#better than yelling at a wall like in alabama but even so | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

antivirus-mh-au · 4 years ago

Text

Antivirus - Chapter 4

First Chapter Previous Chapter Ao3 Link TW: None Note: I am completely exhausted and working on a laggy computer. I will add these links when I’m not a zombie trying to use a zombie laptop. Thank you for your patience.

Click the link. Let the page load, the old laptop whirring as it opened. A YouTube video, like so many others. Opening shot, an abandoned building in the middle of the night, muffled voices talking.

Shrieking, screaming. The camera lowered as the one holding it ducks for cover. Four voices yelling at once. Suddenly, laughter. Relieved laughter.

"Fucking bats!" A man called out. The camera raising, focusing on the dark shapes fluttering out the window.

"We need to be careful," a woman said, voice light-hearted. "Those things carry rabies."

Laughter breaking through the group again, a logo of a camera appearing on the screen.

He paused the video and glanced down at the title. "OUR GREATEST HITS, VOLUME ONE."

He sent a text to his friend.

Phoenix: who are these assholes?

The reply was immediate.

Skully: they're my assholes. College kids I made friends with on Twitter. Really cool. I don't remember being that cool when I was twenty.

He grunted aloud. Lucky him, remembering anything about his twenties. Not everyone was so fortunate.

Skully: They’re part of the MH fandom. They actually live in Alabama and were able to track down some of the locations in the videos.

He rolled his eyes.

Phoenix: Find any bodies?

Skully: Just blood.

He shuddered, pulling his hooded jacket closer to his body.

Phoenix: Cool. Morbid, but cool.

He was such a liar.

Skully: Anyway, not what I was sending them to you about. They just made a new video today and I think you might be interested in it

He grimaced.

Phoenix: This is about your crazy boyfriend, isn’t it?

Skully: He’s not my boyfriend!! I don’t know him!!!

Skully: And you know my partner doesn't share.

Phoenix: But it’s still about him. The prophet guy.

Skully: … Yeah. But you should still watch this! I think you’ll find it interesting

He leaned back against the wall and huffed.

Phoenix: Why?

Skully: … the kids talk about Tim, alright?

Skully: They talk about him a lot.

His fingers hesitated over the keys. He lingered, reading the words again and again. Tim…?

Phoenix: Fine.

Phoenix: Send me the video.

The video, almost thirty minutes long, took its sweet time to load. First thing on screen was the same logo as before, a camera with a generic full face mask behind it. The name of the channel followed, MH Unlocked. He shook his head.

The name faded out, replaced by three people on a couch. Two women, one man. A second man sat on top of an end table on the right side of the couch. The lamp that probably belonged in that spot sat on the floor at his dangling feet.

The woman on the left, a bushy haired brunette with deep tan skin, a high ponytail and golden brown eyes, gave the camera a grin.

"Hey investigators!" She waved. "We're back with another video."

"And this one's a doozy," the woman beside her said, raising her mug, which proudly bore a pride flag. If he had to guess, it was the lesbian one. Her hair was dyed orange, peachy skin flushed by makeup or a light sunburn, it was hard to tell.

"Before we start," the first woman said, "be sure to leave a like and give us your thoughts and theories in the comments! I promise, we read all of them."

"Eventually," said the man on the end table with a grin. He was the palest white guy ever, with curly black hair, glasses, and about a thousand freckles on his face. The man next to him gave him a shove, and the first man burst into laughter.

The other man, with skin several shades darker than the brunette and a suit far too good looking for this kind of environment, rolled his eyes. He waved a hand, with a silver ring on his index finger, at the camera.

"You already know us," he said. "I'm Mix."

"I'm Holly!" The brunette on the other end said.

"I'm Wren," the orange haired woman said.

"And I'm Steve!" The freckled man grinned wide, his green eyes practically glowing with excitement. "We've got a big story for you guys today."

"Oh, very big," Wren said, before taking a drink from her mug.

"Big like the worst headache you've ever had," Mix said with a smiling roll of his eyes. Wren smacked him on the shoulder without looking away from her drink.

"So." Holly reached up from the floor and pulled up a laptop. The brand logo was covered up with a pineapple sticker. Her eyes scanned the screen as she fiddled with the touchpad, Wren leaning over to see what she was doing.

"Last night," Holly said. "Something weird happened over on the Neophyte_Calling YouTube channel."

"Weirder than normal," Wren said.

"Yeah," Holly said. She glanced over towards Steve, who swiped at the screen of his phone. He looked up.

"We'd show the footage but people don’t seem to like when we do that," Steve said. "Something something spreading the sickness." He shrugged with a smile. "But we've all watched it and we can give you a play by play of what happened."

"It might not seem that dramatic," Wren said, "but the implications are pretty intense."

"I'll say," Mix said.

"Last night, at around ten pm," Holly started, "in the middle of his usual stream, the Neophyte went quiet. The way he does when whatever he's supposedly channeling is trying to talk through him. After about thirty seconds of silence, he started bleeding onto the table from his head, which remember, is mostly off screen. He said, "he's coming," and fell over as the screen glitched out. For another hour there was complete silence before the stream randomly ended."

"Weird shit," Steve said.

Holly nodded. "Very weird shit - but in character for him."

"Now, for those of you that don't know who the Neophyte is," Mix said, "he's the guy you see people calling 'the Prophet' in this fandom. Talks like a drug addict on a high, but many people believe there are secret messages in his words that can be decoded. They say those messages predict the future."

"Not everyone believes this," Holly said.

"I don't," Steve said, hunched over and watching his friends. "But there's definitely something funny-weird about the guy. Very… uncanny valley."

"Sometimes, unprompted, he'll stop talking and do this creepy voice." Holly cleared her throat, and when she spoke again, she lowered her voice, taking on an odd pitch to her words. "Grains of sand in the hourglass of time. Your existence is irrelevant." She shuddered, and let her voice go back to normal. "Something like that."

"That's an awful impression but it gets the job done," Mix said.

"You try doing one better," Holly said.

"The one thing all of these coherent messages have in common," Wren said, "is that they're all addressed to the same person. Someone called Tim."

Steve nodded. "And you can guess who most people think that 'Tim' is."

"It's been ten years since Marble Hornets ended," Mix said. "But it would make sense if it were Tim Wright the Neophyte was talking to. He was the only survivor, after all."

"But that would imply that Tim is watching the Neophyte streams," Wren said.

"And if he's watching the streams, he could be aware of us, too," Holly said.

The four went quiet. Mix looked at the floor. Steve traded a look of discomfort with Holly. Wren took a sip of her mug. She pulled it away from her lips with a sigh.

"If he does know about us," Wren said, "why not come forward and tell his side of the story? He could change the whole game by revealing himself."

"Probably because he's a fucking murderer," Steve said. Mix glared at him, but Steve only shrugged. "You know I'm right!"

"He did kill two people," Holly said, looking at her laptop. "Just because Kralie killed Jay doesn't make what Tim did right."

"But what other choice did he have?" Mix said. "Alex wouldn't have stopped trying to kill Tim. One of them needed to die."

"That doesn't matter to the legal system," Holly said.

"We're getting off topic," Wren said, raising a hand. "It doesn't matter if the Neophyte was talking about Tim from Marble Hornets or not. What matters is that someone is going somewhere and that's apparently good news for the Neophyte or whatever he's channeling."

"You can say the Operator, it's okay," Steve said.

Holly glared at him from over Wren's head.

"It does matter, though, if he's talking about Tim in particular," Mix said. "What if Tim is heading back to Alabama? Maybe he left after the end of the series."

"It's possible," Holly said, "but that's pure speculation. We don't know that."

"Isn't speculation all we do?" Steve said, swinging his legs gently. "Come on, let's give the audience something to chew on. What do you guys think the Neophyte was talking about? The crazier the theory, the better."

Mix frowned. "Well…"

With a shake of his head, the viewer closed the tab. He'd seen enough. Enough to make his eyes burn and hands shake. He took a deep breath, and shuddered, pulling his jacket around himself. It was a warm day beyond the safe confines of this abandoned house, but that didn't stop the chills shooting through him.

Was he afraid? Or was he angry?

With a growl he thrust the laptop away from him and reached for his sketchbook. The pen he'd been using before still rested inside. Forcing his thoughts away from the video, he focused everything in his mind onto his art.

He wasn't a great artist, but his memory was good, and with nothing else to do most days, his skill was getting better. With proper art tools, he could've even gotten great at it. But there was no need for greatness right now. Art was supposed to be healing, and that more than anything was what he needed.

In his mind he captured the image, something he'd seen so many times before. Grinding his teeth, he let the image flow onto the page once more. His favorite thing to draw, the one thing that really made him smile.

Losing track of time was part of the appeal. With the light from his laptop, he could see the whole page, or at least enough of it to work. The ink bled into the paper, the lines assembling into a rough image that soon became a face. He could see it so well in his mind's eye. As if the man he pictured was right in front of him. But he wasn't. And if the man knew what was good for him, he'd stay that way.

The sound of a new message on Discord got his attention. He glanced at the time instead. An hour, flown by, his mind lost in an ink-based daydream. Exhaling hard, he looked back at the art on the page. It wasn't finished. It would probably never be finished. But as it was… it was perfect.

Tim Wright made a very good model, unaware of that as he was.

Running his hand over the page, feeling the indents where his pen dug deep into the paper, he shook his head, and smiled.

"Better not be coming back, Tim," the man, the Maniac, said. "If you do… I'll have to kill you.”

#marble hornets #mh antivirus au #mh fanfiction #marble hornets fanfiction #marble hornets au

17 notes · View notes

scribbling-stiks · 3 years ago

Text

Retrievers - XLVIII - Cave Dwellers

*I was going to finish this digitally, but I am currently mentally exhausted and lost motivation, so fuck it. I included most of the characters, so I win. I hope y'all enjoy.*

The wind howls outside. Long sticks scrap against the walls of the cave. Russia cringes at the noise. The cave holds the heat better than Russia expected. Russia continues purring, and he curls up a little more, trying his best to conserve his heat.

Most of the states begin to disperse. Four people stay against him, and New Mexico begins peaking around the wall next to his head. Russia's fur prickles as a violently shivering Florida buries himself in between Russia's back leg and his body.

'He must be freezing.'

Mexico takes the jacket and boots that America had grabbed from their campsite.

'It must be the stuff I took off.'

'...now I can't even wear shoes. I like shoes.'

Russia pouts a little and turns his head to the outside. He squints against the wind. Warmth trickles out from above his head. He tries to lay his head down again, but tree branches crash together and his ears perk up.

His head pokes up again and he glances at the whipping tree branches.

Suddenly, he feels shifting against his fur, and Texas' hat pokes into Russia's side. Russia almost starts nudging him over when Alabama catches his eye and shakes his head vehemently.

"(Don't wake him up. Please,)" Alabama signs frantically.

"Don't wake him up," Mississippi says, sitting in front of America.

Russia nods and settles on his legs, trying not to jostle Florida or Texas. He turns back outside, but he still listens to the conversations behind him.

"Is Texas okay?" America asks cautiously, holding his light in front of his face.

"Well... not really. He hasn't been sleeping."

"Like York's not sleeping or..?"

"He don't even take naps. This is the first time he been sleepin' since y'all left."

America's face falls and his head tilts down.

"I didn't.._____"

Russia tries to focus on America's mouth, but can't read the words. America makes a weird noise and the blue light flickers. Russia resists the urge to rush over and begins purring to comfort himself.

"Daddy!" Mississippi exclaims, grabbing America by his shoulders.

"America?" Ukraine asks.

"Sorry, my magic... I just.... I'm tired."

Mississippi helps America lie down while New Mexico, Ohio, and Kansas crowd around them, panicking a little. Ohio takes off his backpack and lays it on the ground for America to lay down on. Kansas digs a blanket out of his bag. The blanket is small but better than nothing.

The siblings wrap America up in the blanket. It doesn't cover his feet.

Another gust of wind.

A loud crack.

Russia's whiskers bend back and he flinches away.

His field of vision outside the stones is completely cut off, save for small holes from which moonlight leaks in between the leaves above his head. All the wind sounds muffle and sticks dig into Russia's side. Russia yowls, but he doesn't move away.

'I don't want to risk hurting anyone. I could squish them if I panic.'

His fur grows wet with blood. He turns his head back and finds himself covered in leaves and branches. He feels them dig into his skin and his purring takes on a different pitch as he tries to ignore the pain.

'I can't risk hurting one of them. I can't panic. I'm too large. Too dangerous.'

"Ruby?!" America exclaims, pulling up onto his hands and knees.

"Russia? Are you okay?" Ukraine exclaims, standing up from his spot beside Alberta.

Russia meows sadly and nods. He leans over and nuzzles Texas' head. He knocks Texas' hat to the side and begins grooming Texas' hair to distract himself. Texas shifts and then leans into Russia's neck, still asleep.

New Mexico then walks outside with South Carolina on her tail near Russia's face, bushing back the brush. South Dakota pushes back the tree trunk near his tail and North Dakota shoves her way through. Slowly, Russia feels the splinters being pulled back. His fur expands a little, and he hears a startled yelp and then laughter.

The largest pieces are removed and the states press against Russia and slide back around. Russia growls at the sensation that fills his mind with an odd sense of pain.

North Carolina pushes around with a soft laugh. New Mexico follows him, spitting pine needles out of her mouth. Russia smells the sap in her hair and begins licking at it. She squeals and begins pushing away. Russia grabs her with one of his paws and licks her hair as best as he could. She tries to shove him away, but Russia doesn't listen.

The pine needles feel strange against his tongue.

'I must clean my kin.'

Memories of New York flash in his mind's eye, and Russia pauses. New Mexico takes the opportunity to yank away. She picks her hairclip up off the floor and fixes it back into her hair.

"Okay, EWW!" New Mexico exclaims.

"We might have to get used to it. He is a giant cat," Kansas comments offhandedly.

"Well, that doesn't mean I'm going to like it!"

'We should let the others know we're okay.'

'I wonder if America has enough magic to summon a message.' Russia begins to think, tucking his paws back underneath him. He imagines Massachusetts summoning a message.

'Make a circle.'

'I don't have any hands.'

'God Damn it.' Russia does get curious though. He closes his eyes and finds that the value in his chest hadn't changed. He opens it and static fills his head. He looks down at his paws but doesn't see anything. He starts filtering magic and glowing on the tip of his nose catches his attention.

'Oh.'

He swallows and blinks a few times. He closes the valve as much as he can while still having magic flowing. The images of the strings and fog disappear, and he starts to feel sick from filtering the grey masses. Even still, he finds his connection to the real, physical world, is a lot more solid now than it would be just viewing the magic.

He moves his head in a circle, and a pink disk appears in front of him. It's a uniform pink.

'How do I... hmm.'

'Dixie.'

The pink swirls. A whirlpool forms in the middle. It looks like a sand donut that inverts itself.

Then, the center grows white for a split second before it fades into a new image. It's dark, and it takes a moment for Russia to focus on the picture. He sees Dixie sleeping uncomfortably against a wooden door. Russia meows.

"What- where- AHHH CAT!"

Dixie jumps to his feet and swings his fist at the message. He misses. Russia meows again. "What the fuck? How is a cat doing magic? Wait... light pi- Russia?" Dixie blabbers, his eyes wide.

"Russia?" New York asks, entering the view from under Dixie's arm. Russia meows. America crawls onto Russia's front paw. Russia tilts his head over and nuzzles the side of America's head. It feels strangely muted. Russia figures it's because of using magic.

'At least I'm not completely disconnected.'

The Dakotas follow America and poke their heads next to Russia's.

"Hello!" South Dakota chirps with a smile.

"Hi, Uncle Dixie," Alabama says sheepishly, fixing Texas' hat.

"You found them?" Dixie asks breathlessly.

"We did. They're okay," America says happily, but there is an undertone of anger that makes Russia bristle.

"Oh thank the Lord," Dixie exclaims, covering his face.

New York slumps against Dixie with gitty, almost unhinged laughter.

"Can I yell at Texas?" Dixie asks.

"You'll have to wait," America says, gently smiling at a sleeping Texas, "he's sleeping right now and I'm not going to wake him up."

Dixie scoffs, but his face softens.

"He's sleeping?"

"Yeah. For right now, at least."

Dixie sighs.

"Okay. So, before yous guys get distracted, what are the current injuries."

"Well, I'm missing most of my foot and Finland is missing her arm. Also, I don't know if this counts, but Russia is a cat and I can fly."

"What do you mean you're missing part of your foot?!"

"It was bitten off. I'm fine."

An unfamiliar stream of magic catches Russia's attention. Russia growls, and the growling graduates to a hiss. He faces the tree branches, feeling blind and scared.

"Woah. What's goin' on there, Amy?"

"Ruby?" America asks.

Russia faces outside and hisses before turning to America with a soft mew. America turns back to the message.

"I think we have to go. Sorry. We'll talk to you soon."

America swipes at the message and it dissipates. The cavern goes dark. Russia smells the air, but the only thing that comes to him is the smell of pine and blood.

Table of Contents

4 notes · View notes

hubbie22 · 4 years ago

Text

tears ricochet part two

A/N: If you’d like to be tagged, please let me know! Thanks for reading.

“Well, where is she going to stay? I have more than enough room.” Freddie starts to talk about the late night wine fests, the sleepovers, and parties.

“What about one week with you, one week with Deaky and Veronica, and one week with us?” Brian says trying to come up with a compromise.

“We sound like divorced parents passing around our child.”

“Well, she can’t stay alone!” Brian seems frazzled as he always does. “Chrissie is adamant on that.”

“I think we all are, at least the six of us.” Deaky’s words cut Roger, cause he knows he’s excluded from this conversation.

“Where will you go?” It’s a legitimate question.

“You don’t have to worry about me, not anymore.” She says, as she holds Felix in her arms. He’s a happy baby, and he seems to like anything that gives him attention. And Liv hands it out to him in spades. This was the compromise, he did what she asked. He didn’t come alone, he came with Felix in tow. While that certainly wasn’t alone, it wasn’t what she meant. She wondered if Roger’s girlfriend knows he brought their son to see his ex. And if she knew, did she care? Or maybe she pitied Liv, that seemed to be the prevailing emotion she always recieved.

“Shouldn’t smoke with him in the room, Rog.” Liv scolds him, “And you shouldn’t worry about me.”

“Always worry ‘bout you.” He says as he takes a drag of his cigarette. It was preconditioned into the very fiber of his being to worry about her. Even if he tried to push it away, it always came flooding back.

Somehow Liv ended up with Freddie at Garden Lodge, at least until she was on her feet again. Or that was the promise they made to her.

“It’s like one big slumber party!” Freddie says pulling out silk robes from the Chanel bags. Freddie hands her a rose gold colored one, and he puts on a blood red one. The rose gold fabric pools around her feet, its luxurious.

“Freddie this is beautiful.” She says feeling the silk against her skin.

He looks at her with a playful light in his eyes, “All ways the best for us, dear.” It felt odd to be included in the word us, again. The last time she had been part of an us, was when the other part of it was Roger. She pushes him out of her head, he can’t occupy that space anymore. Just like he can’t occupy the other part of us in her life anymore.

“Manicure and pedicures this way!” Freddie says, he must sense her sadness. Because he tops her off with more wine, as she sinks her feet into the small tub of water.

They are in the middle of getting facials, being pampered for the tenth night in a row, “This really is a never ending slumber party.”

“What a great song idea!” He darts off with a blood red silk robe, leaving her alone with a multitude of cats. She picks up the orange tabby, who nestles into her embrace. She brings him up the stairs to the bedroom, and she can hear the pitter patter of little paws following her. She lays on the California king, looking up at the great white canopy above her. She can hear him singing from the other side of the house. It reminded her of the old times.when they were a penniless band, and not a household name.

“Like this!” Brian says as Roger bites back. “That’s not it! It’s slow!” They had been at the studio for the better part of 96 hours. Liv watched them, she hadn’t been spotted yet.

“I don’t like it!” Freddie says with a biting ferocity. “It’s so blasé!” They couldn’t achieve the correct sound for the song, and it was driving them mad. Which of course, lack of sleep didn’t aid in driving them mad either. But, she wouldn’t tell them that.

“I’m playing it how I always play it, Fred!” Brian seems to be cracking under the pressure, which is typical. She rolls her eyes, as she snaps a candid photo of Brian’s reaction.

“What do you think, Liv?” Deaky asks her.

She turns her head ready to answer, letting her camera fall against her chest as it was secured by a strap, only for Roger to answer for her. “Livie listens to only sad songs!” He goes on, “ She thinks the whole of it should be slow. For god sakes, she listens to sad American country music on repeat. If I hear that damn twang of “Your Cheatin Heart” one more time!”

“How dare you disrespect the late and great, Hank Williams, Rog.” She looks at him, “That man was a legend in a cowboy hat!”

Roger rolls his eyes, “All he does is stand there and sing sad country songs about his lost love in his country twang.”

“It’s called talent.”

“I know, I have it.” Roger says with a smirk on his face.

“What’s wrong with American country? What’s wrong with the sad songs they sing? I find it quite lovely, very telling of the human experience.” Brian asks, but he’s ignored.

She snorts, “Also, didn’t know your name was Liv, now?”

“ ‘S how I see it, just telling it how I see it.”

Hank Williams voice blares through the house, “Your Cheatin Heart” reverberates off the walls of Garden Lodge. Even those five years she spent comatose, did nothing to diminish her love for the American country star. Deaky chuckles at the thought, as she closes the front door.

“Liv?” Deaky shouts when the song dies down, and she yells from wherever she is. He walks to where the sound of voice came from. She’s dancing, her bare feet agaisnt the marble floor, to a sad country song. It’s a new one, George Jones if he’s not mistaken. A small smile is on his lips, as he noticed that Liv hasn’t changed. If anything it’s like she’s been frozen in time. She’s twirling around to the sounds of “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” in her white eyelet sundress. She hasn’t changed, it was like she was frozen in time. He had seen this scene at Liv and Rog’s flat and the Surrey Mansion. But the scenery around her changed, if this was five years earlier she would be dancing with Roger. But now, she danced with Freddie’s cats.

“Deaks!” She says clearly winded from her little dance party.

It causes Deaks to laugh, “Sorry to break up your dance party, but I was looking for Fred.”

She grimaces, “He’s with that evil bloke, Paul.” Liv and Paul didn’t like each other in 1975, and time didn’t faze that dislike from either parties. “Said he’d be back soon.” She answers his next question before he can even ask it.

He looks around, “Eaten yet?”

“No.”

“Come on, let’s get something.”

They end up at a little diner around the corner, one that they used to visit when Freddie only dreamed of owning Garden Lodge. She orders a burger and a strawberry milkshake, and he follows suit substituting the milkshake for chocolate.

“You haven’t changed, still blaring that horrendous country music.”

She rolls her eyes as she bites into her burger, “It reminds me of my dad.” Deaky didn’t know that, and he winces as she continues. “He was an American from the great state of Alabama,” She says the state with a fake southern drawl, “He came over here during the War. Survived that, and married the nurse that took care of him in the hospital.” She has a small smile that dies on her lips, “Only to die of cancer, when I was five.” She plays with the straw in her milkshake, “All I had of him were his Hank Williams records, kinda turned me into country music. We used to dance around the kitchen to it. I guess I found comfort in it. And I just never stopped finding comfort in it, makes me feel like he’s still here.”

“I’m sorry about your dad.”

She shrugs her shoulders, “It’s just another sad story in a long line of sad stories.”

The only sounds that can be heard is the chatter of the waitresses and the clinging of pots and pans.

“After your accident, we had some rocky times between the band. And I remember Roger would blare Hank Williams, when he was getting ready to go on stage.” Deaky looks at her, really looks at her and he sees how her eyes light up at the revelation. “Said it was his way of feeling like you were there, even when you weren’t.”

“Took my coma for him to appreciate my musical taste.” She deadpans. And the rest of the meal is spent in silence.

Her brows knitting in confusion, as they are walking back to to the Come to think of it those records at Freddie’s aren’t dad’s. I don’t even know where dad’s records are anymore. The last of dad just gone.”

The sounds of a country drawl lull him out of his sleep. He opens the door to his dressing room, head peaking out to find the source of the music. His feet take him to Roger’s dressing room. He opens the door to find what he least expected to find, Roger head in his hands as “I Saw the Light,” drifts off the cement block walls of the arena dressing rooms. Roger wasn’t a religious man, but Deaky knew this song wasn’t being played for religious purposes. It reminded Roger of someone, and with it the memories of her singing it. Those memories comforted him, when he couldn’t be at her beside. Maybe in a way, it was akin to a religious experience for him.

For two years, Hank Williams lulled him to sleep on couches across the world’s arenas. Until, that day when Roger decides to put it behind him. Deaky finds the Hank Williams records in the trash bin of the arena, he notices a pretty redhead knock on Roger’s dressing room door. Deaky takes the records from the trash, and he notices how old they are. And the intials etched on the cover OLH, it takes all of him not to march in Roger’s dressing room and drag him out by his hair. But, instead he takes the records with him. Closing the door to his dressing room, he slips the record out. He puts it on the player, when he walks to the couch he notices a note fell out the cover. He unfolds the note, finding a tear stained letter.

Dearest O,

I don’t want to write this, actually put it off until I could. But I can’t anymore. Soon, it’s just going to be just you and your mama. You have to be a big girl for your daddy, now. No tears, no fear, just be brave. I need you to be good for your mamma, she needs you. Do what she says, even if you don’t want too, which I know you never want to do what she says. I know you think she’s hard on you, she only is hard on you cause she loves you. And she just wants the best for you, she wants your life to be easier than ours was. Just remember everytime you listen to one of these Hank Williams albums, I’m right there with you. Singing along, while dancing around with kitchen with you. I’ll always be with you. I’ll be the wind that carries the leaves that dance around you in the fall, the sunshine that warms you up, I’ll be everywhere you are, where ever you are, there I’ll be. I love you, O. I’ll love you until the sea meets the sky.

Deaky folds the letter back up, placing it snuggly in the cover. The next thing he knows the phone is in his hand, and he’s waking Veronica up at 2 am to speak to his children. When they leave the arena the next hour, he put the records in his bags. He notices Roger has his sunglasses on, and his arm draped around the same redhead from earlier. And so begins the revolving door of groupies, until Roger meets a dark haired girl that reminds him of someone else.

“I have them.” Deaky says as they reach Garden Lodge.

“Why would you have them?”

He can’t tell her the truth, that Roger throw them away in some arena trash can in the States. So he covers it with a lie, he has to save her from the truth that Roger threw away the last of her dad so he could put her in the rearview mirror. “You let me borrow them before the accident.”

“Oh!” She still looks puzzled, knowing damn well she wouldn’t let anyone touch those records. But whatever Deaky isn’t telling her, she decides it best she doesn’t uncover it. “Can I have them back?”

“Of course, I was keeping them safe for you.” And that wasn’t a lie, it was a truth. Those records were locked in safe in his house, so the kids couldn’t destroy them.

The next day, Deaky is back with at Freddie’s with the records in hand. He notices Roger’s car is in the drive. He opens the front door to hear Liv laugh, and the sounds of a Felix stringing together some sound. He walks into the living room to find Roger and Freddie sitting in chair facing opposite each other, while Liv is on a pallet on the floor playing with Felix and Jimmy, Brian’s son. And the second Liv notices Deaky has arrived, her eyes zero in on what he’s holding. She leaves Felix laying on the pallet, but Jimmy is running after her. “Daddy’s records!” She sounds like a little girl. And as Deaky puts them in her hands, Roger’s eyes are as wide as saucers. Liv darts out of the living room, Jimmy hot in her heels, as she’s explaining to him about Hank Williams. The two year old is enamored with her, as she scoops him up. She’s running up the stairs to her room, focused on showing Jimmy the her dad’s records. Once Liv is out of earshot, Deaky decides it’s time to face the truth.

“Luckily I fished them out, knew she’d want them.” Deaky doesn’t skip a beat, as he situates himself on the couch. “Throwing out her dead dad’s records, that’s low.”

Freddie looks at Roger, “Was this during-”

“Yeah.” Roger interrupts him, as he bends down to pick up his son.

“He didn’t know what he was doing.” Freddie says defending Roger’s actions from three years ago. As if they could be defended, as if it was something so simple.

“Who didn’t know what they were doing?” Brian asks as he comes from the kitchen, three cups of tea in hand. He hands two cups to Freddie, one for him and one for Liv. He sits a cup beside Roger’s chair, and the other beside the spot he was occupying. He turns to Deaky, “Hello, John! Tea?” Deaky responds with a nod at Brian. Brian is back in a second, handing the cup to Deaky before taking a seat. Brian of course doesn’t let his question go, “Who didn’t know what they were doing?”

“Apparently Roger, didn’t know what he was doing when he threw away Liv’s dead dad’s records on tour in America.” Deaky’s words cut like a knife, and every word was meant to kill. “Of course Rog and Fred think it’s okay he did that, right?” Deaky looks at them, “Because of the cocaine?”

Brian looks at Roger, “What the fuck?!” Brian looks disgusted, “And you blame it on the drugs?”

“I went back for them the next day,” Roger looks like he’s on the verge of crying, “When I realized what I did-”

Freddie steps in, “He told me, after I punched him in the face. We went to the arena and turned every trash can inside out. But it was too late, they were gone.” Freddie is pleading, “We tried, Roger tried. He was just in a bad place.”

“And that makes it alright?” Deaky snorts.

“Please don’t tell her.” It’s all Roger can say, he can’t let her find that out. He can’t. And he knows Freddie won’t let it happen. Because Freddie was with him that night, when he smashed his drum set and destroyed everything in his hotel room.

“He won’t.” Freddie says finitely, turning to Deaky. “Will you, John?”

“No.” Deaky looks at Roger and Freddie. “But not because you asked me to, but because Liv doesn’t need you to break her heart a second time.” Deaky looks at Felix, “She can handle that fact that you moved on, that you settled down. She can be happy for you.” Deaky gulps his tea down. “But she won’t forgive you when she finds out, that you threw out something out of hers that was the last thing she had of her dad.”

“Thank you.” Roger says quietly. Freddie mouths a thank you to Deaky but he doesn’t say a word. And Brian seems like he is trying to process the information.

“You got it Jimmy!” Liv has the record player in her hands, and Jimmy is carrying the records. She sets up the record player in the hallway. She puts on the record, and Hank Williams voice floats through Garden Logde. And the three of them, with Felix in Rogers arms watch as Liv and Jimmy fight a fit of giggles as they dance.

“I did it cause I remember what that looked like.” Deaky says pointing to Liv twirling Jimmy around in her arms. “Maybe that morning you woke up, you remembered it too.”

#roger taylor imagine #roger taylor x reader #queen imagines #roger taylor x y/n #roger taylor angst #ben hardy! roger taylor #ben hardy as roger taylor #ben hardy x reader #queen fanfiction #roger taylor

45 notes · View notes

neo-culture-mafia · 5 years ago

Text

II.

I got a million trillion things that I'd rather fuckin' do

He sat across the girl he was forced to go out with and waste money to buy her dinner. She was short of an average girl and nothing clicked between both of them. He dressed in a nice suit, hair done up and she showed up in stained sweatpants and knotty hair. He wasn't one to judge without knowing the full story, but once she straight up told him she didn't care how she looked or...smelled...he let the judgements run rampant in his mind.

The food came and he already wanted to run his own fork through his eye sockets from the way she had spaghetti sauce all over face; the chunk of tomato on top of her brow bone staring him down for what felt like eternity.

"So...uh...what do you like to do?" He asked, trying to be nice and trying to atleast enjoy some of his already ruined night. He could've been doing anything right now, but here he was on a blind date with Chenle's cousin. "I like taking things apart." She licked her lips, shoving a finger in her ear and wiggling it around before wiping it on the wine red tablecloth.

"Like...cars?" He mumbled, kind of awaiting the next thing that came out of her mouth. To soften the blow, he downed his wine quickly.

"No...animals-"

"CHECK, please."

I heard you got a new man, I see you takin' a pic, Then you post it up thinkin' that it's making me sick

He was always told to not date within the family (not the Alabama kind) because it would only relate to tension once it didn't work out...boy does Renjun wish he would've listened in the first place.

His once lover was now his own enemy...and she slept less than 200 feet away from him in the next apartment.

She knew what got to him; thinking that flaunting her new man would piss him off. Spoiler, it didn't. Yet, the never ending lewd sounds coming through his bedroom wall did piss him off.

Word around the complex is that she's only doing this to win him back, but, he's already cut all emotional connection to her and her stank ass cooch.

The time was 3:24 AM. He has literally tried all positions of falling asleep; holding his pillow over his head was his only chance of ending the never-ending moans from his ex's apartment.

Once smacking on the wall began, he knew he couldn't sit here anymore. He was losing his own shut-eye to the nasty ass couple next door.

He got up, not skipping a beat as he went to the kitchen and got a bucket; ice and water quickly filling the inside.

His steps were weighted as he whipped his door open and automatically laying his foot through the other door when it came into sight.

The moans stopped for a moment but began again until the bedroom door was whipped open. He saw red as his arm launched the ice water; bucket and all towards the sweaty bodies.

"Shut the fuck up. Everyone is trying to sleep." He yelled, walking back out the front door and to the comfort of his now silent bedroom.

Say you want me to win, but hope I lose

He's had his fair share of toxic relationships. From try to hook up with his best friend to keying his car and dipping with his wallet.

Yet, nothing compares to when his now-ex tried to kill him. Not even try to conceal it but she just went straight for it.

Didn't even try to hide it and she didn't even have the right information.

He was making dinner for both of them; his heart content on imagining doing this for the rest of his life. "Sweetie, it's almost done!" He yelled out of the kitchen and he watched her stand up from the couch.

He started to plate everything, expecting her to be sitting at the kitchen counter, ready to eat his delicious meal. Yet, when he turned around to put the pan in the kitchen sink, he was met with a gun barrel pointed directly at him.

He just sighed, tossing the pan into the sink; the sizeable dent still there to this day. "I can never just have a cute love story." He untied his apron, his flannel coming down his torso once again.

"You're so stupid." She chuckled, both hands coming up to help her aim better. "And how is that?" He questioned, hands coming up as if he was surrendering to her insane mind.

"Once you're gone. This." She motioned with her gun to the house. "The house, the base, the army. Is mine." Her evil smile was just unsettling, not even a good one.

"...I don't think you understand how this works..." He chuckled. "I'm an elite soldier...not a boss...I'm not a hierarch elite...if I die..." He was actually laughing at this point. "You don't get shit."

Her smile faltered as renjun crossed his arms over his chest. "Then...then...I'll take out Taeyong...and then it will be min-" "There's an underboss for a reason...we actually have two...then it would go to Mark...then Yuta...then Sicheng...then it goes down the ranks." He shook his head.

"Well...where do you fall?" She asked, her gun now at her side. He shrugged. "15th or 16th. Somewhere around there." He said nonchalantly.

"So...have fun with that information." He rolled his eyes, turning on the water for the pan to start soaking.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" Her voice was confused and he chuckled. "Cause you're not leaving this apartment alive. And besides...if you threaten me with a gun...make sure the safety is off." He shook his head, leaning on the counter and pulling himself up.

"Huh-" -smack. She laid passed out on the kitchen floor, a sizeable puddle of blood becoming a growing mess.

"Oh no my food is getting cold."

I got a new chick that I gotta thank God for

"Renjun, let's go!" Jeno screamed, hopping out of the blacked out car and sprinting down the street full of people.

Renjun dropped his drink and started running, ripping his disguise shirt off to reveal a bullet proof vest and the usual tactical uniform.

The mission had just gone wrong and now they were running for their lives.

"Chenle. Back up van on third street. Now." Renjun let go of the mic button and looked behind him, trying to find the once-target and his goons that we're just chasing them.

SMACK!

Renjun was now on the ground, rolling with someone else.

It ended with Renjun on top, ready to punch the shit out of what he thought was the target...ending up being the most beautiful girl he has ever seen.

A cut was right up above your eyebrow and you were trying to focus on what was on top of you. "Geez...you could atleast take me out to dinner first." You laughed and he looked back, seeing the men catching up.

"uh-i gotta go." He stood up but you were being dragged. Your bracelet was caught on his bullet proof vest.

He picked you up by your arms and linked your hands. "Don't talk. Don't ask questions. Run." Was all he said and he heard Jeno yell at him to hurry up.

You didn't waste any time and just followed, your chain bracelet starting to break from the constant tugging.

Chenle's van pulled up at the end of the street and Jeno was already in the back, his hand out to grab Renjun and you who was forced to tag along.

"Jump." And the next thing you know, you were both in the back of the van, speeding off on the road.

"Wow I have to get in shape." You groaned, chest heaving in and out quickly.

You sat up on the floor of the van to see 2 rows of boys just staring back at you.

"'sup." You head nodded and only some responded.

"I don't think this was in protocol. Is there a chapter for this in the handbook-" "Ji...calm down." The boy you were stuck to said. "I ran into-" "y/n." You responded and you could see a small smile work onto his lips as his head was down and trying to break you guys apart. "I ran into y/n...and we got stuck. I just picked her up and ran." The boy shrugged.

You looked around and saw guns and computers. "You guys cops or something?" You asked and someone from the driver seat spoke up. "Something." He said and you nodded. "Well...that's dope."

"Where can we drop you off?" The boy asked and you shrugged. "Anywhere. I just roam so I'll find my house eventually." You smiled and he nodded slowly.

You watched as you were taken through multiple back roads until the van suddenly stopped and the back doors opened. "Well it was nice meeting you all." You said as you crawled to the back doors, getting out quickly.

Renjun smiled, setting his hand down on the floor and it landing on a piece of paper.

He turned it over

'call me sometime, 010 xxx-xxx-xxxc :))'

He looked up to see your timid smile and Jaemin staring at you. "You're kinda cute. My name is Jae. But you can call me your other half." Jaemin sent his hand out for a handshake.

Renjun wanted to punch Jaemin in the side but was highly satisfied when he watched you look at the awaiting hand and started to close the back doors yourself.

"I ain't fuckin' with you."

#nct #nct mafia au #nct 127 #nct mafia #nct dream #nct renjun #nct dream renjun #huang renjun #nct huang renjun #renjun #nct imagine #nct dream mafia #nct dream jisung #nct dream reactions #nct dream jaemin #kpop mafia au #kpop mafia

140 notes · View notes

prairiesongserial · 3 years ago

Text

14.10

Friday left John sitting on the trailer steps. She felt queasy, which was annoying. She hadn’t had that much to drink. She was beginning to feel annoyed by her sequined dress, too, which forced her to walk like a lady. She had chosen it for the campfire because the firelight reflected in every sequin, drawing the eye and holding it as a hundred little shimmering fires moved with the contour of her body. Friday looked fucking good in this dress. So of course she had chosen to spend her night stumbling through the dark alone, where no one could appreciate it.

Friday eventually found Johannes’s trailer. The door was locked, but that was hardly a deterrent. Friday slipped a couple of pins out of her blond wig and set to work on the lock. As she felt around inside the lock, she stared at the gold-painted, rhinestone-decorated box no bigger than her thumb nailed at an angle to the doorframe. The trailers that people slept in had them, while the others didn’t. The last pin in the lock set, and Friday opened the door.

She felt around in the dark for the pull-chain that would turn on the light, letting the door close behind her. The wood floor creaked under her feet. Her fingers met the chain, finally, but it slipped through several times before Friday managed to get a hold on it. She pulled it, and the trailer lit up.

“What a mess,” she muttered, seeing the stacks of paper on the table and the piles of dirty dishes on the floor. She wasn’t sure what she should be looking for, amid the mismatched chests of drawers, the wood crates, and the clothes and costumes flung over every surface. She walked slowly around the table in the center of the trailer, taking everything in. It was made of heavy, sturdy wood, and took up so much space that there were places where Friday had to turn and side-step just to squeeze through.

Friday almost didn’t notice the bunk beds built into the wall, half-hidden behind a brocade curtain. Friday pulled the curtain aside. The bottom bunk, of all the surfaces in the trailer, had the most costumery piled on. Including shoes. Friday carefully stepped onto the first rung of the ladder. There was an instrument case at the foot of the top bunk, and precarious stacks of books took up half the sleeping space. Friday hadn’t realized that Ezra slept here, too. Judging by the size of the bunk beds, the brothers had been sharing this trailer since they were kids.

Friday sighed softly, and drew the curtain back into place. Val couldn’t have been a better accomplice if the two of them had planned it this way, but Friday had a sour taste in her mouth as she rifled through the papers on the table. She needed to focus. She needed some real proof that Johannes was slimy, but if it was here, it was buried under hand-written receipts for the drums of oatmeal and rice that made up most of the circus’s diet.

Friday tried to read some of the papers, but it was slow going, and none of them seemed to be anything special - not worth the time lost to sound out the words she didn’t know. From her own experience in show business, she recognized the set lists and bookkeeping, and could safely put those aside. The diagrams of how to lay out the different tents and attractions were also self-explanatory. Not everything was in English. Some papers had notes in the margins written in an alphabet she’d never seen before, while some papers were written only in that other language. She half-remembered a conversation where Johannes had told her it wasn’t German.

Friday stepped back from the table, a headache already coming on. She couldn’t read fast enough. Val would have been able to skim through the receipts and lists and find what they needed - if it was even there to find. There was a good chance Johannes knew better than to write personal or sensitive notes in English.

Friday looked around the room, feeling increasingly nervous as the seconds ticked by. She wouldn’t know what she was looking for until she found it, but in that case, where to look? Friday started going through the wooden crates, which were mostly full of costumes that the circus clearly hadn’t found the room to store anywhere else. One crate had a crystal ball in the bottom, and it loudly rolled from one side to the other as Friday dug through the junk surrounding it. This was completely hopeless. Friday stuffed the costumes back into their crates, out of breath.

She should have talked to Enis. If someone had messed with the hitch that connected the trailer to the truck, Enis would have been able to tell her exactly what she was looking for. What type of wrench she would find hidden in Johannes’s pillow, for instance. Friday paused in the middle of picking a leopard-print leotard off the floor. Slowly, she placed the leotard back in its crate before marching back over to the bunk beds and throwing the curtain aside.

Friday checked the pillow. There was no wrench, but as she shook the pillow case, a black leather book fell out and landed between Friday’s feet. Cautiously, as if the little book could bite her, Friday stooped to pick it up.

She flipped through. At first, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. It wasn’t a journal; the entries had been typeset by machine. Each entry in the book had space for handwritten comments, and Johannes had used the space liberally - in the other alphabet, of course. Friday flipped back and forth through the unusual address book, letters blurring by. It looked like a list of contacts in the various cities the circus performed. She flipped backwards past Rushforth Family Company: R.F. 13. Alabama. If Friday could have read Johannes’s notes, the book might have been worth spending time on.

Friday was about to close the book when a piece of paper fell to the floor. A photograph had worked itself loose from where Johannes had crammed it between two pages. Friday knelt to pick it up.

It was a picture of a young woman, eighteen or nineteen. The camera had caught her in the middle of turning away, but the expression of amusement on her face was clear. She was dressed for the circus in over-elaborate layers of patterned silk, with bangles on her wrists. Her hands were photographed as blurs of motion, as if the girl was caught mid-gesture. But it was an unusual gesture, the girl’s open palm falling away in an arc from the side of her face.

“Johannes!” yelled a voice just outside the trailer, scaring Friday out of her mind. She dropped the photograph and book, and scrambled to pick them both up and return them to Johannes’s pillow.

“We know you’re in there, come play with us,” sing-songed another voice, and the first laughed.

Friday rolled her eyes and stayed low. She listened as they made their circuit of the trailer, tapping obnoxiously on the curtained windows, before they staggered away over the pebbles. It was a good reminder to hurry up. She had to be out before Johannes left the woods, not before he decided to turn in for the night. As soon as Johannes was clear of the trees, he would see his trailer conspicuously lit in the darkness.

It was tempting to take the address book she had just stuffed back into Johannes’s pillow and go. It was the only personal item she had managed to find - the only item that was clearly more important than the rest of the papers left in haphazard stacks. If she only had a few hours to go through it with Val, maybe it would give her some insight into the circus, some clue to the bigger picture. But she doubted the address book contained what Friday really wanted - proof that Johannes had tampered with the trailer hitch. Which meant it wasn’t worth taking the book and risking Johannes finding it missing.

Friday had to go. She’d spent too much time reading receipts for oatmeal, and staying any longer would be really pushing her luck. Friday pulled herself up from the floor, bracing her hand on the table. The table jangled softly.

“Shit,” Friday said. She gripped the edge of the table and gave it a shake, sending papers sliding down all four sides onto the floor. The table jangled again. She didn’t have time for this. She started to feel around the underside of the table, walking around the length twice, hunched over, wasting seconds.

Finally, she felt it. Pushing up on the underside of the table, one little six inch section of wood moved up with her hands. She felt for the trick to open the hidden door, her heart pounding in her ears as she tried to guess how long she’d been in Johannes’s trailer. Half an hour? Forty-five minutes? How much time was he going to spend in the woods with Val?

Finally, Friday found the nail holding the door up. She pushed up on the door so she could push the nail in, freeing the door to fall down on its hinge and spill the compartment’s contents onto the floor. There was a metallic clatter as fistfuls of stolen gold and silver rings hit the floor and rolled in all directions. Friday was already scrambling to pick them all up, swearing to herself, before she’d even registered that something else was sitting on the floor under the table. Friday crawled under, careful of her head, and picked it up.

It was a heavy piece of iron, bent in the shape of an L. It wasn’t any longer than Friday’s finger.

Friday turned it over in her hands.

Wherever it was, Johannes had been hiding it where it clearly didn’t belong. This wasn’t like the black book and the photograph tucked inside. Keeping something in your pillowcase meant it was secret, yes, but secret because it was valuable. This piece of metal wasn’t valuable. It wasn’t a stolen ring that needed to be kept discreet until it could be fenced a couple of towns away. If this nondescript piece of iron was hidden, instead of sitting in plain sight with the costumes, receipts, and crystal balls, that meant something. It would be pretty easy to find out if this thing was what she thought it was.

The longer Friday turned the L-shaped iron over in her hands, the more nervous she felt. She didn’t feel any triumph that she had been right. Val was alone in the woods with Johannes right now.

Friday swallowed. She felt queasy again.

Friday didn’t have any pockets; she slipped the cold metal into her brassiere and set to work on getting the rings back into the secret compartment. When that was done, she rushed to pile the fallen papers back onto the table. She could hear phantom footsteps on the creaky wooden steps that led up to the trailer door as she worked, painfully aware that there was only one door in or out of the trailer. If she took too long, there would be nowhere to go.

Still catching her breath, Friday peered out one of the windows. She didn’t see anyone, though the trailer’s doorstep was tantalizingly just out of sight. She’d have to trust that no one was there.

Friday pulled the chain hanging from the ceiling, and the light went out. She opened the door of the trailer, and casually walked down the steps as if she were supposed to be there. But no one was around. Friday was met by nothing more sinister than the night as she walked further from the fire, toward a different trailer still hitched to its truck.

14.9 || epilogue 14

#story

2 notes · View notes

random-thought-depository · 4 years ago

Text

@multiheaded1793, continuing from my response to this, I wrote up some alternate history scenarios for the 2020 election to illustrate to you how I think this sort of discourse would be happening in multiple very different scenarios. I think there’s only one scenario that centrist liberals wouldn’t interpret as vindication of their beliefs, and that’s a huge Dem win with a leftist like Sanders at the top of the ticket (a resounding democratic leftist victory is the one experience that’s incompatible with their beliefs about politics!).

It would have been more elegant to just tag you about this, but for some reason I can’t.

These aren’t “proper” alternate history scenarios, e.g. the Sanders victory scenario is “worked backward” to give a final result that’s basically just like OTL, cause the “joke” of the scenario is that the result is basically exactly the same but it’s interpreted differently because it’s Sanders at the top of the ticket instead of Biden. I think “realistically” a Sanders victory scenario would be more different. Or maybe not; one possible interpretation of the 2020 election is elections are very deterministic and it basically doesn’t matter who the candidates are, in which case if we could see a Sanders victory world we might indeed be shocked by how similar their election results maps are to ours.

I hope I didn’t make any silly mistakes. It’s hard to remember and keep track of the twists and turns of this election and the complexities of the United States’s kludgey spaghetti-coded election system! This is why I prefer writing science fiction: there’s less of a chance of getting something wrong!

Anyway, I hope you’ll find these entertaining if nothing else. Warning, this is kind of long.

Resounding Biden victory world:

The point of divergence that leads to this world is obscure. Perhaps it happened decades or centuries or even millennia ago. Whatever the differences are, for a long time they remained hidden in the vast but subtle sociological forces that do more to shape history than all the politicians, generals, philosophers, and prophets. It was only on November 3rd 2020 that these differences produced a manifestation on the flashy surface of politics, as a volcanic eruption might alert humanity to vast slow movements happening in the hot darkness deep within the Earth. On November 3rd 2020 the Democrats get the resounding victory and resounding repudiation of Donald Trump that they were hoping for.

The differences become obvious on election night. As in our world, there is a “red mirage” created by in-person voters favoring Republicans while mail voters favored Democrats, and this briefly creates the impression that the Republicans are doing surprisingly well, but with a much more lopsided vote this “red mirage” lifts much more quickly than in our world. Wisconsin and Michigan flip blue relatively early on election night, while swing state after swing state goes into the Biden-lead column: Arizona, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania ... Texas. Not long into election night Texas flips blue for the first time in two generations; when the news goes out on the TV a hundred million liberals cheer and a hundred million conservatives groan as it becomes obvious that the Republican Party is headed not merely toward defeat but toward a historic once-in-a-generation disempowerment and humiliation. Trump reacts predictably, going on TV to make baseless allegations that he is only losing because of massive voter fraud, but against the background of such a monumental defeat it seems more comical and pathetic than anything else. By the time the sun rises over the CONUS Atlantic coast on November 4th the election is basically all over except for the formalities.

In this world Joe Biden wins all the states he won in our world, and he also wins North Carolina, Florida, and Texas. He also wins one of Nebraska’s electoral votes (as in our world), and wins all four of Maine’s electoral votes (in our world he only won three of Maine’s four electoral votes). Trump still wins Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri, but they’re thin squeaker victories, instead of the comfortable margins of victory he enjoyed in those states in our world. The final electoral college count is Biden 389, Trump 149 (in our world it’s Biden 306, Trump 232). In the popular vote the election is a spectacular landslide blow-out, with over 85 million people voting for Biden while only a little over 50 million people voted for Trump (as of the count on 11/25/2020); Biden’s huge popular vote margin of victory doesn’t make any difference legally but it’s a nice solid symbolic repudiation of Trump.

The picture elsewhere is somewhat less spectacularly rosy for Democrats, the big story of this election being more repulsion toward Trump than repulsion toward Republicans in general. Still, the overall picture is very good for Democrats.

Doug Jones loses his seat in Alabama as he did in our world, but in this world Democrats pick up Senate seats in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, and Maine (in our world only Arizona and Colorado flipped to the Democrats). This gives the Democrats a net gain of four seats and a 51 seat majority, with a strong possibility of picking up the other Georgia Senate seat in the run-off election in January 2021. It’s a very thin majority, leaving them vulnerable to conservadem defections, but it’s probably about as good as could realistically be expected under the circumstances. In the House of Representatives the Democrats increase their majority to 243 seats (it was 235 seats after the 2018 “blue wave”); it wasn’t needed, but it’s nice to have. Democrat governors are elected in Vermont and New Hampshire (unlike in our world, where Republicans won those races). Perhaps best of all, the Democrats do well in the state legislature races, and that means they will control much of the next round of redistricting; the consequences of that may profoundly shape the political landscape in the future.

The most obvious discourse implication of this result is an apparent vindication of the Biden strategy of inoffensiveness and reaching out to affluent suburban centrist swing voters. The “Bernie can’t win, we need an electable moderate to take down Trump” people are feeling totally vindicated and credibly claiming credit for this huge victory and drawing lessons for the future that basically amount to “the strategy we advocated was clearly the correct one and we should keep doing it”; they think that if it had been Sanders at the top of the ticket the Democratic victory would have been much narrower or not happened at all. The 2020 election result map also suggests a new geography for the Democratic Party. While the blue wall held this time, in the context of this resounding Democrat victory it looks kind of Trumpy: Trump still won Ohio, Indiana, and Iowa (barely), the Democrat candidate lost the Senate race in Iowa, and Biden’s margins of victory in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania aren’t overwhelming. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has made huge inroads into the south on the strength of southern blacks, Latino/as, and highly educated affluent suburban white swing voters. Political analysts observe that Biden could have lost the Blue Wall and Texas and still narrowly won (with 304 electoral votes). The “recipe” for the huge Biden win was to get lots of non-white votes while peeling off suburban moderates. This strategy is likely to get more effective in the future as the non-white population grows and the country becomes increasingly educated. Put together, this suggests that the Democrat faction in the ascendance will the the moderate “identity politics” faction that wants the Democratic Party to be an economically centrist and institutionally moderate-reformist minority advocate party (think: the sort of people who unironically see “more black lesbian CEOs” as a significant metric of social improvement). On the uglier fringes, this shades into the idea that the Democratic Party doesn’t need those Trumpy culturally conservative poor white people and should just leave them to vote for Republican politicians and rot.

On the left flank, response is divided. Some think that Trump was so bad a potted plant with a smiley face could have won a huge victory against him so the actually existing huge Democratic victory means very little; they think a more leftist party with somebody like Sanders at the top of the ticket would have done even better (a favorite argument of theirs is to paint the mere 51 seat Democrat Senate majority as pathetic). Others think the moderates are probably right about their strategy being the most effective one; it’s hard to argue with spectacular tangible success.

On the Republican side of the aisle, Trump and his hard-core supporters are digging in their heels and claiming with no evidence that the Democrats only won because they cheated. In the other parts of the Republican party, there’s a lot of soul-searching and distancing themselves from Trump and rats fleeing the sinking ship. A decisive repudiation of Trump-style politics within the Republican Party seems likely.

The version of me that exists in this world really enjoyed election night. He bought a nice dinner for himself to celebrate and sat back and enjoyed watching the Republicans get what was coming to them. He has a fond memory of joyously yelling “HE’S BODIED! HE’S FIRED!” as Texas flipped blue. He was in a good mood for days after the election. He feels kind of conflicted about the wider implications of this election though. It sure will be nice to have Trump gone, and the decisive repudiation of Trumpism sure is nice, but... Joe Biden will have most of what he needs to be the next F.D.R., but will he want to be that? Probably not. He still wistfully thinks it would have been better if Sanders or Warren was up there: they might really do something with a once-in-a-century opportunity like this! He expects Biden and his centrist faction to more-or-less squander it. And he’s very much aware of what factions within the Democratic Party will reap a huge PR win from this victory, and he doesn’t enjoy thinking about it. He’s not looking forward to watching Kamala Harris’s inauguration speech in 2024. Still, this will be an opportunity for the left to build. Maybe if A.O.C. can primary Harris in 2024... And if it was Sanders or Warren at the top of the ticket they might have lost, so maybe this is the best that could realistically be hoped for. He’s decided that for now he’s just going to enjoy the beautiful knowledge that Donald Trump’s Presidency will end on January 20th 2021; the future can be worried about when it comes.

Narrow Sanders victory world:

The primaries:

Perhaps this world too was subtly different from ours long before the differences effected the flashy surface of politics, but the obvious point of divergence between this world and ours is Joe Biden unknowingly accidentally eating some contaminated food on February 23rd 2020 (the day after the Nevada caucuses). On the evening of February 23rd he becomes violently ill and is taken to a hospital, where he is diagnosed with a very serious case of food poisoning. His symptoms are severe and there is a tense period when his doctors are not sure he’ll survive. There’s a miscommunication somewhere along the line, and on the night of February 23rd a member of Biden’s staff tells a reporter he’s ready to leak a huge scoop: Joe Biden is dying. By the morning of February 24th the story has hit the presses.

Reports of Joe Biden’s imminent demise prove greatly exaggerated. Though Biden’s illness is severe, it passes quickly: by late morning on February 25th Biden has more-or-less recovered and is out of the hospital and being driven to an airplane that will take him to South Carolina, where he will hit the campaign trail, trying for that win he needs to save his floundering campaign. Still, the incident raises concerns about his health and age at the worst possible time. On February 29th Joe Biden gets the big win he needs in the South Carolina primary, but it’s not quite as big as in our world; the delegate count from South Carolina is this world is Biden 37, Sanders 17 (in our world it was Biden 39, Sanders 15). It is a portent of things to come. With the food poisoning incident raising concerns about Biden’s age and health, different political calculations are made, and Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar don’t sacrifice their Presidency ambitions to give Biden a clear shot at the nomination.

With Buttigieg and Klobuchar still in the race super-Tuesday is a bit of a muddle, instead of the clear Biden victory it was in our world. Sanders wins the west, manages a narrow plurality win in Texas, and manages a strong second or third place in many other states. The super-Tuesday map is rich with southern states where Biden’s conservative reputation and connections with the black community serve him well, and Biden does well. If Democratic primaries were winner-take-all Biden would have managed the sort of resounding victory he had in our world, but they are proportional, so Buttigieg and Klobuchar cut deep into his delegate share and he’s unable to top Sanders the way he did in our world. Amy Klobuchar gets a plurality win in her home state of Minnesota, and Klobuchar and Buttigieg do well in the northeastern states, allowing Sanders to claim plurality wins in all of them. After throwing an obscene mountain of money at the primaries, Michael Bloomberg performs disappointingly. Elizabeth Warren also performs disappointingly. Political analysts in this world see the big winners of super-Tuesday as Sanders and Biden. Biden has gone from floundering to being the clear front-runner among the moderates. Sanders doesn’t really perform all that much better than in our world, but with the moderate vote split he comes out of super-Tuesday the biggest winner, with a solid delegate lead and a good enough performance to look like a strong candidate.

A few days after super-Tuesday Michael Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren drop out of the race and Elizabeth Warren endorses Bernie Sanders. Sanders is the biggest winner from this, as the left flank of the Democratic Party now fully consolidates around him while the moderates remain divided.

The next round of primaries is March 10th. It’s again a muddle, which ultimately favors Sanders. Joe Biden wins big in Mississippi, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg do fairly well, and Sanders wins in Washington and manages a solid second or third place in most other places, which given the proportional nature of Democratic primaries means he continues to build a plurality delegate lead.

The Democrat machine politicians can see where this is going and don’t like it. They well remember what happened to their Republican counterparts in 2016, when a divided field helped their insufficiently house-trained disruptive outsider candidate win the nomination and ultimately the Presidency. They have no intention of letting the same story play out on the opposite side of the aisle in 2020. Having proved himself with his good performance on super-Tuesday, Joe Biden has re-established himself as the Democrat establishment’s favored candidate, and pressure is brought on Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg to drop out. In mid-March Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg suspend their campaigns and endorse Joe Biden.

Sanders and Biden head into their first one-on-one round on March 17. Biden wins big in Florida, while Sanders gets a modest majority of the vote in Illinois and consolidates his dominance of the west by winning in Arizona.

Meanwhile, COVID19 has been spreading as in our world. By mid-March cities all over the country are under shelter-in-place orders and the Democrats are scrambling to try to figure out how to manage a still very competitive primary election in the middle of a once-in-a-century plague year. Then, in late May, the next punch comes; George Floyd dies as he did in our world, and as in our world his death catalyzes a huge eruption of protest and civil unrest.

The whole thing feels queasily mystical. It is as if someone Upstairs thought the Donald Trump Presidency wasn’t as exciting as they’d hoped it would be and tweaked the parameters of the simulation to make 2020 an Interesting Times speed run. Donald Trump seems to only become more vicious and delusional as he presides over a country increasingly riven with civil unrest and fully under the power of the coronavirus. The streets are eerily quiet, like tombs, when they are not increasingly filled with protest and rage and violence. Bernie Sanders is claiming dominion over the Democratic Party and seems poised to do for the left what Donald Trump did for the right. Opinions are divided about exactly how that last thing feels queasily mystical. Is it the light rising to challenge the growing darkness? Or is the horseman of socialism riding with the horseman of plague and the horseman of civil strife? Whatever value judgments one makes about what’s happening, it seems that the old order is being pummeled from many directions simultaneously and is being driven to its knees. Or perhaps it is dying in the way an AIDS patient might die; killed by half a dozen secondary infections that are all fundamentally consequences of the same disease.

With Klobuchar and Buttigieg out of the race Biden surges. In the later one-on-one primaries against Sanders, Biden usually either wins or comes in a strong second. Biden is particularly strong in the south; he wins big in almost every southern state. Many are surprised by the strength of Biden, who many had previously dismissed as an uncharismatic doddering old man who seemed to struggle to string together coherent sentences. However, unlike in our world, in this world Sanders looks like a winner, so many fence-sitters who voted for Biden in our world vote for Sanders in this world, so Biden is unable to dominate the later primaries the way he did in our world.

The final Democratic primary debate in April looks much like it did in our world: two old men in a mostly empty room; an elbow-bump instead of a handshake because they don’t want to risk coronavirus infection by getting close to each other. It’s a test of how well the notoriously gaffe-prone Biden will do in a one-on-one debate, and he passes that test fairly well, allaying fears that he may have some sort of age-related cognitive decline. Biden’s promise to choose a woman as his Vice President is a clever bit of political maneuvering; Sanders is clearly unprepared for it and struggles to respond gracefully. The only big difference is the mostly unstated background knowledge of who is winning and who is losing. In this world Sanders comes into the April debate fresh from an unspectacular but fairly solid win in the Wisconsin primary.

With neither candidate able to dominate the race the Democratic primary remains competitive into June in this world. Biden gains on Sanders, but is unable to overtake him. Political pundits speculate that Sanders has an unfair advantage: he has an ally in the coronavirus: Biden’s vulnerable older supporters stay home in fear of the coronavirus, while Sanders’s younger and less vulnerable supporters go to the polls without fear.

In early June, Joe Biden and Democrat machine politicians face a choice. Biden can stay in the race to the bitter end. Maybe he can overtake Sanders, reach the magic 1,991 delegates, and go into the Democratic convention the unquestionably fair-and-square winner with a clear majority. Or if he can’t do that, he can still try to win on the conventional floor. Klobuchar’s and Buttigieg’s state-level delegates will be proportionately redistributed between him and Sanders, but their district delegates will be in free play and, with the blessings of Klobuchar and Buttigieg, will almost certainly back Biden. Biden can likewise probably expect the superdelegates to side with him. If it comes to convention floor politics Biden will probably easily crush Sanders. It will all be perfectly legally correct. It can even be credibly argued to be the will of the people; everyone knows Sanders is only winning because the moderate vote was split. But does the Democrat establishment dare alienate Sanders’s supporters this way, when they are going into one of the greatest political fights of the twenty-first century against Donald Trump? A long, bruising primary that drags into July may harm the party in the general election. And they know that inside Sanders’s clothing there is more than a man: there is the human mascot and spear-tip of a movement. Biden gaining the nomination through convention floor political maneuvers may be perfectly legally correct, but it takes no great political genius to see Sanders’s supporters will not see it that way; they will see it as their hero being undemocratically cheated out of his victory by a dirty trick. There is a great fear that if this course of action is taken Joe Biden’s 2020 nomination will go down in history as the twenty-first century equivalent of Hubert Humphrey’s 1968 nomination. And there’s also a real fear that a Sanders defeat by convention floor political maneuvers might trigger an eruption of violence as Sanders’s fanatical supporters respond by violently rioting in the streets. The fact that Sanders is so popular with the young, relevantly with fighting age men, starts to assume an ominous dimension in these speculations.

The last competitive primary happens on June 9th. Biden wins big in Georgia, while Sanders gets a surprisingly big win in West Virginia. The day after that, Joe Biden and top-level Democrat machine politicians make a decision. It is perhaps the most important decision of Joe Biden’s life. They will make a sacrifice for party unity in the face of Donald Trump. On June 11th 2020, Joe Biden goes on TV, announces that he is suspending his campaign, endorses Bernie Sanders, and urges party unity in the face of Trump. Immediately afterward, Klobuchar, Buttigieg, and Bloomberg also endorse Bernie Sanders.

The general election:

In August, it is announced that Elizabeth Warren has been chosen to be Sanders’s Vice President if he wins. There is speculation that there was a deal made to get her to drop out and endorse Sanders in March and this was the reward she was promised, though she is a logical choice in important ways. She has name recognition, has similar politics to Sanders while being somewhat younger than him (unusually important in this election because Sanders is so old and is an “outsider” candidate; he will need somebody who can pick up the torch from him if he dies in office, or in 2024 when he’ll be in his 80s), has a cooler and more analytical intelligence that compliments Sanders’s charisma, and may be attractive to some voters who are less enthusiastic about Sanders.

On August 17-20 the Democratic National Convention formally nominates Bernie Sanders as the Democratic Presidential candidate for 2020.

The mood among liberals going into the general election is tenser and less confident than in our world. Sanders has a lead over Trump in most polls, but the polls don’t look as good for the Democrats as they did in our world. And Sanders, a man who openly calls himself a socialist, a man who said something nice about something Fidel Castro did and dug in his heels when called in it, is a candidate who naturally inspires electability worries. Many liberals are convinced the Democratic Party has collectively made a terrible mistake, and hope they are wrong.

The first Sanders-Trump debate is on September 29th, and it’s the same kind of spectacle the first Biden-Trump debate was in our world. The highlight (or perhaps lowlight) is Trump making a “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by” statement which many interpret as a call to stand ready to act as brownshirts on his behalf. Some moderates have a vague idea that a Biden-Trump debate might have been somehow more dignified and Presidential, some leftists chuckle about how if it was Biden up there he’d probably have soiled his pants in the middle of the debate or something, the general sentiment among everyone to the left of Mitt Romney is simply that Trump lived down to their worst expectations.

The Vice Presidential debate between Mike Pence and Elizabeth Warren on October 7th is a note of normality: they actually sound like normal politicians instead of like two old men having a Thanksgiving table argument about politics while the rest of the family wishes they’d quiet down. There’s a 2020 touch when a fly rests on Mike Pence’s head for a few minutes.

In the final Sanders-Trump debate they put in a mute button to stop Trump from interrupting so much, and it’s actually a huge favor to Trump, disciplining him into actually being an actually not bad debater.

Election night and after:

The mood among liberals going into election night is tenser and less optimistic than in our world. There’s no confident expectation of a big blue wave and a resounding repudiation of Trumpism, and there’s a lot of fear that Sanders is simply unelectable and he will drag down the down-ballot with him.

Election night seems to confirm the worst. Swing state after swing state goes into the Trump-lead column, and aside from a couple of wins in the west the Senate race picture looks bleak for the Democrats. It looks like Trump will win Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania. Sanders’s margins of victory in crucial swing states are mostly tighter, so it takes longer for the “red mirage” to lift. One of the few bright spots for the Democrats is Arizona, which is a sour note for Donald Trump; at this point he’s mostly confident of victory, but losing Arizona is a humiliation, and Donald Trump hates being humiliated. Late in election night, Donald Trump goes on TV and makes a confident victory speech. He has some worries about the red mirage though, so in typical Trump fashion he follows his confident declaration of victory by claiming that the Democrats are committing voter fraud on a massive scale and trying to steal the election, and he says that the vote counts should stop. A defiant Sanders goes on TV and reassures his supporters that there are many voters yet to be counted, and then goes on the attack, saying Trump is blatantly trying to steal the election. He also says something that some interpret as a call for his supporters to riot if his victory is stolen from him, giving the left its own version of Trump’s “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by” scandal.

There’s a lot of tension in a lot of mixed-generation liberal households on election night, as older, more cautious and moderate liberals quietly or not so quietly blame the youngsters for the disaster they believe is unfolding in front of them. “This wouldn’t have happened with Biden or Mayor Pete or Klobuchar,” they think, “How did you expect middle America to react to a guy who calls himself a socialist and defends Fidel Castro? We told you this would happen!” The election picture most liberals go to bed with that night is bleak.

In the last dark pre-dawn hours of November 4th the red mirage finally begins to lift. Wisconsin flips to Sanders-lead. By late morning on November 4th Michigan has also flips to Sanders-lead. Millions of older liberals who went to bed blaming the Berniebros for four more years of Donald Trump check the news and breathe a sigh of surprised relief: it’s not much but maybe Bernie did have what it takes after all; he managed something he needed to do, something Hillary Clinton failed to do: he held the blue wall! All eyes now turn to Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania actually flips somewhat earlier than in our world, to the absolute jubilant delight of young liberal “Berniebros,” the cautious relief of their liberal elders, and the disappointment or outrage or terror of a hundred million conservatives. Not long afterward, a surprise: Georgia flips to Sanders-lead too. It’s a real squeaker, even tighter than Biden’s Georgia win in our world, and Sanders would have won without it, but it’s a pleasant surprise for liberals.

With the election basically all over but the formalities Sanders makes his formal victory speech, with raucous cheers from enthusiastic supporters. In contrast to the almost therapeutic victory speech Biden gave in our world, Sanders’s victory speech is darker, angrier. The speech has its hopeful and conciliatory notes, but the general thrust of its message is that Sanders intends to fight for the ordinary American and his fight has just begun.

Sanders’s victory is greeted with an outpouring of joy and celebration by his often young supporters. Most liberals are happy just to get rid of Trump. Many moderate liberals aren’t really looking forward to what they see as another four years of an obnoxious angry extremist in the White House, but at least Sanders isn’t evil. On the right the mood ranges from grumpy disappointment to ... dark. There’s a significant number of people who are under the sincere impression that Sanders is basically Lenin and the relationship between him and Antifa is similar to the relationship between Hitler and the Blackshirts.

So far the much-feared Trumpist brownshirts seem to be a paper tiger; there have been some rowdy protests but no serious violence. Lots of people are very fervently hoping things stay that way.

Somewhere there’s an immigrant from China who’s old enough to remember the Cultural Revolution and is very, very frightened. She doesn’t follow politics much but she’s heard that Bernie Sanders is a communist and she’s got just the right mix of garbled information about him filtered through her Fox News watching neighbors to be very alarmed. It’s starting here too! It’s all starting again! She’s trying to give her family a crash-course in how to survive in a communist dictatorship, but they’ve never known anything but freedom and don’t seem to be taking her very seriously, which is frustrating and heartbreaking to her; “they don’t realize these things will soon be matters of life and death!”

Comparing the election results in our world and in this world, most people would be struck by how similar they look, how little difference the top of the ticket made.

Compared to Biden, Sanders did better in the west but worse in the south. He did worse with affluent moderates and center-rightists and better with liberals and poor people. He did worse with blacks but better with Latino/as. He actually has a bigger popular vote win than Biden, mostly because he creates greater enthusiasm in liberal areas such as California, but his margins of victory in swing states are mostly tighter. Sanders didn’t poll as well as Biden in the lead-up to the election, but he also did not underperform expectations in the same way; Sanders supporters tend to be the sort of people who don’t answer polls much. Compared to Biden, Sanders’s success relied less on peeling off swing voters and more on bringing in politically disengaged people; the sort of people who don’t answer polls much, don’t trust or like the talking heads on TV, usually don’t vote, and are usually poorer and less formally educated than the conventional electorate. In short, the “dark horse” Sanders voter looks a lot like the “dark horse” Trump voter.

In short, compared to Biden, Sanders has a rather Trumpy profile, and his winning strategy looks kind of like a sort of left-wing mirror of Trump’s 2016 winning strategy: super-charge the base, draw in some politically disengaged people, rely on partisan tribalism to fill in the gaps, with this build the sort of narrow winning coalition that can just manage to defy conventional political wisdom and propel an “extreme, outsider” normally “unelectable” candidate into office.

Sanders won the same states Biden won in our world. His margins of victory are bigger in Arizona and Pennsylvania but smaller in Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia. Sanders didn’t win that one electoral college vote in Nebraska, which in this world went solidly to Trump, so his electoral college total is slightly smaller than Biden’s.

In the Senate, the picture is broadly similar to our world, though with some differences. Warren and Sanders were both Senators from states with Republican governors who would have the responsibility of appointing their replacements if Sanders became President. The governor of Vermont agrees to appoint a Democrat-aligned independent to replace Sanders if he wins (much as he did in our world), but the governor of Massachusetts intends to appoint a Republican to replace Warren. However, the Democrats did get one stroke of luck in this world that they didn’t get in ours: the Democrat Senate candidate won in Iowa; this saves Warren from going down in history as having cost the Democrats a Senate majority by accepting the Vice Presidency post. Other than this the Senate picture looks basically just like in our world. This puts the Democrats in a somewhat better position than in our world, as there will be a special election for Warren’s Senate seat in 2021 that is likely to elect a Democrat, but the Senate majority is going to come down to two run-off races in Georgia, just like in our world. The House races went a little worse for the Democrats than in our world: as of 11/25/2020 the Cook Political Report calls the House as 220 Democrats, 213 Republicans, and 2 uncalled races (in our world it’s 222 Democrats, 210 Republicans, and 3 uncalled races). Likewise, the governor’s races went the same way they went in our world, except that the Republican also won the governor’s race in North Carolina (in our world, the Democrat won that race). And the state legislature races are the same depressing picture as in our world, so Republicans will control much of the next round of redistricting.

The post-election discourse:

Of course, people in this world cannot compare their election results with ours and see how similar they are. They can only speculate about what our world might look like, just as I can only speculate about what their world might look like. And speculate they do.

Many centrist, moderate, and “pragmatist” Democrats think they know exactly who’s to blame for the Democrat’s disappointing performance: Sanders, and by extension the primary voters who put him at the top of the ticket. How could a President be as bad as Trump was, get 250,000 U.S. citizens killed through incompetence, and then come so close to winning? How could so many people vote for such a person and for the politicians who did nothing to stop him and aided him? Well, maybe if the opposition party did something incredibly, mind-bogglingly stupid, like putting at the top of the ticket a guy who openly calls himself a socialist and who defends Fidel Castro... They are convinced that the election results look the way they do because Sanders turned off huge numbers of persuadable voters. They think the Berniebros took the perfect storm of conditions for a once-in-a-century huge Democrat victory that was 2020 and used it to get an ordinarily unelectable extremist into the White House, at an enormous opportunity cost to the rest of the party (and a little less luck and they’d have blown their own goal too and gotten everyone four more years of Trump!). They are convinced that if it were Biden or Klobuchar or Buttigieg at the top of the ticket the party would not be in this mess. Many of them are sure that the Democratic Party would have surged magnificently to crushing dominance of the Presidency and both branches of Congress, if only the Berniebros hadn’t insisted on burdening the party with a toxic albatross.

The predictable tweets and thinkpieces blaming the disappointing election results on Sanders have been written. The disappointing results in the south are blamed on Sanders’s inability to reach out to black people and persuadable white moderates. Somebody looks at exit polls, notices Trump seems to have improved his performance with everyone except white men (a pattern that exists in our world too), and multiple high-profile articles and blog posts are written blaming this on Sanders’s “class reductionism” and supposed insensitivity to the problems of everyone who isn’t a working class white man. The election map represents the Democratic Party turning away from its vibrant diverse future and doubling down on its decaying past as the party of “white working class” Midwesterners. The fact that non-white people still overwhelmingly voted Democrat and Sanders has many female and minority supporters is, of course, quietly soft-peddled in such analysis. The disappointing election results are blamed on the Democratic Party’s embrace of socialism, of Medicare For All, of “defund the police,” of BLM. Criticism that paints Sanders as “class reductionist” and insufficiently sensitive to the needs of women and minorities coexists happily with criticism that castigates the Democratic Party for embracing anything that makes affluent culturally conservative suburban white people uncomfortable.

Many leftists are, of course, convinced that the moderates have it all backwards and the Democrats would have gone down in epic humiliating defeat under Klobuchar or Buttigieg or, God, can you imagine; Biden. The closeness of the election just shows how badly the Democrats needed a leader like Sanders who could inspire people and had something real to offer; without him the Republicans would have wiped the floor with them; he saved the party from total defeat and ingratitude and backstabbing is his predictable reward, because liberals would rather lose to fascists than win with leftists. It just shows electoral politics is a waste of time anyway, watch 2024 when Warren gets primaried by Mayo Pete who then loses to Tom Cotton.

The version of me that exists in this world had a tense election night, breathed a cautious sigh of relief when he opened his computer and saw Wisconsin had flipped blue in the morning, breathed a bigger sigh of relief when Michigan followed it, and spent a week feeling good when Pennsylvania finally flipped for Sanders. It’s a far from ideal election result, of course, with Sanders’s power likely to be sharply constrained, but still, there’s a President who might really do some good! If nothing else, he thinks Sanders will be good at using the soft power of the Presidency to shift the Overton Window. He’s very excited that Sanders will be going to the White House.

#politics #election 2020 #alternate history

3 notes · View notes

reading-writing-revolution · 5 years ago

Text

From Heather Cox Richardson:

March 23, 2020 (Monday)

Hoo, boy, it’s been quite a Monday.

Members of the Senate continued to argue over the almost $2 trillion dollar coronavirus relief and stimulus package, with tempers running so high that the senators-- who were actually debating a piece of legislation, which hasn’t happened in a while-- yelled at each other. There are two visions at stake in the struggle. The Senate Republicans, who wrote their bill without input from the Democrats, are focusing on bailing out the corporations whose collapse in this crisis will crater the economy. The Democrats want to focus on the ordinary people hit with unemployment and illness, arguing that by providing funds for workers, as well as supporting hospitals and health care workers, the government will save lives as well as the economy.

A big sticking point is a $500 billion provision that would permit Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to dole out loans to corporations with very little oversight. The companies that took such loans would remain secret for six months after they tapped into the money. Republicans argue that this secrecy would keep the stock of such companies from dropping as people realized their financial straits. Democrats are leery of such secrecy—what would stop Mnuchin from handing out government largesse to Trump’s key supporters… or even to the president himself, whose hotels have been hard-hit by the pandemic? (Trump refused on Sunday to promise he would not take any federal aid.) “The American people don’t want another corporate bailout,” Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown said. “They don’t want a bailout for Wall Street. They don’t want a bailout for the airlines. They want money. If we’re going to do a relief package, the money needs to go in the pockets of workers.”

When asked about the provision allowing the Treasury to dole out this money without oversight, Trump said: “Look, I’ll be the oversight. I’ll be the oversight.”

The fight over this bill says a lot about the country’s changing politics. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has become accustomed to getting his way, and the fact that all but one Democrat (the exception was Alabama Senator Doug Jones) voted against the bill in a procedural vote (they were not actually voting on the bill itself), suggested that the Democrats were not going to cave to him. McConnell has taken to the media to charge Democrats with playing politics, but this admonition is rich, coming from McConnell. So, too, was his claim that the Democrats’ refusal to approve a bill they were excluded from writing was “the most outrageous behavior I’ve seen.”

Trump was nowhere to be seen in this struggle. Normally, presidents work to get their party’s legislation passed, making phone calls, talking to congress members. Trump has never done much of this, but now seems to have abandoned it altogether, focusing instead on his press briefings. For him, these seem to be replacing his rallies, and media outlets are grappling with how both to cover them and to prevent the dissemination of dangerous information as Trump overrides medical advisors to share his own gut sense of the crisis.

Meanwhile, Democrats in the House of Representatives have written their own massive stimulus bill. Covering more than 1400 pages, its summary reads like a campaign document, laying out Democratic priorities in contrast to those enumerated in the Senate coronavirus bill. It directs more than $2.5 trillion to health care, individuals, small businesses, unemployment compensation, food security, state and local governments, schools, and mail-in voting in the 2020 election.

Congress is eager to move things along as coronavirus infections have spread into their own ranks. Yesterday, we learned that Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) tested positive for coronavirus, but did not self-isolate while waiting for the test results. He met with colleagues, ate in the Senate lunchroom, exercised in the Senate gym, and worked on the Senate floor, thus exposing his colleagues to the virus. Many of the senators are older, and they or their family members fall into the most vulnerable categories for complications of Covid-19. They are angry enough at Paul’s irresponsibility—he’s a doctor, after all—that he felt obliged to explain that if he had actually followed the testing rules, he would not have been tested and would still be walking around among them. This is little comfort as the disease moves closer to them and those they know: Senator Amy Klobuchar’s (D-MN) law professor husband is in a Virginia hospital with coronavirus-related pneumonia. At least 31 members of Congress were self-isolating or sick before Paul’s diagnosis; his news added both of Utah’s Senators-- Mitt Romney and Mike Lee—to those self-isolating.

The stock market dropped again today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the day 583 points down, about 3%. The Federal Reserve tried to shore it up again by announcing it would buy a wide range of investments to inject more cash into the economy, but investors are crossing their fingers that Congress will pass a massive relief bill.

The U.S. now has more than 42,600 cases of coronavirus and at least 540 people have died. But while senior health officials insist we must continue to self-isolate to slow the pandemic here, Trump appears to be prioritizing the falling stock market (and perhaps his own shuttered hotels, including his prized Mar-a-Lago). Sunday night, he tweeted: “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF,” and then said today he might override the advice of the health professionals to end the lockdowns after just fifteen days and try to get the economy moving again. “Our country wasn’t built to be shut down,” he said today. “At some point, we’re going to be opening up our country. It’s going to be pretty soon.”

This idea is getting traction among Trump supporters. This evening, Larry Kudlow, Trump’s Director of the National Economic Council, was on the Fox News Channel saying “The president is right. The cure can’t be worse than the disease. And we’re going to have to make some difficult tradeoffs.” Just what those tradeoffs might be became clear when the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick told FNC personality Tucker Carlson Monday night that he thought there were “lots of grandparents” who would be “willing to take a chance on [their] survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren.” He went on: “I want to live smart and see through this, but I don’t want the whole country to be sacrificed. And that’s what I see.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and a voice of calm reason in this crisis, is not on board with Trump’s increasing flirtation with the idea that the country can abandon its isolation policies after fifteen days. Fauci was not at today’s press briefing, and while Trump brushed off his absence, there were signs today that he might be on his way out of his prominent role in combatting the coronavirus. Fauci has advised every president since Ronald Reagan and brings much credibility to Trump’s team, but he has corrected the president repeatedly in public, and his insistence that the coronavirus is more dangerous than Trump says is increasingly unwelcome.

In all my reading today, one thing jumped out. In an interview, Dr. Fauci pointed out that every president he has served, starting in 1984 with Reagan, has had to deal with epidemic disease: Zika, AIDS, SARS, Ebola, H1N1, MERS. Some have handled their crises better than others, but after Reagan botched the AIDS crisis, they have always prioritized public health so effectively that most of us have had the luxury of forgetting that we live under these grave threats.

No longer.

2 notes · View notes

star-anise · 6 years ago

Video

youtube

T1J - How Patience with People Makes the World Better

Summary: “People don't get "woke" overnight. Sometimes we have to be patient and help them get there.“

Transcript below:

Text on screen: Whenever you actually put together something that works, it’s always complicated. It’s always messy… it’s never what the little Twitter crowd is talking about.” -Van Jones

Sometimes it's hard to comprehend other people's ideas. We just can't imagine how and why some people believe the things they do. The correct view is so obvious to us and we either assume that people are just lost and will never change their mind or that we can somehow change their mind and convince them to do a complete mental 180. Both of these are possible, but neither really reflect how most people actually are people are. People are usually hesitant to flat-out admit that they were wrong but we can add nuance to someone's view by offering a different perspective. The problem is that we sometimes think people should naturally understand things in the same way that we do so, we're confused when they aren't very receptive to our ideas. If you're trying to teach your old racist grandma who grew up during Jim Crow about racial microaggressions, it's likely that she's not going to be eye to eye with you. (sarcastically:) Get it together grandma!

It's possible that it's a lost cause, but maybe you can find an alternate route towards getting her to understand. The fact of the matter is sometimes you have to meet people where they are rather than demanding that they catch up to you.

Hi, I'm T1J.

Speaking very generally, there are at least two types of social justice advocates on the internet. There are people who work with others to discuss effective solutions to the problems that society faces. And on the other hand there are people who don't seem to be really interested in actually solving problems, and just kind of want to express their frustration and call people out. Now in many ways that frustration is valid and justifiable, but in my opinion you shouldn't expect angry confrontation to lead to very much actual progress. But if you're just here to just sort of yell at people then carry on I guess. But this video isn't really for you. This video is for that first group: people that actually want to find solutions to both societal and personal conflicts.

I think a lot of us have this delusion that we're gonna convince other people to just suddenly wake up, like they're gonna have a light switch flipped in their brain overnight and come to realize that we were right all along, and then they'll join us on the frontline marching for freedom. And then we have this principled stubbornness where it's like, “Well, if they can't understand that they're wrong then fuck ‘em, the people who are right will win in the end anyway, they'll just have to be on the wrong side of history.” And it's true that some people have no interest in being informed or expanding their perspective but it's also true that some people just haven't been engaged properly. And I believe that the world seems to slowly get more progressive over time, but I feel like proper advocacy involves doing our best to make our world a little bit better for this generation, not just future ones, and that's got to involve getting out there and touching people's hearts and minds. But everybody is on a different step in their journey towards enlightenment. Some people need just a little nudge in the right direction while others probably need to be tossed a larger bone.

I'll toss YOU a larger bone. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

So for example a thing that you often hear is you should respect women because that woman is someone's mother or daughter or wife, etc and this is kind of obnoxious because it's like you should respect women because in addition to being wives and daughters and mothers they're also people and they don't deserve to be mistreated. Like, you shouldn't have to invoke familial relationship to a woman in order to understand why you shouldn't be shitty to them. And that is 100% true but if the goal is getting people to appreciate and respect women and an effective context in which we can convince people to do that is reminding them of their relationships with the women in their own family, I feel like you should take the small victory. Not everyone is going to gain a sophisticated insight overnight. Sometimes we have to let people use training wheels until they catch up and if we create this culture where anything less than perfection causes you to be dismissed and dragged regardless of your intentions, that just seems to be a very good way to alienate potential allies. Which, if your goal is progress is not what you want to be doing.

A couple months ago there was a viral video on Twitter of this guy who was protesting outside of a Roy Moore rally. By the way, shoutout to my home state of Alabama for not electing that creepy douchebag. But anyway this guy was protesting Roy Moore's homophobic remarks in honor of his gay daughter who had committed suicide. In the video he implies that at one point he didn't accept his daughter's homosexuality. (Man in video:) “I was anti-gay myself. I said bad things to my daughter myself, which I regret.” The video is very moving, in my opinion, and I'm kind of even getting emotional thinking about it, and it got a very positive response. But I did see a bunch of comments talking about how shitty it is that a gay person had to die before they were recognized as legitimate, and I mean, that's a fair point, but first of all: this is a grieving father, like back up for a minute. Secondly this guy has probably lived his whole life in a homophobic environment and it took something tragic to get him to reconsider his views. It's terrible that he had to go through that but he's on the verge of a breakthrough. This is not the time to antagonize him.

He's probably not going to be marching with rainbow flags anytime soon but he can share his story with his community and help bridge the gap. He could tell his friends to chill out when they're using homophobic slurs or making shitty jokes. He could be a friend to closeted people down at the farm in Wicksburg, Alabama. I don't know if he's gonna do any of these things; I'm just saying he's less likely to if we immediately dogpile him for not being woke enough.

So here's my thing: I understand that a lot of this is just wacky people on social media being mean just for the sake of doing it. One of the biggest lessons that I've learned is that Twitter doesn't necessarily reflect the actual state of our society and our movement in reality. But I do think that there's a notable segment of activists both on and offline who claim to want progress and change, but seem to be more concerned with dismissing people they deemed to be not on their level than they are with actually trying to help people get there. And like I said, if that's what you want to do, I think that's unfortunate but it's not really my place to tell you not to. I just don't think it does anything. In fact, it's probably actively harmful to the movement.

And again, some people clearly have no intention of engaging ideas in good faith or considering the possibility that they might be wrong about something, and it's actually important for us to develop the ability to identify when that's happening so we don't waste time arguing with brick walls. The willingness to open ourselves to new ideas is a step that we all have to take on our own. No one can force us to do that. But at the same time we can help people find their way to that door if we're a little more patient and take the time to meet them where they are in their path towards understanding.

Das jus me doe. What do you think?

Thank you for watching my video. I'm currently selling these Das Just Me Doe wristbands to help me raise money to buy a new computer so that I can edit videos without my old computer almost blowing up. If you'd like to check them out head on over to the the1janitor.com/wristband and I thank you for your support.

#my problems with sj let me show you them #good video tho

93 notes · View notes

unfortunatescn · 5 years ago

Photo

SINISTER KID, run to meet your maker.

OCTOBER 18TH, 2019. somewhere near the border of Louisiana & Alabama. TRIGGER WARNING: murder, blood, gun violence, gun shot wounds, mentions of eye gore, strangulation.

It felt like returning to a good book — Rereading chapter by chapter, soaking up every moment. He should be thinking of how stupid this is, how no amount of money is worth the risk, but he can’t help but enjoy the rush of it all. He’d been a Fixer for nearly two decades, and after his time locked away and being on parole, he knew better than to let himself get sucked back in. He’d lost contact with most of his contacts, and with the gang war now sitting in their front yard, there weren’t many people coming to him with a bag of cash and a plea for help. Andy busied himself other ways, mostly working on cars at the shop, spending time with Benny, working with the club in ‘quieter’ ways. But the thought lingered in the back of his mind, reminding him of the adrenaline rush and excitement that came with his job — That they could always use the money, too.

Then came Beverly, calling him for a week straight until he caved and answered the unknown number. She’s a textbook client, one they saw far too many times to count — Her husband had changed over the years, become violent. She didn’t want him killed but she wanted him scared enough to leave the state and never come back, never come looking for her and their son. Andy did just that — Somewhere in 2009, outside of a seedy motel, he beat the living shit out of her husband, successfully running him out of town and leaving Andy with forty-five grand in his pocket. What he hadn’t accounted for was Beverly’s husband’s return a near decade later, turning her world upside down. He tries to ignore her calls, knowing once the ‘Unknown Caller’ name that pops up will only spell trouble for him — But when he finally caves, he’s met with desperation and a promise of a hundred grand in cash. Four days later he calls her back, letting her know he’ll handle it.

What pushes him over is the thought of Benny — The thought of someone like Andy’s father terrorizing them, terrorizing him for no reason other than revenge. He thinks of his own mother, the lengths should have gone to keep her children safe. Andy knows how this story ends if he doesn’t step in — He’ll learn the conclusion when he reads Beverly’s obituary in the paper, when her son becomes another kid lost in the system. Who is he to let Beverly and her son suffer, to let them be subject to the same cycle when he can step in and actually do something good? By no means is he a saint, or some sort of hero — Just a guy who is good at what he does. Only this time around, it’s not just about the money and the rush. He knows it’s risky, but it’s what he does best — Fixing problems, covering his tracks. It’s second nature at this point, something he’ll surely always come back to.

And he does, with alarming ease. When this had been his daily life, there was a routine he followed each time. This time around, it’s oddly chartic to go through the motions again -- To put each puzzle piece together, to return to his favorite chapter of his favorite book. Planning for this job is a process as mundane as his morning run, just another part of his day. In the past, he’d spend weeks at a time scouting the spot where the job would take place, learning the routine of the person he was to handle. He’d sit in the kitchen with papers spread across the table, laptop in front of him as he did his research on the location, the person, anything that could be a variable or need to be factored into. In this case, there were far more of the latter to think of -- With ATF at his door, the MCs back at one another’s throats, and everything caught in between the two of those, there was nothing run of the mill about this. The worst of it came in the form of Lettie, her words running through Andy’s mind after their last conversation. You need someone you can trust now that you have this little boy to come home to

Her suggestion left him between a rock and a hard spot, to say the least. There was no question that Lettie was a good get away driver, seeming to find an ease to it. She was someone he trusted, and having her by his side on a job would keep the club from getting pulled into another fire -- This was theirs, something on the side to their bank accounts a cushion and keep a family safe in the meantime. It was a simple enough job, get in and out, make it look like an accident. He was confident in his ability and her own, knowing the two could handle the task with ease. But then he remembers who he’s talking about -- Lettie is practically his child, the closest thing he has to a daughter. Their relationship may have it’s complications, but it doesn’t change one universal truth: She is his family, and bringing her on this job meant he would be putting her in a potentially dangerous position. Sure, she wasn’t the same teenager he’d left when he’d been arrested, but it didn’t change that she was his kid. He went back and forth about it for days, left awake at night with the thought fresh on his mind as he watched his ceiling fan spin.

She needed this, he of all people understood that. It was a fucked up means of coping, but he understood it -- It’s something would make her feel alive, would put some sort of sense into the chaos of their lives. Andy hates how deeply he empathizes with the thought, having been in that position far too many times than he’d care to admit. He’d been through it before, still found himself there when he’d agreed to this job, when he’d spent a night torturing a man with his sister. He understood the need to feel in control again, the power that comes with an adrenaline rush like this. They had always been alike in that regard, the trait often serving as a reason for butting heads. He stares at his phone for nearly a half hour before finally sending her a message, knowing she’ll know what he means with the vagueness. There’s no going back now.

The job goes according to plan, the two making it to a motel three towns over on the border of Louisiana and Alabama. In and out, he tells himself, a confusing bundle of nerves finding him in that moment. What follows is a wave excitement that pushes him from the car, pulling a mask over his face as he does so. They’ve got the cover of nightfall on their side, but Andy’s not planning on leaving any loose threads. He knew better than anyone what it would mean if this job went sideways, having paid his time for it -- So he leaves no room for error, planning each detail down to the second, a Plan B carefully curated if needed. In, out, make it look like an accident.

Just as fate would have it, the moment he steps through the door everything goes to shit, for lack of a better word. What was supposed to be something simple finds one complication after the other, putting him in a struggle with the man he’d arrived to kill. He tries to ignore the way it feels like the man had almost seemed like he was waiting for Andy, something in the back his mind telling him the man who had run him out of town a decade prior would return to finish the job the second he returned to the state. What follows is a struggle between the two, with punches thrown and any sort of subtlety this job had disappearing the moment Andy’s thrown into a wall, a loud crash following. Make it look like an accident, he reminds himself, attempting to focus despite the man fighting him off. He’d lost his mask at this point, window curtains pulled from the rod -- Leaving them both visible to anyone in the parking lot or the hall. The second he realizes it, a popping sound fills the air, and he then -- Andy’s on the ground.

It doesn’t occur to him that he’s been shot until he hits the ground, eyes drifting to the blood beginning to pool around his right thigh. Oddly, the first thought that comes to him is the fact that he’s never actually been shot before. It’s almost laughable to him, that in the two decades he’d spent in the MC, this is how he ends up with a bullet lodged in him. Not by his father, not by some gun runner, but by some man in a shitty motel who had tucked his own gun into the nightstand. The thought only lasts half a second, a hand having moved instinctively to the wound in an attempt to put pressure on it. Shit. Shit. Shit. The same struggle continues seconds after his head hits the old carpet -- Only now, he’s stuck under the other man, hands around Andy’s throat as he tries to ignore the pain beginning to shoot up his leg. He reaches for anything, attempting to shove the mans face away, scratching and clawing at anything he can get (and personally hoping he catches an eye) to no avail.

This is it, he can’t help but think as the black spots begin to fill his vision. The room seems to move in slow motion, feeling lighter and lighter as the puddle of blood around his leg grows and the corners of his vision blur. The man on top of him is yelling something, his knee against Andy’s chest to keep him on the ground. If he could -- Andy would laugh. Of all the things that have happened in his life, this is how he’s going to die. After years of murder-for-hire, after his time in prison; After finding his way back to Rowan, after starting a family with her and Benny. His eyes drift to the wedding band tattoo on his finger, knowing that if this was going to be his final moment, that’s what he wanted to see last. Not the wild look in this man’s eyes or the blood he’s covered in. Even if his death ends up being a terrible twist of fate, the last thing he’ll see before going is something with more meaning than this job. He doesn’t notice the sound of the door opening, a loud noise filling the room seconds after.

The sound rings out, and suddenly -- He can breathe. A gasp comes next, followed by a steady stream of coughs, only to be interrupted by the man who was once trying to kill him now lying limp on top of him. His eyes are wide, face covered in blood from the bullet now lodged in the man’s head. He takes another moment try to catch up to the scene unraveling in front of him, part of him wondering if he’d died and well -- What comes after life is just a shitty motel room.

There’s blood all over his face, a man on top of him, and once his eyes drift upward, he sees her -- Lettie, with his gun in hand, pointed at the head of the man they’d come there to kill. There’s a silence in the room despite the ringing in his ears, and for a moment, Andy is left unsure of what to do next. He hadn’t planned for this, knowing that the moment Lettie got out of the car and entered the motel room, they were heading into uncharted territory. The lack of oxygen left him seeing spots and feeling far too light headed to properly assess the situation; Lettie had saved him, but she’d come into the motel room without a mask on, surely seen by a witness in the process. The latter doesn’t occur to him, more caught up in the fact that there’s a dead man on top of him, that he, by some strange act of fate, is still alive. She arrived with mere seconds seconds to spare, before Andy would have been a goner. He owes her his life, but in that moment -- He can barely catch his breath. As best he can, he pushes the man off of him, attempting to ignore the unrelenting ringing in his ears.

It’s as if he’s underwater now, with the blood loss and lack of oxygen making for a lethal mixture. He barely registers the arm coming around him to help bring him to his feet, the adrenaline being the only thing keeping him conscious. There’s a haze that follows once he’s on his feet, unsteady and clutching anything he can hold on to. It doesn’t occur to him that despite the gloves he’s wearing, his blood is now at the scene -- That Lettie has surely been seen by someone, that the people in the room next to them probably called the cops once the noise began. “Gimme the gun,” his words slur a bit, not as steady on his feet as he hoped to be, thanks to the lack of oxygen. Regardless, he moves, giving instructions to Lettie as he does -- They have to make this look like an accident, even if it had almost turned into double homicide.

He doesn’t remember what they did or how long it took to set up, just that her arm comes around him once it’s time to go and they’re rushing to get back to the van before the sirens in the distance make it to the parking lot. Admittedly, Andy’s not sure if they’d actually been successful in making it look like an accident, having a feeling that the mess they’d left behind would be an indication of just what happened in that room -- Regardless of how the man’s body is found. The second he’s in the passenger seat and the car jerks into drive, every thought swimming through his head disappears. The adrenaline begins to wear off as his head rolls back and forth, vision blurred once more from the blood loss -- He watches Lettie in the driver’s seat, speaking to him and attempting to keep him awake despite the fact that he doesn’t hear a word she says. Each time he tries to speak, his voice is a rasp and the words don’t seem to come out how he wants -- Sounding like he’s drunk and struggling to fight through it.

It’s unclear how long the drive is, how long he’s drifting in and out of this dream like state -- Maybe it’s ten minutes or maybe it’s two hours, he’s not sure. All that he sees is the Welcome to Olympus! sign, lit up by dim lights as they pass by, before he eventually passes out.

#lomkchardev #4.#murder tw #blood tw #gun shot wound tw #gun tw #gun violence tw #shooting tw #strangulation tw #death tw #death mention tw #eye gore tw

4 notes · View notes

numeronubisexualhawkeye · 5 years ago

Text

Take Cover pt 5 (conclusion)

part 1| part 2 | part 3 | part 4

read it on AO3

One month after returning stateside, Natasha and Clint got divorced. In the madness of Portugal and the storm that followed after they’d been extracted, Natasha had completely forgotten that they had been legally married in the first place. When Coulson had called her a week after returning stateside, telling her that she and Clint could get divorced as soon as he was cleared from the hospital, Natasha had stumbled with her answer, almost ready to ask ‘what are you talking about?’, but quickly remembered that yes, she and Clint were still technically married, even if it was under aliases.

Natasha didn’t want to admit it, but when Coulson had called her again three weeks later saying that Barton had been discharged, she almost wanted to put off going to the divorce lawyer. It wasn’t like the divorce process would be as grueling as a real one, they had a Shield appointed lawyer who had already done the bulk of the work for them, all Clint and Natasha had to do was go down to the office together, sign their names, and be done with the whole affair. She wasn’t putting it off because she liked the idea of being married to Clint, she just didn’t want to see him again.

After the explosion, local police had arrived, and of course, their covers had been compromised. Shield came and extracted them within twelve hours, and Coulson had put both Clint and Natasha on indefinite leave until the media storm and diplomatic matters blew over. Since her debriefing the day after returning, Natasha had spent a majority of her time in her apartment, only ever leaving when she needed to pick up a take-out order or actually go grocery shopping. Even when she was inside, she didn’t do much of anything. Some days it would be a miracle if she managed to watch through an entire movie or play a round or two on Mortal Kombat, but other than that, she would hole herself away in her room, or on the couch, and stare blankly at whatever her eyes settled on until her stomach or bladder demanded that she get up.

Natasha knew that she was being pathetic, but after the emotional roller coaster that had been Portugal, she felt that she deserved it. How could someone like Theo, someone Natasha had faced off against time, and time, and time again, gotten to her so badly? The answer she had wanted to settle on was that she was finally slipping out of her prime, that she did need the Red Room afterall to be of use in the world. That would be the easiest truth to accept, because at least then, she could justify slipping off the radar and maybe finally getting the peace in life that she so badly needed and damn well deserved at this point. It would be so easy to leave the apartment and DC, pack a few things, and move to some podunk town in Washington state or Alabama, and start over. It wasn’t as if anyone would be able to track her, and if they did, well, what could they do to bring her back? But she couldn’t even keep her head straight to think of a decent strategy to get out of Portugal.

That thought stung, because she knew that no amount of hoping for an escape or denying what had driven her to this point wasn’t going to change what had happened, and why she had been so off kilter the past couple of weeks. It was Clint.

That first night in Portugal when they argued, she could tell that he was developing feelings for her, although just what those were, she hadn’t been sure of in that moment. But now, with her here and alive with barely a scratch after the explosion (well, there was the giant bruise running across her back from being thrown against a cell wall), while he had burns, bruises, and broken bones, all from going out of his way to get revenge on a man that they were already tasked with killing.

There was no logical reason for Clint to do what he had done, so as much as Natasha hated admitting it, Clint Barton cared for her, which meant that she owed him her life again.

_____________________________________________________________________

Natasha’s guilt at watching Clint struggle to sign his name with his arm in a sling almost got to her, until she saw that he hadn’t actually signed the documents, but just write his name out in all capital letters.

“Do you not know cursive?” she asked.

“No, what for?” he said, sounding genuinely confused that she had asked him.

Natasha rolled her eyes and grabbed the pen and papers from him, signing her name on the line next to his before folding the documents back to their first pages and sliding them across the table to their divorce lawyer.

“Well Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson,” the lawyer said in a teasing tone, “You two are officially and legally broken up.”

When Coulson had first broken the news to she and Clint had to get legally married, Natasha had been counting down the days to the end of their mission for this exact moment. But now it was here, and the weeks of trauma and emotions that had passed between the two of them made this moment harder than it had any right to be. She felt that she was owed something more than a quick signature and a closing statement. What exactly she wanted out of this, she wasn’t sure, but the fifteen minutes that they had spent in the office felt like an insult to everything that had lead up to this moment.

That want for something more made Natasha feel disoriented and confused, she couldn’t take not knowing what she wanted or needed to do in situations like this. She got up quickly out of her chair and walked out of the office, not stopping to give a proper thanks or goodbye to the lawyer, and she sure as hell didn’t want to stop and talk to Clint, too afraid of what emotions would bubble over if she did. She made it down the stairs to the lobby of the building before Clint caught up to her.

“Hey, hey!” he called after her.

Natasha’s eye twitched, did he seriously have to yell and get the attention of the young receptionist? But regardless of her annoyance, Natasha stopped and turned to face him.

“What?” she asked when he reached her.

“I just,” he paused. It was strange watching him fumble over his words. So much of their non-mission related interactions had been brief and passive aggression at each other. This was the first time since her waking up from the nightmare in Portugal that she had actually spoken to him. They hadn’t exchanged any words in the office aside from quick greetings to acknowledge that they were both there.

“What?” Natasha asked again.

“Are you okay?” Clint asked at last.

“I’ve been better.” Not a complete lie.

“Natasha, seriously.” his tone was steady, but not persistent. He knew first hand that Natasha wasn’t one to let up information about herself easily, but here he was asking anyway. There was all that concern again.

That same feeling of confusion and disorientation that she had felt just moments before in the office, and all throughout Portugal filled her head again. Her fingers twitched at her side, her body ready to react against a danger that wasn’t there, because the closest thing Natasha had felt this before was anxiety and panic. Her head was reeling, and her body was a coil, waiting for something to spring her into action.

Do it again.

“Natasha?”

“I can’t do this.” she said at last.

Clint’s expression shifted from concern to confusion. “What?”

“This,” she said again, waving her hand back and forth between them. “Whatever this is that you’ve been doing to me the last couple weeks, I can’t fucking deal with it.”

“Natasha what’re you,”

“It’s you Barton, okay?” her voice was rising and the receptionist was not so subtly eavesdropping on their conversation. Natasha couldn’t be bothered to shoot the young woman a look and silently tell her to piss off, too focused on trying to maintain the courage to say what she needed to Clint.

“It’s all that, you’re so,” she sighed and paused, turning over the next words in her head, knowing that whatever response Clint gave her after she spoke them would fully confirm everything she’d been turning over in her head since returning home. “Why the fuck do you care so much about me? All the times before this mission, you’ve just shrugged me off and treated me like nothing more than a co-worker that you tolerated, which, fine, I did the same to you. But what the fuck was so different this time around that you had to nearly kill yourself for me?”

Natasha’s fists were balled at her side, but she didn’t want to hit him. What she wanted to do was let out a long scream in his face for taking more than two seconds to answer him after she’d been sitting on these questions for four weeks. He owed her a quick answer after everything he had put her through in Portugal. He had to have had some sort of answer ready seeing as it was all his actions that put them here. Everything that had happened couldn’t have happened just because he felt like a sudden good Samaritan or wanted all the glory for himself. She needed an answer she could make sense of.

“Barton.” Natasha said sternly.

Clint sighed and ran his non casted arm through his hair. “I care about you, okay? I just do. I couldn’t stand seeing you so, so raw and vulnerable back there after that dinner you had with Theo. All the time I’ve known you and you’ve been this wall and to see someone, G-d someone like him get to you just, it broke me down, and I didn’t want to see you so fucked up again. You don’t deserve that.”

That same expression of embarrassment that he had the night they shared the bottle of vodka after her nightmare was back again, but this time, he didn’t turn away.

Natasha appreciated his honesty, but she didn’t know what to say to him now. This was everything she had wanted, but also everything she had feared. Clint Barton cared about her, and she knew all too well what care like that did to people with lives like theirs. It had already fucked up what was supposed to be an easy mission, nearly gotten both of them tortured, and almost both of them killed. One night was all that it took for Clint to care about her enough to put his life on the line without so much as a second thought. Natasha wondered if she would ever be able to do the same for him, and if she did, how long would it take for her to get to that point. But there was no use in wondering for long, because she already had her answer.

#k.txt #clintasha #fic tag #ugh this took forever

12 notes · View notes

dwaynepride · 7 years ago

Text

Worry

Summary: Reader is upset, and Pride is there to comfort them. That’s when new, unsure feelings that are stirred up inside him. But while Pride is trying to sort through them, reader makes a mistake, and he has catch them when they fall, once again.

Words: 2,509

Warnings: Drunkenness and shady bar shenanigans

Part 2

Quiet, peaceful nights were few and far between. Pride wasn't quite used to it, but walking through the courtyard and not having anybody run up to him with some kind of new problem was nice. He passed by the kitchen, briefly considering making something tonight for tomorrow. Most days, the team were rushing around too fast to sit down and wait for Pride to cook. Leftovers were more common, sadly.

But that thought vanished, however, when he entered the squadroom. It was empty, or so he had thought before. Seeing you sitting at your desk, chin resting on your hand with a blank stare, ruined that thought. Pride hesitated, waiting for you to notice his presence. But you didn't; he figured he could start dancing around like an idiot, and you still wouldn't notice.

“Y/N?” Pride spoke up, voice soft so he didn't startle you.

His efforts were wasted, however, when you gasped and jumped a little, head whirling towards your boss. Upon seeing his concerned look and careful stance, you calmed down. “Pride.” You responded, and he wasn't sure if that was a greeting or a mere statement that he was there.

“You're here pretty late. Everyone's gone home.” Pride pointed out as he signaled to the empty desks. You glanced around, blinking, like you only just noticed. “Somethin’ keeping you here?”

Pride waited as you shook your head, reclining back in your chair, face going into your hands. “Guess I don't wanna go home. Too quiet.” After rubbing your face, you glanced to Pride, looking quite pathetic. “I've just been thinking about…”

You trailed off, head shaking and looking away like your thought was stupid. But Pride approached, carefully perching himself on the side of your desk with his hands folded on his lap. “Thinkin’ about what?” He gently prompted, leaning towards you the slightest bit.

And Pride noticed your jaw clench. Noticed your fingers curl into a fist. “Well, with Chris driving to Alabama for the weekend, I guess I just started thinking about...home.” You admitted, and immediately, Pride understood your dour mood. But he remained quiet, letting you speak. “And I know it sounds childish, but I'm just missing home.”

“It's not childish.” He quickly intervened, a hand on your desk so he can lean in even closer. This prompted you to look up, meeting his green gaze. And Pride noticed a prick of tears. “It's normal to miss home. Maybe you should fly back soon. Take a few days off; ya more than deserve it.”

You scoffed at the idea as you stood, busying yourself with organizing papers, like that would help keep the imminent tears at bay. “I don't know…”

Pride watched as your hands stopped moving. With your head ducked away, he couldn't clearly see your face. But he heard a sniffle, and that pushed Pride to stand and move beside you. He moved on instinct; arms coming out to pull you close. And you came in easily, cheek pressing against Pride's chest just as the tears hit full-force.

When he sighed, it was into your hair. Comforting you while you cried wasn't how he expected the night to go. Or how he wanted it, as if Pride would ever want to see you cry. But with you so close, he heard it and felt it. Little whimpers into his chest. Shakes of your shoulders and hot tears seeping through his shirt.

As Pride rested his cheek against your head, murmured little reassurances, he faintly became aware of a feeling deep in his chest. Something that came out of nowhere, and scarily, didn't surprise him as much as it should have. It was so primal. So simple; he didn't want you to be sad. He wanted to make you happy again.

And he could have brushed it off because you were his friend, of course Pride would want to cheer you up. But before he could even try it, he knew it would fail. Because now, as he was holding you, he was aware of his heart speeding up. A bit of a blush forming on his cheeks once he felt your arms around his torso.

The feeling instantly made Pride tighten his hold on you. Now, it just felt like he wanted to protect you. And yeah, he knew homesickness wasn't something he could fight off, but the feeling was still there; so basic and primal. He wanted to keep you safe and happy.

To achieve that, all he could do was start rubbing your back and muttering things that would make you feel better. Once your crying started to slow, he even built up the courage to kiss your forehead. “You alright?” Dwayne asked, which was probably a dumb question because when you pulled away, he could see the tear stains clearly.

But you nodded anyway, wiping your cheeks. “Yeah, thanks. And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cry all over you…”

“It's not a problem.” He quickly cut in, putting on a smile to hopefully lift your mood a little. You were still so close, standing with his arms still wrapped around you. If he wanted to, Dwayne could just pull you in again. Hold you close. Make himself memorize the feeling of your body against his.

But Dwayne let you go, stepping away and moving towards his desk. “Lemme drive you home. I doubt your in a state to be behind the wheel.”

You scoffed and smiled weakly. “I'm fine, really. It's late, you probably want to go to bed.”

“No arguments. “ Dwayne quickly picked up his keys, mimicking your smile. “Let’s go.”

He led the way out of the office, knowing you'd follow. And only after he opened the passenger side door and you sat down sheepishly were you two finally on the road. The roof of Dwayne's car was down, letting the warm air of Louisiana ruffle your hair. There was no need to turn on the radio, because every block or so was a street band or a club whose music was rocking through its walls.

The scenery made Dwayne smile; there was no surprise there. The life in his city could always make his heart light and happy. But then he looked over to you, and nobody would have been able to tell that you had been homesick and crying just ten minutes ago. Your head dipped to the beat of music. Smile lighting up every time you spotted something outrageous, and then you'd looked to Pride to see if he saw.

That was probably Dwayne's favourite part of New Orleans; it was everyone's home. Healed wounds even he couldn't fix.

Much too soon, Dwayne parked his car in front of your place. He quickly came around, opening the door for you and smirking as you stood. “Home sweet home.” He commented. You laughed, and Dwayne found himself following you to the door.

“Seriously, Pride. Thanks for…back there. You're a good friend.”

His ears burned with the compliment, even if his gut went tight at being called a friend. But Dwayne nodded his head, smile growing soft. And when you came forward, his arms immediately opened to pull you in for a goodnight hug. Or maybe it was a thank you hug. Either way, Dwayne was going to treasure it.

He didn't expect, though, for your head to turn and kiss his cheek. It was a slight contact. A kiss you'd give a friend. But you turned away, probably a little embarrassed because of it, even if you did smile and say goodnight.

Dwayne had to kick himself back into gear, hoping his flusteredness didn't show. “Uh, night.” He uttered out, a hand waving as you closed the door.

And he walked back to his car in a daze. Spent the drive home trying to think about his feelings. Sorting them through the affection he felt for the rest of his team and something more than that. And Dwayne was daunted by the thought of it being more.

He spent the next hour or so like that; contemplating his feelings. It was something he hasn't had to do in a while. After Linda, Dwayne was sure it would be a little while until he started feeling something for someone else. And while this was sooner than expected, the fact that it was a member of his team really didn't help the fact.

But he ultimately started making his way up the stairs with a cup of tea, bidding it time to sleep. There was no telling how busy they might be tomorrow.

Dwayne stopped, however, when his phone started buzzing in his pocket. Bringing it out, the agent frowned when he read your name, and answered it a heartbeat later. “Y/N?” He asked.

He had to move the phone a little away from his ear when you shouted into it, trying to get Pride to hear you over the loud club music. “Hey!” You yelled, ending the greeting with a laugh. “I was jus’ talkin’ about you to my new friends and I told ‘em you once almost had to shoot a tiger!”

Dwayne was shaking his head in confusion, immediately descending back down the stairs. “Y/N, where are you? Are you drunk?”

The worry, sharp in his gut, only intensified after you told him the name of some seedy-sounding bar. “It's in-”

“The Bywater. I know.” Dwayne was setting his mug on his desk, immediately moving to get his gun and badge from the cabinet. “What’re you doing over there by yourself at this hour?”

He didn't get an answer. Instead, Dwayne had to anxiously pull on his boots, listening to you laugh at something. “Pride, you gotta get here! I think you'd like it a lot!”

The keys were in his hand just as you finished the sentence, and Dwayne started walking to his car for the second time that night. “I'm on my way. Don't leave the bar, understand?”

You hung up, so there was no way of knowing if you actually heard his order. So Dwayne drove as fast as he could, going over the speed limit whenever possible. His hands gripped the steering wheel tight. And he was kicking himself for leaving you alone. You didn't want to go home and be by yourself; that's why you stayed at the office so late. So obviously, you went out. Started drinking.

But regardless, underneath the fear and worry, Dwayne was kinda pissed you decided to go to a bar in the Bywater. It wasn't the best neighborhood, and that thought made him press down on the gas a little more.

Just as soon as he found a parking space, Pride was out of his car and rushing into the bar. And immediately, he bumped shoulders with a guy with some less-than-innocent looking tattoos. He mumbled an apology, one that the other guy probably didn't hear, and continued his search.

And there you were, sitting at the bar with two guys on either side. As Dwayne approached, he noticed one of them had a hand on your arm, thumb caressing the skin there. The image immediately put a fire in his gut, and Pride was stomping over, stifling the urge to punch the guy out of his chair.

“Y/N, it's time to go.” He set a hand on your shoulder, speaking the words into your ear.

But then you turned around and put on a wide smile. “Go home? You just go here!”

Dwayne's nose wrinkled at the smell of alcohol on your breath. It was pretty strong stuff. But then the men sitting on either side of you noticed the hand he had on your shoulder. Pride averted his gaze back to you. “It's late, now c’mon-”

“Maybe you should leave ‘em alone.” One of the guys said, glaring.

The other one boldly put his thick arm over your shoulders, and it took just about all of Pride's willpower not to put a dent in his face. “Yeah, can't you see Y/N’s havin’ fun…?

You laughed because you agreed. But they laughed because those words hid a double meaning. A meaning Pride wasn't about to start thinking too much about. When he lifted his shirt, showing his badge, the guy immediately withdrew his arm. “I suggest you find someone else to party with.” Pride stated, voice icy calm.

Once they stood and left, mumbling about dirty cops, you huffed. “Pride, really?”

“I don't wanna hear it.” His hand gripped your arm, maybe a little tighter than necessary, before dragging you toward the door. It was difficult, seeing as your legs weren't working well. But eventually, through ducking under beer bottles and dodging dancers, Dwayne got you outside.

And once he started leading you to his car, you managed to pull his hand off your arm. “I don't wanna go home.” You stated, stomping a foot like a child. “I went out t’have fun and you ruined it.”

Pride shook his head, turning to reply, but you looked downright pissed. In your state, he wouldn't be able to convey why he's dragging you home. “I'm keepin’ you safe.” Was all he said before putting a hand on your back, once again leading you to his car.

And he managed to get you in and buckled without much of a problem (ignoring that you were still grouchy and swearing at him). When Dwayne actually started driving, he rolled the window down, hoping it would either prevent you getting sick, or from getting sick in his car.

Luckily, you were drowsy the moment he started driving. And by the time he pulled in, you were nearly asleep.

It was even harder getting you out of the car than it was putting you in. Pride nearly carried you inside, through the house until he was able to deposit you on the bed. Face down, in case you decided to finally get sick. From the strong smell of liquor, Dwayne was amazed you hadn't thrown up somewhere along the way home.

But now, you were fast asleep. There was no way you felt Dwayne pulling off your shoes and setting them aside. Or even reacted to him taking off your jacket and hanging it up. And he would have done more, because you were sleeping in such uncomfortable-looking clothes.

Instead, he just bent down and pressed a kiss to your forehead before walking out of the room, closing the door behind him. “I can't believe this.” Dwayne muttered to himself as he collapsed on the couch.

He'd have to stay the night. You'll need him in the morning. And even if you didn't, Dwayne wanted to talk about what happened tonight. He needed to talk about it.

Because despite knowing you were safe and sound in the other room, and not God knows where with God knows who, he couldn't quite shake the fear in his gut. For now, you were okay. But it was tomorrow he was worried about. And the next day. And the next after that.

#ncis new orleans reader insert #ncis nola imagine #dwayne pride x reader #pride x reader

120 notes · View notes

scribbling-stiks · 3 years ago

Text

Retrievers - XLII - Catastrophe

Russia turns to see Ukraine looking like his world just imploded and Mexico turning blue from laughing too hard. Russia rubs his neck and looks away, his face warm.

"You- I- What?!" Ukraine sputters.

"Thank you Cat Dad!" Florida chirps, hugging Russia briefly.

"CAT DAD?!"

Mexico walks up to America and pats on his shoulder. Russia turns to watch America flick Florida and Florida laughs.

"You caught a good one, huh?" Mexico teases.

"Yeah, I did," America coos, a lovesick smile on his face.

Russia's ears pull back and his tail presses against his side. His face grows hot and he covers his face. His stomach flutters happily. America fluffs his hair, and Russia purrs.

"Awww," Ohio says mockingly.

"Shut up," Alberta says.

"Yeah, don't tease them! They're way too cute," South Dakota defends.

Russia rubs his face as if to soothe the burning in his cheeks.

"Are you guys coming?" Kansas calls from up the stairs.

"We are!" America yells back.

Russia follows at the back of the group, keeping an eye on Florida and Ohio. Florida takes the stairs two at a time. America babbles away to Mexico, and Mexico laughs. Finland waits for a second to walk with Russia. Ukraine watches her with shock.

Ukraine walks just in front of Russia, stumbling over pipes from staring back at them.

"'Cat Dad' is the new name for you?" Finland teases.

Russia turns away with a smirk.

"Florida?" Russia calls.

"Yes?"

"Who's this?" Russia asks, waving to Finland.

Finland watches, confused.

"Oh! That's Aunt Fin."

Finland's face goes blank and Russia laughs.

"Vodka Aunt!" Ohio cheers, waving his hands.

"Vodka Aunt?" Finland repeats.

Russia smirks at her shock.

"See? It's surprising," Russia jokes.

"I will die for these kids," Finland asserts bluntly.

"You and me both."

"You're starting to sound like America," Finland comments with a laugh, her face pink.

Russia pouts and crosses his arms. America flashes Finland a smirk.

"How are you guys friends?" Ukraine asks, baffled.

Russia shrugs.

"We can't let a rivalry get in the way of helping protect kids," Finland explains.

"Kids? Like the rest of the states?"

"Yup! And you don't have to talk about us like we aren't here," South Dakota says.

"Sorry. I'm still stuck on the whole 'America and my brother kissed' and 'Finland and Russia are friends'? Since when were you gay?"

"Since me," America says confidently.

Russia sputters, red-faced, and Mexico laughs, punching America's shoulder. Finland chuckles. Ukraine stares around with wide eyes before shaking his head. Russia spots North Dakota and Kansas standing in front of a large door.

"Do you know what's behind it?" America asks.

"Nope," Kansas says, "but it sounds chaotic."

"Chaotic?"

"Just a lot of movement and talking."

"Okay. Step away from that for a second so we can figure out what to do."

Kansas nods and North Dakota walks to stand beside South Dakota.

"Okay, so we should-"

Shouts from the other side of the door interrupt America. America and Russia meet gazes and America lunges for the door. He presses his face against it and listens.

America's face goes from curious to suspicious to livid.

America growls, and his eyes glow with magic, one more than the other. His hands light up and he starts to shake.

"(What's going on?)" Kansas signs, worried.

"(Some of your siblings decided to break in and are now being outnumbered,)" America furiously signs back.

'WhAT?!'

Russia's ears pin back and his tail puffs up and whips around behind him.

'Why are they here?! They should be back at home!'

"(Are we going through?)" North Dakota asks.

"(We don't have another choice. They're going to get themselves captured.)"

Russia runs forward beside America, and America stares at the door, baring his teeth. Ohio runs between them and breaks down the door. America summons his scythe and chest plates and the Dakotas disappear into the crowd.

Florida climbs up the walls and springs off, tackling guards. Finland begins mowing down anyone approaching them with her machine gun. Russia runs forward, bounding over the first row of soldiers, and swipes at them. They scream and fall back.

Russia finds that his fingers are turned to claws. He smirks.

'Good. That makes this easier.'

He keeps his tail high above the ground to keep it from being stepped on and he snatches a knife from one of the guards. He slashes and stabs the best he can.

The room flashes bright blue, and Russia's head whips up to see America standing under a huge dome of sorts with several states surrounding him.

Texas stands behind America, looking worse for wear and startled. South Carolina is helping North Carolina to her feet. Alabama and Mississippi are cowering around America's feet. New Mexico is back to back with Brazil outside of the dome. The two toss guards around with shouts. America looks beyond livid, and his whole body glows an eerie battery acid blue.

'Why are they here?!'

Russia looks further to see Ohio punching people through walls and Kansas covering his back. But even they are getting slowly enveloped by people.

"We need to get out of here!" Russia shouts.

America nods seriously and mouths "one, two, THREE!"

The dome drops.

"GO! GO! GO!" America demands, pointing toward a set of double doors.

Russia herds the states forward, and Finland tosses North Carolina over her shoulder. She shrieks and grabs the back of Finland's skirt. America bursts through the doors and Russia is suddenly hit with the lack of footfalls behind him.

Ohio takes the lead, and Texas runs up beside him.

Russia's ears perk up to the sound of deep growling behind them. America runs beside him, a dark look on his face.

"Where did the soldiers go?" America asks.

"I don't know. But something is coming."

America nods seriously.

"I can't believe this. I am so fucking mad," America rants, his eyes glowing harshly.

"I am too, but we need to get out of here," Russia says.

Russia's hair stands on end and he jumps to the side on instinct. Wind rushes past his head as a dog the size of a truck lands and spins back toward him. Russia scrambles up the side of a wall and jumps over it, soaring just above its gnashing teeth.

America shrieks and kicks at it. The thing lashes out at him and bites. America pulls away and starts running, bloody footprints trail behind his left foot. The monstrosity laps up the blood and Russia runs ahead.

The air smells metallic and moist.

America begins falling behind, stumbling over into the wall. Russia grabs him and drags him to the largest of the doors. They burst out into the real world to see the sunset. Russia lets America go and slams the doors shut. Finland and Ohio rush toward him and ram into it. The thing thrashes against it. Texas runs over to help.

Russia's breaths come out in visible puffs. Bloody footprints lead to America, who stands over the edge of a cliff.

"We need to get off of here," America announces, pointing across the gap to another ledge leading off into trees.

"And how are we going to do that?!" Texas asks.

"Oh, you better not be talking young man. You are in so much trouble."

"Uni, are you bleeding?" Mexico asks.

"It doesn't matter," America dismisses, taking a clear preference to his right foot.

Alabama and Mississippi run over and flank Texas, pushing against the bending metal of the doors. South Carolina holds North Carolina up. New Mexico disappears behind Finland. America begins to sway a little.

"This isn't gonna last much longer!" Ohio shouts.

"Beam?"

"Okay, so, I haven't done this since I was 7. And I broke both my ankles and my arm. We'll see if this works."

America steps toward the edge.

"Beam! WAIT!"

America leaps off the edge into the crevasse. Kansas runs to the edge with a scream.

"DAD!"

Table of Contents

2 notes · View notes

unsettlingshortstories · 4 years ago

Text

Nightcrawlers

Robert McCammon (1984)

“Hard rain coming down,” Cheryl said, and I nodded in agreement.

Through the diner’s plate-glass windows, a dense curtain of rain flapped across the Gulf gas pumps and continued across the parking lot. It hit Big Bob’s with a force that made the glass rattle like uneasy bones. The red neon sign that said BIG BOB’S! DIESEL FUEL! EATS! sat on top of a high steel pole above the diner so the truckers on the interstate could see it. Out in the night, the red-tinted rain thrashed in torrents across my old pickup truck and Cheryl’s baby-blue Volkswagen.

“Well,” I said, “I suppose that storm’ll either wash some folks in off the interstate or we can just about hang it up.” The curtain of rain parted for an instant, and I could see the treetops whipping back and forth in the woods on the other side of Highway 47. Wind whined around the front door like an animal trying to claw its way in. I glanced at the electric clock on the wall behind the counter. Twenty minutes before nine. We usually closed up at ten, but tonight—with tornado warnings in the weather forecast—I was tempted to turn the lock a little early. “Tell you what,” I said. “If we’re empty at nine, we skedaddle. ’Kay?”

“No argument here,” she said. She watched the storm for a moment longer, then continued putting newly washed coffee cups, saucers, and plates away on the stainless-steel shelves.

Lightning flared from west to east like the strike of a burning bullwhip. The diner’s lights flickered, then came back to normal. A shudder of thunder seemed to come right up through my shoes. Late March is the beginning of tornado season in south Alabama, and we’ve had some whoppers spin past here in the last few years. I knew that Alma was at home, and she understood to get into the root cellar right quick if she spotted a twister, like that one we saw in ’82 dancing through the woods about two miles from our farm.

“You got any love-ins planned this weekend, hippie?” I asked Cheryl, mostly to get my mind off the storm and to rib her too.

She was in her late thirties, but I swear that when she grinned she could’ve passed for a kid. “Wouldn’t you like to know, redneck?” she answered; she replied the same way to all my digs at her. Cheryl Lovesong—and I know that couldn’t have been her real name—was a mighty able waitress, and she had hands that were no strangers to hard work. But I didn’t care that she wore her long silvery-blond hair in Indian braids with hippie headbands, or came to work in tie-dyed overalls. She was the best waitress who’d ever worked for me, and she got along with everybody just fine—even us rednecks. That’s what I am, and proud of it: I drink Rebel Yell whiskey straight, and my favorite songs are about good women gone bad and trains on the long track to nowhere. I keep my wife happy. I’ve raised my two boys to pray to God and to salute the flag, and if anybody don’t like it he can go a few rounds with Big Bob Clayton.

Cheryl would come right out and tell you she used to live in San Francisco in the late sixties, and that she went to love-ins and peace marches and all that stuff. When I reminded her it was 1984 and Ronnie Reagan was president, she’d look at me like I was walking cow-flop. I always figured she’d start thinking straight when all that hippie-dust blew out of her head.

Alma said my tail was going to get burnt if I ever took a shine to Cheryl, but I’m a fifty-five-year-old redneck who stopped sowing his wild seed when he met the woman he married, more than thirty years ago.

Lightning crisscrossed the turbulent sky, followed by a boom of thunder. Cheryl said, “Wow! Look at that light show!”

“Light show, my ass,” I muttered. The diner was as solid as the Good Book, so I wasn’t too worried about the storm. But on a wild night like this, stuck out in the countryside like Big Bob’s was, you had a feeling of being a long way off from civilization—though Mobile was only twenty-seven miles south. On a wild night like this, you had a feeling that anything could happen, as quick as a streak of lightning out of the darkness. I picked up a copy of the Mobile Press-Register that the last customer—a trucker on his way to Texas—had left on the counter a half-hour before, and I started plowing through the news, most of it bad: those A-rab countries were still squabbling like Hatfields and McCoys in white robes; two men had robbed a Qwik-Mart in Mobile and been killed by the police in a shoot-out; cops were investigating a massacre at a motel near Daytona Beach; an infant had been stolen from a maternity ward in Birmingham. The only good things on the front page were stories that said the economy was up and that Reagan swore we’d show the Commies who was boss in El Salvador and Lebanon.

The diner shook under a blast of thunder, and I looked up from the paper as a pair of headlights emerged from the rain into my parking lot.

The headlights were attached to an Alabama state-trooper car.

“Half-alive, hold the onion, extra brown the buns.” Cheryl was already writing on her pad in expectation of the order. I pushed the paper aside and went to the fridge for the hamburger meat.

When the door opened, a windblown spray of rain swept in and stung like buckshot. “Howdy, folks!” Dennis Wells peeled off his gray rain slicker and hung it on the rack next to the door. Over his Smokey the Bear trooper hat was a protective plastic covering, beaded with raindrops. He took off his hat, exposing the thinning blond hair on his pale scalp, as he approached the counter and sat on his usual stool, right next to the cash register. “Cup of black coffee and a rare—” Cheryl was already sliding the coffee in front of him, and the burger sizzled on the griddle. “Ya’ll are on the ball tonight!” Dennis said; he said the same thing when he came in, which was almost every night. Funny the kind of habits you fall into, without realizing it.

“Kinda wild out there, ain’t it?” I asked as I flipped the burger over.

“Lordy, yes! Wind just about flipped my car over three, four miles down the interstate. Thought I was gonna be eatin’ a little pavement tonight.” Dennis was a husky young man in his early thirties, with thick blond brows over deep-set light brown eyes. He had a wife and three kids, and he was fast to flash a walletful of their pictures. “Don’t reckon I’ll be chasin’ any speeders tonight, but there’ll probably be a load of accidents. Cheryl, you sure look pretty this evenin’.”

“Still the same old me.” Cheryl never wore a speck of makeup, though one day she’d come to work with glitter on her cheeks. She had a place a few miles away, and I guessed she was farming that funny weed up there. “Any trucks moving?”

“Seen a few, but not many. Truckers ain’t fools. Gonna get worse before it gets better, the radio says.” He sipped at his coffee and grimaced. “Lordy, that’s strong enough to jump out of the cup and dance a jig, darlin’!”

I fixed the burger the way Dennis liked it, put it on a platter with some fries, and served it. “Bobby, how’s the wife treatin’ you?” he asked.

“No complaints.”

“Good to hear. I’ll tell you, a fine woman is worth her weight in gold. Hey, Cheryl! How’d you like a handsome young man for a husband?”

Cheryl smiled, knowing what was coming. “The man I’m looking for hasn’t been made yet.”

“Yeah, but you ain’t met Cecil yet, either! He asks me about you every time I see him, and I keep tellin’ him I’m doin’ everything I can to get you two together.” Cecil was Dennis’ brother-in-law and owned a Chevy dealership in Bay Minette. Dennis had been ribbing Cheryl about going on a date with Cecil for the past four months. “You’d like him,” Dennis promised. “He’s got a lot of my qualities.”

“Well, that’s different. In that case, I’m certain I don’t want to meet him.”

Dennis winced. “Oh, you’re a cruel woman! That’s what smokin’ banana peels does to you—turns you mean. Anybody readin’ this rag?” He reached over for the newspaper.

“Waitin’ here just for you,” I said. Thunder rumbled, closer to the diner. The lights flickered briefly once … then again before they returned to normal. Cheryl busied herself by fixing a fresh pot of coffee, and I watched the rain whipping against the windows. When the lightning flashed, I could see the trees swaying so hard they looked about to snap.

Dennis read and ate his hamburger. “Boy,” he said after a few minutes, “the world’s in some shape, huh? Those A-rab pig-stickers are itchin’ for war. Mobile metro boys had a little gunplay last night. Good for them.” He paused and frowned, then tapped the paper with one thick finger. “This I can’t figure.”

“What’s that?”

“Thing in Florida couple of nights ago. Six people killed at the Pines Haven Motor Inn, near Daytona Beach. Motel was set off in the woods. Only a couple of cinder-block houses in the area, and nobody heard any gunshots. Says here one old man saw what he thought was a bright white star falling over the motel, and that was it. Funny, huh?”

“A UFO,” Cheryl offered. “Maybe he saw a UFO.”

“Yeah, and I’m a little green man from Mars,” Dennis scoffed. “I’m serious. This is weird. The motel was so blown full of holes it looked like a war had been going on. Everybody was dead—even a dog and a canary that belonged to the manager. The cars out in front of the rooms were blasted to pieces. The sound of one of them explodin’ was what woke up the people in those houses, I reckon.” He skimmed the story again. “Two bodies were out in the parkin’ lot, one was holed up in a bathroom, one had crawled under a bed, and two had dragged every piece of furniture in the room over to block the door. Didn’t seem to help ’em any, though.”

I grunted. “Guess not.”

“No motive, no witnesses. You better believe those Florida cops are shakin’ the bushes for some kind of dangerous maniac—or maybe more than one, it says here.” He shoved the paper away and patted the service revolver holstered at his hip. “If I ever got hold of him—or them—he’d find out not to mess with a ’Bama trooper.” He glanced quickly over at Cheryl and smiled mischievously. “Probably some crazy hippie who’d been smokin’ his tennis shoes.”

“Don’t knock it,” she said sweetly, “until you’ve tried it.” She looked past him, out the window into the storm. “Car’s pullin’ in, Bobby.”

Headlights glared briefly off the wet windows. It was a station wagon with wood-grained panels on the sides; it veered around the gas pumps and parked next to Dennis’ trooper car. On the front bumper was a personalized license plate that said: Ray & Lindy. The headlights died, and all the doors opened at once. Out of the wagon came a whole family: a man and woman, a little girl and boy about eight or nine. Dennis got up and opened the diner door as they hurried inside from the rain.

All of them had gotten pretty well soaked between the station wagon and the diner, and they wore the dazed expressions of people who’d been on the road a long time. The man wore glasses and had curly gray hair, the woman was slim and dark-haired and pretty. The kids were sleepy-eyed. All of them were well-dressed, the man in a yellow sweater with one of those alligators on the chest. They had vacation tans, and I figured they were tourists heading north from the beach after spring break.

“Come on in and take a seat,” I said.

“Thank you,” the man said. They squeezed into one of the booths near the windows. “We saw your sign from the interstate.”

“Bad night to be on the highway,” Dennis told them. “Tornado warnings are out all over the place.”

“We heard it on the radio,” the woman—Lindy, if the license was right—said. “We’re on our way to Birmingham, and we thought we could drive right through the storm. We should’ve stopped at that Holiday Inn we passed about fifteen miles ago.”

“That would’ve been smart,” Dennis agreed. “No sense in pushin’ your luck.” He returned to his stool.

The new arrivals ordered hamburgers, fries, and Cokes. Cheryl and I went to work. Lightning made the diner’s lights flicker again, and the sound of thunder caused the kids to jump. When the food was ready and Cheryl served them, Dennis said, “Tell you what. You folks finish your dinners and I’ll escort you back to the Holiday Inn. Then you can head out in the morning. How about that?”

“Fine,” Ray said gratefully. “I don’t think we could’ve gotten very much further, anyway.” He turned his attention to his food.

“Well,” Cheryl said quietly, standing beside me, “I don’t guess we get home early, do we?”

“I guess not. Sorry.”

She shrugged. “Goes with the job, right? Anyway, I can think of worse places to be stuck.”

I figured that Alma might be worried about me, so I went over to the pay phone to call her. I dropped a quarter in—and the dial tone sounded like a cat being stepped on. I hung up and tried again. The cat scream continued. “Damn!” I muttered. “Lines must be screwed up.”

“Ought to get yourself a place closer to town, Bobby,” Dennis said. “Never could figure out why you wanted a joint in the sticks. At least you’d get better phone service and good lights if you were nearer to Mo—”

He was interrupted by the sound of wet and shrieking brakes, and he swiveled around on his stool.

I looked up as a car hurtled into the parking lot, the tires swerving, throwing up plumes of water. For a few seconds I thought it was going to keep coming, right through the window into the diner—but then the brakes caught and the car almost grazed the side of my pickup as it jerked to a stop. In the neon’s red glow I could tell it was a beat-up old Ford Fairlane, either gray or a dingy beige. Steam was rising off the crumpled hood. The headlights stayed on for perhaps a minute before they winked off. A figure got out of the car and walked slowly—with a limp—toward the diner.

We watched the figure approach. Dennis’ body looked like a coiled spring ready to be triggered. “We got us a live one, Bobby boy,” he said.

The door opened, and in a stinging gust of wind and rain a man who looked like walking death stepped into my diner.

He was so wet he might well have been driving with his windows down. He was a skinny guy, maybe weighed all of a hundred and twenty pounds, even soaking wet. His unruly dark hair was plastered to his head, and he had gone a week or more without a shave. In his gaunt, pallid face his eyes were startlingly blue; his gaze flicked around the diner, lingered for a few seconds on Dennis. Then he limped on down to the far end of the counter and took a seat. He wiped the rain out of his eyes as Cheryl took a menu to him.

Dennis stared at the man. When he spoke, his voice bristled with authority. “Hey, fella.” The man didn’t look up from the menu. “Hey, I’m talkin’ to you.”

The man pushed the menu away and pulled a damp packet of Kools out of the breast pocket of his patched Army fatigue jacket. “I can hear you,” he said; his voice was deep and husky, and didn’t go with his less-than-robust physical appearance.

“Drivin’ kinda fast in this weather, don’t you think?”

The man flicked a cigarette lighter a few times before he got a flame, then lit one of his smokes and inhaled deeply. “Yeah,” he replied. “I was. Sorry. I saw the sign, and I was in a hurry to get here. Miss? I’d just like a cup of coffee, please. Hot and real strong, okay?”

Cheryl nodded and turned away from him, almost bumping into me as I strolled down behind the counter to check him out.

“That kind of hurry’ll get you killed,” Dennis cautioned.

“Right. Sorry.” He shivered and pushed the tangled hair back from his forehead with one hand. Up close, I could see deep cracks around his mouth and the corners of his eyes and I figured him to be in his late thirties or early forties. His wrists were as thin as a woman’s; he looked like he hadn’t eaten a good meal for more than a month. He stared at his hands through bloodshot eyes. Probably on drugs, I thought. The fella gave me the creeps. Then he looked at me with those eyes—so pale blue they were almost white—and I felt like I’d been nailed to the floor. “Something wrong?” he asked—not rudely, just curiously.

“Nope.” I shook my head. Cheryl gave him his coffee and then went over to give Ray and Lindy their check.

The man didn’t use either cream or sugar. The coffee was steaming, but he drank half of it down like mother’s milk. “That’s good,” he said. “Keep me awake, won’t it?”

“More than likely.” Over the breast pocket of his jacket was the faint outline of the name that had been sewn there once. I think it was Price, but I could’ve been wrong.

“That’s what I want. To stay awake as long as I can.” He finished the coffee. “Can I have another cup, please?”

I poured it for him. He drank that one down just as fast,” then rubbed his eyes wearily.

“Been on the road a long time, huh?”

Price nodded. “Day and night. I don’t know which is more tired, my mind or my butt.” He lifted his gaze to me again. “Have you got anything else to drink? How about beer?”

“No, sorry. Couldn’t get a liquor license.”

He sighed. “Just as well. It might make me sleepy. But I sure could go for a beer right now. One sip, to clean my mouth out.”

He picked up his coffee cup, and I smiled and started to turn away.

But then he wasn’t holding a cup. He was holding a Budweiser can, and for an instant I could smell the tang of a newly popped beer.

The mirage was there for only maybe two seconds. I blinked, and Price was holding a cup again. “Just as well,” he said, and put it down.

I glanced over at Cheryl, then at Dennis. Neither one was paying attention. Damn! I thought. I’m too young to be losin’ either my eyesight or my senses! “Uh …” I said, or some other stupid noise.

“One more cup?” Price asked. “Then I’d better hit the road again.”

My hand was shaking as I picked it up, but if Price noticed, he didn’t say anything.

“Want anything to eat?” Cheryl asked him. “How about a bowl of beef stew?”

He shook his head. “No, thanks. The sooner I get back on the road, the better it’ll be.”

Suddenly Dennis swiveled toward him, giving him a cold stare that only cops and drill sergeants can muster. “Back on the road?” He snorted. “Fella, you ever been in a tornado before? I’m gonna escort those nice people to the Holiday Inn about fifteen miles back. If you’re smart, that’s where you’ll spend the night too. No use in tryin’ to—”

“No.” Price’s voice was rock-steady. “I’ll be spending the night behind the wheel.”

Dennis’ eyes narrowed. “How come you’re in such a hurry? Not runnin’ from anybody, are you?”

“Nightcrawlers,” Cheryl said.

Price turned toward her like he’d been slapped across the face, and I saw what might’ve been a spark of fear in his eyes.

Cheryl motioned toward the lighter Price had laid on the counter, beside the pack of Kools. It was a beat-up silver Zippo, and inscribed across it was NIGHTCRAWLERS with the symbol of two crossed rifles beneath it. “Sorry,” she said. “I just noticed that, and I wondered what it was.”

Price put the lighter away. “I was in ’Nam,” he told her. “Everybody in my unit got one.”

“Hey.” There was suddenly new respect in Dennis’ voice. “You a vet?”

Price paused so long I didn’t think he was going to answer. In the quiet, I heard the little girl tell her mother that the fries were “ucky.” Price said, “Yes.”

“How about that! Hey, I wanted to go myself, but I got a high number and things were windin’ down about that time anyway. Did you see any action?”

A faint, bitter smile passed over Price’s mouth. “Too much.”

“What? Infantry? Marines? Rangers?”

Price picked up his third cup of coffee, swallowed some, and put it down. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, and when they opened they were vacant and fixed on nothing. “Nightcrawlers,” he said quietly. “Special unit. Deployed to recon Charlie positions in questionable villages.” He said it like he was reciting from a manual. “We did a lot of crawling through rice paddies and jungles in the dark.”

“Bet you laid a few of them Vietcong out, didn’t you?” Dennis got up and came over to sit a few places away from the man. “Man, I was behind you guys all the way. I wanted you to stay in there and fight it out!”

Price was silent. Thunder echoed over the diner. The lights weakened for a few seconds; when they came back on, they seemed to have lost some of their wattage. The place was dimmer than before. Price’s head slowly turned toward Dennis, with the inexorable motion of a machine. I was thankful I didn’t have to take the full force of Price’s dead blue eyes, and I saw Dennis wince. “I should’ve stayed,” he said. “I should be there right now, buried in the mud of a rice paddy with the eight other men in my patrol.”

“Oh.” Dennis blinked. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“I came home,” Price continued calmly, “by stepping on the bodies of my friends. Do you want to know what that’s like, Mr. Trooper?”

“The war’s over,” I told him. “No need to bring it back.” Price smiled grimly, but his gaze remained fixed on Dennis. “Some say it’s over. I say it came back with the men who were there. Like me. Especially like me.” Price paused. The wind howled around the door, and the lightning illuminated for an instant the thrashing woods across the highway. “The mud was up to our knees, Mr. Trooper,” he said. “We were moving across a rice paddy in the dark, being real careful not to step on the bamboo stakes we figured were planted there. Then the first shots started: pop pop pop—like firecrackers going off. One of the Nightcrawlers fired off a flare, and we saw the Cong ringing us. We’d walked right into hell, Mr. Trooper. Somebody shouted, ‘Charlie’s in the light!’ and we started firing, trying to punch a hole through them. But they were everywhere. As soon as one went down, three more took his place. Grenades were going off, and more flares, and people were screaming as they got hit. I took a bullet in the thigh and another through the hand. I lost my rifle, and somebody fell on top of me with half his head missing.”

“Uh … listen,” I said. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to, friend.” He glanced quickly at me, then back to Dennis. I think I cringed when his gaze pierced me. “I want to tell it all. They were fighting and screaming and dying all around me, and I felt the bullets tug at my clothes as they passed through. I know I was screaming too, but what was coming out of my mouth sounded bestial. I ran. The only way I could save my own life was to step on their bodies and drive them down into the mud. I heard some of them choke and blubber as I put my boot on their faces. I knew all those guys like brothers … but at that moment they were only pieces of meat. I ran. A gunship chopper came over the paddy and laid down some fire, and that’s how I got out. Alone.” He bent his face closer toward the other man’s. “And you’d better believe I’m in that rice paddy in ’Nam every time I close my eyes. You’d better believe the men I left back there don’t rest easy. So you keep your opinions about ’Nam and being ‘behind you guys’ to yourself, Mr. Trooper. I don’t want to hear that bullshit. Got it?”

Dennis sat very still. He wasn’t used to being talked to like that, not even from a ’Nam vet, and I saw the shadow of anger pass over his face.

Price’s hands were trembling as he brought a little bottle out of his jeans pocket. He shook two blue-and-orange capsules out onto the counter, took them both with a swallow of coffee, and then recapped the bottle and put it away. The flesh of his face looked almost ashen in the dim light.

“I know you boys had a rough time,” Dennis said, “but that’s no call to show disrespect to the law.”

“The law,” Price repeated. “Yeah. Right. Bullshit.”

“There are women and children present,” I reminded him. “Watch your language.”

Price rose from his seat. He looked like a skeleton with just a little extra skin on the bones. “Mister, I haven’t slept for more than thirty-six hours. My nerves are shot. I don’t mean to cause trouble, but when some fool says he understands, I feel like kicking his teeth down his throat—because no one who wasn’t there can pretend to understand.” He glanced at Ray, Lindy, and the kids. “Sorry, folks. Don’t mean to disturb you. Friend, how much do I owe?” He started digging for his wallet.

Dennis slid slowly from his seat and stood with his hands on his hips. “Hold it.” He used his trooper’s voice again. “If you think I’m lettin’ you walk out of here high on pills and needin’ sleep, you’re crazy. I don’t want to be scrapin’ you off the highway.”

Price paid him no attention. He took a couple of dollars from his wallet and put them on the counter. I didn’t touch them. “Those pills will help keep me awake,” Price said. “Once I get on the road, I’ll be fine.”

“Fella, I wouldn’t let you go if it was high noon and not a cloud in the sky. I sure as hell don’t want to clean up after the accident you’re gonna have. Now, why don’t you come along to the Holiday Inn and—”

Price laughed grimly. “Mr. Trooper, the last place you want me staying is at a motel.” He cocked his head to one side. “I was in a motel in Florida a couple of nights ago, and I think I left my room a little untidy. Step aside and let me pass.”

“A motel in Florida?” Dennis nervously licked his lower lip. “What the hell you talkin’ about?”

“Nightmares and reality, Mr. Trooper. The point where they cross. A couple of nights ago, they crossed at a motel. I wasn’t going to let myself sleep. I was just going to rest for a little while, but I didn’t know they’d come so fast.” A mocking smile played at the edges of his mouth, but his eyes were tortured. “You don’t want me staying at that Holiday Inn, Mr. Trooper. You really don’t. Now, step aside.”

I saw Dennis’ hand settle on the butt of his revolver. His fingers unsnapped the fold of leather that secured the gun in the holster. I stared at him numbly. My God, I thought. What’s goin’ on? My heart had started pounding so hard I was sure everybody could hear it. Ray and Lindy were watching, and Cheryl was backing away behind the counter.

Price and Dennis faced each other for a moment, as the rain whipped against the windows and thunder boomed like shellfire. Then Price sighed, as if resigning himself to something. He said, “I think I want a T-bone steak. Extra rare. How ’bout it?” He looked at me.

“A steak?” My voice was shaking. “We don’t have any T-bone—”

Price’s gaze shifted to the counter right in front of me. I heard a sizzle. The aroma of cooking meat drifted up to me.

“Oh … wow,” Cheryl whispered.

A large T-bone steak lay on the countertop, pink and oozing blood. You could’ve fanned a menu in my face and I would’ve keeled over. Wisps of smoke were rising from the steak.

The steak began to fade, until it was only an outline on the counter. The lines of oozing blood vanished. After the mirage was gone, I could still smell the meat—and that’s how I knew I wasn’t crazy.

Dennis’ mouth hung open. Ray had stood up from the booth to look, and his wife’s face was the color of spoiled milk. The whole world seemed to be balanced on a point of silence—until the wail of the wind jarred me back to my senses.

“I’m getting good at it,” Price said softly. “I’m getting very, very good. Didn’t start happening to me until about a year ago. I’ve found four other ’Nam vets who can do the same thing. What’s in your head comes true—as simple as that. Of course, the images only last for a few seconds—as long as I’m awake, I mean. I’ve found out that those other men were drenched by a chemical spray we called Howdy Doody—because it made you stiffen up and jerk like you were hanging on strings. I got hit with it near Khe Sahn. That shit almost suffocated me. It felt like black tar, and it burned the land down to a paved parking lot.” He stared at Dennis. “You don’t want me around here, Mr. Trooper. Not with the body count I’ve still got in my head.”

“You … were at … that motel, near Daytona Beach?”

Price closed his eyes. A vein had begun beating at his right temple, royal blue against the pallor of his flesh. “Oh, Jesus,” he whispered. “I fell asleep, and I couldn’t wake myself up. I was having the nightmare. The same one. I was locked in it, and I was trying to scream myself awake.” He shuddered, and two tears ran slowly down his cheeks. “Oh,” he said, and flinched as if remembering something horrible. “They … they were coming through the door when I woke up. Tearing the door right off its hinges. I woke up … just as one of them was pointing his rifle at me. And I saw his face. I saw his muddy, misshapen face.” His eyes suddenly jerked open. “I didn’t know they’d come so fast.”

“Who?” I asked him. “Who came so fast?”

“The Nightcrawlers,” Price said, his face devoid of expression, masklike. “Dear God … maybe if I’d stayed asleep a second more. But I ran again, and I left those people dead in that motel.”

“You’re gonna come with me.” Dennis started pulling his gun from the holster. Price’s head snapped toward him. “I don’t know what kinda fool game you’re—”

He stopped, staring at the gun he held.

It wasn’t a gun anymore. It was an oozing mass of hot rubber. Dennis cried out and slung the thing from his hand. The molten mess hit the floor with a pulpy splat.

“I’m leaving now.” Price’s voice was calm. “Thank you for the coffee.” He walked past Dennis, toward the door.

Dennis grasped a bottle of ketchup from the counter. Cheryl cried out, “Don’t!” but it was too late. Dennis was already swinging the bottle. It hit the back of Price’s skull and burst open, spewing ketchup everywhere. Price staggered forward, his knees buckling. When he went down, his skull hit the floor with a noise like a watermelon being dropped. His body began jerking involuntarily.

“Got him!” Dennis shouted triumphantly. “Got that crazy bastard, didn’t I?”

Lindy was holding the little girl in her arms. The boy craned his neck to see. Ray said nervously, “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

“He’s not dead,” I told him. I looked over at the gun; it was solid again. Dennis scooped it up and aimed it at Price, whose body continued to jerk. Just like Howdy Doody, I thought. Then Price stopped moving.

“He’s dead!” Cheryl’s voice was near-frantic. “Oh God, you killed him, Dennis!”

Dennis prodded the body with the toe of his boot, then bent down. “Naw. His eyes are movin’ back and forth behind the lids.” Dennis touched his wrist to check the pulse, then abruptly pulled his own hand away. “Jesus Christ! He’s as cold as a meat locker!” He took Price’s pulse and whistled. “Goin’ like a racehorse at the Derby.”

I touched the place on the counter where the mirage steak had been. My fingers came away slightly greasy, and I could smell the cooked meat on them. At that instant Price twitched. Dennis scuttled away from him like a crab. Price made a gasping, choking noise.

“What’d he say?” Cheryl asked. “He said something!”

“No he didn’t.” Dennis stuck him in the ribs with his pistol. “Come on. Get up.”

“Get him out of here,” I said. “I don’t want him—”

Cheryl shushed me. “Listen. Can you hear that?”

I heard only the roar and crash of the storm.

“Don’t you hear it?” she asked me. Her eyes were getting scared and glassy.

“Yes!” Ray said. “Yes! Listen!”

Then I did hear something, over the noise of the keening wind. It was a distant chuk-chuk-chuk, steadily growing louder and closer. The wind covered the noise for a minute, then it came back: CHUK-CHUK-CHUK, almost overhead.

“It’s a helicopter!” Ray peered through the window. “Somebody’s got a helicopter out there!”

“Ain’t nobody can fly a chopper in a storm!” Dennis told him. The noise of rotors swelled and faded, swelled and faded … and stopped.

On the floor, Price shivered and began to contort into a fetal position. His mouth opened; his face twisted in what appeared to be agony.

Thunder spoke. A red fireball rose up from the woods across the road and hung lazily in the sky for a few seconds before it descended toward the diner. As it fell, the fireball exploded soundlessly into a white, glaring eye of light that almost blinded me.

Price said something in a garbled, panicked voice. His eyes were tightly closed, and he had squeezed up with his arms around his knees.

Dennis rose to his feet; he squinted as the eye of light fell toward the parking lot and winked out in a puddle of water. Another fireball floated up from the woods, and again blossomed into painful glare.

Dennis turned toward me. “I heard him.” His voice was raspy. “He said . . . ‘Charlie’s in the light.’”

As the second flare fell to the ground and illuminated the parking lot, I thought I saw figures crossing the road. They walked stiff-legged, in an eerie cadence. The flare went out.

“Wake him up,” I heard myself whisper. “Dennis … dear God … wake him up.”

Dennis stared stupidly at me, and I started to jump across the counter to get to Price myself.

A gout of flame leapt in the parking lot. Sparks marched across the concrete. I shouted, “Get down!” and twisted around to push Cheryl back behind the shelter of the counter.

“What the hell—” Dennis said.

He didn’t finish. There was the metallic thumping of bullets hitting the gas pumps and the cars. I knew if that gas blew we were all dead. My truck shuddered with the impact of slugs, and I saw the whole thing explode as I ducked behind the counter. Then the windows blew inward with a god-awful crash, and the diner was full of flying glass, swirling wind, and sheets of rain. I heard Lindy scream, and both the kids were crying, and I think I was shouting something myself.

The lights had gone out, and the only illumination was the reflection of red neon off the concrete and the glow of the fluorescents over the gas pumps. Bullets whacked into the wall, and crockery shattered as if it had been hit with a hammer. Napkins and sugar packets were flying everywhere.

Cheryl was holding on to me as if her fingers were nails sunk to my bones. Her eyes were wide and dazed, and she kept trying to speak. Her mouth was working, but nothing came out.

There was another explosion as one of the other cars blew. The whole place shook, and I almost puked with fear.

Another hail of bullets hit the wall. They were tracers, and they jumped and ricocheted like white-hot cigarette butts. One of them sang off the edge of a shelf and fell to the floor about three feet away from me. The glowing slug began to fade, like the beer can and the mirage steak. I put my hand out to find it, but all I felt was splinters of glass and crockery. A phantom bullet, I thought. Real enough to cause damage and death—and then gone.

You don’t want me around here, Mr. Trooper, Price had warned. Not with the body count I’ve got in my head.

The firing stopped. I got free of Cheryl and said, “You stay right here.” Then I looked up over the counter and saw my truck and the station wagon on fire, the flames being whipped by the wind. Rain slapped me across the face as it swept in where the window glass used to be. I saw Price lying still huddled on the floor, with pieces of glass all around him. His hands were clawing the air, and in the flickering red neon his face was contorted, his eyes still closed. The pool of ketchup around his head made him look like his skull had been split open. He was peering into hell, and I averted my eyes before I lost my own mind.

Ray and Lindy and the two children had huddled under the table of their booth. The woman was sobbing brokenly. I looked at Dennis, lying a few feet from Price: he was sprawled on his face, and there were four holes punched through his back. It was not ketchup that ran in rivulets around Dennis’ body. His right arm was outflung, and the fingers twitched around the gun he gripped.

Another flare sailed up from the woods like a Fourth of July sparkler.

When the light brightened, I saw them: at least five figures, maybe more. They were crouched over, coming across the parking lot—but slowly, the speed of nightmares. Their clothes flapped and hung around them, and the flare’s light glanced off their helmets. They were carrying weapons—rifles, I guessed. I couldn’t see their faces, and that was for the best.

On the floor, Price moaned. I heard him say “light … in the light …”

The flare hung right over the diner. And then I knew what was going on. We were in the light. We were all caught in Price’s nightmare, and the Nightcrawlers that Price had left in the mud were fighting the battle again—the same way it had been fought at the Pines Haven Motor Inn. The Nightcrawlers had come back to life, powered by Price’s guilt and whatever that Howdy Doody shit had done to him.

And we were in the light, where Charlie had been out in that rice paddy.

There was a noise like castanets clicking. Dots of fire arced through the broken windows and thudded into the counter. The stools squealed as they were hit and spun. The cash register rang and the drawer popped open, and then the entire register blew apart and bills and coins scattered. I ducked my head, but a wasp of fire—I don’t, know what, a bit of metal or glass maybe—sliced my left cheek open from ear to upper lip. I fell to the floor behind the counter with blood running down my face.

A blast shook the rest of the cups, saucers, plates, and glasses off the shelves. The whole roof buckled inward, throwing loose ceiling tiles, light fixtures, and pieces of metal framework.

We were all going to die. I knew it, right then. Those things were going to destroy us. But I thought of the pistol in Dennis’ hand, and of Price lying near the door. If we were caught in Price’s nightmare and the blow from the ketchup bottle had broken something in his skull, then the only way to stop his dream was to kill him.

I’m no hero. I was about to piss in my pants, but I knew I was the only one who could move. I jumped up and scrambled over the counter, falling beside Dennis and wrenching at that pistol. Even in death, Dennis had a strong grip. Another blast came, along the wall to my right. The heat of it scorched me, and the shock wave skidded me across the floor through glass and rain and blood.

But I had that pistol in my hand.

I heard Ray shout, “Look out!”

In the doorway, silhouetted by flames, was a skeletal thing wearing muddy green rags. It wore a dented-in helmet and carried a corroded, slime-covered rifle. Its face was gaunt and shadowy, the features hidden behind a scum of rice-paddy muck. It began to lift the rifle to fire at me—slowly, slowly …

I got the safety off the pistol and fired twice, without aiming. A spark leapt off the helmet as one of the bullets was deflected, but the figure staggered backward and into the conflagration of the station wagon, where it seemed to melt into ooze before it vanished.

More tracers were coming in. Cheryl’s Volkswagen shuddered, the tires blowing out almost in unison. The state-trooper car was already bullet-riddled and sitting on flats.

Another Nightcrawler, this one without a helmet and with slime covering the skull where the hair had been, rose up beyond the window and fired its rifle. I heard the bullet whine past my ear, and as I took aim I saw its bony finger tightening on the trigger again.

A skillet flew over my head and hit the thing’s shoulder, spoiling its aim. For an instant the skillet stuck in the Nightcrawler’s body, as if the figure itself was made out of mud. I fired once … twice … and saw pieces of matter fly from the thing’s chest. What might’ve been a mouth opened in a soundless scream, and the thing slithered out of sight.

I looked around. Cheryl was standing behind the counter, weaving on her feet, her face white with shock. “Get down!” I shouted, and she ducked for cover.

I crawled to Price, shook him hard. His eyes would not open. “Wake up!” I begged him. “Wake up, damn you!” And then I pressed the barrel of the pistol against Price’s head. Dear God, I didn’t want to kill anybody, but I knew I was going to have to blow the Nightcrawlers right out of his brain. I hesitated—too long.

Something smashed into my left collarbone. I heard the bone snap like a broomstick being broken. The force of the shot slid me back against the counter and jammed me between two bullet-pocked stools. I lost the gun, and there was a roaring in my head that deafened me.

I don’t know how long I was out. My left arm felt like dead meat. All the cars in the lot were burning, and there was a hole in the diner’s roof that a tractor-trailer truck could’ve dropped through. Rain was sweeping into my face, and when I wiped my eyes clear I saw them, standing over Price.

There were eight of them. The two I thought I’d killed were back. They trailed weeds, and their boots and ragged clothes were covered with mud. They stood in silence, staring down at their living comrade.

I was too tired to scream. I couldn’t even whimper. I just watched.

Price’s hands lifted into the air. He reached for the Nightcrawlers, and then his eyes opened. His pupils were dead white, surrounded by scarlet.

“End it,” he whispered. “End it …”

One of the Nightcrawlers aimed its rifle and fired. Price jerked. Another Nightcrawler fired, and then they were all firing point-blank into Price’s body. Price thrashed and clutched at his head, but there was no blood; the phantom bullets weren’t hitting him.

The Nightcrawlers began to ripple and fade. I saw the flames of the burning cars through their bodies. The figures became transparent, floating in vague outlines. Price had awakened too fast at the Pines Haven Motor Inn, I realized; if he had remained asleep, the creatures of his nightmares would’ve ended it there, at that Florida motel. They were killing him in front of me—or he was allowing them to end it, and I think that’s what he must’ve wanted for a long, long time.

He shuddered, his mouth releasing a half-moan, half-sigh.

It sounded almost like relief.

The Nightcrawlers vanished. Price didn’t move anymore.

I saw his face. His eyes were closed, and I think he must’ve found peace at last.

A trucker hauling lumber from Mobile to Birmingham saw the burning cars. I don’t even remember what he looked like.

Ray was cut up by glass, but his wife and the kids were okay. Physically, I mean. Mentally, I couldn’t say.

Cheryl went into the hospital for a while. I got a postcard from her with the Golden Gate Bridge on the front. She promised she’d write and let me know how she was doing, but I doubt if I’ll ever hear from her. She was the best waitress I ever had, and I wish her luck.

The police asked me a thousand questions, and I told the story the same way every time. I found out later that no bullets or shrapnel were ever dug out of the walls or the cars or Dennis’ body—just like in the case of that motel massacre. There was no bullet in me, though my collarbone was snapped clean in two.

Price had died of a massive brain hemorrhage. It looked, the police told me, as if it had exploded in his skull.

I closed the diner. Farm life is fine. Alma understands, and we don’t talk about it.

But I never showed the police what I found, and I don’t know exactly why not.

I picked up Price’s wallet in the mess. Behind a picture of a smiling young woman holding a baby there was a folded piece of paper. On that paper were the names of four men.

Beside one name, Price had written “Dangerous.”

I’ve found four other ’Nam vets who can do the same thing, Price had said.

I sit up at night a lot, thinking about that and looking at those names. Those men had gotten a dose of that Howdy Doody shit in a foreign place they hadn’t wanted to be, fighting a war that turned out to be one of those crossroads of nightmare and reality. I’ve changed my mind about ’Nam because I understand now that the worst of the fighting is still going on, in the battlefields of memory.

A Yankee who called himself Tompkins came to my house one May morning and flashed me an ID that said he worked for a veterans’ association. He was very soft-spoken and polite, but he had deep-set eyes that were almost black, and he never blinked. He asked me all about Price, seemed real interested in picking my brain of every detail. I told him the police had the story, and I couldn’t add any more to it. Then I turned the tables and asked him about Howdy Doody. He smiled in a puzzled kind of way and said he’d never heard of any chemical defoliant called that. No such thing, he said. Like I say, he was very polite.

But I know the shape of a gun tucked into a shoulder holster. Tompkins was wearing one under his seersucker coat. I never could find any veterans’ association that knew anything about him, either.

Maybe I should give that list of names to the police. Maybe I will. Or maybe I’ll try to find those four men myself, and try to make some sense out of what’s being hidden.

I don’t think Price was evil. No. He was just scared, and who can blame a man for running from his own nightmares? I like to believe that, in the end, Price had the courage to face the Nightcrawlers, and in committing suicide he saved our lives.

The newspapers, of course, never got the real story. They called Price a ’Nam vet who’d gone crazy, killed six people in a Florida motel, and then killed a state trooper in a shoot-out at Big Bob’s diner and gas stop.

But I know where Price is buried. They sell little American flags at the five-and-dime in Mobile. I’m alive, and I can spare the change.

And then I’ve got to find out how much courage I have.

0 notes

dramaticskunk · 4 years ago

Photo

just some #blm stuff bc guess what !! it’s not over. & it won’t be for quite a while if we don’t 𝘥𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨. do y’all understand that ?

this account is focused mainly around art & shit like that, this is where i focus on art, that’s why i created @scooterthehonky, bc i focus on irl things over there. BUT, i know that i have a far bigger following here than over there, & i would much rather post stuff that really needs attention where it has a far greater chance at ACTUALLY GETTING THE AWARENESS IT NEEDS. i don’t give a 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 if it “messes up my art-centred content” or whatever the fuck you idiots are using as a bullshit excuse to not post important things to your main profiles or at least in as many places as possible so it can hopefully get more attention.

i personally have health & mental health problems that keep me from being able to get out & protest ( not to mention i live in the deep south of alabama in a small ass town & all the old christian people who know me & my family would tell my parents who would then ground &/or yell at me & do damage. ) even tho i desperately want to, & i’m also fucking broke. but by God i will do everything in my tiny power to share as much as possible so others who ARE capable of donating & protesting and other things can help.

please donate if you can. please protest SAFELY if you can ( wear a fucking mask you dolts & wear protective gear & identity hiding clothing & shit ). please share as many resources, informative things & organisations as you can. who cares about “spamming” your story/profile with BLM content ?? the more shared the better. if someone is upset bc you’re posting “too much” of that stuff, they can lick the back wall of a applebee’s urinal.

this is NOT over. & we all need to do our part. i was scared for a bit bc i didn’t want to do something wrong & offend or misinform people, & i also just didn’t fucking know much honestly. but to stay out just bc i was worried abt 𝘮𝘦 doing dumb shit is super fucking privileged of me & is harmful to the movement & the #bipoc suffering right now. if i mess up, CORRECT AND EDUCATE ME PLEASE. i’d rather end up getting educated than not help at all. (at Do Your Part.) https://www.instagram.com/p/CByN__5DtDB/?igshid=pgqou9nuyva6

#blm #bipoc #rantings #blm2020 #doyourpart #blm movement #blacklivesmatter #black indigenous people of color #white people do better

0 notes

spiderdevitt · 7 years ago

Text

The Hardest Mistakes - Chapter 1

Synopsis: Greydene had a difficult upbringing. Born in the UK and adopted by American parents, her life in the system hasn’t been ideal. She was brought to the US at a young age and at 18, joined the Statesman, a spy organization in Kentucky. The rules were too much and she goes rouge, becoming an assassin. Her first job? Protect royalty with help from the Kingsman and her Uncle, Harry Hart.

Tags: Drama, Action

Author’s Note: Chapter 1 is officially here!!! Leave some feedback, reblog this, share it, love it, all that.

Main Characters: OC, Gary “Eggsy” Unwin, Harry Hart.

Tag List: @kingofbros

"Grey, that was completely reckless." Tequila yelled in his thick, Kentucky accent. I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. I didn't need this reprimanding from a man who wore assless chaps and cowboy boots on a normal basis.

"It wasn't reckless. It was effective." I spat, standing my ground.

"You drove your fucking motorcycle onto the tracks! You could have injured one of the horses, one of the jockeys or even yourself!" He approached aggressively. "The suicidal shit needs to fucking stop."

"I drove my bike onto the tracks because the fucking BAD GUY stole a fucking CAR and drove it onto the tracks. Let's not focus on me and the fact that I caught the fuck and you're treating me like a little child!" I yelled, uncrossing my arms. I stood up on my tip-toes and didn't even reach his chin. Tequila was a giant.

"I'm focusing on you because Champ isn't happy. He hasn't been happy with you for some time. If it wasn't for your father being one of us before he died, you wouldn't be." Tequila sighed. "Champ feels like you're a charity and I know you aren't. I'm just worried about you, kid." I stood silently with a glare on my face. He sighed and left the room.

Twenty-three years ago, I was adopted in London, England when I was one. I was adopted by a horse jockey and his very high-end wife. Dad was always away and so mom and I lived in New York for her business. She was an owner of a string of boutiques in Manhattan. I never wanted for anything, and yet they weren't my favorite people. It wasn't until my eighteenth birthday that I found out my father wasn't a jockey at all. He was a Statesman.

I was in training to be a Statesman when my father's accident happened. He was dealing with a job in Alabama and was killed by the guy he was investigating; a killer who always left a clue of his murder that would lead to the next. I was immediately made a Statesman and given his name, Vodka. I hated any thought of association with him, however and decided to put my own twist on the name. Everyone in the Statesman group called me Goose.

Champagne was the leader of the Statesman and he did not like me in the slightest. He felt that the Statesman's vote to induct me immediately was ridiculous and my risky nature wasn't any better. He definitely felt this way when my horse from training, Saddle was killed in an accident within my first year of being a Statesman. I decided after to switch to a motorcycle, which Champagne felt was an abomination to the Kentucky-bred Statesman. I didn't care so much. I was a New York-bred bitch.

I left my bunker in the Statesman mansion to go and find Champagne. Tequila coming to yell at me was definitely a sign that Champagne was in a fury and I didn't need that pressure being put on Teq. He was like an annoying older brother to me and truthfully, he was the only Statesman I cared about; minus Ginger, who used to be our own personal hacker. She left us to marry an English man, but taught me everything she knew while she was here. Now I pick up the slack and it's the only thing Champagne probably likes about me. I stopped outside Champagne's door where Tequila was waiting.

"Are you sure you want to go in there?" He asked, leaning against the wall next to the door.

"You know I get off when people yell at me." I winked and he chuckled.

"What are you going to do? If he..."

"Dismisses me?" I finished. Tequila nodded. "I'm going to do what I want." I huffed and opened the doors to his room without knocking and closed them behind me.

Champagne was your typical Kentucky Derby high-roller. He wore a 200-gallon cowboy hat, a beige suit and had very groomed white hair and a white goatee. He was our Champagne for a reason; he was the fanciest of us all. He sat with his arms on his desk and glared ahead at my small frame as I proceeded over to the chair that was in front of the desk. I sat down and crossed my legs.

"I'm not even going to explain. You aren't going to let me." I stated bitterly.

"I'm not. Your bike is to be destroyed and you are banned from ever being a field agent for the Statesman from this point forward. You are to sit in this mansion and hack computers if we ever need it." Champagne smiled, proud of his work. "I thought of dismissing you, Grey. I wanted to so badly."

"So why didn't you?"

"Why give you what you want? As a Statesman, you pledge loyalty. You will mind your oath of loyalty and remain a Statesman." He stated, standing up and buttoning his jacket. "Now get out of my sight and go where I assigned you." I bit my tongue and stood up from the chair. I walked out of the room and slammed the door behind me.

"How'd it go?" Tequila asked. He never moved from his spot.

"I'm not dismissed." I said, and went to walk down the hallway. He grabbed my arm and looked at me.

"Grey, please don't do anything crazy." He sighed.

"Oh, nothing crazy. I'm just a hacker." I smiled and walked down the hall and to the elevators that would lead me to the hacking suite.

The hacking suite was a sky-high room of monitors, wires and the smell of smoky electricity. There were multiple seats on different sides of the room, meant for me to run around to depending on who needed me. Every seat was at a station for a different Statesman. Champagne, Tequila, Whiskey, Rum, Wine, Absinthe, and Vodka; except Vodka's station... or my station, rather, was dark. Champagne had turned off my networks.

I sat in the seat in the middle of the room that was connected to the computer and sighed. Leaning in the chair, I turned my head to look at my dark station. I knew that darkness wasn't just monitors being shut off. It was a message from Champagne. That I was stuck here and this was my new meaning. Ginger was lucky to get out of here when she met that man. She was lucky enough to escape Champagne and his annoyances, although she really did never seem to mind him; but she knew I felt held back.

As I sat in my thought while looking at my monitors, I saw something blinking at the corner of my eye. I turned to look at the computer and saw an incoming message from an outside interference. Ginger never told me what to do in a situation like this and I was unsure of what was happening. The Statesman is a highly secure and secret organization, how was anyone calling in?

The blinking stopped and I sat up, thinking I should tell Champagne. He was right, in an unfortunate sense. As much as I hated being a Statesman, I was loyal. I only hated being a Statesman because of the rules. Deciding to tell Champagne, I stood up but was interrupted by the blinking alert again. I sat back down and sighed.

"I could just tell him later..." I whispered before clicking the alert and a video popped up on the screen.

"Greydene Hart?" A man spoke. He had tan skin and dark eyes. His head was bald and he wore a suit jacket with a black shirt.

"Y-yes?" I said quietly.

"My name is Vance Jones. I've been watching you for quite some time, and I have a job for you." He sternly stated to the camera.

"I'm not taking jobs at the moment..." I slowly stated.

"This isn't a job for a Statesman, Ms. Hart. I'm in need of an assassin."

"I'm not an assassin. I'm not even a Statesman. I'm not meant to be." I cleared my throat.

"You're not meant to be a hacker in a computer room either. I can help you escape. You need only accept the job." Vance breathed.

"I'd be betraying the Statesman."

"Yes. But you'd be free." He stated. I remained silent. "Listen, if you change your mind, there's a motorcycle waiting in the seventh horses gate. Until then, Ms. Hart." Vance gave a nod and then the screen turned black.

I looked blankly at the screen, contemplating what just happened. How did this man know I was down here? How long was he watching me exactly? How did he know about the Statesman? I was confused and curious all at once. I looked over at my monitor and back at the computer screen.

Looking back at my monitor, I shifted my eyes to the entrance of the hacking suite, got up and stormed out of the room. I walked through the halls of the mansion as if nothing was wrong and went outside to the race track where the horses stables and the gates were. I walked past number one, two, three... and finally stopped at number seven. Behind the gate was a jet black motorcycle with a shiny red helmet.

Hopping the gate, I gently ran my hand over the leather seat and the wheels. The finish of the bike was beautiful and it looked far better than the other bike I had driven. I picked up the helmet and looked at myself in the reflection. I saw the mansion in the background and sighed. I put the helmet on, mounted the bike and revved the engine before taking off, leaving nothing but dust behind me.

#Kingsman #Kingsman: The Secret Service #Kingsman: The Golden Circle #Eggsy Unwin #Gary Eggsy Unwin #Harry Hart #Colin Firth #Taron Egerton #The Hardest Mistakes

9 notes · View notes