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luluwquidprocrow · 3 years

Text

(the three-part folding mirror)

the denouements & the snickets, olaf, r, olivia

teen

15,985 words

The year the schism gets worse is the year one of the quarterly information costume parties is held in the grand ballroom on the third floor of the Hotel Denouement.

@lyeekha won my commission in the @asoue-network fandom against hate raffle and asked for the denouements, so i put together some shenanigans with the denouements and the snickets, with slight ernest/lemony kit/dewey frank/jacques, and a few other associates hanging around ~

some minor warnings – language; smoking; brief mention of murder; referenced parental death; identity anxiety about being seen physically and personally

title from i am alone by they might be giants

10:59 PM—The Ballroom—East Drink Table

Kit skirted the perimeter of the crowded ballroom, stopping at the side wall by the drinks, one eye on the table and the other on the dance floor. She couldn’t put her back to it. Not now. There was a tall, potted boxwood nearby, unreasonably lush, almost slouching against the decorative golden pillar beside it. She picked up one of the wineglasses, the only signal she could think of to properly get his attention. She’d have to find Lemony as well; where was he?

The plant coughed.

“J,” Kit whispered, “listen to me.”

A few of the branches parted, and Jacques’s blue eyes appeared out of the green. “What happened?”

Kit breathed slowly. Her free hand curled into a fist, crinkling up the fabric of her dress. She swallowed. It did not help. She gripped the glass. Beneath her feet, the floor gave a slight shudder as the clock out in the lobby readied itself to chime the hour.

“Someone in this very room has—”

WRONG!

7:25 PM—Above The Lobby

It was Saturday night, and Saturday night always meant one thing—Guess The Guest.

Ernest stood in the small alcove situated around the gears of the hotel clock, far above the lobby, and looked down. Like any other night, the sleek gold and red lobby was filled with people, loitering around the front desks and the fountain and each other before they made their way up to the grand ballroom on the third floor. Well, the ballroom was different. This was a work event, as Frank had so brilliantly labeled it on their schedule, so no one was a regular guest tonight. Frank, who had never appreciated the joy in making up grandiose lies or exaggerated half-truths about the strangers who came in and out of the hotel, certainly wouldn’t appreciate the thrill in watching all of his associates in costume and trying to guess who was who, either. Dewey thought the game was slightly mean, because Dewey was just too kind for this sort of thing.

It was good that Ernest was not Frank or Dewey. Not right now, anyway. Ernest knew how to get joy out of the little things.

He watched a flash of green scales move erratically through the lobby, a cheerful voice calling enthusiastic greetings that echoed all the way up to the ceiling—Montgomery. There was a reason he did undercover work so sparingly. Two women in nearly identical butterfly costumes by the door, one purple and one white, hand in hand, standing close together—Ramona and Olivia. It was nice to see them together. A woman with a deep blue dress that swept around her like a wave—Josephine, here alone. Ernest had it on good authority that the Anwhistle brothers weren’t coming. Another loud voice, but deeper, following the confident swath a tall figure in black cut through the crowd—Olaf. Ernest turned away, in time to catch a glimpse of a long red cape shifting from behind one pillar to another around the edge of the room, carefully avoiding Olaf—aha. Kit. Which meant another one was nearby. Not that the Snickets had arrived together, because none of them ever did, but where there was one there was always at least one other, ready to make a decent amount of trouble. (Ernest liked trouble. The little things, of course.) And there, near Ramona and Olivia, Lemony Snicket, a figure shaped in grey shadows.

The alcove door opened. Ernest knew exactly who it was, so he didn’t give him the courtesy of turning around, keeping his eyes on Lemony. Grey was a fitting color on him, on the long line of his shoulders, his legs. Ernest’s stomach flipped over, once.

“It looks like a full house tonight,” Frank said, standing beside Ernest. He adjusted the sleeves of his jacket and folded his hands behind his back. “I wasn’t sure.”

Ernest leaned a hand on the alcove railing. “Takes more than a murder to stop a party, I suppose,” he said.

Frank didn’t reply, but Ernest knew that for once he agreed. The double murder in Winnipeg two months ago had, like any other sudden, suspicious death they’d dealt with over the years—Ernest shuddered and flexed his fingers—barely made a ripple in VFD, except that after the funeral, everyone had closed ranks significantly tighter.

This worried Frank; this did not worry Ernest. Very little truly worried Ernest, at the end of the day. That, of course, only made Frank worry more, but Ernest couldn’t help that. Frank would find something to worry about if Ernest was still on “his side”. Ernest had much more pressing commitments than the heavy, idle worry that everyone else shuffled between themselves without any results, and it wasn’t that he’d be found out. It was change. The real kind of change, not the noble one, not the fragmentary one. Change Ernest could see.

He shifted his hand on the railing once more. If he kept thinking about it, he was going to argue with Frank, and they’d rehashed the argument so many times the past few months without any resolution that it was better, Dewey had eventually insisted, if they just didn’t talk about it at all. So they wouldn’t. Ernest stood next to his brother, and the silence dragged out between them, punctuated by the soft ticking of the clock gears, and they wouldn’t talk about it. Not at all.

“Ernest.”

Almost.

“Frank,” Ernest said back, in the same critical tone, tilting his head to the side and giving his brother a look.

Frank shot him a flat and unimpressed stare in return. At least he still did that. “Promise me you won’t do anything—” he paused, his face pinching in an aggrieved sort of way before he settled on a word. “—rash tonight,” he finished.

Ernest laughed. “I don’t intend to do anything rash, Frank.” Of course not. You couldn’t carry out a pre-established plan rashly.

“I should hope not. I—”

The door opened, again. Dewey burst into the alcove, all smiles as always, and stopped on Frank’s other side and leaned over the railing, gazing into the lobby. Like Ernest and Frank, he wore the muted red manager uniform, because somebody had said it was the “host prerogative” to not dress up for a costume party. Somebody had felt bad about it when Dewey was disappointed, but somebody had still not relented, and there they were, a matched trio, everything outwardly perfect.

“Everyone’s costumes are so beautiful,” Dewey said. “Who’s that, in the big blue dress?”

“Josephine,” Ernest and Frank said at the same time.

Ernest raised his eyebrows. Frank, stooping so low as to actually guess the guest? Even Dewey blinked at him in surprise. The tips of Frank’s ears went slightly pink, but he didn’t say a word.

“Oh, Frank, you left your name tag downstairs again,” Dewey said. He pulled the name tag from his pocket, the slim gold rectangle glinting briefly in the soft light of the alcove, and pressed it into Frank’s hand.

“Thank you,” Frank murmured. But when Dewey turned away, Ernest saw the tag disappear from Frank’s fingers, most likely slipped up into his sleeve. None of them wore their name tags with regularity—the black ‘manager’ embroidery on their jackets was really enough—but Frank’s kept showing up places, and Ernest and Dewey kept giving it back to him, every time. Ernest didn’t quite know what to make of it. He wondered about asking Frank about it, but he didn’t want Frank to take it as another argument. Ernest didn’t actually enjoy arguing with Frank. About small things, sure, like Dewey’s stupid poetry and Frank’s inane hotel schedules, the sorts of things brothers argued about. But Ernest was sure Frank would make it into another one about VFD.

Dewey was studying the lobby, one hand on his chin. Ernest watched him go from one friend to another, then stop when he got to Kit’s red cape sweeping towards the stairs. It was an unusual color for her, but Dewey, whether he thought it was nice or not, knew how to identify someone from the pieces they let slip through too. Kit was straightforward about everything, and the way she walked, determined and with an endpoint in sight, was no different.

Ernest and Frank exchanged a quick glance.

“So,” Frank drawled, “when’s the wedding?”

“I look best in black,” Ernest put in. “Take that into account, Dewey.”

“I look best in blue,” Frank said. “Take that into account.”

Dewey’s face went its typical six shades of red, flushing through to his ears as well as he jumped back from the railing and sputtered, “What—we’re not—we haven’t even—I don’t—Kit’s not—you two are impossible.” He stormed out of the alcove, shutting the door with a slight snap behind him, because Dewey had never slammed a door in his life.

Ernest enjoyed a brief chuckle with Frank before his brother fell silent again. The lobby crowd was thinning as everyone made their way to the elevators or the stairs, or to the bathroom, or, perhaps, to some clandestine hallway somewhere else. Ernest could see the ring of neatly-trimmed boxwoods lining the lobby now. He wasn’t sure, but he thought there was one more than usual, sitting right inside the door.

He leaned forward, squinting. “Did we always have a boxwood there?” he asked.

Frank moved his head down a fraction of an inch and considered the lobby. “Of course,” he said. Then he straightened his sleeves one more time, and left the alcove.

7:35 PM—The Lobby

Among the Snicket siblings, there was an ongoing discussion about the best hiding place. Kit preferred the quiet, professional approach. She stood behind newspaper stands, put her face into books and brochure racks, stayed in the shadows of a store awning. Lemony was difficult about it. He thought the best place to hide was the least likely place someone would look for you; the place you wouldn’t look for yourself. He took dangerous perches in train station windows, seats in restaurants he vocally hated, or sophisticated and cramped corner cafes that had never heard of a root beer float.

Jacques, meanwhile, with a lifetime of hiding experience, always liked to hide in plain sight. People barely ever remembered what was right in front of them as long as it appeared relatively normal. And there were a number of options—a large potted plant could be overlooked among a dozen other potted plants, people received packages every day and wouldn’t notice if there was one more oversized box, every city park lost track of how many statues were supposed to be there, even a regular man in a fine suit crossing the street or driving a taxi was expected and forgettable. Another boxwood was just another boxwood sitting in a free space in the empty Hotel Denouement lobby, slowly making its way to the ballroom for optimal eavesdropping. Another volunteer in costume was just another volunteer in a lion costume borrowed from Bertrand, for the moments tonight when Jacques had to communicate information to an associate.

That was the point of the party, after all. Jacques couldn’t deny that everyone liked dressing up—he liked dressing up, a little—but the main objective for most of them tonight was the passing of relevant information that had happened in the three months since the last official gathering (not counting the funeral). It should have been at Winnipeg, as they usually were, the organization taking over the Duke and Duchess’s sprawling, sparkling mansion, the couple’s easy laughter flowing from room to room. Jacques didn’t blame Ramona for not wanting to do it after what happened there. He doubted she’d actually been in the mansion since, although it was entirely hers. But the Hotel Denouement was a suitable replacement. It was too public to ever lose its neutral position among both sides. No one was going to get killed here, Jacques was certain. But he was mildly worried something else would happen. He didn’t know what. But something.

Especially considering Lemony was here. Not that his brother was a troublemaker—Jacques would never say it out loud, at least—but because Lemony wasn’t supposed to be at the hotel tonight. He had told Jacques that he was going to be with Beatrice and Bertrand, who were working on plans for an upcoming assignment. This meant two things—one, that Lemony had lied to Jacques. But Jacques had counted on that. He had assumed, however, that Lemony meant the three of them were finally going on a date and hadn’t wanted anyone to know. Two, that if Lemony never did anything idly, without a specific purpose, then he was here for an unknown reason. Something else was going to happen, Jacques was certain. Something Lemony wanted to be here for.

First, though, he had to get the boxwood he was hiding in from the lobby to the ballroom upstairs. The pot was significantly heavier than Jacques had counted on.

8:05 PM—The Ballroom—Main Doors

Every time they all got together, Frank was so amazed at how many of them there were. Despite some noticeable gaps—Beatrice’s overbearing presence, for one, which Frank was happy to do without for an evening—the grand ballroom had barely any free space. Every available and noble associate was here, and it filled Frank with a sense that everything was going to be alright. All these people, including himself, doing what was necessary to keep the world quiet. Tonight would be fine. Ernest wouldn’t do anything regrettable; Dewey would forgive him about the costumes and the gentle ribbing; the meeting would pass without incident. Tomorrow would come. Sometimes Frank almost thought that it wouldn’t. Typically when Ernest was being difficult, but tonight even he seemed to agree that the organization—their organization—was impressive.

He spotted a potted plant by one of the drink tables, a boxwood that matched the ones lined around the room and back in the lobby. One branch was bent out of place. Frank would have to have a word with the person responsible later. But he should fix the branch now.

Everyone he passed on his way across the room gave him a quick nod, a brief smile. Frank returned it as that familiar buzzing started under his skin, like it tended to in groups. He shrugged it aside. He gave the controlled smile of a manager with everything in place, and no one said a word.

All of a sudden, his view of the boxwood was blocked. Through the mass of associates came Olaf, head to toe in a suit and mask of black, spiky fur, smiling with all his teeth, unceremoniously pushing a woman in a silver dress painted like a large, rocky moon aside on his way towards Frank. Frank steeled himself. You never knew what you were going to get with Olaf, if he would try and charm you with a reckless humor or annoy you with a joking cruelty. It was one of the many reasons Frank had never particularly cared for him.

“Ernest!” Olaf exclaimed when he got close. He hooked an arm through Frank’s. “Lovely to see you, wonderful party.”

The cold, dark hand twisted its way along Frank’s insides. It gripped down through his chest, put a film over his eyes that made the room seem distant and wrong. The party continued around him, Olaf was still talking into his ear, and Frank couldn’t hear any of it. The name tag pressing into his wrist up his left sleeve didn’t help. Just because it was his didn’t mean it was him. His name meant nothing if no one was going to care about who it was, about what made Frank instead of Ernest or Dewey. No one should need evidence to tell the difference. No one should make a mistake between the three of them. How many times would it happen?

Time was still passing. Frank blinked once, twice, until Olaf’s voice filtered back in and the noise of the ballroom swelled up once more.

“—incredibly delicious, I have to say, but, to be frank with you—ha! This champagne has seen better days, which one of you is responsible for this travesty?”

Frank smiled, a little turn of the corner of his mouth, the professional smile of all three of them. If Olaf wanted Ernest, alright. Frank would be Ernest. “Frank,” he said. The word sounded like it couldn’t possibly have come out right, but Olaf didn’t break his stride, so it must have.

“That does not surprise me in the least,” Olaf said. “Meanwhile, allow me to take up one single minute of your time,” he continued, and pulled Frank into the shadows by the door. Frank’s stomach gave a terrible lurch as the stark terror he woke up with every morning came back, riding over the dissonant gap he still felt between his body and his brain. What did Olaf want with Ernest? Had Olaf found out about him? Frank had covered up for Ernest before, but would he be able to keep doing it if more people knew?

“Have you thought about it any more?” Olaf asked, leaning close.

The sheer relief that Olaf didn’t know battled with the swooping fear that Ernest was doing something new Frank didn’t know about, and with Olaf. He remembered, with startling clarity, the last time he talked to Kit, when she told him that Olaf had been spouting dangerous ideas about the organization and trying to rope in as many people as possible. It was one of the reasons, according to the rumors Frank had heard elsewhere, why he and Kit had ended their relationship. What was he trying to get Ernest into? Ernest needed absolutely no encouragement, and neither did Olaf. He had to say something.

“I have,” Frank said. It was the safe answer when you were pretending to be someone else.

Olaf grinned again, big and excited, which was a terrible sign. “And?”

“No,” he said, because it was also the safe answer, and the faster Frank could untangle Ernest from whatever trouble he was into this time, the better. “Sorry to disappoint,” he added, with the cool tone Ernest used.

Olaf frowned. “Really? I must admit, I am a little surprised. I mean, I know you weren’t entirely on board, but you’d given it a shot before, and I was hoping you’d come around again.”

Before? They’d talked before? Frank thought a series of incredibly inappropriate words Beatrice was always using that he would never say out loud.

“But!” Olaf pivoted quickly, in his speech and his actions, spinning on his heel away from Frank and shrugging broadly. “Who am I to bend your arm about it! I’ll keep you in mind, though, in case.” He showed all his teeth, his eyes glittering. “And keep me in mind, next time you have anything else worth sharing, will you?” He flounced off again, tearing through the crowd.

It took a few minutes for Frank’s heart to go back to where it was supposed to be from where it was thundering in his throat. He put his hands in his pockets and gripped the fabric, something real and his to hold onto.

Anything else worth sharing. Since their apprenticeships, Frank and Dewey and Ernest had been tasked with organizing a great deal of information, mostly about the history of the organization, but sometimes, and especially as they got older, the very information that was passed along between volunteers. It was part of the reason Dewey had started building his personal archives in the basement. He liked the business of collecting facts. Of course all three of them were still being given that information. Of course Ernest still had access to every single piece of that information. Ernest, collaborating with Olaf, Ernest, sneaking around behind Frank’s back, Ernest, who had promised, at the beginning of all this, that he wasn’t going to jeopardize their positions by doing something stupid.

Ernest, what are you doing?

8:40 PM—The Archives, In Progress

Dewey was not hiding. He liked parties a great deal, and he loved people, but like his brothers and everyone else, he too had his own appointment to keep tonight.

His just happened to be in the basement.

He still sort of felt like he was hiding, especially the further he went into the archives. But things always needed organizing, and while he waited, he had to do something to keep his hands busy. He searched for a set of organization accounting records for five minutes before realizing he’d already shelved it, last week.

So Dewey was nervous. Plenty of people were nervous. Olivia went around all the time being nervous and no one gave her any grief for it. But Olivia didn’t have a sister to give her any grief for it. And Dewey didn’t mind, not really. He loved it when his brothers teased, because it meant they were getting along. But this time it was slightly personal. Because he was meeting Kit, and he was nervous.

Kit was—well, normal. Like Dewey was normal. He loved his brothers, but Frank was high-strung and made it everyone else’s problem, Ernest was often disagreeable for the sake of it, and with the Snickets, Jacques was always hiding in furniture and Dewey didn’t think he’d ever seen more of him than one hand and possibly an eye at a time, and Lemony was wonderful but sometimes too cryptic and morbid for Dewey’s taste. He liked things a little more sensible, comfortable, pleasant. And Kit was organized, reasonable, quiet when other people were reading, cool under pressure. She let herself get lost in books and people she cared about, underneath all the professionalism. Her smile was a careful, slow thing, something private she only showed you if she genuinely liked you. And it meant a lot to be on the receiving end of that smile.

His brothers didn’t get it. He wasn’t involved with Kit, and he wasn’t going to ask her out, because you didn’t do that with Kit. If Kit wanted to spend time with you, that was her own choice. She never did anything she didn’t want or she hadn’t thought through first. That she wanted to spend time with Dewey, specifically, to see him, and no one else, was nice. It made the whole of him feel all tingly and weightless. He wanted their meeting in the archives to be as nice as that feeling.

Dewey grabbed a set of Agatha Christie translations he kept on hand for when things got boring (rarely, but Beatrice got bored easily, and if you gave her a translation she sat down for a while to prove she could read it) and walked to the next aisle to shelve them. His foot snagged on something in the middle of the floor and he stumbled, hugging the books close to his chest so they didn’t fall. He turned around to see what it was, and found Kit blinking up at him with wide eyes from where she sat on the floor, a thick book open in her lap, her long red dress pooled around her on the floor. Her dress had an off-the-shoulder neckline, but most of her shoulders were covered by the matching red cape pulled around her. In the wide diamond of skin left between the cape and the top of the dress, he could see the sharp edge of something black around her collarbone, a point of the nearly-finished tattoo she’d been getting done. The red sleeves disappeared into short white gloves, with her hands folded together at the bottom of the book pages. Oh. Dewey’s heart pounded for a horrible, exhilarating moment, his mouth going dry. He swallowed once, twice, a third time.

“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling wryly, closing the book and sliding it gently back in the middle shelf. “I got distracted.”

“Oh, no, that’s completely understandable,” Dewey said. He folded himself down beside her, crossing his legs, still clutching the books to him. “Happens to me all the time. What were you reading?”

Kit smiled again, and it was that slow, beautiful smile, her eyes lighting up. “Have you heard,” she said, “about the cookiecutter shark?”

Dewey had absolutely heard about the cookiecutter shark. “Isistius brasiliensis,” he said. “It can travel in schools, and it bites little circular sections out of fish, like a cookie cutter. Have you heard about the brownsnout spookfish?”

“Barreleye fish, has mirrors in its eyes. Toothless upper jaw,” Kit replied easily. “Anostraca.”

“Fairy shrimp, they swim upside down,” Dewey said. He leaned forward, grinning. “Sometimes even found in deserts. Frilled shark?”

This was his favorite game, with his favorite person, in his favorite place. Both of them were librarians, or librarian-adjacent, so he and Kit dealt in information, not only about nobility but about the rest of the world around them. And the whole world was so fascinating, and there was so much to know and share, so how could you not try and see who could stump the other first?

“An eel-like living fossil, with six pairs of gill slits. Chaunacidae.”

Dewey scrunched up his face, thinking. “I think you got me there,” he admitted.

“Sea toad,” Kit said, looking pleased, “and coffinfish. Deep-sea anglerfishes. The sea toad has fins that can be used as leg flippers.”

“Really? Wow.” Dewey made a mental note to check that out later. He hoped, on the scale of unsettling sea creature to pleasantly spooky sea creature, that it was somewhere in the middle. “So besides oceanic intrigue,” he said, “what else is going on with you?”

“I’m supposed to get something from Frank tonight,” Kit said. “But, I also came to give you this. From Bertrand,” she clarified, and then picked through the seams of her dress, which revealed themselves as hiding at least ten different pockets.

When he had the time, Dewey wanted to study clothing design. Kit and Beatrice always found the place for so many pockets that you could never see from the outside, and Dewey wished he had the same capacity in his slim manager’s jacket and trousers for all the things he wanted to carry around. Poetry; chocolate-covered pretzels; the pencils Kit always left behind; spare buttons; sturdy rope, in case he needed it; maybe a mini chess set. He’d have to work on it. Maybe he could hide them in shoulder pads, or his shoes.

Kit pulled out a book from a side pocket. Dewey finally put the Agatha Christie down, piling it in a neat stack between them, and took the book. It was the one Bertrand had spoken to him about last week—Undercover Underwater: Diving For The Truth, a truly terrible murder mystery novel he said Dewey had to read to believe. He was greatly looking forward to it.

“That was awfully sweet of him,” Dewey said, running his thumb over the cover. He looked for a place to put it, and then just put it on top of his book stack. It felt a little sacrilegious, if it was as bad as Bertrand said, to put it on top of Christie, but he didn’t want to misplace it. “Thank you very much.”

Kit shifted on the floor and put her back to the bookshelf. “Did you hear the Anwhistle brothers finished building that marine research and rhetorical advice center?”

“Yes,” Dewey said. “I guess that’s why they aren’t here tonight? Josephine was all alone when I saw her earlier.”

“They should’ve celebrated with the rest of us,” Kit said. “What a massive architectural achievement—and I wanted to hear about the leeches, too.”

“Yes!” Dewey exclaimed. “Have you seen them yet? I haven’t.”

“No,” Kit said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Not in person. Ike gave Lemony one of the earlier ones as a paperweight some time ago but I haven’t been able to see their recent work yet. I hear the teeth are impressive.”

“Cookiecutter shark impressive?”

Kit grinned. “Potentially.”

Dewey laughed. He wished he and Kit could go see them, together. For the scientific curiosity. For spending time with someone who really, really wanted to see him. No, for the oceanic intrigue, of course. “You know—” Oh no. He hadn’t intended to actually start the sentence, but it was out, and Kit was looking at him expectantly, and Dewey was rapidly losing all handles on the conversation. His face was heating up. Everyone else made talking to people whose company they enjoyed look so easy, but the words jumbled together in his mouth. “We should—go? I mean—not right now, but, soon, we could—to the research center—for the leeches, for, for science.”

Pink colored Kit’s face under the freckles along her nose. “For science,” she said. Then—“Not a date,” she added firmly.

“Definitely for science,” Dewey insisted. “Oceanic intrigue, and everything.”

“Yes,” she said, blinking quite a few times. “That would be fine.”

They stared at each other for the longest minute of Dewey’s life.

“We should probably get back up to the party,” he said. The archives were feeling much, much too close, all the books and shelves pressed up against him, the point of Kit’s tattoo still peeking out from under the edge of her cape.

Kit nodded quickly. “Yeah.”

8:55 PM—The Ballroom—Near The Piano

Next—Jacques had to find Olivia.

He abandoned the boxwood by the east wall, for the time being, out of sight near the piano, where a man with a white half-mask played a pleasant Beethoven sonata while a woman in a sharp, pointed gold suit argued with a man dressed as an octopus with a hat. They did not notice Jacques, even in his own costume, but he noticed them. He noticed everyone in the room so singularly. He’d almost forgotten so many people could be in one place at the same time. You spent a lot of time alone, hiding in small spaces, you got used to yourself.

Olivia was easily identifiable. Nothing she did could ever disguise the tightly-wound nervous energy coiled inside her, not the shimmery white butterfly wings curled over her shoulders or the mask of purple flowers on her face. Something always gave her away. Tonight, it was her hands, twisting together as she talked to someone in a large, leafy tree costume, so consuming Jacques couldn’t make out the face. He scanned the crowd, trying to locate Ramona in her reversed purple wings and white mask. He saw her making her way towards one of the drink tables. Ramona wouldn’t leave Olivia alone for long.

The tree left soon after, and Jacques made his way over to her, getting a decent amount of elbows into the side along the way. “Olivia,” he said, when he stopped in front of her.

Her eyes passed over him and onto the rest of the room, like she was staring straight through him. Jacques frowned. He’d certainly said something. He’d certainly moved, Olivia was right in front of him. People moved around them without sparing him a second glance; someone said a cheerful hello to Olivia and she returned it. His voice dried up in his throat, like if he tried to speak he’d never make a sound. When was the last time before this he’d spoken out loud? No one expected him to talk, in his line of work. When had he done it? No, perhaps she simply hadn’t heard him.

He cleared his throat a few times. That was a sound. That was undeniably a sound. Jacques existed here.

He touched his hand to her wrist. “Olivia?”

Olivia jumped nearly a foot. She turned her head from side to side frantically, and Jacques gave her a short wave.

“Oh!” Olivia pressed her hands against her chest and laughed, breathless. “Oh, Jacques, you startled me. How are you?” she asked, as unfailingly kind as always, as if he hadn’t just frightened her. She looked like she wanted nothing more than for Jacques to tell her the long, substantial answer, instead of the polite one. He almost did. But Jacques was here for business.

“Fine,” he said. “And you?”

“Alright,” she said, still smiling. “Ramona’s gone to get some champagne, would you like to join us?”

“Not tonight,” he said. “I have a message for you.”

Her bright smile faltered, her hands seizing together again. “I see,” she said quietly. “What is it?”

“We’d like you to take up the outpost at Caligari Carnival.”

Olivia blanched. “The—the hinterlands?” she repeated. Her voice trembled. “That’s, ah, terribly far away, isn’t it?”

“It is a distance from the city,” Jacques conceded, “but not far.” It was far from Winnipeg, though. It was very far. Eventually, Ramona would be back there, at least in some capacity. Things would be different, especially if Olivia was wanted in the hinterlands permanently.

“Jacques, I really—I don’t—I’ll think about it,” she said finally. “I promise, I’ll think about it.”

An assignment from headquarters was not exactly optional. Her eyes darted somewhere behind him, and Jacques knew who she was looking at. She and Ramona had just gotten together only recently, before the Duke and Duchess’ deaths. Any kind of love was difficult within the confines of their organization, but the solace here, Jacques thought, was that she and Ramona were both there. They would never be that far away. They might see each other a good deal less, but they would see each other.

“You can take your time to leave, if you wanted,” he said.

“I’ll think about it.” Her voice was firm. “But, thank you for letting me know, Jacques.” She gave him her soft, breezy smile again, and slipped off through the dance floor.

Jacques watched her go. They would see each other. That was an invaluable thing, in their line of work. Being seen. Sometimes even the best person you loved with your whole being couldn’t see the part of you that mattered. To be seen when you disappeared from the rest of the world—that was worth holding on to. It would be difficult. But he had no doubt Olivia and Ramona would do it.

The floor rumbled, like it always did before the lobby clock chimed.

9:00 PM—Room 687

Miranda raised an eyebrow. “Does the clock always sound like that? Like it’s saying wrong?”

“Incessantly,” Esmé sighed, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I think Frank’s responsible. Heaven forbid he goes an hour without reminding everyone else how little he thinks of their decisions, you know.”

9:00 PM—The Ballroom—North Drink Table

The hotel was not Winnipeg. But right now, that was exactly what Ramona wanted. The modern angles, the warm, well-lit ballroom, the dark corners and firm rigidity of it all currently felt homier than the soft, open pinks and whites of the Winnipeg mansion. She was glad to have another excuse to avoid it and the constant questions. Tonight, she was going to see her friends, and dance with Olivia, and drink champagne, because Olivia said every occasion was cause for celebration and champagne, and Ramona was going to have a good time. She picked up two champagne flutes from the table and took a sip of one in the careful way her mother taught her, so she didn’t leave lipstick on the glass. Her heart stuttered as she saw the press of plum purple streaks on the glass when she pulled it away. The hotel clock was chiming, sounding like a heavy, distorted vibration of a word. It was right. The lipstick was wrong.

Who had done it? Everyone wanted to know. The firestarters? Likely, but they had been quiet for some time, and Ramona wasn’t going to point fingers without evidence. Some older enemy? Ramona didn’t know enough about whoever that was to consider them. Someone new?

She didn’t want to think about it. Her parents were dead, and she’d found them, and she didn’t want to think about who could have done it or why they did. It wasn’t going to change that it had happened. Ramona wasn’t looking for answers. She was looking for—

An arm slung around her shoulders, jostling her and the champagne, which sloshed around in the flutes as she lurched forward. Scratchy fur and outrageous cologne bore down on her, and she knew exactly who it was.

“My dear duchess,” Olaf said, squeezing her tight. “How have you been?”

Ramona found it in her to roll her eyes. Some people didn’t like Olaf, which she completely understood. There was something about him though, as brash and outlandish and obnoxiously tactile as he was, that had to make you laugh sometimes. She felt comfortable, close to a friend. “Just peachy,” she said. She offered him the other champagne glass; she could get another for Olivia. “Champagne?”

“Oh, absolutely not,” Olaf said. He hooked his free hand around both glasses and set them back on the drink table. “Look, I wanted to give you my sincerest condolences—” And he did look sincere, sliding around in front of her, his hand still on her shoulder, the joy immediately gone from his face and replaced by an uncharacteristic seriousness. She was struck by it, by how glassy and shiny his eyes were under the dark of his mask. “I’m sorry about your parents, Ramona.”

Her mouth wobbled at the edges. She knew Olaf could understand. They’d had similar positions in the organization their whole lives—their parents their chaperones, their time split between assignments and society, the safety that existed in his manor as well, its own controlled pocket of the world, like Winnipeg had been, like the Hotel Denouement was, too. She thought of the Count and Countess, still alive. She hoped they’d stay alive.

It wouldn’t do to cry at a party. Ramona picked up her flute again and took another small sip. “Thank you,” she said.

And just like that, he straightened up and pulled away from her. Some of the mirth found its way back into the shape of his mouth and his arm found its way back around her, this time a tight grip at her waist as he steered her back into the crowd. Ramona felt slightly less consoled than ten seconds ago. Easy come, easy go, with Olaf. “I hate thinking about you all alone in that big house,” he said with a sigh. “All that room, all those things—remember when I knocked into that vase in the hallway?”

“Very vividly,” Ramona said.

“A glorious time!” he crowed. “Well! At least you’ve got all of us, haven’t you. What are your friends if not your family, et cetera, et cetera.”

But he still understood. That was what made it so important to be here tonight. What were all the people in the room, the friends she’d grown up with, people she knew and loved, if not her family as well, just as much as her parents had been? They were more than associates or volunteers, stepping in around her not to fill a void, but to offer back some little part of what had been taken from her. Her throat tightened up as she thought about it. Everything they did was hard, but it was also so special. Ramona wanted to hold it close to her and never let it go.

“And what wouldn’t one do for one’s family, am I right?” Olaf continued. “So, if you ever need me for anything—a shoulder to cry on, although certainly not in this jacket, or, say, a partner in crime, or a willing participant in any daring assignment you might come across otherwise—do not hesitate to let me know, okay?”

“Of course.”

“I mean it.”

Ramona stumbled to a halt as Olaf stopped abruptly. He looked down at her with a gash of a grin. “People like you and me, we’ve got to stick together, duchess.” He gave her a squeeze one more time and then finally let go, dashing away.

Goodness, but he was rough about things. Ramona gave herself a shake, trying to collect herself back into order. She stood up on her toes to try and see where he’d gone. She didn’t get much more height, already being in heels, but she did manage to see him already making grandiose hand gestures across the room to those white-faced triplets Ramona had seen once or twice. They were younger than she was, still in their training. The three of them stared at Olaf with three immaculately raised eyebrows. Ramona chuckled a little, dropped back down, and went back for Olivia’s champagne glass.

9:40 PM—The Ballroom—Center

Over an hour had passed, and Frank hadn’t seen any sign of Ernest. He had better things to be doing than keeping track of Ernest, and yet here he was. He couldn’t have gone far—the hotel was enormous, but it was a hotel. The whole world contained on nine floors. You couldn’t disappear from it.

Frank edged his way through the dance floor, searching for him through three separate groups of associates doing three slightly different versions of a circle dance. A snake and a tree frog whirled past, a phantom with them, a tangled shape of dark greens and blacks and bright blues and exuberant laughter. When they’d gone, Frank found himself in the center of the floor and face to face with Dewey, coming towards him from the other direction, his cheeks pink.

“Are you alright?” Frank asked immediately.

Dewey blinked. “Of course,” he said. “Just dancing. Is everything okay?”

He should have known, but Ernest had him on an edge he hadn’t expected to be tonight. He tried to look apologetic but wasn’t sure how well he succeeded. “Have you seen Ernest?”

“Not since earlier,” Dewey said. “Oh, and Kit was—”

“When you see him, could you tell him I’m looking for him?”

Dewey’s shoulders drooped down. “If I see him,” he said. “Then I’ll tell him.”

“Thank you,” Frank said, and he meant it. He smiled at Dewey until he smiled back, and then Frank moved past him, pushing back into the crowd.

He hadn’t meant to be short about it, but Frank’s worry never came out like he wanted it to. It became biting irritation instead, or a slow-simmering temper he never let boil, or professional, distant orders about hotel business, or a refusal to talk at all in case he said the wrong thing. More often than not, he still wound up arguing with Ernest. He didn’t argue with Dewey, but their conversations were so much more stilted than they should have been lately.

But it was because he feared Ernest was going to slip away from him one day and never come back. Realistically, it was unlikely. After all, Ernest was still here. Indecision entering their home hadn’t taken him away from it. But what if that changed, one day, and it was Frank’s fault, because he reacted too quickly or too slowly? And Dewey—Dewey was so sweet and so kind Frank thought the world might crush him. He had to keep them close, and he had to keep them safe. It would’ve been so much easier, though, if Ernest wasn’t so difficult about it, if Dewey understood that Frank didn’t want anything to happen to him, if they would listen.

Frank glanced at his watch. It was getting late. He’d look for Ernest on the way, but for one small hour, Ernest was going to have to wait.

9:59 PM—The Floor Behind The South Drink Table

Through typical party events, The Herpetology Squad (Plus Hector) found themselves on the floor behind one of the drink tables.

“So how do you tell them apart?” Gustav asked, stirring his drink with a spoon. “Because, and I do feel terrible about this, but I can’t do it. We’ve known them for ages, and I can’t do it.”

“Frank is taller,” Monty said immediately, and very confidently.

“What, no, he can’t be taller, they’re triplets,” Hector said. “Do genetics work like that?”

“Hey Haruki,” Monty called around Gustav and Hector, “do genetics work like that?”

Haruki leaned into Hector’s shoulder and considered it. “I’m really not sure,” they said. “But, I always figured, Ernest was kind of quiet, and Frank was kind of stern, and Dewey was kind of, well, kind.”

“But that seems so reductive,” Gustav pointed out. “You can’t just identify a person down to one base trait and leave it at that. And I say this as a screenwriter and director. You need to be creative.”

“All your characters sound exactly the same, though,” Hector said, frowning. “Or, like, so different, I don’t think you’re keeping track of them between scenes.”

“Oh, that’s awfully rude,” Haruki said.

“No, he’s right,” Gustav said. He hung his head into his hands, his glass tipping sideways through his fingers. Haruki reached over and grabbed it, twisting their arm around and up to slide it back onto the drink table where it’d be safer. “I always thought they did, and now I know for sure. I’ll have to renounce film making and go back to herpetology. Or, submarines. I can’t disparage your honor too, Monty.”

“Oh, Hector, you hurt his feelings,” Monty said. He patted Gustav on the back consolingly. “Gustav, you write wonderful scripts. I loved the, the Werewolves In The Rain.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“I can’t handle a drunk Gustav,” Hector said, closing his eyes. “Gustav, I’m sorry. To be fair, I only watched—what was it—” He waved his hands around. “—the one with the—you know—”

“Vampires In The Retirement Community,” Haruki said.

“And it was once. And—hey, weren’t we talking about something else?”

10:10 PM—The Short Hallway Between Rooms 40-45 and 46-49

Unassigned numbers within the Dewey Decimal System were not the trouble they appeared to be to a hotel based on it. They still existed in the hotel, no matter how much Ernest had protested that it made no sense to have rooms that had no theme or purpose in a hotel whose very purpose was theme—Frank and Dewey’s rebuttal was that it made no sense to nonchalantly remove numbers out of their sequential existence because they didn’t fit in neatly otherwise. They existed. They didn’t have themes, even this stretch of ten, which had been previously designated but was now just a blank space between encyclopedias and magazine publications, which left the rooms relatively blank and boring, typically unnoticed and unused, but they still existed.

In the brief, dark hallway between the two sets of unassigned rooms, Frank could sit on the bench against the wall, and he didn’t have to think about family or the hotel. Frank sat featureless in the shadows and thought about himself. Usually, it meant he felt better about everything. But tonight, with the worry set aside once more for now, all he felt was that chill through his insides again, when Olaf mistook him for Ernest.

He took the name tag out of his sleeve and turned it over in his hands. Frank was a man in a manager’s jacket, with a face that looked like two other faces, someone who could be anyone. The name tag did nothing but identify him without caring who he was. What was it that made Frank himself, the imperceptible, innate existence of him that mattered? His love for Ernest and Dewey? Visible. His organization? Trivial. The fear he was going to lose everything? Meaningless and a weakness, in the face of everything else. It was hard to say for sure. He had gone his whole life getting mixed up with Ernest and Dewey and it was exhausting to keep trying to prove he was real when it felt like the world was rubbing him out. He leaned his back against the wall.

He heard Jacques before he saw him, like always. Exact, economical footsteps, nothing extraneous, the tap of his expensive shoes on the rugs, the swish of his jacket. Everything measured, as it had to be.

Jacques appeared around the corner, that bent piece of the boxwood plant stuck in his hair. He seemed to brighten when he saw Frank, like Frank’s presence set something off inside him. Frank watched him. What did Jacques see, when he looked at Frank? What was it that made Jacques notice, over and over again, over other people? How was Jacques so certain that when he looked at Frank right now, at that moment, that Jacques was looking at him?

Jacques sat down next to him on the bench. Frank had seen him in a mask earlier, something terrible and orange, but it was gone now, and he faced Frank fully. He was inches away from Frank, and Frank could see every part of him, even in the dark—the calm, if tired, resolution in the set of his jaw, the way he waited, still and patient, as if he could do nothing else. He had the darkest eyes of his siblings, a steady and unchanging deep blue.

“That which is essential is invisible to the eye,” Jacques whispered.

Frank let out the breath he’d been holding. How long ago had he said that to Jacques? “I initially said that to insult you,” he said.

“It was deserved,” Jacques said. “And I never forgot. Do you know how I always know it’s you now?”

“Enlighten me.”

He put his hand against Frank’s jacket, resting his fingers against the fabric to the left of the buttons. Jacques kept it there, and he didn’t take his eyes off of Frank for anything, not even when the heartbeat under his hand sped up. Frank felt almost split open to the core. He always did, every time. Jacques saw whatever it was. The man who was always hiding knew exactly who he was, because he looked.

“How very sentimental of you,” Frank managed. His breath hung between them. He traced the side of his thumb over the collar of Jacques’s shirt, just below the skin. If he moved his hand just a centimeter he’d be able to feel his heartbeat as well.

“It’s the truth,” Jacques murmured. “Sentiment is—dangerous. Truth is immutable.”

“Do you know how I know it’s you?” Frank said against his mouth.

“How?” Jacques asked.

Frank finally pulled the branch out of Jacques’s hair. “You do terribly stupid things.”

Jacques laughed, and the sound vibrated all the way down through Frank’s throat.

10:19 PM—Room 366

Frank had to be somewhere. Kit was not overly concerned with finding him, but she would rather do it sooner than later. She worked from the ground floor up, combing through the hallways but finding no sight of the Denouement, until she was on the third floor again. The faster she found Frank, the faster she could, maybe, go back to talking to Dewey. About completely professional things, of course. The fact that she felt different when she was with Dewey was simply because he was pleasant, welcome company. He wanted to look at leeches with her, for the delight of science. They expected nothing from each other but a nice time.

She immediately pictured Beatrice waggling her eyebrows at her, if Kit had said that out loud. Not that kind of nice time, she thought, but the mental Beatrice kept laughing joyously at her.

“He’s a nice person,” she grumbled to the empty hallway. He was calm. Regular. Okay. The exact opposite of everyone else, Beatrice. Could she go five minutes without them all picking apart her romantic life? This was why she wasn’t interested. This was why it was strictly nice. There were other, more important things that needed her attention.

The door to Room 366 was ajar, and Kit, who had naturally been trained to investigate the suspicious, investigated the suspicious. She slid herself carefully through the gap in the door and into the dark room. She’d been in there a few times to know it was an absurdly comfortable meeting room, with plush chairs and a bookcase that spanned the length of the far wall. A figure sat against the side wall, reaching up and tapping ash from a cigarette out the open window. For a moment, they looked like a blank, featureless shadow, until a light outside the window shifted and Frank—no, Ernest’s face resolved itself in front of her. The tip of the cigarette burned bright orange against his fingers.

“I heard about you and Olaf,” he said. “Would you like an apology, since I’m sure you’ve been getting enough I told you so’s?”

Kit sighed. “I really don’t want to talk about it.” But she shut the door and walked over, sitting down on the floor beside him. She took her own pack of cigarettes out of one of her dress pockets and accepted Ernest’s lighter to light one. She never carried her own.

“He did,” she muttered, giving the lighter back. She brought her legs up and wrapped an arm around them. “Tell me, I told you so. Not in so many words, of course, but I knew he was thinking it.”

“Ah,” Ernest said. “The disappointed look of, I’m not going to say it, but I’m going to think it, in your general direction. Which is worse.”

“Exactly,” Kit said. “At least argue with me so I can tell him he’s wrong.”

Ernest breathed out a long line of smoke. “Yes.” She thought he was going to say something else, but when he didn’t, Kit pressed on.

“He acts like it was my fault,” she said. “Should I have known better? I—” It was a harsh thing to admit, but she and Ernest didn’t do this to lie to each other. “Yes. Fine. But he acts like I can’t be left alone now to make my own decisions. He keeps following me, hanging around.” She slouched against the wall. “My own brother thinks so little of me.”

Ernest hmmed. “Well—”

“Do not. Do not say I’m short. I’m not short. Jacques has one inch on me, Ernest. Esmé is short. I’m not short.”

“Sorry,” Ernest said, laughing.

“Say it,” she said, and pushed her elbow into his side.

“Ow—Kit, you are anything but short.”

“Thank you.” She took her elbow back. The two of them sat in silence, blowing out small circles of smoke as the cigarettes smoldered down. “What’s Frank disappointed about?”

Ernest waved his hand with the cigarette dismissively. “Frank’s disappointed he can’t find a tie that matches the custom paint in the lobby,” he said. “It doesn’t take much for him. I was five minutes late, I didn’t give him the mail on time, I missed a meeting, and he just—” He did an obviously perfect impression of Frank’s unimpressed stare.

Kit snorted. She had to admit, Frank did look like that a lot, even if you caught him in a good mood.

“If he wasn’t so difficult,” Ernest muttered, “he’d be almost bearable.”

“Wouldn’t they all,” Kit sighed. “Brothers.”

“Brothers,” Ernest agreed.

10:25 PM—The Ballroom—West Hors d’oeuvres Table

Dewey stood at the hors d’oeuvres table, away from the crowd of his friends, surveying the food. At least, with everything going on, there was always good food to look forward to. It was awful to glare at it like he was. He’d felt so good after talking to Kit, and now he was glowering at little rows of canapes like they were the source of his problems.

He wasn’t usually upset with his brothers. No matter what they did, he knew they had their reasons, and Dewey loved them regardless. But sometimes they really were impossible. Frank’s quiet temper and Ernest’s secrecy and indifference had driven such a wedge between the two of them that when Dewey suggested they didn’t talk about it, it had seemed like the best idea at the time to get them to go forward. Otherwise, he’d been worried that Frank was going to say something he’d regret, because he wasn’t going to change Ernest’s mind, and Ernest might’ve done something terrible. Dewey didn’t think he was capable of something truly terrible, because Ernest was his brother, and he knew Ernest. They both believed in a right way to live, just in different ways, so Dewey respected him. You couldn’t let anything change that. But he was still as worried about Ernest as Frank was, and he had just wanted the arguments to stop.

But it had led to Frank and Ernest almost refusing to talk to each other, ninety percent of the time. The other ten percent was pleasantries or conversations that skirted the edge of an argument, which was worse. Dewey particularly hated it lately, when he was asked to pass messages between them, typically from Frank. He wasn’t a messenger system, he was their brother, and he was, in fact, if either of them cared to remember, the oldest. But they treated him like someone to protect because he wasn’t as forceful as them. He frowned down at a section of tiny shot glasses of—he picked one up. Gazpacho. It looked so charming and Dewey couldn’t even appreciate it.

What it came down to was, the schism couldn’t come between him and his brothers if they didn’t let it. Just like his current irritation couldn’t come between him and his brothers if he didn’t let it. He considered it, because he was angry, but he didn’t let it change anything.

He found a narrow, palm-sized spoon from one of the other hors d’oeuvres and poked at the gazpacho with it. He thought, for a moment, about the Anwhistle brothers, sitting in their brand new marine research and rhetorical help center, probably having a lot of fun together talking about fungi and grammar. Gregor and Ike were two of the most different but most companionable people Dewey knew. Nothing got between them. They probably didn’t forget who was the oldest. Who was the oldest out of them, anyway? They probably didn’t let it matter.

Oh, Dewey was letting it get to him. He piled some of the gazpacho onto the spoon and took a bite. He wished Bertrand had been able to come. Bertrand would’ve loved the appeal of the gazpacho as well. Bertrand didn’t have a single sibling to complain about and he would’ve enjoyed the gazpacho wholesale. He could’ve stood around with Dewey at the table, and maybe they’d have brought in Lemony, too, and talked about flavor profiles. Lemony, who was legitimately the youngest of his siblings, commiserating over cold soup about how they never stopped trying to protect him either. Who could possibly think Lemony of all people needed protecting, too? There was always that quiet, competent energy around him.

Dewey finished the gazpacho and put the jar on a passing hotel attendant’s silver tray. Where was Lemony, actually? He was sure he’d seen him earlier. Dewey remembered, because it was the first time he’d seen Lemony in a long while. Wherever he was, Dewey was sure it was probably more enjoyable than here.

10:32 PM—The Ballroom—Dance Floor

“Josephine,” Olaf said, sidling up behind her, “Jo, angel of my eye—”

“The correct word for that expression is apple,” Josephine interrupted. She did not take her eyes off of her plate of puff pastry. “We’ve been over this.”

He continued, persistent as ever, his smile stretched like candy. “Would you do me the honor of dancing with me, angel of my apple?”

“No.”

10:45 PM—The Elevator

The night was passing by, and Kit still hadn’t found Frank. She’d made it all the way up to the ninth floor with no sign of him. Was he the type to be on the rooftop sunbathing salon? Unlikely. But she should check, just in case.

She had her hand against the rooftop door when the elevator dinged behind her. Kit turned to look. The elevator doors parted, revealing the gold-walled interior with rather harsh lighting, and there was Frank, standing with his hands folded behind his back. He caught Kit’s eye and gave her a slight nod. “Kit.”

“Frank.” She stepped into the elevator beside him and pushed the button for the third floor. As the doors closed, she smelled smoke for a moment, and her heart leapt before she realized the cigarette smoke must’ve clung to her gloves. She tugged them off and stuffed them into one of her pockets.

“I heard the Anwhistles finished the research center,” Frank said, as the elevator started to move down.

“Yes.”

“And the mycelium—are they still working on it?”

“As far as I know, yes.”

Frank sighed. “Do you have any concerns?”

“Some,” Kit admitted. There was no denying it was dangerous. Necessary, but catastrophic if it ever got out of hand. “If anything happens, it can be dealt with.”

“Good,” Frank said, decisively. Silence dropped through the elevator, the hand counting down the floors moving slowly from eight, to seven, to six. Frank raised an eyebrow; Kit realized she’d been staring at him. “Is something wrong?”

“I was under the impression that there was—” More, or something else entirely. It was Kit’s understanding that Frank was to give her a list. There was usually only one kind of list that mattered in their organization, and unless she had radically misjudged the ages of the Anwhistle brothers after personally knowing them for years, they wouldn’t be on that list. “—something more specific,” she wound up finishing.

Frank looked at her with his impassive, unimpressed mask. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

The hand moved again, six to five to four. Kit had the strangest sensation that she was missing something. She should’ve been given that list, not subjected to a brief interrogation, especially about something she was already aware of. The smell of smoke flitted in front of her again.

Disbelief shot through Kit like an arrow, pushing the air from her lungs. She felt like the floor was dropping out from under her. She didn’t want to believe it. She couldn’t. She stared at the man in the elevator, and he stared back, cool and collected. It couldn’t be. Because that would mean—but the longer she looked, the more certain she was.

“Frank quit smoking,” she said quietly, “but you didn’t.”

The corner of his mouth turned down. “I—”

Kit slammed her hand against the stop button on the button panel, and kept her hand there, boxing him in against the wall even after the elevator had halted, the counting hand stuck between four and three.

“Don’t lie to me, Ernest.”

One Month Ago—City Headquarters

It wasn’t like there was, say, an initiation ceremony or anything. They’d been through that already, there was no need to do one again. You knew what you were getting into this time, you were just, “changing sides”. And it was so subtle that it barely mattered. Nothing about Ernest’s life really changed otherwise. He ran a hotel with his brothers. He ranked tea brands with Dewey during lunch. He played loud music in Room 784. He carried a lighter in his pocket that he used for other things. He went to headquarters, sometimes as himself, sometimes as Frank, never as Dewey. He acquired messages, and took his sweet time delivering them or delaying them, spaces of time where nothing changed, either. He almost wondered what the point had been, until he overheard Frank spout off some noble patter again. At least he wasn’t like that. At least Ernest knew better.

And since nothing had changed, no one knew. Not even the “firestarters” knew there was another one, namely because Ernest hated the name and disliked a great deal of them, but also because Frank made him be so careful about it. He thought a few people in VFD suspected, or at least suspected someone of switching, because everyone could feel something was happening and they were trying to pinpoint a source, and it was only a matter of time before someone suspected a Denouement. Triplets were naturally suspicious. But it wasn’t like they could do anything, even if they ever had proof—how often did anyone know which Denouement they were talking to, anyway? It was likely Ernest could exist like this for the rest of his life.

The thought almost stopped him on his way into the city headquarters. Day after day of calculated, performative nonsense without an end in sight. Age sagged through him. His bones were too heavy and to move them another step was impossible. He kept walking.

What had made Ernest change? That, exactly that. Change. He’d lived in VFD for practically his entire life, and nothing was different there, either. There had been no great strides made towards the nobility they all talked about, only tiny little steps that were easily set back. Ernest watched his friends and his family get sucked in by this big, dramatic fight that never ended, a fight none of them had ever initially had a part in. He’d learned that you couldn’t achieve “nobility”, whatever that even was, by a bunch of absurd spy behavior and kidnapping, or by coded messages and age-old discussions that went nowhere, or by acting like information weighed more than your life, by pretending any of that was normal. None of it did anything. Ernest was going to find some way to make something happen, to make what they’d lost worth it, and if it meant Frank thought he was a traitor, fine. He’d do it even if Frank didn’t appreciate that Ernest was doing it for him.

The note for Frank that he’d intercepted said that there was a file under the fifth floorboard of the back staircase in the city headquarters. Frank was supposed to give it to Kit.

He made his way to the back staircase. It went up to the observatory, which no one had used since Esmé burned that spot into the rug with her telescope out of protest. The corridor and the staircase were, predictably, deserted. Ernest slowly lifted the fifth board, but it came away without resistance, so he pulled it up all the way and saw the slim folder waiting inside. He took it out, replaced the floorboard, and sat down at the bottom of the stairs. He opened it.

He wanted to crumple the folder in his hands but he made himself breathe and look at it. It was the upcoming recruitment list. There were some he recognized faintly, distant associates, long-lived families in VFD, but a majority of the names he’d never seen before. New families to carve apart. He flipped through the pages—addresses, dates, times. A few photographs. Ernest closed his eyes and held them shut tight. When he opened them, he was still looking at the folder.

Of course none of it mattered, he thought bitterly, shoving the folder into his jacket. He could intercept or stop a thousand messages and there would still always be more. There would always be more children, more fires, more lies, and he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t stop it.

Ernest leaned the side of his head against the banister. He thought about Olaf, suddenly. He’d been trying to corner everyone lately, Ernest among them, talking his ear off about big ideas that Ernest agreed with, but Olaf had a habit of taking an age to follow through with them. Ernest did not have the time to wait an age. He’d shared some information with Olaf a few times, on the off chance that it would spur him into action, but Olaf had hidden it away, for “later”, and it obviously had not helped.

Maybe the only way you could fight a long game was to play the long game back. Maybe that was what Olaf was doing. He was on to something, at least, with his words. Maybe Ernest could try again. Maybe he could learn to wait. Maybe the payoff would be worth it. Maybe.

Ernest stood up. He didn’t at all feel like going home, but he wasn’t going to stay at headquarters any longer.

The staircase creaked. When he looked up, he saw Lemony Snicket at the top by the observatory door, standing like he’d always been there.

“What are you doing up there?” Ernest asked.

Lemony watched him carefully. Ernest got the distinct feeling that he was being appraised. He shivered. When they were younger, you could look at Lemony and see the gears working in his head, like watching—yes, like watching change take shape and form and meaning before your eyes. Lemony Snicket was going to do anything, lead them all anywhere. Ernest hadn’t been foolish enough to believe a twelve-year-old in a brown hat was going to demolish VFD from the ground up. Then Lemony had disappeared, and in the years after resurfacing at sixteen, he looked less and less like that powerful, mythical figure everyone had worshiped and more like he’d seen too much. Ernest sympathized.

But here, Ernest finally saw it, that hunger they’d all talked about. In his eyes, bright blue in the shadows. Physical change, a juggernaut of determination. Ernest’s breath caught in his throat.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Lemony said softly. “Do you think we could talk?”

10:50 PM—The Elevator

Damn.

The disbelief on Kit’s face was gone, replaced by a blazing, dangerous fury, the threatening and exacting professionalism she hid inside her on full display. She wasn’t all that short, Ernest thought, inanely. He wasn’t going to be able to bluff out of this one. She knew. It was significantly more terrifying than Ernest had imagined it would be. How stupid could he have been, to forget about the way that cigarette smoke would cling, to think Kit Snicket wouldn’t notice. “Kit—”

“How long?” Kit demanded.

“Does it matter?”

He could see that it very, very much did. Kit was already disgusted over dating Olaf; that she’d spent so much time with Ernest when he wasn’t on her side was going to eat her alive, Ernest knew. He winced.

“It wasn’t personal,” he tried.

She glared at him. “What were the names Frank was supposed to give me?”

That, he was going to hold on to. They’d already burned the papers, anyway, up in the observatory. No one was going to get that list now. “I guess you’ll never know,” Ernest said.

Her hand clenched on the button panel. She stepped closer. For a wild and uncontrollable second that seemed to spin out into eternity, Ernest imagined she was going to kill him.

“The elevator is going to start again,” she said lowly. “We’re going to walk out into the lobby. You’re not going to make a sound. We’re going to go to headquarters.”

Ernest didn’t like what he was going to do next. But he was always going to have the upper hand for one distinct reason.

He swallowed and straightened the edge of his sleeve. “Who’s going to believe you, Kit?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“Regrettably for you, I am at a distinct advantage,” Ernest said. “You and I are the only two people in this elevator. You did think I was Frank. Who will be able to figure out who was who when you try and tell on me? Who can really know for sure?” He hesitated, but it was true. “Why, I could be Dewey, even.”

Kit slapped him across the face, her cheeks flushed a fierce red. The force of it stung hard, knocking Ernest’s head to the side. She removed her hand from the wall and stepped back.

“Does it help if I’m sorry?” he asked, gingerly rubbing the side of his face.

“You aren’t,” Kit said.

Ultimately, it was true. He wasn’t. He was sorry he’d been caught more than that he’d done it. Ernest regretted nothing about what he’d decided to do. Not in his line of work; and Kit was the same, too. But he was sorry he was going to lose a friend.

Kit didn’t have friends, though. You were with or against Kit Snicket, and she always made that abundantly clear. Ernest touched his cheek again, and then lowered his hand.

“I’m not,” he said. He took the elevator key out of his pocket and put it into the lock on the button panel, watching Kit the whole time. She watched him back. The elevator slid into motion, settling down on the third floor.

The doors opened.

11:00 PM—The Ballroom—East Drink Table

“Who?” Jacques asked.

Kit turned slowly back to the dance floor. Was one of them still here? Had she been followed out of the elevator? She locked eyes with a Denouement across the room. Which one? Was it Frank? Was it Ernest, again? Was it Dewey? The clock was still rumbling under her feet. The glass trembled in her hand and she felt almost sick, anger and shame and fear churning through her. She was in a nightmare and she couldn’t shake it off. The triplet held her eyes for a long moment and then walked away.

“Kit.” Jacques had a hand on her arm; he must’ve gotten out of the boxwood. “Who?”

But she couldn’t get the words out, not here. Ernest was right. She was at a disadvantage when she couldn’t prove it. If she pointed the finger now, what would be done? What could be done? How could he do that to Dewey and Frank? To put them in the position where they’d unknowingly cover for him merely by existing? Did they know at all?

What would she do if her own brothers—no. She couldn’t even think it. Kit couldn’t fathom the idea of her brothers doing anything like this.

“We have to find Lemony,” Kit said.

11:02 PM—The Ballroom—Main Doors

Frank still couldn’t find Ernest. He did not have the time for him to be hiding like a child; where was he? Frank had looked everywhere over and over and was back in the same ballroom again, scanning through the associates for what had to be the hundredth time. He caught Kit’s eye—and stopped.

There was cold and intense fear looking back at him. It was unbearable to have it directed at him, and Frank turned away after a few seconds.

Ernest. A thousand possibilities ran through Frank’s head, each of them worse than the last. He had had enough. Frank strode towards the main doors, just as he saw Ernest making his way out of them as fast as possible. Finally. Frank followed him out into the hallway and grabbed onto Ernest’s arm, whirling him around.

“I asked one thing of you tonight,” Frank said.

“Don’t do anything rash,” Ernest repeated. He wrenched his arm out of Frank’s grasp and put his hands in his pockets. “And I didn’t, thank you.”

“Apparently I wasn’t specific enough,” Frank said. “When I said that, I clearly meant, don’t do anything stupid that’s going to compromise the family and our position in it. What information have you been giving Olaf?”

“Who said I was?”

“Olaf.”

“You know, that hurts a little, that you’d believe Olaf over me.”

Frank’s jaw clenched. Fine. Olaf was less important, anyway. “Then what did you do to Kit?”

Ernest raised an eyebrow. “Did I do anything?”

It was agonizing, seeing such a carefully blank mask on your own face staring back at you. Frank didn’t hate him, but he came close. “What have you done, Ernest? Do not lie to me.”

Something fractured through Ernest’s expression. “I just—miscalculated,” he muttered. “She found out.”

“She found out?” Frank echoed, his heart skittering in his chest. It had finally happened, and Frank couldn’t protect Ernest this time. Kit wouldn’t keep this a secret, not by a long shot. By morning—by midnight, because nearly the whole organization was already here—everyone would know. And Ernest didn’t seem the least bit concerned about it. “Ernest—”

“It’s fine,” Ernest said coolly. “Considering she can’t prove it.”

The world detached from Frank’s consciousness. Kit’s fear made a sudden, terrible sense. Ernest had used him as a shield between himself and the organization, on purpose, he’d positioned Frank and Dewey as pawns whose only use was whatever Ernest wanted. Frank could feel his hands shaking. They didn’t feel like his hands.

Ernest sighed. “Don’t look like that,” he said. “You’ve pretended to be me, that’s the only way you would’ve found out about Olaf. Don’t act like you didn’t use our face as an advantage too. That’s what we do. That’s what this family does.”

Anger burned through Frank, hot behind his eyes. That had been different. A sharp fury that had been building somewhere inside him all night snapped apart. “You are not a part of this family.”

He regretted saying it the second the words were out. Of course Ernest was still his brother. That was an immutable fact. But Frank was so tired of trying to hold onto Ernest when Ernest so blatantly didn’t care. He wasn’t looking at family, he was looking at a stranger, who stole his face, who used his name, who threw it around like it meant nothing, who denied everything noble and proper and real. It wasn’t how a brother was supposed to act. But it was how Ernest acted, and now Ernest was staring at him with an open, wounded expression, something Frank hadn’t seen since they were children.

Frank ran a hand over his face. “I didn’t—”

“No.” Ernest’s jaw trembled for a second, his mouth pressing into a thin, flat line. “I don’t think I am.” He took one step back, a hard glare in his eyes, and then walked away from Frank.

11:20 PM—The Rooftop Sunbathing Salon

Ernest hadn’t figured on Frank being angry, because, primarily, he hadn’t figured on Frank finding out at all. He hadn’t figured on Kit realizing what he was doing, either. Well, that was on him, but Frank didn’t need to be so—he didn’t have to say—

Shit, Ernest thought, breathing hard. He came to a stop in the dark, empty hallway some floors up from the ballroom and let himself think it, pressing his palms into his eyes. Shit, shit, shit. He’d have a brother after this, sure, a family member who stood by him and ran a hotel with him and played nice, but he didn’t know if he’d have his brother. He would have an associate, like everyone else, a found family of people who loved on conditions, not a family. Not his family.

He had to find Lemony. Just because he’d been hiding all night didn’t mean he was exempt from this.

Lemony disliked heights, open spaces, and decently-sized bodies of water, which was why Ernest found him on the roof, sitting on one of the pool chairs, his mask discarded beside him. He was studiously avoiding looking at the pool or the ocean or the night sky, dark and enormous above him. The rooftop salon was never used at night, but there were small lights along the edge of the pool and the railing, giving off slivers of stark white light. The brief anger Ernest felt downstairs evaporated the longer he watched Lemony not-watching the world around him. He wanted to say a million and one things to him, but the one that came out was, “Why do you keep doing this to yourself?”

“What do you know about exposure therapy?” Lemony offered as a response.

“Enough to know you probably shouldn’t use it for heights,” Ernest said. “Among other things.”

“Point taken,” Lemony said. “What would you say if I told you I was now too frightened to move?”

“That you brought it on yourself,” Ernest said, but he didn’t mean it. He walked over and sat next to Lemony on the pool chair. Ernest stole a quick glance at him again, brief and fleeting. To look consistently was dangerous; Ernest always had to make a distinct effort not to touch.

“Your sister found out,” he said. “Not about you, but about me. She also hit me.”

Lemony’s head shot up. “What?” He reached out, his fingertips lightly brushing Ernest’s jaw as he turned his face towards him. They trailed warm over his right cheek, where his skin still smarted from Kit’s hand. Here in the dark, Lemony’s eyes were so bright again, full of concern, directed right at him. Ernest held himself so still, barely breathing.

Falling in love, if you could call it that, with Lemony was what Ernest personally considered the most ill-advised thing he’d ever done, even after lying to Kit. Lemony loved other people, and it was clear in everything he did, in the way he looked when they weren’t there. But Lemony understood what Ernest wanted, and Ernest craved that with a destructive ache.

Really, who else were they supposed to fall in love with but each other? They didn’t know anyone else. No one was going to get this life but them. It was probably why half of VFD had a crush on Beatrice, honestly. It was terrible, but none of them seemed to be able to stop doing it. Ernest included.

“You—” Lemony’s hand jerked back, shrinking down between them onto the chair. “What happened?”

“She knew I lied,” Ernest said. “About the information and about being Frank. I got out of it, but—she won’t trust us again, I think. And Frank—probably won’t trust me either.”

“I’m sorry,” Lemony said. “I didn’t mean for—”

Ernest shook his head. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. It wasn’t. He and Lemony had both just wanted something, desperately. Ultimately, they’d still succeeded, in the end. They had. Change he could hold in his hands had happened. He still felt hollow about it all, everything drained out of him, but he didn’t regret doing it. Not at all. The hurt would go away and he’d do it again. “What we did—that mattered.”

“It did,” Lemony whispered. “But I never like the cost.”

“Why did you do it?” Ernest asked softly.

Lemony smiled ruefully. “I guess I didn’t want to stop trying.”

The real, noble answer, Ernest thought. Why the “firestarters” and Ernest would never get him. He raised his hand. Slowly, without looking, he put it on top of Lemony’s. Lemony turned his hand over and gripped Ernest’s tightly. He knew that the way Lemony would try from this moment forward would be different than the way Ernest would, and he wanted to have this moment while it lasted.

Ernest stood, tugging Lemony up with him, and let go of his hand. “You should go back downstairs,” he said.

11:30 PM—The Ballroom—South Drink Table

The party would be over soon, but you’d never know it, the ballroom still thronging with people. But most of the dancing had died down, and Dewey was taking mental stock of how clean up would start. He found one of the attendant’s silver trays and picked it up, estimating how many glasses he could fit on it.

Frank came back into the ballroom and made a beeline for him, pale. Dewey’s shoulders tensed up yet again. What had happened now?

“I can’t believe it,” Frank muttered, grabbing a wineglass.

“Whoa, hey, hold on.” Dewey took the wineglass back and set it off to the side. “What happened?”

“He—” Which meant it was Ernest. Again. Dewey’s patience with both his brothers tonight was wearing extraordinarily thin. “He’s been passing information to Olaf this whole time.”

“To Olaf?” That was not what Dewey had been expecting. A flare of worry burned through him and curled his hands around the tray. “But—”

“No,” Frank said. “This time, I’ve had enough. I’m tired of covering up for him, and he’s going to have to deal with this mess himself.”

Olaf was certainly a threat in one way or another, but it seemed a disproportionately vicious answer for Frank. Dewey frowned. “Did something else happen?”

Frank looked so—frantic, was maybe the word, a terrifying energy breaking out of him in quick bursts of anger on his face. He looked at Dewey, and the emotion seemed to cage itself back in.

“He was found out,” Frank said quietly. “About being a firestarter.”

Dewey had counted on it happening. It seemed unlikely that it would be able to remain a secret forever. It still hurt to hear. Things wouldn’t be the same as they had been, if people knew about Ernest. Dewey imagined the division between the three of them only growing larger, and he didn’t know if he’d be able to do anything about it if it got too wide.

Something broke in Frank’s expression again, and Dewey startled—it looked like guilt. “Don’t defend him,” Frank hissed. “Dewey, he’s going to get away with it. He’s going to ruin what we’ve worked for, what you’ve worked for in the archives—do you want all of that information in the hands of the enemy?”

Dewey clutched the tray. “Ernest isn’t the enemy,” he said, darkly. The agitation from earlier at the hors d’oeuvres table shot back into him.

“You know exactly what I mean,” Frank said. “I—”

Dewey slammed the silver plate down on the drink table. A real, genuine slam, like he’d never done before, the glasses around it rattling. Frank stared at him, gaping a little.

“He’s still here,” Dewey said. “That’s enough.”

“Dewey—”

“That is enough.”

12:00 AM—The Lobby

Jacques had never seen Kit so unsettled. Even when she’d been arrested she’d kept her composure. But she stood beside him in the empty lobby, tapping her foot against the floor, her arms crossed over her chest. He still couldn’t get out of her what had happened, but it was obvious from her face in the ballroom that whoever betrayed them had to be one of the Denouements. It was a sobering realization, the worst possible outcome of the schism that had been building for too long. One of three identical triplets being a traitor complicated matters, although it was easy to figure out which one it was that had done it. Things were going to change after tonight.

He took a small, brief moment to appreciate that Kit actually wanted to stand next to him and acknowledge him as her brother. Lately, he’d gotten the impression that she couldn’t stand him. But now she needed him, and it was a relief to Jacques to still be needed by his siblings. He never thought he did that successful a job of managing to keep them all together.

The elevator dinged, and Lemony stepped out, adjusting his jacket. The only evidence he’d been at the costume party was the mask tucked under his arm, because his suit was as plain as ever.

“Finally,” Kit muttered, and she ran over to him, throwing her arms around him and hugging him tightly, something none of the siblings had done since they were children.

Lemony froze, and then hugged her back. He met Jacques’s eyes across the lobby.

Jacques knew it, immediately. Lemony had played a part in what had happened tonight with Ernest. It shouldn’t have surprised Jacques as much as it did. Lemony had held a perilous position in the organization for years now, and this wasn’t the first time he had wound up disagreeing with Kit about recruitment. But it was the first time it had involved other people. That made it dangerous.

Lemony shook his head a fraction of an inch. Part of Jacques relaxed. The three of them might still be okay. He wondered, with a slight jolt, how the Denouements would fare.

Kit pulled away from Lemony. “Where were you?”

“Did you know the rooftop sunbathing salon has night lights?” Lemony said. Jacques couldn’t help but chuckle as he walked over to his siblings. “Very pleasant. I recommend it.”

Kit rolled her eyes, and she led Jacques and Lemony through the lobby and out of the hotel.

“I’ll drive you both back,” Jacques said. “It’s on my way.”

“You brought the taxi?” Lemony asked.

“Regrettably,” Jacques sighed. “I still seem to have it.” Headquarters refused to take it back for some reason, even after Jacques insisted he didn’t need it. It had been six months since the initial assignment with it and he was still driving it, and probably would be, for the foreseeable future. He took his keys out of his pocket.

“I’ll drive,” Kit said.

“You will not drive,” Jacques said.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you correctly,” Kit said, snatching the keys out of his hand and walking briskly out of his reach. “Jacques, did you say something about hives? There aren’t any bees nearby.”

“Trees?” Lemony said. He jogged ahead a little and caught up with Kit’s pace. “They do look particularly lush this time of year, now that you mention it.”

“No one is in a rush, and Kit, give me my keys you are not going to drive—” His siblings raced ahead of him down the front drive, and Jacques ran after them into the night.

1:55 AM—The Ballroom

Olivia and Ramona stayed on to help the Denouements clean up. Ramona had insisted, saying that it was no trouble at all, and she owed them for being so kind to host the party. She was very good at insisting; Olivia had never seen anyone able to resist the charm of Ramona cheerfully demanding she was going to help and they were going to have to deal with it. She hid her smile in the champagne flutes she was stacking on a tray as Ramona talked with one of the triplets on the other side of the ballroom. She picked up the one rimmed with half-rings of Ramona’s deep plum lipstick and giggled.

She’d have to tell Ramona about what Jacques told her, of course. But for once, Olivia wasn’t all that worried about dealing with it. It had been an extraordinarily pleasant night otherwise. Ramona was happy, some of the glow back in her face, so Olivia was happy too.

All the glasses were stacked, the plates piled together, the tablecloths folded up, the lights finally dimmed. There was only one Denouement left in the room, and he stopped Olivia and Ramona on their way out. “Olivia, could I speak with you?”

“Of course,” Olivia said.

“I’ll wait for you outside,” Ramona said, squeezing her hand, and she disappeared down the hallway, the hem of her dress sweeping the floor behind her.

Some people expected Olivia to be able to tell the Denouements apart, and some people expected her to be as clueless as most others as to who she was talking to. It wasn’t terribly hard to tell them apart, because Olivia liked to pay attention, but what she could never remember what when she was supposed to know and when she wasn’t. Here, she knew the one in front of her was Frank, most definitely. There was a weight to the way Frank carried himself, not like he assumed he was in control, but like he assumed he had to be.

“What is it, Frank?” Olivia asked.

He hesitated, which was rare for Frank. “When was the last time you saw Miranda?”

Olivia blinked. Had she misheard him? “What?”

“Miranda,” Frank said again. She hadn’t misheard. “When was the last time you saw her?”

Miranda?

“I—I don’t know,” she said quickly. “I—” When was the last time she saw Miranda? Years and years ago, wasn’t it? Shortly after they’d been taken. Olivia hadn’t minded. Miranda was older than her, not by much but by enough, and enough that they weren’t kept together. Miranda had thought it a chore to look after her, and Olivia hadn’t liked being seen as a chore. She wanted a sister, not a babysitter. So she’d been okay when Miranda was gone. They went to different classes, made different friends, passed each other in the hall without saying a word until their apprenticeships, where Olivia was shuffled around from chaperone to chaperone and Miranda—went where? What had become of her?

The questions spun through her head, dizzying, but they kept coming. What did Miranda look like, now that she thought of it? Had she looked like Olivia at all? Would she recognize her own sibling, like she could easily identify the Denouements? Would she know Miranda if she saw her in a meeting, on the street, at one of these parties, if she was an enemy? But what made a person wasn’t appearance—how did Miranda act? What made Miranda, in the way Frank’s quiet made him? How could she not know what made her sister? Miranda was her sister and it hit Olivia, squarely in the chest, that she didn’t know a single thing about her.

She pressed her knuckles to her mouth, her gaze darting across the floor. How had she gone all this time without thinking about her? How could she not know? How much had she forgotten?

“I’m sorry I asked,” Frank was saying. “Olivia. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Olivia whispered. She took one step back, then another, almost hitting the edge of her dress with the point of her heel, and another, then made herself turn around and leave, back downstairs, through the lobby, anywhere else but there.

Olivia hurried out into the night with the front doors banging open after her; the humid air was sticky on her skin, sitting heavy in her lungs as she tried to inhale. She saw Ramona past the front archway, leaned back against her car a way down the front drive, her shoes beside her and her feet in the grass, the shape of her soft and fuzzy in the heat. Olivia tore off her mask and scrubbed her hand over her eyes, wiping the tears on the side of her dress.

There was a weight on her shoulders, more than just the heat. She had the horrible sense that she was going to turn around and see Miranda. Olivia wanted to leave. She wanted to leave the city, she wanted to go somewhere she’d be away from this. She wanted to take Ramona—would Ramona go with her? She had her own things to care about besides the violent anxiety shaking Olivia from the inside out. She had a duchy to take care of. She didn’t deserve to have to deal with Olivia.

We’d like you to take up the outpost at Caligari Carnival. The carnival was miles from the city, out in the hinterlands, flat and desolate blankness. Maybe she should go. Maybe that would be better. She would be away from the city and be one place where no one had to bother her and she couldn’t bother anyone else. Maybe.

Olivia squeezed her eyes shut again, and when she opened them the tears were gone and Ramona came into focus, all of her slender and beautiful in the moonlight. Olivia ached to look at her.

She went over to Ramona and slid her hand into hers, tucking her face into the smooth skin of Ramona’s shoulder. “I want to go somewhere else,” she whispered.

“Hey,” Ramona said, her other arm coming up and folding around Olivia, drawing her close. “We can go anywhere you want.”

Behind her, through the open front doors, Olivia heard the hotel clock starting to chime again.

#asoue #a series of unfortunate events #lemony snicket #jacques snicket #kit snicket #frank denouement #dewey denouement #ernest denouement

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youvebeenlivingfictional · 3 years

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I’m Always Curious Part Thirty Three

Previous Part | Next Part | Masterlist Notes: I hope everyone’s having a good week 💕

Warnings: Cursing, a lil fluff, a lil angst. Y’all know me. (I know these are the same as last week but they are.... Still True). Summary: I’d been on the Pinnacle for the last couple of days, once the briefing that Eli and I had completed was cleared by Command.

“I just hope that you are fully aware of the fact that you are never allowed to criticize me again.” “That seems a little extreme—” “Oh, that seems extreme?” I retorted, brows raising, “I’m going to have to disagree with you, Captain. You are not allowed to tell me that I have taken a reckless action or made a snap-decision ever again because you jumped on a Phaser.”

“Out of necessity!” Chris argued, “It’s not as though I did it for fun, just to see what it would feel like.” “Mm. And what did it feel like?” I watched Chris on the holo, and saw how he directed his eyes to the ceiling for a moment of consideration before he answered, “...Sharp, seering...Painful.” “I see.” “Mm.” “You know why that might be?” “I do know—” “Maybe it’s because you jumped—” “I get it—” “On a Phaser.” “This is a very rich argument from a woman that launched herself into a space without a tether.” I felt a shiver trickle down my spine and I shifted in my seat a little, pulling myself from a memory of a different mission— one undertaken in the midst of a war; I pulled myself from the darkness of a void, a sudden yanking at my ankle, my hands desperately clinging to the side of a K’Vek Class Battle Cruiser as the space around me rattled and filled with Warbirds. “Trust me,” I said, careful to keep my tone light, “It’s safer without the tether.” I averted my eyes, reaching for my glass. Even on the holographic communication system, Christopher seemed to have clocked that shiver and shift; I could see his brow furrowing and his head tipping, waiting for the story. It wasn’t one that I was itching to share. I nodded to the bandages wrapped around his midsection as I set my glass back down. “Pollard give you hell, at least?” He chuckled lightly, wincing with it as he nodded and patted over his bandage, “She did.” “Good. Someone needs to without Boyce and Una around to keep you in line.” Chris’ eyes narrowed minutely, but he couldn’t hide the smile that crept onto his lips. I couldn’t help mine, either. I’d been fighting off smiles since I’d gotten the message that Pike was calling me at all. I’d been on the Pinnacle for the last couple of days, once the briefing that Eli and I had completed was cleared by Command. Eli had yet to find a Communications Bridge officer for the Pinnacle, and until he did, I was subbing in. Christopher had called to ask about the briefing. But… Like the old days, when I had been called into his Ready Room to confirm the details of a report, we had drifted to other things. We’d actually been having a light, amiable conversation until I’d noticed the bandages wrapped around him. Jumped on a Phaser. Unbelievable.

“So how are you finding the Bridge?” He asked. “Fine,” I shrugged, “But it’s… Different. A little weird. I’m used to having someone else in charge— I mean, there’s Durling, obviously, but there’s always been another level of Communications above me and now there’s kinda just… Me.” “What about during the war? Durling was a strategy officer previous to this post, wasn’t he?” “...I guess I don’t really count the war as time spent in Starfleet,” I realized after a few moments, shaking my head a little, “Maybe that’s wrong, or...Or strange, but it’s not what I joined to do. I was still translating, sure, but it feels like there was such a dissonance between it and this,” I nodded back toward my current quarters. Christopher took a long moment with that, watching me, and I fought the urge to avert my eyes or turn my head from him. It was hard, talking to him about these things, but if we ever wanted any sort of friendship again, they did need to be discussed in some estimation. I did turn my head, though, as a message chimed from my PADD. “Sorry—” I leaned over, grabbing it and scanning it. I sighed softly. “I’m needed on the Bridge,” I gave him an apologetic look, but Christopher just smiled and nodded. “Be careful,” He urged. “... I’m so sorry, which of the two of us—” “Okay—” “Literally threw themselves—” “Thank you, Commander—” “On top of a firing Phaser?” “I’ll have to review the notes of this call and get back to you.” I shook my head, fighting the urge to mirror Chris’ smile. “Unbelievable,” I muttered. “Speak soon,” He tacked on, and I felt my smile push through, then. “We will,” I nodded before closing the channel. -- Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. Dropping out of warp hadn’t been an issue the first time, but the Pinnacle had stalled jumping into it the second, and the drop out of warp that had followed was a hell of a bumpy landing. Our shields had been up, as had the shields of the ship that we’d nearly collided with— the Enterprise. We’d been hailed, and I’d expected to find Una on the other side, asking where the hell our helmsman had learned how to steer (though she’d never use those words exactly), but… But when the viewscreen had flickered to life, we’d been greeted by a man— a man with dark blonde hair and suspicious, narrowed eyes. His uniform was Command gold, but not in the form that we were used to— he had a black collar, and gold bands around his cuffs. I rose slowly, cautiously, taking in as much of the man and the ship behind him as I could. Eli’s brow furrowed as he glanced back toward me, as startled as I was. “Identify yourself,” The man requested. “Eli Durling, Captain of the U.S.S. Pinnacle,” Eli answered, “Yourself?” “James T. Kirk, Captain, U.S.S. Enterprise.” I blinked dumbly at him before I reached out, briefly muting our Communications as I turned to Eli. “This is bad.” “An astute observation, thank you, Commander.” “You’re welcome, Captain.” I raised my hand from the mute to allow Durling and this… Kirk to speak. Their stardate was years ahead of our time, and my stomach twisted, concerned. We were in another time, possibly another universe, so— “What is it?” I turned back to Eli, unable to help my folded arms and clenched jaw. “If he’s captain,” I nodded to the man, who had turned to consult with his own crew, “Then where’s Christopher?” Eli frowned, “Maybe he retired,” He offered. And maybe I would’ve accepted that before. Maybe I would’ve accepted that explanation and allowed myself to refocus on the matter at hand-- but in my time spent on Somonia, I’d come to trust my gut instincts strongly. I shook my head, turning back to my console as I muttered, “Something feels wrong.” “If you could send the coordinates which you jumped from,” We turned back to the viewscreen at the request from a new voice, “That would be most helpful.” “An excellent suggestion, Mr. Spock,” Kirk smiled at the man that had said so. I stilled, staring. He was older, of course— but same haircut, same brows, same pointed ears. He caught sight of me staring, and he lifted a single questioning brow. I lowered my eyes, turning back to the console. If anyone was going to be able to tell me where Chris was, surely it would be him.

“You seemed quite alarmed by my name, Commander. Is it safe to assume that we are familiar with one another when you’re from?” “Yes,” I nodded, giving Mr. Spock a small smile. I had beamed over to the Enterprise, along with Durling, and two of his Science officers. “May I inquire about the nature of our acquaintanceship?” “We have been stationed on the same ship and we attended the Academy together. We’re friends.” I hesitated before, “Mr. Spock, if I may ask… Are you familiar with a man named Christopher Pike?” Spock’s brow rose again, his head tilting to the side for a moment as he seemed to contemplate both my expression and my question. “Quite familiar,” He nodded slightly. “Was he Captain of the Enterprise?” “Previously, yes.” “And now?” Spock went quiet again, eyes drifting briefly to the table. “You say that we are friends, in your time,” He said. “Yes.” “What relationship have you to Captain Pike?” I had to be careful. This Spock was not my Spock, but I could assume that he would reason through these things the same way: he wouldn’t want to tell me about anything, for fear that any knowledge on my part could lead to some change. So I was careful to keep my face neutral, and I lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “He is as good a friend of mine as you are.” I could see Spock considering my answer, and his. “Captain Pike suffered an incident that left him unable to command.” My gut twisted, but I was careful not to suck in a breath or reel away as I wanted. It was possible that whatever occurred in this timeline would not necessarily occur when and where I was from— I seemed to not be on the Enterprise at all in this timeline; it was possible that I hadn't even joined Starfleet. Whatever may've happened to Christopher here may not happen to Christopher when I was from. But on the off-chance it did— I had to learn what I could before returning home. That was, of course, assuming that we could make it home. “...What sort of incident?” Tag list: @angels-pie ; @fantasticcopeaglepasta ; @mylittlelonelyappreciationtoo ; @how-am-i-serpose-to-know ; @onlyhereforthefandomandgiggles ; @inmyowncorner ; @tardis-23 ; @paintballkid711 ; @katrynec ; @hypnobananaangelfish ; @elen-aranel ; @blueeyesatnight ; @hotchswifey

#I'm Always Curious #captain pike x reader #captain pike/reader #captain pike imagine #Captain Pike x You #Captain Pike/You #christopher pike x reader #christopher pike/reader #christopher pike imagine #Christopher Pike x You #Christopher Pike/You #Christopher Pike fic #Captain Pike fic

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oneweekoneband · 3 years

Video

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I’m slightly nauseous already with knowing I’m going to say this, but what does “self-awareness” even mean? In modern parlance, as a descriptive phrase, as a comment on art? I’m asking in earnest, like, I’ve been Googling lately, which for me is basically on par with doctoral study in terms of academic rigor. The self is king, anyway, tyrant, so where is the line of distinction between material that intentionally is nodding at some truth about the artist’s life and what’s just, like, all the rest of the regular navel-gazing bullshit. I mean, I’m all self, I am guilty here. I can’t get it out of my poems or even make it more quiet. This is the tenth time I’ve invoked “I” in the space of six sentences. Processing art has always necessitated a certain amount of grappling with the creator, but the busywork of it lately grows more and more tedious. Joy drains out of my body parsing marks left behind not just in stylistic tendencies and themes, but in literal, intentional tags like graffiti on a water tower. This feels an age old and moth-holed complaint, dull, and I am no historian, or really a serious thinker of any kind. I’ve now complained at some length about self-referential art, but didn’t I love how Martin Scorsese nodded to the famous Goodfellas Copacabana tracking shot with the opening frames of last year’s The Irishman? Didn’t I find that terribly fun and sort of sweet? So there’s distinctions. I’m only saying I don’t know with certainty what they even are. I’m unreliable, and someone smarter than me has likely already solved my quandary about why self-knowledge often transforms into overly precious self-reflexivity in such a way that the knowledge is diminished and obscured, leaving only cutesy Easter eggs behind. Postmodernism has birthed a moralizing culture where art exists to be termed either “self-aware Good” or “self-aware Bad”. Self-referentiality in media is so commonplace, so much the standard, that what was once credited as metatextual inventiveness often feels lazy now. In 1996, Scream was revitalizing a genre. Today, two thirds of all horror movies spend half their running time making sure that you know that they know they’re a horror movie, which is fine, I guess, except sometimes you just wanna watch someone get butchered with an axe in peace.

This is all to say that in 2020 Taylor Swift looked long and hard upon her image in the reflecting pool of her heart and has written yet another song about Gone Girl.

“mirrorball” is a very good piece of Gone Girl —feels insane to tell anyone reading a post on a blog what Gone Girl is but, you know, the extremely popular 2012 novel about a woman who pretends to have been murdered and frames her husband for it, and subsequently the 2014 film adaption where you kinda see Ben Affleck’s dick for a second—fanfiction. It would be a fine song, a good song, really, even if it weren’t that, if it were just something normal and not unhinged written by a chill person who behaves in a regular way, but we need to acknowledge the facts for what they are. When Taylor Swift watched Rosamund Pike toss her freshly self-bobbed hair out of her face and hiss, “You think you’d be happy with some nice Midwestern girl? No way, baby. I’m it!” her brain lit up like a Christmas tree, and she’s never been the same. If you Google “taylor swift gone girl” there waiting for you will be a medium sized lake’s worth of articles speculating about how Gone Girl influenced and is referenced in past Swift singles “Blank Space” and “Look What You Made Me Do”. This is not new behavior, and if anything it’s getting a bit troubling to think that it’s been this long since Taylor’s read another book. Still, while the prior offerings were a fair attempt at this particular feat of depravity, “mirrorball” has brought Taylor’s Amy Elliott Dunne deification to stunning new heights. And most importantly, Taylor has done a service to every person alive with more than six brain cells and a Internet connection by putting an end to the “Cool Girl” discourse once and for all. By the power invested in “mirrorball”, it is hereby decreed that the Cool Girl speech from Gone Girl is neither feminist or antifeminist, not ironic nor aspirational. No. It’s something much better than all that. It’s a threat. I ! Can ! Change ! Everything ! About ! Me ! To ! Fit ! In !

Gone Girl (2012) by Gillian Flynn

“mirrorball” (2020) by Taylor Swift

When the twinkly musical stylings of Jack Antonoff, a man I distinctly distrust, but for no one specific reason, whirl to life at the beginning of this song I feel instantly entranced, blurry-brained and pleasure-pickled like an infant beneath a light-up crib mobile or, I guess, myself in the old times, the outside times, three tequila sodas deep under the disco lights at The Short Stop. Under a mirrorball in my head. I know very little about music, as a craft, and I really don’t care to know more. I’m happy in a world of pure, dumb sensation. I’m not even sure what kind of instruments are making these jangly little sounds. I just like it. I am vibing. We may not ever be able to behave badly in a club again, but I can sway to my stupid Taylor Swift-and-the-brother-of-the-lady-who-makes-like-those-sweatshirts-with-little-sayings-or-like-vulvas-which-famous-white-women-wear-on-instagram-you-know-what-I-mean song, pressing up onto my tiptoes on the linoleum tile of our kitchen floor and can feel for a second or two something approaching bliss. “mirrorball” is a lush sound bath that I like a lot and then also it’s about being all things to all people, chameleoning at a second’s notice, doing Oscar worthy work on every Zoom call, performing the you who is good, performing the you who is funny, performing the you who draws a liter of your own blood and throws it around the kitchen then cleans it up badly all to get your husband sent to jail for sleeping with a college student... Too much talk about making and unmaking of the self is way too, like, 2012 Tumblr for me now, and I start hearing the word “praxis” ring threateningly in my head, but I’m not yet so evolved that I don’t feel a pull. Musings on the disorganized self—on how we are new all the time, and not just because of all the fresh skin coming up under the dead, personhood in the end so frighteningly flexible—are always going to compel me, I’m afraid, but that goes double for musings on the disorganized self which posit that Taylor Swift still thinks Amy Dunne made some points.

Because on “mirrorball” Taylor is for once not hamfistedly addressing some “hater”, in the quiet and the lack of embarrassing martyrdom it actually offers an interesting answer to the complaint that Taylor is insufficiently self-aware. This criticism emerges often in tandem with claiming to have discovered some crack in the chassis of Swift’s public self, revealing the sweetness to be insincere. My instinct is to dismiss this more or less out of hand as just a mutation of the school of thought that presumes all work by women must be autobiography. And, regardless, it is made altogether laughable by the fact that anyone actually paying attention has known since at least Speak Now, a delightful record populated by the most appalling, horrible characters imaginable, and all of them written by a twenty year old Taylor Swift, that this woman is a pure weirdo. To accuse Taylor Swift of lacking in self-awareness is a reductive misunderstanding, I think, of artifice. Being a fake bitch takes work. Which is to say, if we agree that her public self is a calculated performance—eliding the fact that all public selves are a performance to avoid getting too in the weeds yadda yadda— why, then, should it be presumed that performance is rooted in ignorance? Would it not make more sense that, in fact, someone able to contort themselves so ably into various shapes for public consumption would have a certain understanding of the basic materials they’re working with and concealing? Taylor Swift, in a decade and a half of fame, has presented herself from inside a number of distinct packages. The gangly teenager draped in long curls like climbing wisteria who wrote lyrics down her arms in glitter paint gave way to red lipstick, a Diet Coke campaign, and bad dancing at awards shows. There was the period where she was surrounded constantly by a gaggle of models, then suddenly wasn’t anymore, and that rough interlude with the bleached hair. The whole Polaroid thing. Last year she boldly revealed she’s a democrat. Now it’s the end of the world and she’s got frizzy bangs and flannels and muted little piano songs. Perhaps this endless shape-shifting contradicts or undermines, for some, the pose of tender authenticity which has remained static through each phase, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been doing it all on purpose the entire time. I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try...

In the Disney+ documentary—which, in order to watch, I had to grudgingly give the vile mouse seven dollars, because the login information that I’d begged off of my little sister didn’t work and I was too embarrassed to bring it up a second time—Taylor referred to “mirrorball” as the first time on the album where she explicitly addressed the pandemic, referring to the lyrics that start, “And they called off the circus, Burned the disco down,” and end with “I’m still on that tightrope, I’m still trying everything to get you laughing at me,” which actually did made me laugh, feeling sort of warmly foolish and a little fond, because it never would have occurred to me that she was trying to be literal there. I suppose we really do all contain multitudes. Hate that.

#taylor swift #folklore

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amphtaminedreams · 4 years

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Paris Haute Couture Week S/S 2020 Plus a Little Jacquemus: Okay, Dior DID Suck (Part 2/2)

Hi to anyone reading,

First of all, thank you! I have never had a post do as well as the part 1 of my haute couture week review did and I am so overwhelmed with the positive feedback. This is probably funny to read for those of you getting thousands of reblogs on your posts, me acting like I won an academy award because I got a couple of hundred, but honestly I don’t expect any traction when I write on here (it’s basically just me word vomiting everything I’m thinking as if people want to hear it aka. mouthing off into what I thought was the void) so if you did read it, thank you! I do spend a long-ass time on these so it means a lot:-)

I’ll leave the self-indulgent ramble there though as it’s probably not what you came for and jump straight into part 2 of my thoughts, starting with Jacquemus. Yeah, I knew what I was doing when I tagged that in my last post. Simon Porte Jacquemus is the man of the *fashion* people right now; I’ve even found myself coming round to the Le Chiquito bag despite my original thought being “well, that’s fucking useless”. I know, I know, technically it’s not haute couture; it was part of Men’s Fashion Week, but it happened around the same time and everyone was talking about it on Twitter, so I feel like I have to include it.

In a way, it kind of reminds me of Bottega Veneta’s last RTW show, in that, especially with the women’s outfits, we seem to be sticking with simple, fitted garments and chunky, more statement jewellery. I’ve got to say I like the styling here a lot more though, and in general I’m a fan of this collection. The collared tops with cut outs underneath blazers are cool and I can’t wait until it gets warm enough for me to not feel dumb wearing my headscarfs like this; there’s a LOT of summer outfit inspiration. It’s not a mind-blowing collection or anything but it is effortlessly sexy and that’s something I wish I could say about myself. Most of us can only hope to look half as good as these models do whilst making the effort but at least Jacquemus is aspirational, lol.

I also fucking adore this colour palette. I’m sick of neutrals literally just meaning brown and white; the navy, sand and muted khaki is a fresh edition to what is usually interpreted as the colours you’d seen worn by Disney’s Riverboat Cruise staff and only Disney’s Riverboat Cruise staff. And I mean, come on-what is more neutral than typical English school carpet blue.

Next for the whole reason I had to make this haute couture week review 2 separate posts: Jean Paul Gaultier’s final show.

In the best way possible, it’s a lot. I don’t even really know where to start, except to say that I guess this is a fitting last show; a celebration of everything campy, messy, weird, performative, and punk is the perfect send off for a brand whose best known perfume of the last few years is called Scandal. More than anything, the final show represented the range of characters and cultures that have influenced JPG throughout his half-a-decade-long career, the lines that supposedly separate what is “masculine” and “feminine”, “old” and “young” and ultimately art and fashion blurred in the most exaggerated way possible. Sure, there are some looks which are individually a bit messy here but the way they were grouped into almost chapter-like segments meant that when you see them all together, they work. Nods to the patterns and structures that recurred from season to season were sprinkled throughout, from sailor stripes to corsets to the expected whirlwinds of colour. I’ll even allow the wellies in that one outfit; if I can get over bucket hats in Peter fucking Pilotto’s last RTW show, I can get over some questionable shoes here. Middle aged fishermen and boys who liked to pose with monster carp in their Tinder pictures as some weird display of masculinity everywhere rejoice.

Now onto a show that I personally found slightly disappointing: Margiela.

I think this one is a bit TOO weird for me. Like if you’re gonna go avant-garde, go all out. Chiffon gimp masks (I don’t know if that’s the intention here but that’s what I’m getting, sorry Maison) are something I’m not particularly fond of and I’ve never been a fan of the Tabi boots in the first place, let alone when they’ve seemingly been blown up to Michelin man style proportions. I didn’t find the show to be a total lost cause-I enjoyed the colour palette and I’ve always liked that contrast stitching detail, plus the bowler hats are interesting-but on the whole considering how much I liked the last RTW show, this is a bit of a let down.

The looks I included are salvageable but (I feel mean saying this) there were genuinely a lot of pieces that did just resemble bits of fabric draped over each over with no discernible rhyme or reason, so much so that they reminded me of some of the monstrosities I saw at a Drag Race pub quiz this one time where we had 5 mins to make some garms out of loo roll and then have a team member model them for points down a makeshift runway.

Ralph and Russo was alright. There were a few pieces that I really liked but again, I can’t help but compare this collection to the last, where it felt like the fussy details of bows and sequins and feathers and the Barbie Dreamhouse palette were utilised with a direction in mind. Here, I don’t get that. As ever, the gowns are gorgeous and I’d pay good money just to try one on for five minutes but as an overall collection I’d say there was a lack of higher vision, which is probably the snobbiest sentence I’ve ever written so forgive me.

As for Ronald Van Der Kemp, I could’ve done without including it to be honest, if it weren’t for the few pieces I’m in love with: the velvet cape, fur trimmed jacket and blue satin dress are probably my favourite pieces here.

So onto a collection I liked a lot more: Schiaparelli.

The influence of nature from flowers in bloom to insects to the organic structure of the human skeleton is as present as ever, though this collection includes a lot more delicate symbolism than usual. Honestly, the details make it for me; the brooches, earrings and facial jewellery are other-worldly touches to outfits that could otherwise be simple fashion magazine editor on-the-go. That’s not in itself a bad thing! The suits are gorgeous. I mean, I’m talking fashion editor in New York in a power suit yelling orders down the phone while she rushes along with a coffee. A Miranda Priestley in the making type woman. THAT’S a modern take on the divine feminine that Maria Grazia should’ve been going for; our goddesses aren’t women who sit around looking pretty (though that helps too) and place curses on mere mortals anymore, they’re women who get shit done.

With regards to Valentino, which was also a delight, let me start by saying this colour palette is EVERYTHING. It’s ugly sisters in Cinderella fantastic, and we know those 2 were the real fashion icons really. Other than that, I adore the Old Hollywood silhouettes from the gloves to the Liz Taylor-in-Cleopatra-level-dramatic earrings. Everything is opulent and expensive-looking and pretty much what we’ve all come to expect from Valentino. A strong 8/10.

For me personally, Viktor and Rolf was a standout and one of my favourite collections of haute couture week. It’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea and I know it’s at the complete opposite end of the spectrum to what was probably my other favourite collection, Elie Saab, but this is just my style down to a T, the perfect balance of grungy and cutesy that I want to achieve.

There’s probably going to be a lot of objections to the temporary face tattoos and I get that, but I think they’re fucking sick. I obviously wouldn’t get a permanent one lest my mother murder me in cold blood however if I did, you bet I would be pairing them with frilly-ass babydoll dresses that you could pick up in Camden Market like this.

And last but not least (that would be Dior), there’s Zuhair Murad.

Sigh.

IDK, man. Seeing Zuhair Murad dresses on Tumblr and WeHeartIt (remember that site? It still exists!) as a 14 year old was one of the things that got me into fashion, so it sucks that almost every time a new collection comes around, I feel underwhelmed. Disappointingly, the brand hasn’t really progressed all that much since 2013. It goes without saying that the stoning and the embroidery and sequins are stunning and would make anyone feel like a princess but from a critical point of view, I’m just not seeing anything new here. Whereas I feel like Elie Saab, for example, reflected the growing fascination with East Asian fashion and recognition of the supremacy of the region’s street style in his haute couture last collection, Zuhair Murad seems to be stuck designing the same dresses he was 6 years ago.

To pick one example, the rounded stoned necklines are so outdated that they’ve been making their way onto department store prom dresses for years. I get that it’s supposed to be a reference to Ancient Egyptian style and I respect that, I was one of those 8 year old that was obsessed with mummies and the “Curse of Tutankhamun”, but couldn’t it be done in a more interesting way? It’s Maria Grazia’s spin on Ancient Greece all over again. Now I get how how the I imagine very niche subsection of people who are into fashion and Julius Caesar (okay, so I don’t even know if they still believed in mythology and all that malarky at that point in history but just roll with my comparison here) might’ve felt going through Vogue Runway. Anyway, I hate to end on a critical note and so be clear, these are still absolutely magnificent dresses. If we ignore those ugly round necklines, that is.

So that’s it for this post! If you read part 1 and 2, I hope you enjoyed it! As always, let me know your opinions and feel free to disagree. I’m literally just about to start trawling through all the A/W 2020 RTW collections though I imagine that’s gonna take me way longer to do than this, so I wouldn’t expect that for a month or two. In the meantime, I’m trying to fit shooting a Euphoria-inspired lookbook into my days off work which is looking atm like it’s going to be the end of March, so look out for that, and also a review of the red carpet fashion from this season’s award shows.

As ever, thank you so much for reading and again, thank you for the reception on part 1 if you were one of the people that read it. It makes staying up til 3am with the jitters seem worthwhile, lol!

Lauren x

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migleefulmoments · 4 years

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Please, please, please publish Abby’s new diatribe as I have apparently been blocked (or perhaps just don’t know enough about tumblr to find it). I’m dying to see what she worked on for two months to justify her existence!

Anonymous said: Oh dear, looks like Abby’s family didn’t get her help after all, a lost cause then, what an absolute waste of a life. It’s actually sad. A shame her family didn’t get her help

Le sigh...she is not well. She hasn’t learned one thing while she’s been away and she still has the exact same grievances- mostly about how much she hates Mia and how much she feels sorry for herself because we aren’t lapping up her fantasy and showering her with adoration for being the leader of the ccship. Her main complaint, the reason she popped back in to write the same tired complaints and criticisms, is that she’s tired of people blaming Darren for the ccsituation. It’s always about her love for ccDarren and her need to absolve him of all responsibility for all of the things the cc fandom dislike about him and his life. IT’S ALWAYS MIA’S FAULT and the defacto fandom leaders aren’t reminding everyone “it’s never Darren’s fault” and “always blame Mia’s”.

She lashes out to criticize the “hate blogs” but ultimately she blames Ricky and Mia for EVERYTHING including the “attack on her family” (which of course, was NOT an attack on her family, it was a plea for her family to get her some help). She claims “they” tried to shut her up and then lists all the evidence that “they” tried to end her blog: HER copyright strikes (lots of us have one) and the “hate” blogs before listing individual grievances against several bloggers, amping up the grievance for dramatic effect and making it seem like they were coordinated, well-planned attacks against her. She negates her own part e.g. I published the photo ONLY after she dared me to several times. All of this because “If this is what they were willing to do to me, a mere fan, imagine what they are well to do to him, their absolute life sources?” “They” aka Mia and Ricky.

I found it hard to read. She’s not in a good place.

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

Hello CCLand! Have you missed me? I know I have missed you all. This post is not me coming back, frankly, I still have not decided how I want to navigate the future, but for the past 2 months all of this has been festering inside, so I need to post and make a few points.

First and foremost, I want to say that I am incredibly proud of my blog. I spent 5 years building a relationship with my readers and trying to provide a voice for 2 people who have been marginalized and frankly had their voices largely muted. I will never apologize for this or feel bad about it. Nor will I feel bad about pointing a finger at people that I know are truly evil.

I am far from perfect and I admit, I made 2 massive errors. I overshared because I was naive and never thought the information would be used against me. And I did not pay enough attention to the hate blogs and their threats.

This was a blog that I started when I first learned about CC and frankly it grew out of love and a need to try to bring justice to a person that is absolutely a victim of a completely antiquated and abusive system. Further, I don’t THINK D is closeted, I KNOW D is closeted. And I have substantial facts to back up that statement. I never intended to become the most read CC blog or to meets so many wonderful an amazing people that I admire, but that is what happened and that has given me great joy.

But with the good comes the bad, and what happened to me is absolutely sick and depraved. And I am writing this post in hopes that someone will read it and see just how fucked up the behavior of a few “fans” has been towards me and to help them to extend this to what has been done to D and C. Please do not feel sad for me, or send me sympathy, it is not my point. But I hope that perhaps it will inspire some of you to be more active and to fight a little harder as I try to navigate the harassment that occurred to my family.

Pretty much since I started to write, I have been receiving hate, something to be expected when you join a fandom like this. But at some point, it became much more frequent and took a turn from manageable hate to harassment and bullying. In October of 2017, I got my first ask with my full name and from that day forward there has been an active attempt to try to bullying me off the internet. Now ask why that is? I am just a fan, with what most think is a crazy belief, with a relatively small following. I do not and have not tagged the players nor do I contact them directly. I have never been anything but incredibly polite to D and C, and frankly I have ignored M whenever I have been in her presence because she is not worthy of my time or energy. I have never reached out to them over SM to make one statement about fandom. So why such an effort to silence my voice? Especially if it is as insignificant as they claim?

They tried deleting my blog, that failed. They tried with copyright infringements but I got smarter about making sure to post links. So, what did they do? They started with vicious attacks on my character on their hate blogs. Posting my full name and image. Analyzing every word i wrote, desperately trying to debunk me, stating that i had severe mental health issues. Tagged C, W, and A/lla to warn them about my presence at a book signing. They stalked my friends and I at a festival, made false accusations, and published a photo. This meant that had to seek us out, locate where we were sitting and wait for a moment when they could get an image that they could twist to their favor. That is insane. And there is no way to twist it to say its normal or expected.

But that apparently was enough harassment. They threatened my work and my career. Next, they started to stalk my family on the internet and use a devastating injury and a charity to harass and bully my family to the point that I did have to make the painful decision to not just stop posting but to protect my blog. This is completely vile and inexcusable behavior. And the fact that it was not stopped, is a strong statement about the people clearly in control.

Why am I recounting? Because I want people to wake up and stop blaming D for every twist and turn. If this is what they were willing to do to me, a mere fan, imagine what they are well to do to him, their absolute life sources? I am just another body left behind in the carnage, D is their source of money and fame. And not just his team and his “bride” but all of the people that have ridden his coattails to have name recognition.

I wish people would realize this is not choose your own adventure book, D is a human who has been held against his will due to an enormous amount of power they clearly wield over him. How do you not see that if he could, he would end this? This has not been about him being straight in so long, straight is how they control him and how they are able to make M relevant.

And if you though this was a choice, how were you not woken up in the days following his dad’s death? I would guess not 48 hours after he buried his father, he was dragged from his mother’s home, forced to play dress up and pose for a ridiculous, cruel and inhumane set of pics. D has lied about many things, but never about his parents, he has always been nothing but reverent when he speaks about them and his love and respect for them is clear.

Clearly, I have not gone anywhere, and I am still watching and reading every word. I have actually been incredibly proud of D during the majority of press for HW. He has made so many statements that are a foundation for the truth, including telling us that young actors do things that they later learn to regret, telling us that HW has not changed, and stating that the person you see has a story we will never know.

The press to legitimize and canonize M has been laughable and beyond transparent. It is so obvious this is on his list of required duties and the fact that they did not pause if for 1 week when his dad died is absolute proof that this is not a choice.

I do have to laugh at the irony of the d “quote” about fans being mean to his poor “wife” (that he himself has called a big girl). So it is ok to bully a fan off the internet to the point that they stalked and harassed my family (and it does not matter if his was led by his team, her, her friends, or a fan in her name), but it is not ok for a small handful of fans to discuss the sad reality and point the finger at the truth?

Anyhow, this got way too long, but it has all been building up inside. This blog was such a massive part of my life and I miss it and you more than words can say. I encourage all of you to keep supporting these incredible men, I have no doubt they are worth it. I do think they next few months will bring about change, but what they change is, we still don’t know. I hope that D wins sooner than later. I am not certain how much longer he can be expected to sustain this weight. If you reached this point, thank you for reading. I am going back to my quiet corner now.

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bxstiae · 4 years

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THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; mun & muse - meme.

tagged by: i took it from @wildshero tagging: anybody who wants to i guess.... um... @lupihero / @hyaciiintho / @origcmibird / @dansiere / @drakslay / @fellcarnate / @gerudofury / @aerialarcher / there i added people.

fill out & repost ♥ this meme definitely favors canons more, but i hope oc’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. multi-muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

My muse is: canon / oc / au ( dependent on verse ) / canon-divergent / fandomless

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO.

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK.

Are they underrated? YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main story? YES / NO / MAYBE

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG.

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO / MAYBE

How’s their reputation? GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. ( it honestly depends who you ask, and when in the story it is. )

How strictly do you follow canon? — I follow enough canon to not change the plot, but its very VERY lore heavy. and it diverges post game as well. Not to mention there are some discrepancies with my Link as well. namely his eye colour. his personality is BIT more jaded than canon. but then again, he is a character that is ( in theory ) YOU. so its how YOU play the game.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals. — i mean. idk im not really a sellout in general....?? he’s... extremely interesting in the fact that you have a tired man(tm) who’s just about done with the world at such a young age. he’s the hero of hyrule, and has done many feats. he has interesting stories to tell. and he’s not at all a boring person. he’s a bit quirky, has a fan-base, and overall, who WOULDN’T want to interact with link? i mean its LINK. after all... not to mention that he’s not really PREDICTABLE for the most part. I mean he is kind of but also not at all. I just??? i think a lot of people find him interesting? he’s also very attentive at times. you literally have to throw a rock and he will look your direction.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?). — he is a selective mute. he WILL not talk. he will not approach you. you HAVE to approach him.... while he tends to be ‘OP’ he really isn’t. he’s still very much a human, and will react as such. its very hard to approach cause he has that ‘intimidating feel’ and lets not forget that he really does straight up ignore people if hey dont say anything to him. in that aspect it’s hard to interact with him. because its not like he ‘tunnel visions’ but he just wont pay attention to you if there is nothing to pay attention to.

What inspired you to rp your muse? — he’s been a muse for me since 2012. just always put on the backburner for a reason. but really? link was the ONE character that I could relate to. he was my go to guy. really. in high school, i struggled with friends and a lot of other things. but i pushed through. and honestly. link was ALWAYS a character that i turned to for that. it happened with Skyward Sword as well. when BOTW came out it was the same way. BOTW was my go to game in college because of link. so when i finally gt the wiiu version and started playing TP again, i was like. YEP im making him again. cause yes. the themes in TP are all themes that are right up my alley too. so of course i am going to find inspiration there. I ALSO found inspiration when i found some celtic music as well. I listen to msic when i write my replies. and when i was writing a reply on another blog. i found some celtic music and i just had THAT MOOD.

What keeps your inspiration going? — the game. celtic music. honestly art. vines. anythign that reminds me of TP Link keeps me going. some of the interactions i have keep me going. the PLOTS i have keep me going.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice? YES / NO.

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO. ( lol yea. )

Do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO. ( i mean i love to write drabbles tbh. I don’t think i have on link, but I would always LOVE to. though if you look at some of my asks, they can be considered drabbles. lololol i love to write. )

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO.

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO ( link is the ONE muse i never EVER lose confidence in. which is why he is such a strong character for me. link is me. straight up. and i think somebody asked me that too. he’s NOT a self insert but. i can relate SO much to him in so many ways. but i love the way i portray him cause he is very unique. i just hope that my confidence doesn’t SCARE duplicates and other people cause i would never want people to be intimidated by THIS fact that i am confident. )

Are you confident in your writing? YES / NO. ( lol yea. honestly i love to write. though my style always changed and sometimes i worry about that. cause sometimes i have prose and sometimes i dont. but im an adaptable writer which i always loved about myself. )

Are you a sensitive person? YES / NO. ( yea. both. i am both. im sensitive ooc but want to say shit about my portrayal. i don’t really care. say shit about me, and then i get upset and sad. )

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal? — depends n the criticism. I say this all the time. theres constructive criticism. and then theres. just plain hate. I accept anything thats constructive. I want to know what i need to work on or what people would want to see. link is an ever-changing muse. i learn and grow and i will take anything thats told to me nicely without the hate.

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character? — PLEASE. jsut send them my way i LOVE all the questions and character development. you dont even have to be a mutual for that.

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why? — yes and no. i mean its my HC. you are allowed to disagree with my HC. hoenstly. thats the beauty of INTERPRETATIONS. i dont expect every TP link out there to agree with all of my HCs. so long as we can all be mature adults about it and talk normally with one another. we gucci. like we are allowed to have different HCs. and honestly. I would want to know because i would want to know what YOU think about the ‘canon.’ cause it’s different. i like those differences.

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it? — idk why they would? its link? its the protag. and in a way its supposed to be different for each person anyway??? its like taking Robin or Corrin from FE. like people are allwoed to disagree with the portrayal i GUESS? but i don’t understand why anybody would like stragiht up HATE the portrayal. its just different? idk.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it? — see above tbh. but honestly. depends. do you hate him for the portrayal. or do you hate him cause of his character personality. like you’re allowed to interact with ‘bad’ characters. not that i think anybody would HATE link? but you know i could be wrong??? idk how to answer this cause what do you mean by hate? you can hate a character. but still interact with them??? idk how to compute this question???

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors? �� yes and no. honestly. i know i make mistakes. but i don’t want grammar nazi’s. i write to relax. the only time i would want people to tell me is if they were trying to figure out what i meant. does that make sense. like if they are confused on something. then its okay to tell me. otherwise if its something that is just a small mistake that you can ignore. then its no big deal. its also how you approach me too. like approach with caution. i am a delicate flower. so don’t attack me for making a mistake.

Do you think you are easy going as a mun? — i am VERY VERY easygoing!!! I want to say im VERY kind. i am very accepting and EXTREMELY FORGIVING. no joke. I want to be the kindest person out there. I dont want people to be intimidated by me. I don’t want people to be scared of hurt by me. hoenstly. I am a very nice person. I may have different opinions but i am VERY respectful to everybody even those i do not agree with. Nobody should ever feel weird about me like ever okay? please don’t. I never want bad blood. so if something ever happens between us. you are always ALWAYS more than welcome to come talk to me when emotions have fizzled out. I am very apologetic too. so like?? idk??? who would???? consider me??? and asshole??? im tired. and i shut my door fast but its mainly cause... i am tired. nothing else has to do with it. i am very excitable and happy for people who talk to me. i consider ANYBODY who talks to me a friend. im jsut??? no really. i know people are shy. but im over her a big tired ball of fluff. i only want love and happiness for people. anybody who’s talked to me can testify to this. ♥♥

that’s about it, congrats for filling out!

#⚜ ; — [ ᵗʳᵃˢʰᵇᵒᵃᵗˑᵗˣᵗ ▲ ooc. ]#⚜ ; — [ ᵗᵉᵃʳˢ ᵒᶠ ˡᶤᵍʰᵗ ▲ dash games. ]#[ i DID IT ]#[ and now i leave ]

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snowingstarlight · 4 years

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Slip and Fall

AO3 Pairing: Dazai Osamu/Nakahara Chuuya Tag: Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending TW: Suicide Attempt Chapter Two: Watch You Drown

I know words won’t take away your pain. But I’m here for you. When you feel like no one cares, I do. I’m here for you. When others judge, or criticize, or roll their eyes, I won’t. I’m here for you. If it’s 3 am and you don’t want to burden anyone, call me. I’m here for you. If it seems so dark and the walls are closing in, I’ll be your light and guide you. I’m here for you. If you feel like no one understands, I do. I’ve been there. And I’m here for you. When you can think of nothing good to say about yourself, I have a long list of good I see in you, right here for you. When you can think of no reason to go on, I will be your reason. I need to be here for you. When you are upset for no reason, you don’t need to give me a reason to be here for you. When you don’t want advice or a lecture, and you just need someone to sit with you, I’ll sit here with you. When you feel like you have failed, you haven’t. You were here for me. Now I’m here for you.

"I'm Here For You"

Author Unknown

Stark and blinding white was what greeted him when Dazai opened his eyes. For a few mute moments it seemed like reality had left, had he finally done it? But- the steady sound of a heart monitor beeped suddenly, breaking the silence and waves of disappointment and heartbreaking anguish washed over him as he registered that he was staring at the ceiling of a hospital room.

How? Why? He wanted to ask, but his throat hurt and his chest ached even more, and he couldn’t find it in him to voice it aloud even as he forcibly sat himself up. Dulled amber eyes looked around the room and his heart audibly thudded in surprise when Dazai realized he’d been in this hospital room before.

Many times before, in fact. For years Chuuya had dragged him to this hospital in the middle of Mafia territory - and with that realization did a choking noise leave the startled detective. Chuuya had saved him?

Why?

After all he had done to Chuuya, in the Mafia and after - why save him?

He was nothing but a cruel, twisted, and manipulative partner to Chuuya. Ever since they had met he'd done nothing but play the elder like a puppet on strings.

And Chuuya had let him, just as he had let Sheep parade him around as their leader when he'd been no such thing.

Dazai had expected to get bored of the smaller teen after a while, what he hadn't been expecting had been to actually care for Chuuya. He’d buried his budding feelings down far beneath as many masks and personas as he could, but the redhead always had a way to tear them down and so Dazai lied and lied and-

How long had he been lying to Chuuya’s face, and the other had known? How long had he been lying to himself?

In truth, leaving Chuuya behind had been Dazai's only regret in leaving the Port Mafia.

He hadn't known if Chuuya's loyalty to him or his loyalty to the Mafia had been stronger, and Dazai, the coward he was, had been too scared to find out. So, he’d left in a haste of emotions he didn’t know how to control and had planted a bomb in Chuuya’s car to convince Mori his partner had nothing to do with his disappearance, because Dazai didn’t know what he’d do if something happened to Chuuya because of him.

It was with great reluctance that Dazai let the nurses fuss over him for a minute after they had finally realized he was awake; he’d been staring dully out the window for far too long by then, lost in his own thoughts and wrapped up in - how’s, why’s, if’s, and so on.

Why had Chuuya chosen this hospital in particular? They would release Dazai without a care, after making sure he had enough strength to get on his feet; he’d broken out of his hospital too many times before for them to bother trying to put him on suicide watch any longer.

In fact, it was less than an hour later that Dazai was signing the release forms and stepping out into the Mafia territory he knew better than any other place in Yokohama. If his memory served him correctly - and indeed it did - then Odasaku’s grave was only a few blocks from here.

Dazai supposed he should tell his friend the good news, but it sat heavily in his stomach (which hurt like hell already, the twisted knots and aches of hunger only adding to the weight) as he padded down the streets. The world was as dull as it had been the day before; the colors blurring and greying as he followed the steps that his feet knew far too well. Idle chatter from the people around him was almost mute, the cars soundless and even the sun was nothing but a dot of light.

Oda’s grave was perhaps the brightest thing in his world as he finally allowed his tired legs to stop in front of it; Dazai nearly swaying on his feet as the exhaustion from the past twenty-four hours hit him, and yet… yet Dazai couldn’t bring himself to say anything to Oda.

Sorry for failing? I’m going to succeed next time? I’ll play the good detective until then?

Yet, when was going to be next time? As tempting as it was to throw himself off of the nearest and tallest building in the area, something twisted inside of his heart let him know that he wouldn’t -he’d been a burden on Chuuya with trying to kill himself yesterday, and Dazai… Dazai didn’t want to be a burden.

How long he stood there, the tree branches above him swaying in the breeze and rustling, he didn’t know… His legs ached, his stomach hurt, and his heart was beating far too loudly and quickly for his own comfort; taunting him, repeating over and over I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m-

Dazai jumped when a hand made contact with his arm, and turning swiftly he couldn’t help but sag a little in relief at seeing Chuuya standing there.

And suddenly Oda’s grave wasn’t the brightest colors in his life at the moment - Chuuya’s hair was so painfully bright Dazai had to fight the urge to close his eyes at the sight of the red hair, although it helped that Chuuya’s clothes were dulled in color. Mafia black, after all.

He still couldn’t find the breath to speak, but a soft tapping on his wrist had a wavering chuckle drawn out of him. He’d taught Chuuya Morse Code back when they were fifteen and learning to be partners; it had been something small between them that only they knew, and over time they’d gotten to quick and quiet at tapping to each other from across the room that they’d done it during meetings with Mori or Ane-san without getting caught.

Hirotsu had been the only one able to keep up with them, and even then it’d been a struggle for the many, they both knew. Yet, still, Morse had been their language, tapping wherever they could - walls, desks, plates, each other’s skin-

‘Come.’ Chuuya tapped onto his wrist now, soft but repeated,, and feeling like a newborn calf trying to find his legs, Dazai stumbled after the mafioso as Chuuya began to lead him away from the gravesite. How many turns and side-streets they took Dazai would mentally catalogue later, instead keeping his attention ahead of him - on Chuuya himself.

That stupid hat sat on his head, and from what Dazai could see of the Executive’s face, his lips were pressed together tightly and Dazai’s heart tugged uncomfortably in his chest - and it took a moment for him to recognize the feelings causing the pains as regret and guilt; it was his fault that look was on Chuuya’s face.

He was being a burden again, on the person he wished to be one the least.

‘Stop.’ Was tapped suddenly on his wrist, and Dazai startled as he realized that Chuuya was looking at him from the corner of his eye. It took a second for the man to realize they had both stopped walking, and the redhead was turning his head to stare Dazai down with lips pressed into a thin line. But Chuuya’s eyes were always honest no matter the expression the Executive had on his face, and hesitantly did Dazai let his amber meet soft grey. His heart stuttered at seeing the concern in them, and feeling ashamed and unworthy of such concern he let his gaze drop.

If there was anyone who knew Dazai as well as himself (and, quite honestly, probably better than) was Chuuya. Of course the chibi would know where his thoughts were drifting to, and automatically his lips curved to offer a smile, but a sharp and singular tap that was obviously a scold had the mask he'd begun to put up fall right back away.

Inhaling slowly, Dazai let a silent sigh fall from his lips as he nodded mutely; a silent agreement to not put up any of his masks in front of Chuuya, just like before... and there was a softer tap to his wrist before they started to walk again.

They were in front of an apartment building soon enough; and it took Dazai only half a second to realize it wasn’t one that he had known. So Chuuya had moved after Dazai had left? Well, that was expected, he supposed- he had placed the bomb underneath Chuuya’s car in front of the apartment building. The bomb had been big enough it’d destroy the car, but not the building or the people around it; now if the bombed car’s shrapnel had hurt anyone, well, that wasn’t directly his fault, yet the idea of it had begun to plague his mind after he’d start to grown to care about the public.

The building was one of the tallest in the area, and Dazai eyed the electronic lock for a moment as the redhead entered a passcode that Dazai knew he’d guess easily the next time he would visit Chuuya’s apartment - for now he knew where the chibi lived and undoubtedly he’d show up to annoy Chuuya - and the door beeped in conformation before opening.

Chuuya didn’t let go of his wrist as he led Dazai into the building, nor when they slipped into the elevator; there weren’t anyone in the lobby, and just by glancing around the building did Dazai doubt there were many people living in anyways - while it wasn’t Mafia territory, it was one of the richer parts of Yokohama that few could afford, and those who did likely used it as a vacation apartment.

Of course Chuuya lived in the penthouse, Dazai mused as he watched the elder hit the button for the top floor before he turned his head to look out of the glass windows in the elevator. The world seemed so small from up here, as the floor whizzed on by; would jumping from the roof kill him before he hit the ground?

It was a sudden itch to test the stupid thought that entered his mind, and Dazai shifted his wrist to instead grasp Chuuya’s hand - ignoring the sharp look Chuuya spared him - and quickly advereted his gaze from the windows, focusing instead on the numbers as they continued up.

Sixty-six floors later, they stepped out into the hallway; there was only one doorway in sight. A key was fished from Chuuya’s pocket, and he stepped first into the apartment before tugging Dazai in as well. It was furnished lavishly, the entryway and into the living room that Dazai could see; famous works of art hung on the walls, the couches looked so soft and were likely velvet in upholstery- a rack of hats stood just outside of the entryway but not quite into the living room, and that was where Chuuya settled his before finally tugging his hand away from Dazai.

It was like a lifeline had suddenly been cut away; immediately his chest began to hurt and it was getting hard to breathe, blood rushing into his ears as his eyesight darkened... before hands were pushing at the jacket on his shoulders and Dazai gasped as the cold of the door behind him registered against his back and those soft silver eyes were watching him in concern.

“Shit.” He could hear Chuuya mutter; the first words he’s heard from the chibi since their phone call and guilt washed over Dazai as it hit him again that Chuuya was concerned for him.

He opened his mouth to apologize, but a gloved hand clamped itself over his lips before he could- Chuuya was standing on the tips of his toes, scowling up at him. “Stop it, Osamu.” His body quivered at hearing his given name, and a whine left his throat before Dazai could fully stop it.

He didn’t deserve Chuuya’s concern, he didn’t deserve any pity… where was his pity when he had hurt people, when he had killed people so easily? So easily… he cared not, back then, nor could he fully feel remorse now for what he had done during that time; except for how he had easily and willingly hurt and used Chuuya.

Chuuya didn’t deserve to have a partner like him.

Slowly the gloved hand fell away and Dazai could register Chuuya saying something about needing to undress; and he let the other finish pushing away his jacket, focusing on merely breathing normally as Chuuya maintained contact this time, even if it was just the brushing of his hands against his sides or arms.

Dazai merely blinked and they were in Chuuya’s bedroom, the redhead’s own jacket and weird little half-coat discarded somewhere. He was stripping himself of the grey vest he wore over his dress shirt and Dazai was sitting on the edge of the large bed; he blinked slowly as he took in the sight of Chuuya’s bedroom - a large king-sized four-poster bed (so Chuuya’s style) dressed to the nines in what Dazai could only assume was egyptian cotton and oh the blankets were so soft…

When had he been stripped of his own shoes, pants, and shirt? Chuuya had left his bandages on, something Dazai would always be grateful about, and his boxers as well - speaking of such underthings, there was a hand on his chest pushing him back against the bed and suddenly Chuuya was straddling him.

His lips were still set into a frown, but there was more concern poured into his expression than earlier, and although Dazai could still feel the guilt washing over him in droves his own exhausted mind finally wore out what little strings had still yet to have been cut; and his world was blurry a moment later as tears stung in his eyes.

Hands gently pushed him further back onto the bed, softly prodding his side until Dazai was lying on his back and just a moment later the heavy weight of the Executive was lying on his chest and arms tucked themselves awkwardly around Dazai’s waist; the man’s breath hitching and a few hiccups escaped him as he recalled the very first time they’d done this.

It had started less than a month after Chuuya had joined the Mafia, the mafioso showing up at his bedroom door, beet red and grumbling something about not being able to sleep alone. Apparently Sheep had been one of those groups where people often bunked together - Chuuya had been mumbling something about roommates and snoring - and certainly Dazai had known his partner hadn’t been getting enough sleep, if the bags under his eyes weren’t enough of a clue, Chuuya had been on the edge of falling asleep at meetings more than once.

For some reason or another, he had let the redhead in and they ended up in Dazai’s full-sized bed on the opposite sides of the mattress, tossing half-hearted insults back and forth; although Dazai never teased him about needing this comfort.

For someone who flinched away from touches, who avoided skin contact as if it were the plague (he’d rather have the plague in truth) Dazai was touch-starved. Neither of them said anything or even acknowledged how they usually ended up cuddling in the morning - Dazai latched on to Chuuya like an octopus - or how Chuuya usually ended up sleeping well enough to drool onto Dazai’s shoulder.

It was something they fell into easily, when their missions ramped up and the migraines Chuuya got after using Corruption were soothed by having Dazai near; and whenever Dazai’s own mind ran circles around him and screamed so loud that he tried to kill himself to end them, Chuuya would drag him into his apartment and his bed and they’d stay there until they could slowly piece Dazai Osamu back together.

No Longer Human silenced the god in Chuuya’s head and Dazai got some human contact he didn’t completely hate; it was a win-win situation for the both of them on the better days.

Until Dazai had left, and there had been many sleepless nights for the both of them. How often had he ended up drinking sake until he fell asleep? Dazai couldn’t black out, and rarely did he get to the point he would’ve, but the alcohol made him sleepy and it helped; but it was a terrible coping mechanism.

He couldn’t imagine what Chuuya had gone through.

Even now, Dazai's arms had moved upwards, hands hovered uncertainly over Chuuya's shoulders as he was torn between pushing the Executive away, or pulling him close. Chuuya didn't deserve to be tainted by his inhumanity; yet, a little traitorous part of his mind whispered that Chuuya was already tainted. For The Tainted Sorrow was his ability, he housed a literal God inside of his body; and yet how many times had they found themselves like this?

How many times before had Chuuya drug him into his apartment and done what he was doing now? How many times had Chuuya been patient and far too kind, piecing his mind back together without even a single complaint?

As if sensing his hesitation (and undoubtedly he did), Chuuya shifted suddenly, rolling off of Dazai and onto his side on the bed, legs and arms pushing himself upwards. Dazai felt a hand gently prod his own side, and he rolled over to be met with Chuuya’s chest, blurry as it was as the man fought to keep from crying.

He hated losing control of his emotions - hell, he still didn’t know half the time how to cope with them, they were always so overwhelming and crushed him underneath their weight.

"Osamu." Chuuya's hands had moved along with the redhead. One hand came to cradle his head whilst the other ran its fingers through his hair. "Do… do you want to talk about it?"

No, he wanted to answer; how could he? He still honestly didn’t know fully what he was doing here, and perhaps that was the worst of these days - when he didn’t know how to function and needed a guiding hand and he still didn’t know why Chuuya was letting him do this nor why Chuuya was there and- and Dazai's brain whirled too fast for him to try and comprehend, and all that came out was a pathetic whimper. He buried his head into Chuuya’s chest and shook it, ears ringing loudly.

This was wrong. His mind insisted, the whispers and multiple voices slowly getting louder over his own screaming thoughts. He didn’t deserve compassion, he was nobody, nobody couldn’t trust anybody, and nobody ever needed comfort... but it was Chuuya.

Chuuya was one of the two people he’d always been able to open up to. You don’t deserve him. He could talk to Chuuya, but how would Chuuya react? He’d only confirm what you already know.

He doesn’t care about you.

He cares about No Longer Human.

He-

Fingers were suddenly pressing into a certain spot on his neck that Dazai loathed, just touching casually made it hurt like hell and it certainly hurt now, worse than it ever had before. Dazai whimpered aloud again, turning his head to bite into Chuuya’s sweater to keep from crying out and making anymore pathetic noises.

However, as Chuuya rubbed the tight knots out of his neck Dazai could feel the tension begin to leave his shoulders; it was like a wave of relief hit him as the pain slowly eased away. As things he hadn't realized he was tensed about melted away, eyelids drooped as the steady sound of Chuuya's heartbeat thumped beneath his ear, drowning out his own thoughts and the angry voices that’d been screaming.

Chuuya’s hand moved from his neck to slowly stroke down his back, and normally Dazai would flinch away from such contact - but it was Chuuya, and as much as Chuuya couldn’t deny him, Dazai couldn’t deny his partner either.

The darkness that claimed him tonight was welcoming and warm, the steady sound beneath his ear chasing away any nightmares that thought to plague him; leaving Dazai in blissful and swift blackness.

The bed was cold when he awoke, body aching and heart thumping too loudly for his own comfort as Dazai jolted awake. The sheets around him were soaked with sweat and Dazai felt nauseous as he sat up, biting his cheek as bile rose in his throat; belatedly he realized that he hadn’t eaten since the day before his latest attempt.

A growling stomach seemed to agree with him, and even if food still didn't have an appetizing sound to it, Dazai reluctantly rolled over and slipped out of the bed. The spot next to him was cold, meaning Chuuya hadn't been in bed for a while. A glance at the clock on the nightstand told him it was the middle of the night - even if the darkness surrounding him and pale moonlight bleeding through the curtains hadn't already.

The late evening and deep into the night was the best time for the higher-ups in the Mafia to act; less people milling around to catch them in whatever job Mori had given them.

Chuuya had left him for work, hadn't he? Dazai didn't blame him, and wouldn't admit aloud the way his stomach twisted now wasn't because of his hunger.

The chili was a workaholic after all, was it really that surprising?

Dazai shuddered as he stepped into the hallway, the sweat from being overly warm as he swept made his skin damp and the air conditioning must've been left on, chilling him.

Hadn't Chuuya been fond of freezing out his apartment? Even if his bed had been stacked with an inhumane amount of blankets, and any seating in his apartment draped with a blanket or throw.

The detective was regretting not seeking out his shirt as a light coming peering out from underneath the cracks of a doorway just down the hall caught his attention and Dazai froze mid-step.

His mind was still not functioning properly - if it ever, he mused - and Dazai decided that, well, might as well face the music and if it was an intruder in Chuuya’s house, maybe they’d shoot him and put him out of his misery.

Worse was the idea that it was Chuuya. It wasn’t the bathroom, was it? No, he remembered there was an ensuite bathroom he hadn’t minded much attention to other than a passing glance as he had left the bedroom and without giving it too much thought he slowly stepped through the hallway before he opened the door.

Ah, the kitchen… it smelled heavenly, and the sound of Dazai’s stomach growling must’ve been loud enough for Chuuya to turn around and away from whatever was sizzling on the stove when he paused in the doorway - because Dazai knew he had opened the door silently not to get caught - and soft grey met melted amber.

“Hungry?” Mutely Dazai nodded, moving to sit at the carved mahogany table that had a few dishes already set upon it, and his stomach twinged at the idea of eating a full plate. “Good, get something to eat. I’m almost done with the eggs.”

“It’s not healthy to eat in the middle of the night, chibi. Aren’t you scared of gaining weight?” It was a gentle tease, and his lips twitched faintly at hearing Chuuya snort - and imagined him rolling his eyes - as Dazai looked over the options.

Oh? French breakfast this time? He mused as he snagged a few croissants off of one plate before pulling over the butter dish, eyeing his options of jam. Eggs were swiftly deposited onto a plate by the sounds of it, and only a moment later Chuuya joined him at the table while Dazai finally plucked a jar of strawberry preserves out of the small lineup to top on his croissant.

Breakfast was a quiet affair, the scraping of forks and knives against plates and dishes doing the most of the talking. It was… almost painfully awkward, and Dazai couldn’t help the thoughts that dug through his mind.

Was Chuuya regretting helping him? Why had Chuuya saved him in the first place? Wouldn’t his life be quieter with Dazai out of it? Certainly he wouldn’t have a way out of Corruption, but they’d gone four years without it, Dazai had no doubts that Mori could continue to find ways to avoid using the last resort.

"Chuuya." Dazai suddenly called out the other's name when the redhead had moved to deal with his empty plate, and it had just been placed upon the counter when Chuuya’s head snapped up. Deciding to no longer drag out the inevitable question, Dazai asked, "Why?"

It was the question he had asked each time Chuuya had stopped or saved him from his own serious suicide attempts; each time they ended up here, in Chuuya's apartment, eating breakfast as if Dazai hadnt had a mental breakdown less than twenty-four hours ago, or that he had spilled his heart out to Chuuya.

Each time he'd been given the same answer from a very furious redhead, "Because we're partners, bastard."

It was truthful enough, even if Dazai saw that it wasn't the complete truth by the way Chuuya's lips pressed tighter or the concern Dazai blatantly ignored that seeped into Chuuya's grey eyes and tone.

But, they were no longer partners; Dazai had betrayed the Mafia, shut Chuuya out of his life - even if only to try to protect his dog - and only once since the awkward and unstable truce had been made had Chuuya and Dazai seen each other: the night that Double Black had made an encore.

"Do I need to answer that?" Wasn't the answer Dazai was expecting, and the detective fell silent; which was confirmation enough, he felt, his eyelids slipping shut and lips twisting into a false smile. What he was expecting was the sound of a harsh exhale and maybe some ludicrous answer, what he wasn’t expecting was for a bare hand to be suddenly pressed against his cheek.

He didn't dare open his eyes, heart thudding uncomfortably in his chest; he could feel it momentarily stop when the thumb brushed lightly against his cheek.

“If you didn’t want help you wouldn’t have used our codeword, Dazai.”

They had certain phrases and codewords that made sense to little others unless explained. Just like how “O’Granters of Dark Disgrace, you need not wake me Again,” was the trigger for Chuuya’s Corruption, so was “Rest now, Chuuya,” to destimulate his body after such a harrowing act to it.

Goodnight; it was to let Chuuya know that Dazai was exhausted - not just physically, but mentally as well. Goodnight; was a word that gave Chuuya a good warning that Dazai was about to try and take his life again. Goodnight; was never something they’d say directly to another - it was their version of goodbye, and they never said goodbye, only “See you later.”

Which may have been the reason that Dazai had teased the other by mentioning Snow White after being awakened by Chuuya during the whole scenario they called Dead Apple - because if his ex-partner hadn’t come when he did, well, Dazai wouldn’t be sitting across from him at the moment.

“I hadn’t meant to.” Dazai sighed, truly meaning it. In those last moments, he had wanted to say goodbye in the only way he knew how - he hadn’t had any intentions of letting Chuuya save him, he thought he’d been too far gone by that time, or that Chuuya had been far enough away.

“Doesn’t matter,” Chuuya said dismissively, thumb still brushing against his cheek. “It happened, and I’m taking the next week off and so are you.”

“Mori won’t let you,” Dazai warned as he finally allowed his eyes to open, heart racing at how close Chuuya was to him at the moment. The redhead was frowning at him, looking at him as if he was some odd puzzle he couldn’t quite solve even if they both knew Chuuya knew him so well and-

"Mori won't mind, not if it's for taking care of you." Dazai couldn't breathe, taking in the genutine answer from Chuuya - Mori should mind, Dazai was a traitor to the Mafia and even despite his many attempts at getting Dazai back, the man should’ve had his jaw crushed and three shots fired into his chest a long time ago so- so why?

Nobody cared about him- right?

But Chuuya saved him and now-

His sight was shaking and it took a second for Dazai to realize that he was shaking his head. “No,” he gasped, moving away from Chuuya and an almost hysterical laugh left the man. He had to get away- but he didn’t want to leave, he just… he… he needed space. “No… no… no.” Dazai’s back hit a wall, and he shuddered as the freezing wood met his bare skin, but he couldn’t help himself as he whimpered “No.”

It was too much.

"Osamu." It's soft, almost a whisper, like a prayer made for no one but him.

"Mori cares." He didn't expect him to-

"Hirotsu cares." -but was it beyond his fondness for just Soukoku, or the old boss?-

"Ane-San cares." -he audibly snorts at that, but a… a look from Chuuya silences him immediately-

"Akutugawa cares." -that look had Dazai trembling, heart racing in his chest and that weird burning in the corners of his eyes were back-

"I care."

-a sound like a wounded animal echoed around the room, and it took Dazai a full minute to realize it’d been him to make the noise.

The look Chuuya was giving him; a soft, oddly gentle look on the mafioso’s face, the way those steel grey eyes softened into something like liquid silver… he didn’t deserve such a look- he didn’t deserve to be looked at like he was something to be cared for - about - like a treasure.

Dazai felt like an animal trapped in a corner with no way out, and the urge to lash out was almost overpowering his deeply buried urge to be wanted.

But this was Chuuya, of all people, and Dazai knew he could… he could trust Chuuya.

Another wounded sound left him as Dazai slid down and onto the floor, hands twisting into his own hair and tugging at it desperately. The thud of him hitting the floor suddenly startled Chuuya and the redhead was there in a moment, kneeling just in front of Dazai, his lips twisted into a frown and the way his brows furrowed was almost too cute-

“Chuuya.” Dazai didn’t know what to say - what could he say? “Chuuya.” Tears were rolling down his cheeks now, undoubtedly fat and ugly, salty and hot too as they reached his lips. Arms wrapped around him as Dazai’s fingers dug painfully into his own skin, nails digging deep enough to scratch and leave marks that would stick around for a few days.

“Osamu.”

Chuuya shouldn’t care about him - Dazai had done far too much bad to the elder for him to ever expect forgiveness… but Chuuya did. Chuuya cared for him - he could read Chuuya like an open book and vise versa; and he wasn’t lying about it.

Why?

When?

How?

The words echoed in his mind but his lips couldn’t move to form the questions, instead the detective repeated Chuuya’s name like a prayer as he was pressed against a hard chest with the gentlest of hands, one curling around his neck and the other pushing his hands away from his head (those hands which moved to bury themselves into Chuuya's clothing as Dazai's arms wrapped so tightly around Chuuya it must've been painful) and softly began to card his fingers through Dazai's messy locks soothingly as the man pressed his head against Chuuya's shoulder and allowed himself to fall apart in his partner's arms, tears continuing to fall.

His mind was falling apart again, shattering into pieces with these bits of knowledge - at knowing Chuuya cared - but deep within his mind there lay something Dazai hadn’t seen in… as long as he could recall.

Hope… hope that…

That in the end…

Everything would be okay.

Maybe not perfect, but… but Chuuya was there… so it would be okay. He’d patch him up like he always had…

And everything would be okay...

Because, at least, Chuuya cared.

#BSD #Bungou Stray Dogs #Nakahara Chuuya #Chuuya Nakahara #Dazai Osamu #Osamu Dazai #Soukoku #ao3 #My Writing #tw: sucidal thoughts

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wrestlingisfake · 4 years

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Revolution preview

Chris Jericho vs. Jon Moxley - This will be Jericho’s fourth defense of the AEW men’s world championship. Moxley is the IWGP United States champion, but that title is not at stake. Moxley has not lost a singles match since August, and Jericho hasn’t lost a singles match since June, so something’s gotta give.

It was fairy clear that Mox would be getting the next big title shot after he defeated Kenny Omega on November 9. But the story only began when Jericho invited Moxley to join his heel stable, the Inner Circle. The championship wasn’t directly brought up, but it was clear Jericho’s goal was to eliminate a potential threat to his title reign. Moxley ultimately declined the offer on January 8, so on January 15 the Inner Circle beat him down and Jericho attacked his right eye with one of the little spikes on Jericho’s jacket. Moxley refused to take time off, winning a January 22 match with PAC to earn this title match. The Inner Circle has attempted to finish him off with matches against Santana, Ortiz, and “hired mercenary” Jeff Cobb, but he’s won them all while wearing an eyepatch.

The big question of this match is the status of Moxley’s right eye. The injury is just part of the story, of course, and he mostly wrestles like it’s not a factor. But if any opponent is going to work over the eye for the whole match, it’s gonna be Jericho. Even if Mox drops the eyepatch, with the idea that the eye has finally “healed,” it’s an obvious target. If he still has it on, I think the match will be slower, with longer stretches of Jericho clawing at the eye and Moxley in agony. Either way, though, Moxley should be fighting like a wounded animal, which might lead to at least one big spot that hurts Jericho enough to level the playing field.

When Jericho won the title on August 31, I figured AEW could easily keep it on him for a year or more. He’s over enough that the fans won’t start losing patience with him until maybe around Double or Nothing II on May 23. But something about this feud has really clicked, I think, and I’ve been seriously getting the vibe that it’s time for Moxley to have a title run. Nevertheless, despite all the victories Mox has racked up over the last six weeks, it feels wrong for a guy with a bad eye to score a win over the world champion. I’m picking Jericho to retain.

Cody Rhodes vs. MJF - MJF refused to take this match unless Cody complied with three stipulations. First, Cody agreed on January 15 not to touch MJF until the match starts. Second, Cody had to let MJF whip him with a belt on February 5. Third, Cody had to wrestle MJF’s henchman Wadlow in a cage match on February 19. It’s become clear that MJF never expected Cody to agree to, or successfully meet, his terms, and now the match is on and Cody wants to kill him more than ever.

This one has been building almost since AEW was first announced in January 2019, when MJF joined the cast of Being the Elite. Cody embraced MJF as his protege and best friend, but literally everyone else could see MJF was heeling on him behind his back. Then, just when people were starting to buy the Cody-MJF friendship, and hoping the turn wouldn’t come, they finally pulled the trigger on the turn. When Cody face Chris Jericho for the world title on November 9, with the promise that this would be his one and only title shot, MJF seconded him and threw in the towel. Then, just when you started to wonder if he was genuinely concerned for Cody’s safety, he kicked Cody in the nuts.

MJF is the biggest and most successful project at AEW so far--the only bigger stars in the company are guys that were already over in New Japan or WWE. So it’s going to be very interesting to see if they let the fans see Cody finally get revenge, or if MJF gets a win to propel him even higher. While I do think MJF can quickly recover from a loss, they’ve really got something here and it may be worth doing a cheap heel win. On the other hand, I’m not sure where MJF can go from beating Cody--I can’t see him in the world title picture just yet. So I expect this match to keep me guessing right up to the finish. It’s just too close to call.

Kenny Omega & Hangman Page vs. Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson - Omega and Page won the AEW tag team title on January 21; this will be their third defense. The Young Bucks won a battle royale on February 19 to earn this title shot. All four men (along with Cody Rhodes) are members of The Elite, the spinoff of Bullet Club that was recruited to create this promotion.

Page has been sullen and combative with the rest of the Elite since Chris Jericho beat him on August 31 to become the first AEW world champion. I’ve already written at length about the backstory and where I think it’s going. Basically I think they’ve teased a heel turn too hard for it to actually happen. It feels to me like the story is less about what it takes for someone to turn than what it will take for Page to accept the other three accept him as an equal partner. I think the story is designed to get us really worried for Page and them pull him back for a big hug when all seems lost. (Then again, even if that happens, it doesn’t have to happen on this show.)

It feels too early for the Bucks to win the title. They obviously have to become tag champs at some point. But they know they have to build to the perfect moment and outwit everyone who assumed they’d put the belts on themselves right away. The Bucks need to overcome incredible adversity to finally get to the mountaintop, and beating an ad hoc transitional chmpion team doesn’t cut it. So they need to convince you Omega and Page aren’t an ad hoc transitional champion team. The easiest way to do that is to give Omega and Page a successful title defense against the Young Bucks. Which also happens to be an easy way to blow off Page’s drama without doing a turn. So I’m going with the champs to retain.

Nyla Rose vs. Kris Statlander - Rose is making her first defense of the AEW women’s world championship, which she won on February 12. There hasn’t been much of a story here--Statlander just got in Rose’s face during an interview and that was that.

The match should be okay. Rose is good with the big monster heel spots, and Statlander's alien gimmick sets her apart from all the other women Rose has thrown around. But I can’t say this is a particularly important match on the card, which is disappointing since I had hoped AEW’s women’s division would be a lot stronger by this point. It feels like this is just being thrown together at the last minute to be the token women’s match on the card, like WWE used to do.

I like Statlander but it’s just not her time to be champion right now, and Rose is just getting started. This shouldn’t be a one-sided squash by any means, but Nyla should emphatically win to set the tone for her title run.

Dustin Rhodes vs. Jake Hager - This issue started on October 30, during the build to Chris Jericho vs. Cody Rhodes, when Jericho’s flunky Hager broke the arm of Cody’s brother Dustin. It took a few weeks for Dustin to stop wearing a cast, and then for some reason it took him until February 12 to demand a match with Hager so he can get revenge.

Hager debuted with AEW all the way back in October 2019, but this will be his first match with the company. In fact, it’ll be his first match of any kind since he challenged for the NWA title in November 2018. For the past couple of years he’s been focused on his mixed martial arts career in Bellator; between that and his role as a taciturn henchman, I don’t think we’re going to see much of him between the ropes.

Both of these guys look enormous now that they’re away from WWE, so this should feel like an impressive battle of the giants. But the outcome isn’t in much doubt; the smart move is to give Hager a win in his debut match, to establish his credibility as a big enforcer.

Darby Allin vs. Sammy Guevara - Guevara beat up Allin with his own skateboard on January 29, and they’ve been selling the idea that Allin’s throat was injured and he couldn’t speak. (At this point I’m not sure if Allin’s supposed to still be mute or if he just chooses not to say anything.) On the February 26 show I thought Allin was going to waffle Guevara with a skateboard to get some payback, but Sammy broke the skateboard over Darby’s head instead, so I guess they’re saving that for this show.

This is a tough match to call because they’re high on both guys and trying to get them both over, but neither is critical enough to be assured a steady string of wins. Allin is the sort of tenacious twerp that can lose again and again and still be over because he won’t quit, but I think he needs to beat guys like Guevara once in a while or he’ll start to feel like a chump. Guevara is sort of a chump no matter what since he’s Jericho’s toadie, but it’s good heel heat for the entire Inner Circle if they keep racking up wins. I could see this one going either way.

PAC vs. Orange Cassidy - Pac was griping about his big loss to Kenny Omega on February 26 when Cassidy randomly came out to get in his face, so now we have a match. Orange’s whole gimmick is that he’s lazy and can barely work up the effort to hit a guy, so the entire hype for this match is Chuck Taylor’s assurance that “this time he’s gonna TRY.” I’m very curious what that would look like.

I’m only vaguely familiar with how Orange Cassidy’s gimmick works on the indies. My impression is that he can turn it on and wrestle an intense, competitive match, but the joke is that he chooses to see how long he can get away with not doing that. Most footage I’ve seen of him has involved other wrestlers sinking to his level for comedy spots where they exchange strikes in slow motion. That’s all fine on an indy level, but in AEW it’s settled into “Orange does a couple of weak kicks but then the other guy just destroys him.” I don’t understand how any of that is going to function in a Pac match. But I expect to have fun finding out.

Pac pretty much has to win, though.

Scorpio Sky & Frankie Kazarian vs. Evil Uno & Stu Grayson - This is scheduled for the pre-show. Uno and Grayson have been trying to get people to join their stable for months, and it’s starting to cause tension as Sky and Kazarian wonder if Christopher Daniels will betray SCU to join the Dark Order. I think they’ve oversold the idea that Daniels is turning, and even if he does turn I don’t expect it to be on the pre-show. Nevertheless, the Dark Order needs a win here, so I think it’ll come from SCU worrying about Daniels. I’m pulling for Scorp, though, since I think I saw him on the elevator Friday.

#aew #revolution #chris jericho #jon moxley

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goodnightkisseu · 5 years

Text

Time To Heal - Chapter 3

→ pairing: sehun x reader

→ genre: fluff, angst, struggling musician sehun x rich reader

→ word count: 3,554

→ warnings: none

→ summary: you had your life planned out for you ever since you were a little girl. However, when your friend, Baekhyun, takes you with him to his old hangout, you meet someone, someone you were willing to risk your parents’ criticism to be with. His name was Oh Sehun. But, in the end, what you really should have asked yourself, was if Sehun was ready to face your parents…

→ masterlist // exo masterlist // time to heal masterlist

→ [prologue] [ch.1] [ch.2] [ch.3] [ch.4] [ch.5] [ch.6] [ch.7]

→ updates taglist~: @chanyeolol @meryljill-111192 @sehunscutiepie @hi-cupid

note: this week’s chapter takes a small break from the last chapter’s drama. we get to see how the pair met! I don’t have much to say in terms of notes this week, but thank you so much for supporting this fic. it means a lot!

Also, please let me know if you would like to be tagged in this story~

- ash <3

The heavy bass boomed from the speakers, pulsating through your body as Baekhyun led you through the busy dance floor. The throngs of people made navigating the venue difficult, and there were a couple of times that you were almost separated from your friend. But, Baekhyun made sure to hold on tightly to you, just so that you wouldn't get lost in the sea of people. The club was small and packed at this hour. The price to get in was low, far cheaper than any place you had been to, and the atmosphere wasn't bad at all. You understood why people wanted to be here. There was just something about it that was different from the high establishment clubs that you would typically frequent with friends. This was more low-key, more intimate. Maybe Baekhyun was right after all. You needed a change of pace.

You were in your final quarter before graduation, and truthfully, it was more stressful than expected. Though you had tried to offset your remaining project classes with simpler ones, you still ended up with a lot of work. Your project classes required endless hours of research and design, while your general courses required a lot of textbook reading. Once you added your internship into the mix that you worked at once a week, you found that you had a hard time balancing it all. You were stressed and overworked, and honestly, Baekhyun hated seeing you like this. So, one night, he showed up at your room and insisted that you take the night off, suggesting that you go with him to meet up with his childhood friends. He posited that getting away from your work and your usual circle of friends would allow you to truly relax. At first, you had declined. You felt like there was a lot of work to be done, and you couldn't just take the evening off to blow off some steam. You had lists upon lists of things that needed to be completed. Nowhere on that list was drinking into the early morning. Still, to say that you weren't curious of Baekhyun's previous life was incorrect. Unlike you, Baekhyun had grown up quite differently. His family wasn't from the elite circles. They had actually come into money due to an angel investor. Someone who had taken great interest in his father's small startup, and with that starting capital, the company was able to pick itself up. They produced the product that his father had patented, and the returns soared. Within a year, Baekhyun's family went from a small town to high society. The change was shocking for all of them, and it took some getting used to. You could tell that there were things Baekhyun still struggle with now, though his outgoing personality usually covered that all up. You and Baekhyun had become close during your time in school. Your parents had initially tried to set the two of you up on a date. But when you all realized that Baekhyun was more of a friend to you than a future spouse, your parents stopped pushing it. Still, in your friendship becoming deeper, you came to realize that, no matter how much Baekhyun hung out with your crowd, no matter how he tried to talk like the rich kids did, deep down, he was still that boy from a small town. He kept his two groups of friends very separate, but the fact that he was inviting you to meet the people he grew up with, you knew that it was a difficult thing to do. He was letting you in, and you couldn't brush that off. So in the end, you agreed to go. You slid all of your coursework back into your backpack and headed out with your friend to have a good time. Momentarily, Baekhyun stopped on his quest across the dance floor, though he held onto you tightly so that some unsuspecting male wouldn't pull you away. He took the chance to look around, eyes scanning the surrounding area, looking for a particular set of people. Your eyes followed his, and for the first time, you noticed the tables and booths that lined the back walls and perimeter of the club. Each one was filled with groups of people. Some patrons were drinking together, while others doing more than that, all in the name of a good time. Your eyes were so fixated on the upper level that you almost didn't feel Baekhyun pulling you closer to whisper in your ear. "I found them! They're on the far side of the club, at the second table from the end. It's their usual spot. Let's go!" he told you, leading you the rest of the way off the dance floor. You meandered through the loitering patrons off the dance floor, Baekhyun being a fantastic guide. You could only imagine that he had done this countless times in the past, but you didn't dare ask. As you moved further from the dance floor, the music grew more muted. It still rang through your every fiber, of course, but back here, at least you could hear those around you speaking. With Baekhyun leading the way, you were able to take in what was going around you. It was just other groups of people, making the most of their Friday night. When your friend slowed down, your eyes moved forward to see what was ahead. You only saw a handful of tables remaining at this point, but the one thing that caught your eye was an individual that stood as soon as he saw Baekhyun. He waved frantically in your direction as the pair of you approached, only stopping when the two of you were close. "Dude, what took you so long? We've been here for nearly half an hour. We started without you since it felt like you were a no-show for the evening," the male complained. The first thing that you noticed about this particular friend was his height. The booth sat on a slightly raised platform, but it was evident that he was tall by nature. He had lovely eyes, and his voice was something that you could see girls falling for. Just as you were giving him a once over, he became aware of your presence, leaning to look around Baekhyun and get a better look at you. "This a new girlfriend of yours?" he questioned, brow slightly furrowed. "I thought you were seeing a different girl. Did you change your mind already?" Baekhyun didn't have to turn around to know that you were intrigued by his friend's comment. He was always very open with you about the people he was seeing, but he hadn't quite mentioned his significant other yet. This wasn't quite the place to talk about her, however. Instead, Baekhyun just shook his head, ignoring his friend's earlier inquiry. "Naw, she's a friend from my classes. She's the one I told you about. My actual friend. She was going to spend the evening in working on her homework, but I thought that she'd have a much better time spending it with us," he explained, all the boys in front of you nodding in response. "Ah, so she's one of the rich girls you're usually hanging around," the tall male blurted, earning him a slap on the side of his head once he was seated. Though you didn't know who he was, you appreciated the gesture. Even if your background warranted the title, you hated being referred to by wealth. It felt odd. "Chanyeol, watch your mouth. She's our guest for the evening, so don't be rude," he reprimanded. He had an older air about him, and you could only assume that he was older than you by his mannerisms. "You are more than welcome here. Baekhyun has told us how busy of a quarter this is for graduating students. You must also be swamped by work and looking for an outlet to blow off some steam," he added, giving you a smile. The male then gestured for all of the boys to scoot inward, and with a bit of trouble, they did just that. Moving towards the center, left the two ends of the table free and you and Baekhyun were quick to fill them. Since you had departed that evening, you had grown used to being attached to Baekhyun, and now you were separated. Even so, the boys were quick to ease you in by introducing themselves. They started things off with the male that you knew as Chanyeol. He was the one that stood to greet you. The one that hit him was named Minseok. Now that you got a good look at him, he had a very young face. But much as you had guessed, he was indeed older, regardless of his youthful appearance. Sitting quietly in between Baekhyun and Chanyeol was Kyungsoo. He hadn't said much, nor had he really reacted. But when it came to greeting you, he gave you a small bow and the hint of a smile, welcoming you to the group. Next to Minseok was Jongdae, whose feline-like lips curled into the most mischievous grin as he introduced himself. You had a feeling you would have to be worried about him, but not for an ominous reason or anything. And last, but surely not least, sitting right next to you was Sehun. When you had initially taken your seat, you didn't get a good look at him. But now that you were face to face, you felt utterly awestruck by him. From your point of view, he was beyond handsome. He had that look that was almost too good to be true, the look that a lot of guys in your social circle tried to achieve. His eyes felt like their pierced right through your heart. His facial features looked like they were sculpted from the most elegant marble. Everything about his just seemed to be too much, too good. So when he asked for your name, it was no surprise that you stuttered it out, having become nervous in his presence. Still, whatever nervousness you had was quickly washed away. The boys very easily let you into their circle, doing their best to make you comfortable. But not without asking some questions, of course. They were mostly curious as to how you knew Baekhyun, and if their friend was a different person around the wealthy. You told them about the entry-level course the two of you took, wherein you became partners for the entire quarter. That partnership turned into a full-on friendship. The two of you went to parties together and did your coursework together. You listened when Baekhyun had a bad breakup, and you were also the one to get him home when he was a little too drunk. You told them that he didn't seem much different, except that he was more relaxed here. They, in turn, jeered and teased, saying that he never talked about that sentimental stuff with them. After all of their teasing, they told you about themselves, and Baekhyun's life before he joined your ranks. They didn't skip out on any embarrassing details, like the time they made him act a fool in front of this girl he had a crush on since grade school. You could tell that Baekhyun was dying having to relive it all, but you enjoyed learning more about your friend. You were particularly surprised to learn how they had all met because Sehun was trying to put together a band back in grade school. Something that started on a whim was now the thing they pursued, looking for that glamorous recording contract. Even more so, you were astounded to find that Baekhyun had also been part of the band. Apparently, as a kid, he had always wanted to sing for a living. It had been his talent. However, when Baekhyun's life shifted, there was no way that he could continue on with the guys. He couldn't make it to practice, and his life completely changed. The boys still kept in touch, but there was no way that Baekhyun could continue to be their singer. "Actually, back in the day, when we had just gotten serious about pursuing careers in music, Jongdae and I used to fight all of the time. We both wanted that lead singing position so bad," Baekhyun told you with a small smile. It looked a little sad to you, given what you knew now, but you didn't push on it. "Their fights used to get so heated that Kyungsoo and Minseok had to physically separate them," Chanyeol pointed out. "It's a miracle we still have a band, honestly." "You're over-exaggerating! It never got that bad," Jongdae countered. Though his insistence was met with a scoff from Kyungsoo. "Apparently Baekhyun hit you so hard in the head that you forgot about that black eye..." With more alcohol in them, they continued to bicker, Baekhyun joining in as well. Seeing them like this made you giggle. Though Baekhyun was far more relaxed around you, this was not a side of him that you were used to seeing in front of your mutual friends. He held himself differently around them. It was nice to see him more comfortable and having fun in his own way. As the boys continued to rowdily argue amongst themselves, over that noise, you heard someone call your name. You were just about to take a drink but were quick to turn and face the individual, seeing Sehun's eyes on you. His gaze was really something else, and if your cheeks weren't red from the alcohol, they were definitely red after making eye contact with him. The two of you hadn't said much to each other at that point. Chanyeol and the others definitely drove the conversation. Though you had to admit, the few times that Sehun did speak up, you were utterly enchanted by him. You knew he was the type of person that women would likely fall for. Stoic, handsome, an absolute charmer, and you guess that it worked on you too. "The others won't tell you this since they aren't very good at expressing it. Their pride often gets in the way, so they don't talk about their feelings very freely. But, on everyone's behalf, I would really like to thank you for taking care of Baekhyun for us," he told you sincerely. You could feel the heat rising to your cheeks at his simple, but pointed words. "You don't need to thank me. Baek is as much my friend as he is yours. He's a good person. There's not much I have to do except make sure that he gets home okay," you pointed out sheepishly. Sehun smiled at you then, an expression that you hadn't seen much that evening. "We worried about him, you know. We worried about what would happen to him, getting thrown into a completely different class after his family got all of that money. I'm glad that he has someone like you looking out for him. You're very kindhearted." "I don't think the transition was easy for him, but he's doing well," you admitted. "But one thing that you guys never have to worry about. You will always be his home. I mean, look at how happy he is right now," you teased, hearing Sehun laugh for the first time that evening. It sounded so full and genuine. "I suppose you're right. Even if Baekhyun isn't physically with us, we do seem to be the place he comes back to," Sehun agreed. You could tell that he had more to say, more that he wanted to know, but Sehun lost his opportunity. The other boys pulled you both back into their ridiculous conversation, now talking about their next gig. And just like that, the night got away from all of you... From that moment on, you found yourself hanging out with Baekhyun and his old friends on a somewhat regular basis. Baekhyun was relieved at how well you fit into his little friend group, and so he invited you to more of their outings. When the two of you had time away from internships and classwork, you would grab dinner with them. If the stars aligned and you could disappear for the evening without your other friends knowing, you and Baekhyun would go to their shows. Just as Baekhyun had fallen into your life, so had five wonderful people. After spending so much time with them, there was one thing that you were well aware of. You were developing feelings for Sehun. Initially, you had thought that it was just a mild crush, something you would get over in a month, but when it evolved into more than that, you knew that you were in a bit of trouble. You tried to not make it apparent, spending more time conversing and interacting with the other boys than you did with Sehun. But the moment that the two of you were left to your own devices, whether it be the other boys running ahead, or talking about a topic amongst themselves, you had to interact with Sehun. And every time you did, you swore you felt something there, something more than just friendship. Sehun was very different from that first time you met him. He was far sweeter, and gentler than you had given him credit for. By your third meeting, he had completely broken out of his shell, that stoic image no longer something you associated with him. He was more playful and shared the same energy that the other boys did. Though there were times that the charmer would jump out of him in any given situation, he could be just as fun and entertaining as the others. Your sudden closeness and interest in Sehun did not go unnoticed by Baekhyun. He saw every laugh the two of you exchanged. He saw the loving gazes and the smallest touches. Sehun was always the most prominent advocate of getting you home quickly when you had too much to drink, a stark contrast to the other boys who wanted to keep going. The evidence was there, and Baekhyun confronted you about your feelings towards Sehun. And being the good friend you were... you denied it. You refuted every little thing that he brought up. The two of you were close, and you had become good friends with his friends over the last year. You didn't want to upset him by admitting that you had fallen for one of them. You all had a good thing going... even if every bit of proof that Baekhyun threw at you was real. You would continue to deny it. This only got you so far... and it all came crumbling down the night that Sehun stopped by. Rarely did Sehun come to visit you or Baekhyun on campus. He usually stayed away like the plague, unlike the other boys. But that night, he had come looking for Baekhyun. Unfortunately, you had to let him know that your dear friend was out for the evening, getting dragged to some party. He looked a bit bummed about it, but it didn't seem to bother him much. Out of the blue, he asked if he could still stay for the evening, not having any plans of his own. Though you told yourself that it was a bad idea, you agreed anyway, his presence always welcome. You had some work that you had to finish for your internship that night, and though you told him you could do it later, Sehun insisted that his appearance not interrupt your plans for the evening. Instead, he sat silently by your side, watching as you worked, hands moving around the designs as you searched for the ones you needed. Sehun never spoke, his eyes just following your every move, eyes tracing over each of your features. Unconsciously, Sehun reached a hand out to brush some stray hairs behind your ear so that he could get a better look at you. The action seemed to knock you right out of your trace as you turned quickly to look at him. The moment your eyes locked, you were both done for. Sehun took the opportunity and leaned in to tenderly brush his lips against your own. Once your lips met, you could feel yourself melting under his touch, your eyes closing at the softness of the kiss. There was no denying how you felt for each other then. Your bodies made the move that neither of you dared to speak into existence. Of course, this wasn't something either of you could keep a secret. The moment that you both settled into the kiss, the front door opened and Baekhyun came right in, eyes taking in the image of his two friends kissing. He told you both to just bite the bullet and date, that it was more awkward watching the two of you dancing around each other. And the rest after that was history. After a year of getting to know each other, of pretending that there wasn't something there, it finally happened. Ever since the night you had met him, you knew that Sehun was not someone that you were willing to lose…

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