#but lots of ground covers suck for high foot traffic!

[thesixthstar]

I’m not a huge defender of lawn, and some places have native grasses and ground covers that can serve the purpose, but the thing about a lawn is that it’s multi-use. Kids are into soccer right now? Pop some makeshift goals on and they can play soccer. Now they’re into swords and water guns? Plenty of room to run. Whatever game or phase they’re into you can turn the space into that with some shit from target or some DIY (unless they’re into like paintball or ninja warrior lmao). They got older and don’t use the lawn for playing but you want to have a picnic or bbq where folks sit and stand outside? Grass is soft and pleasant to sit on! Turns out having a wide open space that’s relatively soft and relatively flat is a practical and versatile idea! And you can plant trees and vegetables and flowers next to it for both human and wildlife use!

Like I’m all for getting rid of Lawn Culture TM bc 90% of people who have lawns don’t use them for any of the above purposes and just have em for the Visuals, but the idea that you can only Throw Ball 1000 Times on a lawn is uhhhhhh not very imaginative.

it's weird how people will be like "but we need Suburban Lawn so kids can play outside!" as if basically every kid isn't bored to tears by being confined to a yard that's nothing but flat grass.

like have you talked to a kid, have you spent time with kids, do you remember BEING a kid? "playing outside" isn't about Throwing Ball 1000 times it's about squishing mud, using sticks as swords and guns, making potions from plants, catching bugs, climbing trees, and building forts from brush and branches.

A highly manicured lawn has nothing to offer the senses and brain of a developing child. If there are no "weeds," what are they supposed to gather to make into potions?? I'm not even joking, what do you, a child, DO in a yard without wildflowers and mud and dead branches. I feel like my brain wouldn't have developed correctly if my outdoor space growing up wasn't full of chicory and asters and dandelions.

At least video games offer some dim imitation of a variety of stimuli

[sabraeal]

Provocateur, Prologue

[Read on AO3]

Written for @krispy-kream in honor of her birthday. Many years ago, back when I first joined fandom, I came up with the idea for an Obi Works For Izana AU, and both Sharon and I ended up writing small pieces of a much larger whole. And now FINALLY...I’m actually writing the very beginning 🤣

When it comes down to it, in terms of area and amenities, the royal dungeons has some of his last few flats beats.

There’s light, for one. He’s never liked basement apartments-- he’d take a stifling attic room over a place with only one exit any day-- but the windows here are high up on the wall, enough that he can watch the sun paint his cell floor as the hours pass. They’re ground level, at least by the foot traffic outside of ‘em, and with how loud these guards gossip, he’ll know whose girlfriends are pregnant and who’s nursing a nasty boil by shift change. Just like sitting in a tavern for a few hours, only with less ale.

There’s a cot too, straw-stuffed and a little too soft, with a blanket that doesn’t even itch. Seems like it might be warm too, for when the nights get cold. Not that he has an intention of testing out that particular hunch.

The guard down the hall is decent in the way authority figures never are; when he calls out to ask where his piss bucket is, the man-- boy? It’s hard to tell beneath those helmets-- ushers him down a hall to a water closet, and when he pops out, reminds him to take care to wash his hands. He’s prompt about mealtime too; when supper comes, the man says to expect three square and leaves him with with a dinner that would put most publicans to shame.

All in all, this isn’t the worst trouble he’s gotten himself into. Worlds better than that stint he’d had in Eurikenna’s gaol. Or that night in Port City.

Still, he’s got no plans to linger. No point in sticking around for a punishment when he's got no interest in redemption. But he’s got a prince to wait for.

Oh, His Highness might say he’s above getting his hands dirty, might look down that noble nose at a man like him who makes his living in trade, but he’d seen his look. Not the first, when his little mistress was watching, all puffed cheeks and disapproving brow, but the second, that glance over his shoulder as the Big Man frogmarched a dirty rat down into the dungeons.

That one was a man who had found the right tool for the job. Hands don’t stay clean without gloves to cover them, especially if they mean to hold a mistress who collects trouble like some ladies collect hairpins. If he wants to keep his side piece quiet, it’s only a matter of time before he’ll have to make a statement. And nothing says don’t touch what’s mine like a few accidents. All he has to do is wait out a royal conscience.

The light fades as he waits, just the last stretch of dusky light yawning on the sill. It’s almost time for all good little princes to be in bed, but this one-- this one will be working instead. The hand that grabbed him had been stained with ink and calluses both; the kind of man who longed for action but was stuck behind a desk. He’ll be up late, managing men and supplies miles away on paper, but in his head--

Oh, in his head, he’ll be thinking about the man he’s left to rot in the dungeons. The one that might be just the right fit for what he needs, for the jobs he can’t give that giant or the pretty girl at his side. It’s the sort of idea that’ll eat at him when the lamps are low and the night is quiet, and oh, how a conscience can gnaw when there’s no more work to feed it. There’s a reason he’s never idle. Not usually, at least.

He casts a long glance down the silent hall; the guard sits at his table, log book spread in front of him, another smaller one laid atop. A novel, by the slack-jawed look that’s slapped across his face. In Eurikenna, his reputation had preceded him, and they’d bound him hand and foot, bolting his wrists to the wall and his feet to the bench. Viande had put him in a cell with a single window and stone on all sides, his only escape leading into a moat rumored to be prowled by sharks.

Here he has a single guard and bars he could probably squeeze through if he skipped a meal or two. It’s insulting to be so underestimated-- or it would be, if he wasn’t already planning to stay. He’s paid out his room at the inn for a week; a few days to enjoy the impeccable food and passable mattress he’s got here won’t hurt-- just as long as he makes it back before the innkeep tosses all his worldly goods in the gutter. And if he does need to make a quick escape--

Well, it’s hardly the first time he’s slipped the noose. But it won’t come to that. Younger Highness is on the hook.

The door to the dungeon clanks open; it’s a softer sound, barely loud enough for him to hear, but he hasn’t made a name for himself by being the sort of person who only hears what he ought. The guard’s gone-- book too-- and his hand itches to have something that ends with a point in it. He should have known, this was all too easy.

A shrouded figure sweeps through the threshold, prowling with the easy confidence only men born to power possessed-- or a professional. His hands flexed, too empty. He’s a loose end, an embarrassing stain on a proud man’s reputation, and there’s only one thing to do with that-- rub it out.

“You’re not the prince,” he says, keeping his voice even, maybe a bit petulant. Boldness wins a bluff; all he needs is time. Just a second, a hesitation--

Which he gets; the figure’s boots scuffing to a stop. Its head cocks, curious. “Is that so?”

It’s a man’s voice, higher than he expects, but resonant. The sort that people listen to when they’re not looking for a way out. The sort that won’t care for a man turning his back on it.

“You’re too tall.” He saunters to his cot, the mattress sinking under his weight. Not quite the attitude he’d been hoping for, but close enough. Gives him enough time to realize his cloaked friend isn’t talking-- no, instead he catches the barest tremble of cloth before a gloved hand tugs it smooth.

“How...astute,” the man hums, a strange lift kicking that first vowel before he smooths that out too. Everything about this man is slick, from the shine of his boots to the way he says, “That must be the observational skills that tempted even the marquis to hire you.”

His grin flicks into a grimace, but habit wipes that all clean before he says, “I wasn’t hired by anyone. Just wanted to...advertise my skills. In case anyone with a fat wallet found themselves needing a problem taken care of.”

Another pause, this one heavier. “And this girl seemed like a likely target?”

“A commoner nosing around a prince?” A laugh huffs out of him. “What about that isn’t a problem? At least when it’s a lady, she doesn’t have pockets that need filling, but some little herbalist girl? There’s a long way between lady slippers and slippers for a lady. And not everyone wants to kiss hems to get a mistress in their pocket.”

Not when it’s just as like to be covered in mud. If there’s one thing he’s learned about these bluebloods, it’s that they only suck up, not down.

The shroud shifts, arms folding across a chest too slender to be called broad, and shoulders too wide to be scrawny. Lithe, perhaps, the perfect size to slip through a man’s guard.

“The job is over, you know.” Boot heels clack as the man draws closer, just enough to see a defined chin beneath the shadows of his hood. “There’s no need for all this cloak and dagger. Haruka has already confessed to the crown that he was the one to hire you.”

His fingers flex behind his head, longing for something besides bristle to cross his palms. “Don’t know why he’s going through all the trouble. I don’t know him.”

This isn’t his first interrogation, but it’s certainly the slowest. The man stands silently outside the bars, a single finger lying along his diamond-cut jawline. No questions, no speculation, just a shadow staring out of a hood, observing. This must be what it’s like to be boiled alive; put in the pot when it’s barely a simmer, the heat raising so gradually that it’s not until his chest is near bursting to speak, to fill the silence, that he knows he’s been cooked.

“What would you have done?” the man says, finally. “If you had your way with the girl.”

The girl who, in the face of danger, tore an arrow from the wall rather than run. “Nothing permanent.”

What little he can see of the shroud’s mouth curves. “How very vague. So many unpleasant things only take a moment.”

“The job was to scare her off,” he admits, wondering why his belly quivered in his gut. There’s bars between them, and his hands are faster than any nob’s, no matter how good the costume. But still, his muscles lay coiled against his bones, ready to strike. “Seduce her, if she seemed...amenable. Bribe her if she didn’t.”

“And what then?” It’s a quicker response than he expects, but the man isn’t agitated-- far from it, he’s never seemed calmer. “If the girl proved impervious to your more...gentle measures.”

There’s a question in that, one the shroud won’t voice. But he hears it, loud in his ears as a bell’s gong.

“I’ve killed before,” he says, each word on thin ice. “And I still sleep at night.” Barely. “I could have done it again.”

“But would you?”

For once, he hesitates. Imagines looking into those bright eyes, the ones that flamed so fiercely in defiance, and with the flick of a wrist, snuffing them out.

“It’d be a waste.” His hands tremble where they cradle his head, a command he hasn’t given them. This is the last thing he needs right now, losing control. “That girl’s got a lot of pluck. And if rumors around the pharmacy are right, a lot of brains too. Besides, bodies make more talk than bribes.”

“That they do.” There’s a lilt to those words, almost amused. “You know, you called it a job. Implying that you received compensation for your services.”

It’s a sting to realize he’s slipped. “Doesn’t mean it was the marquis.”

“It certainly doesn’t,” the man agrees, and if this room weren’t so dark, if this conversation wasn’t so serious-- well, he’d be tempted to say this guy is laughing at him. “Do you have a name?”

He turns to him real slow-like, one utterly dubious brow arched toward the guard’s register. “You want me to believe you can’t read?”

That shadow of a mouth lifts again. “Am I to believe a man of your skill gave your birth name to the royal guard?”

His mouth cocks into a grin. “You must if you think I’m gonna give it to you.”

The man comes closer still, one gloved hand wrapping around his bars. He’s visible to the tip of his nose; a long, patrician one.

“Of course. But you must have something you would like to be called.” His lips-- bowed, the most fashionable in Clarines’ court-- twitch toward a smile, but fall perilously short. “An alias, if you will.”

“Obi.” It’s too short, too quick, but already he likes it. It’s a more playful name than he’s had in a long while. Easy to lose, too, if he needs it.

“Well then, Obi.” His arm rests over one of the cross bars of his cell. “I believe I have a proposition for you.”

“Haah.” He hops to his feet, hoping to seize the high ground. “I appreciate the interest, but I’m already waiting on an offer.”

To say the hood recoiled would be an overstatement, it merely pulls back, barely more than an inch. “An offer?”

“Well, maybe more like...I have prospects.” Obi restrains his grin to little more than a twitch. “I just gotta see if they’ll pan out.”

The hood stills, thoughtful. “What if I could guarantee you a better offer?”

“You couldn’t.”

The man hums, amusement changing his pitch. “I quite sure I could.”

“Nah.” Obi shakes his head, almost wishing it weren’t so. This guy seems like he could be real fun, if he got his hands on his reins. “I don’t think so.”

“Please.” He opens a hand; an invitation. “Try me.”

“Fine.” There’s nothing to lose by telling, besides some face, if he’s wrong. Which Obi knows he’s not. “I got a feeling the next guy through that door’ll be His Highness.”

The man rocks back, like he’s been hit. “Zen? You think...?”

Obi expects some bargaining, some disbelief, maybe even some haggling, but--

He does not expect the laugh.

“Oh,” the man coughs, lifting a hand as if he might wipe tears from his eyes. “I promise you, I can give you a...far more attractive offer.”

Now that’s a rich one. “What could be better than a second prince?”

The man’s hand raises past his eyes, right to the edge of his hood. With the barest flick of his fingers, the cloth falls back, baring bright gold and Wisteria blue.

“Why,” drawls His Highness Izana Wisteria, crown prince, soon to be first of his name, “the first.”

[tragicallytron]

So, this Cutler guy... (CHP 1)

I have made Tron fic.............  Enjoy!

There’s a small city on the grid. If you were to hop on a Light Rail system in Argon, it’d take you a couple of hours to reach it. You might be surrounded by several programs who are returning to said city--their home--who wear these scowls, these tattered clothes which they deemed their ‘best’, and cold eyes that turn to frigid glares the moment you glance at them. They give anyone more than enough information to know what sort of city they’re about to enter. If you tried to get there with a speedboat, going in a straight line to the right, you’d know when you’d be getting close. You’ll navigate through towering scraps of metal and waste that seem to get more and more hazardous the more you progress, and there’s this odor… This foul, foul odor that hangs over the sea and only gets stronger. The smell always hits you when you think you’ve finally gotten used to it. Of course, you could always drive there, but why would you do that? Does sitting through the hours of traffic, because some reckless programs leaving that terrible city couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to the road and crashed head first into a truck, sound more appealing to you than the sickening sea and the terrible train?

Don’t go to that city.

It’s not worth it.

There’s no appeal.

If the smell of smoke and burnt rubber doesn’t ward you away, the programs there certainly will. They’ll corner you, scam you, threaten you, do what they can to shake you up because they know you don’t belong, and that’s the only reason they need to treat you terribly. They can’t even take care of each other. It’s not uncommon to see programs become good friends one cycle, then try to derezz each other the next. Store owners know how desperate others are to get their hands on any sort of weapon or advancement on their discs, so they charge high. If you need medical attention, expect a ridiculous fee and mediocre treatment. You’re better off making your own weapons, caring for yourself, and trudging on. Friends here aren’t worth the hassle.

The only thing keeping this town together are, strangely enough, Clu’s guards. They roam the streets in clusters, immediately putting a stop to any fights they see, or tearing apart any program who’s stupid enough to try and take them head on. Some people have learned where they patrolled at which hours to avoid them, others like to test their luck and throw chunks of metal at them from the rooftops.

However, even the guards know better than to march through the heart of the city, where the buildings cluster together, alleyways get tighter, and the programs get tougher. The inner city felt less like a ‘city’, and more like a horrible maze; a claustrophobe’s nightmare. You’d have to squeeze your way through the jagged paths between the structures, some need to suck their gut to get through, and it’s so incredibly easy to get lost, even if you’ve lived your entire life there. One thick street can branch out into tens of other thin, tangling paths that all seem to never end.

Scraps of metal hang over the ledges of these buildings, on the verge of tipping over and crushing the next unfortunate program who happens to be passing under them. The metal blocks off most of the sky, making the sparks from torn wires and the orange lights from windows the only proper source of illumination.

It’s a miracle this city’s still in one piece, it’s a miracle people still visit this city, it’s a miracle people still live in this city.

Nothing good has ever happened here. And nothing probably ever will.

~ ~ ~ ~

“Nice...” A program said as he observed a small, black, thin cylinder in his hand, which had blue light rings that stopped just before both ends. He pressed the blue button in the center and the ends shot out, creating a staff just a foot shorter than him. Two, sharp pointed tips appeared at the ends and glowed a bright blue as well; white sparks were coming from them. “Real nice.”

“Yeah, try not to trash this place with your new toy.” The other program at the desk said. He turned his chair around to face his client and brushed the thick, black hair out of his face.

“Relax, I won’t.” The customer retracted the rod and held it firmly with his long, skinny fingers. His whole figure was like that; lanky. The staff suits him.

“You really outdid yourself this time. I bet this bad boy’ll work as good as it looks! Heck, it even goes with these suckers!” The customer showed off his silver wrist gauntlets, the other program rolled his eyes. They were these thick, metal bands with blue streaks that covered up half of his forearms, leaving his hands visible.

‘They’re worth a lot, you know!’ He would always brag out loud whenever given the chance, as if it wouldn’t make him a target for mugging. He must’ve been ripped off. They looked clunky, quite frankly. It did match the silver streaks in his dark gray hair, but that’s not necessarily a compliment.

“Right, your pricey jewelry. Cool.” The other program leaned forward, “Speaking of price…”

“I gotcha, I gotcha! You know I’d never leave you hanging like that, especially when you make me some fine weapons like--”

“I’d like a portion of the payment now, Reggie.” The program shot up from his seat, glaring down at Reggie with his cold, blue eyes.

Reggie shrunk down, “Right! Gimme just a minute ‘ere--”

He dug around in his other pocket and pulled out a thin wad of cash. He handed it over to the inventor, who snatched it away, his glare remaining.

“Li--” Reggie cleared his throat, “Like I said! A quarter this cycle, then another after a few more, I’ll pay you off in no time! When’s the last time I’ve ever left you empty handed?” He gave a crooked smile. “You’ve been real close before.” The program said. Reggie couldn’t see their mouth, it was hidden by the black and orange turtleneck, but he just knew there was a scowl under there.

“Right, I know, but--I need to go!” Reggie started heading to the door of the store.

“Thanks again Harm, and don’t you worry…” He said as he opened the door, “You’ll get your money in time! Like always!”

Reggie slammed the door, leaving Harm all alone.

Harm stood there and watched Reggie through his orange tinted window until he was out of sight. He then made his way back to his desk. His workplace--just like his attire--was mostly made up of shades of grays with bits of bright orange to pop out. His clothes, however, were cooler grays, while his place was mostly warmer.

He approached his desk, one of the few pieces of furniture that was oil-black instead of that dark, warm gray; the other furnitures being tall, wide shelves placed on both sides of his desk, creating his own personal cubicle. He pulled open the thin drawer and shoved all the tools, nails, and shards of glass into there without care. Now that he finished his commission, he could finally focus on upgrading his friend’s wings, and he needed a ‘clean’ workplace.

His desk was the only thing he ever cleaned anymore. The rest of his place isn’t a ‘dump’, but it isn’t absolutely spotless either. If a program happened to be looking through the big window right beside his front door, they could easily see the wires hanging from the ceiling, missing tiles, pipes of various lengths and widths he has leaning against the corners, the piles of scraps and junk he has laying on top of counters and boxes that he uses for his creations. It’s real easy to trip over something and crack your head open, especially with all the sharp edges out in the open.

Two thin strips of orange lights outlined the bottoms of the walls, while one thin one outlined the ceiling. There were a few other strips that crawled their ways across the walls, but most of them were cut off due to chunks of his creations flying all over the place during the process. You can even see the faint orange cracks from where they hit.

The other part of his place that was lit orange was his desk. He has a few small lamps placed on and above his workspace. Sure, he could just move the shelf on his left side that’s covering his largest window, but he wasn’t too fond of the wonderfully bright, headache-inducing orange light that the city produced.

He turned on and grabbed the top of his small, black desk lamp, and adjusted it so it’d shine on the floor, where plenty of blueprints and crumbled up papers laid. He knelt down and pushed a few sheets aside until he spotted the messy sketches of a wingsuit. He picked it up, making sure not to smudge any of the graphite, and placed it on the desk’s top.

“Tape measure, utility knife, and the suit…” Harm mumbled to himself as he walked around the right shelf. On the other side were a couple of dark gray lockers he once found in an abandoned building, they were nice for extra storage. He kept repeating the three materials as he scanned the inside. He eventually spotted his utility knife with the blade uncovered and buried underneath his other tools, and the tape measure a few shelves down, still unraveled. He made sure not to prick his fingers--not that it would hurt, he was wearing long, thick, black gloves--while grabbing the knife, and cussed to himself when several spare screws fell and scattered all over the ground when he pulled out the tape measure.

Harm then turned around, facing the small storage behind him. The room was a lighter sort of warm gray compared to his main room, and it had a small window--big enough for him to crawl through--that wasn’t as obnoxiously bright since another building was placed in front of it. There were plenty of messy shelves full of tools, smaller inventions, and items Harm managed to snag, along with containers on the ground stacked on top of each other, filled with who knows what. Some of his older, bigger inventions were in here, covered haphazardly with raggedy cloaks, wires sprawled out, definitely not the safest storage in the city.

Below the small window was his friend’s wingsuit, carefully folded and placed on top of a container. Ant, his friend, asked if he could improve it, to make it faster.

“I wanna keep up with Tesler’s ship. It might be huge but it’s real fast.” Ant stated in the past.

“I just think it’d be funny to see his reaction when he sees me keeping up with him.”

Tesler is Ant’s boss, and it’s honestly a miracle she hasn’t been derezzed. She’s openly bragged about being late or skipping meetings to hang around with the enemies, she’s supposed to gather information and distribute it promptly, but she spends hours flying around the grid.

Harm once asked how she still has her job, to which Ant responded with: “I just give him a snippet of what he wants to hear seconds before he derezzes me, then it gets him all frustrated and he HAS to keep me alive to hear the rest. It’s real funny, I need to show you his angry face one day.”

Harm approached the table and unfolded the black and bright blue-lined suit before placing it on the top, letting the long flaps dangle off the edge. It looked like a regular outfit, it had long sleeves with holes at the end to stick your thumbs through, and a rather large hood to fit over Ant’s thick hair, but where the thumb-holes were, there were tiny buttons you could press that’d change the black flaps into blue wings. That’s the part he’s currently working on.

Just before he could begin his work, there was a loud banging on his door. Whoever that program was was shaking the door--and the rest of his place--with each booming, desperate knock.

That’s probably Ant.

They were supposed to meet tomorrow, but she tends to arrive unannounced to share the latest updates about her job, or to ramble about whatever. She usually likes to kick the door open and announce her presence, so this door banging was an improvement. Maybe she just really wanted her upgraded wings. Harm rolled his eyes and trudged to the door, the knocking wasn’t stopping, and it was getting hard to hear his own thoughts.

“I told you,” Harm started as he got closer to the door, “your wings won’t be ready for another six cycles at least--”

The door swung open and slammed right into Harm’s face, causing him to stumble back.

The program immediately shut the door behind themselves. Harm shook his head and scanned them quickly. This wasn’t Ant. They were tall--taller than him, definitely--and burly. The helmet covering their face was just plain black, Ant had drawn a toothy grin on her’s. They were breathing quickly.

“Hey,” Harm grit his teeth, “how about you--”

“Hide me.” The program said quickly. Their voice was deep and muffled.

That caught Harm off guard. That sounded like an order.

“So you think you can just hit me in the face with my own door and--” The program grabbed Harm by his arms, his grip was strong. This wasn’t a program he could shove out of here with ease.

“Hide me.” They said again.

“Guards are following me, if you help me lose track of them, I’ll get out of your sight.”

“Guards?!” Harm jumped. He didn’t have the cleanest record here, the only reason he hasn’t faced any consequences was because the guards hardly ever went here, and now they could arrive at his front door?!

“You can’t--I’m not gonna--!” Harm was too shocked to think straight. He grabbed the program’s hands and dragged them to the lockers.

He frantically opened all three of them--he knew one of them had enough space to fit someone in there. The middle one!

Harm didn’t know if he was getting jumpy, or if guards were getting closer to his building, but he heard more voices. He wasn’t taking any chances. He shoved the program into the locker--which was nearly impossible for this program’s size--and slammed it shut.

‘They aren’t stupid.’ Harm told himself.

Does he really expect the guards to not search this place--that the program they’re chasing after just magically disappeared? What if they took HIM instead?

Harm looked back into his storage room and at the small window. He hurried inside and picked up a heavy wrench, reached his arm back, then chucked it at the window. A loud crash came, and glass flew everywhere.

He heard his door being swung open. He only has a few more seconds.

Harm then grabbed the nearest shelf and ripped it down, leading to it--and the other shelves above it--collapsing and crashing down on him. He yelped loudly, trying to sound as pathetic as possible, and got the attention of the guards.

The large, black-armored programs with long pikes in their hands rushed over and stopped right in front of the storage room’s entrance.

Harm tried to sound as scared as he could, “Th… The scary program attacked me and… and then escaped!” He pointed towards the shattered window.

The guards looked at the scene, then at one another, muttering amongst themselves before leaving. Not even bothering to help Harm out.

They slammed the door once they left, and for the next few moments, it was silent.

Once the coast was clear, the other program opened the locker and pushed themself out, grunting.

They took off their helmet, revealing their dark skin and black crew cut. His expression seemed that of displeasure, but after he shoved the shelves off of Harm and helped him to his feet, a smirk formed on his face.

“ ‘Scary program’?” He repeated, brushing Harm off.

He’s smiling? Yeah, this is probably soooo funny for the guy that didn’t get nearly crushed by junk, had to break his own property, and nearly put themselves at risk to help some random program.

“Yeah, you’re welcome.” Harm growled and pulled away.

The program’s smile dropped when he raised a brow, “Thank you. Sorry for all of this. Your store was the first place I spotted, and I needed to lose them.”

Harm stared at him for a moment, looked back at the storage room, then back at the program.

“What’s your name?” Harm asked as he made his way to his desk. He grabbed the first pen he saw, clicked it, then tore out a strip of paper.

The program followed behind, “Cutler.”

“Congratulations, Cutler.” Harm replied, jotting his name down. “You owe me a new window.”

Cutler blinked, “I’m sorry?”

“I don’t know if you think it’s easy to get money around these parts, but it’s not. You owe me at least 200.”

“Now hold on, you chose to break your own window.” Cutler argued.

“Yeah, and if I hadn’t done that, the guards would’ve searched this place. You’re welcome, again.” Harm said.

“I’m not even from this city, I just came here to tell others about Tr--”

Harm cut him off, “Well, if you’re not willing to pay, I’m sure the guards would give me a wonderful sum of money if I turned you in…”

“Alright.” Cutler stepped in, “I’ll find a way to get your money.”

���Great.” Harm raised his brows, “Glad we could come to an agreement. I expect my payment sometime next week.”

“Fine.” Cutler said coldly, facing away from the other program as he approached the front door. “Next week.”

Harm watched Cutler crack the door open, scan the area, then put his helmet back on before running through the streets. What a shame, not even a goodbye.

Whatever Cutler’s determined to tell others about must be important, especially if he’s trying to get word to spread in this terrible, terrible city.

[number-one-micoverse-fan]

A Little More Shattered

Trade with Em. Angst for angst babbbbyyyyy. I accidentally made it way longer than I meant to. ———

Jake doesn’t know what happened.

One second he’d been hurrying to catch up with Milo as the teen had run ahead. The next thing he knew was gloom, dust, and immeasurable pain.

He’s laying on his side, his vision blurred and his entire body aching. There are muffled voices, shouts and screams, the rumble of something heavy settling into place. Jake sucks in a breath and coughs, choking on the thick haze of dust filling the air. It turns everything into indistinct shapes and outlines, blocky and disjointed.

Jake can’t put the pieces together. Nothing makes sense.

There had been orange streaks of the setting sun through glass.

There had been people and laughter and voices bouncing together in an enclosed space.

There had been Milo, letting go of Jake’s hand to run ahead, shark tail bouncing from his waist.

There had been a roar, a steadily building wall of sound that had rattled the arching windows overhead.

There had been screaming.

There had been a noise like the world was tearing apart.

There had been something snapping.

There had been the sensation of falling.

Jake remembers, dazedly, like it had happened to someone else, the ground buckling beneath his feet. He remembers a scream being ripped from his lungs as he drops, chunks of the sky walk tumbling past him, and—

The sky walk!

He and Milo had been on the sky walk between the art gallery and the hotel! It passed directly over a high traffic street, connecting the two buildings in bridge capped in an arch of thick glass so patrons never had to set foot outside. They’d been coming back from the art gallery, heading to the hotel because it was getting late and Jake had valet parked in the hotel lot. Milo had let go of his hand and had skipped ahead and Jake had called for him to come back and then someone had pointed and asked “is that a plane?”.

And Jake remembers looking out the windows to see a tiny, one person plane spinning towards the sky walk.

And he remembers yelling Milo’s name.

And then he was falling.

Panic seizes in Jake’s chest, making him gasp and choke on more dust. His hands scrabble on the gritty floor beneath him, nails scraping concrete until he can get them underneath his body and push himself up. The back of his head smacks into the rubble above him and he drops again, fingers clutching at his hair as stars burst in his vision. His mouth is dry and tastes like dirt, his head is spinning, and every inch of him hurts but he has to find Milo. He has to find that little boy.

He pushes himself up more carefully, his arms shaking, until he feels his head brush the stone above him. He squints through the haze around him, taking shallow, careful breaths. His palms sting, his head is throbbing, something hot is slipping down the side of his face and he tries not to think about how it’s probably blood.

“Milo?” His voice wheezes, thin and muffled and he coughs again, trying to be louder, “Milo? Milo!? Milo, where are you!? MILO!? MILO CAN YOU HEAR ME!?”

Jake moves, starts to crawl forward, only to be stopped by a tug on his leg. His throat clicks as he swallows dryly and slowly turns to look over his shoulder.

There’s a column of stone pinning his left leg to the ground, almost up to his knee. His jeans are torn and now that he’s looking at it, he can feel the weight of the stone grinding down, down, down onto him. Jake goes numb for a moment. Maybe it’s shock. He can’t process the idea of being trapped somewhere, buried under who knows how much rubble, with no idea if or when he’ll get out, with no idea if Milo is okay or even alive.

He has to be alive.

Because the alternative—

Jake won’t accept the alternative.

“MILO! MILO WHERE ARE YOU!?” Jake twists, claws his way forward, feels his trapped leg pulling at him, “MILO! SOMEONE!? ANYONE!? PLEASE! I CAN’T—WHERE ARE YOU!? MILO!” He pulls harder, wriggles his leg, maybe he can squirm his way out, he has to get out, he has to find Milo, he has to find him, he has to get out, he has to find a way out and get to Milo and get him to safety.

Jake heaves forward, grabs the edge of a concrete block in front of him, and pulls. He pulls and pulls, his shoulders straining, his aching body protesting every second he’s struggling, his heart beating so hard it hurts, feels like it will burst in his chest. But he has to get out. He has to free himself and find Milo. He’s ready to let go and try and chewing his leg off instead when he feels something shift. And then—

—something snaps.

Jake whites out for a second that goes on for an eternity.

He blinks the world back into place, shedding tears from his lashes, trying to remember how to breathe. His throat is raw—had he been screaming? He shifts and pain lances through him, an electric shock of incomprehensible agony that makes his back arch and his mouth fall open in a scream that won’t come out because his voice trapped under the pulsing pain of his heart. He collapses to the ground, his eyes wide, shivering at the aftershocks sliding needles into his nerve endings. His breath is a gasping wheeze, fingers twitching as he finally settles into his body again.

Shit.

Shit, he’s broken something.

He’s made things worse and he can’t get out and he still doesn’t know where Milo is and—and—and—

Jake hiccups, sobs catching on the lump in his throat. Tears and blood are hot on his face as he lays sprawled belly down on the ground. He is useless, as useless as he’s ever been, and if he’d just held Milo’s hand then things might have been different.

“Somebody…” His voice is weak, a whimper, shaking in the dark around him, “Somebody, please…”

He doesn’t know how long he lays there.

It might be hours, it might be days, it might be seconds. He cries until his tears run out. He thinks he might have dozed off or passed out again.

The voices coming closer wake him.

He stirs, freezes when he remembers the pain moving had brought before. His shaking hands clench into fists and he sucks in as deep a breath as he can,

“HELP! SOMEBODY HELP!”

A flurry of activity, shifting stone and metal, and suddenly there are people around him. People in uniforms with tools and masks and hands. Someone’s asking him something but Jake only has the focus for one thing and blurts out,

“M-my son! Please! I—I need to find my son! He was with me and I don’t—I can’t f-find him! Please! Please, I need to find him!”

“Sir, I need you to calm down. Take a deep breath.”

“Milo! I have to find Milo!”

“His leg’s stuck. It doesn’t look load bearing so we should be able to get him out.”

“Please! Milo! Milo! I have to find Milo!”

“Sir, please, you need to hold still and calm down.”

Someone touches his leg and Jake screams.

Agony blinds him. There’s a lot of shouting. Something pinches into his arm. His body goes numb. His mind goes dark.

Milo’s name is a whisper on his breath as he passes into unconsciousness.

********

Time blurs.

Jake cracks his eyes open, feels something on his face, and groggily lifts a hand to push it away.

Someone snatches his wrist. Words swim into his ears like they’re coming through muddy water.

He whines and tries to tug himself free.

Reality is smeared across his brain, disconnected, numb and impossible.

Cold burns in his veins.

It goes dark again.

*********

Jake knows he’s in a hospital the second his consciousness returns.

He doesn’t even need to open his eyes, he just knows by that chemical smell and the feel of the bed and that pinch at the end of his finger that he’s in a hospital. He’s been in enough of them at this point that he just knows.

But he still opens his eyes and looks around. The room is empty, except for the machines monitoring his vitals. His left leg is propped above the covers, wrapped in a heavy cast all the way up well past his knee. There’s a distant, dull, throb that comes from it.

It takes a bit of struggling but Jake manages to get his leg down and swing it over the edge of the bed. He tugs the clip off his finger and is going about removing the rest of the tubes and wires when a team of doctors and nurses rush into the room with that particular flavor of hospital urgency. Jake stares at them for a moment and then grabs the IV stand, intent on using it to pull himself to his feet.

He’s instantly swarmed by nurses. They push him back down on the bed, overpower his weak and tired body and start hooking him back up to the monitoring equipment.

“Stop!” Jake tries to push them away, struggles against their hold, “Let me up! I need to find—stop! Just stop it!” He swipes angrily at a nurse trying to clip the heart monitor back to his finger, “Leave me alone! I need to—“

“Mr. Pierly, you need to remain calm,” The doctor is saying through the cluster of nurses, “You’ve suffered a massive trauma and have some nasty injuries. You need to—“

“I need to get out of here!” Jake barks and kicks out with his good leg, almost catching a nurse in the face, “I need to find my son!”

“Mr. Pierly—“

“Where is Milo!? Where is he!? Tell me where he is!”

“Please calm down so we can discuss this like adults!”

“LET ME SEE MY SON!”

There’s a tug on his IV line and his gaze snaps to the nurse sliding a needle into the tubing and pushing the plunger. Jake howls wordlessly and bucks under the grip of the other nurses pinning him to the bed. He’s panicking, knows somewhere deep inside him that he’s being irrational, but all he can think about is Milo, alone and scared, hurt or worse and it’s his fault. He let go of Milo’s hand and it’s his fault if that little boy gets hurt and he’s so angry and frightened and worried that it’s choking him, burning him up inside and spilling out in hot tears that streak down his face as he screams.

Ice crystals start forming in his veins, seeping exhaustion and darkness into his mind as his body starts to go numb again.

“Milo…!” He gasps, his head lolling on his pillow, his breathing ragged and shaking with sobs that are quickly dying off, “M…Milo…pleas…pl…Mi…lo…”

*********

His next waking is slow and lethargic.

He feels heavy and exhausted and his eyes are crusted by sleep and the salty remains of his tears. He goes to rub his eyes but his wrist is halted and something clatters at his side. Bleary eyed, Jake looks down and—ah. They’ve restrained him to the bed. Seems a bit excessive.

“Apparently you tried to punch a nurse in the throat.”

Shit, he’s said that out loud.

“Yeah, you did.”

Or maybe you are just reading my mind, mysterious voice.

“I forgot how weird you get when you’re on morphine.”

Jake sighs and turns his head, blinking slowly until the blurry, brownish shape at his bedside comes into focus.

Dan is slumped in a chair, heavy bags under his red and puffy eyes, a weary smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he meets Jake’s gaze,

“Hey buddy. How’re you feeling?”

Dread sinks like a stone in Jake’s stomach. If Dan’s in his room then…

“Milo?” He croaks, his throat rough and his mouth dry. The heart monitor picks up a few paces.

A humorless chuckle leaves Dan as he ducks his head, shakes it, runs a trembling hand through his already messy hair. The beeping from the heart monitor goes a little faster. Jake wants to be sick. It should have been him. It should have been him, not Milo, not that little boy, not that child. It should have been Jake. His eyes are burning.

“You really have a one track mind,” Dan mutters, looking up at him, “Milo’s fine. He’s a little banged up, plenty spooked, sprained his wrist something fierce. But compared to you, he’s basically spotless.”

Jake lets out a breath he doesn’t realize he’s been holding, collapsing back onto the hospital bed with a groan,

“God, I thought—no one would let me see him, I thought he was—I thought—“ Jake chokes up, heaving in a deep breath and squeezing his eyes shut. It doesn’t stop the tears that spill down his cheeks, “Dan, I thought I’d—I let go of his hand and he—and I couldn’t f-find him! I tried! But I couldn’t m-move and—“

“Hey, hey, shh, Jake, shhh, buddy, no,” Dan leans over him, smooths his hair back, clasps Jake’s hand in his, “Jake, Jake, look at me, okay, look at me. There you are.” Dan smiles at him and Jake’s lip wobbles, his head spinning in a combination of painkillers and relief and emotional overload, “You know what the doctor’s told me, Jake? They told me you basically dislocated your knee trying to pull yourself out from under some concrete. Yeah. And the whole time they were trying to take care of you? All you’d do is ask for Milo, tell them that you wanted to see Milo, kept asking where your kid was.” Dan’s eyes are watery and soft and his smile is so big and warm and proud and it makes something inside Jake ache in a good way,

“Jake, you were doing everything you could to take care of Milo. You did so good, buddy. And Milo’s safe and he’s okay and he can’t wait to see you. So you gotta rest up and get better, okay?”

Jake nods because he’s too gummed up with emotion to say anything.

Dan keeps talking to him in a low voice, murmuring and consoling, repeating how everything is okay. Jake lets his friend’s voice wash over him, lets it settle in his chest and ease the knot of terror and anxiety trying to chew him up from the inside out. His breathing calms, his heart rate steadies, his eyes close, and, eventually, he falls asleep.

He has a lot of healing to do.

********

The first thing Jake does when he sees Milo again is grab him into a tight hug.

He pushes his face into Milo’s vibrant red hair, clutching at that familiar shark hoodie gone soft from multiple trips through the wash. He tries to say something, tries to tell Milo how he feels, but it gets stuck somewhere in his chest and all that makes it out is a choked and sticky laugh of relief.

Milo seems to understand, though, because he stays at Jake’s bedside all day.

And he doesn’t let go of his hand.

[let-it-raines]

another kind of green (7/10)

Emma Swan spends her days in pretty white dresses and heavy layers of makeup. Day after day and dress after dress, she poses for pictures and acts like she’s in love and having the happiest day of her life with the man standing next to her.

It’s not. This is all a gig, and at the end of the day, she’s no longer the girl in the pretty dress who’s faking getting married for a magazine cover or a wedding convention. Instead, she’s the girl who probably never wants to get married.

Little does she know, she already is.

Rating: mature

a/n: I apologize for the wait on this one. I’m obviously super spacey lately because I forgot I was supposed to be posting this story🙈

ao3: beginning | current

tumblr: 1 | 2| 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

-/-

Emma didn’t notice the leaves change.

Yesterday, she swears that she looked outside and all of the trees were full of deep green leaves and that the grass on the ground was an equally vibrant shade. Today, however, there are brown leaves on the ground and orange and yellow leaves hanging off of limbs, and the grass growing next to the sidewalk is browning the slightest bit. She blinked, and the days changed from early September to mid-October.

How in the world?

Where did all of the time go? Wasn’t she just doing a local commercial (her least favorite kind of job) for the autumn festival that’s happening downtown? How is time for that to already be happening? They shoot those weeks and months in advance.

“On your left,” Killian calls out, and Emma doesn’t flinch. She’s used to it.

“You’re late.”

“Traffic.”

“You walk here.”

“A hell of a lot of pedestrians, Swan.”

She rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t slow down her pace, letting her legs keep powering her through this run. She’s on mile two, so Killian really is late. They’ve been getting up and going running a little after six most mornings for the past month. It’s far earlier than Emma would ever normally do it, but she likes having a running partner surprisingly enough and Killian has to go to training at eight every morning. It’s either this or run by herself so that every step is pretty much agony.

Just like she didn’t notice the changing leaves, she never really noticed how Killian wormed his way right into her run.

(At least he buys her smoothies…most of the time.)

(He’s grown fond of his mango one as well, and sometimes she does foot the bill.)

Emma turns to the side to finally look at him. He’s dressed in a pair of joggers and a BPD training sweatshirt he has to wear to the Academy, and he must be leaving directly from here instead of heading back to his apartment to take a shower.

She ran into Graham while grocery shopping last week. He was with his girlfriend, so she didn’t talk for a long time because that’s awkward as hell and she wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, but she did learn that Killian told Graham that their marriage wasn’t something intentional. She’s not really sure when or where or why, and while something like that would normally piss her off, she’s relieved that the guilt of Graham finding out she got married like that is off her shoulders.

She’d forgotten about seeing him until she saw Killian’s sweatshirt. Graham had one just like that, and life seems to like bringing things back around for her. Maybe she should ask him about talking to Graham, or maybe she should just forget about it and move on.

Everyone else seems to have done so.

“You want to race?”

“Huh?” Emma asks, blinking away until Killian comes back into focus. She’d totally zoned out.

He raises his brows before reaching up to push his hair off his forehead. “Do you want to race me, love?”

“Please,” she scoffs, turning away from him to focus on what’s in front of her, “you couldn’t handle it.”

“Perhaps you’re the one who couldn’t handle it.”

Emma quickly turns to him again. His smirk is obnoxious, and she’s not about to pass that up.

“First one to the bench with marks from where that guy sat on wet paint wins, okay? Loser buys smoothies.”

“You’re on. When do you want to – bloody hell…”

She doesn’t hear the rest of his curse, and she does know that it’s a curse, because she’s already increased her speed and is sprinting as fast as she possibly can. It’s at least half a mile until that bench, maybe a little over, and Emma can run that far this fast without any issue. Her problem is that Killian, even though he was slower than her when he started, has started to catch up to her. His strides are already longer than hers, but with his speed catching up after so much training, she needs every advantage she can get.

Smoothies aren’t something to play around with.

He’d be so obnoxious if he won.

Killian’s on her heels for every step of the run. His muttered words and the panting of his breath hover just behind her, and she knows that if she were to suddenly stop running, he’d stumble over her. But she doesn’t stop. She lets her legs and her lungs burn and keeps going until she gets that adrenaline high that she’s been searching for. It’s been elusive lately, most of her runs dragging along at a snail’s pace, but this isn’t a long run anymore. It’s a sprint to the finish line.

Very literally.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

The bench is in her sight now, the poor markings left behind by someone who ruined their pants by sitting in wet paint last week, and she propels herself forward to get there before Killian when she feels a hand on her wrist, tugging her back, until she’s falling to the ground, her elbow hitting hard against the grass until she rolls over onto her back and feels the weight of Killian on top of her.

“What the fuck?” she grunts. All of the breath has been knocked out of her, and Killian’s entire body pressing down on her doesn’t help. “What was that for?”

“Sorry,” Killian grumbles, propping himself up on his elbows to lessen his body weight. His cheeks are flushed a slight pink, and his hair is falling over his forehead in sweaty sections. It makes him look younger than his usual penchant for styling his hair off his forehead. Maybe her brain just isn’t functioning correctly and he looks exactly the same. “Are you hurt?”

“I imagine my ass and my elbow are going to be bruised, but other than that, I’m fine.”

“You were about to be run over by a bike, love. Did you not hear me calling you or the incessant ringing of the bell?”

“Uhhh.”

“Exactly. I saved your life, and I think a little gratitude is in order. I do normally prefer to do more enjoyable things with a woman on her back, after all. Of course, you would know.”

His brows quickly wiggle across his forehead, and when his tongue runs over his bottom lip, heat curls between Emma’s legs that has absolutely nothing to do with how sweaty she is from running.

“Just like our marriage, I’m wiping that part from my memory.” “Ah, but you weren’t drunk for it. You actually remember it. Tell me, darling, what was your favorite part of that night? Was it when my mouth pressed into your neck in the hallway or was it when it pressed into another rater delicious – ”

“Okay,” Emma mutters, pushing her hands up against his chest until he rolls off of her and onto his back on the grass, “that’s enough of that. I haven’t eaten yet today, and you owe me a smoothie.”

Changing the subject. She has to change the subject.

“I don’t believe you won the race.”

“I was going to if you hadn’t tugged me down and nearly caused me to break a bone.”

“I was trying to pull you to the side. You’re the one who went down.”

“Semantics.” “I don’t mean to upset you, Swan, but I think we make quite the team. When it comes to running, of course. I save your life from a horrific bicycle accident, and you, well, I’m not sure what you do.”

Emma sucks in a deep breath before exhaling and twisting her head to the side. Killian’s already looking at her, lips pressed into a soft smile, and he reaches over toward her until his fingers are brushing against her skin as he tucks loose tendrils of her hair behind her ear

Did she just get a chill or was that her sweat drying?

Getting her sports bra off is practically going to be impossible. At least she can do it in privacy.

Sports bras are obviously both the best and the worst.

“I kick your ass in races.”

Killian laughs, finger brushing against her cheek again. Her body is basically a puddle now. “I’ll buy our smoothies, Swan, but you have to agree to let me take you out for your birthday next week.”

“How do you even know my birthday is next week?”

“It was on our annulment papers.”

“Oh.”

Killian twist over until he’s on his side and propping his chin up in his hand and tapping his temple. “I know you may not remember things, at least according to your manager, but I do have an excellent brain up here.”

“I’m ignoring you basically calling yourself a genius because I have to ask: when the hell did you talk to Mary Margaret?”

“Last week. Ariel was talking to her on the phone at a shoot, and they got to talking about how I’m reliable while you are not.” “I have only missed one appointment, but Mary Margaret holds onto that and brings it up every time I almost forget something. It was for an understandable reason, too.”

“And what was that?”

Emma blinks, and her mind catches up to what she just said. Shit.

“It was nothing.”

“Oh, no, it was definitely something. Inquiring minds want to know.”

“Yeah, well, inquiring minds don’t get to know.”

Emma quickly gets up from the ground, moving so quickly that she’s dizzy, but she doesn’t want to be lounging on the grass any longer. People are running by them, dirty shoes near her face, and she doesn’t even want to think about how many animals have relieved themselves where she was just resting her face.

She doesn’t want to think about anything other than getting some calories in her, taking a shower, and meeting Ruby at Flock so they can shoot next month’s catalog of clothes for the website.

“Swan,” Killian calls out, but she keeps on walking. “Swan! Love! Emma!”

“Not in the mood, Jones.”

“You were two minutes ago, and I cannot figure out what I possibly could have done to piss you off in that time.”

“You didn’t do anything.”

“I obviously did something.”

“Can’t you for once just do what I say and leave me alone?”

“Perhaps if you had actually told me to bloody leave you alone.”

Emma quickly turns on her heels to look at him. She nearly smacks herself into his chest, but she doesn’t need another collision with him, not today.

“Killian,” she says slowly, “leave me alone.”

His gaze doesn’t move away from hers, deep blue staring at her and making her want to back away, but she doesn’t. In the back of her mind, she knows he’s done nothing wrong, that he isn’t the one who’s actually pissed her off, but he’s here. What better excuse is there than that?

“If that’s what you want,” he begins, leaning down and giving her a mocking bow with a flourish of his hand, “then that’s what I’ll do.”

-/-

“This is the smallest piece of fabric I’ve ever seen.”

“I’ve seen your underwear drawer, Ems. I know that’s not true.”

Emma rolls her eyes at Ruby and tugs on the top, adjusting it until it covers her boobs. How this boutique expects any normal person to be able to wear this piece of fabric is beyond her.

“It’s ridiculous,” Emma continues, still trying to tug it down, “and this is supposedly a winter sweater. Has anyone here ever actually experienced a winter in Boston? This isn’t going to cut it.”

“Who peed in your Cheerios this morning?”

“That’s a disgusting phrase.”

“It’s obviously very apt today, though.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re a liar.”

“No, I’m just cold.”

Emma turns on her heels and walks back out in front of the camera and the white wall as the photographer and the owner of the boutique wait for she and Ruby to be ready. Emma does the standard poses, flipping her hair and fake laughing, and then she trades off with Ruby until they’ve both gone through the entire catalog of clothes that were on the racks in the side of the warehouse.

This is the weirdest job, and she’s honestly not sure that she enjoys it much anymore. That seems like a problem for a day where she’s not already pissed off at the world.

“I will buy you lunch if you tell me what’s wrong with you.”

“Nope,” Emma sighs, tugging on her coat and fluffing her hair out as they get ready to leave the warehouse. “You cannot bribe me.”

“Okay, but what if we go back to my place, and I make Granny’s onion ring recipe?”

Emma stops and turns to Ruby, her eyes narrowing at Ruby’s wolfish grin. “You’re evil.”

“But you love me.” “That’s debatable.”

“Nah,” Ruby sighs, wrapping her arm around Emma’s shoulder, “it’s really not.”

They walk the fifteen minutes to Ruby and Mulan’s apartment, the chill of the air nipping at Emma’s nose, but once they’re inside and the heat is on and there’s that wonderful smell of onion rings and grilled cheese being cooked, Emma’s no longer freezing. She’s warm and calm and maybe she doesn’t have to be as pissy as she has been today.

“So, Mulan says you haven’t come to class in a few weeks.”

Ruby says it casually, doesn’t even bother to turn around, but Emma knows that this is the beginning of her fishing into what Emma has been doing. The woman isn’t sly at all.

“I’ve been doing other things.”

“Other things or…men?”

“Running. I’ve been running, Rubes.”

“Mhm, and you wouldn’t happen to be running every day with a very handsome man that makes me thankful that I am interested in both men and women while poor souls like you only get men?”

Emma huffs into her glass of water. “How could you possibly know about that?”

“Because I, too, avoid my girlfriend’s Pilates studio and like to go running that path sometimes.”

Well, shit. She didn’t think anyone really knew she was doing that.

“We both run. We happen to run into each other. It’s a thing.”

Ruby turns around and arches a brow, cocking her head to the side. “What’d he do to piss you off today? Might as well just skip to that question.”

“He didn’t piss me off.”

“You don’t get onion rings if you don’t tell the truth.” “Screw you.”

“That was the deal.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not very good at keeping deals.”

Ruby sighs and plates another few onion rings before turning the stove off so that the cackling of the grease quiets down. “You’re going on runs with the man that you married.” Emma opens her mouth, but Ruby holds her finger up. “Yeah, I know about that. You know Marg can’t keep things to herself. I also know that if you want to shake him off, you wouldn’t be spending so much voluntary time with him. So did he actually do something to piss you off that I need to kick his ass for, or is this just Emma being Emma?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what that means.”

Emma ignores her and reaches up to take an onion ring only for Ruby to hold the plate away from her. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely.”

Sighing, Emma crosses her arms over her chest and leans back on the barstool. She was pretty sure Ruby was joking about Emma having to talk about her mood, but apparently, she wasn’t.

“Nothing is wrong with me.”

“Yeah, and I’m a rocket scientist.”

“You could be.”

“Emma, do you like your husband? Is that what’s freaking you out?”

“He is not my husband.”

“You’re evading the question.”

“No,” she mumbles, “I’m not, and no, I don’t like Killian. I guess I just slept on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Can I have my onion rings now? The full plate?”

Ruby’s brow stays arched until it falls so it can furrow with her other one. “Do you really not want to talk about it?”

“There’s really nothing to talk about.”

-/-

Emma’s a liar.

She’s a lying liar who lies, but she’s not about to admit that to anyone other than her glass of wine and the can of icing that she’s eating. However many calories she burned today don’t matter because she’s consumed all of them since this afternoon.

It’s totally been worth it.

Mostly.

She can’t binge watch Poldark and not drink wine and eat icing, right? That would just be stupid.

Her phone buzzes on the couch cushion next to her.

Killian Jones: I owe you a smoothie. Is there a chance I can buy you one tomorrow?

Shit. Of course he’s texting her.

And of course he’s being nice.

The man knows exactly how to be an ass. Can’t he be one of those right now?

Can’t she not want to text him back?

Emma Swan: I feel like I should be the one buying you one since I was so bitchy today.

Killian Jones: I wouldn’t say that.

Killian Jones: Because I think you’d murder me if I did.

Killian Jones: And also because it’s not true.

Emma snorts into her wine, taking another sip, and then leaning forward to put the glass on her coffee table.

Emma Swan: It was true. You can say it.

Killian Jones: I’d rather you not kick my ass. You could do it anyways, but training already beat me down today. I’m in a weakened state.

Emma Swan: That bad, huh?

Killian Jones: It was like I ran for six hours without stopping while also having to climb over obstacles and have men my own age yelling at me while twenty-one years old just ran by with no hesitations.

She laughs again before stretching back onto the couch. She should crawl back into bed and get herself comfortable, let herself fall asleep, but this is pretty comfortable too.

Killian Jones: But I love it.

Emma Swan: Yeah?

Killian Jones: It’s awful, but I also feel like I have a purpose, you know? I’ve wanted this for so long.

Emma’s heartrate picks up, and she closes her eyes and drops her phone to her chest. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t have some kind of great want that’s driven her life. She’s always been a foster kid, someone who isn’t sure what’s coming around the corner, and even when she aged out of the system, she still didn’t know. There was Neal and jail and…he ruined her life. Neal ruined her fucking life. He took away her choice for her life, and even though she’s doing okay now, she could be doing better. It’s not something she wants to think about because a decade has gone by since then, since he abandoned her like most everyone else has, but rarely a day goes by where he doesn’t come up in some way.

But really, it hasn’t been a decade. It’s been three years since he showed up at her apartment door, finding her somehow, and acted like not a day had gone by, like he hadn’t done this awful thing to her and like she must still love him.

She didn’t then.

She doesn’t now.

Neal will always be her first love and the person who loved her first, and what a shame that is.

That’s why she missed her shoot that day. Mary Margaret had been pissed, had gotten angry with Emma for maybe the first time ever, but then she’d sobbed into Mary Margaret’s shoulder as everything in her life felt like it was falling apart.

Again.

And here she is letting Neal worm his way into her thoughts again, into her life. He’s not around anymore. She doesn’t know what he’s doing with his life, and he really doesn’t deserve to occupy so much space. She’s been doing it for years, wearing these pretty white dresses at least once a week and pretending to be someone who could even think about getting married when it’s never been what she wanted, not after him.

Not even with Graham.

Maybe one day she’ll figure out how to move on completely and how to leave Neal in the past where he belongs.

She’s got to get out of this headspace before she drinks herself into an oblivion, so she opens her eyes and looks back at her phone. No one can see her face or hear her thoughts, and even if she is absolutely terrified of Killian Jones, he’s the only thing that’s making her feel remotely safe right now.

Emma Swan: I’m happy for you!

Killian Jones: Thank you, love.

Killian Jones: Did I tell you about the guy who is now wearing an eye patch because of an unfortunate fall on the rope climb?

Emma Swan: This sounds like the beginning of a really bad high school soap opera.

Killian Jones: Oh, but it’s even better than that.

Killian tells her the story, as well as several others from his first few weeks at the Academy, and Emma distracts herself with it, finding that it’s easy to get lost in Killian’s stories. Even texting, he has a way with words that has her easily being swept up into the conversation so that her lips tug at the corners and there’s a smile permanently press into her skin. He’s funny and charming and he deals with her shit even when he shouldn’t. He should run away and never look back.

The thought causes her breath to hitch and her chest to pang and…

Maybe Ruby was right. Maybe she does have a thing for Killian.

Oh shit.

-/-

-/-

Tag list: @xemmaloveskillianx​ @therealstartraveller776​ @stahlop @shardminds @carpedzem @captainsjedi  @galaxyzxstark @thejollyroger-writer @kmomof4 @tiganasummertree @xellewoods @idristardis @karenfrommisthaven @shireness-says @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @a-faekindagirl @ultimiflos @jamif @dreameronarooftop15 @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke  @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @teamhook @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @superchocovian @ultraluckycatnd @cs-forlife @andiirivera @qualitycoffeethings @jonirobinson64 @mariakov81 @spartanguard @snowbellewells  @onepunintendid​ @bluewildcatfanatic​

[poisonedapples]

The Dark Side of Christmas

Summary: Christmas is known as the happiest, most welcoming time of year. But when you’re Roman, that’s not always the case.

TRIGGERS: Roman has PTSD but it’s not stated by name in the fic, fighting, swearing, mentions of past shootings, mention of a car accident/explosion, blood. panic, past death and grieving, mental health problems, anxiety, dissociation and flashbacks, Christmas, tell me if you notice any more, cause this one has a lot

Note: HAPPY LATE HOLIDAY! This was supposed to be done by Christmas, but this month has Sucked so I’m using that as my excuse. My friend @theultimatemomfriend was my secret santa for something I did in the Powerless server, so here is your gift mixed with my own self indulgence! Hope you like it <3

But also , thank you to @romansleftshoulderpad and @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2 for saving me some time and editing it for me. I appreciate you two

He was driving in a car.

She was screaming at him at the top of her lungs, all about how he was a failure, couldn’t do simple things, is only a disappointment to everyone that’s ever known him. The screaming was like a concert speaker right next to his ear; loud, loud, loud.

He couldn’t steer in these conditions. Not with a rocky road that bent in so many directions, a skinny single lane on a cliff with traffic cones instead of a protective railing. His foot was all the way on the brake, yet the car was speeding down the road faster than he’s ever driven before. The tires were screeching. She was still yelling.

It’s so loud.

She jumped on top of him suddenly, grabbing a hold of his neck with her long nails digging into his throat. Everything burned, he couldn’t breathe, and no one was steering the car anymore.

It’s so loud.

High pitched screeching echoed from nowhere. She was still screaming in his ear while his neck fell asleep, desperately trying to pull away her hand in order to breathe.

You’re going to die.

The car fell down the cliff. Completely on its side, such a smooth yet loud fall, the car came crashing into the woods under it, fire consuming his sight and all of his brain, the loud crash coming to a complete, deafening silence after an overwhelming boom.

Roman’s body jerked awake.

He scrunched up his shoulders to immediately cover the tingling part of his neck where he was being strangled in his dream. His mind was foggy while his body felt ready to run a marathon, heart beating fast and every inch of his skin shaking violently. Roman curled into a ball trying to calm down in the pitch black room, to no avail.

Phone. Phone. Phone has light, where’s my phone-

Roman’s Rapunzel figure on his bedside table crashed to the floor from his lack of coordination, pretty stones meant for healing and love moving out of their places and into undusted territory. Roman dropped his phone on his chest once he grabbed it but was only grateful it didn’t hit the floor this time, turning on the bright screen and blinding his eyes.

It was better than the darkness.

5:48 AM, his clock said, the lock screen blurry-looking because of Roman’s unfocused eyes and the tears pricking out certainly not helping. But he could tell there were no notifications over the night.

It’s always weird when he has to delete the Instagram app. His phone doesn’t buzz nearly as much without it.

He unlocked his phone and opened up one of his word puzzle game apps. Although it pained him to admit that Logan was right, lighthearted thinking games helped him on nights like these. Where all he needed was to calm down, but no people were around to help him with that.

As the game loaded and he was wondering what words to make with the letters F, I, G, U, E, and R, Roman clung tightly to his giant stuffed animal Magic Bitch the Queen, a rainbow pegacorn that was perfect for squishing. The name only made it better. Weirdly more calming.

Things were calming down. He definitely won’t be able to go back to sleep tonight, but given the date it was a miracle he felt as calm as he did—

“Virgil, quiet down-”

“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want!”

“Virgil!”

...Nevermind. 

Roman curled in on himself at the sound of the yelling. He hated fighting. He hated it with a burning passion, loud noises made him jump out of his skin and it was only worse when it was them yelling. They’re usually a lot more calm when Roman is around, but sometimes things just...got out of hand.

This was one of those times.

“This bitch thinks he can just walk in here and act like he owns the damn place! Well newsflash fucker, you’re not the only person who cares about Roman! Stop acting like you can fucking control him!”

“I’m not controlling him! Is it a crime for me to want to care about my own brother!? Last time I checked, you’re not family!”

“Remus-“

“Oh cram it, calculator watch!”

“Go fuck yourself, you walking STD!”

“Virgil Foster! If you end up waking Roman, I swear-”

Patton paused mid sentence when he saw the figure standing in the middle of the steps. Everyone looked over at Roman, his hand fiddling with the end of his sleeve and way too tired eyes. His posture a little too straight, smile so dead it was hardly a smile at all. “It’s alright, Pat. I was awake anyway.”

“I assume another nightmare?” Logan asked.

Roman went to the kitchen and grabbed a glass from the cupboard. Filling it with milk until it was overflowing, Roman smiled. “You know me so well.”

Patton’s face grew concerned while he chugged some of the milk, Remus crossing his arms and glaring at Virgil. “You wouldn’t be having these problems if you’d stayed at my place instead of this dump.”

“This dump is our home, trash panda. Watch your fucking mouth.”

“Ironic.” Remus towered over Virgil with his hands on his hips when he stepped closer, Virgil hissing when he got too close. “All I’m saying is that isn’t it better for Roman to be with family who can help, instead of stuck in the same place that caused all this in the first place? With people who don’t even understand?”

“You know that I’m here, right? That I can hear you talking about me? Cause I can hear you talking about me.”

“Or maybe he needs to be around family that actually cares instead of being around the same deadbeat bastard who only comes visit to be the same pile of dog shit he makes everyone step in!”

Patton sighed. “Virgil, please stop. Can we please just go back to bed? Without all the fighting?”

The looks on Remus’ face was too taunting. Blood boiled in Virgil’s veins from three weeks of dirty glares at each other while he watched his best friend curl around him for comfort instead of anyone else. The cockiness of him trying to take Roman off to Florida for the holiday, like he was the only one who cared. He hated his stupid gross smile and how Roman snickered at his dirty jokes, he hated how he was genuinely helping and how useless their help was.

How threatening this bitch actually made him feel. But Virgil refused to lose.

“I’ll go to bed when this bitch stops acting like he can walk into my fucking house and act like he owns the fucking place! Eat my food, use my water, and steal my fucking friend because apparently this human embodiment of the feeling you get right before you fucking projectile vomit is the reincarnation of Christ!”

“Virgil!”

“And I’ll go to bed when this ‘Roman’s my best friend’ wannabe stops getting in between my family because his self esteem’s so low in the ground that sharks can have sex on it!”

“Fuck you!”

“JUST SHUT UP!”

Everyone paused when Roman screamed, his hand too weak to hold onto his glass and his hands shaking too hard to fiddle with the end of his sleeve anymore. His eyes were glassy and his chest felt like it was caving in on itself, with evil butterflies chewing apart his ribs and leaving hollow discomfort. Patton’s eyes went soft as he slowly approached Roman, keeping a loose grip on his hand and saying something to him that Roman wasn’t listening to in order to calm him down. But he was just tired. So tired. Tired of the yelling and the fear and the everything that he just wanted to get away.

So he did.

“Roman?” It was all he’d heard from Pat even after all his talking, but Roman still decided to ignore it. He quickly slipped on some shoes and grabbed his coat from the closet, opening the front door without another word.

Patton’s eyes widened when he realized what was happening. “Roman, wait-“

But just like that, the door had slammed behind him and he was making his way down the street.

He could already see his therapist’s “I don’t get paid enough for the shit you put me through” face when he eventually talks about this, but that was future Roman’s problem.

...He still had no clue where he was going.

That was always the worst part about Roman’s “run away from your problems” habit. He never had any plan. He could end up three towns over, he could end up across the street. In one of the first incidents, he ended up at a McDonald’s right on the outskirts of the state and fell asleep in the bathroom stall. When he called Logan and told him where he was, it was an hour drive to come get him since they didn’t trust him to drive back in his state. That’s why they first started looking for a therapist for him.

He wished he had his car this time. Walking around in freezing weather with pajama pants is cold.

Roman made his way down the hill where the house was to head downtown, where a good handful of stores were open at every time of day. He needed the heat.

“Eileen, you will pay for making me lose my beauty sleep.”

“You’ll be okay. It wasn’t working for you anyway.”

“...Hey!”

...And the distraction.

It was at 11:30 when Ellie woke him up. Dragging him out of bed and making him help her “sneak” out—if you could call going through the front door sneaking—, they ended up in a supermarket at around midnight on Christmas Eve. 

“I got Remus this giant ass octopus stuffed animal that was literally like ninety dollars, but I need a gag gift for him. Something completely and utterly stupid, and I need you to help me look for it. So I can go home sooner.”

“A giant octopus isn’t a gag gift to you?”

“He’ll love it and you know it.”

“...Touche. Maybe just get him toilet paper?”

“Too enjoyable. Too useful. He’ll set the rolls on fire in the backyard or something.”

“...Nevermind then!”

The first store Roman found with its lights still on was a small convenience store next to a gas station. His legs were starting to get slow from the cold, teeth chattering slightly with his arms tucked close to his body like a penguin.

Roman went inside.

“Oh my God, Roman, it’s perfect.”

“What is it?”

“‘Maybe you touched your balls’ hand sanitizer. I’m getting five.”

Roman tried not to laugh too hard, especially when the store was so quiet at this hour, but he couldn’t help it. With slight sleep deprivation and the look on his sister’s face, Roman burst out a laugh and gave Ellie a lazy push. Ellie took five of the hand sanitizers and piled them in her hands, making their way toward the checkout.

Alone in a store on the night of Christmas Eve.

Roman didn’t want to think about it, but then again, he never did. And every time he focused on one thing, half of his brain was still on his sister.

His throat felt weird.

“I’m dreaming of a white...christmas…”

Ellie was basically skipping on her way to the checkout. She loved old Christmas songs, and not being able to resist the temptation to perform must be another “Sanders Siblings” thing.

Roman was staring at the chip aisle when his chest started to expand, his hands growing weak and absolute fear taking over. Why was breathing so hard? What is it now?

His eyes became glassy again, his vision becoming more distant and distorted until he couldn’t tell what he was looking at. But his ears seemed to focus on something else. Something so distant but close at the same time, ringing in his ears while he felt like he was looking through a TV screen.

“And since we’ve no place to go...let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…”

Fuck. Shit. Roman started fumbling in his pockets for earbuds, but in his haste to leave the house, they were forgotten in his room. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

He could hear the silence of the store, but in the back of his brain he could feel the sound of gunshots.

“He’s alive, but he’s been hit around five times. Get him in the ambulance.”

He knew there wasn’t hands on him. He knew there wasn’t any blood, his or otherwise, on the floor. But it sure as hell didn’t feel like it.

“Duck!”

There was no figure that caught Roman’s eye as they made their way to checkout. There was no moment of adrenaline as he tried to cover his sister, ducking for cover while people walking down the street also screamed. There was no glass breaking. There was no shots of pain as he realized the blood on the floor was his. There was no noise. No screaming. No sirens or commands being shouted or deafening silence that made Roman want to scream. It didn’t exist.

But it didn’t feel like it.

He didn’t know how to work his limbs, his body felt fake and his vision was just a TV screen looking at a world that felt anything but real. His ribs felt like they should be in pain for more than just his shaky breaths and his back should be cold from the hard floor instead of being supported by a cooler door.

What was the pattern again? Three things you can hear—wait, no, fuck, what was it? What was it?

There was blood going through his jacket and blood on his fingers. His thumb was cut from a piece of glass and he couldn’t move off the floor. As tight as he could, he kept a grip on his older sister. The hand sanitizers had sprawled out across the floor, the hands that were holding them now lied lifeless in Roman’s grip.

Roman heard something. More than the music, that stupid fucking music, but he could focus. He wanted to cough until he could breathe again, he wanted to be here, without a single doubt that history can't repeat itself. But trauma doesn’t work that way.

Shooting down on Taft Avenue. Four injured, one dead. 

“Roman, hey, it’s just me, it’s just Virgil—shit, hey, it’s alright, focus on me. Let me get you out of here, okay? God you’re heavy, okay-”

It’s Virgil. It’s just Virgil. No Ellie, Ellie’s dead, Ellie’s been dead, it’s just Virgil, he’s here. 

Thank God.

“Here, just listen to this for a bit. You’re the reason I have a Disney playlist, I hope you know that.”

They were in a car now. Roman could feel the pressure of Virgil’s bulky headphones on his ears, as well as the start up to Tiana’s “Almost There”, even if his hands he was staring at still didn’t feel like his own. The explosion in his chest lessened some, even if his breaths were still short and it was a miracle he wasn’t sobbing yet.

Virgil moved one of the ends of the headphones to the side. “Feeling a little better?”

Talking took so much energy, way too much energy, but he’d worried Virgil enough for one day. “...Yeah…”

“Do you need the volume turned down?”

“...Maybe.”

The music got a little quieter, and Roman felt his body relax a little more. He didn’t even realize it was overwhelming him.

“Alright...now, five things you can see?”

“Virge-“

“Five things you can see, fucker, let me help you.”

Roman let out a huff of a laugh, but looked around anyway. “Uh...you, carseat, wheel...um...the thing…”

“Thing?” Virgil looked around. “...You mean glove compartment?”

“...Yeah, that.”

“Okay, one more.”

“...Coat?”

“Alright, four things you can hear?”

“Music, heater, uh...I don’t know…”

“Can you hear me?”

“...Now I can.”

Virgil laughed. “That’s good enough, I’ll take three. Three things you can touch?”

“...Headphones, coat, seat.”

“Alright, good...two things to smell?”

Blood. “Pat’s air freshener, and the fact that you haven’t showered.”

Virgil lightly punched him in the arm, Roman letting out a small laugh through a shaky smile. “And I bet what you’re tasting is the fact that you haven’t brushed your teeth.”

“...I did not come here to get roasted.”

Virgil shook his head in amused disappointment at him, but started the car and put it in reverse. Roman sighed, looking out the window at the soft snowflakes and lights on houses that made his stomach curl. He hated this holiday. All it did was bring back bad memories, every corner surrounded in his triggers and nightmares increasing tenfold with the stress. He wanted to go home. He didn’t know where home was.

“Wanna talk about it?”

Roman looked over at Virgil, with his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel as he tapped nervously. Roman rubbed at his eyes. “Do you want to? I heard you and Remus.”

“This isn’t about me, it’s fine.”

“You’re my best friend and he’s my brother. It involves me too.”

Virgil didn’t answer. He kept his eyes on the road intently, and Roman wondered if he should just put the headphones back on his ear and let that be that. But he really didn’t want them to keep fighting, so it’s better to at least make an attempt, right?

Roman put the headphones around his neck. “We were buying his gift.”

“What?”

“The night Ellie died. Her and Remus had a little tradition of getting each other a gift and a gag gift. The older we got, the more inappropriate they became, which was very ‘them’, in all honesty. She had forgotten to get it earlier though, so she took me to the store at midnight on Christmas Eve so we could pick something out. And that’s when the shooting happened.

Virgil didn’t react, but Roman gave him a tired smile. “I’m fairly certain that’s why he gets so protective. He feels like he caused it somehow, so he tries to solve all my problems on his own. It’s sweet in its own way.”

Virgil hit the break roughly at a stop sign. “Well now I feel like an asshole.”

“...You were a little bit of a bitch. But I don’t blame you, since so was he.”

“I just wanna help you too, you know? I get it, he’s your brother and all that shit, but he’s not the only person who cares about you, so he can back the fuck off. Especially when he’s spending time in my fucking house.”

“You say that like three other people don’t pay rent.”

“It’s my house when it’s convienent to my argument, fuck off.”

Roman laughed, Virgil taking a turn to a stoplight and waiting. “I just want you two to work things out. We can talk once I go home, take my meds, and at least sleep for two hours.”

“Only two hours? You’re starting to become me, Princey.”

“It’s an anxiety disorder buddies thing.”

“Fuck yeah, anxiety disorder buddies. Who can’t wait for therapy to start up again.”

Roman pumped a fist up lazily. “Next thursday!”

“Next thursday mother fucker!”

They both started to laugh, the soft glow of the read light and the headlights of passing cars being strangely calming. Roman’s eyes felt so heavy, the glassy tears he still had sealing his eyelids together like glue. “Wake me up when we get there.” He mumbled.

“And if you have another nightmare?”

“We get there when we get there.”

Roman heard one last soft laugh before his body went still. He wasn’t completely peaceful, but at least he was sleeping. It would be enough for now.

Virgil didn’t wake him up when they got home. It took both him and Remus to be able to carry him inside, but they managed to do it without waking him up permanently. He moved, but at least he managed to sleep some.

When he wakes up, they’ll fuss at him for running away and Patton will hug him close for Roman’s comfort and his own. He’ll make Remus and Virgil talk peacefully about each other without too much complaining until they can at least stand to be in the same room as each other. Then when things are calm, the brothers will cry when they remember the date, and Patton will give them blankets and hugs while the other two stand around a little awkwardly until it’s lunch time. Neither of them will eat much, but leftovers exist for a reason. They’ll be taken care of.

But for now, Roman will sleep.

[aggresivelyfriendly]

Summer’s Child- Chapter 6-Angel of the Morning Pt. 2

Morning Loves! Here is the second half of the last chapter. I hope it’s as good to you as it is to Harry....

Thanks to the tripod, @dirtystyles and @bleedinglove4h for being the best pocket friends a writer could bombard with ideas and all caps texts. And to @emulateharry for her 👀. I edited a while ago, so all mistakes belong to me!

Jillian was fussing with the radio in the truck, the static it put out matched the static in his head.

He was sure he would have focused more on the hamster spinning on its wheel in his brain, but her face caught his attention. It was blank, but the corners of her lips were turned down a touch.

"Alright?" He slid in, and redirected his attention from the gears when she slid right up next to him and slipped her arm between his body and bicep. Her head found his shoulder, the notch she'd claimed at 9.

"No."

 Well, he knew that, but he was hoping drawing out why wouldn't be as much like pulling teeth as getting her to divulge things that hurt her.

"What happened?" God, this question could cover at least the last 10 years of her life. He meant tonight.

"If I tell you, promise you will never breathe a word of it again. I don't want to think about it." He knew this was why she didn't even want to say things out loud ever. He didn't think her method worked though, it always came out, her pain, it's truth.

"Did he," he swallowed. This was the question he had been avoiding asking for years, with her dad and her mom's boyfriends and now Will. "Did he hu— did something happen?"

"No," she shook her head. "I hurt him."

"What?"

Her self satisfied tone matched the grin he caught in the red shine of the one stop light in town. Should he be worried?

"Jillian!" Harry pulled over and stopped. He needed to look at her face. What did that mean? "Hurt him how? Why?"

She sighed. "Everything was fine, and he was his normal self at the dance. Like, more interested in his friends yet complimentary, but only on my hair and body and...anyway. But it was like our normal dates and he was sweet, like a candy coating, ya know." He wasn't sure he did, but he nodded. "But then we got to the hotel, and, well, I wanted to hang out, people were already in that first hotel room. They were smoking." They'd talked about that. She liked getting high. "And had a keg." Drunk less so, she had good reason for caution there. Though he never said that, just encouraged her avoidance.

"Okay. Trina and I were in there. I didn't see you."

"Yeah that's cuz he insisted we go to our room first. It took us a while because everybody stopped us to slap him skin." She rolled her big eyes and shook her head. He loved her annoyed face, but annoyed seemed mild for the build up. "I caught a hit or two," She stamped her shoes, like she did when her mom left grade school events early. She usually got on with it then. "We made it to the room, him maneuvering me like I was his truck. He gave a little push in. I barely got to ask if we were changing for the party. I had that little bag of jeans and a sweater, before he started kissing me. Which was nice. He's a good kisser." She shrugged and Harry tried to be as nonchalant as her. "And we've been fooling around a little, but he usually, it was like forceful," She shook her blonde head to cover her face. "anyway, he didn't ask anything and was yanking at the sleeves of my dress I was afraid it was gonna tear. But, he had me backed against the door, luckily."

"Why luckily?"

"It's harder to knee somebody in the jewels if they're on top of you." She smiled like she'd stolen some cream and Harry blinked.

"What happened then?"

"He whined a lot, doubled over like an omelet and called me a tease and said I was trash, and lucky he gave me the time of day." Another eye roll. She was surprisingly relaxed considering it sounded like the kissing was more of an attack to Harry. "And then he started on all the things I hoped he never thought about me, but I know other people think." She hugged him closer. "That he knew I lied about where I lived and that if I didn't sleep with him, he was gonna dump me. But when he started in on you I kicked him again and started out the door to him yelling about us being over."

"And?" Harry knew he was bug eyed, like when he wore coke bottle lenses as a toddler, "what did he say about me." He shook he's head. "Never mind that's not important." He knew she wouldn't tell him anyway. "What happen then."

"He grabbed my foot and told me he loved me, but couldn't wait anymore and he'd have to find 'it' elsewhere. I told him that wasn't a threat, because I was done and kicked him off my leg. I think I caught his face a little." Harry wasn't sure if he should be impressed or scared she was smiling about all this "i'm sure I looked messy, but I needed to get out of there like now. But when I came out, Steve cheered and rushed in to give Will a high five. He must have helped him up. But Will never came out. I heard Steve telling everybody that Will had finally got a piece from my hiding spot all night. So, school's gonna be hell for the next month too."

"That's awful." He held her hand for a moment and waited for her to continue. "Why didn't you come get me?"

"I tried." He cringed. "But when I came to find you, you and Trina looked like you were having fun. So I found somebody with a joint and a quiet place to wait." She shrugged and he felt like he'd eaten ground glass, thinking about her alone. She seemed ok, but Jillian always seemed ok.

"We could have left whenever you wanted."

"I didn't want to ruin your prom night."

"I wouldn't have had a prom night if not for you. And besides, you couldn't ruin my night, any night. I'd rather spend time with you than the twats from our soon to be alma mater."

"What's a twat?"  She giggled.

"Well, it's actually," he shook his head. He never thought about what it meant, or having to explain it. "It's an English word for idiot." He pulled out into non existent traffic.

"That's not true, you're doing that thing with your eye you do when you lie."

"What thing with my eye?"

"Your right eye twitches a tiny bit."

He didn't know that. "Oh, well I'm not lying."

"I am asking the next Englishmen I see ya know."

"Not my da!" He responded quickly.

"See! I knew it didn't mean idiot."

A change of subject was needed. "Home?"

She shook her head like it was the needle on the Richter scale in that educational short about earthquakes. He'd shown her that when he'd been trying to talk her out of California. The change of her mood was as shocking as a tremor.

Now was the time to tell her.

"So—"

"Harry, do you like Trina?"

"What?"

"Did you like going with Trina? You gonna take her out again."  He really hadn't even thought about it, honestly.

"She was nice. We're going bowling next week. But only if you want to come."

"That's not really what I asked."

"No, I, I don't like Trina, not like, like that." The truck came to a stop like their conversation. He didn't know what to say and she was in her head, again.

His house was dark. Harry was surprised. Really. He thought for sure his da would wait up. He did suppose it was 3 AM.

They snuck through the house, like how they used to try to get to and from the cut crystal candy bowl when they were young. He held her hand, and when he would stop, she would crash into his back and muffle her laughter in between his shoulder blades.

He'd quit the jacket. The ruffled shirt she loved was thin enough to feel the heat and moisture of her joy. He wished there was more reasons to stop or a longer distance to his room. He loved how she could laugh after a night when she could very well be crying.

"I'm surprised." His filter turned off as soon as they got to his room."

"About what?" She looked up at him. Jillian was still really close, she took a couple steps to stay in his space.

"That you aren't more upset. About Will and your, well your mom."

Her eyes hardened for a split second. Like she was measuring the distance to a finish line. They cleared them, and she looked at him in a way he couldn't quantify. It was the fraternal twin of her best friend eyes, maybe. "I'm with you. It's hard to feel down when I'm around you. You're my favorite person Harry." She smiled her honest smile then and the next words stole his breath before he thought too much about them. "I love you."

That was the second time she'd said that and not meant what he wanted. He closed his eyes, because he couldn't see the face he adored say the thing he wanted to hear most and not mean it how he needed.

They popped open when he felt her mouth press to his. Her bottom lip slipped just so between his and the pressure she exerted was very different from their mistletoe kiss. When she sucked a little, he heard himself groan.

"Harry," she whispered, all breath and bone. "Will you kiss me back? Don't you want to kiss me?" Just the words felt like a kiss, if he was honest. At least the way he thought kisses felt. He wasn't sure exactly what he was supposed to do.

But he said yes, meant yes, so he said yes. His voice was a rumble, his truck over the railroad tracks. His lips moving gave her all the opportunity to teach him what a kiss could feel like. All the slips and slides and sucks. When she slid her tongue over his bottom lip, his mouth fell open. Then, it slid inside, and if he wasn't sure he groaned earlier, he did now. Felt it in his stomach then reverb in his throat. Jillian moaned and pressed her self to him top to tail. He could feel all sweet, soft, strong parts of her, so he almost missed her hands undoing his top button. The one at his throat. Then her mouth was exploring the white under the frills.

"Jillian, what are you doing?"

"I'm making love to you." She said like she was offering him cup of tea. "Don't you want me to?"

The presence she pressed against in his pants said a very solid yes, but he was confused. She'd just kicked her boyfriend in the balls for the same suggestion hours before. "Yeah, obviously." She giggled and he was weaker for that sound than the fact she'd pulled his shirt off his shoulders and went for his pants. "But, why?" It seemed like a major question, and stupid as it may be to slow this down, he needed to know.

"Why?" She asked him like it was his question that came out of left field, not her advance. She furrowed her brow and tilted her head. She was the color pink.

"Because I love you, and you're the only person I love who loves me back." He wished he could argue that, but all evidence was to the contrary. "Because you've never tried one thing with me that I didn't ask for." She had his pants off his hips. Her hand went to his dick between them, stroked over him like he'd done himself the night before thinking of her in the dress she wore. "And because I want to, want you."

He groaned then and soiled his boxers like nobody had ever touched him. Because nobody ever had. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry." he was reeling, his mind as confused but engaged as when they taught chemical equations last year. "How embarrassing." He hid his head in her shoulder before he thought better of it and tried to turn away.

Jillian caught his shoulders. She laughed, but not at him. "No, it's ok. Now you can make love to me a little." She pressed a breathy kiss to his lips and licked into his mouth. He returned her motions and brought his tongue into play. She gasped a little into it when he tried to follow her lead, to play. "That feels good Harry. Will you kiss my neck?" He tried to do the things she'd done to him. He thought he might be a quick study at this too when the feline purrs she let out woke his dick up again. He was moving down to the boundary her dress created when she turned around abruptly.

"Oh, sorry. Did I do something wrong?" He thought he'd figured out how to do something right.

"No, no, it's good. Just, I love that. You just need to take off my dress. So you can, um, my nipples."

"Fuck." He said and laid his head on her shoulders while she giggled.

"Not yet, in a little while. Go on Harry. Take it off. Touch my neck like you did in the shop." She leaned her head over and he kissed the pretty pink tinged flesh there until it was red and undid her zipper.

He'd known she was beautiful, but the chrysalis shedding of the dress falling from her body, revealing all of her to him, transformed him too. Into a man.

He'd thought he was one, wanted the responsibilities of one, to take care of this woman, but he wasn't one, until she turned to him and the moonlight turned her skin silver and her nipples pewter. He felt like a golden band.

Out of curiousity, he ran a finger around the pink tip and pulled it back abruptly when she jolted and gasped. "Sorry!"

"Oh no, do it again. Please." Her head lolled back and he used one hand to draw the shrinking circle around her nipple again. He used the other to catch her neck where it was weakening and pulled her to him. He needed her mouth against him again. His hand found the overflowing flesh beyond her nipple and they both shivered. He caressed her until he was holding her up.

"Harry, sit on the bed." He'd sit on a cliff if she asked. He knew she didn't know everything, but she certainly seemed to have more hands on knowledge than him. Though he knew the mechanics, his dad had given him books, plural, at 10. He'd wanked to a few images at 12, then Jillian after long nights at 13, this was a wet dream come true. But still, "how do you know," he trailed off, "all this stuff?"

She sat astride him and smiled when she felt him hard against her again. "See, no problems," And they were kissing again and she was rubbing against him and he had her tits in his hands again, and oh god.

He'd said that out loud.

"Here." She climbed up him and rested her hands on his shoulders so her breast were at mouth level. He looked up after he'd gotten dizzy looking at her perfection so he wouldn't fall to the floor. "I, I don't know a lot. But I know you." She rubbed the soft yielding flesh over his face. His mouth watered. "And I know what I do. You can maybe do more. Kiss them, maybe suck too." She suggested and then the soft flesh ripened against his tongue, sweet like summer strawberries and he was sucking to try to get the sugar.

"Oh Harry!" And she was riding him and he was afraid he was gonna come again. He clutched her hips and stopped her.

"I can't." He shook his head. What the fuck? He'd never, god, this was. And she said she loved him. He could come thinking about it. He'd better not think about it. "It's too good."

"Ok, ok. Will you touch me?"

"I am." He didn't really follow.

"No, will you touch me.....there." She held his shoulders and leaned back.

"I don't, I don't know how."

"I'll tell you." She leaned back and drew his hand down the soft lines of her belly to her crux. She slide two of his fingers down to a well of wetness, her opening, wetting his fingers with her dew, and then up to the hard knot and inch or so above. "Rub there, like this." She moved his fingers in circles until he didn't need help anymore and he watched her face while her mouth fell open and she panted. She was squirming hard and he had to wrap an arm around her and clutch her other hip for fear she would fall. "Ah, ah, ah, Harry!" She shook out and he felt wetness trickle over his knuckles.

"Wow." His chest moved heavily up and down.

"Yeah, Wow." She slid his fingers through her wetness again and pressed one long digit into her opening. He slid it in and the thought of it around his dick. "Jilly!"

Uh oh- she hated that. Except, her moan said she didn't. She moved up and down his finger until his hand was sodden, asked for "two!" Breathlessly after a bit. He added the third without being told.

He was bewitched, bothered, and beholden when she got off his lap and his fingers. He would have followed her anywhere, to Gomorrah and beyond.

"Cmon Harry. She sat on the edge of the mattress, the little twin bed they'd shared many times, and pulled his boxers off. He stepped out of them and she wiped him off before throwing them somewhere behind him. She reclined on the bed and turned the hand she held up, so their fingers slotted together.

"I heard it's easier this way." Heard where? He would have asked, but the moonlight showed him parts of her he'd only just touched and Stole his tongue. She spread her thighs. There seemed to be nowhere else for him to go but between them.

He'd thought she felt hot through his boxers. He was burning up pressed against her wetness now. God, he might actually catch on fire.

"Um?" He asked and she shrugged before reaching down between them and pointing his tip down where his fingers had lately been. He pushed, but only felt resistance and none of the wetness from before.

He got a hand around himself and looked between them. "Fuck." He said again. He had no idea where his manners were. Maybe manners didn't belong in the bedroom. The problem seemed to be the fleshy lips around where he needed to be. "Um can you, can you open it up?"

"Yeah, I think so." She reached down and he said "oh my god" when he saw the dark pink within. Who knew that's how pretty She could be? He pressed forward. This time, there was resistance, but the warmth enveloped his tip and then gave over the ridge making a little popping sound. "Oh my god!" His vocabulary had also left him. He cried out and stopped.

Jillian squirmed beneath him, and the tips of her breast rubbed his chest, and could you close your eyes to sensation? "No, no, don't stop." She wrapped her legs around him and pushed with her heels until he came to a resting place.

"Fuck, holy fuck Jilly."

She squirmed again, smiled.

"You ok? Hurt?"

"No, not, not really, it's just a lot of pressure." She winced a bit. "Can you move."

He knew he could, but he wasn't sure what would happen if he did. "You're sure?" Though it seemed late to ask, already all the way interlocked with her. "I love you, Jillian." He swore.

"Me too, it shouldn't be anybody but you. I can only be me with you." She pushed on his hips with her heels a bit and moved her hips away. And he was sure this was everything. It couldn't be anybody but her. Ever.

He pulled back and thrust in, and then was overcome by the feeling and kept pushing and pulling until it was coming again.

"Oh god Jilly!" The feeling, god the feeling. Nothing had ever felt better in his life than this.

"Harry!" She sighed and wrapped her arms tighter, legs too. He knew he was being louder than he ought to be, but he couldn't stop. Then his vision whited out, way worse than the blur without his glasses. When he shuddered to a stop he simply collapsed on her, into her.

He lay there until he realized how heavy he must be and felt damp on his neck where her face was buried. He was so sweaty. Poor Jilly.

"Sorry, I'm so big." He lay on his side next to her and curled an arm around her midriff.

"Well, I don't have much to compare you to, but I'd say you're alright." And she made that sweet sound that was home to him.

He blushed, which was strange to happen now. His hand was moving lazily over her soft tummy skin and he was so happy. They were together. "Love you Jilly." He murmured as he drifted off without his own permission.

He vaguely remembered her kissing his forehead and her hair a halo in blue morning light.

"What time's it?" He mumbled.

"Early, still. I need the bathroom. Go back to sleep."

"Ok." He rolled into his pillow. The late night and dreams coming true made his eyes and body heavy.

He woke up to blazing sun, and thought he should be warm. But even his tiny bed was cold without her presence.

She wasn't making tea in the kitchen, or at the Dairy Barn that evening.

Sandra was pissed she'd missed her shift.

He wondered if he'd hurt her, or something. Maybe he'd said he loved her too many times. He'd not thought to keep a balance sheet. Did he say it more than her?

When he still hadn't seen her by Monday morning at school, and heard all the talk in gym about her going all the way with Will, he was worried. She known the rumor mill would be turning her to dust. Maybe she was just avoiding it. But they were so close to the end. A couple weeks was all. He was so worried.

For her, not just for the grief he'd feel as he got his heart's desire to lose it so soon. He finally did what had to be done and left school at lunch. He'd never ditched, but it didn't matter now.

He drove out to her house, and saw that semi familiar car again.

Dick answered the door.

"Um, is Jillian home?"

The man screwed up his grimy brow, and even at this time he reeked of beer, from last night or the hours since breakfast. "Nah, she took off. Took her mom's stash and suitcase. Little bitch." He scratched his rounded belly. "We figured she's with you."

"No, um no sir, she's not with me." Where was she?

"Too bad, must be that rich kid, Will then. Ain't that just like a woman?" His smile was sharp around the edges, and wide to his canine teeth.

The comment was meant to cut him. He was already aching too much to notice.

Harry knew she wasn't with Will.

He might have nodded, or mumbled on his way back to the truck.

It wasn't until he got home he let himself really think it.

Jillian was gone.

[karriezai]

Wakefire Excerpt

“Your vehicle has lost connection to the police network,” a voice intoned through the car’s auditory system. “If this was in error, don’t panic; we’ll resolve the issue shortly. We may have to stop the car. Don’t be alarmed.”

Ror flipped to the administrator side of the control display again and opened the command file. “They’re hacking back into the system,” he said, glancing up at Risky with a flare of panic in his stomach. “Maybe a minute or less until they get in. Do I try to stop them?”

Risky hissed air through her teeth. “Do it. And scrub our creds from the system. We’ll have to switch to backups, but we don’t want the originals flagged if we can avoid it.”

Yuri sprang into motion, his hand going to Seris’s shoulder to guide her out of her seat. As Ror began keying in the commands to block the police from regaining access to the system, Yuri folded Seris’s seat down to access the manual steering controls. In spare seconds between rerouting the cops’ attempts to access core files and obscuring those files in layers of dummy folders, Ror keyed the commands to delete identifying information and photos from their user files on the system.

»What’s happening? The neuro-comm message flashed across Ror’s thoughts like text across a d-lay screen. Khatien.

»I’m trying to keep the police out of our system. Gotta concentrate, sorry, Ror sent back. Splitting his attention cost him precious seconds; he deleted a mistake in his commands, re-keyed it, and just managed to keep ahead of the cops’ hacker.

“What went wrong?” Risky asked. “Did you foul some code taking the car off the network?”

Ror shook his head, still speeding through commands while he tried to formulate an answer in a spare corner of his mind. “I don’t think so. Can’t exactly check right now.”

“Cut us loose from the traffic network, will you?” Yuri asked. Ror spared enough of a glance to see that he’d more or less gotten the manual controls up and running.

That was perfect considering the traffic network connection was what the cops were trying to use to hack their way into the car’s system. Ror shut it off with a simple line of code. “All yours,” he said. 

But that only created a few seconds of relative peace. The local police must have an ace coder on the case, because they quickly redirected, using the car’s connection to the d-net to hack in and start rerouting control pathways. “When you have a second, maybe give Risky control? I could use your help manually disconnecting,” Ror said, his fingers flying over the display. He couldn’t turn off the d-net connection through the system, although he could stall by cutting off d-net nodes one at a time. He also had to prep the system for disconnect; it wouldn’t do if the failsafe engaged and steered them to a halt the moment Yuri cut the connection.

“You got it,” Yuri answered. He shifted aside as he drove, allowing Risky to scoot in beside him.

“What do we do next?” Seris asked. She moved from peering through the right side window to looking out the back. “I don’t see the squad car yet, but they’re bound to get a roadblock up ahead of us.”

Risky swore under her breath and took over the controls from Yuri, shouldering him toward Ror. “Get us disconnected,” she ordered. “Seris, help me look for an out. Somewhere we’ll be able to find cover once we stop.”

Yuri knelt on the ground in front of the console that housed Ror’s control display and popped off the front panel. Ror kept watch on him in his peripheral vision, keeping the bulk of his attention focused on his task. 

“There’s nothing,” Seris said. “They’ve got the off ramps blocked, and we’re too high up to risk driving off the gridway.”

“What if I drove off into one of the shorter trees?” Risky asked. “The branches might catch the car or at least slow us on the way down.”

“Too risky,” Seris repeated. “And what are the chances of a gap lining up with a tree the right height?”

Ror couldn’t spare a glance to see what she meant, but the string of curses Risky issued didn’t inspire confidence. 

Yuri scooted down onto one shoulder, his legs cramped in a near fetal position against the door and the base of Ror’s seat, and reached into the console innards. After a moment there was a pop, the control display threw up an alert that network connectivity had been lost, and Yuri sat up and raised a small piece of plastic and wires with a satisfied look on his face.

“Are we okay?” Khatien signed urgently when Ror took a second to look his way.

“Not sure yet,” Ror admitted. “We disconnected from the d-net, but we still have to find an out.” He turned to join Seris at the window and saw what she’d meant earlier: the other cars on their side of the gridway had all stopped along the edge, many of them lined up nearly nose to tail, and they didn’t leave gaps for the off ramps they passed every mile or so. In a lot of the cars Ror caught flashes of civilians peering out the windows, tracking their car as they passed.

Khatien touched his elbow, drawing his attention. “They’re chasing us?”

Ror nodded. “And they’re probably getting a roadblock together ahead to stop us.”

“Ideas?” Risky called, a thread of desperation wound under her forced calm tone. Ror picked up interpreting for Khatien again with a twinge of guilt for leaving him in the dark before.

Yuri moved from the back window to the side opposite Seris and Ror. “The squad car’s behind us, but not gaining fast.” He tapped his fingers against his thigh, then turned toward Risky with the same look in his eyes he got when they sparred with their powers. “You’re not gonna like this.”

Risky shot a glance his way before returning her attention to the gridway. “Let’s hear it.”

Yuri gestured to the rest of them. “Clip yourselves into the harnesses. This could get rough.” Then, as he worked on flipping the seat folded behind Risky into manual driving configuration, “Let the squad car catch up a little. We’ll need him close enough that it’s hard for him to react quickly.”

She nodded and shifted her weight according to light taps from Yuri as he got her seat set up, guided her into it, and hooked her harness over her chest and hips. Once she was settled, Yuri chose a seat and buckled in as well. “They didn’t stop oncoming traffic, and the ramps on the other side of the gridway aren’t blocked,” he said. “If you time it well…”

Risky glanced over her shoulder at him, wide-eyed, but then her eyes narrowed and she focused on the controls. “Fuck you, you crazy asshole,” she growled with an undertone of appreciation in her voice.

“Try not to kill us all,” Yuri said cheerfully.

Risky breathed a chorus of shit shit shit under her breath, then commanded, “Brace yourselves!” and the car jerked to the side and arced across oncoming traffic, turned until they were going almost completely the opposite direction—

And then they were flying down an off ramp, the car tilted dangerously to one side as they veered over the edge. Ror held his breath and leaned the opposite way, as if that would help, but they were all doing it—tendons standing out in tensed hands and arms pressed against the chair sides.

Risky managed to coax the car fully over the metal of the ramp again and their world leveled out. Ror’s breath left him in a rush and he sucked another in; it took a bit for his breathing to level out too.

Yuri unbuckled and turned to plant one knee in his seat and peer out the back window. “No squad car,” he said after scanning for a couple seconds.

A collective sigh of relief filled the car, but the moment of peace evaporated quickly. “We’ve bought maybe a few seconds,” Risky said. “We need to get out of sight and ditch this car somewhere we stand a chance at getting away on foot.”

(Image from this article)

[meshugana1]

A girl tries to lose weight only to find it going to her feet?

Madison felt the rough pad of the scale on her sole’s and curled her toes. Her scale had been steadily climbing up over the past few weeks and for the life of her, she couldn’t explain it. She remembered how she would go for a run almost every morning and thought about the health-conscious cookbooks that lined her kitchen, then she looked to her stomach and saw the undeniable flab she had been developing and blinked back tears. She ran her hands all across her naked flesh, still warm and slick from her shower. Her lean muscles had been overtaken by fat tissue and felt like marshmallows. Her stomach jutted out nearly six inches and was so close to occurring her feet from her. Her thigh gap was now totally nonexistent and she could feel the friction they produced as she walked like a phantom that wouldn’t give her peace. The worst though was what her weight gain did to her sweet tits and her succulent bottom. She was no stripper before but she had beautiful perky knockers that men drooled over and an ass that, on one occasion, literally stopped traffic. Now her tits were huge and wobbly and her ass felt like it threatened to drag on the floor.

   It was a chore to get dressed these days and Madison refused to get new clothes, insisting that she would soon be able to fit them again. She chose a simple black shirt for today, she would be able to wear her grey scarf with it, it fought her and refused to cover her small belly completely but with some careful tucking and sucking, she managed it. She didn’t want to risk some of her more extravagant underwear and chose a simple pair of cotton panties that her ass swallowed, making it into a thong. She didn’t even bother with a bra. She grabbed a pair of her stretchiest yoga pants and slid them up her fluffy legs, stretching the fabric around her ass and releasing them with a loud thwack! against her skin. The last was the only thing that still truly fit her body and she chose her best shoe, a black leather strappy high heel that allowed her feet to breath and displayed the bright red nail polish she used every day. She dared not look in the mirror as she left and departed to her doctors’ appointment, silently praying that they could find an answer for her recent weight gain and better yet, give her a solution.

   “Ms. Castillo? The doctor will see you now,” the nurse had said. Madison had been waiting in the plainly decorated room for what felt like hours, her stomach had started rumbling and crying out for nourishment in that time and she was desperate not to take a quick trek to the vending machines in the hallway. She followed the young redhead into a smaller room with the standard posters on the wall of obesity progression and various types of cancer. She barely sat down before an older man stepped inside he had dark skin and grey streaks in his hair. “Good morning, Madison correct? I’m Dr. Garcia,” he extended his hand and gently shook hers. “Well I’ve had a look at your chart and you seem to be in about losing weight, correct?”“Yeah, I just can’t seem to get rid of this fluff like I normally do,” she said.“Well, that’s not a huge surprise. We get a lot of people in this time of year, they overindulge over the holidays and find themselves growing a spare tire. Anyway, I think you might be a perfect candidate for this new weight loss drug that’s being tested right now,” He reached into his coat and produced a bottle of pink pills, “These are called Soplazarin, developed in a lab in Texas, these babies are designed to actually liquidize the fat cells in your body making them easier to process and dispose of. All you need to do is fill out some forms and in a week you could be back to your old self.”

   Madison needed no further convincing she scrawled her name across all the pages of the absurdly long contract and was barely paying attention as Dr. Garcia told her the dosage and any possible side effects, all she focused on was the thought of her sexy old physique and that she wouldn’t even have to work for it. He didn’t say a word about drowsiness so Madison didn’t even wait till she reached her car before she popped three of the tablets into her mouth. Doctors always tell you to take less than you really should and she wasn’t about to spend a second longer than she needed to as a lard ass. She crossed the threshold of her home an hour later and popper another three into her mouth, she eagerly anticipated results and stripped naked as she nearly skipped to the bathroom. She carefully examined herself in the mirror but didn’t see any immediate changes. She was a bit disappointed, he had talked them up so much. She remembered that he said they were still testing them, she must’ve been put in a control group or something. He probably gave her some sugar pills, like more sugar is what she needed. Dejectedly, she turned and left the bathroom, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment at her unbridled excitement. She felt a pang in her tummy and decided that today was a pizza day, digging her phone from her pocket, her brow knitted trying tithing of the best place nearby to order from when another, sharper pang hit her.

   She held her potbelly and winced at the sudden cramp, she thought that she might have a kidney stone form how much is hurt, but it was all over her. Then suddenly the pain just faded away like it never happened. She ran her hands all over her body trying to make sure she wasn’t hurt anywhere when she felt her whole body grow warm. Her face flushed and it felt like she was in a sauna. Beads of sweat covered her and for a moment she thought to call a doctor, but just like before it subsided, though she was still very warm. She nearly panicked when she looked at her flabby arm and saw that it was shrinking. She grabbed it and actually felt the flesh pull away from her hands she ran to her mirror again and squealed with joy. Just as the doctor said her fat was just melting away. Her cheeks became flat and sleek, her breasts shrank down to their former perkiness and she could feel the fat leave her arms in the most bizarre sensation.

   It was like all her blood started flowing in reverse as the fat cells just flowed down. Her tummy was much more distended and she felt as though she cleared out a buffet. All the fat must’ve gone to my stomach, she thought. However, as she looked at her bloated belly it also began to shrink and she could feel the flow continue down her body. If it wasn’t stopping at her stomach where was it going? She soon had an answer as her thigh gap returned and she felt her ankles swell and her feet grow tight in her skin.

   She was shocked to see her cute, petite little toes grow and swell with all the weight she just melted off. She lifted one foot off the ground with great effort and examined it. It was extremely heavy and swollen, as she held it she could feel the liquid fat in her foot slosh around and compress against her hand as it continued to grow. She dropped the heavy appendage and is slapped onto the ground, sending shudders through her body as new, sensitive skin formed to compensate for the mass in her feet. She heard a crack and watched as her toes grew out and matched her developing flesh, her foot still maintaining its shape somehow. This had to be the pills, she thought. She tried to turn and search her clothing for the bottle but tripped over her rapidly growing feet. Her spine tingled as the sensitive things twisted into the floor and rubbed all over each other. Her hands dug into her palms as her eyes tilted into her head, the new feelings coming from her feet overwhelming her. Her knees were at a ninety-degree angle as the laid on the floor and she could still touch her new toes to the floor, each time she did any worry about her feet or other possible side effects were pushed out of her mind as a tidal wave of tingles overwhelmed her. Her huge feet were nearly three feet long and almost half a foot wide, but at the moment all Madison could focus on was the insane feelings her new feet filled her with as she rubbed them against each other.

The end. Hope I didn’t mess this up too bad for Y’all!

[besseme-blog]

Introduction

Let me introduce myself i was born and raised in the good ole US of A. When you think of an American I am what you would picture blond hair blue eyed white boy from small town USA population 7,000 three traffic lights a pigglie wiggie and two gas stations. I grew up the typical American life conservative Christian background Roman Catholic to be exact my grandma was strict and staunch go to church or burn in hell. My parents not so much they believed in god but never forced a certain religion on me honestly later I learned from them they believed in god but not in religion I wish I knew that then it would have saved me a lot of pain over the years. I grew up playing outside with my friends running the neighborhood and swimming in the local swimming hole things that small town boys do. As I started to grow up it was then I was exposed to organized religion and at the time standing in a corn field in Georgia with a redneck with a shotgun cradled in his arms preaching god and Jesus to me that only his religion is the chosen one and all others that don’t believe in his way will burn in hell and die! Needless to say for a twelve year old boy it scared the shit out of me and till now I believe it started to shape me to the mind set I have now.

More to follow.....

Growing up I was the typical all American boy playing baseball football and volleyball chasing girls and drinking beer (When I can get it) smoking a little wacky tobacco it was an amazing childhood even today I think back on my years growing up and I realize I caught the tail end of the days when being a kid meant being a kid. Mom and dad never forced religion on me actually they tried to keep away from it realizing that I should make my own choices in life and that someone else shouldn’t tell me how to live my life by what a book written thousands of years ago tells me I should and I shouldn’t do I appreciate that their mind set is find out yourself if that’s how you want to live. If I only could have realized that they were doing it for my own good and well being I wouldn’t have been thru the hell I have been thru or current predicament I’m in now.

I had a childhood roll model my uncle I’ll leave his name out of this due to fears of my identity being discovered. He was a true blue all American born in raised in the Deep South total Christian till end enlisted in Army voluntary when the Vietnam war was raging on served honorably highly decorated on the battlefields of SE Asia and continued to served till he retired from active duty at 35 yrs in uniform. He inspired me he motivated me and I made my mind up my senior year to join the military and serve my great nation like my uncle.

More to follow.

Senior year in high school and let me tell you what a year it was! I had really bloomed into a man I was working out every day and sometimes even the night I was 6 foot and 220 lbs of solid muscle had a few of the local girls I went to school with on each arm was popular in school and one hell of a football player but I was barely making it thru school. My parents decided to get me a tutor to help me pass I’m not stupid or dumb I just hated school I hated learning about things that I knew I would never use in the outside world Algebra 🤣 please when have we ever used that? Maybe if you were an engineer or scientist but me I had only one goal in life get into boot camp and get my hands on a M16 rifle.

As the year progressed my first report card came out well it wasn’t pretty a couple of B’s in subjects I liked namely social studies, English, History and our extra curricular classes like PE and auto mechanics. Math and Spanish I barely passed D in both. My parents sat me down and told me if I didn’t start passing these two subjects I either had to quit my part time job ( That meant bye bye truck ) or agree to being tutored in both subjects once a week. Ok that’s easy I loved my job and my truck so let’s do this and I’ll get a tutor.

My math tutor was this sweet lady former math teacher at our local high school well liked throughout town and well respected she whipped my butt in shape with math and there was no cheating or half ass processes it was show her how you did it and you better get it right the first time or your butt was doing it over and over again till it’s burned in your brain and she would keep me there till pass ten at night sometimes till I got it right!

Hey sounds tough but I passed!!

Spanish same thing one of the local ladies from town Rose was her name her mother came from Havana Cuba fled the country as Castro and his his rebels were beating Batista’s army back to the sea. Her father was a Major in Batista army and fought against Castro’s rebels. When Santiago fell to Castro’s forces he traveled to Havana mainly hitchhiking rides and if that didn’t work he would jam his service weapon in their face and make them take him. He was a total badass soldier and after two months finally made it to Havana as much of the country was in Chaos. He went to the airport trying to find a flight out of Havana but to no avail. As Castro’s forces encircled the city and people started to grow desperate namely Government, Military and the richest of Havana he caught a lucky break he heard of a freighter anchored off Havana buying up as much rum cigars sugar as they could get their hands on. He as a Major in the Army still had some power so he contacted the freighter and made a deal take me and my pregnant wife with you and I’ll help you raid one of the government warehouses on the wharves. They agreed the crew and him raided the warehouse at midnight and even convicted the army guards posted there to help in the raid in exchange for safe passage to the states. Christmas Day 1958 the ship pulled anchor and steamed towards Miami Jan 1st 1959 Cuba fell to Castro. Her father ( My Tutor ) was a legend in my eyes so I studied my ass off with them to pass my Spanish and got a B! And he presented me his his Cuban issue Army cover as a gift and shared a shot of rum. I will always respect that man. Rest In Peace Armando you were a true badass soldier and family man. More to come........

Work and I guess you can call it lust love.

Once my midterms were finally over and I got sort of good grades my parents were finally off my back. I didn’t have to go to the tutors during midterm break and was able to work full time at my high school job. Most kids my age in school were working at Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Blockbuster and some of the other popular places. Me on the other hand I wasn’t like the normal kids I found that flipping burgers and asking for your order too boring and meaningless so I went to work at one of the local boat yards. Being surrounded by water there was a boat yard almost on every street most of them catered to tourists renting boats or the snow birds that migrated down to warmer climates every years. I got hired at one of the smaller but nice boat yards that had slips for rent or own that people lived full time on. Boats everywhere and of every type nice multi million dollar types with more luxury than the Hilton to small sailboat types that a single person could live on. We did the maintenance around the yard the occasional maintenance on the slips and boat maintenance when paid enough.

I was hired for one purpose only that’s to dive in the harbor and to not only clean the pillions on the piers but the harbor it’s self. And let me tell ya’ll that’s some nasty ass work and quite honestly dangerous. Visibility sucks mud silt seaweed and harbor trash everywhere and the local sea life which includes things that sting things that bite and things that can and will eat you if they have a chance. Next to the harbor was a canal and there are residential homes and condos on that canal and almost all of them had boats and they loved to fish not in the canal but out in the ocean and they would bring their fish back clean them fillet them and throw their carcasses into the canal which created a god awful nastiness in the canal and attracted predators.

Barracudas- imagine a silver arrow underwater full of teeth and a bad attitude that is a Cuda. They could be small as 6 inches or as long as 6 feet. I ran into all the sizes diving the harbor and most just left me alone but sometimes there would be one that would follow me and in that inky darkness it’s not a good feeling.

Sharks- Yup they were there too every time you say shark someone would think of Jaws lucky that where I grew up there were no white sharks but there were others.

Bulls- Meanest damn things you can imagine honestly I think they are more dangerous than any other sharks and they have a bad temper too. Ran into them a few times while scouring the bottom and one chased my ass right up the boat ramp.

Tigers- bigger than bulls but equally as dangerous but not with the attitude of a bull they are the types that check you out first before they attack ran head on to a big one while removing a palm frond from the bottom he was probably around 9 foot long and I almost shit myself he swam right past me and I’ll never forget that tail it was so strong I moved when he swam by me. I was lucky three yrs after I enlisted a guy that lived on the canal where the recreational boats were lost a leg to a bull shark when he jumped on top of it by accident.

I loved my job I had a great time with a great group of guys. Mr. Smith he was my boss he was the nephew of the owner of the boat yard from Buffalo NY he was a hard ass worker day and night he had a wife and two kids a boy and girl and he was a family man even though he worked 7 days a week he always made time for them.

Mr. Mark- Army veteran served in Nam ground pounded in the rice paddies he saw some pretty hardcore action there but he never acted weird and crazy like some do after a few beers he would be back in the rice paddies chasing the Cong quite a few nights we had to carry his ass back to his truck take the keys make sure there was no guns nearby and let him sleep it off.

Mr. Jaime- Young guy 22 served in the Air Force got out had no goal in life but to work and live in a warm climate I asked him onetime what did you do in the Air Force and he said as little as possible.

The Boat yard people

They were a mixed bunch there were two types the year round residential ones they had the Beverly Hills of the boat yard the far end docks with the shore power and potable water hook ups. They were the ones who had more money than they knew what to do with and the multi million dollars live aboards most of them were really likable and easy going they were all pretty much retired with nothing really to do all day but ride around the boatyard on their bikes or electric carts most would start drinking at noon and by 6 pm were pretty shit faced. There was this nice couple from New York Ike and Fran they were Jewish but not very religious Ike used to say that why should we follow a book written 3000 yrs ago by a group of sand people living in the most inhospitable place on earth that thought when water fell from the sky (Rain) it was a gift from god. Ike make a ton of money in the real estate industry up north and they would always meet me at the docks before I would start diving to clean the basin and would always tell me what ever shellfish (Crabs and lobsters) or snappers or groupers I catch they would pay me for. Ike was scared of the ocean he served in the Navy and had a bad experience while swimming in Guam he told something dragged him to the bottom he swore up and down it was a giant shark ( Personally I think Ike was drunk and imagined the whole thing) I used to bring them conches stone crab and lobster every dive I did and he would always give me 25 dollars for my catch no matter how small or large. Ike didn’t believe in the whole kosher thing he thought it was a scam and a way for religious Jews to make money off people who believe that they will burn in hell if they don’t follow the ways of sand people 3000 yrs ago. They were good people and later on I found out they had both passed on and I hope the Rest In Peace. There were the Domingo brothers Hector and Juan two Cubans ran away from Cuba when Fidel took over these two practically swam in money both made their fortune by running dope from the Bahamas to the keys and Miami they had fast cars tons of gold and after Federal agents raided their yacht in the marina they had an arsenal of high powered military type weapons I remember a DEA agent bringing out AK’s M16’s UZI’s and all sorts of handguns. I didn’t have much dealings with the brothers they kept to themselves most of the time from what I read later on they both got twenty years in jail and the feds confiscated their boat and cars.

Terry and Trish

Well picture this two old party hard lesbians that was Trish and Terry they were in their 60’s made their money in hair dressing salons in New Jersey and they were always the life of the party they would start drinking at 1200 pm then they would start smoking weed around 3 pm and by 8 pm both were so wasted I had to make sure they got on their boat and in bed before one of them fell over and drowned or eaten by a damn shark. They were good people never found out what happened to them they were always against me joining the military they couldn’t understand why I wanted to go to war and die for someone else.

Karen and Tony

These two people were the youngest ones in the Beverly Hills in the marina Tony was 55 and Karen was 48 Tony served in the army during Vietnam as a MP I suspected there was much more to that story I’ll explain why later on. Karen who would alter my life and have a huge impact on me was a former teacher in Pennsylvania and a former hippie girl Tony and her met when he was on leave from the Army in the late 60’s. Tony made his fortune in boat batteries and had offices in Florida, Belize and Thailand Tony used to split his time between them two months in Belize and two months in Thailand and the rest in Florida they lived aboard a very nice yacht custom made job with all the luxury and comfort you could ask for. They both liked to work out in the local gym same place I worked out in and when tony was around they would bike ride around the island. Karen was an attractive woman between the bike riding and the gym she kept her self in shape and she always wore a two piece bikini either black or white and she liked her wine a lot she would usually start drinking after her morning or early afternoon bike rides. Tony hardly drank only once and awhile he would have a beer or two but other than that he kept himself sober most of the time.

The ghetto docks

The Beverly Hills section is the high rent district of the marina the upper shelf of the place the lower dock slips were the low rent section they were the part timers usually the drifters who floated in or snow birds from up north escaping the winter. Their boats well let’s just say from small sailboats to regular fishing boats with a small cabin with barely enough room to move around. The low rent docks didn’t get the service like Beverly Hills did they were responsible for their water their power and garbage removal and sewage removal no pumping into the basin they had to call the local honey pot to come pump them out. Beverly Hills they had power and water and sewage removal provided by the marina and garbage removal three times a day they just had to place it in the trash bins placed at the foot of the dock plus they had twenty four hour service if their power went out or water they could call Ralph and he would have one of us reset the breaker or restart the water pump. There were some interesting creatures in the low rent district for sure just a quick list.

The felon-

He was on the run from the law in Maine from what we found out later he shot his brother in the chest and fled he was halfway to freedom when he ran aground off the lower part of Florida and had to dock till repairs were done. He almost made it to South America the Panamanian coast guard caught him illegally fishing in their waters and arrested him. He was deported back to America minus his sailboat and is serving a 30 yr sentence for attempted murder.

The gay pedofile named skip-

The name same says it all he drugged and raped a 16 yr boy in NC and fled from the police he kept a low profile till one night he invited me over to his place to watch porn and have a beer of course. I declined and he left the marina a week later he didn’t make it far his boat caught fire off an reef at 2 am and he had to abandon ship and was never seen again. Police found the wreckage and identification number on the boat and declared him lost at sea.

The mentaposal married drug addict-

She was a trip OMG that woman was something I will never forget she was hooked on something and she didn’t care one way or the other about anything her old man was locked up in jail awaiting trial for drug dealing and looking at a lot of time. She was high almost 24/7 she had no money she couldn’t hold a job she would get fired after a a few weeks she always had the shadiest characters coming in and out from her boat she was trading sex for drugs and had no cares in the world. Jaime used to give her 20 dollars for BJ’s in the work shed after hours and bragged how he used to make her throw up by rough throat sex she was finally evicted from the dock she didn’t pay her rent for 6 months we had to call the sheriffs department when she started throwing things into the basin. She died after I joined the Navy overdose of cocaine.

More to come.......

[kentuckywrites]

Again

Doug and Pongo have a sparring match.

Doug never cared for flashy or stylish things. He was always one for efficiency, especially out on the field. He wanted things to get the job done. And his colleagues were well aware of this, so they were shocked when he went and bought himself a new sports car. It looked like a God damn Hot Wheels got inflated with helium, he had thought at first.

He had to admit, though: it was one hell of a drive. It was fast, powerful - needed a charge often, but it was worth the satisfaction it gave him. None of those factors, however, contributed to the initial purchase. It was the safety features that drew him in. The car could’ve been uglier than an insidius, and Doug would’ve bought it.

After all, Pongo needed to learn how to drive a car, and God knew the kid needed the safety measures put in.

The first day he’d been behind the wheel, he’d been nervous as all hell. Sure, the kid was a natural at driving Skells, but Skells had almost nothing in common with cars. Cars had pedals and shifts, Skells had buttons and levers and command consoles for arts. Pongo was hesitant to even get in the car, he was so nervous. Then Doug promised him a bought of training if he was able to drive around the commercial district a bit, and he was in the driver’s seat in seconds.

Today, as usual, this promise had excited the blank-eyed Interceptor. It had been a week since the last drive, and Doug was wondering as he drove if Pongo was getting worse instead of better. He needed constant reminding that red lights meant STOP and that it was not okay to stop in the middle of the road to look at people walking their dogs. Doug had lost count of the number of times he’d felt his heart pounding so fast, all because Pongo came to such sudden stops to admire dogs. As much as Doug was a dog person, he was not a traffic loving person.

Thankfully, after the commercial district drive, there were no such incidents involving dogs. However, on the way to the hangar Pongo waved hi to someone - and proceeded to almost run over them. Doug was able to get his hand on the wheel in time to steer him straight. The guy Pongo almost ran over shouted a long list of profanities and something about ruining his God damn suit again. There was emphasis on again. Doug only sighed, deciding not to ask about the history behind that. He told Pongo to park in the usual spot: right outside the entrance to the test hangar. On some special days he would tell him to park at the diner, just to practice his slot parking. But it was too busy today. Pongo would hit someone’s car - again.

That was an again Doug didn’t really want to explain.

After Pongo parked successfully next to the crane, he jumped out with a big grin. The boy was a few inches shorter than Doug, but he’d been noticing a little strand of hair perking up on Pongo’s head. He wasn’t sure why Pongo was using so much force when he was brushing his hair. If he kept that sort of force up, his whole head would be covered in short strands like that. Hell, Doug had even heard rumors that that was how Bozè lost his hair. It’d been long and golden silky, apparently. Couldn’t have been much worse than Doug’s mullet from high school.

“So what are we gonna practice today?” Pongo jumped up and down as they went inside, “Or am I gonna learn something new? Either way I am suuuuper excited!!”

Doug couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. “You should be. I got a plan for you.”

The test hangar was empty when they entered. Completely empty. Doug would’ve placed a bet that the Outfitters were out partying at the diner - again. It had been a full week, a full week, since the Core was restored. He thought the partying would’ve stopped by now.

But the lack of distractions would be good for their session today. There was a rack of weapons for them to choose from against the far right wall, and they went to it. Doug picked up a photon saber. Pongo, a longsword. Unsheathing it from its case, he made sure the blade was in tact. “Alright, ready! What have you got for me?”

“Actually, before we do anything else…” Doug raised a finger, “Put the longsword away.”

Pongo blinked. “...What?”

“You heard me. It’s time you started picking up other weapons,” He explained. “As much as you love your current set, you may not always be able to use just the assault rifle and longsword. A good BLADE learns to adapt to the missions they’re given and pick up weapons that will help them and their team in battle.”

Hesitant, Pongo sheathed the sword and placed it back on the rack. “So...what should I use?”

Doug shrugged. “Pick something that speaks to you. I’m not expecting you to master whatever you pick, just test the water with them.”

Pongo gazed over the options. It was hard to tell if he was focusing on any specific weapon. Doug still thought it was a weird mim modification to have. Did he want people to think he was blind or something?

He watched as Pongo reached out towards a shield. Doug prepared himself to help out; if Pongo chose to try using a shield first, it was possible he’d be overwhelmed by its weight. But when Pongo picked it up with his right hand, he seemed to have no trouble keeping it up. He even bounced it up in his hand to get a better grip.

“Shield, huh?” Doug said, “Can’t say it wouldn’t suit you. Wanna test it out?”

Pongo ended up shaking his head. “Maybe not today. But I do want to find a melee weapon first.”

“Well, you’ve got options. Javelins, dual swords, knives, photon sabers -”

“Can I test one of those out?” Doug blinked in surprise as Pongo interrupted him. “Sure. I know a thing or two about them, I could give you a few extra pointers if you want.”

Pongo took a saber hilt off of the rack, observing it carefully. “I mean, I like it, but...where is the blade?” That got the Harrier to let out a heart chuckle. “C’mon, you haven’t seen me turn mine on before? There’s a button near the arts panel on the hilt.”

He fiddled around with it and eventually pressed something with his thumb. The blade extended out of the hilt and towards Doug, who was too late to jump back. The point of the blade was millimeters from his nose. Pongo managed to notice and react accordingly, which involved him stepping back, pointing the blade at the ground, and spewing out a thousand “SORRY!”s.

“Hey now, it’s alright,” Doug reassured him, “Just make sure you point out of harm’s way next time.”

He turned around and grabbed his own photon saber’s hilt, which was hanging off of a clip on his armor. Igniting the blade, he put a bit of distance in between them and turned back to face Pongo. Both of his hands were now on the hilt, just like how he would grip his longsword. It wasn’t good for him to stay overly attached to that thing, Doug knew, but if he really sucked with the other weapons, he wouldn’t push it. Better to try something new and fail than to never try it at all.

“The first thing you’ll notice is how much lighter it feels compared to the longsword,” Doug explained, “And for the most part, just imagine you’re using the longsword. But be careful, the saber is lighter, but that means it’s faster. Take your time with it for now and don’t feel like you have to swing a thousand times per second.”

Pongo nodded, focusing his attention on where his hands grasped the hilt. He adjusted his grip, placed one foot in front of the other, and assumed a near perfect fighting stance. Looks like that longsword training helps him with the basics, Doug thought to himself.

Pongo began to slowly mimic the moves he usually made with his longsword, testing the water with the new blade. Doug was content watching for now, and he’d point out any tips he thought the boy might need. But so far, Pongo was handling it better than most new recruits did. After a minute or so, he let his left hand fall to his side, realizing that the saber could be held comfortably with one hand. The slashes became quicker, more precise. Doug had to admit, he was pretty impressed, though the moves were still on the basic side. There would be a fun way to test how far he could really go with that saber.

Doug drew his own saber, a silver hilt accompanied by a seafoam green blade. “Alright, let’s try sparring since you’ve got a general idea of it.”

Pongo looked up, a tentative grin on his face. “Are you sure? I mean -”

“Of course I’m sure.” The Harrier interrupted, “You were quick to learn the basics. See how similar it is to the longsword? Just use some of those same techniques, and you’ll figure things out as you go.”

Pongo blinked once, and the grin turned into a smirk. “Alright then. Ready?”

“You bet.”

Pongo barely gave any time for Doug to get a good footing. That was one of his strengths: his speed. In the first moments of the spar, Doug discovered that Pongo was taking his words of advice to heart. He was using a lot of longsword moves, though the lightness of the weapon gave it a bit of an edge. None of his strikes delivered the same punch as a longsword, but that was to be expected. After a while, Pongo stepped back, quick breaths escaping his parted lips.

“I can feel it. This is not as strong as my longsword.”

“But here’s the kicker that I think you might like,” Doug said, “The photon saber specializes not in offense, but in buffs. Healing teammates. Making sure your team stays up, even when you fall.”

Pongo’s eyes widened. “I...I want to be able to help my team. I always told myself I would help others by being strong -”

“And strength isn’t always everything. People have different skill sets, you know. And you handled that saber well for the first try, so maybe it’s worth coming back to it next session.”

He nodded. “If that is alright with you, then...yes, I want to learn how to use the photon saber.”

Pongo retracted the blade, gazing at the hilt for a moment before taking a step towards the weapons rack to put it back. He didn’t get far, however, when Doug heard Pongo’s comm device ringing. It had perhaps the most annoying ringtone on Mira. Stupid fucking nyan cat theme song, now Doug wouldn’t be able to get it out of his brain for the next hour.

Pongo took it out before Doug’s ears started bleeding and, eyes widening, said, “Oh goodness gracious, I am going to be late! Ah, thank you so much Dad, see you next week!”

He quickly placed the photon saber back on the rack and jogged off without realizing what he’d called Doug. The Harrier facepalmed.

Not again.

[lottosevens]

Still Looking Up

A Raven’s Home fanfic Rating: T Paring: eventual Raven/Chelsea (Chrave) Summary: PARENT TRAP(ish) AU. Raven and Chelsea ended up falling out big time after the chinchilla controversy in their senior year of high school and haven’t spoken to each other since. When Levi, Nia, and Booker discover a photograph of their moms from their good old days, the kids decide it’s time to try and bring the two old friends back together. Chapter: 1/?

(You can also read on AO3)

They’d only just begun their new adventure in Chicago (that’s what she’d called it when she’d told Levi about the move—he’d seemed less than convinced) and everything was already stressful. Their new landlord had conveniently forgotten they were moving in that day and had gone off on vacation with his mother, so they’d had to push back their move-in by two days. Then, the first hotel they’d tried to check into didn’t allow pets, and neither did the one after that. Chelsea thought this was not only inhumane and unfair to all of the poor dogs and cats and turtles and other creatures that may be traveling with their humans, but wildly inconvenient for her. But they were finally settling down in their third-attempt hotel, which did allow pets, with less than—she glanced at her watch—ten hours to go until Levi’s first day of school and thirty-four hours until her first day of work. She closed her eyes and rested against the headboard for just moment, just taking in the fact that, yes, she was really here, and yes, this was really happening. Her entire life had been turned upside down within a matter of months and had kept spinning and spinning ever since. But it felt like things were finally settling down, despite how crazy the past twenty-four hours had been. And soon, they’d be in their own apartment and settled into their new work and school routines and things would be back to normal. She couldn’t wait for normal. When she opened her eyes, Levi was climbing up onto the foot of the room’s single queen bed, his nearly-as-big-as-him backpack in hand and their golden retriever Zoodles at his heel. In one quick movement, Levi dumped the entire contents of the backpack on the bed. Pencils, pens, crayons, folders, and notebooks covered the white, standard hotel-issue bedspread in a rainbow of color. “What are you doing, bud?” she asked, rolling some of the crayons that had strayed her way back toward Levi’s pile, with little success. “I have to organize my backpack for tomorrow. I can’t be the new kid and the kid with a messy backpack,” he answered, without lifting his gaze from the task at hand. With nimble hands and a little (unhelpful) help from a slobbery dog, he began sorting his pencils and pens into piles. “Do you want any help?” She started to reach forward but he shook his head and stilled her hand. “Thanks,” he said. “I got it.” Chelsea nodded, and returned to her resting position against the headboard. She admired and respected her son’s independence, absolutely, but it always made her a bit sad to think about why he was so self-reliant, so willing to go and do things his own way. “Alright, but make it quick, okay? You need to get to bed soon. There’s school in the morning.” “I know, Mom.” Chelsea sighed, and felt a warm, wet patch forming on the side of her jeans. She looked down, and, of course, Zoodles had his nose pressed into her outer thigh, bashfully begging for her attention. “Come here, buddy,” she called, and he scrambled happily so that his head was resting safely in her lap. She gave him a big scratch behind the ears. “Tomorrow everything will be back to normal, I promise.” She didn’t know why she was hoping so hard for normal, all of a sudden. For years before her marriage had started to fall apart, she’d been hoping for a return to anything but normal, anything but the monotony that she had inexplicably and then unwillingly fallen into Garrett. Her life had once been just a bit extraordinary, had had a touch of magic. But that was a long time ago, almost eighteen years now, and nothing worth thinking about anymore. She had a new life and, starting tomorrow, a new new life with a new job and a new apartment in a new city. She had a lot to look forward to. There was no use in looking back. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Paris Fashion Week was always the most stressful time of year for Raven, even though it probably wasn’t supposed to be. Fashion Week was supposed to be a time of socializing and showing off (both of which were things which Raven knew how to do very, very well). By the end of the week, though, she was always exhausted and cranky and even a little bit intimidated by all the other amazing designs she’d seen, and all she wanted to do was go home and do nothing for another week except take several long bubble baths and spend some time with her kids. If you had told Raven fifteen years ago that she would be passing up shopping in Paris so that she could go home to be with her children, she’d laugh in your face and go back to flipping through her latest copy of Vogue. Yet, here she was, in the back of a car on the way to the airport, bouncing her leg in anticipation. “Could we go a little bit slower?” she muttered under her breath, checking the time on her phone. She still had over an hour before her flight was supposed to leave, and didn’t need to worry about silly things like security to get on the private jet. But the sooner she was there, the sooner they possibly could take an earlier space in the take-off queue, and the sooner she could be back in Chicago and on her way to pick up her kids from school. Raven sighed and leaned her head against the cold glass of the window like she’d done as a child in the backseat of her parents’ station wagon. They were stuck in the usual traffic around the Arc de Triomphe, which meant the stop and start and stop and start of almost standstill traffic. Raven closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. There was no need to be anxious, there was no need to get upset. She’d be home with her kids in ten hours’ time and she wouldn’t even remember this car ride. If she just let herself let go of the things she couldn’t control, she could be at peace. At least that’s what her therapist always said. Her pilates and yoga instructors, too. Even her ex-husband had said something to the effect at one point, long ago. But Raven Baxter was all about taking control, and always had been. Letting go wasn’t a concept that came to her easily or often. She managed, though, and with just a few more deep breaths she felt herself center and her muscles relax. Things were better. Things were calm. When she opened her eyes, she would be at peace, able to enjoy the rest of her ride through the city before they hit the Autoroute. But when she opened her eyes, she immediately felt her muscles re-constrict and her breath catch in her throat. Her body became the absolute opposite of at peace as a shock of red hair flew past her window. Raven’s face pressed even further against the glass, trying to catch another glimpse of the red-haired cyclist, but to no avail. The bicycle was gone, disappeared into the mass of cars ahead of them. Her every nerve felt on fire. Raven would love to say that was the first and only time she’d ever jumped at the sight of long, red curls that seemed at one so familiar yet so distant. She felt silly for her excitement, for thinking that, of all the places in the world, she would find her here. She didn’t even want to, she told herself. They hadn’t spoken in almost eighteen years, despite Raven’s earliest efforts, and now she wanted nothing more than for it to stay that way. She could hold a grudge as long as anybody. She settled back into her seat, head against the leather interior instead of the window, and closed her eyes once more. Her body was still vibrating with energy, and her heart still thumping wildly in her chest. She needed to calm down. She needed to relax. She needed to take a nap. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — The plane landed that afternoon in Chicago at 2:12, which gave Raven exactly 48 minutes to collect her things, get the car, and get over to the Lakeshore Day School before the final bell rang at 3:00. When she pulled into the parking lot and looked down at the dashboard clock, she smiled victoriously. It was 2:51. She still had nine minutes to spare. In the spring, the grounds of the Lakeshore Day School were lush with blossoming trees and beautiful flowers, and during the fall the leaves on the trees all turned magnificent shades of orange, yellow, and red that Raven hadn’t really gotten to see while growing up in San Francisco. But during the winter, the campus looked no more appealing than the arctic tundra, its perfectly manicured lawns hidden beneath a layer of frost and its trees mere skeletons, crouching over the stone façade of the school building. On a normal winter day, Raven would turn up the heat and wait in the car for the kids to come out of school. But it was unseasonably warm outside (thanks, global warming) and she’d been cooped up in cars and planes for too long already. She needed fresh air and to stretch her legs. Benches lined the walkway up to the school’s giant front staircase, but Raven had had enough sitting, so she decided to lean against one instead. She pulled her phone out of her purse and began swiping through meaningless email after meaningless email and responding to some less meaningless texts, when she caught sight of something in her peripheral vision, a flash of red hair leaning a bike up against the other end of her bench. She shook her head and sucked in a breath. “No. Not again. You’re not gonna fall for this twice in one day.” She kept her focus fixed on her phone, sent a text to her group message with the twins telling them she was outside, but her curiosity was messing with her, telling her to look up! look up! She scoffed again. She wouldn’t. She had more dignity than that. She looked back at the clock on her phone. It would still be five minutes before the bell rang. She could last five minutes without looking up. She had to beat this damn urge somehow. She was a grown woman, a famous fashion designer, she traveled around the world on a weekly basis. She couldn’t keep doing this. It was getting pathetic. A few seconds later, the figure finally stepped out from the edges of her vision, and Raven rejoiced. She’d done it. She hadn’t looked up. She was probably cured now. She’d never ever have to— A large weight crashed into her lower legs and sent her almost toppling over the back of the bench, but she was able to catch herself, keep herself upright. Her phone was another story. It crashed to the concrete on the other side of the bench with a horrifying crunch. She tried to go get it, but the thing that had crashed into her—apparently a giant golden retriever—was blocking her path no matter which way she moved. “You better get your slobbery mouth away from my pants, dog. They’re suede,” she muttered, trying to push it away, but to no avail. The dog would not budge. She kept up the struggle. “Where is your human?” “Zoodles, come back here!” Zoodles? Raven thought. What kind of weirdo name for a dog was that? But the dog backed off instantly and took off jogging toward the voice, leaving Raven covered in hair, slobber, and her own sweat. She leaned over to dust off the bottoms of her pants as best as she could, hoping the slobber wouldn’t leave any stains. “Are you okay?” the voice said, much closer than it had been the last time. There was something about it that felt so familiar. “I am so sorry about that. We just moved here and he’s been really excited by all the new places and people. Haven’t you, Zoodles?” Raven froze. That voice. It was more than just familiar. It was the voice. Her voice. She couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed or ashamed or proud that it had taken her so long to figure it out. After all these years of compulsively searching for that voice, for that hair, for that girl, she’d found her. But suddenly, she couldn’t unfix her gaze from her feet. She watched the tiny droplets of melted frost roll down the rounded toe of the leather boots. The voice spoke again. “Are you okay? Should I call somebody?” Raven shook her head, finally stood upright, and turned so she couldn’t see the other woman, but more importantly, so the other woman couldn’t see her. “I’m fine,” she grumbled, with a cough, hoping her hardest to disguise her voice. She was a bit out of practice. “Okay, good.” She could hear the woman’s smile in her voice. “My name is Chelsea Grayson. My son Levi just started school here today. He’s in the fourth grade, but I should probably get him tested out. He’s a really smart kid, a lot smarter than I was at his age. Or I was ever, really. I’m assuming you have kids that go here?” Raven remained silent. The bell rang, a shrill hum in the distance, but then it was quiet for a long time between them. Raven could hear Chelsea shifting in what was surely a pair of pleather loafers, and release then a soft sigh. “Sorry to bother you,” Chelsea finally said, her voice quiet, the disappointment carrying through. Raven heard the soft clip-clop as she began to walk away toward the school, but it stopped abruptly. “Oh, is this your phone?” Raven held out her hand behind her, still unable to turn around, and she felt the cold metal of her phone thunk heavily into her outstretched palm. “Thanks,” she squeaked. She didn’t get a response this time. As she was inspecting her phone for damage—apparently the fall sounded a lot worse than it had actually been—a pair of voices that she could never forget called out to her, and two pairs of footsteps began pounding thunderously down the pavement. Before she knew it, she was sandwiched between two eleven year olds. Her hands quickly found rest on the backs of their heads. “Hey, babies,” she whispered, squeezing them closer, planting a kiss to their hairlines. “I missed you.” “We missed you, too,” Nia, her youngest but wisest answered. “Did you bring us anything back from Paris?” Booker, her oldest and decidedly less wise, but loveable nonetheless, asked immediately after. “You know what? I don’t remember. We’ll have to see what’s in my suitcase when we get home.” She chuckled softly, reveling in being home again, having her children so close. “How was school today?” They shrugged out of her hug simultaneously. It was okay,” Booker answered. Nia nodded her agreement. “Yeah, nothing special.” “What about last week?” The twins shared a look. “The same.” Raven narrowed her gaze. “Well, how about I give you two the car ride to think of some better answers, and we’ll talk about it more at home. Sound good?” The twins both shrugged and began to trudge toward the parking lot, their shoes, the only non-regulated part of their uniform, leaving two trails of footprints in their wake. Raven started after them, but as she began walking, she realized that she’d made a critical error. She’d forgotten entirely about Chelsea, forgotten that she’d left her bike at the other end of Raven’s bench, forgotten that she would be standing directly in Raven’s path to the car. But she realized her mistake too late. Chelsea was standing frozen at the end of the bench, her eyes wide and her now shorter red curls flowing gently from beneath a floppy winter cap. “Raven?”

[nebbychan]

Donk and Sparrow - Halloween

              Crisp and brittle leaves of all colors; scarlet, bronze, and gold all breaking off from their homes among the branches to gracefully cascade, floating along the breeze and landing on the pavement. The chill made it clear that winter was on its way, and any self-respecting Dallington resident would know that it was time to wrap their bodies in a multitude of neutral fabrics. Fall was a special time in Dallington, it signaled the end of barbecues, poolside parties, and humidity of the summer heat and announced the return of the infamous pumpkin spice lattes, succulent vegetables and fruits ripe for harvesting as citizens of all ages would charge to the nearest pumpkin patch or apple orchard to pick only the fattest and juiciest. But fall also served as a warning of the hard winter that was yet to come, temperatures were dropping faster than that of a piano at high altitude, and elderly residents would soon be packing and catching flights in Buffalo or driving to the nearest warmer states.

The worst of it all was the Christmas season.

Nebby had to relive those horrors year after year once she’d become working age, and make no mistake, the first Black Friday always left mental scars in a retail associate’s brain. She had no doubt that Tim becoming a sales floor associate at the old Sears in Pine Woods Mall will be one hell of a shocker for him. She didn’t do it in front of him, but behind the scenes she’d be crossing herself repeatedly and uttering, “En el hombre Del Padre, y Del Hijo, y Del Espíritu Santo. Amen.” Thankfully, Canny Tim had yet to fully grasp Spanish, though that doesn’t mean he didn’t know what “puta” or “cabrón” meant.

And what also served as a saving grace was the holiday that came before Christmas; Halloween.

               Halloween was always a popular holiday in the states, especially in Dallington. Once a year, a massive festival would be held, honoring the town’s founding. Meanwhile, the town’s club owner and DJ, Salem had decided to pack up and go off to the mountains for the weekend. It was a strange tradition of hers; she’d pack the RV with all the essentials, and drive deep into the woods only to emerge on November 1st. No one knew why she did it, but when approached she’d instantly snap, “I just need some time to myself, okay?” Nope, definitely not suspicious at all, nope!

Of course, some punk kid would start a rumor that Salem was a serial killer or a narcotics addict, neither of which held enough evidence to prove either theories plus the addition of Nebby’s frightful gaze said otherwise. Nebby herself believed she was just writing new songs or trying to enjoy nature, she’d always remembered Salem as an avid hiker and birdwatcher. Lame activities, but someone has to have a believable hobby, right? Ann had her baking, and Nebby had her trips to the gym.

Nebby stopped by Salem’s small bungalow with croissants and parfaits, “Hey! Going on that yearly trip again?” she greeted. Salem had hoisted the last bag into her RV just as she’d approached her driveway, she smiled, “Yeah, oh hey, are those for me?” “Well who else in this town eats parfaits with pomegranates, dark chocolate mousse, and gluten-free vegan yogurt?” Nebby placed a hand on her hip and flashed a roguish grin. “Don’t you diss the good name of Velvet yogurt, its good shit and you know it.” Salem laughed as she accepted the care package, “So I hear this is gonna be Tim’s first Halloween, it kinda sucks I won’t be here to see it.” “Yeah well, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do anything with him; fucker’s still shaken up after watching IT last night.” Nebby folded her arms and scoffed, “Lost his shit at the sewer drain scene and wouldn’t keep his hands off his face to watch the rest.” “R.I.P Georgie.” Salem shook her head, “You know Tim’s a medieval solider, right? His time was really fucked up you know, and I don’t think introducing him to horror movies was a good idea, you might trigger something.” “He watched the entirety of the Exorcist without blinking an eye, matter of fact…other horror movies are just fine with him- well, except the time he got super nauseated after watching the Saw movies.” Nebby scratches her head.

“You think he might have coulrophobia?” “Canny Tim, afraid of clowns…? I’ve heard of his discomfort towards mirrors, but not clowns.” “Well, it’s a possibility. You said he couldn’t watch IT without covering his eyes.” “In his defense, I probably should’ve warned him there was gonna be a lot of child death in this…” “Well if he does, then you guys might want to be careful.” “And why do you say that?” “Well, I guess there are clowns popping up all over the country again.” “Really, are you serious? This shit again? Welp, welcome to Clownpocalyse, mother fuckers, buckle up!” “Yeah, I’d recommend carrying bear mace or something.” “I’ll add that to my grocery list.”

Salem snorted, “Anyway, I should probably start heading out before traffic starts congesting like flu season. You got your meds, right?” “Like I want to spend this year’s Halloween stuck in bed.” Nebby rolled her eyes, “you have a safe trip, okay?” “You better have some tamale ready for me when I get back.” Salem stuck her tongue out at Nebby, earning a playful expression in return. She waved goodbye as her friend pulled out and drove off. Putting her hands into her pockets, she sighed and began the walk home.

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               “Me? Going on a hunting trip with you! Oh no, fuck no, last time I went you nearly took an eye out!” Orion angrily pointed to his left eye. Kardok frowned and punched his shoulder, “’at was ower 700 years ago, wimp, gle ower it.” “I know you’re just going to leave me in the woods or use me as target practice.” The clone glared daggers at the centaur, folding his arms and tapping his non-bandaged foot. “Ah won’t, Ollie said Ah cooldn’t anyway.” Kardok groaned, “an’ besides, dae ye pure want tae bide haur an’ deal wit’ Zarok instead ay shootin’ deer an’ elk?” He did drive a good point, whichever minion that stayed behind had to give him a bubble bath. And bubble baths were the worst, last person to go was Oliver, and he was later found in his room rocking himself by a corner. Orion cringed, “Okay, I guess you’re right.” “’En gle packin’, yoo’re burnin’ daylecht haur.” Kardok shoved him towards the stairs, Orion stumbled and grumbled to himself as he regained balance and began walking up towards his room to pack. Oliver entered the foyer with suitcases in hand, “I’m so excit’d! A whole weekend trippeth all to ourselves!” he smiled, “and twas awfully kind of Zeal to lend us the RV, I wast almost worried we’d has’t to travel by foot!” “Aye, its bin tay lang since I’ve shot myself a braw stag ur tois.” Kardok agreed, stretching out his arms. He took the bags from Oliver and brought them outside to the RV. “Come your ways, doest that gent coequal knoweth we’re going on this trippeth?” Oliver inquired, slightly anxious.

“Ye pure techt Zarok…? Nope, has nae scooby whit we’re daein’.” “I see, then we’d best beest off ere that gent notices.” “Exactly wa Ah tauld Orion tae coorie th’ heel up…!” “Right, oh and ere we wend, may we cease at Lady Donk’s house?” “Wa dae ye want tae gang thaur?” “Just to inquire on which places maketh the best camping ground, we can’t just wend anywhere in the woods.” “Braw, an’ mebbe while we’re thaur she can hook us up wit’ some ay ‘er scran.”

Oliver grinned and once Orion finally pulled through with his luggage- even though he wound up falling down the stairs due to the weight, they headed out. Of course, there was the quick stop at Nebby’s house. Kardok stopped the RV and hopped out with the others, knocking on her front door. Lately he’d noticed the unusual change in setting, not just in this house but all over town; carved pumpkins scattered everywhere, cheap cloth with faces crudely drawn onto them, fake displays of witches and cobwebs. He’d once almost jumped at the sight of the giant spider resting on Ann’s rooftop! None of it was real, of course, but still, quite the scare! Apparently, this was for “Halloween”. Kardok had never heard of it, nor was he interested in knowing what it was about.

What also annoyed him were the inconsistent puns. Oh, the puns.

“Spooky Savings”

“Boo-ze for you”

“Three fears for discounts”

“Witches Crew”

God, if he had to endure one more pun, so help him he will go on a rampage. And wrestling with an enraged centaur was not easy. Just then, the front door opened, and standing there with a cup of tea in hand and glowering at him was Tim. He hissed, “What do you want, Bhaltair?” “Is Nebby haem?” He frowned.

               “I’m afraid not, she’s gone to see Ms. Hallows at the moment.” He shook his head, “Now, please leave.” He was about to shut the door when Kardok blocked him with one of his hooves. Tim was getting frustrated, “I already told you, she’s not home, leave or I’m calling the authorities!” “Ah still need somethin’ ye ken.” Kardok said firmly, “I’m gonnae oan a huntin’ trip for th’ weekend an’ Ah need scran. Ye ken hoo te cuik sae gie tae it!” “Why you…! Well, first of all-!” But Tim stopped to think for a moment, a whole weekend without Kardok around? That means 48 hours of no hooves clattering against the pavement, no heavy breathing over his shoulder, and no threat of his magic arrows! This was perfect! And all he’d have to do was cook for him? Seems like a fair trade to him! “…fine, make yourselves at home, I’ll whip something up for you.” He sighed, slowly opening the door for him. Kardok grinned, but before entering smacked the mug out of Tim’s hand, causing the porcelain to shatter and its contents to get all over the wood flooring. Tim opened his mouth to say something, but just shook his head instead and slinked off to the kitchen.

Once he’d finished, he exited carrying with him several containers and pots all stacked together. “Alright, I’ve prepared enough food to last you the weekend, please return the containers and pots when you return, Ms. Nebula will not be happy to find that her cookware has gone missing.” Tim informed, carefully lending it to Oliver. And speak of the devil…

“What the fuck are you doing in my house?” Nebby growled.

Kardok replied, “Huntin’ trip.” “Oh. You’re going too? Well if you see Salem tell her I said hey.” She brightened up, only to immediately darken, “Next time though, wait for me to get home before you decide to invite yourself in, and for fuck’s sake, quit breaking my shit!” “Duly noted, terribly my most humble apology by the by, we’re in a drive and this trippeth wast last minute.” Oliver nodded. “Its fine, you guys go on ahead.” Nebby shooed them away. Orion stayed behind, “Hey, before I go, do you have like, a bunch of scary stories I could use? I want to try and fuck with Kardok on this trip.” “Do I look like a fucking library to you? Talk to Winston, he should hook you up.” Nebby then shoved him out. She then glanced at Tim, “What’d you make?” “Oh, not much, just some honey cakes and chicken soup.” He laughed, “But I’m glad to see you back home.”

               A grin crept up on Nebby’s face, “Awesome, I’m gonna head to the store to pick up some candy for the trick-or-treaters, you wanna come? There’s a chocolate in it for you.” She offered in a sing-song voice. “Make it two cases of sugar frosted cookies and I’ll grab my coat.” Tim smirked. “You fucking pig, get upstairs.” She snorted. “You created a monster Ms. Nebula!” Tim joked. “Fuck you!” she called back as he marched up the stairs.

Tim entered his room, it’d gotten better since he’d moved in; he had some posters hung up on the wall along with the many flowers Winston would gift to him on a regular basis. It’d gotten to a point where he had hung some of them onto the ceiling; it was neat save for a few fallen petals on the carpet. He opened the sliding door to the closet, inside was as equally organized. He had coats hung based off color coordination, size, and style, shirts and pants folded neatly inside drawers, plus he had a shoe rack to better arrange his shoes, ranging from sneakers to dress shoes. Other items were found such as a laundry basket and a backpack. He took a step back to think which he’d like to take, only to settle for a dark red coat with black buttons. After slipping it on, he practically flew down the stairs and outside, grabbing a lanyard and turning the porch light on as he exited.

The lanyard wasn’t anything special as it held a cardholder which kept his license and a copy of the house key. Latching the front door shut, he entered the passenger side of Nebby’s car. She smiled, “Took you long enough.”

               As they drove towards the direction of the supermarket, Tim looked out into the window. “Ms. Nebula,” He started, “Tell me more about Halloween.” “Sure, you want the short version or the long version? The long version also includes some of Dallington’s history.” She offered. “The long version, please, I want to know everything.” He answered.

“For starters, Halloween wasn’t always called that,” she began, “It has its roots in age-old European traditions, it started with the Celtics, and they called it Samhain, it was a festival consisting of bonfires and people wearing costumes and carving into vegetables to ward off ghosts. They believed that on that night, the boundary between the realms of the living and dead became blurred. So to any evil spirits, it was like a possession buffet for them.” Nebby continued, “But uh, nowadays people dress up for the fun of it…spirit of the season and all that. Anyway, Halloween didn’t come to America until the colonial times, but it wasn’t celebrated as frequently, but when it was, colonizers gathered to exchange ghost stories and start fucking shit up. At that time, they called it, All Hallows Eve. The holiday didn’t pick back up until the early 20th century during the Second World War, when kids started begging for food, marking the staple of Halloween, trick or treating. And Jack-O-Lanterns didn’t pick up until the immigration wave, thanks to the Irish.”

“But what does your town have to do with it?”

“Glad you asked, to give a better understanding, Dallington was founded by Quakers back on October 31st in 1643, before the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts. Before then, it was at first a clan of Irish, Spanish, and French immigrants, along with Native Americans and freed or escaped slaves.” She explained, “They were a small community at first, looking to help each other out and find true peace in the New World. The population was small; I’d say around 150 people- farmers and merchants before the trials. By that time, those who had managed to flee upon accusation came here to hide and later start anew. When the trials were over, on Halloween of 1693, the citizens had gathered outside Salem’s cemetery to mourn and give their respects to those who had lost their lives. Then a year later, a massive feast was held to honor them and those who had passed in their town or in the immigrant’s home countries, some female residents dressing as witches and male residents as demons…basically a middle finger to the Puritan assholes and to the bitchy group of teen girls that started the hysteria.”

“All in all, Halloween was the staple of Dallington’s history, serving as a break from the hardworking conformity.” She smiled, “Although, this is just barely scratching the surface. There’s a lot more to this town than a discount Dia de Los Muertos celebration to piss off religious conservatives.”

He blinked, “I had no idea Dallington had such a connection.” “Well, they did.” She chuckled, “Though, no town goes without its enemies. After that little stunt, in January 4th, 1694, nearby Puritan settlements launched an attack on Dallington. There weren’t any casualties, but they did try to burn down the library, which they hated the most, by the way. Yeah, they didn’t get along, like, at all. Hell, at the end of that month, they tried bringing the Witch Trials back, though it was unsuccessful.” “And why was that?” He wondered. “Easy, because all their women freaked out and moved to Dallington; and without women they couldn’t populate, so the remaining settlers basically died off, probably of dysentery or something to warrant the Darwin Award…” She answered, gripping onto the steering wheel, “Good on them, I hate Puritans.” Tim laughed, “Even if they’re not around anymore?” “Oh no, they’re still here, they’re just not called that anymore.” She shook her head.

               They arrived at a nearby Halmart a while later, and after going inside, Nebby grabbed for a shopping cart and darted straight for the seasonal section. Being this was Dallington, their seasonal section was massive, as it took up nearly half of the gardening section! Stocked were bags of mixed candies, trick-or-treating pails, boxes stuffed with inflatable or cluttered decorations, and of course, costumes! Seeing as lately her hands had been tied with practically babysitting Tim, putting up with likes of Zarok, her store, and occasional trips to the gym, Nebby had little time to decide on a costume. But she decided, hey, while she was there, why not pick something out? And maybe she could include Tim in this if he wanted to. Walking through the candy aisle, she extended her arm so her hand would be knocking over all the bags, and when she began to power walk past, bags filled with candy began falling off the shelves and into her shopping basket. When she was sure her basket was filled completely, she turned towards the costumes. Tim kept close to her as they walked, completely perplexed by what she’d done.

“Hey Timmy, look at this costume!” Nebby pulled out a costume from the rack, it was contained in a bag, but the front had a picture of a person dressed in a blue tunic with white trousers and boots, and holding in his hand was a sword and a shield. It said “Breath of the Wild”, though in all honesty, everyone knew who this was. She grinned, “Do you want to dress up for Halloween? It’s not too late to get a costume!” “Isn’t dressing up a children’s activity?” he asked. “You’re never too old to dress up! I don’t understand where the fuck these bullshit adult expectations came from, just because I’m 30 doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy anything!” She retorted, “C’mon, at least try to have fun.” Tim sighed and took the bag from her, “Fine, I’ll give it a try.” “Yes!” She fist pumped in victory. As Nebby left the aisle, and Tim hadn’t noticed this before, he noticed a figure standing across from a display of inflatable ghosts, he’d only managed to catch a glimpse of a red nose and confetti-like clothing, the wide grin and light waving made Tim’s stomach flip. He was about to take a step forward to investigate when he heard her calling, “Hey Tim, are you coming? I need to pick up some bear mace.”

“O-Oh, yes, I am! Coming, Ms. Nebula!” He then exited the aisle, before he did, however, he looked back to find the figure gone. Must’ve been his imagination…or perhaps it wasn’t.

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               Orion stretched his arms as he’d finally finished setting up the grill Zeal had lent to them, “Thought I’d never get it done…” He’d been left alone to prepare the grill while Kardok and Oliver hunt for deer, which wasn’t at all what he’d hoped for when he’d said he’d like to go on this trip. Then again, it was either this or scrubbing Zarok’s back. And on the plus side, it was relatively tranquil in the woods; he’d almost missed the smell of pine cones and that sweet fresh air that filled his lungs. Maybe it wasn’t what he’d hoped for, but it was still nice to have proper time to relax for once in a millennia. When he’d thought about it, all he remembered was nothing but stuffy rooms and endless clashing against swords. He’d obtained many scars and bruises in his life, most come from either Kardok or Zarok himself. But just one, just for one moment, he could have a moment to rest. The first day had gone off without a hitch, though not much happened. They simply scouted the area with the little daylight they had left, finding the best common ground for deer and whatnot, Kardok had already marked which areas he’d like to visit on his map! Afterwards, they sat outside the RV and eagerly wolfed down the chicken soup Canny Tim had provided for them, and then turned in for the night. Today was more about him setting up the grill and waiting for his comrades to return from hunting, they returned earlier for lunch, and though he wasn’t a cook, he’d managed to throw some meat in between two slices of bread and call it a meal, even if it displeased the centaur. It took an entire loaf, a whole bag of cool ranch Doritos, and a jug of iced tea to get him back on the field, and it was understandable, with an anatomy as complicated as Kardok’s it’d demand the twice amount of nourishment! That’s why they packed extras.

He then turned his head in the direction of leaves rustling; thinking Kardok or Oliver had finally returned Orion opened his mouth to greet them, only for it to be someone else.

He’d seen her before on occasion, particularly when Oliver came to the club for an interview. Her ombre hair hidden in an odd looking hood; tan leather- at least he thought it was leather, adorned with horns, fur, and animal bones. Orion blinked, “Uh…hey Salem, what brings you to the campground?” “Nothin’, Nebby texted me and told me you and the guys are here to do some redneck shit.” She joked. “Redneck…?” Orion repeated. “You know, hunt and get stupidly drunk. I’ve seen it before; my Dad and Uncle Mason did it when they were young.” She laughed. “Are they here with you?” He queried, but Salem shook her head, “Nah, Uncle Mason’s six feet under and my Dad is with my Mom back in Oklahoma.” Oh, so her uncle was-?

“Sorry to hear that.” He said softly. “Its fine, he’s actually buried near my campsite, I come up here every year to pay respects. And my camp is not that far from yours, it’s about half a mile up north.” She smiles, “If you guys want to drop by and have a beer later, I’m open for it.” “That’d be great, but just a fair warning, Kardok can be an ass sometimes.” He laughed.

“He’s part horse, though it’d make more sense if it were half donkey.” “Good one! So, any reason for the weird poncho you got there?” “This…? This belonged to my Uncle Mason; I wear it whenever I come to visit him.” “You two seemed pretty close.” “Are you kidding? He was my best friend before I met Nebby and Ann! Don’t tell them I said that.” “I’ll try not to squeal,” He smirked, “But hey, before you go, do you have any scary stories?” “Why do you want to know? Are you planning on scaring Oliver?”

“More like Kardok and getting back at him for all the bullshit I endured,” He huffed, “I mean, I get it, I looked like some arrow fodder and bear half of his DNA, but the other half isn’t him!” “Let me guess, he doesn’t accept that you’re not who he wants you to be?” She sighed, “Yeah, I get it. And as a matter of fact, I do have a story for you.” She pulls up a chair and seats herself next to the fire pit.

“Alright Orion, you ever heard of the Wendigo?”

               The sun had already set by the time Kardok returned, a fat and limp deer resting on horseback, a huge grin on his face. Oliver applauded, “Thee didst such a wonderful job! That deer nev'r saw it coming!” but his face then fell somber, “twas a shame we only managed to shoot one, doth thee bethink we've gone rusty?” But the centaur shook his head, “It ay practices mebbe, but definitely nae terrible.” They stopped in front of the campground, where Orion was found sitting alone by the RV. Kardok opened his mouth to ask, but was immediately stopped by the clone’s sudden remark, “Yes, the grill is ready, do what you need to do so we can eat already. I’m worn out so I can’t help, if I move another muscle I’d just fall apart!” Kardok huffed, seating himself by the fire pit and drawing out his knife to skin the deer and take its meat. Oliver stood by to take the undesirable parts and toss them aside, while also trying not to gag at the stench. Once Kardok had finished carving juicy pieces of meat, he got up to marinade them and put them in the grill.

As he did so, Oliver smiled, “Lest I so my most humble apology thee couldn't cometh, but, I trust that thee enjoyed the silence?” “I did, best three hours I’ve had in my entire existence.” He smiled back as he kicked back in his chair. But Oliver didn’t like that response, just as he was about to retort, Orion spoke up, “Seeing that it’s nighttime and we have a fire going, why don’t we exchange scary stories while we wait for the meat to cook?”

Kardok huffed, “Och yeah, there's th' Fortesque half ay heem...”

Orion rolled his eyes, “It’s a good one, I promise, and it does not involve a self-insert.” Though skeptical, the centaur seated himself back by the fire pit, mildly intrigued by that last detail. Oliver himself sat close by with as much interest. Orion grinned and rested his elbows on his legs when he crossed them, “Salem told me this story, she dropped by earlier to say hi and decided to tell me this frightening tale.”

   “They say, that in these woods- for centuries even, has been inhabited by a petrifying, gruesome creature known only as the Wendigo.” He began, “She tells me that Wendigo had lived in Dallington even before the settlers arrived and started building their colony. Though, there is a way to become one of them. This spot where we reside in as of now; was once the sight of an atrocity, the worst that this town has ever seen!” Now color Kardok intrigued! “Gang oan 'en, aam listenin'!” Orion nodded and proceeded with the story, “It was back in December of 1643, the year they had settled, while most settlers stayed within its borders two families didn’t. They were simple farmers, living a mundane and monotonous routine, at least up until the winter came. It had crept up on them so quickly, that before they could expect it, their crops had nearly wasted and shriveled up. Fearful that they would starve, the husband sent his wife, infant daughter, and young sons to live with a friend in town while he, his older sons, and the neighbor and his sons stayed behind to try and salvage for any good crop that may have survived. Alas, it didn’t. By the time they decided to join the others in town it’d had all been too late, the roads had become too treacherous and it wasn’t long until they forced into the farmer’s cottage.”

“Little by little, day by day, their supplies slowly dwindled. The farmer grew more distressed as each minute that passed was another minute without food. The nights were long; the husband began to hear tapping noises, which he had at first ignored. But when food became scarce, the tapping only worsened, growing louder each night until all he could hear in his head was the tapping and the painful growls of his stomach, begging and pleading with him for nourishment,” He continued, “The farmer knew that he and the others would not live to see the first spring if they didn’t eat. On the 50th day, the farmer had a new craving, the last of their food had gone, and now, they had nothing. But he was determined to provide, but to do so have to come at a heavy price. He’d eyed his current occupants, deciding that the fattest would have to go. That night, he ventured outdoors to retrieve an axe, and then crept back inside to his second oldest room. That morning, they had food. The neighbor counted heads and asked where the second eldest went, as usually he’d be down here shoving everything down his gluttonous gullet, but no answer came from the farmer, who was busy gorging himself.”

Kardok could only cringe, he knew exactly what was going on, and dare he think a man could do such a thing to his own flesh and blood. But Orion continued much to his dismay, “But as quickly as it came, it’d gone. And so the oldest of the neighboring family was paid a visit, that morning they had meat again, but the neighbor and his sons refused to eat, they’d become afraid of the farmer. The neighbor had noticed a change in the farmer’s appearance; he’d be seen drooling frequently, he’d lick his lips whenever he stared him and his sons down. They’d tried to leave, but the threatening snow storms threatened to gobble them up, and would shove them back inside, back into the awaiting hunger of the farmer. Eventually, the snow had consumed the cottage entirely, and they knew that they would not live to see the spring. At night, the husband was spotted mumbling to himself; his skin became increasingly paler by each passing day and his hair had grayed and fallen out in clumps prematurely, his eyes would stay open and bloodshot as his hunger kept him up at night, his hands would be shaking as it held the only axe in the house, the only weapon for miles. The creaking floorboards made the neighbor and his remaining sons, knowing of what they’d eaten, beg God for forgiveness as they knew that the farmer would come for them, after all, he was hungry. There was no fighting chance against the farmer. Come spring was when the farmer’s wife returned, opening the door, only then screaming in horror when her eyes laid upon the figure that was once her husband, digging his vicious claws into and feasting on the insides of their oldest son, still breathing, clinging onto life. His eyes rolled back, his arm reach out to her as a warning.”

“It was already too late for him, and it would be too late for her if she didn’t run.” He shook his head, “And that she did, but she never made it out of those mountains. Witnesses claimed to have heard her desperate pleas for help, her cries of agony, but no one came, for they were much too afraid of meeting the same fate.”

Orion concluded, “The wendigo- the horrid creature the farmer had become, was a frightening being of Algonquian folklore, and was born when a man selfishly slaughtered and tasted human flesh in times of famine, the first taste would be nothing, but slowly his mind would only have one thought; he had to have more. And the more he’d get, then the more monstrous he’d become. And although he’d have the food he’d so craved- being at the cost of his humanity, it would never be enough to sate his gluttonous desires.” “Och aye but whit abit th' other kids…? Th' yoonger ones fa biddin wi' their mammy…?” Kardok’s eye widened. “Lucky for them, they thrived within the town’s borders, and never once did they venture past,” Orion grinned maliciously, “For fear that they too would become the meal of the wendigo.” Understandably, Kardok didn’t feel like eating and neither did Oliver, as they’d lost their appetite. Quickly, they scurried into the RV to cleanse themselves and prepare for bed, but they knew no matter how many times they washed their hair or scrubbed their bodies with soap, it wouldn’t be enough to erase the ick of the tale.

Falling asleep was a challenge as well, especially for Kardok. He lied awake, his eye still wide open. He could not erase the horrible details from his head, and why couldn’t he? He was tough! A story like this couldn’t deter him from having fun. This was his trip, his vacation! Whether it was true or not, he didn’t need to know. Maybe tomorrow when they return from the mountains he could drop by at the Gold Room downtown and drown these silly fears with a few beers.

As his eyelids grew heavy, as his muscles loosened from the pressure, and his breathing had become less anxious, he’d finally began to drift off.

But then he heard tapping.

   Kardok sat up, but thought, it was just a branch. There was no wendigo here, plus, how would it still be around if no one wanted to come here? Logically, without any victims, the wendigo would’ve died of starvation. Okay, maybe they and Salem being exceptions but it was only fall! If these creatures only appeared in the winter- at least he hoped so, then he had nothing to worry about. But that wasn’t it, as the tapping continued. Kardok lied back down and shoved his pillow over his head to block out the noise, it wasn’t that he feared the wendigo, when something out of the ordinary happens; the least that could be expected was something within logic, the worst was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Perhaps there was a woodpecker or a homeless man trying to grab his attention, or perhaps it was a branch, the RV was parked under a tree, and loose branches were hanging close to the windows. Satisfied with this theory, Kardok began to relax and drift off.

But it wasn’t a branch, Kardok’s eye opened as he’d finally figured out what was causing the tapping; he’d seen Orion do it multiple times on their way here.

That was a fingernail.

Slowly, the centaur got up and reached around for a hunting knife, if it was an intruder, then he’d have something to fend them off. He was not afraid; he was Zarok’s Grand Champion! He’d seen much worse in his life, and had committed various atrocities not excluding murder. He’d ripped men apart with his bare hands, and he even shot a man’s eye out! The sound of the tapping bounced around the room, he looked down at Oliver’s sleeping figure, how in the hell could he sleep through all this?

Just as the tapping had started, it immediately stopped as Kardok then heaved a sigh of relief; finally he could rest easy now. At least, he thought so, as the tapping started back up once again, this time it was as if all the fingernails were tapping against the window rhythmically. He could tell that whatever was out there was just trying to get him to come outside, or at the very least annoy him. A sinking feeling in Kardok’s stomach forced him to edge slowly to the window; Oliver had them drawn closed before he went to sleep. As much as he liked it, he wasn’t necessarily fond of the sun getting into his eyes when he woke up in the morning. Reasonable, but considering the circumstance, it made Kardok all the more uncomfortable. With his free hand, he shakenly grasped onto the heavy fabric, the sweat that had accumulated and glossed over his palms was drenched by the curtain.

   Quickly, he opened the curtain to see who it was that was annoying him. To his relief, it was Orion, hair strewn all over the place, strands sticking out into the air and covering a portion of his face- well, more so than usual. His eyes had bags under them and he was slouched over, clearly a spitting image of Fortesque. Orion yawned and whispered, “Sorry to wake you up, I had to take a leak but I think I accidentally locked myself out, could you let me in?” Kardok blinked several times, fighting the urge to grin and suppressing his laughter, for Oliver’s sake. Of course this idiot would lock himself out. Kardok quietly exited the bedroom and made his way over towards the door, careful as to not knock anything over, after all, this was Zeal’s RV.

He stretched his arms and his hand then rests on the handle, the door opened, and Kardok poked his head out, turning it to see if Orion had stayed put or was at least standing by the door, but he wasn’t there. He frowned, “Orion, Orion, whaur ur ye? Ah swear, if thes is a prenk aam gonnae make sure ye gie sponge bath duty fur lae ay th' year!” But no answer, only the wind and the crickets could be heard. Strange, where was he? He was outside just a second ago. Grumbling, he shut the door and locked it, if that’s how it was going to be then he could stay outside all night! Kardok went back to bed, and while he managed to get some sleep, it wasn’t long for the tapping to wake him up again. He reached around for the alarm clock; “Its 2 in the fucking morning, what is this man’s problem?” Kardok thought to himself, once again covering his head with the pillow to drown out the noise, “He has the entire woods to use as a bathroom and the forest floor to use as a bed, why can’t he just shut up?” The attempts were once again futile. The only way Kardok could get any sleep was if he just went out there and shut Orion up himself.

As he got up, however, Kardok realized he’d left the curtains open from the last time he’d gotten up. And his stomach dropped like an anchor when he saw that it was not Orion outside. Matter of fact, he wasn’t sure what it was!

This man- no, this creature was tall, gangly and thin. It stood there, gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tightly over the bones. With its bones pushing out against the skin, its complexion an ashy gray, and its icy glossed eyes pushed deep into its dark sockets. It was as if it were a skeleton that had risen from beyond the grave, what lips it had was since long gone, red liquid dripping from between its fangs, though Kardok could see a long, slimy greyish-blue tongue slither out from between the gaps to lap the blood from over its yellowed fangs. And though they were separated by the glass, Kardok gagged at the horrific stench of decay. Granted, he was no stranger to the stench, but this…this wasn’t anything like it! The creature, seeing that Kardok was up, opened its mouth, matted black hair glued to the sallow skin. The maw revealed rows of its needlelike teeth, the hands were gnarly, razor-like talons, and Kardok could spot tufts of stained, matted snow-white fur. Around the neck and barely hiding beneath its fur the creature adorned a necklace made with human bones. And atop its head stood tall and proud, a set of antlers; whether they were that of a deer or elk, Kardok did not care, as he quickly sprang into action and shut the curtains tight. He turned over to Oliver who was still fast asleep, but now Kardok realized, Orion was still outside. Should he go out there? No, it was likely that Orion was a goner. But, Oliver was the kind of man who’d want everyone to stick together, “no man left behind” as they say.

To hell with it! If Orion’s gone, that’s going to be Zarok’s problem! He wasn’t going to go out there and risk dying again for this idiot! He wanted to be outside, so he had to pay the consequences. “Kardok?” he turned to see Orion up and unharmed, “What the hell are you doing? It’s 2 a.m.! Get some sleep.” Kardok blinked, how the hell was he still alive? “What're ye daein'? Ah thooght ye waur ootwith…!” He whispered angrily. “Outside…? Kardok, I’ve been in the RV this whole time, I just got up to take a piss and I came here to grab my flashlight!” Orion whispered back. So much for an honorable sacrifice, but still, it was good to see that he was unharmed. Kardok pinched his temples, “Nae, ye dornt need tae gang ootwith. Jist use th' a body we hae haur…!” “But the loo’s broken thanks to your fat ass!” Orion argued. “Jist use it, yoo're nae gonnae ootwith!” Kardok hissed. But despite his efforts, Orion grabbed the flashlight and proceeded to walk towards the door. He could’ve said nothing, he could’ve just let whatever that was out there snatch him up and gobble him whole, and yet, something within him told him he needed to say something.

Because without thinking, Kardok then blurted, “But there’s a wendigo it thaur…!”

Orion was seconds away from opening the door, he looked up at him and gave him an unamused glance, “Oh my god, Kardok, it was just a story, the wendigo are basic mythology and therefore don’t exist.” “Weel centaurs aren’t supposed tae be real an' yit haur Ah am.” Kardok crosses his arms. He did have a point there.

               It seemed like whatever was out there had finally gotten fed up, as the RV began to shake. The sudden movement nearly jolted Oliver awake, while Kardok and Orion went pale as they then heard movement coming from the roof of the RV. “Its oan th' roof…! Its oan th' feckin' roof…!” Kardok panicked. “Then don’t stand there with your dick in your hands, get us out of here!” Orion pulled Kardok out of the bedroom and shoved him towards the driver’s seat. “Ah cannae drife, aam part cuddie…!” Kardok protested as he was forced to sit down, breaking the back part of the seat. “You’re going to be in half if you don’t drive, now floor it!” Orion yelled, “The force should knock this fucker off!” The centaur was fiddling with the keys, finally jamming them into the slot and turning them, but the damn engine wouldn’t turn on. Oh why, oh why did the engine have to go kaput at a time like this? Kardok kept twisting it, uttering “Come on” repeatedly, his voice cracking occasionally and nearly breaking the key when the roar of the engine along with the high beams turned on at last. Just as Kardok was about to put on his seat belt, the wendigo crawled down from the roof and onto to the windshield like a spider, its head turning a full 360˚ and tapping on the glass. Orion and Kardok let out a shriek of terror, Kardok then slamming his front right hoof into the gas pedal, the tires emitting an ugly squeal. Turning the wheel all the way, Kardok began speeding off and out of the campground, madly turning the RV to shake the creature off, but it persisted.

It was no surprise that in amidst the chaos, Oliver would wake up as he was now standing by the breakfast nook grasping onto the kitchen counter and the wooden table for dear life, fully awake and confused. “What's going on, wherefore art we leaving the camp?” But no answer from either was necessary as his eyes were now directed towards the wendigo, he screamed, “Oh mine god, what is that, what the fuck is that!” “Wendigo and it won’t come off!” Just as Kardok answered this, glass shattered in his face as the wendigo had slammed its grotesque antlers against the windshield and with just enough space to hold on, its claws reached in to grab for the closest morsel; Kardok. The centaur began screaming like Jesus was on him; Oliver sprang into action by grabbing a knife from the block, “Hence with thee, demon from hell, back to the icy void from whence thee cameth!” and sunk the blade into its wrist. Blood gushed and spurted out like a geyser, getting into Kardok and Oliver’s faces as the wendigo howled in agony, simultaneously losing its grip on the frame of the vehicle and falling off. The loud, satisfying THUD along with a tremendous bump from beneath their feet made them all sigh in relief. Orion let out a shaky breath, “Good job, Oliver, now let’s get the fuck out of these mountains.”

Way to jinx it, as now they heard sputtering, the RV was coming to a stop.

“Nae…! Nae! Nae! Nae! Nae! Dornt teel me 'at hin' hud fucked wi' th' engine!” Kardok hyperventilated. Unfortunately, it had, as within seconds, the RV had come to a complete stop. “Fuck!” He slammed his fists against the horn; the noise could be heard for miles. They couldn’t stay here, the windshield was already smashed and none of them knew how to kill a wendigo. And no doubt the creature was not too far away from them, and it wouldn’t be long until it recovered and came back for a second round.

               Oliver had never seen Kardok flustered before, normally he was fearless- hell, he was Fear itself! But to see him reduced to this, it made him feel lost. Kardok was the one with all the knowledge, experience, and power to kill whatever crossed his path. But that was when they reigned in Gallowmere; this wasn’t Gallowmere, this was 21st century America and everything around them was a complete stranger to them. He didn’t know if they could kill a wendigo or not, heck, they might not live to see tomorrow if they don’t end up as a happy meal to a cannibalistic juggernaut. And rebuilding a body once it’s reduced to a chewed up, bloody mush was no easy task! Orion paced around for a moment to think; a lightbulb went off as he then whipped out a phone- a gift from Zeal he’d received a while back, and thank god, he was likely within close proximity of a telephone pole because he had bars! He switched the data on and typed into the screen. Kardok was appalled, “What're ye daein', thes is nae time tae be textin'!” “Shut up, I’m doing some research and it just might save our asses!” Orion snapped. A minute passed, and Kardok spoke up once again, “Och mah god, coorie up!” “Just a second, and…got it!” Orion beamed, “Okay, we can temporarily disarm the beast with silver blades, that knife Oliver used must’ve been made out of that. And it says here they hate fire, it’ll get pissed off but it should buy us extra time to run!” “And what about killing t, how doth we killeth t?” Oliver queried. “Stake it through the heart with a silver axe, lock it in a silver box, and bury it in a cemetery or churchyard,” Orion read the passage on his screen, “Use the axe to dismember the wendigo, salt each body part and either burn it or scatter the pieces by burying them in far, separate, and inaccessible locations like a well or lake.” “But we don't has't an axe, or knowledge of any nearby wells or waters.” Oliver shook his head. “'en that's it, we're fucked!” Kardok shouted. “Not if we leave the mountains, a small detail I left out was that the wendigo never ventures past its territory.” Orion frowned, slipping his phone into his pocket and opening the door, “We don’t have a lot of time, that wendigo might’ve healed by now, if we don’t move it’ll get in and devour us all.”

He was right, and before stepping out of the vehicle, Kardok armed himself with a few knives, a lighter, and a bottle of hair spray, just to be safe. Why he had a lighter and hairspray in his possession, no one knew, but at a time like this, it was best to keep silly questions until they were back in town. Plus, a makeshift flamethrower would be handy! Off they went, Orion using his phone’s flashlight as a means to guide him and the others towards civilization. Thanks to Kardok’s reckless driving, they weren’t that far off from the borders that separate the woods from the town.

   As they wandered through the woods, the group stayed huddled together, and by that, it meant riding on Kardok’s back- Oliver in the back as the lookout, and Orion as the guide. Aside from the flashlight, it was pitch black outside. The dark clouds had swallowed the moon whole, not a star was out to light up the sky either, every tree trunk reminded Kardok of the wendigo’s horrific dried up skin, every twig that snapped beneath his hooves made his stomach jump. His upper body was shivering despite the cozy sweatshirt he had on, an icy chill breezed past him, tickling the hairs on the back on his neck and goosebumps popping from the skin. He could swear the winds were whispering his name, he wanted to stop, but he knew that if he did he’d be condemning him and his comrades to the mercy of the wendigo.

They weren’t sure how long they’d been wandering, but clearly it was too long since the sun was beginning to rise. And by the time they reached their neighborhood, it was 5 am, and they collapsed on their driveway. The men were sleep deprived due to their paranoia and therefore on edge after their walk that they’d failed to notice the squad cars outside Nebby’s house! But in all honesty, they didn’t care what happened, it was likely nothing compared to what they’d just endured.

To add insult to injury, an RV was sitting on their driveway, and out stepped Salem. “Oh hey, lost your RV?” Oliver raised his head and nodded, “We hadst an accident last night and we hadst to walketh home...” “Sorry to hear that, boys,” She consoled, “Oh, and my Uncle Mason said you guys were a lot of fun to hang out with, he wants to do this again next year!” If Orion hadn’t been as exhausted as he was, he would’ve said something snarky. But, something about that sentence didn’t make sense, besides, wasn’t her uncle dead?

.

.

.

               Halloween night, unfortunately, Nebby’s plans to take Tim to the festival fell on its back when he’d displayed symptoms for the stomach flu. Turns out McDonald’s for dinner yesterday wasn’t a good idea, who knew his stomach could be as fragile as it is? Clearly he wasn’t lovin’ it! Still, Tim was not about to let that minor setback keep him from enjoying his first Halloween ever! He decided that he should stay behind and pass out candy while Nebby, Ann, and the rest go out to enjoy the festival downtown. After all, there was always next year. Before leaving, Nebby had set up the sofa to make it so Tim was comfortable and provided a waste basket in case he needed quick access. She’d just about finished adjusting the tiara and pencil on her costume, the others had already arrived; Ann was dressed as a ragdoll- a character named Sally, Una invited herself dressed in a spider web poncho and her hair done up in a high ponytail, Winston and Willow dressed in red jumpers with the tags, “Thing 1” and “Thing 2” on them with the tips of their hair dyed with temporary blue hair dye, and Sodreco…Sodreco was a unicorn. It took all within Tim’s power to not start laughing when he first saw it, and a good thing too, his stomach was currently in agony. “Remind me what you’re supposed to be again.” Winston looked up and down at Nebby, who posed heroically and declared, “Wonder Ramsay! I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to be Wonder Woman or Gordon Ramsay, and Tim said if I liked both, then I could be both!”

Willow giggled, “It looks strangely enough, very fitting on you! If I were a judge at the costume contest, I’d give you points for originality and creativity!” “Yeah well, if only I had a whip and a whole slew of TV shows to complete the look.” Nebby shrugged, “That would’ve been perfect.”

Winston seated himself next to Tim, who decided to rest his head on his shoulder. In response, Winston wrapped an arm around his sweetheart, “Are you sure you don’t want us to stay here and keep you company? I feel bad leaving my sweetheart alone on Halloween night.” “Its fine,” Tim smiled weakly, “I doubt there’d be a lot of ginger ale at the festival, plus, I don’t think I can keep myself standing up for more than a few minutes. And who else is going to hand out candy to those trick-or-treaters?” “Oy, Tim! You know what to give to the adults with crappy costumes, right?” Nebby called. “Ms. Nebula, I’m not handing out three year old M&M’s and bubblegum.” The archer frowned. “It was worth a shot.” She shrugged once again. Winston laughed, then gave Tim a quick peck on the lips, “Alright, I trust you. There’s always next year, I guess.” Ann joined in, “We can pick up candy for you, if you’d like.” Tim sat up, “Ooh! Yes, plenty of peanut butter cups and chocolate!” Sodreco smiled, going over to ruffle his student’s head, “You can only have them when you’re feeling better.” To which Tim pouted playfully.

Nebby, who had broken off from the group earlier, had just returned, “Alright, all doors and windows are locked, curtains are drawn, I’ve signed into Netflix, and there’s chicken soup and ginger ale ready for you on the counter.” “Thank you for your kindness.” Tim smiled warmly, “Though, if I may ask, why latch up the whole house?” “To prevent any drunken morons from breaking in; happened to me last year and it was a bitch getting all those frat boys out of my basement.” Nebby cringed, “I still remember the togas.”

Willow felt a tug on her onesie; she turned to see it was Una, whom after getting her attention pointed to the time shown on her lock screen. She concluded, “And speaking of drunks, I think we’d better get going, they’ll start coming in around 8.” “Ah fuck, you’re right.” Nebby grabbed her keys, “We’ll be back soon. Call us if there’s an emergency or if Zarok’s at the door, call Zeal.” “Have a good time.” Tim waved as she exited the house. Winston bade him goodbye by giving him another kiss, “Happy Halloween, my sweetheart, get well soon.” “And to you too, have fun, love.” He watched as he and the others left. Once they were all gone and the front door locked with a satisfying click, Tim lied back down…until he felt lightheaded. Thank god he was alone.

The first wave of trick or treaters came at least ten minutes after the group had left, and for a minute, Tim thought there wouldn’t be enough candy to last him the night. But thankfully he’d located the piles upon piles of extra candy, so all worries were set aside. This neighborhood housed a lot of kids, and he wasn’t exaggerating, there was a lot! Tim got up- on average, of 6 times every ten minutes to hand out candy. Though it may sound like an annoyance, it really wasn’t. Tim enjoyed handing out candy, and seeing them dressed in their costumes, whether store-bought or handmade made him happy. Heck, he just might be able to pull through! The last wave of trick-or-treaters came around 7:30 pm, ending with a little brunette boy dressed in the exact same costume as him. He ran through the decorations set up by Nebby on the front yard, and came to the door accompanied by his blonde mother. The boy held out his bag in excitement as Tim answered the door one final time. “Trick-or-treat!” the boy was grinning from ear to ear. Tim handed him a generous portion of candy, dropping them into the child’s bag. He swore he saw those eyes light up like stars as he looked at his mother, “Momma! Look! He’s dressed like me!” “I see that, my little warrior,” She giggled, “Now what do we say?” To which the child nodded and chirps, “Thank you, Happy Halloween!” “And to you too, have a good evening! Be safe out there!” Tim laughed as he watched the pair exit the premises. As he closed the door and locked it, he couldn’t help but feel that those two reminded him too much of his own mother and himself when he was a child. Fond memories they were, being an energetic youth yet at the same time oddly shy, the only bounds being his own imagination, which seemed almost endless. Maybe, if he’d been born another time, Tim would’ve been able to have unique memories like Trick-or-Treating. But it wasn’t like he could pick and choose when and where his life would take place.

His thoughts were interrupted by another pang of pain in his stomach, a sign that he’d been standing for too long and needed to lie down, he groaned and sulked back to the living room to lie down. Tim reached for the remote and hit the play button, continuing a movie he’d decided to watch on Netflix. The movie was called, “Halloween”, and it was about a masked serial killer that struck only on Halloween. Simple plot, but hey, it didn’t need anything grand for it to be good. According to Nebby- who recommended it, said it had a low budget but still managed to scare audiences across the country!

   As the movie progressed, right as the killer was about to stab another victim to death, Tim jumped to the sound of the landline going off. Strange, he hadn’t heard that thing go off in weeks. Nebby made it abundantly clear to all telemarketers that she was not interested and to remove her from the call-list. She also had a rule about the landline, to which Tim quoted under his breath, “If it’s important, they’ll call again or leave a message.” And just as he’d predicted, after the first ring, the phone went off again. Ah, so it was important. Tim carefully got up, “Just a minute…!” Thankfully, he’d reached the phone, which was in the hallway; he picked it up and answered with a “hello”. He expected it to be either one of his friends calling to check up on him, but was instead met with heavy breathing. Now this was unusual.

Confused, Tim repeated, “Hello?” But all he could hear was heavy breathing.

This had to be Nebby calling; she was probably already drunk and butt-dialing the house. He rolled his eyes as he hung up, but before he could return to his seat, the phone rang again. Okay, this couldn’t be a butt-dial. But Tim didn’t want to answer it; he wanted to hear the voicemail. He got what he asked for, and what did this oh-so elusive voicemail consist of? If your guess was heavy breathing, then you’d be correct. This was definitely no coincidence, and Tim was now mildly annoyed. Those kids and their prank calls, ha! Tim decided that it’d be best to ignore the calls and let them go straight to voicemail. And while he felt like he’d made the right decision, he couldn’t feel as if something were off.

               Two hours passed, and the calls had slowly become more frequent, and now Tim was annoyed. He couldn’t even enjoy the movie or even take a nap! Just how persistent were these kids anyhow? “That’s it, if these kids call one more time, I’m going to scream!” He grumbled. And what happened next? The phone rang. Tim growled, “That’s it!” with all the strength he could muster, he stomped over to the phone and as soon as the heavy breathing started, he let loose the angriest, most irritated scream he could conjure up. “There, see how you like having your ears bleed!” and he slammed the phone back into the receiver. He slumped back into his seat, just in time to receive a facetime call from Nebby. He answered, revealing his friend at the bar. He smiled, “Oh, Ms. Nebula! Hello!” Seeing her face calmed him down, it almost made him forget about those obnoxious calls. “Hey Tim, how’re you holding up?” She frowned, “You don’t look so good.”

“Ah, I’m a little irritated right now.” “Ah shit, is Netflix not working?” “Netflix is fine, it’s these phone calls I kept receiving.” “Are stupid kids calling the house phone?” “Yes, and they’ve been at it for two hours, I fear I’m getting more weary just thinking about it!” “Two hours? That seems a bit too dedicated if you ask me, are you sure it’s kids?” “Considering I just screamed into the speaker, I hope it is. Maybe they’ll learn their lesson.” “Oh yeah, you’re going to get a lot of those calls on Halloween, don’t worry.” “Oh! How was the festival?” “Wild, taking a break though, your boyfriend’s got the munchies and I need a drink!” “Just not too much, you have work in the morning.” “I know, I know. Okay, looks like everything’s all good here, I’ll let you go.” “Thank you, I’ll see you soon!”

Just as he hung up, lo and behold, the house phone rang once again. Tim was appalled, just how dedicated were these kids? He groaned, getting up to answer the phone, “Okay, I don’t think I’ve made myself clear; Stop. Calling. The house! What’s wrong with you? I’ve been sick like a dog all day, all I ask is for a nice night to watch movies and recover. I can’t get any of that done when you’re calling me every five seconds! If you call again, I will alert the authorities!” He was about to hang up when he heard a gruff, distorted voice, “Don’t forget to turn off the stove.” Turn off the stove? He turned his head to peak into the kitchen, and wouldn’t you know it, the stove was on. Bewildered, he set the phone to the side, and then crept over to the stove to turn it off. How did he know about the stove? And besides, the stove was already off when Nebby and the others left. These were no kids he was dealing with, but a lonely man stalking him.

Great, now he was the teenage girl home alone, just like in those horror movies!

And Tim couldn’t be more irritated. So much for a good first Halloween, it was bad enough already he was sick! He’d forgotten to hang up, as the voice then asked, “Do you like clowns, Tim? I bet you like clowns.” No, he didn’t. He didn’t like clowns, but he wasn’t about to tell this stranger that. He placed the phone back onto the receiver after hanging up yet again, now feeling slightly uncomfortable. “How did he know my name…?” Tim’s eyes widened slightly. But then his eyebrows furrowed into a frown, wait a second…He grabbed the phone and dialed the number. Zarok’s croaky voice answered, “What do you want, Andrews?” “Zarok, I know it was you calling me! Do you have any idea what time it is?” He placed a hand on his hip.

“I was, but then you screamed into my ears, you worm!” “Good, I hope I ruined your ears, now will you stop calling me?” “I did, I did stop calling you!” “Then why did you ask me if I liked clowns? I hate clowns!” It was silent on the other end, and Zarok answered in a confused tone, “You hate clowns?” “Yes! You asked me if I liked them! And before that, you told me the stove was on! Don’t tell me you broke into the house again!” It was silent again. Tim huffed, “If I look out the living room window right now, and I see you standing there, I will get Ms. Nebula’s handgun and put a bullet somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine!” He walked towards the window, pulling back the curtains to see what was in the front yard. Standing underneath a lamppost was a figure dressed in a clown suit, mask and all. It even had a phone held up to its ear. Tim grinned in triumph, getting his other phone to take a picture, “Aha! Now I’ve got you! I see you there, trying to scare me, well let’s see how you like it when squad cars are congesting your driveway!”

He then heard another voice on the line, a bit of bickering in the background and eventually, Zeal’s voice was on the line, “Hello? Timothy, is that you?” Wait. Zeal’s talking to him. There was only one person outside. “Y-Yes, yes it’s me.” He trembled.

“Timothy, it’s midnight, I’d hate to be rude, but you really shouldn’t be calling at this hour.” “O-Oh, yes, I-I understand. I’m sorry, but he’s been calling me repeatedly and…” “I see, I’m sorry about that, and Nebula told me you were sick, you poor man.” “Yes, I am. Don’t worry, I’m recovering.” “That’s good! My brother said you were about to call the police?” “N-No, I’m sorry, I think there’s someone else responsible for the calls.” “Calling you after 8 pm? Oh no, I believe you’re mistaken, Zarok is asleep at that hour. Is everything alright over there?” “Do you want my honest opinion? No. There’s a weirdo in a clown suit standing outside the house, and now…I’m afraid.” Tim looked away from the window, the curtain drawing back. Okay, okay, so there was a man stalking him, likely another if the stove was on. Zeal was beginning to sound uncomfortable, “Timothy, Timothy if you’re in danger, get out of the house! I’m going to call Nebula right now!” Tim looked at the curtain, and as tempting as it was to leave them alone and leave, he had to see if the clown was within close range of the yard. When he did, Tim was relieved to find that the clown was gone. He sighed in relief, “No, no, its fine now, the clown is gone. Besides, I know how to-“but as he turned around, he then came face to face with a rubber clown mask.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you like clowns?”

Tim let out the most bloodcurdling scream he’d ever made in his life, dropping the house phone.

   Police units arrived at the Donk residence within twenty minutes after Zeal tipped off police officers and explained that a home invasion was in progress. Nebby and the others arrived later than that thanks to traffic, and were alarmed to see cars parked out in the driveway. Winston and Sodreco burst out from the backseat when they saw a masked intruder being led out in handcuffs, covered in blood. Assuming the worst, they entered to find Tim, alive and well, lying on the sofa covered in blankets giving a statement to the police. “- I’d assumed it was a prank, but when they addressed me by name I knew it was no prank.” He concluded. “Timothy!” Winston hurried over to embrace him, “Timothy, what happened?”

“Your boyfriend managed to beat up and perform a citizen’s arrest on an escaped criminal.” The officer informed him, “From the looks of it, he threw the suspect out that window,” he pointed to a shattered window, both heard Nebby outside screeching, “OH MY-! FUCK me with my own FIST! He broke my fucking window!”

“Subject wasn’t able to speak due to a brutal punch or kick to the throat, and well, let’s just say he beat him to a pulp and call it a night.” The officer chuckled, “We’ll still be collecting evidence, however.”

Winston blinked, then looked at Tim, “Sweetheart, you did all that?”

“What? I hate clowns.

[apriliniceland]

Do you like moss? 

We embarked mid afternoon on the longest leg of our journey, the stretch of ring road between the southern village Vik and Eastern fishing village Hofn. We had spent a lot longer than I anticipated exploring the south coast, but no big deal, we could rearrange the sites I had originally planned for the rest of the afternoon and the following day without a problem. We first stopped for gas in Vik, a small but quaint town with a red roofed church and stream running through it before hitting the road. 

I would tell you about all the sights we saw driving but the reality is there were none. It was even more desolate than the stretch between Reykjavik and Vik. Traffic was sparse and even the farms were far and few between. What was entertaining though was driving for 5-10 minutes, seeing one rocky, volcanic landscape, and then watching it change drastically for the next 5-10 minutes, than like the flip of a switch morph into yet another new landscape. We drove through rocky lunar scapes, watery river beds, grassy fields dotted with miniature conical hills, and, our favorite, mossy lava fields. 

Thinking it would be a quick stop, we pulled over to look more closely at the moss fields at a marked site, thinking similarly to the two large coach buses there. I had the lava fields on my list for the next day anyways. We walked around the roped path, competing with the densely packed tourists for a view of the non-trampled moss beyond the ropes. It was cool, but the hoards of people were pretty offputting. I remember actually falling over elbowing equally keen sight seers  to get a single picture of the moss. 

I initially walked across the road to find a secluded place to pee - nature calls what can I say - but while there, there was an enticing 4x4 sized trail paralleling the road, and several footpaths leading further into the moss. We followed them, and were completely sucked in to the seemingly impossible landscape. Soon we couldn’t see the road and instead were sitting on huge rounded blobs of moss carpets, wondering if we had been slipped some magic mushrooms, or been transported through a portal into the world of Dr Seuss’s imagination.  Josh pulled out his drone, getting high over head shots until I practiced flying it, giving him a heart attack at how low I liked to skim the moss.  Collectively we spotted some really enticing bodies of water on the drone footage and from that point on our sense of time went out the window. We took off in pursuit of the milky blue lakes, virtually moon walking across the thick moss. 

The moss covered up deceivingly sharp rocks underneath, which were most visible at the aforementioned tourist stop where it was exposed along the footpaths. It was amazing to me we didn’t twist an ankle as we bounced along, especially because of the countless deep fissures and crevices we encountered. As we walked, you could frequently hear a loud ‘crunch’, the pocket filled lava rocks rearranging themselves under our weight. I though for sure the ground was going to give out beneath us, but it never did, despite the many sunken and caved in areas we encountered, equally as deep as the fissures. 

Alright so fact time: After googling this mesmerizing place I learned the Eldhraun lava fields are a UNESCO world heritage site and the product of the Laki lava eruption in the late 1700s, the largest of its kind in history, which covered 565 square kilometers with volcanic rock. It was a cataclysmic event for Iceland, leading to the death of 50-80% of the country’s livestock and 20% of their human population. The lava fields are 12 meters thick and apparently people have discovered really neat lava tubes/tunnels and caves in the area. For us, we will remember the area for its covering, the wooly fringe moss. Over a foot deep in some places, the thick carpets absorbed our footprints up to our ankles and provided a bouncy surface over which to walk. The crew of the Apollo 11 mission even trained for walking on the moon here! 

[carpetstoresnear]

3 Ways that Dirty Carpets Can Harm Your Health

If you think you have a clean carpet, you better think again.

While most of the harmful contaminants may not seem apparent to the naked eye, their effects may be more noticeable. Dirt, dust mite droppings, mold spores, bacteria, allergens and pathogens all inhabit your carpet fibers and without a proper cleaning can expose you and your visitors and residents to health conditions.

Here are the three major health hazards that are presented by an uncared for carpet that has not been thoroughly cleaned.

Danger #1: Weak Immune System

The immune system in the body fights endlessly to keep the various health threats in our environment from taking over the body and making us very sick. However, if you are also living in an unclean environment you can add stress to an already tired immune system. As you are exposed to higher quantities of health hazards from dirty carpets, the chances of contracting a major health issue increases as well.

One of the most notorious villains inhabiting the fibrous structures of your carpets are called mycotoxins. These are made up of a variety of molds and can have an impact on the health, Overexposure to mycotoxins can cause a variety of health issues including respiratory problems, stomach infections and allergies.

Danger #2: Skin Problems

Dirty carpets can also cause problems to the skin as they carry irritants and the stuff of fungal attacks too. You can contract and transmit athlete’s foot by walking on a dirty carpet – especially done so with wet feet.

Danger # 3: Respiratory Problems

Mold can live quite happily in the deep warm and often moist fibers of a carpet and they can produce a wealth of allergens and pollutants from these sequestered locations. As these get too populous they are easily kicked into the air with passing feet. Then these airborne allergens can be sucked into the lungs and trachea where they can cause irritations and infections.

Dust mites also inhabit the subsections of your carpet where they use the abundance of favorable elements to create an attractive breeding ground. Mite sheddings and feces make up a good portion of the dust you find in your carpet and this is especially bad for the health when it is inhaled. Airborne contaminants like this can also cause eye and ear irritations

Keep your Carpets Clean

The only way to keep your carpets from becoming a breeding ground for disease and infection is to provide them with a proper cleaning regularly.

Naturally, you will want to vacuum your carpets no less than once a week. But, if you have a carpet that sees a lot of traffic or in a location inhabited by pets or children, you will need something a little more effective.

Many times a simple vacuuming will not be enough to keep back the high-levels of filth that your carpet can attract. This is where you will want to call in professional carpet cleaning services near you to ensure that your carpets are cleaned well.

Remember that your carpet is much more than a floor covering, it is an important element of what makes your home comfortable and livable. Don’t allow it to become a health hazard.

The post 3 Ways that Dirty Carpets Can Harm Your Health appeared first on (Local Carpeting Sales).

[smoothshift]

I've been getting shitty fuel economy, so I tried driving 55 mph everywhere. via /r/cars

I've been getting shitty fuel economy, so I tried driving 55 mph everywhere.

So last year, I bought a Ford Focus ST. Great car, I love it, but the fuel economy kind of sucks. I was coming from a 2016 Malibu, and was aware the extra horsepower and premium fuel requirement would mean I'd be spending more on gas. All in all, I figured the difference between the vehicles would amount to maybe ten bucks a week. A relatively small price to have my (attainable) dream car. After six months of ownership, I can safely say my calculations were off. Waaay off.

Due to my mostly highway commute, I anticipated getting somewhere in the mid to upper twenty mile per gallon range. Nope. First month, I achieved just over twenty-one. That led me to spend the subsequent month granny shifting and coasting as much as possible. After two weeks of blue-balling my car with this tactic, I calculated my fuel economy improved by a mere three additional miles per gallon. At that point, I was spending roughly $75 more on gas each month than I with my Malibu. I did the math; that is enough to buy approximately seventy-five $1 scratch-off tickets.

In analyzing my driving habits, I came to the conclusion that it was actually my time on the highway that was killing average mpg. Apparently the Focus ST has a relatively short sixth gear. I typically drive about ninety or so on the highway (unless I'm passing someone), which means my engine is spinning at around 3500-4000 rpm. I don't know much about the EPA, other than the fact that rearranging their letters spells out "AEP," but I imagine their fuel consumption findings are achieved at somewhat lower speeds.

And so it was that I adopted a radical new approach to extending each tank of premium unleaded: I would simply drive fifty-five miles per hour. I would achieve that velocity only as quickly as was necessary. But once there, I would keep my speed constant, no matter how many people I pissed off.

I lasted just one day. Here's how it went.

The first part of my commute is a state highway, which I live directly beside. Conveniently enough, its speed limit is fifty-five. At that rate, I was doing about five to ten miles per hour under what most of my fellow rush hour commuters wanted to travel. Occasionally, I caught a glimpse of an exasperated driver in my rearview mirror, but my self-imposed speed was generally met with acceptance.

An interstate highway makes up the next - and largest - bit of my commute. For most of the way, it is sixty-five miles per hour. Obviously, nearly everyone travels much faster. Usually around eighty. Never is this more apparent than when one sits in the center lane while going ten under the limit, as I did. Most of the cars on that stretch of highway belong to state workers. During the high volume drive times is when they are at their most aggressive. Even more so than during holiday sales, karaoke tournaments, or when standing in the express line at Shop-Rite and the person in front of them is two items over the limit. Needless to say, instances of extended middle fingers zooming past me in late-model crossovers were a common sight. Still, I persisted.

Just before arriving to work, I drive along a wide avenue within the city limits. It has a thirty mile per hour limit and consists of two lanes of travel in either direction, with the occasional right or left turning lanes, used for negotiating intersections or entrances to shopping plazas. Rush hour traffic being what it is, people on this stretch typically move at or slightly below the speed limit. As the turning lanes are generally less congested, I decided they were my best chance of reaching fifty-five miles per hour. Not going to lie, this pissed off a lot of folks. Especially those coming in the opposite direction. You see, there were times when the only open passing lane was on the opposite side of the avenue. As a result, I was left with no choice but to cross the median and hold faith that my aftermarket high beams and their four thousand lumens would give oncoming traffic ample warning to remove themselves from my path. I definitely got the stink eye from more than a few motorists, but I expected as much when I set out on this journey. At least I didn't have to mount a sidewalk in order to maintain speed.

After work, I like to unwind with one or two pitchers of beer before heading home. More often than not, the aforementioned bar stop provides me with the strength I need to go home and listen to my wife complain about her day. Her typical grievances run the gamut from holiday sales to karaoke tournaments to standing in the express line at Shop-Rite and the person in front of them is two items over the limit. On the day of my experiment, however, I needed that strength to face the other woman in my life: my grandmother. It is important that I maintain a positive relationship with the old girl. Apparently, my mother died while my grandmother was giving birth do her, which left me as her last living relative. That alone should have cemented my inheritance into cement. Still, if I don't put in regular appearances at the swanky golf cart community she now calls home, she'll start talking about how all her money and jewels will go to the Committee to Re-elect Walter Mondale after she passes. I don't have the heart to tell her that Mondale isn't on the ticket this year. In fact, he was never elected in the first place. Also, he's dead.

To get to get to the golf cart community where my grandmother resides, I not only have to contend with the wide avenue mentioned in the previous section, but a school zone as well. The speed limit there is fifteen, and people generally observe it quite closely for some reason. As such, I was forced to mount a sidewalk near the school so as to maintain a steady fifty-five miles per hour. Fortunately, at the time I was passing through, the bulk of the student body had already left the school grounds. Only a few remained, most likely those having just completed detention or chess club. Despite being a pudgy, flat-footed lot - seemingly more interested in their phones than with pedestrian safety - they proved quite adept at diving for the cover as I sped down the sidewalk towards them. Perhaps there is hope for millennials after all?

After arriving at the golf cart community was where the most challenging part of my experiment took place. The only way to navigate it was by using various paved cart paths which snaked from building to building. These paths were rather narrow, as if designed so that only small, golf cart sized vehicles could fit. Making matters worse, the paths had numerous sudden and sharp turns semenly better suited for speeds much lower than my fifty-five. Because of this, I ended up taking a turn a little too wide. That was right about where my experiment concluded. It turns out, the Pirelli P Zero Nero all-season tires on my Focus ST are not suitable for driving on landscaped surfaces. As a result, I was unable to avoid missing that pool. On a side note, Ford did not make the Focus ST seaworthy. Also, the so-called "no-fault" insurance in my state apparently doesn't apply to criminal trespassing and reckless endangerment. That point would prove to be moot, however, as I am currently uninsured (can't afford it with the fuel economy I'm getting lol).

At the end of the day, I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. When I set out on my quest to maximize fuel economy, I knew it would ruffle a few feathers. I also ended up broke, sopping wet, and arrested. But that's always been the case with pioneers. I never heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Steve Shubin complain, and neither will I. But even though I no longer have a drivers license and my Focus ST had "flood damage" reported to Carfax, I can say it felt really good to saving the environment, with the added bonus of taking a bite out of Big Oil in the process. Thanks for reading.