Jul 18, 2019
all my love in the dark. be close but miles apart. ft. @waredsin
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all my love in the dark. be close but miles apart. ft. @waredsin
In the past-future, Cheryl and Julian mourn Jason. Cheryl grieves for a brother that was never born but whom she loved dearly; Julian for a brother he never met, the man he might (and perhaps should) have been. He remembers Jason, because he was there when Angel Tabitha showed them the happy memories, but since he wasn't born in the future-past, he remembers everything like a story told to you so many times you forget it isn't your own.
Julian asks Cheryl, once and only once, if she ever wishes he were Jason.
It's 1987, and they're fifty-one years old, sharing a glass of maple whiskey the night before Julian launches his presidential campaign.
He's running as a red-blooded Republican because if he set foot in the DNC, everyone would think he's following in the footsteps of his Soviet mother and traitor father. He doesn't have high hopes of becoming president even if he wins the nomination, but the good he could do with the office and his knowledge of the future make the gamble worth it.
He doesn't know it yet, but he will win, and the media will call it divine intervention, and they will be right, in a roundabout sort of way.
Cheryl has a streak of white in her hair that appeared in their twenties after Nana Rose died. She looks distinguished. Appropriately powerful for the power-broker she's become in DC. She looks at him and sees not-Jason, he believes, and it kills him.
He shouldn't ask, but he does, and he waits for his twin sister to crush him beneath the custom red-bottomed heels she was too impatient to wait for Louboutin to invent in the 90s.
"Do you ever wish I were Jason?" Julian asks, tasting maple in his mouth like blood.
"No," Cheryl says. She doesn't think about her answer, which means she has thought about the question a lot. It's been thirty-two years since Angel Tabitha showed them their past future in the Babylonium. Thirty-two years is a lot of time to think. To fester. "Do you ever wish you were?"
"I think so," Julian whispers.
"Well, don't." Cheryl fixes him with eyes that don't so much reflect the fire beside them as gobble it up. She used to have phoenix fire running through her veins, and the body remembers. She was always cold when they were children, and their parents could never figure out why. "He left me."
"He died." Julian corrected.
She shook her head. "He left me first. Chose Polly over me. Left me alone with Penelope and Clifford in that house of horrors. He died after that."
"He would have come back for you," Julian says, because that's what he would have done. He can't imagine leaving Cheryl behind for anything. "I would have."
"And this is why I don't wish you were Jason." Cheryl leaned forward, resting her wrists on her crossed knees. "Because those are both lies. He wouldn't have come back for me, and you would never have left. I miss Jason. I don't miss him as much as I would miss you."
In the morning, Julian will stand before flashing cameras with his wife beside him, his children beside her - triplets, the first ever Blossom triplets - and deliver the speech the Riverdale High class of 1956 wrote for him. Its thesis is the headline of almost every article written about his candidacy and presidency and is quoted for decades to come.
"Bend towards justice," Senator Julian Blossom says, and the timeline does. Not because he wills it — although he does — but because he works for it. And he is not alone in that.
I have this idea clanging around my head of what could happen after our Riverdale folks graduate with memories of the future and the drive to change the world.
Bend towards justice, Angel Tabitha commanded, and with their task set before them, Riverdale High's class of 1956 goes forth. Equipped with the literal mandate of heaven, memories of a future that could never be allowed to come to pass, and powers that manifested as their memories of Rivervale solidified, they wander out into an unsuspecting world.
The thing about granting these three things to a group of people is that they can have the best of intentions; the cabal will form anyway. Hollywood, DC, newsmedia, academia, the military, in all aspects of American life, they were there. On their radios and television sets, silver screen and newspaper, their footsteps shake the earth.
They're eighteen and forty-three, decades ahead of their peers in every meaning of the phrase. They've made the mistakes of their twenties, passed through the petrifying fear of aging in their thirties, older and wiser yet younger and full of energy.
They're bound by blood spilt and memories shared, Riverdale and Rivervale, fantastical magic and all-too-human power. They stay in touch. Pass around rumours, tips, confidential information.
And once the cabal is in place, well. It'd be a damn shame not to actually use it. It's a different kind of game, played over decades with an altogether nebulous goal, much harder than catching a serial killer or exposing a cult. But it's a worthy endeavour.
In my fantasy, Polly, Alice Cooper, and Mary Andrews are given back their memories too, and are involved in the oops-I-accidentally-started-a-nation-wide-cabal shenanigans. Maybe we bring back FP and JB, and give them their memories too.
𝒊𝒕’𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒎𝒖𝒓𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒕, 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 ? / @waredsin
❛ that’s right. ❜ her mouth’s dry, tongue pressed tight to the roof, her jaw pulsing as she swallows. teeth grind together as her chin raises in defiance ------ in defense. blond hair remains damp in places, darkened a few shades with the rain she’d come in from not long before, droplets still clinging to leather gloves encasing hands which tremble in the slightest before she hides them in the deep pockets of her coat. there’s space between them, less than she might like in this moment, but enough that the faint twitches of her features are mostly swathed in the bit of shadow she stands at the edge of, preferring it to the sharp relief of the light she could step into with ease, but chooses not to. she wonders if he can feel the tangible shift in her, regardless --- how she recoils from the concept of his fear. how she bends beneath the sensation of falling backward, passing through the many layers of her persona, her own fear at becoming increasingly unable to differentiate between what is real and what is fiction. what is considered as having gone too far. you are supposed to ground me. the thought lies tightly coiled about the base of her tongue, accusing unfairly, deflecting blame from herself ; she drowns in her justifications. obsesses over them. anything to postpone her own confession. ❛ don’t pretend you haven’t done as much, and worse. why is it any different, for me ? ❜ brows raise, head tilted to one side, still maintaining that careful distance, lips dampened as her tongue passes between them, leaving them parted in a disbelieving faux - smile, her head shaking as she turns from him.
her gaze drops, watching her own path as she paces further away, seemingly caught up in her own thoughts --- the truth is, she’s focused on the beating of her heart. how it thuds lethargic within her chest, how her breathing seems to run shallow, composure still firmly within her grasp even as she allows a hint of her indignation to shine through the cracks. ❛ i can’t help but feel you’re being a little hypocritical. ❜
@waredsin / 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝. 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐲.
there’s no immediate response, throat obstructed by the crisscrossing vines of guilt & circumstance --- it’s days after the fact. the instinctual worry’s gone, ( she’d like to think, ) replaced with the murkier threat of severance, the idea of more eyes upon her back, and his. this is how she contains the fear. she anticipates and outlines the future. plots the variant course. he knows what he’s doing, with his assurance ; she can see the shadow of expectation that she’ll recall a similar justification made by her own reasoning. but there’s no flicker of pained good humor, no twitch in her carefully garnered display. instead, she bends slightly at the waist, handbag deposited on the concrete floor beside the bed he’s laid up in, and then straightens. blue eyes flicker once around the makeshift setup they’re contained in, the hanging sheets of plastic and freestanding fluorescent lights, the silver tables glittering under the glare --- she doesn’t wince at the smell of hospital disinfectants, anymore. only blood.
she meets his gaze, finally --- at once in control of, but still at the mercy of that nervous energy that seems to swell with every breath she takes & every seemingly erratic beep of the monitors linked to him like so many frightfully thin cords of fate. it’s never something she allows herself to consider for very long, the fact that he might leave her before they’ve finished . . . that for every danger she faces he courts peril of doubled value. that he rarely sleeps for the fact of it. nothing bites quite like the worst fantasies come to life --- but this is not a fatal wound. the bittersweetness isn’t lost on her, though it leaves an unsettling film on her tongue. her hand lifts, the backs of her fingers gingerly laid at the curve of his cheek, feeling the soft give, the hint of stubble that’s there but not quite long enough to be seen just yet. she blinks, but it lasts just a moment too long, and when her eyes open again they glisten faintly beneath the sharp light.
❛ don’t worry. ❜ the thin smile prevails, here, summoned from habit rather than a genuine desire. ❛ i promised myself i wouldn’t be dramatic . . . ❜ her hand moves, smoothing over his shoulder & down his arm, resting for a moment beside his hand on the bed before she curls her fingers around his own. ❛ sorry i’m late. ❜
i’m putting you through more than anyone ever should
thank u, next — lyric sentence starters.
❛ something was done to both of us. ❜ forearm still rests on the tabletop, restless digits drumming soundlessly against the wood before she withdraws, instead lacing her hands together atop crossed knees, head tilting a bit to one side as she takes him in. there’s a tenderness in her expression that is given no voice, a reserved note taken, reminding herself once again that she can’t afford to slip any deeper into the pit they balance over : that when she falters, he will only ever see it as a reaffirmation that he’s placed too much on her shoulders. that he’s poison she’d been unfortunate enough to come into contact with. he’s always seen himself as caustic ; unused to love the way she offered it. the bleak waters they’ve had to navigate in recent years have only deepened that perception, sharpened his acute belief that he is the one who burns. she breathes in, slowly, her thumb tracing over the back of her own hand, disquieted by the fact, and yet aware that it’s beyond her ability to remedy ------ but she’ll always try. whatever transient personalities she spins herself into, whatever fraudulent whims she has to serve, that fact is the bedrock of her being.
❛ i don’t know why you always do that . . . take more blame than you deserve. ❜ it’s the least of all the lies she’s ever told ; she knows why. she uncrosses her legs, leaning forward as hands reach toward him, covering his own where it rests on the table, the clear, depthless blue of her eyes having acquired a subtle shine. fingers curl around his hand, overturning it in her grip, gaze dropped as she smooths her thumb over the lines of his palm, brows knitting in the middle. ❛ it’s not just your burden to bear. and you know that ------ or you wouldn’t have included me in the first place. god knows you could’ve shut me out. i’ve seen that part you play, raymond, and it’s convincing. you might have even fooled me. you could have decided to let me think you were the villain, and left me in the wreckage by myself. ❜ she pauses, bottom lip curled inward as she considers the words, glancing back up before she continues. ❛ that would have destroyed me. that would have been . . . putting me through something unlivable. in protecting me from this, you’d have cost me everything. everything. ❜ the repetition is coupled with a squeeze of his hand, and she nods to herself almost imperceptibly, as if steeling herself in the wake of that seldom - allowed honesty. there’s only so much naked truth they can bear to each other ; they rest on opposite sides of a coin, fate & chance still standing firmly between them, as it had been from the start. ❛ you didn’t make the choice for me. acting like you did only subtracts from my agency . . . you’re not allowed to shoulder that weight. i won’t let you. ❜
“Doesn’t matter how good you are–you stay out there too long, you’re not coming back. Not the same way you left, anyway.”
description prompts.
she pauses, lips pressing together as hands slowly lower, fingertips warmed by steaming porcelain. they don’t meet often. that distance is necessary, given the edge on which they balance --- the ease with which one single slip up could implode years of work. of sacrifice. there’s a soft noise as she clears her throat, cup meeting the counter with a faint clink before her hands move to absently tighten the tie of her robe, voice soft but unwavering as she opens her mouth to speak. ❛ i’ve always known that neither of us were ever going to come out of this unscathed. ❜ changed as she is, she isn’t lost, though she sometimes feels as though she’s skirting the blurred edge of doing so --- of finally crossing the line from play - acting into being. becoming the person she presented to them. she doesn’t tell him this, but even that fear fails to negate the fact that she never sees more clearly than when she’s astride that line. it offers a certain clarity that she values, in the moments that he is not with her. there are aspects of both portrayals that have their truth ; she is not quite his claire, and not quite the cabal’s --- the truest version of herself is the thin grey line where they meet, constantly poised to tip over into one or the other. the only thing that keeps her balanced is that presence of mind. the conscious effort she expends to simply keep one foot in front of the other on the tightrope they’ve been walking for the better part of her life. there isn’t an ounce of naivety left in her, anymore. not the faintest hope that she’ll ever be as she was. ❛ i’m doing what i have to do, same as you. worrying if i’ll recognize my reflection in a few years doesn’t do me any good. i don’t see the point in ruminating on it. ❜
‘ i want everything. ’
( MEME. )
THERE IS NOTHING TO BE SAID OF BEAUTY. not here. not now. if the sweet surrender of silence should give one peace of mind — this is a whisper in a vacuum. there is tumult in that , fevered kisses without urgency , but with the knowledge that forever is elusive , that pain is imminent , that there is a PRICE to this like there is a price to everything. he’s learned that truth in more jarring ways of late than he’d ever previously fathomed . . . even there in the stillness of her room in the chateau.
there’s nothing beautiful in the way he touches her. nothing beautiful in the way he welcomes her in , swallowing her desire like a secret to be protected , allowing her to sip the TREASONOUS poison he’s carried around in his absence. he , a man once master of his fate , conquerer of the waters he’d chart , now exists deep in the blackness of the ocean where its berth closes in on him , threatening to crush every bone in his body. there is no beauty to be found in what he is becoming whilst the salt embeds itself into the pores of his skin. there is no splendour in the way his head is jerked back to meet the shadows and light playing in her answering gaze.
i want everything.
he can only wonder if she still recognises him. if she can feel the restlessness in his chest when her fingertips trace over it and then dig into his flesh. she claims him like no woman ever has. ventured into the depths he hides with a torch , volunteering to slither with him into uncertainty. he’s letting her into his cage - perhaps something he’ll regret one day. what man wants to drag his love - his LOVER down with him? but he knows still , despite it all , what a disservice it would be to deny the endless ache in her bones that mirror his own - to deny what he’s always known , there are embers in her , biding time , waiting to go up in flames with or without his permission.
their rhythm is deep — fervent … ugly. taking from each other with the knowledge that the memory will have to last. she’s exhumed his heart from where it’d been buried tonight — the night before — the morning he’d seen her , studied how she’d CHANGED. it shouldn’t surprise him that she’d want more , that he’d understand INSTANTLY what everything entails.
❝ take it . . . all of it. i’ll deliver. ❞