#so god do i not want to come off as preachy or anything
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CR3: EPISODE 63 SPOILERS
I'm literally losing my mind rn guys
i haven't even finished the episode yet as im typing this, currently ashton is holding laudna as she cries on their shoulder after she sucked the life out of bor'dor.
i always had the suspicion that bor'dor wasn't telling the truth or telling a version of the truth, but i never really talked about it cause everyone was throwing out theories. i had an...inkling that he was connected to ludinus or just ruidus in general, and i was right in a way.
him being ruby vanguard is devastating but not surprising. it connected so many things that i chose to brush off cause i didn't want to seem paranoid. a specific moment being bor'dor killing the angel of the dawn father. during that scene, the way matt described the look in that angel's eyes as it died did not match the way that bor'dor retold it and i thought i had just...forgotten how the actual scene played out. now that i know, even tho i haven't rewatched that episode, i have a feeling that the hatred and righteous judgement i remembered was the accurate version.
i don't think bor'dor is bad, simply because i have no way to come to that conclusion when i know how easy it is to let fear and pain and anger drive you to vengeance -- the hellians are feeling it too, and i feel deep compassion for them so i feel for bor'dor too.
for all of ludinus' preachy bullshit he never gave me the impression that he gave a single fuck about the people who followed him or about the lives he ruined to accomplish his goal. i don't think bor'dor was some big wig, i think he was just a kid who was vulnerable and powerful and easily coerced. i do not think he is without blame -- his actions with the ruby vanguard have led to incomprehensible repercussions for everyone on exandria and outside of exandria too. (bear in mind, we don't even know how the apple bee's soul cycle has affected the fey realm -- or any other realms for that matter).
i think that there was no way bor'dor could have survived this night with the way it went. i don't think there could have been a moment where he snuck away. if he got a lucky roll, maybe. i don't think bor'dor died because /he/ was an unforgivable monster.
he died because laudna, ashton and orym were at their breaking point and none of them wanted to pull each other from that place of hatred and anger. they've spoken about feeling powerless -- terrified and angry at the situation they were forced into when they truly have nothing to do with ludinus' anger at the gods. orym, especially, has been struggling with his grief and his stubbornness, and this moment will have effects on all of them for these upcoming battles and hardships.
laudna. jesus christ. im so upset that delilah is back. or at least pieces of her are thriving inside laudna, seemingly every time she uses her necrotic magic. for a single moment, she felt delilah's complete control over herself and other people in a situation where laudna had no idea what to do and how to get shit done, and as soon as delilah had nothing left of bor'dor to scavenge off of, laudna was back to feeling weak.
i can't even process the lore drops of ashton's heritage and his father and the history of the hishari and the fact that abadina WAS an hishari ???? they need to go that cursed town soon or im gonna lose it. hell, maybe they're already headed there.
deni$e might say she didn't care whether bor'dor lived or died but i know that isn't true because she was a) the only person who didn't actually hurt him and b) she was trying the entire time to get the others to at least interrogate him. i don't think that would work for multiple reasons. bor'dor was yeeted to kingdom come so bor'dor would likely not have anything useful for them atp, and also bor'dor is absolutely not nearly as important to ludinus as they need him to be.
im gonna miss utkarsh 😭
i think that maybe if bells hells was together, he'd live. but ashton, laudna and orym are too... there's something dangerous about these three being separated from their people. dangerous for themselves mentally and for anyone who stands in their way. i NEED bells hells to be reunited again.
it's sad that the characters with such a strong history of loss and betrayal and abandonment and grief and loss of control would have the traitor amongst them. there is nothing that bor'dor could say that would lessen the pain orym feels having lost his husband and his father, of him and his friends being killed by a cruel, vicious comrade of ludinus', of the tempest being trapped /because/ orym was the one who led her straight into it. the gods are all good and well, but i don't think it will EVER be about the gods for orym. i won't say he's correct or in the right for his narrowed vision and hardened heart. he took that locket for a reason, and throwing it aside is a calculated disposal of that inherently inconvenient empathy orym has for people around him. he can't afford to feel. not now.
#critical role#cr3#bells hells#critical role campaign 3#ashton greymoore#orym of the air ashari#laudna#bordor dogson#bor'dor dog'son#prism grimpoppy#denise bembachula#cr denise#deni$e#cr spoilers#c3 e63#cr3 ep63#critical role c3#c3
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Pretty Hippie
George met a girl once.
The last they saw each other, they had a one night stand and spent the whole week together, until one day she had to leave. Years later, she finally gets to him again. Though things have changed, their hearts are still in the same place.
An excerpt from my upcoming story, 'Norwegian Wood', where a roadie, Courtney Lindsay, meets The Beatles while working for The Rolling Stones on tour. She and George Harrison hit it off, quickly finding themselves closer than most.
——
"You're back.”
George stared in awe at the woman who stood before him at the front door, watching with wide eyes was she smiled and nodded, "I am." she confirmed.
She wore a pretty long sundress, one he hadn't seen before, the shoes she was wearing made her taller but he couldn't see them due to the length of the dress. She looked the same as when they last saw each other, there was only little things different about her. New freckles on her face that hadn't been there before, maybe she'd been spending some time out in the sun. God knew what she was doing these days.
He stared for a moment longer before finally lunging towards her, pulling her into a tight embrace, "You're really back, I thought I'd never see you again." he said, his voice horse.
Courtney laughed, returning the gesture as he swayed their bodies left and right, finally pulling back and inviting her in, moving to the side, "Come in." he nodded.
She smiled and walked inside, he closed the door and followed her to the living room, "What have you been doing?" he asked, sitting down on the couch next to her as she looked around the new environment. He stared at her from behind, looking over the open back of her dress, she'd cut her hair.
"Aren't you gonna ask how I found you?" She asked, he laughed and nodded, "I guess that would be the better question."
She laughed, "The papers tell a lot these days." she said, George nodding, "I know, it's scary."
A second of silence passed before George continued, "Do you want anything? I could get you a cuppa, I--"
She interrupted him, shaking her head, "No, I'm fine."
He chuckled, laying back in his seat and taking a moment to process things. It was really her. It must've been three years, maybe longer, but he still remembered everything like it was yesterday.
"It's good you came today, I leave on tour in a few days." He said, his voice cracking several times as he spoke. Courtney's eyebrows furrowed, "Are you ill?" she asked, George thinking before nodding in response.
"Laryngitis." He said, she nodded, "I've had that before, hurts like hell."
He nodded in agreement, "Hurts even worse when you have to make a whole album with it, and then the critics talk about how you sounded like some sort of smoking priest."
Courtney laughed, "I thought you did very well. I didn't think it was too preachy, did they?"
He shook his head, "It's all they talked about, they hate that sort of talk." he waved off with a shrug, "I don't care, really."
Courtney nodded, "They're all talk, they wouldn't be able to do any of the things you have." she said, George pursing his lips and looking away as he listened to her words, her voice was so nice to hear after so long.
"I feel like it's been so long since I last saw you." Courtney said, breaking the silence. George pursed his lips, "It has, far too long. Longer than you said it'd be." He said, the last few words having a certain bitterness to them.
"Things came up." She said, avoiding eye contact with him out of pure shame. He continued to watch her, trying to read her mind, figure out what was bothering her other than the obvious guilt tapping at her brain. He wondered how many events in each others life they must've missed, if he knew how differently he was living compared to the last time they saw each other.
"Things came up? Do you know how many times I tried to call? How many times I tried to find you?" He said, shaking his head with a face of disbelief, "It's hard to be angry, too. It's like now that you're here, everything's just like it was years go."
She chuckled dryly, "Well it's not, and yes, things came up." she paused, leaning closer to him, "It'll never be the same. You'd never even begin to guess the things I've been through since then.”
George looked over her expression, his eyes looking over every part of her. She felt vulnerable under his gaze, though she looked at him just the same as she sat back in her spot, "You're brave, coming here. You know Pattie doesn't like you." he told her, she shrugged, "I don't care."
"You know I hate when you two talk, as well." he said, leaning his head forward as she nodded, "I don't care if she calls me ugly, Geo, I care that it's her man that I'm after. That's not something I'm proud of. It is ugly."
She was taken aback when he began to chuckle, shaking his head, "She's been going off with some other man. She can't say anything about it anymore."
He watched as Courtney's eyes widened, "Who?" she asked, he shrugged, "I've been having suspicions of Clapton for about a year now."
He couldn't help but chuckle as her eyes got even wider, "Holy shit, you're joking." she said, watching as he shook his head, "Don't go spreading that around." he told her. She shook her head, facial expression still the same as she put her hand over her heart, "I would never, I know better, but you're being serious? You're not playing me?"
George shook his head again, "I don't play around like this, Court, you know that."
Courtney sat still before adjusting her position, "Christ, meanwhile you're going out with some old nobody. How's it feel?"
He laughed, shaking his head, "That's not how I feel, it feels more Dylan and Sedgwick to me." he said, watching as she laughed and shook her head, "I'm no Edie, I wish I looked like her."
He rolled his eyes at her words, "You're beautiful, always have been, since the first time I saw you I thought you were one of the most beautiful girls I'd ever seen." he praised. She pursed her lips, looking away as her face turned a deep shade of red.
"I never did like cliches, you know." She said, he nodded, holding eye contact as she finally looked back at him.
He nodded, "I know. That's what I love about you, you're so simple, but so complicated. I still haven't got you figured out." he said, inching closer to her as he adjusted his position next to her, "A simple way to put it; I can never figure out what the hell is wrong with you." he chuckled, she laughed along with him.
"You look so good." She said, looking over his faced after a bit of silence had passed, "The mustache really suits you. The hair, too." she observed, the man trying to overcome his common nerves as she looked over his features.
"You too, though you haven't changed at all. Only your hair got shorter." He observed, bravely moving his left hand behind her band to feel at the ends of her hair. She blushed, nodding, she could feel the cold of his wedding ring brush against her back, "I had to cut it. People don't like hippies anymore, they just call you dirty.”
He chuckled, "You were such a pretty hippie." he said, moving his hand back to his side as she snickered along with him.
"You are a pretty hippie." She laughed, putting emphasis on 'are'.
The two laughed together on the sofa, going silent for a bit, "Do you still like me?" Courtney asked, "Like, as a person."
He sat in silence, his lips parting as he looked down at the glistening wedding ring on his fingers. She followed his gaze, taking his hand to observe the band, "It's pretty, you know. I've never really looked at it before."
"I could take a guess as to why. Are you trying to make yourself feel better? It doesn't make me feel better." He said, she shook her head, "No, I'll never feel good about it. I just want to know if you still like me, Geo."
He shook his head, "Of course I still like you. I love you, remember?" he said, his words quiet but clear. The two sat back on the couch, slowly realizing amidst the silence just how close they were to one another.
That's when she kissed him.
George immediately kissed back, running his hands through her hair and pulling her closer. She did the same, he let out an involuntary groan as she tugged at his hair, she chuckled through the kiss. He took his right hand out of her hair, moving it to her back, before finally pulling away for air.
"Go lock the front door."
***
#george harrison#george harrison x reader#the beatles#the beatles fic#the beatles imagine#george harrison imagine
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Have you heard "Next Semester" by twenty one pilots yet? I feel like you'd love it.
I don't know if I've ever talked about me and Twenty One Pilots here. I gave my life to Christ in the summer of 2011 and heard a song by Tyler Joseph for the first time the same week. I didn't connect that the passionately screaming singer who made me think about how I couldn't force my emotions to line up with the reality of God, and needed Jesus to do that for me--I didn't connect that that singer was the same guy in the popular emo band until they became popular around 2015. And then I was thrilled. Because around that time I was fighting to submit my own dark thoughts to God, instead of identifying with them, so it really helped that the voice I already knew pretty well was singing those thought-provoking tracks that have made them famous. Then a year later I figured out what I wanted to do with my career, and how that connected back to God, and the first seeds of my whole understanding of storytelling and God as the Storyteller were planted--largely because of a song called "The Producer" which Tyler Joseph helped to write with Travis Whittaker.
So suffice to say, when the band that's been playing the background music of my life's biggest steps in faith makes anything new, you can be pretty sure I'm over here like 👀
I love Next Semester. It's hard, because with Twenty One Pilots, I notice my own commitment to truth and intended meaning and critical thinking at its strongest and its weakest at the same time 😅 Strongest, because you can tell he's so intentional with his lyrics and metaphors, and is communicating some things that he means so well—but weakest, because I'm constantly hoping that he's talking more about Christ and Biblical truth than he probably is. I'm always waffling between fear that Tyler Joseph is deconstructing, resentment that someone so blessed with creativity & hard work-ethic can refuse to come out and talk about the faith that saved him clearly, and...sometimes agreeing with him? Sometimes feeling like, he has a point, the way he creates and is careful to make his audience think for themselves can only lead back to Truth, which is Christ, if they're being as genuine as he is in the emotional content of the songs, and having them think for themselves makes them drop their guards and walk toward truth without "turning them off" by using culturally-Christian phrases—
ANYWAY. You didn't ask about any of that 😅 But the principals of what Twenty One Pilots does, (in terms of the art of communication and what that communication should be for) and why they do it, and what the right and wrong way to do it is, are something my brain is revolving all the time.
It's not really a good thing to keep revolving it, because at some point it's me trying to think exactly right about the whole topic, as if I can control what they do, or the outcome of what I create, if I just get it right. And that's not faith. At some point I have to quit trying so hard to think and do based on my own control!
Welcome to you asking a simple question and me word vomiting/getting all preachy. (But lowkey I respect you and think you might appreciate what I'm rambling about, if anyone can. So maybe unluckily for you, you're probably the only person who could've asked me about this on here and gotten this kind of response 😅)
ANYWAY! Next Semester!
I love that it's simple so that the emotion of it comes through. There's not metaphor-on-metaphor layering, so you're just left to hang on to his desperate vocals and the gut-check words of the song. I don't listen to it over and over like I do Overcompensate because it takes me to kind of a dark place—but I do love that it ends hopefully. Super hopefully. I started that paragraph above, talking about how twenty one pilots affects my critical thinking, to say this: I'm always having to be careful not to read too much of what I want to hear into the song. But that said, I do think the "person driving" in the song is representative of God. Someone outside yourself, giving you that slap of truth and hope and a fresh-start, who also could've run you down.
So I love that it ends hopefully. For a bit there, with Trench, I started to loosen my grip on them, because it felt like they would do a really good job of saying "We're broken, think about it, see how messed up we are?" And then "but we don't have to stay here," and that was really good. But...then Leave the City seems so obviously to stop at "don't stop." If that makes sense. Leave the City makes it sound like the way out of your depression, doubt, suicidal thoughts, and anxiety is just...movement. It's enough to know that you shouldn't sit in your dark thoughts (and basically sin.) But he won't say where to go instead. And I know it's because he's very genuine, and he doesn't want to say where to go instead if he doesn't know for sure that it's right, but that's not exactly reassuring.
It makes me think of the part in C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce, where one ghost says something about how "the hopeful journey is much better than the destination." But then the redeemed person is like, "no, that makes no sense—there's no hope IN a journey if you're not moving toward a set destination. The destination is where hope comes from."
So in Leave the City I feel like he takes me by the hand and says "I know how you feel" and "eventually we'll move on from this feeling" but then leaves me at "not that I know where we're going." And it's like, okay, well then why would I ever get hope from moving on? If I don't know what I'm moving on to??
Christ. It's supposed to be Jesus Christ. You can't jump from a sinking ship into a raging ocean and think that that's better. You have to jump from a sinking ship ONTO DRY LAND. Or at least have it in sight, so you can swim in that direction.
Anyway. Next Semester is not like Leave the City, because it ends with hope. 🙃 That's all I'm trying to say. Thanks for coming to my rant.
#Twenty one pilots#Nobody asked this#asked#answered#tøp#I guess I should expect some lash-back from dedicated clikkies#but like#guys I've known Mr. Joseph since before ya'll called yourselves that#my feelings about what he says and how he says it are way too deep-rooted for you to be able to tear them up with your rage#clique#why not#music#critical thinking#Christianity#storytelling#art#next semester#Clancy
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Vaxleth + 29
"Something silly"... like making a casino regret making his girl feel bad lol
29. doing something silly to cheer them up
i was actually inspired by last night's episodes to write this!
Something is wrong with Vax. They just survived a hell of a fight with a murderous herd of barbarians, one of whom was wielding a pretty gnarly Vestige, but he's not joining in on all the fun. Keyleth watches him watch everyone else, his arms crossed and his face expressionless.
She wants to ask Vex for advice, but Keyleth is pretty sure that Vex isn't a big fan of her and Vax getting any closer than they already are—not that they're particularly close or anything. Sure, Vax said he was in love with her. But people say all sorts of things when facing down a horde of zombies and almost certain death! And besides, she made an absolute fool of herself when Kash was around, and there's no way he didn't notice that.
Oh gods, what if that's why he won't come sit with them? He made a grand confession and she repaid him by blushing like a schoolgirl the minute someone else was nice to her. But then, he was so kind in the Feywild, especially after she fucked up that spell, so he can't have been that upset, could he?
She takes a long swig from her tankard. She is not nearly drunk enough.
She lets Pike ply her with more ale, eager to be out of her own head, and it doesn't take long for her plan to work. Her thoughts are pleasantly loose and swimmy, and she can gaze across the tavern at Vax without spiraling out of control.
At one point, Vex lets out an uproarious laugh at something Pike says that Keyleth definitely doesn't hear, and Vax turns to look their way. He meets Keyleth's eyes, and her reflexes are far too dulled to pretend she hadn't been ogling, so instead she tries to cheer him up. She stirs up what magical energy she can muster to grow her two front teeth, turn her nose into a round little button, and sprout two long, floppy ears from the top of her head. She grins with her strange half-rabbit face, sticking her tongue out at him, and her heart flips when she sees him chuckle to himself.
"Oi, what the fuck?"
Keyleth turns to see Pike and Vex staring at her in horror and disgust.
"You're like some fucked-up science experiment," Vex says, leaning away from her.
"I try not to be preachy," Pike adds, "but that is just unholy."
Keyleth deflates, letting her rabbit features shrink back to her normal ones. "Sorry, I was just trying to..." She trails off when she sees that once again, Vax has resumed his stoic observation of the tavern.
"Give us nightmares?" Vex supplies, sliding another tankard her way. "Drink up, Kiki. Pike wants a recounting of what happened in the Feywild and I would like to be blackout for it."
Keyleth accepts the drink and tosses one final glance toward Vax before beginning a slurred recollection of their interplanar adventures.
#ask#tiamat-zx#critical role#critical role fic#cr fic#tlovm#tlovm fic#tlovm spoilers#vaxleth#vaxleth fic#vox machina#vox machina fic#my fic
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Problems With The Heart
Greg House x Dr Anna Harding (OFC)
Story Masterlist
Chapter 21 - Surgery
I finally finished up the rest of the filing and stretched my neck, reaching the nurse’s station.
‘That’s it, I’m done for the day.’ I said to Sophia who was just starting her shift.
‘You want me to check them for you?’ She said with a raised eyebrow, making me laugh.
‘Probably a good idea.’ I admitted. ‘One week and I will be back with a brand new shoulder.’
‘Well good luck, we’re all rooting for you.’ Sophia took the files and I still didn’t leave.
‘Call if it’s urgent.’ I reminded her. ‘I can consult from home.’
‘We’re under strict orders not to call for any reason.’ Sophia grinned, but I didn’t get it.
‘Cuddy?’ I guessed, frowning.
‘Dr House.’ She said, making my heart drop. ‘He said he’d be around to take any case that comes in, he’d do the filing, the paperwork, everything.’
‘And you believed him?’ I smirked, surely she hadn’t fallen for that.
‘I asked him why he was doing it and he said because it was the least he could do.’ That was unexpected. ‘What’s going on? You two back together?’
I shook my head, no longer interested in the conversation. I headed straight for the lift and with everything I could, I resisted the temptation to go to House’s office.
Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to avoid him completely. He was waiting for me in the lobby.
‘I just had the most awesome case with a priest.’ He said, trying not to say anything too heavy. ‘The preachy God part sucked, but he was a paedophile, then he wasn’t, then he had aids, then he didn’t. It was cool.’
I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded and went to walk past him, but I could hear the sounds of his cane catching up to me in the car park.
‘Why are you following me?’ I turned around just as we reached my car.
‘Because I wanna talk to you about your surgery tomorrow.’ He said it plainly and simply.
‘Really?’ I folded my arms, hating the fact that it was snowing.
‘It’ll be two hours long, they’ll go in remove the shrapnel that is about to start causing real problems and then recovery will take a relatively short amount of time with physiotherapy lasting for up to six months.’ He said it like he was talking to a medical student and I suddenly remembered Wilson’s words.
‘Why did you put yourself on call for my department?’ I asked, not wanting to play games.
‘I figured you’d want someone competent to make sure it runs smoothly while you’re recovering.’
‘I have other doctors in my department who could do that.’ I countered.
‘They might make a mistake.’
‘And you won’t?’ It was only then that I realised I was crying.
‘I won’t make a mistake.’ He said, seriously. ‘I’ll follow protocol, I’ll file and do the paperwork.’
‘But why?’ I was getting frustrated.
‘Because you’re terrified and I want to help.’
Wilson was right, he really didn’t know how to process any of this.
‘House, I am scared that I am going to be put under and not wake up.’ I explained. ‘It is a rational fear to have and stranger things have happened. I don’t need someone to help with what happens afterwards, I need someone to help me get into the OR feeling optimistic.’
It was like talking in a foreign language. I gave up, it just wasn’t worth it anymore. I went to get my keys out of my bag to unlock my car.
‘I can do that.’ He said, quietly, but loud enough for me to hear.
‘It’s not your job-‘
‘I know.’ He cut me off. ‘It’s also not my job to take over your patients, but… I want to do it.’
‘No you don’t.’
‘No, you’re right I don’t!’ He snapped, catching the attention of a few people around us. ‘I don’t want to deal with paperwork or boring cases like evident heart disease in obese idiots. But I want you to love me again!’ He seemed to run out of patience and I didn’t know what to do. ‘I don’t know how to do this. You have to show me how to do this.’ I thought he might have cried. ‘Please.’
I honestly didn’t know what to do. ‘I didn’t stop loving you.’ I nodded, feeling my cheeks burn with the tears that had already fallen. ‘I just…’
‘What?’ House took a step toward me and I both couldn’t stand being so close and hated he was still so far away.
‘I just didn’t think I’d miss you so much.’ I confessed. ‘We’re not warm and fuzzy people, we’re practical and rational and that has worked for us, but you wanted to change the terms of that agreement and I still don’t know what it is you really want.’
‘I want you.’ He tried to say it like it was obvious.
‘Beyond that. What do you want?’
‘Why does there have to be a beyond?’ He said, frustrated. ‘Why can’t this be it?’ I didn’t know how to answer. ‘What do you want?’
That was the magic phrase to make me start to cry a little more. ‘God, Greg, I want to go home. I want to sleep. I don’t want to be in pain anymore and I don’t want to feel like I’m some poor broken soldier. I want to have a real life where I can do the things that make me happy. I just want to sleep again.’
I took a long moment to breathe and stop crying, looking anywhere that wasn’t at him and wiping away my tears.
‘Sleep with me.’ He said and I just looked at him, not being able to believe he just said that. ‘I don’t mean like that.’ He corrected himself. ‘I mean actually sleep in a bed with me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you sleep better when I’m there.’ He gave a half smile and I was once again getting sucked in by those eyes. ‘You should get some rest before the surgery and you should use whatever means necessary to do that.’
‘You’re saying I should use you.’
‘I’m saying I’m volunteering to help.’ He sighed. ‘In whatever way I can.’
There was something in his expression that told me if I refused him now then I’d never have a chance to find out what he really wanted with me, what future he saw. I reasoned with myself that the full nights sleep would do me good and maybe I should be selfish for a while.
I drove us both to my place in silence. It was a little awkward but it was better than being stood in the snow arguing. We had a quick drink, but soon ended up in bed facing each other.
‘You know you’re not going to die tomorrow.’ He said, his blue eyes scanning my face in the dim light.
‘I might, the anaesthesia might have a weird effect on me and I might not wake up.’ I reasoned, but instead of arguing, House just watched me.
‘Well, if this is the last night you have on this Earth, what would you want to do most?’
I thought about it and I realised that I’d rather be in bed with him, staring at each other, talking about nothing, than anything else I could think of.
‘This.’ I whispered and again watched him process the information.
‘Can I kiss you?’ House’s eyes darkened and I couldn’t do anything but let my gaze drop to his mouth.
House softly pressed his lips to mine, it was gentle and slow, like we were committing everything to memory, but never pushing for anymore. We spent the time tensing before I fell asleep, kissing softly and staring at each other trying to figure out what to do next.
‘Everything’s going to be okay.’ He breathed as my eyes closed, unable to keep them open anymore.
House was in the viewing gallery when she was being put under, he gave her a wink as her eyes began closing. She would be fine.
Wilson was waiting outside the surgery, he wasn’t expecting that.
‘Are you going to take her home?’
House didn’t answer he just walked past Wilson and headed to his office.
‘Were you with her last night?’ He asked, he was becoming more and more irritating by the minute. ‘House, you gotta give me something.’
He went into his office and began getting on with work.
The surgery went well, all the shrapnel was removed, she didn’t die or even present with any infection or issues afterwards. Anna would be perfectly fine. He took her home when she was ready to go and stayed with her for the week. He didn’t give her any updates on her department, he let her rest and relax while she had the chance.
‘You’re painting again?’ He asked, seeing a mark on her arm.
‘Oh, yeah just a little practising.’ She lied.
‘Why are you lying? If I go in your spare room, am I going to find a naked man?’ He teased, making her laugh. ‘Seriously, what’s going on?’
Anna gave in and went into her spare room, he saw a small canvas with a partially finished canvas, it was him, an almost photographic image of his face. She was good.
‘I thought, I had the time to practice so I’d give it a go again.’ She defended weakly. ‘It’s not finished or anything, I’m a little rusty.’
‘It’s perfect.’ He said. ‘You gave up painting to become a doctor.’
‘I didn’t consciously give it up, I just got busy.’ She said, standing next to him. ‘We done in here?’
‘Sure.’ House said and decided not to push her on it.
He played the piano for her while she ate and made sure she took her medication when she needed to. But at some point he knew they needed to have a proper conversation.
‘I like this.’ He said, watching her lay on the sofa, her eyes growing heavy. ‘I like being here, I mean the stairs are a pain, but I like being here… with you.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying we should be together.’ House knew this would be hard. ‘I’m saying I’m in love with you and we should be together.’ He waited for a few minutes for her response, but she didn’t say anything. ‘Do you have anything you want to say?’
Anna inhaled deeply and he watched a tear fall from the corner of her eye. ‘What does more mean for you?’
The one question he didn’t know how to answer. The one question she needed answered. If he could just figure it out, he had a chance to make this work.
‘It means whatever you want it to mean.’ He thought about it. ‘I don’t care what that is.’
Anna didn’t say anything, she just watched him and eventually he began playing the piano again. She fell asleep on the sofa and a part of him didn’t want to wake her up, but she would be in pain if she stayed there. He got her into bed and asked if he could stay, she smiled and nodded and finally he felt like they might have been on the right track.
If you liked this, please consider supporting me ☕ thanks for reading!
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an introduction and some books
hi hotties!
the idea for this blog came from the twisted fantasy of my three closest friends and i as a way of producing something collaborative and creative without submitting ourselves to the mortifying ordeal of being known. we all get a fun little code name (i'm ruminating on magnolia, which i like but also think is a bit wanky in a way that i can't reconcile myself with spiritually just yet) and a week of the month to post whatever we want. the idea was essentially to create a platform where we get to talk uninterrupted shit about anything we want to because it’s our fucking blog, goddamit, and you’re not going to come onto our blog and tell us how to post.
and so, to kick things off, i am going to be talking about my favourite books of 2023 because i am cultured and sophisticated and definitely didn’t spend the first half of the year drowning in fae romantasy smut in an attempt to feel something. if you don’t like any of these books don’t tell me because i simply don’t care!! xoxo
non-fiction favourite - the anthropocene reviewed, john green
i spent 2023 working very hard to reprogramme my misanthropic brain, and this book was a huge part of what allowed me to do that. i’m still by no means cured of my hater tendencies, but this book was a beautifully tender examination of that little spark of humanity that connects us all, and the numerous ways in which it has manifested throughout human history and across the borders of nationality, age, and gender. green somehow manages to weave in his own life experiences in a way that avoids being preachy or self-aggrandising in a way that i think a lot of non-fiction writers really struggle with - i’d also highly recommend consuming this in audiobook form as his narration really made the experience for me.
fantasy favourite - a court of silver flames, sarah j maas
if you read this and immediately want to start lecturing me on how booktok is ruining the fantasy genre please know that im manifesting your downfall as we speak. i have my own issues with the flattening of the fantasy genre that takes place on tiktok, but the acotar series is a sugary, pulpy delight and this spinoff novel is where, in my humble opinion, it really hits its peak. as you can probably tell just by reading this, i am what is affectionately known as ‘a prickly unfriendly bitch’ in my day-to-day life, and i love seeing characters who represent me in a way that doesn’t glamourise being an unkind person - and nesta in this book is someone whose tendency to push people away isn’t justified or apologised for, and whose growth i found legitimately inspiring. also i’m still waiting for sarah j maas to stop teasing a dp scene and actually write it, the coward.
sci-fi favourite - the arc of a scythe trilogy, neal schusterman
this trilogy rocked me to my fucking core, bitch. this was another audiobook read from early 2023 and it’s one of the better pieces of speculative fiction i’ve ever encountered. schusterman pulls off some really complicated and in-depth worldbuilding in a way that doesn’t feel like i’m reading an instruction manual - something that’s genuinely hard to do in this genre - and the series only gets better as it goes. as someone who is profoundly afraid of artificial intelligence this offered a perspective on ai that i’ve not really seen in media before now - and i will also be thinking about my pookie scythe lucifer for ever and ever amen.
lit fic favourite - all the names they used for god, anjali sachdeva
i’m actually not going to talk about this one too much because it’s quite a difficult book to explain without giving away too much - not in a spoiler sense, but in a 'this is an experience that you need to go into with an open mind' sense. this is a collection of short stories that play with genre, setting, and character to tell a series of profound stories about the human struggle with fate and the pursuit of meaning. sachdeva manages to build such engrossing and vibrant worlds in the limited space she allows herself for each story - and she avoided the pitfall i find that a lot of short story anthologies fall into where you can very clearly tell that the writer had one story they desperately wanted to publish and wrote the rest as a way of filling up space for a full book.
well, those are some of my 2023 faves. i have a million honourable mentions but i’m not going to put them here because i’ve already written way too much. i’m not sure who’s taking over the reins for week 2 of this little blog experiment but be sure to give them a kiss on the forehead from me!
yours,
magnolia
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Do you have any good YA recommendations that have actually dark themes or depict teenagers in a way that's even remotely realistic? I never read YA bc it always feels so fake but maybe I'm not looking in the right places
OKAY so. please hear me out bc im abt to recommend u a fanfiction series but i swear to god its very far removed from the source material so u can just like. read it on its own. it’s called twin skeletons (here’s the link), and i’m sure i’ve talked abt or at least mentioned it on my blog before but its just very very special to me !! it rlly feels like ur getting in the heads of these Awful teenagers and all of the subjects r dealt w/ in like. such a raw & unfiltered way in my opinion. it doesnt feel fake or preachy or like the reader is being talked down to or anything. the writing can be messy & imperfect bc its a fic from a couple years ago, but i still think its so so good and so worth it. the characters felt so real to me & it was dark & complicated & frustrating & it managed to stick w me years after reading it & i love it so much. i use it as a big inspiration for how i would want to write teenagers if i ever. like. actually got arnd to writing anything. maybe my own sentimental feelings r making me biased but god i just think its such an amazing coming of age story and the writer just Understands how teenagers think and act so well and u should absolutely read it if u want a realistic YA story
for actual published work, i have more trouble bc u r right! finding published YA that doesnt try to water things down can unfortunately be v difficult & most of these r just books i read in my school’s library or in the Teen Section of my local bookstore a long time ago & particularly stuck w/ me & some of them im not even like. That sure counts as YA i just know that im a Young Adult who read & enjoyed it & it was also abt Young Adults. maybe its cheating but i honestly dont think that whether or not its Officially Supposed to Be YA is that important, im assuming ur just trying 2 find good coming of age stories
these arent in any particular order im just listing off whatever i think
speak by laurie halse anderson
allegedly by tiffany d jackson
forgive me, leonard peacock by matthew quick
dare me by megan abbott
perks of being a wallflower by stephen chbosky
catcher in the rye by jd salinger (uve most likely already read this but it wouldn’t feel right to leave this classic out)
my heart & other black holes by jasmine warga (a little rushed at times but felt like a breath of fresh air after trying to read annoyingly pretentious trainwrecks like fault in our stars & all the bright places. does what those novels Tried to do but manages it well in my opinion)
these violent delights by micah nemerever (not considered YA lol but i asked the author personally & the characters r like. 16-17 for majority of it & its an incredible book that i want everyone to read anyway so! why not put it here)
my dark vanessa by kate elizabeth russell (definitely not supposed to be YA but a lot of it is from the perspective of a teenage girl & i can imagine it being in my school’s library & its very good & relatable so!! again why not put it here!!)
black iris by elliot wake (i think this is considered more new adult than YA but whatever)
fault line by christa desir
forbidden by tabitha suzuma
hell followed with us by andrew joseph white (not sure if u can call this realistic considering its fantasy but its dark & definitely YA & it has body horror & i liked it so it’s going in)
house of hollow by krystal sutherland (again, this is a fantasy, but i thought it was pretty good when i read it & its YA so it’s going in)
i’m somewhat delirious after taking a nap so im srry if this is like 97% of me just rambling or not making sense. i know our tastes r probably not the same so some of these (or just YA in general) may not be for u but i rlly hope u enjoy or appreciate any of these if u ever decide to read them <3
#if anyone else has any recs feel free to comment them :]#i havent gotten the chance to read the raven cycle or all for the game but based on how ive seen ppl on here talk abt it they seem good#asks
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Hello! 💖 May I ask abelia and chamomile?
I just answered Chamomile, but since I misread it as camellia the first time I'll answer that one this time \o/
abelia ⇢ do you have a particular piece of jewelry you always wear or can’t part with?
Oh, 100% - at age 18 my mom gifted me a white gold cross. I'm not overly religious, and while my family is they're what I like to call the right kind of Christian - I mean, I'm queer AF and they've circled the wagons to keep me safe. Feed the poor, not preachy, etc. Anyway, my mom gave it to me for that birthday and it's never come off.
It's not really a sign of the religion to me, so much as a it is a sign of my mother's love for me. We're very different people, but that's my best friend, and if she wants to keep me safe with a talisman of her religion I will treasure it for forever.
camellia ⇢ what were you like when you were younger? do you think you’ve changed a lot?
Oh gods yes, I've changed a TON. I was... well, I wasn't *awful* as a younger person, but I was certainly far too arrogant. I made mistakes, and all I really have to say is that I did learn from them. I saw the world way too black and white when I was younger, and it held me back in so many ways.
I certainly got into a lot more fist fights in my youth ^^; I also haven't pick-pocketed anyone or stolen anything in a good twenty years and given the statute of limitations on those things is the only reason I even mention them.
Getting to know you randomly
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for you to write a little smutty post!
how about some blasphemy kink with a side of somno? (idk i’m curious)
omg I haven't gotten to write a blasphemy kink post yet *cracks knuckles* let's goooo!
This is gonna be a long one, I'll put it under a cut. 😘
You’ve never questioned why it is that I quietly exit the room when you pray your rosary, flicking through the beads, your Our Father’s and Hail Mary’s mumbled softly under your breath. You’re devout and it’s admirable, but it provokes this tiny stabbing jealousy within me. You’ve never been a preachy type, you never try to bring me to mass or discuss your religion with me. I’m neither offended nor relieved, for if you did, it would simply bring me humor in the moment to oblige and attend a service. Internally joking to myself that the church ought to burn when I set foot inside it.
You see, I’m so much older than your church. I’m older than the worship of your messiah, and I won’t invalidate him, nor your God with a capital G. But you see, love. I’ve grown jealous. The worship should be mine.
I seduce you slowly, with red wine and perfumed incense, a dozen lit candles. As I touch you, you marvel at how exquisite my fingers feel on your skin, unlike anything you’ve felt, and when I bring my mouth to yours, you lose the ability to think. You’re getting drunk off of me, and I feel how you sink deeper and deeper into my embrace. You make an unknowing mistake, a whispered “Jesus Christ” as I take your nipple in my mouth, and I give your pussy a soft smack. You cry out in surprise, feeling the echo of my blow tingling through you, and I tell you, “wrong. Me. your god can’t do this, can he?” I take your nipple in my mouth again, swirling with my tongue, sliding my fingers into your wet pussy. You moan louder for me, arching into me, gasping. “Can your god make you feel like this?”
Your brain is hazy with the pleasure, you don’t hardly know how to respond. “Pray to me, sweet thing. Pray to me for more.” I slide my fingers in and out of you slowly, so slowly, stroking the spot inside of you where you need me most, knowing just where it is.
“Please,” You whisper and moan. “please, please..”
“Goddess.” I supply for you as you search your silly little pleasure-drunk brain for language.
“Please, goddess, please.”
“Please what, little whore?” I quicken my pace just a bit, pumping my fingers in and out of you faster. “Do you want to cum, sweetheart? Is that what you want?” I fuck you harder, grinding my fingers into you hard and fast. “I know, it feels so good, doesn’t it?” I lick down your stomach, pausing at your hips to bite and suck softly, licking my way down to your thighs. You’re so dizzy with how good my fingers feel that you hardly feel me draw blood as my teeth sink into your thigh. I feel you tightening, clenching around my fingers, and I pull them out of you, leaving you empty and whining. You look up at me, desperate and confused, needy.
“Renounce your god, sweetheart, and I might let you cum for me. You only cum in my name, I don’t ever want to hear the name of your god leave your lips when you’re writhing in ecstasy ever again. You will praise me when I’m pleasuring you. You will praise me when anyone pleasures you. You’re mine now, pretty thing.”
You seem to not understand what is happening yet, you just look at me dumbly, and I begin to fuck you again, fingers working in and out of you, and you start to arch into me, grinding back into my fingers. I give your clit a slow lick and you pant and gasp and cry out, thrusting up towards my mouth for more. I stop again.
“Renounce your god. I’ll give you exactly what you want, everything you’ve ever wanted, if you just renounce your god and come to me.”
“P-Please. Goddess. Please.”
I thrust my fingers into you again, give you another lick. You moan. I stop after that. “Please what, love?”
You pant and whimper. “I re-renounce. I renounce my G-God. Pleaseplease, goddess.”
I swirl my tongue tantalizingly around your clit and you clench on my fingers. I don’t continue. “Devote yourself to me. Say it, love.”
“I-“ I lick your clit again, teasingly, stopping only to let you feel the warmth of my breath on your aching, wet pussy, my fingers still inside of you. Your pussy flutters, clenching on my fingers again, and I smile as you whine, trying to form the phrase. “I dev-devote myself to you.” I pump my fingers in and out slowly as you gasp, your climax so close, just guiding you along this edge for me.
“What a good little servant. You’re mine now, do you understand? You’ll serve me as I see fit.” I continue fucking you, pressing my fingers against that spot inside of you, massaging it and coaxing you higher, watching you pathetically writhe and moan, grabbing at the blanket beneath you.
I remove my fingers from you before you can cum, leaving you once again empty and desperate. I tell you that you won’t be getting any more tonight. That was your initiation, little servant. Now you’re mine to toy with as I please.
I let you drift off to sleep that evening, only to wake you with my fingers pushing into your mouth. You sleepily suck my fingers like a good servant, before I pull them from your mouth and listen to you whine with confusion. “Feels so good to be filled by a godd, doesn’t it? You just want me to fill your holes, don’t you?” I kiss down your body once more, licking your thighs, you moaning sleepily. I close my lips over your clit, sucking and licking greedily. You gasp, and I greedily eat your pussy. You’re so sensitive from my ministrations earlier that I bring you to your edge in no time, and you praise me immediately, begging, “please, goddess, please, I want to cum for you, pleasepleaseplease let me cum for you.” Your praise and begging is unprompted and I want to reward it, so I slide two fingers inside of you, pumping them in and out as I continue to suck on your clit, swirling my tongue, guiding you to cum all over my fingers. Good devotees get rewards.
#asks#👻 answers from beyond#anon#send me a kink from my kink list and i'll write a little smut for it 💕#this is a long one#blasphemy and corruption
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Hi! You don't have to respond to this or anything, but I was just a little upset by your phrasing on the Apollo ship poll you have going. It seems like you're cool with aromantic and asexual people but stating explicitly your poll was about romantic or sexual relationships and not including qprs in that explicit statement really made me uncomfortable. I realize you can't edit polls (unless they changed that but I don't think they did) I just wanted to let you know for the future bc generally you seem really accepting. You could be aro and/or ace for all I know and you don't owe me or anyone that so if you are, sorry if this comes off as preachy, it was just a bit startling when I've seen some if your posts before and you seemed like you are really supportive so I had interpreted your blog as being a space where I wouldn't see things like that. And no one is perfect! You might have simply forgotten! I can't know that but you would so if this isn't even applicable at all, ignore it! I hope you have a good day and thank you for being at the very least an ally (again idk your identity nor do I need to).
Oh god, you’re right- I myself am aroace, actually! It was wrong of me to overlook people who headcanon polly as a-spec/in a qpr. Hell, I’ve vouched my support for qpr claypollo before! That was more on me, I was a bit excited in the moment and overlooked a part of the shipping fandom that should be respected. My apologies!
And no, you’re not being preachy at all :3 I hope my blog can continue to be seen as a safe space for you and others like you, and if it isn’t, I like when people speak up about that, so thank you!
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I HOPE THIS DOES NOT COME OFF AS PREACHY BUT I JUST WANTED TO SAY don’t force yourself beck <333333 nowadays I only write self indulgent stuff bc I just prefer to. and if you prefer not to write maybe just know it’s okay and take it easy. you may decide to write again at another time or maybe just take a long break but I hope you don’t feel pressured by yourself or anyone else to keep writing. I feel like sometimes we feel like we have to do smth bc that was smth we tagged to like our internet identities. but things change and it’s still a loss of course, but I just hope you don’t beat yourself up over it or anything. I hope this doesn’t seem like idk uppity?? I just wanna give you a big hug and let you know it’s alright to take a step back from writing. 🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂
🥺🥺🥺 ily izzy !!! this doesn’t come off as preachy at all oh my god you’re the absolute loveliest :(( thank you so much for this. i feel like i’m having a hard time shaking this idea that there’s a schedule for some reason?? like it’s been x amount of months since i’ve posted a fic and there has to be a countdown for when i have to post again but like…there literally isn’t LOL it’s my blog and i can do whatever i want i suppose! you’re absolutely right that there’s no need for me to pressure myself so i’m just going to try to work on decreasing that feeling i think before i try writing again. and i’ll do my utmost to be kind to myself in the process too! so thank you for all the support and your wonderful words they truly mean the world to me 😭🤍🤍 i’m giving you a big hug right back !!
#beck answers 💌#decembermoonskz#ily izzy !!! 😭💓💓 ty for always being such a shining light of kindness on this app
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With everything that's been happening irt family and finances, I've been in a horrible depressive episode for what feels like many months now. Maybe it's only been a couple, idk, but it seems longer. I had to drop D&D again indefinitely and it's just. Like I know I don't have the mental capacity for it but it still bums me out, you know?
I asked my mom how everyone is doing over there after the last incident and she says it's not too bad, kinda stressful but things look to be working out. She also told me to put my trust in God and pray, as she always does. Even after I've made it clear that I'm not a Christian anymore, she still tries. Which I'm not like mad at but I'm really not ready for any type of major religion or whatever, and especially not the one that caused me the most sorrow and trauma.
I don't NOT believe in God. In fact I believe that all gods do exist. Maybe not all on the same plane of existence, but they do all exist in some form, beyond normal human perception. But the church and the beliefs of the people are what burned me. And technically that one isn't god's fault, it's human being human and showing their capacity for evil. It's mistranslations and personal bias being written into religious law by self-righteous god-kings and pastors/deacons/wannabe saints...etc. It's how humans set up the religion and told everyone it's God's will that really fucked me up. It's those people who hurt my friends and family so badly they never want to believe in anything beyond ourselves because something having that much power over humanity is terrifying and infuriating when all you want is to be left alone in peace.
I guess I still get a little mad. I've asked her not to get preachy at me before when I was really angry. I know she does it with good intentions, but I still roll my eyes when I'm told I should pray about it and show reverence to a god that people always told me would send me to hell just for being me. A vindictive and jealous war monger who shuns anyone who's a little different and tells their followers that their children are better off dead than living in sin. A very "do as I say, not as I do" mindset that never did come off as the type of deity that encompasses "love" but demands it through fear.
I'm tired of hearing it. I'm tired of being told that's the only way. I'm tired of trying to justify my existence and my worthiness to some man-made version of a "kind" and "loving" god who, according to his followers, has already deemed me an abomination destined to eternal torture. For what? What in my entire life could I have possibly done to deserve that? People who commit the worst global scale atrocities known to all creatures on the planet are praised as godly and just people, but a truly kindhearted human who just happens to be trans or gay or mentally ill in an undesirable way has to face utter destruction and despair into infinity? All while those corporate greed CEO oil drilling slave labor capitalist literal taint cheese manifested into a wicked simulacrum of a parody of a human are allowed to rise to idol status and sainthood in the eyes of the church.
I want absolutely ZERO part of that. I don't even want to be remotely associated with that by proxy. I want it so fucking far away from me and my life except I have to live in it, wading up to my nostrils in the fucking doo-doo swamp that is American Christian capitalist culture. The denomination doesn't matter, they're all fucked up. Baptists, Presbyterians, Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Witnesses, there's like a thousand of them I can't remember them all and any time a sect tries to be any kind of progressive in any way the vast majority condemns them as not being real Christianity and just...
Like fuck off. Fuck off forever. Most humans don't deserve to suffer but the idea that one day there will be no more humans is somewhat soothing tbh. Fifth or sixth mass extinction event happening cause of these rich white cis straight greedy mega church evangelical tech bro assholes not giving a shit about the planet and the people and creatures on it.
Please I hate being here so much. I hate money. I hate mainstream Christian culture. I hate the nuclear family model. I hate technology enabling crypto bros and art theft. I hate that all our amazing technological advancements are all put to use in war and suppression instead of healthcare and infrastructure. I hate everything about this country and the state of the world currently and please I don't want to BE here anymore!!!
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This was probably the nicest advice anybody have ever given me.
I go through patches of feeling like I’m a burden to people so I ask for very little & I’m such an emotional person that it honestly hurts more that people around me don’t even genuinely want to be there for me.
It’s was mostly you saying I could vent to know & nobody has ever told me that… I always have to sneak in my venting in conversations. I actually downloaded a journal this week because o has so exhausted from holding so much in.
Thank you.. I probably won’t vent but it’s nice to know that somebody would let me
KGem
Aw hun! I'm glad it was okay, I was a little worried I was coming off as a bit preachy which wasn't my intention at all because god knows I never have my shit together enough to be preaching to anyone haha!
I know the feeling, I'm pretty familiar with the idea of burdens but I promise you it's a feeling that it very much inwardly faced and rarely has an outward projection. By that I mean, it's far more likely that you feel like a burden rather than feel someone is a burden- and that works for everyone.
I think one of the best things I ever got told was ask for what you need. If you don't ask, you don't get. It felt so counterintuitive at the time because I didn't want to feel like I had to ask but, in reality, people aren't mind readers and that's my whole mantra now. I try my best to communicate, especially with Dan, because I so often feel like not saying anything at all. But people aren't mind readers. So I try.
You absolutely can talk to me, I'm not that active but I'm online a lot if you know what I mean, if you wanted to talk off anon I wouldn't publish anything.
Journals are amazing for that! I tend to write and half my characters are sprinkled with my real life bullshit because that's how I expressive myself best.
But you'll find what works for you! I hope journaling helps! My psychiatrist buddy does pottery and then smashes it lmao. Something about the idea that nothing good lasts and not clinging too hard, idk haha, it's whatever you want it to be.
I think, honestly, you should work on the idea of "burden" that you have in your head. Are you a hinderance? Or are you a normal person? Because a lot of the time my love, our idea of "burden" comes from our own negative self worth, it's not a reflection of reality at all.
It takes time hun, so honestly, don't rush yourself and remember to take care of yourself, to give yourself that time. Changing the way we think is hard, I've been in therapy half my life, but it gets easier.
All the love my dear, I hope you are doing okay this week 💕💕💕
#kgem#asks#i want to hug you i hope you know that#i feel like we're very similiar#obviously gemini friends aha
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could we see coops first big fight when they’re married? (essentially pure angst)
Yes, we can! Don’t worry, I got your follow-up ask about a happy ending as well--there are no sad endings on this blog, just some bittersweet ones, and this is very soft and fluffy. Hope you enjoy!
Combined with prompts for...
1. Another of Coops’ serious talks
2. Remus overworking himself to keep up
3. From @colored-rain: Sirius sleeping at Dumo’s for a night
4. Slow dancing in the kitchen
TW for couples fighting, suppression, and marriage issues
“Do you think we got married too fast?” a quiet voice asked in the darkness.
Remus paused for several heartbeats before opening his eyes and turning over; Sirius was staring at the ceiling, wide awake. “What?”
“Do you think we got married too fast?” Sirius repeated without looking at him.
“Do you?” Remus countered. Something panicky was starting to buzz in the back of his brain and he tried to keep his breaths steady. Sirius wasn’t breaking up with him. They had only been married for a few months. Things were really, really good—as far as he knew, they were both happier than they had ever been.
Sirius sighed through his nose. “I don’t know.”
“What?” Remus sat up against the headboard, wide awake. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I—” Sirius shifted to sit up as well and crossed his legs. “I don’t know! People usually date for a lot longer than a year and a half before getting married, right?”
“We’ve known each other for seven years, Sirius.”
“Yes, and I love you, and you’re wonderful, but everything happened so fast.”
Remus wasn’t sure if his heart was trying to crawl out of his chest or dissolve into a puddle of pain. “Are you—Sirius, are you breaking up with me?”
“No!” Sirius said immediately. “I just said I love you, what the hell?”
“People can love each other and still break up!”
Sirius grabbed his hands, holding tight even when Remus tried to pull back and let his panic overtake him. Grey eyes locked on his, as solemn as he had ever seen them. “I’m not breaking up with you, Remus.” The clock on the nightstand beeped midnight and Sirius pressed his lips together. “We have early practice.”
“We need to talk.”
“We need to sleep.”
“Promise we’ll talk tomorrow, then.” We need to talk right now, actually.
Sirius squeezed his hands and kissed his cheek. His cheek. “I promise.”
Remus didn’t sleep much that night. His cheek burned with the memory of Sirius’ lips.
---------------------------
Their morning routine was stilted and quiet. Practice was awkward, and though neither of them let the previous night’s events influence their performance, he knew the tension was palpable. “Y’all good?” Leo asked under his breath as Remus filled his waterbottle up.
“We’re fine,” he answered, exhausted.
“Loops—”
“Stay in your lane, Knut.” He regretted the words as soon as they escaped his mouth—the kicked-puppy look on Leo’s face was more than enough to make guilt spike up—but he kept on moving down the hall and tried to wash the bitter taste from his mouth.
The ride home was worlds worse than he could have expected. Sirius turned the radio off the moment it started to play and kept his eyes firmly on the windshield the entire time, tapping his thumb against the wheel in the tic that always appeared when he was nervous. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t help us fix whatever’s going on.” Remus wasn’t angry, per say, but he was really fucking frustrated with Sirius’ sudden inability to communicate. “Talk to me. What happened?”
Sirius chewed the edge of his lip. “I was just thinking.”
There was a long stretch of silence between them. “Wow, thank you for that incredibly helpful information,” Remus said sarcastically when it became clear he wasn’t going to continue.
“You don’t have to be mean about it,” Sirius muttered.
“I’m not trying to be mean—”
“Well, you kind of were—”
“Then maybe you should talk about your problems for once!” Remus snapped before he could shove it back down. Sirius’ jaw clenched. “If we’re going to work through this, then you have to tell me what the hell happened to make you so worried and upset. Do you regret getting married to me?”
The response was immediate. “No.”
“Thank you.” He leaned his head back against the seat rest and closed his eyes. “Thank you, that was what I needed to hear.”
“Do you think we moved too fast?”
Remus scrubbed a hand over his face. “I used to. I don’t, anymore. There’s no rulebook for any of this. How long have you been thinking about that?”
Sirius started tapping the wheel again. “A couple weeks.”
He may as well have opened the passenger door and booted Remus from the car. A breath punched out of his lungs. “A couple weeks?” he whispered. The world was spinning, the floor was open, hell itself was coming to swallow him up. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I figured it was normal marriage stuff. That it would pass.”
“Oh my god.”
“I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.”
“And I do?” Remus said incredulously. “News flash: this is the first time I’ve ever been married, too!”
“Please don’t be angry.”
“Being married means you share things, Sirius, not keep them bottled up for two weeks! Especially when they concern the other person!”
Something stormy came over his face. “Oh, really? So when were you planning on talking to me about the fact that you haven’t slept in six days?”
“I literally sleep next to you!”
“You toss and turn all night, and then you get up and run drills for an hour before coming back to bed. Every time I ask how you slept, you lie to my face, Remus. That’s not okay.”
Remus was speechless. He had done everything he could think of to be quiet and careful so Sirius wouldn’t know. “I…”
Sirius glanced over at him, eyebrows raised. “Yeah, I noticed.”
Be an adult. Be an adult. You’re married. Be an adult. “I’m still worried about catching up to the team.”
“I figured. We’ve talked about this before, Re, it’s not safe for you to do that to yourself—”
“You don’t get it!” Sirius pulled into their driveway and turned the car off. “You have no idea how it feels to constantly be catching up to people! I’m fine, it’s not like I’m doing any damage!”
“I’m sorry, did you forget who you’re talking to?”
Remus clenched his teeth and got out of the car, grabbing his duffel from the backseat before slamming the door. He felt a little guilty—the rising memories of hushed confessions of hours of exercise to his father’s whistle meant Sirius understood better than anyone. Then the front door closed behind them both and the indignance on Sirius’ face sent his temper flaring up again. “You never bother to talk to me about anything that’s going on with you, so why should I even try?”
“What happened to ‘marriage is a partnership’?” Sirius followed him into the kitchen. “Have we moved on to the hypocrite stage yet or are we still clearing the air where nothing ever gets solved?”
Remus reeled back like he’d been slapped. “Fucking excuse me?”
“Every time we fight, you start all sarcastic and defensive, and then you get preachy like you’re reading something out of a fucking self-help book!” Sirius ran a hand through his hair. “Christ, Remus, it feels like I’m talking to a therapist instead of my partner!”
“Husband!” The ring on his finger had always been a comfort instead of a lead weight. “You can’t even say it?”
“I don’t regret marrying you!
“Then why are you so upset about us being married young?!”
“Because it’ll fall apart!” Sirius shouted back. “We’re going to be insufferably happy for a while, and then somewhere along the line we’re going to hate each other, and then it’ll be cold looks when we pass and different beds and all our friends will have to pick sides because we can’t stand to be in the same room together!”
“If you’re so sure about that, then why are you trying to fucking hard to keep us together?” Remus’ heart pounded like he’d run a marathon. Hearing his own fears thrown in his face was the most terrifying thing he had ever experienced.
“Because I love you.” Sirius’ voice broke. They were on opposite sides of the kitchen island, but Remus could see the pain on his face. “I love you, and I don’t want some—some impulsive decision to ruin that forever.”
“I love you, too.” Tears clogged the back of Remus’ throat. So stop pushing me away.
“Then I’ll be at Dumo’s.”
Remus nodded silently as Sirius walked past him toward the stairs; the moment he was out of sight, he headed into the downstairs bathroom and sat down with his back to the closed door, burying his face in his forearms. There was a rustle outside, and the front door closed with a click.
It wasn’t until his face itched with drying tears that he remembered Hattie. Guilt and panic stabbed through him and he scrambled back out, sprinting to her bed and then to the backyard. “Hattie?” he called, frantic with worry. “Hattie, c’mere!”
He closed his eyes and thought back to the events of the day. They had left her in the house for practice, and he vaguely remembered hearing her in the other room while they were fighting, and when Sirius left—
“Oh, you bastard,” he said aloud. The rustling of Sirius grabbing his duffel and whatever else he packed had been accompanied by the pattering of Hattie’s paws. “You took our fucking dog.”
Part of him was grateful that at least somebody had remembered their baby. The other part was absolutely furious. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and took a few deep breaths as the tone played. “Hello?”
“Can you pick me up?”
“Re, are you okay?”
“Not really. Can you pick me up?”
Concern dripped from Lily’s voice. “Where are you?”
“At home.”
“…where’s Sirius?”
“At Dumo’s.”
“I’m on my way.”
-----------------------------------
Harry Potter had been alive for less than two years, and he had been cried on by about half the Lions. Finn had started referring to him as ‘therapy baby’, and Remus was inclined to agree—it was hard to feel anything extreme when he was holding the pudgy little angel to his chest.
“So you fought?” Lily asked gently from the armchair across from him. Remus nodded. The whole story had spilled out in a gross mess of sobbing and baby snuggles until he laid down on his back, holding Harry to his chest as he dozed.
“I feel like an idiot,” he said miserably.
“Don’t.”
“It was awful.”
“I bet.”
Remus sniffled and kissed the top of Harry’s head. “Thank you for getting me. I didn’t want to be there alone.”
“I’m glad you called.” She took a sip of tea and gave him a look that he never liked. “Re, can I be honest with you?”
“Always.”
“I was kind of waiting for this to happen.” At his stricken expression, she folded her hands around the sides of her mug. “I don’t think you got married too early, because neither of you do big things like that on impulse and you love each other so much. However, I do think that you have a habit of trying to protect each other from the shit you carry with you. James did the same thing to me, and it sucked.”
“It does suck,” Remus agreed. “I hate the thought that he can’t trust me.”
Lily held her finger up and shook her head. “Nope. It’s not an issue of trust, is it? Why didn’t you tell Sirius that you were having trouble sleeping?”
“Because I didn’t want to worry h—oh.” Harry wiggled around for a moment and Remus adjusted himself so he was leaning on the armrest. “I think I get it now.”
“You guys need to talk about that at some point or it’s going to keep coming up.”
“Is that what you and James did?”
“No, we let it fester for, like, a year and then broke up for two weeks.”
Remus made a sympathetic face. “I forgot about that part. I should call him, huh?”
Lily shrugged. “It’s up to you.”
“I want to apologize,” he said carefully. The sore spot in his heart and chest still twinged. “But I’m still really upset. And hurt. And a little angry? Mostly worried. There’s so much happening, I just want to hold your baby.”
“Go for it, he’s having a blast. Lover?”
There was a shuffling sound from the other room before James appeared in the doorway. “Yes?”
Remus snorted. “Simp.”
“Yes, and? What’s up, darling?”
“Can I have some more tea?” She batted her eyelashes at him with a dimpled smile and he sighed, then took her mug with him into the kitchen.
“You only love me for my kettle!” he called over his shoulder with a grin.
“Maybe!”
Remus turned his head to look at Lily while he ran a hand over Harry’s back. “Lils?”
“Hmm?”
“Am I preachy when I’m upset?”
She frowned. “What?”
“Preachy. Like—like I’m reading out of a self-help book.”
With a heavy sigh, she stood up and walked to the couch, leaning over the armrest to kiss his forehead. “No, Re, you’re not preachy. You like being right, but you’re not preachy.”
“Sirius thinks we’ll end up like his parents.”
“I’m not surprised about that, either.” She brushed his messy hair off his forehead and braided a small strand along the front, then gave it a little tug. “Guest bedroom’s yours for as long as you need it, okay?”
“That might be a while.”
She shook her head and patted his shoulder. “It won’t.”
“Could be.”
“Remus.”
“Sorry. Sleep well, Lils.” He sat up slightly and covered Harry’s ears. “And you, eavesdropper!”
“Love you!” James laughed from the other room. Lily picked the sleepy baby up and ushered Remus into the guest room with a final ‘goodnight’.
-----------------------------------
“Am I an idiot?” Sirius asked.
The bed creaked as Dumo readjusted his legs. “No, mon fils, you’re not an idiot. You are a young man going through his first marriage spat.”
“I hate it. I hate it. I said horrible things to him.”
“It sounds like you’re both to blame.”
“No, I brought it up first.” Dumo huffed, and he let out a slow exhale into the pillow. “Okay, maybe—maybe we were both in the wrong.”
“Fights are rarely one-sided. You have a visitor.”
Something cold prodded Sirius’ ear and he groaned, then curled on his side to let Hattie onto the covers next to him. “Bonjour, sweet girl. Thank you for the cuddles.”
She licked his nose and he smiled, petting the velvety top of her head. “Are you staying here tonight?”
“I was thinking about it. Re’s got the house to himself for a bit, then, and he knows I’m here.”
“I’m glad you’re taking the time to calm down a bit,” Dumo said as he stood with a final ruffle of Sirius’ hair. “That’s a wise decision. Bonne nuit.”
Sirius mumbled a response and made more room for Hattie, then settled in for a restless night. He never wanted to sleep alone again.
----------------------------------
By some miracle, practice was more bearable the second day. Remus still ached somewhere deep inside, but it wasn’t like he had anything else left to suppress. Seeing Sirius was a relief; it surprised him at first, considering the explosive nature of the previous evening, before sliding into something that soothed him. If he could still find peace in Sirius after all that, they would be okay.
He knocked lightly on the side of Sirius’ stall after he returned from the shower. “Knock, knock. Ca—”
“Who’s there?”
Remus’ heart stuttered as Sirius looked up at him from the bench with an apologetic tilt to his mouth. Something clicked into place. “Can I get a ride?”
“ ‘course you can.” Sirius stood up just as Remus stepped forward, and they met in the middle for a tight hug. He tucked his face into the dip of Sirius’ collarbone and breathed in his shower-fresh smell, as well as the trace of laundry detergent from his shirt.
“Love you,” he murmured.
“Let’s go, mon loup.” Sirius pressed a kiss to his hair and they headed out toward the parking lot together; Remus caught Leo’s eye and saw him smile.
“How’s Dumo doing?” Remus asked as they turned out of the parking lot. Start slow, start easy. “Did you drop Hattie off at home before you came to practice?”
“Yeah, I did. He’s good, and Celeste sent me back with some brownies.”
Remus tentatively reached over and rested his hand on the side of Sirius’ thigh—his chest visibly caught before he relaxed into it and reached down to put his own overtop. “Harry’s doing well. Lily says he’s almost started running.”
“Did you go see them?”
“Stayed at their place last night.” He shrugged one shoulder. “It felt weird being there by myself.”
“Re—”
“I’m so sorry.” The words spilled out in a rush, despite his best efforts to keep it in until they reached home. “I’m sorry for everything I said to you, and especially for how I said it. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about how I was feeling, too. It should never have gotten to that point.”
“Apology accepted.” Sirius sounded a little choked up. “I don’t think we got married too soon, if that means anything.”
“Of course it means something,” Remus half-laughed as he wiped the dampness from the corners of his eyes. “It means everything.”
“I thought it might be too late.”
“Can you pull over for a second?” Sirius obliged, and as soon as he turned the car off, Remus turned to face him. He linked their hands, making sure Sirius was looking into his eyes. “It is never too late to talk to me, okay? I’m sorry if I ever made you think that it was.”
Sirius unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned over for a brief kiss that sent bubbling warmth throughout Remus’ entire body. “I’m so, so sorry for yelling at you. And for keeping everything in, even though we both promised to stop doing that. All that shit I said, it—it wasn’t true, Re, and I wasn’t thinking.”
Remus rested their foreheads together and wound his fingers in the short curls fanning Sirius’ face. “Honey, we’re not your parents.”
Sirius swallowed hard. “I know.”
“So you don’t have to be afraid that we’re going to hate each other out of the blue, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“If—” His mouth went a little dry and he faltered. “If you want to take a break, or take things slower, I totally respect—”
“Nope, no, no, no,” Sirius interrupted, grabbing his cheeks and pulling him in for another fervent kiss. “I love you. I’m happy with you. I let my head get away from me, and I’m sorry.”
“All’s forgiven, love.” They sat in silence for a minute longer as Sirius traced his jawline. “Let’s go home.”
-------------------------------------
Sirius woke up in bed alone, which would have scared him if he didn’t know exactly where his husband was. He smiled to himself and got out of bed, grabbing a hoodie off their dresser before heading downstairs.
The kitchen light was on and music played quietly from Remus’ phone over the sound of running water. “You’re up late,” he said casually from the doorway.
Remus almost dropped a pot. “Jesus Christ!”
“Just me.” Sirius wrapped his arms around his waist as he set the pot on the drying rack. “Stressed?”
“A little. I forgot to do these earlier and didn’t want to leave them overnight again.” Sirius hummed his agreement and rocked back and forth, then took Remus’ hand and spun him in a slow circle. “Oh, are we slow dancing to the Billboard Top 100 now?”
“Very romantic, I know,” Sirius laughed.
Remus shook his head with a wide grin as they swayed, much too slow for the actual song but absolutely perfect. He was beautiful in the low light of their kitchen, puffy eyes from and all. “You are ridiculous.”
I’m the luckiest person alive. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Sirius leaned down for a series of quick kisses, pulling him in until their chests pressed together. Remus let go of his hand and draped both arms over his shoulders, tangling his hands in his hair. “I know we can’t exactly control it,” Sirius said against his lips. “But let’s never fight like that again.”
“Deal.”
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A true story about rehab from 2007
Names and places changed, dates slightly fuzzy, yada yada
This all starts with Chris. Chris might be a good example of how things are objectively broken.
Two summers ago, Chris and his girlfriend moved from everyone's old hometown, Alton, to everyone's current home, Garden City. I had known Chris briefly when I still lived in Alton, which was up until about 8 years ago. In high school he was friends with my sister, a year behind her, I think, only he had some legal trouble and didn't graduate until two years after her. The first arrest came during his junior year, when police found some marijuana in his car while he was in class. "Apparently Alton is a utopia," he said years later. "No robberies need solving, no cars need ticketing, no fences need mending, fuckit nobody's house must've been dirty because if there was anything else even remotely worthwhile that those cocksuckers could have been doing they wouldn't have taken a drug dog through the high school parking lot."
The ironic part was that he was, honest-to-god, holding it for a friend. Hadn't touched the stuff until then, hadn't even drank more than a beer or two. Cops came in and pulled him out of class. Cuffed him right there in class, in front of everybody. From what I've been able to piece together that marked a very strong loss of innocence for young Chris. No rules were worth following, after all, if The Bastards could punish you for nothing. This was greatly exacerbated by the fact that, according to several of the best lawyers Alton had to offer, the search of Chris' car was unconstitutional as it was not actually parked in the school parking lot, or even on school grounds, at the time of the search. The juvenile court judge would hear none of it though—all the police had done was break Chris' constitutional right to privacy. He had committed the much greater crime of having an eighth ounce of marijuana in his glove compartment.
His claim of having his rights violated incensed the judge, who sentenced our poor Chris to 72 hours in county jail and 12 weeks of rehab. Were it not for his successful, stable family, he would have been sent to juvie.
It was his first offense. He was 16.
Jail, he said, wasn't that bad. He got to do it over a weekend. The guard was an old lady and even though she was kind of a bitch she let him bring in his homework. She said she was surprised to see someone his age in here, with the adults, but whatever he had done it must have been pretty bad or else he wouldn't be here, would he? They kept him away from the drunks at night and the only other people who came into the "pen" (his word, not mine) were guys who got bailed out within a couple of hours and were too pissed off about their own bad luck to give him any shit for his.
What really fucked with him was rehab. It didn’t matter that he'd never smoked a single joint (or even a cigarette) at this time: he was an addict and by gum he had to admit to being an addict before the obese, shit-smelling overseer would sign the form saying that Chris had attended his sessions. Every weekend for three months he was legally forced to lie. Yes, he said, he was an addict. Yes, even though it made no sense in any grammatical or even symbolic context, he was forced to say "my name is Chris and I'm a narcotic." His personal habits were picked apart—why was his hair so long (it wasn't that long, really)? Why did he wear the same pants on Sunday that he wore on Saturday? Who were these "Dead Milkmen" that his T-shirt spoke of? Ohh… and surely this is a good-tempered, Christian punk band, right? No? Well you see right there that's a part of the problem. Have your mother sign a note saying you've thrown out all of their CDs and any other enabling you might own. No—you can't sell them, you must throw them out.
"We had to go in a day and a half every weekend. All day Saturday and then Sunday from noon until 4. It took me five weeks, when I was starting to get comfortable, before I asked if I could come in Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday. It worked out better for me that way, since the place where I worked wasn't open Sundays. The fat guy just opened his mouth and would not close it. 'When would you go to church?' he said. By then I knew enough to laugh and say 'oh yeah what was I thinking.'"
A few of the people had actual problems. One guy got caught with meth, was beating the shit out of his wife and his two little girls, and seemed genuinely remorseful. Another guy had to drink a sixer every morning or else he'd get the shakes so bad he wouldn't be able to drive to work. But most of the people there were more or less normal and had either fucked up once or else been fucked over once—got into a bar fight while legally drunk, blew .02 over the legal limit at a roadblock, smoked pot once every few weeks and got narced on by a snitch, that kind of stuff. These people were split over how much they believed the bullshit they were being fed. Those who believed, as the official literature did, that being hungover once in your lifetime or ever drinking more than 4 beers in a sitting two or more times in a month are both signs of hardcore alcoholism, they became repentant and preachy.
One such lady was a thin, tan, well-dressed soccer mom who would snitch on the others when they didn't pay close enough attention to the instructional videos or else would appear in any way to not be taking things seriously enough. If you were bad you got demerits, credit card-sized pieces of construction paper upon which frowny faces and intimidating biblical verses were printed. The overseer would also scribble something down in his notebook, which must have had some kind of official weight because it was on his person at all times.
Most people have an innate desire, however illogical it might often be, to please authority figures, and so Chris and the rest of the doubtful "addicts" thought the embarrassment of getting their reprimand literally handed to them was punishment enough for resting their eyes or letting a stray giggle break loose when the acting in an informational film was especially bad. Chris made only one such mistake. During a lecture, the overseer kept making the point that it wasn't the drugs that people get addicted to—oh no, it's the high that keeps you coming back. Chris smiled—remember at this point he still probably hadn't ever been high, not in his whole life—because it seemed like such a stupid, nonsensical thing to say, because even though he was only 16 he could appreciate moments like this, when the moronic essence of a big, scary process could concentrate itself into a single sentence.
"It's not the drugs: it's the high," the man said. He was very clean shaven, dressed like a detective in a 70s cop show, his hair was combed so straight it was like wire, his glasses were round and cruel looking and he had this, this look on his face, this air about him like he thought he was a genius. He nodded a little bit after the repetition of his idiotic point. Proud—he was actually proud of the things he was saying, proud of his position, proud of getting to fill the heads of desperate or else unfortunate people with nonsense. And this made Chris smile—not laugh, just smile, and the soccer mom pulled on his ear really hard, so hard it made his eyes water, and then she raised her hand to snitch on him. The proud overseer was still proud, looked like a king in an old movie, and with the most serious air Chris had ever seen, the fat man called him up before the entire room. His eyes were still watery from the shock of having his ear nearly yanked up and so he looked down, towards the ground, so people wouldn't think he was crying.
"You ashamed of something," the fat overseer asked. Chris didn't say anything. "Look up," said the overseer. Chris kept looking down. His chest moved in and out heavily and his fists were clenched, and he wasn't sure but he may have been crying normal tears by this point, but they were out of rage, not sadness. Or—no…really what's the difference between those two, and it's impossible that the immense hopelessness of his situation and the utter retardation of his surroundings hadn't saddened somewhat. If it were just rage making him cry then he would have also lashed out, punched the overseer or at least called him a name. No. No, the hopelessness must have stung enough to make him sad. But his tears were out of rage primarily, and out of nothing even close to shame.
"Look up. Now."
He did. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were tightened into red little slits but he looked more defeated than mean, more helpless than threatening.
"I want you all to look at this face. Soak it up. Take it all in. Done? Give you another second. Okay, now you're done. This, people, is what failure looks like. Some of you will see it again, right here. This is what it looks like when you don't take yourself seriously, when you don't care enough about yourself to appreciate the chances that are being given to you."
He extended a demerit card towards the Chris’ face. It was accepted without a whimper.
Weeks later, it came time for Chris and the gang to "graduate" from their classes. By this point, Chris had gotten drunk several times (even puked, once) and tried to smoke pot a few times but it hadn't done anything to him. Maybe he was just too drunk to feel it or he wasn't inhaling right, who knows. Anyhow he figured a few bong hits wouldn't hurt before he had to show up to the ceremony, right, since he hadn't felt anything yet. And, man, it was a blast because he was high as a fucking kite at the graduation, must have shoved 20 inches worth of the party sub into his mouth and downed at least 7 flutes of sparkling grape juice.
His mother and stepfather—both stinking rich, by the way, disheartened by the lad's sudden fall from grace and more than a little pleased to see him making such a fast and exemplary recovery with the aid of such a caring and competent program—were dressed to the nines. His mom was making time with the addicts. This was her wont, the irresistible, flirty friendliness that drove her from the dregs of society (Chris' biological father) all the way to where she was today. While this was going on, Stepfather gracefully let loose to the riffraff around him all those little signs that showed that he was a kind man, but of great consequence. He'd talk about sports while stretching him arm just so, just far enough to let his fancy watch fall into view. He'd offer to lift heavy objects as an excuse to show off his bed-made tan, his gym-toned arms and back. All of your jokes made him smile, but only just long enough for you to get a glimpse of his perfectly straight, snow white teeth. Both of them kept making their way over to Chris, who had stationed himself near the concessions table, to whisper into his ear how proud they were of him for pulling himself around and hint bluntly at him still receiving for his birthday a new car. All the while, through this bleary, more-or-less with it haze, feeling content and calm with his surroundings and his high, Chris kept thinking about how much he had it made. Everyone was a sucker, it seemed, but him. Really, wow. Everyone is stupid but me.
The soccer mom cut quickly around the room, stopping alongside each cluster of people and telling them that something important was about to happen, it was time for everyone to walk into the little classroom where they normally met. "You're not gonna want to miss this" she said, looking right into Chris with a mean little smile on her face that she knew would scare him. Oh god, Chris though, she knew that he was high. What was she in here for—ooh shit man, you've heard her talk about it 100 times. Vicodin, right. Vicodin and wine, passing out while one of her kids started a fire. That's right. Calm down. She wouldn't have known what someone looked like when he was high on pot. Mom and Stepfather couldn't even tell and they saw Chris every day. Calm down.
Chris shoved a few more bites of party sub into his mouth. His mom laughed and said "getting better must make you work up an appetite, huh?" Stepfather laughed. Chris couldn't say anything, not even by the time they had walked all the way into the classroom and sat down on little folding chairs, because there was so much sandwich in his mouth. Things began to quiet down within a couple of minutes. The overseer, smiling, poked his head out of his office and waved to the small crowd. People clapped a little bit. Chris noticed that "AWARDS RECEPTION" had been written on the blackboard with colored chalk, the letters alternating blue to red, blue to red. A stack of certificates sat on the table up front. The overseer waddled to the table and gestured towards his office and a large, black policeman walked from office to the entrance. He looked all business. There was another one who poked his head out from the office and then the overseer was still smiling, like the soccer mom he was wearing big, mean, fake smile and Chris sunk into his chair and moaned a little bit because he knew he was about to get arrested, again. Arrested in front of his parents.
Mom asked stepfather what the policemen were hear for the stepfather said—ahh the great rational bastard, it was all Chris could do to stop himself from hugging him—that since this was an official presentation, court mandated and all that, they must have some cops come and witness it. That's all it was. Nothing to get too upset about. Still—gotta stay calm. If the cops took no notice of Chris then they wouldn't take any notice of his being so incredibly fucking high.
"Well," the overseer began. Chris was hyperobservant and noncritical and he realized for the first time how long it took the overseer to get through sentences, because of all of his fat. He'd pause every few words and take in a deep breath from his gut. When he spoke it was in these bursts that were effeminately condescending but still bulky and powerful. Like, if being told you were bad by a sharp-tongued gay man didn't hurt you then maybe being yelled at by an abusive gym coach would. Only he wasn't a gym coach and probably wasn't gay, either. Talked about his wife and kids all the time. This was an act. He had measured out this persona for himself. This was some kind of cruel professionalism.
Jesus, Chris thought to himself. Pot fucks up the way you think about things. How long had it been since they sat down? How long since he'd been scared by the cops? When was the guy going to start talking—ohh, wait he's already talking. Might want to listen:
"And this is what this program is supposed to achieve: smiling faces. Not just the smiling faces of those who are on roads to recovery—their own personal roads—but of their families and their friends. The selfishness might end here. The pain they have caused you, that they are sorry for, might end here. But it's up to everyone here to make sure that all of these faces keep smiling."
He paused—too long. Wanted people to clap for him. They did. Then they finished. He continued. His tone was different. He had sounded like he was reading off a card. Now he sounded more like he normally did, during classes.
"But it would be… hypocritical of me to let everyone who came here leave here, especially… if I knew that they would be making people start… to cry sometime soon. Two of our friends will not be graduating today."
Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.
"The first… Rup-ERT Donwiddle."
Ahh. Okay. That guy—white guy, lots of scars—never even showed up after the first day. He wasn't even here. Chris sunk his head into his lap, like he was stretching or about to puke, while the overseer mumbled about how Rubert had squandered his chance for recovery and blah blah blah.
"Rufus failed… due to lack of initiative. He didn't come. But every time we have this course, it seems… there is someone who does come… but who shows such disrespect that he might as well not have"
The overseer's tone changed, again, abruptly but not in a way that seemed unplanned. He was talking somewhere in between the rehearsed tone he'd used earlier and the mumbling, jumbled tone he used during regular meetings.�� The air shifted around Chris. It felt like strategy, men moving into position in order to accomplish some kind of task or anticipate some kind of resistance. The bigger cop stood by the door that led to the outside, blocking it. Meanwhile the guys who had missed the most class and been handed the most demerits began to shift in their seats a little bit while their wives looked at them in white fear, the sterile blank walls felt like they were closing in—that's what expression actually meant, when it actually feels like the room you are in just got smaller, more oppressive—and the big fat fuck who ran the place worse the biggest fatfuck smile Chris had ever seen and he if had dropped dead of a heart attack no one with a mind or soul would have gotten up to help him. In spite of all of this, the synchronization was such that Chris couldn't work up any fear. He was too busy admiring the evil of the whole process.
Chris took to talking to the soccer mom, a few months later, as part of some revenge scheme that never quite materialized. He had first planned on sleeping with the woman and ruining her marriage. When that didn’t work out he thought about maybe figuring out the vulnerabilities of her home and passing that knowledge on to some unseemly sorts who, god willing, would have raped, robbed, and kill her. He didn't do that, though, for the same reason he didn't speak up during the meeting when the police were blocking off the door and overseer was smiling the very worst smile the world had ever seen: because the woman's evil was so immense that he could barely process it, could do little else, in fact, aside from sitting back and admiring it. What he learned from her, after she had opened up to him and filled him on all the details, was that if you didn't pass the rehab course it counted as either a violation of your parole or else as a violation of your court sentence, so your failure was akin to skipping bail trying to escape from prison. That's to say it was a Very Serious offense, one that could put you in prison for a long, long time. And what the overseer hadn't told to anybody but the soccer mom, who was his favorite, was that his policy was that out of every class there had to be at least one addict who failed to pass in spite of showing up, one person who because of this or that reason simply did not deserve to consider his or her self cured of their addiction. That's what the demerits were for. Whoever got the most failed the course. You couldn't tell the whole class about this since then the people who got the most demerits early on would have stopped coming all together. On top of that, if you got into a situation where a few weeks in one guy had racked up 20 or 30 demerits, then that more or less lightens the stakes for everyone else. They'll start mouthing off or falling asleep since they know they'll never make up enough demerits to catch the worst guy, and then by the end of it you'd have been better off not doing any sort of demerit system at all. No—no, the trick was to keep it a surprise. That had two positives: one, you catch the guy by surprise and make sure he gets what's coming to him. Two, you put the fear of god into the others who are all sitting around watching. That's when they got taught what happens if you don't respect the things you should.
All Chris knew at the time of meeting was that the balding factory worker, Hank was his name, was getting pulled up really unnecessarily roughly by the cop, had his arms thrown behind his back, and was getting cuffed and pushed out of the room while his teenage daughter was screaming in abject terror and his wife was burying her head in her hands and then the two women sat there while the smiling overseer berated Hank, talked about how he needed to learn how to accept help and how this was for the good of him and his family and You two ladies should stop crying, it's pointless, what you need right now is strength, loyalty, and conviction. Hank had blown .02 over the legal limit at a road block. He insisted he hadn't had a drop to drink in months, not since his first DUI, that he couldn't perform the heel-to-toe sobriety test successfully because of a fully documented injury he had sustained during Desert Storm and that the alcohol on his breath—which came up on only one of the 5 breathalyzers he was given—must have been from gum or mouthwash or cologne or something. His parole was zero tolerance, though, and so he found himself at the meetings. Every week he told the overseer that something he had said was bullshit. He wouldn't say "My name is Hank and I'm a narcotic," he said, because that is just fucking stupid. He wouldn't apologize for hurting anybody because he hadn't hurt anybody. He wouldn't lie for the sake of lying because goddamn it that's not what this country is about.
And for that he went to prison.
Coming face-to-face with the reality of just how cruel and unfair the system is can, especially for a teenager, lead to a distrust so strong and all encompassing that it borders on despair. This distrust can, sometimes, be healthy and inspire you to try and change things. More often, it can grow into full-blown hatred, a maniacal desire to change things or to right wrongs that leads you to do something rash or destructive. Still more often, it leads to a sense of defeatism, a feeling that you can't win since the system is so fucked so why the hell should you even try. At least, that's what I gather from hearing Chris talk about it. That's probably what I would have done if something like that would have happened to me. I would have given up and failed.
And for the longest time Chris had given up and had failed. He drank and drugged and destroyed. This made him a blast to hang out with. This was when he still lived in Alton and I would see him once every few months, when I was at home visiting my family. My sister moved to Garden City to attend the university at which I now teach. Most of her friends soon followed suit. He was left behind. As I am self-absorbed to the point where I don't care about my friend's lives except for when their stories are particularly miserable or amusing, I don't know much about this time period except that it saw Chris turning things somewhat around. Not by much. He still drinks far too much. But he's in school now—he's at the school where I teach, actually, although I've never had him for a student.
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as someone who lived thru mcdanno, what are ur expectations for buddie? (fellow clown here)
fjdkfd god, i do love that question, thank you, but prepare yourself for too many words and perhaps not the answer you want to hear.
first off, i feel like i barely even really lived through mcdanno. i came in around the time season 9 started and caught up midway through, so at that point there had been a full eight and a bit seasons to very clearly set the tone on that show and in steve and danny's relationship, which is queerbait, times ten. i literally never expected anything else, and i fully knew what i was getting into from the get-go. h50 is also a show i'd place politcally either in the center or right of center, often aimed at more of a boomer audience (oh god that episode about the "millenial" vloggers who weren't even millenials HAUNTS me) and with a number of queer characters i could (extremely literally) count on my hands, of which by far most either get a) one single speaking line (if at all), b) killed or c) exposed as a criminal. overall it's not a show that's kind to queer people, is what i'm saying, and it was never very interested in being so.
911 on the other hand... is very similar in some fundamental ways, hence the huge overlap there seems to be in steve/danny people and buck/eddie people, but it's also very different in many other ways. it only has four seasons so far, of which eddie has only been present for three, and the ensemble cast is WAY more an actual ensemble than in h50, which is also supposedly about a kind of found family but is in reality most of the time the steve-and-danny or even the really-just-steve show. mcdanno just gets so much more airtime, both by existing number of seasons and by minutes on screen per episode. the 911 setup is not a bad thing whatsoever (i wish h50 had done more of that! daniel dae kim and grace park DESERVED more of that, jfc) but it does mean that honestly, when i started watching 911 with h50 fresh on my mind and all the comparisons i'd seen on tumblr, i was like, yeah, okay. i see why people might ship it, but compared to mcdanno buddie has barely any setup at all. (i'msorrydon'thateme.)
and this is where i might accidentally be getting controversial, and i'm sorry about that too, because i really don't mean to put a damper on anyone's joy, but while i agree that buck/eddie can be fun to explore as a ship, i just... don't necessarily think it's going to happen on screen? and that's okay. there is absolutely nothing wrong with shipping something that isn't canon and that might never be canon! that's totally cool! the only problem with that is when you start expecting something to happen in canon and you end up getting disappointed if it doesn't, because that hurts and getting hurt is no fun at all, and that's what worries me a little about buddie and 911 fandom. when i look at the tags some people seem... very convinced. and i get that too, because when a whole bunch of people are analyzing a show for hints of a specific ship, it's very easy to get swept up in it and it's a kind of echo chamber in which you all agree that it would be good and make sense and how could this not be what they're planning considering all you're seeing? but i'm just not sure, in this particular case, whether the rest of the audience and the writers are seeing the same thing, and i feel like there's a bit of a buddie hype going on based on what (to me!) in all honesty doesn't seem like that much evidence in canon, which just scares me a bit.
again, certainly not trying to tell anyone they shouldn't be having fun with buck/eddie (you should!!!) or that there's nothing to go by in canon, but just. please be careful with expectations from that canon? if something happens, that's awesome, and if it never does, that's also okay. it doesn't mean you're crazy, but it also doesn't mean the writers or showrunners or god forbid the actors are evil people who have been stringing you along. i get how loaded this can be, especially because there is such a huge history of shows not going for queer relationships purely because of homophobia, and it can be easy to read that into this situation, but this show already HAS a huge number of canonically queer main and recurring characters, who are all awesome and written as actual people with lots of friends and sympathetic storylines and hero moments and i don't think, honestly, that accusing 911 of homophobia or queerbaiting or bad writing for not making the two men fandom has latched onto go canon is going to, well, accomplish anything, except foster bitterness and ruin something for people that they used to enjoy.
all of that being said, and not to fly directly in the face of everything i just said, but... it could happen. i'm not saying it couldn't. coming back to that thing about h50 and queer characters, 911 is very incredibly wildly different in its treatment of its characters, and they DO have queer characters. they have A LOT of queer characters, to the blessed point where "character b can't be queer because character a already is" definitely doesn't apply, which it has many times in the past even if there is someone not straight in the cast of some show. so i mean. maybe! it's possible! 911 is not h50 at all, and that's a very good thing imo because as much as i enjoy mcdanno, h50 is honestly lowkey unwatchable as a show to me sometimes.
so, essentially, my personal expectations for buddie as a romantic thing in canon are not high, but i guess higher than they ever were for mcdanno, because at least buck and eddie are on a show where it's a remote possibility. i think it would be great - a queer slow burn on tv, that would be amazing - but i also think the show and buck and eddie's relationship would still be great if they never did it, and that all the other queer characters they already have probably deserve a lot more attention from fandom if queer rep is really what it's about, because hen and karen and josh and michael and david are all right there, and that's not even getting into lone star with paul and tk and carlos. mostly though i think that i don't want people to get disappointed. nobody ever expected anything to happen in h50, and that gives a kind of freedom of certainy that there isn't in 911, which makes me a little nervous for this fandom and the people in it. not to sound preachy, but be safe, have fun, and make sure that things keep being fun for you, because that's what fandom is about. if they're not, it might be time to take a break, and that's okay - it's normal to get really invested in something you enjoy, but please also put your own enjoyment and comfort first. (and it's still totally okay and can be a lot of fun to ship something that isn't canon.) ❤
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