#already had some edgy kid tell me “can I kick his stomach?” on another one of my art posts for the LOVE OF GOD

[be4utiful4byss]

Hey, so I’ve always had these thoughts of wanting to have a child and, y’know, be pregnant and stuff. It’s not at all a sexual thing, but I decided to draw out my own thoughts—

“Do you like mpreg? Genuinely?”

[venusloveslobotomies]

Pyromania (Bucky x Reader) 8

   Summary: (Winter Soldier-Endgame Insert) You’re an enhanced HYDRA agent who negotiated her way out of being a weapon. You’re now the nurse/ aid of the Winter Soldier. You end up escaping with him and follow him in and out of danger while slowly developing feelings for each other.   Words: 3000+ (approx)   Chapter: 8/?   Part 7

  When I wake up, I’m on the ground somewhere. I sit up way too quickly and I almost pass out again immediately. Some kind of warehouse or… something. I remember falling and hitting the water and then… nothing. Behind me someone moves and I spin around, only to find Bucky waking up. His arm is caught in a sort of vice.   I move forwards and wrap my hands around his face, muttering apologies in Russian. His free hand traps mine there. I press my lips softly to his forehead. He starts trying to get up and I hear Sam’s voice for a moment and then footsteps. I turn around and see Rogers and Wilson approaching us cautiously. 

   “Steve,”    “Which Bucky am I talking to?” He’s clearly uneasy.    “Your mom’s name was Sarah,” He pauses before chuckling, “You used to wear newspapers in your shoes,”    “Can’t read that in a museum,” Steve smirks a bit.    “Just like that, we’re supposed to be cool?”    “I dropped him,” The two men look to me, “Used the fail-safe. It’s not even written down in his files. Say a word, he drops unconscious and switches out of it,” They nod but still seem unsure.    “What did I do?” Bucky manages to get out.    “Enough,”    “Oh god. I knew this would happen,” His voice breaks a little and so does my heart, “Everything HYDRA put inside me is still there. All he had to do is say the goddamn words,”    “Who was he?”    “I don’t know,”    “The bombing, the setup… The doctor did all that just to get 10 minutes with you. I need you to do better than ‘I don’t know’”    “Hey! Ok. That’s enough. Give him a fucking break!” I stand up.    “N/N, don’t,”    “He’s been through hell and back. He wakes up and you’re already interrogating him. Maybe back off a little!” My voice has been rising in volume and I find myself standing directly in front of Steve, “I’m not scared of you. And unlike my soldier, I don’t have any issues with hurting you to deal with you!”    “Y/N, stop,” I whirl around, “He’s just trying to help us,” I huff, debating whether it was worth punching his face but decide against it and march back to Bucky’s side and crouch beside him, “He wanted to know about Siberia. Where I was kept. He wanted to know exactly where,”    “Well, fuck,” I mutter quietly. Only one reason anyone would want to go there.    “Why would he need to know that?”    “Because I’m not the only Winter Soldier,”

  Watching Soldat train was certainly not my favorite activity. It was stressful and I disliked the other supersoldiers. One in particular was very aggressive.   Today was no exception. The rest of the nurses and I stood by on benches next to our soldiers. I stood with Konstantinov, Soldat’s current handler. Watching a pair of them compete in hand-to-hand, I bounced slightly on my toes. Soldat gave me a look but I ignored him.   I was getting nervous as Soldat started to spar with the angry one. I held my breath as they fought. The other one managed to get a grip on his arm and then kicked him across the room. He landed next to me after hitting the wall.    “You’ll have to do better,” Konstantinov scoffed, “Good work,” He directed towards the other one.   I bent down and pressed my palm to his cheek before he stood up. While the other one’s nurse took his heart rate, he slammed the poor guy onto the ground after breaking his arm.   One of the guards hit him with a stick but it hardly did anything. Konstantinov cocked his gun, “Soldat, get me out of here,” I followed them out of the room while the other soldiers turned on the guards and the nurses. We ended up in a safe part of the facility while the others were sedated.

   “Who were they?”    “Their most elite death squad. More kills than anyone in HYDRA history,”     “And that was before the serum,” I add, shaking my head.    “They all turn out like you?” Sam seemed edgy now,    “Worse,”     “The doctor,” Steve asked, “Could he control them?”    “Enough,”    “Said he wanted to see an empire fall,”     “With these guys he could do it,” I stand up, “They speak 30 languages, can hide in plain sight, infiltrate, assassinate, destabilise. They can take a whole country down in one night, you’d never see them coming. We were taught the same things too, the enhanced,”    “This would have been a lot easier a week ago,” Sam says to Steve.   They release his arm from the vice, still talking.    “If we call Tony-”    “No, he won’t believe us,”    “Even if he did, who knows if the Accords will let him help?” I turn my focus back to Bucky, who’s trying to calm down again. I run my fingers through his hair and remind him to breathe.   We end up in a really old car, squished in. We were flown to Germany for whatever reason. I’ve relaxed my head against Bucky’s shoulder and when we stop I see that blue-haired girl, Selene, step out of a different car to meet Steve.   After a few minutes of chatting and what-not, they kiss and I smile a bit. Steve seems nice, I can understand why she’s into him. Yeah, he’s pretty but he’s not my Soldat.   He tosses his shield and something else in the back before we drive to the airport.

  We park and get out. I’m on high alert, definitely not liking the parking lot. We meet a man and a young woman climbing out of a white van. They greet Steve while Buck and I lean on the car.   I run my hands over his face softly, knowing a fight is coming. He leans his head into it and my heart skips a beat. I touch his cheekbones, the tip of his nose, his lips. I sigh a little before dropping my hands to my side.   I focus on another guy who’s stepped out. He seems… Weird. I shrug it off and the girl waves at me. I wave back but jump a little when Bucky says loudly,    “We should get moving,”     “We’ve got a chopper lined up,” The first guy tells us. Over the intercom, a voice tells passengers to evacuate in German.    “They’re evacuating the airport,” I say thoughtfully. That’s not good.    “Stark,” Sam sighs.    “Suit up,” Steve instructs everyone. Bucky and I don’t exactly have much so he pulls on the leather jacket from our bag that Selene retrieved and I yank on the harness and my fireproof long sleeve and make do with my baggy jeans. I grip his hands while he mentally prepares himself to fight. 

 Steve runs out alone to the helicopter but is quickly intercepted by Iron Man. Cool. This will go down well. I keep count as more arrive. Another ‘Iron Man’ who arrived with Stark. The same one who stopped us in Romania. The man in the cat suit who I now know as King T’Challa. Natasha and another girl with pink hair. Some strange younger boy in a suit. He takes Steve’s shield with some sticky web stuff. I’m not a fan of that.   I move to sit with Wilson and Bucky while they scout for their Quinjet. Sam finds it quickly enough and lets Rogers know.   Immediately Lang and Barton initiate combat and the three of us start sprinting towards the jet. The kid hits the window as we’re running.    “What the hell is that?” I laugh at Bucky’s face, a mixture of confusion and horror.     “Everyone’s got a gimmick now,” Sam rolls his eyes and runs faster. I know he’s struggling to keep up with our pace. I find it difficult already to slow down enough for Bucky, let alone a normal person.   The kid busts through the window and kicks Sam. Hard. I skid to a stop and Bucky turns around to punch him but the spider-kid catches it.    “You have a metal arm? That is awesome, dude!” Ok, that’s disturbing. How did he not go flying? I can see Bucky trying to work that out as well before Sam grabs the kid and continues to fly through the airport.   I’m still standing there when Bucky practically throws me over his shoulder and starts running again.     “Put me down, suka!” I hit his back but he still keeps a grip on me. He does drop me a few seconds later though and flings a huge chunk of… something at the kid. He pulls me behind a pillar. He looks back to check if he hit.    “Hey buddy, I think you lost this!” The hunk of metal comes flying back at us and Bucky throws himself on top of me. I shove him off, ready to set the kid on fire when Sam starts fighting him again.   Bucky grabs my harness and starts dragging me. I see Wilson hit the floor and then get stuck to a railing. Bucky seems to forget he’s got me in tow when he flings himself in front of Sam to protect him from the kid kicking him. We all hit the ground and I’m momentarily unaware of what happens. I see Bucky’s metal arm trapped to the ground with more of that nasty web stuff but I’m too dizzy for it to make much sense.     “You couldn’t have done that earlier?”    “I hate you,” Wilson groans. I sit up but I’m overcome by a wave of nausea. Fuck. I’m definitely concussed. I know I can push through the effects of it but for the moment I just sit there, trying to hang on to whatever remains in my stomach.    “Sunny? Sunshine? Y/N!” I jolt and realise Bucky’s been yelling at me. I wave my hand before jumping up and throwing up somewhere behind a wall.    “I’m good. Let’s get out of here,” I groan. Now that that’s done, I’ll be fine. Bucky’s not having any of it though. He holds his hand out and I begrudgingly allow him to hoist me onto his back, “You’re slow enough without me,” I grumble.    “I lift 400 pounds. You’re nothing,” We start running again and make it outside, meeting Steve and the others. We stop abruptly when some floating figure cuts a line in front of us. Great! Another issue.     “Captain Rogers. I know you believe what you’re doing is right but for the collective good, you must surrender now,” I slide off of Bucky’s back.    “What do we do, Cap?” Wilson mutters.    “We fight,” We all move forward to meet them, jogging, then breaking into a run.   I lock eyes with the pink-haired girl. I meet her and get a good grip on her, trying to wrap my arms around her neck. I’m aware of Bucky on my right, locked in battle with T’Challa. She’s really good at hand-to-hand combat though, and definitely stronger than me. My agility makes me a good match though, and we lose and gain position often. Her fight pattern is uncomfortably familiar and I can’t help but wonder why I recognize it. She jerks away quickly when I grab her hands, which have gripped my harness. I feel their heat and I know I can’t control it for much longer. I use that to backsault out of it and run towards Bucky.   He gets thrown into the side of a box and is clearly winded. T’Challa moves to strike him and I put all my energy into sprinting into him. I slam into his whole body and send him flying. Wanda, the girl who waved at me in the car park, catches him with her weird magic stuff and throws him through a plane tunnel. I salute her before yanking Bucky to his feet.   He’s a little bit out of it so I use all my strength to pull him along, as fast as I can go. Steve meets us and we stop for a moment.    “We gotta go. That guy’s probably in Siberia by now,” He’s panting. Hard.    “We gotta draw out the flyers,” Steve responds.    “I’ll take Vision, you get to the jet,”    “No, you get to the jet. The three of you,” Sam calls in over the comms. Clint agrees.    “Alright, Sam, what’s the play?”     “We need a diversion. Something big,” I consider sending myself to a plane or one of the buildings to blow it up.    “Don’t,” Buck grips my wrist so hard I think for a moment he might break it,   “You’re not playing kamikaze again,” I nod, but still consider it.    “I got something kinda big, but I can’t hold it very long,” Lang says over the comms, “On my signal, run like hell. And if I tear myself in half, don’t come back for me,”    “He’s gonna tear himself in half?” Bucky shakes his head. We all wait for a moment.   Lang transforms until he’s huge. Like. Bigger than the planes, “You go ahead. We can catch up,” Buck breathes in my ear. I almost shake my head but the look he gives me scares me a little. And that’s saying something. I nod but quickly press my lips to his.     “Run fast,” I whisper.    “I guess that’s the signal,” Rogers is still staring at Scott.   I take off running, knowing no one will catch me. I don’t look back, no matter how much I want to. I hear burning behind me and realise I’m running on flaming feet. That might be cool and all, if it was because of how fast I was running. But the truth is simply that I’m upset and worried about my Soldat.   I reach the jet and skid to a stop. I try to put out the flames but I’m getting myself more and more worked up the more I try to extinguish them.     “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I stamp my feet. My hands are also burning.   I hear a crashing and see a building coming down over the entrance to the hangar. I rush to reach Steve and Bucky, who are just about to reach me when it stops. Wanda is holding it, barely. Something happens and she has to let it go but Steve and Bucky make it in. I fling myself at my soldier and his arms wrap tightly around me, picking me up and carrying me into the jet. My feet and hands must’ve gone out.   Steve starts it up and we fly out of the hangar. Bucky collapses to the ground, still holding me so hard I can hardly breathe. I don’t care though and knot my fingers into his hair.      “Breathe, doll. You need to breathe,” He whispers into my ear as I fight down sobs. I’m not sure why I’m so upset now. Of all the times to be upset. I must look insane, my eyes are wide, staring straight into his. It’s the sight of those striking blue eyes that make my heart flutter.   His hand reaches for my face and I allow him to brush back my hair and stroke my cheek. I calm down enough to feel us speed up. We must have Stark and the other guy on our tail. Bucky settles himself in a seat and straps himself in. I sit on his lap and try to calm the anxiety in my chest.   We fly for an hour before I start to relax. I find a first aid kit and deal with Bucky’s cuts. I make a fuss over the tiniest things and he allows me. Normally he’d brush me off and try to make me sit down but he must think it’s better to allow himself to be fussed over again. I finally finish and my hands are still shaking.   Why I’m on edge, I’m not sure.

Bucky

  “Kang Y/N,” She freezes, startled at the use of her full name. She locks eyes with Bucky, “You are going to be fine,” He knows that it’s because they’re returning to Siberia. To where both of them were held against our will. She shakes her head and sits down across from him, “What’s going to happen to your friends?”    “Whatever it is…” Steve’s voice breaks a little, “I’ll deal with it,”    “I don’t know if I’m worth all this, Steve,” He sighs. She exhales and buries her face in her hands.    “What you did all those years. It wasn’t you,” Steve is quiet when he says it but there’s a weight behind his words, “You didn’t have a choice,”    “I know. But I did it,” She stands up.    “Shut up,” Bucky opens his mouth but snaps it shut when he sees her face. It’s dark, her eyes are filling with tears, “Don’t even fucking… Just. Don’t,” She’s been on edge since the airport and this conversation isn’t helping. She walks to sit on the floor of the jet, towards the back.   He moves to sit next to Steve.    “She really cares about you,” His voice is hushed.    “I guess,”     “Don’t give me that,” He rubs his eyes, “She wouldn’t be here right now if she didn’t. I see the way she looks at you. It’s… A lot. The way she hovers over you, fusses about your injuries, always ends up back at your side. I’ve never seen anyone like that before,” Bucky considers his words for a moment.   After HYDRA and SHIELD. After the crash. She was there, obviously looking for him. She came with him, knowing she’d be killed if they were caught. The way she fought to stay by his side after they were taken from Romania.   According to Steve, she’d jumped right off the roof for him. She’s always been like that though. It’s always been… Y/N and Bucky. He’d never really considered it until now.     “Do you think she…”    “I’m not blind, Buck. She kissed you. That’s not just a friend thing,” He smirks at Bucky. He looks back over at her. She’s clearly still nursing a headache and God knows what other effects of a concussion. Her head rests in her hands as she sits on the floor.   He knows he felt his heart skip a beat when she kissed him. It always does when she touches him. He’d always just put it down to the fact that every other instance of physical contact in his life had been violent.    But maybe it was something else…

[greenninjagal-blog]

Waterspout

 (whoops a spiderverse au)

Summary: Virgil finds himself stuck on the side of a building with an impending storm overhead and he’s helped by an annoying--admittedly attractive--guy.

Totally inspired by @sugarglider9603 ‘s Spiderverse Universe though I took a different spin with it. 

Ship: Prinxiety

Warnings: mild language because Virgil.

Words: 4075

Virgil doesn’t even notice the breeze had picked up until he’s suddenly yanked in the wrong direction as useless as a puppet on a string. He has a total of one second to think the usual “Oh shi--” before his body slams into the sleek surface of an office building some twenty-thirty-forty stories into the air. The air in his chest splutters out, and his shoulder does this weird pop-pop thing that he’s sure its not supposed to do. His hands open on reflex and his web escapes his fingers in his panic-- a panic that nearly swallows him whole because he knew how high he was, and it had taken weeks to get the dropping of his stomach every time he left the solid ground. He scratches at the glass of the window before he manages to get his fingers to stick and stay stuck along with his left knee and his right foot. 

Then when he can, he worries about inhaling. Then he worries about everything else. 

Like the fact that he was a dizzying height in the air, which by the way, was tormented by a series of unexpected cold fronts. He doesn’t remember the forecast saying anything about rain, but the clouds are gathering and the thunder isn’t that much farther behind. The chill of the atmosphere crawls into Virgil’s suit, along with the flecks of teeny tiny suggestions of rain. 

He lets out a curse (on the wind, on the height, on himself).

Okay, let’s start from the beginning: Virgil was an artistic introverted emo. A year ago he was bitten by a radioactive spider-- because honestly that’s just his luck-- and received epic superpowers that he really, really didn’t ask for. Since then, he’s been the one and only Recluse: a spider themed superhero/vigilante who does his best to save the normal people from the baddier people.

The rain starts several seconds later because the universe also hates him. The rain starts, and Virgil guesses he has about five minutes before the window he’s clinging to-- his only available perch-- becomes a slip-n-slide to his death. 

For someone who has a spider sense that tells him when giant rocks, knives, or bullets are coming for him, Virgil feels like he was truly blindsided. By something as finicky as the freaking weather. 

He hisses in pain as he tries to move his arm, the arm that had caught his entire body when he splattered on the window like some cartoon. Oh yeah, it hurt a lot, enough that his entire breath has to hiss out between his teeth and his bottom lip, and he’s pretty sure it shouldn’t be making that Pop-pop-popping sound when he tries to roll it. Spikes of pain shoot straight from his limb to the back of his eyes. 

The rain picks up slowly: fatter, heavier drops, colder chills, sharper winds that slice around his body trying its best to unstick him from his purchase.  

The truth of the situation hits him seconds later: there’s exactly no way he’s going to be able to swing out of here, not with his shoulder crying uncle at the thought of moving and the wind cutting the air in odd unpredictable sections. He’d have better luck trying to plaster his entire body against this window or another of the others and hope the water doesn’t wash him away. 

(because until the popular nursery rhyme, Virgil was pretty sure if he got washed away Officer Dee would be finding his broken body on the roof of some poor saps car. There would be no sitting up from that, much less climbing back up here.)

Suddenly Virgil’s mask feels too tight, his limbs not strong enough, and his heart is beating far too fast. He knew becoming a superhero was a bad idea. Why did he do this? Dee had spent so long telling him all about how Recluse was “just a kid” who was “going to get himself killed one day”. It figured that he would be right about that--this. Virgil is going to get himself killed and he can’t even remember the last thing he said to Dee (though it was probably something along the lines of “I promise I’m not going to go graffiti the old subway station alleys again.”).

He’s so caught up in what he might have, or might not have said, and what his last words were going to be it takes him a moment to realize there’s another noise striking his senses. Really was this spidersense useful for anything--

The window next to him suddenly flicks open, despite the rain that was definitely pouring in. Virgil isn’t sure what to do when a head bravely sticks out into the open air. 

“Hail!” The boy says all smug smiles that Virgil immediately loves hates. “You’re Recluse aren’t you?”

As if there was some other spider themed weirdo who clung to buildings in their free time.

“No,” Virgil says, because he can. What, the citizens of this town have had a year to know him, and they all knew his dislike of social interaction. (They did not know it was because his anxiety flared up, reminding him of how obvious it was that Virgil was Recluse already.)

The boy laughed. He folded his arms on the window sill, completely oblivious to the pouring rain that was matting his brown hair to his face and the spouts that were sure to be getting into his office. “Alright, alright. I guess I deserved that one. Can I ask a question?”

“You just did.” 

The boy’s eyes narrow, his lips pursed together in a way that’s more comical than anything else. If Virgil had to venture a guess, he’d assume that this guy is his age, which does little to explain why he’s some forty floors up on a building Virgil is pretty sure is owned by the government.

“Wow the news was right about you being a smartass.” The boy says, “I was just wondering why you wear a sweatshirt over your suit. It really can’t be practical, and it looks terrible.”

Virgil takes back anything nice he’s thought about this guy. “Excuse me?” 

“What?” He responds as if he can’t believe Virgil would be annoyed at him, “You have a whole edgy look about it! A hero can’t be edgy!”

“Yes they can!”

“Name one!” 

“Batman!”

“Name two!”

Virgil shakes his head, rolling his eyes though the other can’t see at all.  Flicks of water splatter off him, for all the good it does. He can feel his hands starting to tire from holding him up, and the water is slipping between his foot and the glass.

“Why do you care what I wear?” He snaps, “Shouldn’t you be asking why I’m just hanging out up here?”

The boy raises his eye brows as if the idea never occurred to him. He glances back in the office and then back out, with a mischievous smile “I don’t see an issue with you out here. I mean I got a great view through the window over. Anyone ever tell you, you’ve got great calves?”

Virgil unsticks his foot to kick at him. It’s a mistake, and he knows it the second he does it (which is the only reason why this asshole doesn’t taste the rubber of Virgil’s sole). Water runs over the slick surface of the window, thunder booms, and Virgil curses as knee looses its hold and he drops--fuck--until his fingers are the only thing holding him with overextended elbows and a shoulder screaming bloody murder. 

“Oh fuck--” the boy half yells, and jumps back inside. Virgil clings to the idle hope that he’s running to get help. He’s disappointed when the window where he had been dangling flicks open and its only the boy there. He reaches out and catches Virgil’s wrists tightly, cementing them. The window howls. Somewhere not too far off lightning shoots between the clouds, and the resulting thunder shakes the building.

Or maybe that’s Virgil’s body threatening to give up on him. It would be really easy just to free fall to his death at this point. Far easier than trying to fight the agony in his shoulder. 

“Hey!” The boy yells, “Hey, come on! I can’t pull you up by myself!”

“Then don’t,” Virgil forces between his gritted teeth. The boy doesn’t hear, and Virgil isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing. He kicks against the window pushing the balls of his feet into the glass and scraping upwards in a pseudo bunny hop. 

The boy yanks his wrists at the same time, perfectly planned and yet not at all.

Virgil juts through the window, colliding face-to- chin with the boy. His rib cage scraps the window sill, and they fall to the floor in a weighty piles of limbs and soaked clothes. 

Virgil curses again, rolling off the boy, and grabbing his shoulder with a twisted expression, “shit.” Because it was definitely going to need to be looked at by a professional, and Virgil hated lying. There wasn’t a good way to explain how he fucked up his shoulder, especially when the truth would get him grounded for life (probably literally).

It takes him another moment to recognize that the boy is laughing. At him.

“What?” Virgil snaps.

“I just saved Recluse,” He says as if that was some kind of accomplishment. “That makes me a hero!”

“It really doesn’t,” he responds just to make that stupid smug smile go away. He wishes the adrenaline would fade already because he can’t think when his heart is beating this fast.

“I’m Roman,” He says offering a hand, “I figured you should know, since were fellow heroes.”

“Saving me does not make you a hero.”

“Of course it does,” Roman says disregarding his sour tone with a flick of his hand. “You save people, I saved you, therefore I saved all those people too.”

“That’s not--” Virgil sucks in a breath and counted to ten like his old guidance counselor had told him to do. He punched evil guys in the face all the time, and yet this Roman character managed to get under his skin more than anyone else. He glances around at the office they’re in-- a cubical that looked pretty standard of some pencil pusher. It reminded him of Logan’s dorm room: all neat and orderly and so, so boring. 

Minus the puddle that Virgil and Roman were creating in the center of the room. The rain pattered on the windowsill soaking some wastebasket and dripping onto the floor.

“Oh shit,” Virgil said, because he really didn’t need another reason for someone to hate him. 

Roman looked down and then shrugged off the water. “whoops!” He grinned, getting up and closing the window. “Good thing this isn’t my place.”

“You’re place?” Virgil repeated. Water dribbles down his mask, distorting his view of Roman for a second. 

Roman waves him off, “I’m here often enough that they gave me my own cubical, you know next door.” He smirks, “Still has a great view.”

Virgil fights his blush and fails, but it’s okay because Roman can’t see him anyway. He slowly pushes himself up to his knees and then manages to get himself standing without aggravating his shoulder anymore. If he’s lucky Patton will be asleep by the time Virgil climbs into the room again and he’ll have until tomorrow morning to figure out how to explain it to his best friend and roommate. (Because Virgil knew that both Logan and Patton would be against him doing anything superhero-ish so they had not been informed of where Virgil went on his daily trips out of the school.)

((Actually now that he thought about it, there was literally no one in his life that would approve of what he was doing. They would all tell him to stop before he got himself actually killed.))

“You work here?” Virgil asks.

“hm? Oh nah!” Roman laughs, “No way. This place would kill me.” He motions around the room to prove his point “So dreadfully boring. I was born for the stage!” He poses in what Virgil supposes is a dramatic pose. 

He doesn’t say that Roman definitely looks like he was born for the stage. Because Virgil definitely doesn’t notice that his eyes are a fiery brown made so with a passion, that there are slight crinkles around his eyes from lots of laughter, that his laugh itself is loud and booming and Virgil feels his heart do a stutter at the sound of something so freaking perfect. He doesn’t look like a Prince swooping out of no where to save the day. He doesn’t.

“Whatever you say Princey.” Virgil tells him, and then panics because what the fuck Virgil.

“Princey?” Roman repeats with smug smirk, “Are you my damsel in distress then Recluse? I wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course you wouldn’t mind,” Virgil rolls his eyes so hard his head tilts enough for Roman to know what he was doing. “You don’t have a brain to mind with.”

Roman gasps offended. Virgil cheers himself on.

“How could you say something so mean to the person who just saved your life?”

“How could I not?” Virgil huffs, “You just pulled me into this building. Isn’t this owned by the Government? Don’t you need a clearance level to get in here?”

“Rules are meant to be broken!” Roman cries dramatically, then he shivers, visibly.

It’s then that Virgil realizes that they are both soaked to the core, standing in the middle of an air conditioned cubical. His own freaky spider healing ability was probably keeping him from totally freezing, but Roman was not as lucky. 

“Oh man,” Virgil says lamely, “Do you have something dry to change into?”

Roman scoffs a laugh that’s nothing if not awkward. “What? Eager to see me undress, Recluse?”

Virgil is doing the blushy blotch thing that he hates he does when he’s flustered, but he’s pretty sure Roman’s ears are turning dark red so at least he’s not alone. Virgil splutters some series consonants and vowels that’s not actually English but close enough.

“Look, just--” Virgil grunts, turning away from him because he can’t speak when he’s looking at the wannabe actor. “I’m not going to be responsible for you getting a cold because of me!”

Roman shivers again, a thing that makes his entire frame jerk, and his shovels his hands under his arm pits and retains a copy of his smile. “Aw you care.”

“Shut up,” Virgil says without the heat he meant it to.

“Aren’t you cold?” 

“I’m part spider.”

“I’m part Italian.”

“What?”

“What?”

They both stare at each other, and Virgil shakes his head when Roman ducks his. Their laughs mix somewhere in the middle. When Virgil looks back at him Roman is staring at him with some sort of unreadable expression on his face. His cheeks were definitely dusted pink now.

“What?” Virgil asks again.

“I was--you--uh--” Roman’s mouth opens and closes twice before he seems to find the words he’s looking for, “do you have a phone?”

Virgil isn’t sure what he was expecting. He’s also unsure why he isn’t running far, far away by now. He chalks it up to the exhaustion from the near death experience. “Why?”

“I, uh, think you’re a--uh-- rather dashing sort of fellow,” Roman says, “I was--hoping-- I could, presumably, uh, obtain your number.”

“Is this a joke?” 

Roman stiffens with panicked look on his face, “No! NO! I would never! I mean it when I say I think you’re amazing, even if no one else thinks so! The way you save people all day and never ask for anything in return-- and even if you’re hard to approach and you make me doubt everything I say-- I still think you’re really cool. I’d like to be your friend.”

There are a million reasons for Virgil to say no. Most of them involve a certain amount of “it’s not safe” and “what if anyone ever found out”. 

“I won’t tell if you don’t!” Roman says and Virgil has a hard time not believing him. He looks earnest, trustworthy. Virgil wonders if he hit his head when he slammed into the window or if he’s actually getting sick.

“I’m not telling you my real name.” Virgil warns him.

Roman has the decency to look embarrassed, “I didn’t expect you, too! It wouldn’t matter anyway.” He mutters the last part under his breath.

Virgil is about to ask what that means when there’s a resounding ding of elevator doors somewhere not far away. Roman’s eyes grow wide and his hisses a noise from his teeth. 

“Hide!” 

“What?” Virgil says.

“Roman?” Another voice makes the hair on the back of Virgil’s neck rise. He has just enough time to panic--he’s really good at panicking-- before the telltale click of heel on the tile floor catches up with them and a woman glances into their cubical. Her eyes fall on Roman, and then search the rest of the cubical, looking straight at Virgil and moving on.

“Roman,” She says, “What are you doing in here--and why are you all wet?”

Roman glances between Virgil and her for a second before his posture closes and he rubs the back of his neck with mock sheepishment. “The window was open, auntie. I came in here to close it and it was harder than I thought it would be.”

She doesn’t look convinced. “It was...open?” She glanced around the room again, “No came in right? You haven’t seen anyone?”

Roman laughs, and Virgil’s impressed by his acting ability, “Of course not. We’re on the forty third floor. Who would be climbing in this building this high?”

That seems to calm her down. “Sorry, its just that the technology we’re working on is highly classified. I just clocked out for the day, so we can go now.”

“Really?” Roman says.

“What’s wrong? Every other day you’re begging me to leave! Plus we need to get you in dry clothes and rested up for the big day tomorrow!” 

Roman gives another look towards Virgil-- well through Virgil, because he can’t see something that’s invisible. It had been a private joke that Virgil had kept to himself: that he an introverted artist with anxiety was barely noticed in a crowd as it was and now he could literally turn invisible when he panicked. 

“Yeah,” Roman says. He turns away and he exits the cubical. Virgil stays still long after his chattering has faded and he’s left he building. He wonders if he’s ever going to see him again. For a superhero was a secret identity and an introvert with anxiety, the answer is surprisingly disappointing.

“Seriously Virge!” Patton whines, “Skateboarding in the abandoned subway rails?” He looks at the dislocated shoulder that Virgil just had set by the school nurse. “Kiddo, you’re going to be the death of me!”

“Sorry Pat,” Virgil tells his roommate.

Patton sighs and tussles Virgil’s hair because that was the type of person Patton was. “I’m sorry too kiddo. I’m not mad, I just worry. A lot.”

Virgil knows this, because he had been Patton’s roommate since he had come to the Sanders Academy for the Gifted (which was funny because Virgil got in for his art and now he really is gifted-- with superpowers). Patton had luckily been asleep when Virgil had made it back into the room, long after the storm had cleared by doing a strange super dangerous swing with one arm and his webshooter. 

“Oh shoot!” Patton exclaims looking at his watch, “We’re late!”

“Late?”

Patton blinks, “Logan’s new dorm-mate is moving in today! I promised we’d be there to help them get settled in!”

Virgil tugs the zipper of his jacket--which was still a little damp, but he was ignoring it. It wasn’t like anyone was going to recognize it. “Both of us?” He says quietly, which he knows sounds like a plea, and it is: a plea to Patton to let him skip out on meeting new people for the day.

Recluse could, because Recluse could just snarl at the people he didn’t like and swing away. Virgil could not.

Patton takes his hand off the zipper and links their fingers in a way that is brazenly lovingly-- because Pat had a lot of love to give to everyone. “I’ll be right here the entire time, I promise. We can just go say hi, and then we can go hang out in our room until class starts.”

Virgil is not a people person. But Patton is giving him the puppy dog eyes that haunts Virgil’s dreams. He hates denying Patton anything he wants. When he agrees the smile that lights up Patton’s face is almost enough to drown out the cannon ball sized dread in his stomach. 

Logan’s room is right across from theirs anyway. It is a simple thing to duck out of anything that happens and both Patton and Logan are kind enough that they can explain Virgil’s in depth issues with--

The door to Logan’s room is open, but Patton knocks and enters anyway. Virgil stops short because there is no way that this is happening. 

Logan is OCD, even if he denies it. His room is neat and orderly and perfect. Everything has its place and he starts to lose it when things aren’t where they belong. Virgil tries to avoid going in his room if he can help it, because he’s terrified of messing something up. 

His new roommate appears to be the opposite, if just from the stacks of haphazardly placed boxes in the room. Its too much stuff, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Logan does and he looks absolutely terrible: as if he’s about to short circuit at any second. Virgil can relate.

Because standing in the middle of Logan’s room is Roman. Roman. The same Roman who had saved Virgil’s life yesterday night. The same Roman who had sat there and talked to him while they were soaked. The same Roman who had asked for his number.

Roman looks up from whatever he’s saying at Patton’s entrance with that smug smile that makes Virgil’s heart jump and this time he can’t blame it on the adrenaline. 

“Hi!” Patton says.

“Greetings!” Roman booms, “I’m Roman, Actor!” He gives a bow to Patton that makes him giggle-- but he freezes when he sees Virgil standing there behind the glowing Patton. 

“Roman?” Logan asks, worried despite his internally barely hidden frustration. He makes a motion like he’s about to unpack on of the boxes and just barely stops himself.

Roman doesn’t respond. Instead that stupid smile widens just a bit as he nods to Virgil, which makes no sense because he doesn’t know Virgil is Recluse, “That’s a terrible jacket. Completely impractical.”

Virgil can’t make a noise-- he really can’t. Because Roman shouldn’t be here, much less recognize him from this jacket of all things. And Roman does recognize him, because there’s a playful twinkle in his eyes and Virgil couldn’t get their conversation out of his head if he tried.

He doesn’t dare try.

“Excuse you!” Patton exclaims, “How dare you insult my--”

He trails off at the sound of laughter. Virgil is as surprised as he is to find its his own. 

“Shut up, Princey.” Virgil manages, goes for intimidating but he knows he failed, “No one asked you.”

“This won’t do!” Roman says, “I’m going to have to save your fashion sense as well as your life!”

“Pardon,” Logan cuts in, fixing his glasses, “You two have met? Roman has saved your life Virgil?”

“Yes, just last night--”

“Skateboarding!” Virgil cuts in, a bit too loud, a bit too quickly, “I was skateboarding! In the subway alleys!”

Roman laughs slightly. Virgil is worried for just a second that he isn’t going to go with it, but its misplaced worry. “Right, Skateboarding. I happened to be walking along there as well. We talked for a bit. I don’t think I quite caught your number. Mind if we rectify that?”

Patton seems to burst with happiness. “Kiddo! You didn’t tell me you made a friend!” He wraps Virgil in a hug.

Logan looks less convinced.

Roman looks perfect.

Virgil realizes at this point Roman is a waterspout, and Virgil was completely unprepared for it. But Virgil thinks he doesn’t mind being washed away.

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

Life Story Part 29

(a question was asked about who Zack was in reference to my life before this summer. Zack was the other boy who arrived in Kendrick when I was in the 7th grade. He was the one who smoked and did drugs before all the other students. He was the younger brother to Whitney – the pretty girl I mentioned having seen in the store that one day.)

and so...

Maintaining a dream can be hard, particularly when it is mainly composed of abstract future dealings that may or may not come your way, and a fantasy of what life will be like when the day that you get what you want finally arrives. If you imagination is grand, can it ever truly be as great as what your mind has in store for you? Life is never anything like we think it is going to be like, and I don't believe there is any exceptions to that rule if you break it down. We are always six seconds behind schedule of the now. We don't even know what compels our thoughts. There is no free will involved in the sense that we think there is. And life is one big hallucination based on fragmentary incomplete sensory data that gets interpreted in our thoughts to be what our minds intend it to be, long before we are even consciously aware of ourselves.

Going into 9th grade, I felt that if only I could simply hold onto my dream of a female pop punk band and eventually marrying Benji Madden (despite the contradiction that I also seemed to detest most female musicians on the basis that they were – like me – a female who dreamed of being a musician [brain wash by my father and the media]), than nothing could hurt me anymore. That someday, all this pain would be over, and I would have made it to this spiritual place of power and adoration and recognition for who I was, and all the misery would have been worth it. When my dad yelled at me, I didn't break as much. I had found something in me, some kind of spirit that I didn't know I had, and I was open and vulnerable to the world around me – ready for anything, and yet I seemed to have this fantasy that guarded me from the pain of my existence, which was an impossible future I had decided for myself that no one could touch. The forces around me didn't like this. Dare I say this, I believe it is an unspoken rule, that part of education in the United States at least is to educate to a degree yes, to socialize us to the world also, but the unspoken reality is that we are all being institutionalized before we can consciously understand why. So you don't end up getting any big ideas about your place in the world. It's always been this way, in some form or another.

On the first day of school, which is always an uncomfortable day – particularly when you are in a high school and you have to find your classes, many of them not being with your friends which is daunting when you are always a little on the fight or flight like I am. On my first day of school, I realized with horror that I was automatically enrolled into FFA (Future Farmers of America). The reason for this, I do not remember, but it would have been essentially impossible for me to take another class had I not been in that one, and I think my only other option was Choir, which I would never have participated in. It was ran by the same woman who ran the woodworking course I had taken in 7th. She was humorless, and masculine and a psychological bully looking for the nails that didn't get beaten down. She had a natural talent for making the air thick with tension, and incorporating long intimidating stare downs. She brought teaching to this level that was militant and made you forget that life was a game that you never signed up for. And she didn't like the looks of me, naturally. And I was all alone. None of my friends were in that class.

But Zack was.

As we all filed in and got yelled at by Mrs. Gulke on our first nervous day, I tried to ignore him. Wherever he was in the room, I could not not know where he was, and what he was doing. I didn't look at him. I looked down at my paper. My stomach hurt, and I wasn't consciously aware of my situation. Honestly, I could barely understand what propelled this nervous tension. I'd gone to school with him for years. He was just the gangly loser boy who sat in the corner of the class. I didn't feel that bubblegum pop fancy of a crush, and at the time, I didn't think that was what I was feeling in any way. I was waiting for Benji after all. It felt harsher, and more painful, and inside I was frightened. I felt like at any moment everything would disappear or a bomb would drop. I could almost feel my own death. There was no certainty in existence anymore. I had somehow been kicked out of that club.

I looked up from my paper, and Zack was staring straight at me, with no sense of shame. It had none of the oogly boyish vibes that you would ever have picked up off a typical teenage boy. This was something else altogether. Even though he was across the other side of the room (the desks formed a half square) and we were parallel to one another, and I had avoided doing anything strange, avoided looking at him, or really doing anything, it was like he was reading my thoughts, or putting them there, I wasn't sure anymore. What was this? He was staring straight into my eyes. I tried so hard to pretend that I couldn't see him staring at me like that, but my heart was racing. His eyes always reminded me of wolf eyes. He had very dark piercing pupils. There was never a point in that class session where he was not looking at me intently. Finally, in the last ten minutes, I took a deep breath and looked back over at him. He smiled at me and whispered my name so quietly that the class could not hear it.

I couldn't tell if he was fucking with me or not, so I frowned and whispered 'no' back at him. He only smiled more. Then he showed me his hand. To be cool, I had drawn the Nirvana smiley face on my hand, mostly for edginess. His hand also had the same Nirvana smiley face. I covered up my hand defensively. I felt powerless somehow. He pointed to his chest, and then to me. I think he was trying to indicate something about us two. He smiled. The bell rang and we all filed out, me rather desperate for air that I could breath. All of this had happened in the backdrop of an old fashioned corporal punishment style teacher barking at us and demanding answers in the background. The FFA class, was I in a small building with a shop in the back that was separated from the rest of the school by a parking lot and a dirt road that lead up into a hilly wooded area that split into hunting grounds, sparsely located homes and farm roads. He walked right passed me, and didn't say a word.

One of the last hours, I was able to reconnect with all my friends in an overcrowded history class that had the class above as well as our own. Ava's hilarious attention drawing behavior was endearing and calmed me down quite a bit. Ava always made me rather hyper as well. There was a boy that was sitting next to us. He was a little pudgy, he wore oversized pants that seemed to be falling down, and an enormous hoodie. He was new to the school. For some reason, Ava and I decided to use him for our games, I uncharacteristically decided to start calling him Blinkin. Why the name came up, I am not sure, though I think in my distant faded memory of being eight, it was a name that was used in the first Barney the Dinosaur movie for some kind of silly star-creature that came to earth. Which didn't remind me of this kid at all.

His real name was Kenny. He was from California and he really liked rap music, particularly Tupac. At first he thought we were making fun of him in a mean way, and he was defensive, but after awhile, he came to realize that Ava and I were just insane and didn't have boundaries and preferred to live in this free-form spiral frenzy, taking anything and anyone down with us in the process. I had no negative or positive intention of behaving as I did, and ultimately it was an ice breaker to feel more comfortable with everyone. Later on in the year, Kenny – though we weren't close really, turned out to be a pretty nice guy who would drift in and out of our circle. He didn't conform to the standards held for the boys in school. He never really had one group of friends, and instead he just moved around a lot. He wasn't afraid to be a nice guy, or give a compliment, and he didn't seem invested in getting into girl's panties, which was nice.

I decided to go vegetarian. It just kind of came upon me. I didn't read anything that led my to this decision. I think a few celebrities were vegetarian and it compelled me to be curious or to see it as socially interesting, and then there was always this little part of my thoughts that didn't think it was right to simply kill things and eat them when there were other foods. However, I realized that my father cooked a lot of meat. So to make a compromise, I instead decided to still eat fish and chicken. I think this is called a preso-prescatarian or something like that. And right from the get-go, I started doing terribly in school. At some point, within the first three months of 9th, the principal called me into the office yet again to inform me that I had finally done it. I was officially the worst student in the school, possibly one of the worst students he had ever come across. My average grade was at 19% and often times that was because teachers were giving me a tiny bit of credit for writing my name at the top of the paper. Honestly, I already didn't understand algebra already and it was just getting more and more complicated the further the lessons went. I felt like I needed more days to soak in the math lessons. I was too socially awkward to share the microscopes in science, and I didn't get my FFA papers turned in, which caused Mrs. Gulke to abhor me even further.

Roxanne and Jody finally split up. Jody went on to marry the other woman he had babies with, a woman named Crystal who had gone to school with Roxanne and had been obsessed with hatred for Roxanne since they were kids. She might have taken a fancy to Jody in some ways because he had been Roxanne's. Crystal of course was jealous of Roxanne's outgoing fun teasing nature, and her beauty. Crystal was someone that the entire town made fun of. I personally am not someone who thinks of people as ugly. I like and accept people to the degree that I accept strange looking trees, and I think to label people as ugly is not only empty, shallow and base, but it also an affront on being able to expand as a person, since so much of what we derive from life is aesthetic and based on lucid concepts. You cannot grow if you cling to shallow identity. If you close your mind off to other people, you in a sense have closed off potential for personal growth. With that being said, I still do find some people strange looking and people have preferences no matter if we realize them or no, and Crystal was certainly strange looking. She had a pig's nose. It was just a fact. And what was even worse was, she had at one point in the late nineties, ran her mouth at another woman that my sister Maria had been friends with, and that woman had dragged Crystal out to the train tracks and beat her face in. That face beating actually fixed Crystal's nose a bit, which made her even more of a laughing stock. Her face was literally fixed.

What had happened was, this person named Jeremy Frye had been friends with Jody for awhile Jeremy Frye was a drug dealer. He had caught onto Roxanne when she had that money. But before he had had the opportunity to help her spend that money, he had been thrown in prison for a year for assaulting his then-girlfriend and stabbing her in the leg with a pencil. When he got out, he had kept a note of Roxanne's naive youth, her helpless situation, her money, and he sniffed opportunity. As soon as he got out, he found Jody and asked if he could live with them until he got on his feet, which Jody cluelessly allowed. Jody of course was busy visiting his other kids with other women, and Roxanne was furious because she knew he was cheating on her still, and always coming down from drugs. The bipolar was starting to show as well. Jeremy moved in. Roxanne hooked up with him, and left Jody almost immediately. Roxanne is not a cheater, but under the circumstances she was extremely vulnerable.

So, in school, the entire Brown family had decided I was not one of 'theirs' anymore. They came up to me in the hallway as I was in my locker, arms crossed, and trivially informed me that I was not under their protection anymore, essentially. They faulted me for this whole Jody Roxanne thing somehow, and looked at me cockeyed in the halls when I passed. I was intrigued that they had ever considered me a family member to begin with. I never spoke to them, and had always been passively put off by their homes, the crude jokes and their smell.

There was a quiet jaunt and thin boy in our art club in 8th, named Jason. For some reason, we had called him Taco (this was not some kind of racist ethnic joke as Jason was half Native, and I think it actually pertained to a joke about the food itself). He was two years older than us. He was a cousin of Billy's, the guy that all the girls loved who I talked about in detention and also the uncle to my niece Sagen (Roxanne's first baby she had at 13). He was really into drawing roses, fairies, mushrooms. He seemed to have only one pair of clothes, an orange hoodie which hung on him and smelled like sweat and cigarettes. He liked to keep to himself for the most part and hated everyone. He had a history that I didn't know too much about, but it involved some level of violence and drugs and rebellion that was more than most of the other students in the school. He'd been to a few schools. He was in our class, yet two years older than the rest of us. I was not there when my friends had  first started talking to him in 8th, but now as this year was progressing into 9th, it looked like he was one of ours. He just kind of melted in with our group, and we really enjoyed his company. He was also in my FFA class which made that course better. He was barely literate, from what I could tell. His handwriting was like that of a second grader's and his spelling even worse. He had no other friends in high school. All of his friends were years older, some of them the elderly. He had learned to befriend lonely old men, who, if he sat around and listened to their stories long enough, would supply him with cigarettes, alcohol and sometimes weed.

Jason did a lot of drugs and also a known thief. This really caused me to re examine my theory about drug addicts not being people, and that whole DARE rhetoric. Not that I was interested in doing drugs myself. But if I had to be honest, I would much rather have hung out with Jason any day for nearly any reason rather than I would some preppy cowboy jock who everyone was in love with. He was so much more real than them. He really didn't give a fuck about what anyone thought in a way that was unique and special and totally untouched by society. He didn't follow social codes, or even seem to acknowledge that they were there. If someone had made him mad, he would do something or say something. Sitting in the desk and not walking out was about as much as he could mentally handle and teachers were weary of him in their classes. He held back very little when he was upset or happy, though he was withdrawn and introverted by nature. He was like some kind of adult that was being forced into high school.

Befriending Jason changed how other boys treated me. If anyone had fucked with me even a little, Jason would go after them. So the whole thing where guys would come after me and say whatever they liked ended rather quickly. The football players liked to think of themselves as manly and tough, but they were all scared to death of Jason. Probably for good reason. I remember one time Jason had a band aid on his ear, and of course it had to be Kyle who was sitting behind him. Kyle asked, in a sort of pretentious voice 'What happened to your ear??' There was nothing wrong with this question. But the way that it was said had this intonation of judgment, and Kyle had a subtle look on his face to go with. This was an enormous mistake of Kyle. Jason turned around, with this rage in his face that was sudden and frightening. 'NONE OF FUCKING BUSINESS!!!!'. It was this roar of murderous rage. Kyle was shaking in his boots and looked away scared. I always worried that someone would make Jason mad and he would murder them. He didn't have a particularly violent history, but if you knew him, you could see that there was a boiling vat beneath the surface.

Of course, with us, he was always giving us hugs and drawing us pictures and telling us all he loved us, not in a sexual way, but like we were his family. He would share everything he had with us. He was incredibly protective over all of us. He seemed to love children and animals. And he was so thin. When you hugged him, you almost had a moment where you couldn't find his torso through the clothes. He was 5'8 and weighed only 100 lbs and it was a wonder that he kept himself up at all. He forgot to eat all the time, was anemic and the drugs didn't help. When he laughed his Adam's apple jiggled, and when we laughed at that, he only laughed more. He had a soft look in his eyes most of the time.

Football games were even more of an event this year since it was in a way the opportunity for us to all be freely together. In the background, a hundred and fifty people would have gathered around to be a part of the sports event, and another seventy-five like us would all be there to socialize, to fight, hook up and so forth. Nights were cold sometimes, but we would all just bundle up close, shoulder to shoulder. It seems unclean to me now, but we used to pass around a bottle of soda till it was gone. It was a symbol of our unity. It passed between all five to ten of us until it was gone. We never concerned ourselves with germs. Zack would eventually join our group too, and he would always bring his hackey sack. I was never really good at hackey sack, and I guess there is just this part of me that doesn't see the point in the game, but everyone else played and I watched. Sometimes we would get some of the loose kids in the circle with us, but they would eventually drift away. A lot of people were a little jealous of all of us and felt like we had something that made our group special. It felt funny to me then suddenly having a strong sense of support from friends. And it seems strange to me that we would all hug one another and tell each other we loved one another and there was nothing awkward or weird about it. There has always been a part of me that, even as a withdrawn and standoffish person, knows instinctively that this is the way that people should be. In my adult life, I have failed to see that kind of vulnerability between people.

I'd always go to the football games and look for Zack in the corner of my eye. I always noticed where he was in proximity to where I was, and if he wasn't there, I would feel a tinge of simultaneous relief and frustration. He usually came to football games though, often high – as he generally got high everyday after school. He could be found in the far ends of the parking lot, or in places behind the school. He didn't have any friends in the class anymore. His sister Whitney had dropped out. She had been popular, kind of a stoner, but also accepted by many, and a cheerleader. Everything seemed to be going rosy with her socially at least, until she became dissatisfied and sullen. She got involved with shoplifting with another girl or something, became friends with Melissa and her older brother, and lost all interest in school. Despite having been a straight A student. She stopped hanging out with people, and by the third week of  her 10th grade year she quit.

Melissa, though he and her were both very close and he visited often, had moved up to Moscow and this left him with only Jason, who connected us by association. I didn't have the courage to talk to him, or the conscious self-knowledge to know that I wanted to. I would often try to lead Ava to the area that Zack was if I could. Sometimes he brought his acoustic guitar and would be smoking a cigarette and be playing. He always wore a flannel and converse. He dressed like Kurt Cobain did sometimes and you could tell that he was putting in some effort to sound like Kurt Cobain. His legs had grown so long that I remember that the jeans came down above his ankles. Years later, I was reading a lot of Kurt Vonnegut, and there was this character, Kilgore Trout, whom Vonnegut explained as having a similar predicament, and I had to laugh.

I would also find Zack in the store, or in the park. Ava had grown accustomed to the act of finding him and talking to him. I would eagerly tag along. I swear, I could always feel him around me. Zack would be smoking and looking off in the distance wherever he was found. I couldn't tell if he was waiting for us, or if he just did this because. We would approach him, and he would take the cigarette with his angular long hands, and we would begin talking. Honestly, I wish I could remember how Ava talked to Zack that brought him out of his shell. Sarah and I were mostly quiet watching I think with some fascination. Sarah talked more than I did. And yet, I couldn't help but notice that when Zack would look at all of us when he talked, his eyes would linger on me just a little bit longer.

It seemed to me like Katie had disappeared from this world altogether. The things she said seemed like things a child would say, and I was having problems relating. I should have reached out to her, but I never did. I was drifting into this lucid dreamlike world where music became more real to me than drawing anime did and adults couldn't get me. In my mind, I didn't think I could ever be like any of these teachers or my father. A sort of dissonant dark new world had descended upon me, and Ava always took a level of charge in our lives at any level that might ordinarily have given me the sense that I needed to say or do something. All of this came to a head, as Katie was also furious at Samantha for having yet another boyfriend, a nerdy gamer boy she met online named Adam who lived thirty miles away up in Moscow. She called Samantha a slut. Then Ava also called Samantha a slut. Somehow everyone was mad at Sarah and wanted her to take sides – something Sarah really, really didn't want to do, and nobody wanted to hear what I had to say. Somehow, Ava had pulled this other girl into it, named Teal, and I never understood why since she hadn't really been around us. In fact, I still held a grudge against her, as, she was the one that shoved me really hard in order to chase that Kevin boy in sixth grade. I didn't really trust her.

So this football game happened, and finally everyone was together actually fighting it out. There wasn't a lot of clarity. I remember thinking in the back of my mind that Ava was being deceitful and intentionally making herself out to be the victim. Samantha had played a bunch of boys in Orofino I think, and it was true that the way she defined herself sexually and with men was a lot different than how Katie or I did, but I didn't think it was fair to call her a slut and I was mad that everyone had, even some part of me had felt the thought coming on. Sarah just wanted to go back home where it was warm and to stop fighting. I was in the larva stage of what would become the person I am today, and I was trying in my way to dissect the entire situation and reach an emotional understanding, which was something nobody wanted that night.

To make matters worse. Cody was still acting out because of Ava, and because all the girls he tried to date wouldn't date within the first few weeks of school, and he felt this sense of entitlement over women that was like that of a classic villain. In fact, by his own doing or by no one's he was completely rejected the the school, and this made some very destructive ugly side of his come out. He had turned to Teal as someone he wanted to date. She had been heading to the bathrooms, and he had hid behind a car, came out and grabbed her, shoved her up against the wall and demanded that she fucking kiss him, holding her wrists and locking her into a corner, with the classic lines of 'You know you wanna bitch' or something like that. She had gotten away, but this was all going on as this fight was going down.

In the end, Katie walked away. She really didn't know how to mentally grasp what was going on, and she would not fess up and tell us what Ava had told her, or what Ava had spun from nothing, and Katie was gone for good. I remember going home a little shocked. I mean, I had seen it coming. But the loss of Katie brought on a strange realization for me. She never really talked to me personally, or said goodbye. So I just was left feeling a strange emptiness that I couldn't put into words. I remember thinking about how people couldn't help what they were. Behind every action, there was something that happened before that made that action happen. We were all the victims of damage and sooner or later everything ended. Just this sense that the experiences I had had for the previous two years were over, and I was becoming a new person. I could sense that I was probably forgetting more than I would ever remember. Life was so fleeting and why did we do anything at all?

At some point, Sarah invited me up to her house late one night after a football game. She wanted to show me something she had said. We went to her kitchen table, and she put on a Beatles record on the record player. I had never heard the Beatles. I had somehow gone through fourteen years of my life with only the very most distant understanding of who they were at all, and that was mostly because there is a Beatles spin off band in the 90's cartoon show Doug that was based on The Beatles. I generally thought that sometimes people were actually fans of that cartoon band rather than a real one.

The album she chose to put on was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I remember looking at that album cover with fascination. And the songs were so real. I loved everything about it really. I had never heard music like this before. Choices for me back then were the options of J-Lo, country music, emo, and Nickelback. I knew who Queen was a little, Nirvana a little, CCR, Tom Petty, and Oasis a little bit. But I had never heard anything like this.

She also introduced me to another album as well. This one was Led Zeppelin's IV. I recognized a few of the intro songs as car commercial stuff, but I had never really listened to this seriously before. This music was amazing and it gave me this great connection to myself and sense of things that I hadn't realized were possible. I was blown away, and I don't think I ever was the same since. Sarah explained to me that her mom had these old records from her youth. I am not sure why Sarah had been quietly experimenting with old records without telling anyone. For some reason, I had always avoided the idea that old music could be any good, and was always looking for something new. Listening to this, I realized just how much I was missing out on.

PART 28 - http://tinyurl.com/yagdlo47

PART 27 - http://tinyurl.com/ydcj5fgf

PART 26 - http://tinyurl.com/y73nvl73

PART 25 -  http://tinyurl.com/y6v6pgoj

PART 24 - http://tinyurl.com/ycak5d8r

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PART 22 -  http://tinyurl.com/yat6cfnw

PART 21 -  http://tinyurl.com/y783egno

PART 20 - http://tinyurl.com/y8jskymt

PART 19 - http://tinyurl.com/rfhbms8

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PART 12 - http://tinyurl.com/yc79mw94

PART 11 - http://tinyurl.com/yc9qhj84

PART 10 - http://tinyurl.com/yb734w24

PART 9 - http://tinyurl.com/yc2t6vfw  

PART 8 - http://tinyurl.com/ybl37utq

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PART 6 - http://tinyurl.com/kbc9dwu

PART 5 - http://tinyurl.com/msnz4am

PART 4 - http://tinyurl.com/k9x8esg

PART 3 - http://tinyurl.com/mwp9atx

PART 2 - http://tinyurl.com/lbt6xq2

PART 1 - http://tinyurl.com/l8xbvg8