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immacaria · 3 years

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Eternity

Here comes the Day 3 with the prompt ‘Eternity’ from Beetober 2021 from @bloody-bee-tea! I took inspiration from this prompt of @mingcheng-prompts too and I kind od made myself cry a little but okay! Tears are mostly good, according to my sib and my mom. Anyways this is one is actually Mingcheng and it’s a reincarnation AU. The word count is 2504 words. This being said, I hope you guys enjoy this and stay safe and healthy!

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When it happened the first time, it was confusing and he was called crazy by some and a dreamer by others. Whispers that the gods had cursed him with the memories of the past went behind his back, ones that were sure that he had been too bad in his previous life and that death was a too easy escape for him. Not that Jiang Cheng didn’t agree with it all, he did, but he was angry at the gods nonetheless.

Because he had suffered in his previous life too, he had lost so many things already and now he had to live with the same memories as before. His siblings’ laugh and his nephew’s radiant smile, his best friend’s dramatic acts and his husband’s sleepy faces everyday in the morning right after he woke up. Now he had to live not only with the memories of his crimes, but with the memories of what could never be again. Maybe he had been too bad before and he did deserve all of it now.

But, as the lives passed, the memories built up, not fading or mixing as he expected them to. Jiang Cheng still remembered Wei Wuxian’s corny jokes that didn’t make sense anymore and Nie Mingjue’s little screams every time one of the younger disciples appeared out of nowhere and scared him. But, now, he remembered his mother in his second life, Liu Xiaotong, and her loud laugh and big hugs and the way his younger brother in his fourth life, Shen Yuan, had the bad habit of climbing trees to the highest branches and scaring the passersby with his screams too and he was happy did.

Every one of them had its happy moments and laughs, but they had hardships too, some more than others. He starved and suffered from the cold in some of them, always trying to give a more comfortable life to his younger siblings and cousins, and in others he was killed even before he could reach the adult age, sometimes for being rich and others as a punishment for his parents. All of them left memories behind, good or bad, and Jiang Cheng still prayed in every one of them that he would forget at least some of them.

He never did, though. So he tried to ignore them and more on with his life - or lives - until whatever sadistic and bastard god above tired out of playing with him and let him actually die. Or, at least, forget some of the memories. But, at some point,trying to ignore didn’t have any more effects and he was forced to face all that stayed behind, all the pain, all the despair and traumas.

But sometimes that countless memories came in hand, let it be as an instinct from a previous life or a memory from a historical moment he lived - because, yes, he ended up in some really fucked up moments - through and needed the knowledge. Even if he lost count of how many lives he had lived and the memories sometimes got mixed up, Still, every now and then, it was good to have the memories and Jiang Cheng almost thanked whatever sadistic god above for them.

Only, almost but if it was for him to thank anything it was the few times where he saw familiar faces around. Most of the time it was only one or two faces and he generally wasn’t connected at all to them. But, sometimes, he would reincarnate as a family member of one of them and his heart would always ache with the past memories and the hope of them remembering anything from the past. There was a time where he was born as Jiang Yanli’s older brother, Jin Zixuan was their neighbour and the whole time he was waiting for Wei Wuxian to appear too with his corny jokes and loud laugh but he never did.

It happened other times too, sometimes with both his siblings or just one of them, sometimes their dynamics changed way too much and others not so much. Everybody had appeared in his life one more time, from Yu Ziyuan to Jiang Yanli and Lan Xichen to Nie Huaisang, everybody minus Nie Mingjue. No matter how many times he searched, looked around and hoped, his husband would never be where he thought or even pass by him in the street just for him to see him one more time. But it never happened and, with his luck, it never would.

For example, this new life of his had everybody from his first life, but he was still to find Nie Mingjue. He was born as Jiang Yanli’s twin brother, Wei Wuxian’s older cousin - though the boy was raised as their brother - and the “second'' son of Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian because Yanli was born two minutes before him. Funny enough, at least for him, it was actually Jin Zixuan who had a crush on his sister first and acted like a fool.

Meng Yao was still Jin Zixuan’s brother, though he was raised as his cousin, and was the one to take his siblings out of their father’s reach. He and Lan Xichen were dating since high school and it was their fault that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji met and Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng were suffering now. Still, there were only two things that managed to surprise him in this new life: 1. After his parents divorced and his mother married Wen Zhuliu, of all people she could choose, she actually changed from that bitter and angered woman to someone happier and easier to deal with, someone that actually tried to understand others, and 2. There was something strange in the air, something off that he really couldn’t see, but if he had to guess, it would be the fact that literally everyone from his first life was there.

He discovered it soon enough, though. It was Saturday and they were making barbecue in his mother’s backyard - an activity he never thought he would see Yu Ziyuan participating in - when he discovered what it was. Unfortunately, it was hope. Hope that Nie Mingjue was among them and well, even if he didn’t remember anything, hope that this time he would at least see his husband dimples again. After all, this was too the first time that everyone from his first life was alive at the same time.

“Cheng-ge! Cheng-ge!” Wei Wuxian screamed from the other side of the backyard, waving his arms excitedly. He was near the pool Wen Zhuliu had built for Yu Ziyuan and was wearing a black swimming shorts with white little ghosts all over it with tattoo sleeves running down his arms. “Look at this!” He smiled and fear ran down Jiang Cheng’s spine as he realized that he was going to jump.

“Wei Wuxian, don’t you da-...” He said, getting up from the wood bench he was laying down on and going to the pool as his idiot brother did a black flip and almost hit his head on the pool edge. “Shit.” He took a deep breath, squeezing the tip of his nose.

“Did you see it, Cheng-ge?” He appeared near him, smiling widely and looking like a wet rat, a very cute one, but a wet rat nonetheless.

“You are looking like a wet rat and of course I saw it. It was rad.” He sighed, rolling his eyes and squatting near him. “Who taught you that though?”

“Lan Zhan!” He chirped, before disappearing under the water again and swimming again. Jiang Cheng looked over his shoulder to where Lan Wangji was helping his brother and Jin Zixuan on the grill with his ears reddening as Lan Xichen giggled beside him. Maybe another murder will make me finally die for real and the gods will be tired of me., he thought as he got up and started walking up to where the psychopath that Wei Wuxian called boyfriend was.

Fortunately for Wangji, his death was delayed as Nie Huaisang appeared from inside the house with a big and red thermal box in hands and screaming his name like he was being murdered. “Jiang-xiong! I’m so sorry I’m late, really, really sorry! But, look! I made moon cakes and baozi!”

“If you think you can make me forget and forgive your delay with food, you are…” He started before his sister interrupted him, coming from absolutely nowhere and taking the thermal box from Huaisang’s hands.

“Absolutely right! Thank you for them, A-Sang!” Jiang Yanli smiled, before elbowing him in the ribs and angrily muttering. “Shut up, don’t be rude. Or I’ll kill you if you make him go away with these buns.” He only scrunched his nose back at her, putting his tongue out as she walked to where her boyfriend was, with her face all scrunched up and tongue out too.

“Why are you late, anyways?” He said, rolling his eyes as Yanli’s giggles reached his ears and Huaisang smiled at him knowingly. The little bastard knew way too well that his twin would kill him if he was rude to him.

“I went to get my brother at the airport. Hope that you don’t mind that he came too. His apartment isn’t ready yet and I think it will be good for him to meet some new people.” He shrugged, pointing over his shoulder and completely ignorant to the way that Jiang Cheng’s heart missed a beat and hope threatened to grab his neck and suffocate him as he waited - No, prayed - for Mingjue to appear at the same at the same path his brother did with all his glory and hellish dimples that rendered him stupid whenever he smiled.

“You have a brother?” He whispered, hand fisting at his shorts as he tried to swallow down the knot on his throat.

“Yeah, his name is Nie Mingjue, he is my older brother. He was out to the United States these last years but he’s back now and doesn’t plan to leave any time soon again.” He said happily, lightening up at the thought of his brother staying and Jiang Cheng felt his head light as his vision went white.

When he could see again, the first thing he saw was Wei Wuxian's wet face staring down at him with wide and fearful eyes and dripping water on his face. If he was still able to, he would have scared himself, but instantly he just groaned and tried to move just to notice that he was leaning in the ground. He felt his face heat up as he noticed that everybody on the barbecue was around him and looking at him with worried eyes.

"What the hell, Jiang-xiong?" He heard Nie Huaisang say as he covered his face with a hand and got up. That's when he felt strong and oh, so familiar hands wrap up against waist.

"I don't remember you fading so easily, my heart." Nie Mingjue joked when he turned around quickly, both their eyes shiny with unshed tears and Jiang Cheng let out a laugh as he launched himself at him.

"You asshole! This is your fault!" His arms hugged his neck and he hid his face on his neck, taking deep breaths and relaxing against him. "Do you know how much I missed you? How much I waited for you?"

"I don't, but if it's half as I did, I can tell you that you didn't deserve to suffer all of this hurt alone." Nie Mingjue said against his hair, kissing his head. "But I think that first we have to explain to your family why you are crying and clinging to me."

"Oh! Right." Jiang Cheng sniffed, turning around to meet his sister's amused look, his brother's angry glare, his stepfather's inquisitive gaze and his mother's unimpressed face. "Well, shit."

"Well, shit, indeed, Jiang-xiong!" Nie Huaisang said, throwing his hands in the air before pointing at Mingjue's face. "Did you fuck my best friend, Da-ge? When did you fuck my best friend, Da-ge?!" Behind him, Wei Wuxian's glare turned downright murderous and Yanli's got a lot less amused and a lot more angry.

"What the hell, Nie-xiong? Shouldn't you be saying that to Jiang Cheng?" Mo Xuanyu said, looking over Jin Zixuan's shoulder with a raised eyebrow.

"No! Because I'm stuck with Da-ge, but I can still lose Jiang-xiong and I will not risk it because my brother fucked him." He waved his finger at him again. "Now, answer me, did you fuck my best friend?"

"Did you?" Wei Wuxian growled, making Jiang Cheng facepalm as Nie Mingjue leaned in his ear and whispered.

"I fear my life now."

"As you should." Jiang Yanli said and Jiang Cheng started to laugh loudly, hiding his face on his husband's neck.

♡

"So your mother is now married to Wen Zhuliu? The one that used to melt golden cores back in the day?" Nie Mingjue said, hugging his waist and leaning back on the headboard of his bed. After the barbecue, many explanations and threats to Nie Mingjue's life, they decided to go back to Nie Mingjue's apartment and just relax the rest of the day. And catch up with each other too. "And your father is still an asshole?"

"Yes, yes and yes. And I'm Yanli's twin brother. Fraternal. And Wei Wuxian's older cousin, though we were raised like siblings." Jiang Cheng said, putting his head back on his shoulder. "Meng Yao and Zixuan have only seven months of difference between them and Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji are identical twins, I think."

"And A-Sang is only three years younger than me. And my parents are alive, the three of them." He added, putting his own head on his. "How many lives have you lived, my heart?"

"Too many to count and too little to actually forget." He answered, closing his eyes and intertwining his fingers. "But I estimate something along twenty or twenty-two. What about you?"

"Same answer, but I could say that I had only fourteen or eighteen." He shrugged and Jiang Cheng squeezed his hands. "I guess that dying from qi deviation holds the reincarnation for some time."

"Oh, my soul." He turned around, sitting on Mingjue's thighs and holding his face. Slowly, he kissed the corner of his mouth, his cheek, the tip of his nose, his eyes and finally his mouth. "We are together again. That's what matters." He whispered against his mouth, caressing his cheeks with his thumbs.

"Yes, we're going to be fine now." Nie Mingjue whispered back, hugging him tight and pulling him down to the bed. He was right, they were together now and they were going to be fine because even if he kept reincarnating and keeping all his memories, they would still have each other's memories to keep them going until they were together again. Because they would be together for as many lives as they could and, if possible, for all eternity.

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stereklibrary · 6 years

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Hiya, I was wondering if you had any high school sterek?x

YES! I love a good High School AU (and to be honest, I had a hard time choosing) - here are some of my favourites

I also have a High School AU tag

Have fun reading!

#librarynerd by yodasyoyo (1/1 | 7,742 | T)

“I’ll likely get far more done in the group if I’m not distracted watching you with your pen—”

“My—My pen?”

“Pens. Drinking straws. Don’t act like you don’t know,” Derek says darkly. “You know.”

In which Stiles follows Scott into his Spanish study group, takes one look at the hot nerd who runs it and then decides to stay… even though he doesn’t actually speak Spanish.

the nerd party by bibliosexual (3/3 | 6,827 | T)

Until this moment, Stiles wasn’t even sure Derek could read, and now he’s trying to steal Stiles’ obscure eight-hundred-page fantasy novel. What.

Option C) Some Bad Guys are Werewolves, but Not All Werewolves are Bad Guys by calrissian18 (1/1 | 9,039 | T)

Derek Hale—the Incredible Meat that Thinks—needs a math tutor. Stiles Stilinski needs something that will look better on his college applications than ‘passable D&D Dungeon Master.’

It’s a match made in heaven. Er, right?

Strut on a Line, its Discord and Rhyme by xiaq (21/21 | 61,818 | T)

“Carry me,” Stiles says.

“No.”

“But I’m injured.”

“You have a rash,” Derek says. “On your arm. Your feet work just fine.”

“Please?”

“No. You weigh almost as much as I do. And you ate a pound of chicken at lunch.”

“Well, yeah, but I pooped like an hour ago, so.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Don’t play, you love me.”

I do, Derek thinks, relatively horrified. I really do.

And Then There Is No Mystery Left (Baby, I’m Sweet On You) by Swing Set in December (1/1 | 1,104 | T)

Stiles has no idea why Derek is sitting at his lunch table.

you love the hate that we share by bibliosexual (1/1 | 5,745 | T)

Maybe it’s petty — okay, it most definitely is — but it just irritates Stiles that the universe makes people like Derek Hale. He’s practically superhuman at lacrosse; he’s been blessed by the puberty gods with stubble and muscles on top of muscles and not a pimple in sight; he spouts off effortless monologues in Spanish class while Stiles is still struggling to remember how to say “Can you repeat that?”; he could probably make a killing as a male model; and when he asked Lydia to study with him, she said yes. Like, seriously, what the fuck.

Easy Alpha by interropunct (1/1 | 4,602 | T)

Easy A/Teen Wolf AU. Wherein, Derek Hale is the high school hussy, Jackson and Scott really need to learn to use their inside voices. And, contrary to popular belief, everyone is still a virgin.

I stopped believing in happy endings by otatop (2/2 | 8,531 | NR)

Derek was prepared to have his heart broken for just one evening with Stiles. He knew what he was getting himself into

(He had no idea what he was getting himself into)

(I Hate to Be) The One to Ruin the Night by wishingonalightningbolt (2/2 | 14,550 | E)

High school senior Derek Hale only has one goal for the rest of his time left at BHHS: avoid Stiles Stilinski. He’s wreaked enough havoc as it is, having spent all summer breaking Derek’s heart. Everything would be better for both of them if they just never saw each other again.

Derek doesn’t plan on ever getting mixed up with Scott McCall and his little gang of idiot friends. In fact, if he knew to avoid it, he would, but he guesses he just isn’t smart enough. Unfortunate, considering the consequences.

The Socioeconomic Repercussions of Mutually Assured Destruction by alocalband (1/1 | 15,285 | E)

“The trouble with having the kind of brain that likes to write essays on male circumcision for an Economics class, is that it also likes to turn PowerPoint presentations for Biology into odes on the perfection of notorious bad boy Derek Hale’s backside.”

When You’re Close I Feel the Sparks by Leslie_Knope (4/4 | 15,285 | M)

The guy is hot as hell, sure—leather jacket and glasses, Jesus, be still Stiles’ poor, bisexual, beating heart—but more importantly, it must really suck being new on the first day of senior year.

“We’re adopting him,” he decides, tugging Scott and Kira by the elbow in that direction. “Let’s go.”

Someone Please Murder Dr. Wyne by NotRoyalty (2/2 | 2,873 | NR)

Stiles starts asking questions in the margins of his chemistry textbook because that thing couldn’t be more confusing, and then someone starts leaving answers.

Talk Geeky to Me by stilesanderek (1/1 | 19,874 | E)

Derek and Stiles are the most typical combo of nerd plus geek two teenage boys could be; and as stereotypical as they could ever get, they’re each other’s only friend. That usually doesn’t bother Stiles much, Derek is the best best friend he could ever hope to have, but sometimes when he thinks about his fate of possibly not having his first kiss until college, he starts wishing he had a few more friends–or at least more people who were a bit more interested in him other than when they need to copy his notes.

In a fit of curiosity about how kissing feels like, Stiles proposes Derek that they each be the other’s first kiss–strictly platonic, of course. But afterwards, Stiles can’t stop noticing how hot Derek is, can’t stop thinking about kissing and touching him.

The five times Derek and Stiles “fake” kiss and one time they take things further.

Binomial Coefficients by DevilDoll (1/1 | 20,783 | T)

In which brainy freshman Stiles Stilinski wants star quarterback Derek Hale to join the math team, AKA math nerds in love.

the lunch table configuration by thepsychicclam (1/1 | 16,677 | E)

When Isaac makes Derek switch lunch tables, the last thing Derek expected was to fall for Stiles.

The Sound of My Heart by orphan_account (4/4 | 8,654 | T)

Stiles is bored.

It always happens this time of year. It’s the middle of August, summer is winding to a close, and he’s run out of things to distract him. He’s marathoned Buffy four times and as much as he loves it, Spike is starting to be a little less charming and a little more irritating. It’s also not helping that Scott barely has enough time to separate his lips from Allison’s to tell him he can’t hang out.

Scott is officially the worst best friend ever.

In which Stiles meets Derek at the police station

A Thousand Fiery Suns of Angst - Just Press Play by apocryphal (1/1 | 20,934 | T)

All Stiles wants from life is to learn to control his magic, keep his grades up, and not die horribly while saving Beacon Hills from supernatural threats. It’s all going pretty well until Derek Hale, werewolf extraordinaire, has to go and ask him on a date. That asshole.

Just the Same by ericaismeg (7/7 | 68,066 | G)

Something is seriously up with the captain of the lacrosse team. There’s just no way Derek Hale is human.“I was wondering if you’re even human. You move so quickly. I mean, it’s ridiculously fast. No human should be able to move that fast, y'know? It’s unfair for us. I mean, it’s obvious you work out, and I don’t, so that could be why, but like…I was just wondering if you were human, that’s all.”

“Stop talking, Stilinski, or I'll—”

“Put me on the bench all season?” Stiles asks knowing full well that Derek Hale can’t threaten him with shit.

loving him is red by allhalethekings (1/1 | 14,915 | M)

“Who’s that?” Stiles asks, eyes not leaving the table.

“Who?” Scott asks, following Stiles’s line of sight. “Him? That’s Derek Hale. And you better forget about him. He doesn’t date.“

Practice Makes Perfect by blacktofade (1/1 | 21,061 | E)

In his sophomore year, Stiles gets dragged to lacrosse tryouts by Scott and ends up practising alongside the senior captain, Derek Hale. Stiles just wants to live long enough to become a junior.

#sterek #fic rec #ask #high school #rec list #emmausher

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onceuponamirror · 7 years

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the winged beast [6/12]

Fandom: Riverdale

Ships: Betty x Jughead, Archie x Veronica (background)

Chapters: 6/12

Summary:

This is how the world ends, she thinks. Not with a bang but with a motorcycle.

[serpent!au] [read on Ao3 from the beginning] [2] [3] [4] [5] [character design]

Betty, at least, was able to rule out Jason on Saturday morning, when she, without much delicacy, had asked Polly if she’d heard from Jason. Polly said she had; apparently he’d been drunk texting her all night and by breakfast, he’d sent an equal amount of flustered apologies. Her sister had said this all with pursed lips, and Betty filed away the reaction for later.

It’d been a huge relief; if it wasn’t Jason, it wasn’t her fault. Still, it was a reassurance she felt at odds with, given that just because Jason was okay, didn’t mean someone else was.

But she doesn’t have to wait long to find out; the news breaks on Saturday night.

When no one had heard from Moose Mason for 24 hours, Reggie Mantle had apparently confirmed it with the football team; he himself had tried resuscitating Moose until the paramedics arrived. Betty found out through Kevin, who already knew, but waited until it was publicly on twitter that Moose had been hurt before passing the news.

“I mean, I saw him like half an hour before,” Kevin says on the phone that night, his voice shaky. “I think he might’ve been trying to get me to have a threesome? Like? He was being so weird and out of it. I should’ve known something was up. I was so shocked that I just walked away but what if that was the last…” Kevin sucks in a gulp of air and trails off.

“It’s definitely not your fault, Kev,” Betty says softly, though she thinks about how stressed she’d been about Jason a few hours before and knows words probably mean nothing to Kevin right now. “There was no way you could’ve known.”

“Speaking of…none of us are supposed to know about this, by the way,” he adds, after a minute. His voice is stiff, and Betty can tell he’s probably still beating himself up. “My dad wants to wait for an official press conference. But he told me this morning. It’s…really bad, Betty.”

“Bad how?” Betty rolls over on her bed to grab her diary. She feels a sting of guilt with herself for jumping into journalist mode, but decides the truth is more important than tact. She raises her pencil to the paper.

Kevin pauses, choosing his words. When he speaks, his voice is very small. “He died, Betty. On the way to the hospital.”

She feels all the air leave her lungs and drops her pencil. “He…what? Died? I thought he was just…sick, or something. What happened? How?”

“My dad wouldn’t tell me, but I don’t think it was…uh, natural causes,” Kevin says. “Crap, I hear him coming. I gotta go, Betty. I’ll see you Monday. And don’t tell anyone,” he adds, and then the line is dead.

He died. Kevin’s words echo, almost mockingly. Moose Mason? Dead? It wasn’t as if she knew Moose particularly well, but she’s also known him her entire life. His entire life, she thinks with a sickening crunch to her stomach.

Betty closes her eyes and tries to retrace the moments at the base of the stairs. Joaquin running down the hall, someone yelling that Moose wasn’t breathing, Veronica and Archie arriving, the paramedics upstairs and shouting symptoms…they’d said something, a word she’d heard before. Some kind of medical term, maybe?

She exhales slowly, and when it finally feels like her lungs have nothing left in them, she blinks up at the ceiling. It doesn’t seem real. She saw him in class yesterday; she’d helped him spell the word scholastic. She feels sick; it’s one thing to abstractly investigate accidents and deaths on the other side of town, and it’s another to know someone taken by it.

Nibbling on her lip, she reaches over for her phone. She pulls Jughead up in her contacts and stares at the last conversation they’d had on Friday before the party.

Alright, I just watched 10 Things I Hate About You. It was so predictable!

That means you liked it :)

Does not

You like predictable

Can we keep the psychoanalysis off the table for once thank you very much

But then, a few minutes later, he’d sent:

I guess I see the appeal though

Betty stares at the exchange. Jughead does like predictability, despite whatever devil-may-care image he’s spent however long finely crafting. He may claim to be a cinema buff and a lover of creative integrity, but almost all of his favorite films have the exact same plot trajectory:

Character enters the mystery, then a reluctant partnership, a death or two halfway through to raise the stakes, followed by a big twist, followed by an ending that is somehow as satisfying as it is bittersweet.

She blinks back to the ceiling. If her life were a film, would last night have been the twist, or was the arc so obvious it couldn’t have been? Was this all foreshadowed by her obsession with finding the truth about the south side? Was this the moment that raised the stakes?

Or was a boy just dead?

The thought brings her soundly back into the moment. Her fingers hover over the keyboard of her phone, reading and rereading Jughead’s last text.

What she really wants to say is Hey, so what the fuck but that feels both too heavy and too joking somehow. Plus she’s not sure he’s ever heard her swear in the first place and the shock alone might distract him from the fact that she’s being serious.

But what would she say? Ask him what the hell Joaquin was doing fleeing the scene of what ended up being a death? That would feel accusatory and she doesn’t want to indict Jughead or even Joaquin of anything. After all Jughead opened up about people from the south side being stereotyped, and she just drops the blame on him or his friends without waiting for the full story?

No, she won’t insult Jughead by insinuating that.

So she settles on I have your leather jacket. She’s never seen him without it; she likes to imagine he has a closet full of them, like some cartoon character with only one outfit, but given the well-loved scuffing on this one, she doubts it. Anyway, she figures it’ll be easier to talk about this in person than try to navigate via text.

Do you want me to bring it to you? Meet at Pop’s?

About an hour later, and she still hadn’t gotten a response.

Or I’ll just bring it to school on Monday, whatever’s easiest.

Still nothing, and reluctantly Betty puts her phone aside to get ready for bed. Is he mad at her? Did she do something wrong? After her panic attack in the bushes of the Mantle mansion, the rest of the night had continued in such a haze that she barely remembers driving everyone home, but she tries to rack her brain for something she might’ve said to Jughead to upset him.

He’d tried to tell her something and she had shut him down, expecting it’d been the long-time-coming talk about boundaries and feelings. But Jughead doesn't seem like a guy who enjoys confrontation, and Betty would think he’d be relieved at dodging the “I have a girlfriend” talk.

Betty wonders if she should just be direct and ask him point blank if he knows anything. She remembers the terror on Joaquin’s face and Sabrina cursing madly down the stairs, but Jughead had seemed just as confused as she had been.

So why was he ignoring her?

She gets under the covers and pulls them tight up against her chin. There’s murmuring downstairs and the creak of her parents moving around, and Betty stares at the stick-on-stars on her ceiling and remembers tracing the constellations in the stars outside the party. She’d felt so happy then, if just for a fleeting moment.

She closes her eyes and thinks about Moose Mason.

Sunday drags on with glacial pace; this means two things. One, that no one else yet knows that Moose Mason, lovable high school linebacker, everyone’s All-American buddy, is dead.

Two, that her mother doesn’t know.

Part of her appreciates the day as the quiet before the storm, because once word reaches her classmates and especially once it reaches her mother and the town paper, it’s going to be hell. The north side of Riverdale has thus far happily kept horse-blinders on, but to lose one of their own is surely going to break the dam, especially if Moose didn't die naturally.

Naloxone.

She sits upright in bed. The word comes to her in a flash, in a blinding memory of chaos and screams. “He’s hypoxic! Pupils dilated! Ready the naloxone!” The paramedic shouted, and Betty blinks. She hasn’t heard that word before, she’s read it.

She picks up her laptop and types it into the search bar. Naloxone, she reads, is the drug administered to people who have overdosed; it’s especially useful for those who OD on fentanyl because it’s so easy to over do.

Moose overdosed, she thinks, her mouth falling open. She clam shells her laptop shut and lets out the breath she didn’t know she was holding. On fentanyl? Moose Mason?

Fentanyl is not a drug typically found at the keggers of rich kids; it’s rough, and gritty. Cocaine, she could see. Prescription drugs, definitely. But her research has taught her fentanyl is typically cut into heroin, if anything, and that gives Betty pause, but she's not sure if it's her own unconscious prejudice about what an overdose should “look like” or if is this genuinely suspicious.

She picks up her pencil and diary, her thoughts swirling. But after about ten minutes, Betty realizes she has just been staring at a blank page the whole time, and decides she’s not going to get anywhere with writing out her thoughts today, so she puts it aside and crawls over to her window perch.

Archie is sitting in his chair at his own window, spinning left and right as he juggles a worn-looking football between his hands. He looks up when Betty settles into her own seat, and moves to open his window. She does the same.

“How are you doing?” He asks, settling on his elbows.

With a pang of guilt, Betty realizes she’s been kind of neglectful of her friendship with Archie lately in lieu of time with the newspaper and, if she’s being honest with herself, with Jughead. But Archie has been equally busy with football and music and neither of them have made much of an effort lately. Betty makes a mental note to set aside some time for him.

“I’m okay,” Betty lies, forcing a light smile. “Thinking about Friday night though.”

“Me too,” Archie says, looking forlorn. “I keep trying to go through the people I saw at the party and the last time I saw them.” He pauses. “Who do you think it was?”

Betty bites her lip. Kevin had told her not to say anything and given the radio silence from Veronica too, she assumes he hasn’t told anyone but her. And she loves Archie, and while he’s decent at keeping secrets on his own, the minute someone presses him on it, he caves. He can’t lie to save his skin and telling him is too risky.

“I don’t know,” she says quietly, deciding not to pass the buck, “but I have a really bad feeling about this, Archie. Like it’s only going to get worse.”

Archie nods. “I feel it too. But I don’t…I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just…this weird heaviness, like it’s in the air or something. Does that make sense?”

It makes more sense than Archie probably realizes. Betty tucks her chin down and nods, glancing across the room to her wardrobe, where Jughead’s jacket is currently hidden, tucked away like some dark, living, breathing secret. She exhales, long and slow, and meets Archie’s gaze one last time.

These violent delights have violent ends, she thinks.

Betty wakes earlier than normal on Monday morning; truthfully, her sleep was fitful and tossing, so it’s not too difficult to roll out of bed at 5 A.M. and dress for an early run. She slips out of the house and heads out into a jog around the block. She’s exhausted, but her heart hasn’t stopped hammering since Friday, and the anxiety masquerading as adrenaline pushes her steps into long, lean strides.

She pounds into the cement, hoping to chase a burn that will soothe her churning thoughts, but after about 40 minutes, she realizes she can’t literally outrun her feelings, and she heads back home.

Her mother is bustling about in the kitchen when she returns. Alice looks up when she hears Betty approaching. “You’re up early,” she says, in the pleased voice she always uses when she’s impressed with Betty pushing herself. “Get a good run in?”

“Yeah,” Betty says, still breathing heavily. “I’m gonna go shower.”

Her mother nods and returns to her morning mantra of preparing pancakes and coffee. Betty watches her mother work for a moment, almost robotically, like some kind of pre-Feminine Mystique housewife going through the motions.

As she's heading up the stairs, Betty hears the phone ring, followed by her mother answering it quietly. It's a little early for a phone call, Betty thinks, but dismisses it once she's out of earshot.

After her shower, Betty forgoes breakfast and heads straight to school; she wants to get there early, before anyone else, to get some work done on the paper, because she has a feeling that the day is going to be nothing short of a tempest once school starts. The police won’t be able to contain this secret much longer.

When she arrives at the Blue & Gold, she checks her phone again, but there’s still nothing from Jughead. Sighing, she hangs his leather jacket on the coat rack. It’d barely fit in her backpack this morning, and practically weighed as much as her old cat, but there was no way she was gonna let her mother see her sneaking out the door with a big black leather jacket in hand.

Betty sighs and settles down in front of her laptop. She doesn’t really know what she’s looking for, and technically this is just her own theory, but something still feels very suspicious about the combination of an all-star football player and a dangerous drug like fentanyl. She spends the next hour or two reading up about rise in overdoses across the country—there apparently is no shortage of small town horror stories much like their own.

Riverdale isn’t special, she realizes, and then feels naïve for not looking at this as indicative of a larger, national problem. Still, there's not much that reassures her about the conflicting depictions of fentanyl use and the image of Moose Mason.

After she’s read so many articles that her eyes start to cross, she slams her laptop shut and puts her forehead in her hands. She hears people mulling about outside the room; students have started arriving like a gathering flock of scavenging birds, circling ominously over a wounded animal.

Betty sighs, and decides to use the remaining minutes before the first bell to get a few things out of her locker. When she returns, there’s someone standing in front of the corkboard, and she has a brief moment of relief where she thinks it might be Jughead.

It’s not.

Agent Drew looks over his shoulder at her, his face serious, before glancing once more to the wall of clippings and index cards with theories. His eyes linger on the center card for FENTANYL.

He traces his eyes around the room, moving slowly, and reaches the collection of Nancy Drew novels stacked on a shelf. He runs his fingers over them contemplatively.

“You like Nancy Drew?” He asks with a small smile. Betty returns it awkwardly and nods, her mind still playing catch up with the fact that there’s an FBI agent in her newspaper office. “Me too. I always used to get teased for reading the Nancy books instead of the Hardy Boys, but, well, I liked her best.”

“Because of your last name?” Betty asks, without really thinking first.

“Sort of the other way around,” he says evasively, clearing his throat and straightening. “Anyway. Miss Cooper, when we last spoke, you mentioned a few things I would like to follow up on. Would you mind answering a few more questions for me? We don’t have to go to the station; we can do this right here.”

The first bell tolls between them, but neither move.

“I know my rights, sir,” she says, raising her chin in the air, in an act that looks more defiant than she feels. “You can’t question me without a parent.”

He smiles, and runs a smoothing hand over his already crisp suit jacket. In the warm yellow light of the Blue & Gold office, Agent Drew looks a lot younger and friendlier than he had on Friday night. “Miss Cooper—may I call you Elizabeth?”

“I go by Betty,” she says, in a shaky exhale.

“Betty, then. You’re not under arrest, or even in any trouble. This isn’t a custodial setting and we can stop at any time. If there were charges being laid, of course we would have a parent or a guardian present, but I just have a few qualifying questions.”

She shifts from one foot to another. He looks at her, eyebrows creasing. “Gauging from the generous collection of mystery novels and the set up on that corkboard, I get the sense that you’re someone looking for the truth. Well, I am too. That’s why I’m here.”

She considers him. She thinks about what Jughead would say if he were here; probably warn her about not trusting authority figures or something with a casual conspiracy theory about capitalist police states.

But Jughead isn’t here, and has been ignoring her for days now. Why should she care what he’d say? She stares at the coat rack where she’d hung his leather jacket this morning, thinking he’d want it back today.

“If you would like anyone here with you, you are more than welcome to it, and I’ll happily wait,” he adds, with a small smile.

“No, it’s okay,” she says hesitantly. Despite a growing wariness of law enforcement ever since Jughead entered her life, there is something trustworthy about Agent Drew. He doesn’t seem any less business-like, but in the light of day, he has almost a paternal air to him, despite the fact that he can’t be more than in his late 20s.

Agent Drew crosses the room to the door, which he closes gently. Betty takes her usual seat, and he slips into the one across from her; the place where Jughead usually sits. She’d been upset that he’d skipped school again today, but now she’s desperately hoping he doesn’t change his mind and stays away.

He hauls a heavy-looking briefcase onto the desk, and begins sorting through it. He pulls out a manila folder and that familiar little black notebook, and aligns them together so that they’re perfectly straight and parallel.

He opens up the folder and clears his throat. “As this information will be released to the public shortly, if not already, I should tell you that Mr. Marmaduke Mason, otherwise known as Moose, passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning.”

He glances up at Betty, watching her carefully for her reaction, so Betty feigns shock, her mouth falling open. She’s not sure she convinces him, because he narrows his eyes before moving on.

“This morning I received the toxicology report from the autopsy of Mr. Mason,” he says, and Betty feels a shiver at the word autopsy. “And, along with a few other things, there was a fair amount of the opioid known as fentanyl in his system. Now that I’m seeing your…er, corkboard, I’m wondering if you have anything you’d like to share with me in that regard. What made you suspect the overdoses on the south side were linked to fentanyl? As far as I know, that wasn’t published anywhere.”

“My friend Jughead suggested it,” Betty says cautiously. “He works with me on the school paper.”

“Ah,” Agent Drew sighs, opening up his little notebook and flipping through it. “Right, right. Mr. Jones. I ran the names that you gave me, and unfortunately, it poses a bit of a dilemma.”

Betty bristles. He reaches back into his briefcase and withdraws an identical envelope. He scans his eyes over the papers briefly and begins to read.

“Joaquin DeSantos, the one who you said placed the first 911 call, has been arrested on multiple accounts of vandalism over the years. Sabrina Spellman has been in so many fights it’s amazing she’s still upright. And your friend Jughead Jones was once held in juvenile court for trying to burn down his elementary school.”

He puts the folder down and crosses his arms over it. “All three are known Southside Serpents. I’m afraid that doesn’t bode well, given I’ve learned they fled the scene shortly after Mr. Mason was found and that Mr. DeSantos was seen leaning over Mr. Mason by a witness.”

He looks up at Betty, and she’s surprised to see he looks more resigned than anything.

Known Serpent, she thinks. All three are known Southside Serpents, she hears Agent Drew’s voice echoing. Trying to burn down his elementary school.

That couldn’t be right. Why hadn’t Jughead told her? How could he have kept that from her? Did he think she’d care? Judge him?

She feels hurt—beyond hurt, maybe—but she doesn't have time to unpack that. She tries to keep her attention on Agent Drew. Her nails breach the skin of her palms in an attempt at focusing.

“That might all be true, sir, but I don’t think it’s them or the Serpents who are selling the fentanyl. I think they’ve been getting targeted for refusing to. There have been a lot of motorcycle accidents and people being run off the road, and bricks going through windows, and—”

“Betty, please,” Agent Drew says calmly. “I’m not accusing the Southside Serpents of anything. To be frank with you, I know that the local police department here would very much like it to be that simple. It’d be a neat little bow to tie everything together and would get the mayor’s office off their backs. I’m a bit of an unpopular guy right now for suggesting otherwise, but I agree with you in that there seems to be a pattern here.”

He sighs, and busies himself with readjusting his files. “But I’ve gotten very off topic. Betty, the reason I actually wanted to speak with you today is because of your friend Veronica Lodge.”

Betty blinks. She pauses, not sure she’s heard him right. “What?”

“Betty, are you aware that Veronica’s father is currently awaiting trial in a federal penitentiary?” He asks, pen poised over the notebook once more.

“I mean…yeah, but for like, tax evasion, right? It’s not like he was arrested for murder.”

Agent Drew smiles, but it’s more of a grimace than anything. “That would be Al Capone. Though that’s not too far off base,” he adds, more to himself. He immediately looks frustrated with himself, and sighs, straightening. “Betty, has Veronica ever mentioned anything about her father to you?”

It’s one thing to help Agent Drew with the investigation into Moose’s death, and it’s another to start pointing fingers at her friends. She opens her mouth to tell him just that, but doesn’t get a chance to, because the door flies open with such a force that both of them jump in their seats.

“Elizabeth, stop talking,” someone says, and Betty looks up to see her mother storming across the room. She throws her purse down on a desk, her face red with rage. “Who the hell do you think you are, questioning my daughter without a parent or a lawyer in the room?”

“Mom, what the hell?”

Agent Drew bolts upright from his chair. “Ma’am, please, I just had a few questions for your daughter regarding my investigation. It’s perfectly within legal realms. I assure you she is in no trouble; I informed her that she had the option of awaiting guardianship—”

“I’d like to see some credentials,” Alice snaps. “And get your name, so that I can report it to your supervisor immediately.”

“Of course,” Agent Drew says, and quickly retrieves his identification badge. “Special Agent Charles Drew with the FBI.”

Alice stares at Agent Drew for a long, hard moment, her expression odd and pinched.

“Mom, how did you even know he was here?” Betty asks, and it’s as if a spell was broken. Alice inhales and turns to her daughter.

“I happened to have a meeting with Principal Weatherbee today regarding Homecoming. He mentioned to me that the FBI were on the grounds conducting interviews and, well, I saw you two through the door window.”

Betty knows her mother well enough to read between the lines; that means her mother pressed Weatherbee into a corner for information and then she immediately went stalking off for a scoop.

Alice turns to Agent Drew with appraising eyes. “What exactly is the nature of your investigation?”

“I’m sorry Mrs. Cooper, I’m afraid I can’t speak to the details of an ongoing case, however, beyond the fact that I’m now the primary investigator into Mr. Mason’s death this weekend.”

The revelation that a student died doesn't seem to shock Alice particularly, which means she must've learned about it this morning.

Betty looks at her. Her mother seems stuck between a rock and a hard place, perhaps warring with her instinct to needle for information and her desire to shelter her daughter from it. “And just how long has the FBI been involved here?” She asks, squinting at him.

“Details of the case will be made public after it’s closed, or until otherwise seen fit,” Agent Drew says, almost robotically. “Mrs. Cooper, I’ve done my research into this town, and I am aware that you and your husband run the town’s local newspaper, so unfortunately, you’ll have to wait for an official press conference to get your questions in.”

His lips twitch, just barely, and Betty realizes that actually might’ve been a joke.

“Fine,” Alice sniffs. “Now, if you have any more questions for my daughter, you can contact our lawyer. You’re done here.”

Agent Drew doesn’t seem particularly surprised that this is the conclusion of a helicopter parent storming into his interview. He gives her one last studying look before packing up his briefcase. “I’ll be in touch,” he says, and slips away.

Alice turns her eyes on Betty. “What was he asking you about?” She asks sharply. “I heard him mention Veronica Lodge’s name. I told you what I think of that girl. She’s not your friend.”

“Stop it!” Betty shouts. “You don’t even know her! Why are you so obsessed with this…witch-hunt with her and her family, when you should be talking about what’s really going on in this town?”

Alice crosses her arms and looks over at the corkboard. “What’s really going on in this town? You mean your flirtation with the high school newspaper? Elizabeth, please. Those gangbangers don’t care about you or any of us; why would you care about them? They made their bed and they’ll sleep in it as far as I’m concerned.”

Betty stares at her mother with horror. “Why are you like this?” She asks after a moment. “I mean, god Mom, what did they ever do to you?”

Alice just presses her lips together and looks back at the corkboard, her eyebrows creasing.

“People like you treat them like second-class citizens but they’re just as much part of Riverdale as we are. Just because they don’t fit into your Stepford fantasy doesn’t mean they aren’t,” Betty says, raising her chin into the air.

Her mother scoffs, though she looks noticeably ruffled. “Betty, this is hardly so Shakespearean. We’re not Capulets and Montagues. I’m perfectly sure there are some good people on the south side, but the fact of the matter is, I can say with certainty that a lot of them are gangbanging drug dealers. You of all people should know that by now, after what happened on Friday night, but you’ll see tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Betty repeats. “What’s happening tomorrow?”

“Your father and I are running a story about this boy’s death and the little Serpent that was seen standing over his body,” Alice says, staring out the window. She glances back at Betty sharply. “Or is that not what happened?”

“That—that’s you twisting it!” Betty sputters. “We don’t have all the facts, we have no idea what happened or how Moose got the drugs. You know, Jughead said—”

“Jug-head? Who is Jug-head?”

Betty realizes her mistake immediately. “He’s…he works with me on the school paper.”

“What an unusual name,” her mother muses suspiciously. “Hard to think there’s more than one Jughead in this town. Would he be the same Jughead Jones of south-side-proper that Reggie Mantle listed as being at the party?”

“He had nothing to do with what happened to Moose,” Betty says quickly. “He was with me all night.”

Alice hums; she has the same expression that Betty makes when she’s filing something away for later. Then she sighs, her whole posture deflating a little.

“Betty, you do remember that Reggie Mantle’s father owns half the share of the Register, correct? And then there’s party thrown by his son, apparently unbeknownst to them, and it ends in a boy’s death. Needless to say, it doesn’t look good for an upstanding family to have an overdose under their roof.”

“But...”

“Do you realize the kind of pressure Mr. Mantle is putting on us to write about the culprits who dealt the drugs or brought them onto his property?” Alice snaps, looking suddenly very tired.

“But that doesn’t mean you should just start scapegoating the easiest target—”

Her mother turns to her, arms crossed. Her icy resolve seems to be melting a bit as she straightens.

“Betty, you wanted us to start talking about overdoses and drugs, and now we are. You wanted us to talk about the south side, and now we are. You don’t always get what you want the way you want it,” she says, and Betty is surprised to find the softness there, nestled in between a thoughtful frown.

Alice turns her attention back to the window. She almost looks sad now. “There are things I never wanted for you, honey, but I had to learn my lesson about Pandora’s box the hard way. And it seems you do too.”

#bughead #bughead fanfiction #betty cooper #jughead jones #riverdale #honestly i've passed 25k words on this and i'm having a hernia #HOW #WHY #WHEN #WHERE #HOW AGAIN #fics

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lightraker · 7 years

Text

Du He Tao

Those of us who went to Eric’s book launch have a head start on this one. Because here he told us that this was written for his girlfriend and the title refers to walnut gambling in China. Identical walnuts (or as similar as possible) are very valuable. They are used, I think, for playing with in your hand to relax you like those balls. I just typed in “relaxing hand balls” into google and apparently those metal ones are Chinese and they’re actually called “baotang balls”. So the more similar the two walnuts are, the more valuable. There is a practice of paying a set price before the walnuts’ green coverings are removed as a kind of gambling on whether you’ll get a matching pair which would be worth more than you’ve paid. We can see that there’s a nice metaphor for dating or starting to go out with someone and taking a chance on whether you’ll fit together. It’s interesting that it comes straight after “Tact” which is kind of about how you shouldn’t be too similar.

Eric runs through an amazing array of metaphors linked to this. So we have sciencey/atomic, DIY, bomb-disposal, safe-cracking, bird-pecking, gambling, computer-language, biological/medical sort of, but not strictly, section by section.

“When I’m all hulled up” - Eric draws out a nice metaphor for the single man being confined in his walnut or way of life or bachelor pad and love makes its way in.

“Husky” - having an outer shell, or having a sexy voice. I hope Anne-Laure doesn’t mind it if I suggest that this may refer to her sexy French voice.

“the heartnut aches” - heart nut is the seed of a Japanese walnut. Also an allusion to the opening of Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale “My heart aches”.

“You ground around it lick” - In China, apparently, experts have a better chance of spotting identical pairs. However, I saw nothing about them licking them. I’ve been quite taken aback by how surprised everyone seems to be about my sexual readings of the first two poems. So I’m just going to leave you with the image of the buyer putting their lips around the two walnuts. And say nothing more.

“Give lip… flushed over… quite tight”. Nothing more to say. Nothing at all.

“Fetch Felix… Radical Squad, Trojans.. long walk” - This is about bomb disposal. The first bomb squad (in New York in the earlier 20th Century dealing with mafia since you ask) were called the Radical Squad. Felix means lucky in Latin and is the name of the unofficial mascot of bomb disposal. Trojan is a mine-clearing vehicle. And the long walk is a phrase used about bomb disposal. And we see this metaphor in the verse with “hair-triggers… trip-wire”.

“With ink from crushed walnuts” this is what Da Vinci used in his notebooks.

“a foetus in utero” - Da Vinci did draw one of these. But also in keeping with the walnut image.

“If there is no love, what then?” a quote from Da Vinci in prison (enclosed) for sodomy.

“Ectoderm” - outer skin.

“brain-pan” - skull.

“Passerine” an order of birds. Passer is the latin for sparrow. This section moves more to the image of a bird pecking at a nut.

“A man’s house is his castle and each man’s home, his safest refuge”. This is a quote from Edward Coke, an Elizabethan Lawyer, so right up Eric’s street. I was wondering where the second bit came from, but that’s the whole quote. I think now we move into the idea of your girlfriend moving in with you. If you let someone into your house, they’re going to change things.

T5 to T8 - I’m not sure this can be right, but this seems to refer to a type of lighting strength. Certainly I still have energy efficient lightbulbs in my flat that date back to when I had a more-ecologically minded boyfriend move in with me. So, you know, this bit really spoke to me.

“Pericardium” membrane enclosing the heart.

“Epicardium” - membrane which forms the innermost layer of the pericardium.

“Myocardium” - muscular tissue of heart.

“Endocardium” membrane which lines the chambers of the heart.

“Ventricle” - cavity of the heart. (I think we get what kind of stuff is going on in this section).

“seventy-two times per minute” - heart beat? But why 21,000? STOP PRESS. I cheated and asked Eric. It's the number of nerve receptors in the human epiderm (he thinks)?

Vena Cava - the name of the vein that runs from the heart.

Chordae - tendons in your heart, known as the “Heartstrings”. I’d never really thought that would be an actual thing that was your heartstring. Huh.

“O, O, O” - what is this? I can only think of the Wasteland (O O O O that Shakespeherian rag).

“Peterman” - slang for safe cracker. We get a heist theme in this section like Eric’s walnut is a safe waiting to be cracked.

“Bertha’s Gift and Home Furnishings”. The Hole in the Wall gang were caught breaking into here, it’s a store in Las Vegas, in 1981. They were called the Hole in the Wall gang because… yup.

“Tete de Femme” - Picasso painting stolen from San Francisco Art Gallery in 1965.

“Bourne-shell” - this bit is all about computing. These are different “shells” which are how you access your operating system on your computer. “Korn-shell” is a development of the “Bourne-shell”. And C-shell and Bash are the same kind of thing.

“-sh” is the name of an executable file for Bourne shell (or something like that).

| - this punctuation (?) is used in computing language.

“Heartstone” - is this something to do with Dungeons and Dragons and the kind of person who’s into computers?

“shortcut” - computing.

“Platforms” - more internet speak.

“relational” - a relational operator is a programming language.

“Give me that man and I will wear him at heart’s core in my heart of heart”. - Hamlet says this. It misses out the phrase “that’s not passion’s slave” - so Eric shifts the meaning to make it romantic.

“hus” - this is icelandic for house. (It’s also hungarian for meat!)

“the hot crowd of thermal swarmed electron of eased atomic orbital in gradient still and radiating” - I asked a wise and lovely Science teacher at my school about this and he replied: “It doesn’t seem to mean a specific thing. If it’s meant to be metaphorical” LOL, let’s hope so, “electrons move quicker when heated and can jump up an orbital (they orbit atoms like planets). When they cool, they slide back down (an energy gradient), radiating light energy. Each atom releases a specific colour of light, like an optical fingerprint. Not sure if that metaphor works with my explanation, but that’s the closest thing it could be. Or he’s just bunged some atom based words together.” <crying with laughter emoji>

“Au coeur du corps” - to the heart of the body. Did I mention that Eric’s girlfriend is French?

“red electric” - we’ve done some DIY and got down to the live wire.

“Lin Changzhu” is a walnut farmer with whom there is an interview in some online paper about the exact thing of walnut betting. He makes 2 million yuan a year from his walnuts.

“betting on skin” this is how the thing where buyers pay a fixed price before the green outer covering is removed. It feels to me like there’s a tension here between the fact that the buyers aren’t interested in the actual kernel of the walnut but the shell despite the fact that a lot of this poem is about drilling into the inner part.

“Cupule” - cup shaped.

“English walnut or nux Gallica” - Eric mentioned this at the launch. He’s English, his girlfriend is French. English walnut is a type of walnut. Nux Gallica is Latin for walnut. Gallica means from Gaul (France).

“Mopan-mopan” I wish I could nail this exactly. mopan walnut is I think a type of walnut you use for massage; mopan is the chinese for disc; mopan-mopang are grinding stones found in prehistoric China used for grinding nuts.

“dog-throw” - there are a number of references to the Ancient Roman knucklebone betting game. The dog was the lowest number on the knucklebone. “Vulture” was the lowest roll of all the bones, and the “Venus throw” (appropriately for the Goddess of Love in a love poem) was the highest roll.

“ratscrew” - Egyptian ratscrew is the name of card game like snap.

“slapjack” - I can’t remember what we used call this, but I played it loads, it’s like snap but there’s that thing where you race to slap the pile. Anyway, once again trying to get by luck a match. (Although incidentally if you wanted to score high in knucklebones, apparently, you wanted the bones to all be different, not matching. I’m not sure if we’re meant to worry about that).

“government official’s hat, a chicken’s heart, a lantern” - these are, delightfully, names the Chinese give to different shapes of walnuts.

“front-run vigorish” I almost didn’t bother looking these up, which is kudos to Eric, because it just sounds like in a rush and kind of vigorous. But I did. And so I discovered that “front-running” is when you buy stock because you have some secret knowledge that it’s going to go up and “vigorish” is the percentage deducted from a gambler’s winnings.

“nutshell” - Has it really taken this long for our Hamlet-loving poet to use this word in a poem about nuts? And is this all he’s going to give us? Is it too obvious? Do you think Ian McEwan has ruined it for him?

“acupoint” - acupuncture point - obviously Chinese link.

“kerf” - slit made by cutting with a saw.

“swarf” - filings produced by machining.

“surfy cream curls and open out” - when Eric read this poem aloud, it sounded like it was totally filthy. And I swear I wasn’t the only one to say that. You’ll notice how restrained I’ve been typing here. But aside from the testicles, the whole thing really is about getting into someone’s vagina, right? I guess those of us who know Eric and Anne-Laure can be pleased that it seems to be a poem about Anne-Laure getting into Eric’s vagina.

“sat with a crimped copy of Homer and a lucky cricket”. This is lovely, isn’t it? Little Eric squashed in his nutshell. It feels like this is an actual allusion to something. For example, why Homer? Maybe it’s a personal allusion between him and Anne-Laure. If not, the best I can do is it made me think a bit of Keats’ “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” with that sense of sudden new discovery etc.

“rolled round, palmed around” - now that someone’s got into Eric’s vagina, they seem to be giving him a good “palming around”. This goes back to the purpose of these walnuts which is to rotate them in your hand and it’s meant to be good for the “circulation”.

“I type up slow happenstance on keywater brightboarding” - This give me an image of the two of them in bed, Eric typing up his poem, but quietly and slowly so as not to wake her, and the glow of the keys being the “brightboarding” as well as a little sense of sailing away, stretching out, freed from the shell.

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