#but since the body is dead you also see a lot of unorthodox shit

[nitronine]

This is literally what the tool spread of an embalming lab is like

[bottoms-movie]

SAMBUCKY FIC RECS

so a lot of people seemed interested this so here it is! if ya’ll like this, i can make more parts! this is split into three categories: based on tfatws, canon divergence, and au. all fics are on ao3. all of the fics are complete. some fics do include smut, but i included the ratings, so make sure to check for that based on preferences!

also, feel free to send me asks on your thoughts on any fics or if you’re interested in another sambucky fic rec post!

BASED ON TFATWS

Fill the Hole in my Heart | Not Rated | 4,848 words

Bucky dives into the world of online dating. The girls are nice, but there seems to be something missing. When he goes to Louisiana to meet Sam and his family, he realizes what that something was.

Skip, Reverse | Explicit | 7,945 words

Sam stood in the middle of their local Target with a throw pillow in each hand. The one in his left hand was butter-soft and matched the drapes in the living room, but Bucky had walked by five seconds ago and declared the one on the right “absolutely fucking hideous,” and so now Sam kind of wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything.

Sometimes romance is just bickering with your superhero partner/roommate at several different Target locations.

just won’t do right | General | 7,524 words

Sam's eyebrows go up, impressed, and he reaches over to squeeze Torres' shoulder, "This is amazing, kid. Thanks, really."

Bucky sits and watches in utter horror as the pink darkens on Torres' cheeks.

Oh, he realizes. Oh. Fuck.

body language will do the trick | Explicit | 12,598 words

“There’s no way you’re going to win this,” Bucky tells Sam. “I am going to love language the shit out of you.”

Sam gives him a considering look. “You do seem like you’d be really good at that.”

Bucky’s cheeks flush with heat. “Thanks, pal, I—”

Sam smirks, and Bucky’s eyes narrow. He shoves his elbow into Sam’s side and stalks off, leaving Sam cackling behind him.

“Your ass looks great today!” Sam yells.

Bucky reaches up to flip Sam the bird, and he definitely does not feel grateful that he wore his good jeans today. Bucky’s ass looks great every day.

checklist | General | 4,716 words

Bucky Barnes keeps a mental checklist of things he knows to be true at any given moment. Sometimes the checklist changes, because he's learned something else about himself. It changes, for example, when he starts realizing that maybe he would like to kiss Sam Wilson. Maybe.

best laid plans | 3 parts | 26,808 words

part 1: baby you’re the wave and I’m ready for the crash | Explicit | 6,616 words

Nah, my plan’s better,” Sam declares, before clapping Bucky on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry, what plan? Was that a plan? It didn’t sound like a plan to me, it sounded like a vague intention,” says Bucky, still scowling, and Sam grins.

“We’re winging it, the plan is a work in progress! Now c’mon, we gotta make some wardrobe adjustments if we’re gonna get into that club.”

Sam and Bucky have some unorthodox methods of going undercover in a club.

He Doesn’t Deserve You! | Teen | 5,154 words

Sam and Bucky have an argument that results in Bucky being left at the bar. A group of drunk strangers assumes Bucky just got dumped and quickly adopt him for the night to make him feel better.

Reconstitution | Not Rated | 10,228 words

“I didn’t back Steve on the Sokovia Accords,” Sam says unprompted one day. They’re so close to apprehending the Flagsmashers and wrapping up this ridiculous saga.

“I don’t follow,” Bucky says.

“I was the one who refused to sign it first. Not Steve.”

Sam says it so softly that Bucky has to strain to hear him. Sam is loud and chatty and half the time he keeps up a constant stream of chatter just to get on Bucky’s nerves, but Bucky’s coming to realize that when he really wants to make himself heard, he’s soft spoken and mild. Bucky doesn’t entirely follow his train of thought, though.

Or: a breaking down, remaking, and coming back stronger than ever before

Stuck On You (You Suez, You Luez) | Explicit | 10,136 words

Sam and Bucky’s mission was simple: stowaway on a ship suspected of weapons-smuggling in the Suez, gather enough intel to report back, and hop off again in Port Said. Something gets in the way, and a day-long recon session turns into a week of chess, bickering, semi-successful movie references, and trying not to go slowly insane.

His Touch | Mature | 1,006 words

When Baron Zemo touched Bucky’s face, Sam Wilson saw red.

Bucky just wants Sam to comfort him.

rusted | Teen | 2,358 words

Bucky doesn’t grace him with a sound of acknowledgement. He’s been quiet, ever since that night with Zemo. Well. Quieter. It’s almost like. Every time he opens his mouth, he’s half-expecting the Winter Soldier to come out.

He hasn’t, yet. Won’t, ever again. Not unbidden. Sam’s sure of that. Bucky, not so much.

‘You busy?’

‘’m scouring the—’

‘Good,’ Sam cuts the idiot off, ‘I need you to help me shave.’

advanced therapy methods for large adult men | 2 parts | 11,717 words

part 1: The Gottman Method for Dealing with Conflict | Mature | 4,187 words

Bucky and Dr. Raynor have a follow-up session and two entirely different conversations about his relationship status.

Or: Let's do more couples therapy, James.

it’s always Bucky’s Fault | 3 parts | 20,089 words

part 1: Did you see it? | Explicit | 3,905 words

In which there's supposedly a viral video of the Winter Soldier on his knees sucking off Captain America.

Everything is, like always, completely Bucky's fault.

CANON DIVERGENCE

Even in the Present (I Am Living in the Past) | Teen | 16,977 words

Sometimes Sam still questions everything about his ability to shoulder the 80-year legacy he now bears. His history, and the history of his loss, sticks with him and even in healing he doubts whether or not he is able to fulfil his purpose, and whether he may find lasting peace and happiness.

Told in fluid-fragments, the story moves between his therapy sessions after his return from active duty and the post-Endgame present.

You never forget your first | Teen | 3,650 words

The story of Bucky and Sam getting together in a series of firsts.

leftovers | Mature | 19,249 words

With the New Avengers up and running, Sam finally has time to start dating again. Unfortunately, it's not going as well as he'd hoped.

Partners | Explicit | 7,235 words

Sam's not sure if he can be Captain America. He's not a supersoldier. He can't throw the shield. He's just a dude.

And Bucky Barnes is just a nuisance, albeit a pretty good-looking one.

I’ll explain everything to the geese | Explicit | 50,949 words

Bucky is so competent that it hurts my feelings is not a rational complaint to have about a person, and yet, after a year of being Captain America and partnering up with Bucky for the new and improved, post-Blip Avengers, that’s kinda how Sam’s feeling.

It’s not great. It maybe leads to Sam making some rash, ill-advised decisions like claiming he has a previously undisclosed superpower, and then getting caught in a web of lies when he ends up actually developing that surprisingly inconvenient superpower. Talking to birds had seemed like a harmless superpower, but it turns out that birds have a lot of opinions, and they don’t hesitate to tell Sam about them, especially when it comes to his supposedly subpar courting skills. Which is ridiculous, because Sam isn’t courting Bucky. Right?

Night Swimming | Teen | 2,056 words

“Come on. The princess has a new arm for you and I gotta see if there’s a barber around here willing to tackle your…” Sam waved a hand at Bucky’s face.

“I don’t want a new arm,” Bucky immediately bit out.

And then -

“I can cut my own damn hair.”

Sam just raised both eyebrows. Crossed his arms over his chest again.

Dared Bucky to prove him wrong.

AU

Cpvert Coffee & Flirtation Specialist | General | 5,542 words

The reporter says "—for Captain America to—"

And Bucky rolls his eyes. "Oh, here we go."

Sam looks at him then tips his head sideways, got a weird grin on his face. "Not a fan?"

"Not that. Just… the guy seems too good to be true, right? Wings and a shield?? Come on."

"Uh, is that why your eyes are like glued to the screen whenever he's on?" Kate says. "Is that why you call him Captain Tight Ass?"

"He's a goddamn show-off, and you know it. Tight ass or not."

Just then Sam snorts, real loud, grabs his coffee and suffers a horribly controlled laugh on his way out the door.

Stolen Moments | Teen | 98,767 words

“No,” Sam said, chuckling. “I don’t cheat,” he swept his gaze up and down James’ body, “even with guys who look like you. But, I’m bored and a little pissed, so if you wanna sit here and shoot the shit ‘til my man shows back up, I’m game.”

Never one to back to back down from a challenge - especially a challenge who looked like Sam Wilson - Bucky took another swig from his bottle and replied, “Sure, doll. I’ve got nothing but time.”

Steve has Sam. Bucky wants Sam. Sam wasn’t expecting any of this.

Such a Whirlwind Since I Saw You | Teen | 10,871 words

The Men of Letters turned Bucky Barnes into a weapon. Hunters Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanov are determined to save him, but they're going to need Sam Wilson's help.

“So you want me to ditch work, drive across America with you until you find your friend, who you thought was dead - all while avoiding some high-tech hunters who are out for blood?” Sam is asking.

Steve shrugs a shoulder, looking a little sheepish. Natasha almost laughs at the dry tone of Sam’s voice, but he's not wrong.

You Got What I Need? | Explicit | 37,588 words

Sam and Bucky are both in a bind, professionally. Nat points out a solution that neither men like. To save their careers they play along or rather, stop playing all together.

[bamon4bamily]

TVD 9x11 - Jukebox Feels (part 1) Enjoy! =)

Cut to - 2018 prison world, the Salvatore mansion. Katherine walks through the front door, dazed and confused. She must be having a nightmare, she thinks to herself; this can’t be happening, she can’t possibly be where she thinks she is. Although her intuition tells her the contrary, she gives it a shot, on the slim chance it might not be true…

KATHERINE: Hello? Anyone there? (She searches the house; as expected, it’s empty. She tries different techniques to escape the situation. Pinches herself to wake up, nothing. Taps her feet together, and with her eyes closed whispers: There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home… doesn’t work either). Maybe if I go to sleep, I’ll wake up and everything will be back to normal… Yes, I need to sleep (she goes into Stefan’s room, puts on one of his pajamas and lies in his bed. Not even a minute in, and she’s off dreaming of sheep.

Cut to – Akumal, Mexico. After a beautiful moonlight dinner, Damon and Bonnie sit on the beach, admiring the full moon’s glow, and some real good tequila.

 DAMON: (Randomly) Truth or dare…

BONNIE: (Laughs) Are you serious?

DAMON: I’m dead serious, come on, scaredy-cat!

BONNIE: Please! I just don’t want to humiliate you, cry-baby!

DAMON: Oh, it’s on! Brace yourself for defeat!

BONNIE: Bring it!

DAMON: One rule, no magic or psychy stuff!

BONNIE: Fine, no vamp tricks.

DAMON: Deal. Truth or dare?

BONNIE: Dare.

DAMON: I’ll start easy, (smirks) don’t want you loosing so fast. I dare you to take a shot of tequila while doing a handstand.

BONNIE: Piece of cake! (Delivers to perfection) My turn, truth or dare?

DAMON: Truth.

BONNIE: Okay, let’s settle this once and for all; do you steal from the bank when we play monopoly?

DAMON: (Grins) Not every time…

BONNIE: (Whacks him with her elbow) I knew it!

DAMON: What can I say, Bon, too much temptation. Okay, truth or dare?

BONNIE: Dare.

DAMON: I’m sensing a pattern here, but suit yourself. I dare you to go up to one of the people at the bar and tell them, in a very low and creepy voice, I see dead people…

BONNIE: I’m gonna get you back for this one! (Although hesitant, she delivers; freaking the hell out of the poor soul unfortunate to be approached by her. They go back to their spot) Okay, Mr. smarty pants. My turn, truth or dare… and you better choose dare!

DAMON: Dare… I say truth!

BONNIE: I’ll break you, eventually. What is the most embarrassing thing in your room?

DAMON: Oh, you’re going there! You already know the answer…

BONNIE: I do, but I want to hear you say it.

DAMON: Fine, my unicorn onesies.

BONNIE: With a butt crack… can’t forget the butt crack (she laughs)!

DAMON: They’re cozy! Okay, missy, shit just got real! Truth or dare…

BONNIE: I’m going with truth; just cause I know you’ll make me do some crazy shit after that one.  

DAMON: (With a wicked grin, rubbing his hands) Excellent…  What is your guilty pleasure?

BONNIE: Oh, come on! You know that…

DAMON: I do, but I also want to hear you say it, so, go on…

BONNIE: Fine… occasionally I like to dress up like Whitney Houston in the Queen of the Night video from the Bodyguard, and perform in front of the mirror…

DAMON: Occasionally? More like every other Sunday... and it’s HOT AF!  

BONNIE: Can’t believe you caught me doing that!

DAMON: One of my fondest prison world memories! I have to hand it to you, Bon, you really got creative with the costume.

BONNIE: I’ve perfected it since then… Well, there, I said it! Happy now?

DAMON: Never been happier… (leans in to kiss her) and you are, beyond a doubt, the queen of the night…

BONNIE: Don’t think for a second that’s gonna get you out of what’s coming…Truth or dare?

DAMON: I’m a mix it up and go with dare.

BONNIE: (With a wicked grin, rubbing her hands) Been waiting for that since we started.

DAMON: I’m instantly regretting my decision.

BONNIE: (Laughs) Oh, and you should! You’re in trouble now… Mr. Damon Salvatore, your mission, which you have no choice but to accept, is to (she opens a portal to their room, goes and comes back).

DAMON: Hey, we said no tricks!

BONNIE: You said no magic, no psychic stuff, but you never mentioned teleporting, so suck it! Here (hands him one of her outfits and her make-up kit) Put this on, make-up and all. Once you are ready, and looking gorge, you are going to perform Queen of the Night to the guests at the beach bar. Good luck, doll! (Laughs hysterically).

DAMON: Oh, Bon-Bon… when you least expected, I’ll get you back.

BONNIE: (Mocking) I’m sure you will; but for now, come on, dancing queen, your audience awaits. (Damon performs, surprisingly well, or at least good enough to receive and applause from his audience, who, although very confused, found the show quite entertaining. They go back to their spot). You did great, almost nailed the choreography.

DAMON: Well, I learned from the best.

BONNIE: I think it’s safe to say I won this little game.

DAMON: This time around… 

BONNIE: How bout you get out of those clothes, I get out of mine, and we go for a night swim?

DAMON: Don’t have to ask me twice! (As he is taking the high heels off) How do you guys walk in these things??

BONNIE: You get used to it, (teasing) just don’t get too used to it... Ready, my night queen?

DAMON: (Carries her) Let’s go, witchy! (They swim under the moonlight; then make love till sunrise).

Cut to - The secret facility, Edward’s cell. He has been sleeping for quite some time. He slowly begins to wake; as he opens his eyes, he sees someone lying on the floor under a pool of blood, right next to his bed. He jumps up in a scare.

 AUGUSTUS: Oh, don’t be alarmed, son, it’s not me, I’m doing just fine. Meet your uncle Pete; granted it might not be the best introduction, but hey, you wanted to meet your family… well, there you go.

EDWARD: (Disgusted and in shock) What is this!!??  

AUGUSTUS: It’s a dead body, son. And, from what I hear they start to smell pretty bad once they decompose; so, I suggest you move fast and bring your cousin Matty back. Feel free to use our tech if it helps, Eddie here (points to the strange man that has been standing outside his cell everyday) is more than happy to help.

EDWARD: (Crying in despair, looking at the corpse) Oh god, oh, god!!! (To his father) You are fucking insane!!!

AUGUSTUS: Language, boy! I taught you better manners than that… guess I should have never left you in Tamara’s care; what a waste of an ivy-league education. My fault for bringing in the trash. Oh, well… time is ticking, and that body is stinking… Ha, that rhymed, maybe I should pick up poetry? I always did love Literature… Anyway, (belittling) Mayor Powell, let’s see just how smart and powerful you really are. Rest assured, if you get the job done, I promise I will make it worth your while (he leaves; Edward can’t stop crying, imagining Matt’s pain).

Cut to - Munich, Germany. Sam, Elena, Sage, and Alex, are having some drinks, after their first days of the program.

SAGE: I knew this program was going to be out of the ordinary, but it’s totally blowing my mind!  

ELENA: I agree, it’s amazing! The equipment we have access to is unbelievable! Never knew those types of tools and tech even existed.

SAM: (Putting his drink up for a cheer) Here’s to an unorthodox quality education, and to new awakenings!

ALL: Cheers! (They drink, share some laughs and anecdotes; at some point, the boys get into their own conversation in another area of the bar. Elena and Sage have no option but to interact more closely).

ELENA: Listen, I’m sorry for calling you a bitch.

SAGE: I’m sorry for being one. (Holds her hand out for a handshake) Do-over?

ELENA: Do-over (shakes her hand). So, tell me, why are you so obsessed with Pietro? Not judging, just curious.

SAGE: I know a lot of people think he is just an entitled jerk, but he is so far from that. I mean, yes, he is arrogant and pretentious, but when you’ve accomplished what he has, you kind of earn the right to be.

ELENA: Still don’t get it, what has he accomplished? He’s not even a Doctor…

SAGE: He owns the world’s most groundbreaking technology companies. Ai, IoT, nanotech, you name it, he is behind it. He might not be the science side of the operation, but he is the business side that makes it possible. Just between us, I’m pretty sure he is a vampire. Get this, while I was doing research on his background, I stumbled upon some pretty crazy documentation that dates his birth back to 1865. It’s either that, or he stole some real old dead guy’s identity.

ELENA: That is definitely not a coincidence… Do the names Stefan and Damon Salvatore ring a bell?

SAGE: Never heard of them, who are they?

ELENA: Besides my ex-boyfriends, I think they might be Pietro’s half-brothers.

SAGE: (Laughs) That’s impossible…

ELENA: Put two and two together…

SAGE: Oh, they’re also…? OMG! So, you slept with two vampires, and they were brothers??!! I totally miss read you, you’re a badass!! I love it!! (Holds her drink up) Cheers for that!

ELENA: Well, the brothers thing is something I’m really not proud of. I was young and gave in to my darkest desires; but I guess karma got me served, because they both fell in love with my best friends; so…

SAGE: Hey, nothing to be ashamed of; more power to you! I mean, it’s okay when men do it, but as woman we get shamed for it… Fuck that shit!

ELENA: Good point... (holds her glass up for a cheer) Here’s to woman equality!

SAGE: Fuck yeah! So, tell me, how did you end up getting involved with vampires?

ELENA: It’s a long and complicated story… Let’s just say I look exactly like someone they were once very obsessed with, and it grew from there.

SAGE: Who did you go out with first?

ELENA: Stefan… my first true love; but then I fell for the bad boy, who just happened to be his brother. Like I said, not proud, but that’s how it went down.

SAGE: Was it serious?

ELENA: Very. With Stefan I could see my entire future; it was like a fairytale love. With Damon, I lived for the moment and was consumed with passion.  

SAGE: Sounds like you were quite in a predicament.

ELENA: I was, for a while; but I ended up choosing Damon.

SAGE: So, what happened? Why did you two split?

ELENA: There were many reasons, but every time I go back to it, I think it’s because we got off to a wrong start. When I became a vampire, I was sired to him… not the best way to start a relationship.

SAGE: Wait, you are a vampire!!? Are you kidding me?!! This story keeps getting better and better!

ELENA: No, no! I’m not one anymore, but I was.

SAGE: Oh, okay, you freaked me out there for a sec! Anyway, then, what happened? Spill!!

ELENA: Well, a whole bunch of crazy stuff... then I took a cure, became human again, only to be put into a three-year sleeping spell, then I woke up. At first it was bliss, but then, once we moved in together our deeper problems began to surface…

SAGE: Did those problems have to do with him falling for one of your best friends?

ELENA: Not expressively… but in part, yes. I knew he was in love with her, and that there was nothing I could do to change that.

SAGE: Ouch, that’s gotta hurt.

ELENA: I mean, he never cheated or anything like that, they didn’t even get together until recently, but just knowing he would never love me like her, hurt for a while… then I met Sam…

SAGE: Wow, that’s quite a story!

ELENA: Straight out of a supernatural YA book, am I right?

SAGE: I’m a big fan of YA drama, and supernatural lure, so, right up my alley! Okay, let me ask you one last question. If you could go back, would you make the same choice?

ELENA: What do you mean?

SAGE: Stefan or Damon? Who would you choose?

ELENA: (Laughs) Uhm, okay, that’s a weird question…

SAGE: Oh, come on, just for fun, and keeping with the YA context.

ELENA: I’d say as a human, I would choose Stefan; as a vampire, Damon. But I guess it wouldn’t matter who I would choose, since they wouldn’t choose me a second time around, that’s for sure.

SAGE: (Teasing) Well, good news for Sam.

ELENA: Okay, I shared my stories; now it’s your turn.

SAGE: Well my stories are quite boring compared to that!

ELENA: Still, spill! It’s only fair, you have leverage on me, I should have some on you.

SAGE: Fair enough. What do you want to know?

ELENA: You and Alex, what’s the story there?

SAGE: Oh god, no! Nothing like that, he’s like a brother to me.

ELENA: Aw, that’s too bad, you two are cute together. How about you and Sam, anything ever happen between you two?

SAGE: This conversation is getting dangerous...

ELENA: Oh, come on, what’s in the past is in the past; there’s nothing dangerous about that.

SAGE: Fine, you asked for it. Long time ago, one crazy drunken night; that’s all.

ELENA: I know, he told me; just wanted to check if you would be honest with me.

SAGE: (Teasing) Now who’s the bitch!

ELENA: Sorry, trust issues. Now, for real, any past epic loves?

SAGE: Uhm, not really… I mean, I’ve had many relationships but nothing serious. I’m not the deep connection type; I just like to have fun, and I don’t like to put in the time, so short and sweet works out perfectly for me.

ELENA: Crazy hookups?

SAGE: Now that is my area of expertise! Wow, where do I start… I’ve done all the clichés, mile high club being my favorite one. But I have to say, the craziest has been with someone you actually know, (mocking) the renowned city Mayor of Mystic Falls.

ELENA: (Spits out her drink) Are you serious? You had a thing with Edward Powell? How do you even know him?!

SAGE: From NYC, our hometown. We were both part of the upper east side elite; a real Gossip Girl type thing. And let me tell you, he might seem like a Nate on the outside, but inside, he is a full-on Chuck Bass. Anyway, we went to this masquerade ball at an exclusive mansion outside the city. Long story short, we ended up covering for a murder which turned out to be anything but that; it was just a really drunk-ass Wall-Street magnate, that passed out in a tub filled with red wine. Good thing he woke up before we finished filling the whole… and that he didn’t see us having sex next to what we thought was his corpse. In our defense, we were also really drunk, and high as fuck.

ELENA: Holy shit! And you call your stories boring? Wonder what the exciting ones are like!

SAGE: (Laughs; then sees that Alex and Sam are heading back to their table) Well, that’s a conversation for another night… this has been fun, but I think our girl time is over; I’m glad we had a chance to talk like this.

ELENA: Me too, and I’m sorry I was so quick to judge you.

SAGE: Dido. Friends?

ELENA: Friends.

Cut to – Akumal, Mexico. Bonnie, Damon, Stefan and Caroline are having a nice beachfront brunch.

 CAROLINE: I can’t believe this is our last day! Time went by way too fast!

BONNIE: I know, seems like we just got here.

STEFAN: How about we make a deal, right here, the four of us.

DAMON: (Teasing) Bro, we are not even done with brunch; plus, it would be way too weird…

STEFAN: Of course your mind would go there… Anyway, no, Damon, that’s not what I want to propose. How do you guys feel about spending some money and investing on a property down here? That way we can come back whenever we want.

CAROLINE: I love it, yes!!!!

BONNIE: I’m in!

STEFAN: Damon?

DAMON: Just tell me where to sign!

BONNIE: La Bruja is coming over for dinner tonight, maybe she can give us some tips on property here.

STEFAN: That be great. I’m thinking nothing too fancy, but definitely beachfront.

BONNIE: And secluded.

CAROLINE: 2 master bedrooms, 1 kids room, and two or three guestrooms for when Ty, Lexi, Matt and Alaric come visit.

DAMON: So much for “not too fancy” …

CAROLINE: I’m not saying it needs to be fancy, just spacious, there are way too many of us.

BONNIE: We’ll also need a garden, good footprint area so we can grow our own food.

CAROLINE: And a pool of course, for the girls.

STEFAN: And I think we can all agree, we need a big bar.

DAMON: And a wine cellar.

STEFAN: Maybe we’re gonna have to build it from scratch, I’m pretty sure we won’t be able to find a place that checks all of our boxes.

BONNIE: If we have someone design it for us, I’m pretty sure La Bruja and I can pull it off.

DAMON: It’s settled then, we’ll brief La Bruja over dinner and start to plan our perfect Belvafore hide-away!

STEFAN: Belvafore?

DAMON: Yes; Bennett, Salvatore, and Forbes… Belvafore!

BONNIE: (To Stefan, mocking Damon) I’m telling you, not even with his vamp back on…

CAROLINE: I like it! It’s like Steroline and Bamon!

BONNIE: Steroline and Bamon?

CAROLINE: Yes, Bamon, aka, Bonnie and Damon; isn’t it perfect?! Stefan came up with it.

STEFAN: Sorry, Bon, just a fan.

BONNIE: (Laughing) Oh, Stefan, didn’t see that one coming... And Steroline, is Stefan and Caroline...

CAROLINE: You got it! (With pride) I came up with that one!

BONNIE: (With a y’all crazy look) Okay...

DAMON: Oh, come on, Bon-Bon; Bamon, gotta love it!

BONNIE: Fine, I’ll admit it... y’all crazy but I love it!

CAROLINE: (Holds her mimosa glass up for a cheer) To Belvafore and building new traditions!

ALL: Cheers!

Cut to – The Salvatore school, Alaric’s study. Alaric, and Radka, are trying to figure out their next steps.

ALARIC: How could I have been so reckless and stupid…

RADKA: It was an honest mistake, Ric. How were you supposed to know what would happen?

ALARIC: I know how dangerous that little gadget is, it was my responsibility to keep it under lock and key. Now, thanks to me, Katherine is probably being hunted down by a psychopath.

RADKA: Katherine is strong and witty, if anyone, Kai is the one that needs to worry. I’m sure she’ll be fine; we just need to figure out how to bring her back.

ALARIC: The only one that can help with that is Bonnie, and I’m not letting her go near Kai. We need to figure out a way to do this without the need for Bennett blood.

RADKA: How about 2 werewolves, 2 vampires and a hunter… think we could pull it off?

ALARIC: The problem is not getting in, but out… there’s no way out without the right ingredients.

RADKA: Okay, I might be thinking crazy here, but we need to think outside the box. What if we ask Margo to summon a Bennett witch, she can open a temporary spirit realm and do an incarnation spell so she can be materialized; then, we go to this prison world, get Katherine and use the blood of that Bennett witch to come back…

ALARIC: That sounds insane… but it might actually work. Isn’t Margo still on sick leave?

RADKA: She’s better now, called me up this morning to let me know she’d be back tomorrow.

ALARIC: Do you think she would be up for it?

RADKA: Not sure, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Cut to – 2018 prison world, Stefan’s room. Katherine wakes up to find herself tied up with her mouth covered. Kai is sitting on a chair, reading. He looks quite different than expected; very clean cut and intellectual, glasses and all.

KAI: I’m sorry I had to tie you up, but I do not appreciate intruders. God, these new generations have completely lost their manners. Sneaking into other people’s homes, putting on their nightclothes, sleeping in their beds… The audacity!

(Kai gets up, walks towards one of the many jukeboxes he has installed around the house, and plays a song...)

TVD 9x11 (part 2), coming soon! Hope you stop by, read and enjoy! =)

[ranissupercool]

Bitch

Fandom: Danganronpa Characters: Mikan Tsumiki, Hiyoko Saionji Relationships: Hiyomikan Rating: Teen and up Word Count: 2,346 Summary: Hiyoko is Hiyoko, and Mikan is happy with that.

Some fluff I wrote while drunk. The Hiyoko/Mikan can be taken romantically or platonically, but it's portrayed as a friendship in this fic

Read on Ao3!

“Give me one half-decent reason why I shouldn’t stomp you six feet into the ground right now, you sneaky little rotten pig bitch.”

“B-B-Because I’m s-sorry…?”

Yeah… Hiyoko was mad. Understandably mad, but also scarily mad. This wasn’t what Mikan had been going for.

“A ‘sorry’ isn’t gonna cut it for secretly drugging me, idiot!”

“E-Eek… B-But you keep telling me to f-fight fire with fire, a-and you drugged the whole class that one time…”

“I… Okay yeah, I did do that,” Hiyoko muttered, unable to refute Mikan’s reasoning. “B-But inviting me over just to drug me with aphrodisiac is super shady and totally makes you look like a creep. I was just doing it to be funny!”

Mikan sighed. She really couldn’t win with this girl, could she? Not that she was exactly wrong, either…

“Hmph… You really are useless. I tell you to stand up for yourself and this is the thanks I get?” To be fair, Hiyoko was one of her bullies too. She knew that damn well, Mikan was certain.

Still, all she could bring herself to do was poke meekly her fingers together and apologize. She knew Hiyoko hated when she did that, but what else could she do?

“Ugh, whatever. At least I still have more self-control than you did when you got drugged. Heh, you remember that? How you were seriously about to use Peko’s sword as a--”

“I-I remember! I remember, s-so you don’t have to s-say it… Ugh… B-Besides, I-I used a low dosage…”

Still, despite Hiyoko trying to act like it was nothing, Mikan could clearly see that it was taking effect. Her face was flushed, she kept trying to fan herself… and she kept strangely shifting and rubbing her legs against each other. Seeing Hiyoko in such a state was rather odd… Should Mikan feel bad? She knew Hiyoko wouldn’t, were she in Mikan’s position, but--

“Geez, whatever. A-And stop staring,” Hiyoko huffed. Ah, Mikan had been caught… “It makes me think maybe you did do this to perv on me. Damn lolicon…”

“A-Ah, I r-really didn’t… S-- Sorry. I, um… To make it up to you, what do you want me to do? Strip? Or you could draw something on me… O-Or I guess hit me, if you really wanted…” It wasn’t as if Mikan necessarily wanted her to do any of those things, but if it made Hiyoko less mad… Gah, and here she was trying to get back at Hiyoko for once. Yet, now she was only submitting again, wasn’t she?

“Ugh, none of that, you weirdo masochist! Why do I even bother with someone like you…”

“Th-That’s what I’d like to know…”

Ah. Crap. Hiyoko was giving her a rather dirty look now. Was that bad to say? It was the truth, but--

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You’re so pathetic it drives me nuts! How the hell are you expecting to survive after high school like that?”

“E-Eep…”

“Ugh… Whatever.” Hiyoko, already seeming exasperated with Mikan, let out another huffy sigh. “I guess I can at least give you credit for trying… even if I totally want to twist you up right now.”

“I-Into a crybaby pretzel!?”

“Hey, you remember! Guess you have more than half a brain cell in that dumb head of yours after all!”

“O-Oh, um… I-I try…” Mikan couldn’t help blushing lightly, even knowing that wasn’t at all a compliment. “B-By the way, are you… feeling okay? If you want, y-you can go back to your room and… y’know... I-It might make you feel better…”

“What? Are you seriously suggesting I do something so gross!?”

“I-It’s not really that gross! I-It’s… healthy…”

“Oh, I’m sure you’d know, wouldn’t you?”

“...W-Well actually, as the Super High School Level Health Committee Member… Y-Yes…”

Hiyoko rolled her eyes and flopped onto Mikan’s bed, startling her and causing her to instinctively back off to the furthest corner of said bed. “Whateverrr. I’m not doing that. You asked what you can do to make up for this, right? Keep me company and distract me ‘til it wears off.”

“Huh? Y-You want me to… talk to you?”

“Well yeah, no way I’m going to anyone else like this! Unless you’d rather I distract myself by twisting you up…”

“Eep! N-No, talking is fine! I-I just… ah, I usually memorize conversation topics for these kinds of situations, but I always get nervous and forget them…”

“God, you’re such a nerd. Maybe I should just sleep this off instead, so I don’t have to listen to your whining…”

“A-Ah, no, I… u-uh…” Mikan stuttered helplessly, racking her brain for something to talk about that Hiyoko might find remotely interesting. Unfortunately, it took her too long, Hiyoko having somehow already fallen asleep before she could think of anything to say. That aphrodisiac really mustn’t’ve bothered her very much, even despite the earlier signs…

...As anxious as Mikan may have been about being a boring host, maybe this was for the best. Hiyoko was a lot less scary when she was sleeping. In fact, if anything, she was kind of cute…

Was that creepy? That was totally creepy, wasn’t it? Mikan let out a helpless little whine for no one to hear, laying on the bed next to Hiyoko-- softly, so as not to wake her. Hiyoko was a bit of a light sleeper, and she did not like getting abruptly woken.

What was she supposed to do while Hiyoko was sleeping, though? She couldn’t just leave her there, alone. That would be rude and also dangerous, considering the mischief Hiyoko would surely get up to if left by herself to root through Mikan’s things. Maybe she could read a book…

That thought was cut short when Hiyoko began lightly clutching onto Mikan’s arm, muttering something incomprehensible. Well, now she was trapped…

...Hiyoko’s body sure was warm. And honestly, the clinging wasn’t too uncomfortable. Hard to believe this girl was capable of inflicting so much pain onto someone.

But, hey. She wasn’t all bad. Although her methods were unorthodox, she did try to inspire confidence in Mikan. While she didn’t get it at first, now that she understood, she really had to appreciate the rude, harsh girl now sleeping peacefully next to her.

She wouldn’t have dared try and drug her, otherwise.

“Wha-- You fell again !? God, you’re useless!”

“I-I’m sorry…! I’m r-really trying my best…”

“Like hell you are! Geez, I should’ve just let you clean the classroom by yourself and left with Mahiru, but no, she insisted I stay here and help… You better be grateful to her. If it weren’t for Mahiru being so generous and nice, there’s no way I’d cut a stupid bitch like you any slack.”

“Y-You’re not even helping anyways… You’re just watching…”

A pretty normal day, with Hiyoko acting the same as always. Not only that, but Mikan was forced into cleaning duty with her…

Well, ‘forced’ may have indeed been the case, but she didn’t mind. She’d been gradually getting used to Hiyoko over the past couple of years, amazed that the other hadn’t gotten bored of her by this point. Surely, she thought, if Hiyoko hadn’t gotten bored of bullying her, that meant she had to care in some way.

Er, maybe. It was, admittedly, hard to tell with her. Still, the attention was nice, and Hiyoko honestly didn’t do anything too horrible or gross, despite her insults and her threats. She may have been scary, but Mikan still preferred being with her over many of the people in their class.

She was… comfortable with how things were between them.

“And?” Hiyoko sneered. “Did you actually think I was gonna help? That isn’t stupid; that’s just delusional.”

“A-Ah… I guess you’re right…” Mikan sighed, resigned as always, and pushed herself off of the floor before picking up her fallen broom. “But, I mean… i-if you really don’t wanna be here, there’s no one to force you to stay… s-since Mahiru and Miss Yukizome left a while ago.”

“...Geez… Even when we’re alone…”

“H-Hm? I-I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that…?”

Hiyoko narrowed her eyes at Mikan, causing her to let out a small squeak and mutter another apology. “That. That’s exactly it. Even when it’s just the two of us, you don’t do anything . Are you some kind of masochist? Is that why you let everyone walk all over you?”

“Wh-What?” This was… new. Not exactly the questions being asked of her, but the tone Hiyoko took… “U-Um, no…?”

“Then why!? No matter what I do, you complain but still let it happen. It’s ridiculous!”

“You… m-make it sound like you want me to fight back…”

“No shit. You couldn’t even tell that much? Talk about pathetic…” Hiyoko scoffed, but Mikan still didn’t quite understand what was happening, so she could only stare quietly at Hiyoko. “...God, you really had no idea. You’re so… geh.”

“Geh?”

”You’re so disgustingly pathetic it grosses me out to watch. People feel bad for you, sure, but with the way you act, they’re still too weirded out to get close to you. There’s no way you haven’t noticed that, right?”

“That’s… j-just because I’m not very likeable, right? That’s the only--”

“It’s totally on purpose! I just don’t get why… All I do know is that if you were in my position, you’d be long dead by now.”

Mikan… didn’t know what Hiyoko meant by that. She sounded incredibly serious, though. “W-Well… I’m going to be honest in that I don’t… fully understand what you’re getting at. But if you want to know the reason I let people be mean to me, i-it’s probably just because I am that pathetic. I’m n-not any good at defending my--”

“I know damn well you can defend yourself. Maybe not against everyone, but me? You totally can; you just don’t. I’ve never even seen you try to stand up for yourself against anyone before. What, have you just… given up? Is that it?”

“I g-guess that’s not exactly wrong… Um… Trying to stand up for myself has never really done me any good before. So… I don’t. B-Besides, if I did, you might…”

“What? What could I do to you that could possibly be worse than what I already do?”

Mikan wasn’t sure how this would go over with Hiyoko, but she also wasn’t sure if she would ever get to see Hiyoko being so upfront with her again, so she might as well admit it. “...I-If I deter you from being mean to me, you might get bored and start ignoring me…”

“Seriously? Isn’t that still ten times better than getting insulted and hit and stuff all the time?”

“I-I don’t really think so…”

“...I think I’m starting to see why I haven’t been able to provoke you into fighting back so far…”

Was… that really what Hiyoko had been doing? This whole time? No, it definitely wasn’t that at first… but… maybe over time, Hiyoko had grown to be concerned for her? Mikan really wanted to know, but she couldn’t be sure without asking Hiyoko herself. “Um, do you… maybe… not… hate me?”

Hiyoko stared at Mikan for some time, perhaps trying to read Mikan the same way she was trying to understand Hiyoko.

Then, she sighed. “You really are an idiot.”

“Nrgh… Mikan…”

Mikan slowly opened her eyes. Right, she was still in her room, in bed, with…

“ Mikan! ”

A tiny hand roughly pushed against one of her boobs, and she realized her position had changed since she last remembered. She was hugging Hiyoko to her chest, arms and legs practically clinging to the girl… When did that happen?

Hell, what time was it?

“S-- Sorry…” She let go of Hiyoko, who immediately sat up.

“Jesus, what was that supposed to be? Were you trying to suffocate me or something!?”

“Wh-What? No, I…” Mikan sat up herself, glancing to the digital clock by her bed. 8 PM… it had been a few hours since Hiyoko went to sleep, so that must have meant… “I-I think I fell asleep after you did. Whoops…”

“Geez… Weirdo.”

“A-Anyways, how do you feel? Did the aphrodisiac wear off?”

“Must’ve. I’m not feeling anything.”

“Ah, that’s good…”

“Good? I don’t think you quite get the point of getting me back with the drug… Whatever. It’s a start, I guess.”

Mikan perked up a bit, leaning slightly closer to Hiyoko. “A start? Um… D-Does that mean I did something good?”

“Geez, you’re not supposed to expect praise from your bullies! Anyone else would get mad!”

“E-Eh? But… You did earlier, but you don’t seem very mad now. You were so good at acting like you hated me for two years… Why not right now?”

“Well… b-because clearly, you don’t learn anything unless I tell you when you’ve done something right. So… good job… I guess.“

Mikan couldn’t help it. She smiled-- giggled, even-- but her eyes also watered and watered ‘til they spilled over with tears. She was happy, yet--

“Wh-What the-- You still can’t take one nice thing being said to you without crying!?”

“S-Sorry, I can’t help it… I told you before that--”

“I know, I know… Trust me, Mikan, we’ve both had shitty pasts. And… I get it, sorta. But if you panic or cry whenever someone’s nice to you, you’re gonna scare them off. So, uh… work on that.”

“I-I’ll try.”

“Good. Also, stop apologizing for everything. It’s annoying.”

“C-Can’t make any promises on that one…”

“Huh? Did some useless pig just try to talk back to me? Did you forget who’s in charge here? Just because I’m trying to help you out here doesn’t mean I’m not totally willing to twist you up into a dumb little crybaby pretzel.”

Oddly… that just made Mikan laugh. “I’m not a useless pig… Hiyoko, you bitch.”

“Hey, that’s my word. Next assignment is to think of an insult without plagiarizing me. Bitch.”

“No… I think I’m still going to call you a bitch. Bitch.”

Hiyoko snorted. “...Maybe you are getting better at this.”

[ourloveisforthelovely]

Dark

A/N: Smut warning. Somewhat Dark!Gabriel. I don’t know if this will be a series yet or not. I have an idea for making this a series but it may also be a one shot as well. 

Summary: Gabriel is busy with the daughter of Bobbie Singer. The world is falling apart. Ellie knows there isn’t much time to figure out Team Free Will’s next move. With a nephilim about to be born, Lucifer on the rampage, and a boyfriend who has returned from the dead in a different state then how he went. Things are going to get crazy!

Words: 3, 414

Pairings: Gabriel x OFC 

________

He loved watching her. It was one of his most favorite hobbies. Gabriel had nothing better at the present time to be doing. Of course he could be dealing with one of his bone head brothers or dealing with the disaster known as heaven but he didn’t want to. Watching Ellie as she hovered over her laptop and a few books kept Gabriel well entertained. He loved the way her blue eyes focused on the screen in front of her and the way she frowned when coming across something that clearly made no sense.

After coming back from the empty Gabriel wasn’t the way that he went in. He was colder, meaner. In ways Gabriel was almost back to the stereotypical archangel that he should have been. He had went back to check on Cas to make sure that all was all right after that his sights turned to Ellie Singer. He knew that the Winchesters were absolutely livid that Gabriel had become interested in Bobbie’s only daughter but he didn’t care. Why should he? It wasn’t like they could tell him what to do anyway. He could knock them down a few pegs if need be.

“Gabe?”

Ellie’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. His golden eyes rolled up to her blue ones.

“Mhm?”

Ellie looked up at the archangel with a nervous smile. He sat across the table from her with one leg resting on the table top. Gabriel was no ray of sunshine by any means. He had been grumpy and seemingly only interested in getting her naked for the past few weeks but she went along with it. Part of it was in fear for her safety but the other out of sheer joy to have him back from the dead.

She had been with Sam and Dean when Gabriel “died.” Ellie was devastated when he died. Devastated didn’t even quite cover it. She and Gabriel had flirted off and on throughout his strained relationship with the Winchesters and the realization that she would never have a chance with him.

When he showed up and her doorstep a few weeks ago looking perfectly fine Ellie couldn’t help but be shocked. Sure he was different. A person just didn’t come back from the dead all sunshine and rainbows. The first time that she was really worried about her safety came when Dean called warning her to watch out for the archangel. Gabriel had ripped the phone out of the wall mid conversation and went off on Ellie for hours. After storming from the house Ellie was convinced that she would never see the archangel again.

He returned around midnight apologetic about his actions and turned on the charm. Of course Ellie fell right into his clutches like he wanted. Ellie knew that her father would be disappointed. She knew that he would be worried. In all the years that she had been raised a hunter Bobbie told her to stay away from something that was dead. Now here she was sleeping in the archangel’s arms every night and worrying to death about him when he was away during the day.

“What do you want Ellie?”

Gabriel’s voice sounded annoyed as she was pulled from her thoughts. She put the book on her lap on the table before looking back to Gabriel.

“Have you talked to Dean recently?”

Gabriel shook his head as he started shaking his foot that was propped on the table. Ellie knew that Gabriel hated her friendship with Dean. Since coming back Gabriel was almost jealous of the Winchesters depending on Ellie for a lot of research on their hunts. Yet another thing that worried Ellie when it came to Gabriel. His jealousy could be off the chain.

“Why would I want to?”

Gabriel replied. Ellie sighed, brushing her hair over her shoulders.

“It’s about Lucifer and Kelly….and their child.”

Gabriel shrugged.

“Yeah the nephilim kid. That is going to be a trip and not a fun one.”

Ellie kept her eyes focused on her lover. She needed information. Sam and Dean needed information. Cas definitely needed information! If she couldn’t get it for them how could she help? If she couldn’t find lore on nephilim why not go to the source? An archangel of all people would know. It wasn’t like that she could just call up Lucifer and ask questions. That would be a disaster! Michael was in the cage and Raphael was dead. Again that would be the last people that she would go to for help as well.

“I can’t find anything on nephilim…anywhere. The bible only goes so far.”

Gabriel chuckled.

“And that is no help at all!”

Ellie was quiet a moment before looking back to the bible verse in front of her on the computer screen,

“When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose.”

She looked back to Gabriel a moment not being able to wonder if he found her fair or was she just a sex object to him? Did he see her as wife material or would he just disappear one day never to return? She had been wondering it from the time that he came back to her.

Ellie had to get her head back in the ball game. She couldn’t let her unorthodox relationship control her thoughts….especially right now.

“Sam and Dean need to know what they are working with. I am afraid that team free will is about to be over their heads.”

Gabriel smirked.

“Clearly.”

Ellie sighed.

“Gabriel I need to know how it works. Fallen angel plus human woman equals half breed really doesn’t tell me enough to help them.”

Gabriel’s golden eyes rolled up.

“You think I know everything?”

Ellie crossed her arms over the table.

“I figured you would know something being one of Chuck’s archangels and being one of the oldest creatures in creation.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow.

“Calling me old isn’t a good way to butter me up for information cupcake.”

Ellie groaned.

“Not what I meant Gabriel! I just need to know something to help my friends! This world is in danger and you are seeming to not give a damn.”

Gabriel shrugged innocently.

“I really don’t. If shit gets bad I can blow this popsicle stand.”

The look on Ellie’s face told Gabriel that was the last thing that she wanted to hear. She reached up closing her laptop before standing up.

“Forget I asked. I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere.”

She grumbled before getting up and walking out of the room. Gabriel rolled his eyes standing to saunter after her.

“Sheesh mind the temper princess.”

Ellie had walked into the kitchen and was angrily putting dishes into the dishwasher. She looked up at him and contemplated throwing a plate at him.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

Gabriel said in a warning tone. Ellie didn’t even look up.

“Stop reading my mind! If you want to leave just go! I will figure this out myself.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow.

“Are you panties in a wad because of me saying that I would leave or me not being helpful with this whole nephilim business?”

Ellie straightened up.

“If you have to ask then you are blind.”

She went to walk past Gabriel. Ellie had enough for that day! All she wanted was to collapse in bed and pass out. Gabriel reached out, grabbing her arm, and slamming her against the wall.

“Come on precious. You’re my best girl. I wouldn’t leave you behind for some moron to take my place.”

Ellie tried to push him away but didn’t get anywhere. Gabriel was like a ton of bricks to attempt to move.  

“You are so jealous you can’t stand it. Gabriel I am not begging you to take care of me. I have more worry about my friends and this nephilim child that is about to happen.”

Gabriel growled.

“This child is going to be more powerful than any of us can comprehend. Nephilim are typically more powerful than the angel that sired them. Most nephilim have been killed before anything can come of them. The way I look at it right now is the time to grab something and run.”

Ellie swallowed taking in what he said.

“So from what I read that it is typically fallen angels that produce nephilim?”

The look in Gabriel’s eyes were unreadable for a moment. His hold on Ellie had eased a bit but kept her against him.

“Typically yes. Dad would have never let an angel who created a nephilim remain in good standing. To answer your question sugar I do find you more than fair. You I’m technically fallen too….so if you want to try an experiment.”

Ellie’s eyes widened.

“No way!!! Your brother is the one playing mad scientist not us!”

Gabriel smirked.

“Relax. I am not going to go do something that stupid. Besides I am not father material anyway. You know that.”

Ellie looked relieved as she moved to get away from her lover. She had to get back to work. Sam and Dean needed her. She didn’t have the time to waste.

“Where do you think you are going little girl?”

Ellie swallowed.

“I have work to do. You are going to have to let me get this done then I will play with you.”

Gabriel snapped his fingers leaving them in Ellie’s bedroom. Ellie turned shaking her head.

“Gabe come on. I don’t have time to be fucking around.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow as he closed in on Ellie again backing her against the wall. In one hand he held both of her wrists above her head before switching to having his grace hold her steady. Gabriel’s golden eyes  ran down her body. Ellie swallowed as he knelt down licking a path from her cleavage to her pulse point.

“You have all the time to be fucking around sugar. That kid isn’t going to be here for sometime and hell will still breaking loose when we get done. You can and will take five. Understand?”

Ellie nodded.

“Yes sir.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow looking pleased with her response.

“Good girl. You know when you are a good girl I will make you come like crazy. Isn’t sex with an archangel amazing?”

Ellie clenched her eyes closed as he snapped away her clothes making her tremble at the chill in the air. Gabriel reached out cupping her breasts. His fingers gently squeezed her nipples until Ellie was withering against her body.

“Gabriel please….kiss me.”

Gabriel quickly crammed his lips to hers in a firey possessive kiss. Ellie lost herself in his candy flavored kisses. She only became aware of the gentle rocking of his hips when Gabriel moaned against her lips. He pulled away looking down at her with his eyes shinning.

“You’re all mine! Forever. I’m never letting you get away from me. You know I won’t.”

Gabriel wanted to mark the girl for life. He wanted to make it clear for any angel who might come her way that she claimed. He didn’t care ripping apart any that tried. If angels thought Lucifer was bad for disintegration people they were about to have another thing coming. His mind briefly thought of hearing Lucifer say all the time

“He who hesitates, disintegrates.”

He knew that Ellie didn’t truly understand the full scope of his power and he wouldn’t be afraid to show her on some lesser being that irritated him now. Gabriel knew that this mind set wasn’t him but he didn’t care anymore. This was him now and when it came to Ellie he would bring down the world if he deemed it fit.

Ellie’s hands gently palming him through his jeans pulled Gabriel from his thoughts. He looked down at her with a pleased smile.

“See you want this as bad as I do. Don’t even try to turn me away in the future. It won’t get you very far.”

Ellie turned walking to the bed that was neatly made from their little romp earlier. Gabriel’s sex drive was almost insatiable. Gabriel was watching her like a hawk before yanking his shirt over his head and unbuckling his jeans. Reaching out he pulled Ellie to the edge of the bed as he took his cock out.

“Suck.”

He commanded calmly. Ellie didn’t need much encouragement as she took Gabriel into her mouth. As she gently worked her tongue on the underside of his shaft Gabriel moaned lightly. He didn’t need to give her much encouragement after making his cock taste like her favorite lollipop getting a blowjob was a relatively easy task to accomplish.

“That’s it princess. Just like that.”

Gabriel moaned, rocking his hips. His golden eyes closed in ecstasy. If it was wrong to enjoy this human girl’s mouth on his body then he didn’t want to be right. Fuck being right. He would take on Lucifer’s role if it meant keeping this girl as his lover. Gabriel only wished that she could see the real him. The real Gabriel, minus the vessel. He frowned at how wrong that thought was. If she only looked at him she would be dead.

His golden eyes snapped open.

“Enough sugar.”

Gabriel growled in between moans. Stepping out of his jeans, Gabriel reached down to push Ellie back.

“Spread ‘em.”

He said in his authoritative dominating voice. Ellie didn’t hesitate in doing what Gabriel said. She knew if she didn’t and had to be told twice the archangel would be dissatisfied. A dissatisfied Gabriel was a Gabriel that would spank her ass red until she was sore and couldn’t walk correctly. After being spanked and fucked sore Gabriel would hold her on his lap soothing her reddened skin with icy fingers. That was one of the few perks in disobeying her archangel.

Once her legs were spread, Gabriel knelt down between them looking up at her with hungry eyes.

“You’re trembling.”

He stated matter of factly. Ellie swallowed.  

“Couldn’t imagine why.”

She whimpered as Gabriel lowered his lips to her soaking folds taking a slow long lick. Ellie threw her head back into the pillow as Gabriel increased the pressure with his tongue. Before she knew what hit her, his grace was holding her hands down so she wouldn’t move.

“Gabriel….please.”

Gabriel chuckled. His voice sent vibrations that went all the way from Ellie’s tender clit to her core almost edge her over the edge without even being penetrated. That was his specialty though…making her come without ever being penetrated. He would make her come apart at the most random times with just a snap of his fingers. Gabriel didn’t care if she was doing dishes, research, or whatever task it may have been if he thought that she needed an orgasm she was getting one. When she hit the floor or was grasping to the counter screaming his name Gabriel would stand watching her with a mirthful smile.

“Love to watch you pleasing for my cock. Those sweet little cries of yours are music to my ears. I’m going to claim you soon sugar. You’ll never want another man inside you again.”

Ellie whimpered as Gabriel’s index finger massaged over her clit.

“Oh Gabe I don’t want another….just you.”

It felt like Gabriel remained between her legs for hours just licking and teasing her to orgasm after orgasm. Every swipe of his tongue made Ellie feel like a temple of glass that someone was taking a sledgehammer to.

“You taste better than candy cupcake.”

He cooed as he finally rose to take his place on top of her. Ellie’s eyes looked relieved as his cock finally pushed. Her body stretched to full accommodate him. Ellie was convinced that sometimes made his cock bigger just to test her limits and see just how much she could take.

“I want to do something…something different….but its risky.”

Gabriel’s voice was soothing. Ellie’s eyes fluttered open as his hand lovingly stroked her face.

“What do you want to do?”

She asked softly. Gabriel’s golden eyes flickered up to her looking almost wary for a moment before taking back on his arrogant glint.

“How about a little outside the vessel sex?”

Ellie’s eyes widened. This was the most crazy thing that Gabriel had even suggested doing. He hadn’t even shown her his wings let alone banging each other completely bare like this. Whenever Ellie had asked to see his wings the look of complete refusal was all over Gabriel’s face. He wouldn’t even consider it.

“Won’t that be dangerous? Like kill me dangerous?”

Ellie chocked out. Gabriel’s eyes watched her with a glint.

“If you keep your eyes closed…you’ll have to keep your eyes closed. If my voice bothers you too badly then we will stop and never try it again.”

Ellie nervously sat up before reaching over into her bedside table and taking out the black out mask that was in the first drawer. Gabriel looked at her with an amused expression.

“You think that is really going to help you? Sugar I am going to keep your eyes closed. Lay back and do as I say.”

Ellie lay back closing her eyes feeling Gabriel’s had stroke over her eyes and she was unable to open them.

“Gabriel?”

“Everything is fine.”

He said soothingly. The next thing Ellie knew Gabriel’s voice was different than it had been a second before. His voice was more authoritative yet soothing and the most heavenly sound Ellie had ever heard.

“How is this sugar?”

“Gabriel you sound so different.”

She gasped as his hands locked around her. The feeling of his celestial body on hers was completely different. It was almost indescribable. Ellie’s body both froze and burned at every place he touched.

“I know. You should see how beautiful you look like this. Keep your legs spread sweetheart.”

Ellie whimpered the moment Gabriel’s lips eased over her breasts and body. This was by far the most erotic and sensual thing that Ellie had done. Sure she and Gabriel had sex that would make church goers blush but this by far was the craziest.  

Her breath was taken away the moment that Gabriel entered her. This was different then their sex life had ever been before. The cynical side of her thought,

“Of course it is you idiot you are being screwed by an archangel outside of his vessel.”

This feeling out fullness was different then ever before. Like before she was on fire and cooling at the same time. As Gabriel began to move she cried out his name. Gabriel meanwhile, was busy muttering things in Enochian. He had never more wished that she could open those beautiful blue eyes and look at him.

Ellie’s fingers grasped at the bed almost ripping the sheets from the bed until Gabriel took her hands wrapping them around his shoulders.

“Come, beautiful.”

His heavenly voice was too encouraging and when the pressure on her clit intensified Ellie came apart. Gabriel focused his energy on his lover’s body as she came. He tried to keep himself focused and not come quickly but that was a lost cause. Between all of the teasing that he had done earlier and the kinkiness of their new activity he couldn’t handle it much longer.

“Guns going off sugar.”

Gabriel gasped as Ellie’s body tightened around his once more. Ellie whimpered at the time he came filling her to the hilt. The sudden feeling of emptiness that hit her when he pulled away left Ellie feeling suddenly abandoned.

“You can open your eyes now sugar snap.”

Gabriel’s hand stroked back over her eyes allowing them to open. Ellie’s blue eyes fluttered open locking into his golden ones. Gabriel gave her a snarky smile before pulling her body back to his.

“Gabe…I….”

He chuckled cuddling her head under his chin.

“Amazing…out of this world? Yeah I know….we are going to have to do that again.”

_____________

@greenappleeyes

@sumara62

@thewhiterabbit42

@jannalionheart

@tas898

@sherala007

@everyjourneylove

@authoressskr

[the-reclusive-wordsmith]

The Golden Hour

CHAPTER 6: QUID PRO QUO

“Infil-infiltrate? Sir? How! Why?”, asked a bemused Tao. 

“Tsk tsk. You ask too many questions, Tao.”, said Howard. “For now, do as I say, and when the time is right, I will tell you all you need to know.”

At this point in time, Tao was not sure whom to trust really but he agreed reluctantly seeing no other choice. 

“Go get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a big day for you.”, said Howard. “I’ll be at the station, should you need me.”

“Right, Sir. Goodnight.”, said Tao and left for the night. 

.

.

.

Lt. Howard had returned to his office and was sitting in isolation. Sykes excused himself in, hoping to get a few papers signed. He saw the Lieutenant looking tensed and sensed something was off. 

“Lieutenant. So, how was the burning house?”, asked Sykes.

“Uh. Well. Uh, it was- it was taken care of by the uh- patrol officers and fire department.”, said Lt. Howard hesitantly.

“And...?”, asked Sykes with a frown.

“And nothing. We did not find anything. It was taken care of, yes.”

Lt. Howard was relatively new to the department and had little experience about lying to his colleagues. Detective Sykes on the other hand had spent enough summers and winters to know when something is even slightly off. 

“Lieutenant. It is okay. We are a cohesive unit here. You can tell me what is going on.”, said Sykes reassuringly. “Rest assured, I have your best interests in my mind.”

Lt. Howard had to tell someone about it. This case was too complicated for him to handle by his own and he needed a second set of eyes and ears on this matter. He confided in Sykes. Necessity gives rise to the most unusual of alliances and Lt. Howard and Sykes were probably the prime examples of it. 

.

.

.

“SO YOU MEAN, YOU HAVE NOT SAID A SINGLE WORD TO TAO?”, asked Sykes flabbergasted.

“No. Not yet. I don’t want to frighten the kid. This mission requires someone like him.”, said Howard with a sigh. “And there’s something else I need to tell you, Detective. Umm, so you see, I may have promoted Tao to a Probationary Detective at Major Crimes. I believe...”

“Maybe promoted?!”

“I mean, I have.”

“WHAT?”, said Detective Sykes with a laugh of disapproval. “You gotta be kidding me. Tao? He barely has any experience with field missions. He is a goddamn Call Operator!”  

“Which makes him all the more suitable for this job, Louis! Nobody knows him.”, said Lt. Howard firmly.

“I need to know the entire plan, because if shit blows south, I don’t want to be in the middle of it!”

“Okay. But this is strictly between us. If word comes out that we’re doing this, we could be tried for treason and felony against the state.”

“Not a word, I promise Lieutenant. But the way you’re going about it, I already have a bad feeling about this.” 

“We need to know what is going on, Louis. I too have a bad feeling about this.”

Lt. Howard continued, “So the plan is to steal some evidence and get some leads on this case. I have been ordered to transfer all files and evidences pertaining to this case over to a Special Agent Sanchez, who will be coming in tomorrow morning.”

“Then why not take the evidence away while we still have it? Why do an espionage on the CIA and risk getting caught?”, asked Sykes.  

“Where do you think we are less careful? In our homes or at work?”

“In our homes. But what has that to do with this?”

“I am an ex-CIA, Louis. I know how they work. They have internal links in all state departments, including our Major Crimes division. I can bet my ass they have put the strongest surveillance out there on all our evidence lockers and logs. We make one wrong move here, and we could end up in a state penitentiary.”

“There are people working directly working for the CIA in our very department?!”

“Yes. The CIA is ‘THE CIA’ for a reason. Look Louis, I need you to trust me on this one. I know what I am doing. Please.”

“Okay. What happens next?”, said Sykes with a frown.

“I will let the Sanchez guy take the evidences and files away tomorrow morning. Once it gets registered under the CIA logs, they’ll let their guard down, even if it is ever so slightly. This is the moment when we capitalize on them. Tao will be disguised as a janitor. He will enter the CIA headquarters and place some IEDs in the washroom next to the Central Server Room. Once the IEDs go off...”

“Hold on, hold on. IEDs? What is going on, Lieutenant? Don’t you think that we might actually be committing treason here? Bombing up the CIA is not the right way! And why are you so interested about a burning building, anyway?”

“I could not recall the number from which Tracy Beck had called earlier tonight. But I did some digging around, and found out that the number belonged to Jack Vincent’s desk phone.”

“And the surprising part of this is ... Lieutenant?”

“Jack has been AWOL for six years now. Zero trace. His position got replaced by Tracy Beck, I’m assuming. But unless confirmed dead, Beck cannot officially sit in Jack’s office. She can’t even be a Agent-in-Charge. And she can’t certainly be officially using Jack’s desk phone. She’d be an interim at best. Which means she lied to me, and quite possibly does not have operational authority. But I cannot take a risk here. I need to be able to hold my position on this case. She was registering the call under Jack’s name in the CIA call logs, but why?” 

“So you suspect some foul play, Lieutenant? Why can’t we run a background check on this Beck lady and see what turns up?”

“I smell conspiracy, Louis. There is no use trying to trace Beck. We do not have the clearance for her files, which makes it very strange. How can a possible interim have her files under protection? Only the highest officials at the state departments have that privilege. Jack’s been my friend ever since. I don’t think there is any officer or agent good enough to compete with him. He is the very best of us. There is no way he is AWOL. Specially, since his records do not show any ongoing mission at the time of his disapperance.”

“Could be an undercover mission?”

“Unlikely. Jack had to place a metal rod in his right leg after a skydiving incident. Since then, he lost his clearance for field missions. If at all, he would be engaged in intelligence analysis on site with a full security detail. ”

“When did Jack go missing then? Did you not try to track him down, Lieutenant?”

“Well, to be honest, Jack was one of the vagabond types. The job did take a toll on him sometimes, so he’d disappear for a few days, but then positively return to resume operations. When he was gone for long, I did try to find him, but no luck. I eventually gave up. Thought, he might have left behind this life.

Lt. Howard continued, “Anyway, the burning building, the dead bodies and prints on the presumed murder weapon, is what we need to proceed with the case. And there is not a rat’s chance in hell, we will be able to get those leads by sitting here. However, if we can break into the CIA headquarters, we can access raw data files and also the evidence files that we need.”

“Lieutenant. Your methods are unorthodox. Very unorthodox. We seriously cannot be thinking about blowing up the CIA headquarters. We could kill someone that way!”

“No, no, no, Louis. These IEDs will only have a localized effect. It will be enough to cause a panic, and possibly a fire. But nobody will get killed. We need to take this risk...”

“Then you’re going to tell Tao everything. I do not want that kid in the middle of an espionage, which by the way, does fall along lines of treason and felony, and be thinking what to do next. You need to take full responsibility of everything!”

“Louis, I cannot tell Tao everything right now. Fear during a covert operation is not what I need. I promise you. He’ll pull through.”

“I cannot agree with you Lieutenant. I can only provide you with my assistance, but I cannot agree with you for baiting the life of an innocent kid.” 

“I am not baiting Tao’s life!”, said Lt. Howard angrily. “All right. You don’t have to stay with me if you don’t want to. Just be there if I mess up.”

“Uh, correction. It is ‘when you mess up’ and not ‘if’. Lieutenant, have you even thought this through? Let’s assume,Tao does manage to disguise himself as a janitor, how will cross the metal detectors, and the motion sensors, an army of guards and I don’t know what you guys have up your sleeve, but I’m pretty sure, once the IEDs go off, that place will be swarming with SWAT forces and the USMC in no time. Tao is a dead man there. They will seal the area completely, find out that Tao is not what he is appearing to be, and god forbid if he speaks, you, sir, will be in a lot of trouble.”

“I’ve got it covered, Louis. I will make sure, Tao is safe. I too, have a few tricks up my sleeve.” 

“You better. Else, you’ll have the blood of an innocent on your hands.”

“All right, then. We will be doing this tomorrow morning after Agent Sanchez has logged in the evidence at the headquarters. Prime traffic hours. I need you to do a few things for me Louis. Here, take this card. Go to this location. You’ll find a man there named Big Daddy G. Tell him, that I’ve sent you. He’ll arrange two getaway vehicles with fake number plates, IEDs, some smoke grenades and unlicensed taser guns. He will give you a map of the area around the CIA headquarters. Find a suitable spot and park the vehicle there. And...”

“And?”, asked Sykes anticipating that the Lieutenant will give him a task that will blow his mind. 

“I need you to fake a heart attack.”, said Lt. Howard shaking his head.

Sykes was aghasted at this request. Lt. Howard could not help but chuckle a bit.

He said, “Louis, don’t worry. You’re not dying so soon! I just need to establish a reason for us to be around the CIA headquarters when things go down. Security footage and our call logs will help in that.”

Sykes had to assist his commanding officer, even if it was done begrudgingly. He left to meet Big Daddy G as per Lt. Howard’s instructions.

Meanwhile, Lt. Howard had some very important calls to make.

.

.

.

“Hello? Who is this?”, asked a growling voice over the phone.

“Hello, Major Jenkins. I am your well-wisher.”, said Lt. Howard from the other side of the line.

“The army does not need ye voodoo men, huh. Scoot!”, replied Major Jenkins.

“Switch to a secure line, and I will tell you something very important. It is about your men posted in Afghanistan, who I think, are very eager to come back home.”

The Major was intrigued. He switched onto a recording line hoping to catch this sly man on the other side of the call. But...

“Ah, ah, Major. Now, you see, I am not your everyday ordinary man. I know you switched to the recording line instead of a secure one, in which case, I think, the recorders will be happy to know about the cash you had vanished last summer on a routine resources drop for your men posted in Afghanistan. And I’m pretty sure, your men will be very, very pleased to know how you had taken half the resources allocated to them, and made money off of it.”

The Major’s face turned red. Nobody knew about this incident. And the Major had thought he had done a good job at burying it under bundles of paperwork. He quickly switched over to a secure line and spoke nervously, yet trying to retain a dominating voice, “Okay. Shut up. Who are ya’ and what do ye’ want?”

Lt. Howard faked an irreverent laugh and said, “Now we’re talking! I am your well-wisher for sure, for I can bring your good men back from Afghanistan. They have been posted there for too long. They’re out of resources, low in morale and will get killed eventually, because the President’s peace talks are making your men sitting ducks for the Talibans, am I not right? So, I need a favour. And I am not requesting for it. I am ordering you. Else, the recording about you sniffing out money from the marines posted in the bleak conditions of Afghanistan is airing tomorrow in the news. However, I am not the devil here, so I will do you one good. I will help get your men back, but in return I need my job done.”

“What do you want me to do ye lil’ bastard? Ya think ye can fool them Army and threaten me? How will ye bring my men back?”

“Oof! I’d probably mind that tone if I were you, Major. Listen very carefully and do exactly as I tell you to. Tomorrow there is going to be a ‘little party’ at the CIA headquarters. You and SEAL Team Six will be invited to it. I want you to decline that invitation and also make sure that the SWAT team is taken care of. From my end, I’ll ensure that the President declares an attack on the Talibans and your men can then finish off the rest and come back home.”     

“I do not have much operational authority on SWAT. Ye’ should know that!”

“That is your problem, Major. Figure it out. Think about it. This is the only way you can get your men back. That, or risk ending up in the morning news.”

The call was disconnected. Lt. Howard was not too happy having to make such threats. But the situation demanded him to lose his moral fiber for the time being. Lt. Howard’s methods were different, and to find the truth, he was even willing to tread on dangerous roads.

.

.

.

“Emma?”, asked Lt. Howard eagerly.

“Charles? Is that you?”, asked Emma in a surprised tone. 

“Hey, hey, hey. How are you? Long time no see, huh?”, said Lt. Howard excitedly.

“Oh, really? Well I remember you were the one who had left me when you had to shift to Langley... How’s your job going?”

“Well. I, uh. I work for the V.S.P.D. now. Major Crimes Division.”

“So the CIA finally threw you out?”, asked Emma with a laugh. 

“Haha. Very funny...”

A moment of pause fell upon them. The fond old memories were flashing infront of their eyes.Even after so many years, lost love did not fail to put a ache in their hearts all over again. But Lt. Howard broke the silence and said...

“So, you’re still working at The White House?”

“Yes. But lately work has been quite hectic...”

“Uh, do you get to talk to the President?”, asked Lt. Howard cutting through Emma’s line.

“Charles. Yes, I do get to talk to the President. How did you know that...?”

“I need a favour, Emma.”

“Okay. I see it now! So you already knew, that I have been appointed as the Senior Adviser to the POTUS. Funny how you kept track of that! You did not call because you were missing me or if you wanted to know how I have been doing. You called because you bloody needed a favour! You haven’t changed one bit, Charles, have you?”

“Look, Emma, dear. I need ...”

“Don’t you dare ‘dear’ me, Charles! I have been waiting for you to call for so long. So damn long. And when you finally do, it is not for me, but for a favour!”

“I’m sorry Emma. Things could not have worked out between us. You knew that too. But I really need some help on a case right now. Somebody’s life may depend on it. You have to understand... just for this last time, Emma. Please.”

“Be quick about it. I’m getting late for work.”

“I need you to convince the POTUS to declare an attack on the Talibans.”

Emma started laughing wildly. She thought Charles was making some weird joke.

“Emma, I’m serious. I really need this.”

“Charles. We’re in the middle of our peace talks. Why would the POTUS suddenly declare an attack? This is insane!”

“I’ll handle the “why” part of the thing. I just need you to convince him for the attack.”

“No, Charles. I am not doing anything without knowing the full story here.”

“Okay, listen. There will be a serial IED blast tomorrow, at the CIA headquarters. I need you to pin this act on the Talibans, and convince the POTUS to go on the offense.”

“An IED blast? What are you talking about!”

“Emma. I cannot reveal much details about this. Please, trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

“Charles. This better be something good. I am risking everything here. I need something in return. I don’t think I can trust you fully, unless...”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Whatever you need. Go on.”

“I want you back.”

Lt. Howard was taken aback. He did not see this coming.

“Emma, I don’t know if I can do that. I can’t promise you ...”

“I am not going to ask you again, Charles. Deal or no deal?”

Lt. Howard’s head started throbbing really fast. He had only the slightest opportunity to gather the files from the CIA headquarters. And he could not let it go now, that he had come this far, even at the cost of signing away his own life to a woman he had once left and had not met for years. 

“All right. Once all this is over, I’ll come back to you in Washington. We’ll be together.”

“Promise me, Charles. Promise me!”, said Emma firmly.

“I promise.”, replied Lt. Howard.

Emma was very happy. After all these years she had finally had her chance of living the life she had imagined with her dear Charles. She agreed to his terms. But the Lieutenant was on the brink of giving up. Each of these calls seemed like a blow on his self respect, on his morals, on his heart and mind. The path of justice and knowledge, is never the smoothest one, but needs to be tread by the valiant. 

There still remains one last call. And this was probably the most difficult one.

.

.

.

“H.O.S. Sergeant Rios?”, asked Lt. Howard.

“Yes? Who is this?”, asked Rios.

“My name is Lieutenant Howard. I am from the Major Crimes Division of the Virginia State Police Department.”

“Hoo-rah, Lieutenant! How may I be of assistance?”

“Sergeant Rios, I was hoping you could come over to our P.D. and guide us with an ongoing murder investigation.”

“A murder investigation, sir?”

“Yes. We were hoping you could help us with the security detail of the witness. We are planning to put the witness in the witness protection programme.”

“Sir, I cannot officially be engaged in anything else, other than looking after the external security of the CIA.”

“Oh, Sergeant! This is going to stay off the records. Don’t worry about that. We had heard many good things about you, and we were also wanting to present you with a medal of appreciation for your time with us, but seems like you’re a bit busy...”

“No, um. Hold on. Uh, okay. If you can promise me that this stays completely off the records, I can come.”

“I assure full secrecy of this matter, Sergeant.”

“All right, sweet. When do you want me to come over, then?”

“Now would be a very suitable time, Sergeant.”

“Now!?”

“Why yes. The sooner we finish this murder investigation, the sooner we can award you for your kind services!”

“Okay. I’ll come over right now. I still have some time on my hands before the employees come in.”

Lt. Howard was successful in inviting the Head of the Security over to the P.D. All that there was left was to make him go to sleep for a while. 

.

.

.

H.O.S. Sergeant Rios had arrived at the P.D. 

 “Ah! Sergeant Rios. What a big help this is.”

“Glad to be of service, Sir!”, said Rios beamingly. 

“Here, come sit in Conference Room II, while I get the case files for you. And uh, please help yourself to some coffee!”

“I will. Thank you, Lieutenant.”

Rios sat down comfortably on the chair and helped himself to a large cup full of steaming espresso. The smell was fantastic, thought Rios. But, just as he took his first sip, his body started to twitch and within seconds he was knocked unconscious. 

Lt. Howard came rushing in and took Rios by his arms and dragged him to his room. Luckily it was very early in the morning and nobody was there at the P.D. to catch Lt. Howard in the act. Lt. Howard turned down the window blinds, taped a mild sedative pill to Rios’ nose, just in case, and took out Rios’ cellphone from his pocket.

The Lieutenant proceeded to call up the front desk security of the CIA and asked them to take the day off and post new reserve guards at their places, citing a ‘giving opportunity to newcomers’ reason. The plan worked. Lt. Howard was a good impersonator, it seems. Rios was lying unconscious in his room and there is no way he would be able to call for backup when the IEDs would go off.

Lt. Howard locked his room, and wiped clean the evidence of Rios’ whereabouts from Conference Room II. 

The plan was finally in motion. All he had to do now, was to wait for Agent Sanchez to come and collect the evidences and files from the P.D.’s Evidence Room. Once the evidences and files are with the CIA, Lt. Howard can start with the final phase of his espionage. 

[ecotone99]

[SP] The Case

It's not my first case. But something about it just feels off. A missing kid is never great, especially since the only reason to come to a private detective for a missing kid is because the "proper authorities" have packed it in and called it a day. By the time I can find them, as considerable as my skills may be, with limited resources and a late to the game time table, the kid is more than likely gone. One way or another. But I got an ulcer flare like hell telling me something here is off more than a rock star's sexual appetites.

The parents paid me up front, and well, higher than my asking price. They think the feds are wrong, their little girl is out there somewhere. They're desperate. I of course have to be completely up front with them, the likelihood of survival is low. They know she's alive. I tell them death isn't that bad. Not everyone is a fan of my humor, clients ranging from suspicious house wives to paranoid CEOs, with parents of missing kids being circled and underlined on that list. Without humor, what've I got.

Case like this there's one place in particular I always start, the neighborhood fortune teller. Unorthodox, I know but nowadays it's not hard to find the real ones, and Madame Barbu is the real McCoy. She's made quick work of cases like this for me, in the worst ways possible.

Another great thing about the times we live in is people like The Madame have moved away from the stereotypical aesthetic that has plagued the world since the dawn of time. I walk into her parlor, it's clean. Sterile might be more appropriate. She keeps it dark yes but there isn't a whole lot of personality. It's like a black Apple Store. She sits in the middle of her clean black room, at her clean black table, with a crystal ball atop it. Says the ball is better than Tarot, not as restrictive. She wears a clean black suit. But she does always have a beverage at the ready. I could smell the green tea down the block. She knows me so well.

"Jack. So good to see you this night."

"Madam. Wish I could say the same, but even if you couldn't see the future if imagine you'd gather why I'm here."

"Not future, fate."

"Is there a difference?" I already know the answer.

"Of course there is," She says with a smile.

I have humor, she plays games. What can I say, we all have outlets.

I don't sit down, but I grab my cup of tea, take a big gulp. It scalds.

"Why do you always do that," she also with what sounds like almost genuine concern.

I shrug my shoulders, "the burn feels good? Great tea though Barbu, as always."

Time to cut to the chase, "you know why I'm here."

"Yes, a young girl. You know my price."

"I was really hoping you were gonna take actually money for once."

"What use would I have for mortal currency?"

I look around the room, "... furniture?"

She just smiles at me, I'm actually lucky she doesn't put a curse on me. I reach into the deep pocket of my shorts and pull out a baggie full of thick hair.

"Ah, is that what I think it is?" She asks genuinely impressed.

"Yup, good eye, genuine Sasquatch fur."

She takes the bag from me, opens it up and inspects the fur closely, with eyes, nose, and much to my disgust, tongue.

"The payment is acceptable," she says finally finishing her inspection.

"Alright so do I have a dead kid or not?" I clap my hands together, let's get this show on the road, times a wastin.

What little light is in the room dims, Madame Barbu's eyes turn pure white, and her crystal ball glows like a prop from Labyrinth. After a few moments of this everything goes back to normal, always a bit anticlimactic.

"Well?"

"You may be in luck my friend, her spirit is not in the aethereal plain, nor does it haunt the physical."

With my first question answered I move on to my next, what the hell happened to this kid?

A PI's best friend is information. And the best place to get information is actually the bottom of the food chain. Rats and scum that live in the seedy alleys and gutters of the city will give you the best info of your life. And speaking of rats, I just happened to find a well of reliable degenerate info scooping up a poor little vermin for what little nutrients can be sucked from the creature.

I grab him by the collar, bring him up close to my face, ignoring the smell, snarling, "hi Vlad."

"I haven't done nothing!" He pleads.

I look down at the rat squirming in his hand.

"Nothing to no humans," he responds noticing my eyes.

"Oh I know Vlad, but if you want to keep your dinner you'll answer a couple of my questions." Food really is the way to a man's heart.

"Fine! Just let me eat and don't hurt me, dog."

"I told you not to call me that."

We sit on stacks of cardboard and filth in this dreary alley and I show him a picture of the girl, "I need to know where she is and why the hell she'd be alive."

"I know nothing of her," he's defensive, he may not know about her specifically but something is going on.

"Vlad, come on man, you gotta help me out here, the girl is still alive and to me the whole thing reeks of your people's underground shit." I'm going out on a limb, I have no proof but this ache in my gut screaming they have something to do with this.

"I know no specifics, but for some reason a certain underground ring has gotten into the business of little girls, and that's all I know."

My heart sinks. I hate when I'm right, "where?"

"The location changes, but the whisperings for the most recent group acquired was that they were going to the docks to be brought out to international waters where they could be auctioned in secret."

I stand up, noticeably a little pissed.

Vlad recoils, "I swear I am no part of it!"

"I know Vlad," I turn away from him to collect myself, "look I appreciate your cooperation, enjoy your dinn…" as I turn around, Vlad is gone, a shadow in the night. His rat lay on the filth strewn street, dead, drained. He's given me all the info I need, at the docks I can figure it out from there.

Upon arrival I put my nose to the test, it takes me longer to find the warehouse they're hiding in than I thought it would, and once I get there I find out why. I see men, lots of men, with guns. But, just men. I don't know if that makes it worse or better. It's confusing. Cause I see the girls. Turned.

This isn't my first case. I've been in situations like this before. I've contacted the cops before. I should contact the cops. But I've handled things like this too. Against my better judgement. I knew coming here I would risk losing some control, but seeing these girls. Something just comes over me. The nails on my hands and feet sharpen to claws, my teeth grow to fangs, thick fur covers my body. They have guns. They weren't anticipating a werewolf.

I leave the scene after calling the cops to pick up the girls. Then I call my clients. They were elated to hear their little girl was alive. Not so much that she was a vampire now. But at least she won't be some perverts forever young doll to have his way with. That's what they were doing. I just wonder what bastard vamp agreed to change innocent little girls. Oh well. At this point I just hope the parents, all of the parents, can learn to love their girls the way they are now. And the way the world is now, being a vampire definitely isn't the worst thing that could happen. Like I told them from the start, death isn't that bad. I should know.

submitted by /u/Southlander0 [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2UaD58I

[trascapades]

Esperanza Spalding Talks Recording an Album in 77 Hours, Sexism in Music & Nicki Minaj

Billboard 9/22/2017 by Natalie Weiner 

Esperanza Spalding photo by Carmen Daneshmandi 

The time is 10:31 p.m. ET on Wednesday, September 13, 2017, and 2.3k people are tuned in to Facebook Live as Lalah Hathaway records a haunting, wordless melody for Esperanza Spalding’s new album Exposure. A scene that would usually last days or weeks and be witnessed only by assistants, engineers, and maybe a couple friends is instead put on display to the world for the hour or so it takes to complete.

The expedited pace comes thanks to Spalding’s self-imposed deadline: 77 hours to compose and record one new studio album. The livestream was to preserve authenticity, from both Spalding and her label (can’t cut a song if the whole world’s already heard it). 34 hours in, the studio is humming as friends like Robert Glasper trickled in, and her bandmates loitered in various studio lounges waiting for the vocal takes to wrap. Cameras in all corners of the studio capture the entire process, including the requisite snacks and naps. Online, reactions roll in to Hathaway’s always-impressive voice. “Yo, I’m so shook rn,” one reads. “There are no more words for how my soul is smiling,” reads another. “When’d you write this?” Glasper asks as he brings a piece of music to the piano. “This morning,” says Spalding, chuckling.

Following the conclusion of her livestream experiment, the renowned bassist, singer, and composer spoke with Billboard about the unorthodox process for recording her sixth studio album, which will be released by Concord this fall.

READ MORE

Esperanza Spalding on Her Alter Ego and Being Inspired 'By Stuff People in Suits Don't Give a Shit About'

We’re speaking exactly a week after you started recording Exposure. How do you feel? Was the process exhausting or invigorating?

It was super-invigorating. I mean, my body is tired -- I think I lost like five pounds in there, burning so many brain calories. We didn't know what it was going to look like, but it was so clear to everyone that we were coming in to create. That took precedence over everything: fears, concerns, all of that. That was kind of the mission: to take all the extraneous factors away from the art of creation. And it happened. Now I’m in Philadelphia for work, I have writing to do for a gig coming up this weekend -- the momentum is still tumbling forward.

That's a pretty impressive schedule!

I mean, the mission isn't to be impressive, it's just...my job, you know? When a brain surgeon saves somebody's life or completes something they've failed at before, it's not like they take two weeks off from work to kick back and recover. That's your job! Your job is to perform. My job is to make and create, and it only works if I do it all the time. So this is what it is.

Once you have the momentum, you have to capitalize.

Use it and juice it. I assume we're talking about creative momentum here. There's nothing outside of you that’s propelling you forward -- if you set up the circumstances and decide on what your own stakes are, you create the momentum to move towards your mission. That's really all you need. We saw that with Exposure.

We had a lot of support: a studio, a film crew, assistants... but if all you're doing is creating, you don't need anything. You don't need any money, you don't need any tools, you don't need anybody to believe in you. You just start, with whatever resources you have. The act of creating is making something from nothing -- so you don't even need momentum. You can feel dead tired and uninspired, and still create. It's amazing.

That's a great way to put it. I've had people ask, "How do I become a writer?" and the answer is, more or less, you just have to do it.

Yep. There's no secret. Before you start, everyone says there's no secret and you're like, "Come on, you guys are holding out -- you're not telling us something." Then you start writing, and you're like, "Oh." The whole thing is just harder than you think it is. There's no secret, no shortcut. Once you accept that being a writer or a creator is just really hard and takes a lot of hours of slogging through crappy first drafts, you just keep producing, and then you turn around and it's done. That's the magic.

There were some people who suggested that recording your album Exposurein 77 hours might be a gimmick, which surprised me since it seemed like an escape from social media -- a concentrated amount of time to focus completely -- as much as an embrace of it. What was the main motivation for broadcasting the recording process for you?

For me it was about not hiding, and creating as my actual self -- the best that I could muster of my actual self. For that to mean anything, there had to be a real audience and it had to include strangers; people who hadn't already paid $50 to hear me perform. It needed a witness. Having a witness helps us know that the stakes are real, and that we really have to do this because people are watching. We can't be like, "Oh, I don't like this one, I'm going to stop." We have to keep going, because people believe in us, and they're waiting for us, and they're with us. It felt like we were all in it together.

The fact that anybody who was interested (or not interested) could watch this happen, was part of the healing of it. [In doing the livestream,] I'm not just making things for the people I presume already want them, and I actually have no way of knowing what the people watching want -- so what I make can't be catered to them. It was a way to have an exchange that was outside of the commodity-based economy. An opening to have a shared experience.

It's very similar to live performance in the sense that you have to keep going, because we're all there to have a forward-moving experience. It's hard to talk about what we all went through together -- if you saw it, you know.  The more I talk about it, the further I feel from it. It just seems small-minded to say that it's a gimmick, or a jazz thing. When I hear that, I think, no, you're just scared. There's actually a lot to be learned and taken away from this event.

I already know what it means to me, but I think there's more in there to be unpacked. I almost wish other artists and musicians would speak about it and to it, question it and challenge it. I've kind of said everything I can say about it by doing it, and speaking about it now feels cyclical and away from the point of the damn thing. The point of the damn thing was the thing.

Do you plan to perform this music live?

There will definitely be more performances. I like the music we wrote, and I didn't know if I would. But I really love it, so I want to play it some more.

Did you write anything for the album that surprised you?

Yeah, all of it. I practiced this mode of writing -- obviously we didn't write any of the songs that happened during Exposure -- but I realized the night before I went in the studio that I hadn't actually finished one song fast enough to get 10 done in three days. I got really nervous, and felt like I'd made this promise that I couldn't live up to. So really, as each one came, I was surprised that we’d actually done it.

In interviews leading up to the album, you used a few different sports metaphors. To me, it seemed like you were departing from the idea of being a musician training to perform (as all musicians do) to being a musician training to compose.

That's it. The energy of being in shape, but not knowing what we’re going to be responding to (while still understanding the mission as a team) -- I bet any athletes out there who are also musicians (or vice versa) would understand that sentiment. You step in, and you're prepared -- you've got your plays -- but you don't know what's going to happen! The muscles are all primed to move in an infinite combination of ways, and you depend on your creative brain operating in real time to come up with solutions and to make it entertaining! It's not about flawless execution, it's about the game of it. It's supposed to be fun.

Obviously beating Justin Bieber and Drake for the Best New Artist Grammy in 2011 is pretty far in the rearview for you at this point -- how do you see your connection to popular culture now?

I mean, I care about the act of making sounds and the creativity that goes into it. I enjoy hearing what people come up with, even when it's within a very established sonic aesthetic. I'm not an avid music consumer in any direction, including "less" "commercial" "forms" of "music" [Laughs.] I like to imagine that even if the culture-consuming populace-at-large doesn't like what I do or cheer for it sonically, that there's a certain appreciation for the fact that I'm doing it.

The whole Grammy thing will just exist in history as an anomaly. I got a couple more Grammys after that... I made good records, but part of me thinks that they were just trying to make [the first win] not look so random [Laughs.]

READ MORE

Esperanza Spalding Beats Bieber, Drake for Best New Artist Grammy

Are there pop artists you listen to?

It's no surprise that I thought that last Childish Gambino record was ingenious. I like the Mars Volta. LCD Soundsystem -- I heard them at a museum in Portugal, and I was like, "Word? These guys are glorious, where have I been?" That's what jazz will do to you: you spend so much time transcribing... in the amount of time it takes for a jazz musician to transcribe ten seconds worth of a solo, most people have listened to three albums. It's ridiculous. That's the downside of being a student of that pedagogy.

I think Nicki Minaj is a champion of our time, I really do. It's exciting to imagine, in 40 or 50 or 60 years, when students will be analyzing her business acumen and how she created personas and sounds... just her use of language. She's such a bright star that I think the genius of her approach is overlooked. I just always assume that powerful black women are never fully seen for what they're actually doing. People appreciate the results but not the method.

At some point when I'm at Harvard, I'll probably do a paper on her. I hope I get to interview her and learn more about her tactics. What I hear is a fucking tactical motherfucker. Like, a genius. I really admire her. She is so deep. She's a boss, she knows exactly what she's doing, and I really love her. I'm looking forward to when she has a couple kids and is just chilling at home on a weekend, and I'll go interview her for my research paper.

Sort of in the same vein, I got to see you perform with Geri Allen and Terri Lyne Carrington a couple years ago -- an all-woman band. What you guys played hit me in a way I wasn't expecting, and the energy was just really unique. Is that something you felt at all with that band? Is playing with exclusively women different at all for you?

There's no energetic boundary. That is different. It came up peripherally in conversation with Geri, but mostly speaking for myself: We didn't realize that we always hold this boundary around our bodies, and our language, and the way that we greet our bandmates, and the topics that we'll delve into -- all because on some level we're conscious of not triggering or feeding a sexual dynamic, a traditional, conditioned relational dynamic. We’d all worked with, grown up with, and studied with men from a generation that saw all women as potential objects for sex, or just generally as subordinates -- whether they were conscious of it or not.

Playing with Geri and Terri, there was the distinct feeling of something falling away. Energetically, emotionally, and physically, we would go anywhere with each other. We just felt 1000 percent free, and open, and heard, and received, and I think that expresses itself in the music somehow. I don't know how -- it would be interesting to see a brain scan, if there are any actual differences in our process for communicating [laughs]. I think we all were pleasantly surprised to discover what it feels like to just be completely uninhibited. It was really refreshing.

It actually made me aware of how much, in a lot of contexts, I am sort of...bracing. I got so used to it I didn't realize I was doing it, until I played with them and went, "Oooooh OK.”

And also, even though all three of us have very different personalities, as women in this music we'd experienced a very similar path. It can be really lonely to be a young woman in the music industry. We all had gone through a lot -- Geri more than Terri, and Terri more than me -- and when we played, there was this understanding of a common experience that we'd all lived. Never spoken of. But I think you could feel that, and I think that's something special to Geri, Terri, and me -- not necessarily any three women playing together.

In an interview with Larry Wilmore last year, he asked if you’d choose to end sexism forever, even if it meant you had to shave your head and give up music. He seemed surprised that you said yes. How do you see sexism in music and beyond actually ending?

I think it's less about sexism, and more about transforming the ideology that people are tools. Women in power in the music industry can be just as exploitative of other women and their sexuality as a man can -- if the mission of exploiting them is to make a dollar. It's our shared responsibility to stop using people, and to stop assuming that ther e's any type of person that it's ok for us to use or treat as less than.

I'm excited to hear more and more people speak to that level of deprogramming instead of just, "Let's make sure women can get the jobs men hold." That's great and important, let's absolutely share the burdens of this economy, but as important is remembering that more broadly inequality is our shared responsibility. As [German philosopher] Erich Fromm would say, it’s about treating people as ends, not as means.

[sending-the-message]

Dead Coyote by Ilunibi

I did not grow up in a nice area. Housing projects, regardless of where they are, are rarely ever “nice.” And, of course, in rough neighborhoods like that, you learn from a very early age who you should and should not go around and under what circumstances those dangerous people are safe. You learn how to make friends with unfriendly people, and you learn the delicate dance of walking on eggshells in the face of folks who’d gut you for the twenty-bucks in your pocket. Most importantly, though, you learn that not every villain is a villain.

Take Dead Coyote for instance.

No, I don’t know why we called him Dead Coyote, but being a kid? I didn’t really care. I knew he was an addict, I knew that he dealt drugs out of his apartment by night and sold pirated DVDs out of the trunk of his car by day, and I knew that he was Honduran, which I only knew because he’d throw a shit fit if you called him Mexican. I also knew that my mom warned me a thousand different times to never, ever talk to him because he was a disgusting junkie, but it was hard to miss him because he always seemed to linger around the basketball courts and playgrounds. My neighborhood friends had just gotten so used to him being around that they treated him like a statue, but me?

Well, I guess I was different. I thought Dead Coyote was just the most fascinating guy in the world. He was taller than my dad and he was skinny as a rail, but I’d seen him get in fights and I had never seen him lose. He wore his hair like a character in a Mad Max movie (which, admittedly, was probably because he didn’t take care of himself), and he was covered in tattoos. Swirls and skulls and weird, squiggly symbols and bugs and flies and maggots and devils.

That’s how I ended up talking to him in the end. Here I am, just barely into fourth grade, and I plopped right next to him on a bench at the basketball court, pointed out one of the symbols on his arm, and asked, “What’s that?”

He looked at me, looked at his arm, looked at me again, and narrowed his eyes. After a few moments for him to figure out that I wasn’t some drug-induced hallucination, he cracked a smile.

“Oh, uh. That’s a Pentacle of Solomon.”

“What’s a Pentacle of Solomon?”

“Uh,” he drawled, his eyes hazy. “It’s, like, a thing I found in a book once. Don’t worry about it, princess.”

And so began an unorthodox friendship.

I know it has to seem odd that a little girl would strike up a sort of sibling relationship with the twenty-something neighborhood dealer, but I was a weird kid, an only child, endlessly curious, and painfully lonely. I didn’t really fit in with a lot of the neighborhood brats, my mom worked constantly, my dad was in jail, and I spent the majority of my time as a solitary latchkey kid who’d come home from school, let herself in, and spend eight hours trying to keep herself from dying of boredom. I didn’t really register Dead Coyote as a danger despite my mom’s many warnings anymore than I paid mind to her pleas to not leave the house while she was at work. I was young, I was invincible, and Dead Coyote was a way to pass the time without feeling completely alone.

Even though we got a lot of weird looks, I kept visiting him during his daily vigil at the local playground. I’d ask him about his tattoos, he’d give me vague answers, he’d ask me about my day, and I’d regale him with stories about the mean girls at school and the boys I had elementary school crushes on. He tried to teach me Spanish curse words, I tried to teach him what every individual Pokemon did, and in general? We got on pretty well. In a way, it was kind of like having an older brother or, if nothing else, having my father back.

It became ritual to drop my books inside my door and run straight back out to meet up with my new friend, but eventually, there was a hiccup. There’s always a hiccup.

It was one of those crisp fall days that seems almost perfect, where it’s not too hot, not too cold, the sky is clear, and everything just seems so vivid and alive. I rushed home, literally threw my backpack in the door of my apartment and watched the contents burst out and scatter across the floor, locked the door behind me, and bolted for the playground. I wanted to show off a new Pokemon card I was proud of, and also ask him for the bajillionth time in months about what a Pentacle of Solomon was. He still hadn’t told me.

The problem was that when I went to the playground, it was empty. I ran around the rickety wooden swings and checked under the slides and equipment, but the most I found were ants and broken beer bottles. So, I ran to the basketball court and, while I could find a couple of Dead Coyote’s regulars, I couldn’t find the man himself. It was weird and it felt very, very wrong, and my thoughts raced to whether he’d finally gotten arrested or, hell, finally gotten himself killed. Did he overdose? In my panic, I interrupted his regulars’ game to ask if they’d seen him, and my anxiety only peaked when they told me that, no, he hadn’t really come out of his apartment all day.

Now, you’ll think I’m dumb, but I knew where Dead Coyote lived. Sometimes, when mom was late getting home and I was too scared to be by myself, I’d slip over to his apartment a couple of buildings down and stay in his living room to watch TV. Since mom had a beat-up car that banged like a metal band, I’d always hear her coming and be home before her. I know in retrospect that I was basically asking for trouble, I know it’s weird that I could identify his regulars because I’d watch Who’s Line on his couch while he was dealing heroin in the kitchen, and I know it seems really weird that a grown man would allow that, but I was nine. I just knew I was scared at night, he was scary, and he’d protect me until mom got home.

So, I went to his apartment. I banged on the door. I yelled into the crack between the door and the jamb, I climbed up on his trash can to look in the windows. The entire place was dark except for little dots of glow that seemed to zigzag around the living room. Candles, I later realized, bright red like Christmas lights, flickering and dancing in the pitch black. I assumed that if candles were lit, it had to mean he was in there somewhere--it’d be a fire hazard if he was gone--so I banged on the window and---

Something grabbed me. Not from the inside, but from behind, an arm hooked around my waist and dragging me off the trash can. It toppled over with a loud crash, I let out the shrillest scream I think I’ve ever managed in my life, and I heard this awful, smug laughter from behind me as I was hauled, kicking and shrieking, around the corner of the building. It felt like all of the light in the world disappeared as I was carted down into the alley, the sun and the street a distant memory.

Then, my captor threw me down. I heard my back pop as I hit the brick of the building and my vision was blurred for a few seconds. When the world came back into focus, though, I could still see two sets of legs, and when I looked up at who they belonged to, I was both horrified and relieved to see that it wasn’t Dead Coyote. Relieved because, well, I didn’t want to think he’d hurt me and horrified because of who it turned out to be.

You see, every neighborhood (even the good ones) has the folks that you don’t want to run afoul of. Unless you’re their level of nasty, there is no possible way to ever endear yourself to them. There’s bad eggs with cream centers like Dead Coyote, and then there’s rotten pieces of shit like Joseph Shepherd.

Joseph was an eighteen-year-old punk who only felt alive if somebody else was hurting. He was the guy who once threw me in front of a bus and chased his ex-girlfriend down the road with a flask of battery acid because he thought it was funny. This was the type of person who legitimately should be locked up and the key conveniently lost. His friend? I had no idea who the fuck he was, but if he was with Joseph, he wasn’t anyone worth knowing.

“Well, well. Looks like we have DC’s little piece of jailbait, eh?”

Joseph stooped down to my level and yanked hard on my shirt. My back roared in pain and I turned beet red when I noticed him looking down the front.

“A little underdeveloped, but the fucker’s a freak anyway. Maybe he likes ‘em like that.”

“I bet she’s tight, though,” his friend offered, and that’s when I saw something in his hand. For a second, I thought it was a gun but, no, it was worse. It was a knife. One of those cheap little hunting knives you get from seedy gas stations. All I could think about from that point on is how much more awful stabbing would be compared to getting shot. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around the much more obvious implication.

I was nine. I never got the birds and the bees talk. I didn’t understand.

There was some more discussion, but my memory becomes a brief blur around this point, like a watercolor painting gone terribly wrong. I remember being jostled, I remember something wet on the side of my face, and then I remember hearing a loud howl of pain and a thud. The next clear thing in my mind was watching as Joseph’s friend hit the ground with a squall, eyes rolled into the back of his head, frothing at the mouth like a rabid animal. His hands curled into his chest, his legs spasmed, then his entire body began to convulse. Joseph began barking curses, but I was more worried about fixing my shirt.

What can I say? It was a lot to take in. I could only process so much. I didn’t leave the house expecting to get molested by a man who’d have an epileptic seizure in the end.

I mean, it was a seizure… right?

If it was, the world wound up seizing, too. As I found my land legs again and pushed myself up to my feet, the earth began to quake and the walls of the building began to tremble. The sun went dark and reality itself began groaning in agony. It was like listening a thousand chanting voices trying to drown the other out, as the air grew thicker and a rancid stench began to fill the air. For some reason, though, it didn’t affect me; I could feel the noise making my bones buzz and I could smell that awful smell, but Joseph was the one who was sliding to the ground and crying. He was the one whose eyes were bleeding, whose body was shaking, whose neck was twisting around like he was trying for a part in The Exorcist.

And he screamed. God, the things he screamed. Things he saw that were invisible to me, of stilt-legged owl beasts and dogs with rows of teeth like sharks. Men in armor with fanged horses. Goat-headed women with twisted horns decorated in bones.

Odd as it was, I was more scared of getting hurt than watching him get hurt, more scared of him than the ghosts he thought he saw. I ignored the pain shooting through my back, turned tail, and ran for the light at the end of the alley like it was relay dash toward the pearly gates. Tears streamed down my face as I turned the corner--maybe, maybe, if I knocked a little louder and screamed a little more frantically, Dead Coyote would answer his door--and I swore up and down and all around that I would never, ever leave the house while mom was at work and I would not stop running until I got home.

Except, I hit something as I rounded the building. After stumbling over Dead Coyote’s spilled garbage, I ran dead into the actual Dead Coyote. I was sobbing, he was surprisingly sober, and as a crowd of neighbors gathered around to see what the noise outside was about, he stooped down and grabbed me in a bear hug like a real big brother and kept telling me over and over and over that everything was okay. Everything was fine.

He sat with me when the police came after he, surprisingly enough, broke his own personal code to call them. They found Joseph and his friend passed out in the alley with no sign that they had been seizing or bleeding or screaming or crying. They were just out like lights, lying in their own vomit in between the buildings. I was told that I was lucky, because it was probably some kind of drug overdose that made them lose consciousness at just the right time, but I know what I saw. And I know what Joseph thought he saw, because he told me, shrieking, every last detail. And even as the police gave Dead Coyote an accusing glance as they drove my attackers off into the sunset, I somehow knew in the pit of my soul he wasn’t the villain in all of this.

“Hey. Princess.”

I looked to him curiously, eyes still puffy and wet. He was chewing his bottom lip and looking straight ahead, rapping his fingers against his thigh in that fidgety way he always did. His other hand absentmindedly combed through his hair before he gave me a sideways glance and nodded towards his apartment door.

“I think it’s about time I teach you what a Pentacle of Solomon is.”