#DO STAMP TRUCKS DO STAMP TRICKS

[airheadsbites]

zac is fucking killing me

[atinylittlepain]

Summer Lovin

joel miller x f!reader

joel miller masterlist

she thought he was all hers. she was wrong. but revenge is always sweet, and a little melted.

warnings | 18+ smut, serious angst, Joel is a cheater in this one and gets what he deserves (within reason)

a/n | i don't have an explanation for this one, it just sorta happened, sorry about it.

...............................

Her hands are shaking all over the steering wheel, enough to force her into pulling off the highway before the tears can fracture her vision anymore. And all she can do is laugh, a bitter thing in her throat, because she’s turned into a complete cliche now. Idling on the shoulder of the road while the texas sun splits and sinks in the sky, crying like a fool over a man she shouldn’t have given the time of day to.

But he had been so sweet, hadn’t he? A bit hopeless when they met, standing in the frozen food aisle, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand and cradling a cellphone to his ear with the other. She had made an offhanded comment that he seemed to be negotiating a hostage crisis when he hung up, a sheepish smile slanting across his face and a surprisingly earnest explanation that his twelve-year-old daughter had just gotten her first period and he had been screamed out the door for provisions.

“Don’t tell her I told you that though. Pretty sure she’d burst my eardrums for letting that slip.”

“Your secret’s safe with me. But could you use some help maybe?”

“I look that pitiful, huh?”

“Maybe just a little.” 

She was gone from the start, helping him pick out Ben and Jerry's and tampax pearls while he rambled about his daughter. Her smile spreading in sync with the flush creeping up his neck, typing her number into his phone while he leaned against the side of his truck, a nervous palm rubbing the back of his neck. He called her that night, cute and eager, wanting to thank her for the help, and to ask her out. And of course she said yes. Afterall, she had checked for a wedding ring. She thought she had been so clever for that. 

Three months, spring sliding into summer and something she thought was love slipping big and bright between her ribs. She got to know his daughter during weeknight dinners on their back porch, inside jokes zinging right over his head. And while Sarah was at her mom’s every weekend, Joel would invite her over and they’d spend the hours tangled up in his bed, bodies sticky and slick with sweat blown cool by the box fan in his window, talking in circles around each other, promises stamped into skin. 

“Don’t worry about it, darlin. We’re as good as divorced. She’s just dragging her feet signing the papers, that’s all. Haven’t lived together since Sarah was real little. I’m all yours.”

“It’s okay, Joel, I understand. It must be so hard, though, having to do all of this on your own, in a way.”

She scoffs at the sting of that memory, the way his palm had been trailing up and down her spine, the sigh he had let out at her words. She had interpreted it as a soulful weariness that only made her love him a little more. But there were warning signs too.

“Hey, darlin, I’m really sorry but I have to cancel tonight.” She was already pulling into his neighborhood when he called, new dress, the perfume he liked so much, a tray of brownies in the passenger seat, sprinkled with powdered sugar, how she knew Sarah liked them.

“Oh, is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I think Sarah picked up a stomach bug at camp today is all.”

“Oh no, can I get you guys anything from the store? Soup? Ginger ale?” 

“That’s real sweet of you, darlin, but I don’t want you to catch anything. Can we take a raincheck though?” What a good father, what a good man. 

“Of course, Joel. Tell Sarah I hope she starts feeling better soon.” He had already hung up, quick and clipped. And when she drove past his house only a moment later, she could have sworn she saw Sarah in their backyard swinging on that old playset of hers. It had been easy enough to write off as a trick of the light and her eyes tired after a day of work. Though she couldn’t figure out whose car had been parked in his driveway, not his and not his brother’s. But he made good on his raincheck that Friday, showing up at her apartment in that button-down she liked so much and a bouquet in his hand, not letting her get a word in before he was pulling her into a hard kiss that made her forget to even ask if Sarah was feeling better. He was always good at that, pulling her apart, just a little overwhelming in the wander of his hands, his mouth, laying her down right on the floor of her tiny living room after kicking her front door shut.

“Missed you so bad. Been thinking about you all week. Thinking about this pussy. How sweet she gets for me. Just for me, huh?” Already mouthing at her clit through the cotton of her panties, his words thrumming up her spine, making her hips jolt in the heavy hold of his palms. 

“Yes, Joel, it’s all for you, fuck, you’re so good.” So, so, so good, stripping her down and settling back between her thighs, tongue dragging through her cunt, a hum in his throat as he held the insistent heat of his mouth against her core, pulling pleasure from her like he owned it. The ropes of muscle in his forearm jumping, holding her down by her pelvis, not letting up until she was shaking with it, his scruff scraping against the inside of her thigh, a small mercy in the kiss he pressed there. 

“Are we seriously about to fuck on the floor?”

“What’s wrong with the floor?”

“Joel.” Total theatrics with the roll of his eyes, a petulant huff as he got up, dragging her along with him. a fumbling tangle into her bedroom, making her laugh with his feigned meanness in throwing them down onto the sheets, wide eyes and breathless beats.

“That better, darlin?” No answer, too busy tugging him out of his clothes, his cock solid and warm against her thigh. Always a stretch, pleasure mingling and mixing up with pain with the press of his hips against hers. Always careful, considerate, pressing kisses to her sternum while she opened up around him, whispering into her skin.

“Feel so good for me, darlin. Like you were made just for me.” She felt like it too, like she’d never had anything like this before. The obscene slap of slicked skin, swallowing each other’s gasps as he pushed and pulled them through a hard rhythm. Her ankles hooked around his hips, open, wanting, receiving everything he gave her, the both of them sinking their teeth into each other’s pleasure, furling up close and unraveling all at once with each other’s names held in their throats. She had told him she loved him that night, in the after of it all, her chest pressed to his back, limbs tangled up. But he didn’t respond, already asleep.

Her cell phone ringing startles her out of the past, but when she sees who it is she tosses it back into the passenger seat. And her mind settles into something like disbelief, replaying the day. How differently it began compared to how it ended. 

She woke up that morning with anticipation thick in her stomach for what the day ahead would bring. She thought it was a big step, the step, inviting her to a family cookout. Playing house with the Millers. Sarah and her in the kitchen most of the morning, crockpots bubbling and watermelons split while he and his brother putzed around in the backyard with the grill, some frivolous joke about men regressing to the stone age lobbed out easy and effortless. And then people started coming, coworkers and friends and all the rest and Joel wouldn’t look at her and she wore her new sundress so he would but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t and she worried over the potato salad and the kebabs like maybe she could make right whatever she had clearly made wrong. Something about a man’s heart in his stomach, right? 

Everyone else eating and she couldn’t find him in the crowd, Tommy telling her he ran out to get ice cream from the HEB for dessert just as she slipped in the front door. She nearly laughed because why was she here? Who invites their ex-wife to a family cookout? 

And then, and then, and then.

“You must be the babysitter Joel mentioned. I admit I thought Sarah was a little too old for that but she absolutely loves you so thank you for helping out.”

And then, and then, and then.

“Hi, Tommy! It’s good to see you.”

And then, and then, and then.

“Oh, he didn’t tell you? We’ve decided to make another go of it after some time off. We haven’t told Sarah yet, but I think it will be good for all of us.”

And then.

“-- a family again. It’s right, don’t you think?”

And then.

“Sorry, what did you say your name was? I hope Joel is paying you well, and if he’s not, you come to me, okay? There’s gonna be some changes around here, but I’d love for you to stay on for our Sarah.” 

And then.

Out the door, white noise in her ears so loud she only barely thought to grab her keys and shuffle into her flip flops. Out the door and into her car and driving to the same HEB she met him in three months ago being a good father and a good man and a little hopeless and–

She pulled in right as he was walking out of the store, a placid expression on his face, not a care in the world. 

“Darlin? What–”

“Do not call me that.”

“What, what is it? Baby, please don’t cry.” A sick feeling in her stomach at the pull toward him, that tiny want for him to comfort her, to make it all better, quickly seared and singed into more anger.

“Were you gonna tell me, Joel? Or were you just gonna see how long you could keep this little game going, huh? Is that it? You think you’re so smart? Not gonna get caught fucking the babysitter?” Instant recognition sliding down his face, the quick slip of it made her laugh as his eyes darted around the parking lot.

“Let’s talk like adults, okay? There’s no need to make a scene.”

“Oh, fuck you. That’s what you're worried about though, right? That someone’s gonna see. Worried someone’s gonna go tell your wife what you’ve been up to all summer, huh?” His jaw slack, an answer in his silence. She shook her head, anger simmering beneath the hurt.

“Did you care about me at all?”

“Of course I did, I do. Darlin, please, I just got confused, let me–”

“Don’t do that.”

“Please, I’ll–”

“No, Joel. We are done, do you understand me? I care about Sarah too much to let any of this go on any longer. You know what? I just hope that your wife has a good enough head to figure it out for herself. I hope she leaves you, I really do.” Hurt crumpled across his face and she wanted more of it, wanted to dig her thumb into it and twist.

“I– loved– you– you– fucking– lying– lowlife– bastard.” She’s not sure how it happened, though it would be the topic of conversation at the neighborhood women’s book club for weeks to come. Some young thing tearing into Joel Miller, smacking him six ways to Sunday with her flip flop in the grocery store parking lot. Cornering him against the side of his pickup truck, big strong man curled up with his hands over his head as she rained down perfect hellfire on him. He had dropped his grocery bag, two gallon containers of ice cream sweating out in the summer sun, her bare foot stepping sticky into a puddle of vanilla. 

“Don’t you ever do anything like this to anyone ever again, Joel Miller.” The grand finale, that ice cream of his melted enough that it was too easy to pick up a carton, pop off the lid, and dump the dribbling liquid over the top of his head before primly shoving her flip flop back on and getting in her car. 

She finds herself laughing through a throat heavy with snot, the image of him in her mind, blinking hard through a thick stream of slurried ice cream, shoulders up to his ears, pure shock in his shudder. 

“Worth it.” One thing that goes right today, she leans over to rummage through her glove compartment, sighing when she finds the nearly empty carton of cigarettes, lighter tucked into the crumpled box. She quit two months ago, secondhand smoke around Sarah and all that. But how easy it is now to roll down her window and take a crackling drag that she blows out into the fading afternoon, smoke whipped away by the endless whir of cars passing by. Peace in the inhale and exhale, promptly disrupted by her phone ringing again. Cigarette dangling between her lips, she scoffs between her teeth. Ten missed calls. She doesn’t even listen to the voicemails, simply chucks the thing out her window along with her cigarette butt and shifts her car back into drive.

She’ll be okay.

[route22ny]

Life as a 21st-Century Trucker

Technology, corporate greed, and supply-chain chaos are transforming life behind the wheel of a big rig. I went on the road to find exactly how.

by Andrew Kay

1 When Jay LeRette preaches the Word, he transforms from a mild Midwesterner—one who loves country gospel, rides a horse he has trained to roll over and grin, and has, himself, a whinnying laugh—into a human incandescence. Sixty-four, 5' 5", and dressed like a cowboy, he increases in stature; his voice crescendos to cracking. “The devil’s learned to use us and abuse us, to beat the snot out of us,” he says, then uppercuts the air. “Amen, Chuck?” A man in the second row with a great, ZZ Top–like beard croaks amen. “The devil mopped the floor with me,” LeRette continues, and mimes a janitorial sweep. “But God—but God!—” he shrieks, pounding the lectern and leaping, “—had compassion on you and I.”

It’s a weeknight in December 2021, getting toward Christmas, and I’m sitting in the trailer of an 18-wheeler that’s been repurposed into LeRette’s chapel. It’s parked, permanently, at the Petro Travel Center, a truck stop off Interstate 39 in northern Illinois. All around it are acres of commercial trucks, stopped for the night and carrying every kind of cargo: cows, weed, pro-wrestling rings, grain, petroleum. One side of LeRette’s trailer reads “Transport for Christ"; beside it, a neon cross gleams in the dark. John 3:16 adorns the back end: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Next to the scripture are two godly hands cradling a truck.

All across Illinois there are tornado warnings. Menacing gales rip through the parking lot, making the trailer shift and groan; we are beyond the reach of any siren. Yet every minute, the door opens and a new trucker walks in. Each takes his place in one of about 20 chairs arranged in rows toward the middle of the chapel, which is pretty minimalist: framed Bible verses along wood-paneled walls, a lectern at the front, an office and bed in back.

The drivers—all men tonight—have come straight from the road, and their bodies suggest the slow entropy wrought by bad food and decades of sitting. All but one appear over 50. Some know each other: When LeRette kicked off the service by belting out hymns and strumming his guitar, a straggler entered, and several men called out, “Rip!” Rip hustled in and high-fived or hugged them.

LeRette hands out copies of the King James Bible and asks us to open to Luke 10:25. Chuck seems to be back in Exodus, and when LeRette repeats “the Gospel of Luke,” Chuck responds, “Oh, I thought you said Mötley Crüe.” They are irrepressibly funny like this, suddenly schoolboys.

LeRette asks John, a small, older man in a hoodie, to read the verse. “A certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, ‘Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’” He struggles to sound out “eternal,” but the men nod along, supportive, patient.

Then LeRette interprets: A skeptic is trying to trick Jesus into contradicting Judaic law, into uttering a heresy. “Now how many know he ain’t gonna do that? Jesus is the living word of God, amen? There ain’t no trapping our savior.” Chuck calls out, “They tried to trap him for three years,” and LeRette answers, “C’mon, that’s right!” The quickness with which he beckons these road-weary men into call-and-response is extraordinary. He stamps and claps, sidesteps and kicks till his lungs falter. “Jesus carries our load, amen?”

After the sermon, John says meekly, “I have a pain in my shoulder. Would you try healing it?” LeRette agrees and hurries past us to his office, returning with a vial of frankincense. He approaches John and daubs his forehead, then places a hand on his ailing shoulder and calls out: “Father, we pray against whatever it is that’s trying to come against John.” The other drivers rise, surrounding and placing their hands on John or kneeling before him where he sits, eyes closed with one hand lifted upward. He awakens under their touch, smiling serenely.

Each trucker gets a turn at the center of the group. Then they turn toward me.

“Andrew, may I anoint you?” LeRette asks. There’s no time to think, so I say,

“You may,” and straightaway he applies the oil to my forehead.

“Just flood through him, oh God, like liquid fire,” he intones.

Then he starts speaking in tongues, a tumble of manic syllables he lets fly while the long-haulers encircle and lay hands on me.

“Father, I commit Andrew to your care,” LeRette concludes.

2

I have come here on a strange sort of mission: I want to find out what’s gone awry in American trucking. For more than a decade, freight-haulers have been held up as the poster children of a supposedly inexorable fate: 2 to 3 million drivers out of a workforce of 3.5 million—one of the largest in the US—are slated to be sidelined by AI. Yet recent years have hardly borne out that doomy prophecy: The self-driving industry has been humbled by fatal crashes, scandals, a federal investigation, a pedestrian death, negligent homicide charges, and stillborn business promises. Meanwhile the pandemic has wreaked havoc on our supply chains and made us more dependent on truckers than ever—more beholden to an industry that, for all its hugeness, still can’t keep pace with our needs. It’s an industry that dwarfs all other forms of domestic freight transport: 72.2 percent of the total tonnage of goods shipped within the US is moved by truck (air transport moves less than one-tenth of 1 percent). Investors—inspired, doubtless, by the shipping delays and logistical breakdowns that threaten to upend the economy—have sought furiously to augment or outright replace that workforce, pouring money with redoubled fervor into automation since 2020. But they have found scant success: What we have, ironically, is a nationwide shortage of the very workers alleged to face obsolescence.

What’s behind that shortage? And how exactly is technology altering life inside the cab? I want to know why 90 percent of the people who enter this profession quit within the first year; why a red-pilled faction of its members—affronted by a vaccine mandate that was, one senses, only the last in a litany of grievances—formed the Freedom Convoy and People’s Convoy last winter and spring, blocking border crossings between the US and Canada. I hope to understand, too, how the relatively few truckers who stick around sustain themselves: the myths they live on and the shrines to which they come, parched, to be replenished and raised up.

Shadowing LeRette, a holy therapist whose vantage point on this world is at once intimate and panoramic, I hope to glimpse some answers. Then, because I need to see the road for myself—need to be in a truck—I’ve arranged to ride shotgun with a person named Jason Childs, a 41-year-old trucker and adventurer I’ve never met but with whom I’ve very sensibly agreed to share a cab on a two-day route to Boston.

The day after my anointing, LeRette and I head to the main building of the truck stop, where showers, slot machines, and a diner are. He’s decked out in a big parabola of a cowboy hat, a custom black Carhartt jacket that reads “Victory in Jesus,” Wrangler-ish denim, and dark-brown cowboy boots. He approaches the PA system to advertise tonight’s service, which begins at 7 pm, then we grab a booth at the Iron Skillet, where he runs through his personal history over lunch.

As a young man, LeRette was such a wayward punk that he lowers his voice recounting it all. He stole things (“I liked motorcycles”), fist-fought, and assaulted police; he drifted from detention hall to drug ward to psychiatric hospital. At last, he went to prison for theft. One night toward the end of his yearlong sentence, he sat alone in his cell, thumbing through a Bible and crying; he wanted to be delivered, wanted to climb clear of the devilry that had devoured his early life. In the darkness, he became aware of something—a preternatural light. Some being or intelligence that he instantly identified as the Holy Ghost had come to dwell with him. He stopped struggling, felt clean and clear-headed, drained of the defiant energy that had twisted him crosswise with the world. At 6 am, he showed up for breakfast looking serene. “What’s got into you, LeRette?” other inmates asked. “I found Jesus,” he said. They responded: “Brother, you need him!”

He started converting other prisoners, and upon release, began evangelizing in the prisons, jails, and detention centers he knew so well. He made a name for himself bringing the gospel to the most hostile of places, a perilous early ministry that he recalls with what sometimes seems like preacherly embellishment. In Chicago one night, he claims, someone held a gun to his forehead and pulled the trigger. He raised his arms to the sky and cried, “Jesus!” only to discover that the chamber had been empty. Another time, LeRette says, leaning in, while he was witnessing to a crowd of bikers at a Hell’s Angels bar in Rockford, he saw they were getting blow jobs as he spoke. He lifted his eyes and went on preaching.

LeRette supported himself as a mechanic at a Del Monte Foods factory, where he met his wife, Karen. One day in 1991 he got a call from an investor who was planning to build a new truck stop in Rochelle. He wanted to install a chapel there and appoint LeRette as its preacher. LeRette was dubious. He thought his calling was to be a prison chaplain—and besides, the lot was little more than an expanse of corn at the time. But the investor convinced him that if they built on this blankness of prairie, the truckers would come.

The chapel was furnished by a nondenominational ministry—Transport for Christ, now TFC Global—founded in 1951 to serve an industry that was booming thanks to the highway system. The name, like so much about LeRette’s world—its mingled grotesquerie and humor, its wild manifestations of grace amid grimness—seems drawn from Flannery O’Connor. Today, the ministry’s sanctified semis are stationed across the country. The souls LeRette encounters—thousands of truckers come to him each year—include regulars who pass through weekly, plus others he sees once and never again. They provide LeRette’s income in the form of donations, slipped into a box at the chapel or sent by mail. Some truckers have been donating monthly since the chapel opened.

LeRette lives with his wife in a farmhouse half an hour south of Rochelle. “I could never be a truck driver,” he concedes. “Too much of a homeboy.” But some nights he crashes on a couch in the chapel office. Once, he was rocketed from sleep at 4 am by a pounding at the door. “Get up, preacher,” said a voice. “You’re going to meet your maker.” LeRette opened the door and saw an enormous man who’d come to the chapel the night before. “I hate everything about you,” the guy said. “Your voice, your looks.” He seemed poised to murder LeRette when another driver entered—a jacked ex-bouncer who perceived the emergency and rushed forth, demanding the intruder back off. The three talked of Jesus until sunup, when the first guy broke down, agreeing to be born again.

This, LeRette says, is common: A trucker will come at him with a rage that turns out to conceal a desperate desire for forgiveness and love. “I think if there’s one word to describe the trucking industry and the drivers, it would be lonely,” he tells me. They are on the road for weeks, sometimes months, at a time. If they have partners or children, they carry the guilt of missing date nights and soccer games. If they fight with their spouses, they relive the spat numberless times on the road, the work itself becoming a brute metaphor for the emotional freight they carry.

In this sense, LeRette has become the prison chaplain he felt called to be. If trucking was once a lifestyle of freedom, it is increasingly one of deranging captivity and surveillance. During the week I spent at the Petro stop, drivers fumed to me about the electronic logs they must now use—tablet-shaped devices mounted on their dashboards that monitor everything they do: all their driving time, their fueling up, their loading and unloading, their napping. This particular digital intrusion is the result of federal legislation. A law passed in 2012 dictates that truckers work a maximum 14-hour workday, spending no more than 11 hours behind the wheel with three hours of rest time. If they violate this law, they risk being yanked from the road and fined, and might mess up their carrier’s safety rating, which could deter customers, creditors, and insurers. Many drivers concede that the time restrictions arose in response to reckless behavior. “Back in the day they used to do lines of coke off the freakin’ dashboard,” one Illinois-based driver recalled. That, he explained, is how one got to New Jersey overnight. Still, the truckers I spoke to would rather decide for themselves when they’re tired.

The newer trucks are so computerized that they provide what might be termed “AI helicopter parenting”: a development supposedly meant to increase safety and fuel efficiency, but also, I’ll come to suspect, a compensation for fast-tracking newcomers through training and into driver’s seats before they’re ready. Each state-of-the-art Peterbilt in the Petro lot is equipped with at least 10 computers that govern everything from steering to braking, reducing many truckers to what are known in the industry as zombified “steering-wheel holders.” The AI alerts a dispatcher if anything aberrant happens—an abrupt stop, a missed turn—and if a driver changes lanes suddenly, the truck will defy him, jerking itself back. (The driver can override this function, but many truckers say it remains disruptive, even dangerous.)

Then there are the cameras. Ascending the cabin of one semi, I see a black gadget affixed to the windshield like an old-school GPS, its lens trained on the driver’s seat. Such cameras protect companies from liability in the event of an accident—they can prove that a driver wasn’t acting irresponsibly and thus isn’t at fault—but truckers deplore them. “Some drivers,” LeRette says, “tell me they’ve got cameras pointed back in the sleeper.”

On a thriving Reddit community called r/Truckers, which hosts more than 100,000 members, one popular post begins, “Hello, fellow piss jug enthusiasts,” and goes on to complain that its author’s employer has announced it will start implementing driver-facing cameras. Hundreds of users chime in to say that they’ve quit for this reason. “I’ll only accept a driver-facing camera,” one comments, “if the company owner gives me a 24/7 unrestricted stream into his house.”

3

LeRette pays the bill and I follow him to the door. We pass a towering driver at the buffet. LeRette stops, invites him to the evening service, and asks where he stands with Jesus. “I tried to read the Bible cover to cover last year,” the man says. “But I got this phone in my pocket—it got a demon in it. Takes me to sites I don’t wanna go.” He claps me on the shoulder and bursts out laughing, and LeRette hurries off.

I decide to stick around, turning back toward the duskily lit dining room. The clientele is a microcosm of the workforce to which it belongs: older, racially diverse, overwhelmingly male. Of the 3.5 million people who work as truck drivers in the US, 75 percent are over 40, roughly 40 percent are not white, and at most 10 percent are women.

An ambient antisocial quiet hangs in the air: The e-logs and Covid, I’ll learn, have strangled the camaraderie that once flourished at these places where truckers would hobnob heedless of mandated resting and driving intervals. Most drivers sit alone, scrolling on their phones or glancing at the Fox News that drones on the TVs. Vacant booths are marked with a libertarian poutiness: “Due to the IL governor’s orders, this booth is closed.”

At one table, though, three men sit together laughing. I blunder up, introducing myself, and they invite me to sit. Their names are Junius (“JuJu”) Silas, Eric Brown, and Nick Rains; they haul equipment for big touring acts. They’re the drivers of the WWE trucks parked beside the chapel: Throughout my visit, because of the trailers’ adjacent rear ends, André the Giant’s likeness sits beside John 3:16.

I ask them why the industry has a 90 percent attrition rate within the first year. All instantly respond: “No money.” They describe a predatory apprenticeship system that conspires against new drivers seeking to enter the profession. The industry is made up of thousands of mostly small-fleet owners—95 percent of them with 20 trucks or fewer—but dominated by about two dozen giant companies that serve as its gatekeepers. These megacarriers often house schools where some 400,000 new truckers receive commercial driver’s licenses annually. The companies entice people with promises of financial plenty, even as they ensnare them in “training contracts”—binding agreements that require them to drive for the company at below-market wages for a year in exchange for training or else be hit with an exorbitant fee for that training, to be paid off at high interest. Many drivers stick around for the full year to avoid those fees, enduring what amounts to debt peonage.

Silas, a slyly charismatic man with graying dreadlocks, tells me: “The average pay per mile for a fresh driver—your shoes still on? 26 cents.” Actually, he notes, you make half that, “because you’ve got a split seat”—meaning it’s common for companies to pair new drivers in a truck, where they take turns at the wheel and split their earnings. “It don’t make child support,” Silas says. “It don’t make electric bill,” Brown says. “You don’t have a girlfriend,” Silas adds.

To make matters worse, drivers who leave their training contracts early risk being blackballed by the carriers. This past summer and fall, the US Department of Justice oversaw a high-profile antitrust lawsuit in which several truckers sued nine megacarriers for colluding with one another not to hire them. In November, they reached a $2.1 million preliminary settlement.

Freight companies have been warning lately about a trucker shortage so dire that it’s causing supply-chain and delivery delays nationwide. But drivers like Rains see such warnings as disingenuous, given the way megacarriers treat new drivers: “Like cattle.” What’s more, the DOJ has said that the blackballing of drivers who break training contracts may be contributing to the shortage. According to the American Trucking Associations’ 2019 driver shortage report, there are now nearly three commercial driver’s license holders for every job that requires one in the US: strange stats to square with a shortage.

All day I ambush drivers who greet me with an annoyed suspicion that gives way to a thirst for talk so desperate that within minutes I couldn’t shut them up if I tried. I buy them coffee, soon finding myself at the center of small congregations of truckers who’ve shifted seats to join. They want me to understand that freight companies talk up the shortage because they’re angling for federal and state grant money to subsidize the cost of training new drivers. They say that taxpayers are unwittingly funding the turnover that enables this deception to continue—providing what Todd Spencer from the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association calls “corporate welfare” to companies that can seem ripe for treatment by Upton Sinclair. Last year, Rains received a payout from the carrier CRST, where he got his commercial license, after it had reached a settlement with drivers who’d filed a multimillion-dollar class action against it for lying about “free” training, overcharging them for schooling, and failing to pay them minimum wage. The same company saw 150 to 200 sexual harassment claims filed by student drivers against their trainers in 2018 and 2019; one woman alleged her trainer raped her, only to be told by CRST that without video footage they could do nothing. They charged her $9,000 for her training and effectively fired her in retaliation. She sued the carrier and received a $5 million settlement in 2021.

LeRette’s sermon the night before (“The devil’s learned to use us and abuse us!”) starts to strike me as an allegory about a more worldly, if faceless, kind of fiend. “The trucker shortage is propaganda,” insists 62-year-old Jerry Adams, who hauls flour, records country music, and claims to have dated one of Dolly Parton’s sisters. (Adams says she once called the chapel mid-service and sang to the truckers on speaker.) For him, the politicians who keep rewarding the megacarriers bear ultimate responsibility. Many drivers agree, blaming their mistreatment not just on corporate avarice but also on Washington. In 1980, the Motor Carrier Act deregulated trucking, making it easier to get a commercial driver’s license but also making the job far less remunerative. “The worst thing they ever did was deregulate it,” says Dean Martin, who began driving in 1994. “What I made when I started … I make less now.”

Adding insult to injury, truckers are barred from overtime pay by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, even though most of them work at least 70 hours a week—especially when you figure in the obligatory rest periods imposed by Congress in 2012. (A bill called the Guaranteeing Overtime for Truckers Act, sponsored by several senior Democratic US senators, is making its way through Congress.) The average US trucker salary in 1980, adjusting for inflation, was $110,000; today the median is $48,310. This despite research by industry experts like Daniel Rodríguez showing that the probability of truck crashes indirectly correlates with pay and experience, plummeting among long-standing, well-compensated drivers.

According to the American Trucking Associations, though, the trucker shortage is quite real—the product of an aging workforce, the industry’s struggle to recruit women, and the ballooning of freight volumes thanks to our rapacity as consumers. All this, exacerbated by Covid, has created a tight labor market in which fleet owners—primarily small outfits with a handful of trucks—are fiercely competing for the same limited pool of drivers. They are doing so by increasing their pay rates (up by as much as 25 percent since 2019) and enticing truckers with five-figure signing bonuses. Jeremy Kirkpatrick, a spokesperson for the ATA, stressed to me that many truckers are now regularly moving from one signing bonus to the next in a game of musical chairs that leaves fleet owners frustrated. “This churn, or poaching, is what really inflates the turnover rate,” he said.

It’s possible to reconcile these rival accounts: Scummy treatment of apprentice drivers is leading to massive hemorrhaging at the entry level and thus to a shrunken labor force that innumerable fleet owners must strenuously fight over. It’s a landscape akin to academia, the world I came from, where a great share of grubby work is done by an insecure class of entry-level laborers—grad students, adjuncts—striving desperately to join a small, cosseted class—the tenured—who enjoy clout, protections, and a lifelong career trajectory.

While the pandemic’s supply chain woes raged, venture capitalists funneled more investments into autonomous-truck startups—$11 billion from 2019 through 2021—adding fresh precariousness to a trade already beset with uncertainty. These investments have coincided with a rush of optimism among engineers and lawmakers alike. In August, US House representatives, fired by a conviction that “this technology is moving so quickly,” formed a bipartisan “autonomous vehicle caucus” aimed at “establishing the right policy conditions to increase the use of AVs.” “It’s closer than you might think,” Dmitri Dolgov, the co-CEO of leading AV company Waymo, wrote of a self-driving future last month. “Freight volumes will increase, demonstrating how AVs could help untangle supply chains and backfill the immense shortage of truck drivers.”

And yet when one looks closely, this boldness is everywhere haunted by doubt—a rooster-strutting that never quite convinces. One leading autonomous-truck startup, TuSimple, executed its first entirely driverless truck run in Arizona while I was at the Petro stop. An 80-mile nocturnal drive from Tucson to Phoenix, it was hailed as a success—but tellingly, a lead vehicle drove five miles ahead of the truck, scouting for obstacles, while an escort, ready to intervene, trailed it closely, and law enforcement vehicles stalked it from half a mile behind. In 2020, TuSimple struck a deal with Navistar to engineer autonomous trucks; the companies secured about 7,000 orders, and the trucks were scheduled to enter production in 2024. Last December, though, they severed their partnership. A rival, Aurora Innovation, told me in March 2022 that it was aiming for the end of 2023; it has since pushed this date to the end of 2024 and even mulled the possibility of a sale to Apple or Microsoft. In fact, there is little consensus about not just when but whether self-driving trucks will actually come. Truckers tend to bristle at the suggestion that an unmanned digitized truck could perform their job; they point to the dexterity involved in backing into a tight space, even as engineers maintain that this is what autonomous trucks do best—a mere matter of physics and geometry. For their part, researchers like Maury Gittleman and Kristen Monaco at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics stress how truckers’ jobs include more than just driving; they’re tasked with loading and unloading, customer service, and addressing the manifold safety concerns that arise on the road—all duties that “are less susceptible to automation.” Even among engineers, there’s little agreement about the viability of autonomous trucks. Anthony Levandowski, the cofounder of Google’s self-driving vehicle division and now CEO of the autonomous-truck company Pronto, told me he thinks the technology has reached an impasse owing to the trucks’ inability to “understand the world”—to anticipate and react to sudden, spontaneous occurrences such as a driver cutting them off. So the timeline remains uncertain: “Is it five years or 50?” Levandowski asks without an answer. Meanwhile, companies like TuSimple (which refused to talk to me) depict themselves as motivated by a noble desire to devise a solution to the punishment and peril of trucking. The logic, apparently, is that they will relieve an immiserated workforce by rendering it obsolete.

Afternoon at the Skillet bleeds into evening. Every so often a robot voice issues through a loudspeaker: The shower is vacant, the next ticket number is up.

A portrait sharpens into focus of a job that entails both mortal danger and wilting tedium. On one hand, truckers navigate vehicles that weigh up to 80,000 pounds down an interstate system swarming with civilian drivers cutting trucks off and fooling around with phones—and they do so knowing it will take them three football fields to stop should the need arise. From an accident investigator on Reddit, I learn of a trucker who was cut off on a wet road by a driver going 80 mph. The car lost control and skidded sideways into the truck’s path. The trucker could only watch as the car’s driver looked up at him aghast while his wife covered her head, and he barreled straight into them, killing the man instantly and leaving his wife a quadriplegic. The trucker never recovered psychologically: “I just couldn’t get the truck to stop.”

On the other hand, US truckers spend great swaths of their lives waiting at warehouses for their trailers to be loaded and unloaded. Of the 11 hours they’re allotted each day for driving, they spend an average of four and a half idling in line. “They talk about a truck-driver shortage,” one driver tells me. “Yet there are drivers sitting in warehouses two miles from here with an appointment from six or seven hours ago,” he says bitterly. “If they can tell me when I can eat and when I can take a nap, how come they can’t tell these people loading and unloading these trucks that they have a set amount of time to do it?”

Such bitterness helped ignite the Freedom Convoy and People’s Convoy. Ostensibly a transnational uprising against pandemic restrictions—one bolstered by money from far-right groups—the convoys were also an outcry against the perceived collusion of Big Tech and the government against blue-collar workers. Some of the convoys’ participants have passed through LeRette’s chapel. “They’re not against vaccination,” he tells me. “They’re against the government taking complete control over them.” Which sounds like a generic right-wing rallying cry, but it holds special significance for truckers, who feel they’re regulated in all the wrong ways: forsaken where they need help, oppressively monitored where they yearn for liberty.

4

Ascending the chapel steps around 7:15, I open the door and find a seventysomething man seated across from LeRette, mid-narrative. Haggard, cadaverous in color, he has a raving giddiness about him and takes no notice of me. “I got home, walked into the kitchen, and there she was, waving a gun in my face,” he’s saying.

I piece together his story: He came home from a trucking route and found his girlfriend, Norma, demanding at gunpoint to be done with him. He turned and ran downstairs, intending to flee the house. “I got halfway down the steps,” he says, “and she shot a hole in the wall above my head.” When he finally crept back upstairs, “She was on her hands and knees crying.”

The man’s name is Don, and it’s clear he’s likely withholding details. She filed a restraining order; he pressed charges. They’re awaiting a court date.

One by one, truckers file in for the service, and, grasping that something is underway, stay hushed and sit, watching. “Are you a born-again Christian?” LeRette asks.

Don instantly grows defensive. He’s a lapsed Catholic. “I could pull quotes out of the Bible that would put down any preacher if you contradict what I say,” he dares LeRette. “Over half the Bible wasn’t inspired by God; it was influenced by man.”

They clash on this at length, and LeRette finally bursts. “You know what you’re doing, sir? Hey! You’re living an ungodly lifestyle. You’re fornicating with this woman. You come in here with a filthy mouth and you say, ‘Where’s God in my life?’ Man, you need to repent and say, ‘God, I’m in the wrong! Forgive me and fill me with your Holy Spirit!’” LeRette stares at him beseechingly.

Don stands his ground, battling tears: “Her and I stood on a hill and looked at each other as the sun rose! That’s the way we were married! We are married in the eyes of God.”

More argument. Then LeRette says: “Jesus wept. You know that, right?” Don nods. “All of a sudden I’m experiencing feelings, and I never did before.” Later, he adds: “I don’t want to be alone.”

LeRette, seizing the opportunity, jumps up, fetches a Bible, and thrusts it into Don’s hands. He implores him to read aloud a verse from Ezekiel. Don fishes trifocals out of his jacket. “‘A new heart also will I give you,’” he pronounces, “‘and a new spirit will I put within you.’”

“Do you want that?” asks LeRette, standing before him. “Do you want God to take away that stony heart of yours and set His spirit inside you?”

He wants Don to consent to being born again here, now, and implores him to “Yoke up with Jesus!” But Don won’t submit. He keeps dodging, refusing, changing the subject.

A driver from Louisiana named Tony, bass-voiced and built like a bullfrog, pipes in, telling of his own divorce, how he lived out of his pickup in a Walmart parking lot during the worst of it. “I had to concentrate on me,” he realized.

A group therapy session materializes: The other drivers, pivoting toward the secular vocabulary of Oprah and Dr. Phil, urge Don to prioritize self-care, while LeRette sits by, looking sidelined and a little glum.

At last LeRette intervenes. “Don, I have no greater desire in my heart tonight than to see you say, ‘Lord Jesus, I need you. I want to be born again. I want you to renew me.’”

“No.”

Instead, Don joins hands with the other drivers and leads them in prayer. “Lord, I’m asking that we can find a peaceful solution to this situation I’m in. That I can get a lot of help from the people that have listened to me. That we can get help for Norma and bring her back to the woman I fell in love with. Bring her back to the light.”

5

I stay late in the chapel, talking to the truckers. They recall driving during the earliest days of Covid—the apocalyptic emptiness of the roads. “Everything shut down but us,” says Tony. “It felt like we were in a movie. Five o’clock, rush hour in Atlanta, and I’m running 65. I got chill-bumps on my arms talking about it.” A suddenly homebound public relied on them more than ever, yet they themselves remained unprovided for; truck stops, restaurants—all were closed. “They locked it down, man. You’d be lucky if you got a honeybun.”

“Back when Covid started we were heroes,” one driver says. “Now it’s right back to pre-Covid; we’re just POSes.” Another calls out, “Boy, it sure was nice while it lasted!”

An intimacy takes shape in the trailer among drivers who, as early as 2 am, will be back on the road, scattered to their separate lives. It’s as if we’re drovers gathered around a campfire—a metaphor with a powerful gravitational pull here. LeRette doesn’t just dress like a cowboy. His office is laden with cowboy paraphernalia: a cowboy kneeling before a cross, a holster, a rodeo poster, photos of LeRette on horseback shooting at targets, and an ornamental cowboy boot beside the vial of frankincense, a juxtaposition that neatly captures LeRette and the faith he’s plying—call it Cowboy Pentecostalism. Cowboyism, it turns out, is an essential piece of the trucker mythos, for many drivers a life-giving faith unto itself. As Jane Stern showed in her 1975 book on the industry, Trucker: A Portrait of the Last American Cowboy, the conviction that they’re heirs to the cattle-drivers of the frontier, peripatetic dudes who answer to no one, is their central animating story.

This is a core reason why truckers find the cameras and computers so galling: More than any projected future of self-driving trucks, these technologies threaten not just their livelihoods but their innermost sense of self. To watch LeRette in action is to see a ritualized resistance to that threat—a refusal through sacrament, through touch, of what many see as a coordinated push by Silicon Valley, government, and their employers to wring trucking of its human element.

I spend my last day talking to more truckers, conversations that range from damning to poignant. There’s the African American woman, a long-hauler who declines to share her name, who tells me: “Companies are treating drivers like meat in the seat. It’s all about them. They’re not concerned about what the drivers need.” By which she means, especially, time off, but also pay. There’s Janet, perhaps 70 years old, who talks to me from high up in her truck while her three spaniels peer around her at me. She drove for decades with her husband; a year ago he died. “It’s tested my faith,” she admits, and clutches my hand.

That night I have a last dinner with LeRette, thanking him for everything. I tell him, feigning poise, that in the morning I’ll catch that ride to Boston with Jason Childs. I share what little I’ve heard about him: Though recently engaged, Childs has 11 kids by 10 different women scattered about the country. “Oh, mercy!” LeRette shrieks, and prays for me over his pilaf.

When I get back to my hotel room, I see that Childs has texted me. “Well they changed my trip,” he wrote. “Going to the Everglades.”

6

In the morning I make my way south, by Greyhound, to a lot outside Springfield where I’ve arranged to meet Childs. In time a truck pulls up; out of it hops a middle-aged man in a hoodie—medium height, bearded, with a lone earring and a faintly roguish air. He holds out a hand, smiling: “Welcome to central fuckin’ Illinois.”

We embark on the route—me, Childs, and his 11-year-old soon-to-be stepson J. D., who wants to be a trucker himself and, in his spare time, plays a trucking video game on Xbox whose object is to make sensational deliveries in brutal weather. I’m in the passenger seat, J. D.’s in the sleeper cabin, divided from the main cab by a curtain through which he peers happily. Childs’ truck is a flatbed with a removable tarp that protects our cargo: 38,000 pounds of cornmeal destined for a tortilla-chip factory in LaBelle, Florida. It’s the first of three deliveries that Childs—who works for an independent contractor with 50 trucks—will make, a journey of five days, 120 hours, for which he’ll get 31 percent of the total cut: $1,100 for the first drop, plus smaller sums for the next two.

The e-log ticking, we head down Route 24 toward Kentucky. It’s arresting, being up here: To be lifeguard-high in a 35-ton machine screaming down the highway at 80 mph, to see so plainly every driver’s phone-fiddling, their eating and knee-steering, is a sensation of godlike omniscience. But it is also terrifying.

There is a moment-to-moment proximity to death, not just your own but everyone else’s around you, that gives fresh clarity to all I witnessed at the chapel—the reconciling with God of people forced into a daily awareness of endings. “I’ll die in a truck,” Childs says casually, explaining that this is every trucker’s deepest fear. “A buddy of mine had a heart attack in a semi, right up here at that last exit. His heart exploded and he lost control of his truck, and he went right into a hotel.”

At one point we find ourselves on a county road, where a truck passes us on a double line. A moment of dread ensues: There’s oncoming traffic, and since it’s far too late for us to stop, we can only watch as the driver lays on the throttle, hurtling forward and, just in time, merging back over to avert disaster.

At times, Childs’ anxiety crests in moments of rage so over the top they teeter into black comedy. “I have panic attacks,” he says. “That’s why I drink.” Sure enough, when we cross into Kentucky, daylight wanes and we get stuck behind a semi doing 50 in the fast lane. Childs seethes—we’re on the clock—and when the driver finally changes lanes he speeds up alongside him, flips on the cab light and lowers my window. “Stupid-ass Ichabod Crane-looking motherfucker!” he yells. I glance over and see a gangly man at the wheel, his own window down, utterly bewildered. “This is why I love him!” J. D. cries.

Childs is a Byronic character, a bruised antihero whose story is harrowing enough to merit a trigger warning. “I was sexually molested by a lady,” he tells me once J. D. has fallen asleep. “She beat me with a taser. You can see my shoulders are all fried.” He peels down his hoodie, baring a cartography of scars. “I’ve never been genuinely loved.” Abandoned by his biological parents, he cycled through foster homes and psychiatric hospitals, quickly developing the sex addiction that has shaped his life. He’s had north of 300 partners, many encountered on the road—in whose arms, he tells me, blithely Freudian, he has found the semblance of maternal love. Nearly a dozen kids have come into the world, and with them mountains of child support that dwarf his earnings. Of late he has found stability with his fiancée, Stephanie. He smirks: “I’m retired.”

Jason Childs may be an unreformed Jay LeRette—the preacher minus the jail-cell epiphany, still adrift in a tumult of rages, unhelped by grace. And yet Childs, too, is ignited by faith—that same mythic cowboyism that forms the other half of LeRette’s creed. “We’re the guys that go in the saloon and play cards back in the Old West. And these,” he says, gesturing at his truck, “are our horses.” In keeping with that mythos, he insists on driving a manual transmission—“It gives me greater control, and it saves lives every day”—and has elected to work for a boss who doesn’t use driver-facing cameras. He despises the new generation of drivers who have everything done for them by computers, including the teenage truckers who, thanks to a controversial new federal apprenticeship program aimed at combating the shortage, may soon be eligible to do interstate hauling. All the same, he angrily, defensively waves away my suggestion that the job may be automated out of existence: “You’re never going to get rid of the real truck driver.”

As evening deepens, we advance into southern Tennessee, past mountain silhouettes that in darkness loom like cenotaphs. “Automation will be the death of the cowboy,” Childs suddenly says, a different authority in his voice. “All truck drivers fear it, because we know it’s going to take our jobs away. We’ve heard this for years … But it can’t be,” he insists.

“I know safety is key to this,” he concedes, and in his tone there’s a curious fatalism at odds with his earlier indignant dismissal of a driverless future. “The American truck driver—think about how many songs, stories. ‘Smokey and the Bandit.’ All the country songs. Legends were born out here.” He searches for the right word. “The folklore of a trucker—it’s the cowboy culture, the outlaw. The big, long beards and the big bellies. Disheveled. Stinky. Then there’s me,” he laughs, “who looks like I’m going to rob a bank.”

“Now the actual truck driver is going to go extinct. And it’s all about saving money. That’s all it’s about.”

7

We barrel through Georgia, crossing into Florida around 2 am, when the e-log mandates that we stop for 10 hours. An odd suspense follows: The 14-hour workday is running out, so we scan the highway for a truck stop with both vacant space and a restaurant, but the combination proves elusive. We settle for a travel station with available parking but only a convenience mart. Childs clambers into the sleeper cabin with J. D., and crashes.

I shut my eyes briefly, but by dawn I’m awake and get out to stretch. My lower back is throbbing, my right sacroiliac staging a violent coup that’s spreading down my leg. I think of Childs’ frenzied philandering through the years and find it impossible to imagine any amount of sensuality surviving this life. I feel the least attractive, and furthest from horny, I’ve ever been.

I hobble across the road onto what’s almost certainly someone’s property, entering a different world of palmettos, steroidal pinecones, and migrated cranes that swim the air. After Rochelle, this feels like my own stolen sabbath. I stoop and photograph. When I amble back to the truck, I pass Childs and J. D., who are headed to the mart to get breakfast. Childs nods slightly.

I crawl into the sleeper and draw the curtain, and after a time hear them return; Childs is on the phone with Stephanie. “He’s finally asleep, thank Christ. I saw him walking back to the lot from some random fucking field. Like, y’all know this is serial killer central, right?” He switches to what I can only describe as some kind of strangled Big Bird voice: “Deh, I’m gonna get myself killed by Jeffrey Dahmer!” J. D. squeals.

All that day we scud southward, the sky sunless and menacing. Florida is a hallucination of Confederate flags and Waffle Houses. “Worst state in the union,” Childs says. He’s chain-smoking now, five an hour; I watch him distance-parent on the phone half the day while operating the rig. “She’s testing you, Maddy, she’s testing you!” he shouts into the Bluetooth speaker at one point.

At nightfall we hit LaBelle. The tortilla-chip factory is desolate; there’s no sign they’re expecting us—no instructions, not a soul about, and, it turns out, no clear way to the loading dock in the back. Cars are parked carelessly about the building, their noses impinging on the path to the dock. There are no overhead lights, so Childs must slalom backward in the dark, maneuvering this mastodon with utmost delicacy around parked cars, some 100 yards in all: a double black diamond.

He scopes out the route, returns, and revs the truck. Then he guides it glacially backward, threading it past car after car and somehow nicking none—a kind of calligraphy—and nearly makes it when the truck’s antenna catches on a low overhang and snaps clean off. Childs stops, snarls profanities, then resumes and reaches the dock, emptying the tonnage of cornmeal in the night.

I stay with them just half a day longer. We pick up a load of steel piping in the morning and drive north toward Tampa, through Sunkist groves and into a gathering storm. Stop signs jerk spasmodically in the winds; lightning severs the sky. It starts to pour. I watch other trucks wade through pooled water in the road, feeling our own slosh and sway. “Tornado sky,” Childs mutters. My journey is ending as it began.

We drive on in silence, at noon reaching Plant City, near Tampa, and pulling up before the gate of the factory that ordered the piping. No one emerges. Childs calls the foreman, who says the crew won’t come out until it stops raining; they don’t feel like getting wet. “Why can’t the foreman just make them?” I ask, incredulous. “Because he’s a tender-footed sack of shit,” Childs spits.

Hours pass, and no one appears, a waiting that starts to seem existential, starts to stand in for the long-deferred deliverance of a workforce, a way of life. More trucks collect behind us, a convoy stretching to the street, and when I get out to survey them I see that their drivers too are on the phone and pissed, calling the foreman, presumably. But nothing moves—nothing except the winds that start rising, vengeful gusts that pummel and lash like a scourge out of scripture.

I look up at the sky and decide all at once that I need to get out. So I hustle back to the truck and page a ride to the Tampa airport, and when it comes I turn to Childs. “Gotta run, man. Thanks so much for having me.” But he’s taking frantic drags off a cigarette, distance-parenting again—a daughter keeps peeing her pants, the store is out of pull-ups—and in the speakerphone’s background a child is screaming. He hardly notices me; J. D. is asleep. I leave them like that, rushing toward my ride past a line of trucks that sit, in a rain half-diluvian now, aimed at the shut gate and poised, I imagine, to blow it apart.

[foolishfera]

Achilles’s Hairy Ball

In an attempt to unite the nations of an unrestful world, governments and media agencies and anything with an acronym gave a crack at the ol’ common enemy trick. We all convinced enough of each other that there really were little green or grey bulbous bipedal Martians that had been spying on us, lowering fertility rates, weakening our economies, loosening bolts in our otherwise-healthy machine to get us all to turn on ourselves for them to swoop in for an easy invasion while we’re all riding in scrapwork monster trucks, too busy looking for clean water to look up.

It was a good way for all nations to appear effective peacekeepers while everyone ignored all the real poisons that were dragging them gravewards — solve everything and nothing with a good show! Some people were angry and opposed, but plenty had grown apathetic having been born after the stars had disappeared beneath an LED sky.

So all the space agencies of the world (after some polite then firm restructuring) devised several plans and the most expensive one was picked to churn out rocket after rocket and missile after missile to show off the might of a modern and global military industrial complex with the packing power to remove a piece of our very sky. The rockets couldn’t actually do anything, really they would huck asteroids at the planet to do the real damage and then detonate a few explosives around the scene. We couldn’t let the general public know that atrocity could come so cheap.

The day came, and for a lucky half of the Earth they got full view of a sudden flash in the sky, and angry fire like the sun was uncoiling itself. The other half as they spun into view got to see what appeared as a tiny and sad-looking nebula, like a gunned-down amoebae.

And just like that everyone could mark on their calendar one September day the death of an entire planet. We all just stood dumbly looking up at the night sky with a sudden smear on the lens, or staring at pictures on our televisions and phones, or just contemplating the new hole in our collective minds. And while we all marvelled at Mars like children fascinated by roadkill, the Venusians came down and quickly enslaved us all. They got us while all our backs were turned, and no one could argue that wasn’t an impressive feat when their target was a fucking sphere.

They mocked us relentlessly, compulsively. A Venusian master couldn’t walk by you without saying “hey Earthling, it says gullible on Mars!” and if you didn’t politely chuckle along with them they’d stamp on you with their hooves while in uncontrollable and violent mirth.

Many people took fine to the takeover once things had settled, however. The Venusians had similar economic sensibilities to us (why else do you think their planet looked like that?) and by October everyone was back in the office. Not much had changed except they put porn back on Tumblr. That kept us all going for a while.

[nityarawal]

12/2/22

Morning Songs

Kings Taster

Came To Me

At Idyllwild Community

Help Center

A Thai Brass Set

Over A 100 Pieces

I Would've Bought

It At The First Few

It Grabbed Me And Winked

So Many Shiva Heads

Bone Handles

Carved

Each Piece Of Art

Should I Have Them

On My Wall

Send Out 

Christmas Presents

Pawn At The Shop

Or Invite Friends

For A Banquet

Get Them Stacked

In Glittery Piles

Stamped "J.G."

What Does That Stand For

John Gordon Huntley

J.G.  John Giovanni 

My Thai Buddha Boppa

JG "John Of God"

Thankyou

For My Kings Taster 

Silverware

Dozens Of Forks 

Look Like Dad's

Devil's

Prongs

Turned Out

Lotuses

Some Have Harmonics

So Elegant

Calling For Instruments

From Junk

In Back Yard

Carburetors Sound Fantastic

Wanna Play

Welder's Daughter 

Find A Drummel

To Drill Flattened Pennies 

It's Like "House"

When I Was Little

Sitting In My Warm

Electric

Sherpa

Got Hundreds Of Pieces

Brass Shiva Silverware Ready

To Bless

Loved Ones

With Love

And Beauty

Saraswati's Sisters'

Lakshmi

Is Hosting You

At A Party

Come Settle My Loves

All The Colors

Of The Rainbow

Come Raincheck

Thanksgiving's 

Not Over

Come

Lil'

Darlings'

Mamma's Got You Covered

At Bappa's

Uncle Haydn's

Wherever You Go

Dine In Peace

My Love

Don't Forget Mantras

Mammas

Amma Taught

You

Om Tryam Bhakam

Om Tryam Bhakam

Yajamahe

Sugantim Pushti

Varthanem

Uvarukumiva Bhandanat

Mrityor Mukshiya Mamratat

Om Namah Shivaya

Oh My Love

Do You Remember

Norooz

In Palo Alto With 

Mommy

And Amma

Behnaz Gave You Coins

Amma Put You On The Stage

We Explored

The Science Exploratory

Museum That Day

Mamma's Road Trips

To Family Who Love You

Hot Springs

Toby's 

Avila

Dennis & Helene

Godparents Tricks

Cafe Quarters 

Appearing From 

Jokester Magicians 

Seaside

Agua Caliente

#HeardUs

My Babies

Kings Taster

Will Be Present

In All The Shiva's Silverware

If You Go To Gramama

Mitra's

Uncle Haydn's

Auntie Mel's

Mamma's

Thai King's Taster

Tehrangeles

Is Waiting For You Kyan

From John Gordon

Of Scotland

John Little

Giovanni

Bambinos of Italy

And Chicago 

Babies

You've Been Blessed

Finally Free Of

The Karmas

Of Our Wayward Genes

You've Been Blessed

Shahs' Still Find You

From Iran

Scotland

And Chicago French

Italians

Grandmammas 

Love You

Elders Shine

Shiva's Watching Baes

Your Gautama

From Buddha

Grandpa Pravin

Chandra Rawal

Named Your Pappa

Sunil

For The God Shiva

Blue That Creeps

Up His Neck

Stopping All Poisons

From Entering

Him

Kings Taster Serves

Has A Mission

If You Look Closely

My Dear

You Can Always

Be Behind You 

King's Taster 

Sent For Kyan

Another Journal

Full

House

Treasures

Overflowing

For You And Your Sister

Attic Ready

For A Hideaway

Bath

With Spring Water

Trucked In

Agua Calliente

For My Baes

Even 

Over From A 

Well Better 

Than City Polution

Big Pharma Con

Santa Rosa

Saint Thomas

Shining

Deva

Over Shivas'

Smiling At You

Ready To Greet 

Edelweiss 

At My Christmas

Party

From

Encinityas

To Huelo

Waterfalls

Hogback Rd

Haiku

Or Mammas' Fishhouse

Paia

In Maui

Named After

Baby Beach

Or

In Mountain Center

Anywhere 

My Baes

We're Here For Thee

All The Colors

Of The Rainbow

Moezzis' Too

Mo

Eazy

Come Along

Shahs

Shuzdehs

Bring The Clans

Merci

Settle

Mammas

Wrongful Debts

Come Settle

Merci

All Mammas'

Wrongful Arrests

Make That Tesla

Phone Yesterday

I Can't Change My

Address Again

On The Phone

Or In Person

Can't Dial In

From Mountain Center

Queen Of The San Bernadino

Mountains

Do You Go Up

Or Down

In Your Tesla

To 4000

5000 Feet

A Mile High

Do You Fly

Down To The 

Dessert Basin

Past Every Kind 

Of Exotic

Cactus

Free

Do You Hug

The Canyons Edge

In Tesla

And Pray 

Starlink 911 Elon

Button Works

Better Than 911 Rape

For Charles

Do You Pray

With Baes

No Hit And Runs For

Court

No Amex Bill's

Chasing You

With Slumlords

Sold By Creditors

Mercantile

Thieves

That Bought

Their Bribes

Would Help You Lose

Documents

To Hide

Bank Fraud And

Lies From DMV.org

To Wells Fargo

Fidelity

IRS

Ponzi

Tax 

Schemes

BBVA

KKK

PNC

I Found Your

Documents

Wadded In My Car

Even Carmel Benson's

Cousin's

Social Security Card

Didn't Throw Away

For She Knew

For She Threw Away

Mine

And I Might've

If She Had Cooperated

But Now We Wonder

Who Was Cousin

Slummed From

New York City

Clinging To A Moldy

Backpack

Of Dirty Change

Old Nail Clippers 

Disinfectant

Piles Of Documents

Fermented

Down To A Garbage Bag

Of Assets

Carmel Didn't 

Want

Remembered 

Did He Hang Onto

A Story

A Social Security Card

Was He One Of Many

She Let Die

In The System

She Said She Bought

His Remains

Sent

For A Few Thousand

Dollars

It was Worth

"Nothing"

Noting

Throw It All

Away

Salvaged

Her Garbage Bag

Of New Target

Purchases

Honestly Showed Her

My Girl Friday

What She Almost 

Threw Away 

I Kept His Wallet

To Look At Lost Assets

Just In Case

Said Cousin

Witchhunted

Like Me

Rosen From New York

Known A Few

God Knows Carmel

Must've Thought

She Needed A Drink

Don't Sell Out 

Your Hostess

Maid

Dishwasher

Don't Flout

Red

Buddha

In Your Garden

Lack Compassion 

You'll Hear

About

Buddha's Last Supper

Kingstaster

Was Even In

Playboy In 70's Cartoons

Strange Things Pop Up

Everywhere

When You Have A Dream

Brass

Mirrors Wink

Shiva

From Thailand

Assuming Safety

For Family Clan

Desperate Estrangement

We'll All Be Dining

With All The

Colors Of The Rainbow

NVC

Shiva

Blue

No Poison

Aqua

Kings Taster's Gotcha

Evil Eye

Mamma's

Books Coming Out

Publishers

Will Stalk Me

King's Taster

Buddha

Shiva

Shakti

Mamma

Elders

Smiling 

Laughing

Watching

#Nitya4Eternity 

#Nitya4Kyan Please

#Nitya4Anjali 

#Nitya4Kings 

Nitya

Listen

#Nitya4Shiva

#Nitya4Buddha

#Nitya4Iran

#Nitya4Rumi

#Nitya4Eternity 

#Nitya4YouAndMe

You Me

You Me

You Me You

Me Yeah

You

Baes

Merci

Nitya Nella Davigo Azam Moezzi Huntley Rawal 

[travelingthief]

Hermes Devotional Post!

Not a complete list of course, so feel free to add on!

Travel

Dedicated travel playlist for Hermes

Mindful packing for trips

Road-trips/camping

Trying new modes of travel

Let Him pick the music

Travel by boat/kayak/canoe

Learn to roller skate, skateboard, or longboard

Learn to surf

Go for a bike ride

Find ways to save on gas (like rewards cards)

Misc.

Draw sigils on shoes

Leave coin offerings at the location you start your travels

Travel size portable altar

Give people in need bus fare 

Go for a run 

Picking up coins you find/leaving coins for others

Donating to homeless shelters

Car

Keep up on car maintenance (especially in the wintertime)

Courteous driving (Letting people out, stopping for pedestrians, using your blinker)

Clean snow off other drivers’ cars

Keep your car clean

Giving rides to others

Stopping for those that need help on the side of the road

Invite Him to ride in the passenger seat

Let Him pick the music

International

Get a passport!

Keeping up on foreign affairs

Decorate your passport

See the world!

Make a travel board/destination list

Learn about places you wanna go

Try foreign foods

Nature

Take a nature walk! (Or just a walk around the block)

Dedicate your hiking boots/running shoes to him

Find a spot in nature to talk to Him

Learn about birds in your area and where they come from and go.

Learn how animals communicate (great alongside Artemis)

Communication

Write letters to friends

Send postcards/greeting cards

Call a friend or relative

Reread messages/emails before sending 

Communicate your thoughts and feelings in your relationships

Practice keyboarding

Establish and enforce your boundaries 

Can and string telephones

Keep secrets entrusted to you

Support your local post office

Collect stamps/postcards

Dedicate your phone/laptop to Him

Have a penpal

Language

Keep a journal 

Learn a new language/Revisit the language you started learning and then neglected 

Learn ASL

Learn about the evolution of language and how it is always changing

Be mindful of the language you use in daily life and consider how it affects you and those around you 

Change your self-talk! Keep it positive!

Voice training (Particularly for trans worshippers)

Thinking before you speak

Learn about older forms of communication (like Morse Code)

Learn braille 

Go to the library and practice reading books in a foreign language (Great to do alongside Athena)

Practice writing (great to do alongside Apollo) 

Learn about the elements of writing, like allegory and metaphors (alongside Apollo)

Trickery and luck

Play pranks (remember: good pranks cause confusion, not harm)

Learn magic tricks 

Buy scratch offs/play the lottery

Understand how gambling addictions affect people

Dice and card games

Learn about good luck charms/Make your own

Night at the casino 

Learn about superstitions

Games like billiards or darts

Arcade/video games/carnival games

Make small/friendly bets

Poker nights!

Game of horseshoes

Learn parlor games

Miscellaneous 

Smoke a bowl with Him! (If your relationship is like that)

Offer him coffee and energy drinks

Trail mix, candy, road-trip snacks, 

Learn a good joke

Write/perform stand up comedy 

Related Jobs

Mail carriers and sorters

 Retail workers (Hermes of Merchants & Commerce)

 Canvassers 

Editors, journalists, and writers

Newspaper routes

Bank tellers

Carnies 

Casino workers

Gas station attendants

 Mechanics 

Where I Acknowledge Him

Gas stations

Mail carriers/trucks

Worn-looking travelers (thinking of the eye-patched man lounging on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette. Hope to be that content one day)

Gumball machines give me his vibe

Arcade games, pinball machines, and air hockey 

Flea markets/garage sales

Simple Acts to Devote to Him

Checking your mail

Checking email/voicemail

Buying stamps

Flipping a coin

Dice divination

Charm casting

Collections

Rocks

Coins/money 

Good luck charms

Pens/writing utensils

Playing cards

Dice (Looking at you D&D players)

Offerings

Orange peels

Trail mix/peanuts

Road-trip snacks

Rocks & pebbles, coins, cool things you find outside

Travel souvenirs 

Good luck charms

Energy drinks

Coffee (bonus points for gas station coffee)

Letters/postcards/stamps

Apples/bananas/grapes

Foreign foods

[freebooter4ever]

Snafu Vampire Cryptid VS Hunter Gene

Thank you @s-k-y-w-a-l-k-e-r and @edteche2 and @diasimar for listening to all my vampire nonsense!

Summary: crack treated seriously - after the war Eugene becomes a vampire hunter (without a backstory because I couldn't come up with a believable one) and starts tracking a very odd, very suspicious vampire known to the locals as "Snafu". Meanwhile Snafu just thinks Eugene has a Very Intense Crush, which is okay cause the guy is kinda cute, so he can follow Snafu wherever he wants. HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Please enjoy my weird offering to this spooky season...

------------------------------------------------------

It's winter in northern Louisiana, the skies are finally gray, the foliage dull and brown, the entire world monochrome mud. And Eugene hides behind a gnarled old tree as a 1941 chevy truck trundles up to the graveyard entrance. The cherry red truck is the one bright spot in the world. Or perhaps a smear of blood dripping from a wound.

The chaotic entity known as "Snafu" hops out of his truck and saunters through the graveyard arch. It's a tiny graveyard - a postage stamp inside a giant swath of trees, protected by a flimsy knee-high log fence. The whole place was built during the pioneering days, in a rush when caravans of wagons didn't have time to stop and do it properly. Most of the wood is half rotted. Except for the old oak concealing Eugene. It's trunk is twisted and wide, making for a good hiding spot. The giant tree is the only thing still growing strong inside these hallowed grounds.

Or perhaps not so hallowed. Snafu crosses the boundary into the graveyard easily and without thought. It must have been ages since a priest formally consecrated this land. A whole number of things could have happened to profane the cemetary between then and now.

After all, hardly anybody visits this graveyard anymore, who would know?

There's only two recently dug graves. The markers read '1934', and they're directly in Eugene's line of sight. Eugene supposes eleven years ago is not actually recent, but time plays tricks with his mind nowadays. The years he spent overseas during the war simultaneously feel like a blink of an eye and a whole age. Sometimes Eugene forgets he didn't revert back to 1942 at the end of it all - still 19 but with a brain that no longer fits.

The cemetery is both old and barely accessible. It takes someone a full hour to drive out to this catholic graveyard. Not because it's particularly far from town, but because the dirt and gravel road is so rough cars can't travel more than five miles an hour on it. There's only one place this dirt road goes - straight to the graveyard. And beyond that into a forest reserved for hunting. Eugene noticed Snafu's truck turning onto this road while Eugene was tracking him in town. Being an experienced hunter, Eugene followed deer trails and jogged to the graveyard on foot in half the time it took Snafu to drive.

Since it's a wayfarer's graveyard, the plots are bare bones. The grave markers are wooden. Some are shaped into crosses and some not even that - simply planks wedged into the ground, and most are missing entirely. The writing on the markers has eroded. But Snafu knows exactly where to go. Eugene's seen him here on multiple occasions.

This time Snafu has two fistfulls of flowers, one for each hand. He squats in front of twin wooden crosses stuck into the ground side by side, and carefully lays his flowers down flat.

Eugene shifts to the other side of the tree and squints to better see what Snafu is up to.

Snafu digs into the dirt with his bare hands. He clearly has no qualms about getting dirty. He doesn't dig deep, just a shallow little circle at the base of the first cross. He then reaches into the baggy pocket of his pants and pulls out a tin can. This he places inside the shallow hole and smushes dirt around the edge to hold the can upright.

Snafu gets to his feet and walks back to his red truck to grab a watering can from the bed. The water inside sloshes as he carries it to the graves.

He fills the tin can with water and drops the flowers in. He sits back on his heels and admires his crude handiwork. Dissatisfied with it, he carefully arranges the flowers till they are evenly spread out and the colors separated nicely.

From Eugene's standpoint, all he can see is the back of Snafu's curly head outlined against a brilliant bouquet of color. Snafu's little ears stick out amidst the thick curls, and his shoulders are hunched, as if he's nervous about touching the flowers gently enough. Not a single petal falls.

Seeing him from this angle, it's hard to believe Snafu could be a bloodthirsty murderous sonofabitch.

Finally finished with the first flower bouquet, Snafu pulls another tin can out from his left pocket and repeats the whole process for the second grave.

Eugene is dumbfounded. This isn't what he expected at all. There's even a tear tracking it's way down Snafu's grubby cheek.

Snafu kneels in the cold dirt and bends his head over the pair of graves. He looks utterly defeated.

The scene makes Eugene's heart ache and his instinct is to offer comfort. He fights his instincts, though. Isn't that what this training is all about? Learning how sometimes instincts get you killed?

"I know you're there," Snafu says loudly without lifting his head, "and my life has kinda gone to shit lately, so if you don't mind coming out, I could use a hug."

Eugene freezes behind the tree. Not hard to do since the temperature is so damn cold. Suddenly it all makes sense. If Snafu already knew, then this was all a show. An act for Eugene. Snafu pretending to have a heart with empathy and sorrow.

Eugene debates on his next move. Snafu's request is the one part of this that doesn't add up. Unwilling to fully reveal himself, even if Snafu claims he knows Gene's there, Eugene sticks his head out from around the tree trunk. Not that having a gigantic hunk of wood and bark between them could save Eugene from Snafu's wiles.

"You want me to hug you?" Eugene asks dumbfoundedly.

Snafu shrugs and blinks his big sad eyes at Gene, "If you don't mind."

How could Gene say no to those eyes?

Training never covered this kind of situation.

"Okay…" Eugene stammers, "I guess…" he comes out from behind the tree and waits awkwardly beside the trunk, in full view of Snafu.

Snafu carefully hobbles to his feet, stiff after kneeling so long, and walks to Eugene. They stand in front of each other, a few feet apart, staring.

Snafu's eyes are damn pretty. In all his time spent looking at the guy, Eugene hadn't gotten close enough yet to see, but now he knows. And now that he knows, there's no way he could ever forget.

Eugene opens his arms wide, still a little unsure about what happens next. A part of Eugene doesn't believe he'll actually get a hug. That the request must be some kind of a new trick, or part of a larger plan.

So when Snafu walks straight into Eugene's arms and wraps himself tight around Eugene's waist, it comes as a bit of a surprise.

Eugene prides himself on adjusting to surprise pretty well. It only takes Eugene a minute or so to hug back. Once he gets his own arms around Snafu's shoulders, Snafu surprises him yet again by shuffling in closer.

Not to mention that Snafu isn't hugging Eugene on the outside of his coat. No, the little sneak slipped his hands inside Eugene's leather jacket, so there are only a few thin layers of cotton and wool separating Snafu's firm arms from Eugene's skin. It's almost as if Snafu's got his hands on Eugene's naked body. Eugene can feel how cold Snafu's fingers are.

Maybe that's why Snafu stuck them under Eugene's jacket. To warm them.

Cold hands are already a red flag. One that should send Eugene into defensive mode. Yet, it doesn't. He stands perfectly still, and lets Snafu leech his warmth.

Eugene can also feel every breath Snafu takes, and he almost swears he feels a pounding heartbeat beneath Snafu's chest, but Eugene's own pulse is so loud in his head it's hard to tell. Snafu seems small and fragile in Eugene's arms, though Eugene knows that to be a lie. Snafu is about as fragile as a crocodile.

And hugging him is probably about as safe as hugging a crocodile. Worse actually. Eugene should really not be doing this. Except that he is enjoying it immensely. Snafu smells nice, like wood chips and that sappy smell Eugene associates with Christmas. And his curls are softer than Eugene has imagined. Not that Eugene spends his free time imagining the softness or springy-ness of Snafu's curls or anything.

Eugene doesn't think Snafu would mind too much - him wondering about Snafu's curls and how he smells. Not given how long this hug is lasting. Entirely inappropriate, entirely too heated. Snafu's firm thigh slots ever so slightly between Eugene's legs. Eugene squeezes him tighter.

Snafu noses against Eugene's neck, presses the whole front of his body to Eugene's, and runs his palms sensuously down Eugene's back.

Which produces a reaction in Eugene that he kinda saw coming.

"Uh…" Eugene is painfully aware that there is no way Snafu does not feel Eugene's erection straining the front of his pants. Etiquette says Eugene must break the hug now. But Snafu seems in no hurry to do that.

"Gene…" Snafu whispers in his ear.

"Uhhhhhh…" Eugene sighs lustfully, feeling at a loss for control. He doesn't even stop to wonder how Snafu knows his name.

Snafu presses kisses down Eugene's neck, and Eugene tilts his head to make it easier on him.

Eugene's mind is in a bit of a fog, as dull and grey as the sky. But each kiss from Snafu brings out sparks of color. And Eugene desperately yearns for more. Maybe this was what all these weeks of surveillance were leading up to, maybe this was what he wanted all along.

Undeniably the minute Snafu starts to open his mouth and press his teeth against the crook of Eugene's shoulder, Eugene remembers what Snafu is and the spell of lust breaks.

Eugene's eyes snap open (when had he closed them?), and he grabs Snafu's wrist behind his back and twists out of the hug. Snafu hangs on tight, and Snafu's eyes, so easy to get lost in even in the midst of Eugene's panic, look shocked.

Eugene violently jerks his elbow up to catch Snafu under the chin.

"Oh, fuck!" Snafu swears in pain and lets go.

They face one another again, Eugene breathing hard, and Snafu grinning maniacally.

The one smack doesn't keep Snafu off for long. He lunges at Gene and practically leaps onto him with all four limbs outstretched.

"What the hell?" Eugene mutters as he ends up half catching Snafu in his arms. They both collapse against the tree. Snafu is a scrappy fighter, and it's lucky Eugene has his training to fall back on or else all hope would be lost. It takes a herculean effort, but Eugene eventually manages to wrangle Snafu into the exact position he wants him. Eugene draws his weapon and lifts it high.

Of course, Eugene realizes he fucked up the minute the man underneath him goes limp and unresisting. Merriell 'Snafu' Shelton is well known around town as someone who never backs down from a fight, and never loses. Eugene fully intends to be the first person to win against Snafu, but he does not expect to also be the first person Snafu willingly surrenders to.

"Why are you waving a stick at me?" Snafu asks with a smirk. He arches his back and wriggles his shoulders, though the gesture is obviously an attempt to get comfortable rather than to shake off Eugene's hold. The man looks far too satisfied being underneath Eugene.

Snafu's flat on his back, with Eugene crouched over him. Eugene has a knee on each of Snafu's arms. One hand is in Snafu's hair, pinning his head back, and the other holds a wooden stake over Snafu's chest.

"You don't have nearly enough muscle to shove that thing into me," Snafu continues, sounding far too calm for the situation he is in, "The stick's too blunt. It'll barely scrape my skin."

Eugene leans into his hold over Snafu and applies enough pressure for the man to see how very serious he is.

Snafu's chest constricts and his eyes bug out when he feels Eugene's stake dig into his body, almost deep enough to draw blood. "Fuck!" Snafu exclaims, "How the fuck are you doing that?"

"I'm a vampire hunter," Eugene says, "Like my father and grandfather before me."

"I thought that shit was passed down to the first born?" Snafu comments, "Aren't you a second son?"

"I'm...changing tradition," Eugene falters.

Snafu laughs and it morphs into a cough when he realizes that as he moves his chest, the rip in his shirt from the stake merely grows larger. "Look, Eugene Sledge, renegade vampire hunter, I can tell you're more interested in other forms of penetration than the stake-to-chest kind, and honestly when you tackled me that's more where I hoped this was headed..."

"I tackled you???!" Eugene is indignant.

"...so either switch tactics or get the fuck off me," Snafu finishes.

"Fuck you," Eugene snaps, wishing the guy would just shut up and let him think. Unfortunately Snafu is accurate in stating Eugene found wrestling him to the ground more arousing than he expected. In all his training, no professor ever mentioned what to do if a vampire was particularly attractive. And Snafu, with his beguiling eyes and smart mouth, was clearly too much for Eugene to handle alone.

Instead of responding, Snafu just grins at him. His smile is devilish but his teeth appear to be completely normal. On the other hand, half the stories Eugene knows say vampires only bear their fangs before a kill. He needs to get Snafu desperate enough to feed.

Eugene pulls out his silver knife and places it against his own throat.

Snafu's eyes go wide, "What the fuck are you doing?" Now he's scared.

"Tempting you," Eugene says simply and cuts a tiny line above his collarbone. Small beads of blood start forming, "With warm blood."

"I'm not a vampire, I'm not a vampire!" Snafu cries, frantic, "Take that knife off your neck! For fuck's sake! You're too beautiful to die on top of me."

Eugene leans over him and lets his blood drip onto Snafu's face.

Snafu curses and struggles, but instead of reaching towards the blood he seems more interested in getting away from it.

"I'm not a vampire," Snafu repeats, "Go drip your heebie jeebies on someone who is."

"So what are you?" Eugene asks. He sheaths his knife and wraps a bandage around his neck to stop the bleeding.

"I'm an air conditioning repairman," Snafu says with petulant frustration.

"A what?" Eugene asks in disbelief. He keeps his stake pressed to Snafu's chest just in case.

"I repair air conditioning," Snafu says, "I do suck away people's heat, but only legally I swear."

"I don't believe you," Eugene narrows his eyes.

"Fuck, just, look in my truck!" Snafu exclaims in desperation, "You'll find all my tools. And a binder of clients."

Eugene still doesn't trust him. He leans the tiniest bit of extra pressure onto the wooden stake digging into Snafu's chest to try and intimidate him into honesty. But he doesn't get the chance to act on it. One minute Snafu is wide eyed and wiggling underneath him, and the next minute the guy's leg somehow comes around Eugene's face, his foot hooks Eugene's neck, Eugene topples over, and Snafu ends up perched on him instead.

Snafu grabs Eugene's knife and throws it somewhere. Then he takes the wooden stake and breaks it over his knee.

"Take a tip from an ex-carpenter," Snafu says. He shakes the broken stick at Eugene as he leans in far too close, "Never use new lumber." Snafu holds the broken chunk of wood up to Eugene's face and forces him to look at it. "See how loose the rings are? This tree was maybe eight years old. Shit quality." Snafu tosses the pieces of wood behind him.

Eugene drags his arm out from underneath Snafu and rolls onto his back. Snafu goes with him. He lets Eugene free his arms, but keeps his hands on Eugene's chest to hold him down.

"Still think I'm a vampire?" Snafu grins.

"I…" Eugene props himself up on his elbows, "I dunno. You should hear the way people talk about you in town."

Snafu moves back a little to give Eugene more room, but he's still sitting proud on top of Eugene's stomach like he's won some kind of game. "If you go around killing people based on village rumors and hearsay, you can't be very good at your job," Snafu teases.

"I did my research on you," Eugene says defensively, "I followed your daily routine. I observed how much you ate, when you slept, where you slept…"

"This is getting creepy fast," Snafu comments. He trails his hand playfully down Eugene's shirt and snaps his suspenders. He sounds perfectly at peace with the creepy factor.

"You follow all the patterns of a vampire," Eugene insists, determined to prove himself right.

"How can I follow all the patterns of a vampire if I don't even know what they do?" Snafu asks.

"First of all, you avoid mirrors and glass reflections," Eugene says.

Snafu stops fiddling with Eugene's suspenders long enough to make eye contact. "Just cause I don't like looking in mirrors doesn't mean I avoid them," Snafu says, his voice gone serious.

"Why wouldn't you like mirrors?" Eugene asks stupidly. Snafu's awful pretty. Eugene would willingly stare at him all day. Probably forever if he could. This might have been part of the reason he so diligently tracked Snafu down. That and the villagers' claims of dead sheep with their blood sucked dry.

Snafu goes quiet. He stares down at his hands and his mind clearly flies off elsewhere.

"Hey," Eugene says gently. He sits up the rest of the way, which deposits Snafu in his lap. Eugene touches Snafu's elbow, and asks the question again, "Why don't you like mirrors?"

"Doesn't look like me anymore," Snafu shrugs.

"What do you mean?" Eugene asks.

Snafu contemplates this. He rubs the back of his neck and rolls his hips to shift his seat.

"Ah!" Eugene exclaims when Snafu's movement creates friction in certain sensitive areas. He places his hands on either side of Snafu's hips to steady him, "Maybe, uh, either refrain from moving or get off me."

"I expect to see somebody more alive," Snafu says sheepishly, "In the mirrors." He ignores Eugene's comment and remains seated, though he goes deathly still. Rather than fidget, he stares imploringly into Eugene's eyes which is somehow more distracting than anything else.

Eugene could just push forward and kiss Snafu's plump top lip, that wouldn't cause too many complications, would it?

"So," the wheels in Eugene's head are turning as fast as they can go when all his blood is rushing elsewhere, "you are a vampire?"

Snafu stares at him in stunned silence for a full minute and then shoves Eugene flat on his back into the dirt.

"You just admitted you were dead! You don't see someone alive in mirrors!" Eugene argues.

"Not literally," Snafu sneers.

"Didn't recognize you as the poetic type," Eugene retorts.

"Didn't recognize you as an idiot," Snafu taunts back.

"I'm not stupid!" Eugene scowls.

"Then admit I'm not a vampire!" Snafu says.

"If you're not a vampire, why do you never expose your skin to direct sunlight?" Eugene demands.

"I'm gay!" Snafu's quick to answer.

"What?" Eugene asks, completely brought up short and stupefied by the response. He honestly can't tell if the other man is being sarcastic or not.

"I'm gay. Gay people glitter in the sunlight," Snafu leans over and speaks directly in Eugene's face, "How do you know about vampires, but you dont know about that?"

"You're talking nonsense," Eugene's scowl returns, "I'm queer, but I don't glitter."

"Have you ever tried?" Snafu is leaning far far too close now, and grinning far too wide, "Think you'd be good at it. Glittering." He says the word as if it's a sin.

Eugene can't concentrate on what verbal bullshit Snafu's mouth is spewing because he can't tear his eyes away from those lips. A few centimeters closer and Eugene can break the tension building between them. Just one fairytale kiss and...

Snafu laughs. "Fine, I'm making shit up," he says and rocks back on his heels so he can stare haughtily down at Eugene, "I just wanted to find out which way you swung."

"Oh for fucks sake," Eugene swears. As if Eugene being uncomfortably aroused since the moment Snafu put his hands on him wasn't answer enough. He feels disheveled and unkempt, lying on the dirt with his legs splayed. He's pretty positive that with where Snafu is seated, Snafu can feel Eugene's erection pressing into his ass. Snafu knows what Eugene wants, he's just playing dumb. He grips Snafu's hips and shoves Snafu off him, knocking the guy into the dirt. Eugene struggles to his feet and brushes his hands off on his pants.

"You really aren't a vampire, are you?" Eugene concludes, feeling defeated.

"Nope," Snafu replies, rolling in the dirt till he's sitting up.

Eugene sighs and holds out a hand to help Snafu stand.

"Vampires don't live in Louisianna," Snafu claims, "Too fucking humid." He takes Eugene's hand and springs to his feet. He scratches at his chest where Eugene ripped open his shirt, but otherwise Snafu appears unharmed.

"Know where I might find any, then?" Eugene asks sarcastically.

"Tried Texas yet?" Snafu asks.

"Not yet," Eugene says. Even he can hear how tired his voice is. What a waste of time all this was. "I think I'll try California next."

"Why California?" Snafu sounds alarmed.

"Better weather," Eugene says wearily. He turns and starts walking.

"Where you going?" Snafu calls.

"If you're not a vampire, I'm leaving," Eugene bites back.

"If I am a vampire will you stay and have dinner with me?" Snafu asks hopefully.

"If you are a vampire the only thing I'm serving you tonight is a stake," Eugene calls as he leaves.

"Good one," Snafu says.

Eugene glances behind himself long enough to see Snafu smiling mischievously and eyeing Eugene's butt. He won't dignify Snafu with a response and make his claims credible. Instead Eugene turns his back on Snafu and decides to forget the mistaken encounter ever happened.

He doesn't succeed.

Snafu's hometown is small, and now that Eugene knows Snafu knows about him, it becomes obvious that Eugene always stood out amongst the locals like a sore thumb. Anyone with half a brain could pick Eugene out of the crowds on main street.

It's no wonder Snafu was aware of Eugene's investigation the entire time.

He feels so incredibly foolish.

Eugene doesn't really know what to do next. He sits on a bench in the cold sun across from his favorite laundromat in town and scowls. At least his clothes will soon smell clean and fresh - a new start.

Before long Snafu appears out of nowhere and sits down on the opposite end of the bench.

"I just thought you liked me," Snafu says.

When Eugene stares at him in silent questioning, Snafu continues to elaborate, "I thought you were some dumb closeted kid from some other equally dumb hick town having trouble admitting your attraction to men. And that's why you were following me around." Snafu tries to pass Eugene his cigarette but Eugene refuses. Snafu shrugs and relaxes on the bench, clearly here to stay.

"You're weird," Eugene says.

"But not a blood sucker," Snafu grins.

Eugene turns his face away from Snafu and crosses his arms.

"I have been known to suck other things," Snafu continues, "Only ever gotten compliments on that skill though. And maybe a few punches. You're the first who's tried to kill me for… sucking."

Eugene looks sharp at Snafu. The man is hunched in on himself, in a defensive way, but he still oozes that slimy confidence that says if anyone other than Eugene tried what Eugene did, they'd already be dead. He can handle his own, this non-vampire "Snafu" man.

"Why has your life gone to shit?" Eugene asks, suddenly remembering the first thing Snafu said to him in the graveyard. He wants to know more about the mystery.

Snafu takes a drag on his cigarette before answering. His hand is elegant, and poised, despite how boxy and round it is. "They're taking my kid sister away," Snafu says.

"Who is?" Eugene asks.

"Her shitty adoptive parents," Snafu snarls.

A woman passing by laden with groceries glares at Snafu. He glares back and flicks his cigarette at her. Everyone knows everything in this town. And they all blame him.

"My parents died years ago when she was still little. I buried them in that shit old graveyard because no one would believe it wasn't a double suicide. I figured no one would notice two new graves out there in the forest, nobody ever goes there," Snafu explains.

So Eugene was probably right - about the cemetery grounds no longer being consecrated. And Snafu might've even been the one to do it.

"Our priest refused to come. I didn't let Mairzy see either. Just me and a bunch of dirt," Snafu continues bitterly, "The stupid townsfolk were probably right - about the suicide."

"Jesus, Snafu…" Eugene says in sympathy.

"Now the family I gave Mairzy over to when I enlisted for the war are leaving town," Snafu sighs, "Hitting the road this Saturday. Six years to the day after I had to give her up."

"Why aren't you going with them?" Eugene asks.

"They don't want me to. They think I'm a corrupting influence."

Eugene can't imagine why. He watches as Snafu lights a second cigarette.

"They're going to California," Snafu says.

"Oh," Eugene replies. A lightbulb goes off in his head. He was wondering why Snafu was still giving him the time of day. Snafu's sister is going to California - Eugene himself is going to California. It makes sense for him to latch on.

"More opportunities there," Snafu says, "Land of milk and honey. I should never have left her with them when I joined the Marines. I tried for four years on my own, just me and her. Fed her first every night, but there was never enough."

"Can you get her back?" Eugene asks.

"If I smarten up, get a house, get a wife. Provide a proper nuclear family setting," Snafu glances furtively at Eugene and his eyes are full of sorrow. Snafu already knows it's a lost cause. He has no hope. Eugene can't take it. He aches and aches, and wants to close the gap between them and wrap Snafu up in a hug again, and get him to stop looking at Eugene like that.

Snafu's eyes really do glitter in the sunlight. They're haunting. Worse than any of the monsters Eugene's been taught to hunt. Snafu dangles that tidbit about needing a proper family in front of Eugene, all the while turning those beautiful eyes on him. It's unfair. As if Snafu wants Eugene to be the tempted one, wants Eugene to shoulder the blame for the magnetic pull between them. As if the entire town wouldn't still accuse Snafu of corrupting Eugene if Eugene were to give in and kiss Snafu right here right now on this public bench.

Eugene is a fine, upstanding citizen with well-to-do churchgoing parents and an honorable career. He's untouchable. Snafu is nobody. Eugene might be the one pining. But they'd blame Snafu. And Eugene can't do a thing about it.

He can't do anything, so his best course of action is to do nothing.

The laundry is probably done anyway, Eugene decides as he gets up and walks away. He doesn't leave town yet though. There's something still keeping him here.

For the next week, every time Eugene sees Snafu out-and-about around town, the man always has his shirt off. At first Eugene thinks it's an odd coincidence, and he desperately tries not to let his eyes linger. A small part of him has an inkling that Snafu is trying to prove a point. Snafu spent the entire summer and fall wearing long sleeve shirts and jackets. But suddenly now in early winter with frost on the grass some mornings, Snafu considers it warm enough to bare his skin to the cold sun.

His beautiful skin with taught muscles and a light dusting of hair leading a happy trail down into his low slung work pants. The man needs a goddamn belt.

By the end of the seventh day, Eugene watches Snafu put on a shirt to enter the local soda shop, purchase a malt to go, and then step back outside with his drink in hand.

Snafu's eyes meet Eugene's as he exits the soda fountain and the guy winks. Snafu very skillfully manages to strip his button down shirt off with only one hand and without spilling a single drop of his malt milkshake. His nipples are perky and his arms are covered in goosebumps, like he's colder than he lets on. He then strides down the street whistling the tune of "Praise the lord and pass the ammunition." His shirt remains stuffed in the butt pocket of his skin tight blue jeans.

No proper god-fearing man would be caught dead in those jeans on a Sunday.

Eugene loses his cool. He crosses the street, grabs Snafu's hand, and leads him down the nearest alley. Snafu drops his malt in the gutter carelessly.

"Where are we off to in such a hurry?" Snafu asks triumphantly.

Eugene refuses to say a word in response. He pulls Snafu down the alley and ducks into a tiny nook behind the soda shop. Eugene swivels on his heel to face Snafu and they snap together like magnets. Eugene expects to be able to get the upper hand on Snafu again, but this time the guy manhandles Eugene up against a wall.

Eugene's back hits rough brick, and Snafu fits himself between Eugene's legs. Eugene feels the harsh prickly coolness of the bricks against his skin because Snafu is already rucking up Eugene's shirt and splaying his fingers across Eugene's bare chest. Eugene takes the chance to get his hands in Snafu's hair and reconnect their lips.

"Fucking finally," Snafu gripes when he tugs Eugene's shirt over his head and frees him.

"Shut the fuck up Snafu," Eugene grouches back.

Much to his shame, this time it's Eugene who is the one to latch onto Snafu's neck with his mouth like a vampire and suck hickeys up and down Snafu's skin. He stops himself from fully sinking his teeth into Snafu's shoulder but only just barely. Snafu, the would-be vampire maintains better control over his own impulses than Eugene does.

Meanwhile the would-be vampire takes more pleasure in watching Eugene get off than in his own. He shows no interest in biting, fangless or otherwise. A relief to Eugene, because if Eugene not only failed to kill his first vampire, but also failed to identify him as one, and slept with said vampire, and then got himself turned...he'd probably be sent back to Mobile in disgrace.

Although, Eugene supposes he might not have given it enough time yet. He had better continue kissing Snafu, tempting Snafu, to be sure.

Thus, Eugene spends a long hour thoroughly interviewing Merriell Shelton for a second time, and safely concludes Snafu is in fact not a vampire.

"One last test," he whispers seductively in Snafu's ear.

Snafu shivers and presses Eugene's body tighter against the wall. He tucks his head into Eugene's shoulder and asks with great yearning, "What is it?"

"I'll need to see if you can enter my place of residence uninvited," Eugene says, trying to sound official and pretentious.

Snafu chuckles. His hand runs down Eugene's naked torso and he hooks a finger into the belt loop on Eugene's pants. Tugging at the waistband, Snafu asks, "You inviting me back to your place?"

He looks at Eugene from underneath his lashes, and Eugene momentarily forgets how to speak.

"Uh….," he says eloquently, "Yes, but I am explicitly not inviting you in," Eugene explains, "If you understand my meaning."

"Yeah," Snafu confirms with a small smile and reluctantly parts from Eugene's embrace.

"Okay then," Eugene says. He pushes himself off the wall, struggles to get his shirt back on, and brushes the dust from his clothes, "Follow me home?"

"Great," Snafu drawls, "Now you've got me being the creepy one."

"It's not creepy if I want you to come home with me," Eugene argues.

"Thought you said you weren't gonna invite me in?" Snafu asks, "That makes following you creepy."

"I'm not inviting you in, but I'm leading you to my home," Eugene answers, "Vital difference."

"Wow," Snafu says sarcastically, "You're really great at this monster hunting business." He ambles along beside Eugene as they walk, playing it pretty cool for someone who was needily clutching at Eugene's back only a few minutes ago.

At first Eugene starts to think their magnetic connection was all some kind of hazy fever dream. Till he notices the furtive, excited glances Snafu keeps sending his way. Eugene glances back, and catches Snafu's eye, and for all his casual attitude and bluster, Eugene swears he sees a blush color Snafu's cheeks.

Eugene is staying in a tiny hotel on the old outskirts of town. Everything nearby is built of peeling wood. No one respectable would be caught dead here, yet Eugene still steers Snafu away from the main entrance, just in case. There's a back door at the top of three flights of rickety stairs whose wooden steps were probably built during the old west days a century ago.

Eugene unlocks the door, lets it swing open, and walks inside. Feeling confident, he turns, and looks at Snafu.

"You gonna invite me in?" Snafu asks, all smiles.

"No chance," Eugene shakes his head obstinately.

Snafu glances down at the floor briefly, building the suspense. "Maybe I wanna hear you invite me in."

"I will not," Eugene refuses pleasantly.

"Maybe I want to hear you ask me to come in and fuck you," Snafu taunts. He leans against the door jamb and grins challengingly into Eugene's eyes.

"I do want you to fuck me," Eugene continues in his same, even tone of voice, "But I still won't invite you in."

Snafu's grin widens and he takes two steps over the threshold.

Eugene ducks his head and chuckles, "Glad I was right about you."

"Still...now you know I'm not a vampire… but…," Snafu hooks his finger in Eugene's belt loop and reels him in, "You sure you actually want me here?"

"Yes," Eugene says with fiery certainty before he grabs Snafu's face and kisses him.

Snafu kicks the door shut behind him and wraps his arms around Eugene in return.

They seem well on their way towards fulfilling all of Eugene's deepest secret fantasies from this past month of tracking the non-vampire, when Snafu suddenly pauses and stares at the kitchen counter.

Eugene's place is laid out like a studio apartment, with a tiny half oven and stove in one corner next to a fridge. Snafu detangles from Eugene and walks over to examine the colander resting in a drying rack beside the sink.

"That's a lot of holes…" Snafu comments.

"Yeah, sorry, pasta is the only thing I know how to cook," Eugene says, "I forgot to put that away last night." He stuffs the colander into a very full dish cabinet and shoves it closed. "Ta-da, clean kitchen!"

Snafu shakes his head a little, like he's coming out of a trance, and Eugene desperately hopes he didn't make a wrong move somewhere here.

Eugene smoothly cuts back into Snafu's personal space and slides his hands around Snafu's waist. It takes some gentle coaxing before Snafu is kissing and clinging to Eugene again.

"I'm officially inviting you into my bed," Eugene whispers in Snafu's ear, "What do you say?"

Snafu smiles, and it's almost bashful, like he's suddenly shy in the face of Eugene's openness. But Snafu's eyes are once more alight, and glittering even without the sun to help this time. He wraps his arms around Eugene and nods.

Hours later Snafu is still holding Eugene in his arms, but they've long moved to the bed and completely ruined the neatly tucked in sheets. The breeze from the open window is chilly enough that Eugene winds half the sheet around his left leg and leaves the other free. Snafu, meanwhile, is a furnace in his own right after a good fuck and has no need for mundane things such as blankets.

Eugene is tucked between Snafu's bare legs, and pleasantly warm. He slumps against Snafu's chest, settles his head on Snafu's shoulder, and prepares for a nap. Eugene's having trouble keeping his eyes open. The evening sunlight shining through the window isn't helping any. He wants to sink into Snafu's arms and into an unconsciously happy bliss.

Snafu is delightfully petting his hands through Eugene's hair. It feels a little like a massage. Between that and nearly falling asleep in the sun, Eugene is worried he's turned into more of a cat than dog person. He doesn't normally indulge in calm afternoons of doing nothing.

Well, nothing with the exception of sex. They did work up some sweat from that.

Snafu's hands in his hair are soft and gentle, and as hard talking and rough as Snafu can be, this delicacy when handling Eugene in bed seems to be par for the course.

There's only one small spike of discomfort. And that is something metal and cold digging into Eugene's back. Eugene reaches over his shoulder and feels around on Snafu's chest.

Snafu laughs. He bends Eugene forward just enough to tug a silver chain out from between their bodies. Snafu slides it over Eugene's shoulder so he can inspect.

Hanging on the chain are two dog tags. Eugene runs his finger over the stamped lettering. "How do I pronounce it?" Eugene asks.

"Merriell," Snafu says, "Merry-Elle."

"Merriell," Eugene sounds it out carefully, "Your name's as pretty as you are."

Snafu scoffs, "My name's Snafu."

"Did you get the nickname from the war too?" Eugene asks.

"Yeah," Snafu responds, "Fit me better than any name I had before the war."

"That why you still use it?" Eugene asks.

"Yeah," Snafu replies.

"I had no nickname. Everyone just called me Sledge," Eugene says, "Or Sludge, when they wanted to be affectionate."

"Guess they just didn't know you like I do, Sledgehammer," Snafu teases. He flexes his hips up like he's pounding into Eugene's ass to prove his point. Snafu's only half hard, but if Eugene had any energy left at all, it'd probably be enough to convince him to chase after round four.

Eugene snorts with laughter, "How do you 'know me' better than them? We've barely met."

"Know where you're from," Snafu says, "Know when you're not tracking people down you do nothing but sit, watch birds, and draw pictures of weird-ass plants. Look awfully handsome when doing it too." He leans over the bed to pull a photo out of his pants pocket. The photo is well creased with dog-eared corners, but the image of Eugene sitting cross legged on a log in the bayou bent over a sketchbook is still crystal clear. His hair is backlit and fluffy. It glows in the center of the snapshot.

Snafu has drawn hearts in red ink all around the background.

Eugene drops the dog tags to examine the photo instead. "You were stalking me?" He demands to know. He turns the photo around to see if there's notes on the back. The only thing scribbled there in almost illegible handwriting is his name. The writing is so poor, that if Eugene wasn't trained from birth to recognize "Eugene Sledge", he probably wouldn't know what it said. The same person who wrote his name also crossed out "Sledge" and wrote "Shelton" instead with even more hearts around that. It looks like something out of a schoolgirl's notebook. "Eugene Shelton," he reads aloud.

"Hey, when someone stalks me, I stalk back," Snafu quips in his own defense.

"Yeah, okay, I guess I was stalking you," Eugene admits, "I thought you were a menace to society."

"At least you got one thing about me right," Snafu chuckles.

Eugene tries to scoff, but laughs despite himself, and snuggles in closer to Snafu's body. "A menace maybe," Eugene admits, "but not a dangerous one."

"Says you!" Snafu protests.

"Hmmm," Eugene hums, tugging on Snafu's ear with his teeth.

"I am very dangerous!" Snafu insists.

"Yes, very," Eugene agrees as he pulls the sheet out from between their bodies.

"Extremely handsome and dangerous!" Snafu adds.

"Extremely handsome," Eugene repeats and politely wraps his hand around Snafu's dick.

Snafu's words instantly melt into nonsense, his body melts back into the mattress, and he locks his mouth to Eugene's. Eugene pulls free and kisses his way down Snafu's body. He puts his weight on Snafu's hips to hold him still and sucks Snafu's (apparently mortal) life out of his dick. It leaves Snafu breathless and wrung out, looking hot faced and blissful, sprawled naked across the sheets.

"Ain't nothing in the world more dangerous than that mouth of yours," Snafu confesses afterwards, "This how you normally kill vampires? Seduce them, get them into bed, compromise their mental faculties and then stab them through the heart?"

"I did not seduce you," Eugene counters, laying his head on Snafu's thigh and looking up at the beautiful man in his bed.

"Yeah ya did," Snafu smirks proudly.

"I wasn't trying to," Eugene scrunches his nose, "It happened very naturally."

"What would you have done if I couldn't cross that threshold uninvited?" Snafu asks.

"Kiss you and pull you in myself probably," Eugene admits sorrowfully.

Snafu crows with laughter, "You'd sleep with a vampire?"

"I'd sleep with you," Eugene points out, a little snippy. He starts running a finger up and down Snafu's inner thigh, and then along Snafu's pecker. Which twitches amicably. But Snafu has nothing left in him at this point.

"You're gonna get yourself killed boy, if you keep sleeping with dangerous people," Snafu warns in his slow southern drawl.

"Guess you'll have to stop me then," Eugene suggests hopefully.

"Nature herself is gonna stop you right now...what are you doing down there? You gotta give me a few minutes at least," Snafu shifts his hips uncomfortably and Eugene's finger blessedly stops it's movement around Snafu's soft, squishy, still extra sensitive bits.

"Just admiring you," Eugene says innocently, turning his big eyes on Snafu once more.

"Fuck me, I slept with a virgin," Snafu drops back onto the bed and closes his eyes.

"So?" Eugene pushes himself up and crawls over to peer down at Snafu's face.

"You're gonna fall in love with me and shit," Snafu complains.

"Says who?" Eugene grins.

"Just watch," Snafu complains, "Soon you'll be moonin' over me, and forgetting about all those other monsters you hunt, and wanting to go steady…"

"Didn't you just say that'd be a good thing, me not sleeping with other dangerous people?" Eugene interrupts.

"Yeah."

"So, I don't see the problem…"

Snafu's eyes open. He stares at the ceiling, and then looks to Eugene. "So I'd be doing you a favor...by taking you out?"

Eugene smiles, "You'd probably be saving my life. Making sure none of those other monsters get me."

"If we go steady, you wouldn't see any other monsters but me?" Snafu asks eagerly.

"I'd give you my ring," Eugene promises.

"Guess I got no choice then…"

"You really don't," Eugene agrees.

"I probably should stick with you, too, when you move on to your next town…" Snafu says and watches Eugene's face to gauge his reaction.

Eugene beams, "Yeah, I'd like that."

Snafu smiles back. And surges up off the bed to plant a kiss on Gene.

They swap a few more kisses before Eugene pulls away. "I won't even make you pretend to be a vampire to get me to come to dinner with you," he says.

"Yeah?" Snafu sounds happy.

"Yeah," Eugene replies.

"And you should know you don't have to secretly follow ten feet behind me on the sidewalk anymore," Snafu announces with gusto, "You could even hold my hand down the street if you're daring."

"Yeah?" Eugene gives him a small, shy smile.

"Yeah," Snafu says conclusively.

Eugene twists his Marine Corps ring off his finger and slips it onto Snafu's instead. Snafu stares down at his hand for a minute before he sits up and glances around the room at all his clothes, as if trying to come up with something to give Gene in return.

"You don't need to…" Eugene starts. He places his hand on Snafu's skinny thigh.

"I know," Snafu says. He looks down at his chest, and decides to lift the chain from around his neck. He holds it up and offers it to Eugene.

Eugene blanches. His own dog tags are hidden in his father's basement along with his uniform. He swore never to look at them again, let alone wear them. He can't imagine why Snafu keeps his on, even after six months of peace.

"War's not over for me," Snafu says guardedly after seeing the expression on Eugene's face, "It's just hiding. Waiting. For me to fall back into it."

Eugene leans forward enough for Snafu to drop the necklace over his head. Once it's done, Eugene lies back down and plays with the dog tags resting on his chest. "Isn't this a reminder?" he asks.

"You can forget?" Snafu asks in return.

Eugene lets the little pieces of metal fall back onto his chest. He turns in toward Snafu and cozies up to him, expecting a kiss. Snafu hides his face in Eugene's neck instead.

"Sometimes I mention something and civilians look at me like I'm the thing that should remain forgotten. But there're things so insane, so burned in my memory that they didn't happen in the past, didn't happen yesterday, they're happening now. I still see them happening now. And if I still see them, it's hard to remember what not to mention," Snafu says, "So I stop saying things. But I still...I feel it. It helps to feel this too." He tugs on the dog tags around Gene's neck. "These tags are real. I'm not imagining them."

"You don't talk about it to anyone?" Eugene asks, concerned.

"No," Snafu admits.

"Ever?" Eugene asks.

"No."

"Hey," Eugene says, sharply.

Snafu raises his head till his big eyes appear in Eugene's field of vision.

"You can talk to me," Eugene says, "I know what it's like. Probably even more than you…"

Snafu laughs, harsh.

"No, I'm serious," Eugene defends his argument, "You've probably never had to sit through a society brunch. With all the women in pastel hats and their desk jockey husbands in matching pastel slacks. Trading gossip in between egg salad, and every once in a while, when they might feel guilty, bringing up how good it was for so many young men to sacrifice for our country."

"Can't say I ever have attended one of those…" Snafu comments.

"And if I say anything uncouth, or violent, or bloody, I am the one who gets shamed into silence," Eugene complains, "Like we are supposed to cover over the dirty parts and only recall the heroic moments. The bits other people can be proud of. It's never about us, it's always about them."

"The fighting was about them too," Snafu drawls.

"Exactly," Eugene says, "And I'm proud to have been a part of that. Proud to have something back home worth fighting for. But it's exhausting. And isolating."

"So you found me?" Snafu grins and moves to sit on top of Eugene's hips, "To get a little sleep?"

"I knew nothing of your war experience prior to talking to you," Eugene says, "Your files just said you'd been in the Marines. Not where you'd been stationed."

"Would you still have killed me, if you found out about it? If I was a vampire?" Snafu asks.

"Probably," Eugene says defensively, "I am a monster hunter, it's my job. I kill vampires."

"How many have you killed?" Snafu asks.

Eugene sighs, "None. You were gonna be my first."

Snafu snorts.

"Don't even…" Eugene starts.

"Instead I got to help you out with a different first," Snafu brags gleefully.

"I think I preferred this one," Eugene says dryly.

"Surprise, surprise," Snafu's grin is a corrupting influence, "I don't think you're cut out for the other one. You don't have the stomach for it."

"Just because I refuse to wear a uniform and tags again, doesn't mean I didn't serve, didn't see action," Eugene glares, "I can handle killing."

"Never said that," Snafu brushes a lock of hair out of Gene's eyes, "War was different. This monster hunting business of yours doesn't fit...you're not the type to kill something just cause it's strange. Not in your nature."

"Isn't that the definition of all war?" Eugene asks, "Fighting something we don't understand? Something we consider strange? Sometimes strange is bad."

"War is organized, systematic," Snafu taunts, "You aren't."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Eugene says stiffly.

"You don't even recognize your enemy when you see him," Snafu smiles.

"As soon as I ran through all the tests, I saw that you were not my enemy," Eugene says.

"Hmmm," Snafu hums and lays back down to nestle in the sheets beside Eugene.

Eugene refuses to let that be the last word. He rolls towards Snafu and captures his lips in a delicate kiss. With a calming stroke down Snafu's cheek - down his neck, down his arm - Eugene encourages Snafu to come to him. And he takes pride in how quick the other man is to react. Snafu rolls his body against Eugene's and devours Eugene's kisses.

By the end of the night (or early morning) Eugene graduates from first time beginner to expert level.

Eugene eventually falls asleep in Snafu's arms. The other man is wrapped around him tight, with one leg actually hanging over Eugene's hip. It's cozy, and comforting, and makes Eugene feel a little like a turtle. Which is why he is surprised to wake up cold right before dawn. He feels completely alone on the bed, without even sheets to cover him.

Eugene's first thought is that Snafu snuck out and left Eugene behind to pine away like the idiot ex-virgin he is. Till he hears Snafu's mischievous voice behind him in the dark.

"Hey, Sledgehammer, you want to know how I know I'm not a vampire?" Snafu asks, his voice loud and wide awake as if the pause in their conversation was seconds rather than long enough for Eugene to fall asleep.

"How do you know you're not a vampire?" Eugene sighs, bracing himself for another bad pun or joke.

"I'm a rougarou."

Eugene freezes. It's a word he recognizes from his mythology lessons, but one he isn't too familiar with. He braces himself, and then slowly turns on the bed to look behind him.

A skinny, fluffy werewolf with familiar glittery sea green eyes stares back at him.

They blink at each other. Eugene feels strangely calm. He knows he performed all the tests, he remembers the gentleness of Snafu's care, and he doesn't think there's anything to be afraid of. In fact there's only one small discomfort.

"I'm cold," Eugene complains.

"What?" Snafu-the-rougarou asks in disbelief.

"I'm cold," Eugene repeats. He lifts Snafu's fur covered arm and tucks himself underneath it. He buries his face into Snafu's chest (more fur than muscle) and adds, "Goodnight, Merriell."

Snafu curls around Eugene once more. Eugene can feel the end of the rougarou's tail settle around the vicinity of Eugene's butt.

It does take Eugene a while longer to fall asleep again. Snafu's back is stiff with nerves and Eugene carefully rubs between his shoulder blades to make the tension gradually subside. He waits till Snafu's scared, fluttering heart calms down and he knows Snafu is relaxed. Eugene feels safe, and warm, and he decides maybe he isn't cut out for this monster hunting after all. And the minute Snafu drifts off to sleep, the rougarou starts to purr sweetly - a sort of low rumble in his chest that is almost more like a cat than a wolf.

It's terribly endearing. Guess Eugene can be a cat person after all.

[cyborg00-why]

Random yet specific headcanons

Alright, I’ve been working on a rancher fic and wanted to share a few of my favorite headcanons for these three. 

Jet Link

- Considering his time of abduction and how often he’s gone off to be a ranch hand/play cowboy there is a very high chance he’s a Spaghetti Western fan. His ideas and romanticism of the west based almost solely on what he’d seen on film, by extension his bravado and man’s man personality being heavily influenced from such films. Something that both mirrored his gang life on the streets while still being a mental escape. The lone cowboy out to right wrongs on his own terms something he’d see in himself.

- This of course would bleed into an odd fascination/respect for Geronimo Jr. as he’d likely be the only Indigenous person he’d ever met (that he was aware of at least). The personification of the “last of a dying breed” trope you see often in such films, something he likely project onto Jr. Especially considering that being from New York he’d known of Mohawk Steelworkers but wouldn’t have known any personally. 

- Serial pawn shop shopper. He knows they don’t make knives or lighters like they use to and he’s got a small collection going.

- Apart from his established knife fighting skills, he’d whittle in his free time. 

-Great at darts.

- He’d be a great houseguest, very considerate and takes direction as well as he can. Doesn’t want to be deadweight on the ranch, and have a stern ‘earn his keep’ sort of vibe. 

-Despite having a high interest in learning the ropes he’d still struggle. His time on the ranch would positively impact his ‘square peg being forced into a round hole’ mentality. 

- Plays a mean game of checkers.

- Maybe too embarrassed to say it, but really respects Jr.’s self sufficiency and wants to take after him in some ways. Is really touched when Geronimo teaches him something. At the same time can be especially hurt when there are traditional lessons Jr. won’t share. 

-Sure he can play the guitar but he’s also been teaching himself the harmonica. He’s also good at playing both the spoons and a blade of grass but he’ll never admit to either. 

-Can do that really cool two finger whistle thing. 

- Long story but he knows from first hand experience that chickens float in water. Pyunma isn’t impressed and Jr. thinks it’s cute he likes chickens. 

- You know at some point in time Jet would do rodeo shows and live out the whole cliche bonding with a horse who can’t be broken bologna while Geronimo worked the event as an MC.

Geronimo Jr.

Which brings me to Jr.

- You know, and I mean KNOW he’s worked the Arizona circuit like no ones business. Despite the team thinking of him as stoic and saying little everyone in town knows him as their favorite MC. He’s done everything from powwows, estate sales, property auctions, all the way to rodeos. 

-Those on the moccasin telegraph rumor he was a guest at G.O.N. in New Mexico one year. 

- Would absolutely have an old 1988 red, sun bleached Toyota Tacoma that had seen better days but still runs. Of course the suspension is shot and leans heavily on the drivers side. The glove compartment is full of old tapes, and he’d have at least one mix tape with classic 49ers in there too. 

- When he’s working as an auctioneer he goes Full Boomhauer

- Aunties love him. He’s always given an extra helping at food stalls and everyone is vying for him to say their fry bread is best, even though we all know his grandmothers was #1.

-Would be in the loop on all the local chisme.

-He can’t shop at normal stores for clothes, instead making annual custom orders through Wrangler and Dickies. 

-He is why Wrangler revoked their lifetime guarantee. Too many blown out shoulder seams.

-He’s excellent at traditional methodologies and takes a lot of pride in keeping traditions alive. He’d be a great beader and leatherworker, his mitts being extremely sought after in the community with order requests coming in year round. Word is he’ll sometimes make a trade if you can do quillwork. 

-Prior to the bootleg boom his family would have been respected artisans, collectors and locals alike still hold onto their older jewelry, and at a few estate sales he’d seen his dads old silver stamping tools still in circulation. Sometimes he get’s letters in the mail from a collector in another state asking to verify the family stamp.

-He’s got a lifetime ban from one diner in Albuquerque for smashing a jukebox that was playing The Ballad of Ira Hayes. 

-Standardized cooking measurements do not exist in his house, everything is old school cooking in relation to yourself. A handful of this, a pinch of that. 

- He has his grandmothers taste in home decor. 70′s shag rugs, wood laminate, acrylic yarn doilies, and a mug collection that at it’s best could be described as kitschy.  

-While he is incredibly thankful that after being abducted he’d gotten to keep his hair, there was also the struggle to maintain like he had before. Enhanced hulking muscles meant he isn’t as flexible as he use to be, and he is unable to braid it. So he kept it short on the dolphin, and even on breaks back home he’d grow it out in a bun tucked under his hat.  

On one of the many trips where Pyunma would stay with him, he’d catch Jr. early one morning struggling to braid it. Instead offering to do so himself. This became a routine whenever Pyunma stayed over, and as far as he knew the only person Jr. will let touch his hair. Pyunma would also take a lot of pride in his handiwork, especially whenever he’d catch Jr. admiring his own reflection.

Pyunma

- He’d always wanted to visit Jr.’s ranch but maybe felt a bit awkward to ask, unsure if he’d even want the company.

- He’d immensely enjoy the monotony of ranch life, the predictability of long structured workdays giving him a chance to mentally tune out while keeping busy. A sort of stress relief from the unpredictability of his previous life back home.

- One of the only people Jr. would share teachings with because he understood that weight and responsibility that comes with it. 

- Would be really into plant identification and drying them for storage. Would have a whole notebook full of illustrations and field notes based on what Jr. shared. Maybe even get into salve making on the side. 

-Always carries a canteen to water the plants he harvests from, even when Jr. isn’t watching.

- Loves, loves, loves telling Jet believable lies about ranch stuff. Think lying about a weed being a cure all for muscle soreness, only to have Jr. ask where the hell he’d heard that from. 

- Big fan of cinnamon instant oatmeal, Jr. is sure to stock up when he knows Pyunma is coming by.

- Of all the hand crafts Jr. had shared with him, Pyunma’s favorite would be dressing feathers. He’s got a near cult following in the fancy dance community for his bustle work. 

- Very good at removing the stickers from nopales, often times double and triple checking Jr.’s handiwork before they make breakfast.

- Not afraid of rattlesnakes, but respects them deeply. Firm believer in the old rope trick. 

- Can haggle with the best of them at vendor stalls, he knows a tourist price when he hears one. 

- Enjoys listening to old radio dramas while laying in the back of Jr.’s truck at night. Eventually getting all three of them to make it a part of the weekly routine. They sit outside and start a fire, and make dinner before tuning in. They eat in silence, and when it get’s cold they all share a big wool pendleton. 

[ninzied]

things you said with too many miles between us

happy belated birthday to my dear cherished friend @redbelles. i am eternally grateful for your wit, wisdom, and way with words. please accept this humble fic offering as a token of ALL MY LOVE for you :)

[ao3]

The moment Frank crosses the bridge back into the city, he wonders if he’s made a mistake.

Everything suddenly feels too close – the buildings, the view, the vague smell of garbage polluting the truck cabin. He rolls up the windows and cranks the AC instead. He reaches for the volume next, to drown out as much of the street sounds as he can.

He misses the fresh, clean air of the mountains, all that wide open space on the road with nothing else between him and the horizon.

There’s not enough room here, for him and his thoughts. Not enough time for them, either; when he’d been driving with no destination in mind, his thoughts had been prone to wandering, too, and it was fine if they returned with no answer, because there was always more time to work them through.

He could feel the longing more acutely then, but at least he could also feel free to hope.

Here, the city feels too impatient for that: the stop-start of it all, the pressure to keep shifting gears that seems to close in on him from every side. As he maneuvers his way through the rest of the city, he thinks about all that sky still behind him, endless, and blue, and beckoning him to turn around.

And then he thinks about what brought him back, and drives on.

…

Frank does a double take when he sees Amy waiting for him on the steps of Curtis’s trailer. She vaults up with an ear-to-ear grin as the truck rolls to a stop out front.

He closes the door and says, “How did you know?”

“I could just tell.” She skips up to the truck, and flashes a couple of postcards from the inner part of her jacket at him. There’s Mt. Rushmore on one of them, the St. Louis arch on the other. “You were starting to sound a little homesick.”

Frank shakes his head. “Curt told you, didn’t he.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. And then she bursts out, sounding smug, “But also, the dates on these, look – you weren’t heading west, you were going the opposite. Clearly you were making your way back to something.”

Frank grabs up his bag from the cargo bed of the truck, slinging it over his shoulder. “Okay, detective. C’mere.”

She jumps up at him with a crushing bear hug, and he can’t help but smile before pulling away. “Yeah, I missed you too.”

“You get some good thinking done out there?”

He pulls a noncommittal face. “Sure.”

“Great. Can’t wait to hear all about it.” She’s beaming at him, and that’s not really something he knows how to say no to. “I was gonna meet up with some friends for dinner, but I was thinking I could help you unpack until then?”

“You have friends?” He grunts as she jams her fist in his shoulder.

“Got at least one right here,” she says. “Sorry to be the one to break it to you.”

…

“It’s spring break, anyway, so it was a good excuse to make some of them drive up here with me.” Amy’s cross-legged on one of the chairs, munching on snacks she’d found in the cupboard that Curt must have left there for Frank.

“Spring break, huh? Shouldn’t you be on a beach somewhere instead?”

Amy gives him a look. “Dive school, remember? That’s all we do all day. Be on the beach.” She holds out a bag of chips to him, and he sets his duffel aside.

“Let me guess – guns, guns, more guns. And a steady rotation of the same three black hoodies.” She gives one of the side pockets a playful little nudge, and a corner of cardstock pokes out of the zipper.

“What’s this?” Amy asks, reaching in and pulling out a frayed stack of postcards. Before Frank has a chance to say anything, she’s already plucking the rubber band off. It’s cracked in the middle, and falls to the floor in one long broken strand. “Jeez. That thing is almost as ancient as you are.”

“Hey. Quit that.” He makes a move for the cards, but she’s shooting onto her feet with a speed that would probably make him proud under any other circumstances. “Hand ’em over, all right?”

“Just a sec.”

She starts thumbing through the cards like a kid who’s just been trick-or-treating, taking stock of all her spoils.

“I’m serious. Hey.”

But the amusement has already faded from her expression, and then she’s clearing her throat and carefully realigning the cards, like they’re something sacred that she knows she had no right to see.

She doesn’t resist him when he takes the cards back, tucking them carefully into his bag.

“Frank…” She shakes her head, baffled, and when he glances back over she looks genuinely upset with him. “Why didn’t you send those?”

“Wasn’t the point of writing them.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “But just to clarify. You wrote those freaking beautiful, heartfelt little notes, specifically to just…keep them all to yourself?” She throws her hands up in the air with abject confusion. Words seem to fail her momentarily, which suits Frank just fine.

He turns away, unpacking the rest of his things. He’s checking the status of the fridge next when she starts in again.

“Wait, hang on.”

Frank cracks open a cold beer, and sends a silent thank you to Curt for looking out. He sinks into one of the chairs by the table as Amy rounds on him accusingly.

“Are you telling me that that day in the hospital – was that seriously the last time you spoke to her?”

“Wasn’t telling you anything.”

“Nice,” says Amy. “Okay. Sure. Do that thing where you push people away. That’s obviously been working so well for you.”

“Maybe I was just keeping a diary.” He shrugs, ignoring the dig. “Pretty sure people are allowed to do shit like that when they travel.”

Amy is unimpressed. “Is your diary also named Karen? Because that would really be some coincidence.”

“Look, I didn’t write them to be read – by her, or by anyone.” His tone is harder than he meant for it to be, and he catches Amy wince a little in his periphery.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have pried.”

“’S’okay,” he tells her. “It’s done.”

She comes over to sit next to him. He chugs down some more of his beer, and they’re both silent for a while.

“You kept them, though,” Amy finally insists quietly to him. “That means something.”

“Yeah,” says Frank. No point in denying it.

“And for what it’s worth,” Amy tells him, “she looks at you the same way.”

“That was a long time ago,” says Frank, getting up to go scrounge for anything resembling real food. “Tell me about these ‘friends’ of yours. The one who drove you all the way up here – he been treating you right?”

“How did you even—” Amy protests, and Frank swats away the bag of cookies she lobs at his head.

…

After Amy’s gone to meet up with her friends, Frank finds his phone and, for the tenth time that week, hovers over Karen’s number before setting it back down.

Everything he’s come here to tell her – she deserves to hear it from him in person. But calling her, if she even picks up, feels like cornering her into something she has every right to say no to, and at the very least think about before she says yes.

He picks up his phone again.

Hey, he types into the screen. It’s me. I’m back in town. Would like to see you, if you would be okay with that.

He texts her the address, and reaches for another beer.

Karen’s response comes a few hours later:

Didn’t realize you had left again.

And then, after ten long and excruciating seconds:

I can come by around 3 tomorrow.

Okay, he texts back, and leaves it at that. …

He hears her car pull up just before 3 the next afternoon.

He meets her outside, waiting for her to step out. She’s shielding her eyes from the sun, so he doesn’t get a good look at her face right away. She’s dressed in dark denim, and a sweater made out of some soft-looking material.

The image stirs up a strange, almost painful sensation in his chest. He realizes he’s never seen her not dressed up for work before. He’s never seen her as this. Just Karen.

“Hey,” he says, approaching as she does. They end up meeting somewhere in the middle, standing awkwardly together in that gravel lot. “Thanks for coming.”

“Sure.” Karen gives him a small smile. “You look good, Frank.”

“Yeah?” he says. “You too.”

He’s about to invite her inside when she slips her hand into her bag, and then she’s holding something out to him. “Here. I wanted to return these.”

He looks down.

“Christ,” he says, feeling like the wind’s been knocked out of him.

She has a small handful of his postcards – whatever Amy must have thought she could get away with stealing out of his bag when he wasn’t looking.

He recognizes the one on top. It was the last card he’d written to her – with a picture of some woods up in Oregon, where he’d been hiking when he realized he had it all wrong.

“Not sure you meant for them to get sent.”

“No,” says Frank, swallowing. They’re dated, but he’d never bothered to stamp or address any of them, only starting them each with a single, scrawled Dear Karen. “No, but they’re yours.”

She turns the cards over in her hand. “Heard your song on the radio as I drove here,” she reads aloud. She flips to another one. “This coffee could give that other place a run for its money.”

He grimaces to hear his words out in the open like this. But she’s gentle with them, and with each postcard too, grasping them delicately at the edges as if they might crumple with too much pressure.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” she reads on the back of a card he’d grabbed from the souvenir shop at some grungy Seattle motel. “About how we’re all just trying not to be lonely. To be honest, I think about it all the time.”

There’s a slight hitch in her voice at the end, and he finds himself swaying forward a little, remembering where he had been the night that he wrote it. How he’d almost picked up the phone and called her. How his throat had closed up at the thought, and everything he would’ve said ended up on a stack of cards at the bottom of his bag instead.

“Are there more of these?” Karen asks.

Frank nods. “They’re not – I mean, some of them are just – like the one about the coffee. Pretty meaningless.”

She’s looking at him like they’re anything but. “Could I see them?”

“You can have them.” He doesn’t know how to take his eyes off of her. “You can have all of them.”

Karen traces a finger over the Oregon woods before turning the postcard around. “Wish you were here.” She seems to keep her gaze trained purposely down as she asks him, “Did you mean that, Frank?”

Something breaks inside him at the question. He ducks his head to catch her eye, lifting a knuckle to ghost over her chin. “I did,” he says, hoarse but resolved. “Still do.”

Karen’s quiet for a moment as she regards him, like she’s coming to a decision of her own. “Okay,” she says finally. “So let’s go.”

He thinks he couldn’t have heard her right.

But as he’s standing there, feeling overcome, she’s already halfway to her car. Frank watches, dumbfounded, as she pulls a bag out from behind one of the seats and closes the door behind her.

“You’re serious,” he says. “You don’t have work?”

It’s everything he hadn’t even thought he could hope for, but he doesn’t want this disrupting her life either, taking her away from all the things that matter to her.

“I think Matt and Foggy can agree that I’m long overdue for a vacation.” She walks back up to him, but his expression seems to make her pause. “If that’s all right with you.”

“God, yes.” Frank moves closer before stopping himself. Steady, he thinks. There’s no need to rush anything. They have time. They have time. “That’s what I came here to tell you I wanted.”

She’s the first to reach out and touch him, just a brush of her palm to his chest. It’s brief, but gentle to go with her tone as she teases him ever so lightly, “Looks like you already did.”

“Looks like,” says Frank, and he could just stand here all day, with the soft way she’s gazing at him right now. “So we’re doing this.”

“Looks like,” says Karen, and he looks away, smiling.

“I’ll get my things.” But he’s loath to move away from her, and after a split second’s hesitation he leans in and lets his forehead rest against hers. Karen’s hands come up to his shoulders, and everything else stands still for a moment. “Remind me to send Amy a postcard when we get there.”

She makes a small humming sound. “And where is this ‘there’ going to be?”

“Anywhere,” he says. “So long as you’re there, doesn’t matter.”

“Mm. I like that.” Karen pulls back and looks a little slyly at him. “Think that could go on a card somewhere too.”

Frank shakes his head as she laughs and goes to toss her bag into his truck.

[nityarawal]

12/2/22

Morning Songs

Kings Taster

Came To Me

At Idyllwild Community

Help Center

A Thai Brass Set

Over A 100 Pieces

I Would've Bought

It At The First Few

It Grabbed Me And Winked

So Many Shiva Heads

Bone Handles

Carved

Each Piece Of Art

Should I Have Them

On My Wall

Send Out 

Christmas Presents

Pawn At The Shop

Or Invite Friends

For A Banquet

Get Them Stacked

In Glittery Piles

Stamped "J.G."

What Does That Stand For

John Gordon Huntley

J.G.  John Giovanni 

My Thai Buddha Boppa

JG "John Of God"

Thankyou

For My Kings Taster 

Silverware

Dozens Of Forks 

Look Like Dad's

Devil's

Prongs

Turned Out

Lotuses

Some Have Harmonics

So Elegant

Calling For Instruments

From Junk

In Back Yard

Carburetors Sound Fantastic

Wanna Play

Welder's Daughter 

Find A Drummel

To Drill Flattened Pennies 

It's Like "House"

When I Was Little

Sitting In My Warm

Electric

Sherpa

Got Hundreds Of Pieces

Brass Shiva Silverware Ready

To Bless

Loved Ones

With Love

And Beauty

Saraswati's Sisters'

Lakshmi

Is Hosting You

At A Party

Come Settle My Loves

All The Colors

Of The Rainbow

Come Raincheck

Thanksgiving's 

Not Over

Come

Lil'

Darlings'

Mamma's Got You Covered

At Bappa's

Uncle Haydn's

Wherever You Go

Dine In Peace

My Love

Don't Forget Mantras

Mammas

Amma Taught

You

Om Tryam Bhakam

Om Tryam Bhakam

Yajamahe

Sugantim Pushti

Varthanem

Uvarukumiva Bhandanat

Mrityor Mukshiya Mamratat

Om Namah Shivaya

Oh My Love

Do You Remember

Norooz

In Palo Alto With 

Mommy

And Amma

Behnaz Gave You Coins

Amma Put You On The Stage

We Explored

The Science Exploratory

Museum That Day

Mamma's Road Trips

To Family Who Love You

Hot Springs

Toby's 

Avila

Dennis & Helene

Godparents Tricks

Cafe Quarters 

Appearing From 

Jokester Magicians 

Seaside

Agua Caliente

#HeardUs

My Babies

Kings Taster

Will Be Present

In All The Shiva's Silverware

If You Go To Gramama

Mitra's

Uncle Haydn's

Auntie Mel's

Mamma's

Thai King's Taster

Tehrangeles

Is Waiting For You Kyan

From John Gordon

Of Scotland

John Little

Giovanni

Bambinos of Italy

And Chicago 

Babies

You've Been Blessed

Finally Free Of

The Karmas

Of Our Wayward Genes

You've Been Blessed

Shahs' Still Find You

From Iran

Scotland

And Chicago French

Italians

Grandmammas 

Love You

Elders Shine

Shiva's Watching Baes

Your Gautama

From Buddha

Grandpa Pravin

Chandra Rawal

Named Your Pappa

Sunil

For The God Shiva

Blue That Creeps

Up His Neck

Stopping All Poisons

From Entering

Him

Kings Taster Serves

Has A Mission

If You Look Closely

My Dear

You Can Always

Be Behind You 

King's Taster 

Sent For Kyan

Another Journal

Full

House

Treasures

Overflowing

For You And Your Sister

Attic Ready

For A Hideaway

Bath

With Spring Water

Trucked In

Agua Calliente

For My Baes

Even 

Over From A 

Well Better 

Than City Polution

Big Pharma Con

Santa Rosa

Saint Thomas

Shining

Deva

Over Shivas'

Smiling At You

Ready To Greet 

Edelweiss 

At My Christmas

Party

From

Encinityas

To Huelo

Waterfalls

Hogback Rd

Haiku

Or Mammas' Fishhouse

Paia

In Maui

Named After

Baby Beach

Or

In Mountain Center

Anywhere 

My Baes

We're Here For Thee

All The Colors

Of The Rainbow

Moezzis' Too

Mo

Eazy

Come Along

Shahs

Shuzdehs

Bring The Clans

Merci

Settle

Mammas

Wrongful Debts

Come Settle

Merci

All Mammas'

Wrongful Arrests

Make That Tesla

Phone Yesterday

I Can't Change My

Address Again

On The Phone

Or In Person

Can't Dial In

From Mountain Center

Queen Of The San Bernadino

Mountains

Do You Go Up

Or Down

In Your Tesla

To 4000

5000 Feet

A Mile High

Do You Fly

Down To The 

Dessert Basin

Past Every Kind 

Of Exotic

Cactus

Free

Do You Hug

The Canyons Edge

In Tesla

And Pray 

Starlink 911 Elon

Button Works

Better Than 911 Rape

For Charles

Do You Pray

With Baes

No Hit And Runs For

Court

No Amex Bill's

Chasing You

With Slumlords

Sold By Creditors

Mercantile

Thieves

That Bought

Their Bribes

Would Help You Lose

Documents

To Hide

Bank Fraud And

Lies From DMV.org

To Wells Fargo

Fidelity

IRS

Ponzi

Tax 

Schemes

BBVA

KKK

PNC

I Found Your

Documents

Wadded In My Car

Even Carmel Benson's

Cousin's

Social Security Card

Didn't Throw Away

For She Knew

For She Threw Away

Mine

And I Might've

If She Had Cooperated

But Now We Wonder

Who Was Cousin

Slummed From

New York City

Clinging To A Moldy

Backpack

Of Dirty Change

Old Nail Clippers 

Disinfectant

Piles Of Documents

Fermented

Down To A Garbage Bag

Of Assets

Carmel Didn't 

Want

Remembered 

Did He Hang Onto

A Story

A Social Security Card

Was He One Of Many

She Let Die

In The System

She Said She Bought

His Remains

Sent

For A Few Thousand

Dollars

It was Worth

"Nothing"

Noting

Throw It All

Away

Salvaged

Her Garbage Bag

Of New Target

Purchases

Honestly Showed Her

My Girl Friday

What She Almost 

Threw Away 

I Kept His Wallet

To Look At Lost Assets

Just In Case

Said Cousin

Witchhunted

Like Me

Rosen From New York

Known A Few

God Knows Carmel

Must've Thought

She Needed A Drink

Don't Sell Out 

Your Hostess

Maid

Dishwasher

Don't Flout

Red

Buddha

In Your Garden

Lack Compassion 

You'll Hear

About

Buddha's Last Supper

Kingstaster

Was Even In

Playboy In 70's Cartoons

Strange Things Pop Up

Everywhere

When You Have A Dream

Brass

Mirrors Wink

Shiva

From Thailand

Assuming Safety

For Family Clan

Desperate Estrangement

We'll All Be Dining

With All The

Colors Of The Rainbow

NVC

Shiva

Blue

No Poison

Aqua

Kings Taster's Gotcha

Evil Eye

Mamma's

Books Coming Out

Publishers

Will Stalk Me

King's Taster

Buddha

Shiva

Shakti

Mamma

Elders

Smiling 

Laughing

Watching

#Nitya4Eternity 

#Nitya4Kyan Please

#Nitya4Anjali 

#Nitya4Kings 

Nitya

Listen

#Nitya4Shiva

#Nitya4Buddha

#Nitya4Iran

#Nitya4Rumi

#Nitya4Eternity 

#Nitya4YouAndMe

You Me

You Me

You Me You

Me Yeah

You

Baes

Merci

Nitya Nella Davigo Azam Moezzi Huntley Rawal 

[rpmemesbyarat]

RP starters from Bob’s Burgers “Food Truckin’”

I got a visual lock on sandwiches.

Are they ice cream or regular?

Keep it in your pants, guys.

Nice try, I saw you looking.

It’s like camping, except without all that awful nature

Go away, this street’s haunted!

I’m slashing tires!

I forgot you live-slash-worked here

It’s a blog I’m writing that I’m turning into a book

Good luck with your terrible life

Good luck with your stupid walk, I hate the way you walk

Idiots in trucks selling food to idiots on the streets

Food trucks are the future!

I’m just mirroring your energy!

We’re selling out! Yeah!

I love that part, when she does that?

We’re gonna turn this whore into a Pretty Woman

You don’t have to steal me back.

I never buy anything off a truck except stereos and stamps.

Could be fine, could be a giant fireball

Cars’ll be slipping and sliding all over the place.

Who else doesn’t want to go to college?

I can’t believe I used to work there.

This must be how the astronauts felt the first time they saw the Earth from space.

It’s tight quarters, but it’s kind of cozy.

Why do your armpits smell like feet?

We’re not making enough money stealing from ourselves.

While you’re in the party truck, I’ll hold down the fort.

Looks like we’re adding “whine” to the menu.

The road will be the perfect place for [name]. S/he’s restless.

What should we call ourselves? We need a handle online.

Might’ve hit a man, but didn’t stop.

What do you want to do, sleep in the truck?

I’ll go get the sleeping bags.

A new name calls for a new look.

Too bad we’re not making any profit.

Isn’t it funny how much more I know than you?

She sings that song about oil spills, but you know she’s talking about her vagina.

This thing is big and intimidating.

I’m hopped up on bennies

Well, whatever they are, they’re doing the trick.

It’s gonna take forever to get inside.

Okay, you guys are my street team.

It tastes like they actually went to the dump to get this dumpling.

[Name’s] ready to mingle

Someone put a leash on this quiche! Let’s not get this party tarted! These crepes gave me cramps!

It’s not subtle.

Oh, it’s hot and wet and slick! And it’s making everybody sick!

I’m lying to myself, I do not look good in shorts.

Trying to spread rumors, huh?

You ruined my business today.

I didn’t know you were such a Mean Girl.

S/he’s a nasty bitch.

I’m gonna throw a falafel at him!

Ooh, this crowd has energy!

Whew, that was close, but we’re safe now.

There’s nothing they can do to us in here.

Hey, [Name], the truck’s upside down.

I don’t want to die a virgin.

I give ‘em an hour till they’re eating each other.

It’s not a lie if you lie to vegetarians.

Can we agree that [Name] is blameless here?

Okay, punch yourself in the face, you idiot.

I just was punched in the face by your harsh words!

Look, let’s just lock the doors, hunker down and wait this out.

Don’t worry, everybody, only 15 miles to go.

[caidenxkcq672]

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[prairiesongserial]

11.14

John passed silently under the hanging lights, hands in his pockets, appearing to be just another body wandering the carnival. Circus, he told himself. A firecracker burst somewhere behind him, bathing everything in red as it let out a piercing whistle and pop. John set his teeth and kept walking.

He had heard thirdhand that Cody wasn’t here anymore - was off doing errands, something like that. He hadn’t seen Friday or Val in hours. John paused, back pressed against the railing, as a flood of circus-goers tramped onto the boat. He was almost to the ramp that led down to the pier, but the tide of people was unrelenting.

Very small children ducked between the legs of adults, apparently unclaimed. The older children washed through like riptides, jostling the adults out of the way, occasionally cackling and apologizing over their shoulders. John watched as a very little girl struggled with single minded focus to pick a dropped coin from the deck of the steamboat. The crowd passed slowly around her, their boots landing within a hair’s width of her tiny fingers. John had the urge to scoop her out of their way. Running footsteps somewhere in the crowd - getting nearer - and John lurched forward, not sure what he was doing.

The head of his cane thudded softly against the chest of a gap-toothed boy less than twelve years old. John staggered, the weight of the collision with the boy, however slight, going straight to his knee. He glanced down for the little girl, but she was gone. She was crying and kicking in the arms of a man with another, slightly older kid clinging to the leg of his pants. She pointed to the lost coin and hollered as her father carried her away.

The gap-toothed boy had circumvented John, and was gone in the crowd. John stepped back to his place on the railing, feeling a hard pit in his stomach. The crowd ebbed, leaving John an opening to hurry down the ramp. He walked as quickly as he could, cane sliding uselessly on the decline. His head stopped buzzing, finally, as the noise of the steamboat became a distant object separate from himself.

John walked. The sun was almost finished setting by the time he found what he was looking for. A long, circuitous walk had led him through a tangle of boardwalk, but eventually, John had reached land. On the high ground right at the edge of the city, the last of the sunlight glinted teasingly off the headlights of the circle of circus trucks. John plodded on, boots sinking in the wet earth.

He was out of breath by the time he reached the caravans. He sat on the front step of one of them for a while, re-tying his boots to give himself something to do while he caught his breath. He had a decent guess as to which caravan was Johannes Madsen’s. John had been paying attention to where the ringmaster went in a day, who he talked to, who else was in charge. That was the prerogative - the only prerogative - of an indenture.

John stood again and calmly crossed to the purple caravan with the bright blue trim. He paused outside the door. Something was whining at him. The shepherd he had met the first night. The animal was chained to a stake in the center of the circle of trucks and caravans, bouncing against his tether excitedly.

John wandered over. The shepherd - H.D. - was not alone. The other shepherds shared his tether, though they either napped through H.D.’s excitement or spared John only mild interest. John found suddenly that he was being jumped on, and then, that he was sitting on the ground.

“Ow,” he whispered. H.D. licked his ear. John fumbled for the collar around H.D.’s neck as the shepherd climbed on top of him.

“Stop that and you can come too,” John struggled to say as H.D.’s tongue lapped over his nose. The shepherd listened, laying down on John’s chest and knocking the wind out of him. John grimaced, looking into the animal’s milky brown eyes for the first time as it stared quizzically down at him. At once, a piercing headache and an accompanying wave of nausea struck John. John looked away, closing his eyes as he finished unfastening H.D.’s collar. The headache subsided.

As John struggled to his feet with the now free shepherd doing excited laps around him, he experimentally met H.D.’s eyes again. The splitting pain in his head returned for as long as he held the shepherd’s gaze.

“Huh,” he said. H.D. bullied her way between John’s legs, making him almost fall again. It was a good reminder that he hadn’t wandered from the circus to rescue children and dogs. John climbed the steps to Johannes’s caravan and opened the door.

In the low light, John could see the outline of a gas lamp by the door, though he hadn’t thought to bring any matches. There was an electric light, too, hanging from a cord overhead, though there must have been a trick to it; the switch by the door didn’t turn it on. John would just have to be fast.

Johannes’s caravan was overwhelming. It looked as if the windows had been left open for the wind to wreck whatever havoc it pleased upon the mountains of papers strewn across the small table in the center of the room. What space wasn’t occupied by paper was crammed with crates of gaudy-colored fabric. The walls were hung with a mix of bright drapes and costumes. On top of every crate and shelf tottered a precarious pile of objects, from little gold-painted boxes to cloth drawstring bags. John blinked down at the table. Amid the sloping stacks of paper and envelopes were coins, a ledger book, and dirty mugs. And John’s own pistol.

He picked up the gun, turning it over in his hands until he was sure it was his. His gun belt had to be around here somewhere. After a few minutes of squinting into corners of the caravan trailer, John found it hung on a hook on the back of the door he had come through.

H.D. started to whine on the other side of the door. The shepherd had only been content to wait for John on the steps as long as the door had been open, apparently. John opened the door again. Now H.D. trotted inside, and the electric light flickered on. H.D. lay down under the table.

Brows furrowed, John buckled his gun belt on and slipped the pistol where it belonged. He returned to the table of papers.

John had seen his indenture to Mister Thomas only once, when he had been about seven years old. It had been the end of the harvest; John had tried to follow a seasonal farmhand a few years older than him. The older boy would come down to Chokecherry every summer and hitchhike back to Washington at the end of fall, and John had wanted to go with him. Mister Thomas had unlocked the big safe and shown John his paper - something that had only been an idea, hard for a child to understand - until that moment.

John remembered the thick paper stamped around the edge in a red design. It was a beautiful document, pretty like the gilded edges of the travelling preacher’s Bible. No matter where you go in the world, this paper means I’ll find you again, and bring you home. Mister Thomas had said that with a smile that had made his eyes crinkle.

John slammed his hand against the table, upsetting an old coffee mug and making his palm sting. H.D. boofed a complaint at him from under the table. John was looking for four of them. Four beautiful papers. He couldn’t read, but he wouldn’t need to.

He shifted through each page on the table, realized that his eyes weren’t focused, that he wasn’t seeing the pages, and shifted through them again.

The caravan door opened behind him. John straightened. He was still holding a short stack of papers, none of them promising. Johannes stood in the doorway, wide-eyed. He was in a black and magenta costume, formal and over the top. His jacket was unbuttoned, revealing the many pockets on the inside, each stuffed full with other people’s coin purses. There was a necklace threaded through his fingers.

“Well, hello,” Johannes said slowly. “What do you have there?”

“The papers, or my gun?” John returned, blinking owlishly at Johannes.

Johannes slowly took off his magician’s hat and hung it on the back of the door. His shiny black shoes were loud on the wood floor of the caravan.

“Which would you rather talk about?” Johannes asked with a lazy smile. He made every move very slowly, but with a performative grace that was meant to communicate to John that he wasn’t the least bit worried. John watched as Johannes deposited all the stolen coin purses, rings, and other jewelry into a simple box of raw wood, the only thing in the whole caravan not designed for flash.

“I want my indenture paper,” John said.

Johannes stopped on the other side of the table, glancing down at the papers John held. John looked, too. The top page bore several signatures. It was meaningless to him.

“They don’t understand yet,” John said. “But I know. And I want my paper.”

“Well, John, that’s a really moving speech,” Johannes said. “You’ve utterly convinced me, and I assure you, it has nothing to do with the fact that one of us has a gun. But Ezra has the papers, and I don’t know where they are.”

John looked down at the paper with the signatures he held. He placed the pages under it on the desk, and held the paper up, starting to tear it from top to bottom.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Johannes said, snatching it from John’s hands. John picked up the next page from the pile and started tearing it, too, until Johannes grabbed it away. “Just wait a second. I need to get back, okay, the main stage can’t start without me. We can talk about this later.”

John stared back at Johannes, unflinching.

“Look, do you want it in writing?” Johannes added. “That I swear I’ll return your indenture to you?”

“No. I can’t read,” John said. At that, Johannes’s posture relaxed, becoming almost easy. John felt that was inappropriate. He unholstered his gun. “I decided to take my paper back instead of killing you,” he said. “That’s your encouragement to keep your word. It’s stronger than writing.”

Johannes stood perfectly still for a long moment before breaking into nervous laughter.

“A man plans, and God laughs,” he sighed, smiling grimly and rubbing a white-gloved hand over his chin. “Your encouragement is enough for me. Now I’m going to get back, unless you’re going to shoot me.”

John holstered the gun again.

“I’ll wait here,” John said, taking a seat at the table. His boot nudged H.D., who he’d forgotten was there.

“What a great idea,” Johannes said, nabbing his hat from its hook and jamming it onto his head, still laughing somewhat hysterically. The papers he had snatched from John had disappeared at some point - not that John was surprised, since Johannes was apparently talented enough at sleight of hand to make a successful pickpocket. Johannes was still muttering to himself as he tramped down the steps. “Fucking paskudnyak, Ezra is going to…”

John took a deep breath, then another. It wasn’t as if he could have left tonight, with Cody who knew where. Although some part of him had thought it was possible.

Under the table, H.D. was snoring. The electric light overhead flickered in time.

11.13 || 11.15

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

Time After Time (The Eighties Blasts Collection, Part 1.)

Description: Jim Hopper died as a hero. But with that, one certain problem rises up - who will now lead the cops of Hawkins? Hopper thought of that - he decided to write a letter, naming his niece, nineteen-year-old student of Indianapolis police academy, Y/N Hopper as a sheriff deputy in a letter. But anybody in the town doesn't have a clue that being a cop in Hawkins is way more dangerous than it might seem.

NOTICE: This is an AU where Hopper had a brother which he doesn’t talk to, but still has a great relationship with his niece (more like father-daughter relationship). Nothing else would be changed.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Hopper!Reader (eventually) - the story is more driven by the relationships in the gang.

A/N: Every chapter will probably be named after one ICONIC 80s song because I am trash for them. Also, I will call Johnathan John bcs I am sick of writing such a long name over and over again.

Warnings: Grief, losing a loved one, bad family background for the reader, Will, Johnathan and Joyce leaving Hawkins.

Word count: 3.7 K (Sorry guys, I had fun)

Tagging: x

Master list: The Eighties Blast Collection

Try to ask your parents about living in the '80s. Or no, you don't have to ask them at all - they would definitely tell you that it was way easier, better and safer back then. Maybe they would be right if you don't remind them about Doug Clark and Carol Bundy for example. Serial killers aren't such things in our age.

But there was one particular town in Indiana where it wasn't exactly a pleasure to live during the '80s. There was like... Everything from novels and movies had happened there - strange disappearances of children, mutates crawling from another dimension, possessed shirtless white boy with a mullet running around, kidnapping people and basically killing the; even murders bated by U.S. government and experiments on people.

It was a true science-fiction to say at least. 

What was the town’s name? Hawkins. Hawkins, Indiana with a population of thirty thousand people - may be more or less, nobody exactly knew since such a crazy shit was happening out there.

Your beloved uncle Jim, to which you went every holiday for the whole two months, has lived there since forever, except for his rather short time in New York - and you found your way to love the city as well. The people there were always the same - same shopkeepers, same employees in the restaurants, same stores and groceries. You dreamt about working alongside Jim since you were just a little kid. While other girls wanted to be princesses and astronauts, you just wanted to be a cop.

So it hit you when you were in your room at the police academy, listening to George Michael and read a magazine, laying down on the bed. At your nineteen, you were one of the best cadets that ever got into the police academy before reaching the age of 21. Jim was so proud that he cried when you called him.

But when the sergeant who led your training called your name through the silent halls, you knew that something had to happen. And when you sat down behind the desk, looking her in the face, you knew it isn't anything nice. 

And when she told you, oh boy, you couldn't but chuckle unbelievably. No, you weren't happy or amused with what sergeant Brown told you - but you couldn't believe it. 

“Jim Hopper is dead? Is it... For sure? That must be a mistake. You're shitting me right now.” - You told her, not even caring about the rule not to curse around your authorities. And Mrs. Brown fully understood what you're going through at the moment, so she didn't say a word about that. Your breath stuck in your throat as you got up to walk around the room. 

“Miss Hopper, I can tell you for certain that I am not joking.” - The woman on the opposite side of the table looked you in the eyes. - “I am sorry for your loss, yet Mrs. Byers sent us an official document where Jim Hopper named you his deputy sheriff, signed and stamped two weeks ago.” - She took the document out of the envelope and looked you in the eyes, putting it in front of himself so she could read from it.

“But I’m too young to be a deputy.” - You mumbled and took the document seriously naming you to the function into your fingers, reading it word after word. Jim was looking forward to having you by his side as a cop - so when he learned about the Russians in a facility below Star Court, he wrote two letters and one document - one for Eleven, a girl who he adopted and you liked, one letter addressed to you and a document naming you the deputy, so he was sure that the Hawkins city is in good hands when he's gone. You never saw the letter though. 

Only the official document made it. 

“And we do acknowledge that. You're too young, you haven't even finished your studies, Miss Hopper, this is a rather unpleasant and special situation. And for that, we will transfer you to an academy nearby Hawkins, so you can finish your training there while you will be helping at the police department.” - Mrs. Brown smiled at you a bit. - “We also acknowledge that you loved your uncle and to continue with his legacy means everything to you. Hawkins department is out of policemen anyway.” 

---

So it was done. Your grief over Jim was deep and it took too long for you to acknowledge that he won’t come to his cabin hidden in the woods a small while from the big oak next to the road to Denfield, just fifteen minutes away from Hawkins. 

When you told the locals about the cabin, it was in a horrendous state - the windows were missing, there were holes in the ceiling, the door were broken apart and... It was a hellhole. It needed a lot of repairing and almost everything was broken inside, including almost all of the furniture, but you managed somehow. 

Especially the broken windows and broken ceiling would cost a fortune if there wasn't for the good people of Hawkins who collected money and old, non-used things from their homes. They started one month before you came so it was almost done when you were about to roll into the town - but you could do the rest by yourself.

You let Hopper's old armchair just in the place where it always was, in his trail, and you left El’s room untouched as well, you only cleaned it up. People from the town were helping you with the renovations by all kinds of small gifts, ranging from canned and normal food to shampoo, helping you paint and paper it from the inside, giving you their old equipment like the TV or a refrigerator, even a VHS player. 

On the day when you came back to Hawkins in an old Chevy from the 70s’, with all your things packed in boxes stored in your car’s trunk, you immediately went to Joyce’s house. Joyce was something like your auntie - you, Nancy Wheeler, her son Jonathan and Steve Herrington always played by the woods she had behind their house. She always made you the best cupcakes, played with you, talked to you and when you were too caught up in playing, she called you to have lemonade or some snacks - but that was too long ago for you to even properly remember.

You remembered only small bits from your evenings at the Byers' house, but the feeling of Joyce is a nice, calm and sweet person always remained inside your head.

Once, all of you were only kids and you were in Hawkins only for two to three weeks every summer - so, naturally, your friendships with the old party didn't exactly last in the form it was ten years ago. All of you got into puberty and since you were studying the police academy, getting there after the senior year of your high school, you didn't really hear much about any of them. 

Plus, after you left Hawkins, you found yourself new friends in New York, so... It was no wonder, really. Everyone was just living their life the best way they could.

Although, when you heard that Joyce and her boys are you about to leave Hawkins for Maine, you tried to speed everything up only to tell her your goodbye before she actually goes away. When you got out of the car, 99 Luftballons by Nena practically screaming from Chevy's radio, you could only see a half-full moving truck and a load of kids out there. 

At least, you weren't that late, were you?

You could recall some of them - like Eleven, a girl living with Jim who you got to know the spring of 84’ when you got released for a weekend lasting holiday to celebrate Jim’s birthday. She was cool as fuck, having some kind of psionic abilities. Jim almost killed both of you when he found out that she had shown you some tricks, but you found that extremely cool. You two had built a pretty good and strong connection over the course of your visits at Hopper's.

You were able to recall Mike Wheeler and Will Byers as well since you knew their siblings - and these boys just couldn't be more similar to Jon and Nance. But there were a few kids you didn't have a single idea who they might be.

“I’m here to help. But I’m late, I guess.” - You leaned into the doorframe and smiled a bit at Joyce’s back. She was running around the whole house cluelessly and tried to pack while the others were doing the actual job. She looked at you standing there in an old flannel shirt and cool jeans which can be bought only in cities or big malls. You looked... Certainly not happy, tired, your eyes red from crying, but good and fine as hell. - “Guess you can say that I am a Hopper, right?” - You smiled as she walked to you to give you a tight, motherly hug, humming into your ear. 

“You are so big now. I remember you barely reaching my waist, darling.” - She cracked up a bit and you were almost sure that she is about to cry - and if she would, you would be a crying mess as well. You cried almost the whole way to Indiana. You just stopped yourself to cry again? Oh, boy. 

“That happens over time. Guess Jonathan isn't the smallest nor youngest now as well, huh?” - You joked, walking to one of the boxed in the hallway. Just with that, Jon accompanied by Nancy walked into the doorframe, holding another two boxes.

“Someone left a started truck outside and is playing pop blasts... Y/N?” - Jonathan asked unbelievably when you turned around to face him. He looked tired as hell just by the looks, but he still sorta got his rebellious expression, just as you were used to. And Nancy? She was breathtaking now. You almost jumped at both of them to hug them firmly with a giggle. 

The old party was getting back together. 

“I can't believe you're here!” - Nancy laughed to your ear. Both of them had the best childhood memories from the times you were there - like jamming to literally every ABBA or the Rolling Stones song, riding bikes through the neighborhood and just the best fourth of July festivals. - “Also, I'm so sorry about...” 

“I know, I know. It would be nice if you stop reminding me.” - You answered a bit louder than you plan to, so Nancy just shuts up. You were immediately apologizing, but she shook her head with her typical Wheeler smile. She totally got what you’re feeling at the moment, it wasn't even your fault really.

“Wow. I haven’t seen you since... Forever.” - Jonathan took your shoulder to his palm and smiled at you. - “I wish we could just sit down, have a cup of tea and talk about what is going on now.” - Nance agreed with him, leaving you in the hall with panicking Joyce; until another person came by.

“Is that... Is that you?” - A fourteen-year-old girl came there in an old shirt which you knew that belonged to Jim. You immediately softened when you saw the teenager, kneeling down and opening your arms for her. You closed your eyes as El leaned to you and hugged you tightly. 

“Yeah. I know.” - You mumbled into the crook of her neck quietly, letting her put her head on your shoulder as both your palms smoothed her back and her ponytail. She was such a baby girl since the day uncle Jim introduced the two of you. - “Listen up, baby. Let's get moving with the packing. You can introduce me to your friends and your boyfriend, sounds good?” - You got up, drying off her tears as you tried not to cry as well. You needed to make you both occupied.

“I would appreciate if you'd help the boys with Will’s room.” - Joyce looked at the both of you with her hands on her hips. - “Not that I don’t believe them, but I am afraid that Will’s and the other children’s packaging skills aren't exactly on point, if you know what I mean.” 

99 Luftballons subtly changed to Take On Me by A-Ha as it continued to blast through the quiet neighborhood. You and Eleven walked to Will’s room just as Joyce asked you to, leaving Nancy and Jonathan as they were.

And oh boy, there was a kind of war between four boys and a redhead girl going on, tees of every color were flying everywhere as they laughed and ran throughout the back of that house. It made you smile, wishing you could just join along. They were so young and careless and you loved it.

But as soon as they noticed you, an adult standing in the doorframe alongside El, they hid the tees and pants behind their backs and only whispers and giggling could be heard. 

“Joyce was right.” - You stepped in, picking up the clothes from the ground while looking at Will. His haircut wasn't the best and he looking alike Jon when he was a small boy. - “You guys can't pack clothes for shit.” - You mumbled as you watched every one of them.

The redhead watched you without a clue who you could be, but the others knew your face. Not too well, but they had definitely seen you around a few times before. 

“This is Y/N, Hop’s niece.” - El pointed at you and the redhead nodded. Any of the teenagers couldn't understand how could you be related to Hopper in any way - he was the old douche, probably ugly, fat and a really unpleasant person most of the time. But you were young, pretty and seemed to be a really chill person. 

“These are my friends.” - She pointed at the redhead and a boy alongside her. - ”Max and Lucas.” - She pointed at Will and Mike who you knew. - “Mike and Will.” - And then she pointed at a boy with curly hair who was smiling at you and to be honest, scaring you like shit. - “And this is Dustin.” 

“So, who’s the lucky one?” - You smirked at El and the way Mike’s cheeks reddened, you knew that he’s the one. She smiled at you without giving you a proper answer. 

You somehow managed to make the kids pack the things before dismantling the furniture in Will’s room with Jonathan’s help. You two were left alone as the others started to move all the boxes into the truck, having quite the space to talk. 

“So you and Nancy, eh?” - You smiled at him wickedly when you started to dismantle the bed. - “Or was I dreaming?” 

“Yeah. You haven't been in the town for a while. A lot of things have changed.” - Johnathan chuckled in response and handled you the wrench you needed. You rose your eyebrows. 

“You could at least call me. Would that be such a problem, mister Byers?” - You teased back and finally took the head of the bed out. 

“We thought you’re too busy living your best city life and forgot about the villagers. Hopper was updating us about your wellbeing pretty well. Heard you got to ILEA? He was proud as hell.” - Jonathan smiled. 

Yeah. Uncle Jim was the most supportive person on the whole planet when it came to you or El. You were both his little baby girls - and if someone tried to fuck your dreams up, he would be a literal pain in their ass. So, naturally, he spread the news about you studying on ILEA to everyone he actually listened to him. Joyce and Karen Wheeler were throwing with pride, lemme tell you. 

“Yeah. I got to Indianapolis, but they transferred me to the midwest since I have my new job here.” - You sighed and helped him with the wood from the side of the bed. - “Gonna study in a program of correspondence course while having my practicum here. Hawkins is apparently in need of fresh cops.”

“No way you're going to be the sheriff. That would make Hop so proud.” - Jonathan smiled at you softly and you smiled back at him. 

“He actually planned on me being the deputy. You really don't have many cops here, eh? Taking in a person who had barely finished their studies? Joke's on you.” - You started to dismantle the wooden legs off the sides. You and Jonathan were actually a good team when it came to manual work.

“We do have cops. But Hopper was the only one who wasn't bribed and actually done his damn job.” - Jon looked at you for a small while. You will be a good cop. He could feel it.

“It will be quite a change from Indianapolis.” - You sighed with a shy smile.

“I was wondering what you’re doing in the evening?” - Jonathan asked all of a sudden, his question followed by your furrowed face. - “We’ll be gone, but I don't want Nancy to be alone. If you want to... Accompany her, I will be glad.” 

“Oh, sure. If she would like to, no problem. We can borrow some VHS tapes to watch movies in the evening or whatever. Mrs. Wheeler gave me their old player.” - You nodded. There was one question which was making you furrow, so you leaned over to Jonathan, making him stop the work, quietly touching his shoulder. 

“I need to ask you something. It’s pretty... Personal to me.” - You exhaled loudly and your body shook completely on its own. 

You were all emotional about Jim passing away and even if it was more than a month since you got the news, you still fought the urge to cry. You tried to shake it off as Jonathan caught your palm in his as well. - “How did uncle Jim die? Nobody wants to tell me, they only told me that he had passed away. Was he shot? Or...” - You curled into a ball and closed your eyes. Jonathan looked around the room and gulped.

You didn't have to know this. You didn't need to know any of this. He wasn't feeling good at that moment and you could feel it. He didn't want to give you an answer, because he somehow felt that it would only hurt you even more.

“All I will tell you is that Hopper died like a real hero. That man might be a pain in everyone's ass, but he sacrificed everything to save the others. He saved all of us and I think that he saved everyone in this town. But if I would tell you, you would think that I’m crazy.” - Jon said quietly, interrupted by Joyce standing in the door. She clearly didn't hear much, since she didn't have any idea you even asked about Hopper. She was smiling, as usual, and she was really glad that the bed was dismantled.

“Oh, honey.” - She kneeled down to you and Jonathan, nuzzling you to her side, ruffling your hair, kissing the temple of your head gently. She was a true mom to everyone - even for a girl that spent only two months in Hawkins during the summer holiday. Even to a girl she hadn't seen in years.

She was something you never had, so you leaned into the touch of her small, warm palms, calming words and slow, caressing movements. Then you sat back up, smiling at her, drying your tears off.

“Can you get it to the truck?” - Joyce looked at Jonathan as he stood up. He nodded without any further thinking. 

“I need to give Y/N something. I talked to El and we agreed on it.” - She smoothed your cheek and kissed the other one tenderly. So, you followed her thought the empty house, thinking about your memories.

You could name the exact spot where Steve almost killed himself when he jumped off Jonathan’s bed onto the heating, hitting his forehead into the heater. You could exactly see their old sofa where you braided Nancy’s hair and you could say where the dinner table always stood. Hopper always sat there while he drank coffee with Joyce and her man. Lonnie was really fine... At times, before he left. He was a douchebag overall, though. 

The sweet memories made you smile again until you approached the gang consisting of children only standing there in a circle with Eleven in the middle, holding a box named ’HOPPER’ in big, dark green letters. It was almost like a cult initiation. You were sure it was one.

“I want you to have it.” - El said quietly and put the box on the ground, opening it. It was an old police uniform; the one which belonged to Hopper. It was dirty and smelled pretty bad, still having his sheriff’s badge on it. You took the shirt into your palms, caressing it between your fingers as other tears rolled down your cheeks. Then you looked at El. 

“Are you sure, baby girl?” - You asked and tried to contain your emotions as everyone was watching you with a sad face. El slowly gulped, getting on her knees as well, but then she nodded. She looked happy at that moment, contained with happy memories at Hopper.

“She wanted to keep it, but wouldn’t be for too much on use since it would only lay in the cabinet. You can wear it for work. Maybe it is too big for you and you will definitely need to wash it, but it has your name on it already, see?” - Joyce pointed at the small golden badge with Hopper on it in black letters. You leaned your head into her shoulder. A true legacy. - “I know he would want you to keep it. It will look good on you after you wash it.” 

“If you say so, Joyce.” - You smiled a bit, taking the box from El’s hands, fetching it into the trunk of your car. You stayed there until the very end, looking at the kids saying their last goodbyes. It made you cry as well, it was so sweet. 

Even Joyce hide behind the truck to have a little moment to herself. She hated when she saw her boys or their friends sad and crying. Joyce Byers was just the most amazing woman and mom you had ever met.

Even if you didn't expect it at all, you got hugs as well. The one from Will was a shy, quick one with that shy boy’s smile painted on his lips. Jonathan couldn't be as much different from his brother as he was - this boy held you firmly for a few seconds, he actually hugged you so tight you couldn't breathe for a second and screamed loudly with laughter. 

“Better watch it here or I will come back and kick your ass.” - He said jokingly, patting your shoulder. You opened your mouth and laughed too, hitting him gently as well. - “Sure. Keep on dreaming, Byers, because that's not going to happen.” - You patted his shoulder as well, bringing him in for one last quick hug - then you left him, so he could say goodbye to Nancy.

Eleven came to you after she kissed the soul out of Mike’s tall and slim body - she hugged you tightly. You maybe weren't exactly the closest, but you were something like sisters from one point of view. 

That was the magic Jim Hopper could do when he wanted to. He was bringing people together. He brought El and Mike so close he couldn't stand him anymore. But your bond would make him happy.

“If something, you can always call me.” - You looked her in the eyes as she continued crying. She was such a lovely girl. - “I know you would rather talk to Max, but I’m here too. I’ll be waiting for a call at Hop’s old number, okay?” - You asked and she nodded, unable to speak in words. But her tears were giving you an idea of what the was feeling. 

“And we repaired your old room. You will be always welcomed in that house.” - You kissed her forehead, snuggling her closer again. 

When they were leaving, you stood there with Nancy and the remaining kids, watching the cars leave, not even waving. Most of you were still crying your eyes out, so you were too dazzled to actually say goodbye. Just minutes after the cars disappeared, you looked at Nancy. 

“Need a ride home? The kids are taking the bikes apparently.” - You asked and took the keys to your car out of your pocket. Nancy nodded, smiling at you with the typical Wheeler smile. - “Also, if you want to, you can stay the night at my place. You would feel less alone and the cabin would feel less scary.” - You smiled at her when you both were sitting in the car. 

“I guess so. It would be fine to talk to you after such a long time. I miss our summer adventures.” -  Nancy said shyly and you stopped yourself from starting the car, looking her in the eyes, holding the steering wheel in your palms. 

“I do too. So, off to the supermarket and VHS store it is, I guess.” - You looked into the mirror showing you the space behind the car and started the old Chevy’s motor. 

[alexthegamingboy]

Toonami Weekly Recap 11/23/2019 (The Forge Edition, Week 3)

My Hero Academia Shie Hassaikai Arc Season 4 EP#65 (02) - Boy Meets...: Izuku battles Sir Nighteye to get his stamp and approval to join his agency. However, midway through battle, Nighteye reveals a secret about All Might that shakes Izuku's confidence greatly.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind EP#05 - Find Polpo's Fortune!: News of Polpo's apparent suicide reaches the organization, along with suspicion that Bucciarati knows the location of Polpo's hidden fortune. Meanwhile, Giorno is introduced to the other members of Passione: Leone Abbacchio, Narancia Ghirga, Guido Mista and Pannacotta Fugo. After learning of Polpo's death, Bucciarati takes his team on a yacht to Capri to retrieve Polpo's fortune and attain the rank of capo. Narancia, Mista and Fugo mysteriously vanish, leading Bucciarati to suspect someone has sneaked onto the yacht and is targeting him for the fortune. Giorno deduces that the others are still alive and acts as bait to lure out the enemy Stand, prompting Abbacchio, who initially distrusted Giorno, to bring out his own Stand.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba EP#07 - Muzan Kibutsuji: Tanjiro enters the demons' swamp to fight two of them, while Nezuko protects Kazumi and the human girl from the other. Although the air is thin and the swamp is dark, his Water Style shows its true power when underwater, allowing him to create a whirlpool that eviscerates the two and return quickly to the surface. The siblings confront the final demon, who has been severely injured, and Tanjiro demands that he tell him anything about Muzan, causing the demon to become completely terrified, shocking Tanjiro. Nezuko falls asleep after her battle and returns to her box as Tanjiro comforts the devastated Kazumi and returns Satoko's hair ribbon he found in the swamp. Kazumi is in grief at first, but after realising that Tanjiro had gone through something similar, apologises. Tanjiro journeys to Asakusa per his Kasugai crow's directions, and to his horror, locates Muzan living in disguise as the father of a human family by following his scent. Muzan, recognising that Tanjiro is from the Demon Slayer Corps, casually slices the neck of a passerby, turning him into a demon.

One-Punch Man 2 EP#07 (19) - The S Class Heroes: Child Emperor (S Class Hero Rank 5) uses his robot Underdog Man No. 22 to analyze a monster named Eyesight's poisons to find a cure for the paralysis. Child Emperor then proceeds to detonate Underdog Man when it's near Eyesight, but that did not successfully kill her as she hardened her skin. Eyesight then manages to find Child Emperor, but is interrupted and eaten by Pig God (S Class Hero Rank 10). Pig God decides to go after the other monsters in Y-City afterwards. Garou tries to go after Watchdog Man (S Class Hero Rank 12), but a monster beats him to it. Drive Knight (S Class Hero Rank 9) interrogates a monster he spared after killing the others. Death Gatling (Class A Hero Rank 8) gathers other heroes to fight Hundred Eyes Octopus, but Flashy Flash (S Class Hero Rank 13) arrives and grievously wounds it with his incredible speed. Right when Flashy Flash is about to unleash his final move, Tatsumaki (S Class Hero Rank 2) arrives and kills Hundred Eyes Octopus with ease, berating Flashy Flash for being too slow before leaving, but not before Flash insults her back. Amai Mask kills monsters in his concert and Mumen Rider and Tank Top Master defeat monsters in the hospital. Atomic Samurai attends a meeting with the Council of Swordsmasters (Nichirin, Amahare, Zanbai, and Haragiri) to discuss the Garou problem. Haragiri reveals that he has sided with the Monster Association, and gives the sword masters 3 monster cells which will amplify their strength, speed and skill at the cost of their humanity and turning them into monsters. Haragiri tries to kill Atomic Samurai (as Atomic Samurai is too much of a threat). but Atomic Samurai slays Haragiri before leaving with his disciples (Bushidrill, Iaian and Okamaitachi) to find the Monster Association base. Meanwhile in the Super Fight Tournament, Saitama defeats Sourface and Choze before facing off against Suiryu in the finals, with Suiryu promising to show Saitama what martial arts are all about. During the fight Suiryu begins to express his disdain about the hero lifestyle, and tries to persuade Saitama not to become a hero since it is pointless and boring to do heroic justice and save the day. Instead, Suiryu remarks that people with great strength such as Saitama should seek thrills, just like him before he kicks Saitama in the head. Angered and annoyed, Saitama lets the kick connect, knocking the wig off his head. Finally exposed, Saitama throws a short range punch while exclaiming that if Suiryu's goal is to seek fun, he shouldn't try to make himself stronger than he is currently. However, Saitama restrains his punch before it hits Suiryu, which creates a powerful shock wave that blows off Suiryu's clothes, exposing his muscular body and leaving him in a state of deep shock. Despite Saitama being disqualified, Suiryu still attacks Saitama in anger, even using his final attack (Void Phoenix Ascension Fist). Saitama is unfazed by the assault. When Saitama says that martial arts are techniques that make you look cool, and starts spinning around, Suiryu tries to attack Saitama yet again but is knocked back by Saitama into a wall while taking Saitama's white belt, resulting in Saitama's pants falling down. Despite Suiryu embarrassing Saitama with that action, he is still in deep shock that he lost. In the post-credit scene, Genos wakes up from the wreckage, and a monster is heading toward the Martial Arts Tournament.

Dr. Stone Village Games Arc EP#14 - Master of Flame: Magma tricks Kinro into consulting the referee so he can attack from behind and win the match for himself. He then has Mantle throw his match against Chrome in order to disqualify Kohaku, who fails to get back in time. Faced in a one-sided semi-final match against Magma, Chrome uses his own tears with Suika's mask to create a magnifying lens that can start a fire. Needing to buy time, Gen returns and uses his "sorcery" to distract Magma long enough for Chrome to set fire to Magma's clothes and win the match.

Fire Force EP#17 - Black and White and Gray: Shinra is freed from his bindings by Hibana and immediately heads back to the workshop, bypassing the fight between Arthur, Flail and Mirage. Inside the workshop, Giovanni continues to destroy Vulcan's equipment until he breaks Vulcan's projector, which reveals the key to Amaterasu. As Giovanni attempts to kill Vulcan, Shinra blasts his way in the workshop and knocks back Giovanni. Lisa uses her magnet-based pyrokinesis to subdue Shinra, but Vulcan has Iris press random buttons to eject magnetized metal equipment which nullifies Lisa's powers. However, as Hibana was aiding Arthur against Flail and Mirage, one of the metal equipment Iris ejected inadvertently hits Hibana and knocks her out. Shinra is able to gain the advantage over Giovanni and knocks him outside the workshop. Once outside, Shinra finally meets Sho and is overjoyed to finally reunite with him. However, Sho uses his incredible speed to subdue Shinra and seriously injure Arthur. Victor arrives in the nick of time and uses a truck to pickup Shinra, Arthur, Iris, Vulcan, Yu and Hibana to escape. Just as Sho is able to catch up with the group, Joker intervenes and matches Sho's speed and power as they fight. As Shinra and the others escape to safety, Joker retreats, but not before damaging Sho's sword. Yu is taken to the hospital for his injuries as Vulcan agrees to go to the 8th for safety. Victor denies Hibana's claims that he led Sho and his followers to Shinra. At the Company 8 firehouse, Vulcan is surprised to see that the 8th is not like how he perceived the Fire Force to be. The next day, Vulcan returns to the workshop with Shinra and Arthur to visit his father and grandfather's grave one more time. Vulcan tells father and grandfather that to save the world, he will have to break his promise and join the Fire Force.

Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma Totsuki Autumn Election Arc EP#20 - The Dragon Lies Down and Ascends the Skies: With the challenge of creating a curry dish set, many of the contestants set off to visit their families and study up on spices during the remainder of the summer. Soma stays at the dorms to try out various spice combinations. The Autumn Election preliminaries soon arrive, and it is revealed that only the top four from each group will make it through to the tournament phase. As the contestants begin cooking, Soma appears to have fallen asleep.

Lupin the 3rd Part 5 Enzo Bron Arc EP#23 - Just Then, An Old Buddy Said Something: Enzo is triumphant about capturing Lupin III, but coldly disregards the reappearance of his long-lost daughter Ami. Zenigata and Yatagarasu take the wounded Lupin and the remorseful Goemon into custody, while Fujiko remains Enzo's willing prisoner, secure in her faith that Lupin will return for her. Although hunted by the police, Jigen later intercepts the prison transport carrying Lupin and Goemon and frees them using a sub-armory of weapons stashed in his car. However, despite the technological odds against him, Lupin refuses to reject his lifestyle as a master thief, and instead seeks refuge in the Grand Duchy of Cagliostro. Hidden below the ruined castle, Lupin turns the tables against Enzo by using PeopleLog to air the dirty laundry of the world's governments. As Shake Handz begins to suffer from the first wave of repercussions, Lupin and his friends initiate the first phase of their final strike.

Black Clover: Elf Tribe Reincarnation Arc EP#96 - The Black Bulls Captain vs. the Crimson Wild Rose: The Midnight Sun members all begin to disintegrate as they too are sacrificed to fuel the resurrection. All over the Clover Kingdom humans begin to transform as the souls of the elves are reincarnated into their bodies, including most of the Royal Knights. Patry declares that the extinction of humans has begun as the reincarnated elves begin their attack. Yami is confronted by two elves in the bodies of Owen and Marx but he manages to knock both elves unconscious. He is suddenly attacked by the elf possessed Charlotte whose blue roses have turned red. As they fight the elf still acts and moves like Charlotte and Yami realises the resurrection had removed all the lingering effects of her childhood curse and the elf is now using Charlottes full magical power as it was meant to be. Sol arrives to save Charlotte but is eventually convinced by Yami to leave with the Wizard King's body. Yami angrily confronts Charlotte for allowing an elf to control her. The elf responds with one of Charlotte's most powerful spells. Yami, knowing the spell could completely destroy the city, uses his Dark Cloaked Dimension Slash to try and stop it. Back in the Midnight Sun's base Noelle and Kirsch prepare to fight two possessed Royal Knights, one of whom is Luck.

[astargatelover]

Watching The da Vinci Code for the first time - A documentation

-  About to watch The da Vinci Code for the first time. It’s about 3AM. Back of the DVD says the movie’s almost 2h30 long. Will approximately be going to bed at about 6AM. I gotta be crazy.

- Back of the DVD also says (translated from German): In the middle of the night the (…) is (…) Langdon (TOM HANKS) in the (…) director was murdered. His (?) (…) that of the Vitruvian Man (…) is the first horrible clue (…) and symbols. At the risk of his life (something something) Langdon – and from then on it’s a normal description, it’s just that that part is obscured by the library stamp. So I can confidently say I totally know what’s going on in this movie! *serious nod*

- Third highlight of the back of the DVD: Ian McKellen, grumpy-looking monk dude and a guy looking like Palpatine. And the Louvre.

- Also in the movie: Some German I don’t know (but yay!) and Paul Bettany. He’s cool; I really liked him in A Knight’s Tale.

- Let’s get this show on the road!

- …gotta update my media player. One sec!

- There we go. …where’s the always-on-top button? Ah, found it! Light’s off in my room; cinema time.

- Music’s already nice in the menu.

- Audio: English. (More nice music.) Subtitles: (Hey, they have Turkish on offer!) Off.

- (They even have subtitles for the trailers. But no extras. Am miffed. What kind of bare-bones DVD is this?!)

- 20 minutes after the first “about” up there: Play movie.

- Fancy title cards.

- Dude running. He’s gonna die; I know that much.

- Paul!

- *sigh*

- Oooooh, it’s Robert. That’s a lot of applause.

- (Btw, in case you didn’t know: I have watched Angels & Demons because I love Ernesto Olivetti a crazy amount.)

- I like Robert. Awesome presentation.

- Also like Tom Hanks. He’s great.

- Accents, y’all.

- Latin? Latin. Italian? No, definitely Latin.

- Ouch. Self-flagellation. Ooooooouch. Some religious people are crazy.

- Dude, you can barely stand. I’m a sadist and I don’t want you doing that to you.

- We’re only 10 minutes in, my goodness.

- Claustrophobia! I relate to that.

- Just let the dude take the stairs.

- Wow.

- Priests.

- Have I mentioned I’m not a big fan of catholics? Nothing personal.

- Also: Autistic Langdon, symbology special interest.

- French.

- Sophie! Heard of her.

- Strange happenings.

- Oooooooooh.

- French lady. I don’t speak French.

- *window jump scare*

- We don’t trust the police guy.

- Conspiracies!

- Fuck.

- “Once he starts, he doesn’t stop.” He’s like Javert.

- Climb out the window?

- More French.

- Oooooooh! They’re so tricking them, aren’t they? They’re not dumb.

- Bye bye!

- I’m sorry for Sophie.

- (I saw that part where her grandfather got shot years ago.)

- Here we go with the anagrams.

- Eidetic memory (pretty much) - firms up my autism headcanon.

- Can you even get that close to the Mona Lisa irl?

- Tom Hanks has a really nice nose. xD

- Langdon’s so good with anagrams.

- It’s like a scavenger hunt.

- Ooh, Musketeer symbol.

- Chase music!

- Flashback with crazy meetings.

- A smart! I get to bop someone now.

- Ooh, Les Mis.

- Backwards! That’s impressive.

- She’s so gonna make it.

- She made it!

- Bye bye, mirror.

- Paul’s looking angry.

- Someone got stabbed. I sense guilt.

- More dead people.

- Holy water.

- A nun.

- A rose line.

- Is he gonna kill her? She seems nervous.

- MORE FRENCH.

- Red light zone.

- (It’s raining outside. Kinda sets the mood.)

- You stay away from that dude, nun.

- Saving a junkie?

- (Sophie’s a really nice name, btw.)

- He rambles when he gets the chance so much. Really reminds me of special interests. (And in case anyone takes issue with that, I should know. I’m autistic. I have them.)

- My parents just watched Knightfall. Now I know some about the templars’ fall.

- Sophie didn’t know they were supposed to protect the Holy Grail? Really? Huh.

- Moooooore French.

- Please don’t die, nun.

- That’s some scar under his eye.

- Those look like some anger issues.

- It’s the grumpy-looking monk dude.

- Seriously, I understand more Latin than French.

-  “Blood is being spilled” as he’s spilling wine, that’s great.

- Freeeeeeeeeench.

- “I don’t think he liked me very much. He once made a joke at my expense.” I relate to this guy so hard on the autism level.

- It’s the German dude.

- That’s some system they’ve got at that bank.

- You call that a rose?

- I’m with Langdon here. Safe passage?

- Aww, poor guy. I’ve got claustrophobia, too, and I haven’t even got a traumatizing event behind me. (I read that somewhere.)

- I like the driver.

- A lot. Nice one with the watch.

- Langdon, you look sick. Please don’t die, y’all.

- JESUS CHRIST.

- Poor Sophie. </3 Woah.

- How tf did that truck get there?

- That bullet. Smaaart move. *thumbs up*

- Ouch.

- Bye bye again.

- Do I like the police captain? I don’t know.

- The tea convo. xD

- Is Langdon like this in the books? I hope he is.

- How old is Sophie? *googles Audrey Tatou* (Ooh, Amélie!) *checks when movie was made* ‘bout 30.

- Yaaaaaas, Ian.

- Also please don’t die.

- (Both my faves in Angels & Demons die. I’m vorbelastet and can’t find a good English word for that.)

- Jesus was cool.

- Those helmets. Feathers!

- “Not even his nephew twice removed.” xDDD

- Is that paisley? *googles* It is. Nice!

- Just in case you’re wondering, I am typing this as I watch the movie. I’m not saying I’m not missing anything, but I like multitasking.

- *googles The last Supper* Wow, no cup.

- Genital symbols.

- Wombs open towards the ground, though. People with them aren’t constantly doing handstands.

- Have I mentioned one of my favorite movies is Dogma, which postulates that Jesus had siblings? I’m liking this conversation.

- “Companion meant spouse.” My gay ass likes this.

- If that is Mary Magdalene, though, which apostle is missing? Been wondering this for years.

- Scions. I like this.

- I’m all for sex positivity.

- Your time’s kinda running out, guys.

- Almost halfway through, now.

- Do you seriously believe they’re murderers?

- Why do you wear your police thingies like a blind man’s band?

- Was overall expecting a bit more running in this movie, I guess.

- Poor Sophie. This is a lot to take in.

- Beating someone up with crutches! Yas!

- Like, ouch.

- Do you happen to have a secret passage under your house? Would come in real handy.

- Oh, Zürich! Man, accents. Barely understood that.

- Frehehench.

- In my personal experience claustrophobic people aren’t generally fans of planes. That might just be me, though.

- Still don’t know Paul’s character’s name.

- We are leaving the country.

- That haircut. On the dude with the grumpy-looking monk.

- Does Jesus having a family beside his parents somehow make him less holy? *shrug*

- FRENCH.

- Police brutality?

- “Please”? Seriously? I understood that much and you’re a dick.

- This is, like, some Order of the White Lotus stuff.

- You need a mirror? You can’t read it otherwise? Huh. Well, I guess it’s just easier.

- I really like Lee.

- How many more ways can I angrily write French? (I don’t have anything against the language per se. I just don’t understand what they’re saying and that irks me. There aren’t even subtitles for that. I feel like there are supposed to be subtitles.)

- (It is nice, however, that they’re sticking to the languages they’d actually be speaking. I wonder if it’s all German in German.)

- Yo, police. Be more subtle. You could have laid a trap.

- “You can start with him.” Hm! xD

- “I could run them over.” !! Man, this is great.

- This is like a fucking magic trick.

- You know what, I wanna watch that again.

- The DVD did not like that, so now I get to look at the “pick scene” menu. At least there’s more nice music.

- Just out of curiosity… *checks* There are 24 chapters and I’m at the 16th.

- I can understand more French when I concentrate on it, but I’ve been too annoyed about it so far.

- Never had French at school, btw. But have a bit of a talent for languages. When it comes to those I can sometimes cobble meaning together from context and existing knowledge.

- “The French cannot be trusted”, sounds so ominous.

- As a fan of Angels & Demons, I am very interested in what the Vatican has to say about all this.

- Told ya we don’t like planes.

- Naww, Sophie. Arm pat, yas.

- How do you accidentally fall into a well feet first? Hmm…

- Saved by pigeons, wow.

- Paul’s eyes are super blue.

- Is he gonna get killed?

- What an old-ass phone.

- I’m worried about that newspaper.

- How they’re keeping the identity of the teacher secret is A+, shooting-wise.

- “Your identity shall go with me to the grave.” Did he know he was gonna die?

- Nice one!

- Is the second movie this long? *checks* Not quite.

- Seriously. Unnaturally blue eyes.

- Shoot-out.

- I can kinda see where Lee’s coming from. Don’t agree with the method, but…

- Did a shoulder-shot really kill him?

- See? Nope.

- I think I do kinda like the police captain.

- Have I mentioned my attraction to side characters?

- Oh, that tiny wound on her neck. I like the attention to detail.

- And those stained glass windows! Pretty.

- His mind! Wow.

- I wanna see this scene without music and special effects, though, to see what Sophie and Lee see. Must be pretty weird. xD

- Dramatic musiiiiic.

- Police captain coming through! Yas.

- Robert’s like “What is happening?”

- Man, those poor policemen with the screaming dude in the back of the car.

- Can’t resist a challenge, can you?

- It’s hecking dark behind that doorway.

- Can they get away with getting rid of all the villains half an hour before the movie’s over?

- Now she’s all Ghost Whisperer-like.

- I like the way it sounds when she calls him Robert.

- (Doing some more googling. Ah, it’s Leigh. I see.)

- Who are these guys? Something bad’s happening.

- Flashbacks and MORE FRENCH.

- Wonder if Robert and Sophie use the formal you in German. It wouldn’t fit.

- Sophie’s world is kinda falling apart.

- (She’s like Bethany in Dogma. Don’t know if anyone here even knows Dogma, but I love it.)

- Family reunion! Who put those onions here?

- See? Robert and I agree. Why should a family make Jesus less holy?

- I really like this friendship. I hope they’ll meet again.

- Checking if she can walk on water. xD

- Hey, it’s the Eiffel tower! And it’s playing light house.

- Blood.

- What? What is it?

- Wow.

- This music is real nice.

- 7 minutes of credits.

- Again, though: The music is nice.