#but damn as it stands now it's got a sixteen hour battery

[arctic-hands]

Also I'll say this for Dell, I've had my Latitude laptop for like four days and I haven't charged it since setting it up

[tisfan]

Lucky Buck’s Magical Coffee

Chapter Two - Working for a Living

Fantasy Bingo: Square Magical Exhaustion

link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24743212/chapters/60835351

Jarvis flapped Tony’s coat at him as he was ready to leave. “I have insider information that the weather ifrit’s had a fight with his spouse. It may rain later today.” It didn’t look like rain according to the screens that Tony had open that showed the outside world. It looked sunny and peaceful and lovely. But Jarvis was seldom wrong about these things.

The spirit of technology was still relatively young, compared with his brothers and sisters -- spirits of air, earth, fire, water, and void -- having only started coming into being about the mid seventeenth century, or so.

Jarvis himself had been formed in 1835, fathered, one might say, by the invention of the Analytical Engine, in the workshop of Charles Babbage. For a spirit, he was practically a baby. To Tony, he was impossibly old and wise. But then, Tony was a technomage, and spirits of the “natural world” didn’t tend to speak with him.

“Right, so I’ll want an umbrella,” Tony said, digging through the closet for one, “and to bump personal force fields up on my to-do list. And not to suggest a walk in the park for my date. Or maybe I should; Bucky’s a Natural Witch, maybe he’d enjoy getting caught in the rain.”

Tony was on his way to Buck’s Lucky Coffee as soon as he found a functional umbrella, to meet up for their third date, as soon as Bucky turned the afternoon shift over to Clint. He was somewhat unreasonably giddy about it; three was an important number in both the physical and magical worlds, and so three dates seemed... significant, somehow.

He wondered if, after three dates, he could call Bucky his boyfriend, instead of “this guy I’ve gone out with a couple of times.” And why in Turing’s name did he have a pink umbrella with flouncy little ruffles all around its edges? They looked like they’d hold onto water and dump it on you at exactly the wrong moment.

The line wasn’t quite out the door, but only until Tony got there. The next person would, in fact, be out the door. Although that might have been because Bucky had an actual troll as a customer, and he both took up a lot of space and people didn’t want to stand near him. Tony was pretty sure all the nonsense about trolls was just racist bullshit. They did a really good job building bridges, so what, exactly, was everyone’s problem? There hadn't been an incident involving trolls and children in at least a century. (well, sensationalist magazines and abusive parents dragged that story out all the time.)

And even as Tony was putting that together, three more people got into line behind him. The date was not going to start on time, because there was no way Bucky was walking away and dumping a rush like this on Clint to handle alone.

Which was fine, it actually, absolutely was, because Tony was a little overloaded with work, himself, so he could get his coffee and go stake out a table in the corner and knock out a little work on his tablet while he waited. They both worked in customer service; it was a thing you planned around.

Tony squinted up at the ceiling and huffed over the patchiness of the shop’s wards. Bucky was going to have another imp in his espresso machine if the building super didn’t get some fresh protections up soon.

The line inched forward. The troll spoke actual trollish, which Tony didn’t understand. Neither, apparently, did Bucky, but Bucky gestured to Clint, who made a few gestures. SSL -- Supernatural Sign Language, which was left over from when trolls and witches and dwarves all worked together on some of the city projects, and had to learn to effectively communicate. These days, almost everyone spoke English, which seemed very human-centric, come to think of it. Maybe Tony could get some mileage out of a translation app.

“Get me a bucket,” Clint said. “He wants a venti-venti-venti.” Clint signed again, and the troll dropped a gold coin on the counter about the size of a jar lid.

 A triple-venti was going to take a while to pull. Tony fished out his phone and started making notes. Translation app, personal force fields, the somewhat sticky problem of a cursed laptop that a college student had brought him that held the student’s only copy of their master’s thesis -- bad idea, that, always have multiple backups -- and thus couldn’t be de-cursed the quick and easy way, which had a tendency to leave a few memory sectors fragged.

The line kept growing behind Tony. But he’d finally gotten up to the second in line when the door pushed open and a tall, willowy woman came in with strawberry blond hair that was soaking wet and stuck to her face. “I don’t understand it,” she said. “It was sunny. The weather report said sunny all day--” She gasped a few times for breath -- if Tony had been running in those shoes, he’d have broken an ankle -- and gazed at the line in horror.

“Ifrit domestic trouble,” Tony volunteered. “Or so I heard.”

“You think I can send him my dry-cleaning bill?” She wrung out her hair and then took off her jacket, flapping water toward the door. Her shell top was sticking to her. “I’m soaking wet, I’m going to be late, I’ve been working the worst hours.”

“Hi Miss Potts,” Bucky yelled from the counter.

“Mr. Barnes,” she said. “Tell me you can save me.”

“I can save you.”

The troll collected his drink -- the repurposed ice-cream bucket still looked like an espresso cup in his huge hand -- and headed out into the weather. The door yawned and stretched around him to make room. That was a neat trick. Tony hadn’t seen it before; tech wizards said it was too hard, and so trolls and giants and some of the taller elven tribes complained about lack of access.

“Huh. I wonder when he had that installed,” Tony mused, eyeing the door, and then his attention snapped back to -- Miss Potts, apparently. “Does he save you on a regular basis? What’s your standard?”

“I’m probably only alive because of Mr. Barnes’ shop,” Miss Potts said. “Have you been here before? I love this place. I would live here, if they’d let me. Working for A Living. I think I might either die falling down the stairs in exhaustion, or actually push my boss down an elevator shaft without it.”

Tony let the two or three people between them skip ahead of him in the line -- he wasn’t going anywhere until the rush died down, anyway -- to make it easier to chat. “I only discovered it a couple of weeks ago,” Tony admitted. “Came in to exorcise the espresso machine -- it’s fine now, don’t worry -- and well, like you -- didn’t want to leave again.” He grinned. “Sounds like your boss needs to pause and have a cup, too. What do you do?”

“Personal Assistant,” Miss Potts said. “Pretty much whatever my boss says to do, all the way from taking notes at meetings to fetching his dry cleaning. Which wouldn’t be so bad, except they’re in the middle of a hostile takeover, and between angry dwarves and multiple on-site labor disputes, I’ve been putting in sixteen hours a day, six days a week, for almost a month.” She did look on the brink of falling over with exhaustion, her hands shaking.

“Yike,” Tony sympathized. “Is this his first hostile? I mean, someone with experience would have known to hire a temp for the duration or something.”

Up at the counter, Bucky was making two Money for Nothings, keeping up an easy patter with the customers about lottery tickets and checking their pockets. 

“He seems to think that I’m the only one who can keep this company going,” she muttered. She pulled a magical compact out of her purse and opened it. The compact spouted a few uplifting and cheerful advertising-disguised-as-pep-talk phrases, and then-- “damn.” The purple smoke drifted out of the back and pooled around their feet. “It got wet. I am going to complain to the weather guild about this.”

“Nah,” Tony said. “I mean, go ahead and do that, sure, but here, let me see--” He plucked the compact out of her hand and peered into it. It wasn’t very sophisticated tech, but it only took a little for Tony to be able to manipulate it. A locking clasp, a tiny speaker and some wires connected to a button battery for amplification, and boom, tech.

Tony balanced the little thing on the palm of his hand and let energy flow into his witchmarks, making them glow a bright blue. There were some who said it looked spooky, but Tony had always found the light comforting. He coaxed little wisps of magic up into the compact and swept out the water, reversing some corrosion and a little bit of normal wear-and-tear, and reinstalling the sprite software that had drifted loose.

He popped the lid open again.

“Oh, honey, that shirt with that jacket, really? We’ve got some work to do.”

Tony rolled his eyes at it and handed it back to Miss Potts. “Here you go, good as new.” Well, it might be a little bit sassier than it had been before. Semi-autonomous sprite technology seemed to do that whenever Tony put his hands on it. 

“How did you-- thank you,” Miss Potts said. “My name’s Pepper Potts, it’s nice to meet you.” She held out a hand for a professional shake, but when her fingertips touched Tony’s, he felt the brief surge of Empathic Magic. No wonder her boss wanted her on site all the time. Empaths could affect the moods and compliance of people around them with a simple touch.

“Tony Stark,” he said. He considered her briefly. “Want to quit your horrible job and come work for me?”

“Are you joking?”

The woman in front of Tony in line took so long deciding what pastry she wanted with her coffee, Tony was almost certain that her coffee was going to be cold by the time she actually took a sip. 

“Here,” Bucky said. “I got yours already, doll. And Miss Potts, I’ll have your life affirming moment ready in just two minutes.”

Bucky put a mug, rather than a to-go cup on the counter in front of Tony. The heart in the steamed milk on top was glittering red and gold at him.

Tony shot Bucky a warm smile and a thanks, and stepped aside with his mug so Pepper wouldn’t have to reach past him when Bucky finished hers. He turned the mug until the point of the heart was pointing straight at his chest -- sympathetic magics always worked better if you gave them a bit of a push -- and then tipped the froth into his mouth. Like it had the previous times he’d had Bucky’s Lucky in Love brew, everything felt extra-warm for a moment, and a little bit sparkly, and behind the counter, Bucky seemed glow, just the tiniest bit.

“I wasn’t joking,” he told Pepper, when he’d finished savoring that first sip. “My dad died a couple of years ago and failed to leave the business to me free and clear, and last year, almost on the anniversary of his death, his old business partner split the company and walked off with about two-thirds of the staff for his branch. I’ve been scrambling to keep up and looking for good people.”

Obie had done a little more than simply splitting the company, but the sob story wasn’t something Tony liked to wave around. Maybe, if she took him up on it, he’d tell her about it sometime.

Bucky, perhaps feeling something going on -- he seemed to have that sense -- put Pepper’s drink in a tall glass, complete with a bamboo recycled straw instead of in the to-go cup. “On the house,” he added, pushing an actual brownie-crafted brownie on a plate at her. “With a little extra daydreams.”

“I would live here,” Pepper repeated, taking a sip of the drink. “So, job. Details. Would you like to do an interview, I could do an interview. Right here. I even have my resume up to date.”

Tony glanced at the line behind the ordering counter, then shrugged. He wasn’t going anywhere soon. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s do that.” He pointed at a table.

It took barely a minute of scanning Pepper’s resume to know that she was vastly overqualified, and probably not getting paid anything like she was worth. She’d successfully negotiated a dozen contracts, as a personal assistant.

A little nudging and she didn’t quite admit to being sexually harassed by her boss, but Tony could sense that maybe that had happened, too.

When Bucky finally came out from behind the counter, leaving Clint to finish out his shift, Pepper was smiling, cheerful, and enthusiastic, and it probably wasn’t all entirely due to Bucky’s coffee.

“Hey, snowflake!” Tony greeted him cheerfully. “I’m going to steal Pepper from her obnoxious boss. I’d offer to pay her what she’s worth, but frankly, I’m not sure I can afford that, so I’ll have to settle for merely doubling her current salary.”

Bucky tapped the plate in front of her, where she’d eaten the entire brownie except for a few crumbs. “Opportunity Knocks brownie. Glad you enjoyed it.” He gave Pepper a wink. “But now, I am going to steal my boyfriend from you, since we have a date as soon as I’m off shift.”

Tony pulled just a little magic out of his phone and flipped it at Pepper’s. “That’s my number,” he told her. “I’ll call tomorrow, and we’re going to do this. Start writing your resignation letter. Hire some clowns to see you out. Or strippers. Stripper clowns?”

Bucky rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I know a clown dominatrix,” he volunteered. “She could always use extra work.”

“Perfect,” Tony declared. “Talk to you tomorrow, Pep!” He tucked his arm through Bucky’s and turned them toward the door.

Guess he could start calling Bucky his boyfriend, now. That was easier than he’d thought.

On the way through the door, Bucky offered his hand to the doorframe, cupping what looked like a thimbleful of honey and a tiny piece of bread. “Wood fairies,” he said. “She deserved a bonus after that trick with our Troll earlier.” He glanced up at the sky, which was still pouring rain, and the occasional spates of hail, in anger. “I don’t know if you had anything in mind, specifically, but there’s a traveling mystical petting zoo in the park. They probably have wind sprites to keep the weather off. I always wanted to see a unicorn up close.”

“I’m more of a wyvern man, myself,” Tony said, feeling the happy buzz of Bucky’s potion fizzing through him at Bucky’s closeness. “Yeah, let’s go to the zoo.” He held up the pink umbrella. “I can even keep us dry on the way, if you don’t mind walking close.”

[etraytin]

Quarantine, Day 83

June 2 

Rough, rough day today. It started out pretty well, I even got to sleep in a little bit and woke up to good coffee and the chocolate chip pan dulce we got at Trader Joe's yesterday. I successfully ordered the spare parts we accidentally threw out for the video doorbell, and kiddo completed his schoolwork early in the day with no complaining. MIL had her first physical therapy appointment today, so they headed out around 10:30 and I settled in for a little quality fanfic reading while the kiddo played TABS, his current obsession. 

About an hour later, I got a call from the nursing home business office. We did the usual "Can I speak to Mrs. Lastname?" and me asking "MIL's Name Lastname?" because she and I are both Mrs. Lastname and I have had sixteen years of conditioning to say "this is she." They wanted MIL, and when I said she was out they asked for my husband's cell phone number, which I had to admit I did not have memorized even though I am his wife. When they heard I was part of the family, they said they could talk to me, and told me that based on FIL's sudden rapid decline, they wanted to put him into a single room so that we could come and be with him, but they wanted our authorization both in general and because Medicare only covers a semi-private room and we'd have to private pay. 

My brain absorbed about thirty percent of that because I was stuck on the "sudden rapid decline" that I did not know about at all, and I was very unhappy that MIL and my husband were both out of the house. I asked for immediate clarification on that, and she admitted that she did not know the specifics because she is the business office person, but she'd get the doctor on the phone. I sat on hold for a minute and she came back to tell me that the doctor and nurse were both outside with MIL and my husband, talking to them about FIL, and she hadn't realized they were already at the center. I told her that we would be able to pay for the private room. She was very nice, but it was the sort of phone call that hits you in the solar plexus. 

It was more than another hour before MIL and my husband came home. In the meantime, I fussed with lunch and tried to break it gently to the kiddo that Papa had gotten a lot sicker, but that we would finally be able to go in and see him. They came home and we sat down for lunch (leftover grilled stuff from yesterday), and afterwards I sent the kiddo out to water the plants while we talked. FIL's feet turned blue overnight, which indicates serious problems in the circulatory system, usually the beginnings of  shutting down. They could do bloodwork and scans and x-rays to figure out exactly why, but it would be unlikely to change anything, and it would be painful and stressful. Knowing that we were planning on getting hospice involved already, they gave him Percocet and Ativan, so he would sleep and feel no pain. He slept the entire time they were there. The doctor said it would be a matter of days. 

We sent messages to my husband's half sisters to let them know what is happening and that now is the time to come if they want to visit. Even this is complicated because of COVID, but we're going to give our bedroom to one sister and her adult daughter while another sister and her son stay in a hotel, and my husband and I will take the basement. This is both because a single bedroom is more likely to keep germs contained and simple hospitality. The last time we visited her home, she gave us her own bedroom to sleep in and bunked with one of her kids. It's only right to pay back the favor. So tomorrow will involve a lot of cleaning and moving luggage around while she drives down from Indiana. 

After all of this, MIL and I went downstairs (the long way, by walking out of the house, down the sidewalk and around into the driveway rather than taking the stairs) to clean out the garage fridge and freezer. This was something that had been bugging her for a long time and she wanted something to do. While we were doing that, we remembered the stupid forgotten salad dressing from Saturday, so that was my next thing. I drove out to the restaurant to pick it up so we would have plenty of homemade ranch dressing in the house. I ended up taking the long way both ways, just to have some time in the car to breathe and call my folks. 

When I got home, MIL and my husband went back to the center because the room switch had been done. While they were gone, the kiddo and I did the water fight I'd promised him. We  didn't use the squirt guns because we found the spinning sprinkler instead, so we spent an hour or so playing with that, running through it, daring each other to stand over it, generally getting very wet. As he played, I followed the saga in my TNR group chat of how one of my friends back home tried to rescue an abandoned kitten at one of our trapping sites, but it was too far gone and died at the vet. She was really sad, we all were, but we tried to remind her that you have to concentrate on the ones you can save. MIL and my husband came back while we were playing. FIL was sleeping the entire time they were there. I don't know if he was awake at all today, but maybe that's better. 

My PMS is still very ugh today, so I laid down on a heating pad after dinner and missed the nightly Avatar viewing. I will have to catch up, I don't want to miss Zuko Alone and the introduction of Toph, that's all very important stuff. Kiddo went to bed for about half an hour, then came out and cried all over my bed because Papa is going to die and he didn't want him to. I don't even remember what I said, stuff about heaven, and about how people we love stay with us, and we'll remember everything he was to us. I didn't even bother to try and send him back to bed alone, just went in there with him and we listened to a podcast he likes. He alternated between playing and crying and having a headache for a few hours and finally went to sleep a little after midnight. 

I came out and realized that I had an hour left before our grocery order for Wednesday evening (started last Thursday and added to throughout the week) needed to be finalized, and we suddenly were going to be feeding a lot more people. I added ingredients for some easy crockpot meals, figuring none of us are going to feel very cookish, plus a new battery because the damn smoke alarm keeps beeping. I caught up on news about the protests and it just makes me feel more sad and helpless and angry.  Everything is happening all at the same time, it seems. We're in for some rough days ahead, and I don't know how to make them better for anybody. Right now we're just holding on. 

[flusterfluff]

Logitec H600

If these headphones could talk, they’d have told you I’m a sociopath. That I’m a lunatic with crazy hair that gets into everything, and that I’m the most abusive human on the planet.  But they can’t. What they /can/ tell you now is that their battery is dying, the world is cold, and the light beckons to them. The light of Valhalla, where they have fought tooth and nail to be accepted as a mighty warrior, after spending the entirety of their lives battling against the fiercest beast that headphone-kind could imagine.

Most manufacturers don’t think of me. They don’t plan for me. Good manufacturers call me a “nightmare case”. Did Logitec plan for what I put these $20 headphones through? Probably not. I’m no audiophile, but I do listen to a lot of music. Constantly. Twelve plus hours of up-time per day. Sometimes while laying down. Sometimes while in another room. Sometimes I dropped them in water. I am not /kind/. I do not write /positive/ reviews. The headphones I had before my H600s were a solid pair of name-brand cans that ran twelve and a half times the price of these troopers. My review of those? “Sound is pretty good. Buy an extra cord. Or three.”

The year was 2015, RadioShack had filed for bankruptcy, and I got my first “real” headphones on sale. Anything before then had lasted maybe six months max. I liked the headphones I got there, on sale, at 70% off. Until my three-month-old laptop’s headphone jack died. Did I mention I’m not good to technology? The first cord of this modular set lasted about eight months. I did not use it for my laptop for all eight of those because Stan, my laptop who had been named for the SATANIC SCREECHING NOISE OF HIS FAN, lost connection with his audio jack. This was a problem. I needed music. I still need music. Every day.

So I looked around for a new headset. It needed to fill three major categories. One, it had to be USB. Two, it had to not sound like the tinny shit headphones you get at a gas station for two bucks. Including while talking. You’d be surprised how hard that particular box was to check off. Third, it had to be under thirty bucks. 

My first Logitec H600 set was from a bargain bin at WalMart. Picked up because I /NEED/ my fucking music. It’s a compromise. I’ll use these in the meantime. Fifteen dollars, I can have them die like the rest of my headphones and not be too upset. I try them on. Huh, not the most comfortable, but far better than some others I had tried. Sound? Was decent. Pretty damn good, actually. Linus Tech Tips would tell you that they’re hot garbage, but he’s a stuck up audiophile. Comparing them to my fucking NogginKnockers that were so much more expensive, yeah. The quality dipped. No shit. But it was acceptable. It was good. I liked it. Got in call with a friend, music kept playing, audio held, and hell, the mic wasn’t half bad. I thought I might buy another in two months. It’s higher quality and less expensive to do that than spend five bucks on cheaper ones every week and a half. 

Two months came and went.

Then a third.

A fourth.

A sixth.

A twelfth.

During the fourteenth month, my laptop died, and my new one had a headphone jack. Did I use it? Hell no. These things were USB. And my $250 CraniumLicorice had killed its third cord by now. I was done trying to maintain the inferior headset. The H600 stayed.

Sixteen months, no quality loss, using them in bed, while I sleep, sometimes up to eighteen hours a day, rarely less than eight. I kept going. 

Eighteen. I decide that I’m going to replace these with a clone when they die. Holy shit. My previous headphone life-record was six months. This was three times that.

Twenty four months. Two years and a /day/. The year was 2017, and my headphones from 2015 stopped charging. So why am I posting about this headset now?

I replaced them with the headphones that died today. Logitec H600. They stopped charging. No headphones should have to endure my abuse for that long. Somewhere along the line, I got a pair of SandHosers that have a radio dial. Those sat on my wall until today. The sound quality... For a $125-ish set of ScentHavers? Is comparable to my $25 bargain-bin Logitec H600s. And it doesn’t have a microphone.

Three years. Those things endured three years. Under the same, unrelenting conditions as the first. 

So, if you’re looking to buy a good wireless headset that some random diamond-rank streamer in Overwatch thought sounded better than his own fucking PurpleBigfoot standing mic? If you want a headset that can maintain connection through walls, cut out only at the exact angle where the entire length of a wall perpendicular to your position separates them from their connector? If you’re looking to spend less than fifty bucks, and don’t care if your headphones aren’t audiophile-grade? You want a sturdy, time-tested headset that is at least acceptable for listening to music through?  One warning. When something goes. It will be the charging port. But that won’t happen for you. Not unless you’re as abusive an owner as I am. Which I highly doubt. Prove me wrong. Go ahead. Get these glorious fuckers. Know that their brethren are already in Valhalla. Disclaimer: I’m not paid by Logitec. I’m not a Logitec fan. Brand loyalty is stupid. Your belongings should serve you, not the other way around. I don’t care about Logitec. The H600s are fucking great though. Five stars.

[crashdevlin]

I Never

Author’s Note: Unbeta’ed cause I have no beta. Written for @bamby0304‘s Triple Threat Challenge. (I know you said you’d never admit it if it an entry in your challenge sucks, but I honestly would like to know if it sucks, so please if it does, Bamby, send me a message) My prompts were: A1- You’re cute when you’re angry. B1- You’re an asshole. and C10- Bite me.

Summary: Y/n is a hunter who begrudgingly asks the Winchesters for help. The Winchesters don’t understand why she hates them when she doesn’t even know them, so Dean suggests a drinking game to get to know each other.

Pairing(s): Sam x Reader x Dean (no wincest)

Word Count: 2723

Story Warnings: Smut, 18+ HERE BE SEX, DO NOT READ IF YOU’RE A YOUNG’UN!!, oral sex (fem receiving), fingering, some alcohol, some man-hating (undeserved), some serious leaning upon the ‘Drinking Game’ trope to get shit moving.

"Bite me." You glared at the older Winchester brother and moved to stomp away, but his chuckling stopped you. "Something funny about this?"

"Uh, yeah. You came to us for help, princess, and now you're stomping away like a little kid. I think that's fuckin' hilarious."

"I came to you for help with a hunt and all I've gotten is innuendo and bullshit. I swear to you, if Bobby Singer was still alive, I would have never even called you."

Dean licked his bottom lip into his mouth and bit it lightly. He sighed and gave a small, but genuine, smile. "I'm sorry. You know how I am, y/n. If I can make a thing about sex, I do. It was inappropriate and it won't happen again."

You felt your stance soften under his gaze and some of your anger washed away. "Promise?"

He drew an X over his heart with his finger. "Cross my heart, princess. You will not hear another word from me about repaying this favor with a blow job."

You rolled your eyes. "You know, you're hunters, too. It shouldn't be seen as a favor to do your damn job."

He nodded. "I'd agree with that, 'cept last time we swept in and tried to help you without being invited, you freaked out on us. Claimed it was your hunt and we were fuckin' you up."

"I almost shot Sam, and the ghoul got away, because you showed up in the middle of my damn hunt."

"We got the thing."

"Two nights later!" You exclaimed. You took a deep breath and shook your head. "Doesn't matter. Look, dude had this pipe in every picture of him, I think he whittled the damn thing himself and if there were an object he were gonna attach himself to, it'd be that thing and I just need some help finding it, that's all."

"Yeah, all right, we can totally-"

The door opened as Dean was speaking and Sam walked in, arms full of food. "So, get this. Adamson had a home nurse toward the end who was completely in love with him. She sneaked his pipe out in her med bag the night before he died." Dean put his hand up to try to get Sam to stop talking, but Sam didn't seem to notice from the other side of a paper bag. "She really didn't want to give it up, but I convinced her that it was a felony to take it since it was an antique. Burned up pretty easy after I put the lighter fluid to it."

Your jaw had dropped. "Are you kidding me?! You've already-"

"Hey, y/n." Sam said, smiling, obviously not taking in your expression yet.

"This is... great." You pushed past Sam and out to your car. You spent days looking for that stupid pipe and the Winchesters came in and finished the entire hunt in less that eight hours. You drove to your own dirty-ass motel and grabbed your bottle of whiskey from your car before walking into your room. You sat cross-legged on the bed and started to pull deep gulps of amber liquid into your body. You hated asking for help. You hated asking men for help, especially, after dealing with so many misogynistic male hunters. You'd been hunting just as long as the Winchesters, but somehow they always seemed to completely dominate any hunt they happened to have... even if you were already on that hunt first.

Your motel doorknob jingled as it was picked and you pulled your knife from your belt and tossed it at the intruder as soon as the door opened. Sam's face ducked out of the way just in time for the knife to miss him. "Y/n."

"Go away, Winchester."

"Winchesters." Dean corrected, picking up your knife and sliding in behind Sam.

"Go. Away." You stood, swiping your knife out of Dean’s hand and sliding it back into the holder.

“Come on, y/n. You asked for help. We helped.” Dean defended.

“I asked for help and you took over before I even finished asking. You finished the hunt without me. You-” You shook your head. “Do you know how hard it was for me to even make that call, man? To admit that I need help? And you came in and-and were completely disgusting with me and you’d already sent Sam off to finish up Adamson and why are you smiling?!”

He was smirking as he looked down at you. “You’re cute when you’re angry.”

“Are you kidding me?!”

“Nope. Absolutely adorable.”

“Would you speak to a man like that?” You ground out through clenched teeth.

Sam chuckled, sitting on your bed. “If he was being cute, sure.”

“You’re an asshole. Both of you are assholes. Is that genetic or learned?”

Dean’s face went faux-thoughtful. “Gotta be genetic. Our dad was an asshole. Our grandpa on Mom’s side, too.”

“Might be cultural, though. Dad and Grandpa were both hunters, so maybe it’s a hunter trait.” Turning to Sam showed his face in the same faux-thoughtful expression.

You rolled your eyes and flopped down on your bed next to Sam, picking up your bottle and taking a drink. “It’s definitely a hunter trait.”

“Might be why you’re an asshole, too.” Dean said, standing in front of you and looking down.

“I am not.”

“You’re joking, right? All you’ve done is glare and gripe at me and Sam since you met us. I’m pretty sure you do that to every hunter you come across. You’re a strong, independent woman who don’t need no man, right?”

You bit your tongue as he spoke then nodded. “Right.”

“Yeah, well, it makes you come off like an asshole. You didn’t even try to get to know us before you decided we weren’t worth your time.” Sam said.

“Well…” You bit your tongue harder. They were right. Unfortunately. “Fine. Let’s get to know each other, then.”

Dean’s eyebrows raised. “Okay. What do you wanna know?”

“This was your idea, Winchester. I’m just tryin’ not to be an asshole.”

“All right. How much booze you got?” Dean asked.

“Two more bottles of whiskey and a six of Sam Adams in the mini-fridge. Why?” You asked, looking at the bottle in your hand. Half-full.

“Drinking game. Never Have I Ever.” Dean walked over to the fridge and pulled out the six pack of beer. “We’ll start slow.”

You set your whiskey on the side table and took the beer Dean offered. “Really? What are we, sixteen?”

“Come on. What better way is there to find out about folks? Conversation?” Dean dropped to the bed and the force caused you to bounce.

“I feel like drinking games were designed specifically to get people laid. There’s no point in it other than asking each other risque questions and forcing the consumption of too much alcohol in an effort to lower inhibitions.” But you twisted the cap off the beer, anyway.

“Of course that’s the point. Lower inhibitions, at least. Maybe you’ll be more friendly with a couple in you.” Sam twisted the cap off of his beer and shrugged. “Who’s first?”

“I’ll go.” Dean offered. “Never Have I Ever worn Crocs.”

Sam rolled his eyes and took a drink of his beer. “Never Have I Ever listened to the same song on repeat for two hours.”

Dean smiled and took a drink before nodding at you. “Never Have I Ever fucked some random chick I met just hours before.”

“Low blow.” Dean said as he and Sam both drank.

“The point of this is for you to get drunker than me, right? That’s how you win this game, right?”

“Well, we know she’s competitive.” Sam chuckled.

“Never Have I Ever sent a dirty picture.” Dean said. Neither you nor Sam drank. “Well, that’s disappointing.”

“Never Have I Ever joined a dating app.” Sam’s words made you and Dean both drink.

“Tinder?” Dean asked.

You shrugged, looking down at your nails. “Match. Everybody on Tinder treats it like sex on tap. Not really what I’m looking for.”

“And what are you lookin’ for, ‘cause you kinda put off an aura of ‘don’t come near me’ to anyone who might… you know, understand your life.” Dean commented.

“Hunters… men in general, they just want one thing… and then absolutely nothing else.” You shrugged. “I want what my parents had. I want love, with a side of saving people together.”

“What, you don’t like sex?”

“Dean.” Sam admonished.

“Never Have I Ever had sex that was worth the Walk of Shame the next day.” You answered.

“Wow. That’s kinda sad, y/n.” Sam said, quietly.

“Drink.” You insisted.

“No. Because I’m not ashamed of any sex I’ve ever had so I’ve never had a Walk of Shame.” Dean said, matter-of-factly. “And in that vein, Never Have I Ever had a Walk of Shame.”

You and Sam both took a drink. “Never Have I Ever faked an orgasm.” Sam said. You drank.

“Never Have I Ever masturbated to the thought of a friend.” You said. Both Winchesters drank.

“Never Have I Ever been a disgruntled bitch because I have no sex life.” Dean said, pointedly.

You glared at him, but didn’t drink. “Y/n, you know the rules. You gotta drink if you’ve done the thing.” Sam chided with a smile.

“I am not a disgruntled bitch because I don’t have a sex life.” You bit out.

“No? Then why are you?” Dean asked, cockily. You stayed silent, but you refused to drink. “No, seriously. When’s the last time you got laid? Better yet, when’s the last time you had an orgasm that wasn’t aided by batteries?”

You didn’t respond, so Sam scoffed. “Never Have I Ever gone more than six months without achieving orgasm through sex.”

You rolled your eyes and took a drink. “Never Have I Ever wanted to be done with a game as much as I want to be done with this one.”

“Never Have I Ever gone more than a year without achieving orgasm through sex.” Dean said. Obviously they weren’t going to be letting this go. You drank.

Sam and Dean shared a look, speaking almost telepathically, before Sam said, “Never Have I Ever gone more than… five years without achieving orgasm through sex.” You drank, rolling your eyes. Sam’s eyes went wide. “Have you ever cum?”

You downed the rest of your beer and tossed the bottle to the side. “I think the game’s done. You boys know far more about me than you did when you walked in the room, so… good night.” You reached over and picked up the whiskey, but Dean grabbed the bottle.

“This is a problem, y/n. Who in the world can go that long without-”

“I have never had a guy that could or cared to… seriously, why does it matter?” You grabbed your bottle back and took a drink.

The Winchesters both looked at you a bit like you’d lost your mind. “Because you’re hot, you’re badass, and every woman deserves someone who can make their toes curl.” Dean answered.

“Let me guess, you’re about to volunteer.” You snarked before you took a drink of whiskey.

“Damn straight.” Sam said.

“But we’re not gonna fuck you.” Dean grabbed your whiskey again and set it back on the side table. “If you’ll let us, y/n, we’re gonna worship you.”

Your jaw dropped. That was an enticing offer. The Winchesters, as much as you’d tried to hate them, were very attractive men, offering to worship you, to make you cum. Punctuated with ‘If you’ll let us’. It was completely up to you.

Stupid drinking game. You knew it was a game you’d lose. Not that you really cared about losing anymore.

“How would you… ‘worship’ me?” You asked, a foreign breathy quality to your words.

They grinned, identical wolf-like smiles that made your breath catch. “Well, we’d start by kissing the oxygen out of your lungs.” Sam leaned forward, pressing his lips to yours. He wasn’t lying. He didn’t pull away until you had to breathe. Dean gave you just enough time to pull air into your body before he grabbed your head and pulled you to kiss him. Neither had even employed tongue, but by the time Dean pulled away, your body was flush with heat and between your legs was tingling.

“We’d help you out of your top.” Dean grabbed the front hem of your t-shirt and Sam grabbed the back, raising it over your head. Their eyes roamed down your body and they each ran their fingertips across the skin of your stomach. “We’d give you matching hickies, ‘cause neckin’ still feels awesome even if you aren’t sixteen.” Dean whispered, before attaching his mouth to your neck while Sam started to nibble at your shoulder.

“Fuck.” You whimpered, as Dean pulled away to examine his mark.

“My turn.” Sam almost growled, before moving from your shoulder to your neck.

“You look so fuckin’ strung out already, y/n. See, this is what happens when you don’t get some for fuckin’ years.” Dean leaned forward and pressed his lips to yours as Sam increased suction. This time, Dean pressed his tongue between your lips, which you opened eagerly. Your tongues pressed against each other, swirling around the space between your mouths. While you were preoccupied with Dean, Sam’s fingers unclasped your bra and started to slide the straps down your arms. “Then, we’d suck on these pretty tits.” Sam leaned down and ran his tongue across your right nipple. Dean pushed you backward to lay down and they both sucked a nipple into their mouths. You started to squirm against them, the tingling heat between your thighs demanding attention so you squeezed them together.

“And then one of us would keep lavishing your lips and tits with love and kisses, and the other…” Dean smirked, running his hand down your body to settle just over the button of your jeans. “...the other would take his tongue and try to lick your cervix.”

You let out a scoffing laugh. “Feel like Sam would be more suited to that job.”

Sam chuckled around your breast, giving a final lick to your nipple before pulling away and down your body. Your pants and panties were on the ground at your feet in no time, Sam between your legs, placing kisses up your thigh as his long fingers ran slowly up and down your slit. Dean’s hand went to massage the breast Sam abandoned, but his mouth moved up to your neck, leaving little biting kisses along the way to your mouth.

The younger Winchester slid a single finger inside of you, probably his middle finger but you couldn’t see because you were too busy with your hands buried in Dean’s hair, making out like his tongue was the cure for anything that ailed you. You moaned into Dean’s mouth as Sam added a second finger, pumping them quickly as his tongue started flicking across your clit. Dean pulled back, rolling your nipple between his fingertips and staring into your eyes. “You’re doin’ so good, y/n. You look like you’re about to explode, princess.” You nodded, barely able to think, let alone respond verbally. “I’m the lucky one. He gets to taste you, but I get to see your face when you cum.”

You clenched around Sam’s fingers at the words, which intensified the feeling of his thrusts and brought you right up to the edge of an oblivion you’d only been able to reach on your own. Sam’s lips sealing around your little bundle of nerves sent you screaming into the abyss. Dean kissed you as you came down from the high and when you sat up, panting and looked at them, there was amazement in your eyes. “How you feelin’?” Sam asked, dropping onto the bed next to you.

You opened your mouth slightly, but no words came out. Dean chuckled. “For once in her life she doesn’t have some snarky bullshit response.”

You shook your head, laughing. “I’m just thinking… Never Have I Ever been fucked by two guys at once.” You laughed harder as they started to undress. Yes, this was a game you were happy to lose.

[claroquequiza]

McHanzo Week, Day 4: Red || Blue

McCree sees Hanzo’s dragons for the first time.

They’re red.

McCree remembers the first time he saw the dragons.

It was, funnily enough, in Hanamura, when the newly reunited Shimada brothers had brought word that their old inheritance had been commandeered by a branch of their family--with help from Talon. It had been hellish timing, because the whole thing stank of a trap. McCree hadn’t trusted the elder Shimada as far as he could throw the bastard, and he refused to ignore the coincidence of Genji finding out about his brother’s yearly pilgrimages just after the Recall had gone out. McCree was more than half-convinced that the whole thing was a ploy, a way for the elder Shimada to regain control of his clan while simultaneously finishing the job he had botched a decade earlier.

Accordingly, he tried not to let either Shimada brother out of his sight while they were in the city. Surprisingly, it was Genji who made it difficult--he was overjoyed to be back in Hanamura and was constantly dressing up in some disguise or other and going out to inspect and enjoy his old haunts as best he could while on a mission. It was the elder brother who hadn’t left the safehouse at all the entire time, even sticking to common spaces for almost every moment he was awake, despite his obvious discomfort at being on constant display to his brother’s teammates. He’d only retired to relative privacy to sleep, and even then only for short bursts.

Later, McCree would think back on his Deadlock days and how many times he’d gone out on some raid or robbery fully expecting a knife in his back from some “fellow” gang member that he’d failed or pissed off. How little he’d slept then. How trapped he felt. How much it took for him to force one foot in front of the other and get the damned job done while making himself as small as possible so he didn’t get caught by a bullet coming from ahead or behind.

During the battle, Genji had taken point, with his brother covering him. McCree objected. Lena objected. Angela had fretted and wavered, torn between her own objections and Genji’s heartfelt reassurances. Winston had made no secret of his doubts, but had to admit that the brothers knew their old home better than anyone. It was a trial of fire for the whole team, and McCree had felt the burn as he watched the duo dash across the castle grounds, Genji’s sword flashing silver and green as black bolts rained around him. If there had been an opportunity to make a hit look accidental--

But the battle dragged on, with no cry of pain or betrayal. Instead, the brothers had been a force of nature, laying waste to everyone who stood in their way, clearing out the halls and passageways with breathtaking efficiency. The remaining enemy forces, almost all Talon lackeys, gathered for one last stand in the grand hall, but it was their downfall. Genji had shouted then. “McCree! Deadeye!” and McCree had rushed forward, Peacekeeper ready.

And then the dragons appeared.

Their roars were distant but vibrated in his chest. Their manes flowed in a non-existent wind. They swirled and twisted around each other as they lashed out, driving any who escaped their fangs and claws into Genji’s sword and McCree’s bullets and Hanzo’s arrows.

Their glowing, blood-red forms left afterimages in his eyes that took hours to fade.

He saw them several times after that. He learned not to look at them directly, otherwise he was useless to shoot for the rest of the fight, but if he knew it was already winding down, if the dragons were the final stroke, he couldn’t help but watch. Genji’s dragon had always been blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. Hanzo’s--Hanzo’s were a spectacle, bathing their surroundings in ethereal red light that turned the world muddy, rusty brown as they danced.

He didn’t speak about them much to anyone at first. It took a few weeks before anyone discussed Hanzo at all beyond battlefield tactics and dark mutterings about his and Genji’s whereabouts. It took new blood, actually, to bring them up. Hana Song and Lúcio Correia Dos Santos were not accustomed to moderating their reactions and curiosity, anyway.

“Dude! Dude! Dude!” had been Lúcio’s words.

“Kill streak!” had been Hana’s.

They had been the ones to pepper Hanzo with questions afterwards, in the Orca. What are they? Spirits bound to the Shimada line for generations. What does it feel like? Like putting your tongue on a battery. How did you learn to do that? Carefully. When? When I was sixteen. Can we see them now?

“They only come as emissaries of death now--” Hanzo’s jaw had clenched shut with an audible click on the last word.

Hana and Lúcio never moderated their curiosity, but they could redirect it.

“Why blue? I was expecting green, like Genji’s--could’ve used a third member of the Green Team!”

McCree had perked up at that.

But Hanzo gave no verbal answer; he looked surprised for a long moment before he deflected the question by asking when Lúcio had seen Genji’s dragon.

Hanzo was often in Hana and Lúcio’s company after that.

Which meant he was often in McCree’s company--the youngest members of Overwatch were determined to get their teammates caught up with the best of 2070’s culture. McCree ate it up, to be honest. So did Hanzo. Five and ten years on the run, respectively, meant that both men had missed out on a lot of music, movies, and games, and Hana and Lúcio’s enthusiasm made it fun to catch up. It was how McCree discovered that Hanzo loved norteño. He had found it fitting for long weeks and months constantly on the move. It was how McCree admitted to keeping an extensive library of JRPGs handy, ranging from community simulators to high fantasy action. It had been the best way to kill time when a bounty hunter or law enforcement had forced him to go to ground.

Still, it took a good amount of time before cautiously sharing superficial interests among good company produced any results beyond Hanzo lingering in the mess hall at meals and McCree no longer keeping tabs on Genji’s health.

The turning point came on the battlefield, as might be expected.

As a wave of Talon operatives had threatened to overwhelm the payload, as he had turned to make sure no one was taking advantage of Hanzo’s concentration on the enemies before him, as the shouted words rang through the cobblestone streets festooned with light strips and piñatas--instead of sullen red painting the scene a dour, murky parody of itself--

It was like lightning had descended, but instead of coming and going in a flash, it poured like a river, turning the street into a dichromat painting of white and electric blue. The dragons--the cerulean, azurite dragons--danced and rended and tore as they always did, but despite their dazzling brilliance, McCree stared wide-eyed straight at them. No pain, no afterimages, still a spectacle.

The lack of afterimages was what saved Hanzo’s life. Hanzo hadn’t seen them coming from behind. McCree nearly missed them himself, only catching them when he turned to shout--something, something in wonderment, maybe--but instead cursing and bringing Peacekeeper and Deadeye to the fore. He was too late; the bullets caught Hanzo in his abdomen, and the fading blue light from the dragons couldn’t disguise the red of his blood as it splashed out across the payload. But McCree got the bastards--onetwothreefourfivesix--and he was rushing forward to catch Hanzo as he collapsed.

He shouted for Angela, before a cough and a short laugh caught his attention.

“You were not red,” murmured Hanzo, even as his eyes turned glassy in his pale face.

“Neither were they,” he replied, throat tight.

Angela got there in time, but it was a close thing. McCree discovered then that Hanzo has type A+ blood. Close enough for McCree’s O+.

He said as much, later on, in the medical ward of the Watchpoint. Hanzo grinned. “Close enough for a close call,” he said, chuckling at what he apparently thought was a joke. McCree chuckled, too, but mostly at the warmth spreading through his chest and rising to his cheeks. He thought the dragons had looked worlds better in blue, but nowhere near as good as Hanzo when he laughed.

[venfx]

Oh boy, I got another idea for a prompt, something I was discussing in the Discord: After the day Phil and Rita spent together and her waking him up, he's steadily getting better and better. But it's not totally linear. Though being good to people is making him feel good, it feels more like a distraction from the larger aching emptiness still inside him. Even as he finds new ways to fill his time, he still sometimes longs for an end in sight. One morning, in a moment of weakness, he makes (1/2)

one more attempt. However, he doesn’t actually die this time and wakes up in a hospital bed. For once, it hits him how real his body and what he’s been doing to it truly is. He’s pissed at himself for falling back into this and doubts if he’ll ever be able to just look on the bright side like Rita said to. To his surprise, before the day resets, his mom shows up at the hospital to see him, having urgently booked a flight over there. She’s pretty angry and scared and upset and gives him some harsh words, and she also loves him so, so much. They talk and she stays with him until it’s 6AM again.

why do you make me hurt him so. anyways this was a doozy but also weirdly fun to write mostly because i just got my EMT certification and am therefore allowed to throw in useless medical jargon

(again sorry mrs. connors you don’t deserve this)

send me fic prompts here!

CW for suicide mention/attempt

It’s impossible to put into words just how much Phil despises the inventor of the alarm clock.

“That’s right, woodchuck-chuckers, it’s-”

He slams his hand down onto the snooze button.

He’s never been a morning person.

Lately, his days look a little like this: sit up, stretch. Answer the phone on the first ring. Make sure to get the girl’s name- it’s Lisa- and wish her a good morning before heading out the door. Compliment Jonathan’s new sneakers, fix the coffee pot, meet up with Ned to chat about his family.

Then, get coffee for the crew and Rita, do the broadcast, change a flat tire, rescue a cat. Practice the piano, charm his way into staying a few extra hours.

Try to save the old man.

Fail to save the old man.

Drive Ralph and Gus back from the bar.

Wake up, do it all over again.

And, like, okay, it’s not all bad.  

Phil’s a new man, with a new lease on life and a steadily improving rendition of Hot Cross Buns to prove it. The more time he spends here actually living, the more he grows to love each and every resident of Punxsutawney.

He has friends here, as bizarre as that sounds.

Even if those friends don’t, y'know, remember him.-Here’s the thing: sometimes, his life feels like the weird second act of some two-bit play. The fact that the curtain will never fall is irrelevant.

Helping people of this small, quiet town should be enough. 

It is enough.

In terms of eternity, he’s won the fucking jackpot.-Still, it goes without saying that some days are easier than others.

“That’s right, woodchuck-chuckers, it’s-”

"That’s right, woodchuck-chuckers, it’s-”

That’s right, woodchuck-chuckers, it’s-”

He’s getting better.

He is.

It’s just, well. Sometimes.

Sometimes, he isn’t.

Here’s another thing: Phil spends the night before his seventeenth birthday locked in his parents’ bathroom with a bottle of his mom’s sleeping pills and a flask of gas station tequila he’d bribed off of his sister’s boyfriend a month earlier. 

He’s sixteen years, three hundred sixty four days, twenty two hours, and seventeen minutes old. 

People keep telling him that it’s going to get better, that he’ll be okay, that his problems are small and that everyone feels like this every once in a while. 

Maybe they’re right, but Phil’s not stupid, either- he knows that people aren’t supposed to be this empty, knows that there’s something in him that’s always going to be small and broken and wrong.

He’s just so fucking tired.

"That’s right, woodchuck-chuckers, it’s-”

Twenty three years and a thousand endless days later, he barely thinks twice before swallowing the whole damn bottle.

Phil wakes up.

He wakes up.

He’s not in the bed and breakfast.

For one panicked moment, he thinks maybe-

He jack-knifes up, yanks the cannula out of his nose. “Excuse me!”

There’s a nurse passing by his room. She turns, looks at him with a special cocktail of muted pity and vague disgust, which Phil very politely ignores because he is a nice fucking person now, thank you very much.

“Sorry, but um,” he rasps, voice hoarse. It sort of tastes like something crawled into the back of his throat and died. “What’s today’s date?“ 

“February 2nd, dear. I’ll go tell the doctor that you’re up.”

February 2nd.

Right.

He wakes up again to a woman in a white coat standing at the foot of his bed, reading off of a clipboard. 

“Phil Connors, 40, found unresponsive underneath a bridge near Patsy’s Park. Presented with mild hypothermia, bradycardia, hypotension, and significant respiratory depression as a result of an alcohol potentiated benzodiazepine overdose." 

Phil just wants to go back to sleep.

“ER administered 0.8mg of Flumazenil intravenously upon admission and performed a gastric lavage shortly after. Vitals have been stable since seven this evening.”

“Huh,” he mutters. “Thought it’d been longer than that." 

His doctor sighs, like she’s unimpressed or something, which strikes him as kind of rude.

Phil almost died.

God.

"Mr. Connors, you went outside half naked in the middle of snowstorm to chase 220 mg of clonazepam- that’s fifty five pills, by the way- with a bottle of raspberry vodka-”

“It was grape, actually-”

“Regardless,” she says and, great, her voice is all gentle now, like being nice is going to change anything. “I don’t think we need to pretend that this was accidental.”

“Shit, what gave it away?" 

"Mr. Connors, was this your first attempt?”

And Phil-

Phil thinks of the toaster.

He thinks of suffocating, of bleeding out, of freezing to death, of walking into traffic, eyes shut, over and over and over again. He remembers the rope and the car battery and the fucking clock tower.

He thinks of the screwdriver- and, okay, that had been a little excessive, but whatever.

He feels sick.

"Yeah,” he says, slumping back against the pillows. “Yeah. First time.”

They keep him on mandatory 72 hour watch.

Not that it really matters, but.

Phil hates hospitals.

The phone rings when Phil’s on his seventh episode of Law and Order: SVU. He’s eaten, like, four things of green Jello and an entire bag of ice chips. 

On screen, Ice-T is arresting a pedophile with a clown fetish.

He’s pretty sure his nurse is avoiding him.

This kind of feels like a new low.

“Mr. Connors? You have a visitor. Should I send her up?”

Phil absolutely does not want to see Rita right now, but also feels like he owes her for blowing off the broadcast and then literally almost dying. 

Plus, he’s been trying to be less of an ass lately.

Really.

“Yeah, go ahead,” he says with a sigh. “Thank you.”

“Phil Connors, what the fuck.”

That’s not Rita.

He’s going to kill Rita.

“Mom? Jesus, who called you?”

“Is that how you greet me? We haven’t spoken in six months, and all I get is a Jesus-who-called-you?”

Joanne Connors is sixty four years old and 5'2”. 

She carries herself the way some people carry machine guns. 

“So, I’m in a hospital bed, don’t know if you noticed-"

"I noticed that you look like shit,” she says, scowling at the IV in Phil’s arm like it’s done something to  personally offend her. “So, I’ll reiterate: what the fuck.”

Phil’s been nursing a low level migraine since he woke up and the shrillness of his mother’s voice adds a special new dimension to this whole experience.

“Thanks, mom,” he says with a sigh. “Did you really fly all the way out here from Cleveland?”

“No, I was in the area,” she says bitingly. “Of course I flew out here. Your producer called-”

“Associate producer, actually-” he says, just because he’s feeling a little bitter.

“-saying that you were in the hospital, that it looked bad, that they found these pills-”

“I’m fine, oh my god-”

“-so, yes, I did fly out here in the middle of a goddamn blizzard. That flight cost me five hundred dollars, by the way-”

“I never asked you to-”

“-and that doctor you have is a real piece of work-”

“Mom! You’re yelling." 

She stops abruptly, looking stricken. 

With horror, Phil realizes that her eyes are welling up. 

He hates seeing his mom cry.

"You stupid, stupid boy,” she whispers. “You selfish, thoughtless child. What were you thinking?”

Phil can’t remember the last time his mother hugged him, but when she does, it feels like china, like glass, like something breakable and precious all at once.  

“Mom, I-”

He doesn’t know what he wants to say. 

There’s something ugly in his chest, some horrible emotion that makes his throat tight and his eyes burn. He can feel his mother’s tears seeping into the flimsy fabric of his hospital gown.

Phil grips her back like he’s drowning.

Eventually she pulls away, dabs at her eyes with a trembling hand.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “Phil, I’m so sorry.”

“Um. Don’t be. This isn’t your fault,” he says thickly, scrubbing a hand across his face. “I just- uh. It’s been a long day.”

She chuckles weakly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Phil doesn’t want to talk about it, and for once, she doesn’t push.

They just sit there instead, watching crappy crime procedurals and eating Jello. She tells him blatantly untrue stories about his childhood and pretends to be interested when he delivers a ten minute lecture on introductory quantum mechanics (his newest research project) and a half hour summary of the first four seasons of Game of Thrones (that he only watched for Rita).

At one point, she leans over to press a kiss to his forehead.

“I love you so much, Phil. So much.”

He closes his eyes.

Here’s a final thing: the day always resets in the time it takes him to blink. 

In that brief moment or space between seeing and not-seeing, a cosmic rubber band yanks him backwards, pulls him taut through time. He knows it’s happening before it happens, even though he’s never actually seen the clock hit six.

"That’s right, woodchuck-chuckers, it’s-”

He slams a hand on the alarm.

It’s a new day.

[iamnotthedog]

MORRISON TO MINNEAPOLIS: SUMMER 1997

When I got my hands on that Oldsmobile at the age of sixteen, I wanted nothing more than to drive. I drove all the time, out past the high school and out through the hills just south and west of Morrison, out past the Cross Creek Country Club and then up to Garden Plain Road that would take me back to Highway 30 and back into town. Once Mom and Don were confident enough in my driving skills to let me take longer trips, I started heading east, where I’d cut around Chicago and blow up the coast of Lake Michigan to the Warren Dunes State Park. I’d sit up there on the sand dunes and get sun burnt and smoke weed and people watch. There were some crazy fuckers from rural Indiana and Michigan who went to those dunes, just to hang out. Get a little nature in the big-nature-deprived Middle West.

One warm summer weekend, I talked Mom and Don into letting me drive all the way up to Minneapolis to visit Jim.

I woke up before dawn on the morning of my departure, got dressed, ate a bowl of cereal, and went out to the Oldsmobile. It was still dark outside, and I remember feeling a little nuts as I sat in the Olds and pulled the door shut softly behind me, trying not to wake up the parents who were still sleeping soundly inside. My backpack was in the backseat, packed with some toiletries, a few t-shirts, socks and underwear, a bag of weed and a pipe, and an extra pair of pants. I had a shoebox full of cassette tapes in the front passenger seat. I put on a Bob Dylan tape—Highway 61 Revisited—and smoked a bowl. Then I took off. I crossed the Wisconsin border before the sun even came up, and made it to Minneapolis by noon.

Jim’s place in Minneapolis was pretty sweet. It was a big old house, and though it was right in the middle of a busy neighborhood with a lot of shit going on all around it, it was set back from the street a little bit, and blocked from view by some big trees and dense bushes.

I parked the Olds in the beat up and overgrown eight-car parking lot next to Jim’s house, then walked around to the front and hopped up the stairs to the huge front porch. I knocked on the screen door.

“Jim?” I yelled. “Jim, it’s Dan!”

There was some rustling around inside, and then my big brother appeared in the doorway. I hadn’t seen Jim in a long time. He still had his glasses, but he had shoulder length hair and he wore some cut-off shorts and a flannel shirt. He looked like a grunge type, and he was doing a better job of it than I was. “Hey brother!” he said, pushing open the creaky door. “Come on in.”

The house was spacious inside. All wood floors and white walls. A spider plant hanging in one corner. The front living room area had a large couch, an old black trunk for a coffee table, a shelf of books and records, a tweed chair, and a television on a little stand. The room opened up into a similarly-sized dining room, with a large dining table surrounded with chairs. An espresso-stained buffet with a mirror above it was built into the far wall.

Jim handed me a record jacket—brand new—on which was a sepia-toned picture of young man sitting in a wooden chair with his back to a large mirror that was covered with graffiti. The man had a smug look on his face—a sort of half-smirk, and he was smoking a cigarette. He was wearing a Heli-Jet trucker cap on his head of black hair, and a tight, short-sleeved t-shirt on which was a caricature of a man in a cowboy hat. He had a tattoo of some sort of animal on his bicep—a bull, possibly, or a horse, which was standing on a circle of grass, its head over a daisy. The back of the record jacket was simply a photograph of a chandelier, all in white on a black background, and in white type in the font of an American typewriter it said either/or on the top center, above the chandelier. In the bottom right corner was the track listing, and in the bottom left corner it said “Kill Rock Stars,” with an actual star replacing the word “Star,” and the address: “120 NE State Ave. No. 418, Olympia, WA 98501.” 

“Have you heard of Elliott Smith?” Jim asked me. I shook my head. “This album is great,” he said. “Lo-fi, recorded mostly in people’s houses on four-track tape recorders, and Elliott plays all the instruments himself.” He put the record on, then sat in the tweed chair, crossed his legs, and lit a cigarette with a match. “Do you smoke?” he asked, offering me the pack.

“No, no. I’m good,” I said. He put the pack in his shirt pocket.

We listened to the whole first side of the record without speaking. It was sad folk music, but so beautiful. So honest. It really was good, and I told Jim I thought so.

“I know, right?” he said. He stood and flipped the record. “What time is it? Do you want a beer?” He laughed, as if the idea of having a beer with his little brother just killed him. I hadn’t really been drinking all that much beer around that time, especially not in the middle of the day. I really just smoked a lot of weed. But I of course said yes, and Jim got me a Killian’s Irish Red out of the fridge. Then he asked me if I liked brats with grilled onions, and said he was firing up the grill out on the back porch. We drank our beer and listened to the rest of the record, then went out on the porch with some brats and sliced onions. Jim turned on a little battery-powered radio on the porch. There was a baseball game on.

“What’s going on in Morrison?” he asked, putting the food on the grill.

“Not much,” I said. “My band’s basically broken up, but I brought you some tapes that we made.”

“No shit?” Jim said. “Why are you breaking up?”

“We got the apartment taken away.”

Jim laughed. “How the hell did you do that?”

“Smoking weed. Drinking beers. Throwing parties.”

“Oh, yeah. Same thing we did. How’d Don take it?”

“Pretty well, considering. I just got yelled at and grounded for a while. And of course he won’t let us ever go back up into that place again.”

“What’s he going to do? Rent it out?”

“I don’t know. He should. But there’ll have to be some serious cleaning up if he does. The entire back room is full of graffiti. The front room reeks of cigarette smoke and stale beer. And after he locked us out of the place, one of the windows we broke and replaced with fiberglass blew out during a thunderstorm, and a bunch of pigeons got in and shit everywhere.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. It’s bad.”

“What else is going on?”

“Not much. My girlfriend broke up with me. She dumped me for my friend’s little brother, who she says she’s going to marry.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Jim said, smiling. “Plenty of girls out there.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

Jim pushed the onions around with some tongs. “How’s Adam?”

“He’s good. Playing the saxophone like a motherfucker. Too bad he’ll never get the apartment.” We both laughed at that—the misfortune of the youngest. Jim flipped the brats on the grill and they sizzled. Something happened in the baseball game that sent up a big cheer.

I loved that Jim talked to me like I was just a buddy or something, and not his little brother. It made me feel pretty damned good about our relationship. Pretty damned good about him as a person, as well. After our lunch and a couple more beers, we walked around a bit before he had to go in to work. He was just making pizzas at the time, but he said he was getting paid a ridiculous amount of money to do it. He laughed about that, too. We walked around his neighborhood, and stopped in to a corner coffee shop to grab a cup. Jim pointed at the circle of couches in the middle of the room—huge, comfortable fuckers with pillows and everything, surrounded by dim lamps and thick wooden tables engraved with the initials of a thousand forgotten souls.

“Pretty sweet place to while away an afternoon,” he said. He told me he sat there pretty much every day and read for a few hours before work.

“You’ll have to write down some books for me to read,” I said. “I’ve been getting into a bunch of new shit lately.”

“I’ll definitely do that,” Jim said. He handed me a cup of coffee. “But right now, I’ve got to go make pizzas.”

So Jim went to work and I went back to his house and listened to his records and drank coffee and got stoned. When he finally got home, long after midnight, he had a bottle of whiskey with him and we had some drinks. I have this pretty vivid memory of sitting on his couch, and him lying on the floor in front of me, bathed in the light of the television. We were watching M*A*S*H, and I asked him if he wanted to smoke a bowl with me. He said he didn’t smoke any more, and explained that after smoking pot for the better part of a decade, it had started making him freak out.

“I’ll be in a room with some of my closest friends, and I’ll all of a sudden be thinking that I’m doing something wrong, or that they’re all out to get me,” he said.

“Weird,” I said, lighting my pipe. I had never heard of that happening before. The weed was really dry and not very good, and it sizzled and crackled, and the cherry lit up my face as I drew in the smoke. Jim sat up and watched me intently, then said, “Well, what the fuck,” and reached out for the pipe, which I gladly handed to him. He leaned back against the tweed chair and took a small puff, then handed the pipe back to me and reached into his shirt pocket for a cigarette. He smoked the cigarette and watched me while I finished the pipe. Afterwards, he just kind of laid there on the floor in silence for the rest of the night, watching television and sipping on whiskey.

The following morning, I awoke on the couch to the sounds of Jim’s roommate, Barry, making breakfast in the kitchen. I smelled coffee and toast, and heard the radio playing softly—a soothing baritone saying something about rain. I rolled over onto my side and grabbed a hardcover book from the coffee table. The book was On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I had heard of it before, but only through its influence on other cultural icons that were more familiar to me as a teenager: Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Jim Morrison, Hunter S. Thompson, Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Johnny Depp.

Jim had either checked out or stolen the book from the Minneapolis Public Library—it had that thin plastic lamination around the cover that most library books have, and a typed number on a little piece of white paper stuck to the binding. Under that lamination, there were two handsome men with dark hair and strong jawlines, their meaty arms draped over one another’s shoulders, one of them in a dirty sweatshirt and khakis, the other in a casual button-up tucked into black jeans. Neither of them were smiling, but both of them were quite obviously in love with one another.

I cracked the book open to page one:

“I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won’t bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead. With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life that you could call my life on the road.”

I didn’t stop reading until Jim came out of his bedroom hours later, his greasy brown hair twisted and standing on end, his eyes cupped by dark circles. He put on his glasses, coughed, flopped in the tweed chair, and smiled at me.

“That’s a great book,” he said.

“I can’t really believe it,” I replied. “I’ve been trying to figure out why it’s so fucking good. I can’t put it down.”

“It’s timeless,” Jim said. “The exact same shit happening in that book in the 1950s is happening today.” He smoothed back his hair with the palm of his hand, then lit a cigarette. “Want a cup of coffee?”