#every driver should have to endure at least one of their races being called by derek daly sdkghfskhs

[vetteldixon]

throwback to DC's first pit stop at his f1 debut in 1994, as called by derek daly

[lightsovermonaco]

His Good Sweater: Chapter 11 (NSFW)

Masterlist

IT’S THE MOMENT YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR BESTIES! Thanks as always to @acollectionofficsandshit I think I broke her with this chapter! She also found  the song for this chapter so special thanks for that as well ❤

Word Count: 7.6k

Recommended song: “The Man Who Can’t be Moved” by the Script

The steam of the shower cleanses your senses and washes away the sweat from your workout. Crisp September air rushes through the open window and raises goosebumps on your skin as you step out. You turn off the tap and wrap yourself in a fluffy towel in an attempt to ward off the chill. A glance at the clock tells you that you have a half hour to get ready before your date picks you up.

Peter was one of the few guys in your major that paid you any attention. Most of them tolerated you at best but it had never bothered you. You were independent enough that you could make it through class on your own and google what you didn’t understand afterward and learn it before the exam.

It had been fairly easy to fall in with Peter and a few others during the first few weeks of summer classes. What began with group study sessions and quickly developed into hanging out one on one with Peter on the weekends to go to coffee shops or play video games.

When Peter had asked you out two months ago, Pierre's voice nagged in the back of your head. He asked if you were ready to move on from him and if you could really forget him.

The simple answer was no, forgetting him was impossible. No matter how many years passed, he would always own a part of you. 

Peter was sweet and he cared about you but you were quickly realizing the bond you shared with him didn't run as deep as it had with Pierre. He started as your friend and you really didn't feel right letting it develop past that. Although you had agreed to that date and plenty more in the time since, it still didn’t feel like a relationship. You had to stop yourself from imagining someone else's arm around you when you lounged on the sofa or someone else's lips kissing you goodnight.

You slip into a form fitting red cocktail dress and sweep your hair over a shoulder, banishing the memory. The person staring back at you in the mirror is a stranger, a ghost of who you once were. You pull your lips into a smile nowhere near as bright as it was months ago.

A knock on your apartment door startles you from your trance. Peter holds a bouquet of flowers, a broad grin on his face. He was handsome in a traditional sense, with a sharp jawline and playful forest green eyes that promised a good time. He was adventurous; a night in wasn’t in the cards. Everything was an event with him and you didn’t mind the distractions one bit.

"You look amazing as always," he says, stepping inside and kissing your cheek. You sniff the flowers lightly. Daisies were some of your least favorite flowers but the gesture was too sweet to point that out.

"So do you," you respond, gaze sweeping from his scuffed wingtip shoes to his crisp blue button down shirt. Ocean blue, washed out against Peter's pale skin, but would have looked perfect on Pierre's golden complexion.

You had to stop thinking about him. You saw him everywhere. On more than one occasion, you dropped out of a conversation when you caught a glimpse of blond hair bobbing through a crowd or heard a laugh startlingly similar to his. You couldn’t escape the idea of him whether you liked it or not.

"Are you okay?" Peter asks, touching your elbow.

God, you were so far from okay. Your mind was a melted mess of memories of a blond Frenchman and all the broken promises between the pair of you. This was pointless. You were wasting your time with Peter. He was great and should have been everything you wanted but he just wasn't enough.

"I'm so sorry," you start, handing back the flowers. "I don't think this is going to work."

"Oh thank god," he says, shoulders drooping as he runs a hand through his hair. "I've been thinking the same thing, I just didn't want to be the one to say it." You both laugh, the tension ebbing from your frame.

"Don't get me wrong," he continues, "You're amazing. There's just no…"

"Spark," you finish. "Yeah, I agree. Friends?"

You stick out your hand and he shakes it firmly. "Sounds like a plan. No hard feelings. See you in class on Monday?"

"I'll be there."

You slip out of your heels with a sigh, glad you don't have to endure that form of torture any longer. For the first time in months, you allow yourself to scroll through Pierre's Instagram.

Instead of being flooded with personal pictures it had become mostly posed shoots.it was the kind of thing that seemed staged, like he was only posted because his PR team deemed it necessary.

As time went on the content became more and more clinical. He was giving fans less of an insight into his personal life and focusing on racing content. You knew he had probably thrown everything he had into the season in an attempt to move on and you couldn't blame him. 

If his Insta was to be believed, he had earned a handful of podiums in the four months since you had mostly lost interest in the sport. After Austin it had been nearly impossible to watch a full race and you had instead been getting your biased updates from Max, who conveniently left out all but the barest details of anyone’s race weekend but his own.

There was no point in trying to convince yourself you no longer felt anything for Pierre. Just scrolling through his page reignites the flame in your chest that had been burning far too dimly for far too long. 

Heart pounding, you double tap a photoset of him modeling for Alpha Tauri, the lighting accenting his eyes. Their distinct, rich blue had always been your weakness. 

Your fingers find their way to the charm at your throat. You hadn't taken it off once since the gala. It was pointless to deny the sway he still held over you all these months later. Maybe it was time you stopped pretending you were fine and finally give in to the pull. 

The past few months have given you plenty of time to reflect. The media would hound you like dogs but at least while you were in London they would leave your family alone. And really, enduring their scrutiny was a small price to pay if it meant loving Pierre.  

“I’m an idiot,” you mumble, pulling up his contact in your phone. Breaking up with him had been the dumbest decision of your life. You’d watched him from afar as he traveled from grand prix to grand prix, touring cities and sleeping everywhere except where he belonged: curled up next to you in your tiny London flat, whispering sweet nothings in your ear until you both fell asleep.

You couldn’t bear it any longer. Fuck what anyone would say. Nothing could be worse than knowing your soulmate was out there and you let him go.

Heart pounding, you type out a text. I miss you.

Shaking your head, you erase it. How are you? Seemed more appropriate.

"Here goes nothing," you murmur and hit send.

**********

 It started off as any other free Sunday did: Charles and Charlotte arriving at his apartment carrying snacks and beer which neither of them would tell their trainers about tomorrow and plopping in front of the television to watch the PSG match.

The trio roared at the screen at poor calls and yelled when a goal was scored, all completely lost in the sport.

Pierre absently registers his phone buzzing during the last few minutes of the match but ignores it. PSG comes out on top and he finally checks it, nearly choking on the pretzels he was eating.

How are you?

Pierre has to read it thrice before he’s convinced it’s real. 

"Holy fuck," he says softly, tipping the phone so Charles can see. 

"Told you mate." He takes Charlotte's hand and stands. Football match completely forgotten, Pierre lifts a hand in a wave as the couple leaves. His eyes are fixed on the screen as he tries to comprehend the gravity your words carry.

After months of waiting in agony and wondering if you still cared, you’d texted him.

He had no idea how he managed to keep his feet on the floor. He was completely weightless, reading your message over and over again until it sinks in.

He takes the three simple words as permission to finally delve back into your life, immediately scrolling through your instagram to catch up. He double taps every post save for the ones with you and some tall, handsome guy. His stomach twists. 

Fuck it. Even if you just wanted to catch up, he'd take it. If you told him you were with someone else and you were happy, he'd learn to live with it. He was starved of you and was prepared to beg for crumbs of your life.

I'm fine. You have time for a phone call?

It was a leap but he acknowledged and accepted the risks.

Yeah. That would be good.

You pick up on the second ring.

"Hey."

Pierre squeezes his eyes shut, pushing back the lump in his throat. Years of memories rush over him in the space of a breath. The shock in your voice when you found out he was a driver for the first time. Your smile and breathless laugh when you met him in the garage in Brazil after his first podium in Formula 1. The tentative glances he had thrown your way for months after he finally accepted that he had begun to fall for you. The way your velvet lips felt when he made a gamble and kissed you for the first time. The drunken lilt of your voice when you told him you loved him that night in London.

Before he can stop it the bad comes rushing back too. The memory of the terror on your face when he let it slip that you were together sends a chill through him. If there was one moment he could change, it wouldn’t be the time he fucked up and lost his seat at Red Bull. It would be to keep his damned mouth shut at that karting track and preserve the bliss of that day and tuck it away in a bulletproof case that he could pull out and look at whenever he wanted.

"Hey you," he manages, silently thanking whoever is listening that he keeps the tremble out of his voice. "Been awhile."

"Yeah," you say sheepishly. "Sorry about that."

"You don't have anything to apologize for," he says quickly. "You never need to apologize to me."

You were the last one that needed to apologize for anything. He should be the one beginning for forgiveness. It was his fault you’d panicked. He should have fought harder for you, proved that he could make it work and save you both from months of heartache. But then again, maybe you had moved on. He couldn’t expect you to wait for him forever.

He doesn’t realize he’s been silent for so long until you clear your throat. For the first time he can recall, the silence is thick and heavy with unspoken words. It had always been effortless, the stories and words flowing like a babbling brook between the two of you. Now the confessions on his tongue remain poised there, too terrified to give them the light of day. 

"How's your season been?" He’s thankful you break the quiet first but the question makes his stomach sink. 

"You haven't been watching?"

"Not really."

"Oh." It made sense that you would distance yourself from him and that was fine, but he couldn’t pretend it didn’t hurt. "It's been decent. Red Bull wants me to come to Milton for contract discussions this week, actually."

"You're moving back up?"

"Potentially." Horner had only called him earlier that week to discuss the potential of him returning to Red Bull next year. The informal agreement was that if he could make seventh in the championship in a midfield car, they would bump him back for the following season. 

It wasn’t a concrete guarantee- that’s why Horner wanted to speak with him in person. He had a year left in his contract and being in a Red Bull meant he would be able to prove his worth to other teams and potentially secure a world championship worthy seat at a team that actually appreciated his talent.

He draws a breath before continuing, "I'll be in London on Monday. You know- if you wanna get together."

You stay silent for a touch too long and he panics. It was too soon. He should have kept his mouth shut because now he’d driven you away again. “Nevermind, forget I said anything-"

"No," you interrupt, "no, I'd love to see you and catch up. I don't have classes on Tuesdays. Have any free time then?"

His eyes slide shut and he exhales. The flack he would undoubtedly catch for shuffling around a few interviews would be worth it to see you. "Yeah. I can swing by your apartment around seven?"

"Okay," you say, a touch of excitement lacing your voice. "I'll make myself presentable."

"I-" he stops himself before the words can slip past his lips. "I'll see you then."

*********

Pierre blows out a breath and adjusts his backpack. He stands at the threshold of your building, keys in hand, unsure if he should let himself in. The dilemma had kept him rooted to the spot for nearly ten minutes now, weighing the pros and cons of his options. 

“Hey you, blond fucker.” Pierre whips around and is met by Daniel’s girlfriend glaring up at him from the sidewalk. She tips her head to the side to study him. Apparently he wasn’t the only one that had to cancel plans to be here tonight. “You gonna grow a pair and go up there or just keep staring at the door all day?”

“I’m going,” he grumbles, “are you?”

“Oh, I was going to but clearly whatever you have planned is more important.” Her grin splits her face ear to ear. “About damn time she got ahold of you. I was getting sick of listening to her gripe about you twenty four seven.”

“Didn’t she tell you I was coming by? If you guys have plans I can come back later.”

She waves a hand and dismisses the offer. “Absolutely not. Go get your girl.”

“She’s not-” The glare she cuts him snatches the words from his mouth. She makes a shooing motion before setting off down the sidewalk, munching on whatever snacks were in her shopping bag.

Pierre shakes out his hands and tries to gather the courage to use his key. The hopeless romantic argued that you would expect him to use it because you would know he still had it. The rational side of him butts in to point out that it might catch you off guard if he showed up without warning. He settles on buzzing your unit, your answer fuzzy from the distortion.

"Pierre?"

Even with the warbly static in your voice, his name on your lips is the salvation he’s been dreaming about for months. "Yeah it's me."

"Don't you have a key?"

"I wasn't sure if I should use it."

You don't answer, instead letting the buzz of the electronic lock do the talking. He takes the stairs three at a time, barely winded by the time he reaches the third floor. He doesn't even have to knock, your door swinging open as he steps up. The sight of you knocks the breath from his lungs. 

It didn't matter that you were in a simple hoodie and jeans, feet bare and hair swept back in a low bun. You are the most beautiful person he's ever seen and after months apart he nearly falls to his knees then and there to beg for your forgiveness, to get lost in you until two souls became one and he never had to live another second apart from you.

"Are you gonna stand there or do you wanna come in?"

God, he had missed your teasing jabs. His fingers ache for contact with your soft skin and he curls them into a fist to resist the urge. “Coming in,” he says softly, purposefully brushing your arm as he skirts past you. Every inch of him sings from the barely there touch, his soul aching for more.

Just stepping foot into your quaint flat has the weight he had been carrying on his chest for months beginning to ease up. Nothing beat the elation of being back where he belonged, not even spraying champagne from the top step on a podium.

Determined not to scare you off before he could have a proper conversation with you, Pierre opts for falling into the same humor you had used earlier. The corners of his mouth twitch upward. "Is that takeout I smell?" 

You nod, your cheeks turning a pale pink. “I got you two orders of beef lo mein. I figured you might be hungry.”

As if summoned, his stomach growls. “Yeah. I haven’t eaten since breakfast."

“Figures,” you say, eyes glinting with mischief as you settle into the plush carpet and pull a takeout box towards you. "I got it from that place across town, the one you liked best." Pierre perches on the edge of the sofa and snags the plastic tray with his name on it, eyes never leaving yours.

Now that you were mere feet from him he found it increasingly difficult to deny himself the relief of kissing you here and now. He wanted to trace his thumb over your lips before replacing it with his own, to slot his mouth over yours until time was nothing and he was no one other than yours.

You clear your throat and drop his gaze first, sending him crashing back to reality. “So, ninth huh? Glad to see you cracked the top ten.”

Pierre scrunches his nose and spears a piece of broccoli. He was shit with chopsticks but you always got a kick out of him fumbling with them. “Not where I’d like to be but I’ll take it. Horner took notice obviously, but I’m not getting my hopes up.”

“I think an invitation to Milton Keynes is enough reason to hope," you say around a mouthful of sticky rice.

This interaction was reason to hope. The fact that you were once again on speaking terms, that things were finally returning to some semblance of normal, was enough for him to believe that one day everything would be back to how it was before. That maybe, just maybe, he could hold you in his arms again and fall asleep to the soundtrack of your heart beating in his ear. 

Remembering the guy from your instagram, he scans the room for any sign of a male companion. Finding none, he asks, “How’s your boyfriend?”

It probably would have been a good idea to go about this particular line of questioning with a bit more tact. Inquiring so blatantly betrayed his inner thoughts, laid all his cards on the table. He didn't have it in him to care, not when his world might be turned upside down by your answer.

“Oh, you mean Peter?” You sip your water, seemingly working up the courage to explain. Each moment that the silence dragged on it became more of a physical monster. Pierre could feel it growing until it threatened to sink his claws in him and drag him deeper into the pits of his insecurity.

“If that’s his name, yeah.” Pierre braces himself for whatever comes next, reminding himself to be happy for you no matter what you choose. It would take time but he could put aside what he still felt for you and learn to accept your choice if it meant staying in your life.

You shake your head. “He’s a friend from uni. He’s not my boyfriend. At least not anymore.”

“Oh,” he says, frowning down at his food to cover the way his heart skips. “But he was?”

He had expected you to move on, if he was being honest. No way in hell did you deserve to be as miserable as he had been since you'd left- you deserved all the happiness he couldn't seem to give you and more. And if someone else had been the one to grant you that happiness, he should thank them. 

“For a little while,” you say softly, like it would cushion the blow. “It didn’t feel right.”

He was familiar with that feeling. Nothing he did felt right after the break up. Just about the only thing that kept him sane was telling himself that you’d come to your senses sooner or later.

And now that he was here, his world was beginning to right itself.

“Earth to Pierre,” you say teasingly, waving a hand in front of his face.

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly. “I just- I’ve missed this,” he says, picking at his food.

“What, eating subpar takeout in my tiny apartment?” You laugh and stuff another bite in your mouth. God, you could be so oblivious. It was one of the many things he adored about you. 

“I do. I miss doing anything that involves you, actually.”

There it was. His heart laid bare before you for the second time, waiting to see how you would respond. You set down your chopsticks and wipe your lips. His eyes track their movement as you whisper, “I’ve missed you too.”

Four syllables and he melts. It takes all he has to keep himself from sobbing with relief. It was everything he had come here hoping to hear. He couldn’t endure this again, couldn’t lose you for a second time-

“Don’t say that unless you mean it,” he pleads, body thrumming with the need to wrap you in his arms. “Don’t put me through this again unless you’re here to stay.”

He wasn't strong enough to tell you to stop. He would let you wreck him and he would be completely powerless to stop it. He would welcome it if it meant you granting him a sliver of your time. It would ruin him for anyone else but he didn’t have it in him to turn you away.

You rise to your feet and pad around the low table until you’re standing knee to knee, his neck craned up to study your face. You just keep looking at him, the leash on his carefully controlled restraint slipping as he rambles, “Because I can’t take it if you leave me again, I won’t-”

You simply nod, as if that’s all the answer he should need. But it’s not enough. “Tell me,” he pleads. “Tell me you mean it.”

He didn’t care that he was begging. He didn’t care that you had reduced his normally impenetrably stoic mentality to a jumble of you. If he was being honest with himself, you were the light of his life, the reason he pushed so hard for results on track. Everything had gone black and white when you left and racing had been the only thing keeping him from falling apart at the seams. The need to make you proud still propelled him forward even if he'd had no idea if you still cared.

So no, he didn’t care at all that he was practically on his knees. He would grovel at your feet for his entire life if it meant you’d grant him one more day to be with you.

“I mean it,” you murmur and place a hand on his cheek. He draws a shaky breath, leaning into you. Home, home, home, his head screams, acutely aware of every square inch of contact between the two of you.

“I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, and I’ve finally come to terms with it- your lifestyle. If I love you, I have to accept it being public. I have to build myself a shelter to withstand the storm, but I’ll make it big enough for two.”

It takes everything in him to keep from crushing you to his chest and never letting go. He had to ask, had to be certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was forever. “Promise me you won’t leave again if things get hard. Promise me we’ll get through whatever they throw at us together.”

“I promise. I’m not afraid anymore,” you murmur. Pierre’s head falls forward to rest on your hip bone, your fingers threading in his hair. “Daniel’s girlfriend helped me see that it doesn’t matter what anyone says. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I haven't been the same since I…”

“Neither have I.” His thumb winds under your shirt to sweep over your soft skin. “You’re safe with me, you know that right? I can protect you from whatever they say and you’re right, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is this-” he finally lets himself look up at you- “what we have. I’ve never stopped loving you, not once.”

Your smile is soft and tentative as you climb into his lap. His hands slide up your sides to pull you closer, refusing to let an inch separate you now that you’d bridged the gap. “I promise I’m not going anywhere. I learned my lesson.”

You lean down to ghost your lips over his brow, his closed eyelids, his nose. He can feel himself reconstructing under your touch, that final piece of the puzzle clicking home after being lost for so long. “I promise that I’m yours until the last star falls from the sky.”

He had lost four months of time with you. He wouldn't allow another second to slip through his fingers. 

Anticipating his movements, you meet him halfway. Fireworks explode as his lips finally return home and his world is finally, finally righted. Your nails scratch lightly at the nape of his neck, drawing him impossibly closer as your body moulds against his. He had nearly forgotten how perfectly your curves fit against him after all this time. He was determined to memorize every mountain and valley of you by the night's end.

His hands grip your thighs and he stands. Your arms automatically wind around his neck to keep from falling. He carries you to the kitchen and sets you on the edge of the island, never breaking the kiss. Nothing mattered outside of this apartment; not his career, not any baseless gossip, nothing existed beyond the space where your skin met his.

Pierre pulls back long enough to remove his shirt. Your fingers dance over his skin, relearning the planes of his chest like you had all the time in the world. And you did; he would stay here as long as you let him, reveling in the way you drank up every inch of his body like it was the first time you’d seen it.

“I love you,” you say as he kisses along your jaw.

How many times had he dreamt of you whispering that to him the past four months? How many times had it echoed in his head before a race, taunting him? He could scarcely believe his mind wasn’t playing more tricks on him now. He had to be certain it was real.

“Say it again,” he breathes. “Please. Please, tell me again.”

“I love you,” you repeat, punctuating each word with a kiss. “I love you Pierre, my champion, my heart, my everything.”

Pierre groans against your mouth, knotting his fingers in your hair and tugging your head back to expose your throat. He nips at the soft skin, not caring that he was leaving a trail of tiny marks in his wake. His focus was entirely on the gasps he was dragging from you with each touch, your heels digging into his ass and begging for him to be closer.

"My sweet, kindhearted man," you continue breathlessly. He didn't know if the words were for your benefit or his. "My best friend. My one and only love."

In that moment, you could ask him to bring you a star from the midnight sky and he wouldn't stop until he found a way to make it happen. You could ask for his last dollar and he would hand it to you with a smile on his face, completely enthralled with the way his name sounds on your tongue, professing that you still wanted him as much as he wanted you.

You were his undoing.

“Off,” he growls, tugging at your sweatshirt. You obey instantly and fling it aside, neither of you caring when dishes clatter to the tile floor and undoubtedly break. Your jeans follow suit after he helps you slip out of them. He runs his fingers over the delicate black lace of your bra and panties and pauses to appreciate that you knew exactly where the night would lead.

His cock twitches as you reach between your bodies to run a knuckle over his clothed length. “Your turn.” You undo the button with practiced ease, taking your sweet time as his breath comes in ragged gasps. He’d had a taste of you and hadn’t forgotten how you’d felt around him. He needed you more than he needed the air he breathed, his desperation taking over as he swats your hand aside and strips off his jeans and boxers himself.

He drops to his knees and grips your thighs, pulling you forward until your center is inches from his face. The yelp that escapes you is intoxicating, your hands flying back to catch yourself. His teeth sink none too gently into the flesh of your thigh and he’s rewarded with a moan before he flicks his tongue over the hurt.

Your head falls back and Pierre places one of your legs over his shoulder. “Mon amour,” he purrs, garnering your attention. Your head lolls forward and he waits until you meet his gaze to speak again. “You know I love you, right?”

“I never doubted it,” you confirm, lips curling in a smile. “But why don’t you prove it to me again?”

He pulls your panties aside and blows lightly. You groan, thighs tensing under his fingers as your toes curl and he chuckles. “Sounds like a challenge.”

“Do you really want to tease me?”

“What I want,” he says sharply, “is to have you moaning my name until it's the only word you know.” His tongue flicks out to dance over your thigh, dangerously close to where he knows you want him. “What I want is to make up for lost time.” He rips through the thin lace of your panties and lets the ruined scraps fall to the floor.

“Those were expensive.”

“I’ll buy you new ones.”

He would buy you an entire lingerie store if he could rip every set of it off you. He didn’t care how much it costed, it was never too much when it came to you.

“What I want most, my love,” he murmurs, smiling when his hot breath curls over your dripping cunt and you squirm, “is to forget everything else and stay here forever.”

You cry out when his tongue finally flicks through your folds. Pierre hums approvingly at your reaction, one arm snaking up to pin your hips in place. He sucks lightly at your clit and your fingers tangle in his hair.

“P-Pierre,” you breathe. He pulls back and you whine at the loss of contact. He grins up at you, the wickedness of it dragging the moan from your lips that he was after. He was drunk on the sound, desperate to hear it again and again.

“There’s my good girl.” He runs his tongue flat over your sex, savoring the taste as you squirm under him. You let out a choked noise when he repeats the motion before fucking you with his tongue, his nose hitting your clit with each stroke.

He doesn’t miss the way your lip wobbles and Pierre knows you’re ready to cry with frustration. He decides he’s tortured you enough for now and relents, putting two fingers in his mouth to wet them before plunging them inside you.

His mouth is spelling his name on your clit a moment later, your walls already clamping down on his fingers as your orgasm nears. In the handful of times he’d taken you to bed, he had already learned that when your head rolls back like that and your breathing stops, you’re seconds away from climaxing. He doesn’t let up until you’re shaking beneath him, finally slowing to work you through your orgasm without making you hypersensitive.

“Baby,” you groan breathlessly. Pierre slowly withdraws his fingers and wipes them on his thigh before pressing a final, tender kiss to your center that makes you jump.

“Use my name,” he demands, uncoiling to his full height. He grips your wrist and hauls your boneless body up, wrapping his other arm around your shoulders to keep you upright.

“Pierre,” you murmur and he grinds his hips against you in approval. He captures your mouth with his, taking advantage of your hazy mind to lazily explore it. 

You hum into the kiss, managing to wrap your arms around his neck and pull him closer. Suddenly the column of your neck is all he can think about and he wraps a hand around it, squeezing with enough force that you pull back with a gasp.

“Too much?” He murmurs, lessening his grip. Your brows knit together and your lower lips juts out, begging for him to take it between his teeth. He leans in and gives in to the impulse as he swipes his thumb under your jaw.

“Tell me if you want my hand on your throat, my love. I need to hear you say it.”

“Please,” you say finally. Your eyes are cloudy when they meet his. “Keep it there.”

He shows his approval in the form of a light squeeze. You angle your hips up, nudging his cock with your center. You reach a hand down to wrap around his shaft and drag the head through your folds, teasing him as he had done to you. The grip on your throat tightens to a point bordering blissfully between pain and pleasure, both a warning and an order to continue. 

If you knew how close he was to flipping you on your stomach and slamming into you, you’d call him crazy. Or maybe you’d like it, judging by the way your head falls back as he rocks his hips and inches into you.

You both moan when he decides the time for restraint has passed and he slams into you. You lift your hips to meet his with every thrust, clearly missing this just as much as he had. God, he’d lost months of fucking you, of feeling you clench around him and writhe beneath him. If he could stay like this forever he would, his hand around your neck and cock splitting you open as he laps up your moans like sweet candy.

“I’m- Pierre,” you squeak out, and he knows you’re barreling towards your second orgasm of the night. He pulls you up by your neck until you’re eye to eye and forced to look at him.

“Come for me,” he whispers, slamming into you again and again. “Come on my cock mon amour and I might just cum inside you.”

His words are your undoing, pleasure rippling from you in waves as your mouth falls open in a silent plea. He grants you no clemency as your cunt twitches around him, instead following through on his promise and following your lead.

You pants mix with his own as he struggles to keep both of you upright, his knees turned to jelly. Your head rests on his shoulder and he presses a kiss to your temple, slowly pulling out of you. A pitiful whimper escapes your throat involuntarily.

“I know,” Pierre murmurs, reaching over to start the kitchen sink. He wets a clean cloth and runs it between your legs, still supporting you as he doesn’t trust that your legs won't give out if he doesn’t. When it’s clear you can barely form a coherent thought, he scoops you in his arms and carries you to your room. He nudges the bathroom door open with his hip and sets you on the vanity.

The absence of his body heat makes you shiver when he goes to turn on the shower, adjusting the knobs until he’s satisfied with the temperature. He gathers you in his arms and steps into the tub, your sigh audible as the warm water hits your skin.

“Can you stand?” he murmurs before kissing your temple. You nod against his chest and he sets you down, keeping his hands on your waist just in case. You’re thankful for it when your knees wobble, a hand flying out to steady yourself.

“I’m okay,” you say after a beat and grin up at him. “I can stand, promise.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m taking my hands off you,” he says, grinning right back. “At least not for long.” He reaches over your shoulder for the shampoo and gestures for you to turn around. You obey, tipping your head back to wet your hair. A blissful sigh escapes you when his fingers meet your scalp, the cherry blossom scent blooming in the air as he works it into a lather.

Taking care of you was just as satisfying as the sex was. He cherished the intimacy of taking this small burden from your shoulders. The seemingly simple task was one of deep seated trust and it proved to him that your love ran bone deep. There was a level of trust in you letting him wash you that he didn't want to have with anyone else. It was reserved for you and you alone.

“Close your eyes,” he warns before guiding your head back under the water for a rinse. He cups a hand to your forehead to keep the soap from your eyes. Your smile is soft but unrestrained as you lean further into him until your back is pressed to his chest.

You both stay silent as he runs the creamy conditioner through the ends of your hair. His hand cups your jaw and tips your head back for a lazy kiss before he rinses that too and cuts the tap.

Once you're wrapped in a fuzzy white towel he finally dries himself off, fighting off a chill. He doesn't realize you're watching him until he turns around and notices you standing in the doorway.

"What?"

You push off the wall and pad back to where he stands to wrap your arms around his middle. His thumb traces patterns on your shoulder, perfectly content to stand there dripping on the tile until morning. 

When it's clear you're lost in thought he speaks up. "What's on your mind?"

"When did you know you loved me?"

"Like the exact moment?" He asks, caught off guard. You nod against his chest.

"When you visited me in Milan last summer," he says a few heartbeats later. That night insisted on making guacamole at two in the morning and woke me up because you couldn't find a lime. You told me you couldn't sleep because it was all you could think about after you saw that couple at the cafe eating it."

"Why then?"

"Because I knew I didn't have a lime but I was fully prepared to knock on every door in the building to find you one. Because in that moment all that mattered was seeing your face light up when I handed it to you and knowing that it was me that made you smile like that. I knew then that I’d do anything for you."

It still amazed him how a lime of all things was the tipping point. In that moment, a lime was important to you and it so naturally became important to him. If anyone else had woken him from his deep sleep he would have grumbled and told them off. But you, seeing your face inches from his, the light from the hall casting a warm halo around your frame as you whispered his name, he hadn’t cared at all.

"But then I found the juice in the fridge," you recall and glance up at him.

"Yeah, you did. And you felt so bad for waking me up- you had no idea that I had already fallen so hard that I had to keep myself from shutting you up with a kiss.”

The easy admission seems to stir something in you and you rise up on your tiptoes to press your lips to his. “I knew that time you sent food to my dorm at midnight when I was pulling an all nighter. I was studying for my calculus final, remember?”

Pierre nods. “I was in Barcelona. You weren’t answering your phone so I sent a message with the takeout guy.” He had been wholly enamored with you at that point, having quickly learned that trying to keep his feelings buried deep was an option that would never work. So he leaned into it, letting little bits of it shine through in hopes that you might pick up on it.

Your laugh rumbles through him. “It was the most thoughtful thing anyone had ever done for me. I hadn’t eaten all day. I was too nervous.”

“Took us long enough to figure it out didn’t it?” He untangles himself from you and leads you to bed.

“I’m just glad we did eventually.” You let him guide you to the mattress while he stays standing and goes to your closet. He hunts for the shirt he wants to see you in, praying you hadn’t gotten rid of it. He finally finds it tucked back in the corner and pulls it out, the cobalt blue fabric a little faded from how often you’d worn it over the years.

“I remember that,” you say softly as he returns with it and slips it over your head. 

It was the first shirt he had ever gotten upon entering Formula 1 and somehow you had wound up snagging it from his closet while he cleaned up the mess in the kitchen during that same trip to Milan. He had choked on his guac when you reappeared wearing it, eyes lingering on the Torro Rosso logo on the chest and his name splayed across your back like a claiming.

"I don't have sweatpants for you anymore," you point out with an apologetic wince. "I got rid of them."

Pierre just shrugs and hands you the shirt. "I have a change of clothes in my backpack. I was planning on working out to blow off some steam if…"

He trails off and you nod in silent acknowledgement. He didn’t have to voice the thought, you were already in his head and knew exactly what he meant. Unable to help himself, he kisses your head just because he can before retrieving his bag from the kitchen. "I have something for you," he says and lets the towel around his waist drop.

You let out a low whistle and grin at him as your eyes slide over every inch of his body. He takes more time than necessary to pull out his shorts, appreciating your gaze. You're still watching him as he slips them on and brings his bag to you.

"Do you wanna see what I got you or are you gonna stare at me all night?"

"I think I'll stare."

Pierre rolls his eyes and chuckles, plopping down next to you. "Close your eyes and hold out your hands."

You do as he asks but not before cocking a brow at him. Knowing the sound of the package will give it away, he does his best to draw out the first item as quietly as he can. The second he sets it in your hands a smile splits your face. He'd tear down the energy station with his bare hands to keep that expression on your face.

"It's candy." Your eyes open and you gasp. "Laffy taffy? But you can only get this-"

"In the states," He finishes. “I got as much as the store had.” The chewy, fruity candy was your absolute favorite and every once in a while you craved it. His backpack was currently stuffed full of it and various other packages of sweets, having been collected at every gp he had been to since Austin.

You tear into the package and dig for a pink one. You hold it out to him triumphantly and somehow, it’s that simple gesture that makes him melt. “You like the strawberry ones don’t you?”

“Yes baby, I do.” He lets you pop the sweet in his mouth - Pyry would certainly not approve- and grins at you. “If you eat too many before bed you won’t be able to sleep.”

“It’s still early,” you point out but don’t hesitate to set the sweets aside and cuddle up to him when he lays back. “Got somewhere to be?”

“I have to be at Milton by eight,” he says, wrapping an arm around your middle. “But you’re coming with me.”

@seasidetom @flashcal @limp-wrist-max @sunshinesewis @lifeofzoemichael @ninuffi @perfectfantasies22 @lamboleglerg @ladyperceval @0forgottenparadise0 @evie-pr @avsensio @ninuffi @ricciartodododo​ 

If you have asked to be tagged in the past and I missed you I apologize! Just comment below and I’ll get you added for future updates. Thanks for reading ❤

[ilguna]

Anteric - Aleatory (f.o)

summary: secrets have more worth than you gave them credit for.

warnings; swearing. BLOOD.

wc; 4.6k

NOTES; I give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

In the ceremony room, factions are arranged in concentric circles. On the very outside circle is where you’ll be standing with the rest of the sixteen year-olds from every faction. Since you’re not an actual member from Abnegation, you’re not allowed to sit with them during the ceremony. It doesn’t matter if you intend to stay with them or not.

What you choose today will make you an initiate, and if you complete initiation, you become a member. While some factions are difficult to get into, like Erudite, Candor and Dauntless, others are much easier, like Abnegation and Amity. Which narrows down today’s choice.

You and the rest of the teenagers here, move around to put yourselves in alphabetical order according to your last names. It lands you between a Candor boy, dressed in black and a white. And a Dauntless girl, dressed only in black, playing with the piercing in her nose. Finnick is further down the list, since his name starts with ‘O’, this means that you’ll get to choose before him.

In the next circle are rows of chairs for your families, with each faction divided into slices to avoid inter-mingling. You watch as Reed brings Alyssum to a single chair, not wanting her to occupy another since she’s only three. He sits down, and places her right on his lap, letting her play with the sleeves of her shirt. Even with kids, they have to wear clothes that are too big for them. Reed says that she’ll grow into them as she gets older.

Because the responsibility of hosting the Choosing Ceremony rotates every year, it falls on Candor this time. Their leader is a tall man with dark hair and dull grey eyes. Haymitch Abernathy looks as bored as he does each time he appears anywhere. He stands on a podium that fits tightly between Erudite and Dauntless. He doesn’t smile.

As the chairs fill, silence begins to settle on the factions, with the exception of Dauntless. Once there’s not a single space left, they take the hint on their own, and allow Haymitch to go on with the ceremony. 

You curl your hands into fists at your sides, staring at the back of Reed’s head.

Haymitch’s voice is very monotone, “Welcome to the Choosing Ceremony, the day we honor the democratic philosophy given to us by our ancestors. Let us say thank you for allowing them to give us the idea that every man has a right to choose his own way in the world.”

It’s mostly the Abnegation that murmurs out a quiet ‘thanks’. You keep your lips sealed, unlike everyone in this room, who had been told what they should go do, you’re left to your own thoughts. You actually get to make the choice on how you live the rest of your life. Three different factions, three different lifestyles. Only one of which you are familiar with. 

Which is why you should stick to Abnegation.

“Our children are now sixteen. They are on the edge of adulthood, which means that it’s now time for them to decide what kind of people they will decide to be. A long time ago, our ancestors realized that politics, religion, race and nationalism are not to blame for the awful world. Rather, they determined that it was the fault of a human’s nature to go towards evil. 

“Since evil presents itself in many different ways, factions were formed to eradicate those qualities they believed responsible for the world’s disarray.” Haymitch pauses for a moment, “Those who blamed aggression formed Amity.” 

Amity, a faction that already has someone from your family. Yet, you don’t qualify for it like he does.

The Amity share smiles, dressed in yellow, orange and red to trick their minds into being happier. They sing songs, pick apples from trees, and live in healthy communities. They are loving, and care-free and kind, everything that you’re not, since you picked up the knife and eliminated this option. You chose violence over peace without knowing what it represented. 

“Those who blamed ignorance became the Erudite.”

With how Erudite has been behaving recently, they’ve made it easy for you to turn your back to them. It’s the easiest decision that you’ve made all day, and it really says something, doesn’t it?

They all hold one article of blue clothing, since blue is supposed to soothe the mind into being calm. Most of them also wear glasses, to make themselves seem smarter to others. You think it makes them look stupid.

“Those who blamed duplicity created Candor,” Haymitch’s lips turn up slightly, creating just the ghost of a smile.

Even if you had wanted to join Candor, it’s not an option. They don’t lie, and their initiation process has something to do with that, you’re sure. They can pick out liars, and they think keeping secrets is a form of lying. Since you’re Divergent, the entire faction is a hazard to you.

They wear black and white, to signify that truth and lies are black and white, with no grey area offered. They are also the people who smoke the most, you think it’s because of the stress that they endure.

“Those who blamed selfishness made Abnegation.”

Your home, you’ve grown up in this faction for sixteen years, and you’ve been selfishly debating whether or not you’ll stay. In Abnegation, you’re supposed to forget yourself, but all it’s done is magnify the things you hate the most about it. 

If you made an effort and stayed, you might be able to change that thought. You just have to give it a chance. You have to give Reed a second chance.

“And those who blamed cowardice were the Dauntless.”

Dauntless is dressed in solid black, tight-fitting clothes. They have piercings, brightly-colored hair and tattoos. They’re loud, and reckless, which makes them the complete opposite of Abnegation. If you were to give your life away today and go to them, you’d flip your world upside-down. 

Not to mention how hard their initiation is, going there is much more of a risk than trying to stay here and fix everything broken. At least you know how to make things work in Abnegation, there’s not even a guarantee that you’ll make it past Dauntless initiation.

“Working together, these five factions have lived in peace for decades. Each faction is important, as they contribute to a different sector of society. The Abnegation gives us selfless leaders in our government. Candor has provided us with trustworthy leaders in law. Erudite has supplied us with intelligent teachers and outstanding technology. Amity has given us understanding counselors and caretakers. Dauntless provides us with protection from threats both inside and outside of the walls.

“But the possibilities of each faction do not end there. We give one another more support than we can put into words. In our factions, we find meaning, we find purpose, we find life.” Haymitch pauses, “A life without factions, is a life we would not survive in.”

The last sentence is an attack on the factionless, who are supposed to be savages. You can see where they’re all coming from, even though for a while you didn’t. You’ve seen what the factionless can do first-hand, how they killed your father in an act of kindness. And now they’re hiding a murderer, refusing to give him up.

Without them, though, the city would not be clean and well-functioning. They’re the janitors, the garbage truck drivers, the construction workers, and more. They help your society in ways that you can’t even think of. 

It might be time for you to finally let the grudge go. It might have only been a few years ago, but all of them can’t be bad, right? If that were the case, then they’d be just as awful as everyone says they are. Yet, the Abnegation continues to feed them, and clothe them, and volunteer over them to give them better living situations.

If you stay in Abnegation, this is a concept that you have to accept.

“This day marks a happy occasion, in which we receive our new initiatives, who will work with us toward a better society, and a better world.” Haymitch finishes, allowing loud applause to come from your families.

He reads the names one at a time. A sixteen year-old will step out of their place in the line and walk toward the middle of the circles. This is where five metal bowls lay, each one having an element that represents a faction. For Abnegation, there are grey stones, Amity has soil, Candor has broken glass, Dauntless has lit coals, and Erudite has water.

For a while, no one switches factions, and you can’t blame them, to be the first to do it must be nerve-wrecking. Then the streak breaks, when an Erudite girl transfers to Candor. The Erudite section isn’t happy, casting glares towards Candor, but Candor gives her smiles and nods on her way behind their section.

You think it’s funny that the two factions don’t realize how similar they are. Candor and Erudite both find ways to disturb the peace. In a way, telling the truth and striving for knowledge at any cost is the same. You wouldn’t be surprised if you saw them swap many initiates.

Still, with the girl transferring, it means that she’ll eventually be seen as a traitor to Erudite. It doesn’t make sense, since you said so yourself, you aren’t actual members of the faction that you come from. It doesn’t keep the factions from being territorial over the teenagers that they thought would be theirs, though.

With the Erudite girl being the first to switch, it gives others the courage to do the same. Each faction welcomes new faces and fresh blood, and the initiates seem to be happy with their decision once it’s over with. With the way they sigh and smile, it’s like a weight has been lifted off their shoulders.

Before you realize, the Candor boy next to you is being called to the middle of the room. You grit your teeth, allowing the tight feeling to grow in your throat. You have to take deep breaths if you want to stay calm. You don’t need to clam up down there, you need to have one fluid motion when you choose if you go or stay.

The Candor boy cuts his hand, and holds it over Erudite’s water. Haymitch gives him a brief look, allowing him to clear the middle of the room before reading the next name, yours.

“(Y/n) Gallows.” 

His eyes land on you now, you take in a deep breath before heading down the steps one at a time. You know that Reed’s eyes are on you, anticipating your next move. The last time the two of you went to a Choosing Ceremony, your brother had ended up transferring to Amity. Reed has to be wondering if you’ll be a repeat of him.

If you do, you’ll leave him all alone. 

You’re not sure if you can do that, even after everything that happened between you two, and between you and Abnegation. You might have lost everything you have here, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to build it up again. You can make Abnegation how you want it to be, only if you stay.

You stop in front of the metal bowls, eyes sweeping over the table. The elements inside of the bowls are all stained in some way by now. Erudite’s water is pink, Candor’s glass shows red, Abnegation’s stones have droplets of blood littering them like freckles. The only two unbothered will be Dauntless and Amity.

Haymitch offers you the knife, it will only be used once, and it will only be used by you. He gives you a curt nod, and you’re left to decide by yourself. The knife you hold in your hand now is nowhere near as heavy as the one you held in the aptitude test. This one is lighter, and sharper.

You bring the blade to your palm, carefully dragging it across. It stings badly, and you grit your teeth to combat the tears in the corner of your eyes. The blood springs to life outside of your body, showing the rich color. You stare at it for a second as you shift your body to the left, where Abnegation and Dauntless lie. 

You are not cut out for Amity, you are too mean. You are not cut out for Candor, you are a liar. And you are too smart for Erudite to have.

The blood needs time to pool, giving you more time to think.

If you leave Abnegation today, you will leave Reed alone with Alyssum. Alyssum will have no older sister, Reed will have no one to take care of her. She’ll grow up the same way you did, in silence without a single mention of Mox. This time, you’ll be added to the list.

If you leave Abnegation today, you will no longer have the comfort of knowing that you’ll be able to pass initiation. Dauntless is not Abnegation, their initiation process could be living hell. While on the other hand, you could volunteer for thirty days and officially call yourself a member after Initiation Day. There will be no fear at night. 

If you leave Abnegation, you will leave everyone you know behind. People that you could rely on in hard times. You will have to learn new faces, names and mannerisms. You won’t get to meet people who knew your parents, already offering up stories about them without you asking. No one will know where you came from.

The only problem with staying in Abnegation, is that you run the risk of losing your best friend. Finnick hates it here, he always has. He doesn’t fit in, he fights, and you’ve watched him do it. He’s been waiting years for the Choosing Ceremony just so that he can switch factions and find a place better for him.

However, that’s the only downfall you’re seeing with staying.

You know that Abnegation isn’t perfect, that there are many issues you have with the faction, but all of them can be fixed if you stay. All of them can be fixed with time, especially the ones concerning Reed. If you go, though, none of it will be possible, and you risk losing what relationship you have left with him.

You have to remember that you have the aptitude to stay. You’re not an outcast, not in Abnegation.

You love Finnick, you really do, he’s just not enough.

You hold your hand over the Abnegation stones, and tip your hand over, allowing your blood to join the rest. A smile comes over your face as you turn to Abnegation, eyes locking with Reed, who gives you a small smile in return. He bounces Alyssum a few times on his knee.

On your way up to stand behind your home faction, you earn a few approving nods. You slip your hands into your pockets, staring ahead at the center of the room. You know for a fact that your hand is still bleeding, there’s not much you can do to fix it, is the thing. You could always wipe it on your shirt, but that would draw attention to you.

The Ceremony continues on, not a lot of people deciding to join Abnegation. It has to be the fault of Erudite, normally Abnegation has a healthy group that they train each year. With every person that leaves the line, the closer Finnick’s turn draws. 

You bite the inside of your cheek, feeling nervous for him.

“Finnick Odair.” Haymitch calls.

Finnick leaves his place in line, heading down the stairs fluidly. Haymitch hands the knife over to him, gives him a nod, and then observes. Finnick turns to the Abnegation and Dauntless bowls on his left, which is no surprise to you. You can already see him in Dauntless black.

He lifts the knife, drags the silver blade across his hand, and patiently waits for the blood to build up. To anyone else, this might look like he’s stalling, to you it seems like he’s trying to make it as excruciating as possible before he transfers. Abnegation is supposed to be a good faction, which is why hardly anyone ever leaves. If he builds up suspense, it’ll make the news a little harder to bear.

You already know what’s coming, though.

Finnick swallows, and then moves his cupped hand over Abnegation.

You hold your breath.

He tilts his hand, allowing the liquid to run down his skin and drop onto the stones below. 

What is he thinking?

Finnick turns around, injured hand diving into his pocket in an effort to hide the mess he’s made. You begin to feel lightheaded, so you’re forced to let out the air you were holding. Without so much of a glance at you, he stops to your right. 

Your eyebrows draw in, mouth open slightly when you reach out to touch his arm to catch his attention. It works, he looks at you with a raised eyebrow, and you shake your head at him, because you don’t understand. He hates it here, why would he want to stay? Why didn’t he take his chance to leave?

He doesn’t speak, only gives you a gentle smile before turning back to the Choosing Ceremony.

—

—

As you expected, Abnegation initiation didn’t even come close to being hard. Volunteering for thirty days is the equivalent to walking in a park. There wasn’t a single doubt in your mind that you wouldn’t make it through. You would have had to make an effort to fail, which says a lot about the program.

It wasn’t easy in the beginning, you won’t lie. You were more used to small acts of kindness, by giving up your seat on the bus and making dinner even when it wasn’t your turn. That was not the case when it came to the actual initiation, though. You’ve spent hours in the sun, feeding the factionless. You’ve labored in the kitchen in order to fill a quota for food that needed to be handed out. And you’ve filled in jobs that haven’t been taken by the factionless, and so much more.

There were a couple points in time where you were sure that Finnick was going to burst the bubble that he had worked so hard to form. It only furthered the idea that Finnick was not cut out for Abnegation, and he had only stayed because he wanted to be around you. But then he’d bounce back, and you’d be unsure about it again.

You two made it though. The journey was far from easy, yet the two of you sit side by side on the bench in the initiation room. You have your hands in your lap, Finnick has his placed on each side to him, leaning forward slightly. To your right is a transfer initiate, Verda, who didn’t have any problem with fitting in.

In front of you are a few of the leaders of Dauntless, one of them being Naida’s husband, Amon. For the Abnegation-born initiates, like you and Finnick and a few others, your families are also gathered together, behind the leaders. They’re all smiling, excited for you.

The oldest leader that Abnegation has, clears his throat, looking over the bench. This year, no one had failed initiation, which means that all of you are basically touching shoulders because the bench isn’t big enough. They would add another one, if it weren’t for the fact that the bench has been here for a long time. The new bench wouldn’t have the same wear and tear as the rest.

“I will be my undoing, if I become my obsession,” the man starts. It’s the Abnegation manifesto, part of the initiation ceremony, “I will forget the ones I love, if I do not serve them. I will war with others, if I refuse to see them. Therefore I choose to turn away from my reflection, to not rely on myself, but on my brothers and sisters. To project always outward until I disappear.”

There are a few people who mutter, “And only God remains.” after the final sentence. It’s an optional sentence, mostly spoken by the religious members of Abnegation. It’s not a requirement by any means.

The leader that had been reciting, gives you all a gentle smile, “Congratulations initiates, tomorrow you can officially call yourselves members.”

No one responds at first, not even the ones that were born here. They must not have older siblings that live here, because silence is not the answer. You know for a fact that Finnick has a younger brother.

“Thank you.” you say, breaking the silence.

“Thank you.” Finnick breathes.

One by one, some overlapping others, each of you thank him.

After that, your least favorite part comes.

During Reed’s Abnegation initiation, there were three parts to it. The first, is to read the Abnegation manifesto, which is about forgetting yourself and knowing the dangers of selfishness. The second, is getting your feet washed by the older members to symbolize leaving a life of selfishness behind. And the third is to then share a dinner with everyone in attendance, serving the person to your left.

Obviously you can understand why they will wash your feet, but it’s not exactly a comfortable situation. If you were born in Abnegation, you’ll typically get your parents--and in your case, since they’re not here, you will be getting Reed--or if you transferred, you get a leader or a volunteer instead.

If you could back out, you would. The last thing you want is for Reed to wash your feet, especially since your relationship isn’t exactly healed just yet. You’re on the road to getting there, but there is a long way to go still.

Still, you watch as parents, siblings, leaders and volunteers alike bring out glass bowls, placing them at your feet. Finnick gives you a look, face twisting. You’ve already told him that it was going to happen, so he could prepare himself. He must’ve forgotten, because you’ve been having nightmares of this situation this past week.

Reed gets on his knees in front of you, pouring the water into the bowl. He sits back, and then holds a hand out for your foot. You give him a polite smile, allowing him to get it over with. For Finnick, his father sits in front of him, taking his time washing Finnick’s feet.

Finnick looks extremely uncomfortable, stuck between smiling and staring at his father with a straight face. 

Finally, your feet are patted dry with a white towel, and Reed gets up from where he was sitting. Others follow at a steady pace, disposing of their water and washing their hands. 

Then it’s finally time for dinner.

You get up from where you sit on the bench, looking at Finnick with a funny smile. His face is twisted, lips pursed as he gets up from his spot. He closes his eyes for a long moment, shakes his head, and the two of you move on to find a free bathroom to wash your hands, shoeless.

Verda, Clay, Moises and a few others follow you two, since you seem to know what you’re doing. They’re right, because you lead them to the gendered bathrooms. They split, going through the swinging doors. You’re about to head into the girls bathroom, thanking Verda for holding open the door, until Finnick asks for you to stay back.

“Oh, sure.” you nod at him, looking at Verda, “I’ll be inside in a moment.”

She gives you a smile, the door sweeps shut behind her.

You raise your eyebrows at Finnick, giving him a smile, “What’s up?”

He makes a face, and then sighs it out, “I want to thank you for sticking with me during initiation. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have made it through.”

“It’s really no problem, Finnick.” you laugh, “I can’t leave you behind, even if I wanted to.”

Finnick cracks a smile, and then it fades. He’s got more on his mind.

“What is it?” you ask, “Are you nervous for dinner?”

“No, dinner will be easy.” he waves it off, “It’s something else.”

He doesn’t elaborate.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He shrugs.

You shake your head, settling for a tilt, “I’m not a mindreader, Finnick.”

“I know, it’s just…” he scratches the back of his neck, eyebrows drawing in. He’s not looking at you anymore, he’s staring at the floor, “I like you.”

You stare at him, blinking. When there’s not an immediate response, he finally looks up to your face, scanning for a sense of direction. His face begins to turn red, his ears too. 

He has to be kidding.

“You don’t like me back, okay.” he breathes, straightening to his full height, “That’s good to know.”

“No,” you say, still staring at him. You don’t think he’s kidding anymore, “No, that’s not it.”

Finnick lightens up, “It isn’t?”

You have spent this whole month listening to Verda talk about how cute Finnick is. It started off fine, it didn’t really bother you because you couldn’t see what she was talking about. In Abnegation, physical affection is a powerful thing, which is why it’s so rare, and no one dates during school. Relationships typically form after a long period of time, and after initiation.

But after listening to her talk about him, day in and day out, he was forced to the front of your mind. Not to mention her constant question of whether or not the two of you were dating, a question you tried to shut down. She was so insistent over it, how he would do things for you. As if the entire Abnegation motto isn’t to be selfless and help your neighbor if they need it.

Unfortunately, she began to be right when he would do things for you, that he wouldn’t do for others. Verda wanted to show you that it wasn’t normal, that he was going out of his way for you.

It took everything in your power not to strangle her in her sleep, when she simply stated that he had feelings for you, and it’s the same for you. You’re not sure what Verda did for most of her life in Amity, but some of that stuff doesn’t translate into Abnegation. And with her pointing out your feelings for Finnick, the thoughts of you two together began to crawl.

You thought that it was impossible, though. Finnick has never expressed a liking for any guy or girl. There was a greater chance that he wanted to be alone or with someone else, than you.

Yet here he is. Verda was right.

“I like you too.” you say, the relief on his face is immediate.

“Really?” he begins slouching again, “You’re not just saying that?”

“Really.” you laugh, pressing the heel of your hand to your forehead.

He laughs too, his head is back to look at the ceiling.

This is it. You were right to stay in Abnegation, right to think that you could fix what had happened here. You can’t help yourself when you reach for Finnick’s hand, giving it a squeeze. He locks eyes with you, squeezing right back.

This is the first day of the rest of your life.

--

ANTERIC IS A SPIN-OFF DIVERGENT AU //MASTERLIST//

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@justthatfangirloverthere / @neenieweenie / @amixedwitch / @fnnshelbys​ / @vxntae​ / @liaaacantwrite​ / @terezasworld​ / 

[supernaturalfreewill]

Words: 3,306 Sam x Reader Warnings: none! Summary: Y/N deals with the aftermath of what she has just seen when she stops in The Ivy Cafe in town. A/N: Shit is about to hit the fan. Maybe. Maybe not. This is part of a series! Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, and Part 4 first!

Your name: submit What is this?

You felt frozen. You couldn’t believe what you were looking at. You stepped back absently so she was out of view again, your mouth agape, and realized vaguely that they were calling your name—your latte was ready. You accepted it aimlessly but immediately dug into your pocket for your cell phone and dialed your sister. It was like you needed to confirm that you had really just seen what you had just seen.

You heard her characteristic ringtone clearly from where you were standing, your cell pressed up to your ear.

You swallowed hard at the strangled feeling in your throat, trying to clear it so you could get some air. You felt a little like you were reeling. Who the hell is that guy? What do I do? Do I confront her? Fuck! Sam was literally right outside waiting in the car… You started to head for the door and as you reached it, one hand on the handle to push it open, you glanced back over your shoulder across the café. You had a clear view of them now, and your stomach rolled as you watched her lean forward and kiss him, one of her hands sliding into his hair to pull him in, breaking away with a smile on her face. You turned away abruptly and pushed outside, glancing quickly over at the car. Sam was leaning back in the passenger seat, his eyes closed, faced turned toward his open window to feel the breeze.

I’m gonna be sick. The potential implications of what you had just seen were making you dizzy.

You rushed into the pharmacy, praying that Sam’s prescription was ready. All you wanted to do was put as much distance between where you and Sam were and what you had just seen. Maybe if you put physical distance between you and them you wouldn’t have to deal with what was happening, maybe it would become untrue. What the hell were you supposed to do with what you had just seen? You hastily grabbed Sam’s meds and rushed back out to the car, your latte still in your hand, completely forgotten. You slid into the driver seat and plopped it down in the cup holder. Sam looked over at you and straightened up. He immediately sensed that something was wrong.

“Y/N? Are you alright?”

You couldn’t look at him. You just started the car and threw it into gear. “Mhm! Yep! Let’s just get you home,” you said. “I’m sure you’re ready to be home…”

He waited for you to look over at him, to meet his eyes, but you just stared straight ahead through the windshield. “Are you sure you’re alright?” Sam asked again. You could hear the sweet concern in his voice, but it also still had that vaguely dreamy quality.

You did your best to shove down the feelings of anger, shock, and disbelief that were threatening to overwhelm you and arrange your face into a small smile so you could turn and meet his eyes. “I’m fine, Sam. How are you?”

He gave you a small, somewhat crooked smile, his eyebrows lifting a little in relief from your words. “I’m great. But a bit tired.” He yawned again and leaned his head back against the headrest of his seat.

“I can imagine,” you said, turning onto the highway. “Let’s get back to the bunker so you can rest.” Your voice came out much softer than you meant it to, but luckily Sam seemed to have bought your forced smile. You were a little grateful that he was still a bit loopy, because sober Sam probably would have seen through you in a heartbeat. He always could tell when something was wrong. You bit your cheek to keep angry and disgusted tears from welling up in your eyes.

You raced the whole way back and the time had passed mostly in silence. Sam seemed to be dozing a little, in and out of being awake, the toll of the painkillers and probably the physical trauma as well. But you finally pulled into the underground garage and parked your car. Sam climbed out and said your name to grab your attention as you were shutting your door.

“Your coffee,” he said, holding the paper cup you had completely forgotten about in the cup holder. You stared at the printed logo on the side: The Ivy Café. “You didn’t drink any?” he said, giving you a questioning look. You were never one to leave undrunk coffee undrunk.

You nodded and forced another smile, shrugging. “Wasn’t as tired as I thought,” you said. “Plus, I probably already had too much coffee this morning. Here, I’ll take that,” you said, accepting the cup from him and falling into stride next to him. “You take this.” You handed him the little paper bag with his prescription. “You can’t take any until tonight, though, okay? Doctor’s orders.”

Sam thanked you and smiled. “Okay. Got it.” He turned and gave you a sleepy smile. “Thanks again for today. I know you wasted a whole afternoon on me at that doctor’s office...”

Wasted? On Sam? There was no such thing. You felt a bubble of emotion rising up in your throat again at his words and you tried to choke it down, tried to clear the tightness. “No need to thank me for that,” you said quietly.

“Well… I really appreciate it anyway.” Sam let out another yawn as you both reached Dean and the Impala, which seemed to be mostly back together as Dean was putting his tools away.

“So, are you bionic now or what?” he asked Sam, giving him a smirk and patting him hard on the back.

Sam held up his cast. “I don’t think so.”

“Still hopped up on the good stuff?” Dean asked. Sam let out a big yawn again and shrugged.

“Hand doesn’t hurt. I’m mostly just sleepy now,” he said.

Dean nodded. “Damn. Sounds like I missed the fun Painkiller Sam,” he laughed, giving you a knowing look. You returned the smile as best you could and put a gentle hand on Sam’s back, encouraging him to head in, your fingertips floating lightly over his shirt. Electricity shot up his spine and he actually jumped a little in response and looked down at you.

“Oh—sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you,” you apologized, misreading his reaction.

“That’s alright—It wasn’t—you didn’t—” Sam’s tongue suddenly felt twisted in his mouth. He couldn’t quite get the right words out. He avoided Dean’s perceptive gaze, ignoring the little smirk playing across his lips. “Umm… I’m gonna go get some food and then take a nap, I think…” he said awkwardly.

“Good idea. You coming in?” you asked Dean, trying to give him a meaningful look behind Sam’s back.

“Yep. I’ll be right in,” he said. His brow dropped low over his eyes at the expression on your face. It immediately created a hard pit in his stomach.

_ _ _ _ _ _

You hadn’t stopped pacing since you had made it to your room. And every other cross of the area rug you looked up at that little paper coffee cup, the familiar logo on the side, sitting in the middle of your desk, the liquid inside now completely cold.

Sam had let you make him a grilled cheese but he had also obviously noticed that you were much quieter than usual. You had to excuse yourself from the kitchen because you just couldn’t handle it anymore—you felt sick. And you felt like you were lying to him. You never wanted to lie to him. He deserved so much more than that. Another minute and you would have burst out with what you had seen and you really didn’t want him to hear it while he was exhausted and potentially still a bit fuzzy from the meds. So, you had run away and sequestered yourself in your bedroom, where all you could do was obsess over what you had seen and try to rationalize it. But there was no way to rationalize the way she had kissed him. Or the way she had ignored your call. Again. How many times was that today? While Sam was enduring the pain of a displaced and broken bone in his hand?

Almost as if on cue, your cell phone started to ring and you startled, looking down to see your sister’s name flashing on the screen. You shut your eyes and tried to steady yourself. “Fuck.” You answered, trying to sound normal. “Hello?”

“Hey, sis! Sorry, I missed your calls and texts! It was super loud at lunch and then I was in the movie. How is Sam?”

“How was the movie?” you asked her, hoping your voice didn’t sound as stiff as you felt.

“Oh, it was good! I mean, a little more jump scare than psychological thriller but—still good. So, how is Sam? How is his hand?”

You pinched the bridge of your nose and shut your eyes tightly, sitting rigidly on the edge of your bed. “Well, it’s very broken. He has a cast. He has to wear it for 6 weeks at least.”

“Oh, no… My poor guy… God, I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there today,” she said. “I can’t wait to get home and see how he is. Is he in a lot of pain?”

You gritted your teeth. “He’s on a lot of painkillers, but I’m sure it still hurts. I mean they had to force the bone back into the right place.”

“Ugh. Poor, Sam.”

“Yeah… well… How is—how’s Sarah?” You were gonna make her say it. You were going to make her lie to you over and over. There would be no way for her to say it was a mistake. And maybe it would be enough to force you to leap over the disbelief and spinning confusion and the sick feeling in your stomach and push you straight into whatever had to come next.

“She seems good. Yeah, seems fine. Still really busy with work like usual,” your sister said. Her tone was cheery and upbeat, but to you it just sounded disingenuous.

“Good. That’s good…” There was a beat of silence.

“Well, I’m just leaving the movie theater, so I should be home in like half an hour or so. Maybe a little more.”

“Mhm. Okay. See you later.” You didn’t even wait to say goodbye. You just hung up. You flopped backwards onto your back from the edge of the bed, rubbing both your hands over your face and heaving a heavy sigh. Fuck. Now what? Anger started to bubble again in your chest and you jumped up, casting one more look at The Ivy Café cup on your desk, and striding out into the hallway.

You could see that Sam’s bedroom door was open as you headed down the hall, so you stopped to check on him and you felt like your heart broke at the sight. He was collapsed on his bed, sleeping with his cast propped up on his stomach. You leaned against the doorframe for a moment, resting your head against the cool wood, and just looked at him fondly while your mind spun. He didn’t know. For now, he didn’t know. What would come next? You felt like it was up to you in some sick way… what to do?

Sam was sleeping with the blankets all crunched down at the end of the bed and you quietly tiptoed in and pulled them over him. He didn’t stir. You studied his peaceful expression for another moment and then stepped out to find Dean.

“Hey,” you said, finding him at his desk in his room, laptop open.

His face was serious, worried. “Hey. What’s going on?” He watched as your jaw tensed.

“Meet me in the garage in five minutes?”

He nodded. “Sure.” The flat tone of your voice only increased his anxiety.

Five minutes later, he was leaning up against the Impala, patiently waiting for the sound of the door from the bunker swinging open and the familiar cadence of your footsteps. He straightened up when the metallic echo of the slamming door announced your arrival. His face darkened when you finally came into view and he saw that you had your shotgun slung over one shoulder and were carrying a gun case in your other hand.

“Whoa—whoa. What’s going on? You’re freaking me out, Y/N,” Dean said. “Do I need to go get my guns?”

Your face was impassive as you met his eyes. “You can if you want. I just really need to shoot something right now.”

Dean looked uneasy. “…something. As long as it isn’t someone.”

Your jaw tensed again. “You coming?” You didn’t wait for his answer, but you could tell he was following you with long strides. You exited through a side door in the garage and started the walk on a well-beaten track into the open space and woods behind the bunker. You had a target range set up back there and goddammit, did you need to shoot something.

Dean watched you open up your gun case, leaning your unloaded shotgun against a nearby stump. You grabbed a pair of ear muffs and threw it at him. Dean caught them, pulling them on as he watched you expertly load the magazine into your pistol, pull on your own ear protection, and take aim at the target. You fired your entire magazine rapidly, 7 rounds, straight into the center of the paper target, and with cold indifference swapped in your spare magazine and fired 5 more.

Dean’s unease grew. He stepped up next to you as you let your pistol drop to your side, and your other hand pressed over your face. You shut your eyes for a moment and tried to take a stabilizing breath, smelling the cloud of gunpowder hazy in the air. You ejected the empty magazine from your handgun and replaced it in the gun case.

“Y/N…” Dean said hesitantly.

“No,” you said. You picked up your shotgun and loaded 5 shells. “Not yet.”

Dean gulped.

You stepped up to the firing line again and aimed for the targets hanging in the trees, blasting each one in quick succession, and even causing one to drop off its rope onto the ground. Dean stared at the empty shell casings smoking on the ground, but he just waited this time. You heaved a sigh and pulled your ear muffs off, letting them hang around your neck, and you set your shotgun back in its place against the stump.

Dean pulled off his ear protection too and waited for you to look up at him. His apprehension was growing by the moment. Finally, you sank down on a large round of cut wood and looked at him. Dean gulped and cleared his throat.

“This is about Sam?” he asked. He thought you had finally reached the point where you couldn’t stand it anymore—couldn’t handle Sam being with your sister and having to sit by and watch them be together. Maybe his idea that you spend some time with Sam that day was about to backfire—maybe you were going to leave.

But your answer wasn’t exactly what he expected. “Sort of.”

“Sort of?” he repeated. He watched as you absently started reloading your pistol magazines. Your hands needed something to do—you felt frantic inside.

“It’s more about my sister than Sam but… obviously that means it is also about him.”

Dean’s face contracted in confusion and he shook his head vaguely in a question. “Okay…” His voice was deeper and had more gravel to it than usual.

You nervously chewed the inside of your cheek, forcing another bullet against the spring in the magazine. “We went to pick up Sam’s prescription after his appointment and they told me it would take them a little while to get it ready. So, I decided to grab a coffee while I waited.”

“Okay…” Dean shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. The wrinkles in his brow were heavy.

“I saw my sister when I went into the café.” Your hands ceased all anxious movement. “She was there with someone.”

Dean just stared at you, trying hard to read on your face what was coming.

“She was not with her friend Sarah today. And they were not having lunch and going to a movie. She was—she was with some guy. And—” you swallowed at the annoying tight lump in your throat that seemed to keep re-forming. “And she was holding his hand and I watched them kiss.” Your eyes finally raised to meet Dean’s.

Dean felt a swelling of confusion and disbelief in his chest, quickly followed by a wave of anger. “…You’re sure?” The gravel in his voice was even heavier now than before. Your answer was to give him a look that clearly said ’seriously?’.

You tilted your head as you stared at him. “You think I would mistake seeing that? I even called her phone while I was standing maybe 8 feet away and I watched her ignore the call. And just now, she finally called me back to see how Sam was and she told me the same lie—that she was with Sarah and they went to a movie and lunch. She couldn’t be there for him today because she was busy cheating on him. He was having a bone in his hand forced back into place, and she was cheating on him.”

Dean paced a tight circle, rubbing a hand over the shadow of stubble on his chin. “And Sammy, he didn’t, uhh—”

“No. No, he was in the car…” The blank look on your face morphed into anguish as Dean looked at you. “Dean, what the hell am I supposed to do here? I mean, he has to know… I can’t let him just go on knowing that—that it’s all a lie.”

Dean felt an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. Hadn’t Sam said the same thing about staying with your sister when he had since fallen hard for you? It was all a lie, that he was deceiving himself. Dean’s mind raced. Long-term he was thinking that maybe this would somehow work out for the best but in the short-term… goddamn, it was going to be a mess and it was going to hurt like a bitch…

“Okay… Okay,” Dean muttered to himself, pacing another couple of tight circles. “Well, I agree with you. He has to find out but—the question is how?”

“Exactly. Do I tell him? Do I confront her and make her tell him? Do we somehow help him find it out for himself? I mean—what the fuck do we do?”

Dean looked at you, his mouth hanging open a little, at a loss. He shook his head absently, his green eyes wide. “I can see why you needed to shoot something…” he said vaguely.

You sighed and nodded. “Yeah…”

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Yamata-no-Orochi (Part 3) Betrayal

*kicks the legs out from under the table, one by one*

You’d been stuck for hours. It was extremely late but you couldn’t sleep. Caesar and Chu Zihang drove in circles before finally parking in an alley to wait. At first, it was all emergency vehicles -- Police, Fire, and EMS -- then there were many reporter trucks with satellites mushrooming from their roofs.

After that, the streets got very quiet and occasionally you spotted dark sedans driving far below the speed limit, like sharks on the hunt. Hydra was looking for Mingfei and Erii.

You lay in the back seat to keep hidden. You were still in your silver Cheongsam and heels. You stared holes in the back of the driver's seat and listened to the radio. Seventy six people were dead. Only a single person was injured. They were painting it as some wild street race gone wrong. People were describing fiery debris. Bodies, some of them in various degrees of dismemberment, were strewn all over the street. It would take days to recreate the scene. One of the things the reporters quickly picked up on was the lack of wounded. How could a car accident be so catastrophically fatal?

But the noise of the radio faded away in your mind. Instead you were remembering when you first saw Z. It wasn’t in real life. You first saw him in your dreams. When you were hurt or frightened by the nursery staff, Z would appear and ask you what you would like to happen to those people. If they stuck you with needles you would say, “I wish they would be stuck by a million needles.” And then watch as they were stuck, screaming and crying in pain, just like you were.

Or if you were beaten by the nurses, something horrible and perverse would happen to them in your dreams. Like one round nurse would swell up so big and red you could see her veins through her transparent skin and wherever you popped her she would bleed.

When you first saw Z in real life, it was the special day when you graduated from the preschool section to the adolescent section and started to use your soul skills in experiments. He stood tall and proud, his bright red-gold eyes gleaming at you. He smiled at you, a warm smile like he was the king and he could have picked anyone in the world but he picked you. That smile was a gift that beckoned you to run towards him. You thought it was a dream. But he opened his arms and hugged you.

In the back of the car, tears fell at the memory. You’d never been hugged before. Ever. A warmth spread from his arms and his body and filled you. It made you bright. It opened your mind and heart and let him in completely, without reservations. After that he was your best friend. Between him, you and Renata, you felt privileged, you learned quickly how to navigate your dangerous world and soon you were the oldest and most successful hybrids there. You were sure to go to the capital.

It was only at Anton’s death that Z showed you the truth, but he didn’t help you survive Black Swan overtly. You still had to watch your friends die. You assumed Z died too. He never reappeared in your dreams again until you nearly died in Chizuru and then you were so happy to see him again. But your relationship changed into something far more intimate. You didn’t know if you were ready for something like that. But he certainly did.

At least he never lied. He never explicitly said he loved you. He didn’t even say you could love him either. He said you didn’t know any better. Of course you didn’t. He’d groomed you since you were a child.

Remembering that made it hurt all the worse. A great shadow has fallen over your past. Now you had no happy moments to reflect on with Z. Everything was full of crevasses that hid questions and doubts. Like the boulders that would forever separate Izanami and Izanagi from each other in the underworld, you and Z were now irreconcilable.

“I haven’t seen a patrol in the past 15 minutes. Think we’re clear?” Chu Zihang asked.

“How the hell should I know? We take a risk if we wait 15 minutes or an hour.” Caesar responded. “You okay back there MC?”

You look up at him, his blue eyes reflected in the rearview mirror. “I’m pissed.” you growl.

“I bet you are.”

There was more to be said but now was not the right time.

You end up making it a room across from the hotel where Erii was staying. Lu Mingfei was waiting for you there.

Mingfei cracked open the door and then let you in.

“Take off your clothes!” Caesar said coldly.

His voice was so sharp and harsh that Lu Mingfei immediately did so, removing his shirt.

When Mingfei unbuckled his belt, Caesar snapped. “Keep your pants on… turn around.”

“Oh, you were so serious I thought I had to take off all my clothes.” Lu Mingfei said.

Chu Zihang and Caesar curiously admired the dense lines of scars on Lu Mingfei’s back. They were so numerous that you could not find a single unmarked spot on him. It was like he had endured a beating of a thousand strokes or had rolled over a bed of knives. Even Caesar and Chu Zihang were stunned speechless.

“Are you done looking? I’m kinda cold.” Mingfei peeked over and startled at the sight of you. “Ah! You didn’t tell me MC was here!”

“She doesn’t care, stop wiggling!” Caesar hummed. “Incredible self-healing ability. A trauma of this magnitude would take at least 3 weeks to heal even at a top-notch medical center. But only eight hours have passed since you were attacked. You should have bled to death on the spot.”

“That’s because the wound began to heal itself the moment he was injured. The blood vessels stopped bleeding on their own, so the blood was locked in the body. The cells filled in the wound by a high rate of division. Even the ruptured tendons were repaired.” Chu Zihang said. “This self-healing ability surprasses that of Chisei Gen and MC.”

Could this be why the principal rated him as S-rank?” Caesar mused. “If he always had this ability, wouldn’t he make the perfect meat shield? If we have another gunfight with someone, we can send him in front of us to Main Tank the damage while we lay down suppressive fire!”

“The so-called lack-of-childhood must have been an act, then? Boss, you’re so familiar with the term ‘main tank’. What do you play? Warcraft or Warhammer? Anyways, shut up about that, we’ve got a bigger problem!”

“We already know, even if you didn’t come to us, we came to you. Every news channel is broadcasting what happened last night.” Caesar grabbed the remote from the chair and turned on the TV.

You already knew the story, so you don’t bother watching it again. Something else was bothering you. Caesar said she was 21, and was staying at a love hotel, but he also said she was wrapped around his finger. Didn’t Caesar say that he was hoping for Erii to fall in love with Mingfei? The whole idea suddenly made your skin crawl!

“Caesar. Is it alright if I go to the bathroom?”

“Huh?” Caesar looked up from the TV. “Yeah sure whatever.”

You walk inside and shut the door and get as far away from the door as you can and lean against the wall. You cross your arms, your nails biting into your biceps. You understood that Erii was potentially dangerous and that was evident today. But all you could think of was Z’s gentle hug, his indulging in your punishment fantasies, the play time and the jokes. It was all fun until it wasn’t. You recall the souvenir Mingfei got from her after she rescued him, a little duck bath toy. You’d tteased him for playing with it. Mingfei said he would never bathe with a duck.

He wasn’t that much of a kid.

Fire like a kiln blazed in your stomach. This was the person Mingfei had wrapped around his little finger? As Caesar had so blithely put it? You flush the toilet and pretend to wash your hands and open the door.

The boys were already moving on, talking about something else.

Caesar was standing next to Mingfei and handing him a card. “Meet at Pier 7 in Tokyo Harbor. The address is written on this.”

“What if she loses control while on the ship?” Lu Mingfei looked frightened.

Caesar handed him a box of medication encased in a glass vial to Lu Mingfei: “Isoproterenol, a strong anesthetic. Give her this medication. It will reduce her vital signs to a minimum and she will sleep until she gets to China. Give her some glucose half way through the trip.”

“But she’s very weak now!” Lu Mingfei raised his voice. “Injecting a very weak person with a strong anesthetic and only living on glucose for seven days? What if she dies?”

Caesar patted his shoulder: “We don't want her to die either, but this is the most feasible way to deal with it right now. She is a deadly weapon that could get out of control at any moment. And we can neither continue to hold this dangerous weapon nor return her to the Hydra, so the only way to do that is to send her out of Japan. It would take a bit of a risk, but it would get her out of Tokyo, the center of controversy. She’s the strangest hybrid we know of, perhaps related to the awakening of the White King. And with her gone, it would be the equivalent of a dangerous element being removed.”

Wait a minute. This didn’t sound like Caesar. The way Caesar was talking about her to Mingfei was not the way he talked about her to you. The way he talked to you was that she was a beautiful girl and that hoped Lu Mingfei and the Uesugi Clan Chief would get together!

Mingfei seemed convinced by this however.

Chu Zihang spoke up. “Caesar and I have discussed this before we came. And this is the only way. Find an excuse to take her out and bring her to the dock tomorrow at exactly four in the morning. She trusts you and should agree to board the ship with you.”

Chu Zihang’s words were like a bomb going off. “Uh… excuse me!” You say.

“What is it?” Caesar asked, his voice slightly dismissive.

“Why don’t you just tell her the truth?” Your face was awash in indignant confusion.

“What? Are you kidding?” Mingfei squeaked.

“No, I’m not kidding! Caesar just said,  ‘make up an excuse’. You’re going to lie to her!” You lower your voice to a whisper but point sharply at the hotel across the street. “Do you think she’s stupid?! When she finds out that you’re lying, she will go absolutely nuts!”

“MC.” Caesar took a breath. “MC… I know how you feel but now is really not the time.”

“No, you’re being cruel. Mingfei, you should know better!” You snarl. “You are her only friend, her only one! You are under an obligation to be upfront with her or else you’re no better than Herzog! You should know better. All of you should know better!”

“Hey…” Caesar growled, his eyes darkening. “This is completely different. Don’t compare me to that asshole.”

“What if she loses it? You don’t know if she can handle that sort of information. She’s extremely mentally unstable!” Mingfei whimpered.

“There is nothing more destabilizing than being betrayed by the people you trust.” You stare at  Caesar accusingly. “After all this time, after all you know about me. You turn around and pull this?” You take a shaking breath. “She is a child.”

The room descended into an uneasy silence and no one moved or spoke. The only sound was the continuous rain on the window and the rumble of distant thunder.

“That’s your plan? Tell her the truth. Are you going to take responsibility for her going on a rampage after she hears that she’s dying? Not everyone is that strong, MC.” Caesar was completely expressionless. He only got this way when he was upset.

You take a breath and let it out. You start to speak and nothing comes. You shake your head, struggling. “The man who told me I was dying was the man who loved me.” 

You turn away and leave the room to regain control of yourself.

A few moments later, Chu Zihang exited with a box of tissues but he quickly saw it wasn’t needed. You were just staring blankly at the wall in the hall. 

“Caesar has decided to let you go. He wants you to stay with Mingfei tonight and go with them to the docks tomorrow. Take the ship to China with them.”

“What’s stopping me from telling her the truth on the way there?”

“Mingfei will drug both of you.” Chu Zihang said.

You turn to look at him and then immediately turn away, your heart sinking. “He views me the same way. So much for the ‘I'm not Godzilla’ speech huh?”

“Things aren’t always black and white. A lot has happened. You’re in obvious danger from something we don’t understand. You may not realize it but your mental state is not the same as when you arrived.” Chu Zihang’s voice was soft, barely above a whisper. “Your mind is going too.”

You just shake your head. “All I hear are excuses. Excuses for him to be a hypocrite.”

Chu Zihang sighed, and you see for a moment how tired he was.. “You don’t have any say in the matter. The decision is unanimous, not only between me and him, but also Lu Mingfei.” 

You drop your arms from your chest, limply.

He looked down at you, his eyes cold. “If you defy the orders, I won’t hold back. From your training you should understand what I mean.”

The door opened and Caesar walked out. “Alright, let’s go Chu.” He paused next to you, his eyes cloudy. “I care about you. I really do. But there’s too much you just don’t understand. We’ll talk about getting you back to Japan once this is all over.”

You look up at him and shake your head. “The key to my survival is in Tokyo. If I leave, you won’t see me again..

He reaches out to hug you and you let him. You take a deep breath of the smell of his shirt which still smelled of those fine Cubans. It might be the last time. He really did believe what he was doing was the right thing even though it directly contradicted what he said before. 

“Don’t say goodbye. I’ll see you later.” Caesar said. “Keep an eye out on the two love birds.”

He walked away and didn’t bother looking back.

You return to the room with Lu Mingfei and sigh. “What a mess.”

He laughed but there was no humor in it.. “Yeah no kidding.” He was holding a modified pistol in his hand, one of Caesar’s Desert Eagles!

“What… are you doing with that?” You shiver violently. 

“If she gets out of control, I will have to shoot her. The bullet inside is specially made to be completely lethal. Even to dragons.” He mumbled. His eyes were dark pools and you couldn’t read the emotion in them. “If, for some reason that doesn’t work, you’re to finish her off.”

“Will you use that against me too?”

After a long silence he continued. “Turns out we actually are going to be at war this whole time. Me and Erii were never going to happen. You and I were never going to happen. I tend towards being a human. You and Erii tend towards the dragon side. If we go to battle, we have to use all our resources against each other and fight tooth and nail. It doesn’t matter if you sit together on a Ferris wheel or… talk all night on the phone or… run through the streets in the rain.”

He lifts his head to you. “If that day comes, we just have to grab our weapons and fight.”

He looks back down at the gun. “You were raised to fight. It’s what you know. But Erii… she doesn’t know anything.”

Outside the window it was pouring rain.

[dirtyhuantingthings]

The Baroness

Part 3

did you miss part two?

“So how was your night with The Baroness?” Porthos finally asked. They were nearly to the garrison.

“I -uh-no.” It seemed praying Porthos hadn’t noticed wasn’t a successful strategy. “Plants!” Aramis blurted out. “Datura! Queen of the Night!”

“Are you having a fit?” Porthos side eyed Aramis.

“There was a bug trapping..” Aramis snapped to jostle his memory  “Nafensis- napresis- nafensus?

“Nepenthes?” Porthos offered.

“Yes!- wait you know about the rat eating plants?” Aramis exclaimed.

“I’ve read about them” Porthos said curtly.

“Whew... Honestly, I was much more worried about trying to explain that absurdity than anything else” Aramis breathed.

“So?” Porthos was curious.

“The concoction she used to knock us out, is made from flowers that only bloom at night. I have a sample. And she made be willing to part with the recipe for a steep price and a blood oath of secrecy, I’m guessing” said Aramis. “So are you going to write her then?” he said after a pause.

“Poetry?” Porthos laughed.

“Hey, don’t I always look out for you?“ said Aramis putting his hands on Porthis shoulder.

“Whatever would or wouldn’t have happened...I just. We should be honest about it” Porthos said as they rounded the corner to the garrison.

Before they could even get past the gates D'artagnan ran up to meet them.

“I know you’ve only just arrived. But I don’t know who else to go to with this” D'artagnan appeared overwhelmed. “Can we go somewhere privately?” he asked.

D'artagnan explained the whole situation very quickly.

“Constance is in trouble?” Porthos said alarmed.

“No, It’s her dearest friend Corinne.” D'artagnan corrected.

“But if her husband skipped town..isn’t that a good thing?” Aramis asked.

“No, he’s left Paris, with Corrinne” D'artagnan clarified.

“And there’s no clue as to where he would have taken her?” Porthos asked.

“Well, we know that the people he borrowed money from are to be taken very seriously. They are looking for him. So leaving altogether, he might be easily spotted at ports of entry. Constance says he’s a known coward, he often lays low until things that have calmed down. It’s reasonable to assume that he’s going to stay hidden until he think they’re bored of looking for him and then flee the country” D'artagnan laid out all the plausible scenarios.

“What are we to do? I mean even if we can track them down? Porthos very much wanted to help but he wasn’t sure what could be done.

“The man is a noted scoundrel, petty crimes, his mean streak while under the influence of drink is well known. It took some doing but, Corrinne’s sister has already spoken to the judge, he’s willing to dissolve the union on health grounds.”

“That’s..” Aramis started.

“Unusual” Porthos finished.

“It appears this judge is quite particular in cases involving mothers; being separated from their children and the fact that this foul piece of” D’Artangan clinched his fists. “Has taken Corinne away and left her young child with her sister. Well -it’s got to work in our favor that combined with Corrinne in the condition that she is, and with the husband  afoul of the law, her sister is in a better position to take care of her and her young child until she can recover. If we can just physically get her back here. He will sign the waiver. Corrinne and her child can legally move in with her sister.”  D'artagnan looked to his fellow musketeers.

“So you think he’s on the outskirts of Paris, waiting for an opportunity to flee?” Porthos asked turning to Aramis.

“We might have an idea” Aramis said.

Baroness Beausoleil put down her tea cup

“Unofficial business?” The Baroness clarified.

“We can’t reimburse you for-” Aramis started.

“That’s not my concern” The Baroness interrupted. “Why are you doing this?”

“We may not having any legal means of remedying the situation but Constance is our friend and men like -they’re scum” Porthos said through clenched teeth.

“There’s plenty of space here. How long do you need?” The Baroness stood abruptly.

“So you’ll do it?” Aramis brightened.

The Baroness stared in annoyance, narrowing her eyes at Aramis.

“Six days, at most” Porthos answered her question.

The Baroness considered it momentarily “Margot can set you up in some rooms. If you will excuse me, I should already be at the market.” The Baroness turned and walked away.

“Don’t take it personal” Margot said.

The musketeers jumped in alarm.

“Jules has to look after his sick wife’s poor mother and she’s doing the market today in her own. She’s really behind.” Margot explained.

“I can help” Aramis found Baroness Beausoleil counting and recounting a crate of bottles. At least three pencils perched in her tangled mess of curls.

“Oh- no. I just” Baroness trailed off frowning at her products.

Aramis placed a hand on her arm. “It’s the least we can do.”

After everything was loaded onto the carriage and the two of them were well on their way Baroness  Beausoleil remained a fidgety mess.

“Is everything alright?” Aramis asked.

“You know the women I told you about?” she ignored his question.

“The ones who are most certainly plotting to murder their husbands?” Aramis half joked.

The Baroness shrugged off his comment.  “We meet at a certain time, early. Before the general public arrives. They won’t want a King’s guard sniffing about”

“I assure you I will be discreet. I am a mere work hand hired in Jules’s absence” Aramis pressed his hand to his heart.

The Baroness let out a slow breath. “That will be the best place to find her.”

“What? Who? Corinne?” Aramis said confused.

“Not today. If she just got into town. But by week’s end. If things are how you say. Women who have endured as she has. She will seek me out the moment she has leave to.” The Baroness explained.

“But if he’s holding her captive-” Aramis began to protest.

“A drunk?” A failure of man by all accounts? No he will need her to do the cooking and the procuring of clothes- if they have in fact left in a hurry. A man such as that is not capable of feeding himself. She will be sent out to get food if nothing else and is she is in a mind to see her child again she will become desperate and she will ask around- she will have no choice” The Baroness concluded.

Aramis nodded gravely. Neither of them said much until they arrived at the market. Already busy with merchants, Aramis looked around a the chaos, smiling it reminded him of the bustle of the city.

“There you are!” A gruff older man said in a heavy baritone. “I was just giving you stall away”

“I’m sorry! Jules’s wife’s mother came down with- I got here as soon as I could” The Baroness looked frantic.

“Sorry lad, the Lady has arrived after all” the large man shooed off some orange hair man with a healthy mustache.

“Thank you so much” The Baroness pulled out a bag filled with bottles of what Aramis did not know, but it appeared she had anticipated running into this exact situation. She turned to Aramis.

“We’ve got one half-hour before we open” Baroness Beausoleil turned to Aramis.

The two worked fervently until the sun began to droop over the horizon. Aramis plopped on a nearby stool. This is a lot of work.

The Baroness was talking to a blonde women with two rambunctious children racing around the both of them, screeching at the top of their lungs. Aramis was just considering taking a brief nap when Baroness Beausoleil returned. 

The Baroness returned, “That woman there, Mrs. Veilleux, she hasn’t heard of anyone new arriving into to town but if anyone's to know about it, it should be her. She can get word to me.

Aramis beamed, knowing he had made the right decision.

“But that’s it for today.” The Baroness said with some relief.

“Really?” Aramis asked hopeful.

“The rest are special order. I will have them ready for next time. I -just wanted to say thank you, Renee you were of great help today. I wouldn't’ have gotten through the day without you.” The Baroness looked intently at him.

Aramis blushed a bit, his name somehow sweeter rolling of her tongue. He cleared his throat. “It’s not problem at all.

The two proceeded to deconstruct the tent in a companionable silence and loaded everything into the cart just as the late breaking sun reached highest in the sky. The trip back should have felt shorter but it appeared to stretch long on into a muggy afternoon.

Aramis felt hot and cooped up in the small carriage. More comfortable riding horseback. Unaccustomed to being boxed in a cramped space with a breathtaking woman he was not allowed to touch. Aramis tried to think of a last time any woman was considered off limits. He couldn’t. The things he did for love. Porthos better have written a whole sonnet for Alice by the time they got back. I can do this Aramis told himself. I am a supportive friend. They are crafted for each other. They are going visit every library in the country and talk about bugs or whatever else. he was going to be a loyal friend. He was going to increase Porthos’ proficiency in the romantic arts. He was going to...He was going to suffocate if he didn't’ out of this carriage.

“Stop! Stop! Here please” Aramis shouted to the driver and flung himself out of the carriage before it even came close to a stop. The Baroness called after him. He wasn’t quite sure what she said.

“I’ll just need a minute” Aramis called behind him.

He stumbled several yards from the dusty road and leaned against a narrow tree to catch his breath. Get hold of yourself Renee. You’re a musketeer. Aramis took a few deep breaths and up-righted himself.  A few paces more and he found himself in a clearing. A grave yard actually. He came across an old stone mausoleum. Over grown with vines most everywhere but the grave markers, the foot paths and the low stones benches. As old as it was, someone was doing their best to keep it up.

“Have you someone here?” The Baroness’ voice came from behind.

Startled Aramis whirled around. “No.” Aramis shook his head “ Coincidence. I just saw this clearing I just needed- the heat” Aramis failed to come up with a viable excuse. The Baroness skirts were hiked up to her thighs to keep from snagging on the brambles. She had a light sheen of sweat that glimmered across her brow. Aramis couldn’t bring himself to look higher than her waist line. She handed him water bladder he accepted it gratefully. But wouldn’t look at her. Couldn’t, look at her.

“We should really” Alice started but Aramis took a few steps back.

“Apologies Baroness. If I could just have a few more moments.” Aramis asked backing into the square courtyard.

“Of course.” Alice said backing away.

As if being pulled on a string Aramis felt himself drift towards her. As if he let her leave now, he’d never see her again. An absurd thought. Six days. He just had to keep himself together for six days. He could manage this. He would be busy tracking this scoundrel and he just had to. Aramis felt the wind shift. It blew threw her hair and that dammed fragrance, what was it? It filled his every thought. Aramis closed his eyes against it, trying to shut it out. 

“Are you sure you’re alright.” Alice looked concerned.

“To be honest Baroness Beausoleil. I’m starting to re-think if it’s appropriate to h-house, perhaps there is a close enough establishment, that. I could -find” Aramis’ fractured words echoed off of the stone courtyard.

The Baroness stood patiently.

Aramis was dotted in sweat. “I won’t be able to ride back with you I’m afraid, Baroness Beausoleil” Aramis concluded hands gripping each other behind his back.

“You intend to walk back to my estate?” Alice said with a smile.

“I Intend to locate another means of traversing the road and yes I will reconvene with you just as soon as I follow up on an in-inquiry.” Aramis stammered.

“An inquiry?” Alice took a step towards him.

“If you could just” Aramis tried to think of something reasonable to say.

“Just?” Alice took another step.

“Alice” Aramis pleaded.

The Baroness strode past Armais and set at the top of the stone steps. “You have until the sun reaches there” She pointed in the sky. “You do whatever you need to do but then you come back with me and you find is man” she instructed. “Before anything happens.” 

Aramis swallowed. “That’s just it. I know time is short. I haven’t had a single thought in my mind other than. Since - I’m seeing your face- Just tell me there’s no chance. Just-” Aramis was at the Baroness’ feet now.

“What is keeping you from focusing on finding Corinne?” The Baroness asked.

Aramis climbed up one step and then another. He teased at the edge of the Baroness skirts with his fingers. “You know” He looked sheepishly up at her. Tentatively Aramis inched his hand upwards under the Baroness’ skirts. Past her knee, toward her inner thigh. He pressed his lips against her in adoration, his and fingers working on concert until he felt her tense and shudder and settle.

It didn’t take long to retrace their steps and locate the carriage, the driver patiently waiting. The Baroness looked composed but Aramis did a poor job of hiding a wide smile even as they pulled back onto the estate.

[georgemackayhey]

Silver Lining: Chapter 4

In which you and George decide to make the most of life after meeting up at the wrong place at just the right time…

w/c: 6k

a/n: This is the second to last chapter, guys! Ah! It's been such fun to write, and as always I'm looking forward to hearing all your thoughts and feelings! ♡

taglist: @etherealallure​ @maria-josefin​ @shelbygirlsclubx​ @loulouloueh​ @clarkewithameme​ @haileymorelikestupid​ @weyheyavengers​ @queen-bunnyears​

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───※ ·❆· ※───

The halls of the resort were immaculate, the sound of your hurried stomp echoed through them. You had hardly taken the time to appreciate the well-lit space with the way you zoomed up to the third floor- fist clenched at your side. You knew exactly what to expect, holding no hope for any other possibility.

And as you hurriedly knocked on the soft cream door of room 500, you hadn't even really noticed how George was hot on your trail; though lagging a bit behind to catch his breath on a winding staircase.

There was muffled chatter from behind the door you approached, the sound causing your patience to wear thin. So you went on knocking until the sound of a lock being turned proceeded its fateful opening.

"What? What is it- oh."

Colin was stood in the sliver of the open door, dressed in a sloppily tied hotel robe. And even though he seemed unprepared to greet anyone, a wicked grin painted his lips, as if he'd somehow been expecting to see you, all the same. The sight of him was enough to set your blood to a boil and the sound of his stupid grumbly voice nearly drove you to a psychotic break right then and there.

"What are you doing here?" You asked in a growl through your teeth. As soon as the desk attendant shot you a pitiful glare, you knew what was going on. You weren't surprised to see your almost ex-husband guarding the entrance to the room you booked for your honeymoon. But you were well and truly seething that he had the gall to enjoy any kind of leisure time during the period he should have somehow been paying for his moral crimes.

"Well, darling, as I recall it, I wanted to come here. You wanted to go to Rome. Looks like we've both gotten what we want, hm?"

"Don't call me-" You spat, glaring at him with a look you wish could kill.

"Alright- alright, It's been a lovely visit but I've had quite enough of you," Colin moved to shut the door, but in some odd reflex, you moved to stop it. You didn't really want to see much more of the guy. You didn't even realize you had more to say. But curses and blames started spouting out of you, pent up for too long.

Colin wasn't listening though. Why would he?  He did his own talking, right over top of you, complaining about the things he always hated about your life together, how much time he wasted on you. You were arguing the things you both always knew but were never brave enough to say in the stability of your mediocre romance.

"It's just like you to show up and ruin the only bit of good life has thrown my way in the past week." You hissed.

"Oh please, I gave you more good than you'll ever get again." Colin boasted, always one to make mention of wealth and status, no matter the situation or topic.

As you stood trying desperately trying to think up a comeback, you were too blinded by anger to say anymore.

That's when another voice, strained from hurrying after you, floated around the corner.

"Y/n? What's- oh" George's concerned expression morphed into some surprising glare when he turned to see who had already taken residence in the room you booked. George stalled in place, managing to steady himself in a flash even with all the momentum he'd gained on his race to catch up to you.

"Who the hell are you?" Colin asked in a condescending snort of a laugh that made the meter tracking your rage fly up and over the ballistic marker, sending you to short circuit.

But there was nothing more to say or do. Colin likely wouldn't give up his stay if you demanded, and even if he decided too, you wouldn't have wanted to stay in a room your ex-fiance had just been occupying. You knew he was only blocking your entry so he might have some kind of last laugh. And he got it, didn't he? With a frustrated groan, you spun on your heels and stormed away in the same fashion you'd hurried up here.

"Enjoy your holiday" You heard George offer Colin some semblance of a goodbye, though his tone was strained and withholding, he was still polite. But you were too busy fuming to admire the little ways George fascinated you.

You didn't have time to meet the desk attendants worried gaze as you stormed past his desk and out of the resort doors. You didn't have the sense to feel sorry for breaking up a group of birds from enjoying someone's discarded cup of ice cream as you paced toward a row of tall trees at the edge of the car park.

You knew the fun would have to end soon, but you were ignorant to the possibility of this trip ending in the same frustrating manner the night before your wedding had. Colin was at the worst place at the right time and he got just what he wanted, leaving you to pay the price once more. But you probably deserved it. You were really beginning to wonder if life could be lived in the dreamlike haze that Rome provided. You should have known better.

And just like always, when you least expected it, George slowly sauntered toward where you lingered kicking rocks at trees.

"Only you would run into someone you know on holiday in Barcelona" He echoed the same wry joke you gave him in Rome, but now was different. Now was ruined and you were struggling not to cry.

"I'm sorry, George. I thought this was going to be endless fun, and I don't know what I was thinking, dragging you along, and now its all ruined and I just-"

"It's not ruined." George gently cut through your monologue in that marvelously confusing way of his; pointing out the bright side that you really couldn't see, especially right now. "It doesn't have to be anyway." You just kept your befuddled gaze on him as he went on...

"He can keep the resort. It was far too posh anyway. Why don't we find a place on the beach and make the best of it?"

"You.. you still want to?" You breathed a humorless laugh. Your shoulders relaxed as you attempted to come away from your anger, and tried to understand why on earth George was still on board this wild ride.

"Well, we're already here. And... you promised I could choose our next adventure." George teased, offering a grin and reading his brows, coaxing you to smile too. You just stared at him, taking note of his relaxed disposition, his gentleness. It practically radiated from him.

"I'll go fetch our bags if you find a cab?" George nodded, already beginning to walk backward toward the entrance of the resort. And with the way he took the action you felt no option but to agree to join in, nodding on your turn to hail a ride.

The cab driver you flagged down was almost sickeningly helpful. She listed off a few dozen places to stay adding her personal favorite perks of every place. She waved goodbye when you and George stretched out onto the pavement of a hotel a decent number of miles away from the resort you'd come from.

The hotel you'd chosen was right on a golden beach, a quaint little stucco styled building. Inside was decorated in natural tones and plants and flowers. George insisted on splitting the cost when you wouldn't let him pay for the whole thing.

You thought of renting two separate small rooms four floors apart, but that seemed silly since you were basically on this trip together. So because the price was the same, you booked a suite with two small rooms joined by a galley kitchen and called it a day.

So after lugging your bags into the spot you'd keep them for the next week, there was nothing left to worry over. The mini bar in the lobby was serving drink specials; you decided since it wasn't quite time for dinner or bed, the day you had called for some form of immediate indulgence.

The bar was full of seasoned vacationers, sharing finger foods and margaritas. A kind bar keep managed to take your order before you'd even settled at the bar top. "You know what, I better just get this over with." You decided, pulling your phone from your pocket. You'd promised to call your mother often, and you knew you had to tell her what had just gone down. The sooner the better, you realized, because you didn't want to dwell on Colin or anything you had to endure hearing from the guy. You wanted to forget everything that had happened and spend the rest of your vacation having at least a little bit of fun.

You pushed past a door into the warm afternoon, settling against a wooden post of the patio where families lingered to shake off the sand from the beach before heading back inside the hotel.

Your mother answered the phone as she had days ago, worried before you'd even gotten the chance to say hello. So you didn't even try to mask your greeting with fake charm. You headed straight into the details of your upsetting encounter. How the start of your stay in this beautiful city was permanently soiled with the memory of Colin.

"I tried to warn you." Your mother spoke theatrically. You wondered if she could hear your furrow your brow, because she went on to explain herself. "I heard from Shirley, who heard from Dr. McCarther, that Colin's mother said he left for the airport a day ago."

So that's why she'd been so frantic on the phone, before.

"I tried to warn you, deary. I know how much you wanted this trip to be some kind of escape." She commiserated in the way only mothers know how to best.

"Yeah, I'm determined to keep it that way. We're staying at the beach now, instead." You spoke decidedly.

"Well, now that I've got your attention might I suggest coming home?" Your mother scolded. "I understand what you're going through but is taking off with some stranger really-"

You blocked out everything she said after that. Your mother meant well, you knew, but she had no idea what you were going through. She'd been happily married for decades. And she didn't know George.

You just couldn't go one talking about this situation. Sure Colin did his best to rain on your parade, but the heavens gave you one last shot to go a little wild. You were here, with George and there was no changing that. So you ended the call with the promise you were safe and sound and planned to keep it that way. Then you marched back inside repeating the mantra to yourself.

"What your mother must think of me," George pulled a face as you eased into the seat at the dark wooden bar, next to him. "I cringe to wonder."

"Oh, you think I'm calling home to report about you, Mr. Movie star?" You joked, jabbing George in the arm with your elbow. At this point, the little gesture felt familiar and you'd only wondered if you'd been to forward after the fact. If George was put off by it, his broad grin was only contradicted by the smallest shake of his head, eyes averted to a waiter who happily served your drinks.

___

The next day you woke up early and headed to see Casa Batlló. In fact, in just the first couple of days, you managed to see the majority of Gaudi's creations. It was divine, taking the time to admire the buildings and listen to other tourists yammer on about what they'd come to see and why they were so excited to be in the city.

There were fleeting moments, for the first day or two, when you worried Colin wasn't finished sabotaging your trip. That he might pop out of nowhere and pretend he was the one who was once so excited to take a tour of a modern art museum. But you realized he was never keen to your well-planned list. In fact, you planned most of your trip with the knowledge that Collin would be off meeting business partners and making deals. You needed something to occupy your time, and you never imagined having anyone to experience each little adventure with you.

That's what made George's presence all the more exciting.

Besides that, you'd seemed to have fallen into a familiar routine with George. And not just in the way you'd gone about planning out your days. You'd began to predict each other's lunch orders and what you'd both might have enjoyed most about each little adventure, and why. You'd began to pick up on many of George's little quirks...

Like how every place you went, people noticed George, but he didn't seem to notice their lingering gazes. You could never be sure if passerby recognized him like you once had, or if they were only struck by his perfect features like you often were.

But this didn't mean he gave anyone a cold shoulder. No, George was as friendly to the people running market booths and passerby as he was to you, offering smiles and asking about the details of the flowers they were selling.

He brought up serious things at the strangest times. Like how he told you some deep dark secret in passing over midday coffee, just as you'd come away from raving about the cup you held in your hands. George would ask intense questions as you stood on the edge of a garden watching a street band play where children danced near the makeshift drums. His timing always seemed strange and unexpected; but as you went on talking about whatever might have been brought up, you realized you felt completely comfortable sharing your own answers and hearing his in turn.

George gave answers that were well thought out, even if they were just yes or no. And he listened when you did the same, nodding and laughing at every right time.

Then there was how you shared silence together. Even when there weren't words to trade, the glances and nods you passed to each other seemed to speak for themselves.

And when you lied on the beach, breathing in the salty air while the sounds of scattered laughter were dulled by crashing waves, the silence between you and George was easy.

George looked perfectly comfy with a new ratty paperback held above his face. You wondered how many tiny storybooks he's backed away, and how many times he'd read them, with such worn covers.

When you pointed out boats on the far off horizon, George wasn't upset to be disrupted his reading. He indulged every one of your passing thoughts before turning another page, reading on till one of you had reason to speak up again.

But when you closed your eyes to soak up the warmth of the sun, your peace was broken when George uttered a strange noise. You lifted your sunglasses, turning your head to find a hard plastic frisbee had invaded the space you set up.

"I'm so sorry!" A girl rushed toward you, apologizing in an accented squeak. Her hair was flowing honey brown, her bathing suit was sunny yellow. She was the kind of picture-perfect girl that when mirrored against your own image, alerted you to the things you liked least about yourself.

"We're just learning how to play," She shyly reached out for the frisbee George had taken into his clutch, after it hit him on the knee.

"It's not too hard. Keep your eye on the prize next time, aye?" George extended the plastic disc to the girl.

She giggled. You feigned a chuckle in response as you slid your sunnies back on.  George spun off into some story about the correct frisbee stance and how it was tougher than it looked.

"Care to lead by example? We're hopeless." The foreign girl bit her lip with a hopeful gaze and that was all it took to get George to his feet.

Before he left, though, he handed his book to you with a smile. "Safe hands." He gave you a look as you settled back into your spot, giving him a similar expression before watching him skip off to meet the group of girls, showing them all the perfect frisbee stance, whatever the hell that even meant. How hard could it really be?

You only turned your gaze to the book in your possession, pretending to read it, but more so admiring the pages as you tried to understand what made them so important to George, what he valued. Wondering what tomorrow might bring.

___

Four days in, a heavy downpour halted your plans to frolic through the streets of Barcelona. You had become absolutely taken with the city and every time a new adventure died down, the pair of you would dream up what to do with the rest of your time.

So when dense pelts of rain woke you up, you frowned, but George seemed at ease, of course. He was just as excited to plan a day in.

He ordered extra from room service and found a foreign movie channel on the television in his room. The pair of you kicked back on the decently-sized bed he'd made up and added your own commentary to the films you couldn't quite understand. You ended having a blast making up storylines of your own as movies passed by the screen, and you shared plates of fruits while the rain poured on.

It was easy to get lost in George's company, no matter what you were doing. You realized you were treading dangerous waters, letting yourself feel so engulfed by his presence. But you let yourself all the same, determined to make the most of this rare occasion that would soon become nothing but a fleeting occasional memory.

Then it came time to attend the cooking class you'd signed up for. The website where the sign up sheet came from encouraged everyone who did to make time to visit La Boqueria beforehand. The market was only just around the corner from where the cooking class was held, and it was the place all the ingredients you'd work with would have been purchased.

You and George roamed around stalls for almost too long, exchanging favorite recipes, kitchen horror stories, and successes. You'd nearly forgotten where you were on your way too and had to hurry around a couple of corners to make it to the class on time.

When you arrived in a rush, the people who'd made it there on time were mingling inside a building made up of big tall windows and white brick. Most of them stared, bewildered by your hurry inside. There was still time to spare it seemed.

And as you eased in to join the group who'd already been waiting, past a few warm welcomes, you recognized one greeting out of the rest.

It was the girl from the beach who couldn't manage to get the hang of throwing a frisbee. Though you had a hunch she'd know exactly what she was aiming for, that day.  And there was no doubt she'd recognized you now, or rather, George.

He greeted her warmly, with kindness, like George did best. You gave her a smile and a shrug, accepting that she wasn't keen to give you the time of day. In fact as she greeted George in turn, she mentioned only signing up for this class after he mentioned something about it during their impromptu frisbee lesson.

Luckily that was about the time the instructor made his grand appearance.

A tall slender man with dark hair tousled and big green eyes slid into the room with a perfect smile. He introduced himself as Aureo, and you were nearly blinded by his beauty. He was just the right amount of good looking, a little intimidating, but all too well-spoken, he was like a male version of a siren.  

As Aureo spoke enthusiastically about the wonders your cooking class was about to embark upon, it seemed everyone was just as smitten with the instructor. Even George seemed dazzled, his wide eyes entirely fixated on the fellow.  

As Aureo went on explaining the class and began to delve into the foundations of cooking and the joy of food, his forest-colored eyes kept sweeping over to meet yours. His smile never faltered as he helped each attendant set up their kitchen. You and George were meant to stick together, as most of the people who'd come had brought a friend or two in tow. But the frisbee girl was all on her own.

Aureo was quick to assign her to join up with another pair of ladies, who were more than happy to accept her. But as you watched the slim girl move further toward the back of the room you watched her smile falter.

Soon, you got to cooking a basic version of paella with some fun added twists, and some pa amb tomàquet. Between demonstrations, Aureo made rounds to help everyone set up and start in.

You and George settled into your usual comfortable banter, shoving each other out of the way while you playfully bickered over the cooking instructions. George compared the duty to The Great British Bake off, laughing at how some of the other mini kitchen's were fretting over doing the exact right task at the exact right time.

The room made up of windows was full of warm sunlight and delightful smells. And in between everything was Aureo. You swore you felt your heart stop each time you caught him glancing your way. Never before had you felt so drawn to someone but simultaneously cautious of the same thing.

"Are you going to flirt back or leave that man hopelessly gawking your way the whole afternoon?" George wondered after you'd been caught averting a prolonged gaze with the guy teaching you to cook something new.

"Oh, I can't he's way out of my league." You fretted, searching for a certain spice on the rack in your cabinet space. "Plus I just got my courage up to say something and he's not even looking over here anymore." You pouted while George chopped up a lemon, chucking at your disposition.

You looked over to find Aureo leaning over a woman's shoulder as she offered him a bite of a cut-up pepper. He seemed to have forgotten all about you, actually, admiring the pretty, starry-eyed girl he was circling now.

"It's because he watched me shove fresh bread in my face like a monster and now I'm totally unkissable and he'll never even look my way again ." You joked. As much as you'd liked the attention the instructor kept giving you, there was something holding you back from giving in all the way.

The man was a walking angel, a vision, and he kept looking right at you with something undeniable burning behind his gaze. That was pretty nice.

"You're perfectly kissable, now let's get you that man." George raised his hand, polite as ever, even while scheming.

But you couldn't tell if he meant it, or if he was just trying to shift your attention elsewhere so he could flirt back with the hot girl who'd been shamelessly swooning over George all afternoon. She would shoot her smile across the room, laughing a little when George happily grinned back.

Low and behold, when Aureo came over to ask what you needed, and you made up some excuse about confusing measurements, the frisbee girl took a chance to come prancing over too. Her name was Renee, and her excuse for invading your kitchen was honestly to borrow some sugar. No one needed any sugar. It was a bloody free for all, and all you could seem to focus on was Aureo's warm hand trailing across your lower back as he went on telling you exactly what to do next.

When he left you, his glances somehow became more persistent, and you felt certain you were living in some kind of fever dream. And he kept coming back.

At first, to ask what music you'd prefer played over the background speaker, insisting if you said the word and he'd waltz back to change the song. Aureo was cunningly persistent, and you didn't mind his brief but blush filled visits. Especially since George had an admirer of his own.

Renee waltzed over, asking George about his stay in Barcelona so far. He kept mentioning the things you'd enjoyed together, asking you how you remembered certain things, and Renee would cast a glance your way. It was empty and unfeeling, just for show before her focus settled completely back to George.

And you couldn't blame her. He was so easy to observe.

You thought you'd started to figure George out by now, but of course, you hadn't. He still laughed about things you didn't realize he'd even noticed. He still looked at you in a way you couldn't understand. Even while he was talking to Renee.

As all the food started to come together, everyone went around trying each other's dishes. Renee made herself at home on your countertop, gushing over George's skills in the kitchen. As they got to talking about their favorite foods, she took a shot at asking him to someplace in the city with the best coffee he absolutely had to try.

Renee was serious, her big doe eyes gazing up at him with her fingers crossed behind her back. As George hesitated to respond, the girl was called back to her kitchen when their food had finished cooking.

When she sulked away with a glance over her shoulder to George who had already turned his attention back to the wonderful pa amb tomàquet you'd managed to create, you felt for the poor girl.

"Are you afraid of trying the best coffee ever and ruining your taste for every other cup for the rest of time?" You chuckled, leaning against the counter while George happily snacked away.

"I suppose we could stop in if you're so keen." George shrugged, none the wiser.

"Wouldn't you want to go with Renne?" You pushed, giving the guy a little laugh as you reached for one of the bits of bread on a silver platter.

"I've only just met her." George started off chuckling, but as he spoke he seemed to realize what it was he was saying. You shared a look, considering how Geogres soft smile remained, but turned into an expression more serious that you couldn't quite understand. But your smile blossomed into a burst of a laugh.

"You didn't even know my name when you gave me your phone number." You pestered, doing your best to ignore how speaking about it made my stomach fill with butterflies. How thinking back to this whole thing started seemed crazy, but in a good way.

"That was different." George searched your face, his brilliant blue eyes full of something he wasn't saying. Something he thought, or maybe hoped, you understood.

Somehow, after a few silent moments passed while you went on lazily tidying up your kitchen,  George said something about how he'd come here with you, and didn't want to leave you out of anything. He said that if you made plans with Aureo, that he'd make plans with Renee. But It felt like a dare. It didn't feel like a change of plans. It felt like some kind of game.

And the next thing you knew, you motioned Aureo over toward you and asked his favorite place to go dancing.

___

You slept in the next morning, content far from home. You stretched slowly into the morning, taking your sweet time getting ready for the day. As you padded into the galley kitchen to kick start the automatic coffee machine, you didn't expect any company.

"Goodmorning!" George greeted, coming from around the corner with an empty teacup in his clutch. You gasped, taken aback by his sudden appearance for once.

"I thought you were supposed to be drinking the world's best coffee with the world prettiest girl, today?" You sighed a laugh, relaxing against the counter as your heart rate eased back to normal. You had thought you heard him make plans before leaving the class, last night.

George set down his cup turning to face you while the coffee machine crackled to life.

"I decided against it. I'm sorry, I thought I told you so."

"Oh," You frowned in realization, wondering when he went about changing his mind.

Yesterday, as you'd lost yourself in a giggle-filled conversation with Aureo before the class ended, George seemed to be getting on well with Renee in the corner. What had happened?

"Well, now I'll feel bad about leaving you later." You spoke up, searching for a mug in the limited cabinet space.

"Oh, you shouldn't. I trust you'll have a good time. Renee was sweet. Just..."

"Yeah, yeah..." You pretended to understand, having no clue what George was being so weird about. "Want some of the world's most mediocre coffee?" You laughed, pouring yourself a cup to enjoy the morning, well, afternoon by this point.

The weather was a bit gloomy again, but the rain held off, giving you the perfect chance to whip out a set of playing cards on the balcony barely big enough to fit either of you together. When the time came to start getting ready, you were conflicted.

"You won't feel bad if I go?" You asked. Because George had basically been following your lead this whole trip, even asking if you were happy with the little things he thought up to do, before going about doing them.

"I'll be perfectly happy so long as you are." George did little to persuade you one way or another, which was funny considering how he'd coaxed you into giving Aureo a little attention the day before.

Ultimately, you got ready to go out. The cooking instructor had given you an address to meet up with him after his workday ended, and after a quick google search, you found it was a pretty popular night club. As you slid into an outfit, you almost wondered if you should invite George along. But as soon as the thought passed through your mind, so did a million other reasons why that was a bad idea.

"How's this?" You genuinely worried over how you looked, rushing to stand still in the doorway of the room you'd been occupying. George was stood in the kitchen, sporting joggers, holding a glass of water in one hand, and a new, old tattered book in the other.

"Oh.... you, well..." The guy looked you up and down, failing to come up with an assured answer. That was what you'd expected, a simple yes or no, maybe even a reason for whatever answer he'd chosen. Like always. But he just stated different conjunctions while you pulled at the hem of a dress you weren't sure how to feel about.

"Well, it'll have to do. I'm late." You sighed, hurrying to fetch your room key from the counter and fasten your shoes on. Aureo was probably already waiting up for you outside of the nightclub he insisted on showing you too, after you'd asked.

"Right well, see ya." George watched you scurry out into the hallway with a quick wave.

On your speed walk down the stairs, you couldn't help but kick yourself for not giving George a proper goodbye, even if you were in a rush. You'd felt so conflicted, leaving him. You didn't have a doubt he'd be happy on his own, but you'd come to function as some kind of team on this trip. Leaving seemed unnatural.

///

Aureo was standing in a well fitted, casual suit jacket with matching short cuffed trousers. His already brilliant features lit up when he saw you hurrying to cross the street.

As you met up with him you apologized for being late, feeling a bit bashful as he stepped even closer to hear you speak. His accent added something even more enchanting to his already velvety voice, when he assured it was fine and how excited he was to show you to his favorite club in the city.

The way his emerald green eyes traveled across your figure before he complimented your dress made you weak in the knees. His warm hand across the small of your back as he guided you inside.

There were three levels you could see, people dancing close to massive speakers, leaning over the rails of each floor to wave to their friends above and below. The lights were dim except every now and again when they flashed to the beat of some decently enjoyable pop music.

The bar wrapped around three corners, liquor decorating the walls of the lower level. That's where you headed first, insisting Aureo order you something he enjoyed best since this was his scene.

Some fancy mixed drink slid across the counter soon after he'd ordered as if they'd been expecting him. It wasn't long before your own drink came, some electric blue liquid in a crystal glass.

That's how the night started, taking some time to enjoy your drink before Aureo pulled you toward the dance floor. He was good, of course, and you didn't even have time to worry over the steps you were missing as he guided you along. It was stupidly fun, spinning around, bumping into people who'd laughed because they'd just bumped into you as well. Spirits were high, and between songs, you kept going back for more drinks.

Every pause, Aureo talked about cooking. You happily listened, trying to soak up everything about your surroundings at once.

You were a few drinks in, and the room was already close to spinning. But you were having so much fun. You slammed back another electric blue drink and twirled back to the dance floor.

There was something about the bass line in the chorus of Justin Timberlake's "Filthy" that you couldn't resist. And the floor was packed with dancers who must have felt the same. As you went on trying your best not to lose Aureo in the crowd while simultaneously losing yourself to the music, you felt your alcoholic haze turn into a fever of sorts.

As you raced away from the music, there was a mile-long line to either restroom, so you headed straight for the back exit.

You spilled out into a long dark alley where dumpsters lived. There were distant bouts of laughter coming from smokers at either end, so you spun between a trash can and a discarded broken shelf and proceeded to get sick.

It was an unceremonious end to your efforts to have a blast. And what was worse, how you still felt dizzy and down.

It wasn't long before Aureo came to check on you. He was the perfect gentleman, holding your hair back for round two and asking what you needed.

You apologized several hundred times for ruining the fun when you decided it was best just to go back to your hotel. You asked Aureo if you could make it up to him in a day or so. You were drunk enough to speak without considering your offer but sober enough from your episode that you managed to pull yourself together to go back where you came from.

Aureo insisted on giving you a ride back, fretting over getting you home safe. You were drunk enough to accept his ride without worry and sober enough to give him directions.

The guy put his number in your phone when you pulled up to the hotel because you felt the need to make up for the way you ended the night. You wanted a redo. And this way seemed like a common courtesy by now...

Aureo insisted on walking you up to the room, he seemed truly worried over your well being, and that endeared you to him more than you already had been.

"I'll call you, okay?" you promised the guy while you unlocked your hotel door, after thanking him for being so kind and bringing you back. He nodded, those pretty emerald eyes searching yours as you slipped inside after saying goodbye.

The lights were off in the tiny common area, and you focused all your energy on creeping back to your room without disturbing the peace. You failed by running into the corner, steadying yourself with a whine as you opened your bedroom door.

"Are you alright?"

You were caught.

"Sorry if I woke you up." You spoke low, even though there was no point in keeping quiet now that George was standing near your side, speaking gently to you.

"You're back quite early," George went on, seeming worried over how you sulked in the doorway after pushing open your bedroom door.

"Yeah... I just don't feel good." You admitted. But you didn't feel sick anymore. You just felt tired. You actually felt a lot like you had when you'd drank too much before, when your head filled up and nothing made sense.

With a gentle, "Come on." George pushed you further into your bedroom. You slumped onto the unmade bed, unlacing your shoes in an impressive hurry. George was gone when you looked up again, tossing each shoe across the room. You fell against your pillows with a sorry groan, shutting your eyes, and wondering if you'd made some kind of mistake tonight.

That's when George shuffled back in, quiet as a mouse. You kept your eyes shut, but heard him rest a glass of water on your bedside table. The sound of your door creaking shut made your heart sink.

When you thought to yourself how badly you wished George would have stayed by your side, you realized the depths of the shit you were in. You realized exactly why you felt so bad. You couldn't ignore it anymore.

You wanted so much more from George, and he was already giving you more than you deserved.

───※ ·❆· ※───

[f1chronicle]

Dear Mr. Mark Webber- Max Verstappen Doesn’t Have To Be Lewis Hamilton!

Does Max Verstappen have to be Lewis Hamilton? What a random statement, right? The way it seems, Mark Webber is popular as Aussie Grit. It’s a sobriquet he earned, never asked for. When the famous driver from Queanbeyan was an active FORMULA 1 driver, there was one thing that did set him apart from the rest, not to mention, that ability to focus on the race and just race alone.

He’d talk less and perform more on the grid. But, hey wait! Did that make Mark Webber a world champion?

Hardly.

Despite competing in the highest annals of Motor Racing for over a decade driving for no fewer than six consecutive seasons with Red Bull, the former FORMULA 1 driver didn’t exactly come agonisingly close- or did he- to a world title.

Well, unless one’s determined to count his 242 points (with Red Bull) in 2011 to that seaon’s world champion Vettel’s 256 (also with Red Bull) an incredibly close margin- but would you?

Yet, Webber- nine wins, make no mistake- has made a headline recently, one that seems to offer a glimpse at what becomes of former FORMULA 1 drivers when they are either too idle or not in the tune with reality.

Has Mark Webber caused me harm. Heck, no! He surely has better things to do in life such as exchanging pleasantries with the Australian Men’s cricket team’s coach Justin Langer about Martial Arts.

Both Aussies, it’s common knowledge, are gifted in the same incredible art where Jean Claude Van Damme has made some very retired movies (with all due respect to the great Muscles from Brussels).

But Mr. Webber when you say that a Max Verstappen and I quote you here, “Is he (Verstappen) already Lewis on Sunday? No, he is not,” what do you even mean?

This precisely leads me to a question whose time has come, if only after 250 words:

Does Max Verstappen have to be Lewis Hamilton?

If so, what’s Lewis Hamilton doing then? Imagine what good grief might two Lewis Hamilton’s cause the very grid where tackling one is hard enough? In 2020 alone, Hamilton won ten races.

Surely, you didn’t mean Max to become Lewis, but obviously, right? On the contrary, you were actually alluding to the lack of consistency shown by Max Verstappen- the youngest pole-sitter aged 17 years, 166 days- when compared to Lewis Hamilton.

Fair enough.

But ever wondered about that thing called race-craft, sir? Does that not carry the DNA of one’s psyche or that thing called mental make-up?

Truth be told, the moment I’d say “we are all different and hence our different levels of performances,” you’d either go off to sleep or slap me. Wait actually, you’d reserve that for ‘Ubermensch’ Seb (Malaysia, 2013).

Such a cliche!

But it doesn’t require one Einstein-esque grey matter to note that no FORMULA 1 driver is the same. On race day, things happen. It’s a combination of various factors- but obviously- one of which is the way a driver competes, rather to put it succinctly, “attacks!”

Your suggestion that Max Verstappen is not on the same level as Lewis Hamilton, a seven time world champion, a driver twelve years his senior isn’t bigoted but is incredibly lame.

For starters, Lewis Hamilton has no match.

The only one who came close to Lewis Hamilton is the driver whom record Stevenage’s great son recently drew level with. In Germany, they consider him Das Beste or the best, everywhere else, he’s still considered the King!

Purely on race entries, Hamilton���s beaten more drivers than Max Verstappen has probably competed online with. And trust me, I have no idea whether Lando’s done more E racing or Charles.

Truth still is, the comparison that you ended up making- albeit only when asked- reads:

Lewis Hamilton: 266 race entries, 95 wins, 98 poles, 165 podiums, Seven World Titles

Max Verstappen: 119 entries, 10 wins, 42 podiums, 0 world titles.

The above includes nothing on these driver’s personalities, that important arsenal that ultimately plays a key role in winning and losing races.

Should you wish this Motorsport fan recount it for you, this remember is someone who’s been as many times inside an F1 car as you’ve won world titles, I’d love to draw your attention to:

Hamilton– focused, aggressive but doesn’t lose his sh*t, mighty consistent, ability to mentally seize up the opponent (we’ve seen Rosberg, we are seeing how hard it is for Valtteri), aware of the advantages of the car and what his own experience brings.

Verstappen– resilient, rabid, super aggressive, consistent in quali (by your admission), aware of his talent and the fact that the machinery he’s been aligned with isn’t the same level as Mercedes.

That said, fair to remember when Lewis Hamilton entered the sport, Max Verstappen was ten.

Today, thirteen years since Lewis first unfurled ‘Hammertime’ by winning the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix, he’s found a competitor, who is, at least, trying to muster up a fight. Did Verstappen not win the final race of the year from pole, in the process of which he led every single lap?

And make no mistake Mr. Webber, this is what a certain Charles Leclerc was doing too in 2019: competing and pushing Lewis.

Fact is, if you got to beat Lewis Hamilton in his own game- and heck, he’s nearly owned FORMULA 1 by demonstrating mesmeric consistency- you’ll need not just the car but the experience and not to mention, the mind-set.

And that’s the key differentiator for me.

We are all hardwired differently which is why we respond to challenges differently.

2019 German Grand Prix, Sunday – Max Verstappen (image courtesy Red Bull Racing)

Hamilton is spurred by the innate desire to improve and get better each time he gets inside that car. It’s not that he’s not faced heat or been found wanting. But see how he reacts even when the odds go against his favour.

The 70th Anniversary Grand Prix- won by Verstappen eventually- saw Hamilton winning on three wheels. Did you see that?

That’s all it takes- not losing your composure and finding that positivity somehow. And speaking of not losing one’s cool, there’s also a certain Kimi Matias Raikkonen who kept his whilst many beside him were losing theirs at the Abu Dhabi GP 2012. You were in that race right sir?

Now Max Verstappen, on the other hand, responds differently to situations. In a seemingly Senna-esque fashion: be bold, brave and go for the chance if it’s there- Max takes his chance.

Call it age, call it irrational exuberance, but Max won’t relent. Just like he didn’t at the Turkish GP knowing well that pushing extra hard on getting past Bottas would compromise his tyres and see the outcome?

As a matter of fact, did Charles- vastly respected already- not push a bit too aggressively at Monza 2019? Who are the black and white flags waved for back when a young man beat Hamilton in his own game?

Max Verstappen or Charles Leclerc?

So my problem with drivers like you sir and no you haven’t borrowed a dime from me, in fact, I keenly await my salary for the month is this:

Why is Max Verstappen being compared to Hamilton when there’s little need?

Surely Albon’s priceless podiums in 2020 were brilliant news for a team that put its faith in a driver who isn’t considered all too great at the moment. But, who kept Red Bull in the fight?

Incidentally, who beat Valtteri Bottas driving a Red Bull when the Finn, usually hired to win, as they say (not that Raikkonen would care) was in a Mercedes?

We know how this has panned out in the past too whenever the subject of being in the same league as Lewis has arrived.

Nico- Brittany to some, world champion to many others- was the last guy to defeat the incredible Briton. But which other FORMULA 1 loose wheel nut has managed to keep his sanity in check ever since Nico packed his bags and left?

If Max is not on the same level as Hamilton- then so is every other driver who has the capability and perhaps competent machinery, if not the greatest package designed ever to overcome a Mercedes.

This year alone, there were more cars that nearly matched the RB 16- Racing Point’s RP 20 (second-hand Mercedes, shall we?), the MCL 35, and the RS 20 (or shall one say, the cause of Cyril Abiteboul’s possible upcoming tattoo)- than there are wins in your entire career.

That you don’t get it probably explains why you are making strange headlines nowadays unlike the fine stint with the FIA World Endurance Championship.

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[lilacmoon83]

A Darker Curse

Also on Fanfiction.net and AO3

Chapter 34: Race to Storybrooke

"What the hell was that all about?" Cleo asked her partner.

"What do you mean? You asked me to do a job and I did," Barry replied. He definitely seemed pissed about the way things had turned out.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about...you just tried to take a hostage!" Cleo accused.

"No…I was going to try and solve another case, like the one of missing Detective Michael Bishop. No one has heard of him since he left Oregon for his trip to Maine on a tip that fugitive Neal Cassidy was living in some spot in the road in Maine," Barry explained.

"You held a gun on a man and tried to force a woman to give you what you wanted to save his life...that's not the kind of work I do," Cleo said.

"Then find a new partner. Meanwhile…I'm going to make a big arrest," he replied. She frowned.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Emma Swan is wanted for questioning in the Cassidy case. She won't make it through that airport after I make this call to Portland police. Then maybe her mother and I can make that deal, after all," he said, with a smug smirk, as he made the call. Cleo took her phone out and dialed Emma, hoping she wasn't too late.

~*~

They arrived at the Portland airport late that afternoon and prepared to turn in the rental car. But as they were doing that, Emma's phone rang.

"Hello?" she asked.

"Emma...it's Cleo," she replied.

"What's up?" Emma asked.

"Barry is tipping off the cops that you're in Portland. You'll never get through security and on that plane without being flagged," Cleo warned. Emma sighed.

"Okay...thanks for the heads up," she said, as she hung up.

"We have a huge problem," Emma said.

"What is it, honey?" Snow asked.

"That scumbag tipped off the cops...they know I'm in Portland. I'll never make it on the plane," Emma replied.

"No…" Snow feared.

"We still have the rental though…" David said, as he looked at his wife.

"He's right...we'll just have to drive back," Snow replied, as she turned to the others.

"Go on...get back to Storybrooke as soon as possible. It might be a few days, but we'll get there," Snow said. Rumple nodded.

"By then, we'll have the barrier spell ready," he promised.

"Mom…Dad, I can drive back, but you two should go back on the plane. There is no sense in me risking your freedom too," Emma lamented.

"No way," Snow protested.

"Yeah...not a chance in hell," David agreed. Snow took her hand.

"We are in this together and you are our daughter. And anyone that tries to take you from us is going to do so at their own peril," Snow said.

"She's right...especially that scummy creep," David agreed, as he hugged her and cupped her face.

"When I had to put your mother through the wardrobe, before you were born, I didn't have a choice. Not doing so meant forfeiting your life, so we had no choice but to endure a separation," he said.

"But now...I do have a choice and I'm not going to be separated from you again," he promised. A tear slipped down her cheek and she hugged him tightly.

"I love you Daddy," she sniffed. He smiled and kissed her forehead.

"Here...this should help you get along faster," Gold said, as he handed Snow a roll of money.

"Thanks…" she said, as Belle hugged her.

"Please be careful," she pleaded.

"We will...and we'll be home as soon as we can make it there," Snow assured, as little August looked up at her.

"Princess Snow...you're not coming home with us?" he asked innocently.

"We are sweetie...but we have to take a different way and it might take us a little longer, but we'll be home soon," she promised.

"I'll miss you," he said. She smiled and kissed his cheek.

"I'll miss you too, sweetie...but we'll all be together again soon," she promised, as a cool look passed between her and Geppetto.

"Okay...you guys better go before the cops spot you. Get out of Portland and on the highway as fast as you can," Tink urged.

"We will...and we'll call you soon," Snow said, as the three Charmings got into the car and Emma sped away with her parents in the car.

~*~

Barry smirked, as he watched their car leave the airport. He knew Cleo would have tipped her off and let her do it. Slowly, he merged into traffic and followed them onto their route, unknowingly tailing them.

~*~

Regina sighed, as she held the phone to her ear.

"All right...thanks Tink. I'll gather the ingredients we need so Gold and I can work on the barrier spell as soon as you get back," Regina said, as she hung up.

"You don't look happy," Neal mentioned, as he held his son on his lap. He, Robin, and Regina were having dinner at the diner when Tink's call came in.

"They rescued August, but ran into some creep from their past in Portland. He let it slip to the cops that Emma was there, so she and her parents are driving back," Regina said.

"Dammit…" he cursed.

"The others are flying back and should be back by morning, but it might be a few days for Snow, David, and Emma," she said worriedly.

"Then we'll be ready with that barrier spell," Robin said.

"Yeah…I think cutting this town off from this world and every single other one is the best idea my dad has ever had," Neal replied.

"It's the only way. We won't ever be able to leave...but if we don't, there is no telling what else will come at us," Regina feared.

"I think it's safe to say that no one is really missing anything though. We all have our families and our loved ones here," Neal replied. Robin nodded.

"He's right...this is the right decision," he agreed. She smiled.

"Gold already has the memory potion ready for Detective Bishop," Regina said.

"Good...can't wait to be rid of him. He gets louder and louder every day," Neal replied, as Regina seemed restless still.

"They'll be okay…" Robin assured.

"I know...I just hate that they're out there and in danger. They can't get home soon enough for me," she lamented. He nodded and kissed her hair. Neal agreed, as he looked down at his son. The fear of Emma and her parents not making it home was prevalent, but he refused to go to the worst case scenario and still had hope that, in the end, good would win.

~*~

The first day on the road, they only stopped for food and fuel and alternated drivers each time. While one drove, two slept as best as possible, and they made really good time. About twenty-four hours into their forty-eight hour drive, they finally stopped and found a hotel. The halfway point was in Iowa and they found a nice motel off the interstate in Des Moines.

They rented one room with two double beds and then each took turns using the shower. Snow and David were bedded down for the night after theirs, while Emma took hers. David held her in his arms and gently pressed a kiss to her hair.

"It's going to be okay, Snow...we're halfway home and once we are, we will never have to worry about being separated again," he promised, as she turned in his arms to face him.

"I can't wait...I can honestly say I've had enough of this world," she said, as he gently caressed her beautiful face.

"I hate everything you had to go through…" he lamented.

"I'd do it again, for you and our daughter," she assured him.

"I know...I just wish things had been different. But I also know you don't regret getting to raise August," he said.

"I don't...but I wish you could have come with us too. But Cora is gone and the curse is broken. And we have our eternity back," she replied, bringing a smile to his face and he kissed her tenderly.

"Eternity," he echoed, as they settled down together, just as Emma came out of the bathroom.

"Ah...so much better," she said, as she plopped down on the other bed.

"Good night sweetie…" Snow said.

"Good night Mom. Good night Dad," she replied, as they went to sleep for the night.

~*~

"Look...this is a credible tip, John. We're talking about a missing detective here," Barry said in frustration into his phone.

"I understand that...but the Portland police department hasn't invited us into their investigation. I can't just step in," the man on the other end argued.

"I know he's in this little town...and I can lead you right to him. I think this town has some weird shit going on in it," Barry said. He heard his friend sigh.

"Is this about that woman you used to obsess over?" he asked.

"I'm telling you, John...she looks younger! Like as young as she was when I met her," he insisted.

"Well...they have some amazing rejuvenating face creams these days. It doesn't mean anything," John insisted.

"Maybe not...but I know something strange is happening in this town. Michael told me about weird things he encountered before he went dark. It's like a weird cult...think about it. If you don't at least investigate, you could have another Waco or something," Barry said. He heard his friend sigh.

"And you really think you have an in?"

"I've been tailing them since Oregon and I'm in Iowa now. I know you're at the Kansas City office now. If you fly up now, you can be here by morning," Barry said.

"Fine...but this better not be some wild goose chase," John replied.

"It's not...I can feel it," Barry said, as he hung up the phone and glared at the door to the room he had seen them go in.

"Whatever is going on with you, Mary Margaret...I'm going to figure it out and blow this wide open," he muttered.

~*~

The next morning, they awoke early and got on the road early, after fueling up and grabbing food on the go. They drove around the clock, switching drivers and only stopping for gas and bathroom breaks along the way. They made even better time and were on the winding back roads of Maine by almost dawn the next morning. They were all exhausted, but pushed ahead since they were so close now. Unfortunately, as the traffic dwindled, that's when Emma noticed that not all the traffic had dropped off like it should have. They were clearly being followed.

"Emma...you okay?" David asked.

"No...we're being followed," she replied, as her parents peered out the back window. There were two figures in the car, but they couldn't see faces, as it was not light enough yet.

"More outsiders in Storybrooke is exactly what we don't need," Snow fretted.

"No...but there's no keeping them out yet until we're ready to put the barrier up," Emma reasoned.

"Then we act like we don't realize they're tailing us. Once we're in a place with magic, we'll have ways of dealing with them," David said. Emma nodded. It was the best option. If they stopped and confronted them outside Storybrooke, without knowing anything, it could go really bad. They could be and probably were armed. She didn't like inviting them into Storybrooke, but she definitely felt more comfortable dealing with them in their own playground. Unfortunately, things weren't going to go their way.

~*~

"We need to get ahead of them, before they get into town," Barry urged.

"Why?" John asked.

"Because if we're on their territory, we have no idea what we're walking into. If we have them in our custody, we can better negotiate with whoever runs this place," Barry replied. John sighed.

"That's now how we do things at the FBI," he chided. Barry scoffed.

"Please…the feds do whatever they have to," he retorted and John didn't disagree.

"Hang on," he said, as he swerved and sped up alongside them, before cutting them off.

"Whoa...what the hell is this guy doing?" Emma cried, as they sped alongside them.

"Oh my God...it's Barry," Snow said in horror, as she got a look at the passenger.

"Oh crap!" Emma cried, as the driver made a sharp turn in front of them and cut them off. Emma slammed on the brakes and came dangerously close to crashing into them. The two men got out of the car and trained their weapons on them. Emma started to move for the glove box for their weapons, but one of them raised his gun on her.

"Hands up...don't move," John warned.

"Crap...what do we do? We're so close," Emma said. And they were, as they could see the town sign in the very near distance.

"We make a run for it...we've got a better chance in the woods than they do," David said, as he looked at his wife and she smiled.

"You know me well," she said, as she raised her pant leg and pulled a knife out of her ankle holster. He smirked.

"I love you," he said.

"I know," she replied.

"Uh...guys, they have guns. What are you going to do with a knife, dad?" she asked, but she watched in sheer amazement, as her father flew out of the car and caught their attention.

"HEY!" he called, as he hurled the knife at the man they didn't recognize and he cried out in agony, as there was suddenly a knife in his neck.

"Holy shit!" Barry cried, as David took their hands and they ran into the woods.

"STOP!" Barry called, as he followed them, but they kept running, even when he started shooting. David ducked and they all kept their heads down as much as possible, as they ran through the trees.

"Just a little further and we'll be there," Snow said, but a bullet grazed by David's head and they stalled, as Barry aimed directly at him.

"I missed him on purpose...I won't miss again, Mary Margaret," Barry warned, as they stopped. He smirked and approached.

"Now...we're going back to my car and we're going to do things my way," he said, as he gently prodded them back in the other direction.

~*~

When Regina received a call from Snow at four in the morning, she was elated to find that they would be crossing the town line in about an hour. Despite the early hour, she immediately got up and got dressed with Robin. She was determined that when her sister came home that her son would be waiting for her.

"Love…I know you want to correct this wrong, but are you sure this confrontation is a good idea?" Robin asked nervously.

"No...but I have to try. I have to try to convince Geppetto that turning him back into an adult is for the best. It's what August would want and that's what this is truly about," Regina replied, as she knocked on Geppetto's door. He was up, as she knew he would be, for he was an early riser.

"What are you doing here so early? I'm getting breakfast for my boy," Geppetto said shortly.

"Snow and David will be back very soon and I'm going to make sure my sister has her son waiting for her," Regina replied sternly.

"I will take Pinocchio to see the Princess later today," Geppetto refuted.

"No...you're going to let me turn him back into the man that he is supposed to be and then he is going back to the life he chose," Regina insisted. Geppetto opened his mouth to protest, but Pinocchio saw them and came to the door.

"Good morning, Princess Regina," he said politely.

"Good morning Pinocchio…" she answered.

"Is Princess Snow back?" he asked curiously.

"She will be very soon. Would you like to go see her?" Regina asked.

"Yes please!" he said, as he looked at Geppetto.

"We will later, my boy," he told him and the boy deflated.

"Pinocchio...how would you like it if you were able to make that decision on your own?" Regina asked.

"I would like that very much. I want to see Princess Snow," he insisted.

"Here...this magical candy will give you everything you need," she replied.

"Wait...no, you can't give him that!" Geppetto cried, but it was too late. He trusted Regina and didn't hesitate to eat the small candy. As he swallowed, there was a poof of purple magic that engulfed him and when it cleared, he stood before them again as a full grown man.

"Whoa...that was a trip," August said, as he smiled at them.

"Thanks," he said. Regina nodded.

"You're welcome," she replied.

"Pinocchio…" Geppetto said. August turned toward him sharply, but stopped suddenly, as he felt one of his trances coming on. The author's pen appeared in his hand and Regina poofed the book into her hands. He took it and went into a frenzy of writing at the table. Regina watched over his shoulder and he came out of the trance when he was finished.

"Oh God…" Regina said, as she saw what he was writing and drawing. August looked up at them.

"We have to get to the town line," he said urgently. Regina nodded and the three of them disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving Geppetto behind.

~*~

Neal hung up the station phone, as his father and Belle arrived at the station.

"Regina says the time is now," he said, as Belle took his son from him.

"Be careful," she urged, as Rumple kissed her tenderly.

"We'll be back and this will soon all be over," he promised, as Neal unlocked Detective Bishop's cell and put the handcuffs on him.

"Where are you taking me?" Michael demanded to know.

"You're getting your wish. You're leaving town and soon, all this will be like it never happened to you," Rumple said.

"What the hell does that even mean?" he asked.

"Never mind...let's go," Neal replied, as the three of them disappeared in a puff of red smoke. Belle sighed and sat down, as she held little David in her lap.

"Don't worry sweetie...your parents will be back soon and so will your grandma Snow, your grandpa David and grandpa Rumple," she told him, as she kissed his little head.

~*~

When they got back to the car, they saw that the FBI agent was still writhing on the ground in pain, bleeding quite profusely from his wound.

"Barry...I need to get to a hospital…" he pleaded, as the man did something completely unexpected and shot him in the head. Snow cried out and covered her mouth with her hand, as she turned away, in David's arms.

"What the hell?" Emma cried in disbelief.

"He was bleeding out anyway, thanks to you," Barry said, as he looked at David.

"Oh so it's my fault you just shot a guy in the head?" David retorted.

"It makes no difference, because you're next unless she comes with me now," Barry said, motioning to Snow.

"She's not going anywhere with you. You'll have to shoot me before I let you touch her," David growled in response. Barry smirked.

"If you so wish," he said, as he pointed the gun and prepared to fire.

"No...no, please don't shoot!" Snow pleaded, as she held onto him for dear life. But he didn't listen and was about to do just that when the gun disappeared from his hand into thin air.

"What the…" he uttered, as he looked around. They did as well, wondering how that could have happened. They were still a fair distance from the town line and outside any magical reach.

"What just happened?" Emma asked.

"Oh, just a little author magic," a voice said, as they turned to find August there, with Regina and Robin.

"Auggie…" Snow said, as she choked on her words.

"Mom…" he answered with a smile, as she practically tackled him with a hug. He chuckled and hugged her back tightly.

"I missed you so much...but how?" she asked. He smiled at Regina.

"I might have slipped him a magical candy and told him if he ate it then he'd get whatever he really wanted," Regina replied, as she and Snow shared a hug.

"Thank you…" she whispered.

"He's your son and what they did was wrong. My mother hurt you enough and I couldn't stop her. But I could fix this," Regina replied.

"Glad to have you back...but what do we do with him?" Emma asked.

"You're going to explain to me what the hell is going on here," Barry demanded.

"No…I'm going to write you the ending you deserve," August replied, as his pen glowed and Barry, along with the dead agent, disappeared.

"Where did you send him?" David asked.

"I just put him back in Portland where he belongs, with the murder weapon in his hand and a dead agent at his feet. The inside of a prison cell is the only ending he gets," August replied, as Snow hugged him again. David put his arms around Snow and Emma and the four of them trekked toward town and over the town line with Robin and Regina following them.

They met Rumple and Neal there, who were with Detective Bishop.

"If you think I'm just going to forget everything I've seen in this town or that I'm going to drink whatever is in that damn vial, you're crazy! I'm not letting you poison me!" Michael ranted.

"August!" Tink called, as she ran to him and they hugged tightly.

"Oh hey...you're back. We have the memory potion, but getting him to drink it might be a problem," Neal said.

"Not anymore," August said, as he took his pen and made another quick entry. Detective Bishop disappeared and it gave them all relief.

"I returned him to Portland and wiped his memory. It will be like he never left there," August said, as they stood together at the town line.

"Then let's seal the town off, once and for all," Regina said.

"Know that if we do this...it's permanent. No one gets in, but no one gets out either," Rumple warned.

"It's for the best. I can attest that, while that world out there might seem appealing to some, it's no place for us," Snow reasoned.

"She's right...people got a taste of what it was like if this world found out about us," David agreed. Rumple gave a curt nod to Regina and she raised her hands. They cast the spell and an invisible barrier encased the town, ensuring their ultimate protection.

"Let's go home," Emma said. Snow and David hugged her between them and they started back to town. The Land Without Magic would neither be missed nor thought of again...

The final chapter will be out next Sunday!

[handeaux]

Pranks & Put-Ons Mark Old-Time Cincinnati April Fools’ Days

Readers of the Cincinnati Enquirer gasped in astonishment one day in 1887 as they read how Jocko, the headliner elephant at the Cincinnati Zoo, burst his cage, raided the park’s barroom and stumbled through a crazy bender, smashing cages and trampling flowers, finally charging a tourist train and beaning himself against the locomotive.

Astute subscribers would have noticed the publication date. Yes, it was April 1, and the entire pachydermic escapade, illustrations and all, was fiction, an elaborate April Fools’ joke.

History explains why Zoo administrators may still cringe whenever the first day of April rolls around. Do kids still ask unsuspecting adults to telephone the Zoo and return a call from Mister Fox? There are undoubtedly Cincinnatians still living who participated in such tomfoolery. (Your proprietor pleads the Fifth.) Those phone calls to the Zoo were considered old-fashioned even 98 years ago, according to the Cincinnati Post [1 April 1922]:

“There was nothing new in the way of April fool jokes Saturday except the boobs who fell for them. Avon 134, the Zoo telephone, was as busy with calls from persons who wished to talk to Mr. Baer, Mr. Wolf and Mr. Lyon as it was on the day the joke first came from the feeble mind that invented it.”

According to the Post, a lot of people also called the dog pound, asking for Mr. Barker.

Cincinnati’s police and fire departments used to get their share of April Fool prank calls. In 1874, a cop named Murphy used the police telegraph system to report a fire at the corner of Sixth and Stone streets. Needless to say, there was no Murphy on duty and Sixth Street did not intersect Stone.

Even the local courts engaged in the spirit of misrule. On 1 April 1921, Police Court magistrate W. Meredith Yeatman gazed upon four sorry miscreants, charged with stealing rides on freight trains. The judge solemnly intoned a sentence of thirty days and a fifty-dollar fine, plus costs. As the defendants groaned, the judge brightened up and announced that was an April Fool joke. (He did order the men to leave town within three hours.)

In 1904, the president of the truck drivers’ union, John Mullen, saw one of his members dashing frantically down the street, still struggling into his coat. Mullen asked the cause of his agitated flight and the teamster shouted that he was late for work, it being after 5:00 a.m. Mullen informed him that the bells were just about to ring 1:00 a.m. and the teamster shamefacedly trundled home to confront his mischievous landlady.

How far back did Cincinnati endure April Fool hoaxes? Pretty far back, as it turns out – all the way back to 1849. In 1904, retired house painter Charles Stewart decided to celebrate his 55th wedding anniversary by getting a new marriage certificate to replace the original, lost some years before. As Marriage License Clerk Fred Bader issued the official duplicate, he noted the date of Stewart’s original marriage – 1 April 1849. Stewart confessed that, when he told his friends back in 1849 he had married pretty Martha Dawson that morning, they all thought it was an April Fool joke.

Reading about vintage pranks, it strikes the modern reader how casually cruel our ancestors could be. As you might expect, some old-fashioned tricks included exploding cigars or soap-filled cream puffs, but some could be dangerous and even fatal.

A group of Price Hill boys hauled a dozen empty coal oil cans up a hill at the western end of Gest Street for April Fool entertainment in 1872, and set them on fire. For added effect, they had filled one of the cans halfway with gasoline. When the inevitable explosion rocked the city, newspapers sent reporters scurrying to locate the cause. By then, they boys were in the wind, thankfully unharmed.

In 1901, someone sent word to a Covington widow that her son had been run over by a delivery wagon and was dying in a Dow drug store in Cincinnati. The elderly woman and her daughter hired a cab and raced to almost every Dow outlet in the city, being informed at each one that no one injured had been brought there. At length, they retreated to Covington where they anxiously awaited grim news. Eventually, the young man, ignorant of their distress, came whistling up the block, in perfect health. His elderly mother collapsed and required medical care. It had all been a wicked joke.

In 1904, two doctors, brothers Chase Ferris and Charles Ferris, ended up in court when their April Fool joke sent at least two people to the hospital. Both victims had eaten oysters and drank beer at a lodge meeting and became violently ill. Attorney Hiram Rulison alleged that the Ferris brothers had intentionally poisoned the refreshments as an April Fool joke, but had exceeded the intended dosage.

One thing was certain: Uncle Sam has no sense of humor. A Cincinnati lawyer discovered this the hard way. As April Fool’s Day 1905, approached, Attorney Charles F. Williams came across what he thought was the perfect gag for his girlfriend. A local shop sold a bundle of newspapers, carved through the center to hide a stash of fake candy – red-pepper-filled chocolates, soap-flavored caramels, that sort of thing. The recipient, believing the newspaper container to be the trick, was likely to fall victim to the inedible candy.

Williams bought and mailed the booby-trap and then heard . . . nothing. A week later, he was summoned to the Post Office where he learned his joke was now evidence of a federal crime. By mailing the joke as “newspapers,” he had defrauded the postal service, because it should have been mailed a “merchandise,” which would, of course, have ruined the joke.

Uncle Sam was not laughing. Williams faced a potential $100 fine, plus a year in prison. By chance, Attorney Williams was known to Postal Inspector A.R. Holmes, who offered a lenient judgement of a $10 fine and postage due. Williams paid.

[throwaway-sinfulwriter]

The Same - Chapter 7 - 4/6

Sitting in Dr. Brown's living room, Malcolm and JT question her until she finally begins to divulge.

"Was Alice Downey taking LSD on your order?" Bright asks the woman, a small tape recorder in his hand. The throw pillows on the chairs and couch reminded him of his father's eyes. He tries not to look at them too often, focusing on Elaine instead.

"This isn't 1963, Detective. I can't make anyone do anything." For a moment, he and JT share a look.

"Except, you can. With your credentials and authority, you could make anyone do anything. How long did these experiments last? How many students participated in them?" The pillows were mocking him. They were simple, a blue to green gradient with shimmery thread and sparse beads.

He questions her, mouth running on auto-pilot as his mind slowly drifts off to another place. He sees recognition in her eyes as he lists off what they know about their suspect.

Bright faintly hears the name Dominic Render as his eyes glaze over.

Malcolm fully spaces out.

He couldn't get his father off of his mind. Shutting his eyes, Malcolm remembers every glance Martin had ever gave him. How his eyes darkened when annoyed, lit up when he was joyful. How straight and perfectly white his teeth were when he smiled.

"-right?"

Malcolm just wants to sit here, and think about things he usually never allows himself. Just for a moment. A sinful, forbidden moment. Think of his father's hands, how they were still bigger than his, even when he was fully grown.

How his father would put on records and play classical music to dance to, how he read sonnets to him as a child. Doctor Whitly taught him to play the piano at a young age.

He was remembering the small details, the ones that hurt to think about when his father wasn't there.

Martin loved the rain. He would always make Malcolm hot chocolate and read to him when it rained. Kept him warm, even when a storm was raging outside.

"Bright? Bright? Malcolm blinked his eyes open, and instinctively clicked stop on his tape recorder.

"Uh.. sorry. I'm just.. uh.. I'll just.. I'll go wait in the car." He stood and walked outside, sighing as the cold air hit his face.

He was thoroughly embarrassed about losing himself like that. Making a fool of himself in front of JT, who already hated his guts.

Malcolm enters the car, resting his head on the back of the seat and taking a few deep breaths. He just needed to get back into control. Become closed off from his emotions.

He knew how to do it, his heart was just hurting so bad he didn't know if he could. Malcolm needed to escape from his mind. Focus on something else.

JT. How long had the man been calling out for him while he was trapped in his childhood memories? Seconds? Minutes?

He didn't know. Bright sighs, his tired eyes refusing to rest as he fiddled with the car door. In fact, he knew nothing about JT. Only that his humor was incredibly strange, and he did not like Malcolm.

The driver's door open, and said man hopped in the car. "Elaine is settled down for the night with some chamomile."

Malcolm nodded, pushing down the discomfort at the mention of tea. His mother always tried making it for him, but he refused to drink it. It was how his father drugged his victims.

Tea laced with ketamine.

Needless to say, Bright was more of a coffee fan.

"Hey, what happened in there? You completely zoned out." JT asks, hands on the steering wheel.

He shrugs. "Yeah, that happens sometimes. My body can shut down at times."

"Gil and Dani are off looking for Render. He wants me to stay on Professor Bad Trip."

Malcolm stares at him.

"That means you can go home."

He doesn't respond to that. "What does JT stand for? Joseph? Jake? Jason? Julian? J-"

JT interrupts him.

"I don't think you're stakeout material."

Bright shakes his head. "I'm a chronic insomniac. I was made for this."

JT looks past him, observing Elaine's house. Only the porch and living room lights were on.

"How many kid's brains do you think she scrambled to get that house?" Malcolm glares at him, crossing his arms.

"…Sorry." He says reluctantly. "I know she's your people "

The profiler next to him hums, non-committal. "No. You're my people."

JT gives him a certain look, and Malcolm raises his eyebrows. "Tell me why I'm wrong."

"In the service, we have a hierarchy." So, JT had been in the service. Malcolm had guessed this the first time they had met, but now his assumption was confirmed. He smirked lightly.

"Your rank earns you respect. It's the same for cops, y'know. I have a badge. But you don't respect me."

Irritation grows in Bright. How could the man be so daft?

"Listen.. when I was a kid, a cop came to my house and took the bad guy away. He saved me. Saved me from hell on earth, from a lifetime of fear. There is not a single person that respects the badge more than I do, okay?"

Malcolm is uncomfortable with opening up to JT, but he knew that he had clear this up now, to prevent anything from happening later.

"Any respect I haven't given you is what you've been giving to me. You've been an absolute dick since I started consulting, and it's really not helping any of us. Including yourself."

"I'm doing my best. I might not have the most orthodox methods, and I know I come off as strange to you, but I do my best to get justice for everyone. Just like Gil tried to give my family justice." Tried being the keyword.

He doesn't want to get too emotional, so he runs his hand under his nose and sniffs.

"I need to ask Dr. Brown a question. For the profile." He exits the car.

-------

Sitting in Doctor Elaine Brown's living room, Malcolm Whitly opens up about his case. It was quite sad to call his life a case, but that was what it had been since he was 10 years old.

Legal documents, testimonies, and news articles. It wasn't much of a life for a child. And it didn't lessen as he got older. People had always expected he would turn out like his father.

"Your case is a testament of the humans mind to endure trauma."

Malcolm winces. Ouch. Not exactly the support he had been looking for.

"Uh.. thanks? I guess? Was that a compliment?" Elaine just raises her eyebrows and drinks more of her tea.

Bright shudders in his seat, the scent of chamomile in the air.

He continues on, telling her about his "controversial" repressed memories, and everything he had been diagnosed with.

She asks him if he believed he had been drugged, and Malcolm nods, fingers tapping in a rhythm on the arm chair to stop the tremors.

"Have you ever smelled chloroform?"

"..Well, it's not my drug of choice." She gives him that look, a look that his therapist gave to him often. He knows he's deflecting, okay, but he's not very comfortable talking about this with anyone.

Unlike his therapist, Dr. Brown continues on.

"It has extreme chemical notes, but it's actually quite sweet smelling."

He swallows hard. Thinking of his father's clean, crisp cologne with a hint of chemical and sweetness.

"A familiar smell can trigger repressed memories."

Malcolm stands from his chair, going over to a desk in the far side of the room. Fingers resting on his hip bones.

"Do you have any fears?"

He asks, shuffling through the papers on the desk. Looking at different files, with graphs and charts. Dr. Brown doesn't say anything about him going through her things.

"I have regrets." She says, and Malcolm turns to look at her curiously.

Elaine continues. "If your memories are blocked, it must be because your mind is afraid of something in your memories. You'll need to overcome that fear to access them."

Malcolm notes this, vowing to remember that fact once the case was over.

He turns, eyes raking over the room. Meticulously looking at every detail, trying to find something that would aid him.

His eyes catch on a glass display of tribal masks, and his head tilts. Something clicking in his mind.

"These are.. interesting." Bright says, going up to the case and staring at the one displayed in the middle. There were four in total, but he couldn't tear his eyes off the one.

"What is this one?" He asks, finger poised just inches from the glass case.

"It's African." Malcolm exhales through his nostrils, trying not to snap at the woman. He knew that. He wasn't an idiot.

"It's an artistic interpretation of Lucifer." A cold shiver travels from the base of Malcolm's skull to his tailbone.

"Has Dominic Render ever been here?"

"Yes, he along with many other students.. he.. he was always fascinated by those masks.."

Malcolm sprints back to the desk, gripping the folder with the copy of the notes left by Render.

One thing he hasn't understood earlier was the circular shapes Dominic had formed with his words. At the time, separately, it hadn't made much sense.

But now..

Bright moves the papers around, his own panting breath loud in his ears. Stepping back, he looks at all of the papers. They form a face. His head snaps to the left, at the Lucifer mask, and back.

"He wants you to understand him. To find him." Dread washes over Malcolm as he quickly takes a picture of the papers and shoves his phone back in his pocket.

"This is where he's planning on killing you. It has sentimental value to him."

"S-something's wrong." Dr. Brown tells him, and his heart drops to his stomach as he turns to her. She's sweating, pupils dialated. "My pulse is racing, my thoughts are shifting. It-It's the tea. The chamomile."

Malcolm rushes over to her, biting the inside of his cheek so hard the bitter taste of blood fills his mouth. He should have known to not trust the tea. Dammit.

At least it wasn't ketamin. If it was, he wouldn't be able to function. Wouldn't be able to help the woman.

He ignores the pain at the thought for now, hesitantly placing his hands on Elaine's arms to get her out of the chair. His stomach flips unpleasantly at the touch.

"You've been laced with LSD. We need to get you out of here." Bright leads her to the door, and goes to open it when all the lights cut out.

Left in the dark, the only sound Elaine's drugged babbling and his own panicked breathing, Malcolm knows what he has to do.

"Come on, let's go back." He pulls her away from the door, and she holds onto him, pupils unnaturally dilated. "Shh, shh. Come on. Sit back down.."

"Stay here. Don't go anywhere." Bright tells her, making sure she doesn't get up, and leaves the room.

Outside, in the hallway, is a record player. A record is already sitting in it.

Malcolm takes out his phone, ringing JT. He waits in tense silence until the man finally answers.

"JT. Dominic Render is in the house. Get in here." He hangs up, not waiting to hear the man's response. Malcolm would have to go find the mentally ill man, prevent him from getting to Dr. Brown.

Thankfully, due to his father's love of classical music and all things retro, they had a record player in their home. He and his father used to dance to Frank Sinatra.

Thank you, Martin. Malcolm thinks as he turns the player on, pressing the needle onto the record.

He flinches as rock music started playing. It was definitely no Sinatra, and it hurt his ears quite a lot, but hopefully it would delay Render.

The loud music should confuse the man, and if Malcolm was lucky he might hallucinate due to sensory overload. A part of Bright feels guilty for undoubtedly causing a mentally ill man more pain.

But, thinking back to the Professor's empty head and the many blades next to Carl Mitchell, Malcolm can't take any chance.

Malcolm stops by the fireplace, grabbing a fire poker and holding it ahead of him like a weapon.

Walking through the house slowly, hands in front of him, Malcolm tries to talk Render down.

"Dominic Render!" He calls out over the booming music, trying to hide the fear that was bubbling at the surface. Malcolm couldn't let the man to have the advantage.

"No one else needs to die." He comes around the corner, muscles tensing in anticipation of the killer being there. He isn't.

Where could he be?

Malcolm goes over the entire house, not finding the suspect. That only leaves one place.. upstairs.

"I know how you feel. I've had my fair share of nightmares."

He begins slowly ascending the stairs, his breathing erratic and undoubtedly afraid. His palm runs over the wooden railing of the staircase. It does little to calm him, but Malcolm memorizes the grain of the wood underneath his hand.

"But they trapped you inside yours, didn't they?" Bright prided himself in his skill of talking people down, getting a Masters in Psychology hadn't just been for show. He reverently studied conversation, and the act of talking to a person who was dangerous.

It helped him in the sociopathic aspect (he was not a sociopath, he just had tendencies). He understood empathy more, though he could not accurately emulate it without looking quite robotic.

It also helped in his career as a profiler. He had many personal conversations with killers, which was especially easy due to his background. Malcolm was quite good at subduing killers, talking them down from suicide after they had been caught. Showing at their trials, convincing them serving time was better than death.

He wanted to use this skill to help Dominic Render, but so far the man had yet to show. This worried him. Bright not be able to talk him out of it.

"..Dominic, I know you're scared." Malcolm reaches the top of the staircase, walking towards a closed doors on the left. "I am, too."

The door opened, and the next thing Bright knew, he was being hurtled backwards, into a picture on the wall. He feels the glass shatter as he hits it, all breath leaving his body. Hitting the wall so hard, his knees wobble.

He fights back with the fire poker, holding it in front of him so Dominic couldn't stab him. Malcolm pushes against him, giving him enough space to get away from the wall.

Dominic's hand hits the wall, and Bright is behind him. He grabs Malcolm by the shoulders, trying to get him down the stairs so he could subdue him properly. This doesn't work well, as Render's elbow comes back and hits him in the face. The hit causes his shaking knees to give in, and he collapses to the floor.

Render stands over him, pressing him with his foot to the edge of the staircase.

"This is how I respond to fear."

He crouches over Malcolm, raising his blade.

Malcolm's eyes go wide, pure, unbridled fear in his eyes. This is it. He's going to die. Dominic is going to kill him, take his brain and.. and what? Do what with it? He didn't know, there was no time, he couldn't even open his mouth for his last words-

There's an incredibly loud bang, and Render is off of him, a warm splatter of blood on his face. Unlike the time at Quantico, when the feelings that followed were resentment for a person that could be saved, all Malcolm felt was satisfaction.

If that was how Dominic reacted to someone who was trying to help him, he couldn't imagine how he would react to someone prosecuting him.

He doesn't wipe the blood off of his face, sitting up calmly and looking back. Dr. Elaine Brown is standing on the staircase, shotgun still in hand.

"I-I did it. I killed him." Something twists in Malcolm's chest, and he slowly desends down the stairs. There's a large crash somewhere in the house and then a cry of, "Police!"

JT enters the archway near the staircase and raises his gun. "No!" Malcolm tells him. "No. Wait."

"Elaine, you're in the middle of an intense psychedelic episode. I know it may seem like a lot right now, but in the end it's just going to be a bad trip." He manages to take the gun from her, taking out the bullets and turning the safety on, throwing it to the side.

"You can't run from the fear. You just have to.. fall into it, okay? You did this." He gestures up the stairs at Render's body. Cold and lifeless. "You have to live with it now."

[phoenixsavant]

AS - Recovery

I was chatting with SapphiraIce from Tumblr about V's after ending.  After admitting that I felt that Seven was cheated out of being part of saving his brother, this idea hit me.  So, it's all her fault.  Here's Saeran's rescue with Seven in on it.

Not sure if this will be a one-off or turn into another series.  We'll see.  There's certainly fertile ground to write more, but I'm not sure if it needs more.

               Seven reeled back from the force of the explosion. He was barely aware of the wave of heat that swept across his skin even as an arm rose protectively to cover his face. He peered over the black cloth of his hoodie as rubble fell.  

               “No…” he whispered.  “No…”

               The flames rose high, consuming what remained of the rooftop and encompassing the odd, steeple-like extension over the main entrance.  Seven’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open.  From some half-forgotten place inside, a scream rose, filling the air around him. The volume competed with the roaring of the inferno that filled his sight.  

               Twice he tried to approach the building, determined to find the man he suspected would be inside.  Cinders scorched his sleeve before the heat drove him back. Cursing the instinctive self-preservation within himself, a feeling he didn’t find in his thoughts at all, he fell to his knees, weeping.  

               “Saeran, please, no…”

               He didn’t move as the building burned itself into a pile of ash and rubble.

 (Two days later)

                 The phone rang again, and Seven hated that he’d created it to withstand any abuse he could give it.  Throwing it would have felt better if he’d thought it would actually shatter on impact.

               Why is V calling me?  What can he possibly think he has left to say to me.  I know.  I know he let Saeran die.  He has to know that I figured it out.  If he were smart, he’d just disappear.

               He turned up the volume on his headphones, determined to focus on his work.  It wasn’t the work he’d been assigned, but that didn’t matter.  Nothing matter anymore, not really.  Still, before it was done he would see to it that there was penance for the death of his brother.

               Saeran, the first secret he’d carried among the hundreds of thousands that now rattled through his mind.  The better half of the twins, in his estimation.  His brother had been kinder, gentler than anyone he’d known as a child or since.   To first find that he’d been turned into a hacker, denied the simple joys of a normal life, that had been a heavy enough blow.  Then to lose him when he’d been so close, it was more than the red-haired hacker could endure.  Yes, there would be payment, in full if he had any say.

               After another half dozen calls, he finally answered the call. “What do you want?” he snarled.

               “There’s a chance Saeran is alive.  I’m on the way to pick you up.”

               Seven’s heart froze in his chest.  He looked over his shoulder, making sure that Vanderwood was still in the kitchen.  “What? How? If he was inside that place, he’s not alive.  I was there. I saw…”

               “I know what you saw,” V said, cutting him off. “I also just found out that the room he should have been in was reinforced and may have survived the explosion. Get ready.  I’ll be there in less than five minutes.”

               The line went dead.  Seven stared at the phone in his hands.  Right now, all he wanted was to beat V hard enough to leave him hospitalized for life. He hated the man who’d been like a father to him.  He had been betrayed at every turn.

               A slim chance is better than no chance.

               Deciding that his project to exact revenge for Saeran could wait for a few hours, he scribbled a note for Vanderwood, snuck to his room, and shoved a few items into a backpack and slipped out without his partner detecting his absence.  Outside, he sped along the path to the place he knew V would be waiting.

               V’s car idled under the trees, its driver waiting inside.  Seven took a deep breath, pushing down the desire to take out his rage on the man he’d trusted with the most important part of his life.  Yanking the door open, he flung himself into the front seat and shoved his backpack to the floor.  He didn’t look at V as he pulled the door closed and asked, “What do you mean he’s still alive?  This better not be a trick.  I’ll kill you if it is.”

               He felt he should have been surprised at how dangerous his voice sounded.  The dark, deep tones filled the interior of the vehicle.

               “I talked to Rika.  She told me that the room Saeran would have been in to trigger the explosion was heavily reinforced.  She said it’s possible that he survived.  I don’t know what we’ll find, but I can’t dig him out on my own. Whether he survived or not, you should be there when…” V’s voice faltered.

               Seven looked over at the blue-haired man.  He was surprised to catch what looked like V wiping a tear away from his face.  “So it was him?  The hacker that attacked the RFA was Saeran?”

               “Yes, it was him.”  V glanced at Seven.  “I’m sorry, more than I have words for.  I was trying to save him, to get him out of there.  It wasn’t supposed to be…”

               “Damn straight it wasn’t supposed to be that way!” Seven growled.  “I don’t want your apologies, V.  In fact, fuck you and your apologies.  The only reason I’m here is because you used Saeran’s name.  If you hadn’t, I’d have told you to go to hell and blocked your calls.”  His fingers curled into tight fists in his lap. “You’re a liar and a traitor.  I hate you.”  

               Almost as much as I hate myself.

               “I know.  I don’t blame you.”

               “Shut up and drive.”

               The rest of the trip to Magenta passed in complete silence.  Seven’s mind roared within his skull, so enraged with V that his head ached somewhat by the time they arrived.  His jaw felt as if it had been soldered shut, so fiercely had he been clenching it.

               The car rolled up to the pile of charred rubble where Magenta had stood just as the sun began its descent toward the horizon. Stepping out of the car and rolling his shoulders, Seven wished he’d been able to pack better.  They’d have to make do with the flashlights he’d brought instead of having the larger lights in his own car.  He wasn’t stopping when night came.  He wasn’t stopping until he held his brother, alive or dead.

               “Where?” he asked V.

               “This way,” V answered, taking a pair of shovels from the trunk and moving swiftly to the rear of the building.  “There’s supposed to be a stairway leading down and the reinforced room is at the bottom. She said the stairwell was built the same as the room, so it should be standing.  If it isn’t, I have ropes.”  He paused, looking down at the younger man.  “We will find him.”

               Seven responded with a grunt, watching to see where V began digging.   He grabbed the extra shovel and joined in.

               The only thing to alert either man to the passage of time was the lengthening of shadows around them.  They did not pause in their efforts, setting aside the shovels only when they had to work together to move a larger remnant of the building aside.  The ash and soot filled the air, choking them and leaving black streaks cut by trails of sweat.  

               When the sun went down, they tried setting up the flashlights but quickly found that there was no way to position them to keep enough light on the situation to make sufficient progress.  V pulled the car around, bouncing it gently over the scorched flower beds until he could bathe the site beneath the headlights.

               The path to the location of the stairwell opened before them and they worked their way down through three floors of debris, searching for the promised opening.  

Seven had often prayed, his faith in God being his anchor in life, but he’d never prayed like this.  Anything, my life, my freedom, anything, just let him be alive.  Let me reach him.  Let him be there.  Please don’t show me his body when we get through this.  I’ll give anything, anything….

The words raced, repeating endlessly, like a summoner’s chant.  

V’s shovel drove through the mess and stopped with a loud clang.  Looking at Seven he pulled it back and slammed it down again, a hopeful gleam in his eyes.  A second impact resounded through the still air and both men turned to scraping away the blackness over the solid space. Hope gave way to despair as they realized they were standing on a massive block of cement right where the opening to the stairs should have been.  

Seven dragged his shovel around, seeking the edges of the block, his horror growing as he realized that either a floor or a large exterior wall had collapsed on this exact spot.  He hadn’t packed any explosives, and the segment was too large to rope off and pull away.  For the second time, he sunk to his knees at Magenta and screamed into the night.

“You damn fool,” a gruff voice called from the darkness.  “First you run off without telling me, make me track your ass to the middle of nowhere, and now you’re just going to give up?”

Seven’s hand shot to where his gun should have been, but he’d left it in the car.

“Right, because you wouldn’t have been dead two hours ago if I’d wanted it.” A red spot grew, the light of it briefly illuminating a face before Seven’s partner stepped into the glow of V’s headlights.  He regarded the two men with a look of annoyance and took another drag on his cigarette before dropping it and stamping it out with his toes.  “So, what are you digging up?”

“A person,” V stated.  “At least, we hope it’s a person still.”

“What happened here?  This is one hell of a mess.”

“It was an explosion.”  

Seven tried to signal V to stop talking but was ignored.

“We have reason to believe that someone is trapped under here, in a reinforced room.  We’re trying to get to them. Are you here to help or get in the way?”

Seven knew he should have been used to V’s way of telling just enough without tipping his hand to anyone, but it startled him to hear anyone speak to Vanderwood in such a challenging tone.

Vanderwood stepped forward, approaching the chunk of concrete that had halted their progress.  He looked around, evaluating the entire situation, noting the unstable piles of burned lumber and crumbling drywall around them.  “If you hadn’t snuck off, you’d have had the right tools for the job. Didn’t you learn anything from me, agent?”  

He spun on his heel, stalking back out into the darkness.  When he returned, he left one large bag next to V’s car, and the other he carried to where V and Seven continued digging at the edges of the slab.  

“Gotta crack it first, in pieces. We’ll have to take it out a little at a time or it’ll bring the rest of this shit show down on us.”  He mumbled as he pulled wires and a grey putty-like substance from his bag. “Gotta slice it up like a pie and figure out what’s underneath it.”  After a few minutes, he rose and said to Seven and V, “Get back.  Move that car back, too.  Give it an extra hundred feet.”

While they cleared the area, he set the explosives and ran the ignition wires back. Connecting them to a small detonator, he looked back and then hunched low to the ground before flipping the switch. The following series of explosions ran like a daisy chain from the edge of the concrete slab to the center. Smoke drifted through the air, but it didn’t look as if much had changed.

Seven approached the area, his eyes taking on a fresh light of hope as he saw row after row of deep cracks.  They could move some of these pieces!  They would get through!

Without waiting, he fell on the first crevasse, his fingers scrabbling at the rubble filling it, seeking a way to gain leverage.

Vanderwood groaned and waved for V to join him.  Between the three of them, they managed to finish separating the outermost segment and haul it aside.  They labored through the night, moving the heavy material as they were able, and Vanderwood setting small explosions to break up the pieces that were still too large.

Seven couldn’t recall his body being so tired or sore.  He was finally thankful for the training he’d received from the agency.  He knew he’d never have kept going without it.  His hands were torn and bleeding, as were his arms.  The usually bright gold rings on the shoulder of his hoodie had long since been lost to the black ash he’d been digging through with only one thought.   He’d given up seeing through his glasses, and was glad that he could see well enough to continue without them.  There was no keeping the lenses clear.

He noted that V was working just as hard, just as desperately.  His mentor’s face was pinched with apprehension and determination.  Never once had the photographer complained or stepped aside for a break, though his movements slowed as exhaustion crept through his body.  Seeing how hard he worked left Seven feeling slightly less angry about V’s actions leading to this moment.  It wasn’t as if V wasn’t responsible, but maybe Seven had misjudged his intentions.

Finally, they pried a large, triangular piece clear of the massive cement block and Seven shouted.  “There’s an opening!  It’s right here!  We found it!”

“Keep your mind on what you’re doing,” Vanderwood snapped breathlessly.   “Lift!”

The instant they had lowered the slab to the ground, Seven raced back, checking the opening he’d seen.  He shone his flashlight into the narrow opening.  “Stairs!” he called out.  “I see stairs!”

V raced to Seven’s side, peering into the hole.  “Yes, I see them too!  This has to be it!  There should be a door at the bottom, and the door just beyond that.  Are the walls around the stairs intact, can you see?”

Seven started to lean his head and shoulder into the opening, now out of his mind to get down the stairs.  Vanderwood yanked him back.

“You want to get your skull crushed?” the agent asked.  “Look,” he pointed.  “That entire mess is laying right over the stairwell.   If you move too much around, you’ll bring it all down on yourself.”

Chastised, Seven sat on his heels.  “We have to get down there,” he said helplessly.

“Yeah, I get that.  At least, I hope that’s why we’ve been working ourselves to death all night.” He knelt, leaning over to look down into the stairwell.  “This wall looks secure but I can’t see the far side.”  He frowned as he evaluated the rest of the chunk they’d been breaking down.  “This is too narrow for any of us.  We need to clear one more piece.”  His eyes narrowed and he drew lines in the air with his fingers before ordering, “Seven, get my bag. We’re going to set one more round.”

Using the shovel to gouge a small indentation into the cement, Vanderwood set a fresh explosive. When it went off, he’d cracked the block neatly to free a segment just large enough to allow them to step down onto the stairs.

V went first, testing the steps as he moved down into the darkness.  “The walls held,” he announced, relief carrying up to the others as he moved further in, allowing them to follow.

At the end of the stairwell, however, was another mess.  It seemed that several large pieces of flammable material had fallen into the stairs before they were covered.  V groaned and leaned against the wall.

“Got a bucket?” Vanderwood asked.

“No, I don’t.  I didn’t think we’d need one,” V said sorrowfully.  

Vanderwood shook his head.  “I’ll get one.”  He retreated back up the stairwell, returning a few minutes later with the shovels and the promised bucket. Passing the tools to V and Seven, he settled himself on the stairs and lit a cigarette.  “This is your rescue op.  You dig. I’m going to take a break.”

Seven couldn’t even find one of his usual quips to tease Vanderwood about getting old.  He slammed the blade of the shovel into the upper layers of the debris before him and began filling the bucket.

With V and Seven both digging, Vanderwood’s break was short lived.  He hauled each load to the surface, making countless trips and keeping light on the work until the doorway beyond could be seen.    

Seven turned to V, shaking his head.  The heavy, metal door lay partially open, twisted and scorched, half off its hinges.  The room beyond could barely be seen into.  Seven felt his heart might just lose the ability to break. The past few days had been such a rollercoaster of extreme emotions.  To have worked so hard, to have finally broken through, only to find…

He put his shoulder against the twisted metal hunk and pushed with all his weight.  Vanderwood joined him and together, they forced it open far enough to slip through.

Stumbling over a blackened board, Seven took the first steps, panning his light around the room.  “Come on,” he whispered.  “Be alive, be alive.”

V followed them into the room and the three men split up, searching the cavernous space.

“The hell was this, anyway?” Vanderwood asked, seeing the bank of monitors with their screens blown apart.

“A programming center,” V answered quickly, saving Seven from having to think of a plausible story.

“Programming center, huh?”  Vanderwood’s tone clarified that he didn’t believe V, but wasn’t going to ask again.

“Here!” V called, dropping his light and grasping at the edge of a tall set of shelves.  

Seven was at his side in a flash, grunting as they righted the shelves, revealing the form of a young man curled into a fetal position.  

A crimson long coat wrapped around the skinny, unmoving frame.  Tattered, lace trimmed sleeves hung limply from the sleeves, matching the white hair that lay in disarray over the pale face and closed eyes.  

“Is he…” Seven asked, suddenly immobilized.  

V knelt, searching the inside of Saeran’s wrist.  His expression began to fall but then he blinked suddenly.  “No, it’s faint, very faint, but he’s alive.  I have a pulse!”

Seven threw himself over his brother’s shoulder.  “Saeran, wake up Saeran.  Please, please, I need you to come home.”  Tears flooded over his face, washing away the accumulated filth of the night.  

“Who is it?” Vanderwood asked softly, kneeling beside V.

V considered his response before replying,  “It’s his twin.”

Vanderwood’s eyes widened in shock.  He watched Seven for a moment, processing this new information.  Sorrow filled his eyes briefly, replaced by fierceness.  He moved forward to take Saeran into his arms.

“No!” Seven shouted.  “No! Don’t touch him!  You can’t take him!”

“I’m going to take him to the surface so we can figure out how to help him. I brought my med kit.  Come on Seven, let me carry him for you.  We’ll make sure your brother lives.  We just need to get out of here first.”

Years of trusting one another won out over Seven’s fear that the agency would take Saeran away from him.  Vanderwood could be believed.  Vanderwood would help.  He’d come to help, not to stop them from saving Saeran.  Seven leaned back and watched as his partner lifted his brother’s limp body gently from the ground.

Saeran didn’t stir as he was carried out into the grey, pre-dawn light. He didn’t moan or make any noise as he was laid out on the grass beside V’s car.  His eyelids didn’t flicker as Vanderwood examined him.

V found a bottle of water and a clean cloth which he used to wipe Saeran’s face clear so they could check for injuries.

Vanderwood cut away the strange clothing, checking each bone for fractures, noting bruises and places where swelling had occurred.

Seven was completely undone.  Helplessly, he held Saeran’s hand, his thumb tracing a repetitive path over his brother’s knuckles.  When he saw the scars and deep gouges he wept wordlessly.  He searched the faces of V and Vanderwood, afraid to ask the question that would determine his fate.

“He’s dehydrated, badly, and his body is in terrible condition, but I think he’ll make it,” Vanderwood finally announced.  “I take it we can’t drop him off at a hospital?”

“No, we can’t,” V confirmed.

“I thought as much.”  He dug into his bag again, producing an IV bag, tubing, and a needle.  “First, hydration.”  He set up the drip, positioning the bag on top of the car to allow gravity to do its work and draw the fluids into Saeran’s bloodstream.  Once it was set, he pulled out a metallic square, unfolding it and laying it over the now naked man.  

He rose, lit a cigarette and leaned against V’s car.  “Seven,” he called.  When there was no response, he barked, with the tone of a drill sergeant, “Agent 707!”

Seven’s head shot up, tear-streaked and filthy, but with alert eyes.

“We need to talk.  I don’t want any bullshit, either.  I’ve gone and gotten myself into god knows what with you.  I want to know why and I want to know what the hell is happening. Since when did you have a brother?” His tone was neither cruel nor angry.  If any emotion could have been ascribed, it would have been worry for his partner.

Seven managed a half smile.  “Since a few minutes after I was born.”

V chuckled softly, and Vanderwood shot a scathing look at Seven before laughing.  

“Well, you’ll be alright then, if you’re back to being a smart ass.  Now,” he took a long drag on his cigarette.  “Now, fill me in.”

Seven and V recounted the story of how Seven had come to join the agency, V’s failed attempt to protect Saeran, and Rika’s descent into madness. Vanderwood asked only a few questions about Mint Eye and the RFA as the tale unfolded.

In the end, Vanderwood shook his head in disbelief.  “So we need to get this kid to someplace safe, then.”  He gave V a critical look.  “You sure you’re able to keep up your end of the deal again? If I let you take Saeran, you’ll keep him safe?”

“I’ll die trying,” V promised.  “I’ve been at fault for so much…”

“Yeah, yeah, all your fault.  I got that from the story.   Are you done wallowing in your self-pity, or are you going to fuck this up again?  I’m not letting you go anywhere with him if you’re not up to handling shit properly.”

V blinked as if he’d been slapped.  “I will… handle shit,” he said firmly.  “What will you do?”

“Seven, you’re coming back with me.  You have an assignment, and you’re going to finish it.”

Seven shot to his feet, ready to fight.  “No!  I’m not leaving his side!  I don’t care what you threaten…”

“Look here, you selfish brat!” Vanderwood shouted.  “I’ve put my neck out far enough for you lately!  If you don’t finish this job, they’ll be after me, too.  I’m not getting killed, got that?”  He folded his arms across his chest and took a breath.  “I’m not saying you can’t be with your brother.  I’m saying you need to think.  Finish the job.  They always give you time off after one this big.  Use the time and go be with him.  I’ll never tell a soul you have family. Maybe we can even find a way to get you out, but that won’t work right if you don’t finish your assignment.”

To V, he asked, “Do you have a safe location in mind?”

V nodded.  “I have an apartment in Chittagong.  I can take him there.  I just need to arrange transportation.”  He looked down at Saeran’s slack face.  “You’re sure he’ll survive?”

“Yeah, he needs rest and food.  Looks to me like he got knocked out and then that shelf trapped him.  His injuries are all minor.”  He nodded at Seven.  “Luck must be in their blood.  He should have been dead.  I think that slab falling put out whatever fire was going and kept out the rest of the mess.  The shelf falling on him wasn’t great, but it could have been much worse.”

“Good.  When we get back to an area with a stable signal, I’ll get Jumin to arrange a flight for us.”

“No, that won’t do.  There are enough people involved already.” Vanderwood pulled a phone from his pocket.  “You owe me for this, Seven,” he said as he made a call.

“Hey Geon… Yeah, it’s me… Look, you said if I ever needed anything…  Yeah, I need to ask if… Right… I need medical transport out of the country for two… Bangladesh… Chittagong… Today…  Oh, you know me, saving lives and protecting the defenseless… Yeah, I can do that… Thanks… See you then.”

He ended the call and frowned down at Saeran again.  “Alright, 1:30 this afternoon we have to meet a guy.  He’ll have a plane with a nurse ready to go. You’ll go with Saeran, V.  When they’re gone, you’re coming home and finishing your assignment, Seven.  You do that and I’ll buy your ticket out of here for you. Deal?”

Seven didn’t want to let V take Saeran anywhere without him, but seeing how far Vanderwood was going to help, his only response was to step over his brother’s legs and hug his partner tightly.  “Thank you, for this, for everything,” he choked.

Vanderwood shrugged Seven away.  “Yeah, whatever.  Just don’t you screw this up.”

They packed up the tools V had brought and Seven dug a clean change of clothing from his bag.  Between them, they dressed Saeran in more normal looking clothing and Vanderwood changed the IV bag.

Seven lifted his brother into the back seat of V’s car, amazed at how small his frame was.  We’ll get you well again, he promised silently. We’ll get you healthy and safe.  You’ll never suffer like this again.

That afternoon he watched as the small airplane lifted his brother and V off Korean soil, heading for the safety of V’s secret apartment.  His heart twisted mercilessly in his chest and waves of fear washed through his blood, making it feel as if he’d been dropped into an arctic zone with no coat.  He shivered, trying not to listen as his thoughts screamed that he’d never seen Saeran again.

When they returned to their home, Seven only took long enough to shower before returning to his computers.  He closed out the work he’d been doing instead of his assignment.  Revenge was less important now.  He needed to get to his brother.

For the first time since being assigned to Agent 707, Vanderwood didn’t have to harass him to get his work done.  In fact, he had to forcefully drag the young man away to eat and sleep.  The project that was to take a month was finished in a week, astounding Vanderwood.  He’d known the kid was good, but he had never seen anyone work like that before.  

True to his word, he bought Seven’s ticket as soon as the work was done.   What he didn’t tell him was that he wasn’t turning in the assignment early.  Their bosses didn’t need to know that Seven could work this fast.  They’d expect it every time, and Vanderwood didn’t think there would ever be anything to motivate him so fiercely again.  He dropped Seven at the airport and drove away, carrying secrets he wouldn’t reveal under torture.  “Good luck, kid,” he murmured as he watched the young man enter the terminal.

 (Chittagong)

 Seven pressed the buzzer outside the wrought iron gate.  His heart was racing, pounding loudly enough to hear its rhythmic thumping in his ears.  His brother was on the other side of this door, up one more flight of stairs. Finally, they’d be together again.

“Luciel?” V’s voice crackled from the speaker beside him.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Come on up.  Saeran is sleeping so come in quietly.”

The door buzzed and clicked and Seven was through it in a flash.  Even with his luggage, he vaulted up the stairs two at a time, turning at the second door on his left, as previously instructed. Before he could knock, the door opened and V greeted him with a warm hug.

“He’s alright?” Seven asked softly.

“Yes, much better.  He’s cleared his system of the elixir and his appetite is returning.   He still sleeps a lot, but he’s becoming more alert.”  V looked away nervously.  “Come in, please, and sit with me. I need to talk to you while he’s asleep.”

“What is it?” Seven asked, instantly on edge.

V gestured to the sitting area of the small apartment.  “First, sit.”

Seven felt his mouth go dry as he occupied the nearest chair.  “What’s wrong?”

“So, I didn’t lie.  Physically speaking, Saeran is doing better.  He is beginning to do better mentally as well, but you need to know a few things about that.”  He drew his fingers through his blue hair slowly, thinking out his next words. “First, Saeran blames you as much as me, for everything.  He was told that you abandoned him so many times that he believes it to be true.”

“But I didn’t!  I…”

“No, you didn’t, I know.  I’ve been working on getting that across to him.  He knows you’re coming today, but he’s not excited about it.  He has agreed to talk to you, but you need to be prepared for the anger he’s carried against you.  I can’t promise he’ll be ready for you to stay.”

Seven frowned deeply.  He wasn’t sure he could walk away from Saeran now, even at his request. “Alright,” he said aloud.  “What else?”

“There seems to have been some psychological damage,” V began hesitantly. “There’s a very angry, very aggressive alter ego that arises.  I have not yet been able to determine what triggers the emergence of this other persona, but if he appears, he may attack you.”  He tilted his head back, revealing a set of finger-print shaped bruises along his neck.  “He’s attacked me twice since we arrived here.”

Had Seven thought his heart broke so many times that night at Magenta that it couldn’t break anymore?  He had been wrong.  He knew that extreme, recurring trauma was required to cause a personality to splinter.  What hells had Saeran lived through that would leave him like that?  How could Rika have mistreated his gentle-hearted brother so?  For a moment he wished he’d followed through with his plans to make her pay.  

Shoving those thoughts aside, he focused on the fact that he was with his brother, far from Rika or the hellish life she’d condemned Saeran to.  They’d get through this together, the way they always should have.

A door opened behind him and Seven heard a soft voice call, “V?  I heard voices.  What’s…”

Seven rose and turned, looking into a face that mirrored his own in every way except for eyes that were now blue instead of gold.  White hair replaced red, and this man wore no glasses, but it was still him, still his brother.  Seven’s eyes misted over and he smiled hopefully.  

“Hello, Saeran.  Sorry I kept you waiting, but I’m here now.  How are you?”

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #207

“it’s late, and you’re still staring at the light; to call it an addiction’s impolite.”

Nevermind what gender you ARE, what gender do you WANT to be? Happy being a girl. Do you ever feel ashamed revealing your age? When it's to people who are aware of how behind I am in the adult world in any context, yes. Very. If they know nothing about me, then I don't care. Are you confident enough to reveal your height and weight? Height, I don't care. Weight, fuck no. What do your parents call you? Both usually say "Britt," but Dad's more likely to use terms of endearment like "sweetie" and such. Well, Mom does use "hunny" a lot too. How old were you when you first got to go on the computer? Idr. About the "normal" age for little kids that played Neopets, probably. Would you say you’re an emotional person? Way too emotional. What’s a color that suits you the best? Black. And a color you just can’t pull off/don’t want to? Probably most... I wouldn't know, almost every single thing I wear is black. I have literally one light purple shirt, and I think that's the only non-black shirt I own. Describe yourself when you were 6 years old? Very talkative, extremely imaginative, outgoing, I was definitely weird, tomboyish, very happy... Man, I miss being that kid sometimes. A type of personality you just can't stand? The older and older I get, the more I cannot STAND a closed mind. I like people who accept they're far from always right, and sometimes, your "right" isn't such for someone else, and that is fine. You don't have to see the same way to still get along perfectly (though of course, there's no need to respect an opinion that spits upon, invalidates, or is just plain hateful towards another person/group). Like just as an example 'cuz I feel like I explained that poorly; I'm really not into the idea of polygamy at all, but I'm not against it for people it works with. You do you. Your appearance in one word would be? "Abilify." :^) City type of person or country? I like the live in a more country-ish area, but I found through Chicago I LOVE /visiting/ cities. What’s something you’re obsessed about right now? When am I not obsessed with Mark, meerkats, Silent Hill, opossums (a newer addition), WoW, etc. etc.? My whole life runs on obsessing over something, fren. Your reaction if someone told you you look 10 years older than your age? ZOINKS that would suck ass. Do you really badly want anything right now? For the past couple weeks, I've become more and more antsy to get up to Sara's again. When I land a job, fancyin' up my tattoo just because as I've said again and again it is SO important to me and must be perfect, then I'm saving up to go back up there. What’s something that makes you really stressed out? With all this job searching and such going on, it's like all I can think about, so why not mention what fucked me up at my previous ones: Putting me in a position of responsibility and expected knowledge. Ex., when I was a sales associate and was asked "Oh, do you have this?"/"Where is this?", it was CONSTANT PANIC MODE because I never knew and had to ask somebody, when I was expected to be a knowledgeable employee to the customer, and then comes the horror of feeling like I'm inconveniencing and annoying them. Have any particular standard look you look for in a significant other? I don't have a "standard look," no, but I am more likely to be drawn to a gothic appearance. But I don't actively search for someone that meets that criteria or anything. Do you listen to Wiz Khalifa? No. What are your opinions on marijuana legalization? Please legalize medicinal use already. Recreationally, idk. Do you date outside your own race? I'd have no reservations against it. I dated a Hispanic... less than a day, but still, you get the point that I don't have a problem with it. What are some of your turn-offs? SEXIST/MISOGYNISTIC, too old-fashioned, racist and/or homophobic, raunchy, arrogant/self-centered, lack of sincere interest and enthusiasm in conversation, poor hygiene, I'm gonna get SHIT ON for saying "too slutty," not taking dating seriously... that kinda stuff. I'm so picky. Are you gay, straight, bi, or trans? Bisexual. Are you vegetarian? If not, would you ever consider becoming one? I'm not now, but I hope to return to it after I get to my goal weight... In my few months of vegetarianism, it was proven that my immense pickiness with food was making the diet unhealthy for me, as I was strongly lacking in certain vitamins and such. I'm going to have to somehow overcome that if I want to return to it, which I REALLY do want to do the more and more I get into animal welfare and care. Are you in love? Yes. Are you more of a pessimist or an optimist? Pessimist, I think, out of the two. But I like to see myself as a realist. How much money is in your wallet? Literally just $11 lmao. What’s your favorite sex position? Only experienced in these with a man, so answering with that in mind. I like sitting on his lap, facing him, with my legs around his back. What do you ultimately wish for in life? Happiness and peace. Have you ever been pregnant? No. What do you think about tipping at restaurants? Tip your goddamn waiter/waitress, assholes. I do believe in tipping based on the quality of service, BUT at least give them SOMETHING for working. Do you have your driver’s license? No jkajdsklfaj;wer. I haaaave to practice more. Whenever I'm in the car, I always strongly prefer to listen to my music, controlling it from the passenger's seat, and at least right now, I can't drive with loud music, barely any at all really, so I have a hard time giving up blaring my music while Mom drives lmao. Have you ever passed out from drinking? No. What’s your favorite carnival food? Idk, I don't go nearly enough. Who did you last kiss? Romantically, Sara. Platonically, either my niece or nephew when leaving. Have you seen the final Harry Potter movie? I haven't even see one. Ever been called a slut? No. Would you ever have sex with someone not of your preferred sex? I'm bisexual so like- Would you ever get back together with any of your exes? No. Do you take any meds on a daily basis? Yep. What did you do today? Watched LPs as always; did some job searching; played WoW, way shorter than usual though; took a nap; made a new icon; took a shower; listened to music; did some social media scrolling. The usual stuff. What do you wear to bed at home? A tank top and pj pants. What do you wear to bed when you're somewhere else? The same, but with a bra. Is there a place you keep any prized/secret things whilst you’re away? No. Do you have any phobias? What? Why do you think you have this/them? I'll just talk about the unordinary ones, 'cuz I have a lot. The ones I'd consider "weird" are vomiting, whale sharks, and pregnancy. Vomiting is because it's just incredibly unpleasant, but also because I know what goes down is not supposed to come back up. Like no one likes puking, no shit, but I'm legit afraid of it and lock up on what to do when I feel it coming, like I don't know what to do. Whale sharks... ahaha. It literally came from World of Warcraft. The design of their mouths is fucking horrifying, and I hate hate hate how they sometimes phase in-and-out of the Vashj'ir map so just like pOP UP. NAH, SON. It's just their damn mouths, even though I know their esophagus is far too small to swallow a human. As for pregnancy, just... ew. I'm afraid of parasites, and it's a parasitic relationship. Something should NOT be growing inside of you. What skill do you possess that you are most proud of? I'm very compassionate, especially when it comes to others enduring emotional struggles. I really feel for hurting people. What is your greatest strength (e.g. honest, loyal, brave)? I have strong morals and stick to them. I'll always stand up for what I feel is right. What’s your greatest shortcoming or flaw (e.g. cowardly, alcoholic)? Ah jeez, there's a lot... but probably my anxiety. It's held me back and manipulated my actions since middle school. I struggle not followings its rules, but I'm sure trying. Who do you most admire? Mark, my mom, Sara, Sara's dad, Steve Irwin... man, there's too many great people. Who do you most love? Sara, my mom, and my pets, Teddy especially. What three things do you look for most in a partner? EXPRESSING OF THEIR EMOTIONS/TRULY FEELING!!!!!!!!, compassion, and a cool head. If you could ask God (to atheists - IF there was one) one question, what? Hm. Good question... There's a lot, but mostly little wonders; I feel like I have a decent understanding of the god I personally see, so don't have any magnificent questions. Perhaps regarding why they created our world. That'd be interesting. Rate yourself on these traits from 0 to 10: 0 - do not possess this trait. 10 - you have great amounts of this trait. Calm temper: 7. Charm: *big shrug* Cheerfulness: 3-4. Confidence: 0-3. Courtesy: 8-10. Curiosity: 6-10. Forgiveness: 9-10. Generosity: 8-10. Greed: 0-3. Helpfulness: Well, I like to try to help, but I don't feel I'm very successful at that, so idk. Honesty: 5-9, depending on who I'm talking to and what the subject is, I guess. Loyalty: This is very flexible, and I don't feel like I can put a number on it. It depends on how deserving you are of the trait, and yes, you can lose my loyalty in a heartbeat if you give me reason to take it away. Optimism: 0-4. Patience: This can go from a whopping 0 to a 10, lmao. Very dependent on the situation. Self-sacrifice: 8-9. Wit: -10. Briefly describe your family. Kinda broken. Tight bonds scattered between certain people, no bonds with others. What is the worst thing that has ever happened to you? The breakup. I wouldn't wish that night upon Satan himself. How did it affect you? We know. Have you ever had any recurring nightmares or themes in nightmares? Speaking of that... Jason is in most nightmares I remember. The common theme is it's either after the breakup and we have an awkward running in with each other, or it's long before when everything was "perfect." All things considered, I'd call even that a nightmare. Those fuck with me the most. Do you currently have a boyfriend/girlfriend? Yeah. Do you have any close friends? I can count those on maybe two fingers. Of what are you most proud? Letting Jason go. Of what are you most ashamed? I've talked about the Joel situation multiple times. What is your religion? Theist. Where do you stand on abortion? Mostly pro-choice. Where do you stand on the death penalty? Sometimes justifiable and one's deserving end. Felons are lucky enough it's done humanely. Where do you stand on wearing fur? If you're not surviving out in the arctic, fuck you and all you stand for. Could you kill somebody? I'm perfectly aware I could in defense situations. For what reason would you kill somebody? Defending myself or loved ones. Hell, probably even strangers. I'd kill a rapist with zero fucking hesitation, even if they were assaulting someone I'd never seen before. Would you SERIOUSLY CONSIDER killing anybody right now? No. Do you trust easily, or not? NOPE. What, if anything, would you sacrifice your life for? Defending peace, gay rights, or if it was to protect most of those I love. What are your dreams/ambitions/goals? Be a successful photographer, reach financial stability, come to a point where I'm actually proud of what I've done, play a roll in wildlife conservation, be happily married, and just overall be content and satisfied with my life. How do you plan to reach them? Working my goddamn ass off and not taking "no" for an answer (not about the marriage part tho lmao). Do you ever want to have a family someday? With children? No. Who would you want to start this family with, or do you not yet know? I just want a pet family with Sara. What do you see yourself doing next year? Man, I don't have a clue... What do you see yourself doing in twenty years? I don't want to think of that. That's too far ahead. I'll be 43... I've gotta work on too many things now. Would you ever have an affair? I'm very curious as to who would actually answer "yes" to this. Would you ever have a one night stand? No. Lmaoooo actually this is sad as fuck, but I think I've said in a previous survey just knowing myself, if we were both single and clicked, I'd be doomed if it was Markiplier. My morals would sadly go out the window. If you had a month of nothing (no work, no obligations) what would you do? That's literally been the story of my life for years now, especially the past two. And it's torture. Would you ever choose a career or job where your life was at risk? No. Well, actually, I do want to do wildlife photography, and it can be pretty dangerous. Were you present at any major historical events (e.g. 9/11)? No. Do you have any famous relatives? No. Ancestors, yeah, but not close relatives. Are you a loyal member of any organizations? No. What type of criminal would you be? With how forgetful I am, I'm certain I'd be a very clumsy one that gets caught very quickly, lol. What are you listening to right now? "Voices" by Motionless In White. If you had to choose a stripper name, what would it be? Um idk. If your phone started ringing, who would you hope is calling? Someone for a job interview. Do you drink? Rarely and/or for some special occasions. Never enough to get drunk. Do you smoke? No. What is the first thing you notice in someone? I guess posture? How they carry themselves? Do you get attached easily? BOY! DO I!!!!!!!!!!! Do you like your eye color? I wish they were more blue. Would you go bungee jumping/sky diving if given the chance? Definitely not bungee jumping, I know how I react to that kind of up/down movement, and probably not skydiving, either. Have you ever been to a psychiatrist/therapist? Both regularly since middle school. Are looks important in a relationship? Not very. What is your favorite thing to do? Binge a new song I fell in love with for like days lmao. What was the last thing you downloaded onto your computer? PhotoScape. It's easier to move watermarks for photos on there, and I was working on the ones I took a few days back. Do you like to gossip? No, I feel super guilty. What kind of computer do you have? An Acer. Do you know all the words to your national anthem? I think? Have you ever failed a grade? No. Have you ever made the opposite sex cry? Yes. Have you ever had a crush on a teacher? Nah. Have you ever slapped someone in the face? No. Do you own a designer purse? Hell no. Waste of money for a goddamn purse that's just gonna get dirty and scratched. What’s the weirdest rumor you’ve ever heard about yourself? Jason and I magically had a baby over summer vacation when I was very obviously never pregnant. Do you say the "h" in the word “herb”? No, though I did for a super long time 'cuz I had no idea it was wrong. Do you speak any languages besides English? Not fluently. Can you run in high heels? I wouldn't really know, but boy do I doubt it. Do you have to take stairs or an elevator to get to your house? No. What do you usually order at Subway? Ummm I think white bread, ham, American cheese, bacon, jalapenos, banana peppers, and Chipotle sauce. I think that's it. Did an alarm wake you up this morning? No. How long is your mother’s hair? Past her shoulderblades, near the middle of her back. Is there any particular place you’d like to vacation to next? Surprisingly, I'd love to go somewhere tropical, like Hawaii or some shit like that. Somewhere with clear water and unique, beautiful wildlife and nature. What is your beer of choice, if any? Never tried beer, never want to. The smell is bad enough. That and I associate it with when Dad was an alcoholic. Did you share a bed with anyone last night? No. Well, other than with my cat. Do you know anyone who volunteers regularly? Yes. Have you ever ruined a nice pair of shoes, and how? Maybe, playing in puddles or biking through them and mud as a kid or something. Who were the last friends you went to hang out with? Sara. How many chairs are in the room you’re currently in? None. Have you texted a relative in the past week? Not besides immediate family. Are you doing anything important today? No. If I were to bring you any type of food right now, what would you pick? If I was actually hungry, I have been craving hotdogs on the grill like CRAZY lately. No clue why. When did you move into the house you’re currently living in? April-ish 2017. Do you ever sleep with the light on? No, I can't. Do you pray to Jesus? 20+ years of that did nothing. No. What was the last thing you ordered at Starbucks? N/A Do you have a bonfire pit in your yard? No. Would you consider being homeless if it meant you could travel the world? I don't know; there's lots of factors to consider. Would I be willing to leave my pets (but Teddy, probably; I'd want him with me) with my mom? Would I have something like a camper? Where am I getting this money to travel and provide for myself? Do you know your next-door neighbor? Mom knows one, but I personally don't. What’s something you have never done? Lots of things? As an example, uhhh... I've never done a cartwheel, despite childhood efforts? Name someone you know who is a true risk-taker, adventurer, and free spirit. Do you admire that person? Idk. Do you wish you were more of a free spirit? I think I already am, but it'd be cool to be more of one. Are you allergic to any medications? No. How do you feel when someone says something you’ve experienced doesn’t exist? Tell me depression isn't real, my PTSD isn't genuine, I can "get over" my anxiety if I want to hard enough, stuff like that, and I will not fucking associate with you. These are things that have massively affected my life; I dare someone to tell me these experiences aren't real issues. What worldview do you have? A realistic one, I think. I'm positive in some areas, negative in others. Hm... I'm probably more pessimistic about the world's future, though. Do you have friends who have different religious beliefs than you? Duh? If applicable, who was the first person you “came out” to? Sara. What’s one thing you’d like to do more? Travel. What was your style in high school? Some emo/metalhead hybrid that wished with all her heart to be capable of affording a goth wardrobe and bitch I still do. What’s one thing you are jealous that other people got to do but you didn’t? Have a healthy teenage experience. Have you ever taken birth control pills continuously? I have for years for my cycle. I had just about debilitating cramps and sometimes periods that lasted over a week. Who is your personality twin? Sara is probably the closest. What’s a common name that you hate? Edward, above all. Not a big fan of William, Robert, or Allen, either. Who do you wish you were best friends with? If you don't count my girlfriend as "best friend," maybeeee... Alon still? Or Baylee. I need to talk more to her, she's awesome. Do you own a camera tripod? Yes. Did you ever believe in mermaids? I don't believe so. …in fairies? I believed in the Tooth Fairy. …in Santa? Yes. Have you ever purchased alcohol? Yes. What is your newest hobby? Hm, I don't think I've found a new one for a long while... What gives your life meaning? I don't know. What motivates you to do what you do? The pursuit of happiness. What was the weather like the last time you went out? Too fucking hot. Do you go for walks often? No, though I really want to around a lake at a local, small park. Problems consist of no way to get there myself, it's WAY too fucking hot with my sweating issue, and my knees just wouldn't have it; I know I couldn't walk the full lap around it. Also expect some art installations around the path and probably the gazebo are PokeStops for Pokemon Go and really wish I could play it, so that's bait to do it lmao. What color shirt are you wearing? Pink. What is your favorite type of YouTube video to watch? It really depends on who I'm watching. Favorite on the face of the planet are Mark's ego projects, then my second fave are probably Shane's conspiracy videos, then I love let's plays. Do you need any new clothes right now? I seriously need more pants. And new bras. Do you collect anything? If so, what? Silent Hill merch and meerkat stuff. ^and if not, what would you like to collect? When I can buy shit myself, ya girl is gonna have way too much Markiplier merch. YouTuber stuff in general, actually. Too shy to ask for that kinda stuff now lol. Have you ever experienced a miracle? I don't think so. What was the last thing you ate? A burger. Do you ever eat food that’s intended for kids? ...? Like, baby food? No. Or maybe you mean shit like Lunchables? In cases like that, sometimes? What was the last stupid thing you did? Oh boy, who knows. Do you get embarrassed easily? You. Have. No. Idea. What are your top three names you like for a daughter? Alessandra, then uhhhh... I like Chloe and Adrian. Would you ever film a vlog of yourself giving birth? Hell no. I'd never wanna see it, I'd never want my hypothetical child to have to witness that, etc. Do you like getting caught in the rain? No. Wet clothes are no. Do you think your hair looks best straight, wavy, or curly? Straight, I guess? Though my hair does swoop to the right, so it's kinda a wave? What was the last craft project you completed? Oh, yeesh. I don't do crafts. The closest thing was I guess Sara's Valentine's Day gift for last year? Name 3 YouTubers you would like to meet in person: Markiplier is literally the only one that matters lmao and it's not "would like to meet in person," he will be forced to endure meeting me ok. Meeting Shane Dawson would be amazing, he's such a relatable sweetie, aaaaand #3 would probably be Rhett and/or Link, as similar to Mark, they deserve a tear-filled thanks as well as back-breaking hugs for seriously helping in keeping me alive through my suicidal year. I mean it when I say they genuinely helped me keep going. What color are your nails painted currently? They’re never painted. Do you use a pill box? No. List 3 people you know who were loving and then turned cold: Jason, Jason, and Jason. Have you ever felt threatened for your life? No. Which did you like better: high school or college? My college experience was horrid. High school had great memories, but of course negative ones, too. Which year of your life stands out to you as the most significant so far? 2017. …and why? It was my year of recovery from the breakup. What was the last store you shopped at? I went to Wal-Mart with Mom. I think that was the most recent, anyway. Do you have a favorite pharmacist? No. Do you have a favorite cashier at the grocery store? No. What’s something you discovered recently? I'm a Billie Eilish fan. What makes you more creative? Music. What’s the last magical thing you experienced? YO okay so when my brother and nephew were here, we went to the science museum and into a 360 VR-esque show about astronauts. I got SO nauseous and dizzy, but it was nevertheless extremely cool. What is the theme of your bedroom? It doesn't have a theme. Have you ever lived in a dorm? No. When was the last time you stepped outside of your comfort zone? Just tonight! I ordered at a drive-thru myself. Would you rather ride a camel or an elephant? An elephant! Do you want to lose weight? You have no fucking idea. Which insects scare you, if any? Lmao most. Especially rhinoceros beetles, big beetles in general honestly, cockroaches, earwigs, centipedes... like a lot okay. I like observing praying mantises, but I would probably have a fucking heart attack if one was on me. Do you think it’s silly to be afraid of a tiny insect? Well, yeah, though I get the likely survival reason, that being we know many are venomous, so we're naturally averse to them, especially if we don't recognize the type. Were you raised religious? Yes. Have you ever been abused? No, thankfully. Is there a coffee shop you like better than Starbucks? N/A If you could afford to get your hair professionally done, what would you get? Man, I have SO many color combination ideas. If I could get it done in the safest manageable way by a pro, I saw this look once with totally bleached/pure white hair that fades to blood-red tips, and BOY would I get that in a heartbeat. If you had a lot of money, do you think you would use it wisely? I hope so. I think so. The only thing I imagine myself being weak with are tattoos. Do you know any rich people who are very irresponsible? I don't think so... List five careers that you’d like to have: Meerkat biologist, paleontologist, artist, poet, something in wildlife conservation/protection. List five far-out things that you’d like to do before you die: Scuba-dive, I'd LIKE to ride a rollercoaster (far-out for me, trust me), but I know I never will, and uh... idk. Riding a motorcycle would be cool, but that's another thing I hiiighly doubt I'll do. What was your first imaginary friend’s name? I never had one. What was the name of the first pet that you loved? Chance, a cat my mom rescued. She was our very first family pet. She was absolutely incredible. Do you like to go barefoot? Unless I'm in a house, no. Do you like the same colors now that you did as a kid? Yeah. Do you have a YouTube channel? Yeah. Is there someone who stopped talking to you for no reason? Oh, who to begin with? Did you ever get called horrible names like whore, skank or bitch? "Bitch" more than once. Where did you sleep last night? My bed. Have you ever slow danced with anyone? With Jason, yeah. And I don't think so, but maybe Sara briefly? Have you ever cried in public? Yeah. What would you do if you were pregnant? I don't have a fucking clue. Do you like cuddling? With someone I love. Have you ever cried in school? Yes, but I think I kept it private. Who’s the last person to send you a message on Facebook? A woman whose wedding I'm shooting this Saturday. Have you ever witnessed someone else engaging in a sexual act? Just making out. Where did you get drunk last? N/A What’s your relationship with the last person you texted? She's my girlfriend. If someone went through your pictures, would they find a dirty one? No. How did you do on the last test you took? I haven't been in school for a long time. How come you’re not going out with the person you love? I am.

[justwhymsical]

E.R. (USUK)

Summary: "There are rumours, you know," Alfred whispered into Arthur's ear. "That the Head Nurse likes the new driver."

Just a little thing I found and polished up. Full story can also be read on my AO3! Link’s at the top of my blog under the ‘My Writing’ link~

The volunteer E.R. ambulance driver really was hot. Twenty-four, American, with blond hair, bright blue eyes, and an extremely well-built form. Arthur had been taken with him since the moment he saw the man nearly four years ago. But he was only around from May to the end of August, so the English nurse figured he was in school and volunteered whenever summertime rolled around. Arthur didn't see him too often as he usually stayed in the ambulance, but it made his day a little brighter whenever he caught glimpse of him.

"Oi, Arthur, your little lovebird's got a shift tonight." Gilbert, another nurse, chuckled as he passed. "Do ya even know his name?"

Arthur huffed. "That's not- what?" He frowned. "It's October."

"Yeah!" Gilbert's strange laughter was heard all the way down the hall. "He's here full time now, maybe you'll have more of a chance!"

"Piss off!" Arthur called after him, though his thoughts were racing with the glimmers of possibilities. He glanced at the clock periodically throughout the day, and finally in the evening smiled. The next shift was about to start, so perhaps he was still in the drivers' office. It wouldn't hurt to walk past, surely…

As he was rounding the corner he crashed into someone, and being the smaller and lighter person, he ended up on the floor. Rubbing his head and blinking, he looked up and froze.

"Hey dude, I'm so sorry! Are you okay?"

And who was leaning over him, concerned, other than the very person he’d been hoping to see? Arthur took the hand proffered to him and scrambled up, looking quite firmly at the handsome driver's shoulder. "I'm all right, it was my fault, I wasn’t looking where I was going-"

"No problem." The man shook his hand enthusiastically before Arthur could let go. "Hey, I've seen you around before! You're Arthur Kirkland, head nurse for the E.R., right?"

"Y-Yes, I am." Arthur stared at him, dumbfounded. His name was known?! And oh, how lovely it sounded, falling from the American's lips. He wondered how it would feel breathed against his skin- "And you are…?"

"Oh, right! Sorry. I'm Alfred F. Jones! Just got hired full time like two weeks ago." Alfred grinned.

"A pleasure to meet you." Oh it was much more than a pleasure.

"You too!" Alfred let go of his hand and glanced at his watch. "Uhh, I should probably get going out to the ambulance, check if everything's okay, y'know?"

"Yes, I suppose so. I'll see you around then, Mr. Jones?"

"Call me Alfred. And sure, see ya!" Flashing him another smile, Alfred continued down the hallway.

There was a small, warm smile on Arthur's face for the rest of the day, something that didn't go unnoticed by Gilbert. The albino teased him mercilessly about it at first but soon stopped after Arthur increased his workload. The Englishman did indeed catch glimpses of Alfred during the way when someone new was brought in. They didn't have long, perhaps a few seconds at most, but Alfred waved every time and Arthur smiled back.

"You've gotten simultaneously more easy and also a bigger stick up your ass," Gilbert complained to him one day a few weeks later, sprawling over the front desk. The clock showed half twelve in the morning, and all was quiet. Well, at least it had been until a few moments ago.

"How so?" Arthur turned away from the book he was reading to face him. He always took his shifts with Gilbert so he could keep an eye on the man.

"Alfred," Gilbert stated flatly. "How long you gonna keep dancing around him?"

"Shut up," Arthur immediately snapped back.

"See? There's that massive stick!" Gilbert suddenly smirked. "Though maybe you're just getting ready for some nice hot American di-"

"Piss off, Beilschmidt!"

Gilbert snickered more but went back to his computer screen. Arthur was sure it wasn't even remotely work-related, but he didn't comment. The room returned to blissful silence for a few minutes, before it was inevitably shattered once more. This time it was by the very object of Arthur's affections.

"Hello there, my cousin-"

"Artie!" Alfred cut across the other person who was speaking.

Arthur glanced up, shocked to see two Alfreds. Then he looked closer and saw one of the figures was not Alfred at all, just someone similar in appearance. He focused on the actual Alfred, who was bleeding quite heavily from the arm. "What the hell happened to you?"

"One of Mattie's rabbits got out so I had to chase it and I might have gotten a bit impaled on a chainlink fence. But I got the rabbit!" Alfred looked incredibly proud of the fact. "And this is Mattie!" He pushed the other man forwards.

"Ar-"

"Gilbert Beilschmidt, the Awesome," Gilbert interrupted, shoving Arthur to the side to hold out his hand for a handshake.

"Matthew Williams," Matthew replied, shaking it with a small smile. "I'd like to sign my idiotic cousin in."

"Oi! You call me idiotic now, but who was beggin' me to get your bun?" Alfred protested, pouting and wincing slightly as he pressed the towel more firmly against his arm.

"Right. Gilbert, you stay with Mr. Williams and complete the process while I take Mr. Jones to get treated." Arthur turned to Matthew. "I'm Arthur Kirkland, Head Nurse, and I assure you he'll get the very best care here."

Matthew suddenly smiled more. "Oh I'm sure he will." He chuckled when Alfred jabbed him and then turned back to Gilbert. "So can you help me with this process?"

Arthur meanwhile touched Alfred's sleeve and guided him to a quiet room. "Get settled on the bed, please."

"Will do, Nurse." Alfred grinned and hopped onto the bed.

Muttering softly under his breath, Arthur quickly took all of his vital signs and disinfected the bloody area before lightly pressing a fresh towel against it. "You'll most likely need stitches for that, so I'll get the doctor now. You'll be fine with him." He turned to leave, but paused when Alfred suddenly latched onto his arm. "Alfred-"

"Stay with me. Please," Alfred said, eyes wide. "Stitches mean anaesthetic and anaesthetic means n-needles, right?"

"Yes… Are you afraid of needles?"

Alfred nodded.

"All right then. I'll stay. But let me get the doctor, hmm?" Arthur gently pried Alfred's fingers off his wrist, though he was loath to do so.

"Okay."

"I'll be right back, Alfred, all right?" At the American's nod, Arthur returned one and left the room. He was smiling slightly; he was treating Alfred and Alfred wanted him to stay.

Along the way Gilbert came up to him and gave him Alfred's papers, the entire time going off about Matthew this and Matthew that. Arthur didn't really pay attention too much, though he did store the information away for future blackmail. Finally the albino wandered off back to Matthew and Arthur continued to the doctor's office. He was back with Alfred less than three minutes later.

"He'll be right with you."

Nodding, Alfred gestured him closer. "Okay. That's okay," he muttered, grasping at Arthur's arm the moment it came into reach. "Sit."

Arthur settled down next to him and watched him from the corner of his eye. He could practically feel every nerve in his arm tingling, especially in the spot Alfred was touching. He watched the American for a few moments before he realized he should probably be comforting. "You'll be fine, Alfred."

"I- I know." Alfred gazed back at him, fingers twitching. "It's just still- the sight of it makes me queasy."

"I understand." Arthur glanced to the door as the doctor entered before patting Alfred's knee. "You don't even have to look."

The doctor seemed surprised that Arthur was there, but allowed him to stay. He checked on the cut and then took out the anaesthetic. Alfred flinched, but Arthur offered him his shoulder and he eagerly agreed. Then, nose buried against Arthur's neck, he endured the stitching. The little tugging sensations felt strange, but thanks to the anaesthetic it didn't hurt at all.

When he was finished, the doctor praised Alfred for sitting still like he would a child, but Alfred seemed much happier so Arthur did as well. Then it was time for Alfred to go home, and Arthur found he really didn't want him gone.

"You feel all right?" Arthur asked, stalling for time a little bit.

"Yeah. Hurts a little bit, but that's just cuz the anaesthetic's wearing off." Alfred gave him a grin. "Thanks for stayin' with me."

"It's no problem. Will you be in tomorrow?"

Alfred shook his head. "Nah. I'm gonna stay at home and rest a bit." He saw Arthur's almost imperceptible disappointment and grinned. "Why, will ya miss me?"

"Wh- No-"

"It's okay." Alfred cut across his sputters by hugging him. "There are rumours, you know," he whispered into Arthur's ear. "That the Head Nurse likes the new driver."

"Gilbert, I swear I’ll flay him-" Arthur had turned fully red by this point. He buried his face more in Alfred's neck, though only because it was the most convenient place. Of course.

"Heh. Well that particular driver finds the Head Nurse real cute too." Alfred lightly stroked his back. "Why don't you swing by tomorrow? Or uhh, I guess later today. We can watch a movie or somethin'."

Arthur pulled away and looked at him skeptically for a moment before nodding, his expression softening. "If you'd like."

"I would." Alfred leaned in and kissed his cheek. "So come by just whenever you get off, kay? I'll be in all day."

Arthur’s cheeks flushed. "I'm actually not working later today at all. Once this shift is over I'll be going home until the next day," he explained. "So I'll be able to come 'round in the late afternoon after I've slept for a bit."

"Sounds good!" Alfred glanced past him into the waiting room. "Though you might not be he only one comin' by." he snickered.

"What, Gilbert?" Arthur followed his gaze to see Gilbert hitting on Matthew in a painfully obvious manner. At least Matthew seemed not to mind it. An arm settled across his shoulders and he looked back to Alfred. "Yes?"

"Nothin'." Alfred gave him a squeeze. "We should be gettin' out there..."

"I suppose so." Arthur slipped out from under his arm and stepped into the room. "You should keep that clean- and perhaps stay away from that rabbit for a few days?"

Alfred followed him, albeit reluctantly. "If ya say so, Nurse!"

Matthew and Gilbert broke off from their conversation to face then, the blond with reddened cheeks. Gilbert smirked. "Lovebirds number two have returned."

Arthur smacked him. "Shut it, Beilschmidt." He turned to Matthew. "He's all done. If there's any pain then some simple painkillers will do."

"Thank you." Matthew handed Alfred his coat.

"It's no problem. I'll see you later, Alfred?"

"Yeah!" Alfred gave him a grin and wave. With a nod at Gilbert he grabbed Matthew and pulled him out of the hospital.

Arthur watched him leave fondly, a smile coming to his face when he saw Alfred pat the ambulance he drove. When they were out of sight he settled back at his desk. He felt Gilbert's gaze on him and shook it off, but a few minutes later it was still there. "What do you want?" he asked, looking up to meet Gilbert's smirk.

"Loosened up enough to land a date? If you're lucky you'll land in bed-"

"Oh shove off, Beilschmidt!"

[littlefarmjoe-blog]

Waves                             Copyright 2018, Joe Avery

                                                The author grants permission for this document to be shared only in it’s entirety.

                                                          The author does not consent to allowing any portion to be taken out of context of the whole document.                      

    Excuse me for being naive, I grew up thinking we had freedom of speech in this country. Then I learned that by speaking about certain things, I became a target. It took a long time to understand what was happening to me. For more than ten years I have been repeatedly attacked, forced to live like a fugitive on the run, though I have done nothing wrong. These events have been written in chronological order, in the way it all unfolded for me. As time went by, the amount of evidence grew. This is not a story I want to be telling. I know it is likely to stir much criticism, ridicule, and slander against me. None of that matters. Many other people are enduring a struggle that is similar to mine. This is a story that needs to be told.

    For the first twelve years of living on the Missouri farm, there was a calm stillness that I never really thought about until it was overtaken by a strange vibration. I had lived here since 1995, and one night in October of 2007, everything changed. I was immersed in sleep when suddenly I was jolted awake by a weird, vibrating energy. It hit me with intensity. Whatever it was made me sit up in bed, directly out of a deep sleep. It was a low, humming vibration, and I could feel it going through me. It seemed like it was going through everything.

  Instantly I sat up, saying, “What the fuck is that? With my mind racing for a logical explanation, the first thing I imagined was that some heavy machinery was rolling down the road. I thought maybe it was the road grader or a big bulldozer. I looked at the clock, and it showed about two-thirty in the morning. Pulling back the covers, I got out of bed and walked out into the hallway. Then I made my way through the bus. I noticed that the tone of the vibration was not changing in the way you would expect it to, if it was coming from something moving down the road. It stayed at the same tonal vibration as I walked toward the back door of the bus. When I stepped outside and onto the porch, I almost lost my perception of the vibration. The sounds of the wind in the trees, the crickets, and the frogs were making it difficult to “hear” the vibe. Yet as I stood there and focused my mind, I could feel it going through me.

  This weird vibration continued into the next day and for many days that followed. It was disturbing. At random times of the day, I paused and paid attention to decipher if it was still going. Most of the time, it was. There were moments when I didn't perceive it, but it kept coming back. I told other people about it, though no one seemed interested. One day when several people were sitting in the bus, I focused my mind to determine if the vibration was happening, and it was. I asked my visitors, “Do you guys hear that low, humming sort of sound?” They all paused and listened, then they said they didn't hear anything. I explained, “It's not really a sound, it's more of a vibration... a very low vibration.” Still, they didn't notice it. I was baffled and concerned about whatever this was, and it was beginning to really bother me as the days went by.

  Before all of this began, I had been planning to take a trip through Europe for several months. A roofing job in Wichita that summer had earned me enough money to make it happen. So I was at the farm, preparing for my trip when these weird vibrations started happening. As the days went by, I became more concerned about the bad vibes, and I grew more anxious to leave. When I finally left near the end of October, I felt relieved to be away from it all.

  After a few days of Halloween festivities in Lawrence, Kansas, I prepared for a trip eastward. I took a train from Lawrence to Chicago, and another train to Boston. Then I rode a bus to New York City. From there, I flew across the Atlantic Ocean. I spent five months traveling through Sweden, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. In April of 2008, I returned to North America, and after some time in New York City, I rode a train to Chicago and another train to Lawrence.

  When I returned to the farm, I did not notice the weird vibration for a while. Eventually though, it became apparent again. Sometimes it would abruptly appear and continue for many hours. Other times, it seemed to be coming in waves, fluctuating between strong and mild vibrations. When people came to the farm, I would ask if they felt the vibes, though they always said they didn't notice anything.

  Then one day I called Frank on the phone. When I told him about the weird vibrations, he asked, “Is it like a low-frequency kind of thing?”

  “Yes! A really low, humming sort of vibration.”

  “I've been getting it for a couple of years.”

  “Really? What is it? What do you think it is?”

  “They're fuckin' with us, Joe.”

  I knew that Frank was speaking of the government, or at least some rogue elements within the government. In my mind, I had already considered that possibility, though I did not want to believe I was dealing with such a thing. I didn't know what it was. I only knew that I definitely felt it. It was really strong at times, vibrating through all of my body, through my skull, my eyeballs, and my organs. It seemed to be going through through all of my cells. Whatever it was, I didn't like it.

  For years I endured this weird vibration, and it always bothered me. Sometimes it was extremely “loud,” feeling like it was penetrating through every fiber in my body. Other times it was more subtle, yet it was almost always happening. Pictures entered my mind: images of government creeps somewhere with their hands on a dial, turning the intensity up and down while pointing electronic weapons at different targets around the world.

  Was I a target? Had I become a target? I began to speculate.

  Early in 2006, I rode with a group of about twenty people as we traveled to the city of Washington, to protest against the war in Iraq. It was cold, winter time. We held our signs outside of the Pentagon as hundreds of civilian and military personnel went into and out of the building. The cops pushed us around, yelling at us to get back off of the sidewalk. They took pictures of us. We also marched around outside of the capitol building with our signs. Some people in our group were arrested.

  Many times during the years of 2006 and 2007, I walked around with a big sign in my hands, which read: “9-11, The government did it.” I carried a sign like that during the Rainbow Gathering in Colorado, in July of 2006. I was handing out websites and information to people. Some law enforcement officers took pictures of me holding my sign. Two months later when September eleventh came around, I paraded with my sign through downtown Lawrence. Irritated that so many people still believed in the “official” version of “Nine-Eleven,” I felt it was my duty to tell the truth. I ended up on sixth street near the river. It was rush-hour traffic with many cars going by. Some people gave me thumbs up, other people cussed at me. One woman drove by, yelling, “You should be arrested for treason!” I laughed and waved as I said, “For exercising my freedom of speech.” A year later, on the eleventh of September, I walked through downtown Wichita with my sign. A strange woman stepped around the corner of a building, lifted a camera and took a picture of me. Then she quickly disappeared.        

In addition to carrying my sign, I was also passing around DVDs containing documentary films about the attacks of Nine-Eleven.

  So I had put myself out there in the streets and on the trails while people had taken pictures of me. And there was Myspace. A friend showed me this website where I could upload my own music, putting it out there for the general public to hear. I thought that was great. Over time, however, I went far beyond sharing my songs. I connected with “9/11 truth” groups through Myspace, posting many articles and documentary films about the false-flag attacks of September Eleventh, 2001. I began to see the internet as a valuable means of sharing information and getting the truth out to people. These things were all happening in 2006 and 2007, in the year or so that led up to my first experiences with the bad vibrations at the farm.

  After one of my trips to the East Coast, I rode a Greyhound bus from New York City to Wichita. We made several stops in New Jersey, and at one of those stops, a peculiar woman boarded the bus. She sat in a seat across the aisle from me, on the right-hand side of the bus, and about four or five seats forward. She turned to look at me for a few seconds, then she turned back toward the front. It seemed weird and out of place. The bus driver announced that there would be a fifteen-minute smoke break at the next stop. When the bus stopped, most of the passengers unloaded themselves out onto the sidewalk, some smoking cigarettes and some going inside the convenience store. I stepped out of the bus, walked past the bench and the smokers, and I went into the store. Wandering down a few aisles, I saw nothing I wanted. So I went out the door, turned right on the sidewalk, and walked past the bench. The woman who had looked at me so intently in the bus, she was now sitting on the bench. The moment I walked by, she held up a camera and took a picture of me. I was fully aware of that as I was stepping up into the bus. It appeared to be a regular digital camera, not a cell phone. Cell phone cameras were not as prevalent back then. Returning to my seat, I felt annoyed that another stranger had just taken my picture. I decided I was going to say something to her when she got back in the bus. But she never did. While all the other passengers had returned to their seats, that strange woman did not.

  Other incidents like this have occurred, though I don't recall some of the details. I do remember a moment when I was in a crowded bus station somewhere out west, high on cannabis, on a layover between bus trips. Suddenly a man walked over to me, held a camera directly in front of my face, took a picture of me, then he quickly turned around and vanished into the crowd. Again, it was a traditional camera, not a cell phone. I remember saying, “What the hell was that all about?” After many encounters like this, it seemed apparent that there was a network of government creeps keeping a watchful eye on outspoken citizens.  

  So, am I a target? Is there some kind of electrical device, a secret weapon that has been getting pointed at me? That's what it has felt like, though I considered other possibilities. Did these weird vibrations have anything to do with the wind farms that are south of the Farm? All of those giant wind generators, anchored deep into the ground, could they be the cause of all the disturbance I was feeling? Were these vibrations coming from those microwave cell phone towers that are east of here? I did not know.

  Many times when the vibes were extremely intense, I felt like I was definitely getting zapped by something. It was difficult to concentrate on working when everything was vibrating. My head and chest, especially, were just humming with these vibrations. Walking around on the farm, I asked, “How can other people not feel this?”

  I felt helpless to do anything about it. Where does a person go with such a complaint? There is no number to call, no complaint form to fill out, and no legal course of action to deal with a disturbing mystery such as this. Most people would never believe or understand any of it. So I lived with it for many years. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of nights, I slept through the constant droning, feeling like there was nothing I could do, and that it was beyond my control.

  In 2011, Jen was coming to visit me on the farm. I had told her about the weird vibrations. Then one night as we lay in bed, she suddenly said, “Hey… I think I feel that vibration you were talking about.” I asked, “Really? You feel that?” She answered, “Yeah... that's weird.” As we talked about it, I felt glad that she noticed it. Finally, someone else had acknowledged this strange vibration in my living space.

  It was depressing, having to endure whatever this was, especially after investing twenty years of my life into this homestead. I had grown fruit trees, blueberry bushes, and grapevines. I built elaborate structures to make everything around here run smoothly, yet many times I felt that I might have to abandon all of it, just to get away from the bad vibes.

  One of the wind farms is about sixteen miles south, sprawling around the town of King City and extending for miles in different directions. Some wind generators are close enough to see through my binoculars. Another wind farm is approximately ten miles to the southwest. Many of those enormous wind generators are out there turning their huge blades, surely causing vibrations in the ground. They are so tall that they must be anchored very deep under the surface. All of them have three spinning blades, and each blade was an entire load on a semi-trailer truck. They are massive. Many times I considered the possibility that they might be the source of the vibrations I had been feeling. I researched information about the wind farm around King City, learning that it first began its operations in the autumn of 2007. Interesting, I thought, because that was when I first started feeling the vibrations. I hoped that was the cause. It was less disturbing than the idea of getting zapped by an electronic weapon. For the next couple of years, I wanted to believe that the weird vibrations were a result of the local wind farms.

  But the theory of the wind farms being the cause was not making any sense. There were days when no wind was blowing, and I could look through my binoculars to see that the wind generator blades were not turning, yet the vibrations would be going strong. Other times, it was windy with the generator blades turning, though the vibrations were not occurring.

  On every occasion when I returned to the farm after being gone for weeks at a time, the vibrations were not happening. For several days after my return, I'd notice that calm stillness that was the norm during my first twelve years of living on the farm. I missed that calm, and I hoped it would stay. After a few days of being home, however, the vibrations would return. This has happened over and over again. I began to notice that the vibrations always seemed to appear within a day after I logged in to my email account or Facebook. Was this just a coincidence? Or was I alerting someone that I was home again, by logging in on a computer? I paid more attention to this, and I began to restrain myself from logging in too soon after returning home. Yet I'd still get on Herb's computer and look at some of the websites I usually visit. Then the vibes would start up again.

  I often talked to Herb about it, and he would suggest that maybe I was hearing the “humming” of the power lines that run along the road where I live. I told him, “I have heard the electrical humming sound you're talking about, and that is not the source of the vibrations. Those power lines were already there during the first twelve years that I lived here, and I never felt the weird vibrations until October of 2007.” As the years kept rolling by, I continued to have bad experiences with all of this, and I occasionally mentioned it to Herb. Over and over again, he would talk about the power lines, and I became more frustrated and annoyed by his continuing response:

  “Those power lines make a humming sound, sometimes.”

  “What I've been experiencing is a vibration, not a sound.”

  “Sound is vibration.”

  “I understand that, Herb. But not all vibration is sound, and these vibrations I'm talking about, I don't hear them with my ears, I feel them in my body.”

  Although I had explained to him on many occasions that what I am feeling is like a beam of energy going through me, vibrating every cell in my body, Herb never seemed to listen.

  There were few people that I ever mentioned it to because most people would not understand what I was talking about. Occasionally someone in Lawrence or Wichita would ask, “How are things at the farm?” Sometimes I mentioned the bad vibes, then I'd find myself going into a long explanation, detailing my experiences with it. Most people have no frame of reference to understand what I was describing to them, and most people appeared to be uninterested. So mostly, I kept it to myself.

  Many nights I could not sleep because the vibrations were too intense. I would drive down the gravel road to Herb's house, attempting to sleep on the extra bed. “Sorry to wake you, Herb. I'm getting zapped way too hard over there.” Yet even as I lay on the guest bed at Herb's house, I could feel the vibrations going through me, almost as strong as they were on the farm. At the farm, the disturbance seemed to be coming from the southeast. Whatever was going through me, it continuously felt like it was coming from the same direction. When I was at Herb's house, it still seemed to be coming from the southeast, although slightly more from the east. Herb lives about a mile and a half to the west of the farm. I began to wonder if the vibrations were coming from the town of Albany.

  Increasingly I became annoyed and enraged about the ongoing disturbance. Trying to work, clean, cook, or do anything was a struggle with the constant humming going through me. I was becoming more angry and irritable, saying, “God damn these fuckin' vibes! What the fuck? How can other people not feel this? This is fuckin' ridiculous! I can't stand this shit!”

  The only time I got some peace was when I left the farm and drove far away from it all. So I left many times, making my escape to Lawrence or Wichita. Sometimes I went to visit Melissa, up near Des Moines. I often told her about my struggles with the bad vibes. She was one of the few people who actually listened and really talked with me about it.

  In April of 2015 I was visiting Luke, down in Lawrence. He had a computer on in the kitchen as he was watching and listening to a broadcast of Democracy Now. It was Tuesday, the 21st of April. They reported on a story about a man named Pedro Albizu Campos, in Puerto Rico. During the 1950's, he was organizing protests against American sugar companies that were exploiting Puerto Rico's sugar cane fields and the people who worked in them. Campos was arrested and spent twenty-six years in prison. He wore wet towels around himself, claiming that he was trying to protect himself from radiation, because the United States Government was pointing an “atomic” weapon at him. He complained of severe headaches and burns all over his skin. Photographs revealed his wounds. Journalists who reported on this case appeared to be laughing at his claims about the U.S. Government. He was being presented as a crazy person who was merely delusional. After his release from prison, other inmates who occupied the same prison cell complained of severe headaches and of feeling like their skin was being burned. Campos continued to wear wet towels after his release from prison, claiming he was still being targeted at his home. After many decades passed, research into declassified documents revealed that the United States Government did, indeed, have a secret weapon that was being aimed at this man. They intended to discredit him by making him appear to be delusional and insane. This was in the 1950s. It is now admitted by the FBI that these things occurred. This was happening more than sixty years ago! It is no far stretch of the imagination to consider the possibility that some kinds of secret electronic weapons are still in use, and with a far greater degree of technology involved.

  As I mentioned earlier, I had spent many years on social media, posting documentary films and articles that expose corruption in the government. First, it was on Myspace, and eventually I was posting things on Facebook. I began to receive the occasional “Log-in alert,” informing me that someone near Richardson, Texas had logged into my Facebook account. So I changed my password. But after a while, I'd receive another alert that someone had logged into my account, again from Richardson, Texas. It happened nearly a dozen times. I also received alerts that my account was logged into from Jefferson City, Missouri, on two occasions. I became annoyed by this, and I began to deactivate my account for weeks or months at a time. Many times I returned to the farm after being gone for a week or more, and I always noticed that the vibrations were not happening. For several days I'd be grateful for the calm serenity. Yet again, when I logged into my email or Facebook account on a computer at Herb's house, the vibrations would start up again. It always happened within a day of logging onto a computer. This fueled my suspicion that I was being targeted and assaulted.

  Frequent headaches tormented me, and I felt that the vibrations were the cause. Also, my guts were churning all the time. Getting the runny shits, I was having to go to the outhouse several times a day. I often said to myself, “They are zapping the shit out of me.” Continuing to work on the farm, I tried to ignore the vibrations. What else could I do? I could leave the farm, as I had done many times before, running and hiding from whatever the disturbance was.    

  Occasionally I would talk about my ongoing problem at the farm, though I only talked about it with people I trusted. Melissa had emailed me some information about wind-farm vibrations. I read of people's complaints, and some of their descriptions of the vibrations were similar to what I had been experiencing. One person described it as “a loud noise that you feel inside your body.” Others complained of headaches and of having trouble sleeping at night. But all the people I read about were those who lived within a mile of wind generators. I was at least ten miles away from the nearest wind farm, though some of the wind towers seem to be closer than that. Could I really be feeling wind generator vibrations from several miles away? Melissa told me that only a small percentage of the population can feel low-frequency vibrations. Again, I tried to believe that the wind farms were the cause of my misery.  

  However, there were many times when I conducted a little experiment while I was getting zapped. I would be standing in any random location on the farm, feeling the vibration going through me. Then I'd quickly run to another random spot, twenty or thirty yards away, and stop. For about two seconds I felt the calm, then the vibes would be going through me again. It was like something was following me, and it took a couple of seconds for it to catch up with me. I did this experiment many times, and I always got the same results.

  In late August of 2015, I escaped to Lawrence to spend my birthday with some friends, and to get away from the bad vibes. One afternoon I went to the library and logged onto my email account. In an email to a friend, I wrote that I would be at the Replay Lounge on Sunday evening, to hear Truckstop Honeymoon play their music on the patio. It would be on the 30th of August. I also re-activated my Facebook account so I could get in touch with a few people. I wrote in a “private” message to someone on Facebook, that I would be at the Replay on Sunday evening. When Sunday arrived, I made my way to the Replay and went in. It was still early, so I decided to go visit Luke, then come back. When I returned, a bigger crowd had gathered as the band was getting ready to play. I went to the front of the crowd. Then I noticed a woman holding a camera with a huge lens attached to it. She was standing near the south side of the stage. Every time she held up the camera, she pointed it directly at my face. I thought that was strange. She was only about ten or fifteen feet away from me, with this gigantic lens. Continuously I watched her, and she never aimed that camera at anyone in the band, nor anyone else in the crowd. Not even once. Every time she held up the camera, she was pointing it directly at my face. I pondered over the many times I had been followed and photographed by creepy people. I also thought about the fact that I had told people, through email and Facebook, that I would be at the Replay Lounge that evening. Then there was this strange woman with the gigantic lens. She gave me the same weird feeling I have always felt whenever I noticed some creeps following or photographing me. She wore a T-shirt which said, “REBEL” in big letters across the front. It looked to me like it was meant to be a part of her fake outfit, in her fed-like attempt to fit in with the Replay crowd. She took multiple pictures of my face, then she left. I wanted to confront her but then I decided to just let it go.

  I returned to the farm. For several weeks I wondered why on earth anyone would need a telephoto lens to take pictures of me from a mere twelve-to-fifteen feet away. Then one day, it all became clear to me. Someone mentioned retina scans and the idea of the government collecting peoples' retina images. Retina patterns are like fingerprints, unique to each individual. I said, “Fuck! That makes a lot of sense. Now they probably have my retina images in some kind of weird data base.”

  It angers me when I think of all of the evil things our government is doing. Yet I often find a certain comfort in knowing that someday we will all be gone. Everyone must die, including all of those government pawns who are doing evil deeds. I wonder how they live with themselves. I wonder how they sleep at night. They seem to have no conscience.

  One evening the vibes were too intense and I had to get away. It was Saturday night, the 26th of September, in 2015. I began to load some things into the van, like my sleeping bag, pillow, drinking water, some bread, and a toothbrush. I drove west and then turned north on another gravel road. I stopped several times along the way, shutting off the engine to decipher whether I was still feeling the vibes. Every time I stopped, the vibes were clearly apparent. When I got to the blacktop road, I turned left and drove west, then I turned right onto another gravel road. I drove up to Poff's pond, several miles from where I live. After parking the van, I was still feeling the vibration. Again, it felt like it was coming from the southeast. Exhausted, I laid down in my sleeping bag and slept through the bad vibrations.

  When daylight arrived, the vibration was still going through me as I went outside to pee in the grass. It was Sunday morning. I got back in the van and drove north on the gravel road to Alan's house, and I parked in his driveway. When I turned off the engine, the vibes were still obvious. I wanted to ask Alan or Trish if they could feel the vibrations that were so apparent to me. As I walked around in the front yard, no one in the house appeared to be awake yet, and I didn't want to bother them. So I got in the van and drove back down the gravel road toward the highway. A car showed up behind me, and the driver seemed to be in a hurry to get around me. As we approached the highway, I pulled over to let that car pass me. Then I shut off the van to determine if the vibes were still happening. They were not. It was the first time in a while that I felt the calm stillness. Half-joking, I said, “Maybe the vibes followed that other car.” I felt relieved to have a few hours of peace before the bad vibes returned in the evening.

  The next day was Monday, the 28th of September. I was working on the second floor of the water-house structure, and the vibes were going strong. Suddenly, the vibrations abruptly stopped. It went from very strong vibrations to completely calm. In that precise moment, hundreds of birds launched themselves up from the nearby trees, just to the east. It was as though they were reacting to the sudden change. The timing was exact, as the vibrations quit and the hundreds of birds went up and out, over the Little Farm pond. They circled around, then settled back into the same trees they had been perched in. I climbed down the ladder and went inside the bus to write about the occurrence in a notebook. This was the first of many entries I began to make as I started keeping a journal of my experiences with the vibrations. While I was writing in my notebook, Herb and Frank rolled up in the north driveway. (I had been using Frank's generator to run some power tools, but it had stopped working, so Frank came over to help me get it running again.) I stepped out onto the porch and started telling Frank what had happened with the birds.

  As we worked on the generator, Frank and I talked about the vibrations. Frank was the only person who had any idea of what I was dealing with, as he claimed to have had a similar experience for about two years. He said, “It felt like I was getting hit with a microwave beam or something.” I replied, “That's what it feels like to me, too.”

  Herb stayed out of the conversation, though he attempted to change the subject a few times. Frank and I continued to talk about the vibrations. Then Herb mentioned the sand plant, four miles to the south, as a possible cause of the vibrations. I reminded him that the sand plant was already in operation for the first twelve years that I lived on the farm, and that the vibrations were not happening during those years. Then he said, “Maybe they got some new equipment.”

  I was growing irritated with Herb's continuing denial of what I was experiencing. He frequently mentioned the power lines, and now it was the sand plant. On many occasions I had described to him, in great detail, all of the things I had been experiencing with the bad vibes. He apparently never listened. If he had been listening and really trying to understand, then he would not keep suggesting ridiculous theories about the probable cause. It became apparent that the thought of anything intentional or sinister was too much for his rational mind to handle, so he would mention the power lines, again and again. It was like he thought my experiences were merely my imagination, and that was beginning to annoy me. It is not, nor was it ever my imagination. I am a rational person who had been trying to understand what these vibrations were, and where they were coming from. I did not want to believe that I was being targeted, yet the notion of electronic weapons became a more rational explanation than any other theories put forth by anyone.

  That same night of September 28th, the vibes came on very strong. I was trying to sleep but I couldn't stand the way I was getting zapped. I wrote in my Journal: Vibe came back strong after 10pm. I am leaving to sleep somewhere else. Maybe in van at Poff's pond.

  Into the van, I loaded my sleeping bag, five gallon water jug, guitar, notebook, toothbrush and toothpaste. I drove down to the Grove and parked in front of Herb's house. The vibes were still going strong. I got back in the van and drove a few miles up to Poff's Pond. When I shut off the van, I could feel the vibes just as much. So I drove back to Herb's house, then back to the farm. More bad vibrations. I was getting extremely irritated with all of this, feeling more and more like I was being assaulted by something, but not knowing what to do.

  Loading a few more things into the van, I decided that I would go all the way up to Frank's house. He was up near Denver, Missouri, more than twenty miles away from the farm. I thought that surely I could find some peace if I drove that far away. Stopping in the town of Gentry, I turned off the van. The vibes were still zapping me. So I drove north on 169, then a gravel road to the east. When I was nearing the corporate hog farm on highway M, I stopped again, shutting off the van to see if the vibes were still happening. They were. Then I drove the rest of the way to Denver, pulled up in Frank's driveway, and parked. When I turned off the engine, I felt the vibes. I was still getting zapped. Laying my forehead on the steering wheel, I felt like crying.

  Frank came outside, saying, “Hey Joe, I was just thinking about you. They're talking about microwave weapons on the radio.” It was about one-thirty in the morning, and Frank had been listening to Coast to Coast, a.m. I got out of the van and told Frank that I was getting zapped hard, and that the vibes were following me.   “I stopped in Gentry, and the vibes were still happening. Then I stopped near the hog farm. The vibes were still going.”

  “Are you feeling it here?”

  “Yes. I could feel it in your driveway as soon as I shut off the van.”

  We went into the house. A woman's voice came through the radio, talking about secret weapons in use by the military. Her name is Annie Jacobsen, and she is the author of such books as The Pentagon's Brain and Operation Paperclip. As Frank and I listened, several people called in to the program, asking about the microwave weapons, so she would then return to that subject.

  When the commercials came on the radio, Frank turned it down and we talked. I told him, “These vibes are weighing heavy on me. I don't know what to do.” Frank said that the woman on the radio had been describing these microwave weapons as the most accurate weapons in use by the Pentagon, and that they can target and track individual people. He told me how they can look through walls with their infra-red technology, and read people's “heat signature.” I asked, “Heat signature?” Frank said, “Everyone emits a unique pattern of body heat, and certain people can be identified by these patterns.”

  Suddenly a few pieces of the puzzle were connecting together in my mind. If I was being targeted, tracked, and followed, then it would make sense that the vibe was still with me as I drove around to all of those different places. If there was some kind of an energy beam or microwave beam being directed specifically at me, then maybe that's why I was feeling it when no one else around me could feel it. And I thought about Jen visiting me, back in 2011. The night she said she felt the vibration, we were lying in bed with our arms and legs wrapped around each other. We were physically as close as two people can possibly be. Perhaps she was feeling some of the vibe that I was getting zapped with.

  As I contemplated these realizations, Frank wondered if he could feel the vibes while standing near me. But he kept saying, “I'm not getting anything.” He spoke of the two years when he felt like he was getting assaulted by something. “I thought it was my neighbor for a while,” Frank said. “I thought he had a microwave dish pointed at me or something.” Frank mentioned that when he was in the navy, he knew of some guys on the ship who would point a microwave communications dish at an unsuspecting sailor and start zapping him. Frank said they did this for fun, pointing the dish at someone they didn't like, then they'd laugh as they watched the guy's reaction. So Frank thought his neighbor had been doing something similar to him. He said that over time, however, he began to suspect that this was some kind of secret weapon being used by the government.

  I told Frank that everything in my life was in question.

  “All these years I have invested my time, energy, and money into my homestead at the Little Farm. I've planted fruit trees and built so many things, and I keep feeling like I'm going to have to abandon it all. Every day I am toiling away, trying to get a roof over the big structure I'm building. But lately I've been wondering, What's the point? What is the point in continuing with any of that stuff if I'm going to keep getting zapped all the time? I can't take this shit anymore.” Breaking down with tears in my eyes, I started crying. I continued talking through my tears, about what I would do. “Maybe I need to disappear from the farm and just roam around the country with a backpack. Maybe I'll go south every winter. I don't know what else to do. I'm not gonna stay at the farm and just keep getting zapped.”

  Frank was trying to figure out a way to ease my sorrow.

  “Joe, do you want me to make you a foil hat?”

  “A what?”

  “Aluminum deflects microwaves. That's why some people wear hats made of aluminum foil.”    I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. “Sure,” I said, “Why not? I'll try anything.”

  So Frank went into the kitchen and promptly fashioned a foil hat for me. He put it on my head, then I pulled it on for a tighter fit. Frank asked, “Is it working? Do you feel any difference?”

  “I don't know. I'm tired, I wanna crash.”

  “You can sleep in the bedroom. I'm gonna lay on the couch.”

  As I went to lie on the bed, with the vibrations still going through me, I muttered to myself, “There is no way in the world that these weird vibes have anything to do with those wind farms. Fuckin' wind farms couldn't follow me another twenty miles away.”

  When I woke up, it was daylight. I was still feeling the vibes. After I went to pee, I picked up Frank's phone to call Herb. He answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey Herb, it's Joe.”

  “Hey, where you at?”

  “I'm up at Frank's. The vibes were following me around last night. I was still getting it in Gentry. Also near the hog farms, and all the way up here in Denver. Those wind farms couldn't possibly have anything to do with this. Wind farms couldn't follow me to Denver. And there was a lady on the radio last night, talking about microwave weapons and other energy weapons that are used by the Pentagon. I am now convinced that I've been getting zapped by some kind of electronic weapon.” Herb was saying, “Uh huh, Uh huh...” I could hear the doubt in his voice.

  I drove back to Herb's house, and immediately I felt the vibes. When I got back over to the farm, the vibes were still going. I thought of what Frank had said about aluminum deflecting microwaves, so I went into the aluminum Airstream Trailer to see if I could feel a difference. There were several windows, and I could still feel the vibes near them. Then I found a spot toward the back end of the trailer and I squatted down to the floor. The vibes appeared to diminish. I went back into the bus and wrote my findings in the journal.

  The next day was Wednesday, the 30th of September. I continued writing in my journal: Surprisingly calm today. Have not noticed vibe so far. 2 pm. Wind is from the north and cool today. Highs in the 60's. 4:42pm – Started feeling subtle waves over the past hour. Almost imperceptible.

  1:23 am, October 1st – Feeling vibes in waves. Mild, so far...

  7:56 am – Woke up to the vibes a while ago. Got the wood stove going and went to the shitter. Not noticing the vibe now, because of the sound of the wood stove burning. 10:15 am – Vibes became apparent again, and I went to see if Airstream aluminum made any difference. It most certainly seemed to diminish the vibe. When I was close to the windows, I could feel it more, but when I hid behind the walls blocking the vibes, as I perceive them to be coming from the southeast, it seemed that the aluminum wall diminished the vibe. Feeling the vibe now in the bus. Going to check Airstream again.

  When I returned, I wrote: I'm almost convinced that there is some kind of microwave beam being directed at me from the southeast. Today is my 20th anniversary of moving to the Little Farm. 12:37 pm – Barely feeling vibes now. Almost not there. 12:40 pm WTF! Just felt vibes way stronger. 12:44pm – full on, right near the wood stove. 1:05 pm – Vibes still on.

  Then I wrote: 4:25 pm – About a minute or two ago, a big military-looking aircraft flew over the farm, coming from the east and then turning toward the southwest, just as they were directly over the farm. It was a big, gray aircraft. No markings. The center portion was fat, like a cargo plane, but different. I waved at them as they flew over.

  Every day, I continued to make these kinds of journal entries. October 4th, 7:17 am – Vibe was going strong all night and continues right now. Feels like I am getting zapped, big time. I tried to go to bed last night and vibes were going and I got up and started putting aluminum foil on the walls. Vibes only seemed to increase, like someone was turning up the dial. 8:55 am – Vibe steady and strong and completely obvious. I am taking down the vertical strips I put up last night and putting them horizontally across front wall. Not sure if I will cover front windshield. Could be dark, but better than getting zapped. 12:28 pm – Constant vibration, buzzing in my skull and driving me crazy. Been putting up foil all morning. Just went out to the firewood area and can feel the vibe buzzing my head so much.

  I went over to the Grove and called Melissa on the phone. I told her that the vibes were severely stressing me out. She suggested that we both go somewhere to get away from it. I agreed. I was anxious to get away. Melissa drove down from Iowa and we slept in the bus.

  The next morning I wrote: October 5th, Monday. I wasn't feeling the vibe last night, but upon waking, I did. It has been going all morning. I asked Melissa several times if she feels it, and she says no.

  I started packing Melissa's car for our trip and was feeling frantic about wanting to get away. We had decided to go camping in the Ozark Mountains of Northern Arkansas. When we finally left, I felt a bit of relief with the vibes gradually fading away. As we drove south, I watched the odometer to see how far it was to the wind farm – about sixteen miles. Although we were passing through the middle of the wind farm, the bad vibrations were gone.

  Melissa did most of the driving, and when we got to Fayetteville, we contacted Anna and Joel. They had been staying in a house with their friends, on a beautiful piece of land that was south of town. They fed us some delicious food, and after eating, we all sat on the grass and we talked.

  I told them of my ongoing disturbances with the bad vibrations at the farm, and how I felt like I was being targeted and assaulted by some kind of electronic weapon. I gave them many of the details I have written in this chapter. Joel was sitting to my right, and after some thought, he turned to me and said, “Yeah… I think it's possible they might be fucking with you.” I appreciated Joel's response. Most people wouldn't believe any of it. Anna gave Melissa a few recommendations for places to go camping, then we all said goodbye.

  Melissa drove east as we went to camp in the Steele Creek area. After two nights, Melissa and I returned to that same house, south of Fayetteville. Though all of the residents were gone for the night, Anna had told Melissa that we were welcome to stay there. We slept on the porch, and in the morning we drove to Eureka Springs.

   Anna and Joel were playing music at the Stone House Winery. I sat on the patio with Melissa, drinking beer and laughing at all of the funny things Joel and Anna were saying between songs. They were hilarious, and the music was great. We slept at the home of Anna's god parents, and in the morning we began the long drive back to Northern Missouri. I was feeling much better. We returned to the farm on the evening of Sunday, October 11th. Everything felt calm. No vibrations were apparent, and I didn't want to think about it. We drank a few beers and we smoked some ganja. We talked and laughed while I cooked up some good food. I slept well and felt content.

  The next morning, Melissa and I had a stupid argument over nothing. Feeling angry and annoyed, I wanted her to leave, so she did. As I was shaking off my anger about Melissa, I wondered if the bad vibes would return. Just as they had for the past eight years, the bad vibes returned within a few days after I came home to the farm.

  On Sunday, October 18th, I was working on the water house. The vibe had been going all morning, and it was feeling more intense than usual. I tried to ignore it but it was just too much. As I held a long two-by-four, preparing to carry it up the ladder, I was feeling way too much of the weird energy beam going through me. Stopping in my tracks, I threw the board to the ground and said, “I can't do this anymore.” In that moment, there was a realization that I could no longer live on the farm. I had to get away from the vibe, and I began to think of the steps I would have to take before I could leave. I was about to start packing things into the van, then I remembered all of the aloe vera plants that needed to be brought over to Herb's house for the winter. While loading aloe plants into the van, I was coming to grips with the realization that my time at the farm could be at an end. I thought of all the years I had toiled and struggled to make this homestead happen, and now I might have to abandon it all. Suddenly I was crying. A deep sorrow washed over me as I gathered all of the potted aloe plants.

  With tears running down my face, I drove to the Grove. As I rolled up near Herb's house, I saw that Chaz and Al were there. Chaz was helping Herb work on one of his tractors. I pulled over on the left side of the road and got out of the van. Opening the back hatch, I asked, “Who wants an aloe vera plant?” Al walked over and said, “I'd be interested.”

  “Go ahead and pick one or a few of them.”

  “How about the two big ones?”

  “Well...  How about one of the big ones, and one or two of the smaller ones?”

  He took two plants and I closed the hatch.

  When Herb walked over to me, I began telling him that I had to get away from the farm. I was crying again as I tried to speak:

  “I've been getting zapped over there for way too many years, and I can't take it anymore. I have to leave. I can't live around here anymore. All these years, I've been working so hard to make things happen, and I just feel like I have to walk away from it all. I mean… What's the point? What is the point of trying to continue with anything over there if I'm just gonna keep getting zapped all the time?”

  Chaz and Al were only a few yards away, and I'm sure they were hearing everything I was saying. I didn't care what they heard or what they thought. I was telling Herb that I had to leave.

  Herb said, “Come here and listen to this over here,” as he coaxed me over to one of the power line poles across the road. Herb started telling me how it was making so much noise in the morning. But as we stood there, it was totally silent. Herb continued, “Boy, it was sure making a loud hum this morning.” Tears were still dripping down my face as Herb again tried to convince me that the power lines had something to do with my misery. Standing underneath the silent power line, I was still feeling the bad vibrations going through me. I didn't mention that to Herb. It was pointless. I walked back across the road, up the porch steps and into the house.

   I picked up the phone to call my sister. After dialing Anne's number, I got her answering machine, so I left a message. Then I called my other sister. Liz answered the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Liz.”

  “Joe, what's wrong?”

  “Well, my goodness. How did you know?”

  “You sound really sad, I can hear it in your voice.”

  “I am really sad. I'm sad that I can't live at the Little Farm anymore.”

  I broke down into tears again.

  Liz asked, “Why? Did someone tell you that you couldn't live there anymore?”

  “No, it's nothing like that. Herb likes me, and I am totally welcome to stay on the farm. It's just that…” I tried to formulate my words before I unloaded the entire story onto Liz.

  “For the first twelve years that I lived on the farm, there was a calm and a stillness that disappeared in 2007. It all started one night in October of 2007. This weird vibration came along and woke me up in the middle of the night. I could feel it going all through my body. It's like a really low, humming sort of vibration, and it just goes through the walls, and it goes through everything. It has stayed around for all of these years and it's been irritating me ever since.”

  “Did you ever find out what it was… or what it is?”

  “For a lot of years I wondered if it was related to the wind farms, but I eventually concluded that it wasn't. I also thought it might have something to do with the microwave cell phone towers to the east. I've often thought that it was some kind of electronic weapon that was being pointed at me. That's what it has always felt like. It's like a beam of weird energy being directed at me. It's almost like a mild, electric shock, but different... like there are billions of electrons vibrating through me.”

  I told her of the years I had been trying to raise awareness about corruption in the government.

  “I used to walk around with a big sign that said, 'The government did nine-eleven.' I spent years posting about it on Myspace and on Facebook. I protested at the Pentagon. There were often strange people who took pictures of me. Basically, I made myself into a target. Most of those things were happening in 2006 and 2007, in the years leading up to my first encounters with the bad vibrations. The government is messing with me. They have been messing with me for a long time. Whatever has been happening, it causes me frequent headaches. I can feel it messing with my intestines and giving me the runny shits.”

  I continued to cry and talk as Liz patiently listened.

  “All those years I was posting controversial information on social media and carrying signs... I don't know if I made any difference, as far as raising awareness. I don't know if I made any positive changes in the world, but I do know that I drew attention to myself, and I became a target. But there are a lot of people out there who are raising awareness and exposing government corruption. Are they all being targeted? Are they all getting zapped by some kind of electronic weapon? I wonder about the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and people like Richard Gage or David Ray Griffin. Are they getting zapped?”

  I went on about the evils of government, of continuous war for profit and control. I spoke of all of the false flag events that continue to happen around the world, and how it is our tax dollars paying for it all. “These people in shady positions in government, doing all of these horrible things – they're evil!” Liz agreed with me, that there is much evil hiding behind the walls of government. A loud “click” sound came over the phone. I asked, “Did you hear that? That click sound?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I always assumed that they read our emails and listened to phone conversations, long before Edward Snowden told us that they do those things. But with today's technology, I don't know why we would even hear any 'click' sound for someone to be listening to, or recording our conversation. And if they are reading my emails, then they should know that I'm not doing anything! I'm not breaking any laws or hurting anyone. I'm just trying to grow some fruit trees and build a homestead. I wish they would leave me alone!”

  As I finished saying that, I was crying again. Liz offered me her sympathy.

  “It sounds horrible, Joe, what you are going through. I'm going to pray for you, and I'll have all of my kids pray for you, too.”

  “Thanks, Liz. You know I'm not religious, but I do believe in the power of prayer. And you have so many kids, too. So that's some powerful energy.”

  I felt much better after talking with Liz. It was good to tell someone my story, and to not feel like I was being judged or ridiculed. Liz listened and she gave me some feedback without doubting my story or my experience of it all.

  When I returned to the farm, everything felt calm as I slept through the night. When I woke up, it was still calm. Several days passed with no bad vibrations happening. I continued to make an occasional journal entry, though there was nothing to report. Everything stayed calm. I was relieved. I felt that my conversation with Liz had an impact. Perhaps the prayers of Liz and her children had something to do with the relief I was feeling. Beyond that, I felt that who ever was listening to our phone conversation, they must have really heard me, especially the part when I said, “If they are reading my emails, then they should know that I'm not doing anything!” I thought that perhaps someone who had the authority to make a certain decision may have given an order to stop attacking me with whatever kind of electronic weapon I was being assaulted with.

  The days of calm turned into weeks of calm, and I was beginning to feel that my troubles with the bad vibrations were over. Every once in a while, I felt a slight vibration of something, though it was nothing like the ongoing assault I had become so familiar with. After the many years of paying close attention, “listening” for the vibrations, I had become much more aware of my own inner vibrations. I could feel my heartbeat and my pulse with much more clarity than I ever had in the past. There were times when I thought I was feeling a bit of the vibe, but upon further “listening,” I'd realize that I was actually feeling my own pulse and the gush of blood that flows with every beat of my heart. I quickly deciphered the difference, as there was really no comparison. The vibe that had been tormenting me for all of those years was much more pronounced, very strong, and extremely disturbing. There was no denying the existence of the vibe when it was full-on.

  Whatever vibrations I encountered during this time of calm, they were minuscule in comparison to the previous conditions. Sometimes it was merely the vibration of a truck driving by, half a mile away. If you pay attention to these things, you will notice the subtle vibrations that often occur all around you.

  Things continued to remain mostly calm around my place, but then one morning, I woke up to the vibes again. I began to feel a sense of panic, feeling that this was going to continue ruining my life. I wrote in my journal: Sunday, November 15th – THE VIBE IS BACK. I felt it hours ago while sleeping. Woke up to it. Very subtle, mild. But most definitely going.

  Down in the Grove, I phoned Liz, telling her, “For about four weeks, I didn't feel much of anything until today. When I woke up this morning, the vibe was happening again.”

  Liz told me that she had forgotten to keep praying for me. Again, she said that she and her kids would pray for me. I hung up the phone and wondered if I could feel the vibe. I wasn't feeling it in Herb's house. When I went back over to the farm, it was calm again. No vibrations. I breathed a sigh of relief, telling myself to focus on the calm and serenity. I didn't want to give any thought to the bad vibes. Over the next several days, I enjoyed the relaxing feeling of the calm stillness.

  I thought about the creepy government people who read our emails, and I decided to send them a message, so I sent an email to myself:

 To whom it may concern:

 Dear Feds, please stop zapping me with whatever you have been zapping me with. I am not doing anything wrong, I am not breaking any laws,* and I am no longer trying to inform people about government corruption. All I want to do is grow my fruit trees and build my farm structures. Please stop with the electronic harassment and assault. It has been eight long years that I have endured the wrath of your secret electronic weapons, and I am wishing, hoping, and praying that you will end all of that and leave me alone. Don't you have bigger fish to fry? I am just a simple farmer and occasional musician. Please let me be.

Thank you for reading my emails.

    (*Actually though, I do break some laws. I smoke cannabis and occasionally ingest hallucinogenic mushrooms. I have also experimented with other controlled substances. At times I have been guilty of jaywalking or running past stop signs on my bicycle. That's it. That is the full extent of my illegal activity.)

  For the past few years, I had been losing vision in my right eye. In January of 2015, I looked closely in the mirror, with a flashlight shining into my eye. What I saw frightened me. It was cloudy and milky-looking in my pupil. I looked at pictures of cataracts on the internet, and they looked like what I had seen in my eye. At Stan and Cathy's house, I mentioned that I might have cataracts. Cathy asked, “Aren't you too young to be getting cataracts?” I replied, “I'm too young for a lot of things.”

  Soon after that, I scheduled an appointment with an eye doctor in Lawrence. After running some tests and looking into my eyes, the doctor told me what I had already suspected; I had cataracts. He told me that cataract surgery was the only solution, and he referred me to a group of eye surgeons. I asked him about the procedure. He explained that they remove the natural lens and replace it with an artificial lens. I did not like the sound of that. Not wanting to remove my natural lens, I looked for alternatives on the internet.

  During Thanksgiving, I visited with Melissa's family up near Des Moines. I told Melissa about the cataracts, saying, “I don't want to do the surgery, but eventually I won't be able to read or write. It compels me to get more serious about finishing my book.”

  Melissa was sympathetic about my cataracts. After returning home, I received an email from her, saying, “I've read that a leaking microwave oven can cause cataracts. There are detectors you can get to check for microwaves, but I would check into their sensitivity levels before buying one.” I pondered over those words. I never go anywhere near microwave ovens. I don't like them. I avoid cell phones because of the microwaves. Melissa knew about my problems with the bad vibrations, and I had mentioned the idea of microwave weapons to her. Now she was sharing this information about microwave radiation causing cataracts. As I read her email, I said, “Well, great. If it was a microwave weapon being directed at me, it may have caused me to develop cataracts at an early age. Just wonderful.”   And I had thought of getting one of those detectors. It would certainly add a bit more credibility to my story if I could have given actual numeric readings from such a device. By this time, however, the bad vibrations had mostly ended, and I felt that buying one of those detectors would almost be like inviting the bad vibes to come back.   The farm had returned to the calm and serenity that I missed. I was feeling better again. I rolled in the grass, breathing deep and feeling thankful that everything had been calm for this much time, which was only a couple of weeks at that point. And yet I could still feel the aftermath of all the weird vibrations that had been imposed upon me. I couldn't quite explain it, but I felt much different than I had before. Thinking out loud, I said, “Who knows what they've done to me?” I steered my mind away from bad thoughts like cancer and all the other horrible things that could go wrong. I understand how powerful thoughts can be, especially when it comes to good or bad health.

  Over the years, increasingly I noticed that I was often feeling irritable. The slightest little annoyances could set me off into an angry rage. I was already a bit of a moody person at times, though I felt that all those years of getting zapped had changed me. I had less patience with people, and I knew that I couldn't really talk about my dilemma with others. They would laugh and ridicule me. They would call me crazy, delusional, and paranoid. That is what most people will do. They will judge you as being crazy or delusional, without considering the possibility that what you are telling them is the truth.

  For many months I had stayed away from Facebook, and I rarely logged into my email account. When the bad vibes had mostly stopped after October the 18th, I was still reluctant to log into those accounts, concerned that the bad vibes would return. As the weeks passed, though, I began to log in again. I felt like a frightened little animal, crawling out of a hole, wondering if it was safe to go out into the light. With the exception of November 15th, everything had remained relatively calm. I was looking at my news feed on Facebook, though I refused to post anything or participate in any online discussions. Then on the evening of Thursday, December third, I shared a video about Donald Trump. It was the first time I had posted anything in months. It wasn't even controversial, it was just funny. I wondered if posting something might cause “them” to start zapping me again. The next morning, I woke up to the vibe. It was going steady and strong. I decided to leave the farm, so I packed the van for a long drive to Arkansas.

  Joel and Anna were playing music in Eureka Springs, and I drove all the way down there to see them. I helped them load their equipment into and out of the Stone House Winery, and at the end of the evening, they offered me a place to sleep. On Saturday night they were playing music in Fayetteville. Again I helped them move their equipment, before and after the show. I slept in my van that night, and on Sunday morning I drove toward Lawrence.

  By Tuesday I was back on the Farm. Everything felt calm. I avoided logging onto a computer until Thursday evening. I was planning to leave again on Friday, December 11th. The farm remained calm through the night and into the morning. When daylight arrived, I packed my things into the van and drove to Lawrence. Then I made my way through Wichita and to Hutchinson, where I continued to write about all of this.

  It is bad enough having endured the torment of getting zapped for all of those years. Adding sorrow to all of this is the awareness that my closest friends don't believe me. I have told my story to people like Luke, Ian, and Anastasia. They all get a blank look on their faces, like they are having some cognitive dissonance, wondering if I am crazy. It is sad and annoying. Melissa is one of the few people who hasn't doubted my story – Melissa, Frank, and perhaps Joel and Jen. As I have persisted with my story though, it seems that a few people are beginning to believe me.

  After all the years I endured the bad vibrations at the farm, I had examined many different thoughts and ideas about what the disturbance might be. I was looking for the most logical answer to the question: What is the cause of the bad vibrations? The notion of electronic weapons being the cause makes more sense to me than anything else which has been suggested by anyone. It makes more sense than wind farms being the cause, or the power lines, or the sand plant. None of those things could track me around and keep zapping me all the way to Denver, Missouri. But modern electronic weapons certainly could. This is logic, plain and simple. From everything I have experienced, it is my absolute belief that some kind of electronic weapon was being aimed at me for all of those years. It had the ability to track and follow me around in Northwest Missouri. On the radio, Annie Jacobsen had spoken of these weapons. When reading her book, “Phenomena,” I found very little information on the subject. She only briefly mentioned electronic weapons. Perhaps I simply haven't found the right book. Regardless, it has been admitted by the FBI that they were using similar kinds of weapons against someone, as far back as the 1950's.   So why do people have that knee-jerk reaction of ridicule and doubt when I mention any of this to them? I suppose it is because they were conditioned to think that way. Some folks have proposed the idea that perhaps I was experiencing the effects of tinnitus, a condition in which a person hears a ringing sound when no external sound is present. For each person who has suggested this to me, my response has been the same: “It's interesting how that tinnitus disappears every time I drive far enough away from the farm.” Sometimes I wish that those people could get zapped for just ten or twenty minutes. Ordinarily I wouldn't wish that upon anyone, yet if people could experience just a few moments of what I had to endure for eight long years, then maybe they would understand.

  As these weeks roll past, I am grateful for the relative calm I have been feeling. Ever since that day when I cried while talking to my sister on the phone, the bad vibrations have almost completely disappeared. I went back to working on some of my projects, thinking that maybe I can continue living on the farm. An enormous sense of relief has been happening for me. At the same time, there is an ongoing feeling of apprehension that it could all happen again.

  Is it over?

  Will the bad vibrations stay away and let me live in peace?

  Will the calm and serenity remain?

  I hope so.

  That would have been a fine way to end this chapter. I wish it was the end. Eighteen months went by without any notice of the weird vibrations. I thought it was over. But in late May of 2017, the bad vibes returned. It was mild at first, almost imperceptible, then it became stronger. After more than a year of calm, I had begun to think it would be okay to go ahead and speak my mind by posting certain things on Facebook. There were some postings about government corruption and war crimes. Not long after sharing those posts, I started feeling the bad vibes again.

  On the night of May 30th, I was lying in bed when the vibrations became more intense. I got up and began to gather my things, unsure of where to go, only knowing that I had to leave. After driving over to Herb's house, I sat in the car and opened up my computer. I was thinking of driving all the way up to Frank's place, then I thought of the upstairs room above Herb and Larry. The stairs are on the outside, so I was able to go up there without bothering anyone. As I settled in the bed to sleep, I was not feeling the vibes. So I slept.

  In the morning I went downstairs to chat with Larry and Herb. I made no mention of the recent vibrations on the farm. Then Frank showed up at the door. As he stepped inside, he said, “Hi Joe. How's it been going?”

  “Not so great. I'll tell you later.”

  “Why? Did something happen?”

  “They're zapping me again.”

  “Oh, no. That sucks.”

  “Frank, you're the only person who understands what I'm talking about.”

  Herb went outside as Frank and I discussed the bad vibrations. Larry sat up on the bed, listening to us. Frank recalled his experience of getting zapped for two years. The vibrations stopped harassing him around the same time when they first started bothering me. Frank and I had come up with a theory that initially, the perpetrators thought Frank was me. We both have dark brown eyes, brown hair and a brown beard. We have a similar shape to our eyebrows. People often asked if we were brothers. So it seemed plausible that our identity had gotten mixed up by those who were assaulting us. I told Frank that I had no choice but to leave the farm and go somewhere.

  “First, I need to get that gutter put on the water house, to channel the rain away from the building. Then I have to get out of here. My sister has been inviting me to visit, so maybe I'll go there.” Holding up my laptop computer, I said, “I can keep working on the book, just about anywhere.”

  Back on the farm, I spent most of the day figuring out how I would put up the gutter. The bad vibrations bothered me for a while. By late afternoon, though, they had stopped. After many hours of calm, I thought I would be able to sleep in my own bed again. But as I laid down to sleep that night, the vibes came back, steady and strong. So I gathered a few things and went over to Herb's. In the upstairs, I still felt a vibration, though not as pronounced as it was at the farm. Sleeping through the vibrations, I woke up at sunrise.

  Downstairs, I drank coffee with Herb while I read my emails. Then I drove the dusty road back to the farm. As I started gathering some tools and gutter pieces, no vibrations were apparent. Again, I felt relieved to be working in the calm surroundings. It was Thursday, the first of June. Standing on the porch with the cat, I watched two hummingbirds hovering around their nectar feeder. Suddenly they both flew toward me, one of them flying just a couple of inches past the right side of my face as the other one flew by me at waist level. Laughing with amusement, I said, “That was cool! I love living here when I'm not getting zapped.”

  The disturbing vibrations returned in the afternoon. I did my best to ignore them and to focus on getting the gutter installed. By evening, the vibes had diminished. Several hours later, though, just as I was lying down to sleep, the vibes returned. It seemed like the culprits were intentionally waiting until I went to bed, then as soon as I laid down, they started zapping me. It was like they were experimenting with their sadistic torture device while observing my reactions. For the third night in a row, I got dressed and drove along the gravel road to sleep in the upstairs room of Herb's house. In the morning, I woke up and drove back to the farm.

  After the gutter was attached, I felt better about walking away from the water-house project and going somewhere to get away from the bad vibrations. A few trips away from the farm gave me some peace for a while. I visited my sister's home near Lincoln, then drove to Lawrence. At the end of June, I was swept away in a flood. Interesting as that was, it does not relate to this story.

  When the vibrations returned and increased with intensity, I found myself making journal entries again: July 8th, 2017. The vibe is becoming more pronounced today. For the last month, I haven't felt it much, and most times it is barely noticeable. But today I am feeling a humming in my head that is some of the strongest vibration I've felt since November of 2015.

Sunday, 9th of July – I woke up to the vibe this morning, and it feels more steady and strong than it did yesterday. The realization is upon me again, that I cannot stay here, and I have to begin packing my car for a trip to somewhere.

  Things were much easier when I still had the minivan. There was room to move around and space to sleep. Then the transmission was destroyed. With the little Honda I am now driving, there is no room for anything. I do not know where I will sleep.

  As I write these words, the vibrations are humming in my head and chest. I wonder what may have caused the return of this miserable condition, and the only thing that comes to mind is a recent phone conversation I had with Sherri. It was last Tuesday evening, on the Fourth of July. I had mentioned to her that I thought NPR was just as full of lies as the other mainstream media networks:

  “They've all been lying about nine-eleven for all these years, and that's the biggest lie I have heard being perpetuated in my entire life. If they're going to continue with a lie as huge as nine-eleven, what else are they lying about?”

  So again, I was running my mouth about the government's involvement in a false flag operation, and again, the bad vibes returned.

  With a few things packed into the Honda, I drove all the way up to Frank's house. When Frank came out to meet me in the yard, I said, “They're zapping me again. I can't stand to stay on the farm, so I need to crash here tonight.” We went inside and talked of the experiences we've both had with the vibrations. Everything felt calm at Frank's. There was no feeling of any weird vibes at all. I thought back to what I had been feeling just a few hours earlier at the farm, and it seemed surreal. The calm feeling remained at Frank's house as I fell asleep on the futon.

  In the morning I wanted to get back to the farm and prepare for a more extended trip. By afternoon I was rolling toward the homestead. As soon as I rolled into the north driveway of the Little Farm, the vibration was completely obvious. I made a list of things I would need and began to gather them. Then I drove down to the Grove to visit with Herb and Larry for a couple of hours. Returning to the farm, I was hoping the vibration might have diminished, and that maybe I could sleep in my own bed again. Yet when I returned, the vibration seemed to be coming on stronger, and I knew I couldn't stay there. So I gathered my things for another drive up to Frank's house, feeling frantic about trying to get away, with my head and chest vibrating the entire time. After a second night at Frank's house, I drove back to the farm, preparing for another trip southward.

  Although I've grown tired of writing this chapter, it is difficult to find a stopping point, as I am dealing with an ongoing chronicle of these disturbances. I got away to Lawrence. From there, I drove to the southwest corner of Missouri, then north and west to Wichita for two nights, then to Hutchinson. For three nights, I stayed at Ian and Anastasia's house, then drove back up to Lawrence. By Monday, July 24th, I had returned to Northwest Missouri.

  Everything was calm as I refrained from logging in on a computer. The next day, I logged into email and Facebook while I was at the Library in town. Also, I requested two books by Annie Jacobsen, through the inter-library loan. At the farm I had mild perceptions of some vibrations, but wasn't sure. It was vague. On Thursday, I logged in from Herb's house on an older computer. That night, the vibes came on strong, just as I was settling into bed. I got up, grabbed a few things and drove to Herb's. Stepping up the outside stairs, I went into the room. The vibes were still apparent up there and I couldn't sleep, so I went down to go into the downstairs part, but it was locked. Not wanting to wake Herb, I drove back to the farm. When I got back inside the bus, the vibes were still going steady. I wanted to leave but I was exhausted. It was around two o'clock in the morning when I succumbed, falling asleep with the vibes humming through my body. At daybreak I woke up to the vibes going through me like they hadn't stopped all night.

  Later that day, I drove back up to Frank's. We talked for a while, then I called Herb's house and left him a message. When Herb called back, he told me that he had experienced some strange vibrations during the previous night. That would have been Thursday night and Friday morning, the 27th and 28th of July. Herb said he woke up to a vibration and wondered why he was “hearing” something when he knew that the refrigerator wasn't running at the time, the air conditioner was not on, and the ceiling fan was off. In a way, I was glad that Herb was recognizing a vibration. I certainly don't want him getting zapped, but I've wanted him to understand that what I have been experiencing is real. I want everyone to understand that.

  Again I escaped from the farm, driving to Lawrence and visiting with friends.

  August 14th, 2017 – When I got back to the farm last night, everything felt much different than it ever has in the last twenty-one years. I did not feel good about being home. After all the years of being out here alone, the years of getting zapped, the ongoing apprehension about possibly getting zapped again, and events of the last eleven months which have left me severely angry at certain people, it is feeling more to me like this is no longer my home. It does not feel like my home anymore. The water house stands there, looking at me as if it is wondering when I will break out the tools and continue building on it. I look back to the water house and say, “My heart is not in it. I just don't care anymore.” All of that time and energy, the endless days of toiling away, it might have all been a complete waste of my time, energy, and money. My greatest and most ambitious projects in recent years have been the water house and the book. But the ongoing events of recent months continue to push me away from this place, and I keep returning to the conclusion that I need to buy a van and be prepared to live on the road. The only thing I have left is this book.

  Late August in Lawrence, I stayed at Stella's old house on Montana street during the time when she was moving to a rental property and putting her house up for sale. Many times I had noticed a weird vibration that seemed to be running through the east side of the house. This was the first time I felt any kind of strange electrical vibes in Lawrence. It should be noted that I had logged onto my computer, using Stella’s wifi connection. Perhaps this made my presence known, putting me on someone’s radar. After feeling bad vibes in the southeast bedroom, I moved my sleeping pad into the living room where no vibes were apparent.

  When I told Stella about the bad vibes in that southeast corner room, she said that her daughter did not like that room and would never go in there. Stella reacted strongly to what I was telling her, as it appeared to add some credence to whatever her daughter had been experiencing. Stella seemed to be pondering about a ghostly presence, while I was thinking of something electronic and man-made. I began to notice that the vibration was also apparent in the bathroom, the kitchen, and the laundry room. It was extending lengthwise, north and south, through the entire east side of the house.

  In late August, I bought another old Dodge van. Deciding to stay in Lawrence during the fall and winter, I made arrangements to move in with two friends, though I did not want to be on the lease. By early September, I had settled into a house near the campus of The University of Kansas. One of my early mistakes was logging in on my computer through the wifi in that house. Eventually, I learned about and purchased a VPN (Virtually Private Network) service which is meant to provide some privacy for my online activity, re-routing my connection through another server somewhere. But my attempts at hiding my location had failed, as I had already logged on without the protection of a VPN. I’ve had doubts about whether or not the VPN actually hides my location from the feds, anyway.

  Several times when I went to go walking or riding my bike, I noticed someone in an idle car, stopped in the middle of the street, just staring at me as I made my way from the house. Each time, it was a different person in a different car, not parking anywhere, just sitting idle in the street, staring at me. Every time it happened, I walked or biked directly toward the person, then he or she would drive away as I got closer. It seemed really strange. Not long after those encounters, a weird vibration started happening in my temporary new home. At first, I noticed it in the bathroom when I was standing in front of the toilet to pee. Then I was feeling it in the kitchen as well.

  Luke knew all about my struggle with the bad vibes, and when he came over to see the house, he asked, “Do you ever feel those vibrations when you're in Lawrence?”

  “In the last couple of months, I have. I was getting weird vibes at Stella's old house, all along the east side but not on the west side. And now in this house, I keep getting it in the bathroom and in the kitchen.”

  After Luke left, I wondered why I had not asked him to stand in the bathroom and tell me if he felt the vibrations. My two housemates knew nothing about my years of struggle with the bad vibes on the farm. Several times I had mentioned the weird vibrations in the bathroom and kitchen. When they gave no response, I said nothing more about it.

  During September and October, I became more convinced that I was being electronically harassed at the Lawrence home. Along with the vibrations going through my skull, there was often a feeling of tightness, almost a numbness in my throat area, like the glands were being assaulted. With the vibes penetrating through my chest, my heart often started racing at a much faster pace than usual. It would be normal if I was engaged in heavy exercise at the time, but it often happens when I am fully relaxed, or even when I'm lying down to sleep. There is no reason why my heart should start racing so fast when I am not moving at all. Actually though, there is a reason: electronic assault. One day I was describing the rapid heartbeat to Luke, then he asked, “Is there anything that would be causing you anxiety, to the point where your heart would speed up?”

  “Yes. Getting zapped by electronic weapons causes me anxiety. It causes anxiety when it's happening. And when it's not happening, the thought of it returning makes me apprehensive, too.”

  Once or twice a month, I made the drive up to the Little Farm. It was good to see Herb, Larry, and the dogs in the Grove. The cats, too, especially my cat on the farm. For several days I would hang out, in and around my home. Everything was calm. It seemed apparent that whoever had been assaulting me, they had found my location in Lawrence but were no longer aiming their devices at my home on the farm. When my life returns to that level of calm and serenity, it is the greatest relief I know.

  Back in Lawrence, however, the vibes were becoming more commonplace. At first, it was the steady vibe constantly running through the bathroom, and eventually through the kitchen, as though the perpetrators were uncertain about which room I was occupying. I imagined them projecting a steady vibration, perhaps while figuring out the lay of the house. That's how I thought of it, anyway.  

  As November came along, I started feeling the disturbance in the living room at times. I would abruptly get up and move to different parts of the house, trying to decipher whether the vibes were happening in those areas. One evening, Cory asked, “What are you doing, Joe?”

  “It's difficult to explain. You wouldn't understand.”

  “What do you mean? Why wouldn't I understand?”

  “Because nobody understands. It's something I've been dealing with for years. Most people don't believe me, anyway. I don't like to talk about it.”

  Cory's curiosity was growing, along with his confusion about my reluctance to speak about my situation. Then I told him, “I've written a fairly detailed chapter about it. It's the longest chapter in my book, and you can read all about it when I get the book published. Or if you want to read it on a computer sometime, maybe I can put it on a flash drive for you. But generally, I don't talk about it with people anymore.”

  “You could email it to me.”

  “No. I definitely don't want to do that. Other people could see it. The wrong people. Shit, they've probably already crept into my computer and got everything in there... any of those times I went online before I had a VPN, they could have done that. But you never know. Maybe they haven't seen that chapter. I'll put it on a flash drive sometime, and we can put it on your computer.” “Okay… well, I'd be interested to read it.”

  For about three months, I had not been feeling anything bothersome in my little room at the top of the stairs. I was able to sleep without much concern. By the end of November though, I was getting more disturbing vibes in my room. One morning, I frantically began to load the van with the things I would need to get away to somewhere, to anywhere. Before I left for another spontaneous escape, I put the majority of this chapter on a flash drive and told Cory, “I have to leave, but I want to put this on your computer before I go.” So we sat down with his laptop computer and made that happen.

  In December I began to document my frequent encounters with the house vibrations by making notes on the December page of a calendar, taped up on the inside of my room door: December 7, 8, 9 – zapped. Familiar pressure in my skull, tightness in my throat glands. Light but steady vibe going on. 10 – calm. Left for farm. Calm at farm. December 13 – returned and zapping started again. 14 – Zapped, heavily. Stopped around 10-11pm. December 15 – Left for Ozarks. December 17 – Returned to Lawrence – calm. After the word, “calm,” there is an arrow pointing through the remaining days of that week, indicating that the calmness had remained.

December 25 – vibes, 26 – vibes, 27 – calm again. At the top of the December calendar page, I began to write down the encounters occurring in January: Vibes on Jan. 5th, 6pm – Vibes.

  Then everything remained calm for twelve days until I got caught up in argument on Facebook. It was a discussion about the idea of mandatory vaccines. In the comments, I went on a rant about the toxic poisons in vaccines, and that mandating forced injections on people was another extension of fascism. Within hours of posting those comments, I was clearly feeling the bad vibrations again. I imagined there was a correlation between my speaking out, then getting assaulted.

  During the many years I was getting zapped on the farm, I often went searching online for some clues to the mystery I was experiencing. Yet for so many of those years, I never thought to do a simple search regarding electronic weapons. I was researching wind-farm vibrations, cell phone tower microwaves, “stray electricity,” and other things. When I finally searched for answers by typing “electronic weapons” in the search box, I was suddenly exposed to hundreds of links dealing with electronic assault, harassment, and torture. It was then I began to realize that there were many other people dealing with the same problems I had been going through. Some of these folks were labeled as “targeted individuals.” People's descriptions of experiences were similar to mine. For example, one thing that seems common among targeted individuals is the claim that the first episodes of electronic assault were very intense, as if to let the victim know with certainty that these attacks were coming from an outside source. Then the level of intensity is brought down to a small fraction of the original attack, though it keeps going for days, weeks, months, or years.

  This was precisely how it happened to me at the farm. That first night I was assaulted in October of 2007, it was extremely intense, then it seemed to gradually diminish in the days that followed, yet it was still going. After that first night of attacks on the farm, I did not think to write down the exact date. I only know that it was middle to late October, in 2007. Had I known what an ongoing ordeal was about to unfold for the next eight or ten years, I most certainly would have written down the date of that first experience.

  Some victims of electronic assault claim to have sensations of feeling like their skin is being burned. This is something I have not experienced. Not once, did I ever feel like my skin was burning. For me, it has been the intense vibrations going through my skull and chest. Many times, my heart was pounding so hard and fast, I felt that someone was trying to cause me to have a heart attack. When the glands in my jaw go numb, I feel like my lymphatic system is being assaulted.

  I understand that much of this chapter is speculation, as I have no way of proving any of this. I can only give my detailed and honest description of what I have experienced. It makes sense to me though, that the perpetrators have developed a method of attacking people in a way that the victims cannot prove. Additionally, it seems that the underlying goal is to discredit the victims by making them appear as delusional and insane. This is what the FBI did to Pedro Campos in the 1950s. While I still consider purchasing a microwave detector or radio frequency indicator, some of those devices cost several hundreds of dollars. With my limited budget, I am not anxious to spend that money.

  In September of 2017, I was introduced to a Missouri chapter of the Native American Church, down in the Ozarks of Southern Missouri. The location was beautiful and I liked most of the people I met. So I returned in October. (For now, I am bypassing the details of what those ceremonies were about, as they could become another entire chapter, separate from this one, and I am trying to stay on point here.) When I was on my way down there for the November ceremony, I stopped at Mama Jean's grocery store on Sunshine Street in Springfield. Using my computer with their wifi, my VPN service would not turn on without me logging in to the service's website. I had forgotten my password, though I knew I had emailed a clue about it to myself. But the only way to retrieve that password was to log in without the protection of the VPN. So I went ahead and logged in, opened up my email and got the password. Also, I replied to an email from my sister, telling her I was heading toward the Ozarks.

  Driving another twenty miles or so to my destination, I put some Rush tunes in the CD player and blasted the music for the last stretch of my trip. When I pulled onto the grassy parking area and turned off the van, I was immediately sensing weird vibrations. In an instant, I felt surprised and upset.

  “Are you kidding me?! Are they really fuckin’ with me... all the way down here in the Ozarks?!” Looking up, I noticed a power line connected to a transformer on the utility pole. I said, “Maybe that's what I'm feeling.” So I took a walk, perhaps a quarter of a mile or more to the south, yet the vibrations continued to follow me. Closing my eyes, I wondered what direction the assault was coming from. Suddenly my hands reached up to a certain location in the northern sky. I perceived the bad vibrations to be coming from that direction. In my mind, I was thinking of a satellite with electronic weapons. I went back to the van, opened the computer and attempted to write about the experience. The vibes increased, and I knew I was being assaulted. It was too obvious, as my skull and my chest were pulsating with vibrations.

  I frantically drove out of there, taking the winding mountain road all the way back to the nearest town, fourteen miles to the west. When I pulled over near the town square and turned off the engine, everything felt calm again. For several hours I walked around the little downtown area, thinking maybe I would sleep there in town, where the van was parked. By midnight though, I decided to drive all the way back to the Native American Church location. When I shut off the engine, everything felt calm. After sleeping in the van, I woke to join in the morning ceremony. For the rest of that Saturday and into the night, I could only feel the calm normality of nature all around me.

  On the 15th of December, I drove to the Ozarks again. My friend Michael rode down there with me. I slept in the van and woke to join in the morning ceremony. During the usual introductions, a woman named Audrey spoke of some papers she had written as part of a book she was working on. She was offering free copies to anyone interested, and asking for donations. She spoke of information she was trying to get out to people. Then she mentioned something about electronic weapons, and that caught my attention.

  Later in the day, people had gathered in a large circle and were “passing the feather.” It was actually not a feather that day, but a small maraca. Each person who held it would speak of their thoughts and feelings while everyone else listened. When someone handed the maraca to me, I stood up, not really knowing what I would say. Then the words just came pouring from my mouth: “Nice day today. Too bad about the chem-trails.” I pointed up to the haze in the western sky, noting that the day had started with a clear sky until we observed those planes spraying trails that do not fade, as normal vapor trails do. A few people in the circle said, “Aho.” (This, I am told, is a Native American expression which means something like, “Amen,” “Right on,” or, “I agree with you.”)

  Continuing, I said, “I hear a lot of people sharing experiences with all of these messages of positivity and hope. I don't want to bring anything negative into this circle, but I feel compelled to say some things that need to be addressed. There are a lot of bad things happening in the world… cops going around murdering people, government starting wars for profit... and it seems that in order to stop the bad things from happening, there needs to be awareness. I mean, how can we stop the bad things if people aren't even aware that those things are happening? This morning, someone mentioned something about electronic weapons.” A woman stood up, saying, “Yes, that was me.” It was Audrey. I looked at her and said, “I have been dealing with this for over ten years. You are not alone.” “Thank you,” she said, “Thank you,” seeming grateful that I was acknowledging the issue. And though I rarely ever mentioned this subject to any of my friends, there I was, telling my story to more than fifty strangers:    “It all started for me in October of 2007 and continued for many years. It's like getting hit with a beam of energy that vibrates through my head and my chest.” Audrey was still standing, nodding her head while saying, “Yes, yes...Yes.” I continued, “I live on a farm, way out in the country. For a long time, I tried to believe that I was dealing with vibrations from the wind farms that are south of my home. Those wind generators are huge, and they have to be anchored way deep into the ground, so I thought maybe that was the cause of the vibrations I was feeling. But over time, I realized that this was something deliberate. I've been writing a detailed chapter about all of this…” Looking to Audrey, I said, “I'm also writing a book.” She was still standing and facing me, while most people in the circle were sitting. I went on, saying,“The thing is, at some point I became a target. I used to walk around with a big sign that said, 'The Government did nine-eleven.' Actually, I don't know who did nine-eleven, but whoever it was, they had the full cooperation of the United States Government, at the highest levels.” Someone in the circle said, “Aho.” “Anyway,” I continued, “The point is that I drew too much attention to myself, and I became another one of their targets.”

  As I spoke, a younger, bearded guy walked around the outside of the circle and put a hand on my left shoulder, saying, “Sorry to interrupt.” Then, in a louder voice, he spoke to the crowd, saying, “This guy is telling the truth. I've been through some stuff, and there's a lot of things I want to say when the feather comes around to me.” I was slightly annoyed that he had interrupted me, yet I allowed him to continue, as he was giving some verbal backing to my claims about electronic weapons. When he let me resume speaking, I tried to pick up where I had left off, though I was somewhat thrown off from a few points I had wanted to make.

  “This has all been a living nightmare for me. I keep hoping and praying that they will leave me alone. They didn't bother me for a year and a half. But when I started posting things on Facebook again, stuff about government corruption and war crimes... Lo and behold, they started zapping me again. It’s like they’re trying to control my freedom of speech.” Audrey said, “Yes, yes...” The rest of the circle remained silent as they patiently listened to what I was saying. While I've forgotten much of what I said that day, I do recall that near the end of my monologue, with emphasis, I said, “This stuff is real. It's electronic assault and harassment. It's electronic torture.” Several people said, “Aho.” I passed the maraca on to the next person to my left, and the speeches returned to less intense subjects.   With the passing hours, the evening had darkened as many of us gathered around the bonfire. Suddenly a woman walked over to me and said, “It is real. I had to move my entire office. My family has seen what this has all been doing to me.” For a few seconds I had mistaken her for Audrey, the woman who mentioned electronic weapons that morning. Then I realized that this was someone else talking to me. We spoke briefly about our experiences with electronic harassment. I did not get her name before she walked away. In the next moment I made a mental note about being surrounded by approximately fifty people, and of that fifty people, three or four of us were claiming to have been assaulted by electronic weapons.

  A while later I saw Audrey on the opposite side of the fire, and I stepped over to speak with her. With her right hand, she made a gesture near the left side of her head as she said, “I'm getting it right now. They're hitting me with it.” I asked,“Really? You're getting zapped right now?” She nodded her head, saying, “Uh-huh.” As soon as she said that, I had my doubts. It didn't seem real to me, but then I caught myself. In my mind, I asked, “Why wouldn't I believe her?” Only one month before this, I had the experience of getting zapped, not far from that same location, on the Friday afternoon before anyone else had arrived. Yet I was doubting this woman. In an instant, I felt surprised by my reaction. For more than ten years I had already dealt with this ongoing disturbance, then suddenly I was having doubts about another person's claims on the issue. This increased my realization that most people are not likely to believe any of this, especially if they have not experienced it for themselves.

  I wanted to get a copy of whatever Audrey had written, then Michael said that he grabbed one for me, so I stopped looking. After we returned to Kansas, I asked him about the copy but he said he had lost it.

  Back in Lawrence, I was getting more disturbed by the vibrations in the house. On the 24th of January, 2018, I began packing the van for another spontaneous trip, feeling chased away by the ongoing turmoil. Driving south on 59, I began to feel relief as I sped away from town. For three nights I stayed with my friends in Hutchinson. Everything felt calm. Then I spent three nights with my former neighbors in Wichita. All was calm and serene. Driving east on 400, I was slowly moving toward the Ozarks for the next ceremony, scheduled for February 3rd.

  I made the mistake of sending two messages about attending the upcoming ceremony in the Ozarks. These were “private” messages, sent through Facebook. When I arrived at my destination, everything felt calm. No one else was around. It was Friday evening, February 2nd. I went walking toward the area where people would be gathering in the morning. As soon as I got there, I felt a disturbing vibration and immediately turned to walk away. The vibe followed me. When I crawled in the van, the vibration seemed to increase with intensity. I went back outside and began walking across a field of grass, toward a highway bridge. Going under the bridge seemed to diminish the vibration, so I stayed down there for nearly an hour. When I emerged on the other side of the highway, walking out into the open, everything felt calm again. I slept in the van and felt no disturbances for the rest of the night.

  The next day passed without any weird-feeling vibrations. The ceremonies went on as usual, and I enjoyed visiting with several people. Late that night, however, I felt strong vibrations in my van, just as I was leaning in through the sliding door. It was like a field of weird energy was already being projected onto the van. Crawling in there, I felt absolutely sure I was being assaulted. I walked away and went under the bridge again, feeling slight relief from the vibes, though I was cold. When I came walking out from underneath, I felt the vibes going through me again. Then I returned to the van.

  Taking my blankets along, I walked way over to the river and found a sand bar to sleep on. It was soft and comfortable but I was shivering with cold, and the weird vibes were still assaulting me. I went back to the van, then to the chapel. About fifteen or twenty people were in there with their sleeping bags and blankets, laying all over the floor. I stood near the entrance, not wanting to wake anyone, yet unsure about where to go or what to do. I left the chapel and walked over to a small kitchen shack, looking around inside for some aluminum foil to wrap around myself. Finding none, I walked back over to the front entrance of the chapel, stepping in for a moment to get warm. Someone raised a head to look at me. All this time, I was getting zapped.

  Then I decided to leave. I went back to the van, started it up and drove out of there. It was after five o'clock in the morning, and I had not slept all night. The winding highway brought me west to the nearest town, and from there I went north until I connected with highway 60. Although I was sad to leave without telling anyone goodbye, I felt I had no choice, desperately needing to get away from the assault I was feeling. That afternoon I was caught in a snowstorm with car wrecks all up and down the highway. When the van started sliding around, and with the temperatures quickly dropping, I pulled over in the town of Clinton and booked a hotel room for the night.  

  When I returned to the house in Lawrence, I immediately asked my two house mates to not tell anyone I was back in town. Mostly, I stressed that I didn't want them texting or saying anything over their phones about my return. They both assured me they would not do such things. It was Tuesday afternoon, February 6th. No bad vibes were apparent for a day. By Wednesday evening though, I was feeling weird pulsations again, buzzing through my skull. I left the house and rode downtown on my bicycle, but the bad vibes seemed to be following me.

  I ran into Stella at the Jazzhaus, and she offered me a place to sleep in the upstairs of her place on Ohio Street. I walked with her to the parking garage, then she drove us to her house. She showed me the upstairs room and told me I was free to come and go, as the front door would remain unlocked. After going back to the Jazzhaus for another hour or so, I rode my bike over to Stella's place. When I went to lie down that night, I immediately felt a strange energy in my chest as my heart started racing, pounding intensely for no plausible reason – except for perhaps another electronic assault. With a heavy sigh, I cussed a few words and started putting my clothes back on. I rode my bike home and went upstairs, still feeling the strange pulsations in my head and chest.

  The next day I pulled a large cardboard box from the basement and broke it down to lie flat over me. Then I started layering sheets of aluminum foil over it, and each night I would pull it over the top of me before falling asleep. The cardboard had two folding points, allowing the flaps to hang over each side of me, with the middle portion resting directly over me. By morning it would be in shambles, with strips of foil falling in different directions, leaving only the bare cardboard above me. I went to buy some duct tape and spray adhesive, planning to make a more permanent blocking device. Before I spent time doing that, I wanted to use a much larger piece of cardboard – a refrigerator-sized box. I began asking for such a box at a home appliance store, and they promised to save the next refrigerator box for me.

  For now, I am still using the crappy rig of aluminum foil, loosely wrapped over the same piece of cardboard I was using. There were nights when I wasn't feeling any bad vibrations, so I didn't concern myself with it. The cardboard and aluminum stayed in the closet. Recently though, I have been feeling disturbing pulses of vibrations, so for the last two nights I have pulled the cardboard and aluminum shield over me. It seems to block some of the disturbance, and I am able to sleep with less concern about my well-being. Some folks might say that this is psychosomatic, though I say it is not. Either way, it's better for my healthy state of mind.

  On two separate occasions when I had the foil and cardboard shield over me, I clearly heard a small “popping” sound, like little grains of sand hitting against the aluminum. It was a steady tempo of tapping sounds; it had a rhythm to it. I first heard this back in January, then again last night, on the first of March. After feeling the disturbing vibrations for several hours before I settled in to sleep, I had just pulled the shield over me, and I was clearly hearing that tapping sound again. I laid there in disbelief, wishing I had something to record the sound with, or to make a video. My digital camera was not far away. Then I had a better thought that I spoke to myself: “If I'm gonna be wishing for things, then actually, I wish for these fuckin' vibes to go fuck off somewhere else and leave me alone.”

  In the morning, most of the foil had fallen away from the cardboard. I laid there wondering how much I had been getting zapped during sleep. Downstairs, I went through my stretch routine. Then sat on the toilet, pondering over which direction my day would go. A part of me wanted to find a different appliance store to get the box I needed to make a better shield. Another part of me wanted bring the computer to a coffee shop, hoping to find an end to this chapter.

  When I finally got a large refrigerator box, I opened it up to lay flat on the back porch. On a day that was sunny and calm, I began using spray adhesive to attach strips of aluminum foil to the cardboard. Brooke came outside to smoke a cigarette, and asked, “What are you making?”

  “Nothing. Don't worry about.”

  “I'm not worried, I'm just wondering what that is.”

  “I can't explain, Brooke. You wouldn't understand.”

  Then she was on the phone, talking to someone as she started saying, “Joe is out here making this… thing. It's a big piece of cardboard and he's putting…”

  I interrupted her.   “Brooke, will you stop? Just stop. It ain't nobody's business. It's none of your concern.”   I was annoyed with her for talking about my project over the phone. Several times, I had asked Brooke and Cory to not mention my presence around there, over the phone or internet, but they both kept doing it, anyway. Cory was sending me an email each month, showing the breakdown of the previous month's utility bills. That was pissing me off. He could have easily told me in person, as we would see each other nearly every day. He was basically confirming my location every time he did that. Multiple times throughout the winter, I had to leave, trying to get away from the electronic assault I was experiencing. No matter how many times I asked my housemates to not be sending anything online that would reveal my return or my presence there, they both kept on doing just that. I was also annoyed that I had shared much of this chapter with Cory, and he still didn't believe me. I should have known.

  When I began to move out, near the end of March, I kept noticing different people at different times, sitting nearby in an idle running car, just watching me as I loaded my things into the van. As usual, they were not picking up anyone or dropping anyone off, and they were not looking for a parking space. They were just watching me. One woman sat there for maybe an hour, staring at me as I brought many loads of things out to my van. Then I held up my arms and yelled, “What? What do you want?” I walked directly to her car, took a good look at her face as I walked past her car window, and continued to walk beyond her car. She appeared to be talking on a phone. I glanced at her license plate when I began to walk back toward my van, and as I walked past her, I spoke out the letters and numbers on her tag. A frightened look came over her face as she started driving away.

  After I had cleared all of my things out of the house, I temporarily stayed with Stella and Kelly, near Ninth and Ohio. I had already brought all of my big aloe vera plants to the farm, hoping we were beyond anymore hard freezes with the weather. Then I saw a forecast for really cold weather over the next few days. I had to make a sudden trip to the farm, to light up the wood stove and save the big aloes from freezing. It was the first day of April. There were multiple car accidents all along the highway, as wet snow was falling, then turning to ice on the road. I stopped at a rest area on Interstate 29 to get out of the traffic. Having recently bought a cell phone for the first time in my life, I called Herb's cell phone to tell him I was on my way up.   “I'm at the rest area on 29, south of Saint Joseph. There were car wrecks all up and down the highway, ever since I left Lawrence.”

  “Where are you calling from? I mean… how are you calling?”   “I bought a little flip-phone the other day. Anyway, I should be there in a couple hours.”

  Not long after I left the rest area, I noticed a little black sports car directly behind me, following way too closely. I slowed down to 60 miles per hour, but they did not pass me. I slowed to to 50, then 40. Any other car would have gone around me, but this car stayed directly behind me. I slowed down to 30, then 20. While all the other traffic was flying past us at seventy miles an hour or faster, this car remained close behind me. I was getting angry. I hit the breaks, several times, yet they still did not pass. Then I pulled onto the shoulder, rolled down my window and put my left arm out, pointing forward as a gesture for them to go around. They appeared to be pulling over behind me, like they were undercover cops or something. Then they started going past me, hesitantly, like they didn't know what to do to next. As they were finally going by, I yelled, “Get the fuck away from me! What the fuck do you want?!” With their windows closed, they likely didn't hear me. It was two men. They finally went on past me, then I sped up behind them to get a reading of their license plate. They took the next exit as I held up my middle finger, asking, “What the fuck was that?”

  It becomes more and more apparent to me that there is a vast network of creeps who are on a government payroll, wasting American tax dollars to spy on people like me – someone doing nothing wrong, but had made the mistake of speaking out about government corruption. It appears that these jerks are relentlessly watching me.

  When I arrived at Herb's house, Herb told me he was leaving for Guatemala in the morning. I was glad to have seen him before he left. He poured me a glass of beer as he, Larry, and I all talked. When I slept on the farm that night, everything remained calm. No weird vibrations were apparent. The next evening when I went to the Grove, Larry told me that Frank had called and wanted me to call him. As usual, Frank and I talked for more than an hour on the phone. Also as usual, our conversation evolved into an in-depth discussion about the evil in our government. That second night back on the farm remained calm.

  The next day, I was over at Herb's house when Larry and Russ walked in from somewhere. I went out to my van to grab some DVD movies I had borrowed from Russ. As I opened the passenger-side door, there on the road in front of me was a man in a tan-colored sports utility vehicle, sitting idle and looking at my van as he appeared to be talking on a phone. I wrongly assumed he was with Larry and Russ. Stepping back into the house, I asked, “Is that dude out there waiting for you guys?” Larry and Russ said they were not with anyone, so I quickly looked outside and saw the guy rolling away. Suddenly I felt a growing rage toward that man. It appeared that another person was keeping a watch on me. “God damn that fuckin' prick,” I said. “These creepy feds need to go find some bigger fish to fry. Jeezus Kreist, they are pissing me off.” Larry and Russ, I'm sure, were uncertain of what I was talking about. Still, I continued ranting about electronic weapons assaulting me for so many years.

  The next few nights on the farm remained calm, but then on the morning of Friday, April 6th I was sitting at my computer in the bus when I started feeling strange vibrations in my head and chest. “No. It can't be,” I said aloud. Then I focused my mind to “listen.” It was happening again. I was being assaulted. It seemed to be coming from the southeast, as it always had before. With another feeling of rage building inside me, I stood up, facing toward the direction of assault, clinched both of my fists and screamed, “God damn you, fucking cowards!” Turning off the computer, I began to organize a few things as I planned to drive the twenty or more miles to Frank's place.

  I stopped twice along the way, turning off the engine to “hear” the vibrations. I did not detect anything. When I pulled into Frank's driveway and shut off the engine, though, I felt the bad vibes again. Frank came walking outside as I said, “They're zapping me, Frank. I came all the way up here to get away from it, but I'm feeling it here, just as soon as I shut off the engine.” We both went into the house and talked about it as I paced back and forth, keeping my body moving around, not wanting to be a stationary target. My throat was feeling tense and tight again. Frank noticed me holding my throat, and he asked me about it. I told him, “Yeah, my throat keeps feeling all tight and numb for the last several months. I feel like they are targeting my glands in there.” I continued pacing back and forth. Then I went outside, walking toward the field to the east. I ducked behind the north wall of a metal shed and instantly felt relief from the assault, which seemed to be coming from the south. So I squatted there with my bare feet on the dirt as I imagined a computerized, automated tracking system that had lost me. In my mind, I pictured it quickly scanning the area, then perhaps resetting the weapon to an inactive position. I thought maybe it might let me be. After ten minutes or so, I walked back over and went into the house. I wasn't feeling anything weird for a while, but then the vibe became apparent again. I went out to hide behind the metal shed, and again I felt relief, but only for as long as I stayed there. Going back in the house, I told Frank, “That metal shed out there seems to block the vibes that appear to be coming from the south, from the direction of Albany.” Frank said, “From the south, that's where it was coming from when I was getting it.”

  I grabbed the phone to call my sister.   “Hello?”

  “Hey Liz, I need prayers again.”

  “Joe, Hi. I was just thinking about you.”  

  “Yeah... telepathy. Liz, I'm getting zapped again, and it's ruining my life.”

  Another long conversation ensued about the ongoing ordeal. We were on the phone for more than an hour. At one point, I mentioned that the ongoing electronic torture was making me feel suicidal at times. Liz said, “Oh, Joe, no...” I replied, “Don’t worry, I won’t. I’m not gonna let them win. There are things I want to do before I'm gone. Publishing my book is one of them. I need to get it done, but it's really difficult when I keep having to jump up and run away from the bad vibrations. My life is becoming more random and spontaneous, having to be constantly on the move. I don't tell people where I'm going, because usually I don't know. This is no way to live. I'm so tired of all this.”

  Again, Liz said she and her children would pray for me. In the next few days, I was relieved to observe the naturally occurring calmness around me. I went to Lawrence and returned, feeling only a calm peacefulness for many days. Then I was at herb's house when the phone rang. I was the only person in the house at the time, so I answered the call.   “Hello?”

  “Herb?”

  “Herb went to town for a bit.”   “Oh. Who's this?”   “Joe.”

  Oh, Hi Joe. This is Frieda. Are you back now?”

  “At the moment, yes.”

  “Are you gonna stay around for a while?”   “Maybe. I don't know.”

  She went on about a relative who was bringing a trailer to her property across the road. She asked if any vehicles were blocking the drive, and if so, could someone move them. I told her I would go look, and that I would speak to Herb about it. She called back three more times. While I tried to be polite and accommodating, she kept asking me questions that were specific to my whereabouts at any given time:

  “Are you going back over to the farm tonight?”

  “Yes.” With that reply, a discomfort came over me. It was a truthful answer, but I felt bad for saying it. This annoying phone call was demanding too much information, and I felt that my safety was being compromised. My mind was asking, “Why am I allowing this conversation to happen? Should I have just lied and said I am not going to the farm? Should I hang up the phone?” Then she asked,  

  “Will you be around Herb's tomorrow?”

  “Possibly.”

  “In the morning or in the afternoon?”

  “I don't know, Frieda. I gotta go.”

  It must have taken me another forty-seven seconds to shake her off the phone, and I became irritated, wondering why I didn't just hang up on her. In the days that followed, more electronically bad vibrations returned, bringing the nightmare back to life as I began to gather a few things for another trip to Lawrence. I felt angry with Frieda for asking so many questions, and I was angry with myself for responding to them. Driving away from it all, I said, “Fuck it. I just won't answer that phone anymore.”

Returning to Lawrence, I found some relief for a few days.

  On the internet, I discovered a woman named Doctor Katherine Horton. A physicist, formerly employed at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), Doctor Horton is a self-described whistle-blower and targeted individual. She was in multiple videos, addressing the issue of electronic assault and torture. In one of these videos, she held a detection device which lit up with lights and sound as she held it to areas around her head, especially when she held it near her throat. She said, “Look at this. Look at this,” as she moved it back and forth, close to her throat area, then away. The device was showing a more intense reaction each time it was near her throat. This woman was apparently being assaulted, electronically. She showed and described some of the measures she had taken to protect herself, including a Faraday cage and walls lined with aluminum. She was also interviewed in podcasts with other targeted individuals, discussing protective measures.

  I found it refreshing to hear people speaking of these things in such a matter-of-fact way. They all know the electronic assault is happening, and they get right to the point in their discussions. It gives me a sense of hope, knowing that some folks are out there speaking truth and raising awareness about this issue.

  All has been calm since my return two days ago. I was in Lawrence for five days, and my concerns about being targeted had faded. The strange experience of my throat going tight and numb, that had gone away as well. I was feeling grateful, giving thanks for the calm serenity that was completely normal for most of my life. Although I have wanted to call a few people, I've refrained from picking up the phone.

  On the evening of May the first, I was home on the farm, preparing to drive to the Grove when I heard a truck coming down the road. I decided to stay back in the darkness to see what the driver would do. Strangely, the truck slowed as it approached, turned toward the fence across the road from me, then backed up, turned in the direction it came from, and drove away. This was suspicious behavior. I thought that they could have been random thieves, looking to scour the farm. But I also felt that it could have been a part of the surveillance, checking to see if I was home. Most people are not going to drive the gravel road two miles away from the highway, just to turn around like they weren't actually going anywhere. It seemed obvious that the driver slowed and turned around as soon as he or she saw my van in the driveway.

  Everything remained calm through the night and into the morning. Herb came over here a while ago as I was cooking a pot of soup. He sat on the porch and talked to someone on his cell phone. At one point, I heard him say, “I'm up at Joe's place.” I gave Herb a bowl of soup, then he laid down to rest on the porch. I brought him a sleeping pad and pillow. After a short while, he got up to go back to the Grove. As Herb was driving away, I sat at my computer when suddenly I felt some weird pulses of vibrations coming from the southeast. Again, I felt my throat getting tight and numb. I had not felt anything like that for about a week. Making a mental note that Herb had just mentioned on the phone that he was “up at Joe’s place,” I thought maybe that call could have alerted someone to my presence there, and perhaps that had something to do with the weird vibrations abruptly returning.

  The bad vibes were off and on for the next two days as I gradually organized the van for another drive away from the farm. On Friday evening, May 4th, I drove over the Missouri River at Atchison, Kansas, and continued down to Lawrence. As usual, I've apparently escaped of “their” tracking system, as I have not been feeling any weird vibrations now for the last three days. Often I have thought that if “they” were that serious about continuing to assault me, they could have put a tracking device on my van. I wouldn't know where to look for such a device, and with modern technology, the thing could be extremely small. But it seems that no tracking devices have been on the van, because I generally seem to escape the torment when I drive sufficiently far and fast.

  On the farm, May 17th, 2018: I left here thirteen days ago to escape the weird vibrations. I Had not felt much of anything bad since leaving. For the most part, everything has been calm, with no tension or numbness in my throat area. Three days ago, on Monday I returned, and everything remained calm until just a while ago.

  Earlier today, I drove to town to renew my vehicle registration, get some groceries, and I picked up some movies from the Library. I wondered if checking out things from the library would alert certain people of my return, or maybe renewing my vehicle registration might have made my presence known. I am certainly not not looking for any bad vibes to return, though I couldn't help noticing that something hasn't felt right since I parked at Herb's house. Then I drove here to the farm, and my throat has been feeling stiff again. There is the slightest sensation of a vibration, ever so faint, yet it's enough to let me know that something is not right. Suddenly I am faced with perhaps another spontaneous escape from this place.

  It has been five days since I wrote that last paragraph. I rolled to Lawrence on Sunday afternoon, feeling free of the weird energy after I got far away from the farm. My first stop was at the Gaslight Tavern for the weekly open jam.

  The next evening, I went to Papa Keno’s for the open jam session. Shortly after I began playing my guitar, a middle-aged couple came out onto the back patio. Sitting at a table, they immediately lifted their phone-cameras and started recording me and the others. It felt wrong and it seemed out of place, and I turned away to keep my image from being captured, though I knew it was already too late. I felt nearly certain that those two were another pair surveillance people. The man went inside Papa Keno’s for a moment. When the woman continued to aim her camera-phone at me, I walked over to her and said, “Will you please stop pointing your camera at me?” I felt a strong urge to grab the beverage from her table and throw it in her face, but I restrained myself. She said, “Oh, Okay,” as she lowered her phone. When her partner returned, she whispered something to him and he looked at me. I glared at both of them, almost wishing for some terrible tragedy to fall upon them.

  I stepped away from the patio and walked down the alley, around the south end of the block, then north on Massachusetts Street. As I went through the front door of Papa Keno’s, those same two people were in there, appearing like they were leaving, though they seemed hesitant about what they were doing. They both acted surprised, even nervous about me suddenly being there in front of them. As they exited the place, I watched through the front window glass, observing their behavior as they went across the street and continued going north. Several times, the man turned back to look at me.

  I went out the back door to speak with the others. Of all my friends and acquaintances on the patio, none of us knew those two people. They were unfamiliar to all of us, yet they immediately started recording us when they arrived. One of my friends suggested, “Maybe they were just excited about the music and wanted to film it.” I replied, “That’s entirely possible, but that’s not how it felt to me.”   After all the years of being electronically assaulted, while also noticing the strange people following or photographing me, I felt more resentment and disdain for those creeps – working for an evil government, targeting innocent people, and living off of taxes like a bunch of parasites. Perhaps those who do the following and photographing are completely disconnected from, and unaware of the programs of electronic assault. Such may be the case with compartmentalized government operations. Perhaps it’s like the saying goes: “The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”

  While I can offer no proof that those two people at Papa Keno’s were spies or informants, my intuition strongly told me it was so. Many of these encounters might have gone completely unnoticed by me, had I not experienced the years of electronic assault, coinciding with incidents of surveillance. What the trauma has done is put me on high alert, making me pay close attention when people’s behavior becomes obviously strange and out of place. And though some people would call this paranoia, I call it awareness. There is a big difference.

  Little Farm, 17th of June: I was down in the garden, wearing the upper portion of a protective bee suit to keep the mosquitoes away from me while I hoed weeds. Suddenly I heard several guys on ATVs roll up near the driveway. They were noisily sitting idle, just outside of the driveway as I heard a voice yelling, “You wanna go first?” I got the impression that they were about to roll across the Little Farm bridge. (One of Herb’s cars had recently been vandalized, as someone had smashed out most of the window glass with a brick, and I was thinking about that incident when I heard these guys yelling.) Before they attempted to come onto the farm bridge, I emerged from behind some trees and bushes, and began to walk toward them with the hoe in my hand. As soon as they saw me, they all started driving away, crossing the county bridge toward the south. They were fat and bald, with mustaches on their faces. Their behavior was suspicious, and they seemed like cops. It was an intuitive feeling that occurred to me; they had that “cop vibe.” Then I had the thought that I should have waited behind the bushes to see what those guys would have done if they thought nobody was there. Would they have come onto the Little Farm? If so, then what? Feeling slightly disturbed about the encounter, I walked up the hill to my place.

  Later that night, I started getting heavily zapped. It was some of the strongest electronic assault I had felt in years, and I immediately began to pack the van for departure. I wondered if perhaps there was a correlation between the odd experience in the south driveway, and then getting zapped a few hours later. “It wouldn’t surprise me if some cops have been involved,” I said to myself as I began packing a few things into the van, planning to leave in the morning. I slept under the cardboard and aluminum shield which seemed to be blocking the assault. The zapping continued steadily through the night and into the next morning, as I finished packing for a drive to Lincoln. Putting away the ladder, turning off the propane, and locking the gates, I was frantic about trying to hurry away and escape the onslaught of bad energy.

  My niece, Nancy, had invited me to her wedding, scheduled to take place on the 23rd of June. So I drove toward Lincoln, five days early. For most of that drive, I felt like the vibe was still on me, though it was difficult to decipher with all the normal vibrations of rolling on the road.

  Arriving at Liz and Frank's place, I parked under the shade of a tree. (Frank in Nebraska is my sister’s husband, not to be confused with Frank from Missouri.) I felt rattled, yet uncertain if I was still getting zapped. Soon, however, I was totally feeling it. I began to notice that the attack seemed to be coming from a place in the southern sky, about forty-five degrees up from the horizon. In all the years I had been to visit Liz and Frank, I had never felt the electronic assault on their property. They had been on a ten-acre spread for many years now, and it was always a calm place of refuge for me. That afternoon, however, I went into the van three times, pulling the aluminum shield over myself, feeling relief while napping and sweating. The temperature was really hot that day, though I didn’t mind the heat; it was nothing compared to getting zapped. The first two times I came out from under my shield, I was still feeling the assault. The third time, however, all seemed calm, like the weapon had finally switched off.

  I felt really upset that I was getting targeted at Liz and Frank's farm. I told Liz about it, though she was preoccupied with wedding preparations. I asked her if she had told anyone of my presence there, over the phone or internet. She said, “I called Anne and told her you were here.”   “When was that?”

  “Not long after you arrived.”

  “Well, that would explain it.”

  For the next five days, I felt the usual symptoms of a numb throat and jaw area, pressure in my skull, and the continuing pulses of vibrations. Each night, I found relief by sleeping under the protection of my aluminum shield.

  On the morning of the wedding, I was talking to Frank in the living room when I suddenly felt strong electronic pulses coming from that same part of the southern sky. It was enough to make me spin around and go out the north door, through the mud porch. I went out the east storm door and immediately crouched down beside the foundation wall of concrete blocks, hoping it would shield against the oncoming assault. I did feel alleviation. It seemed that I had temporarily shaken whatever tracking system had been locked onto me. I stayed squatting there for several minutes, breathing sighs of relief, wondering how long until “it” latched onto me again. That last series of pulsations interrupted my chat with Frank. He had been speaking to me at the time when I abruptly turned around and left the room. A few seconds later, I was crouching near the north foundation wall.

  After I stood up and walked around the northeast corner of the house, all felt calm, as though I had successfully escaped detection for a while. But as soon as I returned to my van, leaning in to grab something, I felt the vibes latching onto me again.

  My brother Dave drove us to the wedding. It was at a Catholic church in Lincoln. As far as I could tell, the tracking system was still on me, still causing that constant numbness below my tongue, and the familiar pressure in my skull. The wedding was long and unbearably dull – a Catholic mass with an arrogant priest spouting words of ignorance. He was annoying. Moreover, I still felt like I was getting zapped by something in the southern sky. So I exited several times, noting a feeling of relief from the vibrations when I stepped outside the church and stayed near a north wall.

  When Dave and I left the church parking lot, we followed our nephew a few blocks east to a health food store, and I felt completely disconnected from the weird vibes, having apparently evaded them again. Then we all went to the reception, ten miles away, mostly to the west. For several hours, I felt free from the electronic assault. It was gone, and I knew I had broken free again. At the same time, I suspected that whenever I returned to my van, the bad vibes might return.

  Dave drove us back to Liz and Frank's property, and sure enough, when I opened the sliding van door and leaned in to grab a few things, I felt that weird energy going through me again. I started building a fire in the nearby fire pit, thinking, “What else am I going to do?” I smoked some cannabis through a carrot and continued putting sticks on the fire. Then people began to return from the wedding reception, mostly my nieces and nephews. Several of them were asking me to sing songs. So I strummed a guitar and sang, feeling like I was getting zapped the entire time. I tried to ignore the assault while I focused on the feeling of the music.

  After a while, I put the guitar away, thinking I needed to get ready for bed. Mostly, I wanted to pull the aluminum shield over myself for protection. It was undeniable, the relief I felt whenever I was using that shield during my time there. At one point, I said to myself, “The good news is that the shield seems to be working. The bad news is that it’s probably been a microwave weapon zapping me.”

  Waking up on Sunday morning, I pushed the shield to the side and immediately felt bad vibes, like a field of weird energy was being projected onto the van throughout the night. With the usual disturbing feelings of electronic assault going through me, I went through my morning stretches.

  Then I started organizing a small pack to bring to Colorado. My nephew Tom had offered me a ride, saying I could sleep on the couch in his apartment. So I accepted the offer. As we rolled further away from Lincoln, my anxiety began to diminish with the fading vibrations. During the early part of the drive, I told Tom and Katie about my ongoing ordeal with electronic weapons, while stressing that I did not want anyone on their phones, speaking or texting about me riding to Colorado. They both agreed to “keep it on the down-low,” and they didn't seem to think I was crazy when I told them my story. With each stop we made during the six hour drive, I noted the complete disconnect I felt from any hint of electronic assault.

  For a week I slept on the couch in Tom’s apartment. Each day while Tom and Katie were at work, I took long walks through the surrounding neighborhoods of Lakewood, feeling extremely grateful for the relief I was feeling. Most of that time, I was reluctant to log into my email or Facebook accounts, fearing the dreaded return of the electronic nightmare. I kept mentioning to Tommy that I had not felt any bad vibes ever since we drove to Colorado: “It’s been like a complete disconnect from any of that electronic weirdness. It’s such an obvious difference... I can tell that they’ve lost track of me again. They don’t know where I am.” Tom said, “Well, that’s good.” “Yeah, it is,” I said. “Everything feels totally calm... like it was for most of my life before all that weird shit started.”

  Then one day I took my computer a few blocks away to borrow the wifi signal from a tire store, making sure my VPN service was turned on. After looking at my email and Facebook accounts, I closed the computer and began to walk north, across Colfax Avenue. About midway up the next block, I suddenly felt an electrical kind of pulse coming from the northwest, and penetrating into my skull. Multiple thoughts raced through my mind, like, “Am I getting zapped? Was it just some cell phone microwaves flying by? Maybe it’s wifi signals.” Walking toward Tom’s apartment with my throat feeling strange, I took an indirect route, altering my course several times in an attempt to avoid being tracked or followed. At one point, I stepped into a creek and went under a bridge, partly as an attempt to decipher whether I was feeling differently down there, and also to shake off any type of electronic tracking system which may have been onto me.

  When I finally came back above ground, I ran toward Tom’s place and let myself in, breathing heavily from the running. Katie asked, “Are you okay? What’s going on?” Between deep breaths, I said, “I was just trying to… shake off a weird vibe that... I thought might have latched onto me...” As my breathing slowed, I told Kate and Tom what I had experienced after logging into my email and Facebook accounts. For the next several days, there were moments when I wondered if I was catching any weird vibes. I was no longer feeling the “complete disconnect” of the previous week. Instead, I was noticing occasional pulses of weird energy that kept me wondering.

  Then my sister Anne invited me to stay with her and Duncan. So I gathered my things and settled into a basement room in Arvada. For the first few days, everything felt calm and normal. But after talking on the phone and using the internet, I started feeling weird vibrations again. At times I wondered If it might be the nearby freezer or refrigerator causing the disturbance, so I would step outside the room, only to notice that those appliances were not running at the time; they were completely silent. Then I went upstairs to see if any fans were on. No fans were running. So what were all of these strange pulses of vibrations I kept feeling, and why was everything completely calm for the first several days? Initially, I was reluctant to talk on the phone or use the internet. Then I let down my guard, and everything went strange again.

  At times, it seems there is no escape. When I run into friends and relatives, they want to take pictures of me and post them on social media. They also text each other about seeing me somewhere. I began thinking, “Do I have to abandon everyone I know and move to another country?”

  For many years I had remained mostly silent about my ongoing experience with the electronic assault. In recent months, however, I had begun to tell more people about it.

  My cousin Janelle came to visit Anne’s family during the time when I was there. On the Fourth of July, Janelle and I were out at Tony’s place near a lake. As we talked under the shade of a porch roof, I began to relay most of my story to her. She was receptive, patiently listening, then she said, “Wow, Joe. That’s quite a story.” It was not in a tone of ridicule or doubt; she seemed to believe me.

  A few days later, I was riding in a car with my niece, Kim, and a few of her kids. While driving us through Westminster, Kim spoke of a friend, telling me, “Her dad had mental illness.” Then I noted a hint of ridicule in Kim’s voice when she said, “He thought the government was after him.” I interjected, saying, “How do you know they weren’t?”   “What?”   “Kim, I’ve been having my own struggle with the government. They’ve been messing with me for more than ten years.”

  “Really? What do you mean?”

  I began telling her my story, from being an outspoken activist, to the surveillance I had noticed at times, to the ongoing electronic attacks. When we arrived at her house, the conversation continued into the kitchen. I gave her many details, including the case of Pedro Campos in Puerto Rico, the podcasts with Doctor Katherine Horton and other targeted individuals, and the things Annie Jacobsen had spoken of on the radio. At one point, Kim said, “Uncle Joe, I believe you.” I replied, “Thanks, Kim. It means a lot to hear you say that.”

   Occasionally I talked with Anne about the disturbance. She said she believes me. I did not mention any of it to Duncan because I was fairly certain he wouldn’t believe me, and I don’t think he would keep the conversation between the two of us, since Anne told me that he cannot keep a secret about anything.

  The strange vibrations at Anne and Duncan’s house were off and on for several weeks. I took frequent walks to escape the disturbance, exploring the parks that run along Ralston creek. On days when I felt the vibe was still on me, I stayed for some time in the tunnel that goes under Simms Street, pacing back and forth, hoping the thick concrete would be enough to escape detection. Every time I went walking, which was several times a day, I always felt calm upon my return, like nothing was zapping me. Then the weird vibrations would start up again.

  When I first escaped to Colorado during the last week of June, I did not know how long I would be out here. I thought it might be a couple of weeks. Yet Anne kept encouraging me to stay longer, saying she wanted to throw a birthday party for me and two of my nephews. So I stayed around and tried to work on the book. A few weeks had gone by when I called Liz on the phone to discuss my eventual return to her place:   “Is it alright that my van is still parked there under that tree?”   “Oh yeah, it’s fine.”

  “Thanks. At some point, I’m gonna take the train from Denver to Lincoln. It arrives after three in the morning, so I don’t know what I’ll do. As much as I would like to see all of you, I might just get in the van and drive away. I want to go to a random place for a while, to see if everything remains calm. I need to know if there is some kind of tracking device on my van. I’ll leave you guys a note or something.”   “That’s alright, I understand. How’s it going out there?”   “I don’t know. I’m still getting some weird vibes at times. Whatever this is, and who ever has been doing it, I wish they would leave me alone. I’m sure they think they’re clever with all their technology, but they’re really just a bunch of cowards.”   “Yeah.”   “Anyway, I did escape to the mountains a few times, and that was nice.”

   Although my three treks to the tops of Colorado mountains were adventurous, the third trip was disturbing. In his truck, Duncan drove us to the base of Uncompahgre Peak in Southwest Colorado, where we camped for the night. Waking early, we began our hike at around 3:30 in the morning, and I was feeling a steady vibration going through me. Hiking up the trail, I wondered, “Am I getting zapped?” It most certainly felt like I was. I thought about Duncan using his GPS (Global Positioning System) when he drives anywhere. That would make our location known to certain people in government. We descended down the mountain and prepared to leave. Duncan was driving us along the rocky road away from there, when something strange happened. We passed a man and woman who were driving an off-road vehicle toward the base of the mountain, and as we went past them, the woman held up a camera and took a picture of us. Duncan and Tom both commented on the oddness of that occurrence. For me, it was a moment of verification – another incident of surveillance, along with the vibration I had been feeling that entire time; it bolstered my suspicion that I had been electronically assaulted all the way up and down that mountain.

  During the last week at Anne and Duncan’s house, I was feeling strange electronic pulses in other parts of the house, apart from the room I was staying in. Taking more frequent walks, I managed to avoid some of the weird vibrations. Near the end of August, I went to house-sit for Tom and Kate for five days. Everything felt normal and calm while I was there. The apartment was only a few blocks from a Denver Light-Rail train stop, so when Tom and Kate returned, I gathered my things and rode the W train to Union Station in downtown Denver.

  Paying with cash, I bought an Amtrak Train ticket to Lincoln, scheduled to depart that evening. My hope was to slip away from Colorado unnoticed, without being tracked. After seven or eight hours on the train, I rode a taxi to Liz and Frank’s place. The van battery was dead. Frank helped me with charging the battery before I drove east.

  In Maryville, Missouri, I stopped to buy some groceries, including a large bottle of Heineken beer. When the young lady at the register asked to see my identification, I asked, “Do I really look too young to buy this beer?” She said, “I’m required to ask everyone for their I.D. when purchasing alcohol.” I said, “That’s ridiculous, since I’m obviously way over the required age of twenty-one.” Then I pulled out my driver’s license and held it out to show her the date of birth. She took it from my hand and scanned it. When I heard the “beep” sound, I said, “Fuck! What did you do that for?” I put my right hand over my eyes, feeling angry and upset. After being so careful to get away from Colorado without being noticed by “the enemy,” suddenly I felt that I was likely on their control grid again. I asked the cashier, “Are you familiar with the book, ‘1984,’ by George Orwell?” She replied, “I’ve heard of it.” I said, “Maybe someday you might read it.”

    Upon returning to the farm, everything remained calm for about a week. On September fifth, I received a package that Anne sent from Colorado. That night, I started feeling the disturbing vibrations again, so I drove to Lawrence, getting some peace and calm for several days before returning to the farm. Throughout September, October, and November, the same pattern repeated: I would enjoy several days of calm on the farm, then disturbing vibes would return, so I’d pack a few things and escape to Lawrence.

  On Saturday, October 27th, I drove toward Lawrence. Passing through Oskaloosa, I turned west on highway 92 and went to visit Stan and Cathy’s home near Perry Lake. Shutting off the van in front of their house, I immediately felt the weird vibrations going through me. Stan came outside talking to me, and I was temporarily distracted from the vibrations. Inside the house, Cathy gave me a hug, and Stan poured me a glass of beer. They were inviting me to join them on the deck overlooking the lake, and to fly Stan’s drone while making video of the flight. But I was feeling that continuing, disturbing vibration, and though I really wanted to experience flying the drone and seeing the view from above, I knew I could not stay. Several times I paused, focusing on the electronic assault, then Stan said, “Are you okay, Joe?”

  “I have to go. I’m sorry. I really wanted to fly the drone and drink this tasty beer, but I can’t stay.”

  “Is something wrong? You looked like you were having a moment of revelation there for a minute.”

  “Yes, something is definitely wrong. I grew up thinking we had freedom of speech in this country. But apparently I was too outspoken, and I became a target. The government has been messing with me for more than ten years. I used to carry a big sign that said, ‘The government did nine-eleven,’ and I really regret being that outspoken about things. Back then I was like, ‘freedom of speech, use it or lose it.’ I had no idea of the repercussions or consequences of speaking out against an evil government. I was so naive.”

  Tears were running down my face. I felt devastated, knowing that the perpetrators of electronic torture had tracked me to my friends’ home. It was no longer a place where I could feel safe, and that made me extremely sad. The last time I was there, which was about a week earlier, Stan had expressed interest in reading my book, and giving me his thoughts about it. So I put all of the chapters on his computer, including this one. Could that be the reason why the government criminals were now assaulting me there? I had never told Stan and Cathy about the years of electronic assault, feeling that they probably wouldn’t believe me. I hugged them both and drove away with tears rolling down my face. Arriving in Lawrence that evening, I detected no more of the bad vibrations.

  On Monday, November 19th, I left the farm for another escape to Lawrence. North of town, I stopped by a friend’s house near Wellman Road. It happened again. When I shut off the van, the vibrations were obvious. This was a place I had been to many times, for about fifteen years, and I had never felt the electronic assault there. I told my friend that I had to leave. When I got to Lawrence, everything felt calm and normal.  

  Though I did not feel any disturbing vibrations in Lawrence during these past few months, I did notice an alarming increase in the level of surveillance over me. It was completely obvious on many occasions. The surveillance continued in Wichita. The only reason I can fathom for the ridiculous amount of surveillance I’ve been seeing, is that the government criminals know I am trying to tell this story. In December of 2018, I drove to South Texas to avoid the cold weather. I was sleeping in my van every night. The surveillance over me continued in San Antonio, Port Isabel, South Padre Island, and El Paso. I could give many details as to how I know I’ve been under constant surveillance, yet I may save all of that for another chapter. It is just too much information to keep cramming into this chapter, and I am tired of all of it.

  While I was still in Wichita during early December, neighbor Marc emailed me some ebooks from Author Richard Lighthouse. Here are a few excerpts from his book, Targeted Individuals & the Air Force Space Command:

  “These medical doctors, scientists, and former intelligence agents have made statements

supporting the evidence that microwave satellite attacks are real, and happening on a global

basis:

Dr John R. Hall, M.D., author (“New Breed: Satellite Terrorism in America”)

Dr Daniel Lebowitz, M.D. (Senate Committee presentation, 2014)

Dr Barrie Trower, government Scientist, microwave expert (youtube videos)

Dr Katherine Horton, Oxford University Scientist (youtube videos)

Dr Spencer Carter, M.D. (BiggerThanSnowden.com)

Dr Colin Ross, M.D., author (“The CIA Doctors”)

Dr Robert Duncan, author

Dr Doug Rokke, government Scientist

Dr Eric Karlstrom, Professor

Dr Nick Begich, Scientist

Dr Paul Batcho, government scientist

Dr Paul Marko, Psychologist

Dr Curtis Bennett, Professor

Dr Corkin Cherubini, author

Dr Matthew Aaron, Scientist

Dr Sean Andrews, Scientist

Willam Binney, NSA Whistleblower

Kirk Weibe, NSA Whistleblower

Karen Stewart, NSA Whistleblower

Carl Clark, CIA Whistleblower

Kevin Shipp, CIA Whistleblower

Mark Phillips, CIA Whistleblower

John DeCamp, Army intelligence Whistleblower”

    “There are 4 active-duty squadrons within the 50th Operations Group, under the Air Force

Space Command. According to the Linkedin Profile of Charles Shurchay (Superintendent -

Air Force Space Command) there are 1,300 personnel, 7 DoD Satellite constellations, and 9

weapon systems that are operated under the 50th Operations Group. Clearly, these are not

simply communications satellites.

  Many of these satellites are positioned in geosynchronous orbit, and are part of a network that

includes communications, tracking, and attack satellites. Using the precise GPS coordinates

of any Targeted Individual, the coordinates can be transferred to local cell towers or UAV

drones for additional targeting. The GPS coordinates are accurate to +/- 0.5 centimeters or

better, which allows different body parts to be targeted and attacked in a grisly, daily ordeal.”

    In another of his books, Cell Towers and Targeted Individuals, Richard claims that most of these attacks on targeted individuals are coming from microwave cell phone towers. This would make sense regarding the attacks on the farm that I felt were coming from the southeast, as there is an array of cell phone microwave towers that are east of the farm, extending southward. According to Richard Lighthouse, these microwave attacks are being orchestrated by the United States Air Force, under the direction of the CIA.

  After all of the strange incidents of surveillance in Texas, I began having thoughts that I need to get this chapter out on a public internet forum. Then maybe the government criminals will leave me alone and let me finish my book. I hope so. Or they might kill me. I hope not. My computer started doing strange things after two creeps sat suspiciously close to me at some outdoor tables on Padre Island. Then I tried connecting to the internet in Port Isabel at several locations with public wifi, but it would not connect. I tried several more times on the way back to San Antonio, but could not get connected to any public wifi. After attempting to connect from outside a store in El Paso, a creepy helicopter came along, going fairly low when it flew directly over my van. That’s when I got back on the highway and drove all the way to Las Cruces and beyond. I went as far west as Tucson, and south to Bisbee.

  Then I started back toward the east. From New Mexico in the final days of 2018, I decided to drive north and go all the way to my sister’s place in Colorado. The government criminals know I am here. I am hoping to throw this document out there on the internet soon. I am not looking for anyone’s sympathy, I just want people to know that these microwave attacks are happening. Treasonous criminals are wasting billions of tax dollars to assault, harass, and torture innocent civilians in this country and around the world.  

  Feeling extremely weary of writing this story, I want it to be over. Not only has this been the most depressing chapter in my book, it has also been the most depressing chapter of my life, and I want this sad chapter to end.

[thebachelordiaries]

Jocks And Finance Bros: Bachelorette First Impressions

Becca, I hope you like jocks and finance bros. 

If not, you’re shit out of luck.

Becca dates one athlete and they beat that one dating preference of her’s to death by casting 18 or so former athletes. Kind of like how they beat “Let’s Do The Damn Thing” tagline to death.

I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.

A letter to the men on this season of The Bachelorette:

Do you think you deserve this goddess of a woman, Becca Kufrin? You probably don’t. You probably think too highly of yourself to know this.

Maybe two of you will be good enough for her. Five of you may turn out to be decent people, but that’s me being generous. If it’s anything like JoJo’s season, we will have just one or two decent men. ABC producers, please don’t let me down. Oh wait, you already did with the super-short bios. 

This season we have 25 28 men vying for Becca’s heart, or at least a blue checkmark on their Instagram page. At least one of you will get fake engaged on Paradise and six of you will move from middle-of-nowhere USA to Los Angeles and move back home within a year. I’m not sure which guys will do that yet, but it’s always fun to guess!

Anyway, good luck with your 15 minutes of fame!

Signed,

The Bachelor Diaries.

WTF: No Q&A?

ABC did not include the usual Q&A in this year’s cast bios. I’m so offended. How will I truly understand these men if I don’t know what kind of fruit they’d be or what kind of superpower they’d want?

I would boycott this season because of this, but I have literally nothing better to do on Monday nights, or any night for that matter. I’m still going to try my best to roast these men, of course. It shouldn’t be that hard.

Despite no Q&A’s, I will still form my own opinions on these guys. I, like Kanye West, am a free thinker. Go poopidy-scoop yourself, ABC.

Ok, now let’s get to know these men:

Alex, 31, Construction Manager

Alex is the male equivalent of the basic white girl. He likes country music, his dog, the beach and skiing. He probably has “Let’s go on a hike together!” on his Bumble profile and regularly wears a Patagonia dad hat.

Blake, 28, Sales Rep

We already met horse boy Blake on After The Final Rose. He either played baseball or football in college. Thanks for being so concise, ABC. However, he looks like a baseball player to me. While originally from a small town in Colorado, he definitley lives in LA now. He also believes “two people need to be independent in order to truly love each other” so I think that means he’s into open relationships and or will cheat on you.

Chase, 27, Advertising VP

Chase, unlike Blake, was definitley a college baseball player who was apparently good enough to be in the College Wold Series but evidently not good enough to go pro— at least longterm. We also met Chase on ATFR and I don’t remember much about him. He likes “adventure” and the “outdoors” so he’s quite the special snowflake.

Chris, 30, Sales Trainer

What even is a sales trainer? Chris hopes to retire by 40. In this economy? Good luck with that. He is passionate about “fitness” and “health” which is so unique and different. I feel like I really got to know him through that piece of information.

Christian, 28, Banker

Christian is a former semi-pro soccer player who moved to the US from Mexico when he was three. I feel like his picture makes him look like he has a little head, but other than that he seems alright.

Christon, 31, Former Harlem Globetrotter/ Professional Dunker

I spent a good 30 seconds wondering why two guys with the same name didn’t have their last name initials included in their bios. It took another 30 seconds to notice that Christon was spelled differently than Christian. So this dude is a professional dunker in LA. My first thought is that he’d have a pretty good intro video package for The Bachelorette. Anyone want to put money down that he gets one?

Clay, 30, Pro Football Player

Clay was on his way to the poetry slam but somehow got lost and ended up on the Bachelorette. He allegedly doesn’t curse but is a fan of hip-hop music. I think he is the “famous” football player who was in talks to be on this season. Apparently I should care. Never heard of him. 

Colton, 26, Former Pro Football Player

“Hi, my name is Colt and welcome to my Youtube Channel!” That’s the vibe I’m getting from this picture. I’m also getting Blake Griffin vibes. He just looks strangely tan here. Colton may have a job at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. I’m curious to know if he has a story as to WHY he is involved with CF. He also lives in Denver and has a dog named Sniper, which is awkward because the neighboring city of Boulder just banned assault weapons.

EDIT: He was the guy who asked out Aly Raisman via public video and they briefly dated. I shipped them so hard. I AM SHOOKETH.

Connor, 25, Fitness Coach

I feel like I’m going to be sick if I hear one more guy talk about how they were “almost” a professional athlete and how much they lo0o0o0ove working out. I’m sadly only at the beginning of this cast list. Someone pray for me. And someone pray that Connor’s eyebrows grow back after that terrible wax job.

Darius, 26, Pharmaceutical Sales Rep

Darius works for big pharma yet claims to be dedicating his life to helping others. Err, okay. He likes to dance and travels a lot so my guess is he’s probably not ready to settle down at age 26 despite his 36-year-old hairline.

David, 25, Venture Capitalist

David looks like every finance bro who lives in West Village and only dates 22-year-old Instagram models. The only difference is that he lives in Denver instead of Manhattan, which by society’s standards makes him more wholesome. He also loves guacamole, but dislikes avocado, which roughly translates to: I don’t cook and eat Chipotle for dinner every night.

Grant, 27, Electrician

The only way Grant is making it past night one is if he shows up fully dressed as a member of the Village People or as Bob The Builder. If not, he has no chance.

Garrett, 29, Medical Sales Rep

Pro tip to ABC: The letter A comes before the letter R in the alphabet. These names are out of order. 

Anyway, Garret reminds me of Ben Afleck in that his face just makes me want to punch him..in the face. Besides the fact that he also works for big pharma, he actually has outdoor hobbies besides “I enjoy fresh air and walking in the woods” like fly fishing and showshoeing. I’m hoping he isn’t a giant jerk because I kind of like him.

Jake, 29, Marketing Consultant

I thought his name was “Joke” at first because I am a terrible person. I think Joke...I mean Jake...is from the same city as Becca. (I’m assuming Minnesota only has one city) I feel like all hot people in cities have this inner-circle where they know of each other, so maybe they’ve crossed paths before.

Jason, 29, Sr. Corporate Banker

Andrew Keegan? I love your work. “Jason” likes sports and singing along to Disney movies. He contains multitudes. 

Jean Blanc, 31, Colognoisseur

I love that ABC took a smart, educated, immigrant with a successful job and gave him a fake occupation on television. Jean Blanc is a cologne connoisseur. I feel like he would smell good. 10/10 would smell him.

Joe, 31, Grocery Store Owner

I feel like a lot of these bios are the equivalent to what it’s like to drive in an Uber. The driver is always explaining to you how successful they are and where they traveled as a way to prove they aren’t some loser driving you around. Joe’s bio screams “Yeah I own a grocery store but also worked in finance before I burnt myself out, so don’t judge me.” Nobody was judging you, but now I am.

John, 28, Software Engineer

John hopes to be the first Asian male to make it out of night one on The Bachelorette. I can already tell he’s better than most of these guys: he works at a start-up in Silicon Valley, likes wine, plays guitar and bakes banana bread. He deserves a rose, dammit!

Jordan, 26, Male Model

Robert Mills, who is like an important ABC guy or something, called Jordan the “greatest Bachelorette contestant of all time.” Clearly he’s trying to make us forget about Chad. Good luck with that, Robert. Definitley not happening.

So Jordan is probably this season’s villain. Whatever, I don’t care. I DO care, however, that his bio is bragging about a mediocre 4:24 mile time and “sprinting to the finish line.” The time was written as “4.24″ by ABC and a comma is also missing from that sentence. ABC, let me know if you want to hire me as an editor. Back to the mile comment: A mile is an endurance mid-distance race. Nobody is technically sprinting in it, unless it’s a tactical race. Puns don’t work if they’re factually incorrect. 

Kamil, 30, Social Media Participant

Kamil works in real estate and is a part-time model, but ABC decided to call him a “social media participant.” He’s originally from Poland but lives in Upstate New York, which is evident based on the fact he’s wearing a denim button-up shirt.

Leo, 31, Stuntman

It’s crazy how fast Alex Bordy grew his hair in a year. “Not Alex Bordy” is a stuntman in LA, which I heard is a pretty sick job. I am personally a fan of his hair. He knows how to tame those curls and probably rocks a great man bun. I would love to know what products he uses.

Lincoln, 26, Account Executive

Lincoln has a lot of things going on in his bio. He moved to Boston from Nigeria as a teenager, went to college in Kentucky and moved to Santa Monica for work. We met him on ATFR and he was super nervous, cute and had an accent to make most girls swoon. I’d say make him The Bachelor but 26 is too young in my opinion.

Mike, 27, Sports Analyst

How come every Ohio sports fan names their dog Riggins? Based on his hair, I’m assuming Mike is a radio sports analyst. That hair on television? No thank you. Hopefully Leo can give him some tips to make his hair look decent. Did you know: Becca’s psycho ex Ross used to have long hair? It was not cute. But I don’t think Becca is going to send the long-haired guys home immediately a la the notoriously shallow Andi Dorfman.

Nick, 27, Attorney

I’m excited for Nick to be on the show because I know him by association. Let me explain: A friend of mine went to school with one of his friends and periodically stalks her social media. The friend is a girl, so I think he’s friends with mostly girls, which may explain why he loves to “brunch.” He looks terrible in this photo. Nick gives me polished, sexually ambiguous vibes based on how he appears on Insta. I also knew he was going to be on the show before R*ality St*ve, which made me feel powerful. It was a rush.

Rickey, 27, IT Consultant

I know of Rickey too. He was a Bodybuilding.com Spokesmodel Search finalist in 2017. Hashtag #rightreasons. I’m not sure how “online personal trainer” translates to IT consultant, but ok. Side note: I don’t think bodybuilders look good in suits so he might go home night one. 

Ryan, 26, Banjoist

Before the “Yanny or Laurel” debate there was the “Ryan or Brian” debate on After The Final Rose. Evidently the answer is Ryan. He’s the new Wells and I could not be more excited to watch this babe on my television screen. He plays at least four instruments and loves to sail. He also screams “family money” but it’s ok, we can mooch off his parents together.

Trent, 28, Realtor

Can you imagine having a child and naming it Trent? This guy never had a chance. He is a realtor and a part-time model (I swear I wrote the same thing a few contestants up) and has appeared on covers of romance novels, but I certainly wouldn’t call him the next Fabio.

Wills, 29, Graphic Designer

Wills is a graphic designer who loves Harry Potter. I see no problem here. Except for maybe his porno-stache.

Prediction corner: 

Welcome to the prediction corner where I never get anything right. Oh, you know what happens because you read spoilers? Please keep that information to yourself. I like to find out what happens on my own.

Without further ado, here are my baseless predictions:

First Impression Rose: The guys who got the First Impression Rose on the last three seasons became engaged to The Bachelorette. If that happens this year I demand a scientific case study to explain the power of first impressions on women. Anyway, I think Ryan gets it.

Season Villain: Jordan (that was easy)

Next Bachelor: Blake (don’t ask me why)

Winner: Garrett (I like him)

Comment below to let me know your early favorites!