#my latest four word poem

[painand-more-pain]

Tumblr I'm begging you to have an option to permanently turn Tumblr live please I'm begging you please I can't keep turning it off manually every week this is driving me insane please

#in an ideal world Tumblr live wouldn't exist in the first place #but we don't live in a perfect world now do we #Tumblr staff #please #i am no longer asking #i am begging #somewhere i hope you're reading #my latest four word poem #turn off Tumblr live

[axelsagewrites]

Aemond Targaryen*Poloraids

Pairing: modern! Aemond x f! Reader

Word count: 2373

Part Two at bottom

Warnings: nudes, talks of sex, phone sex, sex toys, nipple play, dom Aemond, slight bratting, teasing, smut 18+

A/n: wrote this on my notes app and posting on mobile cause I can't sleep so pls forgive formating errors till I can check on my laptop tomorrow but for now enjoy desperate Aemond phone sex

Masterlist here

You had only been apart from Aemond for a mere three weeks but in that time you missed him more than you could have imagined. He was off to his dream college while you packed up to go to your own dream school. Aemond would never even think of asking you to follow him or potentially ruin your dream and had insisted you would survive the distance.

He was only a four hour drive away but being in your freshman year you barely had time to sleep let alot drive four hours one way to see your boyfriend. Maybe after the first semester it would be easier but for now you had to be content with late night phone calls and the letters he sent.

Yes Aemond had insisted on writing letters. You both wrote a letter to each other the last night you spent together before he left for college and mailed it out to the others dorm. You usually got two, sometimes three letters a week and of course you always returned his mail.

While you kept each other up to date on life and school over the phone the letters were a more personal touch, romantic even. Aemond did his best to write you poety even if English was not his strong suit. You just new he was blushing as you read his poems all those miles away. He'd sometimes send small packages with the letters. This ranged from books he thought you'd like to a sweatshirt from his college that he had worn for a week and covered in his cologne.

You almaot made sure to put just as much love into your mail. Your letters rambled on for pages about what you missed about him and the life you would build after university. He'd gifted you a Polaroid camera and a stack of film before you had left and you made sure to include pictures of you in your dorm, your campus, and the sights around you. Aemond had sent you a snap of his desk set up with your poloraids pinned around his reminder board, a picture of you unpacking your dorm with a cheesy grin right beside where his laptop would sit.

However while you knew you would miss him you hadn't even thought about how much you'd miss his touch. And not just his hugs which always warmed your heart but for gods sake you had never been so horny. Your roommates boyfriend was only a building away and you were jealous every time she came back with hickeys covering her neck and mascara smudged under her eyes.

"Don't worry you'll see your precious Aemond eventually," Sara joked after you had admitted to you jealous states, "then he can fuck your brains out so you're not so tense,"

"I'm not tense," but you were. So fucking tense.

It was one night when you caught Sara taking suggestive pics out the corner of your eye did you get the idea. Your eyes fell to the poloraid camera on your desk. So far you had never sent Aemond any kind of explicit pictures like that. Sure you did your best to look good when you snapped him but he'd never asked for a nude and you had never thought of sending them. But maybe if you started it, like the mail, he would return the favour.

When Aemonds latest letter came in the mail Sara happened to be out the dorm and staying the night at her boyfriend jaces frat house. After reading the letter your eyes fell to the camera. You racked your mind for a few moments, wondering if the reason why Aemond had never asked was because he never wanted them. But what guy would turn that down, you wondered. Plus it wasn't like you and Aemond hadn't done stuff in the past. He was always sneaking into your house to get his hands all over you.

Fuck it, you thought. You quickly rummaged through your drawers, finding the few nice lingerie pieces you had brought with you before you settled into wearing Aemonds boxers and a sports bra religiously.

You quickly slid into the black lacey bra and thong set you had convinced yourself you would wear to a party for a confidence boost and never had. It had been one of Aemonds favourites before you left for college. You did your best to straighten the sheets and hide your clutter as you set up for the first photo.

You took a few moments trying to get into the perfect pose before snapping a picture of your chest, sticking your tits out to make them pop. And boy did they look good. When you saw them printed on the film you couldn't help the ego boost when you saw yourself dolled up. You moved the camera lower, taking a picture of your hips and thighs, twisting your body into the poses you'd seen on dirty magazines.

You took a couple more in that set, trying the recreate some tiktok recommended poses you'd seen, when you suddenly really started to feel yourself. You changed quickly into another set, a dark red body you had bought for the first time Aemond would visit you. You were sure he wouldn't mind you wearing it without him when he saw the results. This time you made sure to capture your ass perfectly, loving how it looked in the angles you tried.

Then came your last idea. Your eyes fell to the sweatshirt he had sent you. You quickly stripped off the lingerie and tugged on a more simple thong that still looked amazing on. You slipped into the hoodie, letting yourself emerse yourself in his smell. This time your pictures were you sat at your desk, set up as if you were studying but you lifted the camera to a high angle so he could see your bare thighs. Next you lifted the shirt, giving him a show of your underboob and waist. Then finally one last pic of you bent over the desk as if you were waiting for him.

As you snapped the last pic you heard Sara's key in the lock and quickly sprinter to jump under your covers, trying to look as innocent as possible as you put the printed Polaroids under the covers.

The next day you finished writing your letter and slipped in four of the nine poloraids you had taken. You made sure to sit them behind the letter in the envelope since you didn't need his roommate getting a private show. You posted the letter and did your best to act casual over the phone with Aemond but you couldn't help feel anxious about his reaction.

Two days later your phone rang as you were sat in bed finishing an essay on your laptop. "Hey baby," you greeted as you read over your list of spelling mistakes.

"Don't hey baby me," Aemond said, catching your attention and making you move your laptop to the side, "You think trying to tease me is funny?"

"Tease you-" you said as you sat up properly in bed trying to figure out what he meant when it hit you. "Did you get my letter?" you said not able to hide the smirk in your voice.

"Oh I got your letter alright darling," Aemond said darkly and you could just imagine him pacing his dorm room while his roommate was out. "and the pictures,"

"Did you like them?" you said with a light giggle as if you had been transformed back to the start of your relationship. "I thought you mightve been getting lonely over there. So far away," you said with a fake pout, loving the affects you had already had on them.

"Are you kidding me?" Aemond said with a dark chuckle, "You look positively fuckable in these doll. I don't know how I'm supposed to contain myself till I see you,"

You felt your stomach go light like butterflies were dancing in it at his words. "I've got more if you'd like," you said as you twirled your hair like a school girl.

"God's you really are a little minx aren't you?" Aemond groaned making you giggle, "You won't be so cocky when I get there. No you get all shy don't you? Like a good little girl,"

"Maybe I don't wanna be a good girl," you teased as you discarded the laptop onto your bedside table, moving to lay down as you spoke.

"You know what happens when you don't behave doll," Aemond warned in the same voice he used when he used to hold you by your jaw, forcing you to meet his eye.

"Whatcha gonna do about it?" you grinned as your hand searched your bottom drawer for the vibrator you had stashed away for nights like this where all you wanted was Aemonds touch. "You're not here to make me do anything,"

"Just you wait doll," Aemond said as you heard him crash down onto his bed, "When I'm there you'll regret being such a brat,"

"I don't believe you," you teased as you slipped the vibrator between your legs, slowly running it up and down your folds before it was even on.

Aemond was silent for a moment and you wondered how good he must look right now with that stern look on his face," You're touching yourself aren't you?" he said making your actions pause.

"No I'm-" you started to stutter out only to be interrupted by Aemonds chuckle.

"Oh baby girl you really are that desperate aren't you?" he said, his smirk evident in his voice, "trying to get off by just my voice. Bet you could as well love you're that desperate," you tried to argue but Aemond kept talking, "Turn it on doll. I know you're using that pretty little vibe of yours aren't you?"

"maybe," you said, your voice shaky as you reached for the button.

"So predictable," he chuckled, "God's you looked good when I would use that on you. Turn it on doll and go slow. I want you to earn it if you're gonna be such a tease,"

Even from so far away Aemond still had a control over you which made you switch the toy onto it's lowest setting and slowly run it up your folds, gasping as your ran it over your sensitive clit." that's a good girl, "Aemond praised when he heard your noises through the phone. "I'm just looking at these pics love," you heard him say as you moved the vibe to slowly circle around your clit, "Such pretty pictures," he said, "almost as good as the real thing. Almost because it won't be long till I bend you over that desk of yours. You'd like to that wouldn't you? Me fucking you over your desk in my sweetheart,"

"Yes," you whimpered but Aemond tutted over the phone.

"Yes what?"

"Yes sir," you correct yourself, moaning as you felt a knot bubbling in your stomach.

"Good girl," Aemond praised and you could swear you could hear him jerking off on the other end, "now turn up the vibe baby and slip it in,"

You whined but did as instructed, the soft silicone easily slipping into your wet pussy, "It's in," you said, your voice whiny.

"Good. Now tighten your thighs to hold it there. You're gonna need your hands love," he said, a slight groan in his voice as he stroked his member.

"Okay," you stuttered, doing as he said but also laying your phone next to your head on speaker, "now what sir?"

"Now I want you to squeeze those perfect tit's of yours," he said, his breathing more rugged, "they look so good in that red little number of yours. Can't wait to tear it off you,"

"Thank you sir," you moaned as you followed his instructions and wishing it was his hands.

"Now pinch those perky nipples of yours," Aemond said which you gladly complied with, rolling them between your fingers, "Miss kissing those perfect tit's of yours. Gonna cover them in hickeys next time I get my hands on them. Might even take a picture for good measure. You'd like that wouldn't you?"

"Yes sir," you whined as you felt your body start to jerk at your already approaching climax.

"You gonna cum baby?" Aemond asked, his breathing shaking as he approached his own edge.

"Yes," you whined, greatful your roommate had left for the night, "Please sir can I cum now please?"

"Fuck," Aemond gasped, "Yes baby cum for me. Be a good girl baby don't hide any of those pretty noises. Think I might just cum from hearing them," he said.

You couldn't even say anything else as your body began twitching, your legs shaking as you felt your orgasm rip through your body. You didn't try to hide your moans and it wasn't long till you heard Aemond mumbling curses and praise through the phone. "Fuck," Aemond gasped as he started to catch his breath.

"Did you..?" you asked, your voice trailing off.

"Yes darling," he said with uneven breath, "All over these pictures love. Is there any chance you could send some more?" he asked but this time his voice was far more shy.

You laughed lightly as you rolled onto your side, snuggling into your pillow now suddenly tired, "of course baby. How come you never asked before?"

"I didn't want you to think I'm some kind of pervert," Aemond confessed now far more sheepish than his sexy persona.

"You're not a pervert Aem, you're my boyfriend," you laughed, imagining how his cheeks would be flushing right now. "Of course I'll send some more baby you'll just need to be patient," you teased.

"I'm sick of being patient," Aemond groaned like a toddler who had been told no, "I'm driving up to see you Friday after class no questions, no excuses,"

"Aemy that's a long drive are you sure?" you asked, worried how he'd be able to get all his work done if he was so far from college.

"More than sure baby. I need to see you and besides. I have a few new ideas of what you could do with that camera,"

Part Two here

Taglist: @clairacassidy @valeskafics @starkleila

#aemond x fem!reader #aemond targaryen imagine #aemond #aemond x reader #aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x you #Aemond Targaryen smut #Aemond smut #house of the dragon headcannons #house of the dragon imagine #house of the dragon x reader #House of the dragon smut #HOTD #HOTD smut #HOTD imagine #HOTD x reader

[fiercynn]

palestinian poets: hala alyan

poetry has been keeping me going the past week and i thought i'd share some of my favorite pieces by palestinian poets. i was originally going to repost my favorites but just realized that might not be appropriate, so instead i'm going to feature a poet in each post and share my favorite pieces by each.

HALA ALYAN

hala alyan is the author of the novel salt houses, winner of the dayton literary peace prize and the arab american book award, and a finalist for the chautauqua prize. her latest novel, the arsonists’ city, was a finalist for the 2022 aspen words literary prize. she is also the author of four award-winning collections of poetry, most recently the twenty-ninth year. her work has been published by the new yorker, the academy of american poets, lit hub, the new york times book review, and guernica. she lives in brooklyn, where she works as a clinical psychologist and professor at new york university.

IF YOU READ ONLY ONE PIECE BY HALA ALYAN, MAKE IT THIS ONE

OTHER POEMS I LOVE BY HALA ALYAN

“The Interviewer Wants to Know About Fashion” at lithub

"Interactive: House Saints" at the poetry foundation

"1999" (from her 2019 collection The Twenty-Ninth Year) at lithub

"When They Say Pledge Allegiance, I Say" at the adroit journal

#poetry #hala alyan #free palestine #palestinian poets series

[dumbslxtclub]

you're on your own, kid | e.m - part twelve

eddie munson x singlemom!reader

summary: set after the events of season four, Steve has disappeared and is presumed dead in the upside down. broken and now left to deal with your pregnancy alone, Eddie takes it upon himself to support you to the best of his abilities in Steve’s absence.

chapter summary: as your relationship with eddie blossoms, the weight of truth reaches it's breaking point.

content warnings: fem!reader, adult language, adult themes, unplanned pregnancy, angst, hurt/comfort, some canon divergence/au, mentions of death, reader is 20, anxiety, heavy angst, fluff, no use of y/n, slow burn, brief mention of vomiting

word count: 10.8k+

a/n: some of this was inspired was inspired by the poem ‘i wish i were two dogs then i could play with me’ by anne carson. I apologise for the long absence, life has been crazy but I’m very proud of this chapter and I hope you enjoy! sorry in advance for the angst it’s about to get real. as always, shoutout to @dickfics69 for helping me xx

taglist: @lezzy-bennet @harrypotteranna23-blog  @reidstea @sashaphantomhive  @bexreadstoomuch @audhd-dragonaut @littlepotatobeansworld @ches-86  @tlclick73 @fckyeahlames @gnocchey @astrolockley @sidthedollface2 @micheledawn1975  @3rd-conchord @eddiesbabe95 @taintedcigs @harry-bowie-mercury @micheledawn1975​

↳  one / two / three / four / five / six / seven / eight  / nine / ten / eleven

Part Twelve: Lovely To Sit Between Comfort and Chaos

Who knew scanning video tape barcodes could be so fun? An inherently arduous task made tolerable thanks to the warming weather, every monotonous motion laced with sun-soaked dopamine. The stale interior of Family Video is washed in a stream of sunlight, the clear sky leaving no interruption for the desired warmth.

The chill of winter has all but dissolved, the new season budding in blossoms dancing in lush trees and children without jackets in the park. But, beneath the surface, something more has begun mingling in your blood. Your veins are laced with the giddy joy of a new beginning, something fresh and exciting. Like the first pages of a good book, popping open a fresh bottle of wine. As with all beginnings, they have their own tonality, an addictive vibrancy that makes them so elusively special. Ebbing with firsts, ‘what ifs’ and unadulterated hope. Leaving you behind the store counter with a schoolgirl grin, completing the most mundane of tasks with enthusiasm. With every video returned into the system, another mountain forms as Robin returns to the front desk. She picks up the two latest additions from the pile, examining them with scrutiny.

“Woof. 9 ½ Weeks AND Body Heat? Someone had a big weekend.” She places them onto the steel rolling shelves, beginning to categorize the sections. Monotonous doesn’t even begin to describe the store’s activities, Robin falling especially victim to their dullness today. “Speaking of, did you get up to anything interesting?”

“Well, Audrey’s learnt how to chuck her bottles across the room. So I guess you could say things were pretty wild around my neck of the woods.”

“Guess I’ll cancel her pee-wee baseball lessons then.” She quips back, busying herself with the tapes. 

It’s a funny thing, dishonesty. How it sits on the roof of your stomach, digging its heels into your gut whenever it sees fit. You’ve elected not to tell Robin about your date with Eddie, nor your second kiss, for a myriad of reasons. As your closest friend, you understand that she is just looking out for you, protecting your vulnerable heartspace. With your connection to Eddie growing, complication is bound to follow. And in such a budding stage, it just doesn’t make sense to make a mountain out of a molehill. 

When you’d first approached her about your potential date with Andy, she’d responded in a similar manner, driven by protectiveness. But you knew, she could see an innate craving for something more than she could provide. It was only natural. Your new identity was tied to being a mother, full stop. It had been a long time since you felt wanted, attractive, desired. A longing to be wined and dined, treated like so much more than milk-providing breasts on legs. And she wanted you to get back out there, into the real world and away from your comfortable nest of motherhood. You are strong, Robin is well aware of this, fighting the urge to protect you and Audrey from the big bad world. Of course, hindsight is a funny thing, and she should have ripped Andy a new one before he had the chance to do anything stupid. To assume he was capable of being a decent human being for an evening was clearly expecting too much.

But with Eddie, it’s so different. Comfortable in ways you couldn’t articulate, you felt a sense of consistent safety you hadn’t experienced in a long time. Life has just become easier with him around, day to day tasks much more enjoyable in his company. And so, you’ve resolved to just dip your toes into the idea of it evolving into something more. It’s not so much lying as it is withholding the truth. 

With the final tape scanned in, you toss it onto the shelf, nearly bowling over Robin’s efforts in the process. She shoots you a warning glare before sighing, glancing melancholically at the clock.

“Ah, all that stands between me and a turkey sandwich is…” She picks up a video at random and glances down at it. “... Xanadu?! Oh my god-”

She drives the cart around the corner, cussing out the poor customer's choice in film. Smiling at her antics, you busy yourself tidying the cluttered desk. Taped to the monitor is a curated collection of film pictures Robin had Jonathan develop. The ultrasound photo still sits in prime position, with a copy of the hospital image below it. Another picture is tacked to the corner of the screen showing you and Robin cuddled up in bed with Audrey sandwiched between you, all in accidentally coordinating shades of blue. You remember that night, Eddie had dropped by after work and lost it laughing at the three of you perched in bed like the grandparents in Willy Wonka, quickly racing to the kitchen to retrieve Jonathan’s camera. Moments immortalized in stillness, energetic happiness radiating out of them.

So lost in the memory, you barely register the sound of the bell above the front door ringing.

“Late return charges got you grinning like that, sweetheart?” Averting your gaze, you watch as your babysitter of choice enters the store. Eddie shoots you a warm smile, one hand gently supporting the black carrier strapped to his chest. Audrey, pacifier in mouth, faces outwards with limbs dangling aimlessly in the confines of the holder. It’s hard to miss the small purple bow clipped to the crown of her head, something that was not part of her ensemble when you dressed her this morning. Like maneuvering his own personal puppet, Eddie picks up her limp wrist to wave it in your direction. The docile baby glances up at the metalhead with curiosity, seeking out the phantom manipulating her arm.

“I can’t rent you R-rated films with a minor present, I’m afraid.” You quip with a smile, pressing your palms into the counter.

“Shit.” Eddie points to the door, backtracking a step and glancing down at Audrey. “Let me just go and tie her up out front real quick, alright?”

“Please don’t tie my daughter up on the street like a dog.”

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about her.” Eddie grins. “But maybe we should lock in that date before we break out the ropes and collars, hm?”

His comment immediately causes your cheeks to flush, suddenly feeling stifled in your sickly green vest. Images of compromising positions flood your mind, notably featuring the handcuffs strung up in Eddie’s bedroom. An awkward chuckle escapes your throat, Eddie’s smile faltering at the sight.

“I- I mean… fuck, oh-” His hands quickly fly to Audrey’s ears, protecting her from his cursing. “- just, pretend I never said that, okay?”

“Not a chance. You’re never living that one down, Munson.” Your melodious laughter sets Eddie free. “Where’ve you two been today?”

“Y’know, just all of her favorite places. Had to head into the shop to pick up my paycheck, the guys couldn’t get enough of her. ‘Specially Bob, or Ed, I forget- he’s been going on about her for weeks so I thought if she visited he might shut up about it.”

“Using my daughter as bait? Classy.”

“You know me all too well, sweetheart.” He’s quick to catch the pacifier as it tumbles out of Audrey’s mouth, her face screwing up in disgust while he tries to feed it back to her. “Oh, and she met a dog today. It was a beast of a thing, a Rottweiler or something. Don’t think I’ve ever seen her so excited, she grabbed its ears and everything. Thought it might bite her head off. It did lick her on the face though, but I suppose that’s good for her immune system.”

“Sounds like you two have been on quite an adventure.” With Audrey now within arms reach, you lean over the counter to give her a kiss on the forehead. Her eyes light up at the sight of you, giving Eddie enough time to quickly shove the pacifier back into her mouth.

“Speaking of which… what are the chances of you getting work off this Friday afternoon?” His voice is hushed, and laced with an edge of the cheekiness you’ve come to adore. With a quick survey around the shop, you inspect to make sure Robin is out of earshot.

“I think I could pull some strings.”

“Good, good. I might have something fun planned for us.” Eddie smiles sheepishly, readjusting the weight of the carrier. “And, as much as I hate to admit it, I think Henderson might finally be ready to go solo with Squid.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, I mean- I didn’t see anyone chewing on the electrical cords so that’s an A in my books.”

“Glad to see you’ve got high standards.” You tease, the grin on Eddie’s face only growing..

“I sure do.” 

-

Quick question, what the hell does one wear on a date? For your outing with Andy, Robin took charge of your wardrobe and crafted an outfit with complete ease. The stakes were lower, you suppose, not overly concerned with your appearance. But for today’s mystery date with Eddie, you’re finding yourself digging into the deepest crevices of your wardrobe for something that screams I’m trying, but not too hard. And, as fate would have it, nothing is jumping out at you. That shirt? Too old. These pants? Don’t fit anymore. Those socks? They’re Audrey’s, not sure how they got in here…

Huffing, you plant yourself on the floor in a nest of unacceptable garments. Your daughter sits peacefully in her bouncing recliner, gaze contently following your every move while she gums at her caterpillars antennae. Grabbing two half decent short-sleeve tops, you hold them up in the baby’s direction.

“What do you think, little miss?” Audrey continues her chomping assault, not at all interested in your predicament. You sigh, tossing the shirts into the pile of mediocrity. “God, it’s easy for you. You look cute in everything.”

Articulating your last word with a tickle, you drink in the way her mouth spreads into a toothless smile. She’s really beginning to grow into her own looks, her features forming beyond the universal blob baby look. Her hair is getting a slight wave to it, still comedically thick on her head. Pouty lips combined with her chubby cheeks give her maximum squishability factor. And as you look down at the mess of clothes covering the floor, you can’t help but cast your mind 16 years into the future. Rummaging through your daughter’s wardrobe in search of the perfect first date outfit, taking her to the mall just outside of town hunting down the dreamiest of prom dresses. It’s all racing by before your eyes. A spiral begins to form if you think about it for too long, so you quickly dedicate yourself to the task at hand.

In the end, you decide to keep it simple. A boxy button-up paired with some acid-wash mom jeans and a leather belt. Your hair is on its last legs before wash-day, so you elect to tame it with a bandana wrapped at the nape of your neck to hide the greasy mess. And Converse to complete the ensemble, because, you know, you don’t have all day. Your babysitter will be here any minute.

Dustin is smilier than usual, if that’s even possible. Grinning from ear to ear, watching you dart across the room with his hands on his hips. Making no effort to help you find your keys, but rather engaged watching your one-man Monty Python sketch.

“All ready for your big date?” The teenager articulates the last word with a suggestive raise of his eyebrows. It stops you in your tracks, shooting daggers his way and doing little to wipe his smile away. 

“For the last time, it’s not a date!” You lie through your teeth back to him. “I told you, we’re just going to hang out as friends. Adult friends. You know, without the presence of a baby.”

“Sure, sure. So, you got all glammed up for nothing?”

“Oh my god, I am not glammed up!” Glancing down at your outfit, you subtly worry that you may come off as trying too hard.

“I’m just saying…” Dustin throws his hands up defensively, the traces of a smile still playing on the corner of his mouth. “... you do look really nice, though.”

A humble grin makes itself known, abandoning your fruitless search to cross over to the younger boy. With figures like Steve and Eddie in his life, it’s easy to see where Dustin gets his chivalrous manners from. 

“Aw, thanks, Dusty.” Flinging your arms around his shoulders, you pull him in for a tight squeeze with the explicit purpose of embarrassing him. The teenager relents quickly, giving your back a firm pat as you hold him to you in a vice grip. Giggling at the way he squirms in your arms, you take a few wobbly steps to keep him locked into place.

Burrowing your face into his mess of curls, you allow yourself to indulge in the comfort of his embrace. He’s always been a cuddly kid, and perhaps you weren’t aware of how much you needed this until now. The pair of you stand there for a beat, allowing the moment to morph from playful teasing into genuine support. Two kids, sharing a history of pain, guilt and loss. Finding solace in one another, the older enveloping the younger and soothing whatever lingering ache burns beneath their collective sorrow. He misses Steve. God, how he misses him. 

It seeps through the pores of his fingertips, gently caressing your spine in small circles. As if, if you were to listen closely, beyond the dull hum of the refrigerator and the scattered bird calls outside, you could hear it. The tiniest voice, buried beneath unkempt curls, asking will it ever go away? And you both know the answer. It won’t, but you’ll learn to live with it. Together.

Biting back the swell of tears wetting your tongue, threatening to make themselves known, you refuse to crumble before him. Not today. Not on a day as happy as this. 

If it’s true that Eddie has little experience with dating, he sure as hell masks it well. With a handful of daisies clutched in his fist, he’s the epitome of confidence as he raps on your door three times. Claiming the flowers were for Audrey (and definitely not for you), he quickly shuts down Dustin’s insinuations before shuttling you out the front door to his chariot. He always opens the door for you, but the small gesture makes you giddy with girlish excitement. And as soon as he joins you in the dingy interior, positive the pair of you are out of Dustin’s prying eyeline, he leans over the center console to press a chaste kiss to your cheek. The brief contact causes your heart to skip, chapped lips meeting soft skin so casually it’s disarming. A calloused thumb brushing your chin, edging your face in the direction of him, drinking in every imperfection dancing across your skin in the fading afternoon light. Noses lingering inches from one another, wrinkles forming at the edges of his eyes preceding a Cheshire-cat grin.

“Ready for our next adventure?”

With a nod, clicking the gears into drive, the van rolls out of the sun-bathed trailer park and onto the winding roads out of town. It’s easy, the silence that exists between you while you tune out to the sound of whatever metal cassette is shoved into the car’s stereo. Pulling further and further out of the small town, away from the noise. The bustle of life, the judgemental whispers. To some unknown destination, where the two of you will be free to just be.

It comes into view around half an hour into the drive, sticking out like a sore thumb against the lush forest surrounding you. A kitschy, neglected sign with what appears to be a beaver toothily smiling down at you, waving its unoiled, mechanical arm at passers-by. Silly Putter Mini Golf. Pulling into the tiny parking lot, you study the loud canary yellow clubhouse building while Eddie clambours out of the driver’s side. It’s totally cheesy, down to the pathetically flickering lightbulb on the welcome sign. And you couldn’t love it more.

Swinging the passenger side door open, your date extends his ringed hand outward.

“Ready to get your putt on?”

With utmost ease, Eddie sinks the ball on his second shot. You could be mad at his seemingly god-given talent, but it’s hard to stay upset watching his hips sway like that in those dark jeans. Even at a children’s putt-putt course, he’s shown no interest in dressing more family friendly. Under your breath, you mutter praise to the inventor of muscle tank tops, now privy to the way his sinewy muscles flex with each stroke of the golf club. Occasionally, the handle of the club would clink against his wallet chain draped out of his pocket, drawing your attention back to his narrow hips. As far as you were concerned, you were a winner tonight, regardless of the scores.

“Yes! Gotta catch up, sweetheart. I’m beating you by…” He pulls the small scorecard out of his back pocket and grins. “... five points.”

Shooting a distrusting look in his direction, you pace to meet him on the prickly astroturf. 

“What?! I thought you said it was three?” 

Snatching the page away, Eddie holds it tauntingly above your head. He swings it around like a kite, mocking your stature while the only other family here passes by you with milkshakes in hand.

“That was before you hit the windmill twice on the last hole. Bit embarrassing, if you ask me.” He pokes, a shit-eating grin still plastered on his face. “Tell you what. You make this in less than two shots, I’ll call it even. Even throw in some fries afterwards, as a sign of good showmanship.”

A competitive energy charges through your body, a daring smirk playing on your face. Through your lashes, you challenge the metalhead’s smug demeanor, flirting with the notion of friendly competition.

“Deal.”

With a newly confident stride, you make your way to the fluorescent pink tee you’d picked out for yourself, placing the equally obnoxious green ball atop it. It’s a fairly easy set up, two small hills creating a valley that would lead you straight to the hole. A mechanical crocodile snaps out of the wall sporadically, directly in line to your goal, hinges chomping at nothing. You assume the stance, needing to bend over slightly to accommodate the child-sized putter you were gripping. The crocodile seems to be popping out every five seconds, and so you brace yourself until it begins its certain retreat. Drawing your putter back, you hear it click against the ball, knowing immediately you overshot it. The ball rolls over one of the bumps in the turf, into a direct line with the crocodiles elongated snout, sending it back in your direction with a pathetic tumble. 

“Shit.” You groan, attempting to tune out the smug laughter behind you. A tattooed arm comes into view over your left shoulder, pointing to the red flag sticking out of the ground.

“The holes over there, sweetheart.” Eddie quips matter-of-factly.

“Gee, thanks. What would I do without you?” Shooting daggers at your entirely too-smug date, you elbow him in the ribs before setting off in the direction of the ball. It seems your jab did little to quell Eddie’s laughter, who quickly catches up to you.

“Think you need to work on your form.”

“There’s a form needed for mini-golf?”

“Mhm, form I possess by the bucketful.” God, he’s a smug little shit sometimes.

Incredulous, you welcome his challenge with wide-open arms. “Alright then, genius. Enlighten me. Show me how it's done.”

Eyebrows disappearing into his messy bangs, Eddie’s doe eyes twinkle with boyish mischief, a prominent dimple playing deep into his cheek.

“Here.” Placing his hands on your shoulders, he maneuvers you in the direction of your goal, now partially obstructed by the protruding crocodile snout. “Line ‘er up.”

He angles himself around you, back pressed to abdomen, warmth emanating from the thin cotton of his shirt against yours. His feet shuffle to either side of yours, boxing you into his cradling hold. Snaking his bare arms along yours, starting at your elbow, each finger wrapping gently around the girth of your forearm. He lingers a moment too long, you don’t complain. Slowly working his way down to your wrists, locking his digits around the boney flesh. Breath on the nape of your neck, adrenaline pumping too fast for you to look anywhere but the lime-green golf ball at your feet. 

“That’s it…” His chest rumbles against your ribcage, coaxing vibrations of praise causing your fingertips to go numb. “Nice and gentle, okay?”

One slow nod is all you manage, feeling his gaze burning into your profile. You watch as the rusting reptile makes itself known against the fake grass, gaping jaws ready to foil your next putt. As it begins its retreat, you take a deep inhale, feeling your ribs expand against the comfort of Eddie’s sternum.

“Go.” Barely a whisper is required, his lips so close to your ear you can practically feel their plush sanctuary. In tandem, Eddie gently pulls your wrists sideways before encouraging you forward with perfect momentum. Metal meets plastic with a firm thud, propelling the ball forward. It rolls, and a collective breath is held. As if the future of the world hinges on this single stroke. Picking up sand and debris along the way, the bright sphere travels across the turf towards its goal. It hits the lip of the hole before tumbling in with a clatter, sending your arms skyward in celebration as you discard the putter.

“Yes!” Gleaming with joy, you spin on your heels to press a firm finger into Eddie’s chest. “In your smug, stupid face, Muns-”

Victory is swiftly cut short as an arm wraps around your hip, grip settling in the groove of your waist. You slot perfectly into the crook of his lean body, softness meeting strength entirely channeled into closing the gap between you. The sheer momentum of it knocks a sigh loose from your chest, clinging to the anchor of his chest with bunched fists entangled in his shirt. His free hand nestles beneath your chin, a firm thumb pressing and guiding your eyeline up to his. Eddie shines with pride. Smiling from ear to ear, shaking his head at your antics with pure amusement, feeling the contagion of your joy. 

Angling your chin slightly higher, Eddie presses his lips down onto yours with fervor. A blend of your two previous encounters, it’s passionate yet careful, a marriage of wanton desire and delicate care. You lean into it, drawing him closer by the cloth adorning his torso, chasing the taste of his kiss. As if to commit it to memory, to learn how it sits in your mouth and if the needy aftertaste ever dissipates. Muscles not just for decoration, but with the greater use of keeping you pressed intimately to his body. His thumb brushes against the groove of your jawline, dancing across the expanse of skin he is yet to be acquainted with. But there will be time for that later. Eddie is the one to pull away, a proud grin still plastered on his face.

“Good job, sweetheart. Ready for your prize?”

Food always tastes better when someone else is paying for it. The fries have the perfect crunch to them, the outer a golden brown against the fluffy white potato now filling your mouth rapidly. Eddie claims that they only came in a package deal with two cans of soda, but you have an inkling he may be lying about that. Your date watches as you shove the greasy food into your mouth, taking a long sip of his Coke.

“Looks like you’re enjoying your winnings over there.”

“Mmm-“ You mumble through a mouthful of starch. “Feels like there’s a birthday party in my mouth.”

Eddie’s brows furrow with amusement at your choice of words, shaking his mane of curls.

“Shit, actually, there’s something I don’t know about you. When is your birthday?”

Swallowing the thick mass of carbs, you slyly redirect your gaze to the quickly-emptying plastic basket before you, picking at a few deep-fried crumbs.

“Next week…” You pray to the heavens your admission was mumbled low enough for Eddie to catch it as some ambiguous month in the distant future. But it seems the years of heavy metal assaulting his ear drums has done little to subdue his sense of hearing.

“Next week?!” Theatrically, Eddie slams his soda down on the picnic table, likely taking off some of the tragic peeling paint in the process. He looks positively incredulous, brows raised to maximum height behind his bangs. “And you’ve been keeping this a secret, why?”

“I wasn’t keeping it a secret! I just didn’t think it was that big of a deal-“

“Not that big of a-“ Fingers splayed on the periwinkle blue wood, he braces himself forward with a deep inhale. “Sweetheart, now I’m gonna have to plan a big bash in less than a week. How could you do this to me?”

As if it’s the biggest inconvenience he’s ever encountered. Chuckling nervously, you wave your hands in a flurry before his deadpan expression.

“Oh no, absolutely not. Uh-uh, not happening.”

“But-”

“Eddie.” Your tone is firm, gaze boring into his. “I’m turning twenty, it’s not even an exciting number. Plus, I have a baby, in case you forgot. Not sure how many nightclubs would let the pair of us in. If it means that much to you, I’ll have you and some of the kids over for a movie. That’s my limit, though.”

Eddie huffs, resolving himself to defeat. “Fine. No strippers, then.”

“Oh, now that you mention strippers…” A grin takes over your face as you waggle a fry in his face, likely sending salt fragments onto Eddie’s shirt. Before you can bring it to your awaiting mouth, he swats the perfectly good fast food out of your hand, sending it catapulting to the ground for some poor, underpaid teenager to clean up later.

“Party in your mouth, huh?” He quips, stealing the larger of the two potato sticks stuck to the paper lining the basket. He pops it into his mouth with a grin, shooting you a suggestive look.

“You’re the worst.”

“I know.”

The energy between the two of you is so, so easy. You sip your cool soda, indulging in the sugary carbonation clinging to your teeth. Eddie does the same, studying a terribly constructed pyramid situated on one of the holes. No pressure to speak, or not speak, just basking in the glow of one another’s company. The air is cool under the downlights, a mild spring evening setting the scene for what a true date night should look like.

“I’ve gotta ask-” You begin through a mouthful of food, somewhat unceremoniously. “- how’d you get so good at mini golf? I just wouldn’t expect you to be the kind of guy to spend his free time at a place like this.”

“Ooft, judging a book by its cover, are we?” Eddie places his drink back on the picnic table, grinning beneath the fluorescent snack bar sign. 

“Oh, never. Heavy metal and putt-putt go hand in hand, as far as I’m concerned.”

Eddie shakes his head, grinning while he peers down at the condensation accumulating on the metal can.

“I, uh- I used to bring Dustin out here.”

“Dustin? Really?”

“Yep.” There’s a loaded silence between the pair of you, something that isn’t uncommon as you exchange stories of your past. “After, um- y’know, everything happened. He kind of… shut down. A bit like you did, for a while. Didn’t want to play DnD, or see anybody, really. So this one day, I just drove over to his place and dragged him out of bed saying ‘C’mon, butthead. I’m taking you outta town’. He kicked up a bit of a fuss, but I just sort of army-marched him out the front door. We drove around for a while, not really talking and stumbled on this place. He shot me that stupid grin of his for the first time in forever, so we came in. It sort of became a weekly thing after that, and I hate to admit that I actually enjoyed it after a while.”

Swirling a fry around in too much ketchup, your meal is all but forgotten as you find yourself enthralled by Eddie’s recollection. That all too familiar pang of sadness returns, regret manifesting quickly in your body. You wish you were there for Dustin. You should have been. You wish you were stronger earlier, able to provide him with the care he so desperately needed. In the past few months, you’ve watched the teenager really step up, busying himself with baby books in order to be the best ‘uncle’ he could be. He’s a close second behind Eddie when it comes to making Audrey smile, lapping up every second he gets with her. God, Steve would be so proud of him.

“He’s a good kid, even if he’s an annoying little shit sometimes. And Steve…” His thought trails off, running his finger around the edge of the soda can. “... Steve was good for him. Gave him someone to look up to, a role model sort-of. Almost like a big brother, I guess. So I didn’t mind running around a shitty mini-golf course with a creepy beaver sign if it made him happy.”

Abandoning your meal, you reach across the table to take Eddie’s hand in yours. The tips of his fingers are cold from the refrigerated beverage, and you wrap your palm around the icy skin with warm reassurance. 

“You’re a good man, Eddie.”

Eddie’s lips curve into the most imperceptible smile, humble and felt almost entirely inward. For a fleeting second, he wonders if that could be true. 

Eddie was meant to drive you straight home. The roads were quiet at this time of night, no traffic bar the occasional truck making its way in the opposite direction of the small town he unfortunately called home. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this full. Not literally, of course, given you guzzled down the majority of hot food before he had a chance to get to it. But it didn’t matter, not the slightest. 

He felt proud. 

Proud while he watched you dig through the bucket of tees, looking for the perfect Barbie pink one that wasn’t chipped or dirty. Proud of his excellent golfing form, thankful for all the practice he’d gotten through restless evenings with Henderson. Proud of the way you jumped up and down, hands raised to the heavens as you sank your shot in half the time it had taken you on every other hole. Proud of how he scooped you into his arms, like every cheesy rom-com he’d had the displeasure of watching. Proud of the part he had to play in your happiness. Proud to be seen with you.

He was meant to drive you straight home.

He had every intention of doing so. 

Satiated with pride, he could resolve to spend the remainder of his evening grinning stupidly to himself in the isolation of his room. The humble home across the trailer park suddenly feels closer, anyway. Until, your hand snaked its way across the center console onto his thigh, your touch feather light but the weight heavy. For a brief moment, he wonders if you reached for something but overshot, a simple mistake. And then, you linger. Fingernails scratching the course denim clinging to his legs, shockwaves sent down his skin with every delicate stroke. Absent-minded. Loaded.

He knew the stakes had just been raised.

The two of you had been close like this dozens of times before, particularly in your pregnancy. Eddie never saw the need for one of those pregnancy pillows advertised on late-night infomercials, when you apparently saw him as the perfect substitute. Back then, those exchanges meant almost nothing. A tiny back scratch here and there, drawing small circles on your forearm while you dozed off with your entire body weight pressed to his shoulder. Thoughtless interactions, designed purely to comfort and set you at ease. The familiarity that has perhaps always existed between the pair of you, now morphing into something new.

Thumb smoothing the faded-black material, tiny rotations etched over and over.

Hypnotic.

The bravery that overtook him was phantom, ghostly desire edging his knee ever so slightly further in your direction. As if to say please, don’t stop. I’m right here. His eyes remain firmly locked onto the dark road, using only the occasional streetlight to guide his path. Besides, he doesn’t need to look at you to feel your gaze on his cheek. Not that he could bring himself to, if he tried. He wonders if he blacked out earlier. Got hit in the head with a rogue club and passed out, ascending to a heaven in which he would be fortunate enough to experience such a sensation. Heart pounding in his chest, he lets out an unsteady exhale as your fingers snake deeper into the groove, caressing at more sensitive flesh. Inward, where the skin is far more sensitive. 

Eddie isn’t a greedy man.

Until he is.

“Baby…” The foreign pet name slips out as a moan, barely perceivable beneath the soft hum of the cassette’s tune filling the car at a low volume. Somehow, in those two syllables alone, he crosses a line. Bares his soul to the wolves, knowing well the potential ramifications, the bloodshed that follows vulnerability.

The digging of your fingernails into the meaty flesh at his utterance is his breaking point. The green light he sought out. With cautious fervourency, he pulls off the road quickly, wheels clattering along the asphalt excuse for a truck stop. The car is quickly clicked into park before the metalhead can cognise it, tearing the constricting seatbelt off his body. Your hand never leaves its spot.

Turning to you, wide-eyed with want, he pauses. Gives himself whiplash from the flurry of activity leading to the sudden stillness. It’s intrinsic, no need for words anymore. Redundant wastes of breath.

His lungs hitch, adrenaline pulsing in the tips of his fingers. 

Can we?

Lips parted ever so slightly, a rise of your chest and dazed fluttering of eyelids answers.

Yes.

It’s not clear who lunges first. What is clear is how your bodies instinctively shape around one another, quick to absolve the space between you. Lips collide with lips, desperately seeking respite. Wanton moans are pulled effortlessly, fistfuls of hair tangled in clammy fingers drawing the two of you impossibly close. Imperfect fumblings as shirts are clutched desperately, fueling the fire burning in the pits of Eddie’s stomach. The pace is entirely unsteady, soft brushes bleeding into firm tugs of teeth piercing tender flesh with just the right amount of force. Embarrassing, unadulterated need at the forefront of every motion, and neither of you cared. God, it’s almost perverse. How Eddie corrupts something so soft, so sweet, with every fevered kiss. Like he’s tainting you with his taste, as if he could lap enough of you up and absolve his unworthiness. The likelihood of that working is slim, but god damn Eddie is willing to try. 

It’s still not enough. 

The plastic console separating you is driving him mad. He needs to be able to grab, clutch, caress every square inch of you with no obstructions. You make him bold. 

Bold enough to slip his wandering hand beneath your far thigh, the smallest hithering motion enough to feel the weight shift above his palm. Unceremoniously, you clamber over the glove box after unclipping your seatbelt, haphazardly swinging your foot into the horn. The beep echoes through the isolated rest stop, a mumbled apology being quickly swallowed by Eddie’s lips. Blindly guided, he directs your knees to either side of his hips, showing no qualms with the limited driver’s side legroom. His hands find your hips, tentatively hovering above his lap, shaky thighs taking the brunt of your weight. With small, caressing circles of your hip bone, he soothes you as he always has. Encourages you to share the pressure, begging to be the bearer of it. No wrong answer, only whatever you’re comfortable with. Perfect the way you are. 

Ringed fingers press gently into the small of your waist, drawing you closer still to his body. This seems to encourage you to relent to your tiring muscles, finding solace on Eddie’s tense thighs. A safe distance, but so close to danger. To unbridled want. Neither of you care.

Eddie’s eyes flutter shut as you speckle kisses along his cheek, dancing down his jawline and finding sanctuary on his neck. Nipping slightly at his pulse point, he can’t help but squeeze a bit tighter. Relishing in your exploration, mentally mumbling Hail Mary’s for his good deeds from past lives that lead him to this euphoria. A gasp escapes his throat as you latch onto a particularly sensitive spot, causing his hands to seek refuge on the meat of your hips. He squeezes, eliciting a similar wanton moan that vibrates against his stubbled skin.

“Is- is this good?” A sentence loaded with various meanings tumbles out, his grip loosening slightly. 

“Mmm.” You murmur, tracing the familiar trail back along his jaw and to his aching lips. “So good. So good to me, always.”

A knot forms in the pit of Eddie’s stomach. So good. So good. For you. That’s all he’s ever wanted to be. It fucking underscores every day, trying to do right by you. Constantly trying. He lives for it. For the smiles, the exhales of safety, the reassurance, the comfort…

It’s gotten him more hooked than a drug ever could.

So why. 

Why can’t he accept it?

The praise, the love, everything you dish out effortlessly. But to want and to deserve are very different things, the latter being something that Eddie factually knows he is not entitled to. 

It returns, a tidal wave of despair crashing over his heart, encasing it in a riptide of emotional debris and darkness. The taunting ticking of the second hand that haunts him constantly, the grip on his happiness slipping…

“Hey.” He gasps out, ringed fingers grazing your cheek as he pulls away. So close still he can see the flushed-red outline of your lips, the blissed out expression in your eyes quickly morphing to concern.

“Shit, you okay?” You pull back, brushing a loose curl out of the frame of his face.

“Yeah, ‘m fine.” A stabilizing breath does little to quell the erratic beating of his heart. “Just- maybe we should, like, take things a bit slower? I- I just don’t want all this to be too much, too fast.”

Brows furrowing slightly, it’s hard to miss the minute disappointment reflected across your face.

“Oh. No, yeah, of course.” Letting out an awkward chuckle, your unoccupied hands take to fidgeting with your now-loose blouse. “Sorry, didn’t mean to get carried away…”

“No, no-” Eddie reassures, a smile growing on his sore lips despite the gnawing ache in his chest. “Fuck, you were- it was perfect.”

A bashful grin cuts through the nerves etched into your skin. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” God, you make him too bold. Cradling your chin between his thumb and forefinger, he dips forward to steal another miss from you. “Just want to do things right. Be a gentleman and all that.”

“You? A gentleman? Since when?” You poke.

“Since always.” The tone returns to easy as always, if not charged with a certain afterglow of electricity.

“So, what’s the next step in the courting ritual then?”

“Dunno. Guess I’ll have to pull off a grand gesture of some kind.”

Thursday afternoon, counting down the minutes until the clock strikes 5pm and frees you from this grind. Happy fucking birthday to you. 

Robin has been fussing over you non-stop for the past 24 hours. Apparently, a little birdie told her about your upcoming birthday (something you’d diligently kept private), sending her into a frenzy. She insisted on at least taking you out for dinner to celebrate your birthday at Benny’s, and practically stuffed her version of appropriate birthday attire into a duffle bag this morning for you to change into post-shift. In all her festive glory, she returned from her lunch break with a pink-frosting covered cupcake and tried to involve no less than three customers in a group rendition of Happy Birthday that was less than successful. And despite the unwarranted theatrics, you can’t deny your gratitude. Seeing how she dotes on you, dedicating her every movement that day to your happiness. And frankly, it’s not dissimilar to every other day. The love, the care that the two of you feel for eachother simply heightened for your first day of your twenties. Luck has never been a word you’d use to describe your life, but today, it feels fitting.

Keith has been goaded into closing the shop up solo tonight, Robin sparing no detail of the utmost importance to this diner dinner. She’d also arranged for Eddie to bring Audrey along, clocking in around 12 total hours of unpaid babysitting and a bushel of brownie points. Then, once the grown-ups have hung out, some of the younger kids will bike to the trailer park for a late-night movie. Spending the remaining hours of your birthday with everyone you love.

The small bathroom cubicle adjoining the workroom is cluttered with makeup and clothes, the two of you primping yourself in privacy. Tonight’s outfit of choice appears to be a band tee, tied at the waist with a flowing maxi-skirt, clashing in your mind but makes sense to Robin, apparently. To level the playing field, she dug out some of your nicer boots for the occasion. Internally, you worry for Audrey, and how it’ll be once Robin realizes she has two life-sized Barbie dolls to dress up. But secretly, you like it. It feels very you, whatever that means now. Comfort meets expression, an identity crafted beyond Mom.

Smiling at yourself through the rusty bathroom mirror, Robin swipes on her mascara.

“How do you feel? Older and wiser yet?” Robin asks, eyes bugged out in concentration.

“More of the former, I’d say.” You chuckle.

“What about the outfit? I felt pretty proud of it, very rocker-chic meets fairy princess.”

“It’s great, Rob. All of it.” Lips pursing together in an emotional smile, you drink in the image before you. You look your age. No dark circles or fine lines present, concealed under just the right amount of makeup. Hair just the way you like it, not confined to a three-day-old ponytail. You recognise her, from another life. The girl you used to be. And she’s so happy to see you.

Robin shoves the mascara tube into her tote bag, throwing it over her shoulder. “Ready to hit the road?”

With a nod, you hold the door open for her, the imposing fluorescents of the video store coming back into view. 

“Oh, nearly forgot. We’ve gotta make a pit stop along the way, if that’s alright with you?” Following her trail, the two of you burst out the front doors and into the brisk evening towards your Pinto.

“Sure.” You reply. “Just lead the way.”

“Robin, where the hell are we?” Glancing around one of the seedier streets of Hawkins, you shrug your handbag a little closer under your armpit and remind yourself that you did, in fact, lock your car. It’s fairly innocuous, an assortment of goods shops and a vintage record store, but you’ve never ventured this far into the heartland. Robin is a few paces before you, studying the signs of various closed businesses along the road. Her face lights up as you approach one particular building. 

“Bada-boom.” She announces with a proud grin, stopping in front of a large, black building. The paint is sun-faded, lined with scratched-off band posters graffitied with lewd scribbles. Against the dark sky, your only indication of the name etched into the doorway awning comes in the form of a passing car blaring its lights.

“The Hideout?” It rang a bell, yet you could not work out for the life of you what the two of you were doing here. “Dude, is this a nightclub? It’s a Thursday!”

“Not exactly…” Her brazen smile makes you slightly nervous. “More of a live music venue. I’ve just gotta pick something up from here, then we’ll be off to dinner. ‘Kay?”

“Alright, maybe I’ll just wait outside-” “No!” Robin quickly clears her throat. “I mean- I’m not leaving you out here on these mean street all alone without me to protect you.”

Shooting you a bright smile, you have to take at face value that she’s being entirely serious right now. Locking her arm through yours, she urges your unwilling feet further to the entrance.

“Is it even-” Answering your half-finished question, Robin pushes open the door to the venue, the interior pitch-black. “Are we even allowed to be here?”

“Yes, dingus! Just c’mon…” Once again, you’re placing literal blind faith into your closest friend. She might as well have tied Eddie’s bandana over your eyes as she did at Christmas, nothing but the slightly sticky floor beneath you to guide you forwards into oblivion. Her arm is your liferaft, swimming through pitch-black waters towards god knows what. In the distance, you hear a strange scuffling of feet, not belonging to either you or your co-worker. It sends chills down your spine, suddenly feeling very out of your depth. It’s disorienting, and totally alien.

“Seriously, Robin. Can we-” Your hushed tone is directed to the girl beside you, who stops in her tracks. You plant yourself beside her, the strangest feeling of being able to make a figure out through the void before you. A fleeting moment of movement, another shuffle of shoes on tacky wood ground. 

And in the flash of an eye, brightness burns your retinas, momentarily blinding you. It forces you to squint, a desperate attempt to identify these unfamiliar surroundings. A spotlight of sorts bears down on you before Robin quickly releases you from her vice grip and jumps to the side. But as one sense is returned, another is quickly abused, a raucous sound brutalizing your eardrums.

“Surprise!” Numerous voices call out at the top of their voices, unable to be individually dissected amongst the barrage of confetti poppers bursting into the sky. As your eyes grow accustomed to the warm spotlights around the venue, you make out familiar shapes. A mess of scruffy curls buried beneath a baseball cap. Two young boys with arms slung around one another jumping up and down, perfectly manicured bangs flinging haphazardly. The flash of a camera you’d borrowed months ago. There’s only a few of them, but their energy fills the space tenfold. 

And, at the center, you see a lean figure with a Kirk Hamlett haircut raise a squirming lump high above his head, not unlike a certain Disney movie that wouldn’t come out for another good eight or so years. Eddie, in what can only be described as his best cut-off band tee, proudly holds Audrey high above the group, her chunky legs bunched up to her body as she looks around entirely confused. As the last syllable of their celebration dies off, as if on cue, Audrey’s face screws up in a dramatic pout, a loud cry echoing through the venue at a volume the others only could hope to have achieved. Eddie’s face quickly transforms to worry, eyes squinting with embarrassment.

“Oh, fu-” Eddie quickly lowers her, cradling her head towards his collarbone. “Shit, didn’t mean to scare you, Squid.” 

Shushing her and pacing a step towards you, he bounces your baby from side to side. Her cries begin to lull, her fist tucked tightly at his clavicle for emotional support. Likely giving his neck a few scratches from her razor-sharp fingernails, she clings to the neckline of his shirt like a spider monkey, pulling it down with a subdued whimper and revealing one of his tattoos.

“Eddie? What-” You’re stunned. Shell-shocked from the sudden onslaught of sensation and attention, closing the space between you and the metalhead.

“How’s this for a grand gesture?” Spinning on his heel, Dustin rushes over to present a frosting-covered monstrosity on the bar. The icing is baby pink, with large globs that could be letters on top, with a handful of mismatched candles shoved into the floury concoction.

“Ta-da!” The younger boy grins, fixing one of the especially lop-sided candles. “Sorry it’s nothing special, I didn’t have much time to work on it…”

“You- you threw me a birthday party?” You ask, wide-eyed to Eddie.

“Ah-” He raises a finger, readjusting the subdued baby in his arms. “A surprise birthday party. In case you missed the keyword over the little hellraiser's scene-stealing cry.”

That familiar feeling returns. Overwhelmed by love and eyes solely on you. A small pile of presents sits on one of the bar tables, along with a few cards. Far more modest than the endowment you received from the group months earlier. Smiling faces, slightly tentative as they attempt to interpret your expression. But that thumping in your chest is not from anxiety this time. It’s from an overflowing sense of gratitude. 

A teary smile takes over your face, rushing to embrace Eddie and Audrey in a tight bear hug. The baby nestled between you burbles and squirms, and you raise your lips to the shell of Eddie’s ear to whisper a heartfelt “thank-you”.

The party is in full swing. Of the faces huddled in groups around the intimate venue, you initially only recognise half of them. Mike, Lucas and Will order root beer from the bar under Eddie’s strict supervision, not wanting any wasted minors on his track record. Dustin and Erica are engaged in a heated conversation with a few older boys, each of them wearing shirts printed with the name Corroded Coffin. You’d only crossed paths with them a handful of times at campaign nights, but they shared Eddie’s welcoming nature, trying to involve you in their conversation about elves or something. Nancy and Robin were trying to liven up the dance floor, which mostly involved Nancy swaying to the beat and Robin putting on a full-scale musical number around her. With Audrey not in the arms of any of her allocated babysitter’s arms, there was only one place left to search. Jonathan was taking a picture of the group in the adjacent booth, El and Max grinning either side of an unfamiliar face. His long, dark hair proved most entertaining for the infant on his lap, a glazed-over expression dancing in his red-rimmed eyes. 

“Woah, woah! That’s not for playing with, little dudette. Try this instead, I know it keeps me entertained.” From his Hawaiian shirt pocket, he pulls out a small set of keys, passing them to Audrey’s greedy fingers. She squeals, flinging the keys up and down in delight.

“God, she’s so cute.” El gushes, smoothing her pint-sized overalls over her legs.

“I know, right. She looks so much like Steve, it’s insane.” Max affirms. “Alright, Argyle. Quit hogging her.”

The redhead scoops her hands around Audrey’s waist, bringing her up to eye level with a cooing expression. 

“You know they’re born without kneecaps? How gnarly is that?” Argyle states, turning to El with complete sincerity.

“No way that’s true.” Max shoots the older boy a signature dead-pan look, readjusting Audrey in her arms, who is now getting a good amount of drool on the keychain.

“Swear on my life! I read it somewhere, they’re born without propellers.”

“You mean patellas?” El corrects.

“Yeah, that’s the one! Or maybe it’s dogs I’m thinking of…”

It’s beautiful, watching over your own party as a voyeur. An event that has brought together all of the closest people in your life, the common thread being you. It makes you sick with love.

“How’re you enjoying the event, sweetheart?” Eddie’s voice reaches you before he does, a glass of tan-colored liquid in hand.

“It’s perfect, really.” You reply with a grin. “All that’s missing are the Jell-o shots.”

“Gonna treat us to another Flashdance number?” Cheeks flushing over his statement, you stammer a response.

“How- how did you…”

“Don’t think I’d forget a spectacle like that.” He winks, a devilish grin spread across his lips. “Livened up that night’s dealings, that’s for sure.”

It’s strange, remembering a time before this. A time when Eddie was just a face in the crowd, Steve the undisputed King of Hawkins, and you with no clue what the coming years held in store. It feels like a lifetime ago, and simultaneously feels like an eternity you’ve spent with this eclectic family by your side.

“Getting on the beers tonight, Munson?” You tap a nail against the edge of his glass teasingly.

“Nah, confiscated Henderson’s root beer for my own selfish purposes.”

“You’re not gonna have a celebratory drink with me tonight?” Eddie shakes his head.

“Don’t think so, sweetheart. Sounds a bit cliche, but I feel weird drinking around Squid. Just don’t want to be the kind of guy who does that around a baby, makes me feel like my dad or something.”

You swear your heart swells to three times its normal size. He might be the most considerate man you’ve ever met.

“Besides…” Eddie continues, pointing to the Hellfire boys. “... don’t want to be a mess on stage for the grand finale of the night.”

You gasp, mock excitement written all over your expression. “Strippers?!”

Eddie shakes his head with a laugh, wrapping his arm around your shoulder.

“Maybe later, if you ask nicely.”

He did it.

Eddie pulled it off. From the house-shaking rendition of Happy Birthday, to the (in his humble opinion) absolutely killer set courtesy of Corroded Coffin, to shuttling the younger kids home before the bar opened to the public. He fucking did it. He did good.

The dingy bar is now filled with the usual patrons, the bouncers not bothering to check the ID’s of the occupants inside who could pass for being over 21. Last he saw you, you were dancing arm in arm with Robin and Nancy, screaming Everybody Wants to Rule The World at the top of your lungs. He’d never seen you so free, so vibrant. Moving like no one was watching, twirling and laughing and holding your friends. Just as you deserved to be. A twenty-year-old for one night, before another 364 days devoted to being a mom.

The cool breeze is welcoming, soothing his warm skin under the clear night sky. Stars swimming in the endless expanse of night, delicate kisses of light kissing the pitch-black veil. He can breathe. It used to be suffocating, looking up at the infinite nothing. It would clog Eddie’s throat, choking him in bleak nothingness. Wrap him in a coat of terror, a black mirror designed to play back every fateful mistake of his miserable life. Now, it welcomes him. And he isn’t afraid to embrace it. Baby steps, learning to love the dark parts of his being.

In his arms, he rocks Squid back and forth gently. She’s long since dozed off, the burden of being the life of the party clearly hung too heavy on her tiny shoulders. On her ears sit the smallest fluffy earmuffs, an investment courtesy of Dustin just for tonight. She was the best little groupie he could have asked for. At one point, Robin brought her onstage and placed her feet on the ground, bopping her up and down to the music. The crowd roared, and she giggled and squealed like she was the headliner act. Might have shown the band up, honestly. Eddie didn’t mind.

He’s getting better at stealing moments with her. Giving into his need to dote on her unabashedly. He could stare at her for a lifetime, and that wouldn’t be enough. He needs to imprint in his mind the way her eyelids flutter when she sleeps, commit to memory the O-shape of her mouth when she lets out a sleepy yawn. He wants to record her laugh, keep it forever. He wants every waking second to be dedicated to her.

“Have a good night, Squid?” He mumbles, lightly stroking the bridge of her nose. “Not bad for your first party, eh? Just you wait until your birthday. All of this will look like child’s play.”

Squid wriggles restlessly, burrowing into Eddie’s chest. Against his sternum, he can feel the rhythmic rise and fall of her breath, the tiny grunts of sleep deep in her lungs. It makes him grin like a mad-man.

“Y’know, I’m gonna let you in on a secret.” He readjusts her carefully in his arms, hushing his tone slightly. “I think- I think you and your mom are the best things that have ever happened to me.”

His words hang heavy in the still air, the empty alleyway the only recipient to his confession.

“Can you believe I was scared of you? Of these tiny hands-” He tickles her palm with his pointer finger, the baby clasping around it instinctually with unbridled strength. “- and these little feet. God, I’m pretty stupid, aren’t I? You can tell me, I won’t be offended. But, I’ll tell you something, just between you and me. There are much scarier things out there. And I’m not talking about monsters or alternate dimensions, although I do promise to protect you from that, cross my heart.” He raises his free hand to his heart, as if the sleeping infant would know any different.

“In this big, bad world, I think the scariest thing is to be alone. And I’m gonna make sure you never feel that way, if I can help it.”

Eddie is rambling, word vomit spilling past his lips faster than he can contain it. No scapegoat of weed or alcohol to blame his honesty on. He gently rocks Squid back and forth, the motion soothing both of them. 

“Y’know, I know you’re not mine. But-” Teeth bite down on the inside of his cheek, fingers pulling down her overalls. “- I dunno, it kinda feels like you’re mine in my heart.”

With a deep exhale, Eddie allows his honesty to wash over him in all its brutal glory. Knee-buckingly raw, and he leans into it, for once. Allows the love to pump through his veins with every beat of his cynical heart, waking up parts of him he thought were gone for good. But the moment of solitude doesn’t last long before Robin comes barreling out of the back door, almost crashing into the nearby trash cans.

“Shit, sorry. Did I wake her?” She apologizes, sloshing her half-finished gin and tonic onto the pavement.

“Nah, you’re in luck. Squid’s out like a light.” He pulls out another milk crate, beckoning the tipsy liability over. “Having fun in there?”

“Yeah, yeah- I am.” It’s a half thought, words dancing on the tip of her tongue not ready to be spoken yet. “The kids get home alright?”

“Eventually, had to drag most of them out by the end. Henderson wanted to hide in the bathroom and then ‘blend in with the older crowd’.”

“Wonder where he learnt that one from.” Robin smiles, nudging the metalhead.

“Hey, don’t look at me. Wasn’t my doing, for once…”

“Mmm…” She replies, taking a swig of her mixed spirit. Staring down at the lime slice, she swishes the glass around as if deep in thought. Glazed eyes laced with melancholy, radiating off her being.

“Something on your mind?” Eddie asks, angling his body more in her direction.

Robin’s mouth screws up as if she’s tasted something bitter, unable to bring her gaze to meet the man before her. But he doesn’t need to look her in the eyes to see the tears swelling on her waterline, quivering with her next sentence. 

“We have to tell her…” Her voice is barely louder than a whisper, suppressed anxiety trickling in with every syllable. 

Eddie feels his blood run cold, the familiar pang of dread hanging low in his stomach. He shakes his head defiantly.

“Not tonight, Rob. Please…” The plea is firm, fraying at the edges. Not ready to face the inevitable.

“No, no. Not tonight, but it needs to be soon.”

“Can we please not do this right now?” Eddie doesn’t mean to be so forceful with his words, but fear is a powerful thing. It poisons his blood, pushed further through his system with every erratic beat of his heart.

Robin’s eyes continue to well up with stinging tears, her grip on the glass tightening. “The guilt is eating me alive, Eddie. I just… I don’t know how to do it.”

Eddie sighs, desperate to keep what little control he possesses. 

“We need to do it the right way, got it? You, me, Henderson and her. We can all sit down and…” Robin runs her hand through her hair with exasperation at Eddie’s suggestion. Even the gentlest of options sounds like a monumental task. “Just give it a bit more time…”

“There is no more time!” She retorts, her volume loud enough for her to quickly glance down at the sleeping baby to make sure she didn’t wake her.

Eddie stands up, readjusting Squid in his arms. He’s doing his best to stay calm, and not let the inevitable spiral begin, a fruitless battle. “I’m not doing this right now, okay?”

The liquid courage is working wonders on Robin right now, standing up to face the metalhead eye-to-eye. “Don’t act like you don’t feel the same way, Eddie. You know as well as I do that she has a right to know.”

Eddie’s mouth is open and ready to voice another stern reply, when it’s interrupted by a meek voice behind him. The soft tone does little to soothe the ache growing in his abdomen, not daring to look over his shoulder at the source. 

“I have a right to know what?”

Haze. 

Disorder. 

Stumbling your way through the overbearing smog flooding your consciousness. Gripping to the worn sofa in your living room like it’s a buoy, the only thing grounding you in painful reality.

It’s fragmented, the onslaught of new information cluttering your mind, unable to be sifted through logically.

Owens.

Lowering yourself to the ground, you’ve lost all faith in your legs to keep you upright. Sea legs giving out beneath you, collapsing under the weight of a burdened mind. You quickly put Audrey in her bassinet the second you arrived home, stepping back from her small body like she was made of fire. Delicate, precious, amidst the crumbling ruins of life.

Found.

No. 

No, you need someone to cling onto. Polyester beneath your fingernails can never compare to flesh and blood, pumping with life and hope and comfort. Oh god. Craving arms, muscle and sinew engulfing your body, soothing and shushing like you’ve done with your baby countless times. Desperate for the luxury of kindness.

No one to dote. 

No one to care. 

No one to witness the mortifying pain of existence. 

No one to observe the torment they cursed you with in the first place.

Steve.

Crawling up your throat like bile, burning your esophagus as hot lava. You’d welcome the respite of vomit, the substance of it, the satisfaction of exorcism. But no, the painful tar claws its way through your tract, bringing biting tears to your eyes. Hell manifesting in your being. Truth collapsing with a heavy hearted I’m so sorry, bouncing off the walls of the narrow alleyway while you retreated. Words spilling out helplessly from your loose tongue, rage of betrayal driving every consonant and syllable. To never see you again, let alone speak to you. 

The loss of everyone, everyone. Robin, Dustin, Nancy, fuck- Eddie. They all knew. They coaxed you through the loss, never allowing for hope to breed. Lies built on mountains of lies, a shamble foundation of friendship. Arms that held your daughter with gentleness and altruism, seemingly all fabricated. Tainting her with every touch, every smile, tongues bleeding as they bit back the truth. Too numb to cry, to even indulge in the agony of feeling.

Beginnings are special, because most of them are fake. Artificial and man-made, entirely composed of brain chemistry and justifications. The person you become after your first glass of wine was already there, fretting below the surface of your facade, chipping away at the mask you present to the world. They never left.

You are at the end of beginning.

#dumbslxtclub #eddie x reader #eddie munson x reader #stranger things fic #dad!eddie #eddie x you #eddie munson x you #eddie x fem!reader #dad!eddie munson #eddie munson angst #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson x y/n #singlemom!reader

[seffien]

You have cast the seeds of darkness in my mind, and am now trying to maximize the suffering in your Evil 4 AU. Have some food for thought.

The captain (Jun) is found barely alive by Marie (after nearly freezing to death *wink wink*)

Eight (Miko) and Callie have already left Alterna. Leaving Marie and Craig left to tend to a mute and dying Jun.

Eventually, she falls asleep in Marie's arms.

She'll never wake up.

Craig and Marie bury Jun right next to Four (Masu) and leave Alterna. They both agree to never tell Callie. Marie sees her come and go from their apartment, but they refuse to look at each other. She can sometimes hear her sobbing through the wall.

After packing what she owned from their shared apartment, (the unknowing last tenant) Miko eventually decides to return to Octo Valley. Wanting to return to the domes to help those in need. (to keep herself busy from the pain.) Before leaving she'll visit Masu's grave one last time.

Here, of course, she'll find Jun.

There is no poem, no second headstone. Just a cap and an extra mound.

Miko is overwhelmed with emotions. Particularly, rage. She trembles against the rushing thoughts filling her head, gripping her temples. First Masu, now Jun.

'She's killed someone again' she thinks.

Something inevitably gives.

She reaches out and pulls the charger out from the grave.

She's already made up her mind, all she has to do is find her.

you made me write all this, so don’t blame me if you get sad

---

The captain was strong. That's what she was supposed to be. She got here just by being strong, so she thought she was. Her mind, body, and soul were bound tightly. The world knocked her around since she was young, but she still perservered.

When Naoki died, that all came undone, and so did the team she was tasked to lead. Eight and Callie ended up leaving, Marie's mental health plummeted, and the latest recruit felt as if they were at the center of it all.

From then on, Alterna was a silent place. It wasn't uncommon for her to look around, catch a glimpse of Naoki's grave, and be reminded of everything. The depression she saw from her once-lively platoon, the way their usual behaviors stopped, the quiet atmosphere, and the way the picture-perfect platoon shattered.

And instead of doing anything, she essentially stood by and watched it happen.

Marie and Craig weren't here to convince her otherwise. Her mind was free to conjure up all the horrible words it wanted.

She didn't deserve to be the captain. All she did was sit around and watch the world go by. If she hadn't done that, then she wouldn't have ended up all alone.

Negative thoughts swarmed her mind as cold wind blew through Alterna. She stood and removed her tattered patchwork cloak. For once, she purposefully looked at the grave. Her shoes were left behind as she walked towards it. A grey sweater was tossed on the ground, and the captain finally settled down by Marie's charger.

When the numbness started, she closed her eyes. Happy memories of the NSS, full of smiling and laughter, filled her mind. Naoki was still here, and she'd see her soon.

——

Marie hurried to Captain, hauling the now unconscious squid onto her back. She began climbing the stairs of the large shelter just behind the camp.

"Open the door," she instructed her grandfather with a strained voice. "We have to get her inside, now!"

Though his dehydration took away most of his strength, he still had enough to do as she asked. Marie took her inside and threw her on the bed they had there. She frantically covered her up, then got an extra blanket to put on top. Craig moved by her bedside. Marie moved to the kitchen area.

The fridge’s lights buzzed as she checked to see if any suitable food was in there.

“What do you reckon we do?” asked Craig. “She probably won’t wake up for a while.”

“Oh, don’t say that. Get Callie and Eight over here and we’ll be fine…hopefully.”

Craig was handed her phone, and he used that to call Callie first. He input her phone number and clicked the call button. As the search for food continued, they both waited for her to pick up.

When she finally did, it gave them hope.

“Hey, it’s Callie! Sorry, but I can’t speak to you right now. I’m probably busy or something like that.” She giggled. “Leave a message after the beep. Bye!”

Unfortunately, that hope didn’t last long. Marie hung her head and sighed. Craig tried his best to pat her on the back.

“Let’s not give up so quickly, firefly. We still have Eight, don’t we?”

“I guess, but I don’t think she wants to speak to me. You still have your phone, right?”

He shook his head. “It’s probably somewhere up in the crater.”

“Well—”

“I’m not going to leave you.” He pointed to the Captain. “And I’m not leaving her either. You two seemed to get along before all this, so it wouldn’t hurt to call her.”

Reluctantly, Marie called Eight.

Again, they waited, but they didn’t have to for long.

“Hey, Marie. What is it?”

Though she sounded just as worn out as them, she was on the line, and that was what mattered.

“Eight! I was hoping you’d pick up.” She swallowed, choosing her next words carefully. “Listen, could you come down to Alterna and—”

A dial tone. Marie let go of her phone, letting it fall to the floor.

“Oh, God,” she groaned, shaking her head. She began pacing around the room. “What do we do, what do we do, what do we do…”

In her head, she went through all sorts of plans and scenarios. None of them seemed to work. They could get help if they told…

“Marie,” called Craig.

“Huh?”

“She’s awake.”

——

The captain tried to sit up, but Marie stopped her.

“No-no-no, you’re fine, you’re fine…”

It was clear—at least to Craig—that her lucidity was just about gone. His granddaughter stopped watching the captain’s every move to look at him.

“What should we feed her?”

“She doesn’t want food. She won’t even be awake long enough to eat.”

“…What?”

“She wants to rest, Marie. Let her.”

Her eyes widened. She rapidly shook her head. “You-you can’t mean—”

Captain grabbed her arm, snapping her out of her disbelief.

“M’rie,” she slurred.

“Yes?” She grabbed her face. “Yes, what is it?”

“Thank you,” she murmured, eyes beginning to close. “Thank you so much…”

The Captain fell asleep in Marie’s arms.

“Three?”

She shook her.

Nothing happened.

“Jun?”

Another shake.

“Junko! Junko, wake up, please!” Her breath became uneven as something dawned on her. “Please, please wake up.”

——

The pair stood over another mound right next to Naoki’s. Neither wanted to speak, but Craig still broke the silence.

“What now?”

“We leave. It’s over.”

“Do we tell—”

“No. This cannot get out, ever.”

A pause. Marie dropped the cap on the mound, then got rid of her jacket. She stuck her parasol between the two graves.

“It’s nighttime now,” said Craig. “If we were to leave, nobody would see us.”

“Yes,” agreed Marie. “Nobody would.”

Craig looked at the face of his granddaughter, who kept her eyes on the graves. Eventually, the weight of the situation got to her.

She collapsed to the ground and sobbed.

“I know, kid, I know,” muttered Craig. He watched with tired eyes as she continued to cry for a few minutes. Muffled wails of grief echoed through Alterna. Even when she was done, she didn’t get up.

She wiped at her eyes. “It doesn’t feel real.”

“I know,” he repeated.

“What are we going to do?”

“Just as you said.”

“Can we even move on?”

“Yes, we can. It’ll be hard, but you will get through this.”

“Wh-what about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be just fine.”

She nodded with a smile, a real smile. “You’re right, Gramps. You will.”

——

Marie tried her best to live life like normal, but every time she saw Callie, guilt instantly overtook her. Throughout her entire life, she’d never seen her so sad. Her cousin tended to randomly stop and stand at places, arms at her sides. Other times, she’d come and go with no warning, refusing to ever look at her. As much as she wanted to talk to her, she couldn’t bring herself do. Words wouldn’t fix this. Nothing would.

When she went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, she could hear crying. When she woke up, she could hear crying. When she watched TV, she could hear crying. Turning up the volume did drown it out, but she knew it was there. She knew she was crying.

But what could she do?

Biting her tongue, she tried to keep her own tears at bay.

——

Emiko stretched after packing her bags. Just about everything she owned was split between a large backpack and a suitcase. For a while, she was planning on going to Octo Valley. Those still in the domes needed help she was more than happy to give.

Before she went, though, she decided to visit an old friend. When she walked out the door, she looked back one last time. Her imagination placed Masu and Junko on their only bed, their conversation inaudible. The girls looked up and waved with smiles, and as tears pricked her eyes, Emiko waved back.

Her heels clicked against metal stairs as she made her way down to the plaza. She looked around to make sure nobody was watching, then threw herself down the grate to Alterna.

The camp was eerily silent.

“Hello?” she called with nervous laughter. “Anyone here?”

Letting go of her baggage, she ambled forward. The tip of her heel dug into the ground, and she fell into the snow below. Shivering, she stood, only to see just who she had tripped over.

Another mound was in the ground, next to Naoki’s, The cap on it confirmed her worst fears. Her hands shook with fear as she started to cry from grief. From shock, she nearly fainted, and from all sorts of emotions, she broke. She gripped her temples, thoughts intruding.

“Not you, not you, not you,” she whispered.

She seized the charger, immediately turning it on herself. No matter how much she twitched and jolted and jerked, it wouldn’t fire.

When she lowered the weapon, she felt another emotion take over—rage.

That new recruit, she had done this. She killed Masu and got away with it, then killed the captain of the team. Instead of being punished like she deserved to be, the rest of the crew believed her sob story. This time, the aftermath would be different. This time, the new recruit’s actions would really have consequences.

She had everything she needed. She had a simple plan that would be easy to follow. She had a weapon, so all she needed was to find the new recruit—and she would.

Charger in hand, she set out to make things right.

#this is so dark actually jesus christ #what makes this worse is that these are MY agents. not even the ones i set up in the au. #its these characters i fleshed out and now it is all tumbling down. sad face #splatoon #splatoon 2 #splatoon 3 #splatoon 3 spoilers #asksef #wrote this while sort of tired so if something's off with the writing that's probably why #agent 3 #captain 3 #new agent 3 #agent 4 #squid sisters #agent 8 #tw death #tw sui attempt #sefsagents

[alittlefrazzled1]

here’s a favorite poem of mine

Under One Small Star

By Wislawa Szymborska

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.

My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all.

Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.

May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.

My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.

My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.

Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.

Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.

I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.

I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m.

Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.

Pardon me, deserts, that I don't rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.

And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage,

your gaze always fixed on the same point in space,

forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.

My apologies to the felled tree for the table's four legs.

My apologies to great questions for small answers.

Truth, please don't pay me much attention.

Dignity, please be magnanimous.

Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.

Soul, don't take offense that I've only got you now and then.

My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once.

My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man.

I know I won't be justified as long as I live,

since I myself stand in my own way.

Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,

then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

#under one small star #wislawa szymborska #poetry #classic poem

[arndtezra]

NaNoWriMo Diaries: Day 01

Today has been a slow day for writing fiction for me. For writing in general. I don't think I'm in a slump; my writing's just slow, is all. Sometimes, I get frustrated with myself for not churning out thousands of words like many of my peers. Don't get me wrong, having a sense of community is what keeps me going with writing year-round. There's just this special kind of personal hell I create for myself when National Novel Writing Month hits.

Yes, I could've told myself not to participate this year since it usually leaves me in a slump emotionally and mentally. But... but I really, really want to get this draft of Lost Gods, the first book in my grimdark fantasy series, done by the end of November---end of December at the latest. I've been working on this WIP for over a decade and it finally feels like it's time. Time to bring it closer to publication. (Plus, I've already bought a darkly delicious premade cover for the first book, so there. It's happening.) I want this with everything in my five-foot-four frame, so it's going to happen, dammit.

That is if NaNo doesn't eat me alive this year like it always does.

Anyway, I won't leave you all empty-handed so here. Have a snippet of a poem fresh off my keyboard (that is in no way related to my main project, but I digress).

ALT TEXT: "There's blood on my hands,/dripping down my arms as I hold my palms up to the sky./I beg of thee, O Lord, to spare this mortal creature from the depths of depravity./It is cloying and seductive and I don't know if I can fight its call."

#nano 2022 #nanowrimo #lost gods #writings #my writing #fiction #literature #writers #writers on tumblr #poets on tumblr #writing #writers block #creative writing #writblr #writer things #nanowrimodiaries

[valentin-talbot]

When You Begin to Understand the Poets

Time: Morning, 13th of May Place: The Proms Status: Closed, Self-Para

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,       Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the lake,       And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,      So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel’s granary is full,      And the harvest’s done.

Benny was laughing. Not particularly loud or boisterously, but seemingly with truth in the emotion, about something Samuel by his side seemed to have said. Words like ‘sheer mirth’ or ‘unfettered gaiety’ didn’t find a home in the image quite yet. But Benny was laughing, and that was all that it took to make the world hold its breath.

I see a lily on thy brow,      With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose      Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,     Full beautiful—a faery’s child, Her hair was long, her foot was light,     And her eyes were wild.

Another sunny day had fallen upon London and it was as though the whole of London Society had chosen this Friday morning for a walk in the park. None of them seemed quite free from the heaviness of sleep, not yet, feathers stuck in the corners of their eyes where Hypnos had laid his wings upon. Their dresses were neat but still sat stiff on their limbs, not yet chafed soft from a day of small talk. 

I made a garland for her head,      And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She looked at me as she did love,      And made sweet moan

I set her on my pacing steed,       And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing       A faery’s song.

It was going to be a warm day, heat inching closer over the horizon as the sun tinted the sky a bright Atlantic blue. Fans would soon fan rosy cheeks and children born to one day hold a title would escape from their nanny’s grip to dip their feet in the nearby fountains. Only by nightfall, coats would open like bindweed, the musky scent of a day spent in the sun would mingle into chatter and laughs. 

She found me roots of relish sweet,       And honey wild, and manna-dew, And sure in language strange she said—       ‘I love thee true’. She took me to her Elfin grot,       And there she wept and sighed full sore, And there I shut her wild wild eyes       With kisses four.

And Benny was smiling. Valentin could not remember the last time he had seen his lips turn with such ease and cheerfulness. No. That wasn’t true. He could remember. He remembered it well. This time, he had not made himself forget. He’d held onto the memory, like a precious gift, and returned to it again and again -- first when it had ached from its bitterness, then when it had ached from the sweetness it could’ve once been, both aches joint from sobering regret.

And there she lullèd me asleep,       And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!— The latest dream I ever dreamt       On the cold hill side. I saw pale kings and princes too,       Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci       Thee hath in thrall!’

More than, he remembered that he was the cause for this smile to be a mere memory now. The fact that his presence elicited scowls and stuttering breaths of thoughts being forbidden to sound. The fact that he had planted his own ugly fear into Benny like a foul seed, which had grown into a tremor of frowns well-deserved, rather than a smile blooming in the first rays of a slumberous sun.

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,       With horrid warning gapèd wide, And I awoke and found me here,       On the cold hill’s side. And this is why I sojourn here,       Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is withered from the lake,       And no birds sing.

But Benny was smiling, and another laugh followed soon, and Valentin sat on his bench, a thousand and one feet away, and wished that the poems in the book on his lap to be, one day once again, the very source of such a beautiful sight. Alas, for now, he turned back to Florence and gave her a nudge. “Tomorrow’s the day. Ready to discover the meaning of love?” 

#m: benny #m: florence #m: samuel #valentin's pasternosterlift #if you think its absolutely unlikely that benny would go on a promenade with his family and have a good time #then pls pretend its all a dream

[doomedandstoned]

Chrome Ghost Drop Massive New Single, “Where Black Dogs Dream”

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

Before us lies the House of Falling Ash, the illustrious, sprawling, dynamic new LP from Sacramento's CHROME GHOST. Propelled by the stout-hearted rhythm section of Jacob Hurst (drums) and Joe Cooper (bass), frontman Jake Kilgore (guitar, synth, vox) takes the listener through a veritable four seasons of moods (interrupted briefly by two interludes). Each song (or "episode," as I prefer to think of it) is so full and brilliant in its use of tone, rhythm, and contrasting sound.

Kilgore's vocals tend towards the clean side of the spectrum, though he can roar like a hellbeast when the situation calls for it (as on the album's first single, "The Furnace"). In spirit, they are forever searching for something more, perhaps here or in the great beyond.

Today, Doomed & Stoned is premiering the second single from 'House of Falling Ash' (2022), the band's third full-length record. The 12-minute song rumbles right out of the gate like a hound trained on the scent of something, for this is indeed "Where Black Dogs Dream." The drumming is captured especially well by sound engineer Patrick Hills at Earthtone.

Compositionally, "Where Black Dogs Dream" plays out like an epic poem, and this means any preconceived ideas you may have about it are soon to be tossed out the window. However they put it together with all its twists and turns, Chrome Ghost are masters of balladic songwriting. I especially dig the vocal harmonies and that voracious low-end is simply undeniable. This ambience really brings the words to life, as well.

We asked Jake Kilgore to give us the inside scoop on the band's latest single, which features Susie McMullan from one of our favorite Bay Area doom acts Brume in the song's wistful second section:

This song had a long and complicated journey to completion. The original seed that became Where Black Dogs Dream came from a long improvised jam between Chrome Ghost and our friend Yseulde during the demo recordings for our last album 'The Diving Bell,' which took place in 2018. There was a particular chord progression that stuck with me and I spent a couple years battling with it before unlocking the ideas that became the latter half of the song. Once we had Susie McMullan of Brume add her vocals to the climactic moments of the track, we knew the deal was sealed.

The first half of the song was another battle in itself. Many different ideas and iterations of those ideas came through on a revolving door; Mastodon-style prog fingerpicking, My Bloody Valentine-style heavy shoegaze, Kyuss-style droning, but nothing would stick until we landed on the riff that you hear on the recording now. We wanted the song to start like a bomb going off, then the extended ambient section by Yseulde would be the dust settling until we slowly start crawling out of the heap with that bass line and end in a triumph of perserverance.

Thematically there are multiple references to the imagery of the album cover in the lyrics, and the song itself being split into two major movements happens to take place on track 3 of 6. This song is a musical and emotional turning point on the record. One that ends with peaceful acceptance with the knowledge that what is to come may be more chaotic and violent than ever.

I've been following Chrome Ghost almost since the start, and this represents some of their finest material to date. Look for House of Falling Ash to release on vinyl via Seeing Red Records on October 28th (pre-order here).

Give ear...

House of Falling Ash by Chrome Ghost

Lyrics

Barren black skies glowing Smoke and ember Cloak the waiting Eyes of lovers

Distant shadows calling O, their broken Half-remembered Cries are long gone

Buried and forgotten I ache to bloom Under fallen ashes And rays of gold

Where is my protector From all corrupt? Ever do I wander No home, no hope No home No hope

The blowing wind carries The song of dogs dreaming And leaving the known To let it all go

To let it all go

SOME BUZZ

Chrome Ghost is a Sacramento based Melodic Doom band formed in 2015 by guitarist and vocalist Jake Kilgore and drummer/multi-instrumentalist Jacob Hurst. Following the release of their first full-length, Choir of the Low Spirits, and their two EP's, Reflection Pool and Shallows, bassist Joe Cooper entered the fold and appeared on their second full-length and much heralded release, 2019's The Diving Bell.

In the turbulent years following the winter of 2019's The Diving Bell release, Chrome Ghost have returned with their latest and most sprawling album, House of Falling Ash. This record sees Jake, Jacob, and Joe re-uniting with their long-standing creative partner and engineer Pat Hills at Earthtone to present an expansive album that covers everything from Doom, Shoegaze, Americana, with inspiration ranging from Philip Glass, Ennio Morricone, Fleetwood Mac, and Boris. Building upon the already vast soundscapes they created on their brilliant sophomore LP, The Diving Bell, the band have reached an even new plateau pushing their brand of sonic dynamics to the very limit. Strap in for the best musical journey of 2022.

Over the past couple of years the band have been fortunate to share the stage with bands like YOB, Helms Alee, Big Business, Whores, Kowloon Walled City, CHRCH, Usnea, and many more. Look for more dates to come.

Follow The Band

Get Their Music

#D&S Debuts #Chrome Ghost #Sacramento #California #doom metal #melodic doom #Seeing Red Records #HeavyBest22 #D&S Reviews #Doomed and Stoned

[dailyaudiobiblechronological]

5/12/2023 DAB Chronological Transcription

Psalm 65-67, Psalm 69-70

Welcome to Daily Audio Bible Chronological. I'm Jill. Today's the 12th day of May and we are winding this week. Not quite. We're just we're coming around the bend in this week together. I hope it's been a good week for you, a week of growth and awareness. And I hope you have found pockets of joy if you are in the struggle of life right now, I think we can think of joy as just this exuberant. laughter nonstop I really like Joyce Meyer's explanation of joy, which is a calm delight. I hope you have experienced moments of calm delight in your week this past week. We're going to continue today in the book of Psalm- Psalm 65, 66 and 67. And then we're going to skip 68 and jump over and finish with Psalm 69 and 70. This week we're reading the New English translation for just another day or two. Psalm 65. 

Commentary:

It's hard to read the Psalms sometimes when you know that these are songs, because you're just saying words and there's certain emotions and inflictions that feels like they should go there. But when you think about David actually singing these, they're going to sound much differently. And I don't know what they would sound like, to be honest. But here's what I can tell you, for whatever it's worth. Maybe some of you don't know. Before Brian and I started reading the Bible, before he founded the Daily Audio Bible 18 years ago, I was a touring artist in contemporary Christian music and toured, made records for well over a decade. But I sang most of my life. And on one of my trips home, I went into the basement and found the cassette library. And these are cassettes of my life, of when I sang just about everything that came out of my mouth. I put it to music or I did a commercial or whatever was inside of me for the day. It came out on cassette tape and ended up in my mom's basement. Lots and lots of songs, things that I made up that were just, I don't know, stream of conscience, maybe. But that's sort of the heart of an artist. Whatever we're feeling, whatever is inside, it has to come out through some sort of creativity. And those emotions that run so wild, so strong, we need a place to put them all. This is sort of what I think about when I read the Psalms and when I read these poems and these laments from David. It's almost this inside journal, like a sneak peek at a very private, very vulnerable diary or a journal that is now available to the world. Sometimes artists, musicians, singers, creatives, we're full of emotion, a lot of creative types, and we can be told we're extra, we can be told we're too much and we can be too much for people. I think sometimes David says a lot of things that are relatable to us. If we're just being honest, but maybe you're more subdued and you're like these thoughts stay tucked inside the four corners of my mind, and I'm just not the sort of person that puts it out to the world what I'm feeling or thinking or experiencing. Totally fine, totally good. Our friend David is not that person. And that's totally okay. That's the beauty of it, is no matter who you are, no matter if you experience emotion heavily or if you don't experience it at all, that it has to be okay. I think if this were modern day, present day David sort of exposing his journal of songs from emotions and feelings and thoughts and despair, there could be the potential of a lot of shame written around this. You don't say those things out of your mouth. You don't say those things to God. These are the things that we've spoke about this week, just being able to be safe, coming safely with our thoughts, our feelings, our questions, our anger, our lament in the presence of God and not being shamed, not being shunned away, not being rejected or labeled too much. So as you hear these songs being read today and trying to imagine what in the world the music would have sounded like in a day and age where King David was the latest and greatest in worship, before hosanna and integrity music, there was King David. But as we listen to these songs today, as they're being read, we can even just find comfort and solace in the validation of the human heart. Lamenting to God, crying out to God, and know once again that it's a very human part of who we are to do so. And hopefully when we hear these words again being sung or read, we can find comfort and validation and know that we are not alone in sharing some of these same cries of our heart that David shares in Scripture. I mean, there's a lot of words about his enemies today. And even just knowing one person is against you can feel as if the whole world is against you. And we find comfort that God prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies. And I don't know about you, but man being invited to the table with almighty God, my creator of my existence, that's enough. That's good news today.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your presence. Thank you for this time meeting us, meeting with us here today. I thank you that you never leave us. You never forsake us. And as much as we recognize that we are unable to know everything about you, and we must rest in the mystery of what we cannot know, we still try to know you more. And we have a tendency to not remember that you understand our human emotion and you care about that emotion that we feel. And I thank you that you do not shame us. You do not berate us. You do not reject us. No matter who we are, no matter what our story is, no matter what past we bring into you, there is nothing that you cannot handle. I thank you for who you are and I bless your name. I pray this now in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Announcements:

Daily audio Bible. That's homebase. Check it out. If you have not take a look around. That's also the website. So if you're new here and you've never checked out the website, we invite you to be directed there. Download the app as well if you have not. That's a free app and it's been created and is constantly being maintained and updated for convenience. So we want you to be able to have a very convenient access to the Daily Audio Bible so that it's as easy as anything for everyone to listen to the Bible. If you would like to partner with us here at the Daily Audio Bible, thank you so much for your partnership. Could not do it without you. If you're giving by mail DAB PO Box 1996, Spring Hill, Tennessee 37174 if you're utilizing the app, hit the Give icon up at the top right hand corner. And lastly, look for the Give icon on the website if you need prayer. If you'd like to pray for someone that's previously called in several different ways for you to do so 800-583-2164 or once again utilizing the app, hit the red circle, button it's up at the top right hand corner of your mobile device. You have two minutes on the prayer line. Very important step speak clearly and concisely into your mobile device. Hit Submit at the end and then turn the wheel over to chronological and it will get to the right place. That's going to do it for me today as we wind down this week together tomorrow and I look forward to it every single day. I'm Jill. Until then, love one another.

Community Prayer Line:

Good morning, Dapsie. This is Tonya calling from Suffolk. Today is Friday, May the fifth. Dear Lord, I want to lift up the young ladies called in stating her uncle has cancer and it's met to the brain. And also the three year old that was killed in the explosion at the gas station and the mama's in intensive care. Heavenly Father, I want to thank you right now in the mighty name of Jesus. Dear Lord, I'm asking Lord God, you show yourself mighty for that young lady that's in the intensive care right now. Heavenly Father, I'm asking Lord God, you just touch her right now in the mighty name of Jesus from the top of her head to the sole of her feet. I speak divine heal and I speak life over her right now in the mighty name of Jesus. Dear Lord, ask you to be with their family. Lord God, wrap your loving arms around them. Heavenly Father, give them peace, Heavenly Father, give them comfort, Lord God, as you continue to heal her from this tragic accident. Dear Lord, allow her, Lord God, to be able to come back stronger than ever, Lord God, that she will be able to share the testimony and you will get the glory out of this situation. Heavenly Father, I'm asking Lord God, you to be with the uncle that's in hospital as well in comatoses due to cancer, dear Lord. Dear Lord I'm asking Lord God you just to have your way Dear Lord, you know what he's saying in the need of heavenly Father, I'm asking Lord God, you just have peace, give peace to the family and just wrap your loving arms around them as well, heavenly Father. And I'm just trusting, believing Lord God that the uncle, he has accepted you as his Lord and Savior and if this is his time, Lord God, Lord God, just allow him to be at peace, Lord God. And I continue to speak life, Lord God over each and every situation, Lord God and just have your way in the mighty name of Jesus. As always, DABC. I love you guys and continue to be encouraged.

Good morning. Daily Audio Bible Chronological. This is Jennifer from Tulsa. I am a first time caller, been listening for three years. I'm calling today about a young man named Cade here in our community that is fighting cancer. This is his fourth time around in his young 20 years of life. His mother has also been diagnosed over the years a couple of times, but is in recovery and he's fighting an infection and going back and forth from Tulsa to MD Anderson in Houston. It is heartbreaking to watch them and see all that they continue to endure. And this week his sister is graduating high school with one of my daughters. His sister is the valedictorian of their class and it's supposed to be a great week and she is in Houston because that is where her heart is with her brother. So if you would lift them up in prayer for complete healing. I have another friend, her name is Melissa. She is also battling leukemia here in Tulsa. Yesterday she woke up after six days in a coma. So we praise the Lord for that. If you would keep these families in your prayer, I would appreciate it. I am encouraged daily by the prayers of God's people and appreciate you all so much. Have a great day.

Hey DABC family, today is Saturday, May 6, and the prayer request my name is Samara by the way. The prayer request for Jesus girl for her son Brandon just played and it just shattered me. So I want to go ahead and pray for you and for your son. I know it must be hard, so if you guys are praying, agrees with me. Dear Heavenly Father, right now we lift up Brandon to you Lord and we ask you to have mercy on Him. Soften his heart towards you. Please replace his heart of stone to a heart of bless. Heavenly Father, please do the work that only you can do. Lord, I ask you to reveal to Him how you care for Him throughout his life and reveal yourself to Him so that he may see Your loving kindness and Your mercy, your grace and Your love. Lord, I pray that he would realize, as he's in this low point of his life, that you are the only thing that will be able to truly give him fulfillment and purpose, his God ordained purpose. So, Lord, I just ask that you have mercy on him. And I also want to pray for his mom, who lovingly called in and continues to follow you so faithfully. Lord, I pray that her walk would be an example to him for someone to shine Jesus light on Him in a very physical manner. Lord, I pray that you would give her the strength she needs to endure for her son. And Lord, I ask you to do all these traumas for it to not only draw their own relationship closer, but draw each of them closer to you. Lord Jesus, I just lift up her whole family and I pray that she wouldn't be the only one that came to you, that they would all come to know you. In Jesus mighty name I pray. Amen.

Hey, it's Heather in Nashville. Want to say thank you to China and Jill and Brian. I have not heard Zeke's, but I really just want to say a personal thank you. This has just been I was referred to you guys when I was in California, spending the last of my days well, the last of hers, excuse me, with my best friend, and they took me in and showed me their little morning routine of sitting with you guys and doing that together as a couple. And I just want to honor and thank the people that stay and pray and read the Bible together. It is life giving and to commit to that create safety for your community and your whole family. So you're clearly doing some really good daily habits. I know none of us are perfect, but you are now parling that into the world. I hear people all over the world listening to this. It has really given me something to look forward to every day when I'm having a hard day. And as soon as I get my company up and running, I definitely will be supporting you. Just thank you again for your tireless efforts. Poor China, you can hear in her breathlessness just pouring out from very little lung capacity. And Jill coming from Israel and tired. And Brian, I don't know your story because I listen to the Proverbs, but you're just a great daily family for me and the community of prayer. Love listening to everybody's prayers. And I pray with you guys. So it really keeps me on track. Keeps me accountable. Love you all. Bye.

[natalieironside]

Facebook still lets you send messages to memorialized accounts.

I open Messenger and look at our chat history. The most recent message, sent from me in 2018, remains unread. It just says, "I miss you, brother." Four words loaded with the weight of volumes.

Sometimes I imagine what I would do if I looked at this thread and there was a read receipt, or the "someone is typing" pop-up. Some say that the dead can hear us grieve, but even if that's true, it's still a one-sided conversation.

A ghost lives in my phone. Just like we never got to meet irl, I'll probably never get to walk over the ground that cradles your bones or leave offerings there. So, when I'm thinking about you, I pull the little spirit board out of my pocket and look at a couple of old pictures and an old Facebook profile.

And, I guess, I do leave an offering after all. The latest addition to the Messenger thread, forever unread, says: "I wish you could see me now. I hope you'd be proud of me."

2015 was a bleaked year, and losing you was just one more thing. I have a lot of regrets, but one of the biggest is that I didn't find the courage to follow your example until you were already gone. I wish you could see me now.

Some smartass once said that the person you really are is the way you act when no-one is watching. I don't know if that's true, but one thing sure is: Even if you'll never see the real me, I still want her to be the kind of person you'd be proud of.

I miss you, brother.

--

"The first out trans person I ever knew was an old as fuck man who died of being really old when I was like 23 and I'll never not be kinda fucked up about that," an angsty prose-poem by me, 2021

#death #grief #me #personal

[scapegrace74-blog]

New Ways of Turning into Stone, Chapter 5

A/N  Sorry for the long break between chapters.  As some of you might have seen from my Tumblr blog, I’ve been off on vacation these past two weeks.  Plus, when I felt the urge to write, it was my new Vaquero AU that kept calling to me (21,000 words and counting!), rather than this fic.  Which is probably a good argument for why I don’t like to post WIPs.  In any event, here is the next chapter some of you have been asking for, entitled Third Appointment.  Be careful what you wish for.  Angst ahead, plus a trigger warning for infertility trauma, miscarriage.

The first four chapters are available on my AO3 page.

The Thursday after her impromptu encounter with Jamie and his niece at the Royal Hospital for Children, Claire woke with a strange twisting pain in her gut.  Skipping breakfast, she was halfway to her office before she diagnosed herself with an acute case of nerves, the kind that sprouted between her lungs and ribcage like a vestigial organ whose sole purpose was to unsettle her.

She wasn’t in the habit of meeting patients outside of the clinical confines of her practice, but it was more than that.  Jamie had caught her in a moment of weakness, with both her personal and professional armour missing.  What he might have seen and how he could have interpreted it had occupied her thoughts ever since.

Eating lunch was out of the question.  By the time two o’clock approached, her insides were a buzzing hornets’ nest of anxiety, her palms clammy with sweat.  A half-empty bottle of Xanax called to her from the bottom of her purse.  Before she could weigh the implications of taking one at work on an empty stomach, Jamie’s familiar knock intervened.

She could tell as soon as he entered that Maggie hadn’t needed a transfusion that week.  His russet curls shone like garnets in the midday sun and his uncanny eyes glittered like sapphires.  Still, he avoided looking directly her way as he settled into his usual chair, and she wondered if the overlap of their personal and professional lives had left him feeling unnerved as well.

“No wheat grass smoothie,” he commented, his gaze running over her desk.

“No, I didn’t have time for lunch today.”  It was a blatant falsehood, since she’d spent her lunch hour picking her cuticles until they bled, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Ye should eat more, Sassen..., Doctor Beauchamp.  Ye canna help anyone else if ye’re no’ properly nourished.”  She caught the slip, and for some reason it angered her.

“Is this your attempt to negotiate a reduction in your fees, Jamie?  Dietary advice in return for counselling?  Because if so, I’m afraid I don’t bill on the barter system,” she snapped, despising her churlish tone.

Jamie’s eyes narrowed, then dimmed.  Message received, he sat up straighter in the armchair and crossed a foot over his knee, assuming a position of poised and detached calm that had no doubt served him well during business negotiations.  She regrouped by pretending to glance at her journal for the notes from their previous session, although the space next to his name was accusingly blank.

Boundaries thus defined, the session went surprising well.  Jamie spoke of his relief that Maggie’s latest round of chemotherapy was over, allowing her to return home and to some semblance of a regular life for a child of six.  Claire coaxed him gently towards the topic of his overwhelming guilt for abandoning his family when he was most needed.  Jamie processed pain through the recounting of stories, coming to terms with his self-decreed transgression by weaving together the tale of those he loved and pointing to the holes his absence had caused.

As his resonant voice spun its web of words, Claire became aware of an underlying hum.  At first it was subtle, like the mumble of traffic from a far-off motorway.  But as their hour together ticked by, it grew in strength until she could no longer ignore the buzz that pressed against her from all directions.

“... saw that it was really Jenny and Ian who I was... Claire?  Doctor Beauchamp, are ye well?”  Jamie was watching her with concern, and she realized she’d been shaking her head, trying to dislodge the omnipresent hum.

“Yes, I’m... yes.  Sorry.  Just a funny noise that’s...  Please, continue.”  When Jamie didn’t immediately pick up the thread of his narrative, she tried again.  “You were saying something about Jenny and Ian?”

Instead of continuing his previous thought, Jamie picked that moment to broach the topic she’d desperately hoped he would avoid.

“I hope ye’re no’ upset about the other day, at the hospital.  I didna mean tae impose or tae... o’erstep the bounds of our relationship.  No’ that we have a relationship, mind,” he hastened to add.  “Only a professional one.  But when I saw ye, I couldna resist introducing ye tae wee Maggie.  I hadna told ye about her yet, and I thought...”

“Jamie, it’s fine,” she cut in, halting his rambling explanation.  “She’s a lovely girl.  They all are.  It’s only that, I’m sort of...”

“Ye’re verra good with them.  Children, that is.  Ye’ll make a fine mother one day.”

All the oxygen left the room at once.  Her heart beat so hard there was a bruised feeling behind her sternum.   Launching to her feet, Claire stumbled blindly away from her desk.  She wanted to run, to scream, but her vision was a narrow chasm and a now-deafening throb filled her ears.  She only made it a few steps before her knees buckled and the carpet floated upwards to meet her.

“Ifrinn!”  Jamie leapt to her side, catching her by the shoulders before her head could hit the floor.  He lowered them both carefully to the ground, resting her body against his lap.  “Sassenach?  Claire?  Can ye hear me?  Do I need tae call an ambulance?”  The words reached her from very far away, but the threat of medical intervention acted like a dose of smelling salts.

“No,” she groaned, the room spinning around her like a kaleidoscope.  “No hospital.  I just... need to eat,” she grasped at the most innocuous explanation for her current state.

Without dislodging her, Jamie stretched his long arm and brought back the small basket of miniature muffins that were the day’s offering from Geillis.  With surprising dexterity, he peeled away the paper one-handed and broke apart a bite-sized morsel, holding it gently against her lips.  Realizing that her dignity couldn’t get any more battered, Claire opened her mouth and allowed Jamie to feed her.  After only a few bites, the buzzing disappeared and she was able to sit up on her own.

“Thank you,” she murmured, afraid to look into his eyes for fear of the pity she knew she’d see there.  “You were right. I  should have eaten lunch, I guess.”

“Claire.”  Jamie made a prose poem of the single syllable of her name.  She looked up at him through her lashes, stunned to find him looking back, not with pity, but with something akin to adoration.  “Mo nighean donn,” he ran a tender hand through her loosened curls.  “Ye need tae care more for yerself.”

“I will.  I’ll try.”  And when she said it to him, she really meant it.  Jamie made the impossible seem probable.

They stared at one another, shoulder to shoulder on the floor of her office.  She couldn’t think of anything else to say, but nor did she move.  Her gaze flitted over his face, noticing a vestige of boyish freckles across the bridge of his nose, a mole hidden in the harvest stubble on his cheek.  Jamie was performing a parallel inventory, eyes finally coming to rest at the level of her mouth.

“Ye’ve got a wee crumb, jus’ there.”  Unconscious, her tongue swept out, triggering a predatory response, twin blue laser beams narrowing on the target she had just painted on her lower lip.

“I... I’d verra much like tae kiss ye, Claire.  May I?”

An amputated moan was all she could manage in response, but Jamie must have understood its meaning.  He bent his head until only a whisper separated them.  The air crackled, sending that extra organ plummeting towards her hollow womb.  Clenching her eyes shut in defeat, she closed the infinitesimal gap until they met in an effervescent caress of lip and tongue.

Cold washed over her skin, bathing her in gooseflesh.  Jamie tasted like he looked; a banquet of fresh, volatile flavours that called to mind a picnic in a meadow, a spray of sea foam, the warmth of hearth and home.  She could feel him trembling against her, his moist breath rushing against her cheek in shallow pants.  For a score of heartbeats, Claire was the happiest she had ever been.  Then, reality crashed down around her.

“I’m sorry,” she stammered, pulling away.  “I... this can’t... I’m sorry.”

Jamie leaned back with a mixture of longing and resignation.  She hated adding herself to his list of regrets, but it was for the best.

“I’m your doctor, Jamie.  This isn’t right.”

“Aye, I ken.  I should apologize, but I canna seem tae find it in me tae repent.”

Jamie stood, reaching down to help Claire up as well.  As soon as it was apparent she was able to stand on her own, he dropped her hand as though it burned.  The line between his brows deepened, and she could see the question forming before he gave it voice.

“What if ye werena my doctor?  Would it be right then?”

“That’s neither here nor there, because I am, Jamie.  A relationship between patient and doctor of a romantic nature is ethically off-limits.”

Jamie nodded, apparently accepting her explanation at face value. Her heartbeat calmed.  He moved slowly, gathering his coat and starting to leave.  

“But what if ye weren’t?” he said, facing the door.  “If we’d met at the hospital, or out on the town?”

“I...” she stammered, searching desperately for any answer except for the truth.  “No, Jamie,” she said at last, watching as she destroyed his last bastion of hope.  “I’m sorry.  I just don’t feel that way about you.”

Nodding abruptly, Jamie let himself out of the office.  She listened to his low murmuring voice through the door as he spoke to Geillis, heard him make an appointment for the following week, then the loud snap of the main door closing.  Only then did she allow herself to collapse once more to the floor, angry sobs overtaking her.

***

“Are ye out of yer fuckin’ mind?” Geillis inquired with her usual brutal eloquence.

With the help of a Xanax, Claire had managed to see her last two patients of the day, and only needed to navigate the shoals of her office manager’s ire before she could go home and fully medicate herself into a dreamless sleep.

“Jes so we’re clear, ye want me tae write a letter terminating your services as a doctor an’ suggesting suitable alternative providers?  An’ ye want me tae send this letter, over email, tae Jamie Fraser?”

“That’s right.”  She had determined that icy calm was the best antidote to this conversation, which was fortuitous, since she felt numb all over.

“An’ what reason am I tae give fer this abrupt conclusion tae yer association wi’ Mr. Fraser?”

“I don’t owe him an explanation.  Only sufficient notice and an opportunity to seek counselling elsewhere,” she said, feigning reasonableness.

Pushed past her limits, Geillis rose from behind her desk, a tiny tempest of moral indignation.

“Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp, ye are a good friend, a fine doctor an’ a fair employer.  But I swear by the Almighty that if ye dinna drop the façade and tell me wha’ is going on I am going tae smack ye until yer ears ring!”

There was a certain relief in knowing that Geillis wouldn’t take no for an answer.  And unlike Jamie, she knew where Claire lived and would not let her rest until the truth came out.

“He kissed me.  Or rather, I kissed him.  And I liked it!  That’s why, Geillis.”

Her friend’s shoulders sagged, all righteousness gone in an instant.  She reached around Claire’s frame and held her in a bone-crushing one-sided hug.

“Och, hen.  An’ ye figured ye could deal wi’ those pesky feelings by jes, what? firing him as yer patient?”  

“I can’t deal with this right now, Geillis.  I can’t feel the way he makes me feel.  And this practice is all that I have left.  There’s no way I can risk losing it just for an affair that won’t even last the summer.”

She didn’t need to elaborate on her reasons for that dire prediction.  Geillis knew them as well as anyone.

“He’s an intelligent man, Claire. He’s gonna ken something is up.  Moreover, he’s a good man.  He deserves tae hear the truth.”

Shaking her head sadly, Claire walked towards the door.  Just before exiting, she called back softly to her friend.

“Geillis?  Make sure to include Dr. Rafferty’s name on the list of referrals.  I think they’d be a good match.

***

Monday morning dawned with little promise for the fledgling week.  Moving robotically through her weekend routine, Claire thought frequently of chickens.  How their bodies kept moving once their heads were lopped off, nerves and muscle and bone continuing to function for a time despite the fatal blow.

The elevator chimed its arrival on her floor.  As the doors slide open, Jamie was the first thing she saw.  He loomed by her still-locked office, a sun-topped thundercloud gripping a sheet of printer paper.

She’d worn her best black suit and a pair of chunky heels that brought her closer to his height.  Perhaps, on some subconscious level, she’d anticipated this confrontation.  Perversely, she relished it.  Vitriol and deceit didn’t suit her, but it was preferable to feeling absolutely nothing.

“Do ye mind tellin’ me,” Jamie began before she’d even set foot in the hallway, “jus’ what this is about, Claire?” He brandished the paper like a wanted poster.

“I would think it was self-explanatory, actually.  I’m terminating our professional relationship,” she huffed, golden eyes coming to life for the first time since Thursday.

“Via email.  Sent tae me by Miss Duncan, because ye dinna have the guts tae do it yerself.  Christ, Sassenach, even my ninth grade sweetheart didna dump me so cruelly!”

“I’m not your sweetheart!” she burst out, a flood of emotion cresting with her rising anger.  “Don’t call me that!  I was your doctor, Jamie, and now I’m nothing to you.  Nothing.  Just go.  Please.  Just go,” she finished weakly and without any hope that he’d listen.

“All this jus’ because I kissed you?” Jamie persevered.  At her stubborn silence, he continued, “Nah, I dinna think so.  Ye’re many things, Claire, but a coward isna one of them.”

She found this hysterically funny, since a coward was the only role she played to perfection.  She didn’t have time to laugh, however, because Jamie was suddenly standing much closer, forcing her to lift her chin to meet his stormy eyes.

“Nah,” he continued smoothly, a big cat alerted to the smell of its prey.  “If ye’d objected tae the kiss, ye would have told me so.  Read me the riot act or kneed me in the bawls.  I think ye’re scared, Doctor Beauchamp.  I think that kiss terrified ye, because ye realized ye liked it.  Somethin’ ye couldna  plan for in yer wee journal, right there under yer nose.  Bet it made yer heart beat so fast. So fast, jus’ like it is now.”

Jamie’s hand rested gently over the placket of her suit jacket, where he could surely feel the trip hammering of her pulse.

“Please,” she begged.  “Don’t.  I can’t...”

“Can’t what, Sassenach?” he whispered back, goading her.

The truth hung on her lips, and the toll of the past few days meant that she no longer had the strength to stop it from spilling forth.

“Can’t have children.  Ever.  I tried, for years.  Fourteen miscarriages, fourteen lost chances.  And seeing you with those children last week.  I know it’s presumptive, but I could never deny you that chance, Jamie.  That’s why I can’t see you anymore.”

She was looking down, watching the buttons of his shirt rise and fall with his agitated breath, but as she finished speaking, their movement ceased.  Chancing a glance upward, she was stunned by the fury that had overtaken his expression. 

Jamie opened and closed his mouth several times before he managed to speak in a gritty growl.

“Mutation of the RUNX1 gene tha’ causes leukemia.  I was tested, along wi’ Jenny an’ Ian, after Maggie was diagnosed.  I have a fifty percent chance of passing it along tae my children.  An’ since I canna stand the thought of ano’er bairn havin’ tae suffer as Maggie has, as soon as I got the test results, I went out an’ had a vasectomy.”

Claire recoiled as though she’d been slapped, a high pitched whine in her ears.

“Ye’re no’ the only one who’s hurting, Claire!” Jamie continued, voice dashing against the rocks of her name.  “We’re no’ meant tae suffer alone.  Ye, of all people, should ken that.”

Stunned in the silence following the thunderclap of his revelation, she couldn’t find the words to express her sorrow, her outrage, and her crippling shame.  By the time the power of speech returned, Jamie was gone. 

#my writing #outlander

[anais-mitchell]

a comprehensive list of every never before seen hadestown lyric revealed in “working on a song”

Note: This list will not include any lyrics from the OBCR, Broadway previews documented in audios, the London run, the Edmonton run, or the NYTW run. Only lyrics that Anaïs has never revealed before. Also, I strongly recommend everyone actually read the book and support Anaïs! It has amazing insights into the show we love. 

(Also, any ellipses mean the song just goes into the lyrics we already know)

Wedding Song

In early Vermont productions, Wedding Song did not exist; there was another duet called Everything Written.

Fates: Seven Sisters / Little Dipper / Great Bear, Hunter / Drinking Gourd / Libra, Leo / Pisces, Pluto / Venus, Virgo / Capricorn

Eurydice: Don’t it make, don’t it make you feel so small? / Orpheus, when you look up at it all? / When I look into the skies / I lose my head for scale and size / And still you’re larger in my eyes / Than any star / You pull on me like gravity / I want to be where you are

They say that everything is written / Everything written in those stars / The very lives we’re living / The very love in our hearts

Orpheus: Who could write, who could write this kind if love? / From such a height, all these light-years up above? / And all these light-years down below / I don’t need any star to show me / What my heart already knows / Eurydice / You pull on me like gravity / I want to be where you are

Eurydice: Come here

Orpheus: I’m here

Eurydice: It’s so cold

Orpheus: So clear

Eurydice: It’s so dark

Orpheus: So fair

Eurydice: Come near

Orpheus: I’m here

Eurydice: You’re there

A workshop version of Wedding Song included this exchange:

Eurydice: You have a way with words don’t you? It’s too bad none of them are true

Orpheus: It’s not a lie- It’s poetry

Eurydice: How many mouths does a poem feed?

Epic I

From 2007 Vermont:

Orpheus: King of diamonds, king of spades! / First there was Hades, king of the dirt / Miners of mines, diggers of graves / They bowed down to Hades who gave them work /  And they bowed down to Hades who made them sweat / Who paid them their wages and set them about / Digging and dredging and dragging the depths / Of the Earth to turn its insides out / Singing la la la la la la la...

Then came Persephone, Hades’s wife / Our Lady of Shadows and Meadows entwined / Made to spend half of the days of her life / Right alongside of him down in the mine / But the other half she could walk in the sun / And the sun in turn burned half as bright / Which is where the seasons come from / And with them the cycle / Of the seed and the sickle / And the lives of the people / And the birds in their flight / Singing la la la la la la la...

So it was and it might have stayed / And the sun came up and the sun went down / A circle of fourths, a perfect cadence / The serpent’s tail in the serpent’s mouth / But the strong will take what they want to take / And the weak can only tell the tale / And the king began to lay his heavy hand upon the scale / What did he want? He wanted Our Lady / To have and to hold, not half, but wholly / To love him and never to leave him again / And as for the seasons, to hell with them! / And the earth warmed over in the dead of winter / The stillborn spring lay cold beneath /  Summer gave a stormy sermon / Autumn walked in the wake with a wreath / And the people moved like weather patterns / Looking for shelter, looking for warmth / Helter-skelter the four winds scattered / The scavengers over the ravaged earth / Singing la la la la la la la...

From a workshop, presumably pre-London:

Hermes: Orpheus was a poor boy / But he had a gift to give / There was one song he’d been working on / He could never seem to finish / A song about this broken world / That he rewrote again and again / As though if he could find the words / He could fix the world with them

Livin’ It Up On Top

From pre-NYTW workshops:

Persephone: A hundred sunny summer days / Till my lover comes to find me / A hundred blooming olive trees / And a hundred grapevines climbing / Singing songs when the sun goes down / Light the fire in the darkness / Brother, pass that bottle around / And we’ll raise a glass to the harvest, it’s / Just enough fruit for the pressing / Just enough wine to fill our cups / But what we have is a blessing / It isn’t much but it’s enough

Eurydice: A hundred starry summer nights / Since my lover came and found me / Picking fruit and hopping freights / With his music all around me / Stay up late making love / All the stars are naked / Talking sweet and sleeping rough / Our bed is where we make it, there’s / Just enough fruit for the pressing...

Way Down Hadestown

From when Anaïs was 21, long before the show was even a concept:

Follow that dollar for a long way down / Far away from the poorhouse door / You either get to hell or a border town / Ain’t no difference anymore...

Suckin’ on the gristle and chewin’ on the bone / Thinkin’ ‘bout missiles and the old Dow Jones / All alone on your chromium throne /And lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely...

From 2006:

Persephone: Though I’m happy at his side / He’s not an easy man to love / I used to keep him satisfied / But lately he can’t get enough / Never enough of the mine and the mill / Never enough of his working girls / Never enough of the wall he’s building / All around the underworld / Way down Hadestown...

Orpheus: Mr. Hades is slick as an eel / Fountain pen, crocodile shoes / Quick as a snake, and he’s hot on your heels / He’ll make you an offer that you can’t refuse! / Way down Hadestown...

Hermes: Speak of the devil and the devil comes / Here comes Mister Hades now / To gather up his chosen ones / And bring ‘em down to Hadestown / Way down Hadestown...

From 2007:

Hermes: Make room, make room for Hermes, sir! / Make a little room for Hermes, ma’am / They call me a messenger / But that ain’t half of who I am 

I’m a man of influence / I’m connected up and down / And  I got all the documents / You need to get to Hadestown / Way down Hadestown...

Tired of walking in your worn-out shoes? / Tired of running on nothing at all? / Tired of standing your bets to lose? / Tired of losing? Give me a call, we’ll go... / Way down Hadestown...

Orpheus: Mister Hades got an iron fist / Step outta line and he’ll have your head / In the blink of an eye, with a flick of the wrist

Hermes: Hang around here and starve instead!

Orpheus: It’s a cattle pen!

Hermes: It’s a feeding trough!

Orpheus: He’ll fatten you up just to cut you down! / I’d rather starve

Hermes: I’d rather stuff my pockets down in Hadestown! / Way down Hadestown...

Hey, Little Songbird

Anaïs says she tried out this line in 2017 to include a more explicit “job offer” in the wake of the MeToo movement:

Hades: Hey, little songbird, gimme a song / I’m a busy man, and I can’t stay long / I’ve got clients to call, I’ve got orders to fill / I’ve got millions of souls on my payroll, but hell / I could fit you as well if you wanted

When the Chips are Down

From Vermont, 2006:

Fates: Cross my palm! Grease my chin / Can’t you see the kind of shape you’re in? / What you gonna do... ?

Wait For Me

From Vermont, 2007:

(These exchanges intercut the chorus)

Hades: Hermes! / Hermes: Hades! / Hades: Back in town! / Please, sit down / Please, relax / You’ve been around the world and back / Haven’t you, Hermes? / Hermes: I have / Hades: How’s the weather? / Hermes: Worse than ever / How’s your wife? / Hades: My wife is fine / Hermes: You’ve been spending a lot of time together / Haven’t you, Hades?

Hades: What have you brought? / Hermes: The latest crop / Hades: The freshest cut? / Hermes: A cut above / Hades: How many of them, a lot? / Hermes: A lot / Hades: A few too many perhaps / What’s this? / Why have you brought me Orpheus? / I know I never ordered that / It seems you’ve gone behind my back / Haven’t you, Hermes?

Hades: What was that? / Hermes: What was what? / Hades: I heard a voice / Hermes: I heard it not / Hades: Someone singing / Hermes: I heard nothing / Hades: Some kind of song / Hermes: You could be wrong / It could have been the wind / Hades: The wind? / Hermes: It could have been the rain / Hades: The rain? / Hermes: It could have been the train... (the train / the train / the train / the train...)

From “an early cutting room floor version”:

Fates: One (one, one) / You forget the sun

Eurydice: I forget the sun

Fates: You forget where you come from / You forget the sun

Eurydice: I forget the sun

Fates: Two (two, two)

Why We Build the Wall

Pre-NYTW:

Hermes: A lot can happen behind closed doors / With the big boss and his fountain pen / A lot of dirty deals go down / When there ain’t nobody watching...

Our Lady of the Underground

The 2006 version of the song was called “A Crack in the Wall” and these were the lyrics:

Persephone: Come and see the stars! / They’re fixin to fall / Slidin’ and a-slipping’ / In their gravity shoes / Old Man Mars / Taking Venus to the ball / Big dipper dippin’ / To the blue-sky blues

Have you forgot? / Which was is up? / I think you’ll find / I have just the thing for you / Put a quarter in the slot / You can fill your loving cup / With a little bit of moonshine / From the pay-per-view

How selfless! / The silent moon / Holding a mirror / For an ungrateful sun / Hey, Orpheus! / Are you leaving so soon? / Every night around here / Is a fateful one 

Maybe you got blindsided / Lost your papers! / Lost your mind! / Maybe you once lost an angel / Just to watch her fall / Look a little closer and / The water turns to wine / Look a little closer: there’s a crack in the wall!

So I raise my cup / To the stars in the sky / If you want a show / Go on, get in line / Step right up brothers / Don’t be shy / What the boss don’t know / The boss won’t mind

Way Down Hadestown (Reprise)

A 2013 version of this song was called “No One Now,” delivered to Orpheus, and these are the lyrics:

Fates: Used to be a blushing bride / That was on the other side / Better to forget her face / Now she’s like the rest of us / One more number in a crowd / Maybe she was someone once / She ain’t no one now

Used to be a loving wife / That was in another life / Carve it on a marble stone / Now she’s like the rest of us / One more body in the ground / Maybe she was someone once / She ain’t no one now

Brother don’t you think we all / Used to have a name to call? / A tale to tell as well as her? / Now she’s like the rest of us...

Maybe when she first arrived / So alive, so naive / All the bright lights in her eyes / All her insides fluttering (alt. Heart aflutter on her sleeve) / Maybe she was someone then / Back when Hades drew her in / Like a moth into his flame / Borne aloft on burning wings / Well she ain’t the first and she ain’t the last / Hades’ fire is hot and fast / Just ask all the other girls / Sweeping up the ashes in the underworld / See even when the flame is new / She doesn’t hold a candle to / The woman Hades truly loves / So maybe she was someone once / But now she’s like the rest of us / All used up, all burned out / Maybe she was someone once / She ain’t no one now

From the Dartmouth workshop:

Hermes (to Orpheus): If you wanna get around down here in the tank / Down here in the clink / Down here in the hole / You got to think the way they think / Which is to say, your mind is blank / Which is to say, don’t think at all / Come / I’ll show you how it’s done 

Welcome to the skeleton crew! / Welcome to the chain gang, kid / Lemme introduce you to / The members of the working dead / Old Jack Hammer! / Mister Miner / Wandering forever in the catacombs / Working on a hole to China / Diggin’ up them dino bones / Way down...

Sweatshop Sally! Missus Miller! / Workin’ in the cellar where the sun don’t shine / Sad eyed little Cinderella / Sweeping up the ashes of the summertime / Used to be one a the boss’s pets / Now she’s just another stiff / One night in the boss’s bed / And a lifetime on the graveyard shift / Way down...

Flowers

Did not exist in Vermont, but there was a brief reprise of “Everything Written”: 

Eurydice: If it’s me- if it’s me you’re looking for / Orpheus, I can’t be with you anymore

Fates: She signed in blood / She signed for good

Eurydice: I signed before I understood / And I’d unsign it if I could / But it’s too late / They say that everything is written / Everything is written in those stars / Even these lives we’re living / Even this love

Fates: Seven sisters...

Papers

Pre-NYTW:

Hades: Let me see your papers, son / Let me see your documents / Or could it be that you have none? / You’re on the wrong side of the fence...

If It’s True

Pre-concept album:

Orpheus: If it’s true what they say / If there’s nothing to be done / If there’s no part left to play / If there’s no song to be sung / If it’s true what they say / If there’s no stone left to turn / If there’s no prayer left to pray / If there’s no bridge left to burn / If it’s true what they say / I’ll be on my way / If it’s true what they say / Then I have lived a lie / They can take the sky away / Take the stars out of my eyes / And my face will be a mask / And my heart will be a stone / And I’ll throw away the past / And I’ll go away alone...

How Long?

Pre-concept album:

Persephone (to Hermes): Brother Hermes, god of speed / Put your feathers on his feet / Hasten his delivery / Keep him hale and whole / Brother, I’m a jaded woman / But there’s something in his singing / And it feels like spring a-comin’ / To the winter of my soul 

Brother Hermes, god of speed / Put your feathers on his feet / Hasten his delivery / Keep him safe and sound / He reminds me of the lover / That I was when I was younger / Back before my heart went under / Undercover / Underground

Chant (Reprise)

Dartmouth Workshop, 2014:

Hades: And in this symphony of mine / Are power chords and power lines / Which I arrange and orchestrate / And every day I dedicate / The magnum opus of my life / To my unkind, ungrateful wife / Persephone, and she shall see / Her name in lights on my marquee / And every night, another show / My symphony will never close! / And she shall have a front row seat / Which she shall never, ever leave! / Young man, you can strum your lyre...

Epic III

Vermont:

Orpheus: The strong will take what they want to take / And the weak can only tell the tale / And the heart of the king loves everything / Like the hammer loves the nail

The heart of the king is iron and steel / The heart of the king is the color of rust / The heart of the king is soldered and sealed / The heart of the king is a tinderbox / That he has to keep under lock and key / That it not catch fire inside his chest / Cos a lover’s desire is a mutiny / A lover’s desire is a wilderness 

But even that hardest of hearts unhardened...

(I just have to say I fucking love this imagery of a fire oh my god)

Lover’s Desire

Anaïs once set the original Lover’s Desire melody to lyrics around the area of Wedding Song:

Orpheus: Lover, can you hear me? / I’m asking for your hand / Your hand for better or for worse / Forever / Whether you’re sick or well / For rich or poorer, to have and to hold for as / Long as we both shall live

Eurydice: Lover, can you hear me? / I’m asking for a hand / A hand that’s steady and strong / To lean on / To catch me if I fall / That’s the hand that I’ll have and I’ll hold for as / Long as we both shall live

Word to the Wise

Early workshops:

Fates: Hey / Hey / Hey / It’s judgement day! / Are you gonna let ‘em just walk away? / What you gonna do... ?

Wait For Me (Reprise)

Vermont:

Hades: Hermes!

Hermes: Hades!

Hades: Time to go / Time to bring this to a close / Time to lay this thing to rest 

Hermes: Orpheus?

Hades: Orpheus / It’s all agreed / We’ve struck a deal / He’s free

Hermes: He’s free?

Hades: He’s free to walk

Hermes: And she?

Hades: To follow at his heel / And she, to follow at his back

Eurydice: Wait for me, I’m coming...

Hades: And she shall follow at his back / And she shall follow in his wake

Hermes: And what’s the catch?

Hades: The catch is this: / He shall not turn to see her face / And if he turns, the game is up / The deal is off, his race is run / And that’s the end of Orpheus / You’ll see it done?

Eurydice: Wait for me, I’m coming...

Written at an unspecified time but never used:

Hermes: A poor boy and a hungry young girl / Walking single file / While the music played / Brother, they looked for all the world / Like they was walking down the aisle / On their wedding day

We Raise Our Cups

The show once ended with an alternate song called “Cloud Machine” in Vermont, the lyrics of which Anaïs says she is embarrassed by:

Orpheus: What have I done? Mother, what have I done? / Squandered the gift that you gave me / Gambled with Hades and Hades won / And there’s no song now that can save me 

Mother, I failed! Oh Mother, I tried / And I fell like a fool would fall / And I left my love / On the other side / On the other side of the wall

(Alt. There’s a crack in the wall / It’s a little bit wider / It’s a little bit wider, that’s all)

Persephone: Come, my son, don’t take it so hard / Everything is forgiven / You have done naught / But to play out the part / That the Fates in their wisdom have written

Orpheus: Raise up the curtain! The crowd goes wild! / The Fates are drunken clowns / All of us dreamers are walking the wire / While they juggle our dream around 

Apollo, come down in your cloud machine / Apollo, come swallowing fire / With your thunder and lightning and kerosene / For the Fates and their funeral pyre

Persephone: Come, my son, we try and we fail / Every tail has an end

But the pale dawn breaks / And the snake eats it’s tail / And the tale begins again...

#hadestown #working on a song #anais mitchell #orpheus #eurydice #hades #persephone #hermes #eva noblezada #amber gray #reeve carney #patrick page #andre de shields #my posts #this took so long omg pls don’t sleep on it #so many of these lyrics are so beautiful #if anyone wants to discuss them PLS hop in the inbox or dms

[ngkiscool]

Master post for my contributions to my Good Omens Bingo card:

All rated G, SFW, no cw, unless specifically mentioned otherwise.

* Demontoring -   bathing, dinner with Shakespeare, 1074words

Summary: In order to learn more about humans, Eric turns to the only demon who can provide him with information.

Read it here

* Poetry Mystery Unsolved - vampire, birthday party, 1890 words.

Summary: In the latest episode of the podcast Poetry Mystery Unsolved, Adam and Jonathan talk about the mysterious poet Antonio Penn, trying to figure out who (or what) wrote the poems.

Read it here.

* The First Day Of The Rest Of Her Life - sick, 500 words.

Summary: After the apocalypse that wasn't, Lisa gets a second chance.

Read it here.

* Dirty Dancing- flicker, 500 words.

Summary: During a dance party Newt is making a surprise, and Crowley discovers he can’t run from his past.

Read it here.

* Sea You Later - lake, speeding, 6000 words.

Summary: In order to end the Pirate Republic of Nassau, Crowley and Aziraphale join forces and face a great chase, a bit of jealousy, and a threat against a plant.

Read it here.

* A Disturbance of Mammals -  unicorn , 736 words.

Summary: Warlock looked at his companion apologetically. “I swear, it’s not always like this. It's just that animals love me for some reason.” Or: Warlock is on a date, but his past sneaks up on him.

Read it here.

* Good Day for Ducks - Beelzebub, animal, 1029 words.

Summary: The real reason the Platypus is in Australia.

Read it here

* Trick Or Treat - bookshop, 554 words

Summary: The Them are going for a trick or treat, and arriving a certain bookshop..

Read it here

* While You Slept -  Cold, 740 words

Summary: Aziraphale have an important mission. Sadly, he is distracted.

Read it here

* Hell is other people - Hell, 529 words.

CW:  war, minor character implied death, no happy ending.

Summary: Aziraphale is at the battle fields of WW1.

Read it here

* Old Habits - Silver, 500 words

Summary: Warlock goes to university, and learns that not everyone grew up the same way he did.

Read it here

* The Nice and Accurate Life of Agnes Nutter - Magic Tricks, 544 words

CW - Referenced Character Death

Summary: Agnes Nutter discovers her abilities as a young girl, and they determine her life..

Read it here

* The Restaurant at the End of the Street - hero, sunglasses, 1K words

CW - Implied fatphobic comment

Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley are trying a new restaurant, and discover that the staff have opinions about their customers' eating habits. Crowley will not tolerate any disrespect towards his angel (no harm was done to either rat or waiter).

Read it here

* The Work of Rightness is Done by Others - horror, 524 words

CW - Referenced Plague, indirect reference of Covid-19

Summary: After the apocalypse that wasn't the four horsepersons are regrouping, and realize they have company.

Read it here

* Oh Lord, Heal This Scooter -  Oh Lord, heal this bike, 631 words.

Summary: As Madame Tracy, Shadwell and Aziraphale attempt to reach Tadfield on time, the scooter needs all the help it can get.

Read it here.

* The Ark - biblical stories, 500 words

CW - Mortality ; Implied/Referenced Character Death)

Summary: Crawley is not attending the survivors' party. Aziraphale wonders why.

Read it here

* The Crêpes of Wrath - scream, ice cream, 1k

Summary: Newt and Anathema are having a fight. Apparently, making crepes is not a piece of cake.

Read it here

* The Professional Descendant -  Fireplace, 500 words 

Summary: Anathema must make a choice - does she want to be a Professional Descendant for the rest of her lives?

Read it here

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #my fanfiction #meta post #good omens bingo #crowley #aziraphale #anathema #newt #madam tracy #shadwell #the four hoespersons #pestilence #agnes nutter #warlock dowling #nanny ashteroth #the them #the bookshop #halloween #warlcok #brother francis #newt pulsifer #lisa morrow #eric the disposable demon

[foreverlogical]

Donald Trump’s descent into madness continues.

The latest manifestation of this is a report in The New York Times that the president is weighing appointing the conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell, who for a time worked on his legal team, to be special counsel to investigate imaginary claims of voter fraud.

As if that were not enough, we also learned that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who was pardoned by the president after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, attended the Friday meeting. Earlier in the week, Flynn, a retired lieutenant general, floated the idea (which he had promoted before) that the president impose martial law and deploy the military to “rerun” the election in several closely contested states that voted against Trump. It appears that Flynn wants to turn them into literal battleground states.\

None of this should come as a surprise. Some of us said, even before he became president, that Donald Trump’s Rosetta Stone, the key to deciphering him, was his psychology—his disordered personality, his emotional and mental instability, and his sociopathic tendencies. It was the main reason, though hardly the only reason, I refused to vote for him in 2016 or in 2020, despite having worked in the three previous Republican administrations. Nothing that Trump has done over the past four years has caused me to rethink my assessment, and a great deal has happened to confirm it.

Given Trump’s psychological profile, it was inevitable that when he felt the walls of reality close in on him—in 2020, it was the pandemic, the cratering economy, and his election defeat—he would detach himself even further from reality. It was predictable that the president would assert even more bizarre conspiracy theories. That he would become more enraged and embittered, more desperate and despondent, more consumed by his grievances. That he would go against past supplicants, like Attorney General Bill Barr and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, and become more aggressive toward his perceived enemies. That his wits would begin to turn, in the words of King Lear. That he would begin to lose his mind.

So he has. And, as a result, President Trump has become even more destabilizing and dangerous.

“I’ve been covering Donald Trump for a while,” Jonathan Swan of Axios tweeted. “I can’t recall hearing more intense concern from senior officials who are actually Trump people. The Sidney Powell/Michael Flynn ideas are finding an enthusiastic audience at the top.”

Even amid the chaos, it’s worth taking a step back to think about where we are: An American president, unwilling to concede his defeat by 7 million popular votes and 74 Electoral College votes, is still trying to steal the election. It has become his obsession.

In the process, Trump has in too many cases turned his party into an instrument of illiberalism and nihilism. Here are just a couple of data points to underscore that claim: 18 attorneys generals and more than half the Republicans in the House supported a seditious abuse of the judicial process.

And it’s not only, or even mainly, elected officials. The Republican Party’s base has often followed Trump into the twilight zone, with a sizable majority of them affirming that Joe Biden won the election based on fraud and many of them turning against medical science in the face of a surging pandemic.

COVID-19 is now killing Americans at the rate of about one per minute, but the president is “just done with COVID,” a source identified as one of Trump’s closest advisers told The Washington Post. “I think he put it on a timetable and he’s done with COVID ... It just exceeded the amount of time he gave it.”

This is where Trump’s crippling psychological condition—his complete inability to face unpleasant facts, his toxic narcissism, and his utter lack of empathy—became lethal. Trump’s negligence turned what would have been a difficult winter into a dark one. If any of his predecessors—Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan, to go back just 40 years—had been president during this pandemic, tens of thousands of American lives would almost surely have been saved.

“My concern was, in the worst part of the battle, the general was missing in action,” said Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, one of the very few Republicans to speak truth in the Trump era.

In 30 days, Donald Trump will leave the presidency, with his efforts to mount a coup having failed. The encouraging news is that it never really had a chance of succeeding. Our institutions, especially the courts, will have passed a stress test, not the most difficult ever but difficult enough, and unlike any in our history. Some local officials exhibited profiles in courage, doing the right thing in the face of threats and pressure from their party. And a preponderance of the American public, having lived through the past four years, deserve credit for canceling this presidential freak show rather than renewing it. The “exhausted majority” wasn’t too exhausted to get out and vote, even in a pandemic.

But the Trump presidency will leave gaping wounds nearly everywhere, and ruination in some places. Truth as a concept has been battered from the highest office in the land on an almost hourly basis. The Republican Party has been radicalized, with countless Republican lawmakers and other prominent figures within the party having revealed themselves to be moral cowards, even, and in some ways especially, after Trump was defeated. During the Trump presidency, they were so afraid of getting crosswise with him and his supporters that they failed the Solzhenitsyn test: “The simple act of an ordinary brave man is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions! His rule: Let that come into the world, let it even reign supreme—only not through me.

”During the past four years, the right-wing ecosystem became more and more rabid. Many prominent evangelical supporters of the president are either obsequious, like Franklin Graham, or delusional, like Eric Metaxas, and they now peddle their delusions as being written by God. QAnon and the Proud Boys, Newsmax and One America News, Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson—all have been emboldened.

These worrisome trends began before Trump ran for office, and they won’t disappear after he leaves the presidency. Those who hope for a quick snapback will be disappointed. Still, having Trump out of office has to help. He’s going to find out that there’s no comparable bully pulpit. And the media, if they are wise, will cut off his oxygen, which is attention. They had no choice but to cover Trump’s provocations when he was president; when he’s an ex-president, that will change.

For the foreseeable future, journalists will rightly focus on the pandemic. But once that is contained and defeated, it will be time to go back to focusing more attention on things like the Paris Accords and the carbon tax; the earned-income tax credit and infrastructure; entitlement reform and monetary policy; charter schools and campus speech codes; legal immigration, asylum, assimilation, and social mobility. There is also an opportunity, with Trump a former president, for the Republican Party to once again become the home of sane conservatism. Whether that happens or not is an open question. But it’s something many of us are willing to work for, and that even progressives should hope for.Beyond that, and more fundamental than that, we have to remind ourselves that we are not powerless to shape the future; that much of what has been broken can be repaired; that though we are many, we can be one; and that fatalism and cynicism are unwarranted and corrosive.

There’s a lovely line in William Wordsworth’s poem “The Prelude”: “What we have loved, Others will love, and we will teach them how.

”There are still things worthy of our love. Honor, decency, courage, beauty, and truth. Tenderness, human empathy, and a sense of duty. A good society. And a commitment to human dignity. We need to teach others—in our individual relationships, in our classrooms and communities, in our book clubs and Bible studies, and in innumerable other settings—why those things are worthy of their attention, their loyalty, their love. One person doing it won’t make much of a difference; a lot of people doing it will create a culture.

Maybe we understand better than we did five years ago why these things are essential to our lives, and why when we neglect them or elect leaders who ridicule and subvert them, life becomes nasty, brutish, and generally unpleasant.

Just after noon on January 20, a new and necessary chapter will begin in the American story. Joe Biden will certainly play a role in shaping how that story turns out—but so will you and I. Ours is a good and estimable republic, if we can keep it.

PETER WEHNER is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He writes widely on political, cultural, religious, and national-security issues, and he is the author of The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump.

#ideas

[jincherie]

fox rain | five

• ☽ — pairing: bts x reader • ☽ — genre: crack, fluff, angst, college/uni au • ☽ — words: 9.9k+ • ☽ — rating: sfw • ☽ — warnings: stop two on the angst train express!!! not as blatant, more reading between the lines here...... have fun! • ☽ — notes: bros... it’s only downhill from here. cowa-fucking-BUNGA amirite cowboys???????!?!?

— posted; 18.09.2020

When the love letter you wrote and submitted as an assignment is leaked to the entirety of your university, it becomes a race against time to dispel rumours and convince the seven suspected muses of the poem that they aren’t the subject before anyone realises that you are the author. Easy, right? Well… maybe not as easy as you think.

— • masterpost | prev. | five | next • —

You lay in a sort of placid, bewildered shock, the kind that is sourced from confusion as opposed to an unpleasant surprise. After waking to blearily turn off your alarm before it blasted through the entirety of Dancing Lasha Tumbai, you’d unlocked your phone to find this curious set of messages from a number you haven’t saved. You’ve been lying in place for several minutes as your tired, wired brain slowly kicks into gear and attempts to debunk the mystery. After another unsuccessful few minutes of staring blankly at the screen, you’re saved from impending cranial combustion when your phone lets out a delightful little tinkle and another message hastily joins the others.  

Ah, that makes so much sense now! Except it doesn’t. Actually, it kind of adds to your bewilderment. Taehyung… is texting you? You don’t think you’ve ever in your life had any correspondence with him that didn’t either take place in the presence of Jimin or under the influence of alcohol… also in the presence of Jimin, now that you think of it. You haven’t really interacted with Taehyung outside of Jimin. So it is particularly odd to wake up to a series of messages that are from him, and pertaining to such an odd topic. You’re still so tired you can’t even fathom what would warrant a text from him. Maybe you dropped something at one of your tutoring sessions and Jimin asked him to give it back to you? It would make sense, since after the rollercoaster of a ride the last week has been for him (in particular, the questionable events that took place at the hands of one Kim Seokjin but somehow ended up with Jimin and Hoseok making up? You don’t really understand it but you’re not even going to bother to try to at this point) he has ended up a little preoccupied.

Tapping the screen when your inactivity leads it to go dark, you take a moment to scrounge a response from the empty barrel bottom that is your brain. Once satisfied, you drop your phone onto your bed and flop yourself back to the position you’d been in before your own alarm woke you so rudely. Technically, you don’t have to be up and about for another hour…

With faith that your additional hour of sleep will revive your ability to think, you allow yourself to slip somewhat self-indulgently back into sleep and pass the fuck out like a woman who has spent the night trying to forget.

(Which you are, and did do, except with maybe a little less alcohol than what that sentence implied.)

X     X     X     X

 It has been almost a week since the unfortunate end to that tutoring session on Monday, and while you’ve managed to stay off social media enough that you haven’t triggered yourself by accident in the entirety of that duration, every time you come on campus it’s like for however many steps forward you took, you take double the amount backwards. University students are such gossips! Well, the jobless ones are, anyway. The students that work and study are too busy dragging themselves around campus in a stunning rendition of the undead from various media to be bothered with the latest plot twist in the resident school drama. Which is to say, there has been no twist. The population is still shamelessly up Sera’s ass in the belief that she is the author of the poem, and as has become the norm you find yourself resisting the urge to hunt the bitch down and go in for round two on her face. Surely, your self-control has earnt you the title of a saint by now.

You’re blasting some angsty shit on the way to your music history class and pretending you’re in a music video for some indie band (it’s cathartic, and you will argue that fact to your grave), when you make it a few steps past the entrance to the food court and have the absolute living daylights scared out of you. Thudding footsteps reach you through your earphones and two hands clamp on your shoulders to halt you in place and spin you around like Barbie Ballerina.

“You’re a disgrace!” It’s Seokjin who has halted you in the middle of the hallway, every bit as dramatic as you’d come to expect. “You skipped drama class? And you call yourself an acting major, PSH!”

Yanking your earphones out, you nail the tall, pink-haired idiot with a glare. Very bold of him to be approaching you after you nearly chopped off Lil’ Jinnie barely a few days ago for his bastardous antics. Perhaps he’s getting a bit big for his glittery pink rainboots.

“First of all, will you please listen to me when I tell you I’m not an acting major?” Unfortunately, when you speak your voice comes out more exasperated and less threatening than you intended. “Second of all—very bold of you to be approaching me right now. You’re lucky you escaped with your life, you meddling bastard. You want me to bite the rest of your dick off?”

“You should know by now that I take that as a compliment,” Seokjin sniffs, haughtily, ignoring the latter part of your threat. “And do you know how boring it is for me to crash your class when you’re not even there? No one threatens me like you! It’s getting harder and harder to get it up these days, you know. I need a hit of the good stuff.”

For a moment you’re simply stunned into silence, staring at him and wondering just how and why he seems to have been sent here with the sole mission of making you want to kill him and then yourself. Nothing you could think to say really is enough, so you settle on simply turning and walking away.

Of course, you forgot that no one turns their back on Kim Seokjin and gets away with it.

“YAH!”

You wince—you think he actually just broke a sound barrier, or maybe your eardrums— or both. Seokjin quickly scrambles to place himself in front of you, arms out. His eyes are wide in something you suspect he thinks is a puppy-eyed look, but actually comes across more like he’s trying not to shit himself.

“Promise me you won’t skip drama again!” Seokjin says, pointing a finger at you in borderline accusation. When he doesn’t see your expression budge, he quickly changes tactics. “If not for me, the most charming prince in the story of your life, then at least for Jungkook, that poor virgin—”

You blink, distracted for a moment by what he said. “Wait, Jungkook is in my drama class?”

“’Wait, Jungkook is in my drama class?’” Seokjin repeats in a voice a few octaves higher than your own. “Listen to you, not even knowing who is in your own class. For shame! But have no fear, since you clearly skip so much I will happily extend my generosity and take you under my wing. Tutelage fee starts at $55 with an extra $5 for every question you ask that I don’t know—”

“Do you ever actually hear yourself talk?” you ask, feeling your will to live draining out your ears. “Like, the shit that comes out of your mouth? Do you hear it? Because—wait, are you saying you would charge me for questions that you don’t know the answer to?!”

Seokjin shrugs, “It’s a little unorthodox, I know. But—”

“I would literally be bankrupt! Thousands—no, millions of dollars in debt!” You exclaim, grabbing him by his stupid big shoulders and shaking him about. “Do I look crazy to you?!”

“Oh, what, you think you can do better?!” Seokjin demands, voice wobbling from your shaking. “What’s 2x2?”

“Fucking four!” you wail, releasing him in your despair. You can’t do this, your day only just started and you are not exhausted enough to micronap while he talks like usual. “I’m leaving, don’t follow me. DELETE MY NUMBER.”

“Haha jokes on you!” you hear Seokjin holler from behind you, voice rapidly growing quieter from the speed that you’re powerwalking away. “You never gave me your number!”

You make it to class barely on time due to Seokjin acting as one of the biggest inconveniences in your life, and while you manage to push him from your brain for the duration of it, you wish you could say that is the last time you see him,

It’s probably the fact that you busted his ass being a weirdo with Jimin and Hoseok last week that has him so…. attached this week, you suspect. You’re at your third Seokjin encounter for the day and you’re honestly considering whether you should trip to the campus pharmacy and look for some pepper spray, or maybe an umbrella. Pepper spray would be more effective, but the umbrella…. You can’t argue against the satisfaction it would provide.

You’re trying to sneak your way into a library on the Arts side of campus, one you don’t usually go to, so you can study without worrying about going absolutely batshit insane in the presence of Seokjin. It was hard, but you think that you’ve finally managed to shake him. What on earth had him so determined to tail you today? Was it seriously because you skipped your own class? Nutcase.

You peek your head around the corner looking not only for Seokjin, but for another thing you had happened to notice every time you were ambushed. You have yet to determine whether the glimpse of phenomenally bright floral print right before Seokjin pounces you is causation or correlation, and it makes you a bit nervous. Cautiously, like timid forest animal, you creep around the corner and begin to make your way into the building, eyes flicking from the library door right at the end to the rest of your surroundings. The café coming up on your right tempts you greatly, but you know it is too great of a risk. Out in the open, you’d definitely be seen.

This area is almost like a courtyard, an undercover area between three separate buildings. With a looming cement and glass ceiling, though, it feels like a building of its own. The library sits nestled in the corner of the largest building, and although it isn’t very wide, it spans several floors. You plan on going to the highest one and hiding in a corner near a window.

You’re close, so close to reaching the library in fact that you’ve fallen into a false sense of security. By the time you register the sound of pounding footsteps approaching behind you, for the second time today, it’s too late.

“Ah, y/n! Wait!”

Instinctively you prepare to burst into a sprint to get away, but at the last second stop yourself. That doesn’t sound like Seokjin… that sounds like—

“Taehyung?” you ask, turning in surprise as the boy comes to a screeching halt in front of you, bending with his hands on his knees as he attempts to catch his breath.

“I’ve… been trying….” he huffs, “To talk to you…. all day….. hah…Why are you so….. good at running away?”

He looks absolutely wiped out, cheeks red and sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. You’re just beginning to feel guilty when you notice his shirt, the bright floral print that you literally don’t know anyone else bold enough to wear, and you realise he’s really not lying. Poor Taehyung, just like you he has fallen victim to—

“That Seokjin bastard,” you say, completing a quick scan of the area to make sure the mention of his name didn’t somehow summon him. “He’s been harassing me all day. I’ve had to really up my game. By the way… are you okay? Please breathe… also what did you want to talk to me about?”

Taehyung straightens, eyes closed as he attempts to control his breathing. One of his hands comes to sweep the ashy hair from his face, the ends slightly damp with sweat.

“I’m fine,” he says, sounding slightly like he’s about to pass out. You prepare to take a step forward and catch him if he does, but he opens his eyes in the next second and shoots you a dopey smile. “I’m fine! Apparently just… whoo… really out of shape.”

“Your sacrifice is not in vain,” you say, smiling when he lets out a sudden laugh. Another shaky breath rakes past his lips before he straightens, eyes blinking a little wider. “Ah, right. I was looking for you because, um… you didn’t respond to my text… and I needed to ask you something that’s a little time-sensitive…”

“Your text…” you wrack your brain, sure that you remembered responding to it this morning in bed. Your mouth shifts into a wince, though, when you can recall writing a response, but not actually sending it. “Oh. I am so sorry, I’m an idiot. I was kind of half asleep when you texted, and I swear to god I typed a response but I think I fell asleep again before sending it…”

There is not a shred of accusation on Taehyung’s pleasant features, lips instead slightly curled in a smile. “That’s fine,” he chirps, rocking on the balls of his feet for a moment. “I do it all the time too. I’m just glad I caught you.”

You return his smile, before a thought that had been nagging you earlier returned and you acted on the urge to voice it. “By the way…. How did you get my number?”

Your question seems to be unexpected and, for some reason, flusters him slightly. He reaches to scratch the back of his neck, averting his gaze for a moment. “Uh, Jimin gave it to me. It was for something stupid a while ago but I never needed to use it.”

You raise your brows at what he said, but get the feeling he’s not going to elaborate. Instead, you remain quiet and wait for him to continue his thought from earlier. He shuffles on his feet, returning his gaze to your own. “Anyway, the reason I was trying to catch you all day was because I wanted to ask you something…”

“I know it’s not really any of my business, but I kind of noticed, and Jimin mentioned lightly that things haven’t been, uh…. great for you lately.” He doesn’t even give you time for that statement to sink in amongst your shock, continuing without pause despite the way his cheeks begin to flush, “And, uh, my exhibition is this Friday, and I was gonna go with Jimin but he double-booked himself with Hobi, so now I have no plus-one and I was wondering… if you wanted to go?”

When you simply stand there, dumbfounded, he clears his throat awkwardly, fiddling with the cuffs of his button-down. “To um, you know, take your mind off things… maybe… you don’t have to, of course, but I just thought I would—”

Snapping out of your stupor before he can take back the invitation, you hastily step forward and outstretch your hands. “Oh, no I would love to go! This is really—” you clear your throat, trying to ignore the light sting of your eyes “—sweet of you. I’d like to go, if it’s ok. You’re sure Jimin doesn’t mind…?”

Taehyung seems shocked, and you suspect he might have thought you would turn down the invitation from the way his eyes seem to light up. Have you really been walking around campus looking like that much of a gloomy bitch? You need to check your facial expressions when you get home this afternoon.

“He won’t mind,” he says, waving his hand excitedly. “Great, perfect—um, here is the little info sheet. I’d stay to tell you more but my class actually started a few minutes ago, so…”

“Oh!” you exclaim, taking the sheet from his hand before waving him away. “Go! Go to class! I’m sorry I made you late! Thank you for this, by the way!”

He seems slightly dazed at your enthusiastic thanks and farewell, but he shakes himself out of it and before he goes he sends you a smile that you can’t think of any other way to describe except dazzling. “It’s no problem, y/n. See you then.”

And then he’s off and you’re left standing alone in the pseudo-courtyard, clutching the exhibition pamphlet in your grip. Your eyes sting ever so slightly, and you can’t help but think how kind of sad it is that one person goes out of their way to think of you in the midst of everything you’re dealing with and you’re so touched you’re nearly driven to tears.

Hormones suck and you want a refund.

 X     X     X     X

 Taehyung was right when he said that what he had to ask you was time-sensitive. 

You hadn’t realised it at the time, but Friday was only a few days away— and in the midst of classes, schoolwork, and everything else, those days went fast.  Before you know it, it’s Friday morning and a panicked glance at the pamphlet Taehyung had given you reveals that the exhibition opens officially around 4:30PM. That works out surprisingly well for you, considering your last class ends at three o’clock and you can easily reschedule your session with Hoseok and Jimin. 

There’s a lot about the invitation you haven’t gotten to really dwell on, and that continues to be the case as the day flies before your very eyes. By the time your music theory class comes to an end and you finish scribbling down the last few lines of note from your teacher, the event is even closer than you anticipated. From your recent examination of the pamphlet, you’d found earlier that Taehyung’s exhibition is being held at a small university-sponsored gallery downtown. It shouldn’t take you too long to get there from your house, and on the way home after packing your things, you plot out the route you’re going to take. It’s about a twenty minute trip, as you discover, since there is by some stroke of luck a bus that goes straight there from a street just around the corner from your own. Taking that into account, you should have around forty minutes or so to get ready. 

Considering you’re one of many poor university students populating the area, it’s not often you actually put the effort in to get dressed up. Around these parts, there is a distinct culture of sweat pants and comfortable tops and more often than not a socks-and-slides combo, something you take part in more often than you’d like to admit. Still, you feel that considering the nature of the event you’ve been invited to and what you know of Taehyung’s works, you should probably be putting in much more effort than usual. 

While you might act like a slob sometimes, this isn’t actually a problem— even goblins like you can have a stash of decent clothes somewhere in their cave. Yours happen to be pushed to the back of your closet on hangers that haven’t seen the light of day in months. What can you say? University takes its toll in mysterious ways. 

Standing before your closet, eyes boring into the portion that’s been held in its depths for longer than you can remember, you wonder which way you should go with your outfit. Exhibitions are fancy right? Should you dress it up? Logic says you should, but on the other hand what if you are the only one dressed up? That would be humiliating. You pause for a moment to think about the type of garb you usually see Taehyung in— you have a feeling that he will probably dress the same way tonight. Recalling his bold, avante-garde taste in fashion is about as helpful as one might imagine, but it does comfort you to know that no matter what you choose, most eyes will likely be on him anyway. 

Comforted by that fact, you make up your mind and pull out a set that isn’t too over the top, and won’t make you look like a rat. Once you’ve slipped into those, you freshen up and wash your face, trying to make yourself seem a little bit more alive afterwards and not like you had an 8AM class today. You’re successful, to a degree, but you’re a little tight on time so you can’t really dwell on it. Feeling your stomach rumble as you grab your bag and key, you can only hope that this exhibition has free food.

x — x — x

“Ah, y/n! You’re here! You… you look nice.”

You were so busy staring at the large, shiny building before you that when Taehyung’s voice rings out in greeting, it startles the hell out of you. You don’t even register what he says before you’re pointing with eyes and mouth wide open, “Your exhibition is in there?!”

His expression of surprise melts into one of amusement, a laugh tumbling from deep in his throat. You don’t even notice the way his cheeks are flushed ever so slightly as he meets your gaze.

“Fancy, right?” he says, wagging his brows. “Some loaded alumnus who actually enjoyed his university experience practically donated it to them. So now they use it for, uh… for most exhibitions.”

“For the best ones, you mean,” you say, your grin widening when he scratches the back of his neck, bashful and blushing. “But yeah, damn. I was expecting it to be nice but I wasn’t expecting it to be this nice.”

Taehyung laughed again, clearing his throat. As he takes a moment to collect himself, you let your eyes scan over his form. The second you do so, you feel a foreign flutter in your stomach, heat flushing to your face. There is truly no other way to describe his choice of outfit for today except for painfully boyfriend. Perhaps on anyone else it would look a little less than presentable, but on Taehyung’s model-esque form the loose chestnut pants and an oversized leather jacket over a boldly patterned shirt work wonders. How does he look so effortless yet so…?

If you’d attempted to wear something like that you’d end up looking like the local court jester. Perhaps you should just make peace with the fact that God has favourites and Kim Taehyung is clearly one of them. 

“It, um. It started a few minutes ago, shall we head in?”

Taehyung offers you his arm, a gentlemanly move that completely contrasts the boyish grin on his face. Ignoring the sudden sensations in your abdomen, you make a show of curtsey-ing before you take it, eliciting a laugh from your company as the two of you head to the entrance and the full exhibition experience begins. 

As soon as you enter there is someone by the door, who seems to be at the very least taking note of how many people enter, a table with flyers and booklets beside him. Taehyung parts from you only to move over and grab a few, brandishing them as he returns with a bright grin.

“Here is all the information about the event, madame,” he says, with an extremely exaggerated air of grandeur, presenting one of the flyers with a flourish. You take it, unable to help your soft snort.

“I would have thought I had something better, what with the very artist behind the event accompanying me,” you say, grinning when you see his cheeks turn an endearing pink as he flashes a bright, boxy smile. 

“True,” he returns, folding the other flyer and slipping it into the pocket of his jacket. “You can’t ask a flyer questions in real time. Anything that crosses your mind, you can ask straight to the source.”

“Oh? Then, may I enquire as to what the theme of this exhibition is?” You’re enjoying the playful air that drifts between you now, unable to rid your face of the smile currently displayed on it even if you wanted to.

Taehyung’s eyes flick to you, a lopsided smile tugging his lips to accompany the sly accent to his gaze. “Ah, a tough one right off the bat. I think telling you straight-up would be too easy. Let’s see if you can try to guess it as we walk through.”

You turn to him with an affronted look, having expected him to easily supply you with the answer. Taehyung is a little cheekier than you remember. You snap your mouth shut, cheeks heating when you notice he has offered his arm to you once more. Taking note of the other people in the room walking around in a similar manner, you slip your arm through his and try to ignore the way you feel your ears light on fire.

“Okay, you’re on,” you respond, if a few moments too late. He doesn’t comment on the delay, simply sending you a smile that you can’t quite decipher the emotion behind. You don’t get to dwell before the two of you are off, beginning on your journey through the building and starting on your tour of the exhibition. 

You’d kind of always known that Taehyung was talented, considering he managed to make such a name for himself on campus in such little time with such ease. Hell, he’s well-known enough to have made it onto the list of suspects for the muse of your poem. Still, this knowledge is only compounded the further into the building you go and the more of the exhibition you see. Taehyung is truly talented, the images blown up and displayed on the wall each capturing a certain emotion that you don’t have a name for, yet is so familiar that each time you see a new one it gives you pause. Viewing his works, seeing into this part of him and witnessing this bit of his soul he has bared, you can’t help but feel a slight sense of kinship. 

It’s something that rests in the space between your lungs and diaphragm, something that tickles but also something that aches. You do know this feeling, so familiar yet so out of touch and far from the tip of your mind’s tongue. You do try to guess the theme of the exhibition as you go, throwing out the occasional dumb guess to elicit a laugh— he always laughs, and it always makes you smile— but you don’t quite manage to pin it. 

“The five senses,” you shoot into the dark, standing before an image that has made you stop and stare for a good five minutes now. It’s not quite black and white, and it’s not a particularly unique image— but something about the composition, something about the movement in the two hands that are so close yet so far from actually touching, speaks to that hidden part of you. The way one of the hands simply hangs, unbothered and neutral, but the other, the one slightly closer to the foreground, has fingers ever so slightly outstretched, reaching but never quite committing to the movement and the unspoken consequence of the hinted action. 

Of course, you know the answer even before Taehyung says it. He laughs, hands in his pockets, “Nope, ddaeng.”

“This is hard,” you whine, without much heart behind it. The smile stays on Taehyung’s face.

“Whatever. You’re smart, I know you can guess it. It should be easy, for you.”

The compliment catches you off guard, and you have to turn away so that he doesn’t see your cheeks warm. The two of you had parted when you caught sight of the snacks table; you’d been prepared to abandon him and make a beeline over, but Taehyung had surprised you by marching over himself and coming back with a loaded plate. He’d confessed with a sheepish smile that he hadn’t had lunch, and really you were in no place to judge since you hadn’t either. By this point in your journey, though, the plate is almost empty. There’s only two tiny cupcakes left and you’re letting the rest of the things you scarfed down settle before you go in for more. 

Perhaps it was a little dangerous, coming here with Taehyung. He looks so fine, even while shoving sweets in his mouth, that you spend about the same amount of time looking at him as you do at his artworks. It takes all of your willpower to tear your eyes away every time you catch yourself looking at him and admiring the truly boyfriend fit he has donned for this occasion. Every so often he will simply stand before one of his works, scrutinising it with a fresh perspective and ever-criticising eyes, and the sight of it will make something nameless and foreign well within you. You don’t quite know what to do with it, so you ignore it. Or at least, you try to. 

It feels a little too similar to what you know of yearning. It leaves you confused.

You stop not long after in front of another piece, this time a combination of three images that act as separate snapshots of smaller parts of a larger image. You admire the way he has set it out, revealing not too much but just enough that the viewer gets a sense, a feeling, but isn’t confronted with the message. It allows everyone to take their own sensation from it. You like that a lot about his works— he doesn’t tell people what to feel as they view his images, but merely hints, prompts and nudges. He sets the stage and allows people to take what they need, see whichever bits draw their eye most and spell meaning from elements of their choosing. He’s talented, you find yourself marveling again, so incredibly talented.

But still, you can’t put a finger on what the theme is.

By the time you make your way completely though the exhibition, having doubled back at a few points to look again at a select few of the pictures, you’re still no closer to guessing. It has you deep in your thoughts as you stand outside, waiting for Taehyung to return from thanking one of the guests who had recognised him for coming. 

“Guessed it, yet?”

You turn, pinning him with a look that you hoped didn’t look as dumb as it felt. “Leave it with me,” you say. “I’ll figure it out eventually.”

At your words, Taehyung laughs— it’s one of the full-bodied ones you’ve come to enjoy, where he throws his head back a little and shakes his hair back into place after. You have to snap yourself out of it before he catches you staring. 

“I’m sure,” he says, unable to keep the cheeky grin off his face. It does slip ever so slightly though, just for a moment, as you watch a thought cross his features. “By the way…”

You tilt your head, waiting for him to continue. You feel an odd combination of at-peace, and unsettled. Holistically, this is the most at-peace and relaxed you’ve been in weeks. However, when you take a moment to tune into the inner machinations that make up your being… something in this exhibition has reached into your insides and fiddled around, moving things where they shouldn’t be and touching things that aren’t meant to be touched. It’s odd, and you acknowledge that it gives you quite a bit of cognitive dissonance. Even so, you’re calm enough that you have no trouble being patient while you wait for Taehyung to continue and say what he seems so nervous to say. 

“Um, I know I initially only asked you about coming here, to the exhibition…” he begins, reaching to rub the back of his neck in what you recognise to be one of his nervous ticks. “But, I actually have these vouchers I won in a competition a while ago for a paint-and-sip session that are about to expire, and I was wondering… would you like to go? Now, I mean. Since they actually kind of expire tomorrow. Unless you’re busy, because if you are that’s—”

You decide to put him out of his flustered misery, reaching to nudge his arm. “Of course, that sounds fun! Plus, you were right the other day; I could really do with the chance to relax. Thank you, for all this. I really appreciate it.”

It takes a second for your words to register, but when they do the most blindingly bright smile spreads across his face; he’s practically beaming at you. 

“Of course,” he says, with barely a moment’s hesitation. “I’m really happy you agreed to come— I’m glad you said yes to the paint-and-sip, too, because it’s one of my favourite places. Come on, let’s get going. If we get there at just the right time, we can get a really good seat, hopefully by the window.”

The journey continues, Taehyung leading you through the city while chatting easily all the while, a stunning twilight cityscape backdrop and the gentle glimmering surface of the river meandering through buildings providing the perfect scenery. If you had a little more faith in your artistic ability, you might try and paint the image you see now; Taehyung in the colours of dusk, soft and natural against the bright lights and harsh lines of the metropolitan landscape. But alas, you aren’t as talented as the man besides you, and you don’t even want to think of how it would turn out if you attempted to paint such a thing. You quickly throw the thought from your mind before it can linger and get up to more trouble than it’s worth. 

“Here we are!” Taehyung’s cheer breaks you out of your stupor, bright smile directed your way once more as he stops in front of a large establishment with long strips of window and a colourfully sewn awning. 

‘Brush & Bar’, the cursive, neon sign reads above the door, flickering between soft pink and peach orange. It’s an interesting aesthetic the place has going on, but when you look over and catch sight of Taehyung once more it suddenly makes sense why he likes it so much. The style of this place is very similar to some of the more outlandish things he tends to model around campus. Before your reverie lets you remain abandoned outside, you hurry to follow after the ashy-haired boy, grabbing the back of his jacket when you almost trip over the door frame. He spares a look over his shoulder to make sure you’re okay before he continues, moving towards the counter and smiling with more charm than you can personally handle at the staff member there. 

It’s a woman, who you suspect is in her mid-thirties, and she is pretty enough that it takes you by surprise when she rolls her eyes heavily at Taehyung’s approach. 

“You again, boy?” she asks, though it sounds more rhetorical than anything and you catch the slightest tinge of humour accenting her words and it soothes your hackles. “Don’t you ever get sick of hanging around here?”

“Nope!” 

She cracks a smile, lines appearing at the edges of her eyes. “Well, I suppose that’s a good thing. We’d miss you an awful lot if you ever stopped showing up here.” Her eyes flick ever so slyly to you, and then back. “Say, is today the day you’re finally gonna make good on those vouchers you won? I know you said you were waiting for the right chance to ask that g—”

“Yes!” Taehyung cuts in loudly, eyes wide and cheeks flushing darkly. “Yes, yep! I brought the vouchers! They do expire tomorrow after all!”

The woman, Bora as you now see from her nametag, simply smiles, something sly about the action intriguing you. Taehyung clears his throat, reaching to scratch the back of his neck sheepishly. “So, um… I will use them now. Is the window seat free…?”

Bora nods, a fond curve to her lips now as she rummages around behind the counter and takes the offered vouchers from Taehyung to punch holes in them. “Your favourite spot? Of course. I had a feeling you were coming, too, so I’ve already gone and set it up with some canvases and acrylics.”

She hands the vouchers back, and Taehyung slips them into the pocket of his jacket.  “Paintbrushes and jars are in their usual place, and I know you don’t normally drink while you’re here but if you’d like some tonight just take your order up to Kyungsoo. Oh! And tonight’s special for snacks is tea cakes, so definitely make the most of that. There are some good ones in the display.”

At the mention of food and alcohol, your gaze had already started to wander on its own— you catch sight of the display of cakes and other sweets and feel your mouth water. Ridiculous, since you were kind of full before, but what can you say, you’re a complicated woman. Lots of layers, not unlike an onion. The thought almost makes you snort.

With a gentle nudge to your arm, Taehyung is bringing you back to the present moment and leading you over to the window, where a medium-sized table has been set up with two square canvases and a basket of paint bottles, palettes leaning to the side. Taehyung instructs you to take a seat, informing you with a smile that he’ll grab some paintbrushes and water for the two of you to use. At his suggestion, while he is gone you open up your phone and search for something to paint. Something that’s not too hard and not too easy. Because your skills are… well, they’re not nonexistent but you’re not about to go around tooting your horn in front of someone with actual art skills and talent. Apparently there is usually an image supplied for each night, but Taehyung says it’s not strict and that tonight is one of the nights where all the patrons just have free reign. 

You sort of get distracted part way through the activity, eyes subconsciously seeking Taehyung’s leather jacket amongst the decently filled establishment. It’s really quite nice inside, actually; the walls and general decor are soft and neutral, with pops of colour everywhere that bring each corner and table to life. A lot of the furniture is wooden, natural and polished underneath specks of paint that decorate in layers that tell of time spent well. The lighting is soft with the exception of the bulbs stationed above each table, which are brighter and angled towards where the canvas would be. On one of the walls, the one near the bar, it is completely covered by greenery— vines that, as far as you can tell, aren’t actually fake. A soft, almost jazzy tune filters lightly through the room, complemented by the low hum of chatter and paintbrushes hitting glass. You’re incredibly impressed and, admittedly, you like this place a lot. It has the kind of vibe that just… makes you content. 

“Here we go!” 

You startle at the sound of Taehyung’s low register, looking over to see him placing a bundle of paintbrushes in between the two of you and a jar beside each of your canvases. He takes his seat across from you, smiling brightly. “Did you decide what you want to paint?”

You hum, turning your gaze out the window for a moment to see if it grants you any inspiration— it’s a gorgeous sight, the twilight sky broken by the outline of buildings with glimmering insides, but it doesn’t help much. You don’t know what you want to paint. Of course, there is this big, expanding feeling inside you, the urge to express it somehow filling you to your fingertips, but what do you do with it? You don’t even know its name.

“No,” you answer, reaching for one of the palettes propped up to the side. “But I’ll be okay. Maybe I’ll just see where the vibe takes me.”

The smile Taehyung gives you at that is softer than most, and he eagerly follows suit in grabbing a palette and beginning to set it up; he squirts a big dollop of white, blinking at it for a moment as though he hadn’t intended to put that much. “There are some pencils and erasers to the side there, too. I prefer the moldable one.”

You thank him for his advice, before realising as he puts his own pencil ever so lightly to canvas that he hadn’t told you the subject of his painting. “What are you going to paint?”

“A secret,” he says, leaning around the canvas to grin at you. “Since I don’t know what you’re painting. Let’s swap paintings after, though. I do want to see eventually.”

That makes you laugh, but you don’t bother pushing further. A surprise is nice every now and then, you know. So long as it’s not the kind that ruins your life as you know it indefinitely.

But you’re here to have fun and relax, so you’re not going to get into that. You’re not even going to think about it. 

Taehyung clears his throat, catching your attention immediately. “Right, before we start we should probably order. Did you—”

“No need, my boy!”

Two new figures appear at the side of the table, one a youthful man on the shorter side, the other older and plumper with grey beginning to speckle through his hair. The shorter one places two drinks onto the table, colourful cocktails in a generous glass, and the older laughs before placing down two plates, each with a different kind of cake slice situated neatly in the middle.

“On the house,” the man continues, chuckling at the shocked and somewhat flustered look on Taehyung’s face. “You’ve given us a lot of business so don’t even worry about it. Plus, we heard you were finally making the most of those vouchers so… here’s a little something to start the night off well!”

“...Thanks, Mr Kang,” Taehyung finally manages, shooting them a smile that could honestly give Hoseok’s own a run for its money. “You too, Kyungsoo. Do…. do I wanna know what’s in this?”

He’s gesturing to the drinks, a somewhat fearful look on his face. The shorter man shakes his head, thick brows curved in mirth as his lips twitch into a lopsided smile. “Nope. Tastes good though, so you got nothing to worry about.”

You can’t tell whether Taehyung is relieved or concerned, and so step in to save him a moment of reprieve. “Thank you so much— this all looks amazing!”

Happily, the two men soak in your praise. “I assure you,” Mr Kang says, patting his chest proudly. “It tastes as good as it looks.”

Kyungsoo snorts, but doesn’t disagree. He gives the two of you a small smile. “Right, we should be on our way. You two enjoy yourselves, and if you want refills just come let me know.”

Taehyung nods, thanking them again, and then it’s just the two of you once more.

“Well,” he says, licking his lips and reminding you of a puppy as he stares intently at the slice of strawberry crepe cake, decorated with a generous drizzle of syrup and two fresh, sliced strawberries in a dollop of cream beside it. The other one, a coffee-caramel blend you presume from the heavenly aroma reaching your nose, looks just as good but is nowhere near as successful at capturing his attention. “I guess… let’s begin!”

Whether he meant painting or devouring the food, you end up doing a bit of both. Each mouthful of cake that enters your mouth is announced with an explosion of flavour so rich it lingers long after you’ve swallowed the mouthful down. The drinks, too, are delicious. Fruity but not too syrupy or sugary, you suspect Kyungsoo had used spirits and tempered the fruity flavour with a bit of lemon or lime.

You still aren’t really sold on what to paint, but in the meantime you end up sketching out the flowers that sit on the windowsill a little behind Taehyung. They don’t seem too complicated, and if they end up looking terrible you can just smear the canvas with paint and call it abstract. Of course, part of Taehyung’s shoulder cuts the vase off from view so he’s probably going to end up making an unwitting appearance in whatever mess turns up on your canvas. 

Even though neither of you have any idea what Kyungsoo put into those drinks, you’re sure its something strong. Before long the two of you are already giggly, conversation flowing easily as you put paint to canvas and attempt to make something decent. It’s around the time the two of you are almost finishing your drinks that the conversation takes a delightful turn, which consists of Taehyung telling you about his little fluffball, Yeontan.

“Oh my god,” you say, fingers gripping the paintbrush tight as you try to pet the urge to pet a dog that isn’t even here. “He’s so cute! Look at his grumpy little eyebrows!”

Taehyung laughs, having taken a break from painting to show you his dog like a proud parent. He takes his phone back and slips it into his pocket, paint-flecked hand returning to the brush he’d abandoned. “He’s such a smart dog, but he’s also super dumb. Runs into shit all the time. And there was one time that a friend came over and brought a new camera that he hadn’t seen before—”

Taehyung has to pause recounting the story, he starts giggling so hard. It makes you erupt into laughter as well simply because of how contagious the sound is. “He got so mad, he ran in front of me with his little legs and started barking at it like he was trying to protect me. I love that little dog.”

“I love him too and I haven’t even met him,” you giggle, using your pinky (the only finger you’re sure you haven’t gotten paint on yet) to wipe under your eyes. You don’t think you let a tear slip but you’ve been laughing so much you can’t be sure. 

Taehyung beams at you from around his canvas, brush held midair.  “That’s exactly what Jiminie says.”

That gives you pause. “Wait— Jimin hasn’t seen your dog? But you’ve been friends for ages!”

You catch the photographer smiling as he delivers a few soft strokes to his painting, affection hidden in his tone as he responds, “Yeah, a few years. Since… the last? Second last year of high school? Maybe? It was a wild start to the friendship.”

“Wild?” you echo, intrigued. 

“Yeah. What really kick-started our friendship was this one time I came over while Jimin was really upset about something. I can’t remember exactly how it happened but we ended up at some wack university event nearby. It was boring as hell, and somehow we figured the best way to be entertained would be to commit a mild crime and get away with it.”

Once more, the ashy-haired male has to pause his story to get the giggles out of his system, taking the opportunity to sip a little more of his cocktail. You do the same, not one to pass up much of any drink these days. 

“Long story short, he ended up streaking across the field and earning himself a title at the university as ‘mooncheeks’ or something equally dumb and funny, earnt himself a bit of a nude legacy.”

You pause, the alcohol beginning to slow your mind just enough that it takes a little longer for you to connect the dot between his story and something you’d shoved so deep in the back of your mind years ago that you’d almost forgotten it.

“Wait—” you smack your paintbrush down, eyes wide as an accusing finger is thrown his way. “That was— he ran into me on the way back! Oh my god I almost forgot, that was you two?!”

Taehyung erupts into laughter that is an octave or two shy of being too loud, having to place a hand over his chest to brace himself. He’s nodding wordlessly, eyes pinched shut, and it’s probably the alcohol making your eyes blur but for a moment you could almost swear he’s glowing.

“Yeah,” he finally manages to articulate, wiping a stray tear or two from his eyes, sniffling. “It cheered him up, though, so I think it’s worth the potential trauma.”

That makes you laugh, another sip of your drink going down. A lot of the spirits must have settled at the bottom, because this one had a little warmth as it went down. 

The night goes so easily it’s like a dream, the atmosphere and alcohol in combination with Taehyung’s company making you feel much like you did before this whole shitshow, back when it wasn’t so hard to release the tension in your shoulders or to muster a genuine smile. Taehyung happily gets you a few refills, refusing to let you pull out your card— which is probably for the best because you’re not sure where your wallet is and you’re not coordinated enough to look right now.

You’re on the further side of tipsy, teetering on the edge of pleasantly drunk where nothing makes sense but you’re still somewhat coherent, and everything is funny. Taehyung has almost dipped his paintbrushes in his drink instead of the jar a few times, resulting in a long round of laughter and sore stomachs each time. Eventually, you’d moved his drink to the other side of the canvas and he’d offered you a sheepish smile. 

Surprisingly, your painting doesn’t look too bad, either. Currently it has a bit of a blurry, undefined quality to it, but in your current opinion it kind of works for it. Taehyung’s shoulder did end up making a feature and as the two of you talk you find yourself distractedly painting patterns in the ‘leather’, swirls and hearts and hell, even a few triangles. Eventually, you reach the point where you think that you really can’t do anything more to make the painting better in the time you have, so with a contented sigh you place your brush down and instead turn your attention to Taehyung.

Even as he talks to you and wobbles a little in place, he’s still so incredibly focused in his work, in every detail that meets canvas at the direction of his nimple finngertips, that you don’t think you even see his hand shaking while he paints. Which, your hand was— a lot. It’s the main factor responsible for this one squiggly flower stem in particular you can see in your painting.

As you sit there, happily listening and laughing at each anecdote Taehyung offers you about his life, you find your mind wandering a little bit. Back to the exhibition, and the works and even the way you caught him regarding them. You recognise the critical lens that he viewed them through, because it’s one you adopt yourself for your own creations. Something wells in you, an urge to reassure him in case he ever had any doubts about his own talent; you’re far too many drinks in to be in a place where you can stop yourself.

“Taehyung,” you begin softly but seriously, with minimal slur. He doesn’t stop his motions, but you see him pause for the briefest moment before humming in acknowledgement. “Taehyung, I have to tell you…”

You’re figuring out how to best word your impression of his works and his talent, but you must take longer than you thought because Taehyung lets out a soft huff, giving you a smile that you can’t quite decipher.

“Don’t worry,” he says, flicking the paintbrush back to rest the wooden stem on his knuckles. “I already know I’m not the muse. You don’t have to worry about convincing me.”

For a second, all you’re able to do is blink. Taehyung simply goes back to his painting, expression neutral and his soft hum brushing your ears beneath the soft melody floating from the speakers. You realise quickly that you don’t know what to say to that, and that the full implications of his words haven’t really sunk in yet. He must have noticed that you’d been trying to go around and convince all the suspected subjects that they aren’t the muse of the poem… you feel oddly ashamed, for some reason. Your cheeks feel hot, and not just from the alcohol flush.

“Done!”

Taehyung’s voice breaks you from your reverie, his cheery smile greeting you once more. “All finished?”

You nod, offering a smile of your own and taking the opportunity to say what you wanted to earlier. “Yep. I’m excited to see yours, you’re so incredibly talented, Tae.”

His smile turns shy at that, a bashful laugh tumbling from his lips as he does his best to clean up his area. You do the same, standing up for the first time in a while and having to reach out and stabilise yourself on the table so you don’t fall. The drinks hit you a little harder than you first thought!

“Thank you,” he finally mumbles a few moments later, collecting the brushes. “I’m excited to see yours, too.”

You let out a short laugh at that, knowing that whatever you threw onto that canvas isn’t going to be able to hold a candle to what he made.

Quicker than you can keep track of, the two of you finish tidying and then before you know it you’re saying your goodbyes to the staff and stepping outside. You shiver at the unexpected breeze that greets you, people along the other side of the street huddling together. It’s a windy night and the breeze carries a bit of a bite.

“Oh, right,” Taehyung starts in place, offering his canvas to you. “Careful, it might still be a bit wet…”

Somewhat mindlessly, you swap paintings with him, smiling brightly before your gaze is drawn to the side. By nothing but absolute chance, it passes over the line in front of a bar popular with students at your university, and you almost blink and move on before your eyes halt in familiarity. At the hands of nothing but stupid luck, there is someone you recognise over there. Yoongi stands, face indicating a loud complaint before it even leaves his mouth, and there are a few others around him that he seems to be with who are laughing as they wait in line.

Your head feels so messy, like the wind has managed to get inside your skull and fling everything about like leaves on the autumn breeze. You’re so distracted in the moment that you don’t see it as Taehyung follows the direction of your gaze, and his expression drops. When you jerk out of your reverie, it’s just in time to see his eyes flicking from your painting, to his, and then back to you.

You’re about to peek at his painting and fill the silence with a compliment, but he beats you to it. Something is different about his expression, and not just because he’s no longer under the warm light of the paint bar. The glow you’d noticed so easily earlier seems to have dimmed a bit.

“Did you figure out the theme of the exhibition?”

At his question you startle, gaze flicking to the side as you try and figure it out on instinct on the spot. You’d completely forgotten to think about it, and considering you spent about as much time looking at him as you did his works while at the exhibition, you can safely determine you’re still nowhere closer to the answer. “Ah… no.”

As though drawn like a magnet, your gaze ends up over in the direction of Yoongi for the briefest second. You struggle to tear it away.

“It’s anaxiphilia.”

Even through the inebriation slowing your thoughts, his words reach you immediately. It’s as though your heart has turned to stone and dropped straight through your chest. That unspeakable, unknown emotion wells and bubbles within you, swelling to twice, thrice its size and blocking words before they can even reach your throat. Your eyes are on Taehyung again, but his are still centred where yours had been— had he also noticed Yoongi? You didn’t know they knew each other...

“Oh,” you finally manage, swallowing down that nameless sensation. Taehyung’s gaze slowly slides back to you, dark eyes full of so much… something, you think it would take you years to unpack and familiarise yourself with it all. 

For a second, the two of you stand with your gazes locked, both of you too deep in your own thoughts to do anything about it. Taehyung is the one that breaks the spell. 

“Well, it’s getting late, I shouldn’t keep you out any longer… There is a bus stop here, and tons of ubers in the area…” His eyes flick away as he talks but return as he murmurs this last bit, “Thank you for coming today. I hope you had fun.”

“Of course I did,” you rush, finally finding your voice amongst the shambles in your head. “Thank you for inviting me, Tae. I really… I really needed this. Thank you.”

He nods, smiling at you, but you notice it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

“Please get home safe,” he says, and you nod immediately, making his gaze soften. “See you later.”

“Bye! Thank you again!” you wave, Taehyung turning quick and already a decent way down the street after his farewell. He offers a wave over his shoulder and you catch it just in time before you turn back, gaze unconsciously seeking out the familiar figure across the road. Distantly, you observe that Yoongi is no longer in line for the bar and has switched to the bubble tea place a few stores down.

Taehyung’s exhibition and it’s theme swim through your mind, a sudden impulse welling within you in response that spurs your legs into a motion. You’re about to go across the road in a sudden spurt of something like bravery, but for some indecipherable reason, you stop before you can get more than a few feet. You turn your head, gaze thrown over your shoulder, eyes seeking without an explicit goal in mind.

You catch sight of him just before he rounds the corner and disappears from view— even from the back Taehyung presents a handsome figure, but in the split-second you manage to view him, the most notable things about his retreating form is the slumped curve of his shoulders and the lowered angle of his head. He’s gone before you can blink leaving you for good this time with nothing but your messy head and the one thought that swims to the surface that says after seeing him glow in happiness for the better part of the evening, sadness doesn’t suit him much at all. 

Clutching the painting, your turn back to the front and try and focus on the present for just a minute or two, like whether you’re going to catch a bus or uber it home, but each time you start a new thought it always brings you back to the odd mix of guilt swirling deep in your gut. There’s something else there, the familiar hollow pit of yearning, but for once… you can’t quite tell who it’s for. 

a/n: thank u so much for reading! i really hope it was worth the wait and that you look forward the future parts as fox rain begins to slowly draw to a close!! pls let us know u liked it w a like and rb and screaming in our inboxes is always ALWAYS welcome!! thank u !! love u !! <3

#btsghostie #bts x reader #bts series #bts fluff #jungkook smut #bts fic #bts angst #bts x reader series #bts college au #seokjin angst #yoongi angst #hoseok angst #namjoon angst #jimin angst #taehyung angst #jungkook angst #loveletter au #to all the boys i've loved before inspired #bts crack #bts au #my work #cinnacherie #collab #bros..... zee frothed at the mouth for this chapter #bts smut