work,” Asgore repeated slowly.

“i don’t actually, not really, but he needs to come back.”

“Is everything all right?” Asgore asked delicately. Looking into his concerned face was making his anxiety give the mambo a try; Stretch didn’t want to discuss Edge with Asgore, not as his King, his boss, or that fatherly role that he tried so hard to step into. He looked past him instead, at the picture on the wall between two bookcases. A painting, not a very good one, but recognizably of golden flowers. They didn’t transplant well from the Underground, a lot of Monsters mourned easy access to their favorite tea and Stretch wondered if Asgore had painted it. Maybe Frisk, the kid was fond of their adopted dad and--

Asgore was nothing if not polite and didn’t say anything while Stretch woolgathered long enough for enough yarn to make to make a sweater.

Shit or get off the pot was one of Red’s favorite idioms, not one of Stretch’s faves and kinda ironic considering that none of them had asses, but sometimes it was the truth. “i know you think you’re doing him a favor but you’re not. he’s stuck at home on our sofa, he can’t go running, can’t clean, can’t even cook, and he’s being forced to watch all this shit go down from the buzzfeed angle. you can’t take away his reason for living like this.”

The chair creaked ominously as Asgore shifted his weight. “I’d like to hope his job isn’t his reason for living.”

“it’s not the job. it’s helping people. he needs to help people,” Stretch took a deep breath, he was doing a shit job explaining this and Asgore didn’t look very convinced. “look, i know depressed, okay, and he’s verging on it. you have to give him something. i know him, better than you, better than anyone. he’s been glued to the boob tube all week, writing notes, making plans. let him help a little, it’ll calm all those protective instincts down if he thinks he’s helping.”

At least Asgore seemed to consider that. He propped his head up on a hand the size of a meatloaf. Or a chicken. “He hasn’t scheduled his mental health assessment yet.”

“i know. skip it for now, he’ll get it done later.”

Asgore frowned, his face creasing with concern. “The assessment is for his own good. It’s not simply bureaucratic nonsense, it is for his well being.”

Stretch was already nodding, absently noting the click-click-click of his lighter weaving in and out through his fingers. “i get that, i do. can you trust my assessment? look, i’ll get him into the head shrinker if that’s what you want, but don’t make his job conditional on it. i’m a big proponent of mental health care and i’ve got vested reasons for making sure he’s doing okay. but he needs this.”

Asgore was obviously thinking hard, looking at nothing over his steepled fingers, but Stretch wasn’t sure which side of the teeter-totter he was gonna come down on. Being able to read people’s intent and souls was a skill Stretch still had, but he was hella out of practice and didn’t really want to train back up.

“All right,” Asgore said at last. “On three conditions.”

“three!”

He spread his large hands. “This is not a small favor.”

Stretch sighed and slumped back. He wasn’t wrong and Stretch knew from personal experience that when Asgore had you by the balls, he knew how to give ‘em a good, firm twist. It was kinda chuckilicious, really. “start talking.”

“First, I tell him it’s my idea.”

“why?” Stretch said immediately. He had an inkling, but better to not take anything for granted.

Asgore was ready for him. “Because he will appreciate my trust in him and his skills, and because he will not appreciate you interfering like this. Am I wrong?”

He wasn’t. “deal.”

“Second, you promise me that you’ll get him in for that assessment. I’ll give you until the end of the month, but if it hasn’t been done, I‘ll suspend him.”

“promise.” There was a sour taste on the back of his tongue as he waited for the last ticky box.

“And last, you shake my hand.”

“what?” That one got him sitting forward, sputtering out, “why?”

“Because you’re asking a favor,” Asgore said serenely. He laced his hands over his soft middle again. “And those are my terms.”

Stretch glared hotly at him, but Asgore was unperturbed. Probably had lots of people scarier that Stretch giving him the ol’ death glare.

Welp, it was hardly the worst thing he’d ever done.

Stretch held out his hand and Asgore leaned forward to take it.

The loud whirr of the joybuzzer made Asgore jump and jerk his hand back, but he only laughed heartily, slapping his knees as he rose. “All right, I’ll have his access restored by this evening. I trust you’ll keep him from overdoing it?”

“yeah, i got it,” Stretch stood hastily and tucked the joy buzzer back into his pocket. He resisted the urge to scrub his hand on his pants. Asgore would take it wrong and he wasn’t that much of a dick, even if that furry palm made his bones tickle something fierce. He headed for the door, relief already seeping in. “thanks.”

“Stretch?” he paused, his hand on the doorknob. “I’m glad you came to me.”

“don’t make this into some bonding moment, okay?” Stretch gave him a side eye. “it’s not like i had a lot of other people to ask.”

Asgore’s smile twisted wryly. “Of course. Be careful on your ride home.”

Stretch didn’t say, ‘thanks, grandma’, but it was a close thing.

Simply walking past the daggers Kevin was glaring at him was exhausting and the second he was out of the office, Stretch shortcutted down to the elevators.

In no time he was safely back on the bus, slumped down. He was ready for another nap, but there wasn’t time for that. The main story line on his adventure was was done, but he still had a side quest to finish.

He opened an app on his phone and tapped in an order, and by the time the bus trundled to a halt at the bus stop outside the Golden City, it was waiting for him with one of their drivers, bundled into a warm jacket with the goods in hand. The young man who handed in the bag filled with cartons of yumminess only grinned at him, but he took the hefty tip Stretch offered without complaint.

Stretch plopped the heavy bag on the seat next to him and slumped back again, “home, jeeves,” Stretch mumbled to nobody and he hoped if he zonked out again one of the other Monsters on the bus would be kind enough to give him a nudge.

By the time he walked through his front door again, feeling worn and jelly-wobbly , Edge was awake and dressed, with an opened book in his hands.

“hey, babe,” Stretch called, kicking off his shoes and leaving them piled on the mat. “sorry i ditched on you, but my cooking skills have been tested to their limit and it’s a little late to hire gordon ramsey for the night.”

“Yes, I saw your note.” He set the book aside and his warm smile was like an infusion, easing some of Stretch’s weariness. “What treasures did you bring us from the shores of Ebott?”

“arr, matey,” Stretch laughed. “except i didn’t get any fish. hope chinese sounds good.”

“Golden City?” Edge said slowly and something in his voice made Stretch hesitate.

Shit.

They hadn’t been back there together since the whole thing with Andy. Stretch hadn’t even thought about that in a while, he’d gone over it with his therapist and that’d been crap, but honestly, he liked to put that one into the win category. Andy was okay and had a new job, the shitbags were in jail, and public opinion ended up on their side. Plus, he wasn’t about to let any assholes ruin Chinese food for him, thanks, but Edge didn’t look like he’d gotten that memo.

Stretch’d gone back on his own a couple times for the lunch special, had he ever mentioned that to Edge? He couldn’t remember, he hadn’t been hiding it or anything, it just never came up. Until now, and the last thing he wanted to do was get Edge to relive any other shitty event highlights.

“yeah, um,” Stretch forced cheer into his voice. “i had them bring the takeout bags to the bus stop, saved myself a walk.”

Whatever Edge was thinking in that head of his, he didn’t let it out to play. He only nodded, looking back at his book as he said, “Clever. It does sound good.”

“great!” Stretch said brightly, maybe not a firework, but he could try for a sparkler. “i’ll go get some plates.” With dismal humor, he thought that if he injected in any more manic cheer, he’d start to sound like his bro. He set the bags down on the coffee table next to the pile of pillows and headed for the kitchen, since Edge had very strong opinions on eating out of cartons that he wasn’t shy about sharing.

By the time they were settled in with their plates, whatever concerns Edge had about Stretch revisiting the scene of a crime, as it were, seemed to have been banished. He ate hungrily and that alone was a relief. He’d been picking at his meals for the past day or so and Stretch didn’t think his cooking was entirely to blame. Just added data to his hypothesis that with proper application, sex was a cure for many ills. Worked for him, anyway.

Halfway through the last carton of chop suey, Edge’s phone pinged. Stretch kept his attention on his plate, slurping up noodles with an impressive amount of noise for someone who lacked lips. Out of the corner of his socket he saw Edge frowning at the message.

“Asgore is restoring my Embassy access,” Edge said slowly. “He said that with everything that’s happening, they need my assistance, and he’s asking that I work half days for the rest of the week.”

Okay, here was where he put his acting skills to the test and if he couldn’t go for an Oscar, he at least needed a Golden Globe.

Stretch worked up what he hoped was the proper amount of indignant anger and said, “seriously? you got one week off to recover from almost getting blown up and ass-gore can’t even give you that?” And before Edge could say anything, he threw his hand up, dumping his empty plate on the coffee table hard enough for his fork to clatter. “you know what? never mind. go ahead, help out, at least it’ll be for a good cause and not him using you as an extra security guard.”

“No,” Edge set his phone aside, “I’m not doing it.”

Um, what? “what?” Stretch said blankly, fuck, he was going to get a razzy with this performance, must’ve chewed the scenery too hard.

“No. I was thinking while you were gone and I’ve been acting appallingly since we got home. I’ve been sulking like a child while you’ve been trying so hard to care for me.” He touched Stretch’s cheek bone gently, his glove velvety soft as he ran his thumb across it. “Considering how things were between us when I left for California, I think I need to focus more on you than paperwork.”

Well, this was some modern-day gift of the magi shit, now wasn’t it? Last week he would have been thrilled to hear this and now that he’d made a special trip and begged for favors he was getting hoisted by his own fibbing petard.

Okay, nope, his hard work was not going to be in vain, damn it, this chapter of his life was going to end with happiness and accolades all around. Edge might be the strategy guy, but Stretch wasn’t half-bad on the fly, and his plans might be a little loose, or chaotic as Edge put it, but he could plan.

First, he gave Edge a kiss, made sure to linger, made it sweet, soft, trying to pour his love into it, until he was almost distracted himself.

Next step, bullshit.

He leaned back, cupping Edge’s face in his hands and gave him the best smile he had left on the shelf. “that’s really sweet, babe, but how about a compromise? you can spend a couple hours in the afternoon working while i take a nap. that’ll let you get all your ‘save the world’ energy out in time for dinner, yeah?”

Ooh, might have a winner here. Edge was visibly wavering, probably thinking of all the luscious paperwork he could get through in a couple of hours. Time to go for the throat, “beside, janice is probably going nuts without you. if you help out, maybe she’ll be able to get home in time to see her kiddos before bedtime.”

Direct hit, winner winner, no chicken for dinner, “That...would be helpful, yes.” Edge gave him another toe-curling, shivery kiss before he murmured, “Promise me that you don’t mind?”

Stretch twitched back, grimacing. He’d been making an awful lot of promises lately. “i promise.”

He stood up to clear away the plates and leftovers, and by the time he got back, Edge already had his laptop out and was typing away. Stretch was about to put a movie on and let him work, but before he could even steal the remote, Edge said, “My access is also conditional on my getting that assessment.”

Um, wow, okay, they were actually talking about this? Cautiously, Stretch offered, “i take it you’re not a big fan of the idea.”

He tried to say it as neutrally as he could, but Edge set his laptop on the side table and took his hand, tugging him down into his lap. Stretch settled gingerly, watching his husband’s face carefully for any hint of discomfort. There was none, and he let Edge tuck his head against his shoulder, his hand smoothing down Stretch’s back.

“Stretch, i don’t mean to imply that there is anything wrong with therapy or that it’s somehow beneath me. I’m not that much of a hypocrite and I can see that it’s been helping you,” Edge hesitated and Stretch held his breath, remembering when Edge told him it was easier to talk sometimes if Stretch wasn’t looking at him. He kept his head down, snuggling into Edge in what he hoped was an encouraging way. “My issue is that it’s difficult for me to open up to anyone and this is a colleague. I see them in the hallways, in the cafeteria. I’m struggling with the idea of answering the kind of questions they might ask me.”

“okay,” Stretch said slowly. “so see someone else?”

Edge jerked and when Stretch lifted his head, he looked so surprised that Stretch couldn’t help smiling. Trust his baby to be looking for the answer to a complex puzzle when the easiest route was staring him in the face.

“i could talk to my therapist?” Stretch offered. “see if she could recommend someone.”

“A Human.”

“yeah, probably. would that be a problem?”

“I..no,” Edge said slowly. “No, I think that would be better. Perhaps I should simply talk with your therapist, I already know her and she’s done well for you and Sans.”

That made him feel a little squirmy inside; he told things to Doctor Lee that he’d never told anyone, not his own brother, not Edge. It was only an assessment, not like a weekly commitment, but--

“can i think about it?”

“Of course.” No concern, no anger, only another gentle kiss. He slipped off Edge’s lap before they got carried away, no double-dipping on afternoon delights while anyone had a cast. Stretch settled down on the sofa, the top of his skull leaning on Edge’s femur, and flicked a movie on, the volume low and subtitles running. Edge was typing away on his laptop, but occasionally a hand would stroke over his skull, helping to lull him to sleep.

Stretch couldn’t say how long he lay there drowsing, and he murmured a faint protest when Edge eventually pulled away and stood.

“I’m only getting a drink, love and I need to work out the kinks.”

“i can help you with any kink, make a list,” Stretch mumbled.

An amused sound close to his skull and a rough kiss pressed on top of it. “We’ll try that when I’m back on two feet.”

Vaguely, he heard Edge crutch his way to the kitchen, the door swinging open then shut, listening to the faint murmur of the television. The sudden crash was almost deafening, even through the kitchen door, jolting Stretch awake. Before he could do more than look around wildly, Edge called his name, and fuck, fuck, he’d never heard Edge like that, called his name, no, no, he yelled it, screamed it. Not hurt, no, he sounded scared when had Edge ever sounded scared?

Before he shortcutted into the kitchen, his magic running hot, ready to deal with what the fuck ever dared come to their house, his last darkly amused thought was that he shouldn’t have used all his good luck that afternoon.

-tbc-

Check me out on AO3 | I’m also on twitter

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minsugapie · 4 years

Text

MeetTheParents 5

Meet the Parents: part 5 (1974 words)

• • • • • •

Following your impulsive move to Korea to teach English, you find yourself caught in between love and the outdated views of your family.

• • • • • •

previous // 5 // next

masterlist

• • • • • •

The pullout couch on which you and Yoongi had been sleeping during your vacation had become a sort of sanctuary for the both of you. No matter what had been going on during the day, you’d be together on that couch come bedtime. You were laying on your stomach, head comfortably to the side as you watched him. His breath was even, eyes closed, as he moved his fingers along your back like it was a piano. He was freshly showered, and that was probably your favourite Yoongi —the complete natural state (flat, messy hair, along with clear skin). He devastated you, in a really good way. You couldn’t believe he’d willingly invited himself into your life. You didn’t deserve him.

You knew he had gone through struggles from the times you’d really spoken, so you wondered why he was subjecting himself to you.

Elsewhere in the apartment, your sister and Bennett had retired to her room about half an hour ago, and you knew they were watching the Golden Girls from the distinct voices and high-pitched laugh coming from Bennett. They had also been discussing you and Yoongi and how he was insane for putting himself through this. However, they were both so happy that you’d found someone who would do it for you.

“What are you thinking about?” You whispered, breaking the peaceful silence in the room. You were still looking at Yoongi’s face when his eyes opened at your question. A deep breath escaped from his nose in a sigh. He’d been thinking about something deeply. You’d almost used the idiom penny for your thoughts, but then you remembered that he may have not been familiar with it.

“Nervous,” his lips barely moved with his confession. A small frown, that you never wanted to see again, formed on his face. You turned onto your side, moving your hand to his face and letting your thumb lightly glide down his nose and lips before settling on his cheek.

You got that guilty feeling inside you again. “I’m sorry for putting you through this.”

He blinked once and then twice. “It was my choice.”

“We just haven’t had much fun together this trip, Yoon. I haven’t really seen any of your goofy side that I love. I’ve basically pushed you to come here with me. I suck,” you said, blowing a stray piece of hair from your face. When it didn’t move, he took it and tucked it behind your ear.

“You don’t suck. Tomorrow sucks,” he joked, cracking a small smile. It didn’t reach his eyes, however.

You frowned. How could you not?

“Don’t,” he whispered, grabbing your cheeks and forcing your lips into a pout. When he leaned in to kiss you, you almost forgot about what the conversation had been about.

Pulling back, you licked your lips and told him, “Yoongi, I’ll love you no matter what happens in the next few days.”

Tomorrow was your sister’s birthday, 3 days before Christmas. She always hated having a party before, but your mom was always insistent that she had a day that was not shared with anyone else. Your sister, on the other hand, didn’t care. In fact, it was her idea that Yoongi be introduced tomorrow instead of on Christmas Eve. The original plan was for him to stay home tomorrow.

He said something in Korean that you didn’t recognize, but it didn’t bother you. He sometimes didn’t know how to express himself in English, and you couldn’t fault him for that.

“Have you talked to the boys at all since we’ve been here?” You asked, pulling the covers up to your chin, ready for sleep to overtake you any minute.

He hummed with a nod of his head. “They miss you.”

“Me?” You laughed. You did miss them too, you had admit. “Do you miss them?”

“Yes, even though they just bug me all the time,” he admitted, wrapping his arms around yours and pulling you closer. You invited his warmth, tangling your legs with his.

“You love them,” was the last thing you managed to say before the his soft breathing and warmth lulled you to sleep.

• • • • • •

You woke up to your alarm that morning. After all, it was your sister’s birthday, so you were going to treat her like the queen she knew (and didn’t let anyone forget) she was.

Yoongi grumbled beside you, stirring, “Why alarm? We’re on holidays.”

Getting out of the warmth, you pushed his hair back from his face. Leaving a small kiss on his mouth, you replied, “I’m going to make my sister some breakfast and wake her up.”

“I still sleep?” His English came out broken in his morning voice, making you weak.

“Yeah, you don’t have to be awake for this,” you told him, chuckling when he simply tucked himself further into the cover and the pillows in reply.

Once Yoongi was clearly sleeping soundly again, you quickly brushed your teeth and got to work. Your sister was so easy to cook for. She loved eggs on toast. So you made her some scrambled eggs and then mixed them in a bowl with some salsa and an avocado.

Voila. Egg on toast. Easy as pie.

Coffee was clearly an essential, so you made a pot. The two men in the house would want some, and it wouldn’t be fair to just make enough for you and your sister.

You creaked the door to your sister’s room open, checking to see if everyone was decent and still sleeping. When you were satisfied that you could enter, you opened the curtains and played an oldies birthday song for her. She was always easy to wake, and as soon as the light hit the room, she was up. A smile graced her face as soon as she saw the coffee.

“Happy Birthday!” You exclaimed, putting the tray down on her lap.

“Wow, y/n! You really didn’t have to do this,” she said, taking a large sip from her coffee cup.

“It’s nothing special. We all know I don’t cook much more than eggs,” you laughed.

Bennett popped his head out from under the sheets, making his first appearance, “It’s more than what I do, so…”

With a laugh, you grabbed your coffee cup and went to exit the room. “Oh, by the way, mom texted me while I was making you breakfast. She wants us all over there by two. Something about a late lunch/early supper thing. I don’t know. Maybe they want to have a cribbage tournament or something.”

“Gotcha!” She winked, shooting you a finger gun. You took a sneak peak at the clock. It was already eleven, so you didn’t have much time to mentally prepare yourself and talk to Yoongi about what was coming.

So, you decided on getting reading as soon as possible. For some reason, dressing up for family events was a huge thing in your family; it was expected. You didn’t feel like freezing to death, so it wouldn’t be a dress, but black jeans and some sort of nice top would do the trick.

When you were rummaging around in your suitcase, Yoongi finally sat up. “Morning, sleepy head,” you cooed, smiling at his crazy hair.

You noticed him squinting at the clock on the wall, so you added, “It’s 11. We’re headed to my house at 2, so you can get ready whenever.” He nodded his head, closing his eyes again as he rubbed his stomach. “Oh, and coffee is in the pot.”

He gave you a thumbs up before putting on a shirt and walking to the bathroom. Beckett and your sister came out of the room, clearly searching for more coffee. You had decided on an outfit were also headed to the bathroom to get changed. You knocked once, and Yoongi opened the door. His hair was flat and wet now, toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. You smiled at your boyfriend. “I need to get changed.”

There was a glint in his eye when he nodded his head, pulling you into the bathroom. He shut the door quickly, spitting out the toothpaste and rinsing his mouth.

“Yoongi,” you whined. You hated getting changed in front of him, but he thought it was amusing how shy you could be. He’d seen every single part of you many times, but you were still unwilling to be real with him.

You groaned, going for the doorknob. You’d change in your sister’s room.

“Wait,” Yoongi grabbed your hand, pulling you into his chest.

You couldn’t help but smile at him. “What?”

“Good morning,” he whispered once before following up with the Korean equivalent. You tried not to let it get to you, but you couldn’t help it. He was clearly fishing for attention, and who were you to deny it?

“Morning,” you replied, stepping closer to him, so the back of his legs were against the counter. Quickly, you lightly rubbed your thumb over his bottom lip before giving him a peck. The kiss was just a distraction tactic, however, as you opened the door and went to your sister’s room.

“What was that about?” You heard your sister laugh from the kitchen.

Beckett’s voice answered, “Maybe he denied her morning advances.”

You changed your clothes quickly and stepped back into the living area. At the same time, Yoongi spoke, “No, she denied mine.”

Your sister smiled at you, and you shook your head. “Look, now is not the time. I’m nervous enough as it is, and we still need to talk about later!”

“Kisses make me less nervous,” he countered, picking out a pair of dress pants and a nice shirt. He needed the iron, you knew it, so you grabbed it for him quickly.

“Later. We have an audience,” you countered. You’d fantasized about kissing him in your childhood bedroom many times, so there was not a change that you were going to let that opportunity pass.

His lip pouted as he set up the clothes on the ironing board.

“So Yoongi, I think it’s important for us to talk about what our parents are like,” your sister said, sounding sad.

Yoongi nodded his head. “Y/N has told me some.”

“Good. So basically, grandma will like you because you love Y/N. But dad is going to be mean. Well, he’ll be pleasant and put on an act, but he won’t like you. Mom, well she can go either way. She may or she may not like you. It all depends on the situation.”

You watched as Yoongi took in the words. He was ironing, but as soon as your dad was mentioned, he gulped.

“Yoon, just please be yourself. I don’t want to win them over with a fake you,” you reasoned, wrapping your arms around his waist from behind. He nodded.

“On the bright side, it’s a very good thing that you’re meeting them today and not on Christmas Day because at least it’s a whole party today and not just out family,” your sister continued, walking to her room to get her dress for the day. She always wore dresses on her birthday, even though it was winter.

“Listen, Yoongi, as long as you make your intentions very clear and help out and be kind, I think you should be able to at least let them respect you. When I first met them, I was shitting my pants because of the way they could be. Some guy in my grade went home crying after Y/N’s sister brought him home. I didn’t want that to be me. I don’t want it to be you either,” Beckett explained.

Yoongi looked at you with a scared expression on his face, and you couldn’t even give him any comfort. You really wanted to, but you were just as nervous.

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trivialqueen · 5 years

Text

Here’s the next section of that original story.

As always, I’m neither a doctor, nor British. I’m just a girl who fancies herself a writer and likes slow burns, smart women, and tall men.

St. Sebastian’s was a world class hospital with some of the worst aesthetics he’d ever seen. The exterior was in an uninspired brutalist style. The interior had been remolded several times since the early 1960s, but only ever with an eye toward function and technology, never design or comfort. The cardiothoracic ward, known as Harvey, was as bland as the rest of the hospital, but with the extra unattractive feature of ghastly aqua accents throughout. As if that was a substitute for style. Felix leaned against the nurses’ station, feigning interest in a chart. It had been over a week since his introduction as Director of Surgery. In the subsequent ten days his true role in the hospital had spread like, well, gossip in a hospital. He’s the Dread Pirate Roberts here for your jjjoooobbb!! The rumors were absolutely true, but he didn’t want to let that on. To make an accurate assessment of viability and redundancies he needed to see the hospital in action, not performance. Changes were only as good as their usefulness and longevity. So whenever possible he preferred to observe as inconspicuously as a man of his height could. This tended to involve a lot of pretending to read and “sneaking”.

Even if he wasn’t half secretly overseeing a major shakeup in the hospital, being the Director of Surgery meant he bounced from ward to ward far more than his colleagues did. Which was how he found himself on Harvey that afternoon. He appreciated the challenges that this brought, it tested and stretched diagnostic muscles he’d not used since deciding a specialty, but it also ate into his time as a surgeon. He’d accepted a more administrative position as it was the next logical career move, but in his heart, he was a doctor first and foremost, a bureaucrat a distant second. His pantomime reading of one of Paul Elliot’s old transplant cases was interrupted by a sandy haired teen with a strong Belfast accent.

“It’s ma Dad, he needs help.” A quick survey of the room told him two things: one, no one was collapsed on the floor, meaning the Dad in question was already a patient in a bed, and two, none of the CT consultants, or even a registrar, were in the immediate vicinity. The boy was talking to him.

“Who’s his consultant?”

“Ms. Hale.” The boy fairly spat.

“Then I suggest you wait for her.” She was likely doing something maverick and self-righteous, but he had no doubts she’d be back.

“She doesn’t know a damn thing what she’s doing! She’s done like fifteen tests on ma Dad and all she says is ‘wait and see’. Now you tell me to wait! I’m sick of waiting. He’s in pain, real pain.”

“Alright.” He could at least do something about the pain, if nothing else.

Sofia Grace Hale had a scrivener’s hand, surprising for a doctor. It was large, round, looping, and very legible, unlike his own tight, scratchy scrawl. ‘Abdominal pain’ jumped out from the meticulous notes. Most of Mr. Patrick Baxter’s ailments were CT related and not necessarily caused by his MS– the dilated aorta first among them. Ms. Hale was undoubtable chasing all of their causes and symptoms, but the abdominal pain… well he could check on that. It would also make the teen happy, hopefully, if he could even answer one question.

“Mr. Baxter, my name is Felix Magnusson, and I’d like to do a few tests regarding your abdominal pain, I’ll be arranging for your transfer to our general surgery ward, St. Irene’s.”

Ms. Hale’s red tassel earrings matched her lipstick and made her double take particularly dramatic as she passed Mr. Baxter, his son Kevin, and the porter taking them to the third floor.

“Where are you taking Mr. Baxter?”

“Down to Irene.” Her coffee colored eyes widened and that fire he’d seen during their first meeting began to smolder. She had eyes that could lead a man to hell. Perhaps one day she might look at him without an indignant flame in her gaze. But until then he would warm himself by the fire in her eyes.

“What?”

“He needs an ultrasound.”

“Why isn’t he having one here?” She crossed her arms under her breast as she glared up at him. Even in her high heels her head only came to about his shoulders. To keep eye contact she was forced to crane her neck slightly. Which she did, pale throat exposed, creating a lovely long line down her neck to her décolletage, where he resolutely refused to look, no matter how tempting.

“There seems little point in taking up a CT bed when his problem is clearly GS related.”

“Clearly GS related? The worst pain is in his chest, and the echo shows a dilated aorta.”

“I’ve read your notes. He also has severe abdominal pain. So, what’s your diagnosis?”

She wanted to scream. That arrogant bastard. That absolute arschloch. ‘What’s your diagnosis?’ like she was a bloody F1. God, his tone. ‘Was ist deine diagnose?’ It was that same clipped, ‘I don’t think you have this in you’ tone her clinical skills lead at Tübingen had taken with her. Except he was speaking English. And she wasn’t a F1 anymore. She was a consultant, goddamnit.

(The worst part was, of course, the fact she didn’t have a diagnosis. Not yet anyway, and that uncertainty made her feel even more like a bloody first year all over again. ‘Was ist deine diagnose?’ ‘Keine Ahnung.’)

“I’ve ruled out ischemic heart disease but I’m still waiting on his blood pressure.”

“That is not a diagnosis.” Her eyes flamed beautifully. Her temper was quick and exquisite.

“I’m well aware! As I said, I’m waiting on his test results.”

“The patient was admitted thirty-six hours ago, and you don’t have a diagnosis yet. Surly a change of tact can only assist in figuring this out.” He cocked a brow, his supreme confidence in his own ability shining in his eyes, the quirk of his lips. He took a step closer to her, forcing her head back further, as if he wanted to force her to look away. She wouldn’t. She’d hold her ground and his gaze, even if meant he put her in Anuvittasana to do it. She could catch a whiff of his aftershave, something with sandalwood in it. He smelled of it, hospital, fresh laundry, and perhaps faintly, of old books.

“Is it common elsewhere to steal other consultants’ patients? Or is this because you think you know everything?” He stared at her a moment, tongue moistening his thin lips before he spoke.

“We are both consultants, are we not?” He could see her hands flexing at her side, as if she was thinking about strangling him, and he could taste her anger, capsaicin hot.

“Yes.” She spat out from between cayenne colored lips.

“then surly Mr. Baxter can be our patient. Now let me see what I can learn about the GS part of our current problem, hm?” And with that patronizing hum in his throat he left. Left her in the hallway struggling to keep from screaming, her breath coming in choppy, short burst.

She really did not like that man.

He heard her before he saw her, the determined click of spike heels on linoleum making the announcement: Gird your loins. The moment Mr. Baxter was back from his ultrasound she was at his bedside, chart in hand.

“Your blood pressure is constantly going from high to normal-”

“Of course, it is Love, you keep bothering me. Now, I don’t wanna be rude…” His tone suggested otherwise as his gaze raked down her body, coming to rest on her legs with appreciation. “I’ve lived with this condition for fifteen years; you’re not going to tell me anything I don’t already know.” She did have stunning legs, but that did not give the man the right to stare like that. Felix could feel his jaw tighten as he watched patient and consultant converse.

“Right, Jeyne, I’d like to do a blood culture and another echo, please.”

“Love, you’re not listening to me. You’re wasting your time running these bloody tests.” Ms. Hale was very clearly listening to the man, her back was visibly tense from across the room, spine straight and hard as steel. She gave him a curt nod and walked away, his eyes following her with a lascivious grin spreading across his face. He caught her eye as she brushed past him down the hall, for once that burning anger wasn’t directed at him. Once the click-click of her heels was out of earshot he released the breath he’d not realized he’d been holding. The glower he knew he wore, however, remained.

The ward was mostly dark as he made his final rounds for the evening. Meetings had taken up most of his afternoon, bowel resection aside, and had pushed any patient follow ups or paperwork into late in the evening. Most of the residents on the ward were asleep, with a few readings or playing on their devices, providing patches of light throughout the otherwise dim floor. Mr. Baxter was asleep, looking almost peaceful. He snagged the man’s file and retreated to the better lighting of the nurses’ station.

“She said I could sit here.” The voice almost startled him, if he was the sort to be startled. Kevin Baxter sat at the nursing station, text book and papers spread about him in messy piles. Felix felt his fingers twitch, itch to straighten them up, keep them from jumbling together or with anything important still on the desk.

“Who did?”

“Sister Jacobs. Gotta do my homework somewhere.” He held up a battered German language primer.

“Ah! Sprichst du Deutsch?”

“Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof.” He could only smile at his response. There was always something deliciously ironic about complaining that one did not speak the language in idioms of the language.

He’d learned Latin at his father’s knee, and learned it perfectly, for his father would not have settled for anything less. It was both his personality and his profession, as a professor of classics and philologist. English had come quickly in school and become his primary language when at ten he’d been sent to boarding school. He’d learned French first, having tested out of the Latin classes, followed shortly by German. At the time French had been the easier language to pick up, but after quickly realizing that speaking it frequently would require interacting with the French, he’d not pursued it beyond conversational. His mastery of German had been improved tremendously the year he spent in Heidelberg but since his return to the UK it had fallen by the wayside, reading skills aside. He still enjoyed keeping up with his former colleagues’ research. He now also had a stack of publications by S.G. Hale sitting on his desk to peruse.

“Deutsche Sprache, Schwere Sprache.”

“Ja, und ich mag es nicht. Es ist eine mean, hateful Sprache.”

“If you need help, Ms. Hale is a fluent German speaker, she went to school there.” The boy pulled a face. “Do you always work at night?” He was not interested in hearing the boy complain about one of the hospital’s more talented surgeons because his father had a particularly difficult case to diagnose; sifting out preexisting MS symptoms from the new ones, causes still unknown.

“It’s the only time we get any peace, when he’s asleep. Then it’s like everything’s… dunno, normal, I guess, whatever that means.” He sounded so old for one so young. Felix followed the boy’s eyes as they rested on his father, who was still resting as peacefully as one could in a hospital bed. I could not be easy for either of them, as far as he could tell there was no one else in the Baxter household at the moment except Patrick and Kevin. Being primary caretaker and a teenager was no easy task. “It’s become secondary progressive, hasn’t it?” His jaw clenched.

“What makes you say that?”

“Cuz it’s obvious,” The boy said in that way that only teenagers could. “The migraines, the flashing before his eyes, the coughing like he’s got consumption, the going crazy mad for no reasons.” Felix felt his body tense. This was new information. Important and new. Given how consistently condescending and rude he’d been to Ms. Hale while simultaneously ogling her admittedly very fine legs and even better backside, he’d assumed the man had always had a bad temper. That it was a personality trait, not a symptom.

“He’s not always had a temper?” His mind buzzed with new connections.

“Just lately. Why?”

“Do your homework.” The Baxters might complain about excessive tests but he was fairly confident the next two would provide all the answers they needed.

She was too old for this shit. Sofia Grace did her best to stifle a yawn before going to speak to Mr. Baxter. She’d been up entirely too late trying to figure out his diagnosis, but she’d finally made one. It was a pity that as her vice of choice, she’d developed a tolerance to caffeine so high that the amount necessary to actually keep her awake would also, quite possibly, kill her. But given how Mr. Baxter rankled her with his distain and condescension she knew that her blood would undoubtedly be pumping in now time. Straightening her blouse, she approached his bed, Kevin had already left for school it seemed.

“Good morning, Mr. Baxter. My sincerest apologies for it taking so long, but I think I’ve come up with an explanation for your symptoms.”

“No need, Love, really.” It was a dismissal but not nearly as rude as his usual attitude.

“Sorry?” In fact, he looked rather resigned.

“Catecholamine.” A baritone voice in her ear supplied. Sofia Grace felt herself jump out of her skin. She wheeled around. There, standing in her personal space was Felix Magnusson. Tall as ever, as immovable as a brick wall, and radiating a warmth from his chest that made the rest of the room feel chilly. She’d had no idea he was on the ward, let alone able to stand directly behind her.

“What?”

“I’ve explained it all to Mr. Baxter already,” He continued on, as efficient as ever, pulling out a CT scan from its large brown envelope with flourish. “It accounts for all the symptoms and really, it’s blindingly obvious when you really think about it. I feel a little ashamed for not realizing sooner.” He held the scan out in front of her, he was so close to her back and his arms were so long that she only needed to lean back slightly into his chest to see what he was looking at. “Textbook Pheochromocytoma.” There was indeed a tumor on the adrenal gland and up into the chest cavity, partially around the diaphragm. The pain, headaches, palpitations, elevated heartrate and blood pressure… all the signs and symptoms. The dilated aorta was a problem, but not related to the other symptoms. It really was a general surgery problem, Hurensohn! He lowered his arm but didn’t step back from her.

“So, what do we do now?” It was the first time the man in the bed had looked up at her with anything other than contempt.

“Well,” his MS did complicate things, he wasn’t wrong when he’d asserted that. They’d have to determine if he was fit for surgery, speak with the neuro and physio specialists, get a theatre slot if he was determined fit or wait longer if he wasn’t.

“There’s a procedure. We have a slot in theatre this morning.” She did step away from him then. They needed to have a discussion, now. And it couldn’t be in front of Patrick Baxter. Her fingers itched to grab him by the tie (burgundy silk against a pale blue shirt and navy suit) and tow him away from the bed.

“Mr. Magnusson, could I have a word?” Keeping her tone light and professional was a challenge. They’d only worked together for two weeks and Sofia Grace wasn’t entirely certain she hadn’t developed a twitch in that time.

“Just a moment, Ms. Hale.” He didn’t quite hand wave her away, but it was close. God grant me the strength to deal with condescending men. “There’s a theatre slot this morning; would you like us to call your son?” Magnusson was hard to read, but this look was particularly inscrutable.

“No, not till after. If that’s possible. He’s got a maths test today and doesn’t need more worry than he’s already got.” Ever so slightly the lines around his eyes and mouth relaxed as he studied the man in the bed.

“Mr. Magnusson, if you don’t mind?” It took some effort to steer him away, mostly with herself to keep from grabbing him by the tie to do it. Instead a firm hand on his elbow did the trick, only making her feel slightly like a tiny tugboat, although instead of bringing a Nordic cruise ship out to sea, she was dragging a Swedish surgeon over to the light box.

“You’re just assuming he’s fit for surgery!” She hissed.

“The Neuro and Physio specialists seem to agree with me.” He hung the scan on the viewer, turned it on, and then reached into his breast pocket for his glasses. Resolutely not looking at her.

“So, let me get this straight,” Sabrina had suggested that he wasn't awful, but she’d just let him get under her skin. And then he did shit like this. “You talked to Stewart and Noah before you talked to me about our patient?” He ignored her. Outright.

“If you’re still concerned, let’s get a second opinion.” He turned and spotted Griffin Richards walking across the ward, cup of coffee in one hand, a stack of files in the other. Sofia liked Griffin; he was an excellent GS surgeon with a flair for the upper GI. He was committed to helping people and passionate about the NHS. Patients came first and she’d only ever seen him play politics to that end. He was a good colleague, even if his personal life was a bit of a shambles. Discreetly she peeked at his hands, no wedding band this morning. So, he was on the outs with his wife this week.

“Ah, Mr. Richards, would you be so kind as to act as arbitrator?” He waved Griffin over politely.

“For what?” He asked, giving Magnusson a wary look but gifting her with a warm smile. He was a handsome and charming man; it was easy to see how he got his wife. It was only a shame that it didn’t seem like he was able to keep her.

“Pheochromocytoma on the adrenal gland that has attached itself to the diaphragm.” Magnusson used the ear piece of his glasses to point to the tumor.

“Mr. Magnusson seems keen to slice and dice, despite the fact the patient has MS.”

“And you would do what exactly, Ms. Hale? Key hole through the chest?” It was a valid option, but he said it as if he might have said, “Try crystal healing?” Griffin put on his own glasses and studied the scan quietly for a moment, sipping his coffee.

“Well if it were my patient, given the position of the tumor, I would suggest you and I operate together.” Another smile, this one less charming as he’d just sold her out. Magnusson was smiling as well, thin lipped and smug as hell.

“And there’s our answer,” he tapped the scan with his glasses, “a CT/GS collaboration, as I was saying. Thank you, Mr. Richards. I’ll see you on the ice, Ms. Hale.” And with that he walked off. Just like that. Sofia knew she was gawping, but she couldn’t help it, the arrogance of the man left her speechless.

Dieser Arschgesicht!

Well, perhaps not entirely…

Ms. Hale was already at the sink when he arrived for surgery. She was in pale blue scrubs today, unlike the wine-colored ones he’d first met her in, her dark curls covered by her floral cap. She didn’t look up at him as she scrubbed her hands but gave him a slight nod as he took the faucet next to her to begin his own cleansing ritual.

“I have reasons for wanting to do a keyhole procedure on Mr. Baxter, it’s not just a ‘CT’ thing or whatever you seem to think. If we do keyhole-”

“We’re doing this open procedure, Ms. Hale.”

“But there’s a risk of-”

“The theatre is set up.” Her cayenne lips pursed into a stubborn line. Her face was already so expressive, but with her mouth painted bright red it was impossible not to look at her lips. They were full, with a cupid’s bow, and clearly holding back several things she’d like to say. Her eyes said them for her, sparking as she gave him a last look before heading off to get her gown and gloves on. If she was half as dynamic of a surgeon as she was as a woman this was going to be quite the operation.

Perhaps it was because she had a scalpel in her hands, but Magnusson was at least inclined to follow her instructions while they were in theatre. He retracted when asked, clamped where she needed him to clamp and generally stayed out of her way as she dealt with Mr. Baxter’s diaphragm. She also didn’t need to look up from her work to know that he was watching her every move with a critical eye.

“Enjoying your foray into Cardiothoracics?” He’d declined the suggestion of background music, leaving nothing to fill the silence except for either one’s thoughts or small talk. And Sofia Grace never much liked being alone with her own thoughts.

“Believe it or not, I was not considering my life lacking in any way for not spending time playing with people’s hearts. What is it about CT surgeons thinking the heart is the only organ in the body?” She’d meant it as small talk, a reference to the fact he was currently assisting her. But nope, he was gunna be an ass about this too. Jesus H. Christ and a windmill full of corpses what is his problem?!

“To be fair, it is kinda important.” He didn’t look up and neither did she as she finished off the last stitch she needed, and they could transition from the more CT oriented to GS oriented surgery.

“It likes to think that, certainly.” He said, picking up a scalpel. “Whereas the kidneys just get on with their job, filtering toxins out and letting the body function. Efficient, beautiful, and secure enough in themselves that they don’t need to shout about it.” Normally she would argue that picking a favorite or most important body part was a stupid endeavor. Most of the organs in the body were necessary and linked together in ways that pulling one out of the system without compensating for it would lead to problems in a variety of other areas. There was no one organ that was better than any other body part, there was only what needed to be dealt with immediately or later to ensure quality of life.

This being said, if he was just going to talk shit because he had some weird hang-up about CT surgeons, she’d double down for the heart. (It was her favorite organ, even if picking favorites was stupid).

“So indispensable you can lose one and still survive.”

“Hack a piece of kidney off and it’ll just grow back,” He picked up a scalpel, “the minute the heart breaks it becomes a useless piece of tissue. And then of course there’s the fact we can now replace a faulty heart with a machine the size of a cigarette packet.” He shot her a look over the top of his glasses before he started cutting, she could almost see the smug smirk behind his surgical mask.

“And in some cases, Mr. Magnusson, it seems as if people can survive without any heart at all.” She met his eye steadily, arching one brow defiantly. He stared at her for a moment. Somewhere behind her, someone sounding a lot like Dan Flannery whispered, “Ooo burn.”

“We need to keep moving.” He muttered awkwardly, getting back to the task at hand.

A hit, a very palpable hit.

They worked in silence after that, only the beeps and pings of the machines and occasional request breaking up the quiet.

“BP is plummeting.” Magnusson reported calmly. This was exactly why she hadn’t wanted to do open surgery in the first place.

“If we had gone with the keyhole procedure-”

Which we did not so I fail to see the usefulness of that comment.” He snapped, voice cold and quick and sharp. Brooking no retort.

“We did not go with the keyhole procedure because you decided that we shouldn’t, not because we mutually agreed this method. You decided what was best for this procedure, without listening to my reasons, I might add.”

“I am trying to concentrate, Ms. Hale, if you don’t mind?” Out of respect for Mr. Baxter she bit back the rest of what she wanted to say. At least for the moment.

“It’s funny that of all the words to get lost in translation, partners, seems to mean nothing to you.” Mr. Baxter was now Pheochromocytoma free and on his way back to bed for his recovery.

“What?” Magnusson looked at her sideways as she began washing her hands beside him at the sink. Thoroughly washing her hands gave her something to focus on while she tried to find the right words. There were so many things she wanted to say. Most of them rude. But as therapeutic she’d find it to smash his face in and curse him out, it wouldn’t change what she needed to have changed. Word on the street was he would be staying at Saint Seb’s for the foreseeable future, she needed to play the long game, not for immediate gratification.

“In addition to unilaterally deciding on the method of today’s surgery without consulting me, your CT specialist for this surgery and Co-consultant. You also figured out some significant information about our shared patient and did not tell me.” He stopped washing his hands to stare at her, hands raised slightly, allowing the soap and water to drip down his long forearms to the floor. “No, instead, you went straight to the patient himself and explained everything, leaving me in the dark, and then looking like a complete ass with my dick in the wind trying to discuss his condition without the full picture. To compound this, you swoop in and make me look even more stupid in front of our patient. A patient who already had limited regard for my expertise and position as a Doctor.” She turned the faucet off with her elbow and flicked the excess water from her hands into the sink with a flourish before turning to face him. He was staring at her intently, square jaw working but his mouth wisely closed.

“You complain that I make arrogant, rash decisions and that surgeons who make decisions for their own ends are a menace. Next time you work with me, you either keep me in the loop and treat me as an equal or find someone else to handle your heart.” She didn’t wait for his response, instead she grabbed a towel from beside him and brushed past, leaving him alone in the scrub room.

#Cait writes #Hospital Romance Drama #original fiction #Sofia Grace is Chaotic Good chaffing under Lawful Good Rules

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cageddovepoetry · 6 years

Text

Cauldron Bound

This is a Nessian Fanfic taking place after the events of ACOFAS

Chapter Nine/ Chapter Eleven

Master List

Chapter Ten: Death’s God

Nesta left before the first of the morning’s rays could enter the cabin. It felt too small in the wake of last night. The wood seemed to be pulsing with the bond as if it had become a breathing thing of its’ own. She slipped out of the cabin heading towards the barracks. It was the only place she could think to go. She had let him get too close last night. She had let down her defenses, almost let him in. She had lost too much to hope again.

Outside the barracks she heard Emelia’s laugh and Emerie’s voice soft outside the thin aging walls of the practically inhabited barracks. Her heart ached. She longed for that sense of belonging. She had never felt that sense of togetherness not even with Elaine. She had always been the outsider looking in. Her mind flashed to the house by the Sidra filled with paintings but none of her.

Nesta raised her had to knock. She nearly left feeling as if she were intruding. Emelia opened the door as if she had been expecting her.

“Come in” the Illyrian said, “the kettle is on and Emerie has been begging me to hunt you down and interrogate you on how the” Emelia paused. “What was it you said Em?” She said over her shoulder light bouncing in her eyes. “Oh, that’s right how the cauldron living fuck you managed to get her burnt ass out of the building?” Emelia laughed as an audible sigh came from another room in the building. “She has a way with words. A true poet”

Nesta entered following Emelia in. She could not help but feel a bit of Emelia’s light shine through the cracks of her stormy mood.

“How is she?” Nesta asked suddenly feeling awkward at the casualness between the two Illyrians. How could they talk with such ease? Emerie had nearly died and still they could laugh.

“Ask her.” Emelia said, “If she wasn’t so frigid she would probably kiss you for saving her life.” Emelia shook her head. “Strike that. I would kiss you for saving her life. Emerie would glare you down and ask you why you didn’t give her the chance to save herself. She is a difficult one that one.”

“I can hear you. I am burnt not deaf.” Emerie called from the room beyond them.

Nesta felt slightly off put by the change in tone. The day before there had been short words between them. Today she felt as if she Illyrian before her was welcoming her into their togetherness. As if she truly belonged.

Nesta walked the steps to Emerie’s makeshift recovery room. More Illyrian females had gathered in the barracks giving her sleepy looks as they headed to their morning destinations.

Emerie’s condition still seemed grim. Her burns still raw.

Emerie’s face gave nothing away as she took in Nesta. Sizing her up as she had within her shop. A warrior no matter her condition.

“Where is your mate?” Emerie asked. Her words were not blunted. Her posture straight even confined to her bed.

Nesta felt her stomach give a strange twist as if she had missed a step descending the stairs. Mate? “I cannot have a mate.” Nesta said the world spinning around her.

Emelia clapped a hand over her mouth as if the Illyrian’s words had been obscene.

“Did you have a fight then?” Emerie continued. Nesta felt a prinking sensation beneath her skin as if Emerie had stuck her with hot needles. Mate. “That is not of your concern” Nesta spat out taking the defensive.

Emelia flung herself into action flinging her arms out as if to ward off the words Emerie had said. “Emerie is…blunt.” She said as if finding the words to say slowly. “Much like many of the Illyrians here she doesn’t know tact, I guess you could say she’s a bit impolite really.”

Emerie did not disregarded Emelia. Instead it seemed they worked as one Emerie’s directness coupled with Emelia’s ability to say too much and ability to “read the room” as Elaine might have said.

“You were the same Emerie.” Emelia said her eyes glazing over with a sense of love and understanding. “I thought you were going to vomit when you asked me to stay the night the first time.” Her words were soft as Emelia giggled. A look passing between them. Nesta felt as if she were intruding upon a moment.

Emerie seemed to remember that Nesta was there and turned her attention back on her. “I thought you knew.” She said a silent understanding between them. Nesta thought perhaps she wanted to say more, but Emerie was, is, a female of few words. She guarded her own and said what she thought. “Thank you.” She responded instead. Nesta felt as if she understood Emelia’s depiction of Emerie wanting to vomit when she spoke her feelings. Nesta could not help but let her heart feel a sense of understanding at the notion.

The kettle Emelia had mentioned squealed in the distance. An off-key bleating noise. The female looked startled as if she had been abruptly shoved from behind, her thoughts abandoned. “No worry, I’ll get that while you too look at each other like lost sisters.” Emelia muttered before exiting the room.

Emerie watched her exit a look upon her face that Nesta thought she could place. One she had seen within the cabin if she could be honest with herself.

“Why have you come here?” Emerie said her eyes back to Nesta’s.

Nesta thought for a moment. Had she come here for Emerie or for her own selfish desire? To run from what was being portrayed before her. She mentally shook the thought from her head. She was not here for that. For him. She had wanted to give them what she had promised. A sense of defending that she had always possessed. Who was she if she did not care for her Elaine, for the females who had a vision but were undermined in their right to create it? Nesta had not realized this until the Illyrians before her had forced a mirror before her face. To guard, to protect, it had always been a distraction. A want, a need, and still a distraction.

“I made you a promise.” Nesta replied. She held her own self straight. A queen regarding another queen. She had not meant to find herself here and yet the condition of the Illyrian females was undeniable. She had longed for that sense of togetherness, even before being welcomed into the female Illyrian barracks she felt as if she were one of them. She heard the sky song and answered it. Perhaps it was naïve, but she had felt that connection as deeply as she felt the unspoken bond that hung over the cabin.

“And what do you plan to do with your promise?” Emerie responded.

“That isn’t what you say to a gift dog.” Emelia’s voice rang from the other room. The sound of cabinets opening and closing as the female poured tea.

Emerie shook her head a smile echoing in her eyes though her face was blank. “That is not…” The sentence died on her lips as if she was conceding to a long-lasting battle of correcting Emelia’s understanding of human idioms.

“I do not make promises I don’t expect to repay.” Nesta responded the intensity of the sentiment reflected in her eyes.

“She is one of us Em.” Emelia said returning to the room with three cups full of tea. “Stop acting as if you don’t know her.”

The words hung between them. A seriousness held in Emelia’s tone as it had the day before when her heart clung to Illyrian before her.

Emerie stared down the female as if a silent conversation had begun between them. Nesta again felt again as if she were an intruder upon them.

“What is your plan?” Emerie said, a satisfied smirk on Emelia’s face.

Nesta responded in hushed whispers as the females plotted a war.

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

Cassian awoke after the first light of sun broke into his bedroom. The house held an unnatural quiet as he readied himself for the oncoming plots of day. Each moment felt amplified in the rawness the bond had left between them. The cabin held an unnatural still when it had once pounded life between them and yet a silence beat within the cabin. He shook off the heaviness of his heart as he put on the leathers he had always worn to protect himself in war.

He could forget her, he lied to himself. He could move past this. He had never come here to solidify what he knew, what he thought they had felt.

He closed that door as he stepped into the hall. She was not there. What had he expected?

His heart has always been as iron as hers, and yet he had held some hope. He had always held some hope. He could not give up on her, he could not give up on anyone. It had been his creed as a commander. To protect even when the lines were closing in. Those who burned with passion were the greatest fighters. He valued the difficult soldier for he was the difficult soldier. He had fought, and he had gained his status through straying from tradition. He had felt that in her, yet he acknowledged perhaps it was not time that would bring them together. They had time here. He was not some love-sick bastard, he was a male who could not give up when fate begged him to. He would let her go. If that was what was called for, what she wanted, he could let her go. He did not love, did not trust, easily, and with her he had let those pretenses go.

He left the cabin each breath forgetting her sent, forgetting her touch, as he walked to the war tent. He loved the difficult warrior, but he could not fight for what did not exist.

He entered Devlon’s tent a commander. He needed to lead a people more then he needed to lick his cauldron damned wounds.

“I thought you would bring the witch to try and scare me after you displaced my men, commander.” Devlon shot at Cassian as he entered the tent.

Cassian let the insult roll off his shoulders. He felt impenetrable as he approached the leader of the camp. He would enjoy destroying Devlon.

He passed the report that Az had written him this morning to the camp’s leader. “It seemed the deserters were already well outfitted with weapons. Illyrian steal. I repositioned my men as I saw fit. Do I need your permission now Devlon to make commands?”

Devlon growled as he read over the report. Cassian drank in the sweet sound of the male’s frustrations.

“I lead here I’ll remind you commander. While you dally around with the witch in the star city I listen to the tales of the wounded while we heal their wounds.”

Cassian stepped forward. He was so close to Devlon now. So close he could gut him. He did not relish in cruelty, but he would not allow his people to be blinded. To be forced into wars between clans when he had promised them unity and peace.

“I hear their cries Devlon when you do not. You may listen to their war stories and share tales over ale, but you forget their widows and their daughters. You mock the soldier not talented in bloodshed instead of directing his blows. I have not forgot my people Devlon, but I believe you have.”

“Will you call me a traitor commander?” Devlon said a sneer on his face. The Cheshire sneer of a man who had wanted to put a bastard on his ass for too long. “Will you call us all traitors when we do not lick your boots?”

Cassian’s power flared as light emitted from his syphons. He looked not like the powerful commander, but like death’s god. “I will not stand by while innocent lives are lost as you feed me lies.” Cassian spoke his voice amplified in the release of his power. There was no kindness, no ease tone to his voice. It was his power that spoke and his power that commanded within the war tent.

It was in that moment true fear seeped from the leader of the camp. A look of fear echoing in his eyes as he stepped back from the commander.

“I.. I didn’t know about the weapons.” Devlon sputtered as a knife imbedded into his chest. Cassian whirled looking for the unknown assailant. Cassian spotted them. All of them. It was not one lone assassin but ten. Cassian reached for his sword as he summersaulted from the path of another knife thrown at his heart. He had taken down men in tens. Had been ambushed and fought the odds. Here within the small space of the tent with ten of Illyria’s best soldiers he figured his odds. Time slowed as planned his attack dodging blows and then it stopped. He saw her then behind the line of traitors. The golden-brown hair and grey blue eyes, the scent he had thought to forget this morning, but that scent was in his blood he could not forget it. She stood there beside an Illyrian female with dark skin and golden eyes that could rival the sun for the light they held.

Cassian let loose breath from his chest as he said, “did you miss me Archeron?”

Nesta gave an annoyed huff as walked towards him. The frozen men forgotten. From where Emelia stood she thought they could see nothing but each other as Nesta assessed the male before her.

“Cassian” Her voice held irreverence and annoyance as she said, “do not make me regret saving your ass.”

Cassian grinned despite himself. “Always” he said as they looked upon each other. Their eyes roaming and searching as if they were two lovers who had been kept apart for centuries.

Emelia coughed the sound loud in the silence of the stillness. “This whole reunion is wonderful and all, and I’m so happy for you both. However, we are still under attack.”

Cassian smiled as he took Nesta’s hand his eyes meeting hers. “You are going to have to let them move again. When you do get behind me. Let us see how much of that power you took.”

A wicked grin passed between them as Nesta let loose her power. Emilia got into position as Cassian’s siphons flared. When time resumed the attack began.

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Sorry that this is a day late things have been a bit crazy.

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Any comments and feedback are much appreciated. If you would like to be tagged just let me know!

Tags: @thebluemartini @city-of-fae @cookiemonsterwholovesbooks

#nesta #nessian #nesta archeron #nessian fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #acofas #sarah j maas #sjmaas #acotar #cauldron bound

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essenceoffilm · 6 years

Text

Through the Melancholy of the Passage of Time

He might have been compared to a summer’s day, particularly the last hours of one [1]

“To walk down memory lane” is a clever English idiom since it combines the psychological act of reminiscence with the concrete, physical act of walking down the lane. Its aptness stems from the fact that we humans tend to remember spatially. Memories may or may not be easily localized in the brain, but their mental content is often tied to spaces or, specifically, lived spaces, the way we experience them, to borrow a term from Juhani Pallasmaa [2]. The lane is a term that denotes a type of space, a part of the roadway, and, in the idiomatic expression of walking down memory lane, the spatial term has a temporal twist to it as the space of the lane refers to the past. The lane connotes home, family, and childhood. The sweetness of the nostalgia for these things can make one lose themselves on memory lane. This is essentially what happens to Ned Merrill, the hapless protagonist of Frank Perry’s The Swimmer (1968).

The Swimmer is based on the short story of the same name by John Cheever, “the Chekhov of suburbs,” which director Frank Perry’s wife, Eleanor Perry turned into a screenplay. Cheever’s short story tells of Ned Merrill, a married man and a father, who, while spending a lazy Sunday by the swimming pool of his neighbors’ domicile, decides to swim from their place to his house by using the many pools of their bourgeois neighborhood. As Ned starts to get closer to his home, pool by pool, he begins to realize that he is swimming down the poignant memory lane. In other words, Ned starts to realize that he seems to exist in a different time from the rest of the world. He is clinging to the past of having a decent family life before an apparent divorce, debts, and loss of home. When neighbors and friends remind Ned of this, he seems totally oblivious. “We’ve been terribly sorry to hear about all your misfortunes, Neddy,” an elderly couple of the Hallorans tells the protagonist in Cheever’s short story; “Why, we heard that you’d sold the house and that your poor children...” [3]. After hearing about the bypass surgery of his old friend, Ned is puzzled. “Was he losing his memory,” the third-person narrator wonders about Ned’s predicament, “had his gift for concealing painful facts let him forget that he had sold his house, that his children were in trouble, and that his friend has been ill?” [4]. Not until the very end, when Ned is confronted by his empty, closed, and run-down old house, does the concrete of the lane hit Ned straight in the face.

Perry’s film adaptation preserves the core ideas as well as the basic structure of Cheever’s short story, but it also makes some significant changes to externalize, so to speak, the story that operates mainly on the level of inner life. These changes manifest in the form of added dialogue, new characters, and additional action. For example, there are, most notably, two significant characters added to the film who do not appear in the original short story: Julie, played by Janet Landgard, the young woman who had a crush on Ned when she worked as a babysitter for his children in the past, and Shirley, played by Janice Rule, the neighbor with whom Ned had an extra-marital affair in the past. Both of these character additions are used to highlight Ned’s alienation from both his family life and the present in general. Julie is shocked by Ned’s obliviousness to their age difference and runs away after Ned makes a pass on her. Shirley, on the other hand, is utterly frustrated by the sudden return of Ned’s desires and locks herself out from him. They live in the present and they react negatively to Ned’s inability to do so. The film also removes Ned’s wife, Lucinda, whose name is carried by the “Lucinda river” of the pools Ned swims through, who makes a brief appearance in the beginning of the short story where Ned is hanging by the pool of the Westerhazys, one of their neighbors. This change might, I believe, actually improve Cheever’s original idea because it emphasizes the absence of Ned’s family -- also elaborating the idea that the two have divorced (which may or may not be the case in the short story). Overall, this beginning scene has a lot of dialogue in it compared to its minimalist concision in the original text. After gazing at the Lucinda river, Ned talks about his plans to the people around him and converses about other matters, while the short story has barely enough lines to fill one page.

Since the film has additional character and new dialogue, it is bound to face the question how the characters and their manners of speech should be dealt with since the original text does not provide a point of departure. Perry’s bold move is to use overly punctuated, exaggerated, and theatrical acting which creates an ironic distance between the characters and the audience. While at first glance the contemporary spectator might simply see these as emblematic of poor production values during the New Hollywood phase, Burt Lancaster’s campish performance as the constantly smiling Ned in his youthful swimming trunks gains a poignant melancholy to it as the film goes on. There is a similar sadness to his relentless smile as there is in Setsuko Hara’s tendency to force a smile in Ozu’s elegiac Late Spring (1949, Banshun).

In addition to characters and extended dialogue, Perry’s film also creates new scenes to the story. There is, for one, the scene where Ned swims through an empty swimming pool, dedicated to swim through all of them, with a young boy. An obvious visual metaphor for Ned’s useless attempt to project his fantasy of the preserved past on the dry present, the scene feels a little awkward and out of place, but, at the same time and as such, essential to the unique film. The scene with Ned running by the side of a horse and the scene where he and Julie run through an obstacle course, both of which are not in the original short story, are so strange and awkward that their displacement makes the spectator wonder why in the world were they added to the film. There is charm to their awkwardness, however, as there is to the rest of the film’s New Hollywood aesthetics of unnecessary zooms and slow-motion.

Although Cheever’s short story is not completely exhausted by subjective interiority, since it has dialogue as a source of additional information beyond Ned’s deluded perspective and it is, one might add, told from the third-person perspective of an omniscient narrator, its epistemic connection to Ned’s perspective is stronger than that of the film. This is mainly due to the primal difference between literature and cinema since the latter can hardly escape its realism and attachment to the concrete. Fortunately, Perry realizes and embraces this, taking advantage of cinema’s prized abilities. After all, Ned’s action of swimming through the river of pools is bound to the concrete; it is bound to bodily activities and real spaces of memory lane.

This change in narrative perspective is already eminent during the opening credits. Perry uses shots of a forest in autumn, including a shot of an owl, emblematic of the “last hours” of Ned’s “summer day,” which hints to the attentive spectator that it is already autumn rather than the summer. In Cheever’s short story, this is revealed only toward the very end. Thus Perry’s film elaborates the build-up to the revelation of Ned’s detachment from the reality of the present to the fantasy of the past.

The film is, however, rooted in Ned’s epistemic perspective and most of the diegetic information provided by the cinematic narration is shared by Ned and the audience. All the information that challenges Ned’s delusion comes from what other characters say directly to Ned so he also, at the very least, receives that information (even if he does nothing with it). Perry also uses such cinematic means as prolonged dissolves, zooms, slow-motion, and point of hearing to reflect the subjective perspective. The shot, which superimposes a close-up of Ned’s face with the landscape of the Lucinda river at the moment when Ned decides to swim through it, is a perfect example of subjectivization without a point of view shot. The same could be said of the beautiful shots of Ned and Julie walking in the woods, where Julie talks about her past crush on Ned. The shots are either out of focus or the characters are in the background, which is out of focus, as the foreground is dominated by flowers and trees in focus.

Resonating with the beginning shots of nature in autumn, the film ends with a startling change in narrative perspective. Although Ned’s discovery of the emptiness of his house (signifying that he did, in fact, lose it) is told from the third-person perspective in the short story, it is also specifically said that Ned sees the emptiness of his house: “He shouted, pounded on the door, tried to force it with his shoulder, and then, looking in at the windows, saw that the place was empty” [5]. In Cheever’s text, it is Ned who looks in at the windows. In Perry’s film, on the contrary, Ned arrives at the door and desperately shouts and pounds it, but he never looks in at the window. Instead, there is a cut from Ned by the door in long medium shot to a medium shot of a hole in one of the windows. A slow zoom-in toward the hole is followed by a cut to a reverse shot of the window from the inside of the house where the camera pans to the left, disclosing the sheer emptiness of an abandoned domicile, ending up at the closed door that is being pounded by Ned. A final cut returns us to Ned by the door, outside. Although there is no sudden change in narrative perspective or “ocularization,” because the shots of Ned by the door are not subjective point of view shots either, there is nonetheless an unprecedented change in perspective because the spectator, for the first time, sees something that Ned does not. Obviously, the spectator has already began to “see” further than Ned, but here such seeing becomes literal. The device is, however, brilliantly not in violation of the rest of the film (especially if the opening credits sequence is taken to account, but without it as well) nor even of the short story (even if such a violation only mattered to people to whom books are holy sacraments not to be misrepresented by adaptations) because it still reflects Ned’s experience. Standing by the door, pounding and shouting, Ned realizes his delusion, his self-betrayal, and the overall emptiness of his existence. It is cinematic free indirect discourse, something whose literary counterpart is prevalent in Cheever’s short story.

As Ned falls to the ground before the indifferent door, his demise is perpetuated by freezing the frame, a typical cinematic device of the period. Following Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959, Les quatre cents coups), George Roy Hill’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), a key film of the New Hollywood movement, ends with a freeze-frame of interrupted movement, but Perry’s The Swimmer did it first. The film is overall rife with New Hollywood aesthetics from the slow-motion shots of running in the obstacle course (as well as the existence of the scene in general!) to the zoom-ins to close-ups of human faces and the long shots of Ned and Julie walking out of focus. Where the lack of focus enhances the melancholic and nostalgic atmosphere, the slow-motion shots (not only of running but also of swimming) and the freeze-frame articulate the theme of movement: time is, quite literally, slowing down in Ned’s experience, and it freezes when he meets the wall putting a stop to his painful denial of death.

Due to its existential tone, The Swimmer resides in the spheres of the films of Antonioni and Fellini. Like La dolce vita (1960) or La notte (1961), however, The Swimmer also has its social dimensions. The whole idea of an urban terrain filled with pools and rife with water seem to carry critical echoes, which are only emphasized by the scene, which one could see as being developed into an accumulating gag by someone like Jacques Tati, where a couple commends their recently installed filter in their pool that removes 99.99% of all excessive material from the water. Its satirical edge is never too sharp to notice, however, and it is constantly softened by the film’s elegiac ubiquity.

An existentialist parable, Perry’s The Swimmer externalizes the inner life of its protagonist by adding dialogue and characters as well as by utilizing cinematic means and changes in narrative perspective. As such, it surmounts the dull “quality” adaptation. This externalization is more than appropriate because, just like the metaphor of memory lane, both Cheever and Perry have realized that memories are not only temporal but also spatial; they attach to places, environments, and our bodily activities in them. Maybe Ned decides to swim through the pools because swimming in pools and walking in his trunks remind him of summer and carefree existence with his family. In the end, what would be a better allegory for these mechanisms of memory and nostalgia, where space and time coalesce, than a seemingly consistent chain created by pools separated by yards, fences, and lanes?

The original poster for The Swimmer advertised the film by presenting the customer with a rhetorical question: “When you talk about The Swimmer, will you talk about yourself?” Despite the awkward, campy clumsiness of the expression, which actually fits with some of the charm of Perry’s film, it was hard not to think about myself when I walked out of the cinema into the excessively warm summer evening. It is a cinema from which I have walked out for thousands of times ever since I was a 16-year-old. It is also a beautiful, old art deco cinema from the days of silent cinema that is currently being left behind by its long-time tenant, the Finnish film archive. Walking out from the cinema into the more than familiar streets of Helsinki, there was a call in the air to take a stroll down memory lane.

Notes:

[1] Cheever, John. 1964. “The Swimmer”. In The Brigadier and the Golf Widow. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, p. 62.

[2] Pallasmaa, Juhani. 2007. The Architecture of Image: Existential Space in Cinema. Helsinki: Rakennustieto.

[3] Cheever 1964, p. 71.

[4] Ibid. p. 72.

[5] Ibid. p. 76.

#The Swimmer #Frank Perry #American #1960's

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austennerdita2533 · 6 years

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A/N: My contribution for Day 22 of A Gilmore Christmas is a Literati oneshot. Sending a big ‘ol HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the lovely Emma, @alspancakeworld. Thanks for organizing this event and for allowing me to participate! xx (Check out all the other cool stuff in the link above.)

(A03) (FFnet)

Summary: It’s late, close to Christmas, and Rory and Jess find themselves alone strolling through a decor-decked Stars Hollow to share a moment where past and present feelings collide. (Post-AYITL but no pregnancy) (Holiday Angst and Feels)

Word count: 3.1k

It’s my first attempt at Literati fic. Happy reading! :)

xx Ashlee Bree

When All Sense Breaks Loose

This one will wreck him. Oh, yeah. This one promises calamity.

Jess hears it in the cracking first. He feels it in the thawing of his bones the moment he reaches out to catch the edge of a snowflake with his thumb and swipes it off her cheek, his thoughts splitting into chaos because ‘over…long over’ is what they’re supposed to be. And they were. They are.

But then she steps close enough to shoulder-bump him, her head tilted, her eyes shining up at him with a mixture of alcohol, gaiety, and anticipation as they head back to the house so they can drink coffee and gorge on some of Sookie’s gourmet sugar cookies; and soon, all of those unspoken words he swore he’d deleted years ago when they were still a couple of twenty-something kids up to their waists in missed chances, spill out into the margins of his mind in ink too permanent to miss. The words fall out all tangled together like carefully embedded prose to expose dusty questions that had apparently never settled like he’d intended.

(Or more like he’d damn-well hoped.)

He smells it in the crispness of the air second.

Clumsy as ever, Rory folds her fingers into the crook of his elbow in a clinging effort to keep herself steady after her foot slides backward on a slippery patch of sidewalk near Miss Patty’s dance studio. Her hands curl into the lapels of his jacket. They fly around his neck within seconds next, desperate for somewhere soft and sturdy to land, and his lungs betray him with one measly hitch of breath. Backstabbing bastard lungs, they are, too. Freezing at her touch like it’s the first time. Sending fresh trembles along his shoulders, then down the columns of his spine.

“This feels like a scene straight out of While You Were Sleeping,” she laughs.

Her tone’s full of self-mockery and ridicule, but she doesn’t seem bothered by her impromptu ice skating or her near-toppling into his arms at all, which Jess finds curious.

“But as long as you don’t rip your pants up the ass,” she continues, “we should be okay the rest of the way. At least—well, would you say you’re more Blades of Glory or Wayne Gretzky?”

“Charlie Conway, probably.” When she stares at him blankly, he flicks her side with his index finger and says, “From the Mighty Ducks?”

“Oooh, lucky me! I mean, had you said Gordon Bombay, I’m afraid I’d have to contend with your weak and wobbling hockey knees,” Rory says in a way that denotes both her relief and her amusement.

“In that case, we’d both be screwed.”

“Right, so no ripped jeans or ice-kissed butts for you. Got it, mister.” Just to be safe, however, she links her arm through his anyway. She leans against him for warmth or for support (or for who the hell knows what else), as they recommence their stroll through Stars Hollow.

They somehow manage to take the long and slow route home. She doesn’t seem to mind, though, so why should he? And even though Jess knows he shouldn’t, he breathes in the lavender soap of her skin and allows himself to remember how well she’s always fit against his side. How right she’s always felt. Like the home he’d never had with Liz…or with any other woman he’s dated since Rory.

He thinks of sleigh rides, of a stolen teenage kiss or two behind Gypsy’s Auto Repair; he thinks of quiet nights in, of cuddling and movie bingeing, of Indian chicken curry which stunk up the whole of his uncle’s apartment, of talking Faulkner, Hemingway, and Bukowski with little to no regard for time. He remembers how certain of her, and of them, he’d once been.

I know you. I know you better than anyone.

The reflection hurts. It chafes him worse than frostbite to know he’ll probably always be the one who understands her best.

But what does it matter? What good does it do to reflect on those chapped patches of his past? How does it help to contemplate his screwed-up life? Why wonder and wish? Why—why in hell should he waste any more time on unfulfilling idioms like ‘if?’

(Except he does.)

Jess sees it in the pine trees third, their boughs bent and threatening to break because they carry too much weight. They hold too many frozen dreams that’ll hit the ground soon but won’t melt. They’ll try, sure, but they’ll never seem to fade away despite the passing of countless springs. They can’t—it’d be too dry without their existence afterwards, too unburdening.

Because you didn’t say goodbye.

I deserve better than this.

You, me…you know we’re supposed to be together.

I knew, I knew it the first time I saw you.

How many years has it been, huh? Ten? Fifteen? Fifteen years he’s spent trying to thaw these thoughts inside of him, acting like she hasn’t creeped through his mind when his world grew too hollow or too full; and that's either too many to count on fingers, or too much time for him to try and pretend otherwise. It’s asinine to deceive himself. A waste of good lies.

I knew, I knew, I knew…

The ringing in his mind won’t stop.

It plays in the background like static because he still discerns that dangerous load of thoughts in his periphery—all of those old moments of theirs which promised continuity and evolution and ‘I love you’s’ which didn’t need saying; that hand of hers which never felt too heavy in his and would never be anything but a pleasure to hold—to thread his fingers through for no reason—to raise to his mouth so he could learn the paths of her palms, her wrists, her knuckles, all of her sweet, soft skin, with his lips over and over again—and he doesn’t want to let the perilousness of hope to overwhelm him. He doesn’t want to blink. He doesn’t want to close his eyes. Don’t think, don’t think! He doesn’t want to find himself blinded or paralyzed by dreams he’s no longer supposed to be dreaming.

But they can’t be stopped. They unravel and unwind. They…they keep on coming regardless of the iron walls he raises and reinforces inside his own head to ward against the intrusion.

It’s draining, this looped thinking.

He can’t win. He can’t break free. So why, he wonders, why the hell does he try? It’s exhausting and pointless and awful and unbearable. His head is the cruelest place to be.

Yeah, it’s crueler than anything.

It’s a few hours past midnight now, and despite having closed out the only bar in town with scotch, candlelight, and conversation a good half hour ago, they still loiter beneath the snowcapped Christmas lights in front of Luke’s with nothing but snow and old memories for company. Rory’s resplendent in her double-breasted peacoat, her mouth clicking off new words and subjects as fast as fingers on a keyboard. There’s a bounce in her knees at the moment which he swears she reserves only for donut sightings, new book releases, Lorelai and coffee, so he’s at a loss when she drags him under the awning below where it says Williams Hardware and presses her face into the window like she’s investigating something. Or like she’s looking for someone’s dropped holiday crumbs.

The diner’s black inside, however; the sign flipped to show it’s closed. And it probably has been for some hours now. Undeterred, however, she turns around to flash him a knowing grin—a hint of intrigue dimpling the edges around her cracked lips, “Of all the java joints, in all the towns, it hangs from mine! Can you believe it?” she says with an exhilarated ‘eeee.’

“Believe what?”

“Look up.”

Jess inclines his head. He feasts his eyes on the object of interest which dangles above him like the universe’s next big test. (Or trick, depending on how this conversation ends.)

“Huh. That’s new,” he muses.

“It’s not only new, my friend, but legendary,” Rory says as her tongue slides cheekily across her lower teeth. “And I mean that in the sense that this so unbelievable, I’m convinced the Doctor plopped down in his T.A.R.D.I.S. and threw us into some kind of warped alternative reality where Luke spends his free holiday hours stringing popcorn and disappearing down chimneys.”

He acts like he’s not hanging on by her scarf strings.

“So, uh…” he clears his throat, gulping down that familiar flutter he’s been trying to subdue all night, “what now?”

“I’d say we have a conundrum, Watson.”

“We sure do, Sherlock.”

The ghost of their past love, which is not dead yet, follows close behind this remark to rustle the nerves of his heart like a skeleton because she’s all doe-eyed and lively, flirty without trying, and not to mention cute as hell. It makes Jess clench his fists as he struggles to get a fucking grip. Making him feel things he thought he’d taught himself how to forget.

How many times can this happen? How many goddamn ways to Sunday can he be kicked in the gut? It won’t do anymore, alright? Not when he’s taken the trouble to grow this thick, mature leather skin.

(Except he knows it’s too late. He already knows…)

He’s back where he started again.

He’s back at the threshold of seventeen where he first spotted that ellipsis carved into the corners of her mouth on the night they first met, standing in her bedroom doorway like a thief, coveting her literature because he knew with a glance that this girl was sentences and paragraphs. He knew she was pages and chapters and books which were yet to be understood in some overarching theme he wouldn’t be able name. He knew she was a still-developing story he’d need to read through to the conclusion.

I knew. I knew the first time I saw you.

That same ellipsis is back in Rory's features tonight, in this moment. Or maybe it’s always been there? Maybe it’s never disappeared, never gone away?

She wears it like a bookmark: pressed between every curve and contour, written between every beautiful line of her face. It’s the same one asking him to turn over to the next page right now…and follow again.

He senses it in the forgotten silence fourth.

“Luke would be furious if he knew,” Rory says with a flick of her forefinger.

“Maybe he already does? Lorelai has wife sway these days. I’m sure she works that to her advantage,” Jess replies with a snicker.

The December air has reddened her nose and there’s snow stuck to her pant leg, but she seems impervious to the cold of her beloved Stars Hollow.

“Mom would revel in how you’ve bestowed her with all the credit for this, but no,” she shakes her head, obviously amused. “No, Luke’s compliance with town tradition would make Taylor too gleeful.”

Pensive, Jess nods. He rolls up the sleeves of his brown coat.

“Let’s take it down then.”

“What!?” Her eyes widen, horrified.“No! Wait, wait!”

Part diverted, part bemused, he pauses to quirk an eyebrow at her, “What for? Petal will eat it. There’s not a garbage dropping in all of Connecticut that pig hasn’t devoured like it’s creme brulle,” he offers reassuringly.

“Yeah, but…that’s not what I—”

“He’s become the Tiny oinking Tim of this crazy town, anyway. Except with tender hooves instead of crutched feet.”

“And Kirk.”

“Yeah, and Kirk,” Jess concedes wryly.

“Hold on,” Rory interjects in a bolder tone. “Let’s stop think about this for a second. If we do this,” she exhales, her blue-knit mittens raised in supplication and her bottom lip sucked between her teeth, “if we do it, then we forfeit the chance to witness a ranting, raving Luke throwing candy canes all over the floor of the Soda Shoppe tomorrow.”

“Imagine the entertainment potential with me here, Kimmel.” She sweeps her arms out for dramatic effect, zooming in at him with her hands like a camera. “It’d be like Jingle All the Way meets Stars Wars.”

“With Taylor as what? A crowd-flung Booster? Chewbacca?”

Rory nods enthusiastically, “There’d be heavy Wookie wailing and all.”

Jess’ lips twitch as he considers this. Then he shrugs. “Nothing we haven’t seen a million times before.”

“No! But…but…this year he’s selling candy cane light sabers that glow as red as Kylo’s tantrums!” she says in ta-da; as if, somehow, this information will confuse him enough to halt his next maneuver.

“Where’s Han Solo when you need him to smuggle you some good marketing?” Jess cringes. “Geez.”

“Still stabbed through the chest somewhere, unfortunately. Besides,” Rory adds with a wave of her hand, “I doubt the Force is strong enough to fix Taylor’s strange slogans.”

“You said it, Skywalker, not me.”

He reaches up then, still shaking his head, to curl his hand around the decoration’s sparkly red bow. Finding the hook, he threatens to yank it to the ground with a good tug or two despite the punches Rory pounds into his arm in playful protest. Smirking, he lifts it further out of her reach. She narrows her eyes in warning.

“Don’t even think about it, Mariano!” she exclaims as she lunges over his shoulder amid a peal of laughter. Attempting to grab it from him, she jumps up-and-down like a pogo stick. “Oh my God, don’t you dare deprive me of the possibility of Luke going all Vader in the middle of Taylor’s SantaLand tomorrow!”

“Cool your over-caffeinated bouncin’ there, Easter bunny,” Jess laughs. He twines the slack of her scarf around her head to slow her down. “What if I said I plan to leave a festive chalkperson in its stead? Would that be an acceptable substitute, d’you think?”

Lowering his hand, he allows the ball to swing, unencumbered, above them like an ornament. Rory pulls back to unloosen her scarf, her face flushed and her mood jovial. “Only if you draw Santa Claus,” she says.

He wrinkles his nose, “Nah, I was thinking more like Dickens’ Christmas ghosts. This town needs a good haunting.”

“Whatever you say, Scrooge.”

“Excuse me, but the name’s Dodger to you.”

“As if I could forget,” she says with a wistful chuckle, averting her gaze.

Moments like these always feel so easy and natural and inevitable between them. Like laughter, or…breathing.

“Putting the whole Dennis the Menace scheme aside for a second,” Rory looks down and crunches salt and snow beneath her boots, “I was thinking…”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe we could—oh, I don’t know…”

When she stops mid-thought to click the heels of her boots together and shift her body to the side, fumbling with her mittens, he prods. “What?”

“We could…we could, um, let it stay there, couldn’t we? It’s not bothering anyone up there, and Luke’s inflammatory reaction whenever he sees it tomorrow will be nothing short of Oscar-worthy and, well,” Rory adds in a languid but rambling tone which is a little reminiscent of her timorous teenage self, “it wouldn’t be illegal if two people found themselves under it or anything.”

“You mean, like…” Jess swallows. His voice comes out husky, like it’s comprised of strangled consonants and vowels, and it makes the words quiver when they breach his lips to meet the air. He hates the sound. “Kind of, uh,” he falters a second time; scratches his chin, “kind of like we are now?”

Shrugging ‘yeah’ in a nonchalant way, but still fidgeting more than normal by bouncing on her toes, Rory angles toward him with warm but wary eyes that size him up as if they’re still trying to decide something, “I mean, don’t you think some traditions can be nice?” she asks timidly.

“No.”

“No?”

“I don’t know.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. He rocks side-to-side as if he’s trying to circulate warmth to his limbs, but really, he’s avoiding her eyes. “Maybe,” he amends.

“So, certain ones can be okay then?” Rory asks with a tilt of her head.

“Depends, I guess.”

There’s a slight edge to her expression when she looks at him here: something that’s equal parts adorable, nervous, tenacious, and bashful. It’s a look that reaches out with a hand that shivers whenever she scoots forward to huddle between his feet, her fingers trembling against his shirt, above his heart. She shivers hard.

“Would you be scandalized if I told you I liked this tradition?” she asks.

“No,” Jess breathes. “Not really.”

“After all,” Rory whispers, her blue eyes warm and eager as she wraps her arms around his neck and presses her forehead against his, leaning in with calamity curved into her smile, “what’s the harm in you and me beneath some mistletoe at least once in our lives?”

“I’ll quote the Beach Boys here and say—” Cupping her face in his hand, drawing her against him, he surrenders to that awaiting gift like he would delicious poison, “God only knows.”

Jess tastes it on her parting and pliant lips last. Her tongue slides in and tells him everything he needs to know because this part—the kissing, that zipping and tingling chemistry which adrenalizes every nerve in his body the moment their mouths collide—is the one thing that’s worked flawlessly between them since the start. And it still does.

The connection between them is still there, still flourishing.

It’s more alive in this moment than it was fifteen years ago, and it’s sharpening into something denser and deeper. It’s precarious at best; irrational to the core. It’s becoming a fact as inevitable and as irrevocable and as fucking evident as black letters on a pure white page, and Jess knows there’s not a single damn thing he can do to prevent his mind from writing it down in literal easy-to-read lines. No margins this time. He knows he can’t stop the rush of past, present, and future from merging inside his pounding chest, from rustling those old feelings he’s tried (and failed) to claw from his heart like weeds.

This is it. There’s no subduing or denying. As F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, this is ‘the beginning and ending of everything.’

Calamity hangs above his head with the mistletoe then falls like the December flakes around them as Rory kisses him long and hot and sweet. Wrecking him with the knowledge that he could—yeah, he could fall in love with her again all too easily.

#gilmore girls #agilmorechristmas #literati #literati fanfiction #rory and jess #it all comes out in babbling moron #ashlee bree's writing endeavors

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