#but if i have to watch him drive over double yellow lines

[dragonofthemountain]

after i finish watching Knight Rider all the way through part of me wants to rewatch it again just to count up all the traffic violations Michael makes because HOLY SHIT

[queen-of-deans-booty]

Don't Let It Go

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Teenage!Reader, Implied Destiel

Word Count: ~1.4k

Warnings: angst, minor fluff at the end

Request by anon: Hey can i request, a one shot where the Winchester and Castiel find a girl (who is 16-17 years) in the middle of the street and they take her to the bunker and they wait to the girl (reader) to wake up and when she wake up , she tell that her is from other universe where she is Dean and Castiel daughter and she is angel/demon hybrid because she was born after Dean became a Demon and was raised by Sam? Something Fluff 

Summary: You got into a place you weren't supposed to go into and as a result, you got put in a different universe where everything is the same except your parents.

Square Filled: unconventional hybrids (2023) for @heavenandhellbingo

Author’s Note: i appreciate any and all comments! <3

x

Inside the Impala is quiet, silent except for the soft rock playing softly through the speakers. All three men have just come back from a grueling hunt and all they want is to go home, drink some alcohol, and sleep for a day. Sam wanted to stop to get some rest in a motel room before taking the long drive home but Dean had his head set on arriving home as soon as possible. He’s growing kind of tired, it’s pitch black on the road, and he’s passing the double yellow line too often for Sam’s liking.

“Do you want me to drive?”

“No, I got it,” Dean shakes his head to keep him awake.

He drives for a few more miles until he sees something in the middle of the road. It’s not until he comes within twenty feet of it does he see it’s a body.

“Dean, watch out!” Cas gasps.

Dean swerves the car right before he can hit the body, and he slams on his brakes a few yards away from it. All three men step out and run over to it to see who it could be. It’s a teenage girl who doesn’t look to have any injuries. Castiel kneels down and places two fingers on your forehead to check for internal injuries but everything checks out fine.

“She’s knocked out with no injuries. I don’t know who put her here.”

“We can’t just leave her here,” Sam says.

“Bring her with us. We can do more at the Bunker,” Dean decides.

Since there are no other people here to claim you, Sam scoops you into his arms and places you into the backseat of the Impala. When they arrive home, they place you in the infirmary. Castiel is able to do more extensive tests on you to check who you are, where you came from, and what you could possibly want.

“I know everyone on Earth but I don’t know her name.” He hovers his glowing hands over your entire body to get a feel of what you might be. “This is so weird. There is magic within her but not like witch magic, like angel magic.”

“She’s an angel?”

“Not fully. There is angel magic but not enough to be a full angel. I know all angels, and I don’t recognize her at all.”

“We have to wait for her to wake up… if she does,” Sam says.

It takes three more hours for you to wake up and when you do, you stare at the three men still inside the room. You’re in some kind of infirmary inside the Bunker but something is different. This doesn’t feel like the Bunker you know. For one, Sam is with Dean and Castiel and Sam hasn’t been on good terms with them for years now.

“Am I in trouble?” you sigh and sit up.

“What?”

“Come on. Lay it on me. Yell, scream, or do whatever you need to do.”

“What are you talking about?” Dean asks.

“Very funny, Dad. Just get it over with.”

“Dad? Who the hell are you?”

This isn’t your world. This isn’t your Bunker. This isn’t your dad. Dean and Castiel don’t recognize you at all.

“What planet am I on?”

“Earth…?”

“Why is everything different?”

“What happened to you?” Castiel asks.

“I was gathering ingredients in the garden for the spell I was creating, but I saw something gold shimmer. When I touched it, everything went black. I woke up here.”

“She must have touched a portal. She’s from another universe.”

“I’m in another universe? Oh, my dads are gonna kill me,” you groan and put your head in your hands.

“I’m your dad?” Dean asks. You nod. “Who else is?”

“Him,” you say and point to Castiel.

“We’re both your dads?”

“Yes.”

Castiel stiffens awkwardly, Dean looks at him with a weird look on his face, and Sam just laughs.

“So, Destiel is real, then?”

“Shut the hell up,” Dean snaps.

“What’s that magic inside of you? I don’t recognize it.”

“You wouldn’t. I come from a world where people are born from DNA testing in a lab. If a woman and a man want to have a baby, they get to choose the gender they want by the doctor pulling DNA strands from their bodies and making that baby in a lab. If two women want to have a child, then their baby must be a boy to counteract the X chromosomes. The same thing goes for two men. They must have a daughter. Well, strands were taken from Dean and Castiel to make me, but Dean is a demon and Castiel is an angel. I’m half-demon, half-angel.”

“You’re a Nephalem?”

“Is that what Jack is?” Dean asks.

“No, he’s a Nephilim which is only half-angel,” you explain. “I have the grace of an angel, the blood of a demon, and a human soul to counteract the two powers. I’m kind of a big deal in my universe. I’m the most powerful creature, but I kind of fucked up.”

“How so?” Sam asks.

“In my world, the forbidden Garden of Eden is a real place that people can visit. I am forbidden to go in there due to my demonic heritage. The Garden is sacred to angels only, so I kind of snuck in for the ingredients I need for my spell. That’s when I got caught in that portal. My dads are gonna kill me,” you groan. “They’ll slaughter anything to get to me, and when they find out I’m missing, there’s no telling what they’ll do. I have to get back.”

“We’ll be right back. Just stay here.”

All three men leave the infirmary to talk in the hallway.

“A daughter of Heaven and Hell is far more powerful than anything in the entire universe, surpassing God and Jack themselves. She’s not at full power because she’s a teenager, but she can destroy the universe with just a thought. If you two make her upset or stressed, her powers can go haywire,” Castiel warns.

“What the hell are we gonna do?” Sam asks.

“We have to create a portal back to her world and get her back as soon as possible so she doesn't destroy everything in ours.”

Dean peeks inside the room to see you with tears running down your cheeks.

“Why don’t you two get started on that? Let me talk to her alone.”

Dean walks into the room alone and approaches you slowly. You wipe your tears away when he sits next to you on the bed.

“I’m not sure how to do this,” Dean starts.

“I’m really sorry,” you sniffle. “I didn’t mean to break the rules.”

“Listen, I don’t know how ‘Other Me’ or ‘Other Cas’ deals with shit over there, but you’re a kid. You didn’t know any better.”

“I do, though. I have a choice to make when I turn eighteen. Choose to be with the angels or demons. If I choose to side with the angels then I’m an enemy of Hell. If I side with the demons, the angels will hunt me down and kill me. My dads made this perfectly clear and told me to stay out of Eden to prevent people from thinking I sided with the angels. They can be pretty scary. They don’t hit me or abuse me but if I don’t follow the rules, they’ll get scary. God, they’re gonna kill me.”

“If ‘Other Me’ is anything like me, he’ll forgive you. It can’t be easy being an angel and a demon.”

“It’s hard. I’m seventeen, so I have to make the choice in less than a year. I’m not ready. I don’t want to pick a side because that will start a war. Earth would become a fighting ground for demons and angels with me as one of their leaders. I would be forced away from one of my dads.”

“For a demon, you care a lot.”

“I might be a demon but I’m not evil. I have a human soul. I don’t want any of this,” you cry.

“Okay, listen to me. You’re certainly strong and capable of handling things for yourself, but if ‘Other Me’ loves you like you say he does, then he won’t ask you to choose. I don’t care if he is a demon or not. It’s going to be okay.”

You lean up and hug him, catching him off guard.

“Thank you.” He pats your back and you pull away from him. “You know, my dad used to have a soul before finding the First Blade. I’ve heard the stories but nothing compares to seeing him now with one. Your soul is a gift, Dean. Don’t let it go.”

“As long as you don’t let yours go.”

“I promise,” you smile.

“Then I promise, too. Come on, let’s work on getting you home.”

x

Follow my library blog​​​​​​ @aqueenslibrary where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[trivialbob]

The rest of last weekend I spent in Chicago.

I went there to visit my college roommate, Ross. We've known each other since freshman year of college, back in the fall of 1984 -- 40 years of friendship!

Friday afternoon I drove to to the city. Normally I experience horrendous traffic there, pretty much after crossing from Wisconsin to Illinois. Someone smiled upon me this time, because the midday Friday traffic was smooth on the highways.

Things got aggressive on city streets. Twice I saw people driving over a double yellow line, directly at me, as they wanted to make a left turn without waiting for traffic.

GPS warns me of Chicago's red light and radar cameras. At times I wonder if Chicagoans don't have to pay tickets they get in the mail, because I thought I was going to get rear-ended simply for obeying the speed limit and stopping at red lights. No one with Land of Lincoln plates seems to worry about traffic tickets.

Ross had game tickets to a Blackhawks game Saturday night. The team did poorly, but I enjoyed hanging out with him and watching the game.

I like walking through his neighborhood and looking at houses. My own home in Minnesota has a fireplace made of Chicago Brick. After the Great Chicago Fire, bricks from destroyed buildings were re-used in new home construction. It would be fascinating to me if there was a way to find out what Chicago building my bricks came from.

The Lincoln Square business area is a favorite of mine. I had arrived in the city before Ross was done working for the week. So I made my usual tour of that area on foot.

There are plenty of restaurants and bars I'd like to try. Saturday morning Ross and his wife took me out for coffee at a neat little shop with an airplane theme. Check out that booth made from airline seats and aircraft aluminum. The trash bins were re-purposed airliner serving carts.

There was mushroom coffee on the menu. I'd heard of it before, but never tried it. So I ordered a cup of "Morning Mud" which is mushroom coffee and some sort of mushroom extract. It tasted earthy. I don't know that it made me healthier but the coffee had caffeine. I'd give it another try sometime.

Ross and his wife picked up the tab, so I also grabbed a can of seltzer, two croissants, and a large assortment of essential oil soaps that were for sale in the attached gift shop.

The coffee shop had two "unvested service dogs." One was quite comfortable sitting in customers' laps.

Throughout my stay Ross and I hung out, had martinis and pizza, talked politics and current events, and relaxed. I thoroughly enjoyed the visit.

[envihellbender]

David finding Felix after a relapse

Rating: Mature (themes)

Fandom: Dead by Daylight

Characters: David King, Felix Richter

Content: addiction, vomit, relapse, alcohol, drugs

Summary: David spends all night looking for Felix and finds him in a high class drug den.

—

“Come on Felix, answer,” David muttered in angry panic. When it went to voicemail, he hung up and rang again, with one hand on the steering wheel. He hadn’t heard from Felix in a couple of days. Maybe that wasn’t anything to worry about, but something in David’s gut said there was. So here he was, driving through Felix’s favourite haunts and friends’ houses trying to find him. Eventually Elodie was the one who gave him something useful - the address of a higher class of crack den is how she described it. David didn’t want to admit that Felix had fallen off the wagon, but he also wouldn’t have been surprised with how difficult things had been lately. Eventually, he made it there, he parked outside, not caring much that he was on double yellow lines.

David followed Elodie’s instructions: take the alleyway to the right, knock on the blue door three times, and when the door opens a crack repeat the following phrase: “They wanted Alaskan salmon for lunch.” A bit cryptic, but Elodie explained they changed it to another random sentence every six days. Thanks to that little show, he wandered the corridors of a badly lit, expensively furnished townhouse. In each room another form of debauchery was taking place. In the first, he recognised a Tory MP getting flogged by a leather daddy, in the second he saw two Arsenal players doing cocaine off of someone he was sure he’d seen on the news who was being a table at present. Eventually he found a handsome young man smoking by the foot of a staircase, he seemed to be more with it than anyone else.

“Hey, mate, you know a Felix Richter?” David asked, trying not to seem too intimidating.

“Mhm,” he said as he took another drag. “Who wants to know?”

“Oh erm, I’m… I’m-” David paused. When he and Felix had last spoke they had had some choice words that had started from David’s desire to stay closeted. They hadn’t split up, but he realised then as he felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment as he thought about admitting his love for Felix what the problem was. It was him. “I’m his boyfriend. David. I can’t find him anywhere, one of his friends said he’d be here.”

“Oh. I thought you’d be some muscle hired by his parents to drag him home.”

“I’m certainly some muscle, but not today.”

“Mm, I can see that.” The young man looked David up and down before he grinned. “His favourite room is two floors up, end of the corridor. There should be a chaise lounge, a comfortable bed, a mini bar, and television in there.”

“Thank you. Thank you thank you,” David repeated as he practically ran up the stairs. He didn’t bother to look at anyone else or poke his head round any other door, his sights were set on the end of the second floor corridor. When he got there, fully intending to barge his way in, he hesitated. If Felix was there … Well, he’d relapsed. And David hated the fact that in a few moments his fear would he confirmed. He swallowed and slowly opened the door.

Felix was laid horizontally across the large bed, his eyes were half lidded and his glass of wine had spilled all over his chest. His shirt was open, the red staining his bare skin and smattering of blond hair. There was an empty syringe on the floor that had dropped out of his hand. He was watching some old film on television, David could barely register it. He approached Felix slowly and sat next to him on the bed. He shuffled over, he saw that Felix had also had vomit over his shirt and the bed next to him. His trousers were undone, revealing his Ralph Loren underwear. David reached out to gently shake him, Felix let out a groan and shuffled away.

“Think it’s time we got you home, love,” he said gently. Felix spasmed and his exhausted, drugged eyes widened.

“David. David. No. You’re not supposed to be here. Not supposed to see…” Felix’s eyes grew heavy as he began to fall asleep again but David shook him.

“No, no love, come on. You’ve gotta stay awake.” He said gently. “What have you taken?”

“Just enough,” Felix muttered.

“Let’s get you-”

“David,” he interrupted, one limp weak hand attempting to press against David’s chest but just fell helplessly. “Just. Leave me. It’ll be easier if you just leave.”

“Not happening, Felix.”

“Well, I don’t want you to but- I’m… Not in a state to entertain right now.” His voice was an exhausted slurring mumble that David could barely understand, but he wasn’t giving up.

“Come on, up you get,” he said matter of factly, choosing not to engage with this discussion. He slipped one arm under Felix’s torso and pulled him upright. He swayed back and forth before he began vomitting all over his and David’s front. He turned Felix away so he threw up over the bed instead. “Come on, let it out, love,” he said. When Felix finished, David pulled him up onto his feet, when he could barely stand on his shaking, weak legs David pulled him into a bridal carry instead.

“Why are you doing this?” Felix slurred, his face burying in David’s chest.

“How much have you had, love?”

“Few ccs of mor… morph…”

“Morphine?”

“Yeah.”

“Anything else?”

“I… don’t know. Maybe.”

“Let’s get you washed and to bed, okay?” David said as he carried Felix down the stairs and out the front door. He got his car and thanked god he hadn’t got a ticket. He sat Felix down in the passenger seat, and took a deep breath as he dreaded the conversation they were going to have in the morning. He knew one thing for certain though, no matter what Felix said, he wasn’t going anywhere.

[ahoodgirl]

the space between | k.b.

▪︎ summary: a house party changes to a party at pool house down the street; Kane Brown & Restless Road provide music; Caroline & Kane get into a game of pool then things get spicy towards the end.

▪︎ relationship: KB & Caroline Thomas

▪︎ words: 2,057

▪︎ rating: pg 13

▪︎ author's note: this is part 1 of two; Kane isn't married & doesn't know Katelyn yet in this / before Kane & Kate met.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡��♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

the invitation was sent a week ago; some receiving them by the 4th day, others already having it. Another house party. The theme? All black. "Music will be provided my Kane Brown and Restless Road. Location has been changed to the pool hall down the road from the previous location. Please dress accordingly," I sigh, "well, could be worse." "Party will start at 7p and run until 2a. Please do not drive. As a safety precaution, you will have a driver come pick you up as a dd. Be ready when they arrive. Attached below is a picture of the car and license plate number that is picking you up. DO NOT GET IN A STRANGERS CAR. If you are not dressed in accordance to theme, you will be escorted out and driven back home." "Well damn. I guess I need to get ready then."

I get a shower and wash everything from my head to my toes. I then get out and dry off, looking for something black and sexy, going trough my closet until I find my 'seriously sexy' tight black faux leather pants, putting it on over my black lace panties. I then remember I have a spaghetti strap black lack crop-top so I put that on over my nipple covers. Knowing it was cool outside, I grab my black leather jacket and put it on.

Next was jewelry; I grabbed my gold chain necklace with a heart on it and put it on. For the final look, I grab my favorite smelling perfume and spray it all on me. I make sure I have everything before heading downstairs to wait for the driver.

♡

The driver came and picked me up and drove about 20 minutes until we pulled up and I got out. We were each given a number to hold onto, to know what car to get into.

By the time I went to the door and my outfit was approved, the music started, hearing everything from the bass to the drums, filling everyones ears with pure enjoyment. I open the second set of double-doors and walk in, my eyes scanning the entire room until they land on the band playing in the far left corner. I recognize the song as 'What Ifs' by KB & LA. I grab a quick drink from the bartender then make my way to the dance floor. I sway my hips back and forth to the beat as I casually sip on my drink, enjoying the song. They finish that one and play another one that I'm unfamiliar with, but I enjoy enjoy listening to. Kane's sitting on a stool with a mic stand in front of him.

They finish the song and say their taking a short 10 minute break. I walk by the stairs as i head to the bartender, and see a sign hanging in front saying 'upstairs off limits for party guests. will only be used by band and employees.' "Damn," I thought to myself as I grab another drink and head to an empty pool table and start playing by myself. I rack the balls then grab the cue and position it in front of the others.

I find a good pool-stick and take my first shot. It hits and balls fly everywhere on the table, as two solid balls pocket themselves—#3 & #7—on different sides of the table. As i line up my next shot, I hear a voice behind me say "nice shot, but be a little more heavy handed next time." I turn around and see Kane standing a few inches away, sipping on a beer. He wearing his infamous black jeans with a few holes, along with a green plaid shirt, a watch and his 'miracle' hat. His sleeves are rolled up just under his elbow, showing off all his tattoos. "Oh yeah? Then why don't you come over here and show me how to do it?" He sets his beer down and grabs the poolstick from my hand and lines up a shot, hitting it with a little force and the yellow #1 pockets in the side.

"Give me back my pool stick." I go to grab it, but he yanks it back, earning him a groan from me. "After I finishing playing my set, we're playing a few games to see who's better. Deal?" I roll my eyes, "and what does the winner get?" "The winner makes the loser follow them around and do whatever they tell them to." Kane sticks his hand out and I shake it a few seconds later. He goes to set up for the rest of the songs, and I play until all balls have been pocketed, and walk over to wait for the band to continue.

As they start up the next song, I down the rest of my drink and set it to the side. They play a sad song, then play a song I instantly recognize as 'like a rodeo'. This is the first time I'm hearing the acoustic version. It gets me in the mood to sway my hips to the beat and flip my hair back and forth. I close my eyes as I let myself feel the bass in my veins and dance to lyrics.

-

I've drunk two & ½ beers during their set and he says their playing the last song for the night, but a dj will be taking over until 2a. The song? Lose it. Love it.

The way he's singing and showing off his tattoos got my heart fluttering so bad. The violin guy knows what he's doing. So effortless but yet so smooth. The song comes to a close and he sings the final lyrics, "girl I lose it, yeah I lose it" and everyone erupts into applause and hollers. I see he look my way and moves his eyes to the pool tables, then walks off stage. I take my time following him until he stops in front of the 'no party guests' sign then sighs, "fuck. I forgot about that. Hang on a sec." I nod my head and step to the side while I wait for him to return.

He walks to the party-thrower owner and talks to him about letting me go up with him, and eventually nodding his head. Kane walks back over to me with the biggest shit-eatting grin I've seen since arriving a few hour beforehand. "Let me guess, you had to say you wanted to invite me upstairs with you to play pool just for me to be able to go past the sign?" "Yeah, but after we play a few games, you have to come back down here. We do have a time limit of an hour, though." I smile and finish my drink then say, "that's plenty of time for me to whoop your ass in pool." "I guess we'll see. Come on." He moves the sign to side then puts it back after we walk up.

He says he has a special table he likes to play on. We walk farther and I see an all-decked-out, totally customized red and black pool table. I whistle in appreciation of the color and look over at Kane, who is already grabbing his also customized pool stick, ready for anything. "Okay, Kane. I see you. But you gon' be in trouble once i'm done with you." I put my stuff to the side and grab a purple & black stick and get it ready. We do rock, paper & scissors to see who goes first and just out of luck, Kane wins. "Hell yeah!" He lines up his shot, pulls the stick back and lets go as the cue ball hits the others and they scatter across the table, but sadly none pocket.

I smile and look at the table then ask Kane, "do you have a preference on solids or stripes?" "Well, I normally go for stripes but," "okay!" I find the 9ball and hit it straight in. "You really had to do that?" I nod my head, "oh yeah. Anything to win. Step back," I see the striped 11 directly in front of him, so I set it up, pushing my ass back as far as I can without him noticing—knowing he's getting an eye full right now—as I pull back the cue stick, and let it hit, watching the ball go directly in the corner pocket.

I stand up and turn to Kane saying with a smirk, "I guess you won't get to play. Thats too bad," I turn back around and find another ball, pot that one and one more, before I miss the next one. I guess Kane does get to play. Damn.

He sets his sights on the two solid balls by the corner—#1 & #4—eventually deciding on #4 and pockets it in the corner, then pocketing the #1 on the other side. While he sets up another ball, he starts making small talk, bringing up conversation about my outfit.

"Not that I'm complaining, but what made you decide to wear that spaghetti strap shirt?" "I don't know, I bought it a year ago and only wore it twice, so I guess I wanted to just, let it out again. It's really comfortable, and along with these faux leather pants, it just goes so well together. I added the jacket just in case it gets cold." He pockets his third ball, but misses the fourth ball. I pocket my fifth & sixth ball, but miss the seventh.

"You know, that plaid shirt looks good with you black undershirt & ripped pant. And especially good with all those tattoos your showing off." The second I say that second sentence, he misses and I see him squeeze his eyes, but smile. "You just said that so I'd miss, didn't you?" "Maybe, maybe not. You'll never know."

I stand in front of the #15 ball and as I hit it, Kane decides to cough, making the ball hit the side. I stand up and turn to him, getting right up in his face saying, "you did that in revenge, didn't you?" He shrugs his shoulder, "maybe, maybe not. You'll never know. Now if you'll excuse me, it's my turn." I close my eyes and step to the side as he steps up the the table and in turn, pockets all his balls in except for the #7. "My turn." I make sure my ass is on full display as I pocket the #15 and go to set up the #8, but miss by ½ an inch. "Damn it." I hear him laugh from behind me and stands on the other side of the table, facing me then says, "don't worry, I won't hurt you too bad."

He hits his seventh and as he goes to set up the eight ball, I slowly walk to around the table, stopping beside him, feeling up his tattoos, walking behind him and stopping on the other side, as I sit on pool table, making sure he's looking in my eyes then whisper "you miss this, and you won't ever see me again, get to touch me or even kiss me, ever," in his ear and step back, never loosing eye contact. He takes his shot, and watches as the eight ball rolls and perfectly pockets in the middle.

Knowing that we've been up here for well over an hour, he grabs my hand and pulls me downstairs with him, talking the the band about spending some personal quality time by himself and with me, and eventually getting the keys to their hotel room.

I smile as we get in his dd's car and he takes us the the hotel. During the drive, he starts kissing every inch of me from collarbone, my neck and my jaw, up to my lips, making out until we reach our destination. We thank him and went inside to the elevator and continued our kissing until the elevator stops on level 8, both of us stepping out and walking down the hall until we stop at the door.

Kane looks me in my eyes and asks me a question, "are you sure you want to do this? We don't have to but it's up to you..." I look at him, and bite my lip, "i....,"

[moderndavetherapy]

All In Or Out

I waited patiently in the drive-thru, sitting in the passenger seat of a lifted pick-up. I gazed in awe at the organized assembly line staring at their all-white shirts and unique-looking caps. I had never been to an In & Out, but I heard all of the rave. I'm not as boujee as some foodies, but I do get pretty ecstatic when trying new things. There was a chance I was about the try the best burger of my life.

"Goose...Goose...Goose! Take the food!" I suddenly snapped out of the delicious daydream and slurped up the drool from my bottom lip as my landlord passed me two boxes of burgers and fries.

I was used to devouring fast food in cars before I arrived home. The guy I was with was I little peculiar though. He had been through more divorces than most and had the patience of the second grader. Before moving in with him, I knew I needed to be on my A game behavior and not piss him off.

Regardless of his uptightness, I survived the ride home and felt like a child on Christmas Eve waiting to open up presents. I prepared my dipping sauces and sprinkled some salt and pepper over my fries. I opened wide like I was at the dentist's office and took a large chunk out of the double-double. I took my grand old time savoring the flavor to see if the hype was real.

I noticed a funky flavor that I was not fond of. I used to be picky eater, but my palate had developed exponentially after my childhood. Mustard. I even ordered the burger without mustard. As I dissected my dinner, I couldn't even find a splash of yellow anywhere. I pinched off a piece of beef and carefully tasted every single seasoning. Mustard seed. I found the culprit.

Despite my dislike of mustard, along with the disappointment of their simple bland french fries, I'll end my hate speech on In & Out. I'll even say it's a solid late night snack. But my real Ted Talk is about being all in or all out...

I don't have a medium switch. It's almost if there are only two settings. My batteries are either on their last life or full of juice. The air conditioning is either blasting freezing cold or barely working at all. There's no half full. half empty, fifty-percent; it's all or nothing.

This one has been eating my alive for most of my life. The worst part is making the same mistake over and over again. I've realized that a lot of this stems from emotions. As simple as it sounds, I have not had the leisure of controlling them the best. The worst part is a majority of the time I regulate them too much. I withhold emotions at times to maintain a role. It's not healthy. I've withheld my emotions, because the addies took them away. I've hid my emotions to hide my vulnerability, and that one hurts the most.

With all of this build up and stored energy, I'm just a ticking-time bomb waiting to explode. It's not a substance or alcohol issue, well it is, but it's everything. From working, to gambling, working out, reading, laughing, and loving. I'm like a teeter-totter that can never find an equilibrium, always living on polar opposite ends. Living on the poles of the earth has led to a roller coaster life of happy highs and depressing lows. The emotional void and trips of turmoil have finally hit a road block and something must be done.

The awareness is a huge step, but there's still miles to travel. It's painful not being able to watch a sports game thinking, "I can't enjoy this without betting." It's depressing pondering, "I can't go out tonight, because there's a chance I won't stop drinking." It's embarrassing not being able to reach out, because "I'm working on myself or becoming a better me."

Just like food, we are learning what we like and don't like. I am learning what I can do and cannot. Rather than take the cold turkey approach at life and ride the emotional roller coaster, I've learned to slowly integrate and find peace in it. This all or none has led to nothing but despair. I know I won't be perfect along the way, especially at the sports book, but we are human after all. I've learned to go to NFL games without betting, bars with only have two drinks, allowing myself some cheat meals, and practice this thing they call "balance."

Here's to control and finding that medium setting.

[bqstqnbruin]

One of my driving pet peeves is someone passing me on a double yellow line and it is a /dream/ of mine to have someone do that and get caught by police and watch it all go down. It just goes to show, I love karma lol I see it play out quickest when I'm out there driving

I remember when I was in high school like my freshman or sophomore year I was on the bus and this guy went around the school bus like from behind us, over the double yellow line, while my friend was CROSSING THE STREET to get on the bus with the bus stop sign out and the lights flashing which is fifty shades of illegal and the guy who did it didn't realize that there was a cop who lived in our neighborhood and was had just clocked in and was patrolling two cars behind him so he whipped around and pulled him over wicked fast it was great

[neververy4]

We’re a little over 1/2 way, so now I’m gonna vote on it and give my answer.

Answer is Yes*, this is road rage

But I’m sure you saw the asterisk, which means I think it’s more nuanced than a simple yes. Firstly, let me define some things. “Road Rage” is when a driver gets annoyed at another driver/obstical, and does something not normal to speak out. Intentionally swerving to hit a opossum on the side of the road is road rage, even if the driver is having fun. Intentionally merging back and forth on a 4-lane road to keep someone in “an oversized and heavily modified pickup truck” from passing you is road rage, even if the driver is having fun. Being annoyed by someone driving 6 below the posted speed limit and tailgating them with your low beams on is also road rage. (Also, 6 below the posted limit is still driving the speed limit. It’s a speed LIMIT, not a Speed).

With that being said, I consider this to be road rage.

You may not have been raging when you beeped your horn. In fact, you were amused. But, you went out of your way to anatagionze another driver. The driver of the other car is already not in a good mindset. Anyone who’s willing to pass a double line over a +3MPH difference with what’s posted has a lot of issues going on. By intentionally antagonizing the driver, you’ve increased that deranged mindset. Maybe the driver would have decided instead to get out and fight you. Maybe you’ve increased the drivers rage enough to make him act MORE recklessly. Look, the point is, you’ve pissed the dude off even more. You’re increasing someone’s road rage, a bad thing to begin with.

I drive for a living. 225 miles a night, 6 nights a week. I deal with a LOT of different road raging, from people flashing their brights, to passing me on double yellow lines, to tailgating with horns blazing, and even swerving to pass me, only to try and break-check me. (Brake-checking is when you slam on your brakes as hard as you can while there’s someone behind you). People are insane. All because I did some little action differently than how they would have expected. All of this is bad enough as it is, without me trying to “Retaliate” or “fight back”. I drive a 1999 Isuzu NPR for work, this truck will win most physical fights people try to pull. But I don’t, because I’m not insane.

Anyways, I’m rambling. the point of this is me saying “Just because it seems small doesn’t mean it is”. That small little thing might be the tipping point for another driver. It’s not worth it, just let the guy throw his fit and drive away. Keep yourself safe, and always watch out.

HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION:

You are driving on a US town road. It is 8:26 AM and no one else is around. You are cruising roughly 38 down a 2-lane (one Northbound lane, one Southbound lane) road labeled with a speed limit of 35 MPH. A driver speeding noticeably faster than you drives right up onto your tail, sits there for about 15 seconds tailgating you, then crosses the solid double-yellow line to pass you. This action is a violation of traffic laws. The driver speeds off, and you continue to drive your same speed. About one US minute later, you catch up to the driver at a red light. No one else is here except you two. Amused at the irony, you decide give your horn two short beeps the second the traffic light turns green; faking annoyance at the other drivers “reaction time” to the traffic light change. The other driver speeds off, and you resume your previous cruising speed of 38MPH in a 35MPH zone.

[lowlights]

Writer Wednesday - Weekend Getaway

So, it isn't Wednesday. But time is merely a construct. So, this is my first time participating in @writer-wednesday! I put all the Pedro boys into a spinner and wouldn't you know it- got Pero on the first spin. The Universe won't let me escape my grumpy man. I'm not complaining. I wouldn't have gotten this done without my bestie boo @tuskens-mando who is the best thing in the entire universe.

Weekend Getaway

WC: 985

Pairing: modern!Pero x f!reader

Warnings: none. Fluff city.

You can practically see the brightness outside through your closed lids as the sun bounces off of the white snow. You’ve spent the last few hours cuddled up against your boyfriend Pero, your arms wrapped around his right arm, as the heat blasts in his vintage moss green Bronco. The snow had stopped falling the night before, leaving behind a world blanketed in white powder. You didn’t mind the cold, especially when you could snuggle into Pero like he was your own personal space heater. As he drives you have been dozing against him off and on, only waking up to grumble when he needed to shift gears.

“We are coming into the town, mi amada,” Pero says softly with a kiss against your head. Pero had refused to tell you where exactly you were headed when he had roused you out of bed at four in the morning, telling you he had already packed your bag and had the car warmed. He only smirked when you cursed at him as he pulled you up out of bed and guided you into the bathroom to get ready. You push off of him with a yawn and a stretch, slowly cracking open one eyelid and then the other as you adjust to the light.

To call it a town is far too generous, as it’s just a few tiny streets lined with the most picturesque buildings you’ve ever seen. Everything is warm and inviting and quaint as can be. Pero double-checks the address on the crumpled piece of paper clutched tightly in his hand, a reminder of his stubbornness as he refuses to use GPS, as he pulls into a small lot next to the Mountain Slope Lodge.

“Pero, this is so cute! What are we doing here?” you exclaim, happily popping out of the car and trotting around the front, coming to a skidded stop in Pero’s arms as you slide on some ice.

“Careful there, eh? We just got here, you can’t spend the whole weekend with an injury,” he chides.

Pero unloads the bags and follows you through the front doors of the little hotel. The whoosh of warm air feels so inviting as you step inside. Pero heads straight to the front desk while you poke around the little lobby. There are dozens of pictures from decades of visitors, some yellowed and aged and others much newer, each one telling a bit of the long history of the hotel. You get to a collection of recent photos with a large camera crew visible and what is clearly a movie set.

“Babe, look at these photos! I think they filmed a show or something here,” you say to Pero as he comes sauntering over to you. Your eyes scan the collage until you reach one in the corner that clearly shows this hotel but with a different name emblazoned across the entrance.

“Silver Springs Inn? That name is so familiar…” you wonder aloud, trailing off in thought.

Pero stands by while you contemplate the photos, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. “Ah, perhaps you have seen this before?” he asks.

“No, I can’t have. I’ve never been to this town before,” you mutter, brows knitted in thought.

Pero lets out a low hmm. “But you said you have seen this place?”

You nod, biting your lip in thought.

With a huff, Pero crosses his arms. “Isn’t this where Dario and Sylvie stayed on their honeymoon?” he says with annoyance.

You snap your head around to look at him. “Who are…wait, oh my god! From that Netflix movie I was watching on repeat last week?” you exclaim, leaning in excitedly to look at the photos. “Yes, there’s Dario in the background of this shot!”

You turn around fully to Pero who is still standing with his arms crossed, scowl deeply etched into his face. You put your hand on his forearm, concerned that you’ve made him angry. Not that he’s ever acted that way; he’s never even raised his voice to you. “Oh no, are you mad at me?”

His face immediately softens. “No, no, mi amada. I just thought I had gotten the place wrong or that you didn’t recognize it. I’m sorry.” He uncrosses his arms and takes your hand in his, holding it up against his heart.

You start to smile as it dawns on you. “I thought you said you weren’t watching ‘that trash’ when I had it on?”

Pero drops your hand and picks up the bags. “Where are the steps in this place?” he says, clearly avoiding your question. He strides off across the lobby and you quickly follow.

“You said, and I quote: ‘This barusa -’”

“Basura,” he corrects with a grumble.

“‘- basura is what you would fill that pretty head with?’” you say in a grumpy tone, mocking your beloved with your best Pero impersonation as you both climb the stairs.

Pero still ignores you, looking around for your room. He finds it and slides the card into the reader, pushing the door open with a flourish. You follow him in and tug him into the middle of the room as soon as he puts the bags down.

“Hey,” you say to his still-serious face, “I’m just kidding. It means a lot that you noticed and brought me here. I’m so excited to explore the town with you.” You stand on your tiptoes to press a kiss against his lips, loving how he immediately melts against you.

“It might be too cold for much exploring. Maybe we stay in bed?” He wiggles his eyebrows at you, making you snort.

“Fine by me. Can I call you Dario while we’re here? You can call me Sylvie,” you say playfully.

Pero looks at you sternly. “No.”

That’s the last thing he says before he tosses you into the bed, eager to get the weekend started properly.

[c-e-d-dreamer]

Fire and Ice Day for @nessianweek Yes, I just wanted an excuse to write more hockey player Cassian. No, I will not be taking criticisms at this time. Follow up to this drabble. Hope you enjoy! :) 

Nesta steps out of the English building, taking in a deep breath of the crisp, winter air. The lecture hall had been stifling, and the way Professor Matthews had droned on and on about Chekhov had her desperate for the class to end. She cuts across the Commons, heading toward the library, when she hears heavy footsteps fall in beside her. She doesn't need to look to know who they belong to. 

"So about that dinner," Cassian starts. 

"I don't actually recall agreeing to it." 

"Well, how else am I supposed to thank you for being there in my time of concussion need?" 

"You don't need to thank me. Maybe I was just hoping to see if a good thwack to your head would finally fix it. Clearly, it didn't." 

"Sadly, all it did was make my two working brain cells become just one," Cassian says, putting on his best solemn tone. 

The comment pulls a surprised laugh out of Nesta, and when she turns her head to look at Cassian, his smile is wide and his eyes are bright. She swears she can almost see pride swimming in those flecks of gold that make up his hazel eyes. 

"So what time should I pick you up?" 

Nesta doesn't respond. She merely rolls her eyes with a scoff and continues toward the library. That is until Cassian uses his long strides to step in front of her, effectively cutting her path off. 

"What do you have to lose?"

"My sanity?" 

"So 6:00 then?" 

Nesta takes a moment to take Cassian in. He still has that cocky grin that never seems to leave splashed across his face. But she doesn't miss the way he fidgets, running a hand through his tangle of dark curls, nor does she miss the nervous pinch around his eyes. She supposes she could go for a good meal, and while Cassian most definitely gets under her skin, he's not the worst company. 

"I have to meet with my group for our psychology project. 7:00?" 

"Deal." 

The smile on Cassian's face pulls even wider, and Nesta's pretty sure the only thing keeping him from actually cheering is the way he clenches his fists at his side. It's endearing, and Nesta bites the inside of her cheek to keep her own smile tampered down. 

"Well, see you then," Nesta says, starting back toward her original destination of the library. 

"Wear something nice, yeah?" Cassian calls after her. 

Nesta flips him off over her shoulder at the comment, and Cassian's booming laughter follows her all the way across the Commons. 

Luckily, meeting with the students in her group project isn't too migraine inducing. They divvy up the work and all agree on who will take which slides. When she makes it back to her dorm, she pulls a black dress out and gets started on her makeup. 

At 7:00 on the dot, there's a knock at her door. She quickly slips on her heels before pulling it open, Cassian waiting on the other side. The way that Cassian's mouth drops open and the awed way he whispers, "holy shit," has a blush creeping in and settling on Nesta's cheeks. 

"You clean up nice," she notes. 

And he does. Cassian has on a button down, the sleeves rolled up slightly, the tanned skin of his forearms and the ink that swirls against it on full display. Both the shirt and the black slacks he's wearing are form fitting, showing off the athletic cut to his body, years of skating having done wonders for honing the muscles. And while Cassian's dark curls are loose against his shoulders, Nesta can tell he's put product in it. 

Nesta waits for Cassian to make some sort of quip back after her comment, maybe for him to even comment on her, but he just continues to stare like he can't believe she's actually real. She tries not to focus on the fact that look has her heart beating double time in her chest, or the fact that warmth settles through her whole body. Instead, Nesta just rolls her eyes and steps fully into the hall, closing her door behind her. The sound seems to jolt Cassian back to reality, who blinks hard before his eyes focus properly on Nesta's own. 

"Wait," he says. "Bring your skates."

"My skates?" Nesta asks confusedly. "I thought we were going to dinner?"

"We are, but bring them."

"Why?"

"Just bring them." 

Nesta sighs, clearly not getting a straight answer out of him. But she heads back inside, stuffing a heavy pair of socks into her skates. She steps into the hall, skates in hand, and raises a pointed eyebrow as if to ask, 'happy?' Cassian's just answers with a wide grin. 

Cassian leads Nesta down to his truck, and she's surprised when he drives them to one of the higher end chophouses downtown. Dinner is good and the conversation flows easily between them. Cassian even asks Nesta about her current book and actually looks genuinely interested as she explains it. Although, his smirk is infuriating as she tries to subtly skip over the more… scandalous parts. 

After dinner, they clamber back into Cassian's truck, and Nesta's brow pinches in confusion as they pull into the rink parking lot. This explains the skate request. When Nesta looks over at Cassian, his eyes are already on her. Under the yellow glow of the parking lot lights, his eyes look extra golden, but Nesta doesn't miss the mischievous glint swimming in them. 

"I'm not exactly dressed for skating," Nesta points out, glancing down at her dress as if to prove her point. 

"Says who?"

"I'm serious." 

Rather than respond, Cassian just reaches back into the backseat of his truck, producing one of the hockey team sweatshirts, which he holds out toward Nesta. Nesta hesitates for only a moment before she's pulling it on over her dress. It's clearly too big on her, but the fabric is soft and the scent of fabric softener and Cassian fills her senses. 

When they get inside, the Friday night public skate is still in full swing, families and awkward high school dates milling about on the ice and in the lobby. In their attire, Nesta is sure that she and Cassian must stick out like sore thumbs. They walk up to the reception desk, and Nesta expects Cassian to ask for two passes for the public skate, but instead he and the rink staffer share a pointed look and then a key is being slid inconspicuously into Cassian's hand. Before Nesta can even start to ask what that means, Cassian is grabbing her hand, pulling her down the hall, past the locker rooms and snack bar. His eyes quickly dart around before he slides the key into the right side of the double doors, tugging Nesta inside and flipping on the lights. 

"The tiny-ass practice rink?" Nesta asks, looking around.

"Bal owes me a favor," Cassian explains, pocketing the key. 

Cassian grabs Nesta's hand again and leads her around to the benches. They each take their time trading their shoes for skates before stepping out onto the ice. 

There's something about the way ice feels under her feet that calms Nesta in a way nothing else can. The cutting sound of her skates against it is like music to her ears. She glides easily to center ice, taking a deep breath and letting the cold welcome her into its embrace. She feels Cassian's presence behind her, warm hands settling on her hips. 

"You know you look better in this sweatshirt than I ever did," he says, voice pitched low. 

"Sounds like a personal problem," Nesta counters, turning around to face Cassian. "It's not my fault even hockey things look better on figure skaters." 

"Big words coming from someone who needs a toe pick to stop."

"That's not what a toe pick is for." 

"How about a race then? To settle things." 

"Fine." 

They both skate over to the goal line, getting into their starting positions. Cassian counts them in with a ‘ready, set, go,’ and then they’re off, sprinting down the ice. Nesta’s hair whips past her face, the cool rink air rushing along her cheeks, as she pushes her legs to go faster and faster still. Cassian crosses the other goal line first, an icy spray flying up as he stops hard before the boards. Nesta stops beside him, crossing her arms as she takes in his wide smirk. 

"You totally cheated."

"What? I did not."

"You have longer legs. It's an unfair advantage."

"Sounds like excuses to me. Just admit it. Hockey players are better."

"Are they? Could a hockey player do this?" 

Nesta pushes off the boards and settles easily into her stride. A swing of her leg and a push of her foot and she's up in the air, pulling her arms in tight as she twists and twists around. Her feet land back on the ice and she glides out of the move gracefully. When her eyes land back on Cassian, his own are wide and awed as he watches her. But then his eyes narrow, arms crossing over his chest. 

“Who’s cheating now?” 

“Fine. Something simple then.” 

Nesta jumps and does a single twist, holding her arms out when she lands and raising an eyebrow toward Cassian in challenge. His eyes stay narrowed on her, but he pushes off the boards, settling into a stride toward center ice. 

“How hard can it be,” Cassian mutters. 

Cassian skates a few circles, clearly trying to walk himself through the move, trying to hype himself up. Nesta has to bite the inside of her cheek while she waits. After a few moments, he throws himself into the air, spinning around once. His skates land back on the ice, and for a moment, Nesta is about to be impressed, but then his left foot is slipping out from under him. He falls ass-first onto the ice with a loud ‘oof.’ 

Nesta can’t help the loud laugh that tears its way out of her chest. She tries to press a hand to her mouth to stifle it, but her whole body shakes with it. When she finally calms down and finds Cassian's stare again, his face is marred with an unimpressed frown. 

“I’m so glad my pain brings you joy,” Cassian says sarcastically before holding his arms up toward her. “Aren’t you going to help me up?” 

“No.” 

Nesta realizes she’s made a mistake. A slow smirk slides across Cassian’s face and even from across the rink, there’s no missing the mischievous glint in his eyes. Before Nesta can even blink, Cassian is on his feet and charging toward her across the ice. The rink is small with nowhere to go, so soon Nesta finds herself cornered back against the boards, Cassian’s arms bracketing her in on either side. 

Cassian opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, but it gets lost along the way, and instead he just stares. This close up, Nesta can see the greens hidden in his hazel eyes, the way they flicker under the rink lights. Cassian’s eyes drop down to her lips before settling back on her eyes, and Nesta’s heart does a little flip in her chest. 

"Can I kiss you?"

"What if I say no?"

Cassian leans in closer, and Nesta can feel his warm breath ghosting over her lips, is sure that he can feel the way the breath hitches in her throat. 

"Say no, then," Cassian whispers. 

The silence hangs between them for only a second before Cassian closes the distance, pressing his lips to Nesta’s. Nesta practically melts into it, pressing closer as their lips slot and slide against one another. One of Cassian’s hands comes up to bracket her jaw, his other arm wrapping securely around her waist. She can feel the way he sighs against her lips, the deep groan in his chest as the kiss deepens. 

"Hey, why are the lights on back here?" 

They break apart at the sudden voice, Cassian taking Nesta’s hand and tugging her down so they’re hidden behind the boards and out of sight. They can hear the footsteps of the rink staffer walking around, and Nesta turns to glare at Cassian. 

"I swear, if we end up arrested because of you…"

"Don't worry. I'd never let that happen. We're both too pretty for jail."

[flippyspoon]

What finally makes Billy crack and tell Steve “I love you”?

This made me write a whole thing!

Paris, Texas

Billy cracks somewhere outside Joplin, Missouri.

They are driving out to L.A. to make a new life. As friends, which is more than Billy thought he’d ever get.

The whole thing feels like a dream, even after all the planning and the months of scraping money together.

The diner outside Joplin is a long low building in the middle of endless flat land that seems to stretch into forever. He doesn’t remember the world looking like this when he drove out to Hawkins with his dad and Max and Susan. But then, that drive was miserable even in his own car trying to drive so far ahead of his father that he could pretend Neil wasn’t even there. This drive is...different. It’s just him and Steve in the Beamer and one of those little rented trailers hitched to the back with all their stuff.

That endless land everywhere that blurs by as Steve drums his fingers on the steering wheel gives Billy a big feeling in his chest like the whole world belongs to just the two of them. Sometimes he feels a little dizzy and imagines the car taking flight, soaring into the sky.

He thinks of this as they sit across from each other in a diner booth. Steve might be thinking of something similar because his eyes are far away as he stares out the window. They’re waiting for their food.

Billy allows himself to drink Steve in for a moment. Yellow t-shirt clinging to his lean frame. No one should look that good in yellow. Steve’s sitting back in the booth and nodding his head slightly as if along to music that’s not even playing as he stares out the window at the infinite landscape.

“Where’s your head, pretty boy?” Billy says.

Steve looks at him in surprise and takes a drink of ice water. “Nowhere! Right here, I guess. I was just uh…” He scratches his neck. “Remember that one arty movie Robin made us watch? The one about the guy in the red hat and he was wandering around and all out of it in the desert and then he was looking for his wife-”

“Paris, Texas,” Billy supplies.

“Yeah.” Steve gestures vaguely at the view. “This reminds me of that. I never really thought of stuff like that before Robin made us watch those movies. Didn’t like all of em’. But they kinda… I dunno. Now regular stuff looks sort of different and cool? Makes me think of shit. Is that what art’s supposed to do?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Billy grins, wide and carefree. “That’s so deep, Harrington.”

“Yeah, whatever.” But Steve cracks a smile and Billy thinks his cheeks flush a little.

I love you I love you I love you I

The words threaten to burst out of his mouth and he even starts to speak, terror flooding his veins.

“Steve-”

“Double bacon burger, double cheese burger?” The waitress swans up, a plate in each hand and Steve dives in after a cursory thank you.

The “I love you” dies in his throat and he’s thankful. They eat and between mouthfuls talk about the weird sights they’ve seen on the road so far.

There was a guy dressed as a clown sadly spinning a sign pointing to newly built houses.

There was a parade of wild dogs.

There was a statue of a horse.

Steve orders them shakes and only then notices the little jukebox on the table. “Oh shit, we need music.” He bites his lip and flips through the selection. “Oh here we go. This one’s for you because you keep freaking out about the apartment and because, ya know, California…” He slips a nickel in the slot and punches buttons and a second later the Beach Boys start singing.

“Don’t Worry, Baby.”

Steve sings along.

“She makes me come alive...and makes me wanna drive…”

Normally, Billy would think it’s funny because between the two of them Steve tends to be a bigger worry wart, but the cool thing is they’ve gotten good at talking each other down from shit.

Almost like a couple.

“Don’t worry, babyyyy.”

The words are wriggling up right from Billy’s stomach again and into his throat and he can’t stop it this time after all this time it’s finally gotten away from him in the middle of Joplin, Missouri-

“I love you,” Billy says.

For a fraction of a second there, he’s sure it got lost in the music and Steve didn’t hear him.

But then Steve’s eyes go wide.

“Shakes!” The waitress announces, setting them down on the table.

“Thanks, darlin’.” Billy winks at the waitress, hoping to distract from what the hell he just said. “Appreciate it. Hey Steve, do you have a buck for smokes? They gotta machine over there.”

“Um.” Steve nods slowly. “Uh. Yeah.”

Fuck shit shit holy shit…

They drink their shakes quietly.

Outside they lean on the car and smoke and Billy watches the wind blow Steve’s hair around. This time Steve looks like he’s searching for an answer in that land that goes on and on to the perfect line of horizon just like that guy in the red hat. Except that guy was trying to reconcile his past in the movie. Steve’s the future. If Billy hasn’t just fucked everything up.

Billy stubs his cigarette out in the gravel under his boot and Steve is looking up at the sky when he says, “I love you too. I’m in love with you.”

Billy’s pretty sure that the car must have flown off into the clouds with them in it. Because he’s sure he’s feet are no longer on the ground as he reaches out and grabs a fistful of Steve’s sweaty t-shirt, tugging him forward.

Steve tastes like his chocolate milkshake and his lips are warm and Billy feels them curve into a smile against his mouth before Billy nudges them apart. He feels fingers in his hair, playing with his curls.

Billy feels like he’s gonna fall down and half slumps against the car. Steve chuckles into the curve of his neck. “I know, man.”

For a minute they just stand there, embracing each other, listening to the wind.

Finally Steve takes his hand and says, “Let’s go, baby.”

[subwaysurf45]

Winter Makes Ice (Ep.3)

Summary:  you’re captured after a brawl at the Avengers building, Bucky and others must save you before Hydra makes a new Winter Soldier out of you, Bucky has given up that title.

Words: 2799

Episode: Three

Warning: not much, flashbacks, talks of violence

Masterlist! Winter Makes Ice Episode: Two

Time: 1:00pm 

Date: October 2nd 2024

It didn’t take long for everyone to board the helicopter and for it to take off, no one was lounging around this morning so they assembled quickly. Bucky sat by himself on the heli, the file was still open in his hands with the page turned to Dr. Wright. Bucky looked over the information that was given; he double and triple checked. There was a car waiting for them when they were going to arrive, Bucky would get dropped off and then Steve, Nat, and Wanda would drive around Halifax but would keep watch for a distress signal. Bucky made it clear it would only be him talking to the doctor, he was practicing his script in his head. 

“Five minutes ‘till landing,” the pilot spoke into his headset, the sound went to their ears sounding like a 1940s radio show. 

“Copy,” everyone replied without unison. 

The plane got lower and lower until it touched the ground; it was a private tarmac for primarily military forces and other important people; SHIELD was always allowed to use it. Everyone got off the plane after the propellers began to slow down, Bucky had jumped off once while they were still at top speed and got flung forward but the air. The all black car stood a ways in front of them, they all took their bags and headed over. 

“What a ride…” Steve muttered as he ran his hand against the perfect hood, this car was brand new and probably had never been in the sun before. It wasn’t a low sport car but rather an everyday car that was bullet proof and decked out with an AI on the inside, no one would take a second glance at it but the four of them marveled at how this car could fit in amongst others. The black rims matched the black tires and the black paint, this was Bucky’s dream car. 

They all got in and the ride began, Steve drove while Wanda sat in the back with Bucky, Nat was in the passenger seat playing her music. Every so often Wanda would look over to Bucky, he could see her out of the corner of his eye, she’d give a sympathetic glance and maybe open her mouth as if she was about to say something but chose against it. Bucky had Dr. Wright’s address on the file sheet; he was giving directions to Steve as they drove through the colourful houses. 

They had never seen houses like this, around four to five houses lined up next to each other, each of them were painted a different colour but they looked the same. Flowers grew in little holders under the two window sills at the front of the house, tulips were the most popular, vines would grow on the side where the sun didn’t shine too much and pain would chip around the bottom of the houses. Some houses still had Halloween decorations up, red leaves scattered on the ground and blew everywhere. There was a brown hue to the world around them, pumpkins were scattered on some door steps while other people still had Christmas lights up from last year. 

Bucky tapped Steve’s head rest and the car slowed to a stop, they looked out to their left to see a house that looked like it belonged to the community. It wasn’t modern and square with sleek grey tiles on the outside, it was old and run down. A ghost hung from the single garage light, one pumpkin was sitting on the doorstep. This house didn’t look like one of a nazi group member, nevermind just a person with their doctorate.

Tons of leaves crunched under Bucky’s combat boots, the road was littered with them, it made it seem like it was a red and yellow road. He looked both ways as he crossed even though no cars were on the road except for the military grade undercover car, Bucky looked over his shoulder to see Wanda waving. They were going to head to a farmers market in this town to pass the time, and Bucky would walk over there when he was done. He gave a thumbs up and the car drove away and down the street, he didn’t watch to see it disappear, Bucky only had one thing on his mind and it wasn’t some apple pies Wanda was looking for. 

The driveway looked new as well as the cobblestone walkway, one car was in the driveway and it looked to match the house, no crazy sports car. There was a screen door before an actual green wooden door, Bucky pulled back the screen and didn’t bother with the doorbell, he banged on the door. When he pulled his fist away there was a flake of green paint on his middle finger’s knuckle, a quick swipe and it was gone. Bucky stood back because he saw that in the movies, his back turned to the door as he looked out to the town. It was a lovely day, most people were probably at this farmer’s market, Bucky had never been to one even though you had offered to take him. 

His head whipped back at the door opening, the same man, but only older, opened the door. He looked tired and worn out, this was probably his last Halloween. The cane he was holding was shaking in his grip, the other hand gripped the side of the door extremely tight. You could see the white through the speckled skin. 

“What can I help you with, son?” the old man spoke with a smile, he licked his gums. A Canadian accent seemed almost cartoon-ish. 

Bucky froze as he looked at this man, the sight of him brought him back to his nightmares and everything he’d been through. The name ‘son’ rolled off this man’s tongue and down Bucky’s spine and sent a shiver running all through him, it was obvious this man didn’t know who Bucky was. Bucky almost felt bad that he was bothering him, it was obvious he wasn’t a walker and standing seemed to be his exercise for the day, but at the same time Bucky couldn’t help but think about all the ways he could rip this doctor apart. 

“Son?” the name came again. 

Bucky looked up with a shake of his head, “hello, are you Dr. Wright?” he asked quietly. 

“Yes it is, what do you need?” he didn’t seem freaked out that Bucky knew his name, it was a small town. 

“My name is James Buchanan Barnes,” Bucky started but the man didn’t seem to figure it out, “I am the Winter Soldier- used to be actually…” Bucky added. 

“Are you here to kill me?” the man’s voice shook, “because if you really are him then you have every right to do so,” he stepped back and opened the door for Bucky to walk in. 

“I’m here to talk, you’re not going to die.” Bucky walked in and kicked off his combat boots, he’d heard it’s a thing in Canada to take your shoes off in the house. He also heard there was bagged milk which didn’t make any sense to him, but he wasn’t about to argue. 

“That’s always good to hear, eh?” the accent slipped out again, it was weird for Bucky to see this man who haunted him just laughing. “Would you like some hot chocolate?” Dr. Wright asked as he made his way into the kitchen. 

His house was small, not many walls as one room just faded into another. Knick-knacks littered shelves and tables, everything brought a homey feel to it all, the house was very lived in. “No thanks,” Bucky waved up a hand to signal no. 

The doctor came and sat across from him, Bucky was sitting on a chair while Dr. Wright took the sofa, they both were wrapped in plastic. It made a squeaky sound when either of them moved but it didn’t seem to bother the doctor at all, Bucky one final time before swearing he wasn’t going to move again and hear that annoying sound. Both of Bucky’s hands were clasped in front of him, he felt too large and bulky for this petite chair, his fingers fiddled with each other. He’d pick and poke at the massive gloves he wore, his long sleeve was covering everything he needed. 

“So, Dr. Wright-”

“Jacob, son,” he corrected, “though I am a doctor,” Jacob hesitated, “I go by Jacob.”

“Is that your real first name?” Bucky asked, he was met with a smile and nod, “then call me Bucky, please.” Bucky smiled back, there was a growing tension between the both of them but they chose to ignore it. 

“Nice to meet you, Bucky.” Jacob seemed to relax at the name, he was scared of Bucky and Bucky could tell. This man had seen Bucky train for years on end, and Jacob knew what the Winter Soldier was capable of. “What do you need to talk to me about?” his cane rested beside him, his hand found its way there and just held it. 

“I need to talk to you about Hydra, any information you have on the Iceland base- or any base in Halifax, Iceland, Greenland, and there’s one more…” Bucky brought a gloved hand to his stubbled chin, the leather making a rough noise when it brushed against the facial hair. “Oh! It was Newfoundland, anything you knew about those four places.” 

Jacob thought for a moment, he didn’t have stubble to rub. Though he was old it was obvious he still thought that it was the old days, hair slicked back and a very fresh shave, facial hair wasn’t allowed unless you had grown it out in private. Bucky had always remembered Howard Stark’s mustache; he couldn’t picture him without it. 

“I mean, I was just a scientist, I ran labs and tested things on animals. I didn’t come up with the world ending plans, I was never told the reason for what I was doing, I was just told to do it.” Jacob sounded worried, “when I used to work for Hydra I was worried for my life everyday, they were so paranoid all the time that someone could be a rat. If you said ‘hail Hydra’ a little too quietly then you’d have a bullet between your eyes, I just kept my head down and did what I was told.” Jacob’s hand got increasingly tighter on the handle of his cane. 

“Was there something new they were working on?” Bucky asked, and he pulled out a little flip book to keep track. 

“I quit a total of ten years ago, when I was seventy-one, the only thing they were thinking of was keeping you in their grasp, there was no other plan.” Jacob shrugged, “Hydra couldn’t see a life source without you, they never intended on losing you the way they did.” 

“So you have no idea what they could possibly be working on, at all?” the hope Bucky had was falling, this was the only lead they knew and if all he could say was there was never a plan B, you were screwed.

“I’m sorry Bucky, I really want to help, but I just don’t know.” Jacob stood and walked back to the kitchen. He filled a glass of water and grabbed three pills from a container before heading back over to his seat. 

“Out of the four places I mentioned, Iceland, Greenland, Halifax, and Newfoundland,” Bucky paused and watched Jacob mutter them to himself and then take the pills, “which one is the strongest?”

Jacob swallowed his pills with water, “Iceland.” without any hesitation, no second guess, nothing giving away he was lying for didn’t know. “Iceland was hell for me, it has the best of the best for agents, scientists, and…” he glanced out the window, “cells and tourture.” 

Bucky shot up right away, he headed to the door. Jacob followed him, glass still in his hand. When Bucky was about to leave Jacob placed a hand on his shoulder. When Bucky turned back around the hand traveled along the center of his chest, “I'm not wired, Jacob.” Bucky eased. 

“Some things just come second nature, son.” Jacob kept his head down, “y’know, I never wanted to hurt you. I thought I was making my old man proud, but I never stopped to realize what I was doing was actually wrong.” Jacob looked up with glossy eyes, “I actually wanted to find you at some point because I know I was the one who woke you up last, I remember clearly the way you looked, right then, I knew I needed to leave that place.” Jacob shuffled over and stood completely square to Bucky, Bucky just looked down at Jacob with a face of horror. The man Bucky saw every night was crying and apologizing to him, he didn’t know anyone who worked with Hydra had a heart. “I’m sorry for everything I did to you,” Jacob reached in his back pocket, he had placed the glass of water on a side table. “Here, take some money-”

“No, none of that, Jacob, really,” Bucky held his hands out, “you’re forgiven, don’t worry about all that, I just need to find someone.” Bucky reached for the door. 

“What do you mean?” Jacob fished in his wallet. 

“Hydra stole my girlfriend, I think she's in Iceland.” Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together at Jacob who was given him a coin. 

“I think you’re right,” Jacob dropped the coin in Bucky’s palm before closing the door, the screen door creaked as it shut quickly with the wind. 

Time: 2:33pm

Date: October 2nd 2024

Steve, Nat, and Wanda were walking around on the closed road, stands of every fruit and pastry lined the streets. Wanda was on top of the moon, she had a tote bag with some apple turnovers in them, that was really all she wanted. Nat had actually bought something too, Steve was genuinely surprised when Nat bought some earrings from a vendor, they were very small and dainty moons that would go in her ear lobes. Steve didn’t buy anything but just liked walking around, there was a lot to see but in a good way, no screens or jumbotrons, just people being people. 

As Bucky made eye contact with Steve, Steve’s phone rang. Nat and Wanda rushed up to Bucky and were asking how it went, but the unknown caller was what Steve was focusing on. 

“Steve Rogers,” Steve lowered his voice. 

“Captain Rogers,” an all too familiar voice hit his ear. 

“King T’Challa?” Steve turned his back to the group. 

“We have three Hydra agents in custody, they tried to take out my sister,” his accent flowed and bounced as he talked.

“Keep them in the cells, we’re on our way.” 

“Will there be more of them?” T’Challa asked before he could hang up. 

“I don’t know, but hold them and don’t kill them, they might be our only hope.” Steve said his goodbyes and hung up. 

When he turned back to Bucky and the rest of them, they seemed scared, Bucky had overheard Steve’s call, super hearing, and was looking at him weird. 

“What was that?” Bucky asked. 

“King T’Challa, says there was an attempted hit on Shuri, doesn’t know where they came from but they want her.” Steve shoved his phone in his back pocket, “what did you find?” 

Bucky just held up a silver coin, “we’re going to Iceland.” 

“We need to go to Wakanda,” Steve stepped forward. 

“Not all four of us,” Nat pulled everyone aside from the farmer’s market, “I’ll go with Steve to Wakadna, you go with Wanda to Iceland. We’ll be talking and before you ambush the Hydra base in Iceland we’ll confirm y/n is in there, deal?” She looked to the other three. 

“Deal.”

“Deal.”

“Deal.”

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[magic-missle-blog]

Ghost division 2 – The belly of the beast

2nd story in what will hopefully be a series. Roughly 6k words. Hope you enjoy

:readmore:

Four missiles streaked through the darkness of space from the canadation destroyer as it smashed through the human battle group.

The warship TDF Glasgow rocked as a missile impacted the hull. Point defence had taken out three others but the fourth slammed into the starboard side.

“Damage report!” the captain shouted as he swivelled his command chair to face the tactical officer.

“The hull plating is scorched and buckled, but no internal damage. We were lucky.” The tactical officer replied, shouting to be heard over the various alarms and beeps in the small bridge.

“We cant rely on luck. If we get hit again its your head!” The captain growled. His hair was cut close to his scalp and a sheen of sweat reflected in the bright yellow light on his dark skin.

Tactical officer Rotchford nodded. Her brow furrowed as she quickly typed into her console. “don’t worry I’m on it, I’ve analysed the firing pattern and I can probably take out most of the missiles, its those fucking fighters and energy weapons I cant do a thing about.”

Just as she finished speaking a swarm of small locust shaped fighters buzzed passed the ship, pelting the armour with energy weapons.

Turrets tracked the fighters, spitting hypersonic tungsten shells. One of the Canidation fighters exploded, the rest of the group took evasive action and continued on the attack run through the human fleet.

The ship rocked again and various alarms clamoured for attention. Lights on the bridge flickered.

Captain Conroy nodded and straightened his uniform. He brought up a tactical display on the console built into his chair.

Five Canidation warships had engaged the fleet of seven Terran defence force destroyers and the humans were loosing badly. The Canidations had the firepower and faster ships. Fighters swarmed over the fleet firing kinetic weapons and lasers, some with great effect.

He watched as another of the fleet exploded. That was the second ship they had lost. The battle had been raging for what felt like hours but in reality it was only 30 minutes. The Canidations had dropped out of hyperspace in this remote system to ambush a Human supply run. The freighters had escaped unharmed but the escort fleet couldn’t leave, not without leaving this Canidation battle group free reign to attack other convoys.

“Shit. That was the Newcastle!” the first officer said “Fleet captain Broadie…he was a good man”

The computer screamed out a proximity warning as another salvo of missiles streaked towards them, but true to her word the tactical officers new point defence programme took them all out. She returned fire with the main cannon as the destroyer elegantly swung around, scoring a direct hit to the Canidations engines. The insectoid ship vented atmosphere and appeared to lose power as running lights flickered out and the ship drifted

The other enemy ships moved towards the remaining fleet.

“Scan that ship, is it dead?” Conroy commanded the science officer as the warship rocked under more impacts

“yeah it appears… Fuck” the science officer said as his console went dark and the lights cut out.

A few moments later the ships emergency power kicked in and the lights came back on, but dull red colour. His console lit up. “ yeah its dead. I think. Scans are all over the place.”

Conroy nodded, as the most senior officer left in the tattered fleet he assumed command.. “signal the fleet. Lets get the fuck out of here...but slowly, I want to draw them away from that damaged ship.” He plotted a course that would take them deep into the Oort cloud of this system.

The remaining ships of the Terran defence force broke off the engagement and retreated. Caught by surprise at the sudden change in tactics, The Canidations stopped dead, recalled the fighters then followed, slowly gaining ground on the slower terran warships.

Glancing at his command console captain Conroy opened fleet wide comms. Signalling the other commanders he said “Listen up people. Once we are in that cloud drop sensor decoys try to buy me some time . I’m going to double back and capture that ship.”

The crew looked at him in astonishment

“Damn” said the first officer. “And I thought today was going to be a quiet day.”

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

The war against the Canidations had been raging for 3 months, and the Terran empire was losing.

The Canidations ships were more advanced, and they had the numbers. The only saving grace is that the Canidations were fighting two other larger empires. Humanity, as a relatively new race to the galactic stage, hadn’t been seen as a concern. Almost an afterthought.

No one knew why the war started. Canidations were a reclusive species. They had no trade with the wider galactic community, no embassies, no contact at all. No one really even knew if “Canidation” was their species name. They stayed in their home systems, A group of a dozen or so stars a few light years around the Canadathon, their home world.

A decade ago the Canidations has blasted out of their home system with an over powering military force and attacked a neighbouring world without warning. Everything was a viable target to them and they didn’t take prisoners…or at least they didn’t keep them alive for long.

For ten long years they attacked and destroyed any neighbouring species, expanding their empire. The first races, unused to galactic warfare on such a scale had fallen quickly. Other species had tried to build up their own military force but simply didn’t have the infrastructure in place and couldn’t come close to the Canidations speed of production. It seemed like for every Canidation ship that fell two more would take its place.

The Canidations were an insectoid race, they looked like an unholy amalgamation of a spiders body with a praying mantis torso, like an insect centaur. They didn’t seem to capture any world they won, they destroyed it. Left it a lifeless husk, took any easily accessible resources then moved on like locusts. Maybe they would be back to terraform it later, maybe not. No one knew.

The destruction on such a scale seemed senseless, and completely alien. Not even the best human generals, phycologists or philosophers could come up with a reason for this carnage.

What was known was they had a lot of ships. More than every other military in this region of space combined. They had been building up for decades and it seemed like now was the time to unleash their might.

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

The Glasgow had ducked behind a dwarf planet in the Oort cloud and waiting while the remaining fleet had drawn the Canidations away, then used a risky in system jump to get back quickly to the battlefield. They had scanned for survivors of the destroyed Terran ships but unfortunately found plenty of debris but no life signs.

TDF Glasgow slowly drew up alongside the crippled Canidation vessel, comms jammers at full power blocking any communication from the hulk. It had been few hours since the shot had crippled the Bug ship, but it was still drifting without any main power, its engines dark and cooling.

It looked like reserve power had kicked in and there was several Canidations on the main hull close to the breach in what looked like dark space suits, although it could have been their flesh. Conroy didn’t know enough about the species to tell. It was obvious the Canidations were trying to repair the damage.

The insectoid ship was large, at least half again as big as the Glasgow and followed an unorthodox design. It was nothing like the sleek Terran ships, whose lines were reminiscent of the war planes that fought in earth’s skies in the 20th century. Human ships were long and sleek, with swept back retractable wings protruding from the mid section to allow atmosphere flight when fully extended. Canidation was bulky, and looked like a flattened pinecone and close range scans showed it be highly modular.

The bridge appeared to be at on top of the bulky front section. Conroy guessed below this would be weapons, crew quarters and the like. Engineering and the ships drive core, and sub light engines must be located in the tapering end. Cannons clustered around the front with turrets in two rows along the top and bottom of the ship.

Conroy assumed there would be about 60 or so crew on board. Terran destroyers had a crew of 30 plus 10 marines. Not good odds Conroy thought.

“Easy to build, quick to swap different sections out if needed” Science officer McCallum said as he looked over the data.

Conroy nodded to Commander Paulson, the first office. “Pauly, get a boarding party ready. Find any intel you can get your hands on but don’t take any stupid risks. Focus on engineering, medical, ship deployments, shit we can find to kill these things.” Looking at McCallum “what do they need?”

McCallum brought up all the information he had on Canidations, which wasn’t a lot.

“Scans show gravity and life support is still active and the ship has atmosphere, although I use the term loosely. Their air is made up of 30% oxygen, 15% Co2, 10% Hydrogen sulphide, the rest is nitrogen, water vapour and trace gasses. Average temperature is roughly 30 degrees Celsius and humidity is close to 70%. Gravity is low, roughly 0.6G. So basically your walking into a hot sweaty hellhole that’ll smell like Satan’s ass. Enjoy” he finished with a laugh.

Paulson looked at the captain “Gee thanks Boss, you give me all the best jobs. Breathing units all round then.” He saluted as he left the bridge.

“Mac…what killed this ship? Did we get a lucky shot?”

McCallum looked over his reading for a few moments. “Yeah, very lucky. Looks like there is a weakness around the main engine core on this ship. Plasma exhaust has weakened the hull armour in a small area right above the main power linkage, its little better than paper. Must be a design flaw…if that shot had hit even a few meters on either side it wouldn’t have made a dent.”

Rotchford laughed. “luck had nothing to do with it. It’s pure skill.”

She grinned

Conroy rolled his eyes.

“Yeah yeah if you say so” he said grinning. Conroy didn’t mind a bit of banter with the bridge crew. He felt it build camaraderie and they all worked better as a result.

Turning to Macallum he said

“Deep scan this bitch, I see what else you can find, anything that’ll give us an edge.”

From over the other side of the bridge the tactical offer said “Captain, I think I’ve found something too. The missiles on the ship are armed.”

Conroy looked over “So?”

Rotchford brushing her brown bangs that had escaped from the severe bun on her head said “Our missiles auto arm a second after launch to prevent any accidents, these appear to pre arm before launch, Probably as soon as they find a hostile ship. Once direct hit could detonate the entire missile battery. The armour is thick but the launch tubes are vulnerable . “

“Comms” Conroy said excitedly “Tight beam the rest of the fleet and let them know what we’ve found…might give them an edge.”

Turning back to tactical

“Why would they do that?”

Rotchford shrugged. “not sure. It does mean the missiles can be fired much closer then we can shoot. Out missiles travel so fast that by the time they arm they’re a couple of hundred kilometres away, makes them useless for close engagements. By pre-arming them they get around that problem. Makes it almost impossible to shoot them down when the bugs get in close.”

Minutes passed slowly. Soon the boarding party was on board a small ship to ship shuttle and on route to dock with the crippled ship.

The shuttle did a quick fly over the damaged section and fired small arms at the Canidations working on the damaged hull, Killing the repair team. The aliens magnetic grips kept the bodies stuck to the hull like bugs splattered by a windscreen.

McCallum looked up “I’ve found something else captain, it wont help us now but I think we can take advantage of it.”

He put his display on the main screen, All eyes turned to it.

“I thought about using some kind of plasma weapon to weaken the armour of the whole ship, and that’ll probably work, we don’t use plasma tech, but I’m sure the weapons experts back home can build something.” He took a breath “Anyway, that got me thinking, Plasma is basically really hot ionized gas. Its expelled as exhausts right away as too much heat inside the ship it bad. As you know its almost impossible to loose heat in space, so we use active cooling systems to…”

Conroy interrupted before McCallum could go into a lecture on the finer points of starship heat management. “Get to the point”

Mccallum looked sheepish “Sorry sir, anyway, the Canidations seem to use radiator panels, they’re well armoured but vulnerable to excessive heat. A focussed laser beam could overload them. If they cant loose heat they’ll cook inside the ships.”

“Well done Mac, get everything we’ve found so far and bundle the data ready for transmission back to HQ”

Minutes dragged as Mccallum compiled the data.

Everyone was on eggshells, watching the boarding shuttle latch on to the Canidation hull and begin cutting through. Tactical constantly scanning for any Canidation ships that might be inbound. Conroy wondered how the rest of the fleet was fairing. The TDF ships were more manoeuvrable than the larger Canidation warships, so as long as they kept in a dense part of the Oort cloud, dodging comets and dwarf planets then the TDF ships should have an advantage.

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

Inside the shuttle the atmosphere was tense. Paulson looked over the assembled combat team. All had breathing units over their lower faces. The units would filter out the harmful gasses and reduce the oxygen pressure to something breathable, but as they weren’t full space suits or fully sealed Paulson knew the stench would get through, he grinned inwardly he hadn’t told the team what the Canidation air was like, he wanted to see the reactions.

The ten member boarding team all had dark grey combat armour, and each carried a small side arm and a combat knife. Eight also carried an assault rifle with enough ammo to take on a small army, the other two combat engineers carried various tools and computer equipment. Their mission was to hack into any systems they could find and mine it for data.

The shuttle bumped into the hull and latched on. A magnetic tube made an air tight seal around the hatch. It opened to show a sold hull. The engineers immediately started cutting to gain access. It was slow going. Armour that can withstand heavy ship weapons wont easily fail to small plasma torches.

Sargent Waltham stepped up next to Paulson. “We’re ready to go” She said coolly.

Paulson nodded. “Get in and secure the area. Set up fire lines kill anything that’s got more than two legs.” He said to Waltham.

She was tall, blonde, very pretty in hard way. People, especially men, tended to underestimate her due to her looks, thinking she was just a made up barbie doll. Paulson had thought the same thing once, until she kicked his ass in hand to hand training. The first round he went easy on her and he was flat on his back in 5 seconds. The second round he went all out, and to his credit, he managed to last a full 7 seconds before she had him pined, face pressed against the floor and his left arm twisted up his back. Waltham, like all the other,s had earned her place in the combat team, but unlike the men she had to continually prove she deserved to be there. This constant striving for perfection had made her one of the best solders Paulson had ever worked with.

The thick hull armour fell inwards with a heavy thunk. The sound echoed around the shuttle. The stench of rotten eggs filler the small enclosed space and everyone wrinkled their noses.

“For fucks sake… is this ship full of farts?” Jones, the lead combat engineer said.

Paulson grinned. “Ok move out. Slow and steady, I don’t want any fuck ups.”

The team moved slowly into the alien vessel. The interior was dark, smelly and hot, lighting was a deep red that cast odd shadows. Paulson didn’t know if this was normal or if it was due to low power.

Waltham took her place first in line as the engineers cleared the hull and opened a portal to the interior of the ship. She directed one of her team , Ramerez, a young marine on his first away mission , hang back and guard the shuttle just encase they needed to make a quick exit.

Ramerez took position just inside the the shuttle door, he pulled a couple of boxes containing emergency supplies across the entrance and dug in.

The rest of the team followed her lead, with Paulson acting as rear guard, scanning the corridor behind him with a quick practiced eye.

One of the marines whispered in a low voice “damn, this is weird.”

“what is? Looks like a normal ship corridor to me” Paulson said

“sir...that’s what I mean. I expected...well dirt..or tunnels like that old movie ‘Aliens’. You know, the one where the dildo bursts out of some guys chest and all these Marines hunt it down? I mean they’re bugs for Christ’s sake..but this just looks normal.”

Paulson shook his head.“Lay off the old horror flicks. Keep it together”.

Looking at a handheld scanner Jones said “looks like there might be a room down the corridor to the right, I’m reading power spikes, it could be a place I can hack into there systems.”

The team crept inward, the low gravity giving them a bounce to their steps. They were searching for a room with a computer access, but all the could see were long featureless corridors. The came to a junction and as they passed a blast of plasma energy almost took Walthams head off. She Pulled back just in time, lightning quick reflexes saving her life. As it was the plasma shot singed her combat helmet.

Risking another blast, Waltham popped her head around then quickly pulled it back. Three Canidations waited around the corner, plasma rifles at the ready for another shot.

Pulling a flashbang from her belt she leaned out and expertly tossed he weapon into the centre of the group, a second later a loud BANG and a FLASH of bright light lit up the corridor. She could hear a smattering of legs as the Canidations fell back. Her and two of her team ran around keeping low and opened fire. The sound of the assault rifles sounded odd in the dense air. the Canidations tried to return fire but there shots went wide, scorching the metal bulkheads, obviously still blinded by the light. The skirmish was over quickly.

The team crept up slowly to the dead aliens. One in the was headless. Its body twitched, a dark yellow fluid pumping from its neck. The other two were still. Red faceted eyes that took up most of the head were dull and lifeless. Mandibles closed tighter than a vice.

Bullets had ripped the skinny top part of one in half, and the others larger thorax between the spiders-like legs was riddled and leaking the same yellow fluid.

The team looked at the corpses, they were…creepy. They unnerved the humans just looking at them. Jones knelt down and pointed something out. “Look, this one has a couple of cybernetic legs. That one has a cybernetic head…That’s so weird. Gives me the creeps.”

Paulson looked. “Why weird?”

“Think of what this means. They use medical tech to repair wounds. Replace missing limbs like we do. You don’t think of bugs caring for individuals I guess. I assumed they would be like a hive, like ants or termites just mindless soldier’s, disposable and replaceable. Maybe they’re more than that.“

One of the other marines, Patel a tall solid build man with a cold gaze said in a whisper “They’re like spiders, I fucking hate spiders. Normal spiders are bad enough but these are super sized fuckers with guns. “

He shivered as a cold chill ran down his spine. Taking one last place at the dead Canadation he walked slowly past, rifle ready for another attack.

As the team moved on one of the corpses stood up with a clatter. It swiped at a passing trooper with its upper limbs, razor sharp claws sliced across his face and chest, cutting flesh and the scoring deep cuts on his combat armour. He fell back shocked. The headless alien thrashed about, seemingly attracted to the noise the shocked humans made. It tried to reach for another one but a burst of fire from Waltham’s rifle tore through its thorax . the alien twitched again then fell back. She crept up, gun ready and kicked the corpse. No reaction. It was truly dead.

Patel looked a mess, his face had been cut to the bone, but he’d live. Two others helped bandage him up.

“fucking fuckitty fucking spiders! “ he shouted and kicked the corpse, holding his wounded face and blood soaked bandages.

“get back to the shuttle” Waltham commanded him.

He nodded, his face screwed up in pain, The bandages soaking with blood. He got to his feet and headed back the way he came.

Paulson looked at jones “What the fuck?”

Jones shrugged “I’m no medical expert, but I guess a head shot wont kill them. Maybe they keep their brains in there ass or something, I guess the head is just for eating and seeing.” Pointing to the Canidation with the cybernetic head “Maybe loosing the head for them is just like loosing an eye for us? Or maybe they’re like cockroaches. We should drag these things back to the shuttle. Medical back at HQ would have a field day.”

Paulson nodded “team, forget headshots, aim for the centre mass.” He directed a couple of team member to take the most intact body back to the shuttle “Keep it under guard…just in case”

The diminished team made there way deeper into the ship. Paulson was aware of the time he was taking, he knew The Glasgow couldn’t wait forever, but he wanted more than a few dead bugs. Soon they came across an empty room. The door was closed but a kick and a shove and it slid back into the wall. The team entered. Looking around, there was a lot of electronics that Paulson couldn’t guess the function off. Jones quickly set up his scanner. Pulling open a panel he found circuit boards. After quick scan he attached a lead from his scanner to one of the chips.

“If i can hack this, this should give me access” he worked quickly The rest of the team took up positions around the door. Paulson moved to the back of the room and signalled Waltham.

“thoughts? He said after she walked over

Waltham shrugged “they don’t seem too tough. Decent weapons though.“ she pointed to the plasma rifle she’d captured.

“hows things between you two?” he nodded to Jones

Relationships were against regulations but as long as it was discreet no one really minded. It could be lonely in deep space.

Waltham smiled. “he’s sweet, like a puppy. Always eager to please. But utterly fearless too. He could be a great soilder, but likes his gizmos too much.”

“Yeah jones is a good one.” Paulson agreed. He’s been friends with jones for years. They grew up in the same town went to the same high school, and went through training together.

Minutes ticked by. Jones had attached a large data cube to his scanner. He came over to the pair while the data downloaded “. I can copy the full ships hard drive. Shouldn’t take long. There’s not a lot of data, mainly seems to be the ships opperating system. Seems pretty basic. I did find something interesting though, I found ship schematic. We’re not far from a path to fire control. Its down the end of that corridor out there. “

Paulson thought for a second. “no, we have enough we need to get back”

Just as he said that his communicator beeped. It was the shuttle “Sir, get back here we need to go! A Canidation warship is on approach, ETA 7 minutes!”

“Ok people pack your shit up, we need to get out of here! Double time!”

The team grabbed there gear and quickly made there way back into the corridor. Several canidations ran down the steel hallway, the hack had triggered some kind of security protocol. These Canidations didn t have weapons but they moved so fast in the lower gravity that the quickly closed the distance, soon it was a melee, claw against fist.

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

Alarms cried out for attention on the bridge of the Glasgow. A Canidation warship was closing in.

“eta?�� asked Conroy. His calm voice a counterpoint to the frantic activity on the bridge.

“roughly 7 minutes until weapons range. I’ve contacted the shuttle”. maccalum replied.

Conroy nodded. Looking at the helmsman her said “keep that bug ship in between us. We’re smaller and so keep us in its shadow and hopefully they won’t get a weapons lock.”

Nodding, through helmsman fired up the thrusters.

“’ll try time get a target lock on the missile batteries.” Rotchford reported as she programmed the ships turrets.

Captain Conroy starred at the main screen, his fingers tapping a rhythm on the arm of his command seat.

Paulson tried to get a clear shot as a canidaton reared up on its four rear legs. It brought its full weight down on Waltham. Its mandibles opened and snapped closed right over her head. Only her quick thinking and combat helmet saved her from decapitation. She ducked her head and trusting the hardened carbon nanotube and ceramic construction she head-butted the bug right in its open mouth. Mandibles crunched against the helm. The force of through blow and the weight of the bug staggered her for a second, but years of hand to hand training came to her and with a twist and a flick she grabbed the alien and slammed it against the bulkhead. The lower gravity and adrenaline giving her almost superhuman strength.

Her combat knife flashed on the low light as she stabbed the mantis like torso. There was resistance then with a crunch she forced the blade through the carapace. The bug shuddered and wrenched. Flailing its limbs then it was still.

The skirmish was over as quickly as it started. Looking around Paulson shouted “sound off”

A chorus of voices said “here” or “i’m good”

A few troopers took minor injuries but no fatalities.

They sprinted down the corridor. The sound of gunfire brought them up short. The bugs were trying to capture the shuttle. Paulson knew if they lost that they were dead.

A scream echoed down the steel corridor. One of his men had fallen. Canidations pressed on.

“We need a distraction” Paulson shouted to Waltham over the blaring alarms.

“i have an idea. Hold here for a few seconds”

With that she sprinted back the way she came. Moments later an explosion rocked the ship. The lights and gravity cut out, then seconds later they came back on. The unprepared soilders hit the ground but were quickly back on there feet, the Canidations were not as lucky, they were a tangle of legs and claws further down the corridor.

Seizing his chance, Paulson shouting a battle cry and his boarding party fell in the bugs from behind. The battle was short and brutal but they pushed through just as Waltham returned. Her hair was burned and armour scorched.

“What the fuck did you do?” shouted Paulson

“I overloaded that plasma rifle and tossed it in the fire control room. I think we need to get out of here, that room is burning and it’s right next to the missiles”

Once everyone was on board the hatch slammed shut and the shuttle detached then raced back to the Glasgow, just as another explosion ripped through the Canidation warship. A series of smaller explosion’s rocked the ship them with a blast like a supernova the power core blew up. The shuttle was caught in the fireball but escaped with minor damage.

Paulson looked at his and bruised team as the shuttle pilot plotted a course back to the Glasgow.

Paulson pushed one of the Canidation corpses to the side, making down room in the small shuttle. He sat next to the body of a young man, almost a boy. Ramerez. It was his first tour, he was 18 and fresh out of boot camp. Ramerez had taken a plasma blast to the chest. His armour was burned through. Mercifully he had been killed instantly.

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

Conroy watched as the Canidation ship exploded. The shuttle streaked towards the hanger.

“well... shit” he said “get the shuttle on board and get ready to bug out”

calls of “aye” and “yessir” Echoed around the bridge..

The Canidation warship closed in, spitting fire and death at the Glasgow. Point defence destroyed the incoming missiles but the ship rocked from impacts

The Glasgow returned fire, turrets pounded the underside of the Canidation ship as it passed overhead passing through the expanding could of gas and debris.

The helmsman kept a steady course until the shuttle was back in then started evasive manoeuvres, he would have to hold the ship steady for a few moments to allow the hyperdrive to spin up, but the Canidation ship was not making it easy.

“Shuttle is on board. Prepare for Jump in 3...2...1...”

The ship lurched to the side and spun almost 90 degrees, crew members were thrown around the bridge like sticks caught in a hurricane. Alarms blared.

The main lights were down, red emergency lamps cast an eerie glow. Groans came from the crew

Rochford pulled herself back into her seat. Blood running from a head wound. She checked her console “sir..the hyperdrive core has been hit. We’re venting plasma and atmosphere...main power is down. Weapons down....the Canidations are coming around for another pass...”

Before Conroy could respond an explosion tore through the bridge as a missile impacted the armour surrounding the command center.

A ceiling panel that had been knocked loose earlier in the fight fell with a resounding crash pinning Conroy to his command chair and knocking him unconscious. Bones snapped under the force of the impact.

Rochford as the most senior officer left standing opened ship wide Comms “all hands. This is commander rochford. The captain is incapacitated abandon ship. I repeat abandon ship”

She moved as quickly as she could to try to help Conroy, Macallum was at his side trying to move the panel. “mac..leave him. We need to go...” she grabbed his arm “come on...move it soldier” macallum looked at the damaged viewscreen. The Canidation ship was baring down. Any second now it’s main cannons would finish the job. They were out of time.

White hot plasma blasts leaped from the Canidation vessel tearing across the cold black darkness. Promising death to the Glasgow.

A flash and a massive lurch pulled maccalum and Rotchford off their feet, but it wasn’t a weapon impact. It was the lurch of a gravity field forming a few miles away as a ship dropped out of hyperdrive.

A dangerous and potentially fatal move – a single miscalculation could have dropped the new ship right on top of them - but it saved the Glasgow. The rest of the fleet, the few ships that remained had jumped back to help. The TDF New York had jumped In front of the plasma blasts. Taking the hit that would have finished the Glasgow off. It opened up with its main cannons, rail guns blasting the armour above the Canidations missile batteries. Another Terran defence force ship TDF Cardiff jumped in behind and opened up on the bugs with everything it had. The Canidation vessel was powerful, but it couldn’t withstand the combined firepower of the vengeful human warships.

Explosion and explosion, hit after hit. The Canidations withered under the combined firepower and with a final flash it vanished as it’s fusion plant exploded.

The TDF Glasgows communication system beeped for attention. Maccalum moved slowly across

“This is captain Yoshimoyo on the New York. Prepare to receive medic and engineering teams. Your information won us the day Glasgow. All Canidation vessels have been destroyed. This is the first human victory in this war...”

“This is science officer McCallum. “thanks for the help. That was a risky move I owe your helmsman a beer. Captain Conroy has been injured. We don’t know how bad, the ship has taken heavy damage.

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

Weeks later Captain Conroy stood in front of admiral Wong.

Conroy had spent most of the time unconscious. His injuries sever, but with advanced medical skill, talented doctors and a dash of luck he had made a full recovery.

“Captain” the admiral began “I’m glad to see you’re back on your feet. I’ve out an official commendation for yourself and your entire crew. The information you fought so hard for will prove invaluable in this conflict”

Wong continued “The data contained ship specifications, technical manuals, training documents and recent fleet movements. With that information we’ve managed to push the Canidations back in a number of theatres , you and your crew have saved thousands of human lives. We all owe you a debt captain.”

“Thank you sir...i'm eager to get back to the Glasgow sir, to get back in the fight.”

The admiral shook his head

“I’m afraid not Conroy. The Glasgow was heavily damaged and will require months of repairs and refit. We can’t have a seasoned crew out of action for so long. You and your crew are being reassigned.”

Wong passed a pad to the captain

“Our newest, most powerful warship. The TDF Lucifer. You’ll be part of a task force – the ghost division. The Canidations are throwing more and more ships against us, and while we’ve slowed the advance to a crawl we are still loosing. You’ll go behind enemy lines and fight a guerrilla war. Do everything you can to bring the bugs down. Everything is a viable target, including the Canidation homeworld. Teach them to fear the wraith of Earth.”

End

[cinebration]

Give Me Peace (Geralt of Rivia x Reader) [Request]

I always had a vision of the witcher where reader is a siren (alternative, land walking type that can still enthrall ppl with her beauty) and her and Geralt always bump into each other over the years. Ppl are always hunting her since sirens are worth a lot of money so he decides to help her. Geralt refuses to admit his feelings are real for her until he figures out that witchers are immune to siren songs. Basically, lots of angst but a fluffy ending! — Requested by anon

I know this was supposed to have a fluffy ending, but it turned into something else, and I couldn’t bear to change it.

Tagged: @bichibibi​

Warnings: death

Gif Source: august-walker

Over the span of five decades, you and Geralt crossed paths more times than he had ever crossed anyone’s, Jaskier and Yennefer included. The hand of destiny seemed to be at work, nudging you both into each other’s path every ten years or so.

It started first by the ocean. You had spent much time there in that first decade, drawn to the sea and your marine cousins, the sirens of the water. You were a siren of the land, beautiful beyond measure but lacking the enchanting voice of your sea cousins. You did not call men to their deaths as they did. Instead, your beauty drove men to madness.

Perhaps you were the more dangerous breed.

For the first few years, your beauty kept you safe, as no man who laid eyes on you and met your gaze was safe from your spell. You could topple kingdoms if you so felt with that kind of power.

But there came men and women who coveted the prize of a slain siren, especially one poisoning the minds and hearts of their very best.

Thus came your first encounter with the witcher, Geralt. Hired by the townsfolk, he sought you out on the shores of the sea, where you sat on the rocks in low tide and gazed out over the choppy waters. Careful to avoid your gaze, he drew near, armed not with his sword but with his wits, ready to be enthralled.

Hearing his step on the sand, you glanced at him and paused, stricken by his rugged beauty. Never had you seen a man whose looks could entice you as you enticed others. Though he averted his eyes, you saw their vivid yellow irises glinting in the setting sun.

“Witcher,” you called, “have you come for me?”

He grunted.

“You would kill me for something I have no power over?”

“You’re driving the town mad.”

“They are driven mad by their own desire. I can’t hide myself.”

“They don’t see it that way.”

“How do you see it?”

He cleared his throat, glanced over his shoulder to see if any of the townsfolk had followed him.

Slipping down off the rock, you approached him. He took a step back, shifting into a defensive stance. You ceased, bare feet digging into the cooling sand.

“If I paid you more than they did to protect me, would you?”

The muscle in his jaw flexed. “Only if you leave.”

With a sigh, you looked back over the ocean. You would miss it, but forests and mountains were your home; to them you would return.

~~

The following decade, Geralt heard news of a beautiful woman bewitching men near Brokilon. At first he thought she belonged to the druids that populated the dangerous forest, but as he heard report after report of men driven to madness, raving of beauty and unearthly eyes, he knew the woman to be a siren.

He knew it had to be you.

The villagers sent him forth to kill you. Traveling through the forest on the outskirts of Brokilon, careful not to trespass, he found a small hut near the road, partially obscured by the trees but by no means invisible.

Through a half-shuttered window, he glimpsed you brushing your hair. In the light from the fire burning within the hearth, he glimpsed the faint lines of sealed gills. He had heard that land sirens had come from the sea centuries before, but nothing had offered so much proof as the vestigial, malformed organs on your neck.

“Witcher,” you called, seeing him through the window, “have you come for me?”

He grunted.

“You would kill me for something I have no power over?”

“The villagers don’t see it that way.”

“What am I to do? I can’t hide myself.”

“You could do a better job.”

“Come into my home, witcher, and warm yourself.”

Shaking his head, he unsheathed his sword.

“If I pay you double what the villagers are paying, will you spare me again?”

He considered for a long moment. You stared at his face, but he refused to meet your gaze. Out of his peripherals, he saw something of your beauty. It was stellar, he would agree, but it stirred nothing more within him than he expected when seeing a beautiful woman.

It almost made him want to meet your enchanting gaze.

Discipline and strength won out, but not entirely.

“Yes,” he answered. “Just leave.”

Sighing, you put out the fire and gathered your things, amounting to nothing more than a small sack over one shoulder.

“Witcher,” you called, “I have been attacked twice now.”

He nearly met your eyes, so sharply did he turn back to you.

“Men shot arrows through my window, tried to set fire to my home.”

“You are a monster to them.”

“So are you, but you are allowed some peace.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Few men think they can kill you. Every man thinks they can kill me. There is peace in the former.”

Shouldering your sack, you struck off down the road, fixing your gaze on the mountains.

Geralt watched you go until even his enhanced vision no longer saw your figure, your words echoing in his mind.

~~

In the third decade, Geralt came upon you by chance. He passed a hunting party made of hardscrabble men practically frothing at the mouth with anticipation. They rained arrows down into the ravine from their position on the mountain face, arrows with fire burning at the ends. Geralt would have walked on if one of them had not cried, “Burn, enchantress!”

Geralt paused to look down into the ravine. A small shack leaned against the wall, situated by a thin stream. You stood in stark relief among the basalt, knocking away the arrows with a poor shield. One arrow caught in your thatch roof, caught fire.

Geralt hauled the nearest archer off his feet, slamming him against the cliff face. The other men spun, glimpsed his white hair and murderous glare. They fled, screaming obscenities in your direction.

“Witcher,” you called, “have you come for me?”

He didn’t answer, unsure how to.

Running into the burning shack, you stumbled out with your bag and watched the rest of your ramshackle home burn. By the time it had been reduced to a pile of ash and cinders, Geralt had made his way down into the ravine. He avoided your gaze but stared at the curve of your neck.

“They grow bolder every year,” you informed him. “See?” Slipping off the shoulder of your tunic, you presented a livid scar not many months old. “They will be the death of me—and I have not driven any of them mad.”

“Sirens have gone up in price.”

“I have no money to pay you, witcher, to spare me.”

He grunted. “I wasn’t hired to kill you. This time.”

“Until next time, then.”

“Wait.”

You obliged, dropping your gaze slightly so he could look on your face. Wary, he only glimpsed it before averting his eyes.

“They’ll keep coming,” he said.

“Yes.”

“What…will you do?”

“Nothing. We all die at the hands of men.”

Geralt felt something strange constrict his chest. “You can go to the Edge of the World.”

“The elves have no love for my kind. We are as dangerous to them as we are to humans. But thank you for the advice.”

Geralt watched you follow the river through the ravine and wondered why he wanted to tell you to stay.

~~

The fourth decade, he was hired yet again—by you. You tracked him for miles, following instructions given to you by a man in the town. No one had been bewitched therein, for you had bound your eyes with cloth, preventing them from being enthralled.

Only as you navigated the unused road did you remove the cloth. After a day of unceasing travel by foot, you approached Geralt’s campsite. Roach whinnied as you drew near, but she did not rear or cry out in alarm. Geralt sprang to his feet.

Having blinded yourself again with the cloth, you stood at the edge of his campsite.

“Witcher,” you called, “I have come for you.”

“Why?”

“I am being pursued.”

“By?”

“A group of armed men. They seek me out especially, not solely because I am a siren, but because I am the siren.”

Looking on your face, he saw weariness and fear lining your features. The tops of your eyebrows were drawn together, indicative of your distress.

“I have no coin,” you told him.

“You have to pay me.”

“I feared as much.” Pulling tight your threadbare coat, you asked, “May I at least share your fire? I have a penny to pay you for some food.”

Geralt hesitated. As much as he wished to help, felt compelled to—a feeling that worried him—he couldn’t help but wonder if it was a trap. A slip of his guard would be all you needed for you to enthrall him and make him do as you wished.

“I will wear the blindfold,” you assured him. “You won’t be afflicted.”

Grunting reluctantly, he tossed you a hank of meat from the spit roasting over the fire. You ate ravenously with less grace than he expected. Only then did he notice how frail you seemed beneath your coat, how few plentiful days you had seen since he last crossed your path.

A surge of feeling coursed through him, one he identified with an urge to protect. Protection wasn’t strictly in his purview, as he was more of an offensive weapon than a defensive one. Yet the urge remained as he watched you warm yourself in front of the fire, eerie with the blindfold covering nearly half your face.

“Have you found your peace?” you asked in the quiet.

“No.”

“A pity. But neither have I.”

“You don’t actually expect to find peace.”

You smiled thinly. “Surely I do. In death.”

Geralt nodded.

“There is a madness in driving men mad,” you said. “I can find no solace among people, and so, living alone in the most terrible of ways—among others—I know what it feels like to be driven mad.”

Geralt watched you as you spoke. The firelight flickered shadows across your beautiful face.

“Few sirens know it themselves. They live free in their youth, reveling in their power. Few make it beyond that. But those that do begin to run, and that marks their end.” You shook your head. “None of us choose this.”

Geralt tried to quell the emotions rising within him. He hadn’t chosen his path either, his life. Destiny had worked hard to bring him here, with all of life’s misery and suffering multiplied tenfold for his status as a witcher. If only the rumors of the elixirs and Grasses were true, that they could make him an emotionless monster.

Instead, he silently suffered beside a land siren who knew suffering intimately.

You disappeared by morning. The band of men pursuing you crossed paths with Geralt a few hours later. Choice words and a rough scuffle sent them back home.

~~

In the fifth decade, Geralt felt drawn to the sea. There was no work there by the ocean, but he drifted there anyway, away from the turmoil of the interior. Two miles away from a fishing port, the beach was unblemished, free of humans.

Only you were there, seated upon a rock at low tide, overlooking the serene waters.

“Witcher,” you called, “have you come for me?”

“I have.”

Geralt mounted the rock beside you, sat down on the rough and slimy surface. You stared out at the horizon, knees held against your chest.

He dutifully avoided your gaze.

“Witcher,” you said, “you shouldn’t fear me.”

He grunted.

“I do not affect your kind.”

Frowning, he glanced up, found himself staring directly into your eyes. They were gorgeous, truly enthralling—but though his heart rate spiked at being exposed to your naked gaze, he felt no different than he had upon arriving at the beach: pained and joyous. He couldn’t believe it.

“See? You are unaffected.”

“I…why didn’t you tell me?”

“What good would it have done? You needed something to fear to still consider me a monster.”

He cleared his throat. “You’re not a monster.”

“Neither are you.”

He wanted to say otherwise, but you were staring at him again. Fighting the feelings in his chest, he reached up and brushed away the hair from your eyes, curling the strands around your ear. The faint gills on your neck revealed themselves.

Leaning forward, he pressed his lips against yours. You kissed him back gently. You tasted salty, much to his surprise.

When he pulled back, he discovered it was because of the tears streaming down your face. He brushed them away, but you shook your head, holding his hand.

“Give me peace,” you whispered, “and return me to the sea. I was never meant for the land.”

Geralt avoided the ocean for five decades after, but the salty taste of your kiss never left him.

[mymegumi]

drifting lights

pairing: kuroo tetsurou x fem!reader

genre: fluff

word count: 2.0k words

warnings: late night drive, sad thoughts, idk, driving and swears

note: another repost from zumis, but anyways giggles i hope you like it bc i wrote a bit more and edited it!!

dedicated: to @tetsustation as an apology for saying i hoped furudate’s least fav char would be kuroo </3 it was a joke /lh

“hey,” kuroo’s words are soft in your ear, volume turned down on your phone to make sure your roommates don’t wake up, “did i wake you?”

“mm,” you’re still groggy from sleep and his voice is a soft timbre against your ear, “s’okay, what’s up?

“can’t a guy just call his girlfriend?”

you hum as you think, turning in bed as you tuck your blanket underneath your chin. across the room, your eyes are blurrily trying to focus on the blinding red letters sitting idly on your analog clock. “not when it’s almost two am, ‘suro.”

“well,” he at least has the decency to sound as apologetic as he can over the phone, “i really did just miss you, wanted to hear your voice.”

it’s only kuroo’s fault when your phone slips from your hands, pillow pressed to your face with your hands as you scream as silently as you can into it. without meaning to, he makes butterflies erupt in your stomach and you try to gather yourself as you bring your phone back up to your ear, hand loosely against your mouth.

“it is way too early for you to be doing this to me,” your scolding is light, and from his faint chuckle, has most likely fallen on deaf ears, “is there anything you want me to do for you?”

there’s a pause and you can hear a little bit of shuffling around from kuroo’s end of the phone before his voice is back, slightly softer than before, “you could come outside.”

“what?”

“you heard me, sweetheart,” you can practically hear the teasing smile that’s on his face as you sit up in your bed, pushing the curtain away from your window to look outside. sure enough, you can recognize the silhouette of your boyfriend faintly illuminated by the streetlight, “come outside.”

“you’re so lucky,” his laughter is cut short as you hang up on him. you climb out of bed and grab a hoodie off of your desk chair, shoving your phone in your pocket as you open your door as quietly as possible.

sneaking downstairs isn’t an issue, and while you shove your shoes on carelessly, you take the quick minute you’re standing still to shove the sweater you had stolen from kuroo over your head. it hangs low, but you’re pulling the heel of your shoes back into their rightful positions as you’re leaving your house.

the door closes with a soft click, and a pair of hands end up resting on your hips as a familiar weight is pressed against the top of your head. it’s not long before kuroo’s arms are wrapped around your waist firmly, and you know you’re not getting out of it until he feels like letting you go, so you lean back into him.

your eyes close as you place your hand over his hands. you keep your voice low as you turn your head to try and get a glance at him, “are you okay?”

the silence itself is enough of an answer for you that you just run your thumb along the ridges of his knuckles. kuroo is one of the best communicators you’d ever dated, and it was always a bad sign if he was being too silent about what was going on inside of his head. you’d learned that unlike many of your friends, kuroo preferred the silence of your presence rather than small talk if he wasn’t feeling his best.

you turn your head backwards at an odd angle to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw as he holds you gently, the only light being the moon over your heads and the warm yellow glow coming from the streetlight a few feet away from your front steps. he’s still quiet when you end up turning in his arms, nose tucked into the warm spot where his pulse rests, steady and loud as you stand on your front step for a few seconds. it reminds you that he’s real and is a tangible reminder of the man you love.

kuroo’s car is parked on the side of the road a little ways away, lights off and engine running as he starts running his hands through your hair. it’s light, right by the outside of your ear and he kisses the crown of your head with soothing touches.

“wanna go on a drive?” his words are barely above a whisper and you can only nod against him, not wanting to move too much before you have. his hands leave your hair as he steps back to look at you.

most of his face is just shadows, the light illuminating the outer edges of his hair but you can still manage to distinguish the handsome lines of his face. despite covering an eye, he’s always had the type of face that you always want to look at and even almost two years into your relationship, that fact still hasn’t changed. when he offers you the smallest of smiles, you can see the exhaustion lining his expression, laced between the adoration he has for you in his eyes.

his hands find their way to your cheeks, cupping carefully as he rubs a finger along the curve of your cheekbone. he leans down to rub your noses together for a second, eyes slipping close and he looks at ease for a brief moment before sealing your lips together.

your hands hang off of his forearms as you press close together, warmth finding you in each other’s embrace. kuroo’s kiss is slow, unhurried, and it steals the sleepiness from you as he turns his head to the side slightly. he tastes like laughter on a summer day, endless nights filled with your hands shoved outside of the sunroof of your too-old-to-be-on-the-road car, and the citrusy tang of clementines and oranges you’d stole from your neighbor.

in the next few minutes the two of you share a few more kisses, each as quick and as dizzying as the one before. as he pulls away, you’re relieved to see some of the stress shed from his expression, eyes bright and awake as he looks back at you. his hand winds with yours as you start the walk to his car, lazily making your way there.

he pulls the door of his car open for you, waiting for you to get in before walking around the front to his own side. when he gets into the car, he double checks to make sure you’re buckled in before he puts his car into drive, pulling out onto your street as he fishes his phone out of his pocket for you.

“any preferences for tonight’s playlist?” unlocking his phone, you’re somewhere on his spotify—scrolling through the amalgamation of absolutely atrocious study playlist names he’d crafted over the years—when he finally settles on something a bit more relaxing than his most recently played playlist.

together, the two of you enjoy the passing scenery as you start to slip into tokyo’s nightscape. the lights are bright and you can’t help but be mesmerized by them as kuroo drives, no end destination in mind, just wanting to enjoy each other’s presence for the moment.

kuroo has always been spontaneous like this for as long as you have been dating. in fact, he had asked you out on a whim, coming off the high of winning a volleyball game in high school. you were in the crowd because he had asked you to come watch him. you wouldn’t get the privilege of wearing his jersey until you became official, but you still decided to represent your school in a borrowed sweater you had stolen from him.

he was sweaty, but his smile was so radiant when he looked up at you leaning over the railing protecting you from falling. he waved with both hands, and you had waved back with matched enthusiasm.

kuroo had ended up yelling up to you, asking you out for the very first time in front of everyone who had come to watch. while you hated the attention, you had nodded hurriedly before making your way down to the court to get enveloped in a big, sweaty kuroo hug.

you distinctly remember kenma thanking you later for saving him from having to hug kuroo that night.

“love,” your hand finds his where it rests near the shifter, “what brought this on?”

your head is leaning against the headrest as he sighs softly, turning his hand over to twine your fingers together in a warm grasp, “i just, i couldn’t stop thinking.”

you make a noise of acknowledgement, knowing that he would know that you were listening, but just letting him take his time to tell you what was going on. while very spontaneous, kuroo wasn’t one for staying up too late, citing that a good night’s sleep was one of the first and best steps you could take for a better education. his dedication was one of the things you admire about him, even if it meant you were missing your boyfriend for a good hour at night

“i’m just worried,” his admission is barely audible over the music playing and the soothing rumble of his car’s engine as you change lanes on the highway, “about everything that’s changing.”

“i know that things have to change,” while he talks, you just watch, the lines of stress crossing over his face almost disappearing in the darkness, “but i don’t want to leave school. i’ve made so many friends and i met you, and i just can’t help but feel scared for what’s going to happen when we don’t have it anymore.”

you tighten your grip where your hands rest as you smile at him, despite the fact he’s focusing on the road, “‘suro, you know how you made a lot of good friends in school?”

he nods ever so slightly, voice cracking just slightly as he answers, “yeah.”

“just think about all the friends you’re going to make when you go into the real world,” you’re worrying your thumb over the back of his hand, “you’re very charismatic, and you’re good with other people, smart, too. you’re not lacking in great qualities, and people will recognize that.”

“not to mention,” you’ve adjusted yourself in your seat, tucking a leg underneath yourself so that you can face him more directly, “kenma, yaku, nobuyuki, and myself will always answer when you call or text. you’ll be away from home, but we’ll all be available for you, ‘suro.”

“we’re leaving school,” you start, eyes tracing the skyline of the city as you feel a small smile spread across your lips, “but life won’t end, and our friends won’t stop being our friends, and i’ll never stop being yours.”

you’re pulling up to a stoplight when he turns to look at you, side of his face bright red from the light as he gives you an easy going smile. you press the palm of your free hand to his cheek, and his eyes close, savoring the moment. he pulls your joined hands together to kiss your knuckles, featherlight before pulling away to lean across his center console.

“i love you,” his words are a mumble against your lips as you enjoy the quiet moment.

it’s almost three am, now, so when the light turns green, the pair of you are unconcerned as kuroo doesn’t press his foot against the gas, instead just content to be with each other. the changing colors of the stoplight is a backdrop to the press of his lips, a hand curling into his hair as he pulls you closer to him over the center console.it digs into your side a bit, and the seatbelt presses into your chest at an uncomfortable angle, but it’s all very you and kuroo so you don’t mind it.

kuroo’s worries won’t disappear overnight, and you know that you can only begin to soothe the deep seeded insecurities he holds. you’ll be content as long as he knows you’ll always be there to drive with him and watch the sunrise together, your fingers laced with his.

[calif0rnia-lovers]

Lover of Mine #5 | Angel Reyes

part I | part II | part II | part IV | series taglist

Title: A Heavy Heart to Carry

Thought that I would change, but I'm the same guy Blamed it on my youth, but I know I've had time

a/n: split this original part into 2. the second half of the couple's retreat will be in 5.5

warning: a character experiences a panic attack

rating: 💔

Sum: Angel Reyes doesn't fear much, but he's scared to face you once it's set in that he's broken your cardinal rule. He must decide what's more important: maintaining a lie or sharing a secret that will change the way you look at him forever.

Words: 9.4k

“Take him home, Ezekiel. Now. I’m serious. I am going to fucking kill him if he tries to stay here tonight. And then, I’m going to kill you for letting him.”

These are the words that stopped Angel Reyes in his tracks. Left him standing on the front steps, afraid to move past the threshold of the front door to his own house.

When he pulled into the driveway, exhausted covered in a mixture of dirt, sweat and blood, Angel was met with a sight that somehow managed to wring the knots in his stomach tighter.

The light from the living room cast a golden hue across the dark lawn.

He knew the odds of you being asleep upon his arrival were slim to none. You haven’t waited up for him in years. There’s no need to wait up when you know his whereabouts.

At some point in the evening, the attempts of communication stopped. Angel isn’t sure why, but he knows it isn’t a good sign.

He’d pushed against Ez’s shoulder prompting him to step up to ring the doorbell.

“Y/N, I’m sorry.” Ez had shocked his older brother, stepping into the war zone to calmly produce some sort of explanation. “We had to go down south, and shit got--we lost track of time. By the time we got finished, we--”

“Now that I know that neither of you is lying dead in a ditch somewhere, you can leave.” Despite your words, Ez didn’t move. He glanced over his shoulder towards Angel. “Or stay outside, I don't care, but he's not stepping foot in my house. Tell him I said test me.”

Needless to say, he didn’t.

Angel heeded the warning allowing his brother to drive him home. He didn’t bother calling you.

What’s the point of calling to apologize when you’ve just spent half the night ignoring the calls from the same person?

Hours have passed, and Angel hasn’t slept.

Although he’s now freshly showered, the cut on his hand poorly wrapped, Angel Reyes finds himself in the same predicament. Outside of your house.

Scared shitless.

Only this time around, Ez isn’t willing to risk his life for the sake of being collateral damage.

Both men remain in the driveway, eyes on the sunflower yellow-painted door of 1101 Rock Creek Avenue. Each is resting against the hood of Angel’s car. Waiting, silently willing the other to bravely ring the doorbell.

Angel releases the smoke in his lungs before reaching up to remove his sunglasses.

“You gotta go in at some point,” Ez glances over at his brother.

Angel doesn’t respond. He drops his cigarette bud to the ground, stepping on it with the heel of his shoe.

“Especially since we’ve been out here nearly an hour,” Ez continues, a tiny smile finding his lips as the sight of Angel’s rolling eyes. “Neighbors are probably gonna put in a call--”

“I’m checking the windows,” Angel responds. The humor in his voice falls flat as his eyes search the front of the house. “Gotta make sure she doesn’t shoot me the moment I touch the driveway.”

“Shouldn’t have taught her how to shoot.”

The daggered stare sent his way causes the youngest Reyes to chuckle. Shaking his head, Ez takes a step forward.

“Angel. It doesn’t matter if you go in now or later.” He sighs. “If Y/N's gonna shoot you, she's gonna shoot you-- regardless of the time.”

“Yeah.”

Getting up, Angel crosses the lawn to the front door. Although he now has a key, he reaches forward to ring the doorbell. For a brief second, he considers turning around and heading back to his car.

His stomach tightens as the door swings open. He lets out a sigh of relief when he’s met with the sight of a smiling Isabela.

Her smile slips, her eyes narrowing as she stepped outside. She waits until the door is shut securely behind her to speak.

“What the fuck, Reyes!” She shoves hard against Angel’s shoulder, not blinking as he stumbles a step back. Angel massages his shoulder as she lowers her voice. “I orchestrated the perfect week for you two. All you had to do was show up with a packed bag, and you somehow managed to fuck everything up. Where the hell were you last night?”

Although he’s had all night to come up with an excuse, no coherent words come out when Angel opens his mouth. Isabela’s eyes roll, her attention shifting to a quiet Ezekiel standing just beyond his brother’s shoulder.

“And you. I thought you were the smart one.”

Ez looks away from a flushed Angel to find Isabela’s glare on him. He opens his mouth to respond, but suddenly Angel’s inability to speak has washed over the youngest Reyes.

“You didn’t think it was smart to drag him home in time for his son's recital?”

Angel’s voice has returned. It comes out lower than he’s intended. His eyes briefly shift to the front door.

“She’s--”

“Pissed.” Isabela sighs as she turns to the door. “I’d thank Bishop next time you see him. He talked her down last night.”

Isabela pauses just as Angel steps forward to follow her inside.

“Angel, she lied to Jeyson for you,” she says. “You need to talk to him.”

“I know.”

“Hey, lego master,” Isabela smiles as she steps back inside. “Someone’s here to see you.”

Jeyson is on his stomach, lying in the center of the living room floor. Chin resting in his hands, he is studying the progress he’s made on his lego set.

A grin brightens his face as Angel steps inside. He scrambles to his feet, pulling a chuckle from his father as he nearly crashes into his legs.

“Hey, lil man. You good?”

Allowing him a quick hug, Jeyson takes Angel’s hand in his. He tugs him towards the living room. He motions towards the legos on the floor.

“I finished all the escape pods! Now, you can help me with the left-wing--”

“Hold up,” Angel diverts Jeyson’s attention, lifting him off the ground, forcing him to silence. “I wanna talk to you about something--”

“Last night?” His question silence his father. Jeyson reaches forward, his fingers tracing the patch on Angel’s chest. “Mom talked to me already.”

“Yeah, I know, but I wanted to apologize. To say I’m sorry for not being there to see you play.”

“It’s okay.” The smile he offers tightens Angel’s throat. It is a smile that matches his words perfectly. A smile of forgiveness often comes when a child is willing to look past moments of a letdown if that means they can still spend time with that person.

“It’s not okay,” Angel admits. He watches as Jeyson’s gaze lifts to meet his before dropping to patch. “I broke a promise, and I’m not supposed to do that. I’m sorry.”

Jeyson studies his father’s expression. A smile slowly spreads across his face as an idea sets in.

“I can play it for you now.” He suggests, his attention moving to the piano across the room.

That’s where you find the two when you step into the living room.

Jeyson has finished playing and is giggling as he watches Angel try to match the series of keys he just showed him.

“What’s so funny?” Angel’s brow arches as Jeyson attempts to stifle his laughter. “I think it sounded pretty good.”

Jeyson shakes his head.

“You weren’t paying attention.” Reaching over, he moves Angel’s hand into the correct placement. “Your fingers aren’t in the right place.”

Angel’s gaze falls to his hands. To him, they seem to be in nearly the exact same spot. But he knows better than to argue with your son. He watches Jeyson’s fingers, trying to match the same tune. Only he can’t, the smile on his face growing once he realizes the tempo has changed. Jeyson plays at a cadence that seems hyper speed to his father but is nothing out of the normal for him.

“It’s not nice to show off,” Angel chuckles as he tickles Jeyson’s side.

Angel glances over his shoulder, his smile dampening as he finds you waiting patiently by the door. Jeyson’s smile does the same, his eyes widening once your conversation from last night sets in.

“You’re leaving?”

“Yes,” you nod, watching as he gets up, his head hanging forward as he crosses the room. “Remember we talked about this last night?”

Jeyson waits until he’s standing before you to speak. With his arms wrapped around your middle, face pressing against your shirt, his words come out muffled.

“But, I want to come with you.”

“I know, but you have to stay and keep Isabela company. You guys are going to the carnival tomorrow. You're going to have so much fun.” Your fingers brush through his hair, a smile finding your lips as Jeyson tips his head back to look at you. “Besides, I won’t be gone long.”

“Five days is a long time,” Jeyson pouts. “You’re never gone that long.”

He’s right. The longest you and Jeyson have been apart being two days. For the weekends when he would spend the majority of his time at his father’s house.

“You can call me whenever you want,” you remind him as you squat down in front of him. “And then, I’ll be back before you know it.”

Tommy Flores currently stands at the front of the line. The weight of the metal door causes it to slam shut with a loud bang.

The echo vibrates through his chest, the force doubling him over. The dialed-up pitch brings Tommy’s hands to his ears.

He’s stopped in his tracks. His silent plea, to stop the ringing in his ears, sparks a slew of grunted protests from the inmates behind him.

Officer Rogers stands near Tommy, his shoulder resting against the wall. Each time an inmate is escorted through the secured door, the guard slams it shut with as much force as he can. He watched as Tommy flinched each time, the sound louder with each step he got closer. Now that Tommy stands directly in front of it, the sound is too loud.

Rogers steps forward, his lips turning up into a sneer.

"You alright there, Flores?" The lack of concern in his voice is amplified by the soft chuckle he releases. "You look like shit. Rough night?"

It's a question, Rogers knows the answer to. Better than anyone--well almost anyone.

He was the one who woke Tommy, in the middle of the night, the glare of his flashlight blinding the inmate. He yanked Tommy from bed, hand-delivering him to the showers. He stood guard, watching as Tommy took each blow and kick sent his way. He hand-delivered Tommy back to his cell, denying his trip to the infirmary.

Rogers would never admit it, but he was initially shocked when saw Tommy shuffle into the visitation line. He knew Tommy had a scheduled visit but didn't expect him to have the strength to bother trying to attend it.

"Your girlfriend coming today?" Rogers continues as he watches Tommy's fist clench. "Must be. That's the only reason I could think you'd get up this morning. Maybe I should let your friends give you another round tonight. How's that sound?"

Tommy's body is bumped forward—a silent warning from his cellmate to move. The shove to his shoulder clenches his jaw shut. But Tommy knows better than to hold up the line any longer than he already has.

Each step he takes is slow, sending a jolt of searing, white-hot pain down his spine.

The swelling of his right eye limits his vision, but he’s able to recognize a familiar face in the crowded room.

Each grey table is occupied by anxiously waiting loved ones. Tired from the extensive process of being cleared for visitation day. Hopeful their time won’t get cut short due to the delay of the inmate's arrival.

As he’s shuffled forward, Tommy’s gaze is fixated on his feet. It’s easier to ignore the look of pure rage directed his way.

“Stop staring.” The smile on Tommy’s lips is a good attempt. No matter how much he wills it, it can’t reach his eyes. “I’m fine.”

Leonardo Flores's gaze slowly studies the man before him. He knows his younger brother better than anyone. The blue Stockton uniform covers most of the damage but judging by Tommy’s walk and shallow breathing, he’s nursing a broken rib.

Leo doesn’t speak until Tommy’s gaze lifts. “I’d ask how you’re holding up, but it seems you’re still getting settled.”

His observation prompts his brother to shrug. Tommy winces as he shifts to bring his hands to rest on the table.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Tommy smiles.

“I thought this lawyer you got was supposed to be good—"

“She is.” Tommy’s sigh goes unnoticed. “She's good.”

“If she’s so good, why the fuck are you in gen pop?” His brother’s eyes roll, Leo’s head shaking once he gets no response. “Huh? She doesn’t seem too concerned about doing her job. If she was you wouldn’t have been nearly beaten to a pulp—"

Leo’s rant slowly fades out, blending into the surrounding conversations. It takes all of his concentration for Tommy to drown out the sound. Tommy’s eyes are shut, his left hand massaging his brow. The throbbing in his head seems to be getting worse. He flinches as Leo’s boot scrapes his shin.

“I don’t know what the fuck you want me to say, Leo.” Tommy laughs dryly, the throbbing in his head pumping irritation into his voice. “She could pay off the entire fucking city of Santo Padre, it’s not gonna mean shit.”

His eyes open to see Leo’s jaw clenched. He presses on as Leo opens his mouth to speak.

“They put me here because they’re hoping I don’t make it to trial.”

“Judging by how you look, you won’t.”

Tommy shakes his head, dismissing the observation.

“I’m fine. I need you to do something for me.”

An uneasy wave washes over him at the sight of Leo’s rolling eyes.

“What?” Leo chuckles, his arms crossing over his chest. “Your brothers can’t help you?”

“I don’t trust the club with this,” Tommy admits.

No matter the amount of truth behind his statement, Leo’s expression doesn’t change.

Probably because Leo knows the truth. With the number of years he’s facing, Tommy will soon be forgotten by his fellow Horsemen. You’re only worth remembering if you’re valuable to the M.C. Tommy’s not valuable rotting in Stockton. It doesn’t matter if the charges he’s acquired were at the expense of the club.

“Leo—"

Leo’s sigh drowns out the plea in Tommy’s voice.

“What is it this time, Tommy?”

Tommy doesn’t miss a beat. His voice drops, his eyes briefly passing to the guard nearby.

Angel forgot what it’s like to be on the receiving end of your silent treatment. It’s brutal. Probably because you stick to it, religiously. The silence isn’t the worst part. He knows you’ll have to talk to him—eventually. He also knows that once you do, the words you’ve prepared will cut him to the bone.

When it comes to arguments, Angel operates on pure emotion—always ready to fight a war. He says the first thing that comes to mind, often trying to hurt whoever he’s arguing with before they can hurt him. He wishes you were the same.

You have an incredible ability to walk away from an argument on a whim. He can count on his left hand the number of times you’ve raised your voice at him. In all the time he’s known you.

You don’t see the purpose in having a screaming match. It never gets you anywhere. One of you has to operate on the side of logic. Angel has learned that once you’ve had the chance to get your thoughts together he’s in for a world of trouble.

He’d foolishly tried to get the conversation going the moment you both got in the car, but you beat him to the punch.

“I’m not talking to you right now.”

The declaration had come out just as Angel opened his mouth to speak. It also made him close his mouth, his brow furrowing.

“We’re about to drive for four and a half hours, Y/N,” he sighed, his eyes rolling as he sticks the key in the ignition. “You’re really not gonna say anything to me the entire ride there?”

He waits for you to respond, his eyes dropping to the bouncing of your knee.

“And then what? You’re not going to go speak to me at the hotel? What sense does that ma--”

“Trust me, Angel. You do not want me to say what’s on my mind right now.”

Angel’s not certain if it’s the admission itself, or the look in your eyes, but he silently redirects his attention to starting the car.

The four-and-a-half-hour car ride ironically turns into a six-hour trip of stop-and-go traffic. Six hours of Angel left to fiddle through the various radio stations while you silently scroll through your iPad.

At the three-hour mark, your voice breaks the silence, peaking Angel’s hopes. At this point, he’s willing to take you yelling at him if that means you’ll eventually talk again.

He glances away from the bumper-to-bumper traffic to find you holding up your iPad. The screen facing him, you ask. “Have you seen this before?”

He leans over the console for a better look at the image on the screen. His stomach drops as he takes in the jet-black stallion, his mouth going dry as his gaze passes over the red eyes.

“Thinking about getting some new ink?” He jokes his throat clearing as your eyes roll.

“Nevermind.”

Redirecting your attention back to your iPad, you don’t catch the nervous glance Angel sends your way. A few minutes of silence pass before he glances back in your direction.

“What’s it for? The uh--tattoo.”

“Work.”

That’s all he’s able to get out of you. Even after you arrived at the hotel, where you discover that Isabela has booked the two of you for the hotel’s honeymoon suite. Which comes with a complimentary package that Angel is almost certain you won’t partake in. He gets nothing out of you when you are both informed that your introductory session with the couple therapist on sight is in less than an hour after your late arrival.

The counselor, Dr. Mallory, currently sits across from the two of you. The smile on her face remains in place, even as she watches you put as much distance as possible between you and Angel. The task is nearly impossible with the small sofa she’s sat you both on.

Angel's eyes roll to the ceiling before he lets out a deep breath.

Dr. Mallory’s question breaks the silence.

“How long have you two been married?”

Angel’s eyes shift to you. He answers as your gaze remains focused on the pillow in your lap. “We’re not.”

“Divorced?”

“Seven years.” A dry laugh escapes his lips as he softly shakes his head. “To do the date...actually.”

“Oh, I see.” Dr. Mallory’s smile widens as her gaze passes between the two of you. “You’ve decided to join our retreat, as a means of reconnecting. Hoping to bring back, and foster, that love that brought your two beautiful souls together all those years ago.”

“Uh...yeah.” Angel nods slowly as Dr. Mallory’s hand shifts to rest over her heart.

Her eyes close, her smile softening as she lets out a sigh.

“Love is such a beautiful thing,” her eyes open as she continues. “And I am so happy to see the two of you are willing to give it another try. But, more so, I am honored that you have elected me to help guide you through this journey.”

“What exactly does this ‘journey’ entail? We’re not about to go sit in the desert and sing kumbaya or some sh--”

The elbow that digs into Angel’s side swallows the rest of his sentence. He glances over at you.

“It’s a serious question,” he coughs. “I didn’t realize we signed up for some journey that has to do with...souls traveling together…”

Dr. Mallory’s eyes had brightened at Angel’s question. Angel’s words trail off as he realizes Dr. Mallory is no longer seated. She is not standing directly in front of both of you. Holding two orange sheets of paper.

“I have accumulated a list of activities that will allow the two of you to get in touch with your inner selves this week.” She beams, not noticing the uneasy look that washes over Angel’s face as she continues. “One cannot love their partner wholeheartedly until they truly love themselves.”

Angel’s eyes quickly scan the list, realizing that it's more than a list of suggestions. It's a checklist.

“This week, the two of you will work on opening the airs of communication,” Dr. Mallory continues, motioning between the two of you. “Which I can sense are bogged down at the moment, by anger and mistrust. We want to take the time to open them back up--”

“No offense, Doc, but this isn’t going to work.”

“Mr. Reyes, I ask that you don’t speak that way this week. Everything that you put into your relationship can work.”

“It’ll be hard to work on our…” It takes all Angel has not to roll his eyes. “...airs of communication when she’s not even speaking to me.”

Dr. Mallory returns to her seat, her attention focusing on you.

“Angel is right. Ms. Reyes, care to share what’s on your mind with him? He seems eager to listen.”

Angel watches silently as you keep your gaze on the sheet of paper before you.

“Last night was the first night that I have wanted to kill you. And I mean it in the most literal sense, Angel.”

Angel’s throat tightens, his gaze dropping to his hands.

“You’ve done a lot of shit, Angel. But last night you didn’t see your son’s face when he realized that you were not showing up. You promised that you would never do that again.”

Angel attempts to swallow the lump in his throat. He shifts in his seat, his gaze briefly looking towards you.

“I know.”

“I had to get a call from the school telling me that you decided not to pick our son up. You could have picked up the phone, and called me.” The calmness in your voice does nothing to ease the knots in Angel’s stomach. “Since you’ve forgotten, Angel. You don’t get the courtesy of falling off the face of the earth. Club business, or not. You have a son.”

Angel doesn’t offer up a response. Primarily because he knows what’s coming next.

“What could possibly have happened that you disappeared off the face of the earth last night--and don’t say club business. Bishop is not that great of a liar.”

Angel swallows, his eyes briefly drifting across the room to where Dr. Mallory sits.

He can feel your expectant gaze on him, but he can’t bring himself to look at you.

He can also feel it rising in his throat. Words he hadn’t planned on telling you. His eyes drift shut as he sighs.

“I uh...I followed Samuel to this bar downtown.” A silence falls over the room. Angel looks up from his hands, watching as your eyes widen. “Aiden, he told me what he did to you--and I just wanted to talk to him.”

“And that’s all you did?” The look of skepticism sent his way causes Angel’s jaw to tighten.

“Yeah. I told him to leave you alone.”

Dr. Mallory interrupts the silence, her curiosity getting the better of her. “Samuel? Who is he?”

“Nobody.”

Angel’s eyes roll. “He’s her boss.”

“I went on a few dates with him,” you sigh. Your fingers massage your temple.

You already know where this conversation is going.

A smile finds Dr. Mallory’s face as she watches Angel shake his head.

“No, this is great.” An encouraging smile finds her face. “You see, you two are already past the most difficult part. Starting the conversation. Angel, tell Y/N how you feel about this situation involving Samuel.”

“You shouldn't have dated other people.”

Your brow furrows as his statement sinks in. “Did you miss the part where we got divorced?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then what are you saying? Do you know how many women I had to hear that you slept with? Half of the time from you!” The sight of Angel’s rolling eyes is enough to make you shift in your seat. Turning to face him, you watch his jaw clench. “So you can fuck anyone you want, but it’s a problem when I go out on a date with someone?”

“Yeah.”

You blink, a humorless laugh escaping your lips. Clearly, you’ve heard him wrong.

“Do you know how hard it is watching you fall in love with someone else?”

“Oh my goodness!” Your voice comes out muffled against the palms of your hands. “What is it with you and Samuel putting more stock in this situation than it deserves? I wasn’t falling in love with him, Angel--”

“But that’s what you were looking for?” He cuts you off, the raising of his voice causing your hands to drop. “Why else do people date? Yeah, I slept around, but you never had to worry about me trying to replace you with someone else. For years, I’ve had to watch you go through relationships, bringing other men around my son like you were auditioning them for the role of his father--”

“You know I wouldn’t do that--”

“Yeah, well, we all do things we don’t think we’re capable of.”

“Well, Dr. Mallory. Congratulations. You have just witnessed the one thing Angel Reyes is always capable of doing.” You shove the pillow in your lap towards Angel. “Trying to make me feel guilty for something that he’s done. This time, I’m not apologizing to you for anything. And I’m not saying 'thank you' if that’s what this whole woe is me act is about. I didn’t ask you to go see Samuel. Just like I didn’t ask you to sit here and lie to my face.”

“I’m not lying to you--”

“You may have gone to see Samuel, but that’s not where you were last night. I know you, Angel. You didn’t skip out on our son for Samuel.” It’s an observation that gets the response you’re looking for. It’s a look that lasts for only a brief second. A look in Angel's eyes that tells you that you’re right. It disappears as quickly as it had come. “And until you’re willing to stop lying to me, I’m not staying here.”

Angel’s jaw sets. “Since we’re talking about capabilities, her specialty is walking out. She walked out on me seven years ago, and she’s doing it now.”

“Maybe this time, you'll actually stop and ask yourself why,” you mumble as you step over his feet.

Ez is sitting on the living room sofa. He’s not in the most comfortable position but hasn’t been able to move for the last hour. He’s drinking a beer, his eyes on the television playing quietly across the room.

He’s not even sure what show he’s watching. A series Isabela had roped him into. The room is pitch dark--apart from the glow of the screen--the house quiet. Jeyson has been asleep since his 9 pm bedtime.

Despite her need to catch up on her favorite tv show, Isabela is also asleep. With her head resting against Ez’s shoulder, her body curled up against his, Isabela has been asleep for the last hour. If asked, she’ll blame it on Ez. The second he allowed her to share the blanket with him, his body heat acted as a furnace. One that pulled her right to sleep.

Ez is currently debating on the best way to transfer her from the living to the bed when his phone lights up.

He knows who is calling before he checks the caller I.D.

Angel has been texting Ez non-stop.

Angel’s voice comes out low through the receiver. “If I don’t call you back tomorrow it’s because she’s stabbed me in my sleep.”

“You better take the couch tonight then.” Ez brow furrows, wincing as he double-checks the time on his brightly lit screen. “Why are you whispering?”

“I’m in the bathroom.” Angel quickly dismisses his brother’s question. “Listen, it wouldn’t make a difference. Trust me. She hasn’t been talking to me--except for when she ripped me a new one in therapy today--”

“Therapy...hope you tipped the doc.” Ez chuckles. “Having a witness might have saved your life.”

“...she knows about Samuel.”

Ez releases a sigh, his hand running down his face. “I told you it was a bad idea.”

“I had to tell her,” Angel mumbles. “It's not like I could tell her about last night. I figured…”

“Give her something else to be mad about?” Ez shakes his head, sparing his brother the laugh. “Angel--”

“I’m working on it.” Angel’s side goes quiet for a moment. His admission is an admission of truth. He has been thinking about it for the last twenty-four hours. “I'm gonna tell her, I just need the right moment...besides, don’t rush me. She’s gonna be mad at you too when she finds out you helped.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how I always end up in your shit.”

“That’s what brothers are for,” Angel chuckles. “Remember what I said. If I don’t answer tomorrow--”

“Bye, Angel.”

Hanging up, Ez pushes his phone aside.

He carefully lifts the blanket covering him and Isabela. He successfully carries her down the hallway to the bedroom and has finished tucking her in when she stirs.

She watches as he removes one of the extra pillows from the bed before taking a step towards the door.

“I know it might be extremely difficult for you to stay on your side of the bed,” she yawns, rubbing at her eyes. “But I’m willing to share it with you, as long as you let me take the left.”

A smile spreads across Ez’s face as he watches her pat space next to her. He lifts the pillow in his hand. “Bed’s all yours tonight. I’m gonna take the couch.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he chuckles. “I’ve slept in worse places.”

“Okay,” Isabela’s eyes are already drifting shut as she yawns. “Well, just know the offer still stands if you change your mind.”

“Besides, I gotta at least take you out on a date before we start fighting over sides of the bed.”

“Give me the time and place, and I'll be there,” she giggles, her face nuzzling against her pillow. “Just know I’m a tough negotiator.”

Since when has knocking become so difficult?

It is the question you ask yourself as you stand outside the bathroom door. You quickly knock before you can change your mind.

“Yeah?”

“Um--are you decent?”

Your eyes grip shut as you let your own words sink in.

Are you decent?

The bathroom door opens to reveal a freshly showered Angel. He stands on one side of the double sink. His phone is in one hand, a towel in the other. He wears just a pair of briefs, his hair still dripping from the shower.

“What are you doing? You’ve been in here forever.”

“I've been done for a minute,” he responds, his eyes glued to his iPhone. “Didn’t know you were waiting on me.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t go to sleep until I brush my teeth.”

“You could’ve just come in.”

“You were taking a shower.” Your response is automatic.

It is also the same thing that has kept you waiting patiently on the bed for the past thirty minutes.

“You’ve seen me naked before, querida.”

He glances away from his phone to find you still hovering in the doorway. Toothbrush in hand. Your weight shifts as his eyes linger on the black satin sleepshirt you wear. His gaze returns to his phone once he realizes he’s still staring.

“You can enter since apparently, you need the invitation,” he responds, a smile finding his lips. He doesn’t need to see your face to know your eyes are rolling.

Angel may be silent as you start your nighttime skin routine, but he’s panicking inside. Panicking might not be the right word. Paranoia has begun to set in.

From the moment he and Ez made it stateside Friday night, the realization of his actions began to set in. The realization that he has somehow managed to tie himself to Tommy Flores for the second time. The note he'd shoved into his pocket was now in the trash back in Santo Padre. The message, however, was seared in his mind.

Always get insurance.

You were right to ask what Angel has been doing for the last thirty minutes. He’s been searching for information on Tommy. From the moment he started the search, Angel realized this was a terrible mistake.

Now that you’re standing next to him, the cut on his hand seems to throb. He glances down at the bandage. It’s bled through and needs to be removed.

You’re brushing your teeth when you glance up to the mirror before you. You pause, watching Angel's reflection as he studies his right hand. Strangely, it’s the first time you’ve noticed the bandage.

You wait until you’ve rinsed your mouth to face him.

“What happened to your hand?”

Instinctively, Angel moves his hand out of sight. He drops it to his side.

“Nothing,” he responds, suddenly focused on toweling his damp hair.

“It was bleeding?” You reach around him, ignoring his silent protest.

Angel knows there’s no point in fighting you on it. He turns to face you, allowing you to get a better look at his hand. Unwrapping it, you feel him flinch as the cool air hits the open cut. He drops the towel to the floor, resting back against the sink as your brow furrows.

“Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

Before he can respond, you’re already out of sight.

Angel stays where he is, waiting patiently for over five minutes. His brow rises when you return, a black bag in your hand. It is one he’s known you to carry for as long as he can remember. He always teases you for carrying the first aid kit, but always seems to need you to use it on him.

A tiny smile finds his lips as he watches you sit the bag on the sink. “You packed this in your suitcase.”

“No,” your eyes roll as you reach forward to cut on the water. “I keep it in the trunk. Let me see your hand.”

Offering it, Angel watches your expressions as you take the time to study the cut. Whatever questions are on your mind, you don’t share them with him. You don’t say anything else. You silently clean and wrap the cut.

“Thanks.”

The kiss he presses against your cheek halts the washing of your hands. He doesn’t linger to leave a second. He picks up his phone before leaving you alone.

When Angel wakes, he finds you quietly moving around the suite. Cell Phone in hand, one shoe in the other.

“You’re leaving me?”

His question causes you to jump.

“Yeah,” You release a sigh as you turn to find him watching you from his makeshift bed. “I was hoping you’d sleep through my getaway.”

Sitting up, Angel glances over as you take a seat alongside him. He silently watches as you slip on your shoe, his eyes passing over your leggings and sports bra.

“Where are you going?”

“Yoga. Figured you wouldn’t want to come. It’s not really your thing.”

“Yeah, but it’s a couples class…”

He doesn’t add anything to his previous statement. Instead, he stands.

“So, you’re coming?” You ask, watching as he pauses to stretch.

“Yeah, it’s just yoga.” He yawns. "Besides, Dr. Mallory said we gotta do things to nurture our souls."

You’re not sure if Angel tagged along to make a point or because he honestly thought it would be easy.

At the moment, you’re concentrating on keeping your breathing controlled and steady. Your eyes are closed, the only blinders you have for the man on the mat alongside yours.

Although you can no longer see him, you know Angel is in the same state as before.

Struggling.

The hushed “shit” he releases, as he wobbles, brings a tiny smile to your lips.

Angel’s eyes shift from the instructor, who is slowly making her way around the room, towards you. He readjusts his posture, trying his best to mirror your stance. But it seems no matter what he does, it doesn’t look like yours.

He wipes at the sweat on his brow. “I thought we were starting with the easy stuff.”

“This is a beginner’s pose,” you note. Your eyes open, a giggle escaping your lips once you take in the look of skepticism on his face.

“You sure?” Angel watches as you effortlessly move into the next pose. He releases a huff, his neck rolling before he tries to follow your lead. “Seems like you signed us up for the advanced class. Just so you could torture me.”

“I didn’t even know you were coming.”

Angel knows your statement is one of pure truth, but that doesn’t stop him from chuckling, “feels like a setup.”

“You know you can always do the modifications,” you nod towards the front of the room. “It’s easier.”

Angel follows your gaze to where an elderly couple is demonstrating the modified version of the pose.

“Easier?” Angel scoffs. “I don’t need easier, I’m doing pretty good--”

He speaks too soon. His weight tips forward, the sight causing your concentration to break. Before he can fall, you catch his left hand pulling him upright.

Angel blinks. His widened eyes move to meet your gaze. A sheepish grin finds his lips as your grip remains tight around his hand.

You eye his less than steady stance. “Are you okay?”

Angel nods. The grin on his face begins to morph. The sight of his smirk causes you to drop his hand.

“Shit, for a second, I thought you were mad enough to let me faceplant.”

“Shut up,” your eyes roll as you redirect your attention back to the instructor. “I just have good reflexes.”

Halfway through the class, Angel gives up trying to follow along. He spends the remainder of class distracting you. When he’s successful in making you smile, he complies with your request “Angel, please focus. You’re going to get us kicked out.”

He settles back into participating. He sticks solely to the modifications. When the class ends, he manages a few steps before collapsing on your mat.

He rests his head on your lap, preventing you from standing. His eyes drift shut as he lets out a deep breath.

“Angel, get up.”

“I can’t,” he sighs. His right-hand rests over his heart, the dramatic change in his breathing causing you to shake your head. “I can’t feel my legs.”

Your eyes roll as he remains where he is. Head resting against your lap, eyes closed, a tiny smile on his lips. It grows into a familiar grin as the warmth of your fingers brushes against his skin.

Your touch lightly brushes through his hair. You watch his eyes open to meet yours.

“I thought yoga was supposed to be relaxing,” he chuckles.

“I’m relaxed,” you smile, your touch drifting to his jaw. “You’re not relaxed.”

“Now I am. It’s what you owe me, after that hour of torture.”

“You get an A for trying.”

He smiles falters as he watches you let out a deep breath. The smile on your face is gone, the sight letting him know his plan hasn't worked.

"Can you get up now?" You ask as your eyes follow the couples filing out.

A red 1964 Chevy Impala turns onto Rock Creek Avenue for the second time this Sunday morning. Windows rolled down, music playing low, it comes to a stop alongside the light blue fire hydrant marking the end of the street. Although its idling engine has been cut, the gear shift in park, its driver remains inside.

Dressed in a worn leather jacket, too hot for the already humid morning air, Leo releases the smoke in his lungs. He had committed the address to memory when Tommy had whispered it to him the morning before.

He stops to double-check the home’s number as he returns his cigarette to his lips.

1101 Rock Creek Avenue.

The house itself is nothing special. Apart from the sunflower yellow-painted door, it is nearly identical to the other single-story homes which line the street. A street that is strangely quiet for the hour.

The impala’s dash clock reads 11:35.

Leo leans across the console tugging the latch from the glovebox. Shifting the Ruger, which lays inside, he retrieves the folded newspaper. He pauses long enough to close the glovebox before settling back against his seat.

He stays that way, finishing off his slowly dwindling cigarette, scribbling on the paper in his hand.

The Saturday edition of the Daily Imperial Gazette has a newly noted license plate number written in its top-left corner. The crossword puzzle for the day, ninety percent complete.

Focused on the black and white squares before him, Leo lets out a breath.

An eleven-letter word for satisfaction?

“...vindication…” he mumbles, scribbling the answer into the boxes. His gaze shifts to the watch on his wrist.

12:01.

A shift in his peripheral causes Leo to direct his attention elsewhere.

The sunflower yellow door opens, a woman stepping out. She has a black BB-8 backpack slung over her left shoulder, the eye of the orange and white droid catching a glint of sunlight. Her long dark curls are pulled into a high ponytail. She wears a purple tie-dye sundress and white platform sneakers. She turns back to the door, smiling at the man who steps out after her.

Although Leo has never met Angel, he knows this is not him. The prospect patch stitched across the back of Ez’s kutte, the indicator he needs.

“I can’t wait to see you have some actual fun,” Isabela giggles as Ez stops before her.

Ez’s brow furrows, the corner of his lips turning up slightly, as he meets her playful gaze.

“You make it sound like I’m boring.”

“Uh-uh, don’t put that on me. I did not say boring, you did.” Isabela’s nose scrunches in concentration. Her smile widens as she settles on a more fitting word to describe the man before her. “You’re always so...serious.”

“Serious…” Ez echoes. He watches as Isabela bites her lip, suddenly wondering if her word choice was taken on the offense. As she opens her mouth to add an explanation, Ez shrugs. “I’ve been called worse.”

“I’m just saying, I think I’ve seen you crack a smile maybe once since you’ve been here,” Isabela adds. “You don’t laugh at any of my jokes--”

“Maybe they’re not funny.” Ez glances up from the sunglasses in his hands. He watches Isabela’s hand find her chest, her mouth falling open in disbelief. “Besides, I didn't realize you were trying to impress me.”

For once, in their time together, Ez is able to render Isabela speechless. The smile that brightens his features, causes Isabela’s eyes to roll as she steps around him.

“Wait, can we go back a second? Did Ezekiel Reyes actually crack a joke?”

“I do it from time to time.”

“Well, you should do it more often because you have a cute smile, Zeke,” she teases. “Can’t blame a girl from wanting to see it more often.”

Ez fails at stopping the smile on his lips from morphing into a grin as he slips his sunglasses over his eyes.

Isabela takes a step back inside. “Jeyson Iván Reyes! Let’s go!”

With Isabela no longer before him, Ez’s gaze passes over the street coming to a stop on the red Chevy Impala. Aside from being illegally parked, the car would catch the attention of any passerby. It’s not every day that one sees a vintage car, in pristine condition, riding through the streets of Santo Padre.

He steps forward, giving the car a closer look. But he looks away once he gets the look at the driver’s seat. A man focused solely on flipping through a copy of the Daily Imperial Gazette.

Leo lowers the newspaper slightly. His focus moves past an unsuspecting Ez to the little boy who bolts out the front door.

In his Lakers jersey, Jeyson Reyes is nearly a blur of purple and gold. His laughter drifts down the street as his uncle catches and lifts him into the air.

“Someone’s excited,” Isabela giggles as Ez lowers Jeyson back to his feet.

“I wanna try the bumper cars!” The grin on Jeyson’s face is wide. His entire body radiates with anticipation as he impatiently watches his uncle lock the door. “And the ride that spins you around really really fast so that you’re dizzy—and the mini golf!”

“Yeah?” Isabela’s fingers brush through Jeyson’s curls. Her playful eyes drift to Ez, the smile on her face grows as Jeyson follows her gaze. “I think you and I can beat Ez over here. What do you say, J?”

Ez’s brow arches, his eyes briefly meeting hers before moving to Jeyson’s.

“We can beat him. Easy.” The confidence in Jeyson’s voice is almost enough to break his uncle’s facade.

Ez’s eyes study both pairs of brown eyes focused on him, his head shaking softly.

“I don’t know,” he winces as he steps towards the car. “What are you willing to bet on it, J?”

For a moment, Jeyson is silent. An endless amount of possibilities rush through the eight-year-old’s mind. His round eyes widen as he settles on an answer.

“Funnel cake.”

“Good choice.” Ez squats down before Jeyson. He offers him his hand, pulling it back slightly once Jeyson reaches for it. His gaze lifts to Isabela, his resolve finally cracking, a smile slipping through. “You two can’t back out when I win.”

Folding the newspaper, Leo tosses it into the passenger seat as he watches the truck back out of the driveway. As the truck rolls to a halt, before the stop sign at the end of the street, the engine of the 1964 Chevy Impala rumbles to life.

“When can we go on the Ferris Wheel?” Jeyson groans, the impatient whine in his voice causes his uncle to smile.

“In a minute.” Ez ruffles Jeyson’s hair before reaching into his kutte for his vibrating phone. “We gotta wait for Isabela.”

“Where is she?” Jeyson pouts. Standing on his toes, he releases a huff once he doesn’t see her. “She’s been gone forever!”

In reality, it’s only been five minutes. But five minutes can seem like a lifetime to a kid waiting anxiously to continue his exploration of the carnival.

Two hours in, and Ez has learned that Jeyson doesn’t tire easily.

“I thought you wanted ice cream?” Ez chuckles, glancing over to watch Jeyson shake his head.

“Not anymore,” Jeyson sighs. “I want to go on the Ferris Wheel.”

“We will the second Isabela gets back. Okay?”

Despite the pout on his lips, Jeyson nods as he meets his uncle's gaze.

The text that holds Ez attention is from you. It is a question that has been on your mind for the past few days.

Zeke, need that brain of yours. PLEASE tell me you know of a club with a stallion patch?

Ez’s brow furrows as he reads over the message. He types the first thought that pops into his mind. Followed quickly by the second.

Horsemen.

Don’t know much about them. Prospect...limited information. Gotta ask Angel about that stuff. He was at the table Friday.

He glances up from his phone at the burst of laughter coming from a passing group of teenage girls. Slipping his phone back into his pocket, he takes it forward once he realizes that the insistent voice of Jeyson is no longer there.

“Jeyson?” Ez’s brow furrows as his gaze passes over those closest to him.

He has no sight of Jeyson, his stomach dropping as he takes another step forward.

The second time he calls Jeyson’s name his voice is louder, a slight tremble slipping in.

Despite it being a Sunday afternoon, the carnival is packed. The Ferris Wheel is on the last round of its current cycle. This has ushered in a shift in the crowd. People are rushing to make it to the line, excited for a seat on the upcoming cycle.

“Jeyson?”

The cheers and music drown out Ez’s voice. Between the bodies pressing against him and the breath that seems harder to pass than the previous, Ez can't quite remember the way he’s just turned from.

The tightness in his chest causes him to stumble forward. The thought of finding Jeyson slips away with each painful squeeze of his heart. It becomes painfully loud, drowning out the same cheers and music that had blanketed his voice mere seconds before. He can’t focus. His mind is useless, unable to bridge the disconnect to the rest of his body.

No matter how hard he tries to get air, Ez chokes on each breath he takes. No amount of air that he swallows can be caught by his lungs. He is left breathless, his feet blindly searching for a break in the crowd. His vision is blurred, the images blurring as his focus scrambles.

Through the crowd, he catches sight of a disfigured BB-8 backpack.

“Thank you! Have a great day.” Isabela’s smile widens as she accepts the two ice cream cones from the vendor. She drops the change into the tip jar, carefully sidestepping the couple running past her.

She stops to take a lick of her ice cream, her eyes scanning the crowd. She starts to move forward, in the direction of the designated meet-up point. A tall green pole, that houses a baby blue flag at its top.

Through the break in the crowd, she catches sight of Ez’s kutte. Her steps slow once she realizes he’s bent over, the cones she holds slipping through her fingers.

Ez can’t hear his name on her lips, but he can feel the heat of her shaking hands as they cup his face. Her body shifts with his, as Ez’s back presses against the pole. His lightheadedness dragging his body to the ground.

Despite the trembling of her hands, Isabela’s voice is calm as she lowers herself to her knees before him.

“Ez--hey, look at me. I need you to breathe. Okay?” The softness of her voice lifts Ez’s gaze from his trembling hands. A smile finds her lips, the sight forcing him to take a breath. “Good. Here.”

Taking his left hand in his, Isabela gives it a gentle squeeze before moving to place it over her heart.

“It’s okay, you and I can do it together.” Isabela takes a deep steady breath, Ez’s hand rising and falling with the motion.

It takes a second breath for him to follow suit. The harsh intake of breath comes in slightly smoother than before. His right-hand finds her waist, his eyes drifting shut as he tries to push out another breath.

The grip on her hip is painfully tight, but Isabela remains in place. Resting her forehead against his, she continues to breathe, her fingers gently brush against his cheek. With each passing second, her heart slowly anchors his forcing it to match the steady rhythm beating against his palm.

“Shit--” Ez’s voice comes out hoarse, shaky as he opens his eyes. “I’m sorry--”

His body tips back. Isabela’s weight pressed against him as her arms wrap around his neck. The hug she gives is tight, causing Ez to blink.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I uh--I’m sorry--I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Ez.” Isabela shakes her head, pulling back to get a look at Ez’s face.

The look of concern on her face drops Ez’s gaze to his hands. The slight tremble that remains causes him to clench his fist together.

He attempts to swallow the lump in his throat, but it remains. His voice comes out thick, as he shakes his head slightly.

“I haven’t had one of those in years,” he speaks quietly. “The first year in Stockton…”

Isabela nods, not needing him to finish the thought. Instead, she wraps her arms back around him. This time, Ez returns the hug, his face resting against the warmth of her neck briefly.

It’s not until she has him steady and on his feet that Isabela lets out a deep breath.

She looks around when a realization sets in.

“Where’s Jeyson?” The look on Ez’s face causes her to take a step sideways.

As she turns around, she stumbles forward nearly tripping over a grinning Jeyson.

“Oh my god--” Isabela lets out a deep breath, her hand finding her forehead as her eyes drift shut. “Jeyson, where did you go?”

Jeyson’s words come out muffled as he attempts to speak through a mouthful of hot dough.

“We went to get a funnel cake.”

“What?” Isabela’s eyes open.

Jeyson stands with a large plated funnel cake in hand. He wears a grin.

“You can have some,” he offers as Isabela brushes at the powered sugar dusting his cheek.

She blinks. “You don’t ever walk off without me or Ez. You don’t go with strangers, you know that--”

“He wasn’t a stranger.” Jeyson glances up from the piece of funnel cake in his hand. “He was daddy’s friend. He knew my name. He said it was a gift for doing good at my recital.”

His brown eyes widen as he takes in the look of confusion on Isabela’s face.

“Am I in trouble?” He asks. The possibility causes Jeyson’s smile to falter.

“No,” Isabela shakes her head, wrapping him in a hug. “You scared me, that’s all.”

You can learn a lot about a person from their home. Leo discovers all he needs about you the moment he enters yours.

Your son is the center of your universe.

Leo stands in your living room, his eyes passing over the incomplete Millennium Falcon set in the middle of the floor. Overstepping the abandoned legos, he moves closer for a better look at the photos hanging on the wall.

Jeyson is in nearly every photo. Spanning from baby photos, holiday shots, candid moments of fun, to yearbook photos, they allow Jeyson to grow up before Leo’s eyes.

He pauses at the latest hung photo.

Taken in September, it shows Jeyson standing between you and his father. The smile he wears matches Angel’s to the tee. It was taken on the first day of third grade. Jeyson is wearing his Gilman Prep uniform.

Leo lifts his phone, delaying long enough to snap a photo before moving on.

He starts his trek through the house. Sifting through recently delivered mail, abandoned on the kitchen counter. The piano holding the sheet music for Jeyson's recently passed recital. Studying the neatly printed schedule written across the whiteboard on the refrigerator door. The fully stocked bookshelf in Jeyson’s bedroom. The password-protected laptop on the desk of your office. The gun safe in your bedroom closet.

As he returns the closet door to its original position, his eyes pass over the room. They land on the dresser. The wooden, hand-carved jewelry box is smaller than he would anticipate from a woman. The first item to catch his attention is the oval cut diamond of your engagement ring, paired with the matching wedding band. He lifts both, pausing to study them in the sunlight peeking through the bedroom window. Returning them to their original resting place, he lifts the tiny velvet red box nearby. Inside, he finds a pearl necklace.

The necklace itself is simple. A single pearl embellished with a small, round white stone. It is a necklace you rarely take off. It was gifted to you years ago at a high school graduation dinner by Marisol.

Closing the box, Leo pockets it before leaving. The only sign he was ever there is the unlocked front door. It gives Ez a brief moment of a pause upon his return. He’s almost certain he locked it when they left. But with the high-speed rate Jeyson is talking at the moment, he chalks it up to his mind spacing.

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