#dana point family photographer | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

anna-anaturistworld · 1 year

Text

November Newsletter - Sharing News In and Around ANW

Welcome to your November 2022 ANW newsletter. This month we take this opportunity to welcome two new advertisers; Broadlands Naturist Sun Club and NaturistCroatia.com more details and links below.

During the last two December's ANW have counted down to the New Year with a daily activity. The countdown to 2023 will be;

"31 Ways to Enjoy Naturism" - Starting with the first choice tomorrow. 31 Ways to Enjoy Naturism

Virtual Meets

Thank you to all the Life and Annual Members who took part in the first two November virtual meet sessions.

In the following virtual meets we will talk about the theme "December 2023 Countdown - Different Ways of Enjoying Naturism". It will cover two sessions for take the different time zones into consideration and these are; Wednesday 7th December 2022 at 21.00 GMT and Thursday 22nd December 2022 at 10.00 GMT.

The links for you to access these sessions will be emailed to Life and Annual Members and added to the relevant Virtual Meet forum topic. If you want to know more about the sessions please visit the Virtual Meets tab below.

Virtual Meets

Our Journey - By A Naturist Family

A Naturist Family - A Journey - A Suggested Reading Order - Earlier this month an ANW member suggested the idea of reading the posts of A Naturist Family in a timeline order. This daunting challenge has resulted in a chronological sequence of A Naturist Family's on-going story, currently with 171 articles, blog posts and videos. Paul Settle writes "You are doing so much for us all. We don't deserve you, or perhaps we do. Keep going."A Journey - A Suggested Reading Order

Broadlands Naturist Sun Club

Broadlands Naturist Sun Club located in Norfolk and set in 25 acres of woodland. They are a family orientated and pet friendly club that welcomes like-minded visitors. You can book to bring your tent, caravan or motorhome, stay for a week in one of the static caravans, or just visit for the day. Take a look at their page Broadlands Naturist Sun Club

Naturist Croatia

NaturistCroatia.com is hosted by Dana and Bob a naturist couple with lifetime experience in tourism and sailing. Dana is your hostess, snorkelling and tourist guide. Bob is your skipper and sailing instructor - if you are looking for a wonderful sailing experience in Croatia please visit their page. Naturist Croatia

If you would like ANW to help promote your naturist endeavour please check out the link below. Promoting on ANW

Groups and Meet Ups

Dana and Bob have created a new group - Sailing Croatia Nude. The idea of this group is to connect all sailors and all those interested in sailing cruises in Croatia. They share their experiences, information, travel plans and organise meetings. If you would like to be a pirate and join this group please click on the tab below.

Visit Sailing Croatia Nude

Naked Label Challenge!

For Nude-vember this year, we invited Life and Annual Members to find a food or drink product with Naked, Nude or another similar worded on its label along with a photograph with it as nature intended. Various members have so far taken part, but it is not too late to get involved in this ongoing project. Click below to find out more.

Take the Challenge

Interviews and Articles

This series is designed to show how rich the naturist community is with fascinating individuals from all walks of life and all over the globe, and this month the interview continues with ANW Member Steve (BOP Badger) and Emma from Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. - Rin and Robin write; "Great interview guys, we agree with so many aspects of your points, especially the impact of "Fast Fashion." Really great to read this, thanks for doing it."

Please share these articles to your friends and followers on other social media platforms and if you would like to get involved yourself, do get in touch and email [email protected] Home page

What is new in the Community Blog Library

Wow - what a busy month of blogging! We share a preview to this months blog posts within the community library.

Our First Time Socially Nude - Adam's Musings shares his first time being socially nude - RnR write "Thanks for writing this Adam, that first time can be tense, but it is so wonderful your wife got out the car and experienced the joy of her first time socially naked."

Our Blogging Journey, with RnR - these regular contributors look back at their journey from home naturists, to social naturists; and how blogging for ANW played a huge role in that - Marc writes "It's always a pleasure to read your posts and comments, and I'm amazed at how a simple concept, getting naked, can bring people from all over the world together."

Is Nudism “Normal”? by Marc who explores the topic with well researched ideas. Steve Kelly writes "Life is a totally unique experience to all of us, even a shared experience like covid lockdowns or the Queen dying, are unique to us all, so in a way normal doesn't really exist."

2022 First Fall Fest by Umberto and Elena - Another naturist and tourist trip! This time in ITALY, to see if it is possible to practice naturism in this Catholic country. - Anna ANW writes "wonderful - looking forward to seeing the continuation."

A Naturist Paradise - The beaches near San José (Cabo De Gata, Spain) by Alan who shares his tourist guide to the naturist beaches near San José, Cabo De Gata. Steve ANW writes "Thanks for sharing this wonderful first blog Alan."

Andy and Patti P - It's winter... what shall we do? Offering their idea of the many things we can now do as naturists. Gareth Danielle write "Great blog post, thanks for sharing."

A Naturist Family - Our Diary # 16 – August, September, October 2022 - A look at the lives of A Naturist Family during the months of August, September and October 2022 - Rich5213 writes "Great piece as always! Time is strange concept, sometimes it feels unbelievable how much has been fitted into a relatively short period."

A Naturist Family - Naked Cooking #15 - Pumpkin, Chickpea and Coconut Curry followed by Pumpkin Mousse - Steve Kelly writes "pumpkins are so versatile it's so funny that people have not seen them as an actual edible vegetable rather than just something to carve a face into."

Every day is a new day, every day can be a nude day. Here’s how! - by Marc where he shares four ways to embrace daily naturism and make simple nudity your preferred choice of clothing. Leyoh writes - "Wonderful advice!"

The Season of the Spirts - by RnR - reflecting on their life in the garden and the similarities to the past. Rich5213 writes "Some really interesting observations of how despite the huge changes in lifestyles and technology there are some almost primal drivers to our patterns of behaviour that retain a connection with the past. And, of course, superbly written."

2022 End Summer Tour - Part 2 / 2 by Umberto and Elena Umberto and Elena continue with the second part of their journey where they continue visiting Croatia and end in North East Italy. Dons says "Your story is inspiring to say the least".

My Naturist Journey - Chapter 4 - by a.C of a.b.y.a. C - Chapter 4 - Starting A Naturist Family a.C writes another wonderful piece and RnR say "What a brilliant blog post, many thanks for sharing this, we agree with so much of what you have written, especially fashion, which is now the second largest polluter on the planet. What an amazing family and outlook you have, it was a joy to read what you have shared."

If you have enjoyed these posts, please do not forget to leave a review. It is quick and easy to do Take me to the Community Blog Library

What is new in the Members Blog Library

"Nude Noel" Christmas song - SimonAndHelen Berriman have requested ANW members to take part in their Christmas Carol video - the deadline is today - but if you are quick they may be able to fit you in.

Rich5213 has taken us on his fascinating My Naturist Journey - Read the first four parts shared this month.

Members Only Blog Library

ANW Site Upgrades

Further upgrades will commence during the early part of December to continue optimisation improvements again we will try and keep this time to a minimal and aim to warn you before it happens.

Our favourite quote this month; " ...ANW became a big focus for us. It allowed us to actually get other perspectives and views, to learn more about the social naturist scene. We were looking to get more involved with other like minded individuals, and for us, it became what we now see as a major stepping stone into the outside naturist world. To be honest, for us, stuck at home, it was the single most positive aspect of our life at that time." - By RnR.

Until next time...

Best Wishes Anna and Steve - A Naturist World

14 notes · View notes

of-twilight-and-moonshadow · 1 year

Text

Photograph - Bucks/O'Reilly x Emery

Part of my Dark Angel of the Bullet Club series

Summary: An old photo album is found, containing memories of Emery's early years in wrestling, reminding her of how far she's come and how lucky she is to have the people she cares about in her life.

Word Count: 2,266

Tag List: @katries @summertimefun1982 @blxxckheart @mrsmatt

(divider by)

Emery laughed as she sat on the couch between Matt and Nick, a photo album open on her lap. The brothers had invited her to California for a short stay, letting her board up in a spare room to avoid paying for a hotel. There was a meet and greet the next day, and they planned on filming some for BTE while she was there.

Dana had mentioned finding an old photo album with their family ones, and upon opening it, they found pictures from 2013 to 2016. All the photos were centered around Emery and the Bucks, but some included pictures of her with Kyle, Adam, Hangman, Kenny, and numerous New Japan wrestlers.

“I was so baby face back then—” Emery groaned, laughing as they flipped a page and saw a picture of the Bucks, Kenny, and her wearing character onesies, making goofy faces to the camera.

“Sure were—I remember when you first met us—”

“Rather, ran into us,” Matt interjected as Nick rolled his eyes, correcting his brother.

“Ran into ME, more like it. But you were so embarrassed. You could barely even speak to us.”

“It seems like so long ago,” Emery laughed at the memory. Her teen years hadn’t been the greatest—and if you had asked her fifteen-year-old self where she saw herself at twenty-eight, you’d have gotten one answer.

Dead.

Instead, she had traveled the world, stayed in Japan for a few years, become a professional wrestler, been adopted into several families, and made some of the best friends she could have ever wished for. If you ever asked her what her favorite point of her life was, without a doubt, she would say November 2013 to April 2014.

The short six-month span of her life, just after being signed to her first Wrestling company, when she met the boys that would become like brothers to her and would change her life forever.

----2014----

Three months.

Emery had officially been a professional wrestler for three short months. Somehow, she had gotten extremely lucky, and after auditioning, Ring of Honor had extended a contract to her. All the hard work she had put in for the past four years since that fateful conversation with WWE Superstar Kofi Kingston paid off.

She had come a long way since 2009, when she was only sixteen. Therapy, building healthier eating habits, and adapting to a physical regimen. In four years, Emery had surprised all of her doctors and critics, putting on an astonishing fifty-three pounds, a good portion of it was muscle. She was healthier and happier – but now, Emery faced a new problem.

She was the new kid on the block. The unknown. All of the people around her seemed to know one another, having been in the same independent circle for years. They had friends and people they hung out with—even people they hated and wanted nothing to do with. All the while, she was alone.

The first month and a half after being signed, Emery had shown up to the building, wrestled her match or completed her promo, and left. She didn’t hang around backstage before or after, quickly getting her gear put on, doing her match, changing, and leaving. It was easier for her. In her mind, all she could think of were all the people at school that mocked her for her weight and appearance during that dark period of her life. Then, the whispers would start plaguing her head.

Thoughts of not being good enough, not being pretty enough, that nobody liked her, nobody wanted her around, that she would inevitably fail—the list went on and on.

Then, one day it all stopped. All because of one person.

Emery had just finished a match—and the fans seemed to be getting behind her baby-face naivety. Unfortunately, she lost this time, but her opponent had been Maria Kanellis. She obviously had the experience behind her and a bit more ferocity than she showed in her WWE days, so in comparison to new-blood Emery, the win would obviously go to her.

As she walked down one of the hallways in the back, shaking some feeling back into her arm from one of Maria’s armbars, Emery passed by numerous faces but paid no attention to any of them. Her plan was to change into street clothes as quickly as possible, get out of there back to her motel, and relax with a nice hot bath.

“Hey, wait up.”

She kept walking, not even stopping to consider that the guy was talking to her.

“Hey, hold up.” This time, he gently cupped his hand around her arm, grabbing her attention. Emery spun around to face whoever it was, her eyes widening when she stared into the eyes of Kyle O’Reilly.

He was one of Ring of Honor’s golden boys, having been around the circuit for about four years, at the very least. Kyle gave her a small smile as she stood there frozen to the spot, wondering what he could possibly want with her.

“Bobby and I saw your match,” Kyle told her, pointing over his shoulder at Bobby Fish, who stood about ten feet back, leaning against the wall; the older guy gave her a smirk, tipping his head politely as Kyle continued, “You done pretty good out there.”

“T-thanks…?” Emery hesitated, unable to tear her eyes away from him. Was this actually happening? Was Kyle O’Reilly actually talking to her right now? She must be dreaming.

“Your arm okay? Maria really snapped it back with one of those armbars,” Kyle inquired, looking down at the arm she was holding against her body.

“Hmm? Oh, uh… y-yeah. Good—I’m good. Fine. I—” Mentally kicking herself found sounding so stupid, Emery felt her face getting red in embarrassment and quickly turned to walk away. However, Kyle reached out and gently grabbed her shoulder, stopping her.

“Hey, woah, woah. It’s okay,” he softly said, slowly turning her back around, offering a comforting smile, “You’re new—it’s all right. Trust me, we’ve all been there before. When you don’t know anyone and don’t quite know where you fit into the puzzle. Don’t be embarrassed, okay?”

She gave him a soft nod, letting him know she heard, before he continued, “There we go. Anyway, I wanted to make you an offer. You’ve got a lot of potential; you just need to fine-tune it. I can help train you- if you’d like?”

Her eyes widened as she looked up from the floor, staring at him as her mouth gaped slightly, “R-really?”

“Hah, yeah,” Kyle nodded, smiling at her, “Like I said, the potential is there. Just need someone to help you hone it and improve upon it. I’d love to be able to help you.”

“I…. I don’t know what to say….” Emery whispered.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kyle waved it off, “Just remember me one day when you’re champion.” He sent her a wink, causing a small giggle to escape her. Maybe hanging out backstage wasn’t so bad.

Three months had passed since Kyle had extended his offer to help train her—and the effect was highly visible to anyone who had watched her matches. Emery was striking harder, moving quicker, and even pulling out some technical moves to take down her opponents.

Her in-ring behavior wasn’t the only difference, either. People started noticing her hanging around backstage a lot more—always accompanied by Kyle and, on occasion, Bobby Fish. A few times, she had even joined them at ringside for their matches, cheering them on.

Others backstage would try talking to her, but she’d shut down, still too shy and uncertain to talk to too many others. It had become a normal thing, though, and most people would just give her a wave or a smile when they saw her.

The Young Bucks were in from Japan for a surprise appearance, standing around backstage as they talked to their friend, Adam Cole. Nick was the first to notice her, his eyes locking on and not looking away for a few moments. When Matt and Adam caught him staring, his brother elbowed him with a laugh, but Nick discreetly pointed over in her direction, getting both of them to look that way.

Across the large, open room, Emery and Kyle were warming up for a mixed-gender tag match, horseplaying around while they did so. Even at a distance, the Bucks and Adam could see the huge smile on Emery’s face, her laughter echoing through the room as Kyle dodged her, wrapped his arms around her, and began to tickle her sides.

“Who is she, again?” Nick asked Adam as they continued watching, small smiles on their faces.

��Emery,” Adam told him, “She’s been around for, what, five months. Roughly. Started hanging out with Kyle about three months ago—he’s been helping with her training. You can see it, too, in her matches. She already had talent, but—the difference is night and day.”

“What do we know about her?” Matt questioned, attempting to hide a laugh as Emery launched herself at Kyle, wrapping her arms and legs around him from behind.

“Not much,” Adam frowned, “Aside from O’Reilly, she doesn’t really talk to anyone. Hell, she barely even talks to Fish.”

“Hmm…” Nick nods, watching as the two disappear out of the room. Their match was up next—and the Bucks moved to find a monitor to watch.

“You guys seem interested by her,” Adam noted as he followed his friends, “Thinking of recruiting her for Bullet Club or something?”

“Or something,” Matt smirked, eyes turning to the TV.

Fifteen minutes later, the bell rang, signaling the end of the match. The Bucks and Adam watched as the ref held up Kyle and Emery’s hands before they started showboating to the crowd, getting them riled up some more.

Nick and Matt had to admit the girl was definitely talented… but she could still use practice. Some guidance.

“We’ll catch ya around,” Matt said as he and Nick left Adam, exiting the room and walking down the hallway.

“She’s got huge potential,” Nick told his brother as they walked; Matt nodded in agreement, replying to him as they rounded a corner.

“Not quite yet ready for Bullet Club, but maybe one day…”

“Yeah—” Nick nodded before seeing Kyle and Emery walking towards them in the hall. Emery was walking backward, a small skip in her step, as Kyle playfully rolled his eyes at something she said to him. The Bucks stopped in their place, and before Kyle could warn her, Emery ran straight into Nick. Spinning around quickly, her wide brown eyes looked at the brothers.

“I—I’m so sorry—I—”

“She’s a bit excited after our match, sorry guys,” Kyle told them, placing a hand around her shoulders to comfort her. He knew that she’d be embarrassed about this for a while, but he wanted her to know it was okay.

Matt and Nick just smiled at the two of them, their eyes locking onto Emery as Matt shrugged it off.

“Don’t worry, it’s fine. No harm done.”

“Yeah—we’ve taken bigger hits. We’ll be fine,” Nick joked. While she seemed to loosen up a bit, the brothers noticed she was still rigid and uncertain.

“We watched the match—good job out there.”

“Yeah. Looks like O’Reilly’s teaching you some decent things.”

“Decent?” Kyle questioned, playfully rearing back as though he was offended.

“Kyle’s been a tremendous help, I wouldn’t be as good as I am without him, definitely, he’s shown me so much in the past few months and I—” Emery rambled off quickly before Kyle nudged her gently.

“Hey, slow your roll, breath Ree.”

Emery clamped her mouth shut in embarrassment, her cheeks tinging pink as she avoided looking the Bucks in the eyes.

“You’ll get used to everything soon enough, kid,” Nick told her, a warm smile on his face. She shyly looked up, meeting his gaze, before a small smile lifted her lips.

“Everyone’s been the new kid on the block at one point in their career, don’t worry too much,” Matt added, “We uh, we don’t want to encroach on any student-teacher thing you guys got, but—if you want more help, we’re more than happy to have some training sessions with you when Nick and I are in the area.”

“R-really?”

“Yeah. Learning the different styles of everyone will help you in the long run. You can find what works best for you, mix and match as you see fit—could even create your own style as you go,” Nick explained, “O’Reilly’s doing pretty good with the technical wrestling side. Matt and I could help you with arial.”

“Adam could help too—he’s got the more… oh, how would you describe it?” Matt asked Kyle.

“Dirty?”

“Hah, spoken like a true teammate that’s been betrayed once or twice,” Nick chuckled, “Adam’s definitely got that edge to his wrestling. A toughness to it.”

“Yeah,” Matt nodded, “If you’re interested, though, we’d love to be able to help.”

Emery looked to her right side at Kyle, unsure what to say. He shrugged, pursing his lips as he nodded.

“It’s your choice Ree; I’ll continue helping you regardless. If you want their help too, I say go for it.”

“Right… I uh…” Emery nodded, looking back at the Bucks, her eyes hopeful, “T-Thanks. I’d… I’d really appreciate it.”

Little did any of them realize how close they’d soon become and how that small interaction would shape their lives in the years to come.

#all elite wrestling #aew #imagine #fanfiction #dark angel of the bullet club #OC #original female character #OC Emery #Matt Jackson #Nick Jackson #Ring of Honor #Adam Cole #Kyle O'Reilly #Bobby Fish #Memories

2 notes · View notes

leavingautumn13 · 1 year

Note

🤥💢🕷️🚊for nora?

🤥 LYING - are they good liars? do they have tells to show they're lying?

Nora's not a bad liar--she's pretty stone-faced even when telling jokes, and that lack of affect works well for her. But she's no Deacon, either. She doesn't improvise well, so it's easier to catch her in a lie if she hasn't had time to prepare a story.

She tends to fidget with her wedding ring or Dana's dog tags when she's thinking about him, or her hair when thinking about her family. She sometimes plays with the end of her braid when talking for something to do with her hands.

If she's standing too still and not doing any of that, it's possible she's trying to appear casual so she doesn't look suspicious.

💢 ANGER - what are some habits they have that will take some getting used to?

The resting bitch face and deadpan tone of voice can come across as rude--it takes some characters time to learn she's being sincere despite the near-monotone.

She also starts projects and doesn't finish them in a timely manner--in one chapter there's a scene where she pulls an all-nighter disassembling Nick's filing system with the intention of putting it back together in a less haphazard manner, but gets distracted halfway through and leaves the office a mess. He's pretty chill about it, though. Actually, here:

His desk had been pushed up against the wall to open up floorspace, and his partner sat cross-legged in the middle of the room, at the center of a ring of case files that had been disassembled into loose papers, photographs, and folders. She had two open on her lap, one in her hand, and a half-empty mug of cold chicory tea by her knee.

The woman herself was a reflection of the state of the office: to wit, a mess. She was hunched forward, her long black hair down instead of in its usual braid, spilling over her back and shoulders, covering half her face like a veil. She froze in place as she looked up at him, her one visible eye wide like she was a little kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

Poor gal. Insomnia must’ve gotten her last night. Nick made sure his tone was amused. “They set more bombs off in here, or what?”

🕷️ SPIDER - what is their biggest fear? do they have any irrational / mundane fears?

Fear of letting her friends down, or being responsible for them getting hurt/killed is a big one in the Commonwealth.

As far as irrational, her hair being cut or damaged is a big one. It matters a lot to her. It seems like a small thing, but the thought of it can make her panicky.

🚆 TRAIN - what is their answer to the trolley problem?

I think the answer to that is the point of the whole fic, so... spoilers.

#tysm for the ask <3 #fallout 4 #sole survivor #nick valentine #autumn.fic #autumn.oc #fic: until dawn #<- tentative title #oc: nora navarre #woohoo nick pov yeeeahhh #i love him

2 notes · View notes

allsassnoclass · 2 months

Note

eek i know i'm late but if you're still accepting asks for the writing ask game 2, 4, 17, 24, & 30? -💙

@igarbagecannoteven ALRIGHTY MEGS!!!!! i am always accepting asks especially for ask games let's go let's go let's go!!!!!!

this got long, so under the cut!

2. Anything that you'd like to write but feel like you're unable to? there's a series that i really really want to write, but for some reason i can't quite put my finger on how to start it. i WILL write it at some point (hopefully this year!!!! i'm still hoping that the first part will come out in august!!!), but it's just been difficult getting that starting point.

4. Do you have any OCs? Do you have a story for them? oh DO I!!!!!!!!! so for fics I have a few, but Mason is probably my primary one right now. he's a little kid and he's cute and he likes soccer and is worried about how to make friends (but it's okay because there's this super friendly little redhead kid named oliver who decides they're friends immediately). his story is a single parent au i've been working on for a few years!

but!!!!! my main OC loves are from my original story ideas. Arima!!!!!!! is my absolute beloved!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! she has immense daddy issues and no living family (or so she thinks...). her best friend is some dude she rescued who immediately decides he needs to be her father figure. her other best friend is a super old priest. she's ace but also maybe kinda gay for this random girl named jo that appears. OR do you want me to talk about spencer and logan, my beloved sibling duo????????? logan can see ghosts. spencer is just trying to be a good older sister. they're both traumatized. or teddy the sweetheart vampire!!!! or patricia who plays the tuba!!!! or alvaro, the only actual normal human in their little gang!!!!! OR do you want to hear about wesley (photographer) and aiden (child) and jaycee (wacky mystery author) and pete (jaycee's handler) and gee (quite bookstore clerk) and megan (lawyer) and tara (gay) and ashely (also gay) and dana (awesome) all the people living in jack's apartment building?

arima and her gang kind of have a story, but the original plot that i had for her that i came up with in middle school was bad, so i think she's going to have a sci-fi story instead. good for her! arima is going to be the captain of a space ship even though she's 17 at best (she does not know her exact birthday), because she's just Like That. arima is my most beloved oc btw.

spencer, logan, and the supernatural crew have a kind of complicated ya supernatural adventure story. it has a lot to do with spencer and logan's mom, who we don't like, and a little to do with their dad, who we also don't like. both adults are, unfortunately, trying their best, they just really really suck in drastically different ways. thank goodness alvaro decides that spencer should be friends with him/teddy/patricia!

wesley and friends have a pretty basic, kind of slice-of-life story about found family.

17. Past or present tense? Why? present tense! and I actually can pinpoint the exact reason: when I was in 5th or 6th grade I went to this thing called the young author's conference, and one of the classes i took there had a guy who gave us his list of rules for writing engaging and interesting stories (highlights include "this is not a pen" and "slam the book"). one of them was "buzz the was" which was his way of saying avoid using passive voice. ("The dragon sat on a pile of gold" puts the readers closer to the story than "The dragon was sitting on a pile of gold.") so i use present tense so i don't use the word "was"! unfortunately now i just use passive voice in present tense, but it's something i'm working on!

24. Thoughts on flashbacks/flashforwards. i like them when they're used right! i definitely much prefer flashbacks to flashforwards, as i think flashbacks can be a great tool for adding context and i think that a lot of flash forwards are just like. 3 year in the future epilogues and those are fine but they're also very obviously just a vehicle to have an ending without having to put all that middle stuff.

30. Describe a fic that almost happened, but then it didn't. ooooooo ummmmm let's see. years ago I wrote a band au for the raven cycle, and i was going to do a sequel focusing on noah and the intersection of fame and mental health and privacy, but ran out of interest and motivation and now i think too many years have passed and it'd be weird to write and post it now. for 5sos stuff, maybe the malum quarantine fic? i only got 900 words into it, but lost interest and now i'm not sure i'd return to it just because there's so much to unpack with the pandemic and i'm super worried that it'd be insensitive, but if i address the whole ''thousands of people are dying every day" of it all then i know i'll turn it into a major component of the fic and the fic itself will end up being pretty angsty and heavy and deal a lot more with overwhelming fear and dread, which wasn't really the vibe i had in mind. it's also difficult because there wouldn't necessarily be a good resolution to the overwhelming fear and dread, given that we are still living through it to an extent and the comforting power of fall out boy's so much (for) stardust wouldn't be released into the world until 2023

thanks for asking :)

#ask #megs #igarbagecannoteven #this took so long because i was sticking with my ''write 100 words for every number'' rule and this fic is FIGHTING me #but we're making progress #i really want to post it before february ends #my goal was to post a fic a month on ao3 (probably won't make that goal tbh but i'd like to not break it in the 2nd month yknow)

0 notes

mirecalemoments01 · 8 months

Link

#BryantFamilyBond #EternalLove #ForeverInOurHearts #KobeBryant45 #LegacyOfLove #RememberingKobe

0 notes

xtruss · 1 year

Text

Colon Cancer Is Rising Among Young Adults. Here Are Signs To Watch For.

Genetics, the microbiome, and low screening rates may be factors in the increase, experts say. Here are risk factors for the disease—and the most common symptoms.

— By Tara Haelle | March 16, 2023

This colorized abdominal X-ray shows cancer of the ascending colon; the tumor appears as the oval shadow over the right pelvic bone (left on image). Photograph By Science Photo Library

Colorectal cancer is often thought to affect older people, but one in five cases diagnosed today occurs in people younger than age 55, compared to one in 10 cases in 1995, according to a recent study published by the American Cancer Society.

There’s no clear explanation for this trend, but a new paper just published in Science suggests a number of possible reasons, including environmental and genetic factors. Low screening rates and misdiagnosis in people who don’t suspect cancer likely play a role as well.

“We're coming to a point where we shouldn't consider colorectal cancer a disease of only older adults,” said Andrew Chan, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and vice chair of gastroenterology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Cancer survivors pose for a photo at a colorectal cancer awareness installation on the National Mall on March 13, 2023 in Washington, DC. The installation is a visual representation of more than 27,400 people under the age of 50 estimated to be diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2030. Photograph By Paul Morigi, Getty Images For Fight Colorectal Cancer

Colon cancer is one of the most common cancers in the Western world. Here is a colored scanning electron micrograph of colorectal cancer cells. Adenocarcinomas of the colon and rectum typically begin as a growth of tissue called a polyp, which is often removed during a routine colonoscopy before it turns cancerous. Symptoms include rectal bleeding and abdominal pain. Treatment involves surgery to remove the affected area. Micrograph By Steve Gschmeissner, Science Photo Library

The findings also revealed an increase in diagnoses of advanced disease, which is particularly concerning because colonoscopies are “a great tool for prevention and early detection of colorectal cancer in terms of screening that can actually detect and remove precancerous lesions,” said lead author Rebecca Siegel, senior scientific director of cancer surveillance research at the American Cancer Society. Survival rates are 90 percent if detected early enough.

The rising rates in younger adults led the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to change its recommendation in May 2021 to begin screenings at age 45 instead of 50, but those with risk factors may need to start even earlier, said Siegel, who noted that nearly a third of colorectal cancers are associated with a family history of the disease.

“Until we see these trends start to reverse, we're going to have to continue to consider what appropriate strategies we need to take to really stem this increase in early onset disease,” Chan said.

Identifying Colorectal Risk Factors

Genetic risk scores may be helpful for identifying those who may be more likely to develop colorectal cancer at an early age but could be more effective if they took interaction with environmental factors into account, suggested Marios Giannakis, an oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who coauthored the Science paper. The question is which environmental factors? Finding out requires the kind of long-term studies of large populations that are expensive and difficult to conduct, especially since they would be most useful if they included stool, blood, and tissue samples collected over time.

Lifestyle factors seem an easy culprit for early onset disease at first, but the reality is more complicated. Excess body weight increases the risk of colorectal cancer, Siegel said, but only about 5 percent of colorectal cancers are attributed to excess body weight. Excess weight is also predominantly linked to tumors on the right side of the colon, not the left colon, which is where the cancer society found that the increases are occurring.

Excess weight is also a bigger risk factor for men than women, yet the trend in younger adults is similar for all people.

“Diet, obesity, and physical inactivity may be driving some of this increase, but it's not the complete story,” Chan said. “There are other contributors that remain to be uncovered, and I think it's those factors on which we need to really focus our attention because they're going to be things that may potentially have a greater impact in reducing incidence.”

Giannakis’s paper notes that higher consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, as well as red and processed meats are possible factors. Others include “antibiotics, more ubiquitous environmental toxins, and higher rates of Cesarean sections and other surgical procedures.”

What all those factors have in common is an effect on the microbiome, the population of bacteria and other microorganisms that populate the human digestive system. Mark A. Lewis, director of gastrointestinal oncology at Intermountain Health in Utah, said early onset disease is at least “partly explained by antibiotic usage in childhood and young adulthood, as shown most convincingly,” in 2019 study from the United Kingdom.

Don’t Dismiss Troublesome Symptoms

It’s challenging to tease out how much increased mortality is due to greater risk factors versus low screening rates, particularly in rural or low-income areas, but it’s likely both, said Rishi Naik, an assistant professor of medicine in gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Screening gaps are evident in the fact that 27 percent of younger adults are diagnosed with advanced disease compared to 20 percent of older adults. Survival rates are similar across ages despite younger patients typically receiving more aggressive treatment and having fewer other conditions.

“We fear this may also indicate a more aggressive biology for reasons that we need to understand,” Giannakis said, but it’s still not clear whether disease in younger people is more aggressive or just getting caught too late or both. Siegel’s paper noted that symptomatic patients under age 50 took 40 percent longer to receive a diagnosis compared to older patients.

“It is important for patients and providers to aggressively investigate concerning symptoms and signs, such as rectal bleeding and unexplained iron deficiency, to ensure that unsuspected colorectal cancer is not the cause, regardless of age,” said Reid Ness, an associate professor of medicine in gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

The most common symptoms for colorectal cancer in younger patients are abdominal pain; unexplained weight loss; changes in the frequency, size or appearance of stools; and rectal bleeding, which occurs in 46 percent of early-onset cases compared to 26 percent of cases in adults over age 50.

“There is a tendency for young people to assume that they're young and healthy, and if they do have some symptoms, that it's something transient or not concerning,” Chan said. Siegel also noted the importance of fighting stigma since people may not feel comfortable discussing rectal symptoms. But following up means ensuring doctors take symptoms seriously too.

“Sometimes the more unfortunate stories are patients told they just have a hemorrhoid, and then a couple months later, they’ve got metastatic colon cancer,” Naik said. “If they’re symptomatic, they need a colonoscopy and not just a stool-based test.”

Health Disparities Reveal Need For More Screening

Like the trend toward more cases in younger ages, racial and ethnic disparities in colorectal cancer rates and deaths likely result from a combination of greater risk factors and lower screening rates and health-care access.

Siegel highlighted that Alaskan Natives have the highest rates of colorectal cancer in the world. Cases in this population are more than double those among white individuals, and deaths are nearly four times higher in the Alaskan Native population—the only racial or ethnic group in which overall cases are not declining. In fact, cases are increasing by 2 percent each year and remain the most diagnosed cancer in this group.

Possible contributing risk factors for cases in this population include vitamin D deficiency from less sun exposure, smoking, obesity, and a diet high in smoked fish and low in fiber, fruits, and vegetables, according to Siegel’s study.

The disparity between cases and deaths is more striking in Black Americans, whose cases are 21 percent higher than in white Americans but whose mortality is 44 percent higher. Three-year survival rates for metastatic rectal cancer are 30 percent for patients diagnosed between 2016-2018—up from 25 percent a decade earlier—but Black patients’ three-year survival rates have plateaued at 22 percent, likely due to lower access to improved treatments, Siegel and her coauthors write.

Geographic disparities are similarly driven at least partly by higher rates of smoking and excess body weight, as well as lower income and poorer health-care access, Siegel said. Both cases and mortality are lowest in the West and highest in Appalachia and parts of the South and Midwest.

“If you look at a map of county-level poverty and county-level colorectal cancer mortality, they're strikingly similar,” Siegel said. Excess weight and poorer diets are more common with lower incomes, especially since processed foods are cheaper and less likely to spoil than fresh foods, Siegel said.

Another contributing factor to disparities is inadequate information about screening options besides colonoscopy, said Naik. Colonoscopies require going to centers, which are sparser in Alaska and rural areas. Colonoscopies also typically involve anesthesia, which means the patient must take off work and have someone else, who may also need time off work, drive them home—all of which is more difficult for people with low incomes.

“Though colonoscopies are a gold standard for screening for colon cancer, it's not the only modality,” Naik said. “We also have stool-based testing, which can be done at the comfort of your home.” Although providers play a critical role in encouraging screening, “really health-care systems have to do a better job of engaging communities on a programmatic level,” he said.

Ness takes that idea even further. “The greatest source of disparity in colorectal cancer incidence and mortality remains the low screening rates among uninsured and low-income individuals,” he said. “Until we in the United States become committed to the concept and practice of universally available basic health care, including colorectal cancer screening, we will continue to see disparities in health outcomes.”

0 notes

tangent101 · 3 years

Text

Max Caulfield and Post-Storm PTSD

One thing I find interesting (and have done so myself) is speculating on how broken Max will be in a Post-Storm (either Sacrifice Chloe or Sacrifice Arcadia Bay) setting. While some people (usually those who killed Chloe) like to say "she'd bounce back!" the predominant view is that we have a shattered Max after this who needs a lot of therapy. So I thought I'd unpack this and look at why I look at this this way.

At this point I should add there is potential triggers here. I'll be examining my own PTSD and elements of Max's state of mind that may in fact result in her being in declining mental health in the wake of the events of Life is Strange.

First, let's consider what PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) is, and what causes it. And for this I'm going to start by sharing my own trauma. Because I have PTSD. I gained this after I saw a vehicle go out of control and hit two people and run over two others. The final person was trapped under the vehicle and they had to push the van at an angle to pull him out, do CPR, and... he was dead. Even if EMTs had been right there, he'd not have survived.

I suffer flashbacks thinking of this, though it's gotten better. I will flinch, visualize what happened, and feel nausea. I get tense over this and... well, it's not a happy experience to put it mildly. And I have what is likely a milder case of PTSD. I also developed it despite being in an environment that put me at a lower risk of developing it. And yes, I had minor twinges of PTSD writing this up. Two years ago I probably would have had an actual visualization and anxiety break. So you can get better with therapy and help.

But what specifically is PTSD? According to the website for the National Institute of Mental Health, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) develops in some people who experience shocking or dangerous events, with people who have PTSD feeling stressed or frightened even when they are not in danger. PTSD can occur within 3 months of traumatic events or even have you be fine and then crop up *years* later. And symptoms include flashbacks where you relive the trauma, bad dreams, and frightening thoughts which can disrupt a person's everyday routine.

People with PTSD are easily startled, can feel "on edge," have angry outburst, and have difficulty sleeping. They could go through avoidance of staying away from reminders of the experience and avoiding thoughts or feelings related to the event. Further, cognitive and mood symptoms include problems remembering key features of the event, self-negativity, distorted guilt or blame feelings, and loss of interest in enjoyable activities.

Okay, so how can you avoid PTSD? And how could Max avoid this? Well, factors promoting recovery after trauma include seeking support from friends and family, finding a support group, learning to feel good about your own actions in the face of danger, positive coping strategies, and learning to act and respond effectively even when feeling fear.

And this is the kicker. This is why Max is likely screwed as a result of the events of Life is Strange, especially in a Sacrifice Chloe setting. Because Max blames herself and her time travel for the Storm and all the weird shit that happened. She may very well believe that if she uses time travel for any reason, it will result in the Storm and a lot more people dying. And this will get in the way of being in a healthy environment to avoid PTSD.

First, consider friends and family. Max can't tell them what happened because she has absolutely no proof of what she went through. She can't prove her time travel because if she does then she dooms wherever she is and a lot of people die. (It doesn't matter if this is the case or not, she assumes it is true.) So Max is not going to confide in Warren or Dana or Victoria or anyone. She can't. And she's quite likely going to isolate herself because we have already seen at the start of the game, Max is a bit of a loner who doesn't have many friends.

In fact, her two "friends" are Warren (who she feels threatened by due to his attraction to her, as seen by his inclusion in her Nightmare sequence including learning he doctored photos of her to include himself in the picture, his peeping activities on the second day, and the honestly-creepy "Go Ape" thing), and Kate. Kate is going through her own shit and Max remembers Kate killing herself. Is Max going to unload her own issues on someone going through a lot of shit as well or is she going to swallow her problems so not to trouble her friend? And Warren is someone she feels nervous around and who has engaged in some activities that set up warning flags in her psyche. Further, when she told Warren the truth, he promptly blames her time travel on fucking everything up. In short, she trusted Warren and Warren said "you caused all this destruction." (Even if Max initially blames herself, he reinforces that point of view before Max jumps through the photo to save Chloe.)

Nor can I see her telling her parents. Again, she has no proof. Her parents are overprotective already. If she starts going off on this fanciful tale, are they going to believe her? Or are they going to assume their daughter is cracking and force her into therapy and possibly hospitalize her "for her own good" (and thus she ends up medicated and miserable, having lost her autonomy and agency)? It doesn't matter if they wouldn't as Max will worry this could happen. It is better to never say a thing. So Max internalizes everything. And we already see evidence that Max has done this sort of thing in the past. Max keeps her secrets close to her heart. She never told her parents of the time travel even when she could have had proof. So why tell them after Chloe died?

I have been overcoming my PTSD by revisiting it and working through it. Part of this was guided by therapy. Max would not be in a position to talk about this. And how could she? After all, she didn't find Rachel Amber's body (and we have no proof her body is uncovered in a Sacrifice Chloe setting). She didn't see the Storm. She didn't see most of the incidents. The closest that happened was being in the bathroom when Chloe was shot. And her story of what happened would change from the week that beta-Max was in charge and when Max Prime returned to the timeline. So even if she was talking to a school counselor? She'd quickly learn that her story changed and probably shut up and stop seeing them so not to give away her story.

Remember: Max cannot admit to the time travel because doing so means either killing hundreds of people due to the Storm or being locked away for being crazy because she has no proof.

Next, we have feeling good about her actions. For five days Max had hammered into her skull her actions have consequences. More, those consequences are predominantly bad. Far too often Max has to Rewind to fix things from her actions. If she can't Rewind? That means by acting, she's going to fuck things up. In fact, the fundamental aspect of Sacrifice Chloe states that her action to save Chloe caused all of this destruction. Max is going to second-guess herself constantly.

I mean, if she sees Kate on the roof again at a later point (because women who are the victims of crimes are often blamed by society for the crimes inflicted against them as seen time and time again with how we blame victims of sexual harassment and rape for the crimes committed against them, so of course her church and mother and aunt will continue to blame Kate for what she went through), will Max dare to act? If she does, then she might cause another Storm. She might cause damage. If Kate is on that rooftop again, maybe she was supposed to die. Who does Max think she is by trying to stop Destiny?

So yeah. Max is not going to feel good about her actions. She is going to second-guess herself. She already had that tendency at the start of the game, and Sacrifice Chloe hammers down the truth that action is bad. Better to do nothing and not interact.

We end up with Avoidance. Well, what is the biggest Avoidance? Photography. Max already has a murderer who kidnapped her associated with photography. She remembers being in the Dark Room, being powerless in the face of the man who murdered her Chloe. (Just like she murdered her Chloe. She might not have pulled the trigger, but she caused Chloe's death.) She will see Chloe's death and Rachel's death and her own suffering each time she looks at a camera and remembers Mark Jefferson. More, she knows if she focuses on a photograph she could end up traveling through time and causing the Storm. So she can't even enjoy pictures anymore because they are a threat.

That's not to say that the Sacrifice Chloe setting is all dark and dire. She does have music. She loves music. So if she puts aside the camera she might pick up her guitar and embrace music. (Hannah Telle, Max's VA, once speculated that Max would enter a career in music, probably due partly to her own musical inclinations.) So while she might give up her greatest loves, she might eventually embrace a future in music. I doubt she'd ever play in public but... that might be an outlet for a hurting soul.

Now, I've gone on at length about how dire things are for Max in a Sacrifice Chloe setting, but what about Sacrifice Arcadia Bay? Well, things end up a bit more positive in this setting because she can actually talk about going through some of these things. For instance, Max dug up a body with Chloe. She saw Chloe almost shot by Nathan in the bathroom. She saw Kate attempt suicide (whether or not she stopped it is immaterial to the suicide attempt). She learned that a trusted teacher and mentor was in fact a predator who was kidnapping young women, saw pictures of these crimes, and thus "suffers flashbacks visualizing herself in this setting." She can go to therapy and talk about many things she cannot in a Sacrifice Chloe setting and in doing so she can start to work through elements that could result in PTSD developing.

She can also talk to Chloe about what happened. Chloe knows about the time travel. She knows about almost dying (and Max witnessing Chloe's death multiple times). This gives Max a needed outlet for overcoming her own fears and concerns. But more importantly is this: Chloe is likely to tell Max to face down her fears. Chloe is the person who always pushed Max to try new things. And I honestly cannot see that changing as a result of what they went through.

Max also will learn to feel good about her actions. I mean, she chose Chloe over Arcadia Bay. This is the ultimate action, and while she may feel remorse for those deaths and that destruction... she also knows she saved Chloe and Chloe is by her side. She knows that her actions led to the capture and arrest of Mark Jefferson and saving Victoria Chase's life. Hell, it led to David Madsen (and probably a couple Arcadia Bay police officers) surviving the Storm because they were in the Dark Room at the time of the Storm. Her actions have consequences... and those consequences need not be dire. They can be beneficial.

So the Max of Sacrifice Arcadia Bay has a support group, she has access to therapy and can talk about some of the things she went through, she has someone she loves who believes her, she knows that her actions have benefit, she has someone who urges her to move forward. This isn't to say she won't have PTSD... but she is in a far better environment to overcome this to the point that in Life is Strange 2, we learn (in the Save Chloe timeline) that Max is submitting to galleries and that Chloe is still with her. So she's taking pictures and is in a good place in her life.

Now, what about Chloe? After all, Chloe went through some truly horrific shit herself. Chloe was almost shot by Nathan, she almost got hit by a train, she was threatened by Frank, she dug up the body of a girl she truly cared for, dozens of yards from where she was hanging out regularly, she saw a huge-ass Tornado wipe out her home town and kill her mother... yeah, Chloe's been through some horrific stuff, about as horrific as Max. More, she is in an unhealthy position at the time of the game.

But much of what benefits Max in the Save Chloe timeline also benefits Chloe. She can talk to a therapist. She has Max by her side. She has Max by her side and Max out-and-out chose her over hundreds of people. Joyce chose David over her, and for four years Chloe was in an unsafe environment. Rachel was... Rachel, and she was cheating on Chloe anyway. But Max... Max comes back, she saves her life several times, she helps Chloe time and time again, and at the end she chose Chloe over Arcadia Bay. That is big. That is bigger than big, it is... for once, Chloe was told "you are important." I mean, I'm getting teary-eyed just thinking of how big this is. Chloe has realized just how much Max loves her.

So... Chloe might develop PTSD. She is at risk of it. I think her triggers might similar to Max's - both girls probably will freak over thunderstorms for a while, and both may develop an aversion toward guns... at first I thought they'd differ but really, they'd align fairly well. About the only trigger issue Max would have Chloe doesn't has to do with photography (which is why Chloe is the person who'd help Max overcome any such issues).

#ptsd #post traumatic stress disorder #life is strange #lis #max caulfield #chloe price #max and chloe #sacrifice arcadia bay #sacrifice chloe #mental health

58 notes · View notes

ghostbustershq · 3 years

Text

Ghostbusters: Afterlife - Trailer 2 Full Breakdown

This is it, this is definitely it!

A meaty and goosebump-evoking trailer just dropped today for Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

Much like the first trailer, the main focus of this is the family - forced to move to Oklahoma after falling on tough times. Janine, Terror Dogs, Mini Pufts, and Ghostbusting in motion as Jason Reitman has referred to it are all here. There’s a whole lot here to unpack, plus a whole lot that I’m sure we still haven’t seen. In fact, I would argue that we now have a pretty complete picture of what’s in store come November and are being shown just enough to tide us over until the fall.

This was a solid trailer. It hit all of the right notes. It invoked goosebumps on several occasions. And oh boy, does it demonstrate that Jason Reitman wasn’t kidding when he told us hardcore nerds that if we loved easter eggs, we were in for a treat.

Let’s break it down, shall we?

A GREAT MOM

The trailer begins with a very quiet and intimate bit of dialogue between Paul Rudd’s Mr. Grooberson and Carrie Coon’s Callie.

The two sit at a table, and while the trailer frames it to appear to be Spinners, a quick glimpse at the wall next to the two in a later shot shows they’re actually in a Chinese restaurant. In fact, I love that Grooberson has what looks to be one of the deluxe Benihana cocktails in a ceramic glass in front of him. Grooberson tells Callie that she’s a great mom, but she’s not so sure. Callie feels like she’s been a great mother to her oldest, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard). But feels like her introverted daughter Phoebe (McKenna Grace) keeps her at a distance. There’s a sense that Callie and Phoebe can’t find much common ground, and for this her mother is struggling.

I really love how the trailer gently brings us into the world, helps set the stage, and gives us several glimpses of some of the incredible cinematography in store from Eric Steelberg.

AN AWKWARD, NERDY KID

Grooberson’s dialogue reassures Callie that what Phoebe is going through is normal. He calls her an “awkward, nerdy kid” to imagery of her at school being teased. Ghostbusters: The Video Game fans concerned about if the story and events from the game will somehow be referenced or acknowledged in some way will probably quickly notice the Doritos product placement. Hours of gameplay has trained them well.

Anyway, not only is Phoebe failing to connect with her mother on a deeper level, but it appears that she’s an outsider at school as well. It makes the friendship we know she’s to have with Podcast (Logan Kim) that much sweeter. And you feel for her right out of the gate here, hoping that she’ll find that friend as soon as possible.

Callie and Grooberson’s conversation comes to a conclusion with Phoebe’s mother just wishing, “she’d get into some trouble.” As her mother laments about her daughter needing to be bold and a little more adventurous, we see a continuation of the scene from the first trailer in which Phoebe solves a puzzle built into the floor of the farmhouse in order to find a hidden ghost trap. Perhaps Ghostbusting is exactly the trouble the young and brainy kid needs?

As we, the audience, see the familiar ghost trap, there’s quite literally a drum roll added to the music scoring of the trailer. Perhaps Ghostbusting is exactly the trouble we need too.

JANINE, YOU HAVEN’T CHANGED

The trailer continues with the Trevor dialogue we heard in the first trailer as he explains to Lucky (Celeste O’Connor) that they’re broke and the only thing they have is a “creepy old farmhouse” left to them by their grandfather. But that is the lead in to our first major surprise of the trailer: a glimpse of Annie Potts’ return as Janine Melnitz!

Janine jokes to Callie that her father wasn’t much of a homemaker. “He could hardly keep the power on,” Janine says with a chuckle. If there was any question of the family lineage, this trailer solidifies that Callie and her family are Spengler through-and-through.

It should be noted at this point that the quiet music that accompanied the beginning of the trailer suddenly has these eerie choral notes added to it. Adding a little bit of that paranormal/otherworldly feeling but keeping the trailer light and playful. I’m not sure if this is Rob Simonsen’s score, but if I had to guess given the way the music builds and shifts, this is an original music bed for the trailer only.

It’s also interesting to see how we’ll be able to revisit the past in the film by use of footage from the original (as seen in the YouTube videos playing on various computers) but also the use of one of my favorite set photography moments framed and displayed in the farmhouse presented as a personal photograph. I know, given how some people reacted to seeing a headshot of Sean Connery used in an Indiana Jones film, these types of touches can take people out of a film. But I think the trailer gives us a great idea of how these moments will be integrated and I love it.

The trailer takes a hard turn with a great back and forth between Callie and Janine. Callie tells Janine that it sounds like her father has left her nothing. Janine playfully retorts, “Well, I wouldn’t say nothing.” This line is masterfully juxtaposed with Trevor opening the barn doors to find the Ectomobile housed under a tarp. The music comes to a crescendo as Trevor lifts the tarp and reveals the Ghostbusters Mooglie logo.

Let’s call this goosebumps moment number one.

THE ONLY ONE WITH AN ENGINE

It’s this part of the trailer where it does something that’s a rarity these days, and that I appreciate so much: the music takes a breath and completely drops off to give us a small vignette of a scene from the film. Phoebe enters the barn to find Trevor working on the Ecto. She ribs him that, of all the broken down cars on the farm, he’s chosen “the station wagon.” Trevor responds that his vehicle of choice was the only one with an engine.

The music and percussion come back in full force to score Trevor on a joy ride through the wheat fields of the farm. He seems to be having a good time.

So am I… this was definitely goosebumps moment number two.

A STORM COMING

Act Two of the trailer starts with a dark and ominous storm coming into Sumerville. There’s trouble in small town Oklahoma. Grooberson reiterates his line about a town with no faultlines shaking on a daily basis to Trevor and Phoebe. Only this time, he receives a response: “Maybe it’s the apocalypse.” Phoebe delivers the line to Grooberson with such amazing deadpan earnestness that you can tell she and grandpa might have a whole lot in common. Including their sense of humor.

The line gives us a good chuckle to break the tension but also sets the stage for what’s to come in the trailer: exactly what Phoebe has predicted.

EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON

As Phoebe tells us that “Egon came here for a reason,” an archival piece of footage and dialogue from the first film plays on her laptop: the commercial playing on Dana Barrett’s television at 55 CPW. As the original Ghostbusters give you their sales pitch, this is where the trailer really kicks into modern trailer overdrive.

Flashes of imagery including the PKE meter, Mini Puft mayhem at Wal-Mart, and more quickly breathe in and out. In fact, if this trailer is our Christmas present in July, this is where we’re unwrapping and unpacking what’s inside the box.

But we also get glimpses of a creepy underground temple with some pretty intense architecture and even creepier statue work. Terror dog/human hybrid statues flanking what looks to be a pharaoh with wings. And gaunt peasants all reaching out to it all. Did Sumerians have pharaohs? Or is this something else? Certainly seems like if there were Gozer worshippers out there, this might be a stone tribute to them.

The kids discover the terrifying temple and Trevor gives us an “oh my god” to punctuate as they see what we see.

NICE DOGGY, CUTE LITTLE POOCH

Right about this part of the trailer is where my brain explodes and I’m not sure where to start. Imagery is rapid fire as the shit hits the fan.

Phoebe looks into a cauldron in the temple (where there’s numbers behind her that we’ll have to analyze further at some point). And the cork pops on the bottle. As she does so, there’s a terrifying growl in the background foreshadowing some familiar imagery we’re about to see.

But before we get to that, two incredible things are seen as well: familiar purple PKE trails that look a whole lot like those that explode from the firehouse and converge at Spook Central. And, as Grooberson’s line about New York City looking like “The Walking Dead” is repurposed to sound like he’s talking about Sumerville, there’s an incredible physical creature design sitting at a lunch counter. A half-decomposed cabbie maybe? Wearing a 1970’s collar and neckerchief. To my eye, I’d be willing to bet that’s the work of Arjen Tuiten and his team of creature designers. And it’d make Steve Johnson proud.

Plus it’s such a funny image of this corpse sitting at a lunch counter, and the waiter is pour him coffee like it ain’t no thing. I love it.

Back to man’s worst friend: the terror dogs make several appearances in the trailer. First as a cool half-manifested entity above Groobersen and again chasing the poor guy out of a Wal-Mart. Is Groobersen haunted by these things like Louis Tully? Or is something else going on here?

IN A SPIRITUAL SENSE, OF COURSE

If there was a moment that I expected Ray Parker Jr.’s iconic theme song to kick into full gear, this would have been it. The icing on the cake of the trailer, after we see the dead rising from the grave and all hell breaking loose, is Trevor, Phoebe and Podcast all in the Ecto chasing after what we now know is Muncher. The editorial of this is insanely cool. And we get to see the Remote Trap Vehicle (RTV) deployed from the Ecto and how it’s used in the pursuit of Muncher. We’ve seen the gunner seat, but the beats that this moment in the trailer hit, well…

Goosebumps moment number three.

VENKMAN, WE’RE NOT HOME

After all the debate among friends if there would be a “Chewie, We’re Home” moment in this trailer - where we’d see one of the original Ghostbusters live and in the flesh, we got the perfect tease. As Grooberson, Phoebe and Podcast watch the conclusion of the original 1984 ad, the trailer closes with a phone ringing inside a very familiar looking Occult Book shop.

Tattooed arms (I’ve tried with everything I can to see what the tattoo says) pick up the phone and the familiar voice of Dr. Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) curtly tells whomever is on the other end of that phone that, “We’re closed.” A perfect little tease if you ask me. Let’s save seeing Peter, Ray and Winston on-screen to the main event.

#ghostbusters afterlife #ghostbusters (2020)#jason reitman #trailer #trailer breakdown

13 notes · View notes

slippinmickeys · 3 years

Text

Five Seconds (3/8)

If you’d like to read on AO3, you may do so here.

They were just passing over the border into Ohio when Lily shifted in her seat and felt the crinkle of photograph paper under her.

Monica Reyes, whom Lily had known only as an acquaintance of her parents, had pulled up to the house earlier in the day with a screech of tires and instructed both kids to grab any last minute things and get them into her car. Twenty minutes later, with the family’s two cats moaning plaintively from between them in the rear seat, they pulled under an overpass in the Springfield Mixing Bowl where both their parents were waiting with a new-to-them SUV and worried expressions. Her father had pulled her into a hug so tight, she’d been temporarily short of breath.

As the miles wore on, and they were assured that they hadn’t been followed, everyone in the car began to relax.

Will was sitting in the other captain’s chair in the back seat of the vehicle -- a black Yukon with Pennsylvania dealer plates -- he had headphones on and his nose stuck in a graphic novel. Her mother was asleep in the passenger seat, her head tilted on the headrest toward her father, who was driving, sunglasses on, now hours into a spell of highway hypnosis.

She pulled the photo out to finally give it a look and was surprised to see that it was a wedding photo. In it, her father was smiling without teeth, in a loose-fitting black tuxedo, a white rose boutonniere affixed to his lapel. He was looking down at the woman in his arms, the bride, who was only a few inches shorter than he was, a thin brunette who was most assuredly not her mother.

Lily had known her father had been married before -- she was over a year old when he’d married her mother and she had attended the wedding as a dandelion-haired toddler -- but it was something her father rarely talked about, and, she had suspected, not the happiest of times in Fox Mulder’s life.

She studied the woman in the photo curiously, seeing nothing that reminded her of her short, redheaded mother, who always looked intelligently -- sometimes aloofly -- at the world with a kind blue gaze. The woman in the picture held her head high, looking straight into the gaze of Fox Mulder, challenging but pleased, a victorious glint in her eye.

Lily tried to remember the woman’s name. Laura? Lauren? Something with an L.

Her father had always been a self-assured man, nearly always correct in his theories and assumptions. She wondered how he could have made such a major miscalculation as to marry a woman that was any less perfect for him than Dana Scully was.

She was intrigued.

With another look out the back windshield -- though her parents both said they were safe, she still felt mildly jumpy -- she shoved the picture back into her pocket as the mile markers flew by the window outside.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Scully is sitting on rock in a meadow, her bare feet spread out on the boulder below her, the rock sun-warmed and specked with lichen. Her stomach still has that full, bloated feeling of pregnancy, but when she looks down, her waist is concave, narrower than even in her prepubescent days. That tether of connection she felt with her children in her other pregnancies is still there, but it feels stretched out, pulling her eyes up and out to the meadow before her, where there is a small dark-headed child walking lightly through the wildflowers, its ice-blue eyes cast down, hands out to run lightly along the tops of the flowers it passes as it walks. She squints as the child approaches. It is a boy, she thinks.

The sky is a fathomless blue and there is no wind that she can feel, though the meadow before her undulates as though from a zephyr. She can hear the soft padding of the boy as he gets closer, the crunching of the wild grasses under his feet, their thin stalks whipping against the soles of his shoes.

When he gets to the boulder, he raises his eyes and looks at Scully without expression, then nods at her.

“Mother,” he says, formally.

“Hello child,” she says formally back.

His face shows no emotion, but his aura is warm, his face long like his father’s, with the same plump lower lip.

“May I join you?” he asks.

“You may.”

The boy crawls up onto the rock next to her and sits cross-legged, looking out over the swaying grasses and flowers, each delicate bloom turning its face to the child as though listening for what he’s about to say.

“What happens when the universe stops expanding?” he asks, and though he doesn’t look at her, she knows he expects her to answer.

“Maybe it collapses back on itself,” she hears herself say, “returns to the singularity.”

“That’s a reasonable answer,” the boy says, rising to his feet, “I can accept that.”

She wants to raise her hands to touch him, but her arms won’t move, and she starts to feel a quick surge of panic.

He jumps off the boulder and lands easily on the ground in front of her, then turns to look directly at her, maintaining eye contact as he leans down to pluck a flower and hold it out to her; a bluebell.

“Flowers grow from where dirt used to be,” he says, and then, in a much deeper voice, “wake up.”

She jolted upright in the passenger seat, the seat belt digging into her clavicle as she did so.

“Scully?” Mulder said, from her left, a hint of concern creeping into his voice. He reached a hand over and put it gently on her knee.

She took a deep breath, running a hand along the gentle curve of her belly, willing her heart rate to drop. She exhaled slowly then turned to look at Mulder.

“We’re here,” he said, nodding his head toward a modest looking house on a residential lane. The houses were close together, though not packed cheek-by-jowl. Small front lawns with large maple trees in front of each one, the new leaves just opening. There was a blue sedan idling in the driveway in front of them. The sun had just begun to sink below the horizon, one last ray shining in through the rear windscreen and onto the white hair of its driver. Scully glanced at the clock. It was nearly 9:00pm.

“Any sign of a tail?” she asked him, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

Mulder shook his head.

She heard the crack of a metal seat belt hitting the plastic door casing and turned to look into the backseat, where William and Lily were unhooking themselves to bend down and curiously peer through the windshield at the house. She caught William’s eye and smiled at him. He tentatively returned it.

“You guys stay here for a minute,” Mulder said and then shot a quick look at Scully, which she returned, nodding. Scully’s service weapon was in the glove compartment, and she did a quick calculation of how long it would take her to get it out and into her hands as Mulder jumped down out of the driver’s seat. He allowed himself a quick stretch and crack of the neck before he approached the driver’s side door of the sedan, cautious but confident.

After a quick conference with the driver through her open window, Mulder turned toward the SUV and beckoned them over. Scully and the kids tipped themselves out of the Yukon just as the woman opened up her door and heaved herself up and out of the sedan.

She was older, at least seventy, with a full head of bushy hair that had been pulled back into a ponytail, her midsection round. She wore jeans and a military style jacket (complete with about 30 various pins) and an ancient pair of Doc Martens that had once been black but were worn into a grey. She had the same nose as Frohike, but otherwise looked markedly different from her brother.

“Mrs. McDonald,” the woman said to Scully, giving her a significant look as she reached out to shake her hand. Right, Scully thought, my new name.

“Darlene?” Scully said, grasping the proffered palm and giving her hand a firm shake.

The woman nodded and looked to the kids.

“This is Lily,” said Scully, as Darlene shook hands with her oldest.

“Your name is Lillian now,” Darlene said, and Scully was happy to see Lily take it in stride, nodding.

“I like your jacket,” Lily said.

“You can have it when I die,” said Darlene, all business, who then turned to Will.

“Billy now,” she said, “You got a problem with Billy?” Darlene asked him as she reached for his hand.

“Not unless he’s got a problem with me,” said Will, giving her hand a firm shake.

Darlene turned back to Scully.

“You get to keep Dana,” she said, then turned to Mulder, “But you…” she said, turning to Mulder, “Do not get to keep Fox.”

“Pity,” he said, not sounding all that broken up.

“I’m sure you’ve seen from the documents Melvin gave you, but you’re Emmet now. Everyone can call you M. Hopefully it’s an easy transition.”

Mulder nodded, and Darlene looked at each of them in turn.

“Let’s head into the house,” she said, “I can answer any questions you might have.”

XxX

“The professor who lives here is on sabbatical abroad for a year,” Darlene said, ushering them into the house, “he and I go back quite a ways.”

She threw the lock on the front door and then dropped the keys unceremoniously into Mulder’s hand.

“Come on,” she said, sounding a touch impatient, though Scully was beginning to suspect that she always sounded that way. The woman made her way into the kitchen and the rest of the family followed like little ducklings all in a row.

“I’ve stocked the fridge for a few days, though I’m sure there’s some things I didn’t think of that you’ll need.” She pointed to a couple of credit/debit cards sitting on the otherwise empty kitchen countertop. “Melvin has moved your money around the world and back again. No one will be able to track it. Try to stick with using these cards if you can. If you need cash, use the University Credit Union.”

Scully nodded.

“I’ll need your old credit cards, check books, cell phones, laptops, anything they can trace…”

Mulder nodded his head toward the front door.

“They’re already in a box out in the car. Phones are off, SIM cards out.” he said.

“I’ll take them with me for safekeeping,” Darlene said with a curt nod. “There’s a landline here you can use until we get you set up with new phones.” She looked to the kids. “You all ever been on the run before?” The kids shook their heads. “Learn your new names. Call each other by them even when you’re in the house. Don’t even think of leaving the house until you’re convinced that’s always been your name. You cannot call your friends. You cannot call your family. You cannot log onto social media. Do not log onto anything using your old login information or password. In fact, it’s best if you stay away from technology full-stop.” At this, both kids froze a bit in their tracks and shared a look. “Start reading books for entertainment. God knows this house has enough of them.”

At that Scully looked around them at the room they were standing in, an open-concept kitchen/living room. An entire wall was covered in floor to ceiling bookshelves, each shelf filled to bursting with books of every shape and size.

“It’s going to be a big adjustment, but you have no choice. Do it or die.”

“O kay ,” Mulder said quickly, putting a hand on Darlene’s shoulder, and ushering her a little further into the kitchen. Scully took a quick assessing look at her kids, and could register an appropriate but not alarming amount of fear on their faces.

“Is there at least a TV?” Will asked her in alarm, and she shushed him, though hoped to god there was one. Both her children had inherited their father’s penchant to be underfoot when bored, and so help her, any moratorium on technology would not extend to the pre-90’s analog variety. And to think she had almost talked Mulder out of packing a box of their favorite old movies. She turned her attention back to where Darlene and Mulder were talking.

“For the first week or so, I’d like a nightly safety check-in, after that we can space them out. Call this number,” she slapped a magnet on the fridge and pointed to it. It looked like it was for a local pizzeria. “If everything is okay, just say you want a large cheese pizza for take-out. If things seem like they might not be totally kosher, order a large pepperoni. If the shit hits the fan, order a pizza with the works and someone will be out here to help you as soon as humanly possible.”

Mulder nodded at her, and she turned, holding up a finger as though she had another thought.

“If you do actually want to order pizza,” she said, “stick with Cottage Inn. The other places around here are shit.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

Okemos, Michigan May 6, 2018

Scully heard Mulder awaken with the dawn, sliding out of bed in the periwinkle light. Not long after that, noises came filtering down the hallway of him in the kitchen, fumbling around the unfamiliar space, likely trying to make coffee with a new machine, and opening various cabinets in search of mugs. She dozed after that and came to consciousness however long later, finding Mulder standing in the window of the master bedroom with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand, looking out at the backyard of the professor’s house, the new rays of the day slanting on his minky hair.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, searching by feel with her feet for the pair of slippers she’d left next to the bed the night before. She stood and walked slowly to her husband, whose head tilted slightly back as he heard her approach. When she reached him, she wrapped an arm around his waist, leaning into him, and he handed her the mug of coffee without a word.

She took a grateful sip, letting it slide hotly down her throat and he leaned down and kissed her hairline.

“It’s decaf,” he whispered.

“I appreciate the solidarity,” she said quietly back, and he smiled at her and turned back to the window. She handed the coffee back.

“I wonder how the kids slept,” she said after a quiet minute.

“They’re still sleeping,” he said, squeezing her gently into him.

“Mmm,” she said, an idea forming, and she raised herself up on her toes and pressed a kiss into the side of his mouth. He turned her until they were facing each other, their lips still connected. Finally he pulled back just enough to look into her eyes.

“What kind of ‘Mmm’ was that?” he said, his voice low.

She nosed his cheek gently.

“What kind does it feel like?” she asked, and heard the quiet clunk of the mug being placed on the dresser next to the window.

She ran her lips lightly over the stubbly curve of his jaw, reading the story of him in Braille. She’d always been drawn to this gnathic arc of him, when he clenched in anger or passion, the stoutest line of his profile in situ.

For as long as they’d been together, even just the rasp of his skin on her lips still made her weak in the knees; a remnant echo of five years of pent up longing still reverberating down the hallway of their life. Two (plus) kids and a mortgage and her center still clenched when he whispered her name.

“My favorite kind,” he said and hoisted her up easily in his arms, her legs going around his waist with practiced ease.

Making love with him had always been revelatory, and these days were no different; her breasts more sensitive with the fluctuating hormones of pregnancy, her center swollen and aching with need.

Mulder moved them to the untested bed in this unfamiliar room, and as he ran a hand up under the soft silk of her pajama top and settled between her legs, it started to feel a bit more like home.

They probably had hours before the kids woke up -- the lethargy of teenagehood had settled soundly into their house -- but they still had a tendency toward sex of the quicker sort; stolen moments in rare downtimes, and now was shaping up to be no different.

Mulder had shed his clothes before she knew quite what was happening, and he began tugging at her pajama bottoms with a wicked smile on his face, which he buried in her lap before her pajamas hit the floor.

Pregnancy already had her as sexually restive as a tightly strung instrument and Mulder played her with his tongue with the familiarity and talent of a maestro. His hand on her breast, tongue laving at her ripe seam, before she knew it she was moaning into the pillow next to her head, practiced in the art of keeping quiet. She tugged on his hair twice, an old cue for him to get his ass where she wanted it, and a moment later he was sliding into her, the blunt head of his penis bumping into her tender cervix. Five deep strokes and she was gone, soaring into the heavens, his name on her lips.

#MSR #AU #X-Files #Fanfic #My fic #Sequel #Of the Eight Winds

31 notes · View notes

frogsmulder · 3 years

Text

Maybe There’s Hope: chpt 4 Home is What I’ll be Dreaming of

Starting from the final events of 09x20 The Truth, Mulder and Scully tackle their new reality as fugitives. When they finally settle into things, Scully finds out she is pregnant again. A canon divergent AU where I thought, what if Scully got pregnant whilst on the run instead of at the end of season 11?

6k words; rated e; tagging @today-in-fic; read on ao3

"Mom?"

"Dana?"

The image of opening the door to her daughter's frightened face flashed before her eyes as she put the key into the lock of Dana's apartment.

"I'm sorry, mom, I don't have much time... but I'm leaving."

"Leaving where? Dana, you're not making any sense."

Margaret Scully stepped into her daughter's world still smelling fresh like the owner had popped out to work that morning. She half expected Dana to appear around the corner at any moment.

"I can't say. I don't even know myself. The trial– it's–"

"Fox. I understand."

Running her finger along the top of a cabinet, she rubbed the particles into the pad of her digit– the dust had barely started settling on the surface. She remembered embracing her daughter, Dana clutching back like it would be the last time she would get to. Maggie liked to believe she had more faith than to believe that.

"Mom, there's something I need you to do for me because I won't be there and I don't know if I'll be back."

She picked up the envelope on the side; held it firmly in her hands as she took a long look at the room; all the idiosyncrasies scattered about, neatly organized on bookshelves and the mantelpiece in the way that was so Dana. Sitting down on the couch, she sized up the task at hand: pack a life into boxes, for everything must go. She opened the envelope– the lease on the apartment ended next month.

She started in the bedroom, where all of Fox's possessions hadn't been unpacked yet. They were stuffed into the bottom of the closet, hidden away like bad memories. Maggie knew what it was like with her husband away at sea, not knowing when– if he'd be back. But she'd had her children, her friends, her church group, her faith. She may have felt lonely at times, but she was never alone. She knew her daughter; knew her tendency to shut people out when she needed them most; her need to prove her strength. She worried for Dana.

Pulling the first box out, she lifted the lid and looked inside. Scraps of newspaper clippings littered the bottom, disguising a picture frame and what she suspected was a case file.

"Oh, Fox," she sighed, returning the lid and his privacy. She was transported back to her own doorstep again, hugging Dana before she left. "You promise me one thing: you look after him."

In another box were all of his university books, editions of the Lone Gunmen magazine; another family heirlooms like silverware sets, photographs, inscribed books, a velvet box, a pocket watch. Maggie sat down on her daughter's unmade bed: the only sign that Dana had left in a hurry. The pillow askew revealed a knot of cloth, the top of William's baby hat. "Oh, Dana." She whispered like when she had hugged her tighter on the doorstep. "And you let him look after you."

Maggie shook her head. She wouldn't do it. All of their things, they were not things to be thrown out. She took the hat and carefully folded it, putting it away in a box, saving the good memories, saving all of them.

----------

"Mom?"

"Dana?"

Dana stood dumbfounded on her mother's step, pinching herself with excitement, relief, and nervousness. She rushed into her mother's waiting arms, finally coming home after what had been an eternity. "Oh my God, mom, I've missed you so much!"

The thud of crashing into the embrace jolted Scully, opening her eyes to the bright Mexican sun beating down through the windscreen of the car. Gasping, she bolted upright, clutching her hands by her thighs, before she bolted out of the door. Stood in the bright sunlight, she caught and held her breath. In. Hold. Out. It wasn't the first dream like it she'd had, but she was shocked every time by how real they felt and how tangible her mother seemed. Calmer now, she looked at Mulder in the passenger seat, drifting roughly in and out of sleep. His eyes opened groggily as he slowly stirred, stretched, and groaned. He offered her a warm smile that melted some of the ache in her chest and watered a different, better kind into bloom. When he stumbled out of the car and over the dusty ground to join her, Scully turned away, looking out across the open land. He slipped his hands around her waist from behind, stooping to rest his chin upon her shoulder.

"You had a bad dream again," he mumbled into her shoulder.

Scully leaned her head defeatedly against his. She turned in his arms and buried her face into his t-shirt, breathing in his warm, sleepy scent and sighing. Rubbing her hands up and down his sides, she huffed and pushed herself from the wrap of his arms. "I thought I was home again," she said simply, looking up at him.

"Yeah, me too," he hummed. "Well, actually, we were in the office and you were throwing paperwork at me, telling me you would chew my ass before Skinner could even get to me if it wasn't done on time."

She might have chuckled but Mulder doubted that she would share her dream so freely, despite his effort to tease it out of her. He understood her need for privacy but he wished at times she would be a little less unforgiving, building her walls twice as quickly as he could chisel them away. Resolutely, he stood up straighter, holding out his hand out in invitation. She queried him with her eyebrows, so he flexed it imploringly. "Take a walk with me."

"Where?" she laughed.

"Anywhere, everywhere." He chipped away at her guard with a smile. "This fine foreign land has many fruits to offer."

"Okay–" she took his hand cautiously– "but not too far."

They ambled awhile aimlessly with no destination in mind. Taking each step at a time, it was pleasant living in the moment with no expectations. The liberation of no judgement from the open expanse drew them closer together. Between them, they spoke in silences, admiring the craggy landscape decorated with scraggy bushes. As Scully walked along, her thoughts drifted like the thin, wispy clouds on the breeze, back to her mother and the home she no longer had. She hadn't told Mulder yet, not because she couldn't bring herself to tell him, but because with all that had happened, it had slipped her mind. Everything she had now was all ahead of her and everyone to the side of her, holding her hand and swinging it gently like a pendulum. Life seemed simple when reduced to its basic measures: food, water, shelter, Mulder. She wondered how long she could live on that.

Mulder's voice broke through the cloud of her thoughts like a siren returning her to the moment. "Tell me what you're thinking."

Scully looked at him, surprised that he could see into her mind so easily.

"You may keep things closer to yourself these days, but I know your thinking face when I see it." He said it kindly but the honesty of his words punched a hole through her gut. She tried to tell him these things but she also had to figure them out for herself first. She only regretted that she'd ever hurt him in any way being caught in the brunt of her storm.

"It's been a month." The words surprised her as they tumbled out without her knowing.

He cocked his head. "What has?"

"Us..." she breathed. Scully made a point of looking him in the eye, even if it stole the breath from her lungs to see him focused on her so intensely. "... living like this."

His thumb shakily stroked the back of her hand. "You're counting?"

"I find it hard not to."

Mulder nodded.

She sighed. "I– I couldn't tell you what day it is, but I... I don't know– have the need to keep a tally; a record of some kind." It was like her body clock was scratching tally marks on the walls of her mind. Like she was a prisoner in her own skull. "I do it to keep me sane but does it make me mad?"

"Sometimes the only sane response to an insane world is insanity," he answered.

"That's not helping."

"Sorry." He paused in thought, taking a breath whilst trudging onwards. "I know what you mean... When Samantha first went missing and I was waiting for her to come through the bedroom door, I used to count the nights she didn't."

Curiosity claiming the better of her she asked, "When did you stop?"

"If I'm honest, I don't think I have. I just lost count somewhere along the way; found other days to count. Like when I was in hiding–" He took her other hand and pulled them to a stop, standing in front of her and looking into her blue eyes flickering with worry. Mulder could tell she would take what he was about to say the wrong way, so he tried to assure her with a squeeze of his hands and a loving look. "Every night I would cross off another day until I could see you and Will again... Sometimes that was the only thing that kept me going."

He felt her tense in his hands anyway, saw her eyes mist up as the walls grew thicker, yet she refused to let the tears spill. He steadied her at the shoulders, rubbing tender circles gently through the cloth of her t-shirt. Bending lower, he brushed his lips softly over hers, pulling her from the pain she harboured. Yet Scully remained frozen, unresponsive to the warm life of his lips, the hole in her gut tearing a little more. Pulling away to see her stone-faced, he whispered, "Scully, please don't do this to me. You have nothing to be sorry for."

She licked her lips and swallowed, allowing herself to sink to the bottom and the troubled waters calm over the top. Moving out of his grasp, she continued on their wander as if she could physically leave the memories behind.

Mulder's hand loosened on her shoulder, trailing down her arm as she walked away. A sharp tug drew him from the well of despair. As their hands met, she held on tightly coaxing him to follow, which he did so gratefully. She stopped them after a few paces, placing a hand upon his chest. On tiptoes, she raised herself to meet his lips, returning his kiss with mellow grace, not breaking until she had to breathe.

"Scull–" he questioned but was cut off by the press of her lips back against his, delicately answering him.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled against his mouth.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," he repeated in a whisper. His hand rested at the small of her back, guiding her as he turned back the way they had come. "Come on, let's get some breakfast."

----------

Along the back roads of Mexico, they traveled for some time before they came across a small town. The one street through it was lined with sand-coloured buildings that glinted in the sunlight, some rising tall, others spread wide. All of them looked welcoming and homely and Scully, gazing out of her window, wondered what it would be like to live in one of them. As they drove past, she wondered about the lives of the people who did live in them. Did they argue about who took the trash out? Did the children constantly ask what was for dinner? Did they gather around a television in the evening with their families? It was a life that for the longest time she had dreamed of and at one point had mourned the loss of. Now, she was indifferent to the idea of getting out of the car, hardened by years of abnormalcy, or so she told herself. Home was just a dream; the car was all she had for a life. Yet still a small part of her dared to dream; dared to envy the people in this town of their families and their homely comforts. And at the same time, she feared that normalcy wouldn't be enough for her.

Mulder pulled up outside a storefront, eyeing the swathes of people moving in every direction. Despite its size, the town was full of bustling people going about their daily lives.

"How good's your Spanish, Scully?"

She gave him a withering look. "You know I took German in college."

"Mhmm, and I did French in high school. Where's Monica when you need her?"

Scully followed his line of gaze to the crowds of people. "Mulder, I don't think we should go in together."

"What?" He whipped his head around to look at her. "Scully, we're fine. Nobody knows us out here."

"I still think we'd be better off if only one of us went in."

"But what if one of us needs help?" he questioned quietly, scared by her sudden urge to be alone.

"I'm sure I'll be fine," she smiled, unbuckling her seatbelt. "Anyway, you need to drive the getaway car."

Scully left him in the car to his own thoughts spiraling with concern.

It was eerily quiet inside the store. The jingle of the bell above the door and the radio playing quietly in the background only heightened the silence within. Scully perused the shelves, picking up odd pieces like cereal bars, bottles of water, and a packet of sunflower seeds. By the counter, there was a rack of postcards, mostly just pictures of the map of Mexico or the flag with writing she didn't understand. She picked one up and thought of her mother who had no idea where she was or how she was. It would be too complicated to send without revealing their location, she knew that, but maybe when she got home she could give it to her mother like documentation of where they had been.

Scully had always wondered what it would be like to go traveling– her father's worldly trips had partly inspired her and she had been raised with what he called the Scully Adventurer's Spirit. Charlie had started his world trip in Mexico, although his journey had been an entirely legal affair. He hadn't crossed into new territory miles away from border control. Scully turned the postcard over in her hands, reminding herself how far from home she was. Yet strangest of all, she didn't feel like she was.

"Do I know you?"

The voice made Scully jump and instinctively she held the postcard behind her back.

"I'm sorry?" she asked, trying to keep her tone as calm as possible whilst blood pulsed in her ears.

A man, who looked to be in his late forties, had appeared behind the counter with his brow furrowed in concentration and his sight set on her. He rubbed his chin contemplatively. "I know you. You are American, no?"

Scully stuttered, unsure of how to answer. "No, I– I don't–"

"Yes!" he interrupted her. His smile grew with his enthusiasm, unnerving Scully more by the second. "I see you before somewhere, on the television perhaps?"

"I'm sorry, I have to go."

Scully left some money on the counter and swiftly weaved back through the aisles. At a brief glance, she plucked a random box of hair dye from a shelf, self-conscious of her entire appearance. If she had to, she would scrub down her skin until she looked like someone else, but first, she had to get out.

The man behind the counter clicked his fingers in recognition. «¡Ah! ¡Cops! ¡Y el hombre lobo con el FBI!» he laughed and shook his head.

Mulder saw Scully burst out of the shop, arms laden with groceries and an expression he couldn't fathom. She crumpled into the passenger seat, quickly stuffing the things into the footwell. "You'd be no good in a robbery," she quipped.

"Scully, what's wrong?" he immediately asked.

She gave him her usual answer, passing him a cereal bar and his seeds. "I'm fine. Let's just get out of here."

Mulder took the food and started the engine, driving away despite the uncomfortable feeling that told him she was hiding something. He didn't want to press her further though, so he bit his tongue and focused on the road.

After a couple of minutes, Scully turned to him, worrying her lip between her teeth. She relented, speaking softly. "There was someone in there, Mulder, he recognised me."

Mulder let go of a breath that he didn't know he was holding, relieved that she had finally said something. "Are you sure? I mean they couldn't have been mistaking you for someone else?"

She shook her head, doubting herself already. "I don't know, he said he'd seen me on TV. Mulder, what if they have our pictures out on the news?"

"I don't think they'd do that. They don't want to draw unnecessary attention to themselves," he reasoned.

"But they could dress it up as something else. Get the unsuspecting populous to do their dirty work without telling them who or why. Mulder, seriously, how haven't we been caught yet?"

"Don't know, but I'm not going to question it either."

"But don't you think it's strange that if they really wanted to find us they could have easily done so already?" She looked at his profile, judging the minute movements of his jaw muscles, saw them flex unconsciously as they did whenever he was forced to admit a hard truth.

"Perhaps we're not as important as they would have us believe," he tried, glancing at her for reassurance. "Maybe they're busy developing a vaccine or ordering their super soldiers into neat, indestructible lines. Everyone's got bigger aliens to fry." He chuckled perfunctorily.

"Mulder, they were determined enough to kill you that they rigged your trial," Scully turned to gaze at the roadside zipping past and said quieter, "I think there's something bigger at play here."

Mulder properly laughed and she stared at him with a frown stitched upon her brow.

"You're doing a very good impression of me, Scully," he chortled.

She smiled despite herself, trying to hide it in a dip of her head. She hummed, having to agree. Maybe she was being paranoid, maybe she should be. The little Mulder voice played in her head, It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you. Shifting in her seat, Scully scuffed her feet on the box of hair dye in the footwell. She was reminded of the haunting feeling of being reeled into the snare, the need to change shape and escape. I see you before on the television.

"Could we find a motel tonight?" she asked warily, cognizant of the contradiction to her previous argument.

"Yeah, sure." He reached out for her hand, lacing her fingers with his. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yes," she smiled. "I'm fine."

----------

Scully stood behind Mulder at the front desk, listening vaguely to him trying to communicate to the owner of the motel. She stared out of the window at the fading light, smiling as she clutched their only bag of belongings. Resting her cheek to Mulder's shoulder, she heard the muffled sound of his broken Spanish.

«Uno habitación. Uno err noche,» he stuttered earnestly.

She chuckled, remembering of all the times they had booked two rooms just to keep up appearances and Human Resources of their backs. It wasn't that both rooms never got used, more the connecting door left open was an invitation too tempting to resist taking. Mostly, she relished the frequent nights he had slipped into her bed under the cover of darkness and fallen asleep curled around her.

«¿Te gustaría una o dos camas?» The man nodded towards Scully and she smiled politely.

«¿Excusa?»

«¿Una cama o dos?» the man repeated.

«Una cama por favor, señor,» Scully answered.

Mulder muttered, "Feel free to save me from looking like an ass any time."

"I was enjoying listening to you butcher a beautiful language," she teased.

As soon as Mulder was through the door, he flopped onto the bed and sighed contentedly. "One day, Scully, we'll have a place of our own and I will never sleep on a couch again."

She eyed him suspiciously as she rummaged through their bag. Was this where he thought this was going? The end goal a house out in the country with a little wooden porch and surrounded by fields to play baseball in? She tried to imagine it, sitting on the porch, drinking ice tea on a sunny day, a good book and Mulder for company. A cozy log fire crackling in the stone fireplace on long winter evenings. She sometimes thought about the fairy-tale ending but she couldn't imagine herself in that story. Somehow, Scully was always on the outside looking in.

Clutching the box of hair dye behind her back, she stood purposefully. "I'm going to use the bathroom."

Mulder followed her with his head until the door clicked shut behind her. Hearing the water run in the en-suite, he turned over on his side. The creaking of the pipes was oddly comforting and he closed his eyes to it. The mechanical lullaby was, however, annoying enough to keep him from drifting off even though it was the first time he'd laid his head down on a pillow in a month.

A month– Scully was counting. Every day he had woken up next to her and gazed into her clear, blue eyes, she had been counting. He now understood half of what had been wearing her thin, forcing her to guard herself as he'd forged ahead to try and break through. Maybe now was not the best time to pick at her walls. Instead, he promised to find a small window and let in some light. He lay flat on his back, exhausted, and rubbed his hands down his face. Maybe he shouldn't find a window. What if he did find one and somehow manage to block the light out against his own intentions? Perhaps all she needed was space and time to heal. Time away from him and pain he brought with his existence. It was so hard to know what to do when she didn't speak to him. Not about the important things; the things that truly mattered. Not that either of them had been very good at it in the past. It had only ever been drips of conversation at a time, providing a Petri dish for overthinking and false assumptions and doubt. Things that built up like a damn over time until the structure burst and it all came flooding out at once. He didn't want to lose Scully and he didn't want her to get lost.

Restless, he turned onto his other side.

Emily's little face peered up at him from over the side of the bed.

"Jeez, Em," Mulder laughed nervously. "You scared me."

Her young face, too innocent still to be morose, hung dejectedly before him. Her eyes were wide, almost tearful, trying to tell him something he wished he could understand.

"Emily, what is it?"

She simply padded over to the bathroom door and pointed.

"Dana," he breathed, rushing onto his feet and knocking on the door. "Scully? You okay in there?" he called urgently.

"It's open," she replied and he noticed how she avoided his question. Turning the handily delicately, as if he was intruding, Mulder opened the door ajar and peered inside.

"Scully?"

Her t-shirt was crumpled on the floor with a towel next to the bathtub. She had her head hung over the ledge, damp tresses of hair dangling before her face. Various bottles from a box were scattered around in an unorganised mess that was so unlike her.

"If you need to use the toilet, just be quick," she said.

He cleared a path and kneeled down beside her. "Scully, what are you doing?"

Scully turned her head to look at him, dragging her tongue across her top lip in a condescending manner. "Mulder, what does it look like I'm doing?"

"Is this why you wanted to stay in a motel tonight?"

"Does it matter?"

He carefully reached for her hands, untangling them from the ribbons of her once red hair. "Of course it matters. Why didn't you tell me?"

She looked down at their hands. "Am I obligated to tell you everything, Mulder?" she quizzed, returning her gaze to him as she uttered his name.

"No," he searched her eyes for some meaning, but it was hidden away in some depth he couldn't swim to. "But you hardly tell me anything anymore. I think I see a glimmer of what you keep locked away in your heart, but I don't know if it's just a smokescreen, Scully, I can't tell."

She pulled her hands away, combing her fingers through her hair again. "I would never lie to you, Mulder," she said candidly.

"That's not what I said."

Huffing, she stopped, resting her arms over the rim of the bath and giving him her full attention. "Then what are you saying?"

He didn't know. He'd lost sight of his thoughts when he'd seen her troubled; only ever her in mind. He paused, taking a breath. "Why do you need to change yourself?" he uttered softly.

"I'm not changing myself, I'm just dying my hair. It's nothing new or special."

"Why now? Why so suddenly?"

She stared at him in disbelief. "I told you: someone recognised me. I can't just shrug that off like it didn't happen because it did. This is our reality, Mulder, we can't wander through it blindly an– and just hope we'll make it out alive!"

She caught her breath, taken off guard by her own sudden outburst. Licking her lip, she composed herself, affecting an even tone. "I'm not shutting you out, Mulder, if you'd just listen..."

He watched her silently, absorbing her words. Eventually, he nodded timidly. "Let me help then," he whispered.

"No, I'm fine," she brushed him off.

But he refused to lose her. "Scully, let me help."

She sighed, giving in. Snapping of the rubber gloves, she handed him the pair: they had been too large for her hands anyway. "I've died my hair before, but this is bleach, and all the instructions are in Spanish," she admitted.

"I think you're doing fine, Scully," he smiled, rubbing the mixture from the tips all the way to the roots of her hair. Once he'd checked everywhere was covered, he sat with her, waiting patiently by her side until it needed to be washed out. Grabbing the showerhead, he made sure that the water temperature wasn't too hot and massaged her scalp. Scully hummed in appreciation as the warm water cascaded over her head and his fingers worked their magic.

"Do you think I should bleach my hair too?" he asked, partly to make her laugh and partly because he knew that she was right: this was their reality. And she did laugh: the shaking of her shoulders accompanied by a small chuckle made him sigh in relief.

"What's so funny?" he teased. "Would I not look cool with bleach blond hair? I could take up surfing."

Laughing again, Scully elbowed him playfully, making the shower spray everywhere. Her giggle was a welcome sound for sore ears, breathing life back into the empty silence that had followed the burst of the damn.

He turned off the water and handed her the towel. She sat on the ledge of the tub, patting carefully at her now blonde hair, eyeing the alien colour curiously. Mulder grabbed another towel and started on her other side, drying her hair with just as much care. He seriously thought about how he should change his appearance, although he didn't want to. He didn't want to look in the mirror and see someone else's reflection staring back, his own image lost and forgotten. Seeing Scully now, she didn't look like the same person he had known for nine years. The blonde brought out the ice in her blue eyes; her stares once hot like fire now cold and hard. He knew it was just a costume to wear; an act to play, but he feared it becoming a warped version of reality. He should find his own costume to don too; if not becoming the obnoxious surfer-dude type, then what other outfit should he assume? Mulder doubted novelty glasses with the big nose and moustache would cut it, not least because he already wore reading glasses and his nose– well...

Absentmindedly, he asked, "What if I grow a beard?"

Scully turned suddenly serious. Her icy, blue eyes, still fiery, melted his heart.

"Don't," she said definitively and pulled him into a searing kiss. Her fingers curled through the hair at the nape of his neck, dropping the towel and bringing him closer. She felt a well of hunger for him build in her like she'd been starved of his touch.

His hands traveled from her sides, down around the shape of her thighs, lifting her from her perch on the bathtub. He pulled her body into his, pressing them together, all the while she stole his lips with fever. With his hands under her ass and her legs wrapped around his waist, Mulder maneuvered them towards the bedroom.

"No. Here," she breathed.

"Dana–"

She rested her forehead again at his. "Please."

Mulder turned around and placed Scully on the corner of the sink unit. Grinding softly into her, he traced a hand up to cup her jaw, locking lips reverently. She tightened her grip, pulling him closer at the hips and binding her ankles behind his legs. She sucked his full bottom lip, ripe and refreshing like a plump summer fruit, biting it and soothing it with a swipe of her tongue. He hissed when she continued down his neck, leaving a trail of wet kisses and lovebites until she reached the neckline of his t-shirt. Impatiently, she tugged at it and set him free, dropping it by his feet.

Her hands wandered his torso. It was softer than before, leaner and less muscular. There was still tension in his muscles, a defined shape to them, but she could feel the difference. She reached the waist of his jeans, slipping her hands down further, but Mulder grabbed her wrists, making her look up at him. When Scully saw into his eyes, she understood that he wanted to slow down, but there was a fire unfurling through her, setting her body alight and cultivating an insatiable thirst. The last time they had taken things slow, she'd had too much time to think, and she didn't want to think: just feel.

The moment passed between them, eyes locked onto one another, their telepathy flying with the sparks.

Mulder tenderly let go of her wrists and cupped her cheek, brushing his thumb across the rose flush that tinted it. Scully sighed, leaning into his hand and placing her own on top. He bent down to capture a kiss, his lips soft yet firm with resolution. She responded in kind, opening up to the taste of his tongue, of desperation, of hope, of the sunflower seeds he cracked between his teeth all day. Her fingers wound around his hand, bringing it from her cheek to her hip. She slipped down off the cabinet and he unbuttoned her pants. They fell to the floor with a rumpling sound that seemed to echo off of the tiled walls. She stepped out of them, climbing on top of the unit, tugging him between her legs. A second rumpling of jeans and he was buried inside of her, clutching her closely.

He began to move leisurely, kissing her with indulgence. But his body was strung like an archer's bow, taut with resistance, holding something back. Scully moved against him insistently, one hand scratching at his shoulder, the other twined through his hair. She kissed him like a diver plunging into deep waters; the taste of exploration too sweet not to bite.

"Faster," she pleaded in his ear.

Mulder complied, giving in, releasing built-up tension with the snap of his hips forward. In quick and jarring thrusts he drove into her until it was too much and she came with a gasp, collapsing into his chest. Time seemed to slow. The pulsation of where they were joined throbbed up through him to his ears and pounded through his chest. He heard every lungful of air he took; every small, panting breath Scully puffed. Every plunge pushed him further until he too, gasping for air, broke the surface, floating euphorically on the waves of the ocean.

An indeterminate amount of time later, when it was moving at roughly the normal speed again, Mulder lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling with his arm outstretched and Scully's head resting on it. She was drawing aimless patterns around the scar tissue of where she had shot him. Moby had been rescued from their bag of belongings and the white whale was snuggled in the space between them. Everything should have felt easy.

"Scully..."

"Yes?"

"I– I..." He thought of Emily's face staring up at him. He wanted– needed to tell her about the hallucinations that haunted him but he didn't know if he could place that kind of burden on her. He shuffled onto his side and watched her watch him back. He was about to open his mouth when he saw Emily sat on the bed behind Scully, frantically shaking her head. He itched to make Scully turn over and see for herself the impossible. But there was something in that little girl's eyes, so like her mother's, that made him think of Scully first: how angry she would be if he said he could see her; how broken she would be if she saw her for herself.

"Why did you get those sunflower seeds?" he eventually fabricated to fill the silence, bottling his ghosts up and burying them for another time.

"What?" she asked, understandably bewildered.

Ignoring the nagging feeling that he was walking down the wrong path, aware it was still early enough to go back, Mulder sighed and continued, "You didn't have to get them, so I just wondered why you did."

"Because you like them and I saw them." She leaned away from him, questioning him and trying to gauge what was running through his mind. "Did you not want them?"

"No, it's not that. I wasn't expecting it– I didn't ask you to get them..." he continued to ramble.

She silenced him with a kiss, smiling. "You didn't have to."

When Scully pulled away from him, Emily had disappeared and he wondered why at all he was taking advice from his own deluded mind. Mulder looked up at the ceiling again. There were things he needed to get off of his chest, but Emily was right, even if she was only an apparition or a figment: he couldn't tell Scully, not at the moment. Maybe sometime in the future when the moment was right. Yet the longer he left it, the harder it would be to explain what was happening– to explain why it had taken so long to confide in her. The longer he left it, the harder it pressed against his chest; another weight to carry around. The harder it pressed, the more it weighed on his mind; another thought to worry about. The more he thought about it, the harder it pressed against his chest. It was like something inside him wanted to scream when he reflected upon it. So, he didn't. Instead, he pulled Scully closer and lost himself curled around her. Her warm skin against his own grounded him; her scent wrapped itself around him and tied him down. He focused on her breathing, matching his own to the same pattern until he was made up of a tiny piece of Scully that kept him sane and whole.

"Mulder," she mumbled. "Are you okay?"

"Shh, it's nothing," he whispered. He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. "Try and get some sleep."

#my fic #msr #on the run #fox mulder #dana scully #maybe there's hope #the x files #xf fanfic

19 notes · View notes

mulderist · 4 years

Text

Wicked Game

Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // read on AO3 // @today-in-fic

Washington, D.C - 1948. Fox Mulder is a detective on the top vice unit; scandal, corruption, and lies come with the territory. He is forced to investigate a fellow officer and finds the lies go much deeper than the truth.

CHAPTER 3

Arlington National Cemetery One week later 9:17 am

Leaves rustled in the trees overhead as the honor guard reloaded and repositioned their rifles. The sharp bang, like a hit on a snare drum, echoed through the eerie calm of the cemetery. I could feel it happening again. Everytime I thought I was past this nonsense it kept coming back. I wanted to close my eyes but it would have brought me back to the mud and rain of Wake Island. When you’ve been knee deep in death you never forget it. I could still smell the humid air, the burnt powder, the smoke.

I closed my eyes for a moment and balled my fist tighter as images clear as photographs flashed before me. Three years ago, I donned the dress blues and watched a soldier from my company laid to rest. It felt like I was having a heart attack as I listened to the twenty-one guns and the cries of his grieving widow. Fingers pressed hard creating a thick new line in my palm and my flashback dissolved.

Each shot up to this point was torture. My salute wavered with the final pop and I felt the elephant on my chest move aside, allowing me to breathe a little. A bead of sweat broke free from under my hatband and took a slow slide down my temple. The back of my neck prickled. I swallowed hard and moved to parade rest as the honor guard queued up and left the gravesite. My fingers slowly loosened their curl and I felt the circulation return to the tips. Once the ringing in my ears stopped I was able to appreciate the sound of silence.

It was a small group of mourners, mainly fellow Marines from Spender’s company and a few officers from the precinct. He had no wife, no kids, not sure if his mother was still alive. Seems that the only family representative was his father. Jeffrey had the distinction of a military funeral at Arlington due to his rank and heroics at Guadalcanal. At the drop of a hat he would tell the story about surviving hand-to-hand combat and rescuing a senior officer during a nighttime raid. I’m sure each time he retold it, that fish got a little bigger. At any rate, he’s now buried amongst other honorable men. His father was able to cut through any red tape like a hot knife through butter to make it happen. And almost as if on cue I spied the old man in his expensive dark striped suit accepting condolences. I recognized him through the smoke cloud that hung around like a bad party guest. I suppose he could feel my eyes on him because he headed my direction. He gestured to another older gentleman, who I assumed was his driver, and continued his approach. It was the first time I was able to truly observe him. He had all the obvious characteristics of old D.C. politics; dower demeanor, rigid walk, air of superiority.

“Sir, I’m sorry for your loss,” I said flatly as he approached. The scent of Morleys invaded my nose.

“Thank you, mister -?” He asked while offering a perfunctory handshake.

“Mulder,” I replied as I shook his hand then tugged at my uniform jacket.

“Ah yes,” he practically hissed, “You were Jeffrey’s partner in the vice unit. Keeping the city safe from crime and debauchery.” The cigarette smoking man took one more drag then let the stick hang on his lower lip. “My son had great potential. To be killed in the line of duty is a tragedy.”

I didn’t know what type of condolence to offer. I wasn’t great friends with his son in the first place, it was a professional relationship and not much more.

“The precinct lost a good detective,” I finally managed to say. Jesus, that felt bitter on my tongue. I licked my lips, hoping this conversation would soon be over; my pleasantries were skating on thin ice. The Smoking Man stubbed out his cigarette and rattled off something about his resources that could aid in our murder investigation. Apparently he and the commissioner were old chums and justice would be swift. Then he took the cue and left. I stole a deep breath and watched him head towards his driver then enter a large black Cadillac that was parked at the base of the knoll.

My feet hit the pathway just as I heard my name being called from over my shoulder. I paused and turned to see Captain Skinner walking my direction.

“Just had a conversation with Spender’s old man.” I said.

“Is that so?” He questioned as he removed his glasses.

“Turns out he has the district police in his pocket so my services might not be needed with this investigation,” I said sarcastically.

“Did he know your connection to the case?”

“He knows I was Spender’s partner, but not that I was at the scene.”

Skinner squared his jaw then continued to walk past me away from the thinning crowd. I followed.

“I’m awaiting the final report from the coroner. They found something of interest on the autopsy.”

“A different cause of death? Figured the gunshots were obvious,” I said.

“There was additional bloodwork. I’m not certain what the M.E. was looking for, which is why I want the final report.” He stopped and faced me. “Mulder, I don’t typically recommend this course of police action however this is a unique situation.”

“Sir?”

“I want you to use whatever channels you have available. Legal or -- otherwise. Use the boys in forensics to your advantage. See if you can get that report and keep this ‘eyes only.”

I raised an eyebrow at the request. It’s not everyday your boss asks you to operate in the gray. Then it clicked.

“You want to keep this hush-hush.”

“I want to keep the reputation of this precinct and my vice unit intact,” he replied cryptically. I could only nod and watch as he slowly left for his car. I took an opposite path. There was a humming in my head that I wanted to knock loose with a stroll.

Flanked by rows of white crosses on green hills I continued along the pathway and suddenly saw a familiar flash of red. She was standing at a simple headstone, adjusting a small arrangement of flowers. Out of respect I waited until she stepped away onto the path before I approached.

“Excuse me,” I called from behind with a casual wave of my hand. When she looked over her shoulder I knew it was her.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, miss,” I began but clammed up when I saw those pools of blue. In that instant, that split second, it’s like I forgot the damn English language. My feet kept moving and I tried to say something.

“It’s no bother,” she said, thankfully.

“Are you by chance a nurse at Washington General?” I finally sputtered as we stopped walking. She nodded then thought for a moment, her arms hugged her petite frame.

“You look familiar,” she said with a delicately pointed finger, “Have we met before?”

“We have,” I replied. She cautiously moved closer to size me up. She surveyed my uniform and I felt like I was back in the barracks.

“You were the -- detective, right? -- who worked on a last name basis?”

“That’s my calling card. The name’s Mulder,” I said, “Remind me yours?”

“Dana Scully,” she said with a hint of a polite smile.

Scully. There it was. The stray thread was pulled and unraveled the memory of her name, each and every letter. She continued,

“How’s your shoulder?”

“Almost back to my pitching prime.” I replied as I gave it a roll. I had to watch myself with this one. Memory like a steel trap. Her head tilted curiously to the side.

“You clean up nice.” There was a quick flush to her cheeks as she took a small step back, wishing that remark stayed to herself. I smiled and now it was my turn to shift gears.

“I saw you laying down some flowers.” I said, curiosity getting my proverbial cat. Her lips pressed together.

“My father,” she said, “He is - was - a captain in the Navy. It was six years ago; Midway. I like to keep his flowers fresh if I can.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied with the only thing I could muster. Her statement was simple but knocked the wind out of my sails. Scully dipped her head and nodded. She then asked,

“Do you have someone here?”

“I’ve got a couple guys from my company, though I don’t visit too often. But today was my partner.”

“Oh,” she said softly, “It’s a funny state of the world when you can have a conversation about who you lost as easy as asking ‘how’s the weather.’”

For a moment I had nothing to say. A thousand scenarios ran through my head. I wanted to know more, I wanted to know everything about her. There was a natural beauty of course but something about her mind reeled me in. I cleared my throat. This chat was on the verge of getting cozy but seemed out of place in the current setting.

“May I walk you to your car?”

“Thank you but I’ll be fine. My sister is waiting for me. Besides, we only just met.” A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth.”

Playing coy, I liked that.

“Well then, good day Miss Scully.”

“Good day Mr. Mulder.” She shook my hand and lingered for a moment. “If you’re ever in Georgetown look me up. Hopefully we can meet again.”

“I sincerely hope so,” I said. She turned heel and left me on the path. The curve of her pencil skirt, a flutter of the hem, the lines of her smart blouse made the goodbye feel less permanent. I listened to a breeze sweep through the tree line then I backtracked to where I was parked.

I needed to get out of this uniform.

-------

Hegal Place Alexandria, VA

My apartment felt stale. I forced open a window to let in some fresh air. In the wardrobe hung one clean, pressed dress shirt along with my police dress blues. Of course the only shirt remaining was the one I wore the night Spender was killed. The good thing about an old jaded dry cleaner is you get quality work and little questions. I sipped my coffee and remembered I might have a vacation shirt stashed away in a drawer. As I donned the new shirt I heard the phone ring. I was waiting for a call from the boys in forensics who were a little too eager to give me a hand.

“Mulder? It’s Frohike.”

“What have you found?”

“As you know, Langley and I were able to fish out a casing from the bathroom stall door, the back wall and a sneaky little devil in the bar. Turns out these paired nicely with the one lodged in Spender’s abdomen.”

“Who’d the weapon belong to?”

“Carlo Lodi.” Frohike asked. I scanned through the mugshot portfolio in my head. There he was. A hulking brute nicknamed The Titan who was quick with a fist and a trigger.

“Yeah. He’s one of Vincenti’s favorite enforcers.”

“We’ve seen his handiwork before,” Frohike continued, “He leaves a real pretty signature, although he’s usually a little more precise. Execution style seems to be his forté.”

“That’s what I thought when I was at the scene. I still don’t know if he intended to take me out as well.”

“Just like you to get in the way, Mulder.” There was a chuckle in the other end of the phone.

“Hey Frohike, has the final report come in from the M.E.?”

“Ah, funny you should mention that. I have a preliminary copy and it shows that there was heroin in his system.”

“Shit,” I stated after a pause.

“What is it?”

“It means Krycek was right.”

#i wrote this #xf fanfic #mulder pov #historical au

32 notes · View notes

doof-doofblog · 3 years

Text

"I Promised ... I Promised!"

Double Episode Post

Thursday 1st April 2021 - Friday 2nd April 2021

Hello everyone! Hope you've all had a brilliant Easter Weekend! Today is going to be another double episode post in an attempt to catch up! I know there's a lot to discuss, but first I want to give a shout out to @estimebongu98 for sending me some brilliant EastEnders related questions to answer over the weekend, can't thank you enough for reaching out and asking me some opinions on your favourite storyline! If anyone else feels happy enough to send me a message then please feel free!

Anyway back to the matter in hand, the first thing I want to mention is Iqra and Mila. Kim appears to be doing everything she can to get her new business aspect into the public eye. She is completely convinced that she's managed to get couples together, such as Peter & Ash and Iqra & Mila. After getting a photographer to the Prince Albert to take photos of her and hear her story, Kim calls Iqra over, claiming that she's needed urgently. Poor Iqra is clueless about Kim's actual actions. Iqra is understandably confused and a little irritated by Kim's actions when she arrives - technically Iqra and Mila aren't even a couple as of yet and Kim is claiming that she's brought them together!

After some persuasion, Iqra agrees to do an interview for Kim's business, and even happens to volunteer Mila so they end up doing it together, at first Mila isn't too keen but then agrees. What harm could it do it really? Well, as Iqra gets herself dolled up for the interview it seems that they'll also be getting their pictures taken also, getting in front of the camera, Kim instructs Iqra to do all these sorts of poses, but to no avail. As Mila enters, Iqra is visibly happy to see her appear, they both acknowledge how pretty the other one looks. But suddenly as the photographer takes pictures of them without their knowledge, Mila seems pretty adamant that he deletes the picture! Her attitude almost completely changes, much to Iqra's surprise! The photographer unfortunately refuses to delete it, claiming that the natural pictures are the best, but poor Mila almost demands him to get rid of the picture. This really intrigued me though, there's obviously a reason for her not wanting pictures taken, why does it bother her so much?! What is her story?!

Later, Iqra seems to think that it's her fault that Mila left so quickly! However Kim seems to put her at ease, if she's so eager to get to know Mila more and understand why she left, then she needs to reach out to her and call her. Kim insists that she can sense they have feelings for each other, and if there's any truth in it, she encourages Iqra to act on her feelings. Eventually Iqra catches up with Mila and to be fair, she's pretty straight with her from the beginning, she admits that she likes her but also claims that she's fearful of being in the same situation as she was with Ash, asking herself whether she had done anything wrong and informs Mila that she can't go back to being like that. It's then that Mila admits that Iqra has done nothing wrong and she actually happens to like her too - now this is where Mila finally opens up and we learn a lot more about her - she admits that Mila isn't in fact her real name. She explains that she first realised she was gay when she was a teenager but when she told her family about having feelings for a girl, they laughed in her face and ended up throwing her out - simply because her family didn't "believe" in it! It's sad to realise that Mila has basically disowned by her family simply because of her sexual orientation. Of course Iqra is deeply sympathetic and apologises for dragging her into the interview, but Mila claims it's not her fault - how could she have known?! But with Iqra appreciating Mila being open and honest with her, could this seriously be a new relationship on the cards for the two ladies?!

The next thing I have to mention is Bobby! After a horrendous first date a little while back, Bobby is determined to get himself back out there, unfortunately it is under a completely different name, considering he changed his name on his dating app, in fear of people finding out who he really is and finding out about his past. I love how dressed up he's gotten for the occasion, and it looks as if both Kathy and Kim try to give him some advice - which I have to say was a brilliant scene!

Going completely off track they begin to discuss men's flaws, just as Bobby is sitting there between them listening to everything they tell him. You just have to laugh and say "Poor Bobby!" as his Nan and neighbour discuss the different things that men do to women. Just to make him feel that little more awkward, Kathy urges him that if he's just meeting his date for sex then make sure she doesn't end up getting pregnant. Poor Bobby is traumatised and claims he hasn't even met the poor girl yet! In a way, I guess it was Kathy's version of the "Birds And The Bees" story for Bobby!

However, taking his Nan's advice, feeling a little insecure, Bobby visits the Minute Mart and purchases a packet of condoms - much to Suki's amusement, which of course leaves him feeling just a little bit more insecure as he rushes out of the shop. All I have to say about the matter is, why do men find it embarrassing for purchasing condoms? Buying condoms and sanitary products should not be embarrassing, they are a part of every day life and it should be normalised for people to buy the items without feeling any kind of awkwardness or embarrassment. Please tell me you guys agree?!

Eventually, Bobby makes it to his date and things appear to be going well. Only the first thing that grabbed my attention was that Dana admitted that she has no sense of taste or smell and that her Dad believed she may have caught Covid-19, but she never took a test to make sure. After all that Bobby has been through trying to make sure himself and his family are safe from the virus, would it be mad for me to suggest that Bobby could end up catching the virus from Dana?! I'm sure you'll remember he was almost religiously washing his hands and cleaning surfaces. What if after all that caution, he catches Coronavirus from his date?!

Also it appears that Dana is calling Bobby by the name "Rob" - of course this is the name he changed his profile to. Is this going to be some kind of alter ego for Bobby? Only because I happened to notice how confident he looked during his date, he didn't seem nervous as the previous one and he didn't stumble over his words. Could this give Bobby some kind of comfort blanket in a way? If he can't be Bobby for his date's, he could be "Rob" instead? It's an interesting thought - maybe I am getting a little carried away, but I think with his past it would make complete sense. What do you think?! It's fair to say that "Rob" has a successful date as reveals she likes him and would like to see him again!

The next thing I have to mention is Frankie and Mick! After the events of the previous day, she voices her concerns to Linda, claiming that it was a bad idea for her to move into the Vic. However, Linda insists that Mick needs her a lot more than they realise, she claims that once Mick has been to court and spoken out about his abuse, he'll be proud to call Frankie his daughter! Meanwhile Mick appears to have his meeting with his support worker and it's here that he's informed that 4 other men have come forward reporting that they are also victims of Katy.

Understandably, Mick is completely thrown back by this, he is completely stunned and overwhelmed by the news, especially after admitting that he's trying to make things work with Frankie, considering she's his daughter. It needs to be pointed out that it's not Frankie's fault what her Mother did, she is also a victim just like Mick. Why should Mick have to hide her identity, I mean I understand he doesn't feel ready for people and his neighbours to know about his abuse, but why should Frankie have to suffer?! He clearly wants to have a relationship with her, but he does appear to be finding it hard.

As he gets home he informs both Frankie and Linda about what he's learnt, devastatingly his concerns get the better of him and he admits he doesn't think he can stand up in court. Does Frankie maybe feel like she is in some way to blame? Is she the reason why he won't stand up in court? She eventually finds herself at McKlunky's and Stuart spots her from the other side of the room. In an attempt of giving her a peace offering, he places some chicken in front of her, Frankie is clearly spooked - especially after the way he treated her last time he approached her. But Stuart is calm, collected and kind and informs her that for a brief moment, the way she looked reminded him of how Mick looked as a kid. This seems to really move Frankie and she begins to listen to Stuart. He informs her that Mick is going through this court case simply for her, even though he's struggling. He tells her that she kind of needs to meet him in the middle and try and support him, do something in return for him to help him cope with the court case, gently placing a brown paper bag in front of her, he claims a nice sugary treat would help Mick.

It looks as if Stuart's words play on Frankie's mind, she returns home with the sugary treat from Stuart, placing it on a lovely tray with a cup of tea and portrays it in front of Mick. Of course it's a really sweet gesture - no pun intended - but what touches Mick more than anything is when Frankie reveals she'll go to the police and willingly give them a sample of her DNA, to prove that she is Mick's daughter, to also prove that he has been sexually abused by Katy, which would help his case! As much I am hoping this will help, I do fear that maybe the DNA test won't come back as the result we're all hoping for?! What do you guys think?!

The next subject on the cards is Sharon! So, we know she's eager to pursue a new business opportunity for the sake of her son, Albie. She wants something that she will be able to provide for him in the future. Now I know I previously asked the question regarding the building she's found once belonged to Ronnie?! (Considering the name on the front of the building!) - but I noticed that Sharon claims it's an unused gym, can anyone remind me when Ronnie ever ran a gym in Walford?! I simply have no recollection of that!

Anyway, she once again approaches Peter, suggesting that she wants to run a gym with him by her side. She would be the main manager and he could be the head coach or personal trainer for their clients. At first, Peter claims that he's a "Freelance" personal trainer and he's happy how things are for now. But as soon Sharon mentions that it must be nice to have a partner who's a doctor and pays all the bills, Peter seems to agree. Even for him, this could be a brilliant career opportunity?!

However, I have to admit this next section got me really confused. Ben and Kheerat appear to lingering as they're discussing where to melt the gold bars that Vinny got his hands on. Kheerat suggests it needs to be somewhere subtle, like the Arches, but Ben is insistent that Arches cannot be the place. From across the Square, he notices Sharon putting in an offer for the abandoned building, I guess it's fair to say that Ben isn't Sharon's biggest fan - but what is she wanting to buy a gym got anything to do with him?! Maybe it's just me but I don't understand why he's interfering, and what's even worse - it appears he's dragging Kheerat into it too!

Kheerat appears to be the friendly neighbour, almost fishing for information and what's she's up to, Sharon explains that she's moving on with life after a horrendous year but just after she's put in an offer for the building, an unknown source happens to make a bigger offer, it looks as if her new business aspect is crumbling to pieces before it's already begun, but interestingly Kheerat suggests she adds on another £500 to her offer which overrules the other offer being considered. Is Ben the one who made the offer, just to get more money out of Sharon? Do the Panesar's actually hold the lease of the building and is that why Kheerat and Ben want the building as a place to melt the gold?! I have no idea, but something just doesn't add up for me, something really suspicious is going on and I can't quite work out what yet!

Finally the final day of Stacey's freedom has come - the day that all the Slater family have been dreading. After Lily's fall down the stairs, obviously everyone seems to be concerned for the youngster as she appears unconscious at the bottom of the stairs, but when the paramedics suggest that taking her to the hospital might give them some idea as to what's happened, Lily jumps into action claiming that she's actually okay! As everyone realises that Lily is fine, her parents decide to take her to one side to try and understand why she threw herself down the stairs.

Both Martin and Stacey listen as the youngster claims that she was trying to save her family, save her Mum from going to prison and it was also an attempt to stop the arguing so everyone would get along, if she was to get badly injured, they would have to put aside their differences for her sake. Both Martin and Stacey are shocked to hear the lengths their daughter would go through just to keep her family together. Almost as a cry for help, she pleads her Dad to do something to help stop her Mum going to prison!

Trying to do the best for his children, Martin tries to have a word with Ruby to try and make her understand she needs to change her plea, but once again Ruby lies!!!! She even lies about lying - claiming that she already tried to speak to the police about changing her statement but she was too late. She's still lying about Stacey pushing her and causing the loss of their child and plus she's also lying about contacting the police - ooo Ruby truly is the Queen of Lies isn't she?! I really don't understand why, but as Stacey puts it perfectly, Ruby is terrified about that fact that Martin still actually loves her and will do anything to keep him, even if it means sending her to prison for something she hasn't. As much as this breaks Stacey, she admits the only reason she's pleading guilty is that she'll only receive 6 months in prison and the sooner she's done her sentence, the sooner she'll be out for her kids. Stacey's words seem to hit home to Martin, does he still love Stacey?! I truly think there's a part of him that always will - she is the Mother of his children at the end of the day!

As Stacey enjoys the last few hours with her children, watching them play about in the gardens, she informs her Mum about all their routines, what not to feed them and what appointments they have coming up in the week. Everything seems to become all to real for Jean, she stares at her daughter longing and informs her how amazing she is, being so brave for her children. Jean gives Stacey her word and promises to look after her children until she's back. As time goes on, it gets later and later and eventually Stacey's time with her children runs out, saying her last goodbyes, drawing hearts on her children's hands to show that they're all a team, Stacey says one last goodbye to Lily and her Mum. As both Martin and Ruby watch from across the Square, Stacey walks away in tears and heads for prison.

The following day, poor Jean is struggling to cope with all the young ones running about, trying to make them food which they are refusing to eat because it hasn't been prepared right. Lily keeps herself occupied by making a version of Ruby out of toast. I guess you could say that Lily sees Ruby as the "Wicked Step-Mum!", which you can perfectly understand! As Lily continues to keep herself to herself, later on in the day Jean notices her with a packet of biscuits and questions what she's doing with them, Lily then admits that she wanted to cheer her Nan up by making her an "Afternoon Tea", recalling that Stacey had one planned for her ages ago but she couldn't attend because she was ill, so she wanted to do one in the house for her instead.

Poor Jean is completely overwhelmed by her Grand-Daughter's kindness, excitedly she runs out to get sandwiches and cakes for the occasion, happily stating that they all make a really good team. As Jean hurries out, from under the kitchen table, Lily pulls out a huge luggage bag filled with clothes and discreetly packs the packet of biscuits. My first initial thought was "Oh god, Lily is going to run away!" - but of course Lily is much more smarter than that. Of course this idea of an Afternoon Tea was just to get her Nan out of the house while she put her plan into place.

After returning home from lunch, Martin and Ruby and shocked to find his 3 children standing outside their front door with a huge suitcase. Lily's acting suspiciously upset, informing her Dad that she misses her Mum and her Nan is getting stressed with everything and she pleaded if she could stay with her Daddy. At first Ruby tries to be polite, informing the children that they can come a visit anytime, considering that they are just across the road, but Martin realises he can't leave his children out on the street and invites them all in to stay. As little Hope and Arthur rush in with excitement, Lily's attitude completely changes towards Ruby, informing her that she didn't expect that reaction! Ruby is completely stunned by the girl's attitude, but I have to say I felt completely sorry for Jean as she came home, hands filled with party food and balloons to entertain the children, sadly she notices the note left on the kitchen table for her, at first she thinks it's all a joke, but when she realises the house is completely empty, she looks completely and utterly lost, I just wanted to hold her and give her the biggest hug I could and tell her everything is okay!

But I do also have to say - YES!!!!! GO LILY!!!! It looks as if Lily is going to make Ruby's life a nightmare for putting her Mum in prison, and honestly, I think Ruby knows it! But what is she going to do about it? She's not going to be able to convince Martin that Lily is trying to ruin her life, I doubt he'd even believe her, he'll end up using the excuse that Lily is simply missing her Mum and is lashing out. I am super excited to see what happens next. Thank you all for reading, I apologise this post being so late, but thank you all for your patience! Please feel free to leave me any messages or comments, I'll always reply! Thanks again everyone! Love you all xXx

3 notes · View notes