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the-evisceration-station · 4 years

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What do you think book!addy’s feelings are towards beth? Even tho addy is the protagonist I still find her very hard to read. Which makes her interesting I guess Bc she’s very mysterious. I love and hate that a lot of the story is subtext haha

That’s a very interesting question and I’m sure everybody probably has a different answer for it, as Addy is such an ambiguous character and intentionally so, because she lies to readers as well as herself. Particularly book!Addy, who I do not believe is quite identical to TV!Addy, even if I do think the most important beats of her character remain the same. I’m going to answer this under the cut both because of potential spoilers and because this is probably going to get long.

In this essay, I will…

Well, I think much of the way Addy describes Beth is some of the way Addy genuinely sees her, rather than an entire farce. Beth being something almost goddess like, someone who knows all and always has some kind of agenda. I don’t think Addy’s actually lying to us when she describes viewing Beth in those ways, I think there is a major part of her that does see Beth as some kind of nearly divine entity.

I think she feels this way partially because Beth is something of a spooky kid, she’s violently protective of Addy to the point where “protective” crosses over into “possessive” territory. I also think Beth projects a powerful persona on purpose. Beth very carefully guards her vulnerabilities and she is, after all, Top Girl, the thing that Addy secretly wants to be. And that’s where I think Addy kind of confuses Beth with what Beth has, and what she thinks it means to have that. She thinks Beth is more powerful than she actually is, because Beth has the thing Addy wants and she believes she’d be more powerful herself, if she had it.

However, do I think Addy sometimes exaggerates about how powerful she sees Beth as?

Absolutely. Because Addy also reveals she knows Beth has vulnerabilities. She knows that laughing is Beth’s way of crying. She is fully aware of how detrimental and unhappy Beth’s home life is, another vulnerability. When she wants Beth to give her one more day before going to the cops, and asks her for it, she pleads, “for me,” because Addy knows that she, herself, is one of Beth’s weaknesses. So if Addy knows where the chinks in the armor are, chances are she doesn’t always see Beth as infallible as she acts like she does.

The fact that Addy knows she can get Beth to do what she wants with a “for me,” also implies that she’s aware that she’s the one who actually has more control in the relationship, which diminishes how godlike she constantly describes Beth as.

Look, I have seen some takes that describe the Addy/Beth relationship as “Addy has All The Power behind the scenes and Beth is just her pawn,” as well as “Beth has All The Power outright until Addy stands up for herself” and personally I don’t agree with either. I understand why people would come away with such interpretations, but I personally don’t think it’s either. I think Beth and Addy both have power in that relationship, and that there is push and pull between them. I actually feel that to insist one has all and one has none is to cheapen the complexity between them, the depths of the layers of this twisted relationship they’ve woven together like a tapestry.

However, I DO believe Addy has the lion’s share of the power. Not that Beth has none. I certainly think she has some, and she’s too aware of what Addy is like under the surface to ever be described as her pawn. But that I do feel that Addy has MOST of the power. Because Beth has more exploitable vulnerabilities in places Addy doesn’t. Because Beth will do anything for Addy, and Addy knows it, and Addy knows she can use it when she has to. Because when Beth goes too far, Addy can assert her quiet control and reel her back in line. Some of the other girls notice this much. They point it out more frequently in the show, but it’s book!Tacy who point-blank tells Addy that she’s more afraid of Addy than she is of Beth.

Hence, given that Addy has the lion’s share of the power, I think she has a tenancy to exaggerate how all-powerful she sees Beth as, because if she has to, she can control Beth’s power by proxy. Beth’s power isn’t an inevitability for her. Quite often, it’s even her asset.

What I do think almost feels like an inevitability for her, is her and Beth’s relationship. I actually think Addy has more internal conflict about this than she lets on. She is an unreliable narrator. She doesn’t tell us everything. What she does tell us, is what she wants us to know, and it’s dyed by how she wants us to see it. But I think it’s very interesting that after the fight at cheer camp, and the other girls think they’ll never be friends again, Addy’s just…of the mindset that well, of course they would. Because coming back together, being together is just what they are. Like it’s some force of nature, not a conscious choice. Like it is what it is, the same way gravity exists because it exists and when something is dropped, you can count on it to fall to the ground. Because gravity exists and things do not simply float away, it is not good, it is not bad, it is not fair nor unfair, it just fucking is. And Addy dismisses the other girls’ thoughts, because she thinks they could never understand. Well, I don’t think Addy really understands it either!

I think at this point in the book, Addy truly felt like what she and Beth had was an inevitability of a sort. I don’t think she wanted it to be. I think she genuinely wanted to move away from Beth already, but on this point, I don’t think she was lying to us. Relationships are complicated, codependent relationships specifically can feel very contradictory and confusing. And I think she failed to elaborate more on it, specifically because such feelings were confusing and contradictory, and she didn’t want to think about it any more than she had to. She didn’t want to look at it. There are many things Addy doesn’t like to look at.

Major YMMV on this one because it’s left incredibly ambiguous, but I personally do believe there was a point in time when Addy was in love with Beth. Addy is the one who kissed Beth. Addy is the one who initiated their borderline (or even, some people think it went that far, I personally don’t) sexual encounter.

“I started it, but I don’t even remember why or how,” is her input on her motivation. But when is Addy ever honest about her motives? Almost never, not even to herself.

Also, the hamsa bracelet. The story behind the little charm is that it’s the Hand of Fatima. Fatima was stirring a pot when her husband came home with a new wife, let the ladel slip from her fingers, stirred with her own hand, and didn’t even notice the pain because of how brokenhearted she was. Or, at least, that’s the version of the story presented in the book. The one I know of IRL is different, but for the purpose of discussing Dare Me book canon, I am using the symbolism of the version of the Hand of Fatima lore presented to us in the book.

Beth is Fatima in this story. Addy is the husband. The new wife is Colette. Fatima was the first wife. The husband married his first wife, chances are, he loved her at some point.

I think three things play into Addy no longer being in love with Beth.

1) Beth’s possessive behavior began to feel suffocating and drive Addy away.

2) Addy prioritizes ambition over love and accomplishing her goals wins out over any romance, at the end of the day.

3) Addy represses her sexuality and probably even holds some (unfair) resentment toward Beth for feeling attracted to Beth.

My gray faced friendo, I am going to repeat that: this is all just my take. I think in a subtext loaded book like Dare Me, people are bound to come away with over a hundred different interpretations. I am not the authority on Dare Me. That’s Megan Abbott. I’m not here to crap on anyone else’s interpretation if they feel different.

All of this is what I personally took away from the book and since you asked, that’s what I’m describing. I’ve been giving my own personal take throughout the entirety of this answer, of course, but what I’m going to describe going forward is a lot of me reading in between the lines with my magnifying glass, and may seem less coherent than the above. Okay, here we go.

Point #1: I feel like Beth’s possessive behavior began to drive Addy away, because it’s a lot to deal with. Beth gets dog leashes for all the girls on the squad at one point, but goes as far as to have Addy’s name embroidered on hers. Addy goes to another girl’s birthday party and when she gets home, low and behold, Beth is waiting at her house. RiRi outright refers to Addy as “Beth’s girl,” as if Addy belongs to Beth.

I think Addy even begins to feel like she does belong to Beth, in some ways, and becomes comfortable feeling that way. But eventually, she doesn’t want to feel that way anymore. Their relationship is extremely codependent, okay. I think in both the book and the show, it’s more obvious from Beth’s side, because we’ve reached the point in that relationship where Addy is beginning to pull away. Beth reflexively seems to cling on even tighter, because she feels it happening. But it’s absolutely codependent from Addy’s side too.

Throughout the book, there are many moments (I’m not going to comb for all of them, sorry dude, it’s almost 300 pages) where Addy behaves like she and Beth are an entity unto their own. Even as she’s moving away from her as she develops her bond with Colette, there are instances where Addy will describe sensing things inside Beth. There is even a moment where Addy thinks Beth is touching her ear (the ear Addy scarred, mind you) only to discover, no, she’s touching her own ear!

Plus, Addy feels like she needs others to verbalize her thoughts/feelings for her and for a long time, this person is Beth. Implying that not only does Addy rely on Beth to do such a thing for her, but she believes that Beth can know her thoughts accurately enough to do so.

Point #2: I think ambition outranks love for Addy, because her goals are her endgame. Addy is patient, Addy is deceptive. Addy likes the way power feels and I think it’s one of the reasons she gets so high on her relationship with Colette (even if it is an inappropriate and eventually damaging one). Colette makes Addy feel powerful, probably more powerful than she actually is. I’m going to repeat myself a bit here and even copy/paste some of my thoughts about this from a reply I left to a comment on Ao3 (that poor person, I went into a full on Addy rant) because I feel like what I said previously is relevant here.

*deep breath* When we begin the book/series, I personally believe like on some level, Addy does still have feelings for Beth. However, I do NOT think those feelings are as strong as they once were, and I don’t think they are feelings Addy wants to have. I think the remaining feelings Addy does have for Beth are mostly there because they’ve been in a codependent relationship for so long, one that consumes her identity, and in a relationship like that, even if you don’t want those feelings anymore, they’re difficult to move away from. Because at some point, you don’t really know who you are not just without that person, but without those feelings, even if you want to, even if wanting to is part of the reason you want to get rid of those feelings. Codependency is a strange animal, my friend.

Although Addy’s relationship with Colette was never mutually romantic nor canonically sexual, I do believe there was a part of Addy that was ‘killing’ her remaining feelings for Beth through that relationship. “Love is a kind of killing,” is one of the oft repeated lines of the book, and I’d even say it’s one of the themes. It is Beth who says it, and we see that she feels it too, her love for Addy is killing her. She nearly kills herself out of it (though I’d say other things impacted Beth enough to put her in such a state that suicide felt worth it, even if her feelings for Addy were the primary motive, again YMMV).

The Matt/Colette/Will dynamic is another example of love becoming a kind of killing. Matt kills Will for Colette. If we believe what she tells Addy, then he acted on his own in doing so and it was an accident. If we don’t believe her, she might’ve even been the little worm in Matt’s ear who told him to do it. Either way, he killed for love. None of the audience really cares for their hetero nonsense, because Matt is sexist and both Colette and Will are predatory people, but nonetheless, their debacle largely impacts the story. And it supports the idea that “love is a kind of killing.”

I believe love as a kind of killing is something Addy weaponizes for her own development. To her own detriment as well, because it ends up taking her to dangerous places. Even so, I think Addy had/has some lingering feelings for Beth she uses forming a bond with Colette to metaphorically ‘kill’ inside herself. Like finishing off an already mortally wounded animal, if you will. This would also support “love is a kind of killing” as a recurring theme.

Addy’s relationship with Colette gave her a crutch and a new outlet, and Colette’s encouragement (while the audience knows its manipulation) also gave Addy affirmation for the way she was already feeling about Beth— that she wanted to distance herself from her and come into her own. In addition, Colette seemed to be ‘safer’ because Addy doesn’t have to compete with Colette.

The presence of specifically female socialization is very palatable in the book. The way the girls slut-shame each other. The way other people see them, the feminine appeal of cheerleading. Others take the glitz and the glam of it at face value without understanding the more masculinely-coded things that go into it, like dedication and athleticism. Colette is a villain, no doubt, but you have to give the devil her due, and her circumstances are as miserable and empty as they are because she finds herself boxed into traditional feminine roles she isn’t suited for. Although the show is not the book, and I will maintain that I don’t feel they are identical entities, I do think Willa had a lot of interesting input on this in her Build interview, alongside Taveeta and Abbott. Check it out if you have the time—

Wait, where was I?

Right, right, female socialization in Dare Me. Okay, continuing on.

I feel that female socialization also plays an important role in the relationships between the characters, namely the Beth/Addy/Colette dynamic. We live in a culture where women are socialized to tear each other down and compete with each other even outside of the athletic arena. Combine that with the athletic, cutthroat world of cheerleading and you’ve got yourself a powder keg of an environment where those competitive feelings are going to come out full force. Addy, wanting what she wants, is inevitably going to have to view Beth as a rival, romantic feelings or otherwise aside.

Colette feels like a ‘safer’ object of attraction because her cheerleading days are over.

Colette does not pose a threat to Addy’s thirst for power, she can only help her achieve it. I definitely think the lack of Colette posing a threat to Addy’s goals plays into how comfortable she feels with her. I also think, to a teenager with dreams of grandeur already feeling suffocated in a relationship with her peer, this is where the age gap appeals to Addy even as it disturbs us readers.

Again, Addy doesn’t have to compete with Colette, because Colette has aged out of ‘cheerleader’ and into ‘coach.’ Colette is a seemingly self-sufficient adult (initially) who doesn’t spin out the way Beth does, and depend on Addy as heavily as Beth does. Colette represents the agency Addy covets, and feels nearer to when with her.

I mean, we all know things change once a dead body is brought into that dynamic and we all know that Colette is emotionally manipulating Addy for her own purposes. But I’m not talking about Colette’s perspective, I’m talking about Addy’s before all the crime scene hullabaloo. What happens after the night with Will changes things, but up until that point, I think this is much of what Addy got out of her bond with Colette, no matter how inappropriate a bond it was. No matter how much it shouldn’t have been happening.

I will say, I don’t believe Addy ever fully realizes the extent to which Colette was manipulating her, although it’s clear as the book goes on, she realizes some of it. She picks up on things that don’t add up, acknowledges some red flags she initially ignored, and refers to her as a liar at one point.

Wait JJ, why are you talking about Addy and Colette? The question was about Addy and Beth!

Yes, but I think you cannot always separate the two. Because I think many of the developments that occur in the book between Addy and Beth, and the way in which they occur, play out as they do because of Colette’s entry into the story. Abbott said herself that Dare Me is a love triangle. A triangle is connected by all three sides, okay, continuing on…

I think there are things Addy deliberately sought out in her relationship with Colette— I will repeat this because again, I personally view this as part of the theme and part of the answer to your question— including ‘killing’ what remained of her feelings for Beth. I think it’s also very clear that she thinks Colette is the key to getting what she wants and accomplishing her own goals.

But I would go the extra mile and say she projects some of her feelings for Beth onto Colette. I’ve brought this up before, but I will elaborate more about that now.

I think Addy is earnestly attracted to Colette, just as Colette. Yes, even book!Addy. It’s more subtle in the book, but contrast the way she describes Jordy to the way she describes Colette. Her fascination with the way Colette looks when Will is fucking her. It speaks of attraction and that’s perfectly fine. It’s normal when teens have crushes on adults, what isn’t normal is when adults indulge those crushes. When adults pick up on the cues Colette does, and choose to fan the flames instead of snuffing them out. That’s the part that’s fucking scary.

But I also think she projects her feelings for Beth onto Colette and I think that helps explain why Addy latched onto Colette so quickly. When Addy messes around with Jordy, she does it because Colette points him out. And when she tells Colette about it later and Colette doesn’t even seem to remember him, Addy is taken aback, almost offended… and yet, just a couple of pages later, she’s disparaging the girls who do similar things for Beth.

“…hitching jeans low and flashing thongs at security guards. Beth likes to make these girls run.”

Colette and Beth also share some notable similarities. Both can be cold, cutthroat, have calculating thought processes. Colette even looks like Beth in the book. Addy also sort of tries to recreate a ‘better’ version of the bond she had with Beth, with Colette and this is where I stop and I’m like, man, what a weird freakin’ kid. Addy, smh. But you see it, right?

Addy flips for her coach like she flips for her captain. Ties the same bracelet Beth once tied on her wrist onto Colette’s wrist. Does the thing with Jordy very comparable to the things other girls do when they’re trying to impress Beth. Uses Colette specifically when she wants to become her own person, but can’t quite do so yet, because she’s so used to her lifelong codependence with Beth.

And you know how earlier I mentioned that Addy can control Beth when she has to? How the control Addy has over Beth is a quiet, deceptive thing?

Well I think that’s something that Addy projects onto Colette too. Addy is so used to being able to assert that quiet control and maintain the relational power (which is not the same kind of power Addy is seeking endgame) with Beth, that when she begins using Colette as Beth’s substitute, she doesn’t realize she doesn’t have it anymore. I think that’s one of the things that gets her into hot water later, because she absently assumes she’s going to be ‘safe’ with Colette the way she is with Beth, have that ability that she does with Beth to reel things back before they go too far…but she doesn’t.

Addy uses Colette as Beth substitute. But Colette is not Beth. Beth is spooky. Addy is scary. Colette is terrifying. Addy can’t take control of Colette the way she can of Beth. Colette is an adept master manipulator, an adult who has years of experience that Addy lacks. Colette is better at her game than Addy is at hers, and Addy gets in deep shit partly because she doesn’t recognize that.

I would actually compare the Colette/Addy situation a bit to the Kurtz/Beth situation in the show. There are things Beth wants out of Kurtz, she talks to him because she plans to use him, and it inevitably has devastating consequences for her. Kurtz is a predator. And he’s better at his game than Beth is at hers.

The situations are not identical. The consequences are not the same. But both are exemplary of teens being naive fools and thinking they have some control in situations they definitely do not, with people they couldn’t hope to.

Addy gets what she thinks she wants in the end. I’ve addressed why I think this isn’t as cracked up to be as she thinks it is in another post, but that’s not really relevant here. Addy chooses to pursue having her own power above all, and it’s Beth who winds up giving it to her, not Colette. But I think Addy needed to eliminate her feelings for Beth to actually get there, or even if she didn’t actually, it’s what she felt she had to do and most of those feelings were deteriorating already because of Beth’s possessive behavior.

Point #3: I personally believe Addy represses her sexuality. And I do think that plays into how she views Beth, both when she had feelings for her, and when those feelings began to die. I feel Addy harbors some subconscious resentment toward Beth along the lines of a “I don’t want to be like this, but you make me feel this way, and I hold it against you” type deal. However, again, I think that’s a subconscious feeling rather than something Addy is cognitively aware of, and actually, I don’t think it’s separate from how she’s fed up of Beth suffocating her. I believe it only feeds into that feeling and makes it stronger, enhancing her frustration.

Addy is often very cruel when she describes Beth. I think there’s a bit more to it than the inevitability of viewing Beth as a rival outside her control and somewhat within it, the possessive behavior Beth suffocates her with.

I think forgetting that she and Beth had a borderline sexual encounter was repression on her part. I also think this line;

“…and who need to talk of such wonders? We nestle them away, deep in the fury at the center of us, where things can be held tightly, protected, and secretly cherished as a special notion we once held, and then had to stow away,”

wasn’t just about Beth. I think it was about Beth and just like, pursuing girls in general. At least openly. I’d go out on a limb and say another one of the things that drew Addy to Colette was because Colette was a ‘safer’ objection of attraction in the sense that the likelihood of something happening between them was very low. Fantasize safely from the closet, kinda deal. But maybe Addy’s less aware of her sexuality, or at least confronting it than I’m giving her credit for. I mean, she looked up RiRi’s skirt and was all like, “why are other girl’s panties more interesting than your own?”

Addy. Addy, baby. Why do you think.

Oh, and I think Addy kissed RiRi without telling us! At the marines’ party, Addy and RiRi are hanging and then this scene happens.

“She’s fumbling with her phone, trying to send a text. Because it’s all okay because these are Will’s men and nothing bad could ever happen, one of them is pressing our heads together, wanting us to kiss.

“Always ready,” he says. “Always there.””

Then RiRi hugs Addy and starts in about how she couldn’t be close to Addy before, because of Beth. But that’s the thing. It just has that creepy ass adult man trying to make these teen girls kiss, then goes into some dialogue, Addy never actually explains what happens in that moment. If the guy made them kiss or if he let go of them. If either of them protested or just went along with it.

I personally believe they did kiss and I believe Addy doesn’t mention it for two reasons.

1) She’s trying to convince herself and us readers that Will is safe to be around, ergo his men must be too. But some grown ass dude physically trying to force teen girls to kiss each other is obviously a fucking creeper. Will is also a fucking creeper.

2) She enjoyed kissing RiRi and doesn’t care to elaborate on what enjoying that was like, because doing so would mean confronting her sexuality. Her sexuality being one of the many things Addy doesn’t really confront.

Wow, that was a long ass essay. In this essay, I done did. So that is my interpretation of Addy’s feelings for Beth. Feel free to take ‘em or leave ‘em, maybe we don’t feel the same way and that’s totally cool. But you asked, so I answered. That is what I feel is going on with all that mess there.

This essay probably has a shit ton of typos and for that I apologize, but I can’t comb through all this now. This long as hell and I’m hungry, I need to go eat.

#dare me #addy hanlon #addy hanlon meta #beth cassidy #colette french #anonymous

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sinsbymanka · 4 years

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Fic prompt 74 because I have got to see what you do with it.

I decided this would be my inauguration into @dadrunkwriting so I hope y'all enjoy! (@thatdreadbitch asked for this one too!)

Prompt was: "it's only just a little bit illegal."

Pairing: Cadash/Varric, but mostly centered on platonic friendship Cadash/Cassandra.

Modern AU set in same universe as GwtAT.

Enjoy!

"I'm sorry." Hawke's sharp elbow slammed onto the table and she cupped her pointed chin in her hand, staring incredulously at the Seeker. "You've never committed a crime?"

From the corner of her eye, Maria examined Cassandra's color rising with a surge of fond amusement. The woman accidentally tipped her abysmal hand in Maria's direction as she answered. "I have not."

Cassandra discarded one card and retrieved another rather stiffly, but Hawke’s attention had been caught. Maria watched the woman narrow in on the chink in the Seeker’s armor with brutal efficiency.

"Speeding? Illegally downloading music?" Hawke supplied, her meager attention span finally falling away from the game completely. "Andraste's chafed nipples, Seeker. Everyone has committed a crime."

"I have never illegally downloaded music and I have always used appropriate signaling devices in an emergency requiring high vehicle speed." Cassandra sat, ramrod straight, and Hawke swung her bewildered gaze to Varric beside her. She moved so quickly, long human arms flailing in shock, she very nearly toppled both their beers. Varric caught them with barely enough time to spare, piercing the human with a chagrined expression Hawke ignored.

Maria deftly used the distraction to slip the card under Cassandra's discarded one up her sleeve while drawing her own. Four knights it was, she thought smugly.

"Varric!" Hawke mock whispered, blissfully unaware of Maria’s cheating and scheming. "You found me a unicorn."

Dorian barely hid his smirk behind his own cards. Bull actually laughed out loud.

"Many people do not commit crimes." Cassandra answered in a mechanical, clipped tone, still blushing under Hawke's wide-eyed scrutiny.

"Not in this room." Varric muttered under his breath. Since the two of them still weren't exchanging much beyond death glares, Cassandra ignored him.

"Gotta point, yeah?" Sera mused, tapping her cards impatiently on the table. "How much time in the block you think we all could get between us?"

The amount of lyrium Maria smuggled all over Thedas alone had to be worth at least twenty five years. To say nothing of her sundry other crimes. Hawke warmed to this new subject immediately, casting her bright blue eyes around the table. "Right! So, we've got three witches who've never seen the inside of a circle, that's a crime. Plus one unregistered spirit… familiar… whatever.” Hawke waved away Cole airily. “Varric here has bribed everyone and their mother in addition to..."

"Try not to throw me under the bus, Hawke." Varric asked genially. Hawke sighed with an air of weary martyrdom and skipped the rest of Varric’s criminal resume to eye the skinny elf instead.

"Vandalism, theft, and some assault charges for Sera. Me too, if I'm being honest. Madame de Fer over there has probably had at least three people assasinated…"

"If I did, they'd never prove it darling." Vivienne gingerly folded her cards and shook her head. "I fold."

"Bull, I'm willing to bet you’ve broken some asshole’s bones. At the very least, you haven't paid for music in twenty years." Hawke guessed.

“I refuse to answer any potentially incriminating statements.” Bull folded ages ago and seemed content to simply watch their group chatter. He, at least, knew better than to gamble with Maria. Nobody else seemed to have learned, yet.

“Every Grey Warden I know seems to have a penchant for criminal activity of some sort, so we’ll assume Blackwall’s guilty. He’s got the long, sad face for it anyway.” Hawke’s smile, brilliant as always, seemed just a bit more sharp when she pointed it in Blackwall’s direction. Although for the life of her, Maria couldn’t understand what the issue was.

“I fail to see…” Blackwall grumbled.

“And you…” Hawke gestured in Maria’s direction with a card and a rather softer smile. Maria raised an eyebrow silently, inviting the critique with no hidden amount of amusement. “Lyrium smuggling. Assault. Illegal weapons. Possession of drugs with intent to distribute… That’s just what’s on your rap sheet, but I bet…”

“Is this really necessary?” Cassandra prickled defensively, shifting so that her body was angled just a bit towards Maria’s, giving her another sneak peak at the Seeker’s cards.

“You have at least one library book you never returned.” Hawke finished with a mischievous grin, tossing the card in Maria’s direction. “And I think it was one of Varric’s.”

It was too outrageous not to laugh at, so Maria allowed Hawke’s irresistible charm and charisma to wash her away as everyone else erupted into laughter as well. Tears of mirth sprung to her eyes and she wiped them quickly, watching Varric’s hands vanish underneath the table in the ensuing chaos.

She banged her knuckles on the gleaming surface, grinning at Varric’s disgruntled look in her direction. “Varric Tethras put that card back in your pocket or so help me.”

Varric sighed, exasperated. Hawke frowned and rolled her shoulders apologetically in his direction. “Sorry Varric, I tried.”

She knew they were trying to gang up on her. With a mumbled curse, Varric threw a card on the discard pile and scowled at the one he picked up. Maria turned her attention to Cassandra.

“Fold.” She ordered, plucking Cass’s cards from her hand. “Before you end up losing your shirt.��

“But I…” Cassandra protested.

“No you weren’t.” Maria stated firmly. “Trust me. Chances of you drawing that card are slim to none.”

Maria would know, after all. She had it in her other sleeve.

“The only way to get better at cards is to commit more crimes.” Hawke pointed out. “Solid fact. You’ve clearly never lived, Seeker.”

Cassandra’s color rose even higher and Maria wondered if, perhaps, the teasing had gone on long enough. After all, Maria suspected that there was a healthy dose of romanticization in Cassandra’s view of the Champion of Kirkwall. That would, of course, be Varric’s fault. And she didn’t think Hawke truly meant to be a little cruel, but nobody was immune to the tension between their favorite author and Cassandra. Hawke couldn’t be expected to not pick a side.

“Alright then.” Maria laid her own cards, face down, and stood from her chair. “I’ve got an idea.”

A brilliant, reckless, and unbearably pleasant one that would derail this entire conversation and make Hawke lay off Cassandra.

“What kind of idea?” Cassandra asked suspiciously.

“Crime.” Maria supplied helpfully. “C’mon, up you go.”

“I cannot…”

“Does this mean you’re forfeiting, Princess?” Varric asked smoothly with a smug grin.

Maria could have let him win. A tiny part of her, in fact, kinda wanted to. The rest of her, unfortunately, was far too competitive to listen. Besides, Varric could have tried to reign Hawke in too. He didn’t, and therefore, she showed no mercy.

She leaned over the table, completely aware of the way her shirt dipped and exposed her cleavage. She pulled the next card from the deck, secretly gloating that she’d indeed counted them right when she shuffled and it was the Angel of Death she revealed. Varric groaned when he saw it and rubbed his chin with his hand gruffly. Maria maintained her steady eye contact and flipped her own cards over in triumph.

Four knights, which certainly beat the two songs and a serpent she thought Varric had.

“Damnit Cadash.” Varric swore. “Where are you hiding all these cards?”

Hawke broke into guffaws and nearly toppled off her chair. Maria spun elegantly and just about hauled Cassandra out of her chair. “Let’s go.”

“Can I come?” Sera asked pertly, scrambling her own long limbs out of her chair. “Love crime! It’s so good, yeah?”

“Inquisitor…” Cass pleaded.

“Course you can.” Maria declared. “Everyone can. Any property damage can go on Varric’s tab, it’ll be a small dent in the money he owes me.”

She dragged Cassandra down the hotel hallway, cheerfully disregarding the boisterous noise that echoed from their party. The good thing about mass civil disruption and zombies crawling from a lake somewhere had to be the good prices they got on mostly empty hotels. In fact, Maria was fairly certain nobody else but them and the lone staff person, hopefully sleeping somewhere at this time of night, inhabited this hotel halfway to Crestwood.

She pressed the elevator button and waited, arm linked in Cassandra’s to keep her from fleeing. The Seeker’s expression in the steel doors looked rather grim. “I am only going along with this to keep you out of trouble.”

“Sure you are.” Maria agreed breezily.

“The history books will paint me as a zealot led astray by a dwarven madwoman.” Cassandra continued to mumble.

“Could be worse.” Maria pointed out with a sly smile aimed up at Cassandra’s stony features. “You could be the Dwarven madwoman in the tale.”

Despite herself, Cassandra’s lips twitched in a ghost of a smile. “The Inquisitor was hilarious. That will be what they remember, mark my words.”

“Ancestors, I hope so.” The doors opened and Maria tugged Cassandra in, the rest of their group piling after until she began to worry they’d far exceeded the maximum weight capacity. She ended up pressed rather tightly between Blackwall and the Seeker in the corner.

“What floor is this mayhem taking place on?” Hawke asked brightly.

“First floor, please.” Maria shouted back. The door shut and the elevator lurched threateningly.

“I do hope nobody has discovered a sudden fear of tiny, enclosed spaces.” Dorian decreed waspishly. “Fasta vass, Bull, can you please remove your armpit from my face?”

“Only if Sera gets her bony ass out of the way.”

Solas sighed, wearily, from the opposite corner, although she certainly couldn’t see him. Maria craned forward, brushing Blackwall’s side as she craned to watch the numbers dip.

They spilled out of the too small box immediately and Maria shoved past everyone with Cassandra still held tight in her grip. She marched forward toward the scent of chlorine, the strong chemical odor pervading this floor.

She didn’t stop until she got to the glass doors, fogged on the inside, with the neat little plaque spelling out the hotel pool’s hours of operation, which ended promptly at ten pm. Maria reached for the door handle with her other hand and tugged, found it locked just as she thought it would be.

“Well, Cass.” Maria bent double to examine the lock closely. A simple, cheap little mechanism she could have undone in two seconds flat. “Are you ready to do a b and e?”

“A b and e?” Cass echoed.

“Breaking and entering.” Maria reached for the lockpicks in her coat, wrapped in the pretty little leather case with the Inquisition’s symbol on it. She could have laughed when she saw them. Only Josephine would think to order such classy accessories for their not-quite-reputable Inquisitor.

She loved them to death, the same way she loved the chattering laughter around her, the way she loved Cass’s semi-skeptical glare. It felt… it felt like being alive again. For the first time in ages. “You were serious.” Cass stated. “About the criminal portion of the evening.”

“It’s only just a little bit illegal.” Maria soothed. Really, more of a trespassing than a breaking and entering. She slipped her picks into the locks and rotated them deftly. She grinned up as she felt the tumblers release, swinging the door open and waving Cassandra through it. “Congratulations. You’ve now committed a crime. Or at the very least, you’re an accessory to one.”

“Has the void frozen over?” Hawke asked from somewhere behind them. “Has anyone checked?”

“Pft. Can’t check the void, but Solas can tell you how wibbly the veil is.”

Resigned, Cassandra stepped into the hot, humid air. With a cheer, the rest of the group surged forward. Sera whirled around, taking in the sheer, glimmering liquid glowing in the dim lights above. “Now we get naked, right?”

Maria wasn’t going to let that challenge go unheeded. She dropped her hands to the bottom of her t-shirt and tugged it up, over her head with one sensuous motion. Sera whooped with joy and began tearing off layers, shoes and her leather jacket flying in all directions. Maria tossed her own shirt onto an abandoned pool chair and looked over her shoulder at the gawking members of her team.

Her team. Dorian was trying not to laugh, Vivienne simply sighed and meandered to a pool chair of her own, and Solas was hiding his amusement behind his palm. Hawke rushed forward as quickly as Sera did, whipping her own shirt off and tossing it with the same joyful exuberance. Bull nonchalantly began undoing his pants at the same time Maria dropped her fingers to her jeans and met the eyes of the two men staring at her with unreserved heat.

“Can’t go swimming like that.” She huffed, turning her back on them. She could still feel the smooth, fiery gazes tracing her form. Blackwall and Varric acted like they’d never seen a half naked dwarf before. That could, she supposed, be true for Blackwall but it certainly wasn’t for Varric.

“Pale. Pretty. Light that dances through the air. Sun rising in the east. Trace her ribs with my knuckles, shoulder with lips, make her…”

“Maker’s balls.” Blackwall swore. “Cole!”

Varric simply chuckled, low and breathless as Maria slipped out of her jeans.

“This is more inappropriate than criminal.” Cassandra crossed her arms over her chest, but her disapproving glare was leveled at the men behind her instead of Maria herself.

“C’mon Cass. All work and no play makes us all one hundred percent more likely to give up and let the world go to shit.” Maria cajoled. “Tell them to turn around if you don’t want them staring.”

“You heard her.” Cass snapped waspishly, although that certainly wasn’t what Maria meant at all. They could stare if they wanted, Maria had nothing to hide. Still, Cassandra nodded and ripped her own tank top over her slender, muscled form. Just in time for it to avoid getting wet as both Hawke and Sera raced past, jumping into the pool together and sending splashes of water everywhere. Cassandra sighed as she slunk out of her own trousers and tossed them with Maria’s.

“Madwoman.” Cassandra repeated gruffly.

“Zealot.” Maria challenged. Cass laughed, a small huff as they approached the edge of the pool. “On three?”

“One.” Cassandra started with the same fatalistic determination she brought to slaying demons.

“Two.” Maria counted, reaching to grasp Cass’s hand in her marked one and looking up with a smile she hoped was encouraging.

Cassandra’s returning smile was almost fond. “Three.” They said together, leaping from the edge, the water embracing them. Maria surfaced almost immediately, feet scrabbling on the slick bottom. She could just barely keep most of her head out if she stood on her tiptoes. Cass surfaced nearby, sleek as a seal.

“It’s very warm.” Maria called out, pulling herself to the edge on her folded arms, impishly grinning at the remaining party staring at them. “Come on in.”

“Well.” Varric smirked, unbuttoning the rest of his shirt while Maria tried not to observe with rapt fascination. “Don’t mind if we do.”

Cassandra kicked away with a disgusted noise and Maria couldn’t quite hide her grin. Andraste, the two of them would drive her nuts if they kept this up. They were both so damn stubborn, so convinced Maria needed protection from the nefarious designs of the other one. As if they both didn’t have gooey soft hearts underneath it all.

As if she wasn’t beginning to trust them both more than she trusted almost anyone else.

Maria played at examining her fingernails with an air of casual disinterest as Varric slipped his own pants off and swaggered to the edge of the pool. He didn’t jump in, like the rest, but leisurely lowered himself down, giving her plenty of time to ogle his rippling muscles, the sturdy broadness of him, the dense hair covering his chest, his arms, his legs.

Off limits, she reminded herself. He was a friend because that’s what they both needed, what they both wanted. A simple, uncomplicated friendship. Anything else would be a crime, a sin.

But there wasn’t anything wrong with looking.

Nor, she thought bitterly, was there anything wrong with a bit of crime.

#maria cadash #modern magic #modern!thedas #modern thedas #girl with the arrow tattoo #varric x inquisitor #cadash x varric #inquisitor x varric #varric romance #varric tethras #cassandra pentaghast #dragon age cassandra #modern Cassandra #inquisitor cadash #dwarf inquisitor #dragon age inquisition #dragon age varric #dragon age #cassandra inquisitor friendship

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childrenofhypnos · 7 years

Text

Chapter 33: The Calm

Blood bubbled under the pressure of Emery’s hand against her thigh. The faster she hobbled, the faster it came out, and she felt herself getting light-headed from the pain by the time Booling Hall came into view around the corner.

Like all the other dorms, it was empty. The lights were on, but no one was home.

“He’s not going to be in there,” Jacqueline said, striding ahead of Emery. “He’s going to be up at the manor, with everyone else.”

“No he’s not. He wouldn’t have gone there without me. He’ll be…he’ll be pouting in his room.”

“You need a doctor.” Wes’s hand found Emery’s shoulder. She shrugged him off. “You’re bleeding out.”

“I’m still walking.”

She was damn near jogging, but if she lost too much blood, she wouldn’t be able to do anything.

“She stabbed you with her fingers,” Jacqueline snapped. “That’s disgusting. And impossible, and—ugh.”

Emery pushed her way into Booling. She hobbled to the elevator instead of the stairs and jammed her fist down on the button for the fourth floor. Wes and Jacqueline stood by the door, arms crossed. Jacqueline looked worried. Wes looked pissed. Emery wanted to shoot the elevator controls to make it stop pinging.

“I should have shot her,” she said. “I should have shot her.”

Neither of them said anything.

The fourth floor was quiet. Even the denmother was out. All the doors were shut and locked, all the lights off inside the rooms. Nothing had been disturbed, at least—there was no destruction. Emery jogged to Edgar’s door and pounded on it.

“Edgar!”

“He’s not in there,” Jacqueline said.

“Edgar, open the door!”

Wes caught Emery’s wrist. “He’s not here.”

Emery tore her arm away from him and shoved past him, back to the elevator. “Then he’s at the manor.”

“You need to tell the dean what’s happening, and then you need to go to the clinic,” Wes said. “We’ll go to the manor to find Edgar.”

“Do you really think a doppelgänger is going to make it past all those people at the party without them noticing her?” Jacqueline said. “With that hair? There’ll be hysteria. She won’t get anywhere near him.”

Emery swallowed her panic and hit the first floor button on the elevator. Wes and Jacqueline piled in with her once again.

“What if he’s not at the party, though?” she said. “What if he went somewhere else on campus? What if Morrigan finds him, and he’s alone? She moved so fast, he’d never be able to run from her, and he doesn’t even have a weapon to defend himself—”

“Em.” Wes’s voice was low and soothing; his eyes fixed on hers, hypnotic in their absolute blackness. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll find Edgar. We’ll get the campus locked down. She was strong enough to get out, but she’s not that strong yet. And we’ll get your grandfather—he’ll be able to help.”

“We aren’t supposed to tell him.”

The doors slid open. Jacqueline made a small squeak and said, “I think it’s too late for that.”

Grandpa Al swept through Booling’s front doors, followed closely by Ares Montgomery, Lewis, and Kris.

And, peeking out from behind Lewis’s legs, Edgar.

“Edgar!” Emery collapsed to her knees in relief. Wes and Jacqueline both reached out for her at the same time, but she waved them off.

Grandpa Al strode forward, looked her over once, then swept a hand through the air. The ground beneath her bubbled upward, pushing her to her feet. Edgar moved out from behind Lewis and started toward her, but Grandpa Al held a hand out to stop him.

“Grandpa—”

“Enough, Emery,” he said. “Can you walk?”

“I—yes—but—”

“Ares, take Ms. Fenhallow, please. She has violated State law.”

“Wait, what?” Jacqueline did her best look of surprise, but it couldn’t wipe the scent of the Dream off of her. “I didn’t do anything!”

Grandpa Al’s eyebrows rose. “Interesting. Your friends had quite the story about opening Dream gateways.”

Lewis and Kris, faces bright red, shrank back into each other even before wrath swept through Jacqueline’s features.

“We were worried!” Kris said. “You didn’t tell us you were going to try tonight, and when you didn’t show up at the manor, we thought—we thought you’d go in and something terrible would happen!”

“We were going to go in without you anyway!” Jacqueline snapped. Ares rounded her up and led her to the door. “Traitors! All you had to do was keep your mouths shut!”

Her yelling cut off as the doors shut behind them.

“Edgar also came and got me,” Grandpa Al said. He came from your room not ten minutes ago and said you planned to go into the Dream to find your doppelgänger. On our way, we saw you heading in here.”

Only ten minutes? It had seemed like so much longer inside the Dream. Emery glanced at Edgar. He stared at the floor.

He was okay. He was here.

“Grandpa, I can explain everything,” Emery said. “We—I need help.”

“Both of you will come with me back to the administration building.” The thing that had formed behind Emery to push her up now pushed her toward the door, with Wes beside her.

“Mr. Kowalski, Ms. Arevalo, you can return to the party,” Grandpa Al said. “And I would appreciate it if you don’t speak of this to your classmates.”

Lewis and Kris hurried away, pale-faced, into the night.

“Grandpa—” Emery said again.

Grandpa Al’s eyes disappeared behind the light glaring off his glasses.

“Enough,” he said again, and it felt like a hammerfall. “You and Wesley are suspended and under investigation for unsurpervised doppelgänger hunting activities. Starting now.”

Grandpa Al left Edgar with David the Receptionist inside the administration building before he took Emery to a conference room in the back of the building, where a nurse already waited with antiseptics and bandages, and locked Emery inside. She got a final glimpse of Wes’s face before the door closed; it was too quick a look to know if he was trying to tell her not to talk at all, or to tell them everything she knew.

Emery let her armor dissolve so the nurse could work on her leg. She hadn’t dissolved her holsters, so her Peacemakers still rested at her hips, but she only had two shots left. Her head ached like she’d been knocked in the temple with a brick. What focus she had she kept on the window by the table, scanning the sports fields and the path up through Fenhallow Woods, expecting Morrigan to appear there in a cloud of black hair. The trees of the woods shivered in the wind, and it took Emery a moment to realize that she could see the outline of the tops of the trees against the sky. The sky—which had previously been pitch black—had lightened enough to make out the shape of the woods.

“What time is it?” Emery asked.

The nurse looked at her watch. “Almost nine PM.”

Fenhalloween was just starting. They were nowhere near morning.

The nurse left when Ares arrived. He shouldered his way into the room, locking the door behind him, and sat down next to Emery at the long conference table.

He sighed, motioned to her leg, and said, “Bet it hurt when she did that.”

Emery remained very still. “No one did this to me. In Klaus’s dream, there was a nightmare that destroyed a staircase. Lots of debris.”

“A staircase was destroyed and you received only one small puncture wound, and nothing else?”

“It was a dream staircase,” Emery said. “It was weird.”

Ares made a noise and folded his arms across his chest. He’d been in Klaus’s dream—at least, he had if Morrigan had told the truth—he would know the staircase wasn’t like that. His tattoos rippled across his muscles. “Interesting. Emery, I’d like you to tell me your story again. From the beginning, starting from when you were assigned to search for the Sandman. Leave no details out, please.”

She did, but slowly, carefully, trying to remember exactly how she’d told him the story the first time he’d asked. He had to remember it; making her tell it again would reveal the chinks in her armor. And if he found any while he listened, she couldn’t read them on his face. He looked only politely interested, her sentences punctuated by his noises of encouragement.

“We went back to Klaus’s dream to find out more. We told the dean we wanted to. We were given a mission and we wanted to complete it.”

“Your mission was to find the Sandman, not to discover his intentions,” Ares said. “And besides that, you employed a non-dreamhunter to assist you on a mission into the Dream. Not only is that against State law, you also enabled a dreamseeker to exercise their power. Are you aware that that is also against the law?”

Emery felt the back of her neck heat up. “Why, though? She can open gateways and she’s not affected by the Dream’s pressure—why wouldn’t you want to use that asset?”

“There’s a long history between dreamhunters and dreamseekers. All you need to know right now is that those who do not fear the Dream will use it to their advantage. Our lives are given in service to others—we protect ourselves where and when we can.

“Your friends—and Edgar—seemed utterly convinced you were going after your doppelgänger. They said you’d been practicing opening gateways. Why would the three of them be so utterly convinced of what you’d done if you were only continuing reconnaissance on the Sandman?”

“They misheard us. We were speaking in hypotheticals—what we would do if our doppelgängers showed up. None of us are in our Insanity Primes yet—we’re too young to have doppelgängers.”

“I’ve seen younger,” Ares said. “And I’ve seen headstrong students like yourself dive into the Dream headfirst to kill their doppelgängers before they’re strong enough to really fight back. They think it’ll be easier. They think they’ll have an advantage. But the reality is that when we come face-to-face with ourselves, there is no advantage that makes it easy to kill. The most you can hope for is that they attack you, viciously and without mercy, so you have no choice but to fight back.”

Emery met his stare with her own. She said, “I don’t have a doppelgänger.”

A knock came at the door. Ares answered it. Grandpa Al waited on the other side. Something unspoken passed between them, and Grandpa Al said, “May I have a moment with Emery, please?”

Ares stepped out of the room. Grandpa Al stepped in. He locked the door again.

Emery was already out of her chair, the blood pounding in her ears and in her leg. “Grandpa. Where’s Edgar? Is he still with David?”

“Edgar is fine.”

“No, he’s—” She glanced at the door and lowered her voice. “I think he’s in danger.”

“In danger from what?”

“My—my, uh—” She couldn’t even force the word out. Not when it meant Morrigan, not when it was a direct admission. Tears prickled the corners of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. “Grandpa, I think something has been wrong for a long time. I—I lied to you. While we were looking for the Sandman—for Klaus—I found out that he was following us. Following me. There was a picture of my—my doppelgänger in his dream. He’d been following me because he saw her and didn’t know why she was active so early. Then we found her, and she said we were supposed to be together, as a whole, that to kill her wasn’t the best way, and she wanted us to bring her Edgar so that she could merge him with his doppelgänger, and then she stabbed me so she could escape the Dream, and—”

Grandpa Al held up a hand. Emery cut off, breath held, unsure why such a common gesture from him felt like such a punch to the gut. Then, a moment later, she realized the reason:

He wasn’t surprised.

Nothing had changed when she’d said the word. He didn’t look shocked, or scared, or upset. He lowered his hand and removed his glasses to clean them with the small cloth he kept in his pocket. When he put them back on, the reflection of the fluorescent lights hid his eyes.

“You knew,” Emery breathed. “You knew my doppelgänger was active.”

Another long pause. No denial. Disbelief hollowed Emery’s stomach.

“We knew Mr. Warwick was looking into the overthrow of the previous dreamseeker administration of the Hypnos State. We knew he was trying to track down doppelgängers to better understand what the dreamseekers had allegedly discovered about them.” Grandpa Al paused once more. “We knew he’d seen your doppelgänger, and was following you.

“You and Wesley were assigned to find the Sandman because we knew he would come to you. While the two of you looked around the city, we had several teams following in your wake, hoping to catch him in the act.”

“You—you used me as bait?”

“The State does what it must to neutralize threats.”

“You knew my doppelgänger was active and you used me as bait to catch the guy trying to save me.”

“He wasn’t trying to save you, Emery. His only interest is in a utopian dream where we can live without fear. Dreams like that can be more dangerous than any nightmare, because they can’t come true. Believing they can makes us lower our guards.”

Emery felt like her insides were shaking apart one piece at a time. “You’re so sure? Records have been wiped out because the entire Hypnos State believes the dreamseekers were lying about there being a better way to deal with doppelgängers? What they proposed would have saved more of us, and no one even wants to look into it?”

Grandpa Al’s eyebrows twitched, forrowing into a frown for only a second before smoothing back out again. “We are looking into it, Em. But I don’t think you understand how vicious doppelgängers can be.”

“What?” Emery jabbed a finger at her leg. “I don’t understand? I get it, Grandpa, cause that’s all I’ve ever heard. ‘Doppelgängers are vicious, doppelgängers will do whatever they have to do to stay alive’—that was all anyone ever taught us! And then you think it’s okay to use me as bait—” Her voice caught in her throat. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why would you let me run around the city thinking I was okay when I wasn’t? Do you know why it’s active so early?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Are you trying to figure it out?”

Pause.

Anger rushed in Emery’s ears.

“Well, now you know she’s coming after Edgar!” She bit back on the words, stopping herself from all-out yelling. “So serve me my termination papers or whatever so I can kill her before she gets to him!”

Grandpa Al’s voice didn’t raise at all. “You’ll stay here for now, Em. Edgar will be fine. I’ll send Ares back up.”

Back up? They were on the first floor—the only place to come up from was—

“Did—did you take Wes to the Underground?” If Emery’s stomach could have sunk any lower, it would have. Grandpa Al was already striding out the door, closing and locking it before she could reach him. “You took Wes to the Underground? Did you take Jacqueline there, too? Because we tried to do the right thing?” She beat on the door, yelling now, not caring who was listening.

They’d all known this whole time. It wasn’t any kind of stealth that had kept her from being served her termination papers.

Emery screamed at the door and kicked it with her bad leg, which sent a shock of pain racing up her spine. She didn’t care what he said about Edgar being fine—she had to find a way out of here. She had to get Wes and get Edgar—though she wasn’t sure yet in what order—then find Morrigan. She hurried to the window, throwing open the latch and peering outside. The bushes below were thick, but she could climb out. The problem would be avoiding Grandpa Al so he didn’t just grab her and put her back inside again.

Lightning flashed. Emery looked up.

A thick and rolling layer of clouds blanketed the sky above Fenhallow Academy, turning slowly in a wide arc. A sickly green light washed over the sports fields and the woods, and a sense settled over Emery like ozone before a storm, raising the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck.

It wasn’t ozone. Far away, past the edge of the clouds over Fenhallow woods, was the small white sliver of the waning moon. And when gap appeared in the middle of the clouds, there loomed a second moon over the campus, huge and green and bathing the grounds in its light.

The Dream crept over Fenhallow Academy.

“Klaus,” Emery breathed, and lunged for the window.

(Next time on The Children of Hypnos -------> !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SANDMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

#children of hypnos #nightmare hunters #eliza and her monsters #francesca zappia #wattpad #reading #books #free #dreams #nightmares #ya

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