#Dirt Fest 15

[scremogirl]

☾✧꥟ 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒 ✧✰☀︎︎

𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐁𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐧

Yandere! Serial Killer x Reader

Mentions of blood! Mentions of Death! Mentions of mutilation! Mentions of Murder, GN! Reader, NReader/Diolouge uses a lot of black colloquialisms/AAVE *slightlyyyy black coded but only for the speaking bits. NO APPERANCE MENTIONED!* READ THE NOTE AT THE END PLZ! (●’◡’●)ﾉ Part 2 here Part 3 here

Halloween.

The day where people grasp the fact that the summer's over and the seasons have finally changed. Corny decorations on front porches, masks in windows to scare unaware customers, and people dressed as slutty cartoon characters.

You loved the last one. You’ve always worked hard on your costumes; from a small cameo in the school yearbook to entering contests and pageants. You loved fashion, everything about it. The different fabrics, colors, patterns; you cherished it all. So, it’s no wonder that’s what you’ve chosen as your destined career path. You somehow managed to get into the third most prestigious fashion school. I say third because the first one you applied for, was full of egotistical French exchange students who do nothing but compare their lives at home to their lives in America. The second… well, you don’t want to talk about it. Regardless, you’re so grateful your talents have been recognized.

That leads us to now. At the biggest fright fest of the year. Your professor decided that if everyone got at least a 95% or above on the unit test, he’d take the whole class on a field trip to the annual Freak do Shek Carnival. A free trip and creating a new costume? You’ve never studied harder in your life. You spent days working on your costume; hoping to win the annual costume contest.

“Breaking news! The killer know as the “Mask Maker” is still on the loose and is currently suspected to be in the Witchwood area. It is recommended for all residents to stay indoors travel in groups-,”

Your heart sinks.

No, no, no! Why does it have to be now? Why here? The area you lived in was one of the safest in the city! Police patrolled regularly, security systems were available to all, and most people have been traveling in groups these days. So, why? You look at your friend, Malika, who no doubt received the same alert as you did, judging by her face.

“Well what the hell are we supposed to do now!?” She yells in frustration. You all have arrived at the festival and the bus has already taken its leave. Unless you call an Uber, there’s no way out; but then again, with a killer on the loose, no person would be dumb enough to let any stranger in their car. You tell your teacher your concerns, but does he listen? No.

“We’ll be fine,” , “just travel in groups,” , and “make sure you check in with everyone at least every 15 minutes,” is all he says to shake your worries. Great job by the way. With that, he goes ahead with another one of the chaperones, probably on their way to get drunk on cheap beer and look at young girls. Pig.

“I know I ain’t stayin for damn sure,” you chuckle at Malikas abrasiveness and nod your head in agreement.

“Who’s gonna pick us up though? We all came here on a bus and no Lift driver is stupid enough to let strangers in at this time,” you both sigh and end up agreeing that she’d call her boyfriend to come get you. The only downside is he lives in the next county. That means 3 whole hours plus some that you two have to try and rid your paranoia.

“How ‘bout we go check out the costume display for the upcoming show? Maybe scope out some the competition?”

“You know what Malika, that sounds like a great idea,” she holds out her arm and you take it , laughing your way down the hay covered dirt path wearily dodging scare actors. Unbeknownst to you the glowing eyes of one of the masks are filled with anything but fake intent.

“Hey, Mal? Is he on the way yet?” You two have already viewed the display, concrete knowing you’re gonna knock everyone at the park. So you decided that maybe a little sightseeing wouldn’t be that bad.

“Ugh! He said he’s on his way but knowing him, that means he just got in the shower,” with a deep sigh she puts her phone back in her pocket.

“Look,” she continues

“ How about we go get something to eat and enjoy what we can. I mean, we did wait all year for this,” you’re a little hesitant but you end up caving; fried oreos do sound good right now.

The walk to the concession stands is filled with jump scares from actors, Jack, o lanterns illuminating your path and the laughter of children and adults a like. The environment reminds you of why you came here in the first place, maybe there is nothing to be worried about.

Oof!

“Oh I’m sorry! I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going,” to wrapped up in the scenery and nostalgia, you failed to notice one of the actors scrambling by. You hear the muffled laughter of Malika and try your best not to strangle her to cover up your embarrassment. Fortunately , it was just the water that spilled on them; Unfortunately, your oreos lay spread eagle on the ground. However, even with a soaked costume and powdered sugar all over their boots, they remain in character. Only giving you a tilt of the head, a grunt, and tightening their grip on their axe. The eyes that lay behind the papier-mâché mask boar deep into your soul, the white contacts holding something deep and dark. The feeling of guilt is slowly washed away and replaced with anxiousness. Man, they're getting employee of the month. Still, you feel bad so you grab the napkins from your back pocket and gently wipe their mask, some of the fake blood coming off along with the water. Hmm, these effects are off the chain too.

As you clean them up you can’t help but to think that they’ll join the costume contest, definitely giving you a run for your money. You're snapped out of your thoughts when Malika pulls you along the road, whining about how upset she is because she didn’t get to snag one of your Oreos. Making your leave, you look over your shoulder one last time, only to find those same white eyes trailing your figure.

My god, you're even more beautiful up close.

“Personally, if that happened to me I’d kill myself,” once again, your friends laughter snapped you outta your own mind. You just giggle and brush it off.

“Shut up! It’s not like I did it on purpose! Besides he was kinda fine not gon’ hold you,”

“I know right! the way he titled his, had a tear running down my leg not gon’ lie,”

“Girl… don’t you gotta man? Like… on his way here?”

“Shhhh don’t ruin the fantasy,”

Two hours have officially passed, the same old texts between Malika and her boyfriend, this time however he was actually in the car. She had pressed him to turn on his location for safety, you could never be too sure now can you? He should’ve been here by now but with how crowded the festival is getting, you can’t blame him. Thankfully, the contest is just about to start! Going against your better judgment, you and Malika thought that being apart for about 15-20 mins wouldn’t hurt. She’ll be waiting in the audience while you go change anyways.

Rushing to the changing rooms you fail to notice another contestant coming towards you just as fast. For the second time this night you managed to bump into someone.

“I am so sorry! I didn’t mean I-,”

“Watch where you’re going bitch! Y’know how long it took me to make this thing?” You look to the left and then to the right trying to figure out who the fuck they think they’re talking too.

“Look I didn’t mean it, I’m sorr-,”

“Yea yea whatever, just stay outta my way next time. Besides, it’s not like you're gonna win this thing anyways,” just before you were about to give them a piece of your mind, the manager stepped in and separated you two. Jeez now this is gonna take even longer than you expected. You thought it was only fair to let Malika know shoot her a quick text. “No worries, babe! Gill's location says he’s here already so Imma grab us a quick bite to eat before I look for him and we head to you. See ya soonnn❤︎︎!!!”

Good; that buys you just enough time. After getting changed and checking your reflection for the hundredth time, you step out feeling as confident as ever. Just as you exit the stall, you hear the worst blood curdling scream of your entire life. You look over to your right and see that asshole from early and that guy with the really nice axe murder costume. Your eyes have to be deceiving you! One of their legs is completely severed, blood dripping from the stub left behind. Slash marks, deep and crooked, adorn their arms and remaining leg. They Look as if their limbs could snap off at the slightest breeze. They cry and groan as they reach out to you. Following their eyes the crazed murder shifts his eyes to you. Their weapon of choice freezing in their hands mid swing. Their victim continues to moan in pain and crawl away, begging and pleading for someone to save them. But…you just laugh.

“I see what you're trynna do here, and it ain’t workin’. Your costume is good but it isn’t better than mine. Assholes,” the last part is mumbled under your breath as you walk away. Even though you presented yourself in this prideful manner, you can’t help the feeling of disappointment that bubbles inside you. You tried really hard this year, let’s just hope that everyone else thinks you did too.

CHOP

Finally. Holding up the severed head he smiles, crooked and eerie. The bitch wouldn’t stop screaming, but at least he gets to see the look of fear in their face forever.

“Hey! What the hell’re you doing!?” hm? Turning around he sees the manager from earlier, standing before him with wide eyes filled with shock and anger. He can’t have his plans be ruined by a little slip up! He didn’t mean to act so impulsive but he couldn’t help. Nobody talks to you like that; not if he had something to do about it. Swinging his weapon of choice up on his shoulder, he’s about to take a step before he’s interrupted.

“Didn't I tell you guys to keep all spare props in bags because of the fake blood?! It gets everywhere and I’m the one who has to clean it up!” They shoved him to the side before grabbing a large trash bag from the cart they lugged behind them; simultaneously grabbing a mop and bucket. Continue to grumble about how “they don’t get paid enough for this” and “all the newbies are irresponsible”. But hey, free disposal.

“Sh, sh it’s okay; it was never your fault,” you tried comforting her but to no luck. All she can see is red as the burning hot tears streaming from her eyes ruin the makeup she spent so long on

“Okay?! It’s not okay (Y/N)! He said he was stuck in traffic all the while he was toungin’ down some bitch in a slutty cat costume. Very unoriginal btw!” You try to keep your giggle in for her sake. You kept trying to tell her this idiot wasn’t any good for years but nooo “the dick was too good to let go,” and apparently, someone else thought so too. Her weeping continues before she builds up the courage to speak again.

“All I wanna do is go home; fuck this competition,” you smile seeing her personality shine through her sadness just a little.

“Yea, fuck this competition,”sure you’re sad about to being able to participate this year, but with your best friend in distress and a serial killer on the loose, you can’t help but to think that maybe you could wait until next year. Ordering the Uber, you suggest that before it gets here, you should check in with your teacher first. Of course you don’t have his number and you're sure your other classmates are not worried about their phones unless they’re snapping pics and recording for their stories . You send them a quick text to your classes group chat and look for the exit.

“He really is a dick, you don’t need him,”

“Yea, I know. Besides, maybe that axe guy will take care of him for me,” she giggles but you don’t find it funny at all.

“What?”

“Yea, I saw him outta the corner of my eye when I walked in on he who shall not be named about to fuck that other girl,” she rolls her eyes and continues walking but you remain stationary.

“You gotta be joking,“ she turns around and gives you a quizzical look so you continue further.

“He and another dickhead I bumped into put on this whole show to get me to drop outta the contest. Lost limbs, fake blood and everything. I don’t know what his problem is, but he needs to leave me the fuck alone before I get the manager, on some Karen shit”

“Now that I think about it, he has been high-tailing us ever since we’ve got here,” she freezes before looking at you dead on. She wipes away the tear stains and brushes her nose against her sleeve before scanning the area.

“You don’t think it’s Kee-,”

“No! Don’t. It’s not him. It couldn’t be,” she holds up her hands in defense before pulling you along to get the hell up outta here. It goes dead silent, tension filling the air. It couldn't be him! It’s just some rando whos jealous of your skill! But…your mind was just playing tricks on you. That feeling of paranoia started to rise again and the flashbacks felt like they were hitting you in waves. She saw this and decided to speak up before it got worse.

“Hey, I’m sorry for bringing it up. I really didn’t mean to-,” this time it’s your turn to cut her off. You offer her a light smile and hold her hand in yours before squeezing.

“It’s alright. Besides, who needs men anyways. You’re all I need,” she gives you an even brighter one, her usual self returning, before squeezing just as hard, laying her head on your shoulder while you walk.

“Yea, fuck men,” you two laugh in sync before changing the conversation to what you’ll do when you get home; maybe a Horror movie marathon and some junk food will cheer you up. Who cares, the night has just begun for you and there’s no way anything was gonna ruin it.

Watching you walk away a gloved hand slams into a tree. Dammit! You won’t get away so easily. You’re his. Nobody else’s. He’ll make sure of it. Starting with her.

Hello everyone!!!! Hope you enjoyed the first part of my Halloween special. I’m breaking this down into 3 parts because I’m afraid people will think it’s too long if I put the whole thing on tumblr. I will be making an Ao3 and the whole fic will be posted without any split up. When it’s created and up I’ll let you know. Hope you enjoyed Loves!!! ( ˘ ³˘)♥︎.

-Love, Sosa❤️

[bluebellofbakerstreet]

BluebellofBakerstreets 007 fest 2024 finish line master post

15 point art:

(I know we don't use points anymore, but it's how I'm used to organizing things.

Spot the Difference, Pub Wedding, Q in Covent Garden, Kingston

10 point art:

Big Ben, Q Paper Doll Drawings, Llewellyn Q, Strawberry Fields, Camille Montes, Eve Moneypenny, Nomi, Dalton Bond, May Day, Severine, Cleese Q, Dr No Cover

5 point art:

M&M Cat, Rebus Pictures

5 point writing:

Dr. No, or James and the Magical Island

Scavenger Hunt Fills:

#6 Design 3 outfits for a Bond character or your Station character to be worn on 3 separate occasions.

#26 You need to create an identifying image of a Bond character of your choice for one of your contacts. For reasons too dreadful to recount, your voice is temporarily shot and all pencils, pens, paper, tablets, and other traditional sketching materials are unavailable. Find a way to show the character's appearance using any other equipment (food, household materials, dirt, whatever) of your choice.

#28 Fill a prompt on the 007 Fest 2024 prompt on the Anon Prompt Exchange! I did two: here and here (prompts are listed below)

#39 It's never too early to introduce James Bond to the next generation, although some of the content is too mature. And too long. Rewrite a Bond book or movie as a children's book. If you can, record yourself reading it like a bedtime story to a child!

#41 Create a remix that's inspired by the work of somebody also participating in 007 Fest (with their permission). i.e. art to a fic, a fic of a fic, make a podfic, etc  (ex: Illustrate a scene from a different point of view) I did this twice: here and here.

#58Create and post a Bond-themed crossword.

#59 Solve someone else's Bond-themed crossword.

#64 Find the Difference  - Create an almost identical image and change a few things there (could be an edit or art). Tell us how many things have changed when you post it.

#68 Create at least 5 Bond-themed rebus puzzles

#74 Meet up with another member of Bond fandom! Take a pic to commemorate the moment. (Does not have to have identifying features in it.)

Prompt Sheet fills:

# 50 Missions in which Q will appear in different costumes, or uniform or just funny outfits!!  I'm dying to see him in a police uniform and cap, or in navy uniform, in a full suit of three layers, etc.. (or Q dressed as a steward, but not for flight of course) 50

# 57 Show us a Bond character in a different historical period. 57

Collab Table:

Llewelyn Q

Strawberry Fields

Camille Montes

Eve Moneypenny

Nomi

Dalton Bond

May Day

Severine

Cleese Q

Events:

Logan Lucky 7/1

Paddington 7/5

Layer Cake 7/15

The Martian 7/22

Game making night

Game Morning 7/27

In-person meetup 7/20

57 comments

[wolfiemcwolferson]

Calamar’s Club 2023 Fantasy Fest

We had so so much fun hosting the Fantasy Fest for 2023 in the Calamar’s Club Discord and we want to thank all of our participants for feeding us prime Piarles fics! I will link all of them below, please go and read them! You will not be disappointed! The Mods for this fest are:  @singsweetmelodies @boxboxbrioche @welightitup @river-ocean @duquesademiel and me - WolfieMcWolferson

Title: the blood’s run stale by the lovely @m1tchevans (7k words, complete) Summary: Charles thinks he knows everything about Pierre until he finds him on the finish line in Monaco, his eyes pitch black and his shirt stained red. Further down the street, in an apartment with a familiar red and yellow flag hanging from the window, a dog growls, and a man starts to scream. "Why would someone do that? Give their life?” Charles asks, his mouth suddenly drier than the desert. "I didn’t check," Pierre answers quietly. "But I’m pretty sure it was for you."

Title: the anatomy of us by the wonderful @pinkierre (currently 4k words, WIP) Summary: When his life at home doesn’t satisfy him anymore, Pierre boards a ship from Marseille, sailing into the open world. Charles is a terrified and lonely shifter, who loathes himself, and his shifter form, more than anything. The two meet through an unfortunate event. Can they help one another to find themselves? 

Title: if it weren’t for the everything by the sublime @gaslybottoms​ (24k words, complete) Summary: “You talk about humanity as if they are nothing more than a meal to you.” Pierre shrugs at Charles’ comparison, because in a sense he isn’t that far wrong. Pierre had his fair chance at meeting anybody he felt the desire to over the years, and they always ended up the same way: six feet under and of no use to him. “What else do they have to offer me?” he asks instead, knowing Charles’ answer before he even says it.

Title: hold your hand in mine (starlights in your eyes) by the first-rate @your-littlesecret (20K words, complete) Summary: Charles still remembers the day they found his dragon vividly, he was barely 6. He also remembers the day they found Pierre's dragon, at 15. It has been the four of them ever since, never one without the other.

Title: the cold winds that blow us together by the terrific @yukierres​ (8k words, WIP) Summary: Pierre came to Orkney to escape, to find his freedom in these strange haunted islands at the edge of the world. And to follow the pull calling him here, the inner urge that made him board the boat and find out what awaits him. It isn't until he uncovers a strange seal figurine in the dirt and gets thrown into a quest to help out a Selkie with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and 4000 years of pain in his deep brown eyes that he understands what the call was. Destiny.

Title: Slow Sips by the sensational ghostmyghosthost (9.5k words, complete) Summary: They say the best way to deepen the bond as bonded mates is to French kiss with mouthfuls of blood. Just like vampire bats do.

Title: No matter how far the paths for both of them are (Those who are made for each other connects) by the superb @forelsketparadise​ (1.5k words, WIP) Summary: Pierre is starting to feel like the universe is trying to play a sick joke on him. Why else would his mate be the future Beta of the enemy pack? It makes no sense to him. The pack from Maranello has been rivals with Pierre's pack for centuries now. Certainly life won't be so cruel to him? There is no way he can even think about pursuing his mate and put his entire pack's safety at risk. He is the pack's future Alpha. He has to put the pack before himself.

Title: the bride of gévaudan by the grand @pipitwrites​ (12k words, complete) Summary: At the altar, Charles’s hands trembled as he took the cup of sweet wine from the priest and drank. It was only a small sip, but he felt the rush of heat spreading from his stomach, making him dizzy in a matter of seconds. There was a soft tickle at the back of his hand, barely even a touch. The tip of the Wolf’s tail swayed back at Charles’s elbow. Startled, Charles met the Wolf’s eyes. They were a shocking shade of icy blue and almost human in their regard.

Title: Intret amicitiae nomine tectus amor by the delightful @chipsandnuggets (5.5k words, complete) Summary: "Do you like Quidditch?" He says this, looking surprised. "Most of the time, Papillonlisse people don't." Charles nods with happiness. "I love Quidditch! My favourite team is the Cavalli Rampanti, and yours?" "Mine too!" or: Piarles wizards who happens to love Quidditch as much as they love each other but they don't know yet.

Title: Finally by the magic @car-bo-hydrate​ (3k works, WIP) Summary: Charles, Pierre's college dorm roommate, being a vampire wouldn't be much of an issue, if it weren't for the fact that Charles needed to fuck the other person he drank blood from because he would be overcome with lust. Or, 5 times Charles brought someone else back to their room to fuck after he had drunk blood from them, and the 1 time Pierre found out from Charles why he drank from everyone except for the very person he's sharing a room with.

Title: you are the light that’s leading me by the struggling @wolfiemcwolferson​ (series, 39k words, complete) Summary: Charles gets sucked into the multiverse. Can he get home?

[kitcatrr]

KISS ME! #3

Jake Sim socmed AU

pairing: Jake x afab! reader

genre: fluff content

content warning: swearing

Written fic for this part!↓↓

wc: 654

"FUCK FUCK FUCK!" you say under your breath while sprinting to the cafeteria.

You had missed half of lunch time due to your fate of accidentally tipping over a test tube.

You're sprinting to go eat, your stomach rumbling.

The country could have an earthquake just from how much your stomach is making such noise.

Had you not spent 15 minutes cleaning up shattered glass on the science lab's floor, you would've been laughing along with your friends by now.

Your legs felt like giving up, why the fuck is this school so big??

As if the moment couldn't get any worse...

THUD!

"Ow!" you fell down against the impact.

You had bumped into a pillar? or a wall? but there weren't any of those near where you were running.

oh.

fuck.

"Are you okay?" a low but sweet voice spoke out.

"Oh! um.. yes, I am, don't worry." you stand up, brushing dirt off your skirt.

"I'm so sorry! I-I should be the one asking you if you're fine!" you blush of embarrassment.

"No, I'm okay, you fell. Are you okay? Do your legs hurt?" the sweet boy asks you.

"I-I'm fine, really!", you say nonchalantly even though you swore your hamstring would've snapped already.

"Oh my god, your phone!" the boy squats down on the floor, grabbing your phone to return it to you.

"Oh! thank you!" you take the phone from Jake's hand, making skin contact with his oh-so-soft palm.

You felt like floating.

"You're welcome." Jake said.

You just nod and smile.

"Y/n, right?" Jake looked at you.

"Yeah! You're Jake, right? We have chemistry together." you reply, trying to hide the fact that you're having a conversation with THE Jake Sim right now, regardless if it's small talk or not.

"Yeah! Nice to meet you, y/n." Jake held out his hand for a handshake.

You shook his hand, maybe a bit too quick and eager— You hope he doesn't think you're weird.

"Why were you running?" Jake asks out of curiosity as to why you clumsily bumped into him 5 minutes ago.

"I accidentally knocked over a test tube, had a great time cleaning it up." you say with a sarcastic laugh.

Jake laughs— You're unsure if he's laughing at you or with you; You hope it's the 2nd option.

"Be careful next time, those nasty shards could've pierced through your skin, been there, done that before." Jake said, trying to lift up the mood.

"I was heading to the cafeteria, I haven't had lunch yet." You said.

"What? You haven't eaten yet? You should eat!" Jake's face showed a hint of worry.

"No, no! It's fine, really, I ate a snack from the vending machine earlier, I have a small stomach." you laugh nervously, trying to play it cool.

"Ooh, alright. That's cool." Jake said while smiling.

You both slowly waved and went opposite ways.

"Wait!" the black-haired boy said, looking back at your distancing figure.

"Hm?" you hum in reply.

"Are you coming? For the Music fest. It's in 2 weeks." Jake asked.

"Oh, yeah! I'm coming, I bought front row! haha" you chuckle.

"I'm performing, you know." Jake smirked at you.

I know, idiot. That's all I've been thinking about for the past week.

"Ooh! Really? See you there then!" You smiled back at him.

"Can I have your number? You seem pretty cool" Jake takes out his black-cased phone from hid pocket.

"Sure!" you take his phone and punched in your number in his contacts.

"There. Bye, Jake! I gotta go to my friends, they're probably waiting for me haha" You say to Jake, going to the direction you were running to in the first place.

"Alright. see you around, y/n" though you couldn't see him, you know he was smiling when he said that.

"Thanks for taking a picture of me yesterday!" He walked off with that sly grin on his face, leaving you speechless with those strawberry pink cheeks.

Jake Sim, you're impossible.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

Students start to emerge out the cafeteria.

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!"

*Kind of basic and cheesy, I'm on a writer's block (˃̣̣̣̣︿˂̣̣̣̣ )

[mytastessuck]

The Tunes Of Two Cities

You wanted a sequel? You got one! Also, shut the fuck up because this record is not one.

Instead of continuing the story from the Mark of the Mole, this album is made to show how different the Mole People and the Chubs' cultures are via their music. Like, the Chubs is mostly light jazz while the Mole People do industrial gospel (metal church is awesome when it's not on fire). Let's give both sides an unbiased look.

Serenade For Misty

The Chub side is better. The Serenade shows why with its use of horns to establish elegance and hedonism and...other stuff. It just works, okay?

8/10

2. A Maze Of Jigsaws

Sounds like jazz from the Silent Hill universe...if they let the dog play. Pretty good.

8/10

3. Mousetrap

Percussion takes over and we can see more classical influence take presence here. Not bad but when it picks up...hoo boy.

8/10

4. God of Darkness

See? The Chubs can get goth too! They're gonna kill you with their delicate little hands on those drums. Then they bring out the rubber...

9/10

5. Smack Your Lips (Clap Your Teeth)

Sounds like something you would hear if I broke into a TV station and played music over a Hoagie Fest ad. Beautiful.

9/10

6. Praise For The Cure

Guess the good times are over because this sounds freaking ominous. The Chubs are in for it whenever this series gets finished (it won't).

8/10

7. The Secret Seed

Now we're with the moles and they have horns too and eh...it feels like a retread. Not awful though.

7/10

8. Smokebeams

More lowkey but also more bombastic. Not so churchy now, Mole People?

8/10

9. Mourning The Undead

Definitely something you hear in a cemetery for mole people. Lots of rattling noises. Don't expect any different.

9/10

10. Song Of The Wild

Sounds like something you hear on the best RPG map. Surprisingly good for dirt eaters.

8/10

11. The Evil Disposer

Maybe stop using evil leitmotifs if you want me on your side, Mole People. This sounds like the theme of a child snatcher.

10/10

12. Happy Home (Excerpt from Act II Of Innisfree)

I smell a sitcom! A perfect way to show the Mole People aren't always scary fuddie-duddies. Sometime they're creepy fuddie-duddies.

8/10

13. Open Up

The songs get shorter and more tense here, the moles apparently starting to stock up as the music shows a bit of discontent in the notes. Not looking good for the Chubs...

8/10

14. Anvil Forest

The record starts skipping and a monster starts chasing you. The Mole People are on the prowl for non-believers...

8/10

15. Scent Of Mint

Oh, I was freaking out over nothing. This ending is surprisingly peaceful...kind of anti-climatic---

7/10

Album Score: 82/100

Naturally, next week is Title In Limbo with Renaldo and the Loaf. Get there to never find out what happens between the two societies.

[andysmuse]

Roxy fest 2024.

Roxy fest 2024. Roxy fest 2024. Time tables: Saturday: 13.30u: shapeshifted 15.00u: Promise Down 16.30u: Like B4 18.00u: Derek and the dirt 19.30u: Breakfast at midnight 21.00u: the guns ‘n roses experience 23.00u: Kissterious Sunday: 13.30u: Muziekacademie Herentals 15.00u: The Roxy band 16.30u: Little finger 18.30u: The tramplers 20.00u: Mother Mercury Saturday, June 15. Around…

[jenringwrites]

WEEKEND ARTINGS: A SHINE-Themed ArtWalk, Kerouac’s Ghost and more

There’s a little bit of art everywhere this weekend, but there’s A LOT of art in St. Pete, where SHINE has inspired satellite art openings galore. Here’s your list of ways to enjoy the arts in the Tampa Bay area this weekend.

SHINE. Oct. 13-22. SHINE returns for its ninth year in St. Pete with 14 new murals, a graffiti-inspired beer release, and a special edition of ArtWalk.

“Far East to West: The Chinese American Frontier” opens at The James Museum. Sat. Oct. 14, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. The multicultural exhibit showcases the role of Chinese Americans in building the American West. It’s family day, and kids (whose parents register in advance) can try Chinese Ink Painting with local Chinese American artist Hao Penghe.

St. Pete ArtWorks hosts artist and conservationist Tricia Lynn this October. “Lions and Tigers and Birds” opening reception is this Sat., Oct. 14, during Art Walk. Features live music, a selection of Tricia Lynn’s wildlife paintings, and live mural festival activities.

The Florida Wildlife Corridor opens a new art gallery in St. Pete. Sat. Oct. 14, 5-8 p.m.. Wild Space Gallery, located in The Factory, opens during ArtWalk with Carol Mickett and Robert Stackhouse’s “Circle of Water.”

Heiress showcases contemporary ceramics in “Dirt” at The Factory. Sat. Oct. 14. “Dirt” opens during ArtWalk with art from 11 different Tampa Bay-based contemporary artists.

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Wordier Than Thou haunts the Kerouac House with short, scary plays. Oct. 13-15.

A Rocky, Whorish Patter Show comes to Fringe Theatre in Tampa. Oct. 13-31.Because Halloween season is better with live theater.

Tampa Bay Coffee and Art Fest brings coffee culture to Brandon. Sat. Oct. 14, 9 a.m.-3 p.m, at The Noise Box.

[newmusicradionetwork]

Whey Jennings And Country Music Pals Wes Shipp, Jesse Keith Whitley, Creed Fisher & John Paycheck Find Catchy Traditional Hook On “Old Country Song”

Outlaw country singer-songwriter Whey Jennings is rolling out his next new song and video for “Old Country Song” in exclusive premiere today by Taste of Country . The song, available everywhere digitally on July 14, is a collaboration between Whey’s country music pals and the song’s co-writer Wes Shipp, with Jesse Keith Whitley, Creed Fisher and John Paycheck. The music video, which features cameos by all, will premiere on Whey’s YouTube channel on Friday at 12pm ET, and on CMT.com. “I have been friends with Creed Fisher for the better part of a decade and we are label mates,” Whey said. “John Paycheck happened to be in town and Jesse Keith Whitley and I have been friends for 5 or 6 years. We have worked together and we just happened to be in one place at one time. Call it dumb luck or call it a blessing but whatever it was, but I’m glad it happened.” “Old Country Song” is one of six new songs, and the second single release in 2023 from his forthcoming new EP Just Before The Dawn, due out in September by Dirt Rock Empire. Whey has been making a monumental comeback throughout 2022 and into 2023. Not only with his next level new music and songwriting abilities – but personally – as the grandson of Outlaw country pioneers Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter has learned to find a new path in life through sobriety. Several of the songs on the forthcoming Just Before The Dawn EP continue to musically tell his story of redemption. With his newfound lifestyle at-hand, Whey is already beginning to establish his own musical legacy within his iconic Jennings family tree. “People like us, traditional country music fans, are a dying breed, and by us I don’t mean just artists,” Whey explained. “There’s a large cult following for old country music loving men and women and we are all like-minded individuals, that when old country songs are played, it brings us all together. With me and fans, I ain’t never gone wrong with an old country song so you can plan on me to keep the tradition alive for as long as I can.” Single name: “Old Country Song” Songwriters: Whey Jennings, Wes Shipp Record Label: Dirt Rock Empire Audio release date: July 14, 2023 Video release date: July 14, 2023 Audio producers: Gary Carter at Danny’s Place Long Hollow Studio and GC Studio Video Director/producer: Giovanne Gotay, Melissa Gotay Pre-Save/Buy/Stream: cmdshft.ffm.to/OldCountrySong Upcoming Tour Dates: JUL 14 – Deale Maryland Elks Lodge / Deale, Md. JUL 15 – Pike 40 Fest / Belmont, Ohio AUG 11 – Tioga County Fair / Wellsboro, Pa. AUG 12 – Spectrum Cup @ Rainbow Farms / Vandalia, Mich. AUG 19 – Big Delta Brewing Company / Delta Junction, Alaska AUG 22 – West End Fair / Gilbert, Pa. AUG 25 – Buffalo Jam / Jamestown, N.D. **For Whey’s complete tour schedule follow on BandsInTown or visit WheyJennings.com/tour  About Whey Jennings: Whey Jennings grew up in a family full of country music royalty. His grandfather, the legendary Waylon Jennings and grandmother Jessi Colter both had major success in the major music charts for decades. Jennings is a “rough around the edges, unpolished singer” with a voice as big as Texas. He couldn’t go pop with a mouth full of crackers! Jennings is the oldest son of his mother Katherine and father Terry Jennings. Whey has always had a deep love for music since the first time he stepped foot on stage. Whey was just a boy when, at one of his grandfather’s shows, Jessi Colter left a microphone on a chair backstage after performing “Storms Never Last”. Young Whey picked up the microphone and pranced out onto the stage and began singing “Mamma’s Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys.” Whey’s grandpa Waylon shouted out: “Hey hold up there Hoss��wait for me!” Waylon went to pickin’ and when the song was finished, the crowd went nuts. It was on that day that Whey fell in love with music and as they say… the rest is history. # # # Read the full article

[hd-cluefest]

H/D Clue Fest Masterlist

Cluefest Headquarters are finally unveiling the investigators of our cases. But before we do that, we want to thank each and every one of you that contributed to making this fest such a huge success, be it as a writer, podficcer, reader, listener, or reblogger and reccer. You wrote the most amazing fics, brought fics to life with your voice, and gave our creators lots of love with kudos, comments etc.  Fair warning: This post will be very long because we couldn’t control ourselves and made reveal banners. We would say we’re sorry, but we must not tell lies.

0430, T, 8.7k

Author: daughter_of_nemesis/@daughter-of-nemesis 

Harry disappears at exactly 04:30 in the morning. Hermione and Ron intend to figure out why. And Pansy's certain has something to do with Draco.

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A Hogwarts Detective Mystery, E, 19.3k

Author: ActorPotter/@actorpotter 

Harry returns to Hogwarts for his Eighth Year with Ron and Hermione after defending Draco Malfoy at his trial over the summer. Malfoy has returned too...but he's acting incredibly suspicious. So, naturally, Harry decides to stalk-er-follow him when he leaves the Eighth Year Common Room after hours one evening. It turns out that Malfoy has noticed something is amiss at Hogwarts, and he and Harry must work together to solve a mystery of disappearing portraits, randomly changing house colours on uniforms, and the Gryffindor Common Room suddenly appearing in the dungeons. What is happening to the castle? Will self-appointed detectives Harry and Draco discover what secrets are lying within the walls of Hogwarts...and their hearts?

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A House on Fire, E, 8.4k

Author: p1013/@p1013

For the last five years, Auror Draco Malfoy has walked into his office with hardly a glance at the illusioned window taking up the back wall. It looks out over an imagined London, a perfectly bright and brilliant view of the city that hides the smog and rain and dirt that clings to the city like a patina of time that can never be worn away. It's always a perfect summer's day with soft, white clouds that float through the painfully bright blue sky like a dream. He likes to imagine the gentle breeze that ripples the surface of the Thames brushing across his skin, since he'll never be able to actually feel it. After all, his office is located on the second floor and is, therefore, underground.

Or at least that's what he did before the seventh of October, 2009.

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A Little Bird Told Me, M, 18.6k

Author: Cibee/@cibeewastaken

Harry and his partner are called to investigate a murder that occurred at an exclusive getaway hosted by Muggle patrician Robert Morton in his own house. The surviving six people are now both witnesses and suspects. There is just one problem for Harry: Draco Malfoy is one of them.

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a meeting of minds, M, 8.2k

Author: saltwatergarden

When Harry Potter starts hearing someone else's thoughts for several minutes a day, at first he chalks it up to his own bad luck and he tries to ignore it. But the longer it goes on, the less Harry can ignore it. Whoever it is, the person whose thoughts he's hearing needs help. Harry finds himself indignant at the mistreatment of the man taking up space in his head, and feels a sense of closeness to him that he cannot explain.

How can he find out whose thoughts he's hearing? And what exactly will he do when he finds him?

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Cruel River, T, 67.7k 

Author: eleventy7/@tinyhistory

Draco inherits a castle deep in the Scottish highlands, and discovers it’s haunted by more than just ghosts.

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Dear Stranger, T, 22.7k

Author: iero0/@iero0

The one thing more pointless than falling in love with an anonymous wizard over a correspondence is falling in love with Harry Potter when you’re Draco Malfoy. 

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Draco Malfoy and the Case of the Smuggled Gossip, T, 6.9k

Author: A_Professional_Protagonist/@aprofessionalprotagonist

It's eighth year and someone is selling gossip about Harry Potter and his friends to the new trashy wizarding tabloid. Can Draco discover how the gossip is getting smuggled out of the castle? Will he and Harry grow closer in the process? Will there be kissing? (Spoilers: yes.)  

  -----

For Now, 6.7k, T

Author: Samunderthelights/@samunderthelights

At first when Harry gets sent a mysterious notebook, he thinks it's a gift. But when he starts to write in it, he finds that someone can see what he writes, and the stranger is writing back to him.

Over time he finds himself opening up to the mysterious stranger, but how is he supposed to fully trust him if the stranger won't even tell him his name?

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He makes saints out of sinners, M, 32.8k

Author: miafancies/@miafancies

Harry grows with the turn of the tide. Draco contends with his ghosts.

This is a chronicle of inevitability.

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It might take an army, it might just be me, M, 15.5k

Author: slytherinnbitch/@slytherinnbitch

Five years after the war, Auror Potter goes out on a seemingly routine mission to check up on some pardoned criminals. He doesn’t come back. Immediate suspicions are cast on Draco Malfoy, one of the charges he was to be visiting. But unbeknownst to everyone, the two of them have been in a secret relationship for over six months, and Draco is beside himself with worry and so is Hermione and Ron. Together they try to get their best friend back. But there are surprises on their ways which none of them even expects of.

Can they get their best friend back or is he gone forever?

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Long story short, G, 4.6k

Author: time_streams/@time-streams

Someone's written about Harry's secret raspberry jam recipe. Also, they write fanfiction about him. Obviously, he using his investigative prowess to find them.

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Love's Sake, Evermore, E, 9.6k

Author: wanderingeyre

Someone is doing nice things for Draco and that someone seems to know an awful lot about his habits and favorite things. Draco can't imagine why anyone would do these things for him because he still thinks he has something to prove. Some days he thinks he’s going to spend his entire life spackling over the mistakes of his youth and the sins of his family.

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Memory Lane, T, 9.7k

Author: mortenavida/@mortenavida

Draco Malfoy has been happily living in the Muggle world for nearly a decade, far away from any Wizarding responsibilities they might try to enforce on him. He planned on leaving that world forever, save for making sure his son received a proper education, but things didn’t exactly go to plan. On his doorstep, one night, Harry Potter showed up. Except Harry Potter was supposed to be dead for the last seven years.

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Mine O'Clock, T, 1.2k

Author: PhenomenalAsterisk/@phenomenalasterisk 

Harry Potter is missing and Ron and Hermione are going spare.

How can Draco enjoy his lazy weekend with their nonsense cluttering up his front steps?

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[podfic] Potterotica, E, 20min

Podficcer: EvAEleanor/@eva-eleanore

original fic: Potterotica by Elle Gray/@diligent-thunder

The first story, and you could barely call it that, had appeared in the communal bathroom overnight. It was stuck to the mirror, one above each sink, like it was expected people might casually read it while brushing their teeth.

Except, there was nothing casual about reading explicit erotica in a communal bathroom while shoving a lubricated brush in and out of your mouth.Blaise had been the first to find it, or rather, to gleefully admit that he had. He’d burst into the common room in his pants to declare, 'There’s fucking porn in the bathroom!' Someone's writing smut and signing it with Harry's name. Hermione isn't buying it, and she has a plan to expose the true author. She also has her hand in her pants in a wardrobe.

A (ridiculous) response to AO3s (valid) new co-creator rules.

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Repairing his world, M, 34.8k

Author: AhaMarimbas/@mars-bar81

15 years after his father was arrested, Scorpius uncovers his case file at work. Desperate for answers on why his family was torn apart all those years ago, Scorpius looks into what happened. But is he ready for how the new evidence will change his life all over again?

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Reverie in Green, T, 51.7k

Author: dynazty/@dynazty

Draco just wants to get away; Harry just wants his dog back.

There's a small wooden bridge in the middle, somewhere, curved over a stream that never stops flowing. All they have to do is cross it.

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Secret Admirer, E, 12.3k

Author: Cassiopeias_shadow

Fresh out of training, Harry discovers that life as an Auror isn’t at all what he’d imagined - it’s much better actually, and there are stickers. As he settles into the team, a case lands quite literally on his doorstep... who keeps sending the Knight Bus to his house?

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Sleight of Hand, E, 15k

Author: TheStarryKnight/@the-starryknight

It’s another one of these horrid Ministry affairs, and the only interesting thing is twinkling from Draco Malfoy’s finger. Can you really blame Harry for being fascinated by the gorgeous emerald ring and those long, elegant hands, especially when he’s certain Malfoy is up to something?

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[podfic] The Lion, The Dragon, and the Broom Cupboard, E, 1h45min

Podficcer: laughingd0g/@jovialobservationanchor

original fic: The Lion, The Dragon, and the Broom Cupboard by tasteofshapes/@tasteofshapes

Draco thinks he’s hallucinating the first time when he opens the door to the office pantry and finds Potter there instead, looming out of the shadows of what appears to be a cupboard like some deformed gargoyle. Things don’t go much better after that.

Or, three broom cupboards, two times they get it on, and one love story.

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The Mysterious Case of the Missing Yoghurt, E, 24.5k

Author: manixzen/@manixzen

Newly-hired Flying Professor Harry Potter is happy to return to Hogwarts for a fresh start after several failed careers, but nothing is going as planned. His classes are a mess, he has to find a way to work with Draco Malfoy (annoying git extraordinaire) and now, in an act of villainy and depravity, someone keeps stealing his yoghurt.

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Through the Blur, E, 27.7k

Author: anachronic_mai/@danbrokethesoundbarrier

Sleep doesn't come easy to Harry. Despite taking regular doses of Dreamless Sleep for years, he hasn't managed to get rid of the nightmares. Things can't get any worse for him when Potions Master Draco Malfoy comes to him for help after mysterious attacks to his apothecary.

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[podfic] to heal a fracture (to bind a life), M, 33min

Podficcer: bluedreaming/@porcelainsalt

original fic: to heal a fracture (to bind a life) by glittering_git/ @glittering-git; meandminniemcg/@meandminniemcg

Who you gonna call? Harry has become one of the foremost Spiritual Exterminators in Britain. Draco has a spirit that needs extermination. But what seems like a simple problem ends up becoming far more complicated when the spirit is identified. The secrets that are exposed and the history that is uncovered leads both Harry and Draco into uncharted territory.

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To Live & Die in LA, E, 28.8k

Author: fwooshy/@fw00shy

Someone is blackmailing Pansy Parkinson. Pansy's father hires Harry Potter, P.I., to get to the bottom of the scam. But how is Harry's errant ex-boyfriend, Draco Malfoy, involved? And why did Draco run to Los Angeles in the first place?

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Two Hearts Divided, T, 18.6k

Author: iero0/@iero0​; Ladderofyears/@ladderofyears

Draco Malfoy, the celebrated Ghost Clearance Expert is in Germany, trying to solve the tricky little matter of a stubborn ghost called Clara von Kellern. Exasperated after trying every spell he knows, Draco sends an owl to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in London, requesting their urgent help.

Little does Draco know that the clerk who willingly grasps his letter is Harry Potter.

Injured in action, Harry enjoys a quiet, deskbound existence and sees Draco’s letters as a bit of excitement to brighten up his dull days. Harry has no idea that investigating Clara’s life, and that of her beau (and potential murderer) Ernst Wernet will lead to the beginnings of a love affair all of his own.

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Violent Delights, E, 20.4k

Author: primaveracerezos/@primavera-cerezos 

Draco Malfoy's life should be going very well. He's engaged to a wonderful man and in line for the Head Auror job. He's been made lead investigator on a serial murder case, trying to figure out who is killing off the scum of the wizarding world, one by one. So what if he's kind of miserable? Things always get better.

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Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm?, E, 15.4k

Author: alittlewicked/@undersummerstars 

As sad as it was for a family to come to this point: no one would put it past the others to be able to raise their hand and wand against a cousin, an aunt or even a son.

Merlin knows, it had been happening often enough in the House of Black.

So that left the attendees with one question.

Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?

*

Harry & Draco are Walburga Black's guests at Number 12 Grimmauld Place to find the one, true heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. What had the potential to go terribly wrong, went one step further and culminated in a dead body and twelve suspects.

-----

[cha-melodius]

Follow You Into The Dark

Whumptober No. 9: Rumors of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Fandom: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015) Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Relationships: Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo Additional Tags: Napoleon Solo Whump, Illya Kuryakin Whump, Near Death Experiences, Heavy Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Suicidal Ideation, Missions Gone Wrong, Pining, Hospitals, spies getting old, First Kiss, Sacrifice, Non-Linear Narrative, Illya POV

Summary: Following a diastrous mission, Illya doesn't exactly cope with the new situation he finds himself in.

Notes: I blame this fic on @heytheredeann. She's the one who encouraged me to write this angst-fest and finally finish it. Fair warning: this is a pretty heavy fic, on the whole. It deals almost exclusively with death and dying, and the characters' reactions to these topics. There is some suicidal ideation in this, though it is more on the "what's the point of living" end of the spectrum than actively wanting to die. That said, despite what it seems like during the fic, the tags are accurate, and, well, you can see the prompt. There is a happy ending here, I promise, but there's a decent amount of pain before that point.

Read on AO3, or below the cut!

Add’l Notes: FYI, the main action in this fic takes place about 15 years after the events of the movie, during which time Napoleon and Illya have been working at UNCLE. It's kind of vaguely referenced in the fic, but in this story Gaby took another role in UNCLE that doesn't involve fieldwork fairly early on. They're still all close friends, but it's just been Illya and Napoleon as partners on missions for quite a while.

This fic was inspired by the song "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" by Death Cab For Cutie, which I recognize is super unoriginal for a fic about love and death, but I don't really care.

*****

You and me have seen everything to see From Bangkok to Calgary And the soles of your shoes are all worn down

It might be cliché to say that the day started out like any other, but that doesn’t make it any less true. There had been nothing special about this mission, no sign that things would turn out like this, even in retrospect. Coming to this building was supposed to be an exercise in checking another undoubtedly dead-end lead off the list. They had bickered about nothing as they prepared, as usual; Napoleon had been annoying him lately by humming off key versions of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, seemingly just for the fun of watching him twitch in response. They’d still been arguing as they cleared the abandoned building, unconcerned that anyone might be alerted to their presence. It was familiar. Comfortable in the way it always is with Napoleon, in the way that Illya stopped fighting a long time ago.

And then, without a trace of warning, the ground floor of the building had blown up. A rocket, in all likelihood, given that there had been no explosives present when they’d cleared it earlier, though fired from where, he couldn’t say. The building had been solidly built, which means its collapse had been rather spectacular. Napoleon and Illya, caught in a middle floor, had little chance. That Napoleon wasn’t already dead when Illya found him—that Illya found him at all—is something of a miracle.

Not that either of them would use the word to describe their current situation.

“It’s no use,” Napoleon grunts. “Get out of here while you can.”

A fine layer of grey dust and soot has settled over both of them, filling into every crease and line on his face, and that in combination with the dimness of the light makes it look like he’s been rendered in charcoal. With his free hand, Illya reaches up and rubs his thumb across his partner’s cheek, smudging through the dirt. Convincing himself that this isn’t all a terrible dream.

“It is too late,” Illya tells him, though, strictly speaking, that might not be 100% the truth.

There is a slim chance—exceedingly slim, in his estimation—that he might be able to get out, although it is far from certain. Half of the building has collapsed around them and the other half is on fire, rapidly filling the small chamber with smoke. Pure adrenaline had fueled Illya to clamber over the wreckage, looking for his partner, but there could be no mistaking that something is seriously wrong with his left knee, and he no doubt made it worse in his desperate, failed attempt to move the beams trapping Napoleon. In all likelihood Illya would not get very far. And if he did leave and still didn’t make it, if he let go of the hand clenched tightly in his and left him here to die alone for nothing… Well. That is not a choice he is capable of making.

“I’m not leaving you here, Cowboy,” he says, his voice firm.

It’s not the first time he’s said something like it before. And to be fair, it’s not as if Napoleon has not said those same words to him. Both of them have been in enough close scrapes that they were sure was the end. It has never been like this, though. Those situations were followed by one of them hoisting the other over his shoulder or dragging him to an extraction point. Those situations were followed by long, sleepless nights sitting by hospital beds, and sometimes by cold sweats and night terrors.

Those situations never had this kind of finality.

“Goddamn you, you stupid, stubborn Russian,” Napoleon groans, glaring at him now. “You have to try. I won’t— I won’t let you throw your life away like this.”

“And under what circumstance would you permit me to do so?” Illya snarls back. His anger is something familiar to retreat into. Something he both can and cannot control, unlike this situation. “That is not up to you. You don’t get to make that decision.”

Napoleon’s face crumples in resignation at that, like he expected this answer all along. “Illya, please,” he pleads, “you have to let me go.”

“Remember Calgary?”

The question makes Napoleon blink in surprise for a moment. “Of course I do,” he says, a little hesitantly. “That was different.”

“Was it?” Illya challenges.

His vision is rapidly blurring from the tears brought on by the smoke, which is, truly, their cause. Because a wave of something washes over him, then, something that brings with it an odd sense of peace. In that moment, he knows that he can’t leave, that he won’t leave, and making that decision is not nearly as terrifying as he thought it would be.

He is so, so tired. They are both of them old, for spies. Every injury takes longer to recover from, every string of sleepless nights more exhausting. Neither of them is as fast or as strong as they once were, which is probably how they got into this situation in the first place. His life has been longer than he expected, thanks not only to the man lying before him but an entire team who are nothing short of his family, and for that he is thankful. But right now, in this moment, he thinks he does not owe anyone anything more. He has already given so much of himself. For once, he thinks, he can be selfish.

It has been years of missions, years of partnership, years of carrying with him this silent, forbidden love that has made every moment together sweeter and more bitter than he could have ever imagined. Now he is determined to keep a promise he made years ago, a promise that Napoleon probably doesn’t even remember, but a promise nonetheless.

Napoleon is just staring at him, so motionless that Illya might fear he was already gone if it weren’t for the watery brightness of his eyes. His breathing should be more labored, Illya thinks almost absently. He’s not fighting it anymore. That realization should be horrifying, but somehow it isn’t. The carbon dioxide inhalation will knock them both out soon enough anyway. Probably not the worst way to go, in the end.

Illya curls himself forward, pressing their foreheads together, and Napoleon’s hand tightens around his.

“You don’t get to make that decision,” he repeats, softer this time, his voice rough with smoke and thick with emotion. “Not this time.”

*****

Bangkok, Thailand 8 Years Previously

One would think, with how long Illya has been in this game, that very little would bother him at this point. That’s mostly true, but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t bad days and missions that make it difficult to sleep at night. Napoleon tends to be more affected by these, which Illya would say is because he’s a thief and not a real spy, but that line got tired five years ago. It’s just his disposition, and it doesn’t make him any less of an agent (not that Illya has ever admitted that out loud).

Today had been one such day. UNCLE’s presence in Thailand was a delicate matter; they’d been sent to look for traces of a weapon that rumors said was being built somewhere in the Thai jungle, and they weren’t the only ones looking. UNCLE’s aim was to prevent either side of the war that raged to the East from acquiring it, of course, if the weapon even existed in the first place. After days of searching, Napoleon and Illya had finally located a promising lead, which had led them to a facility that had been all but destroyed already. That, in and of itself, had been more than disappointing—it’s still unclear if whoever destroyed the facility took the weapon, or obliterated it—but it was the carnage they’d found inside that left them both unsettled that evening, back in the hotel room that they are sharing.

It’s a rather dingy place the outskirts of Bangkok, the kind of seedy establishment where a former KGB agent could hide out without drawing the attention of the American military presence in the city. There’s no air-conditioning here, unlike the ritzy hotels in downtown that Napoleon would probably be staying in without him, just the sticky heat that permeates everything and doesn’t abate after dark, topped off by the incessant, maddening whine of countless insects.

When Illya walks out of the bathroom after a shower that probably left him dirtier than when he stepped into it, he finds Napoleon sprawled in one of the wicker chairs as if it alone is keeping him from melting into the ground. He’d thrown on a light linen shirt after his own shower and had apparently only bothered buttoning the bottom half of it. It’s not like Illya hasn’t seen him shirtless countless times before at this point, but there’s something about the way the collar hangs open that is unintentionally yet indescribably far more alluring than if he had been wearing nothing at all. Napoleon’s head is tipped back against the chair, drawing Illya’s eye along the long line of his neck, down to an exposed collarbone and into the dark hair that covers his chest. His skin is glistening with a thin sheen of sweat in the low yellow light of the room’s paltry bare bulbs, and the whole effect leaves Illya rather more breathless than he’d care to admit.

Napoleon’s eyes had been closed when he’d stepped into the room, but they flutter open at his approach and he stares at Illya with eyes that are as dark as the ocean in a storm. Some kind of strange electricity seems to crackle in the room between them, but a moment later it has passed, and Napoleon is nodding toward a glass of amber liquid that sits on the low coffee table before him. He has one of his own in his hand, partly filled, and Illya wonders how many drinks he’s already had tonight. Illya carefully lowers himself to the couch on the other side of the table and retrieves the glass—some kind of whisky that Napoleon had managed to find that doesn’t taste more like gasoline than not.

“Chatter on both sides suggests neither of them know who blew the facility,” Napoleon says after a stretch of silence. So apparently he’d checked in while Illya had been attempting to clean himself up.

Illya takes a sip of his drink and doesn’t suppress a wince at the burn of it. “So the weapon is in the wind.”

“Unless you believe the guy we found.”

There had been a man, among the wreckage. He’d been the only survivor, if he could even be called that, because by the time Illya and Napoleon arrived he was barely hanging on by a thread. Napoleon had spoken to him in broken Thai while Illya searched the building, and when they had met back up there had been an odd, haunted look in Napoleon’s eyes.

“You said yourself he was mostly incoherent,” Illya says, repeating Napoleon’s earlier report back to him.

“Well, that’s a low bar, when you barely speak Thai,” Napoleon replies self-deprecatingly. “He was too scared to answer questions, just kept telling me not to leave him.” “He didn’t want to die,” Illya reasons.

Napoleon shakes his head, staring down into his glass. “He knew he was going to die. He didn’t want to die alone.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Of course there is,” Napoleon scoffs. “Doesn’t it bother you? The likelihood that you’ll die alone?” “We all die alone, Cowboy.” “What is that, Nietzsche?”

Illya shrugs. “Just a saying.”

Fortunately, the conversation doesn’t linger on that topic very long. They talk a little more about the mission and their next steps, which transitions into one of their usual arguments about the war, but that fades without much heat. They play a couple games of chess on Illya’s travel set, and then a game of cards when Napoleon complains about the futility of playing Illya in chess. They finish the bottle of whiskey between them, which was probably not the best idea, but it wouldn’t be the first time, especially after a bad day.

Napoleon is pensively inspecting the last dregs of the bottle when Illya decides it’s probably time to call it a night. Not that he’s been able to get much sleep in this weather, but it feels like he should probably switch from staring wearily at the wall to staring wearily at the ceiling. He’s just started shifting forward to stand when Napoleon speaks again, not looking away from the glint of the amber liquor.

“All the same, I think I’d rather not.” Illya pauses; they had lapsed into a comfortable silence, and he’s not sure what on Earth Napoleon is referring to. “Rather not what, Cowboy?” “Die alone,” Napoleon answers, almost absently.

That was not what Illya expected, and he’s honestly too drunk to have this kind of conversation right now. That also must be the reason for what comes out of his mouth next, because it’s certainly not anything he’d admit to sober.

“You won’t have to.” Napoleon’s gaze snaps over to him, far sharper than it should be under the circumstances. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Peril.”

He’s right, of course, there’s no way Illya can guarantee such a thing, and his impulse to do so should be a little suspect, given his earlier, rather nihilistic position on the matter. Napoleon stares at him like he’s waiting for Illya to take it back, to say something like, you’re right, you and I will both die alone because we are spies, and that’s what happens to spies. The words don’t come, though. In that moment Illya knows it is a promise that he will keep, if he has any say in the matter, but it’s probably better for both of them if he keeps that fact to himself.

*****

As it turns out, Illya doesn’t get to make that decision either.

The room he wakes up in is familiar, if only in the way that all hospital rooms are familiar. The silence is broken only by the whirr of machinery and the steady beep of his heart monitor. Or not-so-steady beep: he is still intubated, and the sensation of the tube down his throat immediately triggers both his cough and his gag reflex. His heart rate spikes erratically as he struggles to get rid of it, setting off all kinds of alarms. The nurse is there in moments to help, and it is only when he lies back against the pillows and takes a deep, shaky breath that the reality of his situation dawns on him.

He is alive. He is alive. It should have been impossible, that anyone could have gotten to them. They were trapped, and the building was burning, and extraction was kilometers away. The last thing he remembers was curling over Napoleon’s body, pressing his face into his partner’s rapidly fading pulse, and then nothing. He does not know what happened, exactly, but he knows. He knows it in his bones, because there could have been no other outcome.

Napoleon is gone, and he is here. Illya has long since stopped raging at the injustice of the world, but this— this is not fair. So much of his life had been dictated for him. What he could be. How he could live. Who he could love. It had felt freeing to be able to make a decision that was his own, in the end, but it turns out he didn’t get that one either. 

He can feel, distantly, the pain throbbing through his body and understands he’s not in good shape, but that just seems… entirely inconsequential, now. It is nothing compared to the deep, visceral ache that he feels at his core, like there is a part of him missing. He sees the tremors come before he even registers feeling them, his hands shaking uncontrollably on the bed by his sides, and moments later the alarms on the monitoring equipment begin blaring again. His pulse spikes and his breaths start coming in ragged, uneven gasps, but in his current condition he is too weak to do anything except curl his hands into fists in frustration. The nurses clearly don’t understand what is happening to him, but the result is the same: within a few minutes they administer a sedative, and Illya slips back to unconsciousness again.

*****

In the mountains near Calgary, AB, Canada 3 Years Previously

“Well, this is certainly suboptimal,” Napoleon says as he surveys their surroundings.

Illya could almost laugh, if their situation weren’t so dire. As it is, though, between the state of his ankle and the fact that they have been sealed into an old, semi-collapsing mine, he can’t quite find the humor in Napoleon’s typical dry commentary. They have been left to die, and die they will unless they can find some way out of here. He has to admit, it seems highly unlikely.

The small chamber that they are currently occupying is illuminated by an ancient oil lamp that they’d found amongst the refuse, abandoned by miners who knows how long ago. Miraculously it still had enough fuel to light, but Illya guesses it won’t be long before it goes out and they are left with only Napoleon’s lighter for illumination.

Apparently finished with his inspection of the small space, Napoleon he returns to Illya’s side and drops down onto a chunk of an old beam. “Do you think signal from the transmitters will make it to the surface?”

“Maybe,” Illya answers uncertainly. The new trackers tucked into the soles of their shoes are a lot more powerful than the old standard models, but even so, Illya doubts their range through several tons of near-solid rock.

“I guess we can hope,” Napoleon sighs.

“You should look for another passage out,” Illya suggests. “Many mines have more than one entrance.”

The look that Napoleon gives him is extremely dubious. “And what about you?” “I will only slow you down.” He can still walk on his ankle, painful though it may be, but clambering over rubble is probably pushing it. “Besides, one of us should stay close to the surface, in case transmitters are working.”

“We only have the one lamp.”

This time, Illya can’t hold back a wry smirk. “I am not afraid of the dark, Cowboy.”

“I wasn’t saying you were,” Napoleon huffs. “Look, say I take the lamp, and it goes out while I’m somewhere deep in this mine, and it will, because you know it’s not going to last very long. Then I’m lost among who knows how many miles of tunnels—which, let’s face it, I probably already would be at this point—with no hope of finding my way anywhere, much less out of this place. And even if the lamp did hold out, and I did find another exit, I would never be able to find my way back to get you out.” “You would find me from the surface,” Illya argues, then adds with a shrug, “Or you would not.”

Napoleon frowns deeply, the expression all the more severe in the flickering light of the lamp between them. “Oh no you don’t. If you think I’m leaving you behind to die because of a fucking sprained ankle, you’re more insane than I thought. Either you come with me, or we both stay here.”

“Cowboy—”

“This is not up for discussion. Those are your options.”

Illya stares at him, and he stares back unflinchingly; this is one of those few, rare times, that Illya knows that he will break before Napoleon does. “Fine,” he grits out. “Maybe… maybe I could build amplifier for the transmitter, if you would find scrap wire and some metal.”

Just like that, Napoleon’s face softens and he smiles, as if their chance of survival is anything but vanishingly small. “That, I can do,” he says, getting to his feet. “Promise you’ll sit here and not try anything stupidly heroic.” “Like what?” Illya asks incredulously. “I don’t know, I’m sure you’d come up with something. Just promise me you won’t.” Illya hesitates a beat, but Napoleon seems to be entirely serious about securing his word. “I promise.”

It is only later, when Illya is hammering ancient wire into a paper-thin conductive plate under the dying lamplight, that he ventures the question that has been eating at him since their earlier conversation.

“Cowboy?” “Hmm?” Napoleon hums, glancing up from where he is watching Illya work, no doubt for lack of anything else to do.

“If this does not work, if no one finds us… we will both die here,” Illya points out. He doesn’t meet Napoleon’s eye, doesn't really trust himself to. If he concentrates on his work, he can pretend this is just a simple conversation. “I’m well aware of that, Peril,” Napoleon says, his tone utterly dry.

“And you are ok with this, knowing you might have gotten out without me?” There is no hesitation before Napoleon’s reply. “Yes.”

“Oh,” Illya breathes, because he can think of nothing else to say to that.

He will spend a lot of time thinking about that answer, even after his jury-rigged transmitter leads a search party to their position and they are pulled, filthy but alive, from the mine. Maybe it has nothing to do with Illya himself, and everything with Napoleon not wanting to die alone. In the end, Illya isn’t sure it matters.

*****

The worst part is thinking is that he could have done more. If the extraction team had arrived in time to save him, maybe they could have also saved Napoleon, if only Illya had done something else. If only he’d been better, maybe his partner would still be alive. He could find out more about what happened when the team found them, but he hasn’t been able to bring himself to ask. What does it matter? The outcome is the same no matter what.

Still, the thought bangs around in his head incessantly. Whenever he actually manages to fall asleep, he wakes not long afterward in a cold sweat, Napoleon’s name on his lips and the taste of ash and dust on his tongue. Sometimes, in his dreams, he is the one who is trapped, and Napoleon asks him why he should bother saving Illya, since Illya didn’t bother saving him? Sometimes he dreams that Napoleon is already dead when he finds him in the rubble. The most excruciating dreams, though, are the ones where Napoleon is alive, where Illya wakes up in a hospital room and Napoleon is next to him, because every time, without fail, he actually wakes from the dream and looks to his side and finds no one.

Three days go by, and even though he should be improving, his condition only worsens. It’s true, he wasn’t in great shape to begin with: besides his knee—which, despite three surgeries and a bunch of pins, is still really fucked up—he’d suffered severe smoke inhalation and moderate burns on covering the side of his torso and thigh. Even so, the doctors are perplexed by the instability of his blood oxygen levels at this point. They don’t know why he doesn’t seem to be healing, and it is quite clearly beginning to frustrate them.

Illya does not care if they are frustrated, and he frankly doesn’t care if he gets better. He is tired of being poked and prodded and rather wishes that they would all just leave him alone in his misery. That, however, is about as futile a wish as wishing that he could go back in time and stop them from ever entering that infernal building.

He’s just gotten through the usual battery of tests that they run each day when Gaby shows up clutching a brown paper bag of something he has to admit smells pretty good. The hospital food is, as usual, inedible, and she has taken to bringing take away from a Polish restaurant down the block in the hopes of lifting his spirits, or something like that. It’s not quite like home, but it’s pretty close, and he’d probably even enjoy it if he felt capable of enjoying anything right now.

Gaby kisses him on the cheek in greeting and distributes the food: pierogis and bowls of some kind of savory barley soup for both of them. The pungent smell of herbs and spices are enough to make his mouth water, even though he knows he’ll only be disappointed; everything he eats these days tastes flat, bland, and a little like ash. Still, he eats dutifully, for Gaby’s sake if nothing else.

“The doctors told me your condition is still declining,” she broaches after a long stretch of silence.

Illya shrugs. It is not news to him, and he knows it is not news to her.

“Illya, please,” Gaby pleads. She scoots her chair closer to his bedside and takes one of his hands in both of hers. “You can’t just sit here and waste away.”

“Who is wasting?” he retorts. “I eat. I do nothing but rest. What else would you have me do?”

“Fight!” she urges, squeezing his hand. “It’s like you’re— you’re just giving up, and I don’t understand why.”

Illya stares at her in disbelief. Surely, if anyone would understand, it would be Gaby. Even though it’s been quite a long time since they all partnered together in the field, they still remained close. After all these years, she must know what Napoleon meant to him, even if he’s never said it out loud. That she doesn’t—can’t—understand why he lacks the strength to carry on, as if nothing has changed, is unfathomable.

“You have to get better,” she pushes when he doesn’t offer any explanation.

“For what purpose, so you can send me to the field with new partner?”

“What? No, that’s not—”

“Of course,” Illya laughs bitterly, cutting her off. “I should have known. Always was too difficult to work with for anyone but— him. So it is to be solo missions, I suppose.” He hates the way his voice breaks, near the end; it is only a word, so what if it is also his name.

Gaby huffs and folds her arms over her chest, obviously frustrated. “You’re being absurd. Where are you getting all these crazy ideas? You know Napoleon—”

“Don’t,” he snaps. It is one thing to sit here and be told he just needs to get better, but he refuses to listen to the inevitable Napoleon wouldn’t want this. Napoleon is gone, and Illya cares about as much about Napoleon would or would not want as he did when he was holding his hand while he died.

In response, Gaby presses her lips together in a tight frown and stares at him long enough that he is forced to look away under her scrutiny. “You don’t want to talk to me about this? Fine. But you need to talk to someone.” She rises and walks to the door, then, pausing briefly on the threshold. “We care about you, Illya. We don’t want to lose you.”

It hits him, for perhaps the first time since he woke, how worn she looks. Her hair is never all that neatly done, but it’s even more messy than usual now, and dark shadows have fallen under eyes filled with unmistakable sadness. She lost Napoleon too, he reminds himself, and now she’s worried about him. He should try to get better for her, if nothing else, but he’s just not sure he’s strong enough. It feels insane, that his heart could be so bound to someone else, that going on without them seems impossible.

He looks away again, unwilling to make any promises despite how much he knows it hurts her. Yes, she would be sad to lose him, but she has a family now, and lots of other friends. She would be ok, he tells himself as he listens to her footsteps fade away.

Illya doesn’t really sleep that night, and it does nothing good for his condition. His breaths are shallow and labored, and they make him wear the oxygen mask all day, which he hates. He would take it off, but the alarms they’ve set make it impossible to get away with it, and he really doesn’t want to summon a thunderously angry Gaby to his room today.

He thinks he must still not be getting enough oxygen to his brain, despite the mask and alarms, because around mid-morning an apparition materializes in the doorway to his room. Or perhaps he’s dreaming; it would be a new variation, but there can be no other explanation for Napoleon appearing without warning, looking more than a little worse for the wear but very definitely alive.

The Napoleon-illusion leans heavily on his door frame, straightening up from where he shuffled in using a walker. He looks cautious, like he’s not sure what Illya will do, which is kind of odd. In his dreams Napoleon is always confident and sure, even in the ones where he’s in the hospital with Illya.

“They tell me there’s a very stubborn Russian in here refusing to listen to sense,” the illusion quips. That, at least, is more typical.

Illya’s eyes flick over to his blood oxygen meter, which reads relatively steady, and when he looks back Napoleon is frowning at him, his eyebrows knit together into a deep furrow. Finally, Illya pulls away the mask and grunts, “You’re not real.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are a dream. Or maybe just figment of my imagination,” he elaborates flatly. He waves the mask in the air. “Not enough oxygen.”

“If that’s the case, I’d appreciate if you could imagine me in less pain. Do you mind if I sit?” the Napoleon-illusion asks, gesturing to the chair next to the bed.

Illya nods slowly and watches with increasing uncertainty as Napoleon limps over with the help of the walker, then drops heavily into the chair. He tips his head back, breathing hard, like even this short journey was pushing it. It seems impossible that Illya’s mind would conjure this much detail, but an illusion is still more believable than the alternative, at this point.

“I gotta tell you, being crushed by a building? Not as fun as it sounds,” the illusion jokes, trying on a hesitant grin. “Though I hear I’m doing better than you.”

Great, now even imaginary people are giving him a hard time about his condition. Illya narrows his eyes suspiciously and wonders if he might actually be finally dying. Maybe this is just the last, desperate gasp of his brain to make sense of something before he goes.

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Peril!” Napoleon bursts out after a few minutes of silence. He drags an exasperated hand through his hair, dislodging curls that haven’t been wrangled into place by pomade in days. “Enough with the games.”

“I watched you die,” Illya argues.

“No, you didn’t. I mean, I’m not totally sure what happened, because I was kind of unconscious at the time, but obviously I didn’t die, because I’m here.” Napoleon’s frown deepens as he tilts his head, as if in confusion. “Is that what’s going on here? You thought I was dead?”

Illya no longer trusts himself to speak. This isn’t real. It can’t be. But it is hard to hold onto that certainty when Napoleon grabs his hand and squeezes.

“Illya, c’mon. You’re not imagining me. I’m really here, I promise,” he says softly, almost pleading.

Slowly, he draws Illya’s hand closer and lifts it to his face, pressing the tips of his fingers to his cheek. Several days of stubble bite into Illya’s skin, the coarse scratch of it a stark contrast to the warm, smooth skin underneath. Without really planning to, Illya pushes his hand forward, until he’s cupping Napoleon’s jaw with his palm and his fingers dig into the soft, short hairs at the nape of his neck. He feels so solid. So intensely real. Napoleon is looking up at him as he leans close to the bed, his ocean blue eyes shining with something that Illya can’t quite identify. Maybe… maybe he really is here, impossible as it seems.

“Napoleon,” Illya whispers, swiping his thumb across his cheek almost absently.

Napoleon’s hand is still curled loosely around Illya’s wrist, pressing against his pulse point just so, as if he needs reassurance that Illya is alive and not the other way around. He leans in to Illya’s touch, his gaze never wavering, and his voice matches the same hushed tones when he repeats, “I’m here.”

Illya doesn’t think, then; he leans down, closing the gap between them, and presses his lips to Napoleon’s. For a bare instant Napoleon is frozen in shock, but then he’s pushing into the kiss and reaching up to pull Illya closer, his fingers clutching at Illya’s hair. His lips part invitingly, and when Illya’s follow suit Napoleon wastes no time licking into his mouth and tugging at his lips in a way that makes Illya feel absurdly light-headed. No matter how many times he’d imagined this moment over the years—which wasn’t nearly as many times as he’d not allowed himself to imagine it—it had never come close to reality. Napoleon is here, and alive, and kissing him, and Illya is dizzy with the emotion of it all.

Or maybe that’s the lack of oxygen. The alarm on the blood oxygen monitor blares, loud and insistent, and the two men spring apart in surprise just as a nurse comes hurrying into the room. She frowns at the mask, laying discarded at Illya’s side, and tuts disapprovingly as he lifts it back to his face.

“What did I tell you about the mask?” she scolds. “Until your blood oxygen is stable, you have to wear it, no excuses.” Then, without waiting for him to respond, she turns her frown on Napoleon. “And you. What do you think you’re doing up?”

“Thought I’d stretch my legs?” Napoleon tries.

“Very funny. You shouldn’t be stretching anything. Don’t move, I will be back with a wheelchair.”

“Wait!” Illya blurts. The nurse stops mid-stride and turns back, her brow furrowed in confusion. A little sheepishly, he pulls the mask away again. “Could we— maybe put another bed in here? Or— or I could go to his room, if it is bigger?”

The nurse purses her lips as she looks between them, apparently trying to figure this out, and Illya really hopes he doesn’t have to explain that having Napoleon near him is the only way he’s going to get any sleep any time soon. Instead he tries to give her his best pleading look, which he has been reliably informed—by Napoleon and Gaby, who else—is difficult to resist. Finally she sighs. “These are meant to be single rooms, but, well, I’ll see what I can do. Anything to keep the two of you out of trouble,” she adds, under her breath, as she leaves the room.

It is only after she’s gone that he realizes that Napoleon is still holding onto his hand. He feels his face heat with embarrassment at the thought of the nurse’s evaluating gaze, but he doesn’t pull away. Can’t quite bear the thought of it, really. His hand tightens around Napoleon’s, feeling like that link of contact is the only thing that’s keeping him grounded right now.

After a little while, Napoleon quietly asks, “You really thought I was dead?”

“No one told me you weren’t!” Illya protests.

“Maybe because whenever they tried to bring me up you freaked out and wouldn’t let them say anything.”

Illya huffs, offended. “I did not.”

“That’s not what Gaby told me,” Napoleon counters. He hesitates a moment, before adding, “I thought maybe I’d done something to upset you and couldn’t remember it.”

“Like what?”

“Like finally kissing you, before we both bought it,” Napoleon says, a little wry.

Illya blinks at him. “Oh,” he breathes, the word muffled into the mask.

Dropping his gaze to their hands, Napoleon takes a moment to carefully rearrange them, interlocking their fingers together. “I can’t imagine what I would have done, if I’d thought you were— well. You know,” he admits eventually, his voice sounding thick toward the end. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to you sooner, Peril.”

“You could not leave your bed,” Illya points out.

“Since when has that ever stopped me before?” Napoleon asks with a tiny smirk playing on his lips.

Illya wants badly to kiss them again, to feel Napoleon’s breath mingle with his, to hold him close and never let go. There are myriad reasons, of course, why that is not possible, not in the least the stupid oxygen mask he’s currently holding to his face, but now there is hope. The promise of something more sizzles under his skin and would probably leave him breathless even if his breathing wasn’t already labored. Instead, he settles for squeezing Napoleon’s hand and hoping it conveys even a fraction of what he’s feeling.

“Just… do not go dying on me again,” he mutters past the mask.

“Not planning on it,” Napoleon says. A grin flashes across his face, fading quickly into a pensive expression that Illya’s not entirely sure he likes. “I, uh,” he starts and stops, then takes a short, steadying breath. “Probably won’t be back in the field for a while. Or ever, maybe,” he admits. “This one really did a number on my kidneys, apparently. I’ll be fine as long as nothing else happens to stress them, but Waverly’s not keen on taking the risk. Says they have plenty for me to do back at HQ.” He huffs, short and humorless. “Can you imagine me, with a desk job?” “Not really, Cowboy,” Illya says, surprised at the steadiness of his own voice.

“But I thought, it might not be so bad, if I had my partner with me,” Napoleon ventures cautiously. “Assuming, that is, he and his bum knee are planning on sticking around.”

Illya automatically looks down at his own knee, the braces and bandages obvious under the thin hospital blankets, and thinks back to everything he’s been told about it over the last few days. He’d barely paid attention at the time, not much caring under the circumstances, but now he realizes that his assumption that he’d be sent back out as soon as he was able was deeply flawed. It will be months before he can walk without assistance, and even then, his knee will never be the same. It would be frankly stupid to send an agent with such a liability into the field, and Waverly is anything but stupid.

Apparently, Napoleon had been informed of this development, and had… what? Thought Illya might leave UNCLE, if he was to be permanently benched?

“What else would I do?” Illya asks, without really thinking about how it sounds.

A startled laugh escapes Napoleon, and he arcs an eyebrow at Illya. “Oh, well, as long as you have no better options, then.”

“You know that is not what I meant,” Illya growls.

“Do I? Because I distinctly remember you saying—”

Whatever inane claim he’s about to make, he doesn’t get to, because Illya drags him into another kiss that quite effectively shuts him up. It’s a fiercer press than the first, but he feels Napoleon smiling into it anyway, like this was his plan all along.

“You are the one who could easily leave,” Illya huffs breathlessly after he breaks away, their noses brushing and their lips still only centimeters apart. “Your sentence was commuted years ago.” Then he untangles his hand from Napoleon’s robe and slumps back against his pillows, retrieving the oxygen mask and taking a long, deep breath before the monitor’s alarm can go off again.

“Yeah, and why do you think I stuck around?” Napoleon challenges, his expression flashing defiance before slipping into something devastatingly unguarded. “I could never leave you, Peril.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Cowboy.”

The corner of Napoleon’s mouth quirks up, which is all the confirmation that Illya needs that he still recognizes his own words. “So I’m safe to make it, then. Just you wait, you’re gonna be sick of me.”

You’re impossible, is what Illya means to say, but the only thing that actually makes it past his lips is a soft “impossible,” which is too honest by half. It’s ok, though, because Illya can’t regret the way the answer makes Napoleon’s eyes light up, nor how that sight makes him feel, for the first time in days, like he’s going to be ok.

*****

Meanwhile, in Napoleon's room sometime during the last segment:

Gaby: What did you do? Every time we try to say something about you he freaks out. Napoleon: I didn’t do anything! I don’t know what his problem is! Gaby: He just seems so miserable and I don’t understand why. He says he wants to be left alone but he keeps on muttering something about the room being too empty when he thinks I’m not listening. Napoleon: Really, you’d think he’d be happier under the circumstances. He’s the one who always complains that I snore whenever we have to share a hospital room. Which, by the way, I don’t. Gaby: Yes you do.

Did I just tack on some jokes to a fic about death? Yes, yes I did. LOL, what can I say? Coping mechanisms, or something. In any case, I hope you enjoyed this fic, and I'd love to hear from you! Your comments mean the world to me and are the fuel that keeps me writing. Thank you so much for reading!

[bi-the-wei]

Untamed Spring Fest

Day 15 - Growth

While listening to the story of Wei Ying burying A-Yuan in the dirt with the promise that it would sprout more of him, Lan Zhan lets his own mind wander.

Aaah the possibilities

[insomniamamma]

Greenhorn: young!Ezra x F!reader

A/N: This was inspired by @opheliaelysia and our conversation about how Ez wouldn't be able to resist squishing an aurelac pod, but it ended up turning into something more. ALSO, though reader and OCs refer to Ezra as "the kid" I am picturing an early 20s Ezra. None of these people are minors.

Warnings: Language. Canon typical violence. Death. Slight gore. Angst. Hurt/comfort. A lil bit of fluff. Implied may-december romance. No beta.

___________________________________________________________________

This is a bad idea, you think, as your drop-ship hits atmo, small squarish windows limned in fire, deep vibration that thrums up through your spine, the ship trying not to tear itself apart, and the kid is still talking. No one can hear him above the vibrations and the scream of superheated molecules shredding themselves apart against the heat shield. Del sings out

"We're at max pressure--" "Copy--" "There was this one time--" "No one gives a fuck, Greenhorn---" "All of you shut the fuck up--" "We're through," says Del, "Drogue deploy in 15--' 'There was a whole fuckin nest of em--" "Oi! Shut it!" "3-2-1, deploying drogues." Del punches the button at his right hand and the drogue 'chutes fire out and the drop-ship does a sick lurch, its pace slowing from suicidal to absurdly dangerous. You've got the ability to soft-land, but so long as Del lines it up right you won't have to, the bog should cradle you. Fuel saved on the way down makes the lift safer. "Deploying mains," you say, and flip the toggle, a loud thump and another jolt as the main chutes deploy, sprouting out from the top of your lander, like the days of Apollo on Old Terra. And still the fucking kid is yapping. In writing the kid seemed half-decent, a big, raw boned boy with a rakish, dimpled smile. Had his own suit and kit and filters. Was polite enough when you asked questions of him, all yes Ma'am and no Ma'am, and three bags full Ma'am. Never would have considered his green ass if Marko hadn't bailed, or, more precisely, if Marko hadn't gotten himself in trouble with the locals and run with his  tail between his legs, well, so now you had the kid, who could not for the life of him seem to shut up for two seconds. At first you thought it was just nerves, but he's been yammering away since you requested release. An uninterrupted, stream of consciousness narration. You are wondering if he is, indeed, brain damaged somehow.

"The thing about channel rats--" "For the love of Kevva no one gives a sweet jewel encrusted crap--" "Ezra! For the love of all that's holy, if you do not shut up I will shoot you in the face," you snap. "Clear?" He gives you a little wounded look. "Clear," says Ezra. And, for a brief, miraculous moment, there is silence. The drop ship lands, lurches in the boggy ground and is still. "How we lookin, Del?" "Nav dropped us right on the button," says Del, "We look great." The tight quarters fill with the sound of bodies unstrapping from the crash-couches. "Alright people. Let's suit up. Sooner we get our pull, sooner we get back up to connection orbit." You walk through the Green in loose formation. Del put you down not 3 clicks from the dig site, but the Green is tricksy and, lately, full of dangerous people. Del and Big Pete have rails. You and the kid have your throwers strapped to your hips. Del takes point, you and Big Pete hang back a hair. The kid is supposed to be bringing up the rear, but a look over your shoulder shows him entirely transfixed. This is probably his first time off whatever backwater sprung him, all shiny and new and dropped into the Bakhroma Green, his big brown eyes all agog, trying to look everywhere at once. And you feel this keenly, a spike in your chest that recalls your first time dirtside, the great, broad blue arc of the sky was enough to fuck you up, after only knowing smoothly curving station walls and blunted angles. You recall your wonder, setting foot on this lush and deadly ground, never had you seen so much life, never seen life that wasn't controlled and carefully cultivated. The Green is a truly wild place that obeys no rules but its own. "Is it all like this?" he asks, "So verdantly forested?" "Yep," says Del, "Once in a while you get a soft-spot like we landed in, but most of it's trees and roots." You slog along. The site is close, but it's already warm. And by the time you get there, the kid is mostly silent and that is truly a blessing, likely the effect of slowly poaching in his suit, not accustomed to the heat like you and the rest of the crew. "Should be getting close," says Del, brow furrowed, peering at a battered topographical map, a red x inside a red circle. You stop a beat and peer through the patterns of shadow and trees, the haze of winkling purple dust. "There," you say, hand reaching out to point without even thinking about it, a patch of dark, slightly sunken earth, devoid of brush. Plants don't like to grow over aurelac nests. You don't know why and it doesn't matter. "Right. We set up here. Trade me the rails, Del, you get to play teacher. Listen up, Ezra, Del is one of the best harvester's you'll meet. You listen to him, clear? You do what he says and nothing else." "Clear," says Ezra, grinning all big through his fishbowl helm. "Um...boss?" Says Big Pete, "Why we bothering with this boy?" "What if Marko can't get himself out of the shit this time, huh? We'll need another set of hands...we'll--" "PUT THAT DOWN!" Del's voice squeals loud and offended over the comms, "The fuck are you doin?" And before you can even think, you and Big Pete are running for the dig and would you look at that, there's the kid, gloves pulled out of their ring-seals and piled on the mossy ground beside him. He's got an aurelac node husk cupped in his bare hands, not even safely cut yet, it's umbilicus disappearing into the black dirt. "EZRA! WERE YOU BORN THIS STUPID OR DID IT TAKE YEARS OF RIGOROUS PRACTICE?" And, look at him, the kid smirks at you through his fishbowl helmet. "Sorry, Ma'am, " he says, "It seemed uncannily squishy. I just had to find out for myself--" You close the distance between you and grab his wrist, hard enough so that his idiot smile fades and you actually see some fear prick in those big brown eyes. Fear is good in the Green. Fear is your friend. Unlikely this kid has ever had cause to be afraid, but, by Kevva, you're going to give him some cause. You pull your knife from your belt and press the business end into Ezra's palm, right between the heart and head lines, just enough to dimple but not enough to break skin. He tries to jerk away, but you know how you hold him, grind those wrist bones together like marbles in a sock. "Ezra," your voice is soft, yelling does no good, this kid's probably been yelled at for most of his formative years, and it's obviously made no impression. "You see all this purple shit floating through the air? Pretty, isn't? Looks like fairy dust--" "Ma'am--" he tries to pull free. "Shut it, fool," you push the knife tip just a hair harder, feel him flinch, flinching is good, might save his idiot hide someday. "I break your skin, I give your the faintest kitten scratch of a wound and the spores will get in there and fest black. These spores will eat you from the bones out. You rot from the inside, clear?" "Clear." You let go and he scrabbles his gloves back on. "Fuckin hell," says Del. Big Pete just shakes his head.

Thank Kevva for small favors, the kid is a quick study. Those big hands are surprisingly clever, and even Del is impressed by his ability. The idea licks around your mind that maybe it's time to cut Marko loose for good, Ezra has plenty of raw talent even if he can't shut up. Your time in the Green is almost done, a half cycle to button up the dig, break camp and lift. You've given Del back the rail-gun, traded for harvesting. The thrill of splitting open those strange membranes has never gown old for you, the finicky work of dissecting the carom blisters away from the inner sac, the fizz of the fazer and then your prize revealed, in this moment your mind is fully on the pull, you don't notice anything off until you feel something thump into the back of your helmet, and hear the whine of a primed thrower. A voice crackles ever the common channel. "Drop your weapons boys, or this stupid cow gets one right through the brain pan." Big Pete already has his hands in the air, Petey always was a softy, Del still has his rails, looking at your face for a sign and you shake your head. Take the shot, you think, you try to think it AT him, but you see the rail-gun slide out of his hands. God Damnit.  You would have expected them to act selfishly. You always expected you'd die out here and the business end of some thrower. And, of course, the kid is nowhere to be seen. Probably wandered behind a tree to take a leak or already caught a blast to the skull. "Right then," Your assailant says, he's got your air-hose doubled over in his free hand, "You open up that case so I can--" The thrower discharges and you pitch forward, there is no pain, just pressure,  and suddenly you can breathe easier. You heave against the dead weight on your back, scrabble back down into the slick of dead leaves and needles and then the pressure is gone and you sit up. The dying man crawfishes over the loam, peering out of his helm with wide eyes and blood spattered lips, eyes that plead until they are obliterated. Ezra stands with his thrower smoking, his face pulled up into a rictus of fear and rage. "Del. Petey. Circle back. Comm channel zero. Anything flinches you take it out. Clear?" Big Pete :"Clear" Del: "Clear" "Ezra. Get his filter," "huh?" "Did I stutter? You get his filter and any other kit that's any good." You stand, but your legs want to betray you. You take a couple shambling steps and plant yourself on a fallen tree, watching the kid strip the corpse, peels the filters and o rings and hose like he's done it a million times. Your breath comes hard and ragged. Nausea grips you. All your time in the Green and you never get over that feeling of almost dying, the taste of it on your tongue like hot smoke, and here's the kid gripping your shoulder, helping you up. "We going back to camp?" "Yeah," you say, "Thrower out. There might be more of them."                                                                                                                                                                                         "I didn't want to--" You know where this is going. You remember hearing the same arguments spill out of yourself the first time you had to use a thrower, "I mean, he woulda--" You stop so you can look at him through the foggy business of his helmet. "You did right." You say, "he meant to take our whole pull." Ezra nods, but his eyes are still white-rimmed and shocked. You reach for him and give his arm a little shake. "Let's go. Eyes peeled, clear?" "Clear."

You keep expecting that shaky, nauseated feeling to dissipate on the walk back to camp but it does not. The suit seems suffocating, and you practically bolt for the tent, in and fumbling with your suit before Ezra can even turn on the scrubbers. You reach to doff your helmet, something you've done daily for years, but your hands shake and you fumble the catches, two attempts and you feel like you're drowning in your own exhalations, you need this fishbowl off your head right now, but your hands won't stop shaking. "Here," Ezra pushes your hands away and does the catches himself, lifting the helmet away from your face. His own fishbowl's gone, his sweaty hair sticking up in crazy quills, that little blond streak screaming up from his scalp like an exclamation point, and before you can properly process what's happening, Ezra pulls you into a hug, his arms wrapped tight around your shoulders. Your hands, which, by all means, should be shoving him the fuck off of you, turn traitor and creep around his middle. You're still shaking, but you feel him shaking too, the two of you vibrating with spent adrenaline like plucked guitar strings. His warm palm grips the back of your neck and nestles your head into the space between his neck and shoulder. You let out a watery breath. "Fuck. I'm getting to old for this shit." Ezra makes a dismissive sound. His fingers dig at your nape, pressing into the tight, cabled muscles there. You let yourself lean against him, lean into his warmth. You can't remember a time you've been this close to someone without expecting a backstab. Ezra murmurs. It's okay, we're safe, I've got you, we're safe, reassuring himself as much as you. "Ezra?" "Yes, Ma'am?" "Don't make this your life," You lift your head and look up at him, his brows are furrowed. "I'm afraid I don't understand."  You poke his belly. "Get yourself maybe three solid pulls and then you get the fuck out of here," you say, peering into those big, dark eyes, "Get out and don't come back." "Ma'am?" "The Green changes people," you say, "And generally not for the better." He gives you a hard squeeze that you return and then he releases you, but only partially, one arm still slung over your shoulder. "You know," he says, "I have among my personal effects a bottle of Kanvian fire-water. Once we lift we could find a quiet place on yon freighter and share it." "Kanvian, eh?" You turn up your arm to look at your chronometer. "We boost in, what, a third of a cycle? Manage not to do anything catastrophically stupid between now and then and I'll consider it." His lips pull into a smirk, his dark eyes glittering, crinkling at the corners. He raises his hand to his head in a mock salute. "Yes, Ma'am." "Del and Big Pete should be done with their sweep soon. Start system checks on the ship, then help break camp." "Yes, Ma'am." He scoops up his discarded helmet under one arm and heads for the entrance. "Oh, and, Ezra?" "Yeah?" "You say anything about..." You gesture vaguely, "Whatever this was that just happened--" "Not to worry, fair maiden," he says, grinning, "No word of our tryst shall pass my lips, because I know that the second I let things slip you will undoubtedly shoot me in the face." "The fuck outta here, smooth talker," you laugh. Ezra jams the fishbowl back on his head and steps out into the sticky heat of The Green, zipping the tent behind him. He's a fool, you think as you set about grading and stowing the day's pull, he's a fool and likely to get himself killed. You just hope you're not the one who has to see it.

[gayenerd]

The Band You Love To Hate By Tom Lanham of RIP  (There’s no date on this but I would say 1995 or 1996?)

Eyes wide as a barn owl's. Spines stiff with anticipation, like a hungry scorpion. The two teenage girls sit stock-still in their booth at a posh Berkeley diner, practically bursting with excitement, but without the faintest clue how to handles it. Clueless, you might call them. A few feet across the linoleum aisle--with his back to them, oblivious to all the oh-my-gawd facial expressions--sits the object of their adulation, dressed in unassuming black jeans, black T-shirt, shredded black Converse, and a beat-up black baseball jacket. But even with his once-green dreadlocks tamed to a short black business cut, Billie Joe Armstrong--yes, the snaggle-toothed MTV ragamuffin from megaplatinum neo-punkers, Green Day--is as easy to spot as Michael Bolton at a Rogaine convention. Although the kids want to leap up from their seats and race over for an autograph or a jittery hello, they don't dare. Instead, they're forced to deal with their seething emotions as if they were eating post-tonsillectomy ice cream: a lot of numb gulping and a quick pain chaser. This is the blessing of being Billie Joe Armstrong. Alas, it's also his curse. By the time you read this, the irascible little rocker will have turned 24. And exactly two years ago, he and his wacky bandmates--drummer Tré Cool and bassist Mike Dirnt--lolled around the trashy basement flat they shared, getting stoned and sneering at the idea that Dookie--their just-released "sellout" on big-time Reprise--would ever amount to more than a nice drink coaster. Fame? They were more preoccupied with their bong collection, stacks of rock 'n' roll bubblegum cards, and a thriving sea monkey tank displayed prominently on a window-sill. Most of their furniture had springs poking through--they didn't care. Armstrong regularly picked boogers from his gold-ringed nostril and then flick them onto the scary shag carpet--what did he have to worry about? Too bad he couldn't have foreseen the all-too-near future. Green Day happened to be in the right place at the right time. The three-chord slam-a-rama Dookie--a pop-edged return to decade-old punk ethics--became the surprise hit of '94, going on to sell over 11 million copies. Armstrong, accustomed to frenetic club performances, began translating the group's infectious energy to larger and larger venues. Demand continued to grow at a staggering pace; Green Day fought back. They turned a satellite MTV Video Awards performance into a "spit-cam" fest by urging the crowd to gob any camera lens it could ("[The cameramen] tried to make it look like it was cool, but it wasn't"). Last October, Armstrong and company issued their 32-minute follow up, Insomniac, almost as an afterthought, with little promotion, a visually offensive video (for "Geek Stink Breath") and--at least initially--a strict no-interview policy. Simultaneously, they ditched their high-powered Cahn-Man management team and are now virtually managing themselves. Along the way, Armstrong married his long-time sweetheart Adrienne and last March fathered a son, Joey. In typical down-to-earth fashion, the couple spent their honeymoon a few blocks from home at Berkeley's prestigious Claremont Hotel, not on some exotic island. Beginning to see the problem here? How does a street-smart kid from humble beginnings skyrocket to world-class notoriety and yet--with his music in millions of homes and his privacy suddenly a right that needs defending--still adhere to the simple ideals, the simple lifestyle that spawned him? Is "successful punk" an oxymoron? Insomniac provided few clues--it was more of the same slacker-ennui sentiment, more defeated, disenfranchised grousing set to speedy, memorable hooks. Or, as Armstrong barks in the aptly-dubbed "Walking Contradiction," "My wallet's fat and so is my head...I'm a victim of a Catch-22." And that, in essence, was the topic this tortured artist wanted to discuss at the diner. The old "be careful what you wish for" adage. The classic "problem with success is finding someone to enjoy it with you" truism. Armstrong, who takes occasional sips from a vanilla milkshake, but mostly stares morosely at the floor, seems to be dealing with superstardom in a relatively normal way. Don't be fooled by the steady stream of negative vitriol that follows; he's analyzing it, breaking it down, figuring out ways to disconnect his kinetic career. Or at least turn down the volume for awhile. 

RIP: We know what's going right. But what's going wrong? 

BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG: Lots of things, really. Actually, when I came here today, I said I didn't wanna talk about anything good, because I don't really have anything good to talk about. Goin' on tour pretty soon--don't really wanna go. Just because I've been kinda torn. I wanna stick around at home. I don't like playing arenas, and I realized I didn't know what I was getting myself into on the last tour, but I went into it being positive and getting excited about it. But I didn't realize that I was the kind of person to whom it's too much of an event and not really a personal thing anymore. And I started to realize how much I liked being the background music to this scene at the club. And now it's.... I dunno. People expect so much. It's cool and stuff, and it can be a lot of fun, a really good experience. But when you play that many arenas.... The first time we ever played those big kinds of shows at the Shoreline (Amphitheater in Mountain View, California), there was weirdness--we were playing for a lot of f?!kin' people. And I hate to say it, but sometimes it just feels like another gig. We played every day, 50 gigs this last leg, and it just wears on ya. There's all these people, and they think "Alright. I paid my $15--you better impress the f?!kin' shit outta me right now!" And I realized that for Joey, the rock and roll touring life is not a good atmosphere for a kid. I tried to make it to where it would be, bringing lots of his toys out. But there are no familiar surroundings for him. And he likes all the attention--people come up and say hello to him every day, people who are on tour with us. But he doesn't have his own room or a home to go to every day. So, no more touring for Joey. 

RIP: Turned on Regis and Kathie Lee this morning to find their gossip columnist dishing dirt on Green Day. How Insomniac didn't do nearly as well as predicted, how it was a disappointment to the label. A failure, supposedly. 

BJA: Well, it's like, we didn't set up this record. We didn't. We didn't do any promotion beforehand, we completely quit doing interviews, and basically we just wanted to go on into it. We weren't even sure if we wanted to do a video. And then when we did a video, it got yanked from daytime rotation because people were getting grossed-out by it. So I think we did alienate a lot of people. So that was expected, that it wasn't going to sell a lot of records. 

RIP: NOFX have taken it one step further. They refuse to talk to press, make videos, pander potential singles to radio. They don't want to get any bigger. 

BJA: I dunno, maybe I'm just getting jaded or something. But I just got cable again and I can't stand anything. Six years ago you could hear something that was different and know that it was different. So it'd be "alternative" or whatever. But now it's like you get this Joan...Osborne? With the ring in her nose, waving the alternative rock flag, when she's just...not, ya know? And I'm thinking, I hate all this music that's coming out now--the past year was just hell for music. But people are buying it, so then I'm thinking, Maybe they're the ones that are good and I'm the one who sucks? I just don't know if I really wanna be involved in the rock world anymore at all. Period. I don't necessarily have anything against a big record company or people who what to join up with a big record company. It really is right for some people, but more and more, I don't think that I'm really meant to. And I hate to sound like that, because I don't like taking things for granted. I don't like to talk about my problems when there's some kid struggling in his garage somewhere saying "F?!k him! He's just taking it for granted. Shit, I wish I could do something like that, but I'm just stuck here in Biloxi, Mississippi, and I can't even get a gig." I'm so confused right now. 

RIP: It must be odd to know that, with all those millions of albums sold, drunken frat boys are probably staggering around to your music right now. Your audience grew far beyond your control. 

BJA: Oh, totally! We became what we hated. Which is, the people I despised in high school--and now--are buying our records. We initially became a trend, so there was no way I expected to sell as many records with Insomniac as with Dookie. That's one of the biggest-selling records of the decade. We get slagged by the punk rockers, and it's like, I don't blame them. If you draw that much attention to yourself, that's what you're gonna get--attention--and it's not personal anymore. 

RIP: Ever think about giving it all up? 

BJA: There isn't a day goes by in the past year and a half that I haven't thought about quitting. I went to this party on New Year's Eve, and this band Juke, and another band, the Tantrums, played in a friend of mine's backyard. And a lot of my old friends showed up, and everybody was just dancing. And I was dancing, and getting really muddy, and I was having a great time. I can't remember the last time I sat down and listened to a record from beginning to end and felt this incredible spine-chilling music. And it's because I haven't been able to go out and watch bands play at my free will. I'm not gonna live in a closet, I'm not gonna vegetate myself. 

RIP: But it has to be difficult, when tons of kids know your face. You're on your way to Michael Jackson-dom, where you have to wear a disguise in public. 

BJA: If you think about the Beatles, at that time all people had to go by were the photographs on the records and every now and then a television appearance. So when they'd come to town, people would just flip out--it became this huge public event every single time. Whereas now, everything is so saturated kids don't even have to leave their home to go to a show anymore. They can sit in the comfort of their living room, and your favorite rock star is gonna be entertaining you while you sit down and have your microwave burrito. 

RIP: The Milwaukee cops weren't pleased with aspects of Green Day's Milwaukee show last November. Why were you arrested? 

BJA: I dropped the pick and--actually, I even forgot about it--I just mooned the crowd, which is pretty harmless compared to what I've done before. And I wasn't even thinking about it--I just went out and started playing again. Then I went backstage and was hanging out with Adrienne, and this guy Jimmy who does security for us goes "Come on--there's a car waiting for you outside right now. You've gotta get out of here!" I said "What's wrong?" and he said he didn't even know. So we get in the car and all of a sudden about ten cops come walking over, fully surrounding the car. So the guy puts the cuffs on me, throws me in the car, and I get tossed in the holding tank for two, three hours. I wasn't in the bullpen--I was in with the other ones, the not-so-bad ones. They made me take all my jewelry out. And my shoestrings, so I wouldn't hang myself or something. I dunno. I just don't know how to fit into rock music anymore. I don't know what I like about it anymore. I don't like anything about it anymore, to tell you the truth. To tell you the real truth, I'm a pretty miserable person right now. I'm totally depressed, and my wife can vouch for that because she's around me. In fact, she's the only person who's really around me. I dunno, the whole thing with the mainstreaming of punk rock. I just feel lost in the whole thing...I don't really know...I don't wanna...I dunno...It's miserable, it really is. It's f?!ked up. 

RIP: For every original voice that comes along, there will be countless mad signing dashes for any and all sound-alike artists, with no thought given to the artist's longevity. Just throw the record out quickly and hope it sticks. 

BJA: The thing is, a lot of musicians have gotten so comfortable with this big so-called "Revolution in Rock Music" over the past decade. First it was like, "F?!k the corporations! F?!k the corporations!" And then people just sorta got cozy with that, and forgot that these bands are getting lost in the shuffle. And I'm talking about the ones that never get noticed at all and just get kinda bitter. The 15 minutes of fame is getting shorter and shorter. And now music is totally going backwards--the first half of this decade, there were a few things going on that were interesting. It wasn't my favorite kind of music, but it had a sensibility about it. If you think about Nirvana and Pearl Jam and that whole Seattle scene, and even the Offspring--there was this thing going on that was more honest, in a lot of ways. It wasn't like, beer, drugs and pussy, like what went on through the '80s with all the hair bands. But now what we've got is Hootie & the Blowfish.... 

RIP: Who are probably a lot like you. They seem like nice, regular guys who--through no real fault of their own--are suddenly assimilated into pop culture. 

BJA: Yeah, but that's the problem, is that they are nice regular guys. And they're totally comfortable with that, and they sort of put that out, to where they don't really have...I dunno, there's a certain amount of attitude that, say, someone like Cobain or Vedder has that they don't have. But it's becoming way not...real anymore or something. Maybe not real to me. It's just turning back into what it was in the '80s. It's like, "Hey, everyone! We're Huey Lewis and the News!" I dunno. Maybe nobody knows what the f?!k I'm talking about anymore. 

BJA: I get so irritated by people. I think I'm more bitter than I've ever been in my whole life, to tell you the honest truth. I think Insomniac is much more of a bitter record than Dookie. And I think the older people get, the more they kinda get angry. I think a lot of people feel like they get cheated by lief somehow--no-one is ever completely satisfied. There's maybe a few. But I mean, I'm in a place where I don't really wanna be. It's like, sometimes I feel like we're losing our passion for playing music. And that's the f?!ked-up thing, when you lose passion for what you love, then it's like, Is this marriage headed for divorce or what? 

RIP: Theoretically, you can fight back a couple of ways. Like Cobain, you could make a record almost calculated to offend all the bandwagon-jumpers. Or take as much time off as you'd like. Who says you can't go live on a desert island for two years? 

BJA: That'd be nice. I'm just not enjoying life right now. I'm really not. I'm so cluttered, I can't even speak. Yeah, I do feel like I'm getting old, and I'm kinda bitter about that. I'm not excited about being onstage anymore, and I was really trying to convince myself that I was. Really. Before we did this last U.S. tour, every time I did an interview--I don't know if you read the last Rolling Stone piece--I was like "Yeah! I'm excited! I wanna play these arenas!" and stuff. And then just every night, it started sucking, it felt like a routine or something. It felt almost choreographed in a lot of ways. And I was yelling "f?!k you!" to people, but I didn't know who I was yelling "f?!k you" to anymore. 

RIP: Last time we spoke, you said you went out of your way to change every single show, make each one different. 

BJA: Well, I think it's just the stress of getting up in front of all those people all the time, every day. It's like, "Do I really feel like downing another f?!cking pot of coffee and a bottle of wine before I walk onstage to do this again? Just to get myself ready to go?" You know, for all those people. And every night I always do something different and stupid. But at the same time, it'd be really cool to just say "F?!k you!" to people and like, walk off. And then they'd get it. It's like, "I'm really telling you to f?!k off this time! Time to pack up and go home." It'd just be so nice to start from scratch again. 

RIP: In many ways you can. That's the music-making system trying to program your behavior. And obviously you've broken quite a few rules already--you don't even have to be talking to me right now, actually.... 

BJA: Oh no. I really wanted to do this interview, just because the last interviews that I've done, I've been miserable, and I was pretending not to be. I really was, I was lying. Not to the reader, not to the person I was doing the interview. But I was lying to myself, convincing myself that I was really happy with how everything is going. 

RIP: So you always knew what you wanted, and now you've got it, in spades. You're having trouble figuring out what's next? 

BJA: I didn't even know what I wanted back then. I really didn't. I didn't know if I wanted to be huge, totally successful. I never knew that. I was struggling so hard even to sign that f?!king contract--when I was sitting there, I was contemplating, "Should I just run outta here right now? Am I making the biggest mistake of my life?" A lot of people say, "You're totally disillusioned with what money can do for people," but money never meant shit to me. There's something very passionate to me, very romantic, about living on the street in a lot of ways. Just because I really like my lifestyle back then. I was totally content, in retrospect. A lot of it has to do with the fame. I dunno, I'm trying to talk right now and just totally stuttering. 

RIP: It's not like you chose music--it chose you, and you can't help it. 

BJA: Yeah, it's cool when people really get it. But what a lot of people don't understand is that we're a band that's been around a lot longer than people know. And that's the thing. The difference between this and what happened between Kerplunk and Dookie--in a year, I got married, I had a kid, and I sold 11 million records worldwide. That can do something to ya, ya know? 

BJA: Sometimes I think it'd be cool to just hang out with my friends, drink beer, smoke cigarettes. The more I think about it, the more I'd be really happy with that. I don't think that we're feeling quite like a band anymore--that's one problem we have. There was this certain rock 'n' roll underdog think that we always had--we always drove for something, always drove from town to town in a small van. And you know, I f?!kin' like touring like that--it's like culture shock, really, driving around in a van, setting up my amp when I get there, and playing. That's rock 'n' roll, that's what it started out as. A bunch of sweaty pigs in some tiny f?!kin' bar having a hootenanny, that's what punk rock was to me, that's what drove me to it. I love rock music in its simples, rawest form. And I think we're the only band, really, that plays rock 'n' roll. 

RIP: Has all this put a strain on your old friendships? Do your pals treat you a little differently now? 

BJA: When I come up to friends I haven't talked to in a while, there's a weirdness. And the ones who are really close to me don't really bring up anything, but that thing is still there; it's still in the air. And sometimes I'll just not say anything the whole time we're hanging out. I'll be totally quiet, because the only thing I'll have to talk about is my band, and I get so sick of talking about my band and myself. So I'll just be quiet, since that's the only thing there is to me, except for my son and my wife. 

RIP: Pretty soon, you'll be boring everyone with slide shows--"There we are at Yosemite!" 

BJA: Ha! Adrienne was telling me the other day, "When you were in there dancing with all your friends, while the band was playing, you were so happy because you were so in your element." And I've even gone as far as saying we're not a punk band anymore. But no matter what, that's still gonna stick with me forever, because I love the music, I love the energy of a new band coming out that creates this sense of urgency about 'em. I'll never be able to kick that habit. I love hangin' out with my friends who have small fanzines--kids just writing their guts out about whatever the hell's bothering 'em, and putting it on a Xerox machine and then handing it out for a quarter apiece at shows or at a party. All I wanna do is just try and work it out. I was sitting there the other day, counting all the records that the Replacements put out, stuff like that, Dan thinking how [Paul] Westerberg totally came across to his audience and did everything, everything that the wanted to do in music. He wasn't extremely successful for it, but the guy has influenced people, and a lot of 'em don't even know that they are influenced by him. All I wanna do is just write good songs and stick to it. I wanna develop--not being experimental--but go into different styles, go across my boundaries of the two-and-a-half minute punk song with a three-and-a-half minute jazz song, or maybe get into a little bit of swing or rockabilly. 

RIP: With such staggering success, you could walk into Reprise and tell 'em you're doing an album of saxophone solos and they'd allow you that creative luxury. 

BJA: Well, I never wanna be that experimental. I don't wanna get into synthesizers and shit like that. The thing that was cool for me with Insomniac was that I think we definitely set a foundation for ourselves, because we put out our hardest record to date, totally in-your-face all the way through, and now we're able to go anywhere we want. We can do that now--we do have that going for us. That is, if people are still interested. Which is kinda weird for me to say.... 

RIP: Your craft will always remain the most important thing of all, even if you're just writing for your own amusement. 

BJA: Yeah. No matter what, I'm gonna be writing songs for the rest of my life. I mean, I already have a shitload of new songs right now. But I just wanna do some other things with it. We've sold a million of Insomniac so far. But I definitely want to be respected as a musician. Well, more as a songwriter than as a musician. I wanna be f?!kin' normal, is what I wanna be. The thing is, I've seen so many freaks and so many weirdos and crazy punk rockers and drunks and junkies. But for a lot of those people being weird is easy. It's so easy to be strange--the hard thing is to try to be normal. There's no such thing as normal, ya know. 

RIP: How's your mom feel about all this? 

BJA: She's kinda worried about me. She doesn't know what to think of everything. We have a hard time communicating with each other, just because I don't like to talk about it that much. So she feels like she has to walk on eggshells around me all the time. 

RIP: You buy her anything cool once the money started rolling in? 

BJA: Nah--she doesn't want anything. I've asked her. She's been living in the same house for over 20 years, and she's content living there. But I did give her a trip--she went to Hawaii, her and her boyfriend. And I think travelling is really good--if you paid for someone to travel, so they can go and explore and see some things they've never seen before. But I think that's probably where I get it from. I get so content with not having much. And then you get all this stuff, all this attention, and you don't really know what to do with it. You don't know how to channel it. 

RIP: Most outrageous thing you've bought for yourself? 

BJA: I got my car primered! And one thing I did do was build a home studio. So I've been recording all my friends' bands for free. I produced this band called Dead and Gone, and Social Unrest, Fetish and the Criminals. And I have this side-project called Pinhead Gunpowder--nothing's up with it right now, but we played at the beginning of '94 a few times. RIP: Sounds like you've got more than enough pressure valves to let off the steam. Still, do you worry about death? 

BJA: Yeah, I do. But I have too many reasons to stick around. One is my son and my wife. And I don't feel like I'm finished yet. I'm not done, ya know? And the beauty of it is that death is forever and your problems aren't. And that's why I'm talking about my bad shit, because you vent that, you get it off your chest and you can move on to something else. There's gotta be a positive side to all this--so you just sort of try and dig it out. Get rid of all the bad--out with the bad air, in with the good air. 

RIP: You said about Green Day that you think your "bandwagon is coming to a close and all that's gonna be left is just a band. Hopefully." So then will you start writing happy songs? 

BJA: I thought about writing a totally sarcastic song called "I'm So Goddamn Happy," just talking about how happy I am. Actually, I'd like to put out a double record--I'd like to put out tons of music. But I never wanna become an egomaniac. I just wanna keep things down to earth, so I think it's really important for us to take a long break after all this stuff. We just put out two records back to back, one year after another, and now we can sit back and work on ourselves as people again. So we don't parody ourselves. And it's so hard to be a father and a musician at the same time. If I get into one thing and I pay close attention to it, like if I'm with Joey and I start neglecting my music, then I feel like I should play more often. So I start playing my music, and then I'm going, "Am I neglecting Joey?" So it becomes hard to do everything at the same time. 

BJA: I wanna create a very mellow and sound atmosphere for him, because I don't wanna make any mistakes for him--I want him to be able to make his own mistakes. And even when it comes to swearing--I don't cuss in front of my kid. I'd rather him get it from some dirty-mouthed kid at school. Then at least I'd know, I could go "Thank God--my kid is in a real world and he's learning these things from his surroundings." That'd be a good thing. Because the best things you ever learn are the things you learn in kindergarten. 

Finally, after more than an hour worth of gut-spilling, Armstrong suddenly observes four brace-faced girls, each no more than 12 years old, idling over by the cash register. They're there on the pretext of getting change. In reality, they just want to ogle punk icon and pin-up darling Billie Joe, stare at those caterpillar eyebrows and chiselled cheekbones up close. Another oh-my-gawd event. "I gotta go--it's gettin' weird," the reluctant rocker whispers, literally leaping up from the booth. "I can feel eyeballs all over me already...." And as fast as that, he's gone. "Was that...was that...B-B-B-B-Billie Joe?" stammers one swooner. "No," says the waitress, with a subtle smile. "That was just some guy who usually eats here alone, nobody famous at all. You know, just an average guy." A little white lie to herd the young 'uns out. But nevertheless the truth.

[glenngaylord]

OUTFEST 2020 FILM REVIEWS:  The Rest Of The Fest

As the curtain closes on another Outfest, this one presented under extremely unusual circumstances, I sit in awe of the filmmakers and of the staff who put together not only a great group of films, but managed to creatively bring them to its audience online and at drive-in screenings.  Typically, you find yourself having to choose one film over several others, but with this new format, you have a great chance of seeing everything you want.  In past years, I found myself lucky if I saw 15 films.  This year I saw 23 features and 4 shorts programs out of the 160 on the schedule.  

As it’s impossible to get full reviews submitted for everything while the festival is still chugging along, I wanted to write capsules of the remaining films not covered at TheQueerReview.com .  Please visit the website for all the other reviews I wrote as well as those by my colleagues.

THE OBITUARY OF TUNDE JOHNSON ★★★★★

Melding a Groundhog Day-style concept with police violence against black people, this stunning film could not be more prescient and emotionally overpowering.  A black gay teenager relives his moment of murder over and over again, with slight shifts in the narrative taking us to someplace unexpected and earned.  Director Ali LeRoi directs his first feature as if he’s been doing it all of his life and has interpreted Stanley Kalu’s ingenious script with a great cinematic approach.  Gorgeously framed, beautifully acted, written, and directed, this is one of the most powerful films of 2020.

TWO EYES ★★★★★

I can’t form sentences here so I’m gonna vomit out words:  Instant classic. Glorious. Set over three centuries seamlessly melding a triptych of stories about gender identity.  I’m a blubbering mess.  Fantastic and very funny last line.  Travis Fine is a very gifted filmmaker who screams love child of Terrence Malick and Kelly Reichardt.  Heartbreaking. Inspiring. Unforgettable.  Montana is so beautiful.  Barstow is not.  A perfect film for anyone who wants to find their place in the world. I wouldn’t complain if TUNDE and TWO EYES both received Best Picture Oscar nominations.  

DRAMARAMA  ★★★★

Theater nerds rule in this incredibly endearing, early 90s set film about a group of high schoolers discovering themselves in one night at a ridiculous Murder Mystery-themed party.  Hilarious script, vivid and wonderful performances, and the opposite of a “Coming Out” movie in the best possible way.  Jonathan Wysocki has given us The Breakfast Club for air-kissing, mid-Atlantic accented freaks and geeks. 

CICADA ★★★★

What happens when a traumatized, bisexual man who has more sex partners than any standard montage can contain slows things down to concentrate on one kind but also traumatized young man?  This elliptically told film has a fun, flirty side but carries its heaviness with great ease.  A terrific feature debut for director/writer/editor/lead actor Matthew Fifer. 

THE STRONG ONES (LOS FUERTES) ★★★★

From Chile comes this sexy, moving story of two men at cross purposes who form a beautiful bond.  Set against some stunning scenery and mining the chemistry between its two leads for everything it has, I am half-jokingly calling it Brokeback Andes.  It’s so much more than that trite, hackneyed comparison.  

MONSOON ★★★1/2

Director Hong Khaou’s followup to Lilting sets its sights on modern day Vietnam as Henry Golding’s character visits to find a suitable place to distribute his mother’s ashes.  It’s a terrific mediation on a gay man finding a sense of belonging in a place he’s never been and Golding proves himself to be a subtle, compelling actor.  Perhaps a little too quiet and reflective, the film makes up for what it lacks in narrative drive with its awe-inspiring cinematography and immersive qualities.  

P.S. BURN THIS LETTER PLEASE ★★★★1/2

What an unexpected surprise.  Michael Seligman and Jennifer  Tiexiera’s documentary about a treasure trove of letters dating back to the 1950s brings us into the world of drag queens from almost 70 years ago.  With many of its subjects not only alive but in fine form telling their stories and the dishiest voiceover readings ever to grace a film, I was not only thoroughly entertained, but I didn’t expect to weep like Laura Dern at the end.  Oh, this is so so so so good. 

MINYAN ★★★★

Eric Steel’s feature debut has its own unique tone and a star making performance by Samuel H. Levine, a spitting image of a young Al Pacino/Sylvester Stallone hybrid.  With its 1980s Jewish Brighton Beach backdrop, this powerful yet subtle film about a young man coming to terms with his sexuality as well as his place within his religion, it’s a stunning debut.  Ron Rifkin is stellar as Levine’s charming grandfather and Alex Hurt (William Hurt’s son) has his father’s intensity.  Fantastic, lived-in production design which feels like its decade without resorting to the usual candy colored tropes and a evocative score makes this a memorable experience.  Reminiscent at times of On The Waterfront, this film puts a fresh new spin on a coming of age tale and finds so many moving moments from first sex to an elderly gay couple hiding in plain sight.  A must-see. 

SHIVA BABY ★★★★

Writer/Director Emma Seligman must have studied Rosemary’s Baby quite a bit with this angsty story set mostly at a memorial service.  Rachel Sennott is fantastic as a young lesbian who moves from one cringe-worthy moment to the next in an attempt to avoid as much conflict as possible.  The great supporting cast includes Polly Draper, Fred Melamed, Dianna Agron, Molly Gordon, and Jackie Hoffman, all note perfect.  Less a comedy and more of an emotional horror story, Seligman knows how to make the best of a cramped space and throw up an endless variety of obstacles.  You just want Sennott’s Danielle to get her goddamned bagel with lox and cream cheese, but the fates have something else, something better, in store. 

COWBOYS ★★★★

Steve Zahn gives a career best performance in this moving story of a father with mental health issues and his trans son escaping into the Montana wilderness.  Sasha Knight makes an impressive debut as Zahn’s son and Jillian Bell expertly walks that fine line between villain and empathetic character.  Its comparisons to Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid are not coincidental.  Not perfect by any stretch, it may feel fairly conventional, but it’s tackling a vibrant subject matter.  Extra points for giving Ann Dowd a role where we don’t hiss at her. 

BREAKING FAST ★★★

Solid romcom with a Muslim backdrop, this very tight, deceptively simple script provides just the right amount of sparks between its charming leads, Haaz Sleiman and Michael Cassidy.  While structurally not breaking new ground, the entry point into a world we don’t see enough of on screen coupled with food porn for days makes this a fun, funny, goes down easy delight.

ASK ANY BUDDY ★★★1/2

Q: Daddy!  Daddy!  What were the 70s like down at the Piers in NYC?   A: Oh shut up and watch this movie.  

An experimental collage of vintage gay porn and archival footage from the disco, pre-AIDS heyday gives this film a mesmerizing, museum installation quality.  While technically without a story, you feel like you’ve gone on a journey nonetheless.  Would pair well with William Friedkin’s Cruising. 

DRY WIND ★★★1/2

Slow cinema meets voyeuristic gay porn in this one of a kind Brazilian exploration an arid small town, a workers’ union crisis, and a man obsessed with the Tom Of Finland drawing come to life who motors into his life.  Overlong and a little too obtuse as it goes along, it’s worth watching this Alice In Wonderland takes a quaalude, gets a very hairy back, and has a lot of sex in the dirt. 

NO HARD FEELINGS ★★★★

This year’s Teddy Award Winner at the Berlin Film Festival, Faraz Shariat’s film uses its backdrop of a refugee camp in Germany to tell the story of Iranians and Irani-Germans searching for a better life.  Its three leads bring a spark and youthful energy to a story with devastating undercurrents.  A wrenching glimpse into the emotional effects an oppressive culture has on its people, yet told with a driving pulse. 

LILY TOMLIN: THE FILM BEHIND THE SHOW ★★★

A look behind the scenes as Lily Tomlin and wife Jane Wagner workshop their legendary 1980s Broadway show, The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe.  It’s great to see these two at the top of their game and get a glimpse of their creative process, but this documentary is almost devoid of incident and feels more like a sweet gift to the fans than a fully realized film. 

SHORTS: WHAT A BOY NEEDS ★★★1/2

A mixed bag here of people searching for excitement, I found a couple of gems here nonetheless.  Not to take away from the shorts I don’t mention, I want to single out two exceptional films. Ruben Navarro’s Of Hearts And Castles looks great, has a beautiful vibe, and shows us a lovely connection forming right before our eyes.  Kiko’s Saints proves highly original as we follow a female Japanese artist on assignment in France become obsessed with a gay couple who have a lot of sex on the beach.  Combining animation with fairly explicit sex, I loved seeing the male gaze from a female perspective. 

THE CAPOTE TAPES ★★1/2

I love Truman Capote. I grew up at a time when smart authors found themselves on talk shows and were treated like superstars.  I’ve read his books and always have been in awe of his ability to be himself.  Featuring never-before-heard tapes of Capote’s friends being interviewed by George Plimpton, unfortunately, I don’t think this repetitive documentary gave me anything all that new.  It’s still touching at times and for the uninitiated, this is a great overview of his life, but I was watching the clock. 

OUT LOUD ★★★1/2

A moving look at the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles as they prepare for their first public performance.  With its ticking clock storyline, director Gail Willumsen expertly interweaves storylines of its founder and members.  As such, you really learn what’s a stake and what it means to them.  I was lucky enough to see the chorus perform David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust a few years ago and basked in the power of its mere existence…and was also ridiculously entertained. 

TWILIGHT’S KISS (SUK SUK)  ★★★1/2

This quiet charmer form Hong Kong shows us something we almost never get to see on film - two elderly gay men meeting and falling in love.  The fact that both have been married to women doesn’t stop them from exploring their feelings.  A little to gentle by half, I still was in awe of this rarity.

[tabloidtoc]

National Examiner, January 25

Cover: Secret Dawn Wells took to the grave: her affair with Bob Denver of Gilligan’s Island 

Page 2: Best and Worst Celeb Tippers -- Katherine Heigl, Amy Schumer, Drew Barrymore, Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Madonna, Johnny Depp, Jay-Z 

Page 3: Charlie Sheen, Ben Affleck, Sean Penn, Sharon Stone, Naomi Campbell, Mark Zuckerberg, Tom Selleck and Donnie Wahlberg took the 2020 Tip Challenge 

Page 4: Goldie Hawn’s movie roles 

Page 6: Melissa Gilbert who played Laura Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie says if there’s one piece of unfinished business that emerged from the show it’s that she’d like to punch former co-star Shannen Doherty -- Shannen was only 12 when she joined the Little House cast for the show’s ninth and final season playing Jenny Wilder but in a couples therapy session with her first husband Bo Brinkman it came out that Shannen at 22 had bagged Bo in bed 

Page 7: Country star Dolly Parton may be 75 year old but that doesn’t stop her from leaping out of bed at 3 a.m. every morning -- she’s a very very very early riser and she goes to bed pretty early but she’s up and down

* Tom Hanks has been in countless movies and TV shows but his most important role in life has been as a father of four and he has tips for how to do it right 

Page 8: If you’ve soured on feeding canned dog food to your precious pooch you’re not alone -- plenty of owners are switching over to healthy people-food diets for their pets but it’s essential to get guidance from your veterinarian 

Page 9: Most of your kitty’s diet should be a nutritionally complete cat food but you can give them a treat from your plate every once in a while -- you just need to know how to choose feline-friendly snacks with nutrients they need and which they should NEVER eat -- check with your veterinarian 

* Why animals creep into our dreams -- we all dream about animals from time to time and here are some of the most common creatures of our nights and what they could be trying to tell us 

Page 10: On his 21st birthday Matt Goodman raised a glass to his late father who had left behind the money to buy his son’s first beer 

Page 11: Your Health -- the stark truth is that sleeping naked is good for you 

Page 12: Top Guns -- these Hollywood stars were fastest on the draw -- James Garner, Henry Fonda, Eli Wallach, Burt Lancaster, Roy Rogers 

Page 13: Kevin Costner, Yul Brynner, Gary Cooper, Clint Eastwood, John Wayne 

Page 14: Dear Tony, America’s Top Psychic Healer -- a lesson from COVID-19 which is work on mentally healing ourselves, Tony predicts Miley Cyrus will struggle to overcome many of her self-destructive habits, finding strength through religion and she will be back on the hit parade come summer 

Page 15: If you and your partner fight a lot here’s a great idea to grasp: holding each other’s hand is the key to better conflict resolution 

Page 16: Prince William and Duchess Kate Middleton might be royals but they’re raising their children just like any other parents and family is their first priority and Will and Kate are rarely apart from their three kids Prince George and Prince Charlotte and Prince Louis 

Page 18: Maggie the shelter stray was twice unlucky when two potential forever homes kicked her to the curb but now she’s found her true calling as a beloved K-9 officer 

Page 19: A homeless man in Atlanta put his life on the line to rescue every single cat and dog from a blazing inferno at an animal shelter 

Page 20: Cover Story -- a three-hour tour that turned into a three-season laugh-fest on Gilligan’s Island made Dawn Wells a star and she took the show’s juiciest secrets to her grave including a red-hot affair with co-star Bob Denver -- Dawn who died of complications related to COVID-19 at age 82 hid a crazy sexy side which she kept under wraps because it was the exact opposite of the squeaky-clean image se presented to the world as farm girl Mary Ann on Gilligan’s Island 

Page 22: This Michigan teen is a top Elvis Presley impersonator even performing in Las Vegas and the only one with Down syndrome 

Page 24: Texas firefighters were hailed as heroes after they rescued a four-year-old boy who had fallen down a well 

Page 25: Here’s the dirt on soil-free gardening 

Page 26: Nice Work If You Can Get It -- celebs shell out stupid money for stupid jobs -- Rod Stewart travels with a room-darkening team, Lady Gaga hates to sleep alone and her personal assistant had to get in bed with her on nights when Gaga was solo, Larry Ellison likes to play basketball on his yacht and employs a person who job it is to circle it in a boat and retrieve stray balls from the ocean, Mariah Carey has a woman who stands beside her at all times holding a drink, Snoop Dogg pays a professional blunts roller, Prince Charles has a personal dresser, Justin Bieber’s entourage includes someone to hold his drink and another to hold his slice of pizza, Sean Combs has an assistant whose only job is to carry around an umbrella for him 

Page 28: Burt Lancaster was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars acting in more than 70 movies during a four-decade-long career but he was also a silly practical joker says his daughter Joanna Lancaster one of the actor’s five children 

Page 30: Legendary actress and dancer Ann-Marget will be 80 years old in April but she’s still stepping out and making movies -- you’re not dead when you reach a certain age said the star who shot to fame when she famously dated Elvis Presley when they made Viva Las Vegas in 1964 

* Candice Bergen running wild and free at age 74 -- she recently became a first-time grandmother and is selling her hand-designed merchandise online 

* What is Marie Osmond doing during the pandemic? She bought a Harley motorcycle and so did her husband Steve and they love to go riding together -- the twosome also take walks and see their kids and grandkids and stay busy and have fun 

Page 42: All Washed Up -- surprising facts about bathing and showering 

Page 44: Eyes on the Stars -- Ellen DeGeneres goes for a spin in California (picture), Chrissy Teigen and John Legend take their kids Luna and Miles to watch planes make the tricky landing at St. Barts’ airport (picture), Joan Collins claims she once gave Bobby Kennedy the brush off because neither of them was single at the time, George Clooney can’t bear the thought of his early film Grizzly II seeing the light of day but it is set to be released later this year, Barry Gibb the last living member of The Bee Gees says life was incredibly hard after losing his brothers and bandmates Robin Gibb and Maurice Gibb who died in 2012 and 2003, Ray Liotta and Jacy Nittolo engaged, Bob Seger paid tribute to saxophonist Alto Reed a longtime member of his Silver Bullet Band who lost his life to colon cancer 

Page 45: Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla show off their walking sticks outside their home at Birkhall in Scotland (picture), Tori Spelling gets some puppy love from one of their pet pooches in L.A. with help from hubby Dean McDermott (picture), Megan Fox has moved on with Machine Gun Kelly and her estranged husband Brian Austin Green isn’t moping solo -- he vacationed in Hawaii with Sharna Burgess of Dancing with the Stars, British photographer David Bailey is dishing on his storied career in his memoir -- he claims sloshed Elizabeth Taylor tried to swipe his camera and his first impression of ex-wife Catherine Deneuve was that she was short and a bit on the fat side, Phyllis McGuire who shared the stage with her late siblings Dorothy and Ruby as the McGuire Sisters died in her lavish Las Vegas home -- she found fame through her voice and infamy through her relationship with Sin City mobster Sam Giancana 

Page 46: Good-hearted sheriff’s deputies surprised a woman with a vehicle after they kept getting calls about her walking along the highway in the freezing cold each morning 

Page 47: These UN Ambassadors use star power to help -- Emma Watson, Danny Glover, Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, Antonio Banderas, Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, Liam Neeson, Laurence Fishburne, Mia Farrow, Katy Perry, Alyssa Milano 

[ghost--houses]

Untamed Spring Fest 2020 Day 15: Growth

Posting daily a month late because I’m a slow writer!

read this one on AO3

read all currently finished prompts on AO3

Growth (WangXian, Burial Mounds, ~1000 words)

In the morning, Wei Wuxian walks out of his cave to greet the day and is shocked to see Lan Zhan and Wen Qing talking on the steps outside. And then he remembers, to his delight, that after everything with Wen Ning yesterday, Lan Zhan had actually agreed to stay the night in the Burial Mounds. And he’s still here. Wei Wuxian grins and walks closer, to see where he can insert himself into the conversation.

“...has improved, actually, as we’ve been here.” Wen Qing is saying. “I’m not sure if you’ve ever been in this area before, but the reduction of resentful energy from when we arrived is significant.”

“There is still much that remains.” Lan Zhan reminds her.

“Yes. I have been trying to measure the differences and see what specifically we’re doing to have effect.”

“What are your methods?”

“Hey, wait!” They both turn to look at him, Lan Zhan impassive, Wen Qing unamused. “You’re not trying to make him do work, are you? He���s our guest.”

“I would like to contribute.” Lan Zhan replies. “You have been very generous with what you have.”

Wen Qing rolls her eyes. “As long as you don’t cause any problems, you’ll be contributing more than he does.”

“Ah… ahahaha, Wen Qing! I play an important role as the fearsome Yiling Laozu! If you disparage me to outsiders, how will I keep up appearances?”

“Hanguang-jun is the last person who’s going to be fooled into thinking you’re intimidating.”

“Not true!” Wei Wuxian squawks. “We fought together in the war, he knows how scary I can be.”

He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth, catching the tight line of Lan Zhan’s lips and recalling their conversation yesterday. Wen Qing looks back and forth between them and shrugs.

“I have to do my rounds. Hanguang-jun, we can talk later, if you’re still here.”

Lan Zhan nods and Wen Qing retreats. He looks at Wei Wuxian, expectant.

“Lan Zhan, you don’t have to do anything, really, you’ve already done -- ” Wei Wuxian says.

But Lan Zhan interrupts him with, “Tell me how I can be useful.”

“...ok.” Wei Wuxian says. "Ok, you asked for it! We could get you some other robes, if you want. Are you sure you want to get dirt on those?"

Lan Zhan, disappointingly, says nothing. Wei Wuxian can fix that.

"Or you could work in your inner robes, or naked! We're all like family here, what do you think?"

"Shameless." Lan Zhan says, but there's no fight in it, and the curve of his mouth is soft. Wei Wuxian grins, pleased to get the answer to his call, proof that their ancient history as teenagers isn't entirely forgotten.

He's true to his word and puts Lan Zhan to work -- there's weeding to be done in the radish fields and Wei Wuxian shows him how. Wei Wuxian is much more engaged in the manual labor than usual, with Lan Zhan to listen to his rambling. It feels so good to have him again, not just when Lan Zhan reacts to his nonsense, but also to see the quiet, meditative way Lan Zhan works during the silences. It makes Wei Wuxian feel still in a way he hasn’t for so long.

They make good progress until A-Yuan emerges from a nap in the early afternoon and goes straight for Lan Zhan.

"Rich-gege, can you play with me?"

"No, I cannot. I am helping Wei Ying."

"Ah, you can play, Lan Zhan!" Wei Wuxian laughs. "That's helping me, too, because otherwise I have to do it."

And so Lan Zhan lets himself be led away, but they don’t go out of earshot. A-Yuan’s game today is to try and impress Lan Zhan with the things he can point at to name around the Burial Mounds. Soon, that becomes running around and picking up whatever he can find to give to Lan Zhan to hold. And when Lan Zhan dares to suggest one of the objects he’s holding is a leaf and not a blade of grass, A-Yuan tells him that actually it’s a sword. And the rock he’s holding is a monster, and the twig (to Wei Wuxian’s unbearable pride) is a flute. A-Yuan tells him how to use the sword and flute to defeat the monster and Lan Zhan, crouched down at his level, listens patiently and asks for clarifications, which only makes A-Yuan expand his explanations to even more absurd heights.

Wei Wuxian, work long forgotten, tries not to laugh -- at least, not loud enough to disturb them. All at once, he sees what this place could become -- a real home, safe and respectable, as long as they have the time to grow, to make steady progress each day. His heart surges at the idea that Lan Zhan could stay, that they could do this together, that this disagreement over his cultivation is solvable, that they are friends again, despite everything, or maybe because of everything.

It’s too much. Wei Wuxian realizes the fantasy has gone on long enough, and he ought to give Lan Zhan his excuse to leave. He walks over to join them.

“A-Yuan, you better finish your story soon, Lan Zhan will need to go home before too long.”

“No, Rich-gege can stay, it’s ok.”

Will he sleep in your bed, he wants to say. Are you going to remember to feed him and take him on walks? Wei Wuxian can’t think of anything to say that isn’t just something to make A-Yuan laugh because the alternative is --

“Have I overstayed my welcome?” Lan Zhan asks, rising to his full height, majestic, even with the slight furrow of his eyebrows.

“No, no, no, “ Wei Wuxian can’t stop himself from saying, “Not at all, I was just thinking you have a long journey and… of course, you can stay as long as you want, I was -- I mean, I -- we would -- if you want -- “

How do I ask you to stay, he wonders, so that when you say no, it won’t break my heart.

Lan Zhan’s head turns east, towards Gusu. “There is valuable research to be done here. I should not leave immediately.”

“Ok.” Wei Wuxian says softly. Then, it dawns on him that Lan Zhan agreed. “Ok! Yes, of course. Thank you -- ” Lan Zhan turns to him quickly, “I mean… we would be honored to have you stay longer.”

Lan Zhan nods, his mouth softened just slightly at one corner.