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Ways 'Til Sunday
by Witt444
Email: Witt444@aol.com
Website: www.livejournal.com/users/witt444
Pairing: Lindsey/Lee
Rating: PG-13 for kissing and cuss words
Spoilers: Spoilers through "Blind Date"
Summary: This is Lindsey's best memory of Lee.
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1.
This is Lindsey's best memory of Lee.
On day three or four of his first week he and Lee are told to take
their chairs and go to the basement. Lindsey isn't sure which
day it is because time lost all meaning on Tuesday at 9.12am when he
walked into the boardroom and saw three men in suits and one monster
that had clearly just jumped from his childhood closet. He feels a
little stupid rolling his squeaking, red-padded chair toward the
elevators while Lee fumbles with his and crashes into walls, but
common sense went out when he was introduced to the monster and told
to get it a cup of coffee. So now he just does what he's told
and wonders how the evening will justify what he's seen thoroughly
enough to get him out of bed if he's alive to hear his alarm
tomorrow morning.
He and Lee avoid eye contact as the elevator descends, dinging
domestically as each floor is bypassed. Lindsey sneaks glances at
Lee's pale, long hands and blunt fingernails. Not the kind of
hands that could rip into a monster. He wonders about Lee's arms under
the goldenrod sleeves of the same Banana Republic shirt that Lindsey
recently bought. Strong enough to swing a chair into something's
vitals? Maybe with adrenaline.
Lee asks, "Yeti or dragon?"
"Huh?"
"What we're feeding these chairs to. I'm gonna go with yeti."
"Why?" Lindsey asks, when he wants to ask how Lee can be so
fucking stupid.
"Well… I mean if you were a dragon, you'd eat princesses,
right? But yetis, don't they live in parks or suburbs? So you'd be
around trash dumps. Poorly designed ergonomic furniture: just your
style."
Lindsey looks at Lee's face. Lee smiles. He has a weird smile
where all the points of his face tug back, making him look a little
evil.
"You really think that's what we're doing?" Lindsey says.
"You want to talk about how we're going to die in this fucking elevator? Look at the carpet, for G-d's sake."
As it turns out, they've been sent to file. They sit forehead to
forehead across a pull-out drawer and shuffle papers from packing
boxes into the appropriately alphabetized acid-free folder.
Something electric starts and stops spasmodically nearby, making
them jump every time. Panic and relief make Lindsey giddy. He
still isn't entirely assured of his survival.
"They have monsters here," he hears himself mention, voice
rocky and small.
"Yeah, but have you seen the company car?"
"I'm not kidding. Real monsters. I'm… I'm fucking defending one, I…"
"Hand me that box, OK?"
"You don't believe me." Lindsey isn't surprised; he doesn't believe
himself. He passes Lee the box and their eyes meet over the top of
it. And Lindsey /knows/ Lee believes him, knows Lee has seen the
same if not worse. His personal cosmology swings around and he
suddenly thinks: we're in this together. It's not a thought
he's ever had before. He's never been in anything with anyone.
It's a bit weirder than the monsters. He isn't entirely sure he likes
it.
Lee smiles.
2.
They move through the ranks of Wolfram & Hart simultaneously, and
yet. And yet Lindsey seems to take the direct route, rides the
elevator to the top, while Lee is forced to dash up flight after
flight of zigzagging stairs. But when Lindsey gets to Special
Projects and steps out there's Lee, breathlessly arriving.
It takes Lindsey a while to realize that this is comforting. Lee
remains human. He comes to work with ties Lindsey has considered
purchasing, smelling like store-bought fragrances that Lindsey has
also smelled like. He has to eat with his mouth and breathe with
his lungs and would most likely die if any of his body parts were
removed for an extended period of time. When they get drinks after
work he doesn't know if Lindsey is lying about his past (which he
is) because he can only hear the words Lindsey is saying and not the
ones in his brain. They talk about things that human men
understand, and sometimes they don't understand each other, and
sometimes they stutter or choke or have to pick through meaning.
And this is a deep change from the part of Lindsey's life where
he sits across from someone who for all intents and purposes /looks/
human, and he makes a joke and his client doesn't laugh, and
Lindsey knows that this one is not from a world where things are funny. And
the skin over his spine will feel a little thin, and nothing he can
put his hands on or bark into his intercom can quite make the
illusion of safety feel real again.
3.
Wolfram & Hart throws its holiday party in a bar that used to be a
warehouse. Lee and Lindsey keep their backs to the wall, pressing
their shoulders comfortingly into the concrete. Lee's knee
bounces against Lindsey's thigh as he carefully peels the label off his
bottle of Killian's. The white Christmas lights dangling in long
strings from the ceiling shine strangely over his suit and reflect
off his cufflinks, which are little oval mirrors, perfectly clean.
Lindsey has never seen them before. He wonders where Lee bought
them.
"I've never been to a bar in a suit before," Lee mutters
toward his bottle. "I feel like a tool."
"Like a what?"
"Like a tool. You know… a tool."
"No one says that anymore."
"I'm sorry you're so uncool," Lee shrugs. The label
comes away from the bottle intact, and Lee begins to make origami out of it. He
bends close to the table and his collar slips back, revealing an
innocent swipe of his neck to anyone with a quick axe. "Is anyone
dancing?"
"Lilah."
"Figured."
"Why?"
"It's all in the hips. She's got dancing hips."
"Do I have dancing hips?" Lindsey chuckles. Lee looks up and
narrows his eyes at Lindsey.
"I don't know. Stand up."
Lee yanks him to his feet, moving faster than Lindsey expects. It
throws him off and his gut unsettles. Lee studies him quickly, then
reaches out and grabs Lindsey around the waist. Lindsey sees his
surprise flash in Lee's cufflink, eyes wide and mouth soft. Lee
nudges his chair away with his foot and steps into Lindsey. The
padded armor of their suits bump and their matching black shoes
scuff. Lee's body notches into Lindsey's, and he's a
little taller but his head goes to the side in a strange way that makes him seem
just short enough to be kind of familiar before it's intensely
weird. Lee's hips sway a little, encouraging Lindsey's
along. Lindsey feels an arm creep between the small of his back and the
wall, pressing them closer, making Lindsey move. He struggles to
unlock his hip sockets, but movement that isn't forward
doesn't come natural to him these days. He lets Lee bounce against him, pockets
and belt buckles clashing.
"Yeah," Lee mumbles into his clavicle. "You have dancing hips.
Could use a bit of practice though."
Then he doesn't let go. Have they had enough to drink to make
this acceptable? Lindsey looks at his half-full vodka and Lee's
barely touched beer. All sources say no. But Lee's arm is tight and
his body is close and they're just skirting the edges of movement,
ignorant of the dance beat on the floor, swinging like two kids slow-
dancing at prom. And it's… well, it's been a long time since any
bodies have been this close to Lindsey's, and there is something
comforting about Lee's weight and something safe about all the
clothing between them… Lindsey looks for Lilah. She's
dancing by herself, arms over her head, beautiful and alone. Not being held
like he is being held, held by the space between the wall and the
table, the space between his clothing and his skin, the space
between Lee's pressure and Lee's heat. Lindsey lets his chin
drop onto Lee's head, rest there so Lee is all tucked up against him.
Lee's hair is gel-crunchy against his skin, smells like chemicals
and all-natural shampoo.
Lee pulls his head back, knocking into Lindsey's jaw with his
eyebrow.
"Don't mess up my hair, man," he says. "I want to
look good for the chicks." But his eyes are bright and a smile is making his
cheeks flush. Lindsey's skin feels too visible under Lee's eyes.
Lee steps away and snatches his beer label from the table, which has now
been bent into a well-formed if somewhat damp paper crane.
"Here," he says as he hands it to Lindsey. "For good luck."
4.
Someone gets shot in Lee's office, and he and Lindsey spend a
week sharing Lindsey's broad mahogany desk.
Lee never says anything about it, though the story filters to
Lindsey about the stains in the carpet: the sprawling continent of
blood and the concentrated island of the paper cup of Starbuck's
Lee's hand released when he opened the door and caught the
contents of someone's head completing their diverse journeys to the walls.
About Holland's pleased smile as he handed Lee a pre-packed box
of his things and told him to go stay with Lindsey while they tried to
do something about the mess, and he was very sorry to have used
Lee's office, but Lee understood the delicate timing of these
things. Lindsey looks up and sees Lee in the door, the box balanced
in the seat of that same red rolling chair. Lee says,
"Roomies" and then throws a paper airplane at Lindsey's head.
This is the week that they perfect the paper airplane and goof off
like undergrads. Lee even gets up the nerve to order pizza—food
delivery seems to be traditionally frowned upon at Wolfram & Hart—
and when Holland comes in to yell at them Lee gets a little sniffly
and explains about the trauma and how pizza is comfort food, and
somehow they get away with it. Holland leaves and Lee laughs and
opens the greasy cardboard box, and this pizza tastes like victory,
and Lindsey is almost too amazed to be frightened.
But this is the last week that Lee is human like he was in the
elevator. His little acts of rebellion take on a sort of
desperately self-aware quality, and his body is suddenly present and
exposed under his designer jacket. It's a phase; Lindsey knows
because he went through it last week. The last stop on the way to
being real Wolfram & Hart material: ruthless and fragile and
immortal, reckless and terrified. Understanding his place in the
world, straddling the crosshairs of power and helplessness and
impermanence and eternity. Lindsey sits at his computer and watches
Lee change, the transformation just out of sight under the skin.
Lee turns clean and opaque and nasty. He becomes someone else, a
work someone, and when he looks at Lindsey, they know each other.
5.
Lee is the only person who ever comes over Lindsey's apartment.
They watch Wednesday night reality television and eat Thai food like
it's a religious duty. They wear jeans and T-shirts or cargo
pants and flannels, and their hair is half-sculpted from the day and half
messed from being touched the moment they get into their cars at the
end of the day. And they talk about nothing and get a little rowdy
and a little drunk, and sometimes Lee sleeps over on the couch,
though he always leaves early enough to race home and put on the
day's veneer. It will be weird to see him at work after that,
all slammed closed and buckled in, more solid day after day, filling up
like a bookshelf with everything Wolfram & Hart sees fit to fit him
with.
This particular Wednesday night is Lee's twenty-fifth birthday,
which would be a more special occasion if they knew that on a Friday
afternoon a month and two days from then Lee will be dead. As it is
they don't know this. Lindsey takes a half-day from work and
cooks up a spectacular sort of feast, lobster and champagne and side
dishes swimming in fragrant and mysterious sauces. He feels kind of
silly about it, but he likes the idea of doing something that makes
him wonder if he's still capable of caring. Likes how Lee's
face changes when he comes through the door in ripped khakis and a
Dropkick Murhpys sweatshirt and sees the set-up on Lindsey's
table. And then he starts to chuckle and says, "You know I don't eat
meat, right?"
So Lindsey eats both lobsters and Lee eats all the side dishes.
Lindsey doesn't feel bad about this at all, and Lee doesn't
seem to either. They crunch and crack and slurp in companionable silence
through the better part of the evening.
"This was nice of you," Lee mentions to his green beans.
"Yeah well happy birthday."
"Birthday happy. It's very special." Lee's mouth
twists up.
"Special how?" Lindsey suddenly hates the sound of the
word "special." It sounds false; it sounds intimate.
"Well that's what you wanted, right? You were going for
special."
"Yeah, but… I thought it was a little gay. You don't make a fancy
meal for your… best friend, you do it for a girlfriend or
something."
"I'm your best friend?" Lee purrs, mostly mocking. "Aw, Lindsey. I
got something in my eye over here."
"Shut up."
"Well they don't give you much time for socializing, do they?
Where are you going to meet girls, the boardroom?"
"There's some girls at the firm. We see Lilah enough to be
dating her."
"I wouldn't touch Lilah if both my hands were severed from my
body and reattached with rusty hooks. She really… she bugs me. I
don't like her. She took to this shit like a shark to blood; it's not
right somehow." Lee pours himself more champagne, the rushing
sound of bubbles cupped softly in his flute. He toes off his sneakers and
curls himself up in Lindsey's plush and expensive chair. "But I
guess we all do."
Lindsey can't think of anything worth saying to this.
"It fucking scares me," Lee continues. "But I'm
already used to it. I mean, you remember that big slimy thing we had in for tax
fraud? It took me like two seconds to get over shaking its-
flippers. After a while my partner and I made it a game, tried to
see who could hold on the longest. I always won. And I liked the
winning more than I even cared that Mr-slash-Miss Slimy must have
been totally weirded out by how long we'd hold on to it.
That's the creepiest part."
"It's the life we live."
"For as long as they let us live it. We're like mice in
those mazes, just waiting for them to electrify the floor."
Lindsey imagines the smell of little frying mice feet. He gets up
and sits on the couch.
"So what do you do?" he asks, not really wanting an answer.
He has come to believe that a) their life defies description and b)
there's no way out, so what's the point of even talking about it? He
looks for the television remote. He spots it on the coffee table but
feels around the couch cushions anyway.
"I don't know. You do this, I guess. Hang out. Pretend you
haven't sold your soul. And maybe it slips away so quiet you
don't even notice after a while."
"Maybe," Lindsey murmurs hollowly, because he knows it's
already happened to him. Knows his soul jumped ship miles ago; knows he
didn't even notice it went. Knows that when the shit really hits
the fan, he probably doesn't care.
"Listen to me, all maudlin. You're taking advantage of me,
McDonald. Fuck this shit. Let's watch `Survivor.' Maybe this will
be the week someone gets eaten by a fucking shark."
They finish the bottle of champagne and start on another one. They
watch television long after they can find anything interesting.
They watch pale hours of news where they know the real stories and
fill in the details behind their hands. Reality takes on the kind
of relaxed floatingness that Lindsey lives for when getting drunk in
his own home. They end up sprawled on each other, the hood of
Lee's sweatshirt warm and fabric softener-scented against Lindsey's
neck and Lee's skull heavy against his shoulder.
"You get laid anymore?" Lee asks, stopping the remote on an
entertainment channel where women in small dresses stroll down a red
carpet amidst bouquets of flashbulbs.
"Uh… do you?"
"Evasive. No. I can't imagine people touching me when
I'm like this."
"Shitfaced?"
"How could anyone touch you after a day at that place?"
"I don't think about it so much, Lee," Lindsey says,
making the effort to turn seriously. He winds up a little beached, face
against Lee's neck before they arrange themselves a tenuously
safe distance apart. The gravity of the couch keeps sucking them back
together, against the better judgment of their arms and torsos, and
sooner or later they stop making the effort. All of this happens in
the span of seconds by Lindsey's Rolex, but it feels like hours
of hard work when it's all finished. Hours which leave them
forehead to forehead, breathing into each other's noses. Lee's eyes
are a murky green, as if the television has dulled them, and Lindsey
notices for probably the first time how finely shaped his upper lip
is, long and smooth and mobile. "Uh."
"Brilliant," Lee smirks.
Lindsey thinks that they do a lot of smirking at work—maybe it
comes with the whole being evil thing—but then he stops thinking about
it because Lee's smirk brings his fine upper lip in contact with
Lindsey's, and from there it's turning the smirk into a smile
and they're kissing. Not the greatest kissing in the world, more
kissing like they danced at the holiday party, jerky and public and
hesitant. But Lee's mouth is warm and human, and Lindsey sighs
and melts into it. Actually melts which is a little embarrassing.
He's never kissed a man before, and it's strange to feel beard stubble
and the size of Lee's mouth, the solidness of it. Lee's
tongue is firm and gently demanding, entering Lindsey's mouth with
confidence. Lindsey manages to engage his own tongue as almost an
afterthought, lost for the moment in how Lee's breath feels
chugging against his skin. Lee's hand is in his lap, mostly for balance,
and he feels his cock getting hard against Lee's fingers. He fumbles
for his own balance and cups Lee's thigh above the knee, grips
the intimacy of muscle beneath cloth. He pushes harder into the kiss,
makes Lee grunt, makes their weight shift until Lee falls back and
Lindsey tumbles down on top of him, knocking their heads together
and flinging their careless hands all over. Lindsey gropes Lee's
chest through his sweatshirt. They quickly get back to kissing.
Now that it's more familiar Lindsey tries to finesse it a bit,
but when he tries it seems silly and sort of wrong, fucking up the
absurd purity of the moment by trying to turn it into something with
intention. So he cuts it out. He gives in. He lets the moment
unfold around him, lets the kissing be the warm and drunk and close
kissing that it is, until they break away for breath.
"Brilliant," Lee repeats, though in panting rather than
smirking. Lindsey breathes heavily into Lee's ear. Lee lies there looking
up at the ceiling and Lindsey beaches atop him, trying to find
someplace neutral to put his hands. He lets one flop over the couch
and leaves the other curled around the collar of Lee's
sweatshirt, the backs of his fingers burned by the thin cup of skin between
Lee's collarbone and neck. He stares at Lee's pulse beating
light-fast and blue at his temple. People on the television set applaud
civilly.
6.
Things get fucked up when Lee gets his face bashed it.
It's the tone in his voice that lets Lindsey let Faith do it.
The way his words curl up at the end. /I don't want you to make me
look bad./ It's pure Wolfram & Hart talking, all image, no substance.
Not that Lindsey is a champion of the human race, and not that he
wouldn't say the exact same thing. But if he said it (which on
second thought he probably wouldn't because it would be too
tactless) it would be out of fear for his life. The way Lee says
it, it doesn't come from any place other than pure… lawyer.
So Lindsey lets Faith cup her hand on the fragile, exposed back of
Lee's head and bring his face into Lindsey's table a couple
of times. The sound is the sick mixture of bone and flesh and
cartilage weakly reshaping itself into forms more pleasing for the
redwood. There's a kind of Zen calm in the wet slap of blood and
the easy way Lee's body obeys the trajectory of Faith's arm.
Lindsey makes sure he stands very still next to Lilah while he
watches. He thinks about the lips he kissed getting ripped up by
their own teeth.
There's the hushed snap of whiplash, and Lindsey makes a small
sound, mostly out of imaginative sympathy. Lilah glances at him,
her eyebrows arching like they do when she's about to get an
idea. Quickly he hits the intercom and makes his stupid comment about
dinner. He says it loud enough for Lee to hear if he's still
conscious. Wants Lee to know how fucking stupid he sounds, how far
he's gone. Also doesn't want Lilah to think he's a
soft-ass. She smirks and looks back at Faith, who knees Lee in the groin before
dropping him on the floor. He hits loosely and stays there. His
posture is unguarded and innocent, as if he's just asleep on
Lindsay's couch. But he's not. His open mouth copies itself
in blood onto the carpet.
"Why don't you two meet me downstairs, and I'll take care
of this?" Lindsay suggests, trying to sound lazy and a little menacing. Lilah
puts an arm over Faith and leads her out of the office. The moment
they go Lindsay is on his knees. He tries not to hurry and he tries
not to kneel in the blood with his new Armani pants. He presses his
fingertips into Lee's neck until he feels a pulse. He dials up
an ambulance and makes sure he's stepping into the limo with Lilah
and Faith when it comes.
Later, at the hospital, Lee never mentions it. Not that he can
mention much with his jaw wired shut. Lindsey doesn't really
think he would anyway, at this point. But he thinks it gets through,
thinks Lee realizes where he went wrong. Lindsay sits next to him
and jams the straw of a protein shake through his teeth, sleeves
rolled back, talking idly about the goings-on at the firm and how
lucky they are to have health insurance. Lee watches him very
closely as he moves around the room, and his eyes are two dead
squinty things in the black flesh that surrounds them. Whatever
satori he had with the table stuck, Lindsey can tell. He doesn't
know what it is; not yet. He doesn't think he wants to.
7.
They stand next to each other once on Thursday and once on Friday,
and then Lee is dead.
Thursday morning Lindsey is pissed off about the shit that went down
in court. Lee's presence is obnoxious, reminding him that
he'll have to go home and sit with his annoyance and work the whole
problem out for himself. Lee stands at his shoulder being Work
Lee. Work Lee is not Wednesday Night Lee who put his hand down the
back of Lindsey's shirt while they watched television. It was
almost better than their kissing of a month ago, the steady intimacy
of Lee's fingers present and occasionally mobile in the space
between Lindsey's shoulder blades.
Much later Lindsey will feel guilty for being snappy. Much, much
later. He'll replay the proximity of Lee's face, the smell
of his own toothpaste on Lee's breath because Lee brought an overnight
duffel and suit bag and spent the night on the couch. He'll
think about how he lay in his bed and thought about inviting Lee in but
fell asleep before he came to a decision. Think about how nice it
was—nicer than he'll ever admit to himself—to make coffee
in the kitchen and have to be quiet around Lee's casually huddled form.
Think about Lee sitting up as Lindsey passed him a cup of coffee,
the white Egyptian cotton high thread-count sheet dripping down to
reveal his chest larger and smoother than expected, pale nipples
hard from the sudden exposure. The unguarded sleep-softness of
Lee's hair and eyes, his little smile as the coffee was accepted.
It all surprised Lindsey, who had never imagined Lee's body
before. Later he'll imagine it a lot.
The rest of Thursday is full of the things that the rest of that
Thursday is full of, Angel things and office things and worrying
about this being his last night on earth. He replays the plan until
all of his synapses have reformed along its path, until he could do
it blindfolded if it were to happen in his head rather than in
reality. In his head it's dangerous and difficult but without
variables. Reality is full of space and unknowns. He decides that
this has always been reality's problem. Eventually he falls
asleep on the couch, face buried in the same sheet Lee used and left
forgotten and bunched in the cushions. He rolls over once in the
night and murkily thinks how it smells like Lee. Not a scent
special in any way, just the night-sweat smell of a man who isn't
Lindsey. He has a soft-focus dream about that smell in his bed
before his brain loops into the play-by-play of the plan once more.
On Friday morning every one of his thoughts has the word
"Last" in it. It becomes a little mantra he chants in his head to accompany
his morning rituals. This could be my last shower. This could be
the last time I make coffee. This could be the last NutriGrain Bar
I ever eat. (He packs an extra one in his briefcase on the off-
chance he survives and gets hungry later.) This could be the last
time I drive my car. Even a potential Last Time can't undo the
trauma of Los Angeles commuting. By the time he gets to the office
he's so full of his own mortality that he's thought-stuck and
frantic. He parks shortly and the purple sunglasses kamikaze from
the visor into his lap like a sign from the heavens. So he throws
them on recklessly and charges into battle, desperate for something
to knock him out of his head. Spends the second before coming
through the doors to appreciate what it's like to have a head,
just in case this is the last time he'll have one.
8.
He leaves Lee's blood on his face for the rest of the day. It
dries on his cheek and neck, smelling coppery and crusty and old. He sits
on the couch with a huge glass of Jack and the 10pm news and touches
the blood gently in case it comes off. It stayed with him through
Holland's lecture, the escape from Wolfram & Hart, checking in
with Angel, driving home, eating his NutriGrain Bar, fixing a drink,
sitting on the couch, turning on the television. He knows already
it will never come out of his collar.
It's strange that the blood is the most intimate part of Lee, but
Lindsey would never be able to recognize it as him. Doesn't even
now, really. It's already "the blood on my face,"
completely divorced from the innocent panic in Lee's eyes in the line-up,
the way he almost leaned for Lindsey before thinking better of it and
straightening up. Divorced from the long swab left in the rug as
the guard dragged Lee out, his hands still cupped as if struck with
rigor mortis a few hours early. Lindsey wonders why Wolfram & Hart
keeps rugs if they have so much blood on them. Though maybe
that's the point, that all those stains keep people in line. Obviously not
Lee, of course. Going behind the firm's back while walking
across the remnants of his own office shooting… didn't get the
picture there, did he?
Lindsey touches the blood again. It stains his fingertips. He
knows sometime tonight he'll have to wash it off, probably shower
and change his shirt. He has the discs in his briefcase, knows they
need to go back. Unfinished business with the firm. It's almost
a let-down not to be dead, though he reminds himself that the night is
young. This could be the last hour of news he ever watches. He
turns the television off.
He sits in the sudden dark silence of his apartment, the television
tubes humming as they cool. Lee's sheet is jammed beneath him,
and he tugs it free and wraps it over himself even though it's kind
of a stupid thing to do. He puts his empty glass on the table and curls
up. He doesn't feel better; he doesn't feel much of anything
yet. It feels strange to have his shoes on the couch but it doesn't
seem so important. He listens to L.A's version of quiet scurry
through the nighttime. He knows he's alone, though he regrets the
absence of ghosts. On second thought, no. Lee's ghost would be evil or
useless or both, and he can't imagine what he'd do with the ghost
anyway. He puts his head on his shoulder so the blood faces the
air, and the tightening in his skin feels like a touch. He likes
the analogy but he doesn't bother fooling himself. He wonders if
he should make dinner before heading back to work.
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