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prurientpuddlejumper · 4 years

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You’re a Mean One, Mr. Kneef (Part 1)

Part 2 ->

For @thatesqcrush’s Holiday Bingo! Filling the Grinch/Scrooge square

Bryan Kneef x Female Reader

Warnings: NSFW. No smut, just a... situation in which Bryan has zero sense of shame. Honestly it’s straight-up workplace sexual harassment. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

1,576 words

Festive lights were strung around the offices of STR Laurie, but their merry glow added no holiday cheer to the hearts of all of those forced to come into work on Christmas Eve. Everyone was supposed to have the day off, or at least get a half-day. However, the sun was setting over the Chicago skyline, and at least a dozen paralegals were still frantically toiling over the enormous workload dumped on them last minute by one Bryan Kneef.

It didn’t seem like a particularly important case or a particularly critical motion, but according to Mr. Kneef, it was worthy of an all-hands-on-deck situation that would make as many employees as possible miss dinner with their families.

In fact, as you glared over the top of your monitor at his office—the curtains drawn and the lights dimmed within—you were pretty sure he wasn’t even working on this “important” case. He was probably fucking napping. This was all some sadistic Scrooge-like tactic to make everyone miserable just because he didn’t have anywhere to be tonight.

As the angled light streaming in through the window turned dusky orange with no end to the work in sight, you’d had enough. You stood up, marched across the office, and barged through Mr. Kneef’s door without knocking, certain you were going to catch him with his eyes closed on the couch.

Instead, you caught him behind his desk, furiously masturbating to porn.

He stopped, but unlike a decent human being who would yelp in surprise and frantically sputter apologies for being caught dick-in-hand, he wasn’t startled by your entrance and made no particular hurry to cover himself. He clicked a button on the keyboard, and the rhythmic sounds of moaning stopped.

His eyebrows raised at you impatiently as if you’d interrupted him on a phone call.

You slammed the door behind you—the rest of the office didn’t need to hear this.

“What the fuck, Mr. Kneef? This case is so important we have to work through fucking Christmas, and you’re in here jerking off?”

“Your point?”

“Fuck you!”

His lips pushed up into an excessive frown that made his beard bristle, and he raised his brows, not disagreeing and seemingly impressed with your audacity.

“Fine. Come here.” He patted his lap, smirking, legs spread wide in his leather chair. His semi-hard cock was still sitting naked and pink outside his deep navy dress pants.

Now he’d crossed the line into making your skin crawl.

“OK, I’m calling HR.”

He scoffed and tucked himself back into his pants. “You said fuck me.”

He wasn’t swayed by your threat to report him—what was important was that you had been the first to blink. You didn’t really look offended, anyway. If you had blushed like a nun and hidden your eyes when you walked in on him, he wouldn’t have been so provocative (he wasn’t a complete monster). If you had fucking knocked, you wouldn’t have walked in on anything. But you had the balls to barge in and dress down your superior. The number-one asshole of the firm was not about to let you challenge him and win.

You closed your eyes and tried to compose yourself, ignoring the flush of heat surging behind your ribs and pooling between your legs from his sleazy request. Ew—body, what? Don’t be gross.

“So. You have a problem with the work I’ve assigned you?” He set his elbow on the table and rested his beard in his hand. His voice was as casually mocking as ever, as if this whole situation was perfectly normal.

“Yeah. It’s bullshit. We’d all like to go home if this motion isn’t so vitally pressing it can’t wait until Monday.”

“I see.”

“Don’t you have anywhere to be?”

There was a twitch in his face at that. He tried to remain as callous and inscrutable as ever, but the question revealed a tension that wasn’t obvious before. Beside his computer was a bottle of Scotch and an almost-empty glass. Next to that was a small rectangular box, neatly wrapped with shiny silver paper and a gold bow. He glanced down at it, and he looked, for a brief instant, sad.

He wasn’t so intimidating when his cold eyes turned pitiful like that. Almost like he was human.

In contrast to his distasteful personality, his eyes were a beautiful, delicate green even in the dim light. It was enough to make you admit how handsome the lawyer was—the dark beard, the flecks of silver streaking through his flawlessly-styled hair. If he turned out to have actual human feelings beneath the swagger, you might even like him.

You sat down in the small chair opposite him at his desk. His eyes had already retaken their cold, mocking air, but you tried appealing to the hypothetical inner-human in him anyway. “Do you have any Christmas traditions? A family you want to see? You must at least remember being a kid—how special the holidays are at that age. Dana has two kids waiting at home, and this is the only time of year Paul gets to see his nephews.”

“You think I give a shit about sob stories? They have a job to do. If they don’t like it, they can quit.”

“Fine”—Screw playing nice—“How about this: I can call HR about the porn on your work computer.”

He glowered back at you, appraising the sincerity of your threat. “The whole HR department is eating turkey right now. So, you can file a complaint on Monday. Maybe I get a warning? Won’t help you tonight. Sorry, sweetheart. Finish the motion, you can go home.” His piercing eyes stared at you, waiting. “Will that be all?”

Instead of retreating in an indignant huff as he full-well expected you to do, you shoved aside a handful of papers and the Scotch bottle to clear a spot on his desk, and sat on it so you were looking down on him, thoroughly invading his personal space. “What do you want? Why are you doing this? Don’t pretend it isn’t out of spite. Let me guess… you didn’t want to spend another Christmas alone getting sad-drunk on expensive whisky, so you decided to do this instead of pick up a hooker?”

He glared harshly but otherwise didn’t react.

“How about this? I’ll take one for the team and go drinking with you—just tell everyone else they can go home, Ebenezer.”

He rolled his eyes contemptuously and explained in no uncertain terms that that was not going to happen. But maybe it was your flirtatious body language, or the stubborn way you refused to back down, or that you weren’t intimidated by him like every other subordinate around here. Maybe he was just lonely. But you were irritating in a way he liked. And just desperate enough to do him a favor.

“If we left together, we would not be going out drinking,” he growled.

You rightly mistook it for an invitation to bed—because he deliberately intoned it as such to rile you up, so when you spat, “Fuck you!” he could feign innocent victimhood.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said. “I do have somewhere to be tonight—a family dinner. If you are serious about wanting to get me out of here, that’s where we’d go.” Of course, if you’d jumped at the offer to fuck him, he would have accepted that, too.

Now you were just confused. “You want… to take me to meet your parents? Why…?”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, already kicking himself for what he was about to tell you. But fuck it. You would have to find out if you were going to help, and he could use you and your massive balls to solve his little dilemma. Ovaries? Yeah. Your big brass ovaries.

“My parents are expecting me to show up with my long-term girlfriend. They have been... annoyingly eager to meet her tonight, and she just fucking dumped me.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry.” Being dumped sucked. Not that you’d ever take it out on a dozen coworkers, but assholes grieve differently. “How long were you together?”

“Three months.”

You blinked. “Oh my god, that is not a long-term relationship. Jesus, what standard are you going by? One-night stands?”

He bristled at the question, and you had a distinct impression that—yeah—the comparison was one-night stands.

“Irrelevant. I don’t want to spend the entire night fielding questions about what happened, sitting through my dad’s relationship advice, and dodging pitying glances.”

“So you invented a work emergency. Classy. Never thought I’d see the great Bryan Kneef, lady killer, on his knees over someone he dated for three months.

“I am not broken up about it,” he snapped. “I just don’t want to deal with the bullshit from my family. So, you want to get out of here? Pretend to be my date for a few hours. You don’t have a problem lying, do you? We can break up after New Year’s. Deal?”

“You’ll let everyone else go home?”

He protested and made a counter-offer, but after much bargaining and negotiation, he finally gave in and agreed to your terms.

And that was how you saved Christmas and became the unsung hero of the entire office. None of your coworkers would know the sacrifice you made for them, the awkward dinner you had to endure, or all of the illuminating secrets you would learn that night about the biggest asshole at the firm.

• ● • ━━━━━─ ••●•• ─━━━━━ • ● •

Tags:

@beccabarba / @caked-crusader / @itsjustmyfantasyroom / @thatesqcrush / @dianilaws / @permanentlydizzy / @mrsrafaelbarba / @madamsnape921 / @astrangegirlsmind

#Bryan Kneef #bryan kneef x reader #Raúl Esparza #thatesqcrush holiday bingo #my writing

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docholligay · 4 years

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Fx’s A Christmas Carol

This review/ramble was sponsored by @amberlilly, and has taken me quite awhile to do. It clocks in at being 6,400 words long, and oh my loving God. If you want to watch the Miniseries itself, you can find it on Hulu! PLEASE TELL ME IF YOU ENJOY

I love A Christmas Carol. This may seem strange to you, given that I am a Jew who pretty virulently hates Christmas, but it isn’t REALLY a Christmas story, it’s a moral fable about selfishness and greed and the inability to appreciate and see the softer and brighter things that bring no profit. It’s a fucking story that every asshole hoarding toilet paper needs to hear right now. It’s a favorite for always, I read it every year, and I have seen many, many versions of it, and I bring you all that “wisdom” in this lengthy review of FX’s effort this past Christmas.

Spoiler alert: I BASICALLY PICK APART THE ENTIRE MINISERIES.

The shortest possible version of this entire loping review: I really quite enjoyed FX’s A Christmas Carol, and that seems to be an unpopular opinion.

In the longer form:

“A gift is just a debt, unwritten but implied”

I have always felt that the finest form of recorded visual media is the miniseries. We, of course, do not call them miniseries any more, but, instead, ‘limited series’ or ‘a special event’ or somet stupid thing like that, for much the same reason I imagine we are now calling a station wagon a ‘full length hatchback’ because people are idiots, and you can’t sell something to someone if they don’t it is novel.

The miniseries allows the story time to breathe, allows for lingering thoughts and ideas in the way a two hour movie does not. And it avoids the worst of the TV show problem, where a show is punished for its own success by being forced to be mined like its fucking coal shale until there is absolutely nothing left, just some ugly polluted ground where a good idea used to be.

And so I was very delighted at the idea of a Christmas Carol miniseries.

Tonally, in broad strokes, it is much darker than the Christmas Carol you’re used to. This is a new Christmas Carol for a new period in time, and it tries to bring a lot of the genuine problems of the Scrooges of our modern day and transport them back to Victorian England. It does not in any way try to shield you from the fact that Scrooge is a man who thinks of nothing but profit, not of any human cost, and it does not rest upon anyone’s previous affections for A Christmas Carol. In fact, it would prefer that you deposit them at the door: This is a moral ghost story, this is not some warm Christmas good time for the family.

And I would prefer it this way! Many of my most hated versions of this story become that way by making too much light of what is meant to be a moral fable. Or centers the story too much around Christmas itself, which it is not meant to REALLY be about. Of course, the very wealthy and those who prefer to be blind to their role in the suffering of others prefer the version of the story where the main problem is “Scrooge doesn’t like Christmas” and so I can see why they would consider this version a negative. I, however, am going to immediately find a copy of this one to keep. This is the way businessmen are. This is the way the very wealthy are.

The “thesis statement” of this show, which sets it apart from many other adaptations, is something Scrooge says early on in the movie, I think it happens within the first ten or fifteen minutes (bolding, obviously, is mine):

“Behold. One day of the year. They all grin and greet each other when every other day they walk by with their faces in their collars.

You know, it makes me very sad to see all the lies that comes as surely as the snow this time of year. How many Merry Christmases are meant, and how many are lies? To pretend on one day of the year that the human beast is not a human beast. That it is possible we can all be transformed.

But if it were so--if it were possible for so many mortals to look at the calendar and transform from wolf to lamb--then why not every day?

Instead of one day good, and the rest bad, why not have everyone grinning at each other all year, and have one day of the year where we are all beasts, and pass each other by? Why not turn it around?”

I mean, I heard this and was like, “Why are you booing him, he’s right,” because he is right. I have often found that one of my frustrations with the ways people engage with a Christmas Carol is they forget the “try to keep it all the year” part of it, and it has nothing to do with fucking trees and parties, it has to do with generosity and kindness.

And this show goes in on that! SO LITTLE of what the show engages with is about Christmas at all, it’s a narrative setup, a collective mythology used to enact a moral tale, and I absolutely love that they actually went on what I feel is the core of A Christmas Carol.

I’ve broken this down in NOT broad strokes but categories, to try and make the most sense of my thoughts on the show and why and how I think they work.

On the subject of the ghosts:

I absolutely love and adore the way they handle the ghost of Christmas Past. I am never sure what I’m getting into when I’m watching a version of this story because the ghosts are handled so many different ways, and I love MANY of them, but it’s one of the most tweaked with ideas in any version. And I see why! There’s so much you can do with them.

Christmas Past they handle by having him change depending on where Scrooge is in his life, and the implication throughout is that he changes into whatever it was that scrooge needed in that time of his life, whatever he was seeking. With Ali Baba, it was escape, with the businessman, it was business, and they did all this with great actual care, up to an including having different actors play the different versions of the ghost of Christmas past. I’ve seen something like this done a few times (and have always been very fond of it) but if I recall correctly this may be the first time I’ve actually seen them go to the length of hiring different actors.

The sheer mockery Christmas Past makes of him is worth the adaptation in and of itself--Christmas Past feels little for him, and I’m brought to mind the scene where his father comes home drunk, and Scrooge begs, in a moment of weakness, oh please not this night, and the Ghost simply says, ‘Why not this night?” I really quite like the less nostalgic tone they took with Christmas Past versus other versions.

Christmas Present I thought was a bit of a letdown at first, just having his dead sister be the ghost, but when I was rewatching it, I realized that I liked it quite a bit more than I had in my first watching. Present is often the “easy” ghost, generally the one that is given the most positive sort of framing, and it’s not that they remove the positive framing here with Lottie, but they do tone it down a bit, and make it quite a bit more somber to be with her because we cannot remove what Scrooge has done to these lives. There is much less of the “cheerful, noble poor” rhetoric so common in the older novels (and at the time far more revolutionary) and far more of the reckoning that Scrooge has caused so much misery, but people have found a way around it, because they understand the value of other human beings.

I particularly love the way she takes what he’s learned from Christmas Past, the way he’s seen how he is constantly aiming to discover what the currency of everything is with his horrid and cruel behavior, what things COST people, and dismantles it, shows him wha t a fucking fool he is, and when he says she’s mocking him, she simply tells him “You mock yourself, putting a value to things that have no price” and for the fiurst time ever, it seems like he’s really getting it.

To those who miss the over-the-top cheer of Christmas Present, I might ask: “Do you miss the fucking THRASHING he gives Scrooge in the novel when it is removed? (as it is often?) Or does that just sort of...fritter away for you?”

Christmas Future is basically often/always the one note ghost for me and that’s to be expected given that the character has no lines and is of an amorphous shape, which writing wise is a genius move because the future itself is amorphous and can always be changed. That is, in fact, one of the lessons of a Christmas Carol, is it never too late. But of course, in media driven by the dialogue, without much chance for internal patter, it can falter a bit, and I think this is about the same here.I have no trouble with how the ghost was done, in any way, but it does not, for example, twist the spirit into something terribly interesting in the way the otherwise forgettable “A Diva's Christmas Carol” does by making it into a “behind the music” episode.

On the subject of Ebenezer Scrooge:

Some people seem to be really rather upset that Ebenezer isn’t played as some bumbling old curmudgeon, but is instead a callously cruel businessman who thinks of nothing but the pursuit of money. One review I read while writing this, looking for things to respond to, described him as an ‘anti-hero’ which made me extremely concerned for the human being writing the review, as I don’t think the show in any way makes Scrooge into any kind of a hero. There are certainly versions that do that by way of making him “the cleverest person in the room” (even my beloved Scrooged is guilty of this, and Mickey’s a Christmas Carol is almost inexcusably so.) but this isn’t what the show is doing here. He is a miserable man, and he delights in making others miserable, he is a man so desperate to prove that every person in this world is as miserable as he is that he orders about the world to make it so.

If you see an anti-hero in him, I am far, far, more concerned about you than I am about anything else.

He is more like actual billionaires than any version I’ve seen. His cost cutting, his destruction. He is perversely cruel and sees human beings as playtoys. He echoes far more than any version I have seen, the true appetites of the rich, and maybe this is why this version shines so much for me, and why so many others dislike it. It cuts to the bone, this Scrooge.

This show goes harder than other versions in many respects, and one of those respects is in Ebenezer’s childhood. His father is cruel in the novella, but really only glancing so, we hear little of his childhood at all, other than his father sent him away, and his sister had to wait for years to ask for him back. We must remember something: Dickens was writing on a tight timeline compared to his other works. I have no idea if he would have expanded on Scrooge’s past himself or not, but I certainly know he did not have the time and space to do so in his normal fashion.

The show does a really interesting thing with Ebenezer, in that it does not allow a monster to grow from nothing. Most monsters do not. This is by no way an excuse--I think the show makes that fairly clear--but it is an explanation. His sister gives him a mouse, a stray mouse, for Christmas, dressed up with a little bell and ribbon from one of her toys, and Ebenezer loves it, and his father, drunk and impoverished, kills it. It’s an intense and horrifying scene, and as with many of the things in this show, in accomplishes this while showing nearly nothing. The entire scene happens in shadow, but you feel the fear of Ebenezer as a child, how it affects him to this day, how he begs for it not to be this night. The show makes even more clear how central this was to his willful callousness, his desire to never be hurt, by explaining that his father did this to “Warn me against unprofitable affections”

I am now, and have always been, a sucker for a bit of writing that can allow for a character to be a monster, and also give a seed to plant that monstrosity, without forgiving them. It can be a delicate thread to weave, even more so with the way that people take characters, that sort of knee-jerk desire for a character to be either monstrous or abused, when, it can be both. Having cruelty enacted upon you does not forgive cruelty to others. I feel like show does a fairly decent job with this, reminding Ebenezer that his hated father affected him far more than the love of his sister, Lottie, or any promise of love in the future. He has shut himself off from love, and while he cannot be blamed for the cruelties of his father or the way he essentially sold him to a pedophile for free schooling, it was Scrooge who decided that all this meant his only way forward was counting. Numbers as wealth as his only true love.

Scrooge even tries to pull a tumblr in this way, looking at the abuse and telling the Ghost, ‘This excuses me” as if he should be let entirely off the hook, AS A GROWN ASS ADULT, for what happened to him as a child. Non non! And the Ghost sides with me in this, telling him, “You only see what was done to you, and not what was done for you” and may I please frame that? I love that they looked at this out in the script and went, “Oh, I’m gonna close that up”

They do this a second time, but not in a tumblr way, more in a reddit way, when Scrooge protests that whatever else he did to Mary Crachit, the money he gave to mary saved Tim’s life, and so, “if you view virtue purely through the consequence of an action rather than the motivation for said action we have just witnessed my former self doing a good thing.” (Me, watching this: I’m Jewish, I don’t do that even slightly.) and as the Ghost of Christmas Past goes to leave, Scrooge asks if he is forgiven, and Christmas Past yells, “It’s not about your forgiveness!” I love that in so many ways, they tie up what a person might argue in Scrooge’s favor, but Scrooge can’t see that forgiveness is nothing and change is everything.

Making Scrooge a venture capitalist was, to me, an absolute banner move. A new villain for a new age. Don’t get me wrong, moneylender is now and always will be a fantastic villain, but venture capitalists have ruined many things you’ve loved TO THIS DAY. They buy troubled businesses, that could be saved, and instead of trying to turn them around, they sell them for parts, get the last scrap of meat off them, and then crush them. I can think of three businesses this has happened to that I know of, off the top of my head, in my lifetime: Toys R Us, Cabelas, and Lucky’s. All could have been saved, some of them (Lucky’s) fairly easily. But that isn’t what people like Scrooge do.

The way they have him taken into the mine, to see what the cost cutting does to people, or the factory, burning and killing so many people, it allows us to really dwell in the HUMAN cost in a way that many versions shy away from outside of the Crachits. I think it’s very easy to go “Cutting costs hurt workers” but we often don’t really dwell in that, especially considering SHIT LIKE THIS IS STILL HAPPENING IN THE WORLD TODAY. Go look up conditions in Bangladeshi factories, how much do we really deserve H&M, you know?

A personal touch I very much loved: Scrooge cares about animals far more than people. I LOVE this is a fucking villainy trait. I think we all know that person! I hate that person! And I adore so much when Scrooge says, down in the mine that is about to kill workers, some of whom are children, that he tried not to think about the ponies, and the Ghost of Christmas Past basically goes: “Are you SHITTING ME? Did you never care about the MEN down here?” while also allowing for the fact that his covering up a cold horse in London is the only reason the ghosts believed there was something good in him at all.

On the Crachits:

Bob:

The first time I watched this, I was like, “Man, do I even like Bob in this?” because he’s so different from the usual portrayal of Bob Crachit as meek and mild. But upon my second watching I realized I was really only reacting to the difference in tone for Bob, and that I very much like that he is a simmering pot of resentment and hatred, serving under a terrible fucking boss who makes money hand over fist while he busts ass with no benefits or help for very little pay. WOW DOESN’T THAT SEEM RELEVANT TO OUR TIMES?

So yes, I very much changed my mind (this is why rewatching things is sometimes helpful for me) on the subject of Bob, and I think in this case he makes such a better standin for the average worker, for the way the system chews us up and spits us out and oh my god I want to give every rich boss I ever had Covid right now.

Mary:

Mary Crachit becomes a main character in this version of the story and I am absolutely taken with it. The way she does whatever it is she has to for her family, the way she is willing to lie and degrade herself in order to do so, up to and including being willing have sex with Scrooge (it does not actually happen, but the scene plays out) in order to save and protect her family, and never tell them where she got the money to save Tim’s life.

She lies to Bob about this! Forever! I struggled with where I wanted to put this because I talk more about it in relation to the storyline and the scene itself below, but I decided just to leave it with Mary herself, and the way that she really does make massive sacrifices in order to protect everyone in her family. She bears the shame and the indignity of what was done to her, what she chose to do to save Tim, without any regard for herself. Mary is the rock of the family so much more than Bob is in this telling.

She’s also inadvertently the one who saves Scrooge, wishing for and calling upon the spirits to show him what a piece of shit he is.

Tim:

Tiny Tim is no less a narrative device here than he is in other versions--that’s simply the function of TIny Tim. He’s the “puppy” of the story and we kill him off in order to tweak heartstrings and encourage changed behavior. They do make his disability more clearly defined in this one, and so things make a little bit more sense than they tend to in the original framing.

I also really quite loved the effect with him breaking through the ice, and how Scrooge has to see it from below, and watch it, and see TIm’s spirit and beg him himself not to die, but to stay with his parents, to no avail, I thought it was a clever take on something we’ve seen done over and over again.

Broader story changes:

The genuine spookiness.

This is not the only version of Christmas Carol I’ve seen that attempts to create a genuine sense of fear and creepiness out of the subject material, and it’s not even the one that I think is the scariest, but I do think it does a really excellent job of reminding you that this is a ghost story. There are good little details here and there, particularly in the lead up to Jacob’s visit, that allow for a genuine sense of fear, or at the very least the understanding of Ebenezer’s fear.

Outside of the doorknob incident, we also have the two coins, the exact same years as the ones Scrooge put over Marley’s eyes, drop down from the fireplace. This not only a good moment of spookiness that is difficult for Scrooge to explain away later, but it also gives us an early introduction to his obsession with numbers.

But my favorite comes after Bob leaves for the day, and on Scrooge’s ledger he sees scrawled, by no one or nothing that he knows, “PREPARE YE,” that would be enough in itself, ut then we have a lovely moment that really encapsulates the capacity for self-delusion. Scrooge looks at the clock, and asks the clock to make it four, because he refuses to leave his office early, but he desperately wants to leave. He changes the watch he carries, and then the world goes into shadow, and all of a sudden the clock chimes four. DId time move? WHo can know, but it unsettles Scrooge enough. It isn’t only creepy, either, but is a moment to show that Scrooge will not bend himself by leaving early, but instead he will remake the world as he sees it. He will change the watch and make it lie, and thus change the world.

The human cost of industry.

One of the greatest things I think this adaptation does, and I’m not going to go too far into here because I go into it all over the place in this look at the series, is taking into account the human cost of industry. I don’t even mean the scenes in the mines, or the scene with the factory on fire, although of course those too. I mean even scenes like where a man has just died, and they are pressing him to sell the factory at half of what it’s worth, only to immediately fire all the workers and sell off the factory for parts not but a day later. To flip it into immediate profit.

And we’re shown that he remembers nothing but the money he made off of all of it--the Ghost of Christmas Past has little effect on him, except as stage setting--and he runs off the numbers, remembering the profit he made of every single year, forgetting the workers, forgetting the people, forgetting what that money COST him, cost everyone.

When we see Scrooge as moneylender in a lot of other adaptations, it’s easy to forget that making a lot of money usually has a lot of human cost. People of good character often say, ‘If I were a billionaire” but if you are a person of good character, you never become a billionaire. What it takes to become a billionaire is the coldness, the selfishness, to not allow your rising tide to lift other boats, but to hoard, and to keep. There are no good billionaires.

Women are given shit to do in this version.

For all I love the original novella, and I do, it is a product of its time, and because it is a product of its time, the women are mostly accessories to the story. Not so with this version, which has really tried to course correct that little problem from the original.

With Lottie, not only to they have her save her brother, but then we have her become the ghost of Christmas Present, which I thik works really well as she seems to be the one person in his life Scrooge actually cared for and valued. He, a man who believed in nothing but money, paid for her funeral, and it’s a bit implied that with her death the last light of humanity went out of him. She saves Scrooge not once, but twice, when her sole job in the novella is essentially to show up at the school.

I talk about Mary Crachit in her own section, so I’m not going to go into it too much here, but this version made her a goddamn main character, and I love it. I think that opens up this story for so many things and ideas that I didn’t even know I wanted but clearly did, all the different expressions of love, some of which are not nice or warm. Mary is a driver of the story far more than Bob is in this version, and I absolutely love it.

The love inherent in sacrifice, and Scrooge’s blindness to it.

One major SWERVE this story takes is with the subject of Mary Crachit. Where, in the novella, she hates Ebenezer because he’s a fucking dick and that’s about the beginning and the end of it, in this miniseries, she hates him because he was so unbelieveably callously cruel. He used her for his own disgusting appetites, he used her to prove that all human decency has a cost.

It, like the mouse scene, is horrifying and uncomfortable, and I am very fond of it. It could have gone full rape no stars, but it doesn’t do that. It has Scrooge humiliate her, make it known that she was ready to do this, have her removed her clothes and stand before him, clutching the stays to herself. He doesn’t have sex with her, doesn’t sexually assualt her, tells her he isn’t even interested in that. Instead he picks apart, moment by moment, that she is a good Christian woman, that she loves her husband, that she considers herself faithful, and she is willing to sell herself for the thirty pounds (That’s around 4,700 USD today). It doesn’t matter that she’s doing it because her son needs immediate medical care, and Scrooge refused her offer of a loan as a “poor investment.” It’s terrifying, it’s humiliating, and it’s sadder yet because people with money are LIKE THIS. I could see this happening now, with little trouble. And the scene makes us sit with that cruelty without making it graphic, and in some ways I think that makes it worse, as it should be.

But, tying this to the scene where Lottie, without his knowledge, comes to get him and threatens to kill the man who is sexually abusing Ebenezer if he so much as tries to come after them, for all he sees, he does not see the love in this act. He does not see what it must have taken Lottie, after their father finally left them, to take up and come to get him, to break him out of that horrible place. He only sees that he was the victim here. In the same way, he cannot see the love inherent in Mary’s act. What it must take for her to lay down every single thing that she believes in, because above all else, she wants to save her son.

Which goes back to what I quoted at the beginning, a line I really loved for the sheer selfish cruelty of it: “ A gift is a debt, unwritten but implied.” So much of Scrooge’s ‘redemption’ in this version comes out his ability to learn that what his father says is in no way true. Lottie gave him the gift of freedom without asking anything of him, ever, so long as he lived, never even told him what she’d done. Mary never looks upon Tim with even the slightest bit of resentment for what she had to do to save his life.

Which sort of leads me to my next bit, which is not so much a different section as a corollary to this one: Destruction as a form of love. I could write a 2,000 word essay on this in and of itself, but this is already more than 5,000 words long, so I am not going to do that.

Leading off from the fact that Mary breaks her marriage vows and her vows to herself in order to save Tim, she also chooses to lie about it for the rest of her given life. She has no idea that a situation is going to come down where she’s going to have to tell Bob, she simply chooses, instead to bear her shame and hurt and terror alone, on some hand I’m sure because she thinks Bob will hate her but also because she knows that it will make Bob feel all the more preyed upon, that nothing in his life can be without the evil touch of Scrooge.

And so, she chooses this tearing, this negative thing, but she chooses it out of love, and much like when we see Lottie “like a highwayman” threaten to kill the man that hurt Scrooge, we learn that not all love is a beautiful and warm thing, and sometimes love is difficult and unlikeable and hard. Sometimes there is love to be had in the things of shadow, as well.

And in the end, when Scrooge destroys the ice sating rink so that Tim can’t fall through, that’s the idea that he can finally encompass this, that his love is total now, and it’s not just “scrooge gave everyone money” but SCROOGE LEARNED TO DESTROY THAT WHICH WAS TERRIBLE.

Which leads me to:

THE ENDING:

Let’s talk about all the things they change in the ending because there are a lot of them and I fully expected to hate that but it was very much that snake comic where it goes “I don’t like that thing”...”Oh no I love it.”

Scrooge’s ‘redemption’ doesn’t come out of him wishing that he wasn’t the one to die, or wish that everyone would not hate him so much and immediately forget him, but out of the ida that it doesn’t matter what happens to him so long as Tim is allowed to live. He finally lets go of that massive selfishness which allowed him to profit so very much, and to give himself over to whatever it is, to be tortured, to not be forgiven.

Because he knows he doesn’t deserve forgiveness, that he does not deserve redemption. He REFUSES redemption, he says he refuses to change because he refuses redemption, he refuses to not allow himself to be punished. “If redemption were to result in some kind of forgiveness than I do not want it” He finally owns his shit, because a large part of the point this miniseries is trying to drive home is that YOU are responsible for YOU, and no amount of excuse can let stand the horrible things we might do, or the things we let pass us by. I’m very into this, in a shock to literally no one.

The sign that he can be saved is that he does not wish to be saved at all.

And he does more, and better, than in the original, he gives Bob 500 pounds, yes, but also encourages him to take the better job he’s been offered, because Scrooge, in a true move of understanding what his greater evil is, is closing the entire company down, He is stopping the machine of destruction entirely instead of giving money to whoever he finds deserving and letting those he does not be chomped up by the machine. It’s a far greater sacrifice, a far more meaningful turnaround, than any version I’ce seen before.

Mary tells him it will not buy forgiveness, and he says, yes, good, I won’t trouble you. I didn’t know how badly I wanted an ending like this until I saw it before me, but it was everything I had ever wanted from this.

And then we, the viewing audience, all get called out at the very end, and it made a chill run down my spine and tears spring to my eyes in a way that really rarely happens to me but happens to me most when I feel “got” for lack of a better term.

Mary is looking out the window, and says “Sprits, Past, Present, and Future. There is still much to do.”

And then she looks directly at us. And the screen goes black. We are left not saying “Oh wow gee willickers, that Scrooge guy sure was nasty BUT” and instead go away with, “How have I been Scrooge in my daily life? How can I change?”and for me it was harrowing in the way I think all viewings and readings of A Christmas Carol should be, that we should always come away with the idea that we could be doing a better job, that some cruel Ebenezer waits inside all of us and we must constantly be working to root him out.

Very minor loves:

The idea that the greatst torture is to be locked in one’s coffin, and never allowed to die, and how one does not really require a hell in itself, as one has been conventiently provided to each man, women and child who requires it. Really clever. What is interesting in that, however, is that the show is somewhat harder on Marley. In the novella, he is driven to help Scrooge by way of their past friendship, by some humanity he’s found in death toward his old friend. In this, it’s essentially only to escape this hell.

Changing, “If they’re going to die, they’d better do it! And decrease the surplus population” to the very simple “then let them die” is something I didn’t expect to like--on the whole I am rather attached to the original line, but I think with the way they are trying to play Scrooge as more of a straight up villain and make this whole thing less of a ‘charming Christmas tale’ it really works.

I love the bit with Christmas past when they use the zoopraxiscope thing to project the images, and it’s his hat. There’s nothing deep about it, I just really like it as a touch.

People can be irredeemable, in their way: Lottie and Ebenezer’s father doesn’t turn kinder, the way he does in the novella, but just leaves, and so Lottie is free to bring him home. There’s no redemption for him. (I actually think this is really weakly handled in the novella despite my loving it)

I unfortunately have less talent for talking about visual stylings, but one thing I noticed within this movie is that it’s filmed ina lot of blues and greys, underscoring the whole darker tone of the story, and I really appreciated it.

Thank you for this fucking line, I cherished it and it’s place in the story so very fucking much: “Given my time again, I would not reduce the expenditure on timber. *long pause* Given the time again, I would not be myself.” It’s hard to get across in writing, when one is not turning their hand to it literarily, but it’s really this beautiful admission of guilt without being entirely some sobbing ridiculousness.

HIS THING WITH HORSES GETS EXPLAINED BY THE NARRATIVE THANK YOU OH MY GOD. I was so sure this was just going to be a sidenote thing but they remembered to follow up and I was very proud in that moment.

“Everything in life is a lesson if you care to learn” which I should have tattooed on my body as it is my exact framework of thought.

The observation of the Crachits and just that, “no matter what, nothing sinks them” was just something I enjoyed. (and am stealing)

I fucking loled when Ebenezer is excitedly gesturing to the Crachits after his new life, and looks at Martha and goes “whoever you are”

What I could have done without:

There are always MINOR nitpicks with any version, but one thing I’ll say that I considered rather major, and did not care for in the slightest, was all the dick-fucking around in the spirit realm with Marley. We could have buttoned that up right quick, and we didn’t, and there’s a huge gap in my notes where I’m just like, “Ah okay! I guess….we’re still here?” I think some of the ideas were sound but the execution was poor.

Sometimes I felt like the writing beat me over the head with the morality of what was going on but then I read reviews of it and was like, “Ah okay, I suppose these people are why that exists” so while for me I would like a bit more subtlety I suppose I understand why sometimes there cannot be.

IN CONCLUSION, AFTER MORE THAN 6,000 WORDS: I really quite liked this version of A Christmas Carol. It’s not a children’s version by any stretch of the imagination, but I don’t think a Christmas Carol is meant to be. I definitely will be coming back to this one, which makes it only one of a handful. It was a good recommendation for me, when I wasn’t sure I was going to watch it in the first place--there are so many versions of CC that I am still trying to get through--and I found that I really enjoyed it.

The focus on the morality of the situation and making great pains to decouple it from the holiday itself made this a much-needed refresher of the story for me that keeps more to what I think the original was GOING for (Source: literally all of Dickens’ writing on poverty) than the way it’s been twisted by our Capitalist Christmas Culture. I loved that the women were given more to do and an equal hand in the story, and there were a number of really lovely lines that will stick with me.

#Doc watches TV #doc watches things

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theliterateape · 3 years

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Unforging Marley's Chain: Redemption is Possible

By Don Hall

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost.

"I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"

Scrooge trembled more and more.

"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see nothing.

— A Christmas Carol

Dickens' tale of four ghosts visiting a greedy miser on Christmas Eve is one of those stories that traverses culture on some level and pervades our Western Cultural sensibilities in an almost all encompassing way. Everyone from Bill Murray to Chuck Jones has done some sort of spin on it.

While the concept of being shown, in no uncertain terms, that one will die and, if he is an unrepentant asshole in life, die alone and despised, is a motivator to not be such an asshole, it often pops into my head that if Scrooge simply didn't care about his legacy or was not afraid of death, the ghostly experiment wouldn't work.

I wonder if Donald Trump or Mitch McConnell watch A Christmas Carol and, if they do, they see themselves in Ebenezer Scrooge. I wonder if they spend 30 seconds pondering their own demise or simply disengage and somehow see themselves as the heroes of another spin, one where Scrooge's miserly ways were always correct and that Tiny Tim should just pull himself up by his meager bootstraps and stop hoping the State will bail him out? Does the possibility they may be the evil in the world even cross their minds?

I don't see myself in Scrooge much—not wealthy or particularly skin-flinty with dough—and I'm not Republican in any way. For me, it's those fucking chains of Marley that give me pause.

Link by link, and yard by yard. The chain we forge in life. I'm not a religious thinker but I do have a lingering suspicion that when we shuffle off, this is just one version of reality and that there is something... beyond. Even if there isn't and when we kick, we just become food for worms and particles of energy in the ever expanding cosmos, I think the idea that we forge a chain that we carry around with us in this life is helpful.

Unlike the current climate of Rage Profiteers, I also believe that once the chain is forged, those links can be unforged. Broken. Redeemed. Not through punishment (because punishment is never about rehabilitation or redemption—punishment is simply about vengeance) but through changing the course (like Scrooge) and rewriting the script one follows.

Not in a moral "Here's a Laundry List of the Shitty Things You Did" way, but in a "Here's a List of the People You Affected, Destroyed or Helped" way. That chain is comprised of the humanity you encounter, and each link is someone you turned your back upon or casually dismissed as unimportant. If there is something that resonates with me about the story of Jesus, it is the idea that anyone—anyone—could be Him. The homeless guy near the a Wilson stop. That obnoxious woman who thinks that your job is contingent on her satisfaction. The old timer who sits on his porch and complains about fluoride in the water being a Communist plot.

I have my chain. Sometimes I wonder how long and how heavy it is. If Dickens is to be heeded, however, each person you go out of your way to assist, to support, to help in large and small ways, unforges one of those links. And, at very the least, that's a goal to strive for.

#Charles Dickens #Scrooge #Jacob Marley's Chains #A Christmas Carol

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jacqueline-lindsdell · 4 years

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If your still taking asks for the drabbles could you do something with brotherly America and Australia? if you don't want to don't worry about it! btw your blog is great

I’m sorry this took so long! I spent awhile playing around with the idea and I had so much fun with it! I love getting to write characters just having fun with each other and so the brothers concept works so well. I couldn’t imagine this scenario without Canada, so i hope you don’t mind that he’s included! ((And thank you for complimenting my blog- feel free to come off anon and message me!)) Also, the fork thing? Based on personal experience, my sister and i forked our friend’s yard once and they still don’t know it was us.

It wasn’t supposed to be a two-shot but I lack self control so here we go

*****

“Right. You’re definitely doing that wrong.”

“Shut up! I know how to tp a house bro.”

“He’s right America, that’s not going to work.”

America jumped, “Jesus Matt, don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“I’ve been right here the whole time.” Canada sighed and rolled his eyes, then let another paper roll loose in the trees. “Alfred, why don’t you put the forks in the yard? Oz and I can handle the trees.” Alfred eagerly picked up the box of forks and set to work stabbing them in the ground, laughing wildly.

Australia groaned, “Oi! I swear to Christ if you wake him I’ll stab you with one of those.”

He stuck his tongue out and grabbed another fork. “Listen. England’s like, the heaviest sleeper I know, it’ll be fine! Stop worrying.” Australia and Canada shared a look before continuing their work on the house and trees, while America happily arranged the forks. He put the last one in the ground and stepped back to appraise his work. “Check it out guys! England’s totally going to flip when he reads what I-” he was cut off by a bright light on the porch turning on. Australia chucked the last of the paper over his shoulder and took off for his truck with Alfred close on his heels.

They were breathless with laughter, clambering in like their lives depended on it. Oz didn’t miss a beat- the second he was in the driver’s seat, keys were in the ignition, and they were off.

“DUDE THAT WAS SO CRAZY. I bet England is losing his SHIT right now.”

Australia laughed in response, “Wicked close, huh? Can’t wait to hear about it at the next meeting. Ice cream next?”

“Hell yeah dude! Midnight ice cream is the best!”

They rode in silence for a few seconds, relishing in the adrenaline and laughter. Then Australia spoke again, “I gotta say mate, I feel like I’m forgetting something. I grabbed my hat didn’t I?”

“Yeah, it’s right here. We just left the stuff behind.” There was another beat of silence before America finally gasped. “Oh shit man, didn’t we bring Canada?” Oz cursed loudly and immediately u-turned. They were barreling down the road back towards England’s house when they came across Canada jogging down the side of the road. America didn’t even wait for the truck to come to a complete stop, just flung the door open, and yanked him in.

“You guys-” *huff* “are” *huff* “complete assholes!” Canada leaned against the window, trying to catch his breath. America thumped him on the back, laughing.

“Chill out! We only forgot you for like five seconds!”

Canada glared back at him, “England could’ve seen me!”

Australia cackled, pushing his foot harder on the accelerator. “Don’t think so mate. You’ve got a knack for being invisible. Did you see him though?”

“Yeah, I did.” A grin was beginning to crack through Matthew’s annoyed expression. “Wish I’d gotten a picture. He came running out raising all sorts of hell. You know he still wears those old man pajamas?”

Alfred and Australia both yelled at the same time.

“You’re kidding!”

“No fucking way!”

And finally, Canada laughed and relaxed in his seat. “I’m not. The nightcap and everything. He looked like Ebenezer Scrooge.” They all laughed and Oz reached past Alfred to pat him on the shoulder.

“You did good Matt. We’re going to get ice cream to celebrate.”

***

Early the next morning in their hotel room, Alfred’s phone rang.

“Al.” Matt murmured, shoving him weakly. “Al answer your phone.” Alfred only replied with a groan. “Alfred.” Matthew’s voice was louder. “Your phone.”

Australia threw a pillow from the other bed, “Alfred answer the damn phone I’m trying to sleep!” When no response came, Oz finally got up and answered the phone himself. He couldn’t even get a greeting out before he heard the shouting. “Yeah Al, you’ve gotta take this.”

Finally Alfred blindly grabbed for the phone and put it to his ear. “What?”

“ALFRED F JONES YOU ARE AN ABSOLUTE PRICK. I RAISED YOU BETTER THAN THIS.” Alfred winced, pulling the phone from his ear a bit.

“Yo, England, dude. Don’t know what you’re talking about. Also trying to sleep.”

“Don’t play coy with me, I know it was you! You’d better march yourself over here this instant and clean up my yard!”

Alfred laughed anxiously, “Seriously Artie, dunno what you’re talking about.”

“DON”T YOU ‘ARTIE’ ME.” England let out a long stream of curses before continuing, “My home is covered in toilet paper and the phrase ‘Viva la France’ is written out in my yard in forks!”

“Then why are you calling me?! Obviously it was France who did it! We both know he totally likes pissing you off every chance he gets.” Matthew snorted at that and buried his face in his pillow.

There was a beat of silence. “France is spelled with a C not an S, you asshat. Now come clean up this mess.”

“Oh uh haha, my boss is calling. Gotta go man!” Alfred desperately ended the call despite England’s loud protests, then turned off his phone for good measure.

Canada was laughing into the pillows and Australia stared incredulously from the foot of the bed. “You fucking misspelled France?”

#submissions make me so happy #just boys being boys really #aph australia #aph america #aph canada #aph england #alfred f jones #matthew williams #arthur kirkland #ive been using Oz for australia??#hetalia fanfiction #requests #just things i say

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eleteo125 · 5 years

Text

12 Days of Christmas Challenge Day 5

@mha-xmas-challenge

Day 5: Snowed in Together/ “What are you—the Grinch?”

After helping Momo with her dilemma, Jiro went back to her room to enjoy her time alone. Just as she walked in her room she heard a loud explosion. She quickly went to her window to check it out and was greeted by the sight of Uraraka crying over most likely a snowman that Bakugo destroyed. That was enough evidence for her that no one is hurt so she returned in her room. She grabbed her guitar and started playing something Christmasy.

Time quickly flew by and she realized this when she felt her stomach rumble. The thought of food made her instantly think of the cookies Mina and Kirishima made. Jiro made her way down to the kitchen and saw Mina and Kirishima near the fireplace napping with an overwhelming amount of hot chocolate with them. She didn’t give it much of a thought and proceeded to the kitchen.

Mina and Kirishima ended up making more than enough for the whole class. There’s even a cupboard whose sole purpose is to keep jars and jars of cookies. And since there’s a lot more for everyone, Jiro decided to be selfish for a bit and grabbed a whole jar. She took out a cookie to eat on the way to her room and though to herself ‘This would be perfect with hot chocolate.’ And just as she thought of it, her gaze landed on the cups of hot chocolate in front of Mina and Kirishima.

‘I guess they wouldn’t mind if I take just one.’ Jiro wrote a note and left it in their view. When Jiro reached for one cup, her eye twitched when she saw that they also have a cup of hot chocolate in their hands. ‘Just how much hot chocolate could they need?’

“What are you doing?” Jiro flinched from surprise and quickly looked at the person who asked and saw that it was Kaminari

“Uh,” Kaminari looked at the jar of Christmas themed cookies then gazed at her hand who was reaching for a hot chocolate that clearly belonged to the sleeping pair.

“What are you—the Grinch?” he snickered at his comment “You tryin’ to steal Christmas from us? Oh Jiro that is so low.”

“What?! I wasn’t stealing!” she whisper yelled keeping the sleeping couple in mind.

“You stole those cookies.”

“The cookies are for everyone!”

“A whole jar though?”

“I wasn’t stealing! Get off my back!”

“You were about to steal that hot coco though.”

Jiro grabbed the note she made she made and showed it to Kaminari. “I told her that I took the other cup!”

“That’s not exactly permission though. Stealing Christmas is such a low move. Why are you so grumpy Ebenezer Scrooge?”

“Ok, now I’m a greedy asshole?”

“I mean, you do have a jar of cookies in your grasp.” He pointed at the jar in her arms “You were clearly planning on scarfing the whole thing in your room.”

“What do you want, dunce face?” she grumbled running out of patience

“Half of those cookies and a cup of coco.” He responded as soon as she asked “Oh and a jamming session.”

“Were you just waiting for the opportunity to make me split cookies with you?”

Kaminari scratched his nape with a sheepish smile “You beat me into stealing cookies.”

Jiro chuckled and scoffed at him “Fine,” she handed the jar of cookies to Kaminari and picked up two cups of hot chocolate. “Come on; let’s go practice your guitar skills. It’s become pretty shitty after the festival.”

“Hey, I still practice!”

“Not enough apparently,” She said heading for the stairs

“Hey, my guitar skills are not shitty!”

Jiro shoved a cookie in his mouth and asked “Who’s the music expert here?”

Kaminari whined in response and silently followed her to her room.

#jirou kyouka #kaminari denki #kamijirou #writing #day five #what are you-the grinch?#12-17-18 #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #mha #bnha

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settle-down-frohike · 7 years

Note

Will you please please rewrite the scene where Mulder tells Scully he's happy for her but he's just not sure where he fits in. Honestly your majestic writing abilities are the only thing that can fix it!!!!

Sorry!! Big long preface ahead!!! First, I must apologize to @scully-loves-ruthie upfront. This probably isn’t exactly what you asked for. I have a real inability to write against canon though I wish I could. Fic is a band-aid of sorts for me but I can only write (not read mind you, shove that AU up my ass all day I’ll love it) what could in some realm, be canon. I can’t dangle impossible perfection in front of myself or immerse myself in such a way as to write it, because it only reminds me of what can’t have, and then I get all morose about the way things are. So this isn’t a rewrite of this scene so much as it is me trying to babble away my confusion and former hatred for it and then exteding it to my liking. I utterly HATED this scene, and damn you, you made me watch it over and over and over and over. It was misery. But I have to thank you, because it was cathartic in a sense. It forced me to deal with my own feelings of blame toward Mulder for going off on his own and leaving Scully behind and find some empathy down in my cold dead heart. So I hope in light of all of this, I hope you will forgive me, friend.

Oh! and one more thing, the ever fabulous @kateyes224 wrote a true re-write of this scene a while back called Three Words More. If you want quality work, skip mine and read hers. :)

Sorry for the babbling. Tagging @fictober, @today-in-fic, and @always-angst

Sensory Integration

He hasn’t told her this for fear she’d have kept him incarcerated, but he’s still fighting waves of nausea induced by the sensation of free fall every few minutes. His stomach rolls end over end, as if on the downslope of a rollercoaster. His feet still don’t feel as if they’ve touched ground, which is ironic for a man who was 6 feet under its surface not 36 hours ago. He feels suspended above this world, tethered only by the clinical sound of her voice as she catalogues his condition. It is the only thing that feels like home right now, and God, he wants to be home, he does, but he’s an apparition, a ghost of himself, floating along a tour of his own life like Ebenezer Scrooge.

Only people don’t talk directly to ghosts about their scars and miraculous healing and their perfect health. They’ve been circling each other cautiously since she came to retrieve him this morning. He senses her restlessness and gets the distinct impression that she’s holding back from latching into him and falling apart. He’s grateful for her restraint, because he can’t handle sudden movements right now. If she were to approach too fast in his direction, he’d end up curled in the fetal position somewhere in a corner, protecting his vital organs. He doesn’t know how he knows this, he just does. He’s like one giant Pavlovian experiment.

Stimulus.

Response.

Repeat.

On the silent ride to his apartment, he keeps his gaze on the passing scenery. The feeling of forward motion relaxes him. In his peripheral he catches her cautious, fleeting glances, and wonders if she’s worried about him or expecting him to say something. An apology perhaps, but that’s probably just because he feels like he owes her one. There is at least that much of his former self left. He knows, on some level, that this is at least partly his fault. He left her to protect her, his intentions valiant, the result catastrophic. That too, at least, feels familiar.

The walk out of the elevator down his hallway is akin to a prisoner being led to his cell. He imagines the catcalls from either side. Wonders if they are similar to the whispers she must’ve endured in his absence.

“Hear that? Ol’ Spooky finally got what he always wanted– a ride in a spaceship!!”

“Typical asshole, right? He’d have made a shitty father anyway. Shame he had to knock her up before he took off this time.”

Had he, though? Does she assume he assumes it’s his? He knows her. Knows she’d have never pursued this again so quickly without him. Would she?With someone anonymous? Is it..he…she.. his?

The nausea assaults him once again at the door. A reckoning lies beyond, and he isn’t sure footed enough yet to do anything but react. He hopes for something else familiar to grasp on to once they walk in, the scent of burnt coffee or old laundry, dishes in the sink, but the echo of her heels on the hardwood is the only thing that registers. For a place that is full to the brim still of his possessions, the sound only reinforces the impression of emptiness. It seems to him now a shrine, a collection of things in memoriam. He has waited much too long to speak at this point he knows. He doesn’t want to frighten her. His pulse races in his ears.

Say.

Something.

“It looks different.” His voice doesn’t shake like he thought it would.

“It’s clean.” Her humor astounds him; it is without a trace of bitterness. He knows she is not angry, but at this point he would understand if she were exasperated. He’s drawn immediately to the serene glow of the tank and a fleeting bubble of giddy reunion rises in his chest, immediately followed by shame for not feeling the same around her. Again something is off, but in the right way. He recognizes something as missing, and it’s a relief.

“I’m missing a molly.”

“Yea,” she chuffs, “ she wasn’t as lucky as you.”

Dread floods his senses once more as well as the need to retch, so he sits awkwardly on the desk to steady himself and prevent swaying on his feet. Being under the gun used to be what made him thrive, and now he just wants to hide. But she is being so intolerably patient there fiddling with the key he gave her in an act of good faith, and the pressure of owing her the same.. something.. everything, is weighing on him now.

“Mulder…” there is the faintest trace of impatience in her tone now, for which he cannot blame her, but the numbness he feels only serves to allow the blankest of stares in her direction. She continues to narrate an abbreviated, watered-down recollection of her experience and he is drifting again, the rope to which he is attached to this world suddenly stretching, fraying and unraveling, because this isn’t her. She’s lying by omission on his behalf. She knows damn well he knows exactly what it was like. But she’s flailing, trying desperately to pull him to her by playing on his propensity for compassion. This particular shade of cheap manipulation isn’t her color, and even she is struggling with it. She wants so desperately to connect with him right now, even if it is only by the shared recollection of what it is like to be utterly devastated and reborn by the absence and presence of another. Her words muddle and blur until,

“…And now to have to you back, it….” He isn’t so devoid of sensitivity not to catch the slight glimmer of tears as she trails off. But he is in no condition to provide comfort to anyone right now.

“You act like you’re surprised.” His old instincts are kicking in automatically, for which he is grateful, deflection by sarcasm is his default setting. But her response is so genuine that it smothers any relief he felt having had any words to say at all.

“I prayed a lot.”

He has always wondered himself worthy of her prayers, whether she would allow herself to pray to a god she holds in such reverence {the same one that he has punished with indifference for so long} to grant him, a nonbeliever of all things, mercy. But pray she did.

“And my prayers have been answered.”

The incredulity in the way she says it tells him she is just as astounded as he. Had she ever felt him worthy? Or was it sheer desperation that drove her to her knees?

The elephant in the room is in fact no elephant at all, the evidence of her pregnancy only now making its way into his consciousness, her firm rounded belly at such stark contrast to the exhausted slump of her shoulders and rest of her anxious, wired form. She is so beautiful to him still. Incandescent skin, and longer hair all signs that physically, she is flourishing. But her countenance is all wrong. She is like a tree branch in winter, drained and brittle on the surface, new life burgeoning beneath.

“In more ways than one.” He makes a feeble motion toward her middle. There. He’s acknowledged it. The band-aid is off. She glances down as if she herself is only noticing her condition just now. A slew of unexpected emotions tighten his throat. Fear. Elation. Possessiveness. Resentment. Curiosity. Scully is pregnant. Very. She even waddles. He chuckles inwardly at her maternity slacks’ indention beneath her blouse.

Scully shopping for maternity clothing.

The thought is at once light and unfathomably depressing at the same time.

“Yea.” Now even she sounds like she would be grateful for a quip, but she is capable of nothing but earnestness at the moment.

“I’m happy for you.” He wonders if she caught the catch in his voice just now. Internally he is in free fall, his stomach is swirling and his heart is racing.

His appendages are numb and the entire room is spinning. He nips at the side of his mouth enough to bring pain, enough to center his thoughts to continue,

“I think I know…how much that means to you.” The phrase feels slimy and bitter on his tongue. When she was sick–and the unexpected recollection of that time pierces his gut like a forgotten splinter—the cancer was always a ‘that.’ The fact that he has just referred to her pregnancy as such feels so utterly wrong. He’s made her granted wish sound like an incurable condition, and he hates himself for it. He knows he’s dissociating. He knows the term, his education coming back to him like pieces of a puzzle, falling into place at random.

“Mulder…” Oh God, that voice. Whispered and rich with the emotion that only those that pray can posses. It’s a thousand moments before the apology he’s demanding of himself is tumbling from his mouth in an almost juvenile, petulant fashion.

“I’m sorry…” he shakes his head in an effort to regroup, “I don’t mean to be cold or ungrateful I just…I have no idea where I fit in…right now.” He’s purging. Words that have been festering for days now are pouring forth, like pus from a wound, a necessity towards healing but grotesque nonetheless. The look on her face is searing and utter in its despair. She is unquestionably disappointed. Nothing, none of this is going like she thought, as she’d hoped, and it’s evident in a way that is so uncharacteristic of her usual aplomb.

He could blame hormones for rendering her so unusually transparent, But that would be too convenient. The truth is that the strife of the day-to-day without him has worn her threadbare. She has only her naked self to give now, and all that it may entail. Herself and someone else.

Jesus. Someone else.

Painful enlightenment forces him to soften his earlier declaration of despondency with practiced analysis. She looks as though if she speaks, she will cry. And he won’t do that to her.

“I just uh…I’m having a little trouble processing…everything.” And though basic and uncouth, it feels like the most organic thing he’s expressed yet. This, at least, is unadulterated truth. He beings to speak again, having felt like he’s gained at least some ground but she interrupts him.

“I um…” her gaze is on the floor and her expression is incredulous. It seems she too, is struggling to process, “I…I need a minute I’m sorry..” he rises out of instinct to go to her but she holds up her hand in reproach and escapes towards his bedroom. Like Pavlov’s dog, she elicits an classically conditioned response by her motion and he stays, dutiful, waiting on his next command.

He can’t help but notice the protective way she cradles her unborn as she hurries away.

In his heart of hearts he knows that this child is his. How many times on the couch in this room? One memory in particular comes unbidden. The salt and tang of the succulent flesh between her legs, pummeling into her and the helpless yelp of his given name triggering his instant release. He’d wanted her to get pregnant that night. Many times. Felt he could will it into existence beyond reason. He could make their own miracle, faith be damned, if he fucked her hard enough, came hard enough. He’d wanted to brand her from the inside out. Damned right he’d wanted this.

What is it they say about having everything you ever wanted? If he lost it now, would that feel like freedom? Is that why he wants so desperately to run right now? He wants darkness, and quiet, and constant noise. He wants to be left alone and held and he wants mostly not to feel as though he’s just jumped from a plane with no parachute and no notion of when or if he will land. His stomach pitches again, causing him to salivate.

The flush of the toilet brings him to attention and she returns, slightly flushed and with composure clearly only gained within the last few moments. She hadn’t noticed the last smear of her mascara. He’s made her cry, and he kicks himself internally. She doesn’t resume her place on the other side of the room though. She continues slowly, and purposefully to him, but she does not reach out. His heart thuds against his ribcage and he swallows against the fear of her next words. She fears them herself, its evident in the way she takes a calming breath and speaks to his clavicle.

“I need you know Mulder,”

Oh God. It’s mine isn’t it….. It isn’t mine. She’s about to tell me. This is it…

She swallows her apprehension and continues, “I know what it’s like…to come back…from an experience and feel…out of place.” Her name begins to form on his mouth. Her gaze is still cast carefully downward but ever the empath, she interrupts his sensed rebuttal and continues, forcing him to listen.

“But I need you to know,” and with those words her eyes fix upon his own. He remembers her now. Knows this look. Her eyes are wide enough that he notices the whites of them glisten. They are brimming with integrity and honesty and deep, abiding love.

Their history crashes over him in waves, roaring above the static of his confusion. Like wedded vows, her words ring pure and true and timeless, the look on her face then the same as it is now.

“I’m not a part of any agenda…you’ve got to trust me…”

“Mulder I wouldn’t put myself on the line for anybody but you..”

“I just knew….”

“Mulder *fight* him…”

“I wouldn’t change a day.”

“Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only to what we know of it…”

“If we quit now, they win…”

“ …personal interest is all that I have. And if you take that away than there is no reason for me to continue.”

“And you are mine…”

A heaviness surrounds him, a soothing, gentle, bone-deep pressure. It pulls him downwards, the centrifugal force of her gaze pitching him into the dark pool of her iris and he feels finally, finally grounded, secure in memory and the totality of gravity, the finality of arrival.

“…when you are ready, I’ll be here,” She pauses, “we’ll be here.”

Tactile sensation has found its way back, and he realizes that his palms have subconsciously come to rest on the ripened crest of her form. He feels the roll and flutter of life beneath; it is as real and tangible as it is supposed to be. It feels like hope.

#prompts #fic requests #my fic #season 8 #three words #scene re-write #angst fic #rating: R #fictober week 3 #i never intended for it to be this long?#it got away from me

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