the sandwich of satan

Meeting, pt.3 | Community | Jeff/Annie

chipping — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 02:44:45 GMT

Meeting, pt.3
Community, jeff/annie
pt.1, pt.2

Because he is Annie Edison and she is Jeffrey Winger. He had seen her heart in that moment, had seen it in her frightened, sad eyes and realized that it was his heart, too. His scared, silly heart was just the same, his perfectionist heart, his fear of heartbreak were all very real, and they were all hers, too.

Meeting
pt. 3

I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.~Harry Burns, When Harry Met Sally

He doesn't want to admit it, but things are getting to him. Strike that. He can't admit it, even if somewhere along the line he guesses that he's consented to it inside his head. Because the inside of his head is just all her. For example: he walks through the Gap, and this is normal for Jeffrey Winger, because when the going gets tough, the tough go out and buy a new blazer. But the retail therapy's not working. All he can see in the brightly-colored lines of cardigans is the vague (but very real) shape of her body, and when he smells the petunia-y fragrance of the cheap perfumes on the store's shelves all he can imagine is her neck when she laughed and leaned towards him, and all he can see in that pretty changing-room attendant who always tries to get him to take her panties off is that her hair is almost the exact same sort of color as hers. He's just trying to buy a button-down dammit, dammit, dammit, and all he can see is Annie Edison peeking around the corner, haunting him.

“Can I get you anything else? And I mean ANYTHING?” That one changing-room girl says to him, peeking around the corner. She's wearing this blouse that looks vaguely like something she would wear. He just wants nothing more than to rip it off not so that he can ravish this annoying retail vixen, but because it's like something's drilling in his brain, these thoughts of her drilling deep into his brain.

“A lobotomy? Can you get me one of those?” He asks before digging his knuckles hard against his temples.

The girl with hair that's too-perfectly-curled stares at him, blinking. “A... lobster?” Then, she brightens. “Are you, like, asking me to dinner?”

He knows he should ruffle his feathers back up, knows he should say, “Uh, yes. That's exactly what I'm doing. Asking you to dinner.” Sure, he'd have to put up with maybe an hour or so of hearing the endless noise of “attractive woman” prattle, the kind that consists of a woman who finds herself much more interesting than she really is. Her body was often more interesting than her conversation, so Jeff Winger had learned to deal.

But that wasn't in for some reason, none of was. Not in that second, not when that wide-eyed eyeshadow-ed sales assistant looked up at him, offering him a little bit of everything. But part of him realizes in this second that getting everything is only going to leave him with this big empty nothing inside his chest.

What's crazier though, is the revelation that he, Jeffrey Winger, has not slept with anyone in... and oh God, it dawns on him. He hasn't slept with anyone since her, and it's been weeks. No, months. Months and he hadn't even noticed, because there's this ache inside him that's been too distracting. Like something sharp and heavy has been settling slowly into his stomach, weighing him down, taking up every ounce of his being.

He's got to get out, out of this mall, it's suddenly swallowing him with its button-down cardigans and wide-eyed brunettes. He stalks out of the parking lot, Orange Julius in hand, and it's starting to snow a little. He looks up in the sky to watch a heavy blanket of gray snowclouds roll above him. The radio had said something about some mountain of blizzards roaring through Colorado at some point today, but he had ignored it, taken it as an excuse to send out the mass text to the study group: I am sitting at home, watching You've Got Mail, BY MYSELF. I want it this way. And no Abed you can't watch it with me, and no Pierce, I'm not gay for enjoying a classic romcom. Britta had texted him back telling him that he was buying into commercialized gender roles, but he had promptly responded that he thought Meg Ryan was hot, how about that for gender roles? And that was that.

He could only watch so much of the film, where Meg Ryan is donning that super 90s coif and there's a quirky kitschy soundtrack and it made him want to grind his teeth. It wasn't that the movie was irritating him, with its easily predictable plot and (he hated to give Britta this) ridiculously sexist roles, but it was the idea of the movie somehow, the whole general atmosphere of would-they-won't-they, the thought that maybe these two people that should be together, these two horribly-constructed characters, wouldn't find each other in the end. And, she, hadn't texted him back, even though the rest of the group had something to say, even Shirley (Oh, isn't that nice, Jeffrey!)

But then, she was a busy woman. He had to tell himself that sometimes, chant it in his head over and over again: she was a busy woman, busy planning a wedding. He had seen the strange lines under her eyes when she met the group up for a movie (when she could), could see the way she was always distracted, always an early-leaver, always scurrying from one wedding plan to another.

“I don't get it,” Britta had said while Troy tried to adjust her snowboard – the group had decided to take advantage of some Groupon deal for snowboarding lessons just a week after finals. “You just have to pick out cake. It's cake. How bad can it be?”

Troy lifted his head and nodded. “She's got you there, Annie. Cake is, like, never wrong. It can't be.”

But she had had this look on her face like she might start crying at any second. “No! It's not just cake. There's ivory italian cream, vanilla strawberry, chocolate swirl...”

“Yes. Keep going,” Troy said, his eyes closed, his mouth a little open. Creepily open.

She had merely huffed before quickly excusing herself from them, saying she “didn't have time to cater to Troy's weird cake fetish.”

Shirley had made a little mother-hen noise in her throat before turning to Jeff, frowning. “Jeff! Go say something. Make her stay.”

He watched her stalk off – he could almost still hear her legs whoosh as she marched in her windbreaker pants, could almost still smell that light petunia scent of her freshly shampooed hair, could still feel something inside of him still with the very moment of her.

“No,” he said, watching her figure become smaller as it approached the ski lodge, watched it disappear behind the tacky fake-wooden doors. “No, let her be.”

Shirley looked at him, her eyebrows tightly drawn together. She placed her palm on his arm, her voice too sweet when she asked, “Jeff-rey. Are you okay?”

The wind was still startlingly chilly but he started to take off his jacket, shaking his head. “No, actually. I'm not okay. Not at all.” He started to walk away from the group, quickly removing his snowboarding getup as he drew closer to the ski lodge. He hadn't known what he wanted to do, but he felt himself being drawn back towards her trail even if she had already showered, had already returned all her ski equipment at the front desk, was already in her clunker of a vehicle and driving towards that... guy. But what did it matter to him, what did it matter to him really?

Which was ridiculous, he thinks as he glares at the darkening sky. This Colorado winter had been weirdly tumultuous. Which was fine with him. Jeff Winger was a creature of solitude. He was a creature of marathons. He could be fine with a stack of Diehard movies and a queue of Golden Girls on his Netflix. This, of course, was only a secret that he had shared with Abed Nadir. And, well. Her. He had shared it once with her, once when they thought they had figured out the whole friendship thing. She had laughed and said that she loved Golden Girls, that she had a VCR of a couple episodes somewhere in her apartment.

“I, um,” she had looked at him over a veil of dark lashes. “I have some scotch. Can we do that? Can we watch Golden Girls and drink scotch?”

His mouth had hung open for a second, something like a grin suspended there. Then, slowly, he said, “We ab-so-fuckin-lutely can.”

And then she had laughed, a good sort of laugh, before running off to her kitchen. She returned with two proper-sized glasses of scotch (the bad cheap kind but fuck it), and after their third glass she made him toast her and then swear that he would never tell anyone, never anyone, that she was sloppy, goofy drunk.

He had smiled and the truth was that he had been a little drunk, too. She had made the drinks strong, not on purpose but because she was still twenty-two and she had no idea what was too much, and she was wearing these pajama shorts and this t-shirt. And, now that he thinks about it, it was his t-shirt. And oh shit, she had leaned in against his neck and said, “Do you think anyone will every understand us? I mean, understand why we do this?” She had waved gratuitously towards her small, shitty living room, as to indicate that they were sort of a joke, sort of, the two of them sitting with their knees touch and her not wearing a bra and him unshaven and unshowered and for once he doesn't give a fuck where his phone is.

“No one will understand us,” he says, so close to her face. So close. “No one will know what to do with us.”

He thinks about this now, now in the mall's parking lot and he realizes what a fool he had been. She was right there, her face and her smile and her mouth, but all he had seen was this woman who, for the first time in his life, he had restrained himself from sleeping with. She wasn't that, wasn't just somebody to fuck, she was... she was Annie. She was this girl who drank scotch, and studied Biology too much, and help her lips in a pursed line, and liked Golden Girls, and did horrible impressions of people, and she was all of that. And he had ruined everything with sex, and so he was so careful with her. Until then, when he had ruined everything once again, sex included.

But it was just him now and the thick clouds above him. Snow clouds. He had seem them before, seen them many times before this winter. Hurrying to his car, he muttered curses to the gods who convinced him that a larger winter coat wasn't worth it today (“It adds bulk,” he had muttered into the mirror this morning).

He started the heat as soon as he crawled into his car. The temperature was dropping rapidly, and as he pulled out of the mall's parking lot, a overdramatic radio DJ proclaimed, “Looks like the snow's gonna come down bucket-style, folks. One second it'll be here and then it'll be gone. Better stay at home and listen to these rockin' tunes...” And then he turned it off, since he couldn't take one more song by Maroon 5, and he couldn't handle the sound of anything any more, even the sound of his own mind.

The snow started, quicker than he thought. One second he was driving up the onramp of the interstate and the next second the world was completely white. He could see the blaring red brake lights of the semi in front of him, but then it's nothing and soon he finds himself cursing, turning on the radio: “Looks like it's gonna be a white-out, folks. Best to just sit this one out at home. If anyone even thought of heading out today, well... they're regretting it now.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” he mumbles under his breath, cranking up the heat. “They should give you a show on the BBC, you're so fucking brilliant.”

He keeps driving, praying to the gods of everything holy that he won't go veering off into some ditch, only to be discovered by Starburns's ghost. No, he thinks, no... that would actually be okay, go ahead and throw him into some snowy deathtrap, because life wasn't really pro-Jeffrey Winger right now: he's going five miles-an-hour behind what he thinks is another vehicle on what he think is the highway, he didn't buy anything at the mall, and she won't get the fuck out of his brain. She was there, even through the churning whiteness around him he could see her face, and suddenly he was back in her living room, watching Golden Girls, and they're both still drunk and her face. Always her face, laughing before turning very serious and looking to him and ask, “Will this be us someday? Will our group just be a slew of bitter women who happen to love each other but really don't know how to hold down functional relationships?”

He had studied her face, trying to figure something out, like turning a puzzle piece just the right right way so that it fits. “Well, I know that I'll at least be banging the old woman when I'm wrinkled and gray.”

But she didn't laugh like he had wanted, hadn't thrown her head back and snorted like she did was she was drunk and laughing. Instead, she frowned and shrugged. Her eyes were set glumly somewhere inside her own thoughts when she said, “I guess we're never going to change, huh?”

“Hey,” he said, “hey, now.” He had scooted up closer to her, reached behind her head and cupped the nape of her neck. Gently, with the tip of his fingers, he turned her head towards him. Her eyes were glassy, and suddenly he realized how drunk she was and how drunk he was and how sad she was, how sad she really was, and he could feel this sadness inside him real and alive because it was his own. “We've changed. We're friends now. Adult friends. I mean, remember what we use to be? All weird and sexually tense? We've evolved. All that's behind us now.”

She blinked slowly before saying, her voice low, “Is it, though? Is any of it really ever going to be behind us?” There was this one tear, just one that ran down her face, rolling across her jawline, and down into his hand, in her hair.

It was her face, her face then, and her face now. And even though that conversation was cut-short by a phone call from Pierce (he was stuck in a port-o-john and he needed somebody to get him out STAT) it had been this moment where something in him flamed in his gut.

Because he knew that the alcohol hadn't help, that it could shift his perspective on anything, but now he knew why it was that this woman with tiny fists and a good strong heart and crippling fear of failure was so close to him he could never explain it.

He realized it then, and it comes to him now, as he's trying desperately to windshield wiper his way of our this clusterfuck of a storm. He realizes that he could explain it, so suddenly, and the thought comes to him so quickly it knocks the breathe out of him and all he can mutter is, “Fuck.”

Because he is Annie Edison and she is Jeffrey Winger. He had seen her heart in that moment, had seen it in her frightened, sad eyes and realized that it was his heart, too. His scared, silly heart was just the same, his perfectionist heart, his fear of heartbreak were all very real, and they were all hers, too.

“Fuck,” he says again, but this time it's a mixture of the storm of emotions and the actual, physical storm that is battering his car. He can't see the brake lights anymore and so now he's really driving blind. If he squints and sort of makes it up, he thinks he can see the lines on the road, but he's not real sure.

“Of course this would happen to you, Jeff Winger, you idiot,” he mumbles, as he tries to adjust his radio with the one hand that isn't driving. The reception is wavering, static-filled, and then suddenly it's pretty worthless. “And this is how you die. Yep. You die in a snow storm knowing what an absolute, ridiculous idiot you've been for four years to your best friend because you wanted to buy another fucking button-down at the Gap.”

But then, he sees it. At first, it's hazy and sort of surreal, like a mirage that might show in the desert when your brain has been fried into hysteria. But then, as he creeps his car closer, he knows that it's real, that this is actually happening.

It's Annie Edison. Stuck on the side of the road with her piece-of-shit vehicle. She's holding her coat together against her chest, and she's squinting against the white of the storm. Her car is almost half covered with snow and she blinking rapidly like she does when she just might cry and all he can see is her face, her face again, even through this storm.

He pulls over immediately, praying that he doesn't slam into something or someone that he can't see. He slides up as close to her car as possible. From what she can tell, he's sure, she has no idea who's stopping, or if anyone has stopped at all. But he can see her, see that her tights have been torn at the knee and he can see her white and pink skin underneath, can almost see the strips of icicles forming on her hair.

He stares into his steering wheel. Then, quickly, fumbling his gloves on, he breathes himself to get ready and then steps out of the car.

Meeting, pt. 2 | Community | Jeff/Annie

chipping — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 05:18:07 GMT

Meeting, pt. 2
Community, jeff/annie
pt. 1
Jeff and Annie finally decide that they can be friends, no sexual-tension attached. It works. For a while. Inspired by a prompt by eva_aftagrl on milady_milordto write a story based on When Harry Met Sally. There may/may not be any similarities to the movie in this fic.

Annie Edison and Jeff Winger are just friends, and friends don’t need to text each other to say that there was a parrot convention on campus (they made fun of them), or that she’s just made some peach ice cream and he should come over and watch old movies with her, or that he just wanted to say good morning and that he hopes she isn’t too hungover. No, they couldn’t do that anymore, because that would mess up her compartment. And so she joins the track team, and a knitter’s club (Britta’s idea), and she meets Jim.

Meeting
pt. 2

Harry Burns: I've been doing a lot of thinking, and the thing is, I love you.
Sally Albright: What?
Harry Burns: I love you.
Sally Albright: How do you expect me to respond to this?
Harry Burns: How about, you love me too.
Sally Albright: How about, I'm leaving.
~ When Harry Met Sally

She doesn’t call. Which is ridiculous. Not that she doesn’t call, but because he cares that she doesn’t call. It itches at him day and night, irking him somewhere near his sternum. It bothers him for a various of reasons: A) She’s his best friend, sex or no sex (and very, very good sex at that) and B) No one doesn’t want a piece of Jeffrey Winger after they get a taste. No one.

It’s that simple, he tells himself. Simple that he just doesn’t like being ignored, that he doesn’t like not being the one who has to dodge the person he’s had sex with. Simple that her silence irks him not because he feels something. He’s not that silly. He’s got a penis after all. It’s not that little Annie Edison has gone and crawled under his skin and made him sit up too quickly when his phone rings or make him check the e-mail on his Blackberry a couple hundred times a day. It’s not that. It’s not that when he woke up the morning and walked around her apartment, in the emptiness, when he found her note that told him that he, Jeffrey Winger, in fact was quite excellent at sex, he didn’t feel that usual rush of satisfaction that he usually felt. Instead, there was something hollow there. I need some protein, he tells himself. And that’s what he boils it down to: he just needs more protein. It can’t be that Annie Edison has done something to him. She isn’t responsible for this feeling inside of him that something has been carved out of him, deep and to the core.

Okay. So maybe he’s a little... irritated with her. Because she hasn’t called just in general. In fact, she’s been downright allusive in a sense. Alright, they hang out, but it’s always when someone else is there and it’s always because somebody else asks them out. Last night, it was Troy, who invited them to the Red Door (“Britta says it’s the worst, which means she likes it!” Troy tells them with too much emotion). But there was karaoke and they all had to try to find Britta who was helplessly drunk already and Troy kept loudly trying to convince her to let him take her home. And some guy came along. With Annie. Some slick-haired young Republican kind of guy tagging along on Annie’s heels, acting like he was some leashed dog or a toddler in a mall. That same kind of guy who greets you when you come in the bank and over a light beer will explain that he’s in “investment sales.” He is, in fact, the perfect sort of guy for Annie, he thinks. Nice. Good looking (not unlike Jeff Winger). And uncomplicated (unlike Jeff Winger). And he thinks to himself that he doesn’t need to be comparing this guy to himself, it’s not about that, he should be glad for Annie. Because she’s his best friend after all, and when that guy said a joke, she smiled a good sort of smile and laughs. He couldn’t tell if it was genuine, because it was dark at the bar and she had done this thing with her hair now that, although really attractive, hid part of her face. He doesn’t want to say she looked sad, because that was only his inner drunk voice talking

He’s glad for Annie, he guesses. There’s still this weird feeling inside him though, and it started after he woke up alone and feeling strange in her apartment that already smelled of espresso from the sex supply shop downstairs. He chalks the feeling up to some kind of indigestion or vitamin deficiency. So he starts eating better, working out more. He finds that if he focuses himself enough on trying to feel better, sometimes he can trick his body into not worrying about that she hasn’t called in a day, two days, three days, a whole week.

“If you don’t stop touching that thing, it’s gonna stay that way,” Shirley tells him as the two of them sip on protein shakes in the gym cafeteria. Lately, Shirley and him have been meeting up early in the morning for a spinning class. She is, with much of his chagrin, kicking his ass at it.

“Say what?” he asks, staring at her

She raises her eyebrows and turns her head to the side, trying to avoid eye contact. “Oh, you know what I’m talking about, Jeffrey. You and that phone are having sort of relationship that verges on the ungodly.”

He laughs and Shirley looks at him with her okay-I’m-funny-but-I’m-actually-serious expression. He takes a swig of his drink and says, “Shirley, listen: if my phone was a woman, she would be perfect. She gets me food, connects me to important people who will give me money, and she even hooks me up with hot chicks without even getting jealous. Like I said, perfect.”

Her eyes are squinted on him when she says, pointedly, “Oh, that’s nice. So the phone’s sort of like Annie, huh?”

He's text-messaging someone (Annie) when she says this, still laughing about his joke, but when she says it, in her eat-shit voice, he stares up at her in shock, eyes wide. “I...” he starts before shaking his head, trying to compose himself, “... Yeah. Right. Perfect if I wanted to be hassled by a Disney-eyed nag who thinks that the fact that I’m awesome is gross. Perfect if I needed to be reminded to floss or that my body image is unfounded or that I need to study a little bit so I don’t fail all my classes and then never get to be a lawyer. Perfect if I wanted someone who likes to date future campaigners of the Republican party who will actually just end up owning prefab houses and hating that his hot wife is sleeping with the guy who volunteers with her at the library. Yeah. Sure, Shirley. Pshew. Annie, perfect! With her big eyes and her tiny little fists and the fact that she gets red right on apple of cheeks when she’s a little angry with me or drunk or excited. With her thinking she’s got to save everybody and that everybody’s worth trusting other than herself. Yeah. Sounds awesome.”

There is a giant pregnant pause. The cafeteria, in fact, has gotten a little quieter and the man behind Shirley is giving him a furrowed brow expression.

Shirley, however, is not entirely shocked. She has that cross expression on her face that seems to say that she knew it, she knew it, she knew it. Of course, he should have figured so much, because if there was one thing to know about Shirley Bennett, it was that she was perceptive. Perhaps she expected too much of people (the Christianity talking there) and maybe she judged them when they didn’t fit into those neat little categories that she made for them (the Christianity talking there), but Shirley Bennett was a realist. Shirley Bennett was always on the pulse of what everybody was feeling and doing – it was like she picked it up out of the air with her fists. Plus, as he had figured out, she was the queen of smack, the master of gossip, and it was so much to the extent that it wasn’t a flaw, but rather a very valuable talent.

So, it’s not too shocking when she says, “Jeffrey, tell me that I’m wrong, because it sounds like you two have been engaging in some serious premarital sex.”

They stare at each other, and he debates whether he should tell her the truth or not. He realizes that lying will do him no good. Shirley was a fortress, a tried-and-true bullshit detector, and it was no good to make something up, to deny and lie and try to lawyer his way out of this. Shirley, like the mother that he never had, was going to snap her fingers at his lies and tell him that if he thought she was stupid he better get a new brain, cause she knows that he doesn’t want a whooping. So, he does that face he can feel himself doing involuntarily where he bites his bottom lips and raises his eyebrows and its as big as a confession as if he said, “We totally banged a couple nights ago.”

Shirley puts up a hand like she’s simultaneously dismissing him and praying to God for redemption. Then, pursing her lips she says, “Uh. Uh uh uh uh.”

He tries to sit closer to her but she scoots away from him, still holding up her hand and her chair scraping across the linoleum floor. Putting on his lawyer face, he says, “It wasn’t what you think! Honestly. It was like... a friendly competition.”

“A friendly competition?!” She interjects, glaring daggers at him. “I know you don’t think I’m stupid, Jeffrey Winger...”

“Oh crap. Here we go.”

“... because I will wipe that smug little smirk off your face. Sleeping with a girl who can’t even rent a car yet. You must be crazy. Friendly competition, my ass!” And there’s nothing to say in the least, because he knows she’s right. Of course, she’s right. He is gross and he shouldn’t have done it. Especially with Annie, dear little Annie, his best friend who he worked hard for. But! But still, everything would be all right. If only she would answer his calls and text-messages, and e-mails and facebook pokes and...

His phone vibrates and he picks it up so quickly, he nearly knocks his smoothie over on top of Shirley. He doesn’t see her horrified expression, or her wide-eyed glare as he flips through the text message quickly. Instead, all he notices is the weird drop in his stomach when he realizes its only from Troy (“U goin 2 C R dance recital 2nite?”), and he does a subconscious scrub through his messages, for some reason hoping he’s missed something. But he hasn’t.

When he looks back up at Shirley, her face has softened. Instead of disapproval, he sees some trace of suspicion, a line in between her eyes that says something, and as he tried to dissect it, she says, “I should be mad at you Jeffrey. You know that I should. But here’s the thing: As much as I hate how much careless you can be with little regret for people’s feelings, or their workout outfits that could have been covered in banana smoothie, I see this small little heart inside there. I also see a lot of ego, self-doubt. And a Jesus-shaped hole. But,” she pauses, takes a long sip of her smoothie, narrows her eyes at him, “but. Something’s... different. This isn’t like that one girl, what’s her name, Miranda?”

“Melissa. It was Melissa. Why does everybody forget her name... wait. Maybe it was Miranda. Or maybe...”

Shirley waves her hand in the air and says, “It doesn’t matter. Jesus will judge that later. But. Listen, for forever, you know I’ve been a proponent of you and Britta. Because it seemed like it was the right thing. She’s a nice girl with... problems. You’re, deep deep deep down, a nice boy. With problems. But, the more I get to know you, it’s like you two are. You’re the devil together. Like how you could never be with me, other than the fact that my dominating sexuality intimates you. We would ruin the world together. But we’ve all seen this little... thing that you and Annie have been entertaining with each other for the past year. That thing we’re you pretend that you don’t want to rip off each other’s clothes and engage in activities that Jesus would weep at. Like that was gonna last.” She snorts reprehensibly at this before shaking her head and continuing, “And this is coming from someone who loves you, Jeffrey Winger. Because we all love you. But this is coming from someone who loves the both of you: You two are damn fools for believing that you could get through this just as friends. I mean, it’s great that y’all got to hang out with each other, because you got to put all that angry tension bullshit behind you. Even if that hanging out meant engaging in things that would make Jesus cry.” She takes the last long sip of her smoothie before standing up and saying, down into his shocked face, “But, listen to me Jeff Winger: I’ve seen enough of you being a damn fool about the good women in your life and I am over it. You either are going – and don’t read wrong into this – put up or shut up. I suggest you put up, or else I will tell everyone how you cry like a little bitch in our spinning class. Isn’t that nice, Jeffrey?”

With a florid motion of her hand, Shirley tosses the cup over her shoulder, launching it in a perfect arch into a trashcan. She lifts an eyebrow before turning and shaking her spandexed hips out of the gym cafe.

Later, he receives a text message from her that says: No, it’s not Annie. Remember. I will tell everyone about your salty, salty tears. Tell her, Jeffrey. Don’t pull a Winger and callous her out of her life, which you always do.

--

She thinks that she’s getting her life back together, assembling it like a bunch of scattered puzzle pieces. She’s found that she’s good at that: constructing little boxes and compartments for the randomness of her life. Here: the mess of her parent’s divorce. Here: rehab that involved quiet nights alone with no visitors and many strange tears. Here: feelings, feelings in general. So, she stacks these boxes up nicely and she thinks she’s managed to put that one box back together like it used to be; here: impossible Jeff Winger, with his crooked grin, and his flashing eyes, and the good, long, easy silences between the two of them. Here: The bright light in her stomach when he took her small fingers into his wide, warm palm.

But Annie Edison is good at packing things away, and she thinks she’s done a fairly good job of it, after all. She thinks, with a nod of satisfaction at her own mental inventory, that she’s cleaned up the evidence quite nicely. Now, she can take out the pieces of Jeff Winger as she needs them, neatly. No more of the box sort of exploding on her, flipping everything upside down and out of order and without any sort of categorization. Annie Edison will not have that again, not when she supposes that she had figured out the first real adult thing in her life. She packs away the whole incident of his hands holding her face and his breath in her mouth and him, all of him, inside of her, and labels it with a big red mental marker of mistake. It’s there, in that little compartment, and she can pull it out when she wants to (she doesn’t think she ever will, though), but now she knows what to call it. It was a mistake. Her and Jeff Winger: a mistake.

She can’t keep dreaming about it, though.

So, the best thing for her, she thinks, while she re-compartmentalizing, is to avoid Jeff Winger. Or not avoid, exactly. That would be old Annie Edison, the one who had mental breakdowns and drove her body through glass plate windows. The one that couldn’t process a sort of mistake and her feelings. She feels now that she is the evolved Annie Edison, and the adult thing isn’t to run away from the man you… slept with. So, she does the only logical thing that comes to her: she moves on. She erases a segment of her life, the one labeled, Annie Edison and Jeff Winger were once best friends, and tries again. Annie Edison and Jeff Winger are just friends, and friends don’t need to text each other to say that there was a parrot convention on campus (they made fun of them), or that she’s just made some peach ice cream and he should come over and watch old movies with her, or that he just wanted to say good morning and that he hopes she isn’t too hungover. No, they couldn’t do that anymore, because that would mess up her compartment. And so she joins the track team, and a knitter’s club (Britta’s idea), and she meets Jim.

Jim, she thinks, is the perfect man for evolved Annie. He works at a bank. He graduated from a school out east and has a New England work ethic. Actually, he just plain has ethics. He isn’t religious, but he is spiritual, and happily goes to the Synagogue with her and her mother on Yom Kippur. He drinks, but never scotch, and she’s happy for this because when she kisses him she doesn’t feel a tingle in the back of her mind reminding her of other compartment. His mouth is actually usually cool and sweet against hers.

The first time they sleep together, they both laugh at each other once or twice. Her body never hitches but she has a good general warmth in her stomach. She thinks that it’s something, that it could grow into a sweet, demure sort of love. It’s over quickly, but she thinks it’s nice, and really, that’s good enough for her, right? Evolved Annie says right.

It’s the first relationship that the group doesn’t seem to have a real opinion on. Once, on a group excursion for bowling, Shirley asks if he goes to church, and he tells her, with his perfect row of teeth, You know, I’m in between churches right now, Mrs. Bennett. But what church do you go to? I would love to come visit it some week. Instead of being ecstatic, Shirley simply smiles and says that he is more than welcome, that they meet at the local high school, but she doesn’t offer a ride.

“What do you think of him, Shirley?” She asks her later when Jim excuses himself to go to the bathroom. “He’s cute, huh? And he had a 4.0 GPA when he graduated.”

“He’s.” Shirley reaches out and takes Annie’s hand in her own. Her smile only covers half of her face. “He seems like the right sort of man, pumpkin,” She says, in her sugary voice. Then, rubbing her thumb across the top of her hand, she adds, “But you’ve got to ask yourself if he’s the right sort of man for you, sweetie.”

Annie frowns. “Jim’s the right sort of man for everyone. He’s the right sort of man just, in general.”

Abed sits next to her, lacing up a pair of boat-big bowling shoes that look bought and not rented. He points at her and then to Jim’s retreating figure before saying, “Nice. You brought the ‘Freddy’ dynamic into the picture.”

Part of her wishes that things with Abed were the same with every person. Their kiss was good and a part that they played, something they could wash their hands of easily like dirt from hands. It was easy to compartmentalize Abed, simple as fitting together one of those dozen-pieced puzzle sets.

But there was always the problem of trying to figure out what exactly he was talking about at any given second. She raises an eyebrow at him and says, “Abed, his name is Jim, not Freddy. And you need to stop calling him that. He thinks you’re… weird.”

“I am weird,” Abed says before pulling his laces tight. “And it’s a minor error on the name thing. You see, Jim is the Freddy. You know? My Fair Lady? The man that Eliza Doolittle tries to convince herself that she’s in love with rather than the impossible, obstinate Henry Higgins.”

Shirley raises an eyebrow at him. “You sure the only reason that you and Abed moved in together was because of the money situation? Watching a bunch of girly musicals together like it’s normal, child I don’t know….”

Annie doesn’t pay attention to Shirley, though, she’s too focused at what Abed is saying. She sucks in a thin strip of air through her teeth before saying slowly, “Abed. You do realize that this,” she gestures wildly herself, her whole body, “That I’m. Annie Edison, is not a movie. This is. Well. Jim is a nice man, who I… like very much.”

“You paused at like,” Abed notes flatly. “Is that because you’ve convinced yourself you’re in love with him or because you’re completely ambiguous towards him?”

Shirley shakes her head, excuses herself for, “some kind of drink that gets me away from this conversation.”

Annie stares at Abed, whose eye line is level with hers. He doesn’t blink (she’s not quite sure if he ever really blinks). Then, finally, she said, slowly, “Abed. Listen to me. I love you, but I need you to stop calling Jim ‘Freddy’ because, he’s well. He’s good for me. He’s good and nice and evolved. He... works at a bank! He cuts his hair at home and isn’t surgically attached to his Blackberry and isn’t infuriatingly funny and when he looks at me nothing inside me breaks because his eyes are both sad and a little lonely but also full of something... else that makes my stomach do something strange inside of me. He doesn’t do any of those things, he doesn’t...” Annie feels her breathe knot in her chest and it feels like the world around her is turning into a blurred tunnel. At the end of this tunnel is just a thin part of focus, and there he is, looking goofy in his neon rented bowling shoes, smiling down at Britta who's eating Whoppers right from the cardboard box. His smile doesn't quite meet the edge of his eyes, but he seems to be trying, always trying. And then it happens, it’s almost like he can feel her somewhere inside of him, and he stops talking to Britta and looks up at her. His smile dissolves a little, she thinks, turns into more of a grin, a small gentle smile that seems to ask a question, some sort of question that shakes her down to her lungs, which feel small and strained now.

She looks away quickly, back at Abed, whose eyes are wide on her. Then, slowly he says, “Impossible Henry Higgins.”

“It’s not like that, Abed,” She says but she can’t believe how much of a lie it sounds as it leaves her lips. “It’s. I love Jim.” She prays a small prayer that the right name comes out.

Abed zips his hoodie up a little and then frowns. Slowly, he says to the air in front of him, “I know that life isn’t like a movie, Annie. In fact, we addressed this in season two. But movies are there because they kind of show us things about our lives. The difference between movies and us is that we get to write our own script. But scripts have to follow rules or else they just turn into bad versions of 2001: Space Odyssey. So. What script are you going to write, Annie? You’ve got a good one ready for you, if you’d just bother to finish writing it.”

There is only the smallest of silences between the two, one where Abed does something rare: he reaches across the tiny space between the two of them and squeezes the top of her folded hands, which she finds she's wringing together. Then, smiling a small grin at her, he gets up, puts on a pair of large black sunglasses and said, “Fuck it, Dude. Let’s go bowling.”

She realizes that she has been holding her hands so tight together that her nails have dug into her skin. Little pink half-moon shapes are on her skin when she finally releases her grip, but now her hands are shaking. She risks a look up once, only once, and he’s still there, looking at her. She glances away quickly, feeling something like a deep beating drum inside her stomach. She can’t figure out why he won’t just say something, come over and be normal. But he’s just staring at her, she can feel his gaze on the side of her face.

This wasn’t what she wanted. She had figured out Jeffrey Winger, but his compartment had a tendency to come undone, to get reorganized, to show up in other compartments, like: The Compartment of Annie Edison’s Future, and The Compartment of Annie Edison’s Feelings. So, she just wishes he’d come over and say something, say something distinctly Jeff Winger that would infuriate her, make her realize why she was with Jim after all.

“No,” she whispers to herself before taking a long drink of her warm cheap beer. “No. You’ve got it figured out, Annie. Don’t be a silly girl, now, not when you’ve gotten so far.”

And so when Jim takes her to his car after the bowling match and kisses her coolly and gently, she doesn’t run when he says, “Anne, I know this is strange, and usually I’m not like this. Usually I think about things for a long, good time and even then I am reluctant. You knew me, a banker and all. But with you, I think I know that you’re just the right sort of thing for someone like me. So do me the favor, Anne, do me the favor and marry me?”

The ring is impressively moderate and traditional, and it’s cold against the slimness of her finger. There’s something in her head ringing like a bell, like a warning siren, but she pushes it down inside of her. She thinks that he’s everything that she could have planned on marrying, after all. He doesn’t make her ache, at the very least, and Annie thinks that maybe that means something, she’s almost completely sure, almost.

A good man.

She almost calls him Freddy once, but then bites her tongue before saying, “Yes. Yes, of course I’ll marry you.”

--

He’s the last one to find out. The story goes: She told Britta, who told Troy, who (of course) told Abed, who told no one but then later insinuated to Shirley he knew something, and then Shirley backed Britta into a corner and threatened to not cook her anymore pot brownies if she didn’t spill, and so Britta caved. And then Shirley, being the queen of all Greendale gossip, leaked the story through the grapevine.

And he hears through Starburns. Fucking Starburns of all people.

And all this happens all throughout the extent of finals week, when she actually calls him now (“Jeff! Did I give you those notes for Biology?” or “Jeff! Swear on your life that you will actually look over the example questions that Professor Kane gave us! Swear it!” ). When Starburns leans over in the lunch line and says, “Heard your boobies-in-a-cardigan is finally off the market, Winger” he only cringes because it’s, well, it’s Starburns.

He also feels a small something poke him in the stomach, and for reason he has the innate desire to punch Starburns and his little creepy shoulder-dragon. “Uh. Yeah,” he says before sliding a block of jello onto his lunch tray. “She’s got some little slick-haired gremlin that follows her around like some GOP puppy dog. She’s a real lucky girl.”

Starburns simply cocks his top hat at him. “Uh, dude, that’s the little gremlin she’s going to get hitched to.”

“Right,” Jeff says, rolling his eyes. “I’m sure, since you’re on the pulse of the love lives of Greendale women. Wait,” he thinks for a second, “Maybe you have something there. You did make that creepy eye-sized hole in the girl’s locker room that Abed showed me to try to reenact Porkie’s.”

“Uh, yeah, dude.”

“Stop calling me dude. Now.”

“Whatevs, dude. But I’m telling you, that little squeeze of yours that you never got to bang, she’s totally off the market. I mean, I’m a drug dealer man, but you gotta respect the ring.” Starburns shrugs, puts an ungodly amount of mash potatoes on his tray before sauntering away.

There’s an old part of Jeffery Winger who wants to yell at his retreating figure that he did in fact bang that little piece of... and oh dear god. It hits him. Hits him like someone has smacked him in the mouth. He stops, the truth sinking in and suddenly he feels his tray sort of falling to the ground. He doesn’t care though, just ignores when Quendra whines, “Oh. My. God. You totally just spilled grape jello all over my shoes. Jefffff.....”

He knows where to find her, sort of always knows when to find her, no matter what. He doesn’t exactly rush through the hallways, but it’s an aggressive sort of walking, pushing against people who are in his way, including Leonard who makes a very pissed off sounding raspberry as he passes.

She’s sitting quietly in that one table in the library, the one where Magnitude etched “Pop Pop!” into the thin wood tabletop. Her hair is frazzled, like it always is on finals week, and she’s got her earbuds in, listening fervently for some little piece of information on her digital recorder that she hadn’t heard the first thousand times she listened to the class.

He rushes to her, but she doesn’t see him, is instead too focused, with her eyebrows knitted together. He stands there panting, not really knowing what he’s doing, what he’s supposed to do. Strike that. He knows what he should do: he should laugh, say she’s a fool, that marriage is for people who don’t like sex, and say “best of luck to you, kiddo.” He should get back to texting that chick who wrote her number on a napkin at the smoothie bar at the gym. He should start doing more pushups and getting out more rather than sitting at home and trolling AMC to see if he can catch When Harry Met Sally for some reason. But right now all he can think about is that annoying gremlin’s hands on her and that he missed the way she made a face at him and called him gross and sang bad Journey songs with him and how a little of her hair is getting in her mouth right now. And her mouth, for some reason that’s all he can think of, and he hates himself a little bit for suddenly thinking about how it was hot and good against his.

So that’s why he doesn’t think, really, just sort of picks up her digital recorder and unhooks it from her earbuds and then throws it across the room. He can hear it clatter somewhere in background, but right now all he can see is her wide-eyed expression, which is looking right up at him. She looks like he’s stabbed her pet puppy or something, or maybe that he punched her in the face.

Her mouth opens for a few seconds soundlessly until she manages with a voice that sounds like it’s tinged with something of a warning bell, “Je-eeff. What the. What have you done?”

“What have I done?” He asks, in his slightly-crazed voice. He can hear his voice but it feels separated from him, like he is having an out of body sort of thing. What did Abed say? He was Goldbluming? He doesn’t know. Instead, he simply says, “You’re. Getting. Married? Uh, have you never heard of a phone call? What? You’re too good to ever text message me anymore? Has your little gremlin been monitoring your every call? You couldn’t...” he finds himself sputtering off, trying to figure out what to say, but then he sees it. It’s not very big, but big enough, and it catches the light like a handful of glitter would catch his eye, like a warning sign of something not very desirable and not very pretty. It’s there, like the way somebody bleeding is in a room. It’s that more than anything that makes him stop. He finds the rage inside of him sort of die and turn into something still burning, but sadder, the way an ember is still a fire, but smaller, more reserved.

She catches his eye and she looks instantly down at her finger. “I. I’ve been wearing it for two weeks now.” She handles it nervously, pushing it up and down her finger, like she isn’t sure if she wants to take it off or not. “I was going to... tell you. I mean, I was going to tell all of you together! The whole group. But, I.” She looks flustered, does that thing with her stupid Disney eyes where they flutter at the speed of a couple hundred miles per hour. “But! Finals!” And he knows that she’s actually mostly telling the truth, that finals have occupied about ninety-nine percent of her brain for the past couple of weeks. He actually shouldn’t take all of this entirely personally. It’s just that she looks up at him with this sort of panicked expression and he can’t figure out what the panic is there for, and he wants to help, always wants to help, just shake her until she tells him how to help her.

There is a space between them, and he doesn’t know if he wants to close it to slap that... thing off her finger or if he just wants to apologize. Wants to tell her, shit, it’s your life, kid, marry whoever or whatever gremlin you’d like. He realizes that this would be the right thing to do, to just give her that Jeff Winger approving smile, which usually makes a little confidence jump up her spine, make her stand straighter. He finds he can’t do it though, can’t bring himself to do it. All he can find himself saying is, “Annie. Please. Do you even know this guy? You’ve been dating for what? Twenty minutes?”

“Two months,” she says behind gritted teeth.

“Oh!” he exclaims. He’s attracting attention now, he can see the people in the library’s faces staring at the both of them in a way that some people nervously eye someone walking down the street with a baseball bat. “Two months! I mean, what have you two been waiting for? Two months! So, you basically know everything about each other then, huh? I bet you don’t even know his middle name.”

“Nathan.” She folds her hands across her chest.

He blinks, taken aback, but then steps forward, glaring down at her. He can feel the fire in his eyes, growing there like he was just making a habit of throwing lint balls on the angry, frustrated flame inside of him. “Okay. So you know his stupid middle name. Nathan. Is that even a name?”

Her eyebrows fold near the middle. “...What?”

“Uh. Whatever.” He folds his hands in front of him and said, “Listen, I get it. I did something wrong. Or something. I don’t know.” He watches her face suddenly change in front of him, do that annoyingly effective Annie thing where her face turns instantly soft, sort of. Her usually tough expression evaporates and her eyebrows sort of turn upward and her eyes get even more impossibly large than they usually are. It catches him off guard, but there’s something burning inside of him that makes him keep going, “Yeah, I know, I’m not Prince Charming. I didn’t exactly bring you roses after our whole... thing that happened. But you had to know that that’s what was going to happen, Annie. I’m not that guy. I never will be. I’ll never be the guy that wants to rub your feet or tell you that you don’t look fat ”

The expression changes. Instantly. It turns from soft to the tense sort of look, like she’s gone far away and her lips have capsized into a thin, straight line. She frowns up into his face and then marches over to her recorder. Picking it up huffily, she yells across the expanse of the library, “Sure, make this all about you, Jeff Winger and your stupid handsome-ness-ness. Ness. That’s so typical. Did it ever occur to you that I didn’t want to talk to you because having...” she stumbles before yelling (way too loudly), “... sex! With Jeffrey Winger was less than spectacular? That you just failed to live up to Annie Edison’s expectations?”

His mouth felt a little slack-jawed but he managed to spit out, “And what expectations were those exactly? The expectation where I didn’t cry because I was fucking a girl instead of that guy from my Installation Art class?”

And that is it, he can feel it. There is a very, long real silence pervading the library. It’s her face though, that face that shows what he’s really said has hit the target. Her eyes turn wide and then fluttery and then just sad, so sad that she looks like some cartoon animal whose mother has just died by a cruel hunter’s arrow.

Behind him, he could hear Leonard say, “Ooooooooh. Burn.”

“Shut up, Leonard,” he says, but it’s too late. She's already storming out the library in a huff of short skirt and tight cardigan and he doesn’t even admire the view because every part of him is saying, Oh shit, Winger. You’ve done it now, as usual. You’ve always got to go and do that stupid thing you do.

He thinks quickly, looks around the library to see a bunch of eyes round as saucers on his face. They’re all thinking the same thing, he’s sure of it. They’re thinking about how much a gigantic jackhole he is, about how he’s probably actually pretty awful at sex, and how he’s actually kind of a monster after all.

So he can’t help it but grab the notebook and Biology textbook and run after her (because he knows that she’ll have a mild panic attack when she realizes she forgot both of them). He knows where she’s going, knows that she’s heading straight to her car to drive off towards her shithole of an apartment.

She’s moving her legs so quickly through the parking lot she’s almost hopping up and down. She’s rummaging through her purse, almost randomly, and there’s something so sad and frantic about her movements that a part of him aches, because he knows what it feels like, to feel so pissed and feel something inside of you spinning out of control that you want to just pull out your hair.

He runs after her, quickly. His voice is a little jumpy when he shouts after her, “Annie! Annie, come on! You know how I am. I’m a jackass, we all know that. I’m a real goddamn jackass and I didn’t mean it. I swear it. Annie!”

It hits his head before he can really figure out what’s going on. He remembers seeing her turn and throw the keys but it doesn’t register that she’s throwing her keys at him. And it doesn’t register that she’s crying, she’ s really crying, there’s this ungraceful amount of snot falling out her nose and her eyes are puffy and red.

He reaches up to his forehead where the keys hit and yells, “Goddamnit, Annie! What the he--”

“Go away!” She screams, and her voice is so loud and piercing and in a tone that he’s never heard before, not really. He’s heard the long screeches from her when someone threatens to steal her pen, or beat her at some kind of trite competition, or threatens to fail her at anything, but this, this is somewhere in her chest, somewhere deep, near her heart. “Go. Away!” Her voices trembles this time and her lips quivers like it can’t stay in one place. “Can’t you just go away? Why is it that you insist on always following me around?” She throws her hands out and he kind of knows he’s bleeding where the keys hit his head but he doesn’t care right now, couldn’t care in the slightest. Because he doesn’t know what to do with females who have mascara running down their faces and snot in their mouths and tiny fists near their hips because of him.

“Wha...?” he starts before coming closer. Something warm falls down his forehead and he knows he's really bleeding, but he ignores it wholeheartedly. “Annie. I’m sorry. I really am. I’m a jerk.”

“No,” she wails, pumping her tiny fists in the air. “No, you’re not a jerk.”

“Yes,” he says, holding his hands up. “Yes, I am. If I know anything about Jeff Winger, it’s that he’s a jerk.”

She smiles this watery sort of grin that dissolves quickly. Annie shakes her head, her hair getting caught in her mouth. “No, you’re not. I mean, you definitely are. I mean, you’re the impossible Henry Higgins.”

“I’m what? Wait, have you been talking to Abed? He keeps insisting on singing some song about some Henry guy.”

She laughs for only a second but then there’s tears flowing again. “It’s just. You are not just a jerk. I mean, I figured that out a long time ago, and this.... sad, good man sort of materialized in front of me. And you won’t leave! Damn you, Jeff Winger. Damn you and your stupid sad smile and your compulsion to defend defenseless people and your affinity for watching awesome feminist movies...”

“... Hey! Dolores Clairborne was a childhood staple for the most complicated and most feminist-indoctrinated young men out there.”

She laughs but it’s a laugh that's just sort of made of spittle and she says, “There you go again! And you! You and your stupid charm and your stupid... mouth! Your stupid mouth that I somehow convinced that I didn’t want to kiss all those years, and all of that! All of that won’t leave me alone! I’m Annie Edison, and I have had a script and I screwed up that script a long time ago, but I thought I got it back. I was supposed to get my degree and work as something vaguely professional and then get married to some nice man. And then!” She screws up her hands and makes that sound from her mouth when Annie Kim steals her ideas or Britta says that only NPR is the worthwhile thing listening to or when someone says they didn’t even bother studying for a test. “And then, you come in and just sort of... occupy this space inside of me. And I don’t mean that as a sexual sort of thing, even though that wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Sex was supposed to be messy and strange but nice and nothing more. It wasn’t supposed to be like. Well...” she indicates something that references back to the whole thing, that night when her hair was laced through his fingers and her breathe was hot on his tongue, “... it wasn’t supposed to be that. And then you, Jeffrey Winger, come along and ruin everything. And all I’ve got is this... script that I’ve written for myself. It’s the only control I have over my life now, after all that addiction and divorce and loneliness in my silly little short life. It has no... room! For someone like you, Jeff. And yet! You keep following me around, no matter what I do. Why is that, Jeff? Why is that?”

At first, he can’t say anything. No, literally, the words are stuck in his mouth and he when he tries to make something come up, it sort of tastes like the bitterness of bile. But then, as she’s shaking her head and walking away, without her keys and her textbook and notebook, he says, “You think? Fuck, Annie. You think I wanted some pain-in-the-ass girl with a conscience who calls me out on my shit was someone I asked for?” She stops, turns her head so that the corner of her eye is staring at him over her shoulder. “I mean, you’re the last thing I ever wanted. The last sort of person with all your making me remember that good people that, you know. Good people that I can let down. Well. My father left me when I was six. Six, Annie. And he left my mother, the greatest sort of person I’ve ever known.” The blood is sort of falling in his eyes but he blinked heartily and watched as she tearily turned and stared at him. She's sort of composed now, now that everything she had said had been expelled from her the same way you vomit up all the bad shit in your stomach during a flu, during a bad hangover. She looks gross; she looks ridiculously stunning with her messy, greasy hair and her swollen eyes. He shakes his head, sees a bead of blood fall on his expensive shirt and he finds he doesn't care at all. “And what if I did that to you? What if I’m nothing more than my father? And. Fuck.” He picks up the keys off the ground and then walks up to her. He puts the keys and the notebook and textbook in a nice pile. Then he walks hesitantly towards her before taking her hands in his own and placing all her stuff inside her grasp. “I couldn’t do what my father did to my mother, Annie. I just. I wouldn’t let myself do that to you.”

His hands are still on her own, and he just holds them there. Because there’s a part of him that thinks this could be something. Dammit, Winger, he thinks, say something. If he just said something he might fill in the void where he feels like something wounded might be. Give that Winger speech, make something real out of something uncomfortable and maybe something that they should actually address, not just put a laywer-bandaid on. For once, he is very aware that something very tangible is in front of him and he shouldn’t run, he shouldn’t Winger-out of this.

But that doesn’t happen. Instead, she withdraws her hands and says, “So. That’s that, then? You’re not going to be your father. I’m going to marry Jim. We’re going to follow our scripts. Right, Jeff?”

He blinks. The blood is real now. He feels it like boiling water on his cheek.

Say something.

“I.” He stops, swallows. “Yes. I think that would be.” He swallows again but his throat feels sandpapery and itchy. His eyes burn. “I think you’d be better off, Annie.”

As she drives away, he thinks about how it’s better this way. He remembers another car driving away, many years ago, his mother saying, We’ll be fine alone. You’re always better alone. You can’t hurt anyone when you’re alone, Jeffrey.

He finds, though, that he feels drained, like a sink that can’t hold water, like a pocket that drops everything worth anything down to the dirty ground.

“Our own scripts,” he says to himself, wiping the back of his hand across his face. “This shit is Billy Crystal. America’s Sweethearts era, too.”

He doesn’t try to text her for a couple days. He thinks it won’t last, this argument. It can’t. He won’t let it.

But then, this argument, what is means. He knows. He knows it’s about as much of an argument as a hurricane or fate is an argument. It means something more, he just can’t put his finger on it, or isn’t willing to put his finger on it.

But things have changed now, he feels it changing. It’s only when he shows her his passing grade in Biology that she smiles at him again, and the grin is forced.

She doesn’t call him again, and her only text to him is: Jim and I are throwing a New Year’s Party. Get to you later with details. It’s a mass message she leaves everyone in the group.

Still, he saves it, looks at it before going to bed every night, just to see her name: Annie, Annie, Annie, reaching through the space towards his lonely one for just a moment, reaching across her script to his.

chipping — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 04:45:22 GMT

icons: 9 community

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You'd Be Nice to Come Home to | Community | Jeff/Annie

chipping — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 05:00:48 GMT

You’d Be Nice to Come Home to
Community, jeff/annie
Jeff helps Annie move, but he’s not exactly happy with her moving in with her old flame and the guy she made out with during paintball. Inspired by a prompt by tilie12 at milady_milord.

And it seemed like if he didn’t say something soon, she was really going to have to walk away, back upstairs to her new room that was still mostly in boxes and hang out with the Hardy Boys for every one of her evenings. So, it came out too quick and a little strained, but it was like something erupting from inside him, something very deep and very real. “You know, if you needed to have a roommate,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and sticking his hands meekly inside his sweatpants’ pockets, “if you were needing to save some money and needed to have a roommate, you could have just asked me.”

You’d be Nice to Come Home to

Jeff Winger knew better.

He knew better than to be coerced into helping friends move. He knew that friends didn’t move, but hammy-fisted, lunchmeat-smelling movers moved. He knew better than to have a pair of pale doe-eyes and a tight cardigan change his mind on what he, Jeff Winger, did and did not do. He knew much, much better than to find himself in a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt and up much too early on a Saturday morning. He knew better.

But here he was, lugging up the seventh box that was marked Pillows in a perfect, girly cursive across the top. The “out of order” sign on each elevator door, on every level of the six-story apartment building, glared at him squint-eyed, a silent mockery. He was forced to repeatedly climb a smelly and poorly-lit stairwell; he started feeling a lot like a subject in a merciless Escher drawing,

“I’m pretty sure a homeless man died in here,” he yelled up the stairwell, hoping that the rest of the group would hear him. Either they did and didn’t respond, or he was alone, lugging up the endless stream of pillows. “And I’m pretty sure he urinated everywhere in here before he died.”

He tried to ask earlier about the need for so many things. The boxes labeled Binders: Grades 10-11, Biology textbooks, and (the best of all) Lady Things! DO NOT OPEN TROY AND ABED AND JEFF AND ESPECIALLY YOU PIERCE! And, of course, the pillows.

“What’s it with girls and pillows? Are you all creating a nest or something when you sleep?” He asked on the third properly-marked box of pillows.

Britta leaned over the railing of the stairwell above him, and gave him a smark-alecky smirk. In the stairwell’s florescent lighting, her blonde ponytail was almost a radioactive color. “Actually,” she started, in a tone that seemed to insinuate I’m-more-informed-than-you (a tone that made Jeff suddenly wish very, very much that he could be instantly struck deaf), “actually, Jung said that women’s nesting tendencies don’t come from a mothering persona, but rather the shadow persona, which links back the sexual urge to have flesh-like qualities approximate to your body while sleeping.”

Jeff smiled halfly before saying through gritted teeth, “Tell whichever one of your cats that convinced you to become a Psychology major that they need to keep their one good eye open while they sleep. Because the more you talk, Britta? The more that cat’s life is in danger.”

He watched as her smile faded and a sudden very sour expression crossed her face. Jeff managed to shove quickly past her, only hearing the first half of her retort, “Just because you’ve got serious Daddy issues, Jeff Winger, doesn’t mean you can be a fu—“

He turned the corner of the stairwell that led to the top floor of the apartment building. He assumed that while apartment hunting, Troy and Abed had figured that cost was a more important factor that, say, safety. Or cleanliness. Or working elevators.

The door was already opened to the apartment, and inside he could hear a cluster of voices, all of which he recognized as a most-definite argument. For a second, the thought occurred to him that he could lay the box of pillows down, march down the stairwell, ignore Britta’s needlessly defiant psychobabble, and be in his own very clean apartment in about fifteen minutes. And he almost went ahead with his plan if he hadn’t poked his head around the corner.

At once, four heads swiveled towards him. Their faces, all flushed, stared wide-eyed back at him.

Dammit, his head scolded as he looked across the range of faces. Troy looked like he was about to cry, Annie had that don’t-fuck-with-me face painted on her too-big eyes, Shirley was shaking her head, and Abed, well, was unsurprisingly nonchalant.

“Do I have some kind of tracking device on me?” He said, shifting the box of pillows in his arms. “Like, it makes some kind of noise when I get close to you?”

Nobody, as usual, actually answered his question, (Pierce did poke his head out from the kitchen and remarked, “A tracking device for your gayness!” But no one paid him any attention, as usual). Instead, Annie folded her hands across her chest, and huffed her small snort of irritation, one he knew well.

“Jeff,” Troy started, holding something out to him. In Troy’s hand was a hardcover book that had some sort of kiddy illustration covering the front of it. “Jefffffff, Annie won’t let me have my book in my bathroom.”

“First off,” Annie started, her finger suddenly pointed accusingly towards Troy. “That bathroom is now also my bathroom. And, while I am... bathrooming, I do want to have a book about, about, about!” Jeff watched her eyes grow large before fluttering away, too infuriated and embarrassed to keep her gaze even with Troy’s.

“A book about poop?” Troy asked, closing the distance between himself and Annie. “A book that deals exclusively about how everyone poops? What isn’t greater than that, Annie? You know how I feel about butt stuff. You know!” And this was the breaking point, because Troy’s voice was getting higher, and Jeff knew almost instantly that if he didn’t intervene now there was going to be all sorts of tears, both male and female.

“Alright, listen. First off: I can tell this roommate situation is going to go splendidly. Second: Troy, are you six?” Raising an eyebrow, Jeff glared at Troy, who’s bottom lip was quivering ever so slightly. Behind him, Abed was raising both eyebrows in expectation.

“Seriously, Troy. Are you six? Seriously.”

Troy frowned at him. His eyes were level with Jeff’s. Then, pouting, he said, “No. No, I’m not six. But…”

Jeff rolled his eyes and said over Troy, “You may not know that male cats do, in fact, have penises, but. Come. On. There’s a time in every man’s life where he has to let go and realize that poop isn’t as funny as he might had thought it was.”

Shirley shook her head in agreement and said, “Why don’t you have a baby and then you’ll think about how funny poop really is.”

Jeff waved his hand, looked squint-eyed at Shirley before saying, “Don’t encourage reproduction here, Shirley.”

The room was silent, except for Pierce’s voice in the kitchen saying that he could “stand to hear more about reproduction.”

He was still clutching the box when he said, “And Abed? Troy? Let’s just say this: you have another roommate. This is her apartment now, too. You two better not get too involved in your sexually-ambiguous exploits that you forget that she has a right to. Well. To her own self. As much as you two would seriously be happy role-playing the epic final battle of the second Death Star” –(here, a delighted gasp from Troy and an approving eyebrow raise from Abed)—“you still need to know that Annie is a girl. And she has girl… things. So. You know. Don’t go in the shower when she’s in there. Or I will find you, and I will reenact the epic final battle of the Death Star on you.”

It wasn’t so much the stunned silence that pervaded throughout the room that made him uncomfortable, like deeply uncomfortable. But it was her face, bright and open-eyed, her lips turning into a pleased, surprised smile that caught him right in the naval, like she punched him in the gut.

So, of course, he had to sabotage himself: “And Annie, I hope you know that this is not the second, but the seventh box of pillows that I have brought up. I know that whole poop book is stupid, but seriously? Are you creating a small, fluffy fort for kittens or something with these things?”

He heard Shirley say, “Oh, kitt-ens. Wouldn’t that be nice?” and Troy and Abed say, “The new Blanket Fort is the Pillow Fort!” and Pierce said, “Sex kittens, you mean!” And Britta was behind him saying something along the lines of, “Does nobody listen to the easy psychological reasons why women have to sexually attach themselves to…” But it didn’t matter, none of their voices. All he could see was her squinted eyes and her lips turned in a fine line and suddenly he realized that she had caught on, that he was a goner.

Jeff was good at sneaking out. He did it from school when all he wanted to do was listen to his walkman and smoke clove cigarettes behind his high school. He did it from many a woman’s apartment, early in the morning, leaving notes that said something like: Cool place, Jeff xoxo. He did it from court cases, from friendships, from women saying at dances that they loved him. He was the expert at running from things, and now was no exception. He lowered the box over the conversation of:

“We’d need, like, a support beam or something for all those pillows.”

“A support beam made of kittens!”

“I’ll show you my support beam!”

“Pierce!”

And he was heading down the stairs quicker than he realized, quicker than he could be bothered to realize. He was already half-way down the stairwell that it dawned on him where he was and that he was running. He sucked in a tight breathe of air before halting.

He blinked, then sighed. “Nice one, Winger,” he mumbled to himself before rolling his eyes, his lips in a thin line. A sudden, weird wave of anger rolled over him, like the beginnings of a panic attack. It was thick feeling of self-frustration, of irritation, only at himself, only at this guy who was standing alone in a urine-stained stairwell and hating himself for just saying creepy shit again.

“She not a little girl, you idiot,” he groaned between gritted teeth. He had clenched his hands into tight fists. He slowly loosened his knuckles, saw the pink and white half-moon shapes from his nails digging into his skin. “You can’t keep acting like a protective daddy to her. She can. She’s...” but he didn’t finish, not sure what exactly he wanted to say. She’s too good to live in a shit-hole like this. That: she deserves better. That: she deserves better than this. That: she deserves better than me.

Outside, the air was cool and clear. The parking lot was dim, and the outside lights kept flickering like a cliché horror film. For some reason, Jeff had the sinking suspicion that this was Abed’s doing.

“There’s going to be a chainsaw or creepy flute music or something,” Jeff said to the navy night sky. “Or Chang is going to pop out behind some car and threaten to eat my face. Yep. That sounds about right.”

“I checked all crevices where he could hide before I moved in,” came a small voice behind him. He spun around quickly on his feet, nearly knocking into the smallness of her. She managed to step back in time, making a sligh “Oh!” before staring up at him, her eyes saucer-wide.

“I. Uh.” She giggled slightly, before folding her lips in an amused grin. “You kind of thought I was Chang.”

“Uh. Yeah I thought you were Chang. You have the sneakiness of a swift-footed Korean ninja.” He cleared his throat, trying to take the surprise out of his voice. “You been taking lessons from him or something, Annie?”

She laughed a little before crossing her arms across her chest. “My dad always said I walked on my heels.” She puffed out her chest a little and raised her hand pointedly, “Like a damn elephant just crossed the room! Do you have rocks in your shoes or something, Edison?” She laughed a little, that nervous sort of laugh that showed that a little piece of her has broken free from the buried sadness she kept buried inside of her, like her laugh was her trying to bury everything again, deep deep inside of her. “So. Anyway. I’ve learned to be light on my feet.” She smiled, the sad little one of hers that looked almost upside-down, could almost be a frown. And then, inside of him, he felt that same sadness, knew it well, could almost hear his father’s head in his voice, stern and angry and aloof: No, I can’t make it to your birthday, son and Give the phone to your mother.

He blinked at her, trying to process everything, trying to process her small frame against the dim light of the parking lot, her exposed skin milky and goosepimpled in the night air.

“Um,” he took off his jacket hastily, clumsily, too quickly. The arms got turned inside out and tangled up in his quickly moving hands. “I. You’re cold. Here’s my coat.” He held it out to her like a high school boy might with a bouquet of dirty, hand-picked flowers on his first date ever.

She took it, grinning but eying him with a level of skepticism. The coat engulfed her shoulders, went too many inches past her hands, landed lazily against the perfect white mountains of her knees. “Thanks,” she drawled before coughing. They stood awkwardly in the coolness of the evening. Somewhere off, there were crickets chirping. Appropriately chirping, in fact, he thought with a pang in his stomach.

The awkwardness between the two of them was normal on a lot of levels. And then again, it wasn’t. Maybe it wasn't awkwardness. Maybe it was just tension, because being with Annie was easy, casual, like hanging out with your best sort of childhood friends. Inside, he felt, something small inside of him drawn to her, like two magnets that find each other because it’s in their nature to find each other. But then, the awkwardness of who they were created this small piece of tension that knotted inside of him when she walked into a room, while a part of him lit on fire, telling him, she’s dangerous, Winger. Dangerous. Because this little girl who had turned into a woman had found some way to get her voice inside his head, her face inside his brain, had become a sort of light that guided him through life. Honestly, it scared him to death, this growing feeling inside him, because he hadn’t felt it before. She did something strange to him. Annie Edison was a puzzle he was trying to figure out because she was important to him in a way that other people had never been before. And if he ruined it now, well. Annie Edison wasn’t simple for Jeff Winger, and it scared him to death, shook him to the very center of his chest.

It was Annie who finally spoke. “I just. I wanted to thank you for coming tonight. I know that you’re Jeff Winger,” she said his name like it was something important, like someone announcing a guest speaker. “And I know that Jeff Winger doesn’t do heavy lifting, or work for free, or. You know.” She gestured towards him and laughed, “Or wear sweatpants.”

“Hey,” he interjected. “I’ll have you know that these sweatpants are a silk-blend cotton.”

She rolled her eyes but laughed lightly. Then, shrugging her coat further up her shoulder, she said, “So, I just wanted to thank you. It means... a lot to me that you were here. A lot.”

There’s was that grin, that grin of hers that broke him a little, like a piece of this very hardly-won tough exterior was chipped away. He found himself start to spiral inward, like she was draining him of something inside of him, a bad part of him and he was becoming something a little different, a little more evolved.

But there was a knee-jerk reaction in him still, a survival instinct. Instead of doing what he wanted (her hair in his hands, her mouth against hers, the smell of her against him), he simply said, “Yeah. Well. Listen, that’s what’s friends are for. Right, kiddo?”

Her smile dissolved, quickly. “I thought you weren’t going to call me that any more.”

Even before he had that word, kiddo, he had already chided himself, hating himself. We can’t keep doing this, he thought before she even said anything.

He wanted to say to he was sorry, say that he was a real serious douchebag, but instead he said the one thing he didn’t want to say, the one thing that he had been holding deep inside his chest, “You know, if you really needed to move in with someone to save some money. You could have. I mean, be careful with Bert and Ernie.” He smiled awkwardly, but Annie just looked at him like he had said something kind of strange, and something she didn’t understand.

“Troy and Abed?” She asked. “Uh, I think I need to be more afraid of their dirty laundry than any. Um. Bad intentions? I don’t think they have a badly-intentioned bone in their body. They don’t even know how to bring bad intentions to... Bad Intentions Town.”

“Sure!” he said, trying to act calm, but he could feel his slightly crazed face raising all the way to his eyebrows. “Sure! They’re harmless even despite the fact that you had a crush on Troy all through high school and partly through college and that you stuck your tongue down Abed’s throat under the illusion that he was a Corellian nerfherder!”

He expected an Annie gasp, the kind that happened high in her throat and was almost squeal-like. But instead, there was a thin grin, a knowing sort of smile. She said, slowly, like she was reading class notes off his face, “Are you... jealous?”

“What?!” He reared back. The insides of his palms were slick with sweat, and he found himself rubbing them against the silk-blend cotton of his sweatpants. “Me? Jealous? I just. I just don’t want you feeling, well. I don’t think you deserve to feel like a third wheel in your own apartment.”

She smiled. Her in his jacket sent a weird shiver through his body. “Well, let’s just say that I’m not going in their shared bedroom for a million dollars. Even when they start asking for help. My self-defense class taught me that.”

He laughed, shortly, grinning widely at her. “I don’t know how far you can trust those self-defense classes though. Doesn’t Duncan teach all the self-defense courses?”

“Yeahhhhh,” she drawled, drawing up her lips in a grimace. “He said that sexual advances weren’t creepy or illegal as long as the person doing it had a British accent.”

They were both smiling, a good casual sort of feeling extending from him to her, a perfect line that he had felt before (the night that he had first drawn her to him, her lips soft and her mouth tasting like soda pop and sugar-free chewing gum), but the two of them stood where they were, a few feet apart from each other. There was a part of him, a very real part of him, that wanted to close the divide, he couldn’t help it, just wanted to get a step or two closer to her at any given moment. But. But they were always in the men’s room, or in a dangerous parking lot, and so what could be done but just sort of watch her from a good, respectable distance?

And it seemed like if he didn’t say something soon, she was really going to have to walk away, back upstairs to her new room that was still mostly in boxes and hang out with the Hardy Boys for every one of her evenings. So, it came out too quick and a little strained, but it was like something erupting from inside him, something very deep and very real. “You know, if you needed to have a roommate,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and sticking his hands meekly inside his sweatpants’ pockets, “if you were needing to save some money and needed to have a roommate, you could have just asked me.”

Her eyes turned wide, unblinking. “Oh. I. Thanks, but I. I don’t need any handouts. I learned that’s a bad idea when Pierce almost convinced about six-dozen teenagers to develop a drug habit.”

“No. No, that’s not what I meant,” he said, laughing. “I meant you didn’t have to live with Twiddle-Dee and Twiddle-Dum. You. I mean, we could have been roommates.”

There was a long pause, and her hands loosely dropped to her side. He couldn’t tell from the dim, flickering parking lot lights, but her cheeks looked slightly flushed. She said slowly, matter-of-factly, “But Jeff, you live in a one-bedroom apartment.”

He smiled, kept his eyes level with hers. “We could have figured something out,” he said before he realized that it was coming out wrong, that’s not how he meant it. Now, she was definitely blushing, a deep scarlet on her face, but she didn’t have that strange, anal Annie look on her face, like she might loose it in a long, loud Nooooooooooo, hair flying every which way around her face and her fists curled into small white balls. Instead, she looked shy, not really sure what to do with this information, what exactly she should say to the whole proposition in general.

“No!” He said, a little too loud, a little too quickly. He wanted to say that he’s not a creep, but then he realized they’d already gotten past that, that she knew that, so he shut his mouth, formed his lips into a thin line before saying, “What I meant to say was… there are two-bedroom apartments in my building. I could have. You know, done the lawyer thing, gotten them to switch over my lease to a two-bedroom. No problem. I mean, I know you think I’m kind of a nasty bachelor, but I have my charms. I cook a mean spaghetti and meatball. I have my own washer and dryer. Nice, huh?”

Annie smiled, raised her eyebrows, “Ooooohhh. Fancy.”

“Right? It’s high-rolling over at my place. Just wait until you hear about the dishwasher!” They both exchanged silent grins before he ran his hands through his hair nervously, glad that she hadn’t slapped him, hadn’t told him that he was gross and that she hadn’t given him that look that meant I’m-not-talking-to-you-for-a-whole-week. Instead, she was still there, standing with the arms of his jacket dangling way over her fingertips and looking a little disheveled, a little chilled. But she was still there, he told himself. She was still there.

It suddenly occurred to him that he wanted to stay there, wanted both of them to just stay there forever, if they could. And so what came out of his lips wasn’t a very Jeff Winger thing to say, not at all, but he found he couldn’t stop it, he just wanted her to stay, stay please.

“Plus, uh,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “it would have been nice to have someone else there. You may not believe this, but my apartment gets really quiet. Like, serial killer quiet. I have had to watch that new show Whitney just to have something to listen to. Whitney. Do you know how painful that is?”

She made a face before laughing.

“So, you know,” and before he knew it he was stepping closer to her, closing the gap. Inside his head, he saw red lights, red warning flashing lights that seemed to say, Stop yourself, because you can’t go back, you can’t, it’s not in you to walk away from her. “It’s just that, even though I am the awesome Jeff Winger” (she snorted at this before grinning), “Jeff Winger still. He… I get lonely. And it would be nice to have, well, someone to come home to. I don’t think I’ve had someone to come home to really, um, ever? So, you know, I wouldn’t have minded coming home to your school notes and ironed cardigans and those Glade plug-ins that you use that smell like laundry and vanilla. I think that would be. You know, kind of nice. I think you would be nice to come home to.”

As that all came out, he felt himself losing those words, those words he’d wanted to say since the first time he heard: I’m moving in with Troy and Abed, Jeff! Isn’t that great? All of those things that went through his head the second she said that just sort of came out and now he was afraid that he had really done it now, had really blown it. She was going to laugh at him, tell him that he was weird, and that whatever he said was never ever going to happen, not ever.

But instead, her face was soft, her eyes still big but this time watery, completely unarmed, like the perpetual curtain of skepticism and guardedness was wiped clean off her face. She tilted her head slightly to the side and her mouth formed into a small smile.

The night between them was a small space. He could feel the her body’s heat close to his, could see the small worry lines that were already starting to etch themselves across her forehead.

It was her that closed the gap, her mouth at first cool against his and then swiftly turning warm. It happened quickly, so quickly he couldn’t even react; his hands lay dumbly still in his pockets. Her fingers were firm against his face as she stepped back and blinked rapidly at him, in that way she did when she was completely flustered, her eyes never quite closing.

“Uh,” was all that came out his mouth, all that he could manage at the second. The only thing going through his brain is that she tasted like the cleanness of mint and he could still feel the warmness of her mouth against his.

She shook her head, as if she was trying to clear her head. Her hair tickled the side of his face. Then she said, “I. Maybe sometime I can still come over?” She looked at him and there was something written on her face that took him a second to decode. Slyness. The gleam in her eye was suggesting something, and it took him a second to process it all. Then she said, “I mean, maybe sometime I could use your washing machine. See if your spaghetti and meatball is all its cracked up to be?”

He raised an eyebrow, smiled suspiciously at her before saying, “Uh, yeah. Yeah. That. I mean, your mind would be blown by how well I heat up Prego spaghetti sauce.”

They remained close for a few second. At one point, she leaned close, her face almost up to his; she caught herself and gave her head a little shake.

“Well,” she said, taking a couple of steps back, still looking at him. “Troy and Abed wanted to initiate the new apartment by watching all six of the Star Wars films. So, I guess I better unpack my earplugs and my school supplies so I can ignore them. Also, I probably need to get out the new lock I got for my door. We have a Biology test in a week and half, remember!”

“Annie, you do realize that the test is about whether we know what is and isn’t living. Like, as in: is a panda bear a living thing? Is a candle? The only tricky part that they could possibly throw our way is, Is Pierce a living thing?”

They both laughed and then got quiet. She had been looking at her feet, shuffling them awkwardly before she looked up at him, her eyes wide. Her gaze caught him off-guard (like it always did), and she said in a small voice, “By the way, thanks. I mean, I’m not exactly the best roommate material. I get it. Anal Annie, that’s what they all say.”

“Yeahhh,” he drawled. “So you finally found out, huh?”

She ignored him. “But, seriously, Jeff. I think that it was very. You can be sweet when you want to, you know.”

He grinned at her, cocked his head. “Hey now, I’ve got a reputation to protect. So don’t tell anyone that. Especially Pierce. It will just give him another bullet in his ammunition on his campaign that I’m less than heterosexual.” He held her gaze for a second before adding, “You know, the offer still stands. I mean, about being my roommate. If those two keep trying to convince you that Jar Jar Binks is an existential character, or that you should act in their Kickpuncher movies, you can always pick up and you know. Come on down to the Winger residence. You say the word, Annie, and I’ll be there. Seriously.”

Her eyebrows raised and her eyes got wide and sad, almost in a way that made him that she might cry for a second. But then, she swung her arms from side-to-side and said, “Again, there you go again, being sweet. You better be careful. Pierce is going to catch you in the act.”

“Oh god,” he said. “I might just kill him if he gets ahold of that material.” He rubbed his forehead before saying, “Uh. Look, keep the jacket. I’ve got, like, seventy of them at home. Literally. I’m pretty sure I’ve counted them before.”

She wrapped her index finger around the jacket’s collar. “I look better in it, too.”

“Uh,” he said, eying her. “Yeah. I’d say you do.”

This time, she definitely blushed, he was sure of it.

They were quiet for a second, and then she said, “Well. I guess I better go. I seriously do want to study for Biology.”

“I know you do.”

She folded her hands across her chest before turning, leaving. His jacket slapped lazily against the back of her thighs. She looked back once, waved. He waved back, a short sort of wave that he thought probably looked pretty stupid, but for once he didn’t care, because he could still taste her on his tongue and could feel her still inside of him like a magnet trying to find its other force, like a magnet drawing him closer and closer home, closer and closer to her.

fine

Your Ticket Home - A Jeff/Annie Mix

chipping — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 18:07:36 GMT

It isn’t the feelings that are tight and small and girl-ish inside her chest that catch her by surprise. Because they have been there for so long now, those uncomplicated sort of emotions that can be explained in one word: lust, crush, infatuation. They are not shocking, not in the slightest. It’s this strange growing feeling inside of her that doesn’t feel right, like a sneeze that just won’t come out. This feeling is like a tight, small bud of a flower that curls against her chest and one day she finds it start to unfurl slowly. She doesn’t know what to do at first, and this frightens her: she is Annie Edison and she has a plan for everything, an extra folder to file away documents, always everything in (laminated) triplicate, a day planner that is divided by highlighted color to indicate urgency. She files her nails and uses moisturizer. And Annie Edison did not plan on falling in love with this man, this older man who has as many Daddy issues as she does and tries as unsuccessfully at her to hide these feelings.

She’s not sure when it starts, or if it really starts persay, because it has been a thing a long time coming. Thinking back, she can see it like one might see something black against the horizon as you come closer and closer. She does remember the moment when this thing inside of her, this tight bud, bloomed strong and fresh against the center of her chest. She remembers the night as fresh as new snow. The evening was still warm from the leftover of summer and they stood on the sidewalk to his condo.

How did she get here, slightly drunk and her hair disheveled? She remembers something about her 21st birthday and Troy and Abed fighting, Shirley so drunk Britta had to carry her lopsidedly back to her car where the two of them laughed and listened to Radiohead as Shirley said something like: You white girls listen to some crazy stuff. The two of them wander off together more out of a necessity, magnets left to drift together when no other external forces were there to pull them apart.

And so they were there, in front of his condo, a walking distance from the bar, and he rests a hand on her shoulder and says, “We’re one hell of a group, aren’t we? No one else is allowed to turn 21 again. It always ends in tragedy.”

She laughs before hiccuping. Then, she grins and says, “Right. Note to self: Now that I’m 21, I don’t have to pretend like I’m the girl on my fake ID.”

He laughs, turns his head so that it’s cocked and looking at her sideways. “Sure,” he says. “Sure. I was wondering why exactly you were speaking in a Texan accent. You were starting to creep me out: you started to sound like my Dad.”

And suddenly they both remember, remember the Father-Son/Daughter’s day that took place at Greendale months ago, where the group, unsurprisingly, had no fathers who attended. She remembers the way he laughed at it all but she wondered if she was the only one who saw his smile fade slowly and slowly from his face the way the sun crawls into the ground at the end of the time. The darkness etched around his eyes stirs something inside of her at that moment, the small bud inside of her turned tighter and tighter. She knows that darkness, she has seen it so many times before, with the long silences at her dinner tables, the Chanukahs that were full of only her mother’s chastised tears, the way her father’s touch was always too tight against the shoulder like he was always saying, don’t mess up again, Edison, not again, not again.

It’s there, in front of his silly little stuccoed condo, that she sees his life: a mother always pushing and pushing, and a father who comes for his birthday on the wrong day with a six pack and an Atari with a loud, whiskey-ed breath that bellows too loud and with too much gusto. She sees the two of them, small against the dark silhouette of their fathers' and suddenly she knows, she knows, she knows. She knows that they two, always trying to prove themselves, have had the same sort of life after all, as different as they want to make it. Her, just a kid, and him, kinda gross, they have sort of found somebody who knows what it feels like to be alone, really alone.

Maybe she’s a little drunk when she places her hand against his stubbled face. And he doesn’t pull back, but looks at her as if he’s saying, Are you sure? Are you really sure?

She smiles a bit and says, in her worst Texan accent, “Can I come inside?”

And when he laughs and she laughs and soon they are laughing, the next thing she knows his hands are placed firmly against the nape of her neck and his lips are firmly against hers, and his tongue is hot against the top of her mouth. They aren’t laughing anymore. Instead, that small bud bursts into bloom and she feels a warmth inside of her that comes when you return to a familiar space after a long time. She finds his arms against the small of her back and his voice in her ear saying, “I’m sorry but I can’t help it, I can’t help it, a part of me needs you, Annie. I’m sorry.”

She stops him, her hand against his mouth before she says, “Don’t. You’ve got to learn there’s no need for sorry. Because, I’m-- I didn’t plan for this but what can we do? We’re supposed to do this, I guess.”

She doesn’t say it then, but she knows when she presses herself against him that there is a word for them now, she’s not sure at first what it might be, but she thinks it might be the moment when she realizes that she’s coming home, that’s the word, home, home, home.

The Shape We Made | Peggy Sue
he may be brave / i’ll get him lying down / and you can break his ways / for i left but once / more times i stayed / you hold me stronger now / than all the while i remained

From a Highway | Lovers
your fucked-up family history / makes me wish i was a transparency / i'd move about your life unseen and make sure you were treated right / 'cause your eyes flash with kerosene / and your lips are horses running / oh, let me be the ground beneath / when we kiss, you can run away on me / 'cause my heart's been humming / and reaching for something / to keep it running when the drives are so long

We Are The Same | Samantha Crain
you are the what that i am as well / as far as i can tell / we are the makers and the breakers / i think they should know by now

Two Intangibles Can’t Be Had | Sarah Jaffe
i love you in all the dangerous ways / i keep my heart in shape / for your love / as it turns out / i'm a beggar for it / i will exchange for it / all this time you were serious / now it's obvious // i'm staring at your face / the things that brought you here / now want you more

Minnesota, WI | Bon Iver
i will let you grow, no need to know this / so carry on my dear, what is clear up in the daylight is we’re hung here / fall is coming soon, a new year for the moon

You Ain’t Alone | The Shakes
are you scared to tell somebody how you feel about somebody / are you scared of what somebody gonna think? / or are you scared of to wear your heart out on your sleeve? / are you scared of me? // we ain’t that different you and me / you ain’t alone / just let me be your ticket home

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Meeting, pt. 1 | Community | Jeff/Annie

chipping — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 23:51:18 GMT

Meeting, pt. 1
Community, jeff/annie
R rating
Jeff and Annie finally decide that they can be friends, no sexual-tension attached. It works. For a while. Inspired by a prompt by eva_aftagrl on milady_milord to write a story based on When Harry Met Sally. There may/may not be any similarities to the movie in this fic.

And anyways, she doesn’t have those same nervous feelings that she once had, not for Jeffrey Winger at least, and she’s thoroughly convinced herself that in fact, she never really liked him, but more the idea of him, with his slick-phrases and stubbled jaw and handsome older-ness. And so, she was fine just being able to tell him whatever and not worry about romantic entanglements. Plus, she found that once she wasn’t worried about trying to impress him, Jeff Winger was a good listener and generally nice guy who got too caught up in being too good and wouldn’t cut himself enough slack. And she knew what that was all about, being hard on yourself, so in the end, the both of them worked.

Meeting
pt.1

Harry: You realize of course that we could never be friends.
Sally: Why not?
Harry: What I'm saying is — and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form — is that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
~When Harry Met Sally

It all starts when she turns twenty-one. Not that it’s on her birthday or anything, but it’s around that time when being able to drink is still really cool. And it’s not a hip bar at all, it’s one of those dive sort of places where men in Nascar t-shirts hold sweating Bud Lights in their hammy fists and glare at her like she’s rubbed herself in Vasoline and is standing naked. She’s oblivious, per usual, unbuttoning her cardigan so that the very top swell of breasts glisten when she says, “Whew. It’s kind of hot in here isn’t it?”

The point isn’t her breasts exactly. Okay, maybe the point is always her breasts, because he is a red-blooded male after all (and let’s face it, they’re great), but the fact is that they she buys them a round of scotch and she drinks it. She drinks the scotch. Annie Edison, Disney-eyes and all, swinging scotch like she’s some sort of rough and tumble old man. He can’t remember why they are there. It might have had something to do with the fact that she finally got a job (at Dildopolis, but still), or the fact that they had somehow, with the grace of Greendale academics, passed another semester of classes. Really, it doesn’t matter, because they are here, at this little dive bar, by themselves. Normally, this situation would terrify him, because well, he has to look something in the face: there’s something about this girl (and he has to keep telling himself that she is, after all, a girl) that he can’t get out of his mind. Little Annie, little little Annie, has this magnet or something inside of her that keeps drawing him in and he can’t help but feel the pull. He has to chide himself though, to keep himself from deconstructing himself too much. He breaks it down like this: He is a male with a penis and she is a girl with boobs and so what if she’s sweet and funny and a little mean and too driven and calls him out on his bullshit and has the same driving ambition that he finds in himself, so what? It’s not a big deal after all. But now she’s drinking scotch, and the bar is starting karaoke, and he’s buying the next round, and now they’re rather drunk.

The way he sees it, this is going to go one of two ways: They are going to hate each other after tonight or they are going to fuck. And he hates this, he wishes he could stop it, but she’s getting rather drunk and they have a long conversation about how The Muppets was the best TV show of all time and how maybe he should go back to law school and how she’s thinking of going into law school someday too. And he’s never realized this, but she’s rather charming. Not in the Disney-eyeflutter sort of way, but in an easy-to-talk-to sort of way. She’s full of good ideas, smart for her age and oh shit, her age. He’s drunk and he’s thinking of having sex with a twenty-one year old girl. Jeff Winger feels suddenly like an even shittier human being, but she has that affect on him – he grows a conscience real quickly with Annie Edison.

This is where it happens, and he’s worried, because she’s just wearing this tank top and he can see her pink bra strap as it slides down her arm. She is dragging him onto the small stage that’s in the corner of the bar, and somehow she has convinced him that a karaoke rendition of Teenage Dream would be a good idea. The burly bar crowd is jeering her, most telling her to show some boob and hackling him, but she ignores them, taking the mic and laughing and she turns to him and says, “I’m so scared! I can’t sing! I’m so scared.” She's smiling though, and when she starts singing, her voice cracks and her voice slurs, she doesn’t seem to mind in the least that the men are drooling and that her hair is getting that drunky mussed look. She doesn’t care. And in this second, looking at her and hearing her voice, in the second right before he joins in the singing, he realizes that he doesn’t want to sleep with her, or even kiss her or anything. He realizes that he, Jeff Winger, Mr. Handsome himself, finds the most purest of friends in this girl who is off-pitch and actually really fucking drunk.

So it begins. Jeff Winger, for the first time in his life, has a friend who is a girl, who he could sleep with (but doesn’t want to and he is sure she doesn’t either), and he decides he loves her with a goodness and a platonic love it takes him off guard. For once, he isn’t confused about Annie Edison, and surprisingly, she drops her confusion about him.

It’s the day they become friends, no sex-strings attached. They will have hangovers the next day, but in the next day, they meet for lunch and eat fatty hamburgers and when she says, “You wanna go to that new scary movie and make fun of the people who get killed?” he can only grin and nod his head.

–

She doesn’t know what to think about it, and for once, she doesn’t want to think about it. Which is saying a lot for Annie Edison, because she thinks a lot about a lot of things. But right now, she isn’t bothered by the fact that her and Jeff are hanging out at the museum of art together, eating chips that she stored away in her backpack.

“Do you know how bad these are for me?” Jeff asks, looking at her. “I’m supposed to be going carb free so that I can start focusing on my core more.”

She rolls her eyes before poking him in the stomach. It’s as hard as concrete and she simply spits out, “You’re psychotic. If your midsection was any firmer, you could cut... things with it.”

He laughs, eats another chip before saying, “Well played, Edison. You’re always so clever with those things we call words.”

She gives him a swift punch to the shoulder, pretending she is frowning, but she can’t suppress the little smile that grows at the corner of her lips. “You’re being mean, Jeff.”

He smiles down at her, that small Jeff smile that is part smug, part genuine. “Forgiveness, m’lady?”

Pretending to consider this question, she finally shrugs and says, “Forgiveness granted. M’lord. But seriously, you’ve got to let go of this whole... thing. You have. With your body.”

They stop in front of a painting that is a naked lady, but she’s made entirely of fruit. He stops, laughs and says, “The thing with my body? What thing are you referring to exactly?”

Raising her lip up in disgust, Annie punches him again. “Don’t be gross, Jeff. And I wasn’t referring to any sort of... body appendage.” Her face grows red a little bit because there’s this part of her still that thinks PENIS in bright red letters across her mind and there’s still a part of her past with Jeff when this would have made her hugely uncomfortable (she can still feel the press of him when his hands were laced through her hair, his breath against her tongue). But – she has reasoned with herself – that she has grown slightly. She is a grown woman, fully capable of compartmentalizing her past and her romances and sealing them off with a label that says, “FORBIDDEN.” And anyways, she doesn’t have those same nervous feelings that she once had, not for Jeffrey Winger at least, and she’s thoroughly convinced herself that in fact, she never really liked him, but more the idea of him, with his slick-phrases and stubbled jaw and handsome older-ness. And so, she was fine just being able to tell him whatever and not worry about romantic entanglements. Plus, she's found that once she wasn’t worried about trying to impress him, Jeff Winger was a good listener and generally nice guy who got too caught up in being too good and wouldn’t cut himself enough slack. And she knew what that was all about, being hard on yourself, so in the end, the both of them work.

So that’s why she says, “And plus, you don’t need to worry about your body. It’s just... fine. I’m sure most everyone is impressed by it.”

He laughs at this, but in a stilted sort of way that seems to indicate that he doesn’t quite believe her. Or maybe that he can’t trust her, she can’t tell. But he turns his face towards the painting, the one with the naked fruit-lady, and says, “Are her nipples made of kiwis? I can’t... or grapes? I can’t quite tell.”

They examine the woman for a second, eyes squinted, before deciding that they are, in fact, kiwis.

“Wouldn’t strawberries or, um, something more flesh-colored been more appropriate? I mean, I’m for,” and she wags her fingers to air-quote, “artistic liberties but I’ve never seen a woman with green nipples. And I am pretty sure that is anatomically impossible.”

He chuckles before raising an eyebrow devilishly at her, “Not if you’ve seen the things that I have seen.”

She swats him, reaffirms that he is gross (“And I don’t even want to even begin to know how you know that, Jeff Winger!”), but eventually he gets her laughing and the conversation drifts and he’s reassuring that she probably got a perfect score on her Family Law exam that that she has probably shamed the law world already (“Except for that one guy named... oh, let’s see... Jeff Winger”) and she shouldn’t worry so much, it was stressing him out.

“All your stress is giving me wrinkles. And you’re going to have a lot of angry hot woman on your hands if you manage to scar this face,” he jokes and she simply rolls her eyes before buying them both glasses of wine in tiny cheap plastic wine glasses in the lobby downstairs, which they sneak out of the museum and drink in the cool of the beginning night and she thinks this is going to last, I can feel, I can’t believe it, but I know it.

–

“It can’t last,” Abed tells him, pointing an index finger at him. He is not grinning. He isn’t joking.

They are sitting outside the quad and Abed is eating an ice cream cone that’s the size of his head. The day is that sort of day where it can’t decide whether it wants to rain or not, and it’s kind of chilly, but Abed is eating ice cream like it’s the middle of summer.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” He notes, watching as Abed takes a large bite and a part of the ice cream rolls down his chin. “It means a lot coming from a guy who’s eating ice cream when it might just snow today.”

He does his Abed head turn and frowns into his ice cream. “It’s a new thing that I’m doing... I call it the man-eating-food-in-every-scene trope. Like Brad Pitt’s character in Ocean’s Eleven.”

Jeff smiles his shit-eating grin, asks, “And how’s that going for you?”

Abed considers this before shrugging in consent, “Not well. Lots of heartburn.” Taking another large bite, he winces before saying with a full mouth, “And brain freeze. Which goes to show that tropes can’t last. The attractive man-and-woman-only-as-friends trope never works. Didn’t work in Friends, didn’t work in Clueless.”

“Abed, I hate to break it to you but the early 90s were when you were still sucking your thumb... might be time to start updating your pop culture references,” Jeff says, frowning while he eyes the ever-growing pile of gray clouds building on the horizon.

Shrugging, Abed looks at him – a chocolate strip of ice cream covering his nose – and says, “You’re right. In order for it to be a relevant trope, it needs to be Poppy-ish. Cultural-ry. Cool. Cool, cool, cool.” He jumps up, throws away the ice cream. He starts to walk away, stops, turns, and looks at him, “But the point still stands, outdated trope or not. A trope is still a trope. I’m perfectly aware that real life and movies are... segmented, Jeff. But it seems you don’t. A trope works in tv, movies. It can’t work in real life. It’s can’t last forever. You can’t run from your feelings forever. It will sneak up on you later on.”

For a second, they hold each other’s gazes, Abed’s eyebrows slightly raised. Suddenly though, the sky opens up, a slight rain, one steady enough that they know that there’s no more conversation left for them to discuss. It isn’t so much as to whether he is right or wrong, but it’s a matter now that no one can tell, but it’s more that people have noticed the new found friendship. Even Abed, who he figures usually doesn’t deem this sort of things necessarily interesting, has latched on to it like a new story arch in Couger Town. He wonders how long it will be before the whole campus notices, before Britta starts calling him a misanthropic pig and Shirley has to keep reminding him that she’s praying for him.

But he’s Jeff Winger after all and so he says, “Well, this has truly been informative, Mr. Rogers. But you’re missing one crucial point here: You’ve stuck your tongue down her throat for a much longer period of time than I have. A full make-out session wasn’t it? If I’m not mistaken, I should be the one questioning the intentions of your friendship with little Miss Annie Edison.” He leans back, impressed with himself, glad to see that his lawyer skills have not atrophied even since his time at Greendale. He’s still got it, he’s still Jeff Winger, wonder boy of the Greendale (although he knows that means nothing, he decides to not care).

And he’s right, he knows it, he’s had to have hit a cord with Abed. But Abed, per usual, is unmoved, and simply stares at Jeff for a second before raising his index finger and saying, “Annie and I happen only when we are not being ourselves whatsoever. We play roles and mostly those roles follow conventions and conventions usually end pretty quickly. You and Annie happen only when you decide to be yourselves and not be the dumb facade that you put on. The hardened-exterior trope.” He shrugs his shoulders before saying, right before the rain turns hard and cold, “Tropes are dangerous things. If you already know your script, you’ll be fine. If you don’t, then it turns cliché and the whole story just sort of collapses on itself. I just hate to see your relationship with Annie collapse on itself. You two... are special, Jeff. They write stories about these kinds of things.”

He has no words for a second, and now the rain is falling too hard and Abed has already walked away. He knows he should get up and say something snaky to Abed, something that will let him have the last word. Because Abed is wrong, he knows that. Or maybe he just wants to believe that? No, he knows that. Because Annie is a good, good friend. One of his best, and he’s going to keep it at that.

“Write stories about these kinds of things?” He says sarcastically, leaning his head back and looking as the rain falls flat on his face. “Oh, you’re so meta, Abed. You’re so meta you must be right.” He pretends a little mocking laugh, but something inside him shifts ever so slightly, if ever so lightly, and it makes him very, very uncomfortable.

–

They have numerous... interests. And he’s candid about how he feels and what he does with said interests, holds nothing back when describing their dates and other... encounters.

“And let me ask you this,” he says, sitting up and munching thoughtfully on a mouthful of popcorn. They are sitting on the floor of her apartment, watching a heavily edited and commercialed version of When Harry Met Sally and she has turned it up loud enough that they can’t hear the videos that they play downstairs at Dildopolis. “Let me ask you this: If a girl says that she wants to Take things slow, but she isn’t referring to sex – I mean, she definitely not referring to sex, trust me – then what does that mean? Take it slow? What do you women mean?”

Annie wrinkles her nose and grabs a handful of popcorn. Recently, he’s been seeing this girl named... Miranda? Melissa? Marisa? She can’t remember, and honestly she can’t keep the girls that he sees apart. They all, with their slim bodies and polished faces and their smoothness (something she isn’t good at replicating at all), they have started to blur in her head. Not that she particularly feels squeamish about talking about it. Well, alright, once he wanted her opinion on if he should be worried about a... growth... and she an squealed, in a monotone robot-voice, “I AM A GIRL I AM A GIRL. PLEASE LEAVE YOUR CLOTHING ON I AM A GIRL.” And he seemed to snap out of it, like she had slapped him before apologizing and saying, “I’m just really freaked out about it, you know.”

But the line is kind of blurry now, where the two can’t really tell who is who since the both of them have sort of dis-gendered the other. And so, she guesses that she, being of the opposite sex, has become the ultimate in giving advice since she is both A) a girl, and B) some sort of honor-inducted bro. The strangest thing about this predicament, minus the almost-pants-dropping situation, was that she was generally nonplussed by all of this. Sure, sometimes Jeff’s sexual escapades were cringe-able, but she never felt a strange bubble of jealously curl in her stomach, never felt the odd tangles of possessiveness crawl under her skin. Everything between them was easy, and although she had her theories why (they were the same person in so many ways, with the crippling fear of failure, their undaunted desire to be popular, and their tendency to be self-centered even if their hearts were sweet after all) she decided to just let the whole thing be. Annie Edison had spent a majority of her life trying to figure out why she was the way she was, and for once she wasn’t going to question it. Her friendship with Jeff Winger was so sweet that she just let it stay where it was, not bothering to uproot it and examine it and kill it in the process.

“So, what you think, M’lady?” He asks, catching her off-guard with the nickname. He hadn’t used it a lot in the past. Although, he had used it with increasing frequency in the past couple of weeks, seemingly right after Abed had confronted her in the hallways at Greendale and said, “Jeff and I had a talk. He’s going to act weird. Get ready” before Abed sauntered off in a pencil-straight line. She hadn’t thought much of it, because, well, it was Abed. But since then, yes, Jeff had been acting weird and giving her the “long stare” as she had once known, that out-of-the-corner look that only meant he was thinking... something. The Annie of it all? No, no, no nonono. No. That wasn’t it, she had to be sure of it. Perhaps it was just Miranda or Melisa or Marisa or whoever that had him acting weird. Yes, she was sure that was it. There needn’t have anything to do with her, not at all. The Miranda (or whoever) of it all.

And so that’s why she says, “Maybe the sex with Jeff Winger isn’t as good as you think.”

He stops chewing instantly, stares at her wide-eyed. She laughs at him, throws a piece of popcorn at him, which hits him square on the forehead. He doesn’t even notice though and says, “Wha... what do you mean by that?”

Shrugging, she stuffs some more popcorn in her mouth and watches the screen thoughtfully. It’s at the part where they were at the batting cages, Billy Crystal failing miserably while swinging. Then she said, “I mean, if she’s theoretically taking it slow, maybe she doesn’t think that she wants to take the relationship further because. Well. You’re – like Britta said, mind you – not as good at sex as you think.”

There is a strained silence, and suddenly, without wanting to, she realizes that she has hit some kind of nerve with Jeff Winger. It was a joke, of course, but there was something very deep inside of him that she always sort of knew was there, because she felt it herself. This feeling, this deep dark fear, kept her awake at night, afraid that the next step that she took was going to be wrong. That what you’re doing, at any given second, is a failure and because of it, you yourself are one big failure. And so, when she sees his face, she says, “Oh, you know. You could be great. You are probably great at sex. Definitely. Yep. Jeff Winger, master at... sex... things.” She raises her hands in the air like there something to cheer about, wiggling them a little in the air, “Yaaaa.... ayyy.”

He is still looking at her with that look like she might have punched him right in the gut, his eyebrows slightly scrunched together and his mouth a little agape. Suddenly he says, “You’re full of bullshit. You think I’m bad at sex!”

“What. No. That’s not true at all,” Annie says, too quickly, with no inflection and even as the words hit her own ears, she knows they are falling flat and are void of genuineness. And Jeff is a bullshit detector, had warning lights that seem to be going off in his eyes. But she can’t help it, because as much as she wants to lie to him (and even in her seemingly very distant past there were sweat-filled nights waking up to flashy and emotive dreams), she can’t lie to him: she thinks of having sex with her and her gag reflex kind of activates and all she can think is that he’s too oddly tall and he’d be too worried about his hair getting mussed and he’d just be thinking about working too hard that it would all feel very scripted. Which Annie Edison is a fan of the script, but in this case, it feels weird and strange and so she can’t be enthusiastic when she says, “I bet having sex with you would be great. Like, super. Extra awesome. A girl could only be so lucky.”

His face turns more severe and she instantly wishes that she had kept her mouth shut because he points a finger at her and says, “It’s true. You think I’m bad at sex! Well, first: I am great at sex. Nay, I am mind-blowingly awesome at sex. And second: How would you even know what good sex was and wasn’t, miss first-and-only-time-was-in-a-closet-with-a-dude-pretending-I’m-a-dude?”

Now it was her turn to look offended, rearing back her head. Annie, although offended by many things (academic slackers, girls who wore tube tops, and the word “Jew-y” to name a few), felt a little piece in her flare up instantly and she couldn’t really help it when she squealed in indignation before snapping, “I’ll have you know, Mr. Jeff I’m-too-tall-to-take-serious-sexually that I have slept with a few very handsome and very hetereosexual young men. All of which have had glowing reviews of my... prowess.” She said that last word like it might be a hiccup, or a cough or something that sort of came out involuntarily and she couldn’t help but stare to the side when she said it.

He was standing down, looking down at her, backing away like she was saying something that he might catch, like a disease. “Wa wa wa wa wait. First off, I’m am not too tall. My height has been praised by numerous individuals for providing excellent leverage...”

She cringed. “Jeff. Eww...”

But he wasn’t finished, and she saw as the knots near his temples started to harden, and pop out against his skin. “And second, prowess? If they are actually saying the word prowess then you are making an actual habit of sleeping with exclusively gay men.”

Another squeak of indignation and suddenly she found herself on her feet, backing away from him too, her hand slowly curling into little fists. “You, Jeff Winger, are just jealous of the fact that I’ve been having uber amounts of sex that is both satisfactory and... well reviewed.”

“Ugh!” He threw his hands in the air, before cocking his head and squinting at her. “Are you having sex or getting an opinion about the new Katherine Heigl movie?”

“How dare you! We both know that Katherine Heigl’s films are horrid.”

His voice is slow and deliberate when he says, “You heard me.”

There is a stunned silence for a brief period, but it’s so thick Annie thinks that she could literally punch it with her white-knuckled fists. She can feel the blood in her chest pumping hard and angry and there is a part of her that wants nothing more to just slap Jeff Winger’s disgustingly smug face. A part of her – a very small part – just wants to throw her hands in the air and just concede that okay, you’re right and Jeff Winger is amazing at sex whatever whatever WHATEVER. But a big part of her, the biggest one with the thrumming blood and the very Annie part of her that’s mean and always trying to prove itself, the part that screams of competition and need for perfection, that part says, “If you’re so good at sex, why don’t you prove it?”

It catches them both off guard, but only for a second. She can see it in his face, this sort of shift, like she had thrown down a better hand of Poker than he had thought. He thought she had been bluffing. But now she wasn’t and suddenly his face uncreases and his mouth falls open a little from surprise and for once, Jeff Winger is speechless. Only for a second, just a mere second, and then his Poker face is plastered back on and he looks just as angry as ever, “Prove it, huh? You couldn’t handle it.”

“You wanna bet?” She spits back and then throws her hands in the air, “If you’re so great, so wonderful, and I’m so awful, why don’t you come over here and prove it.”

These moments in between when she says this, when she lays down the dare, and the moment when Jeff Winger does what he does are long and thick and seem to almost stop the clock. She can process every second like it might be something she should study for her class. His face turns from angry to determined to something else that she doesn’t quite recognize for a second until she realizes that she’s seen it before, years and years ago. His jaw, famous for clenching together, fastened close and he firms his mouth in a straight line and when his eyes find hers she discovers her body betraying her, because now she recognizes the look. And when she recognizes it, she almost wants to scream, “No! Just kidding, just a joke, let’s not prove anything, we’ll ruin it all, we’ll ruin everything.” But she can’t, the words won’t come out because a warmth has spread everywhere, all over her, and it won’t let words come out. This warmth, his look, she hasn’t felt it so real and so strong in awhile and when she feels it coursing through her veins, she thinks, uh-oh, I want him, I want him, I want him. The look of desire, the feeling of want and it’s too late, much too late, because he’s strode across the room, taking her whole body in his arms so quickly and easily it seems unreal and his mouth is on hers, hot and determined and a little angry.

More angry than anything, she thinks at first, and maybe her lips are just as angry against his too. Because perhaps there’s something to prove here. She’s pretty sure that there’s something to prove, but she can’t remember what it is. All she can think about is his hands are against the bare skin of her back and that the other hand is in her hair, tangled up and pulling her head back so that he can get closer to her mouth, get a better angle. He is tall after all, so much taller than her that it makes sense that he has to pull her hair to arch her back, into an angle that makes it easier for him to slide his tongue slowly against her lips and then curling into her mouth. The taste of him, something she has known before, she could remember for the rest of her life: something peppery, a little like the bitter wheaty taste of scotch, a little bit of the musky smell of his own body.

His tongue somehow ends up running down the length of her ear, tracing it down to the lobe. His voice is hot against her ear when he says, “Surrender?”

The voice that finds itself in her doesn’t sound like her, the sweet Annie Edison with a sugary pitch, but rather the guttural growl of something inside of her that she only feels most of the time, sometimes flaring inside of her and now bursting forth: “Never,” she growls before repeating, “Never.”

She presses her palms against his chest before pushing him back. He falls back on her couch, his face still in a firm line. However, as she glowers down at him, she could see the cracks there: of confusion, of a little shock. He raises an eyebrow, seemingly shocked by her strength before saying, “Woah there, M’lady. You been working out or...”

“Shut-up, Winger,” she mumbles before, in two large strides, she covers his mouth with hers. She manages to straddle him, pinning his hips in between her knees. And then, with the same type of growl she says, “Take my shirt off.”

He blinks. “Wait. Wha...”

She raises an eyebrow, “Is that you surrendering?”

Then there is that look again in his face, where the jaw turns into a line, and there’s something in his eyes that says that this is it, there’s no going back, and when he takes off her shirt and his own and suddenly she’s pressed herself against his shoulders which are broad and tough, there are shivers rumbling throughout her body.

But then of course there’s something else there than the actual carnality of it all (and she is shocked by how savage he is when his tongue traces the area of her collarbone and then reaches the swell of her breasts, when she says to hell with the foreplay and rotates her hips into him). The carnality isn’t all of it though, and it shocks her because this isn’t what she had in mind. The competitive side of her has been silent for a while now, now that he is inside her fully and oh god, oh god, she can’t breathe. Something is happening to her, inside, because Annie Edison swore, ever since the day she lost control and went screaming through glass plate windows, that she would be perfectly aware what is going on in her body. She would be master of her own body. But now, there’s something happening inside of her that isn’t in her control, she knows it. And it’s not just the movement of her hips against his, not the warmness of two bodies inside the other, not the small building of explosion that spreads from her lips to the tips of her toes, not any of that. Now there’s something small breaking inside of her, like the way dead skin pulls away from a healing wound, exposing the pink tender skin underneath. It’s the breaking, the lifting away, and it’s happening so organically, like the ocean tide rolling out for the morning, or the seasons shifting slowly into each other. There’s nothing she can do, nothing, and suddenly it happens upon her that Annie Edison can’t control everything. There’s just no way. And it scares her to the core.

Stupid girl, she says to herself while Jeff groans, wrapping his hands around the nape of her neck and suddenly the two of them are looking at each other. His eyes, fever-wrapped, look deeply at hers and gone is the anger, the indignation, the sheer competitiveness. Instead, there’s something raw there, like a curtain has been pulled back and she’s seeing something that has been boiling inside him for a while. And she sees something else – the fear. The fear that she is sure is reflected in her own eyes and she says to herself, You stupid girl, Annie Edison, because there’s no going back now, you’ve ruined it all now, ruined it easily and quickly.

Because she had thought for once in her short, silly life that she had figured out one thing and come to a resolution: Jeff Winger was the closest thing she had to the best of friends, the one that you couldn’t help but put your life down for, the one that you could hold their hand and tell them that they are a sonuvabitch but you loved them just the same, and someone who would be honest and sweet and just good to you. All her life, Annie Edison had done without this kind of her person, had only the judgmental look of her mother and the aloofness of her father and the mocking of her peers. And here came along this handsome man who, at first, they had messed up hormones for awkwardness but now all was well, it was perfect, and she had ruined it.

(Or maybe she had been wrong all along, that she wasn’t wrong at first, that she had been wrong for so long, that their bond was too precious to just be full of popcorn and buying rounds at a bar and being each other’s wingman and too precious for good advice and parting ways at the end of the night, maybe she had been wrong all this time and they had been kidding themselves for too long now, far too long, and the awkwardness was there only because it revealed too much, too much…)

But oh god. She feels her body hitch and she knows what is about to happen, because after all, he is inside her and her hips are still moving and suddenly everything is faster and their bodies are slick with sweat. His thumb moves up to her face and she takes it in her mouth, moving her tongue over it before groaning.

His eyes aren’t moving from hers and when he says, “Annie. I. Oh god,” he moans before sitting up so that they are flush against each other. He swivels his hips so that he is different inside of her and it’s suddenly too much for her. She gasps, the breath knocked out of her. Her eyes roll back into her head and as he rocks into her fully, she feels something like a small implosion ripple through her, like something had burst inside her and was tremoring all over her.

“Stay with me, Annie,” she hears him growl into her ear, and at first she thinks she might pass out, and maybe he’s referring to this, that she might let go of consciousness before he is able to finish himself, but as her head stops ringing and she realizes he means to keep going, that he means that the night is hardly over, that he means something else, that when he looks her right in the eyes, and he murmurs, “Stay with me. Oh god, Annie,” that it means something very different and she can’t quite figure it out but at the same time a part of her very deep inside knows what he means. He means something more than just staying the night, more than staying for an extended session of very, very good sex. This might not be about sex at all, she decides, and as she pushes him on the bed and sits on top of him, she thinks, Stupid girl, stupid girl, you’ve started something that isn’t going to go away.

He says it again, “Stay with me,” and she hushes him by rolling herself over him and saying, “Have I ever left? I’m your Annie. I’m always here.”

But, then again, the next morning, the panic inside of rises like boiling water and so she plays the scene out in her head when he wakes up: The empty apartment, the bustle of Didolpolis downstairs, a note on the side of the bed that says, “You win. I surrender. Congratulations. See you around – Annie.” It might be cruel, but she’s sure that he’s woke to the scene a hundred times. Jeffrey Winger has had the casual one-night stand before and the casual sex partner (even within the study group) and this scene will hardly affect him, she’s sure. Cruel? Probably the opposite. And as she walks briskly through the streets of Greendale, no place to go, she thinks maybe she can eradicate the feeling in her lungs, in the middle of her, the part that Jeff Winger has pushed himself into and won’t leave.

“I’ll make you leave,” she says to the chilly autumn air. She isn’t crying, because she doesn’t want to, but she feels something tearing inside of her, like hunger, like she’s starving. “I’ll make you leave,” she says to herself, Annie Edison, master of her body, master of her feelings, master of maybe nothing, she can’t be sure, but she’s got to try.

fine pt. 1

Go, Come | Multi-Fandom [Harry Potter, Twilight, Community, Lost, Fringe]

chipping — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 06:22:00 GMT

Go, Come (Or 5 People who Decided to Stay and That Made All the Difference)
Multi-Fandom [Harry Potter, Twilight, Community, Lost, Fringe], harry/hermione, jacob/bella, jeff/annie, sawyer/juliet, walter & peter

He sees the beginning of the end, but it doesn’t matter now, because he can see clearly the memory of a young boy running past him down a sidewalk laughing, many years ago, all the while the smile on his face saying, Only so far, Dad. I’ll only be far enough away, but you’ll always be able to see me, always able to reach me.

Go, Come
(Or 5 People That Decided To Stay and That Made All the Difference)

One | Harry Potter | Harry Potter & Hermione Granger

He finds that both of their sweaters are covered in red hair, his longer than hers. But the same shade, the same texture, tangling the same way over zippers, knotting over buttons.

They have met here, in the small of his living room, for “drinks, catching up, general mayham,” as she calls it when she calls in on the muggle telephone. In the background, he hears Ron belch loudly and they both laugh loudly until their laughter peters out in the end with a sigh.

The fact is that after the war this is what they are left with – the distance that separates them is strange and uninteresting and full of things that before never seemed large and important, but now they are. Like taxes, and politics, and red hair.

She pulls a rather long strand out of the knit of his sweater and says, with a sardonic smile, “So, you know of the Weasleys as well?” Holding the hair out far away from her, she releases it like it has rather offended her.

He watches her do this, and in the middle of him, he feels a sort of despair so deep it aches like a bruise. Not because she wipes her hands on the leg of her jeans and then frowns up at him before asking, “When did you say that Ginny is coming home, Harry?” but rather because he sees in her face something he can’t erase: this war he dragged her into, the war in every freckle in her face, in the tiny lines around her mouth when she frowns at him, the way her eyes squint at him as if she is studying him. The way she studies everything, it’s the way she has to be because she is a child of the Great War, the war over the boy who lived, the war over Harry James Potter, the war over him.

And the fact is, although everyone paid a price, Hermione Granger paid the highest, because this world was not her own. The thought that she could have walked away at any given moment, could have wiped her hands and gone back to a life of private muggle schools, a life where she had her own bedroom and a computer and normal boyfriend, a world that didn’t involve death or magic or Harry Potter, that thought keeps him awake at night more than any other.

He asks her once is she ever finds her parents, and she says, “Hm. What good would that do? Charms don’t work like that, Harry. I reversed their memory. You can’t be playing with people’s minds like that. They never had a daughter and that’s how it always will be.” She had been braiding her still unruly hair and she was doing it with such mathematical accuracy, he swore that she was doing another homework assignment, trying to figure out another Potions or Charms assignment. “I’m no one’s daughter now.” And when she had looked up at him after saying that, he saw that she was putting on her brave face, the one where she turned the edges of her mouth and lifted her left eyebrow like she was being sarcastic, like she was bulletproof. But right before that, right before the moment she put on that face, he saw in her eyes the moment of breaking. Hermione Granger, he knew, had this part inside of her that was wounded, that part of her he can never heal he is sure, and this fact, that fact that he had something to do with the breaking of the strong, the ineffable, the Hermione Granger who never once faltered when asked, “Will you go?” that Hermione Granger he has wounded and hurt and he can’t heal her – it was all in that one brief millisecond in her face, in her eyes.

And that millisecond, that keeps him awake more at night than the blood that he finds himself drowning in. Keeps him awake longer than: the look of Sirius’s face right before the veil closed behind him, the rumbly bass voice of Albus Dumbledore, the long sweet smile of Dobby. The fact that he broke something in the person who meant the most to him, O God.

He will sit up in the night, tip-toeing to the kitchen quietly so that Ginny cannot hear him and stare out the window into the moon and say to it, “I have made an orphan of you, Hermione Granger.” He had done the very thing that his greatest enemy did. He has made an orphan of the innocent.

But now she is standing there, in his house, and she is holding her coat that is covered in red hair. When she looks at him, she raises an eyebrow, and says, “Do I have something on my face?”

He shakes his head, stares at her long and hard, squinting his eyes. Right now, he wants to say something. Because after the war, this is the thing that keeps him awake: the living things that must carry on rather than the ones that died and now live in a different way than the living have to now. In ways, the dead are luckier. In many ways, he envies them.

And it’s like she can read him, can read every thought in his brain. She has that ability, has always had that ability, even since she strode into his train compartment with her school robes and frizzy head of hair and asked about a frog and repaired his glasses with a snotty swish of her wand. Already, even from that moment, he had that deep feeling inside of him that this girl, this awkward girl with large teeth, knew him. There was no hiding. There’s no hiding right now either, and she reads him and immediately she’s got that other face on, that Hermione face that means serious things, means determination, and no surrender.

“Harry,” she says, holding her head up a little higher. “Are you okay? Are you having those nightmares again?” She moves towards him effortlessly, like they are opposite ends of a magnet and she moves towards him almost instinctively, subconsciously. They have moved towards each other like this for much of their lives though, he thinks, and so he doesn’t even blink as her hands reach his forearms and hold him firmly in place as if she could ground him.

Ground him like she always has. When his world was moving too fast, when he felt like the ground was liquid and his feet would be enveloped in it all, she would reach out and hold him steady. And it hits him all of a sudden that this is it, that without her, all might have been lost. That the boy who lived wouldn’t have lived without the girl who lived. The bravest girl of the war. The girl who orphaned herself for the orphan Harry Potter.

Both of them, orphaned by and for the world they weren’t raised into.

It dawns on him there, as he sees her holding him with that look on her face that says, “I am here, Harry James Potter. I am here. Again,” that family is something you choose and this is his family. Right here, right now, holding her smooth dry palms against the pale skin of his arms, she didn’t have to choose him, that she could have walked away with clean hands at any given moment.

So he can’t help but ask lowly, so quiet that he’s not sure if he said it. Maybe he just thought it, he doesn’t know. So he says it again, “Hermione, why did you...”

“I heard you the first time,” she says snappily, as if she was thoroughly irritated. “I heard you. And I don’t want to hear that ever again, Harry Potter. Not ever. Because the point isn’t why or how but the point is that I came into this with my full mind. And I, I am smart. I am a smart girl, and I knew the second I saw the broken glasses on your face and the lightening scar on your forehead, I knew instantly that there was no turning back.” She shakes her head and part of him shakes too, and he feels it all down to his bones. But he doesn’t know if he can believe her, not really, because Harry Potter has been lied to for most his life and even though he knows that of anyone, he should trust her, there’s a part of him that’s guarded still.

And then she does something that shocks him, but at the same time is like someone has awoke him. She slaps him, right in the face, and when he looks at her in shock, she snaps, “I don’t care if that hurt. Because you, Harry Potter, you hurt me when you doubt.” She moves her hand from her chest to his, “Especially when you doubt this. Because sometimes a person just knows. And I knew every second of my life what I was doing. Even before you came into it. I knew that I would have to choose. I chose to go to Hogwarts. I chose to make friends with you Harry Potter. I chose to stand my stand in the war. And I choose...” she stops, looks him dead in the eye. Her throat is clenched and he knows that she holding his breath, that her lungs are tight in her chest.

For a second, he’s afraid she might finish with, I chose to get away from you, from the nightmares, from the unruly hair of you, Harry Potter.

But then she moves closer to him and her face is next to his and she says, “I chose to stay right here. Next to you. No matter what. I choose you Harry. I choose you.”

And suddenly her slightly parted lips and the bridge of freckles on her nose and her smell of soap and shampoo are all he can contain in this moment.

So he chooses to press him lips to hers, and for a second he forgets about the red hair tangling through his collar, and he forgets about the blood covering his hands from the war, and he forgets that after this moment they will laugh and joke about all of this, but for this second, it’s him and his best choice, his Hermione Granger, who chose him, who chose her.

Two | Twilight | Jacob Black & Isabella Swan

This is the part they will not write about. She knows this, and tells herself that they will write her a different story. She is brushing her hair in the early buttermilk morning light and she has slept the night before. She knows that people will not believe this. They will believe that she cannot die, that she wouldn’t pass on the opportunity to become more than flesh and blood. The world is obsessed with their own demise and she knows that they will not write the stories about how Isabella Swan passed up the chance to be forever beautiful, to be forever a child, to be forever.

But she did, but it will never be what people think it is. Because maybe she will age and maybe her hair will turn gray and course her skin will fall and her health will fail, but she’ll still have something inside her that burns bright and long and it can’t be taken from her even when her body is old and creaky.

She, Isabella Swan, didn’t always feel this way. She remembers cool nights and the press of his even colder skin and amber eyes and whispers of I love you I love you iloveyou.

And of course he meant that. It was never his fault, not for anything. She blames him for nothing, not for the heartbreak or the decisions she was forced to make in the ripeness of youth. The fact is, her mind was different back then. She accepts that she had to go through what she did because it changed her. Forever. It was the greatest thing to happen to her.

She regrets none of her choices. Because they are her choices.

There is one more though, one of those people who come into a life and rearrange things and you need them to, in the beginning, in order to show you back to how you are. Like they know you better than you possibly could ever, and their hand is one to hold at the disaster scene.

And he, he’s the one who did, who sparked the first fire and now it’s deep inside of her. Like wine in the core, burning slow and warm. His voice telling her, “You wouldn’t be Bella anymore. You wouldn’t exist.” She realizes that he’s right when she hears him, because she realizes that in a way she would have to die to become this other thing. She doesn’t know what she would become. It would have been something in a different world. She imagines that things would be split inside her like the space where universes part, like where threads in a seam finally unravel.

It was him though that kept her from unraveling. His golden thick lips against hers, she saw her life, her real life rolling out in front of her like a road unfurling on the horizon. Her hands, strong from work, holding his for years and years and the middle of her aching from the black-haired children running through all of her veins. But the fact is that this is not the choice that she suspects romantics will want to hear: that the real world, the one that hurts and hates and loves, the one that doesn’t show any pity for age and where you are as fragile as a hangnail, anything can take you out, this would be the life she would choose.

But he teaches her something, and this, when she learns it, she knows she can never walk away from it. He teaches her that the greatest romance is the one where you stay where you are. Right there. The world will revolve around the sun and you will go with it and it’s alright, alright to go for the ride. And the greatest romance will be the one who stands with you and lets the world age you, and ages with you and loves you wrinkled and fatter and wiser and sicker and they don’t care because they love you, unchanged. Just you. And that’s who he wants.

“Stay Bella,” he whisper to her the night she came to his door when she had released one part of her story and ran towards the other. He held her to his searing skin and her head rested in the space between his ribs. “Stay Bella. Stay how you are. That’s all I ask. Stay Bella.”

The thing is that he isn’t asking her to stay with him. It was never about him. He holds her tightly in his wide arms and his face is against her forehead and when his eyelashes brush against her skin they are dewy with tears and she knows that when she told him, “He’s gone, Jacob. I mean, we realized what it was. What we were. And it can’t be we anymore when I have this other person inside of me that if I go with him, it will shrivel and fade and disintegrate. So I had to. I had to release him. It’s for the best, for the both of us. And Jacob, I saw us. And the life that is waiting.” She might have be asked too much of him now that she looks back at that moment on his front porch the night after. The night of. In many ways, the first night of her life. Their life. Because suddenly her life and his seemed so intertwined they are the same, so what could she do? She sees no other option. And he wasn’t mad, but she still wonders if she was unfair to throw him into her life so suddenly and so intensely.

He doesn’t complain. Even tonight as the moon is full and bright as cream in the sky, as he rides up to her house in his puttering old truck, he smiles at her through his front windshield. She leans against the frame of her front door. She is wearing a dress that her mother loaned her. The night air is damp and certainly chilly so she holds her sweater closer to her body, and thinks of her mother against her skin. He rolls down his window and says to her across the width of the front lawn, “Hey there, hot stuff. How’d you get better looking since the last time I saw you?”

She rolls her eyes and he winks, laughing. The straight line of his white teeth against the sweet brown of his skin marks her inside, like a notch that marks another moment amongst the living.

Honestly, she’s not sure what they’re doing, going out at night to dances at the La Push Reservation, where the old pack stands around looking again like sweet, awkward seventeen year-olds. She’s not sure what they do every weekend when they go out to the ocean and smoke cigars with Paul, who has started to look fat and is balding around the edges of her scalp. They listen to Alan Toussant and Leon Russell, and Paul tells them, “I’m gonna learn how to play a piano. Damn. I’m gonna do that before I die.” And she thinks, there’s an end. And that’s what makes it worth something, she thinks. That’s what makes his warm hand against the small of her back wonderful and strange. That’s what makes the first time where she takes him to her bedroom and his hands are shaking and his broad shoulders are stooped and he’s just trembling when she presses her pale skin against his, her lips meeting his slow and hotly, that’s what makes it perfect in its clumsiness, in its sweat and pain and almost unbearable bliss that made all of that special. Because at any second it could be taken away completely.

She treads clumsily across the lawn, unsure in her high heels. He laughs, says, “You look like a stomping rhino in them heels.” And she laughs and pouts, and soon both of them are laughing, even when he asks her if she wants him to get the door and she shakes her head and says, “Oh, don’t be stupid. I can get my own door.” And he lets her shove it open before plopping down beside him.

The two of them are laughing, grinning stupidly at each other. Then suddenly their laughter fades, like a note still floating through the air. She looks at him and smiles and he smirks backs.

He reaches out, moves a strand of hair from her eyes. “You’ve cut it,” he murmurs. “You’ve cut your hair.” His voice is low and his eyes move across her face like he is tracing her out of the air.

He’s right, she did cut her hair. Earlier that day, she went down to the kitchen, before her father woke in the early mists of morning, and she got the haircutting sheers. In the beginning of the day’s light, she cut her hair to her earlobes, carelessly, a little haphazardly. It laid strangely awkwardly and lopsidedly against the back of her neck. She shook it once, twice, laughed. There was a small part of her, the tiniest, that tore, like old skin shedding away. Because, for once, she felt the change in her life, because suddenly she was sure that her body was growing, and she had made it different. She made her life different, even if it was just her hair, and it had happened right in front of her.

But now she just looks at him as the moonlight comes in chalky across his face and all she can say is, “Yeah. I cut it. But, it’ll grow back. Which is great, right?”

He nods his head, smiling. Reaching out, his fingers tangle through her hair and he pulls her closer to him. When their lips meet, she smiles against his mouth.

And the night falls on her, his hands around the middle of her waist, she thinks about the night and how it must always end things. She thinks of the endless nights that she might have awoken too, and then she savors this second where she knows the night will end. How she has not gone peacefully into the night. She has raged against it and seen it for what it is: only a time that will pass.

A time that will pass with his hand in her hair, his mouth against hers, the years passing them until the final night will come. And then she will meet it with peace, because she has had the whole extent of her life unrolled behind her to know that it was hers and no one else’s. All of what she did, it was only dictated by her own self.

But of course, she knows there will be no stories about this because in the end, it is a quiet life that she will lead. It holds the grandest and saddest kind of romance but they can’t write stories about wrinkles and nosebleeds and raising children. But no matter. Bella Swan will stay in her own life.

And her life, and his warm grasp, and the breeze that lights the air, all of that is enough. It’s enough.

Three | Community | Jeff Winger & Annie Edison

Okay. So it wasn’t supposed to happen like this, but then again, nothing ever does. Especially not in Greendale.

And Jeff Winger doesn’t do screaming. Or blood. Or babies. But it’s happening now, here in the study room, and he doesn’t know really why they can’t go to the hospital, but it has something to do with Chang’s fear of white vans, spark plugs, and the fact that Shirley doesn’t think they’re gonna make it because, “this baby coming now, Jeff Winger, you sonuvabitch, GET. THIS. THING. OUT. OF. ME!”

The fact is that he’s terrified, and Shirley’s hand is tightly in his, perhaps cutting off vital artery flow. But it’s happening, this baby is coming, and Jeff Winger hasn’t realized in this moment what that means. Really means. Because right now, there is something inside of him that is rising like a panic attack, like the swell of a wave, about to spill out of him. He doesn’t even care about the sweat necklacing the collar of his shirt and that Shirley’s spit is on his face and that for some reason, he has become the one who is guiding this whole birth thing in general. Which, of course, makes no sense, because he is Jeff Winger, man of expensive suits, and flawless hair, and of perfect elocution skills. And he’s the one guiding this? Well, that’s not completely right. Because there is her hand on Shirley’s back, interlaced with his fingers, and her nails are etched in his skin. Not the way he thinks about sometimes, in the way that invades his dreams in sweat-filled nights, but in the way that says, Hold on, hold on, we’re holding this together.

It occurs to him that at some point it started being about them holding the bottom of this ship. Of course, it was always him and Britta keeping this thing afloat, really. She is here too, her hand on Shirley’s knee and telling her to breathe, just breathe!. They hold it together like a pair of camp counselors, making sure that no one gets pushed in the pool and that band-aids are applied appropriately. But somewhere along the way, there came this girl with her eyes and cardigan and her ideals and she’s just as pushy as he is, and just as mean, and she’s screaming in Shirley’s face right now, “PUUUUUUUUSHHH! Show a little chutzpah, Shirley!”

Suddenly, he realizes what it is, why they can’t be in the hospital and there’s blood and water and sweat covering every inch of him. It comes to him quickly in a second that feels like it’s coming in slow motion: the battery in his car is dead and everyone else parked too far away, and the baby is coming much too quickly. And it’s Greendale, and apparently the hospital is sick of fake ER calls from Leonard who keeps calling screaming into the receiver, “Send HELP. Zombies everywhere! Psssttt!” So, the hospital isn’t coming. And so, here comes the baby, much too quickly and a whole week early. And he can’t drive them from his spot in the teacher’s parking spot because Chang ran the battery down by listening to the entire Hall and Oates anthology one night when he kicked him out because he ate all the cheese and also turned his Snuggie into a loincloth. So, the hospital isn’t coming.

But maybe part of this, this part that feels like a big shift inside of the person of Jeff Winger, is because right before all of this, before he walked into the study room, Annie tells him, “City College wants me next semester, Jeff. I mean, what can I do? When they want me? I mean, does anyone want me? I have to go. It’s for the best.”

For once, he feels like a part of him is both breaking and mending, and he’s not sure what it is, because skin is tearing, both Shirley’s and his own. He can actually hear it and feel it. Her nails, against his own, the hot hot blood running down his hand and Britta gasping and saying breathily that it’ll, “Be okay, Shirley!” and Troy crying a little and saying, “Mom always said that it was like a hiccup! That’s a bad hiccup!” and Abed filming it and Annie yelling right in Shirley’s ear, “CHUTZPAH!!!!”

And he hates to be that guy, because it’s that guy who Jeff Winger hates with a passion that burns deep in his bones. That guy who cries at weddings because he’s genuinely moved by the flowers and dresses and love and crap, that guy who likes poetry and gets up early for sunrises and goes home early just to see their significant other, that guy. But right now, there’s a baby coming into the world, and in one way it’s kind of... gross because the baby is coming and it’s covered in this goo and blood and crap and it’s totally weird. But. But, he can’t help it, because for some reason he realizes that he hasn’t let many people in this little strange heart of his, and fewer that he has fallen in love with, and suddenly he is aware that there’s about to be another person coming quite forcefully and without warning into his heart. And that person might be pink and making a sound like a dying cat and too small to actually be a human being in his mind, but his heart feels like it’s breaking in half.

Somehow Chang has boiled some hot water and is bringing it in a large water cooler that has the words “GREENDALE ~~GAY~~ BASKETBALL TEAM” written across it, and someone has managed to scramble up some blankets from the Organized Nap 101 classroom and it’s a baby. Britta’s handing the baby to Shirley while receiving very systematic and medically-sound advice from Abed. Somewhere, he can hear the Dean crying. Weeping, actually. But the minutes now seem so tired and slow and like he’s underwater. He realizes somewhere along the line that he is coated in blood and he’s telling Abed that they need to call a doctor (“A real one, Abed. Do not get Professor Garrity no matter how excellent his doctor acting skills are!”)

He wants to wash his hands, he wants to wash his whole body, but something inside of him feels like quicksand. Like he’s stuck in one place and there’s nothing he can do about it. Britta’s trembling like a small poodle, and is simultaneously trying to act like she is in control and comfort Troy who weeping about, “The lies, Mother! So many lies!”

And it’s pretty chaotic, but something keeps him anchored there on the floor, kneeling beside Shirley, propping her back in a sitting position. He doesn’t know what it is for a few mere seconds until her realizes it’s her hand, still digging into his own.

He turns, looks at her. Her usually perfectly brushed hair is askew, scarcrowed in every which way. He mascara is running in small crooked rivers on her face, and he realizes that she’s crying, her tears falling into her smiling, laughing face.

And then something happens, something that stops his heart in his chest. A real sort of stop, a pause in his insides. Shirley turns, hands the baby to Annie, who hesitates before letting go of his hand and receiving the small bright pink… thing into her arms. She’s holding it, and she parts the fabric away from the face and he can see the baby, and the two of them – Annie with her opened breathless mouth and the suddenly quiet baby – makes something in his eyes swell and blur.

He tells himself, no no no nononono, but it’s too late, especially when she looks up at him and says, in this dreamy voice, “Here, you hold her.” And he can’t stop it, because the next thing he knows, there’s a baby in his arm, still wet and kind of slimy but quiet, so quiet and large-eyed.

He’s been told about these kinds of things. Like, in church when he was kid. He thinks maybe it was in church, but he wasn’t really listening ever. Maybe it wasn’t church, maybe it was literature in high school (which, he reasons, are pretty much the same thing). But he has heard of these moments. Epiphanies. The moment the light switch goes off in your head. He always thought maybe it was the moment your sanity goes, the moment when you really do want to end it all. But he was wrong, he knows that now. He now knows that it’s the moment that your life, as tangled and strange and complex as it might seem, is really quite simple. Everything is really easy and what you want and what you need seem to become one in a simple, easy moment.

Her voice is soft and surprised when she says, “You’re… crying. Jeff. Are you… okay?”

He looks up, sees her there with the same kind of blood over her face and fingers and there on the top of her hand is the same half-moon scars that are on his own hand. He realizes how good that is, the imprint the two of them have put on each other.

She cocks her head, but she’s smiling a little when she says, “Oh, Jeff. You’re crying.”

The baby reaches for his face is a jerky motion, and he laughs before looking at her. In this moment, her face tear-stained and her lips swollen and her hair a nest, and he thinks about how she looks the most beautiful he’s ever seen her right now and how, “You can’t, Annie. You just can’t.”

And really, she shouldn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s sure that he sounds like an idiot. But for some reason, she bites her lips. A lone tear goes down her cheek and she just nods, says, “I’m not going anywhere.”

In this moment, what can he do but kiss her? She tastes salty and metallic with a hint of the wax from her chapstick, but what can he do but kiss her? The group doesn’t even blink, because in this moment he realizes that a little part of Jeff Winger isn’t going anywhere. It’s stuck here, and when they part and she looks at him and laughs a small sweet laugh, the baby swats him in the face, and it all makes sense, somehow, all of them, Annie and baby, too.

Four | Lost | James “Sawyer” Ford & Juliet Burke

These are the papers they will one day set on fire.
The ones, golden in their death, that show a true life.
But, meanwhile, see the burning dew of that jungle
See: the golden curls of a doctor-woman, holding –
ever holding onto a past and an empty womb
and the hands stiff and born anew in layers of blood.

And see: him, calloused-hand, good child of a bitter blood
rolling, oil-slicked, from the cleanly cut center of plane-fire
frowning, watching everything ash into the ocean’s womb
See: his finger always trigger ready, forever wrestling with a life
of fearing that Daddy’s cold heart was rebirthed and holding
him captive, an animal that folds into the darkness of this jungle.

Both, hands ever ready for a fight, taking the jungle
In a vise-grip with all fingers dipped deep in the blood
of: a childhood, the death spread over their veins while holding
tightly to a present that crumbles like something once on fire.
both, trying desperately to keep fighting for some kind of life
that they do not know, for a life still warm in the womb

and not quite ready for birth, for a love still warm in the womb
that they reach for in the dark-haired twins of this jungle
(Like magnets, swerving to the same, then opposite sort of life)
before realizing deep inside aorta, vein, skin, the same blood
that pulls him to her, a surprise, a domestic sort of fire
crawling inside him and suddenly what’s holding

him isn’t a self-preserving core – it’s her hands holding
him that keep him stable while his assurance that a broken womb
can’t be her fault, and his words that she can’t put out every fire
is enough to keep her with him in a quiet life in the jungle,
under a thatched roof with the smooth drull of his warm blood
against hers in the milk nights of a sweet together-life.

But let them construct narratives of a ferocious life
one that shadows the sweet years of smooth-skinned holding.
Of mercenaries and woman-doctors, both coated in the blood
of those who were lost and reborn in the island’s womb.
Let them tell the tales of monsters, villains, of a jungle
That opened its mouth with the smoke of a great fire.

But to show their life is to start back to the womb
where a woman holding a man walks into the jungle
and into the blood of a new birth: their death, a new kind of fire.

Five | Fringe | Walter Bishop & Peter Bishop

He can see the seams, the ones that pull at him everyday. They are fraying, loose and being pulled in every direction. He feels the universe in his hands, he feels it under his feet. Crumbling, like sand drying.

Many years ago, the other boy, the one that really was his, asked, “What is death like, Dad? Does it feel at all?”

And, of course, at the time, he should have answered him directly, because the boy was ready to take death into his small, moist palms and claim it for his own. But that wouldn’t be case, he thought. It was a fever-induced thought, he deduced. He dismissed the question, waved his hand and said, “That is a feeling you needn’t worry about, son. It’s a feeling you should worry about when you’re much older than me. Much older.”

Much older, and here he was, a version of that boy. Much older. And he wants to tell him now, tell him what dying feels like. Because he’s faced that feeling, knows it well, knows it like the thrum of his own pulse inside his chest.

The feeling: like the washing of blood from a head. Like the floor under your feet swept away like dust. Like every part of you on fire, tearing asunder. Perhaps not death when it happens to you, but when the one you loves dies. He knows that feeling very well, knows what it’s like to stare into the fabric of your life and see it unraveling like a spool being rewound.

And even though it’s not his boy, not really, not by some sort of rule that he can figure out, he can’t release him. It’s not his right, he knows that. He knows all about rights, what you can change and what you can’t. Because he has broken all those rules and because of he has, the universe is transforming into a reflection of his very life. But still, he can’t release him, and he knows he’s selfish and ruining everything.

But still. He remembers teaching him algebra on the kitchen table. He remember walks through the parks, describing to a very small boy the fauna that – given an apocalyptic event – could be eaten. Remembers the swirl of his fingerprint, halving an apple with him for a lazy Saturday snack, a pet frog (the boy’s first experience with death, never knowing of his own), showing him the delicate wings of moth who had trapped itself in their porch light. He can remember it all, and even though it’s not really his boy, well.

But now that boy is older and not at all a boy. He can see the smooth angle of his jaw, the flashing eyes of his mother, the one that was never his wife. Still, he cannot unclench his fist and so he finds himself reeling him in, unconsciously and without real reason.

What does death feel like?

Oh, it feels. He feels every second he thinks he just might lose him, for real this time. There is no going back, not now.

He catches him, one night, asleep at the lab, head resting against the wall and for a second he realizes, this can’t last forever. None of it can. And it hurts, but there’s something inside of him that he’s given this boy and he doesn’t think he can get it back. If he goes to the other side, it will be gone and he will never have it back.

“Stay,” he whispers to the night air surrounding the two of them. He reaches, cautiously, and touches the crown of his head, which is shorn short. He has a birthmark on the side of his scalp, which the other did not have, and it takes him aback. He is selfish he knows, for he has had two, he knows that now, but still. It’s irreversible. There’s nothing he can do, because his whole heart, his whole being is in this person next to him. “Stay,” he whispers and it sounds like a prayer, to something, someone.

The boy opens his eyes, and he sees the man. They both stare at each other for a second. The world is splitting at its seams and the universe will soon implode but now it is only the two of them and the sleepy quiet around them.

The boy smiles that half-smile of his and says, “Of course. I’m home. Of course, I’m staying.”

He sees the beginning of the end, but it doesn’t matter now, because he can see clearly the memory of a young boy running past him down a sidewalk laughing, many years ago, all the while the smile on his face saying, Only so far, Dad. I’ll only be far enough away, but you’ll always be able to see me, always able to reach me.

Visceral | Community | Jeff/Annie

chipping — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:25:56 GMT

Visceral
Community, jeff/annie
Jeff agrees to a night of babysitting. Of course that decision comes back to haunt him. Thus, Annie comes to save him not only from a crying baby, but also the growing loneliness inside of himself.

But then a slobbery baby and a wide-eyed cardigan-wearing twenty-something entered his apartment. And things changed.

Visceral

So now he’s aware that babies are a mess of skin and bodily functions and just lots and lots of crying. The fact is that Jeff Winger, the man with the freshly ironed pants, the man who outwitted and stumped the law world for many years, that same Jeff Winger is clueless about babies.

Of course, he thought it would be easy. And he was wrong (which he is finding out more and more he seems to be).

But when Shirley asked him with her big smile and large brown eyes, if he wanted to watch over the kid, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Sure. Yeah. What, it’s just like a littler version of Leonard? He poops, he pees, all in his pants. Feed him macoroni. Should be easy.”

Shirley gives him this look, that Shirley-look, where the smile dissolves quickly into a deep serious frown. She says quickly, all in her deep voice, “I know you not comparing my child to no pervy, lollipop-hoarding, macoroni-stealing geriatric. Are you, Jeffrey?”

He quickly recovers, says, what the hell. Trust me, Shirley. If I can win a case involving a corporation suing their employers for putting too much into their retirement, I can handle a baby for seven hours. And so Shirley only gives him the stink-eye once and then leaves him alone, happy to have a couple hours of respite even though she guards that child like something very breakable and very hers.

Here’s the truth though, the sad, pathetic truth about Jeff Winger: he has been alone most of his life. Not just in a way that most people are, where you have to be alone. A quick lunch. The minutes right before nodding off to sleep. Those adolescent years when you think no one likes you. No, Jeff Winger, even from the early years of skinned knees and aching growing limbs, has been very and terribly alone. His mother, although a strong woman who constantly had to answer questions about fathers and money to her small wide-eyed son, was always on the move to make things better. Medical-coding classes, long into the night. Late dates with loan officers who drove fancy cars and always looked at him like a dirty puppy and insisted on calling him “scout.” And later, in his teenage years, dinner parties where she came home smelling of cheap wine, cigarettes, and an odd man’s cologne who she said was going to be, “their new roommate, buddy.” After her new husband, who pretended it was okay to refer to himself as Jeff’s “Uncle Ross,” he spent every night waiting for that girl to call him back, or hoping that his mother would come home heartbroken but ready for her son’s love for once, or just hoping that the world would just implode on him so that all would be a black nothing rather than this deep hole inside of him that he thought was normal. So, the fact is that, until Greendale, until this group of six crazy, socially psychopathic yet entirely lovable people came into his life, Jeff Winger had learned to simply accept the silence of his life.

But babies weren’t silent. Babies were very, very unsilent.

And this baby was no exception to that rule. As soon as Shirley dumped the pile of flesh and diapers on his floor, the kid started making this sound. Or sounds. A plethora of sounds.

“Oh, Jeffrey, she’s an angel,” she had said, laughing with her big Shirley-grin, which quickly dissolved when she noted, “But if she isn’t, there’s formula in the diaper bag, including her organic diapers and baby wipes...”

“Organic diapers?” He asked, as a large vinyl bag plastered in giraffes wearing party hats was shoved into his arms. “Isn’t what they put in it organic enough?”

Shirley ignored him and instead rummaged through the bag, pulling out various bottles, stuffed animals, and many many many diapers, “... and if she seems like she’s hungry, she is not. She is a liar, Jeffrey. Do not listen to her. She just wants to be held. So, if she starts crying, it might be the colic, it might be because she’s hungry, but the real reason is probably because she just wants to be held. Momma spoiled her like that. Didn’t she, honey?” And with a quick couple smiles at baby, and a little bit of cooing and finally shoving Shirley out the door with a, “Listen, Shirley, if I can manage to keep Pierce from making ethnic slurs about the Romani people, then I can make sure a baby doesn’t sit in its own poo” the two of them were alone. And for awhile, it was fine despite the slobber and the gurgling and all that other baby stuff.

But here in lies the problem: the baby is crying, and Shirley is right. The baby just wants to be held, Jeff can tell. There are huge tears dewing on her eyelashes and she has crawled to his feet and is staring at him, making little hiccup noises. He can see her two tiny fists; one is clutching his pant leg, and the other is reaching towards him, reaching, reaching, reaching.

No, here’s the actual problem. It’s not that the baby is crying, because Jeff Winger has dealt with crying before (his mother, ex-girlfriends, his own reflection). It’s not the diaper changing or the feeding, because he has had both fraternity brothers and a small ex-Spanish teacher with an affinity for needing nurturing invade his apartment before. It’s not the tears and slobber and the little spit-bubbles that explode from her mouth like she is boiling from the inside. It’s not any of those things. It’s the fact that Jeff Winger, the self-made man, the man with the Italian hand-crafted faucets, the man with the imported luxury car, with the looks, the whole package, that man doesn’t know how to hold a human being. Not in this way. Not in the way that demands just holding, no other motives, just holding and keeping close. Holding with the most purest and strangest non-intentions.

He looks at her with terrified eyes, and the two hold each other in their gazes for more than a second. Her eyes, shiny in tears, stare at him and he just looks down at her and whispers, “Sorry. I’m so sorry.”

And then the crying starts again and he still doesn’t know what in the world to do.

So he texts her.

He knows her shouldn’t do it, because he’s sure the next second that everyone from the study group will be texting him advice and then all of them will show up, loud and noisy and bossy and then someone will pull the fire alarm and then Shirley will show up perturbed and yelling about how you can’t let, “no white man babysit a child, you should have known that Shirley Bennet, but you never learn, do you now?”

But that doesn’t happen. Instead, there is a slight knock at the door, only the most timid of sorts. He rushes to it, peers through the peephole, expecting to see a gaggle of oddly-arranged people of various heights, sizes, and colors. But instead, he sees only her figure, small and nervously holding her arms across her chest.

He opens the door, slowly, peeking only his head around the ajar part. The crying is heard behind him and she sees her widen her already huge eyes. All he can manage is a small-voiced, “Hi.”

And instead of laughing at him, accusing him, yelling at him for the baby sitting on his floor bawling its eyes out, she looks back at him, gives him her crooked smile and says, “Hi.”

For only a second the crying stops, but in that one second he realizes that his heart has been broken a little bit. Because it could have been the second that somebody poked the smallest and most vulnerable part of Jeff Winger, poked it so hard and without mercy he would have had no defense. And she, Annie Edison, the seeker of all wrongs, the one who never faltered from perfection with a discipline that verged on terrifying, she only smiled at him with a look in her eyes that said, “I know.”

And it broke him. In a good way. Like the way the skin peels away from a healed burn or a joint sliding back into place.

Of course, Annie Edison is still Annie Edison, captain of the overly-prepared. She has brought her own duffel bag full of: two realistic nipple bottles, two teething rings, a boo-boo bunny, a rattle, a stuffed giraffe (the giraffe motif had apparently been a thing he had forgotten to pick up on), and a couple packages of diapers that, “I think will fit her, but I went ahead and bought a couple different sizes just in case, you know?” She is briefing him all with it, rolling up her sleeves and he has to stop her, literally physically stop her.

He takes ahold of her shoulders and shakes her and says, “Annie, listen. This whole artillery of baby products exists tenfold in Shirley’s bag. I’ve tried them all. Rattles. Chewy toys. Diaper changes. A thousand story books including one that makes you feel better about pooping. The kid is obviously needing to be...” And he stops, watching her eyes. She is staring at him with expectation, and when he says, “.... needing to be held” she blows out a little burst of air from her lips. Very slowly, she looks from him to the baby, who is sitting with her hands wrapped around the stuffed giraffe already, squeezing its little head, and staring at them with hiccuping little gasps. Her pig tails are uneven and her face is covered in a combination of dried and fresh snot. His hands are still on her shoulders when he turns from the baby to her and sees that she is just as terrified as him. And all he can manage is, “Yeah. She definitely just wants to be held. Yeah.”

It’s in her terrified gaze that she sees his own life, spread out before him painfully. The long nights alone or in being ignored in Hebrew School. The acne scars that left her ostracized from friends, dates, dances. The pills that kept her, for once, feeling in control until they rebounded and left her dizzingly isolated, running through glass plate windows and segmented from her family like a dead limb might be cut away. It’s in her terrified gaze that Jeff realizes that Annie Edison has lead a life of being alone and estranged as well, and even though years and distance separate them, there is a core part of them that feels about the same. And maybe that’s why it seemed right to call her of all people. Because in this moment, he knows, she will see the terror in having to simply hold something. Something so fragile it might crumble in your hands like a sand dollar. In this moment, Jeff Winger understands Annie Edison and Annie Edison understands Jeff Winger on a level that is completely fundamental to the core of their being.

But she’s Annie Edison. He knows she can be far braver then him.

And, in this moment, she is. It’s only a few seconds between when he says this to her and when Annie crosses the room in a few quick steps. She hardly even thinks about it when she lifts the baby up, into her arms, putting her hand underneath her legs and drying up the tears and snot and a little bit of throw-up with the back of her hand.

It takes a little bouncing and at some point she starts singing this odd little Jewish tune, but eventually the baby stops, stares at her with the large brown eyes. His apartment is suddenly hushed. The only sounds are Annie talking nonsense and the baby sucking happily on the furry giraffe’s ear while she eyes Annie’s talking mouth with an amused expression.

All he can do is watch, still standing by the door, as she sits herself on the couch and bounces the baby on her knee. Like they do in movies. Its like exactly in the movies, she’s like something out the movies with her cardiganed body and her combed shiny hair. And her voice, calming and sweet. And slightly terrified.

“She likes you,” he says quietly, trying not to break the hush that has fallen over the room. There is a part of him that’s afraid that he will break it in another way, break something far more delicate. Like he’ll break this moment where she understands him, like somehow she has crossed into the territory of the people who can hold. Those people. Basically, everybody. But him.

However, instead of frowning at him, instead of calling him a wimp and a typical dude, instead of rolling her eyes, she looks up at him with that look that only she can give him. No one else but her looks up at him like this, as if his compliments actually mean something. Like they aren’t just lawyer crocodile grins or syrupy bullshit, but serious good things have just come out of him and she believes him. That’s maybe what makes her different from other girls: she believes him. There are many things to say about Annie Edison, not all good of course, but one thing is that he finds something glowing in him every time she looks at him when he has said something genuinely meaningful. And he loves the group, loves them more than he has loved anybody in his whole life, but they meet his stare sometimes one eye at a time. Abed doesn’t want his true conversations. Britta, forever skeptical, will never trust the simple, “You look nice today” under the basis that it’s got a hidden sexist agenda. Troy might accept a kind word, but he'd accept a compliment from Starburns (and also feels it necessary to relate it back to “butt-stuff”), and Pierce acts like everything he says is a direct threat towards his penis. So.

So, it’s something to say that Annie, despite her anal-retentive pen borrowing procedure (complete with sign in-sign out book) and her buttoned-to-the-collar cardigans, actually believes him when he says something genuine. And it flatters her, all the way down to her toes. He can actually see it, like his words have flowed through her body like a good drink.

“You think she does?” she asks, her voice soft. “You think she actually likes me?”

“Yeah.” He walks a couple steps closer, risking it. But the baby just looks at him. She recently decided that a pacifier sounded like a great idea, so she sucks away on it happily, watching him like she finds nothing more entrancing. “You, Annie Edison, are what they call a natural. Sure you haven’t been raising a couple half-hippie kids with Vaughn right under our noises?”

“Ew,” She says before crumpling her nose up at him. “Don’t be gross, Jeff. Besides, Vaughn is happily involved with a sweet young lady in Vermont named Honeysuckle.” At his raised eyebrows, she says quickly, “Which I’m sure is her real and birth-given name rather than the one she chose for herself upon completion of her facebook profile.” The two of them stare at each other before laughing. It feels good to laugh, all the way to his bones. The tension that has been heavy in his shoulders suddenly disappears and he finds he is laughing heartily. A true laugh.

The baby lets out a little screech, touching Annie’s smiling face. Annie, shocked, suddenly stops laughing and looks at her with wide-eyes.

He stops laughing too, and adds, “I think you’ve got another member of the Annie Edison fanclub.”

She looks up at him, frowning. “Another member?”

She has caught him, and Jeff knows it. He feels like a deer in the headlights for a second, suddenly not able to find a clear quick answer that can wittily fall off his tongue. So instead, he shrugs and mumbles, “I never said it was a large fanbase. More of a cult following.” He walks over towards her, where she’s sitting on the couch. He sits down himself before angling his legs so that he can look at her at from what he hopes is an indifferent-stance. “More cult than following now that I think about it.”

“Hah-hah.” Annie rolls her eyes and when Jeff laughs at this, the baby laughs. Raising an eyebrow, he laughs again. The baby laughs, this time giving a little off-clap of her hands before sticking one of her fingers in her nose and looking at him intensely, expectantly. Annie gives him a meaningful look, one that indicates that she has figured out the answer to something he hasn’t questioned. Not yet. And that look scares the living crap out of him.

“She likes you,” she says, slowly, like she is piecing a puzzle together. “She likes you. That’s why she started crying in the first place. She likes you and she wants you to hold her and you wouldn’t do it. And it broke her! You broke her!” She says this all rather quickly, as if its coming out of her from a pressurized inside place. Like something pent up has sprung a leak. Annie turns towards him, looks him right in the eye, and says, “She wants you to hold her, Jeff. You should hold her. She likes you.”

It happens quickly. He doesn’t have time to think, really. But what can go through his mind, not in an organized, logical fashion, is: Jeff Winger does not do babies, Jeff Winger does not hold fragile human beings, Jeff Winger doesn’t think that a human life should be held much like a football player holds a football, and Jeff Winger believes that snot belongs in your nose and not running dry down your face and almost in your mouth. Basically, Jeff Winger thought he had no real feelings about babies other than he wasn’t involved in that world, that world of diapers and onesies and cooing. But now it’s falling into his arms quickly and with a small amount of force, a pile of too soft skin and fat and that distinctly baby smell of powder and spit.

For a second, he remains so still and so silent that it feels like the world stops. Like the air has been sucked from the room and all the sounds and feelings in the universe are contained only in the thudding of his heart and the little voice in his head saying, Oh no, oh no, oh no, ohnoohnoohno.

Annie is silent too, and when he manages a glance in her direction, she looks like she is holding her breathe heavy in her lungs. She slowly looks up at him, and he sees suddenly in her eyes that there’s something more to him just holding Shirley’s baby right now. Because sure, they care about the baby. Sure they do. But right now, in this moment as the baby falls in his arms like the way someone you love falls into a hug, the way the missing piece falls into place, this is the moment where she seems to say to him, “You’ve got to know. You’ve got to know that it’s okay. It’s okay to just trust yourself. You’re can trust yourself, Jeffrey. You can trust yourself to not be alone.”

And then the baby laughs, delightedly. She bounces gleefully before swatting him in the face with a flat, oddly-damp fist.

“Ow,” he says, rubbing his chin and grinning down at her.

Annie laughs before shaking her head in admiration. “I knew I liked her for a reason.”

And he smiles, looks down at the baby, who is grinning up at him with this wide gummy smile and suddenly he finds something inside of him fall apart, like this hard small ball inside of him, one that he always thought was cold and knotted and never going away, this piece of him suddenly unravels or perhaps crumbles away like sand. It alarms him, shocks him really, and it almost takes his breath away. Because Jeff Winger always thought that he was pretty constant, that there wasn’t much that could change him. But the baby smiles that gummy smile and something breaks and before he has really any time to dwell on thinking, Right now, I’ve changed, Annie’s knee presses tight against his thigh while she leans in and says, “See? I told you she liked you.” Her eyes, saucer-wide, flutter towards him and she says, “It’s been you she’s been wanting to hold her. All along.” And when she smiles, she really smiles. Not that Annie-political smile that she puts on to make people think she’s happy – he’s seen that one before and he knows it well. No, it’s not that kind of smile coming out of her now, it’s a real one, one that flows right from the middle of her, because her lips quiver a little when she says, “She’s been waiting you to hold her for a long time.” And then she seems to catch herself, because she literally jumps, and her leg is almost on top of his. Quickly, she mumbles, “I mean, almost all night. That’s a long time in baby-time.”

He laughs, because he finds that part of him has stared at her in that way he does when he finds he is drawn in, like she’s got a rope around the middle of him and is pulling him slowly but surely towards her. So he’s got to laugh, and when he does the baby laughs and soon all of them are laughing, him, Annie, baby, them three.

Later, they are constructing the makeshift plastic crib that Shirley sent along in a canvas bag that takes up most of the kitchen counter space. It’s huge and complicated, but Annie sits in the middle of the floor and manages to construct it by following very methodically and with pain-staking accuracy the instructional manual.

And while they’re constructing the fifty-five step portable crib, something crazy happens. The baby, still in his arms, falls dead asleep. There is a trail of slobber that runs from her lower lip to his arm, but he finds that he can hardly think to move himself let alone go ahead and move her away from his arm. Also, deep inside of Jeff Winger, where the cold hard part crumbled away, there’s something else growing. Right now, it feels tight, like something being bound around him, like something might squeeze him until he cries. So, he simply watches as Annie finishes the crib and refuses his half-hearted requests to help with a dismissive wave of her hand, that she’s got this and, not with the baby sleeping like it, Jeff Winger.

When she’s finally finished, he lays the baby in the crib. She stirs for a second and the two of them hold their breathes, as if in a second the silence will be broken with a loud, piercing scream. But then, the baby shifts and falls dead asleep again, her tiny chest going in, then out, slowly, perfectly.

Annie reaches down, parts the hair on the baby’s forehead. She smiles, this long smile before she turns to him and says, “Well. I guess you’re good to go. Now,” She walks a quick couple steps over to Shirley’s bag before rummaging through it and taking out various items with a flourished, “remember this if she wakes up. And this if she seems hungry...” and so on and so forth.

“Yes. I get it,” He says after what seems like an endless tirade of the theoretical index of How to Not Kill a Baby. “Hungry, feed. Poop, change. It’s all some pretty logical stuff. It’s good practice for Pierce anyway.”

She laughs, nods her head before crossing her arms across her chest. There is this stretch of silence between the two of them as if she’s trying to figure out exactly what to say, as if she’s waiting for him to fill in the blanks of the room. And, yes, he wants to say something, but he’s not sure what. Because thanks feels kind of flat and useless right now, and everything else, well. He just can’t get it out, can’t quite figure out how to make it come out. Basically, there’s a lot to say between the two of them, he knows that. He’s known that for awhile now.

It’s her that finally snaps out of the quiet, saying, “Well, I guess you’ve got everything under control. I guess I’ll get out of the two of your all's hair.” Her voice is sheepish and strange, as if she’s saying something she thinks is the right thing to say, but she’s not sure really. As if she doesn’t know how to get across what she really wants to say so she’ll stick to default sentences, to pleasantries.

She’s got her car keys out and smiling her good-bye smile, so he knows his time is running out and he could say all the things he needs to say, but he just grabs her arm and asks, “Hey. I...” and she’s looking at him with those eyes that seem to be shocked and expectant all at the same time. He feels himself falling flat and so he grabs onto the one thing he can remember and that’s, “... why did you come over? I mean, yes, I texted you, but I mean. Jeff Winger, in a potentially hilarious position with a crying, snot-filled baby while he sits petrified and his hair is askew, which is totally against everything he believes in.” She laughs, folds her arms across herself and looks up at him with wide eyes. She’s waiting for him to finish, he can tell. “So, basically. You know. Thanks. But seriously. Why didn’t you text the rest of the gang and have them come over with cameras and guns a-blazing? I know that Pierce would have loved to see me crying in the corner like a little girl. I think it would validate most of his theories about me. And, let’s be honest, I haven’t always been prince charming to you. I’ve actually been a pretty unmitigated ass most of the time. And that’s being nice. So, seriously, why did you come over? I mean, thanks, but seriously?”

Annie laughs, or more chuckles, and then shrugs her shoulders. Her eyes rest on his for a few brief seconds, holds him there, and she says, “Let’s just say that I know what it’s like to have my back against the wall, thinking I was about to. You know, explode? Yeah, something like that. I mean, you have heard the story about me running through windows and being hauled off in a van with no windows, right?” He tries to look surprised, but it fails, and so she simply laughs before saying, “I don’t know. I mean, it would serve you right, having this up on youtube by the morning. Because you, Jeff Winger, are a pain in the ass sometimes. But, you know. There’s a part of you that I get. Maybe the pain in the ass part? Because, let’s be honest, Annie Edison isn’t the easiest girl to deal with. She’s anal and naïve. And she’s also obsessed with, you know, not failing,. And when her back’s against the wall and failure is staring her right in the eyes, and she’s about to rip out all her hair or slip into a mental breakdown where she can’t stop sobbing uncontrollably, there’s a certain unmitigated ass who always seems to pull her out of it. And so, you know, maybe I came over tonight because I felt sorry for you.” She grins at him like a Cheshire cat, but then the smile fades and her eyes become serious and dark and something else, he can’t tell because he can hardly breathe, “And maybe I came tonight because I know you, Jeff. And that sounds silly, okay, but. But, you know I love you. I mean, everyone does. You’re Jeff Winger. You’re the wonder boy of Greendale. But, sometimes I feel like maybe they don’t see what I see because I’ve got it too.” She touches his chest, right where the cold thing crumbled and where the knot burns as hot as her hand. “It’s right here. It’s the spot that cares too much. And not in the same way Britta does, because Britta is better than us. She cares because deep down she really cares. It’s a perfectly selfless sort of thing. I get that. But you know, we care. It’s different though. We care because failure means letting other people down, and we’ve never really had other people. Not really. Both of us have... been alone. You know? Not solitary, but alone kind of people. And now that we’ve got those people around us, we don’t want to blow the one thing we’ve got. It’s a selflessness I guess. I mean, you’re not as selfish as you think, Jeff. I’ve seen the parts of you that you think everybody doesn’t see. And so, that’s why I came tonight. Because I know you. Better than you think. Because you’re sort of like me. Because you’re a little bit of Annie Edison, and I’m a little of Jeff Winger.”

The room: still. He is holding his breathe and his lungs are itchy and heavy in his chest. Her hand is still there, right over the spot inside of him that is growing and burning. And suddenly he realizes that maybe it was always there, it was just covered with this crusty exterior. This bravado he’d built up because he was the great Jeff Winger. Nothing could get him down. But then a slobbery baby and a wide-eyed cardigan-wearing twenty-something entered his apartment. And things changed, because he realizes that she has been doing this thing inside him for a long time now. He’d just thought it was those sort of feelings that normal people feel. Crushes. Obsessions. He was higher than that. But now he knows it's different. Now he knows that there’s no running because what’s inside of him isn’t going away. It isn’t a crush or obsession or anything like that. It’s a piece of him that’s been taken by a person, a doe-eyed girl who half the time is worried about losing her mind, and he’s not getting it back. It’s inside her already and he can do nothing to stop it. Nothing.

He has remained silent though for a long time and so he suspects that when she lowers her hand from his chest and murmurs, “But anyway, like I said. Best be going,” she thinks he is dismissing her. As if crazy Annie has said something again to ruin everything. She gathers herself up, like she always does, shoulders first and then her straightened neck. There’s a pain in her though, now, he can see etched in her face. She’s trying to be brave. Always trying to be brave. And he’s saying nothing. He’s said nothing. She’s almost gone, almost beyond his grasp from where he’s cemented in place on his apartment floor.

At the last second, right before she literally slips through his fingers, he grips her arm, pulling her back and he hadn’t intended it like this, not at all. But it sort of happens, like two magnets falling into place, and suddenly there’s nothing to do. It’s going to happen, because he’s already got his mouth on hers and he can smell her hair, something like cinnamon and honey.

In theory, this is nothing new, the two of them in a tryst. Nothing new the moment her mouth opens and he tastes her full on his tongue. Nothing new the moment she moans just a little bit and leans her neck into him and her hand roams up his back, her nails leaving a small trail of goosebumps along his skin. Nothing new when he pulls her level with his body and she full and against him.

There is something new though, and it isn’t in the physical. Now, it's visceral. It’s down inside of him and he can’t stop it. The tiny part of him that he wasn’t sure was there is burning bright and deep, right where her body meets his. And all he can do is mumble into her mouth, “Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go...” And for some reason, he knows he means more than don't go in this second, or in this hour, or don't go from this apartment. He means don't go from here, this spot inside of me, don't leave me, not ever. He knows he means it and he knows she knows what he's saying, really.

And she doesn’t go, she remains right where she is. The room is quiet except for the sound of her sweater hitting the ground and the whisper of her skin on his.

He can’t think, not really, but suddenly he realizes that holding her is easy, holding her face is simple. There’s nothing to think about really, now. It was the easiest thing to figure out and for once he’s not terrified, for once the thought of a human being, fragile and flush against him, being held there in his arms, it doesn’t frighten him one bit.

Instead, he asks quietly, “So you’re going to stay?”

Her breathe is hot against his ear when she groans, “I thought you’d never ask.”

He smiles against the warmness of her neck, the warmness of her.

fine

Magnets - A Jeff/Annie Mix

chipping — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 04:48:59 GMT

:

her hands sticky, her lips parted, she said that he needed to stop saying no, and for once he believed her. but that's nothing new, the believing her, and suddenly he realizes this is why he lets her stay there. because he has tried to be good not because of the reasons he has tried to convince himself of: to manipulate, to trick, to deceive. all these reasons, the rationales, they were part of a piece of jeff winger that once flared in the pit of him like a forest fire, consuming everything. the part of him that wouldn't question her open mouth and her wide eyes because he felt it was his for the taking. that part of him, the old part, has been chiseled away slowly and suddenly he found himself raw and strange inside, like the new skin covering a blister. suddenly, he was filled with this strange thing that he couldn't figure out, not for the life of him, because it was against the old ways. suddenly he became aware of this new feeling, this sudden want for goodness. the want to change. he couldn't understand it so he fought it - for a while - like a body might fight a virus.

but then along she came. and that changed everything. starry eyes. a sense of sweetness that radiated off her like sun-warmed brick. her sharp mouth, sweaters buttoned to the neck. in her, he saw the drive to push and push and push and he saw it and knew it and understood and dreaded her tears that came when the crippling fear of failure flooded through her. he knew that feeling.

but then, her hand in his, he realized that somehow, together, things worked. that fear, the fear that the next step might be wrong, that someone will find the weakness inside of you and keep it for the taking, that fear faded. she understood, too. he remembers the moment he realized this, when she was still really only a girl and thinking, oh no.

but she is here now, her arms curled up against him. he can feel her fingers near his clavicle and she is looking at him with that look that says, things have changed and i know i know i know. and she does know, she has seen him at his worst, his most manipulative, his most selfish, and met him beat for beat, punch for punch.

she tells him, has told him, inside, things are equal. i know you worry about the years that separate us, but there's something here, and what can you do? when it happens, it happens, and sometimes the world surprises us and i hate surprises too, jeff winger, just like you, but what can you do? but are you really surprised? about us?

and no, of course he's not. he remembers the first day when he saw her walk through a door, just a door, somewhere, and he thought, well, alright. and for some reason something turned in him, flipped him upside down, and it was complicated and strange and he thought, she's only a girl. but in many ways, he's still just a boy. and in many ways, she's very much a woman, and none of those arguments work anymore. he isn't surprised about any of it, about the both of them. about the two of them here, together, in this moment; he has memorized the freckles on her nose and knows that her laugh tilts at the end like she's not sure if it's okay to be happy, as if she's not sure if people will think crazy annie has come out again. here with him, with her eyes round and large on him, he knows that she feels this now. she is expecting an answer. she is expecting a no again. she has come to expect disappointment in her life, but still, her fingers curl against the ends of his shirt like she is holding onto him for dear life. her eyes flutter down, too afraid to look.

a part of him still thinks no, because it would be the right thing to do. jeff winger knows himself and he knows that he is rotten in many places. but then, after all, there is this small part in him that is exposed and raw like newly picked fruit and this part tells him that goodness isn't saying no to things just because everyone else might say no. goodness isn't saying no because judgment will fall on you if you don't, but goodness is following that part of yourself that aches deep in your chest with the desire to make things right. to bring them to you because some things are supposed to come together. and sometimes this is easy to do and sometimes it is not. right now, it is a bit of both because the inside of him hurts like a wound from something bad being cut away.

she is still looking at his chest, not daring to look him in the eyes. and he knows, he knows, he knows. he knows now. some things are meant to come together, he thinks over and over. there are forces at play here and who is he to say yes or no?

he says, it doesn't work like that.

and she thinks it means something different, think it means, you're a bright kid, but, or, relationships are complicated. she loosens her grip and starts to inch away like he is slowly burning her second by second. and so quickly, he takes the small of her back in the palm of his hand and bring her closer. her eyes, those eyes, are wide and surprised on his and she opens her mouth in question, but he just says, i mean, who are we to say, annie? who am i to say what is and isn't? i'm in the business of rationale and making my own truths, but what if i'm wrong and we go forever without knowing that this really is the truth? that there really is real truth, a concrete one? so, let's just let it be. is that okay, annie? if for once we just let this be what it is? would that be alright with you?

and annie edison, cardigan-ed annie edison, with her small hands and fiery heart, little annie edison who, he realizes, has taken a piece of him that he doesn't think he's getting back, not ever, she simply shakes her head slowly and smiles a small shy smile. she puts her hands on his chest and he knows his heart is fluttering hard and quick against her fingers.

when his mouth finds hers, it is easy. like it was always supposed to be, things meeting the things like they should, the truth, the truth that always should be.

shameful | stephen gordon +
i’m about the same as you are / looking for a place to start / but we’re bent on different angles / ain’t that too bad? / […] i wish you would remember / how you taught me to surrender / how soon you have found a way around / you’ve gone and done that / […] don’t move / just to prove / you’re standing on two feet that you never knew / foggy pride that swear that you can see through / is it shameful for someone to love you?

speakeasy | i hate you just kidding -
i've been waiting for you to call my name / in a voice so quiet, a voice so low / say it slowly... no one has to know / baby's crying to you on the phone / i've been dying to get you alone / take it easy, take it slow / my desire lies between the known and the unknown

burn you up | thao and the get down stay down +
but don't you think we came close? / don't you want to come home with me? / but i remember the most / don't you want a new memory? / i will wait the winter long / i think i could burn you up / quick to taste, 'cause you never know / i think i could burn you up

tigress | songs:ohia -
it's difficult not to worry about what happens next / certain looks sort out confused looks / and certain looks sport confused looks / and i watched us talking in the mirror / and you put on that look / that says this little star wishes she weren't single / it is the eye that catches me a man protesting his worth / it is the year that catches you putting the shake on your words / you are alert as a tigress at a common table with her fate / you can almost taste it / we'll be gone be morning or be together by then

your love | bon iver +
you know i would do anything for you / stay the night, we'll keep it under cover / i just wanna use your love tonight / i don't wanna lose your love tonight / try to stop my hands from shakin' / somethin' in my mind's not makin' sense / it's been awhile since we've been all alone / i can't hide the way i'm feelin'

shepherd of the stray hearts | lovers -
silence, convince the lovers in their sheets to move in mists / of effortlessness together as they sleep / i'd shy when i'd see you around / we were here at the same time in the same town / i asked for answers from the ocean waves / "if it's meant to be then it will be," they said / i wanted you / […] magnets find each other and i will be your lover and i will be your lover

get too close | brooke waggoner +
[instrumental]

magnetized | laura veirs -
slain, by your zirconium smile / i was slain by your olivine eyes / slain, i was lying in piles, hoping shovels would cast me in / furnaces burn everlasting, black tattoos of you on to me / furnaces burn everlasting, black tattoos / burn, brand my memory, black tattoo of you / wash me with your mouth, brackish bright water from your eyes 

religious winds | samantha crain +
baby, i think we're 'bout to defy / the written rules of poetry / laws of science and society / 'cause all this found its way without a guide / […] we were positive and negative / in a foreign land we were natives / in that holy god fearing night / come on religious wind / i've found you again

full zip and individual links to songs

icons | community, harry potter

chipping — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 06:59:46 GMT

icons: 13 community, 5 harry potter
art: 2 community

: :

community

icons:

art:

harry potter

Albatross | Harry Potter | Harry/Hermione

chipping — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 22:23:33 GMT

Albatross, pt. 2
Harry Potter, harry/hermione
Post-DH, Pre-Epilogue. Except sort of the Epilogue... if you believe in magical time-bending and everything. And alternate realities. Basically my version of trying to incorporate the Epilogue without it being the Epilogue.

part 1

"they will live with ghosts," he says, quietly, almost a whisper.

hermione frowns. "don’t they already?"

Albatross
pt.2

Let each man hope and believe what he can.
~Charles Darwin

he doesn't ask questions. they both have to share the tight, cramped quarters of the cabin, and when she is sitting by the flickering light of the fireplace at night, her eyes moving rapidly over the pages of her stacked books, he doesn't ask questions. hermione granger has never had a problem talking. she'll talk when she's ready, he thinks, he knows.

they don't see roger often, just once after the first night he came to the island. he left them a parcel of food wrapped tightly in foreign newsprint and a whole case of the wine that stains hermione's lips every night. she keeps very quiet as roger moves around the room, her lips pursed in a very straight line. nobody talks.

"again, be careful of the seals," roger notes, smiling. he is wearing a slick perfectly-pressed suit. the top of his bald head glimmers in a halo of sweat. he dabs it with a gray silk handkerchief and before folding it into his breast pocket.

the only exchange he can see between hermione and roger is when roger is about to leave. the both of them look at each other. he thinks he sees roger's eyebrow lift. hermione simply nods her head. it means something, but he does not know what.

she will talk when she wants to, he tells himself. he watches as she makes tea with a saucepan over the fire. the morning light is orange. when she turns to look at him, ask him if he would, "need some tea or are you too hot as it is?" the sun hits her face and illuminates the tip of her face. for a second, she is on fire, she seems alive from the tip of her fingers to the end of her scalp. it then that he realizes that he has never had to worry. not about hermione granger. she, this woman with the hair that flies from her head as wild as feathers on a bird, she is his constant, his ever-trust.

she will talk when she wants to, when she knows that she must. he knows this, so he asks no questions.

he manages to tear her from her books for a few minutes so that they can take walks. she isn't happy about it at first, and she is always distracted, her mind out in places elsewhere. the wine bottle is clenched in her thin white fist. they take turns drinking from it, and occasionally they will have a real conversation, one that feels like they might be transported back into school robes with textbooks held tightly in their cool hands.

they do talk about ron. and ginny. the two red-headed siblings who they find have defined their lives so quickly, it shocks the both of them. it is a somewhat veiled conversation, not because they want to avoid the subject, but simply because they don't know how to come to the subject. like it is a point on a hill they can see but are still climbing towards.

they are sitting on the beach. it is the very beginning of morning. she is already drinking, but so is he. they haven't slept much, taken turns on the one bed that they must share. her eyes are dark and the skin around it is swollen and bruise-colored.

she is wearing a sweater and swimsuit bottoms. her legs are white and straight out in front of her. she takes a swig of the wine, hands it to him and asks, "have you talked to her?"

the wine is thick in his brain and he says, "should i have?" he shakes his head, rubs his face and says, "i didn't mean that. i meant..." but he's not sure what he meant. he doesn't know what he means anymore.

hermione laughs, a deep rich laugh. she holds her liquor well, and it dawns on him that she isn't as drunk as he thinks she is. she leans back on her hands and gazes right at him, right in the eyes. "i haven't even said anything to him. not an owl, not a phone call. not that there's many forms of communication here in this... place." she waves her hand around and they both laugh.

"why this place?" he asks, taking another swig of wine. "why is this the place that roger took us?"

hermione looks at him for awhile, blinks twice. "this is the place of beginnings. these islands... started a lot of things. it's where things start... they evolve. they change. they begin again."

there is a second when the world is quiet. the tide is coming in, he can see it coming in against hermione's thighs. but then, hermione grins smugly and adds, "also, i think roger has a thing for seals."

they both laugh and are then quiet. the sky is turning orange in the rising sun. he finds he can't quit staring at the sun glow, can't keep thinking of the same color of red hair left on his pillowcase after all those restless nightmare nights. can't help thinking of the days when things were simpler, were more episodic than they are now, where everything feels like the line on the horizon. where every battle has no surrender or defeat. it's a reload situation that he lives in now. that they live in now.

"in ways, i envy them," she says. when she lifts the bottle to her lips, her arm brushes against his.
he looks at her, at her mussed hair. he understands what she has said, understands it down to his bones.

"i want to know how it's possible," she continues, her voice low and quiet. she isn't angry, there is no trace of maliciousness in her voice. "how they don't carry this war deep inside them, like a child that you both fear and are in awe of. how they come home and hold us and don't feel the... change that. well, it changed us, this war changed us. oh, harry, how can we be happy knowing what we know?"

it comes to him how right she is, but he can say nothing to it. the morning is a deep red on the horizon, and he thinks of the blood that coats the both of them. how far back the blood goes, how the ground they step on seems to be a giant graveyard. they are always careful of their ghosts, they have learned to live with them. sometimes he feels like he's become one of them.

"sometimes i feel like if i touch him, he's just become a wisp of smoke in my hands. or maybe i will. maybe i will just be a pile of threads, come loose in his hands." her eyes turn very slowly towards him, as if she is afraid of what she might see. and then she has seen much in life to know that the things in front of you might be the final and last horror, and he understands.

the light is coming and it lays on her face. it seems like it rises from inside her, and her hair is askew and the freckles on her face are light as toffee. he reaches for her face, traces his thumb over the freckles, over the scar above her eyelid where she had been struck in the great war.

"you're real to me, hermione. you're not going anywhere. you're not coming undone, i won't let you." and he means it, but he also knows it has nothing to do with him. has it ever? has he had anything to do in the survival of hermione granger? they all say the boy who lived, and he is sure, or at least some part of him is still sure he's alive, but no one says anything about the girl who saved the boy who lived, who lived herself. but now the tide is coming it, it's covering them.

his hand lingers. for a second, his thumb brushes over the pale skin of her lips. she licks her mouth and her tongue is warm against his finger. the water is cool against the milk white of their thighs.

hermione rises, and his hand drops back to his side. she looks out into the horizon, clenching the wine bottle before she says, "you're fable to the whole world, harry potter, but know that you are more flesh and blood to me than anyone i've ever known. maybe that's why.... why, everything. it explains a lot, the solidarity of the both of us, the solidarity from me to you."

when she walks away, the water is to his waist. his hand is still warm from her breathe. he lays down, lets the water slide to his chin. he closes his eyes, thinks of the past, knows that the past is so intrinsically part of him that it feels sewn to his skin. part of him is the past, part of him knowing that the future is part of the past.

soldiers of their past, of their future, the both of them. everyone else, trying to get rid of their violent past. and god bless them for it, those red-headed siblings, for doing it. but how can they, like hermione said, how can we be happy knowing what we know?

the water rises, up to his face, over his face. he stays. his eyes are still closed, but behind his eyelids, he sees a great white bird rising into the blood red of the sky. it is followed by another. together, they take the horizon in perfect flight. a single silhouette, shadows to the world. when he rises, opens his eyes, there is nothing there. hermione is gone.

he walks back, thinking of the warmth of her skin, how good and solid it felt all the way to his bones.

--

he asks her questions, but she knows that she cannot answer them. not yet. she still cannot figure out the logistics. it drives her crazy, because what people do not understand about magic, what is never written about it in the books, is that is very basic. it is more science than fiction, more mathematical than the ineffable. so now she must do more than look up incantations. that is the basic elementary levels, when words and letters held their own kind of fantasy. this is a matter of logarithms, of bits of string theory.

roger gets her a large muggle white board. she finds it easier than having charmed letters and figures float around the room, around harry as he makes breakfast in the morning, as he tries to read up on the ancient books that litter her cabin.

the cabin itself has taken on its own smell, of tea and sweat and the sea and the smell of harry potter. she has known it all her life, has found her senses tingle at the presence of it. but now she intensely aware of it. it pervades everything: her clothes, her hair, her skin. but he is always with her now. back in the past, in the days of the war, when they were always together, they were not always together, not like now, when the nights get chilly and breezy and salty and she finds him laid sprawled at the edge of the bed over the tips of her feet. or the nights when she finds that she must sleep by him by the fire. it's his warmth that has spread to the deep insides of her.

she thinks of ron, always. it's like an itch she cannot scratch. she imagines him at night pacing the hallways of their house. of course, she had planned ahead. she had left a very good confusion charm that would leave him wondering, how long has she been gone? or what am i looking for? for weeks. until she figures it out. which she must, she must. for ron's sake. it is a love that caught her by surprise, one that she realizes that should have never have happened to her. or perhaps should have happened to her in another life, one that isn't full of the war and the boy who lived. it should have happened to muggle hermione, one who's parents were never tricked and who never walked into the train compartment of a boy who held tragedy inside of him like a ticking bomb.

roger asks her about her progress. he is always glistening in the heat of the day, and his face grows more solemn everyday as he looks at her white board.

harry asks him, "do you have a newspaper, mate? have you heard, well. how everyone is?" by everyone, he means the world, because she knows that he holds the burden of all those living inside of him. it is a responsibility that she feels like a phantom limb.

roger smiles, halfly. he is trying very hard, for both of their sakes. "no, i'm sorry, mr. potter. papers do not as readily reach this part of the world." and, as if in response to a forthcoming question, roger adds, "and you will find magic stranger here too. a little more primal. it does not work... the same. which is to our advantage in many ways." she understands what roger is saying, what he is implying. harry does too, she sees it in his scrunched brow: those on the other team will not see them. they will be hidden, at least for a little while, here in this island that is stranded in the pacific. those who do not want the boy who lived to live anymore will not find them-- this relieves her in a way that surprises her at first and then realizes that she just hasn't had her guard up like this in awhile. her constant vigilance has been numb since the death of the no-named, but it has still been part of her. for her, the war was a war of survival of a few, of the good, and to know that they are still safe makes her feel happy if only for a second.

the days stretch into a week. a whole week and the board is full. their skin, once cream white, has now turned a delicate shade of gold. during the day, they lay stretched out on the cabin’s porch, trying to catch cross breezes. she has gotten used to the smoky smell of his sweat. she has always known the swirls of his fingerprints, but now she finds them everywhere—on the pages of her books, pushed into the ink of her whiteboard, in the crusts of their fireplace-baked bread, on her own skin.

but this is what the week has done: she has noticed the tiniest things about harry potter. she has realized he has a cowlick that pushes his hair to the left. that he has more scars than she can count. that when he laughs his voice hitches at the end as if expecting something bad to follow. that she can out drink him any day of the week.

but it is the end of the week, this long hot week, that she knows two more things. she figures these things out when they are sitting on the beach, which is full of tide and seaweed. somewhere off in the distance, there is the call of some bird, a purr-click that echoes off the water in a sad sort of way.

they are not drinking, because she has given up the notion that this will help. the thoughts of ron do not go away with every sip. and at the end of the week, she isn't done with the equation.

he reads her thoughts, "the wine doesn't help. it doesn’t do anything but make me slowly lose my mind. but maybe that's how it is. which i wish it wasn’t. i wish that things were… as easy as they always said that they would be. that they promised to us. the world they promised to us was a lie."

she looks out in the distance, not at him. "some people can have it though." the night moon rises, full and grey. "they have it." they both know who she is talking about.

"good," harry responds. he is wearing only a pair of navy shorts. the salty air makes his hair stand on end like he has been electrocuted. "good for them. I only wish that we could do it too. well, you know, hermione." he looks at her with a nonchalant expression, like of course. of course she knows.

and then she figures it out, once and for all. what she had always known. of course. but now she is truly that she has done it. to the both of them.

at the end of the week, she finds she has doomed them. that the tragic half of both of them has won, the fighting side, the aware side has opened its eyes and there’s no going back now.

he is still looking at her, over his glasses. his eyes, a half itself, the mother who died to save the world. half here, half here, always dying, forever separating. a constant division.

she refuses to cry. she bites her lip. she does not look at him.

on the moonlit horizon, there is a sudden break in light. two birds, long-winged, flutter right over their heads. they call to each other, a language all their own. it is the purr-click of the distance, the sad conversation that invades the night air. they come closer, swoop down the sea. soon, they are close enough to almost reach out and touch. a webbed foot reaches out and breaks the salty lip of water. it a sort of dance the two birds share.

"i’ve seen those birds before," harry notes. he is sitting up, and he is closing his eyes, brows knit. "i’ve seen them on television. it was the last thing i saw before i left her. before i left ginny."

she nods, not knowing what to say. the part of her, textbook hermione, comes out suddenly and she says, “they’re the species Phoebastria albatrus.” she feels his dark stare and she laughs, says, “or more commonly known as the albatross.”

“ah, more commonly known. yes, of course,” he notes slyly with a smirk. they both grin. his brown chest is smooth in the night.

then, suddenly, he reaches out and tucks a stray hair away from her eyes. it is a simple touch, one to remove obstruction, but she suddenly finds her throat dry, finds herself mumbling quickly and with eyes adverted towards the birds, “the albatross has one of the longest wingspans of any birds. almost six feet at some lengths. and they mate for life. they are one of the few monogamous birds on the planet. they mate once and only once. it is a biological closeness so deep that if one dies, the other often follows shortly after. they are almost like two parts of whole. they…”

and here she comes to her last realization. here, it comes to her, in a perfect equation. the solution, the numbers, the hours and hours.

and she knows what it means, what it implies. it means that two logarithms are bonded in their center. a bit of game theory, a bit of biology, a bit of pure magic, the ineffable. she stands, ignoring harry's calls towards her. she stares blankly ahead, the numbers swirling in her head.

she realizes the price she will pay for genius. the price they will both pay; she cannot look him in the eyes.

“we've got to die in a way,” she whispers, “we've got to give the world our ghosts.”
even after surviving all those wars, all that blood, she realizes that it leads them here again, back to death once again.

overhead, the albatrosses swoop and then led out a long sad wail. she feels herself doing the same.

--

the next morning, in the cabin, he waits for her. he supposes it's right, after all this time she has waited on him, that it's now his turn.

the numbers on the whiteboard don't make any sense to him, not in a logical way. but the longer he stares at it, the more he sees a sort of bird: numbers long and complicated on two sides until they pinched in the middle by a simple equal sign.

roger comes in the morning. he is whistling, cheerful. he is adjusting the tie to his suit when he sees the whiteboard.

the world stops. literally. harry can feel the sweat on his face undrip, can hear the animals outside suddenly hush. the air is silent, empty of the sea and world. roger stares intensely at the numbers and when he finally glances at hermione, he says, "you've done it, miss granger.”

she merely whispers, "i know. isn't it horrid?"

he shouldn't know what is happening, but he knows in a way. a way in his chest, the way he always knows things. hermione, she knows things in her head, a deep click in the brain, but he knows it somewhere in the middle of him. not the heart, but more visceral. like the very center of him knew, knows now.

roger turns to him, says, "mr. potter, i suppose you understand in a sort of way. but, well, miss granger you would do better explaining it to him."

the look on hermione's face seems to express that she wants nothing less than to explain. he knows the look: the pursed lips, the scrunched brows. hermione granger loves to talk, but not in these moments. she was always terrible at bad news.

but hermione granger is no coward and she simply breathes in a lungful of air. she says, slowly, as if each word costs her (in a way, it will cost them both, he knows that somehow), "harry. please. you don't have to do this. i wish i had never figured it out. but there's no use, since i've done it now, gone and ruined everything. but here it is."

she looks at the whiteboard, shakes her head and waves her hand over it. "the numbers are practically useless, really. the point is that i figured it is possible. possible for us to do what's already done to us. we can… essentially fight the two wars at the same time. because, oh harry, the war never ends. we will have to keep fighting it. but they don’t have to, those two, and they deserve as little heartbreak as possible. they don’t know that the other side will never give up. and neither can we."

he glares at the whiteboard, sees where the numbers narrow and become almost one. like a reflection. like two parts that say the same thing in a different way. it comes to him then, "we can do both? we can…"

and then it comes to him, like a harsh slap in the face. he sits stunned for a brief second before glancing slowly at hermione, completely perplexed, "but how?"

"we'd have to essentially, become a sort of… patronus?" hermione throws her hands in the air. "there's no real word for it, i suppose. i didn't know this form. it's never been used before."

roger sighs, interjects, "it's been done, miss granger. there’s troops of us. and now it's my turn to intercede. because, you, mr. potter and miss granger, would become one of us. it's a new life. a more liquid life. you'd learn new things about time, forget about it. you won’t be the same. you will… ache more. in ways, you already know me. in ways, you don't, because time is funny like that. the part of you that goes back home, back to your loved ones, will live in the normal time. the other part, it will... it will live in the inbetween. in time, but apart from it at the same time."

it's too much, really. harry sits with his feet folded in front of him. he feels like a boy again, sitting silently in a hogwarts office while the sinewy form of albus dumbledore explained all to him.

he processes the information: he can be broken into two, a different form but as seemingly solid as roger. he will fight with the ones of his kind. he will fight with hermione.

at home, the red-headed siblings will have children with the boy who lived and the cleverest girl from hogwarts.

"they will live with ghosts," he says, quietly, almost a whisper.

hermione frowns. "don’t they already?"

he blinks. from the corner of his eye he sees the equation. then, finally, he says, "yes. let’s do it. only if there is no other choice."

hermione says nothing, just looks at her feet. it is roger who says, with the lowest of voices, "no. there is no other choice."

--

what he doesn't know is that he cannot do the equation. they can’t really do it. it is a cause and effect sort of thing. she thinks of explaining game theory to harry, but she decides that it will do no good. not because he will not understand it, but because explaining and understanding does no good. it cannot be done. it just happens.

she just doesn't know how to start it, so that it can happen. harry thinks that she is kicking at random objects because she is frustrated or sad. mad even. really she is trying to set off a section of events that spirals into the ripple of… well, she doesn't completely know exactly. it is a matter of time, and like roger said, time is funny like that.

they travel to a section of the beach they do not know. the water is full of driftwood and there are small pools crawling with tiny blue crabs. harry marches to each little pond and kneels on his hunches to view the small little ecosystem. he smiles up at her sometimes, in a sad sort of way, and says, "it’s a whole world, here in a puddle. a whole world."

she wonders if this how her life will look after she can finish the equation. because once it starts, when time kicks the events into action, then she will actually have to do a tremendous amount of magic in a milliseconds time. she wonders if she will die from it. it is a small thought, her own death, perhaps because she has pondered it so often before. but then she realizes the fragility of the thought, the bird-shaped formation of it. if one dies, the other is often soon to follow. she cannot forget, she tells herself.

the day is bright, but cooler than it has been. harry is wearing a white t-shirt. his hair is lopsided, sloppy. almost boy-like, like the boy she once met when her hair was too bushy for her head.

they keep walking down the beach, occasionally climbing over a crop of black rocks. the sun is long slung on the horizon. the day is still young, salty with dew.

harry walks alongside her. she is used to the heat of his body, almost like it has become a limb of her own. so when he grabs her hand, points to the bird in the sky, she doesn't think twice. he says, "look, hermione! a Phoebastria albatrus!" he says this with a crooked grin, but when she looks at his face, she sees a pure joy that she feels a hard lump rise in her throat.

and then she knows, knows as soon as she sees the yellow-gray sun slant over his face. she has known it for a long time, perhaps since she walked into his train cabin and thought oh, there you are. she thought this and didn’t know why exactly. but it came to her, over the years, like pieces of puzzle fitting slowly into place. and now, she has placed the last piece down and she knows. she knows she knows she knows.

she, hermione jane granger, has a little sliver of her in harry potter that might never be hers again. it was caught in him from the beginning, and she wants him to keep it forever, wants his skin to wrap around it.

and now he is looking at her, and she knows he can read her thoughts as if they were written on parchment. he was never good at that, reading her mind, but she is sure her face says it like the moon rising over the ocean; clear, bright, perfect.

overhead, the birds soar. she can almost see through their perfectly-white wings. but mostly she can only concentrate on harry’s voice as he says, "i don’t know what's going to happen when we're ghosts, hermione, but there was a life before that and we were real. don't. well, don't forget that. and in that life, harry potter was just an unlucky boy in a lot of ways, but he was lucky in many special ways. and the most special was a girl named hermione granger who came into my life quite by accident in many ways. but accident or not, she was the missing whole in my life at all times. you… you never left me, hermione. and even in this next life, you're not leaving. you never left."

he is shaking her a little, like he is trying to get flour to sift. he wants her to look at him, but she can't, because her eyes are full of hot wet prickly things and she feels suddenly very exposed. the dentist's daughter wasn't supposed to lose it. she is a being of practical manners, not the silly things of young girls.

he keeps talking, in that sad low voice. "and ron and ginny, there can be love for them too. we will love them, but we left them and they left us. but, we're just…" and he looks up at the birds slicing soundlessly through the air above them. "we're just each other’s albatross. we can’t… make it without each other. we can't, hermione. it's impossible."

the tears come without permission. she cannot stop them. but when they come, that is when she can finally look at him. in many ways, he is still the boy who lived, with his lightening scar and jumbled black hair. but now there are creases around his eyes. his chin is peppered with the beginnings of a beard. he has become the man who lived and now must die. his hand is taking her tears into a loosely clenched fist and she cannot stop herself.

when he presses his lips to her, they are firm, salty to the taste. his body is more bone than sinew, but so is hers, she suspects. it is a kiss that she suspected would never come, only because it was harry and before there was only red hair and a boy who made her laugh, sometimes forget that her life wasn’t meant for larger things. but her life isn't like that, and she can’t leave it. she knows that now.

she wishes she could feel sorry for ron, that she could feel a stab of betrayal. but she knows that it's useless, like a flower feeling sad for blooming, for a lightening bolt regretting cracking awake a fire. things are supposed to happen. she will give him what he needs, her final gift. she'll give both of them, the two siblings of red hair.

his lips are still on hers when she feels the shift. at first, she thinks her feet are just wobbly from the heat, from the beach lapping against her ankles, from his breathe that tastes of tea and salt. but soon she realizes why the world is tilting; she had cast the beginning spell, the warning incantation the second the words, yes, let’s do it, were uttered from his mouth. and here is her warning, she knows it now.

the spell is complicated. it involves a sort of ripping, a sort of duplication. complex in both its death and its birth. she feels the inside of her splice like when a dead hangnail finally falls from the skin. it is painful, in a bruised sort of way. the world around her is underwater, or at least it feels like that. his lips are still on his, but she knows he feels it too, the internal split. but now all they have is the embrace, and they must hold fast, for they know if one goes, so does the other.

in a flash of nothing, like the earth was sucked of oxygen and then forgot what just happened, they disappear. they disappear in a way.

the birds overhead swoop once and then into the horizon towards the sun. the sun, which is rising over a small island in the atlantic, foggy in dawn, where a red-headed woman hears her door unlock and turn. there are footsteps on the kitchen floor.

"hello?" she asks, her voice almost caught in her throat.

later, she will call her brother and he will say, "yes, hermione’s back too. why are you so worried? she only went our for groceries."

a man with black hair holds her around the waist and she says into the receiver, "oh. perhaps you’re right. perhaps you're right, ron." she will forget, kiss him on the mouth.

all will be well.

--

but the war never ends. there are battles always.

they won't write stories about this, she knows. the stories that she and him share after the island are too much for the people who write their stories to understand. people need happy endings. people need endings. she is not sure she can provide either.

when the first child is born, she feels it so heavily, she cannot move for days. she feels like she has received a phantom-limb. she will carry it with her for the rest of her life.

sometimes she will read the papers, the ones that follow those children of the war stories. there are many of them. there are pictures of her, heavier and happy, on many television sets. her children, red-haired, are hard to look at. it aches.

roger tells them once, "time will find you eventually. the other piece of you flows through you. they feel you, too."

but there is a war to fight.

his hands hold her in place, like an anchor. she feels like she bleeds his blood.

"some things have to be done,"she tells him. he smiles at her, moves a piece of hair from her face.

"some things just have to be," he says. he is right, she knows, and she takes his smallest finger in her hand as they walk next to each other. their hands spread apart, casting wing-like shadows, walking into time where parts of them grow old while parts of them don't know what old is.

end

Albatross | Harry Potter | Harry/Hermione

chipping — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 22:13:18 GMT

Albatross, pt. 1
Harry Potter, harry/hermione
Post-DH, Pre-Epilogue. Except sort of the Epilogue... if you believe in magical time-bending and everything. And alternate realities. Basically my version of trying to incorporate the Epilogue without it being the Epilogue.

part 2

the next day when ron leaves to get some groceries, she sits down and writes: dear harry, it is my greatest regret to inform you that our lives will change unforgivably. but again, this is no choice of ours. has it ever been? will it ever be?

Albatross
pt.1

The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us [...] As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities."
~Charles Darwin

after, she notices that things are mostly just the same.

molly keeps making them sweaters every christmas.

when ron is angry, his cheeks flush like he has drunk too much. he is always the one who walks away from the fight, with an expression that says he has once again been defeated. like he always has something to prove. but when he kisses her, he still smells clean as soap and he smiles crookedly when he pulls away and says, "sometimes, i'm not sure you know how lucky i am." so, of course, a part of her feels like he has a knot inside of her and he pulls her back. like a dog on a chain.

she still reads voraciously.

at night, the dreams still come. when she wakes, her body stings like someone has shook her mercilessly. like someone has carved something on her. she sits up in bed, rubs her arms. ron wakes, tries to offer her hot tea and cold biscuits that molly sends to them in brightly colored tins. he kisses the small of her neck, and she says that she feels better. but the dreams keep coming. those sort of things don't go away. you can't feel better. she wants to tell ron that, make him understand. she dunks her biscuits in the tea and watches as he turns his back to her in bed. his skin is pale where his hair meets his neck.

"ron?" she whispers. then louder: "ron?"

but he can't hear her. he has disappeared.

her biscuit gets soggy and she throws it in the wastebasket. she goes into the kitchen, pours the tea out. over the kitchen sink, there is a window and it is full of moon.

somewhere out there, there is a moon over the sky full of people. she closes her eyes, and sees a tangle of black hair, his back turned to the same kind of red hair that litters her own bed.

after, he hasn't changed, as far as she can tell. she always thought things would change for him. for
the both of them. but the truth is that things are much the same and she knows that. there are things that attach to you like a lining buried in your skin.

the truth is that after all those battles and all those years of blood and skin and fear have stitched themselves to her insides and no matter how many cups of tea and no matter how many cold biscuits, she can't scrub it away. it has become a part of her. she wonders if maybe she has dissolved into it, like a grain of salt in the sea.

after, how can things change when everything is stitched into the sinew? she asks the moon-filtered night this, but really she asks the person who lays underneath it with his eyes unglassed and the same sort of dreams about to settle in his head like roots in the ground.

--

after, he realizes it's never really over. you can kill one, you can kill the one, but there's always another. and then another. the job is never really done.

the fact is, no matter what he does, will ever do, people still want to believe in evil.

but everyone wants to believe there is a respite. even ginny, who combs her hair next to him in bed every night. he finds red hair tangled around every single one of his buttons. she kisses him with a love so clean he can see right through it.

after, he won't marry her. she wants him to, he gets that feeling in the way she shows things that they should share. meals first, every night. then, a closet full of her clothes at his place. now,
she starts bringing in furniture piece by piece; an end table, a chest of drawers. it's like she awaiting another important person to walk through the front door.

sometimes he wonders if she's waiting for that other part of him to walk through the door. waiting for the boy who lived. the one she fell in love with. he wonders where that person went.

but, it's all right, he tells himself. nothing's really changed. he can still laugh when they put on otis redding and ginny dances in her sweatpants that used to belong to ron. he starts watching tv. not the news. never the news. but sitcoms. muggle things.

it's all right.

but the dreams never die, because the fact is that there's always another and he knows that. not everything wraps up nicely like in a half-hour comedy.

this isn't fiction.

this is real life.

things don't always end well in real life.

he doesn't know if he can feel this way, the way they seem to do in the tv shows. if he should. but he tries, learns to cook, make phone calls, starts jogging in the mornings. the best way to move on is to just move on. he can't feel this way, not when ginny is running her hands up and down his back like she wants to light him up like a match. he can't feel this way, he tells himself.

just marry her, he tells himself.

but then the letter comes, the one in a handwriting he knows well. her handwriting. and it changes everything.

this is the part no one will know about, he tells himself in his head. this isn't the stuff they write stories about. people will want to forget this part.

he is right.

--

the letter. she cannot believe that she sent it. she owls it out and finds that her hands shaking. she tries to scrub them under cold water. she sits on them. but it doesn't change what she has done, and she has done it.

part of her feels like she has done something very wrong, like she has just ended both of them in a couple simple paragraphs. in a way, she has. she doesn't know it yet, but something ends in the moment that letter goes out.

but she must go back to where it started, not when it ends.

here is the thing about after: most things that seem real are only illusions. when she hears people talking about peace, she thinks of a flickering candle always about to go out. there are people in the parks, children going to school, but people are still scared of harry when he parts his hair that covers his forehead and they still won't name the one that she helped destroy. she doesn't fear like other people do. she doesn't fear like those who wake up and wash their faces and go to work and hope and push down and hope and ignore the itch of fear that scratches deep inside of them. no, she fears with a fear so real and raw she feels like she is always on guard. her fear is constantly vigilant, her fear never sleeps.

and the fact is that her fear is the real fear. that is why the dreams come and why she knows she will never be rid of them. you can't wash that fear away. it's a stain, and it covers all of her.
and it's also, because after, no one wants to admit it, but there are people on the other team. they do not like her, hermione granger. but most of all, they hate what she is all about, about her need to stand for things that are... right. there is no other way to put it. she knows that. for things that are good to their core.

and maybe that's why she sends the letter.

but she must go back to where it started, not where it ends.

it is sunday. the rain pours down her windows in long gray streaks. she is sorting through the mail. there is always mail, not all of them happy. because there is another team, she knows that. the charms that surround her and ron's house are so strong that sometimes ron wanders into them and she has to retrieve him from wandering around the yard, him mumbling, "i don't think that i know where my toes are. are my toes here? hermione, i can't feel my lips."

the man, she doesn't know who he is. his head is shaved to the scalp but his eyebrows are white and bushy. he doesn't say anything when she answers the door, and when he is already inside, hermione can only murmur, "how in the bloody hell did you get past... everything?"

the man never announces his name, but merely stands in her kitchen, wiping off the rain from his three piece suit that looks fashionably muggle. when she comes into the kitchen, staring at him wide-eyed and with her hand in her pocket, fingers clutched around her wand, she says, "ron isn't here. i won't talk. i won't tell you where harry potter is." without thinking, she rolls her sleeve up to expose the etching in her arm that has turned scartissue pink. she wonders if it speaks for itself, if it says there is no depth or breadth of evil that hermione granger has not seen.
the man bows his head. he sits down at her kitchen table, lights a cigarette. there is something about him that eases her. but if there's one thing hermione knows, it's that you can never know enough. she trusts few, especially after.

he takes a long pull on his cigarette, says, "you can release your grip on your wand, miss granger." his voice is tinted with an accent that she can't put her finger on. it's as crisp as an american, but there's a gentleness that speaks of something completely foreign. every time she tries to understand it, the voice slides away from her, like she has lost the voice in a fog. he pulls up a coffee cup that is sitting on the table and tilts his cigarette ash into it. "i mean you absolutely no harm. not in the immediate sense. no, not at all. i mean only to show you the truth, for there are people who want to hide it from you."

she stands in the middle of her kitchen and doesn't know what to do. the man in front of her has perused through the charms strong enough to liquefy the brains of any half-way intelligent wizard or witch. the fact is that there is nothing to do now. if the man wants to end her, he will end her. this is not the first time that she has been in this situation before.

the man, when she looks at him, looks familiar from some place. like a face from a dream. smoke falls like water out of his mouth when he says after a long period of silence, "yes, it's true. you know me. it's hard to explain, because it doesn't work with logical thought. but you, hermione granger, will understand it better than harry potter. who needs to know too."

the room is quiet. ron has left to visit his cousins who live down the road. they are watching a quidditch game later this weekend but he has left his jersey that he had so desperately wanted to wear. the whole house feels full of him, but she can't help but feel like she slips through the cracks.

the man smiles, halfly. "you don't need an explanation, i see. because there's a part of you, hermione granger, that knows very explicitly that you don't belong here. not in this world. not in the after."

his words hurt her, to the core. because they are true, and because she doesn't want them to be true. all that fighting, all that blood, the blood that still covered her like a blanket in her dreams, wasn't this what they were fighting for? for a quiet life that were only full of rainy nights holding clammy hands, and eating out for lunch, and office jobs, and christmases where children (her children? she shivers at the thought) don't have to be hushed and they sent christmas cards to their grandparents who they knew were alive. but she falls through this life. she suddenly realizes, quite suddenly, that this is why everything has changed. because now she doesn't quite fit. not at all.

the man stands up. he extinguishes his cigarette in the coffee cup and it sizzles dead. he walks to her, stands right in front of her. when he looks right in her eyes, she sees for the first time that they are bright green. his state takes her aback, like he has grabbed her by the throat. she can't breathe. from here, so close to the man, she can see that his eyebrows are speckled with ebony black hair. her throat feels small and tiny in the house, which feels so big, so impossibly big.

"you know, hermione granger. you know quite well that the lies are aplenty during peace. because peace doesn't exist. not really. not for people... like us." the man smells like nicotine and something else. something like her own body, like the cleanness of soap and that distinctly musky sent of... she cannot place it. but it reminds her of study halls and tents in the wilderness. tangled hair through her fingers. black hair wrapped around one of her sweater buttons.

the man says nothing else, not much. he gives her some paperwork, tells her that its charmed to burn in twenty hours.

"it's yours to choose what you must and should do. but you know," the man says. he is smoking another cigarette, holding it loosely through his top and bottom lip. it bobs buoy-like between the two. "but you do know that peace is only an illusion that is possible because there are always people fighting. there must be constant soldiering. vigilance. only the ones who know this must can fight for it, because they are the ones that see past the veil. see past the illusion."

she watches him leave from her spot near the parlor window. he cuts through the fog like a knife through butter. the charms seemed to melt around him-- she watches as they glimmer awake at the possibility of movement, but when they reach out to touch him with their spidery arms, they shrink like wool in the wash. like he doesn't belong here. like he doesn't fit.

maybe this is what makes her trust him when he disappears from the house. his letter shakes in her hands. she reads it with a ferocity that she reads everything with, with acute attention to the detail, to the implications of it.

what is says isn't easy. she know this from the seconds she reads the couple of lines that say, "the war is never over, it is a battle that can never stop. the duality of our existence is in each of us. but you, hermione granger, are quite literally torn in two. there are two of you warring inside. luckily, both of you are good. unluckily, this means that you cannot fit easily anywhere. unluckily, this means, at the present, you are living a lie. and, unluckily, you know that you are not the only one of your kind. you are quite aware of this."

she is. she is aware of it everywhere she goes, when she tries to laugh some days and finds that the part of her that wants to just can't. it hurts in her chest like a hallow cough. but she had hoped to hold this pain, this ever present pain of missing, in her like a cancer that kills slowly but cannot be spread. but when she meets his face, in those moments of expected goodness, when the three of them are drunk and in a pub and eating chips out of a greasy envelope of butcher paper or when they go for rides in mr. weasley's muggle car, in these great moments, she meets his eyes one at a time. and she sees it, the same sort of pain. the cancer that eats her alive. when she realizes that the war made her aware of who she really was: not a bookish prude with the ability for a good laugh and a quick wit, but someone constantly on guard for the presence of goodness and evil and the way those two weave themselves through the very fabric of everything.

you know that you are not the only one of your kind.

it takes a couple of days to write the letter. ron comes home from the quidditch match and he's "bloody pissed" he says when he picks up his hanging jersey. "blood pissed i forgot this. can't believe it." he doesn't ask her how her day was and she offers nothing.

they eat spaghetti for dinner. at night, he curls like a question mark against her body and she only stares at the ceiling thinking of the charred papers in the downstairs wastebasket, knowing what she must do, what she has no choice but to do.

the next day when ron leaves to get some groceries, she sits down and writes: dear harry, it is my greatest regret to inform you that our lives will change unforgivably. but again, this is no choice of ours. has it ever been? will it ever be?

she puts her quill down, takes a sip of tea. she continues writing.

--

it began with a letter, he thinks. that letter than told him what he was. you're a wizard, harry james potter. so, he thinks, it only seems right that it should end in a letter.

he receives it on a day so cold the birds are silent. the owl comes to his window covered in a flurry of snow which he shakes from his feathers with a look of true annoyance. he brings him inside, sets him by the fire and says, "i know what it's like to be cold as piss, old boy. i'm sorry."

at first, he's a little annoyed at whoever has sent the letter; he watches the owl lick the ice off the tip of his taloned feet. but, when he sees the name on the return address, he immediately knows that something was about to change.

hermione granger, steely-faced hermione jane granger, with her stubborn expressions and ice-clean spirit, would only ever send an owl for the most serious of reasons. there are things like e-mails now, now that there is an after. but an owl means only the gravest of matters.

he reads the note. for a while the house is so quiet, he can hear the sandpapery tongue of the owl scrape across his icy talons. the note sits still in his fist and he finds he is holding it delicately, like one might a child, one just born.

he will be honest to himself, he thinks. i will be honest to myself about the note. about the stillness of the house, the stillness of the house before ginny awakes. sometimes, he thinks he hears a hike in her breathing, like she has just awoke. he sits quietly in his kitchen and thinks of how he will be honest to himself.

honesty, something that has been pushed away like dust in a corner after. after it all. honesty about the life where everyone tip-toes around like life is normal, that it will remain this way now that the one is dead. but there is not just one, that is honesty. honesty is hard and it hurts going down, and he was sure that he was the only one who shared in this feeling, this feeling that all is not well.

he goes into the living room, turns on the television. it is still muted from last night when ginny turned the volume down so she could talk at him, saying, don't you see, harry? don't you see... your eyes. i see it in your eyes. like you're crumbling. crumbling in between my fingers like sand. aren't you... happy? this is what you always wanted. what we fought for. his hands had been folded in front of his lap. he hadn't been able to look her in the eye.

on the screen, it is a nature documentary, one of those with soothing narration. a blue sky opens up like a blanket. then, in slow motion, a huge white bird, wings stretching from tip of screen to tip of screen enters the frame. it swoops into the air like it is hung there by some great invisible string. a second later, another bird follows, its great webbed feet translucent in the warm blue sky. they are together soon, wing stroke matching wing stroke.

he watches, transfixed. the owl next to him is quiet, as if it is watching too. and it's strange, in this moment, or at least he thinks so, that in this moment that seems to belong to the great white birds, that he hears hermione's voice. it is definitely her voice, smooth and calm and steady. she recites her letter, saying, harry, i know that this will ruin our lives. but then again, we always knew that. this was never really our world, us orphans in this world that we were not born into. but we have been adopted into it in the cruelest way, and this makes us more aware than them all. then ron. then ginny. oh harry, i am sorry, but that is just how it is. we are soldiers of a constant vigilance and our awareness makes it so we can never sleep, not in the ignorance that they desire of us. again, i am sorry. for you more than me, but for myself as well. do you see an alternative? i do not.

he doesn't either. this isn't one of those sorts of things, he thinks. there is no other option.
tomorrow he will leave. to say goodbye. he hears someone padding down the hallway. the breathing has stopped, the deep sleep sort of breathing coming from his bedroom. she is awake and soon she will be here. her figure will be standing in the door frame so soon he realizes that he is holding his breathe.

he will not marry her, he knows this now. what use are goodbyes now?

inside the letter, there is a small watch, a leather wrist watch. he already knows what it is, can see the small shimmer of magic glimmering at the very corner of his eye. the footsteps are almost there, he can feel them shaking the floor under his feet.

he grips the watch and feels the pull in his belly button, like a fish on a hook. the fringes of his vision are vignetted with the swirling blackness of the portkey. but the last thing he sees is the great white bird drift the sky like it will never fall, like it can't, even though it must eventually.

--

when he comes to, he finds the portkey was made quickly, in haste, in distraction. he has landed sloppily. a sharp pain flows up from his elbow and when he reaches to his forehead he finds the warm stream flowing down his head is his own.

his vision is shaky at best, but he is used to this. he is the one who lived after all, and he has lived because he has learned to adapt quickly. he sits up, squints when he finds that his glasses are scratched from the fall. but he can see.

his surroundings are rocky, green. somewhere in the distance, there is the crashing of waves against a rock littered coastline. he cannot see water.

he sits there for awhile. he knows that his wand is in his back pocket, but for some reason he is not alarmed. something inside of him tells him to wait, and so he does. the distant roar of a tide never ceases and it starts to match the pulse in his hands, in the wound on his head. he takes out his wand, looks around before mumbling a quick charm to his forehead. he feels the skin knitting itself hastily together but he knows now that he will have a scar, another.

he waits. the sun gets lower in the sky, but it burns into his skin like a fired knife. sweat falls in a thin blade down his back, but he waits. while he waits, a lizard the size of his arm rumbles out onto the black rock he is lying on. its tongue slithers out at him and the two of them stare at each other. he thinks to that tongue, that same tongue, that came for him years before. he sees blood and darkness and smells that dank must of death and hears her voice screaming and he tries to feel her pulse and he sees red hair wrapped like a knot around the end of his wand. but that is only for a moment, and suddenly all he can see in the darkness of the lizard's eye, the scales of his flesh. for a second, the sun is setting and it sounds as if the tide is coming in and the lizard is becoming silhouetted in the sky turning blood red. it seems to him that he too is only a silhouette. for once, in a long time, he feels the heart in the temple of his forehead slow and steady. it is a feeling he has not felt in a long time.

the lizard moves on, lumbering past him. he still waits.

right before the sun sets, a figure mounts the mound of rock where he sits. he doesn't know who it is, but it is male. he is bald. there's a cigarette in his mouth, and smoke makes red halos over his head against the horizon. he wears a perfectly ironed suit. when he is about three feet away from him, he pauses. the cigarette hangs precariously from his bottom lip.

when the stranger speaks, his voice is un-accented, "you're a patient man, harry potter."

he looks at the man and feels as if he might know him. he tries to place him but the connection alludes him like sand through a closed fist. his eyes look at him with a genuine pensiveness; in the darkness of twilight, he cannot place the color.

he shrugs, but never strays his eyes away from the stranger's gaze. he says, "i've had a fair share of waiting in my life. i've gotten used to it."

the stranger shakes his head up and down, cracks a smile around the limp cigarette in his mouth. "i'd say you have, mr. potter. you may call me roger. for now, i suppose that's a good enough of a name as any, right?"

he doesn't question this, because there is something about this man that he cannot place, like he is merely a heat wave, a hallucination. you don't name things like this. roger it is. roger it will be. it's as good as any for something that may or may not exist.

he finally stands. his legs are coated in a thin layer of what feels like sea salt and the salt of his own body. the back of his shirt is glued like skin to the back of his shoulder blades. after wipes his hands on his slacks, he says, "well. i am patient, but i suppose this is the time where you tell me why i am here."

the man laughs. "ah, yes, you would think that, mr. potter. for sure, it is fair to think that. but time is a tricky lady. she bends where she pleases. and we'll have to leave it at that for now at the very least."

again, he finds that no questions arise in his brain. a part of him half-way doesn't believe that he is actually experiencing this, that perhaps the heat and the constant pattering of the waves has lead him to sleep. but the gash in his head still feels like a non-bleeding knot and the skin there hurts like it has been harshly zippered undone. the other scar on his forehead does not hurt.

roger starts walking and he follows him. his legs are lead-stiff and full of blood-needles. the air, even though it is bringing in a cool water breeze, feels like a hot blanket. this is not cool, sad england. he is far from that, and suddenly he is aware that this is his first steps off of that small chunk of land in the freezing atlantic. it smells different here, like a different ocean, different trees. the land feels different, newer, like it has just arisen from the sea.

the world is getting dark, but roger's steps are full of authority, as if he has walked here his entire life. he has to keep him eye on roger's cigarette's orange ember to know where he is going.

they climb through a bramble of small dense trees for awhile. the ground is a black rock full of things that scramble to and fro. some are hairy, petite, other are slick and scaly. the world around him is alive and so separated from the place that he used to inhabit that he wonders how he never thought of that: that the rest of the world might have never known him, never known of the boy who lived and who continues to live in a sort of way. they may have never named the one who must not be named not because of fear or superstition, but they didn't know of him. they would not utter his name because they never know it. a little piece of him settles when he thinks of this, that the rest of the world may have been gifted the gift of ignorance.

some people knew not of the great war. they know not of the after. his heart stills for a second, and then beats with due vigilance.

it feels like hours but they finally break out of the thick brush. they are on the edge of a cliff, a small cliff that descends before lowering and flattening to a startling white beach. the sea in front of them is pearly in the white of the moon. the beach itself is littered with small black dots that move slowly and bark like dogs.

"seals," he murmurs and roger turns to him and smiles.

lighting a cigarette, roger says, "they're cute buggers, but they'll eat your face if given the choice. do be careful, mr. potter."

they stand for a few minutes on the edge of the cliff, watching for something. he doesn't know what it might be, but they wait none the less. the smell of roger's cigarette drifts through the air and mixes with the salty brine of the sea. off in the distance, a seal. the sea here is quiet, only crashing into carpet soft sand. to the far left of where they are standing, a large outcropping of rock raises like a giant black finger into the sky.

then it happens, what they've been waiting for. a dark figure comes from the distance, near the giant rock. it moves with a brisk pace, like it knows where it must go. but suddenly it stops, looks directly at them.

the features of obscure, black and silhouetted in the lowering sun, in the darkening night, but he knows who it is. he knows instantly, and with that, he realizes why he is there. roger will explain later, he knows that, but he knows that she is here, she is alone, and he knows that it's all over now. there's no going back.

"you expected miss granger?" roger asks. he is staring darkly into the side of his face.
he shakes his head, says, "perhaps, always. i should always expect her."

they descend the cliff. it takes more skill than what he might have expected. but when they finally reach the beach, he can see her in the distance, standing stiff as a board. she is now looking the sea. he walks towards her, hesitantly, like he doesn't know her, or as if he has no idea what to say. like he might never know what to say, especially since now that they both know.

when he reaches her, she is still looking out into the distance, towards the sea. the tide has started descend again, but it still laps against her nude toes that are dirty around the edges and unpolished.

he examines her for a few brief seconds. her hair is cut short, the ends tickling the lobes of her ears. she is smaller, lost weight, and he realizes he has too. most days he finds that he has gone all day thinking of nothing but the after, and only at the end of the day does he realize that he has forgotten to eat. she is wearing a sweater, a pair of shorts that expose her long white legs that gleam in the moonlight. in her left hands, she is clutching a large bottle of wine and half of it is empty; her lips are dark and purple-y and suddenly he is aware that hermione, ironically, is a bit of a lush.

finally, he says, "funny meeting you here," and instantly he feels so silly, like he is eleven again and he doesn't know what to say to the outgoing, pushy bushy-haired girl who has just opened the door to his train cabin.

but she laughs, lifts the wine bottle to her lips and takes a large gulp. she passes it to him. she has still not looked at him, not even remotely. her eyes are locked out in the distance where the water breaks on some outlying invisible rocks in a wrath of white frothiness.

he takes the wine bottle and tilts it back. the wine is bad and cheap and it burns as it goes down his throat. he realizes that he has not eaten in a long time and the wine will go quickly to his head. but he doesn't care, and after he's had a couple of swigs, he swings towards her direction and asks, "do you trust him?" he tosses his head towards roger, who is standing back near the rocks that line the edge of the beach. his cigarette glows in the light.

she still doesn't look at him. instead, she shakes her head and says, "do you?"

he thinks back to roger's figure on the horizon, the way that he talked. finally, he takes a swig of wine, says, "i shouldn't. i mean, i shouldn't trust anyone, not really. but think that i do. i do trust him. but do you, hermione?"

it's the first time that he's said her name, and it seems to catch her off-guard. she straightens, as if hearing her name has snapped her out of her drunken silence. she folds her arms across the front of her chest and turns to him. her eyes are dark in the night, and she meets his gaze right on, directly ahead. her lips are in a straight line as she says, "the only person i trust is you, harry."
she grabs the wine and starts heading up the beach. raising up the bottle in the air, she yells back, "but what choice do we have? what choice do we have but to trust him?"

her figure starts to disappear, and as it becomes small and black, he closes his eyes, knowing what she has said is true, knowing that it is so very true, it hurts inside of him.

--

she arrives a day before him, here to this little strip of land out in the middle of pacific. roger (as he later named himself), shows her to a cabin that lay in the copse of low-laying trees. inside, there is a bed, a nightstand. piled high in the corner of the cabin is a stack of old dusty books.

"so, you heard i like to read?" she asks coyly. she holds a backpack of hastily packed clothes and several toothbrushes.

roger, always smoking, smiles over his cigarette. "these books are not necessarily for pleasure. we're going to need hermione granger the brightest student of hogwarts to make an re-appearance."
she frowns, starts flipping through the books, "who's to say that she ever left?"

roger laughs and before he exits, he says, "then read carefully, miss granger. you never know what you might find."

the books are old, older than any she had gone through even at hogwarts. some pages literally crumble when she turns them. some of the dialect is old, in an ancient version of english that she has to cross-reference with the newer books to decipher. she sits for hours, her feet folded in front of her, writing hastily in a notebook.

the question that she asks over and over again: is it possible? is it possible?

she has no answer, even after hours and hours of researching loops of information. so when roger comes back with a bottle of wine, she grabs it from him, and with the end of a pen pops the cork into the wine before taking a long, deep swig.

"so, i suppose that you haven't had much luck?" roger asks. he smells of the sea and sweat. his lips are curled in a half-concerned, half-amused grin. he looks around the room and she's sure that he sees the chaos of the cabin for what it truly looks like: a slew of books half-opened, some stacked, some seemingly carelessly opened and stacks of notebook paper scrawled on, full of arrows and calculations and messy lines of notes.

she throws a deadly stare at him, takes another drink. "it's a rather shit job that you've given me, roger."

roger laughs and then they are quiet. they both stare at the pile of papers sitting on the ground, of the books tossed every which way. the outside sounds of the island fill the room and for a second those sounds almost consume them.

finally, after a very long sober moment, she whispers, to her hands that are folded in front of her, "is it possible? it it even possible to do what you told me about in the letter?"

when she looks up at roger, his eyebrows are creased and he isn't smoking. it dawns on her that there is something in his eyes that she hasn't seen before. she cannot place it, but for once it makes a piece of her stir, like she hasn't felt in a long time.

"you know..." she mumbles, looking at him intensely. "you know how to do it."

he frowns, quickly wiping the expression from his face. he looks up and out into the distance and says, "it doesn't work like that, miss granger. this isn't the time or place."

standing, she almost loses her footing. the wine is sloshing in her brain, but the words that come out of her mouth are true to her real emotion, "you keep mentioning time like it something quite understandable, quite readable. like it's a good book that you read once. but i don't know if i believe that. because who knows about those sorts of things? what if the time is never right or wrong. it just... is."

roger says nothing. he simply lights a cigarette, leaves while saying, "potter will be here tomorrow, granger. i'm sorry."

when he leaves, she doesn't return to the books. instead, she walks to the beach, takes off her clothes. the water is warm and the moon glows against the pale of her england skin. she floats easily in the salty sea and she watches as the full moon rises overhead. she closes her eyes and instead of seeing the moon she thinks back. back past the way red hair once littered her house, back past the days and days of interviews and pictures of her when everything seemed for a few brief seconds that it might be okay. back past when her hair was long and bushy and she still cared more for her grades than her life. she remembers another body of water as dark and smooth as the ocean she drifts on, remembers the cool night air when a young boy who had no business becoming a man did spells that he shouldn't have known how to do. she remembers the ghostly white of a patronus, strong and full. white, like the moon above her them, above her now. the patronus, as solid and good as the boy by the lake. both, a part of him. both, a version of him, one the growing manchild, one the external version of what was already inside of him-- courage, virtue, a determination so solid it hurt to look at. she shielded her eyes, turning her face away, like she had seen a part of him so naked she had no right to gaze upon it. each part, in that moment, whole in part. each a piece of each other, perfect in their own form.

her eyes open quickly. above her, the moon looks like it has been perfectly cut from a cloth of navy silk. the night makes her mind so clear it shocks her, like she has jumped into a pool of cold water. she is in her body and yet out of it. her fingers move over her bare stomach just to make sure that she's really here, in this moment. for in this moment, she understands the partition between who she is and who she knows she could be. the essence and the body. she lifts her hand, spreads her fingers and traces the circle of the moon. for a second she thinks she could almost take it from the sky.

"so cleanly cut," she mumbles to herself. "a cleanly cut copy."

and suddenly she knows that it's possible. she doesn't know how she will do it, but she has seen it in one form and she knows that it can happen in another. she knows it because she is hermione granger, and this is what she was raised for, what the war has bred into her. she has found the last resource available to her, because this is why she is alive right now, here in the after.

she knows that he will arrive tomorrow. she knows what she must do.

she knows what they must do, now that they have no choice.

she dries herself on the beach, watching the moon ripple on the water. the horizon stretches for miles and she thinks that somewhere on it he is sitting tonight with his hands draped around a woman who's red hair shines in a halo of light. that woman will turn to him and tell him that she's so glad it's over, that all of it's over. in part, she is right. in part, she is wrong, because it's just beginning but she just doesn't know it yet. and, in a way, she will never know, not if it's done right, not if it's truly possible.

"it is possible," she says to the sky, which is perfectly separated into sky and moon, perfectly separated like all things are, like hermione granger and harry potter are.

end part one

part 2

this is the face of epic fail

chipping — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 03:31:49 GMT

ANOTHER EPIC RETURN.

I'm not sure if anyone cares??? You probably should not care. That would be best for all the parties involved. BUT. BUT GUYS I HAVE BUSY. ISH. BUSY-ISH.

So. There's this school thing I do. It probably should not take as much time as it does, but it TOTALLY DOES. Don't go to grad school, kids. DON'T DO IT. Okay, do it, but then expect it to take up ~99.999999999999999999999% of your time. I am not joking. Also, if one more person asks for an analytic paper about the American Dream within in a literary text, I will hurt them. NO REALLY. THIS IS NO JOKE. I JOKE NOT. PAIN. SUFFERING.

So. There's this thing called work I do. Apparently, somewhere along the way, I must have had a conversation with my managers that went something like this: "So, Jolene, can we have your soul?" "Why YES YES YOU CAN. PLEASE TAKE MY SMALL PATHETIC SOUL AND CRUSH IT." And then they proceeded to do this. I work fity-ish hours on the week of Christmas. FUCK THE WHAT.

I've read a lot, kids! I mean, I've read The Hunger Games and lots of Bukowski and some poetry and I LIKE READING. That said, I have watched a shit ton of television because I GOT CABLE BITCHES. ON DEMAND. XFINITY. I am catching up with all my shows. Also, some time somebody can talk about True Blood with me. I mean, I'm totally up for it. SERIOUSLY.

Also, this happened: and it has thoroughly thoroughly CRUSHED ME. WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME, KIDS? In response, I may/may not have written a 30 page post-war story about my two favorite soldiers. Basically, I wrote it only because I need closure on these two and Joanne did not provide it for me in a sufficient way. I feel very deeply about this. Do I post this monstrosity? Because, REALLY. 30 PAGES? I am an idiot. I think I will have to post it in parts. RIGHT? OR MAYBE NOT POST IT AT ALL. CONFUSION.

The Salt Ecstasies - A Harry/Hermione Mix

chipping — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 05:54:05 GMT

:

because they hurt my tiny, tiny soul. because they might have been. because they are both orphans in a world that they might have never had to save. because sometimes. because always.

that's why.

also, this mix is named after a collection of poems by the late james l. white, who writes possibly the greatest, most heart-wrenching poetry of all time. and all of the salt ecstasies sort of is the hymn to a time of post-war, post-deathly hallows. a place where not "all was well" (sorry Joanne). a place where the scars of the war are deep and permanant, and that leads to things just being downright complicated.

all quotes are from james l. white's The Salt Ecstasies.

There are many ways to scream.
I've chosen the silent one
because I'm afraid of being discovered as I am, not
who he remembers 20 years ago.

I want to say things have changed since then.
I've smoked my lungs black and eaten my heart out.
Lost each leaf of hair and seen friends to their graves.

So the real talk is never said.
After a polite time he leaves a bit early.
I want to re-run dinner again
with simpler food, the apartment a little messy.
I'd like to walk right over the edge and say,
'Who we were then is fable.'
But that takes believing we're someone right now.
~ "Overweight"

1. sleeper | laura gibson
to take you in / is to feel a great sadness / is to hold a great hope / heavy in my chest

2. tornado | sharon van etten
i'm a tornado, you are the dust / you're all around and you're inside / you are the nature / i'm the roar that comes from you.

3. thunderlove | ohbijou
give me some shelter / and make this better / before i get old

4. oviedo | blind pilot
you'll be having my head, big as a birthday / 'cause i left all my doubts on the airplane / i didn't know, i didn't know i'm not in control / i didn't know, i'm not invincible / and maybe some things are better left unsaid / but if you wanted to test that, i will, yeah, i guess, i could've said /[...] but if my eyes were on my back / i know what i'd be looking at / through every shade of brown and green / i didn't know, i didn't know it was nothing new / i didn't know, oh didn't know it was you

Sometimes I’d wake up wondering if I should fix
coffee for us before work,
almost thinking you’re here again, almost seeing
your work jacket on the chair.
~ "Making Love To Myself"

5. nothing better than a journey to you | justin vernon
i ain't got a whole lot of things on my list / just the freedom and the will to choose / i've got you on my mind / and nothing to lose

6. me and you pt. 2 - thanksgiving
we're out in our fortune so wide and so deep / and during the ride you want to die in your sleep / and you are worried and your eyes are buried / and sleep will get sweeter the more you get angry / [...] and also how we're so silly and rough / get rained on and suntanned and pushed in the muck / and put up and kicked out and young and old / and somehow convinced that we never know / so me and you can lose ourselves / and drive all night till we get to the water / you and i with our hearts untied / hear in this mercy / the sound of each other

It’s dark.
You exhale a fist of memory.
I love you like weathering wood
in a room of empty pianos.

When you return to something you love,
it’s already beyond repair.
You wear it broken.
~"Lying in Sadness"

7. a friend indeed - marla hansen
all our puzzle pieces / have fallen behind chairs under beds / it'll take the night to sit and sort them out / well that's ok, you can sleep here instead

8. the garden - lovers
i slept next to your broken wrist and dreamt i was a vine that grew out of a lover's kiss and wrapped around your spine / will you stay in my life? i wish we were tied together sometimes / entwined by a family line / i wish i was your sister sometimes like tonight / i'd dry your eyes / you'd cough and then smile and say you'd be alright / will you be all right?

In this joyous season I know my heart won’t die
as you and the milk pods open their centers
like a first snow in its perfection of light.

Good love is like this.
Even the smell of baked bread won’t make it better,
this being out of myself for a while.
~ "Skin Movers"

9. tenderly - santo & johnny
[instrumental]

Moon to my earth come from some other space
so totally white at our evening meal,
wearing a coat that will not last the year,
I love you completely as salt.
~“Lying in Sadness”

full zip and individual song links

stop selling me wine good-looking hipsters!

chipping — Sat, 29 May 2010 06:04:46 GMT

So. I'm a little drunk. And trying to write. It's not working well.

I've only had three glasses. And NOT REAL GLASSES. I BOUGHT A PANSY WINE GLASS FOR A REASON. So as not to get drunk so easily. I took an ABC class. I know the units, trust me. NOT THREE UNITS, DAMMIT.

What are you if you write a YA novel drunk? PROBABLY A BAD FUCKIN PERSON. THE YOUTH OF TOMORROW ARE GOING TO BE FUCKED SIMPLY BECAUSE OF ME.

In other news... my old acting teacher sent me an e-mail informing me that I am up on youtube. What? SO CRAZY. If you want to see me being a bad actress, I'll hook you up.

Also? I updated two days in a row. This might be a record.

Okay, so back to writing.

maybe i'm just like a big cookie? or not. or really not.

chipping — Thu, 27 May 2010 20:21:00 GMT

At the appearance of this post, I'm sure half of you are like:

Oh, I feel you Britta. I FEEL YOU GIRL.

I could apologize, but you know. You've heard that song and dance before.

Let's just say I was gone for your benefit, because honestly, HONESTLY, did you want to hear this over and over and over and over again:

UH HI I FORGOT TO WRITE A TWENTY PAGE PAPER FOR SCHOOL AND IT'S DUE IN 45 MINUTES AND OOPS I HAVE TO GO TO WORK FOR ANOTHER FUCKING FOURTEEN HOUR SHIFT AT A HELLHOLE OF A RESTAURANT LIFE IS SO FUCKING AWESOME NOT.

I didn't think so. But now, it's summer vacation. And you know what? Fuck it. I am NOT taking a summer class. I AM NOT. I am taking three months to just work 40-50 hours a week, write when I FUCKING WANT TO, and enjoy myself for a brief brief brief second. This also includes talking to my lovelies, which are you guys.

AND I MISSED YOU. LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS.

Come give me your loving.

PS: I am now obsessed with the show Community so please please please tell me someone out there loves this shit as much as I do. Because I do. I honestly do.

Meek; Wild - A Jeff & Annie Mix

chipping — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:00:25 GMT

It snuck up on them. The cool breeze on the back of a sweat-licked nape of neck. The fuzzy feeling in the pit of the stomach when a road dips unexpectedly. It was all like that, something like a memory from when things were simpler. These are memories that they both only remember vaguely, but when his hand finds her smallest finger, in a question of a grasp, it comes sweetly, easily.

She figured it out when he held her that one night. He held her like a steering wheel. She thought to herself, she thought: well, yes, I suppose that’s right. Him, guiding her to all the right spots. Her, getting him where he needs to go. It was a mutual sort of thing. Symbiotic.

Nevermind the places they had to go to get here. Nevermind. They could sort through them like one goes through the dusty slides of old vacations taken by grandparents. The past feels like that: not theirs, strange, a little foreign. There was merit there, for sure, but… he shrugs. He doesn’t know. He could recount memories in on themselves:

1) Getting high in Abed’s room, and for the first time he realized that when he saw her, she shone like sunlight peeking through blinds so early in the morning.
2) The look on her face like she feared the future like he feared the past. We’ll move past all this, he told her, and she believed him, as always.
3) Later, she would ask, We’ll get through this… together? Together? And he would stop, move hair from her face and nod. Yes. Yes.
4) The first kiss. The last kiss. They all blended together, like the fabric in a blanket.

All the memories and they spread out in front of him like the way the road unfurls in front of you. The horizon on the line. These memories, important, more important than the other things. Like past loves. Like failed … whatever. Failed things weren’t an issue, even if he knew it always would be, in a sort of way.

She knows it too, their constant fear of opening a door to something not right. A mistake. But, when she holds his face, she knows that for once, for once, there is something, someone, that makes her feel like no matter where she places her feet, it’s okay. It’s the right step, it doesn’t matter.

And so they do that, just that. One foot in front of the other, everyday. The road, unfurling, the scenery passing by. There is a road behind them, and they know it, but now it doesn’t matter. He has her hand, the steering wheel, and she carries him forward. On the horizon, she knows always goodness for the both of them.

He holds her smallest finger and smiles.

thirsty the national +
as far as i can tell / i'm nothing like a princess / but today i find myself / curling up behind the house / there's nothing in the air today / now i know i'm not so important / take these girly arms / and ever keep me / take these girly arms / and ever keep me / i don't have a hawk in my heart / no dumbass dove in my brain

season’s greetings lovers +
you remember how your parents / clapped, waved and smiled / every little thing made them proud / when you were a child / well now you've grown / and you're the coolest kid i know / but somehow they've lost their interest long ago / well cheer up my dear / i'll always be here / and the sky above you / the kids our age line up to love you / and you have nothing to fear

torch song joey kneiser +
and all the things you’ve ever learned / never taught you what you deserved / pages full of words that you can’t speak / and all you’ve got is your high, high, highs / and your low, low, lows / and everything else / it just comes and goes / […] there’s nothing wrong with being afraid / if it helps you find your way / if it makes you want to say / “come love me”

letterboxes stephen gordon +
oh, what i need / is i need someone / to all on my own / to look now that i’m grown / leave my loneliness alone / […] i guess till now i’ve been untested / come on back I’ll make you breakfast / we’ll get well rested / don’t have to talk about a thing / and if somewhere along the way / you think about what you want to say / just say it / and we’ll pretend that you remembered now

snakes and ladders basia bulat +
you know, all this time i've been playing for your heart / but i never let it on / i'll have to watch you play the part / when only you could be the one / to win out over me / when it isn't just a game / it's the way we come undone / what a perfect accident /oh, we danced around them all

meek;wild brooke waggoner +
on your lips you kept her kiss / and washed it down with lily grass / you're married to your best of friends / with good clean love like ice and glass / midnight courtships on the porch / you put the proof upon her lips / and smashed the smoldering ash with fists / to make it meek and wild with bliss

individual songs and .zip file

This May Hurt - A Will/Emma Mix

chipping — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:05:17 GMT

FIGURES... as soon as I get back on LJ, I'm back to my old fanmix making antics. IT'S A CONDITION. I can do nothing about it. DON'T JUDGE ME PLEASE.

Also, how typical of me to find the MOST NON-HETERO show that was ever aired in the history of television and start shipping a hetero couple. I ROCK AT THAT.

So, without further ado, the strangest thing I could think of making: a Will/Emma fanmix. Because I MEAN, COME ON. Their sex is going to be so weird and strange and full of Lysol and Broadway tunes and flippy/permed hair and SO WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD. It's going to be awesome. I'll clap when it happens. Nay, I will give a standing ovation.

:

1| I Don't Know What To Do - Pete Yorn and Scarlett Johansson
Every time I see your eyes / I want to walk with you in moonlight / And I know you're not intended / To go on just pretending / But I think it's for the best / But when you're with me darling / I don't need to believe in anyone else / I'm so confused by you / I don't know what to do

2| Save Me From What I Want - St. Vincent
Honey, what reveals you / Is what you try and hide away

3| Unattainable - Little Joy
If only songs we're sung / To guide the doubtful ones / Beyond the rough / Where not as much is good enough / Oh if you find yourself / For once a lonely one / I'll be waiting here with open arms

4| Courtyard - Coconut Records
And I love you / But I'd never tell you that

5| Cigarettes - Russian Red
Now tell me what it is, it isn't fair / Cause Im wasting time, but it isn't my heart / It isn't my fault / And every situation understands / Well, the anecdote of chasing the location to your door / [...] And he was sitting by the swimming pool / But he was scared, cause it wasn't his time, it wasn't his chance / Getting olders not been on my plans / But its never late, its never late enough for me to stay

6| The Only Fault - Rachael Yamagata
If I could have one wish / If I could have some say / I'd keep you far from home / I'd roll back both my sleeves / Dig under your skin / And fix your shattered bones / Hold on, this may hurt you / When I tell you of the truth / We don't get two lives to live / It's true, the only fault I found in you / Is not being free to take what I would give / If I could bend your pain / Into something good / Make you a prouder man / If I could rough you up / And save you with good luck / I'd show you hope again

7| Get Too Close - Brooke Waggoner
[Instrumental]

individual song links
zip file

telling i like you through a facebook message

chipping — Tue, 20 May 2008 08:02:01 GMT

me + beach + alcohol =

It's a pretty terrifying thing. True story. Luckily, nothing was aflame by the end of the night.

So, I've been out of town (BEACH!!!) for the past couple of weeks. THUS I HAVE BEEN MISSING FOR MANY DAYS. However, my disappearance is not news... I know that.

BUT I LOVE THE BEACH. I FUCKING LOVE THE BEACH. It's all sunny and you can walk around in underwear everywhere and NO ONE QUESTIONS IT. That's right, I can eat my hamburger in nothing more than something covering the essentials and it isn't, "OH HEY LOOK AT JOLENE THE SLUT." Instead: "HEY LOOK AT JOLENE SHE'S GOT THE RIGHT IDEA... WE'RE AT THE BEACH! WEAR AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE!" Note: Just because I wrote that in caps does not necessarily mean that people shouted such things. Although, I would have no issues with this at all. Excitement about exhibitionism is always encouraged. ALWAYS.

Also, get excited about the epic love story of a Miss Claire Peabody and her dashing, mysterious, and slightly quirky bellhop lover/hotel inheritor as they make sweet, sweet love in the sands of the Gulf of Mexico. It's going to be a big deal in ALL your knitting circles, just wait. It'll probably be in used book stores by next year.

And OH HAI. My girlfriend made a music video:

My big lesbian crush on Scarlett extends to even her crappy interpretations of Tom Waits' songs. But! I just want her and Ellen Page to play bad versions of Kimya Dawson in their backyard, Ellen on the guitar and Scarlett putting red lipstick on. And then, afterwards, they both braid each other's hair in a hammock, talking about how much they hate men.

~~and then they make out, yay!~~

I'm pathetic, I know.

2008

chipping — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:37:20 GMT

I'm late in doing this, but that's how I roll: doing things after they become trendy. SEE ALSO: Veronica Mars. ALSO: Firefly. It's the true, unfortunate story.

Books

01. The Awakening by Kate Chopin (116 pages) (4.5)
02. The Effect Of Gamma Rays On Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel (108 pages) (4)
03. The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger (214 pages) (4)
04. Postcards From No Man's Land by Aidan Chambers (312 pages) (3)
05. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe (508 pages) (5)
06. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (399 pages) (5)
07. Carver: A Life In Poems by Marilyn Nelson (97 pages) (4)
08. Dust Tracks On A Road by Zora Neale Hurston (285 pages) (4)
09. Second Star To The Right by Deborah Hautzig (151 pages) (2)
10. All The King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (672 pages) (5)
11. Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty (336 pages) (2)
12. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman (304 pages (4)
13. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (240 pages) (3)
14. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (240 pages) (3)
15. The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton (156 pages) (3)
16. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (229 pages) (5)
17. Murder in the Dark by Margaret Atwood (62 pages) (4)

Movies

001. Atonement (3.5)
002. The Kite Runner (4)
003. Working Girl (2)
004. Failure to Launch (2.5)
005. Juno (5)
006. Vanilla Sky (2.5)
007. There Will Be Blood (5)
008. Closer (2)
009. Cloverfield (3.5)
010. Once (3.5)
011. The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (5)
012. Finding Forrester (3)
013. No Country For Old Men (5)
014. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (3)

i wish i could go away toooooooo

chipping — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 04:22:07 GMT

So...

I exist. Unfortunately.

I know, I know: you all were just beginning to think, "Christ, I think we have really gotten rid of her this time! DRINKS ALL AROUND." I'm sorry to disappoint

Should I create a tag for my "returns"??? They're pretty epic. And PATHETIC.

I have no real reason, per say, but I have excuses people. EXCUSES:

I've been busy with drugs, sex, and rock n' roll. True story.

I've been chasing boys, trying to get them to sleep with me. Bella Swan came along... we had so much fun. She even found her personality! It was totally awesome!

I've been laughing and laughing over how one crack addict is going to play another. It's so perfect, I could almost cry.

I've been thinking of ways to kidnap and torture one of my professors. I'm thinking of taping him in a lecture and then playing it back to him for the rest of his life. IT WOULD BE JUSTIFIED. I promise.

I've been watching every episode of How I Met Your Mother. It only took me two days. True story. Me and Barnie are having little former-hippie-sex-crazed kids together. First one is due in May. Get excited

I've been writing really really really bad Jacob/Bella fic and then crying over it. I CANNOT WRITE ANYMORE FIC ABOUT THESE TWO. THOSE SILLY KIDS BREAK MY HEART. NO MORE, KIDS. NO. MORE.

I've thus turned to my Jacob/Bella!lite which is Edward/Rosalie. They are angst that I can handle because Rosalie is so sadly bitchy and Edward is sadly pathetic and I just want them to have strange non-pro-creating-vampirical sex together. Plus, they don't HURT SO DAMN MUCH. OH BELLA OH JACOB. KIDS. have you noticed yet how i'm still not over this???

The true ending to this story is that what I should have doing is checking up on you guys here in one of my favoritist places. I APOLOGIZE. I'm just bad at this blogging thing. I will try to be better.

So, yeah, PROVERBIAL OLIVE BRANCH: HERE, HAVE A FIC. It's about how I sabotage myself with every damn fandom I get into and thus ship the most DOOMEDED COUPLE EVER. I do it every time, mark my words. Pathetic.

title: Nearly (Or, Five Couples That Should Have Had Happy Endings But Then Didn't)
fandom: Harry Potter, Firefly, Twilight, Life With Derek, Star Wars
ships: Harry/Hermione, Mal/Kaylee, Edward/Rosalie, Derek/Casey, Obi-Wan/Padme

nearly
(Or, Five Couples That Should Have Had Happy Endings But Then Didn't)

one harry potter & hermione granger

they start collecting antiques after the war, mostly because they cannot find anything else to do. hold onto the past? this is all they can find themselves doing after all that blood, the blood that coated every inch of them. she scrubs her hands until they are a tough red color, her fingertips blistering and then calloused. he stands hours under the shower and he would stay for days if ginny didn't crack the door.

"harry, are you going to be in there all day?"

at first, he says maybe forever, until he figures out that she means the shower, and he realizes that he is using all the hot water. the skin of his back shiny, streaked pink, he draws lines on his forearms and they flush like scratches until they fade again. he thinks that they are being absorbed, a sponge.

the fact is that they both haven't quite figured out how to go on with living normal lives, or even whatever that looks like. the illusion escapes them, and so they do their best, picking out little antiquities: a pocket watch, a gilded picture frame, a mahogany hutch. the smell of them permeates hermione's car, the one she buys in order to keep up the illusion, and the musky odor seeps into the fabric of the seats, into their sweaters, the one that ginny makes them every christmas (her mother's skill, deftly kept in order, crochet needles working fervently, he admires and abhors all at the same time).

it's one day when they have bought a breakfast table,

(hermione says that she'll put it in her and ron's apartment, the urban one with stainless steel appliances, dazzling everyone in london from twenty-two stories above-- again, it is a illusion, one held high for everyone to see)

they start driving home, but she misses the left turn, maybe on purpose, maybe not, neither can tell. they're driving down country roads now, ones that will lead them to the coast, surely, to remote beaches that hold nothing but the horizon and they keep driving until the sun is heavy-lidded and unbalanced. hermione pulls over, the road becoming gravelly and scratchy. the sound that meets their ears is no-sound and it hums in their bodies, a deep pleasant hum that numbs them like a good glass of brandy.

he turns to her and she turns to him and they look at each other necks. he notices that she has a freckle on her forehead and also that her mouth tastes like lined paper, a distinct woody flavor.

the past for both of them is glazed with a time that feels so cloudy and floaty they hardly can deem it anything but surreal even though the wounds ache hallowly in their insides, and they both know that this is something that's hardly new, just something old, a bruise finally bubbling to the skin.

when they wake the next morning, they are underneath the breakfast table. he reaches towards her and she whispers, "don't" and so he simply wraps two of his fingers around her wrist; she lets him. they put on ginny's sweaters, careful to dress in the right initial, and all they can think is, and what now? and what now?

they, both of them, get better at illusions.

the next month, they pick out a mirror together. her reflection says, "i'm pregnant." he looks at the real version of her and then at the illusionary one and he cannot gauge either expression. then, her fingers knot in the back of her head for a mere second and he knows, somehow, some way, instinctively (fragments of knowledge, things that he has collected from the past like shiny, round, glazed marbles), that her motions are that of panic, her hands knitting the hair found at the nape of her neck for only a second, then releasing. she is calm again, and when he asks her how far along? she says, "i burned the breakfast table."

no one talks about rose's hair, the ebony strands that almost stand on end, the way she pulls it away from the flickering hazel (~~green~~) of her gaze when she really is fully grown, her body curvy and short. when she calls ron "dad" he doesn't say anything, but sometimes hermione's gaze hurts the side of his face.

he looks down at her wrists for years to come, for the rest of his life.

one night, ginny says to him, "they'll write happy stories about us in the years to come, don't you think, harry?"

he answers yes, yes of course, but he turns his back to her in bed and stares at the space between their bed and the window and thinks that everything will end the same way it started: unwell.

(no one likes unhappy endings, so ginny is right, even though she is not.)

two malcolm reynolds & kaywinnit lee "kaylee" frye

their home is a small glimmer of nothin' but steel and used parts and a hull of dry, freezing paint. they ain't never been the type to encourage no kind of land living, but they sure fight for the ones who want it (he never surrenders his overcoat, the one that slaps against his shins, getting dusty at the edges; she still sends the credits home so that her sister can get a right proper education at the big school near the core).

the doctor and the companion kept them warm in a sort of fuzzy, drunk sort of way, but when the hum of the boat isn't beneath them, the place between their hips and stomach felt itchy-like and they couldn't keep up with that sort of living.

the glittery blackness behind them, in front of them, they rode on, but it was only once that his lips brushed hers in the sweaty engine room, once when they knew it was the real end then, the real war fought, done (all started by that albatross of a girl, the doctor's sister).

"shield's down, cap'n," she says to him and looks up at him with large eyes, begging.

he holds her close, and the skin at the small of her back is warm, her hair soft and it smells like cinnamon and engine grease. the mechanic's body is soft against his and he thinks about this strange dance of a no-marriage, one unsaid. before, he whispers against her mouth, home.

they explode into the same soundless fiery embers of that of the ship, fruits of their union.

three edward cullen & rosalie hale

he's the only one that still bothers to buy bella birthday cards, but as more of a reminder of something that she has no memory of, including the memory of him, the memory of them.

she thinks it's pathetic, and she tells him, her nose turned up at the glittery confection of paper and ink that he signs with the tip of his quill.

"maybe you should also tell her that santa exists. far as she knows, he does."

his eyes are full of hate and pain and she delights in both, because the thing she brought through from life to death was a profound need to feel wanted. and the fact is that the more he hates her, the more he wants her, wants to rip through her body like someone tearing to the top of a lake for oxygen (they cannot die, but the oblivious, unfamiliar, and unknowing look in swan's eyes when she turned seemingly murdered whatever was still alive in edward cullen).

his eyes are full of hate and pain and she delights in both because it means that there is something inside of him still, something that doesn't spell, in curvy, sickingly-sweet lettering: b-e-l-l-a s-w-a-n.

the pure hatred culminates, spills out. his hand on her throat, the other pulling her hair back, the kitchen tiles cold on her freezing back. the light above flickers as he whispers to just stop it, why can't you stop it, you're right, can't you just know you're right and leave it, god, leave it.

"you leave it first," she says gutturally to him.

and then they are arched against the door frame, heaving dryly, their skin papery and icy. he groans into her clavicle that this doesn't change anything.

she grins deviously into the bronze crown of his head. "you wish."

this is not the first time. both of them know that it will not be the last.

(he says, years later, that she's his lifesaver, pulling him back to land when no one else will.

"easy to forget about that lifesaver once you're on solid ground."

exactly, he replies.)

bella asks her, on her 28th birthday, eyes wide with an guilessness that she knows will never fade (they all bring something over, after all) why edward cullen is so good to her anyways?

a nose turned up, she glances at the glitter of the card. "i have no idea," she replies. "you don't deserve it."

and she knows that they all whisper and laugh over their morning coffee when they think she's not around about what she brought to death.

"so what," she tells him. "rosalie hale is a bitch. alright. i don't mind."

he signs bella's 29th and then tells her that she's just honest.

"whatever," she replies, but she eyes him.

she knows he means it but he keeps signing those cards, only to meet bella's childlike, unknowing stare, and it just kills her inside, again.

things don't change.

four derek venturi & casey macdonald

they stop fighting when the family starts falling apart, splitting at the seams. casey points out that the chances of couples staying together drastically reduces after each remarriage and that it really is something that should be expected, organic almost. he simply nods as she says this, her voice calm, him at the edge of her bed, her sitting at her desk checking his math homework. she turns to him and shrugs and when she sees his blank stare, she blinks.

"you okay?" she asks, pulling her legs up to her chin, resting it there, cocking an eyebrow.

he says fine but in fact it takes almost every fiber of his strength to keep himself was violently trembling, he is sitting on his hands.

slamming doors and tilted arguments. the house breaks almost completely down the center. the hutch in the front hallway is the macdonald's, the couch the venturi's, all carried away by the twin, dusty moving vans.

before he leaves, he writes on their shared bathroom mirror his cell phone number and the words: hey now at least i can't flush the toilet when you're showering, right?

he imagines that she will laugh, think fondly of him and dial his number almost immediately.

she does not do this and it isn't until a year later, when he gets a christmas card from her (her mother's last name, changed again) that he knows that this is over.

he sends her a card back, or something like that; a note card that says: every night i think about your throat and your eyes.

she calls him a week, later, and he knows it's her by the way she says, "derek?" her voice lowered, strained.

when he doesn't answer, she says, "you never let me know. you never... why? why now?"

he doesn't reply and she hangs up after five minutes of silence (her sobs are muffled over the digital wires connecting them from the west to the east).

later, he writes again, on a note card: if we've learned anything, it's that the things that you love leave you.

she doesn't call later that week, or ever again.

he marries an uninteresting blonde and she never leaves him.

five obi-wan kenobi & padme naberrie

her lips were feathery against his and when he pulls away, she grins politely and says, "forgive me, masssster kenobi. i am a little drunk."

he smiles, notes that he can see that she's clearly intoxicated.

later, he wants to tell her daughter that a war was fought for her mother.

did he fight for her too?

a sigh. drunken kisses... the soft touch of her hair, plaited... the firm tone in her voice. he does not forget these things and he will say that although, intrinsically, they mean nothing, something is something after all.

(the part she takes up still hurts like a wound he can never cover)

whispered, for the generations: jedis do not feel.

a lie.

dewey-eyed disney bride

chipping — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 02:05:10 GMT

WHAT NOW. Am I really posting twice in a day? This will not happen again for a long time, guys. DO NOT EXPECT IT. PERHAPS.

Anyways, since one of my favorite sluts, topofthepiano, has tagged me for the the 3 most likely reasons you would be kicked out of a specific fandom or fandom in general, I was more than willing to comply. HA!

( 1 ) Snape’s wibbly feelings were annoying
Sure, whatever, I've been a sekrit Snape/Lily shipper for like, okay, like maybe a year or two. Okay, that's a bit of lie. I just generally ship anybody with Lily besides James, because James was an asshole. Don't argue that with me, I hate James Potter, get over it. But I still resent the fact that the reason that Snape saved Harry was because OMG TROO LURVE. I guess it would have been too difficult to believe that, okay, maybe at first Snape protected Harry because of Lily but after awhile he just grew to be a half-way decent guy who got the fuck over Lily Evans and learned to right things just because they were right. Whatever, JKR.

( 2 ) The S3 finale of The Office was FTL
Don't get me wrong: I look forward to the day when they air the Jim/Pam SEX!EPISDOE. But, I can't stop feeling sorry for poor poor POOR Karen who just got dumped on her ass in NYC. And I wished it was Pam who finally asked Jim out, because Pam needed to first go have awesome independence post-breakup parties with Karen and Kelly and talk about how much men SUCK. The whole way they're deciding to do things just makes me ANGRY for all parties involved.

( 3 ) I think Edward is kind of a dirty pedophile
I do not care if he looks seventeen. He was still born at the turn of the century. The son of a bitch is OLD. And he's totally made out with a seventeen year-old girl. Gross, dude. Just. Gross. And now you know the #1 reason why I don't ship Bella/Edward. It's the truth.

And hey what's up, Stephenie? Oh, Stephenie, stop making poorly-executed parallels. And especially stop making parallels with Shakespeare's WORST plays. Also? Deux ex machina's are FTL. I'm just saying.

Also, I'm afraid the next couple of days I might have to drop off the face of the earth. I AM UPSET, KIDS. I've got to move into my new apartment, and this means, unfortunately, that school really is starting. I'm sad, and that's a fact. This summer has just gone so quickly and it has brought me these things:

1) Money from working ~~as Subway's little prostitute~~
2) The final Harry Potter of DOOM
3) My awesome, awesome series of happiness involving vampires, and werewolves, and enstranged teenage girls, and angst out the wazoo.
4) New awesome LJ friends :)

OH TEAR. I know, I KNOW, I'm worse than Orlando Bloom when you take his leopard-print bathrobe away. Anyways, I shall be back, just in case you all wonder where the hell I've gone for the next couple of days.

I also may be back tomorrow. I DON'T KNOW.

::huggles flist::

P.S. As much as I hate bandom, will somebody write/direct me towards Andrew Bird/Regina Spektor fic. If there is none, then SHAME ON YOU UNIVERSE.

Five Times Bella Swan Almost Lost Her Virginity (And The Time She Actually Did) | Twilight Fic

chipping — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:33:59 GMT

I don't know where the hell this story came from. Just. I DON'T KNOW. It might be because I promised myself that I WILL make Jacob and Bella HAVE SEX. WILL. Also, I have a guilty pleasure for "5 thing..." fics. TRUE STORY.

And HAI, look at me writing only fanfic this summer instead of that screenplay/short story I've been wanting to get my hands dirty with for the past, um, YEAR or so. Look what you've done to me, Stephenie. LOOK.

I do apologize about this guys. SORRY.

Title: Five Times Bella Swan Almost Lost Her Virginity (And The Time She Actually Did)
Pairings: Bella/Other Characters, Bella/Edward, Bella/Jacob (haha, try to figure out by page size alone which one is my favorite pairing. YEAH. I KNOW, RIGHT)

Five Times Bella Swan Almost Lost Her Virginity (And The Time She Actually Did)

walt masters; age 16; phoenix, arizona; underneath the water tower on the crossing of eighteenth street and pueblo road.

It was after the football game that they had lost (horribly) that everybody from her group of friends in Phoenix decided to get hopelessly and recklessly drunk in the abandoned lot over in Tempe.

Walt offers to take her in his car, and she lets him because she still doesn’t have enough money to buy even the insurance on Walt’s car. And he’s alright, Walt is, she supposes; he smiles kindly at her and he’s in her geometry class and doesn’t seem completely intellectually void. Although she knows that he has a bit of a crush on her (she heard this from her friend Michelle as they passed Walt in the hall one day and her and Michelle both exchanged meaningful looks), she doesn’t see any trouble in letting him play Otis Redding on the way there and doesn’t mind that when she realizes that are not, in fact, going to get piss-drunk in Tempe and are, instead, going to “sit” underneath the old water tower that hasn’t held water in nearly twelve years.

And she doesn’t see any trouble in letting him put his arms around her and then later kiss her. She, Bella Swan, has never wanted to be known as a prude and Walt is nice and fairly good-looking, and (she guesses) a pretty good kisser.

However, she does see some trouble when she ends up straddling him in the driver’s seat and also knocking the volume on his car’s stereo so that Otis Redding is blaring through her ear drums. She asks herself what she’s doing but she can’t stop herself, because it’s all rather fun in general, all rather delightful just letting yourself do whatever your body wants at just that second.

She wonders if maybe she imagined doing this another way, like in a field of wildflowers, with a guy she actually liked. But then, with surprise, she realizes that she never had really ever thought about it, and so this is as good as anything, here, both of them tucked into the front seat of his car.

His hand wanders up her shirt and it rests on top of her breast. She breathes a little erratically but kisses him more heavily, shifting so that her legs are further up his thigh; in reaction, he gasps and then clamps down on her chest as if he wasn’t thinking, and in reaction to this, she starts laughing. And suddenly, she can’t help herself—she leans her head back from him and starts laughing, laughing so hard it almost sounds like sobs. It’s then that she realizes how ridiculous all this is, her sitting in a random boy’s car about to try something she has never done, a deceased singer blaring on the stereo, the lights from the water tower glaring down on them.

She is still laughing when Walt drops her off at her apartment, his smile slightly apologetic, slightly agitated.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asks, almost hopeful that she might have felt something other than uproarious laughter.

She chuckles. “Oh, no. Of course not, Walt.” Turning, she stars heading up the steps towards the apartment. “Thanks for the ride.”

When Renee asks her how the game was, she replies, “Educational… hysterical.” Her mother doesn’t know what this means, but she doesn’t ask.

Later that night, her laughter actually does become sobs and she can’t figure it out, can’t figure it out at all.

edward cullen; age 19; forks ,washington; in a meadow not found on trail maps

This time it was her rejecting him and she can’t figure out what the hell is wrong with her brain.

Although she does know, if just a little bit, she tries not to think, but it’s awful hard as the sunshine pours over her face and makes the vision of the transparent red of his kiss run through her head, through her body, warming her in pit of her stomach, making her hands tremble.

Edward doesn’t seem phased by any of this at all; instead, he simply picks a flower from the ground and places in between the crook of her ear and her neck. When he smiles, he smiles at her throat and then at her face, and she hates herself because she’s being so difficult about this all, she hates herself because she’s making this harder than it already is for him.

He kisses her, lightly this time, and says, “We’ve got all the time in the world, my dear Bella.”

She thinks his words are nice, they sound pleasant, but there is something hallow in them. (Edward Cullen was the greatest illusionist of her life, never ceasing to make things shine where they should have rusted).

She wants to say, “That’s not true. Not for me. I only have a limited amount of time.” Turning onto her stomach, she eyes him through the grass and sighs.

A limited amount of time. That’s all they have.

She thinks about how this will never change.

She does not think about how deep, deep down, she doesn’t really want it to change.

She never tells Edward either one of these thoughts.

edward cullen; age 20; hanover, new hampshire ; in the alpha sigma frat house’s top left bedroom at dartmouth university

She’s pretty drunk, she won’t deny it, and she finds quite suddenly that she’s a very, very horny drunk. She also finds that Edward isn’t objecting, not at all, to her advances, even though a tiny part of her brain cannot figure out why, after all this time, he doesn’t lightly pull her away when she stuffs her tongue into his mouth.

It’s been two years since they both decided it would be okay for them to go a frat party (the real truth is that he had decided that it wasn’t good for her to go to a party, and she had thoughtlessly agreed). However, this hadn’t kept them from desperately trying to make a go for it, even though she had decided that weddings weren’t really her thing, and maybe she did want to get that law degree after all.

But instead of him pulling away, his hands shaking, her frustrated sigh a response to her body trying to calm her heart beat, she finds her shirt off and him lying on top of her, his body freezing and hard against hers.

She is panting, trying to find her lungs, because she seems to have forgotten how to breathe. The rough side of his tongue is tracing her jawline and when he nuzzles her earlobe her body shivers from his icy breathe.

The music from downstairs is pounding up in waves of vibrations up against their faces, up against their backs. It’s not exactly romantic (she thinks it might be Offspring), but there’s something hypnotic about all of it, about the way the music slams into their skin and then shakes into the marrow of their bones. Soon, the overall music just fades away and instead all she feels is the way her skin ripples in tune with the beating, beating, beating of everything, of his lips on the slight hill of her stomach, at his hands near her ribcage.

And then she says something she wonders if she should have regretted (she is never certain, but, in the end, she supposes it just was what it was). She arches her back into his mouth and mutters, her words gasps, “I like this new development in you. I like your lowered sense of self-control. Feels nice.”

At her words, Edward shoves away, his eyes suddenly cold and hard on hers. It’s that look that she remembers when he glared at her throughout 11th grade biology, his hands clenched in fists so tight she had marveled how they didn’t simply fall off his arms.

The pulsations turn into music again, and suddenly the lyrics feel very sad in her heart, because it’s at that moment that she realizes how very human the lyrics are, even if they are shallow, hardly introspective. They are human though, and she feels the vitality of them all the way to her bones

Although she loves him, as she stares at him sitting on the corner of the bed in some place she doesn’t think she will ever visit again, she thinks about how this is all far too complicated, how it shouldn’t have to be like this.

It’s when she's staring at him staring at the ground, his hand wrapped around his knee in a tight grasp, she knows she has to be fair. She knows then that she really does have to make a choice. No more touting the nametag of some neutral country in the center of Europe.

It takes her two hours to find her sweater downstairs.

It takes her two years for her to stop remembering him almost every second of every day.

rachael odachowski; age 22; oswego, new york; in bella swan’s ex-boyfriend’s guest bedroom

It’s really unclear to her if one can lose their virginity to a girl, especially if they’re just messing around, but she’s willing to try. Because Rachael is pretty nice, and really quite beautiful with light golden, summer skin and long, buttery, blonde hair, and, well, kissing a girl is quite nice for a change.

It all started when she had come to visit her boyfriend’s, Rick, house for Thanksgiving. He lived in a white-washed house that had dark, mahogany wood paneling throughout the entire house. The house was narrow and all the rooms felt tall, narrow, and claustrophobic; she mentioned one morning that she hadn’t slept well (the dreams since Edward’s departure had left her feeling sick and hallow every morning, but she doesn’t mention this), hoping not the offend Rick’s parents. His mother looked generally offended, but Rick’s father, Mr. Odachowski, who was fairly enchanted by her, said that Rachael could stay in her room at night, keep her company.

Rachael was twenty-five and home from NYU, where she was studying for her masters in video art (she doesn’t really know what this is, but she nods patiently as Mrs. Odachowski prattles on about it). Rachael wore long, crinkly skirts that brushed the floor but never got dirty and her hair was long, braided down to the middle of her back, and was shiny even in the dusty New York fall mornings.

They start by playing cards and then things eventually lead to them playing truth or dare.

“Oh, truth!” She says and then lays down parallel to Rachael on the bed. They’re both in their underwear because they have recently lip-synced a whole Foreigner album, and stripping seemed like the only thing to do.

“Alright,” Rachael draws before twirling a strand of hair in her index finger. “Have you ever… kissed a girl?” Rachael’s eyes light up at this, mischievous.

She blushes and then turns to stare at the ceiling. “Well. No.”

Rachael calls for a dare and of course is dared to kiss her. It progresses from there

Kissing Rachael is like—she figures—what kissing some sweet, delicious fruit would be like. Like a grape, she decides before arching her back so that she can wrap her legs around Rachael more fully.

Rachael’s hand is up her shirt, lips at the swell of her breast, when Rick comes in to check on them.

The look in his eyes appears to be confused, he’s completely blank, devoid of any expression whatsoever. She wonders if he’s contemplating if he should be turned on or completely disgusted.

Thanksgiving goes as planned and the Odachowski family talks little. Rachael wears a nice-smelling perfume and winks at her when their fingers graze as the cranberry sauce is passed.

Her and Rick drive in complete silence on the way back to Dartmouth. They will break up two and half weeks later because they both claim they “can’t communicate effectively.”

They never mention the fact that she kissed his sister.

Rachael writes her letters and sends her old film spools of the videos she is working on. She thinks that Rachael is very talented, and she writes her back, but eventually she hears less and less of Rachael Odachowski until she hears nothing at all.

It was just one of those things.

jacob black; age 24; la push reservation, washington; in the woods surrounding benjamin black’s house

The leaves are just starting to turn when she comes back to live in Forks. It rains just as much as always, but she isn’t surprised by it and finds that she misses the tinkering of rain on the roof above her when she sleeps at night. The noise distracts her from her dreams and when she awakes in the morning, her body aches less than it has in a long time.

She does still think about Edward, but she has less time to now that she’s busy catching up with everybody. It feels strange to take the drive into Olympia to see Angela, who’s working as a librarian at the local high school. Her, Angela, and Ben all catch a movie (a romantic comedy, but she doesn’t mind this time), and then they go back to Angela and Ben’s house and eat pizza that Angela makes herself. They play scrabble but then give up when she thoroughly whips them both at it—they grumble about trying to compete with a Dartmouth graduate. She merely shrugs away their comments and tries to think less about things that remind her of Edward Cullen.

Sometimes, Angela will show her how the baby’s new room is coming along. They’ve painted it yellow because her and Ben aren’t quite sure if it’s a girl or a boy, and they have decided to make it a surprise after all. Tracing the lines of the wallpaper, she feels a small, bittersweet explosion in her throat at the sight of Angela’s rounded figure.

Angela never says it, but the way she lets her touch her stomach just seems to say, “There’s still hope for you yet, Bella Swan. Still hope.”

With her English major (law school was too pricey and she refused to take the blank checks sent to her with no return addresses), she heads up the advertising department of Newton’s Outfitters. What this really means is that her and Mike Newton get to laugh over corny jokes and exchange sudoku puzzles they find in numerous magazines. Sometimes, Mike will still ask her out, and she will have to politely skirt around the question until she finds a way for three more people to fit into the occasion. This is usually a problem, because most people that are mutual friends with she and Mike are now long gone (the Cullens included).

It’s during one of these moments that Mike asks her if Jacob would want to come; she’s been dreading this question for years.

The fact is that ever since she’s come back to Forks, Washington, all she’s wanted to do is to drive in a straight line (she would plow through forests if she had to) towards him.

The fact is that she can feel his warmth, even here in Newton’s Outfitters, even at Dartmouth University.

The fact is that the reason she wanted to be human in the first place is because he taught her that there’s nothing wrong with living, nothing wrong with messing up, nothing wrong with getting pissed off, or being turned on, or laughing until you snort.

The fact is that she figured out that she’s been kind of in love with him ever since she tumbled onto the shores of La Push that one night when she was seventeen years old (it feels like an eternity ago, but she loves that the years have passed, loves that she knows they have passed and have learned something from their passing).

She wonders if she should tell him this, but then she finds she doesn’t have to. Charlie and her go to visit Billy Black when he is “sick” and there he is, sitting cross-legged on the front porch, working on something mechanical.

He looks up at them as they approach in Charlie’s cruiser and his eyes bore into her like hot coals. She finds herself looking into her lap and into the translucent plastic container resting atop her thighs.

Charlie walks in and offers a quick hello to Jacob, who merely nods (“Hello to you too, Chief Swan”), but his eyes never leave her.

She approaches slower than Charlie, so slow she’s sure she’s got weights stuck to her leg. She’s stumbling like a four year-old child and she can’t help but wince at the way he looks her up and down, up and down, like he’s not quite sure about the sight of her.

He hasn’t changed an ounce, she notes with a sense of nonchalance, as if she’s hardly surprised that the only thing that has physically changed on him is that his hair is shorter than the last time she saw him (she can hardly bear the memory now, him hurt, her stupid). It’s his eyes that she’s staring at now, black and hot, emotions swimming there that almost make her strong knees buckle; this is what truly frightens her, that after all these years that she thought she had strengthened herself, grown the hell up, Jacob Black can still haul up a pack of emotions that she forgot she owned.

“Hey,” is all she has to offer, her voice so weak in her throat she wonders if she’s made any noise at all.

“Hey.”

They stare at each other for a long, stretched out minute before she nods to the mechanical part. “Working on the carburetor?”

His eyes look at her through a fringe of long, dark eyelashes, and then he raises an eyebrow. “Lucky guess?” he offers back—she notices that his fingers are dark from the grease and oil as they move unconsciously over the car part.

She shrugs. “It’s, um, actually the only car part that I remember you talking about.” She looks meekly towards the side of his face.

He stares at her for a second before laughing uproariously, laughing like he’s finally remembered to breathe, as if he’s taking in more air than exhaling. She laughs with him, but more as a courtesy, because she figures it’s kind of odd to just stand there staring at somebody while they laugh like there’s no tomorrow.

When his bellows calm down to mere chuckles, he leans back and stares at her, his eyes changed somehow. Then, smiling, this time with the smile that she used to consider her own, he says, “I’ve missed you, Bella Swan.”

The thing is that people have told her this, or a variation of this, for the past few weeks, often while they saw her looking for Mike at Newton’s Outfitter’s. People have told that they missed her, touching her elbow and smiling kindly, but it’s different when Jacob says it, because every word that comes out of his mouth sounds like he really means it, every word, every syllable. It’s like he’s exhaling for the first time in centuries and the these words are the breathing out. It touches her so deeply, she finds herself throwing her arms around his neck, falling on her knees (probably bruising them), and burrowing her face in his neck and saying, “Oh, Jacob! I’ve missed you too!”

He laughs at her, but places a light touch on the back of her head.

“Oh!” A thought suddenly pops through her head. She draws back and offers him the Tupperware still held tightly in her hands. “I made you and Billy some quiche.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Quiche?”

Frowning, she puts a hand on her waist. “Now, tell me exactly what is wrong with quiche?”

A smirk forms at the corner of his lips as he takes the container from her and then notes, with a hint of sarcasm, “No, no, it’s great—we can have it with our tea and crumpets in the morning.”

She rolls her eyes and he laughs. He tells her to wait while he puts the food in the fridge. He’s gone for what seems like a shorter time period than possible before returning, taking her hand in his impossibly large one before saying, briefly, “Let’s walk.” She doesn’t have any reason to object so she lets him take her down the driveway and then off to the left, into the woods surrounding the house. He tells her, no really, thank you for the food, he actually does appreciate it. His thanks feels warm in her center and she finds herself smiling despite trying desperately to pout.

Things have changed, they both know that, but the next few hours they get lost in the woods surrounding Billy’s house, and things feel like they’ve hardly changed, the way he teases her about seeming to find every raised tree root in the whole of Forks, Washington. She, in turn, bites back that not everyone can be so freakishly graceful.

They talk a bit about the past few years, about how she went to Dartmouth and liked it alright and about how he went to the community college here in Forks and how he liked it alright also, but they avoid the subject that they know is coming, and they push it away like they’re forcing back a dam, trying desperately to hold everything together but knowing the waters will stem over, flow over them more forcefully than ever.

The sound of Charlie's cruiser echoes throughout the woods and Jacob remarks that they’re going fishing, most likely trying to beat the ominous weather coming in from the northeast.

She can feel the weather biting into her arms, chilling and strange as the wind blows in through the now naked trees. It’s while she’s looking at the sky and the thick, wooly snow clouds in the corners of the eastern sky that he finally asks her.

“Bella?” She doesn’t dare look at him, because she can hear the shift in his voice, knows that his eyes are almost eerily black and hot. “Why’d you come back, Bella? Dartmouth grad and fiancé and all. Why’d you…” she feels him shrug to the side of her and suddenly he’s looking at the ground, shuffling his feet around like an awkward toddler.

Slowly, her eyes shift to him and he looks up also and their eyes meet for only a second before she manages to look at his cheekbones instead of his direct gaze.

“Me and Edward broke up a long time ago,” She replies flatly and Jacob tries to act indifferent about it, and although she suspects he’s known this fact for years now, hearing her say it must hold some kind of power that she cannot figure out.

And then, she’s about to lie, say that she wants to spend time with Charlie because she misses him after all, and the job at Newton’s is pretty decent and she likes playing pictionary with Angela and Ben and Angela’s library friends on Saturday nights, and it’s all very nice in general. Although all of this is true, it is not the truth, and she knows it, and she’s about to say it, but something in the way that Jacob holds himself stops her.

The words start coming out before she can stop them, and she feels like she’s spewing up everything that she’s held inside for so long, it's almost made her sick, like her body knew it wasn’t meant to be contained this long. “You know how you said that you were the sun, Jacob?” She has to look at his clavicle in order to continue, she can feel her voice getting bundled up in her throat. “Well, it’s like this—and you’ve got to excuse my over extended abuse of metaphors—it’s like… you’re the sun, and here I am, the earth, and I found that I’ve just been orbiting around you for so long, it’s like I’ve forgotten, like it’s become a habit. But being away from you for so long taught me, or showed me I guess, that you’ve kind of… got a… gravity on me. Or something. And, I know it sounds crazy, Jacob, but I found myself pulled back here because it’s just. Well.” She looks up at him now and she feels empty in her stomach, that’s how foolish she feels right now, but she can’t help it. She’s looking in his eyes and there’s emotion there that she forgot that human beings could even feel. “And I don’t care it this sounds corny, because it’s true, Jacob Black, the unfortunate, weird truth: You just, sorta, hold me in? You hold me in.”

At the end, she smiles, a sad, little broken smile and she feels like maybe she really will throw up, this time for real, puking her guts all over the slick forest floor. She says, Alright, guess we should head back to the house before it starts snowing all over the place, and she turns to head back to the house near the horizon, but then he catches her arm and suddenly her lips are colliding into his and her whole body just about explodes into fiery, fairy-like embers.

She can’t ever remember being kissed like this, not even from Jacob previously—it seems like her whole body has been set aflame in a cool, green fire that extends from the crown of her head down to her knees and then has turned her legs into nothing more than wobbly jelly. And she finds that they’ve stopped working, the muscles and tendons and joints in her legs, and it’s just him holding her up, that’s what’s keeping her up, pressed against his mouth, which is hot and furious on hers. She finds that the kiss is like finding the missing piece of a puzzle, like the feeling of actually getting all the groceries you needed at the store, like finishing a thirty-page dissertation paper at four in the morning so you can turn it in a couple of hours.

It’s like coming back into orbit.

He’s got her backed against a tree trunk now, propped her up so that her legs are no longer a problem. The tree’s bark is scratchy against the exposed skin on the small of her back, but she doesn’t care, not at all—he’s tracing the lines of her throat with his mouth and right now the world seems to melt into a mess of monochromatic nothingness. She gasps as he finds her earlobe and barely nips it with the tip of his teeth; it sends steaming ripples throughout the entire extent of her body.

Then, his hands are underneath the thick fabric of her sweater and it feels like there’s literally fire in her stomach and it’s leaking up through her throat and coming out her mouth in gasps of, “Jacob, Jacob, oh god, Jacob…”

His mouth finds hers again and quiets her almost indistinct garbling and it’s then, when she’s stopped talking, that she can finally compute that she’s got her legs wrapped around his waist and his left hand is underneath her right thigh and she’s got her hands all tangled in his hair, and somewhere along the way, his shirt has been taken off.

It’s then, when she arches into his kiss and his hand slides further up her ribcage that it starts snowing. Hard.

The wind is actually howling, she’s never heard it howl like that, not in years, and for once she actually notices that it’s really very cold outside; she’d forgotten as her body was pressed so tightly against his own that she was confused as to which was which.

Jacob suddenly pulls away and he’s looking up at the sky with incredulous, almost accusing, eyes. Then, as he feels her shake up against his body at the sudden temperature drop, he puts her gently back on the ground, saying, “Better get you inside before you get knocked over by this wind. Lord knows you’ll probably find some sharp, pointed object on the way down and get yourself killed.” He smirks at her, his eyes a little mischievous now.

She wants to retort with something scathing to this but her teeth are chattering far too much for anything halfway coherent so she lets him find his shirt (it’s several yards away and she doesn’t remember ever being in that location… she wonders how much of time and location had slithered out her brain while his mouth was burning against hers).

He wraps an arm around her shoulder and suddenly she feels much, much warmer. His voice is low and gravelly in her ear when he says, “It’s good to have my planet back.”

She smiles.

jacob black; age 24; la push reservation, washington; against benjamin black’s kitchen cabinetry

Charlie and Billy come back a few minutes later to find her and Jacob sipping coffee in the living room, her body engulfed by a large, wooly blanket. (Jacob, in turn, looks hardly phased by the weather and she wants to punch him in the arm for being so damn warm).

Billy laughs and then looks at them like he knows, which unnerves her. “You kids get caught in this blizzard too?”

They merely nod; when Jacob doesn’t say anything, just stares blankly ahead, she knows he too is worried what his father seems to know.

Charlie and her drive back in relative silence, being careful in the snow. The weather has cleared since when it initially came down, but Charlie keeps mentioning most of the snow will freeze as the night progresses.

“Means downed power-lines, more accidents, trees falling…” he prattles off and it makes her feel warm that he can talk about these things with such gravity that it makes these things actually seem like real national emergencies.

They are home for only a matter of minutes before she gets to thinking, gets to thinking hard. She stares out the window and knows that maybe what happened in the forest was just a coincidence, maybe it was just her catharsis, maybe it was just him feeling a little sad for her in general. She hadn’t even asked if he had imprinted, and suddenly she feels like a generally large idiot.

She tells Charlie that she forgot something at the Black’s, she’ll be back in hour or so, and although he’s yelling at her to come back in this house, right this instant, young lady, she doesn’t listen, she just keeps walking, hops in her truck and then drives as fast as her vehicle and the weather combined will let her.

A flickering blue light lights Jacob’s house, and she knows that he’s in the living room, watching television, moping most likely. She kills her truck’s engine and marches into the house like she’s barging in for some kind of police operation. Her mind doesn’t even have time to tell her that she probably looks like a maniac, because it’s too busy spinning with images and questions and accusations and declarations to even remember anything truly sane.

Sure enough, Jacob is there, sitting low in the sofa, glaring at the television. When she comes in, however, his eyes flick up and he sits up straighter, looking shocked.

“Bella?!” he exclaims before looking around the house as if he isn’t quite sure if he is dreaming or not. “What are you doing he…”

“Where’s Billy?” she interrupts.

“Um,” he looks at her as if he’s not quite sure where to place her. “He’s at the Clearwater’s, fixing their heating system. Why? What’s going on? Are you o— ”

“Have you imprinted with anyone?” She snaps again, this time staring down the hallway, pretending to look for Billy, but really she doesn’t know if she can stand to fully see his expression when he answers.

There is a long, stretched out silence and she finally finds she can’t help but sneak a small glance at her.

He blinks at her. “What? No… no, I haven’t imprinted with anyone. I wasn’t lying to you, Bella, when I said I never would. There’s not enough, um, room, in me to imprint with anyone. It’s like, I literally can’t hold anyone but you, Bella. It’s just not possible.” He cocks his head at her and finally he asks, “What’s going on, Bella? Are you okay? Did the cold freeze your brain or something?”

But she’s not listening anymore, she's just walking toward him, her mind set almost on auto-pilot. He’s staring at her like he doesn’t know what to say, even though he’s asking her what she’s doing, what’s going on exactly, and he’s in the middle of another question when she straddles him on the couch and presses her mouth to his forcefully, as if telling him to shut the hell up, please.

This time it’s his mouth that’s passive, as if caught in complete shock. The kiss only lasts a few seconds until he grabs her shoulders and pulls away from her.

A groan emits from her lips without her even thinking about it. A sort of angry flame licks its way up her throat and she finds herself snapping, “What’s wrong with you boys? Does no one want to sleep with me?”

The expression on his face is unfathomable until he blinks at her and a small smirk forms on his lips. “Are you telling me, Bella Swan, that you drove through a blizzard in a sixty year-old car at night so that you could get laid?”

She eyes him for a second and then purses her lips. “Something like that. Yes.”

She’s still straddling him and he hasn’t shoved her from this position and suddenly she feels like maybe he’s just teasing her, not really rejecting her, and she bites back the tears from the edges of her vision.

He raises an eyebrow at her and then tries to look hurt. “I feel rather used, Bella Swan.” She squints at him and he laughs before quickly replying, “Maybe I’d be willing to, you know, help you out, if you were to ask. Really nicely.”

Her mouth pops opens and she stares at him lethally; he’s looking at her with an expression that is two-hundred percent smug and she wants nothing more than to slap him. But, pursing her lips and crossing her arms, she looks off to the side and says through gritted teeth, “Will you have sex with me, Jacob Black?” Then, staring back at him, she adds the last bit with every ounce of irritation in her body, “Please?”

He laughs at this and then his eyes turn from teasing to inquisitive. “As you wish,” he mumbles before catching her mouth in his, dipping her head back from the gentle force of it all.

And, really, she hadn’t expected it would happen in an old kitchen, against the cabinet that holds coffee and pancake mix and flour and sugar and aluminum foil, next to a outdated avocado colored refrigerator, but it’s okay, she supposes, more than okay.

It hurts a little, but a good kind of hurt, and it blends in with the warm electricity in her stomach and soon she finds herself groaning his name and him breathing, “I know…” into her ear, making her tremble all over. His warmth consumes her and she finds herself laughing in the end, truly and deeply happy.

He gets some blankets from the linen closet and they lay them on the linoleum kitchen floor before laying down on the blankets.

He kisses her forehead and she remarks that they’ve been holding out on each other, that was completely awesome, and he just laughs at her, tells her that maybe it was worth it, waiting so that they’d know how much this meant in the end, meant when they could’ve gone their whole life, lifetimes perhaps, without it.

“You’ve gotten wise in your years, Jacob Black,” she teases before propping her head up with her hand, staring at him.

He just rolls his eyes and then tells her to kiss him again.

“Maybe if you ask nicely,” she says coyly; but he doesn’t have to, because her lips are on his before he can utter another word.

fine

And here... have a song. It's like the lollipop at the doctor's office after getting your boo-boo shot. Also? I want Jacob and Bella to have sex to Rilo Kiley and only Rilo Kiley and more specifically this song. It's the truth.

the love died but the hate can't fade

chipping — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 04:42:59 GMT

Dear Jean Makers of the world,

Hello, I am here to inquire if you actually make products for HUMAN BEINGS. If you do, could you please point them out to be, because I fail at finding them. Thanks a lot ~~, fuckers~~.

Sincerely,
Jolene

But SERIOUSLY, guys. Where do you all get your clothing apparel, especially that of the jean variation? So, I eat. SO WHAT. So what if my ass occasionally appears to eat my body?? So what if there's a freakish difference between my waist and my hips?? I WAS MADE FOR CHILDBEARING. GET OVER IT, JEAN MANUFACTURERS. Surely, someone feels my pain. Surely.

I tried on about 40 different pairs in the past few days and have yet to buy one. ONE. Every time I find one that fits my thighs and butt, there's either crotch problems (as in, for some reason, apparently my crotch is supposed to be at mid-thigh all of sudden), or when I find one that fits my waist, it's like suction-cupped to my legs. I AM DISTRAUGHT. DISTRAUGHT I TELL YOU. I just want to be clothed, people. I am no exhibitionist. This is a fact.

/jean rant

Guys, I'm seriously considering driving almost 4 hours to go the Stephenie Meyer signing in Alpharetta, GA. WHAT. I know, this has increased my nerd-dom by 3983648756 points. True story. But, I don't have class on Fridays this semester, and I'm thinking my roommates might. So, I mean WTH not. Okay, let's be honest, it's always been a fantasy of mine to go to a JKR reading and wear the most obnoxious H/HR attire/paraphernalia, and this is the next best thing. Except, Stephenie LIKES us Jacob/Bella shippers. I think. I mean, she at least likes Jacob, which gives her 3.4 extra cool points. Go Stephenie. Anyways, is anyone else going to this one? I would love to not be alone in my ~~pathetic-ness~~ geeky happiness. Although, I'm thinking me and caalan might be the only people on LJ who live in the scary, southern US. MEEP.

Also, GIP. For some reason, I couldn't completely compute my TRUE feelings for Edward, and mouthsopen has done it all with an icon, which I love her more and more for. I saw it and was like, "A BOWLER HAT THAT IS WHAT I'VE BEEN MISSING ALL THIS TIIIIIIIME." Oh Rini, never stop making icons that make AWESOME AWESOME random sense. :D

I don't care what ANYBODY says, I really really love the new Stars album. GET OVER IT. Also, the song "Barricade" makes me want to write really bad fic where Edward and Jacob go back in time and fight in the French Revolution and meet Jean Val Jean and Javert and, hell, Eponine too. It would be full of angst and boys making out and epic rock opera sequences. And fuck it, Leah can come too and her and Eponine and Jacob can have their own musical number about scorned love. Then they can all just sit around and brush each other's pretty PRETTY hair. Guys, I want this desperately on Broadway.

And hey, I'm a layout whore, so I changed it again (whatever, you totally don't want me to say chipping). It's just basically me deciding that Steven Strait and Danielle Panabaker need to do more movies together, preferably where one is a werewolf and where they look down in an emo fashion often and they make out ALOT. I'm not saying it HAS to be Eclipse, but I wouldn't mind it. OR ANYTHING.

Alright, this post is basically me procrastinating my 1sentence assignment that I signed up for in, um, MAY. WTH. Odd hours of the AM, here I come. LE SIGH.

Interim | Jacob/Bella

chipping — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:30:19 GMT

So, basically I write fic that goes with my fanmixes but sometimes if it really really REALLY sucks I don’t post it. This is one of those, but I kept writing it and now I am posting it. I don’t EVEN know what this is. DON’T EVEN KNOW. WHATEVER. Basically, it’s a bunch of Jacob angst and a huge COP OUT ending. But, whatever. Blame it on topofthepiano and her bitching at me to stop writing my awful and annoying EMO ENDINGS. Except, I’m pretty sure this is totally NOT what she had in mind.

Also, anythingbutgrey made the point that Jacob/Leah is wrong wrong WRONG. And thus I had to write fic about how it totally is, but it would be okay if they both had emo second-cousin parties together where they angsted about their ex-lovers. Just, you know, keep it chaste like a Pentecostal high school function, kids.

Also, not capitalizing things has more to do with me being lazy and less with it making my fic even more EMO. TRUE STORY.

title: Interim
fandom: Twilight
ship: Jacob/Bella (HAHA, like it would actually be anything else)

interim

Love is a choice you make from moment to moment
~Barbara De Angelis

he realizes that immortality is overrated when he forgets what year it is and is generally suprised when leah states that he's supposed to be five years older than he thought he was.

"oh. huh." he reaches into the fridge. "wanna beer?" he offers to her, his face still staring into the fridge.

she gets up and leaves, grumbling that if all he's going to do tonight is stare into the distance and think about bella swan then she wants nothing to do with it.

he wants to say something smart about how she's one to preach, to chide about pining away for somebody to come back. but then, he knows that leah's right, she's more right than he wants to admit.

the door slams more softly than expected, as if leah thought better of it at the last second, as if she was saying, "i know, jacob black. i know."

*

billy's funeral is a black tie affair. everybody from la push comes to the edge of the pacific to see the ashes glide softly through the air, peppering the waves for the few instants before they crash against the ocean cliffs.

some people come up to him, shake his hand with a firmer grip than they would a normal person.

"i'm sorry, son," they say but their eyes are not full of sympathy. instead, they stare at him as if searching for something, as they are hoping that something will paint itself across his face at any second.

he wonders if they are alarmed by the blankness in his face, at the void in his eyes as he watches his father become air and earth right in front of him.

he wants to laugh, say, "you don't get it, do you? you don't know how intangible death is for me now, do you? do you?"

the fact is that he wants to fill his seemingly empty void with grief, with a sadness and anger and guilt so wide and full that it flows up and drips down from his ears, down his neck, into the crevasses of his chest. but, the truth is that he feels the need to leave himself empty, waiting and waiting and foolishly waiting for her return.

he has hallowed himself out, carved out his insides, for bella swan.

the pack tells him that she isn't coming back. he knows that they're probably right, but he waits just the same, will never stop waiting.

*

he only phases on new moons, because it's unnerving to run through the forests and not know if at any second you might find yourself falling off a ravine, into a gorge, your body to float away in the cool spring at the bottom, decomposing in the moonlight nights to follow.

the unknown is something he is more than familiar with, so familiar it has become known. now, nervousness is the only feeling that is new and exciting to him.

other than that, all he can feel is the deep hallow ache of missing her.

*

leah asks him one day when they're climbing trees in emily and sam's backyard, "when we gonna move on, jacob?"

the sunlight breaks through the tree branches and warms his already sweltering skin. wiping away the sweat from the back of his neck, he replies, "hopefully, never."

"hopefully?" she stops climbing, stares at him like she is agitated and horrified at the same time.

he shrugs. "and the other option is what? we imprint with someone completely random, someone who just happens to breeze our way? what, leah? that's not what you want, is it?" he says the last bit with a tone that is less a question, more a statement.

"well..." she looks awkwardly down, down towards the ground, which is already three stories away from her face.

he continues climbing, up towards the sun, "it's cheap, leah. i haven't had many choices. this is one i'm keeping, because i want to. she’s something that i will keep."

leah doesn't say anything but instead puts her hand on the back of his calf, looks at him as if to say, "okay."

*

sam stepped down a long time ago, after the cullens left. he, sam, now ages with the perfection that jacob eyes greedily.

sam will sometimes complain about his back, about his children, about finances.

he wishes he could do the same. often, all he has to offer to the conversation is, "yes, well, the pack is doing well. we've been practicing. just in case."

"they're not coming back, black," sam tells him, his eyes soft and concerned. "you know that, right? she isn't coming back."

"yes. well." he looks out the window, down the road that leads to the pacific. "just in case."

*

the years pass.

he hardly notices.

*

it's at leah's wedding that she tells him she's leaving the pack.

"how can i possibly explain that to roger?" she asks, fiddling the lace on her veil.

his eyebrows scrunch together. "you mean... you didn't... you didn't imprint with him?"

when her eyes meet his, a sad explosion occurs in him. he knows he should be angry, raging that she has made a very, very foolish decision, that she's being an idiot. instead, her eyes are pleading, as if to ask for his understanding, if anyone's understanding, his.

he smiles warmly for the first time in years and, kissing her forehead, he mumbles, "we're going to miss you, leah."

her tears are hot and joyous against his chest.

*

paul is next. then quil.

the pack's numbers dwindle and then resurge, as if some genetic mishap has taken surge.

sarah is the first of the new generation. she stares at jacob with large, scared eyes as sam explains softly and gently what's been happening to her lately, her father's hand at the small of her back, his other hand on the top of her head.

jacob looks at her sadly, his hands folded over his mouth, elbows balancing on his knees. her hair is still the shimmering black of childhood and her legs and arms are still lanky. however, her hips and waist have started to form prematurely, showing the evidence that the change is about to occur, that it isn't just a figment of sam and emily's imagination.

sam tells sarah to go finish her homework, patting her on her head. "don't worry too much about all of this, honey," he calls to her disappearing figure but when sam turns back to him, his eyes are full of something that jacob has to turn his gaze from.

"she's awful young," he says for sam, since he knows that's what he's thinking, what sam wanted him to say.

sam shrugs, but it's not one out of indifference, but rather nervousness. "early bloomer. emily says that... well... she says girls are growing up faster than they used to." there is a slight awkward grimace on sam's face when he says this and he shifts his hands quickly over his face as if to erase an expression there.

he looks out the sam and emily's kitchen window and blinks at the fact that it's snowing (the seasons have started to run together, become an endless stream of weather that he hardly notices from his vantage point of one-hundred-oh-nine). he looks back up at sam, who's now standing awkwardly looking up at his daughter's bedroom, as if he had forgotten to say something very important, something vital.

"it's not your fault, sam," he states before walking out to the front porch before sam can say anything else. the front screen door slams shut and he walks out into the snow, which is now coming down in drifts, he utters under his breath, "but don't mean it's gonna be okay." he's shirtless and barefoot but he crunches through the corn starch snow without blinking. "never means it's gonna be okay."

*

"time does heal some things," leah tells before crinkling her nose and shaking her head. "ugh. that sounded kind of awful, didn't it?" she chuckles a breathy sort of laugh, her lips halfly drawn up.

they are sitting on her living room floor one sunday doing a puzzle, but his hands are too big to put the small pieces together and although he gave up a long time ago, he just likes to watch her put it together-- when leah changed, she didn't bulk up like the rest of them, become a living giant; instead, she had grown strong, lean muscles with reflexes and dexterity and speed that alarmed even him, the alpha. she stares at the jigsaw pieces for only a second before gazing over the five hundred other odd pieces before picking the exact spot where the small piece needs to go. a grunt of approval emits from her lips every time she does this and he laughs at her.

"what is it now?" she asks in an irritated voice, not even looking at him, examining another piece.

he shrugs before unrolling himself onto the cool floor; the sounds of roger cutting grass outside is the only thing pervading through their thick, concentrated silence. "you're getting rusty there, leah," he teases, but then again, there's some truth in what he's said-- he can already see the speed leaking through her pores, as her temperature drops (has it been a year almost since she's phased last? shaking his head, he finds he cannot believe it).

leah only replies by punching him in the shoulder, and although he merely mock-laughs at her, it actually does hurt quite a bit.

biting back a grimace, he stares at the ceiling and says, "do you ever think of sam still?" he tries his best to keep his tone conversational, but he knows the question holds too much gravity to make it instantaneously casual.

she pauses for once, stares at him laying on the floor, her hands holding captive a puzzle piece. her mouth is frowning but her eyes don't look accusing, like he had expected. instead, she blinks at him and then cocks her head in thought. "well. of course. of course i do," she replies before she looks over the puzzle and places the piece exactly where it needs to go.

he is about to say something in addition, but she quickly overlaps him, another piece in her hand. "when sam left me, i felt like this," she waves a hand over the half-finished puzzle and then looks up at him through her eyelashes, shy now. "i wasn't... sure it was going to be okay. i felt. well. i felt sam had take pieces of me and thrown them away and i was never, ever going to get them back."

he raises an eyebrow, a teasing smile cocked on his face. "are you making a metaphor out of your 560-piece kitten jigsaw puzzle?"

instantly, her face falls and she just shakes her head, rolling her eyes. "sometimes i really hate you, jacob black."

laughing, he rolls on his side and stares out the window at the annoyingly cheerful day. the whirl of lawnmower dies down and is replaced with the rumbling sound of roger talking to his neighbor, somebody from forks that jacob doesn’t know. it surprises him everyday to drive through leah's neighborhood and see change; he had thought that the whole concept had been done away from the universe when she had left.

suddenly, he feels a touch at his heel. looking up, he sees leah, her shape dark in his eyes as they adjust from viewing the sunny outdoors. at first, he thinks the touch is a mistake and he almost looks away, but her voice stops him. "you're going to be okay, you know, jacob?" she asks, her voice hesitant but sure of itself, as if absolutely certain of the truth behind the words spoken. "you're going to be okay."

and, blinking, he finds it's the first time he believes her.

*

sarah is clumsier than the rest of them, but her eyesight is so extraordinary, he blinks in surprise when she jerks her head out to sea one night before responding, oh just a freight liner.

he sees nothing, not even the faintest of lights. sarah hardly notices and goes bounding off to play with seth, yelping playfully before crouching and pouncing. they both run off into the forests, barking at each other.

he finds the the bitter stir of jealousy deep within the pit of his stomach, and although he shakes his head to clear it, nothing works.

it would please him exponentially to be able to stand on top of the tall mountains surrounding la push, keep watch for her at night, hope to find the slightest glimmer of light that always emitted from her, a cool, gray light that shimmered strangely amongst the black night.

he wishes these things and he wonders at the absurdity of them, but he never stops wishing them.

*

they grill out every sunday after church and he notices how paul has gotten softer around his midsection, in his smile; he thinks that it does paul well, looks better.

sarah is there, and the transformation is strange-- for an eleven year-old girl, she looks oddly post-pubescent; she stands a foot over her other peers, her hair cut short, up to her shoulders (there had to be a bribe of ice cream for this haircutting excursion). he feels sad as she tugs at the middle of her back, pulling her bra strap, frustration on her lips at having to deal with such a form of attire so quickly and jarringly within her life.

he wants to laugh and he wants to cry and he wants to rip the motherfucking grill apart when he sees her stand awkwardly amongst the adults there, amongst leah and paul and quil and embry, her face looking very lost in general.

instead, he simply scarfs down an entire hamburger in two bites before quickly excusing himself. he takes off in a sprint towards the woods and finds that he doesn't want to phase, he just wants to run, run until his lungs hurt, burn like sulfur inside of him.

it's times like this that he remembers the most, when he's trying so hard to forget, like a rainbow is easier to see from the corner of your eye than directly onward. he remembers the way she had called, never stopped, back when things were actually simpler (it bothers him that those times could be considered simpler). remembers the way her face looked when he had slammed the window of her truck, remembers her wanting to know what he had been bought into by sam, her eyes scared and determined and angry for him. remembers the way her eyebrows quivered when she asked him if she was losing him, really losing him.

"you never lost me," he mutters, finally stopping near a clearing. "or something like that."

in truth, she is the shadow, the haunt, the poltergeist of his life.

he finds that running does no good; she has followed him here, even to the edges of la push, even to the ends of civilization.

*

he actually thinks about imprinting. once. he is in leah's front yard and she's throwing a stick to the new puppy that her and roger have recently adopted.

he mentions how absurd this is.

"you were one for a number of years, ‘case you've forgotten," he points out before throwing the stick farther in the yard than should be humanly possible. it sails through the air before going out of sight. the puppy merely cocks its head at him before whining. leah, also, gives him the same kind of look, but with exponentially more poison. "oops. sorry." but he addresses his apology to the dog rather than leah.

leah picks up another stick and throws it gently, although he can tell her strength is still abnormal. the puppy runs clumsily after it, its body a small, chubby streak of fur. shrugging, she reaches down in her pockets, stares at the ground and replies, "sometimes, we just love things despite what they are, you know? despite what you are?"

he knows she's right, even though she didn't mean to be that right and suddenly he feels better all the way to bottom of his feet.

*

the years pass.

two of them. he vaguely notices them, enough to know how many have passed.

he still thinks of her.

*

the postcards come in the fall, when he decides to finally fix up the house. after his father's death, the old homestead has started to crumble, like it knew the death of its former occupant had come and it didn't see much of a reason to keep on functioning anymore.

he is patching some rotten drywall in the back, spare room when he notices the flash of something bright in the stack of mail he brought in earlier. his eyebrows furrowed, he walks over and picks it up, only to see a glossy postcard in his hand, the front displaying the words, "NICE, FRANCE." The picture shows white, sandy beaches so bright it hurts his eyes just to look at them photographed.

turning it over, he reads:

"there was a kind of cold-hearted selfishness on both sides, which mutually attracted them; and they sympathized with each other in an insipid propriety of demeanor, and a general want of understanding."
- sense and sensibility

i'm sending you this to let you know where i have been and where i am now. please do not ponder too long on either one of these locations.

with all my love,
bella

he does what he is told, and the postcards keep coming, sometimes with shakespeare, sometimes from plato or euripides or some other greek philosopher he remembers from the times when he wasn't napping in his advance placement law class when he was in high school. sometimes there is a note, a small small personal note (he traces the loose, sloppy script with the tip of his finger), but mostly there is not, just quotes, often more than one. the postcards are all from places he can only imagine, and sometimes it hurts in the soles of his feet that he knows them only by brightness of the postcards, from the quotes she has connected with these far-off places.

the last note he receives is from a place closer than he could possibly expect. it shines with the gloss of los angeles and the back says simply this:

"now is our chance to choose the right side. god is holding back to give us that chance. it won't last forever. we must take it or leave it."
- c.s. lewis

*

when she arrives, she is holding a large bag that is stuffed with brightly colored tissue paper.

"happy birthday," are her first words to him in many, many years (he tries to count them quickly but they do not come). the way she extends the present towards him is like she is putting a barrier between them, as if the wads of tissue paper might stem back any sort of anger or shock emmitting from his body.

it's raining outside, and it is falling on her, catching her eyelashes and making her blink in odd random patterns. the bag is also getting wet, even though she's practically held it into the house. they stand there and look at each other, her looking oddly peaceful; he cannot gauge his expression but he is sure it is a mixture of shock and confusion.

"bella?!" he asks finally, this time rearing back and staring at her, cocking his head.

she smiles at the mention of her name and something goes off inside him. "last time i checked." clearing her throat, she continues, "i see you've been working on the house. i heard about... about... billly. i'm so sorry, jacob. so sorry"

he shrugs. "life goes on, somehow. you know?" and when he stares up at her, the look on her face is something that burns him up from the inside up, even though he is already sweltering, just being around her.

he offers to make her coffee. they sit in silence, both of them listening to the soft plinkering of rain outside. he runs a hand over the rim of the coffee cup and then over his chin and stares at her.

"i've been traveling," she notes, opens her mouth as to say something, and then closes it. she smiles warmly at him.

he stares into her eyes and finds a soft chocolate brown staring back at him (there is not a trace of amber or scarlet or anything of the sort). her hair is a little shorter, almost a little shy of her shoulders. but it's her face that he can't stop staring at, the way her smile is older and wiser and happier. the lines in her face are obvious, there is age there; he wants to run his fingers over them like the script on her postcards. he wants to devour them, see what he words taste like, how they dissolve on his tongue.

leaning back in her chair, she stares out the window, takes a sip of coffee. "me and edward, we, um... i guess we broke up?" she laughs at this and looks at him. "kind of an odd way to put it, since, you know. it was just... i don't know." she takes another sip. "so, we broke up."

he looks into his coffee cup to distract himself from wincing at the mention of the name. "but, why? the bloosu-- i mean, why did you and edward break up?" he tells himself to relax his grip on the cup, because he can feel the ceramic starting to crack, splinter. "last time you left, you had invitations and everything. they were shiny too."

she rolls her eyes at this. "yeah... don't think i've completely forgiven alice for all of that either." sighing, she rolls her neck and then says, "and the wedding, well... that's when things..." pausing, she stares in her coffee and then furrows her eyebrows. "... i realized that i had let... other people define my life? does that make any sense?" she shakes her head. "i didn't... know who i was, jacob. i just knew that i was infatuated with some boy i had met a year ago and i was letting all my choices be swayed because of him, despite what i wanted." after these words, she looks up at him and he can feel her gaze warm the side of his face; he stares deeply into the swirling, dark mass of his coffee. "and i stepped back and looked at it and i saw it clear for maybe only a few minutes: i didn't know edward's middle name, didn't know what made him truly and deeply sad or angry or frustrated, i didn't know if he liked television, i didn't know if he had any real dreams or ambitions, didn't know his favorite color, didn't know what he did in the 60s or 80s or whatever. and most of all, i didn't know why he loved me. or why i loved him for that matter. it was just... for a few minutes. but it was enough, enough for me to pack my suitcase, hop a bus to a far away town." her voice is suddenly caught in her throat and when she sighs, it feels less like nostalgia and sadness and more like someone gasping for air. then, looking at him, she continues, "so, i decided to figure out who bella swann is. i moved to chicago, to kentucky, to the east coast of maine and then finally i just decided, what the hell, i'm seeing the world." she stops momentarily, stares out the window, then marches on, "i was in france, just walking down the street, and i saw-- i know this sounds crazy, jacob, but bear with me—i saw an old woman singing to her grandchildren, or some younger children, i don't know. and that's when i knew what i wanted." she reaches out, just barely touching his pinky finger that is fiercely gripping his coffee cup, and when he looks at her, he sees something in her eyes that he figures might crumble the strongest, hardest man-- it is frustration and anger at herself, it is a look of want of need for understanding.

"a while ago, jacob," she breathes, her words heavy in the room, "you told me that story in the bible. about solomon. you never mentioned that the one who let the child go, they got it back. and i'm thirty-one years old, jacob, far away from being a baby and somewhat of an old woman, but i'm yours if you want me. wholly and fully yo--"

when he kisses her, she laughs and says something about how they'll be quite the scandal in town, the old white lady and the young quileute man and he rolls his eyes.

"you're never going to let go of the fact that i'm younger than you, are you?" he mumbles against the skin at her neck.

she chuckles before breathing in his ear, "gives me some leverage on you, so, no, you whipper-snapper you."

and although he had dreamed about it numerous times (he had found that dreams were harder to control than anything else), he never expected it to be so natural, so gentle, so forgiving. and he didn't expect leah to be right; the last puzzle piece is put into place and with her he feels complete, although he is surprised that he was never as incomplete as he thought he was.

when he embraces her, the coolness of her skin is human, although he knew it already, the second he breathed her in, saw her eyes (a chocolate brown, flecks of hazel, not amber, no red to be found).

he asks her later that night, "did you learn who bella swan is?"

she's almost asleep when she answers, "mmm. yep. she's a pretty weird creature as you already know. but, then, again, she's always got a little bit of that jacob black in her. can't seem to get rid of that part."

he laughs before teasing, "the best part if i may say so myself."

she snorts, but it sounds more like a chuckle as she drifts in unconsciousness. "as cocky as always, i see. hmm." she turns towards him and stretches out her legs, so that she's hogging most of the bed, "i sort of missed you, jacob black."

the smile that forms on his face extends from his earlobes to the center of his chest, warming him there.

*

the birthday present is a blank photo album.

“meant to be filled,” she says to him as she makes lasagna the next night after her return.

quickly, the album fills, a physical, tangible testament that the years have passed.

they notice them.

fine