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starset21 · 11 months ago

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Disclaimer: I only own my original characters, I've done some research but there will likely be Navy/military inaccuracies, and I do not consent to the posting, translating, or publishing of my work to any 3rd party site, the only place it may be found is on tumblr and Wattpad under @.itswildflower

A/N: This story is heavily inspired by the hallmark movie of the same title and is very self-indulgent. I'm also trying a different format than I'm used to using so it may change in the future chapters. Hope everyone is having good winter holidays!

Looking for the other chapters? U.S.S. Christmas Masterlist

Summary: Kate and Jake take on New York City

Chapter 5: New York

“Oh! Look at this! Oh, I can't wait to see the rockettes and the the rockefeller Christmas tree, the decorations on fifth Avenue, but first, we gotta get New York pizza!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

“Okay, she's gonna wear me out. Now, the ship leaves at 8 P.M. on the dot. Don't be late,” Jackson reminded them.

“2000 hours. Roger that. I think the historical building is right up here,” Jake told Kate, taking her hand in his.

“Do you keep records of all the performances?” Kate asked the lady at the front desk.

“We sure do. The older ones haven't been transferred to the computer, though. We've had all kinds of personalities to perform for the troops. You said 1965?” she asked.

“Yes,” Jake nodded.

“The Polaris, right?” she asked again and Kate nodded.

“Do you see a Dorothy in there?” she asked.

“Oh! Here it is. It looks like Dorothy Milne. It lists her employment as a dance instructor,” the lady told them.

“Just like the journal says,” Kate whispered to Jake.

“She actually worked at the ovation dance studio right here in the city,” the lady told them.

“I could hug you right now,” Kate grinned and they headed out.

“We might just solve this Christmas mystery after all,” Jake told her, nudging her shoulder.

“I can't believe it! The ovation dance studio is actually still around! Wonder if Jonah tracked her down there. I remember the last passage in his journal said…”

"I saw Dorothy perform last night with the uso. She's breathtaking. It was like she was floating on air. I got to talk to her again after the show, and she's truly everything I imagined. Sweet, smart… But when I went to find her this morning, her brother said Dorothy left on the cargo plane. It's crazy, but I feel like I've known her forever. I have to find her after we dock in Norfolk."

“We might just solve this Christmas mystery after all,” Jake told her, nudging her shoulder as they headed into the dance studio. There were little ballerina’s dancing around the room.

“They are so sweet,” Kate couldn’t help commenting.

“Aren't they? Today's the dress rehearsal for our big Christmas show. Can I help you with something?” the instructor asked.

“Yes. Hi, I'm Kayleigh Wells of the Norfolk register newspaper. This is Lieutenant Seresin,” Kate introduced.

“Nice to meet you both. What's this about?” she asked.

“We're looking for a woman who might be a military spouse. Her name is Dorothy Milne. Apparently she worked here years ago,” Kate told her.

“Yes. Dorothy was my teacher as a girl. I eventually bought the studio from the owner,” she crossed her arms.

“Could you tell us more about her?” Kate asked.

“She, uh, moved to New York to be a rockette, but her dreams never quite panned out, so she worked here instead, and would sometimes perform for the troops with the USO,” the woman told them.

“Any idea where she was from?” Kate asked.

“Kansas City, I believe,” she told them.

“Do you have any idea if she was married to a pilot named Jonah?” Jake asked.

“I remember there was a pilot she met on an aircraft carrier. He came to find her after the ship docked. Surprised her with roses right here in the studio in the middle of class! But she had a boyfriend at the time who she said was planning to propose, so I'm not sure who she ended up with,” she told them.

“Any idea what Jonah’s last name is?” Kate asked.

“It was so long ago. After that Christmas, we were told Dorothy moved to California. But that's all I know. I'm sorry I couldn't be more help.”

“Thank you,” Kate gave her an appreciative smile.

“I think we could use a snack right now, have you ever had roasted chestnuts?” Kate asked Jake.

“No, actually,” Jake told her. Kate smiled and went up to a cart selling them.

“We'll take two,” she told the man and went to pull out some money.

“I got this,” Jake told her, handing the man money.

“Thank you. All right. Let's see what this is,” Jake said as they began their walk again.

“Mmm! Lot sweeter than I thought,” he told her after having one.

“Hmm. Kinda how I feel about you,” Kate teased.

“I'll take that as a compliment,” Jake laughed.

“So, have you ever been to New York before?” Kate asked him.

“When I was six my parents brought me here for Christmas,” he told her.

“Before the divorce?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yeah. It was our last Christmas as a family together,” he bit his lip and looked down.

“That's bittersweet.” Jake nodded.

“Yeah, but it was the best Christmas I ever had,” he looked at her.

“Well, I think it's nice that you have those memories. Whenever my dad would be home for Christmas, we'd always go to Picasso’s diner and we would get semi crispy bacon. It was kind of our thing. Semi crispy is the only way to go,” Kate told him.

“I know, right?” Jake asked and Kate laughed.

“That looks really familiar. New York model train museum annual Christmas show! I went there when I was here with my dad,” Jake pointed out.

“Yeah? Come on, you wanna go? It'd be fun!” Kate exclaimed.

“Uhh... I don't know…” he trailed off.

“Oh, come on! You said it yourself, best Christmas you ever had,” Kate taunted.

“All right, yeah. Let's do it,” Jake smiled.

“Okay. Perfect,” Kate smiles, taking his hand and pulling him along.

“This really brings me back,” Jake says as they wander through the train exhibits. “You okay?” Kate asks.

“Yeah, it's just, uh… I remember my dad taught me how trains worked when we were here. And after the divorce, that's pretty much all we talked about trains, planes… Pretty much anything with a motor. You know, we never went too deep. Stiff upper lip, you know?”

Kate nodded. “My mom was the complete opposite. I think after my dad died she was just so heartbroken all she wanted to do was talk about him, but… I couldn't do it,” she told him.

“Why not?” he asked.

“It was too painful,” Kate shrugged.

“I'm sorry. He died from an accident, right?” Jake asked and Kate nodded.

“I was 16… The day everything changed,” she told him.

“My dad says he was a great man,” he told her.

“He was. And he loved us very, very much. So all the times he invited me to go on the Christmas tiger cruise, I should have,” Kate sighed.

“Well, I'm sure he understood. It's not easy being a Navy brat,” Jake tells her.

“Yeah, well, it's something I still regret to this day.”

“Look, don't beat yourself up over it. Believe me, I get it. All the moving around, the uncertainty… Our dads were gone for months at a time,” Jake told her, nudging her shoulder.

“Well, you're lucky yours is still around. You should cherish that,” Kate told him.

“I do. You know, he… He bought me this little red train…” Jake trailed off.

“Yeah?”

“At the gift shop here. Ahh. I drove that thing around on every surface of our house until the wheels fell off,” he told her.

“That's really sweet,” Kate smiled.

“I'll never forget that moment we picked it out together. Cost five dollars, but… Nothin' meant more to me than that train.”

Kate paused at one of the displays. “Do you still have it?” she asked.

“Got lost in one of the moves,” Jake shrugged.

“I'm sorry,” Kate apologized, she knew the feeling of losing something in a move fairly well.

“It's the memory that matters, right?” Jake asked. Kate nodded.

“Hey. Let's go check out the north pole train!” Jake exclaimed.

“You know what? I'm gonna get us some hot chocolate, but I'll meet you over there?” Kate asked.

“All right,” he smiled and headed over to the display.

“This is flight 747 to JFK tower, comin' in for a landing,” a little boy is flying a toy plane around.

“Copy, flight 747. Proceed to runway one-zero-niner and wait for clearance. Psst!” Jake pretended like he was a tower operator.

“Psst! Copy,” the little boy responded.

“I brought Teddy here for the trains, but he's obsessed with flying,” the dad laughed.

“Smart kid. You know, Jake is actually a fighter pilot in the Navy,” Kate told them, walking up with two hot chocolates.

“Whoa,” the kid marveled.

“At your service,” Jake tipped his imaginary hat.

“Do you fly off aircraft carriers?” the boy asked.

“Sure do. But flying off the carrier is the easy part. Landing, that's the hard part,” Jake told him.

“That's so cool! I want to be a Navy pilot!” the kid exclaimed.

“Well, you certainly can if you put the work in. Here. This…” He pulls out a pair of wings that they give to the kids on the cruises from his pocket. “Is for you, eh?” he offered with a smile.

“Whoa! No take-backs?” the kid asked.

“No take-backs, buddy. Promise,” Jake smiled.

“You just made his Christmas. Thank you so much. Have a great holiday,” the dad told him.

“Merry Christmas,” Jake told them as they walked away.

“You know, you were really good with him. And did I just hear you say, "merry Christmas"?” Kate asked.

“Yeah, well, don't tell my shipmates,” Jake told her.

“Oh, no, they'd never believe me. Hey, we should probably go get something to eat, and I know a place that's gonna actually change the way you see Christmas forever,” Kate grinned.

“Mind games, huh?” Jake asked.

“It'll definitely mess with your brain. Come on,” Kate laughed and took his hand in hers.

Christmas music played quietly in the background.

“Brain freeze!” Jake groaned.

“They don't call it the colossal Christmas cocoa for nothing,” Kate laughed.

“We don't mess around here. We take Christmas very seriously. Two burgers coming up,” the waitress told them.

“Thank you. I feel like I don't have a care in the world right now. Honestly, that's not happened very often,” she told Jake.

“That's how I feel when I'm flying my jet over the ocean, those moments when I'm at total peace. Until I realize I have to land on a ship that feels like it's the size of a postage stamp,” Jake laughed.

“Does that ever scare you?” Kate asked and Jake shook his head.

“I love every second of what I do. The adrenaline and the rush… I don't think I'm scared of anything,” he told her.

“Not even Christmas?”

Jake raised a brow. “Christmas? Why would I be scared of Christmas?” he asked.

“I'm just sayin', it… Kind of seems like you've been running away from it,” she told him.

“What do you mean?”

“Based on what you told me earlier, it seemed like maybe your parents got divorced shortly after your trip here,” she said simply.

“Yeah, well, after that, it was mostly mom and me at Christmas. Just wasn't the same without my family together. Just couldn't really see the magic in the holiday anymore,” Jake shrugged.

“I'm sorry.”

Jake waved her off.

“And I'm also sorry 'cause I totally judged you,” Kate apologized.

“It's okay. I know I can be a bit of a Christmas curmudgeon,” Jake nodded.

“A bit?” Kate teased.

“Mmhmm,” Jake laughed.

“Well, it's okay. If I wave my merry magic wand, maybe you'd think about embracing some new Christmas memories,” Kate tried.

“Hmm? Like what?” he asked.

“Like, you know, today, we… You made the little boy smile at the train show, right?” Jake hummed in response.

“He met his hero. And we saw the world's most adorable dance troupe, and I wasn't gonna say anything, but it appears that you actually took a bite of your candy cane,” Kate told him.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Jake hid the candy cane.

“I haven't had this much fun in a long time,” he told her.

“Good!” Kate smiled.

“You're amazing.”

Kate tilted her head questioningly.

“The way you made me imagine our day like a living scrapbook. You really have a way with words,” Jake clarified.

“Well, I'm a writer. So…”

“You're much more than that,” Jake told her, and it felt like he was looking into her soul.

Her phone started buzzing and Kate smiled apologetically before reading the text messages.

“It's my mom. Oh, my gosh, we have to go. It's 7:30!” Jake’s eyes widened and then they were both collecting their jackets.

“Uh, sorry! Forget the burgers!” Kate called to the server.

“Sorry. Here you go! Merry Christmas,” Jake added, placing money down on the table.

“Yeah, merry Christmas! Sorry!” The two of them ran out.

“Taxi! Taxi!” Kate yelled and it only took a moment before one pulled up and they got in.

“Pier 90,” Jake told the driver.

“We're almost there,” Kate groaned as they got stuck in traffic with 10 minutes till the ship left.

“We're never gonna make it. Maybe we should run,” Jake suggested.

“Run?!”

“Yeah. We can do it. Come on!”

Jake was handing the driver money and climbing out of the taxi. He took Kate’s hand and they began running.

“Go, go, go, go!” he encouraged.

“You're crazy! Whoa! Excuse us! Sorry!” Kate yelled as they ran by people.

“It's this way! Hi, Santa! Oh, wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Jake had to stop and put some bills in the santa’s bucket.

“Merry Christmas!” he exclaimed as they took off running again.

“You barely made it, Lieutenant,” one of the sailors greeted them as they climbed aboard the ship.

“I can't believe we just ran 15 blocks,” Kate panted, trying to catch her breath.

“I know,” Jake laughed.

“Thank you for today. You know, for all the memories. The new ones.”

Kate smiled.

“You're welcome, Jake.”

#starset writes #jake seresin x oc #jake seresin fanfiction #hangman top gun #jake seresin #jake hangman seresin #pre tgm #fic:// u.s.s christmas #au #top gun maverick au

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peterchase633 · 2 months ago

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kvetchlandia · 4 years ago

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Dave Heath New York City c.1957

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated, who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war, who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull, who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall, who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York, who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls, incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between, Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind, who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo, who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox, who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge, a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State out of the moon, yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars, whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the Synagogue cast on the pavement, who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall, suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of China under junk-withdrawal in Newark’s bleak furnished room, who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts, who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night, who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas, who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels, who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy, who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight smalltown rain, who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup, and followed the brilliant Spaniard to converse about America and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship to Africa, who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fireplace Chicago, who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the FBI in beards and shorts with big pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incomprehensible leaflets, who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism, who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed, who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons, who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication, who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts, who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy, who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love, who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may, who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath when the blond & naked angel came to pierce them with a sword, who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman’s loom, who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness, who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sunrise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake, who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver—joy to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses’ rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings & especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too, who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in dreams, woke on a sudden Manhattan, and picked themselves up out of basements hung-over with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemployment offices, who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the East River to open to a room full of steam-heat and opium, who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment cliff-banks of the Hudson under the wartime blue floodlight of the moon & their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion, who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of Bowery, who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music, who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in their lofts, who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded by orange crates of theology, who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish, who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom, who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg, who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade, who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores where they thought they were growing old and cried, who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality, who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer, who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of the subway window, jumped in the filthy Passaic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street, danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed phonograph records of nostalgic European 1930s German jazz finished the whiskey and threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears and the blast of colossal steamwhistles, who barreled down the highways of the past journeying to each other’s hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation, who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity, who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver & waited in vain, who watched over Denver & brooded & loned in Denver and finally went away to find out the Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes, who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other’s salvation and light and breasts, until the soul illuminated its hair for a second, who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for impossible criminals with golden heads and the charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet blues to Alcatraz, who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers to boys or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the daisychain or grave, who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism & were left with their insanity & their hands & a hung jury, who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy, and who were given instead the concrete void of insulin Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong & amnesia, who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia, returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, and tears and fingers, to the visible madman doom of the wards of the madtowns of the East, Pilgrim State’s Rockland’s and Greystone’s foetid halls, bickering with the echoes of the soul, rocking and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon, with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, and the last door closed at 4 A.M. and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination— ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you’re really in the total animal soup of time— and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed with a sudden flash of the alchemy of the use of the ellipsis catalogue a variable measure and the vibrating plane, who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed, and trapped the archangel of the soul between 2 visual images and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun and dash of consciousness together jumping with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head, the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come after death, and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow of the band and blew the suffering of America’s naked mind for love into an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years.

--Allen Ginsberg, “Howl, part 1″ 1956

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astrognossienne · 5 years ago

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film noir lists for the signs

aries: high sierra, mildred pierce, they made me a criminal, angels with dirty faces, scarface (1932), the sign of the ram, brute force, act of violence, bad blonde, the set-up, the enforcer, the harder they fall (1956), johnny eager, the sign of the ram

taurus: the big sleep, kansas city confidential, the docks of new york, the petrified forest, not as a stranger, shadow of a doubt, the big clock, alias nick beal, angels over broadway, the treasure of the sierra madre, death of a salesman

gemini: double indemnity, the roaring twenties, the asphalt jungle, ace in the hole, scarlet street, dead reckoning, among the living, they won’t believe me, strangers on a train, the dark mirror, a double life, highway 301, nightmare alley, the spiral staircase

cancer: the postman always rings twice, gilda, detour, angel face, moonrise, the big heat, caught (1949), casablanca, rififi, the reckless moment, the naked city, niagara, rear window, the desperate hours, diabolique (1955), he walked by night, man on a tightrope

leo: notorious, you only live once, born to be bad, white heat, the big shot, human desire, sunset boulevard, the bad and the beautiful, i want to live!, all the king's men, portrait of jennie, dark city, fourteen hours, my name is julia ross, queen bee

virgo: laura, fallen angel, the woman in the window, sudden fear, brighton rock, ministry of fear, where the sidewalk ends, the night of the hunter, kiss me deadly, the accused, shadow of a doubt, rebecca, a stolen face, hollow triumph, the narrow margin

libra: the blue dahlia, the glass key, a woman’s face, rebecca, i am a fugitive from a chain gang, daisy kenyon, leave her to heaven, murder my sweet, the strange love of martha ivers

scorpio: the killers, underworld (1927), marked woman, kiss tomorrow goodbye, criss cross (1949), possessed, touch of evil, the killing, night and the city, another man’s poison, phantom lady, dragonwyck, i walked with a zombie, ossessione (1942)

sagittarius: humoresque, key largo, dark passage, crossfire, the hitch-hiker, gun crazy, they live by night, strangers on a train, pickup on south street, affair in trinidad, smash up: the story of a woman, detective story, edge of the city, the mask of dimitrios, no way out, odds against tomorrow

capricorn: m, the maltese falcon, in a lonely place, this gun for hire, ride the pink horse, the big combo, the narrow margin, sweet smell of success, dark passage, citizen kane, the lodger, out of the fog

aquarius: gaslight, la bête humaine, the lady from shanghai, crack-up, the stranger, vertigo, the prowler, odd man out, the set-up, elevator to the gallows, the strange woman, hangover square, odd man out

pisces: nocturne, spellbound, the letter (1940), the third man, out of the past, while the city sleeps, the wrong man, on dangerous ground, phantom lady, an act of murder, the lost moment, the lost weekend, possessed, the man with the golden arm

#film #film noir #aries #taurus #gemini #cancer #leo #virgo #libra #scorpio #sagittarius #capricorn #aquarius #pisces #the signs #mine

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newloverofbeauty · 4 years ago

Photo

Richard Avedon: Peter Orlovsky & AllenGinsberg (1963)

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural

darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,

who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,

who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,

who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall,

who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,

who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night

with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls,

incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson,

illuminating all the motionless world of Time between,

Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over

the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun

and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings

and kind king light of mind,

who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx

on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-

wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,

who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale

beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,

who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,

a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State out of the moon,

yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and

eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars, whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes,

meat for the Synagogue cast on the pavement,

who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall,

suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of China under junk-withdrawal in Newark’s bleak furnished room,

who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts,

who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night,

who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,

who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels,

who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy,

who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight smalltown rain,

who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup, and

followed the brilliant Spaniard to converse about America and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship to Africa,

who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees and

the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fireplace Chicago,

who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the FBI in beards and shorts with big

pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incomprehensible leaflets,

who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism,

who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing

while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed

down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed,

who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons,

who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime

but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,

who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts,

who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,

who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love,

who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may,

who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath

when the blond & naked angel came to pierce them with a sword,

who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate

the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb

and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman’s loom,

who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a package of

cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall

and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness,

who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset, and were red eyed

in the morning but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sunrise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake,

who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these poems,

cocksman and Adonis of Denver—joy to the memory of his innumerable

lays of girls in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses’ rickety rows, on mountaintops

in caves or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings &

especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too,

who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in dreams, woke on a sudden

Manhattan, and picked themselves up out of basements hung-over with heartless Tokay

and horrors of Third Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemployment offices,

who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks waiting for a

door in the East River to open to a room full of steam-heat and opium,

who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment cliff-banks of the Hudson under the

wartime blue floodlight of the moon & their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion,

who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of Bowery,

who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music,

who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in their lofts,

who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded by orange crates of theology,

who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish,

who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom,

who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg,

who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade,

who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to

open antique stores where they thought they were growing old and cried,

who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments of fashion & the nitroglycerine

shrieks of the fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality,

who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown

and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer,

who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of the subway window, jumped in the

filthy Passaic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street, danced on broken wineglasses

barefoot smashed phonograph records of nostalgic European 1930s German jazz

finished the whiskey and threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears and the blast of colossal steamwhistles,

who barreled down the highways of the past journeying to each other’s hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation,

who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision

or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity,

who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver & waited in vain,

who watched over Denver & brooded & loned in Denver and finally went away to find out

the Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,

who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other’s salvation and light and breasts, until the soul illuminated its hair for a second,

who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for impossible criminals with golden heads

and the charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet blues to Alcatraz,

who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers

to boys or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the daisychain or grave,

who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism & were left with their insanity & their hands & a hung jury,

who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented

themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy, and

who were given instead the concrete void of insulin Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong & amnesia,

who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia,

returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, and tears and fingers, to the

visible madman doom of the wards of the madtowns of the East,

Pilgrim State’s Rockland’s and Greystone’s foetid halls, bickering with the echoes

of the soul, rocking and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon,

with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, and the last door closed at 4 A.M.

and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture,

a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination—

ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you’re really in the total animal soup of time—

and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed with a sudden flash of the

alchemy of the use of the ellipsis catalogue a variable measure and the vibrating plane,

who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed, and

trapped the archangel of the soul between 2 visual images and joined the elemental verbs

and set the noun and dash of consciousness together jumping with sensation of Pater

Omnipotens Aeterna Deus

to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you

speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head,

the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come after death,

and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow of the band and

blew the suffering of America’s naked mind for love into an eli eli lamma lamma

sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio

with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat

a thousand years.

–Allen Ginsberg, “Howl, part 1″ 1956

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vsservicesllc19 · 6 months ago

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Maximizing Efficiency with Cross-Docking in Kansas City

Cross-docking has become an essential strategy in modern supply chain management. By reducing handling and storage times, businesses can streamline operations and cut costs. In Kansas City, the advantages of cross-docking services are especially evident due to the city's strategic location and robust logistics infrastructure.

What is Cross-Docking?

Cross-docking is a logistics practice where products are unloaded from incoming trucks and directly loaded onto outbound trucks with minimal storage time. This method drastically reduces warehousing costs and speeds up delivery times.

Key Benefits of Cross-Docking

Reduced Storage Costs: Minimizes the need for warehouse space.

Faster Delivery: Speeds up the distribution process.

Lower Handling Costs: Reduces labor costs by minimizing handling.

Improved Inventory Management: Decreases the need for large inventories.

Why Choose Cross-Docking in Kansas City?

Kansas City is a prime location for cross-docking due to its central position in the United States. This location makes it a hub for national distribution, ensuring efficient reach to various parts of the country.

Strategic Advantages

Central Location: Kansas City's central location reduces transportation times.

Robust Infrastructure: Excellent road, rail, and air connectivity.

Skilled Workforce: Access to a skilled labor pool for logistics and warehousing.

Cross-Docking Services in Kansas City

Several logistics providers in Kansas City offer specialized cross-docking services. These services include unloading, sorting, and loading products, ensuring that goods move quickly and efficiently through the supply chain.

Features of Top Cross-Docking Services

Advanced Technology: Use of the latest logistics technology for tracking and management.

Experienced Staff: Skilled professionals to handle operations efficiently.

Customized Solutions: Tailored services to meet specific business needs.

Reliable Transportation: Access to a fleet of well-maintained trucks for timely deliveries.

Cross Docking in Kansas City KS

In Kansas City, KS, businesses benefit from dedicated cross dock services. These services help companies minimize storage time and improve the speed of their supply chains, providing a competitive edge in the market.

How Cross Docking Works

Receiving: Goods are received from suppliers and immediately sorted.

Sorting: Products are sorted based on their destinations.

Loading: Sorted goods are loaded onto outbound trucks.

Shipping: Trucks deliver goods to their final destinations.

Advantages of Cross Docking in Kansas City

Implementing cross-docking strategies in Kansas City brings numerous benefits to businesses. Here are some key advantages:

Enhanced Efficiency: Streamlines the logistics process, reducing overall lead times.

Cost Savings: Lower storage and handling costs lead to significant savings.

Improved Customer Satisfaction: Faster delivery times enhance customer experiences.

Better Resource Utilization: Optimizes the use of labor and transportation resources.

Selecting the Right Cross Docking Services in Kansas

Choosing the right cross-docking service provider is crucial for maximizing the benefits. Consider the following factors when selecting a provider:

Reputation: Look for providers with a proven track record of reliability and efficiency.

Technology: Ensure the provider uses advanced logistics technology.

Scalability: Choose a provider that can scale services to match your business growth.

Customer Service: Excellent customer service ensures smooth operations and quick resolutions to issues.

Innovations in Cross-Docking

Technological advancements are continually improving cross-docking operations. Innovations include:

Automated Sorting Systems: Enhance sorting speed and accuracy.

Real-Time Tracking: Provides live updates on the status of goods.

Data Analytics: Helps optimize routes and improve decision-making.

Robotics: Automates repetitive tasks, increasing efficiency.

Conclusion

Cross-docking is a powerful logistics strategy that can significantly improve efficiency and reduce costs. Kansas City's strategic location and excellent infrastructure make it an ideal hub for cross-docking services. By leveraging these services, businesses can enhance their supply chain operations, ensuring faster delivery times and improved customer satisfaction.

Investing in top-notch cross-docking services in Kansas City KS offers a competitive advantage, enabling companies to stay ahead in the fast-paced world of logistics. Embrace cross-docking to streamline your operations and reap the benefits of this innovative approach.

#cross-docking kansas city #cross dock kansas city ks #cross dock kansas

0 notes

scifigeneration · 5 years ago

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A different kind of mini break: imagined cities to explore from your sofa

by Serena Trowbridge, Drew Cattanach, and Paul March-Russell

KHIUS/Shutterstock

Lockdown is preventing many of us from travelling to cities we might have been longing to visit. But we can take this opportunity to explore urban landscapes that exist in other worlds. Three experts introduce cities featured in novels, poetry and video games.

Utopian London

Utopia seems like a good place to spend some time just now. William Morris’ novel News from Nowhere (1890) takes Londoner William Guest, tired of the dirty city and his hard work, to a future London where the birds sing in the trees again. People are content, with rich full lives in a place where pollution, poverty and misery are forgotten. The medieval aesthetics and socialist politics of this ideal future are improbable and optimistic, but delightful and vividly portrayed.

William Morris, News From Nowhere. William Morris/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC

Though Guest is later returned to the dingy present of Victorian London, he takes back hope: of a changed world where everyone’s worth is recognised and work and leisure are productive and inspiring. The novel concludes that this future may yet be realised with communal effort, so that this beautiful, ideal London “may be called a vision rather than a dream”. ST

A bustling city

City Trees, a short poem by Edna St Vincent Millay (1921), recalls us to a time when our cities were busy places, rather than the deserted streets of a locked-down world. Millay’s poem evokes a pause, a loitering under a tree, perhaps seeking shade or shelter from the rain, straining to hear the “thin and sweet” sound a tree makes. In my head this is in Paris, though it could be any city street or country lane.

Claude Monet, Boulevard des Capucines. Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-ND

This simple poem offers a moment of stillness in a busy place, and reminds us to look up, down, around, to pay attention to the tiny sounds and sights and movements which are signs of urban nature. Millay invites us to pay attention to the quieter aspects of life which are so often lost in the day’s noisy rough-and-tumble. ST

New Crobuzon

The author China Miéville is a Londoner since childhood and cities appear in most of his fictions. The city of New Crobuzon was first introduced in his novel Perdido Street Station, published in 2000. A congested, polluted capital whose factories run on alchemy, New Crobuzon is home to a vast array of human, non-human and hybrid creatures. The majority are exploited and abused by the ruling oligarchy and its state militia.

New Crobuzon is an industrial megacity perpetually on the point of collapse. Tithi Luadthong/Shutterstock

The city, though, is perpetually on the point of collapse. The Dickensian echoes of this fantastical yet heavily industrialised landscape suggest that New Crobuzon is only a slightly distorted version of Miéville’s London. PM-R

Viriconium

In his acknowledgements to Perdido Street Station, Miéville credits the influence of M John Harrison. Harrison’s Viriconium series, published between 1971 and 1985, may be fantasy’s best kept secret. The titular city is set on a far-future Earth and salvaged from scraps of technology. In the first novel, The Pastel City (1971), it seems to be a physical location. By the first sequel, A Storm of Wings (1980), it has become – like Joyce’s Dublin – an externalisation of the protagonists’ mental state.

In the third novel, In Viriconium (1982), the city is exposed as a fiction that disguises our real world yet also seeps into it. As Harrison later remarked, Viriconium is an invitation not “to control things. Learn to love the vertigo of experience instead.” PM-R

Novigrad

The Free City of Novigrad appears in the video game Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The games and subsequent Netflix season are based on a series of fantasy novels of the same name, by Andrzej Sapkowski. Novigrad is a bustling economic hub, with busy trade routes exporting grain to the four kingdoms of the game’s world. The busy docks, lively squares and criss-crossing canals are modelled on medieval Amsterdam, and capture a snapshot of a crowded and dirty antique European capital. You can explore the oak-beamed townhouses which line the main thoroughfares or the dank monster-infested sewers.

Novigrad is inhabited by throngs of medieval townsfolk who you can interact with: exchanging conversation or trading goods and become embroiled in arching narratives or simply gaining an insight into the everyday life of a Novigradian. The city might not be a picture-postcard European city break, but the lavish detail makes it compelling nonetheless. DC

The Vault

Fallout Shelter is a free-to-play simulation game for smartphones and tablets. It is a twisted slice of American pie set in a post-apocalyptic future. Playing the game, you are the overseer of a vault, a subterranean city that has become a haven for dwellers, who are the remnants of humanity escaping the arid nuclear wasteland above.

The vault is styled in the futuristic Raygun gothic aesthetic – bright and energetic, with art deco overtones. However, the subtle lighting, muted palette and closeted rooms compromise the optimism and unbridled futurism of the style’s 1950s Americana.

The game unfolds as you oversee the day-to-day activities of your dwellers while sending teams out into the wasteland. Here, they scavenge for raw materials and complete quests as part of an engaging multi-faceted narrative. DC

About The Authors:

Serena Trowbridge is a Reader in Victorian Literature at Birmingham City University; Drew Cattanach is a Lecturer in Computer Games Development at the University of Westminster, and Paul March-Russell is a Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Kent

This article is republished from our content partners over at The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

#science fiction #science fiction and fantasy #literature

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r3b3lgrrrrrrrl · 5 years ago

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A LunaTic and her Gunn (Part 89Xs1) "Dangerous But Sweet"

@lovemythsworld

@creatureofthen1ght-v3

@crystalbaby12

Don can't find any of them anywhere for Check Out. No one is answering their doors or phones. Not even the responsible ones, like Ashleigh, Bullet or Benny.

Annoyed, he heads to Colson and Luna's suite. He HATES dealing with them, ever since they first met. Especially her.

The door is slightly ajar, concerning Don for a moment. Entering the room cautiously, he finds The Ten of Them sleeping on the floor. Curled up and splayed all over each other like little kids on the mattresses.

Rolling his eyes, he mutters "Fucking idiots." Before speaking loudly. "What the HELL is this shit? You better put these fucking beds back. I'm not explaining your fucking slumber party when the hotel charges the lable for damages."

The rude tone and words coming out of his mouth stirs them. Groggy, with monkeys beating drums inside their heads, they all wish he would just GOOO AWAAY.

Luna opens her eyes. Giving him a death stare.

"Will you EVER be cool, Don?" She asks him with a sigh.

"Will you ever NOT be a fucking bitch?" He fires back at her.

"YEOO." The bass in Colson's voice vibrates Luna's body as his head flies up from behind her. "Watch your FUCKING mouth, Motherfucker when talking to my girl." His tone is fierce in defense of Luna. "Matter of fact, get the FUCK out before you make me get the FUCK up." He warns before laying back into their warmth.

"Bye, Don." Luna states in a monotone voice.

"I don't know how either of you have a fucking career." He spits out.

The Ten of Them are irritable from their Trip last night. With NONE of them liking this DickHead at the moment. Brains still linked, his comment hits them all.

"BYE DON!!" The Ten shout in unison, none moving.

"Indigent Fucks." Is thrown over his shoulder as he storms out, slamming the door behind him.

Getting comfortable again, those that awoke go back to sleep. Fuck Don.

--------------------------------------------------

Colson is performing tonight at MidLand. Finally up and dressed, they're all there. Moving slowly, but they're there. Even before 2P at that. Hanging out back. Burning as they recount the night before. No one skates. They sit, stand or lean. The struggle is REAL.

Luna's starving. She needs cheeseburgers, pineapples and coffee in her life.

"Hook it up?" She asks The Boys.

Offering to Take Care of Them All to their Oh My God, Yes Please's.

Dressed simply in dark shades, her Yankees hat, ripped jeans and a black crop top, Luna pulls off Colson's jean jacket. She was cold earlier but is starting to warm up in the sun.

Slipping in between Colson's legs, she wraps her arms around his shoulders. They lean cheek to cheek for a minute. Breathing each other in. Last night being so intense, they can still feel the raw emotions.

"I'll be back. Text me what you guys want from McDonald's. Love you." She kisses his cheek lightly.

"Love you.... Don't forget we gotta pick Emma and Case up at 430P..." He reminds her to her nod of agreement.

Grabbing Sam and Ashleigh, they take a walk. Burning and sipping on water along the way.

-------------------------------------------------

The Boys take The Girls being gone as an opportunity to run a light rehearsal. Focusing on practicing the Sublime song Colson wants to cover tonight.

-------------------------------------------------

Luna's a bitch. Luna's a bitch who doesn't like to be ogled. Luna is a bitch who can't STAND creeps. Luna's an even BIGGER bitch when she's recovering from a drug binge and CATCHES someone acting creepy.

And thaaats's exactly what leads to what happens in the grocery store.

In the produce section, Luna's wandering around with Ashleigh looking for fresh cut pineapples. Sam's towards her left, in a cross aisle on her phone facing the wall.

Rounding the corner into another aisle, Sam now comes directly into Luna's eyesight. So is a man moving around weirdly in the same aisle as Luna and Ashleigh. He's facing towards Sam. Watching him as her and Ashleigh begin to walk passed, something makes Luna look down.

This pig, is standing in the aisle, behind his cart. He has his hand down his pants and is jerking off to an unknowing Sam.

It feels like slow motion as Luna sees what he's doing, life hitting fast forward once she fully realizes it.

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!" Luna screams.

Grabbing the back of the cart and shoving it into the man with all her might. Knocking him down backwards on to the ground, she then moves the cart. Stomping his hand in place on his dick with her right foot.

"What the fuck, Loons!?!" Sam comes rushing over.

"Bro. You see this shit." Luna points to his hand trapped in his pants. "He was fucking jerking off to YOU. RIGHT FUCKING HERE."

Sam's reaction is the EXACT same as Luna's. Word. For. Word.

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!!"

She screams also. Bringing her knee up high, Sam starts to stomp down on the dude.

"You like jerking off to girls who don't know it? You fucking freak!" She continues to shout.

Luna joins in. Ashleigh standing back like the night in Chicago. Watching Sam and Luna stomp and kick the fuck out of A Jack Off Johnny of Kansas City.

"Let's see how much you like yanking it in the grocery store after that, Motherfucker." Sam spits on him before they leave him bloody and whimpering on the ground.

The two employees watching don't bother to aid the man or stop The Girls. His actions being unacceptable, they decide to leave him there.

Walking towards the door, Luna spies the fresh fruit she wants. Making their purchase, they leave the grocery store and head to McDonald's.

"Was he really whacken' off to her?" Ashleigh asks in uncomfortable disbelief.

"Yeah, dude." Luna says, disgusted.

She hates the world on a regular day. Today it's extra.

"I seen his fucking hand stuck down his pants, Ash." Sam says with a shudder.

"Why are men so gross..." Ashleigh complains.

Her low serotonin makes her sensitive to sadness. While Luna and Sam are both prone to anger and violence.

"Because there ain't enough women who ain't afraid to beat the fuck out of them when they act gross." Sam states angrily.

She's not wrong.

"How do you guys know how to do that?" Ashleigh asks quietly.

"What?" Luna cocks her head towards her.

"Not be afraid of men and beat them up the way you do? I would never know how to do that." She says honestly.

"It's a NY thing." Luna blows her off.

Looking at Sam. Some words shouldn't be said. Just as some reasons never need to be relived.

-------------------------------------------------

Sitting on the back loading dock of the venue, The Ten of Them are reunited eating their fast food and fresh fruit. Having so many bags of burgers, fries, nuggets and pineapples. Ten different sodas and iced coffees, The Girls had to snag a shopping cart to get it all back in one piece.

The Ten of Them are all still pretty miserable. Luna offering up a Xanax to whomever needs. That would be 8 out of 10.

Sitting next to Colson as she munches on a double cheeseburger, Luna's legs are swinging wildly. She loves beef and cheese. Almost as much as she loves Colson.

"Is that blood on your shoe?" Colson asks her, confused and slightly concerned.

"Damn it. That Motherfucker." Luna growls as she lifts her leg to see the tiny splatters.

"WHAT Motherfucker?" Colson now demands.

His possessiveness amuses to Luna. Sucking her teeth and preparing for his reaction, Luna tells the Tale of A Jack Off Johnny of Kansas City.

"Why the fuck didn't you call me?" He insists once she's finished.

"Imagine that...." She says dryly.

Putting her pinky and thumb to her ear, like a phone. She bobbles her head and wiggles her straightened shoulders. Voice and body mimicking a 1950s housewife.

"Hiii Honey, would you mind coming down to the local grocer. I've got a sexual predator trapped here under my foot but still need you to come defend my honor for me. Please?"

She changes her tone as she shoots him a Look with a "Yeah. No."

"I fucking hate when she acts like this... Like she's fucking invincible... She better never...." He doesn't even want to finish the thought. Knowing that his brain is mush and his girlfriend is a psychotic bitch with no fear.

"You're fucking insane." Is all he says, shaking his head as he bites into his burger.

"And you're beautiful and I love you." Luna tells him, nipping any argument in the bud.

Once they've finished eating, Luna and Sam borrow Baze, their instruments and stage to rehearse. Luna doesn't have a name for the Ellen song, she just keeps calling it, IT.

--------------------------------------------------

Watching Luna from SideStage, Colson's phone rings. It's a number he doesn't know.

"Hello?" He answers.

"Hi. Colson? It's Francis, Luna's friend. We met at your house in LA for her Tea Party..." Frannie introduces herself.

"Oh! Hey! Yeah, what's up?" He asks, moving away from the stage.

"I hope you don't mind but I got your number off Sam to that maybe we could touch base about Luna's birthday?" Frannie asks, striking fear into Colson's heart.

"Oh FUCK... I forgot her birthdays coming up." He knows her birthday, he just sometimes doesn't know the actual date of the day he's living in. Many occasions sneak up on him. Ashleigh usually catching them first. Plus, his brain is more wonked out than usual.

"Uhhh... Yeah... What were you thinking?" He opens his apps to check the day of the week it falls on.

"Well, Paris and I always throw her a party out here... Or we used too. We didn't the last two years... So we wanna do that.... Is there a date? Because we were thinking the 19th, not knowing what you guys have planned with this and the wedding and all...." Frannie trails off.

"Fuuuuckkk... The wedding. We don't even know when we're doing that...." Frannie hitting Colson with layers of reality he can't deal with.

"Uhmmm... Shit man. We're on tour right now and haven't really talked about any dates or even her birthday. Fuck, I feel like an Asshole." Colson winces when he instinctively rubs the back of his head, forgetting his new ink.

"Okayyyy... How about we throw her the party on the 19th. You have my number now... If you think of anything just hit me up. Sound good?" She asks.

"Yeah. Thank you. I'm sorry I'm such an Asshole with all of this.... I've never had a serious girlfriend like this before...." He says sheepishly.

"Soooo... You think you should just jump right to wife in three months?" Frannie's trying not to sound sarcastic but she can't help it.

"YEAH. I do. And so does Luna, since she did say Yes." Colson begins to feel slightly defensive.

"I'm sorry." Frannie backs down. "Luna and I are really old friends and I just think it's quick. When do you guys get back to LA? We'll hang out. Before the party." She suggests an olive branch.

"Yeah, deff. And me too. We're done at the end up this month. Call Luna and set something up and I'll keep us and whoever free on the 19th." Colson agrees with an irritated sigh.

"You have people?" She asks.

"Yeah, is that a problem." He doesn't like having to deal with Luna's friend right now.

"No... Not at all. I just need a head count for the space size." She replies to his Oh.

Asking him to text her a list, he agrees. Apologizing again for being rude before they get off the phone. It's false. Not caring who's daughter she is, Colson decides he doesn't like Frances.

---------------------------------------------------

"If they don't have a date... Maybe it just won't happen." Frannie thinks after she hangs up. It's not that she doesn't like Colson, she doesn't know him. Just like she didn't know the guy she married six months after meeting him. Now she can't get her dad's guitar back or rid of him.

-------------------------------------------------

Once off the phone Colson immediately calls Ashley.

"Yellow!!!" She answers, cheerfully like her words.

"Hey Ash..." Colson sighs, relieved to hear a friendly voice.

"Sup Kells?" She asks, concerned.

"Francis just called me about Luna's birthday party?" He tells her in a confused tone.

"Her and P are doing that this year? Oooh!! That's gonna be so fun!! We haven't done it for the last couple... I wonder why she hasn't called me yet..." Ashley babbles as Colson listens emotionlessly. "What day is it? Kells! What day is it on?" Ashley snaps him back.

"Uhh... Friday the 19th....?" He answers, still lost in his conversation with Francis

"Ewww... I'm pretty sure I'm already.."

"ASH!" Colson cuts her off. "I'm freakin' out Dawg. I don't think Francis likes me. I know I don't like her. Luna's birthday is in less then a month. I have nothing planned. We're supposed to get married next month and we don't even have a date. FUCK, I don't even think Luna has one dress, let alone two!!" He spouts off.

"Whoa man, chillax.... It's gonna be alright." Ashley laughs at him. "First. Fran'll be fine, she's projecting her own shit right now. Second. Have you talked to Loons about any of this or are you just freaking out because of Frannie?" Ashley digs for the root.

"I'm just kinda freakin' out." He admits.

"Talk to Loons, Kells. She may already have something in mind. You don't know. Just make sure you keep the 19th open if you really don't wanna get on Frannie's bad side." Ashley teases him.

Colson sighs and thanks her. Really glad to have her as a friend.

--------------------------------------------------

"DAADDDYYY!!!!" Casie comes running up to Colson.

Emma trailing behind her, the two women greet each other warmly. Hugs and How Are Yous before Casie squeezes Luna's guts out.

"I can't breath, Dilla!!" Luna pretends like she's choking to Casie's laughter.

Colson giving her a piggyback ride out of the airport. Luna helping Emma with Casie's luggage as they chat with each other.

--------------------------------------------------

Sat together for a late lunch at Border's Cafe, Casie colors as the adults order food and drinks.

"How's the wedding planning going?" Is the first thing Emma asks Luna and Colson.

"What the fuuuuuuckkkk...." His brain groans.

"Ahhh... You might be able to help if you wouldn't mind. I need a planner for Cleveland. Nothing big. Just a little get together at the house after." Luna says to Emma.

"Yeah, I have a friend who owns a catering business." She suggests.

"That'd be perfect." Luna says graciously.

"When are you guys gonna do it?" Is the dreaded question.

"Monday, the 29th." Luna says nonchalantly.

Colson whips his head over to look at Luna.

"We have a date?" He asks with a mixture of shock, relief and a little bit of jealousy.

Luna's face lights up with excitement. Grinning, she leans over to kiss his cheek. "We doooo!!! And it's really freaking awesome!" She shines as she pulls out her phone. "Look... TownHall only marries on Mondays and Fridays. So.... Ash cleared your schedule from the 29th till here." Luna points to the Sunday of EstFest. Looking up into Colson's oceanic eyes, she gives him THAT One Look that made him fall so deeply in love with her. "Meaning.... We are having a seven day wedding celebration with the possibility of two of them being somewhere...." Lost in her enthusiasm, Luna suddenly remembers where they are. Changing her last word. "Awwwwwesome...." Followed by another Look.

"SEVEN DAYS?!" He exclaims. Looking at her like she just cured cancer. Forgetting the jealousy of not being included in picking the date. "Seriously?? Seven days? That's fucking SICK, Kitten. Where you wanna go?" He asks, pulling her in for a kiss on the cheek.

"We'll figure that out later..." She shrugs.

The server coming to set their food down. Refilling their drinks.

"Do you have a dress?" Emma asks.

She likes to watch the interaction between Colson and Luna. It gives her some insight to what kind of environment her daughter is exposed to when with them.

"I do..." Luna begins to speak.

Colson cuts her off.

"Yo. I legit was just freaking out on the phone with Ash over all of this. The date, your dresses, your birthday...." Colson rambles on in relief.

"My Ash...? About my birthday?" Luna questions him as they eat.

"Yeah... We haven't talked about that one either. Got any secret plans there too?" Colson has a little sass to his tone, last night still lingering.

"I haven't really thought about it... Come on, C... This month has been insane. I only figured out the dates with Ash yesterday when we were getting The Bus cleaned. I'm gotta head out Monday night for NY. I need to rehearse with this new bassist before Ellen. Which ironically worked out because, I can stop at a friend of mine's so she can fit me. I also gotta look at a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights while I'm there too. I tried to work our schedules together because I wanted you to check it out with me but you'll be in Idaho. So, I'm gonna meet back up with you in Anaheim probably. Shit is non-stop. You know this, Sugar." Luna explaining one day of her life next week. Emma tired just thinking about it.

"You need to see the Dr too." He reminds her.

"Motherfucker!!" Luna's mind bursts just as Emma opens her mouth.

"You okay, Luna? You sick?" She asks.

Casie's head pops up. Proving kids are always listening.

"Did the blueberries get you!??" She asks with wide eyes.

Luna can't help but laugh with Colson at Casie. Explaining to Emma her allergy and side stepping her with the explanation of an Annual Exam for work. It's not a full lie.

They enjoy the rest of their lunch. Emma choosing to catch a flight right black to Clevland. With hugs and kisses, she promises she'll see Casie in a week. Pecking Colson and Luna GoodBye with tight hugs. Reminding Luna that she'll send her the contact information for her friend as she gets into her uber.

--------------------------------------------------

"Wait!! Look what I got!!" Casie pulls off her school bag with excitement.

They're still standing on the sidewalk outside of Border's. Waiting for their own uber as Casie digs through her bag. Popping up once she's found what she was looking for. Proudly displaying two homemade, beaded bracelets.

"I made these for you. They're Love Bracelets. Because you're in loooove and I love YOU." She grins as she snakes her head at the two of them.

Casie makes both of their irritated souls lift with happiness. Cold hearts melt with adoration. Slipping hers on, Luna squats down to hug Casie.

"I love it, Dilla. I'll wear it everyday." She promises.

"Me too, Peanut!!" Colson scoops her up, attacking her with kisses.

"Daaaaad!!!! Stooop!!!" She laughs uncontrollably.

"Okay, okay..." He laughs, setting her down. "Here.."

He reaches for Luna's hand. Taking a picture of their gifts. He posts it to his Insta.

"Peanut made us Love Bracelets. My kid is deff the coolest 😭🙏🏽💖 #estfest can't come fast enough. 😈🔐🐈"

---------------------------------------------------

Back at MidLand, everyone's BackStage. Alcohol still flows but they've moved smoking outback. Away from Casie.

Coming down the stairs, Luna catches Casie drumming on the wall. Snagging a quick picture of her favorite little human with her favorite tall human in the background.

"That's gonna be my family..." Luna's eyes well up as she thinks of them lovingly.

"Looney!!!" Casie calls for her once she sees her. "I'm goin on stage with Dad tonight!" She grins excitedly.

"Yeah?" Luna beams at her. "What are you gonna play?"

"What I Got." Casie responds proudly.

"THE GOODNIGHT SONG!!" Luna shakes a giggling Casie. "Make sure you don't fall asleep on stage!!" She teases the little girl.

"Looney... It's too loud to fall asleep on stage." She states as a matter of fact.

"You're right, Dilla. Silly me." Luna laughs as she shakes her head at herself.

-------------------------------------------------

The show is wild as always. The Boys making about a 90% recovery by time they hit the stage. Running through the same setlist as most of this leg of the tour. Casie sings all of her dad's songs SideStage with Luna, Ashleigh and Sam. The Girls still passing a bottle but skipping the joints.

Luna dips off to change before heading OnStage. Dressing in black leather pants and a sheer open back black long sleeved top. Her ass looks phenomenal. Colson can't keep his hands off her while they're OnStage together.

Holding her from behind by the waist as he sings the last line with her, he nuzzles into her neck. Sending electricity through her body as she brings her hand down his face delicately.

"Y'all know we're getten' married, right?" He grins at the crowd's explosion. "We're doin' it at EstFest... Three day fucking RAGER!!" He shouts to the room's wild screams.

"That's right..." Luna chimes in. "This year we're extending it until Sunday with two special surprise performances for you guys. It's gonna be FUCKING WILD!!!" Luna laughs.

"WHO'S COMEN' TO CELEBRATE WITH US!??" He shouts as his fans roar.

He turns to Luna. "You think they'll come?" He asks

"I think they'll come." She answers him before turning back to the audience. "You gonna miss a helluva party if you don't...." She teases before kissing Colson.

"See ya there!!" Luna shouts as she glides OffStage. Right into a tiny Casie.

"Looney, I'm hungry." She pouts.

"We better fix that before you have to perform, hunh? I think we've got Pizza Bites on The Bus, wanna check it out with me?" Luna asks to Casie's nod.

Checking their time with Ashleigh, they have 45mins. Luna takes the little girl's hand in hers as they head off on their mission.

--------------------------------------------------

"You're the best, Looney." Casie states as she munches on pizza rolls.

"Thanks Dill. You're pretty rad yourself, kiddo." Luna smiles at her.

"So, you and dad getting married means you'll be my Looney forever?" She asks.

"Yup. Forever and ever." Luna answers as her heart swells.

"I want a sister NOT a brother." Casie stresses her request.

"WHAT?" Luna asks her with a scrunched face.

"When people get married, they have a baby. I want a girl baby." She explains.

Casie is freaking Luna the fuck out. "Where the HELL is Colson when I fucking need him..." She thinks. Not knowing how to answer.

"Well...." Luna sighs. "I'm preeeetty sure you don't get to pick whether it's a boy or girl. And, how about we get married first and have fun with you. Then maybe a baby might come.... But they don't always."

"FUCK... You should've shut up 10secs ago, you fucking idiot." Luna mentally scolds herself.

"Why?" Casie asking the question Luna knew was coming.

Luna has no idea what to fucking say. How do you tell your 10yr old, soon-to-be step daughter, that she's the only kid you like. That idea of birth and pregnancy makes you want to jump off of a bridge.

"Uhhhhmmm...." Luna chooses science. "You know how my body gets mad at me with blueberries?"

Casie nods.

"Sometimes babies are like blueberries and they just don't agree with some people's bodies..." Luna is struggling hard.

"So you'll die?" Casie asks with terror.

"Oh FUCK my life...." Is all Luna can think.

"No... No... Case, no.... It's just, sometimes blueberries aren't for everyone and sometimes babies aren't for everyone too... Does that make sense?" Luna asks her, confusing her own self.

"I guess." Casie pops up.

Dropping her dish in the sink. She washes her hands.

"Ready?" She asks.

"Yes." Luna has never been more ready in her life.

--------------------------------------------------

With the venue dark, Colson's voice quiets the crowd.

"I brought my Queen out here tonight... Now, I'm gonna bring out my Princess. Come on, Case." He calls her out.

He starts on his acoustic.

🎼Early on the morning, Rising to the street,

Light me up that cigarette, As I strap shoes on my feet🎶

Grinning at Casie, nods at her. She comes in with him. Changing certain lyrics.

🎶I got a Dalmatian, I can still get by, I can play the guitar, Like a motherchucken riot🎶

They sing before Colson hits the guitar solo. Having sang this song together all her life, they hit the notes and lyrics flawlessly. Not missing one beat.

🎶Never start no static, I just get it off my chest, Never had to battle With no bulletproof vest, Take a small example, Take a tip from me, Take all of your money, Give it all to charity, Love is what I got, It's within my reach, And the Sublime style's still straight from Long Beach, It all comes back to you, You'll finally get what you deserve, Try and test that you're bound to get served, Love's what I got, Don't start a riot, You'll feel it, When the dance gets hot🎶

Luna goes wild from SideStage. Cheering them on. Colson looking over Casie's head to grin at her. Loving her more each moment that she doesn't drive him crazy.

"THANK YOU KANSAS CITY!!! YOU WERE FUCKING SICK!!!! GOODNIGHT!!! Colson shouts, ending the show.

Holding hands with Casie, he kisses her on the cheek before passing her to Ashleigh. Colson hasn't fucked Luna all day and is dying to climb inside of her.

"We'll be back." He calls over his shoulder as he takes Luna's hand.

--------------------------------------------------

"I'm gonna rip these fucking pants off you." Colson says in frustration with Luna's zipper in between kisses. Out comes the blade again.

"No! I love these pants!!" She stops him, peeling them off herself. "Can you handle the fucking shirt?" She asks turning around for him to unzip it.

Zippers down, they're both naked in less then 30secs. Colson gripping Luna up by the ass and setting her on the edge of a table. He pushes his large dick inside of her warm pussy as she wraps herself around him.

"How come ever time I fuck you it feels like the first time?" He moans out.

"Cuz this pussy was made for you, Lover." Luna purrs into his ear.

Thrusting her hips into him as he bounces her body off his dick. They fuck each fast with a fierce hunger.

"My dirty girl likes it rough, hunh." Colson pants as he pulls Luna's hair back.

Sinking his teeth into her neck, making her buck harder. Clawing his back as she begs Yes Please.

"Mhmm... Take this fucking dick." He demands.

Making her body quiver, Luna losses all control. Gripping him harder, Luna fucks another two orgasms out of herself before Colson drops his load inside of her.

"FUCK." They both breathe out, sweaty and sex stained. Like usual, they hold each other as Colson rests in his favorite place. Both beyond content in each other's arms.

"We gotta get Case..." Luna reminds him.

As they clean up and change, they burn a joint together. Colson jumping on her so fast in the dressing room they didn't even light an After Show Sex Joint.

Just as they're about to walk out, Colson puts his large hand against the door. Stopping her.

"Wait. We get married on Monday and don't have anything to do till EST on Friday?" He asks.

"Yeah..." Luna smiles out the answer.

"You figure out where you wanna go. We gonna have ourselves a proper mini honeymoon, baaaaaby." He says in a weird country accent.

"I fucking love you." Luna cheeses as she reaches up for another kiss. ---------------------------------------------------

Word Limit (1 of 2) To be continued.......

26 notes · View notes

violetsmoak · 5 years ago

Text

Appetence [10/?]

AO3 Link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/20251420/chapters/47997634

Blanket Disclaimer

Summary: Red Robin is investigating the disappearance of a friend and stumbles into a spot of supernatural trouble. He doesn’t expect to be saved by Jason Todd, miraculously alive five years after his death and now with the inexplicable ability to commune with the dead. Meanwhile, when Jason returned to Gotham he meant to maintain a low profile and not get involved with Bat business. That was before he found out how hot his Replacement is.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: N/A

First Chapter

________________________________________________________________

Tim swerves into the Cave, skidding into the parking area with a little less finesse than usual. He’s got a shivering Batgirl bracketed between his arms on the bike, not having wanted to risk her falling off the back of it while they drove. He’s got a nasty case of frostbite on his shoulder himself, courtesy of a cold grenade in the wrong place and the wrong time.

He was helping Batgirl and Signal with the clean-up after Freeze’s latest temper tantrum and accidentally triggered the blast. Steph shoved him out of the way, taking the full brunt, and it was only due a quick reaction time and a few well-placed portable heating disks that she hadn’t been flash frozen.

She might not have any major lingering damage—she was well enough to request going to the Cave because of Alfred’s tendency to make homemade soup whenever any of them have a less than stellar encounter with Freeze—but Tim’s anxious to get her warmed up as soon as possible.

Also, he needs to treat his own injury.

“If-f I get a cold I’m k-killing Freeze,” Steph mumbles as Tim helps her off the bike and walks her toward the medical bay. “There’s nothing w-worse than a summer cold.”

“Says the woman who survived being used as a human pincushion.”

“It’s a d-different kind of misery.”

There are several heating blankets already plugged in and ready, and Steph is already peeling herself out of her uniform with shaking hands. Tim does the same, tossing aside tunic and body armor to rummage in a drawer for the special heating plasters; they warm an affected area gradually, making them perfect for frostbite.

“Geez, Tim, you been sk-skipping meals again?” Steph reproaches, frowning at him in his shirtless state. “Seeing a lot more rib than usual.”

“You’d do well to take a page out of his book, Brown,” Damian’s voice snarks from the doorway, loitering in all his scowling twelve-year-old glory. “I’m surprised your suit doesn’t split down the back when you move.”

“Shut up, Damian.”

“No, Tim, I got th-this,” Steph pipes up and then shoots the youngest Robin a steely smile. “I’ve g-got Martha Kent’s email. Wonder what she’ll have to s-s-say when she hears about Dami fat-shaming people.”

“You! You are not in contact with her!”

Damian isn’t exactly prone to flushing considering his complexion, but whenever he gets upset or embarrassed, red creeps across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. That, and the minute raising us his eyebrows suggests he’s more rattled by the threat than he pretends.

“I might be,” Steph allows. “You really wanna t-take that chance?”

Damian scowls at that, fists clenched, and then seems to decide not to risk it. It’s like watching the air be let out of a balloon.

Tim whistles.

“How is it a Kansas housewife has managed something not even two versions of Batman and the League of Assassins could?” he asks, somewhat awed.

“Pie and mom-guilt, I think,” Steph suggests.

“Clearly.”

“Hilarious,” Damian deadpans, facing Tim and doing his best to ignore Steph. “If you’re finished casting aspersions on my upbringing, perhaps you can make yourself useful.”

Tim raises an eyebrow at him.

“Father was distracted tonight,” the kid continues. “He won’t explain and Richard’s not here to do…whatever it is he does that makes him somewhat normal again.”

Tim blinks, having not expected that. “What exactly do you think I can do about that?”

“It’s no secret you and Father are experiencing “issues”,” Damian says and uses honest-to-goodness air quotes. “Perhaps seeing you will irritate him into letting something slip.”

“I highly d-doubt Bruce is that upset that he’ll unclench long enough to tell T-Tim anything,” Steph sniggers.

“Perhaps not, but once Drake strikes out I can ask Father after a requisite amount of time has passed and under less fraught circumstances than directly after a fight. He’ll be more likely to confide in me.”

“Right,” Tim drawls. “Because that has a snowball’s chance in hell of working. Pass. How do you even come up with these ideas, anyway?”

“It’s a simple enough ruse, Drake. Jon says it is called “tag-teaming”.”

Again, with the air quotes; clearly Damian’s latest visit to the Kent farm came with another dose of ‘how-to-be-a-real-boy’ lessons.

“And if you think Bruce is gonna fall for that and magically open up about something he doesn’t want to talk about, you haven’t been paying attention the past few years.”

“That’s not what this is,” Steph says, squinting at Damian like she’s trying to read his mind or something. “You’re worried.”

“I am no such thing!”

“You’ve gotta be since you’re asking Tim for a team-up.”

“I am not!”

“Good, because I’m not interested,” Tim says. “Whatever Bruce is brooding about will come out. It always does. Try prying it out of him beforehand and he’ll get cagey and mean about it.”

I know what that feels like, and I wouldn’t even wish it on you, demon-brat.

“Fine, don’t do anything,” Damian growls. “I should have known you would be too pig-headed and cowardly to approach Father while you’re in this pointless...detente.” He turns on his heel. “You’re as useless as I’ve always thought. Good to know it’s been confirmed.”

He stalks away.

Tim sighs and stares at the ceiling. “I guess on a scale of one to stabbed-in-the-chest, that went okay?”

“You two seriously need to deal with your drama,” Steph sighs, shifting beneath her blanket. “And you should go figure out what prompted all that. He really is worried. And hurt, now that you shot him down.”

“His entire existence has been dedicated to shooting me down,” Tim points out. “Literally sometimes.”

“Don’t exaggerate. Not his entire existence.”

“You know what I mean.”

“He’s a kid, Tim. One with a shitty childhood, a massive inferiority complex and who’s about to enter the super-fun world of puberty. And he came to you. Not me, or Dick—”

“Dick’s in New York.”

“Dick’s a phone call away and if Damian really wanted to go get him, he’d have stolen a car and gone to him. But he came to you. Probably because he knows as well as any of us that you’re the most Bruce-like and can talk to Mr. McBroody when he’s at his most pod-person level of weird.”

“Funny, I didn’t hear any of that beyond the constant insults.”

“He’s just jealous.”

“And that gives him a free pass?”

But his question sounds whiny even to him, and he sighs as Steph crosses her arms at him.

“When did you start becoming so wise and all-knowing?” Tim grumbles.

“Search me. I guess I just woke up one day and bam! All the secrets of the universe were just waiting for me to share them with the unwashed masses. Like you. You reek, by the way.”

“Right, because you smell like a rose.”

“Thanks!” Steph chirps unrepentantly.

“I think you are getting a cold,” Tim grumbles and starts out of the med bay. “The snot’s clearly going to your head and cutting off brain flow along with your sense of smell. I should go see if Alfred’s got anything to fix that.”

“Hot chocolate please!” she calls after him. “And don’t skimp on the mini marshmallows!”

“You know the way to the kitchen.”

But he’s already climbing the stairs and heading for the main computer dock. Tim was responsible for a different sector of the city, but it took longer than normal to get the all-clear. Maybe Bruce is distracted—if so, it would have to be something pretty serious.

Maybe Selina’s back in town…

“My god…!” he hears Alfred say as Tim reaches the top of the stone staircase.

Bruce is seated, Alfred behind him and holding on to the back of the chair so tight the knuckles on his hands have turned white.

“Are you…are you quite sure, Master Bruce?” he asks, the question faint.

“I’m sure,” Bruce replies. “I was sure at the cemetery.” Tim’s ears perk up at that. “And these results…they just confirm it. He’s alive. Somehow…somehow, Jason’s alive.”

Tim freezes in mid-step.

Well…so much for me having to tell them…

He’s relieved.

He thinks.

The situation with Jason has been on his mind the whole week, and he’s never had a harder time keeping a secret than he did trying to stick to his promise to Jason. It’s been a constant struggle between his loyalty to Bruce—remembering how shattered he was in the weeks and months following Jason’s death—and his respect for Jason, a potential ally, friend and maybe one day family.

(He’s been doing his best to shut down the ‘inappropriate childhood crush’ angle during his mental justifications.)

Usually, Tim is good at separating his emotions from making hard decisions, but this time it’s…well. He blames it on still being in a state of shock that Jason is alive and that he has been alive all this time.

And he didn’t come back for some reason, and even now doesn’t want to have anything to do with the Family.

So why come back to Gotham at all, then?

“…looked him in the eyes,” Bruce is saying, in the same tone he uses to profile criminals. That’s troubling. “He’s as determined as ever. I’m not sure if there’s a broader reason for his return—for his…his avoidance. But I have a good idea. It will need confirmation; someone will have to keep an eye on him—”

“Master Bruce,” Alfred interrupts, tone breathless and almost indignant. “This is not some criminal mastermind or domestic terrorist. This is your—”

“I’m aware,” Bruce interrupts. “But there’s too much unaccounted for. He had a lot to say and still didn’t give anything away.” He rubs at his chin in thought. “He knew things, Alfred. Information on events he wasn’t present for—that were not shared in the media.”

Tim goes still, suddenly beset with a sense of foreboding.

“He’s communicating with someone,” Bruce goes on in manic calculation. “Someone knew he was alive. He said…'replacement’.”

Well, frack.

Tim begins to take a step back and nearly knocks into Damian, who’s crept up behind him with his usual maddening silence.

“Watch it, Drake!”

Damian’s voice echoes and Tim winces, head whipping around to glare at the boy.

Double frack.

There are moments—few and far between the actual assassination attempts and sabotage—where Damian displays all the bad timing that only younger siblings seem to possess. This is definitely one of those moments.

When he looks back, Bruce is already on his feet and stalking over, cape whipping behind him and expression like a thundercloud.

Damian, for his part, doesn’t seem to realize what he just did as he watches his father in surprise. This is echoed by Steph, who has followed him over, no longer wrapped in the blanket but wearing one of the generic sweatshirts that they keep stored in the recovery area.

Conveniently, they’re both blocking Tim’s nearest means of escape.

And now Bruce is towering over the three of them, eyes flicking briefly across each face, before zeroing in on Tim, who tenses.

“You,” he determines. “You knew.”

Annoyance pricks at Tim. There are two other people beside him, why does Bruce automatically think it’s him.

“Knew what?” Damian demands.

“Not now, Damian.”

“If Drake has committed some monumental blunder, I should—”

“Oh my god,” Steph gasps, her eyes roving past everyone to stare at the computer screen. The DNA comparison is still bright and clear, and in the background the picture of a young Jason Todd is unmistakable. “Is that…?”

“Jason Todd,” Damian reads stiffly, clearly recognizing the name. He scans the relevant information, including the date of the most recent DNA sample. “Todd is alive?”

“So it would seem,” Alfred confirms faintly.

“You’ve been feeding him information,” Bruce accuses Tim, and it’s almost a hiss. “You’re the replacement he mentioned.”

“Technically he had three,” Tim points out if only to try to stall.

“Aside from the fact you’re the only one here who doesn’t look surprised, he referred to a male.” Something passes over his expression, almost a grimace as if he’d rather not think of something, before he continues. “And if it were Damian, he would have informed me immediately.” He takes a step forward, the stony and emotionless countenance of Batman firmly in place. Tim half expects those thick gauntleted arms to grab him and hoist him in the air like so many an unlucky criminal. “You knew Jason was alive. And you didn’t say anything.”

“No,” Tim says, at last, deciding he might as well own it. “I didn’t.”

“Why?”

The sound is primal and broken, somewhere between a hiss and a growl. Tim is aware of the gazes upon him—Bruce’s anger, Alfred’s hurt, Steph’s confusion and Damian looking torn between satisfaction at Tim’s discomfort and agitation at his father’s obvious agitation.

“There were a few factors,” Tim admits. “First of all—”

“Factors?” Bruce barks. “This isn’t an experiment, Tim! This is my—this is Jason—!”

“And he asked me not to say anything!” Tim shoots back. “I figured after everything he’s been through, the least he deserved is someone listening to him.”

Trapped in an asylum and forgotten about? He deserves more than that…

“You never met him! There’s no way you could have been sure it was him, and even so—”

“I didn’t know him?!” Tim challenges. “There are a couple hundred pictures I took that say different! Or have you forgotten how I even got involved in all this?” He sweeps his hand around the cave. “I saw him enough at events when my parents were alive to recognize him, and even if I hadn’t, how many times did you make me go over his file when I started? Foster care records and psychological profile and autopsy reports! Since you needed me to be extra aware of what could happen to me if I screwed up as a Robin? And you might never talk about him around me, but Dick always did. Alfred too, sometimes.”

“That still doesn’t excuse your lack of discretion! You were foolish to interact with him—to make that decision without consulting with me, not least of all compromising the mission by sharing information that could expose everyone—”

“What exactly would I be compromising?” Tim shoots back. “Anyone who could impersonate Jason that well, who could talk about the things we did would already know where all the skeletons are buried. I doubt there’s much I could say that he didn’t already know, and you…you didn’t see him, okay?”

Tim’s defensiveness falters a little here, remembering how tense Jason had been throughout their whole encounter. He was thrown-off, uncomfortable, angry…and he was also trying his best not to let on how curious he was about how the family was doing.

But Bruce only bristles. “You still should have told me the minute you suspected—”

“Told you what?! ‘Hey, so, guess what, I ran into Jason last night. Yeah, that Jason, your son that got killed by the J—”

The name gets stuck in his throat, like his esophagus is closing, causing a crack he knows no one misses. Bruce winces and Steph’s confusion becomes worried. He needs to take an extra breath before he can force himself to keep talking.

“Killed by an explosion’,” he finishes. “We both know you wouldn’t have believed me if I told you he was alive and in Gotham.”

“No, we don’t.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Bruce. We both know exactly how it would have played out. I’d tell you what happened, you would tell me how impossible it is. You’d say stuff like you’d know if anyone had disturbed his gravesite, or that I’m stressed out or paranoid or under the influence of Ivy or Crane. Or you’d accuse me of making an inappropriate joke, and then we wouldn’t be talking again for a while.”

For a moment, Bruce looks hurt and a little guilty—probably because he knows it’s true.

“You would never lie about something like that,” he says at last. “If you believed Jason had returned, I would have trusted you enough to look into it.”

“And how was I supposed to know that? It’s not like you and I have exactly been all about great communication and understand since Captain Boomerang and Mr. Freeze.”

“I’ve been…giving you time.”

“Funny how giving me time looks a lot like avoiding me.”

“Master Timothy, that is quite enough,” Alfred interrupts at last.

All of his defensiveness toward Bruce vanishes in the guilt he feels for contributing to that look on Alfred’s face.

“I didn’t stay quiet to hurt anyone,” he tries to assure the old man. “And I was going to tell you all. But Jason asked for a week. For breathing room, I guess. I was going to tell you today—yesterday, really, if Freeze hadn’t shown up.”

“So you say,” Damian needles.

Tim ignores him. “I’d say it’s a coincidence that you found out tonight some other way, but considering what Jason’s into these days, maybe not.”

Bruce blinks in realization. “You know he’s a medium.”

“Yes, I know he’s a—wait.” Tim stops abruptly. “He’s what?” He knew Jason was working with the occult, sure, but this? “That part I missed.”

“He sees dead people?” Steph asks. “That kind of medium? Because I loved that show.”

Suddenly the reasons for Jason being sent to Arkham make so much more sense. Waking from his coma and suddenly be surrounded by ghosts? If he spoke to or acknowledged them, no wonder the staff thought he was hearing voices.

“Wait, how did you find out?” Tim asks, frowning. “You were talking about a cemetery before—that’s not exactly your jurisdiction.”

“Gordon put me on a case involving grave desecrations,” Bruce grunts. “That’s where I ran into Jason.”

“Literally or figuratively?”

Bruce is silent.

Tim groans. “Please tell me you didn’t attack him.”

More silence and Tim massages the bridge of his nose tiredly.

As if he wasn’t gun-shy about reconnecting with the Family before, now he’s probably going to leave for another five years…

“You’re taking this surprisingly well,” Steph says to Damian in a conversational tone.

“In case you’re forgetting, Brown, I’ve been dead and resurrected, so it’s not exactly a novelty.”

“Master Damian,” Alfred reprimands quietly.

No one likes to talk about that year.

“I just meant you’re not great at sharing, and now you’ve got another brother showing up—”

“Tt. We are not brothers. Any relation on paper ceased when he died.”

“Damian.” Bruce’s voice is sharp as a whip, and his eyes flash in warning. “I don’t ever want to hear that again.”

It’s not the most chastising he’s ever been, but Damian’s jaw snaps shut, and he swallows heavily.

Tim shouldn’t be bothered by the interchange, but he’s still hit by a pang of hurt and irritation. A dark, twisting little voice whispers at him, letting a longtime anxiety flicker back to the surface.

Of course, Bruce steps in and calls out Damian’s behavior when it’s Jason. Is it because Jason was his son longer? Or because Bruce chose Jason? Like he chose Dick and Cassandra. He’s even started choosing Duke now.

He never chose Tim. Not really. Tim just showed up and inserted himself into things.

Damian just showed up too, but he’s got that whole blood connection that he’s so proud of. Tim’s not—

Tim is like Steph. An outsider.

Maybe it’s why they connected to well back then—because they were the two that Bruce tried to stop from joining the life. Grudging allies, never quite family.

“I’m going to go,” Tim murmurs, turning and heading for his bike. “Wouldn’t want to get in the middle of a family meeting.”

“Tim—”

“You should probably call Dick,” he goes on. “He should find out about Jason from you this time.”

“Tim, stop—”

“I have therapy in three hours,” Tim cuts him off, “so I need at least some sleep.”

There’s no response then, not that Tim expected anything. His therapy sessions are sacrosanct; even Batman won’t interrupt Tim’s continued attendance. Tim’s always hated that, feeling as if he’s being overprotected, but right now, all he feels is a sense of relief.

To Be Continued

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