#also i mid-shifted today so my evening is like an hour and then it's bedtime

[lookninjas]

1997.

just another long-ass day that's all I've really got to say

[mymedlife]

Guys, the pandemic has broken me. Every time we seem to be making any progress I feel like we get set back again.

Sorry for the long rant ahead, but I feel like I need to get it out of my head.

Back in the beginning, last March or so, when the state I'm living in shut down, I felt like I could do it. Daycare shut down for almost 3 months to prevent spread.

My husband's job changed his hours to 10a to 8p since everyone was working remotely so they could all be working on the same time zone.

My cofellows were generous enough to switch shifts so I could work all nights and weekends and watch my kiddo during the day. Which kind of sucked, because she doesn't play independently for very long, o was tired, hubby wanted it quiet, and everything was closed so there wasn't anywhere to go to break up the monotony.

Work was filled with frequent changes around what protective equipment we have and what is required to be worn where. I got fitted for 3 different N95s because we kept running out, despite having to check them out and have them sterilized between uses.

I had frequent discussions about how COVID is real with families who refused testing. Parents lied about their symptoms to be allowed into the hospital with their kids, including one who collapsed mid visit due to respiratory failure. Several people ended up having to quarantine because they weren't wearing their N95s during the resuscitation as it was unexpected (at the time we were only wearing N95s during aerosolizing procedures including bagging). This lead to a new rule on not stopping in to help until you have the proper equipment on (which makes sense, but but is so hard).

Early on I spent some time volunteering for the COVID hotline for my state. Most of the questions I got were people upset that things were closing. There were very few health calls.

My aunt died. My sister, a psychologist, argued with her boss she should get a raise for being a frontline worker. My other sister, who is immunocompromised, was mad that all her friends continued to party guilt free and we kept telling her to stay home. My husband began to enjoy his new schedule to the point that he would stay up until 3am playing games after work (the kid was asleep and I was working) and sleep until he had to work at 10 am. My friends talked about their new lock down hobbies, including my co fellow who spent her time creating a new lecture series for the residents. I felt like I was trending water, I started getting behind on fellowship things and I was so tired. My kiddo was happy that I was spending more time with her, and it all was temporary, right?

Eventually things started opening up again. Daycare returned. Two days later my husband was fired. Thankfully he found a job within a few months, but during that time was quick to anger and his staying up all night playing games and sleeping most of the day got worse. He dismissed anything I had to say about it and frequently promised to sleep earlier, later saying he had to stay up because the kid had a nightmare that I slept through.

During this time, many of my pediatrician friends were called to see adults due to high patient volumes and doctor shortages. Luckily I only had to see kids, but there was still a lot of mystery surrounding symptoms and the discovery of the multi system inflammatory syndrome.

My kiddo got sent home a few times from daycare for vague symptoms that necessitated a COVID test, and at one point she was at home with me for 2 weeks due to a COVID positive exposure in class. My husband's job was new so he couldn't take off time to help. At some point things shifted so I was now doing all the daycare pickup and drop-off as well as all the bedtimes (unless I was physically at work).

Following Breonna Taylor and George Floyd there were large scale protests around the downtown area, where my hospital is located. I wholeheartedly support the movement, but someone told my kid it was dangerous to go downtown, and she became fearful of me going to work. This combined with the break in at our home lead to sleep refusal. Something I had to help he with, leading to bedtime taking hours, because my husband would yell at her. Most nights I was too tired after getting her to bed to do much, which lead to more work piling up.

Job hunting was not as fun as I had hoped it would had been. I had one in person interview, everything else was virtual. Thinking about working at a place I've never seen was terrifying.

Many places simply ghosted me. Lots weren't hiring. A few went on a hiring freeze after my interview.

Every interview asked what hobby I developed during lockdown. I admittedly could have answered this question better, and explained that I survived the lockdown with a toddler and that was an accomplishment.

My home institution decided to go with my co fellow over me. When I asked my mentor why she said they felt she had more to contribute to medical education than I do. I'm convinced that in part this has to do with all the lectures she wrote during lockdown.

I was able to get a job, but it's at a smaller community ED where we have a few beds in an adult ED. I mentioned to my associated program director I was a little disappointed, and suddenly everyone is telling me to be thankful for what I have.

I can be thankful and disappointed at the same time.

I think the biggest thing is a fear that if I hate this job I wont ever be able to find another one.

I also kind of resent my kid and husband, if I had more support or time to focus on fellowship things may have been different.

But life goes on. The vaccine was created, things opened up, and now those who aren't vaccinated can stop masking.

The my body my choice people who previously refused to mask are pleased, and now there are barely any masks when I go out (despite a not great vaccination rate in my area).

My kid is 3 and cant get the vaccine, so we still wear them. She loves to whine about how the others don't wear their masks. "It's not fair."

No, it really isn't.

Masks are still required in the hospital, which parents complain about daily. Recently every time I recommend a COVID test it has been refused. The pandemic is over. Kids can't get COVID. And other nonsense.

Kids as young as 12 can get vaccinated. However there is real concern about post vaccine myocarditis. Now everyone who comes in with chest pain wants to complain, even if they are unvaccinated.

Things have been stressful, and my kid is picking up on that. She still has trouble sleeping and has started having tantrums. We recently had a meeting with daycare and they want us to have seen by psych to get her evaluated.

I've found that I've lost interest in most of my hobbies, not that I have a lot of time for them. Fellowship finished and I have the next two weeks off before starting my new job. I was planning on spending it sleeping, cleaning the house, getting out the baby stuff as we are expecting a new little one in a couple of months, and rediscovering my hobbies.

Today I had an awful migraine. I cant take the meds I usually take because of the pregnancy, and my OB wont prescribe anything because he is worried about masking signs of preeclampsia. My husband refused to get up to watch the kid because he was tired, so I pushed through until he was ready to get up.

I lay down to try to get a nap and I get a call that there has been a case of COVID at daycare, and they will be closing for 2 weeks. They will open up the day I start my new job.

And this my friends is what has broken me.

I was so looking forward to finally have time for self care, and now I get to play stay at home mom again with my kid who is in isolation.

After that call I got up and left the house. I'm sitting in my car at the park writing this, and while I know I will go back home eventually, I'm tempted to drive off and let my husband deal with this for a change.

[ollieofthebeholder]

leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

Read from the beginning on Tumblr || Also on AO3

Chapter 48: Sasha

“Yes, of course. I’ll—I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Sasha disconnects the call and stares at her cell phone for a long moment. She’s worked at the Magnus Institute for almost seven years now, been in the Archives for almost two. She honestly thought she’d lost the ability to be afraid of anything the mundane world could dish up anymore.

But that phone call…

“You okay, Sash?” Melanie’s voice seems to be coming from a long distance away.

With difficulty, Sasha pulls herself together and looks up. It’s just the two of them in the Archives right now, since Martin and Tim are both at lunch; Melanie’s already taken hers, and Sasha will go as soon as one of the others gets back. She’s not really hungry anymore, though.

“I’m fine,” she lies, then stops. They’re trying, they’re all making the effort not to lie to one another or downplay when things are bad. Tim and Martin both know her well enough to call her on it when she does it, and they’re also connected to the Eye well enough to be able to at least get a sense when she does. Melanie doesn’t and isn’t, and it’s not fair to her to keep her in the dark. “It’s my uncle.”

Something in Melanie’s face shifts, and she half-closes her laptop. “Is he sick?”

“No—I don’t know. He just said he has something he needs to talk to me about in person. They’re making an exception for me to come see him today.” Sasha rubs her forehead. “That’s not normal, Mel.”

“O…kay,” Melanie says slowly. “You usually…can’t visit him whenever you want? What, is it a prison or something?”

Sasha winces, remembering that Melanie wasn’t part of the team when she told them. “Yes, actually. He’s in HMP Pentonville.”

Melanie covers her mouth with a hand. “Oh, God, Sasha, why didn’t you shut me up? My big mouth—”

“It’s fine. You didn’t know.” Sasha manages a smile. “But yeah. I don’t know what he’s in for, but if he wants to see me today, and they’re letting me…whatever’s going on can’t be good.”

“Can you, like—” Melanie wiggles her fingers in the universal gesture of mystical bullshit. “—Know what it is?”

“I mean…maybe? I’m trying really hard not to use that outside of…you know, work. I don’t want to risk falling too deeply into it, or—or hurting myself, or someone else.” Sasha sighs. “I think it might be too far away, though. Honestly, I think the only way to find out what’s going on is to go out there myself.”

“Go out where?”

The voice makes both Sasha and Melanie jump. She looks up quickly to see Martin coming towards them, a bag of leftovers dangling from one hand. He looks about like he’s looked since Jon left—tired, worried, and faintly stressed. “Martin, Jesus. Heard from Jon yet?”

“Yeah, did you not see the text?” Martin frowns at her slightly. “I thought he sent it to the group chat.”

Now that she thinks about it, Sasha remembers hearing a slight beep while she was on her phone call, but she didn’t think about it twice. She checks her phone and sees two new texts—one from Jon saying he was changing buses, one from Tim asking what he was changing them into. Rolling her eyes fondly, she sets it down. “No, I—I was on the phone. My uncle called. He wants to see me today.”

“Oh.” Martin’s expression is one of mingled sympathy and concern. “Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know. That’s what we were talking about. I don’t know what’s going on and I don’t want to…you know.” Sasha makes the same gesture Melanie made a few moments ago.

Martin nods in understanding. “Did you have anything time-sensitive you were doing today?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Then I don’t think Jon would mind you taking the rest of the day off. I know you won’t be able to get to Pentonville and back in the span of your lunch break, and this seems…kind of important.” Martin reaches over and squeezes Sasha’s hand gently. “Let us know if you need anything.”

Sasha smiles and squeezes back. “Thanks, Martin. I’ll keep you all posted.”

An hour later, she’s seated in a room at the prison, jiggling her foot nervously and waiting. It’s one of the small, private rooms usually set aside for attorneys to consult with their clients, which is unusual; normally she has to conduct her visits in a loud, noisy room with a Plexiglas divider between them. A private conversation, on a weekday, out of the clear blue sky? Either something has gone terribly wrong or she’s been lied to.

There’s a familiar whirring sound, and Sasha reaches into her pocket to pull out the tape recorder. She very most definitely did not have this with her when she left; she shut it in her desk drawer before heading out, and it hadn’t been in her pocket when they searched her. She hopes she won’t get in trouble for having it.

As the thought crosses her mind, the door opens and, with a clank of chains, a figure is escorted in. A gruff voice instructs her to buzz for help if there’s an issue, and then the door closes and leaves the two of them alone together.

There’s another clank as the man leans forward, smiling hopefully. “Sasha.”

Sasha smiles back, genuinely pleased but worried at the same time. “Hello, Uncle Wade.”

The family resemblance between them is obvious. Both of them have the same facial structure, the same shape to their eyes, the same skin tone. They’d looked enough alike once to switch places, when Sasha was eighteen and going through a phase and shaved her head. Now, though, after almost a decade in prison, Wade Copper looks old enough to be her father—gaunt, thin, his once-dark hair almost solid grey despite the fact that he’s only in his mid-forties. Every time she’s seen him, he’s tried to smile for her, tried to stay cheerful as he asks about her work, tried to convince her things aren’t so bad for him, but she knows. She can see the weight of imprisonment bearing him down.

Today, though, is different. Today his eyes are sparkling, his smile seems real, and he seems to be barely keeping something contained. She has no idea what it is, but it seems like he’s…excited.

Sudden panic strikes her, and she very quickly throws up those mental blocks Jon Prime has been teaching them. The absolute last thing she wants is to take the surprise away from the man who’s had so few to give her over the years.

“Is everything okay?” she asks instead. “You said we needed to talk and—”

“No, no, everything’s fine. Everything’s fine,” Wade assures her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to scare you. I just had some news for you. It could have—are you on your lunch break? Do we need to—”

“I took the afternoon off. My boss is out of town at the moment, so the three—well, the four of us, we’ve got a new coworker—we’re sort of running things ourselves. When the others found out you wanted to talk to me, they suggested I just call it a day. We’ve got all the time in the world.” Sasha smiles. “What’s going on?”

Wade’s smile broadens. “I’m coming home.”

It takes Sasha a second to process that, and then she sits up straighter. “You’re getting released?”

“I heard back from the parole board this morning. I didn’t tell you I was going up because I didn’t want to get your hopes up, but I had the hearing a few weeks ago. Today I got word that they’ve decided I’m a good candidate for release.”

“That’s—that’s wonderful!” Sasha says.

Wade’s smile slips, just a little. “You don’t sound so sure about that. What’s the matter, Puddle-Duck?”

It’s been forever and a day since he called her that—an old family nickname bestowed on her after her favorite bedtime story, the one she used to beg to be read over and over. She’d trailed after her Uncle Wade “like a little duckling” from the time she could walk, and the “duckling” nickname had eventually morphed into Puddle-Duck. He hasn’t used it since she was about twelve, though, and hearing it now almost makes her cry.

“Nothing,” she says, unconvincingly. “It’s just—there’s a lot going on. That’s all.”

“I won’t be an imposition,” Wade says earnestly. “I’ve managed to save up a bit while I’ve been in here from the work I’ve been doing in the prison library. I should be able to get a place. I won’t be in your way—”

“No, it’s not that at all!” Sasha feels horribly guilty. “I’d be happy to have you stay with me. Of course I would. I’ve got loads of space and—and I’ve missed you so much. It’s just that…”

It’s just that the world might end in a year if they can’t stop it. It’s just that she’s trying to figure out a way to pretend to stop a ritual that she knows won’t succeed even if they do nothing without letting the man who does have a ritual that will work know she knows it. It’s just that she’s developing incredibly invasive psychic powers and doesn’t know if she can live with another person who doesn’t know about it. It’s just that the world is objectively terrifying and she doesn’t know if she can lie about it to the only family she has left or let him believe he’s safe.

“It’s just that there’s been a lot going on in the world since you’ve been in here,” she finally says. “I—I worry that you might—that it might be a lot for you to adjust to.”

“Hey, I raised you, didn’t I?” Wade teases. “If I can handle losing my sister and my parents in one fell swoop, especially to…that, and then turn a six-year-old into a relatively functional adult despite barely having passed my A-levels when I started, I think I can handle anything the world thinks it can throw at me. Bring it on.”

Sasha’s whole body tingles. She clasps her hands together tightly to hide the shaking and focuses very hard on that mental block. There’s something there. A secret. A story. Something in the way he said that has the Eye’s attention and it wants to use her. She can’t let it, she can’t…

“Sasha? Sasha, what’s wrong? Are you—Christ, I’m sorry.” Wade reaches for her hands, manacles jangling, then grunts as the chain binding him to the table stops them halfway. “I shouldn’t have brought that up, I shouldn’t have—are you still having that nightmare?”

Sasha can’t help the slightly brittle laugh that escapes her lips. “I don’t have room for my own nightmares anymore, Uncle Wade. Especially ones in red-on-black binary.”

Wade frowns at her in evident confusion. “What do you mean? Who else’s nightmares would you have?”

Shit, Sasha thinks. “It’s a long story. And I don’t think you’d believe it.”

“It’s you, Sash. I’d believe you if you said the sky was green. Anyway, after what I’ve seen, trust me, there’s not much that’s unbelievable.”

Sasha looks hard at her uncle, then glances at the recorder, spinning away. She should have known. Should have realized that if it’s turning on, there’s something he’s seen. He’s been touched by one of the Fears. And she can’t—she can’t—

“It’s got to do with work,” she finally says. “Part of the Archive job—when I, when I listen to people tell me about something they’ve encountered or seen or, or done, if it’s something that really happened…I end up dreaming about it. I’ve only got a couple, but…it does mean I haven’t had any dreams of my own since I started doing that.”

Wade blinks at her. Softly, he says, “So it is real. I knew it.”

“What, the paranormal?”

“Not just that.” Wade hesitates. “I never—I never told you how I wound up here, did I?”

“No, just—you said it was something to do with you hacking into something you shouldn’t have,” Sasha says slowly. “You never explained.”

“Truthfully, I never fully understood it much beyond what I told you. I don’t even know exactly what I did hack into,” Wade says, a bit ruefully. “I suppose it was the culmination of a project, in a sense, but—it wasn’t intentional.”

“What do you mean?”

Wade takes a deep breath. “The short version? I was hunting a computer virus, trying to trace where it came from. I suppose the path led through something I shouldn’t have been looking at and I got arrested. It fell enough under the Official Secrets Act that they could justify locking me up for it. But I swear, Sash, just like I’ve been telling everyone for years, I wasn’t hacking for secrets. I was trying to save lives.”

“I believe you,” Sasha says, because she does. If there’s anyone in the world she trusts completely, it’s her uncle. And really, this is the most mundane thing she’s been asked to believe in ages. “I just don’t—I don’t understand how tracing a computer virus can save lives. Unless it was infecting hospital computers or something like that.”

“No, that would have made sense.” Wade sighs. “Computer viruses aren’t supposed to be able to infect humans, but…this one did. O-or something like that. I honestly don’t know how to explain it, but…well, if working at that institute of yours is giving you other people’s nightmares, maybe you’ll know better than I do.” He ponders for a moment. “That’s probably a big part of why I got locked up, honestly. I couldn’t explain why I was hunting the computer virus without sounding insane, so I didn’t try. I mean, what was I supposed to say? ‘Yes, Your Honor, I wasn’t even aware of what system I was in, I was just looking for the origin of a bit of coding that killed my entire family’?”

Sasha freezes. The static in her mind gets louder and more insistent. “I don’t understand,” she says with difficulty, rather afraid that she does. He’s right, computer viruses aren’t supposed to infect humans, so if one did…it must belong to one of the Fears. She just can’t imagine which one.

Wade hesitates. “I—I don’t—Sasha, Puddle-Duck, if you don’t—you don’t remember what happened, do you?”

“To Mum and Dad? No.” The doctor said it was to be expected; she was six years old at the time, and it had been a rough experience. She had blacked out most of it, and honestly a lot of her memories from before that point as well. She remembers huddling in a closet with her teddy bear clutched tightly to her chest, hearing her uncle screaming her name, clinging to him tightly after he found her, both of them sobbing as he promised over and over that he would protect her, that he would never leave her, but for the life of her, she can’t remember what she was hiding from. The nightmare she had for years, one that made her wake up screaming almost until she left for uni, hadn’t been specific. She just remembers strings of ones and zeros in constantly shifting columns, blood-red on a black background, scrolling past her vision, but something in the code is terrifying and wrong…

“I don’t want you to have those nightmares.” Wade reaches for her hands again, looking conflicted. “You deserve to know, but…but if your job means that if people tell you those stories, you’ll dream about them too—I’ve had to train myself out of waking up screaming. It’s bad. I don’t want to do that to you, too.”

“It’s not—it’s not exactly like that.” Sasha wonders how to phrase it, then decides, to hell with it. He says he’ll believe her. She might as well tell the truth. It’s not like they’re being recorded by anything other than the spooling tapes, and there aren’t exactly eyes around for Elias to watch through, as far as she knows. She takes her uncle’s hands. “There’s a being…a thing that thrives on fear. I mean, there are a lot of them, but there’s one in particular that lives off of the fear of—of knowledge and secrets being exposed and being watched and all that.”

Wade gives a bitter laugh. “It must love prisons then.”

“In fact, the Institute is built over the remains of the old Millbank Prison, probably right where Smirke was testing out the panopticon design. And that’s the thing. The Institute…kind of belongs to that being. Which means I do, too.” Sasha takes a deep breath. “Sometimes I can—I can tell secrets without trying. I’m not right now,” she adds hastily. “I’ve been working on not…accidentally reading people’s minds or whatever. But the other part of it is the statements. When people tell us their stories and we dream about them? We’re not taking the place of the person dreaming about them. We’re…watching, I guess. Observing. We’re just…there.” She squeezes Wade’s hands. “So if you tell me, Uncle Wade, and I do end up sharing your nightmares, maybe it’ll be better. Because then you won’t have to look at them alone.”

Wade stares at her for a long moment, then nods slowly. “Okay,” he whispers. “Okay. I’ll tell you. You need to know, anyway.”

Sasha smiles, as reassuringly as she can, and glances at the tape recorder. “Do you want to make this…official? I can do, um, I can do the whole spiel we do at the Institute. Put it on the record. We can do some research, maybe.”

“Will it help?”

“It might.”

“Then…okay. Lay it on me.”

Sasha puts the tape recorder between them and takes her uncle’s hands again. Clearly, she says, “Statement of Wade Copper, regarding a murderous computer virus. Recorded direct from subject, twenty-first March, 2017.” She nods at her uncle. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Wade swallows. “Right. Well, you know I’ve always been into computers. I loved coding and programming and seeing what I could do. One of my favorite things to code up were the games, especially interactive fiction. I subscribed to a couple magazines where people would publish the codes for games they’d developed, and I would put them in and play them. I owned a couple that I bought commercially, too. One of the ones I had that I was most excited about was The Hound of Shadows. The story sounded right up my alley—a proper creepy one—but it turned out to have one of the worst parsers I’ve ever seen, and I struggled to finish it. I was crushed.

“I was looking around for something that was like that but…better? Tried my hand at coding it myself, but you know me, I’ve never been all that at coming up with a story of my own. Did a couple reasonably decent games based on a few of the stories I liked, but it wasn’t the same. Around the time I was finishing up my A-levels, some classmates and I were talking about interactive fiction, and I was complaining about Hound. That’s when one of my mates told me about a game he’d recently come across. He said he couldn’t finish it because it was too scary for him, but he thought I’d like it. It was called The Conqueror Worm.”

As he talks, Wade’s eyes go vacant and his shoulders slack; it’s like the words are pouring out of him independent of his will. Sasha never takes her eyes off him. The story fills her the same way Basira’s did, the same way Tim and Martin’s tale of the Not-Them did, the same way that man with the dog’s story did last week. She’s just aware enough of the situation to feel guilty about it, but she can’t stop him now if she tries.

“I managed to get my hands on a copy,” Wade continues. “As soon as I’d finished my exams, but while I was still waiting for the results to come back, I loaded it up on our computer. My friend was right—it was exactly what I was looking for. Interactive fiction. According to the cover, it was ‘loosely’ based on the Edgar Allan Poe poem, which I’d never heard at that point, but if it was Poe I knew it’d be spooky. The story was wonderful, the parser was the best I’d ever seen. Sometimes it was like talking to a real person—like that one Sergey Ushanka bot you and I spent the evening with when you were eight, you remember?” Sasha nods. “Anyway, I was really into it. The idea was that you were the manager of a theater that was putting on a new play, but something was trying to sabotage it, something inhuman and unholy. Started off normal enough, got creepy right fast. I had this constant sense of creeping dread. I loved it.

“The weird thing about this one, though, was that every so often you’d start to do something and suddenly three pixels would turn red. Always three, two in one row and one in between them in the row immediately above or below, and then they’d switch places a few times before disappearing. At first I thought it was a glitch. Then I realized it was intentional, that it was something to do with commands. I finally figured out that if the pixels appeared, you’d done something right.

“I started tracking the commands and decisions that got the wiggling pixels to appear, then started doing them more. Better. Started getting two, three, four at a time. I was sure it meant I was going to win. By the time I got to ‘opening night’ of the play, I could generally make upwards of ten appear every time I made the right choices.  The thing is that ‘opening night’ was the big climax of the game, and there was only one command you could type: ‘The Show Must Go On’. Once you typed that, the play started and you watched to see if you got it right. You wanted to see the ‘play’, but I knew it was a horror game, so I told you to let me watch it first, and if it wasn’t too scary, you and I would play on Saturday. You pretended to accept that, but I knew you were angry. I could hear you yelling halfway across the house. At the time, I kind of thought it was funny, actually.”

Sasha vaguely remembers this now. She was bitterly disappointed—Uncle Wade always let her “help” with his games—so she waited until she was out of the room, then stomped off to the living room where her parents and grandparents were playing a card game and loudly declared that he was the meanest meanie to ever mean. Her mother laughed and said he was always like that, and her grandfather swept her onto his lap and offered to let her be his partner, until…

“What happened then?” she asks.

Wade takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I typed in the command, and I watched. The ‘play’ started, and…there was a voice. Reciting a poem. I guess it was the Poe poem. The ‘actors’ were performing along to the words, but then I noticed the wiggling pixels. One by one, slowly at first, then more and more. They started in the corners, then gradually started moving inwards. But see, amid the mimic rout, a crawling shape intrude. While I was watching, the wiggling pixels crept in an ever-increasing wave towards the ‘stage.’ That’s when I realized it was all the ones I’d been rewarded with for making the right choices. The voice got louder and more desperate-sounding, and then the pixels—I finally realized they were supposed to be worms—swarmed the ‘actors’ and…the screen went red, and then it went black. All the while the voice was still talking. And then it was just the black screen, with the text in blood red, appearing as the voice spoke the words.”

He swallows hard. “I—I looked up the poem. Later. It’s a real poem, ‘The Conqueror Worm’. The plot does follow the…events of the final scene of the game, up to a point. It’s a play, and then a worm—or in the game’s case, many worms—shows up and eats all the actors. The last four lines are…chilling.” He closes his eyes and recites, “And the angels, all pallid and wan, / Uprising, unveiling, affirm / That the play is the tragedy ‘Man,’ / And its hero the Conqueror Worm.”

A chill runs up Sasha’s spine. “I know that poem. He used it in ‘Ligeia’.”

“Maybe. But what got me…what really spooked me at the time, was that the words on the screen weren’t…right. I didn’t know that at the time. I thought it odd. But the voice spoke them, exactly as they appeared on the screen. Instead of ‘The play is the tragedy “Man”’…it said, ‘The play is the tragedy “Guy Copper.”’ The voice even said Dad’s name. I remember thinking that was a creepy coincidence. And then…”  Wade takes another deep breath, and there are tears in his eyes. “I heard a noise from another room, like someone shouting. I turned to look, and when I turned back, the words were changing, morphing almost. Computers didn’t work like that back then, Sash, the graphics weren’t—I know you know that. But it was like the name blurred. And then the voice said those four lines again, but with the new name. And the angels, all pallid and wan, / Uprising, unveiling, affirm / That the play is the tragedy ‘Mary Copper,’ / And its hero the Conqueror Worm.”

The memories are starting to come back. A red wash fills her mind, then the screaming, then her mother pushing her away…oh, God. “And the next name—the next name was ‘Marjorie James’?”

“Yes,” Wade whispers. “And that’s when the screaming started. I was screaming, too. I was—I was convinced it was the game, that it was—I kept hitting keys, backspacing over and over, typing EXIT and hitting the Escape key and—nothing worked. It shifted from Margie’s name to Hugh’s, and…I thought about how many worms had been on the screen, how many ‘successes’ I thought I’d had, and I was suddenly terrified. It started to change again, and I—I dove under the table and I pulled the plug. The sound died. The light died. The screaming stopped, all at once.

“I went running and—and I found them. Mum and Dad, Margie and Hugh, all sprawled around the card table. They were all dead. They were—they were full of worms, Sasha. Blood-red ones. I didn’t know if they’d been red before they…” Wade inhales shakily and looks away. The tears are rolling down his face now. “I called 999, I was trying to tell them what had happened, but—but then I realized I couldn’t find you. I shouted at the poor woman to hurry and I dropped the phone and went looking for you. I was terrified that I’d been too late…but there you were, hiding in my closet with your teddy bear. You had blood on your arms and chest, but you weren’t hurt, and I—oh, God, Sasha. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Sasha whispers. “It’s not. I wish—I’m so sorry, Uncle Wade.”

They both cling to each other’s hands for a moment, crying silently. Finally, Wade takes a deep breath and frees one hand to wipe his eyes. “Anyway, that’s…I couldn’t really explain it to people when they showed up. Just that I’d heard screaming and…the worms were gone by then, but it was obvious. I told a few lies about how old I was and managed to get them to let me take care of you instead of putting you in a home, and for a while everything was fine. Then…just after you left for uni, I was debugging a computer for someone who’d downloaded a game off an FTP server and picked up some sort of virus. When I went into the code, I discovered a secondary virus underneath the main one and went to dig it out. I thought it was a dead-man switch of some kind—you know, remove the main virus, trigger the second one—so I was going to take that one out first. But then I realized it was just some metadata. I would have just deleted it without a second thought, except that I recognized the words. It was those same four lines, the last lines of ‘The Conqueror Worm’, except that it had a name I didn’t know as the name of the ‘play’.”

Another chill runs up Sasha’s spine. “You’re sure you didn’t know it?”

“I didn’t, but my client did. I asked him about it when I gave him his computer back, and he said it was his girlfriend’s name, she was out of town on a trip. I told him to give her a call, and he looked at me kind of funny, but said he would.” Wade sighs. “I looked her up a couple times. Two days later her obituary popped up.”

“You’re saying—”

“I’m saying that once is happenstance, twice is coincidence. But I kept my eyes open, and a few months later, I saw the words again. Different computer, different name, same results,” Wade tells her. “I started tracing it. It’s a—well, it’s a worm, in the truest sense of the word, but I was sure if I could trace its path, figure out where it came from, I could stop it from spreading. Seven or eight years ago, though, I…guess I went through something I wasn’t supposed to, got caught, and wound up here.” He sighs heavily and sits back, blinking. “And…that’s it. I still call it the Conqueror Worm, but…I couldn’t stop it. It’s still out there.”

“I don’t think you can stop it,” Sasha says slowly. Several things slot into place in her mind. When Tim looked at all of them and described the colors he saw on them, he’d mentioned that Sasha had the same sick yellow-green as Martin and Jon Prime faintly woven over her upper torso, but she had just assumed it was from her encounter with Timothy Hodge, the first night she met Michael. Now she realizes the mark he described is too big to be from a single worm, and that the Corruption marked her much more thoroughly than that. She might have to get Tim to take a look at the tape now that she’s made it, but…she’s pretty sure she’s right.  “I think this thing came from—from one of the other fear beings. I’d have to look in the Archives to see if there’s a way to destroy it. There might be, I don’t know. But I do know that you wouldn’t have been able to destroy it on your own. Not without succumbing to the power that it fuels.”

“Sash.” Wade grips her hand tightly. “Are you in danger? If you…belong to one of these powers. Will it hurt you?”

“Maybe. Probably,” Sasha admits. “Someday. I don’t know. It’s—it’s all a bit complicated. I don’t know for sure.” She pauses and reconsiders. “I don’t think it will actively hurt me. But I don’t think it cares if I live or die, in the long run.”

Wade’s face was a study in fear and sorrow. “And it’s from working at the Magnus Institute,” he says. It’s not really a question. “You never would have done that if it wasn’t for me. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t know about that,” Sasha says. “Maybe. Maybe not. My project with the EPCC was shutting down anyway, so I don’t know where I would have ended up, but the Magnus Institute was hiring. Maybe I wouldn’t have stayed as long as I did, maybe I’d have looked for another job outside of London eventually, but…honestly, Uncle Wade, as much as I’ve always loved snooping and ferreting out secrets? I think I would have ended up bound to it anyway. At least this way I kind of know what’s going on enough to mitigate the damage.”

Wade shakes his head slowly. “I just…don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t,” Sasha promises, even though she knows she can’t really promise that. But he’s all the family she has left, he gave up his future so that she could have one, and she’ll do anything she can to make sure she doesn’t waste that. “I’ll tell you everything when you come home. When will that be?”

“Two weeks. The first of April. Is that enough time for—I mean, will you be okay if I—”

“Yes,” Sasha interrupts him. “Of course. Tell me what you need and I’ll get it all set up.”

Wade smiles slowly, the hopeful look back in his eyes. He laces his fingers through hers and squeezes.

“We’ll be all right,” he tells her. “Family looks out for each other. I promise, Puddle-Duck, I will do anything I can to protect you.”

Sasha smiles back and returns the squeeze. She doesn’t tell her uncle that she’s grown up a little beyond his ability to protect her, or that she might need to be the one protecting him. Right about now, she really wants to let him wrap her in a blanket and a hug and promise her that everything will be all right again.

She might even let herself believe him.

[smol-and-grumpy]

Something Just Like This - CH21

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: Dean Winchester, mobster boss. He’s a little cocky, a lot ruthless and more often than not, short tempered. But he’s also, Dean Winchester, a war veteran and hero who suffers under a shit ton of PTS. He met her in a bar and thinks it’s fate that brought her to him. Little does he know why she’s really here.

Warnings: All the fluff, a tad angst, violence

WC: 3194

SERIES MASTERLIST

Gabriel drives behind Y/N to work again. It feels weird and she even offered that they could drive together but he politely declined. She guesses that he probably isn’t allowed. 

Can’t help but wondering what he’s allowed to do. If Dean only assigned him to watch her the whole time or if he has other things to take care of too. But she guesses that it’s not her place to ask. 

He gets out with her, walks her to the door and for the whole night, Gabriel’s at his usual place, just watching her.

She thinks it’s weird, of course it is, wants to tell Dean to tone it down, it’s not like she can’t defend herself. Then, she remembers that Dean doesn’t know about all this. He doesn’t know about what she really does for a living. Doesn’t know she’s the same as Gabriel. Paid to watch Dean. It’s so easy to lose herself in this life. So easy to forget that her other life ever existed. 

The thought of it should scare her. Should ring alarm bells all over, but strangely, it doesn’t. And what does that say about her?

*

Finishing up is the same as last night, too. Gabriel helps her clean up, helps her more than he had to, probably he’s glad that he can make himself useful, other than staring at a woman the whole night. 

They drive to Dean’s apartment together, yet still apart in their separate cars. 

Y/N thinks Gabriel must be bored of having to babysit her. Thinks that it’s probably the most uninteresting job he could fetch. Wonders a little, if it’s a way of punishment because he did something wrong. She hopes it isn’t.

Y/N’s bedtime ritual is the same as yesterday, which consists of feeding Cuddles, shower and then bed. It’s weird being here without Dean. The apartment feels empty, she guesses it’s because it’s so freaking big. Too big. She wonders how Dean copes with that. It’s one thing to be alone in a small apartment but to be alone here makes life seem so much emptier. But then again, she doesn’t think that Dean really spends a lot of time here anyway. 

Dean calls when she settles in bed and she is not so sure if there isn’t really a secret camera somewhere that records her every move. There must be because how else would he know what she’s doing. How else would he know that she’s in bed now and not an half hour earlier already. But she brushes it off because he most likely knows when her shift ends and he knows how long it takes for her to clean up and get back here. He also knows that she usually takes a shower once she arrives home.

“Hi,” She says, trying to sound less tired today as she was yesterday.

“Hi,” He replies and she can hear a huff of air, like he’s smiling when he says it. Like he exhales after holding in a breath for too long.

“You okay?” She asks and sits up in the too big bed, her head resting against the headboard. Cuddles is not in bed tonight because she closed the door.

“Yeah,” Dean says, and adds, “Much better now.”

“Why are you still up? Nightmare?”

“I haven’t slept yet.”

“Shouldn’t you be?”

Dean sighs, “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure,”

“Is it weird that I’m scared to fall asleep? I’m terrified because I know that I’ll be up again anyway with cold sweat and racing heart. I don’t even wanna close my eyes because all I see is dirt and dust, and all I hear is gunfire and screams.”

“Oh, Dean… I’m sorry. No… no, it’s not weird. It’s perfectly normal.” She pauses before she adds, “Have you tried sleeping pills?”

“I can’t. It’ll knock me out and I need to be reachable at all times.”

“This conversation is getting sad.” She mumbles.

Dean chuckles, “‘M sorry, I really didn’t want to make you sad. Just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Does it make you feel better?”

“‘M already much better now.” 

“When will you be back?”

“Hopefully by tomorrow evening.”

“Okay.” She says, and it might have come out a little disappointing but she was really hoping that she’d see him before she has to go to work. And now she feels selfish.

“What is it?”

How does he know?

“Just miss you, is all.” She says because it’s the truth.

“Miss you, too.” He breathes out and she can hear that he tries to smile even if she can’t see him. She’s wondering now why they never video call but then again, she’s not a great sight to look at sometimes. Plus, seeing him might make her miss him even more.

“Alright, you should go catch some sleep.”

“Good night, Dean.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, sweetheart.”

*

Y/N says goodbye to Cuddles when she leaves for work the next day. The cat’s been extra clingy which makes her think that he must know. Must know that their little adventure will be in their past. Dean’s coming home tonight so there’s no need for her to stay. Not like she has packed enough clothes anyway. 

Ellen called to say that she has to start earlier and that’s fine with her. It means that she can go home almost three hours earlier than usual. She’ll have more time to sleep for once. 

Halfway through her shift, Dean sent a message and she only saw it because she needed a hair tie from her bag. 

D: Would it be too much to ask if you’d stay another night?

She bites down on her bottom lip while reading the message then types back, hopes for enough signal to send it out.

Y/N: Won’t you be home?

She waits for the reply that took forever to come. It came after an hour and she doesn’t know if it’s Dean who’s busy or the signal at the Roadhouse.

D: I am but I don’t know how long it’ll take. Need to help sort things out in this facility.

Y/N: Okay will go home first because I need new clothes.

D: You don’t need clothes.

She can literally imagine him grinning because he thinks he’s so funny.

Y/N: Stop it. I have to work now.

D: Come on! I’m hilarious!

She rolls her eyes and slips her phone back into her bag before she proceeds to take the next order. She can see Gabriel in the periphery of her eyes, sees him reading a text and then he nods. That’s probably Dean texting him what happens after work tonight.

“Dean,” Cas comes running towards him when Dena is helping a lab tech with the heavy cylinder. “Can I talk to you for a minute.”

“Sure.” Dean says but he didn’t really want to interrupt the work honestly because he wants to get back home as soon as possible.

Cas makes Dean follow him and walks around the corner. They’re out of anyone’s earshot. 

“Jo escaped.” Cas whispers.

“She what?” It came out way too loud.

“Adam was supposed to be watching but he’s not there anymore, neither is Jo.”

“Fuck, Y/N!” Dean hurries along the corridor of this big lab, “Cas I’m taking the car.”

Dean actually doesn’t wait for Cas to say something. Knows that they only took one car to come here but Cas’ a big boy, he’ll find a fucking way back.

He tries calling her but she wouldn’t pick up. He has approximately four hours to reach her. It also takes four hours for her to finish her shift.

Gabe doesn’t pick up his phone either. Dean knows that the signal at the Roadhouse is questionable at best, but why does it have to be now? He debates calling the landline but what if Ellen picks up? She doesn’t even know that her daughter is a fucking traitor.

“You don’t really have to come up, you know?” Y/N tells Gabriel as he walks with her to the entrance of her building.

“I’m just really following orders.”

“So, what? If he tells you to jump you would?” She says in a playful tone.

“Yeah.” 

Wow.

“How long have you known Dean?” She can’t help but ask.

“Since Afghanistan.” 

She stops in her tracks. “You two were stationed together?”

“Yeah. He saved my life.”

“And then you come back and work for him? Even though he’s doing illegal things?”

“He’s a good man. He was just born into the wrong family. His intentions are good and he wants to get out, leave it all behind. That’s why I stay and help him.”

“Get out? Out of where?”

“Did he not tell you?”

Uh oh…

“No.”

“Shit,” Gabriel curses. “Don’t tell him I told you. You should ask him. I just shut up from now on.”

They walk together side by side in silence. There’s so many things going on in her head. Too many things that she still wants to know, wants to ask Gabriel but she knows for certain that he won’t talk again. 

They walk up the stairs and she stops mid climb. 

“What is it?” Gabriel asks because he bumps into her.

Her heart races. “The door is open.”

“Did you leave it open?”

“Duh, would I leave it open that wide?”

Gabriel peeks from behind her, then hastily steps in front of her, drawing a gun from his holster. “Behind me.” He whispers and they climb the two remaining steps in silence.

He goes in, gun drawn, securing each room before he tells her to come in. 

The apartment is a mess, drawers have been pulled out, every furniture turned over. 

The silence is almost unbearable as they walk through her trashed apartment. She’s in shock, broken glass crushes under their feet. 

No, no, no. This can’t be happening. 

Just when she’s about to get into her room to see if her safe is still there, she hears footsteps.

“Y/N!” 

That’s Dean’s voice.

How did he get here?

He runs in, gun drawn, his shirt’s loose around his belt, not tucked in nearly as she’s used to. The tie long gone, sleeves folded up his forearm.

“Oh, thank god!” Dean breathes out when he sees her, runs forward and pulls her to his chest.

They stand there in silence for a second, she can feel Dean’s heartbeat. It’s ridiculously fast.

It’s then that they hear footsteps coming up the stairs. It could be her neighbors but it also could not, so they stay still.

“Oh, hello boys and one stupid girl,” Jo chirps. She has a gun too, which she points in their direction. Jo calls back to someone who’s coming up the stairs. “Told you after we get some food they’d all be here!”

Adam shows up a second later, of course he has a gun too. 

Y/N’s the only one who doesn’t have a gun and she feels awfully left out. But running into her room to retrieve the gun out of her safe seems like a bad move right now.

“What do you want, Jo?” Dean growls, and he moves to stand before Y/N. 

“You know what I want, Dean.” Jo snarls. “Protect yourself, let me bring her to Lucifer.”

“And you, Adam, really?” Dean asks as he ignores Jo’s demand. He heard her fine, he’s just not gonna turn Y/N over.

Adam just shrugs. “You never trusted me, Dean. Never thought I was good enough to be in your inner circle. Didn’t even fucking know the bunker existed until Inias appointed me to watch Jo while you were away.”

“You’re the other rat. I should have known. Why do you think I never trusted you?”

Jo laughs, “You two done?” 

Y/N can see Dean exchanging looks with Gabriel. It’s like they have a silent understanding. She knows about things like this. They probably did it a lot while they served together in Afghanistan. It’s a way for them to signal to the other they're going in for the kill. It’s clear to them who is going to take out who, even though Jo and Adam have no idea about it. They are most likely not coming from a military background.

“I go.” Y/N says, as a way of distraction, to give Dean and Gabriel time to think about their next move.

Y/N steps forward even though Dean makes himself a little broader, not wanting to let her in front but she knows she’s not the target. Jo would have more to lose when she kills Y/N. Obviously, for whatever reason, Lucifer wants her alive. 

“Not on my watch.” Dean says, and there’s the sound of gunfire, he aims for Jo’s right shoulder. The impact sends the blonde woman flying back and her gun slips out of her grip. There’s a sound that Jo lets out that hurts Y/N’s ears.

As soon as Jo was catapulted back, Gabriel went in for the kill, shooting Adam square in the face before Adam could even pull the trigger.

Dean steps over to Jo who was writhing on the floor.

He squats down, looking the woman in the eye. Jo’s trying to say something, her lips are moving but no sound comes out.

“You know, you were right about one thing. The thing we talked about when I saw you last. I give you credit for that. I can accept that it’s who I am and I’m willing to go all in for what I love. But do you also remember what I said to you? If you pull that shit again, I will have no problem putting a bullet through your fucking head, Jo.”

Dean gets up again and turns to Y/N.

“Can do you something for me, sweetheart?” 

“What do you want me to do?” She asks, her eyes are still fixed on Jo. She doesn’t know what she should feel about the woman on the floor. Is confused as fuck. Hates that it has to happen and thinks it’s all her fault.

Dean sees her state of distress, and walks over, lowers himself down a little, and pushes his finger under her chin, tilts her head up like he always does when he wants her to look at him. “Hey, hey, look at me, okay? You’re okay. I got you.”

She nods, didn’t even know that she’s crying until a tear runs down her cheek. 

“I want you to know that I’m gonna do something which is not pretty, alright? That’s not really me. You’re now basically the only one who knows who I really am. I’m just trying to do the right thing here, and right now, the right thing is protecting you, alright?”

She nods again. There are no words coming out even if she would try. She wants to tell him though, wants to tell him that it’s not because he’ll kill Jo, not because she’s never seen someone die in front of her eyes before. It’s because he’s doing everything to protect her. Her of all people! And she doesn’t deserve it. Not when she’s betraying him in the worst fucking way possible.

Gabriel is talking on the phone in the back. He has taken Jo’s gun away so Jo wouldn’t be able to try something funny.

Dean kisses her, and she kisses him back with tears running down her face. Pours all the things she wants to say but can’t into the kiss, I’m sorry I’m sorry I should have never made you fall in love with me.

He parts then, kisses her forehead. “Close your ears and your eyes, baby.” He whispers, and walks back to Jo.

She nods and closes her eyes and ears, even turns around because Dean wants her to. 

The shot is still loud. It makes her whole body jump and then she drops to the floor, cries some more. 

Dean picks her up from the floor and carries her into her bedroom. Sits on her bed, drops her into his lap and let’s her cry into the crook of his neck.

“I’m sorry,” He says, stroking her head. 

“No, you have nothing to be sorry about.” She mumbles, he can feel that his neck is wet and her tears run down his collar. 

“I made you cry.” 

“You didn’t. I was just overwhelmed.”

“And there I thought I would come home and make you scream but here we are.” He tries to lighten up the situation.

She chuckles a little but it sounds weird because her nose is blocked and it came out more like a grunt.

Outside, someone is talking loudly. It sounds like her neighbor from upstairs and then another voice. Softer. That’s Gabriel.

“What’s Gabriel telling my neighbor?”

Dean brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. “Something about not tampering the crime scene and that they should let the police do their job. Knowing him, he likes to flash his badge, too.”

“A police badge?”

“Yeah.”

“A fake one.” 

It must be. 

“It was his, alright. He used to be a real policeman.”

She doesn’t understand. The crease between her eyebrows grows but Dean is getting restless.

“Come on, pack all the things you need for—” He stops to think, “— for forever maybe. We can come back when it’s cleaned up if you should need more things.”

“Where should I go?” She asks and he looks at her dumbfounded.

“Duh,”

He can see the moment the wires in her head start to connect again. 

“No.”

“Yes.” He grins.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t move into someone’s home after I’ve known him for what? Two weeks?”

“Almost three.” Dean adds, like it matters.

“Dean!”

“You can’t stay here and if you don’t wanna live at mine then let me set you up in an apartment I own.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

He’s getting tired of her doubts. “Jesus, are we really arguing about this?”

“I mean, yeah, I’d move in but do you really want it? Want someone living with you? I’ll be the first one you see when you come home? I’ll be around always since I’ll probably be out of a job?”

He chuckles and brushes the tears away from her face to kiss her. “Baby, that doesn’t make me want to live with you any less. If anything it’s the contrary. Makes me want it even more.”

“You will want your space though, and I’m invading it.”

“I don’t need personal space.”

She looks downwards, her fingers play with the buttons of his shirt. “I’ll get on your nerves.”

“I’m used to the heart attacks you’re giving me since I met you.”

“I’ll annoy you.”

“I’ll annoy you back.”

She sighs. “I love Cuddles, though.”

“He loves you back.”

“You sure?”

“Never been more sure of anything in my life.” He kisses her wet nose. “Come on, you pack and I help Gabe outside. We can discuss this thing about me being absolutely fucking sure for you to move in when we’re home later.”

CH22

[3wisellamas]

Graffiti Wiener

(Oops, my recent fanfic kick spilled over from AT to OK KO.  tl;dr:   Darrell starts vandalizing the plaza every night and the bodega kids find it entertaining as heck.  It’s very long, set aside some time for it.  Also, disclaimer, don’t do crimes kiddos, yadda yadda yadda.)

--

It was early shift at Gar’s Bodega.  Rad opened the store that day, looked at the relatively stocked state of the shelves from the day prior, and floated to the break room for a post-wake nap.  Enid arrived second, and seeing nobody to keep her accountable she swiped an issue of Alt EDM Monthly from the magazine rack to peruse as she lounged on her counter.  As usual, KO excitedly burst through the door last, waving at his mom as she parked the car to start her own day.  But, this early on this quiet a day, his enthusiasm only took him so far into his cleaning duties.

It was too early to be at work, the three silently agreed.  Then, as if a direct challenge to their morning ennui, their boss Mr Gar angrily smashed through his office door.

“KO!  Enid!”  He turned towards the break room door in the back.  “Radicles!  Front and center!”

The three slowly marched forward, Rad in particular taking a few extra seconds to come into the store proper, yawning.  It was too early to be taking orders, the three silently agreed.

Their lack of enthusiasm only raised Mr Gar’s volume.  “You three shape up and come with me.  I got work for you.”  He stomped towards the back of the store, out the loading dock, with his employees in tow.  The four exited the building there, passed the trucks and the junkyard, and turned into the alley, where the sight that awaited them definitely made the early morning shift less dull.

Taking up almost an entire wall of the plaza alleyway was a large graffiti mural, unusually detailed and elaborate for the spray paint it was created with.  The cans of paint in question had been carelessly discarded all over the alley afterward, simply left behind in what seemed like a hurry.

“Disgusting, isn’t it,”  Gar sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose behind his glasses.  “Someone vandalized the plaza last night, and today I’ve got two jobs for you!”

KO wasn’t listening.  He immediately rushed over towards the wall to get a better look.  “It’s so pretty!!”

“Yeah, this is pretty sick,” Enid agreed.  “They did this in only one night?”

Gar snapped his fingers to regain their attention.  “I have two jobs for the three of you.  First, you’re cleaning up this mess.”  He kicked a stray can out from under his feet, and pointed to a large bucket of white paint, a tray, and two paint rollers he’d set up underneath the mural.  “I want every trace of what happened here last night gone, understand?”

“Yes sir, Mr Gar!”  The three saluted enthusiastically.

“Good.”  He paused.  “KO, I only had two paint rollers and they’re pretty short, so you clean up the trash.”  

“I’m on it!”  KO gave a big smile, bouncing on his heels at the thought of having his own special mission.

“Now, the second thing…”  Mr Gar leaned forward over his employees, to gain a more intimidating presence.  “I want you three to come back here tonight, and keep watch over the plaza.  If the creep who did this comes back, you’re to stop them at all costs.  Understood?”

Enid and Rad looked at each other nervously, before giving their boss a shaky thumbs-up.  

“If this wall isn’t sparkling white when I come in tomorrow morning, I am going to be very.  Very.  Disappointed in you.”  He leaned back into his normal posture, and even a little further to crack his back.  “Welp, time’s a-wastin’, Bodegamen.  Get to work!”

All three shouted “Yes sir!” after him as he departed back towards the loading dock, leaving them to their tasks.  

KO excitedly hopped around gathering spray cans, while Rad and Enid set up the paint tray.  Enid in particular looked up at the mural again, studying the various scenes it depicted:  A giant orange dragon along the top, who seemed to be desperately chomping and grabbing at a bunch of glittering technoes in mid-flight.  In the center, a nondescript man in a cowboy hat riding a yellow horse, shooting what looked like a revolver at the dragon, and missing all six shots.  Off to one side, a cute cartoony mouse glowing a gross nuclear green, and with what looked like toxic waste dripping from its mouth.  On the other side, the artist’s tag, reading “DB” in simple, red block letters.

She sadly contemplated what she would soon have to do to the piece.

“So...who do you think could’ve made this anyway?”  KO asked as he ducked between his friends to grab a paint can.

Rad didn’t even hesitate.  “It’s Darrell.  No question.”

“Are you sure?”  Enid gestured towards the parking lot with her thumb.  “I know he’s a graffiti wiener, but usually all he does is tag our sign every now and then.  I didn’t think he was able to do stuff like...this.”

“You know any other graffiti wieners with the initials ‘DB’?” he asked, pointing towards the tag.  He coated his paint roller in the tray, and raised it to the mural.  “Welp, guess we better get paintin’.”

“Hold up a second, Rad!”  Enid put down her roller and took several steps back, motioning for him to move aside.  She produced her phone from her pocket and took several pictures of the wall, occasionally stepping to the right or the left to get a better angle.  “It’s kind of a waste to just cover it up like this, you know?”

“Dude, Enid, it was painted by a Boxbot.”

“Oh well?  I still think it looks cool.”  She took one final picture, and then swiped back through them.  “I’ve been reading a bunch of articles in Alt EDM Monthly about this DJ that also posts a ton of graffiti tutorials on Social Media, so I guess I’ve been on a real street art kick.  And this…”  She cropped a picture of the mouse portion.  “...is my new lock screen.”

“Heh, okay then,” Rad scoffed.

She put her phone away and grabbed the roller again.  “Alright, now let’s get to work.”  

I didn’t take long before the whole wall was covered in two coats of plain white, letting through no traces of the graffiti underneath.  The alleyway was spotless, with KO even finishing with the paint cans early and then using the time to collect the rest of the place’s usual debris.  It was at least an eventful start to a dull early morning shift, the three silently agreed.

--

The late shift, though, was another story.  Mr Gar had let his employees leave early to make up for coming back so late, and they were refreshed and ready for a Boxbot fight.

They took up a lookout position in a part of the fenced junkyard overlooking the alley, hiding behind a large pile of trash and robot parts.  Enid checked the time, quietly signalling to the other two to keep their eyes open, but three hours later even she was ready to call it a night.  Not even a tiny dinosaur had passed through the alley at all.

KO looked up at his friends and yawned.  “I think we should just go home.  I told Mommy we’d be out past my bedtime, but not this late…”

“You wanna take a nap, go ahead kiddo.  I’m about there too.”  Rad shifted to a slightly more comfortable position, not an easy feat in a pile of scrap metal.

“Guys, don’t stick me with lookout.”  Enid continued scrolling through her Social Media feed to keep awake, not even paying attention to her duties at all.

They heard a metallic thump, and Enid looked up from her phone. “Rad, was that you?”  She shook him awake when she got no response.

“It sounded like it was coming from the parking lot!”  KO whispered.  The three peeked out from behind their pile to see a hooded figure sneaking into view around the front of the plaza.  The intruder kept nervously looking around to make sure the alley was clear, before jogging back to the site of their previous mural.  The bodega employees couldn’t be sure in the dark, but it looked like the figure sighed as they laid a bright green backpack on the pavement and pulled back their hood.

The exposed brain case and large, single eye in the center of their forehead as they whipped their head around to do one last sweep of the area were unmistakable.

“Yep, that’s a Darrell.”  Rad pulled the other two back behind the pile.  “Ready to smash ‘im?”

“...You know what?  Hang on a sec.”  Enid grabbed Rad’s shoulder and held him in place.  “We’ve still got that white paint, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then…”  Enid let him go to peek at Darrell, squinting to see better in the dark.  “I say we just let him go.  I kinda wanna see what he does.”

KO peeked around the other side of the trash pile.  “But Enid,”  he whispered, “What about Mr Gar?  Darrell’s gonna mess up the wall again.”

“We’ll just repaint it once he’s done.”

“Oh…”  

Darrell dug in his backpack for a few moments, before finally pulling out the aerosol can he was looking for.  He popped the top off, just letting it clatter along the pavement, and shook the can vigorously before laying down the first marks of a new piece.

“Orange!”  KO excitedly whispered to the others.  “He’s using orange first!”

“Yeah.  Looks like he’s got a flame theme with this one,” Enid and KO both quietly got comfortable to watch the show.

Rad rolled his eyes.  “I guess I just don’t get it.”  He didn’t exactly stop watching Darrell work, though, from over KO’s shoulder.

The robot finished the base coat on the flames, and set the can down at his feet.  He dug in his bag again and pulled out a can of yellow, and then a can of red, using them to add variation to the flat orange.  With the flame background detailed, he placed the red can with the others and stepped back to take in his work.  Satisfied, he dug for yet another can, and started painting black vertical bars across the entire canvas.

“Aw, what’s he doing?”  KO pouted.  “He’s ruining it!”

Enid clapped her hand over her little friend’s mouth as his whispering got just a little too loud for comfort.  “Let’s just see where he’s going with this.”

As he started focusing on a portion of the canvas, though, Darrell suddenly started to act uneasy.  He whipped his head around again, scanning the alley for anyone watching his efforts.  The bodega trio ducked back behind their garbage pile just quick enough to avoid being spotted.  He stared towards the junkyard for more than a few seconds, before finally turning back towards the wall and continuing with the black paint.

“Phew…”  Enid held KO on her lap as Rad leaned back into the trash.  He didn’t do so as silently as he’d hoped, though, and a small piece of scrap metal above his head loosened and dropped, loudly skittering across the ground as all three looked on in horror.

In the alley, Darrell jumped at the noise, throwing his paint at a nearby trash can.  Like a startled rabbit, he bolted towards the parking lot, not even bothering to check what had made the sound.  As he turned the corner out of sight, the trio heard his rocket boots activate and fade into the distance in the direction of Boxmore.

Enid released a breath she’d been holding for what seemed like the entire night, relieved she could finally do so without watching her volume.  She and KO left their post to examine the fresh mural their archenemy had left behind, while Rad leaned against a clean wall nearby.

Between the black bars, Darrell had been painting a pair of hands gripping two of them when he was interrupted, one of which appeared to be melting and dripping down into the flames below.

“Huh.  He’s a tortured artist.  I like it.”  Enid pulled out her phone again to snap pictures, using the flash to illuminate the area.

Rad, however, started investigating a much more intriguing target.  “Hey, guys, look what he left for us!”  He picked up the paint-filled backpack and draped it over his shoulder.  He had forgotten to actually close it, though, and as he whipped it around about a dozen paint cans labelled in various colors fell out and scattered down the alley, which KO helpfully ran after.

“You guys, quit bein’ so loud!”  Enid couldn't help but laugh at her coworkers’ antics, though.  

“You’re one to talk, E.”  Rad set the bag down between his feet and opened it wide.  “Toss me one, KO!”

He did so, though his aim was a bit off.  Rad quickly grabbed the tossed can in midair using his telekinesis, guiding it home.  “Good shot, buddy!  Keep ‘em coming!”

While the boys repacked the backpack, Enid got to work preparing the rollers and paint tray.  It took just about as long as it had done earlier to apply the two coats and hide all evidence that anyone had vandalized the plaza once again.

“Just one thing left to do I guess.”  Enid motioned toward the backpack draped over Rad’s shoulder.  “Let’s toss that thing back across the street.”

Rad resisted.  “Actually, I got a better idea.  I’ll hang onto it for now.”  He put on the backpack a bit more properly, with both straps around his shoulders.

“What, you repainting your van with that stuff?”

“Naw, you’ll see.”  He smirked.  “Besides, maybe if Darrell doesn’t have this he won’t be able to come back tomorrow night.”

“I don’t think that’ll stop him.”  Enid sighed.  “We might want to keep an eye out for him tomorrow too.  Meet me here at midnight?”

KO and Rad agreed.  The latter checked his phone, and groaned.

“Speakin’ of my van, yeesh.  It is way too late.  I’ll drive us home.”

KO looked up at the moon, barely visible over the alley wall above them.  “Yeah…I definitely missed my bedtime.”

--

Darrell did return the next night, as the trio expected.  This time he carried a light blue backpack, with an ‘S’ and a few of what were either flowers or tiny sawblades embroidered along the top.  He was much more careful to make sure he was unwatched, however, to the point of even walking up to the junkyard fence to check behind the piles of trash.  

Luckily, the bodega employees had taken up a new lookout spot on the roof, just above the wall Darrell had taken to painting.  They peered down at him periodically as he worked, using the sound of his spray can to judge when it was safe to do so.

From that angle, it was difficult to miss the large crack in Darrell’s brain case.

“Hey, we blew him up today, right?”  Enid whispered.  KO nodded; this was definitely a different body than the one they’d chucked into the junkyard piece by piece earlier in the day.  

The robot started spraying again, so Enid leaned over the ledge, checking his progress.  So far, he had finished what looked like a portrait of himself, simplified of course, and with a sad expression on his face.  Darrell stepped back, though with his eye luckily focused forward, and she noticed he was mimicking the expression on his real face.  Then he looked down at his feet, searching for one of the colors he’d used previously, as Enid ducked back to safety.

“He’s getting a little more literal today,” she commentated to a curious KO.  He took the next turn to lean forward, with Rad tightly holding onto his hand just in case.

As KO was pulled back, he quietly reported the next developments.  “He started drawing...something around his head.”  He looked down.  “I couldn’t tell what it was yet.”

Enid scrolled through her phone.  “Rad, you’re up.”

The alien peeked down for a second, then quickly leaned back.  “He’s got teal.  I think he’s drawing my fist,” he whispered, making one to illustrate his statement.

“That’s...weird.  Is he drawing us fighting him?”

“I dunno, KO.”  Rad took another peek.  Looks like he’s got yours and I think Enid’s fists too.  And a bunch of others…

“Let me see.”  Enid set down her phone and took her turn once Darrell was distracted again below.  There were indeed a number of arms ending in fists aimed at the painted Darrell’s head -- she recognized Rad’s immediately, and KO’s with his armband, and one plain human one that had to be hers, but there were also a bright orange one, one with a red glove, a catlike yellow claw, a couple of purple ones, and a green one.  And a large open space at the very top, which she could barely examine before she needed to duck away as Darrell glanced up towards it.

The three stayed far from the edge for a while, just listening as he sprayed that final arm, which seemed to take longer than all the others.  Eventually, the sounds of the robot shaking cans and spraying paint gave way to some sniffling.  Then, the sound that they had been waiting for, as Darrell rustled through his backpack again, and all three leaned over the ledge to see the final result.

In that top spot was a bright yellow chicken claw, not just aiming at the painted Darrell but actually smashing right through his brain case, with bits of the green glass and even little fleshy chunks painted around the wound.  The robot’s eye had also been painted over with a large black X.  They momentarily glanced down at Darrell, who had stopped searching his bag and was wiping away a few tears.

The three ducked back, still silent.  Enid looked at the boys, with an expression of horror.

“Okay, he’s a really tortured artist.”

Rad nodded.  “This got dark.”

They were interrupted by Darrell shaking another can, this time much more vigorously.  Rad held out KO to watch as he began haphazardly painting what eventually turned into a crude depiction of Lord Boxman’s face, finishing with his bright red eye.  Darrell stood there holding the can of red for a moment, sadly looking at the second piece...and then angrily crossed it out.  And then again, and again -- he wildly swung the can around while spraying, as if to assault the image with the paint.  Eventually he threw the can itself at the image, and, still frustrated, even started kicking at the wall with his boot until he had finally vented all of his rage.  

He stepped back again, picked up the can of red, and quickly finished the piece by placing his tag in the corner, in red block letters:  “DB”.  He then unceremoniously kicked aside the cans he’d used, put on the backpack, and ran out of the alley, leaving the area empty for the bodega employees to descend.

Enid once again snapped plenty of pictures of the wall as KO and Rad picked up the scattered spray cans, though this time without a backpack to catch them in.  As the teens worked at covering the graffiti, Rad spoke up.

“Do you think this actually happened to him today?”

“Well…”  Enid compared the damage she had seen from above versus the damage in the painting.  “Maybe a super angsty emo-teen version of what happened to him today.  Guess things aren’t going so great at Boxmore right now.”  She looked down, and stopped.  “Wait, shoot…”

There were bright red footprints going down the alleyway a short distance, from the mural site to the sidewalk in front of the fitness dojo before they finally faded, likely from Darrell’s boots as he ran.  She remembered KO’s report of the robot kicking at the red paint and facepalmed.  

“Oh geez.  So much for cleaning up all the evidence he was here…”  She ran her finger over one of the tracks.  “It’s already dry.”

“Hang on, I think I know how to fix this!”  KO searched through the paint cans he’d collected and found the black one.  He slowly shook it as he’d seen Darrell do, then, holding it with both hands, pressed down on the top to spray a large black blob of paint onto the asphalt, covering the footprint fully.

Enid giggled, and patted him on the back.  “Vandalism is wrong, Brush Head.  But, good idea.”  She found him a lighter gray can for the sidewalk, and let KO cover the rest of Darrell’s tracks while she helped Rad finish on the wall.

--

Darrell’s subject matter wasn’t nearly as dark the next night, or the night after that.  They noticed from the roof that the crack in his head had been repaired, and he smiled and even hummed off-key as he worked, covering the wall in some more abstract, experimental images, like a door being shut in someone’s face with a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign hanging on it, and a princess tiara being chewed on by a swarm of rats, and a few frogs jumping around in a puddle of oil. 

He seemed to be using the latter two to practice his shading, and even worked it into his “DB” tag, trying a gradient effect on the letters the fourth night, then a failed chrome effect the fifth night that he angrily painted over in plain red, and finally another attempt at the chrome on the sixth night that was a clear success. 

Of course, every night after he finished painting the wall, the trio painted over it once again, though not before Enid could take a photo.  She flipped through them at work on the seventh day since Mr Gar had tasked them with keeping the wall vandalism-free, until Red Action stopped her on one.

“Dude, this one’s sick!”  

“I know, right?  He’s actually getting really good.”  

“Man, it’ll really stink when you guys finally make him stop in the alley.”

Enid shook her head, trying to empty out the cobwebs and process what she had just heard.  “When...we make him stop?”

“Dude, you’ve been stayin’ up a whole week watching ‘im, right?  That can’t be good for ya.”  Red pointed out the dark bags under Enid’s eyes, and the fact that she’d dozed off at least twice since Red entered the bodega.

Enid recounted the number of graffiti murals she’d photographed.  There were seven, it had been an entire week.

No wonder she was so tired.

Enid yawned after being reminded of the fact, watching it spread throughout the store as KO and Rad both copied her.  

“We seriously have been up every night for an entire week, huh.”  She pressed at her forehead.  “Yeah, we gotta stop this.”

“I mean, it’s still cool and all, but whatever.”  Red scoffed.  “Probably for the best you just sleep and let ‘im go.  You gotta take care of yourself more.”

“What’s Mr Gar gonna think if we don’t cover it up every night, though?”  Enid shuddered.  

“Well, that’s why you gotta chase him away!”  Red unconsciously formed her hand into an arm cannon.  “Just blast ‘im a couple times, like you do when they bust over here during the day!”

Rad interrupted from aisle 2, “I can blast him tonight no problem!  Right in his robo-butt!”

Enid just shook her head, smiling.  “Rad, please think before you open your mouth for once…”  She finished ringing up Red Action’s order, waving her off as she left.  With the store now empty, Enid’s coworkers gathered around the counter.

“So, we’re really gonna stop Darrell tonight?”  KO yawned again.  

“Yeah, bud.  There’s no way we can keep this up.”

The other two were quiet, leaning against the counter to stay up.  Enid was so tired she didn’t even care they were touching her sacred space.

Suddenly Rad seemed to realize something.  “Hey, Enid, can I...try something tonight, when we see him in the alley?”

“Sure dude, what did you have in mind?”

“Remember when I took his backpack with all that paint, and I said I had a plan I was working on?”  

KO lit up.  “Oh yeah!  You were gonna repaint your van with that stuff!”  He laughed as Rad playfully punched him in the shoulder.

“No, squirt.  I was gonna do somethin’ cool for us, but it might work better to try it on him tonight.  You know, instead of just smashing his face.”  He looked uncharacteristically serious.  “The thing is, though...I gotta go get some stuff ready after we stop him.  So, can you and KO hold him there for a couple of minutes?”

Enid and KO looked at each other, and nodded.  

“Well, it sounds like we’ve got a plan,” Enid announced.  The three put out their fists, bumping them across the counter.  “See you guys tonight.”

--

For their final night of watching Darrell, the trio again hid in the junkyard, trusting that their target had relaxed enough to not look behind the trash piles again.  To their relief, he didn’t, and as he arrived Darrell simply set down his backpack and began rifling through it for the right color as usual.

“So, when he tries to run…”  Enid pointed towards the alley exit, on the parking lot side.  “Rad, you’ll catch him, then pass him off to us.  We’ll keep him here until you’re ready to go.”

Rad gave a thumbs-up, and readied himself alongside KO.  As Darrell finally selected his can and started shaking it, he loudly shouted, “Hey!”

Darrell turned around, his eye widening in shock at the sight of the alien jumping out from behind a trash pile and floating over the fence, the other two shrouded in a pink glow as he brought them along too.  He shrieked and bolted towards the parking lot, just as Enid had predicted, tossing the easily-dodged paint can in Rad’s direction.  Rad’s finger glowed as he quickly grabbed the robot’s legs with his telekinetic powers, then the rest of him, and yanked him back into the alley, where Enid and KO grabbed his arms and held him in place on the ground.

“You good?”

“Yeah, go for it!”  Enid adjusted her grip as Darrell struggled, and Rad sprinted away towards the loading dock.

“Stop it, Darrell!”  KO used a free hand to pat him on the head, to the robot’s confusion.  “We aren’t gonna fight you this time, okay?  Rad’s got a plan!”

“Oh, so what, you’re gonna turn me in or something?”  Darrell made another attempt to get free, but no success.

“No, you jerk.  We wanna talk.”  Enid paused, then experimentally loosened her grip to show she meant it.  “You cool with that, dude?”  

Darrell squinted.  “...Really?  Why?”

“Hang on, lemme show you something.”  She dug her phone out of her pocket.  “We’ve been staking you out here every night this week, to see what you paint.  And, I guess to cover it up too before Mr Gar sees.  But, we think it’s really cool, okay!”  She turned on the lock screen, showing the nuclear rat she still had on it.  “See?  I took pictures of all of them before we cleaned them up.”

Darrell looked up at the phone and, appropriately, made a tiny, scared squeak.  

“You’re...You’re gonna tell my dad I’ve been coming here, aren’t you?”  He stopped struggling, instead sitting up a bit and curling defensively into his cloak.  “That’s your plan, isn’t it?  Get me in trouble again, for sneaking out after curfew every night, with proof?”

“No, dude!”  She released her grip entirely, now that the robot was pacified.  “We’re saying we like your art!  Right KO?”

“Yeah!”   The boy giggled.  “I really liked the cowboy fighting that dragon, and that one with a lot of fire, and the snakes!  They were all really beautiful!”

Darrell paused, unsure how to even react.  “...R...Really?  You...thought they were...cool?”  He blushed, turning away from his archenemies.  “You guys thought...I was cool?”

“Eh, you’re still kind of a nerd.  But yeah, your art really is cool, Darrell.”  Enid unlocked her phone and flipped through the photos again as he watched.  “You’re getting really good.  Where did you even learn to tag like that?”

“Well, there’s this DJ on Social Media who posts a lot of tutorials.  I was just following those…”

“Nice.”  Enid flashed him a thumbs-up, but then landed on the painting of Darrell having his brain case punched in.  The robot shifted uncomfortably at seeing it again, averting his eye.  

“Is...there some bad blood going on between you and your dad right now, Darrell?”

He sunk into his cloak a little more, shrinking into the space between his captors.  “I don’t have blood,” the robot said matter-of-factly.  “But...I guess I was having a bad day.  You really saw that, huh?”

“Yep.  All of it.”  Enid shrugged.  “Sorry.”  She noticed Rad poking his head around the corner, beckoning them towards the back of the plaza.  “Hey, come on.  Rad’s got something for ya.”

“We don't know what it is,” KO added as he led the others, “but we know it’s not Lord Boxman!”

Darrell gave a small smile, and willingly followed the kid around the corner, gasping when he saw…

“My backpack!”  He dropped onto the ground and hugged it.  “I was looking everywhere for this thing!”

“That’s not the surprise, dude.  Look up.”  Rad stood proudly in front of three large shipping pallets, the kind the bodega received every day, all painted with the same white paint they had been using on the wall.  He had them leaned against the loading dock’s door, a ready canvas begging to be painted.

“Wait, these are...for me?”  Darrell stood, taking several seconds to process the situation.

“Look, buddy, graffiti-ing the plaza is...kind of illegal, but you weren’t really hurting anyone with it.  And this way you’re not actually painting anything on the plaza, and if Mr Gar doesn’t like it he can just toss ‘em and I’ll get you some new ones.”  Rad pointed to the pile of used pallets by the door.  “Seriously, we have so many…”

Darrell snapped out of his processing.  “So, I can come here at night...and tag these?  And you guys’ll let me?”  The bodega employees nodded.

He hugged his backpack tighter, not even bothering to hide the excitement on his face.  But then he thought for a moment, and set the bag down, pulling out a few random cans of paint.  

“Hey, um...If you guys want…”  He held one up towards KO.  “You wanna tag with me?  Just, like this once…”

KO happily took the paint.  “We’d love to, Darrell!”  He glanced at Enid and Rad, who just smiled and obliged, taking cans for themselves.  

The four each picked a portion of the canvas and got to work, not stopping until they started butting in on their neighbors’ art, and with the entirety of the three pallets covered they stepped back to admire the finished piece.  They could only laugh together at how much the art clashed, from Radicles’ rough depictions of muscled teal cats, to Darrell’s abstract gears and wires, to Enid’s ninja clan logos and a “DJ Fireball” tag, to KO’s very rough but lovingly-rendered painting of him and his friend Baby Teeth riding a unicorn to a hot dog stand (as he described it to his confused audience).  

Enid pulled out her phone to photograph the mural as this time Darrell scooped up the used cans into his reclaimed backpack, but as she was trying to get a clear shot Rad edged into the frame, standing in front of his section while contorting his face into the silliest possible expression.  KO almost immediately followed suit, ignoring Enid’s attempts to get the two to move.  Then Darrell backed into the frame as well, throwing an amazingly corny finger gun pose in front of his section, and Enid couldn’t hold back anymore.

“Rad?”

“On it.”  He used his power to hold the phone up and tap the selfie button as Enid took her place and ridiculous pose as well, and once everything was in place he snapped the picture.

“That was perfect!”  Darrell cried out, cracking up once again as he saw the final result.  He put on the backpack, then nervously tapped his fingers in front of him as he tried to think of what one was supposed to say to their mortal enemies after genuinely having fun together for over an hour.

“Th-Thanks for...all this.  Really.  I’ll...I’ll see you tomorrow when I attack the plaza, I guess.  Bye!”  He smiled and waved as he ran around to the parking lot again, using his rocket boots to cross the street.

The others stayed for a bit, still admiring the graffiti, but then KO broke out into laughter once again.

“What’s so funny, kid?”  Rad giggled a little along with him.

“You guys...we just hung out and painted a picture and took a funny selfie with a Boxbot.  Friend-style!”

The other two sat up in shock.  

“We...we really did, huh Brush Head?”  Enid joined in, laughing alongside KO and Rad.

“Oh man, I kinda wish we could tell Lord Boxman without Darrell getting in trouble.  I just wanna see the look on his face!”

“Don’t worry Rad, I bet he’d just be like…”  Enid made a face somewhere between ‘seething rage’ and ‘just ate the sourest candy in the world’, to the others’ amusement.  

The two picked themselves up and piled into Rad’s van, ready to finally call it a night for good.

--

“KO, Rad, and Enid!!”  The three immediately snapped to attention in front of Mr Gar, but then looked on in pure terror as their enraged boss held up a blue embroidered backpack full of spray paint.

“Anyone care to tell me what this was doing in the alleyway this morning?”

“Oh.”

“Uh…”  Enid and Rad searched for a way to explain the night’s activities, but then KO spoke up.

“The graffiti wiener came back last night, sir.  But we scared him before he could paint in the alley!”  Technically, it wasn’t a lie.

Gar harrumphed before handing the bag to the child.  “Well, good job I guess.  Now go do something with this where I can’t see it.”  He stomped back into his office, grumbling something about having to throw away a bunch of shipping pallets as well.

The employees breathed a sigh of relief, returning to their daily bodega tasks.  As KO began to carry the heavy backpack into the break room, though, the Boxmore alarm blared.

“Cob, now?  Really?”  Enid pinched her septum and hopped over the counter.  She led the charge to meet the two large boxes crashing into the parking lot, which seemed to be...yelling at each other?

Darrell and Shannon both broke out, focusing more on each other than the plaza.

“Look, I know you took it, so just tell me where it is!”

“I told you like three times Mushroom-Head, I don’t know where you left it!”

“You’re seriously still saying I lost my-!”  She looked at KO, still holding the backpack, and pounced, ripping it out of the child’s hands.  “My backpack!  What the heck are you losers doing with it?!”

KO glanced over her shoulder at Darrell, now very anxious that he’d been caught in his lies, and winked.  Darrell tried to wink back in return, but it ended up as more of a regular blink.

“We stole it!  And filled it with trash!”  KO claimed, as Shannon opened it to reveal the spray cans.  She tossed the bag aside in her confusion, and whipped out a sawblade right into his face.

“How dare you, you little…”

Rad yawned as he lifted her away with his telekinesis, throwing her right into the path of one of Enid’s fireballs, which in turn redirected the robot less-than-gracefully into the pavement.  With a final power punch from KO, Shannon was down for the count.

The three turned then to Darrell, who drew out his arm cannon but otherwise paused before his attack.  

“Hey, guys, um...I’ve gotta fight you right now, but...is it cool if we hang out again tonight?”  He shrugged.  “It was really fun.”

“Honestly that sounds awesome, bro, but…”  Rad motioned for Enid to continue as he dropkicked Shannon’s backpack over to Boxmore, for her to pick up once she rebooted.

Enid rubbed her eyes, still with dark circles under them.  “We have a lot of sleep to catch up on, dude.  Maybe next week?”  

Darrell gave her a thumbs-up in response, then powered up his cannon and charged into battle.

[lostinreality014]

Part V - Bad Dreams & Bedtime Stories

Author’s Notes: Hi lovelies! Here’s Part V, the second to last part of the series. While the flashback part of this chapter was a bit difficult for me to write, it was still my favorite part to write. I’m not going to say why here because it will give it away. As always, thank you for the likes, replies, reblogs, etc. I truly appreciate the feedback and love seeing the comments in the tags of the reblogs. 

Thank you @imagine-that-one-thing​ and @stylishmuser​ for being betas to this series and for your suggestions and words of encouragement.

All rights reserved. I do not give permission for this piece to be reposted on any platform.

[Catch Up Here]

Part V

“That’s the story of how daddy and I said ‘I love you’ for the first time. I’ll never forget that night,” I said softly. It was true. I never would. That was also the night he asked me to go with him to Cheshire to visit his family - also known as the first time I met his family in person - the following weekend depending on how my initial audition for Wicked went.

When I glanced down at Mia, I smirked. She had been still through most of the story and finally succumbed to sleep. At least I hoped. I carefully slid off the bed before scooping her up into my arms and carrying her back down the hall to her bedroom. Once she was all tucked in again, I tip toed to her door and was about to do a victory dance for the second time that night the I heard her sleepy voice from the door.

“Can you sing, mumma?” she slurred sleepily. I turned to see her sitting up, looking at me hopefully through heavily lidded eyes.

“Not right now, munchkin. It’s very late. We can sing in the morning before Auntie Gem comes to get you.”

“When’s daddy gon be home?” She asked, snuggling back down under her covers. I asked over and sat down next to her, smiling gently at her.

“Three more sleeps, remember?” Mia nodded.

“Can I watch Ella?” she asked, referring to Cinderella.

“Absolutely not.” I said firmly. “It’s way past your bedtime and I’ve already let you stay up too late. It’s time for sleep now.”

“One more story?” she begged.

“Amelia Grace. You fell asleep. Our deal was I tell you stories until you fall asleep.”

“But I didn’t mean to.” She whined. “One more, mumma. Pease?” I looked at her sternly, but it didn’t phase her. She unleashed the full blown puppy eyes and pout on me. I was determined to stand my ground.

“Pretty pease?” Dammit. I scolded myself.

“One. And I mean it. Only one more. Understood?” She nodded. “What story do you want to hear? It’s the last one tonight so make it a good one.”

“What’s daddy’s happy day?” she asked me as I sat down next to her.

“Like the best day of his life?” she nodded. “I know for a fact daddy was very, very, happy when you were born. He says that was the best day of his life. But I also know he was very happy the day we got married. And I think the night he and your uncles won their first Brit Award was one of his happiest days too.”

“Is he gonna win more wards?”

“Anything is possible, munchkin.”

“I hope he does. Whats about you? Whats your happy day?”

“I have five happy days.” I told her, holding up five fingers. “They’re all special to me. One of my happy days was when I met daddy. Another was the day daddy and I found out I was pregnant with you. Another was…”

“The day you gots me?!” she asked happily. I laughed and gently tapped her nose.

“Of course, munchkin. My fourth day is the day daddy proposed and the fifth day is the day we got married.”

“What’s posed?”

“Proposed is when daddy got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.”

“I wants ta hear that story!” Mia squealed. “I wants ta hear how daddy asked you ta marry him! Was it romantical? Like in my princess stories?”

“It was very romantic.” I said with a smile. “It was more than I could have ever dreamed of.”

***Flashback*** When I arrived home from my shift at the cafe mid-afternoon, it was to find Aubrey sitting on the sofa in our living room clearly waiting for me.

“What’s going on?” I asked, as I dropped my bag in the empty chair and leaning against it.

“Nothing,” she replied, that all knowing smile on her lips.

“Bull shit nothing is going on. You know something.”

“I know nothing.” I narrowed my eyes at her.

“Mhm.” I hummed. “Seriously… what’s going on?”

“I really don’t know anything. Was just asked to give you this,” she replied holding out an envelope for me. I walked around the chair, took the envelope from her, and sat down before opening it.

Hi my love. I have a little something special planned for you tonight. Hope you’re ready for a little adventure. Go to the place where we first met. -H xx

“Something special?” I muttered. “You’re sure you don’t know anything?”

“Promise I know nothing. I have an idea, but when have my inklings ever been right?” she asked with a knowing smirk. I snorted a laugh in response.  

“Alright, well, I guess I’m off to see what he’s up to. I’ll be back at some point. Maybe.” Aubrey giggled.

“Take pictures if you can. And commit everything to memory so you can tell me all about it.”

“I’ll try. See you later.”

“Have fun.” She smiled as I grabbed my purse and keys out of the chair and headed back out to my car.

*   *   *   *

Half an hour later, I pulled into the empty parking lot at the building of what used to the be xFactor studios. Since the show had grown, they’d moved to a location that was more centrally located in London with much more room to house a larger stage and larger studio audiences.

Since this building was empty I knew it wouldn’t be open. So I drove around the parking lot looking for any clues as to where he might be, or at least maybe another note. It wasn’t until the second loop around the building that I spotted a red envelope taped to the door that we’d all walked out of the night we found out we hadn’t been eliminated. After parking as close to the building as I could, I hopped out of the car and hurried over to the door, carefully pulling the envelope off.

I’ll never forget the night we met. We didn’t get a chance to talk long that night, and I know it was quite forward to ask to keep in touch, but I knew we had something special.

Now go to the place where we satisfy our sweet tooth cravings. -H xx

I smiled and tucked the note back into the envelope as I made my way back to the car.

*   *   *   *

Twenty minutes later, I successfully parallel parked in front of our favorite cafe, which also happened to be the same cafe I worked at full time when I was in between shows.

“Blake!” Liz exclaimed in surprise. “I thought you worked the morning shift today so you could spend the night with that handsome man of yours for your anniversary.” Liz said when I walked in.

“I did work this morning,” I smiled. “Apparently that handsome man of mine left something here for me.”

“That would explain the lone red envelope at your favorite table.” she winked.

“Yes it would.”

“Well, go see what he’s left for you. Enjoy whatever it is he has planned, and I want all the details.”

“I’ll try to remember them all,” I smiled as I made my way toward the booth in the back corner of the cafe that we always occupied when we’d come in for a little dessert, or when he’d meet me on my meal break.

Remember the night we stayed well after you finished closing up sitting in this very booth talking? I still don’t know whether or not Liz was upset with us being there when she came in to open. That’s still one of my favorite nights spent with you.

Now go to the place where we had our first date and shared our first kiss. -H xx

I smiled as I folded the note and tucked it back into the envelope, making sure it was safely in my purse before heading back up front. Liz smiled and waved as I walked past the counter. I returned her smile before pushing open the door and making my way down the sidewalk toward my car.

*   *   *   *

It took me nearly forty-five minutes to get to Battersea Park, and by the time I paid the parking attendant, I was more than a little annoyed. With all the time spent in the car driving between the places he was sending me, I had more than enough time to think about what he was up to. And even though I wasn’t sure of anything at this point, I felt like I was on a bit of a schedule.

I all but jogged from the park entrance to the hidden alcove where we went on our first date. I nearly missed the hidden opening in the brush as it had grown in quite a bit. After a couple of minutes, I noticed that some of the new growth had been disrupted, an indication that Harry had been here recently. I followed the path he had taken and finally stepped through into the clearing. It was still just as beautiful as I remembered, and it was remarkably well kept for an area that I knew wasn’t tended to like the rest of the park.

It didn’t take long to spot the next red envelope at the bottom of the tree trunk. It was tucked neatly between the trunk and a rock to keep it from blowing away. I hurried over and gently pulled it from it’s spot, opening the flap and pulling out the next note.

I can’t believe it took me so long to ask you out. It’s the best first date I’ve ever been on and I’m so glad you said yes to being my girlfriend that night. It’s a night I know I’ll never forget.

Now go to the place where we told each other those three very special words for the first time. -H xx

Tears burned my eyes as I folded the note and put it back into the envelope before tucking it into my purse next to the other notes I’d collected so far. Once I made it back through the hidden opening in the trees, I sprinted back to my car.

*   *   *   *

When I walked back through the door to mine and Aubrey’s flat half an hour later, she was still on the sofa where she had been when I left. And once again, she was waiting for me with another all knowing smile plastered to her face.

“You’ve seen him haven’t you?” I asked.

“I have. He just stopped by and dropped this off for you,” she replied, holding up another red envelope.

“You’re sure you have no idea what’s going on?”

“Not a clue. And you know I can’t keep a secret to save my life so there was no chance in hell he would have told me.”

“You can keep secrets,” I smirked as I walked over and picked up the envelope.

“Ok, yes I can. If I’m the one that’s scheming. Can’t tell you how many birthdays I ruined for my mum cause I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.” I laughed.

“Fair enough,” I giggled as I pulled out the next note.

Hearing you say you loved me for the first time is another moment I will never forget. I’m pretty sure I was already in love with you the night of our first date, but I just wasn’t aware of it. Seeing you in your element for the first time… that’s when it hit me. I wish I could explain it better, but I don’t have the words.

Now go to the place where we celebrated our one year anniversary.  ;) -H xx

“You staying put or headed back out?”

“Headed back out. At this rate, I might see you again before the night ends, or I might not.”

“Considering how cryptic he’s being, I’ll see you sometime tomorrow. Maybe.” I snorted a laugh but nodded in agreement.

“Thanks for putting up with all this.” she rolled her eyes.

“Are you kidding? This is just as exciting for me as it is for you. Now get outta here and go see what’s waiting for you at your next note.”

“See you at some point,” I laughed as I turned and headed back to the door.

“I’ll be right here waiting for the details,” she called loudly as I opened the door.

*   *   *   *

Little more than half an hour later, I pulled into Harry’s driveway, parking next to his Range. I wasn’t sure if he was home or not. Depending on what his schedule was for the day before our date tonight, and where he was going to be throughout the day, there was a real possibility he’d have Dale drive him to and from where he needed to be for safety reasons.

Pushing open the door to his bedroom, my eyes immediately landed upon the box and red envelope laying on top of the duvet. I dropped my purse and keys on the floor in front of his dresser before crossing the room and picking up the envelope.

Not much longer til we see each other. There’s a little something I think you’ll like in the box. And since I know you aren’t a fan of spas and really only trust Lou, she’ll be by to pamper you for a bit. Then Dale will be there around seven to pick you up. He’ll have your next note. I can’t wait to see you. -H xx

No sooner had I reached for the box to see what was inside did I hear Lou’s voice calling from downstairs. I called out to let her know I was upstairs. I knew she’d know to head to Harry’s room.

“Do you know what he’s got planned?” I asked the moment she appeared in the doorway.

“I do. And you’ll not get a peep outta me. I value my life and my job. He’s also one of my best mates and I’m not about to ruin his plans. I also know that you’re going to love what he’s planned for you two tonight.”

“Fair enough,” I said with a smile as I turned my attention to the box.

“You’ve not opened it yet?”

“I’ve only just arrived. He’s sent me all over London today.”

“Well, go on then.” Rolling my eyes fondly at her, I untied the ribbon and lifted the lid off the box. After unfolding the tissue paper, I gasped as my eyes landed on what had been so neatly wrapped. Harry has surprised me with many gorgeous dresses for various events over our years together. But there was something about this one that was infinitely more gorgeous. Perhaps it was because of what today was for us. Perhaps it wasn’t. But there was something special about this dress.

“Oh he’s good,” Lou smirked as I lifted the dress out of the box.

“This is too much,” I whispered.

“Would you expect any less considering it’s your five year anniversary?” Lou asked, taking the dress from my hands before walking over to hang my dress up on the back of our closet door.

“No.” I smiled, admiring the dress.

“Didn’t think so. Now, I think it’s time for you to have a nice soak in that glorious tub of his. I do believe he just stocked up on your favorite bath bombs.” she said, placing her hands on my shoulders before turning me around and walking me towards the bathroom.

*   *   *   *   

“You all ready?” Lou asked when I stepped off the staircase nearly two hours later. She’d spoiled me rotten with one of the best facials I’d ever had followed by an even more relaxing hair treatment. Then she’d spoiled me even further by doing my hair and make-up for the evening.

“I think so. I can’t wait to see what he’s up to.”

“Not much longer. And I’ve been asked to give you this.” Dale said with a smile, holding out another red envelope.

“Thank you,” I smiled as I took it from him and turning it over to pull out the note inside.

Now that you’ve been spoiled and pampered by Lou, and are without a doubt looking more beautiful than ever, head to the place where you made your West End debut. I’ll see you very soon. I love you. -H xx

“Where are we off to then?” Dale asked.

“Something tells me you already know, but Her Majesty’s Theatre.” He nodded with a knowing smile and headed for the front door, Lou and I following him.

“Let him spoil you tonight, yeah?”

“Don’t think I have much of a choice,” I smiled as Lou helped me into my coat.

“Not really. Don’t worry about the house. I’ll make sure everything is locked up tight when I leave.”

*   *   *   *

“Here we are, love.” Dale said with a smile as he pulled up in front of the theatre.

“I have no idea what’s going on, but thank you for going along with it.”

“Don’t mention it,” he smiled. “I was told the door the box office staff uses is open for you.”

“Good to know. And thank you again. I expect I’ll see you in a bit?”

“Most likely. Enjoy your night.”

I stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of the theatre and adjusted my coat as it’d gotten a bit twisted around me as I slid out of the front seat. The majority of West End theaters were dark on Sundays, so it was a little surprising that it was as crowded as it was. But I used the crowd to my advantage and managed to sneak around the side of the building, slipping into the box office unnoticed.

Once my eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, I noticed a small sign taped to the door that lead out to the lobby.

July 26, 2010 The day we met

I smiled and ran my fingers across his handwriting before gently peeling it off and pushing open the door. After closing the door gently, I turned to my right as the arrow indicated, looking for any clue to tell me where to go next. A few paces from where I was, I saw another note taped to the side of the display case where Phantom merchandise was sold.

September 17, 2012 You got the call you were cast in your first West End show

I peeled the note off and placed it on top the one I was already holding and looking around to my left, seeing another sign on the door frame leading to house left bar area.

August 19, 2013 Our first date and our first kiss

From there I circled my way back into the lobby where the next date was attached to one of the doors that lead down toward the orchestra pit.

November 8, 2013 The night we said ‘I love you’

Collecting that note, I pushed open the door and made my way down the stairs to the room where the musicians uncased and stored their instrument cases during performances. The next note to be found was on the door leading to the hallway where the chorus dressing rooms were located.

March 7, 2014 You made your Broadway debut as leading lady in Wicked

How I didn’t realize it until now was beyond me. He was highlighting the important moments in our relationship, and highlighting the moments in my career that I knew he was most proud of. It brought tears to my eyes and made me think what he had planned was more than just a little something extra for our five year anniversary.

Stepping into the hallway that lead toward the chorus dressing rooms was overwhelming. I hadn’t been in this building since my run in Phantom had ended. Being here, brought on a flood of wonderful memories. As I walked down the hall looking for the next sign, I took a few extra seconds to take in the few changes that had been made, and smiling at the things that had been left the same. As I turned into the corridor that houses the stage left chorus dressing rooms, I spotted the next note.

April 15, 2015 You were cast in your second leading role on the Once National Tour

Adding that note to the pile in my hands, I very slowly made my way up the stairs to the next level of dressing rooms and the wardrobe room, spotting the next sign on the door to the wardrobe room.

December 22, 2016 You got the call you’d been cast as Roxie Hart in Chicago

I added another sign to the pile in my hand and made my way to the opposite end of the  corridor and turning to my left. The next sign was on the cast notice bulletin board.

May 12, 2017 You stood by my side as I dropped my first solo album

That one made me tear up again. I’ll never forget sitting up with him at midnight as his album officially dropped and seeing all the responses pour in. I’d never been more proud of him than I was in that moment. He’d accomplished so much with One Direction, but his solo album, that was his baby. That was something he’d been wanting to do for a long time. And to see him accomplish what he’d set out to do and be completely happy with the end result was one of my proudest moments. We won’t get into how proud I was of him when he told me he’d booked his role in Dunkirk.

I pulled down the sign from the bulletin board and added it to my pile as I climbed the stairs and found myself on the main stage level. The next sign I saw was taped to the empty props table.

August 19, 2018 Five years together and here’s to many more

I noticed the arrow drawn on it was pointing toward the stage. For some reason, I knew that was the last sign. So I set the signs I’d collected down on the table along with my clutch before slipping my jacket it off and laying it down on the table. When I stepped into the wing where I made my first entrance from nearly six years ago, my heart started racing, and tears burned the backs of my eyes. Standing at center stage was my rock and the love of my life. Reminding myself to breathe, I stepped out onto the stage I’d made my West End debut on just as he turned to see me.

“You’re here.” he breathed, his eyes lighting up, that knee weakening smile stretching across his lips. “You’re gorgeous.”

“Thank you,” I smiled shyly at him as he laced his fingers with mine. “You look pretty handsome yourself.” I rose up on my tip toes to place a gentle kiss to his lips. “Are we even allowed to be here right now?” he chuckled and kissed my forehead.

“We are. I made a few phone calls.”

“So why here?” I asked with a smile, knowing he’d knew exactly what I was asking.

“Because this was the first time I saw you in your element. Because when I saw you on this stage nearly five years ago, I knew I’d fallen totally and completely in love with you. Because I can’t think of any other place to ask you one very important question.” I gasped softly as he walked us upstage so we were standing at the center, center mark.

“Harry…” I whispered.

“I’d planned this all out in my head. Had all these things I want to say…” his voice faded and as much as I was trying to keep myself together, I knew he was struggling just as much.

“I love you, Blake. I’m so deeply in love with you that I never want to come up for air, and I want to be yours for the rest of my life. You know when someone walks into your life, and you know in the pit of your stomach they were meant to be there and be a part of it?” I nodded, tears now trailing down my cheeks. I could see the tears pooling in his beautiful green eyes and I hiccuped softly.

“That’s you, B. I knew the moment I hugged you before we went off to the next round you were meant to be a part of my life. I want everything with you. I want to grow old with you. I want to have a family with you. I want to travel the world with you and be the sunshine in your life when it’s gray and rainy out or when life throws us a curve ball.” I didn’t miss the small hiccup in his voice as he let go of my hands to reach into his pocket before dropping down to one knee. I buried my face in my hands for a moment, trying to collect myself.

“I want you forever, Blake.” He said softly as he gently pulled my hands from my face. “I love you so much it hurts in all the right ways. I love you because you love me for me, flaws and all. I love you because you know me better than I know myself. I love you because you’re still with me despite all our time spent apart because of our careers. I know we’re still young, I know we have a lot of things we still want to accomplish, but I also know that you’re it for me. I know that you’re the one I want by my side through it all. And I want to be by your side to see all your dreams come true.” We both took shaky breaths, and soft sob escaped when I noticed a single tear escape from the corner of his eyes.

“Mum always told me that the person I fall in love with and marry should be my best friend. And I thought that was a bit odd when I was younger.” I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped. “But now I understand what she meant. And with you, I know I have and I know I will. I know you’re not one for big gestures like this. I know how much you hate this kind of thing.” I giggled and nodded in agreement. “And I know you don’t need all of this to know we’re it, but I wanted to give you this moment all the same. Would you…” he hiccuped softly, “Would you be my forever? Will you marry me?”

“Yes!” I choked out through tears. “A thousand times yes!” He let out a breath I’m sure he was holding, even though he had no reason to believe I would say anything other than yes. I watched through tears as he pulled the ring from the box and setting the box down on the stage next to him. The moment he slid the ring on my finger, I cupped his face and kissed him. When I pulled back a few moments later, pinning my forehead to his, I saw that he was no longer holding back the tears.

“I love you, Harry Styles,” I whispered as I brushed the tears from his face. “And I can’t wait to be your forever.”

[smallchou]

60 Months as Dad

E turned 60 months old today. We celebrated with her favorite dinner of Mac-and-cheese, peas, and carrots. Ivy and I made a terrible mess of some beef short ribs that we subjected my parents to as well; they’re in town for a few weeks. We had a couple of local NYC beers (still struggling to find a decent local IPA). We each had our choice of ice cream for dessert, which E stuck candles into to inspire us to the Nth rendition of Happy Birthday today. It was clear most of the day, temperature hovering within a crisp range of 35-45 degrees F all day long.

Two nights ago I popped awake at 3:30am to the murmuring cries of E next door. Ivy and I did the usual parent silent negotiation of who could pretend to still be asleep for longer. But by the time I started stumbling towards the kids’ room, I was moving pretty quickly because I was actually worried about something.

Gabba and I have been pretty ill over the past week. I spent 36 hours in bed with a triple-digit fever earlier in the week, but he probably would have traded places with me. And what I was worried about was this: E’s birthday party was “two sleeps” away, and if she was really ill… and we had to cancel or postpone it… she would be devastated. DEVASTATED, really. At 37, I’ve only been as emotionally distraught two or three times as a cancellation-worthy illness would’ve made E. All of this ran through my head in the course of just a few steps.

That’s the best explanation of what being a dad of 5- and 3-year olds is like to me.

First, you know so much more than these kids. That birthday parties come and go. That E barely remembers that her fourth birthday party was canceled due to California wildfire smoke. That every other parent attending the party is secretly (or not so secretly) happy to have one less obligation for the weekend. That it will all be FINE. No, really E, it’s OK. I’m sorry this happened, and yes it is the worst, but let’s reschedule and maybe get some ice cream and you’ll feel better. Oh hey, Frozen 2 AND the Nutcracker are this month? High five!

Second, at the same time, you just want these things to be perfect for them. I can’t remember the last time I had as elaborate of a birthday party as every one we’ve planned for E. When I was 10, my parents rented out the arcade venue Aladdin’s Castle. That may have been it. And that’s truly, completely fine by me. But when I think about how devastated E would be… it really hurts with a unique helplessness of parenthood. Because you don’t want to tell her not to care; what is a life, a young life, without that caring. So you can’t also tell her she shouldn’t have cared.

And then third… what the fuck am I doing up at 3:30am in the morning and how much longer does this happen?

It has been a whole year since I’ve written one of these. I didn’t stop trying until several months into this past year. But I found it hard to distinguish the notable differences from month to month. They were 4 and 2 by then basically, and so each month brought fewer leaps forward.

We’ve changed so many things since a year ago. Basically same family, new lives. East coast. Real fall. Real winter. Own a coat, carry an umbrella. NYC. Walk to school. Walk to the office. New work. No car. High-rise living. No idea where we will be a year from now. And fully understand why McCaffrey and Luck never won the Heisman. One thing we were right about: this is the PERFECT age for two kids to have a family adventure.

A few years from now, E’s memory will be so vivid and long, and her thoughts so fast-paced, that who knows how she would take a move. Those are the two personality characteristics that pop out most: vivid memory and linear thinking. She is so observational and pensive, remembering tiny little things and noodling on them silently for days. A few weeks ago, we were walking on a weekend and she suddenly asked why I didn’t wear the parents’ security badge for her school on a lanyard like the other parents. A tiny little thing she observed, bouncing around in her head for days, as she watched parent after parent carry a little plastic badge differently from me. There’s rarely anything that she hasn’t mentally processed to no end.

She loves art, which is why her birthday party was at an art studio. You’ll know this when you see her, because she will tell you very directly, “I am an artist.” I remember being amazed when she was two or three and able to sit and color by herself for an hour on end. And now, sometimes she will just stop mid-play, tell us she is going to go make some art, pull out the supplies herself, and get to it for hours on end, signing each piece with impeccably written all-caps “E T O I V Y” or “T O J A C K”.

This past week she turned to me and asked, “Daddy? This weekend, if it’s nice out, can we go have a picnic in Central Park?” A pretty innocuous and sweet ask by any child. But for E, it’s a really precise question because she both knows that her dad loves to cook, eat, and relax outdoors… and she asked it because she knew that just asking it would make me happy. She does this often now, choosing to do things to make Ivy or me feel better. It is as sweet as it sounds.

Sometimes one piece of her daily prolific art even reads, “E T O G A B B A”, which he diligently appreciates for a few seconds before he races off. He adores her, he just doesn’t have the patience to be held still for quite that amount of time. In the grand scheme of sibling relationships, theirs is one of playfulness, fun, and contrast. He is so sweet and thoughtful, always remembering to get an extra of anything for her. And she knows him so deeply, skillfully convincing him to do dumb shit for her entertainment. And of course, he knows how to get on her nerves when he needs to.

He’s at an age where his emotions will regularly overrun his own logic. “Gabba, can you please help clean up.” “No.” “OK, but no dessert then after dinner. Do you want dessert?” “No.” “But Gabba, don’t you -“ “ No.” The first row of his Responsibility Chart just reads ‘No Whining’, which he has yet to ever earn a star for.

But when he isn’t in a mood… it’s hard to say there’s ever been a sweeter child who ever walked the earth. Snuggles, hugs, giant smiles, total enthusiasm, constant enjoyment of life, clockwork thoughtfulness, wholly inclusive of everyone, wants to try everything, no grudge kept, and oh so friendly. At the doctor’s office yesterday, he eagerly listened to every ask and took part just to try it out. Cotton swab jammed all the way to the back of my throat? Yes please! Three different temperature readings from three different places? Can we do a fourth? I wish that I had the good-natured, positive openness that both he and Ivy have. I’m sure E does as well.

A few weeks ago, putting them to bed, E sat quietly on her bed while I helped Gabba, shifting around in an odd way. I looked at her funny, she froze up, and immediately we were both jumping to her pillow to see what she’d hidden under there. When I pulled it up, 5 Paw Patrol action figures sat there while E plaintively explained that she and Gabba have been plotting and playing Paw Patrol together after bedtime. It’s one of the rare times as a Dad when I’ve felt like I have no idea what’s the “right” thing to do. Honor bedtime or love their friendship?

A running theme of these posts used to be a general regret (paranoia?) about feeling like each thing was happening too fast and then ending too fast. I think in the past year, my mindset has shifted to now just being present in enjoying the moment as it happens and not grasping at last occasions too plaintively. That’s to say that I’ve come to peace with how our lives will turn. All that matters is that I’m still ready if Gabba turns to me tomorrow and requests Sit on your shoulders? while we walk somewhere.

When I burst into their room the other night, E’s birthday party flashing by in front of my eyes, she was luckily *just* cringing from a nightmare and a slight nosebleed. Whew, devastation averted! And right on cue, wide-awake sitting in his bed, was Gabba holding up his pillow, wide-eyed with a huge smile. “Look, daddy! No poo-poo on my pillow!” He was legitimately proud (really, don’t ask), but also hopeful that he would get some of my attention too.

Of course, when I got E all back ready for bed, Gabba asked me to “Daddy, sit in the middle” of their room, as I often do on a small circular rug, talking to them while they go to sleep. And who could refuse these angels. I sat, at 3:57am, listening to their breathing slow and quiet, knowing this could always be the last night they need me this much.

[strmyweather]

“Look at where we are / Look at where we started / ... That would be enough.”

(This is the fourth and final section of a multi-part post. If you’re interested, you can read about the back story, the tipping point, and the logistics here.)

I posted one of those ‘transformation’ posts on social media yesterday—not because I necessarily wanted to insta-brag (although the pride is real), but more because I needed to define an endpoint for myself. By putting it out there, by showing everyone what I’ve been up to, I gave myself the accountability to STOP, and to intentionally begin the reverse diet. Progress is so slow when you’re seeing it in your own mirror that it’s easy to get stuck in the purgatory of “well, I’ll just stick with it for one more week / until I lose one more pound / just until I get to X benchmark.” We humans are extremely adaptable, meaning we eventually get accustomed to just about anything; even a reflection that we initially feel pretty awesome about eventually becomes ‘the new normal’. It hit me yesterday that I have been in some kind of a caloric deficit for SIX ENTIRE MONTHS. I needed to take a step back, observe the (tremendous) magnitude of what has objectively been accomplished over the past 180 days—and then do the responsible thing and let my body and mind have a rest.

Accomplishments:

 -- Numbers: March 9, 2017: 173 lb (yikes) May 24, 2017: 156 lb at the start of RP Sept 2, 2017: 144 lb (!) for a total loss of 29 lb (which, by the way, is 16.8% of my starting bodyweight—whaaaaaaat?!?)

 -- I lost 3” off my waist, 4” off my hips, and dropped from a 36DD to a 34D (which some women might dislike, but personally, I’m absolutely thrilled).

 -- I am literally lighter than I was when I graduated from high school, yet also have significantly more muscle. The two little ‘folds’ in my mid-back have vanished, and I have defined deltoids for the first time ever. In the right light, I can see on myself why quads are called quads. And I’ve always loved my upper back, but now I’m positively obsessed with it; there are contours and ridges that I’ve never been able to see before.

 -- The biggest practical victory—more so than clothing size or reflection in the mirror—is that I’ve seen major CrossFit progress for the first time in years. I’ve always been a better barbell athlete, comparatively weaker in gymnastics skills; that skill set has now almost been flipped. When I started this journey, I had zero bodyweight pull-ups; now I can do sets of four unbroken strict pull-ups, three kipping chest-to-bar pull-ups, and nine proper toes-to-bar (no monkey swing!). I also got my first-ever handstand push-ups to a single abmat (25# plates, I’m coming for you!), and although I’ve admittedly lost a bit of raw strength, particularly off my squat, I’ve actually ADDED weight to my bench press.  Granted, I’ve been specifically working on these skills; they didn’t ‘just happen’ with weight loss—but physics also dictates that certain movements are just easier at a lighter bodyweight.

 -- Mentally, there is a certain freedom to be found within the RP headspace. You eat what you’re supposed to eat when you’re supposed to eat it, and that’s that. Food becomes ‘fuel’, rather than ‘fun’. One day last week, I was coming down with a cold and realized that (apart from the 8g of fat), a full pint of black cherry Halo Top was almost exactly the right post-workout macros. I decided that would feel really great on my sore throat, and that I’d have it the next morning after the gym. But then, when 8am rolled around, I didn’t have a sore throat anymore, and ended up with my usual Cheerios, egg whites, and salsa—just because that sounded a lot better than ice cream. TL;DR—knowing you CAN have just about anything you want makes it so that you don’t actually NEED anything you may want.

-- Bonus: I also accidentally met my longtime ‘capsule wardrobe’ goal of 100 clothing items, because LITERALLY 60% of my clothes are now too big. :)

This new body is both mesmerizing and, sometimes, a little odd. It’s not my first time being ‘leaner,’ but it IS my first time being this lean as a CrossFit athlete. I’ve never been down this particular road in terms of body composition changes—I literally don’t know how my adult body behaves at this size—and some of what has happened has been unexpected. For instance, I have a few more visible veins than I did before. There’s a new wrinkle in my belly when I’m sitting down. A particular contour of my trunk that I always thought was a fat roll has turned out to be, in actuality, defined by my hip bone (duuuuh—I swear I am a medical provider!). And I come from a long line of apple-shaped women, and as such, STILL do not have visible abs—yet can now clearly see my ribcage, which, in the right light, consistently startles me. And although I can’t SEE my abs, I can FEEL them—as in, when my fingers trace the topography, I can feel the sensitive separations of the six-pack—which is both fascinating and slightly nauseating.

Moving forward:

I’m back in a place where I’m eager to put the scale away and stop focusing on it—because, practically speaking, I really don’t need to care exactly what it says as long as I get to keep all my newfound gymnastics skills. Physically, I’ve definitely felt under-recovered for the past few weeks—not ‘injured’, but just a general sense that I’m pushing the envelope in terms of how much my body can take—and I’ll be happy to feel a bit more ‘consistently strong’. Especially on rest days when my carb intake is slashed, I’ve noticed some unusually low blood pressure (87/63) and resting heart rate (43), which corresponds to feeling a bit shaky and weak. Being back on the base plan will allow me to ‘rest’ for a little while—my weight should theoretically stay stable (after a couple pounds’ expected regain over the next 1-2 weeks), but over the next couple of months, I may still see a very slow positive shift in terms of lean mass to fat mass. In other words, I may find that even just the base plan allows me to get slightly stronger, while hopefully also maintaining the level of leanness and new gymnastics skills I’ve worked so hard to achieve. I’m well aware that I’ve lost a bit of raw strength throughout this prolonged process (it is extremely strange to look at my legs—my favorite body part for 30+ years—and now perceive them as ‘too small’!), and that there is likely to be a squat cycle in my future—and that a massing nutrition plan may well be a part of that (gulp)... but this right here, this 144 pounds, is a really good spot to sit and breathe for the moment.

I was texting with a Philly friend yesterday, and in hearing my own responses to her, I was finally able to put words to the core of why things had been so different this time. With previous nutritional approaches—whether Whole30, keto, intermittent fasting, or what-have-you—I was always just sort of ‘riding’ a plan until it stopped working. I’d see some small changes, and then that would be it. With RP, I’ve been forced to take the time to educate myself on the actual physiology of what I’m doing—because with such a complex plan, that’s just necessary, both for psychological reassurance as well as to understand how to make logical adaptations on the fly when circumstances call for it—and that broader understanding is precisely what now reassures me that just because this rewarding ‘phase’ is now over, that that is not the same thing as declaring that all POTENTIAL for progress is now gone. The same rules still apply. The intrinsic makeup of carbs and fat and protein isn’t changing. The same framework still holds true—will always still hold true—as far as how to manipulate them in order to see results. It’s simple math. More importantly, it’s science. This distinction between ‘progress’ and ‘potential’ is not a concept I’ve ever been able to see before.

Transitions are always scary, especially when they involve the end of a phase that’s yielded so many visible benefits. But there’s also a profound reassurance in knowing that this new knowledge will be there whenever I need it. This was merely one season of a lifelong cyclic journey. Pausing is not a ‘weakness’, and it also isn’t the same thing as declaring myself content to not ever progress any further. Resting, and maintaining, are in fact necessary parts of ultimately continuing to move forward with my goals.

And, practically speaking, hanging out at maintenance for a couple of months is going to be really nice. The RP base plan actually encourages 2-3 cheats per week—the prescribed numbers already account for that—and I am really looking forward to having a social life again. :) I also remember how wonderfully I was sleeping back at the beginning, when I first added the casein protein shake to my bedtime routine, and I’m hoping to recapture that. And certain packaged foods that have been languishing in the cabinet for the past few weeks (like RX bars and single-serving packets of nuts—because they haven’t been the right ‘ratio’ to be included in the most recent menu), can now be reintroduced, which will make certain aspects of meal prep easier, especially on workdays.

At this moment, sitting at my kitchen table, it feels extremely odd to NOT be hungry. Today is the first day of incrementally (slowly!) increasing the amount of fat I’m eating (this is how the reverse-diet works, to slowly bring the metabolism back up to speed over a period of weeks), and I’m alternating between fascination, relief, awe, and anxiety. I had creamer in my coffee (!) and two Brazil nuts with my regular “egg whites and veggies” breakfast this morning—two freakin’ Brazil nuts—and a whole three hours later, I am just starting to feel a little bit hungry. For the past few weeks (in the second phase of the cut, with minimal fat intake at all), the grace period without hunger has been more like 45 minutes. When I take a moment to truly think about it, it deeply amazes me, this symphony of quiet chemical processes constantly taking place in our bodies. On a molecular level, we are pretty incredible physical creations.

I’m a bit concerned about my ability to continue to slowly increase my intake in a controlled way, because I’m about to be plunged into a thoroughly uncontrolled environment—I leave on Friday to spend 17 days (!) in a language immersion program in Costa Rica. I’m obviously tremendously excited about this, but it does compound the nutritional anxiety just a bit! The Central American diet is notoriously carb-heavy—rice, beans, plantains, fruit juices, and so forth—and I’m going to be staying with host families, so I’m not going to have a ton of control over what I’m served. I’m just packing a bunch of nonperishable protein sources and crossing my fingers. At any rate, I’m definitely glad I stopped now, and didn’t carry the cut right up to the last minute before departure.

Once I’m back, general goals for the next couple of months are:  -- maintain the RP base plan—six ‘meals’ a day, including the two shakes,  -- loosely maintain weight somewhere in the 140s—right now this seems to be the sweet spot for performance—but keep the scale out of sight for the most part,  -- continue to work on ‘pulling’ and ‘pushing’ strength in the gym—short-term goals include confident ‘RXed’ handstand push-ups (meaning, with 25# plates) and consistent sets of 10 toes-to-bar, and  -- definitely pound some shrimp chilaquiles from Gonza at the first available opportunity. ;)

This post has used a lot of ‘words’ to explain something pretty straightforward, which is that the biggest takeaway from this whole process hasn’t been pounds or inches or even reps. Plain and simple, it’s empowerment. I haven’t been ‘dieting’; I’ve been eating for a purpose, working toward specific performance goals. And it feels pretty incredible to be on the back side of such a major journey and to have the sense that the potential is still limitless—to know that whatever my future fitness and body composition goals may be, that I will always possess the tools to wreak this kind of transformation if I so choose.

“We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones.” –Henry David Thoreau