#I ramble way to long about 9 dudes who shoot and yell at each other for a living

[flashingbands]

A quick pre ramble trigger warning for: Possible/implied child tr@fciking/r@pe, abu5e, talking about N@zis, and war in general

I really am fascinated by the Characters lore so... heres my ramble about ages and backstories. (I may or may not have been thinking on this subject for a long time):

Scout

As @jevilowo said previously, Scout was 14-15 when he joined the gravel wars, this might clear up a plothole. If Scout joined at that age, its possible he was on BLU and the directors meet the team videos were taken while Scout was on BLU, it would also explain some of his maturity levels (Though that did cary on into his 20s which could be a response to trauma, and mental health) If Scout was moved to RED in 1986, when he was 19 that would be the reason why Scout could a: remember the court case from some update comic (I don't remember which one though, so this could be wrong) B: be teh explanation for RED Spy being BLU scouts father, and RED Scouts as well! If Scout moved teams, then RED spy is calling the same person his son, aka BLU and RED scout are no longer half brothers and BLU scout is some rando. C: Why RED Spy is so hostile to BLU Scout, if he changed teams that could be seen as disloyalty and a crime/be bad in the eyes of somebody who has stayed on RED for as long as we know. Also it could mean that RED scout may have been pushed to BLU by his mother.

Soldier: So Solly was in WAR, where he fought Demo, and was on BLU... what would his RED counterpart think of that, well its never brought up! Solly may have been moved to RED after fighting with Demo, but the two have never really been shon to be close after WAR, even the same team Demo and Solly's have never interacted. This could be another case of BLU moving to RED, and RED Demo wants nothing to do with Solly! I don't have a lot to say on Solly tbh so thats about all I can think about right now!

Pyro: yeah... they kinda just don't get affected by all of this, I don't know jack about what Pyro's backstory would or could be... so Idk. I know they have schizophrenia or the pyro vision googles help mask the horrors of battle.

Heavy: well... Heavy is interesting in that he has the most concrete backstory, and yet we still know little about him. The most I can say on Heavy theory wise is that he might be one of the few RED mercs to not be fully insane... might is the key word there.

Demo: Once again nothing much to say... I don't have much to theorize about as Demo's story is pretty simple... just the same WAR stuff as with Solly.

Engie: So Engie is where the BLUs are brought to RED theory really comes into play. A long standing plot hole in the comics is where is RED Engie, well he was right there all along. Engie has a lot of stuff I want to talk about so excuse the ramble. Engie's family is BLU this was stated many times in lore... so why am I calling BLU Engie and RED Engie the same person? Well the same reason as Scout, Engie was brought from BLu to RED. After the turfort nine disbanded due to Blutarch and Redmond Mann's deaths Engie went back home. It's highly likely that Engie (Ima call him Engie as typing Blu and RED before everything is getting exhausting) had BLU uniforms to wear, as he worked for BLU for many years. Engie also may have chosen to wear more BLU stuff after, because it reminded him of home/gave him comfort. He is BLU at the end of the day, and its shown BLU controls Coldfort (A place where it is ya know Cold) Engie is wearing a BLU hoodie in the comics, and it may have come from his time working in Coldfort. One last really scary thing about engie, we think that Fred (Tfc's Engineer) is Engie's father. Think about who is on Fred's team... TFC soldier & Scout... Tfc may have come back to the conagher ranch at one point... I don't want to say the rest, as you folk can understand the implications. Another little tid bit is Engie's parental situation growing up: Spy was gone from Scout's life for presumably work related reasons (And also the gravel war is ay know... a war, you are gonan be away from your family) so why is Fred Conagher not assumed to be the same. Engie is shown with a photo of what we can assume is his father, in the Engineer update. Why one photo, why not the like 70 he has of his grandfather? What if Engie was not rased by Fred but his grandfather, or raised himself with his father rarely being home, and we don't know wherever the hell his mom is.

Medic: Medic had been conformed to not be a Natzi by the devs and not even be in Germany by that point, so where would he be? In America working in the Gravel wars. Medic is old enough to be in his 50s by the time the comics take place, so he would be 23-30ish when he joined the gravel wars, and most likely worked as a felid medic for many years. Around 1960-1968 he created the medigun fluid, and was brought center stage to team fortress.

Sniper: Sniper is canonically 30-31 in the comics making him 26-27 in the game. I bring this up because everybody thinks Sniper is like 30-40 for some reason! Sniper isn't buff at all yet was raised in Australia, so what gives? Sniper's parents are not buff either, so this raises the question of if Sniper's parents aren't born Australians or are just too far away from australiam to be affected by it! I think teh former due to the fact that Blutarch and Redmond are having australiam injected into their bodys and are not buff as shit like Saxton hale. Also if Socut joined the gravel wars at 14-15 Sniper joined at 17-18

Spy: Okay... so a explanation for why Spy was missing from Scout's life is: Spy was in the gravel wars, and was staying in Boston for a contract or his team was based there, and fell in love with Scout's ma. Another thing, its possible the reason we don't have any maps up by Boston is because Spy's team was disbanded/the base was destroyed or rendered unusable. Scout would/might have known his father for the first two or three years of his life, then Spy moved. Due to the nature of the Gravel war, Scouts ma may have told her son that his father died due to the war. Spy might have seen Scout when he was BLU and not realized they were related, but made jokes about him and Scout looking similar. When Scout moved to RED maybe Spy realized and was distancing himself from his son out of guilt/pain/sadness and distress. Spy probably would have been a good father, but was too ashamed of his actions to ever tell Scout.

Anyways thank you for coming to my ted talk! I am way to obsessed with this game. I might do the Admin and Mann family... but my hands need a break right now! I'm curios to hear other thoughts on these subjects!

I love dates in the tf2 lore. I love knowing exactly when stuff happened. Which makes THIS THING I JUST FOUND a BEAUTIFUL MIRACLE

You've seen this image before, but have you noticed the dates on the prison card thingies? Presumably this is written the American Way (the writers are so american they make Scout and Sniper both call their mothers "mom" despite preferring "ma" and "mum" respectively, as shown previously SEVERal times), so Spy and Scout were arrested on

The 7th of September, 1972.

We can do a lot with this information.

Mann Co was taken over by Grey and Olivia half a month before this: roughly the 23rd of August

Contrary to popular belief, most of the comics have to take place in 1973! Seeing as 6 months after late August is late February.

This also means Scout had to have been born in 1946/7. Not sure about Sniper, I have yet to overanalyse the New Zealand timeline paragraph. I'll get to it eventually.

Medic implies in comic 6 that our mercs have worked together for "at least eight years", while talking about the lore breaking Demo eyeball halloween thing. Assuming the "at least" confusion is over the 1972 Halloween they missed while not working together, the Teufort Nine were hired in 1964.

(I've almost mentally rationalised the lore breaking eyeball as a thing they do at like 4am after regular Scream Fortress shenanigans. Almost.)

Scout claims he has known Ms Pauling for six years. During the War! update, Demoman is unfamiliar with Ms Pauling (he knows she works for the administrator, but thats it), so we can assume that is the point she started working more closely with the mercs, and also 1966/7

I really need to go back to actively working on my timeline instead of passively wondering at 11pm "hey what time of year is it in the comics" and going down a rabbit hole.

Uh if you want to build off this, feel free to, but tell society twas I, the great and nobel Jevil_Owo, who first conceptualised all this.

UPDATE! This post seems to be picking up reblog steam again, so now is a good time to say I was WRONG about the mercs being hired around 1964.

This blog post from 2009 claims the WAR update took place in 1962, meaning the mercs have to have been hired in early 1962 at the latest.

Seeing as Scout would have been 15/16 in 1962, and as that's kind of the youngest one can be hired for just about anything, I'd assume it actually is 1962 they were hired. Ok thats enough I just felt it was my duty as Person Timelining to update people on this Discovery.

[junkyardlynx]

You like scary stories? Good. I’ve got one. Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, or whatever. Who fucking knows. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t just one shared fever dream between seven stupid kids. Except the part where the dream was real. Has to be real now that I think about it. Anyway. I’m rambling. About all I can do, right now. Haha. How sad. 

The year was 1998.

Good year.

Goldeneye came out in 1997, so it was really the year 0001 AG to me and my friends. We fucking loved Goldeneye.

I was seventeen and I lived alone in a small town in northwest Indiana. It’s farm country’s farm country. I’d been orphaned and bounced around since I was ten, but being nearly eighteen and relatively well-behaved was reason enough for the state to turn me loose with my inheritance. Quitters. You could stand at one edge of the town and spit to the other end. We had one bar, an elementary school, a post office, a vet, and a corner store. It sucked, but it was cheap and somewhat near the only living family I still had. I lived just above the post office and vet, which was probably the only really neat part of town, so I guess I had something going for me. Add a shitty 1988 Ford Probe bought at cost from a frustrated dealership into the mix and I was up street.  

My uncle Mike lived alone too, a forty minute drive away out by the county line road. He had a pretty nice farm house to himself after my aunt Sherry filed for divorce due to her own extramarital affair. I guess when you’re surrounded by woods on all sides and the only things to keep you company are a host of chickens, a couple turkeys, a goat, a dog, and a...fucking peacock, you kinda get antsy for some excitement. I suppose a two story barn and a grain silo aren’t exciting enough. Anyway. They hadn’t taken me in after my parents died because they had their own problems and I understood. Couldn’t force a kid on someone who wasn’t going to take proper care of it.

Mike was headed into the city for the weekend to shack up with this girl he was into. He did this from time to time, too awkward to ask her to move in with him and too shy to accept her offer, so they just had their trysts. Wasn’t really my business. He called me after I got home on Friday from classes and immediately launched into his request.

“Hey killer, I’m going to see Mary this weekend. Can ya hold down the fort for me? Just feed the animals once a day and don’t let Garfield eat anything dumb.”

“Uh, sure.” 

Garfield was the goat’s name.

I watched him eat the license plate off “Uncle” Van’s...van, once. His name was Van, he was a friend of Mike’s aaaaaand he owned a van. I guess life works like that sometimes, predictable and all. Anyway, Garfield would eat literally fucking anything near his big dumb idiot mouth, like most goats. 

“And uh, I think there’s a bunch of beer in the fridge that’s gonna go bad. Could you do me a favor and get rid of it, bud?”

I could hear the wink through the receiver. I grinned as I pinned the receiver between my shoulder and ear, rummaging around through the cupboards to find my little book of phone numbers.

“Oh yeah, sure thing. Wouldn’t want to have bad beer hanging around in the fridge.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. It better all be gone when I get back. Love ya, kid.”

“Love you too, man. Have a good weekend.”

With an audible click, the other line hung up and I was already dialing people’s numbers. Robert was first, as he was my best and most radically tight brother-man. 

“What’s up, Dingus Kong?” 

Ever since he was twelve, he had the voice of a full-time, carton-a-day smoker. I was honestly a little jealous.

“There’s a beer leak at my uncle’s and we have to plug it up. Call Louis and Alex and make their dumb asses come out. You know the address?”

“Hell yeah, dude. Can I invite Jay?”

“What do I look like, a cop? Of course you can. Saves me the trouble.”

“Cool, later dickless.”

“Peace.”

It wasn’t long until I’d roped Robert, Louis and Jay into things, along with Alex, Laura and June. Alex and Louis had been dating forever and were pretty much attached at the hip, while I had a thing for June. A very quiet, subdued thing, because I operated under the assumption that no one was ever interested and that any thought to the contrary was pointless and asking for trouble. 

We met up at my uncle’s house around 9. They’d pitched in and brought a shit ton of snacks but no one brought any actual food, so our diet that night was going to consist of...Natty Light, snack cakes and chips, pretty much. High school kids eat worse on a daily basis, so no one really cared. I remember being shocked at just how packed the fridge was with shitty Natty Light. Good thing I had good friends.

It was a pretty relaxed atmosphere - Louis and Alex were touchy in the corner of the living room, already a couple beers deep. Robert, Laura and Jay were playing Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 in the den. They had a penalty game where you had to drink when you died and if you were that fucking prick that picked Oddjob, you both had to take a drink at the start of the round and two when you died. It was fair, believe me. Fuck people who pick Oddjob. 

That pretty much just left June and I. We relaxed in the kitchen, shooting the shit and laughing at each other’s bad jokes. Sometimes we’d look out over the kitchen counter and down into the den / living room - the farm house’s design was always kind of odd to me, but I liked it. The whole house was a one story with a basement. You could come in through the glass sliding door and be right in the living room / den area, then turn right and go up four or five stairs to reach the bedrooms and the turnoff into the kitchen / office area where the front door was. The kitchen had a very open structure, with the sink looking down on the den, and you kinda felt like a commander if sat there and just watched everyone. So I did.

“Hey, Charles?” 

“What’s up?” 

I turned back towards June, taking another sip from that honestly kinda shitty beer in my hand. Ah, the taste of youth - cheap alcohol obtained through immoral or subversive means, like a really cool uncle.

“We should go out to the barn.”

“Why the hell and fuck not?” 

I put on some bravado, but honestly, my uncle’s farm creeped me out. I’d stayed here for the summer once and I swore I could hear things swaying in time with the tall grass as the sun started to die. An animal would go missing every now and then, but my uncle always shrugged it off as coyotes. Never really felt like coyotes, but who was I to disagree when he was the one that lived here all the time?

“Hey, everyone! We’re going outside, time to get up in the hayloft and be stupid.”

I heard a chorus of replies and the click-whrrr of a tube television being powered off, followed by a rowdy collection of feet stomping up carpeted steps. Everyone poured into the kitchen, grabbing things like twinkies and cold hot dogs and new beers. It wasn’t long before we took the party outside, flicking the floodlights on the house on for comfort as much as visibility. We ambled as a drunken mass, slowly making our way towards the faded red barn. 

I have no idea why the barn was so fucking huge, given that less then ten animals lived there. The space was equipped for a sizable amount of large livestock like cows and horses, but all that it held was a collection of idiot birds with too much love and not enough sense. A ladder leading up to the hayloft poked through a square, and we began our inebriated ascent. 

It wasn’t long before we settled into a circle, talking about nothing in particular on the warm wooden floor of the loft. June had taken a seat next to me, so of course, I overthought absolutely everything before determining there was no way she was into me because why would she be? She was way too cool and cute. It was obvious. 

Somehow, we got onto the topic of scary stories. Spooky scary skeleton time. I made up some dumb thing about a cannibal cult in the woods, but it wasn’t very thought out, so everyone gave me shit. Robert just thrust his beer into the air and yelled “WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE, IT’S ALIENS”, which got a laugh out of all of us. It finally came around to June, who began to tell us about La Llarona, a crying ghost lady in Mexican folklore. 

It was actually pretty spooky until you realized June was like, four foot fucking eight with the voice of an adorable church mouse, and then you were unable to take it seriously. 

We swapped a few more before silence descended on us, slow and natural. The workman’s lamps that I’d lit with a long trigger lighter burned, casting shadows along the walls and illuminating our faces. I smiled as I realized June’s head had come to rest on my right shoulder, feeling not unlike someone blessed by the attention of a regal crow.

“Dude. I’m hungry.”

“You’re always hungry, Illberto.” 

I waved him off with my left hand before looking around. Something was bothering me, but I couldn’t put my hands on it. Honestly speaking, it was kinda like someone had some bodacious body odor going on and tried to cover it up with some sort of perfume. I took as...well, as discreet a sniff as possible, trying to see if it was one of us. 

I don’t think it was, because the more I smelled it, the more I realized it smelled less like body odor and more like that strange stench of death. Sickly sweet, putrefaction rendering the body of something no longer alive into components for bacteria to consume. I kinda wrote it off as dead mice somewhere since I was an idiot at 17. (I still am an idiot, but I was a bigger idiot. Harder head. More impressively stupid. Anyway.) The smell was bothering me though, so I gently pushed June’s head off my shoulder and stood up.

“Since Mr. Crunch and Munch wants some food, I’m gonna run back to the house and grab some chow and booze. Anyone want anything in particular?”

No one really had an idea of what they wanted, so the group just started chanting “FOOD AND BOOZE, FOOD AND BOOZE, FOOD AND BOOZE” at me. I laughed and nodded, giving a sort of half-wave to June who just smiled at me the whole time as I went to climb down the ladder.

Too bad the ladder was gone.

I groaned in annoyance, turning around to address everyone.

“Very cool, who fucked with the ladder?”

“What are you talking about, brother-man?”

Louis piped up, head resting on top of Alex’s. I gestured dramatically at the square hole in the floor, then pantomimed the act of climbing the ladder.

“There was a ladder here. It’s gone now.”

“It probably fell, Charlie.” 

There went Laura, being the voice of reason. I shrugged in assent. Stop making sense, god damn it.

“I’ll just pull a Spidey-boy and jump down. It’s like, ten feet.” 

Something in my head kept telling me that people can die from slipping and falling on ice, but I ignored it. I just had to brace myself, land on my feet and not hit my brain cage. Really simple. 

I walked back over to the hole in the hayloft, sitting down and scooching to the edge. That fucking smell punched me right in the nose once again, pungent and sweet. I almost stop then, but I don’t really wanna look like a goon in front of June. Uh, June and everyone else, that is.

So I stuck my foot down into the oddly deep darkness of the barn below. 

Something wet and hot smacked against it, nearly wrapping around my exposed ankle.

I yelped perhaps the most pathetic sound known to man and physically extricated myself from the hole by leaping up and jumping back. Everyone laughed of course.

“What’s up, penis pump?”

Fuck off, Robert.

“Either the turkeys have really long and slimy necks now, or something down there just grabbed my fucking ankle.”

“Very funny, Charles.” Alex fixed me with a stare, assuming I was taking the piss out of everybody. Holy fuck, I wished I was.

“I’m serious, you assholes.” I’d thrust my right leg out, showing everyone my ankle and foot. A reddish brown goop clung to it, thick and viscous. The smell was emanating from it, and everyone seemed to have taken notice to it. Unless they started retching for a different reason, like my ankle being particularly abhorrent.

“Brother-man, dude, what the fuck is that?”

You’re asking me, Louie Louie?

“Yeah, that’s a negative Ghost Rider, I have no idea. I’m gonna chill up here for a bit, if someone else feels like Rambo, they can go down.” 

I took off my button up and used it to wipe the goo off of my ankle, but the smell seemed to have set in. I noticed a burning sensation on my skin that increased in intensity as I wiped, but it soon faded to a dull throbbing, becoming the least of my worries. In that time, Louis got up to check out the hole.

 He returned to where Alex was, face pale and stiff. 

That’s when we heard it.

“veerrrryfufufufu-”

The sound stopped, then started again. Almost like someone starting a sputtering car engine.

“Verrrrry cocococococo-cokkkkkkkkkhhssssh. Wshooo fufufufufuf. Wshoooo fufufufuckt wishlatter?” 

You ever have someone come up to you and say “hey, we need to talk” and you feel your stomach drop out of your body and onto the floor? 

Yeah, that. That’s the feeling I felt, but way worse. After all, someone wanted to know who fucked with the ladder. Someone who couldn’t string together two words if they wanted to, and they desperately wanted to.

We’d all crammed ourselves into the back of the hayloft, the seven of us together. Oppressive darkness clung to the places not illuminated by the lamps, and the long lighter lay a good ten feet away from us. No one moved to get it. We heard it again and again, some twisted mockery of a voice continually asking who fucked with the ladder. Then it asked again, in my voice.

“Very cool. Who fucked with the ladder?”

Everyone’s eyes were on me, and I shook my head wordlessly as it asked again, perfectly, matching my rhythm and cadence and tone. 

“Hey, if this is a joke because you thought the Goosebumps books were high literature, we’re gonna string you up by your earlobes dude.”

“Fuck off. It’s not. You think I got bored and recorded me fucking around before you all got here? With the tape recorder I don’t fucking own?”

I was hostile.

We were all on edge.

“I don’t know, were you man?”

“Don’t start with me, Robert.”

“Yeah, whatever, you’re a lazy piece of shit. I know you wouldn’t do this.”

“I swear to god.”

The tension was almost lifted until we heard that wet smacking again, like someone slapping a steak on pavement. It was hilarious until you realized it was probably either something dead being slammed around, or some part of the mysterious thing’s anatomy. The smacking persisted as it mercifully ceased it’s questioning, realizing it’s bait wasn’t working. Slowly, the wet squelching of flesh against concrete grew quiet and far away and the stench that pervaded the air began to thin.

I appraised everyone and jerked my head back at the hole in the hayloft.

“Okay. Okay. We’re gonna drop down and run to the house.”

“Is there any better option you have that isn’t ‘jump down and say hi to the crazy stinky murder rapist’ below us?”

“Not really, Alex. Sorry.”

“Alex and I can stay up here,” Louis offered, but she looked at him with her mouth agape.

“Are you dumb, Louis? I’m not staying in that barn alone with this thing. No, really, are you an idiot?”

I looked at Louis with a kind of knowing glance, knowing he was just trying to help out and allay her fears. Couldn’t really blame her, though.

“He’s just looking out for what you want to do. Anyway, we should all go. I’ll go down first and keep a look out while everyone comes down. C’mon.”

I honestly don’t know where I found the balls of steel I was now equipped with, but I was thankful. I think it was just this overwhelming sense of “we have to go now or something bad is going to happen.” Without giving anyone a chance to reply, I broke away from our little heard and took a running start at the hole, leaping down it before my rational mind could catch up.

I let my legs hit and then tucked myself into a roll to rob the fall of it’s momentum, coming up unscathed. I glanced around, greeted by deadly...nothing. Just silence. It wasn’t until I looked at the ground that I noticed it was covered in a thick layer of that reddish-brown goop, and it stunk horribly. I started to gag but I had the sense to bite it down. No point in putting more disgusting fluids on the floor.

“Jump down! C’mon!”

I shouted up and June practically leapt into my arms, so I caught her and set her down, giving her a tender smile. She was all of four foot eight and ninety pounds, so it wasn’t really a feat of athleticism. Of course, Robert came next, and my knees buckled as his six foot frame met mine with that peculiar rapport we had. 

“No smile for me?”

“I swear, dude.”

I swore a lot, apparently.

The rest followed in suit until eight of us stood in the barn, devoid of animals as it was.  I hoped they’d just run off or sought shelter, but another part of me said that wasn’t the case. I exhaled roughly and looked at our group before nodding.

“Okay, we gotta run. I don’t know when that thing’s coming back, but I can already smell that weird stink getting stronger. I think we’ll be safe in the house since we can look the doors and call the cops.”

“Wait, cops? Dude, we’re doing a little thing called underage drinking.”

Thank you for stating the obvious, Louis.

“Oh, yeah! Way better to get murdered and eaten. You’re right.”

“Point taken.” 

We all murmured our assent before taking one last look around. The lamps burned, slowly dimming as their fuel began to run out. I think we left the lighter up there. Not that it mattered, I guess. I reached out and took June’s petite hand, tugging her gently towards the house.

“Let’s go.”

We began to do an awkward sort of power walk, too scared to run and draw it’s attention but not intent on going any slower than we had to. Our group of seven began to cut across the field, towards the shining lights of the farmhouse. 

A horrific wet SMACK from behind us broke that fragile discipline that kept us calm. A plaintive sort of gurgling howl, like a tiger braying it’s dying cry inside of a charnel pit spurred us on, and I roughly pulled on June’s hand. Her fingers slipped from mine for a moment, but her strong and lengthy fingers found mine, slick with what I assumed was sweat. I didn’t bother looking back as the warm porch lights flooded my vision. I let go of the hand I was holding and turned around to regard our group of eight, making sure everyone was there.

Wait.

Eight?

June, Robert, Louis, Alex, Laura, Jay, and myself. Seven. I glanced at my hand, realizing it was slick with that peculiar fluid. I kept the gorge rising in my throat down, somehow.

Swallowing both vomit and my fear, I began to inspect everyone before herding them inside, one by one. There wasn’t a face I didn’t recognize, but there was an extra person here. I got June, Alex, Robert, Laura and Louis into the house before I realized it. 

There were two Jays.

“Hey Jake, come inside.”

Jay kinda gave me a weird look, wondering if I was actually an idiot. The right Jay, anyway. The other one just slowly started to walk forward.

“Hey, I said Jake come inside man. Practice your manners dude.”

My stare was insistent on the real Jay’s, begging him to come in and not make a scene. He shrugged and stepped inside, and only a moment later I was behind him, slamming the sliding glass door so hard I thought I’d shatter. 

The Jay that wasn’t Jay pressed it’s face to the glass and that fetid liquid began to pour from it’s nose as it’s now-malformed hand began to tap lightly on the glass. What looked like clothes began to slough off in thick puddles of what looked to be flesh, pooling on the patio.

“Come inside. Hey. Manners. Come inside. Hey. Come inside.” 

Robert had noticed what was going on and yelled in what I’m sure he’d want me to report was a very manly and commanding shout. Basically, he screamed like a little bitch. Everyone else noticed and booked it up the sort little landing to the second tier of the house, not willing to look at what was happening anymore.

I couldn’t look away. It gently tapped at the glass,  as a second figure approached from the darkness, eventually pressing it’s face to the glass.

My face.

I watched my own face melt away into nothing, forming a featureless expanse of skin with two unseeing and empty eye sockets. The me that wasn’t me tapped politely on the glass like a door-to-door salesman, asking to be let in.

That sure wasn’t fucking happening. In a haze, I waddled backwards, reaching for the phone that sat on the coffee table by the sofa in this 70′s decor mess of a living room.

It wasn’t there. The cord lay neatly on the table, but the entire phone was gone. It looked deliberate, which means that...well, it meant that my uncle took it with him.

Something clicked in my mind, but I buried it as I pedaled backwards slowly, approaching the display cabinet that held my grandmother’s prized compound bow. I heard from my uncle that she’d been an avid hunter into her 90′s and only passed due to the ravages of...well, a car wreck. I was never more thankful to have a badass relative I’d never met than when I pulled that compound bow out of the display cabinet and nocked an arrow.

Never mind the fact that the last time I went bow hunting was when I was like, twelve.

I stared down the two creatures, still begging to be let in in my voice. My hands trembled even as I began to draw back the heavy string. God damn, grandma, how strong were you? What the hell. 

I strafed up the steps, muscles in my arms screaming for release, but I told myself that they couldn’t come in unless they were invited. It was just a glass door, and these things weren’t dumb, apparently. I don’t know what they were. I’d met strange things in the woods around the house, but never anything like this. Obviously. The surreality of it all made it seem absurd to even question what they were. 

It wasn’t until I reached the kitchen with everyone else that I could slowly release the tension and lower the bow, though I kept the arrow nocked and ready. I gave everyone in the kitchen a wary nod as they huddled together, staying deathly quiet. Looking over the kitchen counter and down into the den, I could see one still tapping on the glass. The other was gone.

A soft knock at the door by the office let us know where the other had wandered off to. It repeated a broken string of words in my voice, asking to be let in, saying it was very cool. It’d be humorous if it wasn’t fucking terrifying. 

Wordlessly, I huddled everyone back into the hallway and lead them to my uncle’s room, unlocking it with the key I had. It was the furthest bedroom away from everything else and had a clear line of sight to the hallway, so if they somehow broke their self-imposed rules, I could at least take a steady shot. The door creaked open and the bedroom lay before us as I flipped on the light.

My uncle’s room was surprisingly sparse and barren. No personal effects remained and you could tell where the furniture had been moved in a hurry, like someone was looking for something. It gave the feeling of someone that wasn’t coming back, and the discontent in my heart grew. 

“Yeah, think he’s been moving stuff over to his girlfriend’s place.” 

I said to no one in particular, placating questions before they could come out. A barren mattress lay on a box spring in the corner.

“Let’s stay in here tonight. It’s not gonna be comfortable, but a couple of people can take the bed and the rest of us can take the floor. I’ll keep watch.”

“Charles...”

Robert sounded concerned for once. I laughed. I glanced back and his face soured before he smiled.

“Nevermind, you’re still a penis pump.”

Everyone, still slightly drunk and nervous, began to occupy their own space in the empty room. I sat against the open doorframe, bow laying on my lap, trained down the hallway. Minutes slipped into hours, and everyone began to pass into a light sleep.

Everyone except me.

The sight of the flesh sloughing off their mutable frames was burned into my mind. Not much sleep to be found after that.

Throughout the night, I heard taps all around the house, like a diligent inspector checking for termites in wood. If I strained my sleepless ears, I could hear my own voice rattling through the walls. The deathly sweet stench of the barn had returned, permeating my brain and setting up residence there. 

Once or twice, I thought I heard tapping and murmuring at the single window in my uncle’s bedroom, but surely that wasn’t possible. It was a good eight feet of the ground, as the room sat on the second “tier” of the house. I dozed for a moment and the tapping seemed to grow more and more furious, so I shook myself awake. I began to dig the bowstring into my finger, rubbing it up and down, fraying my own skin until it bled. 

I felt like I was going to go insane. 

A few long hours later and the sun began to rise, banishing the tapping noise with it and the scent after that. I rose, looking around at the sleeping faces of my friends, relieved. I looked around the empty room once more and went to close my eyes before I realized there was reddish goop smeared on the window of my uncle’s bedroom. 

I’d been watched, all night.

All of us had. 

How many had there been?

Enough to replace us?

Did it matter?

Adrenaline flooding my exhausted body, I crept around the house and checked every window, every door. They were all smeared with handprints, fingerprints, imprints of faces traced in that corpse-goo. My stomach roiled heavily, the beer and junk food of the night before threatening to come up.

We were supposed to be a sacrifice, weren’t we?

The copious amounts of beer. The lack of a phone. My uncle’s personal effects all gone from his room. I suppose the rest, even grandma’s bow, was replaceable to him. Including me.

I woke everyone up and told them we should leave. No one fought it, considering we’d survived the night by listening to me. It was a sort of hollow and empty accolade, but I’d take it. 

As Robert and June piled in my Ford Probe outside, I snuck a peek at the barn. Dark red stains and the remnants of feathers, fur and flesh stained the outside of it’s semi-dilapidated structure, as if the animals had been killed by being thrown at the walls in anger. I swallowed dryly, realizing what those wet thuds and smacks had been. 

We spent the rest of the weekend together, all seven of us. One night at Robert’s, the rest of the day at June’s. I tried several times to contact my uncle, but his girlfriend’s landline was disconnected and his emergency cell phone wasn’t picking up. 

Abandoned twice by the family that wouldn’t even take me in, I guess. 

I never found out what those things were. My uncle’s house was marked as abandoned and reclaimed by the bank, eventually being sold at auction for dirt cheap. I didn’t care. I’d stayed away from the forested areas and anywhere approaching natural, and even took to a vegetarian diet for a few months. 

Eventually the memory faded, and years later I had almost forgotten about it. Life went on, and I remained in that cozy little apartment above the vet’s office and the post office. 

Until tonight. 

When I smelled something sticky-sweet, like what the insides of a pitcher plant must be.

Where something tapped at the door to my apartment, begging to be let in. 

Where my own voice begged me to be let in.

[chronicallycal]

Hi Callie! Apparently you didn’t receive my very first ask the other day, so I hope you don’t mind me putting its content again here: congratulations on finishing HIYH and completing your daily physical activity duty (idk if it still applies), it’s awesome :-) I was also agreeing that “The GDS” and “Sleeper” were not really the most memorable episodes imo ^^ (NSA)

“I totally get this idea that the possibility of a relapse is very real and realistic, that personal demons can come back unexpected only to slap you in the face all over again. Same reason why an alcoholic can never drink alcohol again (looking at you 7x06) and why “Kill Shot” unsettled a still recovering Beckett. Your other paragraph made me realize that in the end, Beckett risked her marriage, a relationship she had fought for, for what? Avenging people from her former AG team, (NSA)

with whom she had only worked for a few weeks until she realized that her job in the FBI went against her values… And if I remember 8x02 well, Loksat didn’t constitute a threat to her life either at the time. In fact, when you put it like that, some could argue why Kate would even bother to go to such lengths. And the answer would be this third layer you’re talking about, the fact that she felt responsible, that she still knew the Agents that were killed. (NSA)

Loksat being somehow connected to Bracken certainly didn’t help. Now this reminds me a little bit of 3x22, how Beckett decided to fly alone to LA to solve a case which was admittedly more personal than the one of her AG team, but still less personal than her mother’s case. Imo, the problem with S8 maybe lies in the fact that Castle remains a TV show, even if the concept you mentioned is important and realistic? By this I mean that while parallels are nice, (NSA)

some people may have felt that TV show-wise they were reliving the relationship struggles of S4, only this time maybe the execution lacked a little bit? I think we may have been too spoiled with Casketty goodness in S6 and S7, especially me as someone who started watching Castle in S6 and stayed tuned in part because I was so sure that Caskett would never go through a separation. I cannot begin to imagine what it was like for the fans who were hoping to see a pregnant Beckett in S8, (NSA)

as they considered it to be the ultimate step forward for her and Castle. Well, so much for stopping the ramblings about S8 lol. One last question about this, do you recall if it was ever explained why Castle was abducted in the first place, as I doubt his disappearance was related to Loksat right away?I’m with you on the girls’ scene! Kudos to Lanie for refraining herself, she was definitely pursing her lips right after she gave Kate the well-deserved Look^^ (NSA)

Other than that, during that time there are two sides to jealous as far as I’m concerned. When Castle or Beckett is looking at the other person interacting with a SO, I put myself in their shoes and I am simply heartbroken. When they have these longing looks or act jealous when they interact with each other, I’m mostly frustrated and I just want to lock them in the supply room and have them kiss already. Now I’m picturing you yelling at the screen and it’s awesome! (NSA)

It’s okay, really, that the OS wasn’t all fluffy. I personally thought there was a nice balance between fluff and angst. It’s also not the first time I’ve read a fic in which Caskett are separated for a while after 5x24, so this aspect didn’t bother me so much. And yess the happy ending totally made up for it! I knew it would be okay from the moment Castle was being supportive in the cab. On a side note, I really loved Agent Cannon as well! (NSA)

Last thing for today: a few days ago, I happened to read another post of yours on tumblr and I would like to know if you speak (a) foreign language(s) :) Until next time! NSA (9/9)”

As always, response under the cut.

Hello NSA! Again, I would like to offer my sincerest apologies for the delay in responding. But, thank you so much for your congratulations. HIYH was a pain in the ass to finish (as in the exercise tbh, which I’ve admittedly stopped doing due to pain) so I was really proud of myself.

I think your opinions on why this in my opinion realistic story lines didn’t necessarily appeal to people. It was rather similar to S4, but in a way it focused more on him trying to figure out her secret than on them growing together. There was much more self-denial, in a way, than a natural progression from friends to more (even though the final decision to jump into a relationship was rather spontaneous). While I wouldn’t say they’re the same story line, S8 was certainly more reminiscent of season 4 than of the previous two seasons.

Although I have to admit, that’s probably part of why I like it as much as I do. Season 4 is my favorite season, and season 6 is my least favorite. It’s kind of one of those things where, yes, there’s some amazing moments that I could watch over and over again, but the season as whole feels almost disjointed and checklist-y, the serious episodes being forgotten immediately. Season 6 for me was kind of, like, I really enjoyed some moments, but a lot of the cases bored me and the b-plots became pretty repetitive and dare I say shallow, so I lose interest when watching a lot of the eps. (Season 7 was better, imo, but I still far prefer the sense of progression through the episodes rather than a stagnant relationship founded more on actions than emotional developments. It’s just a personal preference of mine.)

I will say, though, that I was actually one of the people that did want to see pregnant Beckett on the show. Although I can understand why they didn’t want to go that route, given that Caskett then would have had a baby in a hypothetical season 9, which is fairly difficult to handle on crime dramas (the early days of Christine on Bones spring to mind). In a way, I do think it would have been an interesting thing to throw into S8 (hence the writing of Rebirth) but I can also see how that would have been maybe too much angst for a TV show that generally avoids heavy issues. 

As for Castle’s abduction, I’ve only seen Sleeper once, but here’s what I remember (it may not all be accurate). As a kid, Castle attended school with some dude that later joined Al Qaeda. Even later, this man decided to be an informant to the CIA (there was something about traces of his past life being erased too? idk.) but the first time he tried to meet/hand himself over, there was a shooting. They then needed someone he trusted and high-profile enough for their death to matter to go to the meeting so their couldn’t be another shooting, and chose Castle. CIA or something kidnapped him to bring him to the meeting. I think. Idk. That episode was a mess.

Oh, I’m not big on the more heartbroken jealousy (A Deadly Game and Countdown spring to mind). But I don’t view Colin Hunt and Jacinda as significant others, nor the source of Caskett’s heartbreak, more like the bi-product of it. By which I mean, Castle is heartbroken by Beckett’s lies, not by seeing her flirt with Colin, and his heartbreak drives him to Jacinda. Beckett is heartbroken by him pulling away, which started before Jacinda, and ends up flirting with Colin as a result. So where I find their jealousy in that episode fun to watch is in the sense that they’re both being so stupid, trying to make the other jealous (consciously or not) and too oblivious to see how well it’s working. Idiots in love. 

I’m glad you enjoyed To Breathe Again! I have to admit, it’s probably one of the one-shots I’m most proud of.

And I actually do speak a foreign language. Well, it’s not actually foreign to me because Canada is bilingual, but I’m fluent in both English and French. What about you, NSA? Do you speak any other languages?

Callie xx