#and local governments need to crack down on them harder

[spurgie-cousin]

I've always known the Amish are big dog "breeders" but it's only in the last year or so that I've heard first hand accounts of how absolutely awful they are to their animals and yea....... no more Amish stuff from the farmers market for me ever.

[pretty-batty]

Whispers in the Dark

Eddie x Original Female Character Pt 1 of Eldath's Priestess 2067 words

Warnings: Eddie's death explored. Grief and mourning. Tag: Angst, bittersweet fluff, whump (but not for long), flashbacks Can be read on ao3 A special thank you to @anakinkshamer and @voyeurmunson for being my eyes in this.

Summary: With Hawkins in the throws of madness, Judy returns on request of her ex's uncle, Wayne Munson. She arrives to a decimated town and a dead Eddie Munson. While her childhood love is dead, his shadow still looms over her every step.

Notes: The Hawkins flu of ’76 only struck children. A few of the children were hit harder than most, including Judy Sondheim, 10 years old. These children experienced high fevers leading to febrile seizures, culminating in total loss of vision. This, however, opened them up to experimental treatment, provided by the local government sponsored bio lab. All subjects were cured through the mysterious treatment, leaving the patients with permanent vision deficits, chronic migraines, and vivid (rumored precognitive) nightmares. These were attributed to the effects of the fever, and not the treatment.

Cold, that’s what she felt, cold. Ash, like snow, floating in the air, glinting in the flashes of silent lightning. The form of her lover and childhood friend, laying on his side, facing her, his brown eyes nearly black in the dark. Like they used to lay, Judy’s back against the wall, Eddie boxing her in, but this was not her reality.

Judy felt a pain in her chest, twisting the words from her lips. “When I wake up, you’ll be gone.”

The corners of her ghostly lover’s lips turned down for a moment, breaking his warm smile. “Yep.” He croaked, tears welling up and glittering in the shadowy glow of the underworld. His long fingers traced across her cheek, as if to savor the sorrow. He chuckled, clearing his throat to avoid another outburst. “But that’s okay. Becau-…Because you’ll be safe. Far away from this hellhole.”

“Please…” She ran her fingers through his hair, guiding him closer, lips an inch apart, “I want to stay.”

His lips scooped hers up into a gentle kiss before releasing and tracing up her nose, kissing her brow.

“Please.” She whimpered.

His voice, soft, buzzed in his chest. “I know, baby. Shh. I know.”

I know… Eddie’s voice echoed through Judy’s head as she opened her eyes. Another haunting dream, a painful dream, a dream of an immaterial love, a love that stings, a regretful love. Edward Munson was dead, swallowed up by the earth along with several other people and much of her hometown of Hawkins. She had come to defend her ex-boyfriend from the false accusations of murder and satanic worship, but a day on the road had brought her to a much more terrifying display.

Smoke from the meeting of four large cracks in the earth billowed into the sky. People, homes, buildings, trees, animals…God knows of the things that melted into the cracks of the earth’s crust. The lake by which she and Eddie had loitered, the banks which she and her brother Joey had combed for interesting rocks was gone, evaporated into pulsating red and orange fumes. The smoke had poisoned even the heartiest of flora from the banks and fields.

She and her aunt Margie had a two-story house in the west, close to the school where Margie presided as English teacher and department head. For so long, Judy had believed it to be cursed, and yet it still stood, untouched by the disaster. Meanwhile the Munson trailer and Lover’s Lake were either destroyed or completely gone. Those were her safe places, a vacation from her mind and the stress around her.

“Is the room ready?” A voice called from the floor below.

“Not quite yet, I need to move some of the wall stuff.” Judy hollered back.

Margie’s steps squeaked up the narrow staircase, her voice growing closer. “Wayne will be here within the hour. You said you’d be up and dressed two hours ago.” She turned the corner to see her niece’s face. “Were you…?” She reached out her petite hand, brushing against Judy’s cheek, “were you crying in your sleep?”

“Guess I was…” Judy said, running her robe’s sleeve across her face.

Her aunt paused, realizing that Judy was not in the space to function. “Well, just move the stuff when you’re ready. Take your time.” She managed a weak, reassuring smile, “it’s okay to grieve, Judy.”

She leaned against her doorframe, “I just need to get over it. Not like we were…” Her leg began to bounce neurotically, “ya know…together…anymore. So…” She took a deep breath in, pushing her heel down as she breathed out, forcing her leg to stop shaking.

“Take your time.” Margie’s hand gave her elbow a comforting squeeze. Pressure always helped Judy in her episodes, brought her back down to earth. Judy watched her aunt turn back down the stairs, pausing for a moment, eyes almost completely out of sight. “He would ask about you whenever he could. I think don’t you give him enough credit.”

I know. Eddie’s voice called back, passing through the back of her skull. Running his ghostly hands through her hair.

Judy took another deep breath. It still wasn’t enough. No amount of deep breathing was enough to release the vice grip her heart was in. She walked across the hall to the bathroom, running the water in the sink, turning on the fan, and closing the door. Carefully, she climbed into the bathtub, fully clothed, and closed the shower curtain.

And. Release.

She opened her mouth and forced her soul from her throat, releasing a bitter string of sobs that grew both quieter and yet more intense as they went on, becoming more of a gag in the end. Her head pulsated with a dull thump, encircling from temple to temple and tightening with each breath. Climbing out from the tub, she sprawled herself out on the bathroom tile to cool down. Tears and sweat had moistened her face, which was now nearly boiling to the touch. The ceiling spun each time her glance turned towards it. After the third time, she resolved herself to gaze at the tub’s grout beside her.

“I heard you have the Princess Bride.” A boy said, his voice echoing in her mind.

“I’m not done with it yet.” she muttered. Her voice was strange, almost floating up into the ether. Judy simply closed her eyes and drew back into her memories, returning to her hospital bed. She was small again, and so was he.

                                                            =

His hair was cropped, almost buzzed. And his brown eyes stared her down as she lay motionless in her bed. The flu that had overtaken Hawkins targeted children more than other demographics. The children’s ward was almost full to bursting with the infected, coughing with open mouths and sneezing, uninterrupted by rags, hands, or elbows.

Head throbbing and tight, it took all her might to turn her head and face this boy.

“Nuh-uh.” He reached over her body, taking the book from under her hand. “You can’t even move. How can you read if you can’t move?”

Judy could feel the tears well up in her eyes, croaking out, “please…I…I’m not done. I…haven’t gotten to the cliffs yet.” Her head felt so hot, her skin burned two inches below the surface.

“How do you know the book if you haven’t finished it yet?” he asked, narrowing his gaze in suspicion.

“My brother reads it to me all the time. And if I have it, he can read it to me when he comes to visit.” She blinked, allowing the tears to run down her temples and into her hair. “Have you…read it?”

He nodded, looking that the hardcover novel in his hands. “I’m good at reading.”

“I can’t read too good anymore.”

“How old are you?” The boy asked.

“I’m ten.”

“Me too.” He shifted his weight, wobbling his boredom away. “And you can’t read? That’s dumb.”

She turned her head away from him, tears falling on her pillow as she grew quiet.

“Don’t cry. I didn’t say you were dumb, just that you not reading is dumb.” He seemed worried, as if he realized he had made a mistake. “Hey.” He tugged at her shoulder, immediately causing Judy to whimper in pain. Her skin was hot, like the sidewalk in the summer. The boy drew his hand back and ran out of the ward.

She heard him run to the nurses’ station, and the boy shouting. “She’s real hot! Something’s wrong with her!”

“Who Eddie? Wrong with who?” Asked one of the women.

With urgency he simply yelled, “Come on!” Before two sets of shoes began running down the hall to the children’s ward.

Judy’s vision began to blur as her eyes rolled back and she lost consciousness. “She’s seizing.” The nurse muttered to herself before screaming for her coworkers to join her.

Judy returned to her body over an hour later, opening her eyes slowly, the pulsating consciousness seeping back into her in waves. But where she had expected to see the children’s ward, all she saw was white. “Mom…” She mumbled, “mom…”

A nurse’s beautiful voice broke through the silence, “It’s okay, Judy. You’re okay.”

Judy reached out a hand to touch where the voice came from, “mom?”

“No, honey, it’s Miss Harriet. Your nurse. Remember?”

“Everything’s white. I can’t see.” The little girl shifted in her bed. “What happened?”

“You had a seizure.” The nurse took Judy’s hand and held it, “But you’re okay now. Your friend came and got us.” Judy felt the nurse gently hold her eyelids open. “Now you said something about not being able to see?”

“Everything is white. I can’t.” Judy began to cry again.

“Shh, you’re alright, baby. I’ll go get the doctor. Don’t try to get up. Just stay here.” The nurse left briskly, as Judy could hear her footsteps.

The nurse returned with the doctor. They continued the examination. All the while the boy stood by his bed and waited. Obscured by the curtain that had been thrown around her bed, he could not see the girl who he had made cry.

But the girl, Judy, was quiet. She didn’t scream or cry loudly like the other children when the curtain was around them. Once they were done, she was left alone.

Judy heard another pair of feet approach, “Thanks…Eddie…” She spoke. She had guessed that was his name since that was what the nurse had called him earlier.

“Are you okay?” he asked sheepishly.

She nodded, “I think so. I just…I can’t see.”

“I heard if your fever gets too high, it happens. But maybe it won’t stay that way.” He paused, searching in his mouth for the right words to say, “since you can’t see, and you haven’t finished the book... If you want to, I can read to you.” He paused, before reiterating, “If you want to.”

“I’d like that a lot.” She smiled. There was a moment where a buzz traveled from the side of herself closest to him that only increased when she invited him to sit beside her. She could have asked him to sit on the stool used by the nurse during observation, but there was a part of her that wanted him close.

Eddie picked up where Judy had left off, as Fezzik had the princess on his back, preparing to climb the cliffs to the trap which would be planted for the mysterious stranger that followed them, who Judy already knew was the Dread Pirate Roberts.

                                                            =

If only she could be there again.

How long she had been in the bathroom, she did not know. But by the time she exited the room, now clean but still pale and drained from grief, Wayne Munson was standing in the hall.

“Shit, the room.” Judy scrambled to her brother Joey’s old room, a place that pained her to enter. Wayne’s footsteps gently followed behind her. Judy began reaching for the multitude of posters from the walls, blurting apologies before feeling a hand on her shoulder.

“You can leave them up, kiddo. It’s okay.” His voice was always soft, yet the strong rural drawl would always a certain strength she couldn’t quite place. It was a father’s voice.

She sighed, “it’s not. Your home is gone, and I didn’t even bother to prepare ours for you.” Judy turned, still in her robe, letting out an embarrassed chuckle. “It’s noon and I haven’t even gotten dressed yet.”

“You go ahead and get dressed. I can take care of myself.” Wayne squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.

Judy thanked him, leaving the room as it was, half redecorated into a suitable room for an adult guest and not an angsty young man with a drug habit. She returned to the seclusion of her room, closing the door behind her.

She joined the two adults an hour later, sitting on the couch, watching the television set. General Hospital, it was already 3pm. That meant she had taken three hours to do something that used to take 45 minutes. And yet, it took even more effort to make it down the steps and grab a pop from the fridge. Her aunt smiled at her. Wayne nodded. Judy only nodded back as she sat in the wingback chair in front of the window, joining the pair in consuming the television rays in silence.

Thank you for reading! This is a passion project of mine, and it means a lot that you are taking time out of your life to read this. Next chapter next week?

[noneatnonedotcom]

@suncrysthyper so with the modern set up of hyperboria being local republics federated into larger and larger citizen republics under the social and religious rule of the suncryst church with only warriors who've served their tour of service given franchisment, lets look at how industrial era institutions take hold and evolve towards more modern times. tax: with the publishing of progress and poverty by irishman Colm J. mac Kavanagh. in 1590 A.D the only tax is a land value tax based purely of of the price of the land itself and not any private property on it. this tax along with various terrifs on outside goods is more than enough to fund all government expenditure while still incentivising individuals to work harder and not taking away capital from people. furthermore what taxes do not get used are granted back to the people as a citizen's dividend. there are still rich people and poor but those who have fought for the empire will have not only their pensions but their citizen's dividend to pay for their needs after. and given the nature of the land value tax the various large landowners and incentivised to sell non productive land to citizens who will in turn develop it increasing the land value and thus the tax received. with the empire's continued defense of the republic of jerusilum there will always be a need for more warriors. "what is earned by the individual is given to them but what is earned by society is given back to society"

trade: free trade within the church is enforced but terrifs on other peoples like the french germans russians romans and Spanish ensure that internal development is encouraged rather than dependence on outside economies. unions: are allowed but they must be able to prove they actually work in the shops they are said to represent. banking: credit unions with members receiving dividends based on successful investments by the board. each ting-meet has it's own credit union which work together to form and fund the greater credit union of the kingdom which all work to form and fund the credit union of the empire. the stated goal of the imperial credit union is investment in the development of the empire's territory via industry and expansion of home ownership. political parties: there are only two, libritarians who argue that the government works best when not trying to insert itself into everyday life and focusing only on it's stated responcibilies, and the imperialists who feel that the empire has a responsibility to set up and protect suncryst republics across the globe in the same way the did with the americas. environmental protection: the church and royal family own certain areas in trust tax free that are basically national parks and have rules about pollution of waterways and air. since business men being rich grants them no greater power in the political system it's much easier to crack down on people who violate these regulations. meaning that the environment is far healthier in this industrial society than the environments of even the agrarian cities of medieval Europe their closest competitors. active wars: currently there's only one active war but it's one that seems to have no end in sight. the defense of Alexandria and jerusilum for the continuation of pigramages to these holy cities, though only jerusilum is a holy city for the church of suncryst the areas around these holy cities are under the rule of the republic of jerusilum a sister republic to the hyperborean empire. constant war is a result as the caliphates of the ottomans and and mamlukes have declared an eternal jihad against the empire and republic. the republic of constantinopal is also under the protection of the empire acting as a gateway into the black sea and it's trade. though the city itself is still greek orthodox. lemme know if you think of anything else that should be touched upon

[paypant]

8 Ways to Get Money from Scrap Metal

Scrap metal is an under-utilized asset that can help you make extra cash. With the right tools and knowledge, you can start your journey toward building a profitable scrap business today. Here are eight ways to earn money from scrap metal:

Scrap metal

What is scrap metal? It's a broad term encompassing anything made from metal that can be reused or recycled. This includes old cars, appliances like refrigerators and washing machines, tools, and machinery—even decorative items like ancient statues or fences can be considered scrap metal. The possibilities are endless! How do I collect scrap metal? If you have any business or work in the construction industry where you might encounter large amounts of discarded metal objects around town (like old cars), it's worth watching for them if they come your way. Otherwise, if you don't have one already built up through specific connections or professional contacts in the recycling field, it's time to start making some! Before proceeding, we must tell our readers that there are many laws specifically about this area of commerce. Please check with relevant governing bodies before acting on anything related hereon outwards.

Scrap bronze and copper

If you have any bronze or copper in your home, it can be sold for a pretty penny. Bronze is often used to make statues and other decorative items because of its beautiful color. Copper is commonly used in electrical wiring, cooking utensils, and roofing materials. Bronze and copper are precious metals that can be sold to scrap yards for cash! You may not realize how much bronze or copper is lying around your house until you start looking for it—many people don't realize how much they have until they start thinking about what to do with it. Selling scrap metal involves more than just picking up a phone and making an appointment with a local scrap yard (although this option is available). If you want to get the most money out of your unwanted items, consider these tips:

Scrap electrical wires

A wire is a widespread item. It can be sold by weight, length, gauge, type, or brand. Wire also comes in many different colors and insulation types. The price of scrap wire will depend on its composition and condition. For example: - Copper - $3 per pound - Brass - $1 per pound - Aluminum - $0.50 per pound

Old Appliances

- Copper, brass, and aluminum - Lead and other hazardous materials - Steel and iron - Plastic and other non-ferrous metals (these can be recycled for scrap metal) - Cast iron (this is usually sent through a shredder) * Stainless steel, which is not typically found in old appliances but can be found in jewelry (such as a watch strap), electronics equipment such as mobile phones, MP3 players, or laptops, cutlery and even building supplies like window frames.

Old car parts and rims

Old car parts and rims can earn you a nice chunk of change, especially if your city has a lot of auto shops or scrap metal yards. - Car parts: - Car batteries - Car engines (careful with these—they're heavy and sometimes dangerous) - Fenders (the metal part by the wheel) - Tires (you might need to sell them in pairs) - Car rims: - Tail lights: These are usually sold as a pair. A good seller will have both in working order and can tell you if they're cracked or not. You should also check that they aren't bent up; this makes them harder to sell later on down the line! - Headlights: Headlights are another common type of scrap metal that sells well, but they can be tricky because they're often expensive when bought new. If yours still functions correctly, it could pay very well for itself when it comes to the sale.

Old plumbing fixtures (faucets, showers, etc.)

Old plumbing fixtures (faucets, showers, etc.) can add up to decent profits. They're made of metal and easy to recycle and sell at scrap yards. If you have a metal detector, search around in old houses or buildings being torn down—you might find some hidden treasures. Now that you know what plumbing fixtures are and how much money they can be worth, it's time to start your treasure hunt. Here's everything else you need to know about collecting old plumbing fixtures: - What is a plumbing fixture? A plumbing fixture is any part of your water system that connects directly with the pipe itself; for example, faucets and showerheads are all part of this category. All these types need regular replacement throughout their lifetime due to wear-and-tear caused by heavy use over time (or if something breaks). That said... - What are some excellent sources for finding these items? Try searching through old houses before demolishing—they may contain hidden gems like these! You'll also want to look around town if there weren't any homes nearby that might've had most of their materials recycled already."

Old tools

Old tools, like wrenches and other hand tools, are usually steel. Steel is a valuable metal that can be recycled into new steel products. Most scrap yards will pay you in cash or give you store credit for old tools.

Aluminum cans

Aluminum cans are the most valuable scrap metal, costing about $0.50-$1.00 per pound (valued at the same rate as copper and brass). According to the US EPA, aluminum is also the most recycled item in America. That's because recycling aluminum saves 95 percent of its energy and 50 percent of its raw material value compared to producing it from scratch—and that's good news for your pocketbook.

Highest paying scrap metal near me

Now that you know where to find scrap yards, we can discuss how to find the best one for your needs. If you're selling scrap metal, you must look for a firm that pays a fair price and has been in business for a while. You can often tell this by looking at their website—if they have one! Most recyclers will have an active social media presence and post pictures of what they've picked up recently or are currently buying.

Another valuable resource is Yelp; many people leave reviews on their favorite shops and provide valuable insight into what makes each place special (or not). An experienced recycler can tell if a customer is taking advantage of them, so don't try anything funny—they'll spot it instantly.

How do scrap yards make money?

Scrap yards make money by buying scrap metal. This might seem obvious, but it's worth noting that scrap yards pay for scrap metal by weight, not by the pound or the ton or even the kilogram. If you want to get paid more for your metal, you need to ensure it weighs more than whatever weight they're currently paying for. An excellent way to increase the weight of your metal is through sorting. If you are removing screws from an old piece of furniture before bringing it into a yard, remove all of them and put them into one pile so that when you weigh your items in the yard, they don't get counted as additional ounces due to their small size. That way, only larger pieces are being considered and added to your total sale cost.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I make money from scrap? You can make money from scrap metal by recycling it. If you have a pile of old, rusted car parts and other metal scraps that require recycling, there are several ways to turn them into cash. Sell Your Scrap Copper for Cash It's easy to find buyers for copper wire, pipes, tubing, and other items made of this precious material. Whether you're looking to sell your scrap copper as-is or melt down the materials at home before selling them on eBay or Craigslist is up to you—but either way, it will benefit your wallet! Recycle Aluminum Beverage Cans Into Money The metals inside aluminum beverage cans (aluminum itself) are also valuable and worth money when sold separately from their plastic coatings on either end (the "tin-plated steel shell"). Will scrap prices go up in 2021? The price of scrap metal has been downward since the late 2000s, and it's expected to continue falling for the next few years. According to MetalMiner, global prices could drop by up to 10% in 2021 relative to their current levels (which are already low). Scrap prices rose in 2018 due to increased demand from China, which had started buying lots of recycled materials as part of its "Green Fence Initiative." However, this spike was short-lived. We saw prices drop by about 20% throughout 2019 and are now below where they were before the Green Fence went into effect. While some may look at these numbers and assume there's no point in selling scrap metal anymore—why to bother if your earnings will be so low?—that view isn't entirely accurate. While making money off your junk isn't always easy or guaranteed (and it certainly won't happen overnight), there are ways you can make sure that whatever profit you do make is as high as possible by taking advantage of what's out there right now: How do you collect scraps? Once you've found potential leads on companies locally in your area that buy or process scrap metal from homeowners like yourself - take note! These businesses will often have different requirements for how much material needs to be delivered per load, so make sure whatever amount fits within those guidelines before filling up any vehicles with junked electronics. What pays the most at a scrapyard? Aluminum- The most common of the metals listed here, aluminum does not have as high a value per pound as copper, but it is much lighter. For this reason, it is ideal for larger projects. Copper- With a higher value per pound than aluminum or steel, copper is another popular choice among scrap metal buyers because of its malleability and durability. It's also environmentally friendly because it can be recycled repeatedly without losing integrity. Steel- While steel has less value per pound than copper or aluminum, it's still worth noting as one of the most common types of scrap metal found at your local scrap yard or recycling center. Steel also boasts excellent durability when compared to other materials such as plastic and wood (both useful in construction projects), so if you're looking for something strong enough to build with but doesn't require much time or money upfront, then consider collecting some old pipes from plumbing jobs around town before heading over to your local recycling center tomorrow morning. Brass/Bronze - These two metals are similar enough that we've grouped them here on our list; both have similar properties, like being malleable when heated up (which makes them great candidates for manufacturing new products out there). However, unlike brass which contains zinc along with other metals like lead, which make they are unsuitable for use in many industries today (due to regulations). Bronze consists only of carbon dioxide mixed with tin dioxide making these two materials quite different from each other despite having similar uses today thanks to past centuries when they were both commonly used. How do I start my own scrap business? Getting a truck and trailer is the first step to starting your scrap metal business. You can use this equipment to go out and collect scrap yourself or sell it directly to a scrap yard, processor, dealer, or another buyer. The next step is to find a location. You can set up a shop in your backyard or rent space from another business. If you have capital, purchasing land and building a facility yourself is possible. What is the most profitable material to recycle? The most profitable scrap metal is aluminum, followed by copper. Copper is used in many electrical and electronic products, so it's easy to see how that could be a hot commodity. Metal recycling isn't just for making new metals; it can also be used to make other products like jewelry, eyeglass frames, and clothing. If you're looking to get involved with the recycling industry, here are some things to consider: - The cost of shipping your items back home from where they were picked up (if applicable) will be deducted from your total earnings at the end of each month/year, depending on your chosen payment plan. - If there are any costs associated with retrieving your items after they've been sold off, such as storage fees or transportation expenses, then those costs will also be deducted from your earnings at the end of each month/year, depending on which payment plan you choose

Summary

These are all great items to collect to get some extra money. There are many ways to collect scrap metal. Here are a few: - The first place to look is in your home and yard, where you may have old appliances, tools, or other items made of steel. These can be sold for money at a recycling center or junkyard. - If you don't want to go out looking for scrap metal yourself, ask friends and neighbors if they have any pieces lying around that they don't need anymore—they may be willing to part with some if you offer them cash in return! - If all else fails, consider checking out your local recycling center or junkyard; people often donate items because they no longer need them but don't see any value in selling them online for very little money (or nothing at all). At Scrap King, we're committed to offering you the best scrap metal prices in town. We also want to ensure that your experience with us is positive. Read the full article

[redrobin-detective]

the only ghost in Amity Park

Continuation of Half Of

______________________________________________

Only in Amity Park did the revelation that a local teenager was sorta, kinda a ghost just blow over in a few days. Sure, people still stared at Danny Fenton as he walked by and everyone was still wondering what exactly he was, but overall life had moved on. Star sighed to herself as she organized her notebooks, waiting for class to begin. Just another day.

Star herself really didn’t want to get involved in whatever was going on with Danny. She didn’t like him before he was a celebrity and didn’t plan on starting anytime soon. While Paulina still relentlessly, and vainly, pumped him for information on her dead boy crush, Phantom and he and Dash formed some weird macho bond or whatever, Star avoided him. He’d given her the chills since the day he’d walked into Casper High. When Danny’s secret had been exposed mid-attack, Star hadn’t been surprised. She didn’t need some ghost to tell her that there was something deeply, unsettlingly wrong with Danny Fenton.

Danny didn’t seem particular bothered, by his inhuman nature or by suddenly having his secret exposed. If anything, the nerd looked more relaxed than ever. Star had been watching him, they all had, but Fenton kept his ghostly antics to a minimum when in public. The occasional flash of green eyes when emotional, a grin of sharpened teeth. He made Mikey’s locker lock intangible the other day when the kid had forgotten his combination and he floated down the stairs instead of walking sometimes. It had been a week and it was  frightening how quickly such strangeness had become almost normal. 

“Alright kids, phones and notes away we’re starting class with a pop quiz. Hope you’ve all kept up with your weekly readings,” Faluca announced cheerily. The whole class, including Fenton, moaned and packed up their bags. Star supposed being an undead being haunting his own life didn’t make him immune from normal human problems. She was biting her lip trying to remember which antibody caused allergic reactions when she got an uneasy feeling. She looked up and was not surprised to see Danny Fenton looking around too. It had been a solid week without ghost attacks, looks like Fenton’s supposed vacation time was up.

Star stopped her writing and adjusted the bag at her feet to prep for evacuation. She briefly wondered what Fenton would do, what he could do? Did he also hunt ghosts, like his parents? Like Phantom? There were no blasts, no screams, no monologues but the dread increased when a ghost shield descended over them. Actually, it looked like it was just covering their classroom. Now everyone was looking up from their quizzes and out the window at the flickering, green shield.

“You’d think the administration would’ve warned me we were going to do a drill,” Faluca said but his voice was hesitant. Clearly this wasn’t planned so despite the lack of alarms, there was a good chance this was real. “Pencils down for the moment while I figure out what’s going on.”

“Mr. Faluca, I need to go,” Danny said, raising his hand. Star was so used to hearing the request she almost ignored him but the dread curling in her stomach made her look again. His face was pinched, sharp and his eyes burned with an icy fury like a sudden storm blowing in without warning. 

“Mr. Fenton, I don’t think...” Faluca murmured uneasily. Danny frowned harder.

“It wasn’t a request, actually,” Danny said roughly as he stood up and began walking towards the door. He was almost there when the door slammed open and Fenton had no less than 3 ectoweapons pointed in his face. A few kids jumped back in alarm but Danny held his ground as half a dozen Guys in White agents entered the room and surrounded him.

“Spectral scum formerly known as Daniel Fenton, you’re coming with us,” one of the agents said. 

“Danny not Daniel and it’s still my name,” Danny quipped, eyeing each of the government officials and their weapons. “And no, I’m not. I’m still alive, somewhat anyway, so I have rights. The courts backed me up.”

“Everyone who signed for your freedom doesn’t know ghosts like we do,” Another agent said so forcefully, some spittle flew out of their mouth and hit Danny’s cheek. Star watched it freeze and fall away the instant it hit his skin. “Your kind are too dangerous to wander around, you need to be contained and eliminated. Don’t worry, your parents will receive a sizable check as recompense.”

“I’m the one who needs to be contained?” Danny said slowly, evenly but there was a static to his voice that caused the hairs on the back of Star’s neck to rise. When she breathed out, she saw her breath was misting. Everyone’s was as the room temperature continued to plummet. “When you come in here and take hostages to threaten me?” Danny hissed, he took a step forward and his eyes took on a neon green glow. “You didn’t come to my home or on the streets, you came to take me in the middle of biology when I’m surrounded by civilians, kids.”

“You delude yourself into thinking you’re still human,” another agent scoffed. “Everyone knows ghosts are weaker when giving into their obsession.” Danny laughed, it was loud and mocking and like fingernails running down a chalkboard. Faluca, stuck in between Danny and the agents, was white as a sheet and gripping his desk like it was the only thing keeping him from collapsing.

“You know nothing,” Danny hissed, his voice barely recognizable as human. His hair and shirt floated in an invisible but angry breeze. Frost crawled up his arms and his face. Various ecto alarms were ringing on the belts of the agents and they started to look a bit nervous. He looked nothing like the kid who, minutes before, had clearly been struggling with their bio quiz. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with. You cannot come into my haunt and threaten my people to get to me. Protecting what is mine will always make me stronger!” 

“This whole town is constantly under attack because of things like you!” One particularly brave agent said even as a few others had backed up. “Amity Park is on the verge of collapse because of all the ghosts!”

“There is only one ghost in Amity Park,” Danny said, he tilted his head, his black and white hair dangling in his face as he gave a sharpened smile. “There is only me and the ghosts I allow, ghosts who know the rules, who respect my authority here by keeping damage to people and property down. I am the only ghost haunting this town and why do you think that is?” One agent threw down his gun and ran through the open door.

“You’re-you’re a monster!” Another woman shouted, shaking as she stepped back before fleeing.

“I’m not the one who needs to threaten innocents to get to their target,” Danny sneered. “It’s a good thing you did though, I wouldn’t hold back if I wasn’t worried about collateral.” Another three agents turned tail and ran. Until there was only one left. His gun was still trained on Danny but his hands were shaking. 

“You don’t scare us,” the agent trembled through the obvious lie having been abandoned by his comrades. “We’ll get you monster, if it’s the last thing we do.”

“Looking forward to it,” Danny drawled sarcastically as some of his horrifying aura dissipated along with the freezing grip on the room. Within moments Danny has settled back into more human form. While he’d been angry before, now he looked almost bored. At no point had he seemed afraid. 

“You take your people and your equipment and you leave Amity’s borders by sunset tonight,” Danny declared resolutely. “If you have continued problems with my existence, you take it up with the courts. We settle this as humans but if you treat me as a ghost then I will fight back like one.” His eyes turned green again as a threat. As a promise. 

“I don’t take orders from spooks!” The agent shouted, securing his finger on the trigger and preparing to fire. Star had ducked to avoid the blast so she missed exactly what happened. All she saw was the green glow and heard a strangled scream from the agent followed by a series of thumps. By the time Star had gotten back into her seat, Danny was aggressively pulling apart the ectogun with his bare hands. There was no sign of the agent and, around them, the ghost shield fizzled away. 

“Jerks,” Danny grumbled, kicking at the remains of the ectogun he’d destroyed. “Sorry about that, Mr. Faluca. I knew they’d cause problems but I didn’t think they’d come to school.” Their teacher stared at Danny like a rabbit facing down a lion. “You okay?”

“Fine, Mr. Fenton, just fine!” Falcua grinned in a high pitched voice. “Shall we get back to our quizzes?” The bell rang just then and Danny did a little fist pump.

“Tomorrow then? After I get a chance to study more?” Danny asked with puppy dog eyes. It looked wrong on his face that had just threatened the government with bodily harm. Faluca just nodded dumbly, not sure what else to say. “Yes! I’ll pass tomorrow for sure. The attention kinda sucks but it does come with some perks.”

He walked back to his desk, ignoring the wide-eyed looks of the class when he stopped and gasped, his breath fogging in front of him. His lips pursed again with annoyance. A few people jumped in surprise as the Box Ghost, a familiar annoyance, poked his head through the wall.

“Child! Your requested reprieve is up and the Box Ghost is here to cause insurmountable square shenanigans!” He laughed heartily, stopping when the room temperature dropped again. Danny didn’t even turn to face the ghost. 

“Your watch is off, Boxy. I have another 10 hours before I have to deal with you annoyances again,” Danny growled. “I’m feeling good right now, take advantage of it and leave in one piece.”

“Uh right okay then,” the ghost stammered, sinking back into the wall. “See you tomorrow.” Danny cracked his neck before he walked to his desk, grabbed his things and walked to the front of the room.

“Late bell’s gonna ring any minute, you guys should hurry if you don’t wanna be late,” Danny said as he left. Falcua’s strength gave out as soon as Fenton was gone and he hit the floor, one hand clutching at his chest.

“Jeepers,” Mikey surmised appropriately before stuffing his things in his bag and leaving as well. Star watched everyone loosen up themselves and begin gathering their things to leave. No, she would never like Danny Fenton but he and his ghost weirdness was just part of the deal now, whether they wanted it or not. Such was life in the most haunted city in America which was only haunted by a single ghostly entity.

[bevioletskies]

dream a little dream of me

summary: Ryunosuke had never been one for gloomy, rainy weather, had always preferred the comforting warmth of a clear, sunny day. When a particularly heavy rainstorm keeps him and Kazuma in bed for hours on end, he finds himself slowly starting to think otherwise.

word count: 2.4k | read on ao3

a/n: For @asoryuu-week, day four of seven (prompt: "domestic"). This fic takes place post-Resolve; mild spoiler warning for Adventures and Resolve, where events may be alluded to but not described in detail. All names and honorifics are taken from the official localization, with the exception of Sherlock and Iris.

Fic title is from the song Dream A Little Dream Of Me by The Mamas & The Papas.

“Remind me, Ryunosuke, what is it they say about a heavy head? Because yours is certainly making it harder for me to breathe.”

Ryunosuke sighed, lifting his supposedly heavy head from his partner’s chest to level him with a sleepy glare. “Good morning to you, too. Must you demean me before we’ve even gotten out of bed?”

Kazuma’s warm, slightly raspy laughter soothed Ryunosuke somewhat, though he still couldn’t help but feel slightly irritated. “Well, it’s hardly my fault you’re so fun to tease. No one else reacts quite like you do.” Then, Kazuma cupped Ryunosuke’s jaw in one hand, running his thumb across Ryunosuke’s mouth. “And I mean that in all manner of things, if you get my meaning.”

“You’re terrible,” Ryunosuke informed him, though he allowed Kazuma to kiss him anyway, grunting slightly when Kazuma rolled over to straddle him, sinking his entire body into Ryunosuke’s, fingers digging into his sides. “Mm...Kazuma, th-they’re waiting for us downstairs - ”

“Let them wait,” Kazuma murmured, playfully nibbling Ryunosuke’s bottom lip. One of his hands had now moved to Ryunosuke’s thigh, caressing him teasingly. “It’s been too long since we’ve had some time to ourselves.”

“You were only here two nights ago,” Ryunosuke said breathlessly; Kazuma’s mouth had quickly made its way from his neck to his collarbone, leaving a heated trail of kisses down the length of his throat. “Remember? That’s when I finally agreed to - ”

“Ry-u! Kazz-y! Won’t you be joining us for breakfast?”

“Damn,” Kazuma muttered, reluctantly climbing off so he could smooth out the front of his jinbei. Despite Ryunosuke’s continued annoyance at Kazuma’s insatiable nature, if he wanted to put it kindly, he also couldn’t help but admire how flushed Kazuma’s ears, neck, and chest had become in the last few minutes alone. “We’ll be right there, Iris, sorry for keeping you!”

“That’s okay!” Iris called back, her footsteps already beginning to fade away. “Just as long as you’re both properly dressed, alright?”

Ryunosuke groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “This is all your fault, you know that?” Kazuma merely scoffed, rifling through his bag so he could find the fresh set of clothes he’d packed for his overnight stay. “Though I suppose nothing will ever be as bad as the time you pulled me aside in the middle of an investigation and - ”

“I thought we both found that to be a thrilling and memorable experience, but fine,” Kazuma said with a dramatic sigh. “I’ll see to it that we won't try anything that adventurous ever again.”

“We almost got caught!” Ryunosuke exclaimed, agitatedly flapping his shirt in Kazuma’s face. “Don’t you realize how much trouble we would’ve been in?”

Kazuma stared at Ryunosuke in complete and utter disbelief. “...Ryunosuke, you’ve committed treason. You’ve implicated so many government officials, exposed so many government secrets - ”

“...all the more reason not to take a chance?” Ryunosuke offered sheepishly. “Anyway, let’s get dressed before they come looking for us again. I swear I can hear Susato-san’s footsteps coming up the stairs.”

A little over an hour later, Ryunosuke, Kazuma, and Susato returned to the attic, pleasantly sleepy from the generous meal that Iris had prepared for everyone. The rain was still thumping against the windowpane, an erratic tap-tap-tap that filled the entire room, rendering the three of them barely able to hear themselves or each other.

“I know you were planning on returning to your own flat, Kazuma-sama, but I would advise against it in a storm like this,” Susato mused, momentarily brushing the curtains aside so she could look out over the soggy, sorry state of London’s streets. “And I’m sure Naruhodo-san wouldn’t complain if you stayed.”

“I’m sure as well, though Ryunosuke is clearly in no position to answer either way,” Kazuma said dryly, gesturing in Ryunosuke’s direction, where he was currently curled up on the floor by Susato’s tea set, half-asleep and hugging his daruma to his chest. Susato watched, giggling, as Kazuma walked over to gently prod Ryunosuke in the shoulder with his foot. “Come now, Ryu, don’t make me carry you back to bed.”

“We both know you’d like that,” Ryunosuke mumbled. Susato only just managed to refrain from rolling her eyes at them - she’d been privy to far too many of their supposedly private conversations for her liking - instead electing to pat Kazuma on the arm.

“I think this is the perfect weather for a nap, personally,” she said, looking at him meaningfully. “If you plan on returning to bed as well, I can let Iris and Mr Holmes know not to disturb any of us until dinner.”

“That would be great, Susato-san, thank you,” Kazuma said sincerely, though he secretly suspected she just wanted to leave them be. Once she disappeared back down the stairs, he looked down at Ryunosuke with an irrevocably fond sigh. “Ryunosuke…”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘m getting up,” Ryunosuke yawned, reluctantly pulling himself to his feet. “Bed?” Grinning, Kazuma wordlessly took Ryunosuke by the hand and led him towards his bedroom - their bedroom, really, given how often he stayed over these days. Moments later, they clumsily tumbled back into bed, having changed into their sleepclothes once more.

“You’ve still got a bit of egg on your face,” Kazuma observed, wiping Ryunosuke’s cheek. “How does this keep happening to you?”

“Eat too fast,” Ryunosuke murmured, turning to kiss the palm of Kazuma’s hand. “Food...good.”

“Your grasp of both the Japanese and the English language is incredible,” Kazuma drawled, carding his fingers through Ryunosuke’s hair. He then pulled him closer, burying his face into Ryunosuke’s neck. “I thought you went back home to finish school, did you not? Surely you can do better than ‘food good’.”

“You’re so mean to me,” Ryunosuke said, sighing, letting out an exaggerated exhale directly in Kazuma’s face. Still, he turned over so he could wrap his arms around Kazuma’s waist, snuggling contentedly into his chest. “I really should just kick you out and make you go home.” Laughing, Kazuma kissed the top of his head.

“Not in this weather, you wouldn’t,” Kazuma replied. As if to illustrate his point, there was a loud, thunderous crack that practically shook the entire room. “If this storm keeps up, I might have to live here indefinitely.” Ryunosuke merely grunted in response. “Well, you don’t have to sound so pleased about it.”

“Oh - no, it’s not that,” Ryunosuke reassured him, sitting up somewhat so he could look Kazuma in the eye. Despite Kazuma’s typical brusque, yet affectionate nature, he could tell that Kazuma was slightly hurt. “I was just thinking about how much I dislike storms. Rain is fine on occasion, but...it seems as if London is in a permanent state of misery sometimes, you know? And it makes us miserable all the while.”

Kazuma’s clouded expression cleared up instantly. “It’s been ages since we’ve had sunshine,” he agreed, now dropping his head to rest on Ryunosuke’s shoulder. “It would’ve been nice to go for a walk together before I leave...whenever that is.”

“Like we used to do before class,” Ryunosuke said quietly, nodding. “You could never convince me to join you during your morning exercises, though.”

“Forget morning exercise, I had to literally drag you out of bed sometimes,” Kazuma snorted, tangling their fingers together. “I hear Susato-san hasn’t had any luck with getting you to exercise more, either.”

“I exercise enough,” Ryunosuke huffed, pinching Kazuma’s side; much to his dismay, Kazuma merely laughed in response. “I do plenty of pacing up and down during trials, you see.”

“I do see,” Kazuma teased. “I should look for permanent scuff marks behind the defense bench and the witness stand the next time we’re in court. You have a tendency to drag your feet, after all.”

Rolling his eyes, Ryunosuke made a show of yanking his hand out of Kazuma’s grasp and turning over with his back to him, pulling his side of the blankets over his head. “...I’m really starting to think you have nothing nice to say about me at all.”

Even when he wasn’t looking at him, he could tell Kazuma was smirking. “Oh, I think I praise you plenty. But in case you were wanting to hear it…” In one quick motion, Kazuma swept the bundled-up Ryunosuke into his arms, Ryunosuke’s back pressed against his chest, his breath ghosting the shell of Ryunosuke’s ear. “...I love you, Ryunosuke. And I’ll say it as many times as you’d like; all you need to do is ask.”

“Wonderful, now I just sound needy,” Ryunosuke said, sighing yet again, though he craned his neck to kiss Kazuma anyway, tossing the blanket around his shoulders so they were both enveloped in its warmth. Kazuma slowly lowered him onto his back, onto the mattress, knees braced on either side of Ryunosuke’s hips, fingers digging into Ryunosuke’s waist.

“You can insult me back, I don’t mind,” Kazuma murmured, sucking a bruising kiss along the crook of Ryunosuke’s jaw. Though they’d crawled back into bed for a nap, Ryunosuke was starting to feel more and more alert by the second. “Do your worst.”

Ryunosuke hummed, thinking. “...sometimes, you try too hard. You need to relax more, Kazuma. There have been some jurors and witnesses who’ve been intimidated by you, even though you aren’t trying to be malicious.”

“Fair enough.” Kazuma’s voice was low, raspy, sending shivers up Ryunosuke’s spine. “Anything else?”

“You have a bad habit of interrupting people,” Ryunosuke continued, prodding Kazuma in the chest with an accusatory finger. “Even Iris seemed annoyed with you last night, when she was asking us about our latest trial. I know you think you were helping, but I can speak for myself just fine. We’re not in school anymore.”

“...ah.” Kazuma looked humbled, almost remorseful. “I...I’m sorry, Ryu, I didn’t realize. I honestly thought we were just telling them about what happened together.”

“And you need to stop biting me like I’m a piece of meat - ”

“No one can see them!”

“Kazuma, you're doing it again - ”

“Doing wh - oh.” Kazuma burrowed his face into Ryunosuke’s chest, cheeks burning hot with shame. Ryunosuke couldn’t help but laugh; it wasn’t often that he got to embarrass Kazuma and render him speechless. “I...see that I’m not quite the partner I’d thought or, or hoped I was.”

“Last, but definitely not least - ” Ryunosuke abruptly took Kazuma’s face in one hand, squeezing his cheeks until his lips puckered “ - you don’t need to be quite so dramatic, either. I still love you all the same, Kazuma.” He smirked. “And I’ll say it as many times as you’d like; all you need to do is ask.”

Kazuma stared down at him with wide, imploring eyes. Then, he cocked his head to one side, his frown melting into a warm, radiant smile. “...again.”

“I love you.” Ryunosuke kissed Kazuma’s cheek, then the tip of his nose, then finally, his lips. Beaming, Kazuma kissed him back, a little sweeter this time, a little less sensual. “Especially because you’re a little needy, too.”

They fell silent for a few minutes, save for the steady sounds of the rain and thunder and wind whistling past their window, exchanging slow, languorous kisses and simply enjoying one other’s company. Though Kazuma spent more nights at Baker Street than not, in a way, it still felt as if they had months, even years, of lost time to make up for, even though they hadn’t been apart - or a part of each other’s lives, for that matter - for that long. It was times like these that Ryunosuke found himself reminiscing about their university days, the early days of their companionship, when they’d have spirited debates that ended in spirited laughter and meandering conversations about nothing in particular.

“I can hear you thinking, partner,” Kazuma murmured, brushing Ryunosuke’s hair out of his eyes. “Something wrong?”

“No, not at all,” Ryunosuke said, pulling away momentarily to yawn. “Only that we were supposed to be taking a nap, and instead, we spent the last ten minutes poking fun at each other. Though I suppose that’s just an extension of the way we speak to each other in court at times.”

“Susato-san has been scolding you about that as well, has she? Perhaps we do need to - I need to be more careful,” Kazuma corrected hastily when Ryunosuke leveled him with an impressively Kazuma-like glare. “Though we’d be in even more trouble if I were to, say, openly comment on how handsome you looked in court just last week, when your hair was a little bit longer in the back. I thought it suited you.”

“Why do we need to be in trouble at all?” Ryunosuke retorted, elbowing him a little harder than necessary. “I’d rather we do our jobs like the proper lawyers that we are - ”

“Well-behaved schoolboys, you mean,” Kazuma teased.

“ - and come home at the end of the day, where we can do as we please,” Ryunosuke finished.

Kazuma looked at him consideringly, his gaze impossibly soft. “Ryunosuke Naruhodo, are you implying you’d like me to move in someday?”

“What? I - ” Ryunosuke stared at him, momentarily stunned. Then, he relaxed, his head dropping back to his pillow, where Kazuma followed him down, their eyes still locked. “I, er...I thought that was a given. Though I worry that...that people might talk, as they’re wont to do.”

“Professor Mikotoba lived here with Mr Holmes for some time, did he not?” Kazuma pointed out. “Besides, even if people talk, why listen? All that matters is what we think of ourselves, as trite as that might sound.” He leaned in close, pressing a lingering kiss to Ryunosuke’s forehead. “So, just know that whenever you decide to ask, you already have my answer.”

“Then I think I’ll make you wait for just a little bit longer before I do...if only to get back at you for two nights ago,” Ryunosuke added with a smug smile, laughing when Kazuma glared daggers at him in response.

“And you think I’m the cruel one,” Kazuma muttered, pulling Ryunosuke into his arms once more so he could hold him rather possessively, their legs loosely intertwined beneath their mess of blankets. “You told me you enjoyed yourself.”

“I did, believe me,” Ryunosuke grinned, blushing faintly at the sudden vivid memory that had come to mind. “But just this once, I’d like to have the upper hand.” He then leaned in to kiss Kazuma’s exaggerated pout. “Anyway, we really should be getting to sleep now, or it’ll be time for dinner before we know it. I can barely keep my eyes open at this rate.”

“Agreed,�� Kazuma said, yawning. He shuffled closer, dropping his forehead down to rest against Ruynosuke’s. “Good...morning, Ryunosuke.”

Ryunosuke shot him one last sleepy, fond smile before letting his eyes drift shut. “Good morning to you, too, Kazuma.”

_____

a/n: Welcome to my fourth entry for Asoryuu Week 2021! We've moved on from sad Kazuma hours to semi-horny Kazuma hours, I guess? Blame it on Kazuma talking about getting Ryunosuke off and holding his hand over a hot plate and finding ways to shut him up; you can't tell me he's not doing this at least a little bit on purpose. Anyway, I always love writing plotless cuddling fics where they basically talk about nothing. I could've made this way, way longer, easy, but we've still got three more days to go!

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! Likes and reblogs would be much appreciated, and I hope you're all safe and healthy and doing well ❤️

[need-a-fugue]

Trustworthy (Chapter 4)

Summary: You’ve spent the last three years teaming up with Santiago Garcia on every mission you had a hand in coordinating… and the past several months plotting with him to take down the biggest bad to hit your radar. But even all your time at the DEA and all your experience in the field couldn’t have prepared you for this.

Pairing: Frankie “Catfish” Morales x Fem!Reader (slow burn)

Warnings: Violence, language

Okay, yeah, sure, fine, you and Santi might not have been 100% honest about what you were planning in the jungle.

In fairness, neither of you ever actually said that this recon mission was at the behest of the CNP or Colombian military or any other government entity. You may have hinted at it. You may have neglected to correct the guys when they assumed. But you never actually told them that anyone had requested the raid on Lorea’s house.

What you had said was that there was a good chance this could turn into… something more. Something that might end up in a hefty pay day for all of you. You just never told the group of men that you and Garcia were actually banking on it.

You didn’t love the idea of lying to a bunch of strangers whom – if they agreed to everything – would end up holding your very life in their hands. Frankly, just the thought of doing so felt… sleezy. Especially considering that these men were Santi’s trusted friends. His brothers. But Santiago insisted that it needed to be played this way – They’ll never go for it if we tell them what we’re really up to. But I promise you, bonita, once they’re here, once they see… they’ll be all in.

He clearly knew his team because after just that single two-hour recce, a couple rounds of beers at a local bar, and a rather stirring, pointed speech, they were, in fact, all in.

And why not, really? The only one of them who had anything to lose – a family beyond those seen at the occasional holiday, wedding, or funeral – was Tom. And he’d been struggling so badly lately with impending alimony and child support and two kids’ worth of college tuitions – eight years minimum – that the money alone did all of their convincing for them.

It was illegal, yes. It was, as the captain said, “downright criminal.” But it wasn’t wrong. And as long as everything went according to plan, no one would know anything about any of it.

In the end, the world would be down at least one piece-of-shit, megalomaniacal drug lord murderer.

Some of the struggling people of Leticia – because you and Santi had promised each other and Yovanna that you’d drop a good chunk of the money into the hands of local charities – would have better lives.

Tom’s girls could go to college without having to worry about paying off student loans until they die.

Will could finally get rid of his old junker and buy a nice car – maybe not the Ferrari Ben was angling for, but a nice car all the same – to get him back and forth across the country for all those rousing speeches he insisted he would not stop giving.

Benny could invest in better training, at better gyms with better equipment… and real trainers. Or, hell, he could give all that shit up and quit getting his ass handed to him by kids ten years his junior, all in the hopes of capturing what was almost always one hell of a disappointing purse.

And Frankie? Well, Frankie wasn’t sure what he’d do with his share. But it sure would be nice to not have to worry so damn much. To not have to scramble to make the house payment every month. To not have to beg that dick who owns the local airfield to let him take on a few jobs just so he could settle into a cockpit for a bit. To maybe have the time – and funds – to take a woman on a date every now and then… not that he had a clue who that woman might be.

And you and Santi? Well, after years of accomplishing nothingin the fight against Lorea – the fight against the drug trade that had ruined and taken so many lives around the world – you two could finally say that you’d actually made a difference. Even if you couldn’t quite say it aloud for everyone to hear.

000

By the time you get to the compound early Sunday morning, rain’s already been falling for hours. The area’s nearly flooded, so your off-road path is basically a sprawling swampland. You barely slept, your hip is aching like crazy from an old injury, and the minute you step out of the SUV you damn near squeal like a stuck pig as you suddenly sink up to your calf in thick, sucking mud.

“Shit,” Frankie mutters under his breath – under a breathless laugh, you’re pretty sure – as he hops out and wraps a steadying arm around your waist. “Let me help,” he says, the words so soft, you can barely hear them over the unyielding pounding of the rain.

You try to balance, holding onto the door, one foot just barely sinking into the soft earth as Frankie leans down to pry the other from what feels like an utterly engulfing quicksand. He struggles, still holding you around the waist while his left hand works to grip your leg, your boot, your ankle… whatever he can wrap his fingers around. But it’s no use. The op has yet to even begin and already you’re stuck. In the disgusting mud. Deep in the endless jungle. With no hope of ever getting out.

You let out a painfully dramatic, completely despairing sigh and glance up only to see Benny laughing. Really laughing… not even trying to hide his utter, unabashed amusement at your awful predicament. You shoot him as threatening a glare as you can muster. But it only makes him laugh harder.

“Go get into position,” Tom orders, slapping him on the shoulder and shaking his head – once again in a seemingly all-too-practiced dadway – before he bends down to help Frankie out.

Finally, finally, the two men manage to free you. Shockingly, your boot leaves the earth as well, though you can feel the muck inside squelching beneath your instep and in between your toes. Your lip curls in disgust as you haphazardly wipe the boot – bottom, sides, and top – on the wheel well, a bit of mud getting squeezed out near your ankle as you do so. “I’m gonna get jungle rot,” you mutter bitterly as you continue to smear grime along the body of the SUV.

Tom swats your leg away. “Just be sure you don’t give away your location with all the squishing,” he says with a hint of a smile. Then, patting Frankie on the back, he finishes with a much more stern, “Let’s do this,” and takes off to find his position, face and shoulders both set as he easily drops into soldier mode.

“I’m still not sure if I like that guy,” you begin as you and Frankie head for the high ground, “or really freaking hate him.”

He bites out a quick laugh, turns to show off that too-damn-perfect smile, and replies with an easygoing, “Yup.”

Once you make it out of your drop-in point, everything else seems to be smooth sailing. The worst part is just waiting, especially with the rain. Waiting for Garcia’s informant to drop off the van. Waiting for the guards to leave for church, the family not so quickly following suit. Waiting for the guys to move in – Frankie shooting a quick wink alongside, “Watch my six,” as he heads out to join them. Waiting for the all-clear from Benny before you can finally enter the house yourself.

The house. Lorea’s house.

You’d been waiting for this for too damn long. Years of hunting the man had led to these last few months of building out this very plan with Santiago… and then to the last week of recon and final plans with these soldiers whom you barely even know. For all of the initial mistrust heaped upon you by them – and you honestly don’t blame them for any of it – the truth is, they know they have each other to depend on. You’re the odd man out here. You’re the one who should be questioning them… their dedication to this mission. Their loyalty to Santi, and by extension, to you. Their desire to end Lorea’s reign of terror.

You’re in this to take that man out. And if just one of these guys decides that’s not going to happen – for whatever reason – you’re shit out of luck. You should trust them only as far as you can throw them, which would be… not very far. But as you catch sight of Ben standing inside the front door, eagerly waving you in, and as you see the trail of blood leading into the kitchen, a voice over the coms calmly declaring, we had to shoot one of the guards in the leg, something inside of you shifts and settles and all of the worries about who may or may not be trustworthy simply flit away to nothing.

But other concerns quickly rise to take their place.

Watching the highly trained special ops team move about you – each man light-footed and fluid, so quiet that their breathing is nearly inaudible, even as one of them leans over your shoulder from his position behind – is nerve wracking enough to make your legs begin to tremble. You knew what you were getting into here. You knew that this would be dangerous, that it would require a certain level of skill and technique and training. But it isn’t until you actually see these men – these elite soldiers – in action that you realize how woefully inept and unprepared you are in comparison.

Self-doubt begins to seep from the cracks now forming in your carefully crafted façade. Uncertainty, insecurity, fear starts to build up and rise within you, burning like bile creeping up the back of your throat. By the time you and Santiago finish the second sweep of the downstairs and begin climbing the steps to the second-story landing, your entire body is vibrating with regretful apprehension.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” you hear as you approach the study upstairs. It’s the room where your informant took the picture of the stacks of cash after her delivery, the holding area where all of Lorea’s blood money sat, just waiting to be counted. But when you enter, there’s no money to be found, just pissed-off-looking soldiers surrounded by the empty bags they had planned to fill with cash.

“Your girl burned us,” Frankie mutters blankly, eyes full of regret and annoyance as he leans heavily against one wall. His dark gaze collides with yours for just a fraction of a moment before he shakes his head and breathes out, “We gotta get outta here.”

Your brow crinkles in confusion, all of the insecurity bubbling through your body suddenly settling and getting replaced by a sort of righteous indignation. “Whoa, wait,” you spit out, sidestepping Santi and rushing to the center of the room. “We’re not leaving. We’re not done here.”

Will gives you an almost disappointed look and blankly mutters, “Nothing here, sweetheart,” before dropping heavily into a chair in the corner.

You shake your head, a pointed certainty to your words as you level him with a heated stare and say, “Lorea’s here. He’s always here. He does not leave.”

Tom scoffs. “Yeah, well, he left today,” he says, tone full of spite. “And he took the money with him.”

You spin to face him, “No,” pouring from your lips in a firm and unyielding tenor. “He’s here. And so is the money.”

“We did a full sweep,” Will breathes out.

“So we’ll do another,” Santiago chimes in, suddenly at your back.

You look around at all the forlorn faces and roll your eyes, realizing all at once that, for all their training in war, these men don’t have a freaking clue about the kinds of things you deal with in your job. They’re used to encountering soldiers – enemy combatants, trained mercenaries, militias… people who’s purpose is to fight. That’s not what Lorea is. That’s not what he does. He didn’t move deep into the jungle to fight, to wage war, to build an army. He came here to hide.

“You guys are fucking idiots,” you declare with a huff. “I once spent two hours tearing apart a houseboat before finding the guy we were after squatting in a hidden cutout near the bilge. A few years ago, we found fifty thousand dollars under a false bottom in a hot tub while serving a search warrant. Another raid ended with us tearing apart a kid’s tree house that had cash hidden under the floorboards. You think because Lorea isn’t sitting here behind his desk, counting his millions like fucking Scrooge McDuck that they’re not here? That he’s not here?”

“Didn’t McDuck swim in his money?” Benny inquires from behind, the question earning quick huff of a laugh from his brother.

You feel Santi step away from your side. “She’s right,” he says, his eyes dancing around the room, looking for… something. They land on a mostly empty can of paint, and he smiles, sniffing quickly at the air. “Fresh paint.”

Tom’s eyes widen and tick towards the wall to his left as his lips split and out pours what you had all along seen as being an obvious truth. “The house is the safe.”

000

When it rains, it pours. You’d been the one to say that, to inanely mutter the adage through the coms with a huff as Benny took off back inside the house – the safe – while you sat in the now heavily weighted van, so full of money that the suspension sags to the point of extremeconcern.

The guards are coming back, the sound of their SUV’s engine just barely chugging atop the steady beating of the downpour that had engulfed you all for the past few hours. They’re coming back, and everyone but you is still inside.

Call it greed. Call it vindictiveness. Call it whatever the fuck you want. But you all had agreed to get as much plata out of that house as possible, to fill the cars to the freaking brim with as much of that motherfucker’s money – his lifeblood, his love, his everything – before setting fire to the whole damn thing. You’d been in this business long enough to know that bringing down one cartel merely opens up a door for others to grow. But still, the idea of watching Lorea’s empire burn makes you wet in a way the torrential rain beating on the roof on the van never could.

You toss a glance back, over you shoulder at the mound of duffel bags, a child’s suitcase thrown into the pile as well, all filled to bursting with cash. It’s pretty unbelievable. Incredible. You’d never been the type to really worry about money, no more so than the average guy. But damn if being surrounded by millions of dollars doesn’t make you a little lightheaded. And the fact that it’s Lorea’s money?

Despite Santi’s little bullshit pep talk the other night about how all of you deserve this – for serving your country and fighting for what’s right… blah, blah, blah – you honestly don’t feel like you deserve this money any more than anyone else. But Lorea sure as shit doesn’t deserve it. And you trust yourself – and each of these men by your side – to put it to far better use than he ever would.

You can’t see the guards, can’t see the SUV carrying them from your vantage point in the van. But Benny had told you to stay put, he’d get the others and he wanted you ready to drive as soon as they came out. Still, you know now that the first car must’ve arrived at the compound because – aside from the steady pounding of the rain and the wild pulse of your heartbeat echoing in your ears – everything is suddenly silent. No more hum of an engine. No choppy callouts over the radio as Ben seeks out the guys. Everything is silent and still. Until… pop-pop, short and sudden, muffled by the thick walls of the house.

Over the coms you hear – in a calm, controlled tone – Two down in the entryway. Another sharp pop, followed by a voice you’ve come to easily recognize. That’s three.

There’s something in the way their words are uttered, something in the utterly placid tenor of each of their voices. Something also to the sparse shots – so unlike the rapid, automatic gunfire you’re used to being thrown into amid scared and untrained local police and inexperienced, foolhardy kids hired as cheap labor by the cartels. There’s something about the way they all rush suddenly into your line of sight – fast but calm, controlled – as they pour out of the house, a few racing past to find the guards’ SUV, the sounds of their footfalls and quick breaths nearly drowning out the whir of the engine as you turn the ignition. There’s something about it all that leaves you feeling – despite the fact that things did not go as planned and you can see that all-too-recognizable, pissed-off scowl tugging at Santiago’s features as he flies past your window – calm as well. Safe, even.

Frankie climbs quickly into the passenger side of the van just as you fire up the engine, Will slowly pulling himself into the seat behind him. “Shit,” you mutter, eyes widening as you take in the grimace on the man’s face, the blood on his hands and shirt. “What the hell happened?”

“S’fine,” he tells you, punctuating the statement with a nod, a directive to look forward. “Let’s move.”

You put the van in gear and hit the gas, maneuvering steadily through the compound and towards the front entrance. “Did you get shot?” you inquire again, your voice showing less concern and more simple curiosity.

“Yeah,” he groans, a thick breath hitching as you hit a particularly big bump in the road. “Your friend Lorea popped out of his little hidey hole and got me. Guess you called that.”

You whip around to face him, eyes now like damn saucers. “You got him?”

Frankie grabs your arm and gives a little tug to get you turn back towards the front, only speaking, answering for Will, once you do so, once you settle a still-wild stare on the path ahead, “Yeah. Pope took him out. He’s dead.”

You say nothing for a long moment, letting those words seat inside of you. He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead. How long have you wanted to hear those words? How long have you been gunning for that son of a bitch, waiting for someone to take him out… hoping that someone might be you? Santi doing it is the next best thing, you figure.

A sudden explosion lights up in front of you as you approach the gate and Benny blows past it, and past the van, angrily muttering to himself all the while. “He looks pissed,” you comment blithely, looking to Frankie for something akin to permission before flooring it and ramming through the gate like you’re just itching to do.

He gives a staunch nod forward. “Can’t blame him,” he says, capping it off with a softer, rather encouraging, “Go for it.”

You hit the gas, glancing in the rearview mirror and asking, “The others are in the SUV?” as the guards’ car pulls up behind you and waits for Ben to jump in.

Frankie nods – “Yeah.” – and his eyes suddenly tick your way, narrowing a bit as they rove your body before coming to rest on your hands as they tightly grip the wheel.

“What?” you ask, feeling his stare burn into you.

Will laughs from behind – a swift, stilted thing that tells you just how much pain he’s actually in – and lets out an amused, “Fish always drives.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you say, voice dripping with put-on sincerity as you continue down the unpaved road. “Do you want me to pull over?”

He rolls his eyes, but there’s no hiding the plainly obvious pout tugging at his lips when he looks over at you and mutters, “Just watch where you’re going.”

The first half or so of the long drive up to the airfield is spent in tense silence. You don’t fight it, don’t force any sort of conversation, don’t inquire about what exactly happened in that house. You can tell that these men need a long-ass moment to come down from everything. Hell, your own adrenaline still has your pulse thrumming endlessly through your ears. And you’d been safely ensconced inside this van for most of the action. It’s not like you had to fight your way out of there. It’s not like you got shot.

Your eyes bounce up to the rearview mirror, finding Will curled into himself in the backseat. “How you doing, Ironhead?” you ask, purposefully infusing the ridiculous name with a mocking intonation.

He looks up and catches your gleaming eyes in the mirror, notes your slight smirk, and gruffly replies, “Well, I’m not dead yet.”

“It’s just a flesh wound,” Frankie supplies from your right. He spins around to give his friend a quick once over. “He’s fine.”

“That’s awfully presumptuous,” you challenge, raising a brow. “Didn’t see you coming out of there with a new hole in your body.”

“Didn’t realize you were so focused on my body,” he returns with a bit of a lilt.

Will groans loudly from the back. “Don’t start flirting up there,” he practically orders before the no-argument tone slips into something softer, almost jovial. “I’m suffering enough back here as is.”

“You’re fine,” Frankie shoots back, turning bodily in his seat and craning his head towards his friend. “You act like you’ve never been shot before.”

“I’m retired,” he replies. “Think I forgot how much this sucks.”

You nod, almost to yourself, emitting a simple, assenting, “Yeah.”

Frankie leans back, still remaining sideways in the seat, his stare now wholly on you. You glance over and see his brow scrunch in… is it concern? Or merely curiosity? “You’ve been shot?” he asks, an odd edge to his voice.

Again, you nod. “I have. Didn’t care for it.”

“See, Fish,” Will mumbles from the back as he slips further down the seat in an effort to find some semblance of comfort. “Maybe you’ve been so busy flying around rich businessmen in the private sector that you’ve also forgotten how shitty this is.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” he mutters with a frown.

Will cocks his head at you – not that you can see it, eyes remaining trained on the road lest you get another watch where you’re goingevil stare from the man by your side. “What happened to you, sweetheart?”

You snort out a short laugh, glancing quickly at Frankie and saying softly – and more than a little bit condescendingly – “He likes to call me sweetheart.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the man in the back sighs out, waving a dismissive hand through the air. “Guess I’m just a run-of-the-mill chauvinist.”

You shrug. “I never said anything about you being run-of-the-mill.” And from your right, you hear a soft snicker. A gentle smile spreads across your face and your hands loosen their death grip on the steering wheel just a bit as you feel the air filling the van begin to lighten, tension seeming to slowly spill away. After a lingering – but not at all wrought – moment, you shift a bit in your seat and say, “Went on a raid just outside of Tijuana. My first down in Mexico. And I took a bullet in the hip.”

“Shit,” Will intones. “Hell of a bienvenido.”

“Yeah,” you breathe out, suddenly all-too conscious of the old ache in your joint that’s been plaguing you all day. “But on the plus side, I’m now always the first to know when it’s about to rain.”

Both men laugh. You laugh – despite the pain in your hip and the worry about the guy in back… and your terribly distracting infatuation with the wide smile now painted on Frankie’s face. You all sit in the van – on your way to flee the country after committing a terrible crime – and laugh about the fact that, despite each of you being a little bit broken, none of you are dead yet.

Taglist:

@tweedlydumbtweedlydoo @icanbeyourjedi @greeneyedblondie44 @mrscrain-x7 @kyjoraven@elephants-are-a-thing @nakhudanyx

[southeastasianists]

“My sister and I have to send all the money back home. We could not make any savings in Thailand. It is getting harder in Myanmar and my mom relies on us for household income. Everything becomes more expensive and market is not function as usual. If Tatmadaw [Myanmar military] remains in the power, we are going to suffer.” –Interview with a female Myanmar migrant in Thailand after the Myanmar coup d’état on February 1, 2021.

Myanmar’s democratic backsliding threatens 4.25 million Myanmar migrants—the majority of them in neighbouring Thailand—with an unforeseeable future. As their travel documents expire, they risk becoming undocumented overseas and excluded from legal protections by shortcomings in both Myanmar and Thai migration policies.

Migrant vulnerabilities back home

Myanmar workers in Thailand have been neglected by the previous junta government over the past three decades. This changed with Aung San Su Kyi’s first visit to migrant communities in Thailand in 2012, where she promised to never abandon Burmese abroad. Myanmar workers had hoped that the civilian government would recognize their existence and improve their livelihoods in Thailand and Myanmar.

During the Myanmar Election observation in 2015, I encountered migrant workers who returned to their hometown to vote. Political remittances played a significant role in driving the views of Myanmar migrants. A worker and voter in Karen State shared that “I have to spend my savings for my journey back to my village so I can cast my vote for NLD [National League for Democracy] party. I believe that the military regime caused me to leave home in first place. Being migrant overseas is not easy life. My home in Myanmar is built on remittance money. We have seen Thailand became more developed while Myanmar is still trapped in the time capsule. Myanmar had not changed in the past 30 years. I have strong drives to take action for change.”

Prior the 2021 Coup, Myanmar migrants and their families in Thailand were confident that the elected Myanmar government would be able to boost the domestic economy. This presented them with the opportunity to escape hardship and discrimination in Thailand and set up business ventures upon their return. However, all their dreams were disrupted unexpectedly when the military junta seized power. A UN report indicates that the Myanmar economy would revert to the same dire situation as 2005.

Myanmar migrants in Thailand were immediately affected by coup. Their reliance on online social media to get updates on the political situation was disrupted by cuts to the internet and communications. Migrants in Thailand are filled with anxiety and concerns over violence and safety of their family members. As of May 25, more than 800 people were killed by the Myanmar military crackdown, 4,301 political prisoners arrested, and ethnic minorities attacked by airstrikes in ethnic controlled areas.

Furthermore, the military government is unlikely to turn to policymaking in migration management any time soon. With its weak domestic legitimacy, the junta will prioritise consolidating its own power first. This will not come easily with resistance from Myanmar citizens and National Unity Government (NUG). The same can be said about the NUG, which will mostly be pre-occupied with delegitimizing the junta and obtaining international recognition. Further, the NUG is not in the position to facilitate any international migration or negotiate with any migration-receiving countries such as Thailand.

There are estimated 500,000 Myanmar workers whose passport documents will expire by July 2021. Migrants have to renew their documents with the Myanmar embassy but have been unable to reach embassy officials. In March 2021, the Myanmar and Thai governments agreed to open three centers to issue identity documents so workers can legally stay in Thailand. But this plan has been delayed without any public acknowledgment. Many Myanmar workers are also interpreting this action as a lack of accountability and responsibility on the part of the Myanmar government in protecting its own citizens.

Migrant vulnerabilities overseas

Thailand employs as many as 3 million Myanmar migrant workers in fishery, construction, agriculture domestic work, services, hospitality and other low paid jobs. In addition, there are 91,818 refugees from Myanmar living in nine camps along the Thai-Myanmar border. There are no official statistics to verify the actual number of undocumented migrants in Thailand.

In the aftermath of the Myanmar coup, Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand faced challenges sending remittances. UN Migration estimated US$2.8 billion were sent to Myanmar annually from overseas Myanmar in Thailand, Malaysia, China and other countries through formal channels, and additional US$10 billion sent through informal channels. Both banks and formal channels have either shut down or reduced their operation hours. Alternatively, migrants have resorted to informal channels. Yet, my interview with workers also reveal that  informal remittance brokers are under surveillance by the army and are worried money may be taken away or never make it to their families, who need remittances to cover daily expenses, including caring for the children of migrants, who have been left behind at home.

Moreover, with COVID-19 closing all the legal migration channels since last year, migrants increasingly rely on smugglers for border crossing. Thailand’s Immigrant Act classifies irregular migrants, refugees and asylum seekers as “illegal immigrants,” and thus subject to immigration offences. In 2020, at least 60,000 Myanmar workers applied to legally enter Thailand. However, the International Organisation for Migration which conducts mobility monitoring states that 1000 Myanmar nationals attempted to enter Thailand without authorisation. Each migrant reportedly pays brokers up to 14,000-16,000 baht (US$ 450-550) to be transported into Thailand for one trip. The migration journey thus puts migrants at risk of being exploited by smugglers and traffickers at any time.

Thai authorities also intensified border enforcement in attempting to crack down on migrant smuggling in the name of COVID-19 containment. The Thai government claimed that since January 2021, officials arrested 15,378 smuggled migrants in total and of which were 6,072 Myanmar nationals. Migrant can also be subject to extortion by corrupt officials. Upon arrest, there is no screening mechanism to profile smuggled migrants but migrants can be held for prolonged detention prior to deportation. Furthermore, in fear of being deported due to expired documents, migrants have started bribing local authorities so they can receive unlawful permits to stay in Thailand. The wife of migrant construction worker and a mother of 4 children told me during an interview on 5 April 2021 that they had to pay a village chief US$10 a month.

Migration through irregular channels is anticipated to increase,  driven by the Myanmar military’s violent suppression of political protesters and opposition and military warfare in the area controlled by ethnic armed groups. The Thai military government has also pushed back asylum seekers from Myanmar, thus violating the international principle of non-refoulement in which no one shall be returned to a place of harm.

One way the Thai government addresses migrants’ lack of legal status is through a registration program. It was first implemented along the border in 1992 and extended nationwide in 2001. By registering with authorities, migrants are granted a temporary stay and right to employment in Thailand. However, the pandemic has disrupted the regularisation of migration status and increased number of undocumented workers. There were estimated 600,000 migrant workers who lost their legal status between October 2019 and October 2020.

Migrant workers became undocumented due to many reasons, such as being dismissed from their job, failing to submit documents required for registration and having insufficient funds to pay for the documentation renewal and administrative fees. Many also could not find new employers within fifteen days as stipulated by work permit conditions, hence their work permit was automatically cancelled. While trying to stay in Thailand, undocumented migrants are also stigmatised by local perceptions that they crossed the border illegally, and in doing so, caused new COVID-19 outbreaks.

As a result of these negative perceptions, Thailand’s current policy is largely focused on arresting undocumented workers. The continued suppression of undocumented migrants causes fear and drive them into an even more marginalised and vulnerable position.

Migrant protection during political and heath crises

Both Thailand and Myanmar governments have a political will to promote the rights of migrants and invested significantly in domestic legal reforms. But the lack of coherent migration policies to facilitate migrants’ journeys and employment during the political and pandemic crises risks reversing progress in migrant protection.

Three months after seizing power, Myanmar’s military government is facing challenges in gaining trust from its people. State functions and capacity that would otherwise attend to the plight of migrants have collapsed due to nationwide strike in the public sector. Thus, Myanmar’s return to democracy is crucial and may offer hope for migrants again.

For the Thai government, it is crucial to recognize that migrant workers make a significant contribution to the Thai economy, approximately $1.8 billion or 1.25 percent of national GDP. The government should therefore shift its migration management approach from criminalizing undocumented migrants to ensuring a comprehensive migration policy developed inclusively with relevant stakeholders. A change in official mindset would be beneficial as it will address both the incompetency of origin countries and economic recovery post-pandemic.

[lavendermenaceart]

Violence in the Capital(HeroxVillain whump)

Violence in the Capital

Pairing: HeroxVillain

Genres: Fantasy, Whump

CW: Burning, brainwashing, guns, injury.

Word count: 2,121.

The capitol was quiet at night. The sky the darkest shade of purple imaginable, little lights shining despite the light the capital produced. The hero was a shadow against the walls of tall cement and glass buildings that looked like the fingers of the world reaching up to the starry sky. 

The hero couldn’t help pondering why the streets were so empty this night, but they weren’t complaining. It almost eliminated the need to sneak around the way they were now, but only almost. The hero was in this forsaken city for only one reason. A bloody reason, but a reason nonetheless. 

The hero had been tracking the villain for months at this point. Every Saturday night they could be found in a party of sex, dancing, and drugs at a local club known for its debauchery amongst the rich. 

The villain was the villain for all the normal reasons. A greedy CEO tyrant who had all his money speaking for him, calling in favors with the government, local and federal. They had gotten a disgusting bill passed during a tumultuous time that allowed the government access to all of its citizen’s data, making it very difficult for the hero’s group to function silently as they usually did. 

The hero had snuck out from their safe house while everyone slept, tired from a day full of arguing over what to do next. It was extremely frustrating for the hero, no one seemingly knowing what to do, but the hero knew. They knew it deep in their bones and it stuck in their brain like a dagger. The villain had to be killed. This wasn’t the villain’s first offense. They’d gotten a litany of awful bills passed with their money and favors. This was just the last straw. 

Sure, the hero wasn’t the strongest but the hero didn’t care what happened to them as long as they got their target. If the villain was dead, it was one less person to make the lives of the majority of the population miserable. Even if the hero became a villain themselves, at least they had convictions in their beliefs and they knew they could find others with the same values as them eventually. 

The hero heard the club before they saw it, the vibrations of the music clear through the concrete ground. Thrumming and dumping under the hero’s feet like a heartbeat, deep in the earth. As they grew closer, they saw the squat building with a red rope and 2 guards out front. Important people are there tonight, and many important people will get a clear, blood spattered message on this night. 

While the guards were busy checking in a group of women, the hero slipped past, into the dark side of the building, an alleyway littered with trash, bottles and bags mostly. The hero could see the door, it was just a few feet away. Sweat started to gather on their forehead, their hands shaking. Were they really ready to do something like this? Would the hero’s group forgive them for this transgression or will they be turned away like they've been so many times before in their life?

Suddenly, a loud creak filled the alleyway as the hero ducked behind a smelly dumpster. The guard at the door was now going inside to trade shifts. It was the perfect time for the hero to sneak in, and so they did. After going through the side door, a wall of music and laughter hit them, enveloping them and making them giddy even through the anxiety. 

Taking in a few deep breaths, the hero had to remind themselves that they weren’t there to party and take part in the luxuries. They were here to kill someone, and while maybe later they could think about throwing a celebration, now was the time for action and the hero couldn’t get distracted by the pretty lights and loud music going on around them. 

The hero waded through the crowd of people, the smell of sweat and perfume overpowering every sense the hero had. The hero could see the villain, up in a clear box above the DJ booth. As far as the hero knew, it wasn’t bullet proof. So in the middle of the throng of bodies, always in movement against one another, the hero pulled out a desert eagle and aimed. There was a cry to the hero’s right but they ignored it, aiming down the sights before pulling the trigger. It ricochet off the glass, a huge crack appearing. The club was chaos now. A scream of pain, and then bodies all rushing together like a wave towards any exit. The hero breathed, deep and satisfying. The villain was on the move but the hero was sure they could still get them.

Everything that happened next happened fast and deadly. A trigger pull, a gunshot right as a guard collided with the hero. A woman’s gurgling scream as the bullet ripped through her throat, 3 feet away from the villain. Adrenaline pumped through the hero’s veins as they struggled against the guard, who had hit the hero’s wrist causing them to drop the gun. It scattered under the trampling of a herd of humans. The music still played, even though the DJ had abandoned the station. It was a cheerful tune, playing over all the violence and chaos in a weird paradox of emotion. The hero got in a few good punches, but was soon subdued by multiple guards. 

“No!! No!!” The hero cried, struggling under the immense weight they were now under on the dirty floor of the now mostly empty club. The last thing they remember is a bloom of pain, of blood and spit as they were punched in the face. Hands bruised their neck, cutting off airflow and blood flow until the hero passed out, drifting slowly into oblivion. 

“Wake the fuck up!” The villain snarled, throwing a bucket of ice water on the bruised, beaten, and tied bodied of the hero. They were ripped so hastily from the warm darkness behind their eyes, water soaking them and mingling with their sweat and blood as it spilled over their head and body and then the cold concrete floor. 

This room was sterile, white, and cold. Bright fluorescent lights lit the room to a painful degree. The hero’s head swam and burned and wanted so badly to go back to the warm darkness. 

How could they mess up so bad? Maybe they should have planned better, studied harder, but it was too late to regret. They had to focus on somehow getting out of the sterile room they found themselves in. 

The hero let out a single groan, a broken and wispy sound coming from their parted lips. 

“Good, good!” the villain raised their hands, their posture that of a victor. “You’re awake. Now, I’ve had a large number of attempts on my life but none so brazen as yours. I congratulate you on your bravery, your boldness. I really do.”

The hero could barely keep up. The villain was praising them for trying to take their life? Or maybe just the conviction it took to do something so brazen? The hero wiggled their hands, which were bound tightly behind their back. The position was so uncomfortable, the hero’s back hunched at an angle that made their spine protest. They righted themselves, meeting the dark gaze of the villain.

“I didn’t do it to get praise from you.” The hero spit, literally and figuratively

“Oh, I know, I know. I would suggest you start behaving, though, or things will be much worse than they need to be.” The villain acquired brown leather gloves from their pockets before putting them on, carefully dipping their fingers into the leather until it covered their hand. Their next movement was a quick slap across the face of the hero before fisting their hair in their hands. “Now, tell me. Who do you work for? Or are you a lone wolf?”

Red bloomed across the hero’s face, tears stinging their eyes. The hero blinked the tears away, trying to take deep breaths so they weren’t drowned in the undertow of their anxiety.  

“I work for no one, I’m just tired of you and your dirty money.” The hero responded after getting their anxiety mostly in check. Freaking out wasn’t going to change the situation. They were stuck in this spot until they weren't. The hero didn’t know when that would be, seeing as how they told absolutely no one where they were going or what they were planning to do. 

“Well, then, I have something exciting to show you!” The villain chuckled, a full hearty chuckle. It was grating on the hero’s ears and unsettling. The hero shifted in their chair, wiggling their hands in their bondage, trying to get comfortable, trying to right themselves for what was to come. All the hero’s muscles tensed and shook until they were shivering in fear. 

The villain took a few slow steps towards the hero, bright lights shining behind them like a halo. With much force, they pushed the palm of their hand onto the hero’s forehead. A sharp pain lanced through the hero’s brain and nausea threatened to overflow into vomiting as all the bright lights in the room sharpened and danced in the hero’s vision. 

They didn’t know if they were screaming, the didn’t know how much was passing or if it even existed anymore. All there was was pain and light and pain. The hero’s body convulsed until the chair fell over and their head knocked on the cold, sterile concrete floor. 

“You see, you are mine now. You tried to take my life, I lobotomize you. Or, I guess its most like brainwashing.” The villain got down on one knee in front of the prone hero, running a finger nail gently down the side of the tear stained hero’s face. 

So that’s what the feeling was. What all that pain and light was. It was the feeling of their brain warping and stretching and expanding and shrinking all at once. The hero could still think, could still move their hands of their own will. Was this all a sick joke? The question wouldn’t form on their lips, it was stuck in their throat. The hero’s eyes widened as they realized they couldn’t talk, because they had not been ordered to. 

“There you go, You’re getting it.” The villain watched the hero’s face carefully, a small smile playing in the curves of their lips. The villain reached down and was slowly, ever so slowly, or maybe it just seemed slow, untied the hero’s hands and feet. 

The hero wanted to flee, wanted to run and scream and cry and above all else, kill. They thought of all the ways in that very moment they could bring harm to the villain. The smug, strange villain. The hero’s fingers twitched and it sent a jolt of pain down their arm, electrifying all of their nerves until they finally stopped trying to punch. The only thing they could do voluntarily anymore was cry, and cry, and cry. 

One stupid mistake led to all this. If only they could have landed that shot, if only. So many “if only”s. 

“Now, I bet you’re wondering how I just did this to you?” The villain grabbed a finger of the hero’s and wiggled it around. The hero tensed, ready for the shooting, electric pain, but none came. “You see, you get powerful enough in this world, and lots of things come to light.” A flicker of light to the villains left. They had lifted their hand, pointing one finger up to the veiling and just an inch above it, a lively and dancing flame. 

Magic? Magic is real? The hero’s mind warped once again, trying to figure out of their senses were to be trusted. Suddenly there was a searing hot pain tearing through the hero’s right cheek. The villain was burning their face, some letter, maybe the first letter of the villain’s name. The villain leaned in close, whispering softly into the hero’s ear as their lungs burned with the need to scream but the inability to do so. 

“Magic is very real, for people like me. You’re not my first zombie, and you wont be my last. I’ll make sure no one tries to look for you, so you don’t have to worry about things like friends or family.” The villain chuckled, a hand on their chest. 

The hero was no longer the hero, but the loser. The zombie. For the rest of their life they would be trapped watching themselves be puppeteered by the villain, the victor.

[bonjour-rainycity]

The Long Way Around ~ Chapter 4

Link to previous part: https://bonjour-rainycity.tumblr.com/post/623116614605357056/the-long-way-around-chapter-3

Pairing: Jasper x Reader

Word count: 2092

Warnings: None

Y/n’s POV

The next three weeks pass in a now predictable sequence. I spend the majority of my time getting to know my new roommates, for lack of a better word. Esme, who is quickly becoming my favorite, does whatever I want with me. We read books, watch movies, go for runs in the woods. The doctor, Carlisle, isn’t home very often. He and Edward spend a lot of time in town making sure the Cullens are not suspect in my disappearance. They decided it would be best to continue ‘business as usual’ to avoid suspicion, but also so they don’t have to give up the advantageous location in the woods and risk moving with me. Bella tends to keep to herself, though she does occasionally join Esme and I in our book club. Alice and Arthur are quite friendly, and I enjoy spending time with them, even if Alice does treat me like a Barbie doll. I swear, I’ve never owned more clothes in my life! Rosalie is slowly warming up to me. She’s not rude, exactly, but I can tell my presence is hard on her. Her husband, Emmett, is a whole lot of fun. He invites me for races and arm wrestling matches which, obviously, I win. I suspect that won’t continue forever, though. Once my newborn strength fades, he will likely be the strongest in the house. 

Then, of course, there’s my shadow. Jasper doesn't say much, but he is a constant presence. I can tell he doesn’t trust me. The minute I get frustrated or upset he invades my personal space and uses his ability to calm me down. I do resent it slightly, but I understand the need. It’s as he says: I’m dangerous. It amuses me though to know that, as Jasper has taken the task upon himself to never leave my side, he has to do everything I do. So he watches sappy movies with Esme and I, he sits quietly while Emmett and I play board games, he sulks in the corner while I ask Alice endless questions about her psychic ability, and, of course, he hunts with me about four times a week. 

My bloodlust is insatiable. This newfound life and the thirst that accompanies it keeps me in a near constant state of pain. My throat burns badly, and, even when I am drinking animal blood, the burn remains. I have a feeling that, at this stage of life, not even human blood would satisfy my thirst. 

At the thought of human blood, a delicacy so far denied to me, venom pools in my mouth. From across the room, Jasper shifts uncomfortably, feeling my desire. I imagine it must be harder for him than the others, because he not only has to fight his own bloodlust, but everyone else’s. 

He eyes me evenly. “Do you want to hunt?”

“I’m fine,” I lie. We just went yesterday, and I feel like a burden asking people to go with me constantly. I usually have an entourage of three minimum when I hunt, and I can tell it interrupts the daily flow of things. 

Jasper’s eyes don’t leave mine. “Taking you hunting isn’t a burden. Trust me, we would much rather go with you twenty times a day than have you get too thirsty and lose control.” 

I purse my lips at his uncanny ability to know what I’m thinking. I know his emotional radar detector must help, but seriously, sometimes he rivals Edward. 

“It would probably be a good idea,” I acquiesce. “I’ll go see if anyone else wants to go.” I push myself off the kitchen floor-I had been busy reading through one of Esme’s architecture journals-and walk into the living room where Emmett, Rosalie, Carlisle, Esme, and Arthur are gathered around the TV. 

“Hey does anyone wanna-” My words die as I register the news anchor’s words. 

“The search continues for local Y/n, Y/l/n, who was reported missing over three weeks ago.”

It feels like the breath has been knocked out of me. I grip the back of the couch, grief ripping through me. Five vampires turn their wary gazes at me.

“Turn it off.” Jasper’s command comes from behind my shoulder. 

“No,” I breathe, deeply hurt but desperate to know what my friends and family could be seeing.

The anchor continues. “Authorities say they have a man in custody who confessed to stabbing the woman, though claims he can’t remember what he did with the body. Witnesses to the crime seem to suffer the same memory loss. Police have refused to offer further comments, though locals speculate a conspiracy or the presence of illegal drugs. While the two witnesses to the crime, Kaitlyn Myers and Blake Hannigan, have faced backlash surrounding their involvement in the case, police have cleared them as suspects at this time.”

The couch snaps under my grip. I take two quick steps back, shocked by what I just heard and the jarring display of my physical power. 

“Oh, sweetie.” Esme is in front of me instantly, reaching out to envelop me in a hug. Before I can even blink, Jasper is standing between us, acting as a barrier to Esme. 

Hurt pierces through my gut. He only sees me as a threat.

“I’m not going to hurt Esme, Jasper. Back off!” I wish my words didn’t waver. 

His voice is hard when he responds. “You don’t know what you’ll do. Newborns are governed by their emotions more than anyone else. I’m not taking any risks.”

“Well how about getting to know me instead of just generalizing?” I throw my hands up, properly yelling now. “I’m sick of feeling like I’m a prisoner with you. Everyone else is giving me a chance, so why can’t you?” I spit the words out, my hurt growing by the second. 

“We’re hoping it’s all a terrible dream, that we’ll wake up soon and everything will be alright.” 

They hadn’t turned off the TV. On the screen is a video of my parents. Hearing my mom’s tearful voice is like a kick to the stomach. I sink to the floor, gasping for air I don’t need. 

“I just want our little girl to come home.” Mom’s voice breaks, and she stares into the camera. It’s like she’s staring right at me. 

“Jasper, it’s alright, really. I appreciate your concern very much but I promise, it’s alright.” Esme’s soft voice vaguely reaches me through my sobs. 

A pair of arms-Esme’s, likely-envelopes me, but I barely take notice. I only feel the pain. It’s so much worse than the burn in my throat. It almost has me wishing for the fiery torture I felt while becoming a vampire. But wishing very seldom equates to reality, so I’m left to allow the gaping hole in my chest to consume me.

I don’t know how long we stay like that, only that it’s dark when I finally regain control of myself. Esme never left my side, and even Rosalie had come to join us at some point. She says nothing, only rests her head on my shoulder and holds my hand. 

Jasper is noticeably absent. 

“I think I scared him off,” I mumble, guilty. 

“He’ll recover,” Rosalie replies, sounding unconcerned. 

“He’s coming from the right place,” Esme assures. “Jasper is a very passionate person who gives his all in everything. This is no different. I think he sees keeping you and us safe as a chance to redeem himself for his past indiscretions, though those are long-ago forgiven. He’s trying to keep you from making the same mistakes he did.” 

I look at the floor, mulling Esme’s words over. I don’t really know what to say to that.

Thankfully, Rosalie saves me from having to craft a response. “Do you still want to hunt? I can go with you.” 

I smile and shake my head, exhausted from the recent emotional turmoil. “No, it’s okay. I think I’ll just go to bed.” I say the word lightly, knowing I’ll probably just spend the next eight hours reading or something to keep my mind busy. 

I stand, intending to exit the room. On the way out I see the poor couch, broken in two. I grimace. “Sorry about the couch.”

Esme smiles sweetly, waving it off. “Don’t worry about it. It just gives me an excuse to go shopping.” 

I give her a quick hug, grateful for her endless kindness and patience. 

Once upstairs in the room Alice and Esme courteously set up for me, I flop on the bed, grabbing the nearest book. I do my best to let my mind go blank and focus only on the words in front of me. About two hours into this exercise, I hear a soft knock on the door. 

Jasper stands in the frame, looking repentant. “I’m sorry. You were right. I haven’t tried to know you. But I’ve got some time now if you’re free.” It’s then that I realize he means to do this now. Not wanting to smile because I really am still upset with him, I bite it back. 

I decide to play coy instead. “I suppose I could clear my schedule. Though, a little more groveling might help…”

He smiles softly, almost hesitantly. With exaggerated movements, he gets on his knees and clasps his hands together in an excellent show of desperation. “Please do me the magnificent honor...of telling me your favorite color.” 

Now I can’t help but crack a smile. “You may approach, peasant, but remember that my good grace can easily change.” I pat the foot of my bed, and he sits, facing me. “It’s green. Like trees and moss and emeralds.” 

“What’s your favorite thing about this new life?”

“The running. I had asthma as a human but now I can run for as long as I want and be completely fine.” 

He nods, filing the information away. “If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?”

I answer without hesitation. “London. The culture, the history, the accents.” He chuckles, teasingly exasperated. “I bet it’s amazing.” 

He smiles, a faraway look in his eyes. “Oh it’s great. I was there back in the ‘90s...I bet it hasn’t changed too much though.” He grins. “Maybe in a couple of years we’ll all be able to take a trip.”

I look down at my fingers. “Maybe a few more years than a ‘couple’. I can’t even think of human blood without…” Venom floods my mouth. I offer a humorless chuckle. “See?”

Jasper shakes his head emphatically. “No, you’re really doing good.” I try to protest, but he shakes it off. “I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true. You are doing remarkably well for three weeks in.” 

I sigh, ready to tease him a bit. “Well I couldn’t do so well without my shadow micromanaging my every move.” 

He smiles sheepishly and looks at his lap. “I’m sorry I seem a bit…,” he sighs deeply, “intense. I will try to ease off.”

I grin, pulling my knees up to my chest. “Thank you. I’ll try to be a little less emotionally hectic. It’s gotta be hard on you.” 

Too quickly, he shrugs. “Don’t worry about it. You’re going through a lot, it’s okay.” 

I chuckle, feeling much lighter now, either thanks to his ability or the natural resolution of tension between us, I don’t know. “Yeah well I could stay away from the movies that make me feel all the things.” Now he grins, raising his eyebrows. “Next time we’ll try something bland, like High Noon.”

“Hey now.” Jasper raises a hand, a comically disbelieving look on his face. “High Noon is a masterpiece, don’t knock it.” 

I grin broadly, smacking him on the shoulder with a pillow. “I knew you were a Western guy! Gosh, that’s gotta be like, what, forty percent of your personality?”

He rolls his eyes good-naturedly, taking the pillow from me. “Mhm, somewhere around there.” 

I like this Jasper, I decide firmly. This new, witty, freer Jasper is so much more fun to be around. I could stand to have this Jasper follow me around all day. 

As if he has come to the same agreement, that Jasper stays at the foot of my bed well past the time the sun rises, talking and joking. We get to know each other. 

And, for a while, I forget about how sad I am and the near constant burning in the back of my throat.

A/n Thanks for reading! I’m having so much fun with this story and I’m glad you guys are enjoying it, too! Please let me know what you thought of this chapter and if you would like to be added to the tag list!

xx, 

Bjr

Link to next part: https://bonjour-rainycity.tumblr.com/post/623283543296049154/the-long-way-around-chapter-5

Tag list: @puer-de-infinitate @charliestuff @hindustani-diaspora @one-thread-can-save-a-life

[muddyhippy]

The UK Policing Bill-being voted on Today-16/3/21

So, some of you may have seen my previous post outlining the terrifying ramifications of this bill and why we all in the UK should be opposed to it. 

That post is a guide of how to contact your MP, what to say to them and get your voice heard. Contacting your MP is not an empty gesture, even if they are a Tory. Reading through the transcripts of the debate last night it’s still looking like the Tory government majority will vote for this bill but you can still demand they don’t, if enough of us contact them then they will have a better grasp of the ‘Will of the people’ they proport to put so much onus on. 

The text in the guide is very much a cribbed down version of I sent to my own MP but I talked to another furious friend about all this V for Vendetta  set up and she suggested I post the whole thing. I wrote it in one sitting and didn’t say ‘fuck’ once so I’m pretty proud of it. Obviously it still doesn’t cover the litany of failures of this government past and present that led us to this mess but it’s still something;

I am writing to you express my concern over the proposed bill that intends to limit the rights of the general public to protest peacefully. The UK is a proud democratic nation that has a long history of peaceful protest to demand change for the better and to call to account actions that are below the standards of law that we, the British people, are taught to adhere to and respect.

I am asking you to vote against any proposed curb, limitation or removal of the existing laws that protect the right to protest peacefully.

This last year has been the biggest peacetime crisis this nation has faced in over a century, exposing deep inequality in all areas. We, as in all residents of the UK, should, as one of the most allegedly developed nations on earth, expect a right of fair treatment for all but time and again we have found this not to be the case across multiple demographics.

This  last week has proved once again there is disparity in how our citizens are treated, the outpouring of stories of abuse, domestic violence and harassment only highlight the point of unfair treatment that we as inhabitants of the UK have a right peacefully protest and demand change.

By supporting this bill to reduce those rights you are silencing those voices, you are perpetuating violence, discrimination and subjugation.

We have made great strides forward in terms of equality in this country, women’s suffrage, the international bill of rights, marriage equality and the working time directive to name a few but we still have further to go and moreover, we run the risk of undoing the hard work that got us to this point.

The country has been deeply wounded by the impacts of the Covid19 pandemic and by Brexit, we are facing a hard recovery but we need to do this together as a nation. A nation that can peacefully question the choices of its leadership when that leadership has made demonstrably poor choices time and again.

There have been other wounded countries in history, and they often choose the path of authoritarianism, of xenophobia and opinions shouted over facts to drown them out and they have all chosen groups to target, to blame, to crack down on ‘dissent’. To choose fear instead of unity.

I am writing to you asking you to choose the path of recovery, of decency and accountability.

I feel we are standing on the precipice of history, only a few short steps and it will be too late.

Please vote against the bill and all its forms tomorrow and in the coming weeks and months, it is far harder to regain freedoms once they are lost.

Thank you for all you and your office do,

Yours sincerely,

Like I said, it doesn’t cover all the bullshit whether it’s current, recent or historical but it’s a start. 

Please, please, stay vigilant, keep yourselves safe and informed. 

This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better and remember 2024 cannot come soon enough for the next general election. Local Elections will happen before that, use your vote if you can, stay aware of what is happening. 

You do not have to be of voting age to contact your MP with concerns about parliamentary actions, you are still a citizen.

 All of you reading this who are currently too young to vote, remember this government, remember what they did, their lies, their greed, their callousness and their total contempt for science, expertise and decency. The 125,000+ avoidable Covid 19 deaths. Remember this all because they will try to hide it, they will try to make you forget with empty headlines and decoy outrage. Do Not Lose Your Focus. We are in it for the long haul but we do it. America managed it. We now have to do the same. 

[nekolatte]

Chapter 4: Pursuit

Preview: Dante noted the color of his hair, the curve of his nose and set of his jaw― Leon was pretty, and more so when he turned red with embarrassment. “What do you want?” Dante blinked, not realizing immediately that question was for him― instead captive to the show of snarling teeth and an eye color that looked more green than blue under the dingy bathroom light. “To help you”

Oh, Dante was in trouble. 

Well, he was always in some form of trouble. Either with his landlord, his local government. Lady, Trish, the world in general. The demon world in generalー  

Pausing his increasingly derailing train of thought, Dante picked up a discarded shirt and moved on, both literally and mentally. 

Point was, he was having feelings. Soft, playful feelings like those first few weeks when Lady blushed and stuttered at every other innuendo out of Dante's mouth or when Trish would smirk and tease at his attempts to make her laugh. Flirting came second nature to Dante, but other than getting an amusing reaction from the other party, there wasn’t much else he gained from it. Contrary to his public persona, he wasn’t interested in getting laid with a revolving door of men, women and miscellaneous. 

Dante enjoyed the attention, not the intimacy.

But with Leon, some stranger he scraped up off the sidewalk and stitched back together? There was something there that Dante wanted to tentatively pursue, and the only person he ever actively pursued in his life was a brother he couldn’t confidently confirm was dead or alive at the moment. This was new and strange and Dante didn't want to stop despite the alarm bells ringing.

He tried telling himself that it was all in good fun, that even if he did get stupidly attached, Leon certainly wouldn't reciprocate. Wariness and hostility wafted off the man like the demon guts he had bathed in prior, and seemed oblivious that he gave off either stench. Dante wouldn’t be entranced forever at chasing after someone that wasn’t interestedー he may have been foolhardy but he wasn’t masochistic. Not entirely. Enjoying Lady’s company made him doubt that part of himself sometimes, but no. 

In any case, maybe Dante shouldn't have hinted at the threat during their first little talk, been more open and friendly to a human side-stepping into Hell’s door― it had just felt urgent that the man understand the circumstances he was suddenly in. Too late for it now.

Preferring to confront problems with a sword and gun, of which neither was good in this particular instance, Dante decided to just ignore everything and get Leon some pants.

He knocked on the bathroom door just to be polite and let himself in without bothering to wait for a response. Leon looked irritated, to put it mildly, but had nothing to say when Dante presented the clothing he found.

“What, no leather?” Leon quipped, though seemed to regret it immediately as he took a sudden and all-consuming focus in squeezing and flicking off every bit of water on his person. Probably would’ve kept on going if Dante didn’t toss a towel at him, even if it was amusing to watch a grown man sulk in a tub with a shower curtain wrapped around his waist.

“You can’t pull it off like I can.”

Leon grumbled something under his breath that even Dante couldn’t pick up, and yet Dante didn’t move from his comfortable lean against the vanity despite how obvious Leon was at dragging this whole ordeal out. He wasn’t going to ask for help, despite having it allowed it before, obviously waiting for Dante to take the hint and leave but Dante wasn’t going to take it. He really did want to help, plain and simple. 

Humans were so damn soft, so damn fragile. Dante left Leon alone for all of ten minutes and the guy nearly cracked his skull on the bathroom tile. Both too stubborn to concede, the minutes dragged like hours― Dante watching Leon for every second of it. Head tilted like a curious cat, he noted the color of his hair: darker, when wet, though the tips and the wispy hair that made up his fringe were starting to lighten already. The curve of his nose and set of his jaw, light stubble pushing through. Severe eyebrows at contrast with bow lips― Leon was pretty, and more so when he turned red with embarrassment.

“What do you want?”

Dante blinked, not realizing immediately that question was for him― instead captive to the show of snarling teeth and an eye color that looked more green than blue under the dingy bathroom light. He recovered quickly, though.

“To help you, what I’ve been trying to do this whole time.”

Something in Leon seemed to break, maybe his pride, because he slumped in place, face gone dark and pinched, and looked about ready to accept his death rather than a helping hand up. Dante frowned, the victory leaving a confused, bitter taste in his mouth, and failed to come up with a comment to lighten the mood.

All he could do was step forward at Leon’s quietly raised hand, ignoring it entirely to lean down into the tub and scoop the stubborn man right up. Since he was already feeling guilty over the whole debacle, not realizing how far he pushed Leon past his comfort zone, Dante went right ahead and took more liberties than given. 

Leon, worryingly, said nothing, though Dante found some quiet solace in the bright red of his ears that stuck out almost endearingly from flat hair. Clothes snagged on the way to Trish’s room proper, Dante cleared out a space for Leon on the bed before setting him down. The man in question did everything imaginable to avoid Dante’s line of sight, and Dante still felt too thrown off to do anything but respect the man’s privacy as best he could.

It involved a lot of looking to the side while going off muscle memory to bandage Leon up and help him into a shirt and sweats, a few pained hisses here and there, but the lack of communication was wearing. Dante wasn’t much for silence, especially when he was responsible for part of it. He still didn’t know what he did― the way he saw it, it was the same back and forth they had just a few minutes prior. Except, well, he was ogling a man that couldn’t get away from the unwanted attention, that was his implied prisoner. Offered to help when Leon obviously had issues with it.

That last part Dante didn’t understand.

Still, he didn’t want either of them to tiptoe around each other for however long Leon was forced to stay. Dante rubbed his forehead for just a few extra moments to collect himself before he got down to kneel between Leon’s parted legs, an attempt to be in his line of sight― feeling chastised despite Leon not having said a single word. He didn’t dare look up, didn’t want to know what face Leon was making because Dante knew his own was scrunched up with guilt and embarrassment. This was not a good look for him, and one he knew anyone in his immediate acquaintance would never let him live down.

“Listen, I know what this all seems like― I know you’re feeling cautious, and with good reason, but I really am just trying to help. You’re better off not knowing the things I know, and I just need you to trust me that I’ll tell you if that changes. This… It screws up people’s heads, makes day-to-day life just a little more harder to deal with. I don’t want to put you through that.” Dante dragged a hand through his hair and disrupted the slicked-back style so it fell back over his eyes.

Dante was forced to look through them when Leon made a noise that sounded like a question, catching a gaze that was focused on Dante and Dante alone. It felt different, something he could sink into, and a baser, more primal part of his mind wanted to nudge in those last few inches forward and rest his head on Leon’s knee. He reeled from it.

Leon rubbed at a shoulder, careful with the bruising under the borrowed t-shirt. “Why. That’s what I want to know. Providing first aid, giving me a place to recuperate, is one thing. Everything else is another. Making sure I’m not infected,” Leon flinched at the word, though didn’t seem to notice his own action, “doesn’t mean you have to… help me bathe.”

“Because I like you.” The answer came easily, far before his brain could catch up to his mouth after its earlier reprimand. He hadn’t meant to admit to it― they knew each other for three days, at best, and Leon was unconscious for most of it. 

But all Dante could think about was how Leon fought for survival against something that was far beyond his capabilities, refusing to back down despite having the opportunity to turn tail and run. The grit of his teeth and the glare of his eyes when cornered, bloodied but not broken. How he sunk into Dante’s arms as if he was a safe haven, a comfort against the quick torment Leon had been subjected to. The many hours Dante spent watching the man sleep, memorizing the rise and fall of his chest― listening to the steady beat of his heart and losing precious moments of peace when it stuttered. Wanting nothing more than the ability to make Leon better instead of his arsenal of slaughter and destruction.

Maybe his pursuit wasn’t quite so tentative. 

“What I mean is―” But he didn’t have to actively admit it. “―I can tell you’re a good person, Leon. I want all this to be easier for you. I know you don’t believe me, but it isn’t going to stop me from trying.”

Feeling all manner of wrong from admitting to so much emotion without a sarcastic or stupid comment, Dante got to his feet and moved around Leon to get to the bed. He grabbed at every scrap of loose clothing and tossed them into the pile by Trish’s closet, anything to make the area a little more inviting, and gestured to it.

“You should get some more sleep, probably on a bed this time. I’m gonna go and find some food for you.” Dante fled before Leon could get a word in otherwise.

[ckret2]

Gigan Invades Earth

I got a request on ko-fi for “something Gigan-Ghidorah,” and I don’t have any freestanding Gigan/Ghidorah fic plans right now, all my current plans are from farther forward in the chronology of the fics I’m currently writing.

So I was like, okay, I’ll just write a few scenes from, uh... like, sixteen fics ahead of where I am right now.

So here’s a few scenes from way ahead of where we currently are! I haven’t edited it because this fic ain’t done and ain’t gonna be for a long time, but enjoy the preview.

###

First contact was made on a Monday at exactly ten in the morning, local Central Zone time—as convenient a time as any for first contact to happen: late enough in the morning that just about everyone was up and about but early enough to ensure the arrival would dominate all but the early morning news broadcasts; and at the start of the work week so that all of the white-collar governmental sorts who were going to have to deal with this were rested from the weekend.

He'd planned it that way.

One moment, the sky above Constitution Plaza in Mexico City was clear; the next moment, a smooth object hurdled down from the sky so fast that passersby didn't even have time to send out panicked messages about their impending doom before it stopped, hovering, seeming to glower down on the National Palace. A thunderclap followed in the wake of its sudden stop, traveling out as a deep rumble across the city.

It sat there, a dark grey and black mass of machinery thrumming in the air, for exactly five minutes: long enough to attract the attention of damn near half the continent but not long enough for the panicking politicians inside the National Palace to start rallying the troops. Then a deep, slightly synthesized-sounding voice boomed out of the ship. It was clearly audible for blocks around in every direction:

"Buenos días. Vengo en son de paz. Llévame hasta tu líder."

Good morning. I come in peace. Take me to your leader.

Astute observers noted two things about the new arrival:

It had a sense of humor.

And it had done its research.

###

"On behalf of Monarch," Serizawa said, his Spanish stilted and slow over the video call, "I am honored that you have invited us to witness this historic occasion. But I don't understand what place Monarch has in a moment of... of interstellar diplomacy."

The video conference was cut into four windows: Serizawa Ishiro, who'd pulled on a button-up shirt for the call but who beneath the frame of the camera was sitting up in bed, still on bed rest from his near-death experience during the Titans' mass awakening; Xochitl Flores Rosales, scientist at Outpost 56-B monitoring Rodan and Ghidorah, and Monarch's official liaison to the Mexican government; a representative of the Mexican government, a stern-looking middle-aged woman with deep frown lines creasing her brown face, someone whom Monarch had never worked with before but who had been available to get on the line with them; and a live feed of the interview being conducted between the flustered Mexican president and the alien.

The alien took up most of Constitution Plaza; even sitting, it towered over the four-story National Palace, and every other nearby building. Footage taken of it standing when it had descended from its ship put it at fully a third taller than Godzilla. It was recognizably bipedal, seemed vaguely avian or reptilian, and called to mind comparisons to penguins, turtles, chicken, and lizards. Fully half of its body was covered in metallic-looking prosthetics or armor—unless that was how its body naturally looked? It was far too soon to know. They didn't even know what planet it came from.

"Unless you called us because of the size of our visitor?" Serizawa ventured. In the fourth screen, muted, cameras set atop the National Palace craned back to look at the alien's head. Its face was shaded beneath the spacecraft the loomed over several city blocks; only the glow of the red goggles-like visor that seemed to serve as its eyes helped illuminate its face. "Despite its scale, I don't think it's wise to count it as a titan."

"But it's already counted itself as a titan," the government representative said.

While Serizawa raised his eyebrows in surprise, Xochitl hurried to pull up a video clip—she'd been in the call longer than Serizawa and had watched more of the interview. "Here," she said. "One of the first questions he answered."

The president's voice was tinny and small as he asked through speakers, "What is your name?"

"Nothing you can pronounce," the alien said, then launched into what was clearly a prepared comment: "But the largest citizens of your planet—you call them 'titan' because they're titanic? I have the most in common with them, and since I'm gigantic—call me Gigan." His metal beak seemed to curve into a smirk.

Serizawa watched silently, hand over his mouth in concentration. Somewhat abashed, he said, "Gigan speaks better Spanish than me."

Xochitl laughed weakly. The government rep barely managed to crack a smile.

"And called the titans citizens of our planet," Serizawa went on. "Not animals, or residents—citizens. As fluent as Gigan is, I doubt it's a mistranslation."

"Maybe it misunderstands their status on Earth," the government rep said.

Serizawa said, "Or maybe Gigan is trying to tell us that we misunderstand their status."

The clip continued as Gigan answered another question: "I don't have a gender. I don't reproduce like species on your planet do. But most of you humans respect men more, don't you? So you can refer to me with male grammar."

Serizawa nodded slowly. "Yes, I think he understands how things work on Earth just fine."

Xochitl laughed harder.

"So that's why we thought Monarch should be involved," the government rep said.

"I understand now. We'll offer whatever assistance we can." Serizawa nodded at the clip. "Should we return to the live interview?"

"In a moment," the government rep said. "To get a full understanding of the situation, you should know why Gigan says he's come to Earth."

Serizawa nodded and focused on the clip again.

The president was asking, "Why have you come to Earth? Diplomacy? To trade resources?"

Gigan said, "I want to purchase some real estate."

###

He was in the market for a few acres near the gulf coast of Mexico—"just enough space for me to put my ship down and stretch my legs," he said.

He didn't represent any worlds or governments. He wasn't setting up an embassy. To his knowledge, no one else would be following after him. It was just him, a lone traveler in a lonely part of the galaxy. Most of the major population centers, he said, were way to heck and gone on the other side of the galaxy—and then he moved the conversation onward without elaborating on these alien civilizations.

He wanted to get his land the legal way—the human way. With currency. He reassured them that he understood currency, money, markets, capitalism, yes, all that—they all existed other places, with minor variations. He dealt in money most of the time. He had a job. He said he was an interstellar freelance mediator. When two parties had a conflict, one hired him to resolve the dispute.

He didn't intend to sell the fabulous secrets to interstellar space travel. He had a ballpark idea of how much that info was worth to humans, and he didn't need near that much to buy a few acres. He offered raw materials: enormous hunks of raw iron and gold. He'd harvested a few asteroids on the way into Earth. Effortless for him, impossible for humans.

Yes, he could accept money from the deal. He had a bank account. Or PayPal or Venmo, if they preferred. He also had accounts on YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, and Weibo. When he gave his usernames, the accounts were immediately flooded with thousands of new followers. He mostly lurked, retweeted titan pictures from Monarch, trolled flat earthers by informing them he was an alien currently orbiting Earth, and three weeks ago got in a heated debate on a M*A*S*H subreddit. He started responding to messages from new followers while still speaking with the Mexican president with no outward change in his demeanor or visible Internet connection.

By early afternoon, they had agreed—in concept—to Gigan's proposed sale of metals and purchase of land; in three days they would meet again to give Gigan a list of potential properties for him to choose from.

"And on behalf of the people of Mexico and the entire human race," said the president, reading off a statement that a speechwriter had prepared for him two hours earlier, "I would like to thank you for this peaceful and mutually fruitful first contact—"

"'First contact'?" Gigan cut in.

The president stammered to a stop. After a moment, he said, "Yes, that's... that's our phrase for our first meeting with intelligent alien life."

"I know what it means," Gigan said. "But I'm not your first contact. Some of my friends are already here."

Flabbergasted, the president asked, "Are—are they? Where?"

"I'm sure you've already heard of them," Gigan said. "We're former coworkers. What is it you've been calling them—Ghidrah, Gidora?"

as he asked the question.

And suddenly the entire meeting looked different.

There was something sadistically delighted in Gigan's glowing visor as he basked in the humans' stunned silence. "Speaking of, I meant to visit them before I headed back to orbit," he said. "Do you know if they're at home?"

###

It had been eons since Gigan had last seen the triple threat.

Eons since he'd grabbed himself a space ship and taken off across the galaxy to attempt to track them down.

Eons spent combing back and forth over the same five hundred cubic light-years where their trail went cold, trying to figure out where they'd vanished to—if they'd left that patch of space, or if they were still drifting through space in the heart of an unfallen meteor, or if they had died on some lonely planet...

Until now. Until he'd found traces of their signature in this little solar system. Until he'd found the one populated planet, jacked into the primitive locals' communication system, and found it riddled with pictures and recordings of the trio.

It had been so long since Gigan had seen them, the material of the only physical photo he had of them had long since corroded and crumbled. He'd digitized, reprinted, redigitized, and re-reprinted the image dozens of times, maybe hundreds. He was afraid his own electronic memories of them might have also decayed over time, byte-sized glitches switching 1s for 0s and 0s for 1s until the memories distorted, the images changed, and he forgot what they looked like.

But when he saw them through the humans' news feeds, they looked exactly how he remembered. Even compressed through humans' primitive sound recording processes, they sounded the same.

It had been eons—and now he'd be face to face with them in just a few minutes. He'd left his ship in orbit and was flying down to the island they'd been hanging out on under his own power.

And now he couldn't put off asking himself the question he'd been trying to avoid for millennia:

What if they didn't want to see him?

They were the ones who'd run off, after all—and he'd never found out why. Maybe they hated the sight of him. Maybe they would to try to kill him. Maybe by now they'd completely forgotten about him.

He could see a glint of gold on the island below. Sparks sizzled through his system.

No time left for doubt. He waited until he was low enough to be within hearing range, and bellowed at top volume, "Hey! You worthless, spineless, heartless featherweight! What's the big idea, bailing on me like that?!"

They started, shifting from reclining on top of their folded-up wings to crouched anxiously, long necks whipping around to search for the unexpected noise. It was Lefty who looked up first and spotted Gigan; and faster than Gigan could react, they were launching straight up to meet him in midair.

He'd definitely forgotten how fast they could take off. "Whoa, wait—"

they crashed into him, getting him in the gut with a double head butt; and then tried to grapple him with their claws while he was stunned. He barely managed to weave out of their way.

"You damn loser!" One jaw snapped at him, and another demanded, "Did you come all this way to ride on our coattails some more?!" Lightning crackled over their wings with every flap, the sky quickly clouding over.

"You wish! How's business been without me to handle finances for you, huh?"

They butted a forehead violently against his, static crackling back and forth over their skin. The rattling of their tails was nearly lost in a crackle of thunder.

They were happy to see him.

[livingmybestfakelife]

The Favorite -2 of ?-

Parings: Tommy Shelby x Black Reader

“Your guest has arrived Mr. Shelby” the waiter says as he places his drink order on the table

“Thank you”

He nods and walks away, seconds later he greets you and Abel upon entering and he bows his head to you

“Your royal highness, Mr. Shelby is waiting for you, right this way”

“Thank you”

He leads both of you to Tommy’s table then asks you for any drink orders, Abel doesn’t want anything but you order a glass of lemonade, once again he bows his head and leaves you all be.

“I wish everyone wouldn’t bow and curtsy to me so much, it’s something I’ve never gotten use to”

“Yes but, you are royalty, they might think that they’ll be seen as disrespectful if they don’t”

“Maybe...still...what about you Mr. Shelby? You seem to be of importance as well, way before your election”

“Ahh, so you know about me?”

“You, and your whole family, it’s Abel’s job to make sure to know whose going be in close contact with the family”

He looks over at Abel standing behind you, he’s glancing over the room every now and then, finally to Tommy when he notices him staring.

“He’s also co head of security and my bodyguard”

“I see, he’s three people in one, I’m impressed, that must be exhausting for him?”

“Not really”

Abel responds in a thick Nigerian accent

“So, Mr. Shelby, may I ask the reason for this meeting?”

“Just to get acquainted better, we didn’t have much time yesterday, the Earl and Countess took up most of your time, and you are to meet with the King and Queen this evening”

“Yes, for dinner, and I’ll be busy the rest of this week as well, visiting hospitals and orphanages, my family just opened one last month, I’m to go and observe everything”

“I’m guessing it’s the one that took in all those African refugee children?”

“Yes, and some local negro children, ones that have been mistreated by some nuns...I heard that one mixed race little girl was forced to wash with a different soap”

“I know, I heard she’s doing well now though, she got adopted by an affluent black family from New York”

“The Morris’s, yes they’re a good family, father is a physician and the mother is a school teacher, been struggling to have any children of their own, but little Caroline was all they needed”

“I’m happy to hear that, you know I have children myself”

“I’m aware, and also married, to a very beautiful woman might I add”

“Thank you”

He looked disappointed in the fact that you knew about Lizzie, he knew that he shouldn’t be surprised since he was informed of the background check being done on him but he was.

“What about you your highness, is there anyone special in your life?”

“You don’t have to call me that all of the time, YN will do, and not at the moment, but I do get a lot of offers”

“Why haven’t you accepted, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I have no interest in courtships at the moment, and my father especially is very picky about who he sees fit for me, I’m also focused on other matters”

“Such as?”

“Do you always give women you hardly know the third degree?”

He chuckles at your bluntness, you weren’t at all what he was expecting, women of your class were trained to accept just about anything that they didn’t agree with just to keep the peace and keep up a certain image, you clearly didn’t care about such rules, your mother raised you not to be a weak woman, she would give you a good smack for being anyone’s doormat and your grandmother would roll in her grave at you shying away like a scared little child.

“Mr. Shelby I ask you not to compare me to past women whom I do not know, your issues with them have nothing to do with me, I’m not saying that you have to trust me completely but projecting those insecurities onto me won’t get you anywhere”

The waiter from earlier comes back to give you your lemonade, you thank him while digging into your purse to give him a hefty tip, he smiles widely and thank you while bowing his head once again.

Tommy doesn’t have any rebuttal to what you just said, he felt like he just received a free therapy session, he thought long and hard about your response, him actually taking your advice is something only time would tell.

“You’re very generous”

“These people make very little, it’s the least I can do...I hope you’ve done the same”

“Of course”

“Excellent”

About a half hour later you’re ready to head out to get ready for dinner later on, but not before he asks if you’re free for at least an hour this week.

“And why is that?”

“I thought I could show you around Birmingham, my home city, maybe show you some of the horses I own...and if possible, without your guard”

“Unless she’s going to the restroom or undressing, where ever she goes I go”

“He’s correct, and besides, us being alone together wouldn’t be something I would feel comfortable with, after all you are a married man remember, that wouldn’t be a good look now would it?”

Once again he’s silent followed by a clearing of his throat, you are harder to crack than he thought, it was bothering him how much his charm wasn’t phasing you in the slightest

“Well then, have a good evening your highness, it was nice catching up with you”

“Likewise Mr. Shelby”

While you’re walking away you don’t catch Abel smirk in amusement at you turning him down, he almost wanted to laugh but had to stick to being a professional, he would save it for later though.

————————

“Are you honestly surprised that he did, you know how most of them European men are, they love exotic women, they somehow think that our pussies hold some type of magic power, it’s creepy”

You giggle with your cousin Iman on the other end of the phone, she was older than you by five years and was your best friend, you both would go to each other about any and everything, even during serious moments like dinners or government meetings you’d catch one another’s eyes that told everything you couldn’t say out loud, you always admired her extroverted nature and found yourself being coached by her to be more open, it would surely help you in the future if you found yourself living long enough to being queen, she would honestly be a better choice.

“The man is married for heavens sake and an MP, you would think that would make a man of his status be more careful at preventing a scandal”

“Only in a perfect world my dear”

“Yes, you’re correct”

All of a sudden you heard what sounded like a door opening on the other end of the line and Iman’s muffled voice

“I have to go, the in laws have just arrived and I have to go entertain them, goodbye little rabbit”

“Goodbye Iman”

You hang up with a sigh and stretch in the chair, standing up you make your way over to the closet to pick out what you would be wearing in a couple of hours, and that’s when you finally notice, something that everyone you knew thought was destroyed and gone forever, sitting right there on the little table beside the wardrobe.

“The Favorite”

Tags: @maryams-things

[blueiscoool]

Casu marzu: The world's 'most dangerous' cheese

The Italian island of Sardinia sits in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea, gazing at Italy from a distance. Surrounded by a 1,849-kilometer coastline of white sandy beaches and emerald waters, the island's inland landscape rapidly rises to form hills and impervious mountains.

And it is within these edgy curves that shepherds produce casu marzu, a maggot-infested cheese that, in 2009, the Guinness World Record proclaimed the world's most dangerous cheese.

Cheese skipper flies, Piophila casei, lay their eggs in cracks that form in cheese, usually fiore sardo, the island's salty pecorino.

Maggots hatch, making their way through the paste, digesting proteins in the process, and transforming the product into a soft creamy cheese.

Then the cheesemonger cracks open the top -- which is almost untouched by maggots -- to scoop out a spoonful of the creamy delicacy.

It's not a moment for the faint-hearted. At this point, the grubs inside begin to writhe frantically.

Some locals spin the cheese through a centrifuge to merge the maggots with the cheese. Others like it au naturel. They open their mouths and eat everything.

If you are able to overcome the understandable disgust, marzu has a flavor that is intense with reminders of the Mediterranean pastures and spicy with an aftertaste that stays for hours.

Some say it's an aphrodisiac. Others say that it could be dangerous for human health as maggots could survive the bite and and create myiasis, micro-perforations in the intestine, but so far, no such case has been linked to casu marzu.

The cheese is banned from commercial sale, but Sardinians have been eating it, jumping grubs included, for centuries.

"The maggot infestation is the spell and delight of this cheese," says Paolo Solinas, a 29-year-old Sardinian gastronome.

He says some Sardinians cringe at the thought of casu marzu, but others raised on a lifetime of salty pecorino unabashedly love its strong flavors.

"Some shepherds see the cheese as a unique personal pleasure, something that just a few elects can try," Solinas adds.

When tourists visit Sardinia, they usually wind up in a restaurant that serves porceddu sardo, a slowly roasted suckling piglet, visit bakers who sell pane carasau, a traditional paper-thin flatbread, and meet shepherds who produce fiore sardo, the island pecorino cheese.

Yet, if you are adventurous enough, it's possible to find the casu marzu. It shouldn't be seen as a weird attraction, but a product that keeps alive an ancient tradition and hints at what the future of food might look like.

Giovanni Fancello, a 77-year-old Sardinian journalist and gastronome, spent his life researching local food history. He's traced it back to a time when Sardinia was a province of the Roman empire.

"Latin was our language, and it's in our dialect that we find traces of our archaic cuisine," Fancello says.

There is no written record of Sardinian recipes until 1909, according to Fancello. That's when Vittorio Agnetti, a doctor from mainland Modena, traveled to Sardinia and compiled six recipes in a book called "La nuova cucina delle specialità regionali."

"But we have always eaten worms," says Fancello. "Pliny the Elder and Aristotle talked about it."

Ten other Italian regions have their variant of maggot-infested cheese, but while the products elsewhere are regarded as one-offs, casu marzu is intrinsically part of Sardinian food culture.

The cheese has several different names, such as casu becciu, casu fattittu, hasu muhidu, formaggio marcio. Each sub-region of the island has its own way of producing it using different kinds of milk.

Foodies inspired by the exploits of chefs such as Gordon Ramsay often come in search of the cheese, says Fancello. "They ask us: 'How do you make casu marzu?' It's part of our history. We are the sons of this food. It's the result of chance, of magic and supernatural events."

Fancello grew up in the town of Thiesi with his father Sebastiano, who was a shepherd who made casu marzu. Facello shepherded his family's sheep to grazing grounds around rural Monte Ruju, lost in the clouds, where magic was believed to happen.

He recalls that, for his father, casu marzu was a divine gift. If his cheeses didn't become infested with maggots, he would be desperate. Some of the cheese he produced stayed for the family, others went to friends or people who asked for it.

Casu Marzu is typically produced at the end of June when local sheep milk begins to change as the animals enter their reproductive time and the grass dries from the summer heat.

If a warm sirocco wind blows on the cheesemaking day, the cheese-transforming magic works even harder. Fancello says it's because the cheese has a weaker structure, making the fly's job easier.

After three months, the delicacy is ready.

Mario Murrocu, 66, keeps casu marzu traditions alive at his farm, Agriturismo Sa Mandra, near Alghero in the north of Sardinia. He also keeps 300 sheep and hosts guests in his trattoria, and keeps casu marzu traditions alive.

"You know when a form will become casu marzu," he says. "You see it from the unusual spongy texture of the paste," Murrocu says.

Nowadays, this isn't so much down to luck as the ideal conditions that cheesemongers now use to ensure as many casu marzu as possible. They've also figured out a way to use glass jars to conserve the cheese, which traditionally never lasted beyond September, for years.

Though revered, the cheese's legal status is a gray area.

Casu marzu is registered as a traditional product of Sardinia and therefore is locally protected. Still, it has been deemed illegal by the Italian government since 1962 due to laws that prohibit the consumption of food infected by parasites.

Those who sell the cheese can face high fines up to €50,000 (about $60,000) but Sardinians laugh when asked about the prohibition of their beloved cheese.

In the past few years, the European Union has begun to study and revive the notion of eating grubs thanks to the concept of novel food, where insects are raised to be consumed.

Research shows that their consumption could help reduce carbon dioxide emissions associated with animal farming and help alleviate the climate crisis.

Roberto Flore, the Sardinian head of Skylab FoodLab, the food system change laboratory of the Technical University of Denmark's innovation hub, has long studied the concept of insect consumption.

For a few years, he led the Nordic Food Lab research and development team -- part of the three-Michelin-starred NOMA restaurant -- trying to figure out ways to insert insects into our diet.

"Lots of cultures associate the insect with an ingredient," Flore says. That said, Sardinians prefer the cheese to the maggot and are often horrified by the idea that people eat scorpions or crickets in Thailand.

Flore says he's traveled around the world to study how different cultures approach insects as food and believes that while psychological barriers make it difficult to radically alter eating habits, such consumption is widespread.

"How do you define edible food?" he says ."Every region of the world has a different way to eat insects."

He's convinced that Sardinia's delicacy is safe to eat.

"I believe that nobody has ever died eating casu marzu. If they did, maybe they were drunk. You know, when you eat it, you also drink lots of wine."

Flore hopes casu marzu will soon shed its clandestine status and become a symbol of Sardinia -- not because of its unusual production, but because it's emblematic of other foods now vanishing because they don't fit in with modern mainstream tastes.

In 2005, researchers from Sardinia's Sassari University made the first step in this direction: they raised flies in the lab and made them infect pecorino cheese to show that the process can happen in a controlled way.

Islanders and researchers hope that the European Union will soon rule in their favor. Until then, anyone who wants to sample it will need to ask around when they get to Sardinia.

For those willing to suspend concerns about what they're eating, it offers an authentic experience recalling a time when nothing was thrown away and when boundaries of what was edible or not were less well defined.

Cheesemonger Murrocu says that, fittingly, locals keep an open mind about the best way to eat casu marzu, but a few other regional treats have been known to help it slip down easier.

"We spread the cheese on wet pane carasau, and we eat it," he says. "But you can eat it as you want, as long as there is some formaggio marcio and a good cannonau wine."

By Agostino Petroni.

[capmackie]

no sleep for the wicked

Bucky,

I pray this letter finds you well — it’s been so long, so very damn long. 

I know you’re wondering how I possibly could’ve gotten your address — I’m surprised myself, to be honest, you really did not want to be found lol. I must say, you’ve done a helluva job of keeping yourself off of the grid but I can’t say I’m surprised; if James Buchanan Barnes made his mind up to do something, it was good as done.  I’ve always admired that about you. But if you taught me, anything brother, it’s to take life in my own hands, craft my own destiny and after 10 years, 86 days, 14 hours, and 56 minutes of searching, I’m finally sending this letter off.  I don’t know what I’m expecting out of this but I’m here to ask you to come back home Bucky. I hope that you know that you are missed — shit man. We never expected you to leave and never once thought you’d stay away for so long after that. Nothing could ever take your place here, not even me.  If only for a weekend, please come back.  P.S. — can I still call you Bucky?

Love,  Steve ——————— The smell of coffee is the only thing in the world that can possibly rouse Sam Wilson out of his fitful sleep. Even then, it takes James Rhodes placing the mug directly in Sam’s face for the sheriff to even stir. Long nights at the Handonsville’s Sheriff Department will do that to you. It’s a deep roast, made by some kind of hipster brand that Sam can’t even pronounce and is *too damn expensive* if you ask him, but it gets the job done. And the job needs to be done, unfortunately. What went from an absolutely rarity of Sam staying overnight to work on a case has become a constant in his life. And Sam’s loves constants. He loves a routine, loves order and predictability; loves waking up every morning at 5:45am, going on his morning jogs and greeting the early risers of the town — Mrs. Carter down at the library, Mr. Barnes who own the local meat shop, loves making it back at his cramped apartment at 6:15, not a minute later. And as much as Sam loves the constants in his life, he will never get comfortable with the sudden constant-ness of the disappearances in his town. No matter how many times it happens, no matter how each disappearance closely mirrors the one before it, no matter the same sad looks on each one of the missing person’s families' faces, the collective dread they all seem to share when they come into the office to report that their son, daughter, sister, cousins hasn’t been home in over 24 hours. No, he’ll never get used to that, no matter how constant. Sam stretches, feels his body protest fervently against the position he slept in, hears his bones cracks as he stretches. At only 30 years old, Sam already knows he’s getting too old for this shit. His body continues to groan in protest as he wearily stands, stretching his arms and back once more before grabbing his coffee to take a look at the ‘Missing Persons’ board. He’s been in the station since last night, pouring hours into a case file — which doubled as his pillow, to make some sense of the mysterious disappearance of one Casey Johnson. So deep into the file, Sam didn’t even bother to make the ten-minute trek back to his place, eventually just giving in and sleeping at the office. Casey Johnson was the latest victim in what seemed to be a never-ending cycle of disappearances in the small town. Nothing about Johnson was similar to the case before him; he was young, two weeks removed from graduating from high school. He was a good kid, a little on the dopey side but kind-hearted nonetheless. Anyone who knew Johnson knew he wouldn’t hurt a fly and that made the question of *who would hurt him* that much more pressing. He had no run-ins with the law, on the contrary, he spent most of his free time down at the office with Sam, with dreams of eventually becoming a sheriff himself. So no, there was no pattern between Johnson the last case, Steve Rogers, the soldier notorious for his frequent visits to the station, who disappeared just a few days before Johnson. The only thing they had in common was leaving their respective places with an unspoken promise to be back — Rogers was off to the post office to mail a letter while Johnson was taking the garbage out for Mr. Barnes at the meat shop, never to return again. It made no sense. --- The first instance of someone going missing, it was Pixie Thomas, who was quite as eccentric as her name would suggest. With no reason to suspect foul play and with one of Pixie’s favorite bands on tour one town over, it was safe to say that she left to become one of their roadies. The second, third, fourth and fifth time it happened, well those cases weren’t so easy to write off. The victims ranged in ages, marital status, wealth, race. It was almost like whoever was behind this was choosing them at random which spelled trouble for the small force. With nothing to link the missing together, it was nearly impossible to know when and where the perpetrator would strike next. “Earth to Sam, hello?” Rhodey’s voice and wave of hand brought Sam back to the present. This kind of thing has happened before, Sam becoming so hyper-fixated on a particular case that he forgets to eat, drink, *blink*, but nowhere near this magnitude. Now, more often than not, Sam finds himself lost in his work and the other officers just find him lost. “I know you like to think if you stare at this wall long enough, the answers will appear like you’re in some kind of Sherlock episode but I’m sorry buddy, it ain’t happening.” Sam *might as well* be in a Sherlock episode the way this case is turning out. Actually there’s nothing more in the world he would love more than to ask Benadryl Cumberbatch for help with solving this shitshow but alas. “Go home Wilson”, Rhodey continues, “you need some rest.” “Can’t”, Sam replies. And it’s true; he can’t. He can’t just separate himself from this case, it’s not that easy. He can’t leave it unsolved, can’t chance the townspeople catching word of the seven disappearances within county lines and how their very own sheriff department has no clue what the fuck is going on. Can’t go home to *rest* when people like Casey Johnson or Steve Rogers may never make it back home ever again. Blowing on his coffee, letting the steam of the hot beverage envelop him for a moment, he turns to Rhodey and then back to the corkboard. ———— Growing up in Handonsville, Sam wanted nothing more than to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a sheriff in the town that loved him and he loved back. Handonsville, with all of its small-town charm — small, quaint, stereotypical —  is the only home Sam has ever known. It’s one of those places where no one is a stranger, for better or worse. Here, secrets are hard to hide and even harder to keep. Little to no anonymity is a small price to pay considering how fiercely the small town protects each other and itself. Growing up and until Sam’s third year on the job, there was no crime, no violence, no ... anything to be honest. The sheriff’s department was mostly for show, something to make out of towners reconsider their ideas of fucking with the people of Handonsville. And it worked. But now something had changed in the sleepy town. There were no threats from outsiders; no drifters unaware of the unspoken rules that govern Handonsville causing trouble. No, it was a different malevolent presence blanketing the town, sinking onto the residents, heavy and restricting. Now, the danger came from inside of the town. You could practically feel it in the air. The feeling of dread, of waiting for the first fall of rain to come after the dark clouds move in. The anxiousness of seeing lighting flit across the sky, preparing yourself for the roar of thunder that’s sure to follow. In the three decades Sam has lived in Handonsville, he never had any reason to ever doubt his own safety or the safety of the other 800 residents that called this place home too. Until today. Until Derek Anderson, the town’s resident mechanic, came barging into the office, yelling that he needed to speak to Sam and he needed to do it *right away*. Frantic and upset, Anderson ignores Rhodey’s suggestions to quiet down, the officer throwing an apologetic look over his shoulder at Sam who’s come from the back to see what the disturbance is all about. Before he even reaches the man, Sam knows immediately what all of the commotion pertains to, he can feel it in his gut. The eighth disappearance in less than two months in Handonsville. ———————— Taking the crumpled piece of parchment paper out of the garbage can for the sixth time today, Bucky finds himself staring down at the words of someone he hoped to never speak to again. At the mere mention of coming back home, of *Handonsville*, Bucky felt the floodgates open; nostalgia pouring down on him, pulling him under until he has no choice but to float with the current; had no choice but to let the memories he tried so hard to repress wash over him, engulf him completely. It’s nothing against Steve; no, Steve was a light in Bucky’s life, a light in so many others lives as well. Steve was smart, funny, had a penchant for danger the same way Bucky did. They were brothers in every sense of the word; playing together, fighting together, even crying together once when Sir Snaps a Lot, Steve’s turtle died. They didn’t know it then but it was a reason why they got along so well, like they were actual brothers. Because while Steve was a light in Bucky’s life, smart, funny and a risk-taker, he also was the byproduct of an affair that ruined the Barnes’ home completely. How their father thought a secret of that magnitude would ever remain hidden in a town like Handsonville was beyond Bucky and the ensuing drama drove him and his Ma out of town. It took years for Bucky to even acknowledge his father again, much less his father’s son. And *Steve* — the same Steve who was his age and his height and classmate and his best friend was no longer just that. Steve was his brother and no matter how many times they often referred to each other as brothers before the truth came out, how natural their relationship, the unmistakable bond the two shared, it wasn’t right to refer to Steve as what he actually was. But that was years ago, a lifetime even, and Bucky had made his peace, putting time and eight thousand miles of distance between himself and the sins of his father, only for one measly letter to draw him back, like a moth to an open flame. A small part of Bucky knew nothing good would ever come from him going back home. Knew there, he was more likely to meet his demise than his dawning; but under the incessant need to separate himself from the town that shunned him, turned him away was the egregious *want* to prove that he made it without them. That there was a great big world outside of the small town and that world accepted him even when they wouldn't. With his jaw set and his bags packed, Bucky set off to Handonsville. ————- It’s all starting to run together at this point. And not that Sam isn’t emphatic to the plight of Mr. Anderson — his heart yearns for the other man, the very idea of having to file this kind of report for your child is *traumatizing*, it’s just that he’s seen this scene play out before. He’s seen the frightened look on Anderson’s face before, he’s seen in at least seven times in the past two months. He’s heard the script before, sure the names and dates and last seen places are different, but in the end, it’s all the *same*.