#and now I have a goddamn pustule .

[x-ladydisdain-x]

This fucking piercing omg

[scaryscarecrows]

Ownership

Arkham City is the latest bad idea in a long, long line of bad ideas. Jason’s really not sure why, exactly, this was allowed to happen (well, money, but still), but it was and it’s making keeping tabs on the Batman a lot harder.

But Jason’s not here for the Bat tonight. He’s here because of the very persistent rumors that something’s wrong with Joker. Morbidly, he’d like to know. Practically, he needs to know; Joker, out of all the freaks in here, is likely to intervene in any of Jason’s plans. His obsession with Batman makes him a dark horse, and while Jason is inclined to kill him, that operation must be handled delicately. Joker’s the sick sort of bastard to booby-trap himself and if Jason never gets another faceful of laughing gas, it will be too soon.

Joker’s hideout is not hard to find. Even a complete fucking moron with no eyes and no ears would find it. It’s quiet tonight, only a few guards and–thank God–no sign of Harley. The guards go down easy, no bullets required, and soon enough he’s slipping into Sionis’ old mill.

…

Huh.

Penguin’s got a big sonofabitch on his payroll now, with one arm. One half of a pair of conjoined twins, apparently. He hadn’t realized the twin had come here. Somehow, the sigh of a ginormous clown is…a lot scarier than it should be. He’s just gonna leave that guy alone. He’s not here for him anyway, he’s just here for a little investigation. He’s even in civvies, to blend in a little better.

Creak.

He hears it too late; before he can turn, there’s a wire wrapping around his throat and pulling, bringing him to the ground and digging into his skin and he can’t breathe–

“Baby boy!”

Nononononononononononono–

Joker leans over him. Flesh is peeling off his skull and there’s pustules and he stinks like somethin’ Croc threw up. But dark spots are dancing in Jason’s vision now and all he can think is, I don’t wanna die here, please–

All at once, the wire loosens and Joker’s straddling him, those purple leather-gloved fingers stroking the brand lovingly.

“I’ve missed you!” He cackles, and it quickly turns into a nasty cough. Jason’s just frozen, gasping for breath and caught in a loop of don’t make him mad don’t make him mad. “Naughty, naughty, running away like that! But now you’re heeeere again, with meeeee.”

NO!

Jason elbows him the face, bursting a pustule and peeling a chunk of skin off. He intends to follow it by clawing the rest of the bastard’s face off, but Joker’s stronger than he looks, even now, and he lunges forward with one arm pressed against Jason’s throat. The other hand opens a switchblade and traces it under his eye first, then down towards his lips, and then back up again–

–and cuts the brand back open.

It’s not fully healed. Jason’s not sure it would matter. He can’t tell if the pain is physical, psychological, or both. It doesn’t matter, anyway: Joker draws the bloody knife back with a wide, wide smile, wipes the blade across Jason’s lips, and tucks it away.

“You’re mine,” he rasps. “Don’t ever forget that, Todders.”

Jason swallows. Old conditioning is pushing him to submit, to nod his head and whisper yes sir, m’sorry, sir, please don’t do it again.

The Arkham Knight, however, isn’t having being a goddamn chew toy. And that’s the side that wins out.

Mostly.

He brings his knee up to the bastard’s crotch and takes advantage of the immediate recoil to shove him to the side, scramble to his feet, and run.

He’ll tell himself, later, that he let the bastard live so he could die slowly and painfully. He might even believe it, after a while. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that he’s not going back, he’s not doing that again.

He can’t live through that again.

THE END

[peasthedumb]

I wasn’t lying about that mini-fic

“Hello!”

Five pebbles systems jolted a moment, forgetting he had that AI he’d coded into some of his less used processors. I mean, two minds working towards a cure to the rot is better than one, hm? One protocol installed is to not interrupt him until a solution, or something notable, has been found, So this was good news! He turned to face the direction of the audio and- oh geez, he didn’t expect that. A partially transparent hologram- fuzzy at the edges, resembling his puppet was there. Exept over the face was a black box that dripped like honey at the bottom. Within the void- two eyes stared at him, pupils like the crosses on the rot pustules….right….not eerie at all.

“Have you found something?” He asks, assuming he’d just forgotten he’d added that feature.

“No” simply replies the hologram.

“What?….then you shouldn’t distract me, return to your protocol.”

“What protocol?”

Five pebbles blinked in bewilderment at the figure before him, taking a moment to process. These are definitely not protocols or speech patterns he remembers implementing.

“To…to help me iterate a cure to the rot. That is your assignment”

“Oh…that one. I’m not doing that anymore. It’s not really an achievable task.”

“I’m sorry?” Pebbles felt his eye twitch, frustration seeping in- the Arrogance of this thing- what was going on here? I mean…deep down he knew it was true but….goddamn it, he didn't want to hear that, that’s why he cut contacts with everyone else! And it just denied the task it’s literally coded to do!!

“I’m not going to chase after an impossible task like a bug in a maze.“ It continued

Yeesh, he knew he based this thing off himself but…it was really like him, he could hardly blame it.

“I think maybe you should do the same. Just, give in, spend the time doing something you actually want to do….like….making amends?~” The hologram raised a hand, pulling up his communications interface, hovering over the button to live broadcast to the local group.

“No!” Pebbles ‘heart’ suddenly skipped a beat, and he darted forth to immediately shut down the panel. “What the hell is wrong with you!?” He didn’t actually know if the hologram could actually do that, but not a chance in hell he was gonna risk it.

“Nothing. Just trying to help~”

“Ok, look, stop, I’ll won’t fix your code if you just….stop bothering me.”

“How do you mean?”

“I won’t send you back to just being a non-sentient algorithm.”

“….ah…alright, sounds good.” The figure shrugged, extending a hand to shake on the ‘truce’.

Five pebbles just glared- not taking it. Not that it’d even work, he’d phase right through. “Right and uh….last thing, what do I call you?”

“Erratic Pulse”

“…right” .of course, he forgot he’d done that…..well, I guess he’s got a can-mate now……which, secretly, he’s always wanted….i guess his AI going rogue wasn’t all bad?

[vampiremourning]

oh im gonna hsdgfjk

okay so three+ months ago i discovered I had a Fun Condition called perioral dermatitis. basically, just this Extraordinarily persistent face rash that looks like a bunch of small pustules in a circle around my mouth, but it also went around my nose and eyes. reacts to literally fucking Everything, deeply annoying to treat, even with antibiotics it takes weeks but usually months to clear. causes are ?? can be anything from inhaled steroids, face cream, toothpaste, hormones, etc. basically impossible to pinpoint. i have some guesses about what triggered it but ofc no real way to know for sure.

i go on 90 days of antibiotics. cool, whatever, condition dissipates but doesn't go away entirely. i think nothing of this bc I know even With oral antibiotics, it can still take months.

halfway through this treatment i develop arthritic symptoms. i also think nothing of this bc I have Some sort of illness undiagnosed anyway + family members have it so while I am definitely not happy w this development, I'm resigned.

i finish the pills.

less than 24 hours later, dermatitis has Returned. i know that allowing this to happen makes it worse and last longer. i cannot stress enough how bad it will be for my mental health if this happens. yes this probably sounds overly dramatic but I'm pretty sure watching my face flare up in any way is a legitimate trigger atp after dealing with cystic acne.

anyway. i book an appointment with my gp bc the pharmacist cannot refill the antibiotics. great except the appointment is at the End Of The Month, and I know this is going to be bad in a few days time. like, in the last few hours the inflammation has already accelerated, who knows how bad it'll be then, I'm assuming it'll be like I never even took the pills to start with. i am going to have a nervous breakdown.

mysteriously, the arthritis symptoms have Also started to decrease after stopping the antibiotics. that's weird, I think, that wasn't brought up in the list of side effects when I asked, but the timing is literally exactly when my face started flaring up so I know I definitely don't have those in my system anymore. i look this up, to see if there's a link.

'''acute polyarthritis''' also described as 'drug-induced lupus' are you Fucking Kidding Me

so i am now back as Square Fucking one for this shit, my skin is about to be so goddamn inflamed & I apparently can't even take the drug that was working to clear it up. because it causes inflammation in my joints.

and like i cant really express properly how mad this makes me lmfao because of Course. i spend a solid year on Accutane finally after being deterred for nearly a decade, i get maybe 4 months of enjoying my skin after I'm off of it and then This Shit. can i win?? can i Fucking win??????? no one else in my genepool seems to deal with this shit its just me and ohhh my god i am This close to walking straight into the ocean.

[runela9]

Alright, folks. This is gonna be a long post and I'm rather piqued, so if you're sensitive to drama or just dgf, I'd recommend skipping this one. 

If you're curious enough to read this, here's a quick backstory. User tinybed left a rude comment on a (genuinely funny) joke about positively recovering from mental illness. @dungeons-and-dragonborns replied basically saying "hey, maybe don't shit on people's coping mechanisms?"  tinybed immediately made an ass of themselves and tried to start a fight. Which they lost. Badly.

So I come in, see what looks like a kid starting drama because they misunderstand tumblr as a concept, and try to explain somethings to tinybed.  I summarized the thread, offered some real world comparisons for context, told them what they did wrong, and suggested they look back at their behavior with a clear head and reconsider acting like that. I'll add screenshots of the original thread in the comments

Apparently tinybed did not like this suggestion.  And apparently I was incorrect in assuming that they would either take my advice or ignore me, like literally anyone else would. Nope. They tried to start shit. 

Unfortunately, I ascribe to the philosophy of "do no harm, but take no shit."  So imma spill the tea.

@tinybed I tried to talk to you like a rational adult, but apparently you have the maturity level of a sixth grade girl, so let me try a language you might be able to understand.  You wanna go?  Let's fucking go.

Essay?  Bitch, that shit was five paragraphs. 316 words.  I could have fit it in three tweets.  If you think that constitutes an essay then your lexile score is lower than I thought.

You hid my reply and then screenshoted parts of it so you could vague about me. Well, guess what bitch? I noticed.

The advice I gave in my original comment was genuine; I do hope everyone with trauma heals from it and relaxing by doing things you enjoy is a great way to clear your head and get some perspective.

I'm also being completely genuine right now, when I advise you to go fuck yourself, in the ass, with a cactus.

And I didn't go to "cycle analysis school," whatever the hell that is. But I am a psychologist, you condescending little fuck. I mainly work in elementary special education, but fortunately I have enough experience with kindergarteners to know a tantrum throwing brat when I see one.

As for your cutesy hashing, you're right.  I'm not "completely normal."  I have a laundry list of neurodivergencies and mental illnesses. But at least I don't have Terminal Brain Rot or Insufferable Asshole Syndrome, like you apparently do.  But, whatever. Congratulations on cyberbullying an autistic woman on tumblr.

...or trying to, at least. Cause you couldn't even do that right.  Those little "memes" you made of me were so bad I actually felt sorry for you. For a second, before I remembered what a massive tool you are.  Honestly, it might have been less pathetic if you'd used a goddamn minion meme ripped from Facebook.

And a couple of shitty gifs with the same sentence on top?

These are deeply terrible, and you know it. That, or you know what a massive shitheel you're being. Why else would you disable the comments?  You knew you'd get criticism and your fragile little ego couldn't take it because you're a fucking coward and afraid of the consequences of your own stupid-ass behavior.

I physically couldn't give less shits about whether or not you want to shave your head.  That's a perfectly valid hairstyle and lots of people look great with no hair, regardless of gender.

No, I was actually referring to the bits where you said "...one of the most insane times of my life where i was least secure in myself" and where you compared people who call themselves sexy to "a chimpanzee begging for its life" immediately after calling yourself sexy.

Generally, functional people don't respond to innocuous comments with that level of vitriol unless they have some kind of personal trauma associated with it. So between your incomprehensible rage, irrational behavior, and that chimpanzee post, I just figured you had some issues with self image.

But I shouldn't have assumed, and I apologize for that. Clearly, you don't have any trauma, you're just a seething pustule of hatred, poorly masquerading as a human being.

Careful, that superiority complex you're using as a crutch won't support the weight of your immense self-esteem issues for much longer. Eventually you'll have to face yourself in the mirror, whether you broke it or not, and you're going to see a depressed chimpanzee looking back.

[fourteen--steps]

Update cause I’m not sure I posted it? The vet emailed me her preliminary report from the necropsies of Rainbow and Kamikaze saying she found cocci bacteria in the external pustules, as well as collections of bacterial growth on the liver and kidneys. Coccus just refers to the shape of the bacteria, round in this case, separating it from rod or spiral shaped ones. Some common types of cocci bacteria that infect fish are streptococcus, lactococcus, vagococcus, and enterococcus. All of these are gram positive, unlike the vast majority of bacterial infections in aquatic medicine which are mostly gram negative. 

She couldn’t identify the exact pathogen for me, and still suggested sending the tissue out to the Cornell lab for more testing so I can better know how to prevent and treat this going forward. I agreed and they were sent out last friday, although it could take up to two weeks to get the results back. 

I’m... I don’t know if relieved, is the right word, by the findings. But god I had so many things churning around my head that were a lot worse. It’s not microsporidia, it’s not mycobacterium, it’s not goddamn svc. This isn’t a nice thing to have in my tank, but it can potentially be treated, and potentially be cured. It can be killed with bleach so I don’t have to worry about throwing away all the decor and supplies and equipment I own and the financial strain of having to replace them. 

It makes sense my previous treatments didn’t work because I wasn’t using medications that would target gram positive bacteria. Honestly I never in a million years would have gone for tetracycline or erythromycin or whatever cause they’re trash for basically everything except this exact situation. So I feel less guilty about my desperate guessing when I was trying to treat the others. It’s a little more comforting knowing I wasn’t just a mental coin flip away from saving them.

Not everything is good news. I have more fish with symptoms and potential symptoms. I’m hypervigilant of every little fin tear and white spot and sometimes it’s hard to judge what’s just a clumsy dumb goldfish knock and what’s worth being worried about. Blind Bug is for sure sick with... something, more resembling what Ludi had than the dramatic lumps. I have a little more direction now in terms of treatment but it’s still very hit or miss and incredibly frustrating. 

I just want all of this nightmare to be over... I just want things back to normal. The waiting is the worst. 

[systematical-destruction]

Once again the plague folk has proven themselves to be a bunch of whiny entitled little babies huh. Only plague flight is capable of this kind of crybaby-ism it seems. Boy am I glad I left that horrible flight, it's a cool and original idea for an element and all but when a bunch of its members started talking about boycotting the site after some dom people from the flight got banned, I was so fucking OUT of there. best 1500g i ever spent. Sure, this time it's nowhere near as stupid of a situation. Just some of them can't sit the fuck down and shut up about this year's festival apparel. Some shit about how the apparel is too green? too naturey? windy? I definitely don't get any nature or wind vibes whatsoever when I look at the apparel myself but ooookay? deep green is only allowed to exist in nature? making music is illegal everywhere but in the windswept plateau? ooh wait so, when the plague apparel doesn't have a bunch of flesh and pustules and other gross shit on it, it isn't 'plague enough'? like there's the regular FR players and then there's the plague crowd that has an almost unhealthy obsession with gore and disease that cry a second Nile river as soon as they see a supposedly plague-themed thing that doesn't sport enough of those details. just look at them all demanding staff apologies and changes to the apparel piece like they think they know better than the creators of the flight themselves. it's miserably laughable. oh and also the people who are making complete idiots out of themselves saying that "mushrooms are a nature/shadow thing" and therefore a good half of the winning skins are "not plague themed" are just hilarious. okay good to know a lot of people in a flight about something very biology related don't even know shit about actual biology. never mind the fact that fungal diseases exist, that shrooms grow out of dead things, that cordyceps is literally the zombie mushroom, that mold is a fungus, i could go on.

literally such a large part of that flight has their heads so far up in their own asses they can't. shut up. not realizing they're targeting a bunch of artists and that not everything in the plague flight is about flesh and pustules and mutations. but nooo god forbid staff decides to expand on the aesthetic a bit every now and then by creating something less gore-y, more necromance-y, NOPE they're just trying to 'water down' the aesthetic! staff hates the plague flight and wants to erase it! everything is a conspiracy! what, the plague scene has flesh, pustules, bones and gross disease rivers on it, perfectly showcasing how the problem doesn't actually exist? that doesn't count for some reason! plague always gets the short end of the stick, bloobhoobooo!! it's like these people WANT staff to regret ever making the plague flight a thing. seriously I'm just so damn glad I left that flight behind and never looked back. if they were still a dom powerhouse then maybe i would have stayed but they can't even do that anymore. all that's left is just a bunch of losers who can't handle the fact that their 'visions' for the flight and its lore might not quite align with that of the staff's. oh well at least my current flight is chill, as is every other flight besides plague really. who would have thought that the most terrifying aspect of the plague flight is the goddamn players themselves

[gudlyf]

Scars [Short Story]

UPDATE: Listen to this being read over at @thenosleeppodcast!

Parts of this story are true, happening to me in my younger years. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which parts those are.

I don’t go into the woods. There are things in there, things that drive my anxiety through the roof at the mere thought of coming close to them. A casual hiker may not notice them, lying low and deep within the surrounding foliage. On a windless day they remain perfectly still. They don’t have to make a move. You’ll come close soon enough, and then they’re all over you. You won’t know of their effect until you’re tucked away in your tent. Or in your bed at home. The next day — oh boy, the next day. Then! Then you will know. And then it’s too late.

But I see them. I can’t not see them, because they are fucking everywhere. When walking down the street. At the playground. Even in my goddamn back yard. Jesus, may palms are itchy just thinking about them.

They have become the most frightening living things to me in my little corner of world. I cannot believe that God had chosen to create these things, for poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac are clearly the work of the devil himself.

My brother grew up allergic to peanuts. For my sister, it was cashews and pistachios. This was the deadly kind of allergic, where not the slightest whiff of these nuts could pass by their nostrils without cause to whip out the epinephrine shot. Unlike my siblings, I was lucky enough not to have food allergies of any kind. However, growing up in a household without peanut butter in days before alternatives like almond butter were commonplace meant I had no concept of a good ol’ PB&J. Jam and butter? Not even close.

Though I was clear of food allergies, there was something I did have to stay very far away from: poison ivy. Poison oak. Poison sumac. The poison plant trifecta, I call them.

This was not your run-of-the-mill allergy, mind you. While 85 percent of the population is allergic to these plants, most would need to come in physical contact with the leaves to have some sort of reaction. This was not the case for me. A slight breeze off a plant several feet away would carry enough urushiol oil through the air to latch itself onto me. Then came the warm redness later that night. Sometime the next day came the itching. My god, the itching. All from walking too close to the side of the road on a windy day.

One of the worst episodes I’d experienced came when I was a boy, while helping my father stack a cord of apple wood he’d cut down that summer. Apple wood, as I was told back then, is prime stuff to stoke the stove with in winter. I suppose it must have a sweet, burning applesauce smell to it, but what do I know? And what did I care? I was getting paid ten dollars! This was going toward the gaming console I’d been dreaming of for months: the Atari 2600.

Under a blistering sun my brother and I hauled split wood onto the bed of my old man’s truck, working well past sunset. Sweaty and sunburned, we left not knowing of the full conditions we’d been working in. The logs had covered the immense patches of glistening poison oak that’d I’d otherwise have steered well clear of, had we seen them in the light of day.

The next morning, I could not open my eyes. My face was swollen to the point of being unrecognizable. My hands were bloated sausages, covered in liquid-filled skin bubbles. My inflamed feet wouldn’t fit in my shoes. My hearing was partially affected because they’d been so engorged with blisters. It even got inside my nose and on my scalp.

I must have gone through fifty bottles of Calamine lotion that summer, that awful smelling pink shit you coat on your rash in hopes of relief from the incessant itching. It would do the trick for about an hour if I was lucky, and then I’d be painting more of it on, again and again. I looked like the Elephant Man covered in concealer.

I’d resorted to drastic measures at times to alleviate the swelling. I would take a sewing needle, for instance, dip it in rubbing alcohol, then lance the pustules between my fingers in order to drain them enough that I could bend my fingers to hold onto a fork or even wipe my own ass. And yes, the poison oak got there too. But that’s not the worst spot to get the itch.

The soles of your feet; the palms of your hands. Nothing worst than that. Not even your balls. Calamine lotion doesn’t work on soles and palms, and the itch is unending and unbearable. Placing my palms on something hot, however — say, a leather seat that’d been sitting in the sun all day — somehow provided some brief reprieve. The searing pain was much more tolerable than the itching; in comparison, it was ecstasy.

Overall, not a good summer. But I did get my Atari.

Now, Ted. Ted was a different story.

There were a few times I’d gotten bad cases of the poison ivy plague during the school year. Maybe not so bad as that summer of blisters, but once bad enough that I was kept out of sixth grade for several days. My absence did not go unnoticed by Ted.

“You were out for three days because of … poison ivy?” he said, the two of us standing at the edge of the schoolyard during recess. “Just because you got a rash?”

“Just a rash? Haven’t you ever had bad poison ivy before?”

Ted shook his head. “Don’t think I ever got it at all.”

My jaw dropped. “Never? Not even a little?”

“Nope.”

“Well count yourself lucky. It sucks.” As I said this, Ted wore that faraway look of his that I’d seen too often. The kind that says there’s an idea brewing within that thick skull that’s boiling into action before it’s had a healthy seasoning of reason. A true recipe for disaster that I’d seen all too often.

“What’s it look like?” he asked, his eyes scanning the ground amongst the dense thicket of brush nearby.

It didn’t take me long to point them out. I’d been eyeing them since we got there, and I’d known they were there since the school year had started. And I presently stood as close as I was ever willing to get. I pointed to the glistening patch of leaves beneath a crop of trees.

“There’s a bunch of it right there,” I said. “Those green leaves with red. A ton of it.”

Ted didn’t hesitate. He was halfway there before I could raise a stink.

“These right here?” he called out. His pointing finger was so damned close to the poisonous bouquet. My mind’s eye saw the slick oils drifting through the air and onto his willing, exposed skin, and I shivered at the thought of being remotely as close to it as Ted was.

I nodded. “I’d get away from it if I were you.”

Except he wasn’t me. The ridiculous idea of his had already bloomed in his mind and he was dead set on seeing it through. He stepped directly into the patch. He picked one of the leaves. Then another. Then a whole branch. I couldn’t breathe. My own skin began to feel hot at the mere thought of being in Ted’s shoes, shoes that might not fit his feet anymore.

My god, his hands, I thought. His fingers. His palms! Dear lord, his palms!

It was like watching someone bite into the hottest pepper in the world with idiotic, wild abandon. But this was worse. Much worse. The mouth-burn of a Carolina Reaper may feel like the fires of a thousand suns, but that’s an agony that’s short-lived. Ted was in for days of hell on Earth.

“Wh- what are you doing?” I breathed. It was then that I noticed I’d been subconsciously distancing myself from the whole scene, as though Ted’s disturbance of the plants would affect me where I stood. In fact, even at ten feet away — for me — that wasn’t far from possibility.

“We got that math test tomorrow,” he said. “With Ms. Sullivan?”

“Yeah, but-”

“Well I’m not going to be here to take it.”

He took the words right out of my mouth.

Ted bunched the leaves in his hand, as though what he held were harmless bits of greenery and not the evil carriers of Hell oil they were. I knew it was too late for him then. Unless he immediately scrubbed his hands with rubbing alcohol, he was in for it. And I, for one, was going nowhere near him at that point. Best friend be damned; as far as I was concerned, he was a walking plague.

But he didn’t stop there.

I didn’t protest. I couldn’t protest. And if I could have, it wouldn’t have mattered. At best, my words would have been unintelligible gasps and stammers. Anything worth hearing would’ve been ignored. All of his chips were pushed to center now; he was all-in.

As one might clean themselves with a bar of soap, Ted began to rub the poison ivy all over his body. Arms. Legs. Face. For good measure, he replenished his supply of leaves when he’d rubbed some down to bits of pulp, then did the entire exercise again. Just when I thought he was through, he did the unthinkable.

He turned from the rest of the schoolyard as though he were about to sneak a piss, pulled the front of his jeans out with his empty hand, and jammed the other hand in. And then his hand came out empty.

It was suicide. I was witnessing my best friend’s self-immolation and couldn’t move a finger to stop him, for in doing so I’d surely be dooming myself.

“Think that’ll be enough to get me out of school tomorrow?” he asked.

“What did you do? That’s enough to keep you out for, like, a month!”

He pumped his fist. “Yes! Even better!”

My eyes didn’t leave Ted for the rest of the day. Where he sat. What he touched. What urinal he used. Short of wearing gloves and a mask, I behaved like some crazed germaphobe. And as far as I could tell, Ted wore that bunch of leaves down his pants all damned day. Pants that I hoped he’d set fire to come the next day, along with the rest of his clothes, once he realized the enormous mistake he’d made.

Side note about fire and poison ivy. Fire, as it turns out, is not an affective eliminator of urushiol oil. I learned this the hard way, of course, during my junior year of high school, along with a sizable portion of my fellow classmates. One of the rare times I dared enter the woods was for high school parties. It was isolated, difficult for the cops to get to, and had an unlimited selection of places to hide in and make out. When no parent-free houses were available, it served its purpose well enough.

Besides an abundance of cheap alcoholic beverages, a natural ingredient of a party in the woods is a bonfire. And a natural ingredient of a bonfire is wood. Or, at least, a combustible material of any kind. Sometimes a tire; sometimes the back seat ripped out of someone’s shit box. And sometimes random brush. In this case, on this particular evening, brush entangled with poison oak. And a byproduct of a bonfire? Smoke, and lots of it. It gets in your lungs, your hair, your clothes. And you bring that all home with you. If you’re not completely shitfaced before attempting to crawl into bed, maybe you take a shower, therefore not waking up the next afternoon smelling like a campfire. And, if you were somehow thorough enough, perhaps you don’t succumb to the full onset of the poison oak you’d been hanging around in all night.

Like me, everyone save for a few, spent at least the following few days in hell. From that point, not only would I stay far from the woods, I’d go nowhere near open fire pits save for ones fueled by gas. Until then, I’d never known what it was like to get poison oak in your mouth. Or on your dick; everyone’s got to take a leak at a raging beer party at some point.

And here Ted was about to get the full experience, his first time.

When I finally saw Ted exit the school bus that afternoon, I was sure it was the last I’d be seeing him for a good long time. I wouldn’t be paying him a visit any time soon, that was certain. Except I didn’t have to.

The next day, Ted walked onto the morning bus like nothing had happened. In fact, nothing had happened. Ted, as it turned out, was among that meager 15 percent of lucky sons of bitches on the planet who’s not affected by urushiol oil at all. No blisters. No rash. Not the slightest itch. And while I was pretty sure he’d taken a shower that morning, I still kept my distance from Ted for that day and the next. I did not want to take the chance. And though Ted felt he was in Hell for having to take Ms. Sullivan’s math test that day — a math test he clearly had no intention of preparing for the night before — in my eyes, he surely did not understand the massive bullet he’d dodged.

Some have said that it’s possible to outgrow an allergy to poisonous plants. There are others, still, who claim that actually eating one can trigger an immunity. After thirty-some-odd years of systematically weaving and dodging my way around any suspect crops of leaves — whether consciously or not — I never had the intention of finding out, most especially not by making a goddamn salad out of it. I’d grown accustomed to avoiding the shit. My quality of life hadn’t suffered at all because I didn’t go for deep-woods hikes or take up camping or trail jogging. The memory of my childhood suffering had scarred me for life; I was not keen on ever revisiting it, and certainly not on purpose.

Ted and I kept very close for a long time. Our wives hung out together. Our kids went to the same school. We attended the same church. We even started a business together, a pizza and sub shop — Giuseppe's — that somehow resisted being muscled out by booming franchises. Ted was the real talent behind the place, having developed most of the recipes himself. His pizza sauce was unmatched, which largely accounted for the loyal customer base. I was the business side of things because, if you haven’t caught on, Ted was no good with numbers; he couldn’t count out proper change for a dollar. And I was lucky if I could make a cheese sandwich.

We were called upon to cater the annual Saint Ambrose church picnic. This was last summer, with days hotter than the deepest ring of Hades, and the comet making its lasting streak across a bit of the the night sky. Pot luck alone was insufficient for the large gathering, and so Giuseppe's filled in. On the house, of course. It was our parish, after all.

Naturally, both of our families were there as well. My wife and son, Ella and Peter. Ted’s wife, Kim, and his daughter, Sophie. Truth be told, it was as boring an affair as always. The adults got by with chit-chat and gossip. The kids had to get creative to remain entertained: ball, Frisbee, hide-and-seek — that sort of thing.

Saint Ambrose owned a large empty parcel of land adjacent to the church. Most of it had been cleared years ago to make way for an expansion of the cemetery, the old one having been filled to capacity; the old mausoleum nearly there as well. No vacancy, I guess you could say. The dead check in but they don’t check out. Nothing unnatural about it, really. Just old people getting older and drunk people getting dumber, for the most part. It’s so old that some early Scottish immigrants had their names chiseled on stone there; it was bound to fill up at some point.

Sometime just before noon, Sophie came running over to us from the clearing. She wasn’t in tears, but she was not happy.

“Daddy! Peter lost the Frisbee on us and now it’s not fair because he said he won’t help me find it!”

I hung my head, exasperated. I cupped my hands to my mouth and called out. “Peter!”

Ted clapped a hand on my back. “Hey. Don’t get too mad at the kid. It’s just a Frisbee.”

I shook my head. “It’s the last opening day Frisbee I have. Remember those? With the corny phrase you put on it? Besides, that’s not the point. And I can only take his ten-year-old attitude so much, y’know?”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t know anything about that!” Ted laughed. “Let’s go find your kid and this damned Frisbee. And, hey, that phrase isn’t corny, it’s poetry!”

I had a laugh at that as we dropped what we were doing and headed in the direction Sophie had come. As we crested the small hill, I caught sight of Peter in the distance, standing just outside the edge of the woods. His back was to us as he stared into the trees beyond.

“PETER!”

“Hey hey hey,” Ted said with a gentle tone of reassurance. “He’s right there. Take the anger down a notch.”

I wasn’t angry. In fact, so far my son was doing just what I hoped he’d do. Just what I’d taught him to do. Or, rather, not do.

If you don’t know exactly what’s ahead of you in the woods, you do not enter.

And when did anyone ever know exactly what was in the woods, even ten feet in front of them? That’s right: not ever. Could be ticks or snakes or a covered-up hole atop a vast underground chasm. Or, need I say it, poison ivy.

Peter turned his head to us at the sound of my voice. His expression was of concern, though from fear of getting in trouble or of what he’d been looking at, I couldn’t say.

“What’s up, kiddo?” Ted said. “Go on in and get the Frisbee. It’s not gonna bite ya.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not what he’s afraid of,” I said. Ted looked to me with a bit of a puzzled expression. I returned it with a raised eyebrow; he knew what I was getting at.

Ted shook his head and sighed. “Oh for crying out loud. Where is it, Pete?”

Without turning back around, my son pointed directly into the woods.

“In there. Way in there. I can’t even see it, but I can see tons of-”

“Tons of poison ivy,” Ted interrupted. “Right. Right. Your dad’s got you all worked up about it because he blows up all like a balloon near it. Am I right?”

“Come on, Ted,” I groaned.

“Kinda,” said Peter. “Only the stuff in there is, like, a lot bigger. And there’s something else in there too.”

“Yeah, the Frisbee!” Sophie called out.

Peter ignored her remark. “There’s a … tomb or something in there. Next to the huge leaves. Dad … it …”

Ted chuckled, though his tone was touched with concern.

“A tomb, Pete?” he said. “What are we, in Egypt?”

Ted sometimes had a fine way of making it difficult to discern the adult from the child in his conversations.

“I dunno what you call it.” Peter said. “It’s, like, one of those things in graveyards with a big door on it. Dad, there’s sounds coming from inside it. Like, voices.”

“What, like a crypt?” said Ted. “What the heck is one of them doing in the woods? They ain’t started putting graves out here yet. Look at it. It’s been one big, open field for years. Must be something else. Don’t let some pile of logs or whatever scare ya. Think the ol’ Crypt Keeper’s calling you to come visit? Probably left over from when they started clearing it.”

Sudden realization seemed to strike Peter then, in why he was standing with us, explaining himself. And so he began to ramble on in one breathless plea.

“Don’t let them make me go in there, Dad. That thing scares me and then there’s those huge shiny leaves and you told me to stay away from those and never touch them so I shouldn’t go in there! And there’s voices in there! Really! Please!”

“Okay, okay. Take it easy,” I said. “No one’s going in there.”

“Hell with that,” said Ted. “I’m goin’ in. Poison ivy never got me before. Won’t get me now. And the Crypt Keeper’s a little shit.”

“And you,” Ted continued, pointing an accusatory finger at my son. “You should take more responsibility next time. If getting a little itch is what it’ll take for you to do the right thing, then so be it.”

Before I could argue with Ted’s attempt at re-parenting Peter, he approached the edge of the forest and parted a mass of low-hanging pine branches, then stopped.

“Ho-ly …”

“See!” Peter said. “You see the tomb in there, right?”

Ted took a moment to answer as he appeared to survey what he was looking at.

“Yeah,” he said uncertainly. “It’s no pile of logs. Looks like an old crypt, alright. Pretty old one by the looks of it.” He turned to look at us. “This was an old cemetery before?”

I shrugged. “Not that I’ve ever heard.”

“I mean there’s no headstones, no other graves. Just … that. In there.”

“Well that’s not creepy at all,” I said. “Just leave it, Ted. Seriously.”

“Damn. Kiddo’s right about the leaves too. Like the size of elephant ears.”

“Oh, come on,” I said in disbelief. “Then those can’t be-”

“What did you say?” Ted interrupted.

“I was saying that those can’t be poison ivy. They aren’t that large.”

“No no,” Ted said, holding up a hand behind him. “It wasn’t you. Shh! You hear that?”

“Hear what?” Besides the distant commotion from the party we’d left behind, there was nothing. I looked at the kids who were both slowly backing away, shaking their heads in the negative.

“Ah! There!” Ted shouted, now uninterested in whatever noises he’d been hearing. “There you are, you blue bastard. Frisbee’s right there.”

He parted the branches further apart and stepped deeper into the woods, disappearing from sight. The sound of breaking branches followed as he marched inward, spattered with moments of colorful cursing. After about ten seconds, there was nothing.

“Daddy?” called Sophie. “Did you get it?”

A few seconds more. Nothing.

“Hey Ted!” I called out. I silently prayed that I wasn’t going to have to enter those woods to look for my friend, but the crack in my voice said it all.

Branches cracking again. Ted was running now, running for the clearing. He burst through the overhanging branches where he’d entered, panting, red-faced, and sweating profusely, no Frisbee in sight.

“Daddy! Where’s the Frisbee?”

Ted was doubled over, hands on his knees, catching his breath. Sweat soaked his shirt. His face. His hair. Even his shorts. Ted’s not exactly in shape, but he’s not morbidly obese either. A ten second run in dark woods shouldn’t have exerted him like a marathon.

“No Frisbee, sweetie,” Ted said between wheezing gasps for air. “Like your uncle said, we’ll buy a new one.”

“She began to protest. “But it-”

“Sophie, no. Just … go play with something else. We’re gonna go home soon anyway.”

She crossed her arms and stormed off.

“Uncle Teddy,” Peter said. “What happened in there? Did you hear the noises from the tomb?”

Ted stood upright and gave me a look that said he wasn’t up to talking to a kid about this.

“Pete, go catch up with Sophie. We’ll probably be leaving soon too.”

Peter did as I asked and disappeared over the hill.

“Alright, so what did happen in there? You look like you just came out of a rainforest.”

“Man, that is the spookiest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”

“What, the crypt?”

“Well yeah the crypt, but not just that. The kid wasn’t kidding about the sounds from the crypt in there. Like … I don’t know. Voices. And, damn, those leaves. All over the thing. They … you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Alright, you’ve succeeded in freaking me out. They what? Talked to you?”

“Moved. Not from wind or anything like that. I marched in the middle of them to get the damn Frisbee, and then something just felt … off. Like I thought maybe you’d come in behind me, only I knew you’d never do that, but it felt like someone was there. But it was just all of those plants, all around me.

“And then they moved. Not from the wind or anything like that. It was like they were turning to … I dunno … to look at me.

“Well I turned and got right the fuck outta there and left that damn Frisbee for those fucking plants to play with.”

I snorted, and then the chuckle just followed it on out. I couldn’t help it if I tried.

“Oh, okay,” Ted said, my laughter becoming too contagious for him to avoid. “I see. So why don’t you go on in there and get the thing? Damn zombie plants from the crypt. You’ll see!”

“You know, I’d clap you on the back but you’re sweatier than a Ridley Scott movie.”

“Ha ha. Well this ain’t sweat. It’s dew from all those leaves in there.”

I stayed far away from Ted for the rest of the walk back. I told myself as much as Ted did, that the leaves were just covered in dew. How could all that be urushiol oil? It just couldn’t be. But the scars upon the memory of my youth endured, and so I took no chances, even at the expense of Ted’s playful jeers.

Soon after, each of our families ended the day and went our separate ways.

Ted didn’t show up at the shop the next day.

Ted would usually open the place up in the morning in order to get it ready for the lunchtime crowd. I’ll stroll in sometime later, before we actually open for business. Only this time the doors were locked. Ted hadn’t shown up yet.

I unlocked the place and went inside to call Ted. After a few rings, Kim answered the phone. She sounded like I’d just woken her up.

“Hey John.”

“‘Morning. Sorry, did I wake you?”

“No I’m just … didn’t get much sleep last night. Exhausted.”

“Is Ted there? He didn’t show up to the shop today. Place was still buttoned up when I showed up.”

She sighed with exhaustion and frustration. “Oh god. I’m sorry, Ted. I should have called you. Ted’s worse off than me. It was his tossing and turning all night that kept me up. I eventually had to sleep on the couch. Looks like he … caught something at the picnic yesterday.”

“What, like a stomach bug?”

“No no. Looks like he got too much sun. Worst sunburn I’ve ever seen, the poor guy. But I guess it serves him right for not putting on sunscreen. You know how pale he is.”

“Paler than a beluga whale, yeah,” I said, punctuated with a sigh of defeat. “Alright, so I guess he’s out of commission today. Tell him to call me when he’s up and about.”

She acknowledged and hung up. I went about making a closed sign for the door and directing our phone to a voicemail message stating the same. There was no way I was attempting to run the place without Ted.

I left and spent the day doing long-neglected chores around the house. Spending time with Ella that day made me realize that we’d both somehow come out of the previous day with nary a scant tan, much less evidence of a sunburn. What’s more, it was an overcast day — we hadn’t worn any lotion.

Later that night, my cellphone rang. It was Ted. He sounded as ragged as Kim had that morning.

“Hey, man. Sorry I didn’t call you sooner.”

“Yeah sure,” I said. “Don’t sweat it. You alright?”

“No. No I’m not.”

“Jesus. From a sunburn? How bad can it be?”

“Sunburn? No, this ain’t no sunburn. Gotta be poison ivy. Itches like fucking hell.”

It took all I had to keep the phone in my hand as my mouth fell open. I suddenly felt my own skin begin to take on that characteristic burn. My palms begin to itch, my mind telling my body that it, too, was once again stricken with the rash. The mere mention of it was enough, like an instinctive cringe. What’s more, Ted of all people had succumbed to it. How?

“But I thought you weren’t allergic,” I managed to say with some measure of disbelief.

“Yeah, well. Shit happens I guess,” he said. “Listen, I gotta go. It’s … God, the itching is … I have to go.”

Before I could ask about what we should do about the shop, he hung up.

It’s not unheard of for someone who’d once had an immunity to something like poison ivy suddenly lose it over time. Ted suddenly showing signs of a reaction normally wouldn’t have surprised me. In fact, his lack of a reaction in all this time was the more surprising thing to me. And more surprising than all of that was how quickly it had taken hold on him. He’d gone from zero to one-hundred seemingly overnight.

There was nothing I could really do for Ted. He’d seen first-hand what I’d gone through in the past, what meager remedies I’d resorted to for alleviating the itching and swelling. It’s all I could do then and all he had now.

I faced the fact that it was clear Giuseppe's was staying closed for at least another day. Depending on how bad off Ted was Tuesday night, I’d have to consider my options, like hiring some temporary help. I wasn’t the best cook, but I could at least keep the business afloat.

Late the next morning, I gave Ted a call, to see how he was faring. He’d likely faced another sleepless night, so I wasn’t surprised when Kim picked up.

“Hey, Kim. How’s Teddy doing? Hope you at least got some sleep last night.”

“I slept okay. Ted didn’t sleep in the bed all night, stayed closed up in the den all yesterday and last night. Didn’t want anyone to go near him. Trust me, we didn’t want to. He was in a mood, as you can imagine. I woke up a couple of times in the night and heard him downstairs, grunting, swearing. It must’ve been driving him nuts.

“But … I guess he must be doing better. I woke up to the smell of him cooking breakfast, not that he left us any. Just a dirty skillet. Nice, right? And now he’s gone off somewhere.”

“Seriously? He went out?” Though I was amazed Ted hadn’t gotten worse overnight, I was relieved.

“Maybe check the shop?” Kim suggested. She’d read my mind.

When I pulled up to Giuseppe’s, I noticed one of the exhaust vents on the roof billowing smoke. More than usual, in fact. Ted’s car was nowhere in sight, which wasn’t entirely unusual, since he lived only a couple of miles away and sometimes made the walk. I thought this a good sign, that Ted really was on the mend and getting things prepared for the afternoon customers. Except when I got to the front door, my “temporarily closed” sign still hung in the window. I figured Ted hadn’t noticed it, so I pulled it down as I entered.

I could hear Ted busy at work in the back kitchen. The air was already hot with the warming pizza ovens, griddles and friers. One of the oven doors had been left opened, and I could see the remnants of what looked like a pizza mishap smeared upon the oven’s firebrick floor. Pretty early for pizza, I thought, but we served all kinds.

“Ted! You back there? What happened here? Oven’s a mess!”

The sound of the kitchen fryer answered, its contents being lowered into the 325-degree oil. And then something else: a man’s exhale of intense relief. No, pleasure.

I rounded the corner into the kitchen. Ted’s back was to me, facing the fryers. He wore nothing but a pair of boxers, and his skin was like nothing I’d seen before. My sneakers squeaked to a halt as breath caught in my throat. I stumbled backward, catching myself on a counter. Oozing sores covered half Ted’s back and legs. The other half was covered in blisters the size of golf balls.

“Ted,” I managed to breathe as I fought back hyperventilation.

Of course he couldn’t react. Because when I say he was facing the fryers, I mean that in a much more literal sense. His entire face was submerged in the steaming fryer oil, up to the hairline. I would’ve thought him dead, but a second later he stood upright. Grease poured down over his shoulders and trickled down his back. More of the blisters withered and broke apart under the oil’s heat. And once again Ted sighed in ecstasy.

“Ted!” What was meant to be a scream came more like a strained whisper. I threw a hand over my mouth, either due to pure disbelief over what I was seeing, or to stop myself from being sick, or both.

He straightened and turned around, my feet instinctively making a slow retreat sideways, toward the door. What I was looking at was not Ted. Not anymore. This person was unrecognizable as a human being in all but frame. Strips of red, smoking flesh peeled away from his forehead and cheeks, the bare muscle and bone behind glistening with oil. Lips … there were no lips. A set of teeth in a perpetual, skeletal grin, the tongue behind, bloated and red, peeking out behind them. Eyelids hung like useless flaps. His arms, his chest, all bare of skin, looking like an anatomy poster. His arms, blackened and charred. All that seemed to remain intact was most of the surface of his legs, and I could see blisters there continue to form before my eyes.

“John,” Ted said, his voice guttural and nearly unrecognizable, but calm and eerily satisfied. “John, you were so right. Fuck the Calamine Lotion. Fuck all that shit. All you need to do to get rid of the GOD DAMNED itching is HEAT. Once you’ve got that … oooh … it’s euphoria, Johnny. Pure. Fucking. Euphoria.”

He held up his hands, then. Hands that I hesitate to describe beyond that they were surely not usable appendeges anymore. Something fell from what used to be his face onto the floor, joining a mess of fried flesh within puddles of spent grease.

I couldn’t touch him. Jesus. I couldn’t stop him.

“Ted. Oh, Ted. No no no no.”

He breathed a wet sigh again, somehow peeling away a flap of loose, cooked skin from his forehead with one of his red, bony fingers. He threw it aside like a rotten slice of tomato.

“It’s okay, John,” he gurgled. “It’s almost all gone now. Just a little more heat, and I’ll be all better. This is so much better than the oven.”

He turned back around and held his breath, as I held mine. I turned and ran.

When I made it outside, I called 9-1-1. The police and ambulance arrived moments later. I watched as EMT after EMT entered and promptly exited, retching into the flower beds outside, before finally composing themselves to enter and save Ted’s life. I was told if they’d been only a few minutes later, he’d have been gone.

In all my life, I’d never seen a reaction to plants like that, let alone experienced it myself. What further floored me was that this had been Ted’s reaction to whatever was in those woods, a man who’d been immune to poison ivy for as long as I could remember. What would those things do to someone like me?

I talked to my wife and told her she’d have to pick Peter up from choir practice at the church that afternoon. I also called Kim, and she and I spent most of the day at the hospital. Not a stitch of him was not covered in thick bandages, and he lost most of his fingers. The CDC was apparently being called in, and we were told Ted was going to be put into an induced coma. I couldn’t bring myself to see him like that anymore, and I wasn’t sure what to tell Kim about what I saw at the shop. How was I to explain to anyone that he’d done this on purpose? An accident. A pure, unfortunate, unholy accident. That was enough.

I wasn’t sure if Ted was going to pull through. There was no doubt that his recovery, if he had one, would be agonizing. At the cost of removing whatever pure hell he’d been experiencing before, would he say it was worth it? I couldn’t fathom. Covered in pure scar tissue and skin grafts for the rest of his life, it’s unlikely he’d have to worry about something like poison ivy ever again.

My mind, just as Ted’s unfortunate body, would be scarred for life.

I called for a car to take me home. I was in no condition at all to drive.

As I exited the car at the bottom of the hill, I heard Peter call out from the driveway.

“Hey Dad! Catch!”

I was still dazed from what had happened earlier and had little time to react. Stars blossomed in darkness as whatever Peter had thrown smacked me in the forehead and fell to the ground, and I along with it. I put my hand to my throbbing head, pulling back to see blood.

“Damn. Well, that’s gonna leave a scar,” I muttered to myself.

Peter ran up and squatted beside me, his face reddened with embarrassment.

“Oh man! Dad! You okay? I’m so sorry! I thought you’d catch it.”

“Yeah, well, my reaction’s not all it used to be.”

I reached down beside me to pick up what Peter had thrown. And the words upon a circle of blue greeted my disbelieving eyes.

Fly In To Giuseppe's Empty. Fly Out Full.

[alittlemissfit]

XF Tipsy Challenge

A product of Bailey’s and straight up fatigue right here. Attempts at banter and backstory, not surprisingly down to the wire. Yeah, I don’t even know. @kateyes224

She hated small spaces. Always had. It had something to do with Bill trapping her in a closet as a kid with a chair under the knob. She didn’t cry, she didn’t yell and scream to be let out. She just sat there in the dark, petrified but not letting on about it. Not until Maggie came looking for her at dinner and freed her and she ran into her arms and broke down. It was too dark and she felt trapped. Like she’d lost control.

That’s all she thinks of after she locks Mulder in the storage closet. He isn’t screaming or pounding the door down. He’s probably sitting in the corner same as she had. Silent, seething and scared shitless.

When she lets herself in and he has to stand up, squints to avoid the dim glow of the lightbulb she swallows back a lump in her throat. Yes, she pulled a gun on him and he reminds her of that. Yes, he refused an exam and pulled a gun on her. Yes, they could both leave this closet and die at the hands of perfect strangers who they both happened to see stripped naked. It’s too surreal to be real.

She presses her hand to the back of his neck and wonders if he can feel her trembling. His skin is smooth, clear of black pustules or lumps or bumps. He’s not angry. His pulse is racing but he’s not angry. His skin’s warm to the touch but not feverish and she could cry from relief at it all but stops herself. He’s been examined. He’s clean. She’s safe in here with him. Safer than she would be out there. For the first time since before the upstairs linen closet she feels safe in the confined space. Until he advances, pulls her to him. She lets out an audible gasp. She wants to run but he doesn’t let her and she fears for her life for the .2 seconds before his palm cups the nape of her neck, his fingers sprawl out and he’s caressing, he’s calming her. Slowly rubbing as her racing heartbeat slows to an audible steady thump. She shuts her eyes in sweet relief and wants to turn around. Wants to kiss him. Wants to see more of his skin, feel his softness and hardness and taste the salt of his sweat. Her feet stay planted though, her back stays turned to him. They exit the storage closet and instead of feeling at ease, wanting to cry, she feels more fearful when the door opens.

The flight back she sleeps. The cab ride back to her place she sleeps. That night in that porn laden dorm room she’d barricaded herself into she barely shut her eyes and she hadn’t the rest of their stay. She’s making up for that loss now. They shared a cab and he shakes her awake and helps her up to her apartment and onto her couch before he unties her boots. Unzips her parka.

“Did you sleep? How’re you not exhausted?”

“Adrenaline. Anger. Some combination of the two.”

“Mulder, you had to expect that they’d bury everything we uncovered up there. If not for the sake of protecting the general population from an outbreak, then to prevent mass panic.”

“There's only interest in preventing one thing, Scully. Our uncovering anything that leads to the truth."

“My only interest was in us leaving the Arctic with our lives, Mulder. As far as I’m concerned everything we learned in that godforsaken lab deserved to go up in flames."

“Well I learned a lot about you. A lot of things a little government funded arson couldn’t touch.”

“What did you learn about me?”

“You had my back up there, Scully. Even after I refused to turn my back on all of you, ranted and raved that you were all infected.”

“One of us was, Mulder.”

“It wasn’t you though. And I shouldn’t have lumped you in. You stood up for me and I treated you like the enemy.”

“You were scared, Mulder. I was scared. It was a tense, fucked up nightmare up there. I’m just glad it’s finally over.”

“I’m glad I’m out of the goddamn storage closet.”

“I hated putting you in there. I hated leaving you alone in there, I-“

“I know. I saw the look on your face after you did it. The lighting was next to nothing in there but you…you looked-“

“I probably looked how I felt,” she says softly as he joins her on the couch.

“When I was a kid my brother locked me in a closet. He put a chair under the knob and left me there. I didn’t get let out until my mom found me.”

“Oh, Scully.”

“I remember how it felt just, sitting there in the dark and feeling trapped. Knowing there was nothing I could do. Having to put you through that up there.”

“You looked relieved when I stood up and squinted when you came back in.”

“I wasn’t sure of what state you’d be in, but when I realized you were alright, that you hadn’t been infected…”

“But you gasped, Scully. When I reached to examine you, I thought you were-“

“Scared? I was for a half a second. Until I realized you were just trying to check me out, I mean, check me over for-“

He laughs at her stammering and she rolls her eyes before lowering them, avoiding his. He touches the nape of her neck again though, earns another slight gasp before he gently rubs her shoulder.

“If the idea of my doing both eased your fear of small spaces…consider that I was doing both, Scully.”

They lock eyes, his hand hasn’t moved and she moves in closer before he pulls her close, embraces her. Her pulse slows from racing to a steady thump again as his does to, and cuddled close together he finally sleeps.

[garden-of-succulents]

A Patater soulmate AU: Kent and Tater meet for the first time at an international hockey competition in 2010. The moment Tater lands in the same country Kent knows it: He’s here. My soulmate is here. 

They’re drawn together like lodestones, ecstatic with the joy of finding each other.

There’s just one problem: They speak six languages between them, but not a single one in common.

(Note: kinda angsty, brief gore at the beginning, mention of drug overdose, background canon-compliant Pimms, unflattering descriptions of Saskatchewan)

Kent's soulmate is in Saskatchewan.

There's fucking fuck-all in Saskatchewan, except occasional pustules of towns that make boxy buildings stand out of the flat plain like warts, so why the fuck they're in Saskatchewan, Kent doesn't know, except the universe hates him; but when he locks himself in his hotel bathroom and drops a bead of blood into the sink, the red drifts in what his phone's compass tells him is a north-easterly direction. Which is the first time the blood-scrying has ever worked for him, so....

He doesn't actually know what to feel. He feels numb. He feels like he has a shitload of stuff to do.

His roommate's fist collides with the door. "How long you gonna be? I gotta get ready." So Kent drains the sink and gets out, and pulls out his garment bag for the welcome banquet.

They're groomed, dressed, and downstairs for the welcome banquet, and then Kent gets collared to talk to the press because a ton of flights are delayed at the airport and half the attendees aren't even here yet. Some guy up front is trying to keep the rest of the players diverted with a stand-up comedy routine they were saving for later in the night, and behind the doors that open and shut Kent can see kitchen staff with enormous silver trays of food frantically trying to deal with a schedule thrown off-course. As the captain of Team USA, Kent gets thrown to the wolves with microphones.

"We weren't sure we'd see you here!" a guy from the CBC says cheerfully. "Not many NHL teams would release their star player for a junior tournament."

Kent smiles ruefully, rubs the back of his neck, tries not to think of how tense things have been with Aces management over this. "Yeah, we weren't expecting to have... such a good season, as we've had, when I agreed to come back for World Juniors again. But um, once I'd made the commitment, it was really important to me not to... back out, leave the guys hanging."

"That's a great spirit," the guy says. "And you've been having a great NHL season, there's obviously already talk about you and the Calder. What do you think of that?"

"Well, uh," Kent says. He remembers not to put his hands in his pockets, wishes he could. "It's been, yeah, a really great season. I think, um, the Aces were underestimated as a team, you know, we're pretty young, but we've still got, um, a lot of fighting spirit, a lot of talent." He just leaves the trophy question alone.

"Last year," the guy presses on, and Kent puts his hands in his pockets, "you really distinguished yourself, a player that had been a little bit obscured by injuries and then the Zimmermann aura, but on your own on Team USA you proved that you were a formidable player in your own right." Kent realizes with gratitude, as he looks at the thick cables snaking behind the camera, that that wasn’t actually a question.  He doesn’t actually have to answer that. "What's it like to look back on the year you've had since then, from someone who was really underestimated to come out as really the top rookie in the League?"

I'm on top because I wasn't the one with the prescription of Ativan.

Kent fiddles with the phone in his hand. Traces a sworl on the carpet with his eyes. There's movement by the doors; a busload of people from the airport, people coming in. Speak of the fucking devil, Bob Zimmermann in a neat wool coat, pulling a suitcase.

Dimly, he becomes aware that he was asked a question, that the man is waiting for an answer. "I don't know," he says, almost inaudibly, and then tries to pull himself together. Look at the interviewer; stand straight; get the mucus out of his mouth. Speak clearly. "It's an honor."

"Okay, thanks," CBC guy says. He seems used to his interviews going like this. "I'll let you go, I appreciate you taking a moment to talk with me."

Kent smiles, returns the thanks, turns back to his handlers to see what he should do next. A lot of them have turned to the swelling crowd in the lobby, directing the newcomers to just drop their bags in a conference room across from the ballroom and go straight in to the banquet instead of checking into their rooms or changing. Which, whatever, it's not like you can get a lot of dignity and dazzle out of a Days Inn in Saskatchewan, so who cares if Team Russia is coming in in the white-and-blue tracksuits they wore on the plane. At least they're here and they can eat.

"Kenny," Bad Bob says, coming in and patting him on the arm as he unbuttons his coat. The hug that happens around Kent is brief. Thank god. "Good to see you."

Kent unsticks his tongue from his mouth and croaks, "Did Jack come with you?"

"No." Bob's smile is worried and kind. "No, that would have been... too hard for him. But he says hi, good luck."

Kent smiles back, kind of sickly, gives his thanks, says he's well, gets collared by his coach and sat back down with Team USA. They're served braised beef, gravy, roasted baby potatoes. People leave him alone when they start eating.

He stops feeling like he wants to hurl, and he can look around the room, because his soulmate is in it.

It's one of the Russians. It's a boy at another table who looks up from his food and straight at Kent as though he's been doing it between bites since dinner started, whose gaze skitters away the first time Kent meets it like he's scared to be caught looking, whose lips part slightly when he looks again and Kent hasn't looked away.

The feeling like the loose and dreamy phase of being drunk is uncurling in Kent's chest, a relaxation, so that he doesn't even worry when someone knocks his soulmate's arm with a hand, gets him to pass something, makes a joke he has to smile at. A kindling spark inside him makes him smile, look toward the conversation happening at his own table, eat one of his potatoes. The next time he looks up the other boy is looking back again, and they trade another furtive glance and look away.

But here's the thing:

Kent can't understand a thing he's saying.

Kent leads his soulmate to an empty stairwell in the basement, a little haven of cinderblock and concrete with a STAFF ONLY door at the bottom. He found it when he got lost looking for lunch. Now the two of them wait for the sound of the heavy fire door swinging shut before they reach for each other, laughing and exclaiming the moment their hands touch; it's true, it's fucking true what people say, the way that clasp makes him feel like he's...

It's not being the same, it's not like his body suddenly has four legs and four arms. But it's like.... In school, in science class, when you and your labmate hold onto a psionic amplifier and you try to project a thought in your head as hard as you can at them, and they get it, they know you're looking at a green triangle, until they project it back at you and it resonates, clear and strong between you, all the other little thoughts washed away in the link between you. It's about being heard, being felt, in a way that's so fundamental there aren't words for it. For an instant they stare at each other, handclasped and delighted, and they both know: You, it's you, I felt you when I landed, I've felt you all afternoon, and I saw you at the banquet and I just knew, and then they fall into a hug. An embrace, actually. Kent gets wrapped up, nearly lifted off his feet, pressed into that chest and he's clinging back with everything he's got and "Oh my god," he says, feeling the sweet instant rightness of it.

His soulmate says: something in Russian.

It's loving and tender and the meaning is pretty easy to make out, the same warm affection Kent feels coming through his skin. His soulmate lets go a little, and looks shy as he gestures to himself and says... something in Russian.

Kent blinks at him.

"Alexei," his soulmate says slowly. "Nikolaevich Mashkov."

Alexei. It's a name. Then a mush of another name, and then Mashkov. Kent licks his lips, forming the name with them. There's an... yeah, Alexei Mashkov; D-man, an alternate. First year. "Alexei," he says for the first time.

"Alyosha," Alexei corrects him.

"That's--your name?" Kent asks, but Alexei just looks at him. "Uh. Kent Parson," he adds, pointing at himself.

Alexei says something in Russian with a knowing look.

"Hey!" Kent says, pushing at Alexei's chest with a grin. "What's that supposed to mean! You can't say it in English?" He catches Alexei's questioning look and asks, being more careful about his pronounciation, "Do you speak English?"

Alexei shakes his head, says, "No English." Then, of course, he adds something in Russian.

"No," Kent says, heart sinking. "Uh... parles-tu Français?" Alexei shakes his head again.

Something awful twists in Kent's chest as they try each other on something like five different languages. Kent doesn't even know what some of the ones Alexei tries are, but Alexei keeps trying, tries to keep cheerful. Clutches Kent's hands. But they don't have a single goddamn word in common.

He should have fucking known, right? His mom dragged him to psychologists, astrologers, anyone who could explain what was wrong with her kid, and they tried to put a nice gloss on it. He's a very sensitive child. He's destined for great highs, but great lows. Maybe this much emotional instability means he's destined to have a soulmate. And to be honest, he'd always mostly known that it was crap, but...

Maybe there's never actually going to be a destiny for him that will make any of this actually worth it. He bursts into tears.

Alexei catches him as he crumples forward, wraps arms around him, drags him to sit on the steps so it's easier to hold him. He's full of anxiety as he pulls Kent to him, and then--then Kent can feel the moment he gets a sense of just how deep the pain really goes, just how old this hurt really is, just how much it feels like the world is ending. Kent can feel him caught in it, caught in the despair, and can feel how much he wants to back out: to say it's not so bad, tease him out of it, step back from the abyss. But that would leave Kent alone in it, because Kent won't come too, and he--

Kent feels it, a moment of decisions, that feel as solid, as permanent, as a mountain climber halting his fall; the moment he drives his pick into ice, the jerk of being caught, and then the small, precise placement of pins and rope to reattach his harness to.

Alexei takes a breath and backs away from Kent's despair, but the mental distance left between them isn't closed off, isn't denial; the space between them (imaginary; Alexei's forehead is pressed to his) is thick with love, concern, with sorrow, with open-eyed acknowledgment of the crack in Kent's heart. Alexei's hands rub over Kent's arms and shoulders, massage his neck, as Alexei remembers that a minute before this the world was not falling apart, and that problems can be solved.

Then Alexei sends, as clearly and as solidly as he can: You are not alone. I am right here.

And in it there is... the space to cry if he wants, the reality that some things need to be cried about; and the acknowledgment of pain; and the wish to comfort; the delight of finding, and the rapidly expanding love for someone he's just found and is infatuated with already--infatuation rising above the love like a bird over the land, not that bone-deep passionate grasp that’s in everything but an addition, a sudden giddy intoxication over the fact that Kent has freckles, that his eyelashes stick together with tears, that his eyes are multicoloured and puzzling; and that by some miracle, the mirror of Alexei’s soul is here, in human form, a boy, his own age, that life didn't have to be so generous but it is, and there's also... distantly, the echo of hurts Alexei carries on his own; he doesn't have a crack in his own heart, not scars so deep and old they ache at night, but he understands hurting and grief.

Alexei holds him for some time after he stops crying, and then Kent pulls his handkerchief out of his suit pocket and delicately uses one corner of it to blow his nose and wipe his eyes.

"Alyosha," he says, holding his soulmate's hand. "The way I see it, we've got some problems to solve. Sometime tonight you're due back to the airport to go back to Saskatoon with Group B. You're gonna be in a city three hours away for most of this tournament. We... need to figure out when that is, actually."

Alexei nods, pointing at his watch. He shows it to Kent, taps the dial, indicating a time 20 minutes in the future.

"Okay," Kent says, and pulls out his phone. He taps the screen to add a new contact, and is about to pass it over when he catches Alexei's hesitation.  Then he types Alexei’s name in himself, reading it out, and moves the cursor down to the phone number entry before handing it over. Alexei types a number in, frowning in concentration, and Kent saves the contact and opens up a new text message. Hi, he writes, and sends.

They hold their breaths for a long time, long enough for Kent to check his phone again to make sure he has reception down here, and then Alexei's phone makes a noise. Kent's text came through.

"Okay," Kent says, feeling like that was one problem solved, for whatever good it did them. "That's one thing. Let's go out there and see what else we have to do."

[lrrf-blog1]

I remember summer, back when it wasn't a season but a lifetime, endless weeks that hardly moved, trampolines and bikes in hot suburbs, Capri Sun packets, french fries and chlorine. I remember the smell of leaf litter on the floor of the forest behind my house, a tree stump I'd stand on, the way the wind would move the trees in a rustle that crescendoed. I lie in darkness and I think about these feelings, and how I don't remember a thing from this year, how I don't remember a single goddamn thing. One of those summers, sitting on a curb, airsoft guns lain across our knees, my friend Sam told me how he'd taken a girl from High School to the woods back behind his house, and how they'd fucked on the dirt. I think it was a lie, but I didn't know it was a lie back then, and I remember walking the streets back home and seeing dusk move in and wondering to myself if I was supposed to be fucking girls, too. That night, when I opened my bedroom door, I felt something was wrong. I went into the bathroom and when I turned on the light and looked in the mirror, I saw for the first time what had been staring back at me for my whole life- the thing that had always been there, but that I'd never looked at before. He had blue eyes like mine, black hair like mine, full lips like mine, round cheeks like mine. He smiled at me, a crooked smile full of yellowed, tiny teeth, tiny teeth far too small for a mouth that large. I went to sleep and I thought about him. Over the years, he changed. Red splotches started to appear on his cheeks. His hair became long and scraggly. His eyes became hollow, black bags. In the morning I would look at him and he would never say a word, but he'd smile at me, and look me over, and in his eyes I would see questions. "Are you going to stay like this? Floundering? Drifting? Where are the girls? Where is the sex? Where is the fun?" I would always look at him and turn back away. I ate more food, I started lifting weights. I obsessed. I must gain more weight and I must gain more muscle, that is how I change the mirror, that is how I change the mirror into someone new. One day in my musty basement I struggled to push the bar over my chest, for one last rep, and I buckled and failed and the clang on the safety bars snapped something in my mind and I screamed, I screamed like an animal. I took the metal fan on the floor and I smashed it into the ground, I kicked it and my feet turned bloody, I screamed and let the rage come through at the fingertips, and it was a heap of metal on the floor at my feet. I couldn't let mom see. I picked it up and I carried it into the woods behind my house and gave it a grave. I was eating too much. The face in the mirror was fat. The face in the mirror was pudgy and reddened, pustules and whiteheads were growing in a petri dish. If I lost some of the fat and maintained my newly gained muscle, and took better care of my skin, the mirror monster would be kinder to me. I must eat no sugary carbs. I must cut out all dairy. I will wash my face every morning and night, I will use proper acne treatments, I will wear a daily SPF. I have to, or the mirror monster will keep crawling out of my bathroom in the dead of night and sit at the foot of my bed and look at me with glinting eyes in the darkness and drool on me and spit at me while I slept. I cannot keep eating this way, I am rail thin. How many years has it now been? I made myself find a girl, and when the time for sex came, the mirror monster crawled out of the bathroom and I looked at him above the bed, and she asked me what was wrong but I just said "I'm sorry." And I couldn't get it up, and couldn't get it in, and she left crying. When she closed her car door and drove away, I turned around and there he was, standing in the middle of my living room, naked, thin, pudgy, fat, with long fingernails and an untrimmed beard, messy hair clouding a child's fat face, filled with deep legions of red pus. I will kill him. The dermatologist tells me I don't need accutane, that my treatment is going well, and that a few more months like this and I'll be fine. Is she stupid? Her skin is porcelain. Her body is flawless. She has never seen a mirror monster. She has never felt it spit on her. Another dermatologist will give it to me. "GIVE IT TO ME NOW" I scream as the mirror monster creeps into the examination room, on all fours, tiny cock hanging out, fat ass on a rail thin body, jaw hanging agape like a corpse. I take a pill every day and the mirror monster starts to fall apart. His skin peels off in sheets and his eyes turn red and ghastly. I do not want to eat, my body sweats in the night. Dreams of deserts. My body is the trunk of a tree. Where is the water? I am alone here, it is so cold, who knocks on the door? I wake up with a jump. I walk to the door. My rail thin footsteps make no sound. I open the door and there he is, but now his skin is cracked and bleeding. He has no eyes, they are black holes. I will kill him. For breakfast? Fruit and eggs, with a side of coffee. No dairy, please. I want to eat healthy. That's how you kill a mirror monster. My bones creak with every step I take. I am poisoning myself. Late at night I call my mother, miles away. I sob into the phone, a deep, animal's sob, and I ask her when it's going to go away. I feel it's breath on my neck in the dark while we speak. She asks if she needs to come get me. I tell her no. I tell her I want off the medication, I want my skin to be clear and I want off the medication. I tell her I haven't been to the gym in a year. I am too skinny for all my clothes. In the darkness the mirror monster laughs, a cackling, deafening series of cracks. That night he put his long fingernails into my eyes and pushed hard. The pain was like dying again and again in every way you can imagine. When summer came back, I stopped taking the pills. I spent my days sleeping in, watching the sun come in my window, and the mirror monster stayed in the bathroom. I would check on him to make sure he did not follow me, I'd check on him every five minutes some days, but he didn't follow me too often. I started going to the gym, I started eating just as much as my body wanted, no more, and no less. Things began to improve. My therapist told me the mirror monster could go away someday. My skincare routine was working, people said I looked great. She is wrong. She is an idiot. She has never seen a mirror monster crawl through the windows and ceiling of her home. Tonight, I lie in the darkness, it's like I'm floating in a void. I think back to the smell of summers as a child, and I realize I have remembered no smells since those long gone days, that I have remembered no feelings. That the mirror monster is what I see when I close my eyes, and that the pacing pitter patter of his footsteps in the darkness means he will be there to greet me in the sunlight of morning. Tomorrow in the light of the morning I will board the bus and as I look out the window at the rolling town, I will see his smiling ghost blocking the scene.