One last note for any readers of "Come live with me..." but just because I like to drag Dream (a fictional character) for his treatment of Hob, doesn't mean the story is set up to be some gleeful torture-fest of Dream. I'm not Burgess ;P

The genre of the story is romance, with some shades of period romance and romantic comedy. It's also, like all of my works, something I try to put the full weight of my experience as a writer into. That means there's going to be conflict. There's going to be turning points. There's going to be lessons learned by the characters.

(Cut for spoilers and my own rambling)

Yes, I personally think the fishbowl prison of Burgess was excessive, but Dream did need some kind of lesson in humility, particularly regarding his treatment of his loved ones. It isn't conjecture to say the narrative agrees with me, the TV show in particular is built around Dream dealing with his trauma and waking up to the fact he has people who care about him and he needs to learn to do better by them. It's a very sympathetic story, Dream breaks my heart along his journey, but the Dream we see in 1889 is not the Dream we see in the final episode who is calling Hob his friend and delegating power to Lucienne because he finally acknowledges her competence and his own limitations.

In "Come live with me..." at least for me, I don't have much interest in 1889 Dream getting a relationship with Hob besides maybe a mutually enjoyable physical one. I don't think he has the maturity at that point for more, not if he doesn't learn how to respect his partners. I'm treating him as a human here, not as an eldritch being. the nice thing about stories though is he's not static in my story either. In "Come live with me" I can move Dream closer to being the person he is post-Burgess imprisonment, but in a much gentler way.

And the thing is, in the fic, he is learning. Dream has been learning this whole time, subtly, about what he means to Hob. What, Hob means to him. The impact he has had on Hob over the years. (Yes, all of these lessons are around being in a relationship, because this is a romance, not a coming of age story.)

He is learning other lessons too. That Hob has his own appealing skills he's developed over the years. That Hob is desirable to others. That Hob has dropped everything for Dream even though he didn't have to. That Hob has had his heart open to Dream despite Dream's treatment, which was at times apathetic or callous by turns. That Hob cares about him, as a friend, as a lover, and as a singular fixed point in his life when he loses everyone else. Yes, I'm more sympathetic to Hob here but in fairness, Hob hasn't done anything to Dream that would warrant not viewing him sympathetically. Dream has, at the very least, been rude to Hob on multiple occasions.

These things are changing Dream's perspective. He is growing before our eyes.

Susan's point was rude but it wasn't untrue and it was something he needed to hear and that only someone antagonistic towards Dream would be rude enough to say in such blunt terms, which is what he needed to hear. However, it was a cruel interpretation. And Hob's interpretation is not nearly as cruel. Hob is our POV character. He is going to add nuance to this discussion that Dream's antagonists would not. He's going to factor in forgiveness, and grace, and growing as a person, and being able to change because Hob has recently learned a harsh lesson about these things. And most importantly, Hob loves Dream, this story is about love, and confronting the fact you hurt someone you love is a very important part of not just being in a relationship based on physical attraction but actually staying in one that completes you in all the best ways.

Dream has the opportunity to fix this. I believe he has it in him. I wouldn't ship him with Hob if I didn't. I don't think Hob is perfect either, but I don't think Hob's flaws are in relation to Dream. Hob's defining qualities are resilience and being a flawed human who just happens to live forever. He's going to make mistakes too. He's going to try to make less of them with Dream because Dream is, quite literally, the most important living person in his life.

Ultimately, I hope people will stick around, because Ch. 4 is an inciting incident. It's a bump in the road. It's a turning point. And I still don't think any of you have predicted what actually happens next ;)

* natalia dyer, nonbinary + she/they | you know philomena carmichael, right? they’re twenty, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, a day? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to the leanover by life without buildings like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole wind whipping around your hair, the gentleness of decomposition, a naked blur dancing around the flames of an everlasting fire thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is april 20th, so they’re a taurus, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( james, 22, est, they/them )

hi thank u all fr being so patient w me as i rapidly switch out muses n figure out wht the fuck im doing atm <3 also sry fr my rare presence work hs been kicking my ass like lets jst say i deserve 2 b smbdy’s housewife (misogny wins this time sry) so i nvr hv to work in my life <3 DFSLKSDHKGLFSHLKAGHLKAHLKSG this is a joke 2 clarify. anyways. this is philly she’s old bt she’s one of my very favorites ever. this intro is also old sry its nt in my usual. style. LKDFKHGLKGF

CANCER, TRAUMA, DEPERSONALIZATION / DEREALIZATION, DEATH, GRAPHIC MENTION OF DECAY, INSECTS MENTION TW.

mini playlist.

the girl who stole my tamagotchi ;; hot sugar / i dropped out ;; and the kids / pork soda ;; glass animals / wonderfully bizarre ;; bendigo fletcher / (dream) ;; salvia palth / alien blues ;; yundabar / dust in your pocket ;; glass animals / warm honey ;; willow / bela lugosi’s dead ;; bauhaus / gecgecgec ;; 100 gecs / blinding ;; florence and the machine / nantes ;; beirut / cherry-coloured funk ;; cocteau twins / not allowed ;; tv girl / oblivion ;; grimes / space song ;; beach house / dog food ;; 100 gecs / the leanover life ;; life without buildings.

statistics.

full name: philomena brontë carmichael

nickname(s): philly, phil, mena, etc.

birthday: april 20th, 2000. 

zodiac: taurus sun, scorpio moon, aries ascending.

mbti & temperament: infp & improvisor / phlegmatic. 

label: the halycon.

sexuality: demisexual.

pinterest.

biography.

a middle child belonging to christopher and imogen carmichael - two stanford professors. christopher specialized in british literature whilst imogen specialized in the classics. hence the name.

the order of siblings goes as such: lysander, elektra, juno, philomena, and twins orion & valora. the deal was that everybody had a greek (or in juno’s case, roman) first name and a middle name inspired by a piece of british literature circa 1800s and under. a family of nerds, if you will.

so, clearly - right off the bat, their parents are … eccentric. they’re both in love with their respected topic, and with each other, and with their kids. the carmichael family is a happy family.

they each have their own quirks and whatnot - though philly’s always been particularly dreamy - even as a child, she’d spend hours watching clouds or caterpillars or the leaves blow in the wind rather than play with other kids. she wasn’t a shy kid - she just had her own interests.

hardship doesn’t hit the family until philomena is five and starts having splitting headaches. they’re slow at first - but as soon as she’s seeing spots and unable to walk in a straight line, doctor appointments are made.

cancer tw // it doesn’t take long for them to discover the tumor, though the official diagnosis of malignant ependymoma comes a month later.

it’s grade ii but slow-moving, small enough to not be as much of a threat as worried, but big enough where removal is necessary. philomena earns a scar and brings it in for show-and-tell. for two months afterwards, philly’s at radiotherapy monday through friday.

they’re lucky - philomena’s considered cancer-free by the next year. she’s babied at first - handled delicately, as if she could break if touched - but with five other children … it doesn’t last for too long. end of cancer tw //

and life continues as normal.

her personality doesn’t shift much over the next few years - she’s awfully independent for a kid, and awfully quiet - when she speaks it’s about faeries and bigfoot, about how the sky is so blue and if you listen quietly, you can hear the leaves whisper their secrets to each other. this is not odd.

she’s close to all her siblings, but she idolizes her older sister - elektra. elektra’s six years older and dyes her hair whatever colors she wants. elektra bought a knife off a seedy guy downtown. elektra threw away all of her heels and renounced god. elektra is god. her music is loud but it’s not heavy - it’s florence and the machine.

they’re opposites - elektra’s boisterous and feels loudly, philomena’s softer and feels…less. when elektra sneaks out, philomena keeps watch. they are a duo.

philomena is smart - but she’s fifteen and hates school. hates sitting inside all day. hates the same routine - day after day - it’s all the same. her parents’ routine is the same, philly feels contained and she wants to live.

elektra’s twenty-one and just bought a brand new spanking (used but not falling apart) 19-something volkswagen … van - using her entire savings account. she says she’s tired of routine, she’s leaving the next day.

naturally, philomena stows away in the back and isn’t discovered until they’re two states away and she’s got to pee. elektra nearly crashes the van in shock.

it’s an argument - philomena vs. elektra, then them vs. their parents, then their parents vs. the school, the state - it’s an ordeal. philomena switches to an online program in the end.

it hurts christopher and imogen - lysander’s not having any of their nonsense, juno’s betrayed and alone - the twins are twins. in the end, it’s alright. the carmichael family is a happy family.

philomena and elektra take their time - it’s not a road trip, it’s their new life, permanently on the road. they stop and explore often - they do odd jobs in whatever town they settle in. they dine-n-dash, they shoplift. they survive in their own way.

during particularly desperate times, they two resorted to identity theft & credit fraud - getting away with it only by ditching the cards once they’ve made it out of state.

she drops out of high school officially when she’s seventeen - they have to drive all the way back to california to deal with the wrath of their parents and to deal with paperwork, but it’s done. philomena doesn’t know what path she wants in life - but it’s not that.

depersonalization / derealization tw // it’s during this time that the episodes occur - philomena’s outside her body, philomena’s wrapped in cotton, her memories are not her own. she’s looking in the mirror and she doesn’t recognize herself. they take shelter in a city for six months, long enough for her brand spankin’ new therapist to figure out what’s wrong with her. she’s diagnosed with depersonalization / derealization disorder - they think it’s stress. philomena doesn’t get stressed. they think it’s trauma. she laughs - she never laughs. depersonalization / derealization end of tw //

death, decay. maggots tw // there is trauma though, deep-rooted but somewhere inside - you just have to look for it.

you. just. have. to. look. for. it. look for it. look for it. look for it look for it look -

you were ten and she was thirteen, an off-trail hike in familiar woods in a familiar town, safe and familiar. it was your idea, to stray from the carved out paths, down creeks and up hills and round, and round again. you’re the one who spotted the scarf first, sticking up from the dirt and dancing in the wind like the beginning of reincarnation. it was not reincarnation, it was discovery. it was ruin. with curiosity drawn, you skidded down - with compliance, followed juno, followed your sister - clumsy in her steps and tumbling down quicker than you. you saw the corpse, but juno felt it. decaying flesh and maggot. end of death, decay, maggots tw //

and she left juno, just like that - just five years later, when juno had finally gone to the end of her wits. philly up and left. abandoned her.

philomena and elektra leave the city after that therapy session. they do not return. she’s always been good at hiding her secrets.

after ending up with warrants from their arrest in florida (after running from the law in texas), philly and elektra have wound up at irving <3 partially hiding from the law and partially bcos their trusty van’s broken down and they haven’t got the money to fix her up yet. 

personality & facts.

she’s quiet but she’s confident - her voice sounds like rustling leaves, if leaves smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.

often underestimated - philly’s petite and looks like she’d fall over if a plastic bag blew too close to her. she’s independent - for the most part. elektra is the only person philly takes orders from.

has always been considered odd - weird, strange. still talks about the trees as if they’re listening, as if they’re old friends. she’s vague and doesn’t elaborate on the things she says.

believes in pretty much any superstition you throw her way. luck is very important to her. if you ask her if the earth is flat, she’ll say probably. believes strongly in bigfoot and the lochness monster. has personally seen aliens, and loves ghosts almost more than herself.

she can be amusing - whether you ‘get’ her or not, her outlook is often bright - she talks about the negatives the same way she talks about the positives. can be seen as naive or gullible, but she’s plenty smart. even if half of her education has come directly from google.

philly doesn’t laugh. a smile, yes - often, in fact - not always reaching her ears, or bearing teeth - but these are not indicators of her happiness. philly is consistently content. she thinks many things are funny - she still will not laugh.

her voice is often monotonous - she doesn’t sound dreary, she sounds far-away. her voice carries. her emotions are often unknown to others.

is apathetic in most situations. she’s hard to bother - she’s incredibly patient and enjoys the company of most - tolerates them at the very least. it’s hard for her to express her emotions, because she feels them so little that it’s very nearly not worth it. her affection is not verbal - it’s small touches and gestures of kindness, love in her own way.

is a fan of knock-knock jokes and bad puns. she won’t crack a smile while telling you them, nor does she expect you to laugh. she just enjoys them.

she owns a motorola razr covered in puffy stickers - hasn’t ever had a smartphone. she’s a fan of emoticons. her favorite is :o)

has a lot of bruises and scratches and scars - she’s often getting herself into pickles. there are always, at the very minimum, three bandaids on each hand.

she has insomnia, so she’s awake often. is often seen wandering town - even when she shouldn’t be, even when it might be dangerous. her intuition is delayed. when she does sleep - her dreams are vivid and fantastical.

keeps a box of memories - sentimental bits and pieces she’s picked up over the last few years. there are a lot of buttons and postcards, but any teeny tiny object will do.

her style changes every week - most, if not all, of her clothes are thrifted. one week she’s baby spice and the next she’s lydia deetz. she combines pieces from different styles often - she looks like a barbie clothed by a child. she feels most comfortable like this.

will either patch-up the clothes that get too worn or reuse them in some way. sometimes donates the clothes she gets tired off - isn’t minimalistic, but she’s learned to keep only a small amount of possessions.

the only consistency is her lucky ribbon - it’s pastel yellow and silky and as thin as a shoelace. she ties it onto her outfit of the day, everyday. if she loses it, she’s lost. elektra has a matching ribbon.

has no problem with minor theft - she only takes bare minimum, puts herself and elektra first and that’s how it’s always been.

currently living in florence, their van, with her sister elektra <3 currently residing in lilac ridge.

they used to live in motels on the occasion, the cheapest room, and more often than not they’d both go home with strangers for a comfier bed and a hotter shower.

it was a common occurrence - she didn’t sleep with them - but somehow, she weaseled her way into their homes anyway. has come out mostly unscathed, on most occasions. this has been a practice ever since they’ve been on the road.

really, truly - has not slept with anybody, had her first kiss at thirteen with a frog. this doesn’t bother her. (smirks at leo)

will consume anything you put in front of her - isn’t picky.

listens to whatever they’ve picked up along the way but she likes instrumentals the best. her second favorite genre is 1990′s and 2000′s top hits. they’re nostalgic for her. third favorites? florence, of course. fleetwood mac. the bird and the bee.

loves storms - will go out in the rain and will risk her life for it.

owns a pair of roller-skates and is often skating rather than walking. unless she’s on grass - then she’s walking barefoot.

has many hobbies, and gets bored of them often. her favorite hobby is welding. she’s not certified.

also, juggling.

also, accordion.

the kind of girl who’ll do any job you give her. odd jobs are her favorite jobs. babysitting is her least favorite - but she does it anyway. has lost children before. have they ever been found? not by philly.

dyes her hair blonde often and cuts her own hair - bangs included - finds it cathartic, likes the itchiness of bleach.

everything she does is often in pursuit of feeling free, alive, and meaningful.

( like her frequent visits to the woods, late at night when the moon is high and full. it’s freeing to dance around a fire, stark naked in the cold. builds immunity )

comes and goes wherever she pleases, nothing & nobody can stop her (besides elektra).

has a certain knack for getting animals to like her. has too many ‘pet’ rats that reside with her, alongside a baby raccoon & a few crow pals. has a new animal companion everyday, but she doesn’t contain them or force them to stay.

wanted plots.

speaking through my third eye ... ;; philly is new in town n shes very strange. constantly lives in a state in which she does not exist (at least on the same plane). this is her harassing the locals. this is her slipping thru their fingertips as they attempt 2 understand her. they get close smtms bt philly jst. whisks herself away.

hollows of our eyelids ... ;; perhaps there is smbdy jst as strange as philly. i’m out here calling fr all the weirdos. lets be friends. lets hv philly n co go on adventures n discover horrible sites n uncover ancient secrets tht lie deep below irving. mayb nt tht. bt im jst saying. this is fr the dreamers. da weirdos. the jugheads. LHKDSHFSADLKGFHLSKADG fr those who also feel as if they r not real.

bills n aches n blues... ;; ya this is my call fr all negative plots. bills (catching philly be a thief and a fraud), aches (mayb heartache? unrecruited feelings or w/e theyre called?), n blues (ooooh so sad... so sad ... angst ...) obviously i am a genius. i wldnt say tht philly is here 2 make enemies bc philly doesnt care much abt ppl bt perhaps tht cld b an issue. tht she doesnt care much abt others. mayb ur muse is jst like. cn u pls care. n philly is like. i am incapable. sry. sucks.

n also ,, ;; like. anything i’ll. take anything. philly is weird lets come up w surreal plots tht verge on the edge of like. nt being correct fr this verse. suddenly theres vampires? or so they think ... smirks. anyways. shes been 2 jail n been in the circus (shoutout 2 kirby) n dances naked in the woods n hoards animals n treasures. we hv a lot to work with here obv. 

a donation drabble request for the ever kind and supportive Ayobami @tps31! thank you SO MUCH for your donation and support!! you’ll never know how much it means to me <3

prompt: tianshan quarantine fluff, aka “why the hell am I stuck in a house with you all day every day?”

(a/n: this is just a random thought but I honestly don’t think I’ve written a fic about the boys still in middle school like, ever, so thank you so much for this prompt! it was so refreshing to write them as the flustered, airheaded, and teasing boys they are!) <3

tianshan, 3600 words, rated T

*   *   *

Guan Shan hates this. 

The laundry basket next to his. The pair of shoes at the front door. The extra toothbrush in his bathroom, and the second phone charger plugged in next to his bed. There’s a gray duffel bag taking up the corner of his bedroom and a black jacket draped over the back of his desk chair. None of it takes up too much space, carefully put into their respective places and never crossing the boundary, but—

Guan Shan hates it.

And, what’s worse: he never asked for this. He was stupid enough to mention He Tian’s name at the dinner table one night; a passing comment he hadn’t really thought about. But then his mother had paused with a spoonful of miso soup at her lips, pensive.

“He Tian,” she’d echoed, as if the name felt foreign but sweet on her tongue. “Isn’t that the one who lives near the center of the city? The one who lives alone? The tall and polite and handsome one of your friends?”

“Uh,” Guan Shan had said, smirking with distaste. “Yeah. Sure. That one.”

“Poor thing. Alone throughout all of this mess.” She sighed. “Why does he not live with his family?”

And Guan Shan had thought about it for a moment, sifting through his mind like pressing rewind on a VHS. “I don’t know,” he’d admitted, reaching for the soy sauce. “Never asked.”

She nodded, thinking. “Well, you should invite him over, then.”

Guan Shan choked. 

Oblivious, his mother had continued: “Have him stay a few nights. No one should be left alone throughout this entire period. Who knows how long this will last, what with how many cases that have been reported. He’ll go stir crazy by himself, poor soul.”

“He’s already stir crazy,” Guan Shan said, eyes watering from a dislodged grain of rice. “I don’t want him here, ma. I’ll literally do anythin’ else. Seriously.”

She’d given him a disappointed look. “Ah-Shan, I thought I raised you to have a little more compassion than that.”

“Trust me, a person like him doesn’t need compassion.”

“Now, you don’t know that,” she reprimanded. She tapped her chopsticks against her bowl, succinct. “After we finish dinner, you should reach out to him and invite him to spend the week with us.”

“A week?”

“Well, now that school is postponed and I’m working from home, wouldn’t it be nice to have company for a bit?”

“Ma, please—“

“You will text him, Ah-Shan. No excuses. The world needs kindness right now, and we will do whatever we can to contribute to it.”

And that, unfortunately, was that. 

That night, Guan Shan deleted the message immediately after he sent it, as if that would erase it out of his memory, too. But it was hard to forget the string of skeptical yet blaringly enthusiastic string of response texts that followed the invite, and even harder to forget the sight of He Tian at their front door half an hour later, duffel bag slung over his shoulder and smile bright as he greeted Guan Shan’s mother with practiced sweetness and feigned gratitude. 

Guan Shan hated it. 

But as his mother shot him a warning look, Guan Shan couldn’t do anything about it. Couldn’t just ignore him like he did, sometimes, at school.

And now, five days in, there’s a knock at the bathroom door. 

“Little Mo, are you naked?”

Running a towel over his hair, Guan Shan scowls at his reflection in the mirror, still foggy from the steam. “Fuck off, chickenshit.”

“I’m kidding.” He can hear the smile in He Tian’s voice. “I just need to brush my teeth.”

“Then you can wait.”

“It’s been twenty minutes, sweetheart. Are your showers usually this long?”

“That’s an average fuckin’ time for showers!”

A hum, muffled by the closed door. “Really? Mine only take ten, and that’s generous considering the precious amount of time I spend washing my—”

The thunk of the lotion bottle against the door rattles its hinges. “Fuck off!” 

He waits until he hears He Tian’s footsteps recede. Guan Shan hates that he knows He Tian is walking away with that smug-as-all-hell smile, satisfied. 

He dresses quickly after that, doing his best to ignore the citrus-scented face wash by the faucet and the contact lens case by the hand soap. The first time he’d seen all of He Tian’s things laid out like this on his bathroom counter was something like a revelation. It was like some things clicked into place, unbidden. Now it makes sense why Guan Shan sometimes thinks he catches a whiff of lemonade every time He Tian gets too close, and why He Tian looks like he’s scowling whenever he reads but, really, it’s just because he’s blind as a fucking bat and has to squint to see fine print. 

If nothing else, Guan Shan suspects at least something valuable might come out of all this time he’s forced to spend together with He Tian — (read: blackmail) — but then again, He Tian hasn’t commented on the old, stained state of Guan Shan’s pillow like Guan Shan thought he would because he’s used it since he was four and can’t really sleep well if he’s not using that specific pillow. And he also hasn’t said anything about the way Guan Shan jumps, sometimes, when the toaster springs up his toast in the mornings because he never fucking sees it coming and it — sometimes — causes him to drop his jam knife.

A stalemate, Guan Shan supposes as he pulls his shirt over his head. Except, deep down, he knows that He Tian probably isn’t even aware that such a concept exists. After all, what would He Tian be if not someone to fight ‘til a broken victor is left standing? 

By the time Guan Shan walks out into the living room, it’s ten o’clock. His mother, having finished washing the dishes because Guan Shan made dinner, is nowhere in sight, likely huddled up in her bedroom with a book like she always does before bed. That leaves He Tian alone on the couch, casually flipping through TV stations in a t-shirt and sweats, and he doesn’t see Guan Shan at first when the latter turns the corner. 

“Bathroom’s open, dipshit,” Guan Shan mutters. He Tian looks up as Guan Shan approaches, settling on the opposite end of the couch.

“About time.” He Tian tosses Guan Shan the remote, and he barely catches it before it smacks against his chest. Standing, He Tian smiles and says, “Find something good to watch by the time I get back, okay?”

“I don’t work at your beck and call,” Guan Shan seethes. But despite his retorts, his fingers find the remote buttons as He Tian saunters back to the bathroom, hands in pockets and steps quiet against the creaky floors. 

For a while, there really is nothing interesting on any of the channels. Guan Shan flies past a romcom, an old horror film, a few cartoons, the dreaded news. Nothing catches his attention — and he feels exhaustion coming on quick. He thinks, maybe, of just going to bed. But behind the apartment’s thin walls, he can hear the water running from the faucet. Despite himself, he frowns. 

It’s odd, really. He never thought he could get used to the image of He Tian’s broad frame hunched over his sink in the mornings, or the way He Tian can reach the bowls at the top of the cupboards without going on his toes, or the sight of He Tian’s nape pressed against the twin-sized air mattress on the floor of Guan Shan’s bedroom. He never thought anyone could make his mother laugh as much as he can, or finish puzzles as fast as he can, and he certainly never thought that his mother would spill Guan Shan’s childhood stories to someone she’d only met... once? Twice? He doesn’t keep track. He never had to before. 

Nevertheless, it’s not nearly enough time to warrant such trust. Such comfort. 

Guan Shan hates it. 

But in the midst of his lamenting, the faucet shuts off. A few moments later He Tian returns. And when he plops back onto the couch — too close — he smells of mint and vanilla-scented chapstick. 

Too aware of his presence and the way his knee almost touches Guan Shan’s, Guan Shan takes a long second to snap back to reality when He Tian asks, “What’s this?”

Guan Shan blinks. On the TV, there’s some kind of documentary playing. A narrator drones over the images of a complex space aircraft, and the camera pans out to show footage of the stars it swims in. As the screen switches to an interview of someone very important-looking in a suit, Guan Shan scowls.

“I don’t know. Nothin’s on.”

He Tian stretches his arms above his head, long and lithe. “Well,” he says, drawn with a sigh, “if you’re trying to put me to sleep, it might actually work.”

“Fuck off, I don’t control the damn stations,” Guan Shan bites. “And you shouldn’t be tired to begin with. You did jack shit today, just like every other day.”

He Tian looks at him, the corners of his eyes softened with drowsiness in a way that Guan Shan has become used to seeing. 

“That’s not true,” He Tian says. “I went with you to pick up supplies so your mom can sew masks. And we went to get the mail downstairs. And I helped you go grocery shopping—“

“You fuckin’ stood there with the cart and didn’t help at all—“

“—and I chopped the onions and peppers for dinner. That’s a lot. I’m exhausted.”

“That’s a normal person’s life,” Guan Shan says, exasperated. “Honestly, what the hell did you do all your life until quarantine?”

He Tian seems to take a moment to genuinely think about his answer. “Homework,” he offers, brows a bit pulled. “Basketball. School, obviously. I usually go to the convenience store for dinner, but sometimes I’ll get takeout. And I don’t get mail, but my groceries get delivered to me, so.”

And then he looks at Guan Shan, almost as if expecting some kind of praising reaction — but Guan Shan can only stare. 

“That’s ridiculous,” Guan Shan says after a long moment. “That’s ridiculous and fuckin’ miserable. You live like a robot, and a broken one at that.”

Silence. Then He Tian sits up a little straighter, as if a puppetmaster had pulled on his strings.

“I mean, I used to take piano lessons,” he says, frowning as he rubs at his neck. “And Cheng took me to shooting ranges. And…” A pause. “Camping. Yeah, we went camping some weekends. Went to rivers and fished together all day. I caught a few sometimes.”

Guan Shan blinks. “What, are you tryin’ to prove somethin’ to me right now?”

And He Tian shrugs. “Maybe.”

The answer takes Guan Shan by surprise. But He Tian’s face is neutral — expression always so put together — and Guan Shan wonders if maybe He Tian is lying to him. Building up some kind of persona again just to tear it down later. Because, surely, with that much fucking money and privilege, the guy doesn’t just sit there in that empty apartment all day and twiddle his thumbs. Surely, with his reputation, he has a regular posse of socialites always seeking him out and inviting him to some kind of get-together or event. Surely, considering all that he is, He Tian doesn’t waste his time looking for, or teasing, or protecting, or calling up—

“Guan Shan?” He Tian says, mouth a little twisted. “You still awake?”

The low rambling of the space documentary suddenly seems louder. Guan Shan swallows, once, then forces himself to look away. 

“You make no fuckin’ sense to me,” Guan Shan mutters. Then: “When are you leavin’?”

“Ouch,” He Tian remarks in an empty but unsurprised tone, shifting back on the couch. After a moment, he shrugs and responds, “Depends. Your text said a week but your mom says forever.”

A scowl. “She didn’t fuckin’ say that.”

He Tian smiles. “No, she didn’t. But she did say as long as I wanted — which, really, isn’t that much different from forever.”

Guan Shan swallows; feels inexplicable heat crawl up his neck like a spider, and he clenches his jaw against it. 

“You should go live with your own family,” he says, staring ahead. “I’m sure they’ve got all the time in the world to shower you with attention.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees He Tian smirk. 

“If I didn’t want to live with them at the best of times, what makes you think I would want to live with them at the worst of times?”

Guan Shan considers that. “This… isn’t the worst of times.”

“There’s a pandemic with no cure killing hundreds of people every day,” He Tian says, bland. “School is practically cancelled. People aren’t going to work. You invited me over to your home, unprompted. Even I know, with all things considered, that these are pretty bad times.”

Guan Shan can’t argue that. Instead he stares at the television, watching an astronomer point out weird symbols on some kind of map. It takes a lot of concentration to focus on nothing. After all, if he shifts his gaze any more to the right, he’ll see He Tian. If he lets his eyes slide down any further, he’ll see the way He Tian’s knee is still too close to his own. Both are dangerous territories for dangerous thoughts, and he doesn’t want anything to do with either. 

After a moment of silence, Guan Shan says, “You know, you should get friends. Real friends, and not your fuckin’ fangirl group.”

He Tian raises a brow. “I have you and Jian Yi and Zhan Zheng Xi.”

“That’s not—” And then Guan Shan stops, frowning, because he’s not actually sure what their ragtag mess of a group isn’t. Instead, he swallows and pathetically hides behind: “I’m not your fuckin’ friend.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Or, maybe, it’s exactly what He Tian thought what he’d say. Guan Shan isn’t sure; he’s never fuckin’ sure when it comes to him. But it doesn’t stop him from tensing up when He Tian turns to face him, fully. Wholly. It leaves no escape, and Guan Shan realizes with a sour kind of reluctance that he has no choice but to look back.

“No?” He Tian asks, meeting his gaze. “Then, what are you to me?”

The way the television’s screen lights up He Tian’s face — it’s like looking at a painting, alone in the museum, at the dusk of day. Blue hues shine through his hair, dim, and his eyes are only bright enough to reflect the silhouette of Guan Shan sitting in front of him. It’s eerie, how the both of them are so undefined in this moment. Maybe, in a way, that’s easier. 

Guan Shan’s voice feels thick when he says, “I’m not answerin’ that.”

“Why?”

“I don’t— need to.”

“Why?” And then: “Overthinking it?”

Guan Shan flares. “What? What the fuck does that— No, I just— I don’t need to answer fuckin’ anything, asshole. I… I owe you jack shit.”

Silence responds to him. He Tian watches him; studies him. Guan Shan feels like a specimen under his gaze, split apart layer by layer under the microscope. He feels like, somewhere, something in him is splintering. And He Tian is watching it happen. 

“I don’t have a fuckin’ answer,” Guan Shan admits, sudden, like a sinner in a confession booth, heavy and quiet and raspy. “Okay? I told you, you don’t make any goddamn sense to me. You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for my ma.”

He Tian soaks that in, almost as thoroughly as he takes in the sight of Guan Shan’s flushed scowl. 

“You didn’t want me here?” he says, teasing.

“No, dipshit. Every time you’ve been here hasn’t been because I asked you to be.”

He Tian smirks. “Ouch,” he says again, except this time it’s said in a way that pricks Guan Shan like a rose thorn.

Guan Shan pushes down the heavy feeling in his throat. “I don’t know what you were expectin’,” he says, truthfully. 

And then He Tian looks away, rolling his head. There’s a kind of empty look in his eyes that Guan Shan thinks he recognizes, and after a moment he realizes it’s the same look he’s seen in He Cheng’s eyes in the few rare times they’d crossed paths.

“I wasn’t expecting a pandemic,” He Tian says. His voice sounds loud in the small room. “I wasn’t expecting school break to get extended. I wasn’t expecting all the restaurants to close, and for all the store’s shelves to be wiped clean.” He runs his tongue along his teeth. “But I guess, for some reason, I was expecting a text from you after weeks of nothing.”

It hits Guan Shan, hard and heavy, like a ring-laden fist against his cheek. The last time he’d seen He Tian before all of this mess was a month ago — more — and at the time, none of them had known that this is how it would turn out. How could they? It’d only taken a week for things to turn south, and Guan Shan was too busy worrying of how he and his mom were going to file for unemployment to think of the way his phone had been silent for longer than he’s been used to. 

He wants to pull it out right now; check his recent messages. It would be with a sort of disbelief when he would find the timestamp on He Tian’s contact, he already knows. But the shock wouldn’t come from his own lack of outreach. No, his perplexity would stem from He Tian, the same person who couldn’t go a single weekend without a conversation about nothing over Facetime back when things were normal. The same person who, apparently, hadn’t messaged him once until Guan Shan texted him that dreadful night five days ago. 

Had he been— testing Guan Shan?

“I didn’t reach out to anybody else,” Guan Shan hears himself saying. The words taste bitter as they leave his mouth. What is he doing? What does he have to justify? “I... It was weird, those first few days of the lockdown order, and my ma and I— we had a lot goin’ on. It wasn’t— I mean, I haven’t talked to Zheng Xi or Jian Yi this whole time either. I just... don’t have time. Or, I did, but it wasn’t urgent. I— yeah, I barely use my phone anymore, anyway. I’m always at home now so I just... don’t need it.”

He stops, his tongue feeling thick. He Tian isn’t looking at him, but he knows he’s listening. Somehow, the thought makes it even worse. 

“What,” He Tian suddenly says, and there’s a curl to his mouth that he can’t seem to help, “are you trying to prove something to me right now?”

“I—“ Guan Shan flares, teeth clenched and ears hot. “Fuck you. No, I’m not, asshole. I’m actually rescuin’ your damn pride, but apparently you’ve got too fuckin’ much.”

“Hey, hey,” He Tian says, wrapping his fingers around Guan Shan’s wrist when he makes to get up. “Come on. Don’t make me finish this documentary by myself.”

Guan Shan scowls. “I’m tired. Let go.”

“Then we can sleep on the couch,” He Tian replies — and then almost as if it were an afterthought: “again.”

Guan Shan warms at the implication of it. “Why the fuck would I do that when my room is around the corner?” he hisses. 

He Tian tugs his arm. “Because I’ll follow you anyway since I’ve only got two days left with you and I’m not letting today end like this.” He smiles. “We’re not sleeping yet. I’m selfish.”

“I could’ve fuckin’ told you that,” Guan Shan mutters, dry. But he relaxes, settling back on the couch, and eventually He Tian lets him go. The skin he had touched feels electric in his absence.

“Let’s make popcorn and ride this out,” He Tian says, settling against a throw pillow. His eyes, no longer empty, are content as they drift back to the screen.

Hand in chin, Guan Shan smirks. “We both brushed our teeth already. I’m not doin’ it again.”

“Tomorrow, then.” He Tian gestures to the TV. “Popcorn and something more interesting than this.”

“If you think this is so damn boring, then why are you still here?”

“When else will I find an opportunity to spend time with you like this after I leave?”

Guan Shan doesn’t respond. After a moment, He Tian huffs. 

“That’s when you’re supposed to invite me back over in the future, little Mo,” he says, amused. Guan Shan shoots him a warning look as the documentary goes to a commercial break. 

“Don’t push your luck,” he snaps. “And don’t try to convince my ma, either.”

He Tian hums, shifting, and Guan Shan suppresses a flinch when his knee presses up against his. Warm. “I hadn’t even thought about that. That might be the agenda for tomorrow, now.”

“I’m sick of you,” Guan Shan growls. And He Tian laughs, like it’s the funniest thing ever, how easily he can get under Guan Shan’s skin and force him to worry about nothing and get him to stay with him to watch shitty television all within the span of twenty minutes. How Guan Shan has managed to survive more than three days is an incredible feat. How he’s unable to chase away the thought of inviting He Tian over for dinner after he leaves, sometimes, is an inexplicable one. 

And when the documentary comes back on with a cheap intro jingle and the streaming quality of a disposable camera, Guan Shan feels He Tian’s foot hook against his and tries to convince himself, over and over:

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

*  *  *

thank you for reading! likes/reblogs would be greatly appreciated, as this fic is dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement. if you would like a fic/drabble written for you (and you want to support the BLM cause!), please see this post!

have an incredible week! <3

OC Ask Game

I was tagged by the amazing @illegalcerebral

I put a Keep Reading link because this is looong.

1) Name (and why you chose it if you like) McKinley Campbell Durand. I named her after McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters. However, the “in universe?” reason that will be given - which I haven’t written yet - is that McKinley and Campbell are family names from a few generations back.

Campbell comes from the Gaelic words for ‘crooked’ and ‘mouth.’ I just like the name. Here’s a post (that I had to rewrite because Tumblr’s a dick and wouldn’t let me edit the typos in the original. The rewrite had typos too! Blargh!) that discusses her first and last names. I thought it would be funny for her full name to consist solely of last names.

2) Fandom and how they fit into the story Criminal Minds. She works at a D.C. museum practically around the corner from the J. Edgar Hoover building (as indicated in “Let It Bleed”). That’s a tiny hint that it’s the National Museum of African American History & Culture, but I don’t think I’ll mention it very often, if for no other reason than I’ve never been to the NMAAHC and don’t want to describe it inaccurately.

The official story is that Spencer and McKinley met at the museum (again, in “Let It Bleed,” which is probably the least favorite thing of mine that I’ve written). However, they’d met once before, and texted a few times after that. Because my brain is all over the place, and because I’m telling the story in non-chronological order, I haven’t written their first meeting yet. The only details I’ve revealed thus far are that it was nighttime in a park, McKinley caught Spencer off guard and made him fall to the ground, and whatever they talked about set Spencer straight and lifted his spirits. Also, a swingset was involved. Beyond that, I’ve inserted McKinley into the plotlines and events of the show, with necessary alterations, and there’s a ton of domestic Spencer and off-duty team stuffs.

3) Do they have any family? Biological family: daughter Sophie and son Jason; her Mom (no name yet); maternal grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins; and her estranged father (no name yet). Chosen/found family: husband Spencer; the BAU.

4) As a child, what did they want to be when they grew up? When she was a toddler, McKinley wanted to be a pediatrician (a doctor just for kids?! Cool!) or an ophthalmologist (she’s worn glasses practically her whole life). As an older child she aspired to be an entomologist or herpetologist. In her teenage years she considered a career in forensic pathology or criminal psychology. While earning her BA in English, she discovered that Public History was her true calling.

5) Their greatest dream To be a good Mom. To inspire learning in others.

6) Their worst nightmare Losing her family; having to see her father again.

7) Strengths Empathy, insight/self awareness, forgiving nature but knowing when to cut her losses

8) Weaknesses McKinley struggles with imposter syndrome.

She can be very mean. I mean, downright nasty cruel, verbally. This is rare though because, and I’m paraphrasing a future bit of dialogue here, anyone whose behavior could arguably warrant such a response is beneath her notice and not worth the effort. She’s more likely to close the door on someone. When she’s removed a person from her life, she is done. They become literally nothing to her. McKinley will rightly claim that this is about self-preservation and boundaries, but she really takes it to the next level.

9) What would they chose between: morning and night, sweet and savoury, beaches or meadows, cities or countryside, winter or summer, Christmas or Halloween (sorry, Spencer!), movies or TV shows, action or rom-com, clowns or vampires, stars or the moon (both!), cocktails or pints [Neither. McKinley doesn’t care for cocktails or beer. Scotch, brandy, rum, and dry wines are her poisons. She’s been known to add Kahlúah to vanilla ice cream, Baileys Irish Cream to coffee (she wants to try Drambuie next), or make hot toddies when she has a cold (obviously not mixing any alcohol with any medicine)]

10) How do they relax? Reading, or having Spencer read to her; knitting; listening to her records or playing her guitar; exercising with Boogie so she’s exhausted enough to sleep that night; baking and cooking

11) What makes them angry? Injustice, apathy/indifference, ableism, willful ignorance

12) What makes them afraid? The awful things she’d possibly do under duress; her family getting hurt or worse; spiders and other bugs that bite and/or sting

13) What is a moment from their childhood that has shaped who they are? It’s not a single event, but growing up with an abusive parent has certainly had a lifelong impact on McKinley. You’ve heard the expression “once bitten, twice shy?” She’s “once bitten, there’s no twice because you no longer exist.” She’s working on that. It’s also cultivated empathy, though, and is part of the reason she volunteers in the hospital’s rehab wing.

14) Do they have a sense of humour? Intellectual humor, pop culture references, puns/Dad jokes, science jokes. Sometimes morbid.

15) What do they value in their friends/loved ones? Honesty and empathy

16) Do they have any pets? An Aussie Collie/Border Aussie named Boogie-Woogie. He’s her first child.

17) Worst memory? Probably the day Meadows shot her and she thought she’d never see Spencer and Penny again.

18) Best memory? The days Sophie and Jason were born. Minus, y’know, the agonizing pain of labor and delivery.

19) Do they have any tattoos? (If no would they get one?) Nope and nope

20) If you could write them into another fandom, which one would you choose? If I knew the MCU better, I’d love to write her in as a Stark Tower employee! She’d be an anthropologist and would study alien societies the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. have encountered. She’d naturally be drawn to Loki, initially in a professional capacity (they quickly discover they relate to each other on a personal level as well).

He’d first find her annoying: “Why are you pestering me, Mortal? Surely you’d rather interview my oaf of a brother?”

“No, not even remotely. He only ever wants to discuss battles he’s won. There’s so much more to Asgard and the other realms than that. I want - I need - to learn your literature, your science, your culture and history. You’re well versed in all of these subjects and you’re an excellent teacher.”

He stares at her impassively over his mug of tea, but his heart - that Judas of an organ - flutters slightly at the compliment. And how can he say no to a fellow scholar?

“I prefer your company to Thor’s too. You have this calming presence. Thor’s sweet but he’s also obnoxiously loud and brash and he always hugs me even though I keep telling him I don’t like it. And he’s constantly swinging his hammer around, which makes me think he’s overcompensating for something.”

Loki nearly chokes on his tea. Yes, this mortal is considerably more tolerable than others.

“Very well. Friday evenings at 6:00, my chambers. Arrive late and suffer my wrath.”

From that day forward, whenever Thor tries to hug her, he gets mildly electrocuted.

Did I accidentally sorta kinda write a drabble? Would anyone be interested in making this a collab? That’s what they’re called, right? (Can you tell I’ve given this some thought? Haha! I have even more details in my head.)

21) Do they like their job? (What else would they do if they could?) She loves it! Hmmm, what else…? A librarian maybe. Or animate and produce an educational cartoon series.

22) What is their sexuality? Demisexual

23) Do they believe in love at first sight? Soulmates? One true love? McKinley believes in “seeing the potential for a good relationship at first conversation.”

Yes, although she feels that term has become overused and poorly redefined.

People can find love again after it’s been lost.

24) What music do they listen to? Has that changed over time? I actually recently answered an ask about this. Yes, she grew up on what passed for country in the ‘90s. God help her, she had a boyband phase in junior high.

25) Can they cook? What food do they love? McKinley does pretty well in the kitchen. She loves a wide variety of food. She grew up in the south, so tons of carbs/comfort foods. She loves Thai, Japanese, and Indian food. She cooks up Middle Earth-inspired dishes (ha! nerd). She’s especially proud of a seed cake she bakes.

26) What are their hopes for the future? For her family to be healthy, safe and happy. To be debt free.

27) How do they react to being threatened? It’s a coin flip. McKinley might curl up like an armadillo and hope the predator gets bored and leaves, or she might kick the stool out from under them and cause their chin to slam into the bar and crack several teeth.

28) What is their love language? McKinley and Spencer both exhibit the Acts of Service love language, because just saying “I love you” isn’t enough. You ought to show it. She’ll randomly bake doughnuts for Spencer or play guitar for him in bed, and he’ll take care of laundry, dishes, and any other chores he sees need doing.

Quality Time is important for them too. Once a month, Luke and Penny babysit so Spencer and McKinley have a day alone together. It doesn’t really matter what they do. The point is it’s just them.

It caught McKinley by surprise how much she enjoys physical affection, given that she can be touch averse but holy moly she was more touch starved than she realized. She lives for snuggles and makeout sessions and playing with each others’ hair. When one of them doesn’t want to be touched, they hook their pinkies together.

29) What do they find most challenging in relationships? At work? In general? At work she struggles to gain her colleagues’ respect (think “Boy Genius” treatment except she has lady bits). In general, she struggles with trusting people.

30) What do you as a creator love best about writing this character? Giving her everything I wish I had but don’t.

Bonus: Include a link to your favourite work with this OC or write a small drabble.

October 12, 2021

Warm sunlight filtered through the curtains, gently rousing Spencer from a pleasant sleep. Just when he’d decided to get up, he felt the mattress dip behind him and his wife’s breath fanning over his ear.

“Who’s the birthday boy?” whispered McKinley.

Spencer smiled softly but feigned being asleep.

“Who’s the birthdaaay boooy?” she repeated, bouncing slightly.

“The good-looking guy to your left?”

“Happy Birthday!” she laughed, pressing kisses along his neck, suddenly shifting the mood from playful to sexy.

“Would the birthday boy like his birthday present?” she asked as she lifted the covers.

“Well, look at that - it’s already unwrapped!”

I didn’t know where else to go

Fics Masterlist

Previous Chapter

Chapter 2: Rhysand

fuck

fuck

FUCK

I had an unconscious detective on my couch and her blood on my hands.

It was a quiet evening, cleaning one of my guns with Friends reruns on in the background, shattered by a barely-there knock at my door. Ready to chew out whoever decided to disturb a crime boss on his night off, I had only cracked open the door to see her there, blood coming from a nasty cut on her head and practically bent in half from pain.

It was reflex to catch her as my name slipped from her mouth along with those damning words.

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

Feyre Archeron. The detective who was hell-bent on arresting me. Who had managed to resist my flirting, much to my chagrin. Who was now on my couch but not how I pictured it happening.

Why I couldn’t get a cop out of my head for the past few weeks? I wish I knew the answer.

I watched the even rise and fall of her chest, grateful that whatever had happened to her wasn’t truly life-threatening. At least that’s what I told myself as I waited for her to wake up.

Thankfully she stayed out cold while I stitched up her face, I was fresh out of painkillers from my recent injuries. The glorious life of the head of the underworld, if only they knew how much work it took, then maybe I wouldn’t have to deal with so many hot-headed insubordinates.

Whatever had happened to her probably warranted a hospital visit but no way was I showing up with my face all over the news and a bloody cop in my arms. I did as much as I could for her wound but didn’t risk checking the rest of her body. A small smile played on my mouth as I imagined the foul words that would surely come from her if she found her other injuries tended to.

A sharp intake of breath followed by a small whimper of pain cut through the TV in the background. I froze in the most non-threatening pose I could think of, crossing my left leg so that my ankle rested on my right knee and slinging an arm over the back of the chair, dangling the glass of dark amber liquid that was keeping my nerves in check.

Feyre’s eyes cracked open, even surrounded by darkening bruises, the intense blue-grey still made my breath catch in my throat.

“How is it you always look like you own the world? Even in Deadpool PJ pants?”

A startled laugh barked out of my chest, the bourbon nearly splashing out of my glass with the sudden movement. In my haste to patch her up and unwillingness to leave her alone, I hadn’t changed out of the comfy clothes I had put on as soon as I stepped through my door.

“Years and years of practice, darling.” There it is, the fire returned as her eyes became clearer, taking in the room.

From the outside, my apartment didn’t look like much, all cold stone and steel. The inside was much more hospitable, warm wood floors nicely complemented the exposed brick, tasteful furniture that you could still relax in took up most of the space. The harshest part of the room was the wall that was covered in guns, big and small and a few illegal in the country, but I liked to live on the wrong side of the law.

Open curiosity rested on her face, making her look years younger than the small frown that was there most of the time. It returned when she took in the weapons, reminding her that she showed up to her suspects' house and promptly passed out, leaving her at his mercy. She forced herself to sit up despite the obvious pain that would linger for weeks, her face guarded again.

I found myself immediately missing the side that she hid from me, where she was an actual human and not someone out to destroy all my plans.

We regarded each other silently for a few moments, taking in the other in their current state until she blushed and looked away.

A few words mumbled from her mouth, too low and unintelligible for me to understand.

“I’m sorry, what was that, darling,” using the nickname she so clearly hated.

“Thank you, prick,” she spat out, wincing at how her muscles pulled at her stitches.

“You’re welcome,” I leaned forward, “but who did this to you?” putting as much concern as I could into my voice.

“I’m surprised you don’t know; it was your men that drugged me and had me beaten.”

The accusation was a slap to the face, my teeth gritting at the venom she threw at me. “My men would never fucking do this to anyone, cop or not.”

Her eyes burned, leaning forward much as her balance allowed until we were only inches apart.

“I went to the bar I know you frequent; the bartender gave me a club soda laced with something and the next thing I knew, some assholes were dragging me out back and kicking the shit out of me. Who else would have given orders like that?”

I forced my breathing to stay even, to not grab her and shake some sense into her. For all the crimes I had committed, not one single fucking person had been harmed in the process. Was she willfully ignoring that fact or was she so convinced that I was a truly evil motherfucker?

“Did you recognize any of them?” My question caught her off guard.

Her eyes flicked up, trying to sort through recent hazy memories. “No…”

“That’s what I thought. You’ve been after me and my organization for so long, I’m sure you have every one of my peoples’ faces memorized. So why did you think that I would have such a lovely, dedicated, hardworking civil servant drugged and beaten?”

“I don’t know,” she mumbled, having the grace to look ashamed as she leaned back into the soft couch cushions, attempting to rearrange herself into the least painful position.

“I’m sorry but I don’t have any painkillers, and I’m not sure where else you’re hurt, I didn’t check.”

“It’s fine, it’s my fault for showing up on your doorstep anyways.” She lifted her shirt, carefully picking at where dried blood had plastered it to her chest. A patchwork of black and blue was settling on the skin, but no lacerations at least.

“I don’t think anything is broken, just really fucking sore,” she surveyed, taking in the damage. I was too worried about her injuries to notice the black bra edged with lace that perfectly hinted at the curve of her breasts.

Ok maybe I was worried, but it didn’t completely escape my notice.

I almost whined when she dropped her shirt but managed to contain it as she settled deeper into the cushions. She froze, realizing that she was getting too comfy at basically her arch enemy’s place.

“I need to go,” but she stood up too quickly, swaying and unable to catch herself as she pitched to the side, heading straight for the solid corner of my end table.

By the grace of the Caldron and a bit of luck, I managed to catch her, pulling her close to me to steady us both. She let out a yelp at the handling, but it was her fault for trying to move too fast with her injuries.

“That’s twice I’ve caught you, would you like to make this a habit?” I purred, my mouth on the shell of her ear completely not by accident.

A shudder she couldn’t suppress or hide skittered down her back, slightly arching her body into mine.

All too soon her reason returned to her and with a surprisingly firm shove, she distanced herself from me and promptly plopped back onto the couch, refusing to acknowledge the electricity that just flowed between us.

“Prick,” she seethed.

“Don’t say what you don’t want.”

Confusion that morphed into fury consumed her. “If I wasn’t so fucking injured, I would kick your ass right now.”

“You’ll have to give me a rain check then,” parting my lips in a feline smirk. She blushed even harder and looked away, looking utterly pissed that she couldn’t leave.

“Would you like a glass of bourbon? I promise it’s not drugged or anything, and it’s much better than what they serve at that bar. And it will ease the pain a bit.”

“Fine.”

I wove fluidly around a chair to the bar cart that was tucked into the corner next to the TV that was still somehow playing the aimless show when much more interesting content was playing out right in my living room.

I poured her a generous knuckle worth of the expensive liquor, maybe this would make up for the lack of painkillers. Hopefully whatever she was given was enough out of her system that it wouldn’t react badly.

I returned with the drink in hand, passing it to her waiting hand, she still refused to make eye contact with me. 

This was too good of a situation to mess with her. I sat in the middle of the couch, forcing her to either stay where she is, contact points connecting up the sides of our bodies, or to move to cram into the corner closest to the TV, making her crane her neck to see the screen.

She chose the latter and decided upon ignoring me as much as possible with less than a foot of space between us.

We sipped our drinks, intermittently paying attention to the show, punctuated with our derisive snorts at the characters' shallow problems.

At some point, a comment was made, leading us into a conversation about what we hated and loved about this show or that. Sharing new series, daring each other to watch them in our little free time.

The alcohol loosened our tongues and worries about the other ulterior motives, simply existing in the moment.

She was incredible. So amazingly opinionated and alive and passionate. If she had seen something he had, she questioned his every motive for liking or disliking it. If she hadn’t seen it, endless questions poured from her mouth and promised to watch it soon.

Hours ticked by and more liquor was poured. The show completely ignored, our bodies had turned toward each other, knees grazing, and body heat slowly being shared. She laughed at something, I’m not even sure what I said, too caught up in the music she made.

Once she stopped giggling, I couldn’t bring myself to continue the conversation. I could stay here for hours, simply taking in the red that graced her cheeks, highlighting the freckles that were gently dusted there. Her eyes seemed to shift between blue and grey depending on her current emotion, full lips punctuating every statement.

Those lips in question parted. We were so close now, her legs practically slung across my lap, her arm across the back of the couch, brushing against mine often.

The lapse in chatter grew, neither of us attempting to restart it.

Watching.

Waiting.

Until

One of us moved forward, only the Caldron and its forgotten gods knew who moved first.

Careful to not put too much pressure on her injuries, I cupped her face in my hands, molding my lips around hers.

Just as I had too often fantasized, they were soft and fit perfectly with mine, the sharp taste of my bourbon tinting them with dark desire.

There was no hesitation on her part, only enthusiasm. If she was in pain, there was no sign of it now.

Soon it became too uncomfortable for our bodies to stay far apart with only our heads meeting in the middle. I slid my hands down her neck, gently resting on the curve of her waist, a request she responded to with straddling my hips, effectively sealing her fate and mine.

We were both so, so fucked.

Next Chapter

Sometimes Love is Letting Go

(Maryse comforts Alec after his breakup with Magnus)

It was late at night when Alec brought a trembling hand to knock on his mother’s door, far too late for him to be here but he could not think of another person to go to. The unbridled emotions running through him made thinking a luxury he could not afford, so he let his feet carry him to a place he knew he would be safe. When the Lightwoods were children, Jace had always teased his older brother for being a momma’s boy, and at the time Alec had been horrifically embarrassed by the comments, but now it was a truth that he could not deny. Standing here in the darkness, shaking with an unnatural mixture of grief and guilt, Alec Lightwood could not deny that he needed his mother.

It took a few minutes, but Alec could hear feet shuffling gracefully shuffling across the floor. Despite losing her runes, Maryse Lightwood was still a Shadowhunter, and she had not lost her touch. With the late hour Alec expected his mother to take her time, make sure that she was safe from any potential threats, before just casually opening the door. He knew the exact moment she had looked through the peephole due to the muffled gasp that made its way through the cracks of the door. As the locks were coming undone Alec attempted to pull himself together, bringing up a hand to press into his eyes and wipe away the burning tears that threatened to fall, and when he looked up Maryse stood before him with a face bare of makeup and full of concern.

“Alec?” Her tone is what broke him, it was too much like the voice she made when he was a kid. Tears erupted from hazel eyes and a sob flew from Alec’s mouth before he could stop it. All the control he had been fighting to maintain since he walked into the bookshop with the mission to break Magnus’ heart was gone, he physically could not keep up the act any longer and now he needed to fall apart. “Oh Alec...” Maryse said while raising her arms, “comer here baby.” Alec took the offer and miserably threw himself into her awaiting embrace.

For a few moments Maryse rocked her son as he let out the most woeful wails she had ever heard. “Shhh sweetheart, shhh, you’re going to be okay. Whatever it is, it is going to be okay.” The words left her mouth before she could even think about it, just like her hands just new to rub soothing circles along her son’s back.

Alec nodded and allowed for his mother to guide him inside her new place. Although Alec had helped her move into the small townhome, he had never seen the place fully decorated. Alec’s eyes drifted across the living room that his mother brought him into and he could not help but smile, the place definitely looked like a home and a small part of his heart wondered what it would have been like to grow up in a house like this instead of the Institute. “You did a good job mom.” Alec complimented.

“Thank you.” Maryse said as she walked over to a comfortable looking sofa. Before she sat down, she turned to her son and beckoned him to come over. Alec hesitated for a second, all of his life he was taught that emotions were a distraction and he should be ashamed to show them. The very woman that was calling him over taught him that philosophy.

Alec could remember that conversation clearly, it was just after he had gotten his Angelic Rune. Both of his parents had been so proud of him that day, and when his mom had taken him into his room so they could have a “special talk” Alec had been excited. The excitement quickly faded because this special talk differed from all of the others before it, his mom didn’t start it off with a smile or by stroking his hair, she did not sit next to him or pull him into a hug, and she exclusively referred to him as Alexander despite knowing he hated being called by his full name. That was the day that Alec Lightwood stopped being his mother’s baby, it was the day he was told he had to start becoming a Shadowhunter. That day was supposed to be one of the most special days in his life, yet he remembers his heart shattering because when he held up his arms for a hug his mother had walked away.

Alec cried in his bed that night, but the next morning he emerged from his room the man his parents wanted him to be. He was no longer a boy; he was a soldier and he needed to set an example for his siblings.

“Alec where did you go?” Maryse’s question brought Alec back to reality.

“What?” Alec asked.

“You looked lost for a moment.” Maryse didn’t try to call her son over again, instead she walked to him and gently grabbed his arm. She led him the sofa, just as she had led him into her home. “I need you to tell me what is going on, otherwise I won’t be able to fix anything.”

Alec’s head dropped down; his eyes more interested in Maryse’s shoes than her face. “Baby what’s wrong?” She asked again.

“You can’t fix it mom.” Alec whispered while turning his back to his mom. He brought his arm up and wiped his face with his jacket. “Everything is broken, and nobody can fix it.”

“You’re scaring me Alec. What happened?” Maryse let her hands rest on her son’s shoulders, but he jerked away at the touch.

“I’m sorry,” Alec quickly apologized.

“You don’t need to be sorry, just tell me what is going on.” Maryse took a slow step forward, not wanting to spook her son again. “Let’s just sit down and you can tell me what happened, okay?”

Alec turned to look at her again and the sight she was met with was a knife to the heart. Her precious boy’s lips were quivering, almost like a gate that was being slowly battered down by a monster trying to escape.

“You’re going to be mad at me.” Alec whimpered. Alec knew that what he had just said was childish, probably the most immature thing he had said since that fateful day he got his first rune, but he didn’t care. Alec deserved this moment, he deserved to be a kid and throw himself onto the floor in a tantrum because he just had to give up the person that he loved most in this world, and that was by far a mature enough act to warrant an immature response.

Maryse pulled her son down onto the couch and cupped his face that way she could force him to look at her. “Alexander Gideon Lightwood,” Alec flinched when his mom said his full name, it brought back memories of Asmodeus and his deal, “I love you with all of my heart. You and your siblings are my everything and I do not care what it is that you have done, I promise I will still love you and I will stand by your side.” The confession brought tears to both of their eyes. It wasn’t lost on Maryse that just a few short months ago she was hardly the mother her son needed, but she had grown and changed, and, in this moment, she had said what he needed to hear.

After hearing his mother’s words a few more tears slipped down Alec’s cheeks, leaving stains behind like scars. “I broke up with Magnus.”

The shock from the statement caused Maryse to lean back. She regretted the action immediately because Alec pulled his face away from her touch and he nearly collapsed into himself, closing himself off from her and the world. “Alec,” Maryse pulled at her son’s arm. He was strong and hard to move when he was determined, but currently, he was pliable because his limbs were limp with despair. Once she had forced him out of his cocoon, she grabbed his chin and turned his face to look at her once again. “Alec I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you think I was upset with you.”

Alec’s breathing became erratic, he could feel himself losing control again now that his mother had shown she wasn’t going to yell at him for once again screwing everything up. “I didn’t want to.” Alec gasped out like a drowning man trying to find air. “I didn’t want to mom, I didn’t want to.” Alec’s hands shot to his head and he pulled at his hair while rocking himself back and forth. “I didn’t want to.” He whispered again.

Maryse was horrified at the sight in front of her. It was no secret to her that Alec struggled with depression, after all, she was there when he had thrown himself off of Magnus’ balcony. But the sorrow she was witnessing now was on a completely different level. For an entire minute she was too stunned to move, her eyes just followed her son as he rocked himself and whispered the same few words over and over again. Finally, she regained control.

Alec felt a hand on each shoulder, and he realized he was being pulled down into a lying position. He landed with his head in his mother’s lap and soothing fingers were grazing through his hair. An old Spanish lullaby that Alec had not heard since Max was two filled the living room. And for the first time that night Alec felt safe. The world around him was still irreparably broken, but his mother was acting as a shield and holding him together.

After the song ended Maryse began to hum, there wasn’t a particular tune she was following but she needed something to do while waiting for her darling son to decide he was ready to talk again. They stayed like that for nearly twenty minutes, Alec’s cries slowing turning into hiccups and drifting finally into sniffles. Still Maryse waited, Alec needed to be the one to start their discussion again.

Eventually Alec shifted his lengthy body so that his face was looking at his mother’s stomach rather than the living room’s TV. He didn’t want to see his pathetic reflection any longer, he would rather hide away into the warm comfort his mother was giving him. “I didn’t have a choice.” Alec said while tracing the sofa’s pattern with his pointer finger. He used to do that as a kid too, but instead of intricate couch designs he would trace his mother’s runes. He couldn’t do that now, so he settled for the sofa.

“I believe you.” After Maryse said that, she heard Alec release a relieved sigh. “I told you baby; I will always stand by you. I wasn’t lying.”

“I know.” Alec said, but he closed his eyes in frustration. Maryse began her ministrations again, running her fingers through Alec’s wild locks. “I know mom, but I’m still made at me, so I expect everyone else to be mad at me too.”

“Alec,” Maryse once again grabbed his chin and guided his face to looking at her, “I know you, and I know that you would never do something this drastic unless you believed it was the only way.”

“It was.” If her son’s heart wasn’t broken right in front of her right now, she would have smiled at the pout he was currently sporting.

“Tell me what happened. I promise I won’t be mad at you.” Maryse prompted for what felt like the hundredth time. However, she could not let her frustration at not having the full picture yet show, otherwise Alec might take it as her breaking her promise to remain in his corner.

Alec sat himself up, believing that this conversation should not held between himself and his mother’s stomach. “I didn’t propose to Magnus last night.”

“I noticed he wasn’t wearing the family ring when he came to visit me. He told me that he had a drunken emotional break down at the dinner.” Alec’s eyes widened with shock at what his mother had said. He had never expected Magnus to open up to his mother like that, he had hoped for it but never expected it.

“He said some things. They were horrible to hear, but he was being honest, and I needed to hear them.” Alec sighed and rubbed his hands together. Maryse did not like how ruff he was being with himself, it was concerning, but she did not want to take him out of this moment. “He told me that I finally got what I wanted, because he is basically a mundane now.”

“Alec that isn’t true,” Maryse cut in.

“But it is.” Alec turned to look at his mother with bloodshot eyes on the verge of even more tears. “When he lost his magic there was a part of me that was happy. I wanted to grow old with him mom! I didn’t want him to be young and vital while I was a geriatric burden! And it made me selfish and horrible, but I didn’t care because at least I could be selfish and horrible with the love of my life. And now that isn’t even true anymore!”

Maryse grabbed her son’s hands whenever she saw he increased the intensity his pinching during the emotional outburst. He looked down for a moment and then back at her, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Maryse brought the hands up and kissed them, serving as a reminder that she was here, and she loved him. “Alec, sweetheart, don’t beat yourself up over this. You can’t stop how you feel, and there is nothing wrong about being excited to grow old with the man you love.”

“There is whenever the man you love isn’t happy to grow old with you.” Alec fired back. “He was miserable mom. He hated himself because the core part of his identity had been taken from him. Everything that he thought make him who he was, was gone in a second and it was because he loved me.”

“Please don’t blame yourself Alec. This wasn’t your fault.” Maryse brought said and kissed his hands again; hoping against all hope her kiss would bring him some form of healing.

“He’s lost everything mom. His job, his powers, his home, and all that has happened since him and I started dating. His love for me was the catalyst for his suffering. I’ve been nothing but a cancer to him.” Alec’s voice choked on his last sentence, because in that moment he was repeating the sentiment Asmodeus made before offering his deal.

“No.” Maryse’s voice was ice cold. “No, I will not hear you say something like that. Alec you are not, nor have you ever been, a cancer. You have the greatest capacity for love that I have ever seen, and I will not sit here and listen to you spew horrible lies about yourself.”

Alec shot off the couch turning to his mother with a righteous fury she had never before seen behind his eyes. “Then give me another explanation, because I have run through every scenario in my head, and everything comes up the same! Magnus would have been happier if I had stayed up at the alter! But because I couldn’t go back in time, I had to solve the problem that was in front of me!” Alec paced the floor in front of his mother. “Alec, what did you do?” Maryse asked.

Alec sighed and rubbed his neck, knowing that he was about to hear his mother’s disapproval, despite her earlier promise, “I went to a warlock that could channel Asmodeus. I wanted to make a deal to get Magnus his magic and immortality back.”

“You did what?” Maryse stood and crossed her arms, trying her best to keep her composure.

“I talked with Asmodeus and made a deal.” Alec repeated.

“That is why you broke up with Magnus.” Maryse said as she finally had enough pieces to put the puzzle together. “That was his price.”

“Yes.” Alec said. This time when Maryse looked at her son, she saw a man walking towards the gallows, resigned to his fate and facing it with dignity.

“You sacrificed your own happiness for his.” A queasiness burrowed itself into her stomach, the only thing preventing her from running to her bathroom and giving into the sickness being the need to stay strong for her son.

“Yes.” Alec said again.

“Did you tell him? Did you give Magnus a choice in all of this?” Maryse found herself hoping that Magnus didn’t choose this. She had just told the man that he was family, and if he turned around and chose his Magnus over her boy, well she didn’t know what she would do but it would probably be murderous.

“Asmodeus said that if Magnus ever found out the deal would be off.” Maryse cursed that damned demon. How dare he put her son and his partner in this kind of position. “I didn’t have a real choice mom. Magnus was inconsolable without his magic; it was a pain he could never recover from.” Alec closed his eyes and took a few calming breaths, “But he can recover from losing me. He has loved people before and moved on, he can move on from me too. That is what was destined to happen in the first place.”

Maryse moved in closer to her son, once again pulling him into an embrace. “I guess I did get my wish in some way. Now I won’t be a burden to him when I’m old.” The admission caused Alec to pull his mother even closer. Maryse returned to whispering sweet nothings to her son and rubbing his back, attempting to put at least some of his broken pieces back together.

“You are truly the most selfless man I have ever met.” Maryse said, a slight tremor present in her voice. “I’m so sorry this happened baby. You deserved a grand love story, and this should have never happened to you.” “I only care about Magnus’ happiness, if he gets that back I can survive.” Alec said into his mother’s hair.

They stood in silence for a few minutes, Alec just trying to soak up the comfort his mother was offering him. Tonight, he had broken every rule that his mother had set for him in their “special talk” after his rune ceremony, but it seemed that those rules had been disregarded by both of them. It was that knowledge that gave Alec the courage to ask if he could stay with his mom for the night. It had been ages since Alec had found himself crawling into bed with his mother, but he could not bring himself to be embarrassed about making the request.

He had stabbed himself in the heart tonight and he needed his mom, so he felt no shame as she led him into the bedroom and tucked him under a heavy comforter. Alec knew that the mornings to come were going to be unbearably painful, because he had sentenced himself to living the rest of his life without a heart, but for now he decided to forget the pain if only temporarily and focus on the slender fingers running through his hair and guiding him into a much needed rest.

Once Maryse saw that her son had finally drifted to sleep she allowed her silent tears to fall. A grief that was not her own had taken residence in her heart, and now she was left looking at the sleeping figure of her mangled son. She would not allow this to continue. Maryse had scarified love, she would not allow her son to do the same. One way or another Maryse would see her boy reunite with Magnus Bane, and if that meant she personally had to drive a blade through Asmodeus’ chest, then that is exactly what she would do.

Second Doctor Thoughts

When I finished the First Doctor’s era a year after starting it and in the summer before I started university I joked that at this rate I’d graduate before finishing Classic Who. Well joke’s on me because I very nearly graduated before even finishing the Second Doctor’s era, avoided in large part thanks to a conveniently timed DWSoc screening of The War Games that pushed me to finish the previous two serials in time for that. And I think all this makes it seem as though I wasn’t particularly interested or invested in Two’s era but that really wasn’t the case. Rather, it was more that my progress was bogged down by a combination of having a ridiculous amount of uni work, combining that with starting several other new tv shows (I’m super great at time management and priorities guys) and there being so many missing episodes. I know Power of the Daleks took a month to watch because of the combination of missing episodes making it hard to get a feel for what Two was like (the animation didn’t come out for another year). 

And now it feels weird having to talk about my thoughts on something I started three years ago. When I was writing up my thoughts on The Krotons the other day I was struggling to remember what my notes were referring to and that was only several months after watching. But then again this is my thoughts on the era as a whole rather than individual parts of it. And there’s definitely something to be said for taking so long to watch. I mean Two and Jamie have been on-and-off fixtures of my life for the past 3 years which is more or less what they would have been for DW fans back in the 60s. And a six-episode serial back then would have taken over a month for people to watch. Maybe I should pretend this was all intentional to get a ~realistic viewing experience~….

I’m looking back now at my post where I talked about my First Doctor thoughts and I had split it into four sections: the Doctor, the companions, the aliens and the writing/visuals etc. I feel as though I have less to say this time, both as a result of 2/3 of Two’s era being less recent to me than the entirety of One’s had been at the time, but also because I feel as though I went into this era with a better idea of what if would be like. I started Classic Who blind, more just to fill the time while DW wasn’t on air than wanting to actually see what it was like and a lot of my post once I finished One’s era was talking about how pleasantly surprised and how I hadn’t expected to love the characters/character development/plots as much as I did. I had really gone in expecting very little and if you’ve spent any time on my blog you can see how much I really love One’s era now. However, since starting Classic Who I’ve followed a bunch of Classic Who blogs. I’ve seen people talk about Classic Who (including Two’s era) and I’ve even see some people I follow start and work their way through Classic Who at a significantly faster pace than me, going through Two’s stuff before I got there. I tried to not pay attention to plot details (oh how I wish I hadn’t known about the Time Lords in The War Games) but not only is it hard to avoid 50-year-old spoilers, I didn’t start watching only to be surprised by how good a lot of the characterisation and plots were. The quality of some serials still took me by surprise (I knew people said it would be good but The Enemy of the World was really EXCELLENT, can’t wait for Two to save 2018) but I generally had higher expectations.

Obviously this era suffers from missing episodes significantly more than One’s era. I watched all the reconstructions but so often something would be described in the scrolling text that I would pay large quantities of money to get to actually see (x x) and there were serials like The Macra Terror which I could tell were really good and enjoyed but would have been even better if there were full visuals to go with the audio. It’s a shame because all these missing episodes must seems like a huge barrier to a lot of people when it comes to starting Classic Who and I’ve seen people under the impression that most black and white episodes are missing.

But anyway. On to the actual thoughts. Like I said this is going to be shorter than it was for One’s era but please don’t mistake that for lack of enthusiasm. Also I’ll put it under a cut because this preamble has already gone on long enough.

The Doctor:

Isn’t Two fantastic? He’s really just out there to have a good time and explore and help out, and it really builds up well to the revelation that he ran away from the Time Lords because he wasn’t content to just observe the universe without interacting with it. He doesn’t seem to have misconceptions about him in the same way One did and I can’t imagine anyone watching the era and not thinking Troughton was an absolute delight. There’s a child-like amusement mixed in with scattiness that often seems to act as a mask to his thought processes (though not always - this is someone has done the blowing-up-an-island equivalent of sawing off a tree branch while sitting on it). And when you see Two switch to being dead serious you know that the situation warrants it. It was fascinating in particular to get a first glimpse into his interactions and relationship with the other Time Lords and I’m looking forward to the Master being introduced now I’m going into Three’s era to start to build on that (I know we had the Monk with One but that felt different, understandably, as I’m sure at the time there was so concept of Time Lords). Two had a deceptive child-like glee, not the same as One’s but not entirely different either, and I’m going to miss this recorder-playing space hobo and his expressive face. 

The Companions:

I didn’t talk much about Ben and Polly in my First Doctor post because I felt I hadn’t really got to know them yet, although I don’t think their four (well…..really three, it’s a shame they weren’t in most of their last serial) stories with Two really told me anything I hadn’t seen with One other than giving them a new surface to bounce off of. I just loved their combination of small, frequently surprised sailor and hip 60s woman who defeats the cybermen using knowledge about nail polish. And of course they were the first ever companions to deal with regeneration and I really enjoyed seeing their different approaches and different amounts of trust in this new Doctor during Power. I’m not usually fussed about the whole ‘first face this face saw’ but seeing how overlooked these two are I like to think they had a special place in Two’s hearts because of this.

And then there’s Jamie who is unquestioningly the defining companion of Two’s era and for good reason too. A lot of the era’s comedy comes from Two and Jamie bouncing off of (and clinging to) each other, and seeing that Jamie lost all that time he spent travelling with the Doctor was really right up there with Donna losing her memories. It would be easy to just think of Jamie as not very clever, but I feel like a lot of the time this came down to a lack of familiarity with what would later become familiar technology (I really enjoyed having a historical companion, done much better than Katarina RIP). Yes he would sometimes be slow to get things and be the butt of the joke, and sure he would do things like jump in front of an ice warrior but it would work and he had a lot of heart and a lot of love for his friends. He would often be an outside perspective to Two, being a voice of reason when Two got a bit carried away (cf. Two’s blowing-up-an-island equivalent of sawing off a tree branch while sitting on it). Here are just a few favourite Jamie moments: x x x. Oh and of course, Jimbo McCribbob.

Quick shoutout to almost-companion Samantha Briggs - if she had ended up staying as originally intended we would have missed out on Victoria so I don’t wish that had happened but I thought she was really brilliant in The Faceless Ones and I loved her interactions with Jamie.

What I loved and also found sad about Victoria was her interactions with Two, how he showed a real understanding of the fact that she had lost everyone and come on the TARDIS out of a sense of having nowhere else to go rather than out of curiosity and a sense of adventure (Tomb of the Cybermen stands out in particular in this respect). She was often scared (and I’m pretty sure I would have been terrified in the situations she was put in) but always kind and I thought her exit was really earned. She deserved to live in a stable place with people she could grow to call family and not constantly feel in danger. That life just wasn’t for her as much as she loved Jamie and Two and I appreciated that the Doctor refused to try and persuade her otherwise, no matter what Jamie said.

Oh Zoe. My science daughter. My incredibly intelligent science daughter who didn’t know how candles worked #just21stcenturyproblems. Firstly: congrats Two! You only (accidentally) kidnapped one (stowaway) companion! I liked that she was introduced in a cyberman episode, contrasting her wanting to feel everything like someone who hasn’t been trained to be a human computer and the cybermen who want to erase emotions. And again, all that is lost when she leaves and it’s a tragedy. But this show always has to have bits of tragedy woven in every now and then, keeping us grounded. It’s a show that does bittersweet well. Her advanced scientific and mathematical knowledge meant that she had a dynamic with the Doctor that we also saw with Vicki only to a lesser extent and I liked that she often thought of things before the Doctor (oh what I would have given to see Zoe and Vicki meet at some point). Also, and very importantly, Zoe always made a cute(r than usual) face when she was complemented! 

The aliens:

This is going to be very short, limited to four quick points:

I found Two-era cybermen increasingly difficult to understand and I’m not sure if that was just me or something people found in general

also interesting to see the introduction of another (if less-so) recurring alien with the ice warriors (and in a serial with Peter Sallis no less!)

yeti!! made even better by the fact that I got to see the actual costume when I went to the DW Experience this summer

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE MACRA

The plots, writing, and visuals:

I think this is where I’m going to have notably less to say than in my post for the First Doctor. What I will say is that while there were many outstanding or particularly fun stories (Enemy and Macra as I said earlier but also The Faceless Ones, The Mind Robber, The Invasion, The Web of Fear (Anne Travers <3 and the Brig!!) and The War Games to name a few), I’m definitely more a fan of going-on-an-adverture-to-find-stuff-out stories than the base-under-siege pattern that this era had a lot of and I felt like there were more stories that I was indifferent to than in One’s era, but even then that wasn’t any great amount. Oh and historicals. I miss historicals. One thing that I will say is that while this era managed have more roles played by black actors, whenever we we met a black character my first thought was always ‘I hope they don’t die’ (especially Kemel and Fariah), and as far as I can remember I was let down every time. But that is more a complaint with 1960s TV in general rather than being something specific to Doctor Who.

Overall:

The Second Doctor era has really been a constant in a significant era of my life, and I don’t think I have anything left to say that I’ve not already said in this overly-long post. I’m glad it’s not totally goodbye forever though, there’s still the anniversary specials to look forward to and I haven’t heard characterisation complaints for Two and co. in the same way as for One and Susan. But for now it’s onto the (temporarily) Earth-bound world of colour and UNIT, back with the Brig and getting to meet Liz, Benton and Yates (and later Jo and Sarah-Jane)! Autons! Dinosaurs! The Master! Let’s just hope this doesn’t take another three years!

Goodbye cosmic hobo. I’ll miss you.

He’s a Dogecoin Millionaire. And He’s Not Selling. Last February, when Glauber Contessoto decided to invest his life savings in Dogecoin, his friends had concerns. “They were all like, you’re crazy,” he said. “It’s a joke coin. It’s a meme. It’s going to crash.” Their skepticism was warranted. After all, Dogecoin is a joke — a digital currency started in 2013 by a pair of programmers who decided to spoof the cryptocurrency craze by creating their own virtual money based on a meme about Doge, a talking Shiba Inu puppy. And investing money in obscure cryptocurrencies has, historically, been akin to tossing it onto a bonfire. But Mr. Contessoto, 33, who works at a Los Angeles hip-hop media company, is no ordinary buy-and-hold investor. He is among the many thrill-seeking amateurs who have leapt headfirst into the markets in recent months, using stock-trading apps like Robinhood to chase outsize gains on risky, speculative bets. 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These investors, mostly young men, don’t behave rationally in the old-fashioned, Homo economicus sense. They pick investments not based on their underlying fundamentals or the estimates of Wall Street analysts, but on looser criteria, such as how funny they are, how futuristic they seem or how many celebrities are tweeting about them. Their philosophy is that in today’s media-saturated world, attention is the most valuable commodity of all, and that anything that is attracting a great deal of it must be worth something. “Memes are the language of the millennials,” Mr. Contessoto said. “Now we’re going to have a meme matched with a currency.” Mr. Contessoto, an affable, bearded hip-hop fan who goes by the nickname Jaysn Prolifiq, is a first-generation immigrant whose parents came to the United States from Brazil when he was 6. As a child in suburban Maryland, he saw his family struggling with money, and he vowed to become rich. He discovered a love of hip-hop music as a teenager, and after school, he moved to Los Angeles, where he took a job making $36,000 a year as an entry-level video editor while trying to book gigs for an up-and-coming rapper he knew. His dream was to save up enough money to buy a house — one where he and his hip-hop friends could live while making music together. But that kind of cash was elusive, and he spent several years crashing on couches while trying to save enough for a down payment. In 2019, he started buying stocks on Robinhood, the commission-free trading app. He stuck to big, well-known companies like Tesla and Uber, and when those trades made money, he bought more. And in January 2021, he watched in fascination as a group of traders on Reddit successfully boosted the stock price of GameStop, squeezing the hedge funds that had bet against the video game retailer and making millions for themselves in the process. (He tried to get in on the GameStop trade but he was too late, and he ended up losing most of his stake.) Shortly after the GameStop saga, Mr. Contessoto was browsing Reddit when he saw a post about Dogecoin. He’d heard of the currency before. (Elon Musk, who is to Dogecoin fans roughly what Pope Francis is to Catholics, had called it the “people’s crypto.”) But as he did more research, he became convinced that Dogecoin’s jokey, approachable image might make it the next GameStop. “Dogecoin has the best branding of all cryptocurrency,” he said. “If you put in front of me all the symbols of Ethereum, Bitcoin, Litecoin — everything just looks super high tech and futuristic. And Dogecoin just looks like: Hey, guys, what’s up?” He imagines that newbies investing in cryptocurrency for the first time might gravitate toward something fun and recognizable, and that Dogecoin might eventually become a kind of on-ramp to the larger world of virtual money. “I feel like eventually we’re all going to be buying and selling things with memes, and Dogecoin is going to lead the way,” he said. Strange as his investment thesis might seem, it’s hard to argue with the results. Even after a recent crash following Mr. Musk’s appearance on “Saturday Night Live” (in which he joked about Dogecoin being a “hustle”), Dogecoin remains a very lucrative trade. A dollar invested in Dogecoin on Jan. 1 would be worth $203 today — much more than a comparable investment in Bitcoin, Ethereum or any stock in the S&P 500. Dogecoin’s stratospheric rise has also fueled plenty of grumbling among cryptocurrency buffs, who see it as a tacky sideshow that overshadows more serious uses of cryptocurrency. One of Dogecoin’s original creators has disavowed the coin, and even Mr. Musk has warned investors not to over-speculate in cryptocurrency. (Mr. Musk recently sent the crypto markets into upheaval again, after he announced that Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin.) What explains Dogecoin’s durability, then? There’s no doubt that Dogecoin mania, like GameStop mania before it, is at least partly attributable to some combination of pandemic-era boredom and the eternal appeal of get-rich-quick schemes. But there may be more structural forces at work. Over the past few years, soaring housing costs, record student loan debt and historically low interest rates have made it harder for some young people to imagine achieving financial stability by slowly working their way up the career ladder and saving money paycheck by paycheck, the way their parents did. Instead of ladders, these people are looking for trampolines — risky, volatile investments that could either result in a life-changing windfall or send them right back to where they started. Mr. Contessoto is a prime case study. He makes $60,000 a year at his job now — a decent living, but nowhere near enough to afford a home in Los Angeles, where the median home costs nearly $1 million. He drives a beat-up Toyota, and spent years living frugally. But in his 30s, still with no house to his name, he decided to go looking for something that could change his fortunes overnight, and ended up at Dogecoin’s door. When Mr. Contessoto recalls the way he used to pursue wealth — working hard, cutting back on expenses, saving some money from every paycheck — he sees evidence of a system that is rigged against regular people. “I feel like those experts on TV, the older generation of old money and wealth, they try to scare people into staying safe so nobody gets too rich,” he told me. His new motto, he said, is “scared money don’t make money.” Many things about Mr. Contessoto’s investing philosophy would turn a traditional financial adviser’s stomach. But wildest of all is that despite his spectacular gains, he has not yet cashed out his Dogecoin millions. He thinks the currency’s price will continue to rise, and he doesn’t want to miss out on future profits by selling too soon. (He does plan to sell 10 percent of his stake next year, once his earnings will be classified as long-term capital gains and taxed at a lower rate.) Instead, he is branding himself as a Dogecoin expert, adopting nicknames like “the Dogefather” and “Slumdoge Millionaire” and making YouTube videos promoting Dogecoin to others. “I’m bullish as they come in the Dogecoin community,” he said. “If this exceeded my expectations of Dogecoin, and I only hit it in two months, imagine where it’ll be in a year.” Of course, as with any volatile investment, there is a real chance that Mr. Contessoto’s Dogecoin holdings could lose most or all of their value, and that his dream of homeownership could again be out of reach. Already, the price of Dogecoin has fallen nearly 50 percent from its all-time high, shaving hundreds of thousands of dollars off Mr. Contessoto’s portfolio. But gamblers rarely leave the table the first time they lose, and Mr. Contessoto’s commitment to “HODLing” — an acronym favored by cryptocurrency traders that stands for “hold on for dear life” — is buoying him through the recent market turbulence. Earlier this week, he posted a screenshot of his cryptocurrency trading app, showing that he’d bought more. And on Thursday, when the value of his Dogecoin holdings fell to $1.5 million, roughly half what it was at the peak, he posted another screenshot of his account on Reddit. “If I can hodl, you can HODL!” the caption read. Source link Orbem News #Dogecoin #hes #Millionaire #Selling

maybe the world could be ours tonight

title from ‘rewrite the stars’ by justin paul and benj pasek. yes, i wrote after olicity fic after telling myself i wouldn’t watch the show, let alone write for them even though they’re gorgeous and i love them.

thanks to @love-with-you-i-have-everything for looking over this!!

on ao3 here and on ff.net here

It’s impossible were the only words going through Felicity Smoak’s mind as she looked down at her arm. Impossible, impossible, completely impossible.

She kept staring as she collapsed back onto her bed. Oliver Queen was written across her arm in thin black writing. The skin around the mark was still tingling, burning a little bit. It wasn’t too intense anymore; the burn had woken her up but the feeling had faded in minutes.

Felicity closed her eyes for a minute, squeezed them shut as tightly as possible, and ran through her newly acquired information as she ran her fingers through her hair.

Soulmarks were apparently real. Oliver Queen was apparently her soulmate. Oliver Queen apparently did not die a year and a half ago as everyone had assumed. Oliver Queen apparently died, like, about twenty minutes ago.

She opened her eyes and stared at the line of script again. His handwriting was pretty nice. It didn’t really match the happy-go-lucky multi-college dropout she’d seen in the papers for years. The Queen name was infamous in the western USA for more than just Queen Consolidated and the elder Queens. She was one of the few girls in her high school who didn’t absolutely swoon over the escapades of Oliver Queen and Tommy Merlyn. She’d grown up hearing horror stories about trust fund babies like Oliver Queen.

But now he was dead. That was the funny—and tragic—thing about soulmarks, her grandma always said. They never showed up until one partner was dead. In the years in between their death and yours, you got to live your life knowing one of two things. That you chose correctly and your other half was gone—or that you missed your chance and now you’d never have the chance to find that perfect person.

It was all ridiculous, really. It still was, even as Felicity accidentally memorized the curves of the O and the Q.

Now what to do about the whole thing.

She couldn’t really mourn for something she never, ever wanted or someone she thought was dead already. She was only eighteen—too much of a life ahead of her to mourn for the famous Oliver Queen. Felicity shook her head and stared at the wall of her dorm room. She wouldn’t do that.

She couldn’t really tell anyone, either. She pictured walking up to Moira Queen, showing her the newly marked arm and proof that it wasn’t Sharpie… “Hi, I just found out I’m your son’s soulmate. Although of course, in order for me to know that, that means that he’s dead. Yeah, he just died, not when you and the rest of the world thought he did about a year ago. Have fun with that knowledge!”

Yeah, no. That wouldn’t work either. Mrs. Queen would either kill her—as any mother would probably be tempted to do in that moment—or—if she felt generous and Felicity managed to not say inappropriate things—adopt her. Neither of which would be conducive to finishing her degrees.

Felicity glanced down at her arm again. Only one thing to do—cover it up. If she ever got a boyfriend, she could pretend she had a really wild night in Vegas before she hasta la vista-ed her way out of there. Or something like that.

She halfway fell off her bed in her haste to get to her dresser, tore off her short-sleeved pajama shirt—Mathletics Champion 2007, whoo—and tugged on a loose long-sleeved black t-shirt. Not nearly as comfortable, but much better for hiding the problematic words. Which was apparently what she was going to have to do from now on.

She stared at herself in the mirror. Her hair was all over the place and she apparently hadn’t gotten all of her mascara off. Whatever fates were out there—they’d decided that she, Felicity Megan Smoak, was now doomed to be alone slash freed at the age of eighteen. It was a peculiar feeling. She was tied to no one.

Felicity turned the light back off and allowed herself one tear—or five—for Oliver Queen. He was her soulmate, after all. That kind of thing was okay.

--

Apparently, it’s impossible were to be the first words that would come to Felicity’s mind whenever she thought about Oliver Queen. Admittedly, she hadn’t really thought about him since the mark appeared—after that, it had just been a groan or a sigh whenever she saw the words written in her skin, cursing the lie she kept from the rest of the world and the fact that she had this guy’s name on her arm forever—but she was staring at the TV screen and thinking IT’S IMPOSSIBLE HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE.

Because Oliver Queen was alive. Completely alive and breathing and not dead in the middle of nowhere.

At least all of the major TV networks were saying so. They were screaming it, really: Billionaire Oliver Queen Found in North China Sea after Being Shipwrecked for Five Years and other variations of that. There were pictures of him pre- and post-island and… was it really that terrible to think “Oliver, good sir, the island has done you good”? Because that was what she first thought when she saw the newest picture, and she kept thinking it every time she saw a new picture.

There were many coming in as the man was escorted out of the hospital on the way toward the Queen mansion. And they were all beautiful.

His arms were bare of any Felicity Smoak in her handwriting, so apparently it was just her soulmark that had gone kerflooey. Not that it made any sense, of course. And it wasn’t like she was going to have the opportunity to track him down and ask him if he’d died at any point in his Castaway excursion.

Probably not the polite thing to do, and also he was alive, and there’d have been no way to come back to life on an abandoned island in the middle of the ocean. Or come back to life at all, no matter the location or situation. Not logical.

Also she was just an IT girl, even if she was working at Queen Consolidated. She would never meet Oliver Queen at all unless the fates had a really twisted sense of humor. She frowned suddenly. That would be the height of irony—if she’d only gotten this job so she could meet Oliver Queen.

Felicity pulled up the sleeve of her cardigan and stared at the cursive. She glanced back up at Oliver’s face. And back down at her arm. They did have a twisted idea of humorous.

--

Oliver saw the mark on Felicity’s arm for the first time in Nanda Parbat. He had no idea how he’d missed it over the three years of them spending most of their time together, but he’d never really thought to study her arm. Apparently she wore long-sleeved shirts more than he realized or had found some really good cover up.

Many more interesting things to look at on the woman he loved, like her eyes and her hair and everything else.

They were lying in the bed, shirts scattered across the room. She was sprawled halfway across his chest, fingers tracing the scars gently, her left arm thrown carelessly over his chest. Oliver Queen was written on her arm in his handwriting.

“Is that…” he couldn’t get all of the syllables out. He’d heard stories, of course, heard tales in Hong Kong and Starling, even seen the word on Slade’s arm that made him think that Shado was his. But he hadn’t really believed it.

Felicity glanced down at her arm. “Oh, yeah,” she murmured, cuddling into his side a little more. “Showed up about three years before you returned alive. Three and a half, actually. I was still at MIT.” He could hear it in her voice, the struggle to sound completely casual. Problem: it was Felicity, and  nonchalance was really not her strong suit.

He tried to follow her example. “So, soulmarks are real, then. That’s cool.”

“Yep.”

Oliver then tried to forget about the whole thing, but every time they moved in the slightest—and he should really be getting up to make sure Felicity intended to leave—he remembered the writing on her arm. He opened his mouth to comment on it again, but Felicity beat him to it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you! It’s just—it was really weird, the whole ‘I have a dead guy’s name on my arm’ and then the whole ‘oh yeah everyone thought he died almost two years ago’ and then, well, you were alive. Which was great, and completely surprising. I should have told you, shouldn’t I have? Speaking of, did you die at some point around then? Because if not, then the whole myth about them is completely wrong. And anyway, you didn’t think of me in any sort of way that warranted the great showing of the soulmark that you normally wouldn’t be able to see since—”

He kissed her. It was the only way that he could think of to stop the babbling.

“—you’d be dead,” she whispered. He smiled against her lips, prepared to tell the story.

“About a year and a half into the island part, Slade Wilson and I were fighting on a ship close to the island. The ship exploded soon afterward. Amanda Waller picked me up for training in Hong Kong and claimed to have brought me back once I woke up. I assume that the few minutes of no heartbeat and no breathing were enough to trigger… this.” He brushed his fingers along the mark slowly and carefully.

Felicity lifted her head back from its place on his chest, shifted a little to face him properly, and smiled. “We outsmarted the soulmarks,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he grinned. There was a lot he wanted to say but couldn’t. They weren’t words he wanted to leave her with. They’d only been given this night, after all. After tonight, he couldn’t belong to her anymore.

They kissed one more time, then Felicity pushed herself off of him and stepped over to the bottle of some sort of alcoholic beverage, yanking on a robe along the way. It didn’t quite cover up his name on her skin. He smiled before standing, the sudden grimness of his thoughts not nearly enough to smother the glow in his soul that Felicity had given him.

He didn’t know what he would do if Felicity Smoak ever appeared on his arm.

--

Oliver had asked her to marry him. Felicity had said yes, her smile lighting up the night. He’d put the ring on her finger. They were in a limo, happily riding away to wherever. Anywhere. They’d be together—forever. Happily ever after or whatever the fairy tales demanded.

This wasn’t a fairy tale. This wasn’t the kind of story someone should believe in, have to watch, be forced to recognize as life. Life as the fates demanded.

He couldn’t stop seeing it. Feeling it. Watching the bullets race toward them, smelling the blood in the air, holding her in the street, eyes darting all around and wondering what could happen next.

Oliver had felt the burn on his arm in the hospital. He didn’t really pay attention to it, just heard the nurses yelling for oxygen and paddles. He knew what it was, what the pain meant, because he was listening the long beep of Felicity flat lining.

He’d watched her die. He watched his fiancée and love of his life die. His soulmate.

He’d stood by helplessly as they brought her back, but those were the worst twenty-three seconds of his life. He’d thought that he’d already lived more than enough horrible moments to create those terrible twenty-three seconds. They weren’t supposed to be like this. Not about her.

He stood on the rooftop, attacking Darhk’s man. “Where. Is. Darhk?” were the only words he really said aside from the grunts and the yells. He threw the man into the electrical box, watched it spark around him.

The man jumped from the roof and entangled himself in some more wires for a crispy death. Oliver looked down at him and turned away from the mess he’d made. His arm ached again, but it was just the memory. Oliver would never forget that sharp burn, comparable to most of his other injuries, but gone sooner. He hadn’t looked at his arm yet; he’d avoided the sight when he changed into his leathers and hood after making sure that Felicity was okay and out of danger.

He had to look, though, to see the miracle that was Felicity, now written into his skin forever. He removed the gauntlet and closed his eyes for a moment before staring.

Felicity Smoak, his arm now read. Would forever read.

He found himself on his knees, and tears finally ran down his cheeks. He’d always known he wouldn’t like the person he’d become when this name appeared on his skin. They both knew he would go off the rails, the deep end.

He had to go back to the hospital and take the ring back to her, the ring that the nurse should never have removed. He stood up and stretched, covering the name on his arm with the glove once more.

That wasn’t even the most important thing right now. Felicity was alive, and Darhk would suffer for hurting the woman the Green Arrow loved.

--

They were lying in bed after getting home from the new base. They were still in fancy dress, except Oliver’s jacket, which was tossed haphazardly on the couch. “How can it have come to this?” Felicity whispered. “It’s a perfectly great day, all dressed up and married and nothing wrong with the world and then I jinx it.”

“You didn’t jinx it,” Oliver murmured, pulling her a little closer. “It’s our life.”

“And now someone on the team is going to testify against you and we’re searching them and suspecting them and that can’t possibly end well and I know we aren’t really planning our honeymoon yet because of work and the team and William but this doesn’t feel like any sort of honeymoon period and that’s actually really depressing and—”

And she was cut off with Oliver’s mouth on hers. She was really glad he’d decided that was the best way to shut the rambles up. It was a really good way, more effective than the counting backwards or anything else in the history of ever. It calmed her brain down very nicely and turned her thoughts to Oliver and happiness and not much else. Presto, no more babbling.

“We’re not thinking about that right now,” he whispered. “Right now, I’m going to relish the fact that you married me and we’re going to sleep.”

She can’t stop thinking about it yet. “They’re going to hate us, Oliver. We’re going to lose them if they figure out what we’re doing.” This kind of background search… she’d have quit the team over it if she was in their shoes. Of course, she had had a background search done on her long before Oliver hauled his bleeding self into her car, but that was different. She wasn’t on the team yet. These three—they’re family.

“We might.” Oliver raised himself up to hover over her a little. “And I know that if it happens I’ll regret it. But right now I need to protect you and William. You two come first.” He kissed her again, softer and slower. Felicity felt her brain slowly reduced to mush and, finally, the whole problem was put on the backburner where it belonged. He pulled away just as slowly and they stared into each other’s eyes for a bit. They were allowed. Married and all.

Oliver stretched over her and grabbed a tissue from her side table. “What are you doing?” Her simple question was quickly answered when he started gently rubbing at her arm, where the soulmark was. Felicity smiled as the words came into view. She sat up once he was done and unbuttoned his shirt and threw it on the floor, revealing her own name on his skin. She turned so that he could unzip her and she tossed the wedding dress to the floor next to his shirt, cuddling back into him the moment she was free.

It was really cool how both of them had died and come back and cheated the whole your partner must die in order for you to see their mark thing. Weird, but cool. She kissed the line of letters and he smiled, a faint phantom of pain entering his eyes. She remembered his face from the hospital when she woke up, and she couldn’t help wishing that those two words weren’t on his forearm. Even though it was really pretty cool.

“Did I ever tell you about the first time I saw you?” he asked. Rather random. Okay.

“I think I was there, I remember,” she said, a bit confused. “You pretended an assaulted laptop had had a run-in with a latte. Which was a lie. I wasn’t very savvy with the bullet holes yet, but that was no latte.”

Oliver smiled, pulling her back down to lie halfway on top of him. “No, you didn’t see me the first time.”

“Yeah, that’s not creepy at all.”

“Maseo and I were in Starling, looking for Chien Na Wei. She was going to be selling half of the bio weapon in Starling City, of all places. Amanda Waller sent me home.” She stared down at him in no small amount of shock. He’d come home without letting his mother, Thea, and Tommy know he was alive? She couldn’t imagine that amount of self-control.

“When did you see me?” was the appropriate next question.

His smile was soft, so fond and happy. She couldn’t stop herself from smiling back. “I was in my mom’s office, since it had the computers for the job, and I stalled because I found the video my dad left for me.” He had told her about that, the video that told him to follow the list. “And you came in Mom’s office.”

Felicity suddenly remembered that night, when she went in to return some files to Moira’s desk. She pushed herself up slightly, putting some distance between them so she could see his face clearly. “You heard me talking to your picture.”

“I’d seen Thea and Tommy earlier in the day, watched them as Thea’s life began to crash down around her and Tommy tried to save her. I’d followed them around a bit, but they weren’t really happy. You were a light among all the darkness I’d seen in the past two years. Beautiful,” he breathed. His eyes shone.

“And I called you cute, that couldn’t have hurt,” she said drily. “Please don’t go back to the shaving thing, though. It’s better this way.” She scratched her fingernails through his scruff lightly and he made that purring sound she loved so much.

He got back on topic. “You talked to the picture of me, wished I wasn’t dead—”

“The words had shown up like a year before that! Of course I wished you weren’t dead even though I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like you at all!”

Oliver settled deeper into the pillows and pulled her back down. “You wouldn’t have, I don’t think. Really, the accidental international trip was good for my character.” He brushed his fingers back across his name on her skin, caressing her arm. “Although I wish I’d seen this then.”

“What would you have done?” she whispered.

“Amanda threatened to kill Akio, Maseo and Tatsu’s son, if I disappeared. So I would have gone back to Hong Kong and seen the mission out. But the moment I could have, I would’ve come back. Not just for Thea and Mom and Tommy and Laurel.” He kissed the side of her head, lingered.

Felicity grinned into his chest. “You would have come back for me?” She couldn’t stop it from being a question. He’d still loved Laurel at the time, and the losses of Shado and Sara would have still been fresh. She wasn’t that kind of epic love, just the boring destined kind of soulmate.

“Nothing could have kept me from you. Even with everything else going on, whatever else happened, I would have come for you.” No matter what was unspoken, but she heard it anyway.

She moved so that she could see his face. There was determination, seriousness, sincerity in his eyes. A look that the island had given him. But there was something else—love. She saw it in his eyes, chasing away the demons. His mouth was tipped up at the very corners, smiling in that real way she loved so much. God, she loved him so much. Every part of him.

And, honestly? She would always find him, too.

So something happened to me a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been searching for the correct words to use to express it.  I have a very busy week ahead of me and I’d like to get this all out of my mind so I can focus on the tasks ahead.  However, before I get into this, a little backstory is necessary.  This is going to be VERY long, so bear with me.

Summer of 2008--I was taking a biology class at my local community college.  There was a quiet guy who sat in the back of the room, looking rather awkward.  Sometimes he didn’t have partners for his labs.  I honestly felt kind of bad for him, so I made an effort to reach out and have a conversation when our class went on a field trip to Kensington Park.  Nothing major, just little niceties and general small talk.  I didn’t really think anything of it at the time.

Fast forward to winter of 2009--our group of friends in community college always spent time hanging out in hallway next to one of the auditoriums in the main student building.  We had our laptops out and we were planning a huge spring break trip to Canada (because we were all at least 19 but not yet 21 and wanted to go there to drink).  Many people also hung out in this area, it was a popular spot for all the nerdy gamers.  While planning the trip and asking who was in, lo and behold the guy from my summer biology class comes up and says “I would be interested, here’s my number.”  None of us really hung out with him that much, aside from the random rounds of Super Nintendo (we had TVs from the A/V department hooked up back there) or some Settlers of Catan.  We thought it was a little creepy that he invited himself on such flimsy terms, so we didn’t call him.

Moving ahead again, to the fall of 2009.  Many people from our central group of friends at community college transferred out to Western Michigan University.  Some ended up coming the same semester as me, others waited until later.  I was really excited and enjoying my orientation with new friends, when suddenly I see him--community college guy.  He greets me, saying “wow, we’re both here, what a coincidence, huh?”  I kind of nod in agreement, but feel slightly creeped out nonetheless.

This time let’s go a little further forward, to spring of 2012.  There was a big group of us nerds who all always spent time in the main floor lounge of our dorm building.  Community college guy was among them, but I didn’t think anything of it.  He enjoyed playing Magic: the Gathering which we often were playing, so it just seemed natural for him to be around.  But right before the end of the school year, I had a crush on one of my good friends from this group.  Long story short, we liked each other, things got complicated, other girls entered the picture and there was a big dramatic night at one of the local clubs that we were all out dancing at.  The next morning, I get a text from community college guy, saying: “well now that (crush) is out of the way, would you consider dating me?”  I was extremely pissed off by his tactless attempt to pick me up THE DAY AFTER something so horrible happened.  I told him no and firmly expressed my shock and anger, but he comes back with “but we both came out to Western Michigan from our community college!  Did you ever think that maybe it’s fate?”  I nearly threw up, and worried about what exactly his intentions were for coming to WMU in the first place...

A few months later in the summer of 2012, he asks me out again.  I’m feeling very exhausted by his attempts so I say, “fine.  One date.”  Thinking that if I act like an uninterested bitch the whole time, maybe he’ll get the message and finally leave me alone.  He responds back, “okay, when can you drive to (town) to meet me?”  I still lived in our college town to work over the summer, he went home.  He asked me out and then expected ME to drive nearly two hours to come meet him.  I was furious and told him there was no way I was going to do that.  In retrospect, caving in and saying yes that one time was probably a disastrous idea...

Go forward one more year to spring of 2013.  College graduation ceremony, we made it!  I’m there with my best bro Stephen, and we see (guy) in the crowd too so we invite him to join us.  We all joke around through the ceremony and make fun off our exes who also happened to be graduating on the same day.  After the ceremony we go back to our old dorm building to take pictures together.  (Guy)’s parents are beaming and seem overly excited to be taking pictures with me in them... I think nothing of it though and just focus on my post-graduation plans.

Move on to the fall of 2014.  I’m in Japan!  I made it!  My childhood dreams were finally coming true.  I posted information about applying for the JET program and other ALT dispatch companies for any friends who might be interested in the program.  (Guy) shows interest, asks me a few questions, and to proofread his application essay.  It was pretty terrible and I didn’t have time to fix every little thing, I figured he didn’t really have much of a chance of getting here to Japan anyway since he didn’t study anything remotely related to education or Japan in his university days.  I gave him what help I could and was not at all surprised when he didn’t get an interview.

Not long after this, I’m planning my trip home for Christmas 2014.  (Guy) begins to message me asking when I’ll be free during my visit.  I say that I have many people to see in Kansas and in Michigan, so I probably won’t have time to see him (a gentle way of saying that he’s not high enough on my priority list to get time with me).  He then continues on, he wants to know the dates I’ll be home, when I’ll be visiting Kalamazoo, when I’ll be in my hometown, etc.  He’s REALLY pushing to see me.  Finally, I just lose it and send him a very strongly worded message about how I’m not interested in him, how I’ve said no multiple times, and that will never change.  I then blocked him on every social media outlet we were connected on.

When I’m actually home for Christmas 2014, he calls my US phone on several occasions to try to reach me.  His number was still saved so I ignored it each time.  At the end of this trip I was finally able to permanently deactivate that phone so he couldn’t contact me anymore.

Move ahead to some time in 2015--he makes a new Facebook account and tries to add me.  I immediately block him and report the account to Facebook for harassment.  Of course Facebook does absolutely nothing.  I tell mutual friends who are connected to him to keep an eye on him and let me know if he posts anything creepy related to me or Japan.

In late 2015/early 2016 my best bro tips me off to the fact that (Guy) is still trying to apply to be an ALT in Japan.  I freak out and contact my inner circle of friends in Japan and let them know the story, and ask them if they would have my back if this guy ever showed up.  Most of my friends thought I was overreacting and just told me some BS things to calm me down.  I could feel how annoyed they were with me, and I was frustrated that they didn’t seem to take my worries seriously.

Now this.  This photo.  A screenshot from a few weeks ago, when I looked at my phone for the first time that morning and saw (Guy)’s name there.  Shocked didn’t even begin to cover it.  Before I blocked both accounts, I looked at his Facebook page to see that he is STILL attempting to apply as an ALT, with a caption “I will apply every year if I have to!”

I’m at a loss of what to do.  This has been going on for NINE YEARS.  No one seems to take me seriously when I express how scared and worried I am.  Everyone assumes “oh there’s an ocean in the way and he can’t possibly get accepted to Japan anyway.”  But what if he does?  He’s not giving up on this.  I have nightmares sometimes about meeting him at an ALT welcome event in my region, and in the dreams I just always freeze.  I don’t know what to do.

Saying “no” didn’t work.  Going across the world didn’t work.  Will this even stop when I’m married?  Is marking myself as the “territory” of another man the only way to stop (Guy) from pursuing me?  Or will he wait around in the shadows, hoping that my relationships go sour so he can spring in the next day again?

I have so much good going for me in my life in Japan, I don’t want it to be sullied by this worry anymore.  There’s seemingly nothing I can do because he’s not physically stalking me, and online forums only tell me to “go talk to the person.”  I can’t go the JET office or any other ALT companies and tell them not to let someone into the country.  I’m powerless to stop him from finding me if he gets to Japan.

By posting this, all I want is for my fears to be warranted.  I want someone to take me seriously.  I know there’s probably no way for me to wave a magic wand and make this all go away, but on days when I’m worried or when I have another new Facebook account of his staring me in the face, I just want someone to wrap their arms around me and tell me that I’m okay.  Tell me that I’m not alone in this.  Just offer me a hug and a shoulder and a place to take refuge.  That’s all I want, and all I need <3

As many of you are aware, WWE Network is pretty packed with all sorts of content. And as you may also know, we here at Place to Be Nation love long term, in depth projects. So, as part of this initiative, members of the PTBN Staff are choosing programs that coincide with this week in history and after watching each program, they will share their thoughts, notes and recommendations with our readers. So, settle in and enjoy this epic ride through wrestling history!

Show: Black Saturday 7/14/84

Best Segment:

Dave Hall:  Paul Orndorff’s interview. This was the only segment that had any life or interest. Orndorff spoke well, and with conviction. His comments about Mean Gene being bald and women leaving their husbands when they see him made me sit up and take notice. Thank You “Mr Wonderful” for a wonderful interview.

Calum McDougall: Definitely the opening to the show. You get the classic Worldwide theme and then in walks Vince McMahon. The visual of Vince talking whilst the words “World Championship Wrestling” are in big bold letters behind him was a surreal sight, I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like for the Georgia Championship Wrestling diehards back in the day.

Jacob Williams: Just for historical reasons, Vince’s opening was best. It was the most interesting part of the entire show.

Steve Riddle: To me, this was pretty obvious and that is Vince McMahon walking into the studio and standing in front of the “World Championship Wrestling” sign. This was a huge move for Vince to obtain the timeslot on TBS to balance what he had on USA at the time, but it came with such a huge backlash as Georgia Championship Wrestling loyalists were not happy about this. It would end up leading to Ted Turner bringing in Bill Watts so he could get rid of Vince and that would ultimately lead to the long war between Vince and Ted that would peak during the 1990s and the Monday Night War.

Brian Bayless: Nothing on this show was good but because it was surreal and historic, the opening with Freddie Miller in the TBS Studios cutting it over to Vince McMahon so he could shock the world and introduce WWF in this time slot.

Best Match:

Dave Hall: NONE of them… but if pushed Adrian Adonis & Dick Murdoch vs SD Jones & Nick DeCarlo

Every match on this show sucked. This one just sucked the least. At least in this match SD Jones and DeCarlo got some offense in, and looked slightly dangerous at times. Adonis actually looked like he was starting to put on his weight, but he and Murdoch sold well for Jones and DeCarlo. Their finisher looked absolutely brutal: an early version of the Doomsday Device, and they looked like the killed DeCarlo with it. The best of a sorry bunch of jobber matches.

Calum McDougall: The tag team title match was fun. It was cool to see the Adonis and Murdoch team, and it was in front of a crowd who were totally into it which helps my enjoyment of any match, a hot crowd can turn an average match into a good one. The finish of the match was pretty cool because it had the sense of danger about it, Tony Garea wasn’t lying when he said he could broken his neck!

Jacob Williams: Adonis and Murdoch in a solid enhancement tag opener against SD Jones and Nick DeCarlo was enough to take it on this show. Adonis did some fun bumping for the faces, who got a nice bit of offense in. We even got a double team finisher, which is a cool surprise in 1984. I’m not gonna file this one as a hidden gem or anything, as it was more of a winner by default compared to the rest of the show.

Steve Riddle: This was a show with some pretty slim pickings in terms of the matches, but I will end up going with the Studd/Brazil match with the tag match a close second. Considering where he was in his career at this point, Brazil still looked somewhat good in terms of his look and Studd was about to hit probably the peak of his career at this point, and they had a decent match here with Brazil actually getting some offense in before putting Studd over strong. This was a solid win for Studd over a legendary name which makes sense considering what was coming for him later in the year.

Brian Bayless: The wrestling was terrible but since it was short and at the time he was excellent in the ring I’d go with Iron Sheik squashing Ron Hutchinson. It also had the most heat on the show.

Most Cringeworthy Moment:

Dave Hall: Alexis Smirnoff’s interview. This was possibly one of the worst interviews I have ever saw. One criticism of the modern product is that wrestlers have to learn scripts for their promos. Well this felt like Smirnoff was reading cue cards or had memorised words. There was no charisma, no feeling, and no interest. It was dull as dull could be. I don’t think he even said anything worth remembering. And to top it off, I didn’t even realise he was a part of the company at any stage, so this must have been his “cup of tea” in the big time.

Calum McDougall: I was cringing at the Brian Blair interview, he just kept going around in circles and the poor guy had to get brought back on track by Mean Gene. It highlighted why Gene was such a good interviewer more than Blair as a wrestler which wasn’t really the point of the interview.

Jacob Williams: Every time Vince was on screen hyping the new WWF overlords to the Georgia fans, things felt real weird, and he even looked uncomfortable, like he knew deep down that this would be a tough sell. 

Steve Riddle: Considering they already had an evil Russian in Nikolai Volkoff, I have no idea why they decided to push Alexis Smirnoff as he looked like nothing more than a cheap knockoff of Ivan Koloff. An honorable mention here is how cringed the fans of Georgia Championship Wrestling must’ve felt when they turned on their TV and saw Vince McMahon on their show.

Brian Bayless: The Alexis Smirnoff interview was just embarrassing and why did they even have him speak or give time to begin with seeing how he was not being featured on TV?

Funniest Line/Moment: 

Dave Hall: Paul Orndorff takes the award this week with his line “When I come on the screen the divorce rate goes up as women leave their husbands.  It was original, funny, and stood out. That’s all that needs to be said

Calum McDougall: Alexis Smirnoff’s accent was hilariously bad. His Russian sounded more Scottish in some point than my accent does! It actually sounded like an impression of me doing a Russian accent, it was just awful.

Jacob Williams: Alexis Smirnoff told Gene he would use the power of “cossack,” whatever that might be.

Steve Riddle: Anytime the Iron Sheik gets a microphone, he is always memorable as he proclaims Iran is the best and calls out Sgt. Slaughter who he was in the midst of a hot feud with. An honorable mention to the random fan audibly calling Big John Studd “chicken” when he was stalling on the outside.

Brian Bayless: Sheik calling out Slaughter after his win and saying he was a “fat soldier” drew a slight chuckle from me.

Highlights:

Dave Hall: I am not sure there are any.  The only highlight was Mr Wonderful’s interview, which ended up being the only segment of interest on the entire program. I did enjoy seeing Jesse “The Body” Ventura in the ring, but that is about it.

Calum McDougall: Vince McMahon calling a double team move a “Double Elbow Butt”, you can see why he just called them all manoeuvres after a while. Gene being an absolute trooper when he talks about the “best in the world are in the WWF” and then bringing out Brian Blair with a completely straight face. Anytime the Iron Sheik has the microphone is going to be a highlight and just repeatedly going “Iran Number One! Where’s that fat soldier?!” is just peak Sheik.

Jacob Williams: Obviously seeing the Vince opening in its original form was a fantastic piece of wrestling history. Since the matches were pretty poor, even by early 80s TV standards, the promos, while not great themselves, were really the only other highlight. Gene usually does a great job making backstage segments at least fun. I enjoyed hearing Tony Garea sound like a Robin Williams character on commentary. Gorilla calling a Jesse match is cool to look back on. Like I mentioned in Best Match, not a lot of in ring highlights outside of the tag. 

Steve Riddle: Cheesy 80s opening; The time when house shows were treated with importance; Adonis and Murdoch were such an underrated team; Interesting spot for the WWF magazine; Always funny seeing Freddie Blassie with a turban on his head and claiming to be an “Ayatollah”, Sheik making quick work of a ham-and-egger is always fun to see; Bobo Brazil looked fairly decent at this point in his career though it was weird hearing of a potential comeback; Studd was looking at his peak by this point and Brazil does the right thing putting him over; Vince was a pretty good play-by-play commentator during the 80s before he became bombastic in the 90s; It was a bit strange that this debut show was mainly a showcase for heels as there were no faces highlighted at all; Paul Orndorff was at his arrogant best here as he was clearly being groomed for a big run

Brian Bayless: This show was awful from top to bottom and only has value for historical purposes.

Lowlights:

Dave Hall: The entire show sucked dirt. While it was nice to see Jesse in the ring, the match was horrid. The Iron Shiek’s squash was so fast I am not sure it warranted being a squash match. Big John Studd’s “bearhug” nearly put me to sleep in his match against Bobo Brazil, which was probably the worst of the lot.  Mr Fuji and George The Animal Steele was aweful, and Vince’s monotonous repition of the same line began to drive me mad.

Calum McDougall: I never like Mean Gene on commentary, he’s obviously one of the best backstage but I don’t particularly like him behind the table. The Jesse Ventura match was a bucketful of awful, the only thing that was gained out of this was that I learned the name of a player on the 1984 Vikings team. Studd/Brazil is not what you want to be putting on a show to highlight the best of your promotion. And you’re debuting in a new and prominent timeslot, so why oh why are Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant or Roddy Piper nowhere to be seen?!

Jacob Williams: The vast majority of the matches, the bulk of the show, were just plain dull. Jesse is notoriously lacking as a wrestler. It was extremely disappointed to not have any strong babyface presence on this show, especially when they introduce this to potential new fans. How do not at least put some kind of Hogan promo on this show so the audience has someone to root for? 

Steve Riddle: Making the offering a highlight show instead of featuring original matches in its debut episode; Always funny to see S.D. Jones built up like a big deal when he was just a jobber; Tony Garea was about as bland a color commentator as you could get; It’s a good thing Jesse was such a great talker and was able to transition into being a commentator because he wasn’t a good wrestler; Alexis Smirnoff; the jobber Sheik faces looked like he just came out of a high school gym

Brian Bayless: Where to begin. First off, the matches were not in studio but rather from house shows and TV tapings. The talent given promo time never should have been allowed to speak to a new audience. The action was awful and I cannot imagine a match in 1984 worse than Bobo Brazil vs. Big John Studd. Why not give a video package on some of the hot angles and big stars instead of these bad matches and interviews? Also, at the beginning, notice how much of a point Vince made it to tell the audience how big and jacked the wrestlers were as a selling point for the show. Not every fan is obsessed with physiques like Vince.

Wild Card Baby!

Dave Hall: Classic Commentary Award: Vince McMahon’s repetition in his introductory segments really began to wear thin. For a man who had fronted WWF programming since the 1970s, he seemed to only know two lines in this show: “Coming up next” and “And then from there”. I always enjoyed Vince on WWf Superstars as I was growing up, but on his own as a host he was unbearable, and I sure hope the production crew gave him some more lines before the next time he fronted the camera.  At least we didn’t get “What a maneuver”.

Calum McDougall: Most Colorful Hair: Jesse Ventura’s half-Steve Austin, half-Asuka effort was a sight to behold. This was maybe the time for The Body to embrace the bald.

Jacob Williams: Most Complete Form Possible: Some audio difficulties during one of Vince’s segments made his voice sound demonic like a Chicago record played in reverse. Given the situation, maybe its symbolic?

Steve Riddle: Random Commentator Appearance: I cannot ever remember a more random guy to use as a color commentator than Tony Garea as he was not good in that role, and he was more suited to be the wrestler he was at the time and that is putting guys over in the ring.

Brian Bayless: Best Tidbit: In 1984, Georgia Championship Wrestling occupied this exact timeslot on WTBS. Vince bought the stock of the company from the Brisco Brothers (Jack & Gerald). In fact, the Brisco’s briefly teamed together in WWF later in the year. On this date, many fans tuned in expecting their regular NWA action but were shocked when Vince McMahon and his WWF showed up on the screen. Viewers were largely unhappy and I believe around 500 called into WTBS and complained. This was a major move in Vince’s plan to make the WWF a national promotion. In the end, the move to WBTS failed and several months later, NWA programming returned to that timeslot.

Final Thoughts:

Dave Hall: This was the first time I had ever seen this show, as it was not part of what was shown in Australia as I grew up. I was not sure what to expect. I had heard that when it aired that there was a lot of outrage. Now I know why. Vince starts the show by promising the best wrestling action, and then delivers four horrible squash matches and some very bad interviews. I am certain that the viewers at the time were probably seeing Ric Flair master class interviews each week, and then they get Alexis Smirnoff and George Steele. I was nearly ready to write to WWF and complain about this show, and it has been over 30 years since it aired. If you are thinking of checking it out… DON’T.  The 1 point is for Paul Orndorff’s interview. Everything else should be burned and never shown again. 1/10

Calum McDougall: This show is an interesting one because of the historical context of it. I can only imagine what it was like to turn on the TV at 6:05 and see Vince McMahon’s face. It started off well with the Tag Title match and was pretty inoffensive for the most part but you have the Fuji/George Steele segment, and a Big John Studd v Bobo Brazil match and then you realised you’re not in Kansas anymore. It wasn’t a bad show but it’s must have been half a world away from what had been on the week before. Grade 4.5/10

Jacob Williams: After the novelty of the opening segment of Vince introducing the takeover, this just felt like a bunch of stuff haphazardly thrown together. I usually really enjoy wrestling television of this era, but nothing on this show felt like it mattered or even did a good job of pushing the trademark WWF characters to a new audience. I can’t even imagine the reaction of southern fans who were likely predisposed to disliking the WWF in this situation. This debut gave a good indicator of why the ratings tanked, and the program didn’t last. Grade 3/10

Steve Riddle: Overall, this ended up being a pretty bland show in terms of a match perspective, but it was clearly a very historic show in terms of what it would lead to. This was a shrewd move by Vince to take the timeslot on TBS to go with his syndicated shows on USA, but it ultimately didn’t take off like he thought as the fans were furious with this move. Not to mention how upset Ted Turner was which led to him bringing in Jim Crockett Promotions to take the spot from Vince, and that would lead to the long war between Vince and Turner that escalated during the 1990s. While this experiment for the WWF was a failure in the end, it was still a very historical moment in wrestling history even though the show itself was fairly below average. Grade: 3.5/10

Brian Bayless: This was about as bad as it gets in terms of introducing a product to a new audience. The top talents were not featured and they gave a new audience a “B” show filled with terrible action and interviews and by first glance seems like Vince was more set on buying out his competition rather than put out a quality product for this timeslot. Only has value for historical purposes. Grade: 2/10

Leah Remini Doubles Down on Anti-Scientology Crusade: I Want a Federal Investigation

http://styleveryday.com/2017/08/09/leah-remini-doubles-down-on-anti-scientology-crusade-i-want-a-federal-investigation/

Leah Remini Doubles Down on Anti-Scientology Crusade: I Want a Federal Investigation

The firebrand star revs up her war in season two of A&E’s Emmy-nominated docuseries ‘Aftermath’ as she heads to New York to join Kevin James’ CBS comedy amid a church counteroffensive: “It’s been really trying.”

Some moments from Leah Remini’s childhood will never fade. Like the afternoon she rode a graffiti-covered B Train with her big sister, Nicole — at ages 8 and 10, their first time alone on New York City mass transit. Their journey took them from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, to Times Square — a seedy porn-theater mecca in the late ’70s — and the Church of Scientology building on 46th Street. There, they met their mother, Vicki, a divorcee whose new boyfriend had indoctrinated the family in the self-fulfillment movement. “We went all-in, because Scientology is an all-in proposition,” says Remini. “My mother thought she’d found the answers to her life and, you know, our future.”

Three decades later, Remini is going home again. The 47-year-old actress and anti-Scientology activist is currently relocating from Los Angeles, her home since age 13, back to the East Coast. The move is a practical one: She’s joining the cast of Kevin Can Wait, part of a major second-season retooling of the CBS sitcom that sees the departure of its current female lead, Erinn Hayes. Beginning Aug. 7, Remini will be seated in a Long Island soundstage alongside Kevin James, her TV husband for nine years on The King of Queens, for the season’s first table reads. But right now, she’s just trying to cram her life into cardboard boxes. “It’s been really trying,” she offers wearily on July 28. “I’ve never been apart from my daughter for longer than five days.” Sofia, 13, has opted to remain in her current school and will travel to see her mother on weekends with her father, Remini’s husband of 14 years, singer-actor Angelo Pagan.

Remini also will continue to produce and star in Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath — the second season premieres Aug. 15. This enthralling A&E documentary series profiles ex- Scientologists like herself — people shunned and targeted by the church and, all too often, by their own family members. The two vastly different shows will air concurrently (“hopefully not on the same day,” says Remini). Aftermath has earned Remini, who stars and executive produces the show, an Emmy nomination for best informational series or special. It’s her first shot at an Emmy and, after nearly 30 years in the business, that feels good — even if it’s not quite as she had always imagined it. “When I was just acting, of course it was something you always wanted,” she says. “Like, hey, we’re on a show for nine years, you want some recognition from your peers.” Now she’s more interested to win it for her Aftermath subjects. “They don’t get paid to do the show. The only thing they get is a hate website put out on them by Scientology. They get paid internet ads against them. Their families turn against them. Any award I get is for them.”

But not long ago, before the nomination and new show, Remini had doubts that Hollywood would ever embrace her again. Her profile had waned in the post-King of Queens years, during which she appeared in a string of failed sitcoms with names like Family Tools. In 2010, she began a stint on CBS’ The Talk that culminated in her firing the next year — followed by a very public war of words with her Talk co-star Sharon Osbourne.

But her flight from Scientology in 2013 dramatically altered the course of her career — and, it turns out, revitalized it. Doubts about the organization and its strong-arm tactics had begun to creep in as early as 2004, but it was at Tom Cruise’s storybook wedding to Katie Holmes in 2006 that Remini began to seriously contemplate cutting and running. At the ceremony, set at a 15th century Italian castle, she’d innocently asked about the whereabouts of church leader David Miscavige’s absent wife, Shelly. That was apparently a big no-no, and she says church elders cursed at her and told her to mind her place. Drawn to keep asking questions, Remini soon saw her life become hell, as former friends and colleagues subjected her to blacklisting and the filing of dozens of “internal reports.”

Remini filed a missing persons report on Shelly Miscavige, whose whereabouts are still in question. A Los Angeles Police Department detective later told Remini, “She is fine,” which Remini considered an unsatisfying response. “I asked, ‘Did you see her? Did you see her body? Was somebody speaking on her behalf?’ ” (She recalls the detective replied, “Can’t tell you that, ma’am.”) Remini says the detective in question has since been hired to speak at Scientology events. “Does he work for the Church of Scientology, or is he LAPD?” she asks aloud. “Like, what’s going on here? They host detective lunches at the Celebrity Centre for the LAPD Hollywood division. I mean, they’re very, very friendly with each other.”

Remini chronicled her flight from Scientology in 2015’s book Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology — a by-turns dishy and disturbing tell-all that includes, amid the dirty laundry, a story about Cruise berating an assistant over faultily prepared cookie dough. The book was promoted heavily in the run-up to its release with a 20/20 interview and dozens of talk show appearances, and it shot to No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list.

With the book’s success, several ex-Scientologists reached out to Remini in gratitude and to share their own trials with the church. She brought cameras with her (and a high-ranking church defector, Mike Rinder) to document one shocking story: a woman’s deathbed account of her forced estrangement from her daughter, under church orders. Against the protestations of her management team, Remini brought that footage to producers Eli Holzman and Aaron Saidman and proposed turning such narratives into a series. “I said, ‘Don’t be pussies. If you’re going to be pussies, you’re not the right producers for this,’ ” Remini recounted at a TV Academy event this past May. After a tense huddle, the two men assured her they weren’t “pussies” — and the series was born.

Remini is astonished at the impact of Aftermath‘s first season — which focused on disconnection. “We’ve heard from people who were inside Scientology, who told me, ‘I watched your show. I went on the internet. I decided to leave. I am fighting for my children after watching your show,’ ” says Remini. “We get tons of those. And it’s those moments that you go, ‘OK — we’re doing something.’ “

Season two will ramp up the attacks on the religion, shining a light on what Remini calls “all of the abusive practices of Scientology — sexual abuse and physical abuse.” Remini intends for the sophomore outing to move into an “activist” realm — meaning she hopes to present enough evidence of criminal wrongdoing to warrant a federal investigation. “I’m talking about the FBI, the police, the Department of Justice, the IRS,” she says. “If the FBI ever wanted to get anywhere, all they would need to do is do a raid. Everybody who’s ever gone to Scientology has folders, and anything you’ve ever said is contained in those folders.”

Asked to explain these “abusive practices,” Remini takes a deep breath, then lays out some foundational principles. “Scientology policy dictates that children are grown men and women in little bodies. They believe a 7-year-old girl should not shudder at being passionately kissed. That’s in Dianetics,” she says, referencing L. Ron Hubbard’s 1950 book that establishes core tenets. “If you join the Sea Org [a clergy class with a nautical heritage] as a child, your parents give you over to Scientology. Children are treated as crew. They are assets. And if a child is molested, that child and/or parent cannot go to the police, because it’s against policy. They handle it in Scientology. They will usually bring the molester in and give them spiritual ‘auditing,’ or counseling.” The victim, she continues, “gets punished for ‘pulling it in,’ which is a Scientology term that means you did something that you’re not telling the church about — and that’s why you received the abuse. The child is usually made to do some kind of amends, to make up for what happened to them.”

Remini (who says she once was falsely accused of being ���Out 2D” — Scientology’s term for having premarital sex — after church officials found lace panties in her drawer) argues that “there are no victims in Scientology. Anything that happens to you in Scientology happens to you because you made it happen.”

The church has a different take on Remini and her A&E series, citing a spike in anti-Scientology hate crimes, bomb threats and death threats since Aftermath began airing. That escalation has required “drastic increases in security in many of our churches,” says Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw, who adds that since the show first aired, “there have been more than 500 incidents of vandalism, harassment and threats of violence against the church, its parishioners, staff and leadership.” Pouw cites several recent incidents, including “a woman who gushed about Leah Remini on social media [then] drove her car through the front doors and lobby of our church in Austin, Texas, coming to rest just short of a nursery where earlier children [had been] playing,” and a man who “served five months in jail and is now on parole for a credible assassination threat against the leader of the church, which he said was inspired by the ‘King of Queens lady.’ “

Adds Pouw: “Leah Remini is just an actress whose current role is starring in a scam of a show whose singular goal is to incite religious hate and violence for ratings, money and Emmy nominations.”

With both sides ramping up for a new — and, in all likelihood, much uglier — phase of this all-out war, Remini says the fight has been “rewarding, but very taxing.”

Amid such stress, working with James again takes some of the edge off. “I’m just happy to be laughing again,” she says.

The two reunited in May for a two-part Kevin Can Wait season finale in which they played rival detectives forced to team up to investigate a drug-smuggling case. After the show notched a surprise win in the ratings, it was apparent to everyone involved that the chemistry was still there. “They have a natural ESP. It’s magic,” says showrunner Rob Long, who worked with Remini on a 1993 episode of Cheers. (Long was a writer on the show; Remini played the daughter of Rhea Perlman’s Carla.)

When NBC passed on Remini’s comedy pilot (based on the 1991 Bill Murray comedy What About Bob?) in May, Kevin Can Wait producers saw a window of opportunity. Says Long, “It was a very small group of us that thought it would be fun to bring her back as a series regular. We were looking for a creative reset — a way to create a little bit more emotion.” Season two will see the action move ahead in time and Hayes’ wife killed off, leaving open the possibility of romance between James’ and Remini’s characters.

Still, Remini, who claims that she has no idea what her arc on the show will be, says she was pleasantly clueless about the opportunity. “My agent just said, ‘You’re going to be on the show.’ I said, ‘How many episodes?’ He said, ‘No — you’re going to be on the season.’ I was like, ‘Oh, my God — that’s amazing!’ That was the first round of excitement. And then, of course, reality sets in, where you’re like, ‘Oh, wait — I have to move my whole life there.’ “

Yet Remini isn’t complaining. “When I was younger, I was like, ‘What’s the character’s name? And I need to speak to the stylist on the show. And I need to have certain shoes and, like, what’s my dressing room look like?’ ” she says. “Now I’m like, ‘Great. Where do I sign?’ “

Remini will have shot three episodes when, in September, it’s back to L.A. for the Emmys, where her status as Scientology Public Enemy No. 1 could make things a little awkward for her. What if, for example, she were to cross paths with Elisabeth Moss, a nominee for outstanding lead actress in a drama series for The Handmaid’s Tale — and a lifelong member of the church?

“Elisabeth Moss believes that she can’t talk to me,” says Remini. “There’s a thing in Scientology called ‘acceptable truth.’ It means you only say what’s acceptable to the public. But she believes that I’m an antisocial personality — because I’ve spoken out against Scientology. So she isn’t allowed to talk to me. And me knowing that, I wouldn’t put her in the awkward position.”

But what if, say, the two were to suddenly come face-to-face at the Governors Ball, each carrying a freshly engraved Emmy? Would she congratulate her fellow winner? “I would, of course,” says Remini. “I don’t hold anything against Elisabeth Moss other than she’s continuing to support a group that is abusive and destroying families.”

But, Remini adds, “That’s for her to learn — just as I needed to learn it.”

This story first appeared in the Aug. 9 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

#AntiScientology #Crusade #Doubles #Federal #Investigation #Leah #Remini

Las Vegas For Kids and Family

5. Get a massage - If you are using the spa on your casino/hotel or one of those appearing thousands of other areas on/off the strip to find a massage, get a massage. Nothing is more relaxing than this. This tip alone will have you thanking me.

2. See a show - Proceed to one of the 1/2 price ticket locations and get tickets to something that you haven't ever heard of. A number of the cheap ticketed displays are extremely fun. Definitely get tickets into your hypnosis show and also be prepared. I would also suggest watching one of the big name shows like "Cirque". Tip - Once you have purchased tickets in the 1/2 cost place, you may typically have top-of-the-line privileges the next day to get tickets to something different.

Sure, there are at least a million ways to get into trouble in Las Vegas, and a thousand ways to find interesting things to do in vegas. The internet is filled with websites that will provide you coupons for 2 for 1 specials for displays and buffets. The majority of the casinos will provide you free gifts for registering for their player's clubs, and there are plenty of publications which include coupons. Information on Las Vegas comes in many types. I also have a couple of buddies that go to Vegas at least twice a year and they constantly tell me all the "inside" dirt over the "fun things" which they've discovered. I followed lots of their advice initially and quickly found that what one person finds enjoyment, you might not find even a little interesting. I cannot difinatively state that I know more than they do, but Iw sick at least tell you a few things that you may not have heard before. To that end , I have compiled a list of 10 things which may make your trip to Las Vegas a bit better or, at least, a little more interesting.

1. Get a rental car - Even though Las Vegas is a great place to wander around and people watch, it's a nightmare on the toes. I love to walk through the casinos and see what they need to offer, but have found that the appearing miles involving casinos on the strip, leave little energy for the interesting things to do from the casinos. The tram is a great concept, but it is at the rear of the casinos also, the majority of the casinos are as deep as they are wide. You will need to watch for the gazillion poor people which didn't follow my advice and are hoofing it around. When you are a block or 2 away from the strip, driving is a cinch.

6. Get over to Boulder - Vegas is more than the strip. I know I know, but vegastotherescue's facebook it is true. There is also the bonus of not near as much traffic as the

4. If you do not, find out.

3. Sit and enjoy the casinos - New york, New York is among the more visually stunning casinos, so drive your lease to the drop and move on in (the valet item is free except for the tip when they pull back your automobile). Sit in https://www.vegastotherescue.com one of the bigger traffic areas and just watch the people walk by. Take a look at the area which looks just like you are in an old part of New York, full of smoking manhole covers. Attempt New Sodas And Candies In Rocket Fizz

8. Find out when to Hold'em - Take a free class from the majority of the casinos to understand to play something you do not know. Learn how to play poker and sit in on a tournament. Play the bizarre games which are not in the main places. Sit and enjoy the free drinks and play the penny slots.

At a strip mall at the border of Vegas (literally, it is nothing but desert several blocks away), there's a cool shop named Rocket Fizz, where you can discover hundreds of

Their show is named Sunset Stampede, an eight-minute excursion of the Western pioneer as told via water theatrics, lights, lasers, and animation. It has no Bellagio fountains, but it's far better than buying cap guns and trying to reenact life in the Old West with your friends.

9. Check out the free material - There are so many neat things that people simply walk right by all the time. Enjoy a viewing of this pirate show in front of Treasure Island. Notice the dancing fountains in front of the Belagio. We have one of those Las Vegas City goes and spent most of a day doing the free things involved with it.

At the casinos a few miles away, your money goes farther. Table minimums are lower and casinos such as Eastside Cannery, a refined '50's inspired hotel with color-changing outside, and the elegantly designed Red Rock Resort, are replete with nickel and penny slots.

This may come as a surprise, but Las Vegas is much more than just a four mile strip of flashy hotels and loud casinos. It's truly a sprawling metropolis of 2 million individuals that spans over 4,000 square miles, meaning there is a whole lot more to do than watch a drunk guy try to find his missing shoe (even though that is highly entertaining). Here's some fun things to do off the Las Vegas Strip...

The first half of the series is trendy, depicting cowboys and Indians and dessert animals looking way more vibrant and futuristic than they do in real life. Suddenly the tune changes and the show morphs to an oddly uncomfortable show of pro-America propaganda, complete with state songs and images of military might.

strip.

7. Within this ever-changing city, there's a place that you can still get a feeling of the old days. Any of the casinos on Freemont street will supply an immediate opening into the "experience" and if you see nothing else in Vegas, see this. Wait until about 5:00 PM on a Friday evening and then walk into the throng of people that are gathered outside the doorways. There are pubs with the doors wide open and provides free or buy 1 get 1 drink specials. Watch for the lights to dim and the road performers to stop what they're doing, then stare up into the canopy and then watch the display. You wil NOT be let down. Additionally, there are some interesting, old strip clubs on Freemont that can, if nothing else, give you a sense of the other side of this glitz and glam of the other areas.

Go to A Casino Away The Strip

The one problem with The Strip resorts is the lack of free amusement (and at a city like Vegas where costs four times more than it should, free entertainment is the only thing preventing you from betting your mortgage at the tables). Among the few hotels which offers a free series is Sam's Town, a hotel way the heck out there on the outskirts of Las Vegas. Get Outdoors At Red Rock Canyon

Pinball Hall Of Fame

I grew up sucking at video games, but I still wish I grew up twenty years prior so that I could have sucked at pinball rather.

It is possible to see Red Rock Canyon way from the distance from most of the resorts - it sticks out like a swollen red sore thumb - plus it does not seem as if it would be that interesting.

But after spending $7 to choose the 13-mile scenic drive and also stopping at various points to walk around, this things to do for free in las vegas blog prehistoric playground for hikers and rock-climbers took on an extraordinarily striking, even mysterious, life.

Bubble gum cigarettes.

There are even a few games that are new, like an Iron Man two pinball machine, and an enjoyable ski ball game called Dunk 'N Alien where competitors try to hit a moving target and dunk an alien.

Seems like a lethal combination, however, it was surprisingly good, although I'm not used to heat lingering in my mouth after a swig of soda.

They even come in a box that looks like a real pack of smokes. But here is the best part: pretend to smoke the white and smoke smoke shoots out.

If you have ever seen the History Channel show Pawn Stars, you are aware that the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop has become another Vegas landmark. But when you see the place, it's kind of a let down.

Varieties of candy and honey, a few of which you probably haven't seen since you last purchased something in the ice cream man.

Locate Treasure With All The Pawn Stars

There were a few motorcycles at the rear and a few old slot machines around the countertop, but not enough to warrant braving the huge crowds that pack into this little place to purchase overpriced souvenirs.

We didn't bring appropriate clothes to go trekking, nor do we possess the stamina to

There is a strange atmosphere about the giant stack of reddish sandstone rocks in the canyon. Not in a bad manner. It's easy to sense why the Native Americans believed it a religious location.

Undoubtedly the trendiest trip, and also the one we ruled that the most, was the push thirty minutes outside of Vegas into Red Rock Canyon.

But my greatest find was some thing which got me in trouble once I was a kid. It's definitely the most un-politically correct candy ever produced and I can't think they still make this stuff...

It is totally wrong and sends a terrible message to kids, but I am not gonna lie, it appears effin' sweet.

The shop is smaller than it looks on TV, the men on the show just work a few hours on weekdays, and everything is terribly overpriced. I thought we would see a lot of the intriguing antiques they purchase on the display, but it is mainly jewelry available. And the notion of wearing somebody else's jewelry, especially knowing they pawned it to likely pay for medical bills or anything else, is disturbing.

Perhaps my favourite word in the entire English language is "free," and also Rocket Fizz delivers free soda tastings on Saturday. After attempting this gently carbonated peach soda that tasted just like a real peach (science has arrived so far), I asked a clerk to get the weirdest soda. Finally, grab a show while in town. There are lots of entertainment options which range from raunchy comedy to top-notch productions that are nearly science-fiction in their production. Again, you may find discount chances if you opt to find the show at your resort, so check into what is available before heading into the desert.

At the end of a long day of gambling and shopping, most friends and couples will want to enjoy a good meal. There isn't any better place on earth to do this than in Sin City. Check out the restaurants on your hotel because you may be entitled to special discounts.

Sin City is really a fun town, particularly if you are to wagering a couple bucks here and there. The good news is, there are still a lot of ways to have a great time, even if you're not a gambler. The town is chock-full of entertainment, luxury, dining and actions so there's something to suit everyone's taste. This is good news if someone you love enjoys gambling, but you are not that into it. You will still have the ability to find plenty of things to do to pass the time while on vacation. Begin by arranging a way to stay out of trouble. While Sin City isn't much on family entertainment, there are still a few things for kids to do. However, you're more likely to avoid needing a child custody lawyer or custody lawyer of any kind if you live the children behind.

Always Be On The Look Out!

One of the most appealing areas of Sin City is the ability to unwind and enjoy luxuries you would not bother with in the home. Most of the hotels along the strip have spa facilities and many are very affordable. It is possible to reserve treatments like massages and facials, or you can just utilize the facilities for free without scheduling an appointment or paying for a service. The spas frequently feature fitness centers, water treatments, steam rooms and saunas, or you may just relax poolside. Some hotels even offer poolside massages. Before booking your hotel room, explore their spa and determine exactly what services are available for your personal holiday budget.

Challenge the canyon - it's far easier walking than things to do for free in las vegas scaling up - so that we didn't do much exploring.

If you are not interested in spa treatments, or adhering to a service in a health club, you are able to indulge in a few world-class shopping. There are few areas that are as jam-packed with high-end shops as Sin City. Even though you might not be able to afford to store in every store, there are just a few places which cool things to do in vegas wiki are better to window shop. Many of the hotels have been linked to their shopping areas and you may walk for miles past stores and stores without ever stepping outside. Among the high-end designer product are a couple of well-known, affordable stores, so plan to spend some time enjoying retail therapy while in city.

Las Vegas is a fast growing city with more entertainment options than many people give it credit for. Eliminate The Strip and remain on the look out for new stores, excursions and attractions.

Kings of Baylon, Part One: Sold

Eve didn’t mean to summon Satan. Mostly. read it on wattpad

1. SET THE DEAL UP PROPERLY. There’s a right and wrong way to make contact with the Devil.

Eve dropped the hand holding his phone to his side and began to pace around the chalk pentagram in his garage. He’d gotten it nearly perfect his first try. How lucky of him.

The right way is to be alone in your room, close your eyes and say, “Satan, I summon you. I have a quality soul to sell if the price is right.”

This website seemed to be the most legitimate. It didn’t demand candles or a pentagram or the knife in Eve’s hand, but it was simple and went straight to the point, though the person who’d published it had done so to warrant people against summoning The Evil One.

It may take dozens, even hundreds of tries but at all costs, avoid sounding desperate or needy. He’ll show up eventually.

The candles, set up at each point on the star, the pentagram, drawn in old chalk leftover from when the whole family was over for Easter, and the knife, destined for Eve’s ankle, because he couldn’t bear to hurt children or animals, and the blood of a virgin sufficed, were all only things he’d seen in movies, tv shows, the like.

2. DEAL FROM A POSITION OF POWER. By far the biggest mistake people make is to underestimate how badly Satan wants their soul.

It certainly wouldn’t hurt to try, right? Eve wasn’t a Satanist, or anything like that, but the little ritual was certainly interesting, and boredom relieving. It was no different from praying to crows for a healthy life, or spinning in circles and tying knots to remember things. Witchcraft was almost like a science, just with less noticeable results.

It’s like precious gold to him and he’ll pay anything to get it. When he appears, get him to make the first offer, then up it.

Eve believed in God. He used to go to church on Sundays and certain holidays, mostly in a vain attempt to make friends, but he went, and he had faith. Eve had met many a patient who lost it when they were diagnosed, but not Eve. There were amazing things in the world that man, in all it’s cruelty, simply couldn’t do. Things that were too good to come the species.

3. GET THE ABSOLUTE BEST. Remember, you’re going to burn in Hell forever. So no matter how badly off you are now, demand the best.

Eve decided to just get on with it. Yes, he believed in God, and, by default, Satan, but he figured that they both had much better things to do than to hang out with a bored, debilitating seventeen year old.

For instance, even if you feel unlovable and desperate with loneliness, don’t just say, “I want the most gorgeous woman on earth and I want her to be madly in love with me.”

“Satan, I summon you. I have a quality soul to sell if the price is right.” The candles flickered as Eve sat down.

Instead, add, “In fact, throw in 100 other women as well so I can pick and choose according to my mood.”

He rolled up the leg of his thick sweatpants, exposing his ankle, still faintly tanned from the summer. He moved his hand fast as he could, knowing he couldn’t go through with it if the process was slow, and sliced open the skin there. The pain was sharp, and pulsed enough to make him curse under his breath, but the cut wasn’t big or deep enough to feel worse than that.

4. REMEMBER TO DEMAND THE LIFE-EXTENSION CLAUSE.

Eve scooted forward and stretched his leg to the middle of the pentagram, careful not to smudge it, and watched as the blood slowly dripped there. He’d never been a heavy bleeder.

Satan won’t tell you if you don’t ask but you can get a guarantee of 300 years of youthful life before you go to eternal damnation.

“Satan, I summon you. I have a quality soul to sell if the price is right.” The candles flickered again.

Why enjoy a mere 75 or 80 years of reckless living when you can get 300?

“Well, aren’t you cute?”

It’s your soul. Do what you want with it.

Eve’s breath caught in his throat. He stared at the tiny puddle of blood that he’d created, but saw nothing. And yet.

He slowly pulled his leg out of the pentagram and cradled it in his lap. The room seemed to have warmed up some, though not enough to make him sweat. Eve was anemic, and barely ever felt warm.

Eve tried to come up with an explanation. It was possible his parents came home, maybe with his older brother, and he was getting a joke played on him. Maybe someone from school had come to torment him.

But that made no sense. His parents, being a librarian and a psychologist, worked weekdays until the evening. It was Wednesday, some time in the afternoon. And his brother lived the next state over and had visited the previous weekend. He wasn’t due for another two weeks.

And Eve never had bullies. No matter what the movies told you, no one noticed the invisible kids, not even sadists, and after he was diagnosed, the people in the community were anything but hostile.

So had Eve really summoned Satan?

There was silence, so he decided to repeated the words.

“Satan, I summo-”

“Hey, kid, chill, I was just putting on my face.” The voice chuckled.

Eve paid closer attention this time. He couldn’t help it, the voice enraptured him. The first time it spoke, it had felt like a thought, like words he just heard in his head without sound.

This time, it felt outward. And it was beautiful. The voice was male, and smooth and accented in a European way, maybe, Eve was taking a shot in the dark, all he knew was that he could barely focus on the words that the alluring voice said.

He watched the pentagram closely, not sure what to do next, when the the puddle of blood began to tremble. He couldn’t describe it any other way, but it jiggled like jello for a few seconds before it stopped and, after a beat, a column of roaring fire exploded from it.

Waves of heat radiated from the fire, searing Eve’s skin, but he couldn’t move away. He was in awe.

He’d summoned Satan.

He couldn’t tell how long he watched before the column stopped roaring and began to flicker into the shape of a person not much taller than Eve himself. His breath got more and more shallow as the shape grew features and became a man. Possibly the most beautiful man Eve had ever seen in his life.

Satan was gorgeous, to Eve at very least. He had tousled brown hair that fell in a beautifully messy way, some of it into his greeny-blue-grey eyes that were pointed down at himself, as if he wasn’t used to looking the way he did. Eve faintly thought to himself that if he looked that knockout, he’d never get used to it either.

The eyes were perfectly set into a symmetrical face of straight, perfect, sharp lines, and those eyes were piercing. But when they focussed on Eve, a smile bloomed, a smile from perfectly full lips that was so soft. The smile was lopsided and all dimples, a perfect contrast to the face of angles.     

It was almost as if he’d been picked right out of Eve’s head, crafted so that he’d take the beat out of Eve’s heart and the stability out of his knees.

“You are really something else, ya know that?” Satan said. Eve stared at him blankly. “Pure of heart and soul. Can’t remember last time someone like you called for me.” He laughed nervously. There was a moment of silence that Eve could dare call awkward. He was having an awkward moment with the king of hell. All of a sudden he began to blush. How rude Eve was being! He was sat on the floor, not saying anything, holding his bleeding foot, not even shaking the man’s hand.

Eve got to his feet and extended his arm into the pentagram. “I’m Steven Ross. It’s nice to-” Was it nice to meet Satan? Eve hated to be impolite, but at the same time he was aware that he might not have a soul at the end of this encounter, and that, if the Bible was correct, Satan was the cause of all terrible things of the world. And yet.  

“It’s nice to meet you, Satan.” The Devil looked down at Eve’s hand. “Please, call me Luc.” He said it like ‘look’, and then gave Eve another smile. “And you might wanna take that hand back until we’ve made the deal.” Eve did as told and dropped his hand. “Would you like a drink? Maybe some ice water?” Luc burst into hearty laughter. “Ha! No, no, I’m fine, thanks. Actually, I think we should get to talking about your soul.” Eve nodded in response.

He expertly avoided Satan’s eyes (and face, for that matter) and gestured to the few folding chairs set up against the walls. “Do you want to take a seat?” He asked, then glanced up quickly, and saw the devil’s face looked grateful. “No, the floor is fine. Plus I don’t think you should move on that leg. As a matter of fact…” He focused on on Eve’s leg, then let out a grunt. “I can’t operate outside of this thing. If you want, I could heal that, but you’d have to take a step in.”

This time Eve did look into Luc’s stunning face. He tried not to get sidetracked by his beauty and searched for deceit.

Satan had been around since the beginning of time and was an expert in lying and tricks, but it didn’t hurt to try. Eve had nothing to lose regardless, so he moved and put his injured leg into the pentagram. He was going to walk completely into it, to make things easier, when Luc’s hand shot out and stopped him.   

“Hey, hey! You don't wanna go to hell right now do you? I said a step!” Eve raised an eyebrow. Luc sighed. “If you come completely into the pentagram, you go to hell immediately, deal or not.” Eve felt his face go pale. “Oh, alright. Thank you.” Luc smiled reassuringly and bent down to touch his hand to Eve’s ankle. There was a small bit of light before he took it away and Eve looked down. The skin looked flawless.

And then he started to gauge what he’d done.

He had summoned Satan to his home. Satan, the lord of hell, where innocent people were tortured for all of eternity. Satan, who had made Eve eat the fruit of temptation and release sin on the world. Satan, who tortured Job on a bet, Satan, who is ‘the destroyer of worlds’, ‘the adversary’, and most blatantly ‘the evil one’, was in Eve’s home to take Eve’s soul and maybe sort of give him what he wanted, because Eve had read that Satan could trick you into eating your own foot if he tried hard enough, only to spend eternity in hell.

Then Eve remembered how long he’d been given to live. Eve remembered the dead looks in his parents’ eyes, and how tired and sad and bored he always felt these days.

Eve didn’t want to be better or have three hundred more years. Eve, who’d accepted Jesus into his heart long ago, believed that maybe he wouldn’t go to hell, believed that even if he did, if he got his wish, it would be worth it.

“So, your soul. What a soul.” Luc said when he’d got to his feet. “I really don’t recommend giving it to me, but if you want enough for it, I might allow it.” Eve raised an eyebrow. “You’d turn down my deal?” Luc’s gaze softened. “You’re good, Eve. Your soul is pure and so are your intentions, and everything you’ve ever done.” He smiled softly. “There’s a big ol’ castle waiting for you with Big-G and gold roads with your name on them. Do you really want to give that up?” Eve blinked. “I want a friend.” The devil blinked back. “What.”

“I want a friend, one that’s relatively normal, that will make me happy and entertained until I…. kick the bucket.” Eve tried to make it sound less dramatic. Satan rubbed the back of his head. “Uh. Are you sure you want to sell your soul for that?” Eve blinked again. “I didn’t expect you to show up, and I don’t really want anything else.” Eve noticed that a slight flush had formed on Luc’s cheeks. “Okay. If you’re absolutely sure, I’ll get you a friend, okay?” Eve smiled, and he could’ve sworn Satan started glowing. “Okay.” 

Luc began to extend his hand. “It might take a bit to get someone perfect for you, so you don’t mind if I stick around, do you?” Eve shrugged as he raised his own hand. “Well, I have to make sure you’re taking good care of my soul don’t I?” There was a light feeling inside of Eve as they grasped hands. “Of course.”