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wordsaresimple-imnot · 8 days

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Drunken Confessions - Bill Guarnere x F!Reader (1st POV)

Summary: The boys and reader are out for a night of fun and drinking that leaves the reader with little to no memories of what happened after she had a drinking contest with Babe. As things slowly start to drift back to her, she remembers one thing clearly; she spilled her true feelings about Bill to someone. But who did she tell?

Warnings: none really, cursing per usual. No use of y/n or physical description. She/her pronouns.

A/N: I have the biggest respect for the real life heroes of WWII (and all other wars, past & current), this work & all other works is based on the actor(s) and character(s) portrayed in the Band of Brothers series.

A/N pt2: This turned out longer than I thought it would starting out, but I let the fanfic gods guide my fingers and here we are, haha. If anyone likes this enough, I have an idea of a next day smut part 2 I can write. Comments, likes, and reblogs make my day. Thanks for reading!

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I wasn't sure what made me wake up. Maybe the skull splitting headache, or maybe the sun shining through the blinds hitting my face, or maybe the way I'd sell everything I owned for water or maybe my bladder being so full that a single sneeze would cause a mess. Whatever the reason, the barest of movements to open my eyelids made me want to die instantly. The only motivation I could grasp onto to get up was to empty my bladder. Dying from a hangover is one thing, dying in my own piss is not something I could ever live with. The logic of my thought made no sense, but what the hell did I care as I practically crawled to the bathroom.

Once I was relieved and able to draw the last bit of strength I had to splash water on my face and half-ass brush my teeth, I made it back to my bed with a little more dignity. Okay, it was still on my knees but at least I wasn't crawling. A win is a win. A full glass of water on my bedside table catches my eye and I down it quicker than I've ever done before, well except for maybe the drinks last night. How did this get here? No way I was coherent enough to pour a glass of water for myself to wake up to.

As I got more situated in the bed, very much facing away from the windows because I couldn't bring myself to gather any more will power to close them more properly I couldn't stop thinking about the glass of water. And then it hit me that I was not in my dress from the night before or even just my underwear but pajamas. Being aware of how little my brain and motor skills actually worked together when I'm more than tipsy, these things stood out. What the hell happened last night? I tried to focus on my last memories of the previous night hoping that would shed some light on my current situation.

~~ last night ~~

"Oh come on! Are y'all scared to lose to little ole me?" I smiled sweetly to the table, making my southern accent a little heavier to hopefully sway one of them to take on my challenge.

"None of us would lose against you, doll. We just don't want to deal with you tomorrow morning." Toye said, motioning around the table before pointing his finger directly at me. I rolled my eyes and leaned a little closer over the table.

"Nah, I'm sweet as pie darlin'. I think y'all don't want the news spreading that someone in Easy Company lost to a little farmer girl." I smirked at Toye and the rest of the men, daring them to deny it.

"Fuck it, I'll do it." Babe shot up from the end of the table and made his way over towards my section. I beamed at his cocky smiled and made shooing motions to Luz and Perco to make space so he could sit across from me. With a nod to Liebgott, I watched him go off to grab us our first rounds of beer.

As Liebgott made his way back holding two beers, I see Bull, Martin, and Bill following him from the bar.

"The fuck are you doing?" Bill's eyes bounced back and forth between me and Babe. Unsure of who was directing the question to, I shrugged and decided to answer.

"Babe thinks he can handle a drinkin' contest with me." I shoot Babe a wink as he narrows his eyes a little at me. I look back up to Bill when I hear him curse and turn more fully to Babe.

"Haven't I taught you anything? Don't start shit you can't win." He's poking Babe in the chest with every other word, making the other bat his hand away.

"Who says I ain't gonna win? Look at her, she's like a flower. This will be over by the third beer." Babe sits up straighter, setting determined eyes on me. He starts to look more annoyed than ever when Luz, Bull, and Tab start laughing.

"Anyone else, I'd say you had a chance. But she," Tab throws his arm over my shoulders, jostling me into his side, "has come the closest out of all of us to beating Bull. She lost, but damn it was amazing to watch." I give Tab a playful shove, righting myself back to a sitting position.

Babe's face has paled a little but somehow manages to look even more determined to see this through. "I'm still in."

"Perfect!" I smile at him, raising my glass to cheers him. "If I win, you have to be my shadow all day tomorrow to take care of me. If I win, you can get my cigarettes for the next two supply packages."

"Deal." Babe cheers me back, and we take our first sips of beer simultaneously. Bill looks beyond annoyed, muttering 'It's your funeral' and starts back to the bar. Bull sends me a wink, Martin a smile, and then follow behind Bill.

"Buckle up, Philly boy. You're in for a ride." I shoot a final wink at him, and then start inhaling my beer. Babe's shocked face and scramble to follow my lead is the last full coherent memory of that night.

I groan in frustration as the rest of the night seems to dissolve from my mind and I can't comfortably say I know what is fiction and what really happened. I have a vague feeling dancing with Tab, Luz and Toye probably happened. Drinking usually turned to dancing in my case. I prayed that singing at the bar with Malarkey and Muck was fiction. It feels like a huge gap is missing after that (please be fictional) memory and then slivers of different memories start floating out. Suddenly I'm in a cold sweat as bits start floating in.

"He's alright but doesn't hold a candle to Bill. When he actually smiles, it's like seeing the sun shine."

"You can't tell him any of this. Swear it."

"No, I know his eyes and yours are too dark. His are warm and beautiful with small flecks of gold in them. I could drown in those eyes forever."

Fuck me, fuck my parents for having me, fuck my grandparents and ancestors for having them, fuck fuck fuck. I take it back, I'd happily sing drunk songs with Malarkey and Muck for the rest of my life if I can take those words back. And just when I thought my life couldn't get worse, I shot up in bed and another fact hits me...I don't know who I said all of those things to. FUCK!

Hours later, I'm still in bed trying to make myself remember anything about my mystery companion or at the very least come up a way to turn back time. Just as my stomach growls for the fourth time, there's a knock on my door and then it's swinging open. I jump up again for the second time that day.

"Hey sleeping beauty, how's the hangover?" Luz asks, all bright eyes and smiles as Babe follows behind him looking exactly how I feel. I shift up the bed to make room for Luz to sprawl out at the foot of the bed while Babe just curls into a ball next to me, back to the window and sunlight.

"I feel like death." I manage to croak out. It's the first time I've used my voice since passing out last night and you'd swear I smoked like a chimney from the sound.

"You look it too." Luz narrowly dodges the pillow I throw at his face. The movements cause Babe to give a pathetic whine and he curls up even more. "I don't know who pissed in your coffee, but this is not how a winner should be acting." I roll my eyes, smiling briefly as I get confirmation that I did win last night. My stomach growling again wipes it from my face.

"I'm starving. And if I won, that means you're my personal shadow all day today to help me feel better." I give Babe a small nudge, just enough to make him crack an eye open to look at me. "Y'all head down to the mess hall and get me two of everything while I get ready and meet you there."

After a few seconds of Babe making no moves to get up, Luz jumps up and all but starts dragging him towards the door. "Come on, Babe, you heard your mistress." Because his hands are full with Babe, he can't dodge the pillow I throw and gives out a low 'ow' as it connects with his face.

Just as they were about to close the door, I blurted out the question I've been trying to figure out. "Hey, who helped me home last night?"

"Not sure doll, I was playing darts with Martin, Bull and Babe." Luz almost had the door closed when he poked his back back in. "Why do you ask?"

I shrug, praying it comes out nonchalant while I'm dying inside. "Just needed to ask them a question. I think I lost something on the way home and just wondered if they knew about it." Something being my dignity. "Don't worry about it, I'll figure it out. Thanks." With a nod, Luz closed the door and left me to agonize alone.

The rest of the day was the most frustrating day of my life. Not because of the hangover, that started feeling better after I got some food and water, with a splash of hair of the dog, in me. Babe started to perk up too but was still definitely battling it so I took mercy on him and let him go back to sleep until his turn for patrol that night. I had the day off from helping Nixon censor mail and finalize reports so that didn't add to my frustrations. No, all of my frustration was because I spent the whole day tracking down the guys and asking who helped me home. They all gave the same answer: wasn't me.

Through my investigating, I was able to piece a loose timeline of the night. Once our game was over, I started dancing with Tab, the next song went to Luz, and I somehow managed to drag Toye out for the one after that. Once they all declined another song, I went to the bar to get another drink and ended up singing two bar songs with Malarkey and Muck, who afterwards started up a card game with Toye, Tab and Penkala that went on the rest of the time. I apparently stayed at the bar, chatting with Bull, Martin and Bill till Luz and Babe came over and got them to play darts the rest of the night. Liebgott kept me company at the bar, making sure I started on water but eventually left to start flirting with the barmaid that kept making eyes at him. My last hope was Perco but someone told me he left before I did to get some sleep before his morning patrol.

Just as the sun started to drift down, I was at my wits end. As a last ditch effort, I decided to write up a timeline diagram to triple check that everyone was accounted for. Surely one of the guys was lying to me and waiting to use my confessions as leverage for something. I move everything on my desk to one side and start making my diagram. By my third review of it, I can't shake the feeling that I'm missing something. So I write all of the men's names down and start checking them off as I mentally go over the stories again.

Luz...check. Bull...check. Perco...check. Babe...check. Liebgott...check. Tab...check. Toye...check. Muck...check. Malarkey...check. Martin...check. Penkala...check. There's no one left. I was just a lunatic talking to myself and somehow managed to get myself home and in bed like a sober person? Just as I was about to commit to believing that I realized I left one name off the list that didn't show up in anyone's story long enough to be crossed off. Bill...fuck.

I crumbled the paper and practically sprinted to my room, dodging soldiers and helpers like a madwoman. There was more foot traffic as the morning and evening patrol were switching foxholes and dinner was currently going. I managed to catch Babe on his way towards the mess hall and made him swear to tell everyone I was still feeling sick and would be in my room the rest of the night. Thankfully he was still feeling sick, so he took me at my word and didn't pay attention to my erratic behavior.

Back in my room I couldn't decide what I was more humiliated about; spilling my secret feelings about Bill TO Bill or being so drunk I don't know it was Bill I was even talking to. With a belly flop I landed on my bed, pressed my face into my pillow and let out a full body scream. Just as it ended there was a knock on my door.

"Go away, I'm dying." I moved my face to the side so whoever was there could somewhat hear me. It wasn't from drinking but hey, semantics at this point. The knock came again, this time more forceful. "Seriously, whoever is there just let me be." With a huff I push myself off the bed and swing open the door to reveal the cause of all my misery. Bill fucking Guarnere. Fuck me.

He's leaning against the door frame without a care in the world it seems and his signature smirk on his face. He'd never looked better. "You know my ma and sisters would come all the way over here and beat my ass if they ever found out I let a woman be miserable all alone. Especially without food." He raised a small bag to emphasize his point. Without waiting for me to answer, he brushed past me into my room and sat squarely on the bed, leaning against the wall, watching me.

Who knows how long it took my brain to send the right signals to make my body move, but eventually I broke our staring contest, closed the door and made my way to the bed. Because I was basically Nix's aid, I was able to get my own room but it was the barest of bare minimums. Side table, joining bathroom, and a bed against the wall. So the only place left to sit was on the bed with Bill, but I tried to put as much distance as I could so I sat crossed legged against the wall acting as the headboard and looked at the bag he still held.

"What's in there?" I decided the best tactic right now was to pretend nothing happened at all. So far Bill seemed to be of the same mind.

"Bread and some cheese. Didn't know how much your stomach could handle." He tossed the bag to me, nodding his acknowledgement to my quick thanks and I tore it open and started nibbling on the contents. After a few beats, he decided the best time to say something was when my mouth was completely full. "So...heard you lost something last night."

Next thing I know I really do feel like I'm dying as I choke on my bite of food, simultaneously batting away his hands that are trying to reach behind to pat my back. After I get small control over my breathing, I wipe the few tears that formed and down the rest of the water I had at my bedside. Two shaky breaths later all I can manage is squeaking out, "What?"

Bill looks at me with a sliver of concern that I'll start hacking up a lung again, but slowly his normal smirk starts to form and he leans back against the wall. "Luz said you were trying to figure out who helped you home last night because you lost something. Toye and Bull said you were pretty aggressive in your questions about everyone's activities last night. If you haven't figured it out already, I was the one that helped you get home from the bar but I don't recall you losing anything." His posture was relaxed, even lazy, but his eyes were hard and jaw was set. Challenging me to make the next move.

I cleared my throat two times, before I forced myself to speak. "Yeah, I actually figured it out a little bit ago." Bill inclined his head towards me, indicating that he wanted me to elaborate on the 'losing something' part. "I, uh, well I was just trying to figure out who helped me and didn't want Luz asking a million and one questions so that seemed the best answer."

"Why didn't you come find me once you figure it all out?" One thing about Bill Guarnere, he never pulled punches and was a hound dog when he set his mind to something.

"No reason...I, uh, well I just..." I turned all my focus on the crumpled paper bag in front of me so I didn't catch his eyes and completely spill my guts. Sober this time.

"Ah come on sweetheart, cat got your tongue now?" He moved to lean down on his arm, shifting closer to me. "Let me help you remember." With that damn, sexy smirk Bill started recounting the night before to fill in the blanks.

~~ last night, Bill POV ~~

I haven't taken my eyes off her all night. If anyone asked I'd say it was out of concern for how much she drank and watching out for a fellow soldier. That was partly true, but the majority was being jealous. Jealous for how easy she laughed and touched and moved with our friends. Don't get it twisted, we are friends too, closer than most of them but it's not as carefree as these moments I'm witnessing.

It can't be carefree because if I let my guard down for one second I'd spill my guts about how she makes me feel. How everything fades out around the edges when she gives that million dollar smile and her eyes crinkle a little at the sides. How I would do anything stupid again and again to make that little snort come out when she's laughing too hard and can't help it. How I want to protect her from this war so damn bad so I never have to see pain in her eyes. How I'd fight the entire Kraut army for the chance to kiss her just once and hold her in my arms.

But I can't say any of that because I'd rather suffer in silence than risk losing her from my life, even as just a friend. So I stay silent and keep watch as everyone around me enjoys their night without a care in the world, not knowing that my entire world is sitting at the bar alone.

She's just started on a second glass of water when some guy from Fox Company slides up next to her and starts talking. Whatever he said has her turning in her seat to point in the direction of Liebgott that left her for some barmaid. While she's focused on where Liebgott is, I'm focused on watching the guy shamelessly check her out. I down the rest of my beer, shove the glass into Luz's hand and march straight over to the bar before any of the guys can ask what I'm doing.

I make it over just as their hands connect and I can hear them exchanging names.

"I can't believe someone as beautiful as you is here all alone." I'm going to brake this guys jaw.

"She's not alone, private." I push myself to my full height and use my Sergeant's voice. This makes him stand up straighter and drop her hand.

"Bill!" She says my name with so much awe and happiness, as if she hadn't be around me in some fashion throughout the night. Being to drunk to care about policy or decorum she wraps her arms around me and gives me the prettiest smile.

"Hey sweetheart," I give her a soft smile back and wrap one arm around her shoulders, keeping her where she is. I look back at the private with a hard glare and raise an eyebrow. "Need something?"

"No sir, I just came to grab a drink. I'll, uh, I'll just get one over there." He practically runs to the other end of the bar, avoiding anymore eye contact.

A soft giggle, makes me look back down and smile again. "What's so funny, doll?"

"You didn't need to scare him, we were just talking." A piece of her hair falls against her cheek when she laughs again. I move it behind her ear, letting my finger graze her cheek before I answer.

"He wanted to do more than talk, believe me."

"What would I do without Bill Guarnere as my knight in shining armor." The smile she sends up to me is nearly enough to send me to my knees right then and there.

I wrap my other arm around her and drop a quick kiss to the top of her head. "You'll never have to find out, sweetheart. I'm always gonna be there." We stay like that for a minute, which isn't nearly long enough before I say, "Come on, lets get you to bed or you're gonna be dyin' tomorrow."

She manages to be get off the barstool and walk out of the bar so efficiently I wonder if she really is as drunk as I thought, but that hope is dashed once she stumbles over air and starts laughing. I can't help but laugh with her as I grab her hands to steady her.

"We should go dancing." She suddenly says and tries to get me to spin her.

"I don't think that's a good idea. Besides you probably want Tab for that, seems to be your favorite dancing partner. Always smiling at you and everything" I meant it to come out as a joke, but it sounded more bitter that anything. Thankfully she was in her own thoughts and didn't pick up the edge to my voice.

"He's alright but he doesn't hold a candle to Bill. When he actually smiles, it's like seeing the sun shine." She says it like it's a known fact and the most natural thing in the world for her say. It stops me dead in my tracks, which stops her because we are still holding hands.

"What did you say?" I tug her a little so she's turned around and looking at me. She gives a small shrug.

"Tab is cute and sweet but he's not Bill. I'd kill to dance with him and make him smile. It's so rare and makes my whole day when I can cause it."

"Sweetheart, you do know I'm Bill." I wait for the lightbulb to go off as she takes a step closer and looks at my face.

"No you're not, you're eyes are too dark."

"They're the same as they've been my whole life."

"No, I know his eyes and yours are too dark. His are warm and beautiful with small flecks of gold in them. I could drown in those eyes forever." She lets go of my hands and starts walking off to her billet. I know I have the goofiest smile on my face as I watch her, before it's wiped away by the realization that she can't remember who I am. Of course I finally get the girl of my dreams to confess her feelings for me and she doesn't even know it's me she's talking to.

Just as I'm catching up to her, trying to figure out what to say, she turns to me with a panic stricken face. "You can't tell him any of this. Swear it." She grasps my hands again, squeezing for dear life.

"Your secrets safe with me, sweetheart." I do my best to give her a comforting smile to ease her panic, which seems to work. We don't talk anymore the rest of the way to her billet but we do hold hands the whole way.

Once we are in her room, I can tell she's losing consciousness quickly. I find some pajamas for her to change into, helping just enough to make it easier for her change without seeing or touching anything inappropriate. As she finishes changing and crawls into bed, I fill up a glass of water and set it on the bedside table. I take one final look around to make sure she's comfortable and settled in properly before dropping a kiss on top of her head and heading to the barracks for some shut eye before my patrol.

~~ End of Bill's POV ~~

I feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment after Bill tells me the conversation we had. My eyes are firmly planted on the bag in my lap, that I've all but turned into confetti. I feel him shift on the bed again, so he's seated right next in front of me, but I can't bring myself to meet him gaze. His eyes never left my face the whole time he recounted everything and I'm too scared to look and see what emotion I'll find there. Amusement? Pity?

The decision is taken away from me when one of his hands cups the side of my neck and tips my head up to finally meet his gaze. There's a lot of emotion in his eyes, but I can't pinpoint what it is, which scares me even more.

"I'm sor-" I start to say but get cut off.

"Did you mean it?" His voice is soft but firm. He's not going to drop this and seems to be holding his breathe waiting for my answer.

"Yes." The word is barely more than a whisper but I know he heard it from the smile that takes over his face. Next thing I know he's leaning the rest of the way into my space, tilting my head to the side and softly pressing his lips to mine.

My hands reach up to fist his jacket, pulling him closer and the smallest whimper comes up when he nips at my bottom lip. My reaction seems to be all the go ahead Bill needs as he focuses on pulling me so we are flush against each other while taking possession over my mouth. At some point we rearrange ourselves to be laying on the bed, him draped over me like a second skin.

Our kisses between slow and languid to passionate and slightly frenzied. We don't know how long we stay like that, minutes or hours, but when we part our lips are swollen and we are breathing hard. Bill rests his forehead against mine and nudges my nose with his.

"Can I stay the night? No funny business, I just...now that I have you in my arms, I don't want to let you go just yet." He places soft kisses on both my cheeks and then my lips, looking at me with his heart in his eyes.

"I never want to be anywhere except your arms, Bill." I nudge his nose back and return the kiss he just gave. The smile he gives me has my heart melting and my lungs forgetting to breathe.

A few small kisses later, we've arranged ourselves into more comfortable positions; him on his back, me all but laying on top of him, our arms wrapped tightly around each other. Slowly we drift off to sleep with smiles on our faces thinking the same thing:

We have our whole world in our arms.

#band of brothers #band of brothers fanfic #bill guarnere #bill guarnere x reader #hbo war #hbo band of brothers #easy company #bill guarnere x you #william guarnere #band of brothers x you

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contentment-of-cats · 10 months

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I take a deep breath because I can.

Edited: They have found a debris field near the Titanic.

Mortality is never far from a cancer patient's mind. We all die, cancer or no cancer, fairly or unfairly. The universe is the universe and keeps on going whatever the big, beautiful, horrifying, and deadly universe keeps on doing. It's not my mortality that I've been thinking about the past few days, though it's never far from my mind. It's about five people I didn't know.

People hate death. It gets in the way of the happy endings that we've been spoon-fed over decades. We want to see happy endings, see absolute miracles, so much that we won't agree that there is a line where Happy Ending Land stops and reality begins. The media is complicit and people dwell in denial to the point where it's psychosis.

CNN is my case in point this morning.

If that submarine did not have a catastrophic hull failure on Sunday morning, there are now five bodies on a garage-built unclassed, uninspected, 'experimental' submarine on the floor of the ocean. The iar is gone, the battery power is gone, they are breathing in each other's carbon dioxide, hungry, thirsty, hypothermic,in the absolute dark. Billionaire hatred aside, I cannot think of a more horrible way to die nor anyone I would ever wish it on - the same way I would never wish cancer on anyone. I am walking the measured mile, these folks were locked in and dropped down. The fact that people signed an extensive multi-page waiver to board this thing makes me scream in horror.

One thing nobody wants to talk about on TV is the very real probability that one hour and forty-five minutes into it's dive, the sub experienced catastrophic hull failure and crushed down to something the size of a Weber kettle grill. All the air would have been pushed out of every component, including the humans inside. It would have taken a couple of seconds at that depth, just fifteen minutes from the bottom and the wreck of the Titanic. Apparently losing contact with the sub happened often enough that it was not reported until eight hours later. That is the best case scenario. A better case would be that they find it, bring it up to the surface, and show people the actual real consequences of hubris and stupidity.

Worst case is that they hung on in the dark, in the cold, hearing rescuers above them as they died this morning.

Their friends are saying that they could still be alive. These men were experienced adventurers, they would know how to conserve oxygen. The FFS section of this post begins below with OceanGate's co-founder talking to CNN.

While life support supplies are now believed to be running low, a co-founder of the company that operates the missing Titanic submersible says he believes the crew's expertise will extend the "window available" for rescue. Guillermo Söhnlein made the comments in a statement to CNN. He specified her was speaking on behalf of himself and not the company, OceanGate. He said OceanGate CEO and co-founder Stockton Rush — who is aboard the sub — and the rest of the crew would have "realized days ago that the best thing they can do to ensure their rescue is to extend the limits of those supplies by relaxing as much as possible." Based on the crew members' expertise, the "window available" for rescue is longer than "what most people think," Söhnlein said. Thursday will be a "critical day in this search and rescue mission," he added. "I continue to hold out hope for my friend and the rest of the crew," Söhnlein said. "I would encourage everyone to remain hopeful for getting the crew back safely."

This is fucking nutty. This is denial. Nobody wants to think that corporate hubris killed five people including the co-founder, engineers deal in reality. These people are dead. You can't spin dead. You can't wish away dead. Dead is the hardest, coldest fact of all and one of the hardest to live with, whether it's yours or someone else's.

Side note. On Monday it will have been a month since my mom's death. I knew it was coming either from dementia or COPD. The stroke moved it up. Nobody, including her doctors, saw it coming. There was no high blood pressure, her vascular health was excellent. With directives in place, she was as comfortable as possible. I remind myself that hemipaleigic, with dementia, and COPD would have been the ultimate cruelty. I still get the urge to pick up the phone and call her. I can't. Death is the hardest reality.

Next is a friend of two of the men in the sub.

“I know that the adventurers on board are experienced, very experienced,” said Per Wimmer, an adventurer who was previously signed up for two canceled trips on the Titan. Wimmer is an acquaintance of Hamish Harding and Stockton Rush, two of the five people on the missing vessel. He said Harding, a British businessman and trained jet pilot, and Rush, the CEO and founder of the company leading the voyage, are both very experienced adventurers who would know to conserve oxygen. “They would no doubt know what it means to slow down, take it easy, and use as little oxygen as possible, and therefore extend the potential timeline as much as possible," he added. Wimmer said that the presence of OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush on board the vessel is helpful, as he knows “the ins and outs of how this submersible works.”

Again, the Bulletproof Fallacy is at work. "I have never been shot, therefore I am bulletproof."

They've deployed a medical team with a specialty in dive medicine and equipped with hyperbaric oxygen chambers. There is hope, yes, and then there is acceptance that the ocean is as merciless as space. It is hostile to our life form in that if our artificial environment is breached, we can't continue to live.

They've found a debris field. It may or may not be part of the 1912 wreck.

#titanic #oceangate #there is no reality tv #happy ending psychosis

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wordtowords · 11 months

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Chris, Mick, and the Art of Artifice

artifice - noun - clever devices used to trick or deceive (Google).

Let's face the music and accept that for whatever reason(s), human beings embrace the concept of deception. And now that the Internet (via social media) has opened the backstage door for endless opportunities for a little or a lot of artifice, no one is safe from scammers, or in my case, ordinary people pretending to be rock stars.

Because I am in the music business along with just about everyone else, I have to spend time on social media just advertise my original songs and get them circulating among listeners throughout the globe. Although I am a minuscule presence on TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Linked-In, Facebook, I try to post at least three times a week to generate a following, which isn't easy as there are 100,000 songs released on the music streaming channels daily and 100,000 artists promoting them. Apparently as FB is the medium of choice for celebrities, more grifters use it to impersonate them than any other platform. I am lucky because the con artists who hit on me generally do not want money; they just want to take me to bed. Case in point, one man, who just happens to have the name Christopher Cross like the musician (who is actually the real imposter since his surname isn't actually Cross) tried to impersonate him in order to trick me into meeting him. Fortunately, I was onto him right from the start. Just in case this should ever happen to you (maybe on YouTube in the comments section), an authentic celebrity would never ask you when you became his or her fan. And most likely as an icebreaker, he or she would never thank you for being his or her fan. I know from experience that unless they are extreme narcissists, celebrated people tend to want to step away from themselves for a few and come across as being average. So it was clear that Chris wasn't the celebrated Chris since he made the mistake of doing what all trolls do initially: he asked, "How long have you been my fan?" (I replied, "I've never been your fan." Oh, well. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.)

Of course, it is true that there are famous types out there who do interface with fans and do use artifice (such as different names) so that they don't attract attention. I am contending with someone right now who claims to be Micheal Philip Jagger, which is Mick Jagger's full name. Even though he has the blue checkmark verifying his identity, my daughter claims that he is in no way real, mainly because eighty-year-old men don't know how to navigate FB. Sensible, smart she contends that Mick no doubt has troops of well-paid assistants assigned to connect with the public on social media. The real Mick, romantically linked to a thirty-six-year-old dancer, would not have a second to reach out to me. Which all makes sense, yet this inchoate swindler is atypical so far. Like Macbeth and most politicians after him, Micheal could just be quite good at duplicity until some day, his artifice is exposed as such, and he is uncovered and cancelled (the beauty of social media).

On the other hand, I did read an article on the web stating that you can never truly be sure whether or not you are being hoodwinked. It is possible that the person is indeed the person he or she says he or she is. Just make sure you don't wire any money to him or her and you don't friend him or her. As far as my Micheal, I am playing his game, pretending I don't realize that he is attempting to be Mick. And I am acting as though I am the bigger celeb whose privacy is kept private. In the end, the greater pretender will win, I suppose, if there can be a winner at shenanigans. Let's put it this way, if the actual Mick should die, and Micheal keeps liking my posts, I'll have my answer. (I hope it doesn't come down to that, though, because I am Mick's fan.)

The obvious paradoxical takeaway here is that sometimes you have to be deceptive in order to expose deception. Truth doesn't come easily.

#word-to-words, #slice-of-life, #blog, #blogging, #editorial, #reading, #vocabulary, #ReadersMagnet, #spilled thoughts, #good advice, #personal-essay, #writing community, #writing, #philosophy, #truth, #social media, #deception, #human nature

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archiepudding · 3 years

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Confession | Dom!Dabi x Reader [Part 1]

Pairing: Dom!Dabi x Fem!Reader (Minors do not interact!)

Warnings: 18+, NSFW, smut, chocking, slapping, quirk play, sadism, panic attacks, assault, dubcon

Notes: Your quirk is telepathy. Anything written in ‘bold and italic’ is the character’s thoughts. [Not necessarily all from the quirk]

Smut section will be in the second part.

Summary: Following one of your shifts at the bar, you end up facing a little trouble. Who knew Dabi was the sentimental type.

Part. 2

11:23 PM 27th April

You weaved in and out of the mindless bodies dancing, sweat lingering with the humidity of the club. Empty glasses and bottles were strung all over the tables, you collected as many as possible and balanced them on a tray. You emerged back behind the bar, the glasses being placed on the counter ready to be put through the wash. You look to your left to find Naomi, one of your collegues, flirting with one of the customers. She was always the center of attention, not that I could say I minded.

“Another round of beer for booth 4" You hear from behind you. You look back at Naomi who was completely unfazed by what your boss had just called out to you.

"I'll cover it!" You sighed, and wiped down the tray, setting down the drinks. You stopped at the booth and placed down the items carefully. Under the low light, you could make out the group of four men around their mid to late forties. However, the one that stood out to you the most was the bald man nearest to you. There wasn't anything special about him, it must have been the way the light bounce of his hairless head, you thought until you noticed the way he smirked made him seem like an asshole. Counting by the number of glasses they had on their table, you noticed they should have been cut off hours ago. You leant across the table to collect a few of the empty glasses, as the bald man's gaze followed you, locking onto you breasts.

"Have I got something on my chest... sir?" You clench your teeth in frustration on your final word.

"Yeah... my eyes" His comment was followed with a wink. You purse your lips and clench your jaw, in attempt to brush off his comment.

‘The things I’d love to do to that sweet body of yours. God, I think I’m getting hard just thinking about it!’

You would have thought that these things wouldn't get to you by now, but they still make your skin crawl. You straighten yourself up and walk away with the tray half full.

‘I do not get paid enough for this shit!’ you think to yourself.

You went back behind the bar, your tray thrown down, empty bottles scattered the side. "What did those glasses ever do to you, you OK?" Naomi walked over to you, a bottle top being played with in her hands.

"Yeah, just one of those nights I think. Nothing that I can't handle, though" You smiled bleakly at her, she didn’t buy it.

“Look, Y/N - “

"Can I get a gin and tonic and a shot of vodka?" A voice echoed behind you. You muster up a bright smile, or what is known as your 'customer service face' and turn face them. Your face dropped as soon as you realised who it was.

“What are you doing here, Dabi?” Dabi was lent on the bar, sweat fell from his forehead. He rolled his eyes before taking out his wallet.

"I’m here for a drink, what does it look like?" You bit the inside of your lip, holding your tongue.

“There are thousands of bars, couldn’t you go to one of them?”

“And miss watching you follow my orders? Now why would I do that?” His lips pulled into a smirk. “Why you even working in this shit hole, anyway?” He shouts as you prepared his drinks.

"I've got to pay the bills some how. Not like I can live the ‘criminal life’ with telepathy and my quirk certainly isn’t up to par with putting someone like you in jail. So both villain and hero are off the list" Your voice was spitting with pettiness as you exchanged his drinks for cash.

“I mean you could steal people’s pin codes...” You weren’t sure if he was trying to give you genuine advice or rub in your lack of ability. Your face contorted into an irritated expression, as you resume cleaning the bar.

“Haha. Very funny, nice to see you still think you have that comedic charm!” Your sarcasm didn’t go unnoticed. He lets out a breath of a laugh, it would have been audiable hadn’t it been for the music. "You look like you could use a break" He turns and hints towards the crowd of people dancing.

"Depends what I'm taking a break from... society, work... you? Either one would be preferable right now."

Dabi shakes his head in amusement. "And you’ve clearly still got your sense of humor."

You rolled your eyes. "I'm glad to be of service." You spit as your eyes narrowed. A smile beamed across Dabi’s face before he grabbed his drinks and started off into the crowd. Just as you thought you would finally get some peace, you hear a faint yell coming from the dance floor.

"Hey, Y/N! I’ll meet you after work!" Dabi’s turquoise eyes met yours, as you turned around, a feeble attempt to mask your smile. You didn't reply to his comment as you simply gave him the middle finger. You guys got on in small doses and he wasn't a bad guy, aside from the obvious reasons that he was a high level villain. He definitely knew which buttons to push, especially when it came to you. You went back to your normal routine for the rest of your shift.

02:33 AM 28th April

The night had a chill in the air which hit you as you began to lock the doors of the club. You threw your bag over your shoulder, the strap pulled down on you (h/c) hair. As you walked under the moonlight you rememberd how this was the only thing that made your job worth it. Finishing during the early hours of the morning the streets were always silent. Your thoughts could run wild without the imposing mutter of people on the street. You were a few blocks from your apartment when you heard the slight chatter of voices.

“She would be lucky to be with such a man, the whore!”

You noticed it was the same men who oogled at your tits earlier that night. Great, you thought. You averted your eyes to the floor, hoping that they would just let you walk past. The smell of putrid, day old sweat mixed with stale beer and a trail of burnt tabacco.

“Hey, sweetie. You got a light!”

“No, sorry. Goodnight.”

“Oh, shit. You’re that waitress from the bar.”

“Why don’t you join us for a good night, sweet heart!” His friend chirped in, his voice almost as sleazy as the first.

“Creepy old men aren’t my type...”

“No need to get nasty, doll. I can show you a real good time” The way his words slid off his tongue repulsed you.

‘I’d fuck the shit outta her!’

Your face creased in disgust at his thoughts “I seriously doubt that!” His eyebrow raised as he seemed to get turned on by your aggressive replies. You caught on “Ew, no! Screw you, old man!” The first slap shocked you as you held you cheek, a small trickle of blood ran down your face from where his ring caught you. You were led by your hair, almost thrown into the alleyway. Your chest moved up and down rapidly as you you realised the danger you were currently in. You shifted your weight as you dodged his attack, his punch nearly coming into contact with your jaw, but your victory was short lived as his other hand caught you square in the ribs. You dropped to the floor as the violence continued in your weak state. A swift kick came into contact with your abdomen as your breath hitched in your throat. You blocked the next one with your arms, as you attempted to get on your feet. Everything was a blur, you could barely see, let alone defend yourself. At this point adrelalin was the only thing keeping you conscious as each blow sent pain searing through your body. His hand grazed your scalp as he pulled your hair, directing your face to his.

“Such a pretty face, it would be a shame if something were to happen to it...” A blade was pressed against your skin, it reflected in the moonlight. Your hands trembled as you tried to push him away with the last bit of your strength. You couldn’t scream. You were fighting with every inch of your life, but you felt hopeless. You were too weak. Your arms felt as though there were cement blocks attatched to them, rendering you powerless as you tried to fight back. You were already on your knees. Despite the shit you had endured, you didn’t want to die. “Please...” His figure didn’t stand that much taller than you but you had never felt so small in comparison. Darkness consumed you, the coldness of the night clung to your skin as you could barly keep your eyes open.

“Get your hands off of her. NOW.” Your attention shifted, as you are dropped onto the dark pavement below.

“Oh who’s this? Mr big shot I see. You think you’re going to get brownie points for being the knight in shining armor?” One of them yelled.

“Keep talking, you bastard. It’s going to make this a lot more fun!” The figure moved under the street light. He wasn’t sure what had taken over him, but in the moment he couldn’t bare seeing you like this.

A strange smell took over your notrils as blue light illuminated the darkness. It was nothing like you’d ever experience before. The smell of burning flesh almost made you sick. You watched as your fellow friend emitted blue flames throughout the alley way, his heat radiated higher and higher with each step. Hairs on your neck stood on end as the men’s screams filled the quiet streets. They flaied their arms around, as they moved them to their face as though they could shield themselves from the battle against the flames. As the flames englufed them, you could hear the sound of them sizzling as though they were meat on a barbeque. You laid there as you watched their clothes melt onto their skin, before their bodies dropped to the ground, their voices fell silent.

A strong arm wrapped around you, your head rested on his chest. “I told you to meet me after work. Why do you never listen.” his voice sounded distant as you chose not to argue.

“Dabi? Where are we... going?”

“I’m taking you to my apartment.”

“No, just put me down... I’ll be... fine” He doesn’t even bother to give you a reply. He knows you are in no fit state to go home on your own. Your eyes begin to fog over before everything went dark.

03:58 AM 28th April

You opened your eyes, your head pounded against your skull. Pain coursed through you as you rolled your shoulder forward.

“Ahh, she’s awake.”

“What time is it?”

“I think 4 A.M, you haven’t been down long. What do you remember?”

“ I rememeber getting out from work, getting jumped by some assholes and then...” You buried your face into your palms, trying to hide from Dabi’s gaze.

“Then what?”

“You killed them...”

“Ahh that’s good. Here, why don’t we try again and see if you can put even more disgust in your voice!” His voice spared you no sympathy.

“What do you expect, Dabi. You didn’t just killed them. I heard their screams as you burnt them to death!” you screamed back, your arms flaied in the air.

“Well things never go acording to plan, huh?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What ever you make of it, princess”

“No. I want you to explain!” You demanded.

“You were supposed to meet me after work, Y/N. If you had just waited this would of never of happened!”

“Oh, so I’m to blame for this? Wow, way to make me feel even shitter tonight, Dabi!” Your eyes narrowed.

“You’re such an ungrateful bitch! I put my neck out to save you tonight! I should of just carried on walking!”

You wished in that moment you could just switch off your emotions. His body became distorted as your vision was being consumed by tears. No. You refused to let him get to you like this. You sat up from the sofa, your tone cold.

“Maybe you should of.” Even through your attempts of concealment, you both could tell that it sounded more pained than anything.

He paused before he chose to speak. A sigh breaking his lips. “I shouldn’t of said that. Look, I put a shirt on the bed for you in my room. You’ve got blood all over, why don’t you go get a shower and we can talk about this after?”

You removed your clothes before setting them on the radiator. The bathroom wasn’t very big. As you moved from the door, the toilet was on your right, a white sink and basen opposite. A cabinet was above the sink, mirrors attatched to the doors. The aroma of burnt wood combined with a fruity smell of body wash accosted your senses. As you climbed into the shower, your body immediatly felt soothed, your muscles reducing their need to spasm. You could already feel the tension lifting slightly as you closed your eyes, the water running over you. Tears rolled down your cheek, the water from the shower masking them as you rest your head on the wall next to you. The warmth carressed your skin as you felt safe enough to let your emotions escape. You huddled your knees to your chest as you momentarily flashed back to being in the cold, dark alley. You scrubbed your body as you rememeber where the man had touched you, you almost caused your skin to bleed as you tried to wash away the disgust you felt. Small experations of pain escaped your lips as you tried to supress them, but once you started you began to release an unbroken stream of tears.

A small knock, hit the door.

“Y/N, are you ok?”

“I’ll be out in a minute!” You tried to keep the acid from your tone, but you weren’t sure you were able to censor yourself anymore that night.

You opened the doorway to the main room, Dabi couldn’t help but stare. The way that his shirt fell over your curves, he loved it. His eyes trailed over your breasts, not long falling to your slender waist. He had noticed the way you damp skin glistened under the his apartment lights.

‘I’ve never seen that shirt look so good before. URG! Wait can you hear me? Blink 5 times if you can. Wait, why would you let me know you’re in my head. Shit. Erm, think of something funny..... DAMN! Where is Twice when you need him?’

“Hey, Y/N, you want to watch a movie? I made you a hot chocolate as well.”

“Is that an apology?”

“Don’t push it.”

You enjoy his discomfort as he shifted his weight between his feet. You had almost forgot that Dabi had a soft side. Not many people were shown it, and you felt blessed to be one of them. Underneath, he really did have a nice personality, sometimes it borderlined charming. You took the mug from his hand, your fingers brushed over one anothers during the exchange. Dabi felt his pupils dilate as a grin soon spread across his face.

“Shotgun!”

“What are we? Five?” Your thighs burnt as you charged to the sofa, claiming the middle seat as your own.

You and Dabi were sat on his sofa, the space between you basically non-existant. You were trying your best to maintain your composure, but you kept shaking, it was part of the reason you actually hated visiting Dabi’s apartment. It was as though he had never heard of the word heating before, which is kind of ironic. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see you curled into a ball, your body twitching every so often.

“You cold? Or in pain?” He glanced over to you and then the blanket over in the corner.

“A little of both...” You replied sheepishly. You breathed a sigh of relief as Dabi got up and placed the blanket over you, his body closer now. You found yourself snuggled into his chest as his arm rested on your shoulder, pulling you into him. You suddenly couldn’t concentrate on anything but the sound of your heart jumping out of your chest, you were tempted to use your quirk, to see what he was thinking but you didn’t want to invade his privacy. You hadn’t noticed before but the way the TV light illuminated his face, he looked quite beautiful, his expression somber. It was quite different from how you saw him most days, even though you didn’t agree with what happened tonight, you started to feel guilty for the way you spoke to him earlier, however, before you realised that you were staring, Dabi’s eyes burned into yours, your eyes widening with embarrassment.

“What?”

“Huh?”

“Why are you staring?”

“I wasn’t!”

“I literally just caught you, Y/N. Don’t try and bull shit me!” Your bodies moved slightly apart, you now faced one another.

“Sorry, I...erm. I just wanted to apologise for what I said earlier. You were just trying to help and I acted like a bitch. What I should have said was ‘Thank you’.” After your apology, you both sat there, both averting eye contact. You couldn’t help but cringe at your own words, you can’t believed you just admitted you were wrong to Dabi - of all people.

“Took you long enough!” Dabi doesn’t miss a second before he replied. Your fist collided with his shoulder, pain reminded you off what you had experience earlier that morning.

“Ow. Shit. God, you’re such an ass. I can’t believe I just apologised to you! I take it back.”

“Oh no, you can’t you’ve said it now. You can’t take it back. Tough luck, princess.” he taunted as he closed to small gap between you. His breath hit your face, as you glanced at his lips. You pulled him by the top of his shirt as he leant into you, your mouths begged to be with one another. The kiss was soft in the beggining, it quickly being changed to a deep one. Your moved your hands from his shirt to his neck, forcing him towards you. Dabi obliged, as his body pinned you against his sofa. Your hands crept along his waist as you pulled him onto you, your legs wrapping around him. You winced in pain as his arm brushed over your ribs. He pulled back from you, his hand removed from under your top.

“Are you ok? Do you want to stop?”

Your cheeks glowed red as you slowly pushed yourself out from underneath him, your arms clicked under the pressure.

“I think that’s probably best...” Although he said nothing, you could tell he was disappointed. You were so embarrassed.

“I think I should get going anyway. I’ll just go get my things.” Your voice chocked you in your throat, you felt like such an idiot.

“Don’t be awkward, Y/N. I’ll sleep on the couch. You can have my room. I’m not going to make you walk to your apartment after what happened tonight.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mind, honestly.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ve slept in worse places, trust me.”

You both sat there, the silence killing you both. You decided to drop it and chose to accept his offer, not wanting to get into another disagreement. You were certainly more of a hot head and after tonight your fuse was even shorter. “Ok, well I should get some rest.”

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

You took a deep breath and smiled to his reply. You made your way into his room before you sinked into his sheets, tiredness taking over.

03:15 PM 28th April

Dabi woke up, the afternoon light filling his apartment. He groaned as he rolled off the sofa, cracking his back from his uncomfortable night sleep. Dabi entered his kitchen, and thought after the night you had he would at least try and make today go a little smoother for you. The door to his bedroom creaked open as he walked in with a plate full of pancakes, a few peices of bacon on the side. Not long after he entered, he slammed the plate on bedside counter. His bed looked almost untouched, hadn’t it been for the screwed up blanket thrown over the top, he wasn’t even sure you had stayed. The room felt uncomfortable all of a sudden, he had never noticed how empty it had felt until that moment, but he wasn’t sure why he felt this way. It’s not like he was used to you being there. He returned to the sofa, scanning every inch until he found his phone, your contact hovered under his thumb. He called you, it immediatly going to voicemail, his voice wavered as he left a message.

“Hey, Y/N. Look, I’m sorry about what happened last night. I didn’t mean to make it awkward between us. If you can just give me a call back, when you can.”

As he remained in his apartment close to his phone, he waited for your reply, only to find it never came.

Part 2

#dabi smut #dabi x y/n #dabi x you #bnha x reader #reader x dabi #dom dabi #mha x reader #mha angst #mha x y/n #mha smut #bnha smut #bnha fanfiction #dabi fanfic #soft dabi #dabi #bhna dabi

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fireemblems24 · 3 years

Note

I made a comment on youtube about how something edelgard said to dimitri near the end of the game was wrong and a (apparently) known “edelstan” came in from reddit and called me a horny for abusive, mentally unstable men. the thread is still going with hundreds of replies. this was almost 2 years ago. I don’t even use reddit and I know it’s really fucking toxic there.

also the casual ablism of that dude insisting that dimitri could never be a good leader isn’t lost on me. trying to justify imperialism and genocide is another fun and cool thing I see whenever I catch a glimpse of that thread.

2 Years???? At least please tell me it’s new people arguing. Kudos to you. No one is still arguing over a comment two years later if what you said didn’t hit right.

Sorry you had to deal with the abuse. It seems there’s a section of the fandom that enjoys berating women who enjoy Dimitri’s character. Sadly, this really isn’t new in fandom, or anywhere really. Name one thing associated with women as an audience that isn’t dragged through the mud - YA fiction, fanfiction, boy bands, fashion? All symbols of “shallowness.” It’s infuriating. Just let people enjoy what they enjoy. There’s a very easy line between critiquing fiction you don’t like and maliciously attacking real people.

I also will never in my life understand why people try to white wash characters. Edelgard is an imperialist. That doesn’t mean you can’t like her. I love characters who murder their families, sell hardcore drugs, and other awful things. Hell, I’m very fond of two little imperialists myself! It’s okay. It’s fiction. What’s not okay is when you start going “actually, this is good because XXX” or mind-boggling “my fav is a perfect little angel because XXX.” Like, doesn’t that make them boring as hell? I love Shigure from Fruit Baskets (for ex), but my God I’d never argue he’s not a little problematic shit and I wouldn’t enjoy him nearly as much if he wasn’t. I’m not going to even touch “justifying” genocide. I can at least see where a misguided person might convince themselves Imperialism is okay (at least if they are the Imperialist. Strangely, all the people who think that way never place themselves in the spot of the person being conquered or the layman soldier asked to die for some spoiled noble’s ideals and still arguing it’s good. One of the world’s greatest mysteries for sure). But genocide? God. I can only hope these are high school edgelords that grow up and cringe at their younger selves.

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robertsheehanownsmyass · 4 years

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The Mists of Culloden -- Part 2

AU!Robert Sheehan x Fem!Reader Word Count: 2099 Warnings: frightening images involving a fire

Welcome to my spooky little four-part story to coincide with my Sheehanoween event! I hope you stick around and check it out, and reblog if you enjoy! :)

Part One

Part Two

The next day, Rob was back at work and you spent a chunk of the afternoon reading a book on the sofa in the sitting room. The sunshine streamed through the windows, and it was such a lovely autumn day that you couldn’t help but reflect for a moment on how relaxed you felt, and how lucky you were to be cozied up on the couch, just enjoying life. After a while your eyelids started to droop, and you set the book down and stretched, feeling all tension leave your limbs, yawning contentedly. In the light of day, the spooky events of the previous evening seemed distant, and when you reflected on them, they seemed almost silly. You were still turning the thoughts over in your mind when you dozed off.

It was hot. Blazing hot. The air was thick with billowing smoke. The screams of dying men pierced your ears. It was pitch black and you could see nothing; no source of the heat or smoke, nor the source of the screams. You were running away, but from what? You ran until you reached a stone wall and you felt for a door or a window. Nothing. You followed the wall until you reached the end, and turned left to follow the perpendicular wall. You coughed and retched, barely able to breathe. You followed the wall until your feet bumped some stairs. You slowly ascended, stumbling blindly, the heat and the smoke worsening as you climbed. You reached a heavy wooden door that was not fully closed, and you pushed it open. You gaped in horror at the scene before you. The house was fully engulfed in flames, and you were literally frozen with panic. There was nowhere to go. Suddenly, a hand clamped down on your arm from behind you. You turned, and saw that a woman had grabbed you, and she was shrieking. "Help me! Heeelp meeee…“ Her hair was on fire and her skin was bubbling in some places and blackening in others. As you stared at her in terror, one of her eyeballs burst and oozed from a black socket. You began to scream, and scream and scream….

"Babe! Wake up! Hey!” Rob was shaking you, yelling your name. You snapped awake, and fell off the couch in a tumble of throw pillows and blankets. You stared up at him for a moment as reality slowly took the place of the terror from your dream. You were shaking. Rob was kneeling beside you on the ground, alarm painting his beautiful face. He brushed the hair away from your face. “Darlin’, are you okay?”

“Oh god. Robbie I-- I had the most horrible dream!”

“Jesus darlin’.” He breathed, and sat back on his heels, running a hand through his curls anxiously. “When I walked in you were sound asleep, but then you started thrashing about and-- babe, you started screaming. It took me a minute to wake you. It scared the shit outta me.“

"It was horrible. I was in some sort of cellar, and it was dark and people were crying and shouting. I made it upstairs and the whole house was in flames. Then a woman grabbed me and she was on fire, and I had nowhere to go…and god, she was burning...” You broke off, trembling.

Rob gathered you into his arms. “Oh luv, that sounds awful. It’s over now. It was just a dream. It’s alright.”

“It seemed so real!” you cried, the remnants of the nightmare still at the forefront of your mind.

He peppered your face with kisses and smoothed your hair. "I’m here now. Everything is okay..“

Rob’s calming effect on you was working, and you began to relax. "I can’t say for sure, but I’m pretty sure it was this house.”

“Oh darlin’, you had that scare last night, so your mind is probably just thinking nasty thoughts. It doesn’t look like there’s been a fire here.”

“I don’t know.” You stood up and scrubbed your face with your hands in an attempt to shake off the dream. “But I really want to find someone who can tell us a bit about this house.”

Rob nodded in agreement. "We will. We’ll go find someone on my next day off.“

***********************

You spent the evening burying yourself under a protective cover of normalcy, but the dream stayed with you. You couldn’t stop seeing the burning woman’s face, and you couldn’t keep those screams out of your head. You sat at the dinner table and began to rub your temples. Rob had finished clearing the supper dishes and came around to hug you.

"You’re thinking so loudly I can almost hear you,” he said into your hair. "You shouldn’t dwell on it too much. Old houses have a way of getting under your skin. Shit– Scotland can get under your skin.“

That surprised you. "I thought you loved Scotland.”

“I do,” he said. "But there is so much tragic history here, especially here at Culloden. Plus the weather can be moody and the landscape can seem pretty bleak. It’s like there is a veil of melancholy that is barely perceptible, but it’s everywhere.“

You nodded, understanding. You recalled your stop in Edinburgh before continuing north to the highlands, and your visit to Mary King’s Close; the underground passageway where plague victims were left to die like rats, and you shuddered at the memory. But that was only one example; Scotland had been a place of persecution and sadness for over a millennia.

"When I was a kid,” Rob continued, “I would come to Scotland to visit some cousins from time to time. There were always ghost stories, and the subject wasn’t considered very taboo like it is in other places. It was generally accepted.”

“Is Ireland very different, though?” you smiled. You loved hearing Robbie reminisce, and when he spoke of his memories the present seemed to fall away as he reinhabited those old thoughts.

“Believe it or not, yes. We all hear the stories about the bansidhe or banshees, or of faeries that would steal babies. And yeah, Ireland has its sprawling manors and castles that have ghosts of their own. But there’s something different about Scotland.”

“Yeah, I think I see what you mean now,” you said.

Rob studied you for a moment before commenting. "I don’t like the idea of you being here alone so much. Maybe tomorrow you should get out a bit. Go to Inverness and do some shopping. Have lunch on Loch Ness and look for the monster.“

You laughed. "That’ll be great for my mental state. Flee a haunted house to look for a legendary lake monster.”

Rob smirked. "Hey, do what you have to do. They’re both nearby. You liked those Outlander novels so much, go look for standing stone circles.“

"Alright, alright,” you chuckled. "I’ll try to get out tomorrow.“

*****************************

That night you slept rather uneasily. Despite Rob’s efforts to wear you out (you joked to him afterward that you suspected he had fractured your pelvis), you tossed and turned. You continued to torture yourself with horrifying images from your dream, and your mind seemed to be afraid of shutting down for fear of revisiting the gruesome past.

Despite the fact that you were groggy and out of sorts the following day, you took Rob’s advice and hired a car to take you to Inverness. You walked the cobblestone streets, poked into shops and bookstores, and enjoyed a delicious cafe lunch. It was a lovely city. On the way home, you asked the driver to detour south to Loch Ness. You walked down to a section of the rocky shore and sat for a while. While you didn’t see a monster, it was a beautiful place and the water calmed you.

On the way back, you stopped at Clava Cairn, a standing stone circle and cairn a bit southeast of Culloden, and probably served as the inspiration for the stone circle in the books you enjoyed. The site was deserted, and you were free to stroll among the 4000 year-old stones, gently touching them, relishing in the connection between the present and the distant past. Despite the fact that the central cairn was a burial site, you felt no sadness there, only peace.

You returned home feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. Rob came home shortly afterward, and you told him all about your day. He was thrilled that you had taken his advice and had such a nice time. Your lightened mood lasted the rest of the evening, and that night you slept soundly.

The next two days passed without incident. Rob promised to take you to Culloden moor on his next day off, and the two of you set off after breakfast. The battlefield was a short 20 minute walk away, and you strolled hand-in-hand, enjoying the crisp air. The battlefield itself was a sobering place, and when you first laid eyes on it you felt a pang of sadness.

"I know,” Rob said, reading your expression. “This ground is seeped with loss and grief.”

He led you to the Visitor’s Centre, where a friendly middle-aged woman looked up over a pair of reading glasses as you entered.

“Hallo there,” she said and smiled kindly.

“Hello,” said Rob. "We were hoping you could give us some information about a house we’re staying in, just up the road.“

"Ah, you’ll be here for the film then. I’m Peggy.”

"It’s lovely to meet you Peggy,” you said. "We’re the Sheehans. We’re staying at the house just up the road; number 129.“

"Och aye, I know that place,” she said. “Quite a bit of history there.”

“Really? Is there anything you can tell us about it?” Rob asked.

Peggy nodded. "I believe the current structure was built around 1780.“

"The current structure?” Rob replied. “There was a house there before?”

“Aye,” she said. "There was an older house there before, but it burned. The newer house was built upon the foundation of the previous dwelling.“

You blanched and Rob glanced at you, shocked. Peggy smiled.

"I take it the old ghosts are acting up?” she asked.

“Ghosts?” you replied.

“Aye, everyone knows the place is haunted. You wouldna be the first people to come round here asking about it.”

“What happened there?” asked Rob.

She shook her head sadly. “Terrible things. After the battle here in 1746, the house was where a number of surviving Jacobite rebels sought refuge. It didna take long for the English to hunt them down. They actually promised the rebels safe-haven if they surrendered, only to line them up and shoot them after they exited the house. Many were too badly wounded to exit on their own, and some just didna trust the soldiers, so they hid in the cellar. The English barred the doors and set fire to the house, where everyone inside either burned alive or died from the smoke. The woman who owned the house and was aiding the rebels perished with the rest.”

You gasped, and Rob covered his mouth with his hands. “That’s horrifying,” you said. "Those poor people.“

"Aye,” Peg said. "Such was life for the Scots after the defeat. It continued for many years. The English punished them severely for the uprising, even people who had nothing to do wi’ it. The English werna interested in blame– they were making a point. They wanted to show all of Scotland what happened to people who dared challenge their authority.“

“I hope you don’t think I’m crazy,” you said. “But on our first night there, I saw a figure on the front lawn. It scared me half to death.”

“Aye, that must have been a shock,” she said sympathetically. “I canna say one way or another that you saw a spirit, but it doesna seem unlikely. Strange things have happened round here for as long as I can remember.”

You exchanged a look with your husband. What were you supposed to do with that?

You thanked Peggy for the information with as much composure you could muster, and left the visitor center numb with shock. You grabbed Rob’s arm the moment you were out of earshot. “What the fuck?” you hissed. “My dream. All the weird shit. What is going on?”

“I dunno,” he said. “But I do know that I don’t want you staying there alone.” He hugged you close, and you could feel that his body was tense with worry. “We’re in this together; filming be damned. We’ll figure this out.”

(gif source) Part Three Tag list. Ask me to be added! @thisisarobertsheehanblog @joz-stankovich @robert-sheehan

#robert sheehan character fic #sheehanoween #mists of culloden #robert sheehan x reader #robert sheehan fanfic #halloween #spooky story

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flowitch · 3 years

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supernatural and lgbtqia+ characters

DISCLAIMER: i love these characters, which is why i watch the show. i do also have many issues with the show and the writers. this isn’t a hate post for the story or the characters, just the way the characters have been treated. do not read this if you are not caught up and do not want spoilers. this is also kinda a mess but i got very passionate about this and wrote it during classes

Dean Winchester

i’m gonna start with my boy dean!! dean is mine along with many other people’s favorite characters because of how complex he is. and one of the things that adds depth to his character is his “journey” with his sexuality.

there are many examples of dean very clearly not being straight, and he is officially headcanoned (and i guess canon now) as bisexual. you don’t even need to include dean and cas scenes for examples of his bisexuality. here is a video showing examples without any cas scenes:

https://youtu.be/rQSPmmuLJB0

now that we’ve established he is bisexual, let’s talk about the contradiction between the writing of his sexuality and character. the one i’m itching to talk about first is the confession scene in 10x16.

https://youtu.be/IqBHkwi13ic

in this scene, dean says, and i quote, if you don’t want to watch the video and don’t remember, “There's things, there's...people...feelings that I- I want to experience differently. Maybe even for the first time.” there honestly is no other way to interpret this. i’ve tried to put myself in the mind of the writers and the homophobes but i genuinely cannot interpret this another way. this is very clearly about his sexuality, being that there were no love interests at the time that this would apply to (not that this would even apply to a straight couple anyway). and not only does this confession scene occur, but sam even comments on how he was in there for a long time and he could always talk to him if he needs to!!!! they could have easily not had sam say anything about how long he spent in there, being that we as the viewers have no clue as to how long he was in there. they wrote that specifically to show that what he said in there had meaning and importance.

the writers and the crew of the show play into dean’s sexuality consistently with scenes, song of the days from the crew, etc., but then deny that destiel or dean’s bisexuality is real. i think a lot of this has to do with the fact that dean has always been considered as a “macho man” who shows very little emotion and has trouble with vulnerability. and that’s true! he absolutely is. but this show had 15 years to allow him to slowly work through his feelings and his issues with his own sexuality and self. the confession is a great example of the writers being almost there and then never speaking about it again.

even if you aren’t bisexual, you can see how much biphobia there is in the world. and as a bisexual woman i can say that bisexuality in men is so looked down upon it’s disturbing. men coming to terms with their bisexuality, especially if they are considered straight and “manly”, always makes me so happy since it’s not as accepted as female bisexuality. and this is another reason why supernatural exploring dean’s bisexuality would have been so incredible. seeing a man on television who has a lot of internal issues come to terms with something so complex and life changing would have been monumental to so many people. the writers had an infinite amount of ways to go about this because of things that THEY wrote, and instead chose to ignore his sexuality and have him not respond to castiel’s confession in 15x18. it’s very clear he was in shock in that episode so i’m not mad, but it is also clear that they wrote it that way to not fully make deancas canon.

dean winchester is bisexual, and the writers wrote him that way. nobody pulled this out of their ass, destiel didn’t become popular randomly and for no reason, they wrote him this way. this is their own writing that they have chosen to ignore and contradict for 15 seasons and it’s disappointing.

Castiel

this entire post is being written on november 6, 2020. one day after 15x18 aired. castiel is now canonically queer, and was already sent to someplace worse than hell. because he was happy. which directly connected to his love for dean. i honestly don’t even have to write cas’ section because that is enough, but i’ll write about his mistreatment anyway.

we knew the only thing that would make cas truly happy would be something with dean. well we assumed the writers would make up some other bullshit, but we hoped that it had something to do with dean. and sure enough, it was his love confession. and what i loved about this was cas starts it off by saying two beautiful things. one, that he knows he can never have what he really wants (dean), but he’s just as happy telling dean he loves him. he doesn’t need to have him to be happy with where they end their story, as long as dean knows. and the other thing he starts off by saying is that he knows how dean sees himself. he lists off all of these extremely kind things about dean and how dean is what made cas care about the world. he is the reason castiel went from an emotionless soldier to a fallen angel that feels deep love for people.

this confession scene although tainted by the fact that he died right after, which we’ll talk about, and the fact that it took this damn long, really means a lot to me. it was so incredible seeing cas be unapologetically open, honest, in love, and himself. he was for the first time since we’ve known him, completely and totally content. he told the man he loves how incredible he thinks he is and how he loves him, and knew he was saving him from billie by doing it. we’ve never seen him that happy. and it’s heartbreaking.

misha summed it up perfectly i think: “Tonight, watching Cas talk to Dean, I got lost in the story and forgot for a moment that I’m the one who plays that angel and I thought, “He’s how I want to be. He’s openhearted and he’s selfless and he’s true.”

this was the first time we saw cas living his whole truth, and he immediately died. in terms of just bad taste, sending someone who just came out to angel hell is very disturbing, but it’s just further proof of the writers not caring about their lgbtqia+ characters. it’s like they gave us what we wanted, but there just had to be a catch, right? these writers very clearly do not care about their queer characters or fans, and what they did to cas here shows that plain as day.

obviously i really do want dean to save cas from the empty to parallel cas saving him from hell, but do i think it’ll happen in these last two episodes? no. first off i just don’t think misha filmed for the last two episodes, but also, the writers have made it clear that they do not care about cas in general, nevermind their now love story. it just does not sit right with me that he got sent to the empty for eternity because he was finally his whole self and happy.

Charlie Bradbury (our world + au)

we have seen charlie bradbury die twice, both times for no reason at all. the first time we saw her die, it was by the hands of a NAZI, and her body was THROWN INTO A BATHTUB. like i said before with cas, that was explanation enough i mean come ON. the second time we witnessed charlie die was in 15x18, (along with the whole world i know bare with me), which we did NOT need to see.

let’s start with the fact that for all of these characters, supernatural creates and writes them wonderfully for the most part. we fall in love with these characters because of the way they were written, acted, and the dynamic with other characters. unfortunately in supernatural, if you are queer or a woman or god forbid both, that dynamic with other characters will be the death of you.

i’m gonna talk about each other her deaths individually. so her first death. the only reason for her death was to further sam and dean’s (mostly dean’s) man pain. although i eat up the reactions of other characters when another dies, this just felt completely unnecessary to me. the writers wrote a fan-favorite character, and decided that the best course of action was to brutally murder her to further dean’s mark of cain storyline. and i loved that storyline! i loved the scene of dean getting revenge for charlie! but it did not need to happen. the only thing the fans wanted was for her to be alive and well, get more screentime and possibly have a girlfriend.

when directly asked why they thought killing charlie was a good idea, jeremy carver said:

“That’s an excellent question, and it, it’s tough just because...any time you have a favorite character on a show...People die on the show. And, and, and...and, unfortunately...So...there’s so many ways to answer that. And I feel, I, I...it’s tough for me to answer. She’s an absolutely beloved character, beloved on the show...And when we’re in the writer’s room...we have to go where the story takes us. And we try and do it without, um...(insert fans booing and the cast laughing at him)...this is the world day of my life. And I’d like to thank everyone up here for the support.” (they were not helping).

not only did he not have a clue on how to answer a question that should have an understandable answer, but then the best thing that he could come up with is “we have to go where the story takes us.” but why would that possibly be where the story takes you? if supernatural had more diversity than straight white males and possibly one woman that dies or is evil, then fine kill off whoever you want even if i don’t like it. but it becomes a gender and sexuality issue when she is not only the only recurring female character at the time, but also the only recurring lgbtqia+ character at the time (minus cas).

now the second time she’s died. mind you this isn’t our world’s charlie. they brought her back for the fans and for the cast/crew that love her and felicia. we’ve established that she’s here living her life someplace. we haven’t heard anything about her for a hot minute, and then they decide to bring her back for 15x18. i was thrilled! i could not wait to see her, and was even more excited when she showed up on my television. and then, even better, we found out she has a girlfriend who she lives with and is clearly happy/comfortable with. and then what happens, may you ask? her girlfriend, stevie, a queer woman of color, vanishes. boom another unnecessary lgbtqia+ and woman death that could have been avoided if they just wrote in sam and dean calling her for help.

later on in the episode, everyone on earth excluding dean, sam, and jack are gone- completely vanished where they stood. charlie of course is among those people. bare with me here, i know everyone vanished and it’s not the same as the first one. but here’s my issue with it: she did not have to come back. i would have rather had donna say “jodie, the girls, charlie, they’re ready to go when you need them”, and then they all vanish off screen. but instead they went through the trouble of bringing her back, showing her happy, having her experience a painful loss, and then disappear anyway. what was the point in having her in the episode?

like i mentioned earlier with dean being representation for bisexual men, charlie was just that for lesbians!! the amount of posts i’ve seen on multiple platforms talking about how much they resonated with charlie or how heartbroken they were no longer having representation on their favorite show is awful. there was a kickass nerdy, kind, strong, loving lesbian on your show not once but twice (au charlie), and you blew it.

Claire + Kaia (Dreamhunter)

this part isn’t going to be long because there are some exceptions: wayward sisters failed spinoff (i’m still heartbroken i want it so bad), kathryn newton’s new status and inability to be in the show, etc.. so i guess this will just be a short thing about wayward sisters and what that could mean for claire and kaia.

they had already established in supernatural that kaia was claire’s first love. we had gotten some really cute scenes with them, and then wayward sisters was finally a possibility. if the show had gone through, which i’m not sure why it didn’t, claire and kaia’s relationship could have been a goldmine. young girls could see themselves represented by characters already adored by supernatural fans. it would’ve shown a beautiful wlw relationship between two young girls who are also kickass and can keep up with their elders/male counterparts.

i can’t pin this on the writers sadly (lmao), but i am still upset that we didn’t get wayward sisters. it would’ve meant a lot to women and to the lgbtqia+ community.

My thoughts

like i said in the disclaimer, i love these characters and the story of supernatural. i always will. but i can’t lie about how frustrating it is seeing women, lgbts and people of color get constantly disregarded and mistreated. the writers had 15 years to get with the times, and the growth of society. stuff that i saw in season one and wasn’t surprised by should not still be happening in season 15. having writers that are all straight white males/women is not enough anymore. it never was. there has to be something for everyone in a show as big as this. it’s not about meeting diversity requirements, it’s about actually having diversity because it’s real. there are no diversity requirements for people in society. these are just people of different races, ethnicities, sexualities, genders, etc. who want to see someone like them represented on the things that they watch. it’s a lonely feeling not being validated by a show that you love.

i might make another post specifically for the women mistreatment and queerbaiting on this show but that’s all for my essay on why supernatural sucks at not mistreating their queer characters :)

#supernatural #spn #spn 15x18 #dean winchester #castiel #deancas #destiel #charlie bradbury #claire novak #kaia nieves #wayward sisters

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waywardwrestlewritingwaif · 4 years

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The Guardian’s Oath, Part Three

In order to make any sense of this, you’ll want to read Part One and Part Two.

Thanks to everyone who’s read/ commented/ liked so far! My guess is that this section *maybe* represents the halfway point, although possibly a little less. I feel like I’m on the clock here since there’s at least one more “seasonal” (Halloween-type-theme) story I’m working on.

Hope you enjoy!

Pairing: Feargal Devitt/ Finn Balor x OFC

Word count: 4,734

Content advisory: None.

"Is everything alright, Miss? I thought I heard you cry out."

Kate's voice startled me when I came back inside.

"Oh yes, I'm sorry. I saw… there was a strange man at the gate just now but I told him to be on his way."

"A strange man?" She muttered something under her breath before continuing, "There's too many around this summer. You see tramps all the way down from Dublin with things being so hard there and it makes you feel like you're not safe in your own home."

"I hadn't thought of that. I assumed it was one of the village men."

Kate shook her head. "They're bad enough. But these city ruffians have a look that'll turn your blood cold."

"He was a peculiar looking fellow," I mused. "And there was certainly something about him that set my nerves on edge. But he's gone now."

I tried to sound confident but when I retired to my chambers for the night, I was haunted by visions of the dark man, filled with a foreboding that he meant harm to me or the children. During those few precious stretches when I was able to sleep, I dreamt of his pale eyes bearing down on me, of the man speaking to me without ever moving his lips.

“I am coming,” he said, and nothing more.

As the summer progressed, the children became more and more restless with their lessons. Although they did not associate much with the youngsters from town, they knew enough to be aware that schools had let out and that other children were free to spend their summers at play. I tried to keep them focused as much as possible but I found myself giving in to their wishes to go outside and, in particular, to go for long walks along the shore.

I had become accustomed to the constant roll of the ocean in my new home but I still felt a little intimidated being next to what seemed like an endless expanse. In theory, I knew that there was land in the distance but the fact that I could not see it made me feel like it was a fantasy, as much as the monsters that the children told me of.

“Miss Miles, can we please go around the point today?” William whined at me.

For weeks, he had been begging me to circle around the tip of the beach crescent, around to the area just below the place where we had had our picnic. He could tell that each request was wearing me down just a little but I felt that he had reached my core and that I could not yield. The area was rocky and uneven, some of it barely above water even at low tide. I knew that, while he might be able to skip through it with impunity, I couldn’t hope to keep pace and could easily slip and injure myself, at which point I would be no help at all to him or his sister.

“William, I’ve told you before, if we come to the beach, we stay on the sands,” I grumbled, irritable from a bad night’s sleep. “It’s too dangerous to risk going farther.”

“But there are caves! I want to go and look inside them!”

“My word is final and you know perfectly well that your father would agree with me.”

I remained nervous that the children could damage my position by complaining that I’d treated them unfairly, so I’d taken to invoking their father when I needed to enforce discipline. It worked in this case, as it always did, although every time I refused him his adventure, I could see William’s expression growing more frustrated and angrier.

The three of us took our dinner together, William still sulking.

“How did your family die?” he blurted as we waited on dessert.

“Willam, be quiet,” Sophia hissed. “You’ve no right to ask her such questions.”

At the same time, I saw her dark eyes cut back to me for an instant, as if she wanted to see how I’d react without her intervention. I was exhausted and knew that no real harm could come of sharing my story. I even thought that it might generate some sympathy in them.

“My mother died giving birth to my younger brother,” I informed them coolly. “My father loved her very much and after she died… his health began to deteriorate.”

I knew enough to avoid telling the whole truth in this case, namely that starting with my mother’s death, my father had started to drink heavily. This was not appropriate for children to hear. Then again, I mused, it was not appropriate for a child to experience.

“He was a schoolteacher and as his health declined, he was forced out of work,” I continued.

“So you were paupers?” Sophia asked sharply.

“We were not so bad off. My father had some meagre savings that supported us, and he was able to take on some work tutoring.”

“Where is your brother now?” William now seemed more curious than resentful.

I inhaled deeply.

“My brother died when he was hardly more than a baby.”

“Was he sickly? What did he die of?”

I was not expecting the barrage of personal questions but I understood them to an extent. I likely could have scolded them and told them that they were being presumptuous. Instead, I cast my eyes down at the table and spoke.

“He just died. No one could ever determine why. He went to sleep one night and never woke up.”

“How mysterious!” Sophia exclaimed.

“I suppose so,” I responded softly. “After his death, my father’s health grew even worse. He grew weaker and eventually, he died too.”

“As a result of his illness?”

“He took a kind of a turn. I think he must have felt dizzy and he fell and hit his head. He died a few days later from the injury.”

“That’s horrid,” Isabella gasped. “You were left all alone!”

“Not quite all alone,” I answered with a smile. “My church took me in and made sure that my needs were met. They also made sure that I was educated enough to be able to take on a position as governess. And here I am with you.”

Sophia frowned a little. “Do churches in your area normally do that?”

“I suppose I was lucky that this one was very generous.”

The truth was that their generosity had always confused me. When I was very young, I didn’t understand why anyone should be so kind to me. As I grew older, I appreciated it more but I understood that this was not something that was normally practiced. Perhaps I had been lucky enough to be born in an especially generous parish. Perhaps the reverend there had seen some potential in me from the beginning, for he was always my champion and closest ally. I only knew that I had fared better than another in my situation could hope to.

We all retired early, our lungs full of ocean air that soothed the brain. I read to the children from a book of fables that didn’t seem to bore them too much and was relieved when they declared themselves exhausted after just a few minutes.

I said my prayers that night remembering my family and hoping that they had made their way to Heaven.

At around one, I was awakened by Kate, who was in a panic. It took me a moment for me to get her to speak coherently.

“It’s the young Master,” she sobbed. “He’s run off. She says she doesn’t know where he’s gone.”

The word “she” was said with a level of suspicion and anger that surprised me. I knew she was speaking of Sophia and that she had some dark opinions on the young Devitts, but it hardly seemed a tone appropriate to speaking of a child.

“How long has he been gone?”

“About ten minutes ma’am. I ran out to see if I could catch him because he’s run off to hide in the woods as a game before, but I couldn’t see him anywhere.”

I started to gather some clothes so that I could at least make a pretense of being presentable.

“Was the back gate unlocked?”

“It was, although I can’t say for certain if that was done tonight.”

The two of us descended the stairs, looking out at the trees whipped around by the wind. I was aware that Sophia trailed after us but I was annoyed at her for her refusal to divulge where her brother had gone, even though I was certain she knew.

“Kate, did you see him go in the direction of the woods?” I asked, another idea springing to mind.

“I did not… I just assumed that since he’d gone before…”

“He’s not back there,” I told her. “He’s gone down to the water to look at the caves.” I spun to face Sophia. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

She pursed her lips, looking genuinely shocked that I had figured out the answer so quickly.

“The caves?” Kate exclaimed. “But it’s high tide! He’ll be pulled out to sea!”

“Kate, I need you to go to all the houses nearby. Wake them and tell them that you need to form a search party for Master William and tell them we think that he’s near the ocean. They can cover the ground over land in case he’s taken that route. I’m going to go down to the beach to see if I can find him there.”

“But it’s not safe!”

“It will be fine,” I assured her, far from convinced myself. “I should be able to catch him before he makes his way around the point. Hopefully, he’ll turn back on his own when he sees the water but at least I can move much faster than he does.”

Without waiting for another word, I bolted from the house, rushing down to the beach and almost falling several times. The tide was at its highest point, almost reaching the top of the rocks where William liked to collect his specimens. Even at a distance, I could see that the point of the crescent, where WIlliam would have to go in order to access the caves on the other side, was covered in water up to its vertical rise. And well ahead of me along the beach, I could see a small figure skipping along the rocks.

“William!” I screamed, starting after him as quickly as I could. “William, stop! It’s too dangerous!”

The wind whipping off the water was too much for my voice to carry, so I continued after him as quickly as I could go, confounded that his tiny legs seemed to carry him at almost the same pace. It took me some time to close any distance between us and I was still too far behind for him to hear me calling after him.

As he approached the end of the beach, I saw him pause and peer forward, as if he were following someone and questioning the wisdom of going further. I tried to call out his name even louder but I grew winded very quickly.

It seemed like insanity, even for a child, but William waded out into the water, making his way towards the point. I trembled at the thought that in order to catch up with him, I would have to do the same, already imagining the weight of my clothing and the tug of the current on my legs.

He clung as close as he could to the shore and began to gingerly make his way around the turn. Once he slipped, the rocks beneath his feet doubtless slick and deadly, but he resurfaced a second later, scrabbling his way up to the side of the rock and clinging to it as he made his way around and out of my sight.

Terrified, I realized that in order to have any hope of overtaking him before the danger became worse, I would have to take a diagonal route, walking through the water rather than moving along the shore. I had never in my life ventured into the ocean but the need to rescue my young charge was greater than my fear. I waded out until the water reached my thighs and fought my way with all my strength. As I approached the point of the crescent beach, I stumbled, almost getting pulled under and soaked to my chest but I persevered, making my way forward until I saw the gouges in the earth that formed the caves William so wanted to see.

As I approached the first one, I heard screaming over the wind and made my way towards it. Indeed it was William, ghost white and terrified, begging for help.

“I can’t swim!” he shrieked.

Of course, I couldn’t swim either, but I wasn’t about to say that.

“I’m coming William!” I cried out, fighting my way towards him. “We’ll be safe soon!”

By the time I reached him, cowering on a ledge inside the cave, my lungs were burning from exertion. I gathered him up in my arms but my grip was weak. I was gasping and desperately trying to keep hold of him and I could tell from the look on his face that my demeanor was doing nothing to inspire confidence. Despite the cold of the water, my entire body felt like burning coals wrapped in skin. Truthfully, having made it this far, I wasn’t certain I could guide us to safety but I knew I had a better chance than the boy had on his own. And, although I felt shame at the thought as soon as it occurred to me, if I were to leave and focus only on saving myself, there was the chance that he would survive and be able to tell others that I had abandoned him.

I wrapped my arm around him and crept forward to the mouth of the cave. I glanced over my shoulder, wondering if we might be safer heading further back, into the darkness behind us but there was no way to tell how far back the cave went, if there was a drop, or how deep the water was. So I clung as best I could to the rocky surface with my free hand, trying not to give into the panic I felt hearing William scream and cry.

The rocks under my feet were slick and treacherous and more than once I slipped, sending both of us under the water and forcing me to expend more precious energy fighting back to the surface. After the second such accident, William ceased to cry and seemed to grow heavier. He coughed and spluttered and I found myself shaking him violently in the hopes of making him cough up the ocean water he’d swallowed. Eventually, though, I became so focused on getting back to the shore that it was all I was aware of.

Rather than head back around the point and risk the strong current there, I took the shortest route and headed for the land nearest the caves. I remembered from our picnic on the cliff above that it was narrower and rockier but I didn’t believe I had the strength to carry William much further. I knew that there was some kind of path up because the children had taken it the day of our picnic. But I was certain what shape it would be in or how accessible it would be with the high tide.

I felt like it took me hours to reach the point where the land rose above the water. The path up was difficult to mount but I somehow managed it, all the while pulling my young charge along. Although I managed to get us on to some semblance of solid ground, the soil there was loose and slid around, frustrating my attempts to crawl to safety. William whimpered and whined, for I was at this point dragging him like a sack behind me. I had to pause every few steps just to get more air into my body and because I felt too exhausted to continue. I gave some anguished sobs myself, desperate and furious that this boy had put us both in danger.

About halfway up the hill, I saw some lights and thought I heard voices. I waited a moment, afraid that I was imagining things but the sights and sounds persisted and it occurred to me that there were people there: Kate had gone to raise the alarm with our neighbors and she would have sent them to the place where she knew I had headed.

“Help us!” I cried as loudly as I could manage. I knew I was nowhere near loud enough to be heard over the wind but knowing how close rescue was, my body refused to move further up the path. “For the love of God, help us!”

I stayed in place, clinging to William and holding him close to my body in order to share what little warmth I had. I continued to scream, my voice growing louder as some of my strength returned. Although his glassy eyes told me that he had no idea what was going on, William was roused by my voice and then joined me in my calls for help. As I reached what I truly felt might be my last breath, I saw a couple of faces appear above us. I raised my arm weakly and hollered in the hopes that they would notice us.

“They’re here!” a man’s voice cried out.

I felt my body slump as I realized that we’d been seen. I clung as tight as I could to William and felt my head tip back. Although I never lost consciousness, I was only dimly aware of what was going on as the men descended and gathered us up to bring us back to safety. There was a cacophony of voices offering praise to God, trying to evaluate our health, barking orders on where to take us.

Finally, one familiar voice cut through them all.

“Oh my heavens, Miss Miles,” Kate cried, “you are a saint.”

I felt filthy and waterlogged and pain ripped through every tissue of my body. I felt like nothing like a saint but her praise felt better and more genuine than anything I had been told in my life. I tried to smile but even the muscles of my face felt heavy and I don’t know that I managed more than a twitch of my lips.

The rescue party conveyed us all back to Wynn Cottage, throwing rugs and blankets over us as they did. I heard Kate giving orders and was quietly impressed at how her sweet, matronly demeanor changed when leadership was needed. When we reached the cottage, the group split into two. One part hurried up the stairs with William, yelling that the doctor was needed. Another group carried me to the kitchen, where Susan was standing over a washing basin filled with hot water.

I was surprised, in light of her often grouchy mood, to see that her eyes were red from crying and that she reached out to grab hold of my hand as soon as the men brought me close to her. She held onto it hard and a strange mix of prayers and praise flowed from her lips.

“Thank you, thank you,” Kate muttered, fighting her way to the front of the crowd. “Now please leave us, we have to get her into the bath to warm her up. Give us some privacy please.”

The men shuffled out of the kitchen and I immediately felt Kate and Susan working at the buttons of my dress. Their movements were frantic enough that a few buttons were torn clean off. Each time that would happen, I heard Susan assure us that she would take care of it. When they finally removed the last of my drenched clothing, I saw Susan gather everything up and grab the errant buttons off the floor before disappearing. Kate helped me step into the basin and lowered me into the hot water.

It was painful, for my skin felt like I was being poached in the heat, but she stroked my hair and soothed me, assuring me that this was what I needed.

“You’ve done more than was ever asked of you,” she told me. “You are that boy’s guardian angel and everyone in this place is going to hear of what you did for him.”

Gently, she laid my head against the edge of the basin and I looked up at her, able to focus my eyes for the first time since my rescue.

“Thank you,” I croaked, my voice cracking with the effort of speaking. “You’re too kind.”

She huffed and shook her head. “The Young Master deserves a hiding for sneaking out that way. You are a truly godly woman and there’s not many that would have done what you did, putting your own life in danger to save him.”

I remembered that moment in the cave when I had considered abandoning William for an instant and shame washed over me.

Some voices came from the landing above and Kate frowned a little.

“I suppose I’m needed up there,” she sighed. “Can you hold yourself up if I go? You won’t slip under the water?”

“I’m fine,” I promised her. “Go and tend to the boy and make sure he has what he needs.”

I thought that she was going to repeat her assertion that what he needed was a hiding but she simply shook her head and left the kitchen.

My body had adjusted to the temperature and I could feel myself relaxing. Fatigue was so heavy on me that I did need to keep a firm grip on the sides of the basin to avoid sinking to the bottom. How ironic it would be, I thought mirthlessly, to have escaped a watery ocean death only to drown in a tub of water here.

The oil lamp that had been left to give me some light flickered a little and I wondered if there might be a draft. I couldn’t feel anything on my skin but in my state, I couldn’t be sure of anything that was happening. The lamp seemed to grow dimmer and the shadows in the room drew closer. It was my exhausted mind toying with me, I told myself. I couldn’t trust my senses under such circumstances.

Nevertheless, a current of fear ran through me, making me feel more awake and alert than I had in hours. And as I looked around the room, I saw a figure emerge from the shadows, the low lighting casting a sheen over its dark skin and illuminating its pale eyes. It advanced until it reached the edge of the basin where I lay, helpless, its long tongue flicking over sharpened teeth like a predator discovering injured prey.

I wanted to scream but there was no air in my lungs and my lips refused to open. My whole body was paralyzed, so that I could not escape or fight him. His face was familiar but I could not remember from exactly where. But while I was certain I had encountered him before, I knew immediately that he had not been in this form, this demonic shape, nude with an oily hide, black mottled with red and white, a deranged grin and eyes that seemed to hold me in thrall.

Unable to move though I was, I quickly realized that I was not unable to feel. As he leaned over the edge of the tub, he took hold of my foot and lightly dragged one clawed finger along the sole. The sensation made me shiver, made me want to thrash around to free myself, but I could do none of those things. Grinning, he dipped his head low and stuck his tongue into the bathwater like a cat at a saucer of milk. Then in one smooth motion he tightened his grip on my ankle and pulled my leg forward, immediately pulling my upper body under the water.

I wanted to push myself up again. I wanted to wriggle free of his grip. I wanted to run from him. But my body would do none of this. Instead, I was forced to feel the air escaping my lungs, to feel the desperation and panic grow in me as I realized that I could not reach the surface. At the same time, I felt the tip of the demon’s tongue touch the instep of my foot and trail a hot path over my calf. I could feel its cruel smile against my skin as it made its way higher, until its mouth came to rest at the back of my knee. There was a sharp pain as he bit down on the flesh there and I wanted to cry out but had no power to do.

At that moment, his touch was gone and I was trapped under the water unable to move. A second later, a clawed hand grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked me back into a sitting position. I gasped, drawing in as much air as I could, touching my skull where I’d felt hairs ripped out. My body was my own again but as I surveyed the kitchen, I saw that I was alone. Had I imagined everything? Had it all just been some fevered hallucination?

I looked at the skin under my knee and found a red mark where he had bitten me, however, as I prodded it with my finger, the mark disappeared and the flesh looked normal once again. For the first time since the demonic figure had appeared, I heard noises coming from upstairs in the house. People were bustling around, Kate was giving instructions, there were footsteps everywhere. I stayed in the tub for as long as I could stand, feeling the water grow cooler against my skin. Susan had left some towelling for me and I wrapped myself in it as I emerged from my bath, relishing the sensation of the soft fabric.

I stood there, wrapped up, before the oven for some time, lost in thought, before Kate came back into the kitchen.

“Oh bless you, miss,” she exclaimed. “We didn’t even remember you here.”

“It’s all right. I’m warm and I’m dry now.”

“After all you’ve done, it’s a poor return on our part to leave you all alone.”

“Kate, I’m fine.” Instinct told me that I should keep my demonic vision to myself. “If you could fetch me my nightdress, I would be most obliged.”

She hurried out of the kitchen, still fretting and returned only moments later with my gown. She helped me into it, as my arms ached so much I could barely lift them.

“Is Master William safe?” I asked timidly.

“He’s better than he deserves to be. He’s asleep in bed as if nothing happened.”

“I was a bit rough with him,” I admitted. “I was worried that I might have injured him on the way back.”

“A few scrapes and bruises is all. And it’s no less than he deserves.”

“You mustn’t be too harsh on him. Children are adventurous at that age, especially boys.”

She shook her head, guiding me up the stairs. “I have three brothers and let me tell you that all of them knew that if they’d run off like that, the cuts they got from the rocks would have been the least painful part of the experience.”

I smiled weakly and hugged her as she helped me into the bed.

“We all need to sleep,” I told her, “yourself very much included. I don’t want to hear you up and about at the usual hour. You rest as long as you can.”

“You’re too kind, ma’am.”

“Nonsense. It’s the very least I can do after all your work tonight.”

As she left the garrett, I saw that she turned and looked back at me for a moment. “God bless you and keep you,” she whispered.

I was quickly asleep, however, I woke up periodically, convinced that I felt a hand on my cheek or my throat, or that an unseen figure was hovering nearby, waiting.

#finn balor imagine #finn balor fanfic #wwe fanfiction #wwe imagine #nxt fanfiction #nxt imagine #wayward wrestle writing

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asldkjf11 · 3 years

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You kind of have to split yourself into two people, and treat yourself like someone you have respect for and want the best for. That’s not easy, because people don’t necessarily have respect for themselves, and they don’t necessarily want the best for themselves. They have a lot of self-contempt, and a lot of self-hatred, a lot of guilt, a lot of existential angst, and a lot of self-consciousness, and all of that. And so people don’t necessarily take care of themselves very well. I think you have an obligation—it’s one of the highest moral obligations—to treat yourself as if you’re a creature of value that is, in some sense, independent of your actions. You might think about that, metaphorically, as a recognition of your divine worth, in the Biblical sense, regardless of your sins, so to speak. I think that’s powerful language, once you understand it.

...

I can tell you that, when crisis strikes you—which it will. It will. The floods will come. That’s why the apocalypse is always upon us. The flood will definitely come in your life, and the degree that you’ve organized yourself psychologically, and also healed the relationships between you and your family, could be the critic element that determines whether you live or die when a crisis comes, or whether someone in your family lives or dies.

...

I was thinking about how you should operate in the world in order to make it a better place, assuming that that’s what you should be doing. That is what you should be doing. There’s lots in the world to fix. Everything that bothers you about the world, and about yourself, should be fixed. You can do that. My dawning realization…

...

Let’s say you want to sort out your room, and beautify it, because the beauty is also important. Let’s say all you have is just a little room. You’re not rich; you’re poor, and you don’t have any power. But you’ve got your damn room, and you’ve got this space right in front of you that’s a part of the cosmos, that you can come to grips with. You might think, well, what’s right in front of you? The answer to that is, it depends on how open your eyes are. That’s the proper answer. William Blake said this, for example—Aldous Huxley made comments that were very similar: in a transcendent state, you can see infinity in the finite. You might say, well, you can see infinity in what you have within your grasp, if you look. You could say, maybe, that’s the case with your room.

So you want to clean up your room. Ok, how do you do that, exactly? Well, a room is a place to sleep. If you set your room up properly, then you figure out how to sleep, and when you should sleep, and how you should sleep. And then you figure out when you should wake up, and then you figure out, well, what clothes you should wear, because they have to be arranged properly in your dresser, and then you have to have some place to put your clothes. If you’re going to have some clothes, you have to figure out what you’re going to wear those clothes to do. That means you have to figure out what you’re going to do, and then your room has to serve that purpose. Otherwise, it isn’t set up properly. If it doesn’t serve your purposes, you will be unhappy in the room, because the way that we perceive the world is as a place to move from point A to point B in. And then, if the place that we’re in facilitates that movement, then we’re happy to be there. If the place that we’re in serves as an obstacle to that movement, then we’re unhappy to be there. And so, to set up your room means that you have to have somewhere to go that’s worthwhile, or you can’t set up your room. And then your room has to be set up to facilitate that.

...

when you start building this little microcosm of perfection with what you have at hand, it’ll evoke all the pathologies of everyone in your household. They’ll wonder what the hell you’re up to, in there. They won’t necessarily be happy, because if they’re in a lowly place, let’s say, and so are you, and you’re trying to move out of that, then the higher you move out of that, the more the place they’re in looks bad. You might say, well, what they should do is celebrate your victory over chaos and evil, but that isn’t what will happen. What will happen, instead, is that they will attempt to pull you back down.

I mean, obviously, all families don’t do that, but all families do that to some degree, and some families do almost nothing but that. What that means is that, if you’re going to organize your room, then you’re going to have to confront the devils in your house. That’s often a terrifying thing; some of those devils have lineages that go back many, many, many generations. God only knows what you have to struggle with in order to overcome that. And so, to sort yourself out, and to fix up your room, is a nontrivial matter. You’ll learn by doing that, and then, maybe, you can fix up your family a little bit, and then, having done that, you’ll have enough character so that, when you try to operate in the world—at your job, or maybe in the broader social spheres—you’ll be a force for good, instead of harm. You’ll have learned some humility by noting just how difficult it was to put your damn room together—and yourself, for that matter. You’ll proceed cautiously, with your eyes open, towards the good.

Those are some of the things I’ve been thinking about this week. They’re germane to what we’re going to discuss tonight. What happens at the beginning of the Abrahamic stories is, basically, God comes to Abraham and just says, go. Get going, man. Do something! Get going! You might think, well, where should I go? God is somewhat vague about that. Where he sends Abraham—it’s a real fixer-upper, man. There’s starvation there, and there’s tyranny, and there’s marital dissolution, and there’s deceit. It’s just like where you live, you know? It’s exactly the same thing. It’s tyranny and catastrophe. That’s the tyrannical Great Father.

Abraham ends up having to sojourn in Egypt. There’s a famine, and so mother nature’s on the rampage. Abraham lies about his wife, as we’ll see. So it’s the world. It’s tyranny, vulnerability, and deceit. And yet, God says, go, because if you do go, then you’ll become a father of nations. And you think, again, that’s pretty good news, although it’s strange. You’d expect that, if God chose Abraham, he’d send him immediately to the land of milk and honey. That isn’t what happens, at all, and Abraham never gets there. But his mission is still regarded as divine, and thank God for that. That’s what your mission will be, because that’s what you’ll encounter in your life. Those are archetypal things that everyone encounters: the tyranny of the social structure, the rapaciousness of nature, and the deceitful quality of the human psyche. That’s the world.

That’s a negative view, in some sense, but it’s positive in the story. What it basically says is something that’s akin to the Sermon on the Mount, which is that, if you’re aligned with God, and you pay attention to the divine injunction, then you can operate in the midst of chaos, tyranny, and deception, and flourish. You could hardly hope to have a better piece of news than that, given that that’s exactly where you are. I didn’t see any of that in the Abrahamic stories, to begin with. It’s been very interesting to have that reveal itself. "The Abraham section thus develops the personality and character of a man to a new degree in the Biblical narrative while picturing in him a new degree of responsibility…"

So here’s the other thing that’s really struck me, and I think this is of absolutely crucial importance. I don’t know of how much importance, but it’s certainly important to me. One of the things that has just blown me away in the last year—because I’ve talked to lots of people live, but also lots of people online, but it’s more obvious live, and it’s obvious in this theatre, as well. I’ve gone around and spoken, and a large proportion of my audience has been young men under 30. I’ve spoken to them a lot about responsibility. What’s so odd about this is that, of all the things that I’ve spoken about—because I can see the audience, and I can feel how the audience is reacting. I’m always paying attention to all of you, insofar as I can manage that. I get some sense of how what I’m saying is landing, which you have to do if you’re going to speak effectively to people. What happens is that, if I talk about responsibility, everyone is silent, just like they are now. Just silent, and not moving. Focusing, attentive. I say, pick up your responsibility. Pick up the heaviest thing you can, and carry it. The room goes quiet, and everybody’s eyes open. I think…It always makes me break up. I don’t know why.

I was speaking to an English journalist today. He was going to write an article in Spectator magazine. I was talking about this. At the same point in the discussion, I had the same emotional reaction. I don’t really understand it. There’s something about it that’s so crucial. We’ve been fed this unending diet of rights and freedoms, and there’s something about that that’s so pathologically wrong. People are starving for the antidote, and the antidote is truth and responsibility. It isn’t because that’s what you should do in some I know better, or someone knows better than you, for you, sense. It’s that that’s the secret to a meaningful life. Without a meaningful life, all you have is suffering, nihilism, self-contempt, despair, and all of that. That’s not good.

It’s necessary for men to stand up and take responsibility. They all know that, and they are starving for that message. The message is more that that’s also a good thing, to stand up and take responsibility. You’re cursed so much now, from when you’re young, with this notion that your active engagement with the world is part of what is destroying and undermining the planet, and adding to the tyranny of the social systems. How about not so much of that, ok? It’s too soul-deadening. It’s antihuman, right to the core. My sense, instead, is that if you are able to reveal the best of yourself to you and the world, that you would be an overwhelming force for good. Whatever errors that might be made along the way would wash out in the works.

...

if you forthrightly pursue that which God directs you to pursue, let’s say, then all things are possible. That’s the idea in the narrative.

You might say that’s naive. It’s not. You think it when you’re naive, right? And then you dispense with that idea. And then, when you stop being the sort of person who dispenses with ideas, you come to another place. That’s the place where you have no idea what might be possible for you, if you got things together, and pursued what you should pursue. You don’t know how much of what’s impossible to you, right now, would be become possible under those conditions. It’s an unknown phenomena.

I’ve watched people put themselves together, across time, incrementally and continually. They become capable of things that are not only jaw-droppingly amazing, but, sometimes, metaphysically impossible to understand. So we don’t know the limits of human endeavour. We truly don’t. It’s premature to put a cap on what it is that we are, or what it is that we’re capable of. You’re already something, and maybe you’re not so bad in your current configuration. But you might wonder, if you did nothing for the next 30 years except put yourself together, just exactly what would you be able to do? You might think that’s worth finding out. But, of course, that’s the adoption of responsibility.

One thing that I’ve also learned over the years…I’ve been curious about this battle between meaning and nihilism. I could see for a long while the rationale in nihilism, and the power of the nihilistic argument. But it occurred to me, across time, that the power of the nihilistic argument is more powerful than naive optimism, but it’s not more powerful than the optimism that is not naive. The optimism that is not naive says, it’s self-evident that the world is a place of suffering, and that there are things to be done about that. It’s self-evident that people are flawed, and that there’s things to be done about that. The non-naive optimist says, the suffering could be reduced, and the insufficiency could be overcome, if people oriented themselves properly, and did what they were capable of doing. I do not believe that that’s deniable.

I think that human potential is virtually limitless, and that there’s nothing, perhaps, that’s beyond our grasp, if we’re careful as individuals, and as a society. I think that there’s no reason for nihilism, and that there’s no reason for hopelessness, and there’s no reason to bow down before evil. We’re capable of so much more. I think that you can easily—you know that, first, because you’re not happy with who you are, and you’re ashamed and embarrassed about it, as you should be. And you know it because, if you look out there, you see people who are capable of doing great things, and you know that we’re not giving it our all. And, still, we’re not doing so badly. You might wonder, if we devoted 90 percent of our effort to putting things right, instead of 55 percent of our effort, or maybe even less than that, just how well could things be put together? I think that you can figure that out by starting with your room, by the way. "Now the Lord said unto Abram"—this is the opening of the story—"Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:"

This is one of those phrases where every clause is significant. Go somewhere you don’t understand! That’s the first thing: "get thee out of thy country." Back in the 1920s, there was a whole slew of American writers who ended up as expatriates in Paris—Hemingway among them, Fitzgerald, and a variety of others. It was very inexpensive in Paris, at the time. Part of their transformation into great literary figures was the fact that they were out of their country. Now they could see what their country was, because you can’t see what your country is until you leave it. So you have to go into the unknown. That’s God’s first command: go into the unknown! You already know what you know, and that’s not enough, unless you think you’re enough. And if you’re not enough, and you don’t think you’re enough, then you have to go where you haven’t been. And so that’s the first commandment to Abraham. That’s a good one. That makes perfect sense: go to where you don’t know. Yes.

"And from thy kindred." Well, what does that mean? It means grow up! That’s what it means. It means get away from your family enough so that you can establish your independence. And that isn’t because there’s something wrong with your family—although, perhaps there is, as there is, perhaps, wrong with you—but it means get away.

...

you are not the master of your own house: there are spirits that dwell within you, meaning, you have a will, and you can exercise a certain amount of conscious control over your being, but there are all sorts of things that occur within you that seem to be beyond your capacity to control. Your dreams, for example—that’s a really good example—or your impulses. You might think of those as so foreign from you that you don’t even want them to be part of you. But more subtly, even, how about what you’re interested in, what compels you? Where does that come from, exactly? You can’t conjure it up of your own accord.

So if you’re a student, and you’re taking a difficult course, you might say to yourself, well, I need to sit down and study for three hours. But then you sit down, and that isn’t what happens: your attention goes everywhere. You might say, well, whose attention is it, then, if it goes everywhere? You say it’s your attention. Heh. Well, if it’s your attention, maybe you’d be able to control it, but you can’t. And so then you might think, well, then just exactly what the hell is controlling it? And you might say, it’s random. Well, it better not be random. I can tell you that. That happens to some degree in schizophrenia. There’s an element of randomness in that. It’s not random. It’s driven by the action of phenomena that I think are best considered as something like subpersonalities—although, even that is only a partial description.

You can’t make yourself interested in something. Interest manifests itself, and grips you. That’s a whole different thing. So what is it that’s gripping you? How do you conceptualize that? Is that a divine power? Well, it’s divine as far as you’re concerned, because it grips you, and you can’t do anything about it. So there’s a calling in you towards what you’re compelled by, and what you’re interested in. Sometimes that might be quite dark, and sometimes not. But you’re compelled forward by your interest. And so the idea that what moves you away from your country, and your father’s house, and the comforts of your childhood home is something that’s beyond you, and that you listen to and harken to. That’s exactly right.

You can say, well, I don’t want to call that God. It doesn’t matter what you call it, exactly. It doesn’t matter to what it is, to what it’s called: it still is. If you do not listen to it—and I’ve been a clinician, and talked to enough people now, as old as I am, to know this absolutely: if you do not listen to that thing that beckons you forward, you will pay for it like you cannot possibly imagine. You’ll have everything that’s terrible about life in your life, and nothing about it that’s good. And, worse, you’ll know that it was your fault, and that you squandered what you could have had. This is not only a calling forth, but it’s a warning.

...

The land that’s beyond the land that you know is always there, and it’s always where you should go. All of that’s packed into these four phrases. You look at the world through a story. You can’t help it. The story is what gives value to the world, or the story’s what you extract from the value of the world. You can look at it either way. You’re somewhere, and it’s not good enough. That’s the eternal human predicament: wherever you are isn’t good enough. To some degree, that’s actually a good thing, because if it was good enough, well, there’s nothing for you to do. So it’s actually, maybe, a good thing that it’s insufficient. That might be why, sometimes, having less is better than having more. I don’t want to be a pollyanna about that. I mean, I know that there’s deprivation that can reach to the point where it’s completely counterproductive. But it isn’t always the case that…If you start with little, you start with more possibility. It’s something like that. So you always move from what’s unbearable about the present, to some better future, right? And if you don’t have that, then you have nothing but threat and negative emotion. You have no positive emotion, because the positive emotion is generated in the conception of the better future, and in the evidence, that you generate yourself, that you’re moving towards it. That’s where the positive and fulfilling meaning of life comes.

So you want to set up this structure properly. It’s very, very important. What it means is that you want to be going somewhere where it’s good enough so that the going is worth the while—and you can ask yourself that. That’s partly what we tried to build into the Future Authoring Program: We know what’s wrong with life. It’s rife with suffering, insufficiency, deception, and evil. It’s all of that, obviously. What would make the journey worthwhile? Well, you can ask yourself that. It’s like, all right; in order to bear up under this load, what is it that I would need to be striving to attain? And if you ask yourself that, that’s to knock, and the door will open. That’s what that means: if you ask yourself that, then you will find an answer. You’ll shrink away from it; you’ll think, well, there’s no way I could do that. Well, you don’t know what you could do. You don’t know what’s possible, and you’re not as much as you could be. God only knows what you could do and have and give if you sacrificed everything to it.

...

you are not committed to something unless you are willing to sacrifice for it. Commitment and sacrifice are the same thing. It borders on miraculous that those concepts are embedded into this narrative at the level of dramatic actions, instead of abstract explanation. People are acting this out. The fundamental conception is so profound; it’s quite awe-inspiring. It’s breathtaking, really, when you understand what message is trying to be conveyed. You have to make sacrifices. What do you have to sacrifice? You have to sacrifice that which is most valuable to you, currently, that’s stopping you. God only knows what that is—it’s certainly the worst of you. It’s certainly that. God only knows to what degree you’re in love with the worst of you. You move from the unbearable present to the ideal future, and you can’t help that. You have to live in a structure like that. That’s your house—that’s another way of thinking about it. If you want to get your house in order, and if you want it to be a place that you can live properly, then you have to plan the future that is perfect. And then I think, well, what does that mean? It means that it’s good for you.

...

This is the issue about going into the unknown. If you leave your country and your kin and your father’s house, and you go out into a land that your intuition guides you to, you’re going to undergo these radical transformations. This is a sacrificial transformation, too, because you’re moving forthrightly and voluntarily into chaos. That’s the same as the dragon fight. That’s the hero’s story. What will happen, there, is that you will transform yourself. And so the call to an ideal is also the call to a sequence of deaths and rebirths that move you closer and closer to the ideal. That’s what God is calling Abraham to do in the first sentence of the story.

You see these things echoed in the strangest places. These are stills that I took from Pinocchio. This little cricket is the still, small voice, right? That’s the thing that calls to you. It’s your conscience, in part; it’s your intuition, in part. It’s the thing that opens up the great, sacred book of the world. That’s what happens, here. The animators are at pains to show you that. It’s a leather-bound book with gilt lettering. It’s a valuable book. It’s something that’s quiet that’s showing it to you. You have to meditate. You have to be somewhere where the world isn’t drowning you out in order to understand how to open this, to listen to that voice that tells you where you should go, what you should do next. And then what happens is that something beckons to you in the night. It’s a star. It’s something that transcends the horizon. It glitters. It’s brilliant. It’s not day-to-day. It’s something that’s beyond you—something that represents a transcendent ideal, and then makes it manifest to you, if you’re quiet enough to listen. That’s what you wish upon, so strangely, right?

...

your aim should be something that fills you with awe. Why do something else? Well, perhaps because it’s easy, and perhaps because it’s malevolent, and all of those things. But those are no answers to the problems that beset you. They just make things worse, and that’s clear.

...

The idea is that, if you aim properly, then nature aligns itself behind you. It also arrays itself in front of you, perhaps even as an antagonist. But the power that it provides you with, from within, might be sufficient to overcome it from without. I think that the clinical evidence is clear about that. One of the things that we do know is that, if you take people who are confronting terrible things, and shrinking from them, and you teach them how to structure their behaviour so they can advance with courage, everything works better for them. Their fears decrease, and their character grows. And so there might be enough of nature within us to help us withstand the nature that’s outside of us. It depends, at least to some degree, on how it is that we orient ourselves in the world.

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I tell my students, when they’re doing their master’s thesis, write a really bad first draft. And then we have a little conversation about that, because they don’t think I mean that. It sounds like a cliche, in some sense. It’s not a cliche, at all. You’re a terrible writer, but if someone put a gun to your head, and said, "you have to have your 100 page thesis done by next Monday, or I’ll shoot you, but I don’t care how terrible it is," you would sit down and write it. The thing is, then you have it, right? Then you have something, and then you can fix it. You can iterate and fix it. That bad first draft, that’s the most valuable thing. That’s what you need: you need a bad first draft of yourself.

There’s an idea that Jung developed about the trickster, or the jester, or the comedian. The trickster is the precursor to the saviour. That’s one of the things I learned from Jung that was just so unlikely. You’d never think that. It’s so amazing that that might be the case. The satirical and the ironic and the troublemaker, the comedian—the fool is the precursor to the saviour. Why? Because you’re a fool when you start something new. And so, if you’re not willing to be a fool, then you’ll never start anything new. And if you never start anything new, then you won’t develop. And so the willingness to be a fool is the precursor to transformation. That’s the same as humility. If you’re going to write your destiny, you can do a bad first job. You’re going to get smarter as you move forward. Something beckons to you. That’s what happens, here. Maybe the star that Geppetto wished on was the wrong damn star, but at least it was a star, right? At least it was in the sky. At least it moved him forward. And so you say in your life, well, something grips you, and fills you with interest. And you think, should I do that? The answer is, if not that, then something! What if it’s a mistake? It’s a mistake! Rest assured. What do you know? You’re going to stumble around, right? And what’s going to happen is this: you’re going to not stay in stasis; you’re not going to wander around in circles. I see people like that. They say, well, I never knew what to do, and now I’m 40. That’s not so good. That’s not so good, and there is a literature, too, that suggests that people are a lot more unhappy, when they look back on their lives, about the things they didn’t do than they are about the mistakes they made while they were doing things. And so that’s really worth thinking about, too.

There’s redemptive mistakes. A redemptive mistake would be a mistake that you make when you go out and try to do something. You think, ok, I’m going to try to do this, and you’re not good at it. You make a bunch of mistakes. What’s the consequence, if you pay attention? You’re not quite so stupid anymore. That’s the thing: you’ve been informed by the results of your errors. What happens is you follow the beacon; you follow the light, and you’re blind, so you don’t know where the light is. It’s dimly apprehended, only, and you’re afraid to follow it. But you decide to take some stumbling steps towards it, and, as you take stumbling steps towards it, you become illuminated and enlightened and informed because of the nature of your experience, and because you’re pushing yourself beyond where you are; you’re going into the country that you have not yet been in. You learn something. What happens, then, is the star moves. You move 10 feet towards it, and you think, no, that’s not right. I didn’t get it right. It isn’t there; it’s actually there. So then you see it somewhere else, and you shift yourself slightly. You move forward. You continue as you change. The thing that guides you forward moves. It’s like God in the desert in Egypt. The pillar of light that you’re following is moving. It’s not a permanent thing. You move towards it, and it moves away. It guides you forward. So you say, is what I’m aiming at paradise itself? The answer to that is no, because what do you know? You couldn’t see paradise if it was right in front of you, but you might get a glimmer of it. And so you move towards it, and you grow. The next time you open your eyes, you see a little bit more clearly. That just happens over and over. It keeps moving, and so you move like this. But the thing that’s so cool is that each of those zags and zigs is a catastrophe. I hit a wall, my God! And then I had to die a little bit, and I barely got back up. It’s a phoenix transformation at each turn.

It’s painful, but the thing is that, even though you travel 20 miles on that road, and you’ve only moved three miles forward, you’ve moved three miles forward, instead of moving backwards. That’s the thing, too: if you stand still, you fall backwards. You cannot stand still, because the world moves away from you, if you stand still. There’s no stasis; there’s only backwards. And so, if you’re not moving forwards, then you’re moving backwards. Perhaps that’s more of the underlying truth of the Matthew principle: "to those who have everything, more will be given. From those who have nothing, everything will be taken." It’s a warning: do not stay in one place. Well, as you zig and zag, maybe the cataclysm of each transformation starts to lessen. There’s not so much of you that has to die with every mistake. Maybe you end up oriented at least reasonably properly. If you were sensible, that would have been your trip. But it wasn’t, right? It’s that, and perhaps it’s a lot worse than that. Perhaps there’s no shortage of backtracking. But it doesn’t matter, because as you stumble forward, you illuminate and inform yourself. Perhaps that’s partly because the world is made of information. If you encounter it, and tangle with it, then it informs you, and then you become informed, and then you’re in formation, and then you’re ready. God says to Abraham, "I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing." That’s a good offer, fundamentally.

What does it mean to be made a great nation of? Well, perhaps it has something to do directly with your descendants, but I don’t think it’s just that. If you’re a force for good in the world, and that radiates out from you, and if you’re good enough, it’s difficult to say how much of an impact on things you could have. Dostoevsky was a very crazy person, partly because of his epilepsy. He said, "a man is not only responsible for everything he does, but for everything everyone else does." And you think, well, no—and yes; sometimes no; sometimes that’s what you think, if you’re cataclysmically depressed: your sins are so egregious that they’re unforgivable, and that, in some manner, you’re at fault for everything that’s terrible with the world. But there’s actually redemptive truth in that. Things wouldn’t be so bad if you weren’t so far from what you could be.

That’s terribly pessimistic, because it’s all on you, man. But it’s terribly optimistic, because, God, there’s a lot of things that you could do. And if you’re crying out for something to do, then that’s the best news that you could possibly have: Things aren’t so good, but neither are you. If you stop doing the things that you knew to be destructive, which is the right place to start—if you’re going to clean up your room, what do you do first? Well, you just get rid of the mess. No one has to come in and tell you, hopefully, what’s the worst mess. It just announces itself to you. You can certainly know, yourself.

It’s a very easy meditative exercise to sit down and think, ok, I’m doing one thing really stupidly that I should stop doing. It’s like, how long is it going to take you to figure out what that is? It’s about two seconds, right? You’ve known it forever. You could even make it less demanding. You could say, there’s some stupid things that I’m doing, that I know are stupid and wrong, that I could stop doing, that I would stop doing. And then you can just start with that. You can just do that, and maybe it’s just a little thing—although, it’s not; it’s a step forward on the proper voyage. It’s not a small thing. You could do this for a year, or even a month: just try not to do things that you know to be stupid and wrong. That means not to say things that you know to be stupid and wrong, as well. Maybe that’s the most important thing. Just do it as an experiment. See what happens.

...

I’ve seen this: if you don’t have your destiny in hand by the time you’re 30, it’s rough. You start hurting. And if you don’t have your destiny in hand by the time you’re 40, then you really start hurting. Forty’s a real fork in the road. A fork in the road is always where you meet the devil, by the way. That’s because every time you have to make a decision, the possibility of evil beckons.

I had a friend—I told you a little bit about him. He killed himself just after 40. He had a book published with a very small press. He was quite a good writer, but he could not get himself together. It hit him too hard at 40. I’m not saying that it’s hopeless at 40. I’m not saying that. I’m not saying that, partly because of these verses, and partly because of what I’ve seen in my clinical practice. I’ve had people come to me who have had very chaotic and ill-spent lives, let’s say, who were in that neighbourhood of age—it’s true for people who are older, as well—who then decided to make a real effort, and to try to make where they were better, instead of being bitter about where they weren’t. That bitterness really does you in. It’s really not good. It’s the opposite of gratitude. It’s the manifestation of resentment. It makes you malevolent. It’s very, very bad to be bitter. It’s hell to be bitter. If you’re 40, and you’re not successful, then you have to accept your lot, and you have to start to improve what’s right in front of you. And if you do that, it doesn’t take very long.

It’s quite interesting to watch people. Things can be a lot better in six months, and they can be way better in two years. It’s an uphill struggle, but it’s by no means impossible. I don’t know, again, what the limit of that is. I suppose it depends to some degree on the degree of your commitment.

...

I ask myself, what’s the most important thing I could do next? And then I have an answer to that. It isn’t because I decided that I’ll do it, whatever it is, and that I want to know what it is. Those are the decisions. But there’s an involuntary aspect to the sorting that occurs. That’s the psychological equivalent, I suppose, to this. I guess the sacrifice is, when I feel that I will do whatever it is that calls to be done, then I don’t do the other things that I might want to do. That’s a sacrifice. To me, it’s the proper sacrifice, because my sense is that things don’t go properly unless you do what’s most important. And if I want things to go properly—and I do, because I’ve had my taste of things not going properly—it’s not so difficult to do what makes things go properly, under those circumstances.

I think this is partly why the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is embedded in the Abrahamic stories. That’s an apocalyptic story: if things go badly enough, the whole city is destroyed. The reason it goes badly is because the people in the city do not behave properly. The people in the city might be you. So if you’re not behaving properly, then you go, and so does the city, and maybe you want that, or maybe you don’t want that. And if you don’t want that, and you know that if you don’t do things properly then it’s you and the city—if you actually know that—then maybe that terrifies you badly enough so that you’re willing to make the sacrifice to do the right things, instead of the impulsive things that you might otherwise do.

I learned from Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and from reading the works of many people who wrote on the holocaust and the catastrophes in the Soviet Union. The people who studied it most deeply always came to the same conclusion: the state became corrupted because each individual allowed themselves to be corrupted, or perhaps participated joyfully in the process of being corrupted. The consequence of that was the end of the world. So what that means is that, if you don’t behave properly, then you bring about the end of the world. Maybe you think, well, that’s only the end of your world. Fair enough. Or maybe it’s only the end of your family’s world, which, I suppose, might give you some pause. But there’s more to it than that, because you’re connected to everyone else, and what you do that isn’t good distributes itself, and all the things that you don’t do that could be good take away from the whole. And so, if you know that—and I do think you know that, if you take it seriously. If you look at the historical, cataclysmic events of the 20th century seriously, I do not think that you can fail to come to that conclusion.

...

You know how hard it is to get things together, you know? You go out to do what you’re supposed to do, say, and you’re beset by the intransigence of the world and failure. So what are you supposed to do about that? Maintain your faith in the good, and continue to move forward. That’s the idea. Even if you don’t buy the metaphor, what are you going to do instead, that won’t make it worse? So even if it isn’t enough that you’re pursuing, you’re at least forestalling the transformation of the chaos of your life into sheer hell. That can certainly happen. You see people who are having a terrible time, and then you see people who are having a terrible time, and who are also in hell. It’s a lot better to just have a terrible time than to have a terrible time and be in hell at the same time.

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if you want to know what to do, ask seriously.

Abraham sacrifices a life to his vow. So what do you do? Well, you don’t sacrifice an animal. You don’t make a blood sacrifice; you do it psychologically. You say, I’m going to sacrifice my life to this aim. That’s what you do, if you’re serious. What do I do next? Well, I’m going to sacrifice my life to this aim. What is it that I should do that’s worth sacrificing my life to? That’s a serious question. Maybe that’s the sort of question that people don’t ask, because they’re afraid of the seriousness of the question and the potential magnitude of the answer. Do you really want to know what you should do that would be worth sacrificing your life to? Well, the answer is yes, because it’s worth it. But the answer is also no, because it’s your life, you know? What if you’re wrong? And you’re probably wrong. But maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe the rightness is in the process, and not in the decision. It’s the beginning of a sequence of decisions, as we’ve already pointed out.

...

those things that you consciously do although you know them to be wrong yourself. Those are the things that seem to get people into the most trouble in these stories. I believe that to be the case. I think that’s very accurate, psychologically.

It’s amazing. I see this all the time: If you do something wrong, and it’s because you’re ignorant, you don’t know better, it doesn’t go well for you. That’s the case. But if you do something wrong, and you know it’s wrong, the punishment is manifold. I think the reason for that is because that makes you Cain. It means you betray your own ideal. If you just don’t know, well, you haven’t betrayed your ideal; you’re just not together. Maybe you’re even wilfully blind. But if you do something that you know to be wrong, then you’ve betrayed your own ideal. Then that lands you—once Cain destroyed Abel, Cain said to God, "I cannot bear my punishment."

...

Here’s the belief: it’s the willingness to act as if the world is constructed so that, if you do the right thing, the best possible outcome will occur. It’s a decision; that’s the covenant. It’s a decision about how to live in the world. The evidence can’t be there before you make the decision, and so you might hedge your bets.

When Christ comes back in the Book of Revelation to judge people, virtually everyone gets cast out with the chaff, and not saved with the wheat. He says something very interesting. He appears in the vision with a sword coming out of his mouth. It’s a horrifying vision. He divides humanity into the damned and the saved. He says something very interesting. He says, "to those who are neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth." It’s a disgust metaphor, right? What it says is that the worst punishment isn’t waiting for those who committed to something and did wrong: the worst punishment is reserved for those who committed to nothing and stayed on the fence.

That’s really something to think about. It’s also something I believe to be true, because I see that stasis is utterly destructive. There’s no progress; movement backwards is all there is. There’s aging, suffering, and no progress. And so to not commit to anything is the worst of all transgressions. To commit means to put your body and soul into something. To offer your life as a sacrifice means that you’re willing to make a bargain with fate. The bargain is, I’m going to act as if, if I give it my all, then the best possible thing will happen because of that. And to not see the analogy between that and the active faith in God is to misunderstand the story completely. And it has to be an act of faith, because how are you going to know? You can look at other people, but that isn’t going to do it.

Kierkegaard was very clear about this sort of thing. There are certain sorts of truths that you can only learn for yourself through experience. That’s, of course, why Abram also has to go out alone, right? It’s the individuation process—like dying, it’s something that you do alone. There’s no way you can tell what’s within your grasp, let’s say, unless you make the ultimate sacrifice. And there’s no way of finding out without actually making it.

...

It’s the hero’s journey uphill: I’m here; there’s a crisis; I collapse; I reconstruct myself to a higher place. Life is like that, continually, and that’s the story of Abraham. This is what’s so cool: that is what your life is going to be like. Whether you plan out your life or not, it’s going to be punctuated like that. Maybe it won’t go up; maybe it’ll go down. The question is, what sort of container do you need to be in, in order to tolerate the movement up and down? That’s what the story of Abraham provides: it provides a description of the covenant. The covenant and the ark are the same thing, except the covenant is the psychological equivalent of the ark. The covenant is, have faith in the structure of existence and go forth. That’s the covenant. The story is, that’s the best possible solution that you have at hand.

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newproletarians · 3 years

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new proletarians

Alright, so I’m feeling a few things. I’m angry and confused at the world and my place in it, and I don’t want to lose sight of my heart. The reason that’s even on the table is that I feel—in a very real, day-to-day sense—the urge to just let it callous over with grey boogers, or whatever callouses over the hearts of Squidwards everywhere. Regular old life can do that to a devastating degree, but so can the usual suspects—things like real trauma and tragedy. I’d like to say I’ve experienced a little of both at this point in my young life, but I’m still fighting the calcification of my heart. Let’s hope that in just throwing my brain at the proverbial wall, some things stick that are worth sticking. Maybe my clarity can also be yours, reader. Maybe we can snuggle up with ourselves tonight, content that we know what the fuck is going on in the world, and smugly abstain from that which our friends could never imagine abstaining from, and which we’ve known we’ve needed to abstain from for decades. Whatever. It’s wordy. It’s a fucking blog, future me. They’re supposed to contain words. Also, maybe, if I’m writing a blog where the over 50% of the audience is myself, writing it is supposed to feel at least a little similar to masturbating.

Where to begin? Well, let’s start with this: I am a college-educated youth who attended what’s commonly referred to as the best public university in the world. I received a rolled up piece of paper symbolizing a degree on a stage with other students and professors a year and a half ago. So it’s recent. And right off the bat, in my young adulthood, I have a chip on my shoulder, having that big qualifier of “public.” I went to the world’s fanciest college... for the proletariat. What does that mean? For me, this brings to mind a lot of issues having to do with the distribution of wealth in the United States, in addition to what the hell is going on economically here and in the world—but that’s something to get into later. The more pressing issue is what the hell the role of a college-educated young person is today. DFW pretty succinctly laid out an idea of what that could be in his famous address. His point was basically that college (specifically, a liberal arts education) gives you the critical thinking skills necessary to be able to get through life under capitalism (or whatever you want to call the current regime) without going crazy. I think we can do better than that. Also, fuck it, I’m giving myself permission to be temporarily pissed off, because fuck that, dude. I know that rage isn’t always an indicator of fruitful conversation, but I gotta let some steam out somewhere. I’m sure that it’ll only lead to me being better down the line. God—I am pissed. About how we’re deciding to go about talking through issues we’re having as a society (on Twitter, but also in comments sections and in NY Times articles). I have so much anger, I’m just now realizing, and I need to process it without stupidly burning myself out on it. It’s a subject for later, and not what we’re talking about right now. Right now, we’re talking about the role of the college-educated youth today. I think we’re getting somewhere, too. I don’t think the role of the college-educated youth in today’s scenario is to correct their friends and families, nor is it to Tweet about how embarrassing, vulgar, or otherwise horrible stupid people are—however embarrassing, vulgar, or otherwise horrible they may be. The role, to me, has to do with learning this stuff. Learning about systems of power, systems of abuse (many of which hum merrily along in universities—looking at you, Searl. [My anger, you guide me, but you also lead me astray]).Staying ON POINT. The way it has to do with these things is that today’s C.E.Y. needs to notice them, understand them, then DO something about them. There are, for instance, things that we learn about privilege and prejudice in university that we may be tempted to hurl at our elders back home as insults. Our jobs, as young students, are to be sexy, fashionable, charismatic stewards of the new age. Instead of yelling at our parents about being racist, we should, say, intervene in a subtle way that guides rather than punishes. That preserves trust and connection in relationships while simultaneously doing our best to right centuries-old wrongs. But this is about so much more than that. Our role is about how we conduct ourselves as the nations intelligentsia. But that’s a question. I’m not answering it here, try as I might. I still don’t know how I feel about it. It stretches into all corners of life, this role. For instance, into several things in my life I’m mad about.

For instance, I kind of hate my closest loved ones. Oops. That’s where I’m at. Am I supposed to ignore these feelings? They’re there, they’ve been there, and if I know anything about our brains, it’s that feelings shouldn’t be ignored. That’s what dumb ass patriarchs think. The funniest/saddest part of that is that they, said dumb asses, tell themselves that suppressing their feelings is the manly thing to do. It’s honestly just the cowardly thing to do. Men are so afraid of confronting their feelings that they would rather go their entire life wearing a life three sizes too small than mention a thing about it. Anyway. They’re conditioned to feel this way by their surroundings. This—this is a great point that I would love to be a major takeaway here. The thing about being educated is that you’re aware of systems, that systems need to be changed. Fault the people who can change the systems, if anyone, but really, even they are just products of the system. The good thing is that, as a powerless mass of atomized society, we have been created by these systems knowing SOME things that are wrong with it. Now we, the crumbs of dust living in and created by the gargantuan grandfather clock of life, have the sentience necessary to band together and make switch out some gears. Picture a big hand of made of dust, fixing the clock. That’s us. That’s what the role of college educated students is today. But that’s not so much the point of this paragraph, so much is the fact that I kind of hate my closest loved ones—which feels so good to say. My best friends, for instance, are really rough individuals. One is an obvious, obnoxiously insecure, compulsive liar. He’s not super tall and weighs almost 300 pounds. It’s not nice to say this stuff, but the purpose of life isn’t to be nice about everybody all the time in your own head, or on your own anonymous blog. He alienates everyone I bring him around with his bizarre persona. His insecurity is so deep that I shit you not, almost a majority of the interactions I’ve had with him would very reasonably get a “come on,” response from anyone. He has to create little talking points to make his life feel acceptable. He’s one of those people who constantly refers conversations back to their insecurities, and how they feel so secure about them, for this reason and that reason. It’s like, Christ, man. Come on. I feel a lot more ways about this, but I’m a little scared he’ll see this some day. I’m worried he’s going to die young, because he is extremely overweight. His doctor said he’s a few months away from a heart attack/stroke unless he takes immediate action, which it seemed like he was taking initially, but it doesn’t really seem like it anymore. I don’t know. The whole situation feels extremely choked by our inability to just communicate with our fucking words. And yes, I am sounding angry, I’m not actually this angry, but consider these the bubbles from a can of soda that’s been shaken. What will be left is the only-slightly-bubbled soda. That’ll come soon. For now, there are bubbles. New paragraph.

The point that I was trying and failing to get to in the previous paragraph is that I don’t like this guy. He has a lot of great qualities, and he’s certainly not a bad person to have in one’s life—as in, he’ll never cheat on his spouse, and he’ll always go the extra mile for his friends in a certain sense. But I don’t. I wish I could just talk to him about this weird, bizarre, fucking deal breaking shit, but I just can’t. Our communication is choked. I don’t think it’s his fault, though. I think it’s to do with overlapping systems of culture that make it difficult. Maybe. Maybe that’s not the point here, and the real point is just that I feel stuck in that situation. Moving on.

(TW: sexual assault)

Another friend is a fucking bona fide sexual assaulter. He practically got #metoo’d, on a personal level. His gf broke up with him because he sexually assaulted the female half of their best-friend-couple. He fingered her while sharing a bed with her and his gf, for some confusing reason. We talked about it and he gave me this wordy, bizarre, incongruent tale of what happened. It involved a LOT of details and qualifiers. When I talked to the dude half of the couple, the guy who was (and still is) with the woman who got assaulted, he said that my friend just straight up did a ton of nonconsensual shit. He also said that when his gf told other people, more people came forward saying this guy had been creepy to other women in their friend circle. This friend absolutely has a history of gaslighting and successfully avoiding trouble by forcing his way. I need to talk to him, but again, fucking choked. I have no ability to have any kind of “real talk” with him. We do not have a venue, and the prospect of confrontation is absolutely debilitating to the average WASP-y dude. Which brings us to our next situation.

I have a great friend I met in undergrad. She is very well-liked, and while I definitely don’t agree with everything she thinks, I really value her friendship. Her boyfriend is a fucking nightmare. Not really, honestly. There are actual nightmare boyfriends. This boyfriend is more of a waking nightmare. The kind of nightmare that becomes worse because it’s so hard to call out. It just keeps going. I’ve kept CLOSE track, and every SINGLE time I’ve hung out with them as a couple, this guy crosses the line. He says condescending, mean, weird, bizarre, shit that... there’s just no better way to say it than he crosses a line that normal people don’t cross. I haven’t counted, but we’ve probably hung out close to 30 times. Every time it happens, every time I give him another chance. I got a little counseling about this situation from a friend’s mom, just in casual conversation, and her advice was to figure out what in me upset me about this guy. At that point, I realized that what Eric Andre said is true: advice is stupid. Also, that I am not going to run my life based on what this person, who I previously looked up to in a god-like way when it came to relationships, says. I am going to figure it out on my own, because it seems like everybody’s solution to relationship issues is to never talk about them, or to have some kind of inner-peace solution that makes getting abused not suck so bad (looking at you, DFW). Ugh. Okay. Moving on, again. Because yep, there’s so, so much more. Again, asking questions here, not answering them.

Also, if you’re reading this and thinking “damn, bro, your life is boring,” that’s my point. This is just normal life. These are just normal people. This is the water we’re swimming in. It’s fucking tense, man. Living in the United States is tense.

I’m running out of steam at this point, but God damn it. My brothers are dick holes. And we’re great friends. They are guys who don’t ever cause a fuss, avoid confrontation at all costs, and are nothing but rewarded for it. Sometimes I think I have something to learn from them in that regard. But is that really the life we want to live? Just don’t communicate your issues? It’s just frustrating. They act superior to others, but are categorically unable to have an honest, undiplomatic conversation. They act superior to others, and are treated as superior. It feels a little like talking to robots, talking to them, decoding what they’re saying to ascertain how they may actually be feeling in a given moment. I have no idea how they feel about me. Or anything. I don’t even think they know or care. I think they just get by, and they’re rewarded for it.

Alright, moving right along. My dad. Damn do I want to not talk to that guy. I can’t talk about anything real with him. It’s like playing ping pong where the other person can only hit the ball if it goes where his paddle already is, and his paddle’s made out of glass.

This is a sample of some real life issues I am dealing with, spoken as honestly as possible, as is evidenced by the rampant spelling and grammatical errors. College works into this as the thing that has given me recourse for dealing with this stuff. As a college educated youth, I can approach life in an informed, good way. This is life. Etc.

What am I walking away with? Well, I now know for sure that I have a lot of shit to work through. MAYBE more than one Tumblr post. Also, I guess I am proving that people still Tumbl in 2021. I am starting to really understand what the questions I have are. I think part of my issue stems from some feeling of being “out of the loop,” or having some natural, in-set outrage about not understand what’s going on, which was founded by years of being the same height as the people around me’s knees, being the youngest person in my family. Everyone around me were skyscraper people with adult conversations happening way up there. It’s a little imposter syndrome, I think, too. It comes from being the youngest, I think, too. Mixed with a natural sensitivity that I’ve noticed people like me have.

My goal is to get better at living my life. That involves understanding how I want to live, it involves understanding what my values really are, thinking through them a little, and more. I think it’s really worth it. In the meantime, I am not a work in progress. I am a fucking careful, cool, bright, talented guy who is not perfect, but is working on it. And I am going to postpone making any big decisions about my personal life until I get some clarity.

I thought I’d get more to the subject of the new proletarians, which is something I was thinking about today when listening to Harmontown and asking myself questions about what college is for if it just makes us unemployable, debt-ridden, twitter douchers. Anyway. We’ll get to it again sometime.

This was nice. Let’s do this again sometime.

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kiss-my-freckle · 3 years

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The Apothecary

8x5 episode description: “The task force investigates an organization of bank robbers with a special expertise in stealing from other criminals. An old blacklist case resurfaces.”

My suspect: The Apothecary

Reasons why:

1. Red’s collapses.

The timing is perfect because it’s like a reverse of The Apothecary’s episode. Instead of suspecting Dembe of poisoning him, Red’s first collapse came at a time when Dembe’s imam was abducted. Red has no reason to suspect him, which removes their need to do an exact repeat.

Snakes -

The woman’s snakeskin boots as she entered the room.

"The lab did find one distinct element in the molecular structure of the drops taken from Robert Dahle’s apartment. A peptide unique to the venom of Bungarus flaviceps, also known as the red-headed krait."

Jennifer's reference in S6 that reminds me of Liz's reference in S4 and ties in Red's reference in S2.

"I'm the snake in the grass."

"I’ll do my job, but I am done cozying up to that snake."

"Our fake father's a criminal, and our real one's a snake."

Orion Relocation Services + Fate -

There are other seeds, like Dembe standing by the Orion stained glass window.

The Hunter and his arrows. This made me think of The Deer Hunter and Liz's marionette comment, which she first mentioned to Ressler in The Longevity Initiative (2x17).

This also pulls in Keenler’s Capricorn Killer soundtrack.

♪ What arrow? At what angle? And what angel? ♪

And I already know Agnes is that angel because she was referenced twice, by the woman from Paris and Skip Sutherland.

“She’s an angel.”

“For a surcharge, I’ll even watch the cherub.”

Red’s Stairway To Heaven comment. "Who the hell's Elizabeth Keen?" because Liz was wrong. "I'm expecting a little devil of my own." As Red already warned us she would be. "What makes you so sure you're not wrong this time?"

My question is, what the hell happened? You did. You and Agent Ressler.

All that glitters is gold + Like I said, silver linings

Red’s symptoms, which mirror that of his original poisoning, only it’s more like an ongoing attack rather than a one-shot. I think they’re getting the formula wrong because The Apothecary didn’t have Red’s medical file. Kate only needed so much from him anyway because of her skill set.

“Well, just that whoever poisoned him knew his medical history - intimately. The toxins were uniquely designed to target his body chemistry.”

She attended medical school and she knew of Red’s medical history.

"Your tremors are gone. But not the underlying condition."

His tremors were gone because he wasn't drinking the wine.

"Fun fact - Li Qing Yuen ate wolfberries every day of his life and was said to have lived to the ripe old age of 256."

The tests -

“We thought, at first, you may have had a series of mini strokes. But the MRIs, the EEGs, they ruled that out.”

“Vitals are - okay. Pulse. You need an MRI as well as a CT-scan.”

The medical file -

“There were no medical records, nothing about Reddington on file.”

“About my chart.”

The wine (with both his collapses) -

“An old blacklist case” for an “old friend”

“Elizabeth, I found the wine that was used to administer the poison.”

“What? Everyone knows wine is dehydrating.”

The difference in doctors -

Dr. Clemons: "Not for her."

Dr. Stark: "Someone she cared about."

For the same reason the woman from Paris didn't turn to Norman Devane for herself, Red didn't turn to Spalding Stark for himself. He's trying to donate to someone he's related to, someone he actually cares about. That's why Red isn't collapsing, having tremors, or showing signs of vision and/or hearing impairment when he visits Dr. Stark, only when he visits Dr. Clemons. He's seeing two doctors for two different reasons. That’s why Dr. Stark purposefully stated that he doesn’t test on children. He’d experiment on Red because technically, he’s considered terminally ill. He has a running hit on his head. Dr. Stark would provide Red with hope of saving his future - Agnes, his granddaughter. Agnes runs opposite Ames in The Pharmacist. That’s why Red is financing Stark.

“My - My daughter’s pregnant. I want to see my grandchild. I can get you the money.”

Just as he financed Dr. Shaw to save Liz.

2. Elodie killing her husband.

Taking note how Aram's dialogue to Elodie's dead husband mirrors Red's comment to Tom in 5x8.

"I, uh - I know this is super awkward. But I think this might be in your best interest."

"I’ll say this for you - you’ve always believed that you were acting in her best interest."

As well as Red’s comment to Kate.

"And yet, I know you believe what you did was best for Elizabeth, which is why I brought you here."

Aram's comment... lol

"Quick stick. Oh, God. Oh."

This ties in Liz's second memory wipe. “You were drugged. Propofol, Tramadol.” imo, the reason they've been mentioning Tom so much lately.

Add in Elodie's comment -

"Who comes up with all the nicknames? General Shiro. The Pharmacist. The Apothecary.”

And Aram’s -

“You used me. You got me to open up to you. That’s why you kept asking about Blacklisters. To seduce me into giving you a murder weapon.”

3. “stealing from other criminals” like Red’s statement to Marvin.

"I shouldn’t be surprised. We’re criminals, after all. It’s in our nature to betray."

Judas hits back to The Pharmacist (Dr. Stark).

“I’ve always found stories of betrayal to be so compelling, so tragic for all those involved. Judas, Iago, men who were beloved by those they’d betrayed.”

♪ There is a judas among us Nobody here we can trust There is a judas among us ♪

4. Marvin and Becky.

This is a man who already lost a son to suicide.

"They tracked him down, of course. Returned the child to his mother. Marvin was disbarred, convicted, and incarcerated. A year later, Timothy hung himself. He was 15."

Went to prison for three years because of his work with Red.

"He forced the FBI to release you from prison a week before your parole so that you could become his accomplice and help him escape during a police standoff. You had a new fiancé at the time, a whole life waiting. What do you have now, Marvin? Alone, on the run til you die?"

While incarcerated, lost his chance to have children with Becky.

"Becky hit menopause while I was in that bird cage. We wanted kids, but if you must know, I had performance anxiety during our conjugal visits."

The bird references are everywhere. Atticus at the mental hospital. Red wanting to hear the birds sing in Isabella Stone's episode. Agnes and her cuckoo clock. Mato and his cuckoo clock. Red wanting to hear the bird sing in Miss Rebecca Thrall's episode.

"Because I am working in a toy store!"

Then Marvin went to work in the toy section, which likely upset him more, but it's as close to kids as he'll get. It’s also likely he did time with The Apothecary (Asa Hightower) because they took the death penalty off the table in exchange for curing Reddington.

"I’m here because I need information about the prison where you served. Wallens Ridge, something’s happening inside those walls, and I need to..."

"You take the death penalty off the table, and I’ll tell you how to cure Raymond Reddington."

The father Asa became, the father Marvin wishes he could be. Asa raping his wife pushes to Hannah Hayes' episode.

5. My predictions for Ressler.

I already did a full-length post on my predictions for Ressler. Not sure where it is and I don't feel like looking for it, so I’ll keep it basic. Ressler went with Red to Dr. Stark’s lab FOR A REASON. Red’s two-for-one sale will become his two-for-one investment. “This is gonna be a gas.” Damn right, it is. Ressler’s gonna look at Red’s medical file in the hopes of helping Liz, only to find out Red is Katarina Rostova aka N-13. Then Red is gonna threaten Ressler with fire just as he did Minister D because it’s all about those blackmail dialogues - found in Minister D and The Informant, as well as the one Garvey handed to us with the bones. Add in Dom’s warning to Liz in 8x2 because knowing is enough.

“I don’t bite. Unless you ever utter my name. In which case, I’ll gut you like a fish and feed you to the lobsters.”

While Red is threatening him, Ressler’s gonna talk his way onto Dr. Stark’s table like Norman Devane was, only it’ll be for a DNA test to see if he's the father of Agnes. “Because I honestly don’t want her to worry. Whether she does or not is ENTIRELY up to you.” This will be what saves his pretty face from fire, and follow through with Tom’s 4x8 iou. Because Agnes is a Ressler, not a Keen. imo, Ressler’s gonna save two people - Red and Agnes. Red’s two-for-one investment simply by bringing Ressler to Stark’s lab. Because Red knows Agnes is in need of a donation, but he has no idea he’s being poisoned. Ressler’s gonna realize Red is being poisoned, while Red is gonna realize Ressler is the father of Agnes. The not-so- cliché future in-laws.

The Apothecary hits in so many directions.

#Rederina #Anti-Tom Keen #Anti-Keen2 #Keenler baby theory #memory wipe theory #My predictions

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saltandburnbabyy · 5 years

Text

Just A Nightmare

PAIRING: The Winchesters x Reader

RELATIONSHIP: Platonic/Sister

AGE: your choice

SUMMARY: When a gruesome nightmare has you screaming in the middle of the night, Sam and Dean come to your rescue.

WARNING: gore, very mild cursing, a lot of sadness

A/N: I don’t own Supernatural, sad case, but besides that, I would definitely appreciate feedback and I’ll be taking requests soon!!!

The past few moments occurred so fast you barely were able to process everything.

The room you were being held in was relatively small and dirty as hell. Mold covered part of the concrete floor, walls, and ceiling. Old stains occupied any remaining sections of the floor. Chains were attached to the walls and there was only one way of entry and exit into and out of the room, which consisted of a rusty metal door.

Those very chains that were attached to those moldy walls are where you were being held at the moment. The shackles rubbed against your wrists as you continuously pulled at them in hopes of escaping. The irritation on your wrist was only a minor question of injury as cuts littered your body and a deep gash to your side kept you from standing up straight. The blood from your wounds soaked your shirt and partially transferred its way on to the wall.

Yet another blood stain to add to this room.

The constant feeling of fear and anxiety, as well as your wounds, exhausted you exponentially, but you knew the type of situation you were in. If you did not keep your guard up you'd die. If you did not keep fighting you'd die. If you gave in you'd die.

You all would die.

In a rushed pace, the door opened and four men, two each, dragged two bodies, both beaten and bloodied, to the center of the room. The men forced their male prisoners on to their knees and pulled their heads back to face you. The whole ordeal made you sick to your stomach. Sam and Dean looked back at you, their eyes widening at the sight of you. Why were they shocked? They looked a hell of a lot worse than you did at the moment.

"(Y/N)?! (Y/N), are you alright?" Sam asked. You could see that he was completely and utterly distraught while Dean was in a white-hot fury. Anyone who dared meet his gaze would surely get a hole burned through their skulls. Blood covered their faces, but that barely phased them. All they seemed to care about at the moment was you.

Words did not dare escape your lips. You looked from Sam and Dean and then back to Sam with such fear and sorrow that you thought your heart would explode. All you gave the brothers was a slow nod. Nothing more. They examined your injuries the best they could from their spot and the anger radiated off them tremendously.

"Son of a bitch. I'm gonna kill them, I swear to God I'm gonna kill them all," Dean seethed. He struggled to get out of the men's grasp, which only earned him a couple of punches in return.

"Leave him alone assholes!" you shouted. You pulled too hard on the chains and winced when you felt a sharp pinch, most likely it being the shackles finally cutting into your skin. You were too worried about analyzing the damage done to the two brothers that you did not even realize a fifth man walked into the room.

Your gaze shifted to the man as his shoes clicked against the floor, grabbing everyone else's attention as well. You did not know who this man was or what he could possibly want. All you knew was that your body was getting weaker and these chains were really starting to cut into your wrists.

"You know what I think of this entire situation? I think the luck of the Winchesters has finally run out. Don't you?" The man's gaze met yours as he slipped a relatively large knife from his sleeve. While your gaze emitted pure anger and pain, his only help one emotion. Satisfaction.

"Sure, the legendary Winchester brothers are known for their impeccable hunting resume, but to me, they are known as the men who destroyed my world. The men that killed family," the man gestured to his henchmen and then himself, "the monsters that decapitated my daughters, sons, and wife. They held no remorse and considered their actions as some sort of justice."

You sneered at the man, "I think the decapitation of bloodthirsty vampires with no consideration for human life is quite justifiable." That comment earned you a solid smack to the face. Immediately Sam and Dean thrashed about in protest, cries of rage leaving their lips.

"Don't you freaking touch her you piece of crap," Dean growled.

The man simply disregarded their fury driven protests and slowly made his way to the brothers, the knife gleaming in the little bit of light in the room. He waved the two men away from Dean as the other two men strengthened their grip on Sam. In one swift motion, his knife was pressed to Dean's neck. His gaze never broke from you.

"Please no," you struggled even more against your restraints, "I'm begging you! I'll give you anything. Money? Power? Blood? Just name it. Name it, and let them go free." You did not bother masking the desperation in your voice.

"I think it's time for some REAL justice don't you think," and with that, the man dug his blade into Dean's throat and dragged it horizontally. In mere seconds he moved to Sam and repeated the same motion. Both brothers reached for their throats and pressed down on their wounds as hard as they could. Blood already began to coat their lips as they sunk to the floor.

No one really had any time to react.

Blood seemed to cover every square inch around them as it dripped from Sam and Dean's newly slit throats. Gasping for breath, their eyes gazing sluggishly across the room in an attempt to find some salvation. A Hail Mary. Anything. Anything that could save their lives. Their gaze went from around the room, then to each other, and finally to you.

Your screams could probably be heard for miles if anyone happened to be listening, but to you, all you heard was buzzing. You did not know why, it could be the adrenaline or the sheer shock of the very recent events, but you continued to scream and scream and scream and scream some more.

"NO NO NO STOP! SOMEBODY, PLEASE HELP THEM! PLEASE NO!" You screamed and pleaded with both the man and the Winchesters. You pleaded for someone to help them, to save them. They were the only family you had left on this godforsaken planet and just the thought of losing them in such a permanent and gruesome way made your whole body grow cold.

"THEY'RE ALL I HAVE LEFT IN THIS WORLD! DON'T DO THIS PLEASE!"

You thrashed about and pulled at the chains with all your strength. At this point, blood trickled down your arm and smeared all over the shackles. You pushed yourself as close to Sam and Dean as the chains allowed before collapsing on the same spot. Tears flowed down your cheeks and you began to feel a burning sensation in your throat, probably from the screaming.

At the is point Sam had passed out, his hand stretching for his older brother. Blood was smeared on that same outstretched hand. His eyes were shut and you tried very hard, but could not determine if he was still breathing. Dean was still holding out, blood gurgling in his mouth. Blood trickled from the corners of his lips as his tears mixed in with his blood.

Your screaming had ceased and instead of soft and grief-stricken sobs shook your body. You sat on your knees as you watched Dean struggle to make his way to you, dragging his body across the floor. His blood smeared across every inch of the floor he traveled across.

Yet another blood stain to add to this room.

You reached out as best you could, so desperate to help him and Sam from a wound you already knew to be fatal but kept denying it. You had to save Sam and Dean. You had to save your family.

Dean had ceased any movement, but his lips moved in an attempt to speak, "(Y/N)…(Y/N)...wake up..." His voice was so faint and strained that you almost missed what he said. You shook your head and shushed him. "Dean, just hold on. Just please keep your eyes open and keep breathing. I swear to God, Dean, if you die on me I will resurrect your ass and kick it into next Tuesday."

Everything got fuzzy as Dean struggled to speak to you once more, "(Y/N) wake up...you gotta wake up kiddo." Your whole body began to feel lighter and your vision became fuzzy. What the hell was happening? The room began to swim as you felt a pressure around your body as if someone was hugging you. Suddenly everything went dark and you felt yourself being pulled from the room full of blood and evil vampires and into a place you knew all too well.

The Bunker.

You did not realize you were still screaming until it became hard to hear what Dean was saying to you. That pressure around your body, you came to realize, was Dean's arms wrapped around you. Your fight-or-flight instincts were kicking in and you tried pushing yourself away from him with every ounce of strength you had.

"(Y/N), hey, it's just me alright? Just take deep breaths kiddo. I need you to try to calm down," Dean spoke urgently. You felt his chest inflate and deflate with every labored breath he took. It became quite clear to you that trying to keep a hold on you proved quite the difficulty. Your struggles abruptly stopped as you took the time to take in your surroundings. You realized you were sitting on the floor with Dean, your bed right behind you. Sam sat on his knees right in front of you, his hands outstretched towards you. He was waiting for the right time to embrace you but was afraid his sudden presence along with Dean's would cause you to freak out again.

"Sam," you whispered in confusion as you looked from one brother to the other, "Dean, what the hell is going on?"

You watched the nonverbal communication occur between them, something that always annoyed you, as you slowly untangled yourself from Dean's embrace. You pushed a strand of hair away from your eyes and felt something wet on your cheek.

You had been crying.

Sam sighed, bringing you out of your thoughts and placed both of his hands on your upper arms. "You were having a nightmare. Dean and I heard you screaming and..." you saw a flash of uncertainty in his eyes, "we thought...well we didn't know what to think."

Dean pushed himself away from you so he was also in your line of sight. "We just rushed in and found you on the floor, screaming your freaking head off." He rubbed a callused hand over his face, a sign that he was stressed, and spared a glance at Sam, "you gave us one hell of a scare there (Y/N)."

"But I..." you glanced around the room and went over the recent events that just occurred, or so you thought, "I swear I just saw you guys...He just..." Just thinking about what you had just witnessed, whether it was real or not, sent such a chill down your spine you swore it dropped 40 degrees in the room. Tears stung your eyes and you tried your best to swallow the uncomfortable lump in your throat. "I watched him kill you. I watched that vampire slit your throats and you-"

The lump in your throat made it extremely hard to speak. You aggressively wiped the tears from your cheeks, your gaze anywhere but the boys, and took a much-needed breath. "It just...seemed so real. I really thought-"

"It was just a nightmare (Y/N). It wasn't real. See," Sam took your hand in his as Dean followed suit and took your other hand, "this is real. Whatever you witnessed, no matter how terrifying it was, wasn't real. We're still alive and kicking and nowhere near ready to leave you."

"Trust me kiddo," Dean offered a soft smile, "you can't get rid of us that easily."

A strangled laugh escaped your lips as you tried to compose yourself in front of the brothers. You never acted like this in front of them. You knew when it came to tears, there always seemed to be far and few in between for them. Looking up from your hands, entwined with Sam and Dean's hands, and offered the biggest smile you could muster.

Sam and Dean were sitting in the kitchen, discussing the new problem in their lives when they heard your screams.

With their half-empty beers abandoned on the table and their chairs thrown back from how fast they stood up, they took off down the hallway towards your room. It was a good thing you three were the only living beings in the bunker or else all hell could have broken loose amongst the other hunters.

Their weapons were locked and loaded and Dean did not hesitate to kick down your door when they finally reached it. The Winchesters expected some sort of gruesome fight to be taking place, but when all they encountered was your thrashing form on the floor, your face flushed and wet with tears, they lowered their weapons and Dean was the first one to rush forward. Sam was held in place in shock, not used to seeing you this way. You were the joyous and level headed one in the trio. Whenever shit hit the fan and emotions were high, you were the one to keep everyone in check. You were, in some ways, their saving grace.

"Sam," Dean bellowed as he took a hold of your thrashing form, "what the hell do we do?" Sam blinked a couple of times before taking a few long strides towards you and Dean. At this point, it took everything in Dean to hold it together. You looked like you were in immense pain and they both weren't sure on how to go about making things better for you. He had no idea how to make the suffering go away. "Dean, we need to wake her up. She could hurt herself if we don't," Sam spoke to his brother over your screams, and that's what they did.

Now, you were awake and no other sounds could be heard throughout the bunker with the exception for your sniffling.

"I sure as hell hope not, " you said. You released your hands from theirs and wrapped an arm around both of them. You pulled them both into a hug, something you found yourself doing not that often, "I love you guys...so so so much." You felt the boys each wrap a single arm around you, returning the embrace.

You felt them shift under your embrace, no doubt glancing at each other. "We know," they both replied in unison, the lightheartedness and love clear in their voices.

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artificialqueens · 5 years

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as the stars align (branjie) - rujubees

A/N: Brooke Lynn Hytes is one of Hollywood’s top A-Listers with a reputation for being a diva. Newcomer Vanessa Mateo is fresh off her debut role and already making a splash in the industry. When they get cast as lovers for an oscar-worthy script, their on-screen chemistry is a director’s dream come true. There’s only one problem: they completely, unequivocally and unapologetically cannot stand one another.