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keelywolfe · 4 years ago

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FIC: Welcome to Backwater ch.11 (spicyhoney)

Summary: Stretch finally has Edge's address, but as always seems to happen in this town, answering one question only makes two more spring up to take its place.

Read ‘Unconventional Wisdom’ on AO3

Read it here!

~~*~~

The dog spent all morning napping behind the counter, not rising for broom bristles nudging him nor Stretch stepping over him awkwardly so he could grab a few boxes from the top shelf to fill up the front racks. He did snore loud enough to be heard over the radio, but eh, so did Red so Stretch was used to it.

It wasn’t until the jangling cowbell over the door heralded the arrival of a group of kids that the pup gave up on his snoring and wandering out to inspect the new arrivals, tail already happily wagging. Predictably, the kiddos were enamored of their newest employee, although guard dog might be overstating things a bit. Okay, maybe a lot; it looked like Red hadn’t been able to get back to sleep last night because the once-filthy dog with a mess of tangled fur was now freshly washed and brushed, and he smelled a lot like the shower gel from Red’s bathroom. Cleaned up, he was a handsome dog, looking as fluffy as an enormous toasted marshmallow. Not exactly threatening, fluffykins here was probably gonna spend most of his shift on moral support duty.

The little girl who was currently the main recipient of the dog’s enthusiastic face licking giggled and asked, “What’s his name?”

“uh.” That gave Stretch a pause. He shrugged. “doesn’t have a name yet, i’ll have to ask red what he thinks.”

“Should name him Rover,” one boy put in helpfully.

Another boy chimed in, “Or Bingo!”

“Cheeseburger!” A little gal firmly declared as though no other name would do and Stretch couldn’t help laughing.

“is that a name suggestion or a lunch request?” he teased. All the kids giggled, including the one who’d suggested the name and Stretch gave one of her pigtails a gentle tug. “tell you what, here.” He pulled out a pad of paper from under the counter, flipped past the pages filled with inventory lists and cribbage scores to a blank one and wrote carefully at the top, ‘Name Our Dog’. He set it in one corner of the counter triumphantly, “there! now anyone can suggest a name and red can choose the best one.”

All the kids seemed in agreement that this was the best course of action, each taking a turn to scribble their suggestion on the sheet. He wouldn’t be at all surprised if ��Cheeseburger’ was at the top of Red’s picks.

The kids eventually abandoned the dog and started a round of intense negotiations over what penny treats to buy today. Stretch left them to it, settling to sit on the stool to wait for them to bring up their selections to the register. His mind wandered idly back to newest side quest: getting to 637 Wood’s End Drive.

He’d already tried to look the address up on his phone’s GPS and wasn’t too surprised to see that it didn’t come up, naw, that would be too easy. So, first was figuring out how to get there and second would be figuring out how to get there. Not like he had a car and somehow, he doubted that Backwater had a thriving Uber economy. Maybe he could hitch a lift with someone? People were always coming into town in those big ol’ pickup trucks and the folks around here were pretty friendly, plus Edge seemed to be pretty well known. They all probably knew exactly where Edge lived and stopped by for pie and tea all the time. Surely someone would be delighted to help out, particularly if they were one of the lookie-loos from Mama’s who wanted to see Stretch and Edge on another man date, thank-you-but-no-thank-you.

That would probably be the easiest way to go about it, but Stretch found he was strangely reluctant to take that route. It felt a little like cheating, considering the roundabout way Edge went about handed out his address.

Anyway, if he’d wanted to go down that path, he could’ve simply asked Red days ago, but that right there was an entirely different can of worms that he didn’t want to share with any of the early birds. Red never forbade him from hanging out with Edge, but he’d been pretty clear time and again that he wasn’t too keen on it, either. Might be best if he kept any mentions of Edge to a minimum unless Red brought him up first.

He’d just figure it out himself, thanks, and he wasn’t any puzzle master, not like his bro was, but he had a little pride buried around here somewhere. Edge set him a challenge, damn it, and he was gonna see it through.

His absent gaze strayed down to the pile of bicycles outside the store, kid-sized, sure, but hey, wait a second—

“hey, guys,” Stretch said slowly, and the debate on whether to get two packs of everlasting gobstoppers or three paused as a half-dozen heads perked up like prairie dogs from a sugary plain. “if i wanted to buy a bicycle around here, where would i go?”

Heads ducked down again in a hastily whispered conversation, then the spokeskid popped up again and said, decisively, “Try over at the thrift shop. Miss Maggie always has old bikes for sale.”

“thanks.” He should’ve known. The only other option right in town was the tractor supply shop and while driving up on a John Deere would make a hell of an impression, it was probably well out of his price range. The kids crowded over with their handfuls of spoils and Stretch dutifully rang them up and if he tossed in a dime of his own to cover them, eh, wasn’t like they’d ever know. He handed over a paper sack of treats to a chorus of thank yous and the divvying began before the kiddos even got out of the shop.

“Oh, Edgar Allen said to tell you hi!” One little girl called back to him. She was gone out of the door before he could even think of a reply, all of them clamoring onto their bikes, their faces chipmunk-cheeked with their spoils.

Edgar Allen, shit, yeah, that was right. He’d pretty much been the first stop on this questline and Stretch’d been meaning to do something for him. He’d already rethought the magazine idea; what if it turned out that scarecrows couldn’t read, kinda insensitive there. He’d have to think of something, though, owing someone didn’t sit well with him even if that person didn’t qualify for traditionally alive.

In the meantime, the dog, bereft of childish companionship, wandered back behind the counter and flopped down with a huff, sighing deeply.

“yeah, go on and take a break,” Stretch told him, “you were working pretty hard there.” He stretched out a leg to pet the dog carefully with his foot and wasn’t too surprised that it didn’t care one bit about his shoe, only pliantly rolled over to give him better access to the belly region.

Stretch obediently kept petting, hell, he obeyed better than the dog. But his thoughts were still on the upcoming journey to 637 Wood’s End Drive.

~~*~~

Red relieved him in the shop a little later than normal, looking a lot like he’d just hauled ass out of bed. His shirt was the same one as earlier, only with a fresh crop of wrinkles and his eye lights were still bleary with exhaustion.

Almost, Stretch offered to stay later and let Red get a little more sleep, considering it was his fault Red got woken up in the middle of night. But the baleful glare Red sent his way was an unspoken warning that such an offer probably wasn’t gonna go over well. He kept his jaw shut tight and took the paper sandwich bag Red handed over before heading out the door. Time to get this side quest rolling, literally, he hoped.

The few times he’d met Magdalen May he’d figured right from the get-go that she, like Red, was a partaker of the Sheriff’s son’s prize cannabis crop. Not only because of her dreamy demeanor but also whenever she came into the store, she was surrounded by an almost visible cloud of pot stank so strong that Stretch got a contact buzz while she was shopping through the meagre selection of yarn that Red kept. By the time she left, Stretch would have a craving for Cheetos so strong he’d be ready to start gnawing on his fingerbones for a cronch.

Stepping into the thrift shop was a little like hot boxing in a hoarder’s closet but Stretch soldiered on, squinting as his vision adjusted from the bright light of day to a dimness barely above attic-levels. He went past shelves of gewgaws and boxes of dusty records, old clothes hanging from racks that looked like they’d been commandeered from a lot of remaindered furniture. There were tables piled high with ancient radios, cameras, electronics that Stretch didn’t know the name of and surely didn’t work, existing only to be parted out by an amateur scientist or an electrician in search of cheap parts. Antique glass was set high on the shelves, catching dusty light and sending a kaleidoscope of color to scatter over the room, freckling it in greens, reds, and yellows.

The entire store radiated a glorious sort of chaos and if it weren’t for the fact that he already felt a little woozy, he would’ve stayed for a while and poked through some of the wares. Maybe even find a new book for Red buried in the nearby piles, see if he’d be willing branch out into cowboy romance for a change.

He heading to the back of the shop where Miss Maggie was sitting in a rocking chair surrounded by boxes and shelves, knitting with flashing speed despite the foggy miasma hanging in the air. Her long white hair was smoothly braided and pinned up on top of her head, her weathered skin tanned dark and leathery. The weave of bright yellow yarn trailing from her needles was spread across her lap in an incongruous contrast to her dark, billowing skirt and the light sweater she wore against the chill of the air conditioning.

“Hello, Papyrus,” she greeted him with the sort of rough, croaky voice made over the years by a thousand packs of Marlboros. She didn’t look up, her attention completely focused on her knit and purl.

That gave him one hell of a pause. “how did you—” Stretch stopped. Great, he was in the soothsayer chapter and hadn’t even had time to prep. Yeah, okay, he didn’t really have any room in his life for another side quest, maybe let this one go. He didn’t actually want to know where she got her intel, not really, especially not with his head already spinning a little. He stuck his hands in his pockets to hide the way they wanted to curl into fists, rocking back and forth on his heels. “heya. i haven’t gone by papyrus in years, it’s stretch, thanks.”

“A wise choice,” Miss Maggie said. She sounded…different, somehow. He’d talked to her a few times now and strangely, today he couldn’t seem to place her accent. It wasn’t like the other townsfolk, all of them had a certain warm, down-homey charm, and usually so did she. Her words today were crisp, sharp-edged, nothing like the dreamy peace he was familiar with when she came into the store for coffee creamer and vanilla wafers. She glanced up at him over the wire rims of her glasses, her gaze as sharp as her tongue. “Names have power. A wise man keeps his true name to himself.”

“um. sure,” Stretch couldn’t stop himself from giving the door a longing glance. This was starting to seem like a bad idea, Miss Maggie seemed to be having a personality crisis, maybe he should come back after lunch. “that’s some very handy wisdom, but i’m here about a bike?”

She ignored that. “You have issues with names,” Miss Maggie told him. She kept knitting, needles flashing furiously in a rhythmic clickity-clack as steady as a metronome. “don’t you.”

“huh?” Stretch didn’t exactly have any flesh to get goosebumps with, but he felt a chill nonetheless, prickling maddeningly over his bones. His head was whirling, everything around him seemed to blur except the old woman in front of him. His tongue felt strangely thick as he whispered a question he didn’t want to ask, “i don’t…what do you mean?”

“Mmm, yes,” Miss Maggie sighed out, “so many names you’ve had and rejected. Had and left behind when you ran away, far, far away.”

“stop,” Stretch said weakly. His soul was starting to pulse with aching intensity behind his breastbone. The room filled with an electric heaviness like a coming storm, the rich green smell filling the room suddenly nauseating. “please, don’t.”

“Brother, lover, yes, but never father, not even once.”

“shut up,” Stretch said thickly. Or tried to, the words seemed to clot and stick at the back of his throat, refusing to travel over his useless tongue.

“And now you’re taking on new names,” she raised her head, and here in the dim, her eyes seemed like dark pools of pure blackness that reflected nothing of the flickering overhead lights. Her grin seemed unpleasant and wide, showing pale pink gums in an endless maw. “Is it friend you seek or something else, I wonder?”

As she turned towards him, her sleeve caught on the sugar bowl set on the table next to her, sending it tumbling to the floor. The burst of sound as it shattered pushed through his dazed distance like the snap of dry twig broken over a knee. Stretch jerked, blinking hard, and all the nebulous emotion in him surged forward, gathering and coalescing into real anger. He was starting to get sick of this shit, if everyone in town wanted to act like this place was Sleepy Hollow’s second-cousin, that was fine by him. He was happy to play along, but not if they were gonna keep sticking their shovels into his past to see what other skeletons they could dig up.

“look, fuck you,” Stretch snapped out. He turned back to the door, tossing over his shoulder. “never mind, i’ll figure out something else!”

“Wait!” And he didn’t want to wait, he wanted to push on through the door, but his stubborn feet suddenly refused to move. Miss Maggie clumsily thrust aside her knitting, hardly noticing her teacup wobbling, spilling tea and leaves out into her saucer in a wild splash. That funky weird woman vibe abruptly eased and so did some of the stench in the air, flavored instead with lavender tea. She waddled over to him, her long skirt dragging on the floor. Even bent over with age, she was impressively tall, hardly shorter than Stretch was, and he was a mini-skyscraper to most Humans. She looked up at him, her eyes a watery, pale blue, surrounded by a sea of wrinkles, how could he ever have imagined they were anything else?

Miss Maggie reached up to touch his cheekbone with fingers nearly as thin as his own.

“Oh, sweet child,” she said with mournful gentleness, and her voice was the smoky-sweet, grandmotherly one he recalled. “S’all right. Ain’t nothing wrong with setting aside a name you’ve outgrown, nor in taking on a new one.”

All his bright, burning anger collapsed inwardly, a card house with the center support removed, and hurt welled in him instead. He was crying, he realized distantly, tears stinging in his sockets, running down his cheekbones to gather on wetly his chin. He didn’t realize he was going to speak until he did, choking out, “it feels wrong.”

“How you feel and how things are don’t always match,” she agreed. She held out her arms, her gnarled hands open to him and Stretch leaned into them, burying his face in the soft, knitted shawl draped over her shoulder. She smelled like weed and lavender, a strange, exotic mixture. “i’ll get you all wet,” Stretch mumbled, muffled into the cloth.

She petted his skull gently, “It’s all right, child. I’ll dry.”

He held on tightly for a long time and when she finally drew back, she lightly touched his forehead with the tips of two dry fingers.

“You can get to his home through the forest,” she said, and it seemed to Stretch he could almost see it, clear as a picture someplace behind his sight. “Follow the exchange down about a mile, you’ll see a turnoff on the left. Don’t you stray from the path, you hear me, sonny?” Those pale, rheumy eyes searched his face for understanding. “Easy to get lost out there.”

“i won’t.”

“Good.” She let him go and shuffled back to her chair to picked up her knitting again. “Now, you mentioned something about a bike.”

For a moment, Stretch stood there, practically wobbling on his feet. He felt like he’d woken up from an unexpected nap, still floating in between the sleeping and waking worlds. Then he blinked, snapping awake, and looked around almost wildly. Until his gaze snagging on one of the shelves, or more specifically, something sitting on it, and held.

“a bike, i did.” Stretch walked over to the shelf where a bandana was sitting, a bright turkey-red plaid, and picked it up, holding it out for Miss Maggie to see. “how much for this, too?”

By the time he left the shop, he was in a fine mood despite his savings being a little lighter. He was pushing a rattly old bike with a squeaky chain and a horn that let loose with a hoarse ‘awhooga’ when the dusty rubber bulb was squeezed. The bandana was stuffed into his short’s pocket and the first thing he was gonna do was deal with that, then he’d worry about some maintenance. Probably better to find out if his new bike was streetworthy before taking his act on the road.

He used the walk back to the store to draw in a few deep, refreshing breaths of the heat-smoggy air, letting it clear his head.

“miss maggie sure smokes some strong shit,” Stretch muttered to himself. He left the bike leaning against the porch around back and headed over to the main road, taking his normal walking route down towards the corn. There were no kids on the makeshift baseball diamond today, looked like they’d headed off somewhere else to enjoy their penny candy.

The grass was yellowed and dying under his sneakers as he went off the beaten path, heading towards the rustling corn. Was it his imagination, or did those whispers get louder as he approached, even eager? The corn got lonely sometimes, Edgar Allen had said, but it didn’t mean any harm.

Somehow, he didn’t think the skeleton they’d found in the fields back in Doris’s day would agree.

“um, hi?” Stretch tried. There was no one around to see him and he still felt ridiculous, talking to the damn corn. “look, i dunno if you can understand me, but if you do, could you see that edgar allen gets this? i wanted to thank him for helping me out and i thought it’d look good on him.”

Carefully, he laid the bandana over a crux of green leaves and stalk, tugging to make sure it wouldn’t simply blow away. He left it there and turned back to town, hoping that the scarecrow got the message; as much as he wanted to thank the guy, he really didn’t feel like taking a second go in the corn maze to do it. He didn’t look back until he got back to the side of the road and there he paused, frowning. The splash of red should’ve been vivid against the sea of green but there was nothing, not so much as a glimpse.

He craned his neck, searching, but it hadn’t fallen to the ground and the wind wasn’t strong enough to carry it off. Maybe the corn had gotten the message after all? Yeah, he was going with that, and he headed back to take a look at his new bike, hands in his pockets and whistling cheerfully, which was a heck of a trick for someone without lips.

Yeah, he felt pretty good today and why not? He had a place to stay, a job, someone looking after him, and a dog. And now he had a bike. Things were looking up, Stretch decided.

Things were looking up.

~~*~~

tbc

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #welcome to backwater

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virtueangel · 4 years ago

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limitless.

chapter eleven.

wc: 2,526. original publish date: october 23, 2020.

"Vincent," JFK says, leaning back against his pillow. He and Van Gogh are in the bedroom with the balcony, Vincent sitting cross-legged at the far corner of the bed and Kennedy at the headboard, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

"Hm?" Van Gogh mumbles in response, barely looking up from his sketchpad.

"How come you never let me see what you're drawing?"

Vincent pauses for a second to look up at the boy. "How come you never let me see what you're drawing?" He volleys.

JFK laughs. "Because I can't draw."

"Can't, or don't?"

John shrugs. "Same difference?"

Van Gogh sighs, chewing on the end of his pencil. He nibbles off some of the yellow paint, flaky and crinkly against his tongue. "No, not really. Maybe if you drew more often, you'd get better at it."

JFK pulls himself away from the headboard, folding his legs underneath him and walking on his knees to the edge of the bed, where Van Gogh is sitting. He tilts the top of the boy's book down, peering at the graphite curves etched onto the paper.

"How long have you been practicing that for?" Kennedy asks wryly, snickering up at Vincent.

Van Gogh snatches the sketchpad away, embarrassed to admit how long he's really been drawing JFK for. "I've been drawing people for years. I've mastered them."

John smiles softly, and Vincent nearly melts. "You have."

Van Gogh closes his sketchbook and places it on the bed next to him, away from JFK. He places his pencil down on top of it before brushing some hair out of his eyes and looking up at Kennedy. He smiles sweetly, a soft look in his eyes. JFK smiles back, feeling free under Van Gogh's gaze.

"You know what I really like, Jack?" He whispers.

"What do you really like, Vinny?"

Vincent's smile widens, and his insides are set ablaze by the nickname. In an instant, he is transported back to his childhood. It wasn't good -- at least home life wasn't -- but to feel so simple, so uncomplicated and happy with JFK. He'd do anything to have it back, to leave all of his sadness behind.

"I like candles."

"That's not at all what I thought you were going to say," JFK replies, his tone light like the clouds in heaven.

"But aren't they fascinating?" Van Gogh challenges, sinkhole brown eyes widening. The corners of his mouth tick up, up, up, until he's grinning so wide Kennedy can see his teeth.

"You're just fascinated by fire," he says.

Vincent shrugs, but he's unapologetic. His smile hasn't faded, and JFK imagines pulling him in by the collar of his shirt, kissing him hard and deep, deep, deep. "Aren't you?"

"It's mesmerising," John replies, his voice hushed.

"Do you have a match?" Vincent asks.

Kennedy smirks. "It would be useless without a candle, don't you think?"

"Okay, then do you have a candle?" Van Gogh laughs, leaning in closer to JFK.

"There's probably one in this house that no one lives in," Kennedy volleys, leaning closer as well.

"We live in it now."

"You'd want to live with me?"

"It can't be any more of a sacrifice than you living with me."

JFK and Vincent sit with their noses touching, eyes darting down to mouths and back up to eyes. Van Gogh opens his mouth and his eyelids flutter shut. He wants for Kennedy to close the gap, but he doesn't. Instead, he pulls his face away and slides off the bed. Vincent opens his eyes and frowns, closing his mouth and holding his jaw shut tightly. He swallows.

"I thought you wanted to find some candles," JFK grins deviously, and Vincent rolls his eyes in response.

"Yeah, yeah, okay. But I'm going to get you back for that," Van Gogh promises, sliding off the bed himself and following John out of the room.

Kennedy turns around, the same devious grin still lifting his face. "I'll be patiently awaiting that, my dear."

Van Gogh rummages through some of the drawers in the kitchen while JFK searches the rest of the house, both looking for candles. Kennedy manages to find a few tapers, magenta and coated in petrified wax droplets. Vincent finds two tea lights in the back of a drawer, one with no wick and the other with barely enough wax to burn. In the same drawer, he finds a box of matches.

"What do you intend to do with these candles, Vincent?" John asks, setting the tapers down on the kitchen table.

Van Gogh strikes a match and it fizzes, the sound searing like carbonation through the air. He watches the flame on the match grow, flickering before licking the thin wood and charring it black. He turns the match sideways, letting the fire grip onto the blackened wick rising out of one of the tapers before it burns to life. He lights the other with the same match before blowing it out in one breath, precisely and with no struggle.

"I don't know," Vincent replies. He shifts his gaze from the lit candles to JFK. "I just like the smell of fire."

***

That evening, Vincent sits on one of the plush outdoor chairs set on the balcony. He has a novel opened wide in front of him. He sits quietly and unmoving, concentrating hard on the words in front of him. The fog is cold and wet against his nose, his ears, his fingertips. The bandages around his head are getting soggy. He'll need to change them soon. He probably won't get to wait until the morning, thus throwing off his normal routine. He ignores the moisture in the air, immersing himself in his novel. He can't remember the title of it or the main character's name. He just likes the story, the way he feels while he reads. Silent and composed, with a hint of sophistication unparalleled. Van Gogh doesn't even notice when JFK climbs out the bay window and sits down on the chair next to his. It's a matching set.

John watches Vincent as he reads, breathing deeply through his nose. He blinks slowly, a shy smile turning up the corners of his mouth. He unfolds a novel of his own on his lap. He'd pulled it off one of the bookshelves in the living room. It's old enough to not have a cover -- the title isn't printed across the front, only on the spine. It's written in old English, and the author is clearly British. He thinks the protagonist's name is Eleanor, but he's only been paying half attention to the text. He likes to read, but he's slower at it than Van Gogh. He can sit in uninterrupted silence for hours, whether it be to paint or read or write. That's one of the many things JFK admires about the boy; it's also something he can't do himself.

"Vincent, can I ask you something?"

The boy jumps, nearly dropping his book. "Jesus, John, why didn't you warn me?"

He laughs. "Because you looked so peaceful."

Van Gogh smiles. "Sure, you can ask me something."

"Why don't you write a book?"

Vincent looks taken aback. He shakes his head, a nervous smile twisting his lips. "I couldn't write a whole book."

"Why not?" John asks in his soft tone, closing his novel and marking his page with his finger as he leans across the armrest of the chair.

"Because I don't have the stamina for something long-term."

"But you do write a lot," JFK states.

Van Gogh shrugs. "Yeah. But, like, poems and letters and stuff. Journal entries. None of that is intended for public consumption."

"Would you let me read any of it?"

Vincent blushes and looks away, pretending to be fascinated by the fog. All it ever does is hang in the air. Van Gogh wonders if Marshtown ever isn't foggy. It seems impossible to never see the sun. "I wouldn't want you to go into it with high hopes and then be disappointed. I'm not as good as you think I am."

"Then I'll set my expectations low and be presently surprised."

Van Gogh closes his own novel and leans across the armrest of his chair, his face inches away from JFK's. He stares into the boy's eyes, a raw smile spread across his face. Kennedy returns it. "I haven't anything to write about."

"Then I'll give you something to write about."

Vincent stifles a laugh. "I'm not writing about you, JFK. Love stories are tired out."

Kennedy looks down at the balcony floor and shrugs before meeting Van Gogh's eyes again. "I wasn't talking about me."

Vincent sits back in his chair and looks out into the fog, thinking instead of avoiding. "So show me." He turns back to the boy. "Show me what you were thinking of."

"So get in the car, and we'll go."

"No," Vincent shakes his head. "No more driving," he pleads. "I like it here. Let's stay here for a while. I want to stay here for a while."

JFK smiles. "We're getting in the car, but we're not leaving Marshtown." He reaches out to rest his hand upon Vincent's. "I like it here, too."

***

"So remember when I told you that this town was built to look abandoned?" JFK asks once they're in the car. They're driving down a line of houses; the residential part of Marshtown. Neither boy knew there was a non-residential part.

"Theorised. You theorised that Marshtown was built to look abandoned," Vincent corrects him.

JFK waves him off. "Yeah, yeah, same difference. Well, I was right."

"You have no proof."

Kennedy turns to look at his passenger, grin so wide it crinkles his eyes.

"Watch the road!" Van Gogh laughs.

"Marshtown isn't actually a residential town," John says, peeling his eyes off of Vincent. "You know why it was on that sign by the freeway exit?"

"No. Why was it?"

"Because..." JFK prolongs the word, pulling into a parking lot Van Gogh has never seen before. "It's actually..."

"Just get on with it!" Vincent demands with a smile.

JFK stops the car and twists the keys out of the ignition. He and Van Gogh get out of the vehicle, closing their doors at the exact same time.

"Come on," Kennedy says, interlacing his fingers with Vincent's. The smaller boy's breath catches. He forgot that there's romantic touching without kissing, and that romance is much more than just kissing. He squeezes JFK's hand, feeling the warmth wash over his skin. Vincent's hand is cold against John's, but he doesn't say anything. It's a comforting kind of cold; not clammy or sweaty.

"So, while you sent me off to look through that ginormous house for fucking candles-"

"You did that at your own free will," Van Gogh reminds him.

"-I stumbled across a book that had a map of Marshtown on the cover, so I was like, hm, let's see where this leads us..."

"Oh, so that's why you took so fucking long?"

"And, as it turns out, Marshtown actually used to be an amusement park!" JFK exclaims, a childish twinkle burning in his eyes. Vincent can't help but kiss his jaw.

"What do you mean 'used to be'?"

"Well, it's shut down now, but I guess all the houses used to be, like, activity centres in one way or another."

"So you brought me out into a grassy field in cotton-thick fog... just to tell me that Marshtown used to be an amusement park?"

"Well, I'm also going to tell you that our house is probably haunted because it's the only one that was built with the intention of having tenants."

Our house. "You could've just told me that back at the house, Jack."

"No, no I couldn't have," JFK squeezes the boy's hand, still walking. He seems to be leading Vincent somewhere.

In a couple more seconds, the fog thins, and Van Gogh understands why they had to get into the car and drive to the far end of the town. In front of them is a rollercoaster, rusty and paint-chipped. There's no cab, only a track, that seems to be missing pieces. Disappearing into the fog, it seems to go on forever. Most rollercoasters only run for thirty seconds -- it can't go on for that long. But the fun of this particular track, without any loops or steep drops, is probably that it plunges into the grey-white abyss. It seems like a perfect place to come and lose your mind.

"It's a rollercoaster track," Vincent states.

JFK grins and lets go of the boy's hand. "Yes."

Van Gogh takes a step toward it and rubs his hand along one of the metal pillars, the once-white paint tainted with water-stained rust. "How long has this been broken down for?"

"Since the early 1980s," JFK replies.

"You really did your research, huh?"

Kennedy flashes his giddy grin, Colgate teeth piercing through the limitless blanket of fog. "I wasn't gone for that long, now, was I?"

"I guess not."

Vincent continues to feel around the track, skeptical of its reality. Marshtown is a dumb name for a town, but an even dumber name for an amusement park. Everything about it seems so surreal, so made up. He doubts that it was really abandoned as soon ago as the late 1980s.

"Do you wanna climb up?" John asks hopefully. Even through the fog, Van Gogh can make out the burnt orange of his letterman jacket.

"It doesn't run anymore, Jack."

"We could go for a walk," he suggests.

Vincent looks up to the track and then down to the grassy floor, considering. "What if I fall?"

"I'll catch you."

Van Gogh rolls his eyes, but can't suppress his smile. "Jesus, so this is what it's like dating you."

"We're dating?"

Vincent's smile falls. "No."

JFK frowns, the twinkle flickering out of his eyes.

"I mean, yes. I don't know. If you want us to be."

Kennedy takes a step closer to Vincent, and wraps his arms around the boy's waist. "How much clearer do I have to make it that the answer is yes?"

Van Gogh swallows and resists the urge to wrap his arms around JFK's neck. "You have to say the word."

"Yes."

"No, I mean... the one that you call a person when you're dating them."

"You mean boyfriend?"

"Say it."

"Vincent."

Van Gogh tilts his head up, catching Kennedy's eye. He knows this is childish. He knows it's stupid to want to be someone's boyfriend -- even the word sounds juvenile. He's always known that he's same-sex oriented -- that was never something he had to question twice. But hearing JFK say it out loud, to know in his head where he stands once and for all, would make it real. "I'm waiting."

Kennedy hesitates, but before Van Gogh can look away in defeat, he says, "Vincent, I want you to be my boyfriend."

Now, Van Gogh lifts up his arms and wraps them around JFK's neck, pulling his head down and kissing his lips. "Good, because I want you to be my boyfriend, too."

#clone high #clone high van gogh #clone high jfk #jfgogh #limitless

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bladekindeyewear · 4 years ago

Text

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-12-25

I’m not going to spend time BLOGGING an upd8 on Christmas morning!

...yes I am who the fuck am I kidding. (Bonus stuff and Hiveswap are still well on hold though.)

So are we gonna follow up on the main ship? Probably not, right, with that perfect Karkat point to cut away, right? We’re just going to leave Roxy’s question hanging, as well as makeouts etiquette, and leave while having seen a COUPLE FRAMES of non-possessed canon Jade with only whatever fun fanart was inspired across the internet by the moment to tide us over????

Yeah, probably.

Ugh, more Dirk. I guess it’s overdue. :(

> CHAPTER 16. Welcome to my Secret Lair

Oh huh, I guess not? So... Jane’s, or Rose and Kanaya’s?

Karkat stays for longer than John thought he would. They talk a bit, but mostly they are quiet. Eventually, Karkat gets called away on yet more important war business, leaving John with one final touch on the shoulder. John leans into it in response, though he’s a bit ashamed of chasing down a sliver of physical affection so soon after obliterating Karkat’s evening like he had.

Pretty much, yeah. Can’t blame either of them.

When Karkat is finally gone, John still doesn’t move. It isn’t as though he has nowhere else to go, since there are quite a few places he might attempt to make himself useful, for better or for worse.

You’re still abandoning the task that was explicitly yours to protect your literal kid and his friends, but, oh well. Low-point. Dave dead, house dead, broke news, I get it.

He just doesn’t feel ready for that yet. The remnants of his house are still smoldering, and he can’t stop staring at them. It would make sense, he thinks, to want to root around through the rubble for anything that’s still intact; some half-charred keepsake to claim as the last thing left that’s still his. But he doesn’t want to do it, and he doesn’t want to think about it. And he still can’t move.

Can’t move. No Breath huh? What’s going to get him to, then?

> (==>)

Oh boy, that might help. XD She’s pretty good at that.

> (==>)

Still with the waistline gap. And was his phone always yellow like his God-Tier shoes?

ROXY: hey john can u do me a quick solid ROXY: actly idk how quick itll be but its definitely solid ROXY: harry anderson says i just missed u being here but could u skip back on over?

Nice, huh! No judgment, just a hey-any-chance-you-could-swing-back. He sort of needs to be needed right now, in a simple, almost everyday non-judgmental way I guess. (That’s what he NEEDED anyway-- whether he deserved it though is up for debate.)

ROXY: i need help w/smth and yr darling boy is holed up in his room working on some fuckin craft project or other and cant be bothered

YES SEW JOHN A BETTER FITTING FUCKING OUTFIT

ROXY: and now that me and u are freshly on speakin terms again i might as well take advantage of that olive branch and put u to work ROXY: assumin you havent died in an air raid, that is ROXY: which id also be interested in knowin about so if u wld be so kind as to reply instead of leavin me hangin

Heheheh. Gosh Roxy is always the best.

JOHN: yea yea sorry im here. JOHN: i just had a hard time getting my phone out of these fucking tiny pants.

Hah.

JOHN: and also my house is bombed out so i'm kinda grappling with that. JOHN: but i honestly am not sure how much longer i need to sit around staring at it. trying to align my memories of my youth with whatever is happening right now so JOHN: short version is no i’m not dead, and yeah i can come back over there and help you out. ROXY: oh sweet yr alive and down to do manual labor its a win/win JOHN: see you soon.

Yep! Pulled away from all the metaphorical, ultra-meaningful bullshit, back to some brass tacks with some easy humor. Definitely something Roxy can do well.~

> (==>)

EXCUSE ME. What is that outfit and pose. Did you--

ROXY: sup ROXY: follow me ROXY: well were just going to my room so i guess technically u know the way JOHN: haha ok.

Did you invite him over for the manual labor of banging you while your son is sewing in the other room

Or maybe the labor is making him a new sibling. JFC

Is this plan part of why we got the sudden content warning that was mocked or was that mainly for Hiveswap

John follows, trying to shake the ominous feeling he got from what she’d just said. He’d been in and out of this house a lot in the past few days. Why should this be any different?

I DUNNO JOHN DOES THIS SEEM DIFFERENT TO YOU

> (==>)

Yea this seems like a fucc room.

JOHN: it’s not like i could forget! ROXY: ya i guess u only really saw the living room when you were here the other day but i have changed some stuff up ROXY: done a lil redecoratin here n there

So it’s MORE of a fucc room than previously >__>”

ROXY: may have to do a smidge more if my old bff decides im next on the list for bombing out ROXY: but so far so good

Ah geez.

ROXY: just a coupla exploded cars in the yard from some shenanigans our dear son and his friends were in but u kno it is what it is!!!

Well, that’ll buff out easy.

ROXY: can i get u anything? ROXY: just made some coffee JOHN: no, uh, i’m good.

Of course she has a fancy handled winecoffeeglass (and the handle does look ridiculous but it’d be too hot to hold otherwise)

Roxy shrugs and swirls her own coffee around in her novelty mug. John looks around. A lot about the room is the same. The family photos, the rug. There’s a lot more cat stuff in there now, though. The bed is new. John feels like he’s about to take a test he hasn’t studied for. He makes himself focus on what she’s saying.

That would be the feeling.

> (==>)

MY GOD. Roxy is so fucking good at this holy shit

She KNOWS she’s making him squirm and she loves it

JOHN: so uh anyway. JOHN: what was this favor? ROXY: yo why dont u just come rest yr tush for a bit ROXY: take a lil relax next 2 me here JOHN: haha uh. JOHN: roxy i uh. JOHN: im flattered, but i don’t know if that’s really the right step right now. JOHN: don’t get me wrong, everything seems so fucked up right now that when i try to think about what might actually BE the right step, it feels like a huge cartoon question mark might physically manifest over my head. JOHN: but I’m not sure if um rekindling our physical relationship is really the best--

So is Roxy trolling him, about to reveal she wasn’t thinking of sex and was just making things seem sultry? Or just had “lol jk” as an option-select, maybe.

> (==>)

ROXY: r u kiddin me rn egbert JOHN: i’m not? unless you were, in which case yeah lets say i was also kidding. JOHN: oh my god, i’m sorry, i don’t know why this making me freak out.

OH NOOO NOT THE DISDAAAAIN - CRITICAL HIT D:

ROXY: i remember our past boot knockin with fondness but that is a situation im not interested in revisiting

boot knockin XD

ROXY: look john ROXY: i was trying to be polite about it ROXY: offering u sustenance n rest n all ROXY: but you look like shit ROXY: i just wanted to catch up on the whole heinous war situation were in and maybe check in on e/o before leaping strait to the real n actual nonsexual manual labor favor i have in mind for u JOHN: oh.

Hey, she can’t help looking sexy she’s too good at it.

Is the manual labor moving the crashed cars? Can’t Roxy pull that off on her own, or... banish the cars to the void or something? (Oh, but WOULD she want to do it on her own when she can rope in John and bring him down to earth by giving him a useful task? And admittedly his strength and wallet would make things easier.)

John feels his shoulders unbunch. Of course. Yeah. He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced?

Probably some gender stuff mixed up in there too, June.

He doesn’t know, but he believes Roxy that he must look pretty haggard. He probably feels haggard? Maybe sitting down will feel better.

Just put your feet up yeah

> (==>)

WHAT A CUTE IMAGE

JOHN: sorry. like i said, my "how to react to stuff" meter is completely fucked right now. ROXY: thats fair bud

she’s used to being patient with you don’t worry otherwise you never would’ve gotten this far

ROXY: real fast i do need to do a quick takeback of all that shit i said last time we talked about janey not being literally the most evil person we knew or whatever ROXY: i guess i was hopped up on arguin or somethin since that was before we hit our conversational vibe bc of course u were right and i shoulda listened

Ouch. Yeah, we saw just lately just how far off the deep end she was. (Where was that funny upd8 reaction art summarizing the bit where Kanaya was holding Tavros hostage and Jane was transparently debating “hmm do I let my son die?” and Kanaya and Tavros were just looking at each-other flat-mouthed nervous? I REALLY wanted to share that but I don’t usually want to reblog or put most stuff HS^2 not under a read-more, for spoiler purposes, usually.)

ROXY: im just glad ur ok ROXY: or like alive JOHN: yeah, jury's still out on "ok" but, you know. ROXY: ya ROXY: u said ur house is gone?? JOHN: yep. JOHN: completely. ROXY: jeez ROXY: i would ask how ur feelin but like the answer 2 that has got 2b "prtty bad"

Talk it ouuuut~~ get those feels out there and articulated john

JOHN: yeah. JOHN: i mean. JOHN: no? JOHN: it’s weird. JOHN: it feels like it should be a bigger deal, I guess? JOHN: like it’s my HOUSE. JOHN: but mostly it always felt like my dad’s house? JOHN: and when i started living there after i moved out of here, it was like i crammed myself back into whatever was left of my kid self? JOHN: and it didn’t feel good, but it at least was familiar, you know? JOHN: like living there let me feel closer to my dad, trying to be like the way i remember him, or like how i remember him wanting me to be, or something? JOHN: and i didn’t realize how much i hated doing that until i saw it all go up in flames. JOHN: so i guess i could have used my powers to stop the fire and save whatever was left of the place, but i couldn’t bring myself to do it. JOHN: like some fucked up part of me was glad i got there too late? JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison. JOHN: and even now i keep trying to explain it away, as though it’s because of how fucked up everything else is that it made me feel good. JOHN: but that’s just bullshit. JOHN: it DID feel good. JOHN: i DO feel free. JOHN: sorry.

I was kind of saying some Breath/Blood stuff at the time of him losing his last tie to his stubborn sticking-to-his-kid-self bit? Except now we’re mixing it in with June Egbert and his gender-identity questions too.

ROXY: no need 2 apologize ROXY: we just delved in2 my whole gender thing last time so it seems fine for u to have a turn JOHN: i didn’t say it was a gender thing.

Oh shit

ROXY: well no i just meant like i did some sharing ROXY: like referrin 2 the topic i brought up when we chatted last ROXY: but like now that u mention it ROXY: *meaningful pause* JOHN: … JOHN: i JOHN: ROXY: lol well we can move on 2 the favor part if youd rather ROXY: stick a lil pin in that topic n come back 2 it when u have had sleep

Are you just INCREDIBLY incisive Roxy or have you and John talked about this before?

ROXY: like i said the other day its not like this shits figureoutable in 1 sitting anyways JOHN: yeah... ROXY: sooooooo ROXY: movin on

It’s just fine for Roxy to slow-roll this yeah, if she’s going to pry open that door a little

ROXY: dont be mad but theres a part of the house u didnt know abt the whole time u lived here JOHN: what? ROXY: yea ROXY: i got a secret lair ROXY: for my sciences

OH FUCK YES SCIENCE LAB, of COURSE Roxy would want a cool science lab basement because she always wants a cool science lab basement

ROXY: and i get to it via a transportalizer underneath our bed ROXY: which is 2 heavy 2 move by my lonesome so i just needed to borrow some o your aforementioned powers of wind

Okay no. Wait. What the fuck?

First of all, as funny and MSPaintAdventures-y as furniture being in the way of things is, why would you block it with a bed too heavy to move, but,

Second of all, more importantly, how is a GOD-TIER ROXY not strong enough to lift a heavy bed?!?!?!? Either she’s lying to get John involved in things or this is a gendered cop-out because these characters are superheroes at the TOP of their echeladders, given obnoxiously powerful video-game strength and athletics only to then have ascended into DEITIES. God-Tier Roxy could probably have lifted a bed like that when she was SEVENTEEN! And now she’s an ADULT, out-of-shape or otherwise! If this were a whole CAR I might be willing to handwave it, but just a heavy BED?!? And none of the GUYS are going to have this much trouble lifting a bed like this, are they?? This just feels like following classic cartoony gender tropes in the complete absence of these characters’ super powers, what the fuck, and also Roxy if you didn’t make it Transportalizer-only access you could have given it an entrance you could phase through with your fancy powers to get to. FUCK.

This feels stupid.

ROXY: so if u dont mind woosh away JOHN: uh ok, well... JOHN: a secret science lair, sure, i can deal with that. JOHN: why not! JOHN: it doesn’t work out great when i do the windy thing indoors, though. ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

Roxy flexes, the corner of her mouth pulled up into a familiar grin. John feels his guts, so recently calmed, twist up into knots again. Her eyebrows shoot up and the smile loosens. He must have shown something on his face.

You’re already THIS sensitive about gendertalk?

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push ROXY: we both got sick muscles ROXY: no other adjectives necessary JOHN: yeah ok. ROXY: on 3?

Please, please reinforce the idea that they both have sick strength, because they fucking do and the idea that Roxy actually a hundred percent NEEDED John to do this is BS.

> (==>)

JOHN: holy shit? ROXY: sorry to lop yet another huge scoop onto ur lil brains ice cream revelation sundae JOHN: so wait, if this thing's always been under the bed, how’d you get down here before without me? ROXY: well thats neither here nor there john JOHN: i mean it is kinda. Here. ROXY: fine ok checkmate ROXY: i dont ACTUALLY need ur nerdgrit for this escapade ROXY: like im sorry but i said it ROXY: i mostly just wanted to see you and show u wats down here

THANK FUCKING CHRIST.

If that wasn’t actually just a lie to get him involved I was going to stay SO mad. Of COURSE Roxy can move a fucking BED no matter how heavy it is. OF COURSE.

ROXY: and also uve been ~sent for~ JOHN: ok but like ROXY: john i am inviting u 2 my inner sanctum ROXY: i am literally bringing out the word "sanctum" in case u werent already clued in 2 how cool this is ROXY: so do u wanna go into my secret lair or wat JOHN: yeah!? JOHN: yes? i guess? ROXY: aight good

Yes John of course you want to stop fighting it

ROXY: then as they told me in the hospital before lil h a was born ROXY: just push

eyeroll, but yeah, of course

> (==>)

Oh cool, sprite form version of her loungewear.

> (==>)

Sorry for my compulsion to post every full-frame image of Roxy in this awesome outfi-WERE YOU KEEPING CALLIOPE UNDER YOUR BED THIS WHOLE TIME?!?????

That’s like... almost a fucking metaphor isn’t it???? For the relationship you preferred in the other timeline and possibly THIS one TOO or

ROXY: hey callieee i got him ROXY: o damn john sorry i shoulda also told u callies here weve been hangin out again ROXY: 1 more freak for ur bean

Oh huh, so this isn’t an always thing. And these two can get close in more than one timeline where it would’ve worked out nicely. :)

JOHN: oh it's ok, my bean feels pretty well adjusted to freakage at this point so keep them coming if you like! ROXY: k cool i will JOHN: do i get to know what that big thing under the sheet is? ROXY: hmmmmmm no JOHN: oh ok. JOHN: are you sure? i mean, it seems like a pretty prominent feature of the room. JOHN: space. JOHN: wherever we are. ROXY: and a totally mysterious n COMPLETELY inconspicuous feature it will have to remain for now ROXY: we r kinda in a hurry here fyi ROXY: and by that i mean ROXY: we are in precisely the amount of hurry that means im excused from having to a that specific q rn JOHN: right, sorry. JOHN: i will pay no attention to the object behind the curtain. ROXY: u catch on fast egbert ROXY: anyway theres more cool info coming so just follow me

I don’t have any big theories. Is it just the Hiveswap device or something? If Calliope helped with it it’d help explain the Cherubic theme.

> (==>)

JOHN: so... this is all downstairs? JOHN: it seems like you had a lot of work done. ROXY: well no not x actly ROXY: were in the old meteor JOHN: under the house??? ROXY: ok so ROXY: in hindsight it may have been a bit misleading 2 say like ROXY: "downstairs" ROXY: in reference to a place which is hells of buried underground and may not actually be literally under the house ROXY: but there is no time to explain all that rn john so instead im going to refer u to my adorable little green friend here CALLIOPE: #U_U# ROXY: (hehe) CALLIOPE: *AHEM* CALLIOPE: hi john! CALLIOPE: long time no see. ^u^

Cherubs just really like dark cavelike places full of weird tech don’t they.

> (==>)

THEY’RE SO CUTE

JOHN: oh, uh. hey callie! JOHN: it sure has been a while huh. JOHN: now that i think about it, the last time the three of us hung out like this... CALLIOPE: was when i was aggressively third wheeling yoUr prenUptial coUrtship? CALLIOPE: if yoU dont mind, john, i'd rather not rehash that period of oUr lives. CALLIOPE: it was more than a little painfUl for me. JOHN: oh. JOHN: god, jeez, i'm sorry. i didn't mean to-- CALLIOPE: hee hee john i am only pUlling yoUr leg, don't worry. CALLIOPE: if anything i was personally a little thrilled with how things shook oUt in that respect. CALLIOPE: imagine, if yoU will, a yoUng cherUb raised in solitUde, whose only solace was the convolUted and tUmUltUoUs romantic schemata she projected onto her only friends from another Universe. CALLIOPE: and then fUrther imagine that this yoUng cherUb, throUgh varioUs even *more* convolUted contrivances, ended Up in the company of those selfsafe friends as an eqUal participant in their sphere of social discoUrse! CALLIOPE: it is a joy the like of which yoU possibly cannot fathom. u_u

Reinforcing that things turning out this way was in fact the FANTASY that Calliope was writing over in the Canon timeline. Just, heavily, HEAVILY implied that the Candy timeline is -- or at least originated as -- Calliope’s fanfiction as a Muse of Space, and its competition for audience interest with canon is the essential conflict between alt!Calliope and Dirk (or Dirk and Andrew Hussie).

CALLIOPE: so to pUt it simply, getting to experience sUch emotional drama myself was an impossibly enriching experience. CALLIOPE: possibly a first for my species! CALLIOPE: it's actUally qUite interesting, if yoU ROXY: *nudge* CALLIOPE: oh, right. yes. i'm getting a little carried away, haha. CALLIOPE: argh, i'm sorry, this is not how i planned to begin this vital conversation.

Vital conversation? What sorta truth-bombs are coming?

CALLIOPE: but to sUmmarise, what i was trying to say is: CALLIOPE: don't beat yourself Up aboUt it john. CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr. CALLIOPE: so i consider Us aboUt even at this point. JOHN: hahaha!!! JOHN: okay, well that's good to know! CALLIOPE: ^u^

Holy SHIT that was savage! And we’ll NEVER know whether or not she really intended it so savagely, either.~

JOHN: so um... JOHN: i hear that there's this big secret thing you wanna tell me about? CALLIOPE: oh right, yes of course! CALLIOPE: let me jUst say first of all how thrilled i am that yoU're on board. CALLIOPE: i wasn't sUre if yoUr natUral inclinations woUld have preclUded yoUr coming to such a place as this, and yet here yoU are. CALLIOPE: this whole endeavoUr will be *so* mUch easier with yoUr help.

Uh oh.

Hopefully babies aren’t involved.

JOHN: oh! well, shucks. JOHN: not really sure what that means but i'm just glad to be of use somewhere, haha. JOHN: which, speaking of somewhere, CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are. CALLIOPE: how much do yoU know aboUt black holes? JOHN: um... like, the big space things? CALLIOPE: they aren't always big actUally, and in fact their relative smallness is practically their defining qUality. JOHN: oh. CALLIOPE: bUt okay i think we are on the same page. CALLIOPE: so, what if i told yoU that we are inside of a black hole right now.

Oh dear, we’re getting into the canon/noncanon divide?

JOHN: um... JOHN: like, HERE? JOHN: we just transportalized into a black hole? CALLIOPE: no, i mean, what if oUr whole WORLD was inside a black hole. JOHN: ok.

Yeah, that’s gonna be John’s reaction. “ok.” Pretty much inevitable.

CALLIOPE: earth c, or at least oUr version of it, has, from the moment we crossed the victory threshold, been inside a black hole. JOHN: ok. CALLIOPE: and not just any black hole, bUt the very black hole in which the green sUn Ultimately met its demise, allowing oUr victory in the first instance! JOHN: huh! ROXY: ("huh!") ROXY: (rofl my fucking ao egbert) JOHN: (shhhh!)

And Roxy enjoys his non-reaction reactions as much as we do, hehe.

CALLIOPE: bUt, paradoxically, the critical moment which determined its capture within the black hole happened *after* that point. CALLIOPE: i refer of coUrse to yoUr decision not to retUrn to the mediUm and fight my brother. JOHN: wait, wait. JOHN: you mean, the meat and candy thing? JOHN: oh my god. JOHN: you mean i actually DID make a mistake that day. CALLIOPE: well, that's not exactly what that-- JOHN: ugh, i fucking KNEW it! JOHN: i'm so sorry. JOHN: i'm so sorry that i put the earth inside a black hole everyone. ): ROXY: john ROXY: listen ROXY: u have got to get out of this mindset i am begging you JOHN: ):

Yeah shake him out of this shit.

ROXY: your choice literally didnt matter ROXY: the whole thing was symbolic in the first place ROXY: literally symbolic in the case of the picnic i mean come on ROXY: it was just some steak and a plate of candy suckers JOHN: oh. CALLIOPE: i mean, i wouldn't go so far as to say that the meal we shared was unimportant, given the sacred significance of the two options i presented. CALLIOPE: but yes, yoUr choice of snack was infinitely less important than the choice which it presaged. CALLIOPE: and even then, calling it a choice woUld be sorely misleading. CALLIOPE: think of it like a coin flip. CALLIOPE: the series of events that led to Us being trapped beyond the event horizon of an Ubermassive black hole could be considered "tails", while the events which would have occUrred otherwise could be considered "heads". CALLIOPE: since both were possible, and paradox space is the way it is, they actUally both happened. and we jUst "happened" (hee hee) to get tails instead of heads. JOHN: you mean we ended up with the bad possibility. CALLIOPE: not at all! since both possibilities depend on one another's existence, it really doesn't make sense to call them "right" or "wrong". they both just "are". JOHN: o...kay... CALLIOPE: u_u

Yeah, it’s going to take a bit more than that to convince him he didn’t make the “wrong decision”.

CALLIOPE: i realise that this may be a lot to process. CALLIOPE: it's easy to forget that this wasn't obvioUs to everyone from the beginning. CALLIOPE: anyway, the reason i went on this tangent in the first place was to explain that the space we are standing in right now has a special significance, in that it is the location which corresponds to the black hole's singUlarity. JOHN: oh, wow. JOHN: um. JOHN: ok so, sorry if this is a dumb question to ask suddenly, but what does being inside of a black hole actually... mean for us? JOHN: is that bad? JOHN: is it like in movie, um, JOHN: shoot. JOHN: roxy what was that matthew mcconaughey movie from your earth that we watched? ROXY: u mean interstellar JOHN: RIGHT. JOHN: the one with the organ. JOHN: man. i cried at that movie so much. ROXY: lol u can say that again ROXY: iirc at least part of y u got so weepy was the fact that u couldnt believe a version of earth existed where ppl got 2 watch more mcconaughey films than you JOHN: listen. JOHN: i simply don't think you all appreciated the gift you were given. CALLIOPE: i don't believe i'm familiar with this particular film ^u^;; ROXY: oh dont worry cal you didnt miss much JOHN: (gasp)

This is all gold

ROXY: but the important point is that no its not really an interstellar type situation here egbert ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love JOHN: aw.

Dammit, now we have to be on the lookout for that possibility. Or it did sort of already happen more than once to John. ...Whatever.

CALLIOPE: to go back to your original question, john. CALLIOPE: it's not strictly speaking "bad" for Us to be inside of a black hole, mUch thoUgh that contradicts most of what anyone knows about them. CALLIOPE: of coUrse, if we had fallen into it, that woUld be a whole other kettle of fish. CALLIOPE: the tidal forces woUld have stretched Us all into spaghetti and then ripped us apart! CALLIOPE: bUt the natUre of oUr arrival was more akin to simply "being" here, sUddenly. one moment we were not, and the next moment we were, and somehow always had been. CALLIOPE: in everyday, practical terms, being inside of a black hole has very little bearing on Us. CALLIOPE: i mean, the natUre of space and time is a little finicky in here, bUt for the most part it doesn't seem to be anything too oUt of the ordinary. CALLIOPE: bUt beyond that, it means that we are sealed away from the rest of existence. CALLIOPE: oUr sphere of inflUence is limited to the sphere of the black hole's bounding horizon. CALLIOPE: as far as everyone else is concerned, we might as well not even exist! JOHN: is there no way we could let anyone know that we're in here...? CALLIOPE: almost certainly not!

No? So this doesn’t have to do with the divide?

CALLIOPE: there are very few ways for anything to escape the kind of predicament that we are in right now. one of them is to be an all-powerfUl being with control over the very fabric of space, with the energy of two Universes at yoUr disposal. CALLIOPE: in which case, escape woUld become rather trivial, if a little Unscientific. JOHN: ok. i am going to assume that we can't just do that. CALLIOPE: yoU've hit the nail on the head, UnfortUnately. U_U CALLIOPE: the method i described was the one employed by my alternate self, who yoU may recall crashed through the event horizon in the body that once belonged to jade harley. CALLIOPE: she departed through a pUnctUre she created in the black hole's surface shortly after consUming my brother, a deed which provided her with the necessary "oomph", and which was frankly rather breathtaking to watch. =u= CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

What the heck? Calliope SAW all this? Is this her Muse powers at work, letting her observe these things, or was she there? And John certainly did NOT see ANY of what Calliope just said happen.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

So we’re going to find that out if we haven’t already. Maybe something to do with the way Vrissy just conks out narcoleptically?

JOHN: ...right. JOHN: so... let me just get this straight. JOHN: knowing that we're inside of a black hole... does that actually change anything? JOHN: like, can't we just go on living like normal? CALLIOPE: oh absolUtely not. CALLIOPE: i don't know if yoU've noticed john bUt this world is on the brink of a total cataclysm. JOHN: oh.

Um, what?

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval. CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality. CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u JOHN: that's... certainly one way to put it, yeah...

No plot-armor for your entire timeline, I guess, yep. Outside of canon, we can imagine and write about ANYTHING happening to the characters, or just drop their existence entirely, much like a doomed offshoot timeline. It’s a plot stability that depended heavily on the threat of Lord English and being trapped in a story, and without it things are bound to see a BIT chaotic (or “degrading” if you view it as subjected to the whims of fanfic writers, certainly).

CALLIOPE: at first, i believed that this was simply necessary. Us playing tails to oUr coUnterparts' heads, the black to their white, and so forth. CALLIOPE: bUt over the years i have come to the conclUsion that this is simply not kosher. ROXY: its total bs is what it is CALLIOPE: right, yes. CALLIOPE: a steaming pile of bUllshite. CALLIOPE: and so we have decided that something needs to be done aboUt it.

Ah fuck. You’re going to regulate non-canon? “Canonize” it? Is the fact that you eventually succeed at whatever it is you’re trying to do part of why we have the story presented to us in this bifurcated structure?

ROXY: this is finally where u come in jegbert ROXY: we gots quests for yous CALLIOPE: hee hee, yes. CALLIOPE: or *a* quest, to be specific. JOHN: oh boy! ROXY: (this fkin nerd i s2g)

Roxy and Calliope setting him on this quest as a Rogue of Void and a Muse of Space feels fitting.

JOHN: i'm not sure how i can go about freeing us from a hellish space prison, but i'm up for giving it a try i guess? JOHN: i have... literally nothing better to be doing at this point. except for maybe hanging out with harry anderson. ROXY: nice save lol

YEAH WE’RE STILL GLOSSING OVER HOW YOU LEFT HIM UNPROTECTED, JERK

ROXY: but u dont need to worry abt busting us outta space jail tbh ROXY: thats not ur problem to fix JOHN: oh. JOHN: i'm... not sure i follow, then. ROXY: i mean yeah ur gonna obvs facilitate it in a sense ROXY: but only by going and busting the person who can actually help us outta normal earth jail CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity. ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan. CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more. CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it. CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak. CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself? CALLIOPE: ... CALLIOPE: phew. okay, i'm finished. CALLIOPE: CALLIOPE: sorry, that took longer than i expected to go throUgh.

..............................

OOooooh, kay.

Whatever this is, it’s going to be really weird and PROBABLY infuriating and/or shippy, and I’m probably not going to like it. Plus it seems like it’s some sort of inverse belated canonization of some other black-hole-rescue theories I went on about at some point. Although, related to that link, “aspect of freedom” if anyone wasn’t paying attention! That’s a (sorta-)canon mention of the purpose of it!

They’re going to attention-wh-- attention-hog themselves out of the black hole so that they’re “considered canon” too, or close enough. Huh.

ROXY: what r u talking about cals that was great ROXY: i could listen 2 u plotsplain for years CALLIOPE: oh you >u< ROXY: fyi this was why i wanted u to get a move on eggbread ROXY: so callie could have more time 2 infodump ROXY: thats love bitchhhhhh JOHN: hahaha. JOHN: ok, well, i think i understood all that?

Love with who? Callie, John, both?

In reality, John isn’t sure what most of this means. But on balance, it feels okay? He’s gone back and forth about a hundred times in the last week about where his place in everything is, so he might as well ride this out. Plus, the last time a Lalonde kind of told him to do something, he thinks that he chose not to, and look where that got him. And it’s not like he has other plans. He may as well do this! It’s at least going to get him involved in things again, if nothing else. He turns to go, and then hears a sound. It’s the sound of feet and knocking on doors, echoed through stone and digital static.

Oh shit. Is Andrew trapped behind some fourth walls behind the curtains.

> (==>)

Oh RIGHT also that DEVICE is where they want to bring Vriska. Are they going to overturn part of canon itself with a super-retcon thus making this timeline unbelievably relevant or--? Maybe make all the PESTERQUESTS canon or something?! I don’t know. Maybe they’re INTENTIONALLY starting the game like Vriska wanted to??????

Guh, this is something so big that I don’t WANT to theorize about it, do I.

JOHN: did you hear that? ROXY: wha ROXY: oh yeah uh ROXY: i may have messaged rose and kan and jade to check on them too ROXY: so its prob onea them showin up ROXY: they don’t need to know bout all this tho ROXY: we got time to chat with them b4 u go get vriska

No, even if it’s a knock at the somehow-top-level-house-even-under-buried-- oh, right, maybe it’s covering in part a monitoring system that looks up there. But still, part of that sound was DOUBTLESS these two hiding something, all standing in front of the curtain like that.

JOHN: i’ll go stall em. ROXY: thx babe ROXY: oh is it 2 soon for that joke or JOHN: no, weirdly enough, that one’s fine. ROXY: oh good ok see u up there soon!

How is calling your significant other “babe” not cool REGARDLESS of gender?! Like wasn’t that always cool? --Oh wait is it because they’re not together or... but... guh, I don’t know.

Anyway, see y’all after the holidays at least.

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #upd8 #Homestuck^2 #spoiler #spoilers #Roxy Lalonde #John Egbert #Calliope

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the-awkward-outlaw · 5 years ago

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Hello! Could i request a drabble where orphan!reader gets picked up by the gang only after a few months Arthur does? He's like highkey jealous of the new golden child until she's in a bad situation to get hurt and he instantly goes protective, kinda ends up realizing she's part of his family too along the way. Also i send many praises your way ~ you're so talented and thank you for doing these requests!!

This one turned out greatly different from what I planned, but that’s one of the joys of being a writer. You don’t always know what’s going to happen either. I’ve also never written a young Arthur, so this was a new experience. Anyways, enjoy! There’s blood, violence, poor Spanish (on my part), and it’s topped with a big serving of fluff at the end.

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Arthur leans against the fence, glaring across the paddock at you. You’ve been a thorn in his side ever since you showed up four months ago. He used to think John was bad enough, but you… you’re worse.

Dutch and Hosea brought you in, covered in dirt and thin as a bone, but your pockets laden with stolen trinkets. You’d foolishly tried to rob Dutch himself, hoping to find something you could sell in order to get the day’s meal. Never before had you been caught stealing, but it was hard to fool a pro like Dutch. He instantly knew what you were up to, but he and Hosea saw your potential when they unloaded your pockets and saw all your ill-gotten gains.

Over the next few months, Dutch and Hosea both taught you to read, Grimshaw taught you how to clean and Arthur was told to teach you how to use a gun, though he hated it. He couldn’t believe someone as old as you (though you were a few years younger than him and he was nearly twenty) could barely do anything. He’d heard the story that your parents died when you were very young, taken by yellow fever. After their deaths, you were sent to an orphanage but it was so overcrowded, filthy and miserable you ran away and lived on the streets where you were more likely to scrounge up a meal. Still, Arthur didn’t care for you.

Hosea and Dutch boasted about you as you were eager to learn. You picked up reading and writing extremely fast and Grimshaw had no problem teaching you how to do the domestic work around camp. You liked doing them even, as they kept your hands busy (even though the work itself was dull). Arthur felt smug when you struggled to learn how to shoot a gun or skin an animal, ignoring the remarks by Hosea that he was more likely to blame for being a poor instructor. It was no secret Arthur was jealous.

But how could he not be? For years, it had been just him, Dutch and Hosea. They were the perfect trio and the two men were more like a family to him than he’d ever known before. When Grimshaw entered the picture, it didn’t change things much. In fact she was a bonus as she taught Arthur how to repair his clothes. But when John Marston came, that was when things turned. Dutch and Hosea rescued him when he was only 12 and standing on the gallows, a rope around his neck.

John became the golden boy after that and Arthur felt he was pushed to the side. He tried time and again to gain his status back, to be the favorite boy. He just wanted the same attention he used to get instead of having most of the work thrown on his back. Sure, John learned the proper ways of being an outlaw, but Dutch and Hosea doted on him. Things went on this way for nearly four years and then you entered the picture.

There’s been a lot of resentment Arthur holds towards you. Since he was a few years older and definitely looked like an adult, he was intimidating. Not only that, but he’s been running with the gang for most of his life. You, well, the easiest way to put it were a nobody. Just some orphan girl who could barely pick up a knife before you came here. And now here you are, raking in all the glory while he does all the work.

He sighs, his eyes boring into you. You’ve been wise to avoid him the past couple of days, ever since the robbery. Hosea had taken you into town, targeting a rather rich man who would be easy to rob provided he had something to distract him. Hosea had gotten you to pretend to be his daughter and to have a fit. You’d played the part brilliantly and the man was too easy to rob, and the take was excellent. Arthur was supposed to go with him on that job, but he’d been out with Mary so Hosea took you instead.

Arthur’s mood dips even further when he thinks about Mary. They’d had another big fight and he wasn’t too sure she’d contact him again this time. He loves her, but he isn’t too sure that feeling is reciprocated. A few weeks ago, they’d been out together and some man tried to pick a fight with Arthur. That was the first time Mary saw his outlaw side and it scared her how quickly Arthur drew out his gun and he hadn’t even flinched when he pulled the trigger. They’ve been fighting ever since. Part of him regrets giving her that ring last time he saw her. He felt he was making a commitment to her, but she might not be willing to do the same. He’s started to see how easily she plays him.

A loud giggle draws him out of his mind again and he looks back up at you and Hosea. He doesn’t want to be here anymore, at this old house the gang has been occupying for the last few months. He goes over to his horse, his mind set on taking a ride and being gone for a few days. Maybe that’ll help him clear his head and he can get away from you. Just as he’s about to mount up, Hosea walks over with you in tow.

“Arthur, where you going?”

“Just… around. Be back in a few days.”

“Well, take Y/N with you.”

“Why?” Arthur shoots back.

You lower your head. You know he’s not fond of you.

“Because she needs to learn how to survive out there. Teach her how to set up a campfire, go fishing, hunting. She needs the experience.”

“Why can’t you or Dutch take her?”

“Arthur, she’s your family too, whether you like it or not. Besides, me and Dutch might have something cooking up. Just take her and don’t get her lost!”

Arthur groans but relents. Despite his annoyance, you flash a big grin at him and grab your horse. He doesn’t wait for you to get settled into the saddle before he’s running. Nothing has ever felt like a bigger weight than dragging you along.

For the next few hours, he leads you on down south towards the San Luis River. He hopes you won’t complain about the heat, the bugs or the snakes. You don’t though. You try to pick up a conversation with him a few times, but when he doesn’t take, you settle for gazing at the surroundings. The sky is so beautiful down here, feeling somehow closer.

Over the next several hours, Arthur continues further south and west, down below Tumbleweed even. You’ve never been this far out west, but you like it. The land is incredible, growing in strange, hot formations. The water from the distant river has a richer color than it does back east.

Several times, Arthur tries to lose you. He just wants some peace and quiet, some room and space to think. Besides, if he really wanted to talk with someone, you’d be the last person he’d pick. Unfortunately, you stick to him as efficiently as a determined fly. He just can’t shake you off.

By the end of the night, Arthur is more than irritated with you. He shows you how to pitch a tent and make a fire, but he grumbles the entire way through it and he doesn’t do a very thorough job. You feel you’ve learned nothing, but you know his patience is short enough as it is without you acting stupid, so you pretend to know what you’re doing. You lie down in your bedroll, your head sticking out enough so you can still see the stars.

Arthur, lying in his own tent, continues to glare at you. You’re still young enough to retain your naivety towards the world, and part of him despises you for it. He’s started to see how ugly it all is, how ugly his way of life is. At least he can hold onto the smug thought that someday, in a couple of years or maybe even sooner, you’ll see it too.

Halfway through the night, Arthur’s startled awake. He’s always been a light sleeper, and he’s even more so when sleeping out in the wilderness like this. You’d snored particularly hard and that was why he’d woken. He sighs heavily when you give another loud snore. Why did he get saddled with you?

A horrible thought comes to him. What if he just ditched you? Hell, a couple of days on your own out here would do you some good. He’d come back for you of course, he’s not stupid enough to return to the gang without you. Hosea and Dutch would be furious. He won’t set that kind of example for the 12 year old John neither. After thinking on it for a while, he quietly collapses his tent and gets on his horse, riding away into the night.

He doesn’t go far, of course. He’s not so cruel to leave you completely unattended, but he’s rather interested to see how you’ll handle yourself. Besides, it’ll distract him from Mary and maybe he’ll even get a good laugh.

He settles himself far enough away that the only way to keep an eye on you is through his binoculars. You surely won’t be able to see him. He sets up his own tiny camp and sleeps a while longer.

Hours pass and the sun rises, forcing you to wake. After rubbing your eyes, you look around to find Arthur’s things gone. The sight causes you to leap out of your tent. Did he abandon you? No, you think. Arthur may dislike you, but you refuse to think him cruel enough to do that. The only conclusion you can think of is that someone took him. However, after inspecting where his tent had been, you see no signs of another person or even an animal around. Everything you can see points to the fact that, at some point, he’d just gotten up and left.

You sit down near the hot coals of what’s left of last night’s fire, place your elbows on your crossed legs and plop your chin on your hands. You’ve been trying so hard to stay out of Arthur’s way, to not give him a reason to hate you. It’s not your fault that Hosea and Dutch dote on you so much. Personally, sometimes it makes you a bit nervous, like they’re setting you up for when you finally mess up. But did Arthur really hate you enough to just leave you like this? Will he tell Dutch and Hosea that you drowned or ran off or something, give them some kind of excuse behind your absence? Probably.

The thought of what lie Arthur might come up with sparks an anger you’ve never felt before. Dutch and Hosea took you in, offered to give you a new life with meaning to it. You’re not some orphaned kid living in the street like a rat anymore. You’re an outlaw, and outlaws are brave. You won’t give Arthur the satisfaction of knowing he bested you. Somehow, someway, you’ll find your way back to the gang’s hideout. You smile when you think of the shocked expression on Arthur’s face when you show up.

After eating a tin of peaches, you clumsily pack up your tent and stuff it into your saddlebags, ignoring that a large section dangles out (you tried stuffing it in but it just wouldn’t fit). You kick dirt onto the coals, sufficiently dousing them and then you mount up, determined to head back home. Unfortunately (and under the watchful eyes of Arthur), you start heading east, but you’re not going far enough north.

Arthur doesn’t stop you though. He follows you, constantly checking on your progress and chuckling to himself when you continue the wrong way. He’s provided another good laugh when you pull out the bow Dutch had bought you a few weeks back, but you’ve never used before. It’s clear you’ve never shot a bow before, Arthur watches you struggle to notch an arrow and then try shooting it at a grazing pronghorn. The arrow flies forward about five feet before it lands on the ground. The tip doesn’t even get buried in the sand.

Several more times you try to shoot the arrow, but with little progress. You shoot on and on until the muscles in your arms and ribs throb painfully. Arthur only left you with a few cans of food and a bit of dried beef. Certainly not enough to allow you to survive a few days on your own. But you’ll manage. One of the benefits of being an orphan on the street was you learned how to go a day or two without food. It’s not fun, but you can do it.

A few more hours pass and you’re miserable. Your stomach is growling, but you refuse to eat any of your precious reserves. The sun beats down hard and unrelenting, burning your arms. You’re grateful for your tattered hat as your head and face are spared.

As the sun begins its slow descent in the sky, you come across a small lake. On the south end is an empty cabin. Perhaps you’ll have the good fortune of being able to stay there for the night. After setting up a good place to sleep in the cabin and unsaddling your horse, you take out your fishing pole. However, you don’t know the first thing about fishing and no one bothered to set it up before giving it to you. You know there’s some complicated knotting to it all, and that’s about it.

As the sky grows a bit darker and you’re given a break from the unforgiving heat, you scour the land for any kind of edible plants. The problem is you really don’t know what’s safe to eat, or if some plants must be boiled or cooked before they’re safe. It’s all new territory for you. After finally crumbling and eating some of the dried beef, you go to bed, your stomach still demanding more food.

Arthur chuckles to himself from the safety of his own camp, a rabbit cooking over the fire. You’re really out of your element here. Finally, there’s something he can boast about that you can’t do. Of course, he knows that if Dutch and Hosea ever find out, they’ll be furious, but Arthur’s sure you won’t ever tell them. Especially when he comes back to get you and you find out he was never far away. After eating, he lies down on his bedroll, his hands behind his head. He looks up at the stars, smiling a bit. Depending on how badly you do tomorrow, he’ll fetch you and bring you home.

Morning comes once again and Arthur sits up. After clearing his eyes, he pulls out his binoculars and easily finds the cabin you spent the night in. Your horse is still where you left it, but there’s no sign of movement from the cabin. Figuring you’re just tired and hungry, he waits for you to come out. However, when midday comes and he still hasn’t seen you, he grows worried. After packing up his things, he rides to the lake.

When he arrives, he pauses, listening, waiting. Still nothing. He puts his horse next to yours and inspects it. Your horse greets him with a soft whinny, but she’s clearly hungry in this tiny paddock with no food to browse on. Something’s wrong. You care about your horse more than anything, you’d never let her starve. He gives her a quick pat and then heads into the cabin, hoping you’re not sick or overly distraught.

When he opens the door, his stomach plummets. The cabin is strewn with signs of a struggle, furniture toppled over. A table lies on its side, one leg splintered off. The mess looks fresh, like it happened within the past few hours. The bed in the corner shows signs of having been slept in. It takes him only a second to realize that sometime during the night, someone or maybe even a few people came in and kidnapped you.

Arthur’s not a pro at tracking, especially people. That’s one of his weak spots, but he knows he has to do his best and find you.It’s not even the thought that Dutch and Hosea will kill him if he tells them, it’s that he never intended for you to get hurt during his little prank. He has to fix this.

*****************************************************

You’re tied up to a post in the middle of a paddock, the sun unforgivingly beating down on you. Your throat cracks with nearly every breath, desperate for water. Your skin screams for shade and sweat glides down your back beneath your shirt. During the last hour, your head has started to pound.

When you’d gotten to the cabin last night, you believed, based on the thick coating of dust on every surface, that it hadn’t been occupied in several months. However, shortly after you’d fallen asleep, three men broke into it and captured you. You tried giving them a hard fight, but as they were bigger than you (and there were more than you), it didn’t take them too much effort to subdue you.

When they managed to get you tied up and thrown over the back of one of their horses, they discussed a little. You couldn’t really understand them, as two of them spoke quickly in Spanish. The third, although being a white man, also spoke their language, though his was more broken as though he didn’t quite have a handle on it. After a few minutes, they mounted up and rode off, leaving all your things behind. As they cantered away, your hat fell from your head.

A few hours later, your gut heaving painfully from being thrown over the horse’s rear, the trio slowed down and you saw in the darkness a small house and a large barn with several paddocks outside of it. As the group approached the property, more men came out, speaking again in Spanish. A few of the white members traded some words in English and it became clear what they were going to do. They were going to try and sell you as you were still young and desirable to a great number of men.

Your blood pumped hard in your ears and you tried to break free or squirm out of your bonds, but they were too tight. One of the men grabbed you and you began thrashing and screaming, kicking him several times in the thighs and stomach.

“Este tiene una pelea en ella. Hagamos que tenga sed,” he said. The others chuckled and nodded their heads.

The man carried you into one of the smaller paddocks that had a large pole staked into the sun-baked earth. The ropes around your hands were cut just long enough that he and one of his companions could swing your arms behind you and tie them back together. It became quickly clear that the only way to free yourself was to try and attract the attention of anyone who was nearby, so you started to scream.

“Cállate!” one of the men yelled and held a knife to your throat as tears slid down your cheeks.

“No, déjala gritar,” said a particularly tall man. You gathered from his stance and his dusty clothes that he might very well be the leader of these men. “Se cansará, y no hay nadie aquí para escucharla.”

The man holding the knife to your throat backed off and they all went back into the house or the barn. You knew you only had a few hours until the sun rose, so your best bet at escaping was now while you still had the strength and energy. However, those hours slid by quickly, and you hadn’t gotten anywhere. You’d twisted your arms, rubbing your wrists raw, but the rope held tightly. You’d screamed, but just like the tall man had said (though you hadn’t understood him), you screamed yourself hoarse.

This is where you are now, trapped, being forced to await your inevitable fate. Not once have any of the men come out to check on you. Occasionally one will come out of the barn or the house and go to the other building, or step over to the wall of a small plateau to take a piss, but none of them ever interact or even seem to take notice of you. Sometimes you’ll hear one of them yell from the buildings, but other than that, all is quiet.

As the day wears on, you wonder what the hell they’re waiting for. If they intend to sell you, why don’t they just drag you away. You almost don’t care anymore, you just want to get out of this sun.

At one point, a vulture soars overhead and lands ominously on the roof of the barn, peering down at you with a liquid black eye. He stays there for a long time too, almost as though waiting to see if you’ll die. You know you won’t though. Not today anyways. Despite this horrendous torture, you’re not so dehydrated as to expire. If you’re in this same state in two days, it will be different, but you’re not there yet. One of the men shouts loudly inside the barn and the vulture takes flight.

Finally, gratefully, the sun dips down to the horizon. Your mind wanders back to Arthur and how he just left you. Even though you’ve every reason to, you don’t hate him. Sure, you’re angry and hurt that he just disappeared during the night, leaving you completely alone. You’d looked up to him during these past few weeks. Despite being only a few years older than you, he had so much more knowledge and he had such a cool, collected attitude that you admired. Not only that, but he was good looking, even though you know he’s involved with another girl. Still, as your burnt skin aches and your wrists crack with dried blood, you can’t hate him. Hell, you would’ve probably done the same thing were you in his shoes.

Stars flicker in the sky above as the horizon grows darker. As the air cools, you feel a slight surge in energy and you try to wriggle yourself free again. While you squirm, you realize if you angle your right hand in a flat shape and don’t clench your hand or wrist, you might be able to slip free. You do so and your hand begins to slide out. The rope catches at the widest part of your hand where your thumb grows out of your hand, but you angle it in such a way that the rope continues up and over. Finally, your arms fall loose. You’re free.

You fall onto your hands and knees for a moment. Your legs are exhausted from being forced into the crouched position for so long and your feet have gone numb. You give yourself one minute to recollect yourself, then you stand up and start walking to the fence farthest away from the barn.

Just as you’re climbing the fence, the barn door opens and you hear someone yell at you. As quickly as you can manage, you start running, but the whole group is aware now. They charge after you and two of them swing lassos around you. A shrill scream leaves your throat as you fall to the ground, the ropes tightening around your elbows, pinning them to your body.

“Ah, still have fight in you,” one of the men says in a thick accent. He chuckles beneath his thick mustache.

The tall leader glares down at you with a nasty smile. “Átala de nuevo, pero hazlo mejor. Asegúrate de que no pueda escapar esta vez.” The others nod and agree. The leader bends his knees to look you in the eyes. “Try to escape again, we will show you what we will sell you for.”

A sickening chuckle goes around the circle from all the men. You can do nothing but try and look angrily back at him, though you’re terrified. He smiles, puts a cigar in his throat, and beckons to the two men holding you with ropes.

Just as they bend to pick you up, a deafening bang echoes not far off and one of the men’s heads shoots out a thick stream of blood. He stumbles and falls, but just as the others are turning to look at the source of his death, another one falls, clutching his neck. You hear a horse thundering towards you, roaring as your captors return fire. You can’t see who it is through the tangles of legs between you and your rescuer, but a spark of hope flickers in your chest.

As more men topple, you get the urge to fight. You start kicking the men closest to you, knocking them down and making them easy targets. You smash your heel into the ankle of one of the men holding your ropes. He falls and you climb onto him, slamming your fist into his face over and over.

Just as the last of the men fall, you’re suddenly yanked from the man you’re beating. A thick arm goes around your neck and the barrel of a pistol gets shoved to your temple.

“Drop your gun!” the tall man says. “You want her dead?”

This is the first time you’ve been given the chance to look at your savior and your eyes land on Arthur. He looks angry and worried at the same time, his pistol pointed at the man.

“Let her go,” he tells the man, who just chuckles.

“I have the upper hand, chico. I make the rules. You want her alive? Drop your gun!”

Arthur complies and throws down his gun. The man’s finger fiddles a bit with the trigger and he laughs again.

“Good. I’ll give it to you, hijo. You can shoot real well. If it wasn’t my men dead, I’d invite you to my gang.”

“And what gang is that?” he snarls.

“Del Lobos, chico. I know you’ve heard of us.”

Of course, the Del Lobos. The gang made of Mexicans and Californians looking to seize power after they themselves were stripped of their own. Honestly you’re surprised it’s taken you this long to run into them. Seems that most people who live south of Blackwater have dealt with them. Arthur’s eyes betray that he’s certainly heard of them.

“Just let her go, buddy. She ain’t done nothin’ to you.”

“Why she so important?” the tall man demands.

“Because… she’s my family. I just want to bring her home.”

The tall man makes a mocking, simpering sound and then laughs again. “So sweet. Familia. Greatest strength there is, and yet the greatest weapon. But… I don’t want to let her go. She’s… how you say… valiosa. People pay lots of money.”

Arthur’s eyes narrow. You know he won’t have any chance to save you if you just stand here and let yourself be a damsel in distress. Before Arthur has the chance to respond, you pick up your foot and slam it against the man’s shin. His hold on you loosens and his gun points up in the air as he cries out in surprise and pain.

“Maldita sea!” he yells and Arthur takes the distraction, pulling out a knife and throwing it. His aim is true and the knife plunges into the man’s eye, throwing his head back as you duck and break out of his grip.

When the man falls, gurgling as he dies, you look at Arthur, breathing heavily. He picks up his pistol and holsters it. Then, with a guilty expression, he looks at you.

“Are… are you okay?”

“Yeah, no thanks to you I might add.”

He swallows. “I’m sorry. I didn’t really leave. I had my eye on you the whole time. Well, most of the time anyways. Thought.... Thought it might be interestin’ to see how you faired on your own.”

“So me getting kidnapped, beaten and threatened to be sold was interesting to you, was it?” you snarl, your anger picking up.

“No, it wasn’t. I didn’t think this would happen. Here.” From his satchel he pulls out a waterskin, handing it to you. You snatch it from him and drink greedily. While you’re drinking, he goes over to the man’s corpse and pulls out his knife, wiping it clean on the man’s clothes.

Once you’ve had your fill of water, you hand Arthur his waterskin back and look around. By his horse you see yours not far behind. “Thanks for… for getting her. Saves me the trouble of having to track her down.”

Arthur just grunts in response. “Well come on. Think we’ve had enough of an adventure.”

The two of you mount up and begin riding off. As you leave the property of dead men behind, Arthur turns to you.

“You aren’t going to tell Dutch and Hosea about this, are you?”

How dare he ask you this? You nearly died back there, and if you hadn’t been killed and if Arthur hadn’t showed up, you’d have lost your freedom.

Arthur looks at you with a sad expression. “I’m really sorry about all this. I… I don’t know why I thought leaving you alone out here was a good idea. Guess… with the way Dutch and Hosea talk about ya, it’s like you can’t do nothing wrong. Maybe I just wanted to prove I was better at somethin’ than you.”

“Better at something?” you say. “Arthur, I’ve been idolizing just about everything you do for weeks now! I can barely hold a gun while you just shot like eight guys on your own back there. You can do a million things I can’t, and even the stuff I can do, you can do better.”

He sighs and looks ahead. “Don’t seem that way with how they talk about ya.”

“Arthur, I don’t want to be the golden child in the gang, I really don’t. But I can’t control how they act over me. But… I won’t tell them about this.”

He visibly relaxes and thanks you.

“But can I ask,” you say, “why did you go to all this trouble to save me? It would’ve been easy enough to go home and tell the others that I’d just run off or something like that.”

He sighs. “Because that wouldn’t be right. I… I couldn’t let you be killed by those men if I knew I could do something about it. I already have enough sins to carry, I don’t need to add your death to that list. Besides, you’re… you’re my family, miss. You, Dutch, Hosea, Susan… John. You’re my family. Sure, we ain’t always gonna get along, but no family does. Besides, I’d rather have you part of it than not.”

You smile at him, your heart flooding with warmth and affection. That was the first time you felt something for him that was more than just admiration or idolization.

You sit now on the bed, Arthur sleeping next to you. You’ve been dating him for a few months now, but it’s hard to think that you’ve known the outlaw for nearly twenty years. They haven’t been easy either, secretly being in love with him and watching him prance after Mary, finding out about Eliza and his son Isaac and then their deaths.

Arthur’s grown remarkably since you were captured by the Del Lobos, and not just physically. He developed an extremely strong sense of loyalty towards Dutch, Hosea, you and even John, though he was badly hurt when John disappeared for a year after Jack was born. The gang’s grown remarkably since too, adding over a dozen more people.

Arthur stirs awake beside you, rolling over to expose his strong chest. You smile when he looks up at you and sighs sleepily.

“What you doin’?” he groans.

“Just writing,” you say, closing your journal. Another habit you picked up from him. He puts his hand on your back and you lay down, plopping your head onto his chest after kissing his neck. He sighs again, his arm settling over you.

“What you writin’ about?”

“Nothing much. But you remember that first camping trip we took?”

Arthur groans and chuckles a bit. “Oh God. That was awful. I don’t know why you liked me so much. I was the biggest ass.”

“Maybe. But I thought you were cool. And maybe I kinda wanted to be like you.”

“At least you were nice enough never to tell Dutch and Hosea.”

You chuckle and slide your hand over his, which is resting on his stomach. You place a soft kiss over his heart and settle down to get some sleep.

“Do you have to do this job in Blackwater tomorrow?” you ask.

“Darlin’, I told ya. Hosea and I ain’t doin’ the ferry job. We’re just goin’ to town, gonna try workin’ on that real estate scam and keep an eye on things while Dutch and the others work on the boat.”

“Mmm, good. Somethin’ doesn’t feel right about this job,” you say. “Just… promise me you’ll come home safe?”

You look up at him. He can’t help but melt at your large eyes. He kisses your forehead. “I promise, sweetheart.”

#rdr2 fanfic #red dead fanfic #arthur morgan #arthur morgan x female reader #awkward asks

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tsarisfanfiction · 5 years ago

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Pulse II

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Angst Characters: John Tracy, Alan Tracy, Gordon Tracy, EOS

Part 2 of my entry for @gumnut-logic‘s SensorySunday: Touch. You can find part 1 here.

Apparently people liked(? is that the right word?) the cliffhanger from yesterday. Here’s some more sensory fun.

Disassociation. Usually a coping mechanism, a mental defence against all that was bad and wanted to cause pain – mental or physical. A fascinating subject for those interested in how the mind worked, what made people tick.

In John’s case, it was something else. He compartmentalised his emotions as required – a must in a communications job of this calibre – but for him disassociation wasn’t removing himself, either wholly or in part, from the situation at hand. It was the fact that, up in Thunderbird Five, he could not feel the things that mattered the most.

He couldn’t feel his family, whether it be Scott’s supporting arm around his shoulders or Alan’s high-fives. He couldn’t run to them, hold them to reassure himself that they would be okay. Holograms, for all that they were an integral part of his life, felt like nothing. They were nothing, just a pretty display of lights to be manipulated by sensors detecting his movements and repositioning the lights as required.

There was nothing to physically touch. Nothing to hold. And while John was very exact about his personal space – who was allowed in when, and how far – sometimes, that nothing was too much.

Right now, those weightless, pretty light shows were all sorts of heavy, unpretty things. Red was John’s least favourite colour – maybe it hadn’t been, once upon a time, but now red meant bad news, meant no signal, meant he didn’t know what was going on. Alan was, of course, the exception to this, and the little red icon holding steady with a silhouette of a rocket was one of the few things John liked about the current stream of data, but when the only other colour he had was a cheery yellow with a submarine, that was bad.

It was particularly bad because the grey, blue and green icons that should have been there, had been there until the aftershock hit, had been replaced with red. No signal. Your immediate brothers and only sister have been lost.

Alan was chattering away in his ear, babbling about collapsed and crushed and any lifesigns, John? Gordon was quieter, calmer in that way he only got when things were bad. Up above them, safe from earthquakes and aftershocks and any disasters Mother Nature periodically threw at his brothers, it was John’s job to deal with this. Two panicked younger brothers. Three missing siblings. Multiple lifesigns in the wreckage winking out one at a time.

The numbers had halved since the aftershock hit. John didn’t tell his remaining brothers that, exactly. He reported where lifesigns were, starting with the ones nearest them, most stable. Easiest to extract.

Gordon and Alan no doubt did the math, but they didn’t comment. When rescues went to hell this spectacularly, there were things you didn’t say out loud.

He set EOS to boosting signals, calculating last known positions and trying desperately to restore communications to his absent siblings. It should have been his job, but then EOS would have had to take over talking to Gordon and Alan, directing their Mole Pods. EOS would have done a better job, too, but it wasn’t EOS his youngest brothers needed to hear right then, it was John. John was too much a big brother to abandon them like that, even though right now he wanted to hear his big brother.

Sorry, Thunderbird Five, there’s a lot of interference down there, would have been the best thing to hear, but he didn’t. Instead, he heard Gordon reassuring a little boy that they’d already found his grandfather, that his grandfather would be fine, let’s get you out of here; you’re really brave, you know that? He heard the intake of breath as Alan stopped, before his youngest brother reported no discernible pulse in the crushed and twisted body he’d no doubt found.

He heard everything he didn’t want to hear, but not what he needed to.

Holograms were quite frankly appalling for taking his frustration out on. He’d learnt that years ago, back when emotions still bubbled to the surface too easily on missions. Back when he’d thought they could save everybody, that he’d never have to hear someone die. John did what he did best and bottled it up, corked and ready for a release with some zero-g handball the moment the world let him breathe again.

But first, he had to find his family. EOS reported no success in boosting their signals, in the remorseful tone she’d coded herself after listening to him and his brothers for hours on end, recognising a difference in their speech based on emotion and determined to replicate it. However, she did have their last known positions, and likely areas to search based on how the buildings had collapsed.

John wished he could tell Gordon and Alan to drop everything else and search those areas, but he couldn’t. They couldn’t. There were still civilians trapped with far less equipment at their disposal, the same civilians they’d attended to save in the first place. He didn’t know if Gordon and Alan would obey him if he told them to abandon people in need. He refused to find out.

Besides, just because he couldn’t contact them, didn’t mean they were necessarily in trouble. Maybe they were rallying survivors even now, doing their job and saving everyone they could. It didn’t mean anything, even though the only lifesigns that were moving were the ones with Gordon and Alan, the ones being carried back through precarious tunnels in Mole Pods.

They’d be fine, he told himself firmly, directing Gordon to the next lifesign as he locked away the panicked brother in the back of his mind to beg and pray that he still had five siblings, away from the communications specialist that still had a job to do. Most of the survivors had found air pockets, sturdy pieces of furniture to hide under, like you were supposed to do in an earthquake. They were walking out near enough unaided.

Even if Scott and Virgil and Kayo were trapped somewhere, they’d be fine. Maybe some scrapes and bruises but nothing they couldn’t handle. Gordon or Alan would find them and then they’d be helping out again – even if their comms were still down, he’d be able to hear them through the youngests’.

Everything would be fine. So why couldn’t he believe that?

Part 3

#sensorysunday #sensorysunday2020 #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #tsari writes fanfiction #john tracy #alan tracy #gordon tracy #eos #pulse

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megalony · 5 years ago

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Sweetheart- Part 9

Here is another part of my latest bodyguard! Ben Hardy series, there is a lot of angst and a fight scene in this part.

Taglist: @lunaticspoem @butlegendsneverdie @langdonzvoid @jennyggggrrr @rogmeddows @radiob-l-a-hblah @rogertaylorsbitontheside @chlobo6 @rogertaylors-lipgloss @sj-thefan @omgitsearly @luckytrashgooprebel @scarsout @deaky-with-a-c @killer-queen-ofrhye @bluutac @vousmemanqueez @jonesyaddiction

Series taglist: @anikatcmh @sillyscissorsnerdsoul

Series masterlist

Enjoy.

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A shiver ran along Ben's spine the moment the pair of them entered the corner shop that was rather different from how it normally was. Most of the days that Ben had brought (Y/n) down to work the shop she had to open up but he didn't get used to how it looked without the vibrant yellow lights sparkling from the ceiling that were lined with dust.

Without the lights on the shop looked rather eery and desolate, it was even worse when they came down earlier in the morning and the sunlight couldn't hit the shop due to the buildings on the other side of the street. It reminded Ben of a haunted house or an abandoned shop. All the ornaments and pottery that lined the shelves were shades darker and looked menacing in the darkness that showed just how much dust the shop collected on a daily basis.

Shutting the door behind him, Ben moved around (Y/n) to go and flick the lights on to stop the haunted atmosphere.

There was only (Y/n), an older woman and Mary-Ann who worked the shop so each of them had a key for when it was their day to work so they could open and close up. (Y/n) wasn't working in the shop anymore for the time being since she had taken her maternity leave. Needing to be out of sight rather than in a shop her brother had already seen her in.

They weren't planning on coming into the shop today but Mary-Ann had called and asked if (Y/n) could take the money from the safe and put it in the bank. Mary-Ann would normally do this on a weekly basis but she wasn't well and Cathy, the other woman who worked there was away so (Y/n) had agreed to do that and open the shop for the morning. Plus her pay for the month was in the safe too and it saved Mary-Ann having to write out a check or send it to her since she was on leave now.

Heading into the back room of the shop behind the counter, (Y/n) headed to the safe to get the money as Ben sat down on the chair in front of the table (Y/n) painted the pottery at. A table that was a mix of splattered colours and chalk and markings of clay and stained water.

(Y/n) put the money in her bag and the bank card so she wouldn't forget later, before leaving her bag in the small locker at the back of the room where she normally kept it. It was easier to open the shop for the morning because it got a few customers in instead of leaving the shop closed like it had been for the past few days with no one in to manage it. (Y/n) got paid overtime for just a few hours too so it was no problem.

Ben followed (Y/n) out of the back room and into the main shop front again, deciding to do a lap around the shop as he adjusted a few things on the shelves whilst they waited for customers. (Y/n) sat behind the counter, checking there was still some change in the till as she switched it on before propping her head upon her hand as they just had to wait. There was no new pottery or ornaments to stack on the shelves yet so that saved one of the jobs they normally had to do.

An hour into opening the shop, (Y/n) let her eyes wander around after Ben as he just seemed to be doing laps around the shop before taking a turn sitting behind the till so (Y/n) could be just as bored in the workroom in the back. She wasn't bothering to make any pottery because it took hours to make and there wasn't any that was dry enough to paint which she also wouldn't have done because of how long it took. She didn't know how Ben did it. How he managed to not be so bored as they practically did nothing only having three customers come and go so far.

Ben's mind was calculating and analysing, (Y/n) wished she was more like that because he could count the people passing by, he could commit the shop to memory and check the people across the street and see if there was anything wrong. She tried but her mind just couldn't focus on anyone or anything.

Moving over to the left-hand side of the shop, Ben rearranged some of the Disney ornaments on the window display which gave him an opportunity to look down the street. He had noticed someone hanging around on the street corner and he wanted a closer look. His hands fumbled to switch an ornament round and shuffle a few like he was playing with a deck of cards as his eyes followed the man who was crossing the road onto the shop's side.

His eyes cast to the other two windows on either side of the door near to his right, checking the woman and man passing by but they didn't spare the shop a glance.

His attention turned to the muddy brown car that had gone around the block three times now in the past half an hour which was beginning to both irritate and worry Ben. He couldn't see the driver or how many people were in the car either which made it harder to determine if the car posed any threat or if it was just someone running an errand or getting lost again and again. Once again the car disappeared so Ben made a mental note to catch the registration if it came round again.

Lifting her head that was resting on her hand, (Y/n) glanced her eyes to the door when the bell above chimed to signal that finally, another customer had come in.

A chill ran along (Y/n)'s spine and up to the base of her skull as her eyes locked onto the coal-black ones of her brother. How did he know she was here? Had he been following them- but surely if he had Ben would have noticed? Had someone given him a tip-off? Did Mark realise that (Y/n) either worked here or guessed she came here often and told John?

(Y/n) wished it had been her coward of a brother who had walked through the doors because Mark was weaker than John. He was afraid and he was always backing down and giving in. He wouldn't dare hurt (Y/n) any more than simply wrapping his hand around her throat like he had done last time. Mark feared consequences in the same way (Y/n) used to when she was younger and too afraid to step out of line. He would push or shove her here and there but he would never punch or kick or stab or hurt her properly because he truly was a coward.

John was not.

John was ruthless and he didn't care. He would kill anyone in his family if it got him something he desired. He would have no trouble hurting (Y/n) because he knew hurting and threatening her was the way to stop her from going to court even if she had already made the choice not to go.

There was also a big chance that he knew about Goldie now. Someone had ransacked her flat and even if it wasn't John he would have found out from their father when he was informed. Everyone her father was in contact with would know and this was not information that would persuade John to leave her alone it was information that would make him more liable to hurt her.

John headed straight for the counter that (Y/n) was sitting behind as if he had tunnel vision that was focused only on her. (Y/n) was sure by the look on his face that he hadn't noticed Ben until the blond walked over to the counter before he got there. Ben looked the image of calm and composure as he sat down on the desk, effectively blocking (Y/n) from view as he folded his arms over his chest. Raising a brow as he looked questioningly at John, asking why he was here without having to say anything. There was a menacing look in Ben's eyes that showed he was less than happy to see him here.

"What are you, my sister's protector?" John questioned, leaning around Ben to try and see (Y/n) who felt like shrinking and sneaking out the door into the workshop to disappear. Yet she found herself paralysed with fear. She couldn't move one limb and she knew if she tried to leave, John would lunge for her with Ben sitting there or not.

"Something like that. Now if you're not buying something then you can get out." Ben was not in the mood for a fight but he knew John wasn't going to disappear without trying to get a punch in or some sort of malice threat.

Glancing his eyes behind John, Ben noticed one of his henchmen behind him, someone Ben hadn't seen before. He hadn't even noticed anyone else walking in behind John, he simply saw the eldest brother and felt a fire igniting because if he carried a knife with him around town he was surely going to have a weapon if he was intent on seeing (Y/n). He had been intent on using a weapon last time around and now he knew about Goldie, Ben was even more sure he would have something up his sleeve.

"Oh... I get it. It was you wasn't it? You knocked her up." (Y/n) grabbed onto Ben's arm when his arms unfolded from his chest and his body seemed to lurch forward as if he was debating whether to lunge or not. His frame turning stiff as he stayed sat on the desk when (Y/n) pulled him back, not wanting a fight to break out. His eyes blazing as he looked like he would be the one to start a fight instead of John.

Her brother always knew just what to say to rile anyone up and this was the best ammunition that he had against both of them because it was the most sensitive topic that he could joke about. By the smug look on his face he knew his little trick was working, (Y/n) could already see the remarks whirling around in his head ready to fire at them and see which one of them would crack first.

"Should of been more careful with her, goes for anything in trousers-" The words weren't even in the air for more than a second before Ben was on his feet. Grabbing John by the collar and pulling him forward so quickly the tops of his shoes scraped against the polished floor. He smile seemed to crack as if his lips were bent to create the look as his eyes sparkled. His hands gripping Ben's arms as the blond suddenly pushed him backwards and started heaving him towards the door.

"Out." Ben spat the word like it was venom on his tongue as John tried to push against him to stop himself from being thrown out of the shop. Their force pushing against each other like magnets pushing away from one another.

"I just want to talk to my sister." John spoke slowly and calmly though Ben didn't know why he spoke at all when he knew his words were getting him nowhere.

"Last time you did that you pulled a knife on her. Just piss off, your threats aren't needed." Ben was fed up of this because they thought they owned (Y/n) and even the world. They thought they were the only ones who had the right to choose what she did with her life and if they didn't get their way with anything they turned to threats and violence. It didn't matter that she was their family, they didn't protect her or care for her like they should.

(Y/n) absentmindedly leaned back in the chair when the man John had brought with him stared at her like he was sizing her up or looking for weaknesses. There was no emotion on his face but his eyes were like black holes that held so many flickers of thoughts and emotions and looks that made her worry.

Her stomach tensed when he took a step closer until he was standing in front of the counter, peering down at her. She could feel her heart hammering against her ribs so much that it hurt as she couldn't seem to move her eyes away from his own to look for Ben. She could hear Ben arguing with John as both of them seemed to have stopped halfway across the shop floor to have an argument. Yet this man in front of her was saying absolutely nothing but he looked like he was speaking volumes with the way he was looking at her.

"Where's your scarf?" Were the only words that came out of his mouth but they were like a dagger into (Y/n)'s stomach.

She hadn't seen the man who had tried to strangle her around nine months back but only the two men who had attacked her and the man who saved her knew about it. Other than Ben who she told last week no one knew she had been hurt meaning he was the one who had done it.

Ben's eyes narrowed as he snapped his head to the side to look back at the counter, seeing the other man who had walked in was now pressing against the counter to be closer to (Y/n). With a shove, Ben let go of John causing him to stumble back as Ben turned around and headed over to the desk. Grabbing the stranger by his shoulders and ripping him away from the counter, not wanting him anywhere near (Y/n) if he was the one who had tried to strangle her before.

"Get the fuck out!"

(Y/n) couldn't tell who hit who first but someone sparked the fight and Ben was pinning the stranger to the ground to stop him. He needed him out of the shop or unconscious and either of those seemed appealing to him at the moment.

Her teeth bit down on her lower lip as her eyes locked onto her brother who took the opportunity to advance towards her with a grin that could make the Cheshire cat cower in fear. Reaching her hand out behind her (Y/n) pressed her palm to the wall as she stood up, her hand moving and latching onto the door behind her. She knew her brother could read her like a book as he shook his head, knowing she wanted to lock herself in the back room so he couldn't get to her.

(Y/n) stepped into the back room but the moment she attempted to shut the door her brother pushed it with a force that overpowered her own. Causing her to jump out the way before the door slammed into her.

"John please, just go-"

"You think I'm just going to turn around and let you waltz into court in three days and condemn us all?" He spoke in a taunting tone like they were children trying to make the other feel bad. "You didn't listen to any of the warnings we gave you. I'm not leaving until you know your place." He knew his words would send shivers up her spine because he was speaking just like their dad. Know your place just meant understand that you're in a chain that resembled a food chain. Their father was on top and everyone else was beneath him, (Y/n) cut herself out of the chain and told on him.

"I'm going to sign and withdraw my statement-"

"Oh, I bet you are." Sarcasm dripped from his tone as (Y/n) felt like crying. There was no way to convince her brother that she was telling the truth, he wouldn't believe her if she said she was signing the statement nor if she said she wasn't. She couldn't win either way because he believed what he wanted.

"I called the police to say I would, I'm going in tomorrow." There was desperation in (Y/n)'s voice in a last attempt to get her brother to listen to her but his eyes told her he thought she was calling his bluff. Or more, he thought he was calling her bluff by not believing her. (Y/n) cringed at the sound of either Ben or the other man smashing into what she guessed was the counter. Their fists bashing as angered shouts resonated through the open door into the doorway of the back room where her and her brother were standing.

(Y/n) felt herself freezing as a whimper left her lips when John's hands latched onto her jumper to pull her towards him. Her feet almost lifted from the ground with the force he pulled her jumper. Her heartbeat seemed to thud louder and louder as it was spreading up her ribcage and along her neck. The blood pulsed in her ears making it hard to hear anything else.

"You know, I didn't believe it... my little sis, going and getting herself up the duff, but the evidence proves otherwise." His eyes darted down to her stomach that couldn't be covered up no matter which of Ben's hoodies (Y/n) wore.

Reaching her hands up, (Y/n) latched her hands onto her brothers to try and get him to let go of her. She wanted to be at home, she wanted to be somewhere else with Ben and Goldie and forget any of this was happening. It wasn't fair, she hadn't done anything wrong and yet she was being punished for something.

Tears welled in her eyes as her brother looked at her with a mix between a smirk and a snarl before hands suddenly latched onto his shoulders and dragged him backwards. (Y/n)'s hand went to her stomach as she tried to take a deep breath, her trembling legs shuffling forward as she looked into the front of the shop. She could see the blood pooling on Ben's knuckles and his nose was leaking the substance too.

Ben only just managed to smash John into the counter, hearing at least one rib cracking or fracturing before hands grabbed onto him to pull him away. His hands scratched against John before the other man pulled him away. Ben was certain his nose was broken and he knew he'd already broken the man's ribs and done something to his ankle but he was still trying to get him, to get to (Y/n). Elbowing the stranger off of him, Ben pummelled his fist into John's face, smashing against his cheekbone and catching his eye before he had to turn around when he felt the tip of a knife against his back.

It was like Ben was being taunted, he didn't know which one to go for but John hadn't produced a weapon and the other guy had. Ben couldn't focus on John if the other man was going to lunge for one of them with a knife which seemed to be the weapon of choice these days.

It didn't take long to get the man down on the floor with his seemingly broken ankle which Ben just had to kick and he went down like a tone of bricks. The blond smashed his foot down onto the stranger's wrist which caused his hand to suddenly open up in a jerking motion. He kicked the knife across the floor, watching it skitter like a mouse before he crouched down while he had the golden opportunity.

(Y/n) didn't know what to do.

She couldn't go anywhere, John was two steps away from her but he was towering over her like a skyscraper. He would grab her before she managed to make one foot towards the back door which hadn't worked before and wouldn't work again.

(Y/n) wanted to rub at her chest from the way her heart seemed to be the size of her entire ribcage all at once making her body feel like it was pulsing but both her hands grabbed at John's arms near his elbow when he grabbed her upper arms. She thought he was going to push her against the wall or throw her to the floor, it wouldn't be the first time he pushed her down. But he didn't seem to know what he wanted to do to her, or he hadn't decided yet.

Punching someone wasn't really (Y/n)'s area of expertise, she always watched people fighting she wasn't one to get involved. But she let go of John's arm to try her luck knocking her tight-fisted knuckles into his face. She caught him somewhere between his eye and the bridge of his nose causing his head to snap back and his body to stumble one or two steps but it wasn't nearly as powerful as she wanted- as she needed.

Her body suddenly set on fire as big white spots like stars danced in front of her eyes. She didn't hear the sound that left her lips as her fingers uncurled from her brother's arm. Her head pushed into his chest as her trembling hand pressed to her stomach where her brother had pushed his knee up forcing the joint into the base of her stomach. If her brother still didn't have hold of her she would have crumbled down like a piece of paper. But John didn't hold her up for very long, he roughly threw her like he was discarding or disowning her.

Watching with no emotion but joy in his eyes as (Y/n) crashed against the floor after scraping against the wall that was boxing them in behind the counter.

Ben watched the stranger's eyes roll to the back of his now bleeding head that had been forced against the floor before he spun to look behind him. One minute. He had turned his back on them for one minute and John was injured.

The moment Ben turned around John was already leaving the shop, he couldn't go after the eldest brother unless he wanted to leave (Y/n) alone and clearly in some kind of agony in the shop. He felt like stomping his foot against the floor like a child when John just walked out like nothing had happened. Leaving the stranger passed out on the floor, Ben scrambled over to where (Y/n) was, half lying behind the counter.

Ben felt himself shaking as he tilted (Y/n)'s head so he could look at her, seeing her eyes were half-open but they were close to disappearing to the back of her head.

"No, no sweetheart stay with me. Talk to me, what hurts, what happened?" Ben tried not to rush through the words but he couldn't help but let the panic flood into his voice. He was trained to stay calm in these situations, to know what to do and how to keep his head clear and not let emotions or fears get in the way but this was so different. This was his girlfriend, his baby and his emotions for both of them that had to get in the way because he couldn't push them down.

(Y/n) felt a noise between a groan and a cry leaving her lips as she closed her eyes, not liking how the stars kept distorting the vision her eyes were trying to make out. Her head was pounding, her hand felt like it was blistered from the split skin but her stomach was the worst.

She felt like she was going to be sick, her throat was tightening as she tried not to unleash her stomach contents but it was hard. Her lower stomach was bursting with agony but everywhere seemed to hurt, especially her right side that she was lying on. Tears burned in the corners of her eyes and managed to squeeze through her closed eyes as the saltwater cascaded down her features.

"H-he kicked me." Her breath kept fluttering higher and higher until she was hardly taking in any air, just wheezing from the panic settling into her chest as the situation seemed to make sense.

A guttural cry left her chapped lips when she dared to press her hand to her stomach that was burning. Ben trailed his eyes over her frame to see where she had been hurt even though he could already tell. His mind suddenly started to scream so loud it was like nothing else mattered or could be heard. Her twisted, sick brother had kicked her in the stomach just to hurt the baby, to make her suffer even though she had made her mind up that she wouldn't make him pay for what he had done before. Now he had hurt her worse and he was going to get away with it.

She knew he would.

(Y/n) knew her brother or one of her father's men would end up hurting Goldie because they knew they had the power to do it and they didn't feel remorse. Now they'd hurt her and she wasn't even born yet, he could have just ensured that Goldie would die for no reason at all as (Y/n) had already bowed down to them.

He could have just killed their baby.

#ben hardy #ben hardy imagine #ben x reader #dad! ben #imagine #bodyguard #borhap #joe mazzello #sweetheart

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hethrewmyheartinthecut · 7 years ago

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SEASON ONE • “CRATE NINE” • As another hot Alabama summer night descends on Birmingham, it seems that peace has come to the Shelby family at long, long last.

Just today, matriarch Polly Shelby (Angela Bassett) threw a glorious barbecue to celebrate the birthday of her niece Ada (Aja Naomie King). And despite some simmering tension between the family and Ada’s boyfriend, local labor activist Freddie (Michael Peña), the party went off without a hitch, beginning with a massive crate of beer brought in by barmaid and “friend of the family” Grace (Jhené Aiko), and ending with a gorgeous display of highly illegal fireworks.

Sure, they’ve been getting a little more attention from the police lately, notably in the form of the cold-eyed FBI Agent Campbell (Mads Mikkelsen), but he hasn’t been seen creeping around the neighborhood in days, and Arthur (Delroy Lindo) is heard to declare that the asshole has probably turned tail and run back to Washington DC.

As the fireworks fade and Freddie steals Ada away for a romantic moonlight paddle down the Cahaba river, several children are still milling around in the yard, playing at cops and robbers. This remarkably energetic brood is courtesy of the extremely…prolific…John (John Boyega), who seems to have lightened up a little following the death of his wife Martha ten months earlier. Could that be due to the influence of Lizzie Stark (SZA)? Sure, but it’s an open question still whether John’s her friend, her booty call, or her client; her fledgling dance studio has been struggling ever since it opened three months ago, and everyone knows that it’s lap dances rather than ballet that keeps the lights on in her tiny apartment.

You can bet Miss Polly has something to say about that, but she holds her tongue about it while they all pack up the remains of the barbecue, only pausing to urge the skinny Finn (Ashton Sanders) to take one last slice of pecan pie. He mutters something about being full, but she doesn’t take no for an answer, and finally he takes a couple big bites with one of those rare, goofy grins.

They’re a wild bunch, Polly thinks fondly, as the fridge fills up and the beds fill up and eventually it’s all a lot of snoring. But they’re good kids, mostly, and as much as she worries, she doesn’t expect catastrophe from any of them. She can keep the peace on her own, and they won’t much get in her way. Except for maybe Tommy (Mike Colter).

He’s always been a little different, as intelligent as Ada and as violent as Arthur, as observant as Finn and as confident as John, with an mind for long-game planning matched only by her own. The only child she’d bequeath the family business to. But lately, he’s been more reclusive than usual, and at today’s barbecue, she caught him several times sinking into his own head. He’s hiding something, and she’s going to find out what.

Tommy thinks he’s so clever, but she’s the one that raised him. She knows all his old hidey holes, all his old spots, even several places he’d thought were entirely private, places he took Greta for their not-so-secret trysts (God rest her soul). It takes Polly only two incorrect tries before she goes into the abandoned cabin at Oak Mountain State Park, the ugly one with the massive hole in its dull roof, green paint long worn off. And there, stacked neatly against the wall, are six crates, all numbered in yellow paint: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. She opens one, and it’s worse than she expected. It’s not bootleg DVDs, or stolen liquor, or even weed. It’s fucking guns. Gorgeous, gleaming, new guns too, semiautomatics all laid in glossy black rows.

“Sweet baby Jesus.” But where are the other crates?

Anyone could guess that crates one through eight contain guns and ammunition. But only three people in the entire city know the contents of crate nine: anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade launchers, a dozen of them, and one additional crates of grenades too.

The three people that know this are Agent Campbell, who is actually CIA, not FBI; Tommy, who, believe it or not, had a coherent plan for those RPGs worked out until just yesterday; and, of course, Grace, whose quick hands and hacking skills have already given her greater access to the Shelby family than Tommy has ever imagined in his worst nightmares. (He still dreams of Grace, but that’s a different matter.)

You’ll notice that Polly Shelby is not one of the three people that knows the contents of crate nine. But Agent Campbell doesn’t know this, and when she tries to explain to him that she didn’t know, it will already be too late. Because seconds after as Tommy picks up the phone to hear Polly shouting at him on the other end, he hears a lot more shouting than that. A horde of men in SWAT gear have surrounded the cabin. Within seconds, Polly is handcuffed and thrown into the back of a van.

“Shouldn’t you be reading me my rights, Agent?” she says to the man sitting opposite her.

Yeah, looking at that man’s haircut, he’s no beat cop. Look at that gear. Even his voice is so fucking professional.

“No, ma’am.”

“And why is that?”

His reply makes her stomach turn over. “We’re not the police, and you’re not under arrest.”

In the Shelby house, Tommy puts down the phone, Agent Campbell’s words still ringing in his ears. He finishes his drink. He hurls the glass against the wall. And then he goes upstairs to tell his family that he has just changed their lives forever.

(more to come. thanks to @thosepeakybastards for saying “what about Birmingham, AL?”. thanks to @sympathyfortheblinderdevil for being my Southerner beta reader. I love you both)

#Birmingham Blood #mine #Peaky Blinders #Peaky Blinders AU

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ikesenhell · 7 years ago

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The Difference

You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here.

They’d all known each other for so long that they stopped being anything other than friends, a casual reminder of the differences that wedged between them a meaningless thing. In a lot of ways, the seven of them were so close that they might as well have operated as one person. Nobunaga was the head, Hideyoshi and Masamune the arms, Mitsuhide the mouth, and he and Mitsunari the legs to support the whole thing (loathe though he was to lump himself into the same group as Mitsunari).

But she--she was the heart of it, the conscience of them, and just as often the lines that delineated her from the rest of them blurred and folded.

Ieyasu remembered she was a girl at some point in high school.

“Got asked to homecoming.” She shunted her backpack onto the table at lunch, rolling her eyes.

“No shit?” Masamune laughed at her. “Who the hell did that?”

“Take three guesses.”

“Let’s see.” Mitsuhide rolled his chopsticks between his fingers, a slithering grin that had long ago become his trademark creeping in over his lips.

“No fair if you guess first,” Nobunaga cut in imperiously. “As you’re nigh on psychic.”

Hideyoshi narrowed his eyes, ever the overprotective mom friend. “Was it Shingen? It wasn’t Shingen, was it?”

“Ding ding ding.” She tapped her nose and the table burst into laughter (except for Hideyoshi, who looked utterly annoyed at the idea of someone asking out his friend, and Mitsunari, who couldn’t quite understand why exactly it was so funny). “Guess what he hit me with?”

“Let me try.” Masamune crawled on his knees around the table, generating a spatter of laughter from the surrounding benches, and clutched her hands. “My angel, did it hurt? When you fell from heaven?”

“Jesus Christ, Masa, that was almost worse.”

Ieyasu scrunched up his nose and appraised her. “Why the hell would he ask you?”

“Ass.” She shoved his bright yellow backpack off the table. “I’m not chopped liver, you know.”

“He coulda asked a real girl.”

She fixed him with eyes that could call down a lightning strike, and suddenly the conversation wasn’t so funny. “I am a real girl.”

“Ieyasu.” Masamune’s tone brooked no replies. “Maybe shut up.”

That didn’t placate her mood. Soured, she swung her bag onto her back and stalked off.

She wound up going to homecoming with Mitsunari. He sorted through the photos on social media, he and her smiling at each other and exchanging little boutonnieres, and imagined feeding each of them into a shredder.

Senior year, and they shared the same English class. She sat right in front of him.

It wasn’t so bad. He would never admit it out loud, but it was nice having someone to partner up with that he could rely on. Whenever Thursday Discussions started and they were told to pair up, they’d shunt their desks together and work as much as roast the book. This time, it was Wuthering Heights.

“This is a shit book.” He started sourly.

“I mean, yeah, fuck Heathcliffe and all that.” Her face had taken on a womanly shape almost overnight. Sometimes, Ieyasu would look at her in her hoodies and loose shirts and wonder where the hell the nine year old he used to know had gone, swallowed up instead with that long neck and those long legs. He liked looking at her--a lot--and couldn’t reconcile to himself what that meant. “But, like, you know what I do like about this?”

“Mm.”

She knew him well enough to discern a ‘continue, please’ mmm from a ‘I don’t care’ mmm, so she continued. “Letter writing.”

Ieyasu huffed. “You’re not serious. We do have phones, you know.”

“No shit. But, I dunno, I like the effort of it? It’s thoughtful. I think the way this book is written reminds me of how letters used to be written, and--look. I don’t know. I just like it, is all. Nothing really to explain about that.”

He appraised her with his clear eyes, parsing the thought through his mind, and all at once a strange urge to write her a letter overtook him.

“You’re a fool.” Ieyasu grumbled, squashing his unspoken, unexamined feelings down. “Let’s talk about something actually relevant.”

That night he sat in front of his computer and penned letter after letter to her in his notebook, ripping them out after barely a paragraph and tossing them in his wastebasket. After about fifteen tries, he gave up and crawled into bed.

She went to prom with Nobunaga. Somehow, that made sense. Their pictures were perfect, he wearing an impeccable suit and she in a red, vibrant dress that did wonders for every curve he’d never known she had. They spent the afterparty at Hideyoshi’s house, splashing in the pool under the moonlight and taking drinks, and Ieyasu soon discovered there wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to squelch the weird things his stomach did at seeing her in a bikini.

They all wound up at the same university. It made sense. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Mitsuhide were all headed into business. Masamune didn’t bother with college, but he was just down the street doing a culinary internship, so he may as well have. Mitsunari was in poli-sci, heading into law, and he--well, he aimed for a chemistry degree and desperately hoped to prove himself as a medical student. He wasn’t as (frustratingly) gifted as Mitsunari, nor did he have Masamune’s charm or Mitsuhide’s silver tongue, Hideyoshi’s affability or Nobunaga’s charisma. He was just him, and that ate at him.

As for her, she went into finance, often taking the same classes as the others in business. They were all older now, and a little wiser, and Ieyasu wasn’t blind to the attention she attracted. What was it about her? Everywhere she went, that beautiful smile turned heads, her wit drawing laughter, her presence drawing adoration. Ieyasu was no fool. He could see the way she bent Nobunaga and Masamune in toward her with her presence alone, whether she realized it or not.

They suited her, he thought miserably. They were both on their way to realizing their ambitions, and here he was, only at the start of a stupid, stupid road that he might not even reach the end of.

Hideyoshi took her out for sushi one night, the pictures surfacing on Instagram. Ieyasu scrolled through them, trying to parse if it was a date or a date, eventually giving up. Trying one more time, Ieyasu took pen to paper and struggled to write something to her, shredding the drafts from his notepad with reckless abandon until he realized it was no use and gave up.

Years passed.

He got accepted to medical school, and she was the first apartment he ran to, letter in hand, everything completely forgotten in his rush. She emerged wide eyed in the doorway, inspecting his flushed, panting expression.

“Yasu? What’s wrong?”

“I got in.” He thrust the letter from John Hopkins at her, barely getting the words out. “I got in.”

“Holy shit!” She flung her arms around his shoulders, laughing and smiling. He wasn’t much for hugs, but oh god, Ieyasu crushed her body against his, delirious with relief and joy swirling together. “Ieyasu, that’s so good! That’s so, so good! I knew you could do it!”

He shut his eyes and dropped his forehead into the crook of her neck, inhaling her familiar scent. For the first time, his mind sang lines of poetry to write to her, but by the time he’d gotten home, he’d forgotten them all. The notebook remained empty.

Medical school was cripplingly lonely.

Almost no one moved up to Baltimore with him; they remained largely intact, and he, apart and alone, soldiered on.

Some days when it was hard, he would scroll through her Instagram and watch the myriad curated details of her life play out in front of him, her lovely face on display for all to enjoy. Ieyasu would have hated it were it not for the fact that he could enjoy, too. He didn’t know how else to ask to see her face. She was seeing someone now, some guy he didn’t know the name of and didn’t care to find out. How long had it been? Two years? Three? Four, he realized with intense irritation, and turned off his phone.

He got a call from her not long after.

“Hey, stranger.” She sounded like a song that he desperately wanted on repeat. “How goes medical school?”

“Busy.” He huffed.

“Yeah? Too busy for me to drop by?”

He considered that. “I might be able to make time. No promises. Maybe.”

“Gee, I can’t wait.” But her voice made his heart rise into his throat.

She was more beautiful than her pictures ever let on, and he hated and loved it in equal measure.

They went out to a restaurant he liked nearby (though he pitched her with the ringing recommendation of, “it isn’t completely terrible” and she laughed at him) and walked around the park, talking about life and the weirdness of it. Ieyasu wasn’t used to being open with anyone, but medical school had ground him down and--

Well, he needed someone to lean on.

So they laid down in the grass and talked about her upcoming birthday, and as a tease, she turned her head and asked him, “So what are you gonna get me, hmm?”

Ieyasu ducked her gaze, feeling entirely too vulnerable under it. “I dunno. Something you need. Like some brains.”

“You can’t get me with that one.” She tittered. “You use that one on Mitsunari too much.”

God, he was more worn out than he thought he was. He rolled over onto his arm and looked at her, as serious as the grave, and said. “The sky.”

Her brow cocked. “The sky?”

“The whole thing.” He motioned above him. “I’d take it and bring the whole thing down. For you. Because--” Oh, his mouth was dry, and she was staring at him, eyes wide, and he finished in a mutter, “because you deserve it.”

“Ieyasu,” she whispered, so sweet he couldn’t stand it.

“Come on.” He cut her off and jumped to his feet. “I hate it out here. It’s too hot.”

“It’s like, sixty degrees!”

“Too hot.”

She and the boyfriend broke up two months later, and no one heard from her for a while.

“Why the hell do you think I know what’s going on?” Ieyasu snapped at Mitsuhide over the phone. “I don’t know where she is.”

“Odd. She tells you everything first.”

He scoffed. “That’s a lie.”

“Is it?” Mitsuhide’s slithery voice was so, so infuriating in its smug assurance. “It’s been that way for years.”

Ieyasu opened his mouth to dispute the claim and faltered when he had no evidence. Shit. More than that, Mitsuhide was right.

What had he been missing?

“I gotta call you back.” Ieyasu hung up without warning and headed to his car.

The drive took nearly three hours, but she hadn’t moved in years, so Ieyasu was confident when he rolled up to her house. He parked in the driveway behind her car and stalked up to the front door, realized halfway there that he hadn’t taken off his white jacket, headed back and tossed it unceremoniously in the passenger seat, and walked the path again. She’d opened the door before he even rang the bell.

“Ieyasu?” She stared at him. “Wh--”

“So...” He trailed off and delved his hand into his pocket, thrusting the tiny slip of folded paper out at her. “Take it.”

“What’s this?”

“Take it,” he hissed, his ears flaming. “You told me years ago that you wanted someone to write a letter to you, and all my drafts were shit--”

“--Ieyasu, that was in high school, you remembered that--?”

“--and someone has to try and be decent to you.” He charged on, trying desperately to ignore the spreading smile on her lips. “And if it has to be me, then that’s disappointing, but I guess we can’t all have what we want.”

“Yasu.”

And she was in his arms suddenly, her hands cradling his cheeks where they’d belonged, all these years, and the next thing he knew he’d shoved her up against the screen door and pressed his lips to hers. It was so much easier than he’d dreamed it would be. She was sweet and sugar and heaven, and he closed his lips around the bottom one of hers and sucked hard. Her moan shot adrenaline through his blood. Bolstered by stupid hope, he hitched his fingers through her belt loops on her jeans and dragged her hips against his, the swell of her body intoxicating.

“Yasu,” she sighed, barely audible, and it was everything he’d ever wanted.

“Shut up and let’s go inside,” he grumbled, shoving her door open. “Don’t think you’re getting off easy from this.”

“Please.” She’d learned long ago how to separate out his ‘Be quiet’ shut ups and his ‘I can’t stand it’ shut ups, and he knew she’d found the right one from her smile. “I hope I’m not.”

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clubofinfo · 7 years ago

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Expert: It’s more than doors between government and the businesses that they supposedly regulate that go round and round. One of the other swinging doors is between the Democratic and Republican Parties. A second door Perhaps the best known case is when Al Gore ran for president in 2000, he picked Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Then, in 2008, Lieberman showed up at the Republican national convention to endorse John McCain for president. Between those two campaigns, John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, was rumored to be leaning to ask Republican John McCain to be his running mate. Had Al Gore won, Lieberman would most likely have been the subsequent Democratic nominee for president. Had John Kerry won with McCain on the ticket, McCain would have been the heir apparent to the “Democratic Party” crown. Whether Lieberman or McCain, Democrats across the country would have been told to bow in reverence to their party’s red-blue nominee for president. This was hardly the first time such a switcheroo blossomed in American politics. In 1864, Republican Abraham Lincoln dumped his sitting vice-president to ask Democrat Andrew Johnson to be his running mate. After Lincoln’s murder, US voters, who had selected a Republican to be their president, found him replaced by a Democrat. Though such examples at the presidential level may be enshrined in history books, they happen all the time at the local level. In 1963, the Texas Young Democrats allowed high school chapters for the first time. I was 15 years old then and organized the state’s first Young Democrats chapter at Lamar High School in Houston. We invited a teacher who had been elected to the Texas Legislature to speak to our chapter on “Why Am I a Democrat?” His answer was simple. He was a Democrat because that was the only way to get elected in Texas of the early 1960s. The next year, he came out as a Republican. That was the time of the exodus of southern Dixiecrats from the Democratic to the Republican Party. Fast forward half a century and I was the 2016 Green Party nominee for governor of Missouri. I participated in the debate with Democrat Chris Koster and Republican Eric Greitens. Greitens, riding the election on Trump’s wave, has since become internationally infamous for an affair in which he allegedly tied his victim to his basement exercise equipment, hit her, took nude photos of her, threatened to publicize the photos if she ever told anyone what he did, and continued various sex acts without her consent. During the campaign, both the Democrat and Repubican made TV ads showing themselves with automatic weapons. Besides being partial to gun violence, they had something else in common. Both had switched parties. The Republican Greitens was a former Democrat and the Democrat Koster was a former Republican. Like most others greedy for power, they decided which way the winds were blowing, calculated where they could most effectively hustle votes, and adjusted their public images and party affiliation accordingly. (Greitens resigned as governor in May 2018.) Flip-flops between the corporate parties are hardly peculiar to Missouri. Evan Jenkins was the runner-up in the May 2018 Republican primary for the West Virginia US senate seat. Jenkins had been elected as a Democrat to the West Virginia legislature, but hopped to the Republican side to win the third district US house seat in 2014. During the 2018 race, the former Democrat boasted a perfect rating from the National Rifle Association as well as a 100% “pro-life” record saying, “I am a West Virginia conservative who is working with President Trump each and every day for our shared conservative values.” That was nothing new for the state. Its billionaire governor Jim Justice started out as a Republican, became a Democrat in 2015 to win the governor’s race and switched again to the Republicans in 2017 to bask in Trump’s glow. These people are as dedicated to the colors of their party as a chameleon is to staying green when it’s opportune to turn yellow. The original door Do you remember when the “revolving door” was first noticed? It was due to people like Michael R. Taylor who rotated between regulatory agencies and the corporations they were supposedly regulating. Taylor began as a Monsanto lawyer. Then he became a staff lawyer for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and helped it to hassle Amish farmers for selling whole milk while giving companies like Monsanto the green light to sell genetically contaminated products without labeling them. Then, he cycled back to Monsanto, becoming its Vice President for Public Policy. In 2010, he flipped back to being the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Foods. The scenario was quite a bit different for Richard Gephardt, former speaker of the US House and darling child of business unions and anti-NAFTA coalitions in the early 1990s. When I was working with Public Citizen to oppose NAFTA, a friend who had just been to Mexico told me that Gephardt had spoken in Monterrey promising to get NAFTA through the US House. So I spent several afternoons at the Washington University library until I found the Mexican paper Excelsior recording his comments. I documented Gephardt’s statements in an Op-Ed piece in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of June 1, 1993 and reported his two faces during the next Public Citizen conference call. There was stony silence for several seconds. Then Lori Wallach let everyone know “Dick Gephardt is the best ally in Washington that we have.” Though Gephardt gave clear warnings of his true colors, leftists paid to lobby politicians had a devout faith that an ally scheming to stab you in the back is better than no ally at all. A few years later, the left did turn on Gephardt – but only after he publicly displayed his contempt for progressives. In 2005, he abandoned his distinguished career as public servant and formed Gephardt Government Affairs which allowed him to pocket almost $7 million lobbying on behalf of clients such as Goldman Sachs, Boeing, Visa Inc and Waste Management Inc. Of course, Gephardt was not the typical revolving door guy. Instead of being an agency bureaucrat he was elected to public office. And he did not wait to resign from his governmental post to serve industry because he was apparently working both sides regarding NAFTA at the same time. A third door This brings us to a third way the door revolves – the way that policies and practices get tossed from one corporate party to the other. When I was a kid, the saying went “The Democrats bring war and the Republicans bring recession.” But no more. With rapacious Wall Street increasing its appetite for expansion as its human host decays, the Democrats and Republicans shadow box to see which can simultaneously be more violent and make the quality of life deteriorate faster. Perhaps the old saying stemmed from the way Woodrow Wilson won the presidency with the slogan “He kept us out of war” and then proceeded to take the US into WWI. A few decades later Lyndon Johnson ridiculed Barry Goldwater’s threat to bomb Viet Nam back into the stone age. After LBJ won the election, he did his best to carry out Goldwater’s plan. For about half a century, the Republicans won the reputation of being the most anti-Communist. Yet, it was John and Bobby Kennedy who tried to invade Cuba, went off their chain to pit bull Fidel Castro, and began the very long series of attempts to assassinate him. Years later, the rapidly anti-Communist Richard Nixon ascended the throne, recognized China, and visited Beijing. In case you missed it, the right-wing Nixon reversed course and realized a progressive idea. It was hardly the only positive event that happened during the reign of one of the most degenerate presidents of all time. The following occurred during his presidency: end to the Viet Nam war, beginning of the Food Stamp Program, creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, passage of the Freedom of Information Act, formal dismantling of the FBI’s COINTEL program, decriminalization of abortion, creation of Earned Income Tax Credits, a format ban on biological weapons, and passage of the Clean Water Act. One of the crowning achievements during the Nixon era was the April 28, 1971 founding of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Shaun Richman describes in The Unionist how OSHA “has the authority to promulgate industry-specific workplace safety rules and to fine companies that violate them. The law also provides for workplace safety inspectors, whistleblower protections for workers who report potentially unsafe conditions and legal protections for workers who go on wildcat strikes to put an end to a dangerous situation.” Do Democrats in power provide some sort of assurance because they “call for” more environmental protection than do Republicans? During the 1990s, St. Louis environmentalists were trying to block the construction of a dioxin incinerator. There was a Democrat in the White House, a Democratic Governor of Missouri, and a Democratic County Executive. We persuaded the Democratic majority on the County Council to pass an ordinance requiring dioxin incinerators to operate according to EPA standards, which seemed like a victory since no incinerator can meet those standards. We stopped going to County Council meetings because we thought we had “won.” Then the Council repealed the ordinance we had lobbied for. Bill Clinton got his Missouri dioxin incinerator. When do Democrats stab you in the back? Whenever your back is turned. In 2018, Donald Trump is justly despised because of his racist hate campaign against people of color, especially his ripping immigrant children apart from their parents and putting them in cages. But let’s not forget the continuity between Obama and Trump. As Tina Vasquez writes in Rewire News: When he first announced DACA in 2012, President Obama boasted of ‘putting more boots on the southern border than at any time in our history.’ Obama sought to ‘centralize border security’ on the pretext of deporting violent criminals and gang members—now Trump’s cause … The anti-immigrant zeal that Trump used to get elected is in many ways closely aligned with the history of America’s immigration system, which gave priority to white immigrants and sought to limit entry by other groups. Every administration, Republican or Democrat, has maintained this system’s injustices. A major difference between the two presidents is that press outlets like MSNBC tended to ignore actions by Obama but shrieked in horror when Trump followed suit. Clearly, the outrage against Trump positively lessens the attacks, but it makes one wonder: If a Democrat replaces Trump and commits the same atrocities against immigrant children, will media again muffle its anger? These examples of Democrats and Republicans swapping platforms and policies do not even scratch the surface. Their views are so interchangeable that one could write a 10 volume collection of the way they imitate each other and still barely cover the tip of all the stories out there. Progressive Democrats? Does this mean that there is no one running for office as a Democrat who sincerely wishes to move in a more progressive direction? Of course not. There are many, many candidates who start out running for local office as a Democrat and stay at the bottom of the Party’s hierarchy because it is structured to keep them there and use them as bait to lure and defang other progressives. Progressive Democrats at the base level do not script the Party’s major directions, which is as firmly controlled by big business as is the direction of the Republican Party. While they may propose reforms in their communities, they must march in line with candidates for national office if they are to get funding to run at a higher level. Those higher-up Dems are the ones most skilled at collaborating with Repubs, echoing their policies, and even fluttering over to the GOP side if the time is right. While the Republicans and Democrats are able to twist and turn on any dime lying in the street, there is at least one item for which they have a mind-meld. The top concern of their corporate benefactors is “How do we reverse the gains of the New Deal?” Bosses of both parties seek to undo the New Deal – the biggest difference between them is how to pull it off. The Dems generally use finesse with a stiletto, carving out gains one-by-one, weeping and sobbing as they do so. The public face of the Repubs screams in delight as it whacks off gains with a meat cleaver. The difference in rhetoric is vastly greater than any difference in the end result. So many politicians can alternate policies and, at times, party affiliation because they see elections as a thermometer measuring if it is the hour for the delicate blade or the butcher knife. The great virtue of the Democrats is creating hope. The great virtue of the Republicans is being a bit more honest about their long term goals. The perception of vice or virtue in either depends on the mood of the observer. Do Democrats and Republicans quarrel with each other in front of TV cameras? Obviously yes – but it’s merely a mock lovers’ spat crafted for public consumption. Once the cameras are off, they embrace in excited passion while collapsing onto the bed of cash provided by corporate donations to both parties. In our darkest hour Understanding that the unified goal of both parties is to turn back New Deal gains leads us to ask how those victories were won. It was because of the massive strikes, exploding labor movement, and unprecedented growth of the Socialist and Communist Parties that made a New Deal necessary. Key corporate players decided that it was more discreet to allow some demanded changes than to suppress mushrooming mass movements. Hop forward to the Nixon years. The many accomplishments won during his term were not because that vicious anti-communist fell on his knees, beheld a shining light, and vowed to tread the path of righteousness. It was due to a strong labor movement, a massive anti-war movement following on the heels of the civil rights movement, and a growing women’s movement demanding reproductive freedom (along with many other more radical movements). Hop forward again to the depravity of the Trump administration. As humanity faces extermination from increased production of fossil fuels, opposition bubbles up at an equal rate. Even though Republican state legislatures agreed to continue undermining public schools, in Spring 2018 teachers decided that they had had enough. West Virginia had a Republican governor and a Republican majority in both houses of the legislature. But West Virginia teachers went on strike anyway and were followed by teachers from Oklahoma and other states likewise dominated by anti-labor Republicans. Even though illegal, the strike won because teachers stood together with janitors, bus drivers, food service workers and other state employees. As Bruce Dixon laid it out in Black Agenda Report: …successful strikes are possible wherever an overwhelming majority of the workforce is committed to it, whether or not those workers are in a ‘right to work’ state, and whether or not the strike is endorsed by their union if they have a union at all. Neither of West Virginia’s two teachers unions endorsed the strike, and the leaders of both unions initially and repeatedly attempted to ‘settle’ it for far less than the striking workers demanded. The three revolving doors are just other ways that big business manages government while pulling the wool over people’s eyes. Corporate flunkies transfer between their bosses and agencies to ensure agencies do their bidding. Professional politicians go back and forth between parties according to their career opportunities. Parties grab policies from each other to see who can hoodwink the most voters. The Democrats and Republicans are parts of a single gestalt that creates the illusion of meaningful difference when there is none. If you are part of an organization that gets caught up in the revolving door, don’t keep going around in circles – find another way out. In times of the darkest despair, solidarity is still the road to victory. http://clubof.info/

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statetalks · 3 years ago

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Why Do Republicans Wear Blue Ties

How Did The 2000 Election Solidify Red For Republican And Blue For Democrat

How To Combine & Wear A Pocket Square With Ties, Shirts & Suits

The 2000 election between Gore and Bush was a momentous event for American politics. The election became a constitutional crisis and dragged on for 36 days, leading to constant television and newspaper coverage of recounts and debates over which candidate won each swing state. Networks banded together on their color selection for each party for the purposes of uniformity, choosing red to represent states Bush won, and blue for those Gore won.

It was also during this election that the New York Times and USA Today ran their first full-color electoral state maps featuring red for Republican and blue for Democrat.;

Do you know where the Democrat and Republican Parties got their names? Find out here.;

But why these particular colors? Thats a difficult question to answer because all news stations want to take credit for what is now the standard.

The credit of the colors rests in part with New York Times graphics editor Archie Tse, who used red for Republicans in 2000 election maps because red begins with R, Republican begins with R. Whatever the reason, all of the news outlets certainly played a part in establishing blue and red as the colors when they collectively used them the same way.

What Does Your Tie Color Mean

Get the girl.

What do these three things have in common?; The right image.

We all know that first impressions can be influenced by what you wear.; Whether conscious or not, people make grandiose assumptions based upon your everyday appearance.

A tie is one of the most influential tools at your disposal.; Thats why you always reach for your lucky tie when you are about to close a deal or why the girl at happy hour playfully touches your tie to show shes interested.; Your tie makes a powerful statement and its important to know what image you are projecting.

Its called the power tie for a reason, and by wearing a red tie you are implying that you mean business.; Just like Tiger Woods wears a red shirt to convey dominance, the red tie is a reaffirmation of strength, authority and dominance within the professional world.; For a less aggressive approach, switch out your vibrant red for a softer shade of burgundy.

Yellow/Gold

Yellow is the approachable cousin of the power tie.; While still conveying authority, intelligence and positivity, yellow is the subtle version of a red power tie.; This is the perfect tie to wear for a first interview, because it shows you are confident and not afraid of a challenge.

Blue

Green

Orange

Orange is the wild card of tie colors.; A bright orange tie will imply that you are enthusiastic, open-minded and adventurous.; It is the perfect tie for making a memorable first impression and creating a sense of excitement within the workplace.

Trending In London: Fashion Rental Energy Healing And Pigmentation

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee John McCain take part in the first debate of the 2008 elections at the University of Mississippi on September 26, 2008 in Oxford, MS. AFP PHOTO / PAUL J. RICHARDS

;The default color scheme for presidential ties is so conservative that it is nearly impossible to imagine something like pistachio, fuchsia or neon-anything ever making the cut. Sometimes, of course, being an outlier can help secure the needed benefit of the doubt. Bob Dole wore a moderate-green tie to his 1996 debate against the incumbent Bill Clinton. Such a choice helped create an overall image that pundits found informed, thoughtful, and elevated. It briefly albeit unsuccessfully buoyed Doles campaign. Hillary Clinton did not wear ties during her runs for the presidency. Still, her accessories were scrutinized by the media with particular focus on , bracelets, and headbands. Alternately, when democratic primary candidate Andrew Yang showed up to a 2019 Democratic Primary debate with no tie at all, his historic bold move turned heads across the political spectrum from Fox News to the New Yorker. Ultimately, it was a minor side note in what cost him the nomination proving that the country is just not ready for a tie-less president.

Also Check: How Many Republicans Need To Vote For Impeachment

Desks Are Closets Too

Heather: I have an emergency blazer in my desk that I can whip out if I feel I need to, and then an extra pair of flats in my desk. You do so much walking in DC that flats wear out really quickly. Ill keep Band-Aids and Neosporin in my desk, too, for when Im breaking in a pair of shoes. Ill get new flats every four months Ill just go to Marshalls and get whats on sale.

Jen: Im a big fan of having a lot of jackets that I keep in the office. You never know what day youll need to go staff your boss on the senate floor. Jackets that you can put on regardless of whether youre wearing slacks or a dress or a skirt and a top I think thats one of the easiest things to keep on hand. Then I have a black sweater, because these buildings can be terribly temperature controlled.

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There Arent Real Forces Within The Gop Leading Change

There is some appetite for change within the GOP. In those 2024 polls, at least a third of Republicans either were supporting a GOP presidential candidate other than Trump or were undecided.;

In YouGov Blues polling, only about 40 percent of Republicans identified themselves as Trump Republicans. A recent survey from Fabrizio, Lee and Associates, a GOP-leaning firm that worked on Trumps presidential campaigns, found that about 40 percent of Republican voters didnt want Trump to continue to be a leader in the party. Those numbers dont necessarily mean that those voters want the GOP to change drastically. But there is a substantial number of Trump-skeptical/ready-to-move-on-from-Trump Republican voters. But that sentiment isnt really showing up in the Republican Partys actions during the last three months basically everything GOP officials in states and in Washington are doing lines up with the Trumpian approach. So what gives?;

related:Why The Recent Violence Against Asian Americans May Solidify Their Support Of Democrats Read more. »

It is hard to see Republicans changing course, even if a meaningful minority of voters in the party wants changes, without some elite institutions and powerful people in the party pushing a new vision. And its hard to see real anti-Trumpism forces emerging in the GOP right now.;

Read Also: Who Will Be Speaker Of The House If Republicans Win

The Partys Core Activists Dont Want To Shift Gears

This is the simplest and most obvious explanation: The GOP isnt changing directions because the people driving the car dont want to.;

When we think of Republicans, we tend to think of either rank-and-file GOP voters or the partys highest-profile elected officials, particularly its leaders in Congress. But in many ways, the partys direction is driven by a group between those two: conservative organizations like Club for Growth and the Heritage Foundation, GOP officials at the local and state level and right-wing media outlets. That segment of the party has been especially resistant to the GOP abandoning its current mix of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, opposition to expansions of programs that benefit the poor and an identity politics that centers white Americans and conservative Christians.

You could see the power and preferences of this group in the response to the Capitol insurrection.

In the days immediately following Jan. 6, many GOP elected officials, most notably McConnell, signaled that the party should make a permanent break from Trump. Pollsfound an increased number of rank-and-file GOP voters were dissatisfied with the outgoing president. But by the time the Senate held its trial over Trumps actions a month later, it was clear that the party was basically back in line with Trump.;

related:Why Being Anti-Media Is Now Part Of The GOP Identity Read more. »

When Defeated Politicians Feel Blue They Wear It

He was feeling blue.;

There he stood, front and center in his home state,;cloaked in failure. Sad Senator Marco Rubio addressed the crowd Tuesday:

“While it is not God’s plan that I be president in 2016 or maybe ever, and while today my campaign is suspended…we must do all we can to ensure that this nation remains a special place.”

He certainly wore his heart on his sleeve well, in this case, his tie. It was dark blue.

Following in the footsteps of Jeb Bush, who sported a silk navy tie, and Ben Carson, who wore a powder blue striped shirt at their respective concessions, Rubio, too, wore the color.;

And it wasn’t by coincidence. Premeditated or subconscious, blue is the color when you’re feeling the shade.;

“Wearing a blue tie is the right choice for conceding in an election,” said Lauren Rothman, a Washington, D.C.-based political stylist, consultant and author of the Style Bible.

“The color communicates two emotions at the same time: optimism and sadness.”

Rothman,;who’s dressed many a politician for their concession speeches,;said that blue sends the message for supporters to continue following them on to their next chapters and that they have officially had a standstill.;

“There’s a sense of calmness to it and comfort as if showing that it’s okay, it’s going to be all right,” she said.

Lee Eiseman, a color specialist and expert, agreed.;

But Eiseman did clarify that there are different signifiers of blue depending on the hue.;

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How The Colors Came To Be Red White And Blue

Of the 205 sovereign nations in the world, 21 share red, white and blue as their flags colors. But why do so many share the same trio of colors, and what do they represent?

On July 4, 1776, a resolution was passed by Congress authorizing the development of a seal for the new country which reflected the Founding Fathers values.

When presenting the seal which was officially adopted on June 20, 1782 Secretary of the Continental Congress, Charles Thomson, explained, White signifies purity and innocence. Red, hardiness and valor, and blue signifies vigilance, perseverance and justice.

The meaning behind the colors have since shifted slightly. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan declared it the Year of the Flag, stating, The colors of our flag signify the qualities of the human spirit we Americans cherish. Red for courage and readiness to sacrifice; white for pure intentions and high ideals; and blue for vigilance and justice.

According to TIME Magazine, however, Mike Buss, a flag expert with the American Legion, points to the red, white and blue used in the Union Jack of England.

They come from the three colors that the Founding Fathers had served under or had been exposed to, said Buss.

Therefore, some of the correlation between the United States use of red, white and blue along with 20 other countries, including Puerto Rico, Australia and Cuba, could come from their historical correlation with England.

Why Politicians Wear Only Red And Blue Ties

Why does Trump Scotch tape his tie?

Joe Dziemianowicz of the Daily News wrote that even though President Obama doesnt like to reduce America into a collection of red states and blue states, he wore only red and blue neckties in his first 11 days in office. Is that just a coincidence?

Not according to science Robert Roy Britt of LiveScience explains why in high-stakes politics and business, there are only two color of ties, red and blue:

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What Do The State Of The Unions Purple Ties Mean

Whats in a tie? If youre President Obama giving the State of the Union address, it can mean quite a bit. Tonight, Obama, along with Vice-President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House John Boehner, made a sartorial show of solidarity. The three leaders sported purple ties because as every first-grade student knows blue and red make purple, and it may be a visual signifier of Obamas desire for bi-partisan cooperation. This isnt the first time Obama and Biden have rocked the royal hue: The pair, along with thenSpeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, all wore purple during the 2010 State of the Union. And then, as now, pundits speculated about its meaning. There is kind of a connotation in politics that comes through color, said fashion blogger Mary Tomer, of last years tie choices. I dont think its too much of a stretch to think purple couldve been chosen;symbolically.

Has Trump Been Wearing A Purple Tie More Often Lately

The last couple of weeks Ive noticed him wearing a purple tie.

Do Republicans notice this? Care?

Does it mean anything?

Why would it matter even if he was? Its a goddamn tie. You people love imagining bullshit where it doesnt exist.

Saying you people is almost always a derogatory remark. If you dont like the OPs question, address your answer to her.

Im with . Look around at other threads. Assumptions made on behalf of Trump supporters, and even supposing to know what our president plans, knows, wants, likes. Until Trump opposers are willing to stop lumping us in a pit of lost causes, expect the same in return.

, I have had the same observation, so perhaps he has. Does it have any significance? I believe only time will tell.

I think that if he is in fact wearing purple, he is doing it to reflect the electorate and its attitudes as the American population slowly moves to embrace the democratic party.

Are the colors of his tie supposed to mean anything?And WHY do Trump supporters get all bent out of shape and when thinking Trump opposers lump them in all together, but do the exact same thing when it comes to dealing with opposers?

So he bought a new tie. He wore the red one for almost three years, and he cant ever seem to tie it right. Glad he got a new one.

I think its some kind of white power salute.

Disclaimer: The above statement is a joke.

Which you people? and I?

Read Also: Why Do Republicans Like Donald Trump

Which States Are Considered Red And Which Are Blue

To go along with the colors, the terms red state and blue state were popularized by anchorman Tim Russert during and immediately after the 2000 election. Today, these terms are used to refer to which party a state voted for during a presidential election.;

Generally speaking, the Northeast and the West Coast are considered a collection of blue states as most of them have sided with the Democrats since the early 1990s.

The Southern states have sided with Republicans since the 2000s, while the Midwest tends to be tougher to predict. For example, Illinois and Minnesota are currently considered blue states, while Missouri and Nebraska are red. Hawaii and Alaska have been traditionally considered blue and red respectively as neither has switched parties since the late 1980s .

The Southwest has been split since 2000 with Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado going blue more often than red and Utah and Arizona voting predictably red. Finally, we come to the coveted purple states or swing states,;such as Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan. These states switched colors in recent elections and are often a key focus of electoral campaigning and strategy. Swing states can vary by election year.

Color And Clothing Choices

When we see certain colors, they produce chemical reactions in our brains that can make us feel certain emotions. For example you are more likely to order more food in a restaurant that is decorated with a lot of red because that color makes us hungry. Sports teams often paint the opposing teams locker room pink because that color makes people tired. Guests on late night TV hang out in the Green Room before coming on stage because that color is the most calming and relaxing. So what could certain candidates be trying to sell you via their color and clothing choices?

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When Its Time To Head Back To The Office And On The Few Days When I Wear A Suit And Tie I Should Retire My Red Ties Right Unless I Want Everyone To Assume I Am A Trump Supporter Is It Possible For Any Man To Wear A Red Tie Now And Not Immediately Call To Mind The Former President Ken Newton Mass

Though the death of the tie is declared regularly especially given the pressures of both the long-term office-casual movement and our current working-from-home reality Guy Trebay, our mens wear critic, maintains that you should not count the accessory out quite yet. As he said, even if were not wearing them much during lockdown, you dont want to give up on an element of the wardrobe thats been around for 400 years.

Ties can, after all, be used to signal your club, your interests, whether you are a jokester, a brainiac or even a clown. Not to mention, as you say, political affiliation.

The question is whether the party dividing line between red and blue that has swept even the necktie into its maw will remain uppermost in everyones minds now that unity is the word of the moment . Given how central red ties were to President Trumps uniform, it is natural to think that we may now have a Pavlovian response to the color. But the fact is, red ties were a wardrobe staple long before Mr. Trump got hold of them.

Its the combination of shade and style that makes the statement of allegiance, not simply one or the other. Thats what you should keep in mind when getting dressed. Then go ahead: Tie one on.

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-do-republicans-wear-blue-ties/

0 notes

patriotsnet · 3 years ago

Text

Why Do Republicans Wear Blue Ties

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-do-republicans-wear-blue-ties/

Why Do Republicans Wear Blue Ties

How Did The 2000 Election Solidify Red For Republican And Blue For Democrat

How To Combine & Wear A Pocket Square With Ties, Shirts & Suits

It was also during this election that the New York Times and USA Today ran their first full-color electoral state maps featuring red for Republican and blue for Democrat.;

Do you know where the Democrat and Republican Parties got their names? Find out here.;

But why these particular colors? Thats a difficult question to answer because all news stations want to take credit for what is now the standard.

What Does Your Tie Color Mean

Get the girl.

What do these three things have in common?; The right image.

We all know that first impressions can be influenced by what you wear.; Whether conscious or not, people make grandiose assumptions based upon your everyday appearance.

Yellow/Gold

Blue

Green

Orange

Trending In London: Fashion Rental Energy Healing And Pigmentation

Also Check: How Many Republicans Need To Vote For Impeachment

Desks Are Closets Too

Dont Miss: Did Republicans Riot After Obama Was Elected

There Arent Real Forces Within The Gop Leading Change