#but at the time I would have been arrested and sent to rehab for one drink celebrating my lonely birthday with friends who pitied me

[arctic-hands]

Dudes I remember asking my pediatric gastro if it was dangerous for me to drink alcohol bc I believed D.A.R.E and thought everyone in the slightest out of school interaction would pressure me into at least drinking to look cool, and he said he wouldn't tell me that because he didn't want to encourage underage drinking.

I wasn't asking for permission I was even looking for an excuse to turn alcohol down if asked but cool beans dude I guess I'll find out in the moment if alcohol will kill me with the meds I'm on or the conditions I have. A+ doctoring you're totes responsible adult

[lost-girl-2021]

Kiri in Days Into Decades

Okay, so with Kiri, I feel like it's kind of an unspoken thing everyone knows about in this AU. Like, I do think Grace would be dead-dead and not in a avatar-coma for this modern AU. This is kind of how I've been imaging the whole set-up:

Jake is sent to guard a group of scientists a few months after he's deployed to (wherever I said it was, idr) where his brother Tommy worked before he was killed during (idk, a bombing or attack or something, maybe the whole school thing). I imagine Jake would've requested to be there from the beginning, but the transfer only got approved after Tommy died, because angst.

Grace and Tommy were good friends and as a result Grace and Jake are both protective over each other (Grace because she feels guilty about his death and Jake because he wants to make sure nobody else dies like his brother did).

Jake meets Neytiri, who's the daughter of the village's chief and all that shit happens. They have a wedding according to the village's traditions and then pretty much right after they hear about a nearby village that was slaughtered. Jake and Neytiri go all blues clues on that shit and find out it was Quaritch's men who did it.

Grace's death isn't caused by Quaritch directly, but some of the villagers who turn on the military presence in fear/anger after what happened to their neighboring village. She's caught up in the attack and is injured badly, circling the drain and ends up in a coma.

Things are unstable and Jake is badly injured as well. His rehab is going to take a long time, so he's honorably discharged and Neytiri ends up coming with him back to the US, where they get married a second time. It turns out, she was pregnant with Neteyam (this probably all took course over 10 months or so, kinda a whirlwind romance)

As for ages, this is kind of what makes the most sense, Idr what I said about ages earlier in the fic tbh.

When Spider is officially placed with the McGregor's, he's two years old (right after his mom died). The arrest took place when he had just turned one.

Neteyam is only a few months younger than Spider (maybe like four), but he's a grade above him cause my boy's smart.

Kiri is Neteyam's like, Irish twin, basically. Maybe a month older/younger. I definitely think that Grace would want to be home for her pregnancy/baby, but maybe when she Tommy died, she knew that for the project to continue, she needed to be there. So she kept it secret and then when she fell into the coma they found out and were like wtffff. And then the strain from giving birth ultimately caused her death, but she was already brain dead and stuff.

Lo'ak's around a year/year and a half younger than Neteyam, so he was born sometime around when Spider first moved into the neighborhood. And then Tuk came into the picture a while later, once they were done with the fun of three (four) under five.

Kiri probably knows about Grace and stuff and I'd imagine they have pictures of her and keepsakes saved for Kiri (like, a ring from Grace's grandmother, some jewelry, some journals, etc.)

Lowkey went on a rant about everything, but this is my thought process on everything, pretty much. :)

[briamichellewrites]

35

Bria was documenting her drug use in a journal she kept at her bedside. She started doing it after getting high on meth for the first time at the party. What would she do with the journal? She didn’t know. Maybe she would save it to remember. Even though they didn’t realise it, she and Jason were falling more and more into addiction every time they got high. She was addicted to heroin. He was addicted to cocaine.

On the outside, nobody could tell. But their minds were filled with their next fix. They needed more. His body was getting tolerant and soon, he would need to increase his dose to get the same feeling. When he looked in the mirror, he saw an addict in denial. He was constantly paranoid about whether or not he was convincing. Could anyone around him tell?

He got angry with himself because he hated what he was doing. But he could not stop. He only felt calm when he was under the influence. Five years was a long time. His family didn’t know. He didn’t want them to know. At the same time, he did. He wanted his father to get angry with him. Send me to rehab so I don’t have to do this shit anymore! Get me arrested for drug possession! Every time he was with Mike, he prayed for him to notice his addiction.

He was slowly killing himself. One day, his body would give up. He blamed himself for getting Bria involved in his drug use. Why did he do it? He hoped that by doing it, she would never leave him. Would she love him if they were sober? He looked at his arm. Out of anger, he took a razor to it. He soaked up the blood with toilet paper.

You’re out of control, Jay. Tears went down his face. At that moment, he wanted to die. He wanted to die before the drugs killed him. Bria was at a photoshoot and Dave was on his way over. He would not implicate her by mentioning her involvement in their shared addiction. Rather, he would only implicate himself. Why did he start using drugs? He didn’t remember, but he wished he never had. It was ruining his life.

He let Dave in after he rang the doorbell. When he looked into his eyes, the light was gone. He asked what was wrong.

“I’m a cocaine addict and I have been for the past five years. I need help. Please save my life. I can’t do this anymore.”

“I will help you. When was the last time you got high?”

“Yesterday. You were busy with Bria. I went into the bathroom.”

He saw a red mark under his sleeve, so he pulled it up. Oh my god! His heart fell. They sat on the floor as he cried. He wrapped his arms around him. Jason begged him to get him help. Why did he do it? He was angry with himself. Dave looked at the scars to make sure they weren’t deep enough to cause damage. No, they didn’t look like they needed stitches. He would get him help. Thank you! He held him as he continued crying.

Their first step was going to his parents. They were horrified when he told them the truth. Not only was he drinking, he was also using cocaine. Donna and Muto cried when they saw his arm. It was one of the first times he had ever seen his father cry. They would get him into rehab. He apologised and thanked them.

Dave met Bria at the studio. She sent him the address and when she would be finished. He mentioned Jason going to rehab. Since he could only send so many characters, he had to keep it short. He would explain later. They went out to the parking lot and over to her car. Was Jason okay? No, he wasn’t. It wasn’t a conversation he felt comfortable having in public. They agreed to go back to her place. He would meet her there.

Jason was in rehab again. He went through the intake process, which included having his arm looked at. The scars were insignificant and didn’t require stitches. They were covered in bandages to prevent infections. Before going back, he hugged his parents. They were both very upset. Still, they hugged him goodbye. He was safe. That was all that mattered.

Yes, Bria knew. She lied and said she didn’t know how to help him. That’s why she didn’t say anything. They bought the lie. Was she going to ask for a divorce? No. They promised each other they would never get divorced. She loved him too much to do that. That was the truth. Their door would always be open. She was welcome to call them whenever she needed them. As they got up, she promised to do that. Thank you.

Back home, she lay down on her bed. He sat down beside her. What’s wrong? She was just overwhelmed. Did she need rehab? She looked at him. Fuck you. He laughed.

Christina was coming home with Jasper from the hospital. After a month, he was finally stable. She was so proud of him for admitting he needed help. They wanted to visit Bria to see how she was doing with Jason in rehab. He was anxious about her being home by herself.

As they were passing through the interchange, they happened to be caught in the middle of a police chase. They tried to see where the other car was coming from when it hit them. Their car was pushed off the road and into the ditch. They were both badly injured and couldn’t get out of the vehicle as it caught fire. Other cars pulled over to help them.

Police radioed to dispatch about the accident. They needed the fire squad and ambulances. It felt like forever before they were rescued. Their seatbelts were cut and they were carefully brought out to the stretchers. They were both badly burned. Paramedics worked on them as they rushed to the closest hospital, which happened to be Cedar Sinai. The emergency room staff had no idea who they were. All they knew was that they had to act fast.

“What is your name, sir”, the emergency room physician asked.

“Ja... Ja. It’s me. Brian. It’s me.”

“Doctor Johnson. We will take good care of you.”

Thank you. Bria got a phone call from Brian about the accident. She was so upset that she didn’t trust herself to get to the hospital safely. Dave offered to bring her. She nodded in tears. He hugged her. What could he say to comfort her? They would be okay? How the hell did he know? He didn’t. All he said was that he was there for her.

I’m with Bria at the hospital. Her parents were in a serious car accident. – Dave

While they waited for more news, they talked about whatever they could think of. She had to go to another photoshoot the next day. Could she call in and have it rescheduled? No, she had to be there. How long was it? Three hours. It took three hours to take some pictures. Yes, she usually had different outfits she had to put on. They also had to change her hair and makeup several times. He had no idea it was that extensive. Maybe he could come to watch her. If that was possible, he would enjoy that. She thought they would be okay with it, as long as he didn’t get in the way. He promised not to.

@zoeykaytesmom @feelingsofaithless @alina-dixon

[preciouslandmermaid]

"as the tides turn" (c.m.)

CHAPTER FIVE: "And The Tide Rolls Out" (5/5)

check the first chapter/post for more details :) this episode features a farewell to our lovely tech analyst <3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I’ve got a potential for you,” Garcia said to the team, “Benjamin Miller. When he was twenty-two, his little sister tragically drowned while his family was at the beach, and Ben dropped out of college mid-semester. His employment has been all over the place, but it’s mostly on home repairs and does a lot of contract work. This guy’s taxes were all over the place. His family was...yikes.” She grimaced. “After Simone’s death, his father was arrested multiple times for DUI, and at least one report of domestic disturbance. Police suspected abuse, but Mrs. Miller never filed against him.”

“What was Benjamin studying?” Hotch asked.

“Marine biology.”

“Fits the profile,” Rossi said, “did anything happen recently in his personal or professional life?”

“Squeaky clean criminal record. No partners or spouses. His parents are still married, though his father resides at a rehab facility.”

“Unless it’s timing,” said Hotch, “Garcia, how old would his sister would be if she survived?”

Garcia’s fingers flew in rapid succession across her keyboard. “Twenty-two. Oh. Oh. Her birthday lines up to when Mary-Anne was abducted.”

“There’s our trigger.”

Spencer chimed in, “He’s using these girls as surrogates for his sister. He’s punishing them and killing them before they reach their full potential because he feels he was robbed of his own.”

“He let Katrina go,” Prentiss said, “but that doesn’t mean he’s going to stop.”

“We need to bring him in before he goes underground.”

"Or runs," Morgan added. 

“Sending addresses to you now,” said Garcia.

The police vehicles peeled from the parking lot with their sirens blaring – units were sent to Benjamin’s apartment, his mother’s house, and the beach where his sister, Simone, had lost her life. Roadblocks were arranged. The coast guard was notified. Finally, this case would come to a close before this city suffered any more senseless deaths.

Hotch, Morgan, and Rossi stormed the apartment with their service weapons drawn and found Benjamin shoving clothing into a duffle bag and preparing to bolt. He grabbed the duffle bag and clutched it to his chest, shouting, “I have a gun!”

“Ben, it’s over,” said Rossi.

“We know about your sister,” Hotch said.

“Oh yeah?” he taunted, “do you know how she ruined everything?! She took my life away, my future! She destroyed our family!”

“What happened was an accident, a tragedy...” Rossi said, “let’s talk about this, Ben. We don’t want to hurt you.”

Ben reached into his duffle bag, pulling an object free, but before he could brandish whatever it was – a phone, a gun, another weapon– Rossi and Hotch fired at the same time. One bullet hit the suspect’s shoulder, sending him backward into the wall, and the second bullet hit the wall, drywall and chipped paint plumed into the air like a rough exhale.

“I can’t believe you’re really leaving us, baby girl,” Morgan said as he entered Penelope’s office. All her color, her personality, all organized and boxed away. The center of her genius seemed strangely barren and desolate and sterile without her panda mug, glowing pink lava lamp, and all her adorable shaped tchotchkes. He didn’t think anyone would be able to fill the Penelope-shaped space that she’d leave behind. Though he understood and respected her decision, that didn’t make it hurt any less. Goodbyes were hard. They were always hard.

“You’re gonna make me cry.” Penelope stepped into Derek’s waiting open embrace.

“Me? No, never.” Derek kissed the top of her head. “C’mon, everyone’s waiting.”

“What?! Derek Morgan! I told you that I didn’t want a whole thing,” she protested as Derek kept one arm around her and guided her toward the bullpen. “Seriously. I’ll cry.”

Her heels clicked against the tile. “Besides, it’s not like you’re getting rid of me. I’ll be a phone call away. If you think for one second that our friendship is ending just because I’m moving then you’ve got another thing coming, mister.”

Derek laughed warmly. “Oh, I do not doubt that you could track any of us down if you needed to.”

“Damn right.”

Penelope stopped short as she entered the decorated bullpen. Her friends had strung up bright balloons of every color, and glittery streamers, and covered their cubicle walls in little nick-knacks reminiscent of her desk – her old desk. She spotted little frogs, and anime figures, and those small, bouncy rubber balls that you get for a quarter. Penelope’s heart swelled. Penelope’s heart broke.

“Aw, you guys!” She opened her arms. “Come here, come here.”

“Easy there, hot stuff, you’re gonna break Wonder Boy in half,” Derek teased when she squeezed Reid a little too tight. She blinked back her tears, promising herself that she wouldn’t cry, before almost immediately giving up on her unspoken promise. These people loved her and she loved them.

She rubbed her thumb along Emilia’s cheek and tried to wipe the bright lipstick her kiss had left behind.

“It’s fine,” Emilia said, laughing and gently pushing Penelope’s hand away. Emilia stepped back into the group and her arm brushed against Reid’s. Now, Penelope wasn’t a behavioral profiler, but she wasn’t blind or oblivious either and she noticed the faint flush of color that graced Emilia’s cheeks and the quick, amused tilt of Reid’s mouth before he smothered it.

She wanted to squeal and drag Emilia into one of the offices for the details. She was leaving right when something was going on! Oh, she was definitely texting the group chat about this later. But, in this moment, she focused on her friend’s well wishes and the brief walks down nostalgia lane and saved all the hot gossip for later when she was cozy, in bed, and emotionally and mentally preparing for her big move. If nothing else, the gossip would make a good distraction.

“What was that guy’s name? Brandon?” JJ asked, recalling the man who tried to pretend to be an FBI agent at the bar.

“Brad,” Emily said, then smiled. “I’m surprised he didn’t say his name was classified too.”

Penelope said, “Oooh, that’s right, Brad. Too bad he wasn’t cute.”

Hotch cleared his throat. “I’d like to say a few words.” A hush fell over the team as Aaron Hotchner stood, in his pressed suit and tie, holding a neon green Solo cup and smiling thinly.

“Garcia, it’s not an understatement to say that your work is the backbone of our team and I feel sympathetic towards whoever picks up the mantle after you. God willing, they’ve got an ounce of your strong, optimistic personality, and they might just make it,” he said. “We’re going to miss you. And I hope you know that you’ll always have a home at Quantico, no matter what.”

Penelope wiped away her tears with the knuckle of her index finger.

“Get in here, get in here,” she said, opening her arms again, “everyone!”

They squished together, laughing and chuckling, a tangle of arms and awkward shoulders, some of their smiles softened by bright, teary eyes. She kissed Emilia’s other cheek, leaving a second pink smudge, and realized that her big heart was split between seven wonderful people. She didn’t brush away her tears this time. They were proof of her love and her grief and the budding, tentative joy that lived in the new chapter of her life.

“There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.” ― Khalil Gibran

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: And that's everything folks! I hope you had fun reading it :) I had fun writing it heehe

*cue the ending theme of Criminal Minds while the credits roll*

[regulatedchaos]

"The more I know the less hurt I am."

Detoxing should be done tomorrow and the family is trying to pick between 2 rehab centers. Pledged for 15k each month and still waiting for others to do so cos sounds like money is the issue and of he's gonna be house arrested it's a completely different scenario :( And won't be able to talk to him after a month of him being there. I'm glad I could send some letters, I'll send him my latest ultrasound 🥰

I was eating lunch and glad that I was left alone at the table cos I couldnt help my tears fall after he sent this. I'm so happy about his progress and continue to cheer him u pand support him. It's not final but family said he may be bipolar and really needs rehab to help him manage his stress and emotions specially when he comes back to us and when dealing with the society. I can feel his love for me and the baby and more importantly that he is trying his best for us. Not really good at comforting and encouraging people but I try so hard since that's the only thing I can do right now to make him feel he is not alone.

I just hope days pass faster so I could be with him I miss him so much.

While in the shower it was right then and there, it hit me. It's happening. It's really happening. I haven't cried like this for a long time a lot of what could have beens, self doubt, what else could have I done and why do I always experience unbearable things like this? What did I ever do. I always take care of everyone, every single one unconditionally but then what about me? What I need what I feel? I wanna be able to wake up about not worrying about how things in the house will be taken care of, food, bills, cleanliness. I wanna know how and what it feels to be taken care of in all different ways, be prioritized and thought of, validated. Like when can I be truly happy without worrying about things fucking me up again. I don't know how to manage anything or everything. I can still do everything but, fuck I'm tied. I'm exhausted. I wanna be numb. I don't like to feel these things. It's not helping me, nor anyone. Plus it's not like anything would change. I just don't wanna feel anything. Nothing.

I'm still surprised how do I go about each day and how do I carry on with all of these happening

16Oct23

[craigsumter-justice]

My Legal Battle with my Family and their Co-horts / Co-conspirators (157):

So, my family has exerted financial control over me and either caused me or attempted to cause me every possible financial problem you could ever imagine to prevent me from filing both criminal charges and lawsuits against them for all of the atrocities they are guilty of committing against me.

The attached image is a scan of an affidavit I wrote while under oath and was notarized to verify the oath and the date it was written. You can see that this was written and notarized on February 6th, 2017. In the affidavit I state how I had received a letter from my parents, Leonard and Gloria Sumter, on February 4th, 2017 in which they threatened to cause me financial problems and to stop sending me money once I got out of prison and to also make me homeless if I ever brought any legal actions against them or against anyone else in my family for the crimes and torts they had committed against me.

So, as I was going through the plethora of evidence I have (what is still here in my apartment) I was looking for the letter they sent me. It's gone. I had a file clearly labeled as letters my parents had sent me that were threatening.

Well, in November of 2018 I had to go to court for an alledged DUI. My parents were well aware of the hearing and hearing date and did not want to come to Atlanta or to the hearing. It was prior to this hearing that Tim Gehret agreed to get my wallet, keys and phone from my attorney in the event that I was arrested so that he could take care of some legal things (conveniently that had to do with my legal battle with my family).

Just prior to the hearing, the DA and my attorney worked out a deal where I would just go to a six (6) month outpatient rehab program. But the judge told me he wanted to have a second hearing two (2) weeks from this date during which time he wanted me to remain in jail. Well, all of the sudden my parents want to drive up and to attend the second hearing. This of course was for two (2) reasons: (a) They thought I would be going back to prison; and (b) they wanted to stay at my apartment so they could obviously destroy evidence I had against them. Why would they want to come and why would they want to stay at my apartment? They had a key because the lease is in my mother's name. These are people who already tried to murder me by trying to bring elicit my suicide as I have shown already in this blog and who had already had me assaulted and threatened by two additional men, one who had a knife and another who had a gun. It was during this stay at my apartment that my parents had to have destroyed the threatening letter I mention earlier in this post.

Now, this has me frightened and worried about what other evidence they may have destroyed. This makes me scared and stresses me out and afraid that I will have more seizures as they continually try to keep me from proving this. It honestly makes me fear for my life. I don't even realize yet what other evidence they may have destroyed that was / has been in my apartment as I do not inventory all of my evidence on a weekly basis. I have over a half of a terabyte of evidence. The reason they didn't destroy this or the other affidavits I had written is because they didn't know that I had written them.

In my next post I will show how they enacted a scheme to cause me financial problems; problems to my credit; and employment problems. And evidence that they knew of their plans to do this and while simultaneously protecting their credit rating as I mentioned, my apartment lease was and still in in my mother, Gloria Sumter's, name.

[airasilver]

Interesting read.

HOW RURAL AMERICA STEALS GIRLS’ FUTURES

Death in a dying town

By Monica Potts

Photographs by Brenda Ann Kenneally

Billie Jean after a breakup. Troy, New York, 2006. (Brenda Ann Kenneally)

APRIL 6, 2023, 7:30 AM ET

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“Boy crazy” was what people called it. “She was so boy crazy,” I would hear about my girlfriends. I never heard the reverse, that a boy was “girl crazy.” Girls having crushes, sneaking out at night to have fun: It seems innocent enough. But in my small, conservative town, a “wrong” choice at a young age could cut girls off from their future dreams, leaving them mired in despair.

Growing up in the ’90s in Clinton, Arkansas, all that my best friend, Darci Brawner, and I dreamed about was getting out. “I want to see new people and new places,” I wrote in my journal when I was 12. I wanted to move to California but would take “any state besides Oklahoma or Mississippi.” We wanted careers, we wanted to be rich and famous, we wanted to be far away. Boys and sex would only stop us, catch us, or so my mother had warned.

Clinton is the county seat of Van Buren County, Arkansas, and, with slightly more than 2,500 people, the biggest town in the area. It’s on the southern edge of the Ozarks, the hills we generously called mountains, situated in a valley where two big creeks come together in a Y. The county’s median household income in 2021 was $40,763. Almost everyone goes to an evangelical church, and in the halls of the town’s only high school, everyone knows everything about everyone else, or seems to: whom you dated, where you bought your clothes, how you acted on weekends, and even your destiny, inherited from the generations that came before you.

I moved away for college when I was 18. While I was gone, I heard updates: who was getting married, having children, getting divorced. I heard worse stories, about who was on drugs, who’d been arrested and sent to prison, who was in rehab, who was in rehab again. Who had died. By the time I was a journalist writing about rural poverty in my mid-30s, I’d seen studies and data that helped me put the stories from home in context. One of the most alarming trends emerged about a decade ago.

In 2012, a team of population-health experts at the University of Illinois at Chicago found that white women who did not graduate from high school were dying about five years younger than such women had a generation before—at about 73 years instead of 78. Their white male counterparts were dying three years younger. From 2014 to 2017, the decline in life expectancy in the U.S., driven largely by the drop among the least-educated Americans, was the longest and most sustained in 100 years.

They weren’t just dying from so-called deaths of despair—from drugs or suicide. Many of them were also dying from cancer, heart disease, or respiratory diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer, a 2022 study found—even as these conditions became less deadly for the rest of the population.

Women in Clinton and places like it, women I’d grown up with, women I knew, were losing years of their life. What was going on?

I returned to Arkansas more and more, trying to reconnect to my hometown, looking for answers. In 2015, on a visit home, Darci contacted me out of the blue. We’d once been as close as sisters, but that spring was only the second time I’d heard from her in the nearly two decades since high school. We visited, and as we caught up and reminisced, I began to realize that I could pinpoint the time when our lives had first begun to diverge. It started during those boy-crazy middle-school years, when we were at the cusp of growing up, when our futures had not yet been written.

Kandice and Braydon in her room. Troy, New York, 2013. (Brenda Ann Kenneally)

Some of us—because our parents were strict or wealthier and more educated, or because we were “good girls” too nervous to break the rules, or because we were just plain lucky—got out. Others got pregnant.

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When we were in sixth grade, one of Darci’s good friends, a 14-year-old, had a surprise baby. She’d been feeling sick, and her mom took her to the doctor, who said she was due in a month. A few days after that, the girl went into labor. I heard her parents—the shocked and befuddled grandparents of a little boy just a few days old—relay this story in Darci’s living room.

I knew that what had happened was both wrong and not unusual. Arkansas had, and continues to have, one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the United States. Girls became pregnant in our middle and high schools, at least one a year. They dropped out or graduated as mothers and sometimes as wives, bearing a new name on their diploma.

In seventh grade, when we were 12 and 13, one of our friends had a pregnancy scare. She was dating a boy from another town who was at least 16. After a day spent sick and upset in the girls’ bathroom, she turned out not to be pregnant. But none of us thought to tell an adult, even though I knew of some who would have helped. We were not even quite teenagers but we were already navigating the full consequences of adult behavior alone.

In Clinton, sex—and the question of whether we were allowed to have it or talk about it—was related to how people viewed girls’ futures. The idea that we might become fully realized adults, experiencing sexual freedom and fulfillment, was not fathomable. We could become helpmeets for our future husbands, or we could be ruined.

The girls who got pregnant were stigmatized—until their babies were born. Then they were revered as mothers. Our school was full of young moms who were still students, and those newly graduated would come back for ball games and other events, babies on their hips. It was an endless churn, baby after baby, raised in families that spanned five or six generations because so few years separated grandmothers and mothers and daughters—and because the girls couldn’t take care of their newborns without help.

In response to the high rate of teen births, people turned to the church. In 1993 the Southern Baptists founded True Love Waits, an organization that promoted abstinence until marriage. My friends began to wear “promise rings” in middle school. Because some already had serious boyfriends, they dedicated their rings to them as sort of a pre-engagement promise.

Outside the church, the information we got was mostly misinformation. One day in seventh-grade health class, our teacher drew a big circle on the board, and a tiny dot within it. “This circle is the microscopic holes in a condom,” he said. “They’re microscopic, and that means they’re tiny. But guess what’s even tinier?” He pointed his chalk at the white dot on the board. “AIDS.”

The message at church was that we had to keep ourselves pure for our husbands, and the message at school was that sex would either kill us or leave us pregnant, and there was nothing we could do to prevent either scenario except abstain.

Despite the sermons, my friends were still having sex at about the same rates as teenagers elsewhere in the country. They were keenly aware that it was frowned on, and if a crisis resulted, they hesitated to seek help from an adult. In some cases, it kept them from breaking up with their boyfriend and made them vulnerable to exploitation and assault, though I didn’t know to use those words back then. As if they were living in the Victorian era, they assumed that because they’d gone all the way with someone, they would have to marry him.

Robert and Michaela and a backyard stick up. Troy, New York, 2007. (Brenda Ann Kenneally).

My momma spent her life guarding me and my sisters against this fate, lecturing us, warning us, and making sure we came home on time each night. But when Darci started to go boy crazy, there was no one at home to stop her.

In her den—where we’d spent so many hours playing Twister and having sleepovers on the floor—she took to hanging out with her older brother and his friends. At 12, she started sneaking out at night, tagging along with them to house parties. When I interviewed her after we reconnected as adults, she remembered this time as a turning point in her life.

I sneaked out with Darci one night soon after my 13th birthday. I was sleeping over, but instead of going to sleep, we went into the bathroom and put on makeup. My lipstick was mocha-colored, and Darci’s was tinted orange. She fixed her hair so that it was wavy, gelled it to tame it, then tied it in a knot on top of her head. I put on a denim shirt and jeans.

First we picked up a friend of her brother’s whose parents were away. He was in his bedroom getting ready, and I kept giggling.

“Monica, you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I’m in a boy’s house,’” Darci said, laughing.

Then the three of us crossed the high-school campus and the football field to a ramshackle old A-frame well past its tear-down date. Half a dozen kids were already there, mostly high-school boys, drinking. More boys drifted in and out of the house, grabbing bottles of beer. It was my first party where people drank and smoked openly. I was nervous and bored, while Darci made everyone laugh effortlessly, and abandoned me on the porch while she went off with a guy to hook up.

But I can see, looking back, that she was a vulnerable child. Both of us kept diaries for years, and after I came back she let me read through hers. They were full of descriptions of the boys she liked. In one entry, she described sneaking out to meet a boy she had a crush on. Her crush was drunk. “It was actually kind of funny, but it didn’t seem so funny when he started getting on top of me,” she wrote. “But on the other hand he was so drunk that he wasn’t strong enough to stay there.”

Later, the same boy would see her riding around with another older boy and chase her in his car. He followed her to the house where she was spending the night, banged on the door, and tried to pull her outside. The casual violence of it shocked me when I read it as an adult.

At that first party, I saw a glimmer of this other life Darci had begun to live. When we got back to her den late that night, I told her that her new friends were sleazy. “That’s not very nice, and not very Christian” was her response. “I thought we were trying to see the good in people.”

Kayla and Pop. Troy, New York, 2008 (Brenda Ann Kenneally).

BIG Jessie with her pellet gun, a gift for her 23rd birthday. Troy, New York, 2006. (Brenda Ann Kenneally).

Parties like that one were uncomfortable for me, largely because of my dad. Starting when I was as young as 4 or 5, I understood that he had a drinking problem. We lived in a trailer and he didn’t make much money. Momma, who had quit work to raise me and my sisters, was often frustrated and, I realize now, lonely.

Daddy came home for dinner one night talking funny and acting weird, and Momma was mad in a different way than usual, and sad. Daddy was apparently angry that supper was spaghetti, and yelled.

“Daddy, what’s wrong with you?” I asked, yelling too.

“You want to know what’s wrong with me, Monica? I’m drunk, that’s what’s wrong!”

When I was little, I thought that when people were drunk they were drunk forever. Later, I learned that this is not true. Even later, I learned that sometimes it is.

When it came to liquor, there were two modes in Clinton: alcoholism or abstinence. This paralleled the bifurcated morality I saw everywhere: girls were either virgins or whores; students were either geniuses or failures; you could go to church or you could be a sinner. The town seemed to operate in two modes—the buttoned-up propriety of the churchgoers, who held power in the county, versus the rowdy hillbillies in families like my dad’s. The rigid divide allowed no room for subtleties or missteps.

Even children were sorted into the binary: the upstanding citizens and the ne’er-do-wells. Darci was getting a reputation as the latter. At her 14th-birthday slumber party, half the girls sneaked out and half didn’t. After that, the “good” girls stopped going to Darci’s house.

I felt trapped by this system. I didn’t want to be judged by those around me, but I didn’t have the power to ignore their judgments. I never really fit in with either the “good” kids or the partiers, but I decided to align with the “good” kids. Today it’s sometimes painful, or laughable, to look back at how severe I was. I didn’t believe in the religious prohibitions on sex before marriage, but I did see the social consequences that those who failed to follow them in Clinton suffered.

Kayla and her son Tony. (Brenda Ann Kenneally).

Our friend vanessa allen, who was maybe the most boy crazy of us all, suffered the most. Vanessa had long, curly black hair and was the oldest of four kids. Her mom, Susie, had gotten married as a teenager and had Vanessa at 18. Vanessa wore a promise ring in middle school, but she liked attention from boys and had a reputation for being a flirt. I remember her wearing a tight-fitting bodysuit at a football game. When she walked past a group of grown men, they whistled at her, and one of them said admiringly, “Someone’s been eating her beans and cornbread!” She was 14.

Adults had taught us girls to keep boys from touching us before marriage, but no one ever told us what to do if we wanted to touch them. In that space between Vanessa’s desire and her shame, other girls smelled blood.

The first time Vanessa had sex, she asked her boyfriend to stop, and he didn’t. Later, with other boys, Vanessa sometimes felt like she couldn’t say no to their advances, because she’d already lost her virginity. Only many years later did Vanessa recognize some of these incidents as sexual assaults, she told me when I visited her in 2017. She didn’t blame the boys, necessarily; they were just doing what everyone expected them to do, she felt. But her reputation suffered.

At Christmastime during ninth grade, she wore a Santa shirt that said ho ho ho across the front, and one of our friends pointed at her and said, “Hey, that’s right! Ho, ho, ho.” Everyone laughed. Vanessa went to the office, sobbing, and called her mom for a new shirt.

The following summer, Vanessa and her parents went to Colorado to visit family. At the church, they met the preacher’s son, who Vanessa and Susie thought was about 19. He and Vanessa hit it off, and after she returned to Arkansas, they kept in touch. That fall, he traveled to Arkansas and stopped to visit. He asked Vanessa to marry him, and she said yes. She found out then that he was 24.

He was a good Christian, however, and she liked him. Sitting in her living room so many years later, she told me she knew that people in town called her a whore. They wouldn’t be able to do that if she moved to Colorado and became a wife.

Vanessa had to be married across the border in Missouri, because in 1996 not even Arkansas allowed 15-year-old girls to wed, not even with parental permission. Vanessa’s parents not only gave their permission, but her dad, a minister, performed the ceremony.

Destiny in her rooom. Troy, New York, 2006.(Brenda Ann Kenneally).

Susie later told me that allowing Vanessa to get married was the worst mistake she ever made. But she felt like she had to, that Vanessa had no future in Clinton. I asked similar questions of Darci’s mother, Virginia: Could she have set more boundaries, protected her better, in those years when her home became a teenage clubhouse, complete with alcohol and, eventually, drugs? No, Virginia said. She could never make Darci do anything she didn’t want to do. “Darci made her own choices,” she insisted. It troubled me that she so casually referred to teenage behavior as “choices,” when we had been only children, still learning and growing.

In 1994, the summer after we finished middle school, Darci broke my heart. We were out at Greers Ferry Lake with a few others on an August day so hot, we struggled to move fast or take full breaths. The warm green water was barely an escape. We walked a good distance out, kicking up slimy mud from the bottom, negotiating the minnows that nibbled at our feet, then swam out to the floating orange buoys that marked the edge of the swimming area.

The lake fills a part of the valley formerly known as the Big Bottoms, which had once comprised five fertile farming communities. Darci and I had read that when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the dam that made the lake, it hadn’t exhumed the bodies from the cemeteries but just let the lake fill in above them. We would plunge down as far as we could and then open our eyes, terrifying ourselves with thoughts of what we might see.

That day we sat along the line of buoys, dangling our legs in the water, chatting mostly with the person next to us. I was sitting next to our friend Erica when she casually dropped the news that Darci had lost her virginity to one of her brother’s 18-year-old friends. Darci was only 14.

I must have looked shocked. “Didn’t you know?” Erica asked.

I hadn’t known. Darci, I felt, had given up on our dream of getting out. It was the first real fracture in our friendship, and it would grow wider over the years, as I stayed focused on leaving Clinton and she became lost in it.

In January of our senior year, Darci had a miscarriage, something she shared with me only years later in an interview. At the time, she told no one about it. But she had a doctor’s note saying she needed to rest. She kept using Wite-Out to extend the date on it in order to get out of school. She did this so many times that she missed too many days to graduate. Her teachers and the principal, perhaps having already written her off as a lost cause, never bothered to warn her that there was a hard-and-fast rule and that she was about to break it. I was the class valedictorian; when I gave my speech, she wasn’t there.

Darci drifted, she used drugs—pot, a range of pills, occasionally crystal meth—and at 22, she became a mother for the first time. She got in legal trouble for embezzling from her employer, for which she was convicted in 2008; she was sentenced to probation and lost custody of her children, who moved in with their grandmother. In the years that followed our reconnection, she swung between periods of stability and destructiveness, bouncing in and out of contact; lately she’s been doing better.

It wasn’t just Darci. I returned home to find my whole town in a long, slow decline, on the verge of dying itself. Drug epidemics take root in places that are already sick, already suffering. Momma had been right, it seems, to focus on getting us out, guarding us from boys and early pregnancy and keeping us distant from the people she thought would trap us here. I asked a second cousin of mine about this once, the man who would become the father of Darci’s children. I told him that I wished I’d known his part of my family better, but that my parents had kept me from getting close. “There’s probably a good reason for that!” he said. “This town didn’t suck you down the way it did some of us.”

When I started to investigate why women like those I’d grown up with were dying younger, I thought I was looking for reasons: What was different about their lives, and why? I realize now that I was looking for one person: my friend Darci.

This article is adapted from the forthcoming The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America.

The images are from the book Upstate Girls: What Became of Collar City, published by Regan Arts 2018.

Monica Potts is a writer based in Arkansas.

[whitehotharlots]

A true story about rehab from 2007

Names and places changed, dates slightly fuzzy, yada yada

This all starts with Chris.  Chris might be a good example of how things are objectively broken.

Two summers ago, Chris and his girlfriend moved from everyone's old hometown, Alton, to everyone's current home, Garden City.  I had known Chris briefly when I still lived in Alton, which was up until about 8 years ago.  In high school he was friends with my sister, a year behind her, I think, only he had some legal trouble and didn't graduate until two years after her.  The first arrest came during his junior year, when police found some marijuana in his car while he was in class.  "Apparently Alton is a utopia," he said years later.  "No robberies need solving, no cars need ticketing, no fences need mending, fuckit nobody's house must've been dirty because if there was anything else even remotely worthwhile that those cocksuckers could have been doing they wouldn't have taken a drug dog through the high school parking lot."  

The ironic part was that he was, honest-to-god, holding it for a friend.  Hadn't touched the stuff until then, hadn't even drank more than a beer or two.  Cops came in and pulled him out of class.  Cuffed him right there in class, in front of everybody.   From what I've been able to piece together that marked a very strong loss of innocence for young Chris.  No rules were worth following, after all, if The Bastards could punish you for nothing.  This was greatly exacerbated by the fact that, according to several of the best lawyers Alton had to offer, the search of Chris' car was unconstitutional as it was not actually parked in the school parking lot, or even on school grounds, at the time of the search.  The juvenile court judge would hear none of it though—all the police had done was break Chris' constitutional right to privacy.  He had committed the much greater crime of having an eighth ounce of marijuana in his glove compartment. 

His claim of having his rights violated incensed the judge, who sentenced our poor Chris to 72 hours in county jail and 12 weeks of rehab.  Were it not for his successful, stable family, he would have been sent to juvie. 

It was his first offense.  He was 16. 

Jail, he said, wasn't that bad.  He got to do it over a weekend. The guard was an old lady and even though she was kind of a bitch she let him bring in his homework.  She said she was surprised to see someone his age in here, with the adults, but whatever he had done it must have been pretty bad or else he wouldn't be here, would he?  They kept him away from the drunks at night and the only other people who came into the "pen" (his word, not mine) were guys who got bailed out within a couple of hours and were too pissed off about their own bad luck to give him any shit for his. 

What really fucked with him was rehab.  It didn’t matter that he'd never smoked a single joint (or even a cigarette) at this time:  he was an addict and by gum he had to admit to being an addict before the obese, shit-smelling overseer would sign the form saying that Chris had attended his sessions.  Every weekend for three months he was legally forced to lie.  Yes, he said, he was an addict.  Yes, even though it made no sense in any grammatical or even symbolic context, he was forced to say "my name is Chris and I'm a narcotic."  His personal habits were picked apart—why was his hair so long (it wasn't that long, really)? Why did he wear the same pants on Sunday that he wore on Saturday?  Who were these "Dead Milkmen" that his T-shirt spoke of?  Ohh… and surely this is a good-tempered, Christian punk band, right?  No?  Well you see right there that's a part of the problem.  Have your mother sign a note saying you've thrown out all of their CDs and any other enabling you might own.  No—you can't sell them, you must throw them out. 

"We had to go in a day and a half every weekend.  All day Saturday and then Sunday from noon until 4.  It took me five weeks, when I was starting to get comfortable, before I asked if I could come in Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday.  It worked out better for me that way, since the place where I worked wasn't open Sundays.  The fat guy just opened his mouth and would not close it.  'When would you go to church?'  he said. By then I knew enough to laugh and say 'oh yeah what was I thinking.'"

A few of the people had actual problems.  One guy got caught with meth, was beating the shit out of his wife and his two little girls, and seemed genuinely remorseful.  Another guy had to drink a sixer every morning or else he'd get the shakes so bad he wouldn't be able to drive to work.  But most of the people there were more or less normal and had either fucked up once or else been fucked over once—got into a bar fight while legally drunk, blew .02 over the legal limit at a roadblock, smoked pot once every few weeks and got narced on by a snitch, that kind of stuff. These people were split over how much they believed the bullshit they were being fed.  Those who believed, as the official literature did, that being hungover once in your lifetime or ever drinking more than 4 beers in a sitting two or more times in a month are both signs of hardcore alcoholism, they became repentant and preachy. 

One such lady was a thin, tan, well-dressed soccer mom who would snitch on the others when they didn't pay close enough attention to the instructional videos or else would appear in any way to not be taking things seriously enough.  If you were bad you got demerits, credit card-sized pieces of construction paper upon which frowny faces and intimidating biblical verses were printed. The overseer would also scribble something down in his notebook, which must have had some kind of official weight because it was on his person at all times.

Most people have an innate desire, however illogical it might often be, to please authority figures, and so Chris and the rest of the doubtful "addicts" thought the embarrassment of getting their reprimand literally handed to them was punishment enough for resting their eyes or letting a stray giggle break loose when the acting in an informational film was especially bad. Chris made only one such mistake.  During a lecture, the overseer kept making the point that it wasn't the drugs that people get addicted to—oh no, it's the high that keeps you coming back.  Chris smiled—remember at this point he still probably hadn't ever been high, not in his whole life—because it seemed like such a stupid, nonsensical thing to say, because even though he was only 16 he could appreciate moments like this, when the moronic essence of a big, scary process could concentrate itself into a single sentence. 

"It's not the drugs:  it's the high," the man said.  He was very clean shaven, dressed like a detective in a 70s cop show, his hair was combed so straight it was like wire, his glasses were round and cruel looking and he had this, this look on his face, this air about him like he thought he was a genius.  He nodded a little bit after the repetition of his idiotic point. Proud—he was actually proud of the things he was saying, proud of his position, proud of getting to fill the heads of desperate or else unfortunate people with nonsense.  And this made Chris smile—not laugh, just smile, and the soccer mom pulled on his ear really hard, so hard it made his eyes water, and then she raised her hand to snitch on him.  The proud overseer was still proud, looked like a king in an old movie, and with the most serious air Chris had ever seen, the fat man called him up before the entire room.  His eyes were still watery from the shock of having his ear nearly yanked up and so he looked down, towards the ground, so people wouldn't think he was crying.

"You ashamed of something," the fat overseer asked.  Chris didn't say anything. "Look up," said the overseer.  Chris kept looking down.  His chest moved in and out heavily and his fists were clenched, and he wasn't sure but he may have been crying normal tears by this point, but they were out of rage, not sadness.  Or—no…really what's the difference between those two, and it's impossible that the immense hopelessness of his situation and the utter retardation of his surroundings hadn't saddened somewhat.  If it were just rage making him cry then he would have also lashed out, punched the overseer or at least called him a name. No. No, the hopelessness must have stung enough to make him sad.  But his tears were out of rage primarily, and out of nothing even close to shame.

"Look up.  Now."

He did.  His jaw was clenched and his eyes were tightened into red little slits but he looked more defeated than mean, more helpless than threatening.

"I want you all to look at this face.  Soak it up.  Take it all in.  Done?  Give you another second.  Okay, now you're done.  This, people, is what failure looks like.  Some of you will see it again, right here.  This is what it looks like when you don't take yourself seriously, when you don't care enough about yourself to appreciate the chances that are being given to you."

He extended a demerit card towards the Chris’ face.  It was accepted without a whimper.

Weeks later, it came time for Chris and the gang to "graduate" from their classes.  By this point, Chris had gotten drunk several times (even puked, once) and tried to smoke pot a few times but it hadn't done anything to him.  Maybe he was just too drunk to feel it or he wasn't inhaling right, who knows.  Anyhow he figured a few bong hits wouldn't hurt before he had to show up to the ceremony, right, since he hadn't felt anything yet.  And, man, it was a blast because he was high as a fucking kite at the graduation, must have shoved 20 inches worth of the party sub into his mouth and downed at least 7 flutes of sparkling grape juice.  

His mother and stepfather—both stinking rich, by the way, disheartened by the lad's sudden fall from grace and more than a little pleased to see him making such a fast and exemplary recovery with the aid of such a caring and competent program—were dressed to the nines.  His mom was making time with the addicts.  This was her wont, the irresistible, flirty friendliness that drove her from the dregs of society (Chris' biological father) all the way to where she was today. While this was going on, Stepfather gracefully let loose to the riffraff around him all those little signs that showed that he was a kind man, but of great consequence.  He'd talk about sports while stretching him arm just so, just far enough to let his fancy watch fall into view.  He'd offer to lift heavy objects as an excuse to show off his bed-made tan, his gym-toned arms and back.  All of your jokes made him smile, but only just long enough for you to get a glimpse of his perfectly straight, snow white teeth. Both of them kept making their way over to Chris, who had stationed himself near the concessions table, to whisper into his ear how proud they were of him for pulling himself around and hint bluntly at him still receiving for his birthday a new car.  All the while, through this bleary, more-or-less with it haze, feeling content and calm with his surroundings and his high, Chris kept thinking about how much he had it made.  Everyone was a sucker, it seemed, but him.  Really, wow.  Everyone is stupid but me.

The soccer mom cut quickly around the room, stopping alongside each cluster of people and telling them that something important was about to happen,  it was time for everyone to walk into the little classroom where they normally met.  "You're not gonna want to miss this" she said, looking right into Chris with a mean little smile on her face that she knew would scare him.  Oh god, Chris though, she knew that he was high.  What was she in here for—ooh shit man, you've heard her talk about it 100 times.  Vicodin, right.  Vicodin and wine, passing out while one of her kids started a fire.  That's right.  Calm down. She wouldn't have known what someone looked like when he was high on pot.  Mom and Stepfather couldn't even tell and they saw Chris every day.  Calm down.

Chris shoved a few more bites of party sub into his mouth.  His mom laughed and said "getting better must make you work up an appetite, huh?"  Stepfather laughed.  Chris couldn't say anything, not even by the time they had walked all the way into the classroom and sat down on little folding chairs, because there was so much sandwich in his mouth.  Things began to quiet down within a couple of minutes. The overseer, smiling, poked his head out of his office and waved to the small crowd.  People clapped a little bit.  Chris noticed that "AWARDS RECEPTION" had been written on the blackboard with colored chalk, the letters alternating blue to red, blue to red.  A stack of certificates sat on the table up front.  The overseer waddled to the table and gestured towards his office and a large, black policeman walked from office to the entrance.  He looked all business.  There was another one who poked his head out from the office and then the overseer was still smiling, like the soccer mom he was wearing big, mean, fake smile and Chris sunk into his chair and moaned a little bit because he knew he was about to get arrested, again.  Arrested in front of his parents. 

Mom asked stepfather what the policemen were hear for the stepfather said—ahh the great rational bastard, it was all Chris could do to stop himself from hugging him—that since this was an official presentation, court mandated and all that, they must have some cops come and witness it.  That's all it was.  Nothing to get too upset about.  Still—gotta stay calm.  If the cops took no notice of Chris then they wouldn't take any notice of his being so incredibly fucking high. 

"Well," the overseer began.  Chris was hyperobservant and noncritical and he realized for the first time how long it took the overseer to get through sentences, because of all of his fat.  He'd pause every few words and take in a deep breath from his gut.  When he spoke it was in these bursts that were effeminately condescending but still bulky and powerful.  Like, if being told you were bad by a sharp-tongued gay man didn't hurt you then maybe being yelled at by an abusive gym coach would. Only he wasn't a gym coach and probably wasn't gay, either.  Talked about his wife and kids all the time.  This was an act.  He had measured out this persona for himself.  This was some kind of cruel professionalism.

Jesus, Chris thought to himself.  Pot fucks up the way you think about things.  How long had it been since they sat down?  How long since he'd been scared by the cops?  When was the guy going to start talking—ohh, wait he's already talking.  Might want to listen:

"And this is what this program is supposed to achieve: smiling faces.  Not just the smiling faces of those who are on roads to recovery—their own personal roads—but of their families and their friends.  The selfishness might end here.  The pain they have caused you, that they are sorry for, might end here.  But it's up to everyone here to make sure that all of these faces keep smiling."

He paused—too long.  Wanted people to clap for him.  They did.  Then they finished.  He continued.  His tone was different.  He had sounded like he was reading off a card.  Now he sounded more like he normally did, during classes.

"But it would be… hypocritical of me to let everyone who came here leave here, especially… if I knew that they would be making people start… to cry sometime soon.  Two of our friends will not be graduating today."

Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.

"The first… Rup-ERT Donwiddle."

Ahh.  Okay.  That guy—white guy, lots of scars—never even showed up after the first day.  He wasn't even here.  Chris sunk his head into his lap, like he was stretching or about to puke, while the overseer mumbled about how Rubert had squandered his chance for recovery and blah blah blah. 

"Rufus failed… due to lack of initiative.  He didn't come.  But every time we have this course, it seems… there is someone who does come…  but who shows such disrespect that he might as well not have"

The overseer's tone changed, again, abruptly but not in a way that seemed unplanned.  He was talking somewhere in between the rehearsed tone he'd used earlier and the mumbling, jumbled tone he used during regular meetings.  The air shifted around Chris.  It felt like strategy, men moving into position in order to accomplish some kind of task or anticipate some kind of resistance.  The bigger cop stood by the door that led to the outside, blocking it.  Meanwhile the guys who had missed the most class and been handed the most demerits began to shift in their seats a little bit while their wives looked at them in white fear, the sterile blank walls felt like they were closing in—that's what  expression actually meant, when it actually feels like the room you are in just got smaller, more oppressive—and the big fat fuck who ran the place worse the biggest fatfuck smile Chris had ever seen and he if had dropped dead of a heart attack no one with a mind or soul would have gotten up to help him.  In spite of all of this, the synchronization was such that Chris couldn't work up any fear.  He was too busy admiring the evil of the whole process. 

Chris took to talking to the soccer mom, a few months later, as part of some revenge scheme that never quite materialized.  He had first planned on sleeping with the woman and ruining her marriage.  When that didn’t work out he thought about maybe figuring out the vulnerabilities of her home and passing that knowledge on to some unseemly sorts who, god willing, would have raped, robbed, and kill her.  He didn't do that, though, for the same reason he didn't speak up during the meeting when the police were blocking off the door and overseer was smiling the very worst smile the world had ever seen:  because the woman's evil was so immense that he could barely process it, could do little else, in fact, aside from sitting back and admiring it.  What he learned from her, after she had opened up to him and filled him on all the details, was that if you didn't pass the rehab course it counted as either a violation of your parole or else as a violation of your court sentence, so your failure was akin to skipping bail trying to escape from prison.   That's to say it was a Very Serious offense, one that could put you in prison for a long, long time.  And what the overseer hadn't told to anybody but the soccer mom, who was his favorite, was that his policy was that out of every class there had to be at least one addict who failed to pass in spite of showing up, one person who because of this or that reason simply did not deserve to consider his or her self cured of their addiction.  That's what the demerits were for. Whoever got the most failed the course.  You couldn't tell the whole class about this since then the people who got the most demerits early on would have stopped coming all together.  On top of that, if you got into a situation where a few weeks in one guy had racked up 20 or 30 demerits, then that more or less lightens the stakes for everyone else.  They'll start mouthing off or falling asleep since they know they'll never make up enough demerits to catch the worst guy, and then by the end of it you'd have been better off not doing any sort of demerit system at all.  No—no, the trick was to keep it a surprise.  That had two positives:  one, you catch the guy by surprise and make sure he gets what's coming to him.  Two, you put the fear of god into the others who are all sitting around watching.  That's when they got taught what happens if you don't respect the things you should.

All Chris knew at the time of meeting was that the balding factory worker, Hank was his name, was getting pulled up really unnecessarily roughly by the cop, had his arms thrown behind his back, and was getting cuffed and pushed out of the room while his teenage daughter was screaming in abject terror and his wife was burying her head in her hands and then the two women sat there while the smiling overseer berated Hank, talked about how he needed to learn how to accept help and how this was for the good of him and his family and You two ladies should stop crying, it's pointless, what you need right now is strength, loyalty, and conviction.  Hank had blown .02 over the legal limit at a road block.  He insisted he hadn't had a drop to drink in months, not since his first DUI, that he couldn't perform the heel-to-toe sobriety test successfully because of a fully documented injury he had sustained during Desert Storm and that the alcohol on his breath—which came up on only one of the 5 breathalyzers he was given—must have been from gum or mouthwash or cologne or something.  His parole was zero tolerance, though, and so he found himself at the meetings.  Every week he told the overseer that something he had said was bullshit.  He wouldn't say "My name is Hank and I'm a narcotic," he said, because that is just fucking stupid.  He wouldn't apologize for hurting anybody because he hadn't hurt anybody.  He wouldn't lie for the sake of lying because goddamn it that's not what this country is about.

And for that he went to prison.

Coming face-to-face with the reality of just how cruel and unfair the system is can, especially for a teenager, lead to a distrust so strong and all encompassing that it borders on despair.  This distrust can, sometimes, be healthy and inspire you to try and change things.  More often, it can grow into full-blown hatred, a maniacal desire to change things or to right wrongs that leads you to do something rash or destructive.  Still more often, it leads to a sense of defeatism, a feeling that you can't win since the system is so fucked so why the hell should you even try.  At least, that's what I gather from hearing Chris talk about it.  That's probably what I would have done if something like that would have happened to me.  I would have given up and failed.

And for the longest time Chris had given up and had failed. He drank and drugged and destroyed.  This made him a blast to hang out with.  This was when he still lived in Alton and I would see him once every few months, when I was at home visiting my family.  My sister moved to Garden City to attend the university at which I now teach.  Most of her friends soon followed suit.  He was left behind.  As I am self-absorbed to the point where I don't care about my friend's lives except for when their stories are particularly miserable or amusing, I don't know much about this time period except that it saw Chris turning things somewhat around.  Not by much.  He still drinks far too much.  But he's in school now—he's at the school where I teach, actually, although I've never had him for a student. 

[somebody-909]

also! the i love too update istg kousuke i am barely containing my rage as we speak and i’m gonna throw hands! he’s shifting the blame to make yeonggi look bad gosh i hate it. he’s so hypocritical… i see that yeonggi recognizes he’s taking it out on him (because he really doesn’t want any more problems and he’s tired) he steps down quickly and then gets a “sEe HoW eAsY thAT iS? from kousuke and i’m rlly sure that’s how it always is. he gets stepped on and when he does something wrong he gets hurt. he’s so used to it! this is so sad :( he doesn’t even flinch when mrs hirahara is there and even touches him. wtf!

Oh for sure! Kousuke is continuously passive-aggressive. And although Yeong-gi often tries, Kousuke is always so uncharitable to him. You'd hope that just once he wouldn't, but he always is.

Also, I wish I responded to this last week as this is super pertinent for 150 since...

KOUSUKE WAS THE ONE WHO GOT YEONG-GI ARRESTED AS A KID.

When I first began reading ILY, I realized that YG was an illegitimate child, and had been to jail/rehab (had legal trouble of sorts and was sent away to a facility), and those two things were what made me go "ohohoho this isn't just a romance". (and I've been obsessed ever since).

When Yeong-gi later gets arrested at the party (basically for punching Sang-chul), it felt like a painful parallel to the past (doing the very thing his family criticized him for).

I really did believe that Yeong-gi had aggression issues though. I'm not quite sure how I feel, I think I liked the idea of a Yeong-gi who made mistakes before (and repeated them), so to find out that (most likely) he was wrongfully convicted is crazy.

And finding it out it was Kousuke too? Hoo-BOY. KOUSUKE...!!

But there's technically still two possibilities:

1. Kousuke (and possibly Yui) made up a situation and faked an assault so Yeong-gi would be arrested.

But as we see now, Yeong-gi allowing a guilty verdict may be his way of fighting. He seems to have something planned up his sleeve alongside Yu Jing.

Maybe the way he doesn't flinch when Yui touches him is indicative of this (although he still seems very tense and he glares at her as she walks up to him). That he's fighting back.

That he refuses to be scared anymore. After all, Yui didn't see this coming. And when she goes to intimidate him, this kinda comes across. In 151, he also stands up to his classmates... Things seem to be taking a turn...

I thought about how pleading guilty would help him, and I realized that perhaps Yui had planned to get Yeong-gi stuck for longer than he should've (she knew the judge apparently...) But by pleading guilty, he automatically gets a reduced sentence.

Regardless of how it helps him, it would be SUPER spicy if the second time he's wrongfully convicted, it's him using it to get back at them.

2. Yeong-gi did assault Kousuke.

A post made by @ loverofpearz on instagram, made me realize that there is another possibility:

That what Yeong-gi says at the beginning of the episode is false ("I didn't do anything!") She mentions that Kousuke shows a lot of responses to the threat of violence that may indicate genuine trauma in the past. (He continually asks Yeong-gi whether he's going to hit him. Yeong-gi continually has to reassure him he won't).

It would be very spicy if Kousuke makes fun of him for being brutish and impulsive because he's calling back to something that actually happened in the past.

Loverofpearz is also super gracious to Yeong-gi however, and thinks he may not have done it intentionally and was drugged (remember the whole not liking tea thing?), arguing that Yeong-gi may not have intended to hurt Kousuke. I'm not too sure as of yet... but I do admit it's plausible.

It's not too hard to imagine a disillusioned, vindictive, and (as evidently seen, crazy) Yui putting drugs in the tea she gives the child her husband had with another woman, and then hoping to instigate something that would result in the child ending up in trouble. She's also linked to Sang-chul's date-rape habit.

Did she really plan to have Kousuke hurt? I'm not sure. If this was the case though, it would be heartbreaking to know a key point of tension for these brothers was something completely fabricated.

This being part of Yu Jing's investigation also makes sense, it would be a grievous crime after all.

Both of these possibilities are very angsty (and good for drama later), so it'll be interesting to find out more.

[stillness-in-green]

With the final battle bring cameos from all walks of villain life, it makes me wonder....where the fuck are Chronostasis, Mimic and the Eight Bullets? (I guess Gentle/Brava too) It's likely they would have been broken out too, right? Was expecting a sub-plot where they try to reconvene with their old boss...except Rappa. Rappa's too good for Overhaul! XD. Them being missing sticks out so much,it makes me wonder if there's a plan for those guyds. Gentle and Brava too since its heavily implied they were in/or going to be, in a sort of rehabilitation program.

I would guess it’s a combination of a few factors.

* As far as the villains that returned during the Edgy Deku arc, they were kind of a Greatest Hits deal. They weren’t just “every villain ever,” but rather the key arc villains Deku himself fought: Muscular, Stain, Overhaul. It did make Gentle and La Brava’s absence stand out, though given the initial framework of “villains that Deku didn’t understand,” perhaps Gentle was already seen as “resolved” in Horikoshi’s mind?(1)

* In the current arc, lots of much more minor villains have been spotted, including a bunch of early faces from the streets or USJ, along with more obvious ones like the Sludge Villain. One commonality there might be that the “escaped convicts” have generally been framed as AFO’s people, for all that there’s no particular reason to assume e.g. Evil Abe Sapien from USJ would be more loyal to AFO than Shigaraki, or indeed loyal to either of them. Still, our other missing villains definitely have loyalties above AFO: Overhaul (the Hassaikai), each other (Gentle and LB), and Re-Destro (all the MLA types other than RD himself). So maybe they’re not in the current arc because AFO and/or Horikoshi didn’t want to deal with those divided loyalties?

* One further consideration: in real life Japan, prison populations are separated into different facilities based on both demographic traits and different aspects of their offenses: non-violent offenders aren’t housed in the same facilities as violent ones. While I don’t know if that carries over to HeroAcaJapan (it’s obviously not true for Tartarus, which just on the face of it houses both men and women, but Tartarus is framed as a special case), if it does, I have to imagine AFO prioritized facilities for violent, and ideally repeat, offenders. So at least in some cases, we might not be seeing prior villains because they just weren’t in the prisons AFO targeted.

Did the purely defensive Tengai count as a violent offender, for example? How about Trumpet? Gentle has certainly engaged in violent behavior, but does he really warrant getting sent to the same place someone like Rappa would wind up?(2)

I ran the numbers on prisons in real life Japan for the PLF mass arrest essay a while back, and while I am rather doubtful that Horikoshi has done the same, the evidence does seem to suggest that the prisons in HeroAca!Japan have considerably increased in size compared to real life.(3) That being the case, if may be a simple matter of luck or unluck that determined whether, for example, the prison the trash trio were at was targeted.

I don’t, for what it’s worth, think there’s any real implication that Gentle and La Brava are going to get off with just a rehab program. They’re both adults, were both being questioned by the police last time we saw them, and Ultra Analysis says Gentle is currently “serving time and reflecting on his actions, all while being concerned about La Brava.” The translation on that book is pretty dodgy in a lot of places, so I wouldn’t swear 100% to the accuracy of that statement, but it is in line with what I took to be the implications of Gentle’s last scene, that he should serve his time and then work on turning his life around.

That said, I would 100% love to get more returning villains. I’ve talked about it lots with friends—circumstances under which the MLA might return, or Gentle and LB, or the Hassaikai, or the character I actually think is the most glaring absence right now, the final member of the Vangaurd Action Squad, Mustard. And as mentioned above, we are getting lots of returns and callbacks here in this final act (more than is good for the story, frankly), so maybe we’ll get some of them yet!

Thanks for the ask~~~

---

1: As I have remarked on numerous occasions, I don’t like the idea that Deku’s Understanding is the only thing that separates villains that deserve to be saved and those that can just go rot, but that’s neither here nor there.

2: Being cynical about it, I would note that he got into a violent altercation with a minor, used his quirk to incapacitate four heroes on at least one occasion, and has been vexing the police for up to six years. Nothing about HeroAca society as it’s been presented—and especially the HPSC—suggests that he’s going to get off lightly. It’s only the, well, gentle framing of Gentle and his scene with the gorilla heteromorph cop that gives me any hope,

3: 10,000 escaped prisoners from seven facilities in BNHA; meanwhile, the single largest prison in real life Japan holds barely over 2000, with the majority of facilities being considerably smaller. And we don’t even know if AFO freed every inmate at the non-Tartarus facilities, or if the wardens managed to get things back under control after an initial crisis. If that’s the case—that at least some of the target facilities, only a percentage of inmates escaped—those facilities would have to be enormous.

[thecaptainhelm]

Shut Your Mouth Pt.2

hahaha, daminette part two, wasn’t a one shot, gn gn gn.

Marinette sighed as the shower warmed up, rolling her neck and relishing in the light feeling of accomplishment. Ever since Hawkmoth had been defeated, a mere two days ago, things had been tense. Hawkmoth, now known as Gabriel Agreste, was arrested along with his assistant Nathalie Sancoeur who had since retired as Mayura the year before. It was a stroke of luck to discover that the Guardian had the ability to forcibly renounce a broken Miraculous. Something Gabriel hadn’t known, granting them extra time as he futilely tried to ‘fix’ the brooch. While that happened, she managed to finally convince Chat to at least keep him as a suspect if not out of suspicion, then to actually strike him from their list. It didn’t take long rack up evidence against him, especially after learning from the Bats of Gotham. 

The battle was quiet, in the early hours of the morning, where the city forcibly cut the power to the Agreste mansion, and it only took one Venom for each while they slept defenselessly. It took only a few minutes to find evidence that he was at least working with Hawkmoth, and when they found the miraculous pin and brooch, it was confirmed that he was, indeed, Hawkmoth with Nathalie working as his henchwoman Mayura.

Soon, with what was probably the fastest trial of the century, Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie Sancoeur were declared guilty and sentenced to serve life in prison and an insane asylum respectively. It had only shocked her for a moment that Mayura pleaded guilty and asked to be sent directly to rehab for mental help, by reason of insanity wrought by grief. What did surprise her was that she was the one to take the miraculous and give them to the Agreste couple as an anniversary gift, ultimately setting off a chain of unforeseen consequences.

That was a whole other cake she didn’t want to bake just yet, so she decided to finally just take a moment to breathe for what felt like the first time in five years. 

So it was only normal that her smartwatch chimed on the hook of the shower caddy, a picture of a frowny eagle glaring right at her. She cursed her luck, yeah, no breaks was still her usual routine. It must be real hard for the universe to break out that particular habit.

Then she remembered that she set this particular picture and ringtone for the one person who had never called.

Robin, the vigilante that she might have, kind of, definitely made an enemy of.

Who was also her crush, so that was just. Great.

In her defense, she was a human being, and human beings were capable of amazing feats. It was just that her amazing feats were more amazing bouts of stupidity. Seriously, why did she do it? Just where did her common sense escape to make her think that was even a remotely good idea, because she wanted to go there and never come back.

She had kissed-- no! She made out with Robin, the most notoriously ill-tempered member of Batman’s team. The only reason he didn’t deck her in the face was because, because, well she didn’t know! Was it mercy, a misplaced feeling of pity, perhaps?

No, actually, it was more likely that he was frozen stiff with rage. Marinette couldn’t blame him, heck, she’d be angry too, suddenly getting passionately smooched in the middle of livid rant. 

She had planned on giving him her contact information for the longest time, since they'd come to the understanding that they only wanted to do what was best for everyone, the kind of understanding that only leaders could have. And to maybe get closer to him as much as professionalism allowed. So, it stood to reason that she had to go ahead and ruin that, too. She really couldn’t believe herself sometimes, who randomly kisses someone, hands them their number, and then trots off back to work? Marinette Dupain-Cheng apparently.

In fact, it was about time he called. She had pretty much an entire year to prepare herself for what was sure to be a concise and frigid rejection, maybe even a “Stay for away from, lest I stab everyone in this room and then jump out of a window out of utter disgust”? She might as well get it over with and then move on to be alone for the rest of her life.

She wiped the water out of her eyes and squinted at the text message, before jumping out the shower with a loud curse. She hurriedly dried off and put on her clothes, before heading to the Miracle Box, rereading his message.

Emergency evac, one person, requesting Pegasus’ portal twenty kilometers horizontally above sea level precisely fifteen minutes after this message. Coordinates attached.

The message was sent ten minutes ago. How long was she catastrophizing for?!

Max was partying along with the rest of Paris while she took a breather in her art studio. Even with the full fifteen minutes she wouldn’t be able to find him in time. Shit, would she even be able to transform in time?

She grabbed the glasses from the box and Kaalki appeared in a proud flash. 

“No time, there’s trouble,” she panted. “Ready?”

“Hmph, of course,” Kaalki tossed her head. “Let’s go, shall we?”

“Kaalki, transform me!” She eyed the time, two minutes left. She memorized the coordinates as she searched for a suitable place for him to land, and realized she was going to have to catch him in her storage closet.

One minute left. She opened the door and cleared space in the center of the room.

Thirty-five seconds. She stood on an old chair that she moved into the center of the room.

Twenty seconds, and she called, “Voyage!” and threw the portal up towards the ceiling.

Zero. She braced for impact and caught a body that plummeted through in a free fall.

“Ow,” she closed the portal with a groan, amidst the shattered pieces of what used to be a pretty sturdy chair.

“Don’t complain, it could have been worse.” A deep voice rasped.

Wow, to think she missed him, that asshole.

“Shut up, Robi-- oh my god your arm! Get up, getupgetupgetup!” She hauled him up as gently as possible, annoyance giving way to concern.

Robin was, putting it lightly, a mess. He had lost his mask, his eye was swollen shut and his face was bruised with cuts all over, and he was sticky with blood practically everywhere she looked. It was his arm that she was most concerned about, however. It was set in a splint, but he must have been in a rush because it was set wrong, his thumb facing perpendicular lyaway from his body.

“I am fine,” he sagged into her, weary. “I just need a place to stay for the night.”

“If you weren’t so grievously injured, I’d throw you out for that,” she remarked. “But guess what? It’s your lucky night monsieur, and I’m a trained field medic.” Robin looked at her, maskless, and she had to dart her eyes away from his maskless face.

“Oh, so Ladybug finally started replacing her subpar lineup? About time, either she benched them or Hawkmoth would kill them at some point. They were woefully incompent.” Yep, this was definitely Robin, no doubt about it with that attitude.

She called off the transformation and was somewhat pleased when he reflexively jerked his head away. She pulled him into a princess carry and made her way back to the bathroom, inwardly delighting at his reaction. She would never let him live this down.

“It’s me, Robin. Ladybug. Pegasus couldn’t make it, so you’ll have to do with me instead of a random stand-in.” She raised her brow, not that he could see it.

“Unless that bothers you, Boy Wonder?”

“...I’m not,” he mumbled.

“Hm?”

“I’m not Robin anymore.”

What. What.

“What?”

“I’ve retired, effective as of nine months ago today, Robin’s cape has been hung up for the next generation.”

Relief didn’t come yet. “Oh, so you’ve taken on a new mantle? Or are you finally the next Batman, though it would take some time to fill those shoulders. Literally, I mean that literally, um.” She observed his downcast expression and once again started walking to the bathroom. When had she stopped?

“I’m not taking over anything,” he said sullenly. “I can’t. Not after what I did.”

“Come on, it couldn’t have been so bad,” she opened the door with her heel as she backed them towards the stool by the sink. She set him down carefully, taking full stock of his injuries.

“It was. Batman’s cowl has always represented a strict moral code, one that I’ve always...struggled to adhere to.”

Marinette bit her lip as she kneeled in front of him. He didn’t say anymore, and she couldn’t think of anything to say. She sighed and brought out her med kit from the towel cabinet. She was always like this with him.

With Robin (now not Robin?) she had always drawn a blank. She could read his emotions somewhat well, had a good grasp on his moods, and could have genuinely insightful conversations with him. It was only at crucial moments like this that she struggled. Even with Adrien she had always known what she wanted to say, but Robin was different. Everything about him screamed “one chance only” and that caused her mind to go blank. It was so unbelievably frustrating that she could scream.

Marinette handed the glasses to Kaalki and nodded towards her purse hanging on the door handle. The kwami zoomed towards it and soon disappeared into it with the miraculous.

“Robin,” she called gently. He didn’t move. “I’ll have to cut your shirt off, okay? I need to see where the blood is coming from.”

“It’s not mine.The blood.” He kept his gaze away as she froze.

“Well, we’ll have to reset that arm,” she tried again. “It’s not...it’s not looking good, to say the least.”

He looked towards his mangled right arm and nodded. 

It took some time to undo the splint and she tried not to think about where he had been for him to only have rotted wood and prison rags on hand. She cut his shirt off at the sleeve and down his middle, pulling it off and exposing a painful canvas of mottled bruises, scrapes, and cuts. She handed him her towel and he stuffed it in his mouth without a word. She gently untied the splint.

“Are you ready?” She gazed at him resolutely. He nodded and braced himself as best he could.

“On my count, one, two--” She re-broke his arm a count early on purpose.

“Arrghh! Ffuk!!” He jerked out of her grip.

“Hold still!” He spat out the towel and glared in response.

“Mizq dhiraei allaeaynat 'aw aidbitha!!!” She only understood ‘rip’ and ‘arm’ but she got the gist of his screaming.

“Alright it’s done now, I’m setting it, so stop moving,” She couldn’t help but sigh under his vicious scowl.

“Tsk. Be grateful that I can barely discern your features Ladybug. You’re on my shit list and I don’t feel like kicking your ass today.”

“Wow, thanks for saving me Ladybug, I could have died if it weren’t for you!” Marinette couldn’t help but snark at him.

“...tsk!” Yep, that was as good as she was going to get in his condition.

After years of fighting akuma victims she was able to observe the complex and hidden emotions of her opponents and the civilians that she rescued. And right now, her experience was telling her that Robin had more than his pride ruined. His self-confident, courageous, and taciturn nature seemed to be regressing as he fell back into what was probably a self-defense mechanism. For him to be like this instead of exhausted in his current state told her that he must have been through a lot since she last saw him.

She started to gently clean the blood off and noted the bruises underneath definitely came from an intense melee battle. Most of them were in places that made her cringe just looking at them. At least he doesn’t have any other broken bones, or stab wounds. Lucky him.

Robin put an ice pack to his face in the meanwhile and wouldn’t look in her direction.

It was quiet for a while. “So, what should I call you, then?” And she had to open her big fat mouth, didn’t she? Now it was awkward. It was awkward, and he hated her, and she was never speaking again, ever.

“Damian.” Uh oh.That didn’t sound like a moniker.

“Um, nice code name?” She started disinfecting his cuts and scrapes, trying not to panic.

“I no longer require such aliases.” Ok, process that later, heal Robin now. Process. Later.

“Ro--, Damian, uh, well,” She sighed.  “My offer still stands, you know?”

He made a quiet noise. 

“Last time I saw you, I mean. I had left in a rush,”-- after kissing you senseless-- “but I’m always here to listen if you want to talk about what happened.”

Robin, or Damian now, she still wasn’t used to that, froze. His brows furrowed and he strangely went red in the face, before sighing, slumping against the sink.

“I...the blood’s not mine. It hasn’t been my for a long time, but it might as well be for how long I’ve carried it. I’m not a good person so much as to blame myself completely, but I do recognize some of the fault as mine. I’d gotten help, and I was making progress, but it wasn’t enough. I started falling back into old habits and I hated it. I tried and I failed, and I kept trying and failing for months and I…” He gained a look of despair, the first real emotion she’s seen on him since he dropped in.

“I couldn’t do it anymore. I just kept disappointing everyone and I hated it so much,” he dug his fingers into his matted hair.

“So, I left. I decided to go on a journey to try and repent, and it was working, at least I thought it did. But, then I had stumbled upon a Shadows base and I…” He peered unseeing at the floor.

“It was like I lost all sense of reason. I lay siege to the entire facility and found my way to the next base. It all turned into an endless cycle, all the way until I reached headquarters and inadvertently met up with high ranking members of the Justice League, teaming up to diminish their power. We were successful, but a candidate for the position of the Demon’s Head activated the self-destruct module. Everyone was scrambling to get out and suddenly my mind felt clearer than it had ever been.” He took  a deep breath and Marinette moved closer to offer some comfort. He leaned towards her gratefully.

“The Justice League had already had an escape route, but the Shadows were in disarray for some reason. After I was sure my old comrades were out, I locked all the doors, and dived down to a ceremonial bathing chamber.”

“And that’s where I came in,” she whispered. I think I’m starting to like him more than I should. What is wrong with me?! Who made me this way?! She had some complaints in regards to that.

“You saved my life,” he inclined his head in an informal bow. “Thank you, Ladybug.”

“...Marinette.” She croaked suddenly. She was left reeling from his info dump and her intense, romantic feelings. So, why not go for a confession? 

Damian whipped his head up in disbelief.

“My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Enchanté, Damian.” She smiled at his bewildered state, wiping away a bit of blood under his chin. She opened her mouth to say more, but didn’t get the chance.

Damian leapt up, furious. “You fool! I knew you were a space cadet, but I didn’t think your brain drifted beyond the stars! How utterly moronic!”

“Wait, why are you so mad?!” She panicked. She kind of had a spur of the moment idea to kiss him on his split lip, but that was looking less and less likely to happen.

(Damn it.)

“You told me your name!” he shouted.

“Yes, and you told me your’s?” She retorted. 

“Have you forgotten Hawkmoth?! Your enemy that can read the minds of the emotionally disturbed should he decide to possess them!” He started to hobble out of the bathroom, still half-treated and mostly in pain.

Oh. 

Oh!

“I have to leave, now! If I can stay calm long enough to reach the trains then I’ll be moving too fast for a butterfly to suddenly get me.”

“Uh, Damian?”

“No, it might already be enroute to someone else and might even already be on board,” He winced and stumbled on the tassel rug in the hallway.

“Woah, hang on a second Damian,” she grabbed him before he could fall, but he pulled out of her grip.

“We don’t have time for this, I can guarantee that I would be one of the worst akumas you’ve faced in your hero career, nevermind the insider information I hold within my mind.”

“Yes, but listen to me,” Damian moved towards the small sitting area, not listening to her. 

Again.

“This safehouse should be around one hundred kilometers from the city limits, you’re safe for now, but Hawkmoth’s estimated rate of growth was--”

That’s it!

Marinette grabbed his jaw and slammed it closed. She had had enough.

“This isn’t a safehouse, we’re in my art studio,” she snapped. She could see the rage begin to build to new heights in his eye.

“No, shut your mouth, and listen!” A vein in his forehead started to pulse, but he didn't move to speak.

Good.

“Hawkmoth has been defeated as of last week, and the trial was concluded a couple days ago. Going by what you told me, you've been out the loop for almost a year, so you don’t know that my team and I had closed in on Hawkmoth’s trail some time ago and were able to build a solid case that’ll go through in a court of law,” She carefully let him go.

“So, you’re safe, I’m safe, and Paris is safe too.” She’d already started to calm down in the middle of her explanation, and idly noted that she should probably take an anger management class.

And sign up for therapy. Lots of it, preferably.

Damian nodded slowly as he rubbed his jaw and she couldn’t help her wince.

“Sorry, did I handle you too roughly? Come here,” she started to pull him back towards the bathroom. He resisted.

“No, it’s fine, no damage just from that much force,” he tugged his arm away but she quickly moved behind him and began to push him through the bathroom door.

“Well, I’m not done treating you, so get back in there.” He grabbed the door frame and pushed back, and her calm demeanor left as quick as it came. Was it even truly there to begin with?

“I said,” she picked him up and threw him back on the stool where he grasped for stability.

“Come here.” She leaned in close to his bruised face, and wow, the one eye that she could see was so very, very green. “I’m not done with you, yet.”

“...okay,” he whispered. He kept his head down.

It didn’t take long to finish disinfecting the rest of his wounds, and soon she started applying ointment to the worst of his bruises. She had enough, but she was definitely going to be restocking in order to play his nursemaid for the next week or so. She rose to her feet and started packing away her kit.

“I’ll give you some pain meds for the night, I’ll leave you to take care of the injuries under the rest of your clothes. Come find me in the kitchenette. I’ll make something for us, though it won’t be anything fancy.”

“That is fine.” Marinette frowned at the strange husk in his voice. Did someone try to suffocate him? Why hadn’t she noticed until now?

She kneeled beside him and reached around him for the water bottle she had left in there earlier, but noticed him twitch and start to blush. Did he get a fever too?

She observed his red face and clear, but dilated eyes. Merde, did she embarrass him from earlier? She knew he had a large ego, but it was his own fault for being stubborn.

“Here, get yourself some water from the sink,” she handed the glittery black bottle to him and hurriedly strode out of the bathroom, calling,

“Holler if you need me!” 

Completely aware of the flustered state she left Damian in. Though not for the reason she thinks, at least.

[ask-chaos-kin]

Slender Freaks Ch.1

Fortress Beyond Our Belief

“Keep going! We’re almost there!” A girl cried, shoving her brother forward through the leaden halls. 

“We’re not going to make it!” The boy shouted, jumping as a creature tried to snag at his heels.

“We will make it! Just keep going!” The girl gasped, fighting to stay ahead of the monster that chased them down through the corridors. She and her brother turned a sharp corner, and they both gasped in shock. “There! There’s the exit! Come on, we’re so close!”

“We might make it! We actually might escape this!” The brother chuckled as the two rushed towards a portal upon a mighty altar.  

But as they advanced, the altar began to grow faded and blurry, and a distinct ringing noise filled the ears of the two would be escapees. They skidded to a halt and backed away from the altar in terror as a tall, slender figure emerged from the static surrounding the portal. He bore no face, and wore a black suit with a red tie. His skin was as pale as death, and shadows gathered at his back. 

“Slenderman!” The two runaways gasped, recoiling away from the imposing figure. But stepping back, the two were aggressively reminded of their pursuer. A shriek made them turn on their heels, and the color drained from their faces at the realization that they were caught between two of the most infamous monsters in this nightmarish world; The Rake, and the feared Slenderman.

“Oh shit,” The brother swore, frantically looking around for an escape. “There goes our chance.”

The sister looked past her brother and saw an open vent shaft in the wall. With their escape attempt thwarted again, their only recourse left was to get out of the monster’s territory, and that shaft would at the very least give them reprieve from Slenderman and the Rake.

“Come on, we can try again later!” The sister shouted, shoving her brother towards the vent, sprinting as fast as their legs could carry them as the Rake barreled towards them. 

The two soon to be escapees managed to climb into the vents just in the nick of time to avoid the emaciated monster behind them, and the sister pulled the vent covering up to hold it off from following them. 

“Move! Move! This thing won't hold for very long!” She barked, pushing her brother through the shaft until the two of them were out of sight from the monsters.

However, as they fled, they deprived themselves of bearing witness to a truly inhuman display, even for a monster as infamous as the Slenderman. The tall figure watched the escapees flee, and stared blankly as the Rake gave up its mindless chase and stalked away from the vent. Slenderman tilted his head to the emaciated monster, as if to ask it a question, but the infamous creature just continued on its way.

Slenderman glowered for but a moment, then turned his attention to the portal the two siblings had attempted to escape from. A portal out of this nightmarish realm and out into the real world.

Slenderman extended a pale hand out to the portal. What a strange realm, this world was. Monsters like and unlike himself roamed, but not freely and not without consequence. This was not a world of hunting and surviving. It was organized and relatively stable. There were so many people out in this world, people who were fully unaware of this realm's existence. People who would make the perfect victims of this neverending nightmare.

Extending his tendrils into the portal, Slenderman altered the state of this rift between realms. He forced open tears into the real world, opening up the promise of more victims to hunt. Who would be the first to fall victim to these portals? Who would be the first of the unfortunate souls to be trapped here? Who would join the hordes of runaways in their futile attempts to escape this dangerous game?

***

“One paddle, paddle, paddle, two paddle, paddle, paddle…” Spyper yawned listlessly, watching as the ball repeatedly hit the paddleboard. He was lounged back lazily on a couch, sitting across from Intelligent Heavy as he deconstructed an N64 console that Jester had given them. 

The two Freaks were four months into their house arrest, only a few days away from finally being let off the hook. Both Freaks wore heavy bands around their ankles, anchors to keep them inside at all times that would alert HECU if either of them so much as stepped foot out the door.

“I’m bored,” Spyper sighed heavily, finally letting his paddle streak end as his arms fell to his sides. “I never knew how boring it could be just staying home, but now I do, and I want it to be over!”

“It’ll be over in a few days,” Intelligent assured, smiling at his friend.

“Why can’t it be over now?” Spyper groaned, slouching further into the sofa. He sighed and slid off the couch. “I’m getting a drink.”

“Bring me the leftover pizza while you’re in there,” Intelligent called. Spyper nodded and gave the Heavy a thumbs up as he headed for the kitchen.

A knock at the door suddenly drew the attention of the two Freaks. Intelligent set aside the dismantled N64 and headed for the door. 

“Who is it?”

“It’s us!” Jester's cheery voice called out. “We brought cake!”

“They dragged me along since I really had nothing better to do,” Pancakes called out.

Intelligent opened the door to see Jester, Pancakes, and Chaos standing at the door. He smiled and let the three inside.

“So, how’s house arrest working for ya guys?” Jester asked, setting the cake they were carrying on a nearby table.

Spyper let out a loud groan and hung his head back.

“That bad?” Chaos questioned as she walked into the kitchen.

“I got lucky. I mean, it sucked being restricted to my can in RED Spawn for a month. But on the bright side, Painis doesn’t really bother with the can unless meals are scarce.” Pancakes stretched.

“Hey, at least you guys are off the hook in a few days, right?” Jester asked, hacking off a slice of the cake and handing it to Intelligent.

“Mhm. One more week of this, and we’ll be free to go.”

“That’s good to hear!” Jester smiled. “Did you guys like the console I sent you?”

“Well…” Intelligent glanced over to the deconstructed N64. “In a way: Yes.”

While the rest of the group was talking, Pancakes let his eyes wander for a moment before noticing a small light in the house.

“Yo intelligent, when did you make a teleporter like that?” Pancakes pointed it out.

“Huh? I didn’t…” Intelligent looked at the glowing orb.

“Than… what is it doing here?” Chaos started to approach the ball of light.

“What even is it?” Jester quizzed, floating after Chaos. 

“Do I look like an expert on random glowing objects?” Chaos bit. 

“I don’t think you three should be getting that close to it,” Intelligent warned.

“It’s not like some-” Before Pancakes could finish his sentence a large black tendril shot out from the ball of light and wrapped around his arm.

“WHAT THE FUCK!?” He screamed. He grabbed the tendril and tried to pry it off to no avail. “GET IT OFF!”

Before Chaos and Jester could jump in to help, two more tendrils burst from the light, grabbing the two Freaks.

“What the hell!?” Chaos gasped with strain. 

“Intelligent! Spyper! Help!” Jester cried, struggling in the tendrils grip.

The three Freaks screamed as the tendrils lifted them into the air, and the ball of light they came from expanded outward rapidly. In a blinding flash of light, it engulfed the Freaks and snapped out of existence with a sharp cry, taking the Freaks with it.

As the light faded, panic filled the two Freaks left standing there to witness their friends being dragged away by another force.

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh FUCK!” Spyper screamed, staring and gesticulating wildly at where the Freaks had just been. “What the fuck just happened - Intelligent!?”

“Don’t look at me!” Intelligent explained, just as baffled as Spyper. 

“Oh god, what do we do!? They just got nabbed by tentacles from another dimension!” Spyper cried, throwing up in hands in panic. 

“We need help for this,” Intelligent gulped. He threw aside his cake and ran for the door, causing Spyper to stumble after him. 

“Woah - WOAH! What are you doing!?”

“Getting HECU’s attention! Now move!” Intelligent grunted. He pushed his friend outside and marched out the door. He flinched as soon as he was out the door, as the band around his ankle began beeping loudly and flashing, alerting HECU that the detained Freaks were breaking their house arrest.

“This can only end badly,” Spyper fretted, staring at his friend in shock and alarm.

“I really hope HECU knows how to help us,” Intelligent gulped, watching for HECU vehicles to start coming down the road.

“And what if they can’t?” Spyper implored earnestly.

“Let's hope they do.”

“Yeah, cause that’s reassuring.” He glanced down at his own band and sighed. “Oh well. We’ve already broken the law. What’s one more?” He muttered, joining his friend outside.

***

“Only a couple more months… If only those months came faster.” RED groaned laying on his back looking up in his prison cell.

“We’ll get through it, RED,” Pure assured, sitting in a cell across from RED. “We’ve made it this far.”

“I know. At least the food here is good, just really boring.”

“It’s better than whatever Brutal cooks,” Pure shrugged.

“I honestly thought this place would be a million times worse. Who knew that prison for Freaks was just Rehab level 2.”

“Yeah, I really wasn’t expecting the rehab part,” Pure said, looking down the hall. 

“Better than normal prison at least.”

“How do you think the others are fairing?” Pure asked, leaning forward on his bed. “I hope none of them have gotten into trouble since we were arrested.”

“Well, Brutal and Gentle are in Rehab 1.0, So there’s the two trouble makers out of the picture.”

“And I’m sure Polite, Spyper, and Intelligent are abiding by their house arrest. Pancakes...I’m holding out hope for him, but I’m not entirely convinced he’s stayed in his can for that long.”

“And we don’t have to worry about Jester and Chaos,” RED grunted as he stretched. “At least, I hope we don’t.”

“Chaos just found out that she still has a living family and the remainder of her team is still alive. I’m sure that someone is looking after her,” Pure remarked pointedly, pressing his hands together.

“I’m not too worried about Jester. They’re too busy with piecing together their past,” RED yawned, reclining on his bed. “And they’ve learned a lot in the time since being released. They and Chaos will be fine.”

As RED reclined, Pure happened to notice a ball of light appear next to the bed.

“What in the world?”

“Huh?” RED lifted his head. “What is it?”

“There’s this...Light next to your bed,” Pure said hesitantly, squinting at the shimmer. “Don’t get close to it. I don’t know what that thing is-”

A shrill scream tore through the relative silence of the cells and Pure leapt from his bed in shock, a pale dread overtaking his face as he watched black tendrils erupt from RED’s bed and ensnare him, locking him tightly in place as it slowly dragged him down.

Muffled screams escaped from the tendrils as they engulfed him and dragged him into the small light, terror filling the very air around them. 

“RED!” Pure screamed, throwing himself against the glass screen of his cell. “Guards! GUARDS! HELP! Something’s happened to RED!” He cried desperately. He frantically looked about his cell for anything to use to get himself out, but he barely had time to search his nightstand when another set of tendrils burst from the ground beneath him and wrapped around his legs, immobilizing him. Pure gasped in terror as the tendrils dragged him downward, and his terrified cries for help echoed through the halls as he was violently pulled into a small light.

As the light disappeared, a small camera focused on the spot where the two spies were taken. On the other side of the lens, on a monitor in HECU, a young intern sat baffled and mortified by the events her bright green eyes had just seen. She swallowed hard and leaned back in her chair, stricken pale. She brushed a strand of her brown, curling locks aside, a strand of purple bleeding into her natural hair color. Then she frantically snatched up her pager and started running for the door, quickly turning the channel on the pager to that of Commander Rudra. 

“Commander! Commander, come in! We have a security breach, I repeat we have a security breach! Christian Pure Spy and RED Spy have just disappeared into thin air! We need backup here!” She gasped, fumbling with the doorknob. “Black tendrils just came out of nowhere and grabbed them, then dragged them to who knows where! Please, Rudra, we need some help here! We’re dealing with something supernatural here!”

The intern flew out of the security room and started sprinting through the halls, weaving between guards and officers in her panicked sprint to Rudra’s office. 

However, she didn’t have to run far before she collided with the commander herself, receiving a facefull of metal plating from Rudra’s heavy armor before staggering back, nearly falling squarely on her rear end and no doubt receiving a bruise or two from the collision.

“Now what’s going on?” Rudra asked sternly, lowering her pager. “What’s this about a security breach?”

“There were these long black tendrils that emerged from this ball of light in their cell that dragged RED and Pure into it! It was like something from a horror game!” The intern exclaimed, tripping over her own words in her frantic retelling of the events.

“Slow down, Ash,” Rudra said cooly, raising a hand to Ashley. “Did anyone else see this?”

“Everyone else is out on break,” She wheezed, her breaths still forced and panicked.

“The one time we don’t need them on break,” Rudra whispered under her breath. “And you managed to get it on camera?”

“Yeah, everything’s been recorded,” Ashley gulped.

“Good. We can look over the footage and see what happened. We could be dealing with something interdimensional here. I’ll give Jester a call if that’s the case.”

Before Rudra could get her phone out to call Jester, Ash screamed as something grabbed her. The black tendrils she had described suddenly wrapped around her legs and chest, immobilizing her and rooting her to the spot.

“AH! Rudra, HELP!” Ash screamed, thrashing to free herself from their grip.

“Hold still!” Rudra barked. She drew her flaming sword and grabbed ahold of the thick tendrils around Ash’s abdomen and began slicing, fighting to keep the lashing appendages still as she cut them down.

Ash’s screaming and the hiss of Rudra’s sword drew the attention of nearby officers and like clockwork, several guards jumped to tear Ash free of the lashing vines. 

“Come on, come on! What are these things made out of!?” Rudra hissed through gritted teeth, struggling to tear the tendrils away from Ash.

One of the tendrils grabbed a Soldier and dragged them forwards and into a much larger light. Many of the officers swiftly jumped to keep the Soldier from being dragged into the light, but the tendrils were far too strong to overcome, and the Soldier was swiftly swallowed whole by the orb. 

This set off a chain reaction of several of the officers, soldiers, guards, and interns around being dragged screaming into the light, all the while Rudra held fast to Ash, tearing and slicing at the tendrils in her attempts to keep the woman out of the lights grasp. 

“What’s going on!?” Ash screamed, thrashing about in her binds.

“I don’t know!” Rudra exclaimed. “Just don’t let go of me!”

“I can’t! I’m slipping!” Ash gasped, trying to dig her heels into the floor to no avail.

Around the corner, Noir has finally made it to the scene when Ash fully lost her footing, only being held back by Rudra’s strength alone.

“Noir! Help me here!” Rudra shouted, holding tight to Ash.

“Hang in there, I’m coming!” Noir cried, sprinting over to the two and grabbing a hold of Ash. “Don’t worry, we’re gonna get you out of this!” She strained, digging her heels into the floor. “Jesus, what is this thing!?”

“We don’t know! Whatever it is, it's not going to give up easily!”

“No shit it’s not giving up!” Noir wrapped an arm around Ash and tried to strong arm her out of the monster's grip.

“I can’t hold on for much longer!” Ash screamed, digging her nails into Rudra’s armor. 

“Don’t you dare let go!” Noir barked, straining her entire body to keep Ash afloat. 

“Come on, come on!” Rudra hissed through gritted teeth. Her metal sollerets screeched across the floor as she and Ash were slowly dragged towards the light, leaving noticeable white scars in the ground.

As the three women fought against the otherworldly force that threatened to drag them all into its clutches, two stray tendrils emerged from the light and snaked along the floor, wrapping themselves like spiders around Rudra’s legs. With one powerful tug, the tendrils threw the angel off balance. Noir was sent collapsing to the floor as Ash and Rudra were yanked out of her grasp, and a deafening scream tore through her throat as the small light engulfed the intern and her wife in the blink of an eye.

“NO! RUDRA!” Noir shrieked. She leapt to her feet and scrambled to where the light had been, frantically searching for that shimmering rift between worlds. However, just like Rudra and Ash, the light had vanished into thin air, leaving nothing behind but the white streaks in the tile floor.

“Oh god, oh god. Tyson! TYSON! SOUND THE ALARM! RUDRA’S GONE! SHE’S BEEN TAKEN! SHE’S GONE!” She cried in blind and hysterical panic, sprinting down the hall in terror. 

Within minutes, all of HECU had been sent into chaos. A commander had been dragged into some kind of interdimensional rift, along with countless HECU employees. Alarms were sounded as news of the disappearance spread, and the news that Freaks had vanished thanks to this same anomaly only furthered the madness HECU was spiralling in.

However, things only got worse when two of the most infamous Freaks vanished from HECU’s containment facility.

***

Deep below ground, in a heavily fortified cell, Gentlespy and Christian Brutal Sniper sat in their respective lounging chairs, cables and wires hooked up to every part of them like some kind of battery. These cables and wires kept them in their seats, restricting their movement and ensuring the safety of all who stepped into their chambers. A small white table and chair were sat across from them, along with a straightlaced doctor who calmly tapped a pen against his clipboard.

This doctor had been assigned to the two Freaks when they had first been sent in for institutionalization, and it was this man's job to shape Brutal and Gentle into law-abiding Freaks like Madic. However, for all this man's training, he had hit several brick walls in regards to the Freaks in front of him. Brutal and Gentle clearly wanted nothing to do with institutionalization and stubbornly resisted the doctors attempts at changing their perspective or altering their homicidal tendencies, and had driven this doctor to the point of exhaustion with their bullheaded resistance.

“Take number 273, You two have murdered hundreds of mercenary and non-mercenaries alike. We at HECU would like to offer you an alternative to your murderous ways,” The doctor started, already seeing the bored and annoyed expressions on their faces.

“You aren’t leaving this room until you comply or the higher ups agree to let you go. So are you going to rot down here or actually have a chance of leaving here?”

“I’d prefer to break down that door and get back to my old life,” Brutal scowled, tugging on the cables around him to make a point.

“You go back to your old life, and you’ll be sent straight to prison. Would you rather at least try to be better, or would you rather be locked up somewhere?”

“Oh gee, lets see....Eenie meenie miney…Neither. You aren’t gonna magically change us. You haven’t been able to change our minds the last 272 times, what makes you think we’ll listen this time?”

“I was hoping you would have changed your perspective-”

Brutal interrupted him with a hearty laugh. “You’re fun. Annoying, but fun.”

“This isn’t a game, you two,” The doctor groaned incredulously.

“It is. A game of endurance,” Gentle chuckled, examining the quicks of his nails. 

“If I were not here to try and help you two, I’d smack you both,” The doctor bit.

“Can’t help people who don’t want it,” Gentle cajoled jeeringly.

“Then what’s the point of me trying to help you?”

“That’s what we’ve been asking since we got here,” Brutal grumbled, shuffling in his seat. “Got a smoke?”

“We don’t bring cigars in here,” The doctor scowled, rubbing his eyes.

“Figures,” Brutal sighed.

The three swiftly turned their attention to the blaring alarm outside, and the Institution Center was filled with bright, flashing red lights as the intercom flared to life.

Warning: Interdimensional rifts discovered in HECU Headquarters and Evo City. Several Freaks and personnel have vanished into these rifts. All non militant employees are to gather in the courtyard. Everyone else: Please make your way to the Engineering Department.

“Well...Shit,” Brutal groaned. “Interdimensional rifts that are stealing people. This is what, only four months after Grave?”

“We have a habit of getting the short end of the stick,” Gentle sighed, rubbing his temples.

The doctor stood and headed for the door. “You two stay here. I need to find Dr. Liss.”

“Don’t worry, it's not like we can go anywhere,” Brutal jeered incredulously, holding up all the cables that held him back and shaking them around.

While the two sat there, a light appeared behind Gentle. It was dull and small, hardly noticeable even if the two Freaks could look back to see it. 

“Hey, Gentle, you have a smoke?” Brutal asked listlessly, cracking his neck.

“For the last time; They took my cigar case,” Gentle groused, rolling his eyes.

“Would have thought you’d have stolen it back by now.”

“It’s hard to steal anything when I’m wrapped up in these - WHAT THE FUCK!?” Gentles jeer warped into a shrill scream as writhing tendrils of shadow erupted from behind his chair and ensnared him, tangling around the cables and wires that held him in place. Brutal jumped to his friends aid, but another set of twitching vines reached out and grabbed him, too.

“What the fuck is this!?” Brutal gasped with strangled breath, the tendrils wrapping around his chest and neck and violently pulling him back against his chair.

Gentle tried to struggle out of the grasp, only to be pulled into the light as the wires were ripped off the machines. Brutal followed behind him, dragged into the gaping maw that the tendrils had emerged from. It was like hell itself was pulling them in.

And when the doctor returned upon hearing their screams, the alarm that Christian Brutal Sniper and Gentlespy were gone sounded, joining the panic that had engulfed HECU.

[dreaminae]

We All Need The One Friend

Chapter 14

Softly placing her hand upon his chest, Liv pushed Spencer back into his original spot in the passenger seat.

"What's wrong, Liv?" Spencer asked, confused by the shift in her mood.

Huffing, Olivia mentally prepared herself to confess. "I wanted to make sure I told you how I felt before telling you this, Spence. Because I want you to understand that what happening with me isn't because of you, Vegas, or what's happening between us."

Spencer nodded, letting Olivia gather her thoughts aloud.

"I'm going through something that could break me, but I won't let it because I'm going to get the help I need. I can't get into major detail right now because my family need the truth first."

"You will tell me you're ready," Spencer interjected, assuring a nervous Olivia that he understood her actions.

"The reason I'm telling you this is so that you don't worry about me." Olivia sighed.

"It's like you told me at the cabin," Spencer recalled. "Whatever it is that you're going through, you're strong enough to handle it."

"Thanks, Spencer." Liv exhaled with relief.

"Hey, and you already know to count on me for whatever you need," Spencer added supportively, grabbing her hand once more. "Even if it means just being here."

Liv grinned, tightening the hold on his hand she gestured towards the road she contently, "Let's head home."

Their drive was quiet, as Spencer allowed Liv to mentally prepare for what he assumed to be an impending larger confession.

They'd peak at each other now and again with cheeky grins. On her third grin towards Spencer, Liv only spaced for a second. And it took only a second for things to go array.

One moment Spencer's eyes were on Liv's adoring smile, the next his eyes were wide on the road.

"Liv, watch out!"

Her eyes tore from his in shock as a stray dog ran into the road. Swerving her steering wheel to keep from hitting the dog, Liv sent her car flying into the direction of the curbside. Pressing her breaks, she tried to no avail to keep from crashing into a black, parked car.

Smoke aired from Olivia's engine as she and Spencer accessed the damage of the crash.

"Are you okay? I'm so sorry." Liv panicked, checking Spencer's arm.

"It's alright, Liv. I'm fine." Spencer moaned. "Are you?" He replied, concerned for her as well.

"Yeah. I think so." Liv moaned, checking over herself, Liv couldn't help but to think that things could've been worse.

------------------------------

"Why don't both of you put your hands outward where I can see them?" One officer hastily insisted after finding Olivia and Spencer at the scene of the crash.

"I can grab my license and registration if you give me a..." Liv suggested impulsively, one foot moving in the direction of her wrecked vehicle.

"Don't move, Ma'am!" The officer's voice boomed aggressively.

Spencer hand immediately grab hold of Liv's, holding her in place.

"Back to your places with your hands where I can see them. Both of you!" He aggressively repeated.

Olivia froze in place at a loss for words. Spencer gave her a stern expression, so she followed his lead staying unwaveringly obedient.

"My partner is running your plates. We'll find out who's car this is soon enough." The officer spat accusingly.

Liv rolled her eyes in disbelief of the indirect accusation of grand theft auto. "It's registered to my parents. Which you'd know if you had allowed me to show you my documents." Liv sniped rebelliously.

"That's enough out of you." The officer groaned, annoyed by Liv's verbal upheaval. "Instead of sassying me, how about telling me about the accident."

"What do you want to know?" Liv responded.

"Who was driving?" The officer demanded to know.

Spencer eyed Liv with uncertainty, wondering if he might need to take the fall. However, before he could Olivia answered the police officer.

"I was driving." Liv chirped undoubtedly.

"Are you intoxicated?" The officer asked, eyeing Liv suspiciously.

And for the hundredth time this weekend, Liv found herself grateful that she hadn't taken her infamous blue bottle to the cabin this weekend.

"No, I am not." Liv sighed honestly, resulting in Spencer releasing a breath of relief he hadn't been aware he was holding. "You can test me if you want?" Liv challenged.

The officer opened his mouth to sprout a comeback, but his partner joined the conversation before he could.

"Your vehicle is listed under D.A Baker ownership." The female cop hastily spoke, silently discouraging her partner from pressing the teen further.

"That's right." Olivia agreed. "She's my mom."

Moaning agitatedly, the male officer gave in, refusing to be reported for harassing the district attorney's kid. "I suggest calling your mother before she gets worried. My and I will see if we can get a toll for your vehicle."

"You do that." Liv sniped sarcastically, frustrated by the cop's clear double standards.

Spencer gazed at Liv with a disapproving expression to which she shrugged in response. Her demeanor was that of a social justice warrior, while he was of carried the persona of a young survivor. Despite the serious situation, he couldn't help admire how she held strong under adversity.

-----------------------------

Almost two hours rolled by into the late-night when Spencer and Olivia found themselves at the Baker residence.

"Let's just be glad no one was hurt." Laura's voice rang into the Bakers' kitchen as she set her purse on the countertop. "Things could've been much worse."

Several scenarios of the night flashed through Liv's mind in the last two hours. One where she had been intoxicated and arrested. Another where she'd crashed while under the influence, pleading with Spencer to take the fall. Even one where she'd lost her own life at the wheel of her alcohol abuse.

No longer able to hold onto her darkest secret, she confessed to her mother what she'd been hiding since the end of summer.

"It could've been worse," Liv muttered her mother's words in a lifeless tone, gaining Laura's attention. "Had this happened even a week ago, I would've been arrested for drinking while intoxicated."

Laura's eyes tore up from her phone, perplexed by her daughter's words. "Why would you say that Liv? You don't drink."

"But I have been drinking." Liv finally admitted. "This is the first weekend in months that I've been completely sober."

Laura's eyes watered with tears of denial. "No, because I had you tested and you passed. You could've have cheated that test."

"You tested me for paraphernalia." Olivia corrected. "Not alcohol. Which is why I passed the test."

"I asked you, Liv. I asked if you were using, and you said no. Even your Dad asked you. So what, you just lied to us?" Laura inquired, tears streaming down ber cheeks as she tried to contain her emotions.

"I told you the truth. I haven't been taking any drugs, prescriptions, or anything like that." Liv replied, her voice cracking under her mother's disappointed gaze. "Not that it matters." She acknowledges. "I told myself it was okay to drink because it wasn't a pill. But it's not okay. I know that now. I swear I know." She cried.

"Why, Liv? You've been doing so well." Laura wept for her daughter's abandoned recovery.

"That's just it! I'm not doing well. I haven't been for a while!" Olivia shouted, wanting her mother to see the truth. "I can't remember the last good night's sleep I had. I can't remember a night where I didn't dread being alone with my thoughts. I don't remember a day this past summer where I didn't depend on having company to keep myself from wanting to drink or pop a random pill. My sponsor's been A-Wall since before summer. You have your new job, Dad is hardly around, and Jordan has his own life to worry about. I didn't want to feel like a burden. I thought I had it under control, but it's falling apart! I just want it to be over, Mom!" Liv ranted out in tears, "I just want it all to be over."

Sensing that Liv had finally released all her built-up angst, Spencer embraced her, allowing her to cry on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry." She whispered in a hushed tone, leaning her head on Spencer's shoulder. She hoped he was too disappointed in her. "I didn't mean to..."

"Shhh.." Spencer insisted gently, running his fingers through her curls. "It's alright. You're gonna be alright."

Laura breathed heavily, silently processing her daughter's breakdown.

Continuing to coax Liv down from her panic attack, Spencer kissed the side of her temple. "I'm proud of you for telling the truth," Spencer assured Liv supportively.

Holding him closer, Liv sniffled. "Thanks."

Their intimate moment broke at the sound of Laura clearing her throat. Pulling away from Spencer, Olivia faced her distraught mother.

"I didn't mean for it all to come out this way." Olivia apologized, clear-minded enough to have a formal discussion. "But with the crash, I couldn't keep it in any longer."

"It's been a long night, and right now I'd like both of us to get some rest." Laura stated, "Tomorrow, your father and I will decide what is the best route to take to help you."

"I know what Dad will want. And I know you probably want to send me to rehab, as well." Liv immediately added as before her mother could end the discussion. "But I'm begging you not to, Mom."

"Now isn't the time to discuss this. I need to take Spencer home. Your father and I will decide tom-"

"Mom, please." Liv pleads, grabbing Laura's hand. "This isn't like last time. I came to you this time. I admit to drinking, and I will do whatever I need to get better. Just don't send me away again." Olivia groveled.

Pulling away her hand Laura reached for her purse and car keys. "We will talk about this tomorrow. Not tonight. I'm taking Spencer home, and you need to bed."

Dropping her hand at her side, Liv nodded, sensing her mom was going unwavered. "Fine. Can I at least say goodbye to Spencer?"

Laura glared at Liv, telling her daughter not to push her luck.

"This might be the last time I see him for a while." Liv assumed. "Please, mom."

Huffing, Laura nodded. "Five minutes. I will be in the car. I expect Spencer there in five minutes."

"Yes, ma'am," Spencer answered on both their behalf as Laura left the room.

Liv's hands instinctively entwined with Spencer's.

"This isn't how I planned for tonight to go." Liv moaned defeatedly. "I ruined it for us."

"You didn't ruin anything, Liv. I knew there was a chance of this happening. Kia warned me earlier that she suspected you are drinking or thinking about it." Spencer revealed his earlier conversation with the young activist.

"You knew this entire night. When we were in the car? When I told you that I love you? During the crash?" Liv questioned, stunned. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because I know you'd do the right thing in the end, and come clean. If not tonight, then later on in the week." Spencer disclosed. "I trust you, Liv. You asked me to let you do this on your own, and that's what I'm going to do."

"Thank you." Liv cooed with tears in her eyes. Her hand caressed Spencer's cheek. "I know this isn't what you had in mind when you pictured the night we finally got together."

"With everything that's happened tonight, and what might happen after tonight, I want to be clear," Spencer spoke seriously, tugging on Liv's hips to pull her closer.

The space between them closed as their lips met in a sensual kiss. Holding the sides of his face, Liv molded with Spencer returning the gentle movements. Licking her bottom lip, Spencer tasted her gloss once more. His tongue massaging hers for dominance, causing Liv to giggle as she let him take the lead. Spencer's lips left hers, trailing down her neck as she held him close. Breathing in her scent, Spencer engraved this moment into the back of his mind, hoping it wouldn't be their last in the coming days.

[fanficimagery]

I Will Not Bow

Summary: After moving out to LA, you quickly find yourself being adopted into a group of Youtubers. Everything is fine until one of the squad has a falling out with everyone and decides to make a video “spilling the tea”. And though you never had a problem with this particular person, you’re surprised to find out she has dug into your past and brought it up for everyone to know.

Words: 2.6K Warnings: Language. Trisha bashing. If you’re a fan of hers, then this Imagine is just not for you. Requested by anonymous who said: Hi! If you’re currently taking requests would you please be able to write a Vlog Squad x Reader where maybe the reader has a shady/troubled past that comes to light? You can put a spin on it if you want!

You've been feeling run down these past couple of days that you've stayed home in order to not get anyone else sick. Staying home, however, didn't stop your friends from bringing over soup or packages of medicine to help you get better sooner. And while you appreciated their thoughtfulness, you couldn't help but send them on their way as soon as possible. Then when your friends got the hint you didn't want them around to catch anything, they kept their distance and relied on texting or video calling.

And it's on your fourth day of being sick that your phone starts to blow up- comments on Instagram rolling in with everyone tagging you. Against your better judgement you read them and quickly find out the source of everyone's sudden interest is because of a newly uploaded video by Trisha. Your stomach drops upon seeing the title of her video and you already know it's going to be ugly. Whatever tea she's spilled, it can't be good. Especially since most of the comments are questioning your loyalty and motives.

The so-called tea starts off with petty drama that Trisha picked up on within the squad and ran with it. She puts her own twist on the truth to make it seem like it's bigger than it really is, and talks about who really is genuine and who's not. But then your name pops up and you nearly throw up when she brings up your arrest record. You hadn't told a single soul about your past since you've moved to LA and here Trisha is bringing it up for all her subscribers and even making assumptions about who you are.

"What a bitch," you mumble.

Not only are you sad and hurt this has all been brought up after you've decided to start fresh, but you're royally pissed off. How dare she.

So after taking a moment, you quickly make yourself somewhat presentable and decide to go live on Instagram. You stare at yourself on your phone, sighing as you notice everyone showing up to see what you have to say and/or immediately bombarding you with hateful comments. Clearing your throat, you finally address them. "I'm obviously here to address the things Trisha has said about me, so I'll give you guys a few minutes to tag your friends and bring them here or whatever."

In the span of twenty seconds, your friends have sent text after text but you ignore them.

Then once you've decided you've waited long enough, you speak. "So by now, I'm pretty sure a lot of you are curious about what Trisha said in her video and that's why you're here watching me. And for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, Trisha posted a video where she basically stabbed the entire Vlog Squad in the back. And while I'm sure the others can probably laugh about what Trisha spilled about them, I cannot and will not forgive her for bringing up my arrest record."

You cough and then quickly take a sip of water, sighing a moment later and getting right back into it. "The thing is, a few years ago I was in a shitty place in my life. I had a good life, don't get me wrong, but I just- I buckled under the pressure my family was putting on me to do good. And like all stories go, I fell in with the wrong crowd. I consumed too much alcohol and took too many drugs to just forget the reality I was living in. I stole money from my family so I could pay for my addictions and when they started to keep count of their money, I then resorted to stealing their property and pawning it all just so I could get my fix."

Feeling your eyes tear up, you pause to take another sip of water and get rid of the lump in your throat. You readjust the angle of your phone and lean back in your seat, averting your eyes as you continue. "My parents threatened to kick me out if I didn't clean up my act and you know what I did? I scoffed in their faces, packed up my shit, and went to go live with the people I thought I could rely on. My addictions became worse and I ended up in the hospital a handful of times. And though I did have moments of clarity where I wanted to return home, I couldn't. I burned so many bridges that I didn't even know where or how to start making amends."

By now, the tears are flowing but you merely wipe them away. You need to finish your story. "What really opened my eyes was the day we broke into a man's house and said man ended up with a bullet in his gut." Your voice cracks so you stop talking. You momentarily get up and walk off, only to return a moment later. Your right knee bounces anxiously off screen and it's taking everything in you to not start bawling. "My, uh, my friend recruited me into breaking into a man's house. I was so high out of my mind that I agreed. I agreed to breaking and entering, and stealing whatever electronics I could shove into a duffel bag. Everything was going smoothly until the house owner came downstairs. I didn't know at the time, but my friend was armed. He was armed and when the house owner threatened to call the cops, my friend shot him. He shot him and he- shit," you curse, pinching the bridge of your nose as your emotions get the best of you.

After a moment of inhaling and exhaling deeply, you continue. "I remember screaming and crying. I dropped everything I had in my arms, stripped off my sweatshirt, and dropped to my knees next to the homeowner to make sure I stopped the bleeding. My friend threatened to shoot me if I didn't get up, but I- I couldn't. There was a man bleeding out beneath my hands and I was not about to leave him. So even though I had a gun to the back of my head, I managed to pull out my phone and dial 911." You take a moment to catch your breath, shakily breathing in and out. "I spent a year in jail and several months in rehab, and my sentence would have been a lot longer if the homeowner hadn't spoken up on my behalf in court.

"So yes, Trisha is right. I've been to jail and not a single one of my friends here in LA knew about it. Because you see, the thing is, I did my time. I paid the price for my actions, I made amends with the people I burned and hurt, and I spent a lot of time volunteering and just cleaning up my name back home. And then I decided to move here, to a place where I wouldn't be the little girl who made shitty life choices and had been to jail, and left the past in the past. Only now- now Trisha's dragged it all back up.

"So Trisha, when you no doubt see this, I have a few words for you. Ready? Because here they are. Fuck you. What gives you the right to dig into my past like that and put it all in a Youtube video? Are you really that desperate for views? You are a piece of shit human being, Trisha, and I hope those that you still call friends come to this realization as well. Am I being harsh? Maybe. Am I sorry? Fuck no. You can save those crocodile tears that we'll no doubt see in your next video about how mean I'm being to you. No one believes them and everyone laughs at you anyway."

By now the tears have dried up, but your cheeks are still sticky and your eyes feel a bit puffy. "I don't know what the hell I did to you to make you think it was alright for you to air out my business like that, nor do I care anymore. I'm done with you. And for my friends who are no doubt watching this, if you're still my friends, you know where to find me if you want to talk. My phone is going to be off for a couple days so drop by if you need anything."

After ending the live feed, you turn off your phone. You walk over to the couch where you end up collapsing on it, sobbing into a blanket and curling up on your side.

          - X - X - X - X - X -

You don't know how long it's been that you've fallen asleep when there's banging on your front door. It takes you a moment to get your bearings back and when you do, you get up to go open the door. Upon opening it you find David, Natalie, Jeff, and Jason.

"Hey," you meekly greet them.

Immediately, Natalie steps forward and envelops you in a hug. "Oh my god. How are you holding up? We've all seen the videos and everyone is pissed at Trisha."

As Natalie steps back, you momentarily twist up your mouth to attempt keeping any tears at bay. In the end, it doesn't work. "Is anyone mad at me?"

"No one's mad," David says. "We're kind of curious as to why you kept it a secret, but we're not mad."

After David gives you a brief hug, Jeff steps up and grins. "Chin up, fellow convict. We're in this together."

"Smooth, Jeff. Very smooth." You huff a small laugh as Jason nudges him out of the way, he then taking his turn in hugging you. "I'm so sorry about what happened, Y/N."

You shake your head. "Don't apologize for your ex's shitty behavior. She's the one that needs to apologize, but even if she does I'll never forgive her for this."

Shutting the door behind your friends, you follow Jason into your living room.

"Hey, Y/N, is it cool if I record?"

"David, if you didn't record whatever you're here for, then I'd be worried."

"Okay," he laughs. "Just checking."

As David sets up his camera on your coffee table, you sit next to Natalie on the couch. Jeff sits the recliner, Jason takes a seat on the ottoman, and David sits on your other side so you're sandwiched between him and Natalie.

"So what do you wanna know?" You ask, sighing. Better to get it out of the way and over with.

As kindly as possible, Natalie asks, "Why didn't you tell us about your past?"

"I.. I didn't want anyone to make light of my situation. Everyone jokes about Jeff's past, and it is funny every now and then, but my situation was a lot different than his and I was scared of jokes being made. The stuff I've been through and the stuff I did, it is not something to joke about."

"If you had just said so, we'd have understood," Jason says.

"I know, but-" you pause, wiping at the tears gathering in the corner of your eyes, "I guess I was just scared to make demands of you guys since I'm still the new girl. And plus I was scared of what you all would think of me. I did some shitty stuff and I didn't want you guys second guessing me. So just so we're clear, I no longer do any of that I stuff. I don't drink, I don't do drugs, and I don't steal. That's been over for a very long time."

Your friends all chuckle.

As you all settle down, it's Natalie who says, "For what it's worth, and David better cut this out for his video, I'm glad your secret came out. I'm not happy about the way it came out, but just that it's out now. I'm happy we get to know more about you, the good and the bad."

"We've all done shitty things in our pasts," Jeff says. "What matters now is that you've changed. You're no longer that person, so if you don't want us to bring it up again, we won't."

"I really appreciate that," you say. "But unfortunately I still have to talk to everyone else about this. They deserve to know everything if they're going to continue being my friend."

"Well as I said earlier," David pipes up, "no one is mad. Curious, but not mad."

"Of course they would be. But fair warning, the first jail joke out of Dom's mouth and I'll start swinging."

David laughs. "We'll just keep that part a surprise for him."

A few days after your rant on Instagram and yet another video from Trisha where she cried big fat tears because you were just so mean, you're riding around with David and a few others in his Tesla. Everyone in your friend group has been getting comments about your character, especially after you went off on Trisha, saying that you were being a bully. And now your friends have had enough.

Jason sits in the passenger seat as David drives, Ilya behind David and Alex behind Jason as you sit in the middle of the third row.

With the camera rolling on David's dash and his eyes on the road, he finally addresses everything himself. "So lately we've been getting a lot of comments about Y/N since Trisha posted that video of hers."

"And it's only gotten worse since Y/N defended herself," Jason says.

"Now I'm one who normally lets the drama die down," David picks back up, "but after everything was put out in the open and some comments were made, I've come to the conclusion that I'm one hundred percent in Y/N's corner."

"We all are!" Ilya says, looking around David's seat.

"Trisha and I had our falling out," Jason says, "and for some reason she felt the need to attack everyone in our friend group even if they had done her no wrong. But bringing Y/N's past into the present after she's tried so hard to leave it behind her? That was just way wrong."

"And because I called her a piece of shit human being for what she did to me, I'm the bully?" You exclaim. "That's such bullshit! Half of you only like her because of her connection to Jeffree Star and the other half only like her because she's an easy fuck."

"Y/N, nooo," Jason groans.

Alex, Ilya, and David all laugh. You do too, but then you sigh and roll your eyes. "Okay so that was harsh. I went a step too far and I apologize for that comment I just now made. But I still stand by my Instagram video."

"With all that being said, knock it off with all the hate," David says. "We get it. Y/N has a shady past, but you know what? It's her past and that's exactly where it should stay."

For the rest of the ride, you listen as the boys poke fun at one another. The drama with Trisha is pushed to the back burner and you take a moment to just breathe, and be thankful for your newfound friends. They had every right to be distrustful of you, but they chose to hear you out instead. They chose to defend you and let your past be your past.

"Y/N. Hey, Y/N!"

You snap to attention. "Yeah? What?"

"Chipotle or In-N-Out? You're the tiebreaker."

"Chipotle. Duh."

"Yes!" David cheers. "I knew she wouldn't let me down."

As Alex and Jason groan about your choice in food, you sigh happily as you relax in your seat. Because though you're still pissed about Trisha spilling the tea on your past, you're also kind of grateful because it brought you closer to your friends. But you'd never admit that out loud. Nope. No way.

[myinconnelly1]

Reasonable Doubt - 5

Masterlist

Square Filled: Assassin/spy AU Ship:  Dean x OFC Rating : Mature (Current Part- future parts to contain explicit content) A/N: this is part one of a multipart story!!! Hope you guys are excited for the crazy ride Warnings: implied Murder, implied drug use Summary: Frankie Esposito has been arrested for murder, Can her lawyer Sam Winchester get her off for the charges before the police can find further evidence? Word Count: 621 Created for @spnaubingo​.

“Where are you going?”  Dean asked two nights after the panty incident.

“I have to work.  You know you’re not really my boyfriend, it's just for the wedding next weekend?”  Frankie reminded him.  Since their agreement, Dean had started to act like they were really dating.  He was always asking where she was going, and he would cook for both of them.

“It’s 11:30 p.m.!”  Dean emphasized as if it should mean that she shouldn’t be going out.  He was right in away.  If Frankie held a normal job she shouldn’t be going out this late.  But she didn’t have a normal job and she needed to go make a point for the family.

“We’re in the middle of a corporate take-over kind of thing. It’s hard to explain”  Frankie brushed off his concern.  “I’ll be back late.”  They were going to have issues as roommates if he kept asking her where she was going all the time.  On the other hand, Frankie did enjoy looking at him.  She got in her car and drove to her meeting.

“Francis!  It’s wonderful to see you!”  The older woman at the door greeted her.

“Hello, Veronica.  It’s nice to see you too,”  Frankie let the woman hug her then escort her inside.  “I’m sorry that I’m here so late, but the don asked me to meet with your son.”  Veronica cursed softly in Italian.

“What did he do this time?”  Veronica put her hands up between them.  “Nevermind I don’t want to know.  He’s up there,’  She pointed up the stairs.

“Thank you.”  Frankie went up the stairs before opening a slightly decorated door.  “Johnny,”

“Frankie?  What are you doing here?!”  Johnny exclaimed as he turned to cover something on a desk with his body then wipe at his nose.

“Your Godfather is disappointed with you.  I think you know why,”  She nodded to the desk he was hiding.  “He sent me to help you.”

“To kill me is more likely.  Who else does he want you to kill?  Come on, Frankie, you’re better than this.  We used to be good friends.”

“I’m not here to kill you, Johnny.  And we didn’t stop being friends because of my job.  Give your coke and the name of your supplier.  Your Godfather has a room for you at a good rehab center.”

“I can’t do that, Frankie.  He’ll kill me,”  Johnny rubbed his nose again.

“Please tell me you didn’t snort it all,”  Frankie sighed.

“I don’t have any more here,”  Johnny protested too quickly.  Frankie walked up to him slowly and looking around the room.  Johnny had let his guard down slightly as Frankie’s shoulders slumped slightly.  That’s when she struck him in the face and caught him before he hit the floor.

She saw the coke on the table and opened the top drawer to find the rest of the bag and a phone number.  She took Johnny’s phone and text the supplier begging for a meet.  Then gathered the paraphernalia and Johnny.

“Veronica, can you get some clothes together for Johnny?  He’s gonna go stay at South Pines,”  Frankie said to the old woman who was wiping at tears.  “He’s gonna be okay, the Don’s getting him help.”

“Thank you,”  Veronica came and hugged Frankie tightly.  “Here come back when you’ve got him all situated.  I have some leftovers for you.”

“Oh, thanks!”  Frankie said with a smile.

Frankie sighed in relief when she got back to her house.  Dean was in his room and she assumed he was asleep.  She put her food in the fridge and then took a shower hoping to get the blood and smell of smoke off her body from dealing with the drug dealer.

@waywardbaby​ @destielhoneybee​ @snffbeebee​ @deangirl7695​ @spnbaby-67​ @maddiepants​ @ladywinchester1967​ @woodworthti666​ @miraclesoflove​ @tumbler-tidbits​​ @emilyshurley​​ @akshi8278​​ @mannls​​ @wendibird​​ @bobasheebaby​​​ @theoneandonlymelol​​ @chelsea072498​​ @donnaintx​​ @justsomedreaming​​ @supernaturalenchanted​​ @kalesrebellion​​ @prettydeaneyes​​ @emoryhemsworth​ @laphirablack @dontshootmespence​ @its-a-spn-thing​ @vicmc624​ @idreamofplaid​​ @deanmonandnegansbitch​​ @winchesterxfamilybusiness​​ @kickingitwithkirk​​ @wayward-mikaelson​ @electraphyng​

[anoddreindeer]

One Night Farewell

Minerva Cain - Minnie, to her friends and workers - looked out over her bar with satisfaction.

It wasn't the biggest bar on Void, nor the prettiest - but it wasn't the dump Minnie had bought for a song, either. She'd sunk nearly all her savings into buying and rehabbing the place, and it looked like her work was about to start paying off. The crowd in the bar wasn't exactly bustling, but it was still pretty sizable for a midweek day and not terribly rowdy.

Normally she'd have one of a half-dozen or so college kids sitting in the corner and playing whatever instrument they happened to be studying that semester - though she had told the kid studying bagpipes to either find another instrument or find another job - to provide the kind of ambience the building seemed suited for. She'd tried canned music for the first couple months but the acoustics had been all flat and no matter what it was, the music she'd played over the speakers ended up grating on the ear. So she'd re-balanced her budget and reached out to the local college to find some players who didn't mind shit pay for doing something they would be doing anyway.

Tonight, though, was something different. One of her bartenders had come to her with the idea of "open mic nights," letting anyone off the street have their shot at playing for at least a couple hours. She'd spoken with the rest of her crew and when they all had agreed it wasn't a half-bad idea, she'd given it the go-ahead. No charge to play, but the house got half the tips and reserved the right to stop any performance at any time for any reason. She hadn't had anyone try and get cute about that yet, but tonight was only the third open mic night since she'd inaugurated the practice.

Currently a half-decent violinist was sawing their way through a rendition of I Left My Love On Bloom that would have been utterly forgettable if the performer hadn't managed to ruin the softest passages with a persistent squeaking. There were a few more hopefuls with cases on their tables and drinks in their hands, so Minnie hadn't bothered to call a stop to the violin - one of the others would step up soon enough. Instead, she'd taken the place of one of the bartenders and sent him around to check on the patrons, make sure they were still satisfied and cut off anyone who needed cutting off.  

She'd just finished pulling a half-dozen pints for a large table when a man came up and sat at the bar. The most immediately arresting thing about him was his hair; snow-white, it fell around his head like a cloud. Minnie sent the pints off with one of the waitresses and walked up to him, wiping off her hands on a towel. Closer to, he didn't look that old; there were lines on his face - laughter, mostly, but also pain and grief - but he didn't hold himself like an old man and his hands were still strong where they gripped the handle of an instrument case.

"Can I get you anything?" she asked, hands already going for the order book in her apron. She pulled it out, along with her stylus, and looked up to meet his eyes.

His eyes.

Where his hair marked him as old and his hands marked him as young, his eyes marked him as ancient. Minnie had met a lot of people - men, women, neither, both, other - in her time as first a bartender and then a bar owner, but she had never seen eyes like his. They weren't magnetically stuck to her cleavage like so many other people's were but looked at her steadily, and she could almost feel the weight of the years in his gaze. He looked old - but more than that, he looked tired, tired in a way Minnie had the gut feeling she never wanted to understand.

He responded politely and Minnie blinked, shaking herself out of her transfixation. "Sorry, didn't catch that, you'd like...?"

His eyes crinkled a little but he didn't laugh, a fact she found obscurely sad. "Two shots of whiskey, please, and a glass of water."

She raised her eyebrow. "Two shots? Not a double?"

He nodded firmly. "Two shots. Separate glasses."

Minnie shrugged and jotted it down for the system before reaching down and pulling two shot glasses out from under the bar and lining them up neatly in front of him. She raised an eyebrow at him as she half-turned towards the shelves of liquor behind the bar. "What kind of whiskey do you want? We got Bloom, we got Void, we got Lightning if you like static, I think I might even have a little bottle from Fire if that's your taste-"

"Void. Cheapest rotgut Void you have," he said, cutting across her spiel firmly but not rudely.

Minnie felt her eyebrow try and climb higher. "You sure? The stuff I got here’ll strip the enamel off your teeth and the lining out your stomach."

He smiled a crooked smile at her, and she felt her heart clench inexplicably. "Sounds perfect."

She shrugged and turned away from the displayed shelves of booze, instead reaching underneath the bar for a cheap, unlabeled brown bottle. The cap twisted off easily and she poured him his two shots neatly, making sure not to spill a drop on the bar top. She was pretty sure it wouldn't actually eat through the composite, but better safe than sorry. The fumes were strong enough to make her glad of her precision anyway, and the old man got a nostalgic gleam in his eye as he grabbed one of the glasses and sniffed it.

"Yeah, that's the stuff. How much?" He set the glass down again and fixed her with his penetrating gaze. Minnie shrugged.

"Call it on the house. I can get more of this stuff cheaper than I can get clean water piped down here."

He pursed his lips for a moment before nodding to her and picking up one of the glasses. "To absent friends," he intoned, and downed the glass in one smooth, unflinching gulp. He didn't even cough afterwards, and Minnie had to be impressed. She'd tried at least a glass of every booze she stocked at one point or another, and that one never failed to make her try and hack up a lung when it hit bottom.

He set the glass down gently, but didn't reach for either the other shot or the glass of water Minnie had added to his collection. Instead, he looked around at the crowd, eyes lingering on the other people nursing drinks and holding their instrument cases. When he spoke, it was without turning back to look at Minnie. "I remember this place having an open mic night. Looks like that's still true."

Minnie cocked her head. "Actually, it's a new thing I'm trying. One of my crew recommended it to me, and this is the third time we've had it going." A particularly heinous squeak of the violin made her cringe and the old man winced. "It's gone better."

Now the old man turned back to her, both eyebrows raised. "I remember I used to come here...probably more regularly than I should have, and play the mic. Didn't Nico tell you when she sold you the place?"

Minnie's brow wrinkled as she tried to remember. The name sounded familiar, but..."Nico Yelleuw? The lady who got murdered here?"

That got the old man's attention, and his gaze snapped to hers as his brows furrowed. "What do you mean, murdered?" Both his hands were on the bar now, framing his collection of glasses. There was a tension to them, a readiness - but one Minnie suspected would not be aimed at her.

She shrugged. "Yeah, like fifty or sixty years ago or something. Supposedly some guy hopped up on the wrong prescription tore his way in after hours and wrecked both her and the bar."

His lips compressed to a thin line. "What happened after?"

Minnie shook her head. "Way I heard it, they strung the guy's doctor up in the courts and the guy himself headed off-planet 'cause he couldn't stand to be in the City any more. This place ended up getting sold to the City, who used it as a shelter for a bit until they didn't need so many, then they sold it off to private interests." She gestured vaguely at the well-disguised chinks in the wall where the main room had been portioned up before she'd renovated it.

"It's been a cafe, a youth center, offices, you name it this place has probably been it. Nothing lasted more than a couple years, and by the time I bought it it was pretty much abandoned. I fixed it up, and well," she waved to the room. Maybe it wasn't the noisiest, busiest bar available, maybe it didn't have a gimmick or a fancy set of rules for entry, but by the Void it was hers.

The old man shifted back on his stool, tension going out of his frame. One hand drifted down to the battered old instrument case as sorrow creased his expression. "I knew Nico would have sold the place by now, thought the new name was just part of that but - damn." He heaved a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his soul. "You've done good with the place, kid," he said frankly.

Minnie preened, just a little. "Thanks, doll." She nodded to the case under his hand. "You planning on taking the stage tonight?"

He looked down, like he'd forgotten it was even there. He picked the case up in both hands and opened it up to reveal the brown-black wood and silver finishings of a clarinet. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I would."

He sounded older in that moment than he had for the entire rest of their conversation, and her heart went out to him. "I'll let the crew know, soon as the violin's done it's your turn," she told him, and he shook his head.

"Nah, there were other people here before me, let them go first."

It was Minnie's turn to shake her head. "Nuh-uh. I own this bar, and what I say goes." Besides, something in her gut told her that while the other musicians would have other chances to play on her small stage, the man in front of her would not pass this way again. It was something in how he'd reacted to the story about Yelleuw; his face didn't look old enough to have known her personally but his eyes said otherwise.

He held up his hands, surrendering with a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Far be it for me to tell a lady how to run her own bar."

"Damn straight," Minnie retorted, unable to repress her own smile. She nodded to the old man and stepped off to let her crew know about the change in line up and deal with anything that had come up during her conversation.

Things had, of course - a patron had complained, one of the kegs was running low, several bottles had been emptied and needed to be replaced, and so on - and Minnie lost track of time as she immersed herself in making certain things were running smoothly. It wasn't until an odd kind of hush spread across the bar that she remembered the old man and his clarinet.

When she looked over, he had indeed taken the stage. He'd pulled one of the tall stools they kept for performers up and was seated on it comfortably, like he'd always belonged there. There was something arresting about him, despite there being nothing overtly remarkable about his appearance. His clothes were quality, though worn to the point they looked like they'd fit no-one else. His shock of white hair gleamed in the track lighting, but that wasn't it either.

Whatever it was, by the time he lifted the clarinet to his lips for the first note, everyone's eyes had fixed on him and most of the regular noise in the bar had died out. It was as if everyone was holding their breaths, waiting for something.

And then he began to play.

He wasn't a virtuoso by any means, one of those geniuses who could take an instrument and make it do things nobody would have believed them able to do. No, what captured the ear was the emotion. A river of notes carrying a sweet, elegiac sadness that took your breath away. A bittersweet, rueful riff, the understanding of regret stood like a rock in the flow, causing the song to curve around it, and it carried them all along with it.

Minnie couldn't say how long the song lasted, only that when it was done did she come back to herself. She could feel the tracks of tears on her cheeks, and a glance around was enough to show her that she wasn't the only one. Wiping her face discreetly, she had to jostle one of the waitresses to get her to take a glass of water over to the performance table. The woman started and hurried off, glass clutched like a lifeline in her hands. Before she could quite reach the table, however, the old man started the next song. This one was a little happier and a lot more wistful, and Minnie found herself blinking back tears once again.

It went like that for the entire night. Nobody left, and conversation was kept to quiet murmurs between neighbors. When the late shift arrived, the evening shift simply took off their aprons and sat at the bar, spellbound. Hours and hours past closing, and still the bar was open. People had fallen asleep at their tables, but not nearly as many as stayed awake and silent, listening to the music.

Finally, when the first rays of dawn were beginning to peek through the front window, the old man finished his last song and stood up off the stool with a fluidity Minnie would not have thought possible after spending so many hours in one position. She stared glassily, feeling almost drunk as he carefully and meticulously cleaned every section of the clarinet before nestling it back in its case. The clunk as he closed the lid, followed by the twin snaps of the latches, was enough to make her flinch in surprise, and she blinked herself a little more coherent as he walked over to the bar and set the case on top.

"Hey."

His voice was almost unbearably gentle, and she couldn't find it anywhere inside herself to summon up a smile as she walked over to him.

"What can I do?" That wasn't quite the question she'd wanted to ask, but it was the one that had come out and it made his eyes crinkle at the corners.

"I'm going to leave this here; think you could find a home for it?" His voice was still that quiet, inexorable tone of gentle that nearly had her agreeing without thinking about what he was asking.

Nearly.

She blinked and shook her head, forcing her eyes to focus on him. "You sure?" she asked, still keeping her voice down.

He nodded, an odd light in his eyes. "I'm sure."

She nodded back and reached out to put her hand on the case. "I promise I'll find someone."

He let out a long breath - not quite a sigh of relief, but in the same neighborhood. "Good," he said. "Good."

He nodded to her one last time and walked out onto streets free of garbage, where the wind whispered through large trees and children went about without fear. They were quiet in the early morning light, and she watched his departing form for a long time before looking back to the case still under her hand.

It couldn't be that hard to learn, could it?

Slowly taking the case in both hands, she walked back to her office and fell asleep clutching it like a lifeline.