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novelconcepts · 4 years

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fic: souvenirs you never lose

prompt, for @karatam: five scars Dani found on Jamie’s body (and one she left behind on her heart)

It takes Jamie time, to open up. This does not surprise Dani in the least; the Jamie she met at Bly wasn’t the sort to show off--not her innermost secrets, and certainly not her body. Even innocuous bits, elbows and forearms and collarbones, were covered half the time in thick jackets and jumpsuits. She didn’t see Jamie’s knees for the first time until they slept together.

It feels less like Jamie is hiding something, and more like Jamie appreciates a certain barrier between her body and the rest of the world. Dani can respect that. Knows the value of armor, of a good sweater and pounds of hairspray and the effort to be seen only as you choose. And what Jamie chooses, mostly, is to be seen as the job. As soil under fingernails, as hair messy around her face, as small hoop earrings and old t-shirts and overalls. Jamie doesn’t much put in the effort, because she’s busy channeling all of that effort into more important things. Dani likes this about her.

Still, for the first month or two, she doesn’t see much of Jamie’s bare skin. Maybe because Jamie is still working out the angles of their relationship in her head, easing in gently even as she’s taking enormous leaps of faith on little more than Dani’s word. Maybe because they’re leaving England (where, even in summer, a chill holds dominion over most nights) for Vermont (where, by the time they arrive, fall is chipping away at what remains of the year). Either way, for a while, Dani thinks Jamie is hiding in baggy sweaters and loose jeans because it’s just Jamie.

It isn’t until they’re in bed in a hotel in Pennsylvania that she thinks for the first time: maybe it’s about something else. Maybe it’s about the lives Jamie lived before meeting her. Maybe there are some boxes Jamie holds close to her chest, will need time to unlock.

Dani can be patient.

“It was a pot,” Jamie says, like that’s the whole of the story, but a story is never so simple or so short as that. In fact, it was not just a pot, not just water, not just a child left to raise a baby like she’d ever be prepared for something like this.

Jamie, maybe eight years old--she has trouble thinking back this far, has trouble remembering anything from this time with an adult’s clarity--stands as tall as her meager height allows whenever she’s in this house. Shoulders thrown back, chin up, the way she’d seen her mum in shops. Don’t let it get to you. Don’t let it land. Just keep your chin up, eyes forward, and keep walking.

Jamie, maybe eight years old, with hair that hasn’t been trimmed in months and hand-me-down trousers from Denny, who scuffed his shoes and scowled and said nothing, because what could he do about it? Denny, who keeps his distance, who hasn’t had a kind word for her since she can’t remember when. Jamie tries not to mind. Tries to understand, with an eight-year-old comprehension of human instinct, why her big brother is so determined to shut her out.

They call her mum things in the street, and maybe that’s why she left. Maybe sticks and stones aren’t all that can tear you up, in the end. Jamie’s had her share of both, has limped home and mopped up tattered knees and scraped cheeks more than she likes to recall, but maybe words can do the same kind of damage if there are enough of them all bound up together.

Or maybe she left because Jamie wasn’t big enough to wrap her arms around all the little aches her mum was made up of. Maybe because Denny turns up his nose at anything he doesn’t like, and Mikey screams all day, and Jamie--sandwiched between them with no way out--is just too small.

She’s trying. She’s trying so hard. Mum’s gone, and she hasn’t seen Dad in...what’s it been now, days? A week? She’s losing track fast. Losing track of a lot of things, really. She’s falling asleep draped over her desk, sneakers dangling off the floor, waking to wadded up chunks of paper drenched in someone else’s spit clinging to her neck and hair. Her homework, when it gets done at all, usually gets stolen out of her bag and shredded before she can turn it in. She’s starting to hear the whispers at night, falling asleep with one eye open, one arm wrapped around Mikey’s tiny frame: Whore. Cunt. Your mum’s a--

She doesn't even know what these words mean, but they live beneath her skin like razor blades, and she is so small, and so tired, and only eight, only eight, only--

The day the pot goes over, she knows. Something prickles at the back of her neck like a bad itch, like a bug bite, like the worst kind of déjà vu. She’s got Mikey in one arm, bouncing him up and down the way he likes, and the other hand is trying to stir pasta. It’s one of the only things she knows how to make, and Mikey probably should have something more, something better--baby food, or fruit, or something--but Dad’s been gone for maybe-days, maybe-weeks, and Jamie hasn’t figured out how she’s going to buy groceries yet. Problem for another day, she keeps thinking, the idea growing more fringed and frazzled by the hour.

She’s standing on a chair, baby in one arm, stirring, and it wouldn’t have happened if only she were bigger. It wouldn’t happen if only she could stand taller, if only she didn't need to climb on things to reach, if only she had been able to sleep last night under all Mikey’s whimpers and Denny kicking the wall they share and the hisses of whore, your mum’s a dirty whore reverberating through her head.

She’s swaying, bouncing Mikey up and down, up and down, and then she’s swaying too far. Too far to the left, too far to correct, and before she knows it, gravity’s got her in a headlock. She pitches sideways, the chair skidding out from under her with a squeal on linoleum, and Mikey is already bawling. Even before her stirring arm yanks the pot. Even before the water sloshes over, all bubbles and steam and Jamie distantly realizes she is shrieking. Her right shoulder comes up in a protective shroud around her little brother, taking as much of the splash as she can stand, and her shirt is pasted to her skin, pasted and bubbling and Jamie hadn’t known anything in the whole world could hurt as much as listening to Mikey screech from against her chest.

“Just a mistake,” she says, yawning in a dimly-lit hotel room. “Just a mistake that a little kid makes on too little sleep and too much responsibility. It’s okay.”

Dani, fingers tracing the edges of raised skin, watches her. Jamie’s head is turned away, her body tucked into the space where Dani suspects she’s always sort of been waiting for someone to lay. Jamie is bunched up tight in the too-high AC, her knees pulled up to her chest, her hand holding gently to the arm Dani has draped loosely over her waist. She feels small in Dani’s arms, which is strange, because Jamie always feels like she takes up so much space in the world. Brass bells on her laugh, brass tacks in her smile, walking like she was told one too many times to sit down and her only response was to flash the finger.

Dani sometimes wishes she could walk like Jamie does. Breathe like Jamie does. The closest she comes to it are nights like this, pressed close in a bed barely bigger than a twin, Jamie speaking slowly, tiredly, to the opposite wall.

“You protected him,” Dani says softly. She doesn’t so much like the feel of the scar under the pad of her finger as she does the sensation of Jamie breathing beneath her hand. Jamie, exhausted from a long day on the road, still pressing backward into her like she can never get close enough.

“Had to,” Jamie says sleepily. “Was so little.”

Dani gets that, understands what it is to hold something small and precious and innocent, and know the world doesn’t care about any of it. The world doesn’t want to keep small, soft things safe. The world just barrels on, riding its own track, and damned be the rest of them.

She bends her head, presses her lips to the top of Jamie’s shoulder, waits for permission. Jamie exhales, leans her head back.

“Go on, then.”

She smiles against the soft slope of Jamie, of the lightly freckled skin where no secret memories lurk, and drops a kiss right on the edge of the scar. Jamie doesn’t move, doesn’t push her away, just breathes lightly in and out as Dani explores the spot where a child’s error in judgment left a permanent brand. She traces the map of it with soft lips, careful not to do anything that might cause Jamie unease, careful to simply embrace this part of a woman who pretends it was just a pot because it’s easier than admitting the rest. How much guilt she must have carried for years after. How much it had hurt in ways that have nothing to do with searing burns.

Her hand tightens across Jamie’s stomach, pulling her reflexively closer, and Jamie arches her back. Her breath is coming a little quicker now, her laugh deep in the shadows cast by one tiny lamp.

“S’just a scar,” she says, and turns in Dani’s arms to kiss her lips. “Just a scar, Poppins. S’all right.”

A few months go by, Christmas stumbling past with all the grace of a young puppy, the winter months unspooling after in its wake. Eventually, the world begins to wake again. The days warm, the sun casting its light on a new apartment, and Jamie--for the first time since Dani’s known her--is wearing shorts.

“You’ve never told me about this one,” Dani says, seated on the floor of the living room, surrounded by clean laundry. Jamie is on the couch, legs dangling on either side of Dani’s shoulders, a book propped gently against Dani’s hair.

“Which?” she asks absently, flipping the page. Dani shakes the book away, pressing her thumb lightly to a spot high on Jamie’s right inner thigh. Jamie sucks in a showy breath. “Gettin’ a bit handsy there for all that laundry, Poppins.”

“One,” Dani says, “you can get down here and help me fold. Or two, you can tell me about this one.”

Jamie tosses the book aside, leaning over to look. “Ah. That. Was just a bad jump.”

Dani can tell right away that this is like the burn, that nothing with Jamie’s past was ever just anything. She rests her head against Jamie’s knee, gazing up at her, waiting.

Jamie doesn’t advertise it or anything, doesn’t think anyone really needs to know, but she’s always been a good runner. Had to be, when she was little, when the other kids were big and strong and the only thing standing between her and a busted lip was to take off like the wind at the first sight of them. Had to be even more in foster care, when quick thinking and quicker legs were maybe the only chance she had at a peaceful evening.

She’s not much to look at, seventeen and gangly, hips still figuring themselves out and legs prone to tangling when she’s tired. But, oh, can Jamie run.

She’s running now, in fact. Running like all the world’s vices have her number and are ringing her up, and it feels good to move like this. Arms pumping, chest expanding and contracting around heaving breaths, eyes wild. A woman dives out of her way, almost upending her shopping cart, and Jamie laughs like she’s got the breath to spare.

It would all be better, maybe, if she didn’t have the goddamn police on her tail.

If she didn’t have a rather damning piece of fine silver tucked up under her shirt.

If she could be sure why she was doing this in the first place.

But no matter. No worries at all. It’s just pavement beneath her battered old work boots, just the breeze tearing at her hair and the dirty glares of complete strangers, and Jamie thinks, Yeah, you wish you could move like this. You wish you had the fucking freedom.

Hands, catching at her jacket tails. Big hands, broad-palmed and nasty, and if they close over anything that counts, she knows she’s done for. Knows this is the price of living free: sometimes, you’re free to make choices that get you run down. Not that she cares. Not that she minds it in the least. So long as she can run like this, Jamie figures she can go just about goddamn anywhere.

She shrugs the groping hands away, hears one of the uniformed men swear as she bolts left down an alley. She knows this street like the back of her hand, knows if she can just get to the end and up over the gate, she’s home free. The cops are older, bigger, slower to swing around such a tight corner, and Jamie’s leap takes her halfway up the chain link before she even has to start her mad scramble.

She’s all seeking hands and desperate boots, gasping around the burn in her lungs where a fresh smoking habit is not doing her endurance any favors, and she’s laughing still. Even as she goes over, even as she feels something barbed catch along her inner thigh and tear, she’s laughing. Blood, spilling hot down the leg of her jeans, soaking black into the faded denim. Still, she throws her head back and brays insane laughter toward the sun.

She’s still laughing when she rounds the corner and slams straight into the barrel chest of a beat cop. Not the grabby one; he’s still puffing his way over the fence behind her. This one has mean eyes and a shark’s grin, and when his hand closes over her forearm, all the laughter seventeen years can produce goes rotten in her chest.

“That,” the cop says, “doesn’t belong to you.”

Jamie, lungs heaving, silver hot against her belly, feels the shredded skin of her thigh pull tight, and winces.

“Went in not long after,” she says, shrugging and resting a hand lightly atop Dani’s hair. “Stayed in nearly five years.”

She says it like everything’s okay, like it doesn’t hurt to remember a teenage girl who felt her only recourse from the world was to steal from it. Dani shifts, pulling Jamie’s leg higher on her shoulder, and kisses the jagged remnants of the day Jamie saw her freedom stuffed into a cage.

“Honest,” Jamie breathes, watching her with eyes gone dark with some mix of desire and memory. “It didn’t even hurt all that much.”

She’s lying, Dani can tell; Jamie’s a terrible liar, so bad at it that she rarely bothers. She holds Jamie’s gaze, feels the uncomfortably sharp edge of the scar against the soft skin of her lower lip. Jamie’s brow pulls like she’s warding off something dangerously akin to shame.

“I did it because,” she says, and Dani kisses the spot a little harder, shifting to her knees on the carpet. Jamie swallows hard, leaning back against the cushions. “Dani, I was...”

Don’t, Dani thinks. Don’t say my name like you’re confessing something. She presses her face against the hot skin of Jamie’s thigh, tries to imagine being young and desperate and foolish. It isn’t so hard to do.

“You were just a kid,” she says, muffled. Jamie rests a hand lightly on the back of her head, giving her permission. “Just a kid running from so much.”

“It was stupid,” Jamie says thickly. “I was--”

“Doesn’t matter,” Dani says, so fiercely she surprises herself. “Doesn’t matter who you were at seventeen, Jamie. Do you have any idea how stupid I was at seventeen?”

They could go back and forth all day--Jamie’s mistakes stripping her of five years of freedom, Dani’s nearly stripping her of a lifetime. They could, but Jamie is looking at her with such love in her eyes that Dani knows it isn’t the time. It just doesn’t matter, not as much as this place and Jamie’s smile and knowing they're both who they need to be for one another, regardless of the past.

Her hands are moving toward the zipper of Jamie’s shorts, her mouth light and gentle on Jamie’s skin, and they don’t talk about the scar again. Even with Jamie moving her hips restlessly, even with Dani’s tongue teasing and tasting, even as Jamie grasps her by the hair and makes the most wonderful sounds above her, Dani keeps her thumb pressed gently into that spot. Reclaiming it, in a way. Giving Jamie a dose of what it feels like to fly, to forget all her mistakes, to know only what it is to be loved.

She likes to think she knows Jamie’s body pretty well by the time she finds the third scar. They’ve been together three years--three years of blessed, shocking serenity, and Dani feels good. Has felt good for so long, in fact, she’s almost forgotten anything else.

That always feels a little like rattling the bars of some enormous cage, like taunting something huge and bestial she still can’t make out among the trees. Still. It’s no less true.

They’re in the kitchen, of all places, when she notices it. Jamie’s shirt has ridden up as she stretches to retrieve a plate from the cupboard, and there--just under the strap of her bra--a mark Dani’s never really registered before along her ribs. It’s a small thing, a puckered spot smaller than the nail on her pinky.

“What’s that from?”

Jamie twists awkwardly, trying to look under her raised arm. “Ah...bit of a mishap with a sharp implement.”

“At the shop?” Dani frowns, trying to imagine what kind of barbed plant it would take to skewer Jamie in such a way. Trying, too, to imagine what would keep Jamie from sheepishly showing her the same night, allowing Dani to patch her with rubbing alcohol, bandages, a long kiss.

“Uh, no, actually. Inside.” Plate recovered, Jamie drops back down and tries to sidle around Dani toward the stove. Dani raises an eyebrow.

“Inside like in prison?”

“Just about the only place I can think of gets described as such,” Jamie says lightly. Dani jabs her gently in the shoulder.

“So, how’d this one happen?”

“Accidentally.”

Her voice is too light. She’s doing a little dance back and forth, trying to pass Dani, who finally relents.

“You got accidentally stabbed. In prison.”

Jamie sighs. “I suppose you’ll want this tale, too, mm?”

Dani gives her a look, half-exasperation, half-deeply entertained. A well, yes, Jamie, if it isn’t too much hassle to clarify the time you got shanked in prison look. She hadn’t even known she had a look like that, but bless Jamie: always teaching her new things about herself.

It’s not as bad as it seemed at first, Jamie learns quickly. Prison isn’t a picnic by any stretch, but for the most part, the other women leave her be. Maybe it’s something about the way she walks, a trick picked up before she was even into her teens: a good healthy swagger keeps at least the lowest-tier assholes at bay. Walk like you know what you’re doing, walk like you own the place, people are often less likely to take interest. Self-preservation’s a hell of a thing, especially in a place like this.

She doesn’t make friends, exactly, and maybe that’s for the best. The last friends Jamie made all had too-pretty eyes, too-quick smiles, hands that could produce a knife or the wallet out of your pocket with equal glee. She’d fallen in with them in all the wrong ways, these girls who knew too much of the world and were all too willing to share it with a gutter rat who kissed like it was the only thing worth doing, so long as no one went talking about it later.

Prison feels like that life magnified to its highest order. Still some pretty eyes, still some too-quick smiles in here, but no one Jamie feels secure even chatting up for long. Everybody in here is in for a reason. Some reasons less justifiable than others, maybe, but still.

Still, there is one girl. Jamie’s been in for maybe two years, maybe three--gets hard to keep track, after a while--when this one arrives. Fresh meat, as the worst of the women say. Walk says she’s been around the block, but Jamie’s fair certain she can’t be older than Jamie herself was upon arrival. Just a kid.

Kids make bad choices sometimes, she knows better than anyone. It isn’t her problem.

Even so, she finds herself trailing along in the kid’s wake. Keeping an eye out. Kids who walk like that sometimes get skipped over--Jamie did, after all, but Jamie also knew when to say when. Head up, mouth shut. The back half of that plan is crucial to survival.

This kid doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo. Every time Jamie comes around a corner, it seems like she’s walking in on another bag of bullshit. The kid, always picking fights with women bigger, or crueler, or more capable than she is. By the time Jamie realizes it, she’s taken to talking these women down. An extra pack of cigarettes in exchange for letting the girl live to see another day. A shift in the garden traded for a shift doing laundry. The women grudgingly accept Jamie as one of the level-headed among them, even if they don’t particularly love her for it.

Not my problem, Jamie thinks each time she sees the girl raise hackles, and each time, she finds herself making it her problem anyway. Stupid. But maybe if she’d had someone in her corner, someone watching her back...

She’s been cleaning up after this kid’s messes for about three weeks when it happens. Jamie’s just minding her business, just walking around the yard, and suddenly...there’s pain. A weird, blazing, hooked-talon pain radiating up through her side.

Pain, and the bared teeth of a teenage girl.

“You keep the fuck out of my business,” she hisses, brandishing the sharpened bit of what Jamie’s pretty sure was once a toothbrush. “Hear me? Fuck out of it.”

Jamie, hand clapped around a small puncture in her jumpsuit, pulls her palm away streaked with red. She raises her eyebrows. “Clear as day.”

She doesn’t see the girl again. Doesn’t question it. Can’t bring herself to wonder if it was a transfer or something else altogether. All Jamie knows is, this is what comes of sticking your nose into other people’s shit.

“Wasn’t my finest hour,” she says, checking that the chicken in the oven isn’t actually on fire. “Just left me feeling dumb, really. Imagine getting poked by a goddamn toothbrush.”

“You said it was an accident,” Dani points out. Jamie sighs, opens the fridge, closes it again.

“It was. Wasn’t meant for me, not really. I just happened to be there. She would’ve stuck anyone silly enough to step in her path.”

There’s a look in Jamie’s eyes Dani isn’t sure she’s seen before. Something tired and responsible, though not exactly guilty. She moves closer, carefully sliding Jamie’s shirt up until the tiny scar is lit by the overhead lamp, gleaming pink against Jamie’s pale skin.

“I knew better,” Jamie sighs, leaning her hip against the counter as Dani gently touches just beneath the scar. “Saw myself in her, y’know? Same caged-animal desperation. Same darkness. And I didn’t think I could save her or anything so...fucking noble, but I thought maybe she just needed a little time.”

Time, thinks Dani, right. The one thing none of them are ensured enough of.

“Never tried anything like it again,” Jamie says, taking Dani’s hand from her ribs and kissing her knuckles. “Never saw the use. I was in the garden by then, and actually giving therapy its due, and by the time I was up for anything like real human connection, I was out. Probably for the best, though. Imagine if she’d gone for my face.”

She’s teasing, trying to pull the sympathy from Dani’s frown and replace it with something brighter. Dani lets her. There’s little point in dwelling on a scar Jamie has already put to bed, after all.

“It was good of you,” she says before letting the subject drop. “To try.”

“Maybe,” Jamie says softly. Dani cradles her face in both hands, willing her to believe it. A small smile touches Jamie’s lips.

“Speaking of trying,” she says, giving Dani a light kiss on the cheek. “Think the bird’s burnin’.”

The fourth scar, Dani doesn’t feel too terrible about missing. She only finds it by accident one night, sitting on the side of the tub while Jamie soaks off a long day, and only then because her hands are busy massaging Jamie’s scalp.

“Hey,” she says softly, so as not to shatter a mood built of lit candles and quiet music. Jamie leans her head back, questioning. “There’s something here...”

“Nothing big,” Jamie says, in that tone of voice that says she knows Dani will want to hear anyway. She sighs, patting gently at the foam of bubbles climbing the sides of the tub. “Just another tale of my misguided heroism...”

Dani laughs. “For someone who says she doesn’t care, you sure do get into a lot of hero-shaped situations.”

“Takes one to know one,” Jamie teases, and some of the light fades from Dani’s grin. She doesn’t want to talk about that. Doesn’t want to think about it much. A night a thousand years ago in a lake a million miles away, and though she can feel it all creeping in at the edges, she thinks there’s still time to turn her head.

“Anyway,” Jamie adds in a slightly louder tone. “Anyway, how are you only just finding this now? With all the times you’ve pulled my hair...”

Her hand is creeping toward Dani’s knee, armed with a thin trail of bubbles. Dani shakes her head.

“After,” she says, “you tell me the story.”

Jamie moves into the little flat above the only pub in Bly and thinks, Right. Home. The way a person who’s never really had a home does, she’ll reflect later. When you think a home is just four walls and a bit of furniture, a place to lay your head. At the time, in this moment, it feels better than anything she's ever had.

She's already decided how the next year--maybe five, maybe ten, maybe the rest of what she’s got ahead of her--will look. Nothing complicated. Nothing big, or heavy, or loud. No pretty eyes. No quick smiles. No one to tell her they’ll love her if only she’d do this one little thing for them, no one to tell her they’ll kiss her if only she can keep her mouth shut about it afterward.

Just this, she decides, looking at the tiny flat with its tiny sink and tiny bathroom and tiny spot where she’s just managed to wedge a bed. Just this, and the job. Don’t need much else to get by.

It’s a good job, one she was unaccountably lucky to snag so soon out of prison. There’s so much green, she can feel her head spin to look at it all, and knows there is fortune in being asked to care for such an expanse of life. Five years ago, she doesn’t know that she could have done it. Doesn’t know if she could have been trusted. These days, she can’t imagine anything better.

A good job at a great old manor, flowers as far as the eye can see, and this little flat. She’s doing all right for herself, Jamie. She’s doing just fine.

Though the pub is a bit much some nights.

She usually comes straight home after work, uninterested in playing nice with the very specific breed born into Bly. There are some, she supposes, who are pleasant enough, but the grand majority remind her of watching her father climb into and out of a coal mine. They have the same blank expressions, the same vapid smiles, the same shape of mouth that so easily tends toward words like whore, whore, your mum’s a--

Nah. Better keeping to herself, really.

Every so often, though, despite the noise and the company, she treats herself to a drink. Just one, usually alone at a corner table or the far edge of the bar. At first, there were men who tried to get involved, men who thankfully got the message--or if not the message, at least one similarly postmarked not interested--fairly quickly. Good for everyone. Jamie’s patience is only so thin, and there is something deeply alluring about a sharp fork on a bad night.

She’s thinking about this on the night one of these men--one she remembers fairly well from a couple of weeks back, dark hair and patchy beard and bad aftershave--takes it upon himself to visit the backside of a woman’s skirt. His hand is trembling, a whiskey reverb taking the wheel, but it lands exactly where he’s aimed it. The woman, tall and angular and nervous, flinches away.

Jamie casts a quick glance around, reading the room. Everyone saw that. A pub like this, in a town so small; everyone sees everything. And yet, stunningly, no one is moving.

The guy knows it, too. She can see it all over his face, the triumph of having gotten away with a misdemeanor. Did it even happen, if no one calls him on it?

Best not find out, she thinks, and before she’s got a handle on this impulse, this stupid impulse that once got her stabbed in a prison yard, she’s up and moving. Just got out, she reminds herself, even as she’s stepping between the man and his target.

“Lady doesn’t look like she’s having a good time,” she points out. There’s a feral smile on her lips, one she hasn’t entertained in a very long time. Never ended well, nights that put this smile on like a coat of deepest red.

“Don’t remember asking,” the man sneers. His breath is so stained with alcohol, it nearly sends her reeling. The woman behind her makes a tiny noise.

“We could ask,” Jamie says, faux-brightly. She twists at the waist, just enough to glance at the woman. “You having fun with this pack of shit?”

“Hey,” he snaps. “Bitch. Who the fuck asked--”

She loses her brief struggle with restraint on bitch, her head punching forward into his nose. It hurts, a little. Hurts him worse. He’s staggering back, blood streaming between his fingers when he reaches up. She’s gratified to see he nearly pokes himself in the eye in the process.

“Might wanna,” she adds to the woman with a little nod toward the door, watching as the drunk’s intended prey rabbits on out into the night. It feels good in a way she doesn’t entirely like, listening to the blood sing in her ears. Men like this shouldn’t be allowed in public. Men like this are--

A crashing, tinkling sound, as if from very far away. Jamie’s eyes go dizzy, her hand fumbling for purchase on the bar to stay upright. Glass rains down out of her hair as she gives her head a small, aggrieved shake.

A bottle. This fucker has a bottle--well, what remains of it after introducing its length to her skull--in hand, his eyes wild. Jamie stares at him with gray disbelief, blood trickling down the back of her neck.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” she says thinly, just getting the words out before another man throws himself at the first. Then, a woman, apparently deciding the night has been too dull to stomach. And her friends. Before Jamie knows what’s going on, the world has devolved into the very particular chaos of a bar brawl, people slipping and screaming and slapping at each other with aplomb.

Right, she thinks distantly, too aware of the blood pooling sticky under her collar. Head injury. Maybe time to...

She’s back upstairs, the door double-locked behind her, before anyone notices. Briefly, while pressing a damp cloth to the back of her head and gazing at her nerve-wrackingly gray pallor in the mirror, Jamie considers calling Lord Wingrave and telling him she needs tomorrow off. Imagines how he’d sound, clipped and unyielding, over the phone line.

Of course, she won’t do it. Of course not. This job is important. This flat is important. Everything else?

Everything else is just a reminder of why she’s best left to her own devices.

“So, anyway,” Jamie says, absently patting a foam of bubbles into a small tower. “That’s why I didn’t spend much time in that little pub. If you were curious.”

“Jesus.” Dani can’t quite find something more coherent. “Jesus, didn’t you press charges?”

“For what?” Jamie looks honestly puzzled. “Small town bar, small town life. It happens.”

“You could’ve been concussed!” Dani says, louder than she means to. “You could’ve gone to sleep and never got back up again!”

Jamie reaches up, touches her cheek gently. “Hey. Poppins. Easy. I’m here. Right here.”

Dani realizes the breath is pounding out of her faster than it’s coming back in, a sure sign that she’s about to tip over the precipice of something dark and exhausting. She leans into Jamie’s hand, squeezes her eyes tight.

“Hey.” Jamie’s sitting up, knees squeaking along the bottom of the bath as she shifts. Water drains over the edge of porcelain, soaking into Dani’s skirt, trickling onto the tile. “Hey. With me, yeah?”

She lets herself be folded into Jamie’s arms, finding balance in each deep breath Jamie draws until Dani is able to match her. Jamie is still sopping wet, slippery, and the most stable thing in the room.

“Still here,” Jamie says against her ear. “Bit battered around the edges, but it’s nothing new, is it? You still like me this way, dented packaging and all?”

“Love you,” Dani corrects in a thin gasp. Jamie squeezes tighter.

“Exactly. That scar? It healed up. Like all the rest. It’s just a memory now. Can’t hurt a fly.”

Dani reaches up, combing searching fingers through Jamie’s hair until she finds the spot again. That strange raised bit she must have touched a hundred times, and only just registered. Someone hit Jamie there. Someone hurt Jamie there.

“I’m all right,” Jamie says, enunciating every word right into her ear. “Save for being a bit chilly. I don’t suppose you can help with that...?”

She’s tickling Dani, moving to kiss her neck with sloppy good humor until Dani finally breaks. Even so, for a moment longer, that image holds: Jamie alone, Jamie holding a cloth to her bleeding scalp, Jamie with tears in her eyes and a decision never to care branded on her heart.

“I love you,” Dani repeats, so forcefully, Jamie pulls back to look at her.

“I know, Dani. I love you, too. Now. Hand me a towel, or get in here with me, I’m cold without you.”

The fifth and final scar, Dani doesn’t have to look for. Jamie shows it off herself, wearing an expression Dani remembers all too well from a panic attack, a shrub not quite big enough to hide behind, a mention of just how many times a day the average Bly groundskeeper bursts into tears.

It’s a bad day, and this is Jamie’s way of making her smile again. Jamie, whose body she knows so well now, whose heart she knows even better, who wears her ring and has barely left her side in days.

It’s a bad day. They’re in bed, one of the last places in the world Dani still feels completely safe. All of the mirrors are gone from this room. The pictures on the walls are strategic in placement, making sure Dani can never catch an accidental glimpse of herself--or not--in their glass. This room, where she sleeps with Jamie each night and wakes to Jamie each morning, is a bastion against the monsters.

“Here,” Jamie says. She is, as Dani prefers her, without pants, hair up in a messy tangle, gold band gleaming on her finger. She is also, baffling Dani, holding up the bottom of her left foot.

“What...?”

“This,” Jamie says, “may be the final frontier.”

“Your...foot,” Dani replies slowly, wondering if the increasing bad spots are taking a toll on her memory. Maybe this is a conversation that would make sense, if only she hadn’t spent so much of yesterday in a daze.

“My foot,” Jamie says confidently. “More specifically: this.”

She’s pointing to a spot about midway down the sole of her foot, a spot Dani only just now can see is actually a small three-pronged scar. She frowns.

“What happened there?”

She’s a bit afraid to ask, if she’s honest. Jamie has told her so many stories over the years, and they’ve gotten progressively more intense, progressively more violent. She's not sure her heart could take it if Jamie were to tell her this was from some unexpectedly grievous injury.

“You sure you want to know?” Jamie asks gravely. “It’s quite the story. I mean, really, this is among my best. I’ve saved it just for a night like this one.”

Her mouth is somber, but her eyes are dancing. Dani feels herself smile, just a little.

“Tell me,” she says, settling her head in Jamie’s lap.

Jamie has been working for the Wingrave family for a couple of years, and it’s been better--and worse--than she could have imagined. The land is sprawling and fertile, incredibly eager to grow whatever she plants. Her rose gardens--and they are her gardens, make no mistake--are thriving. Sometimes, she thinks they’re doing better even than the human residents of Bly Manor.

It’s been a rough couple of years, even with the fulfilling nature of the work. She’s met people she can’t help regarding with a deep affection bordering on family: Hannah, and Owen, and Rebecca, and the kids. She’s met some she doesn’t get on with so well: namely, that prick Peter Quint. And things have happened, things no one could guess at or control. Lord and Lady Wingrave, once so kind and generous to her, are gone. Rebecca is gone, too, in a fresher sense. Jamie’s starting to think letting any of these people in was a mistake. People have a way of vanishing.

The plants, though. The plants are lush and green and loving. It’s silly, but Jamie thinks they believe in her more than anyone else ever has.

This middle ground between grieving people and loving the gardens of Bly is where she’s grown most comfortable, and it is that comfort she blames for being surprised when things change one sunny day.

She’s been puttering around the greenhouse for a couple of hours, glad to have the time away from prying eyes and whispering children. Flora and Miles--Flora more than Miles, lately--are charming, even wonderful, for kids, but they’re also under the age of thirteen. Jamie rarely knows what to do with kids that small, save for tossing them over her shoulder and teasing them mercilessly. They make her think of days long gone, of brothers not seen in two decades, and it scratches a strange, painful itch she doesn’t like thinking about.

So, the greenhouse. Quiet, off-set from the main property, a nice place to prepare pots and experiment with seeds. She likes it out here better than anywhere, except maybe the roses.

She especially likes how no one visits her out here. Not even Hannah or Owen, who know her better than most, and therefore understand a person’s need for solitude. No one comes out here at all--which is why, when she raises her eyes and spots a figure passing the window, she almost shouts with surprise.

Blonde, she registers. Blonde, and a sweater in some pastel off-shade of purple, and--

Who the hell...

She’s drifting toward the door, she realizes only when her legs carry her through and out onto the lawn. The woman is walking with Flora, talking to her in a voice that does not carry out to Jamie. The new au pair, she realizes. Rebecca’s replacement. Of course; they were bound to find one eventually.

And something about this one...

She isn’t looking where she’s going. It’s a rookie mistake, especially out here where the ground slopes and there are as many holes dug by rabbits as by Jamie’s own hand, and while she’s gazing after the blonde woman’s retreating form--

--her foot comes down on the upturned teeth of a fallen rake.

The breath whistles out of her through clenched teeth, pain shooting up through the bottom of her foot in radial bursts. She hops for a second, grabbing hold of the greenhouse wall, and grasps her ankle for a better look.

“Son of a,” she hisses. These boots were good, once, but good only lasts so long on a fresh-out-of-prison budget. Three of the four teeth she managed to land on have punched straight through the base of the shoe and into her skin.

“Jesus,” she mutters in mild disbelief. Years without injury on this property, and the first time she deals herself a good one, it’s because she was mooning after some woman she’s never even seen before, Jesus fucking wept.

At least she’s way out here, all on her own. At least there are bandages and a slightly less beloved pair of boots to change into. No one ever has to be the wiser.

“You see?” Jamie makes a grand gesture, wiggling her toes. “My most glorious story yet.”

Dani sits up, mouth working, unable to land on any one expression. “Are...did that really happen?”

“Did I step on a rake like a true goddamn idiot because I’d just caught my first glimpse of one Dani Clayton, you mean?”

“Yes,” Dani says, her throat suddenly dry. Her eyes are itching, tears pulling at the corners. Jamie smiles fondly.

“I did. But I recovered myself marvelously. Bet you didn’t even notice the limp.”

“You weren’t limping,” Dani recalls, remembering in a hot rush how Jamie had strolled into the kitchen that afternoon. She’d looked so at home, so confident. Dani had felt instantly, wildly, as though they’d already done this once before. Like taking a test to which she had all of the answers.

“I was not,” Jamie confirms. “Because I’d already spotted you once and made a fool of myself, and I was not about to pull that trick off again. Did you think I was cool?”

“The coolest,” Dani says, unable to stop the tears from spilling over onto her smile. Jamie pulls her close, kissing her forehead, rubbing comforting shapes into her back.

“Then mission very much accomplished. Want you to know, though, it did hurt like a--”

“Why are you telling me now?” Dani asks from against her chest. Jamie pauses.

“Why am I telling you my deepest, most embarrassing secret?”

Dani nods, sniffling a little. Jamie thinks on it.

“Because,” she says at last, reaching down to tip a finger under Dani’s chin until their eyes meet. “There are some people you don’t want to keep anything from. Some people who have earned rights to every story in your book. That one? That scar? No one knows about that. Just me. And now you.”

It means more than Dani could possibly explain. More than she could clarify, even to herself. Jamie, seeming to understand the hugeness of such a small moment, pulls her close again, kissing her with all the weight of thirteen years finally at home.

Jamie’s body is a map of scars, she thinks sometimes. A map of all the strange little accidents and intricacies of a human experience. Things that have gone wrong, so wrong, in her life as to leave a permanent mark in their wake. They’re on her back, her thigh, her side, her scalp, her foot. A road map of a life lived fully, if not always precisely well.

None, though. None could match this one.

She won’t show it off to anyone. Won’t have an ugly raised bit of flesh where the wound sealed over and made itself whole enough to carry again. Won’t have a cute story of clumsiness or a vicious tale of chivalry to back it up. This kind of scar, she thinks, is different in a way no one could understand unless they bear its ilk themselves.

The letter stays by the bed. Every night, before completing the ritual of Dani’s shirt, Dani’s pillow, Dani’s reflection refusing to show itself in the bath, Jamie picks it up. She had it memorized by the end of the first night back here, alone, pressing as close to Dani’s side of the bed as she’d dared. One night, spent back in their bed with all its pillows and blankets and emptiness.

And then, never again. She reads here, sometimes, remembering the way Dani would lean back against the headboard and watch old movies. She’ll do paperwork among sheets where Dani once lay, sprawled naked and happily asleep. She makes the bed each day as though it had been slept in the night before, rumpling the blankets a little before leaving the apartment so she’ll have something to fix when evening comes around again.

But she doesn’t sleep here. Not without Dani. Not ever.

She stays, instead, on the couch. Turns it to face the front door, with the lock that always seemed to stick with Dani’s key in it, and turned smooth as butter for Jamie. She props that door open with one of her oldest shoes, careless of whether it will still be there in the morning. Dani’s shoes, the heels she hated and the flats she wore everywhere and the sneakers that had started off Jamie’s and been slowly co-opted onto Dani’s side of the closet, stay safely tucked away. If one of those went missing, the price of some desperate thief in the night, Jamie suspects she’d lose her mind trying to track it down.

She stays on the couch, door open just a crack, bathtub full. That first night, she’d thought about just laying down in that bath and letting herself fall asleep. A bad thought. A thought running contrary to Dani’s final word on the subject. That Jamie was, above all else, to keep going without her. That she believed with her whole heart that this was the right answer. That she’d see Jamie again, and Jamie would be able to tell her off then, tell her off, and kiss her blind, and love her endlessly.

But first: this one thing. This one last, hopeful thing. To keep living. To keep going.

The worst thing, Jamie thinks each night, laying with pillows behind her back and her eyes on the door, she’s ever asked of me. Maybe the only bad thing Dani has ever asked of her in almost fifteen years. Dani was never cruel, not once, but sometimes Jamie is still angry with her for this much. For doing exactly the one thing she knew Jamie could not deny her. For asking this kind of oath.

She can’t show this kind of scar to friends at parties, can’t find the words to spin out a pretty story about how it mapped its way onto her body. All she can do is sleep with it each night. Wake with it each morning. Walk with it each day. Sleep. Wake. Walk. And know, deep down, that there is nothing like a scar left by someone like Dani.

Nothing in the world like it.

Sometimes, with her eyes squeezed shut and one of Dani’s shirts against her skin, she thinks she can still feel a hand tracing the spot on her back, that spot just under her shoulder where a small girl once dragged a boiling pot off a lit burner. Sometimes, if she closes her eyes hard enough, if she lets herself drift through the black dots behind her eyelids, she imagines slim fingers finding the raised edges, mapping them with such care, such wondering love.

She wishes Dani could ask after this one, too. She wishes more than anything she could turn a corner and there Dani would be, asking how she missed another one, how she possibly could have one more story to unburden. How would I even explain it, she wonders. How could I even tell this kind of tale?

Maybe she’ll work it out, someday. Maybe. She can’t imagine anyone wanting to hear it. Can’t imagine anyone understanding the kind of print, the kind of wound, the kind of sear one person leaves on another when they’re gone for good. Maybe someday. Maybe Owen would, or Henry. Maybe she could...

But not now. Not yet. The wound is still open, still bleeding, and every day, she finds something new to pick at its edges. A journal Dani bought and only wrote in three times. A sock lost under the couch on laundry day. A package of those silly hair ties Dani liked, the ones Jamie liked to pull gently from her hair until it tumbled in waves around her shoulders.

The place still smells of her. Jamie knows that will change, is nearly wild with horror at the idea of it. She goes to the shop in a daze one day, impulse-buys an entire cart of Dani’s shampoo. Her brand of deodorant. Her perfume, used only on special occasions like birthdays and engagement dinners and when she just wanted to get Jamie into bed for the hell of it.

This is what a scar does, Jamie thinks, staring fixedly into a mirror that stubbornly refuses to show her blonde hair and a wry little grin. This is what a scar is. One that sits in your chest. One that sits here, and tears itself back open every time you think you’re starting to heal. It picks at you. It owns you.

A story for another time, maybe. Another night, maybe.

Right now, Dani is a scar Jamie couldn’t share even if she wanted to. Dani is hers alone to carry.

She sleeps, and she dreams, and from somewhere far, far away, she imagines Dani pressing a kiss against her heart.

#the haunting of bly manor #the haunting of bly manor spoilers #fanfiction #dani x jamie #jamie x dani #anyway this is also all karatam's fault so go yell at her for making it happen #I hope you're pleased with yourself. it certainly acted as a great distraction from this extremely stressful day #and now I'm a mess so you're welcome #also I'm sorry in advance to anyone currently in class

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basicjetsetter · 3 years

Text

Part III

♡ Pairing: Peter Parker x Black!FemaleReader

▹ Warnings: Mild Language, Small mention of suicide attempt, Start of the Slow Burn

▹ Words: 3.1k

▹ A/N: Get ready for the slowest slow burn of your life.

Peter Parker is your Soulmate.

Peter Parker is also Spider-Man.

Your bewildered brain tries to rapidly absorb this news as he swings you back onto your apartment’s roof and nimbly sets you down on your feet, safely away from the ledge.

Well, that explains all the times he went missing during school trips. Those days are like a distant memory now, but you hazily remember the day Spider-Man rescued your classmates from a collapsing elevator in the Washington Monument. It was all anyone in Midtown talked about for weeks.

The boy-next-door was your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man all this time. Shock lags in your system. For some weird reason, you aren’t that surprised by the sight of Peter in the Spider-Man suit or by the idea of him being an Avenger, and as you stand on this roof mere feet from him, all you're concerned about is what he might possibly say.

Your heart races as you skeptically watch him spin around to face you.

He rubs a quick, nervous hand against the back of his neck and then, in a split second, pulls off his mask.

Time’s barely touched him, but then again, you long pieced together that your Soulmate must have suffered from the blip. His slightly disheveled hair is still the same chestnut brown, and his cute, boyish features remain intact. The only thing different is his eyes. Nothing extremely drastic changed about them, but even in the dark of night, you spot that they’re somehow more mature than you remember, older in a way that oddly aches a small place in your heart.

All while you scrutinize Peter’s exposed face and apprehensively stare into his eyes, part of you braces for the fireworks to explode and all the stars in the universe to align. This is it, isn’t it? The fated moment your childhood stories preached to be an epically magical experience? Aren’t you supposed to feel something? Anything?

A cricket chirps nearby.

Peter clears his throat, extends a hand to you, and sheepishly says, “Um, h-hi.”

You stare at his hand until it drops down to his side.

“Oh, geez!” he smacks a hand to his forehead. “Sorry, sorry. That was dumb. You probably aren’t thinking about that right now. Are you okay?”

It takes a while to part your lips, and once they’re open, all that comes out is, “Huh?”

“Are—are you okay? You just fell off that ledge over there,” he adds the last part with a gesture to the ledge, as if he’s trying to jog your memory.

You glance at the edge of the roof behind you, then slowly drag your gaze back to him. “Yeah.” Shaking your head, you repeat louder, “Yeah, I’m fine. It was… it was an accident.”

He blows out a relieved breath. “That’s great. Glad I got to you in time cause that would have been a nasty fall.”

You try to hide your flinch, but you’re sure he catches it because he immediately casts his eyes downward, mumbling more apologies while shuffling from one foot to another.

Sobering silence clouds the air around you as the last five minutes replay in your mind. You nearly died. You were seconds away from ending your life. Peter Parker saved you.

Gulping past the enormous lump in your throat, you whisper, “Thank you.”

Both sides of Peter’s mouth quirk up into a soft smile. “You’re welcome.” He pauses for a few beats, appearing to choose his next words carefully, then says, “So… you’re my Soulmate.”

Hearing him speak the words aloud thickens the obstruction in your throat, and all you offer back is an acknowledging nod, which expands Peter’s smile into a grin so bright it trips up your galloping heart.

“I was beginning to think I’d never meet you. I kept, you know, hearing you say my name in my head, so I kinda guessed you were still out there somewhere. Just never thought you’d be in my neighborhood.” He holds out his hand again, and this time you grudgingly shake it. “We had Spanish together, right?”

Once again, you’re stunned into silence. How the hell does Peter even know you? Back in your high school days, you don’t ever remember speaking a word to him, let alone doing something memorable enough for him to know which class you took together. As far as you can recall, Spanish was the only class you shared, and half the time, he was too busy waiting for class to end to notice you.

While you search your memory's repressed files to trace back any time you may have interacted with Peter, he says your name, causing your eyes to flash to his.

“You know my name?”

“Yeah…” he answers like it’d be strange if he didn’t. “We were in the same class for a while, and you painted that really awesome Starry Night with my friend, Ned.”

Something faintly warm and fluttery pitches around in your chest, but you’re quick to stow away the feeling into a locked box. It’s just a compliment—nothing more, nothing less. He seems like a nice guy and all, but there is clearly nothing between you two. No sparks. No deep gazes. No instant connections. Nothing.

Disappointment stings like a cut in your chest as you hurry over to the ledge and gather up your art supplies. When you turn back around, Peter’s staring at you with disheartened confusion, furrowing his brows.

Words haphazardly spill out of your mouth. “It was nice meeting you, Peter, and um, thanks for saving me, but I gotta go cause I have work early in the morning, and it’s super late—”

“Wait, wait, wait!” he rushes, marginally lunging forward as you take a few steps toward the exit, hand outstretched to stop you. “I just—can you tell me where you work? Maybe I can come by, and we can, y’know, talk a little bit. Get to know each other?” he ends with a hopeful, lop-sided smile.

The “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea” sits right on the edge of your tongue, armed and ready for dispatch, but Peter’s anxious little smile stalls it in its tracks. Instead, you shockingly find yourself replying, “Hal’s Diner.”

Peter perks up. “Oh, cool. I know that place. It’s got good pie. So… um, guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” you mumble, trying hard not to kick yourself for giving in so easily. Out of courtesy, you force a small smile onto your lips and say, “Goodnight, Peter.”

He returns your smile ten-fold. “Goodnight.”

As the exit door shuts behind you, you hear the slightest Thwip.

Why couldn’t you just say no?

✦ ✧✦ ✧

Bright and early, you show up at Hal’s Diner thirty-five minutes before you’re scheduled to be there, currently helping Hal prep for the Sunday breakfast crowd. To say your boss was astonished to see you at the front door nearly an hour before opening would be an understatement, but he thankfully didn’t question you.

After everything that transpired last night, from the fall to meeting Peter, the last thing you expected was a restful night’s sleep, but you were zonked the moment your head touched the pillow. For the first time in forever, those words didn’t plague your dreams and your every conscious thought. Your mind is now gloriously quiet.

You finally met your fated person, and now, you can eventually move on.

Except, not really… because Peter thinks it’s necessary to get to know you. Not if you can avoid it.

With that thought looming over your head from the second you woke up, you zoomed through your morning routine and made it out of your apartment in record time. You didn’t really have a game plan or destination in the works when you left, but you knew that your hands and mind needed to be busy to keep the more pressing thought at bay. Hence, your reason for prepping with Hal. At the moment, he’s droning on and on about what a mess last night’s shift turned out to be while you peel potatoes.

“And that new hire, the Dennis kid, screwed up three orders. Three consecutive orders! Two of ‘em from the same couple. If the boy weren’t so good at cleanup, he’d be out the door,” Hal swears, eyeing his inventory list. “Looks like we’re gonna have to stock up on eggs again.”

You hum to show you were listening, but it didn't really matter. Hal could go on like this for days, with or without an audience.

He leans his heavy body against the gigantic industrial refrigerator, then perches his thick-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his bulbous nose. “Alright, now you mind telling me what’s got you here so early?”

“Nothing,” you lie breezily, taking your bowl full of naked potatoes to the sink to rinse them off. The hot water runs freezing cold but gradually warms as you painstakingly rinse the whole surface of every potato, struggling to keep your hands and mind busy. “Just thought I’d be a good employee and help out my boss.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffs with a laugh, “If that’s true, then there must be pigs flying in Central Park.”

You counter, “Are you insinuating I’m not a good employee?”

“No. Good help like you is hard to come by these days, and everyone in Queens knows I’d be the first in line to praise your workmanship. I’m actually just expressing a nagging concern I have with you notoriously being late and then, in the blink of an eye, turning up here before I can even fit the key in the door. Now, either something’s real wrong or something’s real right. Which one is it?”

Experience with Hal and his prying questions over the last three years taught you how to lie tactfully. Always start with a full lie, then go with a half-truth to throw him off your trail. “I finally got more than four hours of sleep.”

“Great!” Hal beams, clapping his hands together. “Now, why’s that?”

You sigh exasperatedly, “For the love of—Can’t good news just be good news, Hal? Must there be an explanation?”

“Alright, alright. I’ll back off.” He pushes his glasses back up, harrumphing, “Just know that truth is too damn narcissistic to be kept in the dark. It always finds a way to be seen.”

With that, Hal grabs a tattered dishrag and a bottle of cleaning solution off the nearest counter and leaves you in the kitchen, heading out to the dining area to give the booth tables one more wipe down, grumbling about buying new upholstery for the seats.

Try as he might, Hal doesn't have a hope of scaring you into telling him the whole truth. You’re not rolling over that easily. No one in this diner is ever going to find out that you met your Soulmate, and if you’re lucky, it’ll stay a secret until literal pigs are flying in Central Park.

Somehow, someway, you’re going to figure out how to escape whatever this connection is because there must be some cosmic loophole for those who simply don’t want their destiny. There’s no way you’re the only person on this planet who’s ever decided to break from their Soulmate.

If there is any sliver of a connection between you and Peter, he’d understand why you can’t stay. He’d understand, and he’d move on.

You hold onto this hope throughout the rest of the workday. Hal doesn’t badger you again as the diner opens and the Sunday crowd comes bustling in, hungry for syrup-saturated French toast sticks and freshly brewed coffee.

Every time the welcoming bell at the entrance jangled, your eyes fearfully snapped to the door, expecting chestnut hair and a boyishly thousand-watt smile. And every time it wasn’t him, an obnoxious pebble of dismay sank to the pit of your stomach. Between serving customer after customer and watching the door, time slipped away from you, and before you even registered the difference, the warm afternoon sun streamed directly into the diner, and the last ten minutes of your shift approached.

Chris is dragging out a goodbye with a dazzled mother and her teenage son, inadvertently milking more tips out of them with a hilarious story about his favorite ketchup stain on his apron, while Wendy mops over the same black and white tiles for the seventh time, blinking in and out and stifling yawns. You set down two plates of grilled cheeses and steak fries for a young couple, smiling with your plastic smile and brightly telling them to enjoy their meals and to call for you if they need anything else.

As soon as you turn around to check up on the regulars sitting at the stools, the bell jingles, and there in the entrance stands Peter, cheerfully greeted with a perfectly timed, “Welcome to Hal’s, dude!” from Chris.

Your heart stutter-stops, then bursts into a full-on sprint, and before you even understand what you’re doing, you duck down, scurrying behind the bar. Two regulars on the stools, a middle-aged biker nicknamed Spikes and his buddy Garrick, lean over the counter with querying stares. Hastily, you mouth, I’m not here, and they curtly nod in unison, sitting back down.

On the other side of the bar, you hear Chris seat Peter in a booth that sounds dangerously close to your hiding spot, so you squinch down as far as you can go, balling yourself up in a position your knees and back will hate you for later.

“My name’s Chris, and I shall be your server this fine afternoon. Anything I can start you off with…?”

“Peter,” Peter fills in, then answers, “And a slice of Banana Cream Pie would be great.”

You intently listen to the scratch of pen against paper as Chris scribbles down the order. “Sweet, dude. I’ll bring that out to you as soon as possible.”

“Thanks. And, hey, um… does a girl named Y/N work here?”

Your eyes bulge.

“Yeah! Do you want me to get her?” asks Chris helpfully while you internally scream, adding, “I think she might be in the back. Could have sworn she was out here a second ago.”

The best scenario out of this situation would be if Chris miraculously misses your hiding spot, walks into the back and sees you’re not there, then comes back out, missing you again, and informs Peter that you must’ve gone home early. The absolute worst being Chris trips over you and nearly breaks his neck.

By the way things are shaping up, you might as well give yourself away.

“Y’all talking about the little miss with the bun in her hair?” Spikes gruffly interjects. “Cause you just missed her.”

You almost puff out a sigh as relief washes over you like a tidal wave. Spikes has got free burgers and milkshakes coming his way for a month.

“Huh… thought she was here.” Chris stays quiet only for a second, probably questioning the efficacy of his eyesight, before speaking to Peter again. “Sorry about that, man. Still want that pie?”

Just like that, your heart kicks into high gear. Please don’t say yes. Please don’t say yes. Please don’t say yes.

Again, to your utter relief, Peter says, “No, thanks, I actually gotta get going. Mind if I borrow your pen and paper real fast?” You hold in a tense breath as Chris rips off a piece of pad paper and hands it to him. More pen scratches against paper, then Peter speaks up, “Can you make sure this reaches her?”

“Definitely. Have a good rest of your day, and come back anytime, dude.”

You don’t uncoil yourself from behind the bar until the door jingles again and a good five minutes pass. Your muscles and joints achingly cry out from the mistreatment as you warily stand to your full height, and Spikes and Garrick give you a confirmational thumbs-up when you smile at them gratefully.

Chris, spotting you out of the corner of his eye, swivels around and gapes, “Where’d you just come from?”

“The back.” Not entirely a lie.

Chris frowns, “But Spikes just said—”

“I was leaving,” you hurriedly cut in. “But I—I, um, I forgot to…” Your eyes rove around the diner and land on the couple you recently served. You hit your head with your palm in an oops manner and nervously chuckle, “I forgot to give those guys their check. So, I’m just… gonna go and… do that.”

You skirt around Chris’s inquisitively raised eyebrow and head over to the cash register to tabulate the couple’s bill. That was a way too close call. And by the way Chris is still staring at you, it looks as if you’re far from being out of the woods.

Once you hand the couple their check, rush to the back and clock out for the day, and come back out in the dining area to leave, Chris is waiting by the door, holding up the triangled piece of paper Peter left for you.

“Some guy named Peter came by to see you. You know him?” A flash in his eyes dares you to deny it, as if he caught onto your game.

You defiantly square your jaw. “I might. Did he leave that for me?”

“Maybe,” he shrugs, “Wanna tell me who he is?”

“No, I don’t think I will,” you winningly grin as you snatch the paper from his hand.

Chris wears the same winning smile. “Fine, don’t tell me. I’ll ask him when he comes back tomorrow.”

You blanch, “Wh-what—what makes you think he’s coming back tomorrow?”

“All my customers come back. Always,” he promises. Chris never seemed like the type to issue positive threats, but here he is, threatening you with that friendly smile lighting his jovial face.

The promising threat rings in your ears as you walk out the door and head to your apartment. Halfway there, you remember the crumpled piece of paper grasped in your balled-up fist. You move out of the flow of pedestrian traffic, lean against the brick façade of a mini-mart, and unfold the paper.

Peter’s straight-forward scrawl reads: Sorry I missed you. Be back earlier tomorrow :) – Peter P., and at the bottom of the note is a phone number with an arrow pointing to it, saying, My cell #.

A small, itty-bitty smile flits across your lips as your eyes linger on Peter’s smiley face, and for the briefest moment, you’re transported back to the roof, losing your breath all over again as he smiles that innocently beautiful smile.

Avoiding him is going to be tougher than you thought.

...

Part IV

#peter parker #peter parker au #peter parker x reader #peter parker x black!reader #spider-man x reader #spider-man x black!reader #soulmate au #marvel fanfic #peter parker fanfic #peter parker angst #post endgame #post infinity war #peter parker soulmate au #pre far from home #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker slow burn #slow burn #black!reader #how to trust a heart

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 3 years

Note

A hphm character tier list please!! Bonus point if added reasoning/ explanation!

Have a great day :3

I doubt there are any placements on this list that would truly surprise anyone, but let's go through the different rankings. I didn't name them, by the way. Those were the categories that were already offered. I could have renamed or recolored them I suppose, but I didn't wind up doing so. Let's go in ascending order.

"Avada Kedavra." Self explanatory. Three of these characters are absolutely evil and irredeemable pieces of trash. And then there's Lockhart. He's just here because he pisses me off. Granted, so does Rita Skeeter, but she doesn't ruin an entire dating quest. At least when she shows up, it's because it's a quest about her. Fenrir Greyback purposefully infects children and describes them as "delicious" so...yeah. I'd put him even lower if I could. Albus Dumbledore's placement is also not a surprise if you know me. I hate him with all of my hate. Patricia Rakepick is also here and I doubt I need to explain why.

"Send to Azkaban." They don't bother me as much as "Avada Kedavra" but I am still not a fan. The Volde-clown Boggart is personally annoying in presentation but also as a plot device. For Peeves, there is the Prank storyline of Year 5. Enough said. The Weird Sisters creep me out, Filch and Mundugus are generally annoying, I discussed Rita, and the Dementor literally calls Azkaban home. That leaves Wormtail. I don't passionately hate him but he's not exactly a good person either.

"Kinda Sus" This is where I placed all of the characters who I, for whatever reason, do not trust or otherwise find shady, the ones who give me a bad feeling. This doesn't have to be plot related either, for cases like Ethan Parkin or Madam Hooch, it might just mean that their behavior is sometimes questionable. Of course, this is also something of a joke, like putting the Red Cloak on the list. For someone like Moody, it's more obvious - everyone knows I don't trust him. Characters like Bilton and Madam Villanelle are technically on our side, but they could be spies. If a character is a known villain, but their agenda and the depth of their evil is unclear, like The Dark Witch and the White-Robed Wizard, they also go here. Jacob and MC being placed here is somewhat of a joke, but it's also somewhat meta. Jacob is like Moody, his intentions are still unclear to me. And the game keeps teasing the idea that MC may fall to the Dark Side.

"Do you even go here?" Wow, do you ever stop to notice how many characters HPHM actually has? And this tier list included all of them, even the ones I would never have thought of. I literally just used this category to place all of the characters who do not technically attend Hogwarts school, though in a few of those cases like Aurelie, it definitely came off as more amusing. Additionally, I used this ranking for all of the characters who could be considered forgettable. Either by the fandom or the game itself, such as the prefects and poor Elora Dunn. Look, if the tier list has to actually list their name in the picture so that I can remember who they are, maybe they don't need to make the list, that's all I'm saying.

"Don't care." Mostly interchangeable with "Do you even go here." Again, the cast is so huge, that I'm not going to go through every character that I placed here. These past two rankings can mostly act as a summation for the majority of the characters for whom I don't particularly like or dislike. Emily Tyler hasn't returned or been developed as an antagonist in a while, so I don't care. Trelawney giving another prophecy is boring and conflicts with canon, so I don't care. Cedric Diggory is one of the most in-your-face examples of fanservice I've ever seen, so I don't care. But again, not all of these are negative. I think the Red Cap is funny, even if his storyline is brief. I love seeing Dobby, Arthur and Molly. I always love seeing them. I could go on.

"Ok." For the characters who, when I look at them, my immediate reaction is a generally positive one. I could probably get interested in a fanwork about these guys. For many of them, there is great potential to be explored but it just hasn't happened very much. Diego would not have been this high a year ago, but he's been fleshed out. Characters like Andre, Duncan, and Tonks...whenever they're in the spotlight and get genuine development, I'm interested. It just happens so rarely. The same goes for the Weasley boys, for Badeea. Other characters go here because I personally like them, even if they aren't that relevant. People like Aberforth and Percy. But two people can wind up here despite being very different and my having completely separate feelings about both of them, like Alanza and Ben.

"Like." Everyone that I would probably write a fanwork about someday, if I could actually motivate myself to finish my current WIP. Talbott, Chiara, and Jae are genuinely interesting and compelling. They might not make my top five, but they would make my top ten. I will always love Flitwick and what HPHM has done for him, I don't even care. Keep in mind, this doesn't mean I condone everything that the character has done...Ismelda has a lot to answer for, but it doesn't mean she's not interesting. And Penny can be very interesting too, but usually only when she's put under intense stress. As heartless as it is to say. You may also be surprised to see Myrtle here, but similar to Flitwick, I just love what this game did with her. Some of these could rise or drop a ranking pretty easily too. Like in hindsight, maybe I should have switched Duncan and Myrtle. It's not a big deal either way, I guess.

"Must be protected at all costs." Self explanatory. For the most part, these are all my favorite characters in the game, and the ones who I would lay down on railroad tracks for. Another character who climbed higher over time is Skye. If it wasn't for how much people message me about her, I may not have gotten quite as invested. My love for Orion is well documented, Rowan is the reason I started playing this game, Beatrice was the breakout character of Year 6, and Tulip x Merula is my OTP for this game. I could gush about any one of these kids for six paragraphs but the bottom line is that they are my favorite characters. It is at this point that we have entered "top five" territory.

"GOD TIER ~ ALWAYS" Characters who reign supreme and are factually flawless. It's not surprising to see characters like Dennis and Fang up here because critters are, generally speaking, leagues above humans simply by default. We can also see her majesty Queen Bean ruling from the sky, guarded by her champion, the arbiter known as Erika Rath. You are entitled to your wrong opinion if you fail to see the divinity of these characters.

#Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

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good-things-do-happen-dean · 4 years

Text

all that matters is the light in you and i | denny | 2.3K | based on that ty olsson cameo because i will never stop thinking about it...

***

Since it happened, Dean’s been having trouble sleeping. It doesn’t make much sense, really, since everything is over now. There’s no Chuck anymore, just a bunch of humans trying to figure out what the hell happens next. Maybe nothing, maybe everything, but probably anything, which could be why he can’t sleep.

Dean takes to wandering around the Bunker at night when the walls of his room start closing in. He and Sam explored when they moved in here, a little, enough to find the bedrooms, the bathroom, the kitchen. Then there were the storerooms and the dungeon and the server room. But the place is friggin’ huge and they just never got around to it, or they never had the chance to get around to it.

One of those nights, Dean’s coming back through the library. He just discovered the attic, which you can only get to by climbing up about a million stairs, with the added bonus of having to go back down them too. But all the stairs wore him out, so that’s okay. Maybe he’ll actually catch a few hours of bone-tired shut-eye, then Sam can have a field day sorting through all the shit up there tomorrow.

He almost doesn’t notice the message light blinking on one of the old phones they’ve got charging all the time in, what Jack calls, the Bridge. (The kid just discovered that there’s about a million versions and episodes of Star Trek). It’s really just a table and chair with an extension cord and all their old phones (and some of Bobby’s) in the back corner of the library. No one’s been back here in a while, or at least Dean hasn’t. They haven’t had any reason to. Things have calmed down, way down, since it happened.

The phone that’s blinking isn’t labeled, and he doesn’t recognize the number that pops up in the missed calls log from a few weeks ago. Still, might as well listen to the voicemail while he’s here.

“Hello, Dean,” Benny says, and the phone slips out of Dean’s hand and cracks against the floor.

“Fuck!” Dean grabs for it, praying to nothing, to everything, that it isn’t broken. His hands are shaking so badly he nearly drops the phone again. The screen is shattered in one corner, cracks spider webbing out from there, and he feels it nick his cheek just next to his ear. But Benny’s voice is still playing from the speaker, rich and low, lower than Dean remembers.

“- picked a fight with God -”

Dean starts the message over with trembling fingers. This is a trick. It has to be. A shapeshifter that’s still running around, or a crocotta maybe, hell, even a siren. Or it’s just Dean hallucinating from lack of sleep. It isn’t real because it can’t be. Because this is just the brand of fucked up figment that comes from Dean’s fucked up imagination.

“Hello, Dean. Been a while. The rumors of my early demise have been greatly exaggerated.”

He thinks of Purgatory and that Leviathan. His heart dropping like a stone and the ticking clock that left him with no time to breathe, let alone grieve, for days, for weeks, until it was over and that was the only thing left to do.

“I ain’t never seen a dogfight you couldn’t win. Go give ‘em hell, brother. I miss you buddy.”

The message ends, but all Dean can hear is “I’m topside again” on a loop, the low rumble of Benny’s chuckle.

“I’m sleepwalking,” Dean says to nobody, to the empty library in the middle of the night. “I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming.” His voice shakes as badly as his hands as he presses redial. He scrubs a hand down his face as it rings, and realizes he’s crying. “It’s gonna ring out,” he whispers, not knowing if he wants it to or not, not knowing which would hurt less.

“Hey, chief.”

***

Dean is nearly to Wichita by the time he realizes he’s not wearing any shoes. He’s never driven barefoot before in his life (it would be an insult to Baby, to all other cars, and to every human with sense), but hell if he didn’t tear out of the bunker like someone lit a fire under his ass.

Benny, what might be Benny, what’s probably Benny, is driving up from New Orleans to meet him outside of Fort Worth. Eight hours on the road, three of them gone already and he’s just now realizing he’s in his socks. The sun is peeking out over the horizon, painting the sky in pinks and oranges and golds as he flies along the highway that’s nearly empty this early in the morning. Dean Winchester will drive without shoes on when Hell freezes over, he thinks wildly and laughs out of his open window.

Sam calls an hour or so later, after Dean has gone through a drive-thru for coffee that he hasn’t touched. He’s running on no sleep, but he’s wired and shaky as it is. The coffee that’s turning tepid perched between his knees would probably make things worse.

“Where are you?” Sam says by way of a greeting.

“Just crossed into Oklahoma.”

“What - Oklahoma? Dean, what the hell?”

Dean zips by an eighteen-wheeler. There are more cars out on the road now, but it’s still mostly just open road. Four hours of open road between him and Benny. Less if traffic stays like this.

“We woke up and you were gone, Dean. Why are you going to Oklahoma?”

“Not going to Oklahoma, Sammy.” Dean puts the call on speaker and tosses his phone onto the bench seat so he can drum his fingers against the steering wheel. He’s buzzing with energy or nerves or both. “Do you know, are there any shoes in the trunk?”

“Shoes?” He can just hear Sam pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “Dean. Where are you going?”

“Fort Worth.”

“What’s in Fort Worth? You catch a case or something?”

Dean is quiet for a moment, passing another eighteen-wheeler. If he tells Sam he’s hauling six hundred miles worth of ass because something that probably isn’t but might be Benny left him a voicemail three weeks ago, they’ll fight. “You won’t like it.”

“Dean, you better tell me what the hell is going on. Right now. You think I don’t know something’s up with you?”

“It’s -” Dean sighs, lifts his eyes to the sky that’s brightening into clear blue, sunny and cloudless as far as he can see. “Look, Sam -”

“Don’t ‘look, Sam’ me - “

“Fine, okay,” Dean says. Lukewarm coffee sloshes over the lid of the coffee cup perched between his knees. “It’s Benny.”

On the other end of the line, Sam is quiet. “Dean,” he says quietly, and there’s pity there. “You know Benny’s - I mean, it’s been years.”

“I know.” Dean steps on the gas, like it will speed this conversation up. “Man, I know, okay? He - I got a call, a voicemail, a few weeks ago, but I didn’t see it until last night with...you know. Everything. I’m not stupid, Sam. I’ll be careful, but I can’t - I have to -” He bites at his lip, thinking of a brightly-painted alley, of a forest in Maine at night, of an unmarked grave. He thinks of scrubbing blood out of the trunk, and of biting into his lip so hard new blood mingles with what he’s trying to scrub out. Of cranking up the radio loud enough that it echoed through the garage and he could choke out a sob without Sam hearing. “I just need to see if it’s him.”

“Okay,” Sam says finally. “Okay, but Dean, let me meet you there. Or Cas. You shouldn’t be alone, you know, in case…”

In case it isn’t Benny. In case it’s some monster, or some other monster, or the monster is actually Dean’s lack of sleep or his grief, or it’s just him and he’s finally cracked. “No,” Dean says. “I mean it, Sam, no. I need to see if it’s him, and I need to do it on my own.”

“Dean -”

“I’ll call you, if - I’ll call you.” Dean reaches over and hangs up before Sam can protest anymore.

***

They don’t end up meeting in Fort Worth. Having too many people around makes Dean itchy under his skin, in his bones, and Fort Worth is crawling with them. They end up meeting in Crowley, of all places, just outside of it anyway.

Dean gets there first, probably because he took the last hundred miles at least twenty over. There aren’t any shoes in the trunk after all, so he just stands there in his socks on the side of a dusty road, fiddling with the silver knife and the flask of holy water, leaning against the hood, then the trunk, then the driver’s side door, then sliding back behind the wheel. He realizes too late that he’s tracking dirt onto the floor and gets back out. He pours the rest of his untouched coffee out into the grass.

A crappy old truck pulls up after twenty minutes or so, not as crappy as the one Benny used to drive, but crappy and old all the same.

And there’s Benny, who smiles slow and bright as he approaches. He’s got his cap pulled down low over his eyes, but they’re alight with life. “Hey, brother,” Benny says, shoving his hands deep in his pockets.

“You know I’ve gotta -” Dean’s voice shakes and he swallows, gesturing with the flask.

“I know.”

Except then Dean actually has to do it, has to walk over to Benny and hold his arm steady while he -

“Dean,” Benny says, reaching towards him. He almost takes Dean’s hand to steady it but stops just short, which is probably for the best. If maybe-not-Benny were to touch him now, Dean might shatter.

"Okay." Dean watches as if from outside his own body as the silver knife slices a thin gash in Benny's forearm and a splash of holy water washes away the blood that wells up there. "Benny?" he says, heart cracking open with something like grief or relief or longing.

Benny steps forward again, but Dean puts a hand up. "My turn," he says. The cut on his arm stings in the dry air, a bead of blood dripping onto his sock.

And then it doesn't matter because Benny is taking him into his arms and it's just like Dean remembers. Benny smells like something long-forgotten, something newly remembered. Dean can feel Benny's breath on the side of his neck, the too-slow beat of Benny’s heart against his chest, where his own pulse is racing. He pulls away first, keeping a grip on Benny's shoulder to anchor himself. "How -" he starts, shaking his head.

"Where are your shoes, chief?" Benny says with a laugh and thumbs a tear from Dean’s cheek, lets his hand linger there, solid and warm in the sunlight. “And what happened here?” He runs a finger over the cut Dean had completely forgotten about in his mad rush out of the Bunker last night. Early this morning. Whatever.

Dean just shakes his head against Benny’s hand, unable to get the words out. I dropped everything and ran. I can’t believe you’re real. I missed you. I need you. I -

“How are you here?” he says instead, lifting a shaking hand to grip Benny’s wrist before he loses his nerve.

Benny shrugs and strokes over the shell of Dean’s ear with the pad of his thumb, which makes Dean go a little weak at the knees. “Figure it’s because of the big fight. I ain’t complaining, though.” He looks Dean square in the face, eyes crinkling up at the corners. “I missed you, brother.”

“Yeah?” Dean lets his breath out in a rush.

“Yeah.”

Dean rocks forward, just a little. Just enough to tip his forehead against Benny��s, nudging that stupid beautiful newsboy cap off to the side. He’s still holding onto Benny’s wrist, but he slides his other hand to curl into the short hair at the nape of Benny’s neck. He lets his eyes close. This is safe. Here, he’s safe and grounded, missed and forgiven and loved. Benny breathes slow and even, and Dean finally does too. In, out. In, out. Dean opens his eyes to see Benny gazing at him, full of wonder.

“I wasn’t sure if - it’s been a long time,” Benny says, choosing his words carefully, staying firmly in Dean’s space. Or maybe it’s Dean, crowding up against him, unwilling to let go for fear of waking up or floating away entirely.

“Too long,” Dean says. “Too damn long.” His gaze flicks to Benny’s mouth like it has a hundred times before, a thousand, too many times to count, really. Except it feels new. It feels tenuous and fragile with all the time lost between them.

Benny moves in slowly, brushing Dean’s nose with his own, stopping when they’re only a breath apart for one agonizing moment. He runs his thumb up and over the cut on Dean’s cheek, his ear, and Dean shakes from the tenderness of it. “Je t’aime, cher,” Benny whispers into the space between them.

They meet in the middle and it’s gentle and sweet and everything Dean remembered, except better because God is dead and they can have this for the rest of their lives, if they want. They can have this, and this, and this, and Dean breaks away with a laugh even as Benny wipes another tear from his cheek. “I love you,” he says, like it’s the easiest thing in the world because here, now, standing in his stupid socks in a patch of gravel on the side of a road outside Crowley, Texas with their future, his and Benny’s, as wide open as the bright blue sky stretching out above them, it is.

let me know if you want to be added/removed/only tagged for specific things! 💖

#title from wide open sky by the well pennies #i just......love them..........#let them be in LOVE #mine.fic #denny

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vro0m · 2 years

Text

vro0m’s rewatch - 31/288

2008 Italian GP

Recap and GIFs!

If you were disappointed by that Seb video you might wanna check out this recap!

And Monza was ALSO a wet quali?! Seriously. I can’t wait to count how many wet races happened that season when I’ll do the overall recap. It’s so weird.

Lewis ran into some issues in quali? He’s 15th on the grid?! So he spun in quali because for some reason they put him on inters while it was raining. Not smart. Seb is pole though! The youngest driver in history to take pole position, and the first one for Toro Rosso!

And it might rain today too. At the moment the track is wet but I don’t think it’s raining. Of course, there’s talk about the outcome of the Belgian GP. Charlie Whiting told Ron Dennis “yes it should be ok” when asked about the situation but as Dennis says, it’s the stewards who decide, and they decided Lewis didn’t give back enough advantage to Raikkonen (again, Max Verstappen 2021 Jeddah GP comes to mind). The other drivers agree that Lewis should have waited longer to try to overtake him again after he gave back the place. I mean I agree too, as I said in the last recap, it was obviously controversial. A whole 25 seconds penalty might be a little bit severe though.

The journalists say maybe the stewards’ decision is warranted but the inconsistencies are an issues. !!! Can’t believe it’s already a problem back then lol. They say when you watch different Formula races and they’re not all handed the same penalties it’s difficult to understand + why would it take so long to make a decision? They say they tried to talk about it with Mosley as he’s there that weekend but couldn’t get an interview with him (I mean yeah, no shit, the whole n*zi pr*stitutes scandal happened what, a couple of months before at this point?)

So the grid looks weird : Seb, Kovalainen, Webber. Massa 6th, Raikkonen 14th, Lewis 15th. I’m here for very happy baby Seb though!

Lewis says of his qualifying “it’s just one of those days where you think what was I thinking” (yeh I’d like to know too cause wtf man) He says the decision was made by his engineer and himself to try the inters. The data afterwards showed his rear brakes weren’t really working cause they were too cold.

The journalist says he knows he can’t talk about many aspects of the last GP but he asks how long did the exhilaration from racing like that last.

He answers normally it would last for a long time but when you have “.....Stuff” happening like they did it kind of brings it down. He was very happy with the job he did and the fact that he never gave up. He says he finds the grid for this GP exciting as it’s kinda flipped around.

They’re headed for the grid. Massa is already running wide. That’s worrying. Interestingly they changed his engine, but only after quali.

I like that Louise has a good rapport with the drivers. You can tell when they talk to her that they’re friendly, even when she asks hard questions or sees them just after they had to retire during races.

We don’t know yet if they’re going to start under Safety Car. They did so for the GP2 race but Martin Brundle says it was actually worse in a way because the Safety Car goes in right before the long straight to the first corner so in the end, they got there at even higher speed that they would have if they had started on the grid.

And it’s raining.

Formation lap. Oh Bourdais can’t start his car, he’s gonna have to start from the back. Poor boy. His seat for next year isn’t secured yet and he was crying after quali. Loads of spray. I’m nervous. Oh they got Bourdais’ car started on the grid, he’s gonna join the other now? WAIT THAT WAS ACTUALLY THE START OF THE RACE? They didn’t do a formation lap then? I’m confused.

And they’re racing, then, I guess?

Ah, wait, they went a full lap around and then started the race under Safety Car. Which means Bourdais is lapped I think. Welp. Anyway, the GP is underway now. Safety Car in... and go!

Soooo much spray. Glock cuts a corner and tucks back behind whoever is in front of him lol I can’t see anything. Apparently, after Spa, the official rule is : if you give back a place you have to wait at least until the next corner to try to overtake again. (I don’t remember if that’s what happened in 2021 Jeddah, I guess we’ll see when I get there with my rewatch, probably years from now because it’s clearly gonna take ages lol) Ooop, Lewis also cut a corner, and while racing Raikkonen again. Well he’s not making the same mistake twice and gives back the advantage as stated just above.

10 laps in, Lewis is up in 12th but struggling. Oooh now he overtakes Raikkonen, perfect! He’s starting to show some pace.

Nope, he pushed someone on the grass... Eesh. It was Glock coming back at him after he passed him. He’s now racing Kubica for 8th. He has to be careful being that aggressive if he doesn’t wanna get more penalties. The journalists say he might not have seen him though, with the spray. Idk. Clean overtake on Kubica though, very beautiful.

And we hear more rain might come and last. Seb pits from the lead and gets back out in 4th. Lewis overtakes Alonso, and it wasn’t as clean this time. They made contact? Unsure. Oh no, not again, he cut the corner after overtaking someone and has to give back the place. It keeps happening during this race, and not only to him. Everybody seems to struggle in that one chicane.

Lap 20. Kovalainen pits, and Massa, which puts Seb back in the lead! Lewis is now 4th. Now 3rd. Now 2nd! Well, of course he still has to pit but damn, he started 15th. First Sewis podium maybe? Lewis is less than a second behind him right now. They’ll both have to stop at some point.

And here we go, halfway through the race, Lewis pits. He gets full wets, we must hope for that rain then. So the standings are : Seb, Kovalainen, Alonso and Kubica who haven’t stopped yet, Webber, then Heidfeld who also has to pit, Massa and 10 seconds behind is Lewis in 8th. But I think everybody in front of Massa who’s already pitted are on a 2-stops strategy so if Seb can pull a big enough gap to Massa to make his second pit stop, potentially Massa is 2nd and Lewis 3rd?

With 20 laps to go, Massa pits and switches for inters. It’s true it’s still not raining. Everybody is pitting for inters at the moment. Including Seb and Lewis!

With 16 laps to go then, it’s Seb, Kovalainen, Kubica, Alonso, Heidfeld, Massa, Lewis, who’s going fastest at the moment.

10 laps to go. Now they announce light rain again, but still nothing at this point. Lewis is slow for some reason, Webber is closing in on him. 5 laps to go. Webber is less than 0.5 behind him, it’s not looking good. He tries to overtake, but Lewis didn’t leave him much room to do so. Webber is forced to cut the chicane. It’s weird to be constantly expecting the DRS to kick in when they’re following each other that closely and of course it never does because it wasn’t a thing back then lol.

They talk about Vettel’s attitude towards the media : “He’s happy, he’s friendly, he answers your questions, he shakes hands with the soundman, he shakes hands with the cameraman, and the interviewer, and he thanks you for the interview. He’ll give GP winners a bad name!” and “he has a fantastic sense of humour!”.

Coulthard crashed into Nakajima and there’s debris on the track, Massa drives on it as he goes by. Hopefully no one gets a puncture.

Last lap...

And it’s the end of the race!

Seb is the youngest F1 GP winner ever! Kovalainen P2, Kubica P3, Lewis in 7th.

Kubica hugs Seb, cute! He’s elated on the podium, it’s adorable. He’s also very winded.

Lewis says he thinks he drove a good race, unfortunately it didn’t rain. He congratulates Seb. It was damage control anyway. He admits once he was behind Massa, he struggled to keep up the pace and had to look after his tyres and had to defend whatever points he could get out of this.

He says in the end, it’s a relief he only lost one point to Massa.

#f1 #lewis hamilton #sebastian vettel #2008 #2008 italian gp #vro0m's race reviews

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obsidiancreates · 4 years

Text

A Day Of Unexpected Truths (Part Six)

The walk back to the van is... quiet.

It’s late into the afternoon, now, and there’s a slight breeze in the air. Cavendish keeps glancing over at Dakota, partly out of concern, partly to watch the way the wind just slightly moves his thick curls.

He’s somehow always noticed things like that, and at the same time never really payed attention to them. But now he can’t seem to stop being aware of little details surrounding Dakota.

And it gives him those weird, unfamiliar feelings in his chest. Which he’s... starting to not mind as much.

Maybe it’s bad that he’s getting used to them. Could be a heart issue!

...

“Dakota?”

“Yeah?”

“What... did I say wrong?”

Dakota looks up at him with surprise. “Huh?”

“Your mood has been soured ever since our talk in the restaurant.”

“Oh. That. Well... you’re just a little oblivious sometimes, and it be kinda... disheartening, I guess.”

“Oblivious?!”

Dakota raises an eyebrow. “Island. Remember?”

... Oh, yes. The hundreds of Dakotas might be proof of some... slight obliviousness...

“So are you upset I can’t figure out who you like, then?”

“Sorta!”

“Well, why? Why is it so important to you that I figure it out?!”

“Because you’re my partner! You’re one of the most important people in the world to me!”

Cavendish stops dead in his tracks. It takes Dakota only a second to stop as well, turn around and look Cavendish in the eyes.

“I’m one of the most important people in the world to you?” Cavendish repeats in a soft tone.

“See? Oblivious,” Dakota says, sounding a little tired. “I try to show you that every day. Yeah, I make you pay for lunch a lot of times, and I make fun of you a little, but I care a lot about you.”

Cavendish blinks.

He recalls when Dakota discovered his stuffed teddy bear, Dennis, for the first time, how after a bit of teasing Cavendish explained how important Dennis was to him, and how Dakota has respected the bear ever since.

He recalls a time Dakota accidentally splashed grape juice on his favorite white button-up, and how the next day he discovered that the shirt had been cleaned and completely stain-free, and Dakota had just shrugged it off when Cavendish expressed his thanks (and surprise).

He recalls how Dakota listened to him talk on and on about Professor Time on countless occasions, and how a lot of Dakota’s admiration for the Professor came about after hearing all of Cavendish’s gushing.

He recalls many, many occasions that at in the moments simply seemed like a casual nicety, or even just a neutral interaction or act.

“... You do try to show me that often, don’t you?”

Dakota’s eyes widen a little. Hopeful. “Yeah, I do.”

Cavendish pulls Dakota into a hug. “I’m terribly sorry I’ve never noticed, old chap.”

Dakota hugs back, and Cavendish feels... butterflies in his chest?

“It’s okay. I know you, and that’s just kinda how you are.”

“... You should tell whoever it is you like. They’ll be very, very lucky to have you.”

Cavendish expects the words to bring a sort of closure to him, somehow. Instead they make him feel...

...

Grieved?

Dakota pulls away, and rubs his neck. “I don’t know... keep getting scared it’ll drive him away. Friendship is safe, you know?”

Cavendish nods. “Yes, I suppose it is. But is safe always better? We’ve gone on many dangerous adventures, and often times they turn out with good results! Well, when they’re not... fatal, or failures... oh my, have we ever had a good result from an adventure? Oh, nevermind that. You took risks when you saved me all those times. Why not now?”

“Because safer is better,” Dakota says. “With you it’s always better.”

Cavendish sighs.

He’s not going to get through to Dakota about this instantly, is he?

Ah well... now he knows, so at least he can work at it for a while. Dakota deserves a good life partner.

They continue their walk. Once they get to the van Dakota gets in the driver’s seat, and Cavendish gets in the passenger’s side.

As Dakota drive, Cavendish begins to nod off, running the conversation through his sleepy head.

Yes, safe is good, but sometimes risk is worth it. Especially with a payoff like Dakota could get. He clearly is very enamored with whoever this tall, silly man with the accent is, after all.

Cavendish can imagine how Dakota would go about a relationship. Casually, but with lots of care. Probably a lot of acts of service, or lots of quality time and listening. He’s a big gift person, after all. Zoo trips, Cavendish can imagine how excited Dakota would be to bring a partner on a zoo trip with him.

‘Safer is better,’ he said. Well, safety is always the most comfortable after a big risk-

...

‘With you it’s always better,’ he said?

...

‘With you.’

...

No, no, couldn’t...

...

Oh.

Oh dear.

#Not to brag but uh I think I nailed this and I'm super proud of this part and my chest is filled with pride #Milo Murphy's Law #Dakavendish #vinnie dakota #balthazar cavendish #fanfic #my attempts at fanfic

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trashcatsnark · 3 years

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Ooooh, gimmie those juicy, juicy Johnny backstory headcanons 👀👀👀

Okay, so I always feel kind of bad? I guess, talking about my ideas of his backstory because A) I feel like they’re very cliche,

B) I know I don’t know every drop of TTRPG Lore, despite that not truly being canon to the game a lot of the time and also the cyberpunk universe timeline is kinda a mess, so i just do whatever i want (like samurai’s starting when he was 15 and also when the war he served in started, like the amount of overlap between the war and samurai’s active years is insane and the game can’t decide when Johnny was a soldier and when he was a grungy rocker)

C) given CDPR still plans to expand on the game with DLC and stuff, I know it’s fully possible that my ideas will be debunked in the coming months.

So, take all of these ideas with a grain of salt and as always if your headcanons conflict with mine; that’s cool that’s why they’re headcanons

I feel like Johnny had a rough childhood firstly, cause in the immortal words of Linda Belcher; “Look at how you stand. People who had good childhoods don't stand like that.” Like everything about him screams shitty childhood. My brain for some reasons specifically imagines, alcoholic abusive father and enabling compliant mother. Which, again, I know is the cliche of shitty childhood backstories, but it is cliche largely because its an unfortunately common reality. I imagine his first guitar is probably one of the only nice gifts he ever got and music was largely an escape. I came up with the idea too of his father having been a blue collar worker who was injured on the job; unable to work afterwards, given barely anything for workers comp and ongoing unemployment. Leaving the family struggling financially. Fucked over by his employers, turning to abusing pills and alcohol to cope with pain and raging at Johnny and Johnny’s mother. Teaching and instilling habits that would follow Johnny too.

I like the idea of Johnny and Kerry meeting first as kids, junior high to high school. And between the years of at least 13-15, the earliest conception stages of samurai started. And I do mean the earliest, messiest, barebones stages of Samurai; it was basically two teenage boys playing and scream singing their unrefined lyrics in a garage. Cause they were kids and just wanted something to do, something to get their mind off the shitstorm of life. Maybe, i debate internally, they do manage to meet Nancy, Denny, and Henry maybe they all grew up in Texas and with someone more competent even at their young ages, Nancy manages to get them actually going a bit as a young band. A few little underground grungy gigs playing at bars they weren’t old enough to drink in.

Now again, formation of Samurai and Johnny serving in the war, lead to like the biggest question marks in his backstory because nothing lines up very well. The war he served in started when he was fifteen, albeit that’s not for sure when he enlisted. Given we’ve been told children can in universe be scouted by corps to be their soliders; its not out of the realm of possibility that he served before he was 18 and was drafted as a child. But. Johnny specifically states he enlisted, that he made that choice. I’ve stated before that given how long the war lasted, its fully possible he enlisted at 18, served so much of the last four years of the war then ditched following his friend dying for him.

However, I have also considered and really do personally like the idea, that Johnny did enlist himself and did so prior to being 18, though not as young as 15. Because, he forged his documents to enlist. There’s incidents and documentation of people as young as 15 faking their birth certificates and high school diplomas in order to enlist. I could absolutely see a 16-17 year old Johnny, frustrated with life and thinking he could have a bigger impact in the world in the military, forging his documents and enlisting. This leads to of course Samurai breaking up for that time.

He serves around 4-5 years, deserting and leaving around 2009. Spends his month spinning his wheels and staring at the Pistis Sofia. He comes out of his funk and is ready to send his message about the dangers of corps to the world and he knows just how to do it. Fully adopts the name Johnny Silverhand and goes to track down his old friend Kerry. Samurai is freshly reformed.

Right around that same time, he meets Rogue. (which even this is fucky in canon????? Rogue says lets pretend its 2015 and idk what a bastard you are, Alt died in 2013, he’d already cheated on Rogue by then???? ANYWAY) They meet about the 2009-2010 mark as Samurai is coming back together. Personally, I like to imagine they met while she was on the job. She had to eliminate a target who happened to be at the venue Samurai was doing a gig and Johnny managed to stumble upon her snapping the guy’s neck or something. And she thinks her covers blown, but hahaha Johnny’s into that and is like “hey, you want a drink?” and is then like determined to get with her and they fall into a relationships. Then around 2011-2012 he fucks it all up, cheats, there in my opinion is definite overlap in his relationship with Rogue and his relationship with Alt.

I also feel like he met Alt at a samurai gig? I can’t remember the TTRPG lore of it, but I feel like in general Johnny met most of the women he had relationships with at Samurai gigs, partially cause he’s a just...a liitle egotistical. Alt however was there as someone who was genuinely into the music, (Rogue at one point in canon condescendingly calls her a groupie and I can’t but feel there’s a bit of truth in thats how it started). But Johnny started to legitimately feel things for her, but being Johnny, he never properly articulated that and always had to keep fucking it up. They fall into a pretty whiplashy toxic relationship over the course of a year or two where they do genuinely feel for each other, but Johnny can’t ever let his walls down enough to tell her that in earnest and is constantly doing things to fuck up the relationship, cause he’s a dick. Until in 2013, well, we know what happens.

Johnny has to spend some time with nomads, (probably after releasing Never Fade Away, because I do see this man as the kind of guy to postpone going in hiding just to release his song for Alt before doing so) as do Rogue and Santiago after the attack on Arasaka. Because Johnny’s busy trying not to be spotted. They wait for the heat to die down before Johnny comes back to Night City. Him and Rogue rekindle things for a time, but it ultimately is on and on and dies out again, because Johnny is stinky bastard man. Kerry had already been talking about going solo and by the time Johnny’s back in the city he had and Johnny does his solo thing for a while too. But ultimately Samurai reforms for a bit, in 2020, neither Kerry or Johnny quite ready to let it go yet. Somewhere also during this, Spider Murphy helps deliver a message from Alt about her status and asking him to let it go. He does not and joins the Morgan Blackhand mission to attack Arasaka Tower in hopes of saving Alt’s construct in the process.

Thats the barebones of some of my thoughts and headcanons; Im sure some are not lore compliant, I’m sure my timeline is messy and clashes horrifcally with CDPR’s also messy timeline. But, these are some of my thoughts, headcanons and ideas that will probably be defunct and pointless in a week.

#cyberpunk 2077 #cp2077 #johnny silverhand #THIS IS PROBAbLY A MESS AND IM SORRY #Anonymous

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geekkatsblog · 3 years

Text

Grey's Anatomy season 17×06 Review

(How the f**k they just gonna leave me on read like this till March 4th)

The episode was a rollercoaster but something tells me the real ride is going to happen from the next episode.

___________________________________________

Maggie

I knew Winston was gonna show up in person at some point or the other. When he dropped the long distance wasn't working line and put the phone down in her ear so he could get some 'eggs' I knew he was in Seattle, good for her she's going to need him to lean on seeing that Mer freaking crashed again. At least she'll have somebody there for her because all her other support is personally attached to Meredith as well.

Besides Winston turning up, treating Tom and her being understandably giddy at Mer being awake there was also a scene where she educated Amelia on some things now I won't get into the details again but I'm just in love with the fact that Grey's isn't afraid to touch on controversial topics, they use their large platform to raise awareness and their speeches are always on point.

___________________________________________

Teddy/Owen

(She needed the time off more than Bailey did tbh)

My God was it satisfying when Richard literally just tore into her. She put herself in the situation and is now taking her anger out on others which is really in poor taste. Poor Helm, I hope she didn't take it personally. At this point it's her time to annoy me, I miss the season 6 Teddy, hopefully she redeems herself soon. After being torn apart by Webber's words she then proceeds to make things worst by revealing yet another big secret to Owen at work. (At least this time it was on purpose.) She just needs to take some time away and think on what she really wants and needs to reflect before spontaneously starting potentially life changing conversations. First it was telling Tom they had a chance then it was telling Owen that she still loves him and the kids while also revealing that she named their daughter after not only her best friend but also the woman that she was very much in love with. Pick a struggle Teddy at this point she's seeming confused more than anything else.

___________________________________________

Owen

For the past few seasons Owen was one of the characters getting on my nerves but lately he's been fine. He hasn't redeemed himself yet but his probation is going fine. Watching this show really shows how good of a person a doctor has to be in order to follow the ethical guidelines. If I had that scum bag for a patient I would have literally just pretended to fail at saving him and let the guy die, (guess that's why the Lord made me suck at Chemistry and Physics) his response to Bob about him being at the devils barbecue was badass, gave me serious season 5 Owen vibes or vibes like when he punched that guy out for disrupting the ER when he was chief, Major Hunt reporting for duty.

As for him and Teddy I can get why he was upset, her he was about to attempt to make amends at probably rekindling a friendship or maybe their relationship and she revels that your daughter is named after her lover, she could have atleast told him that when they were in the naming process, he deserved to know exactly who his child was being named after. I'm kinda a bitch but there was no way I'd feel comfortable having my child named after my partner's lover. On the other hand he should hear her out he has literally cheated twice and both times he sat and was able to share his side of the story and the woman he was with listened to his explanations. Teddy deserves as much, it might hurt but he did the same and Karma unfortunately is still a bitch.

___________________________________________

Bailey

(I just wanted to give her a hug the whole night.)

She has a really unhealthy habit of working through her grief, first her miscarriage and now through the death of her mom. I'm honestly sad that Ben had to be the one to comfort Tuck and tell him his grandmother had even died (she's always so busy, Ben is pratically the one raising him at this point.) And I'm also upset that I haven't gotten to see Ben being there for her either. I'm assuming it might be a protocol on the sets.

At least she took time off of the cases, I understand why she didn't want to go home as a doctor she has the highest risk of transporting the virus, but her mind understandably wasn't going to be in the doctoring game. I really thought they were gonna make her freeze up and accidentally kill a patient or something, but at least they didn't go down that line. And what even happened to her dad? did he take the Covid test? Wheres he staying now? Is he safe?

The conversations between her and Deluca were sweet, it's another unexpected friendship, before the only one she really disclosed any details of her life with was Richard but now they're opening her support group which is fine. I'm also glad that Deluca was able to look past the whole fiasco last season and hold no grudges. She has now fully redeemed herself completely, she's still my all time favorite character but from season 13 to probably mid season 16 she really had some storylines and scenes that irked me to watch and made me question some things, but now she's back on track at least to me.

Also I know that Richard is the chief of chiefs but how are they just gonna let him take back over the surgery unit like that again? I mean I did miss him as chief but now Bailey just basically seems like a regular old surgeon with a fancy office, idk it just seems kinda weird to me.

___________________________________________

Jackson

Not only carrying on the work and teachings of Mark Sloan but also using his boatload of cash to rescue a patient's mother from racist police who should have been the ones actually in prison. That was basically it for him though.

___________________________________________

Oml I honestly almost forgot she was even really in the episode. She had so little screen time. She's still in the middle of transitioning to OB. I have no issue with that because OB's still can do surgery, so we'll still get to see her and she'll be happy again plus it's about time that Grey's cashes in that Regulars card on Carina. We see her on Station 19 as an accessory I want to see the Jo and Carina tag team.

___________________________________________

Amelia

Not really much in this episode. No content with Link she just did surgery to save the scum with Owen. They may have made a mediocre couple but they work good as friends. Also I'm assuming she's off of maternity leave now? Did they mention that I'm not sure but she's back now.

___________________________________________

Richard

Not much of a storyline, he made the decision to put Meredith on the Vent and is busy running the hospital as the chief of the hospital again I guess. And also spitting the much needed facts that Teddy needed to hear.

___________________________________________

Tom

They're finally showing more of Tom's good side, I mean I always liked him and saw the potential in his character but they never really showed his soft side for a prolonged period like they did today. May I just say I enjoyed his and Meredith's friendly banter they have the same lowkey dark humor and at least it would have taken their minds off of being sick especially for him because he basically has no one else. Hearing him open up about his son and expressing how he'd do anything to hear him say dad again was sad I can only imagine his pain. Meredith was his reason for holding on especially after he had to witness his roommate die from Covid, the same thing he's suffering from right before his eyes and now Mer back unconscious this time with a tube down her throat I'm just really hoping that he keeps the faith, the last thing we need is a death right now.

___________________________________________

Meredith

(God damn it Mer all you had to do was stay awake.)

For a few brief moments all was right with the world Meredith was awake and everyone was happy and then she just had to go be Wonder Woman and over exert herself, but that's the thing they would have probably needed armed guards at the doors to keep her from putting someone else's life above her own, its one of her best qualities and at times one of her worst. I knew it was too good to be true when she was awake and laughing. It was giving me Mark Sloan final episode vibes. They better not kill her off that would be the worst ending for me, what about the kids? Step off the damn beach Mer you've gone through too much to let Covid take you out. On the other hand this gives us more beach scenes. It's more unlikely to have a live character return but there's still lots of dead ones to choose from, her mother is always a likely suspect, Denny loved being on the show and I think Breaking bad had its final season, Mark is a toss up based on how he cut ties with the show and Lexie is also a toss up because she is filming Supergirl in another country, however anything is possible with Grey's. I thought the beach scenes were over because she was waking up but look how wrong I was. All I hope is that they don't kill her off its unlikely because she's the main character but still its Grey's they like to go out with a bang.

___________________________________________

Deluca

I left him for last because to me he really did have the biggest storyline of the night.

Firstly I'm glad to see that at least part of the earliers season's Deluca has returned. I loved him as the passionate, badass and almost cocky guy as well but I always missed his more compassionate and softer side more. I'm glad to see it back and I'm also glad to see that he's taking his meds and resting, and I can confirm that having support is a needed factor in treating mental health. As strange as it was seeing the Bailey and Deluca chat it's good that they both have each other. They both suffer from mental illnesses and can relate to each other on a different level. They have me wondering now if they're going to use his mental health issues as a way to separate him and Mer, or use it as the reason why he pursued her, kinda like how they tried to blame Amelia's tumor for her bad decisions and then used it to break her and Owen up. I guess we'll just have to see where Merluca will go from here or if it will manifest Merhaynes instead.

Now onto the big stuff, the whole sex trafficking thing the whole episode I was literally yelling at the tv for either Deluca, Bailey or Carina to see that bitch, the moment it was connected that the kidnapper was involved in trafficking and she showed up I knew shit was about to go down. My heart was racing when I saw her with Schmitt. I really thought she was going to attack him with how sus she was being, luckily she had to go to avoid further suspicion. They need to put security on those girls' door. They've been through enough. If she goes to finish off Bob then no one cares but the girls don't deserve to go through anything else and Deluca after seeing her decided to go after him himself instead of calling the police, granted the police wasn't doing anything helpful but the last thing we need is for him to go after her himself like Superman and trying to save the day. At least Carina went with him so she can help talk him down if necessary but there's only so much she can do.

___________________________________________

There are too many damn superheroes in that hospital.

___________________________________________

My questions are:

• Will both Tom and Meredith make it out of the Covid sickness or will one or even both of them die?

• Will Teddy finally make her mind up so that the Teddy, Tom and Owen love triangle can finally have an ending?

• Who the hell is coming to the beach next? And can they tell Meredith to get her ass off of the beach and never return until she's like 80?

• Will Superman, I mean Deluca save the day without needing medical attention afterwards? Or worst yet needing a casket?

• Is Jo actually switching specialties?

• Are they going to go after the girls or kill Bob instead?

• How is it going to go with Maggie and Winston now that he has arrived in person?

• And lastly and most importantly what am I supposed to do with my Thursday nights until March 4th.

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sepublic · 4 years

Text

Musical Car!

What’s interesting is that the musical has a sign advertising Jesse’s name; Did he stop by the Musical Car at some point and inspire the denizens there with a speech about empathy, and how differences are okay? We know that had to have taken place prior to him, Lake, and Alan Dracula entering the Carnival Car, meeting The Cat, etc. Either way, I’m not at all surprised that someone as open and friendly as him would say such things, especially with an unconventional friend like Lake; And obviously he stuck by his words in the end, didn’t he?

Lemme tell you though… I was legit disturbed by that raid, as well as seeing those poor denizens get legitimately hurt and injured for no reason at all, and that ONE decapitated dude almost getting wheeled, only to be converted into Simon’s thing; Like, screw you Apex. That’s what makes Simon and Grace interesting; I’ve always imagined the concept of more problematic protagonists for this series, so it’s not much of a surprise to see Book 3 dive into this! Given how much more, well… WORSE Simon and Grace are, pehaps it’s not all-too surprise that their arc was confined to HBO Max, given the even more mature tone set by them and their actions!

Honestly, those two rapidly switch and range from terrible, nasty jerks I want to punch, to misfits with banter and chemistry, and plenty of comradery; Especially for people they DO care about! It really drives the point home that not every bad person is PURE evil, like they don’t spend every waking moment plotting how terrible they can be, and most don’t even consider themselves as bad! It’s disconcerting, but a good look into their mindset; With Grace genuinely trying to be nice and caring to the kids and not hurting their feelings, but also repeating Amelia’s lies about the train denizens being there for the passengers’ benefit, and… More on that later.

Also- Glad to see Grace make fun of Simon’s fashion sense and acknowledge it, but at the same time… Either he was ten when he began to wear socks with sandals, AND/OR he was ten when he first met Grace; Presumably on the Infinity Train, although the idea of two individuals knowing one another PRIOR to boarding it is also fascinating! Especially given how Book 2 discussed the idea of fate and pre-determination in one’s paths and all…

It’s interesting to see that not all Apex kids are against the denizens, like some DO want to make friends with them (albeit in a very invasive manner), but Grace and Simon just shut them down. I have to wonder if they themselves also had a similar moment with Amelia, only to be brutally shut down; And Amelia is objectively worse than those two considering how much higher her number is, and how SHE was the one who started this dumb ideology in the first place (instead of just being taught it at a vulnerable moment in her life like everybody else)!

What’s worth noting is that Simon has a device that can detect the presence of other passengers, which is both VERY cool and VERY useful; I have to wonder if it’ll detect Hazel in the Jungle Car however. Given the speculation of her being a train denizen, it’d serve as neat, subtle foreshadowing as to her true nature, and I can see the show touching upon this! Also, the aesthetics of that device reminds me of what The Cat would own; Given how she’ll make a return this Book and has had a run-in with at least Grace in the past, I can easily see it being something she’d own. She IS a collector of useful things, after all… And I have to wonder if maybe The Cat was even a companion of Simon or Grace; Or maybe even Amelia! Perhaps the Passenger-Detector was a ‘gift’ from Amelia…

(I mean, they HAVE to bring her back in Book 3, given how her ideology and actions are a direct consequence of everything that happens, and would fit nicely into her eventual redemption arc. Not to mention it’d give a fascinating insight as to what was going on in her mind when she indoctrinated the Apex.)

Neat detail seeing the Unfinished Car with those corgi diplomats, and nice joke with that one turtle talking to what’s later revealed to be a phone with a line that’s already cut anyway! Grace breaking her Harpoon Pack makes sense; She wasn’t seen with one in the trailer and posters, and I guess it’d help ‘balance’ things if only one protagonist had a Harpoon Pack; So they can’t just skip over cars on their way back!

Speaking of a way back; We have a set number of cars leading back to the Mall Car, so in other words we have a way of keeping track of the journey’s progress! It IS worth noting that the cars could always rearrange… It’s interesting to learn that cars apparently don’t move when passengers are inside; I always assumed that sometimes they might’ve and a passenger wouldn’t notice because all the cars look identical from the outside, and also being inside a pocket-dimension kind of skews around with the sensation of what’s going on outside. It’s possible that Simon and Grace actually felt the movement because of the Unfinished Car’s unusual nature…

Regardless, after that disturbing opening scene it makes sense that One-One is stepping in! Given how he values the passengers more than the denizens (as seen with his second and final interaction with Lake), it makes me wonder how much he actually CARES; Or if he can’t afford to have people ‘breaking equipment’, and/or is mostly doing this to lean the Apex towards becoming better people by confronting them over their actions! At this point, they may end up pushing One-One too much and he’ll have to send in his Steward…

Getting onto some existential crisis, the cruel thing about Simon and Grace saying that the denizens are made for them is… They’re actually kind of right? NOT that this justifies at all their wanton, senseless cruelty towards the train denizens… But it ties back to Lake’s existential crisis in Book 2, the realization and likelihood that she (and maybe even the Mirror World) was made purely for the character development of people like Tulip and Jesse! One-One himself outright says in the Book 2 Finale that, YEAH; Train Denizens are supposed to stay on the train because their entire purpose, their entire means of creation was just to fulfill what the passengers need!

…Obviously, using them for raids ISN’T what One-One (and/or whoever made the Infinity Train/the Infinity Train itself) intended… But the disturbing realization still stands that the denizens’ purpose and creation in life is for the betterment of passengers, to accompany them, aid them… In the past, I’ve speculated how some Cars and their inhabitants don’t seem to have much of a personality beyond being a basic caricature to fulfill the ‘theme’ of a car, as well as aiding in passengers’ journeys! And obviously they’re all PEOPLE, but again this ties back into just how real the pasts and worlds of denizens were, as discussed by Mace; The idea that entire histories and cultures have been fabricated, and pre-programmed into the memories of denizens.

Needless to say, it’s very disturbing… And if Simon and Grace ever change their stance on denizens and even start vouching for them, it’d be a brilliant reversal of their beginning attitudes to have them call out One-One for making sapient people for the sole purpose of serving others; Which could be a dilemma for him given how HE may have been made for the purpose of others! Given how Amelia taught the Apex her ideals, and she was Conductor for a time and thus had rather intimate knowledge of the Infinity Train… perhaps what she says about the denizens being just ‘toys’, made for the passengers, isn’t too far a stretch from the truth; Obviously a dark, twisted, and selfish distortion. But it’s emblematic, reflecting a deeper, underlying issue that could lie with the Infinity Train itself.

(Especially since Owen Dennis said that One-One and the Infinity Train can be wrong…)

Given how Amelia made cars with denizens that only ‘turned on’ once a car was considered ‘complete’ (or close to it), it suggests that she knows all about the artificial, pre-programmed nature of denizens because she’s made a few ones; Which when coupled with how she probably tried to make a Fake Alrick, and ultimately realized that a replica would never be the same… Eerily, it lends to the idea that part of what made Amelia realize this at the end of Book 1, was her mindset that denizens are just follow, fake copies of pre-existing things and aren’t even real to begin with.

THAT is a cruel twist; That the very ideas that founded the Apex and caused our issues in Book 3, were low-key what helped Amelia wake up from her fantasy and realize that she needed to confront her issues! Given how high her number is, it only makes sense that while she’s making progress, she STILL has some more fundamental problems to tackle; Specifically the idea that while denizens aren’t the same or ‘real’ as the original, they’re still people and whatnot!

All in all, a VERY fascinating watch! Just eleven minutes, but I’m hooked in; Sure this does tie a lot back to previously-established concepts, but what story-driven show doesn’t? It really recontextualizes and makes you think back about what WAS discussed already and how it changes with the more we learn and explore!

#infinity train #infinity train book 3 #infinity train cult of the conductor #infinity train season 3 #infinity train spoilers #infinity train season 3 spoilers #infinity train grace #infinity train simon #infinity train amelia #analysis #spoilers #it spoilers

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