breathing life into nonlife, she whispered what she'd never know.

They meet in dark corners, eyes full of grains of sand that scrape their lids when they try to sleep. They are so tired of guilt, or responsibility. They are tired and sad and scared and as God watches them he doesn't understand, when he is so quick to forgive, when his wrath is so great, why they don't come to him. But absolution is so much heavier than amnesia and they have so far to carry it. And as the liquor burns their throats, the smoke scarring their lungs as they breathe, they rip each other apart with tongues and lips and teeth-nails dragging at each other's skin, pulling open old scars (pain works better than alcohol for forgetting- they will fall inside and never return).

Duncan hates when Logan starts a sentence with "Lilly would hate..."
because they both know what Lilly would hate. She would hate them for
for finding solace in each other's skin while leaving Veronica - shivering,
hardening, cracking, emerging and suddenly cold black fire slowly burning.

One day he can't do it anymore. Duncan is empty- always empty- and Logan is full, boiling, burning everything in its wake and Duncan can't pretend to feel it anymore. The night before his hands had skimmed new scars, coming away red. Tonight his hands would be clean. He led Veronica to his room that night- neither elevating nor soothing her discomfort, her confusion. He shut her in his room, locking the door from the outside before her shock had worn off - waiting for a shrill screech of anger even as he remembered that she was no longer shrill.

Veronica no longer thought in metaphors, in flowery sentences to mask her pain in poetry. She would kill Duncan (and make Logan watch so that he would know what it's like to die slowly from the inside.
-I'm already dead, Veronica
-You haven't seen death yet. )

Logan didn't react- something new and different for him - and Veronica didn't go near him. She sat down on the floor, on the other side of the room and stared.

"Like what you see?" Logan sneered, later (hours or seconds, no one was counting.)

"No."

Logan hated her voice, its detachment (he pulled her apart piece by miniscule piece, hating and loving what came apart in his hands - he shouldn't be surprised.) as if they had never rolled their eyes at Lilly behind her back, as if she had never fought with him about Duncan, as if they hadn't pretended they weren't crying in each other's arms. As if she didn't hate him for what he did to her.

"Just you wait," he spat, standing up. Veronica didn't react the way he expected - standing up or snarking or screaming - she just pulled her taser out of her bag slowly. Something else in Logan died but he was so used it, he barely noticed. He didn't give her the satisfaction of going near her, just ripped his shirt off quickly, hisssing in the gathering darkness as peices (tangible and painful and real) of skin came away. She didn't move, didn't acknowledge, didn't see. He thought that this would be his greatest sin, tearing away her hatred with his scars. His greatest victory would be breaking her gaze.

He stood there, muscles tense and trembling as she dared him to turn around with her eyes. If she could just move, anything to remind him that she hadn't frozen, he could turn around knowing she wouldn't stick the taser in his wounds before picking the lock and walking out of here leaving him empty and numb like Duncan.

Lying down would be admiting defeat, but he was tired from trembling and standing and he wondered why he couldn't keep his eyes on her long enough to watch her blink. But he couldn't stand there draining onto the carpet anymore- she would win and he would be nothing. He wondered, as he let himself down onto the bed slowly, if maybe he would like being empty, if his desperate attempts to fill Duncan (with fire, gin, himself) were cruel and existing was easier than living and fighting back against the light holding tightlyto his pain was nothign anymore. His fire paled faced with living death.

And then he was burning, all his molecules thrashing against each other as fingertips ghosted over his skin. It was all he could do to keep from screaming out in pain. The fingers were light and cold and tortured his skin because they weren't LIlly's and he love dthem anyway. They travelled up his back, drawing on circles and when they reached his throat, pressing on his adam's apple like a trigger, he screamed, air ripping him from the inside out. All the pieces he stole from her flew out from the living space he kept them, the black hole that filled him. You can't hold someone agaisnt their will, no matter how many pieces you think you have. His screams faded only after hours had passed in his minhd, only when he had ripped every piece of Veronica from his ribs and presented them to her on bended knee.

When he could next form coherent sentences in his head (his mouth could only spill words unintentionally like broken skin whispering nonwords like hate and love) a wet washcloth had replaced fingers and the flames that licked his skin had calmed and salty tears burned his open wounds. When he was clean and raw and smoldering, she lay down next to him, curling into herself and facing away. She wasn't touching him but he could feel the way the bed dipped where she lay.

"I still hate you, you know," she said quietly, but her voice had lost its detachment, warming him as though she had breathed the words onto his skin.

In the morning, Duncan found Veronica curled into Logan's side, his arm hoding her tightly to him, her hand clutching his so hard that he thought she couldn't possibly be asleep- as thought Logan was draining his fire into her to melt her ice, as thought she was cooling his rage so that he cuold live by a rule other than pain.

Entropy would equalize them and their jagged edges would merge and no matter how much they wanted to, they could never break away without tearing an unlivable piece from the other. They had broken and torn each toher apart and emerged with mixed pieces they could never separate. Duncan closed the door, went downstairs and took his pills and never wondered what it would be like to be full again.

Insomnia is my greatest inspiration. -- John Stewart

There is something innately disturbing about a lot of what I see on the Daily Show...but rarely does it make me actually sick to my stomach. Recently, documents have been released describing torture techniques used by the United States in the pursuit of information and occasionally just because we don't like someone...

Jon Stewart raises some interesting questions. For example - why do you need to waterboard someone 183 times. By the 90th time they realize you aren't going to actually drown them.... Humor aside however, what I find really, really, extraordinarily sickening is not that there is an outcry of people who are disturbed, confounded and appalled by what we've been sanctioning. Party affiliations aside, our complete lack of respect for human life should be unexcusable. But no. What we are concerned with is why on earth we now need to know that we torture. Why did Obama release these documents?

Patty Noonan said that sometimes its just better to keep walking. Jon Stewart made fun by saying that while you're walking past slavery and genocide, you should put your fingers in your ears because the screams of the tortured will get really loud.

Its a lot less funny when its in writing. "Killing yourself and innocent people to make a point is sick, twisted, brutal, dumbass murder," said Josiah Bartlett on the West Wing. Its harrowing to note that the actions committed by members of our government in the name of security aren't really all that different from the people that he's describing. I don't know how many different ways I can try to say this. I hope this one works.

We have to know. We have to know so we can fight. This is the battle that we're fighting. Its not just against war mongers and terrorists elsewhere. Its not just about fighting enemies across oceans and deserts. Its about getting rid of this within ourselves as well. I'm not naive. I know that there will always be evil. There will always be ignorance which breeds evil accidentally. But that's the battle. Because if we're not fighting, they are. And then they are winning. The prize is our humanity. The cost is watching the world burn.

Good news is, apparently we won the war on terror! Woohoo!

I'm not really this depressing. I promise. Uhh...how to prove this...how to prove this...I KNOW! Wanna hear a few jokes?

Did you hear what happened to the pretzel walking down the street?
He was a-salted!

So there were two muffins in an oven. One turns to the other and says "Man! It's getting really hot in here!" the other muffin screams "AHHHHHH A TALKING MUFFIN!"

What's black and white and black and white and black and white and black and white and black and white and black and white and black and white?
A penguin rolling down a hill.
What's black and white and laughing?
The penguin that pushed him.

Okay... I can't claim credit. But if thinking about torture gets you down... please enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsrZIB8QHic

Courtesy of the delightful Megadamian Nut and Hank and John Green, Nerdfighters!

apathy kills you slowly from the inside

This is mildly late because today I was very productive...but recently I have been faced with an overwhelming apathy. I basically spend most of the day wanting to lie in bed and watch TV. I love my TV and it feels as though everything around me is overwhelming, exhausting and useless.

The "why bother"s are what really destroy the world.

Strangely enough, apathy makes you think. Our generation has been accused of many things from irrelevant and immature reading tastes to a discouraging and fateful lack of interest in everything from the environment to injustice to politics. But its not entirely our fault.

First of all (and this is in direct response to an article in the Outlook section of the Washington Post) Twilight and Harry Potter do not define our generation. Twilight, in spite of its teen fangirl spirit and its devestating escapism, asks some good questions. Harry Potter gives us some good answers. That being said - we read. Just because occasionally there is a mass consensus about good escapist literature does not mean we aren't buying other things. (End rant)

Second of all, we are faced with a new quality of crises. Governments that lie to us, obscure the facts, who don't disclose numbers or results, who seem to care more about egos and being right than the lives they put at stake just to make a point are the norm. Economic and environmental crises are so vast they seem out of our grasp, obscured in smog and parts per million and a economic market that I am still convinced is made up of Monopoly Money.

Its hard to get worked up when you feel that nothing you do will make a difference. When faced with an overwhelming amount of work, it is easier to disappear into fiction that requires nothing from you - it is passive and easy and entertaining. The world it shows you has questions and problems, yes, but they have resolutions. The good guys win in an hour. Apathy lets peace and darkness fill the space around you. It seeps inside and lulls you into complacency calm. "Do it tomorrow," it says. "These things will keep."

But outside the world is ending.

i can only turn my brain off when i'm doing this...

The little puff of air, the dirt that spit out of the ground in all directions, saved his life. The whole time she was gone he had to constantly remind himself that punching things is not a substitute for breathing. In fact, the only thing that reminded him to breathe at all was the desperate hope that tainted all of Angela’s actions. It was the kind of hope that drove people mad and he had to save her even if he couldn’t save himself.

But the air puffed and the dirt flew and he didn’t know how he got there, but suddenly he was on the ground and there was dirt flying everywhere and if he didn’t see a hand soon he thought the world might stop. But there was a hand and it was moving and he knew it was hers and he pulled with everything he was worth and the hand gripped back, scratching at his hand and he though nothing felt so good in his whole life.

Hodgins was in Angela’s arms and part of him felt infinitely better, could let that go. But he had no time for watching because then she was in his arms, curling into him and breathing great gasps of air that ripped at his insides and Cam knew and she waved goodbye and smiled as she went to direct the retrieval of the crime scene.

She didn’t let go of him and he hoped to god that she never noticed she was doing it or she’d stop immediately. She stayed curled into him until the EMTs pried her out of his arms, afraid she required more medical treatment. But she was okay, just sore and tired and scared. Hodgins and Angela were already on their way to the hospital and Cam was pushing them away and telling them not to come back for a week. He knew she didn’t have the authority to tell him that but if Brennan would let him, he would never let her leave the apartment again. He’d stay with her forever. He didn’t have energy left to let that scare him. She didn’t let go of his hand. The EMTs tried really hard not to roll their eyes as they negotiated around the circumstances. When they gave her the go ahead to go home, she looked at him and for a fraction of a second he saw terror in her eyes. Then it was gone, but he led her to his car and drove her home and locked her door behind him when she went to take a shower.

The water turned on and he sat down as close as he could to the door to wait without feeling creepy. 45 minutes later the water was still running.

“Everything alright, Bones?” he asked. He received no answer. “If you don’t respond I’m coming in…” There was still nothing. He opened the door slowly. Inside the bathroom, she was standing in her underwear and long t shirt trying to scrape all the dirt off her clothes into evidence bags.

“I wanted you to think I was showering. It’s a huge waste but I needed to work and you wouldn’t have let me.” He just looked at her. As she turned to grab another bag he saw a blood stain on the neck of her shirt under her pony-tail. He stepped forward. “Bones.” He said firmly, taking her arm. She stiffened. He pulled her toward him, bringing his fingers to skim along the line of her neck.

“There could be evidence. I had to pull some of the skin off for Cam.” She said, pulling out of his grasp. He let her organize her bags, finishing whatever she had been in the middle of when he walked in as he moved past her to change the temperature of the water coming from the shower head. At least she hadn’t used up all of the hot water. When the temperature satisfied him, he turned back to her, pulling the bags out of her hand as she protested. When she figured out his plan, quickly of course, because she was a genius, she started protesting.

“I’m not done, Booth! I might be missing something! Booth! Stop it!” He picked her up. She was in no condition to fight him, but she tried her damnedest and he knew it would bruise later but her evidence bags, her systematic cataloging was breaking his heart. He walked her straight into the shower in his arms trying not to listen as her protests faded into sobs.

Under any other circumstances, it would be wildly inappropriate for him to set her on the floor of the tub and slide her t shirt over her head, to let her lean against him, his white dress shirt becoming transparent as it was soaked through. But there was no other choice and he used the comfort of his hands moving over her skin to smooth away dirt with vanilla scented soap and to massage the dirt from her hair. By the time he got to conditioner, she was recovered enough to be embarrassed but she also wouldn’t let him leave.

Later after she had found him some clothes to wear (his, that he had left there who knows how long ago, they smelled like her now) and had bundled herself into comfortable sweats, she let him order Chinese food, and while they waited he bandaged her neck. There was no need for her to ask for him to work the kinks out of her shoulders in the process. He could feel them.

That night she finally she started talking. She curled up in bed and he lay down next to her because she would ask him to leave, but she’d never ask him to stay. She rambled on about a note she had written that was probably still in the car, that someone would probably give to him and that it said something out of character and he shouldn’t hold it against –

He kissed her. Hard. As she rambled he felt relief and amazement and gratitude at the sound of her voice that it rose out of him and he kissed her. She kissed him back. And they were suddenly both very much alive.