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linkspooky · 3 years

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idk if ur taking asks abt jjk but i was curious on ur thoughts abt gojo i haven’t rlly heard this around but i’ve been thinking abt the fact that gojo desire to basically indoctrinate children to fit his ideal sorcerer society is a bit strange and i saw this on your meta on how the schools only see these kids as tools but doesn’t gojo do the same idk my thoughts are everywhere and i get that gojo was raised in this system so it’s normalised in his eyes but idk gojo’s ideology is lowkey fucked imo and i was curious what u thought

I think Gojo is a product of the same society that raises up kids to be used as tools, and he unintentionally passes that lesson onto his students.Gojo knows that the system is wrong for using kids that way, but he’s such a fundamental part of the system, he doesn’t really know how to overcome it works inside of it instead. I think what he said to Megumi is pretty telling of how he treats these kids in general, he tells him you better get strong or else you’ll get left behind.” He thinks he’s teaching them what’s best, because that’s how Gojo understands the world works, but at the same time he’s telling a five year old kid if he fails to protect his sister it’s all his fault.

Gojo teaches his students to “get stronger, get stronger” as a response for all of their problems. He takes responsibility for their development as sorcerers, but nothing else really, and especially not their well-being as individuals. Gojo basically treats his students like mini-adults, friends he can pal around with, and that makes sense if you think about it, he’s raising them all to be political allies. He’s not really trying to raise a bunch of healthy adults. I think Gojo genuinely does care for these kids and stick out his neck to protect them, and his goal is entirely an altruistic one to prevent the childhoods of other children from getting destroyed like his did. However, Gojo is fatally a selfish person just like Geto is fatally selfless, he doesn’t offer help out of the goodness of his heart, he barters. He always expects something in return from these children.

So, on one level I believe Gojo yes is intentionally using these children. He only extends help when he gets something in return from them, his helps is always conditional on the fact that he’ll gain another ally. However, at the same time I think the problem more lies in the fact that Gojo doesn’t see individual people as individuals, and therefore doesn’t want to pay attention to the indivdual emotions of his students that he ends up using his students this way. He thinks it’s fine. This is how he was used growing up, but this time, Gojo is using them for good ends instead of a bad one.

I think Gojo’s inability to take care of their needs as individuals, especially attending to their emotional needs is why Tokyo Students are so strong indivudally, but weak as a group. Gojo’s only interesting in fostering their strength as sorcerers, not their emotional health, or their interpersonal relationships, because he doesn’t view those things as necessary. I mean he’s only had one best friend his whole life, and look at him, he’s fine.

To give evidence to my argument though, here’s a comparison between the Tokyo Kids and the Kyoto Kids.

1. Tokyo vs Kyoto

Gojo can be a fantastic teacher when he wants to be, but it requires him paying attention to a student’s individual needs, which he almost never does. When he designs a lesson plan raound Yuji, he does two things that make him better than most Jujutsu Sorcerers already. First, most traditional teachers teach that cursed technique is everything, and would have rejected Yuji outright. Whereas Gojo sees Yuji’s strength as a brawler. He’s willing to go outside the box, and buck tradition to focus on a student’s individual strength and emphasize those rather than telling Yuji he’ll never be a strong sorcerer without strong techniques. The second is he comes up with a method extremely suited to Yuji’s learning style.

However, I think it’s important to note that Yuji and Gojo are actually really similiar. He’s a really receptive student who hangs off of Gojo’s every word. For Gojo it’s like him teaching a younger version of himself, someone who believes that strength is everything, and wants to become the strongeste to be a pillar of support to others. You don’t really get good teacher points for spending the most time with someone who’s easy to teach.

And even with Yuji whose really really receptive to Gojo’s highly individual focused learning style, there are several things that Gojo just neglects to teach or even mention. Basic, fundamental things, that every sorcerer should know.

Nanami has to go out of his way to give Yuji the 101, because Gojo neglected to tell him all the basics. Children are smart of course, especially adolescents who are capable of thinking for themselves, but they also generally know what they’ve been taught up to this point. Yuji is a complete newcomer to the sorcerery world, it makes sense he’d basically be a blank slate having to learn all of this from scratch, but Gojo himself either doesn’t know this, or doesn’t bother with it because it’s too troublesome. He thinks of the kids as miniature adults so, it would make sense that he just assumes they know everything he knows already.

That’s the entire point of introducing Nanami into the story. Gojo teaches Yuji to be a better sorcerer, but not to be an adult, and it’s because he doesn’t really see him as a child to begin with. Gojo thinks becoming a strong sorcerer is the way to teach these kids to be good adults, but he neglects the emotional half of having to teach because Gojo doesn’t deal with emotions well. I mean, even in his training of Yuji, he designs a training method where Gojo doesn’t actually have to be there, and present with him most of the time. He can lock him in a room, and go run off to do Gojo things while Yuji teaches himself. As opposed to a mentor like Nanami who constantly watches and monitors his development.

This is where we start to get to the comparison with the Kyoto students. Because even in the creaive way Gojo taught Yuji, there were some things that Yuji just learned wrong, and internalized wrong from Gojo’s lesson.

Gojo explained the theory behind Yuji’s divergent fist, but Yuji learned it wrong, because he didn’t understand the way cursed energy flowed through the body. If Gojo was paying attention, he would have caught it and corrected it, but Gojo’s teaching style is sink or swim, let students learn or fall entirely on their own. Whereas, when Todo actually sees Yuji’s flawed divertgent fist, he’s able to point out the problem.

Todo actually acknowledges that there’s a difference between beginners and elite sorcerers, that their’s a learning curve to these things, and rather than leaving Yuji to learn it on his own he guides him through these things. While at the same time, expecting Yuji to figure out some things naturally. Todo never once goes easy on Yuji, I’d say his standards for people are as harsh as Gojo’s. You either learn it or you don’t. You’re either strong or you’re not. However, there’s a distinct difference between Todo and Gojo’s teaching styles, and it’s that Todo is emotionally intelligent, and Gojo is not.

Todo pays attention to people, he notices when they’re off, when they’re going through something, and rather than just ignore it, he almost immediately addresses it and tries to talk them thorugh it. It’s not perfect of course, but having his emotions paid attention to, helps Yuji develop as a person moreso than a sorcerer.

The Kyoto students have a teacher who pays attention to their individual needs. A teacher who actually teaches. While we may not know much about Utahime as a character yet, you can see the direct impact she has on her students compared to Gojo.

Gojo’s students are individually strong, but weak as a team,. Utahime’s students are much weaker individually, but can come together.

It shows both in the Kyoto Battle Event, but also the Shibuya arc. The Kyoto kids are all unstable it’s true, they’re all prone to lashing out, but because they’ve dealt with such dark emotions rather than repressing them they’re also way more capable of talking about their feelings to others.

Yes, the Kyoto kids don’t deserve to lash out at whoever they want. Yes, lashing out is a bad way to attempt communication. However, it’s also true that the Tokyo kids respond with what basically amounts to self-righteousness. The Kyoto kids are lashing out because they are going through something, because they’re suffering, yet the Tokyo kids don’t really try to understand those feelings.

Kamo was seperated from his mother at a young age. Maki left Mai behind in an abusive household. Nobara has never experienced the same abuse that Mai has so she’s not really in a position to judge which twin she thinks is the good twin, and which is the bad one. Mechamaru is chronically ill and in constant agony, and then instead of getting him medical help he’s just being used as a toy soldier.

So. The problem is. Gojo’s style of teaching. He wants these kids to be political allies. He wants them to try to make a better world than the one he experienced growing up. However, Gojo doesn’t really teach them to think for themselves. He doesn’t teach them to look at the situation, and the way the Jujutsu World is designed to manipulate and use these children.

Individual responsibiltiy is a good lesson to teach. Individual responssibility can help someone get over themselves and their issues and work towards self improvement, but it’s also, not the only solution. It’s also, impossible to overcome these circumstances all on their own.

Mai can’t be strong like Maki. She’s not weak for folding under the pressure of being in an abusive household. You could even argue that Maki isn’t stronger than her abuse, because emotionally she’s weak, she can’t even maintain a relationship with her own sister she has to cut herself off from everyone.

Kamo has to follow the clan’s orders, he’s terrified they’ll hurt his mother and he’ll never see her again. She’s actively being used as a tool to manipulate them.

Mechamaru is already strong as a sorcerer, that’s not going to stop the fact that he’s chronically ill.

Basically, in this regard Gojo’s students repeat what Gojo himself always says. “Have you tried getting stronger?” We can see why this approach doesn’t work with Kokichi, because he did do what Gojo would always reccomend. He didn’t want to burden others with his emotions so he tried to be strong and solve everything on his own, and that resulted in his death.

Think if Mechamaru had been supported. If he thought it was okay to confide his problems with others, if it was okay for him to be weak, and ask for help when he didn’t know what to do on his own.

However, when he tried to do that with panda he just got slapped with a “Your behavior is wrong.” It’s why even when telling people, especially children their behavior is wrong you also need to be sure to take care of their emotional needs as well. Especially teenagers, because teenagers are literally all emotions, they’re not minitature, fully-developed adults. Kokichi was wrong to lash out, but his emotions were right. He has every right to be in pain. When he’s told off, he also takes that as a message that he’s weak for trying to confide anything in others, that him complaining about his victimhood made him weak in the first place, so what does Kokichi do. He retreates into himself, he quiets down about his problems, he tries to solve everything on his own and he fails at doing that because you can’t. You cannot solve all your problems by simply being stronger than them.

Gojo’s students aren’t raised as emotionally healthy individuals, and because of that they also can’t really relate to the emotions of other people, especially the negative one. They are, strong willed individuals yes, strong sorcerers, yes, but they’re not really a team.

I think that’s illustrated in how they all fall apart in Shibuya. All of Gojo’s students basically make the same mistake, they don’t listen to the adults, they charge into battle because “I’m strong enough.”

Nobara, the adults literally all told you not to fight. Nobara: Nah it’s fine I’m strong.

Look at how Nobara loses. The second she starts fighting with Yuji as a team, she makes a sloppy mistake because she 1) underestimated her opponent and 2) was never taught how to fight in a team.

It’s not just Nobara though it’s every single one of them.

Yuji runs off on his own, fights on his own, and loses to Choso. Megumi suicide attacks to take down one (1) opponent whose just a regular curse user when he reaches his limit.

This is what they are all taught. They all have to fight on their own, be strong on their own, and if they’re strong enough they’ll win, if they’re not strong enough oh well. The Tokyo Kids genuinely like each other as a team but they’re always running away from each other. They all overestimate themselves and what they’re capable of handling and get in over their heads.

And it does go back to the Kyoto Battle arc, because the Tokyo kids are just as emotionally disturbed as the Kyoto kids, they just are repressed about it. Take Megumi for example, Megumi has been abandoned and neglected all of his life, and Gojo never really offered him any support or healing for that abandonment.

There’s no canon indication that Gojo ever raised Megumi or did anything with him other than provide for housing, and protect him from the Zenin clan on the condition that Megumi STILL BECOME A SORCERER, JUST ONE POLITICALLY ALLIGNED FOR HIM AND NOT THE ZENIN.

He didn’t offer Megumi a chance at a normal life, or even help him grow up as an individual because Gojo’s not interested in these things. Gojo’s help is conditional on the fact that Megumi work hard to pay him back, and reach his full potential as a sorcerer. As a result, Megumi is walking around with completely unaddressed abandonment issues as a result of never having a stable adult in his life, and this goes, completely unnoticed, which leads to him constantly risking his own life, endangering and harming himself. Megumi’s just as unstable as the Kyoto kids, he’s going to do something dangerous someday soon. It’s just Megumi’s been taught from a young age, he has to be the responsible one in his household, and he has to take responsibility for everything on his own by working to become stronger, and look like where that has led him.

Hmm, I wonder why Megumi always feels like it’s his responsibility to sacrifice, what could have possibly led him ot that conclusion? Why does he feel so responsible for the actions of other people around him? It’s a geuine mystery.

However, the Kyoto kids are capable of doing something the Tokyo kids can’t do. They can cry and be weak in front of other people. They can support each other as a group. Not only did they help Miwa at her lowest point, but Yuji would have given up, had Todo not shown up when he did.

Yuji actually wasn’t capable of handling it all on his own. He couldn’t defeat Mahito just by being stronger than him, or having a strong will.

Individualism like Gojo teaches is important, but it’s also incomplete. It’s only half the solution. The Tokyo kids need the camraderie of the Kyoto kids, the same way the Kyoto kids need to learn to take responsibility for themselves.

That’s why the Shibuya arc ends the way it does. The Tokyo kids failing as individuals, and the Kyoto kids coming together as team. However, since both sides only have half the answer, neither side is able to defeat Kamo Sr. totally.

However, Gojo’s mistakes are shown even more clearly after the arc resolves. Gojo doesn’t actually teach people to think for themselves, because he’s raising them up to follow his politics. Now, look at what his students are doing in his absence. Gojo wants to fix the broken world, but Yuji’s conclusion he comes too after suffering is that he doesn’t want to think about fixing the world. He just wants to become another cog in the machine.

What was the greatest mistake the previous generation made?

Geto. Not only in exposing him to the trauma of Riko dying in front of him. But also, offering him no support a year afterwards. Yaga completely neglecting him and failing to see what was going wrong. Then, when Geto finally did break, sending another student to kill him.

Yaga really can’t understand why this eighteen year old would hestiate to kill this other eighteen year old, that’s been his best and only friend for three years. Why is this child not comfortable with an execution mission? It baffles the mind.

Gojo, by failing to raise his students as emotionally healthy individuals repeats the same mistake.

Yuta and Yuji both don’t really care about the world around them, or politics. They don’t pay attention to those things, they weren’t raised to do that. However, now because of that, because both are willing to become cogs in the machine they’re both letting themselves beused right now.

They refused to think for themselves, so now the elders are manipulating them into a conflict against each other. Yuta because he doesn’t see the situation at large, he only wants to protect his friends. Yuji, because the only way he thinks he has value is by killing curses, he’s just going to keep blindly executing them until Yuta comes to kill him. Gojo’s students are divided specially because of that reason. They’re not together as a group, they’re just a group of particularly strong individuals, and Gojo never even thought that these strong individuals with no particular connection to each other might turn against each other. They might lie to each other. They might keep secrets from each other. They might fail to communicate. Because, Gojo doesn’t really pay attention to complex relaitonships like that. He’s only had his one friend his whole life.

Even though that’s also exactly what happened to his one and only friend, his emotional needs were neglected by the system around him until he completely fell apart. Geto and Gojo’s problem wasn’t that they weren’t “the strongest” when they were together. It’s that they were never “together” again after a certain point.

#Anonymous #gojo satoru #suguru geto #okkotsu yuta #itadori yuji #metasks #jjk meta

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ninma · 3 years

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A look at Dream's punishment through irl rules and taking into account UN's rules regarding prisons. Because it is just interesting and it proves how there is NO justification for it. But mostly because it's interesting to look at and you may learn a thing or two.

I have seen too many times people trying to justify Dream's punishment. I did research and read through multiple articles and documents (over 73 pages of two different documents) about the more legal sides of his punishment. While Quackity's physical torture is obvious, I am here to address that even before that it was still very illegal. I know it is fictional! This is just a look into the real life facts and rules regarding prisons because it is interesting to look at Dream's punishment and Pandora's Vault under the light of these. So keep that in mind while reading this!

Welcome to my ted talk with actual facts and be prepared for quite the ride!

While yes, he has done bad things...however he has not done something so bad that he deserves a punishment so cruel that it's considered too inhumane for even mass murderers. Like actually! Stay tooned and you'll see what I mean.

His sentence is indefinite solidary confinement. Which is defined by the united nations as:

"the confinement of prisoners for 22 hours or more a day without meaningful human contact."

This means his punishment fits the definition for all his time (including visits) except when Tommy was locked inn and now with Quackity (although I'd consider the last one a turn for the worse). Now that we have that cleared up- lets get into the rule breaking. But first, let me introduce you to The Mandela Rules!

"The Mandela Rules reinforce human rights principles, including

the recognition of the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman

or degrading treatment or punishment and effective guidance

to national prison administrations for persons deprived of their liberty"

Now that we have established that, lets get into this concerning fact train!

Rule 43

1. In no circumstances may restrictions or disciplinary sanctions amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The following practices, in particular, shall be prohibited:

(a) Indefinite solitary confinement;

(b) Prolonged solitary confinement;

(d) Corporal punishment or the reduction of a prisoner’s diet or drinking water;

(e) Collective punishment.

Yeah...pretty clear breaking of 4/5 there. They can't even break e! Not to mention the pretty explicit breaking of d that was probably a surprise. You can count it as them breaking 4/4 if you count the fact that they can’t even break e. Rest assured my friend, this is just the beginning.

Rule 44

For the purpose of these rules, solitary confinement shall refer to the confinement of prisoners for 22

hours or more a day without meaningful human contact. Prolonged solitary confinement shall refer to

solitary confinement for a time period in excess of 15 consecutive days.

Already broken this one too huh. Even visiting days counts because I don't think anyone has been there for hours and I also don't think Sam's interactions would be long enough or count as meaningful human contact. The time with Tommy and Quackity is the only time it dosen't count as solidary. So this is getting...very much concerinng. But this is still only the start.

Rule 45

1. Solitary confinement shall be used only in exceptional cases as a last

resort*, for as* short a time as possible and subject to independent

review, and only pursuant to the authorization by a competent authority. It

shall not be imposed by virtue of a prisoner’s sentence.

2. The imposition of solitary confinement should be prohibited in the case

of prisoners with mental or physical disabilities when their conditions

would be exacerbated by such measures

Woops...so not only is it illegal as a punishment...but also the "he is a psychopath" argument (which is already a bad stereotype, but I won't get into psychology here. It's a common misconception and c!Tommy not knowing is almost to be expected. However please do not say that someone, character or real person, have a mental disorder or illness without proper knowledge about psychology and in the case of characters we shouldn’t put labels unless the writer has said that they have taken mental disorders or illnesses into account when making the character) just got yeeted out the window. Actually that argument just took a loop and now is an argument for the other side. It makes sense because as it says: it exacerbates their preexisting mental illnesses. Which is why it's prohibited.

"In no case may a detainee’s contact with the outside world be

dependent on his or her cooperativeness, be used as a disciplinary

sanction or form part of the sentence."

- Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Civil and Political Rights, Including the Questions of Torture and Detention, ¶ 43, Comm’n on Human Rights,

“…The medical officer should visit prisoners held in solitary confinement

every day, on the understanding that such visits should be in the interests

of the prisoners ’ health. Furthermore, prisoners held in solitary

confinement for more than 12 hours should have access to fresh air for at

least 1 hour each day” - Subcomm. on Prevention of Torture [SPT]

Wow Sam...it is almost impressive in a dark way just how explicitly these are broken. The Warden's very punishments for disobedience just straight up counts as torture. And for the obvious record I highly doubt Quackity's daily visits to the green bloob counts as anything but 'the interests of the prisoners' health'. You can disagree here...but I am being very sarcastic.

Rule 22

1. Every prisoner shall be provided by the prison administration at the

usual hours with food of nutritional value adequate for health and

strength, of wholesome quality and well prepared and served.

Raw potatoes every day for the rest of your life..eehhh no thanks. If Dream ever gets out he will probably join me in the 'eating potatoes trauma' box. As funny as that sounds, it isn't a joke. I was force fed potatoes as a child and I hated it to the point where it gave me a mental block that stops me from eating them as my body just does not want to swallow it. It's a problem. But I can joke about it. Maybe Tommy will join us too, although it wasn't really the eating potatoes that caused that trauma...rip. Rest in anything but potatoes.

Rule 42

General living conditions addressed in these rules, including those related

to light, ventilation, temperature, sanitation, nutrition, drinking water,

access to open air and physical exercise, personal hygiene, health care

and adequate personal space, shall apply to all prisoners without

exception.

I think it's pointless to say more on that topic as it's pretty much already summed up. Let us now move over to what are probably some of the qoutes so specific that it's scary.

“Furthermore, [the Committee] is concerned about the use of solitary

confinement for indefinite periods of time.... Full isolation of 22 to 23

hours a day in supermaximum security prisons is unacceptable

(art. 16).” - Committee. against Torture [CAT]

Oh wow.. talk about on the nose. I should've just started with this one as it pretty much says pretty clearly how it is unacceptable. Like yikes...can you get more specific? It is just downright ridiculous at this point. (-_-;)

“Solitary confinement, when used for the purpose of punishment,

cannot be justified for any reason, precisely because it imposes severe

mental pain and suffering beyond any reasonable retribution for

criminal behaviour and thus constitutes an act defined in article 1 or article

16 of the Convention against Torture, and a breach of article 7 of the

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."

Ahaha...ha....yeah for those who justify it...the convention against torture is very much against it being justified...Imagine if the characters could read these rules, that'd be interesting. Although I am pretty sure they don't follow realism for the imprisonment. As I have already said; this is just an interesting look at the irl rules and how Dream's punishment and Pandora's Vault stand under light of them.

“No prisoner, including those serving life sentence [sic] and prisoners on

death row, shall be held in solitary confinement merely because of the

gravity of the crime.”

- Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Like...there are no loopholes here. It is so extremely clear that it truly is darkly impressive how the characters don't seem to have a second thought about this. How do you accidentally sentence someone to a lifetime of torture without realizing? If they do know...It'd be very dark.

Btw Tommy's exile and his time in prison doesn't count as solidary confinement. Just to clear that up.

It amazes me how badly they break these rules...I know they probably didn't take the realism into consideration. However it is still kind of darkly impressive. Especially considering how scary specific they break them too. Even though this is just a interesting (I was about to write fun, however I wouldn't count realizing how inhuman the prison is is 'fun'. But it is interesting) look at Dream's punishment and Pandora's Vault under the light of real life rules for prisons. (lol my paranoid self have said this so much)

These facts also proves how saying it's justified...is kind of morally bad. Not attacking anyone! I just want to also say how while it is pure fiction and the characters in the story can have whatever opinion they want as they are characters. However when it comes to fans approving and justifying it without taking time to consider how it really isn't something that can be justified (real or no). You can have whatever opinion you want, however just maybe take some of what you have learned today and reflect over it? To think twice after having received new information dosen't hurt. I am not here to tell you what to think, so rest easy. Only to share some facts^^ (*so obviously scared of offending anyone*)

I recommend taking some time to look it up yourself if you want to look further into it. The psychological aspects of it is also interesting to look at!

I hope you have learned something here today and found this post and my research interesting! I spent hours on this so I hope you have enjoyed this! I originally posted this on reddit and I was very surprised at how many stopped by to read it and therefore I choose to post it here as well because you learn something and hopefully also gained a new perspective.

Ninma over and out!

#dream smp #pandora's vault

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rein-ette · 3 years

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Engport Thoughts:

Warnings: this ain’t fancy sh/t ok it’s just the stuff I yell in my own head at 4 AM and its hella long too

I don’t really vibe with the view that engport’s power dynamic is skewed in Arthur’s favour, and that Port somehow loves Arthur more than Arthur loves him. Yes, Port has his moments of doubt, and yes, politically speaking for the past two centuries England’s been more powerful and relevant on the world stage. But nowadays they’re not that different, and while Port did harbour some serious resentment in the 1800-1900s because he felt that Arthur wasn’t treating him like an equal, in the century they spent apart I think he realized how much of that feeling came from his own self-hatred and fears rather than Arthur’s actions.

Like yes, there was the period after Napoleon where England controlled Port’s affairs for a while, and ofc there was the ultimatum — but is the ultimatums importance not sometimes overstated? Even for its time it was a pretty minor disagreement with little political fallout. To me, the ultimatum is only important as the last straw that broke the camel's back—since the decline of the Portuguese empire began, slowly at first and more noticeably after 1800, Ports own worries and anger and fear grew, often exacerbated by comparisons with England. Arthur noticed, but could do nothing about it; he couldn’t well have sacrificed British interests to assuage Ports nebulous feeling of inadequacy, and even if he had Port would only have seen it as pity. In fact Arthur didn’t know how to deal with it at all, so he said nothing. It’s that feeling when a friend or loved one says to you “I don’t deserve you” (as a way of saying “I’m not good enough”, not “you’re really great”) -- how is one supposed to respond? As a nation and a man Portugal needed to redefine the source of his own value, and that wasn’t something Arthur could do for him.

Of course Arthur may not have made this process any easier; in the best of times Arthur is about as good at communicating complex and tangled emotions as a sea cucumber, and when you add in the growing ambition of the British people and the daily European squabbles and power shifts, it all becomes a mess. I honestly think Arthur probably made the best choice available to him by not addressing it in the 19th century — if he had tried, his abrasiveness and Ports extreme sensitivity on this issue would surely have blown up their relationship sooner than 1890. To illustrate the point that this wasn’t a “Arthur treats Gabi as an inferior” issue, consider if England had briefly directed French policy like they did Portuguese after the Napoleonic Wars. Francis would of course start squawking up a storm, but I don’t think Francis would feel like him and Arthur were no longer equals. France in fact went through a similar experience as Portugal but hyperspeed from 1940-1950 where they had to confront going from Great Power to “stfu ur only on this council cuz the US is in a good mood.” But Arthur and Francis had a stable relationship during this time, because Francis’s identity and self worth (as a man, not a nation) is less rigid and based upon “providing for others” and “being Europe’s sole supply of shiny and yummy things” than Port's was.

So yeah, my point is that Arthur treated Gabi in the 1800s like he had always treated him — and even being extra careful not to aggravate his insecurities. It was Gabriel that felt more and more inadequate, irrelevant, powerless, so that when an issue comes along like the Pink Map; boom, you got urself a self-esteem issue bath bomb. Note that I’m talking about Artie and Gabi's personal interactions, NOT England’s diplomatic treatment of Portugal. Of course as states England recognized Portugal's diminishing relevance -- if they didn't, that would mean the English foreign office was bad at their job. And Gabriel was certainly intelligent and experienced enough to appreciate this distinction between interpersonal and international relationships, which is also why Gabi didn’t seek an argument with Arthur before 1890, either. He knew it wasn’t Arthur’s fault that he felt the way he did, but the humiliation of the ultimatum hit too close to home and he exploded anyways.

One last thought about their power dynamic: on an emotional level, I feel like Gabi has more cards to play than Arthur. Gabi holds so much sway over Arthur’s emotional well-being that I often think about how bad it could get if Gabriel chose to abuse that power. Arthur himself has so many insecurities and traumas that it would be so easy for Gabi, who knows him so well, to exploit them, especially when Arthur’s pretty much been hardwired after 9 centuries to trust Gabi. I think Arthur’s logic goes something like, if I can’t trust Gabriel than theres truly no one in this world I can rely on, which makes it, uh, really easy for Gabi to gaslight him. Like, if he just said “no one will ever love you but me,” Artie would believe that shit. He’d be on guard if it came from anyone else, but if Gabi says it mf would f/in internalize it. “If you leave me you’ll be alone,” “no one can forgive you for what you’ve done, but I will,” “if you died no one will give a shit but me.” These are all things Arthur half believes already, so it’d be a piece of cake for someone as astute as Gabriel to push him over the edge (@needcake has a great fic here about dark!engport which explores this abuse of trust). I think Port is actually very aware of this and goes out of his way to avoid saying things like that, precisely because he knows how fragile Arthur’s mental health is and how much he needs to trust Gabi. Sometimes this can be a burden on Port, too, which results in him softening his stance or giving in when he should draw a clearer line because he’s scared he’ll aggravate Arthur's insecurities.

TLDR; PORT'S PROBLEMS ARE NOT ALL MADE IN ENGLAND, PORTUGAL HAS ITS OWN DOMESTIC INDUSTRY FOR MANUFACTURING ISSUES™, and they’re actually very soft on each other and careful with each other’s feelings. They’re trying so hard, but history doesn’t give out medals for effort.

#engport #hws england #hws portugal #my hcs #when i was doing research for the dark world is not far from us #i read some speeches given in the House about the importance of anglo-portuguese relations #i can't recall if it was turn of the 20th century or during ww2 #but they basically talked about port's strategic importance to England as a check for Spain #as well as Port's historical loyalty to and sincere treatment of England #so yeah this whole long ass post is basically ab that and how port aint some starry eyed victim of his own terrible affection #he's a grown ass man for goodness sake #lets not make their relationship that one dimensional

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stargazer-sims · 2 years

Text

7 - First Contact

Davian: Did you find it?

Félix: Yes. The website’s contact page lists the information for every clinic. Look, they’ve even got international ones. I recognize the names of some of these cities. There's one that's near Al-Simhara. I did my graduate research there, you know. Ooh… and I think that last one might be in Japan. Haven’t you got a friend living in Japan?

Davian: Yeah. Victor Nelson. We kinda drifted a bit after high school, but he found me on Simstagram a while back, and we reconnected. Do you see the Oasis Springs one?

Félix: Right there, at the top.

Davian: I just realized we’ll need our passports to go there.

Félix: Yes. Do you know where yours is?

Davian: Probably still in my bag from when I came back from San Myshuno.

Félix: You really should be more careful with it. And I hope you haven’t left laundry in that bag.

Davian: There’s possibly still some clothes in it.

Félix: I suppose it’s too much to hope that they’re clean clothes.

Davian: I wouldn’t say they’re all clean, no.

Félix: You’ll have to develop better habits before the baby comes. Your messy ways aren’t going to create a very good environment for her.

Davian: You’re really into this, aren’t you?

Félix: Aren’t you?

Davian: Yeah, I totally am. I just find it super cute, how you’re already nesting or whatever, and you’re not even… what are we calling this?

Félix: I’m not nesting. I’ve never liked how untidy you are. And to answer your question, the clinic’s site refers to it as ‘pollination’.

Davian: Well, that sounds horrible. Can we say pregnant? Would that be weird?

Félix: That word feels a bit uncomfortable in my mouth too, but it’s certainly better than pollination. I like how you put it when we were talking about it in bed last night. Growing a baby.

Davian: Let’s go with that, then.

Félix: All right. I’m going to write down this number, and then we can call.

*****

Félix: It's ringing! What am I going to say when someone answers?

Davian: Are you actually nervous?

Félix: Yes. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Davian: You want me to do it?

Félix: No, It’ll be fine. I’m good at improvising.

Davian: Okay.

Félix: Hello? My name’s Félix Blanchet, and I’m calling from Willow Creek. … Yes, that’s in Canada. We realize you’re south of the border, but my husband I are planning to be in the area, and we’d like to arrange an appointment for a consultation. … Of course. His name is Davian St-Jean. That’s D-A-V-I-A-N. And I’m Dr. Blanchet, actually. … Pardon? No, I’m an archaeologist. It’s a Ph.D … Oh, okay. I’m twenty-nine, and my husband is twenty-six. … No. No, we do drink socially, but neither of us smoke, and neither of us have any health problems. … Yes, we have medical insurance. … Two weeks? Yes, thank you. That sounds perfect.

Félix: Yes, thank you. À bientôt.

Davian: Well? What did they say?

Félix: Our appointment is two weeks from today. It’s an initial consultation, to determine if we’re suitable for the procedure. We have to remember to bring proof of our health insurance, and I need to see my doctor between now and then.

Davian: Why do you need to see your doctor?

Félix: They want me to have a general physical examination and the standard blood tests. The ‘intended gestational parent’ should have a medical report sent ahead, the lady said. That’s me.

Davian: Intended gestational parent? Yeah, that doesn’t sound like something from a creepy science movie at all.

Félix: I think she’s Sixamish. The receptionist. She had a very odd accent.

Davian: Sixamish? You mean, like an alien?

Félix: I think it’s politically incorrect to refer to people from Sixam as aliens.

Davian: Even though they’re literally from another planet?

Félix: Even so.

Davian: Are you going to be okay with the medical exam and blood tests? I know you hate needles and you’re not a big fan of doctors.

Félix: I have to do it, regardless of how I feel about it. Are you going to come with me to see the doctor?

Davian: Do you need me to?

Félix: I’ll feel better if you’re there. You can hold my hand and distract me while they’re drawing blood. The last time I saw my own blood, I fainted, remember?

Davian: I mostly remember Sophie screaming through the phone at me to come home immediately, regardless of where I was and what I was doing. I still can’t believe she called 911.

Félix: She panicked, but to be fair, I imagine it was rather dramatic.

Davian: Was it? I seem to recall your dumb ass laughing about it by the time I got home. You and your neon purple band-aid. That, and I remember being stupid jealous when the paramedic kept saying you were adorable.

Félix: I don’t think she meant it in the way you thought she meant it. Anyway, I’d rather avoid any more situations like that. I’d like it if you’d be with me and help me focus on something other than the tests. I really do need you there. Please?

Davian: Since when are you this clingy?

Félix: Since we decided that I’m the intended gestational parent of our child. I’m allowed to want moral support, aren’t I? Honestly, it’s a bit scary, if I think about it too much.

Davian: Maybe try not to think about it too much?

Félix: That’s the goal. But you will come to the doctor’s office with me?

Davian: Yeah, of course.

Félix: Good. I’ll call there in a minute, and then afterward, perhaps we can start organizing our trip to Oasis Springs.

#ts4 #sims 4 #eagames #willow creek #Félix Blanchet #Davian St-Jean #stargazersims #aucieletoile #aucieletoile1

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canary3d-obsessed · 4 years

Text

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 05 (first part)

(Masterpost) (previous episode) (this episode, second part)

Warning: Spoilers for all 50 episodes of the Untamed

The Pride of Yunmeng

Waterfall Date

Lan Wangji gets to experience the two extremes of Wei Wuxian’s interpersonal skills within the span of a few seconds. This is even better than his rooftop date with this horrible annoying terribly, terribly attractive boy.

Lan Wangji has come here on a mission to make Wei Wuxian do his homework, which is why he immediately tells him “let’s go to the library” gazes at him silently for several seconds...

...and then lets him adjust his sleeve for him and step allll the way into his personal space.

Unfortunately Wei Wuxian is about to guess a Lan Clan secret, so Lan Wangji ends the conversation by saying “let’s go to the library” grabbing him by his sexy arm muscle and dragging him off. Did he hold his arm all the way to the library? Even if he didn’t, his “I don’t touch other people” later at the lake is clearly horseshit. I don’t touch other people unless they are named Wei Wuxian and our brothers aren’t watching.

(more after the cut!)

Apology in the Library

Wei Wuxian splits his library time between actually doing his homework and trying to make friends with Lan Wangji. And he tries really, really hard, starting by sincerely complimenting LWJ’s calligraphy and offering a pretty okay apology for his prior rooftop antics. Lan Wangji tells him to put his leg down but doesn’t tell him to go sit at his own desk.

Lan Wangji exhibits steely self-control as he resists this look, which would cause anyone else’s robes to spontaneously un-weave themselves into a pile of threads.

When Lan Wangji won’t look at him because he feels his apology was not sincere, Wei Wuxian becomes much more formally apologetic. First he says “sorry” two more times, and he starts prepping Lan Wangji’s ink. This involves grinding an ink stick against an ink stone with water, to make a pool of ink for the calligrapher to dip their brush into.

This is not Wei Wuxian being annoying and messing with stuff on Lan Wangji’s desk, a la Zhou Yunlan (Guardian). This is an act of service; a genuinely helpful thing to do if you know how to do it properly --which all of these young scholars definitely do--and an action that casts Wei Wuxian in the role of a servant or junior.

Then Wei Wuxian offers to kneel down (to offer a major formal apology), while giggling like an adorable dumbass. It's unclear if this is sexual innuendo, just being ridiculously unconcerned about dignity, being slightly into abasing himself for this beautiful person, or all of the above.

After taking a long moment to consider all this, Lan Wangji slowly and deliberately gives Wei Wuxian three seconds of the eye contact he’s been begging for.

Then Lan Wangji spoils the moment by dropping a silence spell on him.

Wen Can I Have Some Fun?

The Wen siblings hang out and talk about their secret villainy and then fret about how much it sucks to have a chronic health condition, which is pretty relatable TBH.

I know life seems boring now but just wait until you’re an itinerant zombie with nails in your head.

Wen Qing is a devoted older sister just like Jiang Yanli, although with less fainting and more scheming.

Good kitty.

Porno in the Library

Now, since this next scene ends with Wei Wuxian being a boundary-crossing jerk, let's start by remembering that Lan Wangji has magically gagged Wei Wuxian against his will three times now, as well as hiding his vulnerable family member behind a ward while lying in wait in order to attack him. So, you know. Teenagers in lust. They are both learning what is and isn't okay.

Lan Wangji steals a long glance at Wei Wuxian while Wei Wuxian is drawing.

Wei Wuxian is putting the finishing touches on a gift for Lan Wangji. The gift is a portrait of Lan Wangji with flowers in his hair. This boy is SMITTEN. I think he knows it, too; he just doesn’t think it’s a big deal yet.

Wei Wuxian, who is good at everything, is really fucking good at drawing.

When Wei Wuxian presents the drawing to Lan Wangji he says “this is my gift for you.” This is very good-mannered of Wei Wuxian; Lan Wangji had to supervise him for three days, so he is presenting him with a gift to thank him and say farewell.

Lan Wangji completely ignores him, which is really breathtaking, next-level rudeness.

Wei Wuxian isn’t bothered by this, however, and just embellishes the picture with an extra flower or something before offering it again. This time Lan Wangji takes in and is very very very pleased with it, as evidenced by his slightly widening his eyes and how carefully he places the drawing on the far side of his desk.

Also he gives Wei Wuxian some prolonged eye contact, and engages in what, for him, is playful banter, calling the gift “extremely boring” when Wei Wuxian prompts him to use more words than usual.

Then Wei Wuxian spoils the moment by pranking him.

Now - let’s look at this erotic-book situation. This is a boundary-crossing prank, yes, but it’s also an invitation to engage in some form of intimacy. For teens who have access to erotic images, looking at them together can be simple naughty fun. Or it can be a way of discovering and bonding over shared sexual identities and interest. Or it can prompt more direct engagement, up to and including having sex with each other.

Lan Wangji’s horrified reaction means that Wei Wuxian has to characterize this as a prank after the fact, but he might very well have intended it as an invitation to get horny together.

Either way, his response to Lan Wangji’s “shameless” comment is bound to make an impression.

Wei Wuxian is from the clan of "be free" and he just doesn't see why this is a big deal. And now he’s told Lan Wangji it doesn’t have to be a big deal. And through him, the producers are breaking the fourth wall and telling every viewer that this doesn’t have to be a big deal and that they shouldn’t feel ashamed.

Threats and rudeness and book destruction ensue, and Lan Wangji is left alone in all kinds of emotional disarray, with a bunch of torn up erotica to tape back together throw away.

Boys on the Rocks

Wei Wuxian brags about his prank to Jiang Cheng and bestie Nie Huaisang, telling them that he got Lan Wangji to cuss at him. He’s going to put a notch on his sword handle for this achievement.

Jiang Cheng is pissed at Wei Wuxian about this, like he’s pissed at him about everything all the time. Possibly he has already started the seedlings of his lifelong jealousy of Lan Wangji.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t realize that he’s essentially prepared Wei Wuxian to court Lan Wangji by constantly criticizing, hitting, and threatening him. After a decade of Jiang Cheng’s rough style of brotherhood, Lan Wangji’s elegant and refined hostility rolls off of Wei Wuxian like water off a duck’s back.

Nie Huaisang wants to make sure Wei Wuxian didn't rat him out, but isn't worried about the destroyed book because he has a whole external drive full of porn.

Several Brain Cells Trio

These guys do make some questionable choices together, but actually they are all really bright and effective in complimentary ways.

Jiang Cheng is growing into a strong future leader - authoritarian and dickish, yes, but also decisive and unflinching. Wei Wuxian is observant of things around him, always ready for combat, and thinks deeply and strategically about events. Nie Huaisang is a bottomless font of knowledge, sourced from books and from his own observations.

So when the Wen spy bird shows up, they spot it, drive it away, identify what it is, and understand that it’s a threat and that its presence has political implications.

They are all goofballs at times, but highly gifted ones.

Doo Doo Doo Lookin Out My Back Ward

Lan Xichen asks Lan Wangji if he’s found out who was sneaking around his the back ward and Lan Wangji hesitates before reluctantly saying “Wei Ying.”

Ok seriously - nobody calls him Wei Ying. Nobody refers to him in the third person as as Wei Ying. Calling him Wei Gongzi or Wei Wuxian would be totally normal. His own brother calls him Wei Wuxian. And Lan Wangji has only called him Wei Ying to his face when he was angry.

But now--immediately after the erotica debacle in the library--he is Wei Ying when Lan Wangji is speaking of him privately with his brother.

By the way, Lan Wangji's shoulders seem super wide in these robes, don't they? I'm not complaining.

Forgettable Disciple #1

Now we meet apparent nobody Su She, who sucks. He wants to take care of the water ghosts himself.

He is a no-headband disciple which is like - none of the juniors in the later timeframe go without a headband. The guys who got set on fire at the gate had headbands. One of the Lan Rules is “wear a headband.” Is there anyone else who doesn't rate a headband? This is a plot point later when it comes to the ice cave but for now it just seems that he's that one perpetual intern who never gets promoted and never learned embroidery.

Doctor Qing, Medicine Woman

[OP laughed way too hard at her own joke just now.] Wen Qing is helping Jiang Yanli, and Jiang Cheng is super happy to see her. When did he develop this crush? Because it's already in full swing.

Did Wei Wuxian just sneer when he noticed Jiang Cheng’s crush? Like macking on Lan Wangji is more appropriate than this?

I love you and I’m going to advocate killing everyone who matters to you

I’m a nosy jerk and I’m going to be your best friend for life, quite literally

Wei Wuxian complains about Wen Qing ignoring him and she gives him the prettiest, loveliest *sigh* death glare ever.

However when she sees that he's a little brother whose sister utterly dotes on him, she starts thinking maybe he's all right.

For the Yanli-Qing shippers, there is a tiny breadcrumb here, where Yanli says they met by the river bank. I don't personally ship my personal girlfriend Wen Qing with Jiang Yanli, but I support your ships wherever they may sail.

Continued in Part 2, right here

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #the untamed gifs #the untamed memes #wangxian #the untamed stills #the untamed spoilers #restless rewatch #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs #wei wuxian #lan wangji #wen qing #jiang cheng #nie huaisang

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atsunflower · 4 years

Text

Hospital for souls — The Line

Rated: SFW

Author note: I gotta nothing to say. This took me really long and I struggled a lot to write it. Thanks for being patient with me. Also, big shoutout to @neonghxst, who helped me a lot with this one. I love you bby 💕

Warnings: Cursing, mentions of anxiety and this chapter contains gore towards the end.

IV — The line

Previous || Next

"I don't wanna go" Your voice showed distaste at the invitation.

Since the fight with Sakusa, you avoided all human contact like the plague. The only ones that talked to you were the maids and, occasionally, Komori, who had warmed up to you since you saved his ass — to be honest, you weren't very fond of his change of character.

"Listen, you're the new lady of this household." Komori explained in a tired manner."This gala is held every year in some sort of diplomatics, to grant no family crosses the line. All the important members must make a presence."

"Yeah, but I'm sure no one cares if I don't show up." You deadpanned looking at his face.

"It's just a fancy ass party. I'll take you to get a dress myself, but I gotta run some errands and find a suit too. If I'm late, then Izuna will take you." Komori saw you stiffening when you heard the name. Ever since you arrived in Itachiyama, Izuna was the most hostile towards you. "Hey, don't worry about him... He'll be nice."

"I gotta remind you that no one has been nice to me since I came here, Komori-san." You stated the obvious and the male before you grimaced.

"Look, we're not as bad as you think. Neither we are some sort of low life criminals, you know." His voice sent shivers down your spine. The hazel-haired man has been treating you better, yes, but you could tell the words you said to Sakusa that day affected him too.

"Yeah. But you all did nothing to prove me wrong." You stared at his eyes, the sincere tone meaning each world "If anything, all you did was make me miserable even though I'm not a threat. And you know it." You saw when the hazel haired male shook his head, face softening a little.

"I'll be back in a few." And then, Komori left.

To your relief, it was Komori himself who showed up at your bedroom door. Now, you were at some boutique somewhere in the fancy side of Shibuya, trying a beautiful strappy off-white dress.

You loved how the silky cloth hugged your body and how the pearly color complimented your skin tone. Definitely, it was the propper gown for an event as important as a mafia gala.

Taking in the figure reflected in the mirror, you recalled the last time you wore something so fancy was at your wedding. Suddenly, you felt ugly — after all, you were a woman of surgical scrubs and white coats. Wearing something like this dress was a reminder of what kind of life you were living now.

"[Name]-san, have you decided?" Komori asked with an undecipherable look on his face.

"Ah, yes, I'm taking this one" You said to the salesperson, already getting back to the changing room.

From the inside, you heard a knock on the door. It was Komori.

"[Name], are you good?" He asked in a soft spoken manner, as if he was concerned.

You know it's not the case, don't let your guard down, you reminded yourself.

"Yes, Komori-san. Are we ready to go?" He hummed in agreement, saying he was going to do the payment.

The two of you had yet to arrive in Itachiyama. The silence was heavy inside the car and you could see the man opening his mouth as if he was trying to say something.

"I never asked, did you see a doctor?" You started, breaking the unnerving atmosphere.

"Ah, yes. I'm all good, no sequels or whatever." He cleared his throat, side-glancing at you "Those guys took us by surprise that night, huh? We were lucky you were there to help us out." You hummed, staring at his elbow, as if you could see through the material of his jacket.

"I shouldn't have opened your arm that way. It was really irresponsible of me to do it and it was a miracle things ended up well."You said in a reflecting manner.

Does she regret saving me?, Komori couldn't help but wonder.

"The doctor I saw said the surgery was perfectly executed, so don't beat yourself over it. Besides, I can see the passion you have. You'd make it right anyways." The male said truthfully and you frowned. You didn't want his trust because he would never have yours.

You also didn't like the appreciative tone he used. A doctor isn't a hero, You reminded yourself everyday, to never let it go to your head.

"I'm passionate, but it's about my personal ethics, you don't need passion to be good at what you do. I think you know it very well." You still frowned, not liking what he implied. You never wanted to be some sort of hero, much less to someone like him.

"Yeah, I don't need to love the yakuza to be good at it. But I don't think a passionless person would make a good doctor." He argued, trying to prove his point.

"In my line of work, a mistake costs your whole career. Passionless and unethical people exist everywhere, a hospital isn't a sanctuary." You said matter of factly — it wasn't about the romantic lenses people saw the health workers. After all, medicine was a field made majorly of people with the means and the money. You learned it the hard way when you made into med school.

"Why would you say that?" The traffic light signalled to stop. The Kobun used this opportunity to take in your figure, eyes roaming over your crossed arms and unfazed features.

Duty takes a toll in everyone, huh?, He internally stated.

"Because I know someone. And as passionless someone could be, he's still the best at what he does." And Komori didn't miss the feeling displayed in your eyes.

It wasn't merely passion. Something deeper resided in those irises of yours.

An awkward silence overtook the atmosphere as the car resumed its movement. He felt uncomfortable, trying to figure out what you meant.

"Well, what matters is that everything ended up well. Who would have guessed they would attack us that night?" Komori conceded, trying to break the unsettling quietness.

"Yeah, this whole yakuza thing is really scary." You said looking through the tinted window, a pensive look in your face.

"You'll get used to it. And it doesn't happen on a daily basis either" He brushed you off, turning in a curb.

"Yeah, but ignoring the threat isn't an easy task." You retorted, tiredly.

"How do you know it? Besides, since you're our lady, it's not like we'll let something happen to you." The brunette said, in hopes of comforting you. It had the opposite effect, as a silent rage ran down your body.

"Komori-san, how do I know?" You bitterly laughed "My whole life, I was at the line. My mother didn't want me to be born, Inarizaki wanted my head since I was in the womb and you guys will get rid of me at any given opportunity." You saw him opening his mouth to argue "Your household won't protect me if the order comes from Sakusa."

As if in a cue, the car approached the gates of Itachiyama. Komori was rendered speechless, knowing you were right.

Personally, you weren't one to offend people and make them feel bad. You couldn't help the pang in your chest every time you exploded at any of them. But by god, were you tired.

I just want my life back, you thought. After all, it was infinite times easier to be a target when you were somehow detached from the life inside the families. The Kobun said something you paid no mind to.

Banging the car door shut, you ignored his calling.

The nagging feeling was a constant in his life.

Roaming through his memories, he could never pinpoint a time he felt comfortable under his skin. He was too anxious and life never treated him kindly to do so.

Maybe he overreacted a lot, too. But it wasn't his fault he had to be hyper aware of his surroundings.

The alert state was essential in an ambience full of people who could stab him in the back.

Fuck the diplomatics, he cursed.

It was one of those nights he hated the most. The suntuous ballroom was full of people going back and forth, bragging about futilities and throwing insincere flattery at each other. All because the ever so generous Karasuno was hosting a dinner at The Crow to assure no one disturbs the deal between the families.

Bullshit, he thought. It's only Karasuno trying to show off their influence over this frail peace.

And, as much as he appreciated said peace, he hated how everyone faked they got along with each other.

Not that he cared about politeness either. And his signature scowl did nothing to keep people away. After all, everyone wanted a piece of Itachiyama.

"Kiyoomi." The ravenette heard the deep voice from his back. A wave of relief washed over him.

At least, Wakatoshi-kun is here. I won't die from boredom, He mused.

"Wakatoshi." He responded, nodding at the other. From outside Itachiyama, Ushijima was the only one Sakusa considered a friend.

"I thought you wouldn't come tonight, I know you don't really like the crowd."

"People would find weird if I didn't, considering Inarizaki and everything."

"Speaking of which, did you bring your wife?" Ushijima asked, looking around. Sakusa nodded before speaking.

"Yeah, she went to the restrooms. Komori is with her." And speaking of the devil, you came into view.

He knew you had a fine taste for things, and he would be a fool to say you didn't look good tonight. But he would never admit it.

A Miya isn't worth you time, he repeated it like a mantra, observing as you made your way onto him.

Komori enthusiastically greeted Ushijima and you merely nodded out of politeness, looking at the bulky male with caution. Given Ushijima's intimidating vibes, Sakusa couldn't really blame you.

"I see you're Sakusa's wife. I'm Ushijima Wakatoshi." He offered his hand at you "It's a pleasure to meet you"

"Likewise, Ushijima-san" You introduced yourself as the Oyabun of Itachiyama watched the scene unfold before him, recalling how his friend was the blunt and introverted type. He couldn't help but admire the way the two of you conversed smoothly; earning Ushijima's sympathy required effort. You did it with ease.

"She's a good woman." Sakusa didn't see when your conversation died down and Ushijima turned to him. He found himself dumbfounded at the other's statement.

"She's a Miya"

"She worked with Shirabu. He spoke highly of her" A waiter passed by offering them whiskey. The rich scent of Yamazaki reached his nostrils as he drank it, throat used to the burning sensation "And you know he's not one to lie."

"Still…" His retort was halted when he felt the weight of a gaze on him. In the far corner of the room, none other than Oikawa Tooru had all his attention turned to the general direction of you all "What is he looking at?" He squinted at the brunette's direction, trying to make out his intentions.

"He seems to be looking at your wife" Ushijima bluntly spoke "But don't worry about him, Oikawa may have his reasons. He is a reliable man, after all."

"You're indeed soft today. What happened?" The other opened his mouth to respond before being interrupted by a startled voice.

Your husband was doing a good job ignoring you while speaking to Ushijima — you wouldn't complain, since you didn't want any of his attention.

Listening to Komori speaking wonders of the whiskey he was drinking, you felt a little at ease. You imagined the gala to be much scarier than this, but all you could see was snotty people too full of themselves. It was almost comical hearring them bragging about things you couldn't even dream of.

"This is a 25 years old Yamazaki. It's a favorite of mine and Kiyoomi—"

"Is this real life?" A surprised voice cutted Komori's middle sentence.

Before you, a handsome man looked appalled, staring at you with an emotion you couldn't identify. You were feeling uncomfortable as everyone around you was paying attention to your interaction.

"I'm sorry, sir. But am I supposed to know you?" You asked, in hopes to remember if you knew him by any chance. He beamed brightly at you.

"Of course you wouldn't remember me!" And he laughed again, earning a frown from your husband.

"Do you have any business to do with my wife?" Sakusa's cold-steel voice asked. The pretty man ignored it. And, at this point, everyone in the area stopped their actions, watching the scene with interest.

"I'm Oikawa Tooru, the Oyabun of Seijoh. Two years ago, you saved my nephew's life in an accident at the Dinosaur Bridge, only using a needle. After it, you held his hand until the ambulance came." The man bowed deeply, and only now you noticed he was accompanied by another spiky-haired male, who was also bowing at you. Observing them, you faintly remembered saving a little boy in a traffic accident a couple of years ago "For that, I'll be forever thankful. In return, I wanted to say you have Seijoh's gratitude whenever you need it." He stood tall again, staring at you dead in the eye to confirm he meant every single word he said.

You were speechless.

"I… sir, I'm thankful, but I did what had to be done. You don't owe me anything." You said uncertainly, glancing at the startled faces of both Komori and Sakusa. Ushijima looked fondly at you, as if he knew something.

"You had a choice that day, and you choosed to help us when we couldn't do anything. And it's enough for us to pay you back." The spiky-haired man said. It was rare for someone to address you with so much respect and sincerity. You appreciated it wholeheartedly.

"I— thank you." And you bowed at them, trying to show your gratitude to both males.

"Well, we won't disturb you anymore. Please have a good night" The Oikawa guy said, handing you a business card which you secluded inside your clutch.

"See?" You heard Ushijima saying, but you were too stunned to register it.

You didn't have time to process the event, as someone announced the dinner was about to be served.

"Seijoh's favour, huh? You sure are skyrocketing this mafia thing." Suna said, sitting on the chair on the opposite side of the table.

You all were addressed to a table with ten seats. It looked like Itachiyama was paired up with Inarizaki and another household you were yet to discover. The atmosphere was already stiff, as Sakusa kept throwing dirty glares at the twins.

"Impressive how you're doing well inside the yakuza. I thought you weren't going to last a month." Atsumu snickered as Osamu and the others ignored everything around them, getting ready for the dinner.

You mimicked their actions before Izuna joined you; you tensed seeing him taking the seat by your left.

Sakusa sat by your right, side-glancing at you. It looked like he had a newfound interest since the interaction with Oikawa earlier.

To your surprise, Seijoh was addressed to your table. Though, both Oikawa and Iwaizumi — Suna let you know his name and the fact he was also a Kobun — said nothing, sensing the tension hanging in the air.

None of the men said anything as the food started to be served. Instead, they busied themselves with the entree, keeping the smalltalk inside their household circle.

You heard Osamu saying something about the wine but you didn't register it. Soon enough, the waiters brought the main course in silver trays.

It smelled fabulous and your mouth watered at the scent.

"A lovely meal for the lady. Please enjoy it, I'm sure you won't forget this occasion." The blond waiter said, as he uncovered your plate. You took in the deep red sauce made of berries and the way the meat was perfectly cooked.

With fork and knife in hand, you went for it.

And indeed, you wouldn't forget the occasion.

Sliding the meat over the plate, you noticed it hiding something. The scream was caught in your throat as you recognized the obnoxious structure, because years of unveiling the human anatomy would never fail you.

The cutlery clattered in the porcelain surface, spilling the sauce all over you. The white of your dress was now tainted with crimson, as if blood seeped out of your chest.

But you didn't even feel it. All you felt were hands shaking your body, trying to draw some reaction from you. The screams also came in a white noise through your ears, because all you could register was the sight before your eyes.

In the middle of the plate, a finger rested limp and dirty. Dead.

In a similar manner, you did too.

Among the chaos, you sat there, also limp and dirty. At the end of a promise of death.

❥ tagging: @keekee-732 @chiibichann @captain-shittykawa @fortheloveofiwaizumi @daisyjaebae @jihoonspout @floodinginstars @fl4mepillar @trash4sportsanime @neonghxst @starrystanze @teaanbiss @hqxreader @yskomiii @shadyjinyoung @julimausi1311 @hyoonx23 @keuromi @differentballooncollection @onigiriimiya @wolfiepirate @sekshi-namjas @tomo-uwu @atsumusgf @letmegetthisclear @katokanae @cherryonigiri @ushijima-meixiu @bimboiiying @crownedcupcake17 @tvwhoresblog @thenerdyrebel @idiot-juice-enthusiast @caprolls @keijination @wakaitoshi @clowninfortodoroki @shiningotak-ku @kemochie @lilacshouko @sehunosh @kiyoojima @shimy-deko @bap-kingdom @raenebalgaire @ricefarmerkita @rintarose @xanaxdeity @reiningsun

Taglist is closed (50/50)

#sakusa scenarios #sakusa x y/n #sakusa x reader #sakusa kiyoomi imagines #sakusa kiyoomi x reader #sakusa headcanons #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu!!#hq sakusa #hq x reader #haikyuu #haikyuu sakusa #sakusa smut #haikyuu smut

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cordonian-literature · 3 years

Text

Forever Mine

chapter three

❦ summary — The time for Princess Riley to step into her role as queen fast approaches and finding the future king is Cordonia’s top priority. Commander Liam is aware of that, and has plans to make sure the princess ends up with someone suitable.

➺ chapter warnings: none

❦ catch up here!

➺ word count: (+/-) 2081

*all characters belong to Pixelberry, except those unique to my story*

✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧

The waves crashing and the fresh breeze brings life into Commander Liam’s step, who walks towards the beach with the King to his left. Constantine continues talking about his favorite parts of the Regatta, though Liam doesn’t care much to listen.

The Commander had been cooped up in his office for the past three days straight. He fell asleep and woke up in the same position in his chair, and whenever the King needed to speak with him, Constantine simply marched into the room himself.

He hadn’t seen a single glimpse of the princess since the picnic. Even now, Liam still hadn’t spotted her. He understood that she needed to give her attention to her suitors, but he became increasingly confused as to why he hadn’t put himself up to be one as well.

No matter how much he wanted to fling himself in front of Riley and be at her mercy, he knew it was no use: it was too late for him to become a suitor. And, more importantly, it wasn’t smart for Liam to put himself in such a vulnerable position.

Constantine’s words fall on Liam’s deaf ears, but the King goes on and on, not noticing that the Commander wasn’t paying attention. Only when Constantine walks away to announce the beginning of the races does Liam focus on him. As Constantine makes a few strides towards the front of the crowd, Riley appears next to him.

While Constantine speaks about the war and loyalty and Riley, the Princess’s eyes reach the Commander. Once Liam smiles at her, she pushes her shoulders further back, and her smile widens.

Months ago, after Leo had abdicated and Liam tried to teach Riley what he could, the princess had been reluctant to accept the role. She had even approached Liam with a request to tell her father to not announce Leo’s abdication. She wanted to draw it out, maybe wait until Leo had heirs that could take the throne and the crown could skip over the pair of siblings.

Her anxiety had overtaken her. Liam had been the one to witness the worst of it: the labored breathing and heavy tears and incomprehensible phrases. She had cried and asked him to leave her room, and though he had wanted to embrace her, he walked away.

But the next day, Liam urged her to continue her lessons. When she refused, he asked her what she was afraid of. He put it in his mind that whatever words she would utter he would make disappear from this world.

With her hands shaking, Riley had explained to him that ever since she was a child she had done absolutely nothing in the public light. During any event, Riley would only be allowed to stay long enough for the press to take pictures and for her to smile at important persons before she was led back to her room in the palace.

Liam knows her words are true, and from the bottom of his heart, he pities her. The poor girl had never expected to have so much responsibility on her shoulders. She had most likely come to terms with the fact that she would never have any political significance and was just meant to be a pretty pawn at a man’s side.

That day, which had been months ago, he had gently urged her to stand and told her that the people loved her and that there was nothing she could do wrong to upset them.

Most of the things he had told her were lies, but they had quelled her anxiety thoroughly. With every concern she had, Liam had a better plan as to how she would rise above it.

Now, while she stands next to her father as Neville’s, Rashad’s, and Prince Alexander’s boats launch themselves into the race, Liam’s heart swells as Riley begins to walk towards him.

Her angelic voice rings out, “I haven’t seen you in days! I’ve missed y—”

“RileyRileyRiley!” Maxwell cries, running up to the pair.

“Maxwell, what—”

“I’m really hungry right now and I’m smelling something fantastic from Zeke’s boat,” he says. “Please come investigate with me?”

“No!” she cries.

“Please?” Maxwell asks again before Riley can continue her sentence.

“It would be better for the two of you to join Lord Michael’s party on his boat,” Liam advises, though internally he hopes Maxwell will run off so he can get another moment alone with Riley.

“But—” Maxwell whines.

“Go see what Lord Michael is serving his guests, and I’ll try and figure out what Zeke has on his boat,” Riley proposes.

“Oh, and we can ask for samples!” Maxwell cries. “But remember, Riley, don’t be shy just take the whole tray. Say you’re about to pass out from hunger or something. They won’t risk the princess’s health!”

“Perfect, Lord Maxwell,” Liam pats Maxwell’s shoulder a bit harder than he meant to. “Now go along, the princess will catch up.”

Focused on food, Maxwell runs off, leaving Riley and Liam alone.

Riley’s giggle fills the air around Liam. He tries to come up with a joke to prolong her laughing, but before he can say anything she speaks.

“I should go talk to the press with my father.”

Liam nods. “Yes, that would be a good idea.”

“What should I say if they ask me about the war? Or about Prince Alexander?”

“Say that Cordonia’s generosity is greater than her selfishness, as the Regatta symbolizes. We didn’t choose conflict, we were forced into it.”

“Okay, that...” she pauses and frowns, causing an adorable wrinkle to appear on her forehead, “that makes sense. And what about Alex?”

“Prince Alexander,” Liam reminds her. He didn’t mean to be forceful, but her shoulders jerk up.

“Sorry, sorry! I just...”

“No worries,” he comforts her. Liam maintains a stoic expression, but his insides boil as he wonders how many affectionate nicknames she’s given people. Did Riley have a nickname for Liam?

“I...” Riley stutters again.

“Deep breaths,” he tells her, noticing her face becoming pale. She obeys his command, and once she’s calm again he continues. “Tell them that you and the prince are still getting to know each other. It’s true, and doesn’t make it seem as if you favor him.”

“Alright.” She nods at him confidently, looking towards the reporters still talking to her father. Liam thinks she’s about to walk off, but her eyes meet his again.

“I... will be in the library later tonight,” she states. “If it’s not too much to ask, will you meet me there? Shortly after midnight.”

“Why so late?” Liam asks, his curiosity peaked.

“I don’t want anyone to speculate, you see.”

Liam is partly glad at her responsible outlook, but is intrigued at the fact that she thinks people might believe she holds affections towards him. Is she truly just worried about how people would view her, or was she trying to hide her feelings as well? Was this her way of voicing her feelings?

Before the silence becomes frighteningly long, Liam pulls himself out of his thoughts. He reminds himself that this is her social season. It’s too late for anything to happen between them.

“Of course,” he tells her, lifting her soft hands to his lips, stopping himself from kissing her wrist.

“Wonderful,” she says, a slight blush appearing on her face as she walks away.

...

After the three suitors and their boats returned to the harbor and Lord Neville’s victory was announced, the short man made a beeline towards Riley, allowing her to compliment him.

From the sidelines, Liam wondered where this man’s confidence came from, and more importantly, how to get rid of it. He watched as Neville brought Riley into his boat for the party and kept her at his side while speaking to other nobles. Riley never made a move that showed she wanted to walk away from him, but the one time her eyes met the Commander’s, Liam understood what he had to do.

He didn’t stay for the beach party, even though Lord Maxwell lightly urged him to. Instead, Liam went back to the palace and straight into his office, where his right-hand-woman was waiting for him.

Zoe Zacharias, a talented and highly intelligent soldier that Liam had trained with. She was not prepared for the role of Commander as her strategic skill wasn’t as sharp as Liam’s, which is why she was not chosen by the King. But once she began working under the new Commander, Liam saw her improve and knew that she would be a perfect successor to him, God forbid his death were to come earlier than expected.

What was even better was the fact that she listened and went through with every one of Liam’s commands without question or hesitation.

“Commander!” Zoe salutes as Liam walks into the office.

Without batting an eyelash, Liam tells her to look into Neville’s background and history.

Zoe nods, a slight smirk on her face. “Need to find a weak point, sir?”

Liam grins. She caught on quickly. “Before midnight, if you can.”

“Yes, sir.”

Liam leaves to prepare for dinner, keeping his meeting with Riley at the back of his mind at all times.

At the dinner table, when he notices Neville sitting next to Riley and comfortably talking to her, Liam averts his gaze and hopes that Zoe has found something.

Thankfully, only an hour before midnight, Zoe enters Liam’s office with a report. Reading over it, the Commander’s shoulders relax. Leaning back in his chair he takes out a pen and a piece of paper to start writing a letter.

…

“Highness?” Liam’s voice echos along with the sound of his boots, reaching Riley. She lay on a pile of blankets in front of the fire, a small basket of food next to her.

“I thought we agreed that you would not call me that anymore.” She pats the space next to her, and that’s all it takes to summon Liam to her side.

He sits on the blankets with her, allowing his fingers to brush against her ankles and over the thin material of her dress. Liam glances up, seeing that Riley’s face was impassive. He allows himself to smile at the seemingly empty way she gazes at him, knowing what type of game she is playing.

Liam notices assortments of bread in the basket. “Will some bread lighten your mood, princess?”

Ripping a piece of bread from the loaf, Liam holds it out to her for half a second. When she doesn’t move to take the piece, he gently presses the soft bread against her lips, and her face becomes softer.

The glow of the fire lets the tiredness in her eyes shine through; Liam saw every uncomfortable emotion in her changed expression, and brought his forehead closer to her’s.

She was overwhelmed, he knew. She couldn’t muster the energy needed for these events. Liam’s pity for her runs deeper. Just an hour ago he had read an article written by the same reporters who had asked the King and Princess questions during the Regatta. They criticised the way she executed her answers and made false assumptions about her personality that made Liam’s heart ache.

The social season had so far only brought Riley pain, and Liam’s anger at the King increases. The old man was foolish, selfish. What was the use of protecting his daughter from a world he would later push her into?

Liam burrows his head against the crook of Riley’s neck, his heart calm when she asks if they can stay that way for a while.

But after a few seconds, Liam moves away from her. “It’s late, princess.”

She sighs and stands. “You’re right.”

Liam collects the basket and the blankets, putting them to the side where the servants could take it away. He takes her hand and softly kisses her knuckles, hoping to prolong the moment of quiet peace. But Riley takes her hand out of his grasp and gently rests it on Liam’s shoulder, then leaning forward to land a soft kiss on his cheek.

Liam’s expression doesn’t falter, but he waits for her face to come into view. He wants to view her kind eyes and loving expression before the stressful night ahead. But Riley turns her head quickly and leaves the room.

Minutes later, Liam leaves, too. As he makes his way back to his office, he hopes that Zoe has already delivered the letter.

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a/n: i know this is probably crap, and i know i havent updated in more than a month and im crazy sorry for that - life stuff got in the way and i wasn’t doing so well mentally either. but!! my mojo for writing is back!!! hopefully it stays lol

also, i understand my lack of updates was probably annoying, so please let me know if you want to be added/removed from the tags!! no hard feelings!

@twinkleallnight @gkittylove99 @sweatyrysconnoisseur @kingliam2019 @marshmallowsaremyfavorite @queenrileyrose @royalromancer @princess-geek @mom2000aggie @zoehanji @claireloutoo

#choices fanfic #trr fanfic #liam x riley #trr au fanfic #the royal romance #the royal romance fanfic #evil liam #liam rys #trr laim #trr riley #riley brooks #sorry for being gone for forever lol

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kkgbutsane · 3 years

Text

The First Day of School

It was a dewy morning. Not too hot, not too cold, far too humid. It was the usual for Hyakkou High School, where students came to learn and excel in their studies while maintaining good social relationships. The school was usually filled with many different students. Any stereotype you could think of, Hyakkou had it.

The students usually had fun. The Principal was quite lax when it came to certain things. All he asked of the students was to respect each other and respect the building. And to keep their grades up of course. They would be failing as a school if the students weren’t receiving the proper education!

And this is where their story begins.

“Ack. Hey! Mary!” Ryota called out from behind the blonde, who was currently looking down on her phone. The boy ran up to his best friend, hooking his arm around the back of her neck to bring her into a headlock. “Hey! Don’t mess up my hair you dork!” Mary growled, trying to wrestle her way out of Ryota’s lock.

The two continued their conundrum until they reached the gates of the school, where Mary finally got a good grip and threw her friend over her shoulder, thus leading to him falling on his backpack. “Ow…,” he muttered, smiling like an idiot.

Mary Saotome and Ryota Suzui had been friends since childhood. They were even neighbors, and she often came over to his house to play on his Wii with him. Their friendship had blossomed into a relationship.

Until they realized they were better off as best friends. In fact, after they had broken up and continued to be platonic, it seemed as though their friendship grew stronger.

“Hi guys!” The two heard a familiar voice, registering it as their other best friend, Yumeko Jabami. Yumeko had met them all in middle school, when she had moved here with her sister. The ravenette was one to take risks, and found pleasure in dangerous things. Of course, only in moderation. In reality, the only things she had taken much risk for was a move in a fighting game. Or a board game.

Her bubbly exterior was often in place of her mellow interior. She tended to keep to herself truly, unless with her friends.

“Yumeko!” Ryota yelled happily, jogging over and scooping the girl in a tight hug. Much to his delight, Yumeko returned the hug tenfold.

“ShiT, I can’t breaTHE-,” he barely managed, his face turning purple. He should have known, the girl was a strong hugger. “Oi, calm down you two, before I separate you guys for 10 minutes straight, and I know that will be a pain since you usually do homework together in the mornings,” Mary stated, crossing her arms. Yumeko finally relented, giving Ryota’s respiratory system some reprieve. Yumeko looked quite meek, but she could give hugs like no other.

“Mary!” Yumeko giggled, giving the blonde another one of her bone crushing hugs. “Sup, dumbass,” Mary replied, smiling softly at her friend’s gestures of affection. “Are you all ready for your first days of school!?”

It was the start of junior year for the three, and boy were their classes packed. Ryota was taking a few classes on science and health, as well as a gym class to exercise and get fit. He wanted to be a firefighter, and such education was necessary to ensure he was a good candidate for the job.

“I have… Anatomy first period. Woohoo,” Mary sighed. She was actually quite excited, but decided not to show it in order to keep her cool exterior. The path she had chosen was Emergency Medical Services, and taking anatomy was the first step in her opinion.

“Oh? That’s so wonderful! I have Calculus for my first period. I wonder if Sayaka is going to be in that class!” Yumeko said eagerly. Sayaka was one of the other kids attending this school. The girl mainly kept to herself, but she had recently started acquainting herself with the ravenette.

“Gah! Sorry I’m late guys! I kinda missed my bus…” A ginger voice panted, revealed to be none other than Itsuki Sumeragi. The strawberry blonde had met the three last year when she was a sophomore. After transferring from a private school to Hyakkou, the tight-knit group had taken her in, welcoming her as one of their own. “Hey! I heard there’s gonna be a pair of new students! I hear they’re seniors,” Itsuki gossiped, taking out her Nintendo Switch and turning it on.

“Ooh, Smash? Let’s do this!” Ryota declared, taking his controller and setting it to his button map.

“So what about these new students? Do they seem weird or anything?” Mary inquired, picking her character, King K. Rool, and setting her button map. “Oh come on, why do you ALWAYS play heavies!?” Ryota complained, picking Marth as his character. “Because heavies are fucking goated, why else?” the blonde snarked back, a sly smirk on her face.

“I don’t know. But I heard they’re twins!” Itsuki giggled, sitting down to watch them play.

“Heya guys,” a shrill voice came out of nowhere. “You playin’ Smash? I’ll join!” it giggled. Runa had seemingly appeared out of nowhere in her oversized jacket. “Oh no…,” The entire group groaned.

“Runa, you’re cool and all, but whenever we play with you, you find a way to resize our assholes every match in different ways. I really don’t want to get 0-to-deathed consecutively while you stay on three stocks. Seriously, how the fuck do you even do it!?” Mary spoke, seemingly for the entire group. “I dunno, just practice TBH,” was all Runa said, picking up a controller. “And fuck you, I’m playing anyway.”

The sound of groans could be heard around the courtyard after that statement.

Sayaka Igarashi, resident Valedictorian-to-be, had come over to the table with Midari Ikishima, who was dragging along a seemingly sleepy senior. “C’mon Yuriko. I know you have senioritis but our friends are here!” Midari grumbled, literally dragging Yuriko. Yuriko Nishinotounin had gotten a severe case of Senioritis, especially since most of her classes were a breeze this year.

“Would you both calm down please!? They’re playing a game, and I’m trying to read!” Sayaka chided, mentally swearing at the rebel. “Chill out, Sayaka, Yuriko is already falling asleep on me and it’s not even 7:30!” Midari grumbled.

“I can’t wait for senior year to be over,” Yuriko yawned, sitting on the table everyone was at basically falling asleep.

“What the fu- NO!” Mary yelled, distracted by Yuriko long enough for Runa to get a move on her, resulting in her virtual demise. “Fuuuuck!” she sighed, hitting her head against the wooden table. “FUCK!” she repeated, after feeling the pain that came along with it. Ryota had already fallen out of the competition.

Please nerf Lucas.

Yumeko hummed happily to herself, reading some random tabloid article on her phone. As the bell rang, they all dispersed into their classes.

“See you guys later!” Ryota called, jogging over to the weight room for his first period.

The three girls had made their way over to the Portables, then separating into their classrooms.

Sayaka practically dragged her two friends to their classes and then her own, all while keeping to the schedule. Anatomy was her first period, and she sat next to Mary.

It wouldn’t be too bad of a year. Mary was a good student and wasn’t too hard to talk to. She just mostly liked to keep to herself.

“Good morning class! Welcome to Anatomy! You guys are obviously gonna be learning about the body, it’s functions, what is where and what goes where and woop dee dah, all the good stuff! Hopefully I can make learning about how food passes through the body actually entertaining for y’all, but first we have two new students with us today! They’ve recently transferred over, so let’s give ‘em a warm welcome to Hyakkou!” The teacher, Mrs. Murray, announced. She looked a bit older, with a tall figure and ginger hair in her face. Her glasses looked odd, but it added to her look.

People like Mrs. Murray because she was actually a good teacher. She cared about her students and actually helped them if they needed it.

“Ladies, if you would please introduce yourselves!”

The entire class looked at the two, and for a moment they thought they saw double.

“Hello. My name is Kirari Momobami. I’m a senior here, and it’s a pleasure to meet you all. I hope we can get along,” The girl, now known as Kirari, had stated.

It seemed her sister’s turn was up next.

“Er.. I’m Ririka Momobami. We’re twins. I hope we can… have a good time!” Ririka muttered, almost too quietly for the class to hear.

Mrs. Murray smiled and beckoned them to take their seats.

Their seats were in front of both Sayaka and Mary, who seemed to be in a state of both ‘gay’ and ‘panic’.

The two twins looked vastly different, with Kirari’s hair done in twin loop braids and dressed in a rather classy manner, while Ririka’s hair was free to fall.

Wait.

Did Ririka have a sweatshirt that had the Poggers Man on it?

Mary internally laughed at that. It was adorable.

When class had dispersed to work in groups, Mary and Sayaka had picked each other on instinct, then looking for two more partners to start their work on.

“Sayaka!” Mary whisper-yelled, a small blush on her face. She then gestured to her phone to text the girl.

Mary S: HOLY SHIT IM GAY

Sayaka I: I am too. Which one are you gay for?

Mary S: Ririka.

Sayaka I: Oh. I like her too.

Mary glared at Sayaka for a moment.

Mary S: The one with the adorable hair and clothing?

The blonde mentally facepalmed, of course Sayaka would think that. No matter the twin.

Sayaka I: Yes. I love how her hair is done. Plus her shirt looks nice.

Mary S: Oh. So the one with the weird braids?

Sayaka I: Don’t call them weird.

Mary S: ok but dont worry cause im crushing on the other twin. I swear her sweatshirt is adorable.

Sayaka I: .

Sayaka I: poggers

Mary S: LMAO HOLD UP IM SCREENSHOTTING THIS ONE

Sayaka I: Be my guest.

The two had reluctantly come up to the twins.

“Hello! I am Sayaka Igarashi, and this is Mary Saotome. It seems you both don’t have another pair, so if you’d like, we can work with you,” Sayaka stated, trying to sound as polite as possible. Nothing could hide the blush on her face though.

“Sure, I would love to work with you both,” Kirari replied, a small smirk forming on her face.

Ririka just nodded with a small smile.

It was going to be a long year.

#au tag #kakegurui #kirari momobami #meariri #kirasaya #sayaka igarashi #mary saotome #yumeko jamabi #ryota suzui #runa yomozuki #itsuki sumeragi #ririka momobami

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astermacguffin · 3 years

Text

I know no one asked and no one cares lol but yes I'm still drafting a Priest!Cas AU that is so homoerotic (and blasphemous), but the DeanCas internal conflict for this fic is NOT homophobia (both internalized and directed at them) because there's already SO much works about queerness in relation to religious angst.

Instead, I intend this fic to be partly a character study, partly a meta with a heavy philosophical bend to it.

Castiel's main conflict in this AU is this clash between his core philosophical beliefs and his desires to have Dean (and everything that the word 'have' entails):

Cas strongly believes that no one in this world actually owns anything; this belief basically informs a huge part of his activism. You came into a world already altered by hands and minds that came before you, so how much of what you claim as yours is actually yours, you know? No one is born alone: you are not the body who birthed you, you are not the hands that built your bed and fed you, the hands that built your house, your community, everything.

Cas is obsessed with having a coherent belief system (like how the version of Christianity that he believes in is one that is consistent with his advocacies and projects for protecting the marginalized). Which is why he CANNOT rationalize his desire for Dean.

Like, he's SO horny for Dean (physically, emotionally, and spiritually) that he can't even fathom his own desires. Again, this is NOT because of his internalized homophobia (because, hello, he's a queer activist and liberation theologist), but because he wants to OWN Dean, which goes against the very nature of his core beliefs.

(At some point, he realizes that he wants to consume Dean but like, metaphysically, you know? The same way Catholics wanna vore Jesus. But let's leave the homoerotic blasphemy for a future post.)

There's also the fact that he can't be in a romantic/sexual relationship due to his oath. If it's only up to him, Cas would leave the priesthood in a heartbeat, but here's where his internal conflict bridges with the external: Cas believes he still has some kind of duty towards the community.

You see, I want this fic to be set in some rural place with little to no government support. In areas like this, churches have to fulfill different functions beyond being religious institutions: outreach and charity work for the poor, mental health services, cultural affairs, intra- and inter-community cohesion, etc. There's also a seminary that Cas has to manage, full of mouths to feed using funds that mainly rely on donations.

Cas is not just a religious leader, but a community leader. It's not exactly a job that he can just leave. Cas uses the social, cultural, and political power that his position grants to push his activism. (Of course, given the fact that The Church is not usually fond of such things, he is often met with opposition. I'm planning Zachariah to be someone in the Diocese who's just waiting and scheming for Cas to fail.)

I want Castiel's arc in this fic to be one where he realizes that he's allowed to be selfish sometimes, that the world does not rest on his shoulders alone. I want Dean to be there to teach him that the big fight, the good fight, is not fought alone. That the good fight is a generational struggle, which means passing the baton to those you've raised and trained. That the good fight can be fought even without you being in the frontlines.

I'll probably post something about Dean's arc in this AU sometime in the future. For now, here are the things you need to know about Dean:

Dean and Cas already met when they were 18 and have been hooking up in the church's restrooms for some time until Dean and Sam had to move away.

Dean was helping Sam run away for Stanford. Eventually, John catches up on them. With Sam asleep in the passenger's seat, Dean exits the car and enters a physical struggle with John.

Dean accidentally shoots John in self-defense when the man threatens to harm Sam. Dean calls Bobby and tells him everything, sobbing. Dean pulls the body into the roadside woods, per Bobby's instruction.

Whether or not Sam is actually asleep or pretending to sleep is intentionally left vague. (This factoid will be key to Dean's arc sometime later in the fic.)

Dean continues driving to Stanford while Bobby disposes of the body. This remains a secret between them.

Sam and Dean exchange some warm words and hugs. With Dean finally alone, he thinks of calling Cas, panics, and decides not to. Dean changes his number when he arrives at Bobby's.

He stays there for a while, being an assistant in Bobby's repair shop. Eventually, he becomes too restless to stay in one place and decides to go on the road every few months. He starts writing during these trips and becomes a published essayist and fiction writer.

20 years later, he decides to go back to his hometown to fix their old house from the ground up. Settling down, starting anew.

He meets Cas, now a priest.

Dean confesses to Cas in the confession box about everything: John's death, Sam in Stanford, living with Bobby, the road trips, etc.

Then comes a slow journey of relearning one another.

In this AU, Dean genuinely believes that his very touch corrupts. He sees himself as poison, not because of his queerness (he's openly bisexual in this one, thanks to less exposure to John and more exposure to Bobby), but because of the literal blood on his hands.

What I want is for both of them to learn something important: that Cas deserves to be selfish for once, and for Dean to forgive himself.

#destiel #deancas #supernatural #spn #castiel #dean winchester #destiel fic #aster writes #priest!cas au

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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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I was already distressed about the political and social situation in the US, and then this happens. Are there any examples of societies that fought back against fascism and won, without civil or international war breaking out? Surely there must be some success stories in history. How did other societies overcome fascism, are there lessons to be applied to our current situation? Please tell me we're not doomed, because I have no hope for the future.

Sigh.

Okay.

I’ve been through... a lot of the stages of grief by now. That is, rageposting on tumblr, venting to my friends via text, drinking, crying while drinking, lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling, feeling the crushing weight of certainty that we’re all screwed and nothing matters, crying while talking to my sister, crying generally, lying in bed some more, and am currently still in bed while writing this, but am struggling to put on my internet historian aunt hat and offer some comfort to the stricken masses.

First off: This is bad. I’m not even going to pretend this isn’t bad. We all knew RBG had cancer again, but it was pretty fixed in our minds that she would somehow manage to hang on until after the election. 45 days before the biggest presidential election of all time, in the middle of this year, when names including Ted “Zodiac Killer” Cruz and Tom “Time for Roe vs. Wade to go, block federal funding from being used to teach about slavery, send in the military to crush the BLM protesters” Cotton have already been floated as some of her possible replacements? With Trump and McConnell determined to work as fast as possible to steal this seat as brazenly as they can, because they are literal fascists who don’t care about their own example (Merrick Garland was nominated in FEBRUARY of an election year and McConnell held it up for being “too close to the election?”)

Ugh. Anyone who doesn’t get that this is bad or acting like people are overreacting doesn’t get what’s at stake. And when, as we’ve said before and are saying again now, the future of everyone who isn’t a white straight rich Republican man in this country depends on an 87-year-old woman with cancer for the fourth time? Something’s wrong here. RBG’s death did not have to leave us in this total existential panic, and oh yeah, maybe this could have ALL BEEN AVOIDED AND WE COULD HAVE ALSO HAD THREE (3) NEW LIBERAL JUSTICES SECURING PROGRESSIVE LEGISLATION FOR A GENERATION IF SOME OF YOU HAD JUST FUCKING VOTED FOR HILLARY CLINTON IN TWO THOUSAND AND FUCKING SIXTEEN.

(Why yes I am still mad about that, I will be bitter until the end of time that we were consigned to four years and counting of this completely avoidable nightmare because of apathy, misogyny, and Leftist Moral Purity TM, but we’re talking about the future and what can still be done here, not what’s in the past.)

Anyway. Here’s the bright side, which admittedly sucks right now, but it’s been the answer all long:

VOTE.

You have to fucking vote, and you have to fucking vote for Biden/Harris. Everything that we’ve been talking about is no longer a hypothetical; it’s happening right now. This is not just some Awful Worst Case scenario, and it’s not somehow being spouted by privileged white liberals ignoring the struggles of the masses. (Viz: that awful fucking text post with its simpering self-righteousness: “are you punching nazis or just telling oppressed people to vote blue?” I hate that text post with a fiery passion and it’s the exact kind of morally holier than thou leftist propaganda that wouldn’t surprise me if it was generated by a troll farm in Krasnoyarsk.) My dad is disabled and lives on Social Security. Trump’s second-term plan to end the payroll tax takes SSID out by mid-2021, so... I guess that’s my dad fucked then. I’m a gay woman with long-term mental illness, no healthcare, no savings, no current job, and a lot of student debt. My sister has complex health problems and relies intensely on publicly funded healthcare programs. All my family have underlying conditions that would put them at worse risk for COVID (age, asthma, immune issues.) These are just the people IN MY HOUSEHOLD who would be at risk from a second Trump presidency. It says NOTHING about my friends, about all the people far less fortunate than us, and everyone else who IS ALREADY DYING as this nation lurches into full-blown fascism. That is real. It is happening.

Here’s the good news and what you can do:

Democrats are fired up and mad as hell, and they’ve already donated $31 million between the announcement of RBG’s death last night and today, and that number is climbing every second.

You can help by donating to Get Mitch or Die Trying, which splits your donation 13 ways between the Democrats challenging the most vulnerable Republican seats in the Senate. That also has raised EIGHT MILLION BUCKS in the less-than-twenty-four hours.

You can donate RIGHT NOW to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, vote if your state offers early voting, request your mail-in ballot, or hound everyone you know to ensure that they’re registered.

You can call your US Senators (look up who they are for your state, ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE REPUBLICAN OR YOU LIVE IN A SWING STATE OR ARE UP FOR RE-ELECTION IN 2020) and phone the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 to voice your insistence that they respect RBG’s last wishes and refuse to vote on any Trump nominee until after January 2021.

The other good-ish news is that I woke up to an email from the Biden campaign this morning about how they’re well aware of this and they’re already on it. BUT WE CANNOT COUNT ON EITHER THEM OR THE SENATE DEMOCRATS TO BE ABLE TO STOP IT. Because Joe Biden is not president and the Senate Democrats do not have a majority, if the Republicans manage to rush a nominee and a vote and all 52 GOP senators vote for that nominee, hey presto, tyranny by majority, a SECOND stolen Supreme Court seat, and a 6-3 hard conservative majority for the next generation. Even if Roberts or Gorsuch sometimes defect on procedural grounds, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Breyer (who is also 82 and thus ALSO might soon be replaceable, thus resulting in an EVEN WORSE ideological swing) would be outnumbered on everything. This is terrible. I’m not even gonna pretend it wouldn’t be.

BUT:

If Joe Biden is elected with a Democratic Senate and House, IT MATTERS. It gets us off the fascism track, it gives us the ability to make progressive law and have it enacted without going to die in Mitch McConnell’s Kill Stack, it gives Biden the executive authority to nominate liberal judges and change Trump’s worst outrages on day 1, it stands as a huge example of a nation managing to reject fascism by democratic process, and while yes, we’d still have a terribly rigged Supreme Court, Democrats would control all the other branches of government and be able to put safeguards in place. The other option is outright fascism and the end of American democracy for good. This may sound alarmist. It’s not. It’s literally what the situation has ended up as, as all of us who were begging people to vote for HRC in 2016 saw coming all along.

So yes. That’s what you need to do, and what WE need to do. We need to make as much goddamn noise as possible, protest, contact elected representatives, make sure everybody pulls their weight and ferociously fights the promised attempt to ram through a new justice before Election Day, all that. But even if that does happen, THEN WE NEED TO FUCKING DONATE, ORGANIZE, AND VOTE FOR JOE BIDEN AND DEMOCRATS UP AND DOWN THE BALLOT. ALL OF US. NO EXCUSES. NO MORE TWITTER LEFTIST ECHO CHAMBERS. NO MORE. THEN, EVEN WITH A RIGGED SUPREME COURT, WE WILL ALL BE SAFER ON NOVEMBER 4TH AND CAN TRY TO FIX WHAT’S BROKEN.

The stakes are just too high to do anything else.

May her memory be a blessing, and a revolution.

#politics for ts #bury me in a mountain of salt #then vote #the end #humoristhefirstcasualty #ask

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bitchiha · 4 years

Note

I love your worksss 🥺💕💕 so I’m new in the tobirama club so can i request sfw and nsfw headcanons of him?? 🥰✌🏻

General Sfw and Nsfw Tobirama

A/N: It always scares me to right for Tobirama even tho he’s literally hot as fuck, but I feel like I won’t do his character justice. N e ways I hope I did! Love you and thanks for this request!!

Sfw

Okay so Tobirama can kind of be mean and sometimes it doesn’t look like he’s even sorry about it. But when he hurts his s/o just know he’s gonna feel guilty as fuck... Truth is, he’s not gonna tell you he’s sorry though. He’s a stubborn fuck like that. BUT, if he made you cry he will probably apologize. Aside from that he’ll just be trying to put himself back in your good books. Like by buying you gifts, being more affectionate, initiating more conversations (because lord knows you carry this fucking relationship), etc.

Hates hates hates hates hates!! If he spots an Uchiha in your general vicinity. And oh my shawty, if he sees you speaking to one? Don’t talk to him. Like fuck you, you literally just stabbed him in the back, did you know that? Did you know the pain he felt? Well looks like he’s not gonna tell you about it because he is going to pretend you don’t exist for a good week.

You’re the optimistic and idealistic one in the relationship which creates good balance, but also sucks because he’s such a downer sometimes. Like okay, one of your houseplants was half dead and you thought you had revived it, or at least began to, but when you asked Tobirama if he thought the plants health was getting better he laughed. Not even a joking laugh. It was a “stop lying to yourself” laugh. And you had to stand there like, “I- that’s so mean” while he walked away.

There’s one thing makes him 100% softer and that he absolutely loves!! and that is: if you wanna go to his office at around lunchtime and drop him off a little homemade bento. He will be crying from happiness internally. Of course he doesn’t show it, but this display of appropriate and beneficial affection makes him so proud. Loves to flex it on Hashirama, he constantly brags about you to him and the poor guy is so fed up lol. Will not hesitate to tell you if you overcooked the meat though.

He needs to be the big spoon when you cuddle. And that’s if you cuddle. Sometimes this fucker is way too conservative, like Tobirama... y’all are fucking married. You can put your arm around them. It’s not a crime. Is less reluctant to cuddling you if you read to him though. He won’t ask of course. You’ll have to ask him once you pick up on the impression that he wants you to. He likes to give you hints, like he just stares at the bookshelf longingly or he’ll start talking about how he really enjoyed the book you had read him last time. Eventually you just have to give in and pretend to be all like: WOW! this idea totally just popped into my head and I’d love it if you’d agree to it, Tobirama! Would you mind if I read to you?

He’s kinda like an excited bratty child and he will pretend to consider your offer before saying yes. The “yes” is a little rushed though and it reaffirms his true feelings. Then he gets comfortable in bed and listens to your voice as you read off the pages. After the first few paragraphs his hand will snake onto your waist and nonchalantly pull you closer. Don’t look at him when he does though because he will jut his chin away defiantly. If he had a particularly tiring day he will pass out after the first or second chapter, but the little shit will wake up if you stop reading right after he falls asleep. So you have to read a chapter more to make sure he’s fully out. It’s actually really cute because he’s usually never this intimate and his head is on your chest as he begins to snore quietly.

Okay also Tobirama is lowkey a sugar daddy. Hear me out. Like he’s not always the best with affectionate words, but he likes to give you things to make up for it. Knows your hobbies and will gift you the most top quality things for it. If you like reading? Just know he’s gonna have rows and rows of books for you. If you like painting he will make sure you have paintings from the most famous artists and top supplies.

He is also super protective of you. Like will straight up end someone’s political career if he hears one remotely questionable thing in the same sentence as your name. Like lol bye don’t talk about his significant other. Nobodies talking shit his significant other or is going to try and defile their name. Its gotten to the point where people are extra cautious so as to not say your name within a one mile radius of Tobirama.

Thoroughly enjoys showing you his new inventions. Like he will come home surprisingly more talkative then usual and he’ll finally burst and say, “Y/n, I want to show you something.” (A little too eagerly) And you’ll kind of be scared because like he’s acting kinda sus and then next thing you know he’s like “shadow clone jutsu!” And there’s two of your Tobiramas. Absolutely loves that surprised and impressed look on your face. Prepare yourself for a very long and albeit boring in-depth explanation of how he created it. Make sure you listen or else he will huff and puff. Lowkey quizzes you afterwards just to make sure you were listening.

Nsfw

Okay so I see tobirama as being traditional with sex for the most part, but he has his moments. Like if he gets worked up enough and he needs to let off some steam then he will be way more intense.

He is also fairly quiet during sex. The only times you can actually make him noisy is when he’s tired and doesn’t bother to hide his pleasure. Is not the biggest fan of dirty talk either, but if he gets jealous or you make him angry he will be calling you a needy slut or an Uchiha slut. Other than that, he will occasionally mutter praise, but pretends like he didn’t say it.

I feel like he would also get a little blushy if you’re loud for him. But just generally has a blushy face when having sex. Not cause he’s embarrassed, but it just kinda happens. Your moans gives him a major ego boost, though. But as long as it’s in the confinement’s of your home because I don’t see Tobirama ever having public sex, but if it ever happened and you started moaning he would literally throw you off him. Like he does NOT wanna get caught. Hello? He as a reputation to maintain! But as long as you’re at home and you’re begging for more with your hands in his hair he will be more than pleased.

He needs to be in charge. If you put up a fight to be the dom then he’ll get really mad and childish and he’ll make you say that he’s in charge (once he’s manhandled you underneath him.) “Say it, y/n.” And if you want to be a brat about it he’s just gonna be rougher tbh, which is why you usually piss him off lol. Like he’s literally so fucking stubborn that he won’t stop until you say it. You’ll be sore after, but you love toying with him too much to stop.

The best angry / frustrated sex is after Hashirama does something fucking stupid. Like he doesn’t listen to Tobiramas warnings about the Uchihas and does something in attempt to be buddy buddy with them. And you can tell when he’s gonna get rough because he’ll barge into the house after work grumbling and groaning. You’ll have to pop your head out from around the corner and be like, “Tobirama! How was your day?” for precaution just to make sure he is not gonna blow up. And he’s just gonna look at you and grunt out a “come here.” And next thing you know you’re getting fucked against the door to your house.

Also like lazy sex is kinda bomb as fuck with him. Like he’s had a rough day at work and you go to run him a bath and he follows you. Literally just starts undressing as he follows you to the washroom and then he starts undressing you too. Helps you into the tub first and then clambers in after you.

It starts pretty innocent. You reach forward to massage his shoulders and he leans back with his eyes shut, letting out all the pent up sighs he had been holding in from the day. Then after a while he wants more, so he’ll pull you ontop of him and you can feel his hard cock and you know what he wants. It’s these very rare times that he lets you take control. He’ll help line you up with his dick before letting you basically just ride him.

The waters hot and warm and it just feels so nice. He won’t even try and hold back his noises. His mouth lets out soft grunts and groans and even some encouragement. Just like imagine his hair wet and dampened as his head leans against the edge of the bath tub. Like his eyes alternating from squeezing shut from the pleasure to looking at you through his half lidded eyes. His hands gently help lift you up and down if needed and as you both get closer to your climaxes. You two could care a less about the water sloshing over the edge of the tub. It’s hot. Literally chefs kiss bye.

Shittiest at aftercare though. It’s just not something that he’s good at. He will run a bath for you or go to the kitchen and get you both some water, but that’s only if he feels like it.

#tobirama #tobirama senju #naruto #naruto headcanons #naruto imagines #tobirama senju x reader #tobirama x reader #naruto headcanon #tobirama headcanons #Naruto Shippuden

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fishylife · 3 years

Text

Guess who caved and read all 66 chapters of Painter of the Night? I don’t normally like to read comics that are still ongoing because I don’t like losing momentum while waiting for updates but here I am 🤡🤡

Spoilers.

I typed this while distracted so sorry for any muddled thoughts.

Story

I am glad that I read up to Chapter 66 because a huge misunderstanding was cleared up (the fact that Nakyum legitimately did not run away this time). I would’ve been pulling my hair out if the misunderstanding went on further (I HATE misunderstanding/miscommunication as a plot device).

A lot of people on the subreddit theorized that this was a huge turning point in the story. For the first time, we’re seeing Seungho show legitimate remorse and sadness over Nakyum’s suffering. Hopefully we’re going to see change his behaviour and act more reasonably towards Nakyum, and be more communicative about why he’s doing what he’s doing.

Though I think Nakyum is still a bit confused about his feelings for Seungho, he’s past the point of hating Seungho and wanting to leave. He said that he’d tried to run away before but he had nowhere to run to. He acknowledges that Seungho is a constant in his life, a protector and an indirect caregiver. But he’s still struggling with his feelings for Seungho.

In that way, Seungho and Nakyum are sort of opposite. Seungho recognized his romantic love for Nakyum first, but he couldn’t see how he was hurting him. As for Nakyum, he figured out how he could make Seungho happy early on, but he’s still struggling a bit with regards to how he feels about Seungho, likely because a part of his heart is still with Inhun. Again, he definitely recognizes Seungho as his protector (he’d instinctively called out to Seungho for help when he was kidnapped), but he’s still struggling over whether he’s in love with him.

This week we’re getting a continuation to the spinoff story so we won’t see the story pick up again until next week.

I do think the spinoff story is interesting. Currently, Seungho holds a lot of power over Nakyum, both in terms of political/administrative power, and physical power. But with Seungho as a peasant and Nakyum as a son of a noble family, Nakyum holds the social power over Seungho and it evens up their power dynamics a bit, which I do like. It feels safer for Nakyum lmao.

In terms of the style of story telling, it’s mostly angst, I’ll be honest. And it is rather melodramatic because miscommunication tends to be something the author uses quite a bit as a storytelling technique. Luckily, they’re not dragged out for too long.

Art

The art is pretty nice. It’s all in full colour, which surprised me. The art is extremely detailed. I wonder how the artist can do so much in a week lol. I hope they’re not overworked.

Seungho

Both Seungho and Nakyum have had their share of past trauma, but my thinking is that they’ve manifested in different ways.

It’s implied that Seungho’s father knew about his sexuality from a young age and tried to treat it through medical means and then by locking him up, which effectively stopped his education, despite him having been a bright student. Seungho then lived out his young adult days in debauchery. Early on, he implied that he was just living by his father’s principles, or something along those lines. My guess is that his dad left him behind so he could debauch in isolation without affecting the rest of the family.

So Seungho grew up without many close friends. He was surrounded by servants and yes men (like Jihwa) who would not call him out on his bullshit. So I think that’s how he developed his extremely bossy and abusive behaviour.

Why Nakyum was different for Seungho was that initially, he didn’t have power over Nakyum. He would tell him to do things, but Nakyum would not necessarily heed his commands, not painting, or trying to run away. His heart was still fully loyal to Inhun. So I think that was why Nakyum elicited extra violent behaviour from Seungho. Seungho had never been defied like this.

But I think Seungho was also intrigued by Nakyum. Nakyum was a contradiction because he drew smut but was always super embarrassed when faced with sexual situations irl. Seungho should've felt better when Inhun was sent away and Nakyum became submissive during sex and yet that’s when Seungho felt like something was wrong. Nakyum just kept eliciting unexpected emotions from Seungho. I definitely think Seungho saw him as a plaything at first, but came to care for him after he got to know more about him and his personal life.

Nakyum

Nakyum also came from a tough background. He was an orphan, and was raised along kisaeng ladies. Inhun was the first authority figure whom he’d had a positive impression of, and he latched on to him. He admired Inhun so much that he tried his best to listen to him when he told him not to draw erotic art anymore.

Inhun unfortunately didn’t see their relationship the same way. He showed a kind face to most of his students but he looked down on their lowly statuses. Only when he saw Nakyum as a pawn, did he give him attention. But he never hid his emotions, visibly expressing his anger when Nakyum wasn’t being a good spy, brushing off Nakyum’s confession of love.

Nakyum’s love for Inhun was so extremely pure and all-consuming. I cried when he was so swiftly rejected and condescended upon by Inhun T_T Because I knew how much courage it took for Nakyum to confess, how he wanted nothing but for Inhun to have good things, and Inhun cared not for any of that because it wasn’t want he wanted. Nakyum wasn’t helping him in the way he needed, and he cared far more for ambition than romantic love (not to mention romantic love from a lowly peasant).

After the rejection, Nakyum internalized Inhun’s words when he called him a prostitute. A part of him still loved Inhun and if he said that, Nakyum figured he must’ve been right. The other part of him decided that acting submissively to Seungho was the only way to survive.

Basically, Nakyum’s going through a huge emotional journey because his hero Inhun has kind of abandoned him (though he hasn’t forgotten him completely), but Nakyum hasn’t found a worthy person to give his heart to.

Seungho & Nakyum

I’m still thinking about their relationship and why we ship them despite the shit they’ve done (mostly the shit that Seungho’s done to Nakyum).

For Seungho, I think Nakyum was the first person he met who had a different way of expressing love. He’d never met someone like Nakyum who would stuff he despised just to help out Inhun. Even when Inhun didn’t show an inkling of appreciation. Perhaps Seungho felt that he didn’t know what love was until he met Nakyum.

As for Nakyum, he theorized that he was only desperate for affection and that was why he felt himself drawn to Seungho. I think that is technically true. But more than that, I think Seungho has arguably shown more levels of care to Nakyum than Inhun has. Yeah, Seungho has done horrendous stuff to Nakyum, but he’s also shown more affection to Nakyum. That includes physical affection, but Seungho also bought him warm clothes, called on a doctor to care for his health, etc. Again, all of the care absolutely does NOT cancel out the abusive behaviour on Seungho’s side, but that’s how I think Nakyum found himself feeling more and more comfortable with Seungho. Loving someone is about showing your bad sides as well as your good sides.

I think both Seungho and Nakyum are finding affection/care in forms that they’d never experienced before, and that’s why they are drawn to each other.

Problematic?

I had a feeling that this would be a story that a lot of people would consider problematic. It’s probably because I’m older now, but it doesn’t really bother me. I obviously know that there is toxic behaviour shown by the characters and I would never want that in real life, but it’s really not difficult for me to separate what works in fiction vs. what works in reality.

This was a different time period, when rich and powerful people could just do whatever they wanted. Not excusing problematic behaviour, just explaining the entitled behaviour of some of the elites.

Seungho for sure shows extremely toxic behaviour. I think the point is that he is a problematic man who has trouble expressing emotions the normal way, and it ends up hurting those around him and those he cares about. He’s definitely an imperfect person who’s unpleasant to be around, but I think one thing the author wanted to show is that bad people are still capable of having emotions. By no means do I excuse his toxic behaviour. But I am all for showing that flawed people are still worthy of attention. We are still interested in what Seungho does in spite of his poor behaviour because we recognize that he is still a person.

I also recognize that Nakyum is woobified a lot. He’s constantly put in situations where he is the victim and he doesn’t/can’t fight back. In the latest event with Jihwa ordering Nakyum’s kidnapping/murder, the Nameless one had threatened Nakyum’s life so that he wouldn’t reveal the fact that he’d kidnapped him, and that caused all of Seungho’s meanness in the past few chapters. I recognize that whump is a popular trope, but usually because it ends in comfort. (I specifically can’t enjoy whump if it doesn’t end in comfort) It sets up a situation in which it feels reasonable for the victim to receive comfort. Again, this is stuff that I only enjoy in fiction. I recognize that in real life, people shouldn’t have to get hurt to be worthy of love and care. But I can see why people may say that Nakyum being the victim might be a problem.

Other

I thought Jihwa & the Nameless one were going to be a side pairing from the moment I saw the Nameless one’s jaw lmao. It was angular and I was like, that’s a handsome man’s jaw. I’m glad that Jihwa realized before hurting Nakyum that he couldn’t possibly fix his relationship with Seungho anymore. He recognized that even with Nakyum out of the picture, Seungho wouldn’t want to come to him. Seungho’s mind would always be filled with Nakyum, and if Seungho had found out that he was behind the murder, he’d hate Jihwa even more. Like Nameless one, despite the despicable things that Jihwa had done, I did pity him. He was in love with Seungho for a long time, and thought that giving him everything he wanted (including letting him have sexual relations with others) would endear himself to Seungho. But they were just not meant to be.

But Min implied that Jihwa had crossed the line already this time by kidnapping Nakyum. After the happenings of Chapter 66, Seungho’s going to have a field day with Jihwa and I’m not sure how he’s going to get out of that one. Not sure if Nameless one can do anything to help.

I don’t know how long this manhwa is supposed to be, but there are several story lines other than Seungho x Nakyum that haven’t been addressed yet. Like I said, I think we’re going to see Jihwa x Nameless one expanded upon a bit. There’s some stuff going on with the Yoon family, since Seungho’s brother keeps coming over. I wonder if Seungho’s going to try starting a career (this isn’t based on anything, I’m just wondering). And I also have a feeling that Inhun might return, which will likely force Nakyum to choose between Inhun or Seungho once and for all.

To be completely honest, I don’t want this manhwa to drag out for too long. For selfish reasons because again I don’t like waiting for ongoing comic chapters. I don’t know how long the manhwa is intended to be, but based on my paragraph above, it’d still take a lot of time for all of those loose ends to be wrapped up. But considering the fact that Seungho and Nakyum’s relationship is probably finally going to get better, hopefully we’re over half way through? Just me being hopeful.

Final

I didn’t write a full review for this on my Dreamwidth because, like, this comic isn’t even done yet. But as you can see, I enjoyed reading it. I feel like I’m missing a hundred things that crossed my mind while reading this. And there are a lot of interesting analysis posts on Tumblr and Reddit that are opening my mind to other interpretations too.

I had a BL manga phase when I was a teenager and now I’m like “...is it time to get back into it?” Lol. In any case, it’s interesting reading BL as an adult now because like I said, it’s so much easier to separate the fiction from the reality now. I can read BL purely as fiction while recognizing what tropes are not healthy, and they don’t diminish the story. It’s melodramatic because it’s exactly that: melodrama.

#thinking out loud #manhwa #painter of the night

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entitynumber5 · 3 years

Text

iceberg blues

this fic is basically one long jonmartin road trip but with depression and angst and yearning!!!!!! here’s the link to ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30788036. or you can read it below the line!!! <3

Content warnings: depressive episodes, disassociation, panic attacks, discussions of death and mortality, grief, emetophobia, economic anxiety, intrusive thoughts/images, very brief allusions to transphobia and xenophobia (in the context of UK politics), swearing, passive suicidal ideation, food, disordered eating, mention of hospitals, smoking, addiction, arguments, brief references to coercive relationships.

Martin has been sitting at his desk, shivering in his coat, for over half an hour. Still enough that the automatic lights have switched off for the night, one by one in an imploding cascade down the corridor he can see from his desk. Tim and Sasha left a while ago, and Martin had put his coat on and promised he would been right behind them, he was just going to check his emails one last time, when he’d seen Sasha had sent her part of the report on Naomi Hearne’s statement to him. He doesn’t know how to explain why he opened the document and scrolled through to Evan Lukas’s death certificate. But here he is. Stuck and staring.

He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to be staring at the death certificate of a man he doesn’t even know. Since Naomi Hearne’s statement two days ago, Martin has been—well, off. He wishes he had a better explanation, but his creativity has jumped ship, apparently, and either a wall springs up every time he reaches for a way to name what he’s feeling or it is energy he doesn’t have to waste, forcing his mind into forming words.

It feels like there’s a balloon inside his chest and no matter how much he expands his lungs, no matter how many deep breaths he takes, he can’t make it smaller. He’d vomited, when he got back to his flat on the day of the statement; yesterday, he had opened the cupboard and stared at the ingredients but been unable to make himself make anything. On the Tube to work, when a stranger looked at him, just in passing, Martin had wanted to cry, and that feeling lingered with him but nothing came of it except an odd sort of internal tension, like a headache.

Yet at the same time, there’s something so dull about it all. He can feel the boredom in his teeth. The blunt edge of a knife, never drawing blood. Why does it matter? Why does it need to be a big deal?

It isn’t, as far as Martin’s concerned. No one else has noticed, and sometimes he doesn’t either. Sometimes it just slips his mind that this isn’t how he feels all the time. Even now, staring at the computer screen, he almost forgets that he’s cold, that it will be dark outside. That it’s Friday, and he usually calls his mum on Friday because the care home gets fish and chips delivered, every week, a whole event, and it’s easier for them both if she has a proper excuse not to answer.

“Martin,” Jon says.

Martin jumps, but his movements are slower than he expects. His shoulders lift enough that the waterproof lining of his coat makes a high-pitched scraping noise, but he can’t move the hand that’s on the mouse to close the document in shame he knows distantly he should feel.

“Martin,” Jon continues, looking somewhat confused, as if he’d already said his name a number of times. There’s a hint of defensive disapproval in his expression. “You’re still here.”

Martin tries to talk, but his voice croaks as if from disuse. He clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah. Just, um… finishing up.”

“It’s after seven.”

“You’re also still here,” Martin points out.

Another time, he thinks he’d be embarrassed by the remark. He should be feeling that hot, sharp lance of fear that this might be the fireable offence. But there was nothing in his tone except the monotone stating of a fact, and the phantom embarrassment is so vague he doesn’t even feel guilty about its reason for existing.

There’s a short, soft huff of laughter. Martin drags his eyes to Jon’s face, just in time to see his expression of defeated amusement before it disappears.

“Yes, well, I have my reasons.” Jon averts his eyes and doesn’t elaborate.

Martin turns back to the computer. It should be simple, moving the mouse to the corner of the document, pressing the red cross, shutting down the computer for the weekend, off-off, at the wall and all, not standby or Rosie would moan about the Institute’s already-failing green initiative. But he just can’t do it.

Jon lingers.

“Is… something wrong?” Martin manages to ask.

“I need to lock up,” Jon replies, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He lifts the small ring of keys in his hand as if in justification, a supply of proof. “Unless you would like to spend the weekend in the Archives, I suggest you leave in the next five minutes.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah, I—I’ll just—let me just…” He moves the mouse to the corner of the document, hovering, but he can’t bring himself to click off it. Suddenly, he doesn’t want to go home. He desperately doesn’t want to go home.

“Sometime today, please, Martin,” Jon presses.

Martin forces himself to close the document. The balloon in his chest feels very big. In his mind’s eye, he can still see Evan Lukas’s death certificate. The clinical recital of the cause, the dates echoing around in his mind. He feels like he might, at any moment, abruptly blurt the words out loud.

“S-sorry.”

“Yes, well,” Jon bristles, “I do have somewhere to be.”

Martin wishes dully that Jon wasn’t here. He could just pull the computer plug out of the wall and be done with it, although his fingers feel numb and he’s not sure he has the strength. Or rather he does have it, it exists, just not within reach.

Martin goes through the motions of small talk, nonetheless. A kneejerk courtesy that reminds him of all the commutes home he can’t remember, the familiar going-through-the-motions, arriving at your destination unharmed, but having done so on muscle memory alone.

“You do?”

“I do.”

“Right.”

Jon lifts his eyes to the ceiling, as if he had considered rolling them and thought better of it. He takes a moment before he speaks again. “Actually, I had planned to drive to Wormshill this evening. There is a detail in Miss Hearne’s statement that I would like to check myself.”

“You’re going to Kent?”

“Yes,” Jon answers defensively. “It’s not far. A two-hour drive, at most.”

“But it’s—you just said it’s after seven.”

“Because I have an obligation to ensure my employees are not in the building after hours. What you do with the rest of your evening is none of my concern.”

Martin nods. The motion carries him away for a moment, and he gets lost in the gentle repetitiveness of it. He’s definitely nodding for longer than is acceptable—everything is taking longer than acceptable, today—and he should be embarrassed, but its vaguely soothing, a blip in the otherwise flat, linear trajectory of his mood.

Jon sighs. Loudly. “Is there anything unsaved on this computer?”

“No,” Martin replies, “Don’t think so.”

“Good,” Jon snaps, and then promptly switches it off at the wall.

Martin stares at the blank screen. He can just about make out his hollow reflection. “Oh.”

Jon is still standing there. “Martin…”

Martin hums in acknowledgement.

“There is—well, there’s the matter of the Institute’s health and safety guidelines, which stipulate that any employee conducting research in the field after seven p.m. must be accompanied by at least one other person,” Jon says, rushing but still somehow managing to keep the deep, unimpressed tone. “Ordinarily, I would disregard such bureaucratic nonsense, but I, uh, I rather suspect I’ll be receiving a complaint from Miss Hearne, and I’m—reluctant, I suppose, to attract any further attention from Elias.”

Martin doesn’t understand what Jon is trying to say.

“What I’m trying to say, Martin,” Jon continues, “Is that while I would much rather conduct my investigation alone, it might be pertinent to have company. If only to share the burden of driving.”

In the computer screen, Martin’s reflection doesn’t react to Jon’s statement. His eyes are cloudy, out of focus behind his glasses.

“Fine,” Jon huffs, “I’ll be direct, since nothing else seems to be getting through: Martin, will you come to Wormshill with me?”

Martin must say yes, because the next thing he knows, he’s still shivering in his coat but he’s outside, standing next to Jon on the steps of the Institute while they wait for the taxi that’s going to take them across the river to the car hire place in Croydon, apparently the only one willing to loan a vehicle on such short notice and at this time on a Friday. In his own coat, jaw set against his own shivers, Jon keeps stealing sideways glances at Martin as if expecting him to bow out of the bizarre excursion at any moment.

It occurs to Martin that maybe he should give Jon an out. A reason to go alone, since that’s what he seems to want. Now that Martin’s outside, at least, he thinks he can make it home. He can drift through the weekend, try to sleep off the feeling sitting heavy beneath his skin so that he can plaster on a smile again for Monday.

“Jon,” Martin says, “I can’t drive.”

Jon’s face snaps fully to Martin’s. “What do you mean, you can’t drive?”

“I mean I—I never learned how?”

The car was one of the first things they’d sold, when they could no longer afford to top up the meter, and when he’d turned seventeen, it had been too much money and too much time away from his mum to take lessons, even though so many jobs stipulated—illegally, he’d been told by one disgruntled employee at the Job Centre—that he needed a licence to apply. He knew his mum resented the lack of transport. She would complain about the tins getting dented or the fruit bruising on the bus journey back from the supermarket. Martin would take on extra shifts to cover the taxi costs to and from hospital appointments. But otherwise, they were stuck. There was no way around it.

Moving into London had helped with getting around, but not so much with money, and it had been a sort of comfort to Martin that mostly no one expected you to own a car or even drive here. Until now.

“Why didn’t you say something—?” Jon begins, but at that moment, the lights of the taxi slice through the darkness and a white Prius jolts to a stop in front of them, the driver giving an impatient toot of the horn to get their attention.

“I—I’m sorry,” Martin says. “I thought you knew.”

“How on earth would I—?” Another blare of the car horn. Jon makes a disgruntled sound and starts off down the steps. “Just get in the taxi.”

Martin stares down at him. “What—but I—are you sure?”

Jon, with his hand around the door handle, looks expectantly back at Martin. “Yes, Martin, just—come on.”

In the taxi, Martin sits on his hands as his mind lists restlessly between the vivid, intrusive image of opening the car door for no reason and the worry that he should be making conversation, before settling back into familiar numbness. Jon doesn’t make conversation either, which Martin supposes is a relief. The driver fields a number of calls during the journey and ends up doing enough talking for the both of them.

Jon pays the taxi driver with the Institute credit card when they reach Croydon. Martin stands on the pavement and watches the back lights of the Prius fade into the distance, the way you might watch to check someone gets into their house safely after you walk them home, because he can’t really think of what else to do until Jon demands, “Are you coming?”

Martin jogs after Jon, catching him up just as they reach the car park of the hire place. Jon tells Martin to wait outside, so he waits outside with his hands tucked into his pockets and wonders idly if Jon has picked up on his quietness. And if Jon has noticed, does he think it’s a relief, not having to suffer Martin’s small talk, his stammering inquiries and useless observations?

About ten minutes later, Jon emerges with a set of keys and a collection of paperwork. He barely glances at Martin, making a beeline for the car parked nearest the door, a yellow Citroën.

When Martin stops beside the car, waiting for Jon to unlock it, Jon snaps, “It’s all I could get on short notice.”

Martin stares over the roof of the car at Jon. Is Jon embarrassed because the car is yellow? Because it’s a Citroën? Martin feels like he’s missing something. “I didn’t say anything.”

Jon just huffs and climbs into the car. After a moment, Martin follows, ducking inside and settling into the passenger seat. Jon hands him the paperwork, somewhat unceremoniously, and Martin takes it and places it in his lap and doesn’t say anything about the fact that Jon has given the hire company a false name. Which likely means he has a fake ID. Which is a can of worms that Martin isn’t sure he’s ready to open.

They drive for a while in complete silence. Jon’s driving is a little shaky, at first. He stalls three times in the space of five minutes, and at one point gets flipped off by a teenager hauling Deliveroo via bike. Martin laughs, despite himself, a small huff of air through his nose—it’s a start, he supposes.

“Would you prefer to take the wheel?” Jon snaps and when Martin’s face drops, he adds. “I thought as much.”

Martin sinks back into his seat, the laughter forgotten. He stares out of the window at the other cars and wonders where their occupants are travelling—back to their families for the weekend? When Jon has to merge onto the M25, he clings to the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turn white, and Martin wishes he hadn’t laughed earlier.

On the motorway, at least, Jon seems to settle into the familiar motions of driving and eventually reaches for the radio, tuning into Radio 4. They’re broadcasting a political debate, and Martin tries to watch without being caught as Jon’s face twists or he snorts at a particularly egregious comment from one of the participants.

“Who’s that?” Martin asks, surprising himself, when Jon rolls his eyes for the fifth time—he’s counting—at the same voice.

Jon blinks, turning momentarily from the road before returning to his eyes-ahead vigil of the motorway. He rolls his lips, like he’s pushing down a retort about Martin’s ignorance of politics. After a while, and a sixth eye roll, he says: “That’s Ann Widdecombe.”

“Oh,” Martin says, “She was on Strictly.”

Jon once again looks like he wants to launch into a lecture about Martin’s witlessness. Instead, he says, in that dry voice of his: “Yes. She has also been a particularly insidious member of the Conservative Party for forty years.”

“Right. Of course. I know that.”

“I should hope so.”

“I didn’t vote for her,” Martin tells him, “On Strictly.”

Jon doesn’t say anything.

“Or in the general election,” Martin adds.

“Not least of all because you don’t live in her constituency.”

“I mean I didn’t vote for the—”

“Yes, Martin, I understood what you meant.” Jon pauses. “And for the record, neither did I.”

There’s a very long stretch of silence after that. Martin wants to point out that he used to watch Question Time with his mum, before she moved into the care home, plus he’s trans and what little family he has left are Polish, so it’s not like he can be ignorant about the UK’s political climate, and just because he’s not some Oxford-educated prick who listens to Radio 4—but what’s he trying to prove, really? It’s a waste of energy, and the lull of the car and the cold pressure in his chest quickly extinguish the flare of indignation.

A radio drama about wartime Britain replaces the debate, and Martin tips his head against the window. He can make out the sound of the words, but not what they mean, and the inside of his mind feels like the road ahead: a blur of sharp asphalt and red-white light, the kind of place where it’s not safe to stop. He feels vaguely sick.

Martin thinks about the weekend again. He wishes he could sleep through and wake up feeling better, feeling real. He wants so badly to pause this feeling and pick it up when he’s ready to deal with it. A break. He just wants a fucking break, so badly that the tight-throat tension of tears he knows he can’t shed is back. He closes his eyes, in case Jon notices, and plays with the paperclip holding the contract for the hire car together.

He doesn’t know if he falls asleep fully or just drifts, but the next thing he’s really aware of is the slam of a car door as Jon climbs back inside. Inside? Martin squints at him through the sickly light of the streetlamp outside the car as Jon manoeuvrers his way back into the driver’s seat while holding a cardboard tray of drinks and two greasy paper bags. He hands one of the bags to Martin. It’s warm in his hands, almost burning, but he doesn’t think to let go.

“Where are we?” Martin asks, detached from the question, uncaring of the answer.

“Just outside of Maidstone,” Jon replies, balancing the drinks tray on top of the clutch with meticulous precision before gesturing with far less accuracy in the general direction of the service station. There’s a glowing sign indicating the presence of a Costa and a number of other chains. “Do feel free to use the, uh, the facilities.”

“I’m fine,” Martin mumbles, “But thanks.”

Martin realises he can’t remember the last time he used the facilities, as Jon so delicately put it, even back at the Institute. It should be embarrassing, but even this is hard to care about. There were plenty of opportunities, at work, to get up and make a cup of tea, or to reach into his rucksack and pull out the water bottle he’d bought with the markers specifically to remind him to drink at regular intervals. But he just… didn’t. And he’s dehydrated, clearly. And he doesn’t care.

“Right,” Jon says, looking like he would rather be anywhere else, “If you’re sure.”

Martin has no idea what to say to that. Jon saves him the effort by clicking the radio back on without starting the engine, and the midnight news drifts from the speakers in a deep, sombre voice that makes Martin feel intensely tired.

Jon clears his throat. “I hope you like cheese and tomato.”

Martin blinks Jon’s shadowed face back into focus. The lights are strange, transient—the orange glow of the streetlights interspersed with violent flickers of white as new arrivals pull into the car park.

“Cheese and tomato toasties, that is,” Jon adds, “That’s what’s in the bag.”

“Oh. Oh.” Martin blinks again, almost dizzy. “Thanks. I—I do. Like cheese and tomato toasties. What do I—how much were—?”

“You really don’t need—”

“I insist.”

“It’s fine, Martin.”

“But—”

“I bought it with the Institute credit card,” Jon interrupts, blunt. “If you would like to thank Elias for the cheese and tomato toastie on Monday, be my guest.”

It’s not really funny, but Martin finds himself giving one of those pathetic, half-formed laughs again. Jon looks momentarily surprised before he smiles and turns away.

Martin eats by rote because what else is he supposed to do? There’s an odd safety to mirroring Jon, following his lead. And so Martin does just that. He doesn’t taste the cheese and tomato toastie, and he can’t even tell if there’s sugar in the tea Jon hands him from the cardboard drinks tray, but it sits warm in his stomach, reminding him he hasn’t eaten anything other than crackers for nearly two days.

When Jon begins to drive again, the radio is playing a reading of a book about a Spanish painter Martin has never heard of. He feels like he owes Jon, in some way, for the cheese and tomato toastie, no matter who actually paid for it, and so he decides to remedy his previous disregard for Radio 4’s programming.

“This book sounds interesting,” Martin announces. There’s not much in his voice—no confidence, no real presence—but at least he’s saying something. “I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this Velázquez guy.”

“It’s Velázquez,” Jon corrects, although his pronunciation sounds no different to Martin’s.

“It’s a shame it’s the final episode,” Martin presses on, even though it’s painful. “Would have been nice to have a bit of context, you know?”

Jon hums in disinterest. “I suppose.”

This brief attempt at conversation is uninspiring, to say the least, so Martin instead resorts to an even more ridiculous line of inquiry. “Did we just pass a sign for Leeds Castle?”

“Yes,” Jon says, although he seems somewhat more engaged this time.

“But we’re in Kent.”

“Well-observed.”

“So why is it called Leeds Castle?”

“Well, there’s actually some debate as to why. In the Doomsday Book…”

Martin’s not watching the clock, but if he was, he would know Jon talks for a full twenty-three minutes about the etymology of Leeds Castle. It’s oddly soothing. Like a repeat of the emulsifiers at the ice cream parlour, except they’re not sitting across from each other, they physically can’t make eye contact, and there’s distance and darkness enough between them that they can both drop the performance. Martin doesn’t want to be looked at, to be seen, but he feels grounded by Jon’s voice. And Jon doesn’t stop every few minutes to make sure he isn’t being a nuisance, that he isn’t stealing time that others will resent the loss of.

They’ve made it to the Kent Downs. Martin supposes he should ask what it is they’re here to investigate. He manages it, and watches with something adjacent to despair as Jon’s open, almost excited expression falls away.

“Miss Hearne mentioned a chapel in her statement,” Jon says. His voice has dropped down an octave again, into the tone he uses in the Archives. “I can’t find any record of its existence, but I would like to be sure.”

Martin feels suddenly, impossibly cold. Like he will never be warm again. He shivers, and Jon turns up the car’s heaters. “I remember.”

Jon’s hands tighten around the steering wheel again. “You listened to the statement?”

“You—you asked me to transcribe it.”

“No, I asked Tim to transcribe it.”

“But Tim—well, he has an ear infection, he’s on antibiotics and everything, and Sasha’s the only one with access to the hospital records so she was cross-checking those, and I—I thought it was only fair if I transcribed it instead,” Martin says, the words falling out of his mouth in a blurred rush.

Jon deflates, just slightly, with a tired sigh. “Of course. I must have—I didn’t—I’ll apologise to Tim on Monday.”

Martin sits on his hands again. If he was feeling better, he might wonder if Jon has ever considered apologising to him. But perhaps he’s more truthful, when he’s in this place; perhaps he’s right when he thinks he doesn’t deserve it.

Jon sighs again. “So you heard…?”

“Yeah.”

“Brilliant,” Jon mutters, clearly meaning the opposite.

“Do you really think she’s making it up?”

“Of course I don’t—‘making it up’ would imply some kind of fault or, or blame, which is not at all what I was suggesting.” Jon’s jaw is set, tense, even as he spits out the words. “There is nothing made up about trauma and the very real impact it can have on a person’s life. I think Miss Hearne’s experience was significant and, as I told her, she should certainly seek out help from someone more qualified to address the grief of her fiancé’s death. As for empty cemeteries and chapels hidden in fog, well, I’ve read enough statements to know that the point at which they start to sound like an overdone ghost story is the time to deploy a reasonable amount of scepticism.”

Martin stares at the dashboard. The car’s heating is on its highest setting, the warm air blasting from the vents drying out Martin’s eyes, but he’s still shivering. Still so deeply, immovably cold.

“He was…” Martin whispers, but he can’t finish the sentence.

“He was very young, yes, and his loss was unspeakably tragic. That is not what I am seeking proof of, and that is far from Institute’s area of expertise in any case, but—”

“No,” Martin interrupts. His voice still so quiet, but Jon stops to listen nonetheless. “That’s not what I… I was going to say that she sounded lonely.”

Jon’s mouth opens, but he doesn’t seem able to form words. His teeth click as he shuts his mouth and turns back to the road, driving on in silence as the radio idly broadcasts the shipping forecast.

“I—I don’t mean the part with the empty cemeteries and chapels hidden in fog, although I believe her. I do.” Martin pauses, letting himself linger in that realisation. “The loneliest part was when she spoke about him.”

Jon takes a deep breath. He frowns, as if he wants to say something, but he keeps quiet.

The tightness is sitting in Martin’s throat and behind his eyes again, and he wishes he could cry. Maybe if he cried, it would leave him be, he’d be emptied but in the right way.

“They only got two years,” Martin whispers.

“They were…” Jon says, his voice a feeble imitation of comfort. And when his voice fails, his jaw tightens and the defensiveness flashes back across his expression. “Does it matter how long they got?”

“Yes, it matters. Of course it matters,” Martin snaps. He surprises himself with the vitriol behind his words.

“The length of their acquaintance doesn’t change the extent—”

“Their acquaintance? They were in love.”

“I’m aware.”

“They were going to get married.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Martin,” Jon hisses. “I’m not unfamiliar with grief.”

“Then why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why didn’t you tell her what to—how to—to move on, or—I don’t know, couldn’t you just have humoured her? Couldn’t you have dropped the act for one day to help someone experiencing the worst thing that’s ever happened to them?”

Jon stares at the road ahead, exhaustion sitting in the lines of his shoulders, the twitch of his jaw. He hardly moves, aside from occasionally checking the mirrors, and Martin doesn’t expect an answer. The silence is cloying and choking and Martin lets it fester.

“If I knew how to move on,” Jon says, very quietly, after an indeterminable amount of time, “Well, let’s just say that’s not information I would withhold. And as for humouring Miss Hearne’s experience, what would you have me say?”

“You could have told her you believed her,” Martin presses.

“That would be a lie.”

“It would be a comfort.”

Jon’s lips twist humourlessly. “Aren’t those synonymous?”

“Then why are we here? Why drive around the Kent Downs in the middle of the night if you think it was all just a trick of the mind?”

“Because I need proof.”

“Of what?”

Jon doesn’t answer the question. Instead, he snaps: “I shouldn’t have bought you.”

“Probably,” Martin agrees, falling back into his seat.

“I’m pulling over,” Jon announces without preamble, as if this is a natural continuation of their argument. “I need to check my notes. I’m sure we’ve passed that sign for Bredgar at least twice already.”

Martin doesn’t say anything. Jon pulls the car into a cramped passing place on the side of the road and then takes his phone out of his pocket. The radio drones, and Martin stares out of the window at the darkness of the stretching rural road, the few specks of light in the distance where the sparse houses state their presence. He thinks about the process of lighting torches in order to send a warning. Smoke signals.

“No signal,” Jon mutters in frustration, and then he opens the driver’s door, climbs out and slams it behind him with enough force that the body of the car shakes.

Martin curls into his coat. His face is wet, he realises, and when he lifts his hand to his left cheeks, it’s cold with tears. Jon is a silhouette caught in the car’s headlights, shoulders up, body tensed. To Martin’s surprise, he seems to have abandoned his phone in favour of lighting a cigarette. Martin recalls Tim mentioning that Jon had quit, a while ago. He considers getting out of the car, too, and trying to convince Jon not to lift the cigarette to his lips. But he can’t move. He’s frozen in place, shaking with a chill that doesn’t belong to him.

In the silvery-grey plume of cigarette smoke, Martin thinks he sees the outline of the chapel they’ll never find.

Leaning against the car hood, outside a service station near Preston, Jon sneaks a cigarette while he waits for Martin. His hands are restless, twitching, and if he’s being honest, he has played hard and fast with the meaning of ‘quit’ ever since—well, ever since he started working in the Archives. And he needs a distraction because, for the first time since they left the Lonely the day before, Martin is out of his line of sight.

It hasn’t been long. Five minutes, at most. But Martin had insisted on going alone, had told Jon he was feeling car sick and needed a moment to himself to get cleaned up. To brush his teeth, which he had said with an odd smile, like this was a novelty. So Jon had let him go, and regretted it almost immediately, and began smoking soon after to take the edge off his gnawing anxiety.

Now that he’s alone, Jon finds himself thinking about the journey beyond the heart-pounding panic of getting out of London and the slower-burning worry over Martin’s drawn silence.

His lips curl into a humourless smile around another drag of the cigarette, and he huffs a small laugh. When Jon had turned on the radio after they’d finally made it onto the M6, it was already tuned in to Radio 4. He didn’t have the heart to change it, not least of all because he would have to explain to Martin, after all this time, that he doesn’t particularly like Radio 4. It’s not his station of choice by a longshot. The last time they’d been in a car together—a lifetime ago, it feels like—Jon had still been trying very hard to appear older than he was and, in a moment of panic, decided the only way to do this was to listen to a radio station that didn’t even play music, for god’s sake.

Ironically, he has been listening to Radio 4 recently, if only because Daisy insists they both stay appraised of The Archers. Insisted. Jon’s smile falls. Only a few weeks ago, while Jon had been attempting to organise his office while Daisy complained at the latest pastoral plot point, he had found an old, half-folded Post-it note. A jumbled collection of words in Jon’s handwriting: Martin Secret Santa. Velázquez - The Vanishing Man??

“What’s that?” Daisy had asked him. “I can’t read your handwriting.”

Jon had slipped the Post-it back into the drawer, although this time with his rib rather than the jumbled collection of paperwork it had been coexisting with before. “Then I’m not going to tell you.”

“Oh, come on, Sims.”

“It’s nothing important.”

“I don’t think I believe you.”

The Eye had informed Jon that The Vanishing Man was the name of the book reviewed on Radio 4 on January 16th 2016, in the early hours of the morning, when Jon had been driving with Martin around the Kent Downs. Jon had written the name of the book down so that he’d know what to get Martin, if he drew his name for Secret Santa.

In the car park, Jon’s throat tightens with grief. There was never another Secret Santa after Prentiss. It seemed a silly thing, with everything that had happened, to care about. They’d never been a normal workplace, not really. And yet Jon still craves that brief glimpse of ordinariness, of a pointless tradition everyone rolls their eyes at and complains about but which is still repeated every year.

Jon is just about to walk to the bin and put his cigarette out in the tray resting on top when he notices Martin’s slow, almost unsteady approach. He quickly disposes of the spent cigarette and tries to look as nonchalant as possible, like he is perfectly capable of spending five minutes away from Martin without falling apart.

Except that as soon as Martin’s face catches the light and his expression became visible, Jon has no hope of maintaining the act.

“Martin,” Jon says, stumbling forward to meet Martin before he reaches the car fully.

“Jon.” Martin recognises him. It should be a relief, but there’s a dull echo to his voice that reminds Jon far too much of the Lonely.

Jon can see that Martin shivering, even in the too-big knitted jumper Jon had guided him into when they’d woken up sometime after midday, after sitting together on the sofa all night, Jon crying softly against Martin’s shoulder while Martin slept. He remembers the way Martin’s curls had sprung out of the jumper and how Jon had felt like crying again with how much love he felt in that moment, staring at the crown of Martin’s head, wondering what it might be like to kiss him there.

When Jon takes Martin’s hand, it’s so cold Jon feels a bolt of ice shoot up his own spine.

“You’re freezing,” Jon murmurs, pulling gently on Martin’s hand. “Come on.”

Jon places his other hand on Martin’s back, making small, soothing motions as he opens the passenger door as wide as possible and gently encourages Martin back into the seat. He pulls up the fleece blanket in the footwell up so that it covers Martin’s legs, where the worst of the shivering seems to be concentrated, and squeezes Martin’s hand until Martin’s eyes move to his.

“I’m just going to walk around to the other side of the car and get in, alright?”

Martin nods. Jon squeezes his hand again, one last time, before standing up and jogging around the car to the driver’s side. He climbs in quickly, kicks on the engine so that he can start up the heaters, and then re-takes Martin’s hand. Martin stares straight ahead, his eyes cloudy and fixed on a faraway point Jon can’t identify.

“Martin,” Jon ventures, trying to keep his voice as soft as possible. “What happened?”

“N-nothing.” Martin shudders violently. “It was nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing.”

“Jon,” Martin sighs.

“We don’t have to talk about it now,” Jon agrees, trying to keep the reluctance from his words. “But it might… maybe it would help?”

“To see what we’re up against?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the Lonely, it…” Martin laughs, a hollow, humourless sound. “It’s not just going to let me go, is it?”

Jon doesn’t know what to say. They sit for a while in silence, the only sound the rumble of the engine and the whir of the heaters. In a moment of desperation, Jon almost considers turning Radio 4 back on, and he nearly laughs at his own ridiculousness.

“I—I was in Costa,” Martin says, at last, disrupting the quiet. “I was going to get you some coffee, since you’d been driving all evening. I’m sorry. That I can’t—that I don’t have a—”

“Martin, it’s fine.” They’ve already had this conversation. Jon brushes his thumb over Martin’s knuckles and tries not to well up because Martin thought to get him coffee, when he knows for a fact that Martin despises coffee as a point of pride and refuses to even keep it in his flat.

“I always wanted to learn. To drive, that is.”

Jon smiles, but it fades quickly. “Maybe you can. When we get to…”

Martin hums. “I ordered the coffee, that was… it was fine. A bit awkward, I guess. Haven’t talked to strangers in a while, you know? Or anyone, really. But I got through it. It’s just that when—when the barista called my name, she just—she looked through me, like I wasn’t there.” A brief, bitter twitch of Martin’s lips. “Maybe I wasn’t.”

“Martin.”

“It’s fine. It’s—it has to be—I’m fine.”

“Martin.”

“I just stood there, while she was calling my name. Looking at me, but not,” Martin continues, still staring out of the window. “In the end, she gave the coffee to the person who was cleaning the forecourt.”

“Oh.” Jon tips his head back against the seat. “I can—did you order anything else? Are you hungry? I can go back inside. Or we can go… t-together.”

Martin shakes his head minutely.

“We’ll eat when we get to the house,” Jon says, like it’s already decided. “I can make soup.”

“What kind?” Martin asks, so quietly Jon almost misses it.

“Whatever kind you like.”

“I don’t know. Is that something I—should I know?”

“We can find out.”

Martin doesn’t say anything else.

“Are you ready to move on?” Jon ventures.

At Martin’s minute nod, Jon reluctantly untangles their hands and retakes the wheel. He pulls out of the service station, and once they’ve navigated the helter-skelter of roundabouts and made it back onto the motorway, Jon lets his hand drift towards the radio. Would it be so earth-shattering, to listen to something other than Radio 4? Surely it wouldn’t shake the foundation of their relationship more than everything else that’s happened in the last two years. And yet he feels an extraordinary amount of pressure, like he’s about to expose some vulnerable part of himself to Martin by revealing what sort of music he enjoys.

“Jon?” Martin murmurs.

Jon retracts his hand. It’s ridiculous, it really is, but he’s not ready. “Sorry. Just, uh, just checking I know where the—the hazard lights are in this car.”

Martin doesn’t seem to be in any position to question him. Jon returns his hand to the wheel and stares at the straight, sparse road ahead of them. There’s not a lot of traffic, late at night and mid-week, and Jon loses himself quickly in the motions of driving. It’s strange, he thinks, the way skills stay with you after so much time dormant and unpractised. He wonders if he could remember the cords he used to play on his grandmother’s piano, if he sat down in front of one now, or the lyrics of the song Georgie taught him, his voice matching the gentle strum of her guitar. He wonders if the Eye would let him be bad at it, let him rediscover these half-realised skills or supply him with the unearned knowledge of how to perfect them.

Instead, he thinks about teaching Matin to drive. If the Eye is going to insist on perfection, Jon might as well share it with the person he cares about most. The Scottish Highlands aren’t the easiest place to learn, and they probably shouldn’t attract the attention of anyone nearby by hiring an instructor, but it would be something to do. A reason to spend time together. They’d argue, almost certainly. He can hear it: yes, Jon, I know the highway code and Martin, you’ve missed the turning again and well, maybe your instructions should have been clearer and I resent your tone and I resent your directions and—he smiles. Petty arguments, of course, the kind that don’t hurt, not really. They would laugh about it when they got home.

He turns to Martin, as if this is already a joke between them, already spoke out loud, only to find him fast asleep against the window.

The suspended moment of surprise lasts far longer than Jon would admit to anyone, even himself, and he has to force his eyes back to the road just in time to avoid a large lorry with smiling cartoon produce on its flank. He takes a moment to breath around his pounding heart as he settles back into the speed limit. And then he can’t stop stealing glances at Martin’s sleeping form.

Martin’s head is tucked between the headrest and the window, a position that will likely give him an aching neck later, but Jon can’t bear to wake him. The fleece blanket—yellow with white flowers, Jon remembers, although he can’t see it in the monochrome lights of the motorway—rests atop Martin’s gently rising and falling belly. One of Martin’s hands is hidden beneath the blanket, curled around his knee; the other lies half-up in his lap, fingers twitching every so often. His mouth is open slightly, top teeth just visible. During one stolen look, Jon notices Martin’s nose curling slightly in sleep, his eyelashes twitching. It’s so endearing that Jon has to smothers the urge to cry.

Once again, Jon thinks about the last time they shared an unfamiliar car to traverse unfamiliar terrain. Martin had seemed to sleep then, too, although looking at Martin now, Jon isn’t sure it was actual rest. More just closing his eyes, because there was no real difference between that and keeping them open, staring absently at the road ahead.

When Jon had dropped the hire car off in Croydon around eight a.m. that Saturday morning, Martin bid him goodbye with a hollow smile, assured Jon he could would be fine getting home, and walked—purposelessly, somehow, even though he had a destination—towards the nearest station. Jon had gotten another taxi back to the Institute, weekend be damned, he needed to write up his notes, and picked up his phone at obsessive fifteen-minute intervals, beset with the need to text Martin to ensure he’d gotten home safely.

He never did text. And he still regretted it, even when Martin came in on Monday—still pale, still withdrawn—and assured Jon his weekend had been fine. Even now, two years later.

Worse still, he knew something wasn’t quite right with Martin that week. Tim and Sasha had been worried about Martin, and had come into Jon’s office before leaving for the night and asked that he ensure Martin wasn’t still there when he locked up. Jon had no real issue letting Tim or Sasha stay in the Archives after-hours; he trusted them, and they were experienced researchers, and they both worked best in their own time. Martin, not so much.

But he had noticed that Martin’s quietness in the days since Naomi Hearne’s statement, the way he drifted distracted through the Archives and sometimes seemed to be somewhere else entirely. Perhaps that’s what compelled Jon to invite Martin with him to Kent. To this day, he’s still not sure why he extended the offer. Why he made that decision over and over again, even when opportunities to turn back presented.

He does know how different he feels now. How sorry he is, that he tried so hard to avoid this. How angry he is, that it took him so long to discover this feeling. And he knows exactly why he invited Martin with him to Scotland.

He supposes it’s good, if Martin didn’t—couldn’t—sleep back then, that he is managing to rest now. Jon makes himself focus very closely on the road, on driving gently so as not to disturb the sleep Martin so clearly needs.

It’s not until they’re about half an hour away from the Scottish border that Martin begins to stir, a deep sigh followed by a more discontented murmur. Jon tries to keep his eyes on the road ahead, tries not to think it’s only been an hour, please let him rest just a little longer, but his gaze keeps wandering to where Martin is curling in on himself against the window, beginning to shudder again.

The car’s heating system is already on its highest setting, which Jon discovers when he reaches to turn it up. Perhaps he’s also running cold from their encounter with the Lonely, and the shivery anxiety still gripping him after their escape from London. Jon thinks about reaching across, waking Martin, but just as he wills his hand away from the steering wheel again, Martin sits up with a noise of confusion, the rasping outline of Jon’s name.

Martin stares at the darkness in front of the car, cut through with the white glare of the headlights. He’s stock still, the only movement the rise and fall of his shoulders at pace with his frantic breathing, and the small quivers running through him at merciless intervals. It’s almost reminiscent, Jon thinks, of the time they drove to Kent, except there is something visibly uncalm about Martin’s posture this time.

“Martin?”

Martin just keeps staring.

Jon reaches across the car towards him. “Martin?”

Martin draws a sharp breath, flinching away from Jon’s outstretched hand so quickly he thumps his head against the window. The impact seems to wake him fully, but his breathing gets quicker, if anything, and he hides both his shaking hands beneath the blanket, gathering it up to his chin as he attempts to stop his teeth from chattering.

“S-sorry,” Martin murmurs, “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Jon replies, trying to match Martin’s voice for gentleness, although his does not shake or warp with almost-tears. “Bad dream?”

Martin hums, but says nothing more.

“Would you like to stop? I think we’ll be coming up to another service—”

“No,” Martin interrupts, a new sharpness to his voice. He takes another breath, slower but still unsteady. “No, thank you. I’m—I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

Jon tries to smile, as soothingly as his can, but Martin won’t return eye contact when Jon glances his way. “Alright. We’re not far from the border now.”

Jon drives, trying very hard to focus on the road rather than Martin in the passenger seat. Every time Jon looks Martin’s way, the shivering seems to get worse, accompanied by a blurring at the edges of his figure that Jon attributes, at first, to the late hour, to the fuzziness of the light and the growing exhaustion behind Jon’s eyes. When he tries to focus on it, it gives him an odd, momentary headache—not dissimilar to when he attempts to Know something too big or too abstract.

It’s then that Jon realises this is the Lonely, clinging to Martin like heat haze to the road, except there’s something distinctly sinister and chilling about it. A claws-out, cloying presence in the car with them.

“Martin…”

“I’m fine,” Martin replies, voice as tense as his jaw as he fights down another teeth-chattering chill. “It’s—it will pass.”

Jon swallows around the ache in his throat. “Can I help?”

“It’s fine.”

“Martin—”

“Jon, I’m—”

“You’re not,” Jon snaps, not meaning to sound so harsh, but the worry explodes out of him sounding closer to anger. “You’re not fine, Martin, and I—I can’t just sit here and watch—”

“Then don’t watch,” Martin hisses back. “Would that be so hard? To just. Not watch. For once in your life just stop—stop looking, stop asking to know things that will—that will—”

“That will what?”

“That will destroy you, okay? Stop throwing yourself into—into the eldritch version of staring directly at the sun!”

“Already been there and done that, I’m afraid,” Jon mutters, with no small amount of bitterness.

“Oh, great! And how did that turn out? I’m not some—you can’t—I didn’t ask for this. I’m not a statement, I’m not—you can’t just Know me, Jon, that’s not—not fair. It’s not—” Martin is gasping now, almost gagging on his words, on the tears threatening to implode his facade of distance. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”

When Jon turns to look at him, there is still something blurred and unspecific about Martin, like he is both here and somewhere else. Like half of his image is being left behind by each forward movement of the car. But he is crying, fully crying. And by some cruel twist of fate, Jon can see this more clearly than everything else around them.

“I know what you’re going to say. I know nothing’s fair. I know that’s the—it’s the way our world is now, right? Nothing’s fair, and nothing’s safe, and everything…” Martin coughs miserably, his voice stolen momentarily by the tears. “Everything ends.”

“Martin—”

“Don’t, Jon. Don’t say my name like that.”

“What would you have me say instead?”

“I don’t—I can’t. Not yet.”

So Jon says nothing. He drives. He tries very hard not to look at Martin, who curls against the door, crying in such a quiet, self-contained way that Jon wants to weep with the intensity of grief Martin seems to be denying himself.

By the time they’re nearing the border, Martin is even quieter. Jon risks a glance at him and finds that he is still crying, but sporadically, just tears now, falling silently onto the blanket he’s still holding beneath his chin. His face shimmers when it catches the headlights leeching across the road from the southbound side. The glassy look has returned to his eyes, and Jon wonders if he even knows that he’s still crying.

Up ahead, Jon spots a sign for Gretna Green. It twists a wretched, tearful laugh from his throat.

“What is it?” Martin rasps.

Jon turns to him, not caring if he misses the moment they cross the border—which before had seemed such an important milestone to him, a prerequisite of the journey. Martin is still crying those silent, ignored tears, but his gaze has moved from that absent nothingness to Jon’s face instead.

“I was just—Gretna Green,” Jon says uselessly. “We’re near Gretna Green.”

Martin takes a shuddering breath. It sounds like it could have been a laugh, too, if they were somewhere else, someone else—a perfect twin to Jon’s. “Oh?”

“Did you know that you can no longer get married at Gretna Green without at least twenty-nine days’ notice? In 1856, a law was passed requiring one member of the couple to have resided in the local parish for at least twenty-one days in order to be eligible to marry there. That has since been repealed, but the longer notice period maintained.” Jon didn’t know this until just a moment ago, when the Eye supplied it to him. “The tradition of Gretna Green marriages dates back to at least 1754, although the practice didn’t become commonplace until a toll road made it a more accessible location to those travelling from England. At the time, Scottish law was guided more by Celtic rather than Catholic tradition, and so allowed a couple to be married by anyone so long as there were witnesses, which gave rise to so-called anvil priests—local blacksmiths willing to perform wedding ceremonies.”

Martin swipes at his cheek with the back of his hand. He seems sturdier, more present. “I didn’t know any of that, actually.”

“The most famous anvil priest is Richard Rennison, who was recorded as having performed five-thousand, one-hundred and forty-seven wedding ceremonies before ‘irregular marriages’ were outlawed by the Scottish government in 1939.”

“That’s—that’s a lot of weddings,” Martin murmurs, a hint of humour in his voice. “He must have seen a lot.”

Jon frowns. “Of what?”

“Well, love, I guess. But it can’t all have been good.”

“Perhaps.”

“I mean, I’ve read Pride and Prejudice, for a start.”

“Yes, but Mr Wickham is not a particularly helpful example of a potential husband. Would you hold his entire character against the integrity of Gretna Green?”

“I guess they never actually went to Gretna Green, in the end. But I bet there’s a lot of real-life examples of people manipulating their partners into a shotgun wedding across the border and then—”

“Goodbye happily ever after.”

“I never had you down for a hopeless romantic.”

“I was agreeing with your last point.”

“Yeah, but none of the points before that.”

“Yes, I was.”

Martin makes that noise again, something adject to a laugh that warms Jon’s heart. “No, you weren’t.”

“Yes, I was.”

“No, you—” Martin stops, shakes his head. “This is ridiculous.”

“Fine,” Jon says, lifting his hands momentarily from the steering wheel in a gesture of surrender. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a hopeless romantic, thank you very much. But is it so terrible to imagine that some of those marriages were—well, happy or exciting or—or fairer? Than somewhere else? That there was a great deal of love here for a great deal of time, and that makes this place—unique. You’re right: not all of it could have been happy, or good, or honest. But—”

“But you’re a little bit in love with the idea of this place,” Matin says, and it takes Jon a moment to realise he’s teasing.

Jon feels heat rush to his cheeks, and he’s glad that it’s dark inside the car, that they’re between streetlights and passing vehicles. I’m a little bit in love with you, too, Jon thinks, and feels his blush deepen even further. The thought is so vivid that for a moment, he’s convinced he actually said it out loud. But Martin is just looking at him, his expression still somewhat distant, but there’s something like a smile sitting on his lips. No hint that Jon might have just confessed his love.

“Yes, well.” Jon clears his throat. “Sometimes it’s nice to…”

“Have a little hope?”

Jon nods, just once. When he looks at Martin, his smile has disappeared and there are tears in his eyes again.

“I’m sorry,” Jon whispers.

“For what?”

“For everything. For—”

“Jon, you can’t be sorry for everything,” Martin cuts in. “It will eat you alive. God, you—you don’t have to be sorry. Not for anything you think you’ve done to me.”

“Martin, I—”

“No, Jon, I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“What an earth for? You haven’t—”

“I have. We’ve both—we’ve both made a lot of mistakes. And that’s… probably why we’re here.” Martin sniffs, curls his hands tighter around the blanket. “But I…”

Jon waits. He thinks they must have crossed the border into Scotland now, with little fanfare. Too absorbed in each other’s words to notice the transition.

“Can we stop soon?” Martin asks at last, breaking the silence.

It’s not what Jon is expecting, but he nods nonetheless. “Of course. We’ll stop at the next service station.”

True to his word, Jon stops at the next service station—which just so happens to be Gretna Green. He asks Martin if he wants to keep going, to bypass this service station for another, but Martin simply shakes his head and doesn’t say anything as Jon finds them an empty space.

They walk inside together, only splitting off into separate cubicles when they reach the toilets. Martin says very little, but allows himself to be guided by Jon through Waitrose, which is open despite the late hour. They’ll have to sacrifice affordability for practicality this time, since they’re only two hours away from Daisy’s safehouse and it seems like a bad idea to risk stopping again. Jon fills their basket with tea bags, powdered milk, custard creams, bread, bananas, baked beans and pre-grated cheese. None of it particularly glamourous, but it will tide them over, and he’s not sure either of them is in a state to do more than microwave what they have available.

Just before they reach the check-out, Jon notices the chocolate Martin likes. He remembers, because Tim had once returned from his lunch break having bought the entire box from the nearby supermarket when Martin had been staying in the Archives. Caramel Cadbury, the contrasting purple and yellow wrapper always showing up in the bins after that, and Jon feeling an odd sense of jealousy that Tim had so effortlessly, it seemed, made Martin’s unexpected stay more pleasant.

Jon places two bars into the basket with the rest of their goods. With the hand not holding the basket, Jon reaches for Martin. Martin closes the distance, taking Jon’s hand, and they cling to each other through the transaction and the return to the car.

“Are you hungry?” Jon asks Martin.

Martin shakes his head. Jon adds this to the list of things to address later, when he isn’t so sleep-deprived he’s sure to say the wrong thing, push the wrong buttons. He places their shopping bags in the boot of the car and reluctantly relinquishes Martin’s hand so they can both climb back in.

Jon doesn’t start the engine.

“I can’t stop thinking about Naomi Hearne,” Martin announces, after a long stretch of silence. “I had a dream about her statement. Earlier. It was… different, though. I think it might have been—I think maybe I was—I belonged to that house.”

Jon doesn’t know what to say. His own silence is choking him, and he knows now is not the time to cry, but it’s a difficult thing to wrestle down the onslaught.

“I was so stupid,” Martin hisses. He’s crying again, so suddenly Jon feels like he must have missed something. “I should never have gotten involved with the Lonely. I’m—this is—it’s all my fault. I did this.”

Jon swallows his own tears. “Martin, I don’t understand.”

“The Lonely won’t let me go.”

“It will. It has,” Jon says, quick, desperate.

“No.” Martin shakes his head with a mirthless laugh. “No, it hasn’t, Jon. You remember Evan Lukas.”

“Of course,” Jon replies, although it wasn’t a question.

“He escaped. He escaped, and it took him back in the end.”

“No.” Jon leans back, as if struck. This is—why has he never thought about this? But no, it can’t be true, it can’t be a possibility. “No, that’s—Martin, you aren’t like him. Evan Lukas was—he was born into it. The Lonely was with him for longer than it ever was you.”

“I think the Lonely always had me.”

“Don’t say that. Not again. Not now.”

“But it’s true, Jon! When I listened to Naomi Hearne’s statement—”

“I should never have let you—”

“You didn’t let me. I chose to.”

“It wasn’t a choice.”

“It was.”

“No, it—it compelled you, somehow. The statements, they can do that, they can—”

“I wanted to read it.”

“Exactly!”

“No, I wanted to read it because I was doing my job, because I was helping Tim and Sasha. I didn’t know it would—it just seemed like a normal statement. Until I listened,” Martin continues, voice growing in strength. “It called to something inside of me. I recognised so much of myself—”

“No, Martin.”

“My life is—was—it was just like—”

“Stop,” Jon snaps, “Stop. Please.”

Martin stops, but only momentarily. “We have to talk about this at some point. I know I’ve been putting it off, too, but… we have to.”

Jon drags a hand over his face, suddenly so exhausted he could fall asleep. But his heart is pounding and his hands, he realises as he’s lowering them from his face, are shaking. There’s no rest to be had yet. “Alright.”

“Being cut off from the Lonely might kill me,” Martin says, “Like it killed Evan Lukas.”

“I’ll be cut off from the Eye, too. I’ll—”

“Basira is sending you statements,” Martin interrupts, “And you’re going to read them, okay? You have to read them.”

“Then you’ll have to—to find a way to feed the Lonely, too.”

“I won’t do that.”

“That’s the only deal I’m going to make.”

“I won’t sacrifice anyone to that place,” Martin spits. “You saw it, Jon. You were there. How can you think I would ever send anyone there just to save myself?”

“Oh, and you think feeding the Eye is without its sacrifices?” Jon demands, fury rising to meet his grief in a perfect storm. “Is it okay to subject people to nightmares, to reliving their trauma again and again with me drinking it all in, just so I can survive?”

“At least they’d be alive!”

“Martin, this is ridiculous. You can’t—”

“Stop trying to find a way out of this.”

“Stop acting as if this is the only way!” Jon shouts, loudly enough that Martin flinches back.

With a shuddering breath, Jon tries to contain his anger, to hide it until it’s not so raw. He thinks about the last time they were in the car together. The argument then, and how he had pulled over and gotten out and smoked to avoid finishing the confrontation, to avoid letting his true feelings show.

He won’t do that again. He can’t. Not this time.

“Evan Lukas didn’t—it might not have been the Lonely that killed him. We don’t know for certain that it was,” Jon continues. “And if it was the Lonely… did Naomi Hearne’s statement give any indication that he lived his life differently because he knew it might happen? No. He got a job that he cared about. He surrounded himself with friends. He fell in love. You can have all of those things. You deserve all of those things.”

Martin’s tears drop faster and faster, an unstoppable flood, and Jon wants nothing more than to reach across and wipe them away with his thumb. He would, except that Martin is holding himself so tightly, curled with his back against the car door, and he looks so devastated, so far away, so unwilling to be reached.

“He died,” Martin sobs. “He died, and he left the person he loved behind.”

“Oh, Martin.”

“No, Jon, I—I know what that feels like.”

“Martin,” Jon murmurs. Afraid of what’s coming next. But he knows he has to say it. He has to keep going. “Can I ask you something?”

Martin hesitates, wiping at his eyes, digging his fingers into his sockets. After a protracted moment, he nods.

“Do you think Naomi Hearne wishes she never met Evan Lukas?” Jon asks.

Martin stares at him, still crying. “I don’t know.”

“I think you do.”

“I don’t…” Martin takes a shuddering breath. “No. I don’t think Naomi Hearne wishes she never met Evan Lukas.”

Jon almost smiles. “Neither do I.”

“But she was lonely again, afterwards.”

“Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she reached out to Evan’s friends. Maybe she realised they were her friends, too.”

Martin stares at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Do you know that?”

“No.” Jon sighs. “No, but I—I can Look.”

“No, that’s not fair.”

Jon steadies himself. Across the car park, he watches a young father bounce a little baby, pacing the length of his sedan as he does so. In the car, the faint silhouette of his partner is just visible; they look peaceful, at rest. Jon’s heart aches.

“Can I ask you one more thing, Martin?” Jon whispers.

“Yes,” Martin rasps, reluctance replaced with resignation.

“Do you wish you had never met me?”

Silence. Jon forces himself to keep watching the father, murmuring now to the fussing baby, giving Martin time to consider the question, all of its sharp angles, its gentle core. He wishes, more than anything, that he could reach for Martin’s hand and hold it. Hold it tight, kiss his knuckles.

“Jon?”

At last, Jon turns to look at Martin. Their eyes meet and then, in a blur of movement, Martin reaches for him, his hands pausing on Jon’s shoulders for just a moment, giving him time to pull away, but Jon reciprocates in full, grabs hold of Martin’s jumper and pulls until they’re a tangled mess, holding each other, crying and clinging and trying to move closer than the small car will allow.

“No,” Martin says into Jon’s shoulder. “I don’t—of course I don’t regret meeting you. God, Jon, I—please don’t—never think that, okay? I don’t want you to ever think that.”

Jon lifts his hand to Martin’s hair, runs his fingers through the tussled curls where they’re fuzzy from sleeping against the door. “Martin, meeting you—it was a gift. It’s always been a gift.”

Martin sobs, his face wet against the seam of Jon’s jumper. “I wish I’d never agreed to Peter’s plan.”

“I understand why you did. And I forgive you, if you need to hear it.”

“But I’ve ruined everything.”

“Nothing is ruined beyond repair, Martin.”

“What if the Lonely calls me back?”

Jon holds tighter, as if the Lonely is already at their backs, creeping closer. “We’ll deal with it.”

“You said yourself…” Martin sobs again. “You said—when we went to Kent—you said—”

“I said it didn’t matter how long Naomi and Evan had. I remember.”

Martin is shaking against him. “Did you…?”

“I meant it. Not because—it’s not because I didn’t care, although I know I was trying very hard to give that impression, at the time. I meant it because no amount of time would have been enough. Love is… it’s outlasting. It makes its own time.”

“Jon—”

“No, please, Martin, I—I need to say this. No matter how long we get, whether it’s days or—or years. It won’t be enough. I’ll always…” Jon laughs, a small, fragile thing. “Well, I’ll always want more. Perhaps you don’t believe me, or you—you can’t, right now. But you, Martin, you are enough. Always. I will spend every moment we get together ensuring you believe that. If you’ll have me, of course. There’s—of course, there’s no obligation, and I would—I’d understand if—but it’s true. It’s all true.” Jon laughs again, feeling giddy. “I want to spend all of my time with you, Martin. For as long as you’ll have me.”

Slowly, they pull away from each other, but not far. Jon moves his hands up Martin’s arms, over his shoulders, until they rest on his cheeks, and he finally allows himself the privilege of wiping away Martin’s tears with his thumb.

“I wish it hadn’t taken—well, all of this—” Martin makes a vague gesture with his hand, which still somehow encompasses everything: tea stains on statements, worms at the door and shoulder-to-shoulder against the wall, trips to the café heavy with paranoia, quiet goodbyes, missed moments. “To get here.”

Jon rubs his thumb against Martin’s cheek. “We can’t go back.”

“I know.”

“Will you…?” Jon takes a steadying breath. There are so many questions, but only one matters, in this moment. The rest will follow, one day. “Martin, will you take it day by day with me? And if that doesn’t work—hour by hour, minute by minute. Together.”

There’s a breathless pause. And then Martin laughs, a genuine smile splitting his face for the first time in—well, Jon can’t remember how long. It’s small and tentative, but it’s there. And it means everything to Jon.

“Yes,” Martin tells him.

Jon smiles, too.

“I’m scared,” Martin murmurs, smile wavering slightly.

“Me too.”

“But I—I want to try.”

Jon feels his smile grow. “That’s enough. Always.”

Martin’s smile finds its feet again.

“Are you ready to keep going?” Jon asks.

Martin lifts his hands to Jon’s and squeezes. “I’m ready.”

In the silvery-grey headlights on the tarmac ahead, Jon thinks he sees the outline of the words he is still looking for the strength to share.

I love you.

Soon. He’ll say it soon. He has time.

The sun is just rising when they reach the safehouse. It welcomes them like an old friend, worn stone bathed in newborn sunlight as if to say hello, as if to smile at their arrival. Jon insists they are safe here, though his heart is unsure. Martin can’t shake the feeling that this is won’t be forever, though his heart wants to hope this might be it.

Maybe they will have a lifetime here. Maybe not.

Love makes its own time, Martin thinks. And Jon smiles and leads them both towards home.

#cw depressive episode #cw panic attack #cw death #cw grief #cw suicidal ideation #cw disordered eating #cw food #cw emetophobia #cw smoking #cw intrusive thoughts #naomi hearne's statement HAUNTS me to this day #i don't even know what to say about the radio 4 discourse #if i could do as much research for uni #as i did looking at the january 2016 radio 4 schedule for this fic #i might just be unstoppable #alas it is not to be 🤣#love and hugs to all who want and need it #have a wonderful day or night or whatever time it is where you are #<3

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