#ch: Bobby Marks

[aylaaescar]

shoot, Bobby is basically the Dennis Duffy of Wayhaven

"hey dummy angel"

[aylacavebear]

Soulmates? Yeah, right, pft. - Ch. 1

When you turn sixteen, and your soulmate's name doesn’t appear anywhere on your body that you can find, you figure you had to be the only person on the planet who didn’t have one. Most of the town shuns you, so you stick close to family. Your Aunt Ellen raised you after your parents died in a car crash when you were two, but what happens when the Winchesters return to town and buried secrets begin to come to light?

Pairing: Mechanic Dean Winchester x OC Reader/You

Word Count: 5393

Warnings: Angst, Past Trauma.

A/N: This is my non-Supernatural fic I'm attempting. Please let me know what you think, as I always love hearing from my readers. Not sure when this one will be up and available to read yet. Just getting the chapter list started for it.

----------------------------------------- Chapter 1

You grew up hearing about soulmates, but since you were raised by your Aunt Ellen, it was something you weren’t sure was even true. She’d shown you the mark that had shown up on her hip, your uncle’s name, when she’d turned sixteen. Soulmates clearly were a thing, but you were skeptical, even as a child.

“Hey, you gonna take care of the customers or just stand there daydreamin?” Ellen asked you.

“Sorry,” you quickly apologized, tending to the men at the bar.

How did I end up working here, of all places?

Your mind constantly drifted these days, and it started a month ago. Your twenty-fifth birthday was only three months away. Jo continually teased you when she found you off in your head during work hours. Then there was your Aunt Ellen, who was getting more worried about you as the days passed.

The music from the jukebox sounded far away, almost muffled as you absentmindedly took care of the tasks of cleaning tables, the bar, restocking bottles, and filling drinks. Guys would flirt with you, but you’d only give them that fake smile and move on.

It was the birthday you’d been waiting for, even if you hadn’t wanted to admit it to anyone. You were turning sixteen, and you’d finally see the name of your soulmate. Thanks to your aunt, you had gotten your hopes up.

But the day came and went, and nothing appeared. You had checked everywhere, even behind your ears. There was nothing. It took months to pull out of that depression, especially when those close to you asked about it. You also felt like some sort of freak. In all the research you’d done, you couldn’t find anything about not getting the mark when you turned sixteen.

“Geeze, Y/N. You’re really out of it today. What’s wrong, sweetie?” Ellen asked you, pulling you from your memories.

“Sorry. My mind seems to have a mind of its own today,” you sighed, glancing around the bar for a moment.

“You still bummed about the soulmate thing?” she asked you sincerely, in the way she did when she was gently trying to get you to talk.

You just shrugged your shoulders before taking off your apron, “I have to go help Bobby at the garage again.” 

“Is it that time already?” Ellen asked, glancing at the clock, then sighed. “Alright. Tell the old grump I said hi, and don’t let him work you too hard.” That made you chuckle, “He never does, and I’ll let him know.”

Again, your mind drifted as you drove down the semi-busy streets to Bobby’s garage. He and your Aunt had been friends for a long time, so he was practically family, as was his wife, Jodi. Growing up, you’d spent half your time in the garage, helping Bobby fix cars.

Sioux Falls wasn’t a big town, but wasn’t tiny either. You knew most of the people who lived there, and they knew you. It was more like more of them knew of you, the girl with no soulmate. You sighed as you drove your 71’ Pontiac Firebird Formula 400, a gift from Bobby you had to fix up, down the lonely road leading to his garage. 

“Got something for ya, kid, but you gotta fix her up,” Bobby told you when you showed up for your shift that hot summer afternoon.

“I told you. You don’t have to get me a present this year,” you groaned.

A year ago, you began hating your birthdays, and you didn’t want to celebrate this one. You begrudgingly followed him to his garage, then to the side of it, where you noticed the tarp over something.

Bobby walked over and pulled the tarp off, revealing the shell of a 71’ Pontiac Firebird Formula 400. You had fallen in love with muscle cars as a kid, watching The Dukes of Hazzard. Your jaw hit the floor as you ran over to her like a kid on Christmas.

He was smiling from ear to ear as he watched you look over everything, “She’s all yours, but you gotta do the work. You can’t let any other mechanic touch her. I’ll answer any questions, but I ain’t helpin' either.”

“Are you serious, Uncle Bobby?” you asked excitedly, popping the hood of the beat-up frame.

A small smile crossed your expression with that memory as you pulled into the driveway of Bobby’s garage and parked in the back. It seemed like so long ago, but it was one of your fondest memories that had made your birthday not so bad.

“I’m here,” you hollered, heading over to the car you’d been working on for almost a week at this point. 

“How was the bar?” he asked, joining you in the garage.

“I was a space cadet, and Aunt Ellen is worried about me,” you replied, sliding back under the car to finish it up.

“You’re not a space cadet. I just think you can’t focus around all those people anymore. Come work at the garage, full-time,” he told you, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms.

“I’ll think about it,” you answered, tightening down a few more bolts.

“Besides, Jodi misses you being around more often,” Bobby added in an attempt to persuade your decision.

“I miss her too. Oh! Ellen said hi. I don’t know why she doesn’t text you more often,” you replied, sliding out from under the car, looking for yet another tool for yet another size bolt.

When you were in the garage, you always seemed to be able to focus. You knew Bobby had a point, and you’d been considering it for almost a month, but you weren’t about to tell him that. You wanted to let him think it was his idea.

Yeah, your mind drifted, but it was nothing like at the bar. Here, they were little snippets of memories: kids teasing you in high school, adults looking at you like you had two heads, and then there had been attempts to find a job but getting turned down everywhere due to not having the name of your soulmate on your body somewhere. 

By the time your shift ended, you had the car completely finished. Looking down at the car, you stood there, covered with blotches of grease but beaming with pride. 

“I’ll let the owner know she’s ready,” Bobby smiled, now standing next to you. “Think about it, though, okay?”

“I will,” you replied, giving him a hug before you headed home for the night since you’d already cleaned up the tools you’d used.

You lived in a cute little house not far from Bobby’s garage. It was the only thing that you had from your parents, along with a handful of pictures. You’d lost both of them to a car crash when you were only two, having no real memories of them. 

Since you were two when you had lost them, you never asked Jodi what had happened or if anyone else was involved. You honestly didn’t want to know. 

Dropping the things from your pockets on the table, you locked your door and headed to the bathroom. Your thoughts drifted again as you did your typical night routine.

“I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time finding work, sweetie. You can’t work here till you’re at least eighteen. I can’t break that law for you,” Ellen sighed.

You crossed your arms and went back outside to your car. You knew why no one in town would hire you, and it was a stupid reason. However, being a teenager still, you were all hormones and now needed to go blow off some steam.

You peeled out of the parking lot and down the road to your parent's place, which would be yours in less than a year. The drive was short due to the speed you’d chosen to go, and a cloud of dust rolled over your car when you parked out back of the house.

Between the punching bag, the target practice, and throwing your knives till your arm was sore, you had finally calmed down some. You made a call to Ellen and told her you were going to sleep at your ‘almost’ house. She didn’t like it but didn’t argue either.

You cried yourself to sleep that night, curled up in the soft bed that would eventually be your permanent room as the sun set slowly. The thought of being alone for the rest of your life hurt more than you’d ever tell anyone.

Dinner that night consisted of leftovers, and you were thankful you’d prepared them ahead of time when the week began—baked chicken, potatoes, and gravy. You were far too out of it to even worry about a vegetable. 

I’ll tell Ellen tomorrow.

Finally deciding to quit working at the bar as you cleaned up dinner and headed to bed, almost feeling as though a weight had been lifted off your shoulders. Slipping under the covers and getting comfortable, you also felt more relaxed than usual. 

—----

Two hours into your shift, and Ellen had already had to pull you out of your head a dozen times. It was Saturday, so even the morning hours were busy today. You were just thankful that you never had to cook, knowing you would have ended up burning most of the food.

“Can you at least pay attention to the ones at the bar? Jo can handle the floor today,” Ellen told you, again sounding worried.

“I’ll try,” you sighed, glancing at the men sitting there.

There was no point in apologizing again. As you began taking care of the drinks, the bell over the door dinged, signifying yet another customer. Typically, you wouldn’t have even looked up, but something pulled at you.

It was three men, none of whom you recognized, and two of them looked to be around your age, with the third being older. All three of them sat at the bar, so you went over to get them drinks.

“What’s your poison?” you asked, putting on that fake work smile and not really looking at them.

“Three beers,” the older of the three said, “And please tell Ellen to come over.”

You were slightly confused but agreed. You set their beers down in front of them, then went to find Ellen in the back. “Hey, there’s a guy out here that asked for you.”

“Did you get his name?” she asked as she dried her hands.

“No. He didn’t say. He’s with two other guys who are younger, though, if that helps?” you replied as you followed her out of the back room.

You stopped halfway down the bar, but you were still behind it, as she was now on the other side, making her way to the three of them. The older man stood, both he and Ellen smiling as they embraced in a hug, which confused you. You managed to keep up with the drinks for those at the bar but couldn’t hear what the four of them were talking about.

“Y/N, come down here and get these boys a refill,” Ellen hollered, motioning for you to go over to them.

Rolling your eyes, you did as she asked, putting on that fake smile again, “Here ya go.”

“Thanks, Sweetheart,” one of the two younger ones said to you with what looked to be a flirtatious smirk.

“Don’t be flirting with my niece, Dean. She’s still what you’d consider innocent,” Ellen scolded the one who had just spoken to you, but to you, it sounded more like a teasing sort of joking around, which made you slightly curious. “Thanks. Like I need some stranger to know that sort of thing,” you grumbled.

“Sweetie, these are the Winchesters. They’re practically family. You met them when you were little,” Ellen replied, smiling happily.

For a moment, you were somewhat dumbfounded as to what to even say. You couldn’t seem to remember meeting the three of them. Ellen introduced you to John Winchester, the father of Dean and Sam, who were four years apart in age.

“I hate to do it, Aunt Ellen, but, I need to talk to you about something before I leave in ten,” you finally told her.

“What’s up?” she asked, looking quite puzzled.

“I need to take some time off for a while,” you mumbled, feeling bad.

“Take all the time you need, sweetie. I know things have been rough for you lately,” she said softly, then she gave you a hug. “And tell that old fart to stop by sometime.”

“Thanks for understanding, and I will,” you replied, relieved as you hugged her back. Then you looked over at the Winchesters, “It was nice to have at least met the three of you since I don’t remember meeting you before now. Not sure when I’ll see you again, though.”

“How come?” John asked, seeming fairly curious.

“I’m going to be working my other job full-time for a while. It’s the love of my life, honestly,” you replied with a smile, giving John your full attention.

“What’s that, kid?” he asked, which made you wonder if perhaps he knew Bobby since Bobby called you that all the time.

“I fix cars. Hate to do it, but I have to run,” you replied quickly, heading for the door and out to your Baby. However, your heart about stopped when you saw the black 67’ Chevy Impala parked next to your Firebird.

“Damn…” you breathed out in quiet shock and awe.

Shit! I’m gonna be late.

With that thought, you shook your head, pulled your gaze from the car, and drove to Bobby’s garage for your shift. It indeed was a beautiful car, and you knew that no one in town drove one of those. Through deductive reasoning, you figured it had to belong to the Winchesters. You just weren’t sure which one. Whichever one it was, though, they loved that car, and you knew it with how well it had been taken care of.

The leaves on the trees were changing colors already, and the light breeze was finally cooler than the summer heat that you hated. However, you didn’t notice much today; you were too excited to give Bobby the news.

You knew the smile you couldn’t hide would give it away, but you stepped into his little office anyway. You didn’t even have time to say anything before he did.

Bobby was smiling from ear to ear when he looked up at you, “Nice to know Ellen didn’t give you a hard time about being here full time. You can whip those boys on the morning shift into shape for me.”

“Like they’d listen to me,” you chuckled but rolled your eyes.

“They better, since you’re gonna be their boss from here on out,” he told you seriously.

“Wait? What?” you asked, in complete surprise.

“Kid, you know your shit, and you’re good at your job. You’re better at your job than the four boys I got workin here already. I’d rather just have you than all of them 'cause I know you’d get the job done like it should be, and you never cut corners,” he explained, being completely serious.

“I- I don’t know what to say,” you stammered, still shocked.

“Just say thanks and be here at six tomorrow morning. Take the afternoon off and rest up,” he smiled.

You went over and wrapped him up in a hug. He knew the only reason you worked in the garage late was to avoid the boys he had working there in the morning. You had tried doing the dating thing after your sixteenth birthday, but realized quickly that no boy wanted anything to do with you.

That night, you were still smiling, even if you were apprehensive about being someone’s boss, let alone four grown men. People in the town were mostly courteous toward you but treated you like a plague of some sort since your soulmate's name never appeared on your body. 

—-------

As you got ready that morning, you attempted to calm your nerves, but it didn’t work. You gave yourself mental pep talks all morning and even on the drive, but that wasn’t helping either. Your heart was still racing as you parked out back like you usually did.

Bobby was the only one at the garage for the moment, and he even told you to breathe more than once. He explained that you’d still be working on cars, but now you’d also be keeping an eye on the boys he had working there and telling them when to take their breaks. It seemed simple enough.

Benny, Cas, Garth, and Jack were decent guys and were all friends. They’d spend time at the bar in the evenings when you were at the garage. It was how you had avoided a lot of people in the town since they really wanted nothing to do with you. The part you were worried about was interacting with them, as their boss. Bobby was standing next to you as the four of them arrived and mingled into the garage.

“Boys, meet your new boss,” Bobby said sternly, and all four of them looked up at you.

You were sure your heartbeat could be heard throughout the room as you froze under their gaze. The only one who didn’t look at you like you were a waste of space or something to avoid was Garth, and you made a mental note of that.

Something in you snapped with how they looked at you, and you laid into them before Bobby could comment on their expressions. “Look, I know that at least three of you would rather not work with me. I’m not a bitch, but I will be if I have to be. You don’t like this, there’s the door,” you told them sternly, putting your hands on your hips.

“Seriously?” Benny asked, annoyed. His Cajun accent was thick, and if it weren’t for his attitude, you probably could have listened to the man talk all day.

“Yes, Benny. She’s got the right to fire you if need be. I suggest you don’t give her a reason,” Bobby replied, crossing his arms, almost daring the man to challenge his decision.

Garth stepped forward, though, with that kind smile he always had, “I, for one, am looking forward to working with you, Y/N. You seem like a nice person, fair.”

Your expression instantly softened, and you smiled at him. “Thanks, Garth.”

“Alright, get to work,” Bobby told all of you before he headed into his office to keep an eye on things.

You turned from the four of them and headed toward the newest of the cars that had been brought in the day before. Your nerves were shot, but you were proud of yourself for standing up to the three of them. Pausing for a brief moment as you looked down at the car, you decided on something.

I’m gonna just be me. If they don’t like it, they can quit.

You turned on the radio to the classic rock station, then got to work on the car. Benny raised an eyebrow and just watched you silently before he got to work with the other three. It was odd for you with the other four working there, too. It was something you weren’t used to, but you found yourself keeping an eye on them, even while you worked.

An hour into the shift, Cas had stopped working and sat on one of the barstools, sipping some water. You watched him out of the corner of your eye for a few minutes while still focusing on your current task. Five minutes later, he was back to work. You took mental note of it and focused on your task again.

Each of them did that, taking turns to sit for a few minutes, have water, and then return to work. It puzzled you, but you weren’t ready to ask them why they did it, at least not yet. 

Just before nine, you heard it before you saw it. The beautiful purr of that Impala you had seen the night before. A smirk crossed your lips while you were unbolting the upper portion of the water pump for the current car in front of you. 

The Impala stopped, and then she was silent. You could clearly hear three sets of footsteps heading into the garage. The four boys erupted with greetings to the Winchesters, more Dean than the other two. Even Bobby joined in. 

So, they do know each other. Too bad the boys know them too. So much for maybe making a friend now.

You sighed and slid under the car, going for the bottom bolts now that the top ones were loose, completely ignoring the ruckus of greetings going on only about twenty feet away from you.

“Kid, you gonna come say hi?” you heard Bobby ask, and you realized he was standing next to you.

“I really wanted to get this finished, since the part finally came in, and this poor car has been sitting here for a week waiting,” you replied without moving out from under the car.

“Kid, don’t make me pull you outta there,” he told you a bit more sternly, and you knew he’d do it.

“Fine,” you grumbled, sliding out from under the car.

“So much for not running into you again, Sweetheart,” Dean smirked, which made you roll your eyes.

“Dean’s gonna be starting tomorrow morning. Dean, she’ll be your boss, so don’t try anything funny. She’s also practically my niece,” Bobby told him, far sterner than you’d heard him talk to anyone before, which only piqued your curiosity as to what their past entailed.

“I’ll behave, Bobby, I promise,” Dean told him, somewhat seriously. 

You noticed a small twinkle in not only Dean’s eye, but also in Bobby’s. It was like there was something they both knew but weren’t saying, at least not in front of you.

“You better, boy. I got no problems telling your dad and making him fire you,” Bobby replied, glancing at John.

That was when it hit you. You’d seen the initials JW on several different pieces of paperwork and even a couple of packages that had been delivered to the garage. John was Bobby’s partner in the business, and Dean was supposed to inherit it when John passed or retired. You were a bit surprised, though, that you had the power to fire the boss's son or at least write him up if you had to.

John’s laughter filled the garage at Bobby’s statement, “If I have to get involved, you’ll be in far more trouble than just losing your job.” There was a joke in there, but you could also hear the hint of seriousness in his tone.

What do the three of them know but aren’t saying around me? This is so frustrating.

“I said I’d behave,” Dean grumbled, crossing his arms and leaning against the car closest to him while the boys gave him a hard time. But it was there, even if only a hint of it, a smirk, and you noticed.

That was when John and Bobby both turned toward you, and for some reason, it made you nervous. “We’re having a little get-together tonight at Harvelle’s, and you’re invited. Sam graduated and is getting a full ride for law school, and that calls for a celebration,” John told you with a far softer smile than you thought the man was capable of.

“Uh, sure, I guess,” you replied, completely unsure of the idea of being around people who really wanted nothing to do with you.

“Good. Then we’ll see you there around say, seven?” John replied.

“Okay,” you answered, not sure what else to say.

Due to your attention being on John and Bobby, you missed the silent conversations going on between Dean, Sam, and the four grease monkeys on the far side of the garage. Dean was mostly watching you while Benny and Cas were telling him things, about you. Sam was also watching you, but his was more out of curiosity than anything else.

John and Bobby hung out in the office with the door closed for at least another hour. Dean and Sam were distracting the other four while they worked. You, well, you were changing out the water pump, ignoring all of them. It was what hurt the least. 

While you were tightening down the bolts under the car, you noticed a pair of feet standing next to you.

“You really don’t remember us, do you?” he asked.

“Sorry. I really don’t,” you answered, focusing on the bolt that was being a pain to get to.

“Wow. Kinda surprised since we went to the same schools and grew up in the same town,” he chuckled quietly, and you realized it was Sam and not Dean. Sam had a softer voice, and he didn’t call you sweetheart.

“I’m really sorry. I was kind of a loner,” you told him and finally got the bolt tightened down.

Sliding out from under the car and looking up at him, you felt like an ant with how tall he was. You shook off the feeling, got to your feet, and bent over into the engine so you could finish bolting the water pump in place.

“I remember. I heard about what happened, or uh, I mean- what didn’t happen when you turned sixteen,” he told you with that softness you were thankful for.

You shrugged your shoulders briefly, “Doesn’t matter. At least Bobby let me work here. All I ask is that you aren’t being nice to me out of pity. I’d rather be ignored.”

“I don’t pity you. I actually wanted to tell you something I found out while I was at college. It’s rare, like it only happens to one in a billion people. A traumatic event before the age of five can leave a child too scared to get their soulmate’s name when they turn sixteen,” he explained.

You froze where you were. It was more than anything you’d been able to find, and for a moment, you wanted to hope. You quickly brushed it away, though, remembering how badly you’d felt the last time you got your hopes up.

“You gonna keep going or just leave me hanging like that?” you asked, a little sharper than you intended.

Sam took a deep breath, and you missed him glancing at his brother momentarily, “Well, what I read said that the other person still gets their soulmate’s name. The one that went through the trauma has to fully heal from it before they get their soulmate’s name.”

You rolled your eyes, “Kinda hard to heal from something I don’t remember.”

“I just wanted you to know that me and my brother don’t see you like others do, and we’d like to be your friend, if you want,” he replied, then walked away to leave you to your thoughts.

Great. I don’t even know what to do to heal that sort of thing. I don’t even remember my parents. And now, the boss’s kids want to be friends with me. No, that can’t go horribly wrong, can it? Plus, I have to go sit through a celebration with people I don’t remember and others who want nothing to do with me, even if Ellen, Bobby, and Jodi will be there.

You focused on the car but finished it quickly before the Winchesters were even ready to leave. After wiping off your hands, you closed the hood and put the tools away before driving the car out to the finished area so it could wait for its owner to pick it up. When you headed back inside, your eyes were only on the office door, which was still closed. You didn’t see Dean watching you again.

“Hey, Bobby. Cars finished. I didn’t see anything else out back. What do you want me to work on?” you asked, setting the keys on his desk so he could get the paperwork together.

“How about you give Dean the tour? Show him where everythings at?” John suggested with a smirk before Bobby could say a word. “I figured Benny would do that, since they seem like friends,” you replied, not wanting to interrupt the six of them.

“I’m sure he could, but he won’t. You’re their boss. Comes with the territory,” John told you.

“Yes, Sir,” you replied in a slight mumble, heading back out of the office, closing the door, and then leaning on it.

As you crossed your arms, you watched the six of them. They looked like they were enjoying whatever conversation was happening between them, with Dean laughing at something he must have found funny. With a deep sigh, you walked over to them, slipping your hands into your pockets.

There was instant silence the moment you got close to them, but you didn’t let the hurt show, “John said I should give you a tour and show you where everything is,” you explained to Dean, not really looking at him.

Dean glanced at the office door then back down at you, “If that’s what my dad said, then lead the way, Sweetheart.”

Why does he have to keep calling me that? It’s not like he knows me. Maybe he calls all girls that, and it’s just his thing or something like that. 

“Yeah, not like you been in here a day of your life,” Benny teased him, which made you look up at Benny, confused. “Huh?” was the only word you could manage.

“Oh yeah, Dean’s been working in here since he was knee-high to a grasshopper,” Cas chuckled, teasing Dean.

Your gaze went from each of them and then to Dean, tilting your head in a fair amount of confusion. Dean rubbed the back of his neck nervously and looked away from you.

“What’s wrong, Dean? Worried she’ll figure it out?” Benny stated.

“Figure what out?” you asked as Dean glared at Benny.

“Nothing,” Dean snapped, still glaring at Benny.

So, Dean’s got some secret he doesn’t want me to know about. 

“Do you still want that tour I’m supposed to give you?” you asked with a sigh, looking more at the floor than anywhere else.

“Dean, you were here less than a month ago. Did you really forget where everything is already?” Cas teasingly asked him.

You’d had enough, so headed out of the garage, tossing your hands up and hollering, “Never mind,” just before making it outside. Once you made it to your car, you texted Bobby and told him you were heading home since there weren’t any more cars to work on at the moment.

The six of them watched as you drove past the garage entrance and then down the driveway. You missed Dean punching Cas in the jaw. You missed John and Bobby going off on Benny and Cas. You also missed Dean going off on Benny. You were too pissed and hurt to even look back.

Bobby didn’t text you back, but you knew if he had an issue or needed you at the garage, he would have said so. The moment you got home, you went straight for the punching bag, needing to get the anger out of your system so you could shower.

How am I gonna get out of tonight? Can I even get out of tonight? Probably not. I’ll have to show up, at least. I can always leave early, though, right? 

You groaned at the thought of having to be around people, knowing full well that getting out of it, even early, was going to be difficult. At least you weren’t required to dress up any, so you went for a pair of black jeans, a dark blue shirt, and your favorite deep green flannel pulled over it. At the garage, you typically had your hair pulled back, but for tonight, you left it down.

Parking near the back of Harvelle’s Bar & Grill, you were just staring at the building, dreading going inside and having to “people,” as you called it. The sun had already set, and the darkness was allowing the glimmer of stars to be seen in the night sky, but you didn’t notice them, just the bar in front of you.

----------------------------------------- Chapter 2

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[livesincerely]

there’s no escape (i can’t wait) - ch. 1

Rated E, A/B/O. The next entry in my burning up variations series (see tag below).

Also on ao3

00000

Later, Eddie will think that he knew, somehow, before he actually knew.

He’s finishing up in the locker room, about to head into a 24-hour shift, when a rush of… something sweeps over him. There’s a prickle of anticipation at the nape of his neck, goosebumps sprouting all over his arms, and he glances up, nose twitching, right as Buck comes shuffling in.

“Hey,” Buck greets him in a low, gravelly voice, tossing his duffle down onto the bench. 

On any other day, Eddie would worry that he’d had a bad night. Today, he knows the exact reason for that rough rasp, and it sends a thrill of heat sparking up his spine.

“H-hey,” Eddie manages, blinking rapidly. “Uh, aren’t you supposed to be on leave?”

”Bobby called,” Buck explains, tugging off his t-shirt and rubbing sleepily at his eyes.

There’s a soft, gorgeous flush to his skin—his cheeks, neck, and chest painted a perfect, rosy shade of pink—and as he starts to shrug into his uniform there’s the faintest whiff of something delicious.

Something mouthwatering.

Eddie’s heart stutters traitorously against his ribs, and he forces himself to look away before Buck catches him staring. 

“Whittler’s partner went into labor last night,” Buck continues, oblivious to his plight. “This morning? Whichever, and Ginsburg’s still in Cabo until Tuesday.”

“That sucks,” Eddie says, in what he hopes is a nice, even, totally normal tone. “You gonna be okay?” 

“Yeah, I’ll be okay,” Buck assures him. “I was gonna use today to prep and get ahead on laundry, but one last shift won’t kill me. My ruts tend to be pretty tame for the most part, but I’ve got extra blockers and scent neutralizing spray in my bag just in case.”

Tame? There’s not a damn thing tame about Eddie’s sudden need to plaster himself against Buck’s front and swirl his tongue around the hollow of his throat, but maybe that’s just him.

Mine, his instincts purr. All mine, and that’s Eddie’s cue to make a strategic retreat.

He jolts to his feet. “Well, let me know if you need anything.”

“Actually,” Buck calls out before he can make it more than a couple steps, sounding a touch sheepish. “Would you mind…?”

And he ducks his chin and tips his head to the side, exposing the long line of his throat.

Eddie’s mouth goes dry. 

“You want me to scent mark you?” he asks, voice tight. 

It probably shouldn’t come as such a surprise. Buck’s about as tactile as they come, and the two of them spend so much time together that they constantly smell at least a little of each other—a fact that definitely doesn’t make Eddie want to preen like a possessive peacock, thank you very much.

But a proper, deliberate scenting, right on the cusp of Buck’s rut? 

That feels different. 

Feels special. 

Mine, his hindbrain insists once again.

Naturally, Buck chooses this exact second to finally notice Eddie’s reaction to his… everything. 

“Um, yeah?” he says, brow furrowed and nostrils flaring as he takes him in. “Why, what’s…”

He takes in a deep inhale, then his expression clears all at once.

”Oh. Oh, you… Wait, really?”

Eddie’s cheeks heat. “Shut up.”

“I… Did I know this already?” Buck marvels, a smug sort of delight starting to curl over his lips. But just beneath it there’s a softer, more earnest sort of elation—like he’s just been offered a dream come true on a silver platter. “Because this feels like the sort of thing I should’ve been made aware of. Edmundo Diaz, have you been holding out on me?”

“Shut up,” Eddie huffs again, but there’s no real feeling behind it. He’s too busy fighting a smile, hope lighting him up inside like the best kind of vertigo. “It’s not like I can really keep anything from you when you keep sniffing me out like a fucking bloodhound. If it’s taken you this long to notice, that’s on you.”

“Actually, did you know that an alpha’s olfactory senses can become up to eighty percent stronger in the three days leading up to their rut?” Buck tells him cheerfully. “To help them stay in tune with the needs of their pack, and especially their mate, throughout their cycle.”

Of course, this fun fact does nothing to disguise the fact that he’s closing in on Eddie like a predator stalking its prey, swaggering towards him with his shoulders rolled back and his thumbs tucked into his belt, the cocky, beautiful bastard.

Eddie holds his ground, lets Buck approach until they’re standing toe to toe, chest to chest.

“Is that so? And what are you picking up from my scent, then, alpha?” he murmurs, meeting the challenge with one of his own. He can almost see the way the word lands, the way Buck’s spine straightens like he’s got something to prove. “Any interesting insights?”

Buck gives him a long, considering once-over.

“That’s definitely not something I can get into without causing a workplace incident,” he eventually admits, gazing at him from under his lashes.

Oh, fuck.

“Keep looking at me like that and I’m going to cause a workplace incident,” Eddie warns him, swaying closer despite himself.

“To be perfectly honest, Eds, that’s really not much of a deterrent.”

“This is going to be a long fucking shift if you don’t reel it in,” Eddie says wryly, fond exasperation and bone-deep desire inextricably twined. “A long, frustrating shift.”

“Or, a very, very short one,” Buck counters, because he’s never found a line he’s not willing to toe. “God, you smell good.”

Eddie flicks him on the nose. 

“Stop it, he orders.

They’re standing close enough together that Eddie can see the way Buck’s pupils dilate, his gaze turning half-lidded and hungry.

“I’ll behave,” he promises, but it sounds more like a threat. Eddie valiantly resists a shiver

The moment lingers—a static charge that only needs a touch of friction to burst into flame—then slowly dissipates; no, is carefully set aside to be explored later. 

Eddie reaches up to squeeze Buck’s shoulder, then lets his hand trail higher to cup around the back of his neck.

“You still gunning for that scent mark? Or is it going to make things worse?” 

Strong, warm hands land on either side of his waist, fingers splayed wide enough to cover the small of his back.

”I want it,” Buck insists, which isn’t exactly an answer, but Eddie doesn’t have it in him to deny him.

“C’mere,” he murmurs, reeling him in.

Buck melts into the touch like he’d just been waiting for permission, nuzzling in to rub his face against Eddie’s throat. He lets out a quiet, contented noise, wrapping himself around him like he’s planning to make a home in the curve of his neck, his chest rumbling all the while.

Eddie chuffs back instinctively, threading his fingers through the curls at the nape of Buck’s neck. He pulls him closer, craning up on his toes and tucking his nose into the space behind Buck’s ear before he can stop himself. 

He just smells so good: all toasty and golden and a little sweet, like freshly baked sunshine drizzled in honey, with just a slight undertone of sharp-ember-smoke to indicate his approaching rut.

Eddie wants to wallow in that scent, wants to lick the taste of it right out of Buck’s mouth, wants to just bare his teeth and bite, sink his teeth in so deep that no one would dare to doubt his claim—

The bell ringing overhead stops him before he can do anything that might cost him his job, and he’s honestly not sure if he’s relieved or disappointed. There’s still another twenty or so minutes before their shift so this call isn’t their problem, thank god, because Eddie’s brain is too busy chanting Buck, Buck, yes, mine, Buck, alpha, mine, to be responsible for anyone’s health and wellbeing.

They slowly peel apart, both a little dazed.

“How’s that?” Eddie asks, brushing a piece of hair out of his face to give himself something to do with his hands that’s not sticking them down Buck’s pants. “Better?”

”Better,” Buck says. “Thanks, Eds.”

”Don’t mention it,” Eddie says, not really thinking about it, and Buck immediately frowns.

”But, we will, right? Talk about it, I mean,” he asks quietly, taking Eddie’s hand gently in his own and lacing their fingers together. “I know we can’t really get into it right now, but I don’t want this to be one of those things we just… brush past and not talk about. Because I want us. I want you. And I’m tired of pretending like I don’t.”

Eddie hadn’t realized he was still holding onto some worry until the last of it finally bleeds away. Of course they’re on the same page about this, about them, about the twinkling, wondrous inevitability of Buck-and-Eddie. Of course they’re in this together.

Aren’t they always, when it comes to the important things?

”Let’s get through this shift,” Eddie says. “After that, I’m all yours.”

It comes out more honest than he means it to, a wealth of emotion embedded within his words. With anyone else, he’d think it was too much. But he’s not sure there’s any such thing when it comes to Buck.

”I’ll hold you to that,” Buck replies, and he lifts their joined hands to his lips, pressing a kiss first to Eddie’s knuckles, and then to the fluttering pulse point on the inside of his wrist, never once dropping his gaze from his own. “And, uh, fair warning? Once I’ve got you, I’m not planning on letting you go.”

Eddie flushes from head to toe.

“You— I told you to stop looking at me like that,” he hisses as he snatches his hand back, distinctly hot under the collar. 

Buck just laughs: low and raspy. “I make no promises.”

”Por dios,” Eddie mutters under his breath, begging anyone listening for strength.

He’s already in completely over his head and there’s nowhere he’d rather be.

”Later,” he reminds them both.

”Later,” Buck agrees.

On the way to their first call, Buck ends up in the middle seat, sandwiched between Eddie on one side and Hen on the other, and is visibly delighted to be there.

Eddie watches fondly as he adds to his collection of scent marks, wheedling a hair ruffle out of Hen and a pat on the back from Chimney. He even gets a friendly nudge from Ravi, who then rolls his eyes and makes a face when Buck uses the opening to lock their ankles together like a pair of middle schoolers kicking each other under the table in the cafeteria, grinning from ear to ear.

Though, Eddie can’t help but notice that, while full of affection, the touches stay light—fleeting, even. Besides that side hug from Bobby before they loaded out, not a single one lingers longer than a second or two, and none of them come anywhere close to the length of Eddie’s.

Good, that little voice purrs smugly. Mine.

They arrive on scene—a grassy, fenced-in playground teeming with children and families—and are immediately met by a frantic young woman.

“Oh, thank god,” she says, a huge diaper bag thrown over one shoulder and her arms filled with screaming toddler. “I swear, I looked away for, like, two seconds, Jaime was crying and I couldn’t figure out where their mom packed the juice boxes and when I looked back, she was halfway up—“

“What’s her name?” Bobby interrupts.

“Harper,” she says. “She’s right over here—“

And sure enough, there in the far corner of the playground is a tall oak tree, and about twenty feet up that tree is a little girl. She’s maybe seven or eight at the most and clinging tightly to a branch, her face streaked with tears.

“Hey, Harper,” Bobby calls, calm and steady. “What’re you doing up there?”

“I’m stuck!” she wails. 

“I can see that,” Bobby says. “Are you hurt at all?”

“‘M okay,” she sniffles. “But it’s too far, I can’t get down!”

“Hey, that’s alright, we’re gonna send someone up to come get you. You just sit tight and keep holding on, okay?” Bobby tells her. “We’ll get you down from there in no time.”

“No way we get the ladder in here,” Chim observes, pulling off his sunglasses. “We’re fenced in on all sides and the trees are too close together to get a good angle from the curb.”

“How’d she even get up there?” Ravi wonders, squinting up at her. “No way she’s tall enough to make the jump up to that first branch. I’m not tall enough to make that jump.”

“Never underestimate the ingenuity of a determined elementary schooler,” Hen says wisely.

“I can climb up to her,” Eddie volunteers. 

He moves closer to the trunk, knocking against the bark to check for soft spots, but it seems simple enough, as far as he can tell. It’s a healthy tree with lots of thick, sturdy branches—plenty big enough to hold steady beneath his weight

“You sure?” Bobby asks.

Eddie shrugs. “Yeah, I got it. I just need a— a boost or a chair or something to get started, but I’ll be fine after that. Then she can hold on to me while I climb back down.” 

He glances around, searching.

“Maybe we can drag that picnic table over and—“

“Here,” Buck says, stepping up behind him. 

He fits his hands around Eddie’s hips, a long line of heat against his back.

“What are you—?”

Eddie’s feet leave the ground and all thoughts leave his head. 

Buck lifts him like it’s not even hard, like he could do this all day, not a hint of strain in those massive biceps. Eddie fumbles clumsily for the branch, all the blood in his body rushing south so quickly he almost goes dizzy with it. 

“Eddie?” Buck prompts, lifting him just a little higher—like maybe the problem is that Eddie can’t quite reach. Jesus, he doesn’t even sound winded.

“Right,” Eddie mutters, pulling himself the rest of the way up. “Uh huh, yep.”

Once he gets his head in the game, the rest of the rescue goes smoothly. He has Harper clamber onto his back, then together, they carefully make their way back down. 

It’s when they’re standing on that lowest branch that they run into a snag. The ground around the tree is uneven enough that attempting the jump down is just asking for a sprained ankle, and that’s not even accounting for Harper’s extra weight.

They’re going to have to lower her down somehow, Eddie realizes. Either, lower her down or convince her to—

“It’s okay, you can jump now,” Buck tells her in a gentle, encouraging voice, already on the same page, his arms outstretched. “I’m gonna catch you.”

Harper shakes her little head, pigtails flying. “I’m gonna fall!”

“You won’t fall,” Buck assures her, and he’s so earnest about it that it’s impossible not to believe him. “I’ll catch you.”

Harper looks from Buck to Eddie then back again, her lip wobbling.

“You promise?” she asks.

Buck’s expression turns incredibly soft. “I promise. Big jump on three, okay? One, two—“

Harper jumps. Buck catches her—of course he fucking does—tucking her protectively into that broad chest.

“Great job!” he cheers. He runs a soothing hand down her back, then swings her up in a careful arc over his head and sets her down on her feet, earning a watery giggle. “I know that was really scary, thank you for being so brave.”

“I didn’t feel very brave,” Harper tells him, wiping at her face.

“Well, that’s the best part,” Buck replies, couching down to meet her at her level. “You don’t have to feel brave to be brave. But, uh, maybe next time we only climb trees when there’s a grown up watching to make sure we’re staying safe, alright?”

Harper gives a shy nod, looking up at Buck with teary, trusting eyes, and Jesus, it’s so easy to imagine Buck having a similar conversation with another little girl. Maybe one with dark, curly hair and a wide, toothy grin, a kiss of pink haloing one of her doe brown eyes—

“—ddie? Eddie!”

Eddie checks back in to find Buck grinning up at him expectantly, Harper having toddled off at some point during his daydream to get checked over by Hen. 

He holds out his arms and calls, “Sometime today, Diaz!”

Oh, this asshole.

“What, are you gonna catch me too?” Eddie snarks.

Buck’s grin only grows.

“Sure,” he says confidently. “Why, you got a better idea?”

Eddie’s stomach flutters, but not with nerves.

“You are not gonna catch me,” he insists, but he’s already shifting into position, bracing to jump. “Buck—“

“Of course, I am,” Buck says, and his tone stays light but his eyes turn serious as he holds Eddie’s gaze—like doing anything else, anything less, is simply unfathomable. “On three, yeah?”

And what can Eddie do, except listen? It’s Buck.

“One, two—“

There’s a split-second on weightlessness, then he’s in Buck’s arms. His legs lock around his waist and his arms circle his neck, all of his limbs sliding into place so naturally that it’s almost as though they already knew the way, as perfectly in-sync as they always are. 

Buck doesn’t so much as flinch, taking Eddie’s weight with a spine-tingling, toe-curling kind of ease. 

An arm around his back. An arm cradled under his ass.

The bluest eyes imaginable.

“Told you I’d catch you,” Buck rumbles.

“Never had a doubt,” Eddie breathes back.

Their lips are only inches apart.

“The rituals,” Chimney announces, loudly, from somewhere not nearly far enough away. “They are intricate.”

The moment pops like a soap bubble. Eddie rears back, startled, but Buck’s grip only tightens, a hint of that cinnamon-sunshine scent tickling at his nose.

“You— Buck!” he hisses, starting to squirm. “Put me down!”

“Bossy,” Buck teases, but obliges without fanfare.

And if it takes Eddie a couple tries to find his footing, enjoying the feeling of Buck’s body squeezed between his thighs for a second longer, that’s between him and god.

Bobby’s still talking with the babysitter and Hen’s coaxing a smile out of Harper as she tends to her scrapes, so it’s just Chim and Ravi left behind to witness Eddie’s horny circle of hell, which is two people too many.

Ravi mutters something that sounds like “…owes me twenty bucks,” then pulls an abrupt about-face and speed walks away when Eddie gives him a pointed look.

Chimney—distinctly harder to intimidate, god damn it—pops his gum, his eyes wide with glee.

“Shut up,” Eddie grouses, hoping his face isn’t as red as it feels, stalking back towards the ladder truck. “Not a word.”

“Not even one? I think I deserve at least one.”

“I know where you sleep,” Eddie threatens, and walks faster. 

“LAFD, make a hole,” Bobby says, shouting to be heard over the music.

The crowd of thirty-or-so sorority sisters can barely stop gawking long enough to part, whispering and giggling amongst themselves with half-finished mimosas in-hand.

“Where is he?”

“Right over here,” the young woman they’re following tells them, pointing clumsily—tipsily—towards the pool.

There’s another college-aged kid kicking and splashing in the water, his arm stuck all the way to the shoulder inside the narrow opening that leads to the filter. 

“Please, get me out of this thing,” he gasps out as they approach. He’s in the deepest end and is clearly struggling to keep his head above the water, though whether that’s due to exhaustion, injury, or inexperience is hard to say. “I’ve been treading water for, like, ever.”

“Buck, in the pool,” Bobby says. “Hen, Chim, crack open that cover. Ravi, get them to power down the system if they haven’t already.”

“Shoulder is still in the socket but there’s a lot of strain on the joint,” Hen determines, peering down into the filter from the opening embedded into the pool deck itself. “And I’m really not liking the look of his wrist.”

“Let’s get him floating on his back, but keep him nice and still,” Chim decides. “And keep as much weight off the arm as possible.”

Buck finishes kicking out of his boots and dives in. He positions himself behind the victim—Jordan, he tells them, between flailing, heaving breaths—and scoops him up in an almost bridal carry, the kid’s head and shoulders resting against one arm and his legs hooked over the other. Then Buck carefully inches forward until he can grab onto the lip of the pool with his hands, keeping them steady and in-place.

“Oh my god,” Jordan squeaks, tucked snuggly in the cradle of two huge biceps and a broad expanse of chest. Same, kid.

“Just relax, I’ve got you,” Buck assures him, perfectly competent and perfectly oblivious. “How’s that, guys?”

“That’s great, Buck, can you raise him up just a little— Right there, stop.”

“There’s some kind of chain jammed in the mechanism,” Eddie calls, angling his flashlight for a better look. “Looks like a piece of jewelry he was wearing got caught, then his hand got trapped against the sidewall when it pulled him in.”

“Can you see the clasp? Is it accessible?”

“There isn’t a clasp,” Jordan tells them. “It’s welded on.”

The team turns to stare at him as one.

“You have a chain permanently welded around your wrist?” Hen asks, incredulous.

“I’ve got three of them, actually.”

“What?” Chim exclaims. “Why?”

“My alpha got them for me,” Jordan informs them. “They’re forever bracelets. It’s like an engagement ring, but for mating instead of marriage.”

Eddie pauses, schooling his expression into something less judgmental. “Your alpha made you weld a bunch of jewelry around your wrist?”

“He didn’t make me. They were a gift.”

“And does he wear a bunch of chains around his wrist, too?” Hen asks, in her most patient, most pointed mom-voice.

Jordan flushes—though admittedly, it’s a little hard to tell, given that he’s probably cold from being in the pool for so long.

“Don’t say it like that,” he complains. “It's supposed to be romantic.”

“Uh,” Buck starts, looking perplexed. “Um, but… What if you break up? Or, like, need to take it off for work or something?”

Jordan stares at him like he’s the crazy one for asking. “Did you miss the part where it’s called a forever bracelet?”

Bobby sighs. It’s a deep one.  

“Ravi, pliers.”

“On it.”

Ten minutes of careful clipping and cutting, and they finally get Jordan extracted from the filter, arm intact. He’s more sore and exhausted than injured—and adamant about refusing a ride to the hospital—so Chim gets him fixed up with a sling and strict instructions to follow up at an urgent care as soon as possible.

Still, the kid looks a little miserable where he’s sitting off to the side, wet and shivering, with a towel someone found for him tucked over his shoulders, and Eddie finds himself wandering over to check on him.

“Hey, Jordan, right?” he calls out as he approaches. “You all set? Someone gonna give you a ride?”

“Yeah,” Jordan mumbles, pulling his towel tighter around himself. “My roommate's gonna take me when she gets back from class. And, um, thanks, again, for getting me out of there.”

“It’s what we’re here for,” Eddie says lightly, sitting down next to him. “But, uh, listen. I’ve never met the guy, and maybe it’s none of my business but, my two cents, one omega to another? It’s never a good sign if the person you’re dating is asking something of you that they’re not willing to do themselves. No matter what their designation is.”

Jordan deflates. 

“I think I knew that, somewhere in the back of my mind,” he admits. “Becca—my roommate—she’s been telling me for weeks that I can do better, but… I don’t know. I feel like I’m supposed to have things figured out by now. Find The One, start a life together, all that jazz…”

“Kid, no one your age has it figured out,” Eddie tells him with a laugh. “And I hate to break it to you, but no one ever has it all figured out. Anyone who seems like they do is just better at faking it.”

“Joy,” Jordan mutters. “Just what I wanted to hear: a lifetime of aimless, existential dread.”

“It’s a big world out there,” Eddie tells him. “You’ll find your person. Maybe you won’t even realize you’ve found them at first, but you’ll know they’re the one because they’ll make the bad times less lonely and the good times better than they’ve ever been, just by being there with you. And they won’t be perfect— They won’t know what the hell they’re doing any more than you do, but you’ll be in it together, and that will make it all worth it. Don’t settle for less.”

Jordan levels him with an extremely skeptical look, which, okay, fair enough. 

Eddie has a hard time believing it himself most days, even with the evidence to the contrary standing shoulder to shoulder with him, humming tunelessly to the radio, leaving his socks between his couch cushions, eating the last of the cereal, and replacing his laundry detergent with a fancy, ‘for sensitive skin’ variety because I know lavender makes you sneeze, Eddie, literally why would you lie about that? And! This one’s way better for the environment, so it’s a win either way. I was actually doing some research last night and did you know that Procter and Gamble is personally responsible for massive amounts of deforestation in vulnerable rainforest ecosystems around the world? What’s Procter and— Eddie! They’re the company that makes Tide!

He’s been there, is all he’s saying.

“Yeah?” Jordan scoffs. “And is this mystical unicorn of a person going to pop out of the ground or…?

As if summoned by the Greek god of Taking Your Cue, here comes Buck, walking past like a literal wet dream. He’s still dripping from the pool, his curls plastered to his forehead and the fabric of his uniform clinging to every delicious inch of him. He’s hauling a bunch of gear back to the engine so he doesn’t stop to talk, but he does flash one of those megawatt grins in their direction, wiggling the halligan at them in lieu of a wave, the fucking dweebus. 

Eddie adores him.

“Nevermind,” Jordan breathes, gaze transfixed on Buck’s retreating back. “I think I found him.”

“Put your eyes back in your head, kid,” Eddie says, chuckling. “He’s not on the market.”

Jordan heaves a massive sigh, grumbling, “Of course he isn’t. And I bet his omega’s absolutely gorgeous, too.”

“Eh.” Eddie gives a casual shrug, his mouth twitching around the start of a smile. “I’m alright, I guess.”

“You two are…?” Jordan lets out a low whistle. “Damn, nice job, man. How long have you been together?”

“Either seven years, or about four hours, depending on how you want to count it,” Eddie tells him, and he laughs again when the kid’s mouth falls open. “It’s a long story.”

“But, he’s your person?”

“That man would do anything for me,” Eddie says, and that’s a truth that lives deep in the heart of him, tucked between his lungs and carved into his skeleton, an intrinsic part of his being. “He’d follow me through hell and back, because he wouldn’t want me to go there alone. He’s my best friend. He’s the love of my life.”

“Dude,” Jordan says, eyes wide. “You’re kinda, like… making me believe in true love again or some shit.”

“Eddie!” Bobby calls over suddenly, one arm raised to catch his eye. “We’re about to roll out, let’s go.”

“That’s me, then,” Eddie says, pushing himself to his feet. “Good luck with the shoulder. And the boyfriend.”

“Thanks. Good luck with yours.”

“Nah, man,” Eddie corrects with just a hint of smirk. “He’s gonna be my husband.”

[spectres-fulcrum]

I (finally) finished a 911 fic! There's a Ch 2 that is mostly done, but I feel like this can also stand perfectly well on it's own so it's marked as complete.

It's an addition to the Madney wedding episode, and this part is just Bucktommy doing the rounds around Chim's hospital room and catching up with surprised but supportive and loving(And crying, in Hen's case). I really just wanted everyone else reacting to the surprise of Buck and Tommy and it ended up having a lot of Jee but also a lot of positive Philip Buckley? He's Trying which is more than his wife is doing(all she's doing is saying she's trying)

But the HenRen convo is SO special to me and Bobby does a lot of small things that make him the amazing man he is and I love the firefam. It's really just firefam welcoming Tommy fluff.

And yeah. I hope you all enjoy!

[nnschneider]

Halloween Crochet Project

Last year, I made an octopus balaclava which became my first Tumblr post.

This year, I saw a Medusa knitted hat on here and said to myself, "Make That."

So I did.

I didn't follow the instructions for the knitted project because I went with crochet instead. (I am scared to learn knitting in the round, and don't want to buy more needles.) I made a ton of crochet snakes. 🐍🐍🐍 So many snakes! 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍 And then I attached them to a beanie. Then I realized I didn't have enough snakes and had to make even more. 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

The snake pattern is below. Basically, rows 1-8 are the head, rows 9-11 are the neck, and all the rest is the body. As these are attached to the hat, I didn't need to do the tail.

Magic circle. SC × 6. Slip stitch to close the loop. Tighten the ring. (6 st)

Increase: Ch ×1, (SC × 2 in a SC, SC × 1 in a SC) × 3. Slip stitch to close the loop. (9 st)

Ch ×1, SC in every SC. Slip stitch to close the loop. (9 st)

Increase: Ch ×1, (SC × 1 in a SC, SC × 2 in a SC, SC × 1 in a SC) × 3. Slip stitch to close the loop. (12 st)

Ch ×1, SC in every SC. Slip stitch to close the loop. (12 st)

Decrease: Ch ×1, [ (SC × 1 in a SC) × 3, SC 2 Together, SC × 1 in a SC] × 2. Slip stitch to close the loop. (10 st)

Decrease: Ch ×1, [ (SC × 1 in a SC) × 2, SC 2 Together, SC × 1 in a SC] × 2. Slip stitch to close the loop. (8 st)

Decrease: Ch ×1, [ (SC × 1 in a SC) × 1, SC 2 Together, SC × 1 in a SC] × 2. Slip stitch to close the loop. (6 st)

Ch ×1, SC in every SC. Slip stitch to close the loop. (6 st)

Ch ×1, SC in every SC. Slip stitch to close the loop. (6 st)

Ch ×1, SC in every SC. Slip stitch to close the loop. (6 st)

Ch ×1, SC, HDC DC, DC, HDC, SC. Slip stitch to close the loop. (6 st)

Ch ×1, SC in every SC. Slip stitch to close the loop. (6 st)

Repeat 12 & 13 until your snake is long enough.

The body as I did it has a bit of a wave to it to give it some natural movement, but go with whatever makes you happy. I also stuck pipe cleaners in them so I could try to position them later. It wasn't as effective as it initially sounded; it gave them more shape but not to the point where I could make the top layer stand up and look menacing.

The first row was 8 snakes. 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

The second row is 10 snakes. 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

The third row is also 10 snakes. 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍 I can feel the weight pulling the hat back so that it rests higher on my forehead. I suppose this means I need to balance it a bit. I had put pipe cleaners in all snakes in the first two rows but decided to only bother with them in the front 4 by row 3 because the pipe cleaners weren't as effective as I wanted. I probably should have not bothered with pipe cleaners in the bottom rows and done more with them in the top rows.

The fourth row is 9 snakes. 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍 And the snakes are shorter on top than the bottom rows, so they take less time and less yarn! The cap is feeling loose but the weight distribution is relatively good so it's not sliding off my head. I'll probably feel more secure if I bobby pin it in place.

Enough snakes! Something like 10 or 13 on top. I feel like a fricking Gorgon. 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

But am I done? No. Gotta gild that lily.

I added bead-y yellow eyes and forked yarn tongues to the snakes because it adds.

The tongue was fun and easy, just knotting the yarn until it was a good (variable) length and then changing up the last knot to make the forked tongue seem more or less forked.

Oh, and. The snake heads each have a top and bottom, but the bodies have a little wiggle and don't all lay flat and easy. My point is that it's not obvious which side is the top side for sewing on the snake eyes, especially when a blob of yarn noodles is laying in your lap. I had to put it on and then stand in front of the mirror, marking the top sides with safety pins so I would know which ends were up.

True confession: I'm running out of momentum to finish the snake eyes. I plan on wearing this to hand out candy so I don't need to gild every snake, just the ones ppl will see.

And if my kids get any costume ideas (they don't beg from door to door anymore but they do get into the spirit), I'll have bandwidth to work with them.

As a couple's costume idea, I need my husb to coat himself in gray face paint and stand as still as a statue.

[luckyshotwrites]

Ch. 61 // Gust Front // Day 46

Contents (Warnings): The wedding day approaches (Angsty, vore mentions, and character/monster info). Read full chapter on - A03

Wordcount: 3,345

Side note: This will contain experimental writing; first person (Lynette's view) will be implemented alongside third person for the two other essential characters, (mostly) Alexander and (occasionally) Drake. All their text will be italicized for those third-person moments, with the characters' names in Bold at the start and their thoughts in Bold. There may be other characters I write for using this.

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(Nov. 10th, Thursday)

There are a lot of girls I've never met here. They were of different sizes and shapes, Charletta had seven other bridesmaids, excluding Wenna. And I was the maid of honor.

I was given the rundown at dinner yesterday, what I should be doing, and how I should direct all of the other bridesmaids, but it was a scary feeling being in charge with prying eyes on me. I didn't know who was safe, what they were, and whether I did everything right. It also reminded me of the lie I'd have to pull off with the others.

"Mom and Dad both agreed, we are telling everyone you're a magus tomorrow if they ask, so play along," Charletta said. She had her checklist in hand. She looked over it one more time before handing it to me. 

"Is that a good idea?" I asked, not looking at the list yet. I know next to nothing about magic.

Charletta smiled, "I think it's much safer for everyone to assume you're a magus as they do now." She stretched her arms up, "moreover, most magus's can hide their energy and magic from monsters or other magus's. So they'll assume you're powerful."

"When I'm not." 

"You may not be powerful in magic, but I admire plenty of other qualities about you." Charletta glanced back and put her hands on her hips.

What could you admire about me? The question didn't leave my head, "I get it. Wicks and you are much cooler though." I pushed a smile.

Charletta giggled with the excitable brightness in her eyes, "shush up, Lyn." She pressed playfully at my shoulder, and I took it.

"Lynette!" Wenna chirped, her eyes lit up as she entered the dressing room. I finished my Rapunzel braid.

She quickly jogged up to me. She circled me like an excited dog. I tried to keep up with her. Wenna swiftly got behind me and put her delicate hands on my shoulders. I lightly squeaked. She made me face the mirror, "THIS," she picked up my braid, "braid is so cute!"

I could see the worry on my face, more evident than her smile in the mirror. I exhaled, "t-thanks."

She let go and chuckled, "don't worry, I won't bite." She flashed her fangs, "I know when a magus has me beat."

Her giggle was far too on the nose. I felt comfortable around Wenna, because she didn't eye me like the others did.

I noticed another approaching us from the array of mirrors. I glanced back.

"Hello, Wenna, Lynette." The proper vocals shook hands with my ears. I scanned over the well-dressed female. Even though it was a casual rehearsal, she wore a gray business suit with a unique collar that showed off her white button-up. "Should we start heading to the main wed hall?"

"Hi, Koianada-"

"Koi is fine,"

"Koi," I nodded, then patted over my jeans pockets. I pulled out my phone and checked over the family group chat. "They are doing their final run with the coordinator. Charletta will meet with us when we can go." I replied, looking up from my phone.

Koi gave a bob of her head, "right." She glanced up at a few of her bangs that escaped the bobby pins. She turned to the mirrors.

"I don't think I witnessed you during the marked game yesterday," the white-haired girl said.

What do I say to that? If I mentioned anything magic related, I'd sound like an idiot.

"Lynette would have beat us all if she played," Wenna covered me.

Play along. I thought to myself. "Wenna, you're embarrassing me." Even a simple comment like that hurt. I disliked lying. It only helped remind me that I wasn't candid with Wicks that night. I saw the frustration and anger festering in him when I talked at length about a few events. So, I refused to go into detail about all of them.

I don't want anyone to fight. I'm not worth the effort. From what I understand...you all have a lot more on your plate and you shouldn't worry about me. 

I could feel the deep ache. I pinched at my arm. Stop it. It's okay. This is a break. Please. There was so much I didn't understand, wanted to ask questions about, and...overall, I felt apart from it all.

"HEY, EVERYONE, LET'S GET GOING!!" Charletta popped her head into the dressing room, where the small groups were chit-chatting. I turned to head out and heard a voice beside me.

"You've got this, Lynette." Wenna patted my head. I held up a thumbs up.

...

We finished rehearsal. I couldn't believe so many new faces came to talk to me. I'd never remember them all.

I needed a breather. I stepped back and leaned on the wall. Wicks squinted at me and gestured back to the group he was part of.

I shook my head. I put my two palms together, then pressed the back of my left hand to my face and made a 'sleep' gesture.

"Hey, Lynette."

I shifted my body to the cyan-haired male, "hi, Ace." I matched his friendly smile.

"Are you taking a break? I saw you rushing around earlier." He said with a slight chuckle.

"Yeah..." We went over everything quicker than they expected, so we had to wait a little longer before we headed out to the dinner. I know there were plenty of other things I should have done, but my family handled a lot of this. I'm trying to make up for it now, though. "I wasn't really doing much."

"Nonsense," Ace said, "I can tell you are dedicated to the part for your sister. It's honorable." He looked above at the marble statues, beautiful fake trees with white leaves, and the chairs along the white-carpeted aisle. "I think this is a nice place for a wedding. The upstairs has such a pretty view of the garden too."

I nodded, "it is." I looked at Charletta as she joked with a few girls and guys next to Ulysses. "I'm glad I get to see her at her happiest." I could feel my eyes watering. No, not in front of a stranger!

He ran his hand through his slicked-back hair and attempted to study my turned-away face. "I bet you'd look amazing at your happiest too."

ME?! I couldn't even fathom anything like that. I had no one in my life romantically. I couldn't even go on dates. I chickened out whenever I was invited. I will never get over throwing up on Kyle. His name was ingrained in my head after my first and only date.

"You too," I replied. I didn't know what to say in response. My gaze brushed Ace's cool, ice one, then drifted to the blush at his cheeks.

Wait, did he say amazing? Me...oh... I felt the queasiness.

He changed the subject after our eyes intertwined. "So, Lynette, what do you do for fun outside of magic?"

"Uh, I read and play video games occasionally too." I feel like I haven't had much time for either of those. "I do rock climbing with Wicks sometimes on my weekends too."

His thin lips uplifted with a curl, enthralled by the mention. "Rock climbing? We should go some time. I know a place nearby. We could ask Wicks, Charletta, and Ulysses to tag along."

My raised chest deflated with relief. His tender reassurance calmed me. I was glad he included them in his invitation. I agreed, and our conversation continued.

A tick in the back of my mind reminded me that Ace still had to be some sort of monster, but his niceness and interest reminded me of June. He was less bubbly. However, nonetheless, he was the ease I needed right now. I hated to think that Ace, a total stranger, was someone I felt more relief from now than my family. 

...

Drake

He was the barrier between Wicks and Alexander. He sat in the seat between them and could feel the burning gaze from the magus on his right. 

I am willing to bet Lynette told him EVERYTHING. The thought then occurred to him, and his eyes slipped to his new sister-in-law, at least starting tomorrow. 

That means I'm on the hit list next. Drake slumped in his chair. He hadn't worn a hoodie today. His mom and dad would tear into him if he dressed too informally. He at least put his hair back comfortably over his face. His right hand under the table fidgeted with the white table cover, and he looked over the fancy, shimmering silverware. Each looked freshly cleaned and sharpened, or new. This place is nice.

His ears started to pick up the conversation between Ace and Lynette. He was complimenting her quite a bit. Maybe Lynette reminds him of Charletta? Or perhaps she said something that really enraptured him? He questioned the thought. Is Lynette really the romantic type? She acts far too timid most of the time, compared to Charletta... Drake exhaled aloud. In that competition, she was a menace.

"You looked nice with your hair back earlier, Drake." 

He perked up at the sudden compliment. He figured it was because his head was turned in her direction even though he was really looking past her out the window to the street. I did not.

"It wasn't my choice." He brushed over the bangs over his eyes. 

"You do clean up nicely, Drake. You should work on being presentable more often." Koi then gestured to Alexander, who sat on her left in between her and Drake. "Just as Alexander should stop wearing that scowl, he'd look more attractive without it."

"Bite me," Alexander grumbled with a roll of his eyes. 

"I already regret it the first time, do not remind me of the horrendous flavor you hybrids possess," She uttered. 

He squinted at her, finally taking his eyes from Wicks. Drake shivered, "why do you have to remind me of that, Koi."

"I thought you only bit humans...?" Lynette questioned Drake. 

He could tell by the sudden quickness of her heart's change. She didn't mean to say that allowed. 

Alexander rubbed at his arm, "he used cheap tricks to try and beat my ass in a fight."

WHAT? Drake cocked his head in his Best friend's direction. "You're just mad. I almost beat you without magic."

"ALMOST beat me? I was going easy on you."

His shoulders rose, "you're lying."

"You think I wanted to hurt you. If I did-"

Ace butt in before they could get too wild. "Hey, since you guys are a little magic enthusiastic. I was thinking we can have a training session tomorrow, to test our skills? Maybe give each other pointers?"

Wicks chuckled, "oh? That sounds like a great idea." His hazel hue locked onto Alexander, "I think I'd love to give you guys some pointers."

"Hell no."

Wicks inched forward over the table, over the empty plate. "Are you saying your scared?" 

The blonde stared directly at him, "scared of your ass? No." 

You're lying. You're definitely worried.

"I can already tell we don't have the same specializations. It'd be stupid to "train" together." Alexander knew what Wicks wanted. The other two at the table were confused about the whole situation as to why Wicks looked excited to destroy him. 

This whole Lynette's a magus lie... His hue fell on the prim female. If Koi pays too close attention to how Alexander looks at her, she'll know we're lying. 

"What about you, Lynette? Maybe you can help Alexander?" Ace suggested.

Lynette, who was mid-drinking water, lurched forward. She almost spit it up. She quickly swallowed and put her cup down.

Drake saw Alexander's mouth open, and he pressed his claws to extend on his fingertips. "If only she-" He quickly jabbed his two fingers into Alexander's side. It stopped him mid-sentence. He didn't break his skin or anything. It felt like he ran into a metal wall with them. 

Alexander's vision darted to Drake. The person to Drake's side caught it first. The vampire beast knew not only was Wicks P.O.ed but that Alexander might have said something to spill the secret. He was also riled up by the fact that Alexander would have most likely commented about Lynette's unwillingness to let herself get eaten by him.

Alexander sat back and crossed his arms. The two awaited his response. "If only she wasn't as annoying as her brother." He shot a gaze back to Wicks. 

The male with the ponytail laughed, "you didn't just call my sister annoying."

They looked ready to both throwdown here. "And what if I did, fucker?"

"Maybe a training session is not a good idea," Ace muttered.

"Not at all," Koi said.

Lynette tapped the table in front of her, "please!" They both turned their gaze to her. "I don't think Ulysses or Charletta want a fight a day before their wedding." 

Drake glanced at the two, and they both stopped their heavy gazes. Lynette hit them both with the people they respected and cared for. Or at least Drake knew Alexander respected Ulysses and would protect him the same as everyone else. He figured Wicks was the same, especially with how protective he was over Lynette. 

It was not long after the toast from the event host, Drake's dad. 

Edgar stood up from the bride, groom, and parents table after getting everyone's attention with the classic glass TING TING TING. 

He cleared his throat before speaking, "as I look around this room, it warms my heart to see all of the love in here that people have for dear Charletta and Ulysses." Edgar surveyed everyone, a charming smile on his face.

"If you have been to a wedding before, you know it takes a lot of hard work and planning. It truly is a group effort, and this rehearsal is the last thing on the to-do list before the big day." There was a slight cord fluctuation in his voice. He kept himself together.

"I know Charletta and Ulysses are so happy and grateful to have you all here, and I am so lucky to meet and eat with all of you." The parents had been table hopping. They sprang around this disaster table earlier. 

Drake hadn't gotten to engage a lot with Lynette's side of the family, not that he felt like he should. Mainly since he stuck around the problem. His eyes went to Alexander.

After the small speech with his brother, thanking everyone received their food and started to eat. 

That was when he heard his mom's voice beside him. "Drake, Alexander." She warmly rubbed at their shoulders, "how are my favorite boys doing!" She gave Alexander a kiss first on his forehead.

Then she leaned over to Drake, brushed his hair away, and did the same to him. 

"Are you drinking enough," she asked him, studying his drink. 

"Yeah, mom," Drake replied. He saw her inspecting more at his face. 

"You look so much paler. Are you sure?" 

Drake pulled away lightly. "I'm fine." He grew embarrassed as the others looked at him.

His mom popped up and bowed to the others, "hey, Ace and...oh! Yes, this is where Edgar said where you were. Ulysses and Charletta wanted to talk to you both."

Ace raised a brow, "me?"

Koi got up without much hesitation, "we should see them."

They both got up, leaving the table. Drake's mom made her way over to Wicks and Lynette. 

She happily spoke, "I am so glad you both look like you're having a wonderful time. Hopefully, my boy are making it fun for the two of you." 

Wicks half smiled, "fun is the word I'd use."

Lynette agreed, "fun is a word."

You can tell Wicks hates us, right? Drake thought to himself. 

"He doesn't hate you," his mom replied aloud.

Wicks raised a brow, "whose thoughts did you read."

His mom held her mouth, "oh, apologies. Sorry, Drake happens to think a lot in his head, and I've gotten used to reading them" She looked back at him and went to hug him. He sat there and took it. His body trembled. And her thoughts went back to him. "Don't worry, I'm sure Wicks doesn't hate you for your mess up during the festival. It's a good thing Lynette understands-."

She released him once he stood up in her grasp. He put his cup down on the table gently. He turned to her, "I'm going to the bathroom."

"Drakie," she said, but he refused to turn back and face her. He heard the other chair push out too. Alexander told Danee bye and went after Drake. He tried to calm his temperament and hold his thoughts as he left. He ignored Alexander, who came beside him.

"You're not walking back," Alexander said to him.

Drake continued to walk around the corner and into the main dining hall instead of their closed-off sections. He didn't respond. For some reason, the lights irritated him, even though the place itself was darker than most restaurants. 

"Drake," Alexander tried to grab his arm before they made it outside. Drake avoided it and pushed out. The air felt chiller than the previous nights. And the slight breeze pushed away the repetitive calls of his name.

Alexander, this time didn't give up. "HEY, ASSHOLE."

Drake stopped and whipped around, "YOU DON'T HAVE TO FOLLOW ME. I DON'T NEED YOUR PROTECTION." His lip raised and his fangs became more apparent. "I'M TAKING A BREAK."

"You think that's why-" Alexander groaned and pressed up his glasses, "I don't want you doing something stupid like walking back to the house because she loves you."

ME? Drake laughed aloud and threw away the last part, "are you serious? You think I'd do something stupid?" He shook his head and nodded up at him "You're the one that doesn't think before you open your damn mouth!" 

Alexander narrowed his gaze, but Drake didn't hear it. Why doesn't his heart sound angry... What Drake heard instead was pained. 

It momentarily distracted him. Alexander grabbed his hips seeing the time to strike. Drake instinctually went to loop his arm over and twist Alexander's head away.

"Stop it fucker; we're going back now." Alexander fought to keep his head in place. He lifted Drake from the concrete and the few people that walked the streets didn't seem to care.

"YOU AREN'T CARRYING ME BACK!" He snapped back.

"THEN HEAD INSIDE ONCE I DROP YOUR ASS." They let go simultaneously. Drake caught himself, and Alexander's eyes glued themselves to him. 

I basically called you stupid. Drake thought. He looked back at the restaurant and then at Alexander, who waited for him to move. He took a breath and walked toward the doors again. "Sorry."

"You better be. You're literal instinct was to try and snap my fucking neck." Alexander said. He rubbed it.

It's not like I could from that position nor do I have enough strength when you link you and your wendigo form.

He looked at his hand for a moment before putting it back in his pocket. He weakly picked up a smile, "Like I could snap your fat neck."

Alexander grinned. "Say that shit again, and I'll pick you up by your fucking legs and drag you back in there." There was the annoyed jokiness.

Alexander held the door open for him.

Drake scoffed, "like I'd let you grab me again. I'll knock you to the floor."

A hearty chuckle left Alexander's lips, " that happened once."

"seven times," Drake corrected, only to hear the playful groan behind him.

Shame fell upon Drake after. He had been so caught up, he didn't realize why it bothered Alexander so much until now. You're wrong, Alexander. Everyone loves those that are strong like you. Not someone like me.

...

Hey, you, thank you so much for reading. It means a lot that I put out a story that people can enjoy! So, I hope you continue to enjoy it as WE have a LOT more to go! YOU BETTER KEEP PROSPERING! (Nonnegotiable).

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Catch up, see some maps/art, or check the latest release dates down below  ↓ ↓ ↓ 

What I’d do for a Livable Income (Synopsis/Chapter - List)

[lykegenia]

Like glitter And Gold Ch. 9

Fandom/Pairing: The Wayhaven Chronicles/ Nate Sewell x f!Detective Rating: T Warnings: None

Read on AO3

“You, uh, haven’t seen the paper yet this morning, have you?”

Leah glances up at Tina from the login screen of her desktop. “I never read it,” she says, suspicious. “The astrology column is the most accurate journalism in it. Why do you ask?”

“Oh…” Tina takes a swig from her coffee. “No reason in particular. Just –”

The desk phone starts ringing.

Still keeping a leery eye on her former partner, Leah plucks it from the cradle, but barely gets halfway through her name before the mayor starts shouting.

“This is an absolute disgrace! I gave you the benefit of the doubt last time because it was your first case, but if I’m to expect this lack of professionalism every time Wayhaven is faced with a crisis, it might be time to find a more competent replacement. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Um,” she says, eloquently.

“Yesterday you assured me that you were handling this case!” the phone line crackles as flecks of spit hit the receiver.

She learned in her first crappy job in customer service that the best way to deal with situations like these is to tune out the words and let the arsehole on the other end of the line wear down their batteries, so she waits. Deciding on sympathy, Tina creeps forward as if the mayor might realise she’s also in the room and slides a copy of the local paper into her line of sight.

And suddenly it’s very obvious what the mayor’s morning tirade is about.

Most of the front page is taken up by a photo of her and Nate sitting together on the bench outside the museum. Whoever took the picture – and she has a fairly solid guess – has caught the moment that he reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear, the tender look in his eyes that even now as a distant observer makes her breath catch. They’re leaning close, intimate, smiling. She didn’t know she could look so sappy.

“Are you still there, Detective?” the mayor demands. “Detective!”

“I’m listening,” she lies. The headline below the photo reads FINDING LOVE: But where’s the murderer?

“Are you?” he shoots back. “This is unacceptable!”

She bites back her preferred retort. “I completely agree, sir. At some point I, too, would love to be able to find out about local news through some other medium than a loud phone call.”

“That is –!”

“My investigations are continuing,” she interrupts, “and they will do so without interference from my personal life, or from Bobby Marks, who – as I remember telling you only a few months ago – is not somebody I can control.”

She slams the phone back down without waiting for a response and has to draw a deep, calming breath in through her nose.

“That’ll probably come back to bite you,” Tina points out, with not a little bit of awe.

“I’m going to kill him.” It’s hard to think how else to deal with the vibrant, visceral anger locking her limbs into place. If she moves, she might fling all the stuff from her desk. “I’m actually going to wring his neck and dispose of the body in a vat of acid. I can’t believe even he’d be this – this – petty.”

“It says more about him than it does about you,” Tina soothes. “But even so… you and that agent of yours…”

“Don’t. It’s –”

“Babe, don’t you dare say ‘complicated’. He’s looking at you in that photo like he wants to eat you – which now I say it out loud feels kind of tactless.” A frown. “You know, considering.”

“It’s not relevant right now.” Leah bites it out, a poor substitute for explaining the need to keep Nate separate from work, the itch beneath her skin at having the two halves of her life crash together in such a public way. She knows why Bobby did this, knows it’s a move he calculated well because he knows her, and that galls as much as the photo itself. Nobody is meant to see her like this, exposed and doe-eyed as a tragic heroine, careless enough with her heart that a stranger could capture it on film. Even with the low res of a newspaper image, she can’t tear her gaze from Nate’s, the rich intensity of his eyes, the expression playing around his mouth – and it’s too much. Immense as the edge of a cliff.

“What new leads do we have this morning?” she asks, turning the paper over.

Tina watches her carefully for a moment before dropping her gaze to her notepad. “We have Seakirk’s phone records, finally. There’s a text from a withheld number sent very shortly before TOD, but the delightful person I spoke to at the phone company didn’t think we might want to un-withhold it, so I’ve asked for that to be chased up. In the meantime… Douglas had a strike of brilliance this morning.”

“Oh?”

“He’s decided to go back through the Swordfish’s CCTV from weeks ago to see if he can find anything while we wait, since Seakirk was a regular.”

Leah blinks. “That’s… a surprising amount of initiative.”

“I think you’re having an influence,” comes the teasing reply.

She nods, making a mental note to thank him for the good work, but it’s not something that’s going to offer immediate results. Between that and the phone company, the case is now a waiting game, dependent on other people to do their jobs. There’s nothing that makes her twitchier, especially when it means there’s going to be no distraction from how much she wants to throttle Bobby.

Except, there is one avenue that might have made progress. She’s already moving towards the door.

“Let me know if anything turns up,” she throws over her shoulder. “I’ll be –”

Nate almost collides with her, only managing to cushion the impact by slipping his hands around her waist. The unexpected wash of his scent makes the breath stutter in her lungs.

He smiles. “Careful.”

Her hands are braced instinctively against his chest, so close she has to tilt her head back to see him properly, the look in his eyes so like that in the photo that for a second it feels like she’s taken a blow to the head. There’s something more sombre in it, though, concerned, which she realises at the exact same moment that her face is flaming and that her office has filled with a heavy, dead silence.

“Sorry – didn’t see you there,” she manages. “I was just coming to see you about the journal.”

He gives her a long look. “I finished translating it this morning, but that’s… not entirely the reason I came here.”

Mortification wraps around her like a python.

Tina, sheepish, edges into her line of sight. “I’m going to go pop the kettle on. If I could…?”

They step to the side so she can squeeze through the doorway, Nate’s hands still settled on Leah’s waist as if glued to it, and once they’re alone he heaves a breath and turns his attention fully to her.

“I saw the article Bobby wrote,” he murmurs. “Are you alright?”

She drops her gaze. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“He shouldn’t have done what he did.”

“As if that’s ever stopped him.” She snorts. “Vindictive little shit. Why are you looking at me like that?” He’s frowning like he doesn’t believe her, like she’s easier to read than Russell’s book.

“I want you to feel you can talk to me,” he urges. “You can talk to me.”

“I’m fine.”

“Leah –”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she snaps, pushing away. “All of this, it’s…”

She turns and pulls the end of her braid over her shoulder, twirling the end in nervous fingers. In the absence of words, she lets loose a frustrated snarl, and Nate stands there watching her scrabble for purchase like a dog bracing its legs against the sides of an imminent bath. How he can be so placid, she doesn’t know.

“I’m not… good at this,” she tries. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I hate feeling so out of control.”

A frown draws down over his features, though if it’s worry or hurt, she can’t tell. “What do you mean?”

She shakes head, eyes squeezed shut, keeping the words crammed in her throat so that’s the only place they can sting.

“Leah…” he says, and steps closer.

“I knew something would go wrong.” Her knuckles connect with the desk, not quite hard enough to be a punch. “I – Can we just focus on the case? I don’t want to deal with anything else right now.”

When he doesn’t reply, she looks up to find him by the window, staring through the glass with his hands shoved into his pockets and a new stiffness in his shoulders as he tries to put distance between them. The frown has worked its way to the corner of his mouth, turning it down in a way she doesn’t know how to fix.

“Nate–”

The door bursts open again before he can answer. Douglas, his cheeks tinged an embarrassed pink, doesn’t look up from the floor as he holds out the printed photo in his hand.

“I thought you’d want to see this, Detective,” he explains, an awkward, apologetic cough in his throat.

The grainy image is a still from a CCTV camera with a timestamp about three weeks old, showing Russell Seakirk in the same corner booth he was sitting in the night he was murdered, only this time he isn’t alone. A blonde woman is seated next to him, one hand on his arm as he leans close enough to whisper in her ear. Even in the bad lighting, the identity of the woman is obvious.

“Gotcha.” Leah glances up. “Good work, kid.”

“Really?” Douglas grins.

“What is it?”

Her heart seizes as Nate comes to peer over her shoulder, but she disguises the slip as best she can by holding up the evidence for him to see. “Proof that Samantha Harris knew the victim a lot better than she wanted us to think.”

The clock on the wall reads 9 am, plenty of time to tackle the winding roads to the museum before it opens.

“I’m going to go talk to her again,” she decides, grateful or the escape, eager to be on the scent again. “I’ll meet you back at base?”

Nate blinks as she pulls on her coat. “Oh. If you’re sure?”

“Someone needs to tell Adam what’s going on.” She’s a coward. “It’s just going to be a quick chat.”

“Of course.” He flashes her a smile, but his shoulders are hunched, and his hands still sit deep in his pockets.

She tries a smile. “I’ll see you there.”

An instant passes. She starts forward with half an impulse to kiss him, to reassure him that she regrets the brittleness in his expression, but Douglas is still hovering in the middle of the room and the fear that she’ll make things worse tightens in her chest like ice. So she leaves. Her feet march her to the car and the key turns in the ignition and her hands grip the steering wheel as she fights back the prickle of heat behind her eyes. As she pulls in deep breaths to collect herself, a pair of elderly ladies pass on the opposite side of the low wall that separates the station car park from the street, and when one of them glances her way, it’s clear she’s been recognised. The pair huddle into conspiratorial closeness as they walk by, giggling behind their hands.

“Ah, infamy,” she gripes. “Just what I always wanted. Thank you so fucking much, Bobby Marks.”

She shakes her head and puts Nessie into gear; dwelling on it won’t help her solve the case.

--

She pulls up in the museum car park fifteen minutes before opening time, and catches sight of Samantha juggling keys and coffee in a to-go cup. The grumbling of the engine makes the other woman turn, and Leah’s seen enough petty vandals in her time as a beat officer to recognise the split-second reaction of someone wondering whether to run. But they’re on the headland here, with nowhere to go but the woods and a narrow strip of beach below, and despite her flat shoes Samantha’s flimsy office clothes would be no match for comfortable jeans and a pair of sturdy, heavy-soled boots. She decides to stand her ground instead of making a chase of it, offering a fawning smile as Leah steps out of the car.

“Detective! Our museum must have made quite an impression on you if you’re back again so soon.”

Leah waits until she’s within arms’ reach, just in case. “Why didn’t you tell me you and Russell Seakirk were having an affair?”

The smile falls, and with it, all colour drains from Samantha’s face. Beneath a careful mask of concealer and blush, the shadows of her eyes offer a stark contrast to the vibrant, artificial shade of her hair, and only serve to underline the delicate red threading of eyes that have gone too long without sleep. Her lip trembles as she tries to rally.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” she says.

“This looks like you, don’t you think?” Leah counters, unfolding the CCTV image from her pocket. “We also found a blonde hair on his body, just about the same length as yours.”

“My hair isn’t –”

“It is on the museum website.”

Samantha twists her lips together, her gaze falling to the photo for only the briefest moment before she shoves it back into Leah’s hands.

She slips it back into her pocket. “Think carefully before you try to lie to me again.”

Heartbeats pass, with the morning gulls wheeling overhead to catch the updrafts rising from the cliff.

“We met when he was researching the Pegasus,” Samantha admits eventually, caving under the weight of Leah’s patient stare. “He wanted to know about it. He noticed my surname and we started talking.” Something sour passes over her features, like a child petulant about being caught stealing sweets.

“He can’t have been the first to come treasure hunting,” Leah prods.

Samantha rolls her eyes. “Every so often some Indiana Jones type comes waltzing through, convinced they’ll solve the big mystery, but he was… different.” She frowns, troubled. “Before I knew it, we weren’t even talking about the wreck.”

“And you didn’t mention this before because…?”

Instead of answering, Samantha clutches tighter at her coffee cup, as if the warmth it offers might act as a shield between the question and whatever it is she wants to hide. A heavier hand might threaten an interview at the station, but aside from anything else if Leah goes back there now it’s likely Tina will be lying in ambush with an earful for how badly she handled the situation with Nate. She prefers patience, and the stare people have always found a little disconcerting.

“I broke it off,” Samantha says at last.

“When?”

A shrug. “He started talking about running away, starting a new life, how he was so close to getting enough to never have to worry about money again.”

“And you didn’t want that?” Leah guesses.

“What was I supposed to do, leave my job – my life?” She draws her jacket closer against the wind.  “He thought I’d just drop everything. He – it was just a fling. It didn’t mean anything.”

Leah decides to let it go. “How did he take the break-up?”

Another, more defensive shrug. “He was fine. Maybe a little upset, but he was fine. We went our separate ways.”

Old Detective Reele kept a list of questions for revelations like this, when a person of interest changed their story and the facts had to be teased out from the mess of poor memory and deliberate misdirection. There had never been much call to use it in a town where tacky lawn ornaments were considered serious crime, but he was thoughtful enough to include it in the rushed orientation Leah was given with her promotion. As she works through them all – Did you see him the day he died? What time? Where did you meet? – the answers get more agitated, until Samantha looses an angry huff and throws her arms up in frustration.

“Look, I really wish I could be more help, but I can’t,” she snaps. “We talked down in the woods beyond Hope Point, no one was around, and then we walked in separate directions. I spent the rest of the day at home. Alone, before you ask.”

“Where was your husband?”

She drops her gaze again. “He stays late at the boatyard sometimes. He drinks, he does it there so he thinks I won’t know.”

“Did he know about the affair?” Leah asks. It’s not the question she really wants to ask, but there’s no delicate way to shatter someone’s worldview, and Adam might pop a blood vessel if she tries.

In any case, the only response she gets is a sullen look, answer enough, and apparently resentful of being forced to thrust her husband into the role of prime suspect, Samantha retreats into the museum with her cup of coffee in her hand and an air of wounded dismissal haloed around her.

[wankerwatch]

Commons Vote

On: Opposition Day: Farming and food security

Ayes: 187 (55.9% Con, 34.9% LD, 2.7% DUP, 2.7% Ind, 2.2% PC, 0.5% RUK, 0.5% UUP, 0.5% TUV) Noes: 359 (98.6% Lab, 1.4% Ind) Absent: ~104

Day's business papers: 2024-10-08

Individual Votes:

Ayes

Conservative (104 votes)

Alan Mak Alberto Costa Alec Shelbrooke Alex Burghart Alicia Kearns Alison Griffiths Andrew Bowie Andrew Griffith Andrew Mitchell Andrew Murrison Andrew Snowden Aphra Brandreth Ashley Fox Ben Obese-Jecty Ben Spencer Bernard Jenkin Blake Stephenson Bob Blackman Bradley Thomas Caroline Johnson Charlie Dewhirst Chris Philp Christopher Chope Claire Coutinho Damian Hinds Danny Kruger David Davis David Reed David Simmonds Desmond Swayne Edward Argar Edward Leigh Gagan Mohindra Gareth Bacon Gavin Williamson Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Geoffrey Cox George Freeman Graham Stuart Greg Smith Gregory Stafford Harriet Cross Harriett Baldwin Helen Grant Helen Whately Iain Duncan Smith Jack Rankin James Cartlidge James Cleverly James Wild Jeremy Hunt Jeremy Wright Jerome Mayhew Jesse Norman Joe Robertson John Cooper John Glen John Hayes John Lamont John Whittingdale Joy Morrissey Julia Lopez Julian Lewis Katie Lam Kemi Badenoch Kevin Hollinrake Kit Malthouse Laura Trott Lewis Cocking Lincoln Jopp Luke Evans Mark Garnier Martin Vickers Matt Vickers Mel Stride Mims Davies Neil Hudson Neil O'Brien Neil Shastri-Hurst Nick Timothy Nigel Huddleston Oliver Dowden Patrick Spencer Paul Holmes Peter Bedford Peter Fortune Rebecca Harris Rebecca Paul Rebecca Smith Richard Fuller Richard Holden Robbie Moore Robert Jenrick Roger Gale Saqib Bhatti Sarah Bool Shivani Raja Simon Hoare Steve Barclay Stuart Anderson Stuart Andrew Suella Braverman Victoria Atkins Wendy Morton

Liberal Democrat (65 votes)

Adam Dance Al Pinkerton Alison Bennett Andrew George Angus MacDonald Anna Sabine Ben Maguire Bobby Dean Brian Mathew Calum Miller Cameron Thomas Caroline Voaden Charlie Maynard Charlotte Cane Chris Coghlan Christine Jardine Claire Young Clive Jones Daisy Cooper Danny Chambers David Chadwick Ed Davey Edward Morello Freddie van Mierlo Gideon Amos Helen Maguire Helen Morgan Ian Roome Ian Sollom James MacCleary John Milne Josh Babarinde Joshua Reynolds Layla Moran Lee Dillon Lisa Smart Liz Jarvis Luke Taylor Manuela Perteghella Marie Goldman Martin Wrigley Max Wilkinson Mike Martin Monica Harding Munira Wilson Olly Glover Paul Kohler Pippa Heylings Rachel Gilmour Richard Foord Sarah Gibson Sarah Green Sarah Olney Steve Darling Susan Murray Tessa Munt Tim Farron Tom Gordon Tom Morrison Victoria Collins Vikki Slade Wendy Chamberlain Wera Hobhouse Will Forster Zöe Franklin

Democratic Unionist Party (5 votes)

Carla Lockhart Gavin Robinson Gregory Campbell Jim Shannon Sammy Wilson

Independent (5 votes)

Adnan Hussain Alex Easton Ayoub Khan Iqbal Mohamed Shockat Adam

Plaid Cymru (4 votes)

Ann Davies Ben Lake Liz Saville Roberts Llinos Medi

Reform UK (1 vote)

Richard Tice

Ulster Unionist Party (1 vote)

Robin Swann

Traditional Unionist Voice (1 vote)

Jim Allister

Noes

Labour (351 votes)

Abena Oppong-Asare Abtisam Mohamed Adam Jogee Adam Thompson Afzal Khan Al Carns Alan Campbell Alan Gemmell Alan Strickland Alex Baker Alex Ballinger Alex Barros-Curtis Alex Davies-Jones Alex Mayer Alex McIntyre Alex Norris Alice Macdonald Alison Hume Alison Taylor Alistair Strathern Allison Gardner Amanda Hack Amanda Martin Andrew Cooper Andrew Gwynne Andrew Lewin Andrew Pakes Andrew Ranger Andy MacNae Andy McDonald Andy Slaughter Angela Eagle Angela Rayner Anna Dixon Anna Gelderd Anna McMorrin Anna Turley Anneliese Midgley Antonia Bance Ashley Dalton Baggy Shanker Bambos Charalambous Barry Gardiner Bayo Alaba Beccy Cooper Becky Gittins Ben Coleman Ben Goldsborough Bill Esterson Blair McDougall Brian Leishman Callum Anderson Calvin Bailey Cat Eccles Cat Smith Catherine Atkinson Catherine Fookes Catherine McKinnell Catherine West Charlotte Nichols Chris Bloore Chris Bryant Chris Curtis Chris Elmore Chris Hinchliff Chris Kane Chris McDonald Chris Murray Chris Vince Chris Ward Chris Webb Christian Wakeford Claire Hazelgrove Claire Hughes Clive Efford Clive Lewis Connor Naismith Connor Rand Damien Egan Dan Carden Dan Jarvis Dan Norris Daniel Francis Daniel Zeichner Danny Beales Darren Jones Darren Paffey Dave Robertson David Baines David Burton-Sampson David Pinto-Duschinsky David Smith David Taylor David Williams Debbie Abrahams Deirdre Costigan Derek Twigg Diana Johnson Douglas Alexander Douglas McAllister Elaine Stewart Ellie Reeves Elsie Blundell Emily Darlington Emily Thornberry Emma Foody Emma Hardy Emma Lewell-Buck Euan Stainbank Fabian Hamilton Feryal Clark Fleur Anderson Florence Eshalomi Frank McNally Fred Thomas Gareth Snell Gareth Thomas Georgia Gould Gerald Jones Gill Furniss Gill German Gordon McKee Graham Stringer Grahame Morris Gregor Poynton Gurinder Singh Josan Hamish Falconer Harpreet Uppal Heidi Alexander Helen Hayes Helena Dollimore Henry Tufnell Hilary Benn Ian Lavery Imogen Walker Irene Campbell Jack Abbott Jacob Collier Jade Botterill Jake Richards James Frith James Murray James Naish Janet Daby Jas Athwal Jayne Kirkham Jeevun Sandher Jeff Smith Jen Craft Jenny Riddell-Carpenter Jess Asato Jess Phillips Jessica Morden Jessica Toale Jim Dickson Jim McMahon Jo Platt Jo Stevens Jo White Joani Reid Jodie Gosling Joe Morris Joe Powell Johanna Baxter John Grady John Slinger John Whitby Jon Pearce Jonathan Brash Jonathan Davies Jonathan Hinder Josh Dean Josh Fenton-Glynn Josh MacAlister Josh Newbury Josh Simons Julia Buckley Julie Minns Juliet Campbell Kanishka Narayan Karin Smyth Karl Turner Kate Dearden Kate Osamor Kate Osborne Katie White Katrina Murray Kenneth Stevenson Kevin Bonavia Kevin McKenna Kim Johnson Kim Leadbeater Kirith Entwistle Kirsteen Sullivan Kirsty McNeill Laura Kyrke-Smith Lauren Edwards Laurence Turner Lee Barron Lee Pitcher Leigh Ingham Lewis Atkinson Liam Conlon Lilian Greenwood Lillian Jones Linsey Farnsworth Liz Twist Lizzi Collinge Lloyd Hatton Lola McEvoy Lorraine Beavers Louise Jones Lucy Powell Lucy Rigby Luke Akehurst Luke Charters Luke Murphy Luke Myer Luke Pollard Margaret Mullane Marie Rimmer Marie Tidball Mark Ferguson Mark Hendrick Mark Sewards Mark Tami Markus Campbell-Savours Marsha De Cordova Martin McCluskey Martin Rhodes Mary Creagh Mary Glindon Mary Kelly Foy Matt Bishop Matt Rodda Matt Turmaine Matt Western Matthew Patrick Matthew Pennycook Maureen Burke Maya Ellis Meg Hillier Melanie Onn Melanie Ward Michael Payne Michael Shanks Michael Wheeler Michelle Welsh Mike Amesbury Mike Kane Mike Reader Mike Tapp Mohammad Yasin Nadia Whittome Natalie Fleet Natasha Irons Naushabah Khan Navendu Mishra Naz Shah Neil Coyle Neil Duncan-Jordan Nesil Caliskan Nia Griffith Nicholas Dakin Nick Smith Nick Thomas-Symonds Noah Law Oliver Ryan Olivia Bailey Olivia Blake Pam Cox Pamela Nash Pat McFadden Patricia Ferguson Patrick Hurley Paul Davies Paul Foster Paul Waugh Paula Barker Paulette Hamilton Perran Moon Peter Dowd Peter Lamb Peter Prinsley Peter Swallow Phil Brickell Preet Kaur Gill Rachael Maskell Rachel Blake Rachel Hopkins Rachel Taylor Richard Baker Richard Quigley

Rosie Wrighting Rupa Huq Ruth Cadbury Ruth Jones Sadik Al-Hassan Sally Jameson Sam Carling Sam Rushworth Samantha Niblett Sarah Coombes Sarah Edwards Sarah Hall Sarah Owen Sarah Russell Sarah Sackman Sarah Smith Satvir Kaur Scott Arthur Sean Woodcock Seema Malhotra Sharon Hodgson Shaun Davies Simon Opher Siobhain McDonagh Sojan Joseph Sonia Kumar Stella Creasy Stephanie Peacock Stephen Doughty Stephen Kinnock Stephen Morgan Stephen Timms Steve Race Steve Reed Steve Witherden Steve Yemm Sureena Brackenridge Tahir Ali Taiwo Owatemi Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Terry Jermy Tim Roca Toby Perkins Tom Hayes Tom Rutland Tonia Antoniazzi Tony Vaughan Torsten Bell Tracy Gilbert Tristan Osborne Tulip Siddiq Uma Kumaran Valerie Vaz Vicky Foxcroft Warinder Juss Will Stone Yuan Yang Zubir Ahmed

Independent (5 votes)

Apsana Begum Imran Hussain John McDonnell Richard Burgon Zarah Sultana

[elizaneals]

Eliza Neals new 2024 album “Colorcrimes” OUT NOW on Bandcamp

COLORCRIMES-Bluesville-RACK-OF-BLUES-5-25-2024

DEBUT #12 Rack-of-Blues 5/25/2024 THANK YOU SiriusXM Bluesville CH.75

AMAZON

APPLE

SPOTIFY

Blues Rock Review breaks the news on ELiza Neals new album “Colorcrimes” just what the world needs today!

Blues Rock Review just broke the News HERE

Eliza Neals new 2024 album “Colorcrimes” now on Pre-Order at Bandcamp.com drops MAY 24th Everywhere!

PRE ORDER NOW VIA BANDCAMP and get a copy of my latest single “Somethings Better than Nothing” along with the a copy in the mail the second it comes in!

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PRESS RELEASE HERE

ONESHEET

RADIO DISTRIBUTION

Eliza Neals, a modern blues-rock performer, has a powerful message on life that has been a long time coming. “Colorcrimes” was born on-stage to help people soothe their souls in this troubled world. The audience’s tearful reaction convinced her to record “Colorcrimes.” Eliza draws from a diverse group of musicians to capture lightening in a bottle every time.

“Colorcrimes” the album is riddled with stellar musicians and one iconic songwriter. Multiple Grammy winner, ‘Songwriter’ plus ‘Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame’ inductee, Detroit’s late Barrett Strong Jr. who co-wrote three songs. Returning guitarist, co-producer and songwriter Michael Puwal is back with his outstanding genuine down-home slide playing. You too will find yourself not only searching for the truth in “Colorcrimes,” but your path will be strewn with real-life bluesy narratives drawn from the unbelievable times of “The Detroit Diva” Mrs. Eliza Neals.

Songs: Heal This Land (E. Neals, M. Puwal) 2:42 Banned In Jackson (E. Neals, M. Puwal, HJ) 3:40 Colorcrimes (E.Neals) 5:08 Something’s Better Than Nothing (B. Strong, E. Neals) 3:19 Love Dr. Love (E. Neals, B. Strong, B. Lord) 3:44 Sugar Daddy (B. Strong, E. Neals) 2:53 Candy Store (E. Neals, HJ) 2:53 Found Me Another (E. Neals) 3:37 Friday Night (All Day Long) (E. Neals, M. Puwal, HJ) 3:12

Eliza Neals – Vocals 1-9 / Piano 1-9 / Back Up 2-9 Michael Puwal (Cannon Ball Records) Guitar (1-4,7-9) Brian Lord (Mitch Ryder) Guitar – 5 Studio B Southfield MI Engineer King Solomon Hicks – Guitar, Backing Vocals – 6 Justin Headley (Damon Fowler) Drums – 2, 3 Steve Lacross, Drums – 9 Doug Woern, Bass – 2, 3, 9 Mark “Muggy Do” Leach (Buddy Miles) Hammond B3 – 2, 3 Tim Grogan (Desert Rose) Drums – 4, 5 Jason Kott (Robert Randolph) Bass – 4 Peter Keys (Lynyrd Skynyrd) Hammond B3 + Wurlitzer 200a – 4 Bobby Holland, Engineer Pentavarit Nashville TN – 4 Jeffery “Shakey” Fowlkes (Two Slim) Drums – 8 Luis Resto (Eminem) Clavichord, Piano, Horns – 5 Kamall Malak (Arrested Development) Bass – 5 Nick Haynes (MercyMe) Trumpet – 5 Chris Vega, Bass – 6 Tyrone Smith, Hammond B3, Saxophone – 6 Michael Galante, Drums – 6 Skeeto Valdez (King Konga) Drums – 7 Paul Randolph (Alice Cooper) Bass – 7 John Galvin (Molly Hatchet) Hammond B3 – 7 Kymberli Wright (Straight Ahead) backing vocals – 7 Eric Maluchnik, engineer – 7 Univox 1 Milton FL – Michael Puwal, Mixing Engineer – 1-9 SST Weehawken NJ – Billy Perez, Engineer – 6 Tempermill Ferndale MI – Dave Feeny, Master Engineer 1-9

Produced by Eliza Neals 1-9 Produced by Barrett Strong 4, 6 Co-Produced by Michael Puwal 1, 2 & 8, 9

Published by Elizabeth Thomasian Music (BMI) 1-9 Published by Univox1 (BMI) 1, 2, 9 Published by Not Sampled Music (BMI) 4, 5, 6 Published by Brian Lord 5

Executive Produced for E-H Records LLC

BB Kings BLUESVILLE CH.75 RACK-OF-BLUES CHART

DEBUT #12 on May 25th 2024

Week 2 #13 on June 1st 2024

Week 3 #6 on June 8th 2024

Week 4 #5 on June 15th 2024

Week 5 #5 on June 22nd 2024

Week 6 #4 on June 29th 2024

Week 7 #4 on July 6th 2024

Week 8 #7 on July 13th 2024

COLORCRIMES – Bluesville RACK OF BLUES 6-29-2024 #4

COLORCRIMES-Bluesville-RACK-OF-BLUES-6-15-2024 #5 TOP 15 Songs Worldwide

COLORCRIMES-Bluesville-RACK-OF-BLUES-5-25-2024

AMAZON HOT NEW RELEASES

ELIZA NEALS “COLORCRIMES” TOP 10 Album for SIX weeks!

AMAZON HOT NEW RELEASES Eliza-Neals_Colorcrimes 5-31-24 #3

AMAZON HOT NEW RELEASES Eliza-Neals_Colorcrimes 5-27-24 #10

AMAZON HOT NEW RELEASES Eliza-Neals_Colorcrimes 6-25-24 #8

“COLORCRIMES” on Terresterial/Internet RADIO

[leirsulien-archive]

The excited squeals I made when M almost ripped bobby to pieces

[druidgroves]

a mistake told in four parts

Summary: Your name is Ramona McBride and you’re not sure why you ever dated Bobby Marks.

Notes: another 2nd person wayhaven fic because that’s what i’m doing right now? anyways have fun reading ramona’s shame lol

Your name is Ramona McBride and you are currently looking into your bathroom mirror, applying lipstick for a boy that gives you butterflies.

The lighting in the bathroom of your dorm could be better, making your skin appear a little bit more wan that it actually is, but so far no one’s told you if your foundation is too cakey or your eyeliner too much. Your usually dark brown hair is a bit crispy from the at-home balayage and the way you obsessively straighten it every day, but right now it’s done in slight curls that frame your face. You’ve got on a cute dress borrowed from one of your suitemates and it’s a little too tight but it makes your tits look fantastic, which is really the only thing you were thinking about when she pulled it out from her closet for you. You managed to miss the look she gave you when you told her it was for a date with Robert Marks.

You’ve known of the guy for years, went to school together, and somehow ended up at the same college in the same degree program. You were partnered up for an assignment in your Intro to Journalism class and managed to hit it off. It didn’t take much for him to convince you to go on a date with him.

You look in the mirror, swiping the deep red lipstick across your lips one last time before rubbing them together and winking at your reflection. A knock on the bathroom door pulls you away, your suitemate standing in the doorway.

“Damn, Mona, you look good,” she says, giving you a once over.

You twirl in a playful spin, the hem of her dress flaring out a little, “Thank you, thank you, I always try to dress to impress.”

“Just make sure you wash it before you return it,” she says with a laugh. “When’s he supposed to be here?”

“Any minute now,” you say, checking the time on your phone. “He said six.”

Doubt casts over her features for a moment before quickly disappearing.

“Well…let me know how it goes. Good luck,” she nods, then disappears back into her dorm room.

With one last look in the mirror, satisfied with your appearance, you walk over to your desk and take a seat, checking the time every few minutes.

Six o’clock comes and goes rather quickly.

He’s probably just held up somewhere, you think, happy to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Ten after six, you start to wonder if he had actually said he’d be here at six.

Twenty minutes after, you refrain from texting him, not wanting to be a bother. You’ve never been a clingy girl and you’re not about to start now. Your suitemate comes over to check on you, but you tell her he’s just a little late, you’ll be alright.

Half an hour and some change has passed by the time you get a knock on your dorm room door and you launch yourself across the room to answer it.

It’s Bobby, dressed in a dark button up and his caramel colored hair swept back out of his eyes, leaning casually against the door frame. You let go of a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding.

“You’re here,” is all you can say.

“Sorry for being late, it takes time to look this good,” he replies with a lazy smile, then he tacks on, “Angel.”

Despite yourself, the butterflies start again in your stomach with the way he purrs the nickname.

“You ready?”

You nod, “Let me just grab my purse.”

The date ends with the two of you in the backseat of your car, his hands under your dress and his lips on your neck, a soft chorus of angel, angel, angel…

---

Your name is Ramona McBride, and you’re out with your boyfriend Bobby.

You’re also a tiny bit annoyed with him right now.

Before you left your dorm to go grab lunch together, he had looked you up and down and asked, “Is that what you’re wearing out?”

Your ripped jeans and muddy sneakers paled in comparison to the ironed button ups and suede shoes he wore all the time. You know he didn’t mean it in a rude way–probably. He was always telling you that he just wanted you to look your best beside him and you could understand that, you just didn’t think a trip to the nearby burger place necessitated his level of dress. Still, you could appreciate a man with an eye for fashion you supposed.

The looks people give the two of you as you stand in line, you now dressed in a black skirt and flats, makes you a little self conscious, but you do your best to ignore them.

Once you’ve ordered and received your food, you both grab a table by the window. You’ve had classes all morning and are absolutely starving, so you waste no time digging in.

Across the table, Bobby gives you an unimpressed look.

“Try not to bite through the wrapper,” he says, biting off half of a single fry.

“Seriously? I haven’t had anything to eat all day. I had class,” you scoff, but you put down your burger anyways, feeling judged. “Where were you anyways?”

Bobby hadn’t been in the two morning classes you shared, his seat next to yours empty.

“I had a meeting,” he replies simply, hooking your leg with his under the table.

“A meeting?” You raise an eyebrow. “With who? About what?”

“So full of questions today,” he sighs. “It was with the editor of the student paper.”

Your eyes narrow.

The two of you were the top of your journalism classes, a somewhat playful-but-lowkey-serious rivalry between the two of you. You had a conversation last week about applying for your university’s student newspaper, only to find out there was only one spot left on the team. Both of you had resolved to leave it be, not wanting to upset the other if only one of you was offered the position. Or, you thought that’s what the two of you had agreed on.

“I’m on staff now,” Bobby continues, a slight smirk pulling at the corner of his lips as he looks you right in the eye.

“Are you fucking serious, Robert?”

Bobby looks at you, his smirk now replaced with pursed lips.

“Not even a ‘congratulations’? Don’t be like that, angel,” he starts, putting his hand over your clenched fist. A brief flash of anger makes you consider throwing it off but you refrain. You don’t want to cause a scene. Instead, you sink into the seat opposite of him.

“I just…I just thought we agreed to leave it,” you say quietly.

“I know, I know, but the editor reached out to me, I couldn’t say no,” he replies. “You know how good this will look on my resume.”

Would have looked good on mine, too, you think, but keep that thought to yourself. He’s right–you should be happy for him, so you do your best to conjure up a smile, however weak it may be.

“I…I’m proud of you, then,” you say. “Congratulations.”

“You know,” he says, brown eyes taking on a dark look, “We could always celebrate later in…other ways.”

His eyes flick over to you, boring into your own light green ones. The way he licks his lips, hungry for more than just food, and how he uses his foot to pull your chair closer to his is almost enough to distract you from how he betrayed you.

A fluttery feeling begins in your stomach, but you’re not sure if it’s butterflies this time.

---

Your name is Ramona McBride and you couldn’t be more angry right now.

There’s a dent in the wall of your dorm room from the way you had burst in not even twenty minutes ago, a crumpled up paper on your desk with a bright red F on it, and the taste of vomit on your tongue. Despite the rage funneling through you, the underlying panic and worry in relation to your educational future was enough to make you sick.

You can’t believe Bobby would do that to you.

Well, actually, you kind of can. You honestly should have seen it coming.

His sliminess had been evident from the start, everyone told you so when you had first begun dating, you were just too blind to see. He was cute and frankly, you were lonely. Probably not the best match.

Still…it hurts. A lot.

You pick yourself off the bathroom floor, walking back into your dorm to collapse on your bed. It isn’t until your head hits the pillow that you realize you’re crying. Ramona McBride doesn’t cry, so you have no idea who the fuck is laying in your bed right now, but it certainly isn’t you. You learned at a young age that tears don’t get much other than an annoyed look from one of the several nannies who raised you in place of your absent mother. As a child, you also learned that tears don’t bring back people or comfort.

So yeah, Ramona McBride doesn’t cry.

Angrier now, but softer now that you’ve had a bit of time to yourself, you wipe at your eyes and stare at the ceiling.

“We’ll discuss this when you eventually become reasonable,” he had said after you had yelled at him to get out of your dorm. Of course he would make you out to be the unreasonable one in this situation, of course. Whenever you tried bringing up problems between the two of you, he’d always push them back down with charismatic denials and that stupid fucking pet name you’d begun to hate. You don’t even remember the last time he used your real name.

A notification on your phone is enough to pull you out of your anger for a moment, your finger sliding to unlock it. An email from the university.

Dear Ramona McBride,

You are requested to meet with the Dean to discuss your recent alleged act of plagiarism against Robert Marks as reported by Professor…

You don’t have it in you to continue reading the rest of the email as your anger comes surging back. Your hands are shaking and your vision is tunneling. You want to scream, you want to punch something, but all you can do is squeeze your phone so hard your hand cramps.

And then you start crying. Again.

Turns out, Ramona McBride does cry. And it doesn’t feel good.

Loud, shuddering sobs echo through your dorm room, and you're thankful your suitemates have already left for the weekend. You don’t want anyone seeing you like this.

You feel stupid and angry and sad and mixed in was a part of you, rather recently, that had become homesick. Strangely enough, you miss Wayhaven. You miss the back garden you had spent hours playing in and making your own space. You miss the Square and how perfect it looked during autumn. You miss its familiar streets and walking trails. Hell, you even miss some of your old friends, even if they weren’t always good ones.

You miss Wayhaven and its people more than anything.

Maybe the reason you had hung onto Bobby as long as you did was because he had that little piece of home in him, a familiar face in a city full of strangers. Moving off to the big city for university had once been the goal, but now that you’ve attained it, it seems like it might just be all downhill from here.

---

Your name is Ramona McBride and you’re finally back home.

Somehow, you managed to graduate despite the whole fake plagiarism incident, even if it meant failing the class and having to retake it. It’s been over a year since then and you came out on the other side brighter with a new sense of optimism. You hadn’t talked to Bobby at all since then and he had surprisingly made himself pretty scarce afterwards.

Of course there had been a few bumps, but you didn’t want to dwell on them anymore. Being back in Wayhaven with your own apartment and a job at the local library until you had time to talk to the people at the Wayhaven Press meant starting over instead of going back. Being here on your own terms felt good, even if moving all your belongings up a flight of stairs by yourself to said apartment didn’t. Once everything is unpacked, you and your aching muscles will be grateful.

You’re hauling the rented dolly up the outside stairs of the building, the summer heat making your hands sweaty enough that you’re afraid it might slip out of your grasp, and when you hear a voice from a body you can’t see over the boxes, it almost does.

“My, my, my, is that Ramona McBride?”

Gripping tighter now, you peer around your belongings and dread with a hint of annoyance shoots through your veins.

Bobby Marks looks at you over his sunglasses, a familiar smirk sitting on his lips. Not much has changed since you last saw him, other than the fact that you can feel he’s become more of a dick, but that seemed like a given.

“What the hell are you doing back in Wayhaven?” The question comes out before you can stop yourself.

“I could ask you the same question, angel,” he purrs, pushing his sunglasses into his hair as he starts to walk up the stairs. You’re thankful that with the dolly in the way, he can’t get as close as you know he wants to. “You look like you could use some help. Maybe you can show me your new place while you’re at it.”

You scowl, “As if I’d let you into my apartment after what you did to me.”

A derisive laugh falls from his lips, “You made it out alright, didn’t you? And hey, so did I. Looks like it wasn’t that bad afterall.”

“I almost got expelled, Bobby,” you seethe. You shake your head, taking a deep breath. “What are you even doing here?”

You pray that he doesn’t happen to live in the same building, but the answer he gives is far worse.

“Oh, just visiting a…friend,” he replies, and the way he says the last word makes your skin crawl. Whoever they are, you have to wonder if they’re new to town or just as stupid as you were.

“Gross,” you say flatly, and continue trying to haul your boxes up the stairs.

“Aren’t you curious about what I’ve been up to? What I’ve achieved?” he asks, trying to goad you into more conversation.

“Not really, no.”

“Not even the fact that I’m now the star reporter for the Wayhaven Press?”

Ah.

You look around the boxes again with a glare, “You have three seconds to leave me alone before I let this go down the stairs and crush you.”

“I don’t remember you being so touchy, angel,” Bobby muses.

“One.”

“Come on now–”

“Two.”

You let the dolly tilt forward enough to make him flinch and it seems to do the job, making him step back to the ground floor.

“You’ve changed since I last saw you,” he says, pushing his sunglasses back over his eyes.

“Good,” is all you say and leave it at that, going back to hauling your stuff up the stairs once more as he retreats.

Later that day, once all your boxes are stacked in your living room and you’re laid out on your thrifted couch, your phone buzzes. It takes a second for your sweaty hand to unlock it, but when you do, your eyebrows raise.

Heard you were back in town. Wanna hang? You won’t even have to bring the booze this time lol

Given how gossip travels in this town–and the fact that its biggest proponent had been the first person to see you back–you shouldn’t be too surprised that your old friends know you’re back. It was only a matter of time before they knew, you suppose, and right about now, you’re in the mood to make a few bad decisions. Besides, it might be nice to catch up with some familiar faces.

Your phone buzzes again.

Gonna have to see if you’re still cool though. You in?

You sigh, sitting up from the couch and deciding that you can unpack more tomorrow.

You’re in.

[aylacavebear]

Soulmates? Yeah, right, pft. - Ch. 25

When you turn sixteen, and your soulmate's name doesn’t appear anywhere on your body that you can find, you figure you had to be the only person on the planet who didn’t have one. Most of the town shuns you, so you stick close to family. Your Aunt Ellen raised you after your parents died in a car crash when you were two, but what happens when the Winchesters return to town and buried secrets begin to come to light?

Pairing: Mechanic Dean Winchester x OC Reader/You

Word Count: 7655

Warnings: Dean's "memories" from the night at the bar when he saw her again after leaving after graduation.

A/N: Well, here it is everyone, what Dean was going through over the course of the story. I hope it was worth the wait. Things will pick back up on 10/24 with Chapter 25 and you'll still get next Friday's up on the 25th with Chapter 26. <3

A/N: This is my non-Supernatural fic I'm attempting. Please let me know what you think, as I always love hearing from my readers.

----------------------------------------- Chapter 25

Dean’s heart skipped a beat, his body tensing, but Crowley seemed delighted. “Ah, wonderful. Show them in.” A few moments later, familiar faces flooded the dining hall—Sam, Ellen, Jodi, Bobby, Mary, and John. Dean stood, his eyes immediately scanning Y/N as Ellen moved quickly to her, pulling her into a tight embrace, both women in tears. Ellen’s voice trembled with a mix of sadness and relief as she reassured her niece.

Dean’s chest tightened as he watched the reunion, knowing just how much this moment meant to Y/N. She had needed this for months—the comfort and reassurance that only being around family could bring. Dean knew he hadn’t been enough to fill that void for her while the two of them had been in the bunker, but he had done what he could for her. 

Dean exchanged hugs with Sam. While Sam exchanged hugs with Benny, Dean embraced his parents, having missed them far more than he cared to admit. Even Jodi and Bobby shared hugs with the boys before turning their attention to Y/N, wrapping her in soft, relieved embraces.John’s voice broke the moment, softer than Dean had ever heard. “We’re here for ya, kid.”

Crowley, ever the perfect host, gestured to the empty seats. “Please, join us. There’s plenty of food, and we’ve much to discuss.”

As everyone settled back around the table, the atmosphere shifted. Dean felt it—the sense of a team coming together, united by a common enemy. It reminded him that even though Crowley was a lawyer, he was still just a man, a man who had to carefully tread that fine line of the law. He really was on their side, and he realized that with how his family interacted with the lawyer. They had gotten to Cali a day before Dean, Benny, and Y/N because they had flown out. So, they had already gotten to get to know him.

Just as Dean was about to relax further, feeling Y/N begin to relax as well, he felt her mark burn, that painful sizzle like it was his own skin on fire. He was already out of his seat and at her other side before the pained sound slipped past her lips.

Crowley snapped his fingers a couple of times, watching the scene unfold. He had already prepared for this, and the servant immediately left the room to retrieve the cream. Dean moved her dress a little, exposing her mark just as the servant returned, holding a tube of cream out for him. “It’s okay. I’m right here,” Dean murmured, applying the cream to her mark, his voice low and steady.

The room fell silent, all eyes on them as he tried to soothe her. He knew they all could see what he’d seen a couple of days ago, the last letter fully formed. Dean hadn’t had a chance to speak with any of them since they had gotten to the safe house. It had been one thing for him to state it in court during his testimony, but it was another for them to see that he had been telling the truth when he’d said it.

“Well, now, this changes things,” Crowley mused, leaning back in his chair with an air of amusement. “Why wasn’t I informed about that?” 

Dean shot a glare at Crowley, anger bubbling beneath the surface. He hadn’t had a chance, thanks to the FBI, but he couldn’t precisely say that at the moment. Y/N, clearly confused and in pain, looked at Crowley, her brows furrowing in frustration. “About what?” she managed, her voice laced with annoyance before Dean could open his mouth.

“With that,” Crowley began, gesturing toward her mark, “we’ve got a little more leverage.”

Dean’s heart sank. He knew what Crowley was implying, and he hated the fact that he still hadn’t told her everything. The guilt that he thought had been almost gone, hit him like a punch to the chest. He hadn’t even told her that the last letter had come in on her mark. He felt her frustration flare at the situation, at being left out.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, quite frustrated now.

Crowley chuckled lightly, a sound that grated on Dean’s nerves. “Dean, you haven’t told her yet?”Dean’s jaw clenched, heat rising in his chest as he shot another glare at Crowley. He was about to retaliate when Y/N spoke up, her voice sharp and demanding.  “Tell me what?” Her hands clenched tightly in her lap, mirroring the tension that filled the room.

“I was waiting,” Dean finally managed through gritted teeth, trying to suppress his irritation at the lawyer.

Y/N’s anger boiled over, and Dean could feel her frustration wrapping around him like a suffocating blanket. “Will someone tell me what the hell you’re talking about? I’m tired of this, of all of you keeping secrets from me,” she snapped, looking around the table, searching for answers that no one could give her yet.

When silence followed her question, she stood up abruptly, anger radiating from her as she slammed the dining hall doors behind her.

Crowley sighed, the moment she left the room. He nodded to one of his servants—a young woman with kind eyes. She rushed after Y/N while Dean just watched, feeling guilty, angry, and upset. He wanted so desperately to run after her, tell her everything, but he couldn’t.

Dean, still fuming, stood up, “We agreed to tell her when her mark came in more.”

Crowley shrugged nonchalantly, although he wasn’t pleased about his secrecy, “It slipped my mind. Besides, she has a right to know.”

Sam sighed, running a hand through his hair. “This isn’t helping. How did she not notice one of the letters came in all the way?”

Dean sighed and sat back down, “She never looked in the mirror at it, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her to.”

“Son, she’s gonna be more hurt if you wait much longer,” John told him sincerely.

“Does she have at least an idea of how you’re connected to all this?” Crowley asked, although clearly frustrated, but needing further information.

“Not completely,” Dean reluctantly answered.

“Benny, did she even pay attention when Dean testified?” Sam asked, fairly puzzled how she wouldn’t have found out.

Benny sighed, “No. I was talkin’ to her. Tryin’ to help er’ relax a little.”

Crowley was usually a calm, collected man, but this frustrated him: "What does she know?”

Dean grabbed his beer, taking a sip before he answered, staring at the label, “I told her I know she’s my soul mate, part of the thing with Lisa, and that she’s an empath.”

“That’s it?” Bobby exclaimed in annoyance and frustration.

“That explains why she knows we’re hiding something,” Mary sighed, looking back at the closed dining hall doors.

“I didn’t want to make it harder on her,” Dean mumbled quietly.

“Dean, she has to be told, before her birthday, or it’s gonna hurt her more, and not just emotionally,” Sam told him, his tone soft but firm. “I know what I told you before, but she’s quickly running out of time.”

Dean’s attention went to the doors, his mind on only her and what she was feeling. He’d hated not telling, not letting himself get closer to her than she’d let him. He’d felt everything from the moment he’d seen her that first day at the bar, and it was tearing him up inside that she still doubted him. Sam had warned him of the risks of waiting too long, but he just hadn’t been able to find the right time and he didn’t want to do it once they had gotten stuck in that bunker. “Dean, are you even listened?” Crowley asked him, frustrated and now leaning forward in his seat, pulling Dean from his thoughts.

“Yeah, I mean, no. I wasn’t listening,” he grumbled.

An annoyed sound left Crowley’s lips as he leaned back in his seat. “Her birthday is in two days. Either you tell her tomorrow, or I’ll have to make sure the doctor is here.” His tone was of concern for her more than for Dean.

Dean looked down at his beer, “She’s gonna hate me, but… I’ll tell her tomorrow.”

“Son, she’s gonna be mad at all of us, but she’s not going to hate us, especially not you,” John tried to reassure him, feeling bad for what not only his son had to go through, but also what she had had to endure.

Dean tipped his head back, staring at the ceiling for a moment, then back to the label on his beer bottle. He could feel her emotions tormenting her, and her thoughts were a jumbled mess. Then, his gut knotted up, and he felt sick. “She saw her mark,” he groaned out, trying to keep the contents of his stomach from coming up. “She’s trying not to let herself believe that it’s my name trying to come in.”

Sam let out a long sigh. This had been his concern all along—that the unspoken truths would catch up to them—that her doubt could possibly cause Dean to go through a sort of rejection sickness. “Want me to go talk to her?” he offered, wondering if perhaps he could help.

“No. I need to be the one to tell her, but it would have been so much simpler if she had just heard what I said in court,” Dean muttered, his voice still tinged with the discomfort of his knotted stomach.

The silence stretched until Ellen’s voice broke it, “What is it she doesn’t know?”

With that, Dean looked up, meeting her gaze. There wasn’t much she didn’t know at this point. “She doesn’t know that it has to be her to let me in, to trust that I’m her soulmate, or she could end up in the hospital on her birthday when her mark does finally come in all on its own,” he answered as a frown found his lips at the thought of her in an induced coma due to the pain of the connection that would repair itself without her acceptance, thanks to the Vaughts.

“She also doesn’t know that she’s having premonitions or that if her mark comes in before she is supposed to marry Cole, it’ll nullify the contract,” Dean added quietly, as those were the two things that were supposed to wait until her mark had come in at least a little more—the things they were supposed to tell her together. “Or that if she has to go through with marrying Cole, it’ll be his name to show up on her instead of mine.”

It had been why he never pushed anything, never did anything more than she initiated, like cuddling on the couch while watching a movie. Or even holding her at night when she had nightmares so they would go away. Why, no matter how badly he wanted to, he had only kissed her the one time. She had to let herself believe, to hope, to love. For three months, he had waited. Waited for her to let him in. He had never crossed that invisible line she had drawn between them.

The others stayed for a little while, catching up with Dean and Benny while talking about the case together. Dean tried to enjoy seeing them again, but all he could think about was her, up in a room trying to figure it out on her own. His guilt was back in full force, like it was when he saw her that first night in the bar, eating at him from the inside. Benny tried to be there for him, but there was nothing his friend could say that would bring him any relief. Finding himself in one of Crowley’s sitting rooms, Dean sipped a whiskey when that familiar wave of emotion washed over him—loneliness. Her loneliness. Typically, back at the bunker, he’d go to her, hold her while she processed everything. Then, he would have done something silly to pull her out of her head. Right now, though, he couldn’t get out of his own head to give her the comfort he knew she deserved.

He’d allowed himself to relax in the last three months, even letting his guard down. But now, it was like reality was right back in his face. Right now, his thoughts were about how things were supposed to have gone after he got back. Dean took another sip of his whiskey, enjoying how the light burn reminded him of simpler times for now.

They were supposed to work together at the garage, get to know each other, and become friends. Then, all the adults were supposed to sit down with her, all the ones she trusted, along with John and Mary. They were going to tell her about things, their suspicions of the car accident being deliberate, the risk of telling her too much too soon and overwhelming her. Hell, even Sam had planned on flying back for that.Dean sighed and looked up at the ceiling as if somehow he could see her through the structure in her room. How did things get so complicated? He leaned forward a little, taking another sip. The stillness in the room kept his thoughts on how it should have gone while the weight of his guilt constricted against his chest.

He knew her now; she would have been eager to know everything, and he would have been there for her when it all hit her. And he knew it would have hit her hard, but she was a fighter, she was strong. She would have gone through anything to learn the truth, even back then. But now, they were in this mess, all because he couldn’t find the words to tell her what he needed to.

Her thoughts whispered through his mind, in pieces again. She’d kept her walls up, kept him at arm’s length, but her heart knew the truth, as did her soul. Dean had been grateful for at least that much. She was piecing things together like she did when it came to working on a car. The memory of watching her work pulled a small, almost unnoticeable smile to his lips.

Again, his gaze went to the ceiling, briefly, though, and with a sigh, he sank back into the couch. She’s questioning me, my actions, or lack thereof. “If only I could tell you, Sweetheart,” he whispered out to the empty room.

When he felt her finally fall asleep, without the threat of the nightmare, he went to his own room. He didn’t want to be around Crowley, and Benny knew he needed space. At least she was resting, and that gave him a slight reprieve from her whirlwind of emotions, like one of the weights had lifted off him. Now, it was just his own guilt.

Hours felt like days as they dragged on. He knew it was due to what he had to do, had to tell her. No matter how he worded it in his head or spoke it out loud, it just seemed so unfair. Hope had broken her so many times, and he had to ask her to trust him, trust that he was her soulmate, and let him in. She had to hope and believe. How could he ask her to believe in something that had caused her so much pain before? To let him in when hope had broken her so many times already?

After sunset, a servant knocked on Dean’s door, and then led him to a room that he hadn’t even noticed when they had come into the mansion of a house. It was a study, but it was also like a security room all wrapped into one. Bookshelves were along the walls, filled with books. There was a sitting couch, one of those fancy sort of ones off to the right of what looked like a very expensive desk. On the other side was a long desk with several monitors. It reminded Dean of the security room in Y/N’s bunker, but Dean didn’t smile, he looked back at Crowley, also ignoring everyone else in the room. Something was wrong, he could feel it.“What?” Dean snapped, harsher than he meant, arms crossed over his chest as he sized up the room and activity.

“We have a situation. It’s safer in here,” a man with a British accent responded to him, his focus on one of the monitors.

Dean’s heart pounded, his pulse quickened as he turned toward the door. Two men blocked his path, and he glared at them. “Move,” he growled, his hands at his sides, clenching into fists. He had to get to her, protect her like he promised he would.

“My men are handling it. They’re retrieving her,” Crowley frowned as he watched Dean.

“It’s not your job to protect her, it’s mine,” Dean shot back, stepping toward Crowley’s desk, the need to protect her was overwhelming.

Three of Crowley’s security team shifted, moving to block Dean’s path, but Crowley just raised a hand, locking eyes with Dean. “And who is going to protect you, hmm? You think she’s their only target. If they get you too, they’ll have all the leverage they need, and you’ll lose her, forever.” Crowley calmly told him, almost patronizing.

Dean froze, the memory of her nightmare flashing through his mind. His body remained tense, even though part of him knew Crowley was right. He wasn’t about to admit that, though. Silence filled the room, broken only by the occasional click from the men monitoring the security feeds. Then, a faint, eerie howling echoed in the distance before the quiet crept back in. Dean’s nerves were raw. He knew he had to get to her.

“Good, the hellhounds have found their target,” Crowley said, his voice dripping with satisfaction as Dean’s jaw clenched.

He hadn’t moved from where he had stopped, halfway between the door and Crowley’s desk. Then they hit him out of the blue—Y/N’s emotions—panic and fear, then concern for him. The force of them all staggered him, his body swaying a little as he took a breath, trying to stay upright. She was having another premonition. Damn it! He needed to get to her, but the how wasn’t coming to him with the suffocating cloud of her emotions mixed with his thoughts.A tug. Barely there, almost like a thread pulling at his chest. Even though it was so gentle, barely even there, it took his breath away. It was her, reaching out to him, but the walls she’d built around her heart were in the way. Her emotions poured into him like the waves of a tsunami. They nearly consumed him as she attempted to connect the bond between them without having chosen him. He felt like he was being pulled beneath the waves, down deep underwater, making it hard to breathe.

He fought to ground himself, though it felt nearly impossible without her there beside him. Her emotions and his concern for her safety muddied his focus. The sense of time seemed to disappear as any sounds were drowned out. He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, sifting through everything that wasn’t his own, trying desperately to gain his bearings. 

Benny, leaning silently against one of the bookshelves, looked over a Dean. He saw the struggle his friend was currently wrestling with, even if he didn’t fully grasp the depth of it. Slowly, Dean’s gaze met his as the whirlwind calmed slightly, and Benny gave him a quick nod, a silent conversation letting his friend know that he’d help. A tiny, tight-lipped smirk formed at Benny’s gesture. He knew he could always count on him.

It happened in an instant, the two of them working together without having to speak a word. Benny moved first, distracting one of the guards, while Dean shoved the other aside, slipping through the door before anyone could react. Thank you, Benny. Words he didn’t have time to speak at the moment as he took in the silence of the dark mansion.

Dean took a slow, deep breath, centering himself amidst the storm of emotions that weren’t just his. She was looking for him, and he could feel her fear mixing with his own. He knew he needed to find her before someone else did. His steps were silent as he made his way toward the dining hall doors, glancing only briefly toward the window above the landing. She’s not in her room.

He closed his eyes for a moment, focusing on her again. Her fear and worry were stronger now, tugging at him like it used to back at the bunker.

Kitchen.

Quickly but silently, he made his way through the dark dining hall, glancing out the windows as he passed them. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness, making it far easier to see the tiny outlines of furniture and the doors on the far side of the table. Just as he opened one of them, he saw her, and the light outside the far kitchen window.

There was no easy way of getting her attention, and the last thing he needed was for her to scream and alert the intruders to their location. In one swift motion, he covered her mouth with one hand while wrapping the other around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest.“Shhh, it’s me, Sweetheart,” he whispered softly as relief washed over him. She’s safe. As he lowered his hand from her mouth, she whipped around in his arms, wrapping hers tightly over his shoulders. “I was so worried something had happened to you,” she breathed out in a quiet whisper.

For a moment, he just held her, trying to calm them both down as he kept watch at the light of a flashlight outside the kitchen window. It moved with whoever was holding it. “It’s okay. Come on, it’s not safe here.”

He didn’t let go of her as he led her back through the mansion, his focus sharp. When they entered Crowley’s office, Dean closed the door with his foot so he didn’t have to let go of her. Dean focused on her, letting her presence ground him while he attempted to calm her. She’s safe. Those words repeated in Dean’s mind. Dean mostly just glared at Crowley, a warning for the man to keep his mouth shut about things he wasn’t ready to talk about. He should have known that it wouldn’t have worked, though, and he knew it.

“You knew they’d come after me?” she asked Crowley, quite confused, pulling Dean from his thoughts.“Love, he’s not just after you. He needs leverage, to make you comply. Figured you would have realized that already,” Crowley answered smoothly while shooting Dean a knowing look. “That whole family knows they only have so much time before you’re useless to them.”

Dean knew what was coming, even before she pulled away from him and looked up at him. Her eyes swam with confusion as his guilt gripped his chest. “What haven’t you told me?” She was blunt, almost confident, but Dean knew better. He felt her fear of what the answer could be. 

The pain of what the truth could do to her hit him first, and all he could do was look down at the floor. She needs to know. As if that thought was a switch, he hid his pain, then answered her. “If Cole marries you before your mark comes in, it won’t matter who your soulmate is, your mark will change to his name, because you’re an empath.” The words slipped out quietly, a confession he hadn’t wanted to tell her. As silence settled on the room, he wanted to take it back, wished he could, as he felt the weight of his confession sink in. A new piece to the puzzle she’d been slowly trying to put together. He knew she thought it was the last piece, but it wasn’t. He knew there was another question lingering in her mind, and he prayed she wouldn’t ask it, not now. 

“How do I make my mark come in all the way?” she’d spoken it, even though her voice trembled slightly. She’d pushed past all her fears and asked the one question he hadn’t found a way to answer. 

Believe I’m your soulmate. Hope that I’m telling you the truth. Trust that I really can feel you, that the name on my shoulder really is you and not some other Y/N.

God, even now, it sounded horrible in his head. His eyes were on the floor, but he wasn’t really looking at it. He reworded it so many times, and was doing that again as the moments stretched in the silence of the room. Dean couldn’t even hide the pain that accompanied his guilt the answer to her question brought to his soul. If only things had been different. It’s not fair. He’d been trying to find a way to tell her for the last three months, but still, nothing sounded right.

“Bloody hell,” Crowley stated impatiently, annoyed at Dean’s hesitation, again. “If you don’t tell her, I will.”

Dean shot him a glare before he finally looked down at Y/N. Her eyes were so full of hope for an answer, while also just as terrified at what he might say. Somehow, though, he managed to take a deeper breath, even if it was shaky. She deserves the truth.

He hadn’t even been able to open his mouth before that damned Brit said the hellhounds had done their job. At the same time, though, Dean was thankful he didn’t have to give her an answer. 

Crowley took an annoyed breath, “Thank you, Ketch. You may all return to your rooms. The situation has been handled.”Y/N went to the door, slipping through it first. Dean let out a quiet sigh, feeling how heavy her emotions were weighing on her heart. The few servants who worked the night shift followed her, along with several guards, to return to their posts. Dean was about to follow them when Crowley spoke up.“Dean, your luck is going to run out eventually, and it’s only going to hurt her in the long run.” Crowley all but growled at him. His frustration and aggravation at Dean’s incompetence flared in his eyes. “You, Dean. You could have literally prevented all of this had you been competent in your task. One job. That was all you had, and you couldn’t even do that properly.”

“Crowley, it’s not that simple,”  Benny began, pushing off the bookshelf he had been leaning against, in an attempt to defend his friend, but Crowley shot him a glare, quickly silencing him.

“Had Dean told her the truth instead of playing house, we wouldn’t be in this situation!” Crowley snapped as he stood, still glaring at Dean.Dean flinched, but his anger bubbled beneath the surface, overshadowing his guilt at the moment. There were so many things he debated saying. Half of them just sounded like excuses and the other half just sounded like an argument of a petulant child. Dean ran a hand over his face, taking a deep breath.

“You have until tomorrow evening, Dean, or I tell her.” Crowley’s tone wasn’t quite as loud, but Dean could still hear his annoyance. 

He knew it wasn’t that Crowley had any ill intentions. If that were the case, Crowley probably would have told her when they showed up at his mansion. “I told you, I’ll tell her tomorrow, after breakfast,” Dean stated, his eyes still on the lawyer for a moment before finally looking away.

Dean’s gaze went to the door where she’d gone. Then, panic coursed through his entire body, his heart pounding, and his feet were moving before he even had a chance to think. Something was wrong. He’d gone from feeling her heartache to feeling absolutely nothing, like she was unconscious. Dean knew she was still alive, but this was something deeper than her just being asleep.

Crowley and Benny were hot on his heels, but when Dean reached her door and flung it open, he stopped breathing for a moment. Her room was empty, a breeze coming through the open window.

“Damn it!”Dean cursed, running a hand through his hair in frustration. His eyes darted around the room, taking in every detail, every shadow, every flicker of movement, searching for any sign of where she might have been taken or by whom. The sheets were rumpled, and a pillow lay on the floor, but other than that, the room looked untouched.

Crowley appeared behind him, his expression grim as he surveyed the room. “They were quick,” he muttered, moving to the window and looking out at the grounds. He knew he should have anticipated something like this; the other men on the grounds had only been a distraction to keep the hounds and his security occupied while the real threat made its move. 

“Sir, you’ll want to see this,” Ketch stated, now standing in the doorway, his expression unreadable.

Dean tore his gaze away from the room and followed Ketch, a sense of dread settling in his stomach. He could feel his pulse racing, his hands trembling slightly as he walked down the hallway. Each step felt like an eternity, the air thick with tension and unspoken fears. He could still feel her, so he knew she was alive, but that wasn’t what he was worried about most.

The three followed Ketch back down to the main room, then to a side room where there were three other men, their faces illuminated by the glow of computer monitors. They were all watching the footage, their eyes glued to the screen as they went through the recordings. 

“I didn’t think he’d send his best, but I should have,” Ketch told them, pausing one of the recordings from outside her room.

On the screen, it wasn’t just one man; it was a strike team, led by Asmodeus, the Vaught family’s tactical security lead. Alastair was there too, with two others, Ramiel and Dagon. It was the best the Vaughts had. Dean’s jaw tightened as he watched the footage, his eyes narrowing with a mixture of anger and fear. The precision with which they moved, the seamless coordination of their attack—it made his blood boil. His hands clenched into fists at his side, his knuckles turning white as he struggled to keep his emotions in check.

They’d come in through the window while she had been in the study, then hid in the shadows, waiting. The alarm linked to the window had never gone off. Once she sat down on her bed, Alastair approached her silently and, with a swift, practiced motion, injected something into her neck that knocked her out instantly. They then lifted her gently, as if handling a fragile doll, and slipped back out the window.

“Olivia has already been taken into custody and is being questioned,” Ketch informed Crowley, his tone cold and efficient. “I’ve also already sent out two security teams to retrieve your guests from earlier.”

“Good. Now, to make a phone call,” Crowley replied, his voice calm but tinged with a steel-like determination. He was pleased at how quickly his security team had gotten the job done. His next focus was to get his informant to find her before the end of the following day.

Crowley leaned back in his chair as he pulled out his phone, Dean’s eyes never leaving him. “I’m calling in that favor. Find her. Asmodeus’s team took her.” And with that, he hung up the phone. “Ketch, let me know the moment the others get here. They’ll want to know what is going on.”Dean couldn’t stay there in Crowley’s presence, knowing he was moments away from going off on the man. With his jaw clenched in frustration, he went to one of the studies, pouring himself a whiskey. It was only after ten, but he knew he wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight, not with her having been kidnapped. 

Even after the others got there and offered their support, Dean couldn’t relax. Watching and hearing Ellen go off on Crowley brought him a small piece of relief. At least he wasn’t the only one who was pissed at the man. Crowley had brushed it off, not phased in the least by the woman’s angry words and threats. Ketch, on the other hand, eyed her suspiciously, having a feeling that she would actually do what she’d threatened.

After they’d been filled in, there wasn’t much to do except wait. That was hard on all of them. The tension, worry, and anger that filled the air of the study was thick. “You don’t think they’d try to do the wedding early, do you?” Jodi’s question and the broken silence pulled their attention to her. It was the same question running through all their minds. She had been the only one brave enough to speak it.

“I wouldn’t put anything past that family,” John answered, running a hand over his mouth as the tension grew.

Sam sighed, his gaze going from his brother to the floor for a moment. His brows furrowed as he gathered his thoughts. Sam was probably the only one at the moment who knew how good Crowley was. “I know none of you want to trust Crowley,” Sam began before looking back up at everyone in the study.

“He’ll get her back, before the Vaughts can force her into marrying him. I know none of you trust him. But I’ve spent the last several weeks with him. I’ve seen his track record. Please, even if you don’t trust Crowley, trust me,” Sam asked, an almost plea.

Dean had once again been trying to follow that thread that connected them, but he still couldn’t feel anything from her. To him, it was like a part of him was missing without her emotions there, mixing with his own. “I’ll try, Sam,” Dean whispered, his gaze on the floor as if somehow the answer on when she’d be found would appear there.

Hours passed like they were days for Dean, each minute seeming to stretch on like a never-ending nightmare. No one emotion was strong enough to feel over the other - anger, heartache, worry, and the lack of feeling her. They were all restless, but Dean didn’t find comfort in their presence or the light conversation anyone tried to make. His gaze was distant, lost in his thoughts of what she could possibly be going through.

He hadn’t even realized how much time had passed before he felt her again as the goosebumps prickled along his skin. Dean swallowed hard - she was afraid. The glass of whiskey in his hand began to shake slightly as his breathing became shallow. Far too many thoughts bombarded him all at once. 

Sam’s hand on his shoulder made him jump. “You okay?” he asked, worry and concerned in not only his tone, but also his features.

“She’s awake,” Dean whispered in return, desperately trying to calm his racing heart. 

Dean felt the pain that ached through her body, the panic that hit her hit him, and then there was how it was hard to breathe. Sam said something else, but Dean was so consumed by his connection to her that he hadn’t heard a word of it.

“Dean, is she okay?” Sam repeated, this time a little louder, causing Dean to meet his brother’s gaze.

Dean took a breath, shifting his body a little to shake some of the weight of what had hit him so he could focus again. She’s at least awake. “She’s afraid, but it’s different, like she’s alone.” he tried to explain, desperately tracing the strand of the connection she had put her walls up to keep at bay.

Sam let out a sigh of relief. It wasn’t much, but it was better than if she was already being forced into a wedding ceremony. “Let me know if anything changes,” he told his brother, giving him one of those reassuring smiles as he gently squeezed his shoulder.

Again, the minutes stretched on as Dean focused on her. He felt every shift in her emotions. When she began worrying about him, a sad smile formed on his lips. I’m okay, Sweetheart, and I’ll be here when you’re brought back. Even though he knew she couldn’t hear his thoughts, he still hoped they would comfort her in a way. He felt her struggle, her determination which made him smile, and then, more worry. Dean updated Sam any time her emotions shifted  Dean loved how strong she was, despite how her life had gone. It was when slight relief washed through her that he finally let himself relax, after who knew how many hours every muscle in his body had been tense, waiting for the worst.

“Oh, thank God,” he whispered, leaning back against the bar in the sitting room, letting out another breath as his shoulders slumped a little, relaxing, the tension easing.

Dean sipped his drink, glancing toward the door, often. I’m telling her everything when she gets here, even if she hates me afterward. He was done keeping it all from her, done letting his guilt overrule the things he needed to share with her. That burning sensation of her mark irritated his own, as it had done in the past. He knew she was thinking of him, both worrying but also trying to piece things together.

It was when another wave of relief washed over her, and through him that he stood and began making his way to the front door. Dean didn’t even realize how quickly he was moving. He needed to see her, feel her in his arms again, and let her presence ground the tornado of emotions coursing through him. He flung the doors open and, for a moment, stopped breathing when he saw her standing there only halfway up the stairs. Taking them two at a time, he didn’t even give her a chance to move as he pulled her into his arms, letting her soothe him in a way he knew she didn’t understand.

“I thought I lost you,” he whispered, fighting against the lump in his throat and the tears burning his eyes. 

When she said Meg’s name, Dean looked over at the woman. Could she be Cas’s soulmate? The guys had shared their soulmate’s names with each other years ago, when they’d come in. Then, on numerous nights, they would make jokes and push to mask that worry of possibly never finding them. If circumstances were different, Dean would have said something, even spoken with her. But not today, not now.

Most of everything after that was a blur for Dean as he focused solely on her. His guilt was eating at him again. She was hurt, and to him, it was his fault. He had told her he’d protect her, keep her safe, but he hadn’t. Dean had moments where he let himself relax, like when she would squeal, but his mind was on telling her everything, after he took care of her wounds.

He felt her watching him as he cleaned her cuts and scrapes. Dean knew the others were there, but everything around him had seemed to disappear, except for her. He felt her confusion, curiosity, and her desire for the missing pieces. He heard her whispered questions dancing around his mind. With her one, his jaw clenched. After I patch her up, I’ll tell her.

Dean knew he couldn’t convey everything, not the way he wanted to. It was a feeling that couldn’t be put into words. Love wasn’t even the right word, as it went so far beyond that for him, and that scared him, as did the possibility of her rejecting him. He couldn’t even hide his emotions anymore when she would ask him questions. God, he never felt more vulnerable in his life.

You shifted next to him, pulling him from his dreams. Dean’s eyes fluttered open as he inhaled deeply. He smiled as he looked down at you, still asleep in his arms. You were still there. He kissed your forehead, causing you to stir again.

“You’re safe, Sweetheart,” he whispered, his eyes taking in your features as you slowly began waking up.

It was warm, and you felt safe, content. As you opened your eyes, you smiled, seeing those beautiful green orbs lazily staring down at you, full of adoration and love. “Afternoon,” he told you, half asleep and still groggy.

“You slept too, good,” you chuckled sleepily as he tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear. Feeling his emotions was still something you couldn’t quite put into words, but it felt right, normal even. Lying in his arms felt like home, and it made the rest of the world and all the issues going on seem like they didn’t exist. 

“I always sleep when I get to hold you,” Dean replied, his voice still having that gruffness of just waking up.

You could have laid there all day with him, but your stomach had other ideas as it began to grumble, making both of you laugh a little. The lightheartedness of the moment only deepened when he reached down and cupped your cheek before giving you a tender kiss. 

I love you.

Neither of you were sure who’s thought it was, but it whispered through both your minds. Your breath hitched in your chest as both your hearts sped up, and your lips parted slightly after he pulled away. For a moment, all you could do was stare into his eyes, searching for something. But, before either of you could speak, a knock on the door and hearing it open made you both move so you could see who was intruding, reminding you both of reality.

“Lunch is served, and Crowley requests both of you to join him,” the butler stated, standing there with the door open.

Dean groaned and rolled his eyes, which made you giggle a little. That made him smile as he leaned down toward your ear. “I get to help you put some pants on again,” he whispered before leaving a soft kiss on your neck, sending a shiver down your body.

“Tease,” you grumbled, but the smile on your face gave away that you weren’t upset at all.

“We’ll be down in a minute,” Dean told the butler so he’d go away for just a few more minutes of having you all to himself.

“Five minutes,” the butler replied, stepping out of the room and closing the door behind him.

Dean propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at you, that mischievous smirk on his lips. “Five minutes…” he repeated in a rather suggestive manner, making you giggle, music to his ears.

He knew better, though, than to start something now. Dean wanted to love you, the way he’d been wanting to for months, and five minutes wasn’t enough time. “Alright, I’ll behave,” he sighed before throwing back the blankets and climbing over you, on purpose.

You bit your bottom lip and practically held your breath when he was on top of you, and your eyes met his. He even lingered for a moment longer than he needed to, mischief, love, and desire flickering in his eyes, matching the emotions that mixed with your own. It caused both your bodies to thrum for a moment before he finally got off the bed, and you could take a deep breath.

Using your elbows, you maneuvered yourself to the edge of the bed, remembering not to put weight on your wrists. He chuckled a little after grabbing your jeans, feeling you watching him, and trying not to focus on the images that played out in his mind, knowing they weren’t all his.

“You know, Sweetheart. I’m pretty sure you’re the bigger tease.” He told you, quite amused as he helped you into your jeans, teasingly slow again. He loved how your body responded to him and he hadn’t even really done anything.

“At least I’m keeping my hands to myself,” you quipped in return, sitting up.

Dean tapped the side of his head with his finger. “Your thoughts are quite… detailed,” he replied before licking his lips, wanting nothing more than to act on the things you were thinking.

A deep blush found your cheeks, and traveled down part of your neck as your body flushed. Thankfully, the butler opened the door, stating your five minutes was up, making the two of you laugh. Dean scooped you up into his arms again, carrying you down to the dining hall, following the butler. 

He had an idea of why the two of you had been ‘summoned,’ but he didn’t want to say anything. “We’ll face it together,” you told him softly, your head leaning against his chest, feeling his worry.

“That’s gonna take some getting used to,” he chuckled.

“What, me being able to read you like a book now?” you asked with a slightly teasing tone as you looked up at him.

Dean made the mistake of looking down at you, and god, the thoughts that went through his mind were downright sinful. He took a shaky breath, quickly looking away. “Yeah,” he replied, his breaths still a little shaky as he tried to shake the images from his mind.

The butler held the dining hall doors open, “I’ve retrieved them, Sir.”

“Oh, good. The lovebirds are finally awake, and clothed,” Crowley cooed from the far side of the hall, making most of the others roll their eyes. No one had left, which almost worried you.

Dean gave you a gentle squeeze, “Relax. I’ll be right there with you.” He whispered.

----------------------------------------- Chapter 26

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If I missed tagging, please let me know. I had a lot of requests for tags for this one. If you'd like to be tagged, drop me a comment.

[get-back-homeward]

Spring 1958: Access to All The Records

A million years ago, I had heard somewhere about how the Beatles had early on gotten ahold of the Lomax ethnomusicology collection: recordings of black folk singers in the American South. I’ve always wondered when? how? I myself didn’t get the chance to hear them until college with access to the music department’s library.

Listening to their 1960 home recordings, I felt convinced they’d had them by then. I Don’t Know (Oh Johnny) especially sounds like a teenage boy’s attempt to imitate those recordings. But where on earth would have have gotten access to them as teens?

Well, it looks like Lewisohn tracked down the source. In Spring 1958, John meets Tony Carricker at art school:

By some distance, friendships were the most attractive aspect of art school life for John. He and Tony Carricker gravitated toward each other on the basis of a shared love of music. As Tony puts it, “Early rock freaks found each other like drug takers will find each other.” He still recalls their first conversation, as they walked down the hill into town: “It was like an interrogation: ‘Have you got this?’ ‘Have you heard that?’ ‘Oh, you’ve got that, have you?’—it was like being vetted. I was in.”41 Tony had “Bloodshot Eyes” by Wynonie Harris, he had red label Vogue 78s, he introduced John to Bobby Freeman’s “Do You Want to Dance,” he had country blues and he loved Chuck Berry; when John found out Tony had memorized all the words of “Roll Over Beethoven” he got him to write them down for him. He recalls overhearing John saying to somebody, “He’s got all the records!”

Tony was one of those enthusiasts not merely prepared to accept whatever was available in the local shops but to seek out scarce sounds. He was a gatherer, hungry to expand his knowledge. He’d discovered that the cultural department of the American Embassy in London loaned Smithsonian Institution and other rare records free to applicants, on trust. Packages containing discs by Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Lead Belly, Big Bill Broonzy, Blind Willie Johnson, Sleepy John Estes and other such fabulously exotic creatures, remarkable field recordings from the American South and rare studio sessions of the 1920s to 1940s, would be dispatched via Royal Mail from Grosvenor Square to Tony’s tiny house in Widnes, the return postage prepaid.

—Tune In (Ch. 8), Mark Lewisohn

Thank Tony, the American Embassy, the Smithsonian, and Royal Mail.

[aus-wnt]

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/she-has-all-the-ingredients-the-puzzle-pieces-that-put-kerr-among-the-world-s-best-20211210-p59gil.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1639112469-1

‘She has all the ingredients’: The puzzle pieces that put Kerr among the world’s best

Tom Sermanni has seen a lot in football, but he’ll never forget the first time he saw Sam Kerr play. She was 14, coming out of the Western Australia institute, and about to make her W-League debut for Perth Glory.

She looked every part the young teenager she was – until she started moving. Kerr was quicker than the adults, had a burst of power like few others, and could somehow leap above the centre-backs that towered over her.

“She could jump like a gazelle, she had a presence about her on the field and she looked like she could always score goals,” Sermanni said. “She immediately caught your attention.”

Height was never a problem for Kerr. As a teenager, she could leap above seasoned defenders to win aerial duals. Today, she stands at 1.67 metres tall. She’s far from a towering presence but remains one of the world’s most dangerous strikers in the air.

It was a trait that wasn’t obvious initially because she was deployed out on the wing in her early years but gave Sermanni the impression her future would be closer to goal. “In the back of our mind, she always had the quality to make it as a centre-forward,” he said.

That outstanding vertical leap was one of the reasons her former A-League women’s coach, Bobby Despotovski, moved her into the strikers’ role.”

She can head the ball, she has a very, very good leap. Not many strikers in the world can out jump Sam Kerr. She is very, very good in the air,” he said.

But that’s just one part of what makes Kerr the dominant player she has become.

Pace

While Kerr is an outstanding header of the ball, it’s her speed that is perhaps her most dangerous attacking attribute. From a young age, Kerr was always quick. However, it wasn’t just her pace that made gave her so much potential but the dynamism and power in her acceleration.”

Even at that age she was dynamic, that’s the first thing that stood out,” Sermanni said. “She always had that pace. It was pace with power. Some players are kind of quick, but they don’t look that quick – they sort of glide. Sam had a real power, she reminded me of a young Frank Farina.”

It’s been part of her weaponry that hasn’t evaporated with age. If anything, it’s gone to another level since her move to England in 2019. Remaining just as speedy but now more powerful, she’s added more intelligence to her movement that makes her near impossible to mark.

Few players worked as hard to crack the professional tier as those of Kerr’s generation. Undoubtedly, it was one of Australia’s brightest. Her class of juniors included Emily van Egmond and Caitlin Foord – among the first names on the team sheet of today’s Matildas.

Within two years, all three were fully capped senior national team players. Sermanni was the coach who unearthed the trio. Kerr came first, playing for Australia at the age of 15 in 2009. It was a role she balanced with two junior national teams, two clubs and an institute.”

At that particular time they were playing in the W-League, under 17s, under 20s and the senior team,” Sermanni. “They were like full-time footballers even at that age of 15, 16. 17. That grounding and education and games they got was huge for their development.”

Work ethic

Kerr worked extremely hard to get to where she is. However, goals weren’t always in abundance for her. Initially deployed as a winger, she started her career as a provider of goals rather a scorer of them. She had an instinctive knack for scoring, but hadn’t been trained as an out-and-out striker. When she made the transition to become a centre-forward, under Despotovski at Perth Glory in 2015, she took to the new position like a duck to water.

“She wants to work extremely hard to improve her game in all aspects,” he said. “We changed her position from a winger to a striker when she joined Perth. The simple reason was, I was thinking she was not utilised enough at the winger position because she was so far away from the goal, and why would you limit such a footballer like that to be on the wing rather than being a number nine and being close to the goal?”

She worked tirelessly to improve her finishing. She studied positional play intensely and always sought to improve herself.

“The biggest learning from me about her is that even though she’s achieved all these things, and is doing all the things that she does for club and country, there is this inner drive, that maybe not too many people see, to be better,” Matildas assistant coach Mel Andreatta said. “She is always thinking about football, not just the team but her own performance and how she can get better.”

Technique

With that relentless desire to get better, Kerr’s skills sharpened. She always had a great first touch and technique but until it was applied to her finishing, the task of moulding her from a winger to a striker would have been fruitless. That’s why Despotovski focused heavily on improving her finishing with both feet, from distance and close range while coaching her at Perth.”

We exposed some weakness in her game which was her finishing. Not being a striker, we had to work on that and that was the five-year period she was playing with us,” Despotovski said. “Now she is striking the ball with the left and right equally as good. Now what I saw on the weekend in the FA Cup, that goal she scored chipping the goalkeeper – that never used to be present in her game.”

Today, Kerr can score from distance. She also has the instinct of a poacher. She is lethal on the counter and a threat in the air.“

Look at those two finishes in the FA Cup final – full pace, she’s running towards goal, sees the keeper caught in no man’s land, and dinks them,” Andreatta said. “What I do know about Sam is she doesn’t shy away from areas of improvement. You’ll often see her at the end of a national team session working on different ways to finish, different techniques from different zones. Again, it relates to that inner drive and determination to be the best footballer – probably in the world.”

Football intelligence

However, all the ball skills in the world are useless unless a player can get into positions to score and make runs at the right times. Kerr always had the pace and power to do just that, but it wasn’t until she moved to England to join Chelsea in 2019 that she truly mastered her movement and mobility.

According to Sermanni, in her early years, Kerr was “a little bit inconsistent, as are all young players”. Today she operates on a higher level, for longer periods.

Watching from afar, the most significant change Sermanni sees is to do with her decision-making and movement. “Since she’s gone to England, she has taken her game to another level where she is an absolutely completely accomplished player,” he said. “Now her football IQ, her knowledge and decision-making is outstanding.”

According to Andreatta, that drastic improvement in her off the ball movement and sharp decision-making in possession is a testament to Kerr’s dedication and thirst to improve.”

Her knowledge and awareness of space, the opponents around her in that space, and how she uses it, has gone to another level,” she said. “That’s through her watching the game, this thirst to be even better, and training and playing daily against the best footballers in the world ... against the best, you have even less time to make decisions.”

Attitude

“You play football with your head and your legs are there to help you” – Dutch great Johan Cruyff.

The only thing more memorable than some of the wonderful goals Kerr has scored is the smile on her face after every one of them. Sometimes it’s accompanied by a backflip.

Even at the age of 28, Kerr plays with the exuberance of a child running out on a Saturday morning. It’s part of her charm. In an era of highly professionalised sport where players deal with everything from insecure contracts, endorsements, fan commitments, media scrutiny, social media bombardment and pressure from coaches, clubs and country, Kerr manages to never lose sight of the joy of the game.”

It was obvious from early on she had the raw materials, and it was obvious she had the confidence and attitude to cope with whatever she needed to cope with. She had all the ingredients,” Sermanni said.

The former Matildas’ boss recalls national team away trips where several teams would stay inside the same hotel. Within hours of arrival, Kerr would have talked with players from every team. “She would just be friends with them all. She was like a magnet for players, whether it was Japan, Vietnam or South Korea,” he said.

It was part of her carefree persona. Jovial, fun and happy – often masking an extremely competitive and professional streak. “She just had an attitude – people talk about playing with a smile on their face, she always did that. When you won, she was happy,” Sermanni said.

“She was a classic player where she plays a game with passion and fierceness but she always plays with an enjoyment and a smile and that���s been evident throughout her career.”

Leadership

For all her obvious talents, few ever touted Kerr as a future captain of the Matildas. In her earlier years, she was a lovable larrikin. In many ways she still is. She doesn’t have the hard nose of archetypal captains nor the harsh, loud demeanour. Instead, it’s her burning desire for constant improvement that earned her the Matildas’ armband.

Former Australia coach Ante Milicic saw a leader in Kerr during his first team meeting in 2019. Kerr was first in the room, sat front and centre and was the most engaged. She backed it up with impressive performances on the training field to show how she’s a leader by example.“

In many ways she really reminds me of Tim Cahill, to be perfectly honest. She’s confident, she has that belief, she carries the team and her work ethic and her discipline and the way she’s handled herself from the very first team meeting,” Milicic told the Herald and The Age at the time. “She leads by her actions on the field. There are a few examples from what I’ve seen prior to meeting her, and meeting the squad and just working with her in the last few days, it was just confirmation for me.”

Every so often, Despotovski messages Kerr to congratulate her on her latest result, goal or performance. He may have played a role in her progress but doesn’t take credit for her development.

He does, however, crack a wry smile when he reminds her of his prediction five years ago when he moved her from the wing to centre forward.

“I had an opinion in 2016, I said if Sam Kerr starts scoring more goals she will be the best player in the world,” he said. “Sam thought I was crazy – she laughed at me.”

[siegelst]

Anonymous asked [

Curiosity - Passage of time [ Day 30 - escape] by Anonymous

Rated Explicit Mature 18+

clothes kink, major size kink, voice kink, karl has part lycan in him, scent-marking, tits, Karl's new roommate tries to escape.

warning: don’t know German but using google instead, sorry.

Day 30  - Escape

"Foreigners seem to have broke in your factory." said mother Miranda.  I scoff at this siting back with legs spread out, puffed a cigar. A faint echo of panic went through me. But I had a lie ready to recited. Believe in the lie. It’s been a month since that happened and now she discovers it.  "Why haven't you alerted me of these people?"

"Cause it’s very easy. They all dead! They f*cken died the day they broke into my factory." I barked, waving around my cigar in my left hand.  "I would think super size bi^ch would have said something after i left their bodies outside her door,"

"Only 1 out of the 5 you gave me was good." said super size bi^ch.  

"Oh? No thank you for me?" I sneered back, leaning forward.

"I thought there were 6?" muttered fish freak.

"You'll can't have all the fun! I wanted fun. So I used the last one before she met her end to Sturm." I gloat as i sit back, blew smoke before saying "She screamed wonderfully."

"Ugg you horrible disgusting man thing." She screeched.  I rolled my eyes as i puffed my cigar.  As if she wasn't taking in maidens in to do live experiments and have them bleed dry for her wine.  At least when i do experiments they are dead subjects. Device on me, made a noise. Motherf*cker. The meeting didn't end until 20 minutes later. 

female p.o.v.

After managing to pick the lock,  I started for the elevator before studying the map of the factory.   I went for the stairs that went down.  I ran into some rooms, some had medical tables.  having no idea where i was even if i had a map with me. I get lost easily.  If i find more stairs i get out of here right?  

The factory was noisy and the temperature was getting hot humid.  An Hour later i was still going through random halls. 30 minutes later i’m falling into a pit full of metal scraps. I climbed through the wreckage before finding a ladder high up.  I had to jump to the first bar before pulling up and walked along the metal beam. To find a landing with a machine with a level on it. I pushed it down. Nothing happened. Darn. Must not be enough energy.  

I found another walk beam that connects to main flooring. 20 minutes later i was in end of hallway before I looked down to see a bars blocking a tunnel that could be moved. After pulling i finally get it to move before crawling through the cobwebs tunnel.  I hear static as if from out of tune radio as i pulled myself out.  Ending up in a narrowed hall.  

"Oh Buttercup, you better not be escaping. I will find you." Oh no i thought he was gone for the day. As i crept toward other end of hall, go through another room, to see one his creation to be laying on table behind cage fence.  I couldn't get through.  "Best to turn yourself in and no one gets hurt"

Maybe i could break down the cage fence. Or go back into the tunnel. a snicker was heard. "You're lost again, buttercup?"  

I went back through the tunnel before going down a hallway. Crap, didn't i go through here before? I’m back in the rooms where medical tables at again, second guessing myself.  I open 1 door to see the walls littered with various sharp knives  and saws before closing it.   "You going in circles, darling.  You're lost! admit it!"

"Shut up"  I muttered as I started to try any door to get away. A booming laugh echo though the speakers. I took too many turns and find myself falling falling down until hitting cold water. 

I gasped & cough after resurfacing.  It was dark where I’m at. I find stable ground to pull myself out of the water and looked up to see how far I fallen. pretty dam* far apparently. Looks like I’m at rock bottom. I didn’t hear boss over the speakers. Maybe the speakers don’t reach down here?  walked some steps away before remembering i did have my phone on me. turning on the flashlight feature - i moved it around to see where i was.  Seems like these metals were abandon and i could see a old motorbike connected to a tank wheels, but didn’t seem to be finished yet.   I moved around some more before accidentally bump into a metal contraption.  Stepping back and walking around it i could make out that the metal contraption was a metal horse. Now that is neat and pretty. if only boss makes something like this instead of using dead bodies.

I turn around the humongous room before pausing to see shoes. for a second i thought it was my boss. but noticing that the shoes look old, ripped, and way bigger than his, and hearing a animal growl got my heart in my throat. Moving the light up up up to barely see a hairy man with the wildest mane of a lion that been fried from the snow.  I gulped and started backing up. I barely make out the sharp fangs, canines, the ripped clothes and the blood splatter on him and the gigantic hammer he was holding only shown slightly when reflected from the light cause the flashlight can only go so far. The dude looks to be 13 ft tall. I met my first lycan.  

The lycan picked me up in one hand, looked back to see the floor getting further further away, as i turn back to be inspected by the lycan. i raised my arms to cover my face. hearing the loud sniffing sounds filled my ears before we were interrupted by a voice.

“Now now Urias, don’t eat her.” said my boss, his voice dripping like hot caramel, as lights began to flicker on.  I see the lycan clearer and more terrifying, see metal scraps floating around  the room and see. . . my boss - using the metal scraps to walk down to us like a escalator. I glanced at the lycan as if to say ‘You seeing what i’m seeing?’. the lycan gave the an unimpressed look.  Boss landed on the ground, walking towards us, talking lower, his eyebrows raised up slightly. “Give her to me Urias. Now.”

There seem to be a warning in the way he spoke that line. If i had looked around I would noticed something was aiming at the lycan. but was too busy looking at the teeth on the guy. they were smeared with blood. The lycan didn’t want to for some odd reason. I’m cold from the water being held up 12-13 feet in the air by a lycan and I’m tired, and my shock is almost over so i could scream anytime.  I covered my face again as the lycan went near to sniff at me again before feeling something run up my face quickly, warm wet. . . . did the lycan just licked me??  Feeling i was being lowered before boss snatch me back, shoving me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. was it me or did he sighed in relief? nah my tired mind just playing tricks on me. “Thank you Urias. Go back to your den.”

He turned away to walk somewhere. I push on his back to glanced back at the large lycan, he was still standing there and the hammer was huge, dripping with blood against the floor. sh*t maybe boss was worried about the lycan eating me.

I was back at square one in the cell as boss threw me onto the old mattress. Leaning over me, his hand grip my face, him furious.

"You’re dam* lucky that Urias didn’t see you as wolf chow, Buttercup.” He hissed at me. His forearm was hot against my wet cloths. “Otherwise I be mopping up your remains of your bones if it wasn’t.”

A metal chain cuff clicked my ankle. He pulled me right up against him my body leaving the bed slightly. “How the F*ck did you get out?”

I narrowed my eyes at him, giving him the look of ‘I ain’t telling you.’.  Next thing i know i was, thrown over his thighs  - his thighs against my stomach and felt a hard smack on my backside. D-did he just spank me?? once the shock of him spanking me I start to yell and struggling but he wasn’t budging.  He was yelling in German.

Heisenberg. p.o.v. 

The bi*ch brought this on onto herself. i thought as I laid a harsh hand against her cloth backside. “Du undankbare Schlampe, du hättest getötet werden können von Urias. Oh, jetzt bist du wütend? naja ich bin es auch. Hör auf herumzuschlagen, Scheiße.” 

Finally i get to see my new roommate mad. she was drench from her trip in the water channel, wetting my clothes in result of it. Her cloths sticking to her like second skin leaving nothing to my imagination. view of her nipples perked through her thin layer of tank top and my button up shirt dripping with excess water onto the cell floor. I pulled her back by her hair to drag her up to see if she’ll tell me. she shook her head.  Darling i could do this all day. I felt myself stiffen. Her cries and angry shouts means nothing.

Knowing where she was roughly when she fell, still didn’t stop my heart skip in panic. Arriving to sight of her in the hands of a12 ft lycan in the air, water glistening on her skin, her collarbone, neck, face, her tits tightening due to the cold, practically begging to be touch, and seeing Urias taking an interest in her was enough for me to start sweating. Of course she runs into the tallest lycan there is.

Her shocked face was barely make out with Urias hand snaked around her middle easily. F*ck even I was getting nervous. Urias licking her was a heart-stopping - almost had me shoot a rod between the bunny and the giant wolf. as he lowered the lass back to me, gave me huge relief she was back to me unharmed. her wet body bumping against my back, shoulders and chest as i stomped back to the cell was torture. I was brought to present as her finally breaking, sobbing over my lap. I felt myself twitch. 

“How the F*CK did you get out?” I growled, my hand cupping her under her chin to raise her up. I feel burn of her skin, my forearm brush against her tits briefly, making my cock jump in interests.  

“Bobby pin.” she hiccuped, trying not to cry in front of me. I glanced down toward the door of the cell, and sure enough see a non-metal bobby pin on the ground.

I shoved her off my lap, her hitting to cold cell floor, another chain attached to her other leg, her cold body shaking. I nudge her so she lay on her back, and pressed my shoe lightly onto the side of her stomach. She looked up at me in daze confused as she glanced at my shoe worriedly, her body displayed for me. before I removed my foot.

“Better get comfortable Buttercup” I said, as I stood, walked out of the cell. “You going to be here for a while.” 

Closed the cell, after obtaining the bobby pin and walked out of the room, ignoring her yapping, I have business to take care of.

translation:

You ungrateful bi*tch, you could have been killed by Urias. oh now you're angry? well so am I. Quit thrashing around, f*ck

[ravenadottir]

chapter 5

“I reckon is Soph.” Bobby suggested, whispering, glancing at his partner with the cheekiest of winks.

“What?” the librarian tried to keep his tone casual as the others looked at him. “It can’t be… sh-she barely likes the stuff she wears here...” He remembered how uncomfortable she was, the other night, in a tight dress, shaking his head with his brows creased. “Not her. It’s Priya. It has to be.”

“No offence, Noah, but um… I don’t care about the game’s points…” the crane operator chuckled, raising his brows at Bobby, almost as if asking for permission. Granted, he turned to walk the short distance towards the student, casting a look to ask if he was allowed to kiss her.

“Are you ok with this?” Noah nudged Bobby, still focusing on the scene happening right in front of their eyes, his heart pounding a little too strongly.

“Soph and I aren’t a couple…” the pastry chef shrugged but didn’t watch, facing the waves crashing over the beach, just below the villa property.

“We think it’s Sophia.” Gary’s hands held the sides of her face as he brushed his lips on hers, softly planting a kiss, the girl very welcoming of his gesture.

Marisol wasn’t pleased, and even interjected with disappointment. “Wow…”

No one really understood what she was on about. Her couple wasn’t exactly the next wedding to be scheduled, and as much as she liked raving about putting yourself first, she showed a side of jealousy no one really got why.

“Anyway… we think it’s Soph.”

“And that is… wrong.” Hope declared, marking a point for the girls, on the board, Priya stepping forward and winking at Gary, her expression smug,

“Your loss, babes.” She said, watching as he laughed on his way back, but not before winking at the girl he just kissed.

“I wouldn’t say ‘loss’, but pop off, Priya.”

Annoyed, and not aware of their own reaction, Bobby and Noah huffed.

“Something wrong there, Noah?” Gary asked, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“No.”

“Sure about that?”

“Yep.” 

hey! a little delayed, but i had some issues with our trip, and no internet whatsoever. but here’s chapter 5, featuring the ‘kiss and tell’ challenge, and lots of drama lurking!

let me know what you think, i loved writing this one, and i hope you love reading it!

❥ ch. 1 //  ❥ ch. 2 //  ❥ ch. 3 //  ❥ ch. 4 //  ❥ ch. 5

❥ sophia, the o.c // ❥ noah’s masterlist

credit to @ariendiel​ for noah’s faceclaim.