#Imagine learning to drive in a fancy car you got from your cult.

[arvoreaquatica]

Sooo how did Kevin, Jean and Riko learn to drive? I mean, I really find it hard to imagine Tetsuji teaching them how to shift gears and all that...

[nursegracecreates]

TW: smoking, marijuana

Jan 5

5:00 pm

About that rushed post in the middle of the night where I said Sal and I are going to find Larry? I meant it.

We're not rushing, it would be a 24 hour drive if so. But a few friends are taking our shifts at work on a promise that we'll come in for Valentine's weekend, and a few other important dates and holidays for them.

Once again, we could rely on Crow (@crowbiden) to watch the house and dogs. He lives just down the street and has the keys. We trust him to hold things down until we get back.

We threw some bags together, gassed up the car, and hit the road, splitting up the driving so Sal drove during non rush hours. We had a lot of fun driving and singing along to the 90's rock and alternative playlist Sal just made. We munched on junk food and drank way too much sugar.

Last night, we eventually stopped in a small interstate town that had a few chain hotels. I barely remember hitting the mattress.

Today, we drove to the nearest large city, deciding to do some sightseeing along the way, heading north, to Pennsylvania. Seeing as I never made it to Nockfell, never moving for college, we have a lot of ground to cover, having to travel north from where we live in *static sounds*.

So here we are in Nashville, TN, staying the night in a nice hotel, nothing too fancy. We have a balcony from our sixth floor room, and the view of the city is pretty nice. You can see the beginnings of the mountains if you look to the northeast from there. Sal is out on the balcony now, taking in the sights.

We might stay a couple of days! There are a lot of interesting things to see in Nashville. The Parthenon, Cheekwood Botanical Garden, the zoo. Sal wants to see the Johnny Cash Museum, and there's a cafe attached where we could have lunch.

I know it's technically not in Nashville, but the Bell Witch Cave isn't too far of a drive. Sal would probably love a chance to talk to some new ghosts.

Sally's been talking about Larry a lot more lately. I feel like I've been there for their whole friendship at this point. He says that he's never been able to meet a Larry in the other realities he's visited. No matter where he went, Larry was strangely missing every time Sal explored a new reality. Eventually it got so Sal could just feel if Larry was there.

When Sal first found me, he said he couldn't find any traces of Larry. He was gone just like in all the other realities.

But he had this little niggling feeling start up a few weeks ago, and in that time, the feeling grew. Sal is almost certain Larry is here, in this reality.

The most logical place to start is Nockfell. It's where Larry's home was, and therefore, the most logical place for him to be.

Sally's pretty optimistic and he's excited about the trip in general. We haven't had a chance to step away since the ghost hunt in Alton that Sally took me for in 2020. The time away together is much needed and appreciated.

I think, besides the prospect of being reunited with his best friend, Sal is excited to show me Nockfell. By the time he found me, Sal had lived in Nockfell longer than he had in Jersey. It's his home, and I'm sure he'll want to show me all the little places that hold huge memories for him. I can't blame him, I'm pretty excited too. It's always exciting to learn new things about your friends or significant others, and I'll finally be able to imagine the places where Sal's stories take place. We're hoping the apartments will even still be standing, if not still inhabited.

There is the Cult to be worried about. We've already found signs that the DOG exists in this reality as well. But there's the possibility that it didn't keep a following, or maybe, never even had one. The DOG may not even be in Nockfell in this reality. It's a little wait and see, risky, I know, but, like Sal, I believe you only live once. You can't let fear keep you from doing something important. This is important to him, even if we don't find Larry.

The flare of a lighter caught my attention from the balcony outside. Sal had a blunt clamped between his teeth, and a lighter held to the end of it, puffing until it was fully lit. His chest swelled as he inhaled and held the smoke while he stared out at the cityscape.

He grinned, crooked and self assured when he caught me watching him through the glass of the balcony door. He held the blunt between his middle and index fingers of his right hand as he extended his left pointer finger and crooked it at me, asking me to come out and join him in the chilly night for a smoke. His smile widened as he watched me get up and put my coat on. He opened the door for me, as well as his arms as I stepped out into the winter twilight.

The flower Sal had lit didn't smell too strongly. We wouldn't have to worry about it carrying and another hotel guest reporting it. Besides, a light breeze was blowing in our favor.

He handed me the blunt as I settled back into his body and I hit it, watching smoke curl from the end of the hand rolled cigar as I held the smoke for a few moments.

"Well, we have plenty to do, tomorrow" I said, "Unless you were wanting to move on instead?"

"Are you kidding?!" Sal asked, "We're in music city! We have to look around some."

We discussed our options as we smoked, adding places, and ruling out others. By the time we were done, we were confident we had just planned the best Nashville experience a couple could want. We came in, cheeks rosy from the cold and Sal turned the heat up a little.

"Alright" I said, taking off my coat and hanging it on the back of the chair, "So we spend one, maybe two days being tourists, and then we get back on the road. Sound good?"

Sally's coat joined mine, hiding it from view, and he pulled me into a hug, laying a kiss on my forehead. "It's perfect."

[smollestnerd]

XigXem SFW Headcanons

I love doing these to get ideas for headcanons I wouldn’t normally consider, and since I finished filling these out today I thought I’d share! Borrowed from the @otp-imagines-cult post here!

(Just a heads-up, this is a messy mashup of canon-compliant and modern au headcanons)

1: Who spends almost all their money on the other?

Xemnas spends so much money on Xigbar. He doesn't even try to say no at this point, he knows Xig will get his way.

Xigbar sometimes feels guilty about how much Xemnas spends on him, but those feelings fade as soon as Xem comes back from shopping with bags full of gifts for Xig.

2: Who sleeps in the other’s lap?

Xigbar sleeps in Xemnas’s lap. It's rare that it's the other way around, usually only if Xem is extremely tired or upset (he'll fall asleep while being comforted and held of course).

3: Who walks around the house half-naked and who yells at them to put on some clothes?

They both do. Well, Xigbar runs around HALF naked, Xemnas is just full frontal at any given point if they’re home alone. Xig will tell him to cover up, but he doesn't ever mean it.

When they have guests, Xigbar is fully clothed 100% of the time. Xemnas, though? There’s always at least a 10% chance he’ll forget wearing a shirt is a thing people expect from him. Everyone is either too afraid or horny to tell him to put one on, thus the responsibility falls on Xigbar to tell him. (Again, about a 10% chance he’ll “forget” to tell him to put on a shirt.)

4: Which one tells the other not to stay up all night and which one stays up all night anyway?

Bold of you to assume they both don't have 11pm bedtimes.

But every so often Xemnas will lose himself in his work and suddenly it's 3am.

5: Which one tries to make food for the other but burns it all by accident and which one tells them that it’s okay and makes them both cookies?

Xigbar is forbidden from cooking anything that isn't microwaveable.

Xemnas's fallback career was fancy chef if “Superior of the In-Between” didn’t work out.

6: Which one reads OTP prompts and says “Oh that’s us!” and which one goes “Eh, not really”?

Neither, but only because neither of them are very online. I think if they were though, Xemnas would see their relationship in everything but not say anything out loud. He just smiles to himself and moves on.

7: Which one constantly wears the other’s clothes?

Xigbar is an accomplished hoodie thief. Xemnas wears Xig’s croptops sometimes to work out in, but always returns them when he's done.

8: Which one spends all day running errands and which one says “You remembered [thing], right?”

Xemnas is usually the one running errands, but he rarely forgets anything on the list. Xigbar always asks if he remembered everything, though, just to soothe his own anxiety, and quietly hoping to catch Xemnas slipping up so he has something to tease about.

9: Which one drives the car and which one gives them directions?

Xigbar drives ever since Xemnas got his license suspended for running too many red lights.

Or; Xig drives like a maniac and Xem is just so used to it he doesn't even bother to insist on driving anymore (unless he's the designated driver, which usually he is). Xem is lowkey surprised Xig has a clean driving record.

10: Which one does the posing while the other one draws?

Xemnas poses, Xigbar draws. Xig’s had plenty of lifetimes to perfect his hobbies, and even though he hasn't had time for them in a while, it doesn't take long for him to get back into the swing of things. What better way to capture his lover's radiance than through charcoal drawings and oil paints?

Plus, Xemnas absolutely adores the attention. He just basks in the glory of another being finding him beautiful enough to immortalize on canvas.

11: If they were about to rob a museum, which one does backflips through lasers and which one is strolling behind with a bag of chips?

I want to say Xemnas is the super cool backflip guy and Xigbar is the one with the chips, but honestly? It's the other way around. Xig likes to show off in front of his man, and who could blame him?

12: Which one of your OTP overdoes it on the alcohol and which one makes the other stop drinking?

Xemnas overdoes it. He doesn't drink nearly as often as Xigbar does, so he doesn't exactly know his limits. Xig tries to keep his eye on him and make sure he doesn't drink too much, but unfortunately Xem is REALLY good at acting sober, so Xig never realizes Xem has overdone it until its too late.

He takes really good care of Xemnas, though, no matter how drunk he is himself.

13: Which one likes to surprise the other with a lot of small random gifts?

Xemnas and Xigbar both surprise each other quite often. Xigbar gives Xemnas little things like seashells and shiny baubles he finds on missions/outings that he thinks Xemnas will like for his office shelves. Xemnas sends Xigbar flowers when he senses Xig having a bad day, and buys him every new book that Xigbar expresses even a passing interest in.

14: Which one keeps accidentally using the other’s last name instead of their own?

Xemnas. He's definitely the romantic here. He's got an Entire Notebook filled with different combinations of their names squashed together.

Xigbar is lowkey terrified of major commitment. He'd say yes if proposed to of course, but he'd never offer himself up like that.

15: Which one screams about the spider and which one brings the spider outside?

Xemnas saves it, Xigbar just squishes it. Neither are afraid but they have different approaches to dealing with bugs.

16: Which one gives the other their jacket?

On most cold days you can find Xigbar wearing a too-big leather coat and Xemnas in naught but a t-shirt or turtleneck.

17: Who keeps getting threatened by the other’s overprotective older sibling?

Ansem tried. He tried so hard. But he severely underestimated Xigbar’s resistance to intimidation tactics.

18: Who’s the first one to admit they have feelings for the other?

Xemnas. He planned out a whole mega-elaborate date for the two of them, and confessed his love for Xigbar.

Xigbar: "Wait we weren't dating already??"

19: How good would your OTP be at parenting?

They would make fantastic fathers, they'd care about their kids so much. But christ alive that household would be chaotic as all fuck.

20: Which one types with perfect grammar and which one types using numbers as letters?

Xemnas used to type with perfect grammar and spelling until he learned about text lingo. "It's more efficient, Xigbar, I am a busy man and don't have time to type everything out." It's a damn lie, though, he just thinks it's neat.

Hell will freeze over the day that Xemnas uses an emoji.

Xigbar relies on emojis and autocorrect and if it doesn't catch a typo or he sends the wrong emoji, “Oh well.”

21: Who gets attacked by a bully and who protects them?

The bully gets attacked by them.

22: Who makes the bad puns and who makes a pained smile every time the other makes a pun?

Xigbar is the pun king. Genuinely funny. “10/10 would hear again.” -Xemnas, probably

Xemnas tries sometimes, bless his soul. Xigbar just doesn't have it in him to tell him they're bad.

23: Who comes home from work to see that the other one bought a puppy?

To Xigbar's dismay, this has happened more than once. He's the dad that is against the pet but ends up loving it, and Xemnas just can't resist bringing home strays.

They have 2 big dogs, a little dog, and a cat, and have fostered a few puppies and old, sickly cats here and there.

24: Which one gives the other a piggyback ride when they’re tired?

When Xemnas gets too drunk to stand, Xigbar will give him a piggyback ride, but he never tells him the next day. Xemnas is too prideful and would be very ashamed to hear of it. Plus, Xigbar kinda likes keeping those moments between them to himself; like a secret he’s keeping safe for a special occasion.

Xigbar will ask for piggyback rides all the time, and Xemnas is happy to indulge him.

25: Which one competes in some sort of activity and which one does the overzealous cheering?

When Xemnas cheers for Xigbar, it's less overzealous and more normal cheering, it's just that Xemnas' voice is booming and carries over the rest of the crowd with ease.

(Don’t ask me what competitive activity Xigbar does, for I Do Not Know)

26: Who takes a selfie when the other one falls asleep on their shoulder?

They both do. The main difference is that Xemnas focuses the camera on Xigbar, and Xigbar gets them both fully in the shot.

27: Which one would give the other a makeover if they asked?

Both of them would be willing to give the other a makeover, but neither of them have asked.

But! Xemnas does Xigbar’s makeup sometimes, and Xigbar has bought his own style of clothes for Xemnas on a few occasions, just to see what he’d look like.

(Unrelated sidenote: they have matching onesies with cat ears and a tail that Xigbar refuses to wear unless he has to, or unless Xem asks him while Xig is wasted)

28: Which one owns a pet that the other is absolutely terrified of?

Before they moved in together, Xigbar refused to go inside Xemnas's house unless his husky was in the backyard. He got used to her over time, and now Xemnas sometimes comes home to them asleep cuddling on the couch.

Xemnas was never actually afraid of Xigbar's beloved corn snake, but he wasn't a fan either. He’d hold him, but he wasn’t thrilled about it.

29: Which one holds the umbrella over both of them when it rains?

Xemnas holds the umbrella, Xigbar holds the Xemnas

30: If your OTP went on vacation, where would they go and what would they do? Who would take the pictures?

In a canon setting they’d go worldhopping for a week, but in a modern au they'd take trips every year to cities and small remote locations around the world.

They've never been properly camping though. Xemnas refuses.

Their first trip together was small, just to a little known beach on the west coast. They lounged on the beach most of the time, and every night they ate at a different food truck. The last night they were there Xemnas surprised Xigbar with reservations for the fanciest 5-star restaurant in the city.

Xigbar thought he took all the pictures until he was going through them after the trip, only to find over half the memory card filled with photos of himself that Xemnas took when he wasn't looking

[spookyspaghettisundae]

All Eyes on You

Maybe it could have been a regular weekend for me, but there’s no way for me to tell if I was the one who screwed everything up. I was a bit hungover from the night before, so my head weighed a ton and every source of bright light made me cringe in pain—whether it was the fluorescent neon tubes overhead or the daylight streaming in through the store’s front windows.

Every single beep of the cashier running items over the scanner at checkout was like a tiny knife being stuck into my skull, over and over and over again, even though I was fairly far away from it, browsing the unnecessary amount of different brands of laundry detergent.

I grabbed some random one that had nice soft colors and chucked it into my shopping cart. It caused the whole thing to shake and rattle and a person pushing past me gave me a dirty look.

Under any other circumstances, I wouldn’t have wasted any thought on this, but today was different. Now, everything was different. Now, as I looked up, and past that guy shooting me the disparaging glance, I realized that everybody in the store was looking at me.

“Feeling watched” would have been the understatement of the century.

It was so weird and jarring that I forgot about the effects of my hangover for the next few minutes. In part because my heart was racing, in part because my mind was going wild with conspiracy theories and rampant paranoia.

Although I pretended to not care or not notice, I could tell that everybody in the store was looking at me at one point or the other. Normally, I would have chalked this up to something silly, like one of my friends having written something on my forehead with a magic marker while I was passed out.

But with what had happened the night before, I knew better. I knew something was wrong. Horribly wrong.

It didn’t help that some of these people would pretend to not be looking at me, either—furtive glances, eyes quickly darting down to study a shopping list on their phone, or to act like they were looking over grocery items on the shelves. Anything to avoid eye contact with me.

I know what you’re thinking. Just allow me to dial back and explain before you make up your mind.

The night before, I was feeling pretty depressed. I was still pretty new in this town and knew nobody around there. Just some backwater town in the middle of nowhere. The rent on the apartment I had found there was cheap, and the commute to my workplace only an hour which was a vast improvement over my last home.

So I grabbed some beers, drove up to a lonesome little picnic area on the forest’s edge that I had seen on the first day I had visited town when I went to go scout out the apartment a few months ago, and decided to chill out there and watch the sunset after a tedious Friday at work.

The whole day had dragged on at a snail’s pace and I just wanted to unwind and not stare at any screens for a few hours.

I sat there, nursing my first beer, sitting on top of the backrest of the bench like a rebel, when I spotted a mansion near the forest’s edge. I mean, I had seen it before when I first took a drive through this town, but it was only now that I noticed a few funny details about it. And when I say “funny,” I don’t mean the amusing sort.

It had a large red brick wall encircling the entire yard—and that place was as big as a football field. The large mansion matched that appearance, also featuring red bricks and sandstone and wood in its construction, and a lot of unusual details like a tower built into the corner of it. Everything was overgrown with lush green ivy, and there were some nice-looking trees on the property.

So far, so idyllic.

The weird part were the men in green camo clothing, carrying what I think were assault rifles. They patrolled around the inside of the walls, so it was no wonder I hadn’t seen them when I drove through town earlier that year, but being up on the hill at the forest’s edge gave me some elevation and allowed me to see over the walls somewhat.

They were all pretty big-looking dudes. I pegged them for soldiers or something like that—though my imagination wandered to this being a mafioso’s estate and these guys being some well-armed thugs.

It would make sense for some gangster boss to be living well out on the countryside where everything’s nice and quiet, right?

I downed two whole beers and while I had been trying to distract myself with unpacking everything that had happened over the course of the week—both at work and in my personal life—my curiosity got the best of me.

I had to know what the hell this mansion was.

With a simple plan in mind, I packed up everything, and drove back down from the picnic site, now taking a detour so I could casually roll past the mansion. A large steel gate obscured any way of seeing into the mansion’s premises, which was frustrating. In my mind’s eye, I had expected one of those metal fence gates that you can see through, but this one was just a solid surface instead.

Tossing out my original plan, I parked my car across the road by the grass, got out, and walked over. You may be thinking that I was crazy, and I can assure you I am. I was always a bit of a tomboy growing up, and I possessed a fearlessness that got me into trouble every now and then—and because I always got away with playing dumb or innocent, I always got away with my shenanigans and I never learned. Not until this day.

I pressed a button by the gate that I figured to be a buzzer and waited.

Within seconds, a small metal slot opened on the gate, from which a man wearing sunglasses peered through, and it was so sudden and swift in response to my pressing that button that I nearly choked in surprise.

“Yes?” asked the man behind the gate.

“Uh, I was, uh, I was,” I started stammering until my wit finally kicked in. “I was up at the picnic site up here to relax and I had no reception on my phone whatsoever, but I need to make an important call. I figured I could ask here if I could use your land line, or something?”

I slung out my phone and waved it around like a magic wand while flashing this man a dumb smile and shrugging. He looked over his shoulder as if he was responding to someone behind him, but he didn’t say a word. I think he looked up at the picnic site and I could feel the blood draining from my face. Because he turned, though, I saw a weird tattoo on his neck: just a single eye.

Not like I know anything about ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, but if I had to describe it, that’s what it reminded me of. No fancy elaborate details, just a simple eye. Wide open.

His head turned back with a painful slowness. I could sense the gears churning behind his forehead.

“My phone’s got reception just fine,” said the man. “Here, you can borrow mine.”

I guessed my charm had worked its magic. He held out his phone through the small slot, offering it to me.

Realizing way too late that all of this was a terrible idea, I glanced at my phone and flicked its display on, then chuckled—way too nervously, I presume, “Hey, look at that! I got a bar back. Maybe it was just up at the woods that was not working out for me. Thanks, though.”

The guard slowly withdrew his phone and even though I couldn’t see his eyes, I could have sworn he was glaring at me. I smiled back at him, hoping to disarm any ill will, and started getting really scared about this being some sort of gangster hideout.

“Have a nice day,” he said. But it sounded more like a threat.

He shut the slot with lightning speed and I turned to leave, holding up my phone and pretending to make a call. I yapped away into the void of the non-existent phone call, cringing at my pathetic attempt at emulating a one-sided conversation and the resulting blandness, until I had gotten into my car and slammed the door shut behind me.

My palms were sweaty and cold when they clasped the steering wheel and stick, and I drove away. I was pretty rattled for the rest of the evening although I got back home without any further incident. On the whole ride home, I kept looking into my rear-view mirror to see if I was being followed. And in my paranoia, I thought that some people on sidewalks were shooting me looks, but I dismissed it at the time.

Back at home, I drank the rest of my beers and distracted myself with lousy TV shows until fell asleep.

Then I woke up the next morning, sporting the splitting headache, and decided that things couldn’t be so bad. Because, hey, when it feels like gremlins are pounding the inside of your skull with a jackhammer and your brain’s a funny soup, a lot of worries stop existing. With that state of mind, I went to do my grocery shopping for the week.

And now—this. Everybody watching me. In the confines of my own head, I was calling myself names and cursing myself out for being such a paranoid idiot. There was no reason to be afraid.

But my heart wouldn’t stop racing. Even outside, as I put my groceries in the trunk, I knew that even the people driving in and out of the small parking lot were looking at me.

Watching me.

Worse: I saw that tattoo again. On someone’s forearm. Some lady returning an empty shopping cart to the storefront. She never looked at me directly, but with my back turned to her, I had felt a burning gaze transfixed upon me.

What the hell was this? As an avid reader of strange fiction and horror movie enthusiast, I immediately thought they had to be some sort of cult. What if this entire town was run by a cult? Stranger things have happened.

This was all so surreal. I felt very small and like I was just a passenger in my own body. Everything tingled. My fingers felt numb.

I drove home and shut myself in for the rest of the weekend. I tried to distract myself with TV and video games and even talking to a friend who lived halfway across the country, but nothing helped. I couldn’t help it. I kept thinking that this entire town was crazy and that I was being watched now. I even started getting paranoid if they could tap into my phone or hack my computer, so I avoided telling my friend about anything I had witnessed here.

Just shot the breeze about how life had been for her lately, and put up a good show in pretending that everything was normal on my end.

Come Monday morning, I snuck out of my home and got into my car. Paranoia got the better of me again, so I started checking my ride quite thoroughly, not caring if I would be late for work that day. I had watched too many stupid shows to not think that someone might have tampered with my car. I checked to see if the brakes were working, if there were any bugs, pawing underneath my seats for foreign objects, you name it.

I’m not any sort of professional and if anything was there, I probably missed it. But hey—I tried. Still, I found nothing.

After wasting half an hour on this exercise in futility, I drove off. I never felt so exhilarated to go to work as that day. Because work, for the first time, felt like an escape from something worse. It also felt like an escape from my own head, because I was questioning my own sanity. Surely, the whole town couldn���t be in a cult, right?

I cranked up the music on my radio and sang along to a song I normally hated. And I felt good. For a short while, at least.

It stopped when I drove down the road I usually take to leave town to go to work. A nice narrow road meandering through the wooded area, just like the ones you see in horror flicks.

There was a roadblock in the way once I rounded a curve, with a small jam of cars lined up in front of it. Two police cars obstructed the path and there were some officers standing beside them, one of them talking to the driver in the car at the front of the line. My heart sank, plummeting right into my gut region. I could feel my belly pulsing with my accelerated, anxious heartbeat.

I wonder—does everybody get as nervous as I do whenever I see cops nearby? It’s not like I’d ever done anything wrong, but it had always made me nervous. Even under normal circumstances. Even before this weekend.

But today was different. The events of this weekend had multiplied my paranoia—they had mutated it. If this whole town was run by some weird cult, what if the cops were in on it? What if they were looking for me?

Right when one of the cars was let past the roadblock and drove off, I panicked. I steered out of line and made a U-turn, swerving back onto the road with screeching tires and driving off. It took me a few moments to realize in retrospect that this made me grind my teeth and may have been a stupid move, but I started speeding up and driving away.

The trembling started when I saw a cop car show up behind me, half a minute later. They let the siren wail at me for a split second to grab my attention, and used their blinker to signal me to pull over.

With growing dread, I planned to play along, but step on the gas if things went south.

Even with all the adrenaline rushing through my body, and my attempts to stop my trembling by gripping the steering wheel way harder than natural, I gently steered the car as best I could, driving it onto the roadside and letting it roll to a stop. But I kept the engine running.

A police officer emerged from the car behind me and approached. His hand was resting on the gun at his hip and I wondered if my running motor had anything to do with that.

Or because of this damned cult. Or whatever the hell was going on here.

I rolled down my window once he had arrived there and he looked me up and down. My resolve crumpled and I cut the engine as a token of good will.

“License and registration, please?” asked the police officer in a gravelly voice.

His whole posture was rigid, like a statue—his body language tense. So was I.

Remembering what can go wrong in such an encounter, I carefully leaned over to retrieve the documents from my purse and hand them over. I could feel him watching me all the while, and for the first time in days, I felt like someone watching me was the appropriate action, given the circumstances.

I handed the cop my license and papers and he looked them over, his hand now finally away from the gun, and taking off some of the edge. He studied my face after inspecting my ID.

Then he handed back everything.

“Pardon the interruption, ma'am. Have a nice day,” he told me, and swiveled.

Right when he was walking away was when I saw the tattoo on his neck. The eye—staring at me. Almost as if the damned tattoo itself was watching me.

I never believed in the supernatural or UFOs or any such bunk. But my paranoia was really taking me for a ride now, and I questioned everything I believed in.

When I revved up my engine again and drove off, I still felt the officer’s eyes on me.

Anyway, now you know. That’s how—and why—one day, I bounced from that awful little town, leaving all my belongings behind. How I drove halfway across the states, and started a new life after changing my name.

I’d tell you the town’s name so you can avoid it, but I keep seeing that tattoo in my nightmares. In some of them, it’s like people have an extra eye on their body where there shouldn’t be one, in place of that tattoo. Like the skin breaks open and some bloodshot, weird eye stares at me. Always the same eye.

I still feel watched out in public sometimes. Hell, sometimes I even feel like someone’s watching me at home. I know I should talk to a therapist about this, but I’m afraid they won’t believe me. Or worse.

I got an anonymous call from someone telling me not to talk about what I had seen, but I had to get this off my chest, and maybe nothing bad will happen if I don’t tell you where this was.

—Submitted by Wratts

[takadasaiko]

Such Great Heights: Part Thirteen (a Wynonna Earp fic)

FFN II AO3

Part Thirteen

Decisions were a part of life. Good, bad, somewhere in between, Wynonna had made plenty of them. She had decided to pull the trigger that had killed her daddy when she was trying to save him and she had decided to run when she had the chance. She'd decided to travel the world and indulge in whatever caught her fancy at the time and she had decided to come home to pay her respects when her uncle had died. She hadn't decided to become the Heir. No, that choice wasn't hers, but she had decided to fight. She had decided it mattered. Her friends, her family, her town.

Alice hadn't been her choice either, but once she had her there wasn't a thing in the world more important than her little girl, but it had been her decision to give her a chance to live while she fought for her future.

Wynonna had decided to trust Bobo Del Rey. That had been a day she never thought she'd see, but somehow it had worked out. She could still remember the blur of rage and terror when Bulshar had taken Waverly. Doc had said that Bobo had offered her up, and if he had been the one to snatch her or not, he was responsible. Wynonna had raged and she had threatened, ready to storm wherever the hell that demon bastard was and save her sister, but they didn't have the chance. Bobo Del Rey had shown up at Shorty's where they were held up with Waverly in his arms. She had been a little banged up, a concussion from the blow that had knocked them out in their escape the worst of it. All in all she had been alright. Possibly better off than the scowling, twitchy Revenant had been at the time.

It had taken time, but Wynonna and Bobo had learned to trust each other after that. It had been a two-way street of distrust, both chipping away little by little. She'd found out just how deeply those trust issues had run with him over their time working together - stories here and there that he let slip and things she already knew - by how slowly he'd let them in. Wynonna knew just how difficult it was to earn his trust, and now he was asking her to trust him when it came to her other sister.

Wynonna frowned deeply, her gaze meeting that icy blue one that was fixed on her with more focus than he had a right to have. Willa had sought him out and had warned him - well, he called it a warning, she called it a trap - that Alice was in danger. He had a point in that Willa, no matter how clever, had no way to know that Gus had moved out of the Triangle, much less that Wynonna had sent her daughter to her. Bobo hadn't even known that tidbit of information. It was enough to make her uncomfortable, and enough to have her dialing the number as she side-eyed the Revenant who was still staring at her in that infuriating way that said he was judging her for every second she'd wasted arguing him on it. Yeah, no matter how their dynamic changed, she would always find moments when she wanted to shoot the bastard in the face.

"Wynonna?"

The startled sound on the other end of the line pulled Wynonna out of her thoughts and she purposefully turned her back to Bobo. Well, Doc and Waverly's anxious looks weren't any better. She squeezed her eyes shut. "Gus, hey. Weird question, and I swear it's not as weird as it sounds-"

"I got a call from Willa this morning."

Blue eyes popped back open. "Shit."

"Yeah, nice to know your sister is alive… again."

"Yeah, that's just the way the Earps roll. You know that. Please tell me you're not on your way to Purgatory."

"She said you beat Bulshar and that you were in the hospital."

Wynonna felt the knot in her chest tighten. "Gus, you're not bringing Alice, are you?"

"What do you take me for, Wynonna? Of course I'm not bringing your daughter back without knowing for sure. Willa was… strange. Not that talking to a dead woman ain't strange to begin with, but it's not like it hasn't happened before. I hopped on the first flight to the Big City that I could get and I came in alone. Driving in to the Homestead now."

The Earp Heir pulled in a deep breath, steadying herself. Of course Gus had known not to bring Alice in without talking to her first. Gus wasn't an idiot and that's why she'd sent Alice to her to begin with. They could contain this. They could… shit. She looked over to Bobo who was waiting for the outcome of the conversation. "I'll meet you at the house, Gus. Go straight there. You know where the key is hidden. Go in, don't leave the property for anything, you hear me?"

"Wynonna, was that really Willa?"

"It's a long story. I'll tell you when we get there." She ended the call and found all eyes on her now. She pulled in a deep breath. "Gus is on her way to the Homestead. She knew better than to bring Alice without clearing it with me personally."

She thought she saw a small flash of relief in Bobo's eyes. "There ya have it."

"There I have what?" She squared her shoulders as she held his gaze, daring him to push her on this. "All we have is proof Willa tried to hand my daughter over to Bulshar Clootie. That's not exactly a point in her favour."

"You do what you got to to make them believe you."

"Speaking from experience?"

"Yeah," he said, his teeth click shut at the end of the word.

"Trusting Willa or not needs to be tabled," Dolls said from his place and Wynonna had never been more grateful for him putting them back on track. "We need to meet up with Gus, find out exactly what was said and where we are, and then get ready."

"Bulshar's going to move on this," Nicole agreed. "We're on a timeclock from the moment Gus crosses the town line."

"We can use this against him," Bobo murmured.

Dolls grabbed for his gun to holster it and moved to the safe. "Only if we've got a plan that we're all in on," he said pointedly. "Gear up, people. We need to be ready for anything."

He knew there was something wrong the moment he crossed the boundary onto the Homestead. The talisman worked into his ring allowed him to walk the grounds without being tossed off like any other Revenant was a constant reminder against his skin from the moment that his boot touched Earp land. It burned, not enough to be much more than a mild irritation that could be pushed to the back of his mind for more important issues at hand, but it was always there. That evening, as the sun was dropping down below the horizon, there was no irritation, no sign that the talisman was working, but he stood firmly on the Earp side of the fence.

"Bobo?" The others had piled out of the vehicles and had gone on ahead to the house, but he saw his angel stop and turn, watching him carefully when she realized that he hadn't moved with the rest of them.

He didn't answer right away, instead looked down to his hand, flexing his fingers and trying to decide how badly he really needed to commit to testing the theory. He'd been thrown off the Homestead before. It wasn't pleasant, and he would be tossed quite a ways from the drive to the edge of the property, but if the ammolite wasn't working, things were worse than they had imagined.

"What's-"

He motioned, easing himself out of the SUV he'd ridden in. No need to go through the back of the vehicle. He pushed a breath out through his nose, closed his eyes, and wiggled the ring from its place. It came off easily enough and he opened his eyes to take a closer look. Nothing. No reaction. His skin wasn't even red where it had been. "We have a problem."

Waverly's brows drew together before realization seemed to dawn. "Shit," she muttered and Bobo was already moving past her, long legs carrying him up the step and through the front door.

They had beat Gus there, if the lack of rental car outside was any indication, but the others were scurrying in every direction as their movement would somehow distract them from the rising anxiety that was hanging in the air. There were too many unknowns and it was all coming to a point. After so long, this was it, and they weren't ready for it. Not really.

Bobo reached out, his fingers catching old of her arm before she could blow past him. "Wynonna."

The Heir stopped, frustration flashing dangerously through her eyes at being halted, but it eased as she met his gaze. "What?"

"The ammolite's not working," Waverly said from behind him and he watched the older Earp sister's eyes widen just a fraction, readjusting to look at him.

"Are you sure?"

Bobo resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the questions he already knew the answer to. He made a show of removing his ring and wiggling his fingers in front of her.

"Okay… okay, so this had to be done while we were gone this evening, right? You would have noticed it earlier?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. I've been a bit… distracted," he pointed out, hating it even as he admitted to it. There was no use in denying what had been obvious. Between Willa being alive and shooting him and resurrecting, he'd had a few things to vye for his attention in the nearly twenty-four hours.

"But it had to be an Earp that buried the talisman, right?" Waverly asked. "So does that mean Willa would have-"

"Doesn't have to be."

"But when I was a kid, you said…." She snapped her mouth shut and he was at least a little grateful that she wasn't going to make him discuss that particular manipulation, especially with the judgment that always followed one of those conversations. They just didn't have the time for it.

"Just needed to be someone who could get on the land to begin with. Clootie's got a few humans with him. Some brought over that were loyal in the trailer park for the last few years, some that I didn't recognize right away."

"There's a cult that's been waiting for him," Nicole murmured. "Any one of them could have come on if we weren't here."

"I don't guess you can sense the thing," Dolls asked and Bobo shot him a withering look.

Jeremy dropped one of the duffles they'd brought full of firepower from Dolls' safe on the floor. "It's buried, right? It'll be pretty obvious that the dirt's been dug up."

"The Homestead is ten acres," Wynonna argued.

"But they won't have risked comin' in far," Doc countered.

Jeremy nodded enthusiastically. "Right, so we should be able to track it down. Doc and… maybe Bobo? Since you know what it looks like?"

The Revenant gave a huff of acknowledgement before turning to Wynonna. "They're gonna bring the fight here. No other reason for them to have done it."

She nodded, pinching the bridge of her nose. "If the talisman is buried anyway, do you think it's worth bringing in the Revenants still loyal to you just to have the numbers?"

Thin lips twitched downward. "No, I don't trust them that far." He turned, motioning to Holliday and Junior. "We're losing what's left of the daylight."

Bobo shot for the door, tired of wasting time they didn't have. He pulled it open roughly and found a startled Gus McCready standing on the other side of it. She blinked at him, obviously startled by finding Bobo Del Rey in her nieces' home. It didn't take more than half a beat for her to regain her composure and suddenly Bobo was staring down the barrel of a pistol. "What the hell are you doing here?" Gus demanded.

"Trying to put Clootie down permanently," he drawled, pushing the gun out of his face with one finger. "I don't have time for this." He shoved past her, hearing Doc offer up his charms and Jeremy stuttering behind him. It didn't matter. Wynonna would sort out whatever needed to be sorted. Right then, all he could think about was keeping Clootie and the other Revenants off of Earp land until they were able to come up with a plan.

"What the hell is Bobo Del Rey doing in this house?" Aunt Gus demanded as she barreled in, the boys already making their way to the barn for what they'd need to dig up any talisman found, and Waverly saw Wynonna try to wave Gus down.

"He's working with us. It's… complicated."

"You know who that bastard is, Wynonna. The demons answer to him. Everything that's happened to this family… your father, Willa, Curtis. Everyone we've lost has been because of them, and you give him half a chance and he'll hurt that little girl of yours."

It was impossible to put everything into words for someone who hadn't been through it, and Waverly saw her sister trying to find a way to do it. Everything that Wynonna had learned about Robert Svane from her vision question helped to make sense of why Bobo Del Rey would willingly switch sides and choose to fight the Call that Bulshar made to every demonic soul that his curse had dragged back up from the flames of hell with each new Heir coming of age. Waverly had seen it first hand when Bulshar had taken her and Bobo had had to make the choice between allowing him to have her or standing between Clootie and yet another Earp, even if not by blood. He'd chosen the latter when he could find no way around it that would keep Waverly safe and for the first time since she was a little girl, Waverly had felt safe with him. They'd worked together after that and then there was the dream world, which had only deepened those bonds. He was Wynonna and her brother-in-law, even if not in this reality. Some of that lingered, but how were they supposed to explain that to Gus who had only seen the demon?

"He won't." It took Waverly a moment and all eyes turning on her to realize she'd been the one to speak. She swallowed hard. "You haven't been here. You haven't seen what he's been willing to give up or what he has lost to make this happen."

"He's proven himself," Dolls said in a tone that closed the argument. They didn't have time to try to convince Gus of something she would have to see to believe. "Things have escalated since Wynonna talked to you earlier. Were you followed?"

Gus quirked an eyebrow. "From the moment I crossed into the triangle in the Big City to the one where they blew their tire on the back road near the lake. Pretty sure they knew where I was headin' anyway."

Waverly choked on a laugh, imagining Revenants trying to keep up with Aunt Gus and failing miserably.

"But they couldn't see that you didn't bring Alice?" Dolls asked.

Nicole stepped forward, her eyes locking with his darker ones. "What are you thinking?"

"That we need time. Bobo's right. They didn't bury a talisman on the Homestead for kicks. They're planning something, and we need time to prepare. Preferably to find it and throw a wrench in their plan."

"It would make sense for me to just turn around and drive Alice right back out as soon as I got here," Gus offered. "Make 'em chase me."

"Bulshar won't send Revenants like the ones that tried to follow you here, Gus," Wynonna said. "He'll send ones ready to kill."

"I'll go."

All eyes turned on Waverly and the arguments came from all sides. She waved them down, frustrated. "Listen, listen! I may not be an Earp by blood, but this has always been my fight. I'll get them to chase after me, distract them, and it'll give the boys enough time to find the talisman. Nicole or Dolls could even follow in case I need any backup."

"Yeah, no chance you won't need back up. I'm going with you," Nicole said.

Waverly glanced over to Wynonna who was chewing on her lip and looking very unconvinced. "Fine," she huffed at last, stepping forward and pulling her into a hug. "Fine. Just… be careful, baby girl."

"Always."

The Earp Homestead never seemed quite that large until you had to go searching for something. Doc was, anyone would readily admit, an expert tracker, but he had to have a clue to where the Revenants' familiar came in before he could start following the signs of where they had gone.

Jeremy had a map displayed on one of his handheld tablets, and he was running some sort of test that Doc still wasn't quite sure he understood while he and Bobo were scouting out signs of anything recently buried the old fashioned way.

The setting sun was casting shadows, makes me it difficult to see clearly. He squinted hard against it, but every blade of grass that looked bent was shadowed as he moved closer, making it difficult to find the entry point.

"Hank."

Doc looked over, finding Bobo crouched down and examining something. He inched closer to see what looked like dirt turned over by a boot and he frowned. "How the hell did you see that in this lighting?"

A pair of icy blue eyes blinked up at him and he snorted, seemingly amused. "'Spose hell's flames are kinda like laser surgery."

"Well, if nothin' else I walked away from the dream world with a bit more understandin' of this one," Doc chuckled, bending to look at what the Revenant had found. His nimble fingers touched the bent grass and turned dirt, risking a glance up to find sharp eyes watching his progress. Modern oddities weren't the only things that the dream world had helped shed light on, even if some of that understanding only added to the complication.

Doc had never understood what Wyatt saw in Robert Svane in their day. Wyatt had talked about him enough for the ill gunslinger to have recognized the soft spoken man the first time he'd turned up in the saloon - or even the second - with a message from Wyatt, even if he'd made sure that he never let on. It had been bad enough that Doc had been replaced when his health deteriorated, but to be replaced by a mouse of a man like Svane had only added insult to injury. He hadn't given a damn how clever he was or how loyal. He was Doc Holliday. Wyatt had no business replacing him, and when the lanky, bespectacled man had shown up Doc hadn't bothered to curb his own sharp and cutting wit to make damn sure that Robert had known he was nobody of any importance. Just a messenger. Just a passing fancy for Wyatt to take note of and eventually to grow bored of and move on. To prove - both to Svane and to himself - that he was not Doc's replacement.

All the things he had thought he knew about him, all the weaknesses and shortcomings that he had been so certain he read like any good poker player would, hadn't quite been the whole story. He'd gotten to know the Robert in the dream world that Wyatt had spoken so fondly of, and even in a different setting some of the quirks that Wyatt had chuckled over had bled through, leaving Doc with a better understanding. He was calm, but when the situation called for it he was firm. Clever, with a quiet sharp wit, and he was loyal as hell.

"What?" Bobo huffed, stooping down to look at the almost completely forgotten starting point that Doc had been crouched at and the other man realized he had been chuckling to himself.

"Oh, one memory led to another and I find myself thinking about that old bridge cross the river. You know the one not too far outside of Purgatory?"

The Revenant made a small sound of amusement. "The one you jumped off into the water when it was, what? Forty degrees out?"

"You followed me."

He got a smirk on that one. "I wasn't going to let you freeze alone." Then Bobo seemed to catch himself at having slipped into talking about the dream world as if it were still their reality and the smile immediately faded, his lips twitching downward as if for good measure. "What's that got to do with this?"

Doc stood a little, never quite straightening and following the trail. "Not this, directly, just how things make more sense. I never got just what Wyatt saw in you back in our day, or even… why we should trust you here and now. Didn' make a lick of sense."

"Wouldn't expect you to follow it," Bobo answered, his voice a little more closed off again, though if Doc knew him - and he did, better than either of them would have ever thought that he could - the conversation was weighing on him. He looked up, his own blue eyes catching the other man's paler gaze.

"Just mean that I saw your loyalty first hand and it makes more sense now. Here we are."

Bobo swung the shovel he'd been carrying around. "Let's get it up."

Doc turned to holler at Jeremy, but the boy was entranced by his calculations. Not like he'd hear him anyway, so he stepped back over to where the second shovel was leaned against the fence and moved to help dig.

The ground was hard, half frozen, and the only sound between them for a long moment was metal hitting unyielding dirt. Finally Bobo stopped, a low growl escaping him, the words riding out on it. "Wyatt went looking for you."

It took a long moment for Doc to work through the quiet words, replaying them in his head to make sure he'd heard them correctly. Shock shifted abruptly into anger without warning, the realization that Bobo had known that little piece of information for years - all through Doc's time in the well, during their brief and unsteady truce when he'd first gotten out, and on through the alliance that Bobo had made with Wynonna - hitting so hard in was physically painful. He'd known all this time, known what that would mean to him, and he'd purposefully kept it. Well, he supposed that was one way to be reminded that Bobo Del Rey was as different from the Robert Svane he'd befriended in that other world as he could be. "And you're just thinkin' t' mention?"

Bobo shot him a guarded look, pushing a long breath out through his nose. "After I'd been shot, after Clootie was dead… that's Wyatt went lookin' for you."

Wide blue eyes blinked hard and he wasn't sure what to say. The anger hadn't dissipated, but he could hear the pain in the other man's voice and he wondered if the judgement had come sooner than it should have.

The Revenant dug the shovel deep into the hard dirt, his heavy boot pushing it further. "I'd served my purpose, I'd been there with him to kill Clootie, so he went to look for you."

Doc loosed a long sigh. "Why now?" he asked again, though the accusation had washed out of the question.

"Loyalty, I 'spose." The words were soft as a confession in church and Doc felt his own lips twitch upward.

"You're a bastard."

Those eyes were a little more familiar with mischief in them. "And you're an asshole." He stopped, looking down, and he dropped to one knee and started pulling back the chunky, icy dirt with his bare hands. Doc watched as he pulled a string of bones up from their shallow grave. "Well there we have it."

"So now what?"

"Break it, toss it. Should do the trick."

Doc watched long fingers work at the structure of the talisman and pull it apart, moving steadily to the fenceline as he did.

"You got something like that worked into that ring?"

Bobo hummed an affirmation as he pulled back launching the bones out.

"Guys! Guys! We've got a…." Jeremy slammed to a stop as he reached them, looking between them. "Was that… what I thought it was?"

"It was, but it didn't work," Bobo said, his voice low and dangerous, thumb playing with the ring that held his own talisman that let him onto the land.

"So it's not the bones?" Doc asked.

"No, it is. I mean, it has to be," Jeremy managed, half tripping over his own words as he turned his tablet around. "Look, these are all the likely spots that the algorithm gave me at first, right? Then we've got…."

The page shifted and Doc blinked at it in the dimming light as it only took a few away. "Well what's that?"

"That's where it - they - should be."

"They buried more than one."

"Lots more."

"Shit."

"Yeah. Major shit. Very major shit. I don't know if we can get to all of these in time. I mean-"

"We can't," Bobo cut him off and Doc followed his sharp gaze and frowned. They were shadows, but he wagered the Revenant could see them much clearer than he ever could. "They're already here."

Notes: I tend to check on the wordcount at various points while writing a chapter, just to make sure that it's not absurdly long or absurdly short, and I'm glad I did on this one. I expected to be at about 2 - 2.5K when I checked at the end of that last scene and... well there I was at nearly 4.5K lol

Seems like a nice cliffhanger though. I'm super excited to get started on that next scene though. It's going to be a Willa and Waverly scene :D