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looneyleyle · 3 days

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the self-destructive habits of a hopeless romantic ~ j. hughes

synopsis: monetizing one's self-sabotaging habits, surprisingly, has its downfalls. one of them being leaving that one attractive hockey player that is an absolute gentleman who loves you with his whole entire heart.

warnings: self-sabotage, self-deprecation, angsty (but with happy ending)

word count: 3425 words

note: once again unedited but i wanted to get this one out there

???'s pov

time and time again, the world has seen the self destructive habits of humans. well, that makes it seem serious. the world has seen the countless missed opportunities due to a fear of another's reaction. the world has seen the blunders due to saving face. the world has seen the heartbreaks due to miscommunication. time and time again, the world has seen how people sabotage their own lives for the dumbest reasons.

esther graham was no different.

in fact, she capitalized on her ability to put herself into the worst emotional distress possible. every heartbreak produced a great work of literature that would nearly sell out in bookstores all over the northeast. she wasn't a new york times best seller by any means, but she was a small town writer from mont vernon, new hampshire. she made a name for herself during her time at hamilton college in their creative writing program. in her junior year of college, she published her first book, woes of a teenage failure, a novel following what could have been for a young college drop out named sophia. the book was a hit amongst her peers and professors, and by word of mouth, ended up selling 200 copies. the book, as ms. graham remarked, was her own "what-if" story, as she almost dropped out of college the beginning of her sophomore year.

and how do i know so much about ms. graham?

well, because i am ms. esther graham.

and i'm here to tell you all about the biggest blunder of my life.

after my first book, i hit major writing block. i would stare at my computer screen for hours just to delete the only three words that i could come up with. i would sit in coffee shops, pen in hand, ready for inspiration to strike, and yet, nothing. i was nearing the end of my college career, riding on the coattails of my first and only book's success, and couldn't figure out how to continue. my professors taught me plenty of ways to try and combat writer's block, but nothing worked.

until i met ryan. a devilishly handsome man all the way from the cheese state of wisconsin, who was meeting up with some college friends for the annual boston beanpot. we had our meet cute at a nearby pizza joint, in which i sat down and started chatting with him, thinking he was a publisher that i was supposed to meet with. after realizing my blunder when he had absolutely no idea what an anthology was, he asked if i wanted to join him and his friends at the beanpot, as one of their friends had cancelled, leaving them with an extra ticket.

ryan and i dated for four months. we would take turns traveling between my college in new york and his in wisconsin until eventually it became too much, or should i say, too little for him, and he broke it off. in my rage and complete depression from the breakup, i wrote my next hit, until the sun sets, a 142-page anthology of gut-wrenching poems, which was eventually integrated into hamilton college's curriculum for their young adult modern literature class. i was quite proud of that.

after that, i found myself yet again staring at blanks screens and empty notepads.

that is, until chloe. a beautiful new york native whom i had actually met while dating ryan. she was a hostess at a restaurant ryan and i would always go to. she was pursuing her masters in psychology, which gave me fascinating insights and tactics to use in my books. we were never officially together, but we had something for almost three months before she was whisked off by some californian named ella. i never saw her again, which prompted my next book, the ninth floor, a murder mystery following a closeted lesbian couple in 1940's hollywood (it was one of the girlfriends the whole time).

at this point, when i hit a creative block for the third time, i realized that i needed my heart or brain to be in absolute shambles in order to produce my best work. i needed to be at some sort of life crisis, and the easiest way to do so was to love another and let that love be ripped out of your life.

so, i began dating for the sake of my career. it was like i sought out the most manipulative, scummy people in the world who were able to get away with it just because they were attractive. over the course of a year, my first year out of college, i dated a total of three men and one woman, and poured my emotions out into a collection of short stories titled lavender.

and that was when i met jack.

i was in new jersey for a book signing at this little bookstore which, as it turns out, was right by the prudential center. as i left the bookstore, i was nearly run over by an overly excited man-child with a giant bag slung upon his shoulder.

"luke, watch out, you nearly killed that woman!" a voice yelled from where the man came from.

"i'm so sorry about that miss, my brother can get a bit overexcited sometimes." looking at the person talking to me, i found a young, very attractive brunet with the most adorable smile. i straightened myself up instinctively, wanting to appear presentable.

"no worries. if you don't mind me asking, what got him so riled up that he almost trampled me?" the man let out a laugh at my statement.

"of course, we owe you at least that much for your near-death experience. he just got nominated for the calder trophy." he explained, as if those words meant anything to me. seeing my blank stare, he clarified. "a rookie of the year award. we play for the new jersey devils." the boy in question came up and joined us, grinning ear to ear.

"ahhh, i see. i'm not a big hockey watcher, which i know is absolute blasphemy for someone who grew up in new hampshire." his jaw nearly dropped.

"you're from up here and don't like hockey? we have to change that." he exclaimed. in my peripheral vision, i could see his brother trying to hide his laughter at his brother's forwardness.

"ill have to come and watch a game sometime." i mused.

"we have a game coming up next week against the blue jackets. i could maybe snatch you a seat in exchange for your number." he proposed. his brother snorted at that, having to turn around to hide his obvious laughter. the man paid his brother no mind, just looking at me with a big smile on his face.

"trying to bribe me mister?"

"is it working?" i put my hand out and he immediately put his phone in my hand, adding my information into his contacts.

"esther? that's nice, you look like a esther." i quirked an eyebrow at him, but continued on anyways.

"and you? what should i call you?"

"call me yours. or jack, either works." the brother was doubled over on the floor at this point, jack finally acknowledging him by kicking him slightly, making him fall over.

"anyways, ms. esther, we have to get going, but ill see you next week at our game." he put out his hand for me to shake.

"you've got yourself a deal jack."

and just like that, jack and i started talking. his eagerness was cute, he texted me no more than ten minutes after meeting me. we talked every day, mainly on calls, asking each other questions and such to get to know each other.

and sure enough, the next week, i found myself back in new jersey watching the brothers play. i assumed jack was going to be some sort of benchwarmer or something, but that didn't seem to be the case. despite my lack of hockey knowledge, i could tell the boy was good, and he had quite a fan base if the amount of women wearing his jersey meant anything. and i felt severely out of place, simply wearing a grey sweater and jeans, unlike everyone else in the stands, decked out in red.

after that, i found myself going to a couple more hockey games, for no particular reason. jack would try to explain the game over video calls and our occasional coffee meet ups, but i couldn't for the life of me wrap my head around it. why do they all get off the ice every five seconds? and what the hell is offsides?? jack always laughed at my confusion, telling me that i'd get it one day.

we spent a couple months thriving off of video chats and once-in-a-blue-moon hangouts, until i got a job as an editor for a local paper. i was good at editing, always having good grammar and an eye for design, but it wasn't my dream. despite it not being my dream, i needed a stable income, and fast. my mind was devoid of ideas, and it didn't seem like that would change any time soon.

plus, it helped that this stable income happened to be in new york city, putting me a lot closer to a certain someone. and, with me being closer, that certain someone would pop on by a lot more than before. and eventually, chinese takeout dinners turned into staying the night, which turned into coming up for the weekend, which turned into the line of friendship being crossed into something more.

and then, i made the dumbest mistake of my life.

i let him go.

now, i know what you must be thinking. he must have done something wrong, he must have cheated or neglected me or done something so completely unforgivable that i would just throw away the most amazing thing in my life. and i wish i was here to tell you that was the truth.

but it wasn't.

jack was nothing but a gentleman, and i was just a broken girl doing the only thing i knew how to do: leave. i like to tell myself that it was for my career, that i needed to write another book, that i wasn't fulfilled in my job and that i was putting myself first by doing this, but i was perfectly content with my life. i was an editor for a major publishing company, i started writing little happy poems about my mundane life with jack, and wanted nothing more. i had no reason to run away. i just woke up in his bed one day and realized that i wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, and i couldn't accept that. i had gotten so used to leaving people that i assumed that they would leave me if i hadn't done so first, and i couldn't lose the one real thing i ever had.

so naturally, my self-destructive, self-sabotaging self let him go, the exact opposite of what i wanted.

and when i got back to my apartment after writing jack a confusing and half-assed letter, i cried. i cried and cried and cried, and i always wrote about characters crying until they couldn't anymore, but that day, i couldn't find the end to my tears. for hours tears would either slowly leak or violently pour from my eyes, and they never did end, not even when i passed out on my couch from exhaustion.

and after a week, i was expecting to pick myself up and start writing my next best seller, coping with my writing. but i sat there, and my florescent computer screen simply sat there, staring back at me. and when i left my apartment for a change of scenery, the blank pages of my notebook mocked me. i flipped through past works, all of them being little poems about jack, and the waterworks continued, right in the middle of a starbucks.

after a week and four days, i couldn't take it. i had to make things right, i had to at least see him. it always worked in the books, right? someone makes a huge mistake, they break up, they see each other again and realize they're both miserable without each other and then get back together and live happily ever after.

when i knocked on the door to jack's apartment, i was met with an unimpressed looking luke. at the sight of him, the waterworks started up again.

"you're an idiot, you know that?" i nodded furiously at this, sobs wrecking through my body. i couldn't see through the tears in my eyes, but i could tell the luke hadn't moved a muscle.

"he deserved better and you know that." i felt my soul being crushed. "i mean, a letter? seriously esther? and a half-assed one at that. i know damn well you don't have a degree in creative writing for that bullshit."

i opened my mouth to explain, but nothing came up. what would i say, that i was a broken person? cop out. that i did it to everyone? not much better. that i got scared? fucking coward.

"if you think that you deserve to see my brother, then i'll let you in." he told me, moving out of the way, door open wide. i just stood there, staring at him through teary eyes. my brain cheered, finally able to go in, but my feet wouldn't move.

my heart still clenched and ached, and with every thought of moving forward, into that apartment, it hurt more. jack didn't deserve this. after all the nights of him reading my poems about him and praising my work, after all the sweet things he'd say when i was down, after all the little acts of kindness he showed me, after all the love he poured into us, he didn't deserve to be broken by me. hurt people hurt people, the scholars had that right. he didn't deserve to be broken.

and so, i got ready to leave, again.

"i'm sorry." was all i said, turning around with heavy legs and a heavy heart. i heard luke let out a sigh as i walked away, closing the door behind him.

a couple of days went by and i found myself back at their apartment. i knew they wouldn't be there, they had an away game in anaheim the night before, and i knew from my time with jack that they would always spend the night in the city before coming back, especially after a win, a 5-0 win no less.

i stood there in front of their door, a small box in my hands, contemplating. jack didn't deserve this, but a selfish part of me needed this. i placed the box gingerly outside of their door and left the building. if the box was taken by some nosy neighbor, or thrown in the trash by some janitor, then it would be fate. it would be a sign to move on. but, there was a chance that jack and luke would come back to their apartment, and would pick up the box, and jack would recognize my handwriting. and, instead of throwing the box in the trash like any normal self-respecting person receiving a box from their shitty ex, he would take it to his room, and open it up to see my notebook, with a bookmark starting at the pages when i first started seeing him. and he would read the poems and maybe, just maybe, he'd see the note written on the bookmark to meet me at the park near his apartment, and maybe, just maybe, he'd be willing to hear me out.

i went to that park every single day for exactly one month and six days, always arriving by 1 pm, never late. and i would stay there until 4 pm, waiting.

on the 37th day, i was sitting there, editing, funnily enough, a sports column about the recent devils and islanders game. i watched it, absolutely terrible game it was, the islanders beating the devils for the first time in the season. our sports journalist, while passionate and very knowledgeable about seemingly every sport out there, had a knack for writing long, run-on sentences that reflected his rambling nature. as i sat there on the same park bench i had been sitting on for the previous 36 days, a figure stopped in front of me. i finished up the sentence i was working on before looking up.

and while i hate cliches, the wind was absolutely knocked out of my lungs.

"h-hey jack." i started, immediately putting away my work, giving him my full attention.

"hey esther." a shiver ran down my spine from him just saying my name. it had been so long, and while it lost its loving tone, i welcomed it with open arms. jack moved, taking the spot next to me, looking out at the trees in front of us. when it became apparent he wasn't going to say anything, i started the conversation.

"i see you read the notebook."

"i finished it three weeks ago." he replied, voice lacking its usual emotion. tears welled up in my eyes. three weeks.

"oh."

"i came here immediately after finishing it." i felt my eyes bulge out of their sockets at that. he continued, "i went to that bench over there and watched as you fidgeted in your spot, looking frantically at everyone who passed by. i watched the next day as you sat in the pouring rain with no umbrella. i sat over on that bench every day that i was here since reading your notebook."

a silence fell upon us, my mind reeling, trying to figure out what he was trying to say, from his emotionless face to the fact that he came.

"do you know how much it hurt? waking up to empty sheets and some half-assed note with the lamest excuses on earth?" i hadn't really paid mind to the tears rolling down my cheeks until he brought that up, sending me back to that morning, quickly scribbling out some gibberish before leaving the best part of my life behind.

"i was going to wait another month, y'know. to see if you were still gonna come here every day."

"so why didn't you?" i asked, sniffling intensely, trying to calm down my sobs.

"luke said i was absolutely miserable without you. coach told me i wasn't focused. my teammates pointed out that i barely left my apartment. the icing on the cake was when my mom started asking if you would be coming over to the lakehouse this summer. i realized, as pathetic as it seems, that i can't live without you."

my attempts at stopping my crying were thrown out the window at that. i could probably fill the hudson river with the amount of tears i had shed over the past two months.

"how can i make it up to you. please, please let me make it up to you." i begged, fully facing him, my hands angrily playing with the sleeves of my shirt because if i didn't, i would be reaching out to the man in front of me.

"never pull that shit again." he bargained, looking me dead in the eyes for the first time in months. and in that moment, i saw just how bad he was doing. sunken eyes with heavy bags, his skin dull, hair slightly unkempt under his hat.

"never again." i promised, putting out my pinky to him, something he would always do when he promised me to not get hurt in games. he let out a hoarse laugh, looking away from me, and when he looked back, i saw the tears brewing in his eyes. he took my pinky in his and held it there, between us.

"now, i'm not gonna just take you right back after all that. that was really shitty and i need some time to get over that. but, as i've found out, i can't really function without you. so maybe you could start with coming to my games again, and i could take you out for coffee next week."

"sounds perfect."

i accepted my life as an editor for the local newspaper, accepted that i probably wouldn't write another page-turning sell-out book, accepted that i was completely content with whatever happened to me, so long as jack was there with me.

and with that, my self-destructive, soul-crushing, heart-breaking tendencies reached their end.

#jack hughes #jack hughes x oc #new jersey devils #fanfic

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patalliumapples · 1 year

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not planning out your novel is all fun and games until you want to write but your brain is just completely blank

#like. i could continue a scene... i could write stuff with some characters. but none of those scenes are speaking to me rn :/#time to frantically look through the brainstorming doc to see if i had any really fun ideas there!!!#and like. yeah i could always try outlining again. but it NEVER WORKS for me #i know the basic beats of manic but if i try and go more in depth i just get. super perfectionist about it #and i literally need to have stuff written to know what the story needs #so that's just setting myself up for failure #instead i'm attempting to just bounce around and write scenes and then slowly connect them bc i've tried that before and it works!!!#just gotta. get the doc big enough that it's easy to build around it which is the HARD PART

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aq2003 · 18 days

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martha jones is kind of like if horatio and ophelia were one person tbh

this post by darkcomedies

s03e08 human nature // hamlet (2009), act 3 scene 2 // hamlet to horatio, act 3 scene 2 // martha about ten, s03e09 the family of blood // s03e03 gridlock // hamlet (2009), act 5 scene 1 // canary in a coal mine by the crane wives

s03e02 the shakespeare code // hamlet (2009), act 3 scene 1 // ophelia about hamlet, act 2 scene 1 // s03e07 42 // hamlet (2009), act 3 scene 2 // s03e05 evolution of the daleks // hoping on another life by madds buckley

hamlet's letter to ophelia, act 2 scene 2 // s03e13 last of the time lords // hamlet (2009), act 5 scene 2 // the shooting script for s03e07 42 // the tags on darkcomedies' post

#martha jones #tenth doctor #10th doctor #doctor who #hamlet #david tennant #<- because this IS his fault . at least a little bit #dr who #10 era #ten and martha #my edits #i do NOT know how to title my webweaving posts sorry and also my sources look like a nightmare #this post is just extremely fucking incomprehensible . sorry. my bad #so proud of the parallel i drew between the scene at the end of gridlock and alas poor yorick i'm so smart <- deranged #also despite the fact martha clocks closer to horatio in my head and it's way easier drawing parallels between those two #so proud of the parallel between hamlet's love letter and last of the timelords my brain is huge <- DERANGED #no this isnt a ship post bc im not built like that but i do realize i've set myself up for failure completely with this one #DONT LET ME COOK [BANGS POTS AND PANS] DONT LET ME COOK

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queenlucythevaliant · 2 months

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Tell Your Dad You Love Him

A retelling of "Meat Loves Salt"/"Cap O'Rushes" for the @inklings-challenge Four Loves event

An old king had three daughters. When his health began to fail, he summoned them, and they came.

Gordonia and Rowan were already waiting in the hallway when Coriander arrived. They were leaned up against the wall opposite the king’s office with an air of affected casualness. “I wonder what the old war horse wants today?” Rowan was saying. “More about next year’s political appointments, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“The older he gets, the more he micromanages,” Gordonia groused fondly. “A thousand dollars says this meeting could’ve been an email.”

They filed in single-file like they’d so often done as children: Gordonia first, then Rowan, and Coriander last of all. The king had placed three chairs in front of his desk all in a row. His daughters murmured their greetings, and one by one they sat down.

“I have divided everything I have in three,” the king said. “I am old now, and it’s time. Today, I will pass my kingdom on to you, my daughters.”

A short gasp came from Gordonia. None of them could have imagined that their father would give up running his kingdom while he still lived.

The king went on. “I know you will deal wisely with that which I leave in your care. But before we begin, I have one request.”

“Yes father?” said Rowan.

“Tell me how much you love me.”

An awkward silence fell. Although there was no shortage of love between the king and his daughters, theirs was not a family which spoke of such things. They were rich and blue-blooded: a soldier and the daughters of a soldier, a king and his three court-reared princesses. The royal family had always shown their affection through double meanings and hot cups of coffee.

Gordonia recovered herself first. She leaned forward over the desk and clasped her father’s hands in her own. “Father,” she said, “I love you more than I can say.” A pause. “I don’t think there’s ever been a family so happy in love as we have been. You’re a good dad.”

The old king smiled and patted her hand. “Thank you, Gordonia. We have been very happy, haven’t we? Here is your inheritance. Cherish it, as I cherish you.”

Rowan spoke next; the words came tumbling out. “Father! There’s not a thing in my life which you didn’t give me, and all the joy in the world beside. Come now, Gordonia, there’s no need to understate the matter. I love you more than—why, more than life itself!”

The king laughed, and rose to embrace his second daughter. “How you delight me, Rowan. All of this will be yours.”

Only Coriander remained. As her sisters had spoken, she’d wrung her hands in her lap, unsure of what to say. Did her father really mean for flattery to be the price of her inheritance? That just wasn’t like him. For all that he was a politician, he’d been a soldier first. He liked it when people told the truth.

When the king’s eyes came to rest on her, Coriander raised her own to meet them. “Do you really want to hear what you already know?”

“I do.”

She searched for a metaphor that could carry the weight of her love without unnecessary adornment. At last she found one, and nodded, satisfied. “Dad, you’re like—like salt in my food.”

“Like salt?”

“Well—yes.”

The king’s broad shoulders seemed to droop. For a moment, Coriander almost took back her words. Her father was the strongest man in the world, even now, at eighty. She’d watched him argue with foreign rulers and wage wars all her life. Nothing could hurt him. Could he really be upset?

But no. Coriander held her father’s gaze. She had spoken true. What harm could be in that?

“I don’t know why you’re even here, Cor,” her father said.

Now, Coriander shifted slightly in her seat, unnerved. “What? Father—”

“It would be best if—you should go,” said the old king.

“Father, you can’t really mean–”

“Leave us, Coriander.”

So she left the king’s court that very hour.

It had been a long time since she’d gone anywhere without a chauffeur to drive her, but Coriander’s thoughts were flying apart too fast for her to be afraid. She didn’t know where she would go, but she would make do, and maybe someday her father would puzzle out her metaphor and call her home to him. Coriander had to hope for that, at least. The loss of her inheritance didn’t feel real yet, but her father—how could he not know that she loved him? She’d said it every day.

She’d played in the hall outside that same office as a child. She’d told him her secrets and her fears and sent him pictures on random Tuesdays when they were in different cities just because. She had watched him triumph in conference rooms and on the battlefield and she’d wanted so badly to be like him.

If her father doubted her love, then maybe he’d never noticed any of it. Maybe the love had been an unnoticed phantasm, a shadow, a song sung to a deaf man. Maybe all that love had been nothing at all.

A storm was on the horizon, and it reached her just as she made it onto the highway. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled. Rain poured down and flooded the road. Before long, Coriander was hydroplaning. Frantically, she tried to remember what you were supposed to do when that happened. Pump the brakes? She tried. No use. Wasn’t there something different you did if the car had antilock brakes? Or was that for snow? What else, what else–

With a sickening crunch, her car hit the guardrail. No matter. Coriander’s thoughts were all frenzied and distant. She climbed out of the car and just started walking.

Coriander wandered beneath an angry sky on the great white plains of her father’s kingdom. The rain beat down hard, and within seconds she was soaked to the skin. The storm buffeted her long hair around her head. It tangled together into long, matted cords that hung limp down her back. Mud soiled her fine dress and splattered onto her face and hands. There was water in her lungs and it hurt to breathe. Oh, let me die here, Coriander thought. There’s nothing left for me, nothing at all. She kept walking.

When she opened her eyes, Coriander found herself in a dank gray loft. She was lying on a strange feather mattress.

She remained there a while, looking up at the rafters and wondering where she could be. She thought and felt, as it seemed, through a heavy and impenetrable mist; she was aware only of hunger and weakness and a dreadful chill (though she was all wrapped in blankets). She knew that a long time must have passed since she was fully aware, though she had a confused memory of wandering beside the highway in a thunderstorm, slowly going mad because—because— oh, there’d been something terrible in her dreams. Her father, shoulders drooping at his desk, and her sisters happily come into their inheritance, and she cast into exile—

She shuddered and sat up dizzily. “Oh, mercy,” she murmured. She hadn’t been dreaming.

She stumbled out of the loft down a narrow flight of stairs and came into a strange little room with a single window and a few shabby chairs. Still clinging to the rail, she heard a ruckus from nearby and then footsteps. A plump woman came running to her from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and softly clucking at the state of her guest’s matted, tangled hair.

“Dear, dear,” said the woman. “Here’s my hand, if you’re still unsteady. That’s good, good. Don’t be afraid, child. I’m Katherine, and my husband is Folke. He found you collapsed by the goose-pond night before last. I’m she who dressed you—your fine gown was ruined, I’m afraid. Would you like some breakfast? There’s coffee on the counter, and we’ll have porridge in a minute if you’re patient.”

“Thank you,” Coriander rasped.

“Will you tell me your name, my dear?”

“I have no name. There’s nothing to tell.”

Katherine clicked her tongue. “That’s alright, no need to worry. Folke and I’ve been calling you Rush on account of your poor hair. I don’t know if you’ve seen yourself, but it looks a lot like river rushes. No, don’t get up. Here’s your breakfast, dear.”

There was indeed porridge, as Katherine had promised, served with cream and berries from the garden. Coriander ate hungrily and tasted very little. Then, when she was finished, the goodwife ushered her over to a sofa by the window and put a pillow beneath her head. Coriander thanked her, and promptly fell asleep.

She woke again around noon, with the pounding in her head much subsided. She woke feeling herself again, to visions of her father inches away and the sound of his voice cracking across her name.

Katherine was outside in the garden; Coriander could see her through the clouded window above her. She rose and, upon finding herself still in a borrowed nightgown, wrapped herself in a blanket to venture outside.

“Feeling better?” Katherine was kneeling in a patch of lavender, but she half rose when she heard the cottage door open.

“Much. Thank you, ma’am.

“No thanks necessary. Folke and I are ministers, of a kind. We keep this cottage for lost and wandering souls. You’re free to remain here with us for as long as you need.”

“Oh,” was all Coriander could think to say.

“You’ve been through a tempest, haven’t you? Are you well enough to tell me where you came from?”

Coriander shifted uncomfortably. “I’m from nowhere,” she said. “I have nothing.”

“You don’t owe me your story, child. I should like to hear it, but it will keep till you’re ready. Now, why don’t you put on some proper clothes and come help me with this weeding.”

Coriander remained at the cottage with Katherine and her husband Folke for a week, then a fortnight. She slept in the loft and rose with the sun to help Folke herd the geese to the pond. After, Coriander would return and see what needed doing around the cottage. She liked helping Katherine in the garden.

The grass turned gold and the geese’s thick winter down began to come in. Coriander’s river-rush hair proved itself unsalvageable. She spent hours trying to untangle it, first with a hairbrush, then with a fine-tooth comb and a bottle of conditioner, and eventually even with honey and olive oil (a home remedy that Folke said his mother used to use). So, at last, Coriander surrendered to the inevitable and gave Katherine permission to cut it off. One night, by the yellow light of the bare bulb that hung over the kitchen table, Katherine draped a towel over Coriander’s shoulders and tufts of gold went falling to the floor all round her.

“I’m here because I failed at love,” she managed to tell the couple at last, when her sorrows began to feel more distant. “I loved my father, and he knew it not.”

Folke and Katherine still called her Rush. She didn’t correct them. Coriander was the name her parents gave her. It was the name her father had called her when she was six and racing down the stairs to meet him when he came home from Europe, and at ten when she showed him the new song she’d learned to play on the harp. She’d been Cor when she brought her first boyfriend home and Cori the first time she shadowed him at court. Coriander, Coriander, when she came home from college the first time and he’d hugged her with bruising strength. Her strong, powerful father.

As she seasoned a pot of soup for supper, she wondered if he understood yet what she’d meant when she called him salt in her food.

Coriander had been living with Katherine and Folke for two years, and it was a morning just like any other. She was in the kitchen brewing a pot of coffee when Folke tossed the newspaper on the table and started rummaging in the fridge for his orange juice. “Looks like the old king’s sick again,” he commented casually. Coriander froze.

She raced to the table and seized hold of the paper. There, above the fold, big black letters said, KING ADMITTED TO HOSPITAL FOR EMERGENCY TREATMENT. There was a picture of her father, looking older than she’d ever seen him. Her knees went wobbly and then suddenly the room was sideways.

Strong arms caught her and hauled her upright. “What’s wrong, Rush?”

“What if he dies,” she choked out. “What if he dies and I never got to tell him?”

She looked up into Folke’s puzzled face, and then the whole sorry story came tumbling out.

When she was through, Katherine (who had come downstairs sometime between salt and the storm) took hold of her hand and kissed it. “Bless you, dear,” she said. “I never would have guessed. Maybe it’s best that you’ve both had some time to think things over.”

Katherine shook her head. “But don’t you think…?”

“Yes?”

“Well, don’t you think he should have known that I loved him? I shouldn’t have needed to say it. He’s my father. He’s the king.”

Katherine replied briskly, as though the answer should have been obvious. “He’s only human, child, for all that he might wear a crown; he’s not omniscient. Why didn’t you tell your father what he wanted to hear?”

“I didn’t want to flatter him,” said Coriander. “That was all. I wanted to be right in what I said.”

The goodwife clucked softly. “Oh dear. Don’t you know that sometimes, it’s more important to be kind than to be right?”

In her leave-taking, Coriander tried to tell Katherine and Folke how grateful she was to them, but they wouldn’t let her. They bought her a bus ticket and sent her on her way towards King’s City with plenty of provisions. Two days later, Coriander stood on the back steps of one of the palace outbuildings with her little carpetbag clutched in her hands.

Stuffing down the fear of being recognized, Coriander squared her shoulders and hoped they looked as strong as her father’s. She rapped on the door, and presently a maid came and opened it. The maid glanced Coriander up and down, but after a moment it was clear that her disguise held. With all her long hair shorn off, she must have looked like any other girl come in off the street.

“I’m here about a job,” said Coriander. “My name’s Rush.”

The king's chambers were half-lit when Coriander brought him his supper, dressed in her servants’ apparel. He grunted when she knocked and gestured with a cane towards his bedside table. His hair was snow-white and he was sitting in bed with his work spread across a lap-desk. His motions were very slow.

Coriander wanted to cry, seeing her father like that. Yet somehow, she managed to school her face. Like he would, she kept telling herself. Stoically, she put down the supper tray, then stepped back out into the hallway.

It was several minutes more before the king was ready to eat. Coriander heard papers being shuffled, probably filed in those same manilla folders her father had always used. In the hall, Coriander felt the seconds lengthen. She steeled herself for the moment she knew was coming, when the king would call out in irritation, “Girl! What's the matter with my food? Why hasn’t it got any taste?”

When that moment came, all would be made right. Coriander would go into the room and taste his food. “Why,” she would say, with a look of complete innocence, “It seems the kitchen forgot to salt it!” She imagined how her father’s face would change when he finally understood. My daughter always loved me, he would say.

Soon, soon. It would happen soon. Any second now.

The moment never came. Instead, the floor creaked, followed by the rough sound of a cane striking the floor. The door opened, and then the king was there, his mighty shoulders shaking. “Coriander,” he whispered.

“Dad. You know me?”

“Of course.”

“Then you understand now?”

The king’s wrinkled brow knit. “Understand about the salt? Of course, I do. It wasn't such a clever riddle. There was surely no need to ruin my supper with a demonstration.”

Coriander gaped at him. She'd expected questions, explanations, maybe apologies for sending her away. She'd never imagined this.

She wanted very badly to seize her father and demand answers, but then she looked, really looked, at the way he was leaning on his cane. The king was barely upright; his white head was bent low. Her questions would hold until she'd helped her father back into his room.

“If you knew what I meant–by saying you were like salt in my food– then why did you tell me to go?” she asked once they were situated back in the royal quarters.

Idly, the king picked at his unseasoned food. “I shouldn’t have done that. Forgive me, Coriander. My anger and hurt got the better of me, and it has brought me much grief. I never expected you to stay away for so long.”

Coriander nodded slowly. Her father's words had always carried such fierce authority. She'd never thought to question if he really meant what he’d said to her.

“As for the salt,” continued the king, "Is it so wrong that an old man should want to hear his daughters say ‘I love you' before he dies?”

Coriander rolled the words around in her head, trying to make sense of them. Then, with a sudden mewling sound from her throat, she managed to say, “That's really all you wanted?”

“That's all. I am old, Cor, and we've spoken too little of love in our house.” He took another bite of his unsalted supper. His hand shook. “That was my failing, I suppose. Perhaps if I’d said it, you girls would have thought to say it back.”

“But father!” gasped Coriander, “That’s not right. We've always known we loved one another! We've shown it a thousand ways. Why, I've spent the last year cataloging them in my head, and I've still not even scratched the surface!”

The king sighed. “Perhaps you will understand when your time comes. I knew, and yet I didn't. What can you really call a thing you’ve never named? How do you know it exists? Perhaps all the love I thought I knew was only a figment.”

“But that’s what I’ve been afraid of all this time,” Coriander bit back. “How could you doubt? If it was real at all– how could you doubt?”

The king’s weathered face grew still. His eyes fell shut and he squeezed them. “Death is close to me, child. A small measure of reassurance is not so very much to ask.”

Coriander slept in her old rooms that night. None of it had changed. When she woke the next morning, for a moment she remembered nothing of the last two years.

She breakfasted in the garden with her father, who came down the steps in a chair-lift. “Coriander,” he murmured. “I half-thought I dreamed you last night.”

“I’m here, Dad,” she replied. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Slowly, the king reached out with one withered hand and caressed Coriander's cheek. Then, his fingers drifted up to what remained of her hair. He ruffled it, then gently tugged on a tuft the way he'd used to playfully tug her long braid when she was a girl.

“I love you,” he said.

“That was always an I love you, wasn’t it?” replied Coriander. “My hair.”

The king nodded. “Yes, I think it was.”

So Coriander reached out and gently tugged the white hairs of his beard. “You too,” she whispered.

“Why salt?” The king was sitting by the fire in his rooms wrapped in two blankets. Coriander was with him, enduring the sweltering heat of the room without complaint.

She frowned. “You like honesty. We have that in common. I was trying to be honest–accurate–to avoid false flattery.”

The king tugged at the outer blanket, saying nothing. His lips thinned and his eyes dropped to his lap. Coriander wished they wouldn’t. She wished they would hold to hers, steely and ready for combat as they always used to be.

“Would it really have been false?” the king said at last. “Was there no other honest way to say it? Only salt?”

Coriander wanted to deny it, to give speech to the depth and breadth of her love, but once again words failed her. “It was my fault,” she said. “I didn’t know how to heave my heart into my throat.” She still didn’t, for all she wanted to.

When the doctor left, the king was almost too tired to talk. His words came slowly, slurred at the edges and disconnected, like drops of water from a leaky faucet.

Still, Coriander could tell that he had something to say. She waited patiently as his lips and tongue struggled to form the words. “Love you… so… much… You… and… your sisters… Don’t… worry… if you… can’t…say…how…much. I… know.”

It was all effort. The king sat back when he was finished. Something was still spasming in his throat, and Coriander wanted to cry.

“I’m glad you know,” she said. “I’m glad. But I still want to tell you.”

Love was effort. If her father wanted words, she would give him words. True words. Kind words. She would try…

“I love you like salt in my food. You're desperately important to me, and you've always been there, and I don't know what I'll do without you. I don’t want to lose you. And I love you like the soil in a garden. Like rain in the spring. Like a hero. You have the strongest shoulders of anyone I know, and all I ever wanted was to be like you…”

A warm smile spread across the old king’s face. His eyes drifted shut.

#inklingschallenge #theme: storge #story: complete #inklings challenge #leah stories #OKAY. SO #i spend so much time thinking about king lear. i think i've said before that it's my favorite shakespeare play. it is not close #and one of the hills i will die on is that cordelia was not in the right when she refused to flatter her dad #like. obviously he's definitely not in the right either. the love test was a screwed up way to make sure his kids loved him #he shouldn't have tied their inheritances into it. he DEFINITELY shouldn't have kicked cordelia out when she refused to play #but like. Cordelia. there is no good reason not to tell your elderly dad how much you love him #and okay obviously lear is my starting point but the same applies to the meat loves salt princess #your dad wants you to tell him you love him. there is no good reason to turn it into a riddle. you had other options #and honestly it kinda bothers me when people read cordelia/the princess as though she's perfectly virtuous #she's very human and definitely beats out the cruel sisters but she's definitely not aspirational. she's not to be emulated #at the end of the day both the fairytale and the play are about failures in storge #at happens when it's there and you can't tell. when it's not and you think it is. when you think you know someone's heart and you just don'#hey! that's a thing that happens all the time between parents and children. especially loving past each other and speaking different langua #so the challenge i set myself with this story was: can i retell the fairytale in such a way that the princess is unambiguously in the wrong #and in service of that the king has to get softened so his errors don't overshadow hers #anyway. thank you for coming to my TED talk #i've been thinking about this story since the challenge was announced but i wrote the whole thing last night after the super bowl #got it in under the wire! yay!#also! the whole 'modern setting that conflicts with the fairytale language' is supposed to be in the style of modern shakespeare adaptation #no idea if it worked but i had a lot of fun with it #pontifications and creations

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uncanny-tranny · 11 months

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Honestly the dumbest thing about my experiences with queerness is I'd hear people talk about identity and how they navigate queerness and I'd be like, "oh, actually, that matches how I feel to a very weird level. Huh. Guess I'll never know why, though!"

And then a few months later, I'll have a breakdown of, "Holy shit, holy fuck what the hell is happening" before I realize maybe I should have paid closer attention to why I related so much to a queer experience.

The moral of this story is: if you relate to somebody explaining their queerness... there's likely a reason for that.

#queer #lgbt #lgbtq #i'm thinking about the time i incidentally came across somebody talking about their aromanticism and i was like... 'wow i relate.'#and i was then like 'eh i'm not aro tho. i just coincidentally relate to a weirdly specific degree to this aro experience'#spoiler: uh. i'm pretty fuckin aro and i've kinda... always been #anyway maybe don't be like me and let yourself not understand who you are until you cannot take it anymore #because it kinda sucks to have a crisis of identity because you've been kinda... willingly ignoring who you are #i don't say 'willingly' in a bad way just in a... 'please it isn't worth it' way #and i call it dumb because i think i was willingly setting myself up for failure because i didn't fully understand myself #because i didn't fully realize i was aromantic i had forced myself in a lot of situations that i didn't want #and i didn't understand WHY i didn't have crushes or have interest in being in a relationship or why i hated being touched #so i just assumed i 'needed experience' and the lack of experience was why #spoiler ×2: the experience did not un-aro me <3 #it aro-d me MORE lmao

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squarebracketsmileyface · 4 months

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Hi, I keep coming back, but I got another song for you!! Life After Salem by Lil Nas X is so Jay to Alex, but you can even squeeze some Tim in there too!!

NEW SONG WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Okay you know the drill, shitty lyric analysis under the thingy so its all neat and tidy before BAM me spewing a bunch of bullshit about my favorite lil guys. Also this one goes off the rails cos i just finished it with a massive fuck off migraine, so it starts out all detailed then becomes "yes song good good" pretty much lol

You're so right tho, this song is so Jay and Alex.

All of my feelings are gone I left 'em all on the floor Man, who's to blame if you don't love me no more? No, I don't mind, just take whatever you want

Shocker, Alex and Jay singing a duet.

To me the first two lines would be sung by Jay about him hiding his feelings for Alex back in college/uni, pretending he didn't like him or want to be in a relationship with him (beyond just their FWB relationship), pretending he wasn't in love with Alex for years despite knowing that he absolutely was. Probably those lines would be sung by Jay to Alex about their time in College, explaining what he tried to do with his feelings: "I left 'em all on the floor". Those lines would also probably be sung, like, after Alex has said all those nasty things to Jay in the kitchen? Somewhere around then. This is like a song for if they ever actually fucking talked to each other properly lmao.

The next line would be Alex's response, a sort of manipulative way of saying he understands why Jay doesn't trust him anymore, that he understands what he did and why it was cruel. But in that kinda "oh woe is me I'm just the worst" kinda way, yknow? Trying to make Jay go "no, you're not the worst, you're not evil, you just didn't think it's okay!" and give Alex another chance. There'd definitely be a certain level of sincerity as well though, because Alex really does realize that he was pretty damn shitty to Jay. He wants Jay not to love him anymore. He needs Jay not to love him anymore.

Then the last line is kinda both of them, but in different ways, like they'd sing it together but with completely different tones and it'd be so obvious that they're talking about different things. For Jay "No, I don't mind, just take whatever you want" is about how Alex just kinda took and took and took from him throughout their relationship, but it'd also be a kinda, like, good tone? Like Jay's convinced himself that he genuinely doesn't mind how much Alex has taken from him, he kind of likes the fact that he could give Alex that control over him etc? For Alex "No, I don't mind, just take whatever you want" would be a lot more bitter, he feels like Jay is the unreasonable one who just keep's taking, because he's taken Alex's heart (lmao cringe) and Alex was not ready to give it away to him.

Why don't you just take what you want from me? I think you should take what you want and leave Why don't you just take what you want from me? I think you should take what you want and leave

Alex. He wants Jay to have basically everything he's wanted out of their relationship just before he leaves and Alex makes sure that they don't see each other again. Jay gets to kiss Alex, they have sex in a bed, Jay sleeps over, they have breakfast together, etc.

(It is another day now and I have a headache. Thinking is hard, the rest of this is probably gonna be a mess im sorry lol.)

What you want from me? Yeah What you want from me? Yeah

Then just Jay not really knowing why Alex has changed and why he's doing all these nice things for him, so he's just sitting there trying to figure out what Alex wants from him in return for all these nice things. (the answer to that being: alex wants him heartbroken enough to save himself)

Get yourself an Adderall Then throw me up against the wall And kick me when I have to crawl Ooh, I love it when you show no love at all You know I can be your part-time lover Our scars, they'll dance with each other I can be your part-time lover Our scars, they'll dance with each other

Okay, hear me out, this bit's about their dynamic, shocker... even tho it makes it sound a lot more toxic and abusive than it actually was. They were both mostly happy with the dynamic and neither were trying to hurt each other. They just both kinda wanted it to be a romantic relationship when it wasn't, but Alex was scared of that, and Jay wasn't gonna push it for fear of losing what he already had so far. And he'd rather have that than nothing.

"Ooh, I love it when you show no love at all" at first i thought this bit would be Jay, but now that i think about it, it's Alex to me. He liked it when Jay didn't show him any love back in college, because it made it easier to ignore his own feelings for him.

Why don't you just take what you want from me? I think you should take what you want and leave Why don't you just take what you want from me? I think you should take what you want and leave

What you want from me? Yeah What you want from me? Yeah

You're changin' You're changin' every day You played me I let you win again You're changin' You're changin' every day And you're takin' You're takin' everything

They are in fact changing, yup. Probably Jay talking about Alex, Alex changed up their usual dynamic when they got back to his house, then it turned out that all the niceness was just a way to break Jay's heart even worse. He just got his feelings played with, and he didn't really do anything to stop it, because he liked how Alex was treating him too much. Which like, fair.

#Headache is now a migraine and this has sat in my inbox for far too long already. so im just posting it #GREAT SONG MY DUDE. I am simply tired. you can make up some very intelligent song analysis stuff and pretend I said it lol #I may have set myself up for failure by doing my lil lyric analysis things cos now im like #“if i dont do that i will have failed to show i like the song and appreciate being given it oh nooooooo” which is silly but whoops #marble hornets #jay merrick #alex kralie #jaylex #marble hornets fanfic #MH sorry its locked

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