#Prompt-Out of Service

[hazel-of-sodor]

Day 29-Rise Above

Traintober 2023

Other Stories

Day 29-Out of Service

Rise Above

Henry had almost missed her. He was tired, and more than ready to begin the long trip back to Sodor. The news he was being diverted south and would have to make the climb up the infamous incline had only further exhausted him. She sat on the out-of-use siding, her black paint faded to a dull worn gray. It had been decades since he last saw her, long before his rebuild, but he recognized her nonetheless.

He stopped beside the LBSCR B4, wondering idly if she was the last of her class, and what to say to her.

"Hello Linda." He settled for.

The 4-4-0 looked up in confusion at the Black 5 before her, before her mouth twisted into a smirk, "I know they said I'd go crazy in the sidings but I didn't think it would happen this fast.

Henry scowled at her, "You weren't exactly sane to start with."

She barked out a genuine laugh, "Fair enough Jumbo. Nobody on the North Western was sane."

He went to snap back, but then he thought about it.

 "Fair enough," He grumbled

She smirked at him, "What's wrong Jumbo? Don't tell me you're not happy to see me after all this time?"

He glared at her continued use of the nickname. "You don't exactly bring up happy memories."

She paused, a hurt look on her face, "I never treated you any differently from anyone else."

Henry snorted, "Does that matter when you insult everyone?...well everyone but Thomas."

The 4-4-0 hesitated "How is..."

Henry sighed, 'of course.'

"You're favorite little gremlin has a branchline of his own. If you asked him it's the most important part of the railway."

"Of course it is, they gave it to him after all." She said fondly.

Henry tried not to feel bitter, Linda and Thomas had just clicked, and he knew the tank engine considered the 4-4-0 his big sister.

"And how have you been Jumbo?"

Henry blinked, as he was interrupted in his musings. 

"What?"

Linda rolled her eyes, "How are you?" We were hardly close back then, but we were shedmates?" She looked over his new form slowly, "you look far better than when I last saw you."

"My firebox was too small like you said," he admitted, "they tried me on Welsh coal, but then I had an accident in 34..."

"Hatt had you rebuilt," she said, unable to hide her envy.

"At Crewe... Gordon as well a few years later."

Linda laughed, "Oh I bet the great tosser hated that."

Henry chuffed a small laugh, "he was less than thrilled."

She smiled sharply, "He's gonna hate that you told me."

"That alone makes it worth it."

"He's still that bad?" She chuckled disbelievingly.

"No," Henry admitted. "He's much better now... but he's still Gordon."

"I can imagine," she said, amusement still coloring her tone.

She considered Henry seriously, "It was good seeing you big green." She said genuinely. "I'd thought I'd never see any of you again "

"I enjoyed seeing you again more than I expected."

"It probably helps you're finally whole and strong and I'm in an out-of-use siding." She said dryly.

Henry didn't reply.

She sighed, "Will you do me a favor, Henry?"

Henry raised an eyebrow at her use of his actual name, "go ahead."

"Will you tell Thomas I'm proud of him?"

"Of...of course." 

"Thanks, big green... It looks like your train is ready."

Sure enough, the final cars were being shunted into his goods train back to Sodor.

"See you, Big Green."

"Goodbye, Linda."

He rolled forward, his thoughts whirling. He finally stopped with a sigh, 'Blast it all, I can't leave her.'

The yard manager walked up, "Is everything alright No.3? Your train is ready."

Before his crew could respond Henry spoke, "I'm looking for my banker."

"Your banker?"

Henry raised an eyebrow, channeling as much of Gordon into the expression as he could, "Surely you weren't thinking of sending me up the incline with over 50 trucks without a banker."

"Oh well, you see..."

"You do realize if my train was to stall on the incline, it would delay the traffic for the entire region."

"Yes, but we don't have any engines to spare!" The yard manager blurted out.

Henry's driver thankfully understood and leaned out of the cab, "What about the B4 in the siding?"

The manager blinked, "the 4-4-0? Her fires not even lit!"

"But she could have steam by the time we hit the hill?"

The manager nodded, "Aye...she could. If you can find someone to crew her you can use her, you can send her back with the next train back this way."

Henry's relief crew soon had her fire lit as Henry backed down to couple up to her.

"Big Green?" She said in bewilderment.

"You're helping me up the incline."

"I see you've finally lost what little sense you had?"

Younger Henry would have grit his teeth, thirty years on Sodor meant he just rolled his eyes, "Just hush and come along, I'm not putting up with the little pest moping because you're gone again."

Linda smiled, "Oh big green, you do care." She teased.

"To my great regret," both knew he didn't mean it as he set off with his train and his former shedmate in tow.

A/N: Linda is @mean-scarlet-deceiver's OC, who I have been given permission to use in my AU. This is not their canon ending for her in their 'Quiet Little Island Railway' Au, merely what happens to her in my AU.

[sunlit-mess]

What’s your coziest headcannon regarding RadioApple?

uhm they spoil each other a lot.

[wundrousarts]

With Mogtober around the corner, I wanted to share:

If you want to do more prompts, such as tackle a 31-prompt list for the whole month, or just don’t like the prompts and want to do other ones, I have this spreadsheet that I usually pull the prompt lists from if you want ideas. Or, if you’ve had any Nevermoor ideas for things floating around in your head that you’ve been meaning to get to, you can also just take Mogtober as an opportunity to do that. The main goal is always just to have fun!!

[remaining-head-spirit]

another xinjin post - in a modern-ish setting this time :3c

[francisforever2014]

can the basement they run AI out of collapse already

[poetryorchard]

Feeling the post-NaPoWriMo burnout? Join us for a creative writing workshop inspired by Kiki's Delivery Service! We'll discuss growing up, burning out, hustle culture, and finding your "why" (again)

Sign up here! Our workshops are asynchronous and you are invited to sign up for the materials even if you can't make the live session.

[novadreii]

i just now realized why umbrella academy s4 feels so much worse than its previous seasons. it's trying to be the boys. it's going for shock value which, if you've seen the boys, is not really that shocking. and it's juxtaposing that with a cringefuckfest of an attempt at humor to try and make it a Dark Comedy. but all we have is a show that is trying to be both scandalous and funny at the same time, while failing at both. the writing and acting is so fucking bad! is everyone ok? there are 2 actors i like on this show (those of viktor and five) and even they are kind of lackluster this season? i will have to hatewatch this whole season.

nothing can be the boys a second time. there's better tv out there but the boys really did a good job nailing down dark comedy. in so many ways. it's a hard thing to do and umbrella academy thought it would try to capitalize on the trend without actually studying what makes dark comedy so good. it just feels like a m*rvel movie but with more gore and killing. boo.

[triglycercule]

aint no fucking way i just saw a fic on ao3 of nightmare and killer HOW DO I EVEN EXPLAIN THIS making their own ARMY of children???? i didn't even read the damn fic i was too outraged and confused (concerned?????) BUT WHAT? WHAT? EXCUSE ME? WHAT?????? A GENETIC ARMY OF CHILDREN? HOW MANY DO THEY EVEN HAVE IN THE FIC. HOW DO THEY CARE FOR ALL OF THEM. WHY WOULD THIS BE CONSIDERED A FEASIBILE PLAN. just kidnap a sans bro,,,,,,, 😭😭😭😭😭

[radioactivepeasant]

Snippets: Jak and Daxter Thursday Part 2

(As promised, the Less Angsty Part.)

The onlookers all seemed to think Jak had slipped out of the Precursor craft at the last moment. That was just fine with him: it meant no one had seen him teleport out, carrying Damas into the tower. Leaving him there had been terrifying -- even if the monks in the Convalescence Ward had believed him to be a Precursor himself, and vowed to care for Damas with a reverence that made him sick, it was hard to trust his father's care to others. But he had appearances to keep up, just as his other self had warned him. All he could do was focus on his next steps.

Sig had taken the throne as interim regent in Jak’s place, as while he was more than capable of satisfying the battle requirements of a Spargan king, he wasn't yet of age. That was a mercy, but Jak knew Sig loathed the role. Damas had been like an elder brother to him from the moment he staggered through the gates of Spargus seeking refuge. Sitting in his place felt as wrong for him as it did for Jak.

Jak turned a tired smile to Daxter, who met it with a knowing look. Tess raised her brows at Daxter, but he tiptoed to whisper in her ear that he'd explain later. Jak clapped a hand to Keira's shoulder in camaraderie as he passed, and she returned it in kind with a light squeeze.

There was a pain in her eyes Jak remembered too well. Everything had come out in bits and pieces from the moment Haven had traded Jak to Damas, and Keira almost regretted digging for answers. Learning that a beloved parent was capable of such thoughtless cruelty to someone else's child "for the greater good"- well. They'd had their fights, but Jak wouldn't have wished that feeling on her even if she'd joined the Krimzon Guard.

"J- sorry, Mar."

Jak managed a bittersweet smile. "For you, I can still be Jak."

Keira bit her lip and looked skyward for a moment, blinking rapidly until she had her facial expression under control.

"...okay. Jak, I'm...I'm going to denounce him. To think that all that time, he knew- I. I don't think I'll ever- it's like I woke up and someone replaced my dad with a complete stranger."

"We never blamed you for any of it," Jak answered earnestly. "Spargus won't hold it against you if you don't denounce him. We all answer for our own choices."

Keira blinked hard again, and nodded. "And this is my choice. I'm choosing you and Daxter this time. Like I wish I had before."

Jak reached up to squeeze her hand. "...thanks, Keira. We...I missed you."

"I missed you too, Jak." Keira let go to fold her arms across her middle. "Can we start over?"

Swallowing down a lump in his throat, Jak nodded. "I- yeah- yeah we- that sounds good."

Keira offered a wan smile, then let him go. It felt like torture, climbing the last few platforms to the balcony. Sig was there, but so was Samos. And so was Onin. And while Jak knew they were only there because Sig wanted them within firing range if they tried something, it made him hesitant to continue forward. He didn't want to be anywhere near the people who had known about Veger's plot and blithely co-opted it for their own uses.

"Jak, m'boy! Well done!" Samos chortled merrily, wearing that grandfatherly air Jak had always fallen for before.

Not anymore.

"I'm not "your" anything." Jak stepped past him in a hurry. He didn't trust himself not to snap if he remained within arm's reach of the sage.

Sig rose from the throne and held an arm out to him with an understanding look.

"Mar," he said softly.

He clasped arms with Jak, and nodded solemnly.

"I'm proud of you, kid. Your- Your father would be proud."

"He is," Jak answered softly. Then he pulled Sig down to his level by the shoulder to whisper in his ear, "Dax is going to take over the diplomacy stuff down here. Meet me in the C-Ward upstairs."

Sig straightened and frowned down at him. "What'd you do, cherry?" he murmured.

The smirk Jak gave him in reply was so grim he could have sworn it was Damas who stood before him once more.

"I shaped my own fate, like my father taught me."

For a long time, Sig just looked at him. Then he shook his head. "Boy, if I didn't already know you did impossible things-"

The Convalescence Ward was a hive of activity the instant Jak stepped through the door. He frowned. The light eco should have rewound the crushed bones and organs almost perfectly! Doubtless his father would be sore a while, and Jak hadn't been able to fully repair the broken leg before running out of eco, but that wouldn't warrant this much fuss, would it? He opened his mouth to ask what the problem was, and a senior monk rushed to him.

"Young prince! Your father-! He- he-!"

Irrational thought it was, anxiety twisted in Jak’s stomach. "What about my father? What are you talking about?"

The old woman took him by the hand, a slightly disturbed awe wavering in her voice.

"He lives! Your father lives, Mar!"

Relief washed over him, and with it, the events of the last 48 hours that he'd been shoving to one side.

"Let me see him," he said urgently.

"I...must warn you first, Mar," the monk cautioned, and Jak's stomach flipped again.

"He is...changed. The Precursors returned him from the edge of death -- by hand! No mortal can experience such a thing and remain unaltered."

Ah. Just the normal "Mystical Whooo Crap", as Pecker called it.

"I've seen that kind of thing before. I'm not afraid," Jak assured the monk. "Please. Just take me to him, Ruma."

Damas was awake now -- he hadn't been when Jak had seen him last. One leg -- the still broken one -- lay propped up where monks could splint it. Dark blue shapes twisted and curled under the skin, as if lights were shooting through his veins. The rest of him looked strangely normal for having just been yanked back from the edge of death. The monks not splinting his leg quickly backed away from the bed as Jak approached.

It had worked. The timeline was closed now, and Damas lived.

Like a puppet with its strings cut, Jak dropped to sit in a heap on the edge of the cot. He fumbled for Damas’s hand and held it to his chest as he let out a shaky breath.

"You're here," he croaked.

"I'm here," Damas repeated, almost confused. Then his face split into a wide smile. "I'm here."

Jak blinked. Something wasn't quite right about his father's face. Something about his eyes was a little brighter than he recalled. And the teeth...Too many? Too few? Too sharp? His mind couldn't decide for a few seconds before the bones in question seemed to settle into a fairly standard -- if unusually sharp -- set of human teeth.

A memory of his own face, saturated with both light and dark eco, rose to Jak’s mind, and an uncomfortable thought followed on its heels.

Had he altered his father's physical form by healing him in the Precursor craft?

Further speculation was cut short when Damas pulled his hand free to tap playfully against Jak’s cheek.

"You once pushed a chair in front of the door -- a toddler's chair, mind you now -- because you thought it would keep me from going to work without you. You never could stand being left behind, could you?"

He sounded like he wasn't certain whether he was more amused or annoyed.

So much pain, so much loss, and here they all were at the end of it all, still standing. So to speak. The exhilaration of not being the only one left to tell the tale filled him with a heady feeling he would later come to recognize as joy.

With a giddy laugh, Jak threw himself forward and into Damas’s chest.

"We did it!" he crowed, "We did it, we did it!"

Damas’s arms folded over his back, and his chest vibrated with a soft chuckle.

"So it would seem! Though how I'm to explain this, I'm not certain."

"So just don't explain," Jak snorted, "and let them come to their own conclusions."

He ducked away from the hand tweaking his ear with a laugh.

"And let someone start some crackpot theory about our already bizarre bloodline?" Damas feigned offense. "That sounds like a terrible idea!"

"Terribly clever, I agree."

Damas lightly thumped Jak over the head. "Impudent little- When I get out of this cast, I oughta-"

Finally seeing an opportunity, a monk gracefully interrupted. "My lord, your leg requires time and watchfulness to heal correctly. You must leave it immobile for at least two weeks until we know what the eco is doing in your bloodstream."

She turned and nodded respectfully to Jak. "I trust you will keep the injury well tended-to?"

Jak slid over to occupy the space between Damas and the small nightstand. He leaned back against the wall beside his father and nodded back.

"Don't worry, he's not going anywhere. I'll make sure of that."

"This is elder abuse," Damas complained, just as lighthearted and almost giddy as his son. "You can't make me stay in bed! That's mutiny!"

"No," Jak retorted with a broad grin, "That's what happens when Sig gets here and finds out you're alive!"

"Argh, you're right!" Damas slipped an arm around Jak’s neck in half a hug, half a headlock. "And then I'd have to contend with Daxter!"

Jak gently poked Damas in the side with a smug grin. "Daxter? No no, Tess is the one you should be afraid of."

Damas flung his other hand into the air in mock exasperation. "Rot me, it's a conspiracy! I'm outnumbered!"

When the monks had finally taken the hint to leave the pair alone to catch up, Damas sobered slightly. "You know we'll probably have to make a plan for if the Precursors choose to retaliate for this."

Jak's eyes danced with mischief. "What're they gonna do without their technology? They're as powerless as Veger!"

Damas raised a brow -- no, Jak hadn't imagined it, there was something weird about his eyes now. The pupils weren't supposed to have little points of light like stars, were they? Not for humans.

"Alright cub, what did you do?"

"What did Daxter do," Jak corrected, deciding to deal with the possibility of his father gaining a Light Form later. "He confiscated the old one's staff, and then made them drop the ship with the Precursor we hatched from the Stone last year. Because they weren't being responsible with time and space."

Considering the young Precursor had been sitting on the beach that would one day hold Sandover Village, happily building elaborate sandcastles in lieu of blueprints, Jak had a feeling the new owner of the time machine would have fewer agendas to push. And given how the glowing being had greeted them as "My friend Mar" and "little Scout-brother", perhaps subsequent timelines would be kinder to his family. The other ottsels' horror and chagrin boded well, anyway.

[justyourtypicalwriter]

I've randomly thought this just now for some reason so here i come to you for answers :3

Is Sparky in the service dog au? And, if he is, what relationship do he and Delta have?

Omg I love Sparky so much

So I like to canonically think that Sparky is roughly three at the beginning of the show which makes him five by the time season twenty six happens.

The age range of when the kids start getting their dog is 14-15, Stan is fourteen when he gets Delta so that makes Sparky nine (Delta is two and a half).

The two get along quite well from the start. When Deltas off duty they wrestle and chase each other around outside. And at night they both lay on-top of Stan and smother the fuck out of him.

And y’all know I have to angst on any post I make, when Stan was seventeen she searched around the house, confused looking for Sparky after he’d died. And that just really fucked Stan over, having to watch that right after he’d lost the dog he had for twelve years.

ANYWAYS THOUGH, a little fun fact for you: Sparky was originally what started the au. But then I realized it didn’t really make a lot of sense and began developing the lore more. So everyone say thank you for inspiring Cloudeds goofy ass sp au Sparky!

[bisonaari]

eh, i've been trying to draw for inktober, but my hands are killing me and the prompts aren't really giving me any idea that I'd like to draw, urgh. so i'm giving up on days 6 and 7, we shall see what I can manage for the rest of the month!

[barnstormin-a]

alright lets try this again ! tags 2: electric boogaloo

[deathbind]

I think in Act One Serot has had his bond with Refhremmit pinged by the tadpole situation, and they're trying to reach out. Serot's memories start coming back, though they're difficult to parse. The problem is probably that the memories from multiple lifetimes are trying to resurface / getting all jumbled together. I think this results in once or twice a memory coming back in full and slamming him so hard that he accidentally tadpole connects with whoever's nearby and drags them into it. Presumably this can be resisted by passing a wisdom check.

Encountering the sussur blooms in the Underdark really knocks him on his ass. He suddenly gets slammed back into his lifetime as Neheb. He needs the rest of the journey through the Underdark to sit with everything, but by the end, his lifetime as Serot has also come back into clarity. His bond with Refhremmit gets tuned up, too. Now they can communicate clearly. Well, the distance probably poses a problem, but [hand waves]

Act Two I think is very difficult for him. It's not just contending with his memories resurfacing or learning Meresankh wasn't destroyed almost 2,000 years ago or that the shadow-cursed lands were tailor made to piss him off. I think, because the Negative Energy Plane went into creating the Shadowfell and he draws on / is especially attuned to that plane, he is thus doubly susceptible to the shadow-curse. Selune's Blessing + the Moonlantern do work for him, but he is looking physically ill the longer they stay there. His HP actually drops over time and can't be healed until the curse is lifted. He begins to look dead / undead over time as well. I think we're looking at constant migraines and increasing lethargy as well. Again, this heals up when the curse is lifted and they have time away from the shadow-cursed lands on the way to Baldur's Gate, but it's not a fun time while they're there.

On the plus side, he found a lead on an agent of Meresankh: Mystic Carrion. Balthazar was probably in communication with him, idk. I think . . . Carrion has some important relic of Meresankh's. Serot can consume it, which strengthens his bond to them. He can destroy it, which dampens their bond (and consequently his bond with Refhremmit; the two began to twine together after Neheb's death). Or he can simply take it, which will allow him to research how to dissolve the bond.

[caterpillarinacave]

[pizza-is-my-buziness]

For the word prompts:

Scars - Sam/Deena

Break my heart! :D

Okay anon! This prompt has been hanging out in my inbox for a while because I couldn't figure out how to fill it in an angst-y way because you all know I pretty much live on fluff alone. So I did my best here...not sure it falls into the "break my heart" category or that it turned out how you wanted but maybe it will fill a little bit of that for you!

“What are you in some kind of secret society of something?”

The question is asked around a snort of laughter and as the guy, whose name is Calvin or Dalvin or something like it, presses his thumb against Sam’s palm and for a second she’s too surprised to do anything but let him. Judging by the glassiness in his eyes and the red Solo cup in his hands, Calvin/Dalvin/Alvin has had more than a little bit to drink, much like most of the people at the party that had stopped being the super-fun-awesome-time her roommate swore it would be about an hour ago. Apparently he’s crossed the threshold where touching strangers’ scars is an acceptable thing to do.

“I…” Sam looks at her hand in his, seeing, for just a moment, what he must be: the thin, silvery scar that bisects her palm, the result of a dozen possible causes including, apparently, the type of rituals that involve bloodletting and mysterious pacts. It’s strange to look at the scar and not see it for what it is: her hand in Deena’s on the floor of the dirty girls’ bathroom, trying to keep herself from trembling so that Deena could cut a straight, clean line.

Sam pulls her hand away, curling her fingers against the skin. “It’s-”

She’s stopped from the impulse to answer by the feeling of a hand against the small of her back and, thankfully, this touch isn’t from another stranger who has opted into the touching people portion of the night but from Deena, who has been gone for five minutes that have suddenly felt like an eternity and she’s holding the refill for the drink Sam no longer wants.

“Hey.” Deena’s eyes cut toward Alvin or whatever his name is, the sort of guarded sharpness in her gaze that is slowly starting to fall away now that they’re out of Shadyside, except in moments like this. “All good?”

Sam nods and wonders if Deena can tell that she’s hedging her bets a little with that answer. “Calvin was just telling me about his major.” At least he had, before he’d noticed the scar on her palm.

The guy frowns, looking genuinely hurt. “It’s Alan.”

Whoops.

Deena looks at her and lifts her eyebrows and Sam smiles, genuinely, in response to the entire conversation that she can hear in just that expression, in the quirk of Deena’s brows and the hint of a smirk on her face. It’ll be different, later, when she and Deena are alone together and it’s Deena who is tracing the scar there, when they’re laughing about Allen and the party and the wild absurdity of it all.

But for now, it’s easier for Sam to relax into the touch against the small of her back, the kind of easy contact that girls thankfully seem to get away with all the time, the kind of thing that no one looks twice at during a party like this or somewhere far, far from Shadyside. Deena passes over the drink and Sam takes it even though she has no intention of drinking anymore tonight, not when it suddenly seems like a much better idea to just slip out with Deena instead.

“Whoa.” Alan squints and he might be drunk but apparently still has the observational power of Sherlock Holmes. “You have one too.”

He makes a grab for Deena’s hand but she pulls back quickly and with enough force that Sam worries that’s about to deck Alan first and just ask questions later. Thankfully, Deena seems to think better of this impulse, glowering instead.

“Seriously,” Alan says with all the wherewithal of the very drunk. “You are a secret society, right?” He points toward Deena’s palm and Sam can see the moment where confusion turns to understanding and Deena’s body tightens, her fingers curling against her palm to hide away the scar. “What happened?”

Sam glances toward Deena, who just tightens her jaw. “Killed the sheriff and stopped the Devil,” she says and then bumps Sam’s shoulder with her own, nudging her. “Let’s go.”

It seems unlikely that Alan will remember this conversation tomorrow, or if he does it might be in enough jumbled pieces that it will make about as much sense as anything else destined to happen to him before the sun comes up, but it’s still worth it to see the expression of complete confusion on his face at Deena’s words, how he looks almost like he believes them, just a little bit.

Sam follows in the wake Deena is cutting through the living room, offering no objection when she points them toward the door instead and away from the crush of bodies and the surging music crackling from too big speakers. Outside, there are a few people milling about on the frat house’s questionably stable porch, and a few guys trying to play Frisbee by moonlight and drinking every time someone misses the pass -which likely accounts for the amount of missing and drinking taking place. It’s quieter anyway and Sam feels like she can breathe a little easier, away from the sticky heat of so many people packed into one place, and the music making her ears ring, and the people who grab her without her permission.

They sit on the front steps, far enough away from the other groups of people that it feels, for a moment at least, that it’s just her and Deena and the darkening night. Sam sets her drink aside, elbows on her knees and half her attention on the messy game of Frisbee going on.

“Are you okay?” Deena’s shoulder presses into hers to punctuate the question and support the answer.

Exhaling, Sam glances down at her palm, the only scar from those days in Shadyside that she can see all the time without even trying. She studies it sometimes during lectures when she’s supposed to be taking notes or filling her head with all the knowledge that will supposedly hand her the keys to the universe, to the world beyond the one she’d grown up in. Or sometimes she catches herself rubbing at the scar absently, scratching some phantom itch, as she walks to classes, one face among many and no one suspecting that place she’d come from or the truth of the things she’d seen. She could be anyone here, but one sight of the scar drops her right back into those moments when she wasn’t anyone at all.

Deena covers her hand with her own and Sam looks up, surprised, a smiling already sliding, slow and easy, across her face. Sometimes when she reaches for Deena’s hand, she imagines the scars then too, both out of sight but mirrored, lined up and pressed together.

“We could come up with a cool story, you know,” Deena remarks, managing, as she always seems to do, to read the thoughts running through Sam’s mind.

Sam presses her lips together. “Better than stopping the Devil?”

Deena leans back against the stair behind them, stretching out her legs. “Yeah, good point. That is pretty hard to beat.”

“For you,” Sam points out, and she’s teasing. Mostly. “At least you have a cool story. I was just the bait.”

“Not bait,” Deena corrects, lifting Sam’s hand and kissing the scar lightly, the way Sam thinks she doesn’t even realize that she does so often when they’re alone, when she reaches for Sam’s hand and kisses it, always on the scar first before moving toward her wrist, her knuckles, the tips of her fingers.

Or, Sam thinks with a shiver, here on this frat house porch, how Deena kisses the spot on her shoulder, replacing the feeling of steel in her mind with the butterfly light sensation of Deena’s lips. The press of Deena’s open-mouthed kisses more than makes up for the memory of the axe, especially when it comes on the tail-end of yet another nightmare featuring the Shadyside High hallway.

“Little bit,” Sam says, turning her wrist enough that her thumb brushes lightly against Deena’s lips, a poor substitute for the kiss she wants to press there instead. Still, Deena’s lips quirk slightly, her eyes darkening in the faint light spilling out from the windows. “But I guess that’s okay. Better than being in some kind of blood-letting secret society, right?” She looks at her palm, flexing her fingers to stretch the skin and pull the scar taunt, not that that ever truly erases it.

There are moments when she looks at Deena’s hands, when she feels the soft ridge of the scars there as they move across the small of her back or the xylophone of her rib cage and she sees the beauty in them, the memory of what they survived rather than what they lost. Moments where she thinks, with a sting of guilt, that she got off easy.

“I guess it depends on the society,” Deena teases, and, as though reading through Sam’s thoughts once more, she takes her hand again and the warmth and weight of her palm hides everything else away. “If it was a cool one, then it might be okay.”

Sam smirks. “I’m not sure I want to know what you would consider cool.”

“I am very cool,” Deena assures her smugly. “And I have great taste.”

Off Sam’s dubious expression and the noncommittal hum she makes, Deena just fixes her with a look. “I like you, don’t I?”

Sam huffs out a breath, rolling her eyes. “You can’t win every argument like that.”

Deena shrugs. “I mean, it’s worked out pretty well so far.”

Sam can feel the press of Deena’s scar against her own when Deena reaches for her hand in order to pull her close enough to kiss and then she doesn’t feel anything beyond the beating of her heart.

[silhouettecrow]

365 Days of Writing Prompts: Day 209

Adjective: Voracious

Noun: Churchyard

Definitions for those who need/want them:

Voracious: wanting or devouring great quantities of food; having a very eager approach to an activity

Churchyard: an enclosed area surrounding a church, especially as used for burials