#and i think the neighbors themselves have the blue lives matter flag

[clowningcrows]

i fear i really am speedrunning being a grandpa

[qqueenofhades]

pel!ivan and fedyor went through a lot of ups and some downs from the end of pel and 2021 but they also celebrated 10 years together 🥳 i hope fedyor shoved cake into ivan’s face and also you know, im sure they were mushy like the saps they are

Ivan was supposed to be out of here ten minutes ago – actually, at this point, more like twenty – but the clients are still fucking talking, and if they keep it up much longer, he’s going to add it to the bill for “initial consultation.” Drew has a man-bun and unbearably hip black glasses, and works as a developer for some start-up app that he’s tried to convince Ivan to download at least twelve times. (What does the app actually do? Don’t know don’t care.) Mia is thin, blonde, waifish, smells like essential oils, and has been flitting around with her smartphone the entire time, getting in Ivan’s way as she snaps perfectly filtered pictures of the “developmental process” and posts them nonstop on Instagram. They both have a lot of opinions on how they want the energy of the space to feel, and a preapproved list of ethically sourced suppliers. They have paid some ludicrous price for this converted loft in Prospect Heights and chose the location for its proximity to the best farmer’s markets and hippie coffeehouses. Did Ivan die? Is this hell?

Somewhat ostentatiously, he looks at his watch. “Okay,” he announces. “I think that wraps up. You have work number, so – ”

“Oh, just one more thing!” Drew has recently read one (1) book on home design and thinks he’s an expert, so Ivan is forced to suffer his idiotic opinions about the kind of tile they want to use on the kitchen backsplash. Somehow, he manages not to roll his eyes directly out of his head, for which he should be commended. Ivan has discovered that the secret of successfully dealing with people, especially clients, is to smile and nod at everything they say, while mercilessly mocking them in your head. Amazing, the things you learn as a small-business owner in Brooklyn in the year of our lord 2021. Especially when it comes to renovating overpriced tiny gentrified apartments for insufferable techno-douchebags and their vapid influencer girlfriends. And people think Ivan might want to live like this more often? No fucking thank you.

Finally (it’s another ten minutes after that, this is definitely going on the bill), they more or less wrap up, except for the fact that Mia then wants a picture with the three of them. “It’s just so important to us that we’re supporting the immigrant community,” she explains earnestly. “After all, being open, tolerant, learning from our neighbors, people who are different from us, that’s what life is all about. We just love that you’re foreign. The energy feels so right, you know?”

Ivan wonders whether to inform her that he has lived in this country for eight years and been a full citizen (passport and voting rights and everything) for three, then decides that this would venture into sharing-personal-information territory and he is having none of it. His English has improved to the point where he can handle almost all business transactions by himself, but feigning incomprehension can sometimes get him out of them when they turn really stupid. Unfortunately, that isn’t an option here, and so he diligently leans into the frame, smiling half an inch, while Mia snaps a picture of “us and our adorable Russian contractor!!” Ivan informs her of the correct flag emoji to add to the filter, decides that he’s going to add an extra fifty bucks just for that, and finally, finally, makes his escape.

It’s rush hour, and the Q is crammed as Ivan heads into midtown. So much for social distancing and not getting too close to anyone, which is the only thing from the pandemic that he wouldn’t mind keeping. Only about half the crowd is wearing masks, including him, and so he gets off at Times Square, dodges the latest lunatic standing on a soapbox and shouting about how it is all a hoax, and walks several blocks uptown, just to get some space. He finally reaches the restaurant, where he has to flash his vaccination card to get inside (Ivan, who remains Russian to the marrow of his bones, is a little irked that he couldn’t get Sputnik here and had to settle for Pfizer) and climbs up to the open-air rooftop terrace. It is only when he spots his husband, waiting at a table that overlooks the glittering evening lights of the city, when Ivan pulls off his mask and allows himself to properly smile. “Sorry I’m late,” he says. “They are the worst.”

“I figured it was something like that.” Fedyor musters a smile in return, though his eyes look permanently tired these days and Ivan would bet that he’s been scrolling through more depressing emails on his phone. Technically Fedyor is on a two-month sabbatical from work, but he can’t stop himself, and Ivan has had to pry it from his fingers on a number of occasions. “But you’re here now. That’s what matters.”

Ivan nods stoutly, they are furnished with the drinks and appetizers list, and when the waiter asks if there’s any special occasion tonight, tell him that they are celebrating their ten-year anniversary, albeit somewhat late. This was supposed to happen last spring, but obviously, nobody in New York was going out to a restaurant in the early months of 2020, and Ivan himself had barely gotten home from the hospital and still could be knocked over in a strong breeze. They’re celebrating a lot of things tonight, in other words, even if it’s now been eleven years, not ten, since the day Ivan marched into a Red Square coffee shop and engaged in – well, Fedyor has made sure to inform him that the first date didn’t go nearly as well as Ivan always thought it did. But it worked, didn’t it? Here they are, wedding bands on their fingers, a couple of successful American urban professionals who have built a nice life for themselves and are, if anything, even more madly in love than they were when this whole nutty adventure together first began. So really, if you ask Ivan Sakharov Kaminsky, it went just fine after all.

The waiter congratulates them, gives them two drinks for the price of one, and they both relax and start to talk, fully at ease in the way they only are in each other’s company. Ivan does his Mia impression in an extremely convincing falsetto (after all, [NAME REDACTED] has practice at this) and Fedyor almost dies laughing. They hold hands on the table – no need to hold them under the table – and gaze into each other’s eyes all they want, order dinner and dessert, and take a long time about it. They raise several toasts to this, to them, to ten years, may there be many more. Ivan pays the bill, his treat, and they walk slowly back to Times Square, hand-in-hand, Fedyor’s head nestled on Ivan’s shoulder. It’s New York. Nobody cares.

They ride the Q home, in all its smelly, secondhand glory, taking an hour to bang out to Brighton Beach and descending the elevated stairs into the familiar down-at-heel comfort of their Russian-American neighborhood, neon Cyrillic signs glowing in windows and somebody shouting about how if Sergei ever shows his face here again, she is going to cut his dick off. Ivan and Fedyor look at each other and snort, resisting the urge to shout up and ask what exactly Sergei did, and walk a few more minutes to their building. They climb up three flights of stairs to their apartment, unlock the door and the deadbolt, and step inside.

The instant they are home, Rasputin shoots out of nowhere, yowling as if he has been neglected for months, and curls himself around Ivan’s ankles (he is still liable to give Fedyor evil looks when he feels that this interloper has been stealing his human too often). Ivan sighs, trudges to the kitchen, points out to Rasputin that his food bowl is still half full, gets a wounded look in return, and adds an extra scoopful. Once the cat is happily snarfing down, Fedyor pulls Ivan by the hand, into the dim living room with its blowing curtains. “Come here, my love,” he says. “Hold me.”

Ivan does as ordered, because it’s his favorite thing in the world: cuddling Fedyor close, nothing but the two of them in all of time and space, swaying slowly in the blue hour with fingers and arms and hearts entwined. Ivan kisses Fedyor’s temple, and Fedyor nestles even closer, melted into his embrace. “I love you, Vanya,” he mumbles against Ivan’s collarbone. “I love you so much. I love you more than anything in the world. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“I love you too, Fedya.” Ivan leans down and kisses him properly, sweet and slow and lingering, as they continue to waltz in stately time to a music that nobody except the two of them can hear. “I’m still not always sure why you married me, but I am very glad you did.”

[imissjoongsmullet]

My Prince (1)

Pairing: Minghao x reader

Genre: fluff/(angst)

Summary: Life is not exactly easy being the royal gardeners’ daughter but at least it’s simple. When you’re suddenly called upon to serve as the prince’s personal servant, things get a little more than complicated, especially considering the secret history you and the prince share.

Part 2

Part 3

Warnings: general angstiness, a bit of a slow burn, very romantic, very soft, the fact that this will most likely become a long series cause I have no chill

Word Count: 3k

Author’s Note: this is a present for my sweet sweet baby @silverstonemanor you deserve the world, I hope you like it! She gave me the idea for this story a while ago. I would have posted stuff earlier but my extra self couldn’t stop and ran way too far with this whole idea. This was supposed to be a drabble and well, now it’ll probably become the longest thing I’ve ever written that isn’t a novel so yeah ^^” oopsie~

►

The sun was just peeking over the distant treetops when you entered the wide castle grounds with your parents, tool bag slung over your back. You didn’t mind waking up this early; you enjoyed watching the various shades of orange and pink roll over the sky like waves, until nothing was left but clear blue. Besides, in a few hours, the air would turn far too hot and humid for you to focus.

The royal gardens were massive. They’d seemed infinite as a child and even now, despite your position as gardener, you found yourself lost in them from time to time. You followed your parents to the place you’d left off the evening before: a long, narrow stretch of grass, flanked by vibrant tiger lilies on both sides. At the far end was a small, ornate pagoda, around which a thin body of water lay. It was a lily pond of your father’s own making.

“Start at the front,” your mother’s stern voice called from behind, “we need it perfect by noon.”

You did as you were told, getting on your knees in the damp grass, facing the flowers. They needed pruning, as well as weeding. There would be some sort of royal meeting held right here today and; naturally, the place should be spotless. You dug your fingers into the moist soil and pulled at the weeds haphazardly, eyes drifting to the sky more often than necessary. It was tedious work, being part of the royal gardeners but you’d never had much of a choice in the matter. Your parents had done it and the same was expected of you. It’s not like you minded it all that much; you just wondered sometimes whether there was something more exciting you could be doing with your life than fussing over the tiniest details of a garden so vast, the emperor would probably never even see half of it.

The distant neighing of a horse called your attention. Unthinking, you got up and jumped onto the raised platform of the pagoda, so you could see over the bushes of the garden. From the castle’s main entrance came about a dozen men on horses. They trod down the path that lead into an enormous forest. At the front of the procession was the emperor of Namin himself, his most trusted servant by his side. Your eyes went immediately to the horse behind them though; for that’s where the prince sat. The gold detailing on his robe glinted in the warm morning light as he silently followed his father.

“Hey!” your mother barked at you, “these weeds won’t disappear by themselves you know.”

You pulled your eyes away from the procession and hopped off the pagoda with a dull thump and a sigh. You wished you could join the people on their horses. You didn’t even care where they were headed; you just wanted to get out. You imagined adventures you’d have with the prince sometimes; it was a bit of a guilty pleasure and if anyone ever found out, you’d probably be banished from the grounds.

But the prince and you had been close once. You’d been only children but even then it had been scandalous. Servants weren’t allowed to interact with royals but, as the daughter of the palace gardeners you’d spent a fair amount of time on grounds, learning your parents’ craft. That’s how you’d first met him.

He’d been reading by himself under an orange tree when you’d found him, a young boy of seven. He’d seemed weary of you at first but in a matter of hours, the two of you would’ve seemed like best friends to strangers. You still remembered the way he’d smiled at you that first day when you said goodbye; as if he himself was shocked by how much fun he’d just had.

From then on, you’d been secret playmates. He’d find you in the rose garden, watching your parents treat the plants and steal you away for hours, playing hide and seek in the endless maze of greenery, until the sun went down and when you’d return, your parents were worried about where you’d been.

He hadn’t seemed much like a prince back then. You’d just known him as Minghao, your best friend. He’d been loud and wild and full of life, chasing you between trees and under bushes, not afraid to get completely covered in dirt. One time, you’d been teasing each other until finally, he’d pushed you into one of your father’s most prided fountains. You’d yanked him down with you, ruining the apparently-brand-new robes he was supposed to wear to a formal dinner with the ruler of a neighboring land called Yientan that evening. You hadn’t seen him in the following days and you’d felt extremely guilty but a week or so later, he’d jumped out from behind a tree and pulled you into another afternoon of carefree playing.

You were eight years old when you finally got caught. To make matters worse, it had been the empress herself who’d found you, hidden behind a banquet table at one of the royal summer festivals, laughing a bit too loud. You’d never forget the look in her eyes — hard as stone at her own son — as well as Minghao’s — positively terrified. She’d had the guards escort him back to his chambers assuring him there’d be punishment later. She would have banished you right then and there in front of everyone if it hadn’t been for your parents’ begging. They promised to have you start training twelve hours a day with them, to force all your focus on gardening so you wouldn’t have the energy to think about anything else.

You supposed you should be grateful. You would never have survived on your own outside the grounds should you have been banished.

After that, you barely ever saw Minghao and even when he was out in the gardens, you kept your distance. There were times when your eyes crossed and you’d share a look and a smile that reminded you of the way things once were. But even that didn’t last. Soon enough, Minghao grew up and you stopped seeing him as Minghao, the name replaced with ‘prince’, as others called him. It seemed to fit him more. By his fourteenth birthday, there wasn’t much left of the loud, wild, full-of-life boy you’d known. His back was straighter, his shoulders squared and his kind smile vanished. On the rare occasion your eyes did meet, his were cold like his mother’s and you just had to learn to live with that.

Because you knew your place now.

Yet, as you worked your way around the stretch of tiger lilies, your mind kept flitting to the prince. You couldn’t help it. You knew it was silly but, somehow, you still hoped you could return to how things were before.

You were a sweaty mess once the sun arrived high in the sky. Your hands hurt and your stomach was growling but your mother had told you not to take a break before the flowerbeds were in perfect condition. After that you’d still have to clean the pond, all before the clock struck three, when the meeting would take place. You were getting impatient and grouchy and when someone called your name you replied with a bit more attitude than you were allowed to.

“What now?” you groaned, turning around to see, not your parents, but a tall, thin woman in pristine, white and gold clothing. You nearly fell over into the flowers.

The woman didn’t seem fazed. “Come with me,” she ordered in a monotone voice.

You looked around for your parents and found them just as perplexed as you were. Hesitantly, you stood and followed the stranger through the garden. You knew by her clothes she must work at the castle but, as you had no idea of what went on on the inside, you couldn’t tell exactly who she was or what she wanted from you. You worried suddenly they’d somehow found out about your secret prince fantasies, which was a completely irrational thought but horrifying nonetheless.

You were taken through the main entrance, with its massive wooden doors and colorful flags — a gold dragon against a vivid blue backdrop. You'd been fantasizing about what lay behind them since before you could remember. More blue and gold flags? Statues of the royal family? Elaborate paintings or murals?

It was more than you could have dreamed of. The room was entirely bare, drawing the focus on the only the two things that mattered. The floor was a wood, so shiny you could see your face reflected in them, the gentle creak in them like a birdsong. The walls were painted a sky blue, decorated with gold, spindly tree branches. Their shine reflected onto the wood, lighting up the place beautifully.

You had no time to admire any of it. The tall woman’s stride was hasty and you could barely keep up. Tailing her through a small sliding door, you came upon a narrow hallway. You passed others in servant’s clothing: light colored, clean, silk robes. They billowed behind them gracefully as they shuffled past. It made you realize how much you stood out in your mud-stained tunic and trousers.

You ventured deeper into the castle, taking turns through sliding door after sliding door and you started wondering whether you’d ever find your way back outside, when suddenly, the stern woman turned around to face you. You were in a small room with a low table as its center piece. The woman motioned for you to sit and so you did, feeling your heartbeat quicken. What kind of punishment was in store for you here?

The woman took the seat opposite you at the little table, expression unwavering. “I’ve called you here because your services are required in the castle,” she said, sounding put off by the idea.

You could only stare at her in confusion. Why on earth would you be needed at the castle? Your parents did the odd job inside every now and again, mostly flower pieces for special events, but you’d never even been allowed in. Was this some kind of joke?

“Our royal prince’s personal servant has fallen ill,” she went on as if she couldn’t care less, “we need a temporary replacement.”

It took you a few moments to put two and two together.

“You mean me?” you let out a little louder than you’d meant to.

The woman raised her brows. “Believe me I would have chosen otherwise but as it is, you’re the only adequate servant on castle grounds available at the moment.”

Adequate, you thought perplexedly. That wasn’t really a term you’d ever use to describe yourself, let alone a term some crabby older woman would use to describe you.

“The position of any royal member’s personal servant has a set of very specific requirements. Age, gender, birth time,… I don’t expect you to know about it,” she sighed, quite literally looking down on you. “Skills can be taught,” she went on, rising and beckoning you to follow, “but unfortunately the alignment of the planets are beyond our control.”

She opened up a panel behind her, revealing a deep closet space filled to the brim with colorful fabrics. She pulled out a soft lilac robe, not unlike the ones you’d seen the other castle servants wear, and held it up to you, looking you up and down.

“This will do,” she said with a concerning lack of enthusiasm. She pulled out a bunch more similar robes and made a neat pile. “Come,” she ordered and left with the clothes.

All you could do was follow and try to process the ridiculous things you’d just been told. Perhaps you were just dreaming, you thought. Yeah, that had to be it.

You arrived in another bare room, this one large and rectangular. There were a couple of other servant girls, folding robes on the floor. They all rose upon seeing the older woman and bowed in silence. Then they noticed you and their eyes narrowed. You felt their stares stab at your already racing heart.

“Before we can begin your training you need to wash, child,” the woman said, laying down your new clothes, “I’ll be back in half an hour. Be ready," and with that, she left you standing there, completely in shock.

After awkwardly looking around the room for far too long to be socially acceptable, you plucked up the courage to ask for help. The young girls exchanged looks before reluctantly bringing you to the baths.

If you hadn't been so anxious it would've been the best bath you'd ever had but for all the luxurious oils and soaps to scrub yourself clean with, your brain was too preoccupied with everything that had just happened.

“I don’t understand,” you muttered when you were met with the older woman again, “I’m just a gardener.” You were shuffling after her in the narrow hallways, trying to wrap your head around things.

“Don’t be dramatic,” she answered simply, “it’s not befitting a royal servant. Besides, this is merely a temporary position. You’ll be back out with your tools in no time.”

Her name, you’d learned, was Tou Ma, or at least that what you were to call her. She was head keeper to the royal family, in charge of all female servants in the castle. Her face was long, with eyes like slits and cheekbones sharp as glass. You couldn’t tell how old she was from the heavy layers of powder she wore but supposed she must be older than your mother.

She spent the rest of the day attempting to cram an overload of information into your head. She taught you to bow ‘the proper way’, whatever that meant; apparently you’d been doing it wrong your entire life. She explained all the intricacies of etiquette, washing, folding, serving, dusting, pruning and a bunch of other things you’d probably forget by the next day. It was all so overwhelming that when it was finally over, the sun was setting and you were about ready to pass out.

“Now,” Tou Ma said, somehow still as fierce as she was at the beginning of the day, “the emperor and his son returned from their hunting trip approximately one hour ago. I suggest you don’t keep him waiting much longer.”

The words took the earth right out from under your feet.

“I have to see him?” you stammered, “now?”

Tou Ma looked unimpressed. “I’ve told you how he likes his tea,” she said, “don’t mess it up.”

You were one and all nerves as you approached the prince’s chambers. You nearly got lost on the way, the hundreds of hallways all blurring together after such a long day, but the entrance to his chamber was not easily missed. It was a heavy, wooden sliding door, it’s surface craved out, depicting a scene from a past war. It was imposing to say the least, with soldiers on horseback and a massive dragon in the sky, spewing fire. It did not manage to still your racing heart.

Taking a deep breath, you slid open the door.

There he was, the prince, sat in a blood red, upholstered chair at his desk, writing. He looked regal, you admitted, in his clean, silk robes and perfect hair; too beautiful to touch. He looked up at the sound of the door. His brown eyes fell on you and his lips parted in silence.

“Um,” you started awkwardly, which was already not the ‘proper’ way of serving tea, “I’ve brought you some tea.”

That’s when you noticed his brows furrow ever so slightly. Having forgotten everything Tou Ma had taught you just before, you walked over to the nearest surface — a narrow table against a wall — and set down the tray you’d been holding. You felt his eyes on you the entire time as you tried to remember how to prepare the beverage properly but when you were finally done after what seemed like forever, you found him hunched over his writing again.

“Okay,” you said softly, “it’s ready.”

He set down his pen and turned to you with a look that was impossible to read. The silence between you seemed to last forever and you felt your face go red hot. You noticed for the first time how tired he looked. He was seventeen, one year older than you, but the darkness under his eyes would suggest otherwise.

Part of you wanted to go nearer to him. You took a hesitant step forward but at once, you saw his eyes turn colder than you’d never seen them.

“You can leave,” he said suddenly, casting his eyes back down to his writing.

“Yes,” you stuttered, taking the emptied tray and hugging it to yourself, “of course.”

You stumbled backwards until you met the door, made an awkward bow and left the prince with a sinking feeling in your gut. You’d watched him change over the years from a distance, sure; but having him dismiss you so coolly when there was no one even around to see? Well, it hurt. Maybe part of you had hoped he’d act differently when it was just the two of you. Maybe you’d hoped he’d tell you all these years of iciness had been pretend for his parents. But clearly not.

In one day, your entire life had turned upside down and at its end, you were positive things hadn’t changed for the better.

Part 2

[cherry3point14]

What Does The Fox Say?

Pairing: Dean x Reader Warnings: Crack. Orgy. Sex Party. Don’t let your nethers tingle, it’s barely flirting. SYNONYMS. Word Count: 2,300ish.   Summary/Prompt: There’s a case. Witches or something, and they’re killing people, specifically furries, maybe. As such one Dean Winchester goes to a furry sex party to look for clues... A/N: Written for @kalesrebellion​ “Bring On the Giggles” challenge. I think hope my synonyms for this challenge will be fairly obvious. Also, shoutout to @winchesters-meaty-feast​ who entertained my panic as this deadline loomed and pretty much talked me into birthing this ~thing. Sidenote - no disrespect to the furries who walk among us. It’s all exaggerated crack!fic. Peace and love. Yiffy on friends.

From the outside, it looks like any other two-story townhouse. There’s a car parked out front, normal mailbox, the works. Regular suburban home. The first clue that something out of the ordinary is happening inside—where the ordinary is mom, dad, and two-point four ankle-biters having dinner—is the windows. They’re all covered, curtains or blinds, it doesn’t matter. This is what it looks like when humans try to cover their tracks. Monsters choose places that are already deserted and forgotten. Humans hide in plain sight and end up sticking out like a sore thumb. Plus Dean has spent all day talking to furries about this house. Yeah, that’s the biggest clue, not the damn curtains. He’s had multiple lectures, not only from Sam but the furries, people, themselves. It’s not all about porn. They’d told him adamantly. Showed him drawings and all these things they’d made each other, and pictures from their conventions. We’re not all perverts! They could say it until they were blue in the face (they had), but Dean’s standing here looking at this house, knowing what’s inside, and it’s hard to believe the furries-are-innocent propaganda. It’s even harder to believe he’s walking in there of his own free will. The things he’ll do to save lives. Sam told him to change because “Freeze, FBI” might not go down well at this particular house party. What’s he supposed to change into? A Halloween costume? That suggestion earned him yet another talk about respecting people’s interests. Whatever. He gets it, they don’t all have full fursuit things and even the ones that do, don’t generally fuck in them, and really? Is it really fucking necessary that he knows this much about furries? At least he can put on a plain black tee and some jeans and Sam only half presses his lips together in disapproval. What is his brother expecting him to wear to a furry sex party? Cat ears? (Dean is offended by the implication even if Sam didn't say it out loud). Eventually, shuffling his feet, he makes it to the door and knocks. He doesn’t want to be here but Sam’s working another lead on the other side of town at a D&D meet up. All jokes about dungeons aside, Dean would have given up his music privileges all the way back to Kansas to switch places. Once again, scissors bit him in the ass. The door opens a few inches, enough to see, hand to god, a guy in white rabbit-ish body paint. He raises his eyebrows in Dean’s direction like he’s asking for something without saying the words. The guy definitely doesn’t twitch his nose and it definitely doesn’t remind Dean of that bunny from Bambi. Oh shit. The password. Right, because that was how you made a gathering like this more legit and less embarrassing. Dean’s throat tightens like the words don’t want to come out, or like he doesn’t want them to exist, “Yiffy Ki Yay.” Furry sons of bitches have even ruined Die Hard. The guy nods and pulls the door open enough to let Dean slide in, but not reveal too much of the clandestine activities to the outside world. Not that anyone on Maple Avenue is looking into this particular door. Either the neighbors know better or they don’t care. Although now that he’s inside Dean can see his nameless host is also wearing tall, white ears and furry cuffs on his ankles and wrists. The first of what, Dean assumes, will be many red flags that he should leave. Not that he heeds the warning. “First time?” The rabbit asks while Dean attempts to scan as much as he can see without a slack jaw. “Yeah,” he breathes out. Dean has been around the block. He’s seen the inside of more than just strip clubs. His number one use of the Internet is porn, his second? More porn. This is something else. He’s not judging, well, he's trying not to judge and failing miserably. These people aren’t hurting anyone though. In fact, someone might be trying to hurt them. Or the D&D players. They were still on the fence about how the groups were linked beside the weird deaths. Granted some of this party seems very vanilla from what he can see. He catches a glimpse of the dining room, which has been cleared of most of its furniture, and there’s your everyday orgy of mangled limbs. Those limbs happen to be a little furrier than normal is all. Thankfully not everyone is dressed as an animal. Not that anybody will be telling Sam that he was right. Some people are dotted around watching, or drinking like the sex isn’t happening, and some of the people getting involved are in plain clothes. Or, naked but not wearing any sort of animal accessory. At first glance, there’s a part of Dean that thinks he can appreciate the hedonism of it, without being bogged down by the fact that they're all cosplaying as goddamn animals. Animal enthusiasts, he corrects in his head before Sam telepathically delivers a bitch face from across town. And then he’s walking through the kitchen and there are two people nuzzling each other. People might not be the right word because they’re dressed as cats. Holding each other and stretching and bending their limbs. All feline movements and what he thinks is a purring noise, but he can’t confirm or deny because of the music coming from the cheap speakers on the counter. It might be sweet if it wasn’t in the middle of a sex party. Yeah, this is still going to take some getting used to. The rabbit is yammering, mentioning ground rules that Dean is only half listening to while he tries not to stare at the cats. He’s listening enough to follow the rules but actually, he can’t bring himself to look away from the most PC thing happening in the joint. “Did you get that because I heard the door…?” This time Floppy speaks with enough urgency that Dean snaps his focus back to the white rabbit. “Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll-” he wants to say ‘mingle’ like it’s a seventies swingers party and his biggest concern is where his car keys are. He licks his dry lips and they still feel like sandpaper, “-look around.” He does need to look around, talk to people, do his job. That’s why he’s here feeling like the spare dick at a fucking contest. Dean knows his limits though and before he investigates he's gonna need a beer.  Once he’s got a bottle in his hand, which he got from the fridge because he doesn’t trust anything that was sitting on any surface, even unopened, he starts climbing the stairs. The tinny music, the sound of bodies slapping against each other, and the low din of people talking like normal adults all fade with each step until he’s at the top. Practically not at a furry orgy anymore. Except it’s a new horrific game now. What’s behind door number one? Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembers Whiskers going on about the rules of the rooms. Lock up if you want privacy. Unlocked and shut means viewers welcome. Open doors are an invitation to play. That’s the word Thumper had used, play. The first door is locked. He skips the second because he can hear what's going on inside and even if he was in the mood to creep (he’s not), you don't walk in on the money shot. The third room is a bathroom, a stark reminder he's in a house that people live in. The fourth door he tries is blissfully empty. It looks like a guest room. Walls that are basic beige and nothing identifying. Then he sits on the bed and presses his back into the wall. He realizes this bed has probably been used for the activities he’s already seen tonight. Out of sight, out of mind. Dean takes out his phone and stares, annoyed, at the screen. Sam hasn’t messaged him, so the case isn’t solved and he doesn’t have an excuse to leave. He takes a swig of his beer and types with his free hand, trying to make an excuse. Find anything yet? Another long drag while he waits, forcing the drink down his throat in the hopes of some small semblance of dutch courage. Or in the hopes that everything is solved, so he can go back to the motel and beat his meat to hentai like a normal person. No, but this is actually really interesting. You? Dean’s fingers twitch wanting nothing more than to throw the phone against a wall. If he wasn’t obligated to text back to illustrate that he’s still alive then he might leave Sam high and dry. As it is his reply is short and simple. Nothing. He feels no need to mention that he hasn’t actually looked yet. Dean puts his phone away and throws his head back against the wall at the exact moment the door opens. She stumbles in with the ghost of a giggle on her lips. He’s expecting there to be someone following her considering the party he’s attending. Two people blundering into a room looking for a place to get some privacy. Except she’s alone and she’s not concerned to find him alone either. Her eyes widen a little but her smile is soft, “sorry, you’re not waiting on someone are you?” “Me?” He asks, concerned that he has picked up some paraphernalia along the way. Anything that might suggest he’s a part of this. She continues to wait for an answer to her question instead of answering his. “No, Nah. Just taking a breather.” “Thank god, me too.” She blows out a relieved puff of air before shutting the door behind her. In doing so she flashes him her tail. She’s a fox. Or some version of a fox. She hasn’t gone as far as body paint. Her outfit almost seems costumey rather than serious. It’s this orange mini dress—if it could be called a dress for how little it leaves to his imagination—with a bushy, foxtail attached. He hadn’t noticed her ears immediately, but now he’s seen them, there they are. Ginger and pointed on top of her head, and when she turns back to him he finally notices the little, black nose she has painted on. She sits down next to him, scoots herself on top of the sheets making them bunch under her. She doesn’t seem to care about him having dibs over the bed or room and it only takes a few seconds for him to not care either. In this close proximity, inches apart, he doesn’t see a fox, even if she is definitely dressed up as a fox. He sees bare legs crossed at the ankle, her dress fighting to contain her cleavage and the sheen of her skin from dancing. She’s holding a red solo cup, he assumes half full of alcohol considering the pink flushing her cheeks. “I’m going to take a guess,” she leans until her shoulder is pressed against his arm, “you’re either a first-timer or you’re lost.” Dean laughs because he feels lost even if his cover is supposed to be the former. “First time, that obvious, huh? Thanks for pointing it out. Real considerate of you.” She bites her lip enough to get him looking at her mouth. Thinking about her mouth. “Wolf?” “What?” “I get it, first-timers are still trying to be normal, but the dark colors and the brooding loner thing you have going on in here. A wolf missing his pack?” She brings her knees up and bends her legs under herself while she guesses. Twists her body in his direction. He can’t tell if she’s joking. It sounds half ridiculous and makes him think of the kind of wolves he hunts. Dean lies anyway, “ding ding. Tell the woman what she’s won. Or do you prefer..?” Dean waves a hand to her everything fox related as if he might seriously start using ‘fox’ instead of ‘woman’. His gesturing hand lands on her waist while the other takes another swig from his brown bottle. “‘S fine. We’re all still people underneath. I’ve got a job and everything.” She rolls her shoulders like she’s showing off for being employed, which shuffles her whole body half an inch closer to his until her knees are touching his thigh. She’s facing him, his arm still lazily, half wrapped around her as she raises her cup to her lips. “Oh yeah, what do you do, sweetheart?” He lets the syrup fall from his mouth because foxes like honey.

She laughs, the sound tinkles in the space between them. “I’m a diner chef. Nothing exciting unless you like to eat?” His tongue peeks out between his teeth, his lips smirking suggestively. “I’ve been known to enjoy a-,” Dean's eyes flick down her body to where her dress is stretching over her thighs, and then back to her face, “fur burger.” Nowhere else on the fucking planet would he get away with saying that. Only at a furry sex party. She doesn’t just smile at his line though, she hums, pleased he’s playing along, and slides a hand along the outer hem of his jeans. Fingers slowly crawling up his leg and tracing the denim.

One blink and the air is thicker, heavier, and Dean doesn’t give a shit when it happened.

Her eyes flash playfully as she finishes her drink. “Mmm, the only way to make sure a burger is done is a good thrust of a meat thermometer.” 

5eva tags: @divadinag​ @darthdeziewok​ @fluentinfiction​ @witch-of-letters​ @supernatural-teamfreewill-blog​​ @magnitude101999​ @alexwinchester23​ @jesseswartzwelder​ Dean babes: @thewinchesterchronicles​ @akshi8278​ @erins-culinary-service​ @bloodydaydreamer​ @iamabeautifulperson18​ @ellewritesfix05​

[anonil88]

A Green Night on the Town.

Is this a modern au? No. Ruby and Christina end up meeting the neighbors as William and Hillary. But Ruby wants to go to the bar and live a little, 👀.

Ruby Baptiste X Christina Braithwhite

Inspired by comments and posts by @dreaduquesne and @taylor144. I did do some research for this, the one song is from the 1960s but we are gonna pretend it's not. If you are going to be negative just for negativity sake please don’t. Wanted to post this before tonight’s episode where this ship may go down in flames. One more ep left after tonight *insert sad emojis*

Songs in order of appearance in story: Put on my Shoes by Mary Anne Fisher, I don't know by Ruth Brown, One Man's Poison by Liz Lands, It's Your Voodoo Working by Charles Sheffield.

MATURE RATING

LINK TO STORY ON ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN 

Ruby sat in the Bentley checking her image in the side mirror. The red lipstick she reapplied was new and came in a gold bullet with roses carved into it. It was the shade Ruby and she got it on one of her shopping adventures. As Hillary of course. The matte color clashed with Hillary's choice of clothing but perfectly matched her pink dress with red and blue flowers stitched onto it. She wasn't only checking her face but looking out for unfriendly neighbors.

In the weeks she's been with Christina in the house, the looks she's gotten are usually not friendly. Kids and parents alike staring her up and down like she is trash. In her most unholy form of self they smiled "Fake ass white folks ," she thinks. They were lucky most white people did not want trouble knowing William lived with her openly. As openly as they could be, the city of Chicago has always cared less about couples like them but the people sure do care enough. Ruby glances at the door that sits far behind iron gates. 

After her day out, William introduced her to some of the neighbors on another street who had kids. Kids who looked innocent playing in the streets. A group of men talking on the street flagged the Pontiac down making Ruby tense but William's hand rested atop hers in the middle of the seat.  They spoke across her wondering where they could get themselves a car and a woman that. William chuckled and made small talk which Ruby side eyed her partner for. 

That led to them both getting out of the car introducing themselves to these men and their wives as Hillary and William Davenport. An invitation for dinner came from one wife who kept commenting on the bump in Hillary's hair too nicely. Ruby heard a little bit of Christina's snark in Williams no and tampened that response with, "Sorry we have plans tonight." Which thankfully was accepted and before then they had no plans but now Ruby wanted to spend the night dancing to music, maybe singing just a little. As herself, after an exhausting day of keeping up with the Joneses or Smiths or whatever white slave master name they probably shared with a poorer distant cousin on the Southside. Damn she kinda missed the Southside. Christina had been before but not like this.

She sees a teenage boy dragging a trash can down the driveway next door but listens to the sound of feet making their way down the walkway. Slowly she puts the lipstick in her purse that will get left in the back seat because tonight she wants nothing to hold her back. Ruby watches Christina open and lock the gate with her back turned. Hair perfectly swooped to the side even in moonlight.

The tall blonde was in a green dress fitted at the waist that was far too fancy for whatever jazz joint they were bound to end up in. It looked new but Ruby swore Christina had too big of a closet, almost big enough for two people. William had a vest in a similar color, he wore a few days ago...well she wore Ruby guesses. Christina looks nice as she saunters towards the silver drivers side and Ruby bit the inside of her lip. There was something about the way the woman was so sure and confident in her walk, how she sat, or how she inserted the silver key into the ignition. Even when she was out dressing her for a simple night on the town. Those long hands just so handling the key before slipping...

Ruby swallows her jealous admiration and rolls her eyes, "Seriously?"

"What, is this too much ?" Christina asks, smoothing her fingertips over the leather of the steering wheel. She leans over Ruby likely too close and slips a vial of William's blood in the glove box. Giving Ruby an amused stare that makes Ruby roll her eyes even harder. Christina thinks of this as a game, one they both play. There are days she has already taken her potion and is dressed in slacks eating breakfast. Ruby will saunter into the kitchen dressed in a number that makes Christina wonder if keeping Ruby hostage would be so bad. Probably, if Leticia found out there would be a makeshift army outside her front door.

"Ha," Ruby laughs out loud and Christina smiles, "You fucking think, it's a jazz joint not the Ritz. Who in the Sam Hill are you trying to impress tonight?"

Christina lowers her eyes to Ruby's lips. She thinks of just exactly who she was continually trying to impress as covertly as possible. Ruby looks away and back realizing Christina is still staring at her like....that. She does it in William's skin too, those eyes sizing her up. Two piercing blue eyes always staring at her so deeply Ruby thinks she could burst into flames. No matter the face she does find it hard to look away. 

"Don't look at me like that. I warned you about that, now drive." Ruby says crossing her arms in her lap listening to the engine come alive. Christina grins to herself but keeps her words to herself as she shifts the car into drive.

The night leads them to Vesey's where Ruby is plenty filled with free drinks. She already sang at the last spot with a band but her presence rouses the crowd that is already not slow at all tonight. The bar is more packed than normal and Ruby forgets to ask why. She did hear Sammy whisper across the bar to a man next to her something about a discreet open door to friends of Dorothy for once. As soon as her and her unlikely plus one arrived, Christina said she'd be fine on her own. 

Ruby took that for truth but tried to read her half truth anyway. Christina held her own well but not like this...this would be a first. That was something Christina would say often "a first" with practically anything it made Ruby wonder if her secret-sometimes lover had any childhood or life at all before her sister came barreling into that mansion.

The whiskey is neat on her tongue as she tosses it back quickly before blearily grinning at Sammy. Tonight felt good and light and fun. No white eyes staring at her making her feel undone in front of them. Ruby in her skin surrounded by her kin and music that was sewn into her spirit. No matter how sad the lyrics could get the beat was full of life.

"And we have our resident songstress in the crowd tonight," someone on the small stage called out. Whistles came from the bar and the crowd mid dance at the stage. Andre, the young barkeep, winking at her taking her lipstick stained glass back behind the bar.

"I guess that's my cue Dre," Ruby raised her brows at him. He nods back, touching her hand sitting on the bar lightly. He sure was cute, she thought before slowly getting up from the stool. She makes her way past the packed house and in front of the band playing. Shouts and hollers come from the crowd as she holds out her hands. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the Ruby Baptiste." The man pushes the mic in her hand and whispers good luck to her. She isn't a stranger to singing while drunk or singing well while drunk. Not even with a big audience but there is a feeling of nerves in her fingers as she grips the mic and slips it back in the stand.

"Hello Southside," Ruby says into the mic. Whistles get louder and someone bangs on the bar. This crowd definitely had some new faces in it but they were smiling or leaning against someone else like lustful animals. "Alrighty i guess y'all are entitled to a few songs."

Someone yells from a booth, "Yea, where you been Ruby left us on the south side for the north side."

Ruby laughs into the mic, " Y'all think I would leave this behind never!" She looks at the guitarist, "maybe you." Folks gossiping was always a trend her name sour on so many people's mouths.

Everyone laughs in response and she laughs quietly to herself. She whispers to the band "Put on my shoes".

Ruby sways with the band as they start before leaning into the mic.

"Should I feel a little hot, you almost drive me insane, All your good intentions. Seem to wash right down the drain, put yourself in my place. You'll see what I mean and you'll know how I feel. And you'll feel, you'll feel a pain in your heart."

Ruby scans the crowd with her eyes, landing on random spots of the crowd that look more enthused then others. Her voice still gravels out...

"Baby I've been let down more times than I can remember how you cheated on poor lil me from January to December. Put yourself in my place. You'll see what I mean and you'll know how I feel."

Her hand cradles the mic as she throws her words into it. She knows that pain even if it is not her current romance. Her heart had been split open once or twice before. Maybe that's why she held her heart back in  this thing with William, Christina, or as Montrose called them Chrilliam.

"And you'll feel you'll feel a pain in your heart. I've always been faithful and I've always been true but there's gotta be the death gotta be a change in you."

Fuck him, she thought throwing her anguish in het voice before leaning back up to scan the crowd.

"Put on my shoes for a day.

Put on my shoes for a week.

Put on my shoes for a month or two, know what I've been through."

If only she could make a spell or potion, so that Christina could understand. Understand why she gets so angry and frustrated with the woman in and outside of her own blackness. She finally finds the blonde blending in surprisingly well. Christina has a drink in hand leaning against the wall, watching her. Blue eyes sweeping across the stage as Ruby moves about the space. Instead of looking away Ruby croons out....

"Go on and have fun after all is said and done."

Someone bemoans out yes sing Ruby sing. Ruby watches Christina stare at her not breaking the tension between the two of them. If this was an empty house it would be much more obvious that Ruby had been stuck. Stuck on the way Christina clutched the glass in her hand to her lips. The way her eyes didn't waver or move from Ruby eyeing her up and down.

"Put on my shoes you'll get the blues the blues the blues if you put on my shoes."

The song starts to end and Ruby finally looks away. Her heart is beating so loudly it could probably take over for Gordy the drummer if they need be. If only Christina could know authentically how it felt to be in skin like hers. Not some misplaced gesture that could have gotten her dumb ass killed...if only. 

Christina half listens to the short woman sharing the table with her. She did not care at all what the woman was saying but she fully understood she had no power in this establishment. Magically yes, but physically she was the outsider here. If someone wanted to sit at the same table in this bar they could. This bar was thick with smoke, heat, and loud. Christina observed it all, everyone seemed at home in this small establishment. A home full of strangers that couldn't cross into Lincoln Park with that same joy and comfort. She didn't understand that feeling but she also never really had a "home" to connect to. A comfort as distant as her ability to empathize with these people.

A taller full figured woman stands next to the shorter darker one before sitting down eyeing Christina up and down. Which Christina doesn't change her one note expression for. The shorter woman is still yapping on about something and Christina flits her eyes between the two. At some point the taller one leans in and introduces herself as Celia. Christina leans in a bit to hear her and nods. Celia has a cool confidence she immediately picks up on instead of the jittery energy in between them.

"Isn't this wild Cil I've never seen a white woman walk in this place alone," the short one finally says in between winds of her story.

Celia smiles at Christina and says lowly, "Alone is right." Christina sees something in the taller woman's eye and grits her teeth a bit. She isn't alone, not really, with Ruby in the same building. But neither of them is kept and Ruby doesn't often kiss her without the pieces of William stuck to her skin. 

"What's he coming over here all fancy like for, she's just white. Not royalty." a man in the booth next to the table huffs out loud enough for Christina to hear. One purpose most likely she knows.

Christina turns and sees the owner of the bar walking over to the table with a tray holding a wine glass filled with red. A few bystanders jump out of his way or side eye him. This didn't seem like the place where people went to for a glass of wine. Sammy was his name, she remembers that from her own bits of research on her extended family. She has also heard whispers that he was or is linked to her cousin's father, in that way. He stops in front of her and places the glass on the table. 

"On the house Braithwhite." Sammy purses his lips a little at her and she crosses her eyes at him. "A request from..." the stage he mouths. She softens her look when he walks away and pulls the glass to her. Sipping it she almost laughs, it's an awful merlot that tastes like pennies. The copper taste sits on her tongue and her eyes go wide. Slipping her hand into the pockets on her dress she feels for the glass vial that should be there. After a moment of panic she feels the cold glass pulling it out a bit to ensure it's still full. It is. She sighs relief into the glass and sips it again.

The music from the band is still blaring as the crowd in front of the seating area sways and moves back and forth. No singing comes through the air and Christina leans her neck slightly to find Ruby on the stage or in the crowd. It takes a bit before a wheezy laugh proceeds and sees a man on stage with Ruby. He is swaying behind her as she holds the mic singing into the mic, 

"Could a heart so right be led so wrong if his love is weak would it last this long. I don't know but I hope and pray that he comes my way oh oh." 

Christina grips at her own thigh with the hand still sitting in her pocket.

The horn player toots out loudly and Ruby turns around lightly pushing away the tall built man behind her. It was all in good fun as the band kept playing and he sidled back up to her slipping his hands back to her waist teasingly. She hears the band transition into another song while she dances on stage. Left, right, left, right. She feels her hips sway away from the fingers resting above her dress. She recognizes this song and shakes her shoulders along to the music that's all around her. Looking back at the crowd she can see the stares that she is receiving from the men in the crowd. It is all temptation and fire from many directions but Ruby shrugs to herself. She did not come for a man, she had one of those already, which was obvious others heard about. Her core tightens thinking of that man, so adept with the way he took care of her. Where is he? She wonders looking back to the table she sent that bottom shelf wine to earlier. She sees Christina but Christina is holding a conversation with a glass half full. A conversation that Ruby blinks at, a woman, a very pretty light skinned girl is undressing Christina with her eyes. Ruby knows she can't hide the look on her face and bites her tongue. It earns her an, “Ooo gurl what's on your mind,” from the guitarist who she sees her face flare with jealousy. He’s following her gaze to the table and whistles loudly. He never thought Ruby went that way, but he didn’t know a lot about Ruby outside of rumors.

Braithwhite never looked out of place even in a place like this. She just fit in well without trying like a chameleon making herself comfortable in someone else's home. If Ruby did not know some of Christina’s truths this would concern her, but not so much now. At least even at her most sordid she was honest. The green of the dress did stand out but it felt see through to Ruby. She was pretty sure the woman on the other end could only wish for the type of knowledge she had. The alcohol and revitalized confidence in her gives her half the mind to throw her shoe from the stage. Maybe knocking Christina's eyes, that were probably not bulging as much as Ruby's liquored brain saw, back into her head. Ruby thinks better than that and sits the mic back in the stand and clears her throat into the mic.

Eyes including those blue ones find their way back to the stage. Ruby glares a bit in Christina's direction then directs her words back to the crowd. "Aight y'all this is my last song for tonight, it's something me and the boys have been cooking up."

Ruby hears the band whistle and mumble about someone having her in a mood tonight. The four count from the symbol goes off and Ruby clenches the mic letting her voice seep out,

"One man's poison is another man's meat, what's good for Johnny will kill poor Pete."

People in the cloud clap at the new sound. Folks lean up off the wall to move towards the dance area or to move with the crooning in their spot. Ruby smiles with her words as they continue. 

"I'm good at loving so make no mistake I was his gravy but I'm your steak. Kiss me baby hold me tight everything's gonna be alright."

Ruby sways her hips back and forth a bit. Christina feels her eyes getting heavy dragging up and down Ruby's frame. She catches Ruby glancing her way and licks her lips quickly before the woman turns away from her. 

"One man's evil is another man's pure, kiss me baby I want your sweet loving tonight." 

Ruby extends her leg on stage twisting it with the music as she dances with the fill of the band. Moving back to the mic she slides her hands around the tall skinny pole.

Christina empties the contents of her glass not moving her vision from Ruby. She's leaning out of her chair slightly, but tries to pull herself together. If the times allowed her to, she'd have Ruby right there on the stage and she guesses if the crowd wasn’t soaking in the way Ruby reeled them in. Ruby was full of magic and had an effect on people that Christina was sensitive to. Even the first time she heard her sing.

Ruby grins as the band keeps playing and nods to them. Which they respond with air kisses. The crowd jeers as Ruby makes her way off the stage. A man's arm outstretched guides her off the stage even though she didn't need any help. Ruby can feel fire on her skin likely from Christina at the attention from a few gentlemen as Ruby passes them on her way to the bar for a glass of water. When she makes her way towards the seating area she teasingly saunters past the table she knows the blonde is sitting at. Ruby feels the eyes outlining her from behind and hears someone excuse themselves from a table behind her. She keeps walking to the bathroom she knew was at the end of the hall. 

The sound of heels matching her stride as she opens and lets herself in the single person toilet.

Ruby swallows her moans while slowly tugging the long blonde hairs in between her fingers. Light tugs feeling soft rouged cheeks against her inner thighs. Lips kissing up against her thigh garters and stockings. Ruby exhales pulling Christina's head back up to hers.

"Is that what you wanted, sitting there pissed off because someone had your new toy."

Christina exhales feeling Ruby's nails scratch her scalp ever so. Her face is flushed, she can feel it, but she shakes out no lightly. "You aren't a toy," Christina pushes Ruby's hand away from her and leans over her. Less than inches away, "I guess I'm just a little jealous and it seems you are too." 

Ruby scoffs but doesn't deny it, instead she drinks in the way Christina looks at her. With a vigor and a hunger that makes her thighs clench against the hand there. Fingers that sting in her memories from the car stroke up and down and Ruby does something she rarely does. She leans in and pulls Christina's lips to hers.

Christina revels in the slow tongue inching along hers. Ruby's hand on the back of her head, pulls her closer, and she slaps a hand against the tile wall surrounding the mirror. She likes this Ruby whoever this Ruby is. Unattached. Christina whimpers, feeling her head shoulders pushed downward. This Ruby who kisses her even without her being William. She also feels good in Ruby who is bound and only kisses William.

"You said you'd kiss whatever I wanted Braithwhite," Ruby gathers the blonde’s hair in her hands. Sinking her red fingernails into the blonde scalp, she opens her legs wider putting more weight on the metal sink. Ruby feels her breath hitch watching Christina sink to her knees while biting her lip at Ruby's words. Christina is undoing the snap of her garter while pushing Ruby's dress further up her thighs. It's almost around her waist, but this was not the place to just strip of it completely. Ruby leans her head back in relief feeling Christina inch the lacey cotton fabric around her hips down until they are off completely. She hopes Christina tucks them in her pocket at least.

Christina sighs pushing the lacey fabric into the same pocket holding William. She lightly bites into Ruby's thigh before moving to taste her fully. There is a low shudder and the grip on her hair tightens as she dips her head forward closing her eyes to fully immerse herself in Ruby. Ruby feels the hot coils in her stomach snapping and crackling. Her free hand moves from clenching her mouth to gripping the sink. She doesn't want to ruin Christina's dress but the heel of her shoe is pressing into the blondes back. A gasp like moan escapes her mouth as a shiver runs across her collar bone.

"Oh shit," the door next to them squeaks open and shut quickly, making both Ruby and  Christina open their eyes. Christina turns her head upward to stare at Ruby. She can't say she feels any shame in her current position, but Ruby might. Ruby can only see the blue eyes peeking at her with concern and heat from the bottom of her dress. But, she feels like wetness on Christina's chin on her warm thighs. Ruby leans over to the lock on the door and twists it shut before leaning her head back on the wall. She regrips Christina's hair, "Kiss what I want."

Ruby moans out loud while music and a jazzy tune slips under the door.

“Your love is voodoo and I just can’t last. It's your voodoo working, voodoo working, voodoo working and I can't get a lick…..”

[shadowgeist-stars]

Vitam et Mortem: Divine Pride

A small gift for Pride Month before June ends. I probably should've come up with this earlier, but hey, I hope you enjoy it regardless.

Bridget had wanted to show Emily her new favorite part of June for years since they first began. After all the time they spent together for the last five or six centuries, she found it quite fun to introduce the otherwise reclusive Mother Nature to all the things she otherwise ignored among the mortals.

But this particular celebration wasn't just a joyous occasion for herself. Many lost spirits and even deities from all over the world rejoiced at the celebration of their own way of love and life.

From the gods of ancient Mesopotamia, to the far-flung rainbow serpents of Australia, to the hidden deities in China and Japan, to Bridget's own neighboring Loas and other divine friends in the Americas. The jubilee expressed by the immortals could only be matched, let alone surpassed, by that of the humans. Finally, all of the unfortunate people who lost themselves for the sake of their own hearts wouldn't have died in vain. All of the poor children close to that edge had something to look forward to.

"Come on, Emily, it's this way!" she called, leading her companion by the hand. "I promise you'll love it!"

Mother Nature chuckled, following the winged girl as quickly as she could. "This is the most excited I've seen you in the past few centuries. Have you met another holiday spirit?"

Bridget shrugged. "Not exactly. But I think you'll especially love it. It can't be much further now."

They stopped when they reached a crowd of people down the road.

Marching through the street was a parade of celebration. Flags of many bright color combinations littered the area. Some were blue, purple and pink. Some were pastel pink and blue and white. But a great many of the flags and all-encompassing banners -- and there were so, so many of them -- were all the colors of the rainbow.

"Bridget, my dear… what on Earth is this?"

Before her eyes, the rainbow painted itself over Bridget's otherwise black cloak. Strips of each color encircled her long cloak in luminous, vibrant hues. Shades of deep bright pink and fiery red orange sought out her shoulder cape, imitating one of the proudly-waving flags in the parade with black between each stripe. Emily soon learned exactly what it meant, as many couples in the parade embraced one another without fear or shame.

"It's a celebration of people like us," the redhead explained, no less than sheer jubilee on her face. "You once showed me how many animals are able to love in the same way we do. And according to the older gods, mortals who were the same way never had such a chance to be themselves since before the Dark Ages. Now that they have that chance again… isn't it beautiful?"

Emily did remember showing her all that. From birds of all kinds to various cats and other mammals to even insects and fish, and a whole lot more. The colors around her and the light in Bridget's eyes and all over her cloak… it truly was a sight to behold.

"It's wonderful," she replied simply. "Absolutely gorgeous. I've never seen anything like it."

They joined the parade like it was the most natural thing in the world. Following families and children greeted the two, as did many more immortals who began to appear. The children were laughing and dancing together with the other immortals, sporting their own flags.

"Lovely day for a parade, ladies," greeted a man in a multicolored tribal outfit framed with various flowers. "I'm certain I saw someone handing out Sapphic flags. Just watch for the usual, ahem… intruders."

"Thanks so much, Xochipilli," Bridget thanked the stranger. "I'm sure Emily would love that."

He smiled. "Never thought I'd see the day that the infamous Mother Nature would appear here. I'll tell the others; all of your Loa friends are bound to be nearby, and they'll love hearing about this."

Emily was confused by the names. "Who was he talking about?"

"My Voodoo-related associates," Bridget explained. "Many of them like both men and women, so they'll almost definitely be sporting pink-purple-and-blue flags like those over there. Though it takes a trained eye to know who’s who with the outfits they wear.

“Xochipilli is Aztec, and one of the few gods in that group with a decent amount of common sense. Back in his hayday, he was the god of games, the arts, and flowers, as well as the patron of people like a lot of the mortals here. Really nice guy, but I wish I could say the same about some of his friends.”

Emily chuckled. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Are there others like the ones you mentioned?”

The redhead nodded. “Lots of others, all over the world. They’re all probably having a blast at parades on their home turf just like this one. Oh look, there’s the flag Xochi was talking about!”

The flag in question was actually quite darling. It had two pastel pink stripes around one that was white, with a pretty little violet directly in the center. The person beside the girl handing such flags out was handing out flowers of all kinds.

Bridget went for the flower person, taking a violet before flying up to plant it above Emily’s ear, adding on a kiss on the cheek.

The swell of warmth in her chest from the gesture caused the violet to spread into a crown on her head.

The Grim Reaper giggled. “Now it looks even prettier. It suits you!”

Emily sighed at her reaction, but eventually couldn’t help a smile. At least until she noticed the white-robed and white-winged people hovering above a different crowd. They glared at the celebration as they stood guard over the yelling people holding some… rather rude signs.

Her beloved noticed her expression. “What’s wrong?” Bridget followed her gaze, lifting off the ground a little for a better view.

Angels. And a whole lot of their own downline.

“Oh, for the love of vultures…” she muttered under her breath as she pulled her scythe out of her shadow. “Ignore them, Em. They should know by now that they can’t do much of anything without getting people upset.”

“Is that… normal of them?” asked the dark-haired woman.

“Very,” the redhead replied with a sigh, leading Emily away from the protestors. “Their minions love to say that living the way we do isn’t natural and that it’s corrupting their children. All because they like to listen to the one who commands those angels. We just call them the usual intruders. I think I’ve already told you how troublesome they are to my fellow death spirits.”

“Ah, yes. Of course.” She noticed how the blade of Bridget’s scythe shined with iridescent colors. “Hm, even your weapon appears to have gotten into the spirit of the celebration.”

“There’s a reason for that, actually.” With a snap of her fingers, Bridget unveiled a slew of visiting wandering souls in the broad daylight. So many of them floated around in groups, like the other immortals in the parade had called them here. Many bore dark scars that only occurred among souls who sought their own destruction in life. “These are all of the people in just this area who lived the same way as all of these mortals, in worlds that didn’t allow them, or hearts that no longer wanted to beat.”

Emily gazed upon each spirit, seeing the joy and peace on each and every spectral face in the procession. “This is far more than the joy of the living... it’s also a comfort for the dead.”

Bridget could see the angels daringly lean towards the ghosts from above their followers, and firmly tapped her scythe against the ground. All of the ghosts turned their attention to the Reaper, and to those she glared at. The protesters faltered, as if perhaps they had seen her standing there. Either way, they knew better than to test an emissary of death with her albeit passive army, so she’d count that much as a win. So did the ghosts, who peacefully returned to their own mingling.

Fingers found their way into soft, owlish feathers. “Where did you learn that trick?”

Bridget’s smile returned with a chuckle. “The Valkyries have shown me how they command their soldiers a few times. Angels are a pretty popular overarching reason as to why the ghosts around here have perished. It's just a matter of setting off the alarm. They know better than to trust what killed them."

A couple of the children seemed more than a bit intimidated by the parade's protesters, regardless of their dropping momentum. "Come with me, Em. Forget the angels and their little friends. This is a time for celebration."

Mother Nature was quite willing to comply, her leaf-bearing winds gently guiding the children away from the scary people like large, caring hands. As they went on with the parade, the two eventually grew more cheerful again. More immortals dropped by to meet them, such as Nibo, one of the Loas Bridget mentioned earlier; Oua Oua, a higher-ranking Loa who led the children, also said hello. Several "Voodoo" figures made appearances, really, and all of them offered nothing but coos and congratulations.

It certainly made it a far more lively experience than Burning Man, where they usually wandered about largely unseen. But oddly enough, it wasn't quite unpleasant. Emily enjoyed meeting so many wonderful divine friends. Seeing Bridget's multicolored stripes grow brighter, and her hair shining in the sun like fire, against eyes so pale silver in the daylight they almost looked pure white, was a simply mesmerizing experience.

Near the end of the parade, Emily had discovered a work of art made entirely from flowers; an entire wall of words shaped with roses of every color. Red, orange, yellow, green, even blue and purple. She used her power to grow out a bouquet of separate lavender roses, with a little help from Xochipilli. After which she gently wove each flower into Bridget's lovely wings and hair, pale and beautiful against her bright red locks and dark gold feathers. Bridget was delighted at the gift; something she knew Emily would most certainly do.

"Now you look even prettier,” she said warmly, parroting the reaper's words. “It suits you.”

The look she got in response was so full of affection… Emily could feel it taking something else from her chest aside from her breath. Bridget floated to her eye level, cupping the taller spirit's face between her hands.

"I think you deserve a thank-you for it."

With that, she leaned in for a kiss.

Emily’s heart filled with a familiar, welcoming fire at the soft and warm touch of Bridget’s lips, yet entirely new and exciting. A wild and joyful tune, yet sung in the tone of a lullaby. Miniature earthquakes rattled through her body, and she felt like she was floating. Her hands started flexing and lifting up on instinct, until they dug into the soft down between the reaper’s shoulders, pulling her closer. The flower-decorated wings swung low, the ends of the joints resting on her sides.

A moment meant to last forever.

“Ah, young love. Truly a beautiful thing.”

“It’s like something straight out of those romantic fairy tales.”

The two voices startled the two from their reverie. Bridget sank to the ground with a face as red as her hair; given the fiery heat that went from her heart to her face, Emily probably wasn’t much better.

“Lundy! Limba! You ruined the moment!” scolded Èrzulie Dantòr, batting the two men away with dark-skinned hands. “Out, out, and away, boys, before you ruin their mood any more! Shoo!”

Bridget giggled at the sight of the Loas. “I take it you enjoyed that, Emily?”

Mother Nature cleared her throat, smiling down at her sheepishly. “I suppose I did. Though I… can’t say I expected to… Will there be other parades like this in the future?”

“Of course!” She took her hand as they prepared to return to the realm they shared. “It’s an entire month out of every year that celebrations just like this will occur. Why? Do you want to go to another one?”

Emily chuckled, mustering the courage to kiss the top of her head. “Perhaps…”

To see such colors like those still lingering on the Grim Reaper’s cloak… To feel such childlike glee she hadn’t experienced in millennia… Mother Nature could hardly wait for the next adventure outside of her fog.

[things2mustdo]

I heard a family member make remarks on the ‘victims’ of Hurricane Florence, who knew well in advance the possible horrors which came crawling their way. But were those who decided to stay victims given the warnings? They also espoused, essentially, that rescue teams shouldn’t put their lives at risk for those who remained in harm’s way.

This brought me back to a conversation with a man who has been big on situational awareness in terms of avoiding assailants who aim to pierce your heart and rob you while you lie in a pool of your own blood. He asked this question about what one does when in a dark alley and you see a suspicious character coming your way? My response was something to the extent of whether or not I even had to be in the dark alley? That was his point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHq4dbQBa14

Now, I’m not remotely suggesting rescue teams avoid doing their job, but it did get me back to situational awareness and understanding the justice brought about when you are foolish enough to venture into a dark alley on the wrong side of town, or remaining in Florida when you damn well knew the potential risk involved.

That got me thinking about the recent political violence and acts of domestic terrorism caused by Black Lives Matter and Anti-Fascists. So, in regards to our contemporary state of the political and cultural arena, and what surely awaits us in the next US presidential election, here are some simple, basic tips about situational awareness and being prepared in case civil unrest breaks out.

1. Understand The Baseline Of Your Environment

Political rallies across the US demonstrate the capacity of violence and the willingness to assault in ruthless manners. Both men and women of more right-wing views have been assaulted, been threatened to be raped, have their families killed, get doxxed, have dead animals thrown at their living quarters, had their finances threatened, etc. It’s a goddamn nightmare on the more North Side of America than the South Side, where not everyone has a bamboo stick up their ass.

There are many great articles written on situational awareness. And that’s key: situation. The environment, in a general sense, has a baseline. It’s the basic overall feel and operation of that set area.

For example, you go to the mall. What’d you expect to see, generally speaking? People walking and talking, laughing and usually carrying a bag or two. It would, in this context, be out of the ordinary if an individual, dressed in all black, is quickly walking through a crowd while he has his hoodie on and hands in his pockets. It’s odd behavior. Same for someone moving nervously carrying a bag that does not appear to be bought at a store or, to add to that, he doesn’t have workman apparel. It’s out of the ordinary.

If I’m at a bank and someone walks in, sits in the corner for an unreasonable amount of time without engaging in any transaction and appears to not work there, I’m alert. Are his eyes moving around scanning for cameras, are his lips moving to suggest he’s counting something, is he in apparel which could perhaps more easily conceal a gun?

Same if I’m out sitting while enjoying coffee and an all-black car pulls in and just sits. Whether the engine is on are not does slightly change the degree of the potential threat of the situation. If it’s on, is it a quick getaway for a potential crime? And is it at night where there are fewer people and witnesses?

These are all pretty basic to practice, in my view. So it doesn’t help when everyone’s head is glued to their smartphones. Especially with women. They appear to be much less aware than men who themselves very much have this issue with their smartphones.

2. The Gray Man At Political Rallies

The concept of the Gray Man is simple: blend in. Do not create stimuli around you. Gray is often considered a very bland color. It’s boring, lifeless, moot. This isn’t to suggest wearing gray makes you undetectable, but the concept works well with this color.

Blend in so well to your environment that you essentially appear bland. But if you’re at a political rally, then you know anyone is a potential threat. Wearing a Trump hat or an American flag raises suspicion, creates stimuli from your political adversary, and now you are made. If you’re European-American, wearing a hat over your shaved head is a good idea in terms of lessening your presence because there is still widespread delusion about the reincarnation of literal Nazis.

People involved with BLM, AntiFa and other leftist gangs are already going to make assumptions about your character and will dehumanize you and engage violently. Perhaps lessening that delusion, if even possible, could potentially add to your safety and security, in some respects.

It’s not that one desires to give up their chosen headwear and so on, but weighing the pros and cons should be obvious if you wish to avoid conflict. Which, again, these days is hard to do.

3. Consider Your Neighbors And Conversation

Depending upon your living situation, if you’re in California, talking openly with your neighbors about politics in relations to conservatism, in a positive light, creates quite a stir of stimuli. And, given the next US elections are coming up, you’ve made an impression in their mind. If they believe you are a literal Nazi, you’ve coined a political adversary. If you’re in the deeper South surrounded by red-necks and American-loving Christians, chances are, from my observations, you’ll be less likely to be attacked for your political (or religious) views.

I personally despise having to sometimes lower my voice or take a quick glance around because I’m about to say something that might cause stimuli to a potential assailant. But, in these contemporary times, it’s up to you to decide what’s worth it and what’s not.

Conclusion

These are merely a few things of quality in regards to your safety and security. I’ve been quite observant. It’s not always intentional, but I’ve seen things and made assumptions (or had a strong thought about it) and turned out to be spot on.

Identity your adversary. Weigh in how much of a threat they are to you. Pay attention to who they know or talk to, then extend that person’s conversation partners and then extend it again. Leftist are ruthless, dangerous, hateful devils. And remember, if you ever see anyone wearing the hammer and sickel, then be even more alert.

Read Next: Being Situationally Aware Is A Matter Of Life Or Death

It is 7:30am on the day after Christmas in 2004. The sun is already up in the blue sky of the Andaman sea, and some rare tourists are walking on the main beach of Phi Phi island in Thailand. Most of the tourists are still sleeping, dealing with the usual hangover that comes with the traditional Christmas party.

The locals are busy preparing the long tail boats they use to cruise around the nearby islands. Some Westerners like me, who live here, fill and carry the diving tanks the scuba divers will use to explore the underwater reefs today.

In less than an hour, this idyllic landscape will turn into a dramatic nightmare and many of those people will die, crushed and drowned by the powerful wave of a tsunami coming from the Indian Ocean.

Was there a way to prevent that? Not more than preventing a hurricane in Florida or an earthquake in California. Scientists can predict it, multi-million dollar sensors can detect it, information networks can announce it through various media, but there is no way to prevent it from happening. But we can be more prepared than when I experienced this tsunami in Thailand. Governments and local administrations can invest in infrastructures to mitigate the potential risks and better inform the general public.

And individuals can be better prepared to deal with the consequences of natural events. The people who tragically died on this island were not different from any other people on this planet. As a matter of fact, a vast majority of them were young and relatively fit. They didn’t survive for only a handful of reasons, mainly:

lack of situational awareness

lack of appropriate mindset

lack of physical skills

The situational awareness and appropriate mindset are mainly due to the fact that, when we are on vacation on a tropical island, the last thing we want to think about is the remote possibility of a tragic event of any kind. If the place is nice and sunny, if the locals are friendly and smiling, we quickly feel safe and let our guard down. No pickpockets, no fire, no mugging, no earthquake, no car crash, and therefore no need to pay attention to any precursor sign, no need to keep our valuables and documents with us at all times, no need to have a look at evacuation routes, fire exits, etc. In other words we quickly become complacent when everything looks like paradise.

But this lack of situational awareness and appropriate mindset was only one side of the coin for the many fatalities that occurred that day in Thailand. One of the main culprits was the lack of physical skills. Many people didn’t survive simply because they didn’t have the physical abilities to deal with what happened to them and around them.

Some were not comfortable in the water and couldn’t swim across the strong current that the wave and the obstacles created. The event only lasted a few minutes but the water raised quickly and submerged the lowest part of the island.

Some were not able to hold their breath for a few seconds. When the wave hit the hotels and guesthouses near the beach, most of the rooms were submerged very rapidly, but not for very long. Surprise and panic killed a lot of people in their rooms.

Some were not able to hold on to fixed objects for more than a few seconds. The current was strong and being able to hold on something, or even better to climb onto something, was a good way to increase the chance of surviving.

Some were not able to run away and climb a hill or a stairway. For those who were on the beach and saw the wave coming, the proper action was to sprint and find high ground. Reaching the highest floor of a hotel or one of the nearby hills was a good way to avoid the full force of the tsunami.

Some were not able to push away heavy objects. Entrapment was one of the major risks in this event. Many people drowned because they lacked the necessary strength to move away the objects that the current pushed onto them.

The Western world tends to rely heavily on tools to make our life easier and tools to make it safer. Instead of dealing with the weather, we use tools to make it more bearable (A/C, heater, umbrella, raincoat, sunscreen, etc). Instead of moving in this environment, we rely on tools (a car or an ATV instead of walking and running, a canoe or a boat instead of swimming). We easily blame the lack of protection that can get us injured (“I cannot walk/run without shoes”, “I cannot float without a flotation device”, “I will fall and break my skull if I don’t wear a helmet”, etc).

Tools are fine and make our life more enjoyable most of the time, but what if? What happens when we don’t have them? That’s where skills and physical abilities make plenty of sense. Every one of us, regardless of age, gender and race should be able to do at least the following things:

sprint for at least 100 yards/meters in order to get out of danger (collapsing building, wild fire)

climb over a wall or fence at least shoulder high (to escape an angry pitbull or a group of thugs)

carry for at least 10 yards/meters someone of 3/4 of your size and bodyweight (to save someone from an immediate danger)

swim at least 100 yards/meters without stopping and float at least 10 minutes with no aid or support (to get out of a dangerous zone and wait for a rescue vessel)

walk 5 miles in an hour (to reach a gas station when you run out of gas and you cannot call for help)

perform some basic self-defense techniques (striking, grappling) to react appropriately in a mugging/rapping/life-threatening situation

hold your breath for at least one minute while walking/moving at a slow pace (to escape the toxic fumes of a building on fire)

crawl for at least 30 yards/meters to seek cover (active shooter situation) or rescue someone (a child hidden under a car, or someone trapped under or inside something)

If you think that any of those abilities is way beyond your limits, it’s maybe time to reconsider your priorities in life. Being self-sufficient and prepared doesn’t mean relying on tools—it’s knowing that you can deal with dramatic circumstances to the best of your abilities. Tools come in handy when you have physical limitations (age, injuries, illness) but they shouldn’t be the first line of defense.

Having some regulations that require a floatation device in every hotel room in Thailand will not save any life if the next tsunami in the region happens in South Korea. Use your body and your brain. They are the original tools, and you have them with you all the time!

Read More:  How To Improve Your Situational Awareness From One Minute Of Effort Per Day

[stone-man-warrior]

April 14, 2020: 3:12 pm:

Four separate terror attacks at my home today before noon.

At least one terror soldier is dead as result of those assassination attempts.

Attacks are ongoing, and include many individuals, many of the terrorist soldiers make themselves visible, doing activities in the nearby yards in my neighborhood. They make distraction service, by being visible, and looking innocent, while providing information of my whereabouts to other terror soldiers, who remain hidden, and in elaborate disguise such that they are able to blend into the surroundings. Disguise costumes include everything from a near exact replication of a known neighbor, with use of clothing and heavy make-up, to polyfoam costumes that resemble deer, trees, and the kinds of things people have in their yards, like a stack of car tires, or a broken refrigerator. Costumes made of plant material is not visible when the terror soldiers wear them while laying in the wooded areas. Hidden terror soldiers using Nitrous Oxide airborne gas mixtures out doors use the wind direction and knowledge about my normal walking route, to release gas in association with those others who make themselves visible.

Today, terror soldiers have been at all of the houses that surround my house. Each house that I share a property fence with, has a terror cell there, right now, and they are all waiting for me to take a walk outside. This week, the terror bastards have broken into my storage shed three times, on April 4, again on April 11, and yesterday, April 13. They stole a lot of personal belongings, and tore up the inside of the storage shed as if they were tossing the items from one place to another, and they closed the shed back up so that it did not appear as if anything had happened there.

Home movies were among the items stolen. The same thing happened last spring also.

The stolen items are about duplicating me, once they are successful in killing me. The home movies are used by terror/actors to help them learn the character they need to portray in the future, and once the terror bastards have the belongings, the impostor police support the terrorists who stole the items if a theft report is made. It’s not safe to make a theft report, because there are no police, only terrorists disguised as police.

It’s not safe to make a report about mass murders at the grocery stores, or to report about that terror soldier that was killed in defense about two hours ago.

It’s not safe, to take a short walk in my own front yard, or backyard.

The neighbor adjoining my property out the back of my home are flying their terror cell flags. Two small blue flags nailed to a tree, belong to a terror cell associated with “Mike’s Plumbing Service” at the 800 block of Russell Road, specifically, the house next to Mike’ Plumbing, and brand new double wide mobile home is there, and the two blue flags that are nailed to the trees behind my house, are there to advise other terror cells who is at that house, the house one address South of 3701, where “George“, AKA: “Donkey” used to live.

The terror day is still early. There will be more attacks before dark.

Please help, but don’t call police, they will go to your house, and kill you and your family no matter what state you live in. Please call US Military, and ask them to read this account.

Thank you.

Use a lighter. Burn candles. The nitrous oxide gas is flammable, and the small flame clears the air so you can breathe, and think clearly.

[czarcarcosa-blog]

God Abandoned My Town

My grandmother used to take me to church every Sunday, and I grew up a devout God-fearing Christian. Now I find the stuff they used to teach me a load of bullshit. If God was real, he hightailed it far away from his creations when he realized how fucked it was. I felt more that way the closer we got to the two-year anniversary of the murder of Harris Briggs. A good kid, who was always polite when I ran into him with his Mama Mabel at the store. She and I went way back when we became friends in fifth-period chemistry back in high school. It was a damn shame how this town treated Mabel back then, and how they ignored her now. I don’t care what you think of a person. I believe Mothers shouldn’t bury their children.

How the boy named Harris Briggs died shocked the town of Cullman. His ten-year-old body spotted alongside a dirt road three miles outside of town by a farmer working a field. His legs broken, and there had been markings along his throat from where it looked as if someone strangled him. The coroner remarked that an unknown object had sodomized him before they ran him over with a large truck and then strangled the boy to end his life. It showed savagery that made the residents uncomfortable, but that passed. The police investigated and came up empty-handed with no suspects, many of us speculated that they did not give it the best effort because of Harris’s skin pigment.

Mabel visited the sheriff’s office every day for a year and a half. It did not matter how many hours she worked Mabel always took the time to stop in the office. She always asked for an update of her son’s case, which the deputies promised they were working on it. Mabel never believed the dense good old boys that Sherriff Watts always picked for deputies. She was right in her distrust for the boys in blue. I could often hear them complain to each other and talking of Mabel. They often said rude things in my earshot while drinking at the local bar.

“That stupid black bitch came in again today,” the deputies often said.

Even Sheriff Watts who I had the pleasure of being neighbors with tried to urge me to talk to Mabel. He asked me to get her to cool her heels and let his office do its job. That was until two weeks ago when his office announced that they were adding the Harris Briggs’ file to the unsolved case files. Mabel was furious, and it disgusted even me that Sheriff Watts announced it. Two weeks before the anniversary of her son’s murder they were giving up solving it. Placing his file where they stored the investigations of unknown cow tippers and vandals who defaced the local high school.

It was outright cruel in my book.

My grandmother taught me one thing though when someone you care for is in pain bring them something to eat. That way they don’t have to fret on cooking food themselves. I’m not much of a chef, but I prepared a nice casserole and re-heatable pork chops for Mabel because tomorrow will mark the day that Harris died. I packed the food in my car and prepared to drive into town towards Mabel’s house. As I entered my truck, I looked across the road to see Sheriff Watts raking the dead leaves from his yard. We waved at one another and I left.

I drove into town, the town residents were out and around preparing for the upcoming holidays, not a single one could give a shit for Mabel and Harris Briggs.

When I pulled into Mabel’s gravel driveway, I noticed a man I had never seen before walk out of her front door. He was an average-looking man, with thin lips and black pupils in his almond-shaped eyes. The thing that struck my attention was how neatly dressed he was, the man wore a dark gray suit with a black tie. His hair slicked back with lots of what I assumed to be pomade. He passed by my truck and gave a nod before walking on foot towards the street. I looked back to Mabel’s porch where she stood with a look of worry on her face when I exited the truck.

“I will assume he ain’t from a round here,” I joked. “no one in Cullman has a suit that nice except the shady lawyers.”

“Don’t pay him any mind, Car,” Mabel remarked. “we had a business arrangement to settle.”

“Well, I will mind my business,” I responded. “just dropping by to bring food to you.”

“Is it that god awful casserole you always make,” Mabel joked as she stepped off from her porch and gave me a hug. I couldn’t help it when I grinned at her calling me out for my grandmother’s shitty recipe. Which I ignore the instructions when I make it. She shook her head when I pulled the pan out of the truck to hand her.

“I promise you it’s better this time,” I laughed.

“You want to come in the house?”

“Sure,”

Mabel always kept a tight and clean house even though she was now living alone. I sat in her living room and looked to towards the wall to see the last picture of her son before his murder. He looked happy with a wide smile across his face. Mabel brought a can of beer and set it on the coffee table, I’m never a man to turn away a good drink, even before 3PM. I popped the can. It was when I noticed that Mabel had a gauze wrapped around her hand and there appeared to be fresh blood dripping from it.

“What happen to your hand?” I asked.

“Just an accident in the kitchen before you got here,” Mabel replied. “wasn’t paying attention while cutting tomatoes.”

“Looks nasty,” I said.

“It’s fine just needs to heal.”

We visited for a while as we finished our beers, the two of us caught up with each other keeping the topics light. I wanted to show Mabel that somebody in this town gave a shit for her, and that I was there if she ever needed someone. Mabel still looked worried, but covered it well with her chatting. When I headed out the door, she gave me a stern stare. “Car, you were always a decent man,” Mabel called out.

“Thanks,”

Mabel walked down her porch closer. “I need you to promise me something,”

“What’s that?”

“When you go home tonight, don’t leave your house when it turns dark,” Mabel replied. “just stay inside no matter what happens.”

“What is going on, Mabel?”

“Just promise me, Car.” Mabel begged.

I stopped and looked at Mabel; she had a concerned look. “Fine, I will not leave my house,”

I started my truck while looking at Mabel to nod farewell and head back home.

The sunset on Cullman around five as I sat back in my recliner watching college basketball. Mabel asking for me to stay inside after dark remains in my head as I sip my beer. I drink two more beers before the game finishes with the goddamn Wildcats winning. I’ve always loathed the state of Kentucky, my grandmother always said the only thing that came from Kentucky worth a damn was bourbon, and even then no one below their state line should drink it.

My stomach grumbles to the realization I had not had food today, even when preparing my casserole and pork chops for Mabel I had cooked nothing for myself. It limits my supper choices; I have little in the kitchen and my culinary skills are lacking. My phone rings in the living room as I walked back to answer it. The other end is Deputy Shelby, the most thick of the bunch that Sherriff Watts hired. “Car, can you go fetch the Sherriff for me?” Shelby asks.

“Come fetch him yourself,” I snarled. “or call his house because he is eating supper.”

Shelby breathed “We’ve been trying Car, he ain’t answering, and it’s an emergency.”

“Let me guess,” I snorted. “Otis escaped the Mayberry P. D now he’s running amok on the town square.”

“Becky found Jim dead in his shed,” Shelby yelled over the phone. That explains the emergency, a deputy lying dead in his shed. I did not care much for Jim, he was the rudest of the boys in blue. Jim was a well-known racist and off duty he drove his lifted pickup truck around the town with the stars and bars flying. The people of Cullman would not blink an eye of a deputy flying a confederate flag on his personal time.

“What happened to Jim?” I inquired.

“Someone snuck in when he was welding and took a flame to his face.”

“Jesus..”

Three loud shots interrupted my thought, it echoed across the road and field that separated my house from the residence of Sheriff Watts. The sound of a shotgun blasting.

Three loud shots interrupted my thought while blasts echoed across the road and field that separated my house from his residence. The sound of a shotgun blasting. “Shelby, send someone over to the Sherriff’s house there is gunfire!”

I rushed out of my house and went to my truck to retrieve my rifle and the two bullets I could muster. My ears picked up a few more blasts of the shotgun from my yard. When I ran to the house, I noticed from the windows that someone had ransacked his living room. His television was still on showing highlights of the scores from various games of the day. The door to the front of his house held meaning it was locked. My stomach was in knots, and I ran to the back door seeing the remnants of wood pieces on the floor. I stepped in the house; the walls riddled with holes and shotgun shells lying on the light blue carpet meant that Sherriff Watts put up a fight. The large dark red stains on the carpet further proved that point.

“Sherriff, you in here?” I yelled.

The only sound in the house was his television replaying the highlights of the Kentucky game, and my soft footsteps walking around the den. I looked around to see no sign of the sheriff when I glanced toward the hallway. The hallway had a streak of blood along the walls that lead to the back bedroom. My legs shook and my hands trembled when I grasped my rifle. “Watts, it’s me Car,” I yelled again.

The trail of blood ended outside the bedroom door. Someone left it cracked open as I took a deep breath before I stepped in. The amount of blood staining the bottom of the carpet outside of it was unsettling. I rested my finger the trigger of the rifle and stepped inside.

It was sickening.

The head of Sheriff Watts laid bare on top of a mountain of ripped flesh in a corner. His intestines circled around the room, with severed limbs lying around a bed covered in a pond of blood. The walls stained with splatters of his blood meant that this was personal for whoever had dismembered the town’s sheriff. I could feel the vomit rise in the back of my throat as I exited the room adding another stain to the light blue carpet. The sirens in the distance meant that moron Shelby had contacted someone to tell them something horrible was happening on my road.

The sound of breaking branches came from somewhere outside, someone else was still here and close by. The siren was approaching and getting closer as I walked to the backyard. There was a dim motion light pointing at the woods as I raised my rifle. The sound of branches cracking as heavy footsteps approached. My arms went limp from terror because the footsteps didn’t sound like anything I have ever listened to. That is when it showed itself.

The glow of its red eyes and the texture of its skin, a deep gray color covered in loose skin approached me. It stood up straight dwarfing me in height. It breathed heavily from the slits where a nose should be. Its mouth covered in yellow sharp teeth with little drops of blood pouring from its lips. It had antlers that reminded me of a grown buck, with jagged edges also covered in blood. It stared at me as it approached and stood in front of me, any last bit of bravery I had coming outside as an idiot had left. It left me helpless staring at it.

“Car, get down!” I heard a familiar voice scream.

My eardrums felt as if they would burst from the shots of Shelby’s pistol.

The bullets pierced the creature’s skin, and it did not even flinch. Shelby stood frozen as it walked towards him grabbing him by the throat to lift him in the air. The poor deputy kicked his legs and screamed in pain as I picked up my gun to help. I felt a hand grab my shoulder startling me as I swung the rifle behind me. It was a man standing behind casually; he wagged his fingers in displeasure. The man in the gray suit pushed my rifle down to the ground and pointed back to the creature and Shelby.

“I made a deal,” he said. “and I plan to honor it.”

“That thing will kill him!” I screamed.

“Do you want to join him?” he taunted.

The creature let out a thunderous roar and plunged its hands into Deputy Shelby. The sound of his tearing flesh made me vomit again. It tore his insides out scooping them out by the handful. The creature dropped the mutilated body to the ground and turned to the two of us. It froze me in place watching the creature. The man walked towards Shelby’s corpse studying it and picking up some of his dismembered body. “Our business is complete,” he muttered.

The creature looked at me one last time as I tried to hold my bladder. It doesn’t seem threatening as it gazes at me with its red demonic eyes. The black tie man walks to the woods and waves his hand for the creature to join him. It turns and follows him. That is when I noticed it and realized what the hell it was.

I spotted a stretched blood stained gauze wrapped around one of the creature’s hands. It was the same as Mabel. My weak legs finally gave out as I was on the cold ground on my knees. I could do nothing but helplessly watch as the man and Mabel disappeared into the darkness of the woods. That is when I knew it for sure.

If God existed he abandoned the town of Cullman.

[roseofwisdom]

my parents were both born in odessa, uk.s.s.r., into secularized jewish families. due to soviet policy they were legally identified as jews (it was considered a nationality rather than an ethnic group). also due to soviet policy they had little access to jewish culture. my dad, for example, was circumcised by a black-market mohel. they were taught russian, which odessites used and still use as lingua franca, and grew up knowing a few yidish phrases and no ukrainian. my grandparents were aware enough that their gentile neighbors hated them for being jews, and considered it a threat to their safety bad enough to justify leaving the country.

both families arrived in north york, ontario, in 1975. at the time my parents were toddlers. so russian was their first language, but they had a canadian school life and canadianized much more than their parents. my parents met one another about 20 years after the move, by a friend of a relative.

my grandparents have mixed opinions on where they come from. they agree it was right to leave, and when they explain why, they always make reference to antisemitism as the reason. but they dont seem to despise the soviet union, rather pointing out both good and bad things about living there, and sometimes with a nostalgic air.

my parents are totally different. they got raised in cold war canada and reform jewish zionist community, and they tell me that we came to canada to escape communist tyranny and embrace Freedom. my mother tried to move to israel as a young woman, but a bus bomb detonating a block away from her in tel aviv gave her cold feet. these days pretty much everyone in my family votes tory, since tories Love Israel and Love The Jews, and since liberals and new dems occasionally favor palestine (classic Left Wing Antisemitism!)

its so fucking weird to walk around the toronto area and see that blue and yellow ukrainian flag flying from every car and every window. its almost as weird as the israeli flag in front of every non-orthodox jewish building, but i am accustomed to that. and its especially sus when it has that trident emblazoned on the front... i know canada has something of a ukrainian nazi infestation, going all the way back to our own deputy prime ministers grandfather. my mother has a crush on volodymyr zelensky, hottest man on earth 2022. my dad is telling me (and my grandparents) to watch out for russian propaganda on the internet.

of course i hate this invasion... but to be expected to Love Ukraine and chant those slogans is so b.s. to me, knowing my own family history. to say my family is from ukraine, sure, but to call myself ukrainian, or to fly the flag, or cheer on the always immenent ukrainian victory? why? what is the point.... these people found their pride by defining themselves as a nation separate from russia. good for you, i guess, but a gentile hates a jew no matter whether they are ukrainian or russian. russian nazis see zelensky as proof of ukraine being jew-run; ukrainian nazis concur, and would love to have him sacrificed to put one of their own at the head. when i see someone drive by with that flag i think. "this person is 50 50 either a well intentioned if somewhat underinformed liberal, or the rabid grandkid of some banderist veteran".

death to nato and csto.

[toblkflys]

A Little Brain Scrub

I have a family member that believes there is no pandemic. How is that? I guess there is a whole movement that believes this. So, people are dying how? In 7 months 2 million people have died worldwide. In the same time period, there have been 10 million people in the US that tested COVID positive. What do we call this?  Of course, many people are using the TV/movie/book version like The Hot Zone, as a point of reference, “now that is what a pandemic looks like,” they say. They think if it were a real pandemic people would be “dropping like flys.” If it truly got to that point we would really be screwed worldwide. That would be worse than a pandemic, it would be an extinction event. The definition of a pandemic is “(of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world.” That is all it means. What about this is a pandemic is incorrect? People are getting the sickness/disease here, people are getting the same sickness/disease across the country and people are getting the sickness/disease in other countries. That fits the definition. I find nowhere in the definition, no matter which dictionary I look in, does it say “people must drop like flys.” Obviously, this group of people knows something even the scholars don’t. Speaking of, this group of people is quite a bit bigger than one would have guessed. That is disappointing. We have that many people in the country who prefer not to think for themselves. That is truly frightening. Of course, I am referring to my friends the Trumpsters.  And I was amazed or maybe I was horrified, I’m not sure which, the day after the election. I live in a nice retirement community with over 55 adults and most are quite a bit over 55. I drove down my street and several of the houses were flying their flag, nice, right? Not. They were flying them half-mast! Are you fucking kidding me? Just because Trump lost? Now that is a slap in the face to democracy and patriotism. These people think they are patriots, who tout the flag and talk about their rights and pro-America. These same people are basically shitting on the flag. They might as well burn it. Flying the flag at half-mast is not to be taken lightly. Only the president can order the flag to be flown at half-mast (and guess what Trumpsters, Trump lost and he is NOT your president).  “Those individuals and agencies that usurp authority and display the flag at half-staff on inappropriate occasions are quickly eroding the honor and reverence accorded this solemn act,” says the American Legion and I fully agree! I mean Wells Fargo is doing this as well! WTF?  What about flying the flag at half-mast is patriotic? Are they going to do it all four years? I get so angry every time I pass the neighbor’s house because I see it. It is an affront every time. I even printed out 20 flyers with the American Legion saying above on it. I wanted, and still want, to throw them all over their fence into their backyard. I wanted to tape the flyers to the windshields of their vehicles. I want to strike back or strike out.  Speaking of, have you ever noticed what vehicles Trumpsters drive? Trucks, SUVs, muscle cars and American-made sedans. It is horrible to stereotype says you, and you are right. But it is true. What vehicles are parked at rallies? What vehicles do you see all decked out with American flags, the bigger the better? Trucks, the higher the better, big tires, lots of modification, maybe they rock climb with their truck or they pull their toy hauler with their Polaris, going out to the dunes to drink beer and drive their UTVs around. Maybe they will take their guns so they can target practice because drinking beer, driving UTVs, and shooting guns all go together, especially the beer. Just sayin. I have another relative who, unfortunately, married a Trumpster (actually I have two, eye roll). They have a little boy. Dad is in the military and mom, my relative, used to be normal but now follows her husband. The little boy is obsessed with war movies and they encourage it. They bought him military gear, a helmet, a tactical vest, an ammo belt and of course a replica M4. They sent a picture of him all geared up, holding the machine gun at the ready with a scowl on his face. They think it’s cute.  What about dressing your child up like a killer is cute? But god help them, they need their guns, especially their fully automatic M16s because they hunt deer with them. Yeah. Are the deer shooting back or something? Are they that afraid of the deer that they need a fully automatic weapon? Or maybe it is the scary sounds in the wild while they are hunting. And these people teach their kids how to hold a gun and how to shoot as soon as they can. I remember my brother being taught and I was jealous I wasn’t because I was a girl. And this is patriotic. Dressing my 8-year-old like a sniper is patriotic. He will likely grow up hating Democrats and he will not really know why. He will join a survivalist group, hate queers and liberals, and believe that men are superior to women. He will shoot guns, practice being a sniper, learn hand-to-hand combat, all to be a patriot. Because that is the American way. War not peace. Force not negotiation. Show strength not compromise. Shoot first, not ask questions. That is patriotic.  Trumpsters have no idea where they were/are headed. Welcome to Jonestown, line up for your kool-aid, never mind the people in pain and dying. An incredible phenomenon. Trumpsters don’t see what is so very obvious to the rest of us. They are so sure that the sky is green because Trump said so. We look up and nope, still blue. But don’t infringe on the Trumpsters' rights to call the sky green!  It is so interesting to me because I have always been fascinated with Nazi Germany and what happened there. I have wondered what it was about Hitler that people followed with no question. I mean how can people do that? How can they not see what was happening? How could they let it happen? And now I know. I still don’t understand it but I have had the opportunity to witness how a leader mesmerizes a huge section of a country to believe anything he says no matter how irrational. How the leader can literally say and do anything and get away with it.  And they follow blindly. They listen to his propaganda. Definition,“information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.” See, Hitler did this with the Jews. He villainized the Jews. It could have been anyone but he chose the Jews, lucky them. They became the enemy that everything wrong could be blamed on. There’s a shortage? It’s the Jews, they take the bread out of your child’s mouth.  And then he offers a solution. Only I can solve your Jew problem. Trump did the same thing with immigrants at first and eventually with Democrats. Now the Democrats are the downfall of the country. They are evil, horrible, liberal people. They hate god, they hate family, they hate America and want to destroy it and make America a socialist country. This is all Trump propaganda. And people listen. And they believe. Despite no proof, they don’t ask for proof. They don’t ask for examples or evidence that it is true. Like Democrats are evil and horrible. Okay. What Democrats do you, Mr. Trumpster, know who fit this bill? If they are evil and horrible they must be doing evil and horrible things, what things are they? Ask a Trumpster. Then, once the people are properly brainwashed, he proceeds to cut the country off, starts to close our borders. Hitler closed Germany’s borders, it’s called isolation. Kind of like North Korea, ever heard of it? North Korea is a good modern example of a country that has closed its borders. Not only would we keep the immigrants out, but Trump would also have kept Americans in. I believe that leaving the country would be defecting and would not be looked upon kindly in Trump’s America. Once he had all of that buttoned up and our country was “self-sufficient” he would start introducing his own police force to keep the peace. He was already headed that way. They would be deployed slowly in more and more places, eventually, there would be no local police, it would be federal and more specifically, Trump’s force. Say hello to the neo SS.  And people, through all of this the Trumpsters are clapping and holding up the American flag, which would eventually be modified to include something Trump. Their rights would be secure! They finally had a voice in Trump and he is getting things done! It’s about time that we had a real police force that came in and made everything safe and secure! It’s okay that they are everywhere with their M4s and you have to show your passport when asked. Better be safe than sorry! Since concentration camps have worked before there is no point messing with success. Put the immigrants/minorities in several which would have been built. And any outspoken Dems. In fact, herd all of the Dems up and put them in certain cities or certain parts of the city. We need to protect our white American children from the undesirables. White supremacy would reign once again. Yes, Trump would have saved this country (from democracy). The funny thing is that Trump didn’t even hide that he was a fascist or that he was promoting fascism. Dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation and forcible suppression of opposition. Boom. There you go.  So, let them fly our flag at half-mast in protest. Biden and the Dems took away the Trumpsters rights to have a fascist America. They never even got to chant Hail Trump! Or maybe they did and I don’t know about it.  They have the right to disgrace the American flag. They have a right to spread a deadly disease. They have the right to purchase and use a fully automatic weapon. They have a right to vote for a dictator. They have the right to a fascist America. And I guess a serial killer has a right to kill. The rapist a right to rape. Because it’s about me, not you. And I have the right to do what I want to do because I’m free white and American. Isn’t it beautiful? Read the full article

[aperfectionistsmind]

Red Flags.

When I was younger, I had this one friend. For as long as I could remember, he was in my life. I remember thinking that he’d be in my life forever. We were neighbors, we did everything together. He was the first person I trusted, and the first person I lost. Not by death, but someone who I just had lost contact with. I remember, how much that hurt, I remember feeling so alone among the other friends I had. The two of us just fell apart after he moved. He was the longest friendship I ever had. To this day, I still try to promise my friends we’ll be friends for a long time. I think this is where me not want to lose my friends stems from.

Flash forward to middle school, my next real best friend. Middle school was a time when things were very dark for me. I had learned what depression felt like, without knowing what it meant. I had learned what rumors can do to friendships. I remember how it felt when our friendship fell apart in the middle of the school hallway as she screamed in my face and I stood there powerless. This is when I thought I was cursed, that I would always just lose the people I was friends with.

In high school was when I thought I met my friends for life. I thought this, because well, this is what we all told each other. In high school for some people, it’s the popular crowd, that wasn’t me and my friends, but we were okay with being out of the in-crowd together. Because high school is every day, we all stayed close, by the time senior year rolled around, all of us promised each other that we’d stay friends, stay in contact in college, even though all of us were going to different colleges. If I could go back in time and change losing at least one friend, or friend group it would be people from high school, because what happened next was something I never thought I would ever think I’d ever get myself into.

In high school, I was quite the reserved person, anxious, quiet really. I was loud and outgoing around the people who I opened up to. I grew up in a house with strict, religious parents, so my comfort zone was where I lived. Those were the friends I was attracted to. In college, that was a bit different. Freshman year of college, I wasn’t too crazy, but that was when I met two of the people who would soon hurt me. I somehow met people who seemed outgoing and confident. I don’t remember when it all started, when I started to pull away from my friends from high school, they started pulling away also, and soon we just kind of fell apart, some of it because of my own insecurities. I think the first red flag with my college friends was when the beginning of sophomore year rolled around. We were all so close still. I remember the first day I saw my old high school friends hanging out without me and I was a bit upset, but I didn’t think too much of it. One of the girls (we’ll call her Jenny), noticed something was up, I mentioned how I was feeling. She told me that I didn’t need them, she said that I had them and they were much better, who cares about my friends from high school. It made me upset, but I didn’t say anything. Soon, it escalated to Jenny getting angry when I had to leave to home to go to dance practice, something I love, her and another one of the girls (we’ll call her Marie), would brag about what they did that night I was gone just to make me feel bad about leaving and then say, you should just stop going, stay here with us. It made me feel so upset. So, I quit dance. Sophomore year I had also told Marie that I hadn’t really gotten angry since I was seven years old, I was never an angry person, I usually got sad or anxious, but never really angry. She made it her mission to make me angry. Every chance she’d get, she was a major dick to me, to spare the details. Soon after that, if I wasn’t hanging out with them, they’d get upset at me, especially Jenny. I couldn’t have any other friends. If I was seen with another friend, they’d instantly bash that other person. I was so wrapped up in never losing more friends, that I didn’t realize how manipulative they were being.

When you think of abusive relationships, you think of significant others, you never think of friendships, nor would you ever think that you’d be in one with a friend yourself. I knew the signs, I was a smart girl, yet I got so wrapped up in how they made me feel, they I didn’t care about the manipulation at points. The friendship never stopped in sophomore year of college though. It took me a long time to realize how horrible they were being to me, and I didn’t realize until after I signed a lease to a house to live with them the following year. So, I sucked it up, I told myself, that maybe I was just faking it, that this happens to everyone, this is normal, even though I knew that this has never happened in my other friendships before. The February before we were to move in together, I decided to break off the friendship, at least until we moved in together. I thought having a break would be okay. That way, that when we lived with each other I didn’t feel the way I felt. This made it worse. Within me speaking for 10 seconds, Jenny kicked me out of the room and then proceeded to harass me on text. She told me I was child, to grow up, that I’m unprofessional, and fake. That I need to stop getting Marie involved, but the only thing I told Marie was that if she felt she needed to step away from me because she was caught in the middle, I would not blame her, but that also did not mean I would blame Jenny.

Everything seemed to calm down for a bit, mostly because I did not see the two of them. Then summer rolled around and Jenny texts me out of the blue that they were sticking me with the porch room in the house we were leasing. At the time, I was alright with it, it was secluded from most of them, had a separate door, I did not know what I was getting myself into. When she texted me though I decided, I would apologize. Why did I need to apologize? Honestly, I can’t entirely remember, I do remember I knew it would make her happy. I wanted to keep peace in the house. She seemed to agree and she seemed to apologize back. I knew though, when she apologized, she always did the same thing again.

Now I’m not going to go on and on about how horrible that house was, because it did have its upsides. I remember having good times there and trying to rekindle the friendship that I thought we had. I remember missing the friendship, no matter how manipulative it was, but that house, I regret. I lived in a porch room and when it came winter, it was cold.

I remember when they told me we couldn’t put up the heat anymore and I grabbed a third blanket. I then remember them telling me that they weren’t comfortable with me sleeping in the living room. I remember Jenny and Marie getting mad when I’d spend nights at Emery’s because her house was warm and quiet and I wouldn’t party with them, even though when I did party with them they would physical force alcohol down my throat. I remember getting hurtful texts because they thought I was touching the thermostat and turning up the heat. I remember winter break and coming back to a destroyed room after my only source of a little heat in my room broke and dirty water leaking all over my floor from it and warping my floor because my roommates turned down the heat too much all break when we weren’t there. I remember the breakdown I had because I couldn’t stand how I couldn’t get it clean and how I didn’t sleep that night because when I closed my eyes all I saw were bugs crawling on me and dirt everywhere even if it wasn’t actually in the room.

                    I remember how cold it got after that.

I remember when I was told that my landlord couldn’t fix it and to leave my door open to get the heat from the living room into my room, and then my roommates would close my door even when I told them not too, and I would come home to a freezing room. I remember seeing my breath in my bedroom and wearing my coat to bed, under three blankets when my roommates didn’t care. I remember when Jenny told me, and Marie lied to me and said that I was allowed a space heater in my bedroom, and that it was against the lease, even though my landlord told me I could use one. That was a lie, and they were breaking 7 things on the lease already themselves. When I tried to protest, Jenny told me I’d probably burn the house down because I’m childish and irresponsible.

The last fight I ever had with them was when I had been in the house for about a week because I stayed at a friend’s, because I was afraid to go back there, and it was freezing. Jenny and Marie both got the flu and got angry, I didn’t go out of my way to come home and shovel their cars out of the driveway. I told them that I wouldn’t be home till late so it’s not my responsibility to get Jenny’s boyfriend’s, and our other roommates car out of the driveway right now, but when I get home I’d shovel in front of the front door and a pathway from the mail person. Twenty minutes later I get a response, don’t worry about it, we already did it. When I got home, they had shoveled my door shut with snow. That was the night I moved out.

At this point, to try and avoid them, I moved out at three in the morning. Marie was up taking care of her drunk friends, and the dining room table I brought from home was broken. In which they lied to me about breaking and said it just snapped when they were moving it, but Jenny went through it when she was standing on it doing something, that I don’t know. When I moved out, I didn’t think I’d feel this sense of relief, but it felt so good. I had moved in with someone who lived in the same house with me and moved out a few months prior. I had someone to connect with. It was nice. Not to mention, this house was warmer.

Even though, after all this relief, I was left with a sense of darkness. I felt regret, because I had left people who were so great in my life, like old friends. I had left things that I love, like dance. Just because I was afraid to lose something that I thought was good at the time. I hated myself for missing the friendship I had with Jenny and Marie even though it was bad for me. Most importantly, I lost myself. I’m still trying to figure out who I am again. If you asked me if I wanted to go back and take it all away, I probably wouldn’t. I’m not who I was three years ago.

So, now after all this, you might ask, why am I saying this all? I wanted you all to know my crazy story of getting caught in this friendship. I want you all to know the signs of a friendship like this, to try and not get stuck in one yourself. It felt so lonely for so long, I have no idea how I would’ve done it without my best friend, and sometimes people don’t have others besides the person who is against them. So please, look at your friends, make sure they’re treating you right, make sure you’re treating them right. Look to see if their friends are treating them right. People deserve to have each other’s backs, not tear each other down.

[gagx]

The Suicide Squad: Montana Madness Part 3 (finale)

For Part 1, Click Here

For Part 2, Click Here

Location: Blue Dawn Ranch, Montana

Time: 21.9.8 20:46 PM MDT

Victoria sipped on brandy with Arnold and Sarno in Arnold’s kitchen. The presentation went well. Everyone knew their parts and the mission would commence within the next 72 hours once intel had been confirmed. She was proud to lead these men, and grateful that she had not had to prove herself. It had been a good while since she was shown the respect she deserved. She did not know if these men would survive her plan, as no mission, no matter how well thought out, went precisely as planned. This was especially true considering their goals. It would be difficult at best, but she admired their effort to keep casualties to a minimum.

She got up to get herself some more ice from the refrigerator. This was Arnold’s home. The majority of the land had been sold off to other farmers, but his parents before him kept a sizable estate for themselves. Arnold transformed this place into a place where others like him could come when they had nowhere else to turn--a place of peace for weary souls. All the men and women who were outside the window Victoria stood in front of as she sipped her third drink were here because they were loyal to Arnold, understood his position, and would follow him to the ends of the Earth. Victoria watched as two men walked off from the cabins to trade with men who were walking towards the cabin. The night shift was taking over the perimeter.

As Brooks and Cloud walked toward the perimeter, they began to place bets on how many planes they’d spot tonight. Brooks bet higher than he had the previous night after losing thirty bucks to Cloud. Cloud didn’t care about the actual number of planes that passed above so much as he cared whether or not he could goad Brooks into wagering more money than he actually had. They understood the seriousness of their job, but they both knew no one outside of this camp knew what was going on there. Guarding the perimeter was more of a precaution than a necessity, and it reminded them of their enlisted days. Neither missed those days or were thrilled to be doing this now, with their status as civilians. The night, like them, marched on.

They walked their path carefully. It wasn’t but a few weeks ago that they had helped bury some landmines for would-be enemies. Brooks didn’t think much of it beyond wanting to ensure not walking off the path, but Cloud had doubts about their necessity out of concern for local wildlife. He trusted Commander Schultz that the animals would be fine, but he remembered a time a deer had walked over one when he was deployed overseas. He tried not to remember the eyes of the fawn. He tried not to remember the smell even now.

Cloud looked up to see the thousands of stars in the sky. It never stopped being beautiful or full of possibility. Cloud always wondered if he’d meet one of the dozens of alien civilizations they now knew were just waiting out there. Would he get to go? He saw over to his right the blinking commercial lights of a domestic flight, and pointed it out to Brooks. One more and Brooks would lose.

What neither noticed was the telltale light wobble of a passing USAT. Luthorcop-manufactured for the USAF and other federal agencies, the sound-barrier breaking saucer-shaped United States Ariel Transport was capable of tactical invisibility, high-speed maneuverability beyond that of any jet, and armed with a tractor beam apparatus for quick release and retreat. This USAT circled the ranch and mapped the area with it’s sensors before circling back just ahead of the still oblivious Brooks and Cloud. Flag had the team gather up, then activated the tractor beam, and placed his team on the ground in a brief tunnel of magenta light.

Chase: Why aren’t you down here, Flag? I thought you were the agent in charge.

Flag: Three reasons--One, I am in charge from up here; two, I am air support in case any of you are incompotent and miss someone; and three, I don’t need to spend any more time with Boxy. You can have fun with him down there. Now go silent. You have two guards approaching. No gunfire yet.

Captain Kilgore walked away from the group a few feet and vomited a great deal--loudly. Strange and Chase looked at him in anger and disgust, and then quickly looked in the direction of the guards, trying to tell if their cover had been blown. A tense yet brief moment passed as they waited to see if the guards had heard, but nothing changed. They unclenched and watched as Boxy Foxy simply walked away in a straight line path towards the encampment with only the moonlight to guide him. Frustrated by their creepy, hulking teammate, Strange and Chase let it go and helped Kilgore to his feet. There was little they could or wanted to do about Boxy.

Chase (whispering): Are you telling me that the tiny bit of turbulence we had got to you? The guy who spent his life on boats?

Kilgore: Aye, lad. The seas can be choppy, but you can know it in your bones and steel yourself. That damned thing that carried us here is untrustworthy and unknowable. Give me an open ocean over the skies, or give me death.

Flag: If you don’t start moving, Waller will give you that death. We’re on a deadline. Move it.

Chase and Kilgore made their way into the forest while Strange moved to intercept the guards. Chase stopped before he completely lost sight of Strange or the guards, and put the guards in his sights as a precaution.

Hugo suppressed his joy as he pulled out his batarangs--collected from crime scenes before his turn from consulting profiler to supervillain. He threw his first low to the ground and angled for a return arc. It passed by just in front of the unsuspecting Brooks, who had gained about ten feet in front of Cloud in their patrol. It was far too quick and low to the ground for Brooks to have seen what it was as it passed through the grass, and Cloud was too far away to make it out in the dark and past Brooks’s legs. The batarang passed through the grass in a low, wide arc back towards Strange, and Brooks and Cloud followed it trying to determine what it was. While their backs were turned, Strange threw two more of his batarangs in quick succession to the back of their lower skulls. The batarangs were more than strong and sharp enough to shred through flesh and bone to destroy the medulla oblongata of each veteran. They fell to the ground with a thud as Strange caught his first batarang, and he pridefully yet quickly retrieved his first two from the skulls of his victims. This would be a cherished memory for Strange.

Chase and Kilgore proceeded ahead of Strange, and split up once they got close enough. No one had yet suspected them as they got into their respective positions. The squad was nearly ready to start their mission in earnest when Boxy Foxy the Killer with Moxie slowly walked up through a clearing, with the moonlight magically more intense and focused around him--as if a spotlight. From Arnold’s home, Sarno spotted Boxy as he had stepped out for a moment of fresh air. He pulled out his phone and sent a message to a group chat.

Sarno to TFJ Group: We are compromised. Weapons ready. Enemy approaching and number unknown.

Arnold stood in his kitchen, laughing with Victoria when he got the message. He looked across through another window and saw the lights in his cabins turn on. The men knew and were arming themselves. He quickly set his drink down and pulled out one of the many guns hidden throughout his kitchen.

Arnold: Victoria, Protocol L. Head northwest six klicks. You’ll see some haystacks at the edge of my neighbor’s property, and under some cover, there is an ATV that you can use to get out of range of any jamming. Here.

Arnold gave her a rifle and a flare gun. She took them and saluted him as Sarno came and armed himself.

Victoria: Good luck to you both. I better see you at the rendezvous.

Sarno: I’ll keep the old man alive. Don’t you worry, Ma’am.

Arnold: Sarno, I need you to get our special delivery. No point in having it if we don’t make it through the night.

Sarno: Yes, sir!

All three left the house in different directions. Arnold joined the first unit of his men, numbering five, who were approaching Boxy. The four other units spread out across the property in teams of seven searching for the enemy. Sarno went to a shed where a safe was buried, and he began the process necessary to gain it’s special contents. Victoria silently and quickly made her way through the forest. Arnold and his unit kept a safe distance behind cover as Boxy Foxy stood there under the magically brightening moonlight.

Arnold: Surrender now or be fired upon!

Everyone stood tensely as they waited for Boxy, but there was no movement. Only Boxy’s eyes, as everyone felt them dig into their souls. One soldier had a moment of recognition and whispered to their partner.

Greene: Holy Shit! I know who that is. That’s Boxy Foxy from Fawcett City. He’s the baseball team mascot, or he was until shit got dark and Captain Marvel had to put him down.

Hartford: Are you serious?! Captain Marvel had to put this guy down?. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Arnold motioned the signal and his men opened fire. Boxy Foxy was littered with holes, and glowing purple blood oozed out the mascot as it fell to the ground. The light subdued for a moment, but remained unnatural. Chase saw what happened as he moved into position behind his own targets and twisted the sonic suppressor on his custom rifle. He hoped that Boxy was more resilient, but he brought plenty of ammo.

Victoria ran.

On the other side of the encampment, one of the units saw someone enter their obstacle course. They thought they had the advantage as they entered, but Strange instantly recognized the layout once inside; he had suspected what the shape was when he first saw the scans on the USAT shortly before Flag dropped them off. This mission was not what Waller had said, but he would live through it, unlike the overly confident soldiers walking into his trap.

Closer to the cabins, Kilgore crouched behind trash cans as one unit passed by him. Kilgore was not like his teammates; Chase and Strange with their little strategies or Boxy with its apparent death. Kilgore was a pirate and pirates do not fight fairly. He pulled out his cutlass and ornate pistol to stab one man in the back and fire at the head of another. The other men turned around to see their compatriots dying at the hands of a poorly dressed pirate, and they immediately unleashed metallic fury upon him. In a three second burst, ninety-seven bullets passed through Kilgore’s clothes and into a small building behind him. The veterans expected Kilgore to drop dead, yet he stood with a smile beaming through his black beard.

Kilgore: Arrr, no quarter given means none for me to give to you, you black-spotted lads!

Kilgore, still in his water form, charged the men with a wide and lethal swing of his cutlass.

Boxy lay there for a moment, but rose from its back like a statue being raised up. The light around it intensified again. Everyone prepared to fire, but right as they believed Boxy Foxy would charge them, it began to dance. This confused everyone who saw it, but Greene and Hartford were not confused. They could hear the music and it made them want to dance. They dropped their weapons and began to dance in synchronized movement. Arnold yelled for them to stop, but all they could hear were the poppy, synth beats of “What Does the Fox Say.” The other men opened fire again on Boxy while aiming away from their friends, but this did not stop Boxy, as the men kept getting closer to the cursed mascot.

Once close enough, the dance came to a stop. All three posed for the finale, and there was a brief stop in crossfire as the soldiers reloaded. Boxy grabbed the heads of Greene and Hartford, raised them up in the air, crushed their heads in its hands, began to spin them around, and threw their corpses at the other soldiers. Boxy charged the other soldiers and let out an unnatural howl. Arnold fired upon the demon, but no matter the bullets or the purple blood loss, it did not stop beating his men to death and howling. Arnold ran.

Victoria ran.

Chase perched on a roof as soldiers passed underneath him and he activated the remote rifle he had hidden. This took out the leg of one soldier, and caused the others to turn to return fire. This gave Chase his chance in their collective blind spot to open fire with barely a hint of noise. With his first two shots, his spot was unknown, but by the third body, the other three had instinctively figured out where to aim. It was too bad for them that Chase rolled off the roof and shot them dead before landing on the ground himself. Chase had hoped for more of a challenge. He was disappointed his tax dollars used to go to paying for this level of training. He started to walk away when he was shot in his left arm. Grazed, but still painful. He quickly turned and returned fire to the soldier who lost his leg.

Flag: Chase, we have a runner on thermal. Go after them.

Chase: Copy that.

The men inside the obstacle course watched their corners as they passed through quickly and decisively. They opened each door carefully--uncertain what they would find. Soon the split-up unit met at a single spot--a door leading to the last unchecked room. On the door was an upside down Batman symbol, and the men busted the door down to clear the room. They opened fire in the corner of the room where they saw a shadowy figure that resembled the figure dressed like Batman they followed into the course. But Strange dropped from the ceiling, shot his grappling hook through the door to pull it shut as he ran, and hit the button to the mini-explosives he had placed throughout that room. The men died instantly in a fiery finale.

As some of the last men tried to fight off Boxy Foxy, they could start to hear the music. It was growing louder in their minds--drowning out the sounds of their automatic rifles. They tried to resist the dancing, but it was becoming harder and harder every second. And then Sarno arrived.

Sarno, far more muscular now thanks to the Venom steroid injection, tackled Boxy with the fury of a truck at full speed. The men’s minds were freed and they ran in search of more ammunition, but they were met with a chestful of batarangs as Strange emerged from the training course. They fell to the ground and bled out in a matter of seconds. Strange saw the fight ongoing, and recognized the effects of Venom. He decided to hang back to see if Boxy would be able to withstand such punishment. The battle between the Venom-empowered Sarno and the cursed mascot was intense as they traded blow after blow that would have smashed the bones of mortal men. They tossed each other into trees, and the sounds of wood cracked every time.

Arnold ran across his ranch, and as he turned a corner, he saw a pirate standing over the bodies of his men. Before Kilgore could react or turn to water, Arnold shot him in the head, and Kilgore fell to the ground dead. Strange heard the gunshot from nearby, and proceeded to hunt this lone gunman. This felt more natural to him. This must be how he feels whenever he chases after me in the streets of Gotham, Strange thought.

Chase had ground to cover, so he hustled as hard as he could in the direction Flag dropped into his HUD. His days of marathon running were paying off as he soon got within range to fire. His first shot missed, as Victoria knew she wasn’t alone. She got cover and returned fire in the general direction. Chase got behind cover, but he did not stay there long as he tried to get closer and take shots at his target as he moved. He was off. Victoria had already moved. She did not retreat, but instead moved forward to take her shot. She watched as Chase fired into the wrong direction and returned fire. Chase was hit in his armor; the impact was painful, but he knew where she was. He turned to take aim and saw her standing in the open, but before he could fire, she fired her flare gun. The shot did not hit him, but it did not have to in order to work. Chase was blinded and screamed in pain. Flag was watching from the USAT.

Flag: Fuck. Pilot, follow her and get me in firing range.

The USAT pulled around as Victoria ran faster through the forest. She tried to send a text that would release an encoded message to send sensitive materials related to this operation to trusted members of the press. The message was still pending. Victoria did not know whether it was simply terrible reception in the area or if her enemy was jamming her, but it did not matter. She had to move and not look back. The truth needed to be out there.

Strange stalked his prey, but he knew to keep a safe distance. The man was armed and well trained. Strange was not Batman, a fact that drove him into jealous fits of rage, so he could not take the same chances the Batman might against such an opponent. Arnold had returned to a cabin to rearm himself and gain more ammunition, but his trip was cut short as a batarang entered his right tricep. He yelled in pain, but turned and fired off in the direction of Strange. Strange had taken cover behind the wall and avoided the bullets.

Arnold: Stop! Do you even know who we are?

Strange: I have been given answers and I have suspicions, but please enlighten me. Who do you think you are?

The USAT was clipping trees as it got low enough for Flag to fire. He had turned the searchlight on, and Victoria was chased by a beam of light from the sky. She knew what was after her. She only hoped the trees would give her cover long enough to lose it. He waited for a clear opening. Only a few seconds passed like this before his opportunity arrived, and he pulled the trigger. The target twisted in pain and fell to the ground, but Flag saw her face as this happened. He knew who he had just killed and was shocked.

Arnold: I’m Arnold Schutz. I was in the army. Every single man killed tonight was. It’s where we met, and where we learned a dirty secret none of us could tolerate. We banded together in hopes of helping you and every other prisoner in Belle Reve. This is Task Force J. We were going to free you from Amanda Waller, you murderous asshole.

Strange: Ahhh…Of course, you are, and so of course it makes sense Waller would send us after you instead of relying on another agency to handle you. There’s a dark poetry to it. Before your final moment, did you plan on freeing us or simply removing Waller?

Arnold: You’re murderers and terrorists. We can’t let you out, but that doesn’t mean you should be treated like disposable weapons to eliminate foreign policy issues. You can let me go. You don’t have to kill me. I can get your head free of that bomb in a way where you live.

Strange: What a kind offer, but you cannot deactivate the bomb faster than Waller can press the button. This only ends with one of our deaths, and I have unfinished business in Gotham.

Arnold: You’re going to miss that flight to Gotham, because I’m going to blow your goddamn head off.

Arnold pulled the trigger on his shotgun, and armor piercing rounds blasted through the wall and into Strange. The force knocked him down and flat on his face. Strange lay there as Arnold walked up to get a closer shot. The damage to his arm made it hard to keep the gun steady. But Arnold got close, a grappling hook blasted through his chest and Strange pulled him to the ground. Certain Arnold was dying, Strange decided to lay there. The bullet did not make it through his armor after passing through the wall, but the force of impact bruised his back.

Strange, Chase, Kilgore’s corpse, and a blood-soaked Boxy were pulled up into the USAT by an angry Flag. Flag was lied to and used. He had killed someone he respected and worked for before his time with Task Force X. The ride back to Belle Reve was silent between Flag’s mood and the injured Squad members. Boxy danced to himself, to the dismay of the others. Waller sat in her office and poured herself a glass of champagne. Another snake had tried to get her, but she cut off it’s head. Tonight was a good night, and tomorrow, the real work could continue.

What no one knew on the USAT or at Belle Reve was that Arnold was not dead yet. He pulled from his pocket a bootleg device he had hoped to never use--a Superman emergency beacon. He pressed it. A red light flashed, but no noise came from it. Arnold laid there waiting and grew colder and colder with each passing second. It became harder and harder to keep focus. Everything became distant and unreal. He had no idea how much time had passed, but the last thing he remembered was a sudden warmth and a red color from beyond. He passed out in the arms of Superman.

[wsmith215]

Dr. Deborah Birx decries scenes of protesters not practicing social distancing amid coronavirus

Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, expressed concern Sunday about the lack of social distancing at protests and rallies against stay-at-home orders. 

“It’s devastatingly worrisome to me, personally, because if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a comorbid condition, and they have a serious or a very unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives. So, we need to protect each other at the same time we’re voicing our discontent,” Birx said when asked on Fox News about demonstrators crowding into the state capitol in Michigan last week.

Similar protests have taken place across the country against restrictive measures aimed at containing the spread of the virus, and many states have begun to reopen amid political and economic pressure. 

“Every single metro area and every single outbreak across the country is different,” Birx said. But she stressed that “as states reopen, we really want them to follow the gating criteria” outlined last month by the administration. Under those guidelines, states should see two consecutive weeks of a decline in cases before beginning to reopen. 

What states are opening up, and when?: States are constantly changing their restrictions — here’s a list

“Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace said that while more than half the states have started to reopen “in some way, shape or form,” none of them have met the administration’s benchmark of two-week declines. 

“Why not set a firm – if not binding – a firm national policy on when states can reopen?” Wallace asked. 

“I think federal guidelines are a pretty firm policy of what we think is important from a public health standpoint,” Birx replied. 

“We made it very clear that the guidelines are based on very strong evidence and data,” she said. “We’ve made it clear what the gating criteria is.” 

Story continues

She added that the White House task force has asked every governor to post exactly where his or her state stood in terms of meeting of the criteria and where the virus was appearing, “because an educated community can really take action to understand how to protect themselves.”

Mississippi is one state that has started to reopen, even though it hit a record number of new cases two days ago with 397. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves delayed a further easing of the restrictions because of that spike in cases. But, on Sunday, Reeves said that it was a “one-day blip” due to a large number of test results coming in a batch from private labs. 

“I spoke personally with Dr. Birx, and we agree that sometimes the models are just different for different states, just like they’re different for various counties. And we believe that that particular gating criteria just doesn’t work in states like ours, who have never had more than 300 cases in any one day with the exception of Friday and that data dump,” Reeves told Wallace. 

Gov. Phil Murphy, D-New Jersey, declined to comment on governors such as Reeves who were opening up ahead of the timeline recommended by the White House. He explained his “nose was pressed up against the New Jersey glass” and he was not familiar with the data from other states. 

“I do know, in our state, and as we coordinate with our regional partners, most notably our neighbors, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, we have to make the call based on data and science,” said Murphy, whose state has suffered the second-highest number of deaths from the coronavirus after New York. 

Murphy did begrudge the right of people opposing his stay-at-home order to protest but, echoing Birx, said he wished they would do it safely. 

“My biggest issue is they were congregating without face masks,” Murphy said. 

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said the protests last week in Lansing, which included demonstrators armed with semi-automatic rifles and body armor, reflected “some of the worst racism and awful parts of our history in this country.” 

“The Confederate flags, and nooses, the swastikas, the behavior that you have seen in all of the clips is not representative of who we are in Michigan,” she told CNN. 

“We have to keep listening to the epidemiologists and experts, and not listen to the partisan rhetoric or these political rallies, or tweets, for that matter,” Whitmer said.

“We had far more people die yesterday in Maryland than we had protesters,” Republican Gov. Larry Hogan told CNN on Sunday. 

Hogan said he was concerned by the images of protesters gathering without social distancing, as well as the large gathering on the National Mall in Washington on Saturday to see a flyover by the Navy’s Blue Angels and the Air Force’s Thunderbirds.

Fact check: Are governors’ stay-at-home orders bad for your health?

“You see this happening around the country, as states try to open in a safe way. Unfortunately, the pressure is to do it in a not safe way,” Hogan said. “And that’s something we’re very concerned about, and one of the reasons why we’re being cautious and trying to do things in a slow, safe and effective manner.” 

Regardless of their state’s policy, Birx said it was critical that people do what they can to protect themselves from infection. 

“You need to continue to social distance. You need to continue to practice scrupulous hand-washing,” she said. “And I think most importantly, if you have any preexisting conditions, through phase one and phase two of any reopening, we have asked you to continue to shelter in place.”

Birx’s concern about the protests contrasts statements from President Donald Trump, who has expressed support for them and tweeted to “liberate” states following his own administration’s guidelines. 

“People want to get back to work,” Trump told reporters when asked about the protests at an April 21 briefing. He maintained that demonstrators were keeping they’re “a lot of space in between” and “doing social distancing,” though images from many of the protests showed that participants were not adhering to the government’s recommendations. 

Birx also diverged from Trump, who previously pointed to revised models projecting 50,000-60,000 deaths from COVID-19 through August. But the country has already seen more than 67,000 deaths.

“Our projections have always been between 100,000 and 240,000 American lives lost,” Birx said. “And that’s with full mitigation and us learning from each other of how to social distance.” 

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus: Deborah Birx says protests are ‘devastatingly worrisome’

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[steves-on-a-plane]

Be My Royal Romance

Chapter One 

Words: 1319 Crossover Fic: Be My Princess (Voltage Games) & The Royal Romance/ The Royal Heir (Choices) Pairing: OC X King Liam  Summary: “Gwendolyn Graham is just like every other student at Charles University. Except that her best friends happen to all be crown princes from six neighboring kingdoms. It's not always easy being the grounding force between her friends but it is almost always interesting. One afternoon Princes Roberto & Edward approach Gwen asking her to act as a cultural liaison between the six union kingdoms and an outside kingdom, Cordonia. Would Gwen have agreed to attend the gala if she'd known she would fall in love with Cordonia's dashing and charming King Liam?”

 Twenty-five-year-old Gwendolyn Graham blinked several times as her eyes adjusted to the sunlight. She’d just stepped outside of her university’s history and social sciences building. It had been a long morning hopping from class to class and the glowing fluorescent lights inside were no match for the crisp natural sun streaming through the courtyard that afternoon. Gwen began walking towards the gates of the school grounds where she knew a car would be waiting to take her back home.

“Hey, Gwendolyn?” One of the guys from her last class tried to get her attention. Gwen turned to him, indicating she was listening. “Those guys over there are looking for you. Do you know them?” He pointed over to the school’s gates.

“Gwen! Hey Gwen!” Shouting her name and waving wildly was her friend Roberto. It looked like Roberto had brought along another of their friends, Edward. Edward and Rob stood out from the rest of the university crowd milling around the school grounds partially because they weren’t students at Gwendolyn’s school, but mostly because they were Crown Princes of their respective countries.

“Yeah.” Gwen adjusted her backpack on her shoulders uncomfortably. “That’s my housemate and his friend.” She answered vaguely before running off. It wasn’t exactly a lie, she was currently living at Villa Altaria, Prince Roberto’s palace.

“Roberto, you’re drawing quite a lot of attention.” Edward, the more dignified of the two, quietly commented. “That was not part of our plan.”

“Aw c’mon Ed!” Roberto chuckled loudly, even though he knew Edward was not a fan of nicknames. “I haven’t seen Gwen in forever! I’m just excited.” Edward didn’t ask how it was possible to live in the same palace as someone but never see them. He knew all too well how busy the life of a crown prince could be and he knew exactly how much preparation it required to clear even an hour or two out of ones schedule.

Trying to avoid drawing more unwanted attention Gwen quickly made her way over to her friends. She noticed even from a distance that they were both dressed as casually as princes could. For Edward that meant cool grey slacks, a white button up shirt and a navy and white striped a Cardigan. He stood straight and regal next to Roberto who’d taken to leaning on a nearby gate pole. Rob wore a pair of fitted dark blue trousers, a white t-shirt, a blue silk ascot tie, and a chocolate brown blazer that complimented his eyes. The pair of them were quite a sight.

She noticed even from a distance that they were both dressed as casually as princes could. For Edward that meant cool grey slacks, a white button up shirt and a navy and white striped a Cardigan. He stood straight and regal next to Roberto who’d taken to leaning on a nearby gate pole. Rob wore a pair of fitted dark blue trousers, a white t-shirt, a blue silk ascot tie, and a chocolate brown blazer that complimented his eyes. The pair of them were quite a sight.

“Prince Edward, Prince Roberto.” Gwen greeted each of them with a respectful nod in place of the traditional bow or curtsy. “What brings the two of you all the way out here?”

Gwen knew from their casual state of dress that the Princes weren’t at the school for official business, so she could only assume they were there to see her. She noted the careful expression on Edward’s face and the never wavering smile on Roberto’s as she waited for her friends to explain themselves.

“We wanted to extend you an invitation.” Roberto explained, seemingly unaware of the attention they’d gathered around.

“Perhaps we could discuss things over tea?” Edward suggested. Unlike Roberto he was very much aware of all the eyes on their small group and the hushed conversations happening around them. “That is if you’re free to travel with us Miss Gwendolyn?”

“I’ve already finished my classes for the day.” Gwen supplied. “Plus, I’ve made it a rule to never turn down tea at Edward’s secret garden.”

“Then our chariot awaits!” With a flourish of his hand Edward gestured towards a limousine on the other side of the university gates.

Gwen noticed the flags of Altaria, Roberto’s kingdom, posted at the front of the limo, so the car belonged to Roberto. Two figures stood by the car. Roberto’s Butler, Alberto, was waiting outside of the car impatiently. He stared at his watch painstaking visualizing the seconds tick by. Alberto was the type of person who appreciated efficiency and timeliness, neither was something that Roberto held much stake in. Edward’s Butler, Louis, was also standing outside of the car. He kept a watchful on their surroundings as two Princes and their friend walked towards the car.

“Miss Gwendolyn, lovely to see you again.” Louis commented when she was close enough to the car that he didn’t need to shout the friendly greeting. Alberto looked up from his watch at the mention of their newest guest.

“Yes, hello. Into to car if you wouldn’t mind, Miss Gwendolyn. We have a tight schedule to keep.” Alberto opened the back door of the limo and waited expectantly. Gwendolyn nodded to show that she understood. She quickly removed her backpack and climbed into the limo. Roberto and Edward soon slid in after her. Alberto got behind the steering wheel and Louis sat in the passenger’s seat beside him. One of the butlers pulled up the partition separating them from their passengers.

“As always, it’s nice to see both of you.” Gwen told her friends with a smile. “I’m sorry that I haven’t been available lately. School’s been a bit much.”

“It’s understandable.” Edward commented. “No one could fault you for valuing your education and our own schedules haven’t been easy to manage either, have they Roberto?”

“That’s right.” Rob nodded. “Ed and I have been busy with official Prince duties.” He frowned. “And the parties aren’t nearly as fun without you.”

“Well, the semester is nearly over. Maybe I can make time for a party or two soon.” Gwen propositioned hopefully. “Now are you really going to make me wait till we get to the palace before you tell me what’s going on? Like I said I’m thrilled to see you both but neither of you come to meet me at the school very often. Usually when that happens you’ve either got bad news or you’re planning a party. So, which is it?”

“We’re almost at the palace.” Edward announced. “I think it would be much better to discuss matters surrounded by the sweet delicate scent of flowers and the warmth of the sun on our faces.”

Edward was right, they were almost at his palace. Edward was the crowned Prince of Charles Kingdom, the very same Kingdom where Gwen was a student. So it was a very short car ride before the enchanting Charles Palace came into view from inside the limo. Of the castles that she’d been lucky enough to visit, Gwen thought that Charles Palace reminded her the most of a fairytale. With the exterior being constructed mostly of limestone, the palace featured several towers topped with twisted spires. Large banners bearing the Levaincois family crest were proudly displayed at the front gates of the castle.

Alberto drove the limo along a stonework driveway. An intricate zig-zag pattern of limestone that had been laid down centuries ago. The driveway was lined on both sides with rose bushes. Gwendolyn tried to name each variety as their vehicle cruised by. She inhaled deeply, believing she could smell the flowers despite all the windows on the limo being seated up tightly. The car came to a stop at the end of the driveway. Louis opened the door and the three friends piled out of the car. While Alberto drove the limo off, Louis guided the group to Edward’s secret garden.

[artificialqueens]

A Cat's Intuition (Shalaska) 2/4 - Lunaska

A/N: So, here she is.This fic, like most things I write, is a slow-burn, so be patient with me. The waiter/bartender as described in this chapter is probably ridiculously inaccurate, but it’s how I need it to be. This chapter was fun to write and I hope you like it as much as I do. Please leave me some feedback!

Aaron’s ears were red.

And his neck.

And his face.

And probably everything else too.

In his haste to get rid of the small colony of underwear that had settled on his living room rug, he had made some poor decisions.

First of all, walmart shopping bags are good for many things: acting as small trash can liners, handy helpers when you have to pick up the shit your neighbor’s dog keeps leaving on your lawn, and the classic “i’m staying at a friend’s house and don’t want my dirty clothes to touch the rest of my clothes.”

One of the things walmart shopping bags were not known for is their stealth.

Being mildly transparent, flimsy, and noisy, they are not the best at keeping secrets.

Another important thing to take into account is that when you want to keep the contents of your grocery bags hidden, you should probably tie them shut.

Needless to say, Aaron’s decision making skills were proving subpar.

But, his lack of knowledge in the art of the covert didn’t stop there.

On his way to drop his bag of underwear off in the big trash in the parking lot, he made a crucial error: being a distracted son a bitch.

Aaron wasn’t sure the quarter he bent over to pick up was worth the embarrassment of having his bag full of underwear spill out all over the concrete.

Underwear that wasn’t even his.

To top all it off, it was in front of the new guy who lived right next door.

As he stared at the brunette sitting on the ground in front of him, he tried to think of any possible excuse he could use to justify what was happening.

He didn’t want to be the neighborhood weirdo.

“I’m really sorry, I was just, uhm, doing some spr-”

“Is that my fucking underwear?” The other man interrupted. Though, he didn’t seem as angry as he did shocked and confused.

Aaron tried to swallow the huge lump that had just formed in his throat, but it wasn’t going down.

He decided to stop trying.

Choking sounded pretty good right now.

xxxx

Justin was just trying to have a normal fucking day.

Instead, he was standing across from his new neighbor, who seemed to have a penchant for stranger’s undergarments. The man was sitting on the concrete with his scruffy blond hair in his hands. The bag that once contained the underwear was gone with the breeze, leaving only its previous contents to color the sidewalk.

Fucking walmart bags.

He really didn’t have enough time to process the scene before him. Even if he did have all the time in the world, he certainly didn’t have the patience to deal with whatever this shit show was going to entail.

The blond was now rubbing at his eyes, albeit a little too harshly.

It’s really a shame that all the cute ones at this apartment complex are absolute psychos.

But he had to admit that he would pick Brian, “Do you want to come over and watch Contact with me and my cat Trixie?” McCook over the weirdo stealing his underwear.

But, back to the situation at hand.

“All I want to know is if that’s my underwear?” Justin said, gesturing to the messy pile decorating the sidewalk. “And if it is mine, why do you have it?”

The blond looked up at Justin, looking absolutely hopeless.

“Uh…I don’t know.”

Justin walked over to the undergarments in question and knelt to get a closer look. It took him less than ten seconds to know that this was his missing underwear.

He looked up at the blond who was currently running his hands through his hair, pulling at the ends like he wanted to rip them out of his scalp.

He was starting to feel rather bad for embarrassing the guy. I mean, we all have our kinks, right?

He quickly looked away from the other man. He couldn’t show sympathy for someone who was actively stealing his underwear, doing God-knows-what with it, and then throwing it away.

“Look,” Justin said pointing his finger at the other man, “I don’t care what you get off to but just don’t take my shit anymore, okay?”

The blond nodded.

The guy was pretty cute, especially looking all guilty.

He steals underwear, Justin.

Focus.

He pushed off the ground with a groan and a final mildly angry look at the thief, then stalked off towards his car. With one last look over his shoulder, he yelled

“and I want my socks back too!”

xxx

Aaron couldn’t find any damn socks.

He’d spent both of his days off cleaning his entire house and looking everywhere for them and found nothing but $3.78 in change and an old beanie that Cerrone had clearly taken his claws to.

He was already pissed that he didn’t get a chance to explain himself and now the other man was going to think he was still stealing from him. He was hoping he’d find the socks along with the answer to why he was mysteriously receiving all of his neighbor’s underwear, and maybe a couple thousand dollars.

But, no dice.

Oh well.

He couldn’t afford to dwell on his odd relationship with his neighbor, or his lack of spending money.

He was scheduled to work tonight and he really needed to make some good tips or his car was gonna have to run on imagination instead of fuel. So, as he walked into his uncle’s dusty bar and grill that evening, he tried to gather some energy. The dark blue walls of the poorly lit restaurant were slowly becoming comforting, almost homey. Waiting tables wasn’t glamorous, but it kept Cerrone’s food bowl full and Aaron’s fridge stocked with PBR.

Sparing a final grateful thought towards whoever created his drink of choice, he tied his apron and got started.

A few hours in, Aaron felt right in his element as he settled into a practiced rhythm. With the kind of grace that can only be learned over time, he juggled his tables, feeling confident in the service he was providing. He had waited tables since he was sixteen, bouncing from restaurant to restaurant learning new things every time. And now at twenty four, he felt that he could do this job in his sleep and still make more money than his co-workers.

Extra napkins for table five.

Table eight needs refills.

He was about to go get one of his tables their check when he was flagged down by a customer who wanted a drink from the bar. He quickly made his way to the bar area, grumbling under his breath. The way this restaurant handled it’s drinks for tables was inconvenient, and that’s being generous. The waiters had to go all the way to the bar and order the drinks themselves.

As he grumpily made his way to the bar for the first time that evening, he took in the unfamiliar figure of the man behind the counter, who currently had his back to Aaron. They had hired a new bartender who he had yet to meet, but word around the kitchen was that he was funny. And something else his coworkers had mentioned? Was it ambidextrous?

Whatever it was, he just hoped it helped him make good drinks.

He leaned against the bar and patted the counter yelling a quick, “Hey, can I get a Long Island for my table, please?”

Aaron felt a little rude yelling at the back of the new guy’s head, but he didn’t have much of a choice.

As he waited for the bartender to acknowledge him, he took notice of all the people sitting at the bar. Most of them looking towards the new guy with amused expressions, others closer to him were laughing. He must be as funny as everyone said.

Putting a couple of drinks in front of his small audience, he grabbed a cocktail shaker from behind the counter and turned towards Aaron with a wide smile that melted as soon as the two made eye contact.

When Aaron met his eyes he wanted to evaporate on the spot. If he had a drink, he’d have done a spit take. And if he’d had more money to his name and a more conveniently placed exit door, he would’ve booked it out of the restaurant so fast, he would’ve broken the speed limit.

It was his neighbor.

You know, the one who thinks he’s a panty thief?

The one who probably thinks that Aaron has some sort of shrine dedicated to his briefs? The brunette probably assumed that Aaron had some sort of weird underwear fetish.

Aaron had always been both gay and weird, but he’d never been an underwear thief.

At this point, he chalked most of his problems up to bad karma, or maybe he’d accidentally been rude to a witch one day and now she was ruining his life. Either way, the amount of bad luck he was experiencing was ridiculous.

Aaron’s neighbor, whose name tag read “Justin,” was staring at him in shock. The shaker in his hands had stopped moving and the brunette stood stiff as a board in front of him.  The atmosphere had gone from lighthearted to tense in a matter of seconds and Aaron had no clue how to fix it.

So, he just looked back at the other man, waiting for him to to say something.

Anything.

But, the seconds passed, feeling like hours, and he knew he had to get back to his tables or his wallet would suffer. He took a quick, shaky breath and looked the other man in the eyes.

“So, uh, my name is Aaron,” He gestured to the name tag pinned onto his uniformed chest.

“It’s nice to, um, see you. So, yeah, a Long Island Ice Tea for table fifteen, please.” With that, he mustered up an unconvincing smile, turned on his heel and went back to his table. When he came back for the drink, his bartending neighbor was at the other end of the counter again with his back turned towards him. He quickly grabbed it off the counter and walked away with a sigh of relief.

Luckily, the rest of his shift was uneventful. He only had to make a couple more trips to the bar that night and all of them were less awkward than the first, and for that he was thankful.

As he rolled silverware with a couple of his co-workers later that night, he thought back on his previous encounter with Justin. Both times Aaron had been mostly silent, not even bothering to clear his name or give the other man an explanation. Everything had happened so suddenly and unexpectedly that all Aaron could do was just stand there.

He didn’t want to have an awkward relationship with someone he would obviously be seeing a lot of, so it was in his best interest to try to clear things up, and maybe even be friends with Justin.

He was determined to make things right.

Or at least make himself look less creepy.

His thoughts of redemption stayed on his mind till he clocked out that night. During the drive home, he considered what he would say and even planned a couple comebacks just in case an argument broke out, but the moment he turned the street corner that led to his apartment, all he could think of was getting home.

He sighed as he pulled into the familiar parking lot of his apartment complex.

It had been a long ass day.

All he wanted was to get home, take a shower, and watch a movie on his couch with Cerrone on his lap. He turned off his car almost giddy at the thought of having a relaxing night in.

But, the possibility of that scenario fizzled out as he got out of his car and saw Justin pull into the parking lot.

He knew that he would never get another opportunity to talk to him at work. He had already spent hours thinking about what to say and there was no time like the present, right?

Aaron pushed his door open and pulled himself out of his beat up toyota. He walked closer to where Justin was parking his car, hoping to catch him as he got out.

Justin got out of his car ungracefully and slammed the door behind him. Obviously not expecting aaron to be standing a couple feet from him in the middle of a dark parking lot.

Okay, not his best idea.

“Were you waiting for me here?” Justin said with wide eyes and a shaky voice. He had a hand over his heart and was obviously trying to catch his breath.

Aaron once again realized that this probably wasn’t the best scenario to try to convince someone that you aren’t insane or trying to stalk, kidnap, or murder them.

“Uhm, no. I just saw you pull in and i’ve been meaning to talk to you for a while,” he said, nervously combing through his hair with his fingers, “ So, I thought now would be a good time.”

Justin visibly relaxed a little, but still seemed nervous.

“I already said we’re cool, dude.” Justin said, “We all have weird kinks. I just can’t afford to keep losing shit; I’m sure Brian two doors down has some great pieces for your collection, though.”

Aaron sighed nervously, “No, let me explain. I didn’t take your underwear. It just…” he started pulling at his hair again, “Kind of appeared in my living room.”

“Oh, I see. It appeared in your living room?” said Justin, clearly unconvinced.

“Yes. I don’t know how it got there.” Aaron knew it was a terrible argument from the second it left his mouth, but it was the only one he had to work with.

“Have you considered magic? Maybe David Blaine is playing a very long, overly involved magic trick on you,” Justin said, bitingly sarcastic. “And maybe I’mDavid Blaine, after all! I’m in a mask filming this whole thing just to embarrass you, right?”

Justin took a deep, exasperated breath, clearly about to continue his list of impossible scenarios, but Aaron quickly put his hands up in surrender.

“I know it doesn’t sound very-” Aaron stopped suddenly, almost positive that he heard… meowing?

“Cerrone?” he called into the darkness of the empty parking lot.

Justin was obviously confused, but also looked around trying to find whatever the blond was searching for. Suddenly Aaron’s cat sauntered out from behind Justin’s car, going straight towards his favorite person.

“What are you doing outside?” asked Aaron as he gathered the kitty in his arms, “how did you even get out?”

He rubbed his cat between the ears and Cerrone purred. They were both wrapped up in their little love fest until a cough from Justin’s direction brought Aaron back to the situation at hand.

“Oh, sorry!” he looked down at the cat in his arms, “do you maybe want to talk about this at my place? I really need to get him inside.”

While he really did need to get Cerrone back home, he was also hoping that maybe showing Justin how normal his apartment was would help strengthen his argument. And after being at work for so long his feet were fucking killing him and he really wanted to sit down.

Justin shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, obviously apprehensive.

Aaron tried to muster a friendly smile, but quickly realized it probably just came off weird, so he slowly let his lips drop into their normal position.

Justin seemed to think it over for a few more seconds. With hands still in his pockets he kicked at some nonexistent rocks at his feet before uttering a quiet, “Okay.”

Okay, this was progress.

Aaron nodded, grinning excitedly before leading the way towards his apartment. The whole walk was awkward and as he struggled to unlock his front door with one arm, as the other was holding Cerrone, he could see the hesitance on Justin’s face.

As the key turned and he pushed the door open, he only hoped for one thing

Please don’t let there be a huge pile of this guy’s underwear sitting in my living room floor.