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thejollyroger-writer · 4 years

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One for the Books (1/1)

SUMMARY: Killian Jones is a grad student who works for the Storybrooke University Library. He's searching for some lost books, last checked out by the elusive Teaching Assistant Emma Swan -- and when he goes to find them, he finds a lot more than he bargained for.

Rated G // 5.6k // on AO3

Thanks to @shireness-says for always cheering me on

Some interested folks: @kmomof4 @let-it-raines @thisonesatellite @scientificapricot @ohmightydevviepuu @pepperspotts @resident-of-storybrooke @teamhook @ultraluckycatnd

-- -- --

to: [email protected]

from: [email protected]

August 20 10:14am

Dear Miss Swan,

I hope this email finds you well. My name is Killian Jones, and I am the new records and collections graduate assistant for the Storybrooke University Library. I am writing to you today because, according to our records, there are quite a few volumes from our library that you have borrowed and never returned. You will, of course, not be fined for these items; I am simply reaching out to make sure that they are still in your possession, and to ask that you kindly bring them to the library to return or renew as necessary. The list of items is as follows:

Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 1953, Volume I.

Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 1953, Volume IV.

Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 1953, Volume VII.

Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 1953, Volume X.

Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 1953, Volume XXI.

Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 1953, Volume XXIII.

Leuven University Press, Sexuality and Psychoanalysis: Philosophical Criticisms, 2010.

Moore, Burness E. Psychoanalysis: The Major Concepts, 1995.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to me in any of the ways listed below.

Thank you,

Killian Jones,

Records and Collections, Storybrooke University

Gold Library, rm. 120A // 545-1212

to: [email protected]

from: [email protected]

September 23 2:46 pm

Dear Miss Swan,

I hope the first few weeks of the semester have gone well for you. I am following up with my previous email, where I sent a list of volumes from our university library that have been checked out under your name. We now have a graduate student writing on psychoanalysis and he is hoping to utilize a few of the volumes you have checked out over the next few weeks. If you would be able to return these items to the library at your earliest convenience, we would greatly appreciate it; even if they have been misplaced, we would still like for you to come and fill out the paperwork so this student can request them from another library. I am in my office every day from 8-3 for you to do this, or I could send you the form for you to print and return. Again, if you have any questions, please reach out.

Thank you,

Killian Jones

Records and Collections, Storybrooke University

Gold Library, rm. 120A // 545-1212

to: [email protected]

from: [email protected]

September 29 8:36 am

Miss Swan,

I am writing once again to inquire about the Freud volumes checked out of the library under your name. Since there is a graduate student waiting for them, and since we are unable to request copies from another library until they are officially marked as missing, I would appreciate your response in regards to these items. If it would be easiest for you, I will gladly come to your office to retrieve them.

Killian Jones

Records and Collections, Storybrooke University

Gold Library, rm. 120A // 545-1212

Killian slams his laptop shut with a huff, then runs his fingers through his hair. “This damned psychology professor,” he mumbles, though he realizes when he hears Dr. French’s laugh coming from her office that the door between them is wide open.

Oops.

“She’s not a professor, you know."

"Pardon?" he asks, mostly because the humming of his mind was much louder than his advisor's comment.

"Emma Swan," Belle says, and Killian leans back in his chair so he can see her. "She's not a professor. She's a TA for Dr. Hopper."

"A TA should still know to respond to emails and return books to the library."

Belle laughs again. "Well, you're not wrong."

"So what do you suggest our next move is?"

Belle pushes her chair away from her desk and steps out into the open area where Killian's desk resides, then leans against the doorframe. "If we didn't have a grad student looking for them, I’d say just let it go. But for the sake of Mr. Mills, might I suggest visiting her office during her posted office hours?”

This is just about the very last thing Killian wants to do, despite offering to pick the books up in his last email. If she wasn't watching him, if she was still sitting in her office, he would have held his head in his hands, wishing for any other option. Six years in the naval reserve he can handle, but trying to get books from enthusiastic academics? He does a much better job with his head buried behind the computer screen, politely (or, if the case requires, slightly passive-aggressively) asking them to return books or to come talk to Belle.

But he knows he can't get out of this one, not when there's a bright lad like Henry Mills relying on him. “When? It’s been a month since the first email, and almost a week since the second.”

Belle squints her eyes to look at the calendar hanging behind him. “Today is what, Tuesday? If she doesn’t get back to you by Monday, I would go to her first office hours of the week. Those usually have fewer students.”

He just nods, but when she returns to her office, he does hide his face in his hands.

The days pass like calendar pages flying off, cartoonishly, all with no response from the elusive Emma Swan. Every time he hears the ping of his email notification, he hopes it is a response from her, stopping him from the embarrassment he knows will ensue on Monday morning, at her 10:00 office hour.

But alas, Monday comes with no response from her, and he tries to hold his head high and he knocks on the door to her office.

He doesn’t know what he expects to find on the other side of her door, but the bright green eyes and high golden ponytail is certainly not it. He had a whole speech in his head, practiced while driving and in the shower, demanding the Freud volumes back for the sake of Mr. Mills — but the face that greets him erases all of his carefully-practiced words in one fell swoop.

Absolutely speechless.

A few moments pass without him uttering a word, after which she raises a single, perfect eyebrow at him. “Can I help you?”

He clears his throat, trying to put some of the confidence back in his posture — and trying to slow the quickening pace of his heart, even as he feels it in his throat. “Yes. Uh, hi. You don't know me, but I’m Killian Jones, from the—”

She cuts him off with a breath of a laugh and a hand held up between them. “You’re from the library.” It's not a question, but he nods anyway. “You’re here for Freud.”

His confidence deflates. “Uh, yeah,” he mutters.

She cocks her head to the side. "You're older than I expected."

Now he is dumbstruck once again. Absolutely speechless, save the weak "Pardon?" that comes out as barely more than an exhale.

But she ignores him, turning away from him, though she leaves the door to her office wide open behind her, so he steps through it and into her small space. The entire room is lined with bookshelves save the space that her small desk takes up and the two filing cabinets beside it.

He realizes in this moment, watching her scan her shelves for the missing items, why he is suddenly so tongue-tied, why his practiced speech flew out the metaphoric window the moment she opened her office door: she's beautiful, without a doubt the most gorgeous woman he's ever seen, from her shining emerald eyes to the confidence that seems to exude from her very being, attractive in ways beyond the physical, ways that he can not even begin to explain.

"I really appreciate your coming all the way across campus to find these," she says, starting to pull books off one of the higher shelves. "I've been out the past two weeks at a couple conferences, and I forwarded the list of items to a friend of mine in hopes that he could come and pick them up, but it appears he's as bad at doing favors as he is in bed."

Killian feels the tips of his ears turning red even as she immediately spins on her heel, covering her face with her free hand.

"Oh my god," she mutters. "I'm — I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to say that out loud."

Killian does the only thing his body allows him to and laughs, though every neuron in his brain screams at him to stop.

Thankfully, she joins in, and for a moment, he can swear that her smile actually brightens her dark office, that her laugh brightens his dark life.

"Neal Cassidy, ladies and gentlemen," she says between laughs, which only causes them to laugh harder. "Altogether grossly incompetent."

Killian is glad he's never heard of this man before; he's not sure how he would have handled it if he had.

"Anyway," she says after taking a few deep breaths to try to calm herself. She turns back to the bookshelf to add a few more items to the pile in her arm, but one of them almost falls to the ground. It happens in a flash, really: Killian rushes to try to catch it, though the pile in her arms also begins to topple, and his ankle catches hers as she tries to stop the books from falling — and just like that, they're both on the floor, surrounded by volumes of Freud's Complete Works, Standard Edition.

"Sorry," he mumbles, reaching towards the book that is closest to him only to find that it's one titled Sexuality and Psychoanalysis.

The irony of it doesn't stop his embarrassment from reddening his cheeks once more.

"What the hell is happening in here?" another voice asks, and they both realize there's someone standing in the doorway to her office. "Ems, who is this guy?"

"Oh my god," Emma mutters, moving onto her knees, and he uses the bookshelf to quickly pull himself up so he can help her to her feet. "What do you want, Neal?" she asks, avoiding his question entirely.

Neal? Killian wonders if it's the same Neal she mentioned before, but he pushes the thought away when he finds himself wondering just how good in bed this man can be by the looks of him.

(A bit Freudian? He would say so.)

"I just wanted to bring you some coffee," he says, a hint of anger in his voice as he holds up one of the to-go cups he is holding. "Only to find you on the floor of your office with some guy."

Killian is suddenly overcome with an unexplainable anger, something he knows he has been trained to repress — but here, he feels incapable.

Thankfully, Emma speaks first, crossing her arms over her chest, and he takes the time she uses to speak to calm himself, seeing that she is fully capable of handling her own battles. "I've told you so many times, Neal, I don't even drink coffee. And not that I have to explain myself to you, but it was an accident. I dropped some books and…” She falters, realizing she never learned his name, but continues past it: “... he was just helping me pick them up, which wouldn't have been necessary had you come to my office last week and taken them to the library like I asked."

(That answers that question, he thinks; then, My God, I have to get out of here.)

"I really should go," Killian mutters, his anger replaced with embarrassment, and he focuses his energy on picking up the books from the floor, trying to wish the obvious signs of embarrassment off of his face.

"Yeah, you should," Neal spits.

Killian would swear, looking back on this moment, that he could feel Emma's anger in this moment, swelling like a balloon and filling her small office, almost radiating off of her.

"No, Neal," she says, crossing the space between herself and the door before pushing her hands against his chest and expelling him into the hallway. "You should leave."

And then she slams the door in his face.

A beat passes, Killian focused on the rise and fall of Emma's shoulders, though she is still facing the door. When she turns around, there is a smile plastered across her face, but he also notices the shine of held-back tears in her eyes.

"Sorry," she mumbles, and Killian struggles to find a way to change the subject to anything except what he just witnessed, but finds himself unable to speak once more. "It's just — he's…" She takes a breath, sitting down on the extra chair opposite the one behind her desk, and she hangs her head. "This whole thing was a mistake, really." For a moment, Killian thinks she's talking about him, his stomach turning violently with the thought that something he did caused this goddess this much pain — but then she continues. "I never should have… when I met him at the bar, I didn't even think that he could work at the university, even if he works for maintenance. I'm usually much smarter than that, I swear, but it was the beginning of summer and most of the students were gone and I finally had some free time to myself, so I just wanted to—"

She turns her eyes up at him, the moisture that's filled them threatening to run down her cheeks, but he's in the seat across from her in an instant, his own hand reaching out to cover hers. He's terrified, afraid that he's made the wrong move — that he's no different than the asshole she just had to kick out of her office.

But then she smiles.

"You don't have to tell me this if you don't want to," he says, the words as soft and honest as he is able to make them.

He only hopes it's enough.

She nods, pulling her hand away from his to wipe the bottom of her eyelids, and the last thing he expects is for her to return her hand to his — but that's exactly what she does, and he can swear his heart does a little happy dance against his ribs. "Oh my god, this is so embarrassing," she says softy, smiling down at where their hands are touching on the desk. Killian shakes his head in disagreement, but she doesn't see it, shaking away another soft, embarrassed smile. "And Freud thought the women he saw were crazy."

For what feels like the millionth time since he knocked on the door to her office mere minutes ago, he has absolutely no clue how to read her.

"Are you sure you don't want me to go?" he asks, though he immediately regrets it, watching her face fall.

"If that's what you want…" she says, letting her words fade before finishing the thought.

No, he realizes, and the thought rejuvenates him; he sits up straighter, he can feel his blood flow faster, can feel his heart pound with a little more confidence.

(Christ, Jones, heartbeats don't have confidence.)

"That's not what I want."

"Good," she whispers, the smile returning to her face. “Because he might — knowing him, he’ll probably come back, and I don’t really want to deal with that quite yet.”

“Well, I’ll just stay here until you feel comfortable again.”

“Thanks.”

A beat passes, and Killian realizes for the first time just how awkward this whole situation is. Thankfully, Emma seems to be much better at small talk than he is:

“So, tell me something about yourself…” She trails off again, and this time, Killian offers her his name.

“Killian. Jones.” She nods, a soft smile spreading across her face, and he continues. “But I’m, uh, just starting the lib sci grad program, and I came here since my brother knows Belle pretty well.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” she mumbles, looking up from the desk that sits between them. “You look a little old for a first-year grad student.”

“That’s not technically a question, love,” he jokes. “But yeah, you’re right. I’m not technically what they call a traditional student. I got my bachelor’s all over the world in the naval reserves, but decided to settle down for my masters.”

She huffs out a laugh. “In Storybrooke?”

“There’s a base not too far from here where my brother works. I was done with traveling, done with the hustle and bustle of cities, and this just seemed like the perfect place for me to be.” She hums. “What about you, Swan?”

She shrugs, and for a moment, Killian thinks this is going to be her only response. The silence of the room becomes deafening for one — two — three beats of his heart, but then she opens her mouth to speak. “I never had any roots, and I just wound up in Storybrooke. College was the first time I was able to make decisions for myself, and I just… Stuck around, I guess. I changed my major three times, got two master’s degrees, and I think Archie — I mean, Dr. Hopper’s going to keep me here once I get my PhD.” She sighs. “Sorry, that was a lot.”

“Well, I mean, we are stuck here.”

She laughs, but another silence fills the small office. This one lasts longer than the last, Emma even going so far as to chew on the cuticle of her thumb, her gaze traveling around the room instead of looking at him.

Killian, for some reason, can only think of the man that they’re in this situation because of — Neal. He knows that different people are attracted to different things, and he… Well, with no better way to think of it, he could think of nothing about the man they saw that was even slightly attractive. Sandy brown hair, average build, average… Average everything, really.

“Can I ask you something?” he says, not even meaning to break the silence around them.

She hums, though her attention still seems to be outside the small window behind him.

“Why him?”

“What?” She sounds angry, but also something else. Killian kind of believes it’s humored. He hopes it’s humored.

“That guy. Neal? He’s — well, not to be crass, love, but he seems like he’s kind of a bastard.”

She laughs. Not just a huff, not just a breath, but a real, straight-from-the-belly laugh. And it lasts for a while, longer than Killian feels like it should have, though he’s certainly not complaining. It’s a beautiful sound, a lovely sound, a sound that (almost literally) brings light to his life. Nothing bad can happen when that sound is around him.

(Christ, Killian, pull yourself together.)

“Damned if I know.”

“Well, what do you look for in a guy?” he asks, not even meaning for it to sound as… well, as desperate as he realizes it does.

“Why?” she laughs. “Are you interested?”

Shit. He already feels the tips of his ears reddening, his cheeks growing warm with embarrassment that he has no defense against. "Uh, I mean—" he tries, and he could swear that his chest is radiating heat. "That's not — I didn't—" he stammers, and she laughs again. Sure, he's an absolute idiot, no way to hide his embarrassment from the beautiful woman sitting across the desk from him, but just hearing the sound of her laugh again makes him feel better, even if it is at his own expense.

"Relax," she says, reaching out to touch his hand again, and she offers him a soft smile. "Besides, there really isn't any rhyme or reason to it anyway." He has just started to relax, his heart pounding a little lighter and his body temperature returning to a normal number, when she asks, "Why, what about you, Jones? What do you look for in a woman?"

Beautiful, brilliant blonde goddesses like yourself, he thinks.

For what he could swear is the longest moment of his life, he's unsure of whether he only thought it or not.

And then, she's leaning across the desk, her hand wrapping around the back of his neck to pull his lips to meet hers.

It's far from his first kiss; he's been in the company of enough women to know his way around one. But for some reason, this moment, this woman in particular, catches him off-guard, and he is only able to focus on the soft warmth of her, the feel of her lips against his and her hand on the back of his neck, her fingers sliding up into the longer hair at the base of his neck. He's frozen, unable to respond in any way beyond simply opening his lips slightly to her —

Until he pulls away, cursing himself even as he does it, especially once he sees the terror in her shining green eyes, so obviously wondering if she has done something wrong.

"I, uh… thanks," he stutters, running his fingers through his hair as he jumps up from her desk chair. "I, uh, I really have to go."

As quickly as he is able, he removes himself from her office, though he shows enough self-restraint to not take off down the hallway at a full sprint even though it is what every bone in his body wants him to do.

It’s not until he’s out of the building that he takes a moment to slow down and really realize what he has just done, ifsting his hair with both of his hands.

“Oh, Killian, you absolute idiot!”

He wants to scream, and if he weren’t surrounded by undergrads who he knows are already judging him, he just might.

An idiot. An absolute dunce. Why did it have to be this week that Liam is training in Rhode Island? Why now, when the thing Killian needs the most is advice from his older brother?

Okay, not most; the thing he needs most is to go back a mere minute and not run away from the girl who kissed him.

But he can’t do that. And even just walking back up to her office would be too embarrassing, too much for him. So he does the only thing he can do, and continues down the sidewalk and back to the library.

(It’s not until he’s back in his office, with Belle eyeing him questionably, that he realizes he came back empty-handed.)

She spends most of the afternoon wondering what to do. She knows she acted out of turn, knows she made a mistake, but there was just something about him, not an innocence, per se, but something… different. Something that sets him apart from most, if not all, of the men she finds herself in the company of.

For one, he didn’t seem like a total idiot, unlike the majority of men whose beds she tended to find herself in. Even in the little time she spent with him, she could tell that he was different, and she liked it. She liked that he saw her as a person, with a brain and a personality, and not just as body parts, not just as a vessel that could provide pleasure. Even the men she meets at conferences have all been assholes, men like Walsh ___ who feignd interest in her presentation just to come waltzing up to her afterward and ask her to dinner — which he just talked through, barely giving her a chance to speak.

But Killian, from what she could tell, is nothing like Walsh. Or like Neal, who keeps ignoring her refusals and turning up at her office. (She’s glad she went back to his apartment and not the other way around, because she fears what he may have done had he known where she lived.)

Killian, who came all the way across campus to retrieve books from her office, agreed to stay to keep her company, and then she kissed. Like an idiot. She saw the way he got flustered when she started to flirt with him and it got to her. Was it an overreaction? Maybe. But there were definitely alternatives to taking that sort of action against someone whose shyness was apparent all morning.

She gets nothing done for the rest of the day. The piles of ungraded papers that cover her desk taunt her, but every time she picks up her pen and starts to read, her mind begins to wander immediately — to Killian, to his response to her. Wondering if she made a mistake that she can never fix. Wondering if he is sitting in his office, unable to work, only able to think about her. (Maybe even hoping for this one?)

The screensaver on her desktop tells her it’s 2:23. Literal hours have passed since Killian left, and she has accomplished nothing.

Tapping her password out on the keyboard, she pulls up her university email and types his name in the search box, hoping that one of his previous emails answers her question. She vaguely remembers seeing the hours he’s in his office in one of them, she just needs to figure out which one.

Bingo.

“8-3,” she says to her empty office. She should stay, should at least try to accomplish something after being gone for almost two weeks, but she knows it is useless. So she grabs her red leather jacket off the back of her chair, locks her office door behind her, and makes her way out of the building.

(When she gets to the steps, she realizes she has left the library books behind, just as Killian had when he left earlier that day. With a huff, she turns around, stuffs them in one of her tote bags, and leaves her office once more.)

Pushing through the library doors, she realizes that she’s been at this university for upwards of ten years, and never learned where the Records and Collections Office is. She knows Killian included his office number in his signature, but finding that would take more time than she wants to spend, so she approaches the desk.

“Can I help you?” The student who sits behind the desk catches her attention for a moment, a tall male, probably in his mid-20’s, with blond hair with a pink tinge to it, wearing a dark purple satin shirt and matching purple eyeliner in perfect, identical wings. His name tag reads Tyler.

“Uh, yeah,” she says, hoisting the canvas bag higher on her shoulder. “I’m looking for the Records and Collections Office?”

He offers her a smile. “Sure! Room 120. Up the stairs, to the left, all the way down.”

She returns his smile, doing her best not to just run off to find what she came here for. “Thanks.”

The room that houses the main collection seems much larger than the open area that fills the same space the floor below it, and with every shelf she passes, she feels like three more come into view. But, finally, a row of doors come into view, with the words “RECORDS AND COLLECTIONS” hanging on the wall above them.

119. 121.

Didn’t Tyler say 120?

She tries 121, knocking softly though the door is wide open. She is greeted by a younger girl, most likely an undergrad, with one side of her head shaved and the rest of it pulled into a braid that hangs over her shoulder. “What can I do for you?”

“Uh, I’m looking for Killian Jones? I thought they said it wa room 120, but—”

“Yeah, they can’t seem to number rooms in a way that makes sense around here. You have to go through room 119 to find Killian and Dr. French. I don't think Zoe's in her office, so room 119 should be empty."

"Thanks."

Room 119 is, in fact, empty, but the door inside, the one with Killian's name on it, is closed.

She takes a deep breath, hoisting the bag of books up again, and knocks on the door. She wonders if this is how Killian felt knocking on her door that morning, with her heart pounding in her throat. Probably not, she tells herself, breathing out a laugh to try to calm her nerves.

"Come in!" his voice calls, and she can feel her heartbeat in every cell of her body.

What the hell, Emma.

But when she grabs the door knob, she realizes that at least part of her nervousness is valid, because for all the time she spent sitting in her office thinking about their earlier interaction, she has given zero thought to what she's going to say to the man on the other side of the door.

Too late now.

Deep breath.

And she opens the door.

He looks as flustered as she feels, with his hair standing in all directions, as if he's been tugging at it and running his fingers through it. The thin-framed glasses perched on his nose just add to the ensemble, his bright blue eyes already wide through them, and they only widen more when he sees her standing in the doorway.

"Hey."

He blinks. Then again, as if trying to convince himself that she's really there. That may be exactly what he's doing. "Swan," he breathes, one corner of his lips ticking up in a smile. "Hi."

She holds up the bag full of books, offering him a small smile. "I think you're looking for these."

He returns the smile, but it disappears after just a moment. "Well, I thank you, love, but you didn't have to bring them all this way."

"It was the least I could do after all the trouble someone went through to pick them up this morning."

"You could have dropped them off downstairs."

It's now that she realizes that just because she wanted to see him again, he doesn't necessarily feel the same way, and that could explain his cold responses to her.

She lets her smile fall. "I could have."

"Why didn't you?" The question is simple enough, straight and to the point.

"Christ, Killian," she huffs, letting her anger get the best of her. "I didn't come here to return the books."

"Then why did you come?"

"I wanted to apologize," she says, dropping the bag of books on his desk �� and when she opens her mouth to speak again, the words tumble out like a waterfall, unable to be stopped. "I could tell I made you uncomfortable and I've been sitting in my office all day, wishing I did something differently, but since I can't go back, I decided the least I could do to make up for it was to bring you these books and ask you if you wanted to go to dinner with me, but obviously you and I aren't on the same page, so—" She shrugs, throwing her arms in the air, and turns away from his desk.

There's a shuffle from behind her, but it's not until he says, "Yes! Yes, okay," that she turns back around, realizing that he's stood up.

"What?"

"Dinner. With — with you," he stammers. "That's — I want that."

Again, she just says, "What?" but this time it's paired with the beginnings of a smile.

"I've been thinking about what happened all day. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, even with everything I was supposed to be doing."

She takes another step towards him, her smile growing. Finally, he returns it with one of his own. "Yeah?"

"Aye."

Rocking back on her heels, she looks down at her watch. "It's only 3:00."

He laughs, already seeming much more relaxed than he has been since she opened the door to his office. "I suppose it is.”

Their gazes meet for a moment. She raises her eyebrow. He clicks his tongue.

“I, uh, didn’t really eat lunch,” she says with a smile.

“Ah,” he replies, returning her smile as he scratches the back of his ear. “You see, I was also a little distracted, but I am almost off the clock.”

“Good,” she whispers, setting herself in the seat next to his door. “I’ll just wait.”

He nods, sitting back down in his office chair. He is able to check her books in, then sends an email to Henry Mills to tell him he can come get the books whenever — but he is more distracted by having her in his office than he was all day when she was just on his mind. After every few words, his attention leaves the computer screen and travels to where she is sitting, scrolling on her cell phone.

And every time he looks at her, he smiles.

It’s only a few minutes before he logs off his computer, accidentally startling her when he pushes his chair away from the desk.

“Sorry,” he mutters, pulling his jacket on over his sweater. “I’m ready now, though.”

Their first pizza date quickly becomes a regular occurence, sharing lunches in their offices on days they don’t go off campus. It’s two weeks before Killian is bothered they haven’t been on a “proper date,” and he picks her up from her apartment with flowers, which she keeps in a vase in her office.

But, most importantly, she never forgets to return a library book again — especially the next year, when she and Killian move into a small house near the campus.

Together.

#cs fics #captain swan #my writing #wordsbymeganmichael

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lokidiabolus · 5 years

Text

Actors

Fandom: The Maze Runner

Pairing: Newtmas

(Jonipony: So this idea just came to me out of thin air, Thomas and Newt are actors who don't get along well together, but they have to do a love scene together for their characters and end up falling in love in real life. I was thinking maybe they forced themselves to spend time together in order to make their character's relationship seem more real and once they fall for the other person they can't tell if it's real or just their characters. And of course you can put your own twist or interpretation on it, you don't have to do just that. I think it could work for a longer fic or just a one shot depending on how you want to do it. Thank you so much for considering it!

Holy shit, I'm so sorry it took foreverrrr. I started writing it, then suddenly didn't know HOW to approach it, so I scrapped it, started again, scrapped it, wrote first 10 pages and stopped. Then returned to it after several months, wrote another set of pages, stopped. And now I FINALLY finished it, aaaaaaaaaa. Seriously, sorry it took ages lmao. Not even sure if it's what you've wanted, they seriously started to live their own life in there :'D)

Ao3 Version.

Maybe it would do you good if you spent a little more time together, off set.

In retrospect Thomas should have known it meant bad business, because as much as he liked his job and the series he was in, spending more time with Newt out of all people was not the best idea. Not that he could do anything about it – their producer and writer Jorge simply decided their characters needed to become less flat and also had the guts to say he was planning it all along, because representation. So Thomas’ until then completely straight character Stephen who liked parkour and Chinese food became miraculously captivated by a scientist Isaac, even though up until then they didn’t really have much screen time together.

When the morning read-through of the new episode revealed Jorge’s masterplan, Thomas didn’t know what to say or how to act. Him and Newt – they were like water and fire, and even though they didn’t clash loudly or made scenes, their civil behaviour had pretty low borders and they simply couldn’t be bothered to raise it. Up until today they didn’t even need to, because hey, one, two scenes per episode were only necessary evil and they usually didn’t even have the space to glare at each other much.

Thomas wasn’t sure how exactly it started – there wasn’t a girl they were both interested in involved, no role they both wanted and one of them got it, no pranks they played on each other that embarrassed them in public. There was nothing wrong with their interactions up until there was and Thomas couldn’t point a finger at it. The animosity was just there, sitting on the perch like a duck, ready to strike when they got into few meters wide vicinity of each other.

He didn’t know what exactly bothered him about that thin, blond nobody either. His appearance was pretty normal, maybe he just needed to gain a pound or two, and he had kind of unreal baby face, but apart from the lankiness and blond hair ruffled all the time, his looks were not that notable to irritate him. Neither did his British accent he usually concealed anyway or the way he talked to people. He just didn’t sit well with him, and quite frankly the antipathies were mutual and Newt wasn’t shy from showing him. So they kept their distances and interactions to minimum and everybody was happy.

Until Jorge fucked it up. And by fucking it up Thomas meant he started an apocalypse. Basically the series’ new couple was fancying each other because why the hell not, precisely after meeting in the university infirmary where Stephen ended after rather risky parkour manoeuvre that ended in few bruises, his friends who studied on the university thought it was a good idea to use the infirmary to patch him up, and then wild Isaac appeared, and his white coat and glasses apparently did it for Stephen.

As much as Thomas was concerned, he would say the plot was weak as morning coffee they had in cafeteria. But apparently where representation mattered, it was basically much better when no annoying drama got involved and it had a carefree flow, apart from the usual society problems Thomas kind expected to jump at them in the upcoming episodes somewhere.

“There are going to be snogging scenes.”

He almost jumped out of his skin when he heard the exasperated voice, and then once more when Newt sat heavily next to him and the chair squeaked.

“I just asked Jorge,” the blond added with a deep sigh and Thomas mentally ticked it in his to do list. He knew there were conditions like stunts and possible romantic storyline with physical exposure when he signed the contract for the series, but he had no idea his partner would be a guy he couldn’t stand even on his good day. Was this Jorge’s version of the get-along shirt?

“Amazing,” he commented and Newt hummed in agreement. Jorge recommended a solution for their antipathy – which naturally included more contact – but Thomas had a feeling it would only worsen their current relationship. So far he had no idea what Newt’s bad habits were because he never spent time with him, but if he added something seriously annoying to the already bothersome mix, murder would sound like a good solution.

“Let’s grab lunch together,” Newt stood up while glancing at his watch. “We can talk about it there.”

“Lunch,” Thomas repeated, because man, hearing that from Newt was seriously unreal. The blond looked at him with furrowed brows and took Thomas a second before he realized it was his way of saying: okay, we gotta work on our attitudes, so this is where it starts.

“Ye, you know. A place where they serve food for money,” Newt deadpanned. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept, at least from TV.”

“Just thinking if I want to ruin my day by spending it with you, is all,” Thomas shot back and it made Newt snort and shook his head.

“Great start, mop head,” he commented and started walking to the exit. “And they say I am defensive.”

Thomas wasn’t defensive, but maybe a little desperate.

***

“Look, I’m sure we both are professionals,” Thomas started when they finally found a free spot in a restaurant that led them to a secluded corner with small table and a candle in the middle. Thomas kind of thought this was on purpose, but he kept it to himself.

“Well, one of us definitely is,” Newt retorted without even looking at him, his eyes fixated onto a menu. Thomas wished he would order beer, so the waiter could tell him they are not serving alcohol to kids and he would have to give them his ID. “Your point?”

“We don’t need this torture,” Thomas decided not to snap at him for the time being. “It’s gonna be fine on set.”

That finally made Newt to glance at him.

“You think so?” he put down the menu and leaned a bit forward, his elbows on the desk. “So Jorge shouting at us because there is no chemistry whatsoever and it looks more like we want to kill each other, that’s fine by you?”

“He never said that,” Thomas disagreed stubbornly.

“He did,” Newt shrugged. “Sure, it was a year ago, but mate, I still feel like kicking your shin most of the time I see you, it kinda shows.”

“For you maybe-,”

“It shows for both of us,” Newt stopped him mid-sentence and sighed before getting back to the menu. “If you don’t believe me, ask the rest of the cast. Or the crew.”

Thomas didn’t need hear it from other sources to be able to tell Newt was right. The glares they occasionally sent to each other spoke volumes and he knew that, but he was almost sure it didn’t really show when they were on the set together, filming a scene. They were actors, it was their job to pretend to love people they didn’t fancy as much or at all, they were taking money for that kind of shit.

“So what’s your problem then?” he crossed his arms on his chest, looking at Newt expectantly. “Why am I on your shit list?”

“Why am I on yours?” Newt uttered lazily.

“I asked first.”

“It’s exactly this,” Newt finally stopped paying attention to the menu completely and closed it, then leaned back to the chair. “That thing you do all the time.”

“What thing?” Thomas raised an eyebrow and Newt gestured towards him with click of his tongue.

“That overbearing and unhealthy competitiveness,” the blond elaborated. “You hear an opinion and you immediately challenge it or you try to surpass it with me, me, me. Just talking to you about literally anything is a bloody waste of time because you’re unable to talk about anything else but you.”

Thomas blinked, then tilted his head to the side, and kept quiet. When nothing else from Newt came, he cleared his throat, just to be interrupted by a waiter asking for their orders and lighting up the candle between them with a weird smile.

Well, maybe not that weird, judging from where they were sitting. Thomas wondered what kind of bad karma was punishing him today, because he was slowly reaching his bullshit quota. Unhealthy competitiveness? Great! Maybe Newt could even make a whole psychological profile while at it!

“Don’t fry your brain, mop head,” Newt spoke up the moment the waiter left their table with orders. He reached for the candle and held his hand above the flame, changing heights like a kid that got a new toy. “I guess it’s just your thing. Rarely anybody acting like that realizes they are doing it. And if they do, they don’t care. Which is probably your case too.”

“Thanks, Dr. Freud,” Thomas forced out and pinched the bridge of his nose. The sole image of him having to pretend to be in love with this jerkface was making his blood boil. “I guess my reason is just that you’re such an insufferable brat I simply can’t stand you.”

“Well, it’s a start,” Newt uttered back and crossed his arms on his chest. “I propose to spend time together between sets, to go through the lines. If we won’t kill each other, I’m sure there is still hope for us to be able to survive the filming.”

“I refuse,” Thomas shot back without hesitation and it made Newt to bark out a laugh. “What.”

“Nothing, nothing,” the blond waved his hand, but kept on smiling and Thomas’ frown deepened. “It’s just that you’re such a kid all the time, it’s bloody hilarious.”

“If this is supposed to help me not to hate you, then you’re doing a very bad job,” Thomas warned him and then the waiter was back with their food, to which Thomas completely lost his appetite. Newt was still grinning at him like he won some sort of competition, and if it had been a race of who will get pissy first, Thomas had to admit he did lose.

“Hate is such a strong word though,” Newt commented with apparent amusement and pulled the plate with his lunch closer to him. “You shouldn’t use it so deliberately. What if there would be somebody you’d hate even more?”

“I don’t think it’s possible at this moment,” Thomas gritted through his teeth and it finally made Newt to stop with the nit-picking and his face turned a little more serious again.

“Alright, sorry,” the blond gestured with his fork. “Not going to push you anymore. Was just wondering how much you can take.”

“Not much more than this, I assure you,” Thomas said gruffly and Newt still had the nerve to smirk at him.

“Are you not going to eat?” he pointed at Thomas’ plate and when Thomas made a face, he insolently stole a fry and ate it. Thomas was sure one of them was not going to survive the filming at the end of the season.

***

“Can you stop glaring at me?”

Thomas groaned and put down the script with a loud bang against the table. Newt was in front of him, in his stupid oversized sweater and crazy hair and Thomas was literally on edge.

“Does it matter? It’s just a script reading,” he growled at him and heard Minho next to him laugh. Jorge on the other side of the table shook his head.

“Thomas, pull yourself together,” he said with a strict voice he usually reserved on sets when they kept on butchering the lines, and Thomas wanted to point at Newt and shout it’s all his fault! But he didn’t, because of course not, that would be childish and something Newt apparently wanted to provoke out of him. That little blond shit was taunting him from the first moment they sat down in the meeting room and he kept on smirking at him even when there were no lines they had together, and Thomas felt his blood pressure rising. Seriously, this couldn’t be healthy.

“Sorry,” he managed to bit out and looked back into the script where he was supposed to be flirting with Isaac, but it got out of him as a death sentence. Even he heard that, so naturally there was no denying it, and Newt just had to point it out in front of everybody.

“Minho, continue from the second paragraph,” Jorge commanded and the room grew quiet. Thomas wondered if he could fake a voice loss for a month or two, maybe it would help him get his shit together while avoiding his co-star like a plague.

***

“Oi, come here.”

Thomas almost did a pirouette when a hand stopped him from his march out of the building, and before he could properly react, he got dragged inside of the now empty meeting room by Newt. The cast was already gone and most of the crew as well, the studio was filled only by low hum from cameras not yet turned off.

“What now,” he sighed unhappily and the blond leaned against the table and crossed his arms on his chest.

“How did you get hurt?” he asked and Thomas stared at him like he lost his mind. Hurt? Him?

“What?”

“How. Did. You. Get. Hurt?”

Thomas opened his mouth to call him an idiot, but then it hit him. It was the line from the script. Newt’s character line from the dialogue the two of them had and kind of failed in the script reading this morning.

There was a small moment of him wanting to leave, because he was still bitter about the morning scene, but Newt was apparently trying to make amends and Thomas would be against himself if he just left without even giving it a chance.

He shook his head and reached for the door so he could close it while Newt watched him from his spot, and then took a deep breath.

“Tried to conquer the walls,” he finally responded with his line and it was easier without people staring at him, expecting to bite Newt’s head off. “They kind of won.”

“I can see that,” Newt continued, the exasperation easily believable. He pushed away from the table and took several cautious steps closer to Thomas, then lifted his chin and turned his head from one side to another.

Right, injuries from the fall. Isaac was supposed to check them and treat them.

“Huh, you have really long eyelashes,” he said then and Thomas blinked. That wasn’t in the script, he was sure of it.

“Are you improvising or is it just a statement?” he broke the character too, tilting his head to the side and Newt let his hand fall back again.

“A statement,” he answered with a shrug. “Sorry. Just never noticed that.” Then he looked Thomas up and down. “This should get treated.”

Is he back in the rehearsing scene? Jesus.

“Are you always this on and off?” Thomas asked instead and Newt’s lips curled up in a smile. For once it even looked genuine.

“I might be,” he admitted. He was almost the same height as Thomas, but definitely thinner and lankier. With the oversized sweater he reminded him of a kid that got lost in a filming studio, especially with his baby face. “And I might have an idea too.”

“An idea?” Thomas crossed his arms on his chest, because hey, so far Newt’s ideas were only making things worse, so he was right to be wary.

“Like, I’m aware you don’t like me, and that’s fine,” Newt made a vague gesture towards them both and Thomas only nodded in agreement. The antipathy was there and he would be lying if he tried to tell him the opposite all of sudden, especially after yesterday. “So consider this – stay in character.”

“I do stay in character-,”

“I mean stay in character all the time you’re around me,” Newt stopped his immediate defence swiftly. “And I’ll stay in mine. So every time we will interact, just let Stephen and Isaac do it.”

“I don’t follow,” Thomas sighed in exasperation. What was that supposed to be about? “What if I’m going to need something not work related or-?”

“Stay in character even for personal-related things, for work things, for all things, with me,” Newt proposed. “Think of it as a roleplay? Ever done that?”

“Roleplay,” Thomas repeated the word with raised eyebrows and all he could think of was Dungeons and Dragons or something really kinky. “Well, not outside of work, I guess.”

“It’s a perfect way how to get into the character and understand him better,” Newt explained with strange happiness around him and Thomas gulped down the comment he probably did it a bit too often. “And maybe it’s what we need as well. If you think of me as of Isaac?”

It was true Isaac was rather interesting character – the show portrayed him as smart, a little geeky, but fun, and with sharp sense of humour. Apart from Newt’s own stubbornness and nasty comments it could be a nice change.

“Okay then,” he agreed in the end, because what was there to lose? Apart from some dignity, he mused, because as much as being an actor made his living, playing the character outside of it sounded more like a chore than fun. Then again – if he had to do that only around Newt, it could work.

“Great, it’s settled then,” another genuine smile and it felt like aura around Newt changed somehow, it was almost eerie. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah,” Thomas managed and Newt was out of the door in a second, leaving the brunet alone and confused. He was a little worried this state would be a norm around the guy from now on.

***

“Morning,” Thomas yawned on his way to the table, coffee in hand and several greetings echoed back at him, Newt’s included. It sounded friendly and Thomas had to do a double take before he reminded himself it was supposed to be that way because they weren’t them, but their friendlier counterparts. He seated himself across the blond and glanced at him out of curiosity, just to get another smile in response before he looked back at Jorge, leaving Thomas in slight stupor.

So this was how Newt interpreted Isaac? Thomas wasn’t sure if it made him uncomfortable more than his usual snide remarks for how big the change was, but at the end of the meeting he felt a little more relaxed around him at least, because apparently no verbal attack was coming. Newt behaved like there was no bad blood between them and the lines reading was easy and probably surprising for the rest of the cast. At least Jorge looked satisfied at the end, which was a small victory.

“Lunch?” Newt asked him at noon and Thomas thought it was fine to say sure more easily now.

They grabbed food and actually talked about non-work related things without any poison threw in, which made Thomas conflicted as hell. He felt like he was sitting on needles for about first 20 minutes in, during the menu studying and ordering and sipping his soda, like the attack could have happen anytime and he needed to be ready, but Newt sat on the opposite side of the table like a holy picture, smiling and telling him about a football game that happened last night (and Thomas missed it because sleep was too demanding) and not a single bad thing fell from his mouth. Not even a dirty comment about Thomas’ obvious lack of knowledge about football teams – Newt actually explained why he liked his own team (apparently family fixation, so he was a long-time fan) and what games have great moments in it and Thomas found himself relaxed and listening for the first time ever when in Newt’s company.

“You strike me as a sports fan,” Newt offered leisurely while poking in his food. He barely ate anything since he mostly talked, but somehow didn’t even look like he had the appetite.

“I’m more of a baseball fan,” Thomas responded easily and wondered if this was even allowed. Was he supposed to talk about himself or about Stephen? He made a mental note to ask Newt at some point, but so far it looked like the blond was talking about his own hobbies rather than about Isaac’s, but he couldn’t be sure. He knew Stephen was more into adrenaline sports, especially the ones he could do himself, rather than watching others to do it, but Thomas liked all his limbs intact and not broken, so he was mostly Stephen’s opposite. “Long time Mets supporter.”

“Nice. Watched baseball sometimes with my uncle,” Newt flashed him another oh-so-genuine smile and Thomas felt himself tensing again, alert and ready for a flip without any real means to. The difference from normal Newt and Isaac’s Newt was huge, to the point of worrying, and Thomas couldn’t help but wonder how much of a self-control it had to take for Newt to maintain this happy-to-go attitude with him when normally he was about to bite Thomas’ head off.

He took a breath to point it out, but then deflated when Newt finally started eating, relaxed and for the lack of better word vulnerable. Attacking him now in any way was low even for their normal interactions.

He kept his peace for the remainder of their break.

***

“You sound angry.”

Thomas stopped mid move when Newt’s words flew over to him, blinking in confusion. The scene was called cut a few seconds ago for another take and Thomas wasn’t really thinking about why, since Jorge didn’t really pinpoint anything being wrong. They were in Isaac’s lab, the crew around them busy as bees, preparing for another take, the cameras pointed at him and Newt with deadly accuracy.

“Angry?” he repeated and Newt walked towards him with thoughtful expression.

“Yeah, like. You’re mad about something,” he gesticulated between then while he stopped in front of Thomas. “I don’t know if it’s intentional. The script doesn’t really say he should be angry, but it’s kind of sharp from you?”

“Oh,” Thomas cleared his throat. It was actually a valid point. Not even an attack, more like an observation. Newt was trying to be helpful. Towards Thomas. Without malice. So weird.

“You’re right,” he admitted, taking the script to his hand from the table behind the scene, going through it. “I’ll try to soften it a bit.”

Newt nodded, still thoughtful, and retreated back to his spot. He was in the white lab coat and had thick, black glasses and wild hair and Thomas caught himself staring without any means to do that. He had seen him in his getup before, it was nothing new. Yet somehow it was like interacting with a completely different person and when Jorge came back and the scene played out again, he found himself talking softer and Newt’s eyes told him it hit the right spot.

The scene didn’t need to be repeated anymore and Jorge patted them happily on the back. Thomas pretended he didn’t see the smile Newt sent his way.

***

The days passed and the strange roleplay approach worked like a charm. Even the crew noticed and the cast was commenting on it at readings repeatedly, but without real heat. Neither Thomas or Newt elaborated though, and it was probably for the best to keep it at vague we talked it out.

He thought he was going to be much more opposed to the romance progression part in the story, but when the more intimate scenes started, Thomas didn’t have an urge to strangle Newt anymore, so he had to admit Newt’s idea wasn’t bad. The story romance was cheesy but slow and getting accustomed to Newt’s Isaac was no work, since they did that the whole time now.

“Gotta work on your stiffness,” Newt piped after the wrap up when the crew was packing up and they were putting costumes away. “You’re like a wooden board when we touch.”

“I guess that’s my default setting,” Thomas joked back because he had no idea what else to say. He was aware every time Newt touched him (and they weren’t even in the intimate part of touching yet), his body seized up and he moved like a robot for the remainder of the recording, mechanical and unattached. It wasn’t like he expected a punch or anything, but his brain didn’t get it yet. “I will work on it.”

He saw Newt nod in the corner of his eye when he was pulling the shirt over his head and then yelped when he got seized in a strong hug from behind, clutching him like a vice.

“What the-!”

“Practice.” Newt squeezed a bit more and then finally lost the strength Thomas would never believe he possessed in that lanky body of his. He still held on though and Thomas hung there helplessly like a doll. It was uncomfortable and weird angle too, but Newt didn’t look like he cared.

Well, when he ever did?

“This is not really helping though,” he commented with a huff, letting his arms fall and Newt barked out a laugh. He was plastered over half of Thomas’ back and his side, just holding him like a teddy bear, and his body was warm like a thermo blanket.

“Don’t worry, it will,” he assured him, gave him one last squeeze and then finally let go. Thomas wasn’t surprised by the big grin he had when he turned around to tell him off. So he let the words die in his throat and only shook his head.

Newt did the hugging thing every day after and Thomas resigned to his fate after a week (once he even leapt to Thomas’ arms without any warning except shouting sike! and Thomas had to praise himself for actually catching him properly while swearing like a sailor). He pointedly ignored Minho’s smartass commentary about it though.

***

It was usually Newt that approached Thomas on his own, either with some work-related questions or even a simple talk and for some reason Thomas started to expect their daily 15 minutes of freestyle since then. Maybe that was why today he was so weirded out when Newt didn’t really do that before the reading, or after reading, or for lunch. He saw him several times during the day usually staring into his phone or talking to somebody else, but he didn’t make a move towards Thomas at any given time. True, they there were no scenes involving them together scheduled, but normally it didn’t stop him.

Thomas, to his dismay, realized he grew restless.

When he saw Newt again in the hall, he decided to be a big boy and start conversation on his own, even though he had no idea why. He grabbed two cups of coffee on the way (one with milk and sugar, one purely black) and let his legs carry him all the way towards his blond nemesis, who was staring into his phone again.

On one note Thomas hoped nothing serious happened, and that care alone surprised him. Just a month ago he wouldn’t give a rat ass about Newt’s problems, so this was definitely new. And concerning, really.

Then again that’s what you get when you act like a decent being, I guess.

“You seem awfully quiet today,” he greeted him with an outstretched hand holding the cup and Newt glanced up from his phone with badly masked surprise. Thomas would even say it could equal a shock for a split second before he mastered it enough to hide it.

“Oh,” he let out, kind of lamely, and Thomas had to clear his throat for the blond to notice the coffee. When he finally took it, Thomas felt a wave of relief he wasn’t turned down. Somehow, he already dismantled most of his defence mechanisms against this guy; it would suck if he allowed being vulnerable now just for Newt to blew it out of blue.

“It’s black,” the blond commented when he sipped the coffee, his brows furrowed. Thomas made a humming noise.

“You drink it black, as far as I know?” he offered and Newt’s eyes searched for his. It was a weird look, like he didn’t know what to do or say.

It’s just a coffee though, sheesh.

“I do,” he replied after a moment.

“Okay.”

“You remembered,” Newt added a little more hesitantly. “That I drink it black.”

“Yes?” Thomas raised his eyebrows. “I mean you always drink black, it’s kind of easy to remember?”

“No, I mean…” he stared a bit more, but then averted his eyes. “Never mind. Thanks.”

The uneasy feeling of something being wrong creeped into Thomas’ stomach almost instantly. He stood there in complete stupor, no words coming out of his mouth, paralyzed of the sudden change he got so easily unaccustomed to in a span of several weeks. Newt was not looking at him and Thomas wanted to ask if the roleplay was over and they were about to be mean to each other again, but couldn’t get it past his lips.

“So, what do you want?” Newt finally asked and it was bizarre to hear now. What would Thomas want from his colleague he spent few weeks talking daily to about any possible thing? Gee, who knew. Was him doing the first step not allowed?

He didn’t say anything because he had no idea what would be an appropriate response Stephen would give. At this point he drew blank even for his own reactions. When Newt glanced at him worriedly, he wanted to ask why the hell was he making that face, but at the same time didn’t want to know.

“And here we can see two awkward roosters in their natural habitat,” came suddenly from behind them and an arm landed on Thomas’ shoulders, almost making him spill the coffee. Minho shook him like a rag doll, grinning from ear to ear. He didn’t even hear him coming. “Never saw courting so painful than with you two, I swear.”

Newt made a face and Thomas felt his stomach drop somewhere between his legs.

“Fuck off,” he shot out and shook off Minho’s arm unhappily, pushed his coffee to his hand and left the hall like a tidal wave.

He ignored his phone for the rest of the day. It was constantly beeping.

***

He had never seen anybody with deadlier puppy eyes than Newt had. The moment he arrived on set and before he could even greet anybody and get a cup of coffee, the blond was there, gazing at him with the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, and it didn’t get any better with time.

“Okay, I’ll bite, what’re you doing?” he finally confronted him, arms crossed on his chest, and Newt gave him almost a full body shrug. The meeting room was half empty and Newt was following him around the whole day like a sad dog. Thomas didn’t even read the messages from yesterday and already knew they were from him and what approximately they said.

“Trying to make you feel sorry for me, naturally,” he replied with ease. “Is it working?”

“Sorry for you,” Thomas repeated with raised eyebrows. “For what?”

“For being a target of somebody’s ire.”

Somebody as in Thomas, no manual needed.

“Shouldn’t you be doing that at them in that case?” he decided to play the game as well, because for some reason the Newt’s Isaac was back and yesterday’s Newt’s Newt departed once more like a glitch in Matrix. Thomas didn’t lose any sleep over it, but then again, he went to bed so late there was almost no sleep to be talking about.

It wasn’t because of Newt though. Why would it be, even?

Newt made a face at him, but the puppy eyes resumed right after.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged again. “They’re stubborn.”

“That so.”

“Yeah,” the blond took few steps closer. “Need them not to be mad. Want to kiss them.”

“Wait, what-,“ Thomas barely get the words out and Newt was already in his personal space, hands on his cheeks and leaning in and Thomas felt like he was losing balance for how much he was trying to avoid him, and would probably fall flat on his ass if Newt didn’t grab him around his waist to prop him back up.

“Nice gymnastics, you two!” Minho shouted from the table and Thomas felt the heat rising up in his cheeks, his body pressed against Newts’ from their chest to their knees while he heard others snapping pictures of them.

“Are you fucking nuts?!” he hissed at Newt in a hushed whisper and the blond grinned, not letting go.

“Nah, but I’m helping,” he had the audacity to squish Thomas’ cheeks and Thomas grabbed him by his wrists to stop him. Newt didn’t budge and that unnatural strength was beginning to make Thomas worry.

“To my grave, yeah, you are,” he growled and Newt laughed quietly while his hands finally let go of Thomas’ face.

“It’s today, you know,” he said with a smirk and Thomas frowned. “The snogging scene. It’s today.”

“It’s today?!”

“Today.”

Thomas blamed Newt for not knowing and not checking the plan yesterday and for the sleep and bad mood too – and quite frankly even for the spoiled food he found in the fridge because Newt was weird and out of what Thomas was used to and it threw him off more than he thought it would and it sucked.

The hands on his cheeks were back and then there were also lips on his own, smooching him like grandma visiting on Christmas along with obnoxiously loud mwuah and the cameras snapping were even louder now, throwing Thomas into a murderous spree.

“You-!”

“Meet me in five at the trailer and let me snog you right, dog,” Newt stopped him from the outburst and pinched his cheeks, then let go. “No homo.”

“Fuck you!” Thomas barked with his chest heaving at Newt’s retreat back, and the blond glanced back at him and smiled.

“No u.”

And left.

***

In retrospect coming after Newt to the designated meeting spot was a bad idea, but Thomas had seen red and didn’t care. He had no idea what the hell was the blondie thinking and he was about to shake it out of him if he had to, truce be damned.

“My, don’t you look ravishing,” Newt greeted him between the doors with a chuckle and if Thomas was just a bit angrier, he would probably greet him back with a fist in his face.

“I thought you said we’re going to be fucking civil with each other,” he barked instead and Newt tilted his head in silent question. “Your stupid roleplay shit! And then you pull this out?”

“What’s this?” the blond opposed calmly. “Don’t tell me you’re angry over one smooch. What’re you going to do after the rehearsals with the crew watching us make out? Kill me?”

“Listen-,”

“No, you listen,” Newt stopped with an exasperated sigh. He ran his hand through his hair, making it even messier than normally, and his shoulders sagged down as if he flipped a switch. “I’m sorry I was a dick yesterday. I guess it threw you off and it’s my fault, and I want to make amends.”

Thomas opened his mouth in opposition before it dawned on him that Newt was, in fact, apologizing. He had to do a double take and run it again in his head until he was sure he heard him right, and it still didn’t really make it as believable.

“Oh,” he let out.

“And also, I wasn’t lying about the snogging shooting, so,” the blond took a step away from the door and gestured for Thomas to enter. “I’m sorry and let’s try it before we look like complete idiots in front of everybody else.”

Let’s try to snog, that definitely wasn’t something he thought he would ever hear from this guy. It must have showed in his face since Newt’s mouth curved up in obvious amusement.

“I know right? What’s been happening to us lately,” he commented on it like he read Thomas’ mind and then reached for his shirt and pulled him in the trailer. Thomas wanted to comment on how damn stupid it must have looked to anybody outside, but Newt was already kissing him without even a word of warning and Thomas was too stunned to move.

There was a pressure and a hand on the back of Thomas’ neck, but other than that nothing else really happened and then Newt was pulling away, looking at him with mild annoyance.

“Can you do something better than the dead fish lips?” he asked and Thomas blinked, his vocal cords not working in the slightest. He could imagine all kind of things happening with Newt – a fist in his face, a vicious prank of sitting on a pin, but being kissed when not in front of a camera (since that’s where it was supposed to happen) was not one of them.

“Uh oh,” the blond stepped away. “Did I break you?”

“I think so,” Thomas heard himself saying. He couldn’t really recall much about the kiss, his brain drew a blissful blank, not even how long exactly it was, but he knew it happened. “Little warning next time?”

“Isn’t the shock value counting as a plus point though?” Newt‘s face relaxed and even smiled and Thomas shook his head.

“Not if you aren’t trying to cause me a heart-attack,” he commented sternly and then took a deep breath. “Fine, okay. I’m ready.”

“So clinical,” Newt rolled his eyes and took a step forward but Thomas’ hand flew up and spread in the middle of Newt’s chest, stopping him. “What now?”

“Is it supposed to be Isaac to take the lead?”

It was a valid question, because Thomas didn’t see Isaac as a leading man for this kind of thing. But then again, he purposely left the snogging scenes be so he couldn’t say.

“Yes,” Newt shrugged. “Think nerds don’t take initiative?”

Thomas rumbled but let his hand fall down.

“You didn’t even read it, did you,” the blond smirked. “You left those scenes alone.”

It’s not like Newt could read Thomas mind, but lately it felt like he did and it was terrifying.

“Maybe,” he let out grudgingly.

“You’re adorable.”

“Shut up, nerd.”

“That’s not very Stephen of you,” Newt commented with a grin and he looked so smug Thomas couldn’t stand that. He grabbed the blond by the collar of his stupid striped shirt and pulled him forward until their lips met in the middle, along with Newt’s yelp somewhere in between.

It was mostly just pressure with almost no movement of the lips, like proving a point he could do it as well without warning if he wanted to, and for a while it kind of worked, since Newt was standing on the spot like a frozen statue.

“Hmm,” Thomas pulled away with a cocky smile, drinking in Newt’s wide eyes. “Can you do something better than the dead fish lips?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” the blond breathed out and quite frankly Thomas expected him to lean back in, since he presented it as a challenge, but still didn’t think it would be open mouthed and pushing and that there is going to be tongue involved right off the bat. He made a muffled noise when Newt stepped even closer and grabbed Thomas by his waist, bringing them chest to chest, kissing him so deeply it made his head spin.

Was it supposed to be like this? It didn’t even feel like simple kissing anymore, but make out with the way Newt’s hands started to travel over Thomas’ back and his sides and hips and even fucking squeezed his butt few times. He was tilting his head and pushing into Thomas so insistently it felt like he just wanted him horizontal in near future and Thomas felt his body moving backwards, step by step until his back hit the wall and he made another muffled noise that should have showed his discomfort but Newt probably didn’t even hear it.

It felt like forever before Newt finally pulled away, drawing in a shaking breath, his eyes still closed and lips almost red. Thomas couldn’t help but think he looked like he was ready to shoot a porn scene, with his ruffled hair and heavy breathing and like, everything, but quickly got rid of the thought. Newt, out of all people, definitely didn’t look erotic to him. No fucking way.

“You done?” he croaked out, cursing his own voice to be so weak in a situation like this, and Newt finally opened his eyes, almost black how his pupils were blown wide and had the audacity to shook his head.

“Not in the slightest,” he replied in a low voice, so low Thomas barely heard it, and his hands, up until now resting on Thomas’ hips, travelled up, dragging over Thomas’ shirt up to his neck, warm and sure. The silence in the trailer was almost suffocating, making Thomas hear his own heartbeat so clearly he was almost sure Newt had to hear it too.

“Newt-,”

“Not at all,” the blond didn’t let him speak, his thumbs started caressing Thomas’ jaw and before Thomas could at least ask him what the hell was wrong with him, he was already being kissed again, gentler this time, but not less lewd with all the tongue, and Thomas found out he couldn’t move, like his body rooted to the spot. The blood was now roaring in his ears and he was goddamn confused about it, because it was Newt kissing him, Newt being here, crowding him against the wall in the trailer, holding him on the spot by caressing his neck and his face and kissing him like he wanted to do it for ages and then some. The same Newt he hated to bits just a month ago, who was bitter and sarcastic and never said a nice word to Thomas.

Was this some sort of revenge, maybe? Some elaborate prank he played, maybe with a camera rolling from a hiding spot, so he could laugh about it later with others? His let’s try it before actually shooting the scene in front of the crew now blurred together with unreasonable making out and Thomas was damn sure they didn’t need to do this much up until who knew when in the shooting.

Yet he still didn’t push Newt away. Hell, he even participated in the kiss – slowly, maybe, hesitantly, but he wasn’t just taking it like a figurine either, no matter how hard he would try to deny that. So when Newt let go of him with a slow exhale and his hands slowly fell from Thomas’ neck, Thomas was at loss of what to say. He couldn’t really accuse him of anything, though maybe he sort of wanted to, but words simply didn’t come.

“Well,” Newt finally broke the silence, stepping away. “I think we’re good.”

He cleared his throat about three times and it felt awkward, like the reality caught up with him and now he was internally screaming. Thomas was surprised his own inner monologue stopped instead, only accompanied by a low hum of his thoughts.

“Right?” the blond finally looked up from the floor he was hypnotizing since the kiss ended and Thomas stared back at him in silence. He could still feel Newt’s mouth on his own and he licked his lower lip without even thinking about it and Newt’s eyes followed the movement with wide eyes.

“Right,” Thomas said eventually, refusing to try deciphering that particular look, and left before Newt could say anything else.

***

Hiding was a wrong word to use for Thomas’ current behaviour. He wasn’t hiding at all. He didn’t have a reason to hide, what happened was Newt’s initiative and Newt’s alone. If he ever wanted to make Thomas guilty about it, Thomas was ready to kick him back with something equally nasty, like you were the first who stuck his tongue into my throat or grabbing my ass or rubbing against me – which he was by the way, he totally was at some point but Thomas didn’t want to think about that. Hell, he tried to push it out of his mind the whole time between sets while reading the incriminated scene in the script (damn Newt being right about Isaac taking initiative, damn him), up until he couldn’t anymore because it was the scene, and Newt was standing in front of the camera already in the white lab coat and crazy hair and Jorge was talking to him about something and Thomas felt his legs turning to jelly.

“Oi, don’t look so scared,” Newt’s voice flew over to him, making Thomas’ stomach make a double flip. “We practiced, right?”

“If you call that a practice…” Thomas uttered under his breath, but at least he felt little less intimidated when the Newt in the trailer with almost black eyes and heaving chest and red lips bruised from kissing got replaced by this cocky shit again. Jorge was behind the camera and Thomas had to mentally praise him for not grinning at them like a loon and making it even more awkward.

Because if anything, awkward definitely fitted the description the best and probably even more so after the practice Newt put him through. At least most of the crew left, even though they usually only did when there were more intimate scenes involved, but Thomas was still grateful he didn’t need to try and ignore Minho making faces at him from behind the scene.

When the camera started rolling and their lines flowing in, Thomas was surprised he didn’t feel nervous as much as he thought he would. If anything, he was anticipating, because he knew how Newt felt already against him, so when the blond stepped close with the scripted line and touched Thomas’ chest in the middle, he was ready for the tongue and teeth and hands everywhere and maybe even the butt touching because Newt did that plenty.

But then there was pressure on his lips and a gentle touch of hand on his cheek for split second and then Newt was pulling away, eyes downcast, small smile playing on his, no, on Isaac’s lips, and it was over.

He couldn’t help but gawk at him, and quite frankly wasn’t even surprised when Jorge ended the scene and called him out for looking like somebody just told him he lost the raffle for a teddy bear and demanded a retake.

“Uh, yeah, sorry,” he responded sheepishly and they started anew, the marks, the lines, the touch on his chest, the fucking innocent peck on his lips, the small smile scripted to a tiniest detail, the end. Thomas still gawked and Jorge let out a sigh, giving them ten minutes before trying again.

“What’s wrong with you?” Newt asked him like there was nothing wrong going on, like he didn’t just endlessly grope him in the trailer and then kiss him here like grandma on Christmas visit. Thomas wanted to tell him, he wanted to throw it in his face, but he just couldn’t bring himself to.

“Sorry,” he repeated, clearing his throat. Jorge didn’t say anything about the kiss, only about Thomas’ bewildered expression, so there probably wasn’t anything bad about it, but it still felt like… nothing. In comparison, at least.

“You really did look like somebody stole your cookie though,” the blond poured oil into the fire and had the audacity to smirk as well. “Didn’t we practice?”

“Not enough tongue here, I guess,” Thomas bit back and felt a small amount of satisfaction when Newt averted his eyes with small hitch of his breath.

“Well, it’s not really in the script,” he mumbled after, almost grudgingly and Thomas took a deep breath.

“Interesting,” he commented. Nothing else. Newt kept his eyes casted on the floor, looking stiff and uncomfortable and Thomas wondered if he kept quiet long enough, if he would elaborate. He did not, not until Jorge got back, sent Thomas questioning glance and he managed to muster a smile.

The camera rolled again, the lines, the touch, the kiss, Thomas forced himself to look happy and Jorge was looking satisfied at the end. He even praised him with a pat on his back and when Thomas turned back towards Newt, he realized the blond was already gone.

Typical.

***

They didn’t have any shooting together the next day and Thomas frankly wasn’t surprised he didn’t even catch a brief glance of Newt. Probably for the best too, since his mood was so bad, he would probably only bark at him and neither of them needed that. He barely slept, his thoughts kept on swirling around the weird intimacy Newt showed him and then proceeded to be shy about it, and it just didn’t make any sense.

“Newt called in sick,” Minho told him around lunch, sitting next to him when Thomas nursed his coffee and only nibbled his food with fork. He ordered Chinese and it was great but his appetite probably called in sick as well.

“Mhm,” he let out. No surprise there, probably. Thomas thought he should have been relieved but quite frankly nothing much came.

“Didn’t text you?” Minho asked, eyebrows raised and Thomas sipped his coffee.

“Nope,” he responded coldly. “Am I his mum or something?”

“No, but you do spend lots of time together lately,” his friend shrugged. He meant well, probably, but obviously wanted some gossip too. Thomas couldn’t blame him. “Thought you’d know.”

“Nah, he’s sulking now,” Thomas uttered and Minho’s expression changed to a surprised one. “Better leave him to it, I guess.”

“Sulking cuz of the snogging?” Came a question and Thomas had a fleeting panic reaction of Minho knowing about the trailer make out, but he squashed it fast. “I thought it went well?”

“Yeah, was fine,” Thomas waved his hand. “He’s just being weirder than normally about it.”

“Huh,” Minho propped his chin on his palm. “Thought you’d be the one freaking out, not him.”

“Same.”

“But maybe it’s cuz he likes you,” his colleague offered with an absolute calm. “So kissing you sorta flipped his switch?”

Thomas glanced at Minho with a sigh. It probably looked that way from outsider’s point of view, he mused. Newt suddenly being nice to him, asking him to go for lunch together and then having all those weird quirks like hugging all of sudden or smooching him in front of everybody and all in all being quite affectionate, so coming to a conclusion of falling in love was logical. They didn’t know it was Isaac’s character and Isaac’s quirks and Isaac’s affection that Newt played, that it was part of the deal between them. All fake and calculated, all according to plan… until the trailer. Or so Thomas thought, because even though Newt was so confident in there, in the aftermath he just looked vulnerable and guilty, as if he took it too far but didn’t know how to remedy that.

Thomas kind of wanted an explanation. Anything would do, really, but Newt didn’t say anything, so Thomas decided to ignore it as well. Not that it was possible to just forget about it, but not talking about it worked.

“You know what,” he pushed away the plate and put down the coffee. “You’re probably right. He’s totally in love with me and he stayed home cuz he has to think of an elaborate love confession that will sweep me off my feet.”

Minho made a face but left him alone. Thomas was really looking forward to his day off tomorrow.

***

NEWT: So now you’re sulking?

Thomas blearily looked at his phone, the clock showed something past nine in the morning and he would never believe a text alert could actually wake him up.

THOMAS: What

NEWT: You’re not here, so I’m asking if you’re sulking

THOMAS: Weren’t you the first one to sulk yesterday?

NEWT: Called in sick

THOMAS: Yeah, aka sulking.

NEWT: I was sick, not sulking

THOMAS: Convenient.

NEWT: Was throwing up

THOMAS: Sure you were.

NEWT: C’mon, were you lonely?

THOMAS: Just enjoyed some peace and quiet for a change.

NEWT: You were and now you’re sulking

THOMAS: It’s my day off, Romeo. Fuck off my DMs.

NEWT: Wait, what

THOMAS: DAY OFF. LET ME SLEEP. FUCK YOU.

NEWT: In that order?

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he groaned and plopped the phone next to him on the bed, ignoring how it beeped several more times. He planned to sleep the whole day.

***

NEWT: Jesus, it’s so boring here without you

THOMAS: You’ll live.

NEWT: You should stop by

THOMAS: I don’t want to get molested, so no.

NEWT: Molested? Preposterous

THOMAS: You’re an old pervert.

NEWT: I’m quite young tho

THOMAS: Still a pervert to the boot. Touching my butt and all, no manners.

NEWT: I never said I have manners

THOMAS: I already knew you didn’t have any manners, trust me. No illusions.

NEWT: See so don’t act surprised

THOMAS: I was hella surprised, but I admit not really about the practice kissing as I was about the scripted one.

NEWT: Oh yeah not enough tongue

THOMAS: Like you got all shy.

NEWT: I got all professional

THOMAS: So the practice was all personal?

Thomas wasn’t surprised when no reply came.

***

NEWT: Sorta was personal yeah

The clock showed something past 7 in the evening and Thomas didn’t expect Newt to reply anymore. It took him three hours, but the text actually came and Thomas was staring at it with Who framed Roger Rabbit playing in the background.

THOMAS: Took you three hours to come up with that?

NEWT: If you didn’t notice I’m at work

THOMAS: No, I didn’t, you’re bothering me the whole day.

NEWT: I’m making it more pleasant you mean

THOMAS: No, not really.

NEWT: Liar

THOMAS: So what was personal about it?

NEWT: Your butt was

“Fucker, you just can’t give me a straight answer, huh,” Thomas grumbled, debating with himself if he wanted to continue the pointless conversation or not. Newt was all bold over the phone which was frustrating – in person he would never tell him all these things.

THOMAS: So you decided to practice some French on me cuz of my butt.

NEWT: Huh that sounds like a better excuse than the one I had prepared

THOMAS: You’re so fucking annoying. Just tell me wtf it was already or I’m turning my phone off.

NEWT: Damn you so mean today

THOMAS: Turning it off.

NEWT: Nononono wait

Thomas frowned and sent a question mark instead. He would rather to hear it personally but if Newt needed to hide behind the texts, maybe it was for the best.

NEWT: I’m totally in love with you and wanted to kiss you and grope your butt cuz yolo

THOMAS: Fuck off.

NEWT: What it’s a legitimate reason and also totally believable cuz Minho said so

THOMAS: Maybe you need better friends.

NEWT: Please love me back baby

THOMAS: You’re not my type.

NEWT: Don’t break my heart :(

THOMAS: I don’t like blond people.

NEWT: You don’t like … WHAT

NEWT: ARE YOU FOR REAL

NEWT: YOU HEATEN

THOMAS: Blond people are meh. All stupid. No brains, ever. It’s the bleach.

NEWT: Bleach! But I’m natural c’mon

THOMAS: That’s even worse. You were born with small to none brain already. You’re doomed to be an idiot for the rest of your life.

NEWT: Oof you real mean now

THOMAS: Newt.

NEWT: Yes

THOMAS: Seriously. Be honest with me.

NEWT: I’m honest. I’m really a natural blond

THOMAS: Do you like me or something? Or you hate me and thought it was a good prank? Or you went with the flow and sort of didn’t think of consequences cuz the kissing was nice? Did you freak out after and did the lame kissing thing during the scene on purpose? Or did you want to throw me off by it?

NEWT: Yes

THOMAS: Yes which.

NEWT: Just yes you can pick the one you like the most

Thomas turned his phone off and left it that way for the rest of the day.

***

It was Newt’s day off, Thomas knew that. Maybe that was why he went to work less stressed than in an opposite situation, but hated it all the same. Stressing himself over Newt was never really a thing, but he was always somewhere on his mind even before, though only because he found him annoying. But now it was different, tugging in the back of his consciousness and demanding attention 24/7, which quite frankly started to be a problem. Yesterday text exchange didn’t help matters either – it actually only made it worse.

“Wasn’t it your day off? You look like shit.”

Thomas stopped abruptly when Newt’s voice came and then there was coffee in his field of vision and a veiny hand that was holding it, and Newt stood there in white shirt and jeans, offering him the cup.

“Whose fault you think it is?” he barked and didn’t take the coffee in defiance. Newt looked guilty and it served him right.

“Yeah, I know,” the blond admitted and Thomas heard the sound of the cup hitting the table while he was on his way to the changing room. “Look, I’m sorry.”

“You came here today to tell me that?” Thomas refused to look at him. “You could have sent a text. You’re good at that.”

“You turned your phone off,” Newt opposed and caught up with him enough to walk beside him now.

“I told you I would if you keep that up,” Thomas uttered and was glad nobody else was here yet, since hearing them arguing about this was honestly slightly embarrassing.

“I know.”

He didn’t say anything else and Thomas was at the end of his rope.

“Jesus, what else do you want from me?” he finally stopped and looked at the infuriating man next to him in anger. “I played your stupid roleplay game, your practice game, your texting game and your hugging spree and I just don’t want to anymore, I’ve had enough. So just tell me the punchline already so we can go back to hating each other without pretending we’re fine!”

Newt took a deep breath, then another and another and then gnawed on his lower lip for several seconds, keeping Thomas in painful suspense. It made him want to leave him be and just close this chapter of his life, but then Newt finally opened his mouth and said: “I think you’re a bloody prick.”

Thomas stared at him, not really sure how to react. It took several deeper breaths from Newt and then he was talking again, this time in a lower voice.

“I always disliked you,” he said gravely. “You were just so opinionated and stubborn. I thought we could never bloody get along and then Jorge decided to put our characters together and I thought it’s the end, that we’ll kill each other eventually and it’s going to suck-,”

“Why-,”

“Let me finish,” Newt stopped Thomas’ speech quickly. “You bloody wanker, jesus. You just. Made things so hard, so needlessly complicated, I just couldn’t take it. Even at the first lunch you were so full of yourself, so confident you were in the right, it was maddening.”

“Holy shit, why-,”

“Just let me!” This time Newt raised his voice and it echoed in an almost empty studio almost eerily. Thomas shut up. He felt his body shaking and couldn’t even say why, his nerves were like too tightly bound strings.

“You insufferable…” Newt took another deep breath. “I just don’t get it. I don’t fucking know who I love. You or Stephen. I just don’t know who of you two is the one I just can’t leave alone; it’s making me so bloody frustrated.”

Thomas opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Newt would probably tell him to shut up again anyway.

“I kissed you back there, in the trailer, because I thought we gotta, cuz if I did that without you getting used to it, we would fail so hard,” Newt continued and started pacing back and forth, back and forth. “I thought it was smart of me, to just bait you, to make you angry so you wouldn’t protest. But then I kissed you and it all went to shit.”

He stopped, glaring at Thomas from under his blond fringe. He looked angry but at the same time not really.

“You played your part and I played mine and we clicked. You were still struggling, but you were nice to me and I was nice to you and I think it was kind of fun to do that, to play around like that. But now I don’t know. Now you’re here and I know it’s you who is angry at me, but it was you who I texted as well and I’m still bloody attracted to you-,”

“You’re not making any sense,” Thomas finally managed to say, silencing Newt to a complete stupor. “Me or Stephen, what’s that even supposed to mean? I’m me, for fuck’s sake, nobody else.”

“The you that hates my guts,” Newt pointed out with arms crossed on his chest.

“You hate my guts too!” Thomas barked and took a step forward.

“Well not anymore!” Newt copied him and then they were standing in each other’s personal bubble and everything was hot and frustrating and Thomas wanted to punch his lights out so bad, but he grabbed his shirt instead and mashed their mouths together.

There was not even a fraction of second of hesitation on Newt’s end. He grabbed Thomas’ head between his hands and immediately deepened the kiss like he was drowning and Thomas was the only air supply, licking into his mouth so insistently and pulling them together from head to toe, every part of their body touching. Thomas couldn’t breathe but he didn’t even want to, falling into the same frenzy, the same heat and rhythm of tasting, tasting, tasting and more, more, more.

“You just piss me off so much,” Newt was growling against his lips, biting and sucking in between the words. “You always have your way to press all my buttons like you have manual somewhere-,”

“Oh come on,” Thomas pulled Newt’s hand that insistently grabbed his butt away, imprisoning it in a steel grip. “You think you’re hard to read, you spoiled brat?”

“Yes, I am,” Newt struggled to break free and succeeded after a moment, immediately returning his hand on the spot Thomas wanted to keep him from. He even squeezed as if in victory. “You were bloody begging me yesterday to tell you why I frenched you in the trailer-,”

“Begging?!”

“You were pleading-!” Newt devoured his mouth again and Thomas found himself pressed against the wall again but now with Newt’s knee between his thighs, pressing up, making him whine. “You wanted to know, you needed to know what’s going on, you were so cute-,”

“Jesus, I hate you so much,” Thomas struggled against the hold but he only made the friction more insistent and instead of a curse a moan escaped his lips, only to be swallowed by Newt’s mouth closing over his again.

“You don’t mean that,” Newt purred into his ear once he moved his lips to Thomas’ neck, biting it with an obvious intent to leave a mark. “You actually like me, don’t you~.”

Thomas, to his own horror and maybe also relief, realized that he actually did like the guy. And to add to his even worse revelation – it was Newt who he fancied – the foul mouthed and frustrating brat rather than the all likable Isaac persona he was using.

He decided to keep it to himself.

#the maze runner #tmr #newtmas #newmas #prompts #jonipony

42 notes · View notes

grandhotelabyss · 5 years

Photo

My annual Halloween-season focus on macabre literature is now complete over at my main site. This year, I revisited some classic neo-Gothic fiction of the British fin de siècle, as pictured above in Norton Critical Editions.

First, I considered Dracula. I wondered whether Nietzsche or Freud should predominate in interpreting its vampire, and even whether it’s much good at all qua novel:

Dracula is admittedly flawed, even considered within its period and genre; it doesn’t owe its longevity to literary criteria alone. Its combination of an occasionally dream-like air, with all the disclosure of unconscious desires implied by “dream,” with forthright discussions of all its period’s hot issues (women! sex! technology! race! immigration! secularism! etc.!), has led the novel to be of interest first to sensation-seeking common readers and then to academics in quest of subtexts more interesting than the texts they subtend. For this reason, Dracula is more enjoyable to read in a Norton Critical Edition than is a novel more intrinsically meritorious and therefore better able to be enjoyed on its own terms.

Next I turned to The Turn of the Screw, revisiting not only the novella but its epochal critical reception—its troubled afterlife, we might say—as a touchstone for 20th-century literary theory:

The showstopper of the Norton [Critical Edition] is a long—over 30-page—excerpt from Shoshana Felman’s “Henry James: Madness and the Risks of Practice (Turning the Screw of Interpretation),” a study in poststructuralist meta-psychoanalytic interpretation. Felman shows that we need the whole unholy trinity, all three masters of suspicion—I mean Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche—to provide a rational explanation for this haunting. Freud takes care of the sexual element, and Marx the economic, but we require too a Nietzschean understanding of the will-to-power motivating every exercise of interpretation to see not only how the governess tortures her preferred meaning out of Miles, but also how Edmund Wilson tortures his preferred meaning out of the governess. The interpreters of the text have taken on the role of its heroine, unconsciously and compulsively restaging the novella’s drama of lethally reductive reading.

Finally, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Nabokov called it a poem, and I likewise appreciate, more than its historical and theoretical resonance, its artistic power and potential:

I am even tempted to view this novella as the synthesis of Dracula (thesis) and The Turn of the Screw (antithesis): if Stoker’s novel is a feverish potboiler, written for thrilling effect but not especially “artistic,” and if James’s novella is a proto-modernist transformation of popular material into an almost airlessly rarefied work of self-communing high literature, then Stevenson’s earlier book represents the writer’s and reader’s dream of having it all: a shilling-shocker keep-you-up-at-night sensational plot that is also a carefully-wrought prose poem—Stoker’s killer instinct in finer prose and a more conscious structure, or James’s artistry without the cloistral suffocations of his late manner.

Happy Halloween!

#literature #literary criticism #british literature #gothic fiction #gothic literature #victorian literature #fin de siecle #horror fiction #literary theory #norton critical edition

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z-wonderland · 5 years

Text

Start Again/1

Fanfiction

Part 1

AU TVD/TO story

Klaus Mikaelson x reader/Elena Gilbert

Joel Goran x reader/Elena Gilbert

Prologue: Y/N/E moves to Toronto getting a job as a surgeon in Hope Zion, to start over, after her husband dies. it is part human, part supernatural story,

a/n: I hope you like this story. Thanks for reading xoxo

___________

Y/N/Elena Gilbert grew up in Mystic Falls, she was a doppelganger, a vampire and became human again. She fell in love with Damon Salvatore, her High-school sweetheart, who was a vampire, and then also became human again. She went to study medicine, and he studied sociology. After they graduated, they got married and she got a job at Whitmore Hospital and he was a teaching job at the Whitmore High-School. Some five years after, he dies in a car crash. Devastated Y/N/Elena one day decides to take a job in Hope Zion Hospital in Toronto.

tags

@rissyrapp20 @captainshurley @elejahforever @cassienoble2000 @goddessofthunder112

■■■■■■■■

Preface

A couple of years after

"Why are you moving all the way to Canada?"- Bonnie asked.

"I need something different. New. An adventure. I don't know. But I decided that I am going and I will go. I'm sorry, Bonnie, but I just need to do it."

"I get it. I hate to admit it, but I get it."- Bonnie said.

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

Six months after moving to Toronto

Y/N/E walked into the bar across the road from the Hospital called Klaus', and like the first morning when she came in as she had arrived to Toronto, she ordered a black coffee without sugar. Now the bartender/owner poured her a cup.

"Make it triple, please"- Y/NE said.

"Tough night?!"- Klaus stated as he topped the cup up.

"Yeah. The crash on 402 was really a mess."- Y/N/E replied now taking a good sip of coffee.

"Something tells me there is more to it?"

Y/N/E sighed a little and said-"This thing with bartenders being psychotherapist is actually real."

"Yeah, if you actually have a degree."- Klaus said.

"And something tells me that you have a degree?!"- Y/N/E then said.

"I might."- Klaus replied with a bit of a smirk.

"You are actually serious?! How come you- never said?"

"You never asked."- Klaus replied continuing-"and now goes the question of why am I actually not working as one, but tend the bar?!"

"Hey, everyone does what feel is best. At least that is what I hope people do. I am for one glad you are making coffee."

"I do it because there are nurses and doctors, who work unbelievable shifts, and most of the time the machine coffee is vile."

"It really is."- Y/N/E said with a little smile.

"So, whose foot did you step on?"

Y/N/E made a face like not going to spill.

"It's not going to go further. It's like doctor-patient privilege."

"I stepped on the feet of a fellow. I saw that he wasn't - well, his hand is not properly healed and- I asked him to leave the OR."

"Oh-"- Klaus said-"That didn't go down well!"

"You're kidding."- Y/N/E said-"but the patient comes first."

"Did you get reprimanded?"

"No. He did. And I just feel bad for some reason."- Y/N/E said.

"So, you are not such a cold heartless witch after all."- Klaus said.

"What?"- Y/N/E now looked stunned at him.

"Ahm, sorry. I don't know what possessed me to say that."- Klaus said apologetically.

"That's what everybody says about me, don't they?"

"You have not really made any friends, have you?"

"I- came here - to work. And that's what I do. I work."- Y/N/E said.

"Something bad had happened, right? You were once a very kind and warm person, the heart of the party."

"Not doing this, Dr Freud."- Y/N/E said getting up now paying for her coffee, leaving a generous tip behind.

"Don't go."- Klaus now said-"I was way out of line here."

Y/N/E stopped for a second and said taking a long deep breath- "I - just not ready to talk."

"Fair enough."- Klaus said now pushing the money back to her saying-"this one is on the house."

Y/N/E shook her head a little, taking her jacket from the other stool and her bag now.

"That's for the session."

She exited the bar then.

Klaus cursed himself mentally for stepping over the line, but ever since she walked into his bar six month ago, she was like this enigma that he wanted to decipher. But, she was a hard nut to crack. He now took the money and put in the box for tips.

¤¤¤

In the Hope Zion hospital, somewhat earlier

"Dr Goran, in my office, please!"- Dr Dana Kinney now said to the fellow to follow her.

Joel Goran went with the feisty chief-of-staff. He knew that the incident in the OR would have repercussions.

"Please close the door behind you."

Joel did as he was asked.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid."- the Chief-of-staff raged a bit at the surgeon-"a bar-fight? A fractured hand?!"

"I know, but on the upside - these are insured."- Joel said.

"That is not the point. We are paying you for those hands. But that is not the most what really pisses me off. It's the fact that a resident has asked you to leave the OR."

"I didn't leave. I stayed."

"You followed the protocol. Thank God for that. But, what were you thinking. Why didn't you have the hand looked at?"

"There was no time."- Joel said-"we were all paged and I got in. I scrubbed and - "

Dr Kinney was feeling somewhat less mad at her colleague.

"I know. It was an emergency. But, this doesn't excuse you. You always have to be on top of things. That is what your station requires of you. Thank God Y/N/E is - an overachieving genius, and she could do the job, but- I will not tolerate this cowboy behaviour of yours again. No matter how good you are. I am going to put you out for two weeks."

"No, please."- Joel now said serious- "I can still work."

"You can't do surgery."- Dr Kinney said.

"I can diagnose. I can still consult."- Joel said nearly in a pleading voice.

"Joel, you have just lost a patient."

"It comes with the territory."- Joel said.

"The man committed suicide. It affected you even though you are not willing to admit it."

"Dana, I am fine."- Joel said trying to reassure the Chief.

"I don't think you are. Still, I will think about it and let you know."- Dr Kinney said and now took her tablet, and looked at her e-mail messages.

Joel still stood there looking at her. He was not happy with the decision she had made. As he wanted to add something more, she now raised her head and said-

"You are still here?"

"This is it?"

"As I said- I will think about it and give you a call. I am sorry, but I have to attend to these."

"All right"- Joel said and left the Chief's office miffed. But, he knew that he made a very bad call and now he was reaping the consequences. Walking down the corridor, he shook his head not believing how this spiralled into a mini- nightmare for him. With his thoughts wondering all over the place he walked into the cafeteria and asked for a sandwich and a coffee.

"You're still here?"- Dr Maggie Lin said as she saw Joel zoned out.

"What?"- he looked at the resident.

"I thought you'd be long gone. Didn't you just pull a triple- shift? Oh, what happened to your hand?"- she now saw the splint.

"I had an accident"

"Accident-?!"

"Yeah."- Joel said.

Dr Alex Reid now walked in and seeing Joel asked him straight out-

"A resident whooped your ass- ouch!"

Maggie now looked at Alex not understanding what had happened. And Alex now told her friend and colleague about Y/N/E telling Joel to step away, taking over the operation.

"You are loving this way too much."- Joel said.

"Yep."- Alex said-"I really don't want to be mean, but- it serves you right."

Joel was about to say something to it, but his phone rang, and he now answered-

"I thought about it, and I am allowing you to diagnose and consult. I am also assigning you to help Dr Y/N/Gilbert with all her cases."- Dana said.

"Excuse me?"- Joel couldn't believe what he was hearing. The last thing he wanted was to work alongside Y/N/E for a while.

"She has a couple of cases she's writing a paper on, and since I am assigning her to take over some of your surgeries. You have a presentation to give at the ICORS Conference in New York in a couple of weeks, and I found out that you still need to put it together. Dr Y/N/Gilbert is willing to help you."

"She is?"

"Well, I have kindly asked her. "- Dana said. But in other words, knowing the Chief, it actually meant that this was a way to deal with what had happened in the OR earlier that morning.

■

The next day, Joel arrived at the hospital in a taxi. Y/N/E was approaching him from the parking lot, giving him a small hello.

"Hello."- Joel said back.

"Dr Goran, I apologize for the way I acted in the OR. It was out of place."- Y/N/E now said.

Joel sighed a little and now said looking at her seriously-

"I should have known better. I am your superior. But for what's worth, you made the right call."

Y/N/E nodded kind of relieved. And now continued- "Dr Kinney said to take over your scheduled OPs. And the presentation for New York."

"Yeah. I can't really type and do it with the left hand will take forever."- Joel said, both now entering the building.

"Right."- Y/N/E said and instead of going to the elevator with him she turned to take the stairs.

"I thought we cleared the air Dr Y/N/Gilbert"- Joel now said.

Y/N/E turned back to him and said- "Yes. But I just prefer the stairs. I will see you later."

Joel was like ok, and went to the elevator. Y/N/E was a puzzle to him and others as well. She had not made friends, but she was nice and good with everyone. She worked hard and exceled in all she did. And she kept to herself. They thought of her as the nerdy overachiever ever and a recluse.

And she would go for a drink after work at Klaus' like everyone did whenever they had time off. But stayed only for one drink.

Little flashback

"What is her deal?"- Dr Maggie Lin said to Dr Alex Reid once as Y/N/E left the bar after a celebration.

"She- well, she lost her husband in a car crash. And ahm- she went to the crash site with the paramedic, and - she couldn't save him. After his funeral she just shut down, and she is the way she is."- Alex said.

"How do you know all this?"- Maggie asked.

"I met a colleague of hers, Jo Parker, when I was at the Cardiovascular Congress in July."

"Oh! This is tough."- Maggie exclaimed.

"Yeah. They've been together since High School. I can't even think how I would feel if I lost the love of my life."- Alex said.

"Talking about love of your life"- Maggie said-"what is going on between you and Joel?"

"Me and Joel?"- Alex looked stunned at her friend.

"Yeah. You were once - and it feels like there is unfinished business there between you two."

Alex knee that Maggie was actually asking if it was ok to get it on with Joel.

"Oh, we are so finished."- Alex said-"a little warning - make sure you wear protective armour for your heart."

"I don't plan to fall in love. Just have fun."- Maggie said.

"Then Joel is your guy."- Alex said.

A couple of weeks later in New York

Y/N/E and Joel travelled together to the ICORS Conference, to give the presentation on a new surgical method. As Y/N/E improved the method even more, Dana thought the should present it together.

Already as they set off, on the way from the city to the airport, they had to stop as there was an accident on the part of the highway that was under construction. A man's leg was caught in one of the pipes that tumbled over. Both Joel and Y/N/E were there hands on, dealing with the situation before the ambulance arrived.

As they finally arrived and checked-in the hotel, they had something to eat and Joel suggested they go out for a drink. Y/N/E was reluctant, but then said yes.

"What are you having? Bourbon?"- Joel said.

"Yeah."- Y/N/E said.

Joel got their drinks and brought them over to the table Y/N/E sat down at.

"They didn't have Elijah Craig, so I got you Jefferson's."

Y/N/E looked surprised that he knew that she only drank one particular brand of Bourbon.

"It's ok."-Y/N/E said.

"Why do you only drink Elijah Craig?"

"Because it is the best. And I like the name."- Y/N/E said.

"Elijah or Craig?"- Joel asked.

"Elijah."- Y/N/E replied-"I don't know why, just- there is this something- old, noble about the name."

Joel smiled now at her charmingly.

"What?"- Y/N/E uttered taking a sip of the drink.

"My father wanted to call me Elijah."

"What? You are making this up."- Y/N/E now said.

"No. It's all true. You can ask him when he comes for a visit. He always comes for a visit for Christmas."

"So, I guess your mom wanted to call you Joel."

"Yes."- Joel replied-"And you?"

Y/N/E took another sip and said-"I don't know. Both of them, I guess. I was adopted."

Y/N/E then got up and said-"Let's play darts. I haven't played - like - forever. We always played pool."

"Yeah, ok."- Joel got up and joined her for a game. And Y/N/E had fun. She was beating him.

"Is there anything you are bad at?"- Joel asking jokingly.

"A lot. I am a bad friend. I am a bad daughter. I am a bad sister. All I can do is be a good surgeon. That is the only thing I am good at. One thing, I am good at that one thing- so pathetic."

"What I saw there today, wasn't just surgery. I was inspired. I have never seen anyone so cool and collected. It was like you switched your emotions off and you saved the guy's life."- Joel said.

"Can you not do this."- Y/N/E said back.

"Do what? Y/N/E, it was - insane, it was dangerous and it was monumentally sexy."

"Please, Joel. Really. Don't. I am not that amazing. And - just- stop hitting on me."

"I am not hitting on you. Well, maybe I am a little. Ah, but, really - I think you are kind of amazing, Y/N/E. You are amazing. I think you should probably acknowledge it to yourself."

Y/N/E looked at Joel and the words he said transported her to her High-School days, when Damon told her the same flattering words. And there it was, emotions charging up. Emotions, she thought she had under control.

Y/N/E put the darts aside and said that she needed a drink, walking away to the bar. Joel turned around and followed her not understanding her abrupt behaviour.

"Bourbon large"- she said to the bartender.

"Are you all right?"- Joel asked.

"Yeah."- Y/N/E took the glass as it was poured and downed the drink in one go. She then put the glass down on the counter and looked at Joel-

"I am going back to the hotel."

"What just happened there?"- Joel asked looking at Y/N/E seriously-"I- sorry if I was coming on- I thought that -"

"No, I am sorry, if I gave you any kind of mixed messages. I really didn't want to."

"You were not. But- I - just- the last couple of weeks- we -" Joel paused for a second and then continued-"we worked so well together on the presentation and in the OR. And - I saw - you- it's like you showed me you, not Dr Y/N/Gilbert, the cool, level headed medical genius. You are so beautiful and sexy- and-"

"Yeah, we worked well together. And- this is how I want to keep it. Night."

Saying that, Y/N/E went out of the bar.

Joel stayed behind gazing in the direction she had just exited. For a moment there, he thought he saw a glimpse in her eyes, a glimpse that had a certain sweet, loving warmth.

Outside, the bar, Y/N/E fought her emotions that rippled open. Again she shook her head. No. Where were these emotions coming from? Y/N/E now took a deep breath, and stopped her heart from humming.

The next day, both of them didn't talk about what had happened at the bar. It was like nothing ever happened. They both acted professional and the presentation was done as such.

All the way back from New York to Toronto, Y/N/E was like absent-minded. They didn't speak much. Y/N/E kept herself busy reading different medical papers. As they touched down and went through the border control, Joel asked if she wanted a ride back into the city as he had his car there.

"Thank you-"- she started and he cut in-

"But you prefer to take the taxi."

Y/N/E then changed her mind suddenly and said-"I was going to say- but can you drop me off at the Hospital."

"Right."- Joel was surprised-"but you start tomorrow."

"I just need to see a patient."- Y/N/E said.

"Yeah, ok."- Joel replied and they went to the parking lot.

As the arrived at the hospital and Joel pulled in front of the building he said-

"I know we are colleagues, but can we be friends?"

Her heart beat fast and completely erratic fighting a new flood of emotions as she looked at him and replied- "Yeah, we can."- and got out of the car.

Days after

"New York was good."- Y/N/E said to her friend Bonnie-"I wish you could have come."

"No can do. Have to keep this Vampire Central under control."- her friend Bonnie replied.

"Did you hear from Kai?"- Y/N/E now asked.

"No. He is not answering any of my calls."- the witch said.

"So there are no bloody trails?"- Y/N/E referred to Kai, who was very unstable after his best friend's death, and they had a hard time keeping track of him.

"Alaric has promised to keep an eye on him."- Bonnie replied-"Ok. Now I want to hear gossip. Tell me you will have fun today, and that you will not work all day long on your birthday."

Y/N/E sighed a little and then said-

"Well, I - ok- I - well, I started to have feelings- for this guy. Actually, there is two of them. And- it just- oh, it feels like- it is all so- then I feel so bad, because I have these feelings, because-Oh, I am so messed up, this is so not right-"- Y/N/E said-"I really don't know- what to do" -"

"Y/N/E, you have to get out of this. The whole reason of moving away was that you get on with your life. It's been nearly two years now, and it's ok to - go on. He would want you to move on."

"Go for it, Y/N/E. It is good that you started to have feelings and- yeah- Just - get out there. Date. And - live again. You've like through Hell and back ten thousand times."- Bonnie said.

"Literally."- Y/N/E said.

"Exactly, so- it's ok to love again. "

"Yeah, I guess."

And she got dressed, and went to work. This was going to be a day that she will - go on. Move on.

And the first thing she did as she saw her colleague Alex to invite her for a drink at Klaus'

"It's my birthday."- Y/N/E said-"and so- if you don't have anything afterwards."

"No. Great. I'll be there."- Alex said and then went off as she was paged.

Y/N/E also got on with her patients. The morning was busy and as she finally got time around lunch, she went to find Joel. Approaching from the side corridor, she saw him with Maggie and then heard him say this-

"It's time for me to try and be more generous with you"

"Is that code for you wanna be exclusive?"- Maggie asked.

"I think we should give it a shot?"- Joel asked.

Maggie now latched onto Joel in a kiss, and Elena stepped backwards and went to an opposite direction.

Klaus' bar that evening

"See you"- Alex said to Y/N/E picking up her bag-"Happy birthday."

"Thanks. See ya."- Y/N/E said sitting back at the bar.

"So, is it's your birthday?!- Klaus stated, having overheard them obviously.

"Yep. But it is not a big deal."- Y/N/E said.

"Which one if it's not a secret?"- Klaus said.

"30th."- Y/N/E said.

"Oh, You should have said- I would have made it to be a blast."

"As I said it's not a big deal."- Y/N/E exhaled a little.

"Here"- Klaus now put two glasses down and poured them the Bourbon-"Happy birthday."

Y/N/E looked at Klaus and he at her.

"I should go."- Y/N/E muttered.

"I guess you should."- Klaus muttered back not taking his eyes off of her. She was not moving,

He now neared her and kissed her.

#Klaus Mikaelson #Klaus Mikaelson x reader #Joel Goran #Daniel Gillies #Joseph Morgan #Elena Gilbert #tvd fanfiction #Fanfiction #alternative universe

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bglivoti-writing · 5 years

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the textbook of happy (pt.1)

Entry One- 29 January 1998

Personally, I believe this project is an illogical waste of time and paper. As are most assignments in secondary education, but that is beside the point. Your rules require us to write our “oh so secret and profound emotions” within a college ruled notepad to be handed in to you and graded. It is completely nonsensical, but I have no desire to, as my peers say, “flunk this fucking course,” so I will participate. Though, I warn you, the effort will not be at all genuine.

I’ll have you know that I am not one of those fanciful imbeciles, walking around in their own asperitas cloud of smothering joy and misery. Of course, those particular types of people fascinate me in all of their ignorance, yet do not mistake this fascination with actual sentiment, for they mean next to nothing to me in terms of actual emotion and caring. I do not mean this to sound cruel, though, frankly, I do not particularly care if it comes off as such. But there is power in honesty. So I intend to be perpetually honest. I wake up every day in a dorm with a brute who has far too much negative regard for me, constantly using the word “freak” in my presence as if it is the only fragment of the English language that his pea-size intellect was able to grasp. I then walk to the library and read the books that haven’t been opened for centuries. The ones coated in dust and various particles as an indication of their unimportance to the majority of the student body. I highly recommend that the school reinforce their reading programs, if only not to lose their investments in this room of knowledge, which was placed in a foolish building full of foolish people. Which was, of course, a foolish decision.

Currently, I am sitting in that spectacularly unused room, adjacent to a stack of such unappreciated books, which include the likes of Sheridan Le Fanu and The Order of Time. It is completely empty apart from myself and a few timid cockroaches. And I could not be happier.

Reaching up to one of the higher shelves, I am able to grasp a nearby textbook. Understanding the Mind: An Insight Into the Study of Psychology. Written by Jeremy Watts. I wonder what this Mr. Watts would say about my mind. Wonder if he’d dub me with the title “Freak” as well, and buckle over in hearty gasps of laughter with Mr. Freud and Mr. Jung. Though, I cannot answer that with any form of affirmation, as it was just another image concocted inside my diseased imagination. The only thing I can say with certainty is that no student taking Psychology at Kerouac Academy receives a passing grade.

First class of the day: Chemistry. Seeing as you have met your colleague, I do not think it necessary to explain the idiocy that is my professor, Dr. Wilkins. Though I am more intelligent in this topic, so I am not bothered by his presence. He is more humorous than bothersome. My dear professor is vaguely reminiscent of the jester of a king, never concerning himself with the expertise involved in running the kingdom, yet he is entertaining in his inelegant ways. He is rather like my classmates in that regard. Completely ignorant and inept, yet not entirely uninteresting. I cannot ask you to understand these observations, as you probably view your students as bright lights in the vast expanse of secondary education. But I am quite certain that your opinion would begin to shift had you ever been smacked upside the head with a 109,935 page textbook. I’m sure it seems as though I am upset by the torment I am perpetually subjected to, when the in simplest of terms, it is really “all in a day's work.” I am disinterested with the acts of others, even when I am the subject of their attentions. And yet, I find a certain fascination in the pleasure’s of the ignorant, the motivations of the mundane. Where do the boundaries of analytical logic begin within human decision. When is it asphyxiated, smothered, and replaced with an animalistic desire for the stimulus of emotion which we all so desperately crave. Or so I have noticed. I find throughout my observations, the experience of feeling causes rather the same symptoms as one would witness after the consumption of a collection of amphetamines. The central nervous system is washed with excitement, resulting in the recipient of this pleasant emotion to become almost giddy. Euphoria spikes, energy levels increase, and overall confidence rises to a level of ensured stupidity. Most people can quite literally experience a “high of happiness.” And yet emotions have never been illegal, no matter how intrusive they can be upon one’s ability to make reasonable decisions. Of course, I am speaking hypothetically, as it would be impractical to outlaw one’s emotions unless we lived in a blatant dystopia, where such acts of psychological tampering would not be considered inhumane. When, in actuality, it is quite frankly the opposite.

Entry 2- 30 January 1998

You never specified just how long our entries had to be. I intend to use this to my complete and total advantage to get through this Shakespearean nightmare of an assignment.

Respectfully,

Alan Trimble

Entry 3- 31 January 1998

Mr. Jacoby is a fatuous twat. In case you are unaware, a twat is a slang term for misshapen vagina. I hope you find this definition, as well as my commentary on another of your coworkers, useful. Good day.

Entry 4- 1 January 1998

Freud was dimwitted fool, and why we quote his theory as gospel astounds me. I find his work entirely incorrect and frankly lacking all reason in its creation. Sex is merely an animalistic desire fueling advances and sparked by emotion and euphoria which clouds the brain and fogs the ability of analytical decision making. Yet, it does not replace it, and it does not control it. In conclusion, Mr. Sigmund Freud was a half-wit.

Entry 5- 2 February 1998

A student has arrived from Germany today. He seems ordinary enough, and if he was not a new face in this bustling phalanx of pubescence that I am forced to call my peers, I doubt I would’ve noticed him at all. He is, of course, frightfully uninteresting.

I have just learned that his name is Jan Pfeifer. A well-suited name, as apparently he plays the flute in his spare time. This “Jan Pfeifer” also happens to be a member of my Calculus lesson, though I have not heard him utter a single phrase beyond that of, “Hallo mein name ist Jan Pfeifer,” and a rather broken version of, “I am looking forward to being a member of this class.” While the second was not by any means a linguistic nightmare, my simple-minded classmates found the concept of a person not speaking perfect English entirely outlandish. Yet, the irony present in that shock, considering the amount of proper communication skills lacked by the majority of the people in this school, is overwhelming in its prominence. Perhaps I will not include this Germanic enigma in my social criticisms for the time being.

Entry 6- 5 February 1998

Please inform me of the hiring process of this particular school, as I find myself constantly questioning the requirements needed to become a member of the teaching staff. It seems the majority of the adult residents have hardly passed primary education.

Entry 7- 4 February 1998

I have received a proper introduction to our Mr. Pfeifer, the school’s resident Aryan spectacle. It occurred half way through the day, as I sat down to force feed myself the culinary atrocities that this fine establishment has to offer. Based purely on the food which was sat in front of me, I can only assume that the chef was discovered trembling inside of a mold-covered cardboard box, soaked in rain and sewage, awash with an array of sexually transmitted diseases, living off the finest of rat feces and waste. He was then dragged to his feet by our headmaster, dusted off, handed an apron and put to work. I suppose it would be considered charitable to aid this withering sack of a man in his effort to rebuild his crumbling ruins of a life, yet why I must be subjected to this vomitous attempt at nutrition is beyond me. Even though this inference is, to my knowledge, a fictitious description of events, it does not change the truly unpalatable nature of this slop.

Back to the matter at hand, while I was choking down the cow shit this school calls food, I was approached by the one and only Jan Pfeifer. Given the lack of spots available in the commissary, and the constant amount of seating options in my general area, it was an inevitability that we would soon be in contact. Though, generally, a self-assured individual such as myself is portrayed with a certain negativity. And this negativity has been known to act as a repellent towards others, a type of warning of my indifference towards their well-being and overall existence. In the grand scheme of things, this phenomena works all the better for me, as the general public has nothing of value to say to me anyways, so their interactions would be a mere waste of time which I could be occupying with much more worthwhile activities. Yet, my air of arrogance did not deter the German. He plopped down into the seat next to me, looked at me briefly, and then proceeded to dig into his slop-pile of our questionable food. Only after the first two bites, which somehow seemed to satiate his need for sustenance, did he look me in the eye again. And with that almost disconcerting stare, he stuck out his left hand and said a hello. I shook it, as I was taught that is what one does when one is introduced to another, though I have never had a chance to practice this. After that, we spoke. I can’t quite remember the last time I casually spoke to anybody else as if they were my equal. Though I would never consider Jan an equal, I consider him to be the closest I have come to such. But, maybe, due to my constant exposure to ignoramuses and twats, my standards for decent human behavior has dwindled throughout the years. I am not quite sure that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting a decent human being before, so I am certain my standards were quite low to begin with. And with thirty minutes of conversation, lunch was over, and so was our time to interact. He seemed to be engaged, and I certainly was. Perhaps I shall talk with him again, should the chance arise.

Entry 8- 5 February 1998

An opportunity has presented itself. And we did not speak. I admit to being a tad troubled by this, though I’m sure it does not matter.

#fiction #short story #story #schizophrenia #psychology

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klein-archive · 6 years

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A debate with Elizabeth Zetzel in 1956

20th September 2018

I want to draw readers’ attention to an interesting paper by Elizabeth Zetzel (1956), in which she discusses Melanie Klein’s work in relation to classical ideas expressed by Anna Freud (1949) and the American ego psychologists, Hartman, Kris and Loewenstein (1946). Archive folder PP/KLE/D.17 contains Klein’s brief unpublished reply to Zetzel’s paper, in which she expresses appreciation for Zetzel’s understanding of many aspects of her work, while also taking issue with certain comments that she considers ‘erroneous’. (You can view photographs of the original paper on the Wellcome Library’s website, here.)

Elizabeth Zetzel (1907-1970), psychoanalyst and physician, grew up and completed her first degree in New York, before studying medicine at the University of London. She began her analytic training in the 1930s with the British Psychoanalytic Society (BPAS). Her training analyst was Ernest Jones. In a short memoir covering the years 1936-1938, Zetzel (1969) gives a positive account of her exposure to the ideas of Melanie Klein and her followers, Joan Riviere and Susan Isaacs, though she credits Donald Winnicott with exerting the greatest influence over her subsequent work.

Zetzel returned to the United States in 1949 and became a leading member of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society. She was a prolific writer whose collected papers (1970) include contributions to psychoanalytic technique. In an obituary of Klein, she (1961) decried the fact that many of her analytic contemporaries remained unfamiliar with Klein's work. Indeed, her advocacy of Klein's work had important implications for the development of psychoanalytic theory in the United States. Although psychoanalytic theory in 1950s America is often framed as being dominated by ego psychology, Zetzel’s writings on Klein and her followers, and her dialogue with other analysts interested in pre-oedipal development (notably Edith Jacobson and Phyllis Greenacre), suggest that this is not the whole story.

In her 1956 paper, Zetzel considers the difficulty in psychoanalysis of correlating observed clinical facts with theoretical postulates; as she puts it, ‘content versus concept’. She felt that the capacity to integrate astute clinical observation with abstract conceptual deduction was a rare gift. In her view, Klein was more adept at the former than the latter, whilst many ego psychologists were too concerned with highly abstracted theoretical formulations lacking the substance of clinical data. She comments that:

...the overwhelming emphasis in Melanie Klein’s work on unconscious fantasy [note that she uses ‘fantasy’ rather than Klein’s ‘phantasy’] as the mental expression of instinct; on concrete and specific fantasies as active from the dawn of life; on the ego as entirely derived from the id, mark an extreme contrast to the abstract conceptual approach exemplified by Hartman (1950) and Rapaport (1951), who, following on the whole Freud’s approach in the last chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams attempt to make general formulations relatively divorced from meaningful content. (Zetzel p.104)

Zetzel suggests that these very different approaches may not in fact be wholly incompatible.

Although sceptical about, for example, Klein’s use of Freud’s idea of the death instinct, Zetzel gives her credit for a number of significant findings. These include Klein’s recognition of the importance of aggression in early mental life; her emphasis on the importance of early object relations, as typified by the mother-child relationship; the connection she drew between difficulties in the early mother-child relationship and early depressive tendencies; her recognition of the significance of anxiety in mental development; and the role of symbol formation in early play.

Zetzel’s paper attempts to compare and contrast the work of Klein and the classical ego psychology model in a refreshingly balanced, scholarly and respectful way. This approach was, perhaps inevitably, absent during the impassioned and often hostile atmosphere of the so-called ‘Controversial Discussions’ of 1941-45 (see King and Steiner, 1992), where opposing colleagues were effectively ‘talking past’ each other, using the same words for radically different phenomena. I think there are, as Klein herself notes, some important misunderstandings of her work in Zetzel’s paper. I do think she misunderstands Klein’s idea of cycles of projection and introjection in gradually modifying primitive phantasy by exposure to external reality. What is more, she does not include Klein’s centrally important concepts, the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions. However, I believe her work is of value in its effort to bridge the gap between what were unhelpfully rigid, and antagonistically expressed, theoretical positions.

I do not reproduce Zetzel’s 1956 paper here, but encourage interested readers to consult it in order to understand her arguments in more detail.

What I am including is Klein’s response to Zetzel. I do not know whether it was ever read aloud as part of a discussion at the British Psychoanalytical Society, or elsewhere, but the fact that it was typed up (apart from the heading ‘Technique’, which is in Klein’s handwriting) suggests that it was intended for an audience or publication.

Technique

It is not possible for me at this time to write a full discussion concerning Dr Zetzel’s paper. These remarks, therefore, are not intended as a comprehensive reply to her exposition of my work. I can, however, indicate a few points which I think are erroneous, as far as my work is concerned.

I have looked up the Psychoanalysis of Children and I find that I have nowhere expressed the view that the ego develops out of the id. In fact, as the index indicates, it will be clear that I take the strength or weakness of the ego as a constitutional factor. Directly, and perhaps implicitly, it is also clear that even at that time, I assumed the existence of an ego at the beginning of life. In particular, I would draw attention to page 183 from which it is clear that I believe that the destructive impulses, the death instinct, as well as the life instinct, operate from the beginning of life. According to my views, destructive impulses can never be fully put out of action. They can, however, be modified at times in varying degrees when love gets the upper hand. This is what I mean by “mitigating hate by love”, a term I have used for many years. It has always been my thesis that the ego deals with the anxiety arising from the death instinct from the outset of life. Hartmann’s autonomous ego is, I believe, another way of expressing the same point of view. There are, however, vital differences between my views and his concept of a conflict-free area, utilising neutralised instinctual energy as Dr Zetzel clearly points out.

Another point which should be clarified concerns my view regarding the early stages of the Oedipus complex and the origin of the superego. Dr Zetzel suggests both in this paper and in her earlier paper, “The Depressive Position” that my concept of the extremely early development of the superego has been formulated in relation to my views with regard to the origins of the oedipal situation. This is incorrect. It is my belief that superego development starts with the first relation to the mother’s breast through the introjection of the good and the bad breasts. This precedes the onset of the Oedipus complex which, according to my views, does not start at the beginning of life but arises together with the depressive position at about the middle of the first year. Since I do not believe that such a date can be precise, I have spoken of the depressive position and the early stages of the Oedipus complex as setting in during the second quarter of the first year. I have, however, repeatedly emphasised the middle of the first year as the stage in which both depressive and oedipal feelings can be observed.

There is long-standing criticism of my work to the effect that I do not attach sufficient importance to external factors. Although Dr Zetzel mentions in passing that I do not neglect that aspect of development, I feel that she under-rates the importance I have attached to these factors. For instance, in the Developments in Psychoanalysis, both in the theoretical chapter and in the observations, I lay great stress on the attitude of the mother and the way she feeds the baby. That is only one instance out of many.

I cannot agree with Dr Zetzel in her statement that I have failed to distinguish between concept and content. I was dealing with a very new and wide field, and although I am quite aware that more conceptualisation will take place in the future, a good deal has already been accomplished. I agree with Dr Zetzel that it is important both from theoretical and clinical points of view to clarify concepts, but I know that some of my colleagues who have made a thorough study of my work have found that my concepts of the paranoid schizoid and depressive positions have given them the necessary clarification.

I would also draw attention to the fact that I have always been primarily a clinician. It has never happened that I arrived at a concept theoretically and then allowed this concept to guide my clinical work. It has always been the other way around. From time to time, going over my psychoanalytic experiences and observations, I have arrived at certain concepts. If, for example, one compares my views in the Psychoanalysis of Children with regard to early persecutory and depressive feelings and the clarification of these points, in my paper, “A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-depressive States”, the changes in my theoretical position can be seen. These developments have been further clarified in succeeding papers “Notes on some Schizoid Mechanisms” (1946) and “The Developments in Psychoanalysis” (1952). I hope that the volume at present in preparation will add further conceptual clarification. In every case, however, the developments of theoretical concepts have been based on clinical observations.

Another point on which I disagree with Dr Zetzel is that Freud’s concept of the “life and death instincts was essentially a biological speculation which probably does not belong properly within the field of psychoanalytic theory”. It is true that Freud himself made this statement in 1920, leaving it open for analysts to accept or reject his hypothesis. He himself, however (and this is one of the various inconsistencies which I believe were characteristic of Freud’s genius when he did not fully clarify his concepts) based his paper “The Economic Principle of Masochism” on clinical aspects of this concept. This I believe implies that whatever he said about this hypothesis in his theoretical paper he nevertheless accepted it as carrying clinical implications.

As I have already indicated, De Zetzel under-rates, though less than most others, the importance which I attach to external factors. I would suggest that the emphasis I have laid on introjection, stressing the manner in which the picture of the internal world is influenced by the external world is in contradiction to this statement. I would also like to point out that maturation enters very much into my work. For example, I refer in the Psychoanalysis of Children to the manner in which the differentiation between external and internal reality is gradually achieved by the ego through processes of introjection and projection. Dr Zetzel refers to Rapaport (1954) who regards “the internalisation of reality as one of the crucial characteristics of the function of the ego”. I made similar statements in the Psychoanalysis of Children and on other occasions since that time.

Unfortunately, I cannot go into any more detail at this time. I hope, however, that what I have said may correct some conclusions with regard to my work which I believe to be erroneous. Nevertheless, in spite of these misunderstandings I should like to express my appreciation of the understanding of many aspects of my work which Dr Zetzel has presented with such strength and clarity.

References

Freud, A. (1949) Aggression in relation to normal development: Normal and pathological. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 3:37-42.

Hartmann, H., Kris, E. and Loewenstein, R. M. (1949) Notes on the theory of aggression. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 3:9-36.

King, P. and Steiner, R. (1992) The Freud Klein Controversies 1941-45. London: Routledge.

Zetzel, E. (1956) An approach to the relation between concept and content in psychoanalytic theory (with special reference to the work of Melanie Klein and her followers). The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 11: 99-121. Reprinted in Zetzel, E. The Capacity for Emotional Growth, Chapter 7 (Hogarth Press, 1970).

Zetzel, E. (1961) Melanie Klein 1882-1960. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 30: 420-425.

Zetzel, E. (1969) 96 Gloucester Place: Some personal recollections. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 50: 717-719.

#Melanie Klein #elizabeth zetzel #psychoanalysis #freud #emotional development #death instinct #symbol formation #Psychoanalysis of Children

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moontimemumblings · 6 years

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Why read books penned by survivors of war

@gulmohurr, answering your question here because the comments have word limit and I have quite a lot to say.

Genocides in Armenia, Cambodia (which is not very faraway from India), The Holocaust, the Civil Wars in America and Sri Lanka, and the ongoing Rohingya persecution in Myanmar (another neighbouring country for us Indians), and many other such inhuman events throughout the history of mankind and in the present have shown and continue to show how much of a destructive species we have been and are on the planet. But ironically, these are the chapters that have also, mostly as the aftermath, brought the best out of us.

I used to wonder how one man who is made of flesh and blood can kill another who is also made of the same, and these books contain answers, some convincing ones at that. Frankl, for instance, has written not only about his personal experiences but also (as a psychotherapist whose Logotherapy is considered The Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy – Freud’s and Adler’s being the first two) about why the oppressor does what he does. And after all the extremely callous traumatic experiences he himself went through, he was still capable of looking back and into the past with a need to understand everything objectively. And his empathy only becomes more resolute as he tries to break it all down in terms of human psychology. It’s not just shallow “intellect” talking, when you read him, but his approach is like that of a saint – highly spiritual, penetrative but gently so.

That’s one part of it. But the most important reason why I tend to read such books is because I cannot believe just how much humans can endure. Sometimes just thinking about it moves me to tears. Just read the following few passages from some of these books:

“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfil the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.” ― Frankl in Man's Search for Meaning

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.” ― Frankl again in the same book

And look a little into Levi’s soul:

“All took leave from life in the manner which most suited them. Some praying, some deliberately drunk, others lustfully intoxicated for the last time. But the mothers stayed up to prepare the food for the journey with tender care, and washed their children and packed their luggage; and at dawn the barbed wire was full of children's washing hung out in the wind to dry. Nor did they forget the diapers, the toys, the cushions and the hundreds other small things which mothers remember and which children always need. Would you not do the same? If you and your child were going to die tomorrow, would you not give him to eat today?” ― Primo Levi in Survival in Auschwitz

“I believe that it was really due to Lorenzo that I am alive today; and not so much for his material aid, as for his having constantly reminded me by his presence, by his natural and plain manner of being good, that there still existed a just world outside our own, something and someone still pure and whole, not corrupt, not savage, extraneous to hatred and terror; something difficult to define, a remote possibility of good, but for which it was worth saving. The personages in these pages are not men. Their humanity is buried, or they themselves have buried it, under an offense received or inflicted on someone else. The evil and insane SS men, the Kapos, the politicals, the criminals, the prominents, great and small, down to the indifferent slave Häftlinge, all the grades of the mad hierarchy created by the Germans paradoxically fraternized in a uniform internal desolation. But Lorenzo was a man; his humanity was pure and uncontaminated, he was outside this world of negation. Thanks to Lorenzo, I managed not to forget that I myself was a man.”

― Levi in the same book

We all go through our own wars and it is, of course, silly to compare the magnitude of experiences of different nature. However, when a Holocaust survivor speaks to you like this, I believe it does put a lot of things for us in perspective. To begin with, we are not victims of war, and how fortunate are we to be that much secure. To have a name and not a number etched on to our skin, to not be in political exile, to have three square meals a day and eat whatever we want and wear whatever we want and treat ourselves to whatever it is that interests us. I forgot to mention what Syrians are going through in the beginning of this post. So, to me, personally, even as I have my recurring breakdowns about personal losses, these books constantly coax me into reconsidering my priorities in life. At the end of the day, while I stay grateful to my own numerous privileges, I want to strive harder and do whatever I can in my might to be of more use to the world around me. Even if it is about making one person a little happier than they could have been without meeting you for that day. I think we tend to ignore the significance of the smallest of differences we can make to each other while we wait for some huge miracles.

And yes, these books, even as they draw from the worst of the chapters in human history, leave you with much more hope and empathy and love than you ever thought you are capable of. It is for this learning, this softening, this sacred human connection that I tend to read these books. How lucky are we that we have access to so much human learning and wisdom and to borrow from, to rely on. (Also, there are so many, many beautiful movies made on the same)

Next on my list are Elie Wiesel’s works. You can watch his speeches on YouTube if you wish to get introduced to a bit of his mind.

I will leave you with this thought:

“Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.”

-- Dr. Gordon Allport

P. S. I should probably develop this informal post into an essay or something. I’ve written this to you on my lunch break and I should get back to work now. :-)

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raisingcain-onceagain · 7 years

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koramberlynne replied to your post “Ok, folks, I’m a few paragraphs away from a finished theory paper on...”

I would be incredibly interested in a basic rundown of that paper, just saying.

@koramberlynne

Ahahaha, sure! So the professor’s assignment was to pick a trope and - hang on, lemme get the exact description:

Identify, describe and analyze a cross-fandom fanfiction genre or “trope” (see TV Tropes.) Include a definition of the trope, examples, one of which must be from the syllabus, and offer a theory of the trope’s prominence and popularity. What does it accomplish for writers (and readers)? (4 p., 10%) Due November 17

A bit more about the class: it’s an undegrad class that I’m taking as an independent study, so I’m the only grad student there and the prof knows that I want to work with her on my eventual dissertation. She also know that I’m interested in fan studies - she does *not* know the extent of my engagement in fandom, though i’m pr. damn sure she can guess some of it (can’t be in fan studies without being a fan, and I’m always willing to jump in and help the many non-fan students out).

So, for this assignment she knew I already knew what tropes are, and she wanted me to do more than just the 4 pages.

So I went all out. Just 15 minutes ago, turned in a 14-page paper theorizing A/B/O a la Deleuze and Guattari, and specifically their chapter “One or Several Wolves?” (http://azinelibrary.org/approved/d_g-wolves-read.pdf)

. . .

TL;DR This was all a gigantic fucking pun that got out of control

because D&G write like they’re high af and spend this whole chapter bashing Freud by saying that wolves are pack animals

and i spent the whole paper saying that A/B/O should be read as a pack of tropes

friend, i am so ashamed of myself

i pray she likes it

i pray she laughs

#koramberlynne #rc replies #i need a phd tag #i am a terrible person #welp #there but for the grace of eru #except i did it #thank you for asking tho #srsly i have been dying to explain the magnitude of my punning to someone before next week when i have to look her in the face again

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pennswoodsman · 5 years

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Double duds and mañana floods

So Dawn's poor Aunt Lucy has passed away. I had periodically been giving her support and what have you. I even got a little worried at one point for her. I guess that's just out of habit. Anyway she put a picture of herself on Instagram crying. I decided randomly just to see if maybe her boyfriend could be identified and it turns out I definitely identified him. Some guy named JJ and he's really buff. Like exactly how buff her father was back in the early 80s. (Paging Dr. Freud). As soon as I started to feel the pang of jealousy I knew it was time to start vaping away.

I guess also do the fact that I had two dates with two different women over this weekend and they both were complete failures. The first one: this chick Kait (Kate) she's 48 years old but unlike Rebecca she was in pretty bad shape. She never smiled and REALLY didn't seem to have much of a sense of humor. Had a pretty forlorn expression the whole time. So I wasn't as interested in her but I was looking forward to meeting bachelorette #2: Irina. She is a Ukrainian national living in Northeast Philly. She put a few pictures up and she was very pretty. So, I was pretty excited to meet her. So this afternoon I drive all the way out to the Mayfair neighborhood where we meet up at a target with a Starbucks. I got there early so I got my flat white and was just sitting at a table waiting for her to get there. at one point I stood up and was walking toward the door when this woman was looking at me and it suddenly occurred to me that that was Irina. However, she looked A LOT different from her pictures. She said she was 44 in her profile that she definitely looked older and she looks like she's gained at least 40 lb since those pictures were taken. I am still very interested in hearing about the Ukraine and the Ukrainian language, etc. So, I was polite, still making jokes, etc but I just couldn't find her attractive. In a way I felt kind of bad for her. She was clearly very nervous, barely spoke above a whisper and didn't want to look me in the eye. Also, very concerned that I wouldn't be able to understand her because of her accent (actually, I had no trouble understanding her at all). plus she said something else that caught my attention. We were talking about working out and how I take fitness seriously. She said under her breath (at least this is what it sounded like) "I can tell you work out, you're beautiful" Kind of a shame... she really is sweet woman. She is divorced with no children and probably wants a kid...by which I mean it said right on her profile she wants a child. Man. Poor woman. I then drive back to go to Walmart to get a few things for my dad's house and then go over planet fitness on Columbus boulevard for a workout. I get a little too distracted and I accidentally locked my keys inside my car. After all that, seeing Dawn's boyfriend was just not really what I needed to see at that moment... Despite the fact that I actually went out of my way to look for it. Whoopsie Daisy

Not sure what I'm really going to do with myself the rest of the week.

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isayeed-blog · 5 years

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Homo Non Sapiens and the Rational

The desacralization of the world and the rise of the rational individual more or less went hand in hand in western civilisation. "More than the 'human dignity' exalted by the humanists, it is the individual liberty to reject every authority outside of God that has made possible – by a slow process of desacralization – the 'modern world' such as it emerges in the period of the Enlightenment, and defines itself with the French Revolution and the triumph of science and technology [Mircea Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas, Volume three, p. 248 ]."

The rational individual openly appears as homo economicus in the pages of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. The wealth of a nation depends on the division of labour made possible by the consensual exchange of products in a market untrammeled by government or monopoly. "He [Adam Smith] seems to have taken care to note that his remarks do not apply to all, but only to the generality of men. He continually recalls the fact that he is speaking of men of common understanding, or of those gifted with common prudence. He knew well enough that the principles of common prudence do not always govern the conduct of every individual, but he was of opinion that they always influenced that of the majority of every class and order. His reasoning is applicable to men en masse, and not to individuals in particular. Moreover, he does not deny that man may be unacquainted with or may even entirely ignore his own interest....These reservations notwithstanding, and full account being taken of all the exceptions to the principals as laid down by Smith, it is still true to say that as a general thesis he considers 'the natural effort of every individual to better his own condition' – that is, personal interest – as the fundamental psychological motive in political economy (italics original) [Charles Gide and Charles Rist, A History of Economic Doctrines, trans. B.A.Richards, London: George G. Harrap and Co. Ltd., 1959, p. 103 ]" That is to say, the rational producer-consumer would try to better his lot, and in doing so, unwittingly, better the lot of the community he finds himself in. This was the product of the Scottish Enlightenment, and it has come to stay.

Indeed, the rational economical agent has pervaded every sphere of human activity – he or she is also the rational voter, the rational ruler, the rational citizen....Rationality is everywhere evident, except, as observed by Anthony Pagden and others, in the nonwestern world. These lesser people must either be ignored (which is not possible in today's cheek-by-jowl world) or elevated to the first rank, or as near to it as their feeble intellects will allow. The great neo-conservative experiment in disseminating the seeds of democracy far and wide, with violence if necessary since we don't know our own good yet and are apt to resist the 'moderniser’, is part of this grand project.

It is remarkable that Adam Smith felt that the well-spring of human activity is to better oneself. A casual reading of Hesiod's Works and Days would have disabused him of this notion."...a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with his neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel [Hesiod, Works and Days, 11-24, Project Gutenberg's Etext of Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, Etext #348]" For Hesiod, the psychological inducement to work is not the urge to improve one's lot, but to make one's lot better than that of one's neighbours'. More on this soon.

To posit a rational motivation for human endeavour is to misread humans altogether: the irrational aspect of man's character has been the subject of study in western civilisation since at least the time when Plato divided the soul into its three divisions, only one of which is rational. In our age, Sigmund Freud made irrationality the hallmark of humanity, again dividing the psyche into three warring parts.

Freud wrote the following words in a letter to Dr. Chaim Koffler in 1930:

Dear Sir: I cannot do as you wish [i.e., become a Zionist] ... Whoever wants to influence the masses must give them something rousing and inflammatory and my sober judgment of Zionism does not permit this. I certainly sympathize with its goals, am proud of our University in Jerusalem and am delighted with our settlement’s prosperity. But, on the other hand, I do not think that Palestine could ever become a Jewish state, nor that the Christian and Islamic worlds would ever be prepared to have their holy places under Jewish care. It would have seemed more sensible to me to establish a Jewish homeland on a less historically-burdened land. But I know that such a rational viewpoint would never have gained the enthusiasm of the masses and the financial support of the wealthy. I concede with sorrow that the baseless fanaticism of our people is in part to be blamed for the awakening of Arab distrust. I can raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece of a Herodian wall [i.e., the Wailing Wall] into a national relic, thereby offending the feelings of the natives. Now judge for yourself whether I, with such a critical point of view, am the right person to come forward as the solace of a people deluded by unjustified hope. Your obedient servant, Freud

[http://www.thehypertexts.com/Nakba%20Holocaust%20Palestinians%20Sigmund%20Freud%20on%20Zionism.htm]

Zionists, indeed, were offered a slice of Africa, but they refused [https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-uganda-proposal-1903]. Freud was well aware that a rational project would never have got off the ground – the appeal had to be made to the irrational side of the people.

In philosophy, even David Hume pointed out that we cannot live as rational beings – it is impossible: "...all our reasonings concerning causes and effects, are derived from nothing but custom; and that belief is more properly an act of the sensitive, than of the cogitative part of our natures [ The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Treatise of Human Nature, by David Hume, Part IV, Section 1, Etext #4705 ]". In the previous paragraph Hume says that total scepticism is incompatible with nature: we have to believe, willy-nilly. "Nature, by an absolute and uncontroulable necessity has determined us to judge as well as to breathe and feel...." If we are to survive at all – breathe and feel – we have to form judgments and beliefs, even when reason tells us that we can never have enough evidence for our judgment or belief.

David Hume was a contemporary and friend of Adam Smith, to whom we now return. It is a pity that the latter did not share the skeptical predilections of the former, for then we might not have had the caricature known today as homo economicus. It is remarkable that progress in psychology and psychiatry has had absolutely no effect on the belief in the Rational Individual – and this is nowhere more evident than in the discipline of economics.

In 2002, a remarkable event occurred: The Nobel Prize for economics went to Daniel Kahneman for his attempts to debunk neo-classical economic theory (never mind that he had to share it with someone who believed that people can be trained to be rational in controlled circumstances). Mr. Kahneman is not even an economist – unsurprisingly, he is a psychologist. His insights (achieved with the late Amos Tversky) have been labeled 'behavioural economics'. Psychological studies have shown that people value the comfort of the herd (yes, even rational Anglo-Saxons); and that they are far more frightened of losses than inspired by potential gains. This explains why millions of seemingly rational people – egged on by analysts and the media – jumped headlong into the 'irrational exuberance' (the title of a bestselling book) of the dot-com mania. These people were willing to pay more for shares than rationality would dictate – and then get out suddenly in a fit of collective panic.

Studies have revealed that people would rather be better off relative to other people than to their own present situation. So, if you work harder and increase your income, you will not be happier if the Jones's income goes up by the same proportion. Only by making sure that the Jones's are worse off than you can you ensure your well-being. This was the insight of Hesiod, and where Adam Smith went completely wrong.

(Which would you rather have: an income of $100,000 while others earned $150,000; or an income of $50,000 while others earned $25,000? Contrary to economic theory, most Harvard students who were asked the question chose the second option.

Malice, as a human motive, long known to the average person, was articulated by Arthur Schopenhauer. The post-Enlightenment thinkers understood humans better than the rationalists.)

To state the obvious, people are irrational. That is what it means to be human. Writers and artists have known this for millennia, but thinkers tend to lose sight of a simple fact. Anthony Pagden claims that the west has progressively given up its irrational baggage, and the rest of us have not. It will come as a shock to Mr. Pagden to be told that nobody can give up their irrational bequest. To do so would be to cease to be human - to cease to breathe and feel.

But the claim itself is telling – for no other civilisation bar Mr. Pagden's claims to have an edge over other civilizations in this, or any other, department. Is it rational to feel superior to other people? Doesn't that deny our essential humanity? Of course, it follows logically that if you pride yourself on your rationality, you will look for somebody to boast about it to – somebody to look down upon. So long as western civilisation continues to believe that somewhere, always there's someone who is less than human, so long will western civilisation continue to perpetrate the atrocities for which it has become dreaded.

#irrational #homo economicus #Adam Smith #david hume #behavioural economics #hesiod #enlightenment #freud #zionism

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newstfionline · 7 years

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I skeptically tried practicing gratitude. It completely changed my life.

Leslie Turnbull, The Week, July 20, 2017

A few years back I worked in a university building that also housed an entire department full of psychologists, all of whom seemed to see us administrative types as perfect guinea pigs for their latest theories. I learned to be wary of answering seemingly casual questions in the elevator. If an eager graduate student showed up in my office bearing a tray of pastries and asked me to pick one, I’d cast a chary glance and ask “Why?” before grabbing the apple fritter.

So one day, when someone from the Psychology Department posted instructions in the bathroom exhorting all of us to “Think about five things for which you’re grateful every day for a week!” my response was frankly suspicious. I did the math. Five things a day for seven days is a lot of brainpower to expend without so much as the promise of an apple fritter.

I wandered into the office of Heidi Zetzer, the director of our school’s on-site Counseling and Psychological Services Clinic and a Very Smart Person.

“What’s with the gratitude thing?” I asked.

You don’t ask an academic a question--even a simple one--unless you’re prepared for a lengthy answer. Heidi perked up, and I sat down. That’s when I first heard the term “positive psychology.”

For the longest time, Western psychologists and psychiatrists focused on treating clients’ problems. Traumatized? See a counselor and talk about what happened. Depressed? Have your shrink write a prescription. Hysterical? Paging Dr. Freud.

In the late 1990s, a notable group of researchers, led by Martin Seligman, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and the late Christopher Peterson, posited a different approach to mental illness and maladies: What if practitioners focused on individual clients’ strengths and resiliency, rather than their negative experiences and wounds? What if “happiness” could be actively learned?

The new positive psychologists wrote books and spoke at conferences, promoting the theory that ancient practices and modern science could be combined to enhance the lives of patients. As president of the American Psychological Association (APA), Seligman chose positive psychology as a yearlong theme for the APA.

Supported by solid research and ultimately confirmed by numerous longer-term studies, the field had burgeoned by the time I learned about it. “The gratitude thing,” as I had called it, was but one small and simple element of the practice. Kind of like training the brain to focus on joy, my friend Heidi explained.

“It’s only a week,” she urged. “Try it.”

I did. And guess what? It worked.

Every day for a week, I found five distinct things for which I was thankful. They had to be different every day. I couldn’t get away with just being grateful for my wonderful husband. But I could, suggested Collie Conoley, another colleague and noted positive psychologist, express my gratitude for specific aspects of a certain person each day.

He’s a great cook.

He always puts our family first.

He’s a stone-cold fox.

By the end of that week, I found myself slowing down a little. Taking time to notice things I might have walked past before, like a monarch butterfly or a bunch of students laughing together in the quad. One good thought led to another. These kids are so smart. And optimistic. It gives me so much hope for the future!

Fast-forward about a decade--to an ugly race for the American presidency that left many of us on all points of the political spectrum feeling sullied. And on a personal note, a surfing accident knocked me on my back and required two painful operations with what felt like an interminable period of recovery.

I was pretty bummed. And I was not alone--my psychologist friends confided they were struggling to keep up with the demands on their practices wrought by general malaise. It was just so easy to fall into a slump.

Then I remembered “the gratitude thing.” After a few busy years, I had fallen out of the regular, conscious discipline of thankfulness.

By sheer coincidence, right when I was at the nadir of my own depression, I read a glowing review of business executive and lecturer Sheryl Sandberg’s latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy.

In it, Sandberg--a tragically young widow--outlines how the practices I’ve come to identify with positive psychology helped her emerge from the crippling morass of grief and reclaim a measure of joy in her life. I thought, If she can do it, so can I.

I started looking for my five moments of gratitude in each day. Like riding the proverbial two-wheeler, it wasn’t hard to get back in the swing of it once I got started.

I am surrounded by love.

Friends brought meals every day this week.

My oldest son took his vacation to come and help out at home. He took me to all my medical appointments, and made me laugh by titling his spring break, “Driving Miss Leslie.”

An unexpectedly wet spring and the quiet kindness of a colleague with a green thumb made sure my plants stayed alive until I could care for them again.

... and he may be more gray than not, but my wonderful husband is still a stone-cold fox.

Life will never be perfect. I still see news stories that distress me. The traffic in my city is maddening. I wish I could speed up my recovery. But with just one simple exercise, I’m rediscovering the serenity of that old prayer: accepting the things I can change, working without complaint to change what I can, and being wise enough to know the difference.

And all it took was a little gratitude.

#gratitude #positive psychology

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daviddwyernotebook · 7 years

Text

Cribside

My child sleeps, huddling in the corner of his crib against the padded border. His tiny fingers are curled about the edge of the blanket, upon which his identity, “BABY,” is spelled in capital pastels. At the other end of his bed, Cookie Monster, Mickey Mouse, and Brown Bear stand vigil, guarding his dreams against unhappy intrusions. His pudgy cheeks and button nose are just visible beneath the folds of the blanket. I move it from his face, being careful not to disturb his rest or his angelic pose. Long dark lashes lie against visibly soft ivory skin. His mouth is parted slightly, and I hear the small breaths as he takes them. Light downy hair, still sparse and tousled as always, completes the appearance of the life that has come and so changed mine.

I stand beside him, as I sometimes do, and stare at those closed eyelids wondering what they hold for him, for me – for both of us.

I am a father now, a role in which, after nearly twenty months, I am still surprised to find myself. I wonder how long it takes a person to be comfortable with the title “father.” When does the role become internalized? Perhaps a contributor to my identity crisis is the unpreparedness with which I entered this stage of life. Being college educated, I am familiar with the theories of Freud, Skinner, and Piaget. But the teachings and philosophies of these behavioral giants were quickly supplanted in my life by the indispensable Dr. Spock, who I now know is not the Vulcan on Star Trek. But even armed with this cornerstone of contemporary childrearing, I often find myself on the brink of panic and frustration.

In all my education, not one hour was spent teaching me how to raise - let alone care for - a child. I find this particularly surprising as parenting is the one occupation a majority of the population will assume, whether they apply for the position or not. I was even conscientious and sought out a class entitled “The Sociology of Marriage and Family.” It was an interesting class, but the only thing I remember from it regarding children was that they are one of the things couples fight about. I know I am not unique in my ignorance. So how do people know what to do? How did my father know what to do? He never went to college.

I am drawn from my mental wanderings at the thought of my father, and I focus once more on my son’s features. I have such hopes for him, and such fears.

The father-son relationship is nothing new to me. I have been a part of one for twenty-nine years; it is just the perspective that has changed. Will my relationship with my son be like the one I share with my father? The thought startles me with concern.

I am not alone in my discomfort. Television shows from Oprah to the Simpsons support this. Is a son ever at ease with his father?

Not that Dad and I do not get along. We do, better than most fathers and sons I know. We survived the maturation skirmishes and now enjoy a pleasant coexistence - three hundred plus miles apart.

Dad was a good father. He did of all the right things. He spectated my events, coached Little League, sent me to church, and taught me the value of hard work. Heck, he even gave the old sex talk a shot (a task I am already dreading). So what has he done to earn my discomfort?

There is an ominousness to the title “Father.” The word alone conjures expectations that most Greek and Roman gods would shun. But worse are the expectations the son applies to himself on his father’s behalf.

It was always obvious to me that fathers have an agenda for their sons mapped out early, perhaps before conception. The number of “& Son” companies in the yellow pages evidence this. Fathers also include their sons in their outings: the fishing trips, the football games, and the car shows. It is an American right of passage, the first hunting trip at the threshold age of twelve. I still remember mine. We did not get anything. We never did. Even then I was old enough to know that was not the point. Sons, it seems, represent a “create your own friend.” Only it does not work out that way.

Though ten odd years of summer and Christmas vacations were spent apprenticing the family business, Dad did not get his “& Son.” The hours logged camping and hunting did not bring Dad a woodsman to brave the wilds with; I am more comfortable with the concrete of any city than the smallest of woods. I enjoy reading and even write when I get the chance, while I wager that, if pushed, Dad could count the number of novels he has read. Dad likes Westerns and Charles Bronson movies; I like Science Fiction and Shakespeare. Dad enjoys golf and skiing, I like tennis and running. Dad is a contractor; I am an accountant. We live over three hundred miles apart.

Given the plans he must have had, that every father has, this all must disappoint him terribly. But I, like him, am who and what I am. Knowing this does not alleviate the guilt.

Timothy sighs in his sleep as he rolls over, dislodging the blanket from his shoulders. I bring it once more to his neck. His face is so peaceful and innocent; he is keenly unaware of the demands I will place upon him simply by my existence. And when will this occur? When will the excited jumps and repeated cries of “Daddeee” upon my arrival give way to something else?

Are we, this child – my child – and I destined to have so little in common? Will there be no experience for us to share?

Timothy’s lips curl into a small smile and I conclude that he is having a happy dream. His stuffed guardians have done well this night. I acknowledge their competence with a quick glance.

Did I have something to do with this contentedness? Will I do something tomorrow to disrupt it? The next day? The responsibility I feel is nauseating. Is any man up to this task?

I wonder if others share my anxiety. I think they must. My thoughts turn once more to my father. I picture him, almost three decades earlier, watching his first-born sleep, wondering what will become of he and him – of him and me.

The hopes and fears and questions he must have had. Were they not the same that now possess me? I conclude that they must have been. And then I think again of the differences that have separated us for all these years. Differences that I knew to disappoint my father. I recall now how he encouraged my interest in reading and in writing, and how he never really did force his hobbies on me, and how thrilled he was when I went to college. He must have known that the results of these actions would take me from him, at least in some small way. Supportive and believing is how I recall my father’s role in my childhood. And mostly encouraging, even when the behavior he rallied behind meant losing the surely coveted “& Son.”

As Timothy sleeps, I wish him more than peaceful dreams. I wish him the happiness that every child deserves, in whatever it is that will bring it to him. And I will encourage him along the way, though the path he chooses may take him a thousand miles from me in more ways than one. This is the agenda I have for my son.

Standing alone in the darkness permeated only by the smallest sliver of light from the hall, I smile. Dad and I do have something in common, perhaps life’s most important experience.

I gently brush my child’s hair with my fingertips and whisper “sleep well,” echoing the thought in my mind to my father. I wish us all well this night, we who are so connected. And to my father, I add a mental “thank you,” for, as I slip from the nursery on my toes, I realize that while the public school system and state university may have failed to prepare me, one man did not.

#fatherhood #parenting #babies #fatherandson #newborn #firstborn #dad #my writing #nonfiction #essay

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spamzineglasgow · 5 years

Text

Recipes (Andrew Spragg)

In this essay, Andrew Spragg explores the recipes that make our memory, the traces of tenderness within forms of culinary hauntology. Moving from page to table, from bread sauce to pigs’ heads and parmesan to presence, Spragg puts on a warm simmer the imperative question: what do we mean when we speak of a signature dish?

My royal lord, You do not give the cheer. The feast is sold That is not often vouched, while ’tis a-making, 'Tis given with welcome. To feed were best at home; From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony; Meeting were bare without it.

Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4

Anything that is decent, anything that is present, a calm and a cook and more singularly still a shelter, all these show the need of clamour. What is the custom, the custom is in the centre.

Gertrude Stein ‘Food’ Tender Buttons

> Food is a great reservoir of memory: Proust’s madeleines as the setting off point for lifestyle features on homely food the world over, to the point that the beauty and clarity of the original text has become soggy, much like a small cake stored in the gullet for too long.

> We must all learn to swallow sooner of later. When we do, it is the most intimate of sensations, taboo in some contexts, unpleasant in others. It can also be a great pleasure, the silence it brings about one of deep appreciation. It can be a homely sensation, or heimlich as in Freud’s unheimlich. Heimlich is what is concealed - what we might consider swallowed - our tenderest way of sharing, to imbibe, to take it or be taken in.

> If nothing else, we can enjoy the happy coincide of Dr Heimlich, whose procedure (maneuver) is one that brings what is concealed out into the open, if done properly. Perhaps Dr Freud and Dr Heimlich share more than just a tongue.

> The first time I cooked a pig’s head, it was for a friend. We have shared many meals, in and out of the home, always happy for the company, if not the food. My main memories of eating together are from our adolescence. A petrol station pasty, bought to sober up after too many drinks in the pub over the road, a craving sated by refrigerated stodge and us laughing with bemused self-disgust. One Christmas we made a bread and butter pudding, improvised with guessed at proportions. This was prior to any recipe you can imagine being a few keystrokes away, and we assumed it was an unfuckupable dish. It was terrible, though our friends were gracious enough to swallow it.

> Now I am older, I eat better. I still crave salt and fat when I’ve had too much to drink. It tends to be pieces of parmesan sliced from the block, something I discovered during a meal with another friend, this time at Ciao Bella on Lamb’s Conduit Street. This place is associated with so many happy meals, with friends, partners, and one thing I have enjoyed the most is the large olives and chunks of parmesan they bring to the table as an opening snack.

> The pig’s head, or the recipe for it, came from another place of happy memories, St John’s in Smithfield. I first heard of the restaurant when a newspaper ran a series of articles marking its twentieth anniversary. Something about the picture of the affable, kind looking Fergus Henderson piqued my interest. My parents took me for my thirtieth birthday and I’ve been back many times since. The bone marrow and parsley salad, Henderson’s signature dish, is something I think about a lot, the trace of it, the contentment and comfort it has become associated with. I have found myself there on occasion when I’ve needed to think, or just soak up those melancholy feelings that slosh about.

> My parents gave me the Nose to Tail cookbook. The half pig’s head recipe is in there, alongside a picture of Fergus Henderson standing outside a restaurant called Rubis in Paris. Again, he looks affable and kind. The restaurant is one I visited with my partner when we were in Paris last year. We had an amazing, and simple, meal, in the small bistro restaurant. The waiters all looked like my friend Joe, or some variation of Joe, like a Joe tribute act. I ordered a bottle of wine, instead of a glass, by accident. I drank half and then gave the rest to the two men sat next to us when we left. Despite the lack of a proficient common tongue, we shared a friendly moment of companionship, four people enjoying good meals in good company. I went back with my parents a few months later, and ate there again. It was crowded and bustling. I have a picture of the two of them, a little overwhelmed by the lack of space, indifferent patrons and waiters, a menu that refused to share its secrets until the food arrived on the table. They both ended up with dishes of boiled meat, and I had a steak. I felt sorry that their memories of that place would be different from mine.

> Since I moved to Wood Street this year, I discovered a butcher that sold pig’s heads pre-packed and cheap. Matt, the friend with whom I had attempted the bread and butter pudding, volunteered himself as diner. The recipe was simple: vegetables, stock, wine and a slow cooking time. It filled the flat with comfortable piggy smells, like a hog roast at a craft fair. I’d been to plenty with my parents. Small memories atop one another, and a little peaceful ahhh moment, the anticipation of something being cooked and time being shared.

Some statements:

A recipe is repeatable. A recipe will create something consistent if followed closely. A recipe is unique. A recipe is shared. A recipe marks the passage of something that is not present that becomes present.

> Let us consider recipes and memory - there’s a trace in the taste of things, though it can be deceptive as well. It is not enough to say a particular taste is associated with a particular foodstuff, it is also the way it influences our memory.

> There was a moment this Christmas when we talked about making Grandma’s bread sauce. I had volunteered to make it, and was surprised to discover that the recipe (rather than typically recorded in handwritten blue ballpoint, the letters having fringed and bled into the discoloured paper from having been damp and later dried at some unspecified hour) was actually in a Delia Smith cookbook. It was no more Grandma’s than anyone else who possessed the cookbook. However, it was enough of Grandma’s bread sauce that three different people referred to it by that name.

> No one referred to it as Delia’s recipe, despite the fact that in copyright law, and to the majority of people, that is what it is. It doesn’t matter though. When we taste the bread sauce, it is the absence of Grandma we feel keenly, not the absence of Delia. However, in order to taste something consistent with our memory of Grandma’s bread sauce, we are turning to Delia. That is the joy of a recipe. A good one will not remind you of its origins, but of where it became present for you. I don’t remember the pig’s head because it came from a St John’s book, I remember it for the adventure of assembling the ingredients, preparing them and cooking it. I remember the smell, yet another absence that becomes, or is becoming of, presence.

> Derrida in his essay ‘Signature Event Context’ is preoccupied by written communication and its absences:

It is first of all the absence of the addressee. One writes in order to communicate something to those who are absent. The absence of the sender, of the receiver [destinateur], from the mark that he abandons, and which cuts itself off from him and continues to produce effects independently of his presence and of the present actuality of his intentions [vouloir-dire], indeed even after his death, his absence, which moreover belongs to the structure of all writing-and I shall add further on, of all language in general…

> Think about recipes. Long after the chef has finished with them, finishing writing them, finished cooking them, we can still taste the results. The recipe that is older than us is easy to conceive, and through its sharing we are linked back to something, some collective sensation, something as simple as taste. Can there be an effect more immediately present and yet independent of the presence of the sender? And look what Derrida has to say elsewhere:

My communication must be repeatable-iterable-in the absolute absence of the receiver or of any empirically determinable collectivity of receivers. Such iterability [...] structures the mark of writing itself, no matter what particular type of writing is involved (whether pictographical, hieroglyphic, ideographic, phonetiC, alphabetiC, to cite the old categories). A writing that is not structurally readable-iterable-beyond the death of the addressee would not be writing.

> For a recipe to be a recipe it must be repeatable. All of which raises another question: is a recipe a genre of writing, or a type of writing? Recipes are instructional writing, orientated towards producing something, but also a good recipe book commonly tells us something of its author. Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking is as much about Child’s experience as an American migrant in France, her desire to master and share the food she loves, as it is about making a few dishes. The thing must be repeatable, but it is also a work of autobiography, a unique event reinscribed through instruction.

> Going further and thinking about Derrida’s words regarding the signature:

By definition, a written signature implies the actual or empirical nonpresence of the signer. But, it will be claimed, the signature also marks and retains his having-been present in a past now or present [maintenant] which will remain a future now or present [maintenant], thus in a general maintenant, in the transcendental form of presentness [maintenance]. That general maintenance is in some way inscribed, pinpointed in the always evident and singular present punctuality of the form of the signature. Such is the enigmatic originality of every paraph. In order for the tethering to the source to occur, what must be retained is the absolute singularity of a signature-event and a signature-form: the pure reproducibility of a pure event.

> What do we mean when we refer to someone’s signature dish? The very thing Derrida has described - the absolute singularity of a signature-event and a signature-form.

> Belshazzar’s feast in the Book of Daniel can be reframed through Derrida’s analysis, and some of the ideas we have touched upon: the great meal is interrupted by a finger that writes an unintelligible message on the wall:

Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.

> It the fingers of a man’s hand, not a man, or even his hand, but these fingers that come forth. It is the presence, the ‘part of the hand that wrote', that the king sees, and it is the act of writing that takes the centre ground. In the same way we can think of our recipes, that is the act of making that we see, that slippery transformation of ingredients that are neither presence nor non-presence, the bread sauce that extends into memories. We see the hands of the absent, the part of the hand that wrote, in our recipe work. What should we make of the fact that the vessels were originally taken by Belshazzar’s father, who is troubled by his own unreadable and prophetic dream earlier in the Book of Daniel? Is this the echo of that earlier time, the memory recalled as we have suggested that recipes, the ceremonies of eating, are capable of?

> Note that the removal of the items from the temple is not provocation for the divine writing, but the act of drinking the wine from them, the praising of material gods. The unintelligible message, the one Daniel interprets as one of judgement, is something we can see at another banquet, another instance of taste and ceremony that prompts a spectral presence, a signature of sorts. In Macbeth, the ghost manifests at the feast each time Macbeth raises his glass for a toast, the taste or at least its anticipation associated with the spectre. Both these scenes share common ground: a moment of judgement, a message that comes as mysterious and unintelligible, and both are the source for common idioms ('the ghost at the feast', 'the writing on the wall', ‘to be weighed and found wanting’). An idiom, a recipe, something passed through into common usage through repetition, something that was unique at the time of conception. There is an ambiguity as well, for these are not happy occasions, though there is something powerful in the way the act of consumption prompts the arrival of someone the two protagonists would rather forget.

> We do not expect Fergus to arrive at our door on every occasion we prepare his pig’s head recipe, nor do we expect Grandma to materialise corporeally when we make up the bread sauce. There is, however, something of the memory, the trace as Derrida might have it, in bringing the recipe from the page to the table.

> We return to the same restaurants and hope to share something of an experience we have had before, the pleasure of being in company, the affection of common things like food. We scribe and reinscribe our signatures. We eat and drink as an act of remembrance, or as a celebration. We manifest what we have shared, those times we have come together, and there is something of a presence manifested in each taste. In this way we remember ourselves and others through food, we commit our signature, and mark our time. Our food makes ghosts.

Works Cited

Child, Julia et al, Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume One, Penguin Books, 2010

Derrida, Jacques, ‘Signature Event Context’, Limited Inc, Northwestern University Press, 1988.

The Holy Bible, King James Version, Bible Gateway, www.biblegateway.com. Accessed 22 January 2019

Henderson, Fergus et al, The Complete Nose to Tail, Bloomsbury, 1999

Shakespeare, William, Macbeth, http://shakespeare.mit.edu/macbeth/full.htmlAccessed 22 January 2019

Stein, Getrude, Tender Buttons, City Lights Books, 2014

Text & Image: Andrew Spragg

#Andrew Spragg #essay #culinary hauntology #Derrida #The Holy Bible #Shakesepare #Macbeth #Gertrude Stein #French cooking #pigs heads #meat #food #ghosts #family #memory

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