#Ford has 12 fingers so that's at least 12 days of no sleep

[greenbunny7]

[Stan] When's the last time you slept?

[Ford] Uh... a few days ago, I think.

[Stan] A few- how many?!

[Ford] Uh... *starts counting on fingers* I need more fingers...

[Stan] What you need is sleep!

[stephreynaart]

Gravity Falls - “Waiting”

Pop-Pop AU

Stan sits in a hospital waiting room, thinking about his life and the people he loves.

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This is kinda old, but I realized I never posted it on tumblr. Hope ya like it!

Lots of fluff, the only ships are Soos and Melody.

AO3 LINK

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It had a square aspect ratio. Ink pen and watercolor on white heat pressed cotton paper in a bland white frame. One single blue flower in a red vase with what looks like a yellowish shadow. One shadow going left, the other going right. The lack of confidence and inexperience was obvious, the lines were unfocused and jagged, the color plainly filled the shapes and gave no other visual interest to the image.

Below the frame was a small white card that read “Painting donated by Jessica Blaise from Gravity Falls Elementary School”

Stan scanned the painting at least 20 times while sitting in that chair. The too rough and too soft at the same time chair that had similar copies populating the almost white room he sat in. The wallpaper bouncing off light pinks and blues with tiny ducklings as a makeshift wainscoting was starting to irritate the old man. It was too bright, and the consistent buzz of the fluorescent lights seemed so loud. Stan adjusted himself in his chair, switching his crossed legs to a wider spread and leaned his head against the wall.

The only other stimulus in the room were a few posters promoting proper hand washing techniques, the play area with a small table and chairs with large blocks, crayons and that weird “game” with the metal wiring and wooden beads that’s in every waiting room Stan’s ever sat in. He played with the toys to give himself something to do after he read all the magazines. The novelty wore off fast.

The television mounted on the wall was airing some cooking channel with no sound and no subtitles. Looking at food when you haven’t eaten in a few hours was practically torture, so Stan had been averting his eyes.

There were other paintings on the wall, one was less of a painting, but instead a print of a painting. He doubted that the artist got any compensation from it, if they were still alive. The other was a charcoal drawing done by a student from the community college a town away. Another square, but the entire image was black, the brightest thing on the page was an intruding infant hand coming from the left with the arm fading into the dark background. The fingers seemingly mid-twitch and grabbing at something. The lighting was dynamic and interesting. Stan swore it was a drawing of a penis the first time he glanced at it, which resulted in his brother’s laughter. Stanley smiled at the memory, it was only a few hours ago, but he relishes any time he can make Stanford laugh.

Stan’s eyes darted at the door in the far corner when it opened suddenly. He eased back into his chair when the nurse crossed the room to talk with the receptionist. He couldn’t hear the conversation very well, but could tell they were just gossiping and making jokes. Nothing that was of his interest. So he looked back to the elementary school child’s painting and analyzed it again. His eyes were dry and he was tired. He wished he could sleep, the chair wasn’t comfortable enough and when he did managed to sleep, his neck was sore when he woke up. He was only lucky Ford let him use his shoulder as a pillow for a while. He looked to his left and noted the book his brother placed in the seat. It seemed thick and in what looked like Hebrew. Stan wasn’t very surprised Ford was fluent in the language they were acquainted with as children. Their grandparents on their father’s side were the last to be fully fluent in Hebrew. It was like his brother to be curious of their heritage, but Stan only remembered a few phrases and words he learned from holidays and special event when he had to recite anything in Temple.

Stan crossed his arms and glanced at the clock on the wall and let out an exasperated sigh. It had only been 10 minutes since he last checked the time. He wanted to be at home, be in his soft warm bed and getting ready to eat pancakes at this time in the morning.

He and Ford were on the porch of The Mystery Shack when Soos rushed them off to the hospital the yesterday afternoon. What he originally thought would be a couple of hours of waiting turned into almost twelve. Apparently labour can last a long time.

Stan wished he could be a witness for Soos and Melody like he was when Dipper and Mabel were born, but Melody wanted her privacy, which Stan could respect, but Soos wanted him there…..so he and Ford waited in this bright, annoyingly pastel waiting room, twiddling his thumbs awaiting the arrival of the new member of the mystery family. He was glad he was in at least comfortable clothes, some gray sweatpants and a sweater Mabel knitted for him that read “godfather”.

He was never clear on what the title entailed, but it was mentioned a few times by Soos’ grandmother and the kids insisted that Soos was intending to ask him. He hadn’t, but he didn’t protest Stan wearing the sweater. Whatever job godfathers had, he was willing to play the part if Soos were to ask him.

Stan looked at the double doors a few feet away that lead out of the waiting room and into the halls. His brother left to find something for them to eat, but was taking his sweet time. The turkey being basted on the television was no help in aiding his growling stomach.

He distracted himself by returning his thoughts to Soos and Melody. Just down the hall they were experiencing the strange and beautiful phenomenon that was witnessing the arrival of a brand new person. Stan remembered the feeling so clearly. His entire life he’s felt the presence of human beings. It’s inherent in most people to feel when someone is in the room with you, the other soul sharing the same space as you. Imagine being in a room with a set amount of people and someone else comes in, but imagine they came in without using a doorway. Just appearing seemingly out of thin air. Suddenly another person is with you, and they’re brand new to the world, a life full of potential and power. Yes, today is indeed a happy day, but no amount of positive thinking would ease Stan’s nerves. His foot began to bounce and his hands unconsciously began to fiddle with each other. He didn’t want to think anything would go wrong with Soos’ baby, but anything can happen and life is so fragile, especially at the start of it.

He recalled his nephew’s nervousness the day Dipper and Mabel were born. His hands were shaking and he was constantly checking on his wife and asking the doctors loads of questions. He didn’t fully understand the twins’ father’s behavior until the end of that day.

Mabel’s birth was swift and easy. Her mother only needed to push one and a half times before she was here. It was as if she was eager to meet everyone waiting for her. She cried like most babies do, but Stan could’ve sworn they were tears of joy. While Mabel was greeted with, “hello, beautiful”, “hi, sweetie” and “she’s perfect”, Her brother’s introduction to world started with, “what’s wrong?”, “wait, let me hold him”, and “he’s not moving”. Dipper was rushed out of the room before his mother got a chance to look at him. Stan managed to catch a glimpse of the horrifyingly blue tint on his great nephew’s tiny face. The memory still gave him chills. He remembered how much he wanted to hold Mabel, who began to fuss and cry, obviously missing her brother. He was terrified at the prospect of another incomplete set of twins in their family. After the longest 30 minute of his life, Stan’s great-nephew returned with a bright pink face, wailing with all the power his little lungs could produce. Once the twins were reunited in their mother’s arms, they settled down almost instantly. The doctors told their parents Dipper was significantly lighter in weight than his sister, but both were very strong and healthy. Every so often Stan thinks about Dipper and how much he has impacted his life. His thoughts lead to darker places and he questions if Ford would be here if Dipper wasn’t there to find the third journal. He shook his head as a cold shiver went up his spine.

Stan did his best to distract himself from revisiting the scare that Dipper caused him 16 years ago.

16 years…..17 in August

Stan blinked. The squishy, bright faces that stayed with him that first summer had changed significantly. They stayed in contact all year round and visited every summer since they were 12. But every in-person meeting was always a shock. Dipper was developing the square jaw Stan, both his brothers and nephew shared. He started to regularly wear glasses their second summer with the Stans. Poor kid will grow up looking like Filbrick like the rest of the Pines men. He reminded Stan of Ford at that age.

And Mabel…..

Stan will never get over how much she looks like his mother. It didn’t strike him until Soos and Melody’s wedding and she put her hair in a bun. She’s calmed her hyperactivity down a bit, but not by a lot, she still brightens his day with her wit and creativity. They’ve both matured physically, but not much has changed personality wise and they still acted like big children when they’re around each other. Stan loved them very much, and wished he could see them more often. He wondered what the future held for all of them. Would they still visit town after going to college? Would they move here? Or somewhere else?

He’s had several conversations with them to see how they’re managing the prospect of separating. They’re much better at communicating than he and Ford were and they seem actually excited to have some independence. It made Stan nervous, but he was sure their close relationship wouldn’t suffer.

Wendy chose to be elsewhere for the next few years. She and her friends booked a plane ticket and plan to backpack and hitchhike around Europe and the UK. Stan hopes they stay safe and watch out for each other. Lotta weirdos in Amsterdam. She was set to leave in the coming days, Wendy wanted to wait until today arrived so she could meet Soos and Melody’s kid before going away for who knows how long.

A tap on the shoulder woke Stan from his deep thoughts. His brother arrived with some warm sub sandwiches and coffee.

“Any word yet?, he asked Stan

“Nothin’ yet”, Stan felt helpless not having any clue how Soos and Melody were doing.

Stanford took his seat next to Stanley and they both silently enjoyed their late breakfast. Since arriving they’ve witnessed families reuniting and going past the door in the far corner to meet their children, grandchildren or siblings. Stan looked at the clock again. How has it only been another 5 minutes? He sighed, leaned back and finished the rest of his sub. One hand holding the sandwich, the other went back to gripping the arm rest, then a six fingered hand went down to rest on top of it. Stan let go of the armrest and tangled his fingers between Ford’s and held onto it with a, hopefully not too tight, grip. It was like an anchor to reality, much better at easing his anxieties than any words could. Over the past 4 years, Stan and Ford’s bond grew stronger. Stan still feared one day he would wake up and find himself still in that basement surrounded by broken machinery and languages he didn’t understand. He hasn’t yet, and was enjoying the time he had left with his twin. Stan took a moment to look at his brother again, Ford made eye contact and smiled then continued to read his book. Hands still intertwined

Stans thoughts went back to Soos…

It amazed Stan how much he had grown and it still baffled him that Soos idolized him as much as he does. Before Soos, Stan had no one. His brother was….gone, the rest of the family didn’t talk to him much outside of the holidays and special occasion. There hadn’t been any sense of consistency in Stan’s life for years, decades even, until he hired the chubby little kid he barely glanced at one random Saturday. Soos always arrived to work early, sometimes with breakfast for both of them. Stan didn’t know how much he needed a reliable companion until he had it and he enjoyed the 10 years he had with that kid… or man he should say. Here he was…a few rooms away, becoming a father.

Stan used to daydream a lot about the prospect of having kids when he was younger. He’s was always good with them when he had the chance to babysit his nephew, then later Dipper and Mabel when they were toddlers. He loved having kids in his house that first summer. He loved the energy and the sense of adventure the twins brought. They gave him a sense of purpose and belonging he hadn’t felt in years. He wished he was brave enough to have his own children. Not that he was ever with anyone long enough to want to have kids with him. He supposed it was for the best that he didn’t subject a child to homelessness or an unhappy marriage. He was also terrified at the idea. His dad used to say having kids ruined his life. He wondered who his father was before his older brother was born. Did they really ruin his life? Stan often wondered if he would be like his own dad if he has children of his own. Would he change and become that annoyed parent that resenting his children?

He thought about Soos again

That was probably the closest to parenthood he ever experienced. The first time he felt like one was when Soos asked him for homework help after closing. He initially told Soos no, he wasn’t exactly smart and didn’t think he would be any help. It apparently upset the kid, so Stan sighed and gave it a try. It was fairly simple middle school math, he didn’t remember everything, but helped Soos do more than half of it. Soos thanked him and went home happy. Stan felt weirdly proud, he was glad he made a small difference and managed to teach Soos something he didn’t even know he knew.

The second time was when Soos was a teenager. His grandmother wasn’t able to teach Soos to drive, since she had forgotten how and her late husband used to do the driving, she mostly walked everywhere. Soos offered to work for free so Stan could teach him. Stan loved driving and found teaching Soos cathartic. He was a fast and eager learner, he only bumped Stan’s car once while trying to figure out parallel parking. Little did Soos know that he was getting paid for his normal work hours. Stan just put it away long enough to help buy the kid some old used truck in the junkyard for getting his license. They fixed the truck up and in only a few weeks it was ready to be on the road. Soos has taken good care of it and it’s still his ride to this day

Stan was very proud of Soos. He taught the kid some basic self defense and managed to be a decent influence in his life. Soos at least has his priorities straight.

Stan was even glad to see that Soos was willing to question him. When the portal was reaching the final countdown, he didn’t hesitate to protect the kids from him when he thought Stan was dangerous. He didn’t know, none of them did, so he didn’t blame Soos for distrusting him. He hoped he never had to betray him again. They both had crappy dads, and Stan knew how Soos saw him. Stan was never really sure if he reciprocated those feelings. It felt natural to act the part, but to put a label as important as “dad” on Stan was daunting. Soos definitely deserves better than what he was given, Stan wasn’t sure if he was it.

Stan looked up at the familiar voices running towards him from the double doors.

“Grunkle Stan! Grunkle Ford!” Mabel waved to them

The two teenagers and Wendy walked in holding a balloon and various toys. They took some seats across from the Stans and asked how everyone was doing and if the baby arrived yet.

“Not yet, hopefully soon” Ford answered

Stan relaxed and silently enjoyed his family’s company. He laid his head back and leaned slightly on Ford to rest for a minute. His eyes shut as he listened to the kids joke around and talk amongst themselves. He squeezed Ford’s hand one more time before drifting off.

He knew he should’ve tried sleeping earlier, he wasn’t out for more than 15 minutes when Soos came into the waiting room. Stan’s eyes shot open and he was on his feet faster than he did when he was being chased by angry costumers as a door to door salesman. Soos’ red eyes sagged and he seemed exhausted, but carried a proud, wide smile across his face. He sniffed and wiped his eyes.

“It’s a boy”, he squeaked, “mom and baby are okay”

Dipper and Mabel were first to start the hugs, and the room filled with cheers of congratulations and love. Stan felt light as a feather giving Soos a hug and joking about child labor.

“Can we see him?”, Mabel bounced with anticipation

“Yeah, dudes!”, Soos gestured everyone past the corner door and into the suite. “But only for a little while, Melody has to sleep”

The room was small, dimly lit and warm. The Pines crew collectively lowered their voices as Melody came into view on the bedding holding a bundle of blankets decorated with small yellow ducklings. She was leaned back on a large pillow, covered in blankets and toted a soft smile on her face. Soos stroked her hair and picked up his little son to show to the Pines’. The younger twins got a look at him first,

Mabel squealed and cooed at the tiny infant. Then Wendy, who said hi to the baby and told Soos she’d make sure to send him gifts while she was away

“What’s his name?”, Mabel asked Melody

“I named him after my dad”, Melody replied, “Jacob”. She smiled sadly at the memory of the father she lost the year before.

Soos approached the Stans, Ford smiled and complimented the couple on a having such beautiful little boy, but shot Soos a look, who silently replied with another one. Something was up.

Finally Stan got a look at baby Jacob. “Wow” Stan smiled, patting Soos’ arm. “He looks exactly like you”

Soos laughed, “really? I think he looks like Melody”, there was a short silence before Soos spoke up again.

“Do you want to hold him, Mr Pines?”

Stan looked at Soos and smiled, “heh, sure”. He held his arms out. Soos lowered his arms to pass the baby to Stan, who scrunched his face up and started to fuss. Stan took the infant and managed to hold him with one arm. He bounced and shushed little Jacob until he calmed down. “Heya kid”, He’s held babies dozens of times, but something felt different about this one. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but Stan felt an almost magnetic pull towards him. Jacob settled comfortably against Stan and continued his rest. Stan softly beamed at the tiny person in his arms.

“Hey, Stan?”

Stan lifted an eyebrow and looked at Soos, who was fidgeting with his hands and nervously smiling.

“Uh..”, he paused, taking in the sight of Stan holding his child. “You know about my dad”, Soos looked at Ford again, who shrugged and nodded. Stan studied Ford’s face, who’s eyes strayed away as he hid a small smile. Soos got his attention again.

“You uh…he wasn’t…”, Soos choked up, his voice strained a bit, “I met you when I was probably the loneliest I ever was in my entire life”. Stan pictured the little boy he hired on the spot, he didn’t remember him until Soos showed up at his door step the next day ready to work. He didn’t know how much that quick, thoughtless decision would change his life.

Soos perked up and walked across the room to a table and picked up the piece of paper sitting on it. Soos glanced at it, then at Stan and smiled, gaining some emotional strength it seemed.

“You mean a lot me”, Soos, “you were there when I really needed it, you gave me a job, taught me just about everything I know. I don’t think I ever thanked you for that”

Stan got a bit nervous, Was this him asking to be the godfather?Everyone was silent and curiously watching. Soos held his hand out and handed the paper to Stan. He adjusted his arm to properly hold Jacob in his arm and took it. Stan flipped the page and noticed it was the baby’s birth certificate. Stan eyes bounced off the page and read the various information: birthdate, weight, parents, but he froze when he read the full name. Stan’s wide eyes questioningly studied Soos’ face.

“Are you…”, Stan felt his own throat tightening, crap. Come on, not in front of everyone “really?”, he asked. Soos gave a genuine nod and sniffed.

“I uh” Soos cleared his throat, “I was wondering, since Jacob doesn’t have one…if you wanted to be…. his grandpa?

There it was

Stan felt dizzy and took a small step back before remembering who was in his hands and regained his balance. Ford came to his side and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. Stan decide not to look at his brother and chose to stare forward, then his eyes went back to Soos, who look deflated. Oh man. Stan was terrified, he didn’t want to say no and hurt Soos, but if he said yes….he wasn’t sure what made him so nervous. The entire concept sounded so alien to him, like he didn’t deserve the title. He always considered Soos, Melody and their son a part of his family. But to bare a title like “grandpa”, had to mean he had children that that children. That he was already a parent without his knowledge. It all felt so natural to want to lean into this and become part of this family like Soos wanted.

He heard something make a noise from beneath himself. Stan looked down at little Jacob, who was mid yawn. The baby’s mouth grew wide opens and inhaled, scrunching up his face and suddenly shut. Suddenly two tiny eyes opened for just a few seconds, enough time for Stan to make eye contact before Jacob shut them and got comfortable again

Everything was different now.

Stan didn’t notice how quiet the room had gotten nor the tears forming in his eyes. Stunned by beauty and overcome with pride and a sense of purpose. The pride he felt teaching Soos math, how to drive and attending his graduation all combined just looking at the perfect being in his arms. If he said yes, he would want everything that came with it. Stan lifted the birth certificate up to read the name again.

Jacob Stanley Ramirez

“Y-Yes”, he heard a shaken voice say, almost not realizing it was his own “of course”. He looked at Soos, tears in his eyes and a bright smile on his face. He still wasn’t sure if he deserved this, but Stan wanted it. He wanted it all. Why not indulge just this once? He gave the certificate to Ford and used his now free hand to pull Soos into a hug. Gently sandwiching his…..grandson in between him……and his son.

[piningfor-pinestwins]

Natural Attraction - Confrontations (Stan X Reader Slow Burn; Eventual Not SFW)

Yawning, you find yourself still dozing off while stretching out your legs, waiting for Fiddleford to finish packing up his tent while the twins bicker about the “correct” way to fold a sleeping bag. You smile to yourself, cracking open an eye and biting your tongue from making a comment about this being why you’d brought a quilt instead, but you keep it to yourself as you lean forward to stretch. Wincing as you roll your injured ankle back and forth, you’re reminded of the night you’d dealt with.

It ached as you adjusted your shoe on your foot, tying the shoelaces tighter to try and support your ankle a little better for the trek ahead. Ford hasn’t said much (to you, anyway--he’s still very wordy when it comes to his current argument with his brother as the both of them shove differently-folded sleeping bags away into their respective packs), but you’re certain that the day will prove to be long and tiring. Still, as you fix the tops of your socks, you have an odd sense of...hopefulness? Excitement? You aren’t sure, but the anticipation is strong.

The sensation only grows as Stan comes toward the tree you’re leaned up against. Warmth flutters in your stomach when he catches your eye, a knowing sort of smile spread across his cheeks when he adjusts his and your bags onto his shoulder. He clears his throat as he reaches his hand down to you, his smile warming you from the inside. “Hey, you. About ready to head out?” He asks, voice soft with an almost-gravelly sleepiness which makes you smile.

As I’ll ever be, you answer as you take his hand. Stan pulls you up slowly, your hand in his with his other arm outstretched to catch your side, just in case. Wincing as you put weight onto your tweaked ankle, you hold to Stan a little tighter, all the while hearing his voice whisper soft encouragements until you’re upright. “That’s it, honey--slower, slower,” he soothes. You’re unsure if it’s his words, the gravel in his voice, or proximity, but your cheeks flush at his soft urging, a flutter in your chest. His outstretched arm is closer now, that hand resting securely on your lower back to remind you of its presence, gently brushing his thumb against your hip (which, frankly, doesn't help, since the flutter only moves to your belly).

“There ya go, hon. Y’feeling any better today?” Stan levels his gaze to you, the concern knitting his brows together in a way that makes you smile, averting your eyes quickly so he can't see the tenderness there. You reach, patting his chest lightly to ease his mind when you meet his eye again, Feeling just fine, thank you.

“Kissed you all better?” He asks low, voice playful as he quirks a brow down at you. You flush as your own brows shoot upward, pushing lightly on his chest as you urgently shush him, looking toward where Ford and Fidds are chatting. The both of them quickly avert their gazes, knowing smiles still spreading their cheeks as they turn away--you almost wish you hadn’t caught them looking.

Your cheeks burn despite your smile, giving the cocky man ahead of you a stern look, Don’t be so obvious, Stanley, you tease in a whisper, your thumbs brushing lightly over the hem of the white tank top he wears, acting as though you’re smoothing down his shirt. Your hands drop away with one final pat, smiling wider when he looks at you with something akin to surprise. “Sorry, hon. Just...a little giddy this morning, is all.”

Wonder why? You hum in question, shaking your head as you hold out your hand toward him. At first, he stalls, eyeing your hand with a furrowed brow, questioning. He reaches to take your hand, a bashful sort of smile growing on his face before you motion to your bag. He coughs a gruff sound, and you only barely save him the embarrassment this time, looking down as you feel your smile at his pinkened cheeks. He releases your hand easily, trading its place with the strap of your bag as he turns to look toward the other two instead, lightly rubbing at the back of his neck. You take the duffle bag, looping your arms into the straps to turn it into a good-enough backpack for the trek ahead.

You stretch your ankle gingerly, biting into the inside of your cheek. Surely, there should be some sort of tracks for your creature somewhere around here… Moving carefully to test your first few steps, you crouch beneath a tree limb, leaving the familiar grassy space to try and find your next clues to where it may be.

“Hey--don’t run off!” Fiddleford scolds from his place beside Ford, taking a few steps as he reaches, as if to catch you in the act, “Even if it’s sunny out, yer luck hasn’t been great for the past….well, 12 hours.” You almost laugh, shaking your head, Not running off, just...trying to find where we go next, you explain. He keeps walking closer, a little smile budding on his face as he comes to join you. “At least lemme help you,” he teases, pushing away a branch near the top of your head. You look over to him and duck under it as you laugh, Thanks, Fidds.

“The last tracks we’d seen were just that direction,” He points toward the unnervingly-familiar patch from the night before, and you frown as you take a few more tentative steps. “I’m sure there’s more o’them somewhere around here....”

Fidds moves alongside you, the both of you looking for some sort of indication of the creature. It’s almost frustrating--you’re certain something had to be here, some sign of the damn thing. You finally huff, a frown pulling at your lips when you look to Fiddleford, not far off in his own search. “I can’t find anything, either--”

“Hey, uh...guys?” Stan’s voice calls from the other side of the brush, sounding almost concerned in a way that makes your stomach drop in worry. Your eyes meet Fidds’, sharing a furrow-browed glance between you as you both move toward the grassy spot once more, toward Stan’s voice.

Stan? Are you okay? You call, looking out from the brush, your question joined by Ford’s voice, calling at the same time, “Stanley?”

You spy the twin as he’s readjusting his pants, buttoning his fly and re-buckling his belt as he walks up the hill you’d been ‘attacked’ at the night before. You quirk a brow, eyes trained on his fingers at his belt before realizing what he had been doing that far down the hill, feeling a flush as you quickly look up to his face instead.

“What’d you see?” Ford asks his twin, knowing the tone of his voice well. “Well, ah...remember when she,” Stan motions to you, “had an owl bothering her last night? It was around here, right?” He asks you with a furrowed brow, hands finished with the buckle as he motions to the ground near the top of the hill. You finally look at him again, biting your lip as you nod, Right over, uh….here, you say, eyes narrowing at the spot he’s referring to. In the area you’d fallen, you can see the scuff marks of your shoes going down the hill, and a strange indentation in the grass, right in the same spot.

“...Huh,” Fiddleford hums, moving to the dip in the grass and pushing some of the longer tufts away, finding two large tracks, looking very much the same as the tracks you’d followed from the cabin.

“There’s no way,” Ford murmurs, rushing ahead closer to see the tracks, too. He looks up, toward the direction of the trees where you’d all seen the owl last night. “If these are here, that must mean, either the owl last night was much bigger than we’d all expected, or--”

“Or your big ‘birdlike thing’ came around afterward to check us out.” Stan finishes, crossing his arms. He looks almost uncomfortable, looking over you with something unreadable in his gaze before pointing the same look towards his brother and Fiddleford. “I guess it makes it easier to track, but...I dunno, I’m a little weirded out that the thing is as interested in us as we are in it.”

“Nonsense,” Fiddleford shakes his head, standing from where he’d crouched with a quiet grunt, “We don’t have all those pieces, Stanley--we can’t just assume the thing’s a menace, just ‘cause it ends up near our campsite. Maybe it’s more a sign that we just… tracked it real good?”

You shrug, I’m sure it’s just an...odd, albeit helpful, coincidence. Stan doesn’t look swayed, arms still folded across his chest. Sighing, you nod, I admit, it’s weird. And a creature my size being hunted by an owl isn’t normal by any means, but...is anything in this town normal? You pose the question toward the man, who’s still frowning down at you in uncertainty. He finally sighs, relenting, “Not at all. Alright. But if this gets freakier, I say we call it off and head home.”

Ford scoffs at his brother’s insistence, shaking his head. “If the creature is hostile, that’s even more reason to track it,” He argues, continuing, “God forbid the thing tries to come for the town.”

Stan’s brow furrows, and you can instantly tell that his brother has struck a nerve. “God forbid the thing goes after one of us again! Especially her!” He scowls, motioning to you with his hand as he takes a step closer to his twin. “The fucker’s got big feet, look,” he points down to the tracks, “If he decides to grab one of us and fly off next time one of us goes off for a piss, we’re screwed.”

Ford rolls his eyes, but says nothing more as he shakes his head. You can tell the action annoys Stan, the latter clenching a fist at his side. You reach to him, one hand landing on Stan’s arm to pull his focus back. He turns to look at you, a frown still on his face, but more relaxed now.

eI know you’re worried, you start, smile warming up, But you know...I can handle myself. You wink, putting up your fists as if prepping to fight. The action makes him scoff a laugh, shaking his head at you as he speaks, “Right--I almost forgot, you’re a killer.” He winks, a hint of the dimple at his cheek peeking out at you, even as he rubs at his face to calm down a little. He takes a breath and you release his arm, eyeing Ford and Fidds, the latter being the only one who meets your eye (and rolls his own, apparently very used to the duo’s mini-arguments).

Alright boys, you say with a smile, pushing your thumbs into the straps that rest on your shoulders when all three heads turn to look at you, I’m ready to track down a weird bird creature, how about you?

“Of course!” Ford laughs as he answers, argument easily dismissed. He moves, only struggling a little as he hoists his heavy backpack into place. Fiddleford snickers at the brunet, pulling one of the straps of the backpack up to help the man put his arm through the loop, “Hold onto yer britches, Ford--there you go.” The taller man smiles wide at his friend before nodding at you, “I’ve been ready. We’ve gotta take advantage of the daylight for as long as we’ve got it.” You smile at Fiddleford in agreement, glancing to Stan beside you with a quirked brow, surprised to find him already looking your way.

Stanley finally grins, his gaze catching you off guard in a way that makes your chest flutter, and you find yourself mimicking his smile when he reaches to clap a hand on your shoulder, giving you a little shake, “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Good,” Ford pipes up, instantly making the former twin’s smile falter. Ford doesn’t seem to notice, taking one last glance around at the grassy space you’d used as a resting point for the evening, just to be sure. “We haven’t got time to lose. As you so graciously found out,” He motions in your direction, peeking at you from over the rims of his glasses, “Being out in the dark isn’t quite the safest option we have, both in terrain navigation and… creature interaction, I suppose.”

You scoff a quiet, No shit, which causes Stan to snort a laugh beside you. All things considered, last night wasn’t too bad, but… bits of it were scary, to say the least. The ache in your foot reminds you to keep your eyes on the ground just as much as you’re watching for signs of the creature, though it seems the boys are doing their best to keep you on your feet, too.

--

Unlucky only begins to describe the hike of the day. After the strap on Ford’s backpack broke, and Stan had to cut himself out of a thorny bramble with just a pocket knife, the four of you were sure that the rest of the day would be a little easier.

You were wrong, you realized, when the only-slightly-cloudy sky became much more cloudy and started thundering.

“Fuckin’...” Stan grits, using the bottom of his already soaked t-shirt to wipe away the rain mingling with sweat dripping down his forehead, “Did any of you geniuses decide to check the weather before we set off to find your little monster?”

“It’s just a little rain, Stanley,” Ford scoffs, walking ahead of his brother, “Contrary to popular belief, you won’t melt.”

“Y’could track any kind of creature with your heavy machine, but you can’t even turn on the tv to look at the news once in a while? Especially when the whole damn family’s coming out on a hike?” The twin argues, and even though he’s kind of chewing you out too, you find yourself snorting a laugh. It is a little ridiculous, you can admit. It’s even more ridiculous when Ford whips around to look back at his brother in annoyance, and you see him squinting at the both of you, glasses absolutely useless as they rest atop his head, fat water droplets sticking to the lenses and rolling off to saturate his hair even more. Stan snorts then, casting a glance to you as he does, shaking his head. “Unbelievable.” Despite his frustration with the weather, Stan’s voice holds no real malice, the indent in his cheek almost giving him away as he continues to follow his brother and Fiddleford.

“Dammit, if we could just...get somethin’,” Fidds murmurs, his own glasses folded closed and hanging from the collar of his button-up. “Even if it’s rainin’, there should be a sign of the creature somewhere, right?” He turns back to look at you, an almost pleading look in his eye. You jog a little, boots squelching in the muddy ground as you get closer to the front of the pack.

Surely there’s some signs, you agree, offering a sympathetic smile his way. Fidds is intrigued by this thing, you can tell; maybe even a little more than he usually is in the creatures you find in town. As you look for a sign, any sign, you step a little quicker, getting in front of the pack. Really, there should be something…

The more you look, you realize, the more you find. Whether that’s a good thing or not, you’re unsure. Guys! You call, turning to look over your shoulder at the group and finding yourself considerably further away from them than you’d expected. There are tracks here in the mud! I-I think it might have trouble flying in the rain? Your voice lifts like a question, Ford’s voice calling after you over the rain, “Wait for us! We don’t want a repeat of the last time,” he warns. You know he’s right; as it begins to storm in earnest now, the grass and earth at your feet seem to relax beneath you, steadily becoming mush at your heels.

You wait just a few moments more for the boys to catch up, hearing the muted sounds of their huffing and puffing up to you. Entranced, you stare down at the muddied floor of the forest, the tracks in the mud seeming to beckon you to follow them. If you were fast enough, you might be able to snap a picture of the prints without your camera getting too wet. It would help in tracking the creature further, and whatever research comes next…

You bite at your bottom lip as you adjust your bag onto your shoulder, rummaging through the slightly-damp insides as Fidds catches up to you, looking down at the tracks much like you had been. “Woah,” He starts, almost breathless, “These are the best prints we’ve seen from this thing yet! Lookit--you can see every segment of the thing’s foot, all the way to its claws...How big d’ya think this thing is? The whole foot’s almost as big as my hand,” The honey blond man crouches down, even in the mud, to inspect and absorb as much information as he can, stretching his palm next to the print but not touching the mud beneath.

I don’t know if that’s an accurate measurement, you tease with a grunt, turning your back to the heaviest of the rain and the other tracks, You’re a tall, lanky guy. If its claws are that big, I’m sure it may be proportionally huge, you finish with a laugh. He glances up to see you fumbling just a little, trying to block the rain from hitting your camera full force and get the footprint and his hand in the shot all at once. Fidds snorts a laugh, and you smile as you shake your head down to him, your wet hair mimicking the motion out of the corner of your eye as you scoff a fond, Shut up.

In your movement, you’ve turned to be able to watch as the other two boys make their way up to you, glancing to see the both of their bodies coming into view, smile still on your face when you look through the viewfinder to center the shot. You know you don’t have much time left to have your camera out in this rain without ruining some film or the mechanisms inside it, so you’re quick to press the button, even as you hear Fiddleford gasp at something behind you at the same moment. The flash of your camera goes off, the light similar to a strike of lightning, illuminating the woods around you in one brief second. You move the camera from your face, reaching to start and put it away despite the sound of it printing the snapshot.

Fidds, what’s wrong? You ask over the loud rain, turning your head in time to look at him, seeing…fear? You don’t have the time to think or ask anything else as Fiddleford stands abruptly and grips your arm, nearly knocking your camera from your hand as he yanks you back toward the way you came. You yell out, frightened by the sudden change in the man, until you turn your head to see why.

“WATCH OUT!” Stan’s voice bellows over the downpour, suddenly so much closer than you’d imagined. When you’d glanced up at them, you hadn’t noticed the duo were running, mud caking their shoes and the bottom of their pant legs as the twins made their way toward you and Fidds. Now they’re right in front of you, looking up and over you with something akin to fear as Stan throws something--you think a rock--at the thing.

This must be the creature, the feeling of dread in your stomach at the sight of it reminding you of the hillside incident the night before. It stands somehow taller than you’d imagined on the feet that match those prints, a mass of pitch-colored ….hair? feathers? looming tall against the trees of the forest. You’re not sure where its height ends and its wingspan begins, neither more entrancing, or terrifying, than its eyes. Big, red and almost-shining eyes watch as you’re pulled by Fidds, nearly running face-first into the chests of the Pines men. The rock Stan threw hits it square in where its chest would be, were it a man, and the creature seems to puff up more, appearing larger as its wingspan opens, remarkable and terrifying all at once even as they drip with the incessant rain.

The four of you watch up at the beast, wide-eyed. You would almost swear Ford was enamored with the thing, if it weren’t for the tightening of his grip on Fidd’s sleeve, all of you panting from either exertion or pure adrenaline-toned fear. Thinking on your feet, you push down on the camera’s shutter and point the thing at the creature, hoping for a moment that the flash would blind it as you back into Stan’s chest. In the same instant, lightning strikes, rendering your flash useless as the thundering clouds rumble loud enough to feel in your chest, the storm right atop you now. The creature rears back, then lets out a high, wailing screech unlike anything you’ve heard before. It steals your breath, and before you can react, Stan has a hand wrapped around your arm, fingers firm in his grip to you as he pants, a word stumbling from his lips in one harsh breath.

“Run.”

[stardusttkachuk]

Santa’s Workshop

Pairing: JJ x Reader

Word Count: 1.7k

Warnings: fluff, swearing,

Summary: JJ picks up a holiday job, working as one of Santa’s elves. He doesn’t expect to meet another elf there, but isn’t disappointed in who he’ll be working with all season.

A/N: This is day 1 of starduststarkey’s 12 days of Christmas. Find other fics in my masterlist

Wanna be tagged? click here!

“You look fucking ridiculous,” John B says as JJ stands in front of the broken full length mirror that JB picked up from a junkyard.

“At least I have a job, asshat.” He fixes his hat on his head, grimacing at the way the tights hug his body. He’s uncomfortable in every place imaginable and is already dreading the 5 hour shift.

“Maybe if you’re a good elf, Santa will bring you a girlfriend this year!” Pope teases.

“You better shut the fuck up before this elf beats you to a pulp,” JJ threatens, fists raised.

Pope laughs. “I don’t think elves are supposed to be getting in fist fights.”

JJ huffs and rolls his eyes. Pope is right. He can’t show up to this job covered in bruises, that would scare the kids even more than he probably already will.

“Will you please drive me?” He asks John B. 

“Maybe you should ask Santa for a car,” John B says, grabbing the keys to the Twinkie.

“Why do you think I even took this job in the first place? Please. I don’t want to be seen in public like this.”

You set your bag in the provided cubby, checking your phone one last time before your scheduled session. When you had signed up to be one of Santa’s elves at the local mall, you were ecstatic. You and your best friend had been doing this for the last two years. But this year, your best friend ditched you for the hot chocolate stand. Really she ditched you for the cute girl who worked at the hot chocolate stand, and now you were stuck working with some kid named JJ Maybank. You crossed your fingers in hopes that he wasn’t some loser like the guy they hired last season.

“Santa arrives in 10 minutes! You better be out there in 5!” Natasha, the showrunner of Santa’s Workshop yells through the improvised locker and changing room. “Where’s your other elf?”

You shrug. “I don’t know. He hasn’t shown up yet.”

“Well when he gets here tell him he’s a dead man if he isn’t here 15 minutes prior to his shift.” She storms out, clipboard in hand. 

The first day is always one of the craziest. Things don’t settle down until a few weeks in. And by the time they do settle down, it’s already the week before Christmas and they get crazy again. 

“Hi. I’m JJ Maybank. I think this is where I’m supposed to be?” You hear someone say, likely talking to the nutcracker that’s posted outside the green room.

“In there. Find Y/N. You’ll know it’s her because she’ll be dressed just like you.”

You roll your eyes. At least he showed up. Ten minutes late but he did make it.

He passes through the curtains, blonde hair a mess under his elf hat. You’ll have to remind him to brush it before he arrives. You have an extra brush in your bag, but you know you won’t have time to make it look perfect.

He spies you easily, strutting towards you. “I’m JJ. Are you Y/N?” 

“That’s me. You’re late, by the way.”

JJ looks at his watch, eyes wide and mouth agape. “I’m five minutes early! That’s the earliest I’ve been for any job!”

“Natasha’s rules state all workshop employees must be present 15 minutes prior to their shift.”

JJ rolls his eyes. “It’s only ten minutes.”

“And if it happens again, you’re a dead man. So you better be here 15 minutes early next time.”

“Okay but why 15? Aren’t we just sitting around those 15 minutes until our shift starts?”

“It’s for costume malfunctions. Like your hair. It needs to be brushed. If you had been here 10 minutes earlier, maybe we would’ve had time to brush it and make it look better.”

“My hair looks fine,” JJ grumbles, though he does attempt to smooth down the ends with his hands. 

You lead him over to the cubby next to yours, gesturing to it. “Put your stuff in here. And that includes your phone.”

JJ places both his phone and wallet into the cubby. He then takes his jacket off and puts it on top of the two valuable items.

“No one is going to steal your stuff, if you’re worried about that. This place is heavily monitored,” you say. “And no one but Santa’s crew is allowed back here anyway.”

JJ is about to speak when an elderly woman with white hair tucked under her hat enters the room. “Looks like Mrs. Claus has arrived,” he jokes.

“That’s Natasha.” You grab JJ’s hand, pulling him out to Santa’s corner before Natasha has a chance to yell at him for his tardiness.

“So what exactly do we do?” JJ whispers, eyeing the line of children and their parents that seems to wrap around the entire display.

“We help the kids from their parents to Santa’s lap and then back out to their parents again. And don’t forget the candy cane before they leave.”

JJ grimaces. “You mean we have to interact with the kids?”

“Yes. Now smile and act like an elf,” you say.

“How do- ohf!” JJ grunts as you elbow him and immediately reach forward for the hand of a little girl.

“Hi! I’m elf Y/N! And this is my friend elf JJ! What’s your name?” You ask in a high pitched voice. 

“I’m Sophie,” she beams. She grasps onto JJ’s hand and you have to bite your lip to keep from laughing at the face he makes. It’s clear he isn’t a fan of kids and you can’t wait to watch him interact with them for the next 30 days.

JJ pulls his booties on over the tights, chuckling to himself as the bells jingle. They jingle every time he walks. He’s grown so used to the sound now though. He’s grown used to looking absolutely ridiculous in his costume. He’s even grown used to the kids, which he thought was impossible.

But the way Y/N smiles when he coos at a baby or holds onto a preschoolers hand has helped him get over his dislike of the kids. He’d do just about anything to see her smile.

“Ready?” John B asks from the doorway, keys looped around his finger.

“Actually a friend is picking me up,” JJ says, grabbing his phone and wallet.

“What friend? You don’t have any friends besides us.”

“Well that’s very rude of you to think. I have plenty of friends. And her name is Y/N. We work together.”

“Work together or sleep together? Or both. Do you guys like, get it on in the costumes?”

“Ew, no,” JJ scoffs.

“Okay, you know elves is somebody's kink,” John B adds, shuddering as he does.

“I didn’t want to know that. I don’t want to think about that.”

“Okay but Y/N… you like her.”

“No. We’re just friends. We’re coworkers. We work the same shift and she offered to give me a ride, okay? Now can you make yourself disappear before she gets here? I don’t want her seeing your face.”

John B pouts. “Why not? I have a very likable face.”

“Just… please?” JJ asks, but it’s too late. 

The beat up Ford truck pulls up in front of the house. JJ knows it’s hers. On days when they work late and it’s dark outside by the time they leave, he walks her to her car. They once spent two extra hours after work sitting in her car and talking. She even gave him a ride home once, but he made her drop him off down the street. It was too risky for her to pull up to his actual house, especially if his dad was home. 

JJ knows John B is in the doorway when he exits the house. He watches as Y/N waves, a courteous smile on her face. JJ walks to the passenger side, hearing the familiar squeak of the old door.

“Who’s that?”

“John B. He’s my best friend.”

“He’s dating Sarah Cameron right?” she asks.

“Yeah. You know Sarah?”

“Everyone on this island knows Sarah,” Y/N laughs. JJ knows she’s not wrong. Everyone did know the Cameron's, especially after the huge scandal that went down last summer. People don’t typically forget about a murder and stealing of millions of dollars worth in gold.

“Right,” JJ laughs nervously. 

You tear your elf hat off as soon as you reach your truck. Today was a hard shift. Multiple crying kids, lines that wrapped all around the mall, parents who didn’t understand the concept of patience and waiting, and then there was the kid that peed on Santa Claus and made everyone wait even longer while Santa went to change. It was a nightmare. 

If it wasn’t for JJ, today would’ve been the day you quit.

But he insisted on stopping for dinner before you dropped him off, so here you were, sitting at a booth across from him, the both of you still clad in your elf costumes.

You probably looked ridiculous but you didn’t care. JJ was your sole focus tonight. He let you vent to him about the craziness of the day and when you weren’t talking he was telling you about the funniest wishes he had overheard while on candy cane duty. 

“All their missing socks?” You laugh, hand covering your mouth.

JJ nods, laughing harder. “He-He couldn’t understand why the dryer monster needed his socks more than him. He even asked if-if monsters were on the naughty list!” JJ bursts out laughing, as do you. If there was one thing that could cheer you up, it was this.

“Kids got a point,” you giggle. “Why does the dryer monster only take one sock and not both? Do you think he only has one leg?”

JJ nods, his smile wide. “Yeah, instead of one eye he’s got one leg.”

Your laughs die down slowly, but you can’t wipe the smile off your face. The smile that was forced all throughout the day was now a real one.

“I’ve missed that smile,” JJ says, reaching his hand across the table.

You blush but take his hand without hesitation, lacing your fingers through his.

JJ nervously clears his throat. “Do you think when this is all over, I can take you on an actual date?”

You’re not sure your smile could get any wider. “I’d like that.”

You both stare at each other for a while longer, before JJ can’t wait anymore. “I’m going to kiss you now,” he says, leaning over the table.

“I’d like that too,” you respond, meeting him halfway.

Tags: @kaelyn-lobrutto24 @serpentbaby @etoilesnoor @k-k0129 @maybanksbaby @talksoprettyjjx @canibeoneofthepogues @multifixx  @theonetheonlyalexbrown @glux64 @shy-1234 @sleepyhollands @cognacdelights @ilovejjmaybank @blueeyedbesson @cheshirecat107 @myrandom-fandomlife @makebank @ifilwtmfc @obxmxybxnk  @kookkyra @rafej-cambanks @blindedbypeaky @ahiae @repostcentral @midnightzonzz @blxndeprincess @dracosbbygorl @itsagurl @Poguesinablanket @amandaburris @tovvaa @sunnsettee

[melbee]

Electric Love

Chapter 3 

A David Lee Roth Fanfiction

I'd be safe and warm If I was in L.A.  California dreamin' 

On such a winter's day

- california dreamin’ 

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

“Okay.. final checks!” Holly sounded out as she put the last box into the Ford pickup truck, (kindly borrowed from her father).

I huffed as I put my bag into the front seat, as I made my way to the back where Holly was. “I think that’s it Holly.”

She sighed as she finally looked at me. “Holy shit, we’re actually doing this.”

“Pretty sure I’m the one who’s moving?” I said as I laughed, making my way to the front, sitting shotgun.

“It takes two, and we’re basically joined at the hip Rose.” She said laughing, climbing into the front seat, and shutting the door.

“Right forgot how obsessed you are about me.” I said as we started onto the road.

“Yeah well...” Holly began to say, as I looked out the window.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be leaving this place.” I whispered as I watched the car go by. I gazed up at the corner store me and Holly used to ride our bikes to as kids, the large Museum full of tacky antiques, and of course the beautiful desert scenery that accompanied every corner of Arizona.

“Believe me, it’s for the best. From the day I met you in first grade, you were never destined to stay in this dry place.” Holly said as she stayed glued to the road ahead.

I gave her small smile, as she flicked her eyes toward me before focusing back on the road. “That means a lot. I never thought I would get out of here.”

“Rose, if there was a spot in the yearbook for the person who is most likely for success, it was always you.” 

I just sighed as I continued looking out the window. How did she know that? I was always quiet, reserved, and never one to go out much. I felt as if I should be doing more, or being more fun and energetic. I figured I would live in Arizona all my life, settle down, maybe get married and have kids.

I guess life has a funny way of changing things.

“So what are you going to do?” I asked as I whipped my head around to Holly. I’ve known her for a long time, but I never quite knew what she wanted to do as a career. She was a good swimmer and competed, but I wasn’t sure if that’s what she wanted to be all her life.

Holly sighed, “I’m sure I’ll work at the diner a bit longer, at least until I punch that sucker like a balloon anyways...” I laughed as I shook my head.

Holly looked at me and smiled, “Maybe I’ll talk to Ralph at the pool and see if I could pick up a job as a swim coach or something.”

I smiled, “Holly, that sounds wonderful!”

“Yeah maybe I’ll do that for a bit, maybe meet a cute European, move to Spain, oh.. and cheer on my best friend as she earns millions as the best fashion designer in the entire country.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I said as I fidgeted with my fingers.

I put my eyes back out the window, as I heard the familiar click of the radio turn on, and the familiar melodies of California Dreamin’ by the Mamas and the Papas turned on.

I heard the tap of the wheel, I assumed Holly had begun to listen to the music, and it must've been lulling, because I soon began to drift off into a deep sleep, the sense of surroundings filling me, and the curiosity of the future in store for me.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Approximately 12 hours later, two cheeseburgers, and taking turns driving the truck, we made it to the City of angels.

“Wow! It’s just like in the movies, but better!” Holly said as she gazed out of the windows at the looming palm tress, and the big buildings.

“Yeah, it’s beautiful.” I said as I gazed at the people in fancy and cheap cars alike, the big signs filled with ads for strip clubs, tours, and perfume commercials.

“I wonder how many celebrities you’re going to see.” Holly said, as she turned down another street, toward a sign that was directing us to northeast Los Angeles, and eventually into Pasadena.

We had stopped at a local convenience store and grabbed a map, which I now had facing adjacent to a long a piece of paper which I had copied down the street address. I was fixing my eyes now toward the map, chewing my bottom lip in concentration. “Okay so go straight for about 15 miles, then you’re going to take a right, then a left, go straight-”

“Okay, calm down I’m not a mind memorizer.” Holly said, as I saw her tongue peak out of her bottom lip, as she continued on. “I need a smoke soon.”

“Okay, do you want me to get one for you?” I said as I glanced back at the map.

“Nah, my Dad will kill me if he smells smoke in here. Something about it ruining the interior or something..”

“Oh okay..” As I concentrated on the map. This was so confusing, how did anyone get anywhere in this state? Arizona was pretty easy as it was mainly desert. This city had almost every type of business across every corner of land. If you wanted to go to a strip club, McDonald's, or get your drivers license, you were lucky to have all three within walking distance.

“Wow so cool! Look!’ Holly said as she pointed up at a billboard we were passing by, I looked just briefly to see a glimpse of large letters, and bright colors.

VAN HALEN TWO NIGHTS AT THE ROSE BOWL! GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!

“So cool! I wonder if Lewis could hook you up with tickets, I wouldn’t mind staying a couple extra days.” Holly said as she laughed.

I shrugged going back to the map. “Yeah maybe..”

“Oh come on! Don’t you want to see Van Halen! They’re so hot and so rock n’ roll.”

“Yeah, I like a couple of their songs..” I muttered.

Holly gave me a pointed look. “Okay, so you wouldn’t do anything to get backstage and meet them?”

I put my map down, as I gave her a look. “Holly, me and 50 other girls trying to hook up with them.”

“Woah! So you admit you would want to hook up with them.” Holly giggled.

“Uh.. no. I mean.. I would be mixed in with every other girl trying to get their eyes set on them. What makes me stand out from the rest of the other greedy, fame grabbers?” I said as I shook my head.

“Oh I don’t know.. maybe getting pregnant and having to get married by guilt, and collecting millions in cash as a rock star wife?” Holly said, without a stutter.

My eyes bugged. “Holly, you are fucking insane.”

“I know, you love me anyway.” She winked.

“Focus on the road, we’re getting close to Pasadena.”

“alright.. alright..” Holly said as she maintained her eyes on the road.

Almost an hour later we had finally made it to Pasadena.

It was a lot more prosperous then LA. It showcased lot’s of expensive architecture and Spanish styled roofing, and busy landscapes. I could tell it was a town where the rich encompassed much of the population. 

How much does Lewis make? From the couple phone calls I had received from him, I had not gotten the chance to ask about how prosperous his job was.

“Wow, there must be some rich ass kids in this place.” She said as she looked around at the architecture. 

I snorted, “Yeah no kidding. Pretty sure you’re turning right at this intersection.” Holly jerked the wheel into the turn lane, and stopped before giving me a mean look.

“You know you have to give me at least a bit more time to safely move myself, before you give me directions.”

I slapped my hand down on the map, “You were complaining I was going too fast!”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure a turtle could say directions faster then you could.” Holly said as we began turning onto another road.

The buildings began to space out,  as we began to drive pass large mansions, guarded by strong gates and dangly trees, that reminded me of the streets showcased in Hollywood movies. Does that mean they were fake? There was something so oddly picturesque of Pasadena, that made me believe it was something far different then what it appeared to be.

“Wow, I wonder who lives in those places.” Holly said as we peered to the side to ogle at the gorgeous architecture.

Just as we were driving, we all but slammed on our brakes as we saw a 50′s Mercury all but zoom past one of the accompanying large, expansive  gates, along with a chorus of loud hollers and laughs.

I scoffed as I looked over to Holly who sat there in awe. “Wow.”

“Are you okay?” I asked looking concerned, this must’ve snapped her out of her daze because she began driving once again, as she shook her head.

“Yeah sorry, I just... who the hell was that? Do you think they could’ve been a celebrity?” She said.

I laughed. “They almost hit us, and you’re worried about if they were famous?”

“How cool if they did, and I could’ve met whoever was in that car. It looked like a guy and a couple chicks. Or maybe they were all guys...”

I laughed as I shrugged, “Could very well be the latter.”

“So fucking cool.” She said as she shook her head smiling, as we continued down the road.

I couldn’t help but begin to get curious who was in there as well. Didn’t they have any decency to watch where they were going? Why were they driving so erratically in such a beautiful car? Where they drunk? Where were they going?

I simply just let it go, and sighed hoping that would’ve been the end of those encounters in California.

Oh, how I wish that would've been true.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Sunset Strip, 1982

“Dave you are so funny!” I heard the obnoxious giggle come from the blonde to my right.

I grinned, as I handed the keys to a chauffeur, grabbing her hand and kissing her neck all the way into the club, a troupe of others who had hitched a ride following behind closely.

“Great to see you Mr. Roth, your booth is right this way.” As a waiter, I presumed new as he had no recognizable face to him, lead me the way. It was routine to hit Hollywood’s best clubs on the Sunset Strip, and it was always a good time to reminisce about Van Halen’s early days.

We certainly had come a long way now.

“Call me Dave, or Diamond, or put them together. It doesn’t matter.” I said as I laughed, cueing the chorus of giggles from the other girls who had stumbled their way to the side.

I had checked and now they had seemingly multiplied, lots of brunettes, and bleach blonde hair, and legs. To say it was normal, would be an understatement. They were all the same. But it got me laid, and gave me a good time.

“David...” I heard a whisper come from the side, it sounded like Michael Jackson, and over-tuned whistles. Nonetheless, I turned my way to see a brunette with big eyes, gazing at me with a strange look.

“Yes, sugar?” I said in my best sweet saccharine voice, and a grin. 

She began to rub down my thigh, her spindly fingers grazing up and down like cat claws. God damn how did she pick stuff up with them... “Could you get me a drink?”

I smiled, as I stood a little taller motioning for a waiter to come. “She’ll have a jack and coke.”

She huffed, “No, I want a whiskey sour.” I shrugged as I motioned for the waiter to listen to her, and he simply nodded his head and left.

She continued her incessant clawing on my thighs, that I’m sure would leave marks by morning, as girls began toppling over one another to try to join in on whatever they thought was happening.

“So David, are we going back to your house?” I heard a blonde say to my right, as she twirled her hair, biting her lip as if her life depended on it. 

“I don’t know sugar, I got rehearsal tomorrow.”

She pouted as she latched on to my arm like a leech. “Please, can we come stay, I’ll make it worth your while.” I began hearing the sounds of bird like chirps as other girls nearby began chiming in on the plead.

I laughed as I smacked the blonde’s thigh, grabbing a swig of my Jack before shrugging. “Oh fuck it.”

I heard a loud cheer, before one by one girls began crawling towards me, kissing up and down my legs and arms.

This was going to be a long night.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

[commanders-sole-braincell]

,A,I,H,N,E,F,O,R,D :3 I swear I'll get to the point where I ask about your other toons too. I just have a mighty urge to know everything about Ford.

I’m totally gonna steal that name thing for the A-Z questions I won’t lie >:3c

Alignment :: What would be their D&D alignment? How might it come into play?

Probably a Neutral Good who likes to think he’s more Chaotic Good. He lives to help people and can’t just, leave them to suffer, regardless of who they are, and puts others above himself - and expects the law to be used to further moral compassion as opposed to selfish gain.

He considers the laws and domino effects at least, usually, but does understand that they sometimes hinder as opposed to help, otherwise he’d probably be more chaotic good leaning

Insomnia :: What’s their sleeping schedule like? Snorer? Sound sleeper?

He usually falls asleep later at night (12pm -1pm), if he can get away for it, and sleeps for HOURS. He’s 100% the type of person who can sleep for 10-12 hours and call it a nap! Due to everything that’s been going on though, he usually gets less, around 4 - 6 usually (Ford why are you like this?!)

He also sleeps like a bear. Getting to sleep the slightest noise will irritate and wake him up (and he’s real mean about being woken up), but he’ll sleep like the dead once he’s out; he also ends up slowly going from curled up in a ball to spread eagle and usually drools on himself, but doesn’t snore. He takes another hour or two to wake up once he’s awake and it’s widely known in the Pact that if Ford’s shuffling round in a dressing gown (hood up), and slowly chewing food while yawning and looking tired - you don’t approach him. Don’t poke the bear

Hobby :: What’s something they do for fun that might be surprising?

Fun? Never heard of it! 

Ford LOVES poetry, he gets very emotional reading or hearing poetry. It probably came from Trahearne showing him poems, but he absolutely loves poetry, especially slam! And lie-ins, no one expects the Commander to be a lazy ‘stay in bed all day’ type but here he is, snug in warm fluffy clothes, tons of blankets, pillows and plushies, and he ain’t moving. Ever

Network :: Are they connected to the people? How much do they reach out to others?

Ford has the social skills of a drunk goldfish. He tries to keep in contact with people, but is actually pretty introverted, so he spends quite a bit of time on his own. He also never really contacts people much, worried he’ll annoy them, and only does it on certain occasions, or to ask if he can drop by - on the flip side, he NEVER reaches out to people. He keeps everything bottled up and then he’ll die and deals with things privately, partly due to his worry over his image as the Commander, and partly just cuz that’s how he is! Night blooms am I right?

Escape :: What do they do to destress? How successful is it?

No de-stress, only more stress.

Ford usually just process things privately to get the stress out (and by that I mean he either goes for a swim and cries and rages underwater so no one can hear him, or cries while muffled by all the blankets) which helps if its just something he needs to let out and process, but otherwise it varies. He tends to spiral so it does get alot of things out at once but oh its so not healthy

He also likes to cuddle the baby skyscales and coddle his mounts to de-stress. That’s his favourite method.

See a therapist my dude

Fluff :: What hits their soft spot? Does anything them into emotional goo?

Emotionally? Any kind of affection; words of adoration, affection and appreciation get him REAL GOOD, and he’ll get super emotional if ‘I love you’s are exchanged. Also romance. He’s a real big softie tbh its not hard to make him get all soft with people. 

Physically? Petting his hair. A good head stroke and he is GONE, instant flopping and sleepy time for him. He’s too embarrassed to ask for it, but if someone pets his head or runs their fingers through his spines he’s absolute goo in seconds. Also loves just, casual leaning and contact when someones close by.

 Offspring :: What kind of parent would they be? Would they prefer one, or multiple?

Based on the skyscales, Ford is the parent who tries to be kind but fair, but spoils them rotten and panics that they hate him and is smothering them with love two minutes after telling them off. Gorrik hates the fact he’s the disciplinary parent cuz they’d be running amok if Ford raised them alone. 

While he doesn’t want kids (he’s terrified of babies; he WILL drop them and they will both cry), at least not at the moment, he’d prefer two. So they can keep each other company and rely on each other when he’s not there. Maybe with a bit of a gap between the two

Reminder :: How are they at remembering daily needs? What falls through the cracks?

He actually has a very good memory for routines and doing x,y,z thing (like checking tack, fixing armour), and only occasionally will forget to eat - he’s not good at remembering the time he has to do things (like say, eat at lunch) and will have to be reminded otherwise he’ll just suddenly be feeling grumpy and be all confused until he goes “OH SHIT! I forgot food!”

Decor :: What kind of home do they keep? Are there any defining details?

His home in the Grove is actually pretty sparse. He rarely visits, and if he stays its not for long, so there’s only really a bed, table and chair, and a chest to keep stuff in. It’s pretty generic for sylvari, but he does have one plush from when he was a sapling on the bed.

[codylabs]

Chapter 19: The Worst of Times

Links: P 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

An honest-to-goodness alien spaceship came careening out of the sky, directly toward the town. At the last possible second, it pulled up and curved away, close enough that the people on the streets could feel the pull of its gravity drive. Then it swerved unstably side to side through the sky, as its pilot attempted to get bearings. Soon it seemed to pick a direction, and so tilted on one end and raced off toward the hills, slicing off a couple treetops as it went. When it passed over the Mystery Shack, it took a sudden drop in altitude, hovered into something resembling a standstill, bumped once into the side of the building, and settled to the ground upside-down.

Its engines wined tiredly as it rolled itself back right-side-up, and finally came to a rest right between Soos’ truck and the Stans’ RV, like just another car in the parking lot.

The airlock momentarily opened and two sore but triumphant teenagers blinked in the light.

“Ugh…” Dipper dropped the alien instruction manual and rubbed his arms with a groan. “Ow…”

“Bro…” Wendy staggered slightly and shook her head, her inner ear still spinning from the flight’s antics. She gripped her fingers around the upper rim of the airlock, and hoisted herself out before extending a hand down to Dipper. “That was… Bleh…”

“Yeah… Bleh…” Dipper took her hand, and let himself be lifted up.

“Let’s… Uh…” Wendy set him down beside her and gave him a friendly slap on the back. “Yeah… Let’s not… Not do that again.”

They both dropped down off the vehicle’s rim, limped over to the Mystery Shack porch, and plopped themselves down on the sofa, where they could massage and stretch their sore bodies in relative peace.

After about 5 minutes of sitting there groaning, Wendy reached an arm way over in the direction of the cooler, and came back with a pair of ice cream sandwiches. One she tossed to Dipper, the other she unwrapped herself. The cool milky goodness reminded them how hot they were, and they began to unbuckle and loosen their armor. Wendy took a moment to admire all the scratches and dents she’d accumulated on her shoulder pads, and Dipper took a moment to subtly readjust his pants for reasons we won’t go into. Finally he spoke up again. “Yeah… And if we do do that again… I’ll drive.”

“What? No…” She smirked sharply at him. “That was fun, man… I mean… I mean, that wasn’t bad, was it?”

A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “…You drive spaceships about as well as you drive cars.”

“Yeah, well…” She struggled for a retort. “Well… You read Alien-ese about as well as you read Spanish. ‘That’s the reactor ignition’ you said. ‘push that button’ you said. ‘try those switches over there’ you said… But was it any of those?”

“No… No, we made it out by dumb luck…”

“Yeah…”

“Ugh… Sorry.”

She blinked. “Yeah… Hey, you know what, I’m sorry too. I totally forgot all about the rotation controls there during takeoff. And I guess I am a pretty bad pilot all-in-all…”

“Ahh… It’s fine… It’s just barf. It washes out…”

“Ha ha… Ooooh.” She took another bite of ice cream. “That’s gross dude.”

“Breaking news! Dipper is gross!” A new voice suddenly joined the conversation, its owner leaping out of the door to land in a smug summersault before them. With a big metal smile and a voice like a TV announcer, she held her own ice cream sandwich like a microphone. She was talking again by the time the screen door banged shut behind her. “Stay tuned next time for these and other shocking revelations, such as: grass is green!”

“Ugh! Mabel!” Dipper frowned.

“What is UP, Dippingsauce?!? Say, when did you guys get back?”

“Like… Just now?” Wendy shrugged.

“Mabel!” Dipper hissed at a volume he thought was quiet. “Go. A. Way. You were ruining the… Ermmmph…?” He nodded toward Wendy in a way he thought was discreet.

“Oh, what?” Mabel laughed. “Did I ruin the moment? I thought you were talking about how gross you were! Well excuse ME for mussing up the moment, you adorable lovebirds!”

“I…! Guh! Mabel! Go away!”

“Maybe I will, but I'll never be faaaar... Ooooh-weeEEEEE-Oooooh...!” She made a mysterious alien noise.

“Say…” Wendy interrupted, eager as anyone to steer the girl toward alternative conversation topics. “What have you been doing all day, dude?”

“Oh, ME?” Mabel smiled. “Well, I… I! I have been thinking and braining and computing, and I think I’ve finally found a way for you guys to solve your little adventure. A big, grand, happy solution! A way that doesn’t involve killing all the alien robots. I way where people are still safe, but also nothing has to be extinct!”

“Oh yeah?” Dipper glanced at her, intrigued. “And what would this big, grand, happy solution be?”

“Nuh-UH! I can’t tell you! It’s a super secrety secret that only Soos and Robbie are allowed to—SWEET MOTER OF CINNAMON IS THAT A UFO?!?”

“Uh…” Dipper glanced over his shoulder. “That? No, of course not.” He shook his head and took another bite of ice cream. “’UFO’ stands for ‘Unidentified Flying Object.’ Whereas that machine is perfectly identified. It is a nuclear-powered sub-light cargo shuttle manufactured on Trilazzxx Beta, as exploratory equipment for Colonial Vessel 4.16’\. An extraterrestrial spacecraft. Not a UFO.”

“OH MY GEEEEEEEE…! Soos, get out here! Dipper and Wendy got us a UFO!”

Soos appeared at the door with a heaping mouthful of grass. “DUDE!” He gasped some down his windpipe, and spent the next several seconds coughing it back up as he ran after Mabel toward the vehicle. “Dude it’s a spaceship! Duuuuude!”

“Duuuuuuude!”

“Duuuuuuuuude!”

“DUUUUUUUUUUUDE!”

Mabel and Soos clambered up the side and disappeared down the airlock.

“…And we’re sure that thing is harmless, right?” Dipper blinked.

“At this point? Yes. And I also took the keys.” Wendy reached into her pocket and pulled out something like a cross between a sonic screwdriver and a feather duster. “I think these are the keys, at least…”

“Ha ha… Good move…”

“Yeah…”

They were silent for a few minutes more.

Dipper took a deep breath.

Wendy took a deep breath.

“So…” He began.

“So…” She began at the exact same time. This seemed to cause some form of mutual interruption, and caused them to both stop talking.

“Go ahead.”

“No, you go ahead.”

“Okay…” She continued. “So…” She let the word hang in the air for a minute, unsure of how to follow up on it. “So… We started a conversation earlier that we never got to finish.”

“Oh…” Dipper stammered. “Oh yeah. Uh… We did, huh? Yeah…”

“About how this adventure might very well be our last. About how if we’re not careful, we might never hang out again. About how I’ll miss you and you’ll miss me and neither of us really want that to happen and, like, what should we do about that…?”

“Uh… Uh… Yeah…”

“Hmm.” Wendy grunted.

And then they fell silent again.

Finally Dipper opened his mouth. Then he closed it, cleared his throat, and tried again. “Wendy, uh… I was wondering if tomorrow… Uh… If… Uh…”

“What?”

“Uh…” A spell of dizzy itchiness seized him about that time, and it got just a little too much to bear. “Uh…”

“What?” She repeated.

“Umm… Never mind.”

“No no no no!” She insisted. “You started a conversation earlier, and now you better finish it.  And you just started a sentence just now, so you darn better finish that too. If you really do have something you want to say, you darn better man up and speak up, or who knows; one of us could die in the meantime. You never know when you'll never have another chance, so take it now.”

“UH!” He squirmed nervously. “No, it’s not… Never mind. I changed my mind.”

“Changed your mind…? Really?”

“Uh…” Dipper took a breath, set his jaw, and finally said. “Okay.” Then he looked her in the eye and, with a truly monumental effort of courage, said it. “Wendy… Do you want to go on a date with me tomorrow?”

Her mouth slowly spread into a little smile as she leaned back and took another bite of her ice cream sandwich. Then she said. “I do.”

Then…!

Then… That was…

That was it… Wasn’t it?

That night Wendy came home tired, happy, and strangely optimistic… Everything seemed pretty good. Pretty chill.

Everything wasn't pretty good.

When she crawled into bed, turned out the lights and drifted off to sleep, something was wrong… It wasn't a happy sleep. A darkness seemed to encroach upon her mind, and forced upon it a new vision; a new vision, filled with darkness.

Within this evil nightmare, the day seemed to run the same way that she remembered. Just the way it was supposed to… Yes, everything was exactly the same… Until…

Until everything went wrong.

The ship exploded. Little bits and pieces flew from its port-side wing, as it tumbled for the ground. The controls fought back against her, the ground came much too fast, she missed the yard entirely, and crashed in the forest.

The ship tumbled end over end, breaking into pieces, littering the landscape with debris. Fires started. Radiation cooked the area at the atomic level. Ford evacuated people for their own protection. When he found Wendy, he had her strip to her underwear before he blasted her with the hose, trying his best to decontaminate her scarred skin.

But Ford had been irradiated himself; an even higher dosage than she. He was sick within hours, and nobody had seen much of him since. They say he’d retreated to the solitude of his lab, where he spent the hours and days doing who-knows-what.

Soos had to move his family out of the Shack. And as they sat together in a lonely motel room, he realized that there was so much heartbreak and brokenness and chaos roaming about that he couldn’t fix it. Even the greatest handyman in the world couldn’t fix it. He knew it, and the knowledge tore him up inside.

Melody had her hands full enough just trying to keep the hotel room in shape.

Abuelita found herself without her recliner for the first time in decades. The futon was a pretty big step down.

Stan found himself as a caretaker of sorts. He kept them fed and sheltered, much as he was able, kept them together and stable to the greatest of his ability. The same man who had brought them all together as Mr. Mystery now brought them together as their Grunkle. And what a Grunkle he was; but even he couldn’t reach Mabel.

Mabel.

As for her, there were no words for what she felt. It seemed that something inside her had suddenly snapped, and she’d retreated into her shell. Nothing seemed to be able to pierce through.

And Dipper…

Dipper was dead!

Wendy awoke with a sudden gasp, and found herself sitting up in bed, the sheets hot and sticky against her skin, her eyes glued on the moon out the window, her breath coming ragged and heavy.

What a nightmare that had been! It was so vivid! Almost as vivid as reality! When she tried to remember it, it didn’t elusively fade like dreams usually do; she could recall it so clearly… The image of Dipper’s bloody, broken body still hovered before her eyes, the broken lives and dreams, the sickness, the pain. She could see it almost as clearly… As… Reality…

But… Wait… Reality…?

Reality was the happy landing… The ice cream… The smiles… The awkward little invitation…

Right?

What was…?

What…

Which was the dream?!?

Wendy’s eyes slowly strayed around her room, searching in dread for the clues which would tell her.

She saw the 4 journals lying open on her desk; three red with the symbol of a hand, and one blue with the symbol of the tree.

She saw the pitcher lying next to her bed, so she had a place to barf if she again felt sick in the night.

She felt the light cotton shirt across her chest, the only thing she could wear that didn’t hurt so bad when it rubbed on her radiation burns.

She saw the little container on her nightstand, with some long, cumbersome scientific label: the pills Ford had given her to flush the latent Uranium from her body.

She saw her calendar, with its extra marks telling her she’d been bedridden 4 days now.

She saw the ‘get well soon’ cards her friends had made, lying in a messy little stack.

She saw last night’s dinner sitting where dad had left it on the foot of her bed; stone cold and untouched…

And on the windowsill directly in front of her, she saw a shattered, oil-stained axe; the axe Dipper had used to defend her to his dying breath.

Wendy’s mind, now fully awake, began to put the grim picture together: the happy ending was the dream. Instead of the nightmare, it was the good day that faded quickly from her consciousness, leaving nothing to recall it by except a vague, groundlessly hopeful feeling. The nightmare had taken its place in her memory.

And now, Wendy was struck with a sudden and powerful feeling of Deja-Vu: she’d been having the same dream for the past 4 nights. Each time, she vaguely recalled the relief, the peace, the life and love… Everything always seemed pretty chill… Then each time, she fell asleep. And the dream within a dream was a nightmare, and when she woke from both she beheld that the nightmare was true. Somehow, inexplicably, it had always been true…

Reality was the nightmare…

Bill would have been tickled pink.

Wendy would suffer no more sleep tonight. Instead she eased herself out of bed, dragging the quilt behind her for warmth. Then she flipped on the lamp above her desk, and watched the weathered pages of the journals appear before her in the yellowish light. Her butt landed on the chair, and her eyes landed on the pages, and there both stayed as the small hours ticked by.

This wasn’t right. She told herself. It wasn’t this way, and it won’t be this way. I don’t know how it could ever be fixed, but there IS a way, and I WILL find it. As she turned another page, she repeated this promise to herself a second time, and she believed it. She knew it.

Wherever you are, Dipper… Listen to me, and don’t you give up hope. Things look bad right now but somehow, somewhere, sometime, I’m coming for you. I will save you.

You had honor and grit beyond your years, Dipper. You were the one who taught me determination. You were the one who taught me heroism. Whatever it is I need to do, I learned it from you. If it had been me dead out there, you would have done the same and more for me, with neither hesitation nor doubt. And you wouldn’t have let depression or despair or a little Acute Radiation Syndrome stand in your way.

Listen to me Dipper, and hold fast.

I won’t be long.

I promise you life.

“Learn to think dark thoughts, my girl.”

These were the words Robbie had given Mabel 4 days ago, when he’d scorned her spirit and left her. These words had been given to her 23 minutes before Dipper died.

She shouldn’t logically have known of his demise on such short notice. She’d been in the van at the time, on the way to the motel, complaining and talking and joking with Soos and Melody… Then… She’d suddenly and inexplicably felt a piece of her soul shatter to pieces. Maybe it was just the minutes ticking by when nobody spoke or called. Maybe she’d suddenly put it all together: how the only place a dirty UFO could have come from is on-planet. How the only people who were currently investigating aliens (and thus the only ones who would ever find such a craft and try to land it in their yard) were Dipper and Wendy. Maybe Robbie’s words had set off a chain reaction of unreasonable, escalating paranoia.

It was probably the work of some kind of latent twin ESP.

It didn’t matter how she’d known.

She just had.

And thus did the civil war begin.

It was the spark that set the two sides of Mabel’s soul afire in hatred against the other. They donned their armor, they took up weapons, and they charged headlong into war on the surface of her mind.

The light half of her brain cried foul at the claims of the darkness; it said that Dipper wasn’t dead at all. “It’s all right!” The light half said. “What do you mean he’s dead? Of course he’s all right! He’s always been all right! He’s always been there for you, you’ve always been there for him, and nothing in the universe can stand between! That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way it will always be! Your love for him conquers all! And even if he is dead; so what? Together, you’ve conquered things more powerful than death before, and you will conquer them again! You’ve battled across space and time, you’ve grappling-hooked your way through demons and robots! So long as the name ‘Pines’ still dances in the sunny fields of Gravity Falls, your hope and your love will endure! Stand up and laugh at cruel fate, Mabel! The others need your strength!”

“Of course he’s dead.” The dark side retorted. “He went off alone with Wendy; he spent more and more time with her, less and less time with you, because he wanted to leave you behind! He thought you were too sweet and young and foolish for his duty, and he was right… He left you because he knew you couldn’t handle the grown-up world! The real world… It is dark and twisted and dangerous, filled with evil men, just like Robbie told you! Dipper left you for this world, and his foray into its clutches destroyed him. He should have stayed with you, growing young and stupid by your side, but he didn’t… And now what will you do, you glittery, girly little fart? You will sit down and you will cry, because bringing him back means following him into that grim world, and you are too cowardly for the task!”

Yes, it was true: only half of the mind was occupied by Mabel’s old self… The other half was something terrible and ugly and foreign… Some part of herself she’d either never noticed or always tried to repress. Where did this other half come from? How did it get into my brain? Why are you here? Why won’t you leave me alone? Help, somebody help! It’s hurting me!

No matter how the fires raged on that battleground, the darkness would not be subdued.

But that whole evening, the light side would not be subdued either. It had been holding aloft that one and singular hope: the hope and that this was all just a weird onset of paranoia. But… But what kind of person was paranoid enough to instantly become certain of a dark truth she couldn’t have known? Even Dipper hadn’t been that bad. Nobody was that paranoid, certainly not sweet, optimistic little Mabel… Certainly not sweet, optimistic, innocent, supportive, carefree, cheery, bubbly, joyous, happy little Mabel… Certainly not I…

Dipper was dead; she knew it but she didn’t know it, and that was the misery she had lived until 7:28 that night. And that was when Melody, the most adult-like adult present, got a call from Ford. She’d listened to the news with a steely frown for some 10 minutes, whispering questions just outside Soos and Mabel’s hearing.

Then she nodded, said something to Soos, and handed the phone to Mabel.

Mabel turned away before she could see Soos’ reaction, then pressed the earpiece to her head, and, in a barely steady voice, demanded of the man on the other end. “He’s dead? He’s dead, isn’t he? Dipper’s dead?”

Ford hadn’t dared to hesitate; she’d waited long enough. “Yes.” He’d said.

She vaguely remembered dropping the phone, then curling up in someplace cold and dark, pulling her head and limbs into her sweater, and crying. Deep inside the impenetrable inner sanctum of Sweatertown, the darkness gained ground. “I was right.” It said. “You are foolish, you are stupid, you are weak, and I was right. Now you are all alone, and there is nobody to help you. Your brother is gone, your uncles are just uncles, your friends are just friends, your Soos is just a Soos, and none of them know you anymore. The Shooting Star burned so bright and beautiful in its time, but a shooting star is just a falling star, and its shine is merely its vaporization. The atmosphere has torn it apart, and now a cracked, rough, beaten, cold shell comes plummeting for the ground; an impact that will surely dash it to pieces… Poor, poor Shooting Star… At last… At long, long last, it’s time for you to become something new…”

Thusly did the sweet, optimistic, innocent, supportive, carefree, cheery, bubbly, joyous, happy little Mabel slowly rot.

Robbie’s words echoed over the blackened, besieged walls of Sweatertown.

“Learn to think dark thoughts, my girl…”

Such thoughts had begun to ooze.

Dan tucked in his shirt and buckled his suspenders, as he glanced tiredly at the clock. He had to leave for work in 15 minutes… He supposed that was long enough to try once more to talk.

So he scooped a couple eggs and some sausage off the stove and onto a plate, and carried them over to his daughter’s sealed door. With one massive fist he knocked once, and waited a minute for the response that never came.

She didn’t want to talk. She never wanted to talk.

So he opened it anyway, and took a timid step within.

She was sitting at her desk, wrapped tightly in a quilt and little else, as seemed to be habit these past few days. Before her, arranged on the table like some kind of ritual, were all those old confounded books… What was she doing?

Whatever it was, she didn’t think it warranted showing to him.

Her back was turned, and there it stayed. Her gaze was forward, and there it stayed, as she flipped page after page, slowly and methodically, scanning from book to book to book to book. Occasionally she scribbled a note or a question or an answer here or there. Sometimes she checked a little chart she’d scribbled on the wall, that seemed to be some kind of code. Sometimes she fact-checked the blue one with the red ones, or the red ones with each other.

Always she was looking. Looking for what? Dan couldn’t guess. Why the sudden interest in books, when she’d never liked them even a little? Dan hadn’t a clue. What strange books were these, that could promise answers among matters of life and death? Dan hesitated to speculate. What did she believe stood to gain by pouring over scribbles all through the late and early hours? It didn’t make much sense to him. But somehow, such folly seemed infinitely important to her. Indeed, by the intensity of her studies, it seems she believed in it… WHY? He wondered again. WHAT IS THERE TO BELIEVE? WHAT IS SHE THINKING? IS SHE HOPING? HOPING FOR WHAT? AND HOW? HOW DOES HOPE FOLLOW FROM A SITUATION LIKE THIS…?

Well… He figured she probably knew a lot more about this than he did. Whatever she was thinking, he hoped to God that she was right.

He set her breakfast down on her bed, to replace her untouched dinner.

But before he left, he decided to try once more.

“…WENDY?”

No response, although her shoulders may have tensed just slightly.

“LOOK, I… I KNOW YOU DON’T WANT TO TALK, BUT… BUT. HMM. YEAH… UH… YOU KNOW, WHEN YOUR MOM DIED--”

“Was it your fault?” Dan saw his own daughter spin on him, wild and aggressive, lashing out like a cornered animal. And for the first time, Dan clearly saw that terrible, ungodly look in her eye. It was a look that shocked Dan, even frightened him into taking a step back, because he recognized it well. He hadn’t seen that look in a long time, and he’d hoped to never see it again. That was the look he saw in the mirror, when he met times of true desperation with all he had left: his anger and his willpower. When her mom died. When her brother had hit his head on a hiking trip. When the sky was red and everyone was gone. This was a look of great import.

“I don’t talk.” Wendy growled. “Because I know what you’re going to say, and I’m not gonna listen. You’re gonna ask me why the dickens I was trying to fly an alien spaceship in the first place. Why I didn’t land it properly, or why I showed enough weakness to need protection from some wimpy kid. You’re gonna tell me none of this had happened if I’d have just gotten a job like a good little girl! If I’d have just forgotten the whole thing! You’re gonna tell me I shouldn’t have tried to do this, and now ‘HEY LOOK SOMEBODY’S DEAD! HEY LOOK, NOW YOU’VE GOT ARS AND YOU SHOULDN’T BE OUT OF BED TILL YOUR BONE MARROW HEALS!’ WELL I KNOW IT, DAD! I darn well know I messed up, but I’ll have you know that we had our own good reasons for going out there, for fighting the fight we did, for flying that ship… We believed—No—We knew that we had to! But this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be! We would have lived…! And… And I don’t need another lecture from you telling me how to live my life… Just… Please, just leave…”

Dan stood there for a minute, shocked to silence.

“And…” Wendy announced. “Frankly dad, today’s the day. I don’t think I’ll find any more answers in these books, so I ain’t gonna stay sitting on my butt for one hour longer. You’re gonna leave for work in… What, 11 minutes? Soon as you do, there’s nothing to stop me. I’m gonna get up and I’m gonna head to town. Firstly to collect some equipment I lost in the crash. Secondly to get some questions answered. Third to buy a new bike, because the robot ate my old one. Forthly to visit the Pines, and tell them the half of the story they haven’t heard yet. Fifthly to just clear my head… I know Ford said to stay in bed, stay in my room, until I’m stronger; well screw him. I’m going, because this is more important. And… And that’s the way it is, so there…”

Her gaze passed off of him, as she turned back to her books.

Dan frowned for a good long time, his brain working to process all of this. He started off angry. Then he got confused. Then he stopped being confused, and he knew what he needed to do.

He could be late for work just once.

“UH…” He finally said, as he turned for the door. “I WON’T HAVE YA WALKIN’ ALL THE WAY TA TOWN IN YER HEALTH. GET YER STUFF TOGETHER, EAT YER BREAKFAST, AND I’LL MEET YA IN THE TRUCK… AND FER THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S HOLY, PUT ON SOME PANTS! YOU’LL CATCH YER DEATH OF COLD…”

10 minutes later, she locked the front door behind her, and turned for the truck. She’d dressed herself approximately as she usually did: jeans, boots, jacket. But this time, that faded cap with the pine tree seemed more prominent on her head. And she was carrying more than an axe today; the blue journal was tucked in her unbuttoned jacket.

She was dressed for this business. But she wasn’t feeling it. The eggs and meat tumbled in her empty stomach like they didn’t belong. The chill morning air bit harshly though the inside of her stuffy nose. And her knees, of all things, hurt from so many days of sitting. In every inch of her body there lurked these subtle hardships of sickness. They made her feel thin, weak, even small. As if everything in creation, right down to her very flesh, was conspiring to oppress her. As if, in so many subtle ways, fate had made her less than everybody else.

This must be how Dipper feels every day. She realized.

“READY?” Her dad nodded from the cab of his truck.

She took one more deep breath.

Grit.

“Yep.” She nodded.

“KAY.”

Then she looked over and met her dad’s eye.

Honor.

“…I’m sorry I yelled at you.” She told him. “That was outta turn.”

“’SOKAY.”

“…You’re really not mad at me?”

“…THERE’S A LOTTA THINGS I DON’T UNDERSTAND.” He grunted. “BUT AS FER WHAT YER FEELING… THAT I DO GET. AND EVEN I KNOW BETTER THAN TA STAND IN THE WAY OF A CORDUROY WEARIN’ THAT FACE. NOW… WHERE IS IT YA NEED TA GO?”

She stepped up into the passenger seat, and pulled the door shut behind her. “Uh… McGucket’s handling the salvage from the crash, right? Weren’t you driving the tow truck for the cleanup?”

“YEAH. EVERYTHING WE DIDN’T BURY I TOOK TO HIS PLACE.”

“McGucket Manor then.”

“Hey, make it fast up there, Pumpkin.” Grunkle Stan lowered her gently off his shoulders, and gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. His rough, cranky old voice was the gentlest he could make it today. “Don’t wanna be around here longer than we have to… Ha ha… Radiation, and, uh… Heh heh… Y’know. All that… Just get your stuff and come right back down.”

In numb compliance, she walked slowly up the familiar creaking stairs, through the room lit red by the triangular window, and finally into the cramped attic space where all her stuff was…

And all his stuff too… She tried not to look at it.

She stopped by a small metal box that was sitting on her bed. And she stared at it for what felt like minutes, while the mighty battle of light vs. dark raged harder than ever in her soul.

Juan was in that box.

The adorable, innocent little robot that Wendy had found in the woods at the start of all this… Mabel had been the one to keep him fed and charged and happy; who had played with him, and kept him safe from the family who would have meant him harm… Somebody mysterious had even saved him from their hands, and then entrusted him to Mabel, knowing that she still loved and cared for the cub…

Hesitantly, Mabel popped the latches on the box, and looked inside.

Juan was still in there.

He’d been in there 4 days now. No electricity. No room to move. No light. No warmth. No mommy. No love.

Very slowly and weakly he looked up at her. His red eyes were glowing almost too dim to make out, and the most he could do with his legs was wiggle them side to side, as if lacking the power output to even stand up. She could tell that he was nearly dead.

“Oh…!” She choked dryly over her words, and her sight got blurry. “Oh, I’m so sorry Juan…” She reached down with her bare hands, and curled them around his tiny chest. He was even thinner and lighter than she remembered, and his legs were covered in what felt like metal shavings. (Robot poop? Gross…)

He didn’t activate his saws, even when her bare hand accidentally touched them. Maybe he didn’t fear her or hate her anymore; or maybe he was just that helpless.

She rushed over to the wall outlet, sat down next to it, and held his head right up to the socket. Soon as the creature recognized what was happening, it extended its hooks and worked them into the plug. Its entire body seemed to shudder for a moment and then relax. His legs wrapped themselves comfortably around her wrist, and the claws gently plucked at her sweater. His tail wiggled in the cutest way possible, and his entire body seemed relieved, even sleepy as he nursed.

Oh, Juan…

Such a sweet thing…

…

It’s all his fault.

If you hadn’t wandered into that bear trap… Your mom wouldn’t have left you for dead. And then Wendy wouldn’t have found you and taken you home. And then your mom wouldn’t have come back looking for you, and hurt Dan… And then Dipper and Wendy wouldn’t have gone on an adventure to find where you came from… And… And then Wendy wouldn’t have flown that spaceship, Dipper wouldn’t have dueled your mom… Your mom wouldn’t have died, and… AND… AND!

AND DIPPER WOULD STILL BE ALIVE!

Very slowly, Mabel watched her hand reach up to settle on the top of Juan’s head. I’m just going to pet him… It’s all right. I’m just petting you Juan… Don’t be afraid. You need to be… Petted…

But she didn’t pet him. As if it had a mind of its own, Mabel’s hand curled its fingers around the sides of Juan’s head. And her other hand reached around to hold his torso steady.

No…

No, I can’t do this. It’s not… It’s not really his fault. He’s just a baby… He… He… He doesn’t deserve it! What am I thinking?!? He’s innocent! I love him! He’s…

He’s guilty.

I hate him.

Mabel’s fingers tightened. In an instant, her wrists flexed, her arms straightened, and she grunted with effort.

With all her strength, she spun Juan’s head around on his body. And she held it at that terrible angle for a second, flexing with all her strength, waiting for some quiet ‘click’ which would indicate his tiny spine had cracked.

But his neck was made of titanium; it didn’t break.

Suddenly, Mabel froze, and realized what she’d just done.

She dropped Juan on the floor with a gasp, and stood up suddenly, staggering back about 5 steps. Juan shook his sore neck and glanced up at her in an accusing way.

Mabel kept retreating until her back touched the wall. That really happened. She realized. She’d just tried to murder an innocent creature. She, Mabel Pines, had really, truly, with all of her might, tried to end the life of an innocent, adorable baby animal, and all for no reason besides anger…

She broke down into uncontrollable tears, jerked the door open, and rushed headlong down the stairs. Stanley noticed her coming, and, guessing wrongly at the source of her distress, reached up a hand to try and stop her. “Hey, woah, woah, it’s okay, Sweety! C’mere, it’s—”

She blubbered something unintelligible that even she didn’t catch, barreled her way past her Grunkle’s embrace, and sprinted for the back door.

Gone, gone, gone…

Dipper was gone… And now Mabel must be gone too… Yes, something must have taken up residence in my brain, because I would surely never have done that… Surely not I…

The battle in her brain raged on, just as ferociously as ever.

And the light side was getting truly desperate. Has the darkness really won? It asked.

The dark side snickered at the protests of the light. I guess we’ll have to see… It taunted.

Beneath the battle in the brain, Mabel’s legs ran and kept running, while the tears streamed down her face. Grunkle Stan may have been running after her, or he may not… It didn’t really matter; she had faster legs than him anyway.

She ran and she ran.

I tried to kill him! The light side of her brain sobbed. Dipper was the only one I could ever trust, and now I can’t even trust myself!

Geez, this is getting sad! The dark side of her brain cringed. You weren’t even strong enough to break that kid’s neck! Dipper wouldhave couldhave done it better… Whatever you think you’re doing, you definitely need help.

Where are you, Dipper?!? Her light side cried out. What can I even do? Where are you to tease me when I’m silly? Where are you to pick me up when I’m stupid? Where are you to put a bandaid on my soul and give me an awkward sibling hug? Dipper… I need you so BAD…

She ran and she ran until she found herself standing all alone, in a small field of yellow grass. All around the field stooped a scraggly grove of Birch Trees, their trunks banded in sheaths of white bark as smooth as eyelids…

Mabel took a deep breath and wiped her tears, as she sank down into the grass.

Dipper… The light side of her brain pleaded. I would do anything in the universe to get you back…

Oh yeah? The dark side asked. …Did you just say ‘anything’, Shooting Star?

She opened her eyes.

And she saw a small stone statue.

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[a-mad-scientist-approaches]

The Cipher Conspiracy (8)

Here! Have a chapter entirely about Ford!

I estimate at the moment there will be fourteen chapters in total of this, but that may chang, as in the past my estimates have been very off XD.

Adeline Marks is @hntrgurl13‘s, and the Addiford ship is @scipunk63‘s. 

She doesn’t have a direct appearance in this chapter, but @missinspi‘s OC Madeline McGucket is still part of the fic, so I’m going to mention her anyway.

AO3  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14

Gravity Falls, Oregon (USA)    ∆

Ford groaned as he straightened up. How long had he been hunched over this desk for?

Too long, he reflected, scanning through the work he had completed.

He made his way towards the elevator, intent on getting himself some food before proceeding to the next step. The doors opened before he could reach them, revealing Bill.

“Okay, smart guy, let’s see these plans,” he said, strolling out. Ford turned around and led the way back to the schematics he had been redrawing.

“We – uh – I altered the gun’s design in Russia, so there should be less chance of it malfunctioning during use now. I just finished making the final copy, so all that’s left is to start constructing it,”

Bill straightened up from pouring over the plans and clapped him on the back. “I knew you could do it, Sixer! A few problematic hangers-on aren’t enough to slow you down!”

“Right.” Ford said, deciding to move past that comment as quickly as possible.  “I think I should start putting together microcomputer first.”

Bill nodded, moving around the desk so he could scrutinise the plans more. “Use the precision instrument from China. Calibrate it to, oh, a working range of eight hundred nanometres to two centimetres. Lock it in position five for the circuit board, but position six should do for the rest.”

Ford was taken aback at the sudden rattling off of instructions. “You’ve used one before, then?”

Bill laughed. “Of course not Fordsy, I just know my stuff. Good thing I’m around, huh? Not to say that you don’t know what you’re doing, but, well . . .” he shrugged amiably.

“It’s good to pool knowledge,” Ford finished, choosing to think optimistically rather than be offended.

“Whenever you need me, pal! I’ve got things to do upstairs; you don’t mind if I take over the place for a bit while you’re not using it, right? Catch ya later,”

Ford did not like to criticise Bill: he had, after all, given him the opportunity to prove the full extent of his abilities to the world, if not in quite the way Ford had anticipated while growing up. For this reason, Bill was more like a friend than a boss, a sentiment that Bill had stated when Ford first met him, and which he had kept reinforcing through the years. However, it did irk him slightly that his residency was also morphing into Bill’s base of operations. On the other hand, it was also rather gratifying to see how much Bill trusted him. As far as he knew, no other agents were overseen as much as himself.

Monitored as much as myself.

. . . it was difficult to deny how freeing the weeks away had been. Perhaps he would like a little more breathing room.

That would no doubt occur once he finished the memory gun. Bill just wanted it complete, and then work would resume more like how scientists usually worked: in a less-than-imposing manner. Such as how he and Fiddleford had collaborated.

Speaking of Fiddleford, Ford was sure he would have loved this part.

He set up the machine on the desk, turned it on, and watched it knit together a circuit board with liquid fluidity.

∆

Bill swiped a squeezy toy from a couch as he passed. Making his way to the kitchen, he leaned back in a chair and put his feet on the tabletop. Then he took out his phone, tossing the toy up in the air.

“Ivan! I want an update. One that doesn’t ruin the good day I’m having,”

“McCorkle just had a meeting. I recall that Pines encountered two of Jheselbraum’s agents in Oklahoma . . .” The voice became more reluctant, as if the owner wished it wasn’t him that was bearing this news. “She was meeting one of them. You were right sir, Oracle Division is definitely involved.”

“Hmm. Well, good thing I was expecting that, or this would be really unpleasant for you.” Bill stood up and began walking around, tossing the toy from hand to hand, the phone jammed between his shoulder and ear.

“It’s time to shut Oracle Division down. Don’t blow your cover, Jhezzy’s pup’ll be outta your non-existent hair soon enough. Bigger problems to worry about, et cetera,”

“As you say, sir. I should also mention that Stanley Pines has reappeared,”

“Leave him. He’s out of the game now, or close enough. Besides, he just wouldn’t die. Four rounds of one-sided Russian poker and he’s still around – he’s like a roach! Whose underpants are stitched from luck! Maybe I’ll make him a job offer one day,” Bill mused, bouncing the toy off the wall.

“Yes sir. And what about the other Pines?”

“On track, finally. How long does it take to get some materials for cryin’ out loud? No need to come out here. But be on standby, just in case. Our resident genius is wising up.” The ball thudded into the wall again, but Bill didn’t catch it. He walked away, leaving it to ricochet behind him, where it cracked a glass frame and popped.

∆

Ford’s eyes were burning. He hadn’t blinked in a while. That was it.

Ow. Blinking hurt too.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, keeping his eyes closed. His fingers were trembling.

This was ridiculous. He had not even been working for that long! Granted, affixing the circuit boards to the hard drive of the microcomputer was slightly harder than he had anticipated, but he was getting there. And arranging the trigger mechanism had been frustrating. And positioning the internal reflective mirrors was an ordeal, to say the least. But all in all, he had about a third of the gun constructed (if he counted the tiny wires which he had laid out over the blueprints in preparation for their insertion), and it was only –

What time was it?

Ford opened his watery eyes and tried to make sense of the clock on the wall.

One o’clock? That can’t be right, I got home at one-thirty.

. . . I should really change that display to show twenty-four-hour time.

As he moved back towards the elevator room to find a chair, he realised that standing very still while bent over a table for six hours was not a great decision on his part. Every inch of him ached, even the parts that were not involved in keeping him upright. Sitting burned.

Midway through Ford’s groan, Bill came through the elevator, muttering.

“Those Oracle superiors better be awake . . .” He noticed Ford awkwardly slumped in a swivel chair. “Taking a break already, are we? It’s only been, what-”

“Eleven and a half hours,” Ford croaked.

“Come on, you’ve done longer than that at university!” Bill grinned, striding over to stand in front of him.

“Probably.” He yawned. “Just give me a minute.” A thought struck him. “Did you say Oracle? Like that Oracle Division you mentioned a couple weeks ago?”

Bill stiffened slightly, then shrugged.

“Yeah, they’re causing some trouble that I’ve gotta put a stop to. Banging on about the ‘Cipher Conspiracy’ again. Don’t ya just hate it when people won’t listen? Anyway, they won’t be a problem for much longer. That whole shebang is coming down pronto.” A momentary dark flicker crossed his expression. “I got a special gal who’ll be taking the fall, and when she does, so will the rest of those cage-rattling do-gooders.” He clapped his hands suddenly. “So! You gonna get back to work then, or do I have to find another genius?”

Ford chuckled and Bill laughed, but made no move to leave, and kept staring at Ford expectantly. The amusement fizzled out of the air. Ford suddenly wondered if it had ever been there.

“Well, I was thinking I could get back to it tomo- later this morning,”

“Come on, Sixer, we’re so close! Don’t tell me you traversed the globe for this, only to give up now?”

“I don���t think it would be giving up-”

“No? Sure looks like it,”

Ford stared at Bill, floored. Bill’s expression was the same as always: friendly, encouraging, betraying none of his thoughts.

Slowly, he stood up. He walked back to the desk where the almost one-third of a gun was.

“I knew I could rely on you, buddy!” Bill praised (or perhaps crowed) from behind him. “You’ve got some insane dedication, I think it’s safe to say, which means that device should be raring to go in no time! Got it? This is your ticket to the stars, and my ticket to the throne. It’s going to be great. You’re doing me a huge favour, you know that? You’re one of a kind, Fordsy, one of a kind. Don’t prove me wrong! That head of yours has to be good for something, haha, you know I’m joking. Catch ya later! I reckon you’ll be about half done by then, whaddaya think?”

∆

One third complete. Fully complete, not almost complete. Ford did not consider it a victory. He did not spend too long thinking about why. There was nothing to be gained from that, anyway. Nothing that could be considered important right now, per se. Nothing that, while worthwhile to consider, could probably just be attributed to the stresses of directing an agency. Nothing that could not be overlooked in favour of the . . . probably overall good that would come of the invention. Nothing that –

Ford sighed. He had been staring uselessly at the wall for five minutes now.

It would be better to throw himself into the work, he considered.

∆

God I’m tired.

I need to try harder.

Bill is right, we have waited far too long for this device’s construction, and I need to complete it, although he could be more helpful. He has already shown how adept he is with the machines. There’ll be plenty of time for rest afterwards. What is a few hours’ sleep deprivation in the face of an invention that could change the world? This is a personal challenge that I am entirely willing to accept.

have reluctantly allowed myself a five-minute break to write an entry in this journal. It is this, or fall face-down, unconscious, onto my desk. I am determined that, after two weeks of often having to share a room with Stanley S who cares? that the next time I sleep, it will be snorelessly. Is that a word? silently.

His snoring was strangely reassuring, however. It certainly made things seem less alone, cold, and dark. Or perhaps that’s just what the basement is like all the time.

I may need to head upstairs for a meal soon. I have not eaten since breakfast with Stan yesterday. Stan was a good cook. He made pancakes. Stan made pancakes. Stancakes. I think it may have been inadvisable to become so reliant on him for food.

∆

But what did he mean? Ford unwillingly wondered for the umpteenth time. It was happening every few minutes now, as he impatiently waited for the precision machine to complete another task.

Bill said odd things every now and then. It was just something Ford had learned to live with. Why was he noticing it now?

The answer was obvious.

But then again, no, it was not. Ford might occasionally become irritated with some of his boss’s mannerisms (arrogance), or his way of working (uncommonly close-at-hand), however he had never before felt as uneasy as he did now. He had always had the idea in his mind that while Bill might be his employer, he afforded Ford the same amount of respect he received. That idea was diminishing.

Simple answer.

But was it?

Yes.

I’m noticing it now because I’ve seen what it’s like to be without it.

∆

My mind keeps returning to our goodbye. Stan said to make sure that I did not get too caught up in my work. More occasions than the present one apply to this statement: for instance, once in primary school I became completely engrossed in a science project. It was a volcano with real lava, all contained on a miniature island. When I was unable to test it properly on the day it was due, I found myself having a panic attack. Now, the entire affair seems inconsequential, especially with the threats problems I face in the present. It mattered a significant amount at the time, though, and fortunately Stan knew me far better than I knew my project. He was able to calm me down, and the next thing I knew, the presentation went off without a hitch.

I miss him. And his Stancakes.

I meant what I said when I saw him off at the airport: I was going to come see him when I finished the project.

All the more reason to finish it soon, then.

∆

Ford took the clock off the wall. It was distracting, not to mention discouraging.

∆

The machine was obviously not accustomed to being handled manually: it had made the circuit boards on its own far easier than it let Ford use it to arrange the delicate piece of filament at the end of the gun.

He could feel Bill watching over his shoulder every step of the way. It was like at any moment he was going to snatch control for himself. The tremor had moved to Ford’s stomach now, leaving his hands feeling slow and heavy. Tiny pinpricks of sweat were forming on his forehead, nose, eyes. His glasses were about to give way and fall straight onto the gun, effectively smashing to pieces all his hard work. The microscope lens Ford’s face was glued to in order to see what he was doing would not stand a chance at stopping it. The glasses would fall, and everything was doomed. He might as well accept it now. No. That would be giving up. He did not give up. Bill was unmoving. The damn machine was not tilting properly. The filament would undoubtedly be lost forever in the ensuing chaos brought on by Ford’s crappy eyesight. He had not breathed in for a while. His stomach was lurching now.

In a fit of desperation and frustration, he jerked the controls roughly forward.

Miraculously, the filament slid exactly into place.

“HAH!” Ford shouted – or tried to. There was no air in his lungs for that to happen.

He heaved in a huge breath, straightening up as he did so. His glasses fell forwards and made a gentle tap on the lens of the microscope. Ford laughed hysterically. Bill made no comment. He just stood to the side, silent and watchful.

“Four fifths of the way done!” Ford said cheerfully, turning to him. To empty space.

Bill had left hours ago.

The elevator rumbled down, grating on Ford’s nerves, depriving him of a momentary relief.

Bill caught sight of him and laughed briefly. “Well I can tell you’ve been working! Never seen anyone so tired they put their glasses on the wrong seeing-hole.” He gestured to the machine, which Ford’s glasses were comically hanging off.

“Ah! Yes,” Ford said brightly, jamming them back on his face.

“Almost done I see.” Bill said, looking hungrily at the almost-complete gun. “Let’s get that last stretch over with, pal! I gotta tell you, I am longing for a chance to try it out. You know, you should be proud. It was you who brought all this into being.” Bill swirled an upright finger around to encompass the general vicinity.

“I appreciate it,” Ford said, banging a hand down onto the table to emphasise his statement. The gun jumped half a foot into the air, making a loud clunk as it fell. Ford laughed again when it did not break. The thing was invincible!

“Good to see you’re finally gaining a sense of humour,” grinned Bill.

“Who are you going to test this on? Not me, I hope,” said Ford grinning equally wide. Everything seemed very hearty at the moment. He remembered this feeling – first from university, and now every so often from the five years he had been working with Bill.

“Oh no, Fordsy, you’re my number one! There have been a few pains in the neck hanging around though. I’m sure I can think of someone,”

Ford nodded in agreement. Bill was good at thinking.

“Anyway, time to make that bulb! You’ve got some shimmern to melt down and some specific heat calculations to redo. You see that there? You forgot the indices.” He pointed casually at a sheet of working paper.

Ford managed an acknowledgement through tightly grit teeth and a strained smile. It was becoming painful, actually. How did Bill keep it up all the time?

∆

There had been stabbing pains in his stomach a few hours ago. He only remembered them when he reached precisely twenty-four hours without food.

Coffee counted as food, Ford decided, heating up the kettle.

The kitchen was really bright and his eyes did not want to adjust. He squinted into the –

He glanced at the clock.

-  eight AM light rebelliously.

Coffee in mouth.

HOT.

His legs felt really tired. He was fine, but his legs ached. So did his back. And arm muscles. And fingers. Taking a moment to sit down might be advisable.

Ooooohhh it was.

It was rather peaceful up here. Very quiet. Cool. The makeshift forge was making the basement incredibly hot, so until it was at the temperature it needed to be to melt shimmern, he would wait up here.

He should stretch out his neck more. A few cricks, but nothing too painful. It felt especially pleasant when he rolled his head forwards. Quite heavy, too. Maybe he would just lie on the table like this for a moment. Wait for the coffee to cool down. Wait for the forge to heat up . . .

Where are they?

There was blood everywhere, but no one in the chairs. No one in the room. A light was growing – a bright blue-white light. Not emanating from anywhere in particular. Just growing.

Someone shouted his name.

Fiddleford.

Was not with him. He must have found them. Ford turned to go.

There they were. All three of them. Standing just beyond the threshold of the door. They stared at him expressionlessly. Addi and Stan had bloodstains on their clothes. The ever-increasing light threw the colours into sharp relief. Everything trembled around the edges as though it was about to explode. Stan’s left hand was being held by someone he could not see. Fiddleford was looking at a photograph.

Where did you go?

"You were the one who left," said Addi.

A hum he had not noticed rose to a peak. He started forwards, needing to let her know he hadn’t, he was right here, he was going to see Stan so soon, he was going to ask Fiddleford to help on his next project, he was going to kiss her for real one day, he just needed some time, just a little –

A bulb exploded. Sparks. Silence. Dark.

Dark.

Dark.

Laughing next to his ear.

He jerked upright, lashing out beside him, eyes wide despite the glaring light, but he was alone.

Ford gasped for breath. How long had he been asleep for? Sleeping was – was not good. He scrubbed his face with his hands and downed the cold coffee with a shudder. Better than nothing.

Looking at the clock, he saw it had only been ten minutes. Plenty of time. He had plenty of time. He was not even on a time limit. That was how much time he had.

∆

When shimmern melted, it glowed a bright yellow-white and radiated incredible heat. Ford had to wear goggles and gloves just so he could stand to be near it, and even then he was sweltering.

The lovely tear-shaped pendant gave him one last sparkle before it liquified completely. A flash of a playful grin danced in front of him, the memory of an immense wind determined to drive him back briefly hijacking his senses.

“So much for returning it,” Ford muttered.

“Oops, might’ve forgotten to mention that we needed to use all of it,” shrugged Bill from the other side of the glowing material. “Ah, memories, memories.” Before he sauntered away, he gave Ford a look that was all too piercing.

Then again, a voice in his head weakly protested, everything looks hazy over here. You might be seeing things.

Ford snorted. “I really need to talk to someone that I actually want around,” he informed the blazing liquid.

He grabbed the last machine from China and started to shape molten shimmern, steadfastly ignoring an image in his mind’s eye of Adeline smiling as he had tried to dismantle the very same device he was using.

∆

“Y’know Ivan, he’s really come through,” said Bill, raiding the fridge. “I thought for a while he was going to pull some crazy stunt-” he waved his hands around wildly – “but it looks like he held out. Our genius is back on track!”

“So the device is complete, then?” asked Ivan on the other end of the line.

“It will be. VERY soon. Ol’ Six-Fingers can be amazing if he’s pushed. So anyway, just calling to let ya know I don’t need you to, ah, how to put this delicately,” he swiped a hand across his neck, miming a beheading, “murder him painfully. I mean, I haven’t exactly been keeping everything under wraps lately, but like I said, no crazy stunts, ‘You betrayed me!’, yadda yadda yadda.”

“Very convenient, sir. Is there any word on your solution for the situation over here?”

“Oh, yeah, our very own Agent Marks should be touching down right . . . about . . .” Bill checked his watch theatrically, “now. Once she’s blown off a head or two, you rush to her place having heroically tracked her down with your fantastic FBI training and arrest her. Events, cover-ups revealed, bing, bang, boom, Oracle Division topples like dominoes. And then I’m free to put that memory gun to some use.”

∆

“Sixer!” No answer. Bill frowned and walked back downstairs. “Weren't you . . . hey, Sixer!” Again, no answer.

Bill moved decisively towards the basement entrance.

“Well, well, well, well, well. My memory gun finished yet?” Silence. The entire basement was still. All the lights were off, like they were no longer needed.

“Pines . . .” Bill growled. Not taking his eyes off the dark space ahead, he took out his phone and pressed and selected a contact to call. No answering phone rang, apart from on the other end of the line.

∆

Ford fumbled one-handed with the phone, managing to answer while keeping a set of bloodshot eyes on the road.

“Bill! Yes, I’m here,”

“No, y’see Sixer, that’s the problem. You really AREN’T,”

“The memory gun’s finished. It’s on the worktable. Do you need something? I’m a little preoccupied right now.” Should he be talking to his employer so disrespectfully? Welp, too late now.

He careened around a bend in a move he felt his brother would have been proud of.

“You’re testing my patience, Fordsy. I’m sure I don’t have to phrase my question, since it should be OBVIOUS,”

“I didn’t tell you? I swore I did.” Ford said, genuinely surprised. After a second’s reflection, he reconsidered his position. “Oh. No, I only thought about telling you. That was probably when I got into the car,”

He revved the El Diablo’s engine enthusiastically.

“I’m going to visit Stan,” he informed Bill lightly, speeding past the “Welcome to Gravity Falls” sign so fast it was a blur.

“Why,” stated Bill coldly, in a way which was very emphatically not a question.

“Because I said I would!” Shrugged Ford happily. “I like being around him. I don’t like being cut-off and alone. I think the Cipher Wheel could benefit from a new point of view! Also, I need to return his car.”

He might regret saying most of those things later. He did not at the present moment, however, which was the important thing. It really was amazing what thirty-two hours without sleep could do for an individual’s self-confidence. In fact, this had been nothing; he felt like he could continue without sleep for days more.

“This is a little off-the-rails for you, you gotta admit. Pretty unexpected. A bit of a crazy stunt, you might say,”

“I suppose so. I think I’m overdue, to be honest. I will see you in a few days, sir!”

“Oh, you never know. Anything could happen. For instance, I bet you’re going to receive one heck of a welcome in Sacramento!”

“I’d settle for anything at this point!”

They both laughed. And kept laughing. And laughed some more. Ford ran out of breath first.

“I suppose you gotta make a stand at some point, Stanford! Might wanna scout out the turf beforehand, though. Seeya, kid!”

∆

“Ivan! You remember what I said about painfully murdering Pines? Yeah, let’s do that. He’s headed your way, and I wouldn’t miss him if I were you. In fact, same goes for anyone who gets in your way. We’ve got the means to deal with the fallout now,”

The memory gun glinted as Bill turned it over in his hand.

[onceuponamirror]

heart rise above

///// CHAPTER 12

summary: It wasn’t an experiment with freedom borne of some Americana fantasy; rather, a road trip of purely logistical intentions. The plan was simple. Drive from Boston to Chicago for his sister’s college graduation. That’s it.

Or, he drives a Ford Pickup Named Desire.

Mechanic!AU

fandom: riverdale ship: betty x jughead words: 66k chapters: 12/19

[read from the beginning] [read the latest]

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And you want to travel with him, and you want to travel blind

And you think maybe you’ll trust him

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She wakes slowly.

Or, she becomes vaguely conscious of the leg slung over her own and the arm gently strewn across her bare stomach while still beyond in the land of nod, and her dreamless sleep takes a twist of dawning awareness as she hears a breath not her own.

Then the memory bubbles up, including the answer as to why there’s another person curled against her. Their bodies spent, him stretched atop her, breathing shakily, almost trembling, as she raked her fingers through his hair and held him against her chest.

When he finally looked at her, his eyes moving rapidly across every corner of her face, it was the first time in her life that she’d ever felt actually empty-headed, long, stretched-out-silence kind of speechless. And didn’t know what to make of that same quiet from Jughead, especially as someone who literally works for his words.

In the end, the only word she found was the very one she can’t get used to: stay.

Later, trying to sleep, she had a sinking feeling that she had no idea what they’d gotten themselves into, because whatever it was that happened between them, it wasn’t just sex. It definitely wasn’t fucking, which is probably what it was supposed to be—or at least something she might’ve been a bit more prepared for, as that would feel more in line with the idea of getting it out of their systems.

She hasn’t had a whole lot of partners in her life, but she’s had enough to know the first time with a new person often isn’t like that. It’s usually a lot more awkward, a lot less sensual, and with a hell of a lot less orgasms. But with him, it was ambient and reverent and a heady kind of all over good.

Now, in the touches of a new morning, she thinks she knows the word for what it was.

She bites down on the thought.

Her eyes open with a light flutter, at first on the wall of little pink rosebuds. Then she shifts slightly, careful not to move too much, and twists her neck in order to look over at Jughead. His face looks peaceful in slumber, as most do, but also somehow relieved to have found it at all. She memorizes the dark circles under his eyes and knows he’s not a person to whom sleep comes easily.

She allows herself the moment wherein she traces the wild brow down along the cut of his jaw and the curve of his lips, slightly parted with soft snores. He has a carved, strange kind of handsomeness, as one could find the sculptor’s thumb in the crease where his eye becomes cheek.

(She’s never quite been able to study it for so long, and she finds she loves that little line.)

Betty doesn’t know what she expected to feel, looking at him, but it’s probably not this: the catch in her heart that she feels all the way into her throat. She digs her teeth into her lip and almost feels like crying, because this feels painfully like goodbye.

Which is ridiculous, because he’s literally asleep on top of her, and has known her body in one night as much as anyone before took several tries. And he’s everywhere here already; his light blue jean jacket tossed haphazardly onto her desk chair, his pants carelessly on the floor, the smell of him on her skin, sheets, and room—but faraway, in the part of her mind that knows where to hiss, he’s already gone.

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She’s busying herself by playing with hovering fingers, dancing them just barely above his arm, swaying a rhythm from end to the other. She doesn’t want to wake him, doesn’t want to move, but wants to get as close to touching him as she can.

Eventually, she feels him move slightly and she looks up. His eyes are open on her, and she doesn’t know how long they’ve been that way. The softness there makes her think it might’ve been a while.

There’s a lot of blue in the dawn.

“Hi,” she whispers, breaking into a smile despite herself.

“Hi,” he returns, in what is dangerously becoming a pattern. She hears the crinkling of sheets as he moves closer, kissing her firmly, and she feels him already half-hard against her leg. She’s not sure if it’s just because it’s morning or if she has anything to do with it, but she may deepen the kiss and rut against him slightly to test the theory.

“Fuck off,” he laughs happily against her mouth, once he realizes what she’s doing.

She giggles as he rolls them, both of his arms wrapping around her now. “Good—fucking—morning—to—you—too,” he mutters jokingly between kisses, but she still agrees wholeheartedly. She’d thought their little domestic charade on Friday morning had been the pinnacle of such a concept, but as their hands move across one another and their lips mold, she realizes she had been wrong.

She has calloused hands where his are soft, but unlike her past partners, who had found it disconcerting that the sweet blonde thing they’d asked out to dinner actually had the hands of someone who dared to do their job, Jughead seems like it. He pins them overhead as he kisses her, rubbing at the rough pads of her hands with his own, lacing and unlacing their fingers while they move lazily against one another. The sun rises mutedly beyond.

The whole room smells so heavily like sex that she’s not sure what’s the work of her body right now or lingering from before, but when one of his hands disappears from her back and reemerges at her clit, his fingers run so smoothly against her that she knows the musk is not just from last night.

“God, you’re good at that,” she hisses, as two fingers curl within her.

“It’s all those years of bowling,” he teases, eyes dark. “You hold the ball just like—”

“You are so not talking about bowling right now,” she interrupts, laughing, though it quickly breaks off into something else as his thumb comes into the fray, almost as if to prove a point. He grins as she whines, and as lovely as his fingers feel, she wants much more. “Get a condom,” she instructs breathily, which seems to surprise him, as he knows she hasn’t come yet.

He practically falls off the bed in his haste to lean over to where his pants are strewn on the floor, but eventually he maneuvers a way to reach the pocket where the condoms are without his legs leaving the bed, or her.

Upon return, he does that thing again where he’s clearly trying to slow her down, and she wonders if this is him trying to tell her something. But in the end he gives up trying to distract her and lets her stroke at him. He mutters something indistinct and drops his head into her neck. It’s not quite power she feels a rush of, but something strong still. Pride, maybe, as he hitches against her.

“Okay, keep going and that condom is going to be useless,” he mumbles shakily as he nips at the flesh of her breast. She’s far too wound up for him to start doing that, so she rips at the foil and they roll it on together.

She hopes that the idle morning sun, now streaming brightly through the window—and the fact that they’ve now done this once before—and that the stakes aren’t quite as high—will be enough to keep this light between them. She doesn’t know if she can handle another round of the kind of slow, quixotic sex-that-isn’t-quite-sex that laid a raw little thought on her chest like the ghost of a kiss.

But that’s what happens. It’s morning sex, after all, which is always lazier and something more intangible anyway. He slides into her and maintains an almost agonizingly unhurried march onwards, as if he’s actively determined to draw this out as much as he can. And it feels so good and full that Betty can’t find a reason to flip them over and set her own pace, especially when his mouth moves around a pebbled breast and a hand is exploring the other.

“Tell me what you want,” he asks, but he can’t want that answer.

“More,” she whispers instead. It’s not a lie until, “Faster.”

She’s never understood the phrase “fooling around,” as it always seemed like an almost silly way to describe such casual attempts at something so intimate. But she gets it now. She feels foolish, this was all foolish, this was an idea that’s winding them down a path she doesn’t know and yet would never want to stray from.

She looks him in the eye and doesn’t know what she hopes to see there, but his forehead drops against hers, fringes of his black hair obscuring her view.

This time, they come together. She triggers it, she thinks, clenching around him, back bending off the bed, him high on his knees as if in worship.

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After the less flowery parts of sex are taken care of—peeing, cleaning up, tying off condoms and disposing of them—they slide back under the sheets wordlessly.

He pushes her hair back from her face, like he was once tentative to do. She has no idea what time it is, nor does she care to. He settles onto his back, and she nestles against his chest and catalogues the freckles there, while his hands weave absentmindedly through her hair. Eventually, his stomach rumbles, which brings her back into the moment.

“You are literally always hungry,” she murmurs fondly, slipping her legs between his and moving a foot up and down his calf. She’d be happy to stay in bed all day, but even she’ll have to eat soon. She waits for him to make some terrible joke about working up an appetite, but instead he just sighs heavily.

“Yeah. Hungry,” he says, scratching at his nose.

It’s an odd shift in mood, so she shifts in order to look up at him. “Juggie?”

He glances at her for a moment before his eyes bounce up to nothing in particular. “I mean, you crave something long enough, and it never comes, it manifests in other ways.”

She smoothes a palm against his chest, considering this. “What do you mean?”

He almost looks like he’s about to say never mind, but, after some visible warring with himself, he folds to defeat. “My mom took off when I was fourteen. I somehow don’t blame her, because I think she was right to get away from my dad. He’s not a bad person, but they never are. He’s an alcoholic who dragged us through a lot of hell. I mostly just wanted her to come back for my sister, and me. Wanted her to want us. Craved it. Right around the same time, I shot up five inches and started eating for ten. Coincidence, or maybe not.”

His eyes briefly fall out of focus, as if searching a memory. But then he breaks it, turning back to her and trying to smile. “Or, that’s the analysis my psych-major sister dropped on my doorstep completely unprompted, anyway. I’m pretty sure she uses me as the guinea pig for most of her psychosomatic theories. Personally, I think all the food is about fifty percent habit, at this point.”

“Oh, Juggie,” she says softly, not sure what else she could possibly say. She knows he’s trying to play it off already, so she sits up in order to lean over him, grasp his face with two hands, and kiss him with what she hopes he knows is reassurance: he’s wanted.

(That’s never been the problem.)

After she pulls back, he lets out a long breath, and doesn’t look away from her. She notices his hand is still in her hair, cupping at her ear, his thumb swiping against her cheek.

It seems like the kind of thing he hasn’t talked about a long time, by the way his mouth curls around the words and how they come from somewhere wrought beyond him. She wants him to know how much it means that he trusted her with that kind of secret, but doesn’t know where to start. There’s a lot moving behind his eyes, too fast to catch it all.

“So apparently, I’m great at pillow-talk,” he announces finally, his arm coming around her shoulder, guiding her back down into the crook of his side. “How was your childhood, in 150 characters or less?”

She laughs. “Google type-A and that’s most of what you need to know, if we’re going for brevity. Or, we could play twenty questions?”

“Compromise, good, this is good,” he says, and she can hear him forcing the merriness, because that’s the one book she wrote. But she thinks he might need this, so she plays along. “Uh, any pets? A goldfish I don’t know about lurking in this room, currently very traumatized?”

“We had a little orange cat named Caramel when I was a kid. I named her, of course,” she says, which makes his eyebrows shoot up.

“We had this big, stupid, drooling sheepdog I had the utter gall to name Hot Dog, so no judgment,” he offers.

“Seems we both had a thing for food names,” she tells him, something that makes his eyes soften at the corners. “I guess my next pet will have to carry on the tradition. I always thought Polenta was cute as a name.”

“Polenta?” He repeats, scoffing. He adjusts so that they’re facing, a hand under his ear propping up his head, as the other one leads lightly up and down her hip. “We can do better than that, come on. What about…Burger. Burger the dog, that’s kind of cool.”

“I’m not naming my hypothetical pet after something you can find on the menu at Pop’s, Juggie,” she insists. “Broaden your horizons a bit.”

“Yeah, well. Fine. I’ll keep that one for myself, then,” he says, rolling his hand further down again, so that it cradles her ass and pulls her more flush against him. His voice drops into a murmur. “But you don’t get to start complaining when I show up with this super cool dog named Burger who gets all the attention I usually reserve for you.”

“I’ll try not to hold my breath,” Betty drawls, trying to drown the lingering thought that by the time he’d ever get close to a dog, he’d probably be far from her life.

He smiles, and nods at her. “We got off topic. Your turn.”

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The game continues for a little while longer, but soon they both agree that they can’t get through a single question without a ten minute tangent, so eventually, the conversation just drifts into a debate on the worth of historical accuracy in books.

Jughead is a purist and a realist, by his own definition, and argues that romanticizing the past as a place that wasn’t as harsh and as cruel as it was demeans the value of modern rights advancement. He says that right as his hand finds something to do along her backside, and points out that even seventy years ago, she wouldn’t have had the social freedom to openly do what they’re doing.

She rolls her eyes and, in return, explains that it doesn’t matter, because people look to historical fiction for escapism, and want to feel represented by what they see. She points out that as a straight white guy—which she clarifies first, not wanting to assume after all those years of watching Veronica and Cheryl fume over bisexuality erasure—he’s automatically slated to appear and that he doesn’t know what it feels like to try to scrape to relate a character with the basest similarities.

He raises his eyebrows at that, acquiesces to her point, and then whispers that she’s way too smart for him. He kisses her then, with something new, but before she can start to wonder what it is, she hears noises that sends her heart into a flurry: the measured shutting of the front door, and the vague, bouncing laughter of children. Oh, crap.

She forgot.

Betty sits straight upright, which forces Jughead to jerk back in surprise, lest he be whacked in the face by her shoulder.

“Shit,” she hisses, rolling out of bed and nearly tripping as her foot snags on the tangled sheets, draped halfway onto the floor. She can’t believe this slipped her mind so completely, because Polly has a key—Polly has a key and she’s downstairs, and she’d forgotten all about the barbeque.

“Shit!” She says again, as Jughead pushes himself up on one arm and watches her scramble around the room and hop madly into the first pairs of moderately clean underwear and jeans she can find.

“What?” He says, like he’s been repeating it, and for all she knows, he has been. “Betty, what’s wrong?”

And then he seems to hear it; the sound of murmuring and moving around downstairs. Betty forcefully tugs a blue cotton shirt over her head, her hair flapping in her face with the blunt force of it. She blows it off her forehead and says, simply, “Get dressed, Juggie. My sister is here.”

That seems to propel him into motion, as his eyes widen and he hurls his legs over the side of the bed to pull on his boxers and pants. “I forgot, I can’t believe I forgot,” Betty huffs, pushing her palms into her forehead to keep them from curling into fists. “When it’s nice out, my sister and her husband’s family always have a barbeque on one Sunday of the month, and we’re doing it here today because our mom is out of town. Ohh, I was supposed to make potato salad!”

She feels a step past frustrated, veering dangerously into panicked, and Jughead seems to notice. He crosses the room towards her, still sans shirt, and rubs circles at the back of her neck. “It’s okay, everyone forgets stuff.”

“I don’t,” she insists. “I just…my thoughts have been kind of elsewhere.” She gives him a look, because elsewhere means him, and she hasn’t decided if what she’s feeling is fond exasperation or just the regular kind.

Then it all sets back in: her sister downstairs, the dishes she didn’t do, the food she failed to make, the fear of disappointing everyone when it becomes obvious she had completely forgotten they were coming. Oh, how could she have— Her breath hitches, and Jughead’s arms immediately wrap around her.

“Hey, hey,” he says softly. She leans into him, briefly allowing a moment of the stillness against the running list of mistakes she’s made in the past two days, which feels like more than she’s made in the past two years.

“I said to get dressed, Juggie. You’re still not wearing a shirt,” she says. She means for it to sound scolding, but it manifests as a giggle, because she can hardly complain when her face is buried into his bare chest and counting the fluid scats of jazz in his heartbeat.

“I can’t find it,” he admits, releasing a sound that’s almost a scoff, but far too tender to really be classified as one. “I think you threw it somewhere into the incessantly pink void last night.”

“Mm-hmm,” she tuts suspiciously, looking up at him. But she glances around, and doesn’t spot it for a few moments, until she sees the white, ribbed tank undershirt camouflaged on top of her equally white lampshade. She points at it, and he untangles himself in order to retrieve it. She hates how much she misses him immediately.

“I’d invite you to stay for the barbeque, but—” Meeting the family would be decidedly relationship-y, she thinks. “—I don’t think you deserve the full brunt of meeting my sister-in-law Cheryl for the first time in these circumstances.”

Jughead’s expression twists just as he’s pulling on the shirt, covering his face, so she doesn’t see it for long. It’s something that makes her hesitant, wondering if he wants to be invited to stay. The look on his face last night when she’d whispered the request into his ear makes her wonder it twice.

“Betty?” Polly’s voice floats upstairs. “Are you up there?”

“Yeah, Pol!” She shouts, not moving but to throw her voice through the house. “I’ll be down in a sec!”

Stay, she tries to will herself to say, but it’s still the one word she’s most afraid of.

Jughead looks at her as he loops his arms into his jean jacket, almost as if he can hear the thought echoing through her head. He seems to be waiting for her to say something. Maybe the sex changed things.

Didn’t it?

But she’s not wrong about Cheryl, who would be merciless if she knew what’d happened upstairs, and in her childhood bedroom, no less. Even Polly, in her way, would try to embarrass her. She definitely can’t subject a guy who doesn’t want anything more from her to that—and even if she’s starting to question that, now isn’t the time. So Betty gathers her breath, grabs his hand, and tells him she’s going to sneak him out.

She peeks her head out the door suspiciously before leading him silently down the stairs. “I’ll call you later, okay?” She whispers, when they’re at the front door. He nods mutely and she kisses him in a quick goodbye, but then he gestures at something over her shoulder.

Shoes, he mouths, and, shit, he’s not wearing them. Betty turns to gather the pair for him, but is greeted by none other than the approaching presence of Cheryl Blossom in her signature venomous red.

“Oh, don’t bother trying to smuggle him out, Bettykins. We already knew he was here,” Cheryl says, a hip jutting out and sifting through a bowl of cherry tomatoes, fresh from the fridge.

Jughead freezes, blinks, and meets Betty’s gaze, who feels just as confused as he looks. Cheryl sighs wearily and points at the large, scuffed, black, very out-of-place-looking pair of Jughead’s sneakers, lined up innocuously by the coat rack. “Unless Alice Cooper is vying for a transformation into the other Alice Cooper, we guessed you had a special friend over.”

Cheryl rolls her eyes when neither says anything. “So stick around, you pleb. Obviously. I’ve got some questions for you anyway. And Betty, you might want to check your sex hair before saying hello to your darling little niece and nephew.”

Grinning, she pops one of the cherry tomatoes into her mouth. Betty sees the moment where it squishes beneath her pearly teeth, and then she’s spinning around, her sharp red heels clacking away. Blushing madly, Betty quickly smoothes down her hair and whips the little elastic off her wrist in order to sweep it up into a messy bun.

“Tell me what to do, I guess,” Jughead says, meeting her eyes again. “Do you still want me to go?”

Not at all, she thinks. She thinks she might need him at her side to get through Cheryl’s interrogation, in fact. So Betty says stay and relishes the fact that his shoulders seem to relax in relief.

She checks herself in the mirror by the front table, and can see how this tangle of blonde would scream sex hair if it was down. She does her best to tuck in the stray curls into her bun, but quickly gives up. “Don’t worry, Debbie Harry. You look beautiful,” Jughead murmurs, pressing a kiss against her cheek.

Betty catches his eye in her reflection as it happens. They widen just slightly, as if almost realizing the casual intimacy of what he’s just done. But she liked it, though that feels like the understatement of the year. So she just twists around, cups his jaw, and returns the kiss onto his lips, if albeit more briefly than she’d like.

Then she rolls her eyes. “Okay, come on.”

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Polly, her long blonde hair pushed back by a blue headband, is already husking corn in the kitchen. She spots Jason heaving a bag of coals for the grill into the backyard, and the kids must be causing chaos somewhere out there too. Cheryl is slinking around behind Polly, draped up against a cabinet in a red blouse and matching shorts and looking far more like an ageless lounge singer than any aunt at a family barbecue.

She swirls the iced tea in her hands when she spots Betty and Jughead, so forcefully that her ice cubes clink loudly against one another. It’s clearly an announcement to Polly that they’ve entered the room.

“Betty!” Polly greets cheerfully, her lips pressed together in a smile that Betty recognizes as a futile attempt at not looking mischievously gleeful at the sight of Jughead. “Who’s this?”

It’s the exact kind of thing their mother would say, in the exact opposite way. Alice Cooper would straighten, demure, and tilt her head as she said it, thinly veiled as an accusation. (So, logically, Betty finds a new reason to be grateful she’s not here.)

“Um, Polly, Cheryl, this is Jughead, a friend of mine,” Betty says, one hand on Jughead’s arm. He shifts forward in order to shake her sister’s hand once she’s finished wiping it against her apron. Behind her, Cheryl’s eyes threaten to roll backwards into her head and stay there forever.

“I’m sorry, did you say his name is Jug-head?” Cheryl intones, as if this a bad joke.

“Play nice, Cheryl,” Polly says warningly, before turning back to them. “It’s nice to meet you, Jughead.”

He surveys Cheryl skeptically, but at least seems to smile normally at her sister in response. Betty finds his closest hand and gives it a little encouraging squeeze, which makes him stand up a little straighter, as if perhaps realizing he’s actually meeting her family.

“By the way, Betty, you had left some dishes out, so I washed a few for you, and put the rest in the dishwasher,” Polly says, dropping her attention back down her work with the vegetables. She says it with an innocence that someone unfamiliar with her sister might not catch, but Betty knows her too well for that.

It’s a blatant teasing, because what she’s saying is, you left a huge mess in the kitchen to go have sex and I bet you don’t want me to tell Mom.

Which would be an understatement, considering that exact scenario is probably their mother’s very worst Faustian nightmare.

“Thanks Pol!” she replies, in her equally perkiest, most innocent voice. It seems to ring Jughead in on the game, because he throws her a dubiously amused look. “Oh, gosh, I think I forgot to make the potato salad, too,” she adds, putting her hands on her hips. “I was just so busy last night. Praying.”

Jughead, who had been stealing a chip from a bag on the counter, immediately coughs and sputters around it. Polly ignores this, putting down an ear of corn and delicately folding her hands over it. “Mom will be so proud,” she says, with total conviction.

“Oh, good lord,” Cheryl mutters dryly from the back of the kitchen. “We get it, we get it. Little Miss Easter Hunt found the bunny. Hashtag-yas-queen, hashtag-Betty-glows-up. Let’s move on.”

“Glad to see you’re in one of your usual good moods today, Cheryl,” Betty says pointedly, crossing into the kitchen and opening the fridge. She sticks her head in and pokes around at what’s available. “I did forget to make potato salad, though. I think it’ll take too long to soften up the potatoes, so why don’t I switch it to pasta salad instead?”

“That sounds good,” Polly says, dropping her share of the act.

Betty pulls a few things she needs from the fridge and gets to work setting up her prep space. Jughead sidles up to her, his voice by her ear, “You’d warn me if I was about to be descended upon by the Holy Matriarchy, right?”

“She’s still out of town,” Betty assures him, laying a hand over his. “She’s been really obsessed with these small-town-journalist conventions lately. She’s away for a week about every other month now. Polly thinks she has a secret boyfriend.”

“Or girlfriend,” Cheryl pipes in sharply, clearly eavesdropping.

“Right, or girlfriend, but—”

“But even Gaddafi would have a hard time torturing information out of Alice Cooper, so we’ll probably never know,” Cheryl cuts in again to add. Jughead raises an eyebrow at Betty, and she confirms this with a look.

“Gotcha. So, clue me in on the joke from before. Is your mom religious, or something? I don’t see any crosses looming around.” He asks, bumping her with his hip so that she can make room for him to help her. She passes him a knife and a spare cutting board and directs him to the tomatoes, which all feels very familiar, almost as if they’re stuck in some kind of time loop.

“Only when appearance demands it, which is kind of the point,” Betty explains. “She’s just…well, she’s a little better now, but when we were kids, she was very strict. She wanted us to present the right kind of image.”

“Ah,” Jughead nods, taking a bite of the tomato cube he’d just cut. “Explains the pink wallpaper, then.”

She tilts her head at him. “Meaning?”

He shrugs. “It just kind of seems like an idea of you. Not something you’d actually pick out for yourself,” he says casually, not realizing that Betty has stilled next to him. She’s had that thought so many times throughout her life—but not once has she ever heard it reflected back at her.

She feels it again; that deep-set, heavy sense of speechlessness, weighing her throat down like a stone. It’s a moment that feels hard to describe, but if she were to give it her best shot, she’d say she feels understood, in a way that is vulnerable and stripped down and more naked than she’s ever been around him, even considering what they did this morning.

She feels seen.

.

.

.

When the moment passes, Betty tries to throw herself back into cooking, though it’s hard with Jughead at her side, helping her chop and salt. His presence is distracting, heat practically pouring off him, and she wishes they were alone so she could show him how much that one little sentence meant to her.

She bites her lip, shakes her head, and attempts to focus on pasta salad. Pasta salad for your sister. Pasta salad for your very pure little niece and nephew, who very much don’t deserve to be exposed to the things you’d like to be doing. Which is to say, shoving Jughead up against the kitchen counter and making him feel everything she is.

Focus.

And eventually, she does. They move in tandem again, Betty passing him tomatoes as she washes them, him depositing the slices into the bowl she seems to shift to him just at the right time. It continues through shelling the peas and chopping the onions and it’s rhythmic, simple, and something they’re wordlessly on the same page about.

It’s not until Betty retrieves the dried bow-tie pasta and says, “Can you—” and Jughead nods, turning around to get a large pot, that they both seem to realize they have an audience. Polly and Cheryl gape at him, and he freezes, the pot in his hands, looking somehow like a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar.

Cheryl breaks the silence. “You two are scary.”

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After the pasta salad is finished and the vegetables are prepped, they all head outside onto the backyard patio. Jughead has been snacking his whole way through the afternoon—and finally gets to the worked up appetite joke she’d been waiting for—but just as he’s joined her at a chair with her requested lemonade and a plate of chips for himself, Cheryl materializes behind him, practically arriving in a cloud of black smoke. She pokes him forcefully in the shoulder.

“You. Get up,” she instructs. Jughead stares at her, and then at Betty for help, who feels the need to protect him from the warpath Cheryl appears to be on.

“Cheryl…”

“Don’t Cheryl me, Elizabeth Cooper. I merely have a few clarifying questions for Beetlejuice over here, regarding his little friend.” She clasps her hands together with the kind of air that implies resistance is futile, and Betty might agree.

She smiles at Jughead, but with the corners tipped down as if to say you might have no choice here, so he begrudgingly puts down his snacks, brushes off his hands, and follows Cheryl into a corner out of earshot.

Betty gets up from her lawn chair and attempts to distract herself by adding a few garnishing touches to her pasta salad. She tries not to watch them as they talk, but even a quick glance gives her a pretty clear summary of the conversation. Jughead’s arms are crossed, wearing an expression that straddles the line between overwhelmed and pissed off, while one of Cheryl’s hands moves rapidly over her head.

So much for sparing him.

“So, that’s Veronica’s ex,” Jughead says ten minutes later, appearing at her side and glancing around quickly to make sure Cheryl’s not eavesdropping in a nearby shadow before adding, “I can see why they broke up. Kinda seems like an immovable object vs. an unstoppable force type-situation.”

“Which one’s which?” She asks, smirking over at him.

“Loaded question. I’ll save that one for Nietzsche, when I meet him in hell,” Jughead sighs.

“We have learned that Veronica really likes redheads, though,” Betty points out, making him snort.

“She did ask me if I wanted to give her some kind of lecture about not breaking Archie’s heart, but now I’m thinking I might have to warn him about someone breaking his kneecaps,” he muses. “She’s definitely not over Veronica.”

“She said that to you?” Betty asks, surprised. This would be…well, monumental of Cheryl to confide this in anyone, but especially to a stranger.

“No, that was the impression I got,” Jughead sighs. “I don’t even know how she knew I was Archie’s friend, but she just kept pressing me for details. She’s not very subtle, that one.”

“This sounds dramatic, but she does have eyes all over town. And she did this to the last one too, poor girl,” Betty says, frowning. “It’s been over a year, but I’m not really sure what the appropriate time is after a breakup in a relationship like that to be over someone. They were really intense together, but it was mutual, in the end. But…I always got the impression that Cheryl thought they’d get back together eventually, which would keep anyone from moving on. Or she just might be a swan. I hope not.”

“What do you mean, she might be a swan?” He asks, glancing over at her. His lips curve upwards.

“Swans mate for life,” she explains. “When I was little, there was this pair of them who would always swim up Sweetwater and into the little canal downtown with the ducks. I fed them with my sister and grandmother every Saturday morning. One day, one of them was just…gone. It never came back, so something must’ve happened to it. I thought about that a lot for a while.”

Jughead is silent besides her, and she wonders if the conversation might’ve veered a little too closely to home. Eventually, he says, “What happened? To the other swan, I mean.”

She shrugs. “Not sure, really. My grandmother died that year, and we stopped going.”

“Huh.” He makes something like a grimace. “Sad.”

“Gee, don’t blow me over in one breath, Faulkner,” she teases, hoping it’ll break a bit of the tension. It works, because he releases a puff of air, rolls his eyes, and draws her against him, grinning goofily down at her.

“You’re so hilarious,” he drawls, his arms looped at the small of her back. One of his hands is dipping dangerously low into her jeans pocket, which she catches and brings back up to place.

“Juggie, my sister is like, twenty feet away,” she admonishes, but thrilled all the same. He’s gotten bolder and bolder with touches as the minutes tick by and she won’t lie, she’s getting dangerously used to it.

“She already knows what happened upstairs,” he murmurs lowly, his eyes on her lips.

“Yeah, but her children don’t,” which is all she needs to say for him to sigh and try to pull away. She hooks her own arms around his waist and drags him back. “I didn’t say you had to let go, just…maybe don’t grab my ass at a family barbecue.”

“Okay, well there’s a learning curve. Pun more or less intended,” he says, which makes her smile in spite of how bad the joke is. He only makes his deliberately worst quips when he’s feeling comfortable.

She shifts, tucking herself into his side, with one of his hands at her hip. They indulge to stand like that for a little while, wrapped up in one another and not saying much, both watching Arthur and Rose running through a sprinkler, Jason making Polly laugh as she turns over a couple of hot dogs on the grill, and Cheryl lurking around in the background, as usual—but on the opposite side of the backyard, glaring darkly at a rosebush.

It makes Betty frown. The redhead always has been known to slink around behind the scenes by her lonesome, but among family, she’s typically been more engaged, at least with her brother or the kids.

“I think I should go talk to Cheryl,” she says, clicking her tongue. “She looks miserable.”

“I figured that was the way she always looked, prepared to strike for the Iron Throne,” Jughead muses, and then nods. “But she wasn’t too pleased when I wouldn’t offer up anything that pointed to Veronica secretly hating Archie this whole time, so maybe.”

“I’ll investigate. Go mingle while I’m gone,” Betty advises him, running one hand along his jaw. “Jason really likes murder mysteries, you can try talking to him about yours.”

Jughead makes a sound that borders dangerously on a whine, but she just raises her eyebrows and he ends up nodding and mumbling something that sounds like I’ll give it a shot.

As they untangle and separate for their targets, Betty is struck with the thought that, for a guy self-described as not one for relationships, he seems to be making something of an actual effort to make a good impression on her and her family. If he were anyone else, she might’ve assumed it’s because he wants to keep getting laid for as long as he is here, but that just doesn’t seem like him.

She pauses, halfway to Cheryl, and looks back at him over her shoulder. Because, then again, how well can she really know him? It’s only been a couple weeks. But, still, the sex-that-wasn’t-quite-sex offered a lot left unsaid. She can’t let herself think that word aloud, describe what it was in such plain terms. But it felt like he was trying to tell her something, and she wished she had the courage to ask what it was.

Still—there was a secret there. The indecipherable stream of consciousness he dropped onto her skin like kisses, thoughts of beauty and thanks that were so mumbled together she hardly knew where one word began and another ended. The way he moved above her, in short, swift, sweet bursts.

The way he wanted to be sure she would come with him, in the end.

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.

“Oh, it’s you,” says Cheryl when she notices Betty at her side. “What? Is the food ready, or something? Your little boy toy Snorlax finished consuming everything in sight and actually saved some for the rest of us? Great. Message received.” Betty blinks, and Cheryl’s eyes bulge warningly. “You can go now.”

Betty almost does. Almost throws her hands into the air and storms off, to join Jughead by the grill and forget she even tried. But she knows that Cheryl is her most dismissive when she’s in desperate need of company, so she decides to hold her ground. “You can’t…” She swallows around the words. “You can’t treat me like that, Cheryl. I’m your friend.”

“Are you?” Cheryl scorns, puncturing a watermelon sharply with her plastic fork. “You’ve always been Veronica’s friend most of all.”

“Well, yeah, she’s been my best friend since we were fifteen,” Betty says slowly. “But you’re family, and you know I don’t want to take sides.”

An acidic little scoff bubbles out of her. “Please. You’ve got the monochromatic eyesight of a dog, Betty Cooper. You always pick one side. This or that. Good or bad. Black or white.”

“That’s not fair.” She sighs, losing the will to argue. “I…okay, maybe I do, sometimes. But…losing my dad made me realize I needed to appreciate the time I had with my family. And that’s you, Cheryl, for better or for worse. You seemed like you were upset, so I came over to talk to you. But I’m not going to stick around for you to bite my head off at everything.”

She turns to go, and then hears, faintly, “Wait.”

Betty pivots back, and Cheryl is fidgeting, eyes on her fruit salad. “You’re right. I was upset. Trying to extract gossip out of your little sideshow boyfriend was like trying to pull his teeth out with a pair of drug-store tweezers, and it made me frustrated.”

He’s not my boyfriend sits heavily in the back of her throat, but Cheryl seems to be gathering her courage and it’s probably not the best time to correct her. “It’s just so hard, seeing her moving on,” she says finally, her voice very low. “I don’t know why I can’t.”

“Maybe…” Betty inhales. “Maybe it’s because you keep thinking Veronica wants to get back together.”

“Well, whose fault is that? When she told me she couldn’t handle things anymore, she…implied that maybe one day, if I’d ever gotten help—”

“She told you she loved you and always would,” Betty summarizes simply, sighing. “That would be hard to hear in a breakup, I get it. It would make you hold onto things. But you know what she meant—she just couldn’t keep going the way things were. And you agreed with her. You guys just had bad timing, and—”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Cheryl interrupts, narrowing her eyes. Betty shoots her a confused look. “Timing, you brought that up last time. What does that have to do with my problems?”

“Well…” Betty pauses, unsure how to find the words. “I mean…you guys just didn’t get together at the right time of your lives. That’s why it didn’t work.”

“Oh, come on. What does that even mean? You’re not about to tell me you believe in fate, now are you? What about the tooth fairy, Betty? You believe in her too?” Cheryl suddenly inhales, as if catching herself. She shakes her head a little, to show she’s apologizing. “Timing is just another word for destiny, which doesn’t exist, and I know a smart girl like you doesn’t believe in that. Right?”

“No,” Betty says slowly, after working through the words. “I don’t believe in destiny. I think we’re all looking for too much agency in our lives already to start questioning some sort of master plan at the same time. But…”

“Veronica and I didn’t break up because our moon charts were out of sync, Bettykins. We broke up because she couldn’t handle…you know. My moods.” What she doesn’t say is bipolar disorder, but Cheryl’s never been quite good at speaking clinically. Betty opens her mouth to tell her that she shouldn’t be ashamed, and that—

“Don’t bother trying to make me feel better, we both know I’m right. She asked me to get help for years and I didn’t want to until I lost her because of it. It was for the best, in the end, because then I didn’t do it for her. I did it for me. And if you’re not getting help because you want it for yourself, you’ll never hold onto it. According to the therapist I’m paying ridiculous amounts of money for, anyway. So it’s possible she’s just saying that to keep me coming back.”

“But breaking up with her left you to deal with it alone,” Betty says softly. She’s always been more on Veronica’s side of things, being her best friend and seeing first hand how much things wore on her, but at the same time, she still felt bad for Cheryl to not have a rock through therapy.

“I wasn’t alone,” Cheryl says firmly. “I had Jay-Jay, and Polly, and even you, somehow. And I had myself, and we both know I have enough personality for three people. And spoiler alert, I made it out just fine.”

She releases a long breath, glancing over at Jason, who is talking to Jughead. Based on Jason’s mimicking of a swinging baseball bat, Jughead is probably struggling through a conversation about sports wherein she’s sure he’s just regurgitating things he’s heard from Archie. It makes her feel all the more endeared to him, as he must be really trying.

Cheryl’s voice pulls her back. “You can’t put all your problems into one person, anyway. Especially not if you love them. That was the real fight, between Veronica and I. I put too much on her.”

“Yeah,” Betty agrees quietly, running that over in her thoughts. Cheryl’s right, of course.

“So it wasn’t timing, it was a choice. You either decide to work on what’s wrong, or you go your separate ways. Find a way to make it work, or call it quits.”

They’re silent for a long time. Betty stares over at Jughead, and wonders if there’s a choice to be made here. She says she doesn’t believe in destiny, but she’s been sitting here, blaming bad timing and accepting that he’s going to get into his truck and roll away out of her life forever, without ever planning on telling him that’s not what she wants. Isn’t that passively putting things into the hands of fate—which, if it doesn’t even exist, is just giving up before the fact?

The thought sits heavily on her chest.

Finally, as if forcing herself away from that little spot of fear, Betty remembers her promise. “You know, if want to try to get back out there, that girl Toni Topaz won’t stop asking me about you. She really wants to know you, I think.”

“Her? Oh, I know. She once liked a couple Instagram posts from two years ago,” Cheryl sighs, biting off a grape from her fruit salad. “She’s cute, I suppose, if you like the whole dressed-down-Nicki-Minaj-pink look.” Cheryl shoots her a sidelong look. “You really don’t think V and C are slated to reappear?”

“Well, it doesn’t help when you refer to yourself in the third person, but…no. I think she’s looking for something a lot less…combative right now. You guys butted heads a lot, even at your best. And she’s about to move across the country, right?”

Sighing, Cheryl nods. Straightens, shakes out her shoulders, and meets Betty’s eye. “Alright, fine. Give me Jem and the Hologram’s phone number and I’ll maybe think about it. Maybe.”

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.

.

A little while later, just after they’ve all settled down onto the patio picnic table for their lunch, Betty gets a text from Toni.

omg, cheryl just texted me and said u gave her my number! we’re gonna get dinner next week. ty!!

And then, a second later, embellished with two little smiling devil emojis: now I don’t have to tell Kev I saw ur boy buying condoms AND flowers yesterday

You’ve got a real soft spot for blackmail, Betty types back. You two are going to be a match made in heaven.

lmao well ur one to talk! he looked like he wanted to die, so he must really like u to suffer the embarrassment of buying both those things at once ;)

Betty quickly shoves her phone into her pocket, her face flushed with warmth. Cheryl sits next to her, cutting up a hot dog into little bites, sans bun, and glances at Betty out of the corner of her eye.

She mouths Toni? at her, and Cheryl returns a shamelessly smug roll of the eyes and looks away, leaving Betty to glance around the rest of the table. Polly and Jason are chatting about the upcoming camp schedule for the kids, Rose has her face pushed into a hand-held video game, and Arthur is shoveling a burger into his little mouth with aplomb. She feels full and happy and for the first time in a long while, strangely at peace.

She meets Jughead’s eyes over a spoonful of pasta salad. He wiggles his eyebrows at her, grinning. She returns the smile, feeling something rise into her chest.

His eyes are very blue with something indescribably soft. Toni’s words settle down deep in her toes.

He must really like you.

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[kidsviral-blog]

Are Tiny-House Villages The Solution To Homelessness?

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/are-tiny-house-villages-the-solution-to-homelessness/

Are Tiny-House Villages The Solution To Homelessness?

In the Pacific Northwest, people with nowhere else to go are forming micro-communities with communal kitchens and toilets but teeny, individual sleeping units. Could tiny homes, once the provenance of design blogs, help curb homelessness nationwide?

A steady rain beat down outside, but in the small, cluttered stand-alone structure that serves as the administrative office for Dignity Village — a 14-year-old tent city turned semipermanent experimental housing community on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon — Mitch Grubic was snug and dry, albeit a bit chilly.

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Mitch Grubic Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

He fingered an unlit cigarette he’d just pawned from his girlfriend, Debbie, with whom he shares one of 43 roughly 10-by-12-foot “tiny homes” at Dignity. Grubic, a handsome, ruddy-faced 51-year-old, was recounting how he went from being a California carpenter doing high-end residential work to living in his Ford Bronco with his two dogs and $1,400 to his name, desperately seeking pickup work along the Oregon coast.

Turns out, how Grubic got from that particular A to B wasn’t too different from how many of his Dignity neighbors got there: After Grubic’s dad died in 2007, Grubic remodeled his dad’s Northern California house and sold it, buying his own place nearby. But then the 2008 recession hit, his work dried up, and he had to let go of his new house. He built himself a low-cost hunting lodge but ran afoul of local authorities regarding permits. So he sold most of his tools and drove north, into Oregon.

“I went begging for work,” he recalled. Finally, in Seaside, he found it — as a glazier, making $12 an hour. He’d park his truck in Fort Stevens State Park, showering there and sleeping in yurts. But come fall, his work vanished, and the area had scant services for homeless people, so he drove to Portland. “I was parking and sleeping on the city streets,” he said, hitting the employment office or the library during the day to look for work.

Eventually, by 2010, he found an isolated, mostly industrial part of town out near the airport to park and sleep at night. Little did he know that he was not far from Dignity Village, where homeless people and their supporters had started building cottages three years before.

“I asked a food bank in Portland if I could park my truck there,” recalled Grubic. “They said no, but to go check out Dignity Village.” Lo and behold, he said, he realized he’d been sleeping nearby for months. (It’s funny he never once glimpsed the village’s cluster of cottages, fenced into the city’s former leaf composting yard.) So Grubic got on Dignity’s waiting list and started putting in volunteer hours there toward his residence.

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Dignity Village Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

“People were mean at first,” said Grubic, who has a gruff but warm demeanor. “They said, ‘You’re not village material.’” But he stuck it out, going to pick up donated pizza for the other villagers, gardening, and using his expertise to trim out unfinished windows. “I started to see the eclectic beauty of it all.”

He also started to see, as he put it, “the vision that Dignity stood for — of a place with open arms where people could get clean [from drugs or alcohol], get a change of socks, get warm in winter, get water.” He added, “I needed water.”

That was 2011. In 2013, Grubic served as Dignity’s CEO for a year, and, last year, he was vice chair. Now he’s the security coordinator. He’s overseen work parties to get most of the cottages insulated and Sheetrocked, via various grants. And he’s grateful. “This place helped me create a home base to go out and find work again,” he said.

Currently, he does construction five days a week, making $100 a day and, per Dignity rules, putting $25 a month toward the village’s operating expenses. He and Debbie are on a list to get into permanent affordable housing, as everyone at Dignity must be.

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Mitch and Debbie with their dogs. Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

But he didn’t think he’d put the Dignity experience entirely behind him. “I’d like to become an advocate for the tiny-house village movement,” he said, showing off the little structure — complete with front porch — where he and Debbie live with his two dogs: Juneau, a corgi, and Zooey, a Baja terrier. He says that life at Dignity is far from ideal, but he’s still proud of what it represents. For other cities looking for examples of this approach as a way to alleviate homelessness, “We’ve become the go-to place,” he said.

And not only that. Dignity and other such villages raise compelling questions that may direct the future of this nascent movement: Should these communities be low-budget affairs largely built through philanthropy and run by residents, as is Dignity, or are they better off as professional, high-budget projects overseen by an outside corporation or nonprofit? Or, as Grubic put it, “Is this a place for the homeless to govern themselves or a business venture?”

Visiting three villages in the rainy Pacific Northwest last fall, I saw how each offered a different pathway, representing our deepest attitudes about the homeless, property, and how we think people should live.

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Opportunity Village Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

Grubic is right that Dignity has set a precedent. There were few examples of sanctioned homeless villages before Dignity — Dome Village, a cluster of geodesic domes, existed in Downtown L.A. from 1993 to 2006. But since Dignity transformed in the mid-2000s, with city and community support, from a tent community to one with wooden structures heated with small propane tanks, the idea of a village for homeless people made up of a cluster of “tiny homes” with larger structures for shared baths, kitchen, and lounging has taken hold. (Dignity even has the odd distinction of seemingly having been replicated in the video game Grand Theft Auto V.)

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A dome structure in downtown Los Angeles. Oscar Hidalgo / AP Photo

There’s Village of Hope in Fresno, California (established 2004); River Haven in Ventura, California (2004); Opportunity Village in Eugene, Oregon, and Quixote Village in Olympia, Washington (both 2013). In the works or early phases are OM Village in Madison, Wisconsin; Second Wind Cottages in upstate New York; Community First in Austin, Texas; and Emerald Village in Eugene.

These villages tend to be a hybrid of two trends. One is the tent city, a kind of homeless encampment that goes back at least as far as the Depression and that received revived attention from the media once the recession hit, then again in 2011 when several emerged amid the Occupy Wall Street movement. Tent cities crop up in unused city lots, under bridges, in forests, or by riverbanks; usually go unsanctioned by urban governments; and may or may not have some kind of self-governance. (A massive one, in fact, was just shut down in San Jose, where the tech boom has pushed the average monthly rent up to nearly $3,000 — and has pushed many into homelessness.) They usually do not have plumbing, electrical wiring, or heating.

The other trend is the tiny-home movement, which has become increasingly chic in recent years as Americans look for ways to reduce their carbon footprint and to live more economically. The movement has been popularized by such websites as The Tiny House Blog, books including Lloyd Kahn’s Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter and Jay Shafer’s The Small House Book, and a documentary, all of which feature adorable, dollhouse-like homes of about 500 square feet or less that people have built and live in for dramatically lower costs than the average new American home.

Tiny-home villages for the homeless have retained the idea of everyone having their own tiny structure to sleep and find privacy in, but have, for the most part, consolidated bathroom, kitchen, and recreational space into one or two communal buildings with some combination of plumbing, electricity, and heat. In many ways, they are a multi-roof version of the old-fashioned urban SRO (single-room occupancy) hotel or boarding house, with separate bedrooms but shared baths and kitchen, that provided the working and nonworking poor with affordable living options in so many cities before gentrification turned those properties into boutique hotels or market-rate apartments.

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Andrew Heben Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

“We’ve lost the SRO and only build to middle-class standards now,” said Andrew Heben, a young urban planner in Eugene who played a role in the building of Opportunity Village and writes a blog on the topic called Tent City Urbanism and has a new book out by the same name. Heben is a sandy-haired, mild-mannered 27-year-old Ohio native who did his senior thesis at the University of Cincinnati on the upside of homeless tent cities — for example, they foster organic systems of self-governance and mutual aid. He travels frequently to make presentations in small and midsize Western cities that are interested in creating tiny-home villages for their own homeless populations.

Heben called today’s tiny-home villages “an early example of something that’s coming,” as both environmental concerns and income inequality put pressure on low- and middle-income Americans to find ways to live more cheaply. “People see that a lot of us will be living like this in the future.”

In this regard, they may be solutions that not only alleviate homelessness, but also prevent it by creating more affordable housing. They provide an option below the lowest rungs of market rent, which in cities such as Portland and Eugene can start around $700. In the gap between such rents and low-income units (such as those subsidized by the federal Section 8 program), for which there are often long waits, homeless people often have no options except for shelters — which afford no privacy and, more vexingly, usually kick people out between early morning and late afternoon — or the streets.

To that end, Heben is helping to develop Eugene’s Emerald Village, a larger model where more sophisticated cottages will cost between $10,000 and $15,000 apiece to build and residents will have to put in up to $200 monthly but will also accrue equity in their cottages. At Opportunity, teams spent about four hours building each cottage. “It’s just putting jigsaw puzzle pieces together,” Heben said. An Emerald cottage’s shell alone will take about a day, with further construction needed to finish it out, and each one will be pre-insulated and hooked up with water and electricity.

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A simple structure at Opportunity Village. Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

They may sound prefab, but tiny-home villages, governed and operated at least in part by the villagers themselves, offer a modicum of safety, stability, warmth, cleanliness, autonomy, and privacy. The feds “have very high standards for [traditional] affordable housing and it’s quite expensive,” said Kitty Piercy, Eugene’s mayor, “so Opportunity and Emerald are ways for us to be able to help some people at a much-reduced cost.”

Add to that reduced fear and stress on the part of residents. “I don’t wanna live here forever,” I was told on a visit to Opportunity Village by a wiry, sweet-natured, 42-year-old recovering alcoholic who goes by the name Johnny Awesome. He was building a small greenhouse onto the front of his cheerful blue cottage, festooned with colored flags and a small disco ball. “This isn’t the top rung of society,” he said. “And the weather dictates a typical day here too much.” Sunny days found residents outside, gardening and building; rainy and cold ones found them holed up in their cottages or congregating in the 30-foot-diameter communal yurt containing computers with Wi-Fi, a large-screen TV, and a pantry.

“But it’s safe here,” he said. It was a far cry better than a few years ago, when he was living in his car. Having a home base, he told me, was allowing him to pursue his career goal of becoming a trauma counselor.

But of course, the tiny-home village can’t flourish everywhere, especially large, densely populated cities with astronomical land values. So far, they seem to be occurring in and around mid- and small-size Western cities whose cultures have some mix of permissive, progressive politics and a certain pioneer DIY spirit. That could also describe Silicon Valley, at least as it sees itself; the irony is that the pioneering spirit of one world (tech) is, in the American West, creating the very kind of extreme income inequality and gouged realty markets that contribute to homelessness. Perhaps no wonder, then, that tiny homes for homeless people are among the housing options that local officials began exploring last year; Leslye Corsiglia, San Jose’s recently departed housing director, said the city’s new mayor likes the idea, “so I think there will be some movement [on such a project] in the not-too-distant future.”

However, Ray Bramson, San Jose’s homelessness response manager, said in an e-mail that “while the tiny homes model does offer some benefit in terms of initially low capital/construction costs, the overall high cost of land combined with the lack of available space and the numerous regulatory barriers makes the approach difficult to advance in San Jose.” Bramson said the city would likely go with a temporary trailer-home model, but at the moment no such funding exists for the project.

“These villages might fill a small niche but I don’t see them as a major solution to the problem of homelessness,” said Alex Schwartz, a professor of urban policy at the New School in New York, a city that is trying to solve its own considerable homelessness problem both by reinstating rental subsidies to poor families that were cut back in the era of former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and by aiming to build 200,000 new units of affordable housing. Previously, Bloomberg also announced plans to build apartments in the form of “microunits” ranging from 250 to 375 square feet, which are slated to open this summer.

“Not to say [such villages] are absolutely impossible” in a city like New York, said Schwartz, “but commercially zoned land is at a premium. Multi-unit solutions [under one roof] make a lot more sense.”

Mary Cunningham, who studies homelessness and housing at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank The Urban Institute, agreed. Government housing vouchers and more public housing are the way to go, she told me. “But,” she conceded, “there’s just not enough to go around, and funding programs get cut every year. Meanwhile, we have more people every year who are paying too much rent and struggling to hold on to their housing.”

If, amid this climate of scarcity, tent cities crop up out of sheer necessity in more and more cities, it’s not unimaginable that more cities may take their cue from those in the Pacific Northwest, which stopped seeing such encampments as a scourge and started wondering how they might be upgraded to something safer, cleaner, semipermanent — and even pleasant.

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Quixote Village Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

It’s hard not to be charmed by Quixote Village in Olympia, Washington, or the story behind it. In 2007, when police broke up a homeless camp in a parking lot in funky downtown Olympia — the state’s capital, famous for being, among other things, the onetime home of Kurt Cobain — faith leaders in this progressive college town banded together to allow the residents to camp out in various church parking lots for three to six months at a time.

Eventually, the leaders formed a nonprofit custody group for the residents called Panza, which, over time, successfully lobbied the city, county, and state governments to not only lease to the residents (at $1 yearly for 41 years) a 2.2-acre plot of land in an industrial zone about a 10-minute drive from downtown, but to pony up more than $2.3 million to build a professionally designed village with thirty 144-square-foot cottages and a community building with a “shared kitchen, dining area, living room, showers, laundry, and office and meeting space.”

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Jill Severn Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

Another $215,000 came from community groups and individuals moved by the story of the ever-roaming village, named, of course, for the peripatetic fictional Don Quixote. (Panza is named after his faithful servant). As money was raised, “hundreds of middle-class people got to know people who were homeless, which was transformative,” said Jill Severn, a cheerful former political speechwriter and Panza board member. Severn has become a regular volunteer presence at Quixote, sitting in on all sorts of meetings and occasionally whipping up a Saturday breakfast for the residents.

The first residents of Quixote, long used to sleeping in tents, moved into their new cottages, complete with heat, toilets, sinks, and electricity, on Dec. 24, 2013. “It was a little strange not knowing anyone, but I must have flushed my toilet about 10 times,” said a 60-year-old resident who goes by the name Stormie Knight, who moved in after a stint camping in the woods to escape both an abusive husband and a history of crack use. “I thought I’d be an embarrassment to my daughter if I died in the forest.”

The afternoon before Halloween during my visit, she spent time in the common room helping other residents prepare to hang up crepe-paper black spiders and orange jack-o’-lanterns, decorations for a party that night that would include a horror movie marathon. She said that she occasionally missed the DIY rigors of camping life, not to mention living amid nature. “I sleep with my windows open here,” she said. “But I like the camaraderie. And I don’t miss the hardship or the lack of safety or the stigma of being homeless.”

Frankly speaking, Quixote Village is a delight to middle-class eyes. It is well-designed and clean and as cute as can be. The earth-tone, board-and-batten identical cottages sit all in a row, each with its own tiny front porch and front yard, where some residents have planted bushes and flowers. Curving paved pathways link everything together. The three retention ponds that sit between the two rows of cottages — a necessary evil because the area’s water table is so shallow — have even attracted a few ducks.

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Quixote Village Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

It’s easy to forget the industrial drabness, including a trucking company, that lies beyond the village’s gates. The building that houses the shared facilities has a modern-rustic wood façade and is bright, airy, and clean, with comfy new sofas and lamp fixtures and a spacious, well-equipped kitchen. And given that the cost of a traditional studio in the area is around $200,000, Quixote’s cottages were a bargain at $19,000 each — or $88,000 each if you factor in the cost of site preparation and the common building.

But compared to Dignity and Opportunity Villages, Quixote also feels a bit institutional, as if it’s run by a nonprofit — which it is. It has two paid staffers and its own van to take residents to and from town, and though residents play an advisory role in who gets in or is kicked out, Panza has the final say. The village urine-tests residents suspected of not complying with a ban on alcohol use, which residents voted to instate only recently. (Drug use had been banned from the get-go.)

Prior to that, “All our troubles here were alcohol-based,” said resident Byron Thorpe, 55, who said he had kicked meth since moving in. “This place has been a blessing,” he said. “It got me clean.” (The village has a support group for residents with mental health or substance histories.) Pot, however, is allowed at Quixote. Now legal in Washington state, it’s often bought by residents at the nearby 420 Carpenter, the county’s first legal weed store.

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Eric Estabrooks Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

That same pre-Halloween afternoon, Eric Estabrooks, a scruffy blond 29-year-old resident in a ball cap and hoodie, showed off the cottage where he kept a small playpen and loads of kids’ DVDs for his little daughter and son, who stayed with him frequently. (Overnight guests are allowed up to three nights a month and after they pass a background check, which is waived for children.) Estabrooks was sleeping in the doorway of an Olympia church until he found his way to Quixote.

“You like my pumpkins?” he asked, proudly pointing out the pumpkin patch he’d cultivated with his bit of front yard.

Estabrooks puts 30% of whatever monthly income he gets from odd jobs and public benefits toward the village, as do the other residents. All Quixotians are free to stay as long as they want, but must declare goals they are working toward, whether they involve education and career or simply seeking steady care for their physical and mental health.

In the common room, Stormie Knight worked alongside Theresa Bitner, 26, and Brie Wellman, 21, two cheerful young women who’ve been a couple since their high school days and found themselves occasionally homeless due to both familial poverty and familial tensions.

Bitner now has a job as a line chef at a senior living facility; in their downtime, the young women, who are one of two couples at Quixote, love to cuddle with their cats. Prior to Quixote, they lived for a stint, as did almost half the residents, at Olympia’s Salvation Army shelter, which everyone simply calls “Sally.” It wasn’t easy.

“You can be by yourself here,” said Bitner. “And you can take a shower whenever you want.” (The common building is open 24/7.)

Later that afternoon, Severn hosted a visit from Jill Detwiler, a staffer in the office of the mayor of Portland, Oregon, which is scouting sites to build homeless villages like Quixote. Detwiler commented on how far Quixote felt from downtown Olympia. (That concern had previously been voiced to me by Karen Chapple, a UC Berkeley urban planning professor — who, as it happens, rents out a tiny home in the backyard of her real home. “Is it so inaccessible that residents will never be able to get back into the mainstream economy?” she asked. “You’re perpetuating the isolation of the homeless by keeping them on these sites, [though they’re] low cost and more viable.”)

Addressing Detwiler, Severn noted that getting from Quixote to downtown Olympia was a doable bike or bus ride, plus the village’s van made daily trips.

“Besides,” she added, “how much longer could people go on living in tents?”

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Opportunity Village Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

About 225 miles south, Opportunity Village, in an outlying industrial zone of Eugene, presents a very different picture from Quixote. Its 29 tiny homes, though built on a prefab model like Quixote’s, are roughly half the size (8-by-8) and have been far more customized, inside and out, by residents, giving this residential cluster a colorful, ramshackle, more hippie-ish feel, enhanced by the ragtag raised-box garden plots and the piles of old bikes and scrap materials residents tend to hoard outside their cottages.

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An Opportunity resident adjusts some exterior decor on her home. Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

The drizzly, chilly day that I visited, some of the 35 residents were in the communal yurt (heated by a woodstove), tapping away at laptops, holding small organizational meetings, or watching TV, while others built interior or exterior additions to their cottages. Yet others came and went, off to downtown Eugene to work day or odd jobs, access social services, or buy groceries.

Heben, the young urban planner and tiny-home evangelist who lives nearby, showed me around, explaining that Opportunity — which grew out of an Occupy camp, with the support of Eugene’s mayor — was built with $100,000 in donated funds plus roughly another $100,000 worth of donated material. Cottages cost a max of $2,000 apiece to build. Residents chip in $30 a month for the shared utilities.

Life at Opportunity does not feel as tidy as at Quixote. With no proper indoor kitchen, residents cook on grills or with a variety of toaster ovens in an outdoor area. The cottages are not heated, and on really cold nights, everyone sleeps in the yurt.

“There’s lots of sickness and colds,” said Tom, who looked a bit like an older Matthew McConaughey with his blue eyes and long blond hair under a Hard Rock Cafe cap. A former Ohio trucker who lost work during the recession, he now collects cans around town so he can make up to $20 a day in refunds. He likes to buy steak with his food stamps.

When I asked him the best thing about life at Opportunity, he said, “There’s no best thing.” Then he softened. “It’s better than the Mission,” he said, referring to the main (Christian) Eugene shelter from which half of Opportunity’s residents came. Like most shelters nationally, the Mission demands that everyone leave in the afternoon and check back in in the early evening.

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Opportunity’s communal yurt Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

“You can come and go as you please here,” said Tom. “And it’s way better to have my own space,” he added, pointing to his cottage, painted a dark green. “Also, we have a real address here. If you put down on applications that you’re at the Mission, people won’t hire you.” He said he was looking forward to the village Halloween party in the yurt, which would also serve as a one-year anniversary party for one of the resident couples, who met at the village.

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Opportunity’s community rules Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

Unlike Quixote Village, Opportunity doesn’t require that residents be clean and sober, but it doesn’t allow drinking or using on or near the premises and insists that anyone coming back to the village drunk or high go directly to their cottage. Ed, 52, who wore a skull-print bandana and puffed on a cigarette with a hand missing the top of a thumb — he lost that in a 1992 carpentry accident — admitted he found the no-using ban annoying, as he occasionally liked to consume mind-altering substances.

But since leaving the Mission, he’s proudly earned up to $2,000 a month working for Backyard Bungalows, the small company that helped build Opportunity’s cottages, and said he wanted to get his own place at Emerald Village.

Again and again at Opportunity and elsewhere, I was reminded just how quickly people without means could fall into homelessness. Inside the village’s front-gate welcoming cottage, where all residents must volunteer weekly hours, Rhonda, a recovering heroin addict in glasses and a hoodie with a sweetly embarrassed demeanor, told me how she and her husband Juan lost their housing when the elderly man they worked for as live-in caretakers died.

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Front desk at Opportunity Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

“We pitched a tent by the river and lived there on and off for two years, sleeping on people’s couches or floors sometimes, or in motels when we could afford it,” she said. She called the past year at Opportunity, which she’d read about in the paper and then rushed to apply to, “wonderful, just being off the street.”

The best part of Opportunity was the friends they’d made, she said. The worst? “No electricity in the cottages. We have a rechargeable lantern and a portable DVD player.”

Just outside the welcoming tent, skull-bandana’d Ed sat on white plastic chairs with a woman who asked that I call her Ann, cuddling with her little white terrier, Kaczynski (named after Ted, the Unabomber). She and her husband, who both have severe arthritis, had sold their car in Oklahoma to raise money to move to Oregon, which has better health benefits.

Ann’s story underscored the plight of Americans without independent income who, because of physical or mental illness, struggle to hold down a job. “I’d babysit or do office work,” she said, “but I’d always be fired for crying at work.” She’d not left her cottage that day until 1:30 p.m. (Her husband was off doing janitorial work.)

Living at Opportunity, at least, was giving her a base from which to figure out the rest of her life. (She’d briefly lived in Oklahoma with family, but “that didn’t work out so well” — a common story among homeless people.) “Should I get a job now or start classes at community college?” she mused aloud. “These days, where is college going to get us?” But she was equally ambivalent about taking minimum-wage work. “I don’t wanna do a shit job,” she said. “It makes my pain so bad.”

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Interior of an Opportunity cottage Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

She was quiet, petting Kaczynski. “I’d rather make art and have it take off,” she finally said. She’d made some decorative tiles for the backsplash of the sink in the yurt, and was looking to sell more of them at a local holiday fair. “Maybe I could be known in places I’ve never been to.”

For the meantime, she had a safe home. That, Mayor Piercy told me, was a key benefit of Opportunity. “I’ve talked to women there,” she said, “and they expressed that they now felt safe whereas before they hadn’t, which is exactly how Opportunity was meant to function.” Residents at the village take turns manning the front gate to track everyone’s comings and goings. The police would be called if a major problem erupted. “But there have been no law enforcement issues there,” said the mayor, “which is why we just renewed their contract for another year.”

That’s not to say that Opportunity hasn’t seen its share of troublemakers. Eleven people had been kicked out for bad behavior, Heben told me, including one the very first night the village opened. “At first there was a two-week probationary period imposed [after someone misbehaved],” he told me. “But we got rid of it.”

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Mitch Grubic Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

Back at Dignity Village in Portland, Mitch Grubic told me how Opportunity actually took a lesson from Dignity in what not to do — specifically in allowing the creation of an outside board to oversee the village and provide a final say on key decisions, such as who stays and who goes. Dignity elects resident leaders year to year, with no permanent leadership.

“Our attempt here at self-government has not worked,” he said. Other residents echoed this, saying that resentment routinely built up toward villagers with elected titles who held all the decision-making power in the community for periods of at least a year. “You need a village where everyone looks at each other as a peer, not as rulers,” Grubic said. “And you need outside oversight. It’s hard to make a decision on someone you consider family whom you live with.”

Plus, he said, Dignity’s lack of an outside nonprofit board had kept the community from doing more robust fundraising. “We’ve lost momentum here and we could bring in all kinds of money if we went with a board model.”

But ultimately, he said, he agreed with Heben that a self-built village was a better model than one in which the government paid professionals to build to traditional code. He asked of Quixote, “Did the developer walk away with a profit?” (Quixote’s architect took half his usual fee, and the developer, the nonprofit Community Frameworks, was paid “a fraction of the cost of construction, which is a standard way to pay a developer,” Severn said.)

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Map of Dignity Village Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

Whichever governing model becomes the more prevalent one, it appears that the tiny-home village as part of a solution to homelessness — and, more broadly, the dire need for more affordable housing — is likely to grow in the years ahead, particularly in areas whose realty markets, zoning flexibility, and political temperament allow for it. “We’ve demonstrated that this model is feasible,” said Ginger Segel, Community Frameworks’ senior housing developer, who was visiting Quixote the same day as me to discuss building more such villages in the area. “This is permanent housing,” she said. “Not a tent city. And other communities will replicate this.”

That is not to say that such projects won’t meet opposition and bias, even in the fairly progressive Pacific Northwest, as the ones thus far have along the way to gaining city approval. (In fact, the villages might never have happened at all if they hadn’t ultimately been located far afield of any residential zones. One of Quixote’s neighbors, a trucking company, initially voiced opposition to the site; now, said Severn, the company brings the village large food donations.) One look at the comments in a 2013 story on Dignity Village makes clear that local sentiment isn’t all entirely welcome.

“If Portland and the state of Oregon wasn’t a haven for homeless, illegals and entitlement lovers,” read one of many such posts, “these same freeloaders would move to warmer climates and with any luck let Portland be something other than a joke to the rest of the country. ‘Give us your lazy, your freeloaders, your drug addicts, your prostitutes, and your corrupt public officials’ should be on all the signs welcoming people to Oregon.”

And to be truthful, not everyone living in these tiny-home villages — individuals whose lives have often been scarred by mental illness, severe disability, trauma, addiction, and old age — seems as though they’re on a straight path to mainstream employment, housing, and middle-class American stability. To varying degrees, the villages aim to help residents connect to services for health, employment, and future housing — Quixote, for example, has a full-time social worker who is starting an in-house program to deal with chemical dependency — but both Heben and Severn admitted that, with lack of alternatives, some folks at Opportunity and Quixote might be there for the rest of their lives. Yet as middle-class stability increasingly becomes less reachable, or regainable, for a large percentage of the American population, tiny villages are modeling a solution that falls somewhere between the three-bedroom, two-car-garage status quo and the streets.

Or, as Rhonda back at Opportunity Village put it: “I know there’s something better out there. But at least for now, I have a place to call home.”

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Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

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[180brg]

2 Corinthians 11

Pseudo-Servants of God

1-3 Will you put up with a little foolish aside from me? Please, just for a moment. The thing that has me so upset is that I care about you so much—this is the passion of God burning inside me! I promised your hand in marriage to Christ, presented you as a pure virgin to her husband. And now I’m afraid that exactly as the Snake seduced Eve with his smooth patter, you are being lured away from the simple purity of your love for Christ.

4-6 It seems that if someone shows up preaching quite another Jesus than we preached—different spirit, different message—you put up with him quite nicely. But if you put up with these big-shot “apostles,” why can’t you put up with simple me? I’m as good as they are. It’s true that I don’t have their voice, haven’t mastered that smooth eloquence that impresses you so much. But when I do open my mouth, I at least know what I’m talking about. We haven’t kept anything back. We let you in on everything.

7-12 I wonder, did I make a bad mistake in proclaiming God’s Message to you without asking for something in return, serving you free of charge so that you wouldn’t be inconvenienced by me? It turns out that the other churches paid my way so that you could have a free ride. Not once during the time I lived among you did anyone have to lift a finger to help me out. My needs were always supplied by the believers from Macedonia province. I was careful never to be a burden to you, and I never will be, you can count on it. With Christ as my witness, it’s a point of honor with me, and I’m not going to keep it quiet just to protect you from what the neighbors will think. It’s not that I don’t love you; God knows I do. I’m just trying to keep things open and honest between us.

12-15 And I’m not changing my position on this. I’d die before taking your money. I’m giving nobody grounds for lumping me in with those money-grubbing “preachers,” vaunting themselves as something special. They’re a sorry bunch—pseudo-apostles, lying preachers, crooked workers—posing as Christ’s agents but sham to the core. And no wonder! Satan does it all the time, dressing up as a beautiful angel of light. So it shouldn’t surprise us when his servants masquerade as servants of God. But they’re not getting by with anything. They’ll pay for it in the end.

Many a Long and Lonely Night

16-21 Let me come back to where I started—and don’t hold it against me if I continue to sound a little foolish. Or if you’d rather, just accept that I am a fool and let me rant on a little. I didn’t learn this kind of talk from Christ. Oh, no, it’s a bad habit I picked up from the three-ring preachers that are so popular these days. Since you sit there in the judgment seat observing all these shenanigans, you can afford to humor an occasional fool who happens along. You have such admirable tolerance for impostors who rob your freedom, rip you off, steal you blind, put you down—even slap your face! I shouldn’t admit it to you, but our stomachs aren’t strong enough to tolerate that kind of stuff.

21-23 Since you admire the egomaniacs of the pulpit so much (remember, this is your old friend, the fool, talking), let me try my hand at it. Do they brag of being Hebrews, Israelites, the pure race of Abraham? I’m their match. Are they servants of Christ? I can go them one better. (I can’t believe I’m saying these things. It’s crazy to talk this way! But I started, and I’m going to finish.)

23-27 I’ve worked much harder, been jailed more often, beaten up more times than I can count, and at death’s door time after time. I’ve been flogged five times with the Jews’ thirty-nine lashes, beaten by Roman rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I’ve been shipwrecked three times, and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day. In hard traveling year in and year out, I’ve had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I’ve been at risk in the city, at risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by those I thought were my brothers. I’ve known drudgery and hard labor, many a long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold, naked to the weather.

28-29 And that’s not the half of it, when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties of all the churches. When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the desperation in my bones. When someone is duped into sin, an angry fire burns in my gut.

30-33 If I have to “brag” about myself, I’ll brag about the humiliations that make me like Jesus. The eternal and blessed God and Father of our Master Jesus knows I’m not lying. Remember the time I was in Damascus and the governor of King Aretas posted guards at the city gates to arrest me? I crawled through a window in the wall, was let down in a basket, and had to run for my life.

[imthepuppetmaster-blog1]

The Man List

 A while back, my daughter asked me to help her with her math homework, which involved doing long division without a calculator. There was a time, somewhere around 1995, when I definitely knew how to do long division; I figured this knowledge was still lying around in my brain somewhere. I mean, I can remember many other things from 1995. That was the year when Coolio came out with “Gangsta’s Paradise”, and I can recall every word from that song:

 As they croak I see myself in the pistal smoke fool

I'm the kinda G that little homies want to be like

On my knees in the night, saying prayers in the street light

 I haven't heard "Gangsta’s Paradise" for many years, but I typed those lyrics without looking them up. My brain stashed them away in a safe place, in case I would need them someday in some sort-of Coolio lyrics-related emergency.

 My brain did not, however, elect to save the instructions for doing long division. So when I tried to help my daughter, I was useless. I had a vague recollection that you start by dividing the smaller number (or maybe just part of the smaller number) into just the first part of the larger number, then you multiply something and then you put the result down below. But I wasn't sure where down below, exactly, you put the result, and I had no idea what you did with it after that. “ON MY KNEES IN THE NIGHT, SAYING PRAYERS IN THE STREET LIGHT!”  Now I cant get that song outa my head.

 We live in unbelievably convenient times. Think about it: Whenever you need any kind of information, about anything, day or night, no matter where you are, you can just tap your finger on your smartphone and within seconds an answer will appear, as if by magic, on the screen. Whether you want to know what a chair would look like if the legs were bent the other way?  Or how to tape your thumbs to your hands so you can feel like a dinosaur.  Granted, this answer will be wrong because it comes from the Internet, which is infested with teenagers, lunatics and Anthony Weiner. But it is one thing……….convenient.

 I tried for several painful minutes to show my daughter how to do long division, at which point she gently told me I should go back to watching "Storage Wars" and she would figure out long division on her own. And she did. I don't know where she got the information. Probably from the Internet. Possibly even from Anthony Weiner.

 But it isn't my inability to do long division that really bothers me. What really bothers me is that, like many modern American men, I don't know how to do anything manly anymore. And by "manly," I do not mean "physical." A lot of us do physical things, but these are yuppie fitness things like "spinning," and "crunches," and working on our "core," and running half-marathons and then instagramming a picture of ourselves working out just so everyone can know that at least I’m not trying for my body  to resemble jar of nutella.

 That's not manly. I'll tell you who was manly: The early American pioneers. They set out into the vast untracked wilderness with nothing but a musket and a sack of hardtack and hominy, and they had to survive out there for months, even years, completely on their own, sleeping on the ground in bear-infested forests. That's why they brought the hardtack: to throw at the bears. They had no idea why they brought hominy. Like you, they had no idea what "hominy" means. It sounds like some kind of disease.

 Patient: What is it, doc?

Doctor: I'm afraid you have the hominy.

Patient: Not the hominy!

 But the point is, these pioneering men did not do "crunches." These men crunched the damn continent—blazing trails, fording rivers, crossing mountain ranges, building log cabins, forging things with forges, etc. We modern men can't do any of those things. We don't have the vaguest idea how to ford a river. We'd check our phones to see if we had a fording app and, if not, we'd give up, go back home and work on our cores.

 We American men have lost our national manhood, and I say it's time we got it back. We need to learn to do the kinds of manly things our forefathers knew how to do. To get us started, I've created a list of some basic skills that every man should have, along with instructions.

You may rest assured that these instructions are correct. Because I got them from the Internet.

 1-How to cook a steak on the grill

2-Know how to survive if lost in a forest and night was approaching.

3-Be able to tell the difference between Offsides and Encroachment.

4-Know how to skin a moose

5-Know how to get a bartenders attention

6-Know how to make eggs more than two ways

7-Parallel Park (like a man.  One turn only)

8-How to shine a shoe

9-Be able to kill a wounded animal

10-Know how to jump start your car when the battery is dead.

11-Be able to tie a double Windsor knot (not only for your tie but your sons as well).

12-Be able to field a competitive fantasy football team.

 Should we know how to do all these things? Yes.  No question about it.  Knowing these 12 things will make us all better males, but I know for a fact that I will never know at least half of these intimidating items on the checklist above.  “Why not?” you ask……Because I care more about comfort and convenience than being resourceful. Why know how to do something when I can just google how to do it?  Or even better I can just pay someone else to do it for me.  

 Today everything is convenient. You cook your meals by pushing a microwave button. Your car shifts itself, and your GPS tells you where to go. If you go to a public restroom, you don't even have to flush the urinal! This tedious chore is a thing of the past because the urinal now has a small electronic "eye" connected to the Central Restroom Command Post, located deep underground somewhere near Omaha, Nebraska, where highly trained workers watch you on high-definition TV screens and make the flush decision for you. ("I say we push the button." "Wait, not yet! He’s still shaking”) And then there's travel. A century ago, it took a week to get from New York to California; today you can board a plane at La Guardia and six hours later—think about that: six hours later!—you will, as if by magic, still be sitting in the plane at La Guardia because "La Guardia" is Italian for "You will never actually take off." But during those six hours you can be highly productive by using your smartphone to get on the Internet.  And during those 6 hours lets say you want to do something productive.  Lets say you want to learn how to do something on the “Manlist” above, but of all the more productive things you can accomplish on the list above the only one you can actually work on while stuck on a “convenient” plane is #12 (field a competitive fantasy football team).  So next time you find yourself stuck on a plane with nothing to do, remember the words of 1995’s coolio-“Im an educated fool with money on my mind.  Got my 10 in my hand and a glem in my eye.  Im a loc’d out gangsta set trippin’ banger,” and know that theres no excuse for having a bad fantasy team.

-Deminar Wilkins