#I’m pretty busy with the internship until autumn but I hope I’ll get some writing done until then

[rist-ix]

at this point I’m not above begging the old gods for a tbhtbh update and I’m sure as hell not above begging you so please please-

(At least a snippet???)

okay so there’s a whole bunch of asks in my inbox asking for a snippet and I keep putting it off to answer them, because surely I should answer them when I actually have written on? And surely that’s gonna be soon, right?? Right????? But now it’s been months and I’m haunted by all the nice words and funny jokes and cool asks that I never answered because UGH my brain hAS NOT DELIVERED and I didn’t want to show up empty handed, u know? my anxiety is building and my time to write is shrinking and I am A Mess, BUT!!! I’ve also decided to say fuck it and just throw out the stuff I’ve ignored for a good few weeks. So at everyone whose asks I’ve ignored, please know that I am tormented by shame and adhd in equal measures, a never-ending cycle of horror and procrastination.

Anyway. Magix City my beloved!!!

His roar of fury follows her into the hallway, but she doesn’t slow down. Her one chance, her final chance, is now. She knows from Darcy herself that the witch isn’t scrying for her when she’s with Valtor, and she knows from Stormy that the handcuffs’ lifetime is dependent on how strong the captive is. Right now, Valtor is much, much more powerful than her.

She’s paced these corridors for days, weeks. She has gotten lost, confused, and distracted in these hallways, but she has also grown familiar. And now, tonight, it all pays off.

She finds the way. Finds the portal. Far behind her she can hear Valtor call her name, can feel the bond surging with regained magic as he gives chase, and she knows that her window is closing.

Those last few meters feel like eternity. Any moment his hand will close around her shirt, her arm, her neck; any moment she will be torn back and everything will be over. She thinks of Stella, of Flora, of all her friends and how they’d laughed at Alfea, strolled through the city. I’m coming, she thinks. I promise.

She can feel the building heat of a spell behind her.

But it’s too late.

She sets foot into the thin, glowing circle of the portal, and then there’s the blinding light of teleportation.

Just like that, she’s through. She’s out.

The brilliant magic of the portal plucks her from the cold, pale sphere that is Domino, catapults her through thousands of lightyears of space, and spits her out on black asphalt.

She fails to catch her fall, her momentum causing her to roll over her shoulder and bruise her knees on the rough ground. When she comes to a stop, her palms are scratched open and there’s a little bit of blood running down her shins. She hisses in pain and tears her hair back, looking around, preparing to fight off whoever comes through after her.

But he doesn’t appear.

There’s only the dark, rain-wet street before her. Reflecting the colourful lights of the skyscrapers lining it, the streetlamps, the tail-lights of hovering cars zooming by. A rainbow of vibrant blues and purples and yellows, of red and pink and so, so many others. Neon signs and brightened windows cutting through the cloudy night sky, still roiling with the promise of rain.

Magix City. She’s in Magix City.

She’s home.

A wave of sound crashes down on her and she falls right back onto her scraped knees, too stunned to cover her ears. After the long, unnatural silence of Domino, everything is so loud. Angry, beeping horns of cars in the distance, engines whining and roaring, the pitter-patter of a million steps as people mill about on the sidewalks, heeled shoes against wet stone. A prism full of colors in just their clothes, their hair, their faces as they stream by.

Even at night Magix is a bustling metropolis, full of life and noise and light.

She’s assaulted by so many impressions all at once she feels like she might go blind and deaf from it, and still she can’t look away. Three years she hasn’t been here. Almost four, now.

It’s so, so beautiful. In that shrill, dazzling, vibrant way only Magix can be. She feels just like she did then, when she’d first set foot into its labyrinthine, multilayered streets. Like she is on the cusp of something new, something chaotic and magical. Limitless and never-ending, never-resting.

Freedom. She’s free.

A blaring horn snaps her back to the present, and she whirls around only to shield her eyes from the blinding headlights of a car. Someone’s yelling for her to get up, get off the street, are you insane? She jumps to her feet and realizes that she’s in the middle of the road, in her pajamas, and cars have had to hit the brakes or they would have run her over.

Adrenaline hot in her veins, she stumbles back towards the sidewalk, looking around. People have stopped walking and are pointing at her, some talking to each other behind raised hands. Some look worried, some are snickering, and some look alarmed. Shocked.

She remembers that her picture had been plastered across screens and billboards for years, combined with a shady excuse and a bounty that no sane person could have spent in their entire lifetime.

And that Magix is crawling with Valtor’s marks.

No sooner had she finished the thought than she feels the gaze of dozens of eyes snap to her, all at once. Faces in the crowd turning towards her as if magnetized, their eerie synchrony sending goosebumps down her spine.

There’s no life in their stare. Because they’re not the ones looking.

She doesn’t wait for them to come any closer. She ducks her head and starts sprinting, slipping through the gaps in the crowd like a fish against the current. From the corners of her eyes she can see them start to move, to follow her, and her thundering heartbeat seems to choke her in her throat. She hasn’t thought this through at all, there’s a reason she never returned here with Stella. But the only thing on her mind when she’d stepped through that portal had been her friends, how happy they’d been, and the magical gateway had dropped her at the closest match to that nebulous feeling it could find. In the middle of a street, at the heart of this city they had loved.

And now Valtor knows she’s here.

A hand snatches her wrist, and another grabs her hair, marks swarming towards her from all corners of the city. She cries out in pain and hears people start to shout in confusion, but even if they wanted to risk helping her, they wouldn’t have the power to get through the mind-controlled puppets.

But she does, she remembers as the marks try to pull her back, push her down.

A blaze of light and she is bursting free, fluttering wings carrying her up above them and the crowd. Glittering cyan settling on her skin, golden tiara flashing in her hair, and if there had been any doubts in anyone as to who she is, they are now shown irrefutable proof.

[dragonquill]

Durin’s Day: Boxing Day Edition??

Here is my fic for Durin’s Day!  It was inspired by the amazing @ofahattersmind, who was 100% more patient than I deserve with my writing issues this month. 

See the lovely art here!

Happy Durin’s Day ah....delayed!

----

Fili is five the first time it happens. 

It begins with a sense of warmth and contentment that almost makes sense - he’s by the fire with his parents, and happy enough - but the warmth is stifling and the contentment brief.  But what follows - a sense of searing brightness, fear, indignation, is so clearly foreign that he bursts into tears, burying his face in his father’s chest and shaking with the power of it.  

He tries to explain, but he’s only a child, five years old and precocious but with no point of reference for what’s just happened to him.  It passes in minutes, and his sobs give way to little gasps for breaths and the occasional hiccup as his father rubs his back and kisses his hair and worries over him.

His mother has her suspicions, but keeps them to herself.

Keep reading or Read on Ao3!

----

For Kili, there is no “first time.”  From the day he’s born, he seems oddly mercurial, his mood shifting suddenly from time to time.  He’s a cheerful, loving child, outgoing and friendly nearly to a fault (“We don’t talk to strangers,” he recites after his mother, but once someone says hello, they’re not a stranger anymore!).  But there are times when he goes quiet and thoughtful, watching the world instead of forcing himself on it.  He likes those times, he says.  He feels peaceful.  Like he’s not alone.  

“That’s our Kili,” his mother says fondly, watching him go from spinning in hyperactive circles to curling up happily on the couch, watching the crackling fire. 

----

Kili hears words first.  Perhaps it should frighten him, but it doesn’t.  It feels like his quiet times, and the voice in his head isn’t saying anything scary.  It’s a little boy voice, like his, and it’s studiously practicing multiplication tables.  Kili’s years from learning them, though when the day comes he’ll already know them and won’t quite be able to explain how. 

In the stories about soul bonds, the first communication is usually dramatic and meaningful, the beginning of something otherworldly.

For Kili, it makes his nines tables a sinch five years later.

----

Fili’s parents die when he’s twelve.  His uncle takes him in, serious Thorin with his Durin-blue eyes and limited understanding of how children work.  He is the one who tells Fili about soulbonds, how rare they are, how their minds meet across the entire world.  He suspects Fili has one.

“And if you do,” he says, as gently as he knows how, “they’ll be feeling all the pain you’re feeling, and might be very scared by it.”

Maybe it’s a dirty trick, using a boy’s empathy for others to dry his tears and toughen up, but it appears to work.  Fili stops crying so much, starts getting out of bed and living life.

But what Kili feels, far away, isn’t the facade but the real thing.

His parents worry and fuss and arrange for therapy as he cries himself to sleep, night after night.

-----

Fili is rather secretive by nature.  He doesn’t want to bother anyone into worrying about him, and by the time he’s fourteen, he certainly knows they’d worry if they knew he talks to himself in his head all the time. The fact that the voice is different from his own only makes it more disturbing.  

I hate living with Thorin he’ll sulk, because Thorin is trying but he isn’t Fili’s parents. And his own mind answers Yeah he seems like a and a stuttering pause before dick that makes Fili laugh.  

And then he’ll find himself defending Thorin, who isn’t so bad, and the voice makes up a silly song about Thorin’s tendency to talk like it’s 1854 until Fili is sprawled in bed grinning to himself over how clever the voice in his head is, and why can’t he be that clever in real life?

----

Kili is an open book, and he forgets not to just talk back to the voice in his head.  It’s cute when he’s a little boy with his invisible friend, but the older he gets the more concerned the adults in his life get.  

He doesn’t know about the quiet meetings among counselors, teachers, and his parents.  He doesn’t really understand the new doctor who tries to convince him the voice isn’t real.  

He doesn’t like the summer he has to leave home and go stay in a hospital for two weeks during his vacation.  He’s furious, and lonely, and everyone is telling him to lie about the friend in his mind, but he’s not a good liar by nature.

I’ll know the truth his brain-friend says.  We’ll know.  Just tell them you don’t and then tell me you do.  It’ll make them happy.

Kili is reluctant, but he does as he’s told.

He still slips up sometimes,and he sees the worry in his parents’ eyes and laughs it off.  He’s a class clown, right?  He can get rid of these things.

Only his friend knows he hates it, hates the lies, curls up in his covers and sniffles some nights, feeling like a bad person.  

For a while, his friend promises to go away, and leave him alone. But that is so much worse, because it’s quiet in his head and he’s all alone and. “Is this what people want me feel?” he asks the dark, arms wrapped around a well-worn blush manatee he’s too old for as well (keeps it under the bed so his parents won’t take it away, as his friend suggested).  “It’s awful.”

And he tells his friend just how awful it is, until he comes back.

---

It’s sensible enough to name his inner voice Kili, Fili figures.  As good as anything else.  It is just an aspect of himself.  A..creative one.  Who tells stories about a life different from him.  Who lives out some of Fili’s fears (is he not quite sane?? Is his inner voice too much??  Don’t writers and such have this??  It’s fine, it’s fine).  Who is warm and funny and optimistic in a way Fili isn’t, but wants to be.  

Just a way of thinking things through.  It’s fine if he gives it a name.

He hopes.

----

His friend’s name is Fili, and Kili loves how they match. It’s like destiny in his favorite tv show!  They’re meant to be the best of friends!  The show is all about a legend about soulmates being bound from birth, and talking to each other, and finding each other and--

---

Fili visits the library, and researches, and wonders.

---

It happens on a lovely fall day in Fili’s home town. Fili is working on his post graduate degree in business administration - not the most interesting, but it’ll help out his uncle’s business, and that’s a guaranteed job that will pay enough that he can hone his own hobbies and interests on his off time. He’s still sensible, but that doesn’t mean he can’t turn some of that practicality to funding his personal interest in writing and travel. 

He’s also working at the business’s central office, actual pay instead of an internship, so he’s stayed close to home.  He’s saving money for a trip down south, for warm weather and sprawling beaches that remind him of stories he’s heard.  Or.  Made up.  Via Kili.

Fili tosses hair back over his shoulder, adjusts his coat, and walks into his favorite park.  The trees here were selected to look as colorful as possible in autumn, and he loves it.  Best time of year, hands down.

-----

Unlike Fili, Kili traveled for university.  He’s on the archery and lacrosse teams, with actual scholarships, and he’s studying English, which is mostly so he can go on into a proper specialty in myths and folktales.  He secretly believes he is a folk tale, despite the counseling and medications to convince him otherwise.  He loves the city, filled with carefully maintained parks and currently a chaos of fall colors.  It’s too hot back home for anything like this-

He sees someone out of the corner of his eye, and turns his head with practiced nonchalance for a better look.  Kili is a man who appreciates the human form.  Oh ho, he thinks, he’s hot.

And he is, all long golden hair and neat beard and fur lined leather jacket.  He’s shorter than Kili, but more solid.  He looks delicious, in the best way.

Stop creeping people out, says Fili in his head, and Kili laughs.

The man stops, frowning a little.”Odd,” he says aloud in a soft tenor voice that makes Kili’s heart thump.

He gives his head a little shake before looking around.  Blue eyes- so blue Kili can make them out from a fair distance - flicker in Kili’s direction.  He doesn’t seem to have a bit of Kili’s secret shyness.  He smiles, slow and inviting.

Never mind, I’ve found a pretty one, too, Fili says in Kili’s mind.

Kili nearly chokes on his own spit.  

The blond man turns and walks closer, more than a hint of swagger in his steps. 

“Hey,” he says smoothly.

-----

Kili feels his jaw drop.  His heart is racing.  He can hear it in his ears.  He bungee jumped once, Fili refusing to have anything to do with it.  It felt like this, like ziplines and roller coasters that flip you upside down.

He clicks his jaw shut.  

“Ah...hey,” he says back, intelligently.

---

Fili feels a flash of concern, and steps closer.  “You okay?”  He puts his hands up.  “Promise I’m not a serial killer after tourists.  I’m honestly just flirting.”

---

“I’m not a tourist!”  It’s not what Kili means to say, because he knows, in his bones, who this guy is.  He wonders why he never really thought about what Fili must look like.  He’d have thought taller, but everything else…

Yum.

“I’ve been here a year!”

----

“Oh, pardon.”  Fili grins and bows like an old-fashioned gentleman.  “Practically a local, then.  Does that mean you’re familiar with the Ri Family Teashop?”

Fili is forward, but not usually this forward.  But somehow, he wants to know this person.

Or already knows him.

Something.

----

Kili starts to grin.  “Are you asking me to tea?” he asks, because oh, good, Fili knows him too.

“Hmm.  I don’t know.  My mother said never to have tea with strangers.”  Fili holds a hand.  “Fili Durin, local peacekeeper and not an axe murderer, and you are?”

----

The cutie is staring at him, and the stare is starting to look singularly unimpressed.  “You know who I am, Fili.”

“Ah, afraid not,” Fili answers, but there’s a tug in his belly like he’s lying to his uncle Thorin about why he was out so late as a teenager.  “But I very much hope to.”

The definitely a nine sighs and puts his hands on his hips.  “I honestly thought you were smarter than this.  But you can’t be completely perfect, I guess.”  But he’s smiling, fit to battle the sun, and Fili can’t even work up a sense fo indignation.  “It’s me, Fili.  It’s Kili.”

-----

Fili will deny it until they are old and grey, and Kili will just keep telling the truth anyway.

Fili’s eyes roll back in his head, and he stumbles, and Kili grabs Fili in his strong arms like the hero he is.  It’s not fair to say Fili passes out, maybe fades a bit would be more accurate.

Either way, he regrets it forever because it makes him the damsel who wakens (blinks and sees better, because he wasn’t unconscious or anything that dramatic, correct?) in the arms of a stranger who is no stranger at all.  And dammit, Kili even kisses him awake.

(It’s soft and chaste and sweet and Kili, a press of lips just like his voice, beloved and real and everything Fili ever wanted to be real.)

“Hi,” Kili says again, grinning down at him.  “Welcome back.”

Fili will argue later that he didn’t go anywhere and he would have been fine and etc. etc, but for now, he reaches up from his awkward arching slouch in Kili’s arms and brushes hair from those playful hazel eyes, and tugs him down for their second kiss.

----

Nice!, they think, and the kiss turns into laughter.

[builder051]

No sympathy (a Spiderman sickfic)

I was super enthused about how much love the first Spiderman fic got, so I had to run and write another one.  This one is Halloween themed, and it’s EXACTLY 2100 words.

Ned’s texted Peter four times in the last hour.  He’s as dead-set on inviting Peter to do something for Halloween as Peter is dead-set on saying no.

“Geez, how many times do I have to tell you,” Peter mumbles as he taps out another reply.  I’m busy. Stark internship.  Already told you.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to go trick-or-treating in Ned’s building.  To be honest, he kind of does. There’s that one neighbor that gives out full-size KitKats, and he has the best costume.  And it’s not even a costume, it’s, like, his work uniform…  But there are way more important things to do.

If urban legends and underground news reports are anything to go by, Peter has dozens of black kittens to save from satanic sacrifice and chocolate-stealing thugs to beat up and kids to help cross the street and baskets of candy to check for broken glass and LSD…  With that agenda, goofing off on Halloween doesn’t stand a chance of making it onto the timetable.

Peter turns his phone upside-down on the desk so it won’t glow at him when Ned inevitably texts back. Again.  He rests his elbow on his partially-finished algebra homework and drops his forehead into his palm for a moment, until he remembers he shouldn’t do that because it’ll give him acne.  But cool-hand-on-achy-forehead kind of feels good, so maybe it’s a wash.

The sun’s falling into its late afternoon position, warning that dusk is near.  And that people with headaches should close their blinds to avoid being shot in the eyeballs with extreme sunset glare.  Peter doesn’t think the blinds on his window have worked since he moved in, so he splits the difference and pushes out of his desk chair to head for the kitchen.

May’s working late, so Peter’s on his own tonight.  She’s given him free reign to do whatever he wants to celebrate as long as it’s legal and he’ll be ready for school tomorrow.  Usually Peter would be ecstatic about the breadth of his freedom, but today he’s just glad he’s alone so he can dry-swallow three ibuprofen and eat cheese shreds straight from the bag.

With hunger taken care of and medication yet to kick in, Peter checks his watch.  The neighborhood won’t start bustling with Halloweeners for another couple of hours.  His homework’s as good as finished; no one will show up with completed math assignments tomorrow morning.  Peter doesn’t feel like giving the school population at large another reason to call him a geek.  And he doesn’t feel like he’ll be able to concentrate especially well anyway.

Flicking on the TV to a random rerun of The Simpsons, Peter flops down on the couch.  He intends to hang through the 30-minute episode, then put on his suit and jump through the window to start his patrol.  But somehow Peter blinks and the TV’s playing Hocus Pocus and it’s dark out and he’s missed something.  Like two hours of passing time.

“Fuck,” Peter curses himself, jumping to his feet as realizations of the date, time, and fact that he’s not feeling well all crash into his head.  He tornadoes into his room and strips, almost tripping over his jeans as he tries to scramble into his suit.  He’s groggy and his reflexes suck.  The logical voice in his head, the one that’s usually reminding him to do his homework, tells him this is not smart.  He should think about staying in tonight.  Or hit up Ned for something safer to do.  But the louder impress Mr. Stark and justice for Ben voice makes him keep going.

Peter throws his jeans and hoodie into his backpack, slings it over his shoulder, and tosses back the blinds to open his bedroom window.  He crawls up onto the small ledge of the sill and shoots a line of web to the next building over.

He swings to his usual hiding spot in an alley near the school building and drops his backpack behind a dumpster.  Everything seems to smell worse than usual, and it’s not helping Peter’s head.  Or his stomach, for that matter.

“Ok.  Here we go.”  Peter revs himself up.  He jumps on top of the dumpster and swings himself onto the roof the bodega to survey the streets from above.  A few people in costumes are running around, and there’s a pretty comical looking group of small-scale Power Rangers standing on a street corner, but beyond that, everything looks normal.  There aren’t any black-robed Satanists brandishing bloody knives or kids dropping to their knees from poisoned candy.  At least not that Peter can see.

He sits down on the edge of the roof and watches for a while, then webs himself two blocks over to get a different view.  A couple taxis honk at each other.  Some guy re-lights the jack-o-lantern on his balcony three separate times because the wind keeps blowing it out.

Peter rolls his mask up to his nose so he can catch a little bit of the autumn breeze.  It feels nice, especially seeing as the pressure of the tight spandex over his face is doing little to make him comfortable.  It’s actually making him pretty uncomfortable.  The throb that was just between his eyes earlier is now playing across his whole forehead.  And his stomach’s starting to feel frothy, like it’s full of shaving cream.

There’s a sound coming from the sidewalk on the other side of the building.  Not of someone in peril, more of sound of frustration.  But with the lack of anything else going on, Peter decides it’s his business to investigate anyway.  He looks over the vertical line of brick wall and sees what he thinks is a scruffy homeless man lounging on a dirty bedroll and a stroller-pushing woman expressing disdain that he’s blocking the sidewalk.

It’s not the large-scale, Halloween-themed rescue mission Peter’s been expecting, but he knows how to diffuse this bomb.  He puts his mask back down and jumps to street level.  The impact reverberates from his feet to his head, and Peter tries not to cringe as the headache flares into momentary vertigo.

“Ma’am, he’s not gonna hurt you,” Peter says, addressing the gum-chewing young mother first.  A candy bucket for her sleepy baby clad in a skeleton onesie is slung over the stroller’s handle.  Peter imagines she’s really trick-or-treating for herself.

“Yeah, but he’s blocking the sidewalk,” she complains.

“I know, I got it,” Peter placates her.  He bends at the waist to tap the man on the shoulder.  He’ looks like he could be dozing, and he has a smoldering pipe held up to his lips.  The fumes coming from it smell a bit more illegal than just tobacco.  “Hey, dude?”  He says.  “You can’t sleep here.  People want to walk here.”

“Hm?” the guy says, exhaling a cloud of smoke and looking quizzically at Peter’s masked face.  “What’re you supposed to be dressed up as?”

“Hi, I’m Spiderman,” Peter introduces himself.  He holds out his hand, and when the guy shakes it, Peter puts his other hand into the guy’s armpit and pulls him to his feet.  “There’s an alley right up here where you can be without being in everybody’s way.”

The guy fumbles so as not to drop his pipe, but doesn’t resist Peter walking him ten yards down and depositing him around the corner between a trash can and a drainpipe.  “I’ll go get your sleeping bag,” Peter promises, hustling back the way he came.

The young mom is already gone when Peter dashes back around the corner to grab the filthy bedroll.  He shakes it hard over the ground, muttering, “Could’ve at least stuck around to say thanks.”  Once most of the dust and stray flecks of weed are lost to the sidewalk, Peter re-traces his steps again.

The homeless man is braced against the wall and losing what sounds and smells like a full stomach of liquor.  “Oh, god,” Peter cries in surprise, turning his head away as soon as he realizes what’s happening. “Ok.  Um.  Yeah.”  He sloppily folds the sleeping bag into a rectangle with too many corners and sets it on the ground.  He can feel his own stomach asking to rebel, and his headache’s screaming a whole new tune.  “I’m not the one to help you with this.”  Peter’s mouth is full of spit.  “There’s a shelter with rehab stuff down on 35th by Steinway…”

The guy just pukes again, and Peter turns around to stumble out of the alley on shaky legs.  He swallows hard.  Vertigo threatens to take him down, and Peter leans against the cool brick wall.  He can hear blood pounding in his ears, but it doesn’t drown out the homeless man’s next retch.  That’s all that’s needed to send Peter over the edge, and he has to scramble to flip his mask up fast enough.

He heaves a couple times and watches dazedly as a small puddle of thick whitish spit forms between his boots.  His stomach empties before it settles, and Peter leans heavily into the wall.  He wipes away a moustache of sweat with the back of his gloved hand.  The spandex fabric still carries notes of the homeless man’s smoke and BO, and Peter almost goes down retching again.  But he just coughs and gasps for a moment before deciding he has to get out of here before he becomes a Halloween disaster himself.

Peter starts the stroll back around the block to pick up his backpack, feeling too dizzy to web himself around.  He briefly clocks in for another good deed and helps a couple third-grade ninjas cross the street, but practically undoes it when a yellow cab almost slams him on his way back across.  Peter halfheartedly flips the driver off and continues on his way to grab his stuff.

After struggling to pull his jeans over his suit, Peter zips up his hoodie and stows his gloves and mask.  He realizes he forgot to pack shoes, so he just has to hope his Spiderman boots won’t be noticeable.

Peter enters his building through the front door and pauses for a moment while he considers the choice of stairs or elevator.  He goes for the stairs, and even though his quads are burning by the time he reaches his floor, at least his head is still on his shoulders.

Light’s streaming from under the door when Peter approaches the apartment, and that can only mean that May’s home.  He tries to think up a good, believable story for what he’s been up to, but nothing comes easily, and he’s eager to get inside and shower and go to sleep.  Or maybe vomit his slimy guts out for the next millennium.

“Hey, May,” Peter says as he pushes open the door.

“Hey yourself,” May says.  She’s on the couch, eating popcorn and watching It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  “You do stuff?  Have a good time?”

“Yeah, just, uh,” Peter starts, “Ran around with Ned for a while.”

“Great costume,” May says, nodding to Peter’s getup.

“Thanks,” he replies absently.

“That wasn’t…” May trails off and starts over.  “What’re you supposed to be?”

“Um.”  Peter looks down at his rumpled hoodie and finally understands.  He scrubs his scrambled brain for an answer.  “Um.  Dead tired?”

“Dead tired,” May repeats.  “Well, you’re doing a fantastic job with that.  You look awful.”

“Yeah, I’m not feeling all that great, so I thought it would be kind of appropriate,” Peter says in a mixture of truth and joke.

“Would you happen to not feel great because you ate all my cheese shreds?  And now I can’t make lasagna for tomorrow night?”

“Sorry, May,” Peter says, passing his hand over his forehead, which is beading with fresh nauseous sweat. He almost starts to unzip his hoodie, but stops himself before he reveals what he’s wearing underneath.

“Want some popcorn?  There’s candy corn, too.” May asks, inviting him to join her in front of the TV.  “We got plenty of that.  Could have snacks for dinner all week.”

Peter’s stomach rolls, and he has to swallow hard to push down the rising bile.  “You know, uh, I’m not sure I’m really in the mood to talk about food right now.”  He starts down the hall toward the bathroom.

“You do feel sick, huh?  You think you need help or anything?”  May makes to stand up.

“No, I’ll be ok,” Peter insists.  “Just, uh, maybe don’t eat all the candy corn.  I might want some.”  He suppresses a gag.  “But, probably not till later.”